The Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I
The Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth
I,
Attributed to Isaac Oliver (15561617)
Attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts (II) (15611636)
link
Her headdress is an incredible design
decorated lavishly
with pearls and rubies and supports her royal crown. The
pearls symbolize her virginity; the crown, of course, symbolizes
her royalty. Pearls also adorn the transparent veil which hangs
over her shoulders. Above her crown is a crescent-shaped jewel
which alludes to Cynthia, the goddess of the moon
link
The eyes and ears painted into the
fabric of
dress in the Rainbow Portrait clearly imply a sense of
omniscience; as queen, she was able to hear and see all.
link
thus allowing the queen to pose in the guise of Astraea, the
virginal heroine of classical literature
link
A jeweled serpent is entwined along her
left arm,
and holds from its mouth a heart-shaped ruby. Above
its head is a celestial sphere. The serpent symbolizes wisdom;
it has captured the ruby, which in turn symbolizes the
queen's heart. In other words, the queen's passions
are controlled by her wisdom
link
Cockatrice snake serpent
http://polarbearstale.blogspot.fr/2012/06/rainbow-portrait-of-queen-elizabeth-i.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England
Elizabeth I of
England
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia
"Elizabeth
I", "Elizabeth of England", and "Elizabeth Tudor"
redirect here. For other uses, see Elizabeth I (disambiguation), Elizabeth of England (disambiguation), and Elizabeth Tudor (disambiguation).
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Elizabeth I (7
September 1533 24 March 1603) was queen regnant of England and Ireland from
17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called "The Virgin Queen",
"Gloriana" or "Good Queen Bess", Elizabeth
was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.
The daughter of Henry VIII, she was born a princess, but
her mother, Anne Boleyn,
was executed two and a half years after her birth, and Elizabeth was declared
illegitimate. Her half-brother, Edward VI, bequeathed the crown to Lady Jane Grey,
cutting his two half-sisters, Elizabeth and the Catholic Mary,
out of the succession in spite of statute law to the contrary. His will was
set aside, Mary became queen, and Lady Jane Grey was executed. In 1558,
Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister, during whose reign she had been imprisoned
for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.
Elizabeth set out to rule by good counsel,[1] and she depended heavily on a group of
trusted advisers led byWilliam Cecil, Baron Burghley. One of her
first moves as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of
which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement later evolved into today's Church of
England. It was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an
heir so as to continue the Tudor line. She never did, however, despite numerous
courtships. As she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity, and a
cult grew up around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and
literature of the day.
In government, Elizabeth was more moderate
than her father and half-siblings had been.[2] One of her mottoes was "video
et taceo" ("I see, and say nothing").[3] In religion she was relatively
tolerant, avoiding systematic persecution. After 1570, when the pope declared
her illegitimate and released her subjects from obedience to her, several
conspiracies threatened her life. All plots were defeated, however, with the
help of her ministers' secret service. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign
affairs, moving between the major powers of France and Spain. She only
half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military
campaigns in the Netherlands, France, and Ireland. In the mid-1580s, war with
Spain could no longer be avoided, and when Spain finally decided to attempt to
conquer England in 1588, the failure of the Spanish Armada associated her with one of the
greatest victories in English history.
Elizabeth's reign is known as the Elizabethan era,
famous above all for the flourishing of English drama, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and for the seafaring
prowess of English adventurers such as Sir Francis
Drake. Some historians are more reserved in their assessment. They
depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler,[4] who enjoyed more than her share of
luck. Towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems
weakened her popularity. Elizabeth is acknowledged as a charismatic performer and a dogged survivor, in an
age when government was ramshackle and limited and when monarchs in
neighbouring countries faced internal problems that jeopardised their thrones.
Such was the case with Elizabeth's rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, whom she imprisoned
in 1568 and eventually had executed in 1587. After the short reigns of
Elizabeth's half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome
stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity.[2]
Contents
[hide] o
7.1 Mary and the Catholic cause o
8.3 Supporting Henry IV of France o
8.6 Barbary states, Ottoman Empire ·
10 Death ·
14 Notes o
16.1 Primary sources and early histories |
Early life
Elizabeth
was the only child of Henry VIIIand Anne Boleyn,
who did not bear a male heir and was executed less than three years after
Elizabeth's birth.
Elizabeth was born at Greenwich Palace and was named after both her
grandmothers, Elizabeth of
York andElizabeth Howard.[5] She was the second child of Henry VIII of England born in wedlock to survive infancy.
Her mother was Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn.
At birth, Elizabeth was the heiress presumptive to the throne of England. Her older
half-sister, Mary,
had lost her position as a legitimate heir when Henry annulled his marriage to
Mary's mother, Catherine of Aragon, in order to marry
Anne and sire a male heir to ensure the Tudor succession.[6][7] Elizabeth was baptised on 10
September; Archbishop
Thomas Cranmer, the Marquess of Exeter, the Duchess of Norfolk and the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset stood as her four godparents.
When Elizabeth was two years and eight months
old, her mother was executed on 19 May 1536.[8] Elizabeth was declared illegitimate
and deprived of the title of princess.[9] Eleven days after Anne Boleyn's death,
Henry marriedJane Seymour, but she died shortly after the birth of their
son, Prince Edward, in 1537. From his birth,
Edward was undisputed heir apparent to the throne. Elizabeth was placed in his
household and carried the chrisom, or baptismal
cloth, at his christening.[10]
The
Lady Elizabeth in about 1546, by an unknown artist
Elizabeth's first Lady Mistress, Margaret Bryan,
wrote that she was "as toward a child and as gentle of conditions as ever
I knew any in my life".[11] By the autumn of 1537, Elizabeth was
in the care of Blanche Herbert, Lady Troy,
who remained her Lady Mistress until her retirement in late 1545 or early 1546.[12] Catherine Champernowne, better known by
her later, married name of Catherine "Kat" Ashley, was appointed as
Elizabeth's governess in 1537, and she remained Elizabeth's friend until her
death in 1565, when Blanche Parry succeeded her as Chief Gentlewoman of
the Privy Chamber.[13] Champernowne taught Elizabeth four
languages: French, Flemish,
Italian and Spanish.[14]By
the time William Grindal became her tutor in 1544, Elizabeth could write
English, Latin, and Italian. Under
Grindal, a talented and skilful tutor, she also progressed in French and Greek.[15] After Grindal died in 1548, Elizabeth
received her education under Roger Ascham,
a sympathetic teacher who believed that learning should be engaging.[16] By the time her formal education ended
in 1550, she was one of the best educated women of her generation.[17] By the end of her life, Elizabeth was
also reputed to speak Welsh, Cornish, Scottish and Irish in addition to English. The
Venetian ambassador stated in 1603 that she "possessed [these] languages
so thoroughly that each appeared to be her native tongue".[18] Historian Mark Stoyle suggests that
she was probably taught Cornish by William Killigrew, Groom
of the Privy Chamber and later Chamberlain of the Exchequer.[19]
Thomas Seymour
The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful
Soul, a translation from the French, by
Elizabeth, presented to Catherine Parr in 1544. The embroidered binding with
the monogram KP for "Katherine Parr" is believed to have been worked
by Elizabeth.[20]
Henry VIII died in 1547; Elizabeth's
half-brother, Edward VI, became king at age nine. Catherine Parr,
Henry's widow, soon married Thomas Seymour of Sudeley,
Edward VI's uncle and the brother of the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. The
couple took Elizabeth into their household at Chelsea.
There Elizabeth experienced an emotional crisis that some historians believe
affected her for the rest of her life.[21] Seymour, approaching age 40 but having
charm and "a powerful sex appeal",[21] engaged in romps and horseplay with
the 14-year-old Elizabeth. These included entering her bedroom in his
nightgown, tickling her and slapping her on the buttocks. Parr, rather than
confront her husband over his inappropriate activities, joined in. Twice she
accompanied him in tickling Elizabeth, and once held her while he cut her black
gown "into a thousand pieces."[22] However, after Parr discovered the
pair in an embrace, she ended this state of affairs.[23]In
May 1548, Elizabeth was sent away.
However, Thomas Seymour continued scheming to
control the royal family and tried to have himself appointed the governor of
the King's person.[24][25] When Parr died after childbirth on 5
September 1548, he renewed his attentions towards Elizabeth, intent on marrying
her.[26] The details of his former behaviour
towards Elizabeth emerged,[27] and for his brother and the council,
this was the last straw.[28] In January 1549, Seymour was arrested
on suspicion of plotting to marry Elizabeth and overthrow his brother.
Elizabeth, living at Hatfield House,
would admit nothing. Her stubbornness exasperated her interrogator, Sir Robert
Tyrwhitt, who reported, "I do see it in her face that she is guilty".[28] Seymour was beheaded on 20 March 1549.
Mary I's reign
Mary I,
by Anthonis Mor,
1554
Edward VI died on 6 July 1553, aged 15. His will
swept aside the Succession to the Crown Act 1543, excluded
both Mary and Elizabeth from the succession, and instead declared as his heir Lady Jane Grey,
granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk. Lady Jane was
proclaimed queen by the Privy Council, but her support quickly crumbled, and
she was deposed after nine days. Mary rode triumphantly into London, with
Elizabeth at her side.[29]
The show of solidarity between the sisters
did not last long. Mary, a devout Catholic, was determined to crush the
Protestant faith in which Elizabeth had been educated, and she ordered that
everyone attend Catholic Mass; Elizabeth had to outwardly conform. Mary's
initial popularity ebbed away in 1554 when she announced plans to marry Prince Philip of Spain, the son of Emperor Charles V and an active Catholic.[30] Discontent spread rapidly through the
country, and many looked to Elizabeth as a focus for their opposition to Mary's
religious policies.
In January and February 1554, Wyatt's rebellion broke out; it was soon suppressed.[31] Elizabeth was brought to court, and
interrogated regarding her role, and on 18 March, she was imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Elizabeth fervently protested her innocence.[32] Though it is unlikely that she had
plotted with the rebels, some of them were known to have approached her. Mary's
closest confidant, Charles V's ambassador Simon Renard,
argued that her throne would never be safe while Elizabeth lived; and the
Chancellor, Stephen Gardiner,
worked to have Elizabeth put on trial.[33] Elizabeth's supporters in the
government, including Lord Paget, convinced Mary to spare her
sister in the absence of hard evidence against her. Instead, on 22 May,
Elizabeth was moved from the Tower to Woodstock, where she was to spend almost a
year under house arrest in the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield. Crowds cheered her
all along the way.[34][35]
The
remaining wing of the Old Palace,Hatfield House.
It was here that Elizabeth was told of her sister's death in November 1558.
On 17 April 1555, Elizabeth was recalled to
court to attend the final stages of Mary's apparent pregnancy. If Mary and her
child died, Elizabeth would become queen. If, on the other hand, Mary gave
birth to a healthy child, Elizabeth's chances of becoming queen would recede
sharply. When it became clear that Mary was not pregnant, no one believed any
longer that she could have a child.[36] Elizabeth's succession seemed assured.[37]
King Philip, who ascended the Spanish throne
in 1556, acknowledged the new political reality and cultivated his
sister-in-law. She was a better ally than the chief alternative, Mary, Queen of Scots, who had grown up in
France and was betrothed to the Dauphin of France.[38] When his wife fell ill in 1558, King
Philip sent the Count of Feria to consult with Elizabeth.[39] This interview was conducted at
Hatfield House, where she had returned to live in October 1555. By October
1558, Elizabeth was already making plans for her government. On 6 November,
Mary recognised Elizabeth as her heir.[40] On 17 November 1558, Mary died and
Elizabeth succeeded to the throne.
Accession
Elizabeth became queen at the age of 25, and
declared her intentions to her Council and other peers who had come to Hatfield
to swear allegiance. The speech contains the first record of her adoption of
the mediaeval political theology of the sovereign's "two
bodies": the body natural and the body politic:[41]
Elizabeth
I in her coronation robes, patterned with Tudor roses and trimmed with ermine.
My lords, the law of nature moves me to
sorrow for my sister; the burden that is fallen upon me makes me amazed, and
yet, considering I am God's creature, ordained to obey His appointment, I will
thereto yield, desiring from the bottom of my heart that I may have assistance
of His grace to be the minister of His heavenly will in this office now
committed to me. And as I am but one body naturally considered, though by His
permission a body politic to govern, so shall I desire you all ... to be
assistant to me, that I with my ruling and you with your service may make a
good account to Almighty God and leave some comfort to our posterity on earth.
