CHARLES I HERO OR VILLAIN?

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CHARLES IHERO OR VILLAIN?

• DR DAVID L. SMITH
• SATURDAY 17 OCTOBER 2015

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Charles I, by Anthony Van Dyck, c. 1636
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From the Venetian ambassadors report to the Doge
and Senate of Venice, 25 April 1625

• The King observes a rule of great decorum... The
  King has also drawn up rules for himself,
  dividing the day from his very early rising, for
  prayers, exercises, audiences, business, eating
  and sleeping. It is said that he will set apart a
  day for public audience and he does not wish
  anyone to be introduced to him unless sent for.

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From Charles Is Declaration showing the causes
of the late dissolution, 10 March 1629

• No sooner therefore was the Parliament set down
  in January 1629 but...ill-affected men began to
  sow and disperse their jealousies.

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Charles I's proclamation, 27 March 1629

• We shall be more inclinable to meet in Parliament
  again when our people shall see more clearly into
  our intents and actions, when such as have bred
  this interruption shall have received their
  condign punishment, and those who are misled by
  them, and by such ill reports...shall come to a
  better understanding of us and themselves.

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Charles I with M. de St Antoine,by Anthony Van
Dyck, 1633
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Charles I on Horseback,by Anthony Van Dyck, c.
1638
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Sir Henry Woottons Panegyrick to Charles I
(1633)

• We know not what a rebel is what a plotter
  against the commonwealth nor what that is, which
  grammarians call treason the names themselves
  are antiquated with the things.

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Inigo Jones and John Webb, design forPalace of
Whitehall, c. 1638
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Inigo Jones and John Webb, design forPalace of
Whitehall, c. 1638
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William Laud by Anthony Van Dyck, c. 1635-7
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Lauds speech at the second trial of William
Prynne, June 1637

• The altar is the greatest place of Gods
  residence upon earth ... I say the greatest, yea,
  greater than the pulpit for there tis hoc est
  corpus meum, this is my body but in the pulpit
  tis at most but hoc est verbum meum, this is my
  word. And a greater reverence, no doubt, is due
  to the body than to the word of our Lord.

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William Laud, A Relation of the Conference
between William Laud...and Mr Fisher the Jesuit
(1639)

• The Protestants did not get that name by
  protesting against the Church of Rome, but by
  protesting...against her errors and
  superstitions. Do you but remove them from the
  Church of Rome, and our Protestation is ended,
  and the separation too.

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The Impeachment Articles against Laud, presented
to the House of Commons on 26 February 1641

• Laud hath traitorously endeavoured to alter and
  subvert Gods true religion by law established in
  this realm and instead thereof, to set up popish
  superstition and idolatry...He hath urged and
  enjoined divers popish and superstitious
  ceremonies, without any warrant of law and hath
  hath traitorously and wickedly endeavoured to
  reconcile the Church of England with the Church
  of Rome.

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The Grand Remonstrance, passed by the House of
Commons on 22-23 November 1641

• The root of all this mischief we find to be a
  malignant and pernicious design of subverting the
  fundamental laws and principles of government,
  upon which the religion and justice of this
  kingdom are firmly established.

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Charles Is attempt to arrest the Five Members, 4
January 1642, by Charles West Cope (1866)
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Declaration of the Houses in Defence of the
Militia Ordinance, 6 June 1642

• The King's supreme and royal pleasure is
  exercised and declared in this High Court of law
  and council, after a more eminent and obligatory
  manner than it can be by personal act or
  resolution of his own.

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His Majesty's Answer to a Printed Book, 26 May
1642

• Those responsible for all our troubles are a
  faction of malignant, schismatical and ambitious
  persons, whose design is, and always has been, to
  alter the frame of the government both of Church
  and State, and to subject both King and People to
  their own lawless arbitrary power and government.

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Charles I to William Murray, 22 October 1646

• I have long ago resolved rather to shipwreck my
  person, than either my conscience or honour.

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Charles I at his trial, January 1649,by Edward
Bower, 1649
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The sentence of the High Court onCharles I, 27
January 1649

• The said Charles Stuart is guilty of levying war
  against the said Parliament and people, and of
  maintaining and continuing the same ... For all
  which treasons and crimes, this Court doth
  adjudge that he, the said Charles Stuart, as a
  tyrant, traitor and murderer, and public enemy to
  the good people of this nation, shall be put to
  death by the severing of his head from his body.

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Charles Is speech on the scaffold,30 January
1649

• I never did begin a War with the two Houses of
  ParliamentI never did intend for to encroach
  upon their privileges. I am an innocent man.
  I am the martyr of the people I declare before
  you all that I die a Christian, according to the
  profession of the Church of England, as I found
  it left me by my father.

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Woodcut of the execution of Charles I, 30 January
1649, from The Confession of Richard Brandon
(1649)
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Frontispiece of the Eikon Basilike (1649)
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Further reading

• Richard Cust, Charles I A Political Life (2005)
• Mark Kishlansky, Charles I An Abbreviated Life
  (2014)