A week ago I wrote about obsessions and their consequences for others. Here is a good example.
I will try to keep myself in hand and be brief :-)
I wrote this post a few weeks ago, but decided to gather my will into a fist and moderate the itch to put it on public display right there, waiting for a more suitable date.
In this LiveJournal, a person is repeatedly mentioned for whom I have a soft spot and about which I would like to tell, especially since today this person would have turned 406 years old if he had been born Duncan MacLeod.
With the aforementioned character, our hero is related by the fact that he was also a Scot, but his name was Charles (Charles) Stuart and he was a mortal British monarch.
Childhood
Charles was born on November 19, 1600 in Dunfermline, one of the royal castles of Scotland. His parents, James VI Stuart and Anna of Denmark, already had two children, Henry Frederick (1594), who was destined to succeed his father on the throne in the future, and Elizabeth (1596), and therefore the birth of the Duke of Albany (this was the title received by the second son of the Scottish monarch ) was of little interest. On the eve of the birth, Anna experienced severe stress associated with the disclosure of one of the conspiracies against her husband, in addition, bad heredity associated with the addiction of Jacob and his father, Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary Stuart, to strong drinks, and therefore the baby turned out to be extremely weak , so much so that no one believed that he would live for several years. As a rule, any prince from birth passed under the care of a noble family who was responsible for his growing up and education, but in this case the king had to work hard to find a teacher: the fear that the boy would die in their arms made the aristocrats reject Jacob's proposal. Finally, Lord Kerry and his wife agreed to take custody of Charles. The little duke grew up in the same gloomy Damferlin, rarely leaving the castle and almost never seeing the sun, which, however, is an infrequent guest in those parts. The lack of vitamins, as well as congenital health problems, affected his development: his knee joints were so weak that until the age of three, Karl never learned to walk and hardly spoke. However, one should not consider him a weak-minded or retarded child: as the doctors noted, he understood everything perfectly and was mentally no different from his more healthy peers.
Anna of Denmark and James I (VI)
After the death of Elizabeth I, the English throne passed to the Stuarts, and James VI of Scotland, son of the late Queen Mary Stuart, was proclaimed James I of England. Despite the fact that since 1603 Scotland and England had one monarch, the unification of the two kingdoms did not occur until 1707, under Queen Anne, granddaughter of Charles I.
The new English overlord went to London, leaving his youngest son in Dunfermline, because. the doctors were worried whether the boy would make it through the long journey. Soon an experienced doctor was sent from England, who managed to help the noble ward learn to walk and talk, and in the summer of 1604 the little Duke of York (as the second son of the King of England was called) met with his parents after more than a year of separation. The prince was lodged at Whitehall Palace, where he lived discreetly in later years.
Charles, Duke of York (1605)
Why is it invisible? All attention was riveted on Henry, who was destined for a glorious future and on whose name the British pinned their hopes. Smart, educated, handsome, strong-willed, the Prince of Wales conquered those around him, who did not always notice his arrogance and excessive militancy. In the shadow of such a brilliant older brother, Karl grew up, still a sickly shy child. However, there was no envy or rivalry between the brothers: the younger idolized the older, always showing his adoration and admiration.
Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth, older brother and sister of Charles I
Gradually, the health of the Duke of York began to improve: he outgrew childhood illnesses, and also played a lot of sports, the love of which he retained for the rest of his life. Every morning he jogged around St. James's Park, rode horseback, learned fencing, archery and arquebus, as well as handle other types of weapons, swam in warm weather, played skittles, golf brought from Scotland and tennis he adored. By his youth, the future king was finally strong and almost did not get sick until his death. Childhood ailments, however, did not go unnoticed. Despite the fact that Karl was, according to the descriptions of his contemporaries, "a strong and proportionate physique", his height was 162 cm. In the Stuart family, where many women were about six feet (about 180 cm), this was considered an anomaly. However, the sons of Karl "restored justice" and were born very tall men. Karl also suffered from stuttering all his life, which he could not get rid of. They say it left him only in the Palace of Westminster, where the infamous trial of the king took place.
Carl at the age of 17
In addition to physical training, the prince received an excellent education, supervised directly by Jacob. Despite his dissolute lifestyle, he was famous as one of the most learned people of his time. Karl was fluent in French, Italian and Spanish, spoke Latin and Greek, understood theology, adored literature and sometimes translated himself, and also wrote poetry and drew, however, "on the table." Interest in the natural sciences did not bypass the prince. Karl loved mechanics, especially enthusiastically studying the structure of the clockwork (this addiction, like some others, was passed on to his son Charles II, who collected a large collection of all kinds of watches), and treated medicine with respect. The great William Harvey, his personal physician, dedicated his work on the circulation of the blood to his high patron.
William Harvey, court physician to James I and Charles I
In 1612, England went into mourning: the 18-year-old Prince Henry died. And it was then that the country as a whole and the courtiers in particular began to pay attention to the timid teenager, who always kept aloof and preferred to remain silent in secular conversations. Getting the title of Prince of Wales did little to change Charles's existence. His father's favorites were constantly in the spotlight, the most striking of which were the handsome Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, and George Villiers, known to everyone from The Three Musketeers, who, in the end, received the title of Duke of Buckingham (such a gift was considered as a sign of the greatest affection of a lover James, since at that time all ducal titles belonged only to members of the royal family). The prince and the favorite initially clashed, and in their quarrels the king always took the side of Stini (such was the nickname he gave to Villiers. It was believed that the future duke looked like one of the stained glass images of St. Stephen). Only after the death of Anna of Denmark (1619) were the young people able to find a common language and become close friends. How this happened - let's leave room for imagination :-)
Travel to Madrid
Time passed, and the heir to the English crown had to marry. For a long time, while Henry was still alive, James I was thinking about the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Spanish Infanta, one of the daughters of the ruler of the most powerful house in Europe, and after the death of his eldest son, he did not leave plans to intermarry with the Habsburgs through the marriage of the younger. The negotiations were carried on slowly, so much so that Buckingham's patience snapped, and he proposed to Karl a very eccentric idea - to go incognito to Madrid, in order to shock the hidalgo with his behavior, speed up the negotiation process and return to Foggy Albion with his young wife. Karl, a romantic young man, so much so that he convinced himself that he was in love with the Infanta Maria, whom he had never seen before, agreed with enthusiasm, and together the friends persuaded the aged Jacob to give his august consent to the trip. By hook or by crook, the cautious Stuart, whom Henry IV called "the wisest fool in Christendom", was convinced by "his dear boys" of the expediency of the trip and let them go to Spain. However, immediately after their departure, Jacob realized what a stupid thing he had done: his only son and heir went almost unaccompanied to a country with which, despite the peaceful relations he maintained, he had to constantly keep his eyes open - but it was too late.
