The Trial of Charles I

More than 350 years ago, something unprecedented happened in Britain: a reigning king was arrested, put on trial, and executed. You may have seen many news outlets refer to this historic event, given the current news agenda regarding Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. We want to give you the history behind those headlines: what really happened in 1649, and how the English parliament came to pursue capital punishment for a reigning monarch? This episode from our archive dives into the extraordinary chain of events from Charles I's arrest to the moment of his execution. Dan is joined by Dr Rebecca Warren from the University of Kent for a day by day account of the trial and this dramatic case that still echoes through history to the present day. Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcast Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 1:15Speaker 01

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  Blood donation is now more inclusive. More LGBTQ+ individuals are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross due to FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation. The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross, including you. The Red Cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply. Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org/lgbtq. That's redcrossblood.org/lgbtq.

• 2:07Dan Snow?

  Hey folks, welcome down to Snow's History. As always, as you know, we take the responsibility very seriously on this show. We like to give people the history, the context behind things that are going on, the wild ride that we're all living through at the moment. We want to make sure that we all know whether they are unprecedented, as journalists would have us believe, or whether they are in fact very precedented indeed. Now, you may have seen last week that a gentleman called Andrew Mountbatten Windsor was arrested here in the UK. And we do of course have to say that Andrew is innocent until proven guilty. He strenuously denies any wrongdoing. I was obviously triggered because headlines all over the world pointed out that the last time a member of the British royal family

• 2:50Dan Snow?

  was arrested was apparently 350 years ago with the arrest, trial and execution of Charles the First. Now, that actually wasn't true. If you listened to our podcast last week, you'll know that after Charles, his grandson, albeit illegitimate, James Duke of Monmouth, was arrested and tried. And in fact, William IV as a young man was briefly arrested after a fight, a brawl in Gibraltar. But anyway, I'm on my one man mission to school the world's media about those important events. So I urge you to go and listen to that episode. It's sitting there right in your feed, folks, so you can get the real history. But since everyone is talking about Charles I, I felt it was right to share this episode from our archive. We're going to go in depth and look at that extraordinary moment in English history that is suddenly back in the spotlight. Let me set the scene. It was a cold January

• 3:35Dan Snow?

  day in 1649. Charles I, Charles Stuart, stepped out of Banqueting House in Whitehall, a building that he had constructed himself. A truly magnificent ultra fancy ballroom, if you like. And he walked out of the window to a scaffold that had been specially erected on the street in Whitehall. In front of a big London crowd, he then knelt on the block.

• 4:03Dan Snow?

  An reigning king was beheaded. The first time in world history that a reigning monarch had been put on trial and judicially killed. It was a moment that stunned those who witnessed it. It's a moment that has echoed through British history ever since. How did they come to kill the king? It did not happen overnight. It was a very long process. There was a revolutionary period marked by civil wars and religious upheavals and regime change. The only time Britain, for example, has ever known a republic. And in this episode, talk all about it. I'm joined by the excellent historian Rebecca Warren from the University of Kent. She's a great friend of this podcast to unravel how England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales reached this unprecedented point. And folks, that really was unprecedented. Brilliant.

• 4:48Dan Snow?

  Many kings have been killed by Vikings or on the battlefield or by members of their own family, but never by a jury. So please enjoy this deep dive into the only ever trial and execution of a reigning British monarch.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  T minus 10.

• 5:05Speaker 04

  Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king.

• 5:09Speaker 05

  No black, white unity till they're dispersed in black unity. Never to go to war with one another again.

• 5:15Speaker 03

  And lift off and the shuttle has cleared the tower.

• 5:22Dan Snow?

  Rebecca, thank you very much for coming back on the podcast.

• 5:24Speaker 06

  It's a delight to be here, Dan. Thank you for the invitation.

• 5:27Dan Snow?

  I was standing on the beach this morning by my house, looking out, looking to the west, and I saw the squat outline of Hurst Castle at the end of Hurst Spit. And I thought about King Charles the First imprisoned there before going on to his execution. It was an extraordinary event. Rebecca, you've got to tell me, it's the big one today. What put King Charles the First in that castle and then on the execution block? Can you summarise what on earth was going on that brought about this rupture between King and Parliament?

• 5:53Speaker 06

  Well, like all traumatic events, major political events, they have very long routes. So it depends how far back you want to go. But essentially, King Charles the First comes to the throne in 1625, falls out with Parliament really badly, rules without them for 11 years until 1640, has to call Parliament again because he needs some money. And within two years, this relationship has gone from bad to worse. And eventually in 1642, the two sides fall out so badly that civil war breaks out between King and Parliament.

• 6:26Dan Snow?

  Which doesn't go that well for Charles. He ends up a prisoner of Parliament. Let's come to the end of the 1640s. How do we get from there? Because through the course of the civil war, many people thought there'd be a kind of, you know, it was unimaginable that King would be killed and removed from the throne and Britain would...

