First Commonwealth: The Winners And Losers Of The English Civil War | English Civil War | Timeline

This channel is part of the History Hit Network. There had been almost three years of hard and bitter fighting before the Battle of Naseby in June 1645. Now, after the calamitous Royalist defeat, the determination that had sustained the King's cause thus far had all but disappeared. Only the Royalist cavalry had escaped from Naseby. The remainder of the King's army, his infantry and his artillery had been either destroyed or captured during the battle. The parliamentarians had in their possession private papers that proved beyond all doubt that the King had been intriguing with foreign powers, confirming his reputation for duplicity. King Charles, a man not to be trusted, was now a fugitive in his own kingdom. After the Battle of Naseby, ordinary people throughout the land believed that the war was very close to its conclusion. Parliament had tried everything in its power to bring it to an end by negotiation, but the differences between the two distinct factions among the parliamentarian forces surfaced once again. The Battle of Naseby of June 1645, fought in Northamptonshire, was a major victory for Parliament. And with that, some historians see the rest of the Civil War as a grand mopping up operation. The war wasn't over, the King possessed other territory and other armies within England and Wales still, but effectively, the Royalist forces were broken and Parliament was clearly on the upper hand. There were, as ever, two very different ways in which to proceed. There were attempts to bring the King once more to the negotiating table. It was the Peace Party, the Presbyterian majority in the Commons, led by Denzel Hollies, that pursued these attempts most vigorously. This, though, was not the preferred route of the army, the other parliamentarian faction, whose supporters were known as Independents. They believed it necessary to disable the King completely to prevent him from further pursuing the war. Only then, they reasoned, should negotiation with the King begin. Time and events did not heal the rift between the factions on the parliamentary side. Indeed, relations between the sides were to get very much worse. There are those who favour a broad religious settlement, tolerate all the Protestant groups that had sprung up, don't restore a Church of England. They're also the hawks in political and constitutional terms, tie Charles down, further limitations. Against them are the so-called Presbyterians, who do favour the restoration of a single state church. They want to do away with what they see as many of the heresies that had sprung up during the Civil War and they also tended to be the people who wanted a soft deal for the King. With an increasingly small band of followers, Charles wandered feebly throughout the country in the vain hope of rallying more troops to his cause. He still hoped to join forces in Scotland with his loyal and valiant servant, the Marquess of Montrose, but in September came the devastating news that the Marquess had been the victim of a surprise attack and had been defeated at Philip Hoe. King Charles was now the forlorn figure of popular legend, a man who, because of his stubbornness, arrogance and duplicity, would eventually make his way to the scaffold. Now was the time for a pragmatic and realistic approach. Although he had been comprehensively defeated, he was King still and, after all, the Parliamentarians had taken up arms not against him personally, but against his hated advisors who were now scattered or captured or dead. With unrivaled access to the world's best historians, we're committed to bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else. Sign up now for a free trial and Timeline fans get 50% off their first three months. Just be sure to use the code TIMELINE at checkout. Given the sad events of the next few years, perhaps it would have been better had the unhappy monarch gone to a hero's death at Naseby amid the wreck of his last The King's options after Naseby were severely limited. His army, such as it was, consisted mainly of cavalry. It was little more than a large bodyguard. A civil war army needs infantry and it needs a supply train. You need infantry to take the ground, you need the supply train to attack a position, both of which had been lost as a result of the battle. He could surrender there and then, but that wasn't Charles's way. He could fight on in England and Wales, hoping to delay things, score whatever victories he could. He could look to secure further reinforcements from Ireland, building upon the cessation, the truce he had made with the Irish Catholics two years before. He could perhaps make a closer military alliance with the Irish Catholics, which would actually bring over large numbers of Irish Catholic forces to fight for him to bolster his position in England and Wales. And there's clear evidence, despite the dismay of many of his own supporters, that that's exactly what he was trying to do during 1645. In fact, it never came to very much. And so instead, Charles just struggled on with now depleted forces, clear to an increasing number of people that he would lose the civil war in England and Wales, but he fought on for another year until the bitter end, until he had no option whatsoever but to surrender. One of the final royalist strongholds to fall was the seat of the Marquess of Winchester at Basie. The