Civil War - Regicide
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Pride's Purge
On 1 December 1648 the Army moved King Charles from Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight to Hurst Castle. Charles 1 was convinced that he had been taken there to be murdered. The House of Commons reprimanded Thomas Fairfax for moving the king without their authorisation and on 5 December proceeded to declare that the king’s latest response to the negotiations at Newport were sufficient to proceed to a final treaty. This vote provoked the Army into action, and on the morning of 6 December the MPs arriving at the Parliament house found the doors blocked by a detachment of soldiers led by Colonel Thomas Pride. Pride was accompanied by a few Independent MPs and had lists of names in his hand who were deemed acceptable. The rest were to be arrested or imprisoned. Only 100 MP's survived. This was a de facto coup d'etat. This slimmed down House of Commons was called the Rump.
The purging of Parliament was first proposed after the ending of the First Civil War in the manifesto known as the Representation of the Army at a time when Presbyterian MPs were attempting to disband the New Model Army. Henry Ireton, supported by Colonel Harrison and other radicals, wanted to dissolve Parliament rather than to purge it, after which a few radical MPs would be invited to act as an interim government until new elections could be held. John Lilburne insisted that a dissolution would be illegal and that the Leveller manifesto An Agreement of the People should be enacted first in order to legitimise the constitution.
Early in the morning of 6 December 1648, Colonel Pride's regiment of foot and Colonel Rich's cavalry regiment occupied Palace Yard, Westminster Hall. When the Trained Band units that usually guarded Parliament arrived to take up their stations, they were ordered to return home by New Model officers. Colonel Pride was stationed on the steps leading to the entrance of the House of Commons with the list of MPs regarded as enemies of the Army. One hundred of the MPs on Pride's list stayed away from Parliament or fled from London, including the leading Presbyterians such as Denzil Holles. Pride kept the proscribed members from entering Parliament and arrested about forty-five, including William Prynne. The Purge was carried out on the orders of Henry Ireton. Fairfax apparently had no knowledge of it, . He was said to be furious when he heard what had happened but did nothing to interfere. Cromwell arrived back in London the day after the Purge and announced his approval of the proceedings. By removing the MPs who still favoured a negotiated settlement, the Purge effectively cleared the way for the King's trial the following month.
The Rump Parliament
The purged Parliament proceeded to reject the Treaty of Newport and began to prepare the way for the trial of the king. By 22 December the king had been moved from Hurst Castle to Windsor. On 4 January the House of Commons declared itself to be the sole legitimate authority within the kingdom, denying any role to the House of Lords, and on the 6th passed an act, which was a corollary of its vote on the 4th, establishing a High Court of Justice to try the king. Cromwell recognized that they key question would be the authority of the High Court. I desire ye to let us resolve here right now what answers we shall give when the king comes before us, for the first question he will ask us is by what authority and commission do we try him. For [person::Henry Marten]], the radical it was in the name of the Commons and Parliament. For Cromwell it was a higher authority. It was Providence of God
The Trial of the King
On 20th January 1649 King Charles was brought from Windsor to St James’s Palace. Security was tight as it was feared he would be captured by elements of the army. There were perhaps 5,000 spectators and it was likely very noisy with competing chants from both sides. The president of the High Court of Justice, John Bradshaw, took his seat in Westminster Hall and the court commenced with 67 Commissioners. As well as Bradshaw and Cooke, other prosecutors are lost to history and are never heard of again such as John Aske. Many of the commissioners are low level functionaries of the regime and this added to Charles feeling of contempt. The charges against the King go back almost a year and were that the parliament which represented the sovereignty of the people and Charles 1 is both a tyrant traitor and a murderer. But they are continuing to fine tune the charges on the morning of the trial. Charles calls them a "Rump". (The 180 out of 400 or so MP's sympathetic to the Cromwell and the New Model Army). Instead of entering a plea, Charles asked by what lawful authority he was tried. If the court could answer that question to his satisfaction he would then enter a plea. When it was said he was being tried in the name of the people, Charles disputed this. The case was adjourned. On the Monday the case commenced and the king reiterated that the court could not try him legitimately. The second day of the trial ended in a stalemate, as did the third. On Wednesday the 24th, the court heard witnesses against the king in private and the following day resolved that there was enough evidence to sentence the king to death. The court reassembled on Saturday the 27th, but when Bradshaw tried to open the proceedings he was heckled by a masked lady in one of the public galleries; it was thought at the time that this lady might be Lady Fairfax. The muskets are levelled at the commander officer threatens to fire. You get a sense of the military presence at the trial Proceedings were further interrupted by one of the judges, John Downes, who declared himself dissatisfied with the proceedings.
