The fateful event took place on January 30, 1649, in Whitehall in front of the Banqueting House building, where a kind of stage was arranged, connected to the window of the said building by a drawbridge, through which one could pass to the stage.
At ten o'clock in the morning the king was taken to Whitehall from his palace of St. James, where he had to wait for the completion of the scaffold. In the meantime, the King was having pious conversations with the Bishop of London. Around noon, Charles I refused food, taking only a piece of bread and drinking a glass of wine (it is possible that this was what Nostradamus had in mind).
About an hour later, the king was transferred from Whitehall to Banqueting House, the window of which was connected to the scaffold by a swing bridge. On this bridge, the king proceeded to the scaffold stage, where he spoke with the people. Then he took off his cloak and jacket, remaining in a quilted shirt, and, handing over the cavalier's ribbon to the bishop, ordered him to save it for the future king. After that, he again threw a cloak over himself, lay down and, resting his head on the chopping block, stretched out his hands in sign of his readiness. The executioner immediately cut off his head and showed it to the audience.
drawing in a German newspaper, February 1649
We find a description of these events in the 37th quatrain of the 8th century:
"When the king is imprisoned in a castle on the banks of the Thames,
His days will be numbered
He will be seen wearing only a shirt next to the bridge
Before he dies, then he will be locked up in a fortress."
The castle in question is Windsor Castle, situated on the banks of the Thames twenty miles from London. In this castle, the king was kept in custody during the last few weeks of his life.
After the execution, the severed head and body of the king, placed in a coffin covered with black velvet, was taken to St. James's Palace, where the body was embalmed and put on public display in a zinc coffin for 14 days, after which it was again transferred to Windsor Castle, left for a day in the former royal bedchamber and only then buried in the chapel of St. George.
Meanwhile, Charles II, the son of the executed king, willingly accepted the terms offered to him by the Scots, but it took him about a year and a half to reach an agreement in full form: a delay that did not benefit him and allowed the English rebels to greatly strengthen their positions. Finally, in July 1650, Charles II arrived in Scotland, where on January 1, 1651 he was solemnly crowned at Scone.
And in England, the rebels were still outrageous, under the threat of death, forbidding to proclaim Charles II king even with the consent of Parliament. However, the Parliament was on the side of Presbyterianism, and its members not only did not protest against the abolition of the episcopate, but also made every effort to prevent the very possibility of its existence, in connection with which all the lands that were the property of the parishes and temple chapters, and the proceeds were used to pay for the army. In order to make the parishioners hate the bishops, they were constantly attacked in sermons, calling them Levites, Pharisees, bloodsuckers, papists, and henchmen of Baal. The people who continued to follow the ritual of the Anglican Church and were ready to give their lives for their religious beliefs were contemptuously called “Tori” by Cromwell’s supporters, that is, in all the following Torah (in Hebrew means church ritual).
During this period, by decision of Parliament, all books on jurisprudence were translated from Latin into English, and passive verbs received an arbitrary interpretation during translation, in particular: "Arrelans" and "Appelatus" took on the form "the apealer" and "the apeale", etc. .d. Thus "the torer" and "the toree" came to mean "fooling" and "fooled", i.e. the one who himself passes off human institutions as divine revelation, and the one who believes it. Similar participial constructions (nomina verbalia passiva) of non-English origin, very common in England, go back to the French participium passivum. However, this is true only in relation to classical French. As for the Provencal dialect, which Nostradamus resorts to, instead of "les torez" one should say "les torads". We have the opportunity to verify this with our own eyes, referring to the 40th quatrain of the 8th century:
"The blood of the righteous cries out because of the Torah and Thorites
To the vengeance of Saturnine rebels,
Who, drowning the maenads in a sea of innovations,
They will march against the Scots."
Nostradamus calls the killers of the king people of the Saturn warehouse. Saturn means the devourer of his own children, they are also parricides. As for the word "maenad", meaning a Bacchante or priestess of Bacchus, Nostradamus obviously meant that until the Presbyterianism, universally introduced in this period in England, is finally strangled, the "Priestess of Bacchus" will serve as a nickname assigned to the bishop. The last line of the quatrain indicates that after the massacre of the king and the bishops and the abolition of the episcopate in 1650, Cromwell was forced, having significantly strengthened the army, to send it to Scotland, since Charles II, who had concluded an agreement with the Scots in Breda, landed in the northern part of Scotland . The Scots managed to gather a large army: many highlanders from Northern Scotland stood under the banner of Charles II. The English army under Cromwell, twice outnumbered and suffering from a lack of provisions, began to retreat, pursued by the Scots, who did not want the British to get away. On September 3, 1650, in the early morning, not far from Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, the British suddenly attacked the superior forces of the Scots and, having defeated them utterly, took a large number of prisoners. The mountaineers, who were sent to America to be sold to English planters, had the worst of all. All the Scots' headquarters papers fell into Cromwell's hands, including the state seal of Scotland, which he sent to London as a trophy. Let's turn to the 56th quatrain of the 58th century of Nostradamus:
"A small army will invade the country,
The inhabitants of the highlands will utter mournful cries,
A large army will impatiently overtake the enemy,
But he will suffer a crushing defeat at Edinburgh, and their letters will be opened.
For the first time in the history of the nation, the trial of the Crown
The trial, as a result of which King Charles 1 Stuart of England was sentenced to death, was the first court in history that approved the right of subjects not only to obey the royal mercy, but also to demand that the king protect their own interests.
At the beginning of the 17th century, England, before all the powers of Europe, came to the forefront of the development of new industrial relations. For the first time in history, the emerging English bourgeoisie was able to feel its significance, and hence its right to demand that the king protect its own interests. The spokesman for these interests was the Parliament, formed in England as early as the 13th century as an organ of representation of all classes, including the English bourgeoisie.
