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 4

Modern interpretation of the flag of Wessex.

     In 871, King Æthelred of Wessex fought and was defeated at the Battle of Reading by Danish invaders alongside his brother, who would become Alfred the Great.

Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland

     In 1642, King Charles I entered the House of Commons at the Palace of Westminster with armed soldiers to arrest the following five Members of Parliament:

• John Hampden, MP for Buckinghamshire
• Arthur Haselrig, MP for Leicestershire
• Denzil Holles, MP for Dorchester
• John Pym, MP for Tavistock
• William Strode, MP for Bere Alston

     Charles was a devout establishment Anglican who believed that these Puritan men had encouraged the Presbyterian Scots to invade England during the Bishops Wars, and were plotting to turn the people of London against him. He then decided to have the members arrested for treason.

     Upon entering the Commons, Charles sat in the Speaker's chair and demanded that the men be handed over. When he realized that the men were not there, he said: "I see the birds have flown," and then asked the Speaker of the House, William Lenthall, if he had knowledge of their movements or had seen them earlier. Lenthall replied that he was a servant of the Commons, and as such, was not authorized to speak unless the members directed him to do so. As it was, the five members had been warned about Charles and escaped by boat through the back of the Commons chamber facing the River Thames, while the King and his soldiers entered from the landward side at the front.

     This ill-fated move by King Charles stiffened Parliamentary resolve against him and he lost the support of London. He moved his court to Oxford, and from there the battle lines were drawn for the English part of the British Civil Wars.

King Charles awaiting his trial.

     Exactly seven years to the day after Charles I attempted to arrest the Five Members, and in so doing, started the English Civil Wars, it was decided by the Rump Parliament to put the King on trial for treason.

     Charles had been a prisoner of the English Parliament at the end of the First English Civil War, but attempted to make deals various parties. In 1647, he made a deal (in bad faith, likely) with his Scottish subjects to establish Presbyterianism throughout the British Isles if they sent an army to invade England and restore him to his throne in London.  The result was the Royalist Uprising in May 1648 and the Second Civil War in which the Scots invaded England and several rebellions took place in Kent, Essex, Cumberland, and South Wales. The Parliamentarian New Model Army, composed mainly of religious Independents with no loyalty to established faiths, crushed the rebellions and defeated the Scots at the Battle of Preston.

     The Presbyterian-dominated Parliament voted to continue negotiations with the King, but Oliver Cromwell and the Army were through with negotiating. They seized the King, placed him under their direct custody, and then purged Parliament of the 150-strong Presbyterian majority, leaving a "rump" (or remainder) of 50 Independents. This Rump Parliament declared itself the supreme power of the land, with the right to make laws without the consent of the King or the House of Lords, and its members viewed Charles as a treasonous tyrant who must pay for his crimes against England. The eventual result was the King's trial, conviction, and execution on January 30, 1649.

The Banqueting Hall on Whitehall Road

 
     In 1698, the Palace of Whitehall in London was destroyed by fire. 

     It was originally known as York House, and was occupied and expanded by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in the 15th Century. Following Wolsey's removal by Henry VIII, the King acquired the building and made further renovations and expansions.

     It became a principal royal residence, and at it's height, the Palace complex was the largest in Europe - bigger than the Vatican and Versailles, containing over 1,500 rooms and covering 23 acres of central London. 

     With regard to the fire, it was reported that a Dutch servant left linen drying by a charcoal fire. The fire got out of control, creating an inferno which spread rapidly, and burned down the entire complex. Notable works of art, including Michelangelo’s Cupid and Holbein’s original famous portrait of Henry VIII, were lost to the flames. Only the Banqueting House survived.

     The Banqueting House had been designed and built in 1622 by Inigo Jones under James VI & I. It was from this building that James's son Charles I was led onto an outdoor scaffold and executed before the public.

     Today, the Palace gives its name to Whitehall Road, on which many administrative buildings of the British government are located, which is why such agencies are collectively referred to as "Whitehall."

George V, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions Beyond the Seas, Emperor of India

     In 1912, King George V issued a Royal Charter that incorporated the Boy Scout Association (now the Scout Association) throughout the British Empire for "the purpose of instructing boys of all classes in the principles of discipline loyalty and good citizenship."

     Scouting had been the brainchild of Brigadier-General Robert Baden-Powell, and after the formation of several Scouting patrols and the wildly successful publication of his book, Scouting for Boys, the Scouting Movement had become widespread. The Boy Scout Association was created in 1910 to bring a national structure to the Scouts in the United Kingdom, and the Movement spread out across the Empire and the world. In the same year that the Royal Charter was issued, the Boy Scouts of America was formed, and eventually received its own charter from the US Congress.

     Today, the Scout Movement numbers over 40 million members worldwide (including yours truly) - which is a combination of Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Girl Guides, and various co-educational groups. In the United Kingdom, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent is the President of the Scout Association and the Queen is its Patron.


Photo Credit: Hogweard via Wikimedia Commons cc