• 6:43Speaker 06

  That's absolutely right. So, nobody fights the civil war, or almost nobody fights the civil war, thinking they want to cut the head off the King. That is not what the civil war is about. What they want to do is to force the King into a position where he will reform some of his worst activities and reach a settlement with them. That's what's aimed at. By 1648, however, at the apotheosis of the Second Civil War, Parliament has inflicted a crushing defeat on Charles again at the Battle of Preston. Charles is in prison anyway, and there is now a real struggle to know, what do we do with this man? He's proved himself to be treacherous, he's proved himself to be belligerent, he won't accept that he's losing the civil wars. How do we deal with him?

• 7:26Speaker 06

  And there is one side, on the army side, which are thinking he has to be brought to justice, and there is another side, primarily in Parliament, who are thinking, no, no, we can still settle with him.

• 7:36Dan Snow?

  So, can we quickly just explore that a bit? It's the King versus Parliament, but now it's the Parliament and the army are almost two different power bases, aren't they?

• 7:44Speaker 06

  That's right. So, when the First Civil War broke out, like all rebellions, if you like, lots of people got together and agreed that they'd fight together. But, once the First Civil War has been won by Parliament, then suddenly that coalition starts to divide. And by 1648, after a series of royalist uprisings and the Battle of Preston, the army is now a political force and increasingly divided, very divided, from Parliament. Parliament cannot bring itself really to imagine a future without the King in some way in government.

• 8:17Speaker 06

  Not everybody in the army disagrees with that, but enough people in the army do. Enough people in the army don't trust Charles, realise that he will sell them out, and Parliament is going to sell them out if they make a deal with the king. So we can see the two sides that were once in coalition polarising away from each other, and this is what brings about effectively the trial of Charles the First.

• 8:39Dan Snow?

  There are issues, aren't there, because how do you try a king? Who's going to try him? Where's it going to be? What's going to happen? You know, it becomes quite tricky at this point.

• 8:48Speaker 06

  It does. It raises some really fundamental issues. And don't forget, although none of this appears to be legal in some respects, civil war isn't legal in some respects, there is a real determination amongst people, both in the army and in Parliament, to try to make this a legal process. They don't want to be seen as rebellious. But the difficulty is that the essential understanding of government at this time is that all justice comes from the king, that the king is sovereign, and indeed that the king has the power, and only the king has the power, to call Parliament. In other words, how can the king be accused of being guilty or treacherous towards his people and his Parliament if he is the head of the legal system?

• 9:33Speaker 06

  He is the sovereign, so treason is against the sovereign, but he is the sovereign. So it is a really difficult legal knot to untangle for Parliament.

• 9:42Dan Snow?

  Parliament, obviously, the purge. The army take matters in their own hands and just remove the people from Parliament. The army solve this problem, don't they? Well, they solve one of the problems.

• 9:51Speaker 06

  They do indeed. So at the beginning of December 1648, the army purges Parliament by standing at the door as MPs come in and turning away and imprisoning, in some cases, all of those MPs who are known to be keen to settle with the king. In other words, if you're up for settling with the king, you're not part of Parliament anymore. And the Parliament that is left are those MPs who may have been happy to settle but weren't that bothered about it, will accept an alternative, and are therefore prepared to go ahead with potentially a trial of the king.

• 10:23Dan Snow?

  And how do they get around the problem of treason? What do they accuse him of?

• 10:27Speaker 06

  This is quite taxing. So eventually, the way it's argued is that whilst in the past it has been seen that the sovereign was the king, and therefore the head of the country and the legal system and so on... The argument is not turned on its head to say, actually, the sovereign is the people and the people are represented by parliament and the king is part of that governing triumvirate, if you like, and therefore the king owes his allegiance and his position to the sovereignty of the people. It's a difficult argument to follow, but it does hold water in many people's minds. And this is how they manage to reach a point where they can accuse the king and put the king on trial for treason.

• 11:11Dan Snow?

  This, Rebecca, always feels to me, is this a kind of revolutionary moment in British and world history, which no one sort of remembers because it ended up orphaned with no advocates in a way? Like, saying that the people are sovereign, now we would regard it as very modern, but at the time, is this huge, or is this too pragmatic and it's not as exciting as the kind of Jeffersonian oratory of the 18th century?

• 11:34Speaker 06

  No, no, no, you're absolutely right. It is absolutely revolutionary. I mean, kings so far, and queens, have ruled by divine right. Charles is a divine right monarch, par excellence. He believes that the role of being king was given to him by God, that he was divinely ordained to be king, and that therefore there is no question that this is not something which is up for argument by a man or anybody else. So it is a truly, I think, revolutionary argument and a truly revolutionary moment. And you're right to say, why doesn't this seem to be more well-known for being the revolution that it was? And of course, it is because in 1660, the monarchy is restored and everybody kind of clamped down on this idea. But these men were upturning on its head the idea of how government is

• 12:19Speaker 06

  run in this country. It was a truly revolutionary moment.

