Charles I

Overview

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.
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.
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, generated deep mistrust concerning the king's dogma.
Charles further allied himself with controversial ecclesiastic figures, such as Richard 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 parliamentary authority, use his position as head of the English Church to pursue religious policies which caused anger of reformed groups such as the Puritans.
Charles was defeated in the First Civil War (1642–45), after which Parliament expected him to accept its demands for a constitutional monarchy.
He remained defiant and tried to forge an alliance with Scotland and escaped to the Isle of Wight.
This led to the Second Civil War (1648–49) 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.

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, before his first Parliament could meet to forbid the banns.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Charles's primary concern during his early reign was foreign policy.
The Thirty Years' War, originally confined to Bohemia, was widening into a wider European war.
In 1620 Frederick V was defeated at the Battle of White Mountain 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.
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.
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
Parliament voted to grant a subsidy of only £140,000, an insufficient sum for Charles.
The House of Commons limited its authorisation for royal collection of tonnage and poundage to a period of one year, although previous sovereigns since 1414 had been granted the right for life.
In this way, 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.
The war with Spain under the leadership of Buckingham went badly, and the House of Commons began proceedings for the impeachment of the duke.
Despite Parliament's protests, however, Charles refused to dismiss his friend, dismissing Parliament instead.
Charles caused more unrest by trying to raise money for the war through a "forced loan": a tax levied without Parliamentary consent.
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.
Summoned in 1628, Parliament passed 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.
Charles assented to the petition, 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, he reneged upon his earlier promise and instead launched a defence of the fortress under the leadership of Buckingham in 1628, thereby driving a wedge between the English and French Crowns that was not surmounted for the duration of the Thirty Years' War.
Buckingham's failure to protect the Huguenots – indeed, his attempt to capture Saint-Martin de-Re then spurred Louis XIII's attack on the Huguenot fortress of La Rochelle – furthered Parliament's detestation of the Duke.
23 August 1628, Buckingham was assassinated.
The public rejoicing at his death accentuated the gulf between the court and the nation, and between the crown and the Commons.
Although the death of Buckingham 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.

Personal Rule/Parliament Prorogued

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.
MPs 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, 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.
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.
The provocation was too much for Charles, who dissolved Parliament the same day.
Eight parliamentary leaders, including John Eliot, were imprisoned on the foot of the matter, turning these men into martyrs, and giving popular cause to a protest that had hitherto been losing its bearings.
Without the means to raise funds for a European War from Parliament, or the influence of Buckingham, Charles made peace with France and Spain.
Next eleven years, during which Charles ruled without a Parliament, are referred to as the Personal Rule or the Eleven Years' Tyranny (Ruling without Parliament, though an exceptional exercise of the royal prerogative, was supported by precedent).

Economic Problems

The reigns of Elizabeth I and James I had generated a large debt for the kingdom.
Despite the failure of Buckingham in the short lived campaigns against both Spain and France, there was 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.
England was still the least taxed country in Europe, with no official excise and no regular direct taxation.
Without the consent of Parliament, Charles's ability to secure funds for his treasury was legally impossible
To raise revenue without reconvening Parliament, he resurrected a law called the "Distraint of Knighthood", introduced in 1279
It required anyone earning £40 or more each year to present himself at the King's coronation to join the royal army as a knight.
Relying on this old statute, Charles fined all individuals who had failed to attend his coronation in 1626.
He also reintroduced obsolete feudal taxes such as purveyance, wardship, and forest laws.
Foremost of these taxes was the Ship Tax, 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, 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 1634–1638, after which yields declined steeply.
It was paid directly to Treasury of the Navy, thus making Northumberland the most direct beneficiary of the tax.
Opposition to Ship Money steadily grew, with John Hampden's legal challenge in 1637 providing a platform of popular protest.
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.
Also gained funds through the Scottish nobility 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.