I mean to direct all my actions by good advice and counsel.[42]
As her triumphal
progress wound through
the city on the eve of the coronation ceremony, she was welcomed
wholeheartedly by the citizens and greeted by orations and pageants, most with
a strong Protestant flavour. Elizabeth's open and gracious responses endeared
her to the spectators, who were "wonderfully ravished".[43] The following day, 15 January 1559,
Elizabeth was crowned and anointed by Owen Oglethorpe,
the Catholic bishop of Carlisle, at Westminster
Abbey. She was then presented for the people's acceptance, amidst a
deafening noise of organs, fifes, trumpets, drums, and bells.[44]
Church settlement
Main
article: Elizabethan Religious Settlement
Elizabeth's personal religious convictions
have been much debated by scholars. She was a Protestant, but kept Catholic
symbols (such as the crucifix), and downplayed the role of sermons in defiance
of a key Protestant belief.[45]
In terms of public policy she favoured
pragmatism in dealing with religious matters. The question of her legitimacy
was a key concern: Although she was technically illegitimate under both
Protestant and Catholic law, her retroactively declared illegitimacy under the
English church was not a serious bar compared to having never been legitimate
as the Catholics claimed she was. For this reason alone, it was never in
serious doubt that Elizabeth would embrace Protestantism.
Elizabeth and her advisors perceived the
threat of a Catholic crusade against heretical England. Elizabeth therefore
sought a Protestant solution that would not offend Catholics too greatly while
addressing the desires of English Protestants; she would not tolerate the more
radical Puritans though, who were pushing for
far-reaching reforms.[46] As a result, the parliament of 1559
started to legislate for a church based on the Protestant settlement of Edward VI, with
the monarch as its head, but with many Catholic elements, such as priestly
vestments.[47]
The House of Commons backed the proposals strongly, but the
bill of supremacy met opposition in the House of Lords,
particularly from the bishops. Elizabeth was fortunate that many bishoprics
were vacant at the time, including the Archbishopric of Canterbury.[48][49] This enabled supporters amongst peers
to outvote the bishops and conservative peers. Nevertheless, Elizabeth was
forced to accept the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of
England rather than
the more contentious title of Supreme Head,
which many thought unacceptable for a woman to bear. The new Act of Supremacy became law on 8 May 1559. All public
officials were to swear an oath of loyalty to the monarch as the supreme
governor or risk disqualification from office; the heresy laws were repealed, to avoid a repeat
of the persecution of dissenters practised by Mary. At the same time, a new Act of Uniformity was passed, which made attendance at
church and the use of an adapted version of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer compulsory, though the penalties for recusancy, or failure to
attend and conform, were not extreme.[50]
Marriage question
Elizabeth
and her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
c. 1575. Pair of stamp-sized miniatures by Nicholas
Hilliard.[51] The Queen's friendship with Dudley
lasted for over thirty years, until his death.
From the start of Elizabeth's reign, it was
expected that she would marry and the question arose to whom. She never did,
although she received many offers for her hand; the reasons for this are not
clear. Historians have speculated that Thomas Seymour had put her off sexual
relationships, or that she knew herself to be infertile.[52][53]She
considered several suitors until she was about fifty. Her last courtship was
with Francis, Duke of Anjou, 22 years her
junior. While risking possible loss of power like her sister, who played into
the hands of King Phillip II of Spain, marriage offered the chance of an heir.[54] However, the choice of a husband might
also provoke political instability or even insurrection.[55]
Robert Dudley
In the spring of 1559 it became evident that
Elizabeth was in love with her childhood friend Robert Dudley.[56] It was said that Amy Robsart,
his wife, was suffering from a "malady in one of her breasts", and
that the Queen would like to marry Dudley if his wife should die.[57] By the autumn of 1559 several foreign
suitors were vying for Elizabeth's hand; their impatient envoys engaged in ever
more scandalous talk and reported that a marriage with her favouritewas not welcome
in England:[58] "There is not a man who does not
cry out on him and her with indignation ... she will marry none but the
favoured Robert".[59] Amy Dudley died in September 1560 from
a fall from a flight of stairs and, despite the coroner's inquest finding of accident, many people
suspected Dudley to have arranged her death so that he could marry the queen.[60] Elizabeth seriously considered
marrying Dudley for some time. However, William Cecil, Nicholas Throckmorton, and some
conservative peers made
their disapproval unmistakably clear.[61] There were even rumours that the
nobility would rise if the marriage took place.[62]
Among other marriages being considered for
the queen, Robert Dudley was regarded as a possible candidate for nearly
another decade.[63] Elizabeth was extremely jealous of his
affections, even when she no longer meant to marry him herself.[64] In 1564 Elizabeth raised Dudley to the
peerage as Earl of
Leicester. He finally remarried in 1578, to which the queen reacted
with repeated scenes of displeasure and lifelong hatred towards his wife.[65] Still, Dudley always "remained at
the centre of [Elizabeth's] emotional life", as historian Susan Doran has described the situation.[66] He died shortly after the defeat of theArmada.
After Elizabeth's own death, a note from him was found among her most personal
belongings, marked "his last letter" in her handwriting.[67]
Political aspects
Francis, Duke of Anjou, byNicholas
Hilliard. Elizabeth called the duke her "frog", finding
him "not so deformed" as she had been led to expect.[68]
Marriage negotiations constituted a key
element in Elizabeth's foreign policy.[69] She turned down Philip II's own hand in 1559, and negotiated for
several years to marry his cousin Archduke Charles of Austria. By 1569,
relations with the Habsburgs had deteriorated, and Elizabeth considered
marriage to two French Valois princes in turn, first Henry, Duke of Anjou, and later, from 1572
to 1581, his brother Francis, Duke of Anjou, formerly Duke of
Alenηon.[70] This last proposal was tied to a
planned alliance against Spanish control of the Southern Netherlands.[71] Elizabeth seems to have taken the
courtship seriously for a time, and wore a frog-shaped earring that Anjou had
sent her.[72]
In 1563, Elizabeth told an imperial envoy:
"If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and
single, far rather than queen and married".[69] Later in the year, following
Elizabeth's illness with smallpox, the succession
question became a heated issue in Parliament. They urged the queen to marry or
nominate an heir, to prevent a civil war upon her death. She refused to do
either. In April she prorogued the Parliament, which did not
reconvene until she needed its support to raise taxes in 1566. Having promised
to marry previously, she told an unruly House:
I will never break the word of a prince
spoken in public place, for my honour's sake. And therefore I say again, I will
marry as soon as I can conveniently, if God take not him away with whom I mind
to marry, or myself, or else some other great let happen.[73]
By 1570, senior figures in the government
privately accepted that Elizabeth would never marry or name a successor.
William Cecil was already seeking solutions to the succession problem.[69] For her failure to marry, Elizabeth
was often accused of irresponsibility.[74] Her silence, however, strengthened her
own political security: she knew that if she named an heir, her throne would be
vulnerable to a coup; she remembered that the way "a second person, as I
have been" had been used as the focus of plots against her predecessor.[75]
The
"Hampden" portrait, by Steven van der Meulen, ca. 1563. This is
the earliest full-length portrait of the queen, made before the emergence of
symbolic portraits representing the iconography of the "Virgin Queen".[76]
Elizabeth's unmarried status inspired a cult
of virginity. In poetry and portraiture, she was depicted as a virgin or a
goddess or both, not as a normal woman.[77] At first, only Elizabeth made a virtue
of her virginity: in 1559, she told the Commons, "And, in the end, this
shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a queen,
having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin".[78] Later on, poets and writers took up
the theme and turned it into an iconography that exalted Elizabeth. Public
tributes to the Virgin by 1578 acted as a coded assertion of opposition to the
queen's marriage negotiations with the Duke of Alenηon.[79]
Putting a positive spin on her marital
status, Elizabeth insisted she was married to her kingdom and subjects, under
divine protection. In 1599, she spoke of "all my husbands, my good
people".[80]
Mary,
Queen of Scots
Elizabeth's first policy toward Scotland was
to oppose the French presence there.[81] She feared that the French planned to
invade England and put Mary, Queen of Scots, who was considered
by many to be the heir to the English crown,[82] on the throne.[83] Elizabeth was persuaded to send a
force into Scotland to aid the Protestant rebels, and though the campaign was
inept, the resulting Treaty of Edinburgh of July 1560 removed the French threat
in the north.[84] When Mary returned to Scotland in 1561
to take up the reins of power, the country had an established Protestant church
and was run by a council of Protestant nobles supported by Elizabeth.[85] Mary refused to ratify the treaty.[86]
In 1563 Elizabeth proposed her own suitor,
Robert Dudley, as a husband for Mary, without asking either of the two people
concerned. Both proved unenthusiastic,[87] and in 1565 Mary married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who carried
his own claim to the English throne. The marriage was the first of a series of
errors of judgement by Mary that handed the victory to the Scottish Protestants
and to Elizabeth. Darnley quickly became unpopular in Scotland and then
infamous for presiding over the murder of Mary's Italian secretary David Rizzio.
In February 1567, Darnley was murdered by conspirators almost certainly led by James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. Shortly
afterwards, on 15 May 1567, Mary married Bothwell, arousing suspicions that she
had been party to the murder of her husband. Elizabeth wrote to her:
How could a worse choice be made for your
honour than in such haste to marry such a subject, who besides other and
notorious lacks, public fame has charged with the murder of your late husband,
besides the touching of yourself also in some part, though we trust in that
behalf falsely.[88]
These events led rapidly to Mary's defeat and
imprisonment in Loch Leven
Castle. The Scottish lords forced her to abdicate in favour of her
son James, who had been born in June 1566.
James was taken to Stirling Castle to be raised as a Protestant. Mary
escaped from Loch Leven in 1568 but after another defeat fled
across the border into England, where she had once been assured of support from
Elizabeth. Elizabeth's first instinct was to restore her fellow monarch; but
she and her council instead chose to play safe. Rather than risk returning Mary
to Scotland with an English army or sending her to France and the Catholic
enemies of England, they detained her in England, where she was imprisoned for
the next nineteen years.[89]
Mary and the Catholic cause
Sir Francis Walsingham, Principal Secretary 15731590. Being Elizabeth'sspymaster, he uncovered
several plots against her life.
Mary was soon the focus for rebellion. In
1569 there was a major Catholic rising in the North; the goal was to free
Mary, marry her to Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and
put her on the English throne.[90] After the rebels' defeat, over 750 of
them were executed on Elizabeth's orders.[91] In the belief that the revolt had been
successful,Pope Pius V issued
a bull in 1570, titled Regnans in Excelsis, which declared
"Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England and the servant of crime"
to be excommunicate and a heretic, releasing all her
subjects from any allegiance to her.[92][93] Catholics who obeyed her orders were
threatened with excommunication.[92] The papal bull provoked legislative
initiatives against Catholics by Parliament, which were however mitigated by
Elizabeth's intervention.[94] In 1581, to convert English subjects
to Catholicism with "the intent" to withdraw them from their
allegiance to Elizabeth was made a treasonable
offence, carrying the death penalty.[95] From the 1570s missionary
priests from
continentalseminaries came to England secretly in the cause
of the "reconversion of England".[93] Many suffered execution, engendering a
cult of martyrdom.[93]
Regnans in Excelsis gave
English Catholics a strong incentive to look to Mary Stuart as the true
sovereign of England. Mary may not have been told of every Catholic plot to put
her on the English throne, but from the Ridolfi Plot of 1571 (which caused Mary's suitor,
the Duke of Norfolk, to lose his head) to the Babington Plot of 1586, Elizabeth's spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham and the royal council keenly assembled
a case against her.[96] At first, Elizabeth resisted calls for
Mary's death. By late 1586 she had been persuaded to sanction her trial and
execution on the evidence of letters written during the Babington Plot.[97] Elizabeth's proclamation of the
sentence announced that "the said Mary, pretending title to the same
Crown, had compassed and imagined within the same realm divers things tending
to the hurt, death and destruction of our royal person."[98] On 8 February 1587, Mary was beheaded
at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire.[99] After Mary's execution, Elizabeth
claimed not to have ordered it and indeed most accounts have her telling
Secretary Davidson, who brought her the warrant to sign, not to dispatch the
warrant even though she had signed it. The sincerity of Elizabeth's remorse and
her motives for telling Davidson not to execute the warrant have been called
into question both by her contemporaries and later historians.
