Category: Charles I - Meandering Through Time

Execution of Charles I

30/1/2020

The weather in January of 1649 was bitterly cold, it was not a good day for an execution, especially when the man standing on the scaffold was the king of England.

On the 30th King Charles waited inside the Banqueting House in Whitehall for the doors to be opened so that he might make his way to the scaffold that had been erected outside. Maybe there was ice on the windows, as history tells us Charles asked to wear two heavy shirts so that he might not shiver in the cold. Charles did not wish that his people think that he was afraid.

Charles I was beheaded that day - he said:

"... truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whomsoever; but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consist in having of government, those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having share in government, sirs; that is nothing pertaining to them; a subject and a sovereign are clear different things. And therefore until they do that, I mean that you do put the people in that liberty, as I say, certainly they will never enjoy themselves. Sirs, it was for this that now I am come here. If I would have given way to an arbitrary way, for to have all laws changed according to the power of the sword, I needed not to have come here; and therefore I tell you (and I pray God it be not laid to your charge) that I am the martyr of the people..."

An observer in the crowd said of the execution:

'There was such a groan by the thousands then present as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again’.

Poor Charles, yes he was his own worst enemy, but did he deserve a death such as this?

William Laud - Archbishop of Canterbury

10/1/2018

“Give great praise to the Lord and little Laud to the Devil" was a popular saying in the time of King Charles I, it was in reference to William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in London on this day in 1645.

William Laud was a supporter of Charles I, he believed that Charles had the God-given right to rule by divine right - a view strongly held by Charles himself. Laud was against Puritan reform of the church.

The charges brought against Laud was that he undermined the laws of England and therefore endangered the Protestant faith, however, these charges were never actually proved. Nevertheless, William Laud was convicted by a bill of attainder by Parliament instead of a jury and his execution planned for the 9th January.

Laud requested that he died by being beheaded rather than by hanging, he was buried in the chapel of St John's College, Oxford.

An etching of Laud's trial was produced at the time that quotes from Proverbs “The righteous are delivered from trouble and the wicked get into it instead" However Laud's was being praised right up to the mid 19th century, William Gladstone, who wrote a number of sermons that he would read to his servants on a Sunday said of Laud -

"Laud as a Churchman has lasted. He lives today. His opponents have mostly disappeared from off the earth. They have left consequences, but no representatives. Laud has both."

Battle of Radcot Bridge

18/12/2017

Radcot Bridge is the first bridge over the River Thames as it enters the county of Oxfordshire, it is also reputed to be the oldest bridge on the river. The Patent Rolls in the reign of King John state

'Sciatis nos recepisse in custodiam et protectionem nostram fratrem Aylwin qui reperacionem pontis de Redeot
suscepit et homines et res suas'.'

"Know that we have received in the custody and protection for our brother Aylwin, who took Redeot
reperacions (?) the bridge of the people and their property"

In the history of medieval warfare, this ancient crossing of the Thames has been mentioned twice.

One incident that took place in 1645 was a civil war skirmish, the Royalist vanguard of Lord George Goring, who was on an order to join Charles I's troops at Oxford, came across a small parliamentary force scouting the area for a place to cross the Thames which resulted in the bridge coming under the control of the Royalist party. The first and not dissimilar skirmish took place in December of 1387 when the Royalist forces of the Earl of Oxford were defeated by the army under the command of the Lord Appellant.

The crisis that had come to a head at Radcot Bridge had really begun ten years previous when ten year old Richard of Bordeaux had become King Richard II. At the centre of the troubles was Richard's reliance on favourites - a group of young nobles of his own age, two of which would find themselves on opposing sides, they were Robert de Vere, who would lead the royalist forces at Radcot Bridge and Thomas Mowbray who would be one of the five members of the Lords Appellant. Mowbray, of course, would eventually feel the wrath of the king years later, however, Richard would stay loyal to Robert de Vere.

