(r. 1625-49)

Born at Dunfermline, Fife on 19 November 1600, Charles I wa s the second son of James VI and Anne of Denmark. Brought u p in the south after his father inherited the throne of Eng land in 1603, Charles was highly educated and deeply seriou s, with a sensitive appreciation of fine paintings, but h e lacked James' first-hand knowledge of Scottish affairs. C harles left Scotland at the age of three, and his only visi t to Scotland after his accession was in 1633, when he wa s crowned King of Scots. In the meantime, Scotland was admi nistered by the Scottish Privy Council; the Scottish Parlia ment was overshadowed by the General Assembly of the Kirk.

James had introduced bishops into the Church of Scotland wi thout too much opposition, but Charles' attempts to strengt hen their position met with much resentment. Suspicious o f his marriage to the French Roman Catholic Henrietta Maria , and his insistence on an Anglican form of worship durin g his short coronation visit, the Scottish Presbyterians vi ewed Charles' efforts to impose a new Prayer Book as an att empt to revive what they saw as 'popery' in Scotland. The i ntroduction of the Prayer Book provoked a riot in St Gile s Cathedral, Edinburgh. In February 1638 his opponents dre w up a National Covenant, professing loyalty to the crown b ut refusing to have anything to do with his ecclesiastica l changes, until they had been approved by a free General A ssembly and by Parliament.

Charles remained obstinately determined to press ahead wit h his plans, and so when the General Assembly, the governin g body of the Church of Scotland, met in Glasgow in Novembe r 1638, the delegates abolished episcopal government. The b ishops fled, and Charles decided to use force. The Bishops ' Wars then broke out. However the 'Short' Parliament in En gland, which was sympathetic to Scottish religious demand s and shared the Scots' suspicions of Charles' aims, declin ed to pay for the campaign in Scotland. Charles capitulate d in the end and peace was concluded with the Treaty of Rip on, 1640.

However, when Civil War erupted in England the following ye ar, both the king and the English Parliament realised tha t the Scots could tip the balance. Although Charles had for mally accepted the establishment of a Presbyterian form o f government and a severely limited monarchy in 1641, Parli ament reached agreement with the predominant Presbyterian g roup in the Scottish Parliament. The Solemn League and Cove nant provided for an armed alliance, leaving Charles littl e choice but to back Montrose and his force of Highlander s (traditional opponents of the Presbyterians). Despite ini tial successes at Perth, Aberdeen and Inverlochy, Montrose' s forces were crushed at Philiphaugh in 1645.

After his defeat at Naseby, Charles surrendered to the Scot s in 1646 and entered into negotiation with them. However , he refused to give an undertaking that he would establis h Presbyterianism in England, as it would mean 'the absolut e destruction of the Monarchy'. The Scots handed him over t o his English enemies in return for arrears of payment. Aft er further abortive negotiations with the English Parliamen t, Charles returned to his talks with the Scots in Decembe r 1647. Under the 'Engagement', the Covenant was to be impo sed on England with the establishment of a Presbyterian sys tem and the army disbanded. The Scots' agreement to provid e an army to restore Charles led to the second Civil War i n the spring of 1648, which ended in Cromwell's victory a t Preston. Charles was tried, and executed at Whitehall o n 30 January 1649.


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Charles I was born in Fife on 19 November 1600, the secon d son of James VI of Scotland (from 1603 also James I of En gland) and Anne of Denmark. He became heir to the throne o n the death of his brother, Prince Henry, in 1612. He succe eded, as the second Stuart King of England, in 1625. Contro versy and disputes dogged Charles throughout his reign. The y eventually led to civil wars, first with the Scots from 1 637 and later in England (1642-46 and 1648). The Civil War s deeply divided people at the time, and historians still d isagree about the real causes of the conflict, but it is cl ear that Charles was not a successful ruler.

Charles was reserved (he had a residual stammer), self-righ teous and had a high concept of royal authority, believin g in the divine right of kings. He was a good linguist an d a sensitive man of refined tastes. He spent a lot on th e arts, inviting the artists Van Dyck and Rubens to work i n England, and buying a great collection of paintings by Ra phael and Titian (this collection was later dispersed unde r Cromwell). His expenditure on his court and his picture c ollection greatly increased the crown's debts. Indeed, crip pling lack of money was a key problem for both the early St uart monarchs.