Wars
and overseas trade
Half Groat of Elizabeth I
Elizabeth's foreign policy was largely
defensive. The exception was the English occupation of Le Havre from October 1562 to June 1563, which
ended in failure when Elizabeth's Huguenot allies joined with the Catholics to
retake the port. Elizabeth's intention had been to exchange Le Havre for Calais, lost to France in
January 1558.[100] Only through the activities of her
fleets did Elizabeth pursue an aggressive policy. This paid off in the war
against Spain, 80% of which was fought at sea.[101] She knighted Francis Drake after his circumnavigation of the globe from 1577 to 1580, and he
won fame for his raids on Spanish ports and fleets. An element of piracy and self-enrichment drove Elizabethan
seafarers, over which the queen had little control.[102][103]
Netherlands expedition
After the occupation and loss of Le Havre in 15621563, Elizabeth avoided
military expeditions on the continent until 1585, when she sent an English army
to aid the Protestant Dutch rebels against Philip II.[104] This followed the deaths in 1584 of
the allies William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and Francis, Duke of Anjou, and the surrender
of a series of Dutch towns to Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, Philip's
governor of the Spanish Netherlands. In December 1584, an
alliance between Philip II and the French Catholic League at Joinville undermined the ability of Anjou's
brother, Henry III of France, to counter Spanishdomination
of the Netherlands. It also extended Spanish influence along the channel coast of France, where the Catholic
League was strong, and exposed England to invasion.[104] The siege of Antwerp in the summer of 1585 by the Duke of
Parma necessitated some reaction on the part of the English and the Dutch. The
outcome was the Treaty of
Nonsuch of August
1585, in which Elizabeth promised military support to the Dutch.[105] The treaty marked the beginning of the Anglo-Spanish War, which lasted until the Treaty of London in 1604.
The expedition was led by her former suitor,
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Elizabeth from the start did not really back
this course of action. Her strategy, to support the Dutch on the surface with
an English army, while beginning secret peace talks with Spain within days of
Leicester's arrival in Holland,[106] had necessarily to be at odds with
Leicester's, who wanted and was expected by the Dutch to fight an active campaign.
Elizabeth on the other hand, wanted him "to avoid at all costs any
decisive action with the enemy".[107] He enraged Elizabeth by accepting the
post of Governor-General from the Dutch States-General. Elizabeth saw this as a
Dutch ploy to force her to accept sovereignty over the Netherlands,[108] which so far she had always declined.
She wrote to Leicester:
We could never have imagined (had we not seen
it fall out in experience) that a man raised up by ourself and extraordinarily
favoured by us, above any other subject of this land, would have in so
contemptible a sort broken our commandment in a cause that so greatly touches
us in honour....And therefore our express pleasure and commandment is that, all
delays and excuses laid apart, you do presently upon the duty of your
allegiance obey and fulfill whatsoever the bearer hereof shall direct you to do
in our name. Whereof fail you not, as you will answer the contrary at your
utmost peril.[109]
Elizabeth's "commandment" was that
her emissary read out her letters of disapproval publicly before the Dutch
Council of State, Leicester having to stand nearby.[110] This public humiliation of her
"Lieutenant-General" combined with her continued talks for a separate
peace with Spain,[111] irreversibly undermined his standing
among the Dutch. The military campaign was severely hampered by Elizabeth's
repeated refusals to send promised funds for her starving soldiers. Her
unwillingness to commit herself to the cause, Leicester's own shortcomings as a
political and military leader and the faction-ridden and chaotic situation of
Dutch politics were reasons for the campaign's failure.[112] Leicester finally resigned his command
in December 1587.
Spanish Armada
Meanwhile, Sir Francis Drake had undertaken a major voyage against
Spanish ports and ships to the Caribbean in 1585 and 1586, and in 1587 had made
asuccessful raid on Cadiz, destroying the
Spanish fleet of war ships intended for the Enterprise
of England:[113] Philip II had decided to take the war
to England.[114]
.jpg)
Portrait
of Elizabeth to commemorate the defeat of theSpanish Armada (1588), depicted in the background.
Elizabeth's hand rests on the globe, symbolising her international power.
On 12 July 1588, the Spanish Armada,
a great fleet of ships, set sail for the channel, planning to ferry a Spanish
invasion force under the Duke of Parma to the coast of southeast England from
the Netherlands. A combination of miscalculation,[115] misfortune, and an attack of English fire ships on 29 July off Gravelines which dispersed the Spanish ships to the northeast defeated the
Armada.[116]The
Armada straggled home to Spain in shattered remnants, after disastrous losses
on the coast of Ireland (after some ships had tried to struggle back to Spain
via the North Sea,
and then back south past the west coast of Ireland).[117] Unaware of the Armada's fate, English
militias mustered to defend the country under the Earl of Leicester's command.
He invited Elizabeth to inspect her troops atTilbury in Essex on 8 August. Wearing a silver
breastplate over a white velvet dress, she addressed them in one of her most famous speeches:
My loving people, we have been persuaded by
some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourself to
armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to
live to distrust my faithful and loving people ... I know I have the body but
of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of
a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince
of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.[118]
When no invasion came, the nation rejoiced.
Elizabeth's procession to a thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral rivalled that of her coronation as a
spectacle.[117] The defeat of the armada was a potent
propaganda victory, both for Elizabeth and for Protestant England. The English
took their delivery as a symbol of God's favour and of the nation's
inviolability under a virgin queen.[101] However, the victory was not a turning
point in the war, which continued and often favoured Spain.[119] The Spanish still controlled the
Netherlands, and the threat of invasion remained.[114] Sir Walter Raleigh claimed after her death that
Elizabeth's caution had impeded the war against Spain:
If the late queen would have believed her men
of war as she did her scribes, we had in her time beaten that great empire in
pieces and made their kings of figs and oranges as in old times. But her
Majesty did all by halves, and by petty invasions taught the Spaniard how to
defend himself, and to see his own weakness.[120]
Though some historians have criticised
Elizabeth on similar grounds,[121] Raleigh's verdict has more often been
judged unfair. Elizabeth had good reason not to place too much trust in her
commanders, who once in action tended, as she put it herself, "to be
transported with an haviour of vainglory".[122]
Supporting Henry IV of France
.svg)
Coat of arms of Queen Elizabeth I, with her
personal motto: "Semper
eadem" or "always
the same"
When the Protestant Henry IV inherited
the French throne in 1589, Elizabeth sent him military support. It was her
first venture into France since the retreat from Le Havre in 1563. Henry's
succession was strongly contested by the Catholic League and by Philip II, and Elizabeth feared
a Spanish takeover of the channel ports. The subsequent English campaigns in
France, however, were disorganised and ineffective.[123] Lord Willoughby, largely
ignoring Elizabeth's orders, roamed northern France to little effect, with an
army of 4,000 men. He withdrew in disarray in December 1589, having lost half
his troops. In 1591, the campaign of John Norreys,
who led 3,000 men to Brittany, was even more of
a disaster. As for all such expeditions, Elizabeth was unwilling to invest in
the supplies and reinforcements requested by the commanders. Norreys left for
London to plead in person for more support. In his absence, a Catholic League
army almost destroyed the remains of his army at Craon, north-west France, in
May 1591. In July, Elizabeth sent out another force under Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, to help
Henry IV in besieging Rouen. The result was just
as dismal. Essex accomplished nothing and returned home in January 1592. Henry
abandoned the siege in April.[124] As usual, Elizabeth lacked control
over her commanders once they were abroad. "Where he is, or what he doth,
or what he is to do," she wrote of Essex, "we are ignorant".[125]
Ireland
Main
article: Tudor conquest of Ireland
Although Ireland was one of her two kingdoms,
Elizabeth faced a hostile, and in places virtually autonomous,[126] Irish population that adhered to
Catholicism and was willing to defy her authority and plot with her enemies.
Her policy there was to grant land to her courtiers and prevent the rebels from
giving Spain a base from which to attack England.[127] In the course of a series of
uprisings, Crown forces pursued scorched-earth tactics, burning the land and
slaughtering man, woman and child. During a revolt in Munster led by Gerald FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond,
in 1582, an estimated 30,000 Irish people starved to death. The poet and
colonist Edmund Spenser wrote that the victims "were
brought to such wretchedness as that any stony heart would have rued the
same".[128]Elizabeth
advised her commanders that the Irish, "that rude and barbarous
nation", be well treated; but she showed no remorse when force and
bloodshed were deemed necessary.[129]
Between 1594 and 1603, Elizabeth faced her
most severe test in Ireland during the Nine Years' War, a revolt that took place
at the height of hostilities withSpain, who backed the rebel leader, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone.[130] In spring 1599, Elizabeth sent Robert Devereux,
2nd Earl of Essex, to put the revolt down. To her frustration,[131] he made little progress and returned
to England in defiance of her orders. He was replaced by Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who took
three years to defeat the rebels. O'Neill finally surrendered in 1603, a few
days after Elizabeth's death.[132] Soon afterwards, a peace treaty was
signed between England and Spain.
Russia
Ivan the
Terrible shows his
treasures to Elizabeth's ambassador. Painting by Alexander Litovchenko, 1875
Elizabeth continued to maintain the
diplomatic relations with the Tsardom of
Russia originally
established by her deceased brother. She often wrote to its then ruler, Tsar Ivan IV, on amicable
terms, though the Tsar was often annoyed by her focus on commerce rather than
on the possibility of a military alliance. The Tsar even proposed to her once,
and during his later reign, asked for a guarantee to be granted asylum in
England should his rule be jeopardised. Upon Ivan's death, he was succeeded by
his simple-minded son Feodor. Unlike his father, Feodor had no
enthusiasm in maintaining exclusive trading rights with England. Feodor
declared his kingdom open to all foreigners, and dismissed the English
ambassador Sir Jerome Bowes,
whose pomposity had been tolerated by the new Tsar's late father. Elizabeth
sent a new ambassador, Dr. Giles Fletcher, to demand from the regent Boris Godunov that he convince the Tsar to
reconsider. The negotiations failed, due to Fletcher addressing Feodor with two
of his titles omitted. Elizabeth continued to appeal to Feodor in half
appealing, half reproachful letters. She proposed an alliance, something which
she had refused to do when offered one by Feodor's father, but was turned down.[133]
Barbary states, Ottoman Empire
Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud,Moorish ambassador of theBarbary States to the Court of Queen Elizabeth I in
1600.[134]
Trade and diplomatic relations developed
between England and the Barbary states during the rule of Elizabeth.[135][136]England
established a trading relationship with Morocco in opposition to Spain, selling
armour, ammunition, timber, and metal in exchange for Moroccan sugar, in spite
of a Papal ban.[137] In 1600, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, the principal
secretary to the Moroccan ruler Mulai Ahmad
al-Mansur, visited England as an ambassador to the court of queen
Elizabeth I,[135][138] in order to negotiate an Anglo-Moroccan alliance against Spain.[134][135] Elizabeth "agreed to sell
munitions supplies to Morocco, and she and Mulai Ahmad al-Mansur talked on and
off about mounting a joint operation against the Spanish".[139] Discussions however remained
inconclusive, and both rulers died within two years of the embassy.[140]
Diplomatic relations were also established with
the Ottoman Empire with the chartering of the Levant Company and the dispatch of the first English
ambassador to the Porte, William Harborne,
in 1578.[139] For the first time, a Treaty of
Commerce was signed in 1580.[141] Numerous envoys were dispatched in
both directions and epistolar exchanges occurred between Elizabeth and Sultan Murad III.[139] In one correspondence, Murad
entertained the notion that Islam and Protestantism had "much more in common than
either did with Roman Catholicism, as both rejected the worship of idols",
and argued for an alliance between England and the Ottoman Empire.[142] To the dismay of Catholic Europe,
England exported tin and lead (for cannon-casting) and ammunitions to the
Ottoman Empire, and Elizabeth seriously discussed joint military operations
with Murad III during the outbreak of war with Spain
in 1585, as Francis Walsingham was lobbying for a direct Ottoman military
involvement against the common Spanish enemy.[143]
Later years
Portrait
of Elizabeth I attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger or his studio, ca. 1595.