Robert de Vere, the 9th Earl of Oxford received the Earldom when he was nine years old, and it is easy to see why the two boys formed a friendship, their fates were linked by the loss of their fathers and the sudden 'gift' of money and power- all the things that can lead the young astray. In the year of Richard's ascension to the throne, Robert de Vere was knighted along with the king, Henry, the Earl of Derby, the future Henry IV and Richard's uncle Thomas of Woodstock. As the days of Richard's minority turned into years, resentment and anger in court was building, Richard resented his ambitious uncle John of Gaunt, and his favourites envied Gaunt's power and status - it has been suggested that Robert de Vere was the ringleader of a plot to murder Gaunt. Robert de Vere benefited greatly from his friendship with the king he was given his own rooms in Richard's castles, granted estates, gifts and other nobles' inheritances. He was also given the title Marquess of Dublin, yet he never set foot in Ireland.

At the royal table, favourite Robert de Vere can be seen sitting on the right of Richard II

By the end of 1387, the Lords Appellant had Robert de Vere at the top of their list of traitors, however, it was not just the king's younger friends who were targeted, Richard's Chancellor, Michael de la Pole, was second on that list.

Pole owed his place in Richard's court to his father William, who had supplied ships and lent money to Richard's grandfather Edward III. William de la Pole didn't benefit greatly from the association with the royal family but Michael did, he was placed in Richard's court to advise but was really manipulated by the charismatic young king. He too was rewarded by but found himself on the wrong side at the wrong time - a family trait it seems.

By December, the Lord Appellant numbered five their case against Richard's favourites ended in a charge of treason. Michael de la Pole was impeached, but despite Richard's involvement he was forced to flee to France, however, Robert De Vere, with more bravado than military experience, stood his ground.

Fosse Way heading away from Stow on the Wolds

Robert de Vere raised an army of about five thousand men, they headed for Northampton but their way was blocked, and he was forced to take another route along the Fosse Way to Stow on the Wold. In the third week of December, he had reached Radcot Bridge, but at this crossing over the Thames, he was intercepted by the small force of Henry Bolingbroke, who in order to impede de Vere's progress broke the central navigation arch - a grant of pontage (a toll raised for repair to buildings and bridges) was issued in 1393 to repair the damage. At this point suggested 14th-century chronicler Thomas Walsingham, de Vere nearly turned tail and ran but was 'encouraged' to continue with the fight by his men. It was Walsingham who also suggested that de Vere was homosexual. Robert de Vere's force was encircled and after a short clash of weapons he was quick to realise the danger of his position, he soon abandoned his men, leaving many of them to the mercy of their enemy and made his cowardly escape by crossing the river, supposedly in disguise, and headed to the Netherlands.

A year later, in what has come to be known as the Merciless Parliament he was found guilty of treason, and a death sentence was passed in his absence.

Robert de Vere spent the rest of his life in exile, thus avoiding the executioner's blade. He died in 1392, leaving Richard II bereft.

Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector

9/12/2017

Oliver Cromwell, you either love him or you hate him, there seems to be no in-between. It was on the 16th December in 1653 that he became Lord Protector.

I have always been confused by Cromwell, he was a man with the right ideas for reshaping Stuart England, but his strict religious beliefs only offered the country one way to achieve it.

It seems to me that Oliver Cromwell was stuck at a fork in a road, often proceeding in one direction only to change his mind before he reached his destination. As the head of the Council of State with advisers he had appointed (not a good start,) Cromwell wanted the people of England to follow the word of god, but with the freedom to think for themselves. He understood the importance of a strong parliament, he wanted its members to be honourable and trustworthy, men that the population would trust and support at a time of crisis, Cromwell considered this the way forward. Fine values you could say, however....

Cromwell was a Janus, the parliament he set up he dismissed on two occasions when they disagreed with him, he wanted a government with the authority to control, but kept a large army to suppress if necessary, he wanted people to be comfortable in their beliefs, but forced them to follow a strict Puritan regime, coming down hard on the population if they stepped out of line.

Oliver Cromwell's parliament had ordered the execution of Charles I for his belief in the right of succession then insisted that his son step into his shoes. Cromwell didn't fully understand, until it was too late Shakespeare statement

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

Oliver Cromwell, I feel, was a man with the right basic ideas who failed to realise that applying them would not be easy.

The English Civil War

23/9/2017

In the book 1066 and All That, a humorous and satirical look at history, it states that the English Civil Wars were fought between the Cavaliers (Wrong but Wromantic) and the Roundheads (Right but Repulsive) and that Charles I thought that

"He was king and that was right, kings were divine and that was right, kings were right,
and that was right, and therefore everything was alright"

We may find the ideas of Divine Right ludicrous and amusing today, but what must be remembered is the cost of it to our ancestors.