garrison had, since 1643, resisted numerous attacks by their parliamentarians. With all hope of relief gone, it could have been forgiven for offering to surrender. Despite the hopelessness of the situation, the Marquess refused to yield. And, on the 4th of October, 1645, soldiers of the New Model Army stormed the garrison before burning Basing House to the ground. It was a bloody and pitiless episode. For the King, catastrophe soon followed disaster. Terrible news came that Bristol, the last royalist seaport and the centre of production for royalist armaments, had surrendered to Parliament on the 10th of September. The King's nephew, Prince Rupert, a tireless and faithful servant of the Crown, knew full well that his weary army would be unable to resist the parliamentarian forces that had, in any event, already captured some of the defences of the city. Prince Rupert surrendered Bristol because he had a firm grasp of military realities. He was faced with armies closing in on him from all sides. There was little hope of support from the King's army, such as it was. He was also a politician, and he knew that any royalist support for the future would depend on the people of the country. So, rather than expose his own army and the citizens of Bristol to storms such as he'd used himself, he decided, by using the laws of war, to negotiate a surrender, maintain his army and take it to the King, and preserve the city and the people. Charles was furious at the news of the loss of the city, and the darker side of his character emerged as he wrote a letter removing Prince Rupert from his command and dismissing him into exile. It was a very poor reward indeed for a young man who, if at times had been impetuous and reckless, had also proved himself to be loyal and brave. After one that is so near me, as you are, both in blood and friendship, submits himself to so mean an action—I give it the easiest terms— such I have so much to say that I will say no more of it, only lest rashness of judgment be laid to my charge. I must remember you of your letter of the 12th of August, whereby you assured me that if no mutiny happened, you would keep Bristol for four months. Did you keep it four days? Was there anything like a mutiny? More questions might be asked, but now I confess to little purpose. My conclusion is to desire you to seek your subsistence until it shall please God to determine of my condition, somewhere beyond seas, to which end I send you herewith a pass. And I pray God to make you sensible of your present condition, and give you means to redeem what you have lost, for I shall have no greater joy in a victory than a just occasion without blushing to assure you of my being your loving uncle and most faithful friend." After capturing Bristol, Thomas Fairfax marched his army into the West Country, and cleared it of the King's supporters in a brisk campaign. Throughout a desperate winter, the final few Royalist outposts collapsed completely, and faithful servants of the cause, such as Goring and Hobton, were forced to flee to the Continent. At length even the ever-optimistic Charles came to recognise the hopelessness of his position. After leaving Oxford disguised as a servant for an aborted escape overseas, the King surrendered himself to the Scots army near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, on 5th May 1646. If, even at this late stage, Charles had harboured thoughts of persuading the Scots to support him, he was soon disabused of the notion. Their first act was to compel him to order the surrender of the remaining Royalist fortresses. With that, the war should have been over. But even after the Scots went home, leaving the King a prisoner of Parliament, Charles refused to admit defeat. Two years of plots, intrigue and counter-intrigue followed, and a final settlement was deferred time and again as the King tried to play one Parliamentarian faction off against the other. Now, at the end of the First English Civil War, there was obviously a widespread desire to put the pieces back together again, and in many senses, in theory, it should have been possible to do so. In theory, it should have been possible to demobilise the armies, to persuade a chastened King to govern in accordance with what Parliament wanted, to reach a settlement that would suit the Scots. But in fact, the history of the years from the end of the First Civil War in 1646 right through to the execution of Charles I in London in 1649 was a period, a period of enormous flux, in which it was proved impossible to put the pieces together again. The Presbyterian Parliament was still disposed to accommodate the King, but the army, which was dominated by independents, became increasingly impatient with the slippery monarch. Concerned over its power and influence, Parliament tried to have the army disbanded, but the move failed, and it was they, along with their new champion, Oliver Cromwell, who were to have the last say. Army leaders had become more assertive politically in the last stages of the war, and in particular, the creation, as it were, of a national parliamentary army, the New Model Army, as opposed to the earlier forces, and of an army in which there was a degree of officer politicisation, meant that there was another group at the negotiating table. And the army both had demands that were specific to itself. Crucially, it wanted its arrears paid, and it was owed a lot of money, and nobody could afford that. But