I heard an interesting discussion on "In Our Time on BBC radio 4 about the trial and execution of Charles I.
The process did look pretty bad and may have weakened the legitimacy of the new regime.
Yet Charles was impossible. He had made agreements and then broken them. There is no doubt he started the second Civil War.
In OTL they took a refusal to plead as a guilty plea. (Apparently the custom of the day was to deal with a refusal to plea by gradually crushing the accused until they pleaded guilty or not guilty but that this was not seen as something that could be done to a King)
I had a thought. Firstly they should have narrowed the charge. Asking Scotish forces (at a time when Scotland was clearly a foriegn state) to invade England probably meets a reasonable definition of Treason.
Secondly they should have treated the lack of a plea as a plea of Not Guilty and should have presented a probably arguable legal case. It would have been even cleverer to appoint a "Friend of Court" to advocate for Charles
Thirdly on convicting him he might have been given the option of abidcation and exile- especially if a Constitutional Monarchy could have been agreed.
Another option might simply to have arranged an 'accident'- to do the killing 'in a corner' as was the previous English tradition in dealing with intolerable Kings.
The process did look pretty bad and may have weakened the legitimacy of the new regime.
Yet Charles was impossible. He had made agreements and then broken them. There is no doubt he started the second Civil War.
In OTL they took a refusal to plead as a guilty plea. (Apparently the custom of the day was to deal with a refusal to plea by gradually crushing the accused until they pleaded guilty or not guilty but that this was not seen as something that could be done to a King)
I had a thought. Firstly they should have narrowed the charge. Asking Scotish forces (at a time when Scotland was clearly a foriegn state) to invade England probably meets a reasonable definition of Treason.
Secondly they should have treated the lack of a plea as a plea of Not Guilty and should have presented a probably arguable legal case. It would have been even cleverer to appoint a "Friend of Court" to advocate for Charles
Thirdly on convicting him he might have been given the option of abidcation and exile- especially if a Constitutional Monarchy could have been agreed.
Another option might simply to have arranged an 'accident'- to do the killing 'in a corner' as was the previous English tradition in dealing with intolerable Kings.