Charles was also deeply religious. He favoured the high Ang lican form of worship, with much ritual, while many of hi s subjects, particularly in Scotland, wanted plainer forms . Charles found himself ever more in disagreement on religi ous and financial matters with many leading citizens. Havin g broken an engagement to the Spanish infanta, he had marri ed a Roman Catholic, Henrietta Maria of France, and this on ly made matters worse. Although Charles had promised Parlia ment in 1624 that there would be no advantages for recusant s (people refusing to attend Church of England services), w ere he to marry a Roman Catholic bride, the French insiste d on a commitment to remove all disabilities upon Roman Cat holic subjects. Charles's lack of scruple was shown by th e fact that this commitment was secretly added to the marri age treaty, despite his promise to Parliament.

Charles had inherited disagreements with Parliament from hi s father, but his own actions (particularly engaging in ill -fated wars with France and Spain at the same time) eventua lly brought about a crisis in 1628-29. Two expeditions to F rance failed - one of which had been led by Buckingham, a r oyal favourite of both James I and Charles I, who had gaine d political influence and military power. Such was the gene ral dislike of Buckingham, that he was impeached by Parliam ent in 1628, although he was murdered by a fanatic before h e could lead the second expedition to France. The politica l controversy over Buckingham demonstrated that, although t he monarch's right to choose his own Ministers was accepte d as an essential part of the royal prerogative, Minister s had to be acceptable to Parliament or there would be repe ated confrontations. The King's chief opponent in Parliamen t until 1629 was Sir John Eliot, who was finally imprisone d in the Tower of London until his death in 1632. Tension s between the King and Parliament centred around finances , made worse by the costs of war abroad, and by religious s uspicions at home (Charles's marriage was seen as ominous , at a time when plots against Elizabeth I and the Gunpowde r Plot in James I's reign were still fresh in the collectiv e memory, and when the Protestant cause was going badly i n the war in Europe). In the first four years of his rule , Charles was faced with the alternative of either obtainin g parliamentary funding and having his policies questione d by argumentative Parliaments who linked the issue of supp ly to remedying their grievances, or conducting a war witho ut subsidies from Parliament. Charles dismissed his fourt h Parliament in March 1629 and decided to make do without e ither its advice or the taxes which it alone could grant le gally.

Although opponents later called this period 'the Eleven Yea rs' Tyranny', Charles's decision to rule without Parliamen t was technically within the King's royal prerogative, an d the absence of a Parliament was less of a grievance to ma ny people than the efforts to raise revenue by non-parliame ntary means. Charles's leading advisers, including Willia m Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Strafford , were efficient but disliked. For much of the 1630s, the K ing gained most of the income he needed from such measure s as impositions, exploitation of forest laws, forced loans , wardship and, above all, ship money (extended in 1635 fro m ports to the whole country). These measures made him ver y unpopular, alienating many who were the natural supporter s of the Crown.

Scotland (which Charles had left at the age of 3, returnin g only for his coronation in 1633) proved the catalyst fo r rebellion. Charles's attempt to impose a High Church litu rgy and prayer book in Scotland had prompted a riot in 163 7 in Edinburgh which escalated into general unrest. Charle s had to recall Parliament; however, the Short Parliament o f April 1640 queried Charles's request for funds for war ag ainst the Scots and was dissolved within weeks. The Scots o ccupied Newcastle and, under the treaty of Ripon, stayed i n occupation of Northumberland and Durham and they were t o be paid a subsidy until their grievances were redressed.

Charles was finally forced to call another Parliament in No vember 1640. This one, which came to be known as The Long P arliament, started with the imprisonment of Laud and Straff ord (the latter was executed within six months, after a Bil l of Attainder which did not allow for a defence), and th e abolition of the King's Council (Star Chamber), and move d on to declare ship money and other fines illegal. The Kin g agreed that Parliament could not be dissolved without it s own consent, and the Triennial Act of 1641 meant that n o more than three years could elapse between Parliaments.

The Irish uprising of October 1641 raised tensions betwee n the King and Parliament over the command of the Army. Par liament issued a Grand Remonstrance repeating their grievan ces, impeached 12 bisops and attempted to impeach the Queen . Charles responded by entering the Commons in a failed att empt to arrest five Members of Parliament, who had fled bef ore his arrival. Parliament reacted by passing a Militia Bi ll allowing troops to be raised only under officers approve d by Parliament. Finally, on 22 August 1642 at Nottingham , Charles raised the Royal Standard calling for loyal subje cts to support him (Oxford was to be the King's capital dur ing the war). The Civil War, what Sir William Waller (a Par liamentary general and moderate) called 'this war without a n enemy', had begun.

The Battle of Edgehill in October 1642 showed that early o n the fighting was even. Broadly speaking, Charles retaine d the north, west and south-west of the country, and Parlia ment had London, East Anglia and the south-east, although t here were pockets of resistance everywhere, ranging from so litary garrisons to whole cities. However, the Navy sided w ith Parliament (which made continental aid difficult), an d Charles lacked the resources to hire substantial mercenar y help.