Karl himself enjoyed freedom. In addition to them with Buckingham, three more escorts went on the trip. Crossing the English Channel, the little company soon reached Paris, where the prince and duke visited the Louvre. Anyone could enjoy the spectacle of the royal family, which Karl did not fail to take advantage of. On that day, Queen Anne of Austria was rehearsing with some aristocrats a court ballet (a mixture of pantomime rich in allegory with numerous dances; in England, similar performances were called masks). The Prince of Wales did not take his eyes off the young woman, who was considered the first beauty of Europe: still, Infanta Maria was her own sister. The majestic blond Spaniard completely overshadowed the small, angular teenager, the 13-year-old Princess Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII, who, having learned that an English prince was passing through Paris, who was going to woo in Escorial, blushed deeply and said that he "should not look for a bride so far".
In March 1623, a small cavalcade of modestly dressed young nobles entered the capital of Spain. This event, seemingly unremarkable, was immediately notified to the Count of Olivares, the powerful minister of King Philip IV. At first, the Spaniards pretended that Charles had come to change their faith and return England, mired in heresy, to the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church. However, in this matter, the prince was adamant. One day, at the insistence of King Philip, Charles met with the most prominent Spanish theologians, who were supposed to convince the future ruler of Britain of the destructiveness of the Anglican doctrine, but the discussion did not work out, and Stewart left the audience, saying that he was not going to change confessions.
The courtship to Dona Maria was unsuccessful. Severe Castilian etiquette forbade young people to talk, and they could only see each other for a few minutes, of course, in the presence of numerous duennas. Twice Karl had to break the ceremony in order to somehow tell his beloved about the impatience that tormented him and the joy of meeting her: for the first time, when, instead of the prescribed power speech, the prince knelt before the infanta and began to ardently confess his love to her, and in the second, when, during Mary's walk through the closed garden, the Briton climbed over the fence and ran up to the dumbfounded girl, who immediately fainted from such an escapade. However, the princess herself was not delighted at the thought of marrying a heretic. "Better to the monastery!" she cried.
The Spaniards, on the other hand, liked the pretty overseas prince, even though he was a Protestant: one of his actions in the spirit of a knight-errant who went in search of his beloved evoked a response in the ardent Pyrenean souls. Young Philip IV also quickly found common ground with his guest: the young people turned out to be passionate lovers of painting and theater, and the latter in the spring and autumn of 1623 was more than enough. The performance followed the performance, Lope de Vega wrote poems dedicated to the highest visit, bullfights, hunting, folk festivals - all in honor of the English heir to the throne, who so unexpectedly appeared in Madrid. And everything would have been fine if not for Olivares' underlying unwillingness to enter into an Anglo-Spanish marriage. The articles of the treaty were obviously impracticable for the English side - among other things, indulgence was required for British Catholics, as well as the right of the future queen to raise children in the Roman faith (and this is in a country where the word "Catholic" was considered synonymous with "devil worshiper"!). But Karl, tired of delays, agreed to sign such a document. The Spanish diplomats did not rest on this, putting forward more and more new demands, incl. the fact that after the wedding, which must certainly take place in Spain, Dona Maria will remain in her homeland for another year. Realizing that he will not achieve anything good, and also succumbing to Buckingham's persuasion, the Prince of Wales leaves for home, after which he forever abandons the idea of a Spanish marriage.
Prince of Wales after returning from Madrid
In England, the failed bridegroom was greeted with universal rejoicing, and the recently elevated Duke of Buckingham for some time became a hero of the nation, who snatched the prince from the clutches of the hated papists. After the failure of the matchmaking, Karl and Villiers began to actively preach the idea of war with the presumptuous Habsburgs. At the parliament that opened in 1624, the prince, who replaced his father who fell ill, especially appealed to the idea of \u200b\u200bprotecting the rights of German Protestants, in particular, Elector Frederick of the Palatinate, who was deprived of his possessions, who married his sister Elizabeth in 1613. The deputies supported the idea of war, but they did not want to give money for a military expedition. It was possible to recruit a small corps under the leadership of Mansfeld, but the victorious procession ended before it began. The reconquest of the Palatinate (Palatinate) had to be postponed.
At the same time, marriage negotiations began, this time with France, and the bride, instead of the blond infanta, was the dark-haired Henrietta Maria, the daughter of Henry IV and Mary Medici, still beloved by the people. The marriage contract was in many ways reminiscent of the Spanish version, but Jacob and Charles agreed to all the concessions that the French side demanded of them, deciding that time would tell which of the points were to be fulfilled and which were not. The young betrothed exchanged several kind letters and whiled away the time before the wedding in looking at each other's portraits. Everything went to the meeting without five minutes of the Princess of Wales, but Henrietta de Bourbon had already set foot on the English soil: on March 27, 1625, James I died.
Beginning of the reign
On May 1 of the same year (or May 11, according to the continental calendar) in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, a magnificent marriage ceremony took place between the sister of Louis XIII and the English king, who was represented by his distant relative, Duke Claude de Chevreuse. The celebrations in connection with this event lasted for several weeks, during which the attention of many ladies and gentlemen was riveted to the Duke of Buckingham, who was sent for the bride of his master, a brilliant nobleman, who aroused general interest in the luxury of outfits, jewelry (some of which the late Jacob gave his Stini after his death wife) and eccentric behavior. Many hated the Duke, many admired him. According to rumors, Anna of Austria was among the latter. Finally, on June 12, after a day of travel through the stormy strait, 15-year-old Henrietta ended up in Dover. Marie de Medici previously sent a letter to her son-in-law, where she asked to allow her youngest daughter to rest after the trip. Fulfilling the wish of the august lady, Charles I met with his wife the next morning. At the same time, a modest, almost home wedding ceremony took place - this time a Protestant one - in Canterbury.
