On the 30th January 1649 the English Parliament did something hitherto unthinkable, they executed their own monarch. We are, however, so familiar with the story of the public beheading of King Charles I that it fails to shock and yet it was, and still should be considered to be, a horrifying event in British history.
The second Stuart king of England, Charles I, became king in 1625 on the death of his father James I of England/VI of Scotland. When James had become king, following the death of the final Tudor monarch of England Elizabeth I, he travelled down from Scotland to England’s capital, London, in slow stages somewhat enjoying the hospitality mixed in with a large amount of sycophancy from those hoping to gain favour, and therefore position, with the new king.
James was well received by his new subjects many of whom believed that he would be accepting, even encouraging, of the English Catholic population, on account of his mother having been the devoutly catholic Mary, Queen of Scots and despite his own Protestant beliefs. When some radical catholics felt he had not favoured their cause as they had expected they felt justified in blowing up Parliament with the king, prince of Wales, and the country’s MPs and Lords inside. Public thanksgiving for the foiling of the ‘Gunpowder Plot,’ which if it had succeeded would have wiped out the entire system of Government, was decreed by an Act of Parliament which remained on the statue books until 1859, and is still a staple in the calendar as “Bonfire Night.” Yet, the successful murder of the king’s son and successor only 45 years later is not remembered in any meaningful way. Indeed, it is absorbed into the wider story of the English Civil Wars of the 17th century, Cromwell’s republic and the eventual restoration of the monarchy under Charles’ less serious son, Charles II ‘party king’ of England. Perhaps this is because, with the benefit of living 400 years into the future, we can see that the king’s execution for treason was somewhat avenged when the republican experiment, which in fact with Oliver Cromwell as de-facto king looked a lot like a monarchy, failed after Cromwell’s death and Charles’ son took revenge on his father’s killers.
When civil war broke out in England in the early 1640’s no one could have foreseen that it would lead to the king of England losing his head on the executioner’s block outside one of his own palaces, convicted of treason! Not least because Treason was a crime against the king, written to protect the king. So, how could a king be tried, found guilty of and executed for, treason?
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