The Political Life of Charles I

Those of you who bother watching my Facebook feed, and have good memories, will know that I have been reading this:

Cust, R., Charles I: A Political Life (Harlow, Pearson, 2005).

Given that the original post was on May 1 this year, and I am writing the blog on the UK election day, it has taken me a while. This was, in the Estimable Mrs P’s parlance, my ‘downstairs’ book, which means it kept getting covered with other items, newspapers, periodicals and so on. It is also a fair-sized chunk of book – 474 pages or so, by my reckoning.

I mentioned on the Facebook post that I am not a great fan of Charles I. While, I suspect many people are emotionally in favour of the Royalists, in reality, we would (if we had survived to adulthood) probably have been favouring Parliament. It is, I suppose, a bit like party loyalty – it lasts and lasts as an emotional attachment until your party is just so horrid as to switch your vote.

Anyway, that book, after a bit of an introduction, starts with Charles’ advent into the political scene with sone of James I’s parliaments, where he say, of course, in the House of Lords, in 1621. This was the start of his political education. He was also sworn in as a privy councillor in 1622, and had the benefit of his father’s advice, particularly the Basilicon Doron, originally written for Charles’ older brother, but containing James’ political philosophy and views on how kings should behave.

While we, and many historians, might dismiss this work as a conventional renaissance ‘mirror of princes’ exercise, Charles seems to have taken it seriously. He had a strong sense of duty to God and his people. He believed, more or less, in the Divine Right of Kings, came to dislike Puritans and in religious policy tried to steer the Church of England away from their influence. Charles was also a neo-stoic – he endured all sorts of assaults on his honour and prerogative but was convinced that Providence would vindicate him.

As we know, it all ended in disaster. In fact, given that the problems started at least in the 1629 Parliament and lasted more or less 20 years, we could classify it as a slow-motion train crash. Charles managed to get himself a reputation for duplicity and double-dealing. This was because he had a few things he would not budge on, and so he would only pretend to negotiate over, say, the episcopacy, while also attempting to subvert the agreement by other means. Thus he was dealing, by 1647, with the Scots, the English Presbyterians and the English Independents, hoping that they would sufficiently fall out among themselves to give him an opening.

As, indeed, it happened, as the Scots, more alarmed by the rise of the Independents than of the prospect of a restored Charles who might not be wholly under their control. The advent of the Second Civil War, of course, more or less, cost Charles his head. But even so, as Cust shows, there were still negotiations to be had and a deal was possible, if not probable.

Charles, however, was susceptible to bursts of overconfidence. One of the biggest mistakes militarily he stands accused of is deciding to fight the night before Naseby. This seems to have been decided between Charles and Rupert. Cust suggests that they could have escaped to the safety of Newark. But, possibly, Rupert wished to get at the New Model Army early, before it had settled into a fighting force, and Charles, perhaps overconfident in the abilities of the Royal army, and ill-informed as to the strength and whereabouts of the enemy, agreed.

I suppose that this one could be argued back and forth. Was it necessary for the Royalists to fight at Naseby? Maybe, and maybe not. They would have had to fight sometime, of course, and the New Model infantry, as the battle was to demonstrate at least in part, was a bit fragile. If a retreat to Newark was attempted, they would have to withdraw in the face of Cromwell’s cavalry which might not have been as easy as some commentators have suggested. It would be an interesting question to wargame, however.

Such bursts of overconfidence, intermixed with faulty intelligence, were rather the norm for Charles and his decision making, however. It was rather hard to believe that the country would survive at all without a king, no matter how reduced his powers. The most radical Parliamentary leaders do not seem to have really believed that his execution was even politically possible until November 1648, or thereabouts. Nor did Charles, at least until he was really put on trial for his life.

As is so often the case, the trial veered between farce and tragedy. But Charles, neo-stoic to the end, more or less had decided on martyrdom. In fact, this achieved most of his political ends, by a roundabout route. Not having negotiated away anything more than the concession of 1641 meant that the Restoration monarchy was able to pick up from where that left off, rather than the more limited monarchical powers which could have been agreed later. I suppose it took 1688 to get the Parliamentary system we know, roughly speaking, now.

Anyway, as Cust observes, while the early Stuart state had a good number of difficulties which were never going to be easily resolved, neither Charles’ father, nor is oldest son, would probably have landed up in the pickle Charles created. He was too obstinate and did not know when to agree and when to hold firm. He regarded the Parliamentarian side as being rebels and traitors and believed that to such people a Christian king was not obligated to be honest. It was them who should be on trial, not he.

In a sense, he was right. A fair bit of the Parliamentary junto were, in fact, engaged in activity that could have been regarded as treason, and, to some extent, went into a civil war to cover their tracks. On the other hand, Charles was not above blame for some of the problems and views, particularly of himself and his kingship. It was all rather a mess, a contingent mess, granted, but a mess nevertheless.