• 12:23Dan Snow?

  We should remember to celebrate it. Okay, so the House of Lords disagrees, but again, another revolutionary moment. And we all talk about 1911, with Lloyd George and Asquith are barreling over the House of Lords, but it's happening right now in the 17th century.

• 12:37Speaker 06

  Yes, so what happens is that during December 1648, there's a desperate panic whilst they try to erect the legislation that will give them the power to bring the king to trial. And when they've done that, they pass the bill that they've created up to the House of Lords to be signed, and the House of Lords turn around and say, well, no, we don't actually agree with this. We don't think that this parliament has the power to try the sovereign, and they refuse to sign. And at this stage, the Commons simply say, well, in that case, we don't need you anymore. And they effectively abolish the House of Lords. That happens legally later, but effectively they do without the House of Lords, and they make a declaration to say that the House of Commons is now authorised as, if you like,

• 13:19Speaker 06

  sole government in this country, that the House of Commons has the right and the power to go ahead and make legislation.

• 13:27Dan Snow?

  Okay, so then everything's being laid, the groundwork's being laid. Just last thing is the court, who's on the court, where is it going to be, how's it constituted?

• 13:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, so they decide to hold the trial in Westminster Hall. Now Westminster Hall's really interesting and really important here. Partly, it is where, for time immemorial, the central courts of legal justice have been held, and indeed were still being held, so it has a real resonance legally. It's also the site where a great many treason trials because of that have taken place. So famous trials like William Wallace, like Sir Thomas More, like Guy Fawkes back in the early 17th century, they have all taken place here. And so by holding the trial of Charles I in Westminster Hall, the government is again saying, this is about treason, this is what this is about, this is not a hole in the wall affair. It's also nice and big so that lots of people can be brought in to see justice being done.

• 14:18Speaker 06

  They appoint about 135 commissioners, people who will listen to the trial. Not all of those by any means sit all the time, and indeed, they set the bar very low. They only need a quorum of 20 commissioners to be there in order for the trial to go ahead. But on the whole, during the trial, about 50 to 60 men are there whilst the trial proceedings are taking place. One of the difficult things for parliament is that some of the senior legal minds in the country have scuttled off down to the country and hidden themselves away. They don't want to be associated with this, including the keepers of the Great Seal, some of the top legal offices in the country. So they've had to call on some rather, shall we say...

• 14:59Speaker 06

  Mid-ranking lawyers in order to try the king, one of whom is John Cook, very intelligent, very clever barrister, but he's not the top of the tree. And the president of the trial is a man called John Bradshaw, who, again, he's only a sheriff court judge from Chester, but he's prepared to do it. So if you're there and you'll do it, then frankly, you'll do.

• 15:17Dan Snow?

  Yeah, some of them and their descendants may come to regret that decision. But anyway, let's go. Okay, so let's break it down now, hour by hour, day by day. Charles is on the Isle of Wight, imprisoned. Don't they move him to Hurst Castle, don't they, where I was gazing at this morning?

• 15:31Speaker 06

  They do.

• 15:32Dan Snow?

  And then is it up to London or Windsor? What happens then?

• 15:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, so he's brought up to Windsor and he's kept in Windsor for a little while whilst the court is being put in place. And then we get to the 20th of January. Now, the 20th of January is the first day of the trial. And we've got to remember that this is one of those freezing winters in London. You know, the Thames is mostly frozen. Everywhere is frozen solid. People are bitterly cold and quite a lot of them are hungry. So it's a really miserable time of year, apart from anything else. Westminster Hall is screened off at the south end so that the trial can take place without the ordinary people being able to see the king on trial. But it is nevertheless filled with soldiers and then filled with members of the public at the very back. And galleries have been built right down either side.

• 16:18Speaker 06

  So if you were on the floor, you couldn't see the king. If you're up in the galleries, you certainly can. So you've got to imagine that this hall is buzzing with noise, buzzing with the smell of unwashed people and fear and excitement. It must have been an incredible situation to be in. And then Charles is brought in, wearing completely black with his single blue ribbon and his garter star, and the trial takes place.

• 16:41Dan Snow?

  Isn't this amazing that we're talking about this? If 1660 hadn't happened, there hadn't been a Restoration, this would be one of the great set pieces of English and British history, right? We'd remember this just as the French remember the Trial of Louis or the Stormy of the Bastille or the Americans remember the Constitutional Convention or Philadelphia in the 1770s. Like, and yet, the idea that people are sovereign, they're putting a king on trial to create the first ever republic, but instead it's been lost to us, this moment of drama.

• 17:08Speaker 06

  Yes, I agree. I think it's quite extraordinary and it really does show how history is written by the victors. That this was managed to be really sort of squashed out of our history, if you like. We know about it, but do we really think about just how extraordinary a situation this was? No, we don't.