But the Stuart dynasty that ruled in those days did not recognize the limitations of absolute monarchical power. The struggle between the crown and Parliament intensified already under its first representative, the son of Mary Stuart, James I. His heir, Charles I, who ascended the throne in 1625, was brought up in the same spirit.
1628 - the young king, who was in great need of funds to maintain his usual way of life, was forced to convene a parliament. At its very first meeting, the parliamentarians filed a "Petition of Right" to the king, in accordance with it, any taxes and taxes could be collected only with the consent of parliament. The rest of the offerings to the king were declared illegal. But Charles 1 constantly violated the adopted law, and soon completely dissolved Parliament.
For the next 11 years, the king ruled alone. However, in 1637 a war broke out between England and Scotland, and Charles 1 needed a lot of money. 1640, April - the king was forced to convene parliament again to approve additional taxes. But the parliament, protecting the interests of the bourgeoisie, did not support the new bill. In addition, parliamentarians began to demand the abolition of the emergency royal courts, which the king introduced during his sole reign, as well as the punishment of the most hated officials. In response to this, already on May 5, the king dissolved this parliament, which in history was called the Short.
In this situation, Karl clearly overestimated his strength. By autumn, it became clear that the royal power in England was in a critical state - the people did not obey the king. Therefore, in November 1640, Stuart convened a new parliament, called the Long (because it lasted until 1653). Charles 1 was forced to approve a law according to which parliament could be dissolved only in accordance with the decision of the parliament itself. All institutions of royal power, namely the Star Chamber and the High Commission, which were called upon to administer justice in the state, were dissolved. Thus the absolute power of the king was limited and the monarchy became constitutional.
The king could not accept this. He issued a declaration on the protection of the crown from parliament and on the formation of the royal army. After an unsuccessful attempt on January 4, 1642 to arrest the 5 most influential parliamentarians on charges of treason, the king was forced to leave the capital, counting on the support of the provinces.
There was a dual power in England. 1642, July - the House of Commons passes a resolution on the creation of its own army, and Charles 1 in August of the same year declared war on Parliament. This was the beginning of the civil war of 1642-1646. On the side of the monarch were the economically backward northern and western counties, as well as the Anglican Church. The economically developed south-western, as well as individual industrial and commercial areas of the center and north of the state, stood up for the parliament.
At first, the advantage was with the well-trained royal army. But in 1645 the opposition created a standing army with a unified command and severe discipline. The talented politician and military leader Oliver Cromwell stood at the head of the parliamentary army. He was able to create military formations that deserved the glory of the best in Europe.
1645, June 14 - at the Battle of Nesby, the new army of Parliament was able to defeat the royal troops. Charles 1 managed to escape to Scotland, but the enemy captured not only artillery, ammunition and royal banners, but also the secret correspondence of the royal office, which played an important role in the course of the trial that followed soon.
The Scots proved to be unreliable allies. For £400,000 they gave Charles to Parliament. After which the monarch became a prisoner. At first, Hurstcastle was chosen as his place of residence. Supporters of Charles were preparing an escape. His nephew, Prince Rupert, had to free his uncle from the castle. But by that time the king had been transferred and imprisoned closer to London (at Windsor Castle). On the way to Windsor, during a stop at Bagshot, Lord Newburgh's estate, the hospitable host wanted to provide Carl with one of the best horses for which his stables were famous.
Then no pursuit could overtake the king if he could decide to escape. But the head of the guard Harrison prudently ordered the trotter to be given to one of the soldiers of the convoy. And in Windsor, the prisoner was transferred to a stricter regime of detention: the number of his servants was reduced; those who remained were obliged to report everything that could contribute to the escape. The door to the room where the king was, was guarded all the time. All visits were banned, and walks were limited to the terrace of the castle.
By that time, the decision on the trial of the monarch had already been made. The political situation in England developed in this way. The Independents came to power, led by Oliver Cromwell. This political party expressed the interests of the radical wing of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility (gentry). She by force was able to achieve a majority in the House of Commons.
On December 23, this chamber adopted a resolution - it called Charles 1 the main culprit for all the misfortunes in the state, which in reality experienced enormous difficulties associated with the civil war and its consequences. A special committee was appointed, which was supposed to develop a procedure for the trial of the king.
Not only in the practice of English legal proceedings of those times, but in general in Europe, there were no such precedents. Therefore, the committee established a special judicial board, and the House of Commons on December 28, 1648 issued a decree on the trial of the sovereign.
This decision was not easy for Parliament. Many of its members fled from the capital, including those on whom the development of the legal foundations of the future process depended. Even being staunch opponents of the king, not all parliamentarians were able to oppose the legitimate monarch.
1649, January 1 - The House of Commons considered and adopted a draft ordinance, which was presented by the preparatory committee.
It read: “Since it is known that Charles 1 Stuart, the present English king, not content with the many infringements on the rights and freedoms of the people allowed by his predecessors, set out to completely destroy the ancient and fundamental laws and rights of this nation and introduce in their place an arbitrary and tyrannical government , for which he unleashed a terrible war against Parliament and the people, which devastated the country, exhausted the treasury, suspended useful employment and trade and cost the lives of many thousands of people ... treacherously and maliciously sought to enslave the English nation.
At the fear of all future rulers who might try to do something like this, the king must be brought to justice before a special court of justice, consisting of 150 members appointed by this parliament, under the chairmanship of two supreme judges.
They decided to create a special Supreme Court of Justice for the trial of the king.
The very next day, the House of Lords, which then consisted of only 16 people, received this resolution and unanimously rejected it. The aristocratic parliamentarians believed that the king had more rights than parliament and had the right to dissolve it. And the Earl of Northumberland, a staunch supporter of Parliament, said: “It is unlikely that even one person in twenty will agree with the statement that the King, and not Parliament, started the war. Without a preliminary clarification of this circumstance, the king cannot be accused of high treason.
