Charles I waged civil wars that cost one in ten Englishmen their lives. But in 1649 Parliament was hard put to find a lawyer with the skill and daring to prosecute a King who claimed to be above the law: in the end the man they briefed was the radical lawyer John Cooke. His Puritan conscience, political vision, and love of civil liberties gave him the courage to bring the King’s trial to its dramatic conclusion: the English Republic. He would pay dearly for it: Charles I was beheaded, but eleven years later Cooke himself was arrested, tried, and brutally executed at the hands of Charles II.

Geoffrey Robertson, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, provides a vivid new reading of the tumultuous Civil War years, exposing long-hidden truths: that the King was guilty as charged, that his execution was necessary to establish the sovereignty of Parliament, that the regicide trials were rigged and their victims should be seen as national heroes.

John Cooke sacrificed his own life to make tyranny a crime. His trial of Charles I, the first trial of a head of state for waging war on his own people, became a forerunner of the trials of Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic, and Saddam Hussein. This is a superb work of history that casts a revelatory light on some of the most important issues of our time.

杰弗里•罗伯逊（Geoffrey Robertson QC） 英国王室法律顾问，国际著名人权律师，联合国塞拉利昂特别法庭法官。他曾在英国中央刑事法院的诸多著名案件中担任辩护律师，在英国、欧洲和马来西亚、斐济、澳大利亚等英联邦国家的最高法院为公民自由而辩护，赢了很多具标志性意义的官司。他参与了起诉皮诺切特和海斯廷斯•卡穆祖•班达（Hastings Kamuzu Banda)的案件，也参与对审判萨达姆•侯赛因的法官的培训。他的著作《反人类罪》（Crimes Against Humanity）启发了全球的正义运动，作品《正义的游戏》（The Justice Game ）与被当作教科书的《媒体法》（Media Law）出版后均引起巨大反响。

杰弗里•罗伯逊现与妻子凯西•乐蒂（Kathy Lette）及两个孩子居住在伦敦。他创办了道迪街律师事务所（Doughty Street Chambers）并任所长，同时也是中殿律师公会（the Middle Temple）的会长，伦敦巡回法官，伦敦大学玛丽皇后学院的访问教授。

除本书外，他的著作还有Reluctant Judas; Obscenity; People Against the Press; Geoffrey Robertson's Hypotheticals; Media Law; Does Dracula Have Aids?; Freedom the Individual and the Law; The Justice Game; Crimes Against Humanity。

徐璇：出生于江西，2003年毕业于华东政法大学。曾在上海、北京、香港、广州等地从事媒体工作，2006年起为香港大学新闻及传媒研究中心（JMSC）出版项目特约撰稿，2007年为美国富尔布赖特学者做研究助理。现为香港大学法学院硕士生（MCL）。