Religious Conflicts

Throughout Charles's reign, the question of how far the English Reformation should progress was constantly at the forefront of political debate.
Arminian theology laid emphasis on clerical authority and the individual's capacity to reject salvation, and was seen 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, confirmed the 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), and more recently in the Second Defenestration of Prague at the start of the Thirty Years' War.
Such cultural identifications struck a chord with Charles's subjects dismayed by Charles failure to support the Protestant cause abroad and his contacts with Spain.
Such allegations dogged Charles due to the actions of king and council, especially Archbishop William Laud.
Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633, and began a series of unpopular reforms eg dismissing non-conformist clergymen, and closing Puritan organisations.
His policy was opposed to Calvinist theology, and he insisted that the Church of England's liturgy use the Book of Common Prayer, and that the internal architecture of English churches emphasise the sacrament of the altar, thereby attacking predestination.
Laud used the two most feared and most arbitrary courts in the land, the Court of High Commission and the Court of Star Chamber to enforce this.
The former could force a person to provide self-incriminating testimony; the latter, an extension of the Privy Council, could inflict any punishment (including torture), except of death.
Personal Rule at first was marked by peace in England, partly because of tighter central control.
Some opposed Charles's taxes and Laud's policies, and left as a result, eg Puritan minister Thomas Hooker, who went to America with other religious dissidents in 1634.
By 1633 Star Chamber had effectively, taken the place of High Commission as the supreme tribunal for religious offences as well as dealing with Crown cases of a secular nature.
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 torture.
But Charles' attempt to impose his religious policies in Scotland faced resistance.
Born in Scotland, Charles had become estranged from his kingdom, not even visiting the country until his Scottish coronation in 1633.
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.
This was supported by the Scottish Bishops, but resisted by many Presbyterians, who saw the new Prayer Book as a plot to introduce Anglicanism to Scotland.
1637, unrest erupted throughout the Kirk upon the first Sunday of its usage, and the public began to mobilise around rebellious nobles in a National Covenant.
When the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland abolished Episcopalian government (governance of the Church by bishops) in 1638, replacing it with Presbyterian government (governance by elders and deacons), Charles sought to crush rebellion against his authority.
1639, when the First Bishops' War broke out, Charles did not seek subsidies to wage war, but raised an army without Parliamentary aid.
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.
In the Pacification of Berwick, Charles regained his Scottish fortresses, and secured the dissolution of the Covenanters' government, in return for concession of the Scottish Parliament and General Assembly of the Scottish Church being called.
The First Bishops' War 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.
Charles's peace negotiations with the Scots were a bid by the king to gain time before launching a new military campaign.
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.

Second Bishops' War

Charles summoned the English and Irish parliaments in the early months of 1640.
March 1640, the Irish Parliament voted a subsidy of £180,000 promised to raise an army of 9,000 by the end of May.
In the English General Election in March, court candidates fared badly, and Charles's dealings with the English Parliament in April reached stalemate.
Northumberland and Strafford tried 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).
This was not enough to produce consensus in the Commons.
MPs’ demands for further reforms were ignored by Charles, who still had the support of the House of Lords.
Despite the protests of Northumberland, Parliament was dissolved in May 1640, less than a month after it assembled - to be known as the "Short Parliament".
Thomas Wentworth, created Earl of Strafford and elevated to Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in January 1640, had emerged as Charles's right hand man and with Laud, followed a policy of 'Thorough' in support of absolute monarchy.
Although originally a major critic of the king, Strafford defected to royal service in 1628 (due in part to Buckingham's persuasion), and had emerged as the most capable of Charles's ministers.
Having trained an army in Ireland for the king and seriously weakened the authority of the Irish Parliament, particularly those members of parliament belonging to the Old English, Strafford had obtained an independent source of royal revenue and forces within the three kingdoms.
The Scottish Parliament declared itself capable of governing without the king's consent and, in September 1640, moved into Northumberland under the leadership of Montrose
Strafford was sent north to command the English forces following Northumberland's illness.
Scottish soldiers, many of whom were veterans of the Thirty Years' War, had better experience than the English, and met virtually no resistance until reaching Newcastle where, at the Battle of Newburn, Newcastle upon Tyne – and England's coal supply – fell into the hands of the Covenanter forces.
The English force at York was unable to counterattack because Strafford was incapacitated by a combination of gout and dysentery.
24 September Charles summoned the magnum concilium, the ancient council of Peers of the Realm, the King's hereditary counsellors, who advised making peace with the Scots and the recall of Parliament.
A cessation of arms, although not a final settlement, was agreed in the Treaty of Ripon (October 1640)
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).
November Charles summoned what 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.

