Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (31 page)

Having failed to raise an English army to fight the Scottish opposition, Charles decided to travel north to raise a Scottish army to fight the English opposition. But he was an absolute ruler, so he left no one in London to govern in his place. Parliament filled the vacuum.

Charles achieved nothing in Scotland. Ireland would become more important as the Catholics went on a killing spree, murdering thousands of the Protestant settlers. As a result, it was necessary to send an army to Ireland to restore order. However, both Parliament and Charles feared how the other might use such an army after the Irish had been dealt with – perhaps before.

Predictably, Charles insisted that control of the army was his royal prerogative. In response, Pym demanded that Parliament should control the army and have the right to veto Charles’s appointment of ministers. After again seeking the Queen’s advice, Charles made his way to Westminster and stormed into the House of Commons with an armed guard.

Charles sat on the Speaker’s chair and demanded the arrest of Pym and four other leading members. He ordered the Speaker to point them out. The Speaker, William Lenthall, fell to his knees and replied: “May it please Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here …” From that moment, the Speaker became the protector of the Commons, no longer the monarch’s overseer. In any case, Pym and the others had already fled.

The King left the chamber to cries of “Privilege!”; although the privilege (immunity) of freedom from arrest in the House only applied to civil matters – so they must have been referring to the privilege of freedom from interference. No monarch has entered the House of Commons since that day. As the King travelled home, the cries of “Privilege!” were repeated in the streets. The city was on the verge of an uprising. Six days later Charles and his family fled as Pym and his colleagues returned to Westminster in triumph. Charles moved to York with Princes Charles and James. The Queen and the younger children (with the Crown Jewels) went to the Netherlands.

Now Charles made yet another error of judgment; he ordered the loyal members of parliament to join him in York. This gave Pym and his supporters unopposed control of Parliament and the capital, a city of over 300,000 people; no other town had 30,000. Then, on 22nd August 1642 (the 157th anniversary of his 3 x great-grandfather’s victory at Bosworth), Charles issued a call to arms; the matter would be decided by war. Wales, the North and the West were behind the King, the South and the East were with Parliament.

Charles marched for London. After the first major battle, at Edgehill in the Cotswolds, the Parliamentary Army fell back, and four weeks later Charles and his forces reached the outskirts of the capital. Again a mistake, as Charles hesitated and then returned to Oxford for the winter.

The battles in 1643 were indecisive. Then Parliament suffered a setback when Pym died. By then, he had negotiated a treaty with the Scots, and several months later, at the battle of Marston Moor just outside York, the military genius of one of the Parliamentary Army’s commanders together with the assistance of the Scots brought a decisive victory. The name of the commander was Oliver Cromwell. Despite victory, Parliament still wanted an accommodation with the King, but Charles rejected the opportunity to negotiate. He was counting on help from abroad.

In 1645, at the Battle of Naseby, the New Model Army led by Fairfax and Cromwell won the Civil War after Charles, making yet another mistake, had divided his forces. Although Charles still retained considerable military support, he decided to surrender to the Scots. He hoped to keep his crown by persuading them to assist him against the English. After all, he was a Scot himself. But when Parliament paid the Scots £500,000, said to be for their military assistance, the King was handed over.

With the war having apparently ended, Parliament ordered the army to disband, but they refused. Charles saw an opportunity to play the army off against Parliament. The army put forward a scheme that would allow Charles to remain king; so did Parliament. Charles rejected both proposals.

In fact, matters were moving the other way. One group, the Levellers, demanded a democratic parliament and the abolition of the monarchy; but that had never been Parliament’s ambition, the majority only wanted to restrict the powers of the king.

Although he was confined to Hampton Court, Charles still lived as a king. He was lightly guarded as he had given his word that he would not try to escape. But a word given to inferiors did not have to be kept. Charles fled south to the Isle of White (one step from the Continent). He surrendered to the Governor, whom he mistakenly believed was sympathetic to the Royalist cause.

Charles now started intrigues in all directions. He offered to give up control of the army for the duration of his reign, at the same time he proposed terms to the Scots under which they would invade England and restore his powers, and so it went on. Then Charles incited Royalist uprisings across the country; in effect, a second civil war. It took several months for the Parliamentary forces to subdue the uprisings.

This second civil war increased the sentiment against Charles. He seemed to care nothing about spilling his subjects’ blood; he was only concerned to secure his own power. Now the army was determined to deal with ‘the man of blood’.

Negotiations between Charles and Parliament continued, the main issue being control of the army. It had become academic; no one controlled the army, it was the army that would control Parliament and the King. In December 1648, the army returned to London, having removed Charles to Hurst Castle on the mainland. The Commons complained that the King had been taken without their consent, and they voted to continue discussions with Charles.

The next day, in Pride’s Purge, Colonel Thomas Pride led a regiment to Westminster where he arrested or sent home all members whose views differed from those of the army. These were principally the Presbyterians, opponents of the King who were willing to restore him provided he handed over control of the army and abolished bishops. The Independents (their numbers swollen by members returning from the war) were of a similar view, but unlike the Presbyterians who wanted command of a uniform religion, the Independents favoured religious toleration within the limits of Anglicanism with each parish being independent and deciding on its own form of worship. Their leader was Cromwell, and the army was with them.