The period after the defeat of the Spanish
Armada in 1588 brought new difficulties for Elizabeth that lasted the fifteen
years until the end of her reign.[119] The conflicts with Spain and in
Ireland dragged on, the tax burden grew heavier, and the economy was hit by
poor harvests and the cost of war. Prices rose and the standard of living fell.[144][145]During
this time, repression of Catholics intensified, and Elizabeth authorised
commissions in 1591 to interrogate and monitor Catholic householders.[146] To maintain the illusion of peace and
prosperity, she increasingly relied on internal spies and propaganda.[144] In her last years, mounting criticism
reflected a decline in the public's affection for her.[147]
One of the causes for this "second
reign" of Elizabeth, as it is sometimes called,[148] was the different character of
Elizabeth's governing body, the privy council in the 1590s. A new generation was in
power. With the exception of Lord Burghley, the most important politicians had
died around 1590: The Earl of Leicester in 1588, Sir Francis Walsingham in
1590, Sir Christopher Hatton in 1591.[149] Factional strife in the government,
which had not existed in a noteworthy form before the 1590s,[150] now became its hallmark.[151] A bitter rivalry between the Earl
of Essex andRobert Cecil, son of Lord Burghley, and
their respective adherents, for the most powerful positions in the state marred
politics.[152] The queen's personal authority was
lessening,[153] as is shown in the affair of Dr.
Lopez, her trusted physician. When he was wrongly accused by the Earl of Essex of treason out of personal pique, she
could not prevent his execution, although she had been angry about his arrest
and seems not to have believed in his guilt (1594).[154]
Elizabeth, during the last years of her
reign, came to rely on granting monopolies as a cost-free system of patronage
rather than ask Parliament for more subsidies in a time of war.[155] The practice soon led to price-fixing,
the enrichment of courtiers at the public's expense, and widespread resentment.[156] This culminated in agitation in the
House of Commons during the parliament of 1601.[157] In her famous "Golden Speech"
of 30 November 1601, Elizabeth professed ignorance of the abuses and won the
members over with promises and her usual appeal to the emotions:[158]
Who keeps their sovereign from the lapse of
error, in which, by ignorance and not by intent they might have fallen, what
thank they deserve, we know, though you may guess. And as nothing is more dear
to us than the loving conservation of our subjects' hearts, what an undeserved
doubt might we have incurred if the abusers of our liberality, the thrallers of
our people, the wringers of the poor, had not been told us![159]
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, byWilliam Segar,
1588
This same period of economic and political
uncertainty, however, produced an unsurpassed literary flowering in England.[160] The first signs of a new literary
movement had appeared at the end of the second decade of Elizabeth's reign,
with John Lyly's Euphues and Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender in 1578. During the 1590s, some of the
great names of English literature entered their maturity, including William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. During this period
and into the Jacobean era that followed, the English theatre
reached its highest peaks.[161] The notion of a great Elizabethan age depends largely on the builders,
dramatists, poets, and musicians who were active during Elizabeth's reign. They
owed little directly to the queen, who was never a major patron of the arts.[162]
As Elizabeth aged her image gradually
changed. She was portrayed as Belphoebe or Astraea, and after the Armada, as Gloriana, the eternally
youthful Faerie Queene of Edmund Spenser's
poem. Her painted portraits became less realistic and more a set of enigmatic icons that made her look much younger than
she was. In fact, her skin had been scarred by smallpox in 1562, leaving her half bald and
dependent on wigs and cosmetics.[163] Sir Walter Raleigh called her "a
lady whom time had surprised".[164] However, the more Elizabeth's beauty
faded, the more her courtiers praised it.[163]
Elizabeth was happy to play the part,[165] but it is possible that in the last
decade of her life she began to believe her own performance. She became fond
and indulgent of the charming but petulant young Robert Devereux, Earl of
Essex, who was Leicester's stepson and took liberties with her for which she
forgave him.[166] She repeatedly appointed him to
military posts despite his growing record of irresponsibility. After Essex's
desertion of his command in Ireland in 1599, Elizabeth had him placed under
house arrest and the following year deprived him of his monopolies.[167] In February 1601, the earl tried to
raise a rebellion in London. He intended to seize the queen but few rallied to
his support, and he was beheaded on 25 February. Elizabeth knew that her own
misjudgements were partly to blame for this turn of events. An observer
reported in 1602 that "Her delight is to sit in the dark, and sometimes
with shedding tears to bewail Essex".[168]
Death
Elizabeth
I. The "Rainbow Portrait", c. 1600, an allegorical representation of the Queen, become
ageless in her old age
Elizabeth's senior advisor, Burghley, died on 4 August 1598. His political
mantle passed to his son, Robert Cecil, who soon became the leader
of the government.[169] One task he addressed was to prepare
the way for a smooth succession. Since Elizabeth would never name her
successor, Cecil was obliged to proceed in secret.[170] He therefore entered into a coded negotiation with James VI of Scotland, who had a strong but
unrecognised claim.[171]Cecil
coached the impatient James to humour Elizabeth and "secure the heart of
the highest, to whose sex and quality nothing is so improper as either needless
expostulations or over much curiosity in her own actions".[172] The advice worked. James's tone
delighted Elizabeth, who responded: "So trust I that you will not doubt
but that your last letters are so acceptably taken as my thanks cannot be
lacking for the same, but yield them to you in grateful sort".[173] In historian J. E. Neale's view,
Elizabeth may not have declared her wishes openly to James, but she made them
known with "unmistakable if veiled phrases".[174]
The Queen's health remained fair until the
autumn of 1602, when a series of deaths among her friends plunged her into a
severe depression. In February 1603, the death of Catherine Howard, Countess of
Nottingham, the niece of her cousin and close friend Catherine, Lady Knollys, came as a
particular blow. In March, Elizabeth fell sick and remained in a "settled
and unremovable melancholy".[175] She died on 24 March 1603 at Richmond Palace,
between two and three in the morning. A few hours later, Cecil and the council
set their plans in motion and proclaimedJames VI of Scotland as king of England.[176]
Elizabeth's coffin was carried downriver at
night to Whitehall, on a barge lit with torches. At
her funeral on 28 April, the coffin was taken to Westminster
Abbey on a hearse drawn by four horses hung with black
velvet. In the words of the chronicler John Stow:
Westminster was surcharged with multitudes of
all sorts of people in their streets, houses, windows, leads and gutters, that
came out to see the obsequy, and when they
beheld her statue lying upon the coffin, there was such a general sighing,
groaning and weeping as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of
man.[177]
Elizabeth's
funeral cortθge, 1603, with banners of her royal ancestors
Elizabeth was interred in Westminster Abbey
in a tomb she shares with her half-sister, Mary. The Latin inscription on their
tomb, "Regno consortes & urna, hic obdormimus Elizabetha et Maria
sorores, in spe resurrectionis", translates to "Consorts in realm and
tomb, here we sleep, Elizabeth and Mary, sisters, in hope of resurrection".[178]
Legacy and memory
Further
information: Cultural depictions of Elizabeth I of
England
Elizabeth was lamented by many of her
subjects, but others were relieved at her death.[179]Expectations
of King James started high but then declined, so by the 1620s there was a
nostalgic revival of the cult of Elizabeth.[180] Elizabeth was praised as a heroine of
the Protestant cause and the ruler of a golden age. James was depicted as a
Catholic sympathiser, presiding over a corrupt court.[181] The triumphalist image that Elizabeth
had cultivated towards the end of her reign, against a background of
factionalism and military and economic difficulties,[182] was taken at face value and her
reputation inflated. Godfrey Goodman,
Bishop of Gloucester, recalled: "When we had experience of a Scottish
government, the Queen did seem to revive. Then was her memory much magnified."[183] Elizabeth's reign became idealised as
a time when crown, church and parliament had worked in constitutional balance.[184]
Elizabeth
I, painted after 1620, during the first revival of interest in her reign. Time
sleeps on her right and Death looks over her left shoulder; two putti hold the crown above her head.[185]
The picture of Elizabeth painted by her
Protestant admirers of the early 17th century has proved lasting and
influential.[186] Her memory was also revived during the Napoleonic Wars,
when the nation again found itself on the brink of invasion.[187] In the Victorian era,
the Elizabethan legend was adapted to the imperial ideology of the day,[179][188] and in the mid-20th century, Elizabeth
was a romantic symbol of the national resistance to foreign threat.[189][190] Historians of that period, such as J. E. Neale (1934) and A. L. Rowse (1950), interpreted Elizabeth's reign
as a golden age of progress.[191] Neale and Rowse also idealised the
Queen personally: she always did everything right; her more unpleasant traits
were ignored or explained as signs of stress.[192]
Recent historians, however, have taken a more
complicated view of Elizabeth.[193] Her reign is famous for the defeat of
the Armada, and for successful raids against the Spanish, such as those on
Cαdiz in 1587 and 1596, but some historians point to military failures on land
and at sea.[123] In Ireland, Elizabeth's forces
ultimately prevailed, but their tactics stain her record.[194] Rather than as a brave defender of the
Protestant nations against Spain and the Habsburgs, she is more often regarded
as cautious in her foreign policies. She offered very limited aid to foreign
Protestants and failed to provide her commanders with the funds to make a
difference abroad.[195]
Elizabeth established an English church that
helped shape a national identity and remains in place today.[196][197][198] Those who praised her later as a
Protestant heroine overlooked her refusal to drop all practices of Catholic
origin from the Church of England.[199] Historians note that in her day,
strict Protestants regarded the Acts of Settlement and Uniformity of 1559 as a compromise.[200][201] In fact, Elizabeth believed that faith
was personal and did not wish, as Francis Bacon put it, to "make windows into
men's hearts and secret thoughts".[202][203]
Though Elizabeth followed a largely defensive
foreign policy, her reign raised England's status abroad. "She is only a
woman, only mistress of half an island," marvelled Pope Sixtus V, "and yet
she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire,
by all".[204] Under Elizabeth, the nation gained a
new self-confidence and sense of sovereignty, as Christendom fragmented.[180][205][206] Elizabeth was the first Tudor to
recognise that a monarch ruled by popular consent.[207] She therefore always worked with
parliament and advisers she could trust to tell her the trutha style of
government that her Stuart successors failed to follow. Some historians have
called her lucky;[204] she believed that God was protecting
her.[208] Priding herself on being "mere
English",[209] Elizabeth trusted in God, honest
advice, and the love of her subjects for the success of her rule.[210] In a prayer, she offered thanks to God
that:
[At a time] when wars and seditions with
grievous persecutions have vexed almost all kings and countries round about me,
my reign hath been peacable, and my realm a receptacle to thy afflicted Church.
The love of my people hath appeared firm, and the devices of my enemies
frustrate.[204]
Ancestry
Charles I of
England
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia
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Charles I |
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Portrait by Anthony van Dyck, 1636 |
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King of England and Ireland (more...) |
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Reign |
27 March 1625 |
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2 February 1626 |
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Predecessor |
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Successor |
Charles II (de jure) |
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Reign |
27 March 1625 |
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Coronation |
18 June 1633 |
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Predecessor |
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Spouse |
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Issue |
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Charles II |
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Father |
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Mother |
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Born |
19 November 1600 |
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Died |
30 January 1649 (aged 48) |
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Burial |
7 February 1649 |
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Religion |
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Charles I (19
November 1600 30 January 1649) was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from
27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.[a] Charles engaged in a struggle for
power with the Parliament of England, attempting to
obtain royal revenue whilst the Parliament sought to curb his Royal
prerogative which
Charles believed was divinely ordained. Many of his English
subjects opposed his actions, in particular his interference in the English and
Scottish churches and the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent,
because they saw them as those of a tyrannical, absolute monarch.[1]
Charles's reign was also
characterised by religious conflicts. His failure to successfully aid
Protestant forces during the Thirty Years' War, coupled with the fact
that he married a Roman Catholic princess,[2][3] generated deep mistrust concerning the
king's dogma. Charles further
allied himself with controversial ecclesiastic figures, such asRichard Montagu and William Laud,
whom Charles appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Many of
Charles's subjects felt this brought the Church of
England too close to
the Roman Catholic Church. Charles's later attempts to force religious reforms
upon Scotland led to the Bishops' Wars,
strengthened the position of the English and Scottish parliaments and helped
precipitate his own downfall.
Charles's last years were
marked by the English Civil
War, in which he fought the forces of the English and Scottish
parliaments, which challenged his attempts to overrule and negate parliamentary
authority, whilst simultaneously using his position as head of the English
Church to pursue religious policies which generated the antipathy of reformed groups such as the Puritans. Charles was
defeated in the First Civil War (164245), after which Parliament expected him
to accept its demands for a constitutional monarchy. He instead remained
defiant by attempting to forge an alliance with Scotland and escaping to the Isle of Wight.
This provoked the Second Civil War (164849) and a second defeat for Charles,
who was subsequently captured, tried, convicted, and executed for high treason.
The monarchy was then abolished and a republic
called the Commonwealth of England, also referred to
as the Cromwellian Interregnum, was declared.