Thus, the bill presented by the House of Commons did not receive legal force. Then on January 4, 1649, the House of Commons declared itself the bearer of supreme power in the country. The rights of the king and the House of Lords were limited. The people were declared the source of any legitimate power, and their elected representatives, represented by members of the House of Commons, were the highest authority.
Despite considerable dissatisfaction with royal policy among the majority of the population, it was not an easy task to assemble the Supreme Court of Justice. Some of the judges appointed by the House of Commons refused to take part in the trial. And one of them, Sydney, directly told the chairman of the court, J. Bradshaw, that "no court has the right to judge the king at all, and no one can be tried like this court." He actually recognized the Supreme Court of Justice as an illegitimate body.
In response, the House of Commons adopted a resolution that gave the right to pass sentence even if the decision was made even by 20 of its members (the final number of judges was to be 135 people). At the same time, contrary to the system of legal proceedings existing in England, the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice were at the same time jurors. (This nullified the very principle of the institution of jurors.)
1649, January 19 - The king was transported from Windsor to London. And the next day, the court began, which sat for only five days. First, an act of parliament was read out, which confirmed the powers of the court. Then the accused was brought in. The king entered and, without taking off his hat, went to the chair assigned to him, emphasizing in such a way that he does not recognize the competence of the court.
The indictment was read to the monarch. Charles 1 was accused of treason, the desire to appropriate unlimited and tyrannical power, to destroy the rights and privileges of the people, to unleash a civil war, to prepare a foreign invasion of England. Charles was declared responsible "for all treason, murder, violence, fires, looting, damages caused to the nation" during the war. He was declared "a tyrant, a traitor, a public and merciless enemy of the English people."
The King made several unsuccessful attempts to interrupt the reading. Chief Justice Bradshaw invited the king to comment on the charges. But he, still not recognizing the legality of the court, demanded explanations from the judges. He wondered what legal authority had summoned him to this hall. After all, in his eyes, the only legitimate authority was himself.
The court did not answer. Carl's impassioned speech, which he had prepared, was interrupted at the very beginning. Under the cries of the soldiers "Justice, justice!" The king was removed from the hall. Bradshaw obviously did not want those present to hear from the lips of the defendant that he could not be tried by any of the English courts, especially one that was created without the participation of the House of Lords.
The judges were in a very difficult position. The refusal of Charles 1 to answer the charges made it impossible to conduct a trial and, first of all, to hear the witnesses and the accuser's speech. Without this, it was impossible to pass a death sentence, and this was the main goal of the parliamentarians. The court procedure had to be continued at any cost.
The king was warned that the court would regard his silence as an admission of guilt. But the monarch continued to take his former position: he did not recognize the legality of his trial. Then the accuser suggested that the witnesses be heard without the defendant's explanations. In his opinion, the fault of the sovereign was too obvious to comply with accepted norms.
33 witnesses were interrogated over the course of two days. Their testimony was heard at a public hearing in front of a huge crowd of people. Interrogations of witnesses continued for two days. On January 25, the testimony of the witnesses was read out at a public hearing of the court. But, given the scale of the process, they still could not be recognized as the basis for a death sentence.
Most of the witnesses spoke of the participation of the king in battles against his own subjects. The London weaver Richard Blomfield testified that the royal soldiers plundered the captured in the presence of Charles. Another witness, a peasant from Rutland, spoke of the massacre of the defenders of the city of Leicester. According to his testimonies, the sovereign, in response to the protests of one of the officers of his army, said: "I'm not worried if three times more of them are cut out - they are my enemies." This, according to the court, was enough to accuse the king of tyranny and the murder of his own subjects (although parliament was equally to blame for unleashing a civil war).
But there were still many royalists and opponents of the trial of the monarch in the country. Among them were many priests who campaigned for the king not only during sermons, but also in the streets and squares of cities. The European powers also tried to put pressure on Parliament. The fleet of Charles's nephew, Prince Rupert, sailed off the English coast. The King of France issued a manifesto condemning the process. And the States General of Holland sent two ambassadors to the capital of England. They were supposed to persuade parliament to abandon the court.
All this, however, could not affect the situation. On January 27, the last court session took place. Carl was given the last word. The king asked that he be heard in the presence of the parliamentarians of both chambers. Many members of the court were inclined to satisfy the desire of the defendant. However, the initiative was seized by Cromwell, who was also in the courtroom. He declared that not a single word of the king could be trusted, that it was impossible to expect anything good from a man whom God had rejected. The request of the monarch was rejected.
Then came Bradshaw. He stated: “There is an agreement that is concluded between the king and his people, and the obligations arising from it are mutual. The duty of the sovereign to protect his people, the duty of the people is loyalty to the sovereign. If the king once broke his oath and his obligations, he destroyed his sovereignty.” So, according to his firm conviction, the judges did a great work of justice.
At the end, the verdict was read out. It read: "The mentioned Charles 1 Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy, is sentenced to death by cutting off his head from his body." The document had only 59 signatures.
The execution was scheduled for January 30, 1649. At two o'clock in the afternoon, dressed in all black, the king appeared on the square where the scaffold was built. He was surrounded by several ranks of cavalry, which separated the crowd from the place of execution. Spectators filled not only the area. Many watched from balconies, rooftops and street lamps.
On the platform in the clothes of sailors, with beards and mustaches glued on, in masks were the executioner and his assistant. The king ascended the scaffold, took out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and read out a farewell word. No one but the guard could hear him. A minute later, the assistant executioner, performing his duties, lifted the severed head of the executed Charles 1 by the hair and showed it to the crowd.
The execution of Charles 1 did not bring relief to the English people. After 10 years, royal power was restored. The heir to the throne, the son of Charles I, returned to England and was crowned as Charles II. He gave the order to judge all who took part in the trial of his father. During interrogations, many of them said that they protested against the verdict. The body of the main inspirer of the trial and execution of the monarch, Oliver Cromwell, was removed from the grave on the anniversary of the death of Charles 1. The corpse was hanged and then its head was cut off. The body was buried in a hole dug under the gallows. And for a long time, the head impaled on a spear frightened passers-by near Westminster with empty eye sockets.
