It met to pronounce Stafford's doom; and his plot with the army detected, Charles basely sacrificed his loyal servitor, his own kingly word, to fears for the queen's safety; no act weighed heavier on him afterward. The same signature that sent Stafford to the block gave assent to a second bill, by which the existing Parliament might not be dissolved without its own consent. That pledge, as extorted by force, Charles purposed to disregard; and during his visit to Edinburgh, in the autumn of 1641, he trusted by lavish concessions to bring over the Scots to his side. Instead, he got entangled in dark suspicions of plotting the murder of the covenanting lords, of connivance even in the Ulster massacre. Still, his return to London was welcomed with some enthusiasm, and a party was forming in the Commons itself, of men who revolted from the sweeping changes that menaced both church and state. Pym's "Grand Remonstrance" justified their fears, and Charles seemed to justify the "Grand Remonstrance" by his attempt to arrest the five members (January 4, 1642); but that ill-stricken blow was dictated by the knowledge of an impending impeachment of the queen herself. On August 22d he raised the royal standard at Nottingham; and the four years civil war commenced, in which, as at Naseby, he showed no lack of physical courage, and which resulted at Naseby in the utter annihilation of his cause (June 14, 1645).
No need here to track him through plot and counterplot with Catholics, Presbyterians, and Sectaries, with the Scots and the Irish, with the Parliament and the Army; enough that, quitting his last refuge, Oxford, he surrendered himself on May 5, 1646, to the Scots at Newark, and by them, in the following January, was handed over to the Parliament. His four months captivity at Holmby House, near Northampton; his seizure on June 3d by Cornet Joyce; the three months at Hampton Court; the fight on November 11th; the fresh captivity at Carisbrooke Castle, in the Isle of Wight--these lead up to the trial at Westminster of the tyrant, traitor, and murderer, Charles Stuart. He had drawn the sword, and by the sword he perished, for it was the Army, not Parliament, that stood at the back of the judges. Charles faced them bravely and with dignity. Thrice he refused to plead, denying the competence of such a court: and his refusal being treated as a confession, on the third day fifty-five out of seventy-one judges--sixty-four more never were present--affixed their names and seals to his death-warrant; four days later, sentence was pronounced.