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00:00I'm on a journey through 2,000 years of our history to find out the origins of our laws,
00:07who made them, and why.
00:09I've seen how in Saxon times disputes were settled by family blood feuds, how flesh burning
00:15was legal practice in the Middle Ages, and how some medieval punishments still survive
00:21today.
00:23This week I'm starting in the 16th century to find out why judges wear wigs, how a tyrant
00:29ripped up the legal rule book, and why parliament cut a king's head off to prove that no one
00:35was above the law.
00:56The law is all around us.
00:58It says where we can buy stuff and sell stuff, it tells us we've got to wear crash helmets,
01:04it says when we can drink and when we can't drink, it's in the surveillance cameras which
01:09nowadays seem to dominate every moment of our lives.
01:12But an awful lot of the laws that affect us most have got their roots way back in history,
01:18and this week we're going to be looking at the Tudors and the Stuarts.
01:21That's Henry VII, Henry VIII, Elizabeth, the two Charleses, and the two Jameses.
01:26But remember, this is not about them, it's about us.
01:30Oh, ruddy wardens.
01:32All right, maybe I was a bit daft parking on a double yellow, but at least I can say
01:38what I like about the stupid traffic warden who gave me the ticket.
01:41In fact, I can say what I like about anyone in this country.
01:44The prime minister, the chancellor of the Exchequer, Queen Elizabeth.
01:48Not the freedom of speech dropped down fully formed overnight.
01:52It was a hard-won right, and it all started for us during the reign of that most memorable
01:57of Tudor kings, Henry VIII.
02:02Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509.
02:05The country he took over already had a pretty well-established legal system.
02:09There were judges, courts, the beginnings of juries, and there was English common law,
02:15a set of laws that in theory applied equally to everyone, king or commoner.
02:21In practice, though, it didn't quite work like that.
02:25Henry VIII, like virtually every other king before him, was an absolute monarch.
02:29If he wanted something, it got done.
02:32Parliament was little more than a rubber stamp for the king's wishes.
02:36So the only person who was really free to say what he wanted was the king himself.
02:41In 16th century England, ordinary people could get in serious trouble for speaking their
02:46mind.
02:47One poor bloke was locked up just for describing the king as a donkey.
02:51But in Henry's parliament, there was a man who thought it was time to change all that.
02:58When you walk down the embankment, you're constantly confronted by these large, rather
03:02vulgar memorials to people that you've never even heard of.
03:07That's to Hans Sloane, who was something to do with the Royal Society and the Royal College
03:12of Physicians.
03:14Just over here, past these dogs, is one to George Sparks of Bromley-in-Kent, a great
03:21and good man, formerly a judge at Madras.
03:26But just occasionally, you come face-to-face with someone who transformed the way we live
03:31our lives today.
03:36Thomas More was a brilliant politician and a truly courageous man, a radical thinker
03:42who proposed a change in the law that would challenge the absolute power of the king.
03:51In 1523, More was Speaker of the House of Commons, but in those days, freedom of speech
03:57wasn't guaranteed.
03:58If you said anything that the king didn't like, you could get into very serious trouble.
04:13Given that an MP could be banged up in the tower for speaking out against the king's
04:18laws, Thomas More showed extraordinary audacity.
04:22For the very first time in front of the king, he was going to request freedom of speech
04:27for members of Parliament.
04:29My dear liege lord, he said, in matters of great importance, the mind is often so preoccupied
04:38with the subject matter that one thinks more about what to say than about how to say it.
04:45The man wants to know about freedom of speech.
04:48What freedom of speech?
04:51Across the road, anti-war protester Brian Hoare can speak his mind today because of
04:56Thomas More's big idea 500 years ago, an idea that would grow into the principle of free
05:02speech, not just for politicians, but for everyone.
05:07It may therefore please your most abundant grace, most benign and godly king, to give
05:14to all your commoners here assembled your most gracious permission for every man freely,
05:22without fear of your dreaded displeasure, to speak his conscience and boldly declare
05:29his advice concerning everything that comes up among us.
05:33And that was the first time anyone ever argued for freedom of speech in that place.
05:45More was a man ahead of his time.
05:48Freedom of speech is something we take for granted, so it's hard to comprehend just how
05:53radical his proposal was in the 16th century.
05:59But the law never advances smoothly.
06:02Brian Hoare thought he had the right to protest against the war.
06:05Now he's struggling for the right to protest at all.
06:09This criminal government is taking me to court, calling me a serious organized criminal, because
06:19I say stop killing our children.
06:24In 2005, the government passed a law banning demonstrations in Parliament Square.
06:30They claimed it was for reasons of national security, but it could be seen as an erosion
06:35of long-held rights of protest.
06:38Serious Organized Crimes and Police Act clauses 132 to 138.