Now the Independents were in charge. Cromwell, by sheer force of personality, would decide the way forward.
The army demanded justice for the deaths of more than 300,000 people (over 5% of the population) in a war for the benefit of one man. Yet Cromwell was not motivated by revenge, rather he was guided by religion.
On 13th December, the Commons voted to bring the King to trial. The charge was that “… Charles Stuart, the now King of England, not content with those many encroachments which his predecessors had made upon the people in their rights and freedoms, hath had a wicked design … to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government and … he hath prosecuted it with fire and sword … whereby the country hath been miserably wasted, … thousands of people murdered and infinite other mischiefs committed …” The House of Lords (only 12 peers turning up for the debate) did not agree; so the Commons proceeded on its own.
It would not be a secret trial; it was going to be held in one of the most public places in the country, Westminster Hall, a vast chamber divided by high screens into the principal courts of law. For this trial, the screens would be removed to create a giant single court.
A total of 135 Commissioners were appointed to act as a jury. They were mayors, Scottish and Irish peers, baronets, members of parliament, merchants, army officers, aldermen and gentry. Some lived far from London, others disagreed with the trial or were frightened, so 55 of the Commissioners did not attend any part of the hearings.
The chief justices of England, although mostly anti-Royalist, all refused to participate. Many politicians and lawyers were concerned that the proposed trial would be unlawful; the decision had been taken by a purged Commons, the Commons had acted without the Lords, and a court could not try the King. Cromwell’s answer was clear: “We will cut off his head with the crown upon it.”
John Bradshaw, a little-known Welsh judge, was chosen to preside. Fearing some sort of violence, he sat throughout the trial wearing a hat lined with metal and with armour beneath his robes. The Attorney General failed to attend, claiming illness (they checked; apparently it was true). So John Cook, a barrister of Gray’s Inn, agreed to prosecute.
At two o’clock on Saturday 20th January, the trial began. The King was summoned. Dressed in black with a cloak bearing the silver star of the Garter, he took his seat, keeping his hat on to show his contempt for the Court.
Bradshaw addressed the King, “Charles Stuart, King of England, the Commons of England assembled in Parliament, being sensible of the great calamities that have been brought upon this nation, and of the innocent blood that hath been shed … which are referred to you as the author of it … you are to hear your charge upon which the Court will proceed.”
John Cook took over. “My Lord, in behalf of the Commons of England and of all the people thereof, I do accuse Charles Stuart here present of high treason…” Cook started to read the indictment. Charles ordered him to stop, rapping him on the shoulder with his silver-headed cane so forcefully that the top fell off. Charles instructed Cook to pick it up. When Cook ignored the command, Charles was nonplussed; he would have to pick up the top himself.
The indictment set out Charles’s position as trusted with limited power to govern according to law. Next, it detailed Charles’s breach of that position by upholding himself as entitled to rule according to his will with unlimited power, in support of which he had traitorously levied war against Parliament and the people, seeking support from abroad. Therefore he was charged with responsibility for the resultant treasons, murders, rapes and burnings. On behalf of the people of England, Cook impeached Charles Stuart as a tyrant, traitor and murderer, and an enemy to the Commonwealth of England.
Charles’s response was to laugh out loud.
Bradshaw told Charles that the Court now expected his answer. “I would know by what power I am called hither,” Charles replied. “I would know by what authority. I mean
lawful
… Remember I am your king … I have a trust committed to me by God … I will not betray it to answer a new unlawful authority.”
To that, Bradshaw responded, “In the name of the people of England, of which you are elected king.”
With some justification, Charles countered, “England was never an elective kingdom, but a hereditary kingdom for near these thousand years.”
Bradshaw had had enough. “Your way of answer is to interrogate the Court, which beseems not you in that condition.”
Charles continued, “I do not come here as submitting to the Court. I will stand as much for the privilege of the House of Commons … as any man here…”, conveniently forgetting his attempt to arrest Pym and his colleagues. “I see no House of Lords here that may constitute a Parliament.”
After further sparring on the same issue between Charles and Bradshaw, the proceedings were adjourned.
Nowadays, if an accused refuses to plead, a plea of not guilty is entered, and the trial proceeds. However, until 1827 a refusal to plead was treated as a plea of guilty. This meant that according to legal practice, Charles would now be convicted, and after sentencing the proceedings would end. That was not what his accusers wanted. They were intent on a public trial at which witnesses would be called to show Charles’s guilt, a conviction on its own was not enough.
The Court reconvened on the Monday. Cook said that if the accused refused to plead, he should now be declared guilty. Charles told the Court that no jurisdiction could try a king.
“Sir, you are not to dispute our authority,” shouted Bradshaw. And so it continued until Charles completed the circle by saying, “I will answer so soon as I know by what authority you do this…”
“It is not for prisoners to require,” answered Bradshaw.
“I am not an ordinary prisoner,” parried Charles, unnecessarily adding “the king is not suffered to give his reasons for the liberty and freedom of all his subjects.”
