On this day in 1649 His Majesty King Charles I of England, Scotland, France and Ireland was executed (Murdered). (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) Charles I was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles was the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the English, Irish and Scottish thrones on the death of his elder brother in 1612. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to a Spanish Habsburg princess culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiations. Two years later he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France instead. After his succession, Charles quarreled with Parliament, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. Charles believed in the Divine Right of Kings and thought he could govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, and perceived his actions as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch. His religious policies, coupled with his marriage to a Roman Catholic, generated the mistrust of reformed groups such as the Puritans and Calvinists, who thought his views too Catholic. He supported high-church ecclesiastics, such as Richard Montagu and William Laud, and failed successfully to aid Protestant forces during the Thirty Years War. His attempts to force the Church of Scotland to adopt high-church Anglican practices led to the Bishops Wars, strengthened the position of the English and Scottish parliaments and helped precipitate his own downfall. From 1642, Charles fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War. After his defeat in 1645, he surrendered to a Scottish force that eventually handed him over to the English Parliament. Charles refused to accept his captors demands for a constitutional monarchy, and temporarily escaped captivity in November 1647. Re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, Charles forged an alliance with Scotland, but by the end of 1648 Oliver Cromwells New Model Army had consolidated its control over England. Charles was moved to Hurst Castle at the end of 1648, and thereafter to Windsor Castle. In January 1649, the Rump House of Commons indicted him on a charge of treason, which was rejected by the House of Lords. The idea of trying a king was a novel one. The Chief Justices of the three common law courts of England – Henry Rolle, Oliver St John and John Wilde – all opposed the indictment as unlawful. The Rump Commons declared itself capable of legislating alone, passed a bill creating a separate court for Charless trial, and declared the bill an act without the need for royal assent. The High Court of Justice established by the Act consisted of 135 commissioners, but many either refused to serve or chose to stay away. Only 68 (all firm Parliamentarians) attended Charless trial on charges of high treason and other high crimes that began on 20 January 1649 in Westminster Hall. John Bradshaw acted as President of the Court, and the prosecution was led by the Solicitor General, John Cook. Charles was accused of treason against England by using his power to pursue his personal interest rather than the good of the country. Over the first three days of the trial, whenever Charles was asked to plead, he refused, stating his objection with the words: I would know by what power I am called hither, by what lawful authority...? He claimed that no court had jurisdiction over a monarch, that his own authority to rule had been given to him by God and by the traditional laws of England, and that the power wielded by those trying him was only that of force of arms. The court, by contrast, challenged the doctrine of sovereign immunity, and proposed that the King of England was not a person, but an office whose every occupant was entrusted with a limited power to govern by and according to the laws of the land and not otherwise. At the end of the third day, Charles was removed from the court, which then heard over 30 witnesses against the king in his absence over the next two days, and on 26 January condemned him to death. The following day, the king was brought before a public session of the Parliamentary Commission, declared guilty and sentenced. Fifty-nine of the commissioners signed Charless death warrant. Charless execution was scheduled for Tuesday, 30 January 1649. Two of his children remained in England under the control of the Parliamentarians: Elizabeth and Henry. They were permitted to visit him on 29 January, and he bid them a tearful farewell. The following morning, he called for two shirts to prevent the cold weather causing any noticeable shivers that the crowd could have mistaken for fear: He walked under guard from St Jamess Palace, where he had been confined, to the Palace of Whitehall, where an execution scaffold was erected in front of the Banqueting House. Charles was separated from spectators by large ranks of soldiers, and his last speech reached only those with him on the scaffold. He blamed his fate on his failure to prevent the execution of his loyal servant Strafford: An unjust sentence that I suffered to take effect, is punished now by an unjust sentence on me. He declared that he had desired the liberty and freedom of the people as much as any, but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having government ... It is not their having a share in the government; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things. He continued, I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be. At about 2 p.m., Charles put his head on the block after saying a prayer and signalled the executioner when he was ready by stretching out his hands; he was then beheaded with one clean stroke. According to observer Philip Henry, a moan as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again rose from the assembled crowd, some of whom then dipped their handkerchiefs in the kings blood as a memento. The executioner was masked and disguised, and there is debate over his identity. The commissioners approached Richard Brandon, the common hangman of London, but he refused, at least at first, despite being offered £200. It is possible he relented and undertook the commission after being threatened with death, but there are others who have been named as potential candidates, including George Joyce, William Hulet and Hugh Peters. The clean strike, confirmed by an examination of the kings body at Windsor in 1813, suggests that the execution was carried out by an experienced headsman. It was common practice for the severed head of a traitor to be held up and exhibited to the crowd with the words Behold the head of a traitor! Although Charless head was exhibited, the words were not used, possibly because the executioner did not want his voice recognised. On the day after the execution, the kings head was sewn back onto his body, which was then embalmed and placed in a lead coffin. The Parliamentary commission refused to allow Charless burial at Westminster Abbey, so his body was conveyed to Windsor on the night of 7 February. He was buried in the Henry VIII vault in St Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle, in private on 9 February 1649. The kings son, Charles II, later planned for an elaborate royal mausoleum to be erected in Hyde Park, London, but it was never built. In 1660, the English Interregnum ended when the monarchy was restored to Charless son, Charles II.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 11:12:52 +0000
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