Do not wash away all the waters of the furious sea
Holy oil from the royal forehead
And not afraid of human intrigues
Whom the Lord appointed as a viceroy.
W. Shakespeare "Richard III, act III, scene II"
On January 30, 1649, the English king Charles I of the Stuart dynasty was executed by Jewish heretics - Puritans, revolutionaries of the 17th century, after a shameful trial. During the reign of his son Charles II, the martyr king was canonized as a monarch who died for the Faith, for he sought to preserve the Episcopal Church and the apostolic succession in it (according to the Anglicans) and to protect church life and the monarchical foundations of the English state from encroachments heretics.
Portrait of King Charles I, painted in the 1630s.
Charles was the third son of King James I and did not become heir until 1616, after the death of his two elder brothers. In childhood, he was a meek and submissive child, and in his youth he was distinguished by piety (as, indeed, throughout his conscious life), diligence and a penchant for theological disputes.
In the last years of his reign, King James I hatched plans for an alliance with Spain and wanted to marry his son to a Spanish princess. The favorite of the Sovereign, the Duke of Buckingham, persuaded Charles to go for his bride to Madrid in the role of a wandering lover. This romantic adventure so captivated Karl that even his father's insistent arguments did not make him leave this venture. Carl and Buckingham arrived in Madrid in disguise, but here their appearance aroused more surprise than joy. Long negotiations came to nothing, and Charles returned to England as a staunch enemy of Spain. Soon Jacob died, and Charles ascended the English throne. The new king lacked neither courage nor military skill. With the virtues of the father of the family, he combined the virtues of the head of state. Unfortunately, during his reign, the king made many mistakes (and which of the rulers do not have them), was often too soft when it was necessary to be harsh, and often made mistakes in choosing advisers.
From the very beginning of his reign, he had to face the willfulness and irreverence of his subjects. At a meeting of the first parliament in his reign in 1625, he demanded subsidies for the war with Spain. The deputies agreed to allocate £140,000 for military needs and approved a "barrel tax" for this purpose, but only for one year. Annoyed, the king dismissed the chambers. Parliament in 1626 began its sessions with an attempt to give the court the royal favorite of the Duke of Buckingham. Charles went to the House of Lords and announced that he was taking responsibility for all the orders of his minister. He again dissolved Parliament, and in order to get money, he had to resort to a forced loan, which caused general indignation. With great difficulty, only insignificant funds were obtained, which were then spent without any benefit on the war with France. In 1628, Charles convened his third parliament.
Skirmishes between the deputies and the king began again. From oblivion, the Magna Carta was retrieved, which was not remembered during the entire period of the Tudor rule. Which is not surprising: under the tyrant - syphilitic Henry VIII and his red-haired beast - daughter Elizabeth, stuttering "about liberties" was fraught, but under the meek Charles I...
On its basis, the House of Commons drew up the "Petition for Rights", which was, in fact, a statement of the English constitution. After much hesitation, Karl approved it. From that time on, the "petition" became the basic English law, and was constantly appealed to in conflicts with the king. Charles, who agreed to such an important concession, gained nothing in return, since Parliament did not agree to approve subsidies and again demanded that Buckingham be brought to trial. However, the duke was killed in 1628 by the fanatic Felton. Charles dissolved Parliament and ruled without him for the next eleven years.
The main business of the whole life of Sovereign Charles I(and this is what finally led the martyr king to the chopping block) there was concern for strengthening the autocratic royal power and concern for the greatness and prosperity of the Church of England. He directed all his efforts to, as far as possible, destroy or mitigate the harmful effects of the Reformation.
King Karl - Defender of the Faith. Engraving from 1651.
However, the Sovereign did not at all seek to return the Church of England to the bosom of the papal curia, but appealed to the times of the Undivided Church of the first 10 centuries of Christianity. In his own words, he wanted the Church of England to be more Catholic (that is, essentially Catholic! Orthodox!) than the papacy of his day. Of course, Charles cannot be called Orthodox, but we can safely say that in his deeds and aspirations he was the forerunner of those remarkable Anglican figures who sought rapprochement with the Orthodox Church in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Hieromartyr Archbishop William Laud and King Charles I. Stained glass window in St. Mary's Church. USA, Southern California.
By order of the king, Archbishop Lodu introduced the celibacy of the clergy, the doctrine of purgatory, prayer for the dead, the veneration of saints and the Mother of God, the doctrine of Communion as the actual Body and Blood of Christ (the doctrine of transubstantiation) and many other dogmas.
The church policy of the king caused particular resistance in Scotland, where the Calvinist heresy (Puritanism) took root violently.
In 1625, Charles I issued the "Act of Revocation", which canceled all land grants by the kings of Scotland, starting from 1540. This concerned, first of all, the former church lands secularized during the Reformation and misappropriated by the local nobility. The nobles could keep these lands in their ownership, but subject to monetary compensation, which went to support the church. This decree affected most of the Scottish nobility and caused widespread discontent, but the king refused to consider the petition of the Scots. The faithful companion of the Sovereign, the Archbishop of Canterbury Laud, began severe persecution of the Puritans and forced many of them to emigrate to America. In 1633, during the first visit of the king to Scotland, the local parliament was convened, which, under pressure from Charles I, approved an act on the supremacy (supremacy) of the king in matters of religion.
Image of King Charles, founder of the Diocese of Edinburgh in the Anglican Church in Scotland.