06:43What do those clauses say?
06:45They say behaviour in the vicinity of Parliament Square.
06:49You can go and demonstrate anywhere you choose in the country without having to seek authorisation
06:55from the Commissioner of Police.
06:57But here you've got to get that authorisation.
06:59Where the politicians are, anywhere else in the country, but where the politicians are,
07:03you have to get permission to speak.
07:05Do they think we're in the army?
07:07Permission to speak, sir.
07:09Are you murderous?
07:11Whether you agree with Brian's anti-war message or not doesn't really matter.
07:15In this day and age, shouldn't he be allowed to speak his mind wherever he is?
07:22When I was in my late teens in the early 60s, I used to march up and down here with a big
07:26card going, ban the bomb, ban the bomb.
07:29And I had no fear at all of being arrested or being dragged off into a duty room,
07:35or going up in front of the magistrate.
07:38In that respect at least, it seems to me that Thomas More's plea for freedom of speech
07:44has taken a step backwards over the last 40 years.
07:48So how did Henry react to More's call for freedom of speech?
07:53Henry looked deep into More's eyes and said,
07:56Thomas, you're absolutely right.
07:58Freedom of speech is a fantastic principle.
08:01From henceforth, I will incorporate it into my rule.
08:05No, he didn't.
08:07He went completely ballistic.
08:09It was another 150 years before they had freedom of speech in that place.
08:13But at least it put the idea in people's minds.
08:17And as we'll see later, it was an idea that would eventually become
08:21one of the most important bits of legislation of the age.
08:24But that was a long way off.
08:26For now, the king was still very much in control.
08:30Henry could do what he liked.
08:32And the next thing he did was going to tear Europe in half.
08:38The law's all about power.
08:40And those who make the laws often use them to increase that power.
08:44The 16th century saw the beginning of one of the biggest power struggles
08:48in this country's history that would take 150 years to be resolved.
08:53It was all sparked off by our old friend Henry VIII.
08:56In 1527, he started a huge legal row
09:00with the one major rival to his authority, the Roman Catholic Church.
09:06The church owned a tenth of all the property in the country
09:10and it could raise its own taxes, so it was massively wealthy.
09:14Not only that, but it had great legal powers with its own law courts.
09:18And these courts decided everything to do with public morality
09:22and heresy and marriage and divorce.
09:24And ultimately, they were controlled not in England, but by the Pope in Rome.
09:31The Pope at the time was Clement VII.
09:33And it was his control over the laws on marriage
09:36that was to give the king such a headache.
09:38When Henry wanted to divorce his first wife,
09:41he needed special permission from Rome.
09:44But the Pope refused, so Henry took the law into his own hands.
09:48He set up his own church, the Church of England, and put himself at its head.
09:53And he introduced the Act of Supremacy,
09:56a set of laws that would have a massive impact
09:59on the whole future direction of the country.
10:03Be it enacted by authority of this present parliament
10:07that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors,
10:14kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted,
10:19the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England.
10:24What Henry had done with his Act of Supremacy
10:28was to tear Britain away from the influence of Rome
10:32and launch it on a path of independence from the rest of Europe.
10:36He had, in fact, created a little Britain
10:40with himself as the absolute and autocratic ruler of it.
10:49This extraordinary piece of legislation
10:52made Henry head of the church and state
10:55and made him more powerful than any monarch before or since.
11:01What extra powers did the Act of Supremacy give Henry?
11:05Massive extra powers.
11:06What the Act does is declare that the kings of England,
11:09although they haven't noticed it,
11:11have always been completely in charge of the church in England.
11:14Which means that Henry now has an inherent power,
11:17not given by parliament but just in his blood,
11:19to do what the heck he likes with religion in England.
11:22How did that affect ordinary people?
11:24It means the king can now tell them what their religion is.
11:27So, if they don't agree with him, they can be killed as traitors.
11:30And the king can now proceed to redesign the church around them.
11:34If they object, then they can rebel.
11:36If they rebel, they can be strung up and gutted.
11:40The split from Rome sent ripples through every level of society.
11:45The king already controlled the law of the land,
11:48but now he controlled religion as well.
11:51And that had implications for every man, woman and child in the country.
11:59This is a typical case from the 16th century.
12:02There was a man called John Asquith
12:04who was riding along on a cart somewhere near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire
12:09when suddenly he fell off the back of the cart.
12:12He went crashing to the ground
12:15and he was crushed to death under the cart wheels.
12:18Now, if that had happened nowadays,
12:21what's the first thing that the family would have done
12:24after a suitable period of mourning?
12:26They would have phoned the nearest cheap solicitor
12:29or the cart owner or the council
12:31for failing to maintain the road properly.
12:33But in the 16th century, compensation didn't exist.
12:38Well, not as we know it today, anyway.