• 17:26Dan Snow?

  I think I find this of images of Louis being tried in France, over a hundred years later, kind of more transgressive. I think, oh, that's the end of the ball bonds, oh my god, even though they came back really good. But instead, you know, we have our own English moments that we, for some reason, doesn't have that power. Right, let's do day one, 20 Jan, what happens?

• 17:44Speaker 06

  Okay, so Bradshaw, the president of the trial, he's going to stand up and he's going to declare what the charge is. Now, the charge has been quite hard to draw up. Now, how do you draw up a charge against the king when you're not even sure you have the power to do it? But nevertheless, he is accused of a series of things. One, he's accused of being a tyrant. He's accused of levying war maliciously on his people, trying to instigate a foreign invasion. They know that because they've got Charles's correspondence of letters with foreign powers saying, please come and help. He's then accused of renewing war again in 1648. Now, that's critical, because when he won the first civil war, that was seen by many, many, many people as God's judgment. If you like, God had chosen

• 18:25Speaker 06

  that Parliament would win the first civil war. So when Charles lost, that too was God's judgment. So when civil war breaks out again in 1648 and the Battle of Preston takes place, Charles is then seen as going directly against God's judgment. It's fundamental. And so that's one of the things that is on the charge list, that he renewed war in 1648 against the will of God. And finally, and also very tellingly, that he put his own person, the good of his own person, before his subject's safety.

• 18:58Dan Snow?

  Imagine that, Rebecca. Imagine I, head of the executive branch, doing that.

• 19:02Speaker 06

  Yes, who could imagine such a thing happening today? It's quite extraordinary.

• 19:05Dan Snow?

  What a transgression.

• 19:06Speaker 06

  The upshot of all this is that whilst the king has to listen to these charges read out, he point blank refuses to recognise the legality of the court. He does not recognise the court has jurisdiction over him. And so there's nothing more that can happen at this stage. He can't be forced to plead because he's not recognising that he's in a court where he has to plead. And so for that day, he is dismissed.

• 19:28Dan Snow?

  So does he do the old Slobodan Milosevic thing? And just shout and ignore and rail and just turn his back and look, or just literally refuse to comply?

• 19:37Speaker 06

  Well, he refuses to comply. He doesn't shout and rail. I mean, Charles is way away from that. He's a cold, reserved individual. It's true that through the trial, when he does get a moment to speak, he loses his lifelong stammer, which is quite interesting. But no, on the whole, he tries to and seems to have remained relatively calm, relatively cold, and just holds this line that he does not agree that this court has the legal right to try him.

• 20:05Dan Snow?

  Day two, is that a problem for them?

• 20:09Speaker 06

  Well, it's a huge problem because, first of all, they would like to be able to try the king because that gives them, if you like, their day in court. If you want this thing to be seen to be legal, you need to have an opportunity to put forward all your reasons why the king is guilty. Now, if the king won't plead, then it means that you're not able to do that. You can't have a trial and put forward your evidence if the king won't plead and won't accept that the court exists. But there's another reason as well. Because if any subject refuses to plead when he is brought to trial, then there is a legal precedent that that subject is automatically found guilty. Now, again, this is a problem. Yes, that means that at the end of day one, if he refuses to acknowledge the court, then

• 20:54Speaker 06

  they could say, right, well, you're guilty, chum, and off you go. But that's not what Parliament wants. Parliament needs this to be public. They need to show that they are abiding by legal, if you like, rules, and Charles is denying than that. It would also mean that if Charles was prepared to accept the legality of the court, then he would also, by implication, be accepting the legality of the government which set up that court, and that too is really critical. They want the trial to be accepted by Charles as a legal trial because that means that the army and Parliament, who have together put this together, are therefore accepted by the king as the legal government.

• 21:35Speaker 06

  And that Charles has so far refused to do, and by refusing to accept the court is continuing to refuse to do. So it really matters, it really matters that he won't plead.

• 21:45Dan Snow?

  And they sort of hope he eventually will, they lean on him, what's their plan?

• 21:49Speaker 06

  Well, yes, the idea is that they will be able to persuade him and they hope, of course, that he realises, or that he might realise, that if he does plead and maybe pleads guilty, but then they will be able to come to accommodation, if he effectively accepts that they have the legal right to bring him to justice, but then maybe there are ways round. So some people have argued, the court and indeed the king may have thought there would then be ways round, that still it was possible to come to some accommodation. He might be able to, for example, pass off the blame for the civil wars to other people as well, and therefore he would not be what he is accused of as being the author of these civil wars. So that's part of it. But of course, there are some people out there who have, I think it's quite clear, intend to bring the king to trial, to find him guilty,

• 22:34Speaker 06

  to execute him. And historians have argued long and hard about whether during the trial there was still an opportunity for Charles to be found guilty, or whether it was always a show trial and a done deal. My own feeling is that actually, the reason it's been so hard to solve this problem is that there were both people at the trial, that some of them thought this was always going to lead to his death, and so it should. But there were other people as well, taking part, who were holding open the opportunity for a deal to be made.