At the same time, Charles I introduced a number of Anglican canons into Scottish worship and formed a new bishopric - Edinburgh, headed by William Forbes, an ardent supporter of Anglican reforms. This caused an outburst of indignation among the Scottish heretics, but Charles I again refused to consider the petition of the Scottish nobles against church innovations and the king's manipulation of parliamentary elections. One of the authors of the petition, Lord Balmerino, was arrested in 1634 and sentenced to death on charges of treason. Almost from the very beginning of his reign, Charles I, who treated the bishops with great respect, began to actively attract them to the highest government positions. The first person of the royal administration of Scotland was John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Lord Chancellor from 1635. The majority in the royal council passed to the bishops to the detriment of the Scottish aristocrats, the bishops also actually began to determine the composition of the Committee of Articles and candidates for the positions of justices of the peace. A significant part of the representatives of the Scottish episcopate of that time did not enjoy authority among their flock, mired in heresy and had no ties with the nobility. The aristocracy, pushed aside from management, did not have access to the king, whose court was almost always in London. In 1636, under the king's signature, the reformed canons of the Scottish church were published, in which there was no mention of presbyteries and parish meetings, and in 1637 a new liturgy was introduced, providing for a number of Anglican elements, the invocation of saints and the Virgin Mary, and rich church decoration. These reforms were perceived in Scottish society as an attempt to restore Catholic rites, which in turn led to an uprising in Scotland on July 23, 1637, followed by the so-called. Bishop's Wars.
In addition to the Puritans, the Sovereign had to fight the greed of his subjects (primarily aristocrats), who did not want to fork out for state needs. Seeking funds, the king introduced new taxes with his power. So, in 1634, the "ship duty" was introduced. But collecting these taxes each year became more and more difficult. Against persistent tax evaders, the government had to start prosecutions, which caused a loud murmur of public indignation. Pamphlets directed against the king began to appear in large numbers. The police searched for their authors and punished them. This, in turn, gave rise to new resentment. In Scotland, where the position of the Puritans was much stronger than in England, the policy of the king led, as mentioned above, to a powerful uprising. Leslie's army of 20,000 invaded England from Scotland. Charles did not have the strength to fight it, and in 1640 he had to convene a fourth parliament.
The king hoped that, under the influence of patriotism, the deputies would allow him to raise the funds needed to wage the war. But he was wrong again. At the very first sitting of the House of Commons, the deputies announced their intention to subject to consideration everything that had been done without their participation during these eleven years. The king declared parliament dissolved, but he was in a very difficult position: his army was not distinguished by high combat efficiency and was constantly defeated in the war. In November 1640, he involuntarily convened a new parliament, which went down in history under the name of the Long. On November 11, the deputies demanded the trial of the royal minister, Strafford. On the same day, he was arrested and, together with Archbishop Lod, was imprisoned. Everyone who took any part in the collection of "ship dues" was persecuted. With no military force in their hands and relying only on the London crowd, Parliament actually took over the government. Karl made one concession after another. In the end, he was forced to sacrifice his minister, and in May 1641 Strafford was beheaded. Parliament soon abolished all non-common tribunals, including the Star Chamber (Supreme Court for Political Affairs) and the High Commission (Supreme Tribunal for Religious Matters). Laws were passed to the effect that the interval between the dissolution of the old parliament and the convocation of a new one could not exceed three years, and that the king could not dissolve parliament against his will.
Charles defended the divine right of kings as best he could. In January 1642, he accused five members of the Commons of having secret relations with the Scots and demanded their arrest. He himself went to Westminster, accompanied by nobles and bodyguards, to capture the suspects, but they managed to escape to the City. Karl hurried after them in annoyance, but did not manage to take the troublemakers into custody. The sheriffs refused to comply with his order, and a violent crowd, running from all sides, greeted the king with loud cries: “Privilege! Privilege!" Karl saw that he could do nothing and left London that very day. The five members of the House of Commons solemnly returned to Westminster under the protection of the city militia.
The king settled in York and began to prepare for a campaign against the capital. All attempts to peacefully resolve the conflict ended in failure, as both sides showed intransigence. Parliament demanded for itself the right to appoint and dismiss ministers and sought to bring all branches of government under its control. Karl replied: "If I agree to such conditions, then I will become only a ghostly king." Both sides raised troops. Parliament introduced taxes and formed an army of 20,000. At the same time, supporters of the king flocked to the northern counties. The first battle, which took place in October at Agigill, did not have a decisive outcome. But soon rebellions began in the western counties in favor of the king. The city of Bristol surrendered to the Royalists. Firmly entrenched in Oxford, Charles began to threaten London, but resistance to him grew every month. Since all the pious bishops took the side of the king, Parliament in 1643 announced the abolition of the bishoprics and the introduction of Presbyterianism. Since then, nothing has prevented a close rapprochement with the rebellious Scottish Puritans. In 1644, the king had to simultaneously wage war with the army of Parliament and the army of Leslie. On July 3, the Royalists were defeated at Merston Moor. The decisive role in this victory was played by Oliver Cromwell's detachment, made up of fanatical Puritans. The northern counties recognized the power of Parliament. For some time, Charles continued to win victories in the south. Throughout this war, he showed, along with his usual fearlessness, composure, energy and outstanding military talents. The Parliamentarian army under Essex was surrounded on 1 September and capitulated in Cornwall. This defeat led to the fact that the Independents (extreme Puritans), led by Cromwell, took up the House of Commons. The people in the capital were overwhelmed with enthusiasm. The Independents banned all entertainment; time was divided between prayer and military exercises. In a short time, Cromwell formed a new army, which was distinguished by an extremely high morale. On June 14, 1645, she met with the royalists at Nezby and inflicted a decisive defeat on them. The king retreated, leaving five thousand dead and a hundred banners on the battlefield. In the following months, Parliament extended its influence throughout the country.
Accompanied by only two people, Charles fled to Scotland, wanting to get support from his fellow countrymen. But he miscalculated. The Scots captured the king and handed him over to Parliament for £800,000. Karl was imprisoned in Golmeby. True, even now his position was still far from hopeless.
