Royal Moments in History - January 30

1649 - Execution of Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland

A German depiction of the execution.

     Four days earlier, the High Court of Justice in England had declared Charles I guilty of treason and sentenced him to death, and the King was informed of his fate at a public session the following day. His death warrant, signed and sealed by 59 of the tribunal commissioners, listed him as Charles Steuart, King of England, and it required that he be beheaded in the "open street before Whitehall [Palace]" on the 30th of January.

     On the day in question, Charles walked under guard from St. James's Palace to the Palace of Whitehall. His only children still living in the country, Elizabeth and Henry, had visited him the day before, and his last meal on the morning of the execution consisted of a glass of claret (red Bordeaux wine) and some bread. It was a bitterly cold day, and Charles wore two shirts to prevent him from shivering, lest it taken be as a sign of fear.

     Upon arriving at Whitehall, he was led to a specially constructed balcony outside of the Banqueting House, the building that been erected by his father, James VI & I. There, he gave his final speech before the crowds on the street below, but since a rank of soldiers kept a distance between the King and the spectators, this farewell address was only heard by those on the platform. "I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be," said the King. He defended his actions - stating that by attempting to protect his own rights and liberties, he was also protecting the rights and liberties of his people, and this fitted well with Charles's belief in the divine right of kings, under which he was appointed by God and answered only to God (on behalf of his people) and to no other authority, not even Parliament.

     Charles then removed the Garter Jewel of St. George from his neck, and handed to his chaplain, Bishop William Juxon, with the instruction that it be handed to his son Charles Stuart, Prince of Wales (the future Charles II), and with the one word: "Remember."

     At around 2:00 PM, the King said a small prayer, placed his head on the block, and signaled that he was ready. Charles was executed with a single clean stroke, and his head was raised before the crowd by the executioner, whose identity has never been positively identified because his face was masked.

     The head was sewn back onto the body, which was embalmed and placed in a lead coffin, which was then hastily deposited into the vault containing the coffins of Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour under the choir at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle on February 9th.

     Charles I remains to this day, the only British monarch to be tried, convicted, and executed by his people.

1661 - Execution of Oliver Cromwell

The scene of the execution of Cromwell and other regicides.

     Cromwell was a leading general of the New Model Army that had defeated Charles I in the 1640's, and he was the third man to sign the King's death warrant in 1649. He later went on to become Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland - the republic that had been set up after the execution of Charles I, and which Cromwell ruled as a dictator, with all of the trappings of kingship except the title. Upon his death in 1658, the Commonwealth failed and the monarchy was eventually restored under Charles II in 1660.

     12 years to the day after the execution of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell's body - which had been exhumed from its burial place in Westminster Abbey - was posthumously hanged and beheaded at Tyburn in London. His head was placed on a pike at Westminster Hall (the site of the Charles I's trial) until 1685, and is now buried on the grounds of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. The body was supposed to have been thrown into a pit at Tyburn, but conspiracy theories still abound as to its true location.

On This Day: January 1st - New Year's Day

Charles II in a portrait by Philippe de Champaigne during his exile, c. 1653

     In 1651, Charles II was crowned King of Scots at Scone Palace in Perthshire, Scotland.

     His father Charles I had been tried and executed in England, resulting in the abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of a republic. In Scotland however, Charles II was proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland, and a Scottish army invaded England to restore him to his throne. But after this momentous occasion - the last coronation to be held in Scotland - Charles and his Royalist allies were defeated by Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarian New Model Army at the Battle of Worcester in September. Charles escaped into exile in continental Europe, and Cromwell conquered Scotland and Ireland to make them part of the republican Commonwealth, and was later made Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland – becoming a military dictator. Upon his death in 1658, he was succeeded by his son Richard, who lacked the political and military backing his father had, and resigned after eight months in office. In 1660, the Protectorate and Commonwealth were abolished, and Charles II was invited back to Britain to preside over the restoration of the monarchy in his three kingdoms.

James Stuart in a portrait by Antonio David, c. 1720.