Charles's son, Charles II, who dated his accession from
the death of his father, did not take up the reins of government until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.[1]
Contents
[hide] ·
8 Trial ·
11 Titles, styles, honours and arms ·
13 Issue ·
15 Notes |
[edit]Early life
[edit]Second son
The second son of James VI of
Scotland and Anne of Denmark,
Charles was born in Dunfermline Palace, Fife, on 19 November 1600.[1][4] His paternal grandmother was Mary, Queen of Scots. Charles was baptised
on 2 December 1600 by the Bishop of Ross, in a ceremony held in Holyrood Abbey,
and was created Duke of Albany, Marquess of Ormond, Earl of Ross and Lord Ardmannoch.[5]
Charles was a weak and
sickly infant. When Elizabeth I of England died in March 1603 and James VI
of Scotland became King of England as James I, Charles was not
considered strong enough to make the journey to London due to his fragile
health.[6] While his parents and older siblings
left for England in April and May that year, Charles remained in Scotland, with
his father's friend and the Lord President of the Court of Session, Alexander Seton, Lord Fyvie,
appointed as his guardian.[5]
By 1604, Charles was three
and a half and was by then able to walk the length of the great hall at
Dunfermline Palace unaided. It was decided that he was now strong enough to
make the journey to England to be reunited with his family and, on 13 July
1604, Charles left Dunfermline for England where he was to spend most of the
rest of his life.[7] In England, Charles was placed under
the charge of Alletta (Hogenhove) Carey, the Dutch-born wife of courtier Sir Robert Carey, who taught him how to talk
and insisted that he wear boots made of Spanish leather and brass to help
strengthen his weak ankles.[8] Charles apparently eventually
conquered his physical infirmity,[9] which might have been caused by rickets,[8] and grew to about a height of
5 feet 4 inches (163 centimetres).
[edit]Heir apparent
Charles as Duke of York and Albany, c. 1611
Charles was not as valued
as his physically stronger elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, whom
Charles adored and attempted to emulate.[10] In 1605, Charles was created Duke of York,
as is customary in the case of the sovereign's second son. However, when Henry
died of what is suspected to have been typhoid (or possibly porphyria)[11] at the age of 18 in 1612, two weeks
before Charles's 12th birthday, Charles became heir apparent.
As the eldest living son of the sovereign, Charles automatically gained several
titles (including Duke of Cornwall[12] and Duke of Rothesay).
Four years later, in November 1616, he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.[13]
_by_Isaac_Oliver.jpg)
Charles as Prince of Wales byIsaac Oliver,
1615
In 1613, his sister Elizabeth married Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and moved toHeidelberg.[14] In 1617, Ferdinand II, a Catholic, was elected
king of Bohemia. The following year, the people of Bohemia rebelled against their monarch, choosing to
crown Frederick V of the Palatinate, leader of the Protestant Union,
in his stead. Frederick's acceptance of the crown in September 1619 marked the
beginning of the turmoil that would develop into the Thirty Years' War. This conflict made a
great impression upon the English Parliament and public, who quickly grew to
see it as a polarised continental struggle between Catholics and Protestants.[15] James, who was supportive of his
son-in-law Frederick and had been seeking marriage between the new Prince of
Wales and the Spanish Infanta, Maria Anna of Spain, since Prince Henry's
death,[14] began to see theSpanish Match as a possible means of achieving peace
in Europe.[16]
Unfortunately for James, this
diplomatic negotiation with Spain proved generally unpopular, both with the
public and with James's court.[17] Arminian divines were the only source of
support for the proposed union.[18] Parliament was actively hostile
towards the Spanish throne,
and thus, when called by James, hoped for a crusade under the leadership of the
king[19] to rescue Protestants on the continent
from Habsburg rule.[20] Parliament's attacks upon the
monopolists for their abuse of prices led to the scapegoating of Francis Bacon by George Villiers, 1st Duke of
Buckingham,[21] and then to Bacon's impeachment before
the Lords. The impeachment was the first since 1459 without the King's official
sanction in the form of a bill of
attainder. The incident set an important precedent as to the
apparent scope of Parliament's authority to safeguard the nation's interests
and its capacity to launch legal campaigns, as it later did against Buckingham,
Archbishop Laud, the Earl of Strafford and Charles I. However, Parliament
and James came to blows when the issue of foreign policy was discussed. James
insisted that the Commons be concerned exclusively with domestic affairs, while
the members of the Commons protested that they had the privilege of free speech
within the Commons' walls.[22] Charles appeared to support his
brother-in-law's cause, but, like his father, he considered the discussion of
his marriage in the Commons impertinent and an infringement of his father's royal
prerogative.[23] In January 1622, James dissolved the
Parliament.[24]
[edit]Quarrel with Spain
Charles and the Duke of
Buckingham, James's favourite[25] and a man who had great influence over
the prince, travelled incognito together to Spain in 1623 to try to reach
agreement on the long-pending Spanish Match.[26] in the end, however, the trip was an
embarrassing failure. The Spanish demanded as a condition of the match that
Charles convert to Roman Catholicism and remain in Spain for a year after the
wedding as a hostage to ensure England's compliance with all the terms of the
treaty. Moreover, a personal quarrel erupted between Buckingham and the Spanish
nation between whom was mutual misunderstanding and ill temper.[27] Charles was outraged, and upon their
return in October, he and Buckingham demanded that King James declare war on
Spain.[26]
With the encouragement of
his Protestant advisers, James summoned Parliament in 1624 so that he could
request subsidies for a war.[28] At the behest of Charles and
Buckingham, James assented to the impeachment of the Lord Treasurer, Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of
Middlesex, by the House of Commons, who quickly fell in much the same
manner as Bacon had.[28]
James also requested that
Parliament sanction the marriage between the Prince of Wales and Princess Henrietta Maria of France,[29] whom Charles had met in Paris while en route to Spain.[30] It was a good match since she was a
sister of Louis XIII[31] (their father, Henry IV, had died during her
childhood). Parliament reluctantly agreed to the marriage,[31] with the promise from both James and
Charles that the marriage would not entail liberty of religion being accorded
to any Roman Catholic outside the Princess's own household.[31] By 1624, James was growing ill, and as
a result was finding it extremely difficult to control Parliament. By the time
of his death, March 1625, Charles and the Duke of Buckingham had already
assumed de facto control of the kingdom.[32]
|
|
|
Charles I |
Both Charles and James were
advocates of the divine right of kings, but whilst James's
lofty ambitions concerning absolute prerogative[33] were tempered by compromise and
consensus with his subjects, Charles I believed that he had no need of
Parliamentary approval, that his foreign ambitions (which were greatly
expensive and fluctuated wildly) should have no legal impediment, and that he
was himself above reproach. Charles believed that he had no need to compromise
or even to explain his actions, and that he was answerable only to God. He
famously said, "Kings are not bound to give an account of their actions
but to God alone".[34][35]
[edit]Early reign
On 11 May 1625 Charles was married by proxy to Henrietta Maria in front of the doors of the Notre Dame de Paris,[36]before
his first Parliament could meet to forbid the banns.[36] Many members were opposed to the
king's marrying a Roman Catholic, fearing that Charles would lift restrictions
on Roman Catholics and undermine the official establishment of the reformed Church of
England. Although he stated to Parliament that he would not relax
restrictions relating to recusants, he promised to
do exactly that in a secret marriage treaty with Louis XIII of France.[37] Moreover, the price of marriage with
the French princess was a promise of English aid for the French crown in the
suppressing of the Protestant Huguenots at La Rochelle,
thereby reversing England's long held position in the French Wars of Religion. The couple were
married in person on 13 June 1625 in Canterbury.
Charles was crowned on 2 February 1626 at Westminster
Abbey, but without his wife at his side due to the controversy.
Charles and Henrietta had seven children, with three sons and three daughters
surviving infancy.[38]
Sir Anthony Van Dyck: Charles I painted in April 1634. Despite
his reputation as a patron of the arts, Charles paid Van Dyck only half the
amount he requested
Distrust of Charles's
religious policies increased with his support of a controversial ecclesiastic, Richard Montagu.
In his pamphlets A New Gag for
an Old Goose, a reply to the Catholic pamphlet A New Gag for the new Gospel,
and also his Immediate
Addresse unto God alone, Montagu argued against Calvinist predestination,
thereby bringing himself into disrepute amongst the Puritans.[39] After a Puritan member of the House of
Commons, John Pym, attacked
Montagu's pamphlet during debate, Montagu requested the king's aid in another
pamphlet entitled Appello Caesarem (1625),
a reference to an appeal against Jewish persecution made by Saint Paul the
Apostle.[b] Charles made the cleric one of his
royal chaplains, increasing many Puritans' suspicions as to where Charles would
lead the Church, fearing that his favouring of Arminianism was a clandestine attempt on Charles's
part to aid the resurgence of Catholicism within the English Church.[40]
Charles's primary concern
during his early reign was foreign policy. The Thirty Years' War, originally confined to
Bohemia, was spiralling into a wider European war. In 1620 Frederick V was defeated at the Battle of White Mountain[41] and by 1622, despite the aid of
English volunteers, had lost his hereditary lands in the Electorate of the Palatinate to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II.[42] Having agreed to help his
brother-in-law regain the Palatinate, Charles declared war on Spain, which
under the Catholic King Philip IV had sent forces to help occupy the
Palatinate.[43]
Parliament preferred an
inexpensive naval attack on Spanish colonies in the New World, hoping that the
capture of the Spanish treasure fleets could finance the war. Charles, however,
preferred more aggressive (and more expensive) action on the Continent.[44] Parliament voted to grant a subsidy of
only £140,000, an insufficient sum for Charles.[45] Moreover, the House of Commons limited
its authorisation for royal collection of tonnage and poundage (two varieties of customs duties) to a
period of one year, although previous sovereigns since 1414 had been granted
the right for life.[45] In this manner, Parliament could keep
a check on expenditures by forcing Charles to seek the renewal of the grant
each year. Charles's allies in the House of Lords, led by the Duke of
Buckingham, refused to pass the bill. Although no Parliamentary Act for the
levy of tonnage and poundage was obtained, Charles continued to collect the
duties.[46]
The war with Spain under the leadership of Buckingham went badly, and the House of Commons
began proceedings for the impeachment of the duke.[47]Charles
nominated Buckingham as Chancellor of Cambridge University in response[48] and on 12 June 1626, the House of
Commons launched a direct protestation, stating, 'We protest before your
Majesty and the whole world that until this great person be removed from
intermeddling with the great affairs of state, we are out of hope of any good
success; and we do fear that any money we shall or can give will, through his
misemployment, be turned rather to the hurt and prejudice of your kingdom.'[48] Despite Parliament's protests,
however, Charles refused to dismiss his friend, dismissing Parliament instead.
Charles provoked further
unrest by trying to raise money for the war through a "forced loan":
a tax levied without Parliamentary consent. In November 1627, the test case in
the King's bench, the 'Five Knights' Case'
which hinged on the king's prerogative right to imprison without trial those
who refused to pay the forced loan was upheld on a general basis.[49] Summoned again in 1628, Parliament
adopted a Petition of
Right on 26 May,
calling upon the king to acknowledge that he could not levy taxes without
Parliament's consent, impose martial law on civilians, imprison them without
due process, or quarter troops in their homes.[50] Charles assented to the petition,[51] though he continued to claim the right
to collect customs duties without authorisation from Parliament.
Despite Charles's agreement
to suppress La Rochelle as a condition of marrying Henrietta Maria, Charles
reneged upon his earlier promise and instead launched a poorly conceived and
executed defence of the fortress under the leadership of Buckingham in
1628,[52] thereby driving a wedge between the
English and French Crowns that was not surmounted for the duration of the Thirty Years' War.[53] Buckingham's failure to protect the
Huguenots indeed, his attempt to capture Saint-Martin-de-Rι then
spurred Louis XIII's attack on the Huguenot fortress of La Rochelle[54] furthered Parliament's detestation
of the Duke and the king's close proximity to this eminence grise.
On 23 August 1628,
Buckingham was assassinated.[55] The public rejoicing at his death
accentuated the gulf between the court and the nation, and between the crown
and the Commons.[56] Although the death of Buckingham
effectively ended the war with Spain and eliminated his leadership as an issue,
it did not end the conflicts between Charles and Parliament over taxation and
religious matters.[57][58]
[edit]Personal rule
Charles I, King of England, from Three Angles,
the Triple Portrait by Anthony van Dyck.