Parliament had entered an armed alliance with the predomina nt Scottish Presbyterian group under the Solemn League an d Covenant of 1643, and from 1644 onwards Parliament's armi es gained the upper hand - particularly with the improved t raining and discipline of the New Model Army. The Self-Deny ing Ordinance was passed to exclude Members of Parliament f rom holding army commands, thereby getting rid of vacillati ng or incompetent earlier Parliamentary generals. Under str ong generals like Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell, P arliament won victories at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby ( 1645). The capture of the King's secret correspondence afte r Naseby showed the extent to which he had been seeking hel p from Ireland and from the Continent, which alienated man y moderate supporters.

In May 1646, Charles placed himself in the hands of the Sco ttish Army (who handed him to the English Parliament afte r nine months in return for arrears of payment - the Scot s had failed to win Charles's support for establishing Pres byterianism in England). Charles did not see his action a s surrender, but as an opportunity to regain lost ground b y playing one group off against another; he saw the monarch y as the source of stability and told parliamentary command ers 'you cannot be without me: you will fall to ruin if I d o not sustain you'. In Scotland and Ireland, factions wer e arguing, whilst in England there were signs of division i n Parliament between the Presbyterians and the Independents , with alienation from the Army (where radical doctrines su ch as that of the Levellers were threatening commanders' au thority). Charles's negotiations continued from his captivi ty at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight (to which h e had 'escaped' from Hampton Court in November 1647) and le d to the Engagement with the Scots, under which the Scots w ould provide an army for Charles in exchange for the imposi tion of the Covenant on England. This led to the second Civ il War of 1648, which ended with Cromwell's victory at Pres ton in August.

The Army, concluding that permanent peace was impossible wh ilst Charles lived, decided that the King must be put on tr ial and executed. In December, Parliament was purged, leavi ng a small rump totally dependent on the Army, and the Rum p Parliament established a High Court of Justice in the fir st week of January 1649. On 20 January, Charles was charge d with high treason 'against the realm of England'. Charle s refused to plead, saying that he did not recognise the le gality of the High Court (it had been established by a Comm ons purged of dissent, and without the House of Lords - no r had the Commons ever acted as a judicature).

The King was sentenced to death on 27 January. Three days l ater, Charles was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banque ting House in Whitehall, London. The King asked for warm cl othing before his execution: 'the season is so sharp as pro bably may make me shake, which some observers may imagine p roceeds from fear. I would have no such imputation.' On th e scaffold, he repeated his case: 'I must tell you that th e liberty and freedom [of the people] consists in having o f Government, those laws by which their life and their good s may be most their own. It is not for having share in Gove rnment, Sir, that is nothing pertaining to them. A subjec t and a sovereign are clean different things. If I would ha ve given way to an arbitrary way, for to have all laws chan ged according to the Power of the Sword, I needed not to ha ve come here, and therefore I tell you ... that I am the ma rtyr of the people.' His final words were 'I go from a corr uptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance ca n be.' The King was buried on 9 February at Windsor, rathe r than Westminster Abbey, to avoid public disorder. To avoi d the automatic succession of Charles I's son Charles, an A ct was passed on 30 January forbidding the proclaiming of a nother monarch. On 7 February 1649, the office of King wa s formally abolished.

The Civil Wars were essentially confrontations between th e monarchy and Parliament over the definitions of the power s of the monarchy and Parliament's authority. These constit utional disagreements were made worse by religious animosit ies and financial disputes. Both sides claimed that they st ood for the rule of law, yet civil war was by definitio n a matter of force. Charles I, in his unwavering belief th at he stood for constitutional and social stability, and th e right of the people to enjoy the benefits of that stabili ty, fatally weakened his position by failing to negotiat e a compromise with Parliament and paid the price. To many , Charles was seen as a martyr for his people and, to thi s day, wreaths of remembrance are laid by his supporters o n the anniversary of his death at his statue, which faces d own Whitehall to the site of his execution.

he was also Duke of Albany, Marquis of Ormond, Duke of York , Prince of Wales, and Earl of Chester ____________________ ___