This allowed Bradshaw to reply scornfully, “How great a friend you have been to the laws and liberties of the people!”
“… I never took up arms against the people, but for the laws,” declared Charles, showing how much better he had been doing by refusing to deal with facts.
That was how the second day of the trial ended. The next afternoon, the trial recommenced. Cook again asked for judgment, but Bradshaw offered Charles one more opportunity to plead. Yet again, Charles refused to recognise the Court, and the session moved nothing forward.
Now a way was found to hear testimony as to Charles’s guilt, a committeewassetuptoheartheprosecutionevidence.Witnesses told of Charles’s call to arms in Nottingham so as to wage war on his subjects, of his encouragement of plunder after victory, of correspondence with foreign powers inviting them to invade, of the abuse and murder of prisoners, and of how when a Royalist officer had tried to stop the stripping and cutting of captured soldiers, Charles had intervened and ordered the continuation of the mistreatment saying, “I do not care if they cut them three times more for they are mine enemies.”
On 27th January, the Court reassembled. The Commissioners had made their decision. First, Bradshaw gave Charles another opportunity to speak in his defence provided he did not challenge the jurisdiction of the Court. Of course Charles did challenge that jurisdiction. Before Bradshaw could interrupt, Charles asked for permission to address Parliament. Bradshaw saw this as a delaying tactic, but there were murmurings amongst the Commissioners, so Bradshaw adjourned the proceedings for further consideration of the request.
The Commissioners were nervous. Outside the army, the passage of time had cooled anti-monarchist feelings, and people now recoiled from killing the King; they wanted a way out. Some of the Commissioners hoped that if he were allowed to address Parliament, Charles might propose a compromise that all sides could accept. But Cromwell was well aware that any deal would eventually be disowned by Charles. Anyway, if he had something to offer, why not tell the Court what it was? Cromwell silenced the doubters by the power of his oratory.
The Court reconvened. Bradshaw told Charles that the Court would suffer no further delaying tactics; Parliament would not be summoned. It was time to announce the verdict.
Charles repeated his request to address Parliament, adding, “I so require you as you will answer it at the dreadful Day of Judgment”. Bradshaw would not be threatened, and he delivered the Court’s judgment. He stated that the King was subject to the law, and he held his office in trust. Contrary to his coronation oath to call parliaments for the protection of the people, Charles had subverted the laws of the land.
Then Bradshaw reached the charge of which Charles was indeed guilty, although it was hardly a criminal offence. “There is a … bargain between the King and his people … the one bond is the bond of protection that is due from the sovereign, the other is the bond of subjection that is due from the subject. Sir, if this bond be once broken, farewell sovereignty …”
Bradshaw was right. From early times, the subject accepted the rule of his lord not from fear or divine right, but in return for protection. Charles had never been concerned with the protection of his subjects, only protection of his own rights. For that he made war on his people.
Bradshaw declared Charles guilty, and the clerk read out the sentence: “that the said Charles Stuart as a tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy … shall be put to death by the severing of his head from his body.” The Court kept to the established practice that although traitors were to be hanged, drawn and quartered, for royal traitors beheading was the method of execution.
Charles asked for permission to address the Court, but it was impossible. Once sentence of death had been passed, the condemned prisoner was treated in law as being already dead. Bradshaw was astonished that Charles did not know this. Charles was led away, pausing only to direct condescending insults at those about him who were shouting “Execution!”, “Justice!”
A scaffold was erected outside the Royal Banqueting House, which was part of Whitehall Palace. On the morning of 30th January 1649, Charles prepared for his execution. He put on two shirts as it was a cold day and he did not wish to shiver with onlookers saying that he was shaking from fear. Now a brief delay as the Commons hurriedly met to pass an Act making it illegal for anyone to proclaim a new king, for they had not yet abolished the monarchy.
At about two o’clock, Charles made his way along the banqueting hall, through one of the windows and on to the scaffold. The executioner and his assistant were already there, masked as was customary; but for this execution they also wore wigs and false beards.
Unusually, the block was only ten inches high, with staples hammered to the floor to fix ropes to in case Charles struggled and had to be tied down. Charles realised that the public, being kept some distance from the scaffold, would not be able to hear anything he said, so he took out some notes and addressed those on the platform.
He said that he spoke as a good king and a good Christian. Charles denied having started any war against Parliament, and he denied the justice of his sentence. However, he accepted his fate as God’s justice for an unjust sentence he had authorised. He was obviously referring to the death warrant he had signed at Parliament’s request for the execution of Wentworth. Charles made no mention of the 300,000 people who had perished in the Civil Wars.
Next, he prayed that those guilty of his murder would repent forthegreatsintheywerecommitting,butheforgaveeveryone and prayed for the peace of the kingdom. Then at great length he gave advice on how to run the country, ending by declaring himself a martyr. Charles took off his jewels and doublet, put his hair under a cap, removed his cloak and rested his head on the block, having complained that it was too low. He stretched out his hands, and with one blow his head was off.