The House of Commons offered him peace, on the condition that he consent to the destruction of the episcopal system of the Church of England and give the army to Parliament for twenty years. Soon a third force intervened in these negotiations. During the war years, the army turned into an independent and powerful organization with its own interests and was far from always ready to follow the instructions of the parliament. In June 1647, several squadrons captured the king in Holmsby and brought him under escort to their camp. Here negotiations began between the king and the chiefs of the army. The terms proposed by these latter were less restrictive than the parliamentary ones. Thus, the period for which the king had to give up command of the army was reduced to ten years. Karl hesitated to make a final decision - he hoped that he could still be a winner, on November 11 he fled from Gampton Court to the Isle of Wight. Here, however, he was immediately captured by Colonel Grommond and imprisoned in the castle of Cerysbroke. However, the flight of the king was the signal for a second civil war. Strong royalist rebellions broke out in the southeast and west of the country. The Scots, to whom Charles agreed to promise the preservation of their Presbyterian "church", supported him. But even after that, the king had no hope of victory. Cromwell defeated the Scots and, pursuing them, entered Edinburgh. The rebellious Colchester capitulated to Fairfax's army.
In July 1648 new negotiations began. Charles accepted all the demands of the winners, except for the abolition of the episcopate. For for the Sovereign, consent to church reform according to the patterns of heretics was tantamount to renunciation of Christ. In his Newport Declaration a year before his execution, he firmly stated
I clearly realize that Episcopal government is most in tune with the Word of God, and this ecclesiastical institution was established and practiced by the apostles themselves, and from them the apostolic succession is preserved, and it will be preserved until the end of time with all bishops in Christ's Churches, and therefore my conscience does not allow I agree to the government's terms.
Parliament was ready to make peace on these terms, but the puritanical army strongly opposed this concession. On December 6, a detachment of soldiers under the command of Colonel Pride expelled 40 deputies from the House of Commons who were prone to conciliation with the king. The next day, the same number were expelled. Thus, the Independents, who acted in concert with the army, received a majority in Parliament. In reality, this coup marked the beginning of the sole rule of the bloody dictator Cromwell. He entered the capital as a triumphant and settled in the royal rooms of the Guategoll Palace as the ruler of the state.
Cromwell's soldiers sneer at the Anointed of God as the guards sneered at Christ.
Now, on his initiative, Parliament decided to bring the king to trial as a rebel who started a war with his own people. Charles was taken in custody to Windsor and then to St. James Palace. In early 1649, a tribunal of fifty men was formed. On January 20, he began his meetings at the Palace of Westminster. Karl was brought to court three times to testify.
The trial of King Charles.
From the very beginning he announced that he did not recognize the right of the House of Commons to bring him to trial, and the tribunal no right to pass judgment on him. He considered the power appropriated by Parliament to be usurpation. When told that he received power from the people and used it for the evil of the people, Charles replied that he received power from God and used it to fight the rebels. Moreover, he demanded from his accusers to prove the illegitimacy of his claims to authority from God by references to the Holy Scriptures. When he was pointed out to the election of kings in ancient England, he objected - starting from the 11th century, royal power in the country was hereditary. And when he was accused of unleashing a civil war and bloodshed, he replied that he took up arms in order to maintain the rule of law. Obviously, each side was right in its own way, and if the case had been considered in a legal manner, the resolution of all legal difficulties would have taken more than one month. But Cromwell did not consider it possible to delay the process for so long. On January 27, the tribunal announced that "Karl Stewart" as a tyrant, rebel, murderer and enemy of the English state was sentenced to beheading.
The sympathies of the vast majority of those assembled at Westminster Hall were on the side of the king. When, on the afternoon of the last day of the meeting, Karl was denied the right to be heard and led to the exit, a low, but clearly audible roar of voices swept through the hall: “God save the king!” The soldiers, trained by their corporals and spurred on by their own courage, responded with cries of “Justice! Justice! Execution! Execution!
King Charles is led to his execution. Artist Ernst Crofts (Crofts).
The king was given three days to prepare for death. He used them in prayer with Bishop Joxon. All these days, until the very last minute, he retained exceptional courage.
Execution of King Charles I. Stained glass window of the church in Dark Harbor. England.
On the morning of January 30, 1649, Charles was taken to Whitehall. It was snowing and the king put on warm underwear. He walked briskly, escorted by guards, saying: "Part way." His last journey was about half a mile and brought him to the Banquet House. Most of those who signed the death warrant were horrified by the act, for the severity of which they still had to suffer retribution.
At one in the afternoon, Karl was informed that his hour had come. Through the high window of the Banquet House, he stepped onto the scaffold. The soldiers kept the huge crowd at bay. The king looked with a contemptuous smile at the instrument of execution, with which he was to carry out the sentence if he refused to obey the decision of the tribunal. He was allowed to say a few words if he so desired. The troops could not hear him, and he turned to those who were standing near the platform. He said that he was dying a good Christian, that he forgives everyone, especially those who are guilty of his death (without naming anyone). He wished them repentance and expressed his desire that they find a way to peace in the kingdom, which cannot be achieved by force.
Then he helped the executioner tuck his hair back under a white satin cap. He put his head on the scaffold, and at his signal they cut off his head with one blow. The severed head was presented to the people, and someone exclaimed: "This is the head of a traitor!"
A huge crowd flocked to the place of execution, experiencing strong, albeit restrained feelings. When the assembly saw the severed head, thousands of those present from afar made such a groan, wrote one contemporary, such as he had never heard before and had no desire to hear in the future.
A few days later, Parliament declared the monarchy abolished and proclaimed a republic.
It is interesting that the events of the English Revolution caused a sudden break in diplomatic relations between England and Russia, which had been progressively developing for almost a hundred years. The reason for the gap was the execution of King Charles I. On June 1, 1649, Alexei Mikhailovich issued a decree on the expulsion of all British merchants with the following words: "and now ... a great evil deed has been committed all over the earth, their sovereign, Carlus the King, was killed to death ... and for such an evil You didn't happen to be in the Muscovite state." Until the execution of the king, the government of Alexei Mikhailovich carefully observed the events of the revolution, but answered requests for help with silence, dragging out negotiations. However, the king's execution probably had unpleasant associations with the 1648 uprising in Moscow; Behind the expulsion of British merchants (most of whom, following the example of the Moscow Company, were supposed to support parliament, one can see the fear of the Moscow government for the stability of their own positions.