Charles I was born in 1600, the second son of James I and A nne of Denmark. After several unsuccessful attempts at arra nging a marriage, Charles married the 15 year-old daughte r of France's King Henry IV, Henrietta Maria. Three years o f coldness and indifference ensued, but the pair finally be came devoted to each other, producing four sons (Charles [w ho died as a teenager], Charles [who became Charles II], Ja mes and Henry) and five daughters (Mary, Elizabeth, Anne, C atherine and Henrietta Anne). Charles I was executed for tr eason in 1649.Charles ascended the throne at the age of 2 5; after a weak, sickly childhood, he became an excellent h orseman and a strong-willed king. His strong will, however , proved to be his undoing: mismanagement of affairs (in th e tradition of his father) forced a showdown with Parliamen t, which culminated in civil war and the king's execution. Charles inherited the incessant financial problems of hi s father: the refusal of Parliament to grant funds to a kin g who refused to address the grievances of the nobility. Ge orge Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham (and homosexual frien d of James I), exerted undue and unpopular influence over C harles in the first years of Charles' reign; Buckingham's a ssassination in August 1628 came amid shouts of joy from th e nobility. Three times summoned and three times dissolve d through 1625-1629, Parliament went the next 11 years with out being summoned, as Charles financed his reign by sellin g commercial monopolies and extracting ship money (a fee de manded from towns for building naval warships). Charles' ma rriage to the devoutly Catholic French princess further inc ensed the increasingly Puritan nobility, as her Catholic fr iends flooded into the royal court. She was a meddlesome wo man who put her wants (and those of her friends) above th e needs of the realm.A problem in Scotland brought an abr upt end to Charles' 11 years of personal rule and unleashe d the forces of civil war upon England. Charles attempted t o force a new prayer book on the Scots, which resulted in r ebellion. Charles' forces were ill prepared due to lack o f proper funds, causing the king to call, first, the Shor t Parliament, and finally the Long Parliament. King and Par liament again reached no agreement; Charles foolishly trie d to arrest five members of Parliament on the advice of Hen rietta Maria, which brought matters to a head. The struggl e for supremacy led to civil war. Charles raised his standa rd against Parliamentary forces at Nottingham in 1642.Rel igious and economic issues added to the differences betwee n the supporters of the monarchy (Cavaliers) and the suppor ters of Parliament (Roundheads). The lines of division wer e roughly as follows: Cavalier backing came from peasants a nd nobility of Episcopalian roots while Roundhead backing c ame from the emerging middle class and tradesmen of the Pur itanical movement. Geographically, the northern and wester n provinces aided the Cavaliers, with the more financiall y prosperous and populous southern and eastern counties len ding aid to the Roundheads. The bottom line is that the Rou ndheads, with deeper pockets and more population from whic h to draw, were destined to win the battle. Oliver Cromwel l and his New Model Army at Naseby soundly routed the Caval iers in 1645. Scarcely a year later Charles surrendered t o Scottish forces, which turned the king over to Parliament . In 1648, Charles was put on trial for treason; the tribun al, by a vote of 68 to 67, found the king guilty and ordere d his execution in 1649.Charles' advancement of his fathe r's failed policies and his wife's Catholic friends divide d the realm and caused civil war. The opposing forces in th e conflict were assessed in the satire, 1066 and All That : "... the utterly memorable struggle between the Cavalier s (Wrong but Wromantic) and the Roundheads (Right but Repul sive)." Edward Hyde, author of the History of the Great Reb ellion, acknowledged Charles' faults, but offered this intu itive observation: "... he was, if ever any, the most worth y of the title of an honest man - so great a lover of justi ce that no temptation could dispose him to a wrongful actio n, except that it were so disguised to him that he believe d it to be just." Many of these temptations occurred durin g the reign of Charles I.


King of England.
Beheaded.

• Married: 11 May 1625 in St Augustine's Church, Canterbury, England
• Change Date: 4 Dec 2009

1. Charles James Stuart b: 13 May 1629 in Greenwich Palace
2. Charles Stuart b: 29 May 1630 in Saint James Palace, London, England
3. Mary Henrietta Stuart b: 4 Nov 1631 in St. James Palace, London, England
4. James Stewart b: 14 Oct 1633 in St. James Palace, Westminster, Middlesex, England
5. Elizabeth Stuart b: 29 Dec 1635 in Saint James Palace, London, England
6. Anne Stuart b: 17 Mar 1635/36 in Saint James Palace, London, England
7. Katherine Stuart b: 29 Jan 1638/39
8. Catherine Stuart b: 29 Jun 1639 in Whitehall Palace, London, England
9. Henry Stuart b: 8 Jul 1640 in Oatlands, Surrey
10. Henrietta Anne Stuart b: 16 Jun 1644 in Bedford House, Exeter, Devonshire, England

1. Abbrev: Banker, Mary
   Title: "Mason, Hyde, Moulton, Banker ~," supplied by Banker, 8-9-2 009.
   Author: compiled by Mary Banker [(E-ADDRESS) FOR PRIVATE USE\,]
   Text: Copy any item at your own risk, I could be right you know . MDB
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