12:41After an accident like that,
12:43the person responsible had to pay a sum of money,
12:46called a diadand, to the local monks
12:49who would then say a prayer for the dead man's soul.
12:52But Henry had set about destroying all the old Catholic monasteries
12:56and had driven out all the monks.
12:59So, who got the diadand money now?
13:01Surprise, surprise, the king.
13:04In his 37-year reign,
13:06Henry VIII had amassed the power of a virtual dictator.
13:11But still his main priority was to keep the country Anglican
13:15and out of the hands of the Catholic Church.
13:18So, big question, who was his heir going to be?
13:23This is Henry.
13:25These are his six wives.
13:27His first wife, Catherine of Aragon, only produced girls.
13:31His second wife, Anne Boleyn, she only produced girls as well.
13:35His third wife, Jane Seymour, she produced a son, Edward,
13:40who became king. Well done, Jane.
13:44But he was a sickly boy and he died when he was 15.
13:47And Henry's other wives didn't produce any children at all.
13:51So, who was going to be the heir?
13:54The answer was Edward's half-sister, Mary,
13:57who was a staunch Catholic,
13:59known throughout history as Bloody Mary.
14:06Mary did everything in her power
14:08to hand control of the church back to Rome.
14:11She ripped up her father's laws
14:13and spent the five gory years of her reign
14:16burning 363 Protestants for heresy.
14:20More burnt heretics than in the whole of the previous 200 years.
14:27When Mary died, she was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth,
14:32and the atmosphere changed almost immediately.
14:36The new queen was Protestant,
14:38and although she reinstated the Church of England,
14:41she chose not to use the power of the law
14:44to persecute people of opposing faiths,
14:46as her sister and father had done.
14:50Instead, she performed a delicate balancing act,
14:53trying to appease people of all faiths.
14:56Perhaps an early version of a more tolerant, multi-faith Britain.
15:00You always get this impression that Elizabeth was much more relaxed
15:04about Protestants and Catholics, which is quite a modern thing, isn't it?
15:08Elizabeth looks modern now.
15:10What she's trying to do is to show the world
15:12that she's a much better ruler than her sister, Mary.
15:15And apart from the fact that she kept killing Protestants,
15:18she was also very good as a ruler.
15:20Intelligent, forceful, able.
15:22So what Elizabeth says is,
15:24my sister was a butcher, I don't kill people for their beliefs,
15:28I'm a nicer kind of religious ruler.
15:31Today, 400 years after the age of the Tudors,
15:34most people would say that religious freedom
15:37is an essential part of life in a modern democracy.
15:40But even though the right to practise your religion freely
15:43is legally guaranteed in this country,
15:45there's still grappling with the best way for the law to deal with religion.
15:49In 2002, 15-year-old Shabina Begum
15:53was barred by her school from wearing the traditional Muslim jilbab,
15:57but she challenged it in court.
16:00My human rights shouldn't be infringed
16:02just because, you know, I want you to practise my religion.
16:06The judge upheld the school's decision,
16:08but an appeal judge decided that she should be allowed to wear it after all.
16:13And then there was the case of British Airways employee Nadia Oueda,
16:17who in 2006 was banned from wearing her crucifix openly at work.
16:22When it comes to religion,
16:24making the law fair for everyone is a tricky business.
16:28Religious tolerance means accepting other people's belief systems.
16:33But what happens if those beliefs start threatening the entire social order,
16:37or even your life?
16:40That's exactly what happened back in 16th century England.
16:44Elizabeth had done everything she could to keep all religions happy,
16:48but a law issued on the continent was about to destroy all the good work.
16:53In Rome, there was a new pope, Pius V.
16:57In his mind, Elizabeth was a wicked infidel,
17:00and he was going to do everything in his power
17:02to bring Britain back under Catholic control.
17:06In 1570, he issued a papal bull.
17:10The papal bull was an order from the pope to Catholics throughout the world.
17:15It said Queen Elizabeth was a heretic,
17:17and it was the duty of all Catholics to try and get rid of her.
17:21It was the Christian equivalent of a fatwa.
17:26Tolerance went out the window as Elizabeth turned her attention
17:31to the fanatical Catholics and Jesuits who threatened her life.
17:36When the papal bull was issued,
17:38did Elizabeth create any more anti-Catholic laws?
17:41Oh, heavens yes. They're already there, but they're very mild.
17:44What the laws already say is if you don't turn up to church regularly,
17:47you have to pay a shilling fine,
17:49and you can't go to university or to law school.
17:52So it kind of makes you a second-class citizen, but it keeps you alive.
17:55Once the pope declares war, Elizabeth can say,
17:58Aha, absolutely anybody who obeys what the pope says is now a traitor,
18:02and so you can be hammered.