Henrietta Maria at age 15
A few days after meeting with his wife, the young king was to open his first parliament. Things went wrong from the very beginning: instead of the expected subsidies for the war with Spain and the Empire, where the Habsburgs also ruled, the Lords and Communities began to present their demands to the Crown. Having achieved only a small financial assistance, the enraged Charles dissolved Parliament. In the autumn of the same year, a sea expedition to Cadiz ended in failure, due to repeat the deed of the Earl of Essex, the favorite of Elizabeth I (then English ships captured rich booty that the Spaniards were carrying from the New World). Responsibility for the defeat fell on the organizer of the campaign, the Duke of Buckingham. The personality of the favorite, who enjoyed great influence on James I and gained even more weight under his son, gradually began to cause discontent more and more, and already at the second parliament, which met in February 1626, the chambers demanded that the duke be impeached. Only at the cost of another dissolution of the assembly did the king manage to prevent the fall of his friend.
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
Shortly before the opening of the session, on February 2, the coronation of Charles I took place in Westminster Abbey. Contrary to the tradition according to which the English monarchs dressed in gold and purple, the new king preferred white clothes, which should symbolize the purity of his intentions for his state. Some guests saw this as a bad omen: after all, white was previously considered the color of mourning (after the coronation, the monarch received the nickname "White King"). Before sinking into the coronation chair, Karl stumbled over the step of the dais on which it was located, but Buckingham managed to support his august friend. When the crown was laid on the head of the monarch, the peers for some reason hesitated and only after a sign from the Earl of Arundel did they shout: "God save the king!" The young queen did not appear at the ceremony. Henrietta, an ardent Catholic, refused to accept the crown from the hands of a Protestant bishop, as her brother and mother's letters convinced her. She also hated the idea of being in a closed box during the coronation, since religious principles prevented her from participating in the sacred rite.
This refusal only exacerbated the relationship of the young spouses. Henrietta's teenage irascibility, as well as her susceptibility to the opinions of the French retinue, who urged the daughter of Henry the Great to always remain French in the country of the island barbarians, ran into the family stubbornness of the Stuarts, supported by Buckingham. The princess disliked her husband's favorite almost immediately, and the colossal influence that the duke had on the king forced her to arrange scenes for Karl. Things got to the point that Charles ordered the nobles who accompanied his bride to be sent back to France, leaving her only an old nanny and a dozen servants. Henrietta, at first inconsolable, soon became friends with her English ladies, especially Countess Lucy Carlisle, who was in part the inspiration for the famous Milady of Dumas. The visit of Marshal Bassompierre, who was supposed to restore the shaky relations between England and France, was not successful as a diplomatic mission - the British were dissatisfied with the construction of the fleet begun by Cardinal Richelieu, and all sorts of misunderstandings arose in connection with the behavior of English and French privateers. However, the authority of a friend of Henry IV helped the marshal convince the obstinate princess that her life in England is far from being as sad as she herself thinks, and the king, her husband, behaves quite kindly with her. Henrietta subsided, but continued to quietly hate Buckingham.
War with France and death of Buckingham
By 1627, Anglo-French relations had heated up to the limit, and in July the fleet, led by High Admiral Buckingham, set off for the shores of La Rochelle. The pretext for the expedition was to help the Huguenots allegedly oppressed by the French government. For several months, the British unsuccessfully tried to break the defense of the island of Re, led by the Marquis de Thouara. In October, having lost many soldiers and sailors, Buckingham turned to the shores of his homeland. Despite the defeat, the king's attitude towards the favorite did not change; moreover, Charles gave the duke a reception more befitting of the winner. The spiteful critics of the brilliant nobleman, who had risen from the position of the son of a poor Leicestershire squire to the foot of the throne, had only to admit that Fortune was still merciful to George Villiers.
The third parliament of Charles I was famous for the fact that during its meetings the Petition of Right was adopted, the main provisions of which repeated the Magna Carta (1215), which became a kind of prototype of the national constitution. The next attempts to bring Buckingham to court again failed, and the king was imbued with the deepest hostility to the especially fierce detractors of the duke, in particular, to Sir John Eliot.
On August 23, 1628, an event occurred in Portsmouth that turned into jubilation for the people, and tears for the king. The retired officer John Felton, taking advantage of the turmoil that reigned in the house where the duke was staying before leaving for the second expedition to Larochelle, inflicted a mortal wound on Buckingham with a fivepenny knife. The favorite of the two kings died almost instantly. As it turned out later, Felton distinguished himself on the island of Re and was supposed to be promoted, but the duke twice denied him the rank. Due to non-payment of salaries, the wife and daughter of the lieutenant died of starvation, and Felton himself was in a state close to insanity. In the lining of his hat - in case he was killed during his arrest - the officer put an excerpt from the parliamentary speech of the above-mentioned John Eliot, where he denounced the favorite. When asked why he killed Buckingham, Felton replied that he wanted to rid the country of the duke's corruption and embezzlement.
The British praised the murderer, and the king, who was told the news during a prayer service, locked himself in his bedroom for two days to mourn his friend. Later, he paid all the debts of the deceased, paid off his servants, and also promised the widow, whom he repeatedly visited, that the duke's children would grow up with his own. Subsequently, George and Francis Villiers became close friends of the future Charles II, and their older sister Mary, at the initiative of the king, married his cousin, the Duke of Lennox.