[edit]Parliament
prorogued
In January 1629 Charles
opened the second session of the Parliament, which had been prorogued in June 1628, with a moderate speech
on the tonnage and poundage issue. Members of the House of Commons began to
voice their opposition in light of the Rolle case, in which the eponymous MP
had had his goods confiscated for failing to pay tonnage and poundage. Many MPs
viewed the confiscation as a breach of the Petition of
Right,[59] arguing that the petition's
freedom-from-arrest privilege extended to goods. When Charles ordered a
parliamentary adjournment on 10 March, members held the Speaker, Sir John Finch,
down in his chair so that the dissolving of Parliament could be delayed long
enough for resolutions against Catholicism, Arminianism and poundage and
tonnage to be read out.[60]The
lattermost resolution declared that anyone who paid tonnage or poundage not
authorised by Parliament would "be reputed a betrayer of the liberties of
England, and an enemy to the same", and, although the resolution was not
formally passed, many members declared their approval. Nevertheless, the
provocation was too much for Charles, who dissolved Parliament the same day.[61] Moreover, eight parliamentary leaders,
including John Eliot, were imprisoned on the foot of
the matter,[62] thereby turning these men into
martyrs, and giving popular cause to a protest that had hitherto been losing
its bearings.
Shortly after the
proroguing of Parliament, without the means in the foreseeable future to raise
funds for a European War from Parliament,[63] or the influence of Buckingham,
Charles made peace with France and Spain.[64] The following eleven years, during
which Charles ruled without a Parliament, are referred to as thePersonal Rule or the Eleven Years' Tyranny.[65] (Ruling without Parliament, though an
exceptional exercise of the royal prerogative, was supported by precedent.)
[edit]Economic problems
Shilling of Charles I
The reigns of Elizabeth I and James I had generated a large
fiscal deficit for the kingdom.[66] Notwithstanding the failure of
Buckingham in the short lived campaigns against both Spain and France, there
was in reality little economic capacity for Charles to wage wars overseas.
Throughout his reign Charles was obliged to rely primarily on volunteer forces
and diplomatic efforts to support his sister, Elizabeth, and secure his foreign
policy objective for the restoration of the Palatinate.[67] England was still the least taxed
country in Europe, with no official excise and no regular direct taxation.[68] Without the consent of Parliament,
Charles's capacity to acquire funds for his treasury was theoretically
hamstrung, legally at least. To raise revenue without reconvening Parliament,
Charles resurrected an all-but-forgotten law called the "Distraint of
Knighthood", promulgated in 1279, which required anyone who earned £40 or
more each year to present himself at the King's coronation to join the royal
army as a knight.[69] Relying on this old statute, Charles
fined all individuals who had failed to attend his coronation in 1626.
Later, Charles reintroduced
obsolete feudal taxes such as purveyance, wardship, and forest laws.[70] Chief among these taxes was one known
as Ship Tax,[70] which proved even more unpopular, and
lucrative, than poundage and tonnage before it. Under statutes of Edward I and Edward III, collection of ship money had
been authorised only during wars, and only on coastal regions. Charles,
however, argued that there was no legal bar to collecting the tax during
peacetime and throughout the whole of the kingdom. Ship Money provided between
£150,000 to £200,000 annually between 16341638, after which yields declined
steeply.[71] This was paid directly to Treasury of
the Navy, thus making Northumberland the most direct beneficiary of the tax.[72] Opposition to Ship Money steadily
grew, with John Hampden's
legal challenge in 1637 providing a platform of popular protest.[71] However, the royal courts declared
that the tax was within the King's prerogative.
The king also derived money
through the granting of monopolies, despite a statute forbidding such action (The Monopolies Act, 1624), which, though
inefficient, raised an estimated £100,000 a year in the late 1630s in royal
revenue.[73] Charles also gained funds through the
Scottish nobility, at the price of considerable acrimony, by the Act of
Revocation (1625), whereby all gifts of royal or church land made to the
nobility were revoked, with continued ownership being subject to an annual rent.[74]
[edit]Religious
conflicts
William Laud shared Charles's views on Calvinism
Throughout Charles's reign,
the issue of how far the English Reformation should progress was constantly brought
to the forefront of political debate. Arminian theology contained an emphasis on
clerical authority and the individual's capacity to reject salvation, and was
consequently viewed as heretical and a potential vehicle for the reintroduction
of Roman Catholicism by its opponents. Charles's sympathy to the teachings of
Arminianism, and specifically his wish to move the Church of England away from Calvinism in a more traditional and sacramental
direction, consistently affirmed Puritans' suspicions
concerning the perceived irreligious tendencies of the crown. A long history of
opposition to tyrants who oppressed Protestants had developed since the
beginning of the Protestant Reformation, most notably
during the French Wars of Religion (articulated in the Vindiciae contra tyrannos),[75][76] and more recently in the Second Defenestration of Prague and eruption of the Thirty Years' War.[77] Such cultural identifications
resonated with Charles's subjects who followed news of the war closely and grew
increasingly dismayed by Charles failure to support the Protestant cause abroad
effectively and his dalliances with Spain.[78] These allegations would haunt Charles
because of the continued exacerbating actions of both king and council,
particularly in the form of Archbishop William Laud.
William Laud was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633,[79][80] and began a series of unpopular
reforms such as attempting to ensure religious uniformity by dismissing
non-conformist clergymen, and closing Puritan organisations.[81] His policy was opposed to Calvinist
theology, and he insisted that the Church of England's liturgy be celebrated using the form
prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, and that the
internal architecture of English churches be reorganised so as to emphasise the
sacrament of the altar, thereby attacking predestination.[82] To punish those who refused to accept
his reforms, Laud used the two most feared and most arbitrary courts in the
land, the Court of High Commission and the Court of Star Chamber.[81] The former could compel individuals to
provide self-incriminating testimony, whilst the latter, essentially an
extension of the Privy Council,
could inflict any punishment whatsoever (including torture), with the sole
exception of death.
The first years of the
Personal Rule were marked by peace in England, partly because of tighter
central control. Several individuals opposed Charles's taxes and Laud's
policies, and some left as a result, such as the Puritan minister Thomas Hooker,
who set sail for America along with other religious dissidents in the Griffin (1634). By 1633 Star Chamber had, in
effect, taken the place of High Commission as the supreme tribunal for
religious offences as well as dealing with Crown cases of a secular nature.[83] Under Charles's reign, defendants were
regularly brought before the Court without indictment, due process of the law,
or right to confront witnesses, and their testimonies were routinely extracted
by the Court through torture.
Charles in the year of his Scottish coronation, 1633
However, when Charles
attempted to impose his religious policies in Scotland he faced numerous
difficulties. Although born in Scotland, Charles had become estranged from his
kingdom, not even visiting the country until his Scottish coronation in 1633.[84] In 1637 the king ordered the use of a
new Prayer Book to be used within Scotland that was almost identical to the
English Book of Common Prayer, without
consultation with either the Scottish Parliament or Kirk.[84] Although this move was supported by
the Scottish Bishops,[85] it was resisted by manyPresbyterian Scots, who saw the new Prayer Book as
a vehicle for introducing Anglicanism to Scotland.[86] In 1637, spontaneous unrest erupted
throughout the Kirk upon the first Sunday of its usage, and the public began to
mobilise around rebellious nobles in the form of the National
Covenant.[85] When the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland abolished Episcopalian government (that is, governance of
the Church by bishops) in 1638, replacing it with Presbyterian government (that
is, governance by elders and deacons),[87] Charles sought to put down what he saw
as a rebellion against his authority.
In 1639, when the First Bishops'
War broke out, Charles
did not seek subsidies to wage war, but instead raised an army without
Parliamentary aid.[72] However, Charles's army did not engage
the Covenanters as the king was afraid of the defeat of his forces, whom he
believed to be significantly outnumbered by the Scots.[88] In the Pacification of Berwick, Charles regained
custody of his Scottish fortresses, and secured the dissolution of the
Covenanters' interim government, albeit at the decisive concession whereby both
the Scottish Parliament and General Assembly of the Scottish Church were called.[89]
Charles's military failure
in the First Bishops' War in turn caused a financial and military crisis for
Charles while his efforts to raise finance from Spain and support for his
Palatine relatives led to the public humiliation of the Battle of the Downs where
the Dutch destroyed a Spanish bullion fleet in sight of the Kent coast and
English fleet.[90]
Charles's peace
negotiations with the Scots were merely a bid by the king to gain time before
launching a new military campaign. However, because of his financial weakness,
Charles was forced to call Parliament into session by 1640 in an attempt to
raise funds for such a venture. The risk for the king lay in the forum that Parliament
would provide to his opponents, whilst the intransigence of the 1628 Parliament
augured badly for the prospects of obtaining the necessary subsidy for war.
[edit]Second
Bishops' War
Main
article: Bishops' Wars
Charles collectively
summoned both English and Irish parliaments in the early months of 1640.[91] In March 1640, the Irish Parliament duly voted in a subsidy of £180,000
with the promise to raise an army 9,000 strong by the end of May.[91] However, in the English General
Election in March, court candidates fared badly,[92] and Charles's dealings with the English
Parliament in April quickly reached stalemate. Northumberland and Strafford
together attempted to reach a compromise whereby the king would agree to
forfeit Ship Money in exchange for £650,000 (although the coming war was
estimated at around £1 million).[93]Nevertheless,
this alone was insufficient to produce consensus in the Commons.[94] The Parliamentarians' calls for
further reforms were ignored by Charles, who still maintained the support of
the House of Lords. Despite the protests of Northumberland,[95] Parliament was dissolved in May 1640,
less than a month after it assembled, thus causing it to be known as the "Short Parliament".[96]
Portrait of Charles I with Seignior de St Antoine
By this stage Thomas Wentworth, created
Earl of Strafford and elevated to Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in January 1640,[97] had emerged as Charles's right hand
man and together with Laud, pursued a policy of 'Thorough' in support of absolute
monarchy.[98] Although originally a major critic of
the king, Strafford defected to royal service in 1628 (due in part to
Buckingham's persuasion),[99] and had since emerged as the most
capable of Charles's ministers. Having trained up a large army in Ireland in
support of the king and seriously weakened the authority of the Irish
Parliament, particularly those members of parliament belonging to the Old English,[100] Strafford had been instrumental in
obtaining an independent source of both royal revenue and forces within the
three kingdoms.[72] As the Scottish Parliament declared
itself capable of governing without the king's consent and, in September 1640,
moved into Northumberland under the leadership ofMontrose,[101] Strafford was sent north to command
the English forces following Northumberland's illness.[102] The Scottish soldiery, many of whom
were veterans of the Thirty Years' War,[103] had far greater morale and training
compared to their English counterparts, and met virtually no resistance until
reaching Newcastle where, at the Battle of
Newburn, Newcastle upon Tyne and hence England's coal supply
fell into the hands of the Covenanter forces.[104] At this critical juncture, the English
host based at York was unable to mount a counterattack because Strafford was
incapacitated by a combination of gout and dysentery.[102]
On 24 September Charles
took the unusual step of summoning the magnum concilium,
the ancient council of all the Peers of the Realm, who were considered
the King's hereditary counsellors, who recommended making peace with the Scots
and the recalling of Parliament.[105] A cessation of arms, although not a
final settlement, was agreed in the humiliating Treaty of Ripon,
signed October 1640.[106] The treaty stated that the Scots would
continue to occupy Northumberland and Durham and be paid £850 per day, until
peace was restored and the English Parliament recalled (which would be required
to raise sufficient funds to pay the Scottish forces).[105]
Consequently, in November
Charles summoned what was later to become known as the Long Parliament.
Of the 493 MPs of the Commons, 399 were opposed to the king, and Charles could
count on only 94 for support.
[edit]Long Parliament
Main
article: Long Parliament
See
also: Wars of the Three Kingdoms
[edit]Tensions escalate
The Long Parliament
assembled in November 1640 and proved just as difficult for Charles as had the
Short Parliament. The Parliament quickly began proceedings to impeach Laud of
High Treason, which it succeeded in doing on 18 December.[107] Lord Keeper Finch was impeached the
following day, and he consequently fled to the Hague with Charles's permission
on 21 December. To prevent the king from dissolving it at will, Parliament
passed the Triennial Act,
to which the Royal Assent was granted in February 1641.[108] The Act required that Parliament was
to be summoned at least once every three years, and that when the King failed
to issue proper summons, the members could assemble on their own.