John Milburn the Leveller for example was against the trial so was Thomas Fairfax. John Holles, William Pryn, Robert Harley (the man who cancelled Christmas) were all now considered moderate Presbyterian
The Charge Against the King and his Reply and his diatribe with the Lord President
Saturday January 20th That the said Charles Stuart, being admitted King of England, and therein entrusted with a limited power to govern by and according to the laws of the land, and not otherwise; and by his trust, oath and office, being obliged to use the power committed to him for the good and benefit of the people, and for the preservation of their rights and liberties; yet, nevertheless, out of a wicked design to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people, yea, to take away and make void the foundations thereof, and of all redress and remedy of misgovernment, which by the fundamental constitutions of this kingdom were reserved on the people’s behalf in the right and power of frequent and successive Parliaments, or national meetings in Council; he, the said Charles Stuart, for accomplishment of such his designs, and for the protecting of himself and his adherents in his and their wicked practices, to the same ends hath traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present Parliament, and the people therein represented ... By all which it appeareth that the said Charles Stuart hath been, and is, the occasioner, author and continuer of the said unnatural, cruel and bloody wars; and therein guilty of all the treasons, murders, rapines, burnings, spoils, desolations, damages and mischiefs to this nation, acted and committed in the said wars, or occasioned thereby.
The Charge against the King, presented before the High Court of Justice at Westminster, 20 January 1649.
The Kings reply.. I would know by what power I am called hither. * * * And when I know what lawful authority, I shall answer. Remember, I am your King — your lawful King — and what sins you bring upon your heads and the judgment of God upon this land, think well upon it — I say think well upon it — before you go further from one sin to a greater. Therefore let me know by what lawful authority I am seated here and I shall not be unwilling to answer. In the meantime, I shall not betray my trust. I have a trust committed to me by God, by old and lawful descent. I will not betray it to answer to a new unlawful authority. Therefore, resolve me that, and you shall hear more of me
Monday January 22nd England was never an elective kingdom but an hereditary kingdom for near these thousand years. Therefore, let me know by what authority I am called hither. I do stand more for the liberty of my people than any here that come to be my pretended judges
a King cannot be tried by any superior jurisdiction on earth. But it is not my case alone — it is the freedom and the liberty of the people of England. And do you pretend what you will, I stand more for their liberties — for if the power without law may make laws, may alter the fundamental laws of the kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life or anything that he calls his own. Therefore, when that I came here I did expect particular reasons to know by what law, what authority, you did proceed against me here
Lord President They sit here by the authority of the Commons of England, and all your predecessors and you are responsible to them —
The King: I deny that. Show me one precedent.
Lord President: Sir, you ought not to interrupt while the court is speaking to you. This point is not to be debated by you, neither will the court permit you to do it. If you offer it by way of demurrer to the jurisdiction of the court, they have considered of their jurisdiction. They do affirm their own jurisdiction....
Tuesday 23rd January notwithstanding the said contumacy of the King and refusal to plead (which in law amounts to a standing mute and tacit confession of the charge)
Saturday 27th January Lord President The court then, sir, hath something else to say unto you, which, although I know it will be very unacceptable, yet notwithstanding they are willing and are resolved to discharge their duty. the Parliament of England, that is not only the highest expounder but the sole maker of the law. Sir, for you to set yourself with your single judgment, and those that adhere unto you to set themselves against the resolution of the highest court of justice — that is not law
Sir, the term traitor cannot be spared We shall easily agree it must denote and suppose a breach of trust, and it must suppose it to be done by a superior when you did break your trust to the kingdom, you did break your trust to your superior. For the kingdom is that for which you were trusted. you are called to account by your superiors — "when a king is summoned to judgment by the people, the lesser is summoned by the greater."
the court does heartily desire that you will seriously think of those evils that you stand guilty of. Sir, you said well to us the other day, you wished us to have God before our eyes. Truly, sir, I hope all of us have so. That God that is the avenger of innocent blood. That God that does bestow a curse upon them that withhold their hands from shedding of blood, which is in the case of guilty malefactors and those that do deserve death
The Sentence
This Court doth adjudge that he the said Charles Stuart, as a Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer and Public Enemy to the good people of this Nation, shall be put to death, by the severing his head from his body'. Bradshaw refused to allow the King to speak in Court after sentence (as a prisoner condemned was already dead in law), and the King was led away still protesting I am not suffered to speak; expect what justice other people will have.