The English Civil Wars put family against family and father against son and no better example of this is William Frederick Yeames's painting where a little boy in a royalist household is being spoken to by parliamentarians who ask the question "And When Did You Last See Your Father" which quite naturally puts the child in a difficult position and his family in a dangerous one.
While researching my 17th century Cornish ancestors I wondered if any of them found themselves in this position, for many were loyal to their king - however a few were not, I have discovered it certainly placed friend against friend. Sir Bevill Grenville of Stowe in Cornwall was a Royalist whose allegiances were torn when his friend St John Eliot of St Germans was incarcerated, on more than one occasion, in the Tower of London for his views on parliamentary rights. Eliot eventually died in the Tower and King Charles refused his son permission to bury his father in his homeland cruelly stating

"Let Sir John Eliot be buried in the church of that parish where he died."

These men were dealing directly with the fall out of King Charles I's ideas of the Divine Right of Kings and his attempt to enforce it in the wars that raged between 1642 and 1651. These wars resulted in the loss of over eighty thousand lives plus the hundreds of thousands who died from war related diseases, ultimately though King Charles I would be held responsible and he would pay with his life.

My research into this period is presently focusing on my family in the years 1636 to 1646, this family lived in the Cornish village of St Columb Major. You can see some of the architecture from that period in two of the images below.

In 1641 the marriage of my ancestor took place just five days before parliament passed the Triennial Act, an Act that was drawn up to prevent kings from ruling without Parliament, and in 1645 Royalist troops, under Sir Thomas Fairfax, camped just outside St Columb Major.

The English Civil War Begins

20/1/2017

It was on the 4th January in 1642, that King Charles I, accompanied by a number of soldiers, arrived at Westminster with the intent to arrest John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, Arthur Haselrig and William Strode, five Members of his Parliament on the grounds that they had encouraged the Scots to invade England.

William Strode was the son of William Strode of Plympton in Devon, he married into the Meavy family of Meavy, eventually owning their estates in Devon.

The painting below, by Charles West Cope, shows the attempted arrest, it can be seen in the Houses of Parliament.

'A Proclamation for the Apprehension of Charles Stuart

12/1/2016

This fourteen by nineteen inch poster recently sold at auction for £33,000, it is a wanted poster, printed in black ink on a single leaf of paper. It is three hundred and sixty one years old and is in almost mint condition. This rare wanted poster, is a demand for the capture of King Charles II, it offers a £1,000 reward for the Kings capture which is equivalent to £75,000 in today's money.

At the top of the poster we can read the powerful words:

'A PROCLAMATION for the Discovery and Apprehending of CHARLS STUART and other Traytors his Addherents and Abettors.' It was issued on Wednesday 10th September 1651 and calls upon 'all Officers, as well Civil as Military, and all other good people of this nation' to make a 'diligent search' for the king." and warns if anyone 'knowingly Conceal the laid Charls Stuart' they will be held as 'partakers and Abbettors of their Trayterous and wicked practices'.

The poster was issued by Oliver Cromwell, the victor of the Battle of Worcester on the 3rd October, in response to the king fleeing on horse back and later famously hiding an oak tree at Boscable Staffordshire. Charles evaded Cromwell's forces and with the aid of Catholic nobles he made his way to the coast and escaped to France. Auctioneer Richard Westwood Brookes said

"This item represents a slice of history that could have ended our monarchy and entirely changed the constitution of our country and an extremely rare item of great historic importance." he continued 'I have only ever seen one other similar poster and that was 40 years ago.To obtain such an important document produced when the King of England was held as a fugitive is extremely rare. Very few items capture a moment in history quite as well as this - it truly is the world's most famous wanted poster."

Had the King been caught at the time, he would have been executed and we would no longer have a monarchy.

Paul Delaroche: The Coffined Body of Charles I

12/6/2015

In this image, the French artist Paul Delaroche depicts Oliver Cromwell as he gazes at the coffined body of Charles I.

Delaroche's painting is dated to 1831, he had a 'straightforward technique that was firm, solid and smooth' he also had a wonderful talent for the dramatic. He was known to build little stage sets, including model figures to aid his work, he was also well known for his cloaked references to the French Revolution in which he often used English historical 'victims' such as Charles I, Lady Jane Grey and Thomas Wentworth to make a point.

