The Tyrannicide Brief

by Geoffrey Robertson

This is about a radical lawyer who took a case nobody wanted. John Cook prosecuted King Charles I on the basis that a ruler cannot kill his own people and then claim executive privilege. He won and in 1649 the death warrant was signed and the King was beheaded outside St James’s Palace. Of course, it ends badly for Cook. Charles II was restored and Cook was hunted down, hung, drawn and quartered.