Family idyll
Buckingham's death was the signal for the most decisive change in Stewart's family life: the young couple gained complete understanding, and their marriage became exemplary in its way. Charles I is considered one of the rare monarchs who did not have mistresses and were devoted to his wife with all his heart. Neither religious differences, nor rearrangements in the court staff no longer violated the marital idyll. The people around were surprised to see how such different people - the withdrawn, melancholy Karl and the restless, sometimes frivolous Henrietta - live in perfect harmony. They practically did not quarrel, and the fact that the king spent every night in his wife's bedroom introduced the fashion for marital fidelity at court, at least for its visibility :-)
Henrietta Maria
The Queen, after trying unsuccessfully for three years to conceive, soon found herself expecting a child. Shortly before the birth, Lady Eleanor Davis, famous for her gift of soothsaying, predicted to Henrietta the birth, baptism and death of her little son, which should happen on the same day. Also, the unusual lady said that the young queen would be happy for the next sixteen years. Looking ahead, it should be noted that both prophecies came true. In May 1629, Henrietta traveled by barge to Somerset House, one of the royal palaces, where the laying of a Catholic chapel took place. On the way back, the young woman lost her balance and fell, and she was also greatly frightened by two dogs grappling nearby. The next day, premature labor began, which turned out to be so difficult that Karl was faced with a choice - either mother or child. Without any hesitation, Karl asked to save his wife. The son, named Charles James, lived for about two hours after being hastily baptized by Bishop Laud. On the same day in the evening, the prince was buried in one of the crypts of Westminster Abbey.
Henrietta, who was not distinguished by good health, but possessed a rare fortitude and vitality, very soon began to recover. A year later, on May 29, 1630, the future Charles II was born, whose physical condition did not present any problems. Gradually, the number of inhabitants of the nursery in the royal palace increased: in 1631, Mary Henrietta was born, in 1633 - James, Duke of York, the future James II, followed by Elizabeth (1635), Anna (1637), Catherine (1639) and Henry , Duke of Gloucester (1640). Little Catherine suffered the fate of Charles James, and Anna died at the age of three from a lung disease. The royal couple turned out to be loving and caring parents, devoting a lot of time to the upbringing and education of their offspring, and most importantly, direct communication with them.
Five children of Charles I (from left to right): Mary, James (future James II), Charles (future Charles II), Elizabeth, Anna
"Eleven Years of Tyranny"
Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland
Period 1629-1640 entered English history as Sole Rule or, to use the terminology of more revolutionary historians, Tyranny. The fact is that at the beginning of 1629, Charles I, tired of constant battles with parliament for subsidies, dissolved both chambers, determined to rule independently. To begin with, he concluded peace treaties with France (1629) and Spain (1630). In the latter case, the great Rubens was sent to London as a "probe of the soil", who, in addition to painting talents, had a penchant for diplomatic games. The outside world, as well as the financial policies of Charles and the Lord Treasurer Richard Weston, allowed the Crown to dispense with soliciting money from the Commons. According to Pauline Gregg, the main sources of income were:
* so-called. "ship money", i.e. a tax formerly levied on the inhabitants of the coastal counties for the maintenance of the fleet. Under Charles I, this obligation extended to all the counties of England and Wales;
* fines for the use of royal forest land. In many of them there was never a monarch, and there was a kind of self-seizure of the territory by gentlemen and peasants. The size of the fine was small, but an impressive number of offenders provided the treasury with a stable income (they were not driven from these lands, but the fine was paid regularly);
* custody of the possessions of underage gentlemen, i.e. the king was considered the manager of the household of the heirs of noble estates until they reached the age of 21;
*fee for a knighthood. Any gentleman with an annual income of 40 pounds or more had to accept the title of knight (by paying a certain contribution to the treasury for this) or refuse, but in this case a fine was imposed on him. By the way, among those who refused was Oliver Cromwell, who was considered one of the major landowners in the district of Ely, from whom he was elected to the parliament;
* the long-established right of the English monarchs to collect per ton and per pound.
The amount of taxes was small, besides, the money was not collected regularly, but "on occasion", but the very fact of royal arbitrariness, which did not receive approval in parliament, caused outrage. As subsequent checks showed, all funds were spent purposefully - to strengthen Britain. Karl paid special attention to the development of the fleet, laying down shipyards, building new ships, repairing and re-equipping old ones. Also, his plans included re-equipping the army, replacing the arquebuses that had served their time with more modern muskets. The king patronized trading companies and colonists who went to the New World. In honor of him, Carolina got its name, and on behalf of Henrietta Maria, whom the British simply called Queen Mary, Maryland. Karl significantly reduced the cost of the court, abolishing unnecessary posts. He also introduced new rules of conduct, as a result of which his court began to be considered the most well-mannered in Europe, in contrast to the court of James I, famous for liberty of morals and jokes. As the wife of one of the supporters of Parliament wrote, the respect for the king was so great that, although not the most decent things continued to take place, this happened in secret. For example, Henry Jermyn, who became the father of an illegitimate child of one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting and refused to marry his beloved, was removed from the court.
In historical and fiction literature, it is widely believed that Charles I was rather frivolous in his duties, devoting a minimum of time to them. This is far from true. The king always delved into state affairs, carefully listened to advisers, carefully studied all the documents sent to him, making notes and corrections, for which he received the nickname "August hack". Pedantry was characteristic of him not only in observing etiquette ...
Karl preferred to spend his free time with his family or reading a book. He adored the theater and, despite not having a very developed sense of humor, laughed heartily at the performances of plays by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, the famous comedians of that time. The passion for hunting was hereditary in the Stuart family; it is known that both parents of Karl could for weeks, in the heat of excitement, chase through the forests and fields for prey. His love for painting and collecting paintings by various masters was known throughout Europe. Agents were looking for works by Titian, Raphael, Correggio and other outstanding masters for the king. Starting as a child collecting coins, in 1627 Charles acquired the collection of the Duke of Mantua, Rubens, Van Dyck and a dozen other lesser-known artists worked for him. He could spend hours wandering through the galleries, telling friends about the merits of this or that masterpiece. Unfortunately, during the years of the Revolution, most of the collection was sold out, many works went abroad; some of them were returned to England during the Restoration, while the rest disappeared into continental collections.
