Regicide Judge’s cool oak desk and chairs to be auctioned – The

A handsome oak chair that can be converted into a table once belonged to the judge who presided over the treason trial and death sentence of Charles I.

The chair will be auctioned at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on Tuesday and is expected to sell for between £1,500 and £2,500.

An inscription on the underside reads: “This chair belonged to John Bradshawe, Derby SH, Bradshaw Hall, presiding judge at the trials of King Charles I.” […]

Furniture expert Mark Yuan Richards commented: “This is a powerful survivor of one of the most tumultuous moments in British history. Tables and chairs themselves are rare, but those with a direct and clear link to John Bradshaw are exceptional.

On January 6, 1649, the House of Commons passed an act establishing a high court to hear charges of treason against King Charles I, and there was no doubt as to what their verdict would be. The court consists of 135 judges. Many of them were Cromwell’s officers, and they had made it clear that they were willing to kill the king without a trial. Among them were deputies from 39 counties, dozens of deputies who had attended court colleges (where student lawyers are trained) but had only learned the basics of law to hold business and political offices, and a handful of lawyers without any distinction. There was not a single companion on the field.

Previous monarchs – Edward II, Richard II – were deposed simply by articles written by bishops or legal luminaries/committees of lords. Members of our royal family were tried and executed – Henry VIII’s two wives, Lady Jane Grey, Mary Queen of Scots – by nobles and church leaders. None of these precedents served Cromwellian purposes, as the nobility, clergy, and professional judiciary all openly opposed the execution of King Charles and considered the entire court to be illegitimate.

Apparently the king’s royalist supporters, who fought on the side of the knights in the civil war, believed that this “tribunal” was nothing more than a blatant attempt to cover up violence under the guise of legality, which according to the norms of English law had zero legitimacy. However, they were not the only ones to object. Even allies like the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which had sided with Parliament, were alarmed by the tense court and its predetermined outcome.

Ultimately, only one actual practicing judge was willing to serve on the court: John Bradshaw, Chief Justice of Chester. He presided over 21 of the 23 meetings as speaker (he missed the first two). Most members did not attend the meeting. It was recorded that 87 members attended meetings regularly. The most reliable faction at the meeting was the officer corps and, of course, their commander-in-chief, Oliver Cromwell.

On January 27, 1649, the king was found guilty of treason. Less than half of the appointed commissioners (57 of them) attended and unanimously concluded that the king was “a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer and a public enemy”. On January 30, only 59 people signed the death warrant. King Charles I was beheaded on the same day.

Bradshaw benefited greatly from his role as the regicide judge. He presided over the trials of other noble knights and sentenced them to death. He was elected President of the Council of State, replacing the executed King and the Executive Branch of the Government with his Privy Council, and was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a huge money-spinner then and now. He opposed the Protectorate on principle and lost Lancaster in 1654, but Cromwell’s son and heir Richard restored him to the premiership in 1659. He died of illness later that year and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

His death proved timely. On May 29, 1660, Charles I’s eldest son, Charles, was asked to return to England as monarch and restore his father’s throne. Charles II was in no forgiving mood. On 30 January 1661, 12 years to the day after King Charles I was beheaded, Charles II ordered the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw and Parliamentary General Henry Ireton to be exhumed and hung in iron shackles on Tyburn Gallows. They were then beheaded and their heads hung on pikes in Westminster Hall. Bodies were thrown into mass graves and the body of Bradshaw’s wife was buried next to Bradshaw in Westminster Abbey.