On 22 March 1641,
Strafford, who had become the immediate target of the Parliamentarians,
particularly that of John Pym, went on trial
for high treason.[109]The
incident provided a new departure for Irish politics whereby Old English, Gaelic Irish and New English
settlers joined together in a legal body to present evidence against Strafford.[110] However, the evidence supplied by Sir Henry Vane in relation to Strafford's alleged
improper use and threat to England via the Irish army was not corroborated and
on 10 April Pym's case collapsed.[111] Pym immediately launched a Bill of
Attainder, simply stating Strafford's guilt and that the Earl be put to death.[112]
Charles, however guaranteed
Strafford that he would not sign the attainder, without which the bill could
not be passed.[113] Furthermore, the Lords were opposed to
the severity of the sentence of death imposed upon Strafford. Yet, increased
tensions and an attempted coup by the army in support of Strafford began to
sway the issue.[113] On 21 April, in the Commons the Bill
went virtually unopposed (204 in favour, 59 opposed, and 250 abstained),[114] the Lords acquiesced, and Charles,
fearing for the safety of his family, signed on 10 May.[114] The Earl of Strafford was beheaded two
days later.[115]
In May 1641, Charles
assented to an unprecedented act, which forbade the dissolution of the English
Parliament without Parliament's consent.[116] Ship money, fines in destraint of
knighthood and forced loans were declared unlawful, monopolies were cut back
severely, and the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission were abolished by the Habeas Corpus Act 1640 and the Triennial Act
1641.[117] All remaining forms of taxation were
legalised and regulated by the Tonnage and Poundage Act.[118] On 3 May, Parliament decreed The Protestation, attacking the 'wicked
counsels' of Charles's government, whereby those who signed the petition
undertook to defend 'the true reformed religion', parliament, and the king's
person, honour and estate. Throughout May, the House of Commons launched
several bills attacking bishops and episcopalianism in general, each time
defeated in the Lords.[119]
Although he made several
important concessions, Charles improved his own military position by securing
the favour of the Scots that summer by promising the official establishment of
Presbyterianism. In return, he was able to enlist considerable
anti-parliamentary support.[120] However, following the attempted coup
of 'The Incident' in Scotland, Charles's credibility was
significantly undermined.[121]
[edit]Irish Rebellion
Main
article: Irish Rebellion of 1641
In a similar manner as
pursued by the English Parliament in their opposition to Buckingham, albeit
from a far less disingenuous stance, the Old English members of the Irish
Parliament argued that their opposition to Strafford had not negated their
loyalty to Charles. They argued that Charles had been led astray by the malign
influence of the Earl,[122] and that, moreover, the ambiguity
surrounding Poynings' Law meant that, instead of ensuring that
the king was directly involved in the governance of Ireland, that a viceroy
such as Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford, could emerge as a despotic figure.[123] However, unlike their Old English
counterparts who were Catholic,[124] the New English settlers in Ireland
were Protestant and could loosely be defined as aligned with the English
Parliament and the Puritans; thereby fundamentally opposed to the crown due to
unfolding events within England herself.
Various disputes between
native and coloniser concerning a transference of land ownership from Catholic
to Protestant,[124] particularly in relation to theplantation of Ulster,[125] coupled with the gradual overshadowing
of the Irish Parliament by the English Parliament[126] would sow the seeds of conflagration
in Ireland that, despite its initial chaos, provide the catalyst for direct
armed combat within England between royalists and parliamentarians. The success
of the trial against Strafford weakened Charles's influence in Ireland, whilst
also providing a natural conduit for cooperation between the Gaelic Irish and
Old English,[127] who had hitherto been antagonistic
towards one another.[128] Thus, in the conflict between the
Gaelic Irish, and New English settlers, in the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the Old English
sided with the Gaelic Irish whilst simultaneously professing their loyalty to
the king.[129]
Though in November 1641 the
House of Commons passed the Grand Remonstrance, a long list of
grievances against actions by Charles's ministers committed since the beginning
of his reign (that were asserted to be part of a grand Catholic conspiracy of
which the king was an unwitting member),[130] it was in many ways a step too far by
Pym (passed by 11 votes, 159 to 148 with over 200 abstaining).[131] Furthermore the Remonstrance attacked
the members of the House of Lords as being guilty of blocking reform, who duly
defeated the Remonstrance when brought before them.[132] The tension was heightened when news
of the Irish rebellion reached Parliament, coupled with inaccurate rumours of
Charles's complicity.[133] The Irish Catholic army, established
by Strafford, whose dissolution had been demanded thrice by the House of
Commons, professed their loyalty to the king.[116] This was combined with the massacres
of Protestant New English in Ireland by Gaelic Irish who could not be
controlled by their lords, and proved to be the final antinomy between the
English Parliament and the king in relation to Charles's authority to govern.[134] Throughout November a storm of
publicity concerning the Irish depositions, coupled with stories concerning
'Papist conspiracies' alive within England herself circulated the kingdom, and
were published in the form of a series of alarmist pamphlets.[135]
Henrietta Maria (c. 1633) by Sir Anthony van Dyck
The English Parliament did
not trust Charles's motivations when he called for funds to put down the Irish
rebellion, many members of the House of Commons fearing that forces raised by
Charles might later be used against Parliament itself. TheMilitia Bill was intended to wrest control of the
army from the King, but it did not have the support of the Lords, let alone the
king.[136] Indeed, the Militia Ordinance appears
to have been the single most decisive moment in prompting an exodus from the
Upper House to support Charles.[137] In an attempt to strengthen his
position, Charles generated great antipathy in London, which was already fast
falling into anarchy, when he placed the Tower of London under the command of
ColonelThomas Lunsford, an infamous, albeit efficient, career officer.[138] When rumours reached Charles that
Parliament intended to impeach his Catholic Queen, Henrietta Maria,[139] the king decided to take drastic
action which would not only end the diplomatic stalemate between himself and
Parliament, but signal the beginning of the civil war.
Charles suspected,
correctly, that there were members of the English Parliament who had colluded
with the invading Scots.[130] On 3 January, Charles directed
Parliament to give up six members on the grounds of High Treason. When
Parliament refused, it was possibly Henrietta who persuaded Charles to arrest
the five members by force, which Charles intended to carry out personally.[130] However, news of the warrant reached
Parliament ahead of him, and the wanted men Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, William Strode and Sir Arthur Haselrig slipped away shortly before Charles
entered the House of Commons with an armed guard on 4 January 1642.[140] Having displaced the Speaker, William Lenthall from his chair, the king asked him
where the MPs had fled. Lenthall famously replied, "May it please your
Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as
the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."[141] Charles abjectly declared 'all my
birds have flown', and was forced to retire, empty-handed.[140]
The botched arrest attempt
was politically disastrous for Charles. No English sovereign ever had (or has
since that time) entered the House of Commons by force.[142] In one stroke Charles destroyed his
supporters' arguments that the king was the only bulwark against a rising tide
of innovation and disorder.[143]
Parliament quickly seized
London, and on 10 January 1642, Charles was forced to leave the capital, where
he began travelling north to raise an army against his Parliament.[144]
[edit]English Civil War
Main
article: English Civil
War
The English Civil War had
not yet started, but both sides began to arm as the summer of 1642 progressed.
Following futile negotiations, Charles raised the royal standard in Nottingham on 22 August 1642.[145] He then set up his court at Oxford, when his
government controlled roughly the Midlands, Wales, the West Country and north
of England. Parliament remained in control of London and the south-east as well
as East Anglia.[146] Charles raised an army using the
archaic method of the Commission of Array.
The First Civil War started on 26 October 1642 with the
inconclusive Battle of Edgehill and continued indecisively through
1643 and 1644, until the Battle of Naseby tipped the military balance decisively
in favour of Parliament. There followed a great number of defeats for the
Royalists, and then the Siege of Oxford,
from which Charles escaped in April 1646.[147] He put himself into the hands of the
Scottish Presbyterian army at Newark,
and was taken to nearby Southwellwhile his "hosts"
decided what to do with him. The Presbyterians finally arrived at an agreement
with Parliament and delivered Charles to them in 1647.
He was imprisoned at Holdenby House in Northamptonshire, until cornet George Joyce took him by force to Newmarket in the name of the New Model Army.
At this time mutual suspicion had developed between the New Model Army and
Parliament, and Charles was eager to exploit it. He was then transferred first
toOatlands and then Hampton Court, where more involved but
fruitless negotiations took place. He was persuaded that it would be in his
best interests to escape perhaps abroad, to France, or to the custody of
Colonel Robert Hammond, Parliamentary Governor of
the Isle of Wight.[148] He decided on the last course,
believing Hammond to be sympathetic, and fled on 11 November.[149] Hammond, however, was opposed to
Charles, whom he confined in Carisbrooke Castle.[150]
From Carisbrooke, Charles
continued to try to bargain with the various parties. In direct contrast to his
previous conflict with the Scottish Kirk, Charles on 26 December 1647 signed a
secret treaty with the Scots. Under the agreement, called the "Engagement", the
Scots undertook to invade England on Charles's behalf and restore him to the
throne on condition of the establishment of Presbyterianism for three years.[142]
The Royalists rose in July
1648, igniting the Second Civil War, and as agreed with
Charles, the Scots invaded England. Most of the uprisings in England were put
down by forces loyal to the Rump Parliament (or Cromwell) after little more
than skirmishes, but uprisings in Kent, Essex, and Cumberland,
the rebellion in Wales, and the Scottish invasion involved the fighting of
pitched battles and prolonged sieges. But with the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Preston, the Royalists lost any
chance of winning the war.
It was not the initial
intent of this Long Parliament to abjure the King's person. A
biography of Sir Henry Vane, a "prominent member
of all the commissions, which were appointed to treat with the King,"
describes his attitude: "During the negotiations with the King, he
manifested a fixed resolution to do all that could be done to make the best of
the opportunity the country then enjoyed, of securing to itself the blessings
of liberty."[151] Eventually King Charles I's terms of
reforming the government as proposed by the Long Parliament were accepted by
the House at a vote of 129 to 83 on 1 December 1648. This allowed for the
King's restoration and the end of the stalemate between Parliament and the
King, although Oliver Cromwell and Sir Henry Vane the Younger both opposed this measure. This should
have ended the Civil War and restored the King with very limited powers.
Instead Colonel Thomas Pride arrested 41 of the members of Parliament who
had voted in favour of the restoration of the King, and excluded others. Others
stayed away voluntarily. The remainder of the Long Parliament was called the
Rump Parliament. Sr. Henry Vane temporarily removed himself from public service
as a member of Parliament and Secretary of the Navy, and rendered himself an
outspoken critic of both the King and eventually the Commonwealth, though
providing for later generations a model for republican and constitutional
reform which was remembered and followed as a model at the time of the American
Revolution.[152]
[edit]Trial
Main
article: High Court of Justice for the trial
of Charles I
A plate depicting the Trial of Charles I on 4 January 1649.
Charles was moved to Hurst Castle at the end of 1648, and thereafter to Windsor Castle.
In January 1649, in response to Charles's defiance of Parliament even after
defeat, and his encouraging the second Civil War while in captivity, the House
of Commons passed an Act of Parliament creating a court for Charles's trial.
After the first Civil War, the parliamentarians accepted the premise that the
king, although wrong, had been able to justify his fight, and that he would
still be entitled to limited powers as King under a new constitutional
settlement. It was now felt that by provoking the second Civil War even while
defeated and in captivity, Charles showed himself responsible for unjustifiable
bloodshed. The secret treaty with the Scots was considered particularly
unpardonable; "a more prodigious treason", said Cromwell, "than
any that had been perfected before; because the former quarrel was that
Englishmen might rule over one another; this to vassalise us to a foreign
nation."[142] Cromwell had up to this point
supported negotiations with the king, but now rejected further diplomacy.[142]
The idea of trying a king
was a novel one; previous monarchs (Edward II, Richard II and Henry VI) had been overthrown and murdered
by their successors, but had never been brought to trial as monarchs; although Lady Jane Grey had been tried for treason, she was
treated as a usurper, not as a monarch. Charles was accused of treason against
England by using his power to pursue his personal interest rather than the good
of England.[153] The charge against Charles I stated
that the king, "for accomplishment of such his designs, and for the
protecting of himself and his adherents in his and their wicked practices, to
the same ends hath traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present
Parliament, and the people therein represented...", that the "wicked
designs, wars, and evil practices of him, the said Charles Stuart, have been,
and are carried on for the advancement and upholding of a personal interest of
will, power, and pretended prerogative to himself and his family, against the
public interest, common right, liberty, justice, and peace of the people of
this nation."[153]
Estimated deaths from the
first two English civil wars has been reported as 84,830 killed with estimates
of another 100,000 dying from war-related disease;[154]this
was in 1650 out of a population of only 5.1 million, or 3.6% of the
population.[155] The indictment against the king
therefore held him "guilty of all the treasons, murders, rapines,
burnings, spoils, desolations, damages and mischiefs to this nation, acted and
committed in the said wars, or occasioned thereby."[153]
The High Court of Justice
established by the Act consisted of 135 Commissioners but only 68 ever sat in
judgement (all firm Parliamentarians); the prosecutionwas
led by Solicitor General John Cooke. Charles's trial on charges of
high treason and "other high crimes" began on 20 January 1649, but
Charles refused to enter a plea, claiming that no court had jurisdiction over a
monarch.[156] He believed that his own authority to
rule had been given to him by God and by the traditions and laws of England
when he was crowned and anointed, and that the power wielded by those trying
him was simply that of force of arms. Charles insisted that the trial was
illegal, explaining, "Then for the law of this land, I am no less
confident, that no learned lawyer will affirm that an impeachment can lie
against the King, they all going in his name: and one of their maxims is, that
the King can do no wrong."[157] When urged to enter a plea, he stated
his objection with the words: "I would know by what power I am called
hither, by what lawful authority...?"[156] The court, by contrast, proposed an
interpretation of the law that legitimised the trial, which was founded on
"...the
fundamental proposition that the King of England was not a person, but an
office whose every occupant was entrusted with a limited power to govern 'by
and according to the laws of the land and not otherwise'."[158]
Over a period of a week,
when Charles was asked to plead three times, he refused. It was then normal
practice to take a refusal to plead as pro
confesso: an admission of guilt, which meant that the prosecution could not
call witnesses to its case. However, the trial did hear witnesses.
