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| John Cooke, from an engraving by R Cooper |
My hero: John Cooke by Geoffrey Robertson
As Cromwell's solicitor general, he drafted the Act which abolished the monarchy. Then, for good measure, he abolished the House of Lords as 'useless and dangerous'
Geoffrey Robertson
Saturday 24 April 2011
M
y hero is a man who did his best and gave his life to stop England becoming the kind of nation it will be over the next week. John Cooke prosecuted Charles I. As Cromwell's solicitor general, he drafted the Act which abolished the monarchy ("the office of a king in this country is unnecessary, burdensome and dangerous to the liberty, safety and public interest of the people"). Then, for good measure, he abolished the House of Lords as "useless and dangerous". For these heroic acts of republican faith, he was disembowelled at the restoration. He was the son of a Leicestershire farmer. He defended "Freeborn John" Lilburne the Leveller, in a case that established the right to silence. Cooke was the visionary who first recognised poverty as a cause of crime, and was the first to suggest a national health service (in 1647) and abolition of imprisonment for debt (two centuries before Dickens). He proposed that barristers' fees should be controlled and they should do 10% of their work pro bono.
When all the great lawyers fled from the Temple for fear of treason if they prosecuted the king, Cooke accepted the brief and mounted what became in effect the first war-crimes trial of a head of state. The "great lawyers" soon returned to frustrate Cooke's reforms, so he accepted Cromwell's offer to become chief justice of Ireland, where he speeded up proceedings and decided cases in favour of tenants rather than landlords. Come the restoration, however, he was arrested as a regicide, subjected to an outrageously rigged trial, and then hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross.
Cooke was a man of great courage and republican principle. In words worth remembering this week, he wrote to his wife from the Tower shortly before his execution: "We fought for the public good and would have enfranchised the people and secured the welfare of the whole groaning creation, if the nation had not delighted more in servitude than freedom."
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