• 23:04Dan Snow?

  You're listening to Dan Snow's History. Don't go anywhere, there's more to come.

• 23:12Dan Snow?

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• 23:55Dan Snow?

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• 24:37Dan Snow?

  it. I love that sort of discovery, a detail, but suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what all baffled historians about us: mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

• 25:07Speaker 01

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• 25:56Speaker 02

  Blood donation is now more inclusive. More LGBTQ plus individuals are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross due to FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation. The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross, including you. The Red Cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply. Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org/lgbtq. That's redcrossblood.org/lgbtq.

• 26:47Dan Snow?

  Charles is not entirely passive, is he? Because he does frame a kind of critique of the court, which is coherent and interesting, isn't it? In fact, he puts himself on the side of the English people in a way, also against tyranny. That's what's quite curious. You're the tyrant.

• 27:02Speaker 06

  Charles, of course, has had a lot of time to think about this. So he's been sitting in Windsor and the Isle of Wight and the Hurst Castle. He's had a lot of time to think about this. He knows where this is going. And he does something very, very clever, which he comes out with on about day two or day three of the trial. And what he does is he reframes his position. So Parliament has been saying, or the trial, rather, has been saying, "You are guilty of betraying your people." And he reframes that to say, "No, what I am doing in refusing to take part in these proceedings is protecting the freedoms of the people." And in fact, he says, "If power without law may make laws..." I don't know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life or anything that he calls his own.

• 27:47Speaker 06

  So he suddenly managed to switch tables around and saying, "No, I haven't betrayed my people. I'm protecting my people from arbitrary power by the army." It's a brilliant move.

• 27:57Dan Snow?

  I mean, it's a brilliant move from Charles. I mean, you've got to have a pretty brass neck to do that.

• 28:02Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 28:03Dan Snow?

  Mr. Extra parliamentary taxation, the 1630s man. Anyway, good on him. So we got day two and three jostling about. It's day four, there's witnesses, aren't there?

• 28:13Speaker 06

  Yes, day four, the trial doesn't sit, but witnesses are heard in private. I think it's in the painted chamber in Westminster. And these witnesses are really there because they actually need somebody to stand up and say, yes, I was on the battlefield and I did hear Charles saying, attack, or whatever it might be. And one of the things that Cromwell, who so far hasn't come into our story and isn't particularly a key part of this story in many ways, but Cromwell, although I think back in early summer 1648, had reached the conclusion with a number of other army grandees that Charles could not be settled with and would have to be brought to justice. He is very, very keen to make sure that this trial is seen to be as legal as possible. Now, one of the ways you can make a trial legal

• 28:55Speaker 06

  insofar as it is taking place is to make sure that there are witnesses brought who are given the opportunity to speak. So day four of the trial, these witnesses are heard and their evidence will then be read out in public on day five.

• 29:08Dan Snow?

  So let's skip to day five. So everyone's back in court, are they?

• 29:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, so the trial resits again. The witness statements have been read out in the morning, but by the afternoon, there's nowhere else to go. So Charles has continually refused to recognise the trial. He's continually refused to plead, of course. There is nothing further that can happen. And so at this stage now, they go away and they pronounce the king guilty and they go away to draw up the sentence.

• 29:35Dan Snow?

  Wow, that was a quick trial.

• 29:36Speaker 06

  Well, there was no trial.

• 29:38Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Speaker 06

  I mean, Charles could have had his days in court, but he refuses. How many times can you all get together, him say, this is no court, them say, yes, it is, don't say that. And then they all have to go away again. There are only so many days you can spin that out.

• 29:52Dan Snow?

  Wow. Okay, so the king is guilty on day five. What next?

• 29:58Speaker 06

  So day six, there's another pause whilst they try to finalize a number of things and they draw up the sentence and so on. And during this point, four of the king's closest friends go to the trial, which is not sitting, but they go to people involved. And they offer virtually anything to spare the king's life. They offer their own lives, they offer money, they offer their own property. And these are turned down. So I think at this stage, it's perfectly clear that this trial is not going anywhere, that there is no way out now for the king. They're not going to negotiate with a man who will not negotiate on their terms.

• 30:32Dan Snow?

  And so, when did he get sentenced?

• 30:35Speaker 06

  So the sentence is formally announced on the 27th of January. And Bradshaw comes in, he's dressed in red. So again, you can, everybody can see where this is going. And he reads out the sentence that Charles will be executed by taking off his head.