     In 1766, James Francis Edward Stuart died at the age of 77 in Rome.

     James Stuart was the son James VII of Scotland & II of England and Ireland, who had been deposed during the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 because of his Catholicism. In 1701, he became pretender to the throne upon the death of his father and attempted to regain it during the Jacobite Uprising in 1715. When it seemed that the Jacobite's had the upper hand following the indecisive Battle of Sheriffmuir, James landed in Scotland, and made his way to Scone Palace, the traditional coronation site for the King of Scots, where he announced his forthcoming coronation as James VIII & III. But his shy and cold manner in public failed to inspire confidence amongst his supporters, and the harsh winter only made matters worse. With the British Army in pursuit, James was pushed back to the Scottish coast, and eventually fled back to France. He would go on to live out the rest of his days (known as the Old Pretender) as a devout Catholic in Rome at the grace-and-favor of the Vatican.

George III, the first monarch of the United Kingdom

     In 1801, the Union with Ireland Act 1800, an act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, and the Act of Union (Ireland) 1800, an act passed by the Parliament of Ireland came into effect, which formally merged the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

     Both countries had previously shared a monarch in an personal union, but they were now governed as a single country by the same parliament - the new Parliament of the United Kingdom in London at the Palace of Westminster, where over 100 Irish representatives were sent to join their English, Scottish, and Welsh colleagues.

     George III, now King of the United Kingdom, took the opportunity to drop his nominal title as King of France, which had been used by English and British monarchs since Edward III of England to signify their claims to the French throne (see post about Henry VI being crowned King of France). The French Revolution had brought down the monarchy, and so the title had become irrelevant anyway.

Queen Victoria being handed the Indian crown by Benjamin Disraeli.

     In 1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India at a Durbar in Delhi.

     India had been under the control of the British East India Company, which been created for the purpose of trading with India and East Indies (now largely Indonesia). Following a revolt in 1857, India became directly governed by the British Crown, though no official title had been bestowed to Queen Victoria.

     It was Benjamin Disraeli, Victoria's 7th British Prime Minister, who pushed the Royal Title's Act of 1876 through Parliament, which bestowed the title - previously belonging to the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II - to the 58 year old Queen. The title would be passed down to each successive monarch through George VI, who was the last Emperor of India and presided over the country's independence in 1947.

Royal Dates for December 31st

     I was unable to put these events into a formal posting, so I am going to briefly add them here.

     In 1660, Louis XIV of France granted the title of Duke of Normandy to James Stuart, Duke of York, who would become James VII & II in 1685

      In 1720, Charles Edward Stuart was born in Rome. He was the son of James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender to the British throne, and made a final attempt to seize the throne in 1745 which failed. He is popularly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Young Pretender.

     In 1857, Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the capital of Canada.

On This Day: December 22

Stephen, King of England

     On this day in 1135, Stephen of Blois became King of England. He was a nephew of Henry I, who died 21 days earlier. Henry named his daughter Matilda as his heir, but was in France, and Stephen seized the throne with the support of the nobility. Over the next two decades, Matilda would press her claim to the throne during a period of civil war known as The Anarchy. Eventually, it was agreed that Matilda's son Henry would be Stephen's heir upon his death, which occurred in 1154.

The Chelsea Pensioners taking part in the Opening Ceremony
for the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

     On this day in 1681, King Charles II issued a Royal Warrant that authorized the construction of The Royal Hospital, Chelsea. The hospital still serves as a retirement and nursing home for retired and injured British servicemen and women, who are popularly known as the Chelsea Pensioners.

James Stuart, the Old Pretender

     On this day in 1715, James Francis Edward Stuart - the only living son of the deposed Catholic king, James VII & II - arrived on British soil when he landed at Peterhead, Scotland to take the lead of the ongoing Jacobite Uprising. But the attempt to reclaim the throne from the recently-crowned German Protestant king, George I, failed and James eventually fled back to France.

Photo Credit: s*t*e*v*i*e via Flickr cc