Fifty-eight Commissioners signed the King's death warrant, nine others who were present when the King was sentenced refused to sign. John Downes, a Commissioner who argued in vain that Parliament should have been called to hear the King's final offer of negotiation, and who withdrew from the Court before sentence was passed
On Sunday, 28 January, King Charles was taken from Whitehall back to St James’s Palace where he remained until his execution. He spent the time that was left to him in prayer and in disposing of his remaining possessions. On Monday, Charles bid an emotional farewell to the two of his six children who were still in England: 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth and 8-year-old Henry, duke of Gloucester
The Execution and the King's Speech
The 30th was a bitterly cold day and, having dressed and taken communion, Charles awaited his summons. This came just before 10.00 a.m. and the party left St James’s, walking across the park to Whitehall Palace. Charles was now kept waiting for nearly four hours before finally being led through the Banqueting House, outside which the scaffold had been erected. Once on the scaffold, Charles spoke briefly before kneeling down and placing his head on the block.
I shall be very little heard of anybody here, I shall therefore speak a word unto you here. [Addressed to the party on the scaffold.] Indeed, I cannot hold my peace very well, if I did not think that holding my peace would make some men think that I did submit to the guilt as well as to the punishment. But I think it is my duty, to God first and to my country, for to clear myself both as an honest man, a good king, and a good Christian. In troth, I think it not very needful for me to insist long upon this, for all the world knows that I never did begin a war first with the two Houses of Parliament, and I call God to witness, to whom I must shortly make an account, that I never did intend for to encroach upon their privileges … So that as to the guilt of these enormous crimes that are laid against me, I hope in God that God will clear me of it … God forbid that I should lay it on the two Houses of Parliament … for I do believe that ill instruments between them and me have been the chief cause of all this bloodshed … Yet for all this, God forbid that I should be so ill a Christian as not to say that God’s judgments are just upon me. Many times he does pay justice by an unjust sentence, that is ordinary. I will only say this, that an unjust sentence that I suffered to take effect is punished now by an unjust sentence upon me. For the people, and I truly desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whatsoever. But I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having of government those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having a share in government; sir, 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 … that I am the martyr of the people.
The king’s speech from the scaffold, 30 January 1649
The Eikon Basilike
Charles was buried on 9 February at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. On the same day appeared for sale in London a small book called Eikon Basilike. The Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Sufferings.* The book purported to be written by the king himself during his captivity and in 28 chapters gave his version of events since the calling of the Long Parliament in 1640.
The authorities tried to suppress the book and commissioned John Milton to write an attack upon it, which he did in a book called Eikonoklastes (‘The Image Breaker’). But the authorities could not challenge the image of Charles presented in the Eikon Basilike as a gentle, moderate man, suffering on behalf of his people. The frontispiece, in particular, sums up the image of Charles contained in the book, showing the king as a Christian martyr, patiently enduring his Passion and following in the footsteps of Christ. *Eikon Basilike = ‘The Image of the King’
Eikon Basilike went through some 35 editions in England and 25 in Ireland and abroad in 1649 alone. Many editions were printed in secrecy without the place or name of the printer/publisher appearing on the title page. Some merely carried the imprint "In R.M. Anno. Dom. 1648" (In memory of the king, 1648/1649). The first edition of the Eikon Basilike was issued by Richard Royston, whose shop had become a center of royalist activity. The Eikon Basilike, whether attacked (seeJohn Miltonor revered, was evidently a very popular work in whatever language or format it appeared. It is curious, therefore, that the authorship of the original treatise has not been definitely decided. Some asserted that the Eikon Basilike was at best a collaboration, with the primary responsibility for its composition falling on the shoulders of John Gauden, Bishop of Worcester (and Exeter).
The Aftermath of Regicide
Some historians have argued that the events between Pride’s Purge and the regicide were the culmination of revolution rather than the dawn of a new millennium and that the Army Grandees who sent Charles to his death intended this as a way of containing rather than encouraging further radical change.
Analysis
It is difficult to say the will of the people was being expressed or thwarted by the trial. There were so many factions ranging from the zealots to the unreconstructed Royalists, the Army, the radicals and moderate Presbyterian and Anglicans. It was difficult for the people to follow insofar as this was nothing like a trial that the people has seen before. This is nothing like an English trial, law was by the king, not against the king there was no jury. There was no law under which the king could be tried. In many ways the people were spectators, fascinated with the proceedings as much as they were for, against or confused about where their allegiances lay.
