Page "Thomas Harrison (soldier)" Paragraph 9

He was tried on October 11, 1660.

When asked whether he was guilty or not guilty and willing to take the blood of the late King Charles I on his head, Harrison "... not only pleaded not guilty, but justified the sentence passed upon the King ( Charles I ), and the authority of those who had commissioned him to act as one of his judges.

He plainly told them, when witnesses were produced against him, that he came not thither with an intention to deny anything he had done, but rather to bring it to light, owning his name subscribed to the warrant for executing the King, to be written by himself ; charging divers of those who sat on the Bench, as his judges, to have been formerly as active for the cause, in which he had engaged, as himself or any other person ; affirming that he had not acted by any other motive than the principles of conscience and justice ; for proof of which he said it was well known, he had chosen to be separated from his family, and to suffer a long imprisonment rather than to comply with those who had abused the power they had assumed to the oppression of the people.

He insisted that having done nothing, in relation to the matter in question, otherwise than by the authority of the Long Parliament, he was not justly accountable to this or any other inferior Court ; which being a point of law, he desired to have council assigned upon that head ; but the Court over-ruled ; and by interrupting him frequently, and not permitting him to go on in this defense, they clearly manifested a resolution of gratifying the resentments of the Court upon any terms.

So that a hasty verdict was brought in against him, and the question being asked, if he had anything to say, why judgement should not pass, he only said, that since the Court had refused to hear what was fit for him to speak in his defense, he had no more to say ; upon which Bridgeman pronounced the sentence.

And that the inhumanity of these men may the better appear, I ( Edmond Ludlow ) must not omit, that the executioner in an ugly dress, with a halter in his hand, was placed near the Major-General, and continued there during the whole time of his trial, which action I doubt whether it was ever equaled by the most barbarous nations.

But having learned to condem such baseness, after the sentence had been pronounced against him, he ( Major-General Harrison ) said aloud as he was withdrawn from the Court, that he had no reason to be ashamed of the cause in which he had been engaged.