it also had, although here army officers differed, and there was also an important differing among some elements of the rank and file, it also had particular political strategies it wished to push, and in particular, there was a resistance to the idea of a Presbyterian church settlement. So for the time being, the latter half of 1646, first half of 1647, Charles I is almost sidelined, he's kept on a back burner. As a preliminary to doing the sort of deal they want to do with him, the political Presbyterians in Parliament know that, first of all, they must neutralise, get rid of, the parliamentary army, and that's why there's a plan to disband a fair bit of it, and to get much that remains over to Ireland to fight there, well out of the way. They fear that the parliamentary armies will intervene directly, physically, in their political plans for the future of church, state, constitution. Even though they had won a comprehensive victory over his forces, the army still recognised King Charles as their rightful sovereign. They had taken the field in order to curb the arbitrary excesses of his government, which they attributed to his wicked advisors. Now that the advisors had been dispensed with, the army assumed that it would be possible to negotiate a new constitutional and religious settlement with the king that would be acceptable to all parties. Oliver Cromwell was one of the many who believed this to be true, and, in earnest good faith, he continued the protracted negotiations with the defeated monarch, who was, nonetheless, still head of state. More trouble came, not in the shape of the king, but of Parliament. Cromwell discovered that they had been plotting to beat their own army. Incensed by their scheming, Cromwell sent a troop of horse to bring the king into army protection at the camp at Newmarket. He was, quite simply, kidnapped. During 1647, Parliament was planning to disband as much as it could of the parliamentary armies. What it planned to do was to pay them off, pay some but not all of the arrears of pay to much of the army. Almost all the units that were to remain in being were to be shipped off to Ireland to fight there, to help put down the Irish Catholic Rebellion, and restore English political control over Ireland. And there was also, part of the plan was that, apart from the overall commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, no other officer above the rank of colonel was to remain stationed in England and Wales. So people like Cromwell, Lieutenant General Cromwell, would have no military, future military role or career within England and Wales. Either serve in Ireland, or that's the end of his military career. It's hard to see how the Presbyterian majority in Parliament thought they would get away with it. The New Model Army, and the Western Army, and also a Northern Army, were there en masse, many thousand men. They were increasingly politicised, they made their views clear in military declarations and other army documents. A clash was clearly looming in the spring of 1647, and at times some of the Presbyterians in Parliament do hold back. But nonetheless, their desire to do a religious, political, constitutional deal with Charles was such. Their fear that if the Parliamentary Army got the upper hand, they would impose a political, religious settlement so obnoxious to them, that they were determined to gamble, to push ahead, even though that they were taking a huge risk, and were in danger of suffering a sort of rebuff from the Parliamentary Army that eventually they got. King Charles was, understandably, highly amused and much encouraged by these latest developments. It was a supreme irony. Parliament could no longer control its own army. Surely, he reasoned, it was only a matter of time before the rebel factions fell out altogether, and the Royalist cause would triumph after all. The army travelled towards London, lodging their increasingly confident royal captive at Hampton Court. The joker in the pack is the King, because having lost the war, Charles I intends to win the peace. He sees, it doesn't need to be particularly bright to do this, he sees the rivalry between the other groups, and he is determined to exploit that rivalry in order to secure the return of himself to considerable power. He doesn't wish to be a figurehead king, which was the role that was intended for him by the Parliamentarians. Now came a final opportunity to find a compromise solution. The army presented Charles with a proposal for a settlement more generous than he, perhaps, had a right to expect. This was the heads of the proposals, the acceptance of which would have saved the King from the scaffold. Arrogant as ever, Charles rejected the proposal out of hand. The deal drawn up, the document drawn up, by Ayrton and other senior officers was as lenient as it could be in the circumstances. It was very lenient towards former Royalists. Most were to be pardoned or merely excluded from public office for a period of a few years. There were to be biennial parliaments with redistributed seats. Reflecting the independent platform, there was to be a broad religious settlement with broad toleration of all Protestant groups. But to the King, it was surprisingly close to the Presbyterian platform, not the independent platform. The King was to remain. He was to retain a lot of power. For a period of 10 years, he was to share with Parliament certain key powers, such as command over the