On a cold January morning in 1649, not an ordinary criminal, but a king who had ruled his people for twenty-four years, rose to the scaffold set in the center of London. On this day, the country completed the next stage of its history, and the execution of Charles 1 became the finale. In England, the date of this event is not marked on the calendar, but it has entered its history forever.
Scion of the noble family of the Stuarts
The Stuarts are a dynasty descended from an old Scottish home. Its representatives, more than once occupying the English and Scottish thrones, left their mark on the history of the state like no other. Their rise dates back to the beginning of the 14th century, when Count Walter Stuart (Steward) married the daughter of King Robert I Bruce. It is unlikely that this marriage was preceded by a romantic story, most likely, the English monarch considered it good to strengthen his connection with the Scottish aristocracy with this union.
Charles the First, whose tragic fate will be discussed in this article, was one of the descendants of the Honorable Count Walter, and, like him, belonged to the Stuart dynasty. With his birth, he "made happy" future subjects on November 19, having been born in the old residence of the Scottish monarchs - Denfermline Palace.
For the subsequent accession to the throne, little Charles had an impeccable origin - his father was King James VI of Scotland, and his mother was Queen Anne of Denmark. However, the case was spoiled by Henry's elder brother, the Prince of Wales, who was born six years earlier, and therefore had a priority right to the crown.
In general, fate was not particularly generous to Charles, of course, if this can be said about a boy from the royal family. As a child, he was a sickly child, somewhat delayed in development, and therefore later than his peers began to walk and talk. Even when his father succeeded to the English throne in 1603 and moved to London, Charles could not follow him, as the court physicians feared that he would not endure the road.
It should be noted that physical weakness and thinness accompanied him all his life. Even in ceremonial portraits, the artists failed to give this monarch any kind of majestic appearance. Yes, and the growth of Charles 1 Stuart was only 162 cm.
Path to the royal throne
An event occurred that determined the entire future fate of Charles. That year, a terrible typhus epidemic broke out in London, from which it was impossible to hide even within the walls of the royal castle. Fortunately, he himself was not injured, since he was in Scotland at that time, but his older brother Henry, who was trained from birth to rule the country, and on whom all high society had high hopes, became a victim of the disease.
This death opened the way to power for Charles, and as soon as the mourning ceremonies ended in Westminster Abbey, where Henry's ashes rested, he was elevated to the rank of Prince of Wales - heir to the throne, and over the next years his life was filled with all sorts of preparations for the execution of such a high mission.
When Charles was twenty years old, his father took care of arranging his future family life, since the marriage of the heir to the throne is a purely political matter, and Hymeneus is not allowed to shoot at him. James VI stopped his choice on the Spanish infanta Anna. This decision aroused the indignation of members of parliament who did not want a dynastic rapprochement with the Catholic state. Looking ahead, it should be noted that the future execution of Charles 1 will have largely religious overtones, and such a reckless choice of the bride was the first step towards her.
However, at that moment, nothing foreshadowed trouble, and Charles went to Madrid with the desire to personally intervene in the marriage negotiations, and at the same time look at the bride. On the trip, the groom was accompanied by a favorite, or rather, his dad's lover - George Villiers. According to historians, VI had a big and loving heart, in which not only court ladies, but also their venerable husbands could fit.
Unfortunately, the negotiations in Madrid stalled, as the Spanish side demanded that the prince convert to Catholicism, and this was completely unacceptable. Charles and his new friend George were so stung by the obstinacy of the Spaniards that, upon returning home, they demanded that Parliament break off relations with their royal court, and even the landing of an expeditionary force to conduct hostilities. It is not known how it would have ended, but, fortunately, at that moment a more accommodating bride turned up - the daughter of Henry IV Henrietta Maria, who became his wife, and the rejected groom calmed down.
At the pinnacle of power
Charles 1 Stuart ascended the throne after the death of his father, which followed in 1625, and from the very first days he began to conflict with parliament, demanding subsidies from him for all kinds of military adventures. Not getting what he wanted (the economy was cracking at the seams), he dismissed it twice, but was forced to convene it again each time. As a result, the king obtained the necessary funds by imposing illegal and very burdensome taxes on the population of the country. History knows many similar examples, when short-sighted monarchs plugged budget holes by tightening taxes.
Subsequent years also did not bring improvements. His friend and favorite George Villiers, who after the death of James VI finally moved to the chambers of Charles, was soon killed. This scoundrel turned out to be dishonest, for which he paid the price by collecting taxes. Not having the slightest idea in the economy, the king always considered the only way to replenish the treasury more and more requisitions, fines, the introduction of various monopolies and similar measures. The execution of Charles 1, which followed in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, was a worthy finale to such a policy.
Shortly after the assassination of Villiersom, a certain Thomas Wentworth stood out from the circle of courtiers, who managed to make a brilliant career during the reign of Charles the First. He owns the idea of establishing absolute royal power in the state, based on a regular army. Subsequently, becoming the viceroy of the king in Ireland, he successfully implemented this plan, suppressing dissent with fire and sword.
Reforms that caused social tension in Scotland
Charles the First did not show far-sightedness in the religious conflicts that tore the country apart. The fact is that for the most part it consisted of followers of the Presbyterian and Puritan churches, which belonged to two of the many branches of Protestantism.
This often served as a pretext for conflicts with representatives of the Anglican Church, which dominated England and was supported by the government. Unwilling to seek a compromise, the king tried to establish her dominance everywhere by violent measures, which caused extreme indignation among the Scots, and eventually led to bloodshed.
However, the main mistake, which resulted in the civil war in England, the execution of Charles 1 and the subsequent political crisis, should be considered his extremely ill-conceived and mediocre policy towards Scotland. Most of the researchers of such a sadly ended reign unanimously agree on this.
The main direction of his activity was the strengthening of unlimited royal and ecclesiastical power. Such a policy was fraught with extremely negative consequences. In Scotland, traditions have developed from ancient times that consolidated the rights of the estates and elevated the inviolability of private property to law, and the monarch encroached on them in the first place.