After the execution of Charles I, translations of English pamphlets and pamphlets published by the royalists appeared in Moscow. In the list of translations made by Epiphanius Slavinetsky, there is a mention of an essay "about the murder of King Aggelsky from the Latin language..." that did not come down to the present day. More famous is "The Legend of How the English King Carlus Stuwart was Executed...". At the same time, in Britain (1650) a fake "Declaration" made by the royalists appeared, supposedly a translation of the decree of Alexei Mikhailovich. Around the same time, in 1654, an unexpected anonymous pamphlet appeared in London, signed by J.F., the author of which, an obvious admirer of Boris Godunov, praised Russia for the democratic foundations of legislation; this is an unexpected essay, contrary to the traditional opinion of the British about the Russian state structure.
Charles was buried on the night of 7 February 1649 in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The king's son, King Charles II, later planned to build a royal mausoleum in honor of his father, but unfortunately he could not bring his idea to life.
After the restoration of the monarchy and the church hierarchy in England on May 29, 1660, by decision of the church councils in Canterbury and York, the name of King Charles was entered in the church calendar in the Book of Common Prayer, where he was commemorated on the day of his death. In the days of Queen Victoria, the great feast in honor of St. Charles was removed from the liturgical texts at the request of the House of Commons; January 30th is listed as "Small Celebration" only. The feast was restored in the 1980 Alternative Liturgical Book and in the General Divine Service in 2000. However, the holiday has not yet been included in the Book of Common Prayer.
In England, Canada, Australia, and even in the USA, an initially republican country, there are religious communities of zealots for the memory of the king - the martyr Charles I. In England and English-speaking countries, there are several churches in honor of the holy king.
Compiled by:
All the monarchs of the world. Western Europe. Konstantin Ryzhov. Moscow, 1999A. Van Dyck. Triple portrait of King Charles.
The triple portrait of King Charles was painted by Van Dyck in 1635 and sent to Rome by Lorenzo Bernini, who was to make a bust of it.
P. Van der Fes. Oliver Cromwell.
Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan landowner from Huntingdon, was elected to the Long Parliament in 1640.
August 22, 1642 Charles raises his battle flag in Nottingham and declares war on Parliament.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, Cromwell joins the parliamentary army with the rank of captain and begins to collect a detachment of cavalrymen from his fellow Puritans.
Parliament, the majority of which were Presbyterians, sought a compromise with the king and avoided decisive action. By January 1643, Cromwell was already a colonel, and at the end of November he traveled to London and spoke in Parliament, where he accused the commander-in-chief of the army, the Earl of Manchester, of cowardice and betrayal, demanded a reorganization of the army and a change of command, sought the adoption of the "Act of Self-denial" from the House of Commons, according to to which members of both houses of Parliament are prohibited from holding the highest positions in the army (for Cromwell himself, Parliament makes an exception, given his military merit).
The words of the Earl of Manchester himself will help to understand this behavior of Parliament: " If we defeat the king at least ninety-nine times, then he will still remain a king and his descendants will also be kings; but if the king beats us at least once, then we will all go to the gallows".
In early 1644 Cromwell was already a lieutenant general.
In January 1645, an act of parliament was issued on the creation of a new model army, headed by General T. Fairfax, modeled after Cromwell's army. That summer, at the Battle of Nezby, Cromwell's army inflicts a crushing defeat on the royal troops, Charles flees north and surrenders to the Scots. Parliament gets the royal correspondence, in which he expresses his readiness to accept foreign aid in money, weapons and troops.
On February 26, 1646, Parliament issues a revolutionary act abolishing royal guardianship over the landed property of subjects, which unilaterally abolished the feudal knightly holding of land from the king, but the obligations of the peasants towards the lords remained unchanged. For the new owners, the revolution was over; they got what they wanted.
Cromwell gained great authority, his army was a formidable force, which frightened the Presbyterian parliament, which would prefer to negotiate with the king and disband the army. In the army, a movement of Levellers-equalizers begins, under their pressure in 1647 a new stage of the revolution begins - a democratic one.
The Levellers and Independents criticize Parliament, do not recognize the Presbyterian religious orders, oppose the monopolies of trading and industrial companies, and are in favor of abolishing the monarchy and the House of Lords as unelected by the people; stand for democratic laws that protect the rights of the people and every individual citizen, for democratic freedoms, freedom of conscience and freedom of the individual, rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Great Charter of Waves (1215) and the Petition of Right (1628), revolutionary parliamentary declarations, the supreme power in the country recognize only the House of Commons, as having received powers from the people, for the responsibility of parliament and officials to the people, the inviolability of private property. The ideological basis of this movement was the doctrine of natural law, popular sovereignty, social contract, the right of subjects to depose a tyrant; the leader was John Lilburn and others.
On February 1, 1647, the Scots gave Charles to Parliament for 400 thousand pounds sterling, but in the summer he was captured and transported to the army headquarters. August 6 Cromwell at the head of the army enters London.
The king managed to escape to the Isle of Wight, from where he negotiates with Parliament, waiting for support.
In the spring of 1648, the 2nd stage of the civil war begins, the army again captures the king. Lilburn demands from Cromwell "equal and just government", the abolition of royalty and the House of Lords, an annually elected unicameral Parliament and progressive forms of taxation, for the first time there is a demand to bring Charles to court. Cromwell is not yet ready to end the king, he enters into negotiations with him, for which the Levellers declare him a traitor.
Pride purge of parliament. Engraving of the 17th century.