armed forces, appointment to senior offices. But thereafter, although a degree of sharing power was to be retained, the King would regain a fair share of royal power, royal prerogative. But like all the deals offered to the King at the time, Charles neither said yes nor no. He said maybe. We now know from documents that have been captured and come to light, he was not sincere. He referred to various attempts to make a deal with him as mock treaties. He was merely spinning out time, divide and rule. And if not, if it did end up at the block, then he would go there as the royal martyr. There was now a very grim mood indeed inside Cromwell's army. As Richard Baxter, a parliamentarian soldier, recalled in 1648. As soon as I came to the army, Oliver Cromwell coldly bid me welcome and never spoke one word to me, more while I was there. Not once, all that time, vouchsafed me an opportunity to come to the headquarters where the councils and meetings of the offices were, so that most of my designs were thereby frustrated. Cromwell and the army leaders had struggled to reach an agreement with King Charles, but it seemed nothing was able to persuade him to settle. Cromwell's position was made more difficult by pressure from the army rank and file, whose radical demands were represented by the army levellers. One of their demands was that all negotiations with the King should cease. Another was the abolition of the monarchy. The King was simply unaware of the growing depth of feeling against him and his cause. Cromwell's disappointment and frustration turned to anger when, early in 1648, he first discovered that Charles had been secretly negotiating with the Scots. Trouble had been brewing within the new model army, which had still not been paid since the end of the war, and Charles had hoped to engineer a final split between the army and parliament. The plan was to take advantage of the split by marching a Scots army 10,000 strong into England. The price of the Scots' support was Charles' guarantee to establish Presbyterianism in England. The secret pact was known as the Engagement, and it was to be further supported by a popular royalist uprising throughout the country. At the end of October 1647, Charles agreed terms with the Scots, and on the 11th of November, he once again broke his word and escaped from Hampton Court. Charles's escape from Hampton Court was very convenient for the army officers. It meant that the disagreeable, divisive negotiations that had been conducted with him could be terminated. It meant that they could pull the army together. We're all against a common enemy now, boys, and it means that the incipient mutinies and divisions of autumn 1647 could be healed over. It was very convenient, and thus there are those who suggest that perhaps Cromwell, perhaps some of the other senior officers, actually encouraged, egged on, deliberately allowed Charles to make a run for it. What I think gives the light of those suggestions is what Charles could then have done. If he was a free agent, why did he not flee to the continent? Why did he not take boat somewhere? He would have had a perfectly honourable, welcoming reception in, say, France, could have raised forces there. He could have been a major threat in due course. And instead, we know from accounts that the Parliamentary High Command, Cromwell and others, were amazed, delighted, relieved when the news reached them that Charles had done no more than take boat to the Isle of Wight. It made no real sense. Charles seems to have thought that the governor of the Isle of Wight would be receptive to him. Was a closet royalist that he could then set up the Isle of Wight as a royalist base just offshore to mount a re-invasion? If so, he horribly miscalculated. Although the governor of the Isle of Wight was far from amused and was uncertain and worried, he remained loyal to Parliament, and Charles merely swapped confinement at Hampton Court for confinement at Carisbrook Castle on the Isle of Wight. Incredibly, the king had managed to engineer a second civil war in the country. His agents agitated in traditional royalist areas, promising the support of the Scottish army. On the 23rd of March, 1648, the garrison at Pembroke in Wales declared for the king, in the rather naive belief that he would settle their arrears of pay. Charles plays his hand reasonably well in that he is able to cause a second civil war in which one of the major military forces in the British Isles, namely the Scottish army, is on his side. And this, after all, seems great. There had been two invasions earlier that decade by Scottish forces, both of them aimed against Charles I. One of them had precipitated the overthrow of his position and his need to turn to Parliament. The second one had helped cost him the north of England and the sort of military situation in 1644. So, in many senses, the march south of the Scots in 1648 should have meant that Charles would be successful. It would have stood a greater chance if the various regional risings in England and Wales and the Scottish royalist invasion could have been coordinated so that they hit the parliamentary armies, chiefly the New Model Army, at the same time and stretched resources. Given the lack of coordination, the New Model Army was able to, either as a whole unit or bits of it, pick off the various royalist elements one by one. Cromwell was dispatched to deal with the Welsh uprising, but a month later, more royalist