The shortsightedness of royal policy
In addition, it should be noted that the biography of Charles 1 was tragic not so much because of the goals he pursued, but because of the ways they were realized. His actions, usually overly straightforward and ill-conceived, invariably caused popular outrage and contributed to the strengthening of the opposition.
In 1625, the king turned against himself the vast majority of the Scottish nobility by issuing a decree that went down in history under the name of the Act of Revocation. According to this document, all the decrees of the English kings, starting from 1540, on the transfer of land plots to the nobles were annulled. To preserve them, the owners were required to contribute to the treasury an amount equal to the value of the land.
In addition, the same decree ordered the return to the Anglican Church of its lands located on the territory of Scotland, and seized from it during the Reformation, which established Protestantism in the country, which fundamentally affected the religious interests of the population. It is not surprising that after the publication of such a provocative document, many protest petitions were submitted to the king from representatives of various sectors of society. However, he not only defiantly refused to consider them, but also aggravated the situation by introducing new taxes.
Nomination of the episcopate and abolition of the Scottish Parliament
From the first days of his reign, Charles I began to nominate Anglican bishops to the highest government posts. They were also given the majority of seats in the royal council, which significantly reduced the representation of the Scottish nobility in it, and gave new reason for discontent. As a result, the Scottish aristocracy was removed from power and deprived of access to the king.
Fearing the strengthening of the opposition, the king from 1626 practically suspended the activities of the Scottish Parliament, and by all means prevented the convening of the General Assembly of the Scottish Church, into whose worship, by his order, a number of Anglican canons alien to them were introduced. It was a fatal mistake, and the execution of Charles 1, which became the sad end of his reign, was an inevitable consequence of such miscalculations.
Beginning of the first civil war
When it came to the infringement of the political rights of the nobility, such actions provoked protest only in their narrow class circle, but in the event of violation of religious norms, the king turned the whole people against himself. This again caused a flood of indignation and protest petitions. Like last time, the king refused to consider them, and added fuel to the fire by executing one of the most active petitioners, presenting him with the usual charge of treason in such cases.
The spark that blew up the powder magazine in Scotland was an attempt to hold a divine service in Edinburgh on July 23, 1637, built on the basis of the Anglican liturgy. This caused not only the indignation of citizens, but also an open rebellion that swept most of the country, and went down in history as the First Civil War. The situation escalated with each passing day. The leaders of the noble opposition drafted and sent to the king a protest against the church reform alien to the people, and the widespread rise of the Anglican episcopate.
The king's attempt to defuse the situation by forcibly removing the most active oppositionists from Edinburgh only exacerbated general discontent. As a result, under pressure from his opponents, Charles I was forced to make concessions by removing the bishops hated by the people from the royal council.
The result of the general unrest was the convening of the National Convention of Scotland, which consisted of delegates from all social strata of society, and was headed by representatives of the highest aristocracy. Its participants drafted and signed a manifesto on the joint actions of the entire Scottish nation against attempts to make any changes in their religious foundations. A copy of the document was handed to the king, and he was forced to accept. However, this was only a temporary lull, and the lesson taught to the monarch by his subjects did not go to the future. Therefore, the execution of Charles 1 Stuart was the logical conclusion of the chain of his mistakes.
New civil war
This arrogant, but very unlucky ruler disgraced himself in another part of his subordinate kingdom - Ireland. There, for a certain and very solid bribe, he promised patronage to local Catholics, however, having received money from them, he immediately forgot about everything. Offended by this attitude, the Irish took up arms to refresh the king's memory with it. Despite the fact that by this time Charles I had finally lost the support of his own parliament, and with it the main part of the population, he tried with a small number of regiments loyal to him to change the situation by force. So, on August 23, 1642, the Second Civil War in England began.
It should be noted that the commander Charles I was as mediocre as the ruler. If at the beginning of hostilities he managed to win several fairly easy victories, then on July 14, 1645, his army was utterly defeated in the battle of Nesby. Not only was the king captured by his own subjects, but an archive containing a lot of compromising material was also captured in his camp. As a result, many of his political and financial machinations, as well as appeals for military assistance to foreign states, became public.
crowned prisoner
Until 1647, Charles I was held in Scotland as a prisoner. However, even in this unenviable role, he continued to make attempts to negotiate with representatives of various political groups and religious movements, generously distributing promises right and left that no one believed. In the end, the jailers got the only possible benefit from it, transferring (selling) for four hundred thousand pounds sterling to the English Parliament. The Stuarts are a dynasty that has seen a lot in its lifetime, but it has never experienced such a shame.
Once in London, the deposed king was placed in Holmby Castle, and then transferred to Hampton Court Palace, under house arrest. There, Charles had a real opportunity to return to power, accepting the proposal with which he was approached by a prominent political figure of that era for whom the execution of Charles 1, which had become quite real by that time, was unprofitable.
The conditions proposed to the king did not contain any serious restrictions on royal powers, but even here he missed his chance. Desiring even greater concessions, and starting secret negotiations with various political groups in the country, Charles evaded a direct answer to Cromwell, as a result of which he lost patience and abandoned his plan. Thus, the execution of Charles 1 Stuart was only a matter of time.
The tragic outcome was accelerated by his escape to the Isle of Wight, located in the English Channel, not far from the British coast. However, this adventure also ended in failure, as a result of which house arrest in the palace was replaced by imprisonment in a prison cell. From there, Baron Arthur Capel tried to rescue his former monarch, whom Charles once made a peer and elevated to the very top of the court hierarchy. But, not having sufficient strength, he soon found himself behind bars.
Trial and execution of the deposed king
There is no doubt that the most characteristic feature of this offspring of the Stuart family was a penchant for intrigue, which as a result ruined him. For example, while making vague promises to Cromwell, he was simultaneously negotiating behind the scenes with his opponents from Parliament, and receiving money from Catholics, he also supported Anglican bishops. And the very execution of King Charles 1 was largely accelerated due to the fact that, even while under arrest, he did not stop sending calls for an uprising everywhere, which in his position was complete madness.
