Author and internationally recognized human rights attorney Geoffrey Robertson spoke at Hamilton on September 19. Robertson's most recent book, The Tyrannicide Brief, recounts the story of John Cooke, the man who prosecuted Charles I for treason. In his lecture, Robertson recounted some of the story of Cooke and discussed the necessity and difficulty of bringing tyrants before the bar.
John Cooke was "the man who worked out the way to end the impunity of tyrants," began Robertson. Cooke prosecuted Charles I, established the right to silence and was the first to argue for the abolition of the death penalty, except for treason and murder. He was a "remarkable man," said Robertson.
Cooke was born in 1608, 10 years after Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. He was the son of a sharecropper. "In the England of the time, he wasn't meant to go anywhere," said Robertson. But he was "particularly brilliant" and won a scholarship to a university. At the time Cooke was studying law, Charles I had abolished Parliament and was torturing Puritans. In 1630, 30,000 Puritans went across the sea and settled in and around Massachusetts to escape the torture. In 1639, Hugh Peters founded Harvard College in Massachusetts.
When Cooke finished school, he had no money to practice law in England and went to work in Ireland for the King's Administration. He first made a name for himself defending herbalists being prosecuted by the College of Physicians.
In 1640, Charles I was forced to bring back Parliament because he needed money to wage war on Scotland. Parliament, once re-established, insisted on their rights and ended torture in 1641; tortured evidence has not been allowed in courts ever since. They declared independence for judges and that the King had to share sovereignty with the elected Parliament. "This was the moment Parliament insisted it should share sovereignty with power," said Robertson.
In 1642, Charles I declared war on his own Parliament, beginning the English Civil War. Parliament won in 1646, but Charles I remained King. The King started a second Civil War in 1648, and after he lost again, began planning the third Civil War. "Finally, people started talking about putting the King on trial," explained Robertson.
Meanwhile, John Cooke had been developing his practice and had become a respected lawyer. He had been prepared to attack law's corruption. Hugh Peters, who had returned to England on a fundraising mission for Harvard, got caught up in the Civil War and recommended John Cooke to prosecute the King. Cooke was given instructions to "end impunity," and had to find a way to bring the King, who was protected by the Magna Carta, under the law.
As a solution, Cooke invented the crime of Tyranny. It was an "extraordinary moment…I think the most important in English history," said Robertson, when the King was brought to Westminster Hall for trial in 1649. The King's tactics were to refuse a lawyer and to refuse to accept the jurisdiction of the court. He never put on a defense. While the Court sat for two days to hear Cooke's evidence, Charles I admitted to his guards that he did not care about the bloodshed he had caused. It then became clear that "King Charles would always be on the attack," said Robertson. The Court decided to execute the King.
This was a "terrible mistake," said Robertson. Executing Charles I "made him a martyr…this eventually led to the restoration of his son as king." Robertson compared this to the modern trial of Saddam Hussein, arguing that the death penalty will make him a martyr. "The questions that were wrestled with come back to haunt in modern times," said Robertson.
By his prosecution of the King, Cooke made England the first modern nation to become a Republic, which lasted for 11 years. "Those 11 years…were the beginning of the values we cherish today," said Robertson. In 1660, the monarchy was restored, and Cooke, along with Peters, was sentenced to death.
The years surrounding the English republic are "a remarkable moment in [England and America's] shared history," said Robertson.
-- by Laura Trubiano '07