18:04The fine goes up to 20 quid for not going to church,
18:07which is going to ruin most people.
18:09So did it mean that really it became illegal to be a Catholic?
18:12Officially, this is a great spin, it's OK to be a Catholic.
18:16The Queen does not persecute people for their faith.
18:19If you actually try and practise your faith to Catholic,
18:22you're rebranded a traitor, which is politics, not religion,
18:25and you can be jailed, fined or killed, so it's a persecution.
18:29The persecution continued until, in the reign of the next King, James,
18:34one group of Catholics felt they had no option but to become terrorists.
18:38They came up with a scheme that they hoped would strike
18:41at the heart of the establishment and put an end to their problems.
18:45The Gunpowder Plot.
18:47In 1605, a man called Robert Catesby gathered together a gang of ten men,
18:52including one Guy Fawkes.
18:55The plan was simple.
18:57To blow up King James at the opening of Parliament on 5th November.
19:04Over several months, Catesby and Fawkes and the other co-conspirators
19:08stashed 36 barrels of gunpowder into a cellar room close to here.
19:13It's thought that that would have been enough explosive
19:16to blow up Parliament three times over.
19:19But they were betrayed and the rest, as they say, is history.
19:23Guy Fawkes was caught red-handed
19:25and, together with his co-conspirators, was tortured and executed.
19:30The public was shocked at how close religious extremists had come
19:34to pulling off the biggest act of terrorism the country had ever seen.
19:41And there have been similar fears about religious fanaticism
19:44in recent times.
19:46After the 7-7 bombings, the security forces were in a state of high alert
19:53and certain sections of society found themselves under suspicion.
19:58In this panic, caused by a national emergency,
20:01for some, the consequences were extreme.
20:06The panic reached its height here at Stockwell tube station
20:09two weeks after the bombings,
20:11when a young Brazilian electrician called Jean-Charles de Menezes
20:15was shot dead by police.
20:23The police said they'd mistaken Menezes for someone else
20:26and that he'd been shot dead by the police.
20:30The police said they'd mistaken Menezes for someone else
20:33they suspected of terrorist activity.
20:35Other people, though, said it was much more serious,
20:38a case of overreaction and panic by armed police.
20:42Move back, please!
20:44Either way, the authorisation to shoot to kill
20:47would almost certainly never have been given
20:49if it hadn't been for the heightened state of alarm.
20:52In a democratic country, a balance needs to be established
20:57between protecting people and giving them their freedom.
21:00Although, in reality, this balance is never really fixed.
21:03It's much more like a pendulum wildly swinging
21:06between freedom and protection as events change.
21:10I don't think there's much doubt that most people in this country today
21:13would think of themselves as on the free side of the pendulum,
21:16but the laws that were passed after the events of 9-11 and 7-7
21:20did change things.
21:23But was this just a brief and temporary adjustment of the pendulum
21:27or the start of something much more sinister?
21:30Geoffrey Robertson QC is concerned about what happens to the law
21:35when a nation feels under threat.
21:38Geoffrey, what new laws did the government bring in
21:41after the 9-11 and 7-7 bombings?
21:43Well, they brought in a whole raft of new laws,
21:46none of them particularly necessary, because we always had conspiracy,
21:50we always had incitement.
21:52Guy Fawkes, who was probably the first suicide bomber,
21:56was done under conspiracy.
21:58These are laws we've had for centuries.
22:00But the government brought in a vast array of legislation.
22:04Some of it was struck down as contrary to human rights,
22:07like they wanted to keep people in detention forever without trial
22:11if they suspected them but couldn't prove anything against them.
22:15They brought in laws like glorifying terrorism.
22:19I mean, you've got to be careful with the biography of Robespierre.
22:22But the lesson that I think is taught by history
22:27in dealing with all these occasions is,
22:30don't overreact, don't alienate by oppressive, knee-jerk laws
22:36the communities from which terrorists are recruited.
22:40This was exactly what happened in 1605.
22:44After Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up Parliament,
22:47more new laws were passed that actively discriminated against Catholics.
22:52They were no longer allowed to become lawyers,
22:55they couldn't serve as officers in the armed forces,
22:58and even had their right to vote taken away.
23:01And it would be another 200 years before they got that back again.
23:05Anti-Catholic feeling was running so high
23:08that when the tradition of Bonfire Night began in 1606,
23:12it wasn't a figure of Guy Fawkes that was burnt,
23:15it was an effigy of the Pope.
23:18And in the Sussex town of Lewes, that's what they still do today.
23:33The law had first persecuted Protestants,
23:36and now it was Catholics who were the victims of knee-jerk legislation.
23:41For those whose faith wasn't quite in tune with the times,
23:45the legal pendulum had swung away from protection,
23:48towards control and oppression.