As a result, most of the regiments submitted a petition to Parliament demanding a trial of the former king. It was 1649, and long gone were the hopes with which British society greeted his ascension to the throne. Instead of a wise and far-sighted politician, it received a proud and limited adventurer.
To conduct the trial of Charles I, Parliament appointed one hundred and thirty-five commissioners, headed by a prominent jurist of the time, John Bradshaw. The execution of King Charles 1 was a foregone conclusion, and therefore the whole procedure did not take much time. The former monarch, a man who only yesterday commanded a mighty power, was unanimously recognized as a tyrant, traitor and enemy of the fatherland. It is clear that the only possible sentence for such grave crimes could be death.
The execution of the English king Charles 1 took place in the early morning of January 30, 1649 in London. We must give him his due - even having ascended the scaffold, he retained his presence of mind, and addressed the assembled crowd with his dying speech. In it, the convict stated that civil liberties and freedoms are provided exclusively by the presence of a government and laws that guarantee citizens life and inviolability of property. But at the same time, this does not give the people the right to claim to rule the country. The monarch and the crowd, he said, are completely different concepts.
Thus, even on the verge of death, Charles defended the principles of absolutism, to which all the Stuarts were adherents. England still had a long way to go before a constitutional monarchy was fully established, and the people, contrary to their opinion, got the opportunity to participate in the government of the state. However, the foundation for this has already been laid.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the execution of the English King Charles 1 gathered a huge crowd of people who were in a state close to shock throughout this bloody performance. The climax came when the executioner lifted the severed head of their former sovereign by the hair. However, the traditional words in such cases that it belongs to a state criminal and traitor were not heard.
So, 1649 put a bloody end to the reign of this king. However, another eleven years will pass, and in the history of England there will come a period called the Restoration of the Stuarts, when representatives of this ancient family will again ascend the throne. The second civil war and the execution of Charles 1 were its threshold.
There is little in the history of trials that would have such a strong influence not only on contemporaries, but also on subsequent generations, as the trial and execution of the English King Charles I.
During his reign, Charles I did everything to embitter and set his people against him. For more than eighteen years there has been no Parliament in England. Charles surrounded himself with new advisers, very unpopular with the people. Westward was a friend of Spain and Rome, Laud was such a zealous Catholic that Pope Urban offered him a cardinal's cap.
Charles ruled England by fear and force. Prison, corporal punishment, hard labor reigned everywhere. Obedient courts forced the people to accept Catholicism. Mounted detachments were sent to the provinces to collect taxes. People, on the orders of Karl, were seized, flogged, cut off their noses and ears, burned their cheeks.
Before that, monarchs were often forcibly overthrown from the throne, many of them ended their lives under the executioner's ax, but at the same time they were always declared usurpers of the throne - they were deprived of their lives, but by order of another, declared legitimate sovereign.
When the grandmother of Charles I, Mary Stuart, was tried, it was impossible to find suitable judicial precedents, although it was not about the reigning queen, who, moreover, was tried in another country and at the behest of the monarch of the country where she spent almost two decades in prison.
The process of Charles I struck the imagination with the strength of the character of the enemies who clashed in this matter. Charles could be blamed in many ways: both in an effort to establish royal absolutism of a foreign type on English soil, and in complete promiscuity in means, and in readiness for any perjury, for cynically trampling on the most solemn promises, for conspiring with the enemies of the country and for betraying his most loyal supporters.
But one cannot deny Karl his indomitable energy, his conviction in the justice of his grandfather, that the bad means he uses serve a good purpose. Already in his dying speech from the scaffold, he declared to the assembled crowd: “I must tell you that your liberties and freedom are contained in the presence of government, in those laws that best ensure your life and the safety of property.
This does not come from participation in management, which does not belong to you. The subject and the sovereign are completely different concepts. A few minutes before his execution, Charles continued to defend absolutism with the same stubbornness as in the years of the greatest flowering of his power.
The revolutionaries had to be ripe for the struggle and for the triumph over such a convinced enemy, behind which stood centuries-old traditions, habits and customs of many generations. Undoubtedly, only pressure from below, from the people, prompted the leaders of the parliamentary army - Oliver Cromwell and his associates - to deepen the revolution, to abolish the monarchy and proclaim a republic.
The London crowd was also irritated by the self-serving politics of Parliament. Dissatisfaction was caused by the growing burden of taxes, the ruin associated with many years of civil war. A large number of parliamentary politicians were afraid of the people and were ready to cling to the monarchy as a possible ally.
The House of Lords refused to take a decision on putting Charles on trial. The House of Commons, subjected to a "cleansing" of supporters of the agreement with the king, appointed 135 persons as judges. Their loyalty was believed to be reliable. But 50 of them immediately refused the appointment, most of the rest, under various pretexts, did not put their signatures under the verdict.
The iron will of Cromwell and his inner circle was needed in order to overcome the fears of some, the objections of others, the intrigues and selfish calculations of others, and decide on an extraordinary measure that struck Europe.
However, to conduct a trial of the king in accordance with constitutional principles, which included the monarch's lack of accountability to his subjects for his actions, was a hopeless affair in advance.
Moreover, for Charles I, who was also trying, in essence, to change the form of government in England following the example of continental absolutism, the constitutional ground was the most convenient for challenging the competence of the court.
Braidshaw, the President of the Court, announced to "Charles Stuart, King of England" that he would be tried by the decision of the English people and their Parliament on charges of treason.
Charles was charged with the fact that, being recognized as king of England and therefore endowed with limited power and the right to govern according to the laws of the country, he maliciously strove for unlimited and tyrannical power and for this purpose treacherously waged war against Parliament.
For his part, Karl demanded an explanation of what legal authority he was obliged to give an account of his actions (knowing full well that such authority does not exist under the constitution). “Remember that I am your king, the rightful king,” Karl insisted. - England has never been a state with an elected king.
For nearly a thousand years it has been a hereditary monarchy." The King further announced that he was in favor of the "rightly understood" right of the House of Commons, but that without the House of Lords it did not form Parliament. "Show me," added the king, "legal authority, confirmed by the word of God, the Holy Scripture, or the constitution of the realm, and I will answer." Karl tried to turn all the constitutional arguments and all the arguments from the Holy Scriptures that his opponents operated on against them.