There is only one possible outcome when you put the king on trial for treachery. The other view was that the trial would force the king to accept a negotiated settlement. But in reality was this too late? On the other hand the commissioners retire to their chambers to discuss the prosecution of the trial. They asked him to admit guilt or more accurately make a plea. The English common law has a remedy for making someone plea. They would take outside and crush them between two stones. If they plea they can be condemned and if they refuse and die then their children can inherit. But the court cannot take the King outside and force a plea. Consequently this throws the court in to turmoil. More successful than refusing to plea he says he will plead if the Rump Parliament is disbanded and a representative Parliament is conveyed. I would know by what power, what lawful authority why I am brought hither. He continues to say that if they can do this to him they can try anyone this way.
The court itself went out of its way to find legal precedents on which to try the King but for other 'Godly" commissioners such as Cromwell is concerned Charles has lost the civil war twice and this was divine providence from God and therefore they felt they were right to try him. The court did not prove that he was personally involved in any atrocities only that he was on the battlefield but had resisted Parliament and the routine violence was the King's fault and that he was plotting the Second Civil War and negotiating with the Scots to invade. Given his duplicity of the the King during the negotiations there was a general view that the only way to stop him was to kill him. The trial bumps along for seven days without really getting anywhere and eventually the commissioner, when they retire to the Painted Chamber for the umpteenth time decide they must come to a verdict. Charles suddenly realizes (and perhaps he was the only one who really did not understand the mood of the court) they they are moving towards his execution and he becomes animated and attempts to speak to the court. But it's too late. The court has made its judgment and no more evidence can be taken. It is said that as the true meaning of the verdict dawns upon him he gives out was parliamentarians say way a haughty "Har!" or what Royalists describe more as a verbal sharp catching of breath.
It took four days to plan and build the scaffold for the execution. The king is delayed at his execution for four hours while the parliament passes the law to ensure that the new king cannot be proclaimed upon his death. Once he is led out on to the scaffold the judges have inserted metal rings to pin him to the block in case he struggles. He is also given a much lower block on which to place he his head. He is forces to lie on the block and not kneel making any escape that much more difficult. The executioners have donned disguises to avoid reprisals should they be recognized. Such is the ferment at the execution he cannot give the condemned man's speech to the crowd and is forced to give it to the immediate people around him and by all accounts dies a noble death. It is said this was the first political trial and a template for subsequent trails of leaders for crimes against the people from Louis XVII to the present day however inaccurate that depiction of the trial it may be. [1]
Much has be written about John Milton who took on the role as Parliament’s apologist for executing Charles 1st but as a counterpoint Thomas Hobbes gives us insight to why Charles argues that he was the embodiment of the will of the people and not parliament. Not being a political philosopher myself, my understanding is that, as far is Hobbes in concerned, democracy is a flawed model given that it is subject to constant changes in decision making. He believes that the king is the supreme leader and does not need the consent of parliament because there is a contract between each and every person that there is a sovereign who has one will and one voice to act on behalf of the nation and the people give up their individual rights. This is of course a fairly radical interpretation of a contract between people with their king but it would lead Charles at his trial to assert:
If it were only my own particular case, I would have satisfied myself with the protestation I made the last time I was here against the legality of this court and that a King cannot be tried by any superior jurisdiction on earth. But it is not my case alone — it is the freedom and the liberty of the people of England. And do you pretend what you will, I stand more for their liberties — for if the power without law may make laws, may alter the fundamental laws of the kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life or anything that he calls his own.
John Bradshaw contends that the sovereign’s power comes from the will of the Commons and he is accountable to them. It is certainly an interesting dialogue and it is a pity that this debate is had during the trial instead of being more thoroughly debated and argued. Of course, this provides a dilemma for Bradshaw, because if the King does not enter a plea and does not recognize the court it makes it difficult for any sentence to be legitimate in law or in the eyes of the people. I believe Bradshaw is non-plussed as much by Charles assertion that the court can show no precedent for its actions. The court in effect was reinterpreting the laws as it went along.
| Person | Charles 1 +, Thomas Fairfax +, Thomas Pride +, Henry Ireton +, John Lilburne +, Denzil Holles +, William Prynne +, John Bradshaw +, John Downes +, John Holles +, Robert Harley + and John Milton + |
| DateThis property is a special property in this wiki. | 6 December 1648 + and 30 January 1649 + |