• 30:51Speaker 06

  At this stage, the king asks to speak. And Bradshaw refuses and he says that he has been brought there, this is the king has been brought there to answer the charges made in the name of the people of England. And there's a sudden outcry from somebody in the gallery, believed to be Lady Fairfax, who was the wife of the then commander in chief of the army, to say, no, no, you know, not half, not a quarter of the people agree with this. And she's hurriedly shuffled out. And it just gives us a little sense of quite how tense this trial is, how many people are hanging on every word. But the sentence is given by Bradshaw and then Bradshaw gets, if you like, his own moment to talk about why the trial has happened and what is going on, how Parliament's thinking has reached this point.

• 31:37Dan Snow?

  So he lays it all out. Is this where the king has a chance to speak up as well?

• 31:42Speaker 06

  Well, no, not really, because the problem is that Bradshaw lays out his speech, he talks about, you know, the king being subject to the law and so on. But once the sentence has been pronounced, whoever has been found guilty is then dead legally. He's what's called dead in law. So after the pronouncement of the sentence, Charles now has no right to speak because he no longer, if you like, exists legally, although he's still a person. He's been pronounced a tyrant, a traitor and a murderer and he's been found guilty. That's it. I mean, he does try to have conversations, he does try to speak, but essentially the court can no longer hear him. So he missed his opportunity and now there's no way out of this.

• 32:21Dan Snow?

  Again, I'm going to repeat myself here. It feels like this speech by Bradshaw, in any other country in a way, would be a kind of important constitutional document in its own right. I mean, he talks about a contract between king and his people, how the king betrayed that. It's a popular legitimacy, is we in the modern world would recognise our relationship with an executive branch, isn't it?

• 32:42Speaker 06

  Yes, it is. I think that's right. It absolutely, in many ways, lays out the pattern of how government will develop, and certainly is recognised now. And as you say, it restates a fundamental principle, which is one that even current governments really would do well to listen to, which is that the government is there to protect its people. The fundamental right of any government is to protect its people. And Bradshaw says, there is a contract, as you said, between the king and his people, and that bond is reciprocal. And this we know, the one tie, if that bond is broken, then farewell sovereignty. So what he's saying is, the king broke his bond with the people, and therefore he can no longer be sovereign. And this is something which, you know, all governments really have

• 33:27Speaker 06

  had to, if you like, sign up to when they become governments, that the role of the government, essentially, in its most basic, is to protect its people.

• 33:37Dan Snow?

  Lovely. We're at day eight now. What happens the day after the night before?

• 33:41Speaker 06

  Yes. I mean, what a fascinating few days this is. If one could be a fly on the wall. So day eight is Sunday. Sunday is the Sabbath. This is, of course, the Puritan regime. So nothing really happens on Sunday, certainly nothing official. And Charles, therefore, is spending the day with William Juxon. Now, Juxon was created bishop of London in 1633, but then all the bishops were stripped of their offices in the 1640s. Nevertheless, Juxon is there and provides religious and presumably emotional support throughout the last few days of Charles's life. And so the king spends the day alone with Juxon, presumably praying, thinking, well, I don't know, what do you do the day before you know you're going to die? Weeping? Who knows?

• 34:23Dan Snow?

  So it's the next day, is it? Twenty ninth? Yeah.

• 34:25Speaker 06

  So on the twenty ninth, that's right. They've all had a day off on the Sabbath day, but by the twenty ninth, he's taken back to St. James Palace. Now, this may have been so that he didn't have to actually watch his own scaffold or hear his own scaffold being built at Whitehall. But at Whitehall and at Westminster, there's a lot going on. So the death warrant is laid out and commissioners are expected to sign it. Bradshaw is the first on the list. Cromwell is the third. But back in Charles's world, he is given, if you like, the final moments of intimacy with his family. So his two youngest children are brought to visit him. That's Elizabeth, Princess Elizabeth, who's thirteen, and Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who's only eight or nine. I think he's eight. And we have an eyewitness account of what happens because Elizabeth goes

• 35:08Speaker 06

  straight home and writes up her little diary and says, this is what happened between us. And so we know that Charles gives her a message, says, you know, he's been faithful to her mother, and she must forgive the enemies, and he's going to be a martyr and what have you. And to little Henry, who is often has been touted as maybe a puppet king who could be put in place when Charles is dead, he says, you must never let yourself be made king. And one of the reasons behind this, of course, is because he says, well, if you are made king, then your older brothers, James and Charles, will then be executed. They will be killed. So he says goodbye to his children. He burns his last papers. He hands out one or two final little

• 35:47Speaker 06

  keepsakes. And then after that, presumably spends his last evening praying and talking to Juxon and thinking, presumably thinking.

• 35:59Dan Snow?

  You're listening to Dan Snow's History. There's more coming up.

• 36:09Speaker 07

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• 37:50Dan Snow?

  The detail I always love is when he gets up, he has a plan for his outfit that day.