The results of the verbal duel on the first day were not very encouraging. The "constitutional" argumentation of the prosecution immediately revealed its weaknesses, and this gave additional grounds for those who hesitated to express their doubts. But it also strengthened the determination of people like Attorney Cook, who said: "He must die, and the monarchy must die with him."
On Monday morning, 62 judges gathered for a private meeting to discuss how to respond to the king's challenge to the powers of the court. And again it was decided to maintain the appearance of the constitutionality of his actions, compliance with traditional law. Further refusal of the king to answer the question whether he pleads guilty was decided to be considered an affirmative answer.
In the afternoon, the second regular session of the court opened. Braidshaw told the king that the court would not allow his authority to be questioned. Charles again raised objections of a constitutional nature: by law, the monarch cannot be a criminal, the House of Commons has no judicial power. The debate started again. On Tuesday, at a private meeting, it was again decided to once again give the king the opportunity to answer the accusation if he agrees to recognize the authority of the court. Otherwise, on the morning of January 24, a verdict will be pronounced.
The political situation did not allow the court and the independent leadership of the army behind it to neglect the opportunity to prove the guilt of the king. For this purpose, in the absence of the defendant, a hearing was held of witnesses who revealed the role of Charles in the conduct of the civil war, his violation of the agreements concluded, the intercepted correspondence of the king was cited, indicating his intention to deal with his opponents at the first opportunity.
On January 27, Karl was again brought into the courtroom. The king, knowing full well that everything was ready for the verdict, tried to disrupt the planned course of the meeting with a speech addressed to the judges. Braidshaw forbade him to speak. Since, he said, the defendant refuses to answer the question of whether he pleads guilty, the court is left with a verdict. The accused may be given the floor if he does not reopen the dispute over the powers of the court. Without entering into a discussion, the king, however, confirmed that he denied the right to judge him. Again, some of the judges questioned the legitimacy of their actions. But Cromwell managed to rally the vast majority of the members of the court.
When the meeting was resumed, Karl, considering the situation, demanded that Parliament listen to his new proposals. Braidshaw rejected this latest maneuver by the king. In his final speech, the chairman of the court again recalled the crimes of Charles against the English people, his violation of the contract that binds the monarch to his subjects, inciting civil war.
The verdict, read out by the clerk of the court, read: "The said Karl Stewart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer and enemy of society, will be put to death by cutting off his head from his body."
The few days that separated the verdict of the court from the execution were filled with feverish activity of royalists and foreign diplomats, trying to obtain a reprieve or revision of the sentence. Rumors circulated in London that even the executioner refused to perform his duties and that Cromwell himself would play his part.
The executioner and his assistant were indeed wearing masks, obviously in order to later be able, if necessary, to deny their participation in the regicide, but for now, in order to avoid being struck with a dagger, which, after all, could always be inflicted from around the corner by the hand of some cavalier. January 30, Charles I ascended the scaffold.
Parliament immediately passed a law prohibiting the proclamation of the heir of the executed monarch as king. The order for the execution of the death sentence explicitly stated that "the king of England" was to be executed. And the executioner, even on the scaffold, called Charles nothing more than "Your Majesty."
Charles I (1600-1649), English king (since 1625) from the Stuart dynasty.
Like his father, Charles was a staunch supporter of absolute monarchy. Parliament was considered by him only as an auxiliary tool of the state machine. This caused extreme wariness in the House of Commons, vested with the power to fund the crown.
Requests made by Charles to Parliament for subsidies necessary for waging war with Spain and France remained unanswered. The parliamentarians were also irritated by the first minister, the Duke of Buckingham, who actually ruled the country (he was killed in 1628). After his death, Charles, taking the reins of government into his own hands, made peace with external enemies.
The king was a supporter of strengthening the power of bishops in the Anglican Church, which was considered by the Puritans (orthodox Protestants) as papism. Married to a Catholic, the French princess Henrietta, Charles actually advocated a softening of attitudes towards Catholics in England. Such tolerance aroused the indignation of the Puritans, who gradually won a majority in the House of Commons. Charles dissolved parliament four times, pursuing a strict tax policy between sessions. On the other hand, wanting to secure subsidies, he convened Parliament again and again, making concessions unprecedented in English history. The most significant of these was the approval of the "Petition on the Right" (1628), which guaranteed the inviolability of the individual.
In 1639 an attempt to place Anglican bishops over the Scottish Puritans sparked a mutiny. The king, having been defeated in the war with the Scots, was again forced to resort to the help of Parliament. The so-called Long Parliament, which met in London in 1640, relying on the support of the townspeople, made Charles completely dependent on himself. The king made more and more concessions. At the request of Parliament, he even sent Strafford, his closest associate and personal friend, to the scaffold. Parliament, meanwhile, put forward further demands regarding the limitation of royal power and the abolition of the episcopacy. The situation was aggravated by the uprising of Catholics in Ireland - the Puritans accused Charles of being involved in the rebellion.
In 1642 the king tried to seize the initiative and arrest the Puritan leaders. When the attempt failed, he left London and began an army recruit. Civil war broke out in England. At first, success was on the side of Charles, but in 1645, in the battle of Nezby, his troops were defeated. In 1646, the king surrendered to the Scots, who handed him over to Parliament for 400,000 pounds. After that, Charles finally turned into a prisoner and a toy of the warring parliamentary parties.
The Independents (orthodox Puritans), led by O. Cromwell, captured the king in 1647, using him to blackmail the parliamentary majority. After the entry of Cromwell's army into London, Charles managed to escape to the Isle of Wight. From here he tried to get his supporters united with the Presbyterians (moderate Puritans). But these plans were thwarted.
The second civil war ended with the victory of Cromwell. Carl was in his hands. In 1649, Parliament (more precisely, the Independents of the House of Commons without the consent of the House of Lords) sentenced the king to death on charges of "high treason."