rebels seized Berwick and Carlisle, opening the way for the arrival of the Scottish army into England. At the end of May, a royalist revolt broke out in Kent, and the navy mutinied in support of the king. The first cracks in the revolt appeared, however, when news came that fierce opposition at home had delayed the Scots' advance until July. By then, it was too late. Although a group within Scotland had made a deal with the king, so-called engagement, there were many within Scotland, the Kirk party covenanters, who were not satisfied with this deal. They felt they could not trust the king. He would not stand by the terms that he had agreed to. There was significant opposition within Scotland to mounting a pro-royalist Scottish army and invading England. Much of that opposition was mere apathy. People just didn't join up, refused to cooperate. Some of it was actually physical opposition. There were minor rebellions against the Scottish royalist army in parts of Scotland, and they had to be quelled or controlled before that Scottish royalist army could march south. Fairfax defeated the Kentish rebels at Maidstone in June 1648, and pursued the beaten royalist fugitives north across the River Thames to besiege them at Colchester. Pembroke surrendered to Cromwell on the 11th of August, and just three days later, the Scots at last crossed the English border. There was not a moment to lose. Marching hard, Cromwell joined General Lambert at Wetherby, then turned westwards across the Pennines to meet the Scottish army marching southwards on London. The two armies met at Preston on the 17th of August, and it was here that Cromwell completed one of his most decisive military victories. Swinging across from Yorkshire, Cromwell fell behind the Scottish royalist army through Lancashire, and he took advantage of the failure of the command of the Scottish royalist army. They had become dangerously strung out as they marched through Lancashire, and when he, Cromwell, fell upon the rear units of that army outside Preston, some of that army was in the centre of Preston, two miles away, and was very slow to respond to the request that they turn about and come back and reinforce their colleagues. Much of the cavalry was even further south, well on the way to Wigan. So Cromwell's army, although outnumbered by the Scots, was able to attack only part of the army at any one stage, so he wasn't outnumbered. The Battle of Preston was more a running engagement fought through the lanes and across the bridges of Lancashire between the Pennines and Preston, and then from Preston down to Wigan. The Scots advanced, supported by Marmaduke Landale. They were met by Cromwell, and in the fight which took place over the next two days, the English infantry showed their real talent for fighting in hedgerows and lanes, and the Scots were destroyed. The consequences, certainly for the Second Civil War, Scottish intervention was ended, and Cromwell was the master of both countries. Although the Scots continued their march south, they were in complete disarray. Abandoned by their cavalry, the army turned to face Cromwell outside Warrington, but to no avail. Cromwell himself recalled in August 1648, "...we held them in some dispute till our army came up. They, maintaining the pass with great resolution for many hours, ours and theirs coming to push of pike and very close charges." Eventually, the Scots ran out of ammunition, and were forced to fall back into Warrington itself. There was some talk of fortifying the town, but without sufficient ammunition, all was lost. The great enterprise in support of the King was over, and the Scots army surrendered to Cromwell. A week later, outside the walls of Colchester, Fairfax's men triumphantly flaunted the banners taken from the Scots army at Preston. Having eaten every horse, cat and dog in the town, the defenders were starving, and their gnawing hunger was made worse by the realisation that no help or support could be expected. With heavy hearts, they surrendered Colchester on the 28th of August 1648. The Second Civil War was over, and it was time for a reckoning with the King. Having crushed the King, the generals feel that they cannot anymore trust him. They are no longer interested in being sort of observers, or even parties to a deal between civilian politicians and the King. Instead, the generals, not all of them, but a powerful group among them, press for dealing with what they term the Man of Blood. They argue that Charles I, by encouraging the Scots to invade, and by encouraging the Second Civil War, had in effect broken every understanding, and that he himself was a figure who should be understood not as some politician to make a deal with, but as the kind of evil personified in what one might term a kind of biblical view of the world. As a response to that, the Presbyterian majority within Parliament itself says, this is terrible, what we must do is hurry up and make a compromise deal with the King, no matter what, preferably while the New Model Army is still away on campaign. And so, ironically almost, the Second Civil War gives an impetus to the political Presbyterians in Parliament to reopen negotiations with the King on the Isle of Wight, they send delegates down to Newport on the Isle of Wight, and they attempt to reach a fairly soft, quick compromise deal with the King, the Treaty of Newport, to try and resolve everything and to bring back the King in full power to