Happy Thursday, Watson Blog readers! This TBT is a wee bit different, mostly because this upcoming event happened yesterday. However, the show must go on, so without further adieu, let me entertain (or maybe unsettle) you with the death of Charles I of England.
Charles I of England ruled from 1625 to 1649. He was of the house of Stuart, and his grandmother was Mary, Queen of Scots. His rule can be categorized by civil unrest and parliamentary disarray. He is described as indecisive and shy but was supposedly very stubborn. He often disagreed with parliament, and did things without consulting parliament at all, such as the time he forced a loan on landowners, gave them three months to pay it and then imprisoned seventy-six men who couldn’t or refused to pay him. His clash with parliaments led him to convoke three parliaments in four years and then dissolve each one when they wouldn’t provide him with money until he ended up ruling without a parliament for eleven years.
He did many other things to upset his countrymen which led to a rebellion in Scotland because of religion, and the English Civil War because of the growing constitutional conflict. All in all, he wasn’t a very popular king. His head wasn’t in the game of ruling which led to his head being removed.
The English Civil War was what really spearheaded the downfall of Charles. It began with a new parliament in 1640, known as the “Short-Parliament” which lasted a whole two months, and then he made a new parliament six months later, called the “Long-Parliament.” The Civil War became a fight between Court and Country. In November of 1641, Parliament passed the Grand Remonstrance, displaying what the parliament saw as a list of misconduct shown by Charles and called for reform. The following year, Charles formed a coup against the parliament, it failed and Charles fled to Nottingham out of fear for his life.
As the civil war continued, there were only a handful of small battles and divisions within parliament were brewing. However the war waged on between Charles and the parliament’s New Model Army. This army caused interior government problems which led to the “Rump Parliament.”
The Rump Parliament quickly decided that they needed to create a High Court in order to try King Charles for high treason. Charles refused to defend himself at this trial which rendered him with an unsurprising guilty verdict. Therefore, on 30th January 1649, in the same fashion as his grandmother Mary, he had his head removed from his shoulders.