So what does Delaroche mean when he depicts Cromwell holding open the coffin with one hand while he rests his other against the hilt of his sword. Maybe Cromwell's reflecting on his success as he stares at Charles's face and his sword is a physical reminder of how he and the English parliament brought down a king. What a perfect way of representing the revolution in France. With the troubles too recent to depict directly, Deloroche uses the regime change in England and the execution of Charles to explore the change of fortunes and the fall of the French monarchy.

It is a probably a myth that Cromwell raised the lid of Charles's coffin and stared at the kings decapitated body, but this fact did not deter him, Delaroche cared little about historical inaccuracies if he succeeded in getting his point across to the French public.

Another good example of this is his painting The Princes in the Tower, for which he drew his inspiration from the work of Shakespeare, a story he knew to have some truth. With this in mind he was able to make a comparison of the deaths of the two English boys to draw attention to the mysterious deaths of Louis XVII of France.

Delaroche denied any reference to the revolution in his works, but why would a French artist produce work based on the deaths of English victims of tyranny, if it was not to represent his own.

Elizabeth Stuart: Death of a Princess

5/2/2015

After the execution of their father in the January of 1649, both Charles and James, later Charles II and James II fled to France, the two younger children guardianship were given to noble families, families who really didn't want them, who accepted money granted for this purpose and then fobbed them off on someone else.

King Charles I was executed in 1649 on the order of the English parliament for crimes against the state, that is his refusal to abide by government policy, and his total belief in absolutism. The English government may have solved their problems by murdering a king with the full backing of the law but what where they to do with his children?

Elizabeth Stuart, Charles's second daughter's story was a sad one indeed.

On their last meeting before his execution Charles told Elizabeth not to "grieve and torment herself for him" but this fell on deaf ears. Distraught at his death, Elizabeth asked for permission to travel to Holland to be with her sister Mary, the wife of the Dutch prince, William of Orange, but this request was denied. Along with her brother, Henry, Duke of Gloucester they were sent to live in the care of the Earl of Northumberland's son, Lord Lisle. The next year saw Elizabeth and Henry pass from one family to another. Lord Lisle didn't want them, neither did the Harringtons, finally they were sent into the care of the Earl of Leicester, Robert Sidney and contrary to the instructions from parliament that they were 'not be indulged' they were treated kindly, but it was here, at Penhurst Place, that Elizabeth became sick.

Elizabeth's next placement was probably not due to the fact that she was unwanted but that she was a useful pawn in the latest saga of parliament versus monarchy. Elizabeth's brother Charles was heading for Scotland in the hope that the Scots would aid in the restoration of the English monarchy and poor Elizabeth was forced move to the Isle of Wight to be used as a hostage, this last journey cost her her life.

In 1649 Elizabeth had requested that she be sent to live with her sister Mary in Holland and had sent a letter to this effect. She arrived on the Isle of Wight but she was already sickly, she quickly developed pneumonia and died on 8 September 1650, she was just fifteen years old. Sadly, only two days after her death a letter arrived granting Elizabeth's request so her mortal remains where interred where she died.

With just the initials E S to mark her tomb at St Thomas's Church, Newport, her grave lay unnoticed and uncared for for just over two hundred years, but when Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 and made Osborne House on the Isle of Wight her home she commissioned Carlo Marochetti to sculpt a monument in memory of Elizabeth.

As you can see, not only is it a beautiful representation of a daughter of a king but also poignant reminder of abandonment. Elizabeth lies with her cheek on a bible open to Gospel of Matthew just as, it is said, she was found, clutching the book her father had given her the last time he saw her.

Victoria had the following words carved in black marble on the side of her tomb:

"To the memory of The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Charles I, who died at Carisbrooke Castle on 8
September 1650, and is interred beneath the chancel of this church, this monument is erected as a token of
respect for her virtues and of sympathy for her misfortunes, by Victoria R., 1856."

Not only did Queen Victoria want us to read of Elizabeth's misfortunes, she wanted a visual representation too, caved above the stature is a grate which tells us Elizabeth was held against her will, but they are broken, so we can see that at last Elizabeth, is free.