At the trial:
‘I would know by what power I am called hither, by what lawful authority’
‘Then for the law of this land, I am no less confident, that no learned lawyer will affirm that an impeachment can lie against the King, they all going in his name: and one of their maxims is, that the King can do no wrong.’
At the execution
‘but I must tell you that [the people’s] liberty and freedom consists in having government... It is not their having a share in government; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things.’
It was over 350 years ago that these words were spoken by Charles I of England. It was one of the most important moments in history, showing that the people could choose their rulers, and that a crime committed against the people could be punished.
Hosni Mubarak, if he were a better educated man, might reflect on this today, as he is brought to trial in Cairo. These were crimes against his own people which he committed, believing, perhaps not like Charles I that he had a divine right to do as he pleased, but at least that he was inviolate.
It is a moment to be celebrated by democrats everywhere, but much more so in Egypt. These people have been ruled by Britain and its puppets, then Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. No one alive in Egypt has known what it is like to choose your own rulers. No wonder they are massing outside Mubarak’s courtroom: they are fascinated by their own power.
‘Bliss it was that day to be alive, but to be young was very Heaven’ wrote Wordsworth of France in 1789. How true of today’s Egypt, and what a thing to tell your grandchildren, that you were there, in Tahrir Square!
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