23:51But 50 years later, it would swing in the other direction,
23:55though the result was the execution of a king.
24:01In the story of our law, we've reached a critical turning point.
24:05The absolute legal power of the monarch that had been built up by the Tudors
24:09was about to be overturned in the reign of the Stuarts.
24:13Henry VIII concentrated virtually all the power of the law into his own hands,
24:19and his daughters Mary and Elizabeth continued to use that absolute power
24:23to suppress religious freedoms.
24:26But under James I, the whole balance of power began to shift,
24:31with fundamental implications for the development of the law
24:34and fatal consequences for his son Charles.
24:40As we've seen, those who exercise the law have power,
24:44and in this country, power is split three ways.
24:47You've got the executive, the government, run by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet,
24:51they propose new laws.
24:54You've got Parliament, which is the elected MPs,
24:57with a little help from the House of Lords, they pass the laws.
25:01And you've got the judiciary, the judges,
25:04who try to ensure the laws are applied fairly.
25:08So today, all our lives are ruled by three different powers.
25:11We've got the judiciary, we've got Parliament, we've got government.
25:15It's a bit like stone, paper, scissors.
25:17They're all different, they've all got different functions,
25:20and, by and large, they're all equal in many ways.
25:23But it wasn't like that in James's time.
25:26Then you had this incy-wincy little stone, which was the judges,
25:30you had this tiny piece of paper, which was Parliament,
25:33and then in the King, you had this massive pair of scissors.
25:39But there was a shock in store for James.
25:43The monarchy was about to be confronted by the power of the judges.
25:49The crunch came in 1607,
25:52with another brave man standing up to the authority of the monarch.
25:58There's this big row going on.
26:00The Archbishop of Canterbury has complained to the King about the judges.
26:04He says they're meddling in things that don't concern them.
26:08In particular, he wants to keep them out of church matters
26:11and make all the final decisions himself.
26:14The King agrees with him, and who dare disagree with the King?
26:20Tonight, Your Majesty, I am going to be Sir Edward Cook,
26:25Chief Justice of all England.
26:28Cook's speech to the King would transform our law.
26:33His Majesty is not learned in the laws of his realm of England,
26:38and causes which concern the life and fortunes of his subjects
26:42are not to be disputed.
26:44And causes which concern the life and fortunes of his subjects
26:48are not to be decided by natural reason, which the King has,
26:52but require long study and experience, which we judges have.
26:57The King cannot judge any case.
27:00This ought to be determined in some court of justice.
27:04In other words, by us.
27:06The law is the golden met wand.
27:09It means it's a measuring stick, a yardstick.
27:11Everyone should be equal in front of the law.
27:14And this met wand should be used to try the causes of your subjects.
27:19The King should not be beneath man, but beneath God and beneath the law.
27:25And that was a pivotal moment in legal history,
27:28because nobody had ever said anything like that to the King before.
27:32The idea that the law, dished out by judges, should apply to everyone
27:37was a pretty radical concept back in 1607.
27:41So did James I agree with his top judge
27:44that he should be subject to the law just like everyone else?
27:47Of course not.
27:50King James was a monarch of his time.
27:53He believed in his divine right to be king.
27:56He thought he was absolutely true to the law.
27:59He believed in his divine right to be king.
28:02He thought he was absolutely, totally, completely above the law.
28:06But the problem is, when someone in power thinks they're above the law,
28:10it tends to cause trouble.
28:12And I don't just mean in 17th century England.
28:18Under current UK law, people can't be locked up indefinitely without charge.
28:23But in 2004, there was a public outcry
28:26that a group of terror suspects being held in Belmarsh Prison
28:30had still not been charged three years after their arrest.
28:33Home Secretary Charles Clarke wanted to keep them locked up.
28:37But the law lords declared it to be illegal,
28:40and Clarke was forced into an embarrassing U-turn.
28:43Using the principle of the Golden Met Wand from 400 years earlier,
28:47the power of the judiciary had checked the power of the government.
28:51But in the 17th century,
28:53King James had no intention of being subject to the power of the judges.
28:57And his son Charles I was equally keen on wielding absolute power,
29:02though with rather less success.
29:07In 1642, he commanded the House of Commons
29:10to raise taxes for a war against France,
29:13but MPs were having none of it.
29:15The king lost his patience and declared war on Parliament.
29:21What followed was the biggest contest for law-making power
29:25that this country has ever seen.
29:28Although many people in the country tried to stay neutral at first,
29:32in the end, almost everyone was forced to take sides.
29:35You were either with the king and the old tradition of the monarchy,
29:39or else with the radical new vision of parliamentarianism.
29:43Soon, a bloody civil war broke out.
29:46The stakes were high.
29:48Whoever won would have control of the whole future direction
29:52of the country and its laws.