• 37:55Speaker 06

  Yes, he does. So remember, this is, as we've said, freezing London, really, really cold. And so he decides that he'd like to put on two shirts because he doesn't want to be shivering on the scaffold in case people think he's afraid. And to be fair to Charles, whatever his many faults were, he was actually physically quite a brave man. I mean, he was out there on the battlefield, maybe not in the thick of things, but he wasn't a coward. And I think this actually does tell us something quite fundamental about Charles, that he knows this is a martyrdom. He is setting himself up for martyrdom and martyrs presumably don't shake in the cold. So he's keen to make sure that even to the last moment, his image is what he wants to leave behind.

• 38:37Dan Snow?

  So tell me about that morning.

• 38:39Speaker 06

  So he wakes up about five thirty. I mean amazingly, he manages to go to sleep. I don't know, would you do that? Would I do that? How can we know? He wakes up at about five thirty, he gets dressed and so on, he receives a sacrament from Juxon, he listens to one of the lessons of the prayer book. He even has a little breakfast, a little bread and wine. And again, is that not symbolic? The bread and the wine is so religiously symbolic on the day of his martyrdom. And then about ten o'clock in the morning, he's taken across St. James's Park. Now again, remember, it's freezing cold. There are soldiers everywhere in London. I mean, London is frenetic at this point. There is rumor washing around. There are soldiers everywhere. There are people, there are crowds. He's taken across St. James's Park and then into Whitehall.

• 39:23Speaker 06

  Now, if anybody knows anything of Charles the First and knows anything of Whitehall, Charles is taken down his long gallery. The long gallery is where Charles houses some of his most precious artworks, and he was a great East Theat, a great collector of art. So on this day when he will lose his life within hours, he is walking through one of his most familiar places, full of the things that he treasures perhaps above most other things. It's an extraordinary idea. He walks through his long gallery, past his own portraits of his own regality as king, and is taken to his old room at Whitehall. And again, imagine what that's like. It's like being put back in your bedroom before you're taken out to be executed. What an

• 40:06Speaker 06

  extraordinary way to spend the last day. But then he's left. He's left there for about three hours, and it seems to be that Parliament actually had not kind of got round to legislating for how the country would work after the king was dead. And so they're scrabbling desperately around to pass some kind of legislation that will say, ah, well, now we're a republic, we don't need a king anymore, because otherwise, of course, as soon as that axe falls, Charles the Second will be king. So the first king may have gone, but the royalist threat has gone nowhere. So they're desperately scrabbling around, and the best they can do is to pass an act which says it's illegal to proclaim Charles the Second as king. And they actually get rounds to the necessary legislation for republic some days later.

• 40:49Speaker 06

  Anyway, he's left for these three hours, but at two o'clock, finally, there is nowhere else to go, and the guards come and they take him from his room through the great banqueting hall. Now, the banqueting hall, you can still visit it today. It was James I's great classical architectural statement, built for him by Inigo Jones, full of the majesty of classical art. The windows are now boarded up. It's full of people. A single window remains unboarded with steps up to it, and Charles is taken up the steps, out through the window, onto this hastily erected scaffold. And on that scaffold, there are a few people: executioners, guards, Juxon, and extraordinarily enough, a few journalists.

• 41:34Dan Snow?

  The media.

• 41:35Speaker 06

  The power of the press, the power of the media, is there even at this most solemn moment. And when Charles looks out, he looks out on a sea of buff-coated soldiers, and beyond them, an even greater sea presumably of the members of the public come to see this extraordinary event.

• 41:52Dan Snow?

  Is he allowed to say a few words?

• 41:55Speaker 06

  Yes, he is. So, on the scaffold, he is now allowed, if you like, given his voice, and he'd like to say it to the people, because of course, this is his moment for martyrdom. But they're so far away behind all these soldiers. I mean, Parliament is not risking him being rescued, even now. So eventually, he turns and really, he's speaking to Juxon and his guards. But what he says is a number of things. He stresses his innocence, although he accepts that he was guilty of betraying his friend Strafford way back in the early forties, and he's never forgiven himself for this. So he accepts that he is guilty for that alone. But he forgives his enemies. He says, of course, what he's said during the would-be trial, which is that he has refused to give way to government by the

• 42:39Speaker 06

  sword, and so he's making this point again. And finally, after prompting by Juxon not to forget that he's dying a Christian according to the Church of England, and that's important because people have-

• 42:49Dan Snow?

  Just put to bed those little Catholic rumours, that's good.

• 42:51Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly. Put to bed those Catholic rumours. "No, I die a good Christian within the Church of England," he says. And of course, his great line, his great line at this point is, "I go from a corruptible crown to an incorruptible one." And then, he hands his garter jewel, that great starlike garter jewel, to Juxon, saying, "Remember..." Now, we don't know what that means, but we think it means, "Remember your king." And by the way, can you give this to Charles a second? And then tucks his hair up under his cap so that his neck is clear, leans down onto the block, and fortunately for Charles, he is felled with a single blow of the axe. Now, immediately after that, what happens? Well, we know two things. One, there is an

• 43:33Speaker 06

  eyewitness statement to say that such a grown went-up as this young lad had never heard before and hopes never to go again. And that again is such a telling little thought, isn't it? The whole crowd moaning at the death of their sovereign. But at the same time as well, people start to rush forward, pushing through the soldiers, trying to grab anything that will be, if you like, a physical reminder of this moment. What they want is relics. So there is talk of people dipping cloth in the blood dripping from the scaffold. And this is the beginning, really, of the martyrdom, the making of the martyr of Charles the first, that even at this most desperate moment, the desire to capture a relic is

• 44:18Speaker 06

  at the front of some people's minds.