The King was declared
guilty at a public session on Saturday 27 January 1649 and sentenced to death. Fifty-nine of the Commissioners signed Charles's death warrant.
After the ruling, he was
led from St. James's Palace, where he was confined,
to the Palace of Whitehall, where an execution
scaffold had been erected in front of the Banqueting House.
[edit]Execution
This contemporary German print depicts
Charles I's decapitation.
Charles Stuart, as his
death warrant states, was beheaded on Tuesday, 30 January 1649. It was
reported that before the execution he wore warmer clothing to prevent the cold
weather causing any noticeable shivers that the crowd could have mistaken for
fear or weakness.[1]
"the season is
so sharp as probably may make me shake, which some observers may imagine
proceeds from fear. I would have no such imputation."[1]
The execution took place at
Whitehall on a scaffold in front of the Banqueting House.
Charles was separated from the people by large ranks of soldiers, and his last
speech reached only those with him on the scaffold. He declared that he had
desired the liberty and freedom of the people as much as any, "but I must
tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having government.... It is
not their having a share in the government; that is nothing appertaining unto
them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things."[142]
Charles put his head on the
block after saying a prayer and signalled the executioner when he was ready; he
was then beheaded with one clean stroke. His last words were, "I shall go
from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be."[1]
Philip Henry records that moments after the
execution, a moan was heard from the assembled crowd, some of whom then dipped
their handkerchiefs in his blood, thus starting the cult of the Martyr King; however, no other eyewitness
source, including Samuel Pepys,
records this. Henry's account was written during the Restoration, some 12 years after the
event, although Henry was 19 when the King was executed and he and his family
were Royalist propaganda writers. (See J Rushworth in R Lockyer (ed) The Trial
of King Charles I pp. 1334)
The executioner was masked,
and there is some debate over his identity. It is known that the Commissioners
approached Richard Brandon,
the common Hangman of London, but that he refused, and contemporary sources do
not generally identify him as the King's headsman. Ellis's Historical Inquiries,
however, names him as the executioner, contending that he stated so before
dying. It is possible he relented and agreed to undertake the commission, but
there are others who have been identified. An Irishman named Gunning is widely
believed to have beheaded Charles, and a plaque naming him as the executioner
is on show in the Kings Head pub in Galway, Ireland. William Hewlett was convicted of regicide after the Restoration.[159] In 1661, two people identified as
"Dayborne and Bickerstaffe" were arrested but then discharged. Henry
Walker, a revolutionary journalist, was suspected, as was his brother William,
but neither was ever charged. Various local legends around England name local
worthies. An examination performed in 1813 at Windsor suggests that the
execution was carried out by an experienced headsman.
It was common practice for
the head of a traitor to be held up and exhibited to the crowd with the words
"Behold the head of a traitor!" Although Charles's head was
exhibited, the words were not used. In an unprecedented gesture, one of the revolutionary
leaders, Oliver Cromwell,
allowed the King's head to be sewn back onto his body so the family could pay
its respects.
Charles was buried in
private on the night of 7 February 1649, inside the Henry VIII vault in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. The
royal retainers Sir Thomas Herbert, Capt. Anthony Mildmay, Sir Henry Firebrace, William Levett Esq. and Abraham Dowcett (sometimes
spelled Dowsett) conveyed the King's body to Windsor.[160][161] The King's son, King Charles II, later planned an
elaborate royal mausoleum, but it was never built.
Ten days after Charles's
execution, a memoir purporting to be written by the king appeared for sale.
This book, the Eikon Basilike (Greek: the "Royal
Portrait"), contained an apologia for royal policies, and it proved an
effective piece of royalist propaganda. William Levett, Charles's groom of
the bedchamber, who accompanied Charles on the day of his execution, swore that
he had personally witnessed the King writing the Eikon Basilike.[162] John Cooke published the speech he would have
delivered if Charles had entered a plea, while Parliament commissioned John Milton to write a rejoinder, the Eikonoklastes ("The Iconoclast"), but the
response made little headway against the pathos of the royalist book.[163]
Following the death of the
king, several works were written expressing the outrage of the people at such
an act. The ability to execute a king, believed to be the spokesman of God, was
a shock to the country. Several poems, such as Katherine Phillips' Upon the Double Murder of King Charles,
express the depth of their outrage. In her poem, Phillips describes the
"double murder" of the king; the execution of his life as well as the
execution of his dignity. By killing a king, Phillips questioned the human race
as a wholewhat they were capable of, and how low they would sink.[164]
[edit]Legacy
[edit]Political effect
See also: English Interregnum
The image of Charles being mocked by
Cromwell's soldiers was used by French artist Hippolyte Delaroche in his 1836 painting, Charles I Insulted by Cromwell's
Soldiers, rediscovered in 2009, as an allegory to the more
recent similar events in France, felt to be still too recent to paint
Charles I's five eldest children, 1637. The
future Charles II is depicted at centre, stroking the
dog.
With the monarchy
overthrown, and the Commonwealth of England declared, power was assumed by a
Council of State, which included Lord Fairfax,
then Lord General of the Parliamentary Army, and Oliver Cromwell.
The final conflicts between Parliamentary forces and Royalists were decided in
the Third English Civil War and Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, whereby
all significant military opposition to the Parliament and New Model Army was extinguished. The Long Parliament
(known by then as the Rump Parliament)
which had been called by Charles I in 1640 continued to exist (with varying
influence) until Cromwell forcibly disbanded it completely in 1653, thereby
establishing The Protectorate.
Cromwell then became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, a
monarch in all but name: he was even 'invested' on the royal coronation chair.
Upon his death in 1658, Cromwell was briefly succeeded by his son, Richard Cromwell.
Richard Cromwell was an ineffective ruler, and the Long Parliament was
reinstated in 1659. The Long Parliament dissolved itself in 1660, and the first
elections in twenty years led to the election of a Convention Parliament which restored Charles I's eldest son
to the monarchy as Charles II. Following the Restoration, Oliver Cromwell was exhumed
and posthumously beheaded.
Republicanism thus had a
brief tenure in British governance, that is between the death of Charles I and
the usurpation by Cromwell against the Long Parliament,
but nevertheless the monarchy never regained the heights of power it had
experienced under the Tudors and early Stuarts nor was a pure republican form
of government ever in full effect. Moreover, continued fears concerning the
accession of a Catholic heir, and consequent persecution of the Protestant
Church or foreign intervention, meant that the right of succession was closely
guarded. Ultimately, the Catholic James II was
deposed in favour of William III, the popular defender of
Protestantism. In succeeding centuries, Parliament gradually assumed greater
effective control of British government, whereby the king's prime minister
became the de facto leader of the United Kingdom.
[edit]Legacy
The Colony of Carolina in North America which later
separated into North Carolina and South Carolina was named after Charles I, as was
its major city of Charleston. To the north in the Virginia Colony, Cape Charles,Charles River Shire and the Charles City Shire were all likewise named after him,
although the king personally named the Charles River.[165] Charles City Shire survives almost 400
years later as Charles City County, Virginia. The
Virginia Colony is now the Commonwealth of Virginia and retains its official nickname of
"The Old Dominion" bestowed by Charles II because it had remained
loyal to Charles I during the English Civil War.
Memorial to Charles I atCarisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight
English furniture produced
during the reign of Charles I is distinctive and is commonly characterised as Charles I period.
[edit]Assessments
Archbishop William Laud described Charles as "A mild and
gracious prince who knew not how to be, or how to be made, great."[166]
Ralph Dutton says: "In
spite of his intelligence and cultivation, Charles was curiously inept in his
contacts with human beings. Socially, he was tactless and diffident, and his
manner was not helped by his stutter and thick Scottish accent, while in public
he was seldom able to make a happy impression."[167]
[edit]Titles, styles, honours and arms
[edit]Titles and styles
|
Royal styles of |
|
|
|
|
|
Spoken style |
Your Majesty |
|
Alternative style |
Sire |
.svg)
|
Royal styles of |
|
|
|
|
|
Spoken style |
Your Grace |
|
Alternative style |
Sire |
·
19 November 1600 27 March
1625: Prince (or
Lord) Charles
·
23 December 1600 27 March
1625: The Duke of Albany
·
6 January 1605 27 March
1625: The Duke of York
·
6 November 1612 27 March
1625: The Duke of Cornwall
·
4 November 1616 27 March
1625: The Prince of Wales
·
27 March 1625 30 January
1649: His
Majesty the King
During his time as heir
apparent, Charles held the titles of Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, Duke
of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of York, Duke of Albany, Marquess of
Ormond, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Ross, Baron Renfrew, Lord Ardmannoch, Lord of
the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.
The official style of
Charles I was "Charles, by the Grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland, King of Scots, Defender of the
Faith, etc." (The claim to France was only nominal, and was
asserted by every English King from Edward III to George III, regardless of the amount of
French territory actually controlled.) The authors of his death warrant,
however, did not wish to use the religious portions of his title. It referred
to him only as "Charles Stuart, King of England".
[edit]Honours
·
KG: Knight of the Garter, 24 April 1611 27 March 1625
[edit]Arms
As Duke of York, Charles
bore the arms of the kingdom, differenced by a label argent of three points, each
bearing three torteaux gules. As Prince of Wales he bore the arms of the
kingdom, differenced by a label
argent of three points.[168] Whilst he was King, Charles I's arms were: Quarterly, I and IV Grandquarterly,
Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant
guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure
flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent
(for Ireland).
·
.svg)
Coat of arms as Prince of Wales
·
.svg)
Coat of arms of Charles I
·
.svg)
Coat of arms of Charles I in Scotland
[edit]Ancestry
|
Ancestors of
Charles I of England |
[edit]Issue
Charles had nine children,
two of whom eventually succeeded as king, and two of whom died at or shortly
after birth.[169]
|
Name |
Birth |
Death |
Notes |
|
Charles James, Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay |
13 May
1629 |
13 May
1629 |
Born and died the same day. Buried as "Charles,
Prince of Wales".[170] |
|
29 May
1630 |
6 February
1685 |
Married Catherine
of Braganza (16381705)
in 1663. No legitimate liveborn issue. Charles II is believed to have
fathered such illegitimate children as James
Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, who later rose
against James VII and II. |
|
|
4 November
1631 |
24 December 1660 |
Married William II,
Prince of Orange (16261650)
in 1641. She had one child: William III of England |
|
|
14 October 1633 |
16
September 1701 |
Married (1) Anne Hyde (16371671) in
1659. Had issue including Mary II of
England andAnne, Queen
of Great Britain; |
|
|
29 December 1635 |
8
September 1650 |
No issue. |
|
|
17 March
1637 |
5 November
1640 |
Died
young. |
|
|
Princess
Catherine |
29 June
1639 |
29 June
1639 |
Born and died the same day. |
|
8 July
1640 |
13 September 1660 |
No issue. |
|
|
16 June
1644 |
30 June
1670 |
Married Philip I,
Duke of Orlιans (16401701)
in 1661. Had issue. Among her descendants were King Louis XVI of France, also
executed by beheading, and the kings of Sardinia and Italy. |