29:56The brutal battles of the English Civil War raged for seven years,
30:00but eventually it was the parliamentary forces,
30:02under generals like Oliver Cromwell, that came out on top.
30:06Parliament was now firmly in control,
30:09and in a totally unprecedented move, put the king himself on trial.
30:14Not for any ideological reason,
30:16but because he had waged war on his people.
30:21It was here, in the Great Hall at Westminster,
30:24that the trial began on 20th January 1649.
30:29The court was jam-packed with MPs, soldiers,
30:33members of the public, and 68 judges.
30:39When the king was brought in, the crowd fell silent.
30:42He was elegantly dressed, apparently quite calm and relaxed,
30:46and he took his place on a special seat with a velvet cushion on it.
30:50Then up stood the prosecutor, and read out the charge against him.
30:55I do, in the name and on behalf of the people of England,
30:59exhibit and bring into this court a charge of high treason and other high crimes,
31:05whereof I do accuse Charles Stuart, King of England, here present.
31:12The king was then expected to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty,
31:16but instead he just sat calmly in his chair and said,
31:20I would know by what power I am called hither,
31:24and when I know by what lawful authority, I shall answer.
31:28In other words, the king was refusing to acknowledge
31:31that the court had got the power to try him.
31:34Didn't Saddam Hussein use a somewhat similar tactic?
31:37Absolutely. At the outset he used the Charles I gambit of denying,
31:43refusing to participate in the court.
31:48I do not respond to this so-called court,
31:51and I retain my constitutional right as president of Iraq.
31:58Sayyid Awad, sit down, said the judge.
32:02The other irony of the trial of Charles I
32:05is that it was the fairest trial ever held,
32:08because until then, prisoners were taken to the Old Bailey.
32:12If they refused to plead, they had great rocks put on their chest
32:16until they either were crushed to death or they changed their mind
32:20and pleaded guilty or not guilty.
32:22Trials all took place in a couple of hours.
32:24Charles's trial at least took a week.
32:27By the standards of the day, it was the fairest trial that had ever occurred,
32:31and it set a precedent. Law is all about precedents.
32:35After seven days, the case against the king had been heard
32:38and he'd still refused to enter a plea.
32:41Now it was time to deliver the verdict.
32:43That job fell to a man called Andrew Broughton,
32:46who was the clerk of the court.
32:48He stood and delivered his carefully worded speech.
32:52The king listened in silence.
32:55The court does adjudge that the said Charles Stuart,
32:59as tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy
33:03to the good people of this nation,
33:05shall be put to death by the severing of his head from his body.
33:12Charles tried to protest and demand the right to speak,
33:16but he was led firmly out of court to await the executioner's axe.
33:23He was marched up Whitehall, a stone's throw from Parliament.
33:27It was a bitterly cold morning and Charles is said to have worn two shirts
33:31so that he wouldn't shiver and seem afraid to face death.
33:34Eventually the king arrived here at the banqueting house
33:38and stepped out onto the scaffold.
33:40There were two executioners, each one wearing a mask and a wig
33:44in order to disguise his identity.
33:47The king made a short speech,
33:49still proclaiming his divine right to be king,
33:52then laid his head on the block.
33:55He said a few prayers, then stretched out his arms
33:59and with one blow the executioner's axe severed his head from his body.
34:06With the decapitation of the king,
34:08an unbroken line of monarchs stretching back 800 years was cut.
34:13Now Parliament had complete control of the law.
34:18King Charles was put on trial for tyranny,
34:21using exactly the same principle that was established
34:24in the time of his father, James I,
34:27the principle of the Golden Met Wand,
34:30that nobody is above the law
34:32and that everyone should be subject to the same rules,
34:35the very principle that means today we can take the royals to court.
34:43It wasn't for another 350 years
34:45that a British royal would next feel the long arm of the law.
34:49In November 2002,
34:51Princess Anne was hauled up in front of magistrates in Slough
34:55after her bull terrier Dorothy attacked two children in Windsor.
34:59She was subject to the same law as everyone else.
35:02The judge, though, agreed with the defence
35:04that Dorothy was normally docile and should not be put down,
35:08but Princess Anne still left court with a criminal record
35:11and a small, for her at least, legal bill.
35:14Princess Anne only lost a thousand quid,
35:17Charles I lost his head.
35:19The country was now without its monarch,
35:22so what was going to happen next?
35:25No-one had got an experience of running the country without a ruler.
35:29Far from the bright future that the Civil War had promised,
35:32things were going to start getting a bit sticky.
35:37Parliament needed a leader
35:39and they turned to one of the great generals of the Civil War,
35:42Oliver Cromwell.
35:44The country had got rid of one flamboyant, war-mongering ruler
35:48and replaced him with a rather doer Puritan.
35:52Not entirely dissimilar to more recent events.