• 44:20Dan Snow?

  Where was his body buried?

• 44:22Speaker 06

  So it goes off to be embalmed, of course. They don't just drop him in a pit. And after about a week or so, they take him down to Windsor, and they open the tomb in which it's believed that Henry VIII and Jane Seymour are enclosed. And depending on your point of view, the whole thing is a sad tale. But the story of Charles's burial is sad in that he is taken there, of course, at the dead of night in a black incantation, so that, again, the public aren't aware of it. And when he gets there, Juxon is not allowed to use the normal words that exist in the Book of Common Prayer when you bury somebody. Now, why is that? Well, that's because the Book of Common Prayer was banned back in 1645, and his guards will not let him use them. I mean, it turns out that for kings

• 45:03Speaker 06

  and queens, even in today's age, you know, the rules apply. But Juxon, of course, did have an opportunity, because whilst you weren't allowed to use the Book of Common Prayer, ministers in churches were expected and encouraged to use their own words. So we have, if you like, even at this final moment of entombment, this clash between the two rival factions. On the one hand, the Book of Common Prayer, the bishops have all gone, and he is not buried with the rites that come from the Book of Common Prayer. But on the other hand, Juxon is bloody-minded and won't use his own words, won't make something up, won't say something appropriate, as his king is dropped into his tomb. So we see here a tiny microcosm of this clash of, if you like, outlook that has so...

• 45:48Speaker 06

  Epitomised the civil war.

• 45:52Dan Snow?

  Charles II obviously does immediately proclaim himself king, the penniless exile. And for reasons that we cannot go into in this podcast, he does eventually get back on the throne in 1660. Available on other podcasts in history, and perhaps you'll come on and talk me through those one day.

• 46:09Speaker 06

  That would be delightful.

• 46:10Dan Snow?

  But given we're talking about Charles I's death, what is the importance of all the reasons Charles II gets in? And instability, general mind, all sorts of things. How much does it matter that the manner in which Charles I died, the idea of him as a martyr, as you say? Is it all a matter of cold hard politics and logistics? Or do we think this symbolic death of Charles matters?

• 46:34Speaker 06

  That's a really interesting question. There's no doubt that it mattered at the time. So when Charles is executed, immediately a book is published called Icon Basilica. And this is purported to be by Charles with all his explanations as to what he's done and why he was right and so on and so forth. It wasn't actually, we think, written by him. It was written in the weeks before he died by one of his close religious guides, John Gordon. But it's massively popular, massively popular. It goes through 35 editions in the first year and thereafter is published in other languages and it's even set to music. So this creation of this myth of the martyr king really takes off. And indeed, even after the restoration of the monarchy, we can see it continuing even once Charles II is on the throne.

• 47:18Speaker 06

  So a number of churches are still dedicated to Charles the martyr. There's one in Tunbridge Wells, built in the 1670s, dedicated to Charles the martyr. My own feeling though, is that the martyrdom and the myth of the martyrdom, this idea, was less important in the restoration of Charles II than what we know to, in many ways, have haunted the trial proceedings and the months running up to that, which was just this sense that, it seems that Charles and many people simply could not really conceive of a government without the king. The king may have been more or less powerful, but Charles certainly doesn't seem to think that it is possible for the country to be governed without a king.

• 48:01Speaker 06

  And I think that in many ways, that is really the driving force. That the 10 years or so of, 11 years of government without the king has not really proved successful enough to show that another model can work. And so my own feeling is that, yes, the myth or the picture of Charles the Martyr is important, but what matters more is that the model of a king and parliament as the right way to govern a country is really the only one that everybody understands. And everybody thinks, yeah, that kind of worked. Don't forget, they've forgotten how awful the 1630s were by 1660. It's a long time ago. And suddenly this idea of this martyred king and this king with parliament probably seems like the safest bet.

• 48:44Speaker 06

  And that, I think, is what brings Charles II back to the throne.

• 48:47Dan Snow?

  Right, Rebecca, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

• 48:50Speaker 06

  It's a pleasure. Thank you.

• 49:00Speaker 01

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• 49:42Speaker 01

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• 49:49Speaker 02

  Blood donation is now more inclusive. More LGBTQ+ individuals are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross due to FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation. The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross, including you. The Red Cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply. Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org/lgbtq. That's redcrossblood.org/lgbtq.

• 50:34Dan Snow?

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