London before the New Model Army knows about it, can do anything to stop it, can push ahead its very different and far more brutal agenda. The simple truth was that King Charles was a man who would not yield his personal position. He still clung doggedly to the principles that he had taken onto the battlefield in 1642. The great constitutional issues of the day therefore remain unsolved. No one on the parliamentary side had intended that the war should end in a way that presented so stark a choice, but the realisation gradually dawned that the only lasting solution to the country's problems lay in the abolition of the monarchy and the execution of the sovereign. Naturally, nobody was particularly keen to be the first to voice publicly what was felt by many privately. It fell to Oliver Cromwell to grasp that poisoned chalice and to lead the way. Cromwell had once done all in his power to reach agreement with the King, but Charles had thrown that goodwill back in his face. Now, Cromwell was the King's implacable enemy, certain that it was God's will that Charles should die. He made his intentions clear in a phrase that would ring down the ages. We shall cut off the head of the King with the crown upon it. The execution of Charles was, given the mood of the army, given the mood of the people, and the victory that Parliament had achieved, probably the only simple and reasonable option they had. To exile the King abroad would mean that he could cause trouble from the continent. To pardon the King or to return to a status quo would have angered Parliament's army, who would have gone on the rampage. To have returned to the status quo from Parliament's point of view would have been unthinkable. So the only thing they could do, the most extreme solution, but the most logical option, was to execute the King. Cromwell now pursued his goal with the ruthless efficiency that had become his trademark on the battlefield. Recognising that he was unlikely to enjoy the support of the Presbyterian majority in the House, who were in favour of continuing negotiations with the King, he hit upon an ingenious way of ensuring that they did not stand in his way. He prevented them from taking their seats in Parliament. Having defeated the Scots, the army is now seeing force as the way forward. Parliament is purged. Pride's Purge, named appropriately enough after an army officer. Colonel Pride refuses to allow into the Commons Chamber a large number of MPs, those who had proved themselves antagonistic to the Parliamentary army, to the Parliamentary army's military, constitutional, political, religious agenda, and those who had proved themselves too friendly towards the King, wanting to do a deal with him on the terms half agreed at Newport. And so there is a mass purge. Some are actually trundled off and imprisoned for a while. Many more are simply turned away. Others, although not physically expelled, don't like what's happening and absent themselves. So from a House which, in theory, numbered over 500, in the wake of Pride's Purge, the military purge of the House of Commons, in the succeeding weeks, probably no more than 70 MPs sit, take their seats. They're the more radical MPs, the independents. They're the MPs friendly to the Parliamentary army and friendly towards the idea of exemplary justice against Charles Stuart, that man of blood. It was on the 20th of January, 1649, that one of the most dramatic and tragic episodes in British history began. The culmination of years of rancour and bitterness that had precluded any compromise between the two sides. It was an utterly unique situation, for there was certainly no legal precedent whatsoever that provided for a king to be tried and executed by his own subjects for supposed acts of treason against his people. Some historians suggest that, several months before, many of the senior army officers, including Cromwell, had determined that, assuming they won the Second Civil War, trial and execution, regicide, was the only option, and that it's merely the convenience of securing the victory in the war, pride's purge, and that determines the precise timing of it in January 1649. Other historians suggest, though, that there were options and that some of the senior army officers were hesitant and wished to explore other options. One option might be to depose Charles, or perhaps more realistically, to persuade him to abdicate in favour of one of his younger sons, who would be some sort of a puppet regent in name only. And historians debate whether the execution was the only alternative, and some suggest that, until really quite late, Cromwell and other key military and political players in the trial and execution hesitated and looked at alternative routes. All his life, Charles had cut a rather reticent, uncharismatic figure, hindered by his slight speech impediment. His trial, ironically, was to be the finest hour of his public life. His stammer miraculous left him, and he won new admiration and respect from among even his most bitter opponents by his steadfast and dignified defence of his position and principles. I would know by what authority, and I mean lawful authority, I am to be tried. There are many unlawful authorities in the world, such as thieves and robbers on the highway, which have the same authority as this assembly. Do not forget that I am your sovereign king, ordained by God to rule his people. By that authority I stand more for the liberty of my people than