35:55Out with the old flamboyant ruler,
35:58in with the new Puritan.
36:01Cromwell's new government set about getting rid of every last trace
36:05of the old monarchy and used the law
36:07to impose a rather more killjoy regime on the country.
36:11When the Civil War had broken out,
36:13all the country's theatres had been closed to prevent public disorder.
36:18But when Cromwell became Lord Protector,
36:21the theatres stayed closed.
36:24Of course, there were lots of other forms of entertainment,
36:27music and bear-baiting and cock-fighting,
36:29but theatre was the principal entertainment for the mass of ordinary people.
36:33Banning theatre was just about as severe as you could get.
36:38MUSIC PLAYS
36:47Good evening. You'll have heard about the ban on television.
36:50Thank you. Thank you. I'll... I'll be needing that.
36:54Can I turn this off, please?
36:56Do you have a remote control?
36:58Yes.
36:59Does it? What do you want?
37:01Do you know about the television ban?
37:03No. Well, I'm going to have to...
37:05No, no, no, no, don't touch that, Mum, because I'll be getting a stab.
37:08Well, where's your remote? Will you sign for this?
37:10Because I'm going to have to take it away.
37:12You know about the television ban, the national television ban?
37:14I'm going to have to take that with me, I'm afraid.
37:16Why?
37:1763,000 people.
37:18What the...?
37:19Hey, hey, come here, you two, you two.
37:22OK, so TV's not really banned,
37:25but that's how harsh Cromwell's restrictions must have felt
37:28after the more cultured days of the King.
37:31But it's a bit of a cliché to think of King Charles
37:34as all jolly and artistic,
37:36and Cromwell's men as all doom and gloom.
37:38There's another side to the story,
37:40which is perhaps a bit more surprising.
37:43Once the King was dead,
37:45did the parliamentarians make a lot of legal changes?
37:48Yes. In 1649, the first thing they did
37:51was to turn themselves into a republic,
37:54and then they abolished the House of Lords,
37:56as useless and unnecessary,
37:58and then they embarked upon some law reform.
38:02The sovereignty of parliament,
38:04the independence of the judiciary,
38:07the end of torture,
38:09the right of freedom of conscience,
38:12freedom of worship and religion.
38:14These are enormously important political achievements
38:18in the history of the world.
38:21Cromwell started his rule as a radical reformer of our laws,
38:25but however good his intentions, he couldn't keep it up.
38:28Within just a few years of executing the King for tyranny,
38:31he himself used military force to dissolve parliament,
38:35and even insisted that people start calling him Your Highness.
38:40The bold experiment of the Protectorate lasted 11 years,
38:44the only time this country has ever been a republic.
38:47But shortly after Cromwell died, the monarchy returned,
38:51and within 25 years, there'd be more bloody turmoil.
38:56In 1660, after Oliver Cromwell's experiment in strict Puritan democracy,
39:02Britain brought back the monarchy.
39:04Charles II returned from France,
39:07and although he ripped up most of Cromwell's laws,
39:10some of the key ideas of the Protectorate
39:13had been seeded in the nation's consciousness,
39:15and their time would soon come again.
39:19But for now, one of the new King's first acts
39:22was to reopen all the theatres.
39:24And introduce one legal custom that's been with us ever since.
39:28The new King Charles had spent his exile in France.
39:32Wigs had been all the rage there since the reign of King Henry III,
39:36who'd had a bit of a bald spot, and like so many men,
39:39had covered it up with a wig.
39:42And so had his loyal and fashion-conscious courtiers.
39:55King Charles liked the idea so much,
39:57that when he was restored to the throne of England,
40:00he brought the fashion for wigs with him.
40:02Soon everyone was wearing them, including judges.
40:07These days, it's only really the legal profession that wears wigs.
40:11For everyone else, this rather quaint fashion died out in the 19th century.
40:17So was that the only contribution to the law in Charles's reign?
40:21No.
40:22Something else appeared that's absolutely fundamental
40:25for our legal system today.
40:27The independent jury.
40:29In the 17th century courtroom,
40:32it was the judge who really decided the verdict.
40:35Juries more or less just did as they were told.
40:38But one particular trial would change all that forever.
40:43In the year 1667, there was a case involving two Quakers
40:47called William Penn and William Meade.
40:50They were preaching, and they were arrested.
40:52And one of the things they were charged with was violent assembly.
40:56And the case went to trial by jury, and all the evidence was heard.
41:00And after the judge had summed up,
41:02he recommended that the men be found guilty.
41:06And he sent the jury down to deliberate.
41:08And four hours later, they came back up again,
41:11and they said, no, the men were innocent.
41:14And the judge was furious.
41:17He was so angry, he ordered the jury to be taken downstairs
41:23and put in a dark, damp, stinking cell with no food.