On December 6, 1648, Colonel Pride appeared at the door of the House of Commons. He held in his hands a list of the names of representatives of the parliamentary majority, approved by the Council of Officers, who prevented the king from being brought to justice. They were to be arrested and sent to prison. Someone from the members of parliament asked by what right the Pride was operating, and received a laconic answer: " By right of the sword!"So the House of Commons was purged of the Presbyterian majority - it turned into a submissive tool of the army and soon approved a resolution to bring the king to trial. When the Lords refused to participate in the work of the court, the House of Commons decided that, being elected by the people, it represented the supreme power in England and does not need anyone else's assistance.
The army and the people demanded the trial of Charles and the continuation of the revolution. Cromwell makes his choice - he himself takes on the organization of the Supreme Court of Justice, negotiates, convinces, insists.
After the verdict was pronounced, he personally demanded that the timid judges put their signature under it.
Death sentence for Charles I. Cromwell signed third.
Was Charles's trial really a legal act, as the judges claimed? He himself did not recognize their authority and continued to consider himself the legitimate monarch, and many levellers, members of parliament and senior officers were not sure that they were right.
No more than 50 people remained in parliament after the Pride purge. It was these men, along with the Cromwellian officers, who appointed the Supreme Court of Justice, but many of the judges did not want to participate in this dubious case. Indeed: no more than 70 people tried the king; one of them was a country squire in the past, another a carter, a third a clerk, and some of them servants. They spoke on behalf of the people and this gave them strength.
E. Crofts. Karl goes to his execution.
As soon as the trial began, Karl asked:
- "By what authority am I called here? I have just been negotiating with Parliament, and we have almost succeeded. I would like to know by what authority - I mean the legitimate authority, and not the authority of robbers and thieves - I was torn out of there and brought here?"
- "By the power and name of the people of England who have elected you king' replied Judge Bradshaw.
- "I reject it, sir. England has never been an elective monarchy. It was a hereditary monarchy and I received my power by right of succession.", - the king said triumphantly. And here he was absolutely right.
Moreover, up to this point, never, in any country, did subjects judge their monarch in public. There were no laws by which such a trial could be conducted, and from this point of view, the trial of the monarch was illegal.
The judges refused Charles and the request to speak before Parliament. "Karl Sewart, as a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer and an open enemy of the English nation, is sentenced to death by cutting off his head from his body." On January 30, 1649, he was publicly executed in the square in front of Whitehall.
The execution of King Charles. This picture was written by a direct witness of the events.
Standing on the platform near the chopping block, Karl made a short speech. He spoke of his innocence, accused the parliament of starting a war, the army of using brute force. He reproached himself only for allowing the execution of the Earl of Strafford. "It is not for the subjects to participate in the government of the state." The king remained king and instructed his subjects like foolish and evil children. At the moment of execution, the king carried himself with unshakable, royal dignity.
S. Cooper. Cromwell in front of the coffin of the executed king.
They say that, looking at how deftly Charles's head was attached to the body, Cromwell said: "But our king is well built. If only he could live and live!"
Charles's body was buried in the chapel of St. George at Windsor Castle.
March 17, 1649 Parliament abolished the royal title as "useless, burdensome and dangerous to freedom and public safety," and May 19 proclaimed a republic in England, without a king and the House of Lords.
Under the new regime, Cromwell became the de facto ruler of England, and the State Council appropriated the supreme power.
In the spring of 1649 Lilburn wrote his famous pamphlet The New Chains of England.
In April 1649, the movement of "true levellers" or diggers (diggers) begins.
Having suppressed the popular movements of the Levellers and Diggers, in May 1649 Cromwell landed with an army in Ireland, where his soldiers robbed and destroyed entire villages, set fire to churches, and a real massacre was staged during the capture of the fortress of Drogheda.
The conquest of Ireland corrupted the army, turning it from revolutionary to predatory and predatory. Justifying himself, Cromwell referred to the "spirit of God", which commanded him to deal with recalcitrant papists.
In May 1650, Cromwell went to suppress the royalists in Scotland, where on February 5, 1649, the son of Charles I was proclaimed King of Scotland, Charles II. September 3 Cromwell wins a major victory at Denbar, a year later - at Worcester. Charles II fled, the Scottish army was destroyed.
Thanks to the victories of Cromwell, the British Republic was officially recognized by Spain, Sweden, France, overseas colonies.
In April 1653 Cromwell dispersed the "rump" of Parliament.
On 16 December he was named Lord Protector for Life of England, Scotland and Ireland. Cromwell's protectorate was essentially a military dictatorship. Endowed with almost royal powers, Cromwell pursued a successful foreign policy: peace was concluded with Holland, a trade agreement with Sweden, and the island of Jamaica was captured from Spain.
Domestic policy was less successful due to the ongoing economic crisis and unresolved social problems. On January 22, 1655, Cromwell dissolved Parliament, which met in September 1654, and introduced a police regime in the country.
In February 1657 Parliament proposed returning England to the pre-revolutionary form of government: king, lords and communities; The House of Lords returns to Westminster, but Cromwell renounces the royal title.
September 3, 1658 Cromwell died. His son Richard becomes the new Lord Protector, but in early May 1659 he abdicates.
On May 7, 1659, the "rump" of the Long Parliament returns - the so-called. Second Republic.
On February 21, 1660, after a series of state coups, the Presbyterians expelled by the Pride gather again in Westminster. The revived Long Parliament canceled all acts of "rump" and dispersed on March 17, calling elections to the Convention.
On May 1, the Convention proclaimed Charles II king; on May 26, he solemnly entered London.
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 I decided to gather my will into a fist and moderate the itch to immediately put it on public display, 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 eventually 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, so that, shocking 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 Notre-Dame-de-Paris cathedral, a magnificent marriage ceremony was held for the sister of Louis XIII with 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 over 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 prevent 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 pliability 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. It 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 partly inspired by Dumas' famous Milady. 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 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 going 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 positions. 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, listened attentively 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, 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.