any that come here to be my pretended judges. You have shown no lawful authority to satisfy any reasonable man. If I am not suffered to speak, what justice shall my people have? I have a trust committed to me by God. By old and lawful dissent, I will not betray it to answer to a new, unlawful authority. Therefore resolve me that, and you shall hear more of me." After the first eloquent and elegant speech to the court in his own defence, during which he refused to recognise the authority of the court, Charles was not allowed to speak again. It was an extraordinary state of affairs that confirmed the trial was little more than a charade by which Cromwell hoped to give the dubious proceedings an air of legality. There were many bitter exchanges during the first day of the King's trial. John Cook, the parliamentary lawyer, said in his opening address that Charles had been "...trusted with a limited power to govern by and according to the laws of the land and not otherwise. He had attempted to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power, and had traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present parliament and the people therein represented. The said Charles Stewart is a tyrant, traitor and murderer, and a public and implacable enemy to the Commonwealth of England." Charles' reaction to these words hardly helped the highly charged atmosphere in court. He gave a loud and scornful laugh. Opinion was divided among the public as to the King's fate. As Cook returned home on the evening of the first day of the trial, a neighbour stopped him. "'I hear you are up to your ears in this business,' said the friend. "'I am serving the people,' replied Cook. "'There's a thousand to one will not give you thanks,' came the answer." Cook's final words to his friend, however, illustrated clearly the determination of the King's opponents to see him executed. "'He must die, and the monarchy must die with him.'" In many ways, the trial of the King is a show trial. Like most of the state trials in 16th and 17th century England, it's not about determining guilt or innocence. It's to show that the accused is guilty and then to sweep on to what follows. And it's in much the same way as the trial of the regicides themselves 11 or 12 years later, in a similar vein. The fact that Charles, instead of pleading, instead of mounting any defence, merely refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the court, speeded things up a bit, but probably had no effect on the outcome. Guilty to be executed. The execution of King Charles I was set for Tuesday 30th January 1649. The final days of the King's life were devoted to prayer and religious contemplation, save for a heartbreaking final meeting with Elizabeth and Henry, two of his children, on the 29th of January. The 13-year-old Elizabeth wept bitterly as the King spoke to the infant Duke of Gloucester. "'Mark, child, what I say. They will cut off my head and perhaps make thee a king. But you must not be king while your brothers Charles and James do live, for they will cut off thy brother's heads when they can catch them, and cut off thy head too. And therefore I charge you, do not be made a king by them. I will be torn in pieces first.' The child replied. The end came on a grey, freezing London day. Fearing that the icy conditions would make him shiver as if through fear, the King asked for an extra shirt to wear. He was taken from St James to the Royal Palace at Whitehall, the scene of so much happiness before the horrors of the war and its aftermath. When the time came, the King walked slowly and steadfastly to the scaffold, which had been erected in front of the banqueting house, and was surrounded by an enormous crowd. As the axe fell, severing the King's head with one blow, a great groan went up from the crowd. A groan remembered by one young eyewitness as one as I had never heard before, and desire I may never hear again. Charles died bravely on the scaffold, impeccable courage, but that's no more than would be expected from any gentleman facing the block. Although there probably were provisions to tie him and hold him down if need be, it wasn't what was expected. A gentleman didn't panic, he submitted himself to what was required, courageously, bravely. And that's what Charles did, his final speech, slightly garbled and incoherent at times, but fairly coherent, and an impeccably brave death. I would argue it was a death he deserved. I would say that he was guilty of much of the Civil War, and purely practical terms, because of his duplicity, because of his unwillingness to enter into any form, sincerely, and to keep any form of a settlement. The parliamentarians, or some of them, were probably at least right in coming to the conclusion that there would never be a durable peace with Charles I. The only chance of peace was without him. Cromwell's work was complete. Charles would no longer stand in the way of the will of the people. It was difficult to argue, though, that England was a more contented place. Was it the will of the people to see their king executed? And what of Parliament, once at the beck and call of the king, now sitting only with permission of the army? It was a situation that was unwelcome, as it was unforeseen. After eight years of bloodshed and turmoil, England still looked to an uncertain future. Force has come to England, and the basis of this force is to underlie everything that subsequently happens in the 1650s.