41:28But still the jury wouldn't give in.
41:31They stuck to their guns.
41:33So then the judge fined them.
41:36And eventually, the jury managed to get hold of a second judge.
41:43And the second judge said, no, the first judge was wrong.
41:47They couldn't be punished because they'd made an incorrect decision.
41:52And the jury were let out again.
41:55So finally, in the year 1667,
41:59the principle of an independent jury was established.
42:03And that was something worth fighting for, I think you'll agree.
42:07Though in theory the independent jury had arrived,
42:11at least in practice, judges were still intimidating figures
42:14who could force a verdict,
42:16as a series of show trials held in the reign of James II
42:19would powerfully demonstrate.
42:21When Britain's Protestants mounted an armed rebellion against the king,
42:25they were heavily defeated.
42:27And to punish the rebels, he set up a series of brutal trials
42:31that became known as the Bloody Assizes.
42:34The Bloody Assizes took place at a variety of locations
42:38across the West Country, Winchester, Taunton, Wales,
42:42and here in Dorchester.
42:44The word assizes comes from the French word assis, meaning sitting.
42:49But these sittings, or trials,
42:51weren't so much about justice as about revenge.
42:55And the chap who was in charge of them was this man, Judge Jeffreys.
43:00Jeffreys, known as the Hanging Judge,
43:03is said to have stayed in this old pub for the assizes.
43:07In just five days, 300 rebels were rushed through a cursory trial,
43:12with the jury bullied into sending dozens to their death.
43:16But hanging wasn't the only punishment Jeffreys dished out.
43:20For the crime of treason, the victims were drawn and quartered as well.
43:24Local historian Terry Hearing has dug up some of the gory details.
43:29It's hard to believe that people were actually hung,
43:32drawn and quartered on this little green.
43:34Well, yes, but over there, there would have been the gallows,
43:38which was a crossbar supported by two uprights.
43:41The victims would have been brought up on sledges
43:44or on a cart up the hill to the gallows.
43:48There'd have been a huge crowd of people here,
43:51and Jack Ketch, the executioner,
43:53would probably have been sitting astride the crossbar
43:56because he would have tied the end of the rope
43:58that was already round their necks to the crossbar itself.
44:02And then his assistant would have twisted the ladder,
44:06turned off the victim, who would have then fallen and strangled.
44:11At that point, did the victims die?
44:13Probably not.
44:15Some might have done, but most would have survived,
44:18would have struggled, obviously, as they were strangling.
44:21And it was the skill of the executioner
44:23to see how long he could leave them while they were still alive,
44:26because he wanted them still alive,
44:28to feel the full horror of what was to happen then.
44:31What did happen then?
44:33Well, once they were cut down, they were tied to a board.
44:37The executioner would then castrate them,
44:40eviscerate them, take out their intestines with a great knife,
44:44and having done that, would, by that time they were dead,
44:48cut off the heads and quarter the body, ready for preservation.
44:55But it wasn't just men who suffered under the bloodthirsty Judge Jeffreys.
45:00An old lady called Alice Lyle was found guilty
45:03of hiding a couple of Protestant rebels.
45:06She was originally sentenced to be hanged,
45:09but Judge Jeffreys was persuaded to be more lenient.
45:12She was burnt instead.
45:14The nation was horrified at this abuse of royal and judicial power.
45:18Within three years, King James grew so unpopular
45:21that he was driven out of the country in what became known as the Glorious Revolution.
45:26His replacements, William and Mary, were imported from Holland,
45:30and they were only allowed to assume the throne
45:33on the strict condition that they agree to an Act of Parliament
45:36that massively restricted their legal authority.
45:44In terms of national importance,
45:46the Bill of Rights of 1688 is as crucial as Magna Carta.
45:50And it set in stone all the progress that had been made
45:54since the tyrannical days of Henry VIII 200 years before.
46:00The Bill of Rights.
46:02A small book with some very big ideas.
46:05From now on, MPs can say what they like in Parliament
46:08without fear of being punished.
46:10Punishment must be fair and not cruel.
46:13Monarchs can no longer raise taxes for their own purposes,
46:18and the monarch can no longer send the country to war
46:21without the express permission of Parliament.
46:25Reminds me of something.
46:27I'll think what.
46:29In the 200 years since the days of Henry VIII,
46:32there'd been a transformation in our law.
46:35Where once MPs had simply done the King's bidding,
46:38now it was Parliament that called the shots.
46:41And the monarchy hasn't been allowed to step out of line ever since.
46:48But the story of our law doesn't end there.
46:50In the final programme, we'll see how we moved
46:53from stringing people up for petty crime to the creation of prisons.
46:57And how shocking factory conditions brought the country to the brink of anarchy
47:01until the law stepped in.