Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > White King: The Tragedy of Charles I > Status Update

‘Taxation had proved more arbitrary during the Commonwealth than it had been under Charles I, liberty was more restricted, and Parliament’s privileges were ignored, while the bullying reformation of manners of Puritan piety continued to be detested. Richard had little of his father’s mettle and stepped down as Protector in May 1559.‘

‘Yet murder remained the simplest way to dispose of Charles. There was no precedent for placing a King of England on trial. The English judges of Mary, Queen of Scots, had argued that the English crown had long claimed suzerainty over Scotland, making her a subject of Elizabeth, against whom she had committed ‘treason’. Murder, dressed up as accident or misfortune, did not raise any potential legal difficulties‘

‘The young radical believed that the garrison commander had gone to get help and he had made the decision that Charles must be removed to somewhere more securely in the army’s control. Charles agreed to leave if Joyce offered him assurances that he would not be harmed, that his servants might accompany him, and that he would now be allowed to practise his religious beliefs. Joyce accepted his terms.’

‘The party associated with Cromwell was called the Independents. They were set on the absolute defeat of the king and included (but were not limited to) many members of the old war-party faction. These men had previously agreed to Scottish demands that Presbyterianism be imposed on England because it was the price of the military support that would achieve Charles’s defeat.’

‘the Commons began investigating Henrietta Maria for treason and drew up articles of impeachment accusing her of ‘having levied war against Parliament and kingdom’. A Royalist newsletter now wondered that ‘good women live the while in a wretched age, who cannot be assisting their husbands in their great necessities... without being traitors to master Pym and some of the good members of both houses’’

‘Already power in England was slipping from Charles’s grasp. The majority of Parliament’s electorate had been troubled by his authoritarianism. They wanted Parliament to reassert its place in the ‘ancient constitution’ and MPs to ensure that the ‘liberties of the subject’ were secured... A new law was passed that Parliament must be called every three years. There could be no further eleven years of personal rule.‘

‘It was dusk when Charles approached London from York on 31 October 1640. A humiliating armistice had been signed with the Scots. Under its terms the Covenanters had been promised £850 a day to maintain their armies on English soil. Newcastle, and the northern counties of Northumberland and County Durham, remained in enemy hands, along with the Tyneside collieries.’

‘Archbishop Laud was said to have personally given the king £3,000. These actions were seen less as a mark of patriotic loyalty than as offering support for authoritarianism, since the money raised for the royal army helped - if only in a modest way - to ensure Charles did not have to call Parliament to pay for it. England had not gone to war without a parliament being called since 1323.’

‘Henrietta Maria was six months pregnant and already she was in labour. When the town midwife at Greenwich examined her, she found the baby was breech and promptly fainted. With the midwife carried from the room, and Henrietta Maria in great pain, the king’s surgeon was left to manage alone. The doctor asked Charles whether he should save mother or child. Charles said the mother. Their son died two hours later.’

‘The Tudors managed their parliaments by intimidation, messy compromises and words of love. For Charles, appeals to the emotions smacked of populism. His enemies used such tactics to raise ‘new and causeless fears’ to turn his people against him. He also found it difficult to gauge people’s feelings and motives and so lacked confidence in his ability to manage his MPs as the Tudors had done.’