Long Parliament

The Long Parliament assembled in November 1640 and proved just as difficult for Charles as previous the Short Parliament.
It impeached Laud of High Treason, (18 December).
Lord Keeper Finch was impeached the following day, and he fled to The Hague with Charles's permission on 21 December.
To prevent the king from dissolving it, Parliament passed the Triennial Act, (February 1641)
This said Parliament was to be summoned at least once every three years, and when the King failed to issue proper summons, the members could assemble on their own.
22 March 1641, Strafford, went on trial for high treason.
This was a new departure for Irish politics in which Old English, Gaelic Irish and New English settlers joined together in a legal body to present evidence against Strafford.
But - 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 the case collapsed.
Pym now launched a Bill of Attainder, stating Strafford's guilt and that the Earl be put to death.
Charles, guaranteed Strafford that he would not sign the attainder, without which the bill could not be passed.
Also the Lords were opposed to the severity of the sentence of death imposed upon Strafford.
Increased tensions and an attempted coup by the army in support of Strafford began to sway the issue.
21 April, in the Commons the Bill went virtually unopposed (204 in favour, 59 opposed, and 250 abstained), the Lords acquiesced, and Charles signed on 10 May.
The Earl of Strafford was beheaded two days later.
May 1641, Charles agreed to an act, which forbade the dissolution of the English Parliament without Parliament's consent.
Ship money, fines in distraint 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.
All remaining forms of taxation were legalised and regulated by the Tonnage and Poundage Act.
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.
May, the House of Commons launched several bills attacking bishops and episcopalianism in general, each time defeated in the Lords.
Charles made several concessions, but improved his own military position by getting 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.
But, following the attempted coup of 'The Incident' in Scotland, Charles's credibility was undermined.

Irish Rebellion

The Old English members of the Irish Parliament argued that their opposition to Strafford had not changed their loyalty to Charles.
They said Charles had been led astray by the malign influence of the Earl, and 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.
Unlike their Old English counterparts who were Catholic, the New English settlers in Ireland were Protestant and were aligned with the English Parliament and the Puritans; thereby opposed to the crown due to unfolding events within England.
Disputes between native and coloniser over transference of land ownership from Catholic to Protestant, especially the plantation of Ulster, plus overshadowing of the Irish Parliament by the English Parliament would sow the seeds of trouble in Ireland that, despite its initial chaos, led to conflict within England between royalists and parliamentarians.
The success of the trial against Strafford weakened Charles's influence in Ireland.
Also provided for cooperation between the Gaelic Irish and Old English, who had hitherto been antagonistic towards one another.
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 professing their loyalty to the king.
November 1641 the 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).
It was a step too far by Pym (passed by 11 votes, – 159 to 148 with over 200 abstaining).
The Remonstrance attacked the members of the House of Lords as being guilty of blocking reform - they defeated the Remonstrance when brought before them.
Tension was heightened when news of the Irish rebellion reached Parliament, coupled with rumours of Charles's complicity.
The Irish Catholic army, established by Strafford, whose dissolution had been demanded three times by the House of Commons, professed their loyalty to the king.
There were now massacres of Protestant New English in Ireland by Gaelic Irish who could not be controlled by their lords.
November a storm of publicity concerning the Irish depositions, coupled with stories concerning 'Papist conspiracies' alive within England circulated, and were published in a series of pamphlets.
The English Parliament did not trust Charles's motives when he called for funds to put down the Irish rebellion,
Many MPs feared that forces raised by Charles might be used against Parliament.
The Militia Bill was intended to wrest control of the army from the King, but it did not have the support of the Lords.
The Militia Ordinance was the most decisive moment in prompting an exodus from the Upper House to support Charles.
In an attempt to strengthen his position, Charles placed the Tower of London under the command of Colonel Thomas Lunsford.
When rumours reached the king that Parliament intended to impeach his Catholic Queen, Henrietta Maria, he 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.
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 decided to carry out personally.
News of the warrant reached Parliament.
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.
Having displaced the Speaker, William Lenthall from his chair, the king asked him where the MPs were.
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."
Charles abjectly declared 'all my birds have flown', and was forced to retire, empty-handed.
The arrest attempt was a disaster for Charles.
No English sovereign had ever (or has since) entered the House of Commons by force.
In one stroke Charles destroyed his supporters' arguments that the king was the only bulwark against a rising tide of change and disorder.
Parliament now seized London, and 10 January 1642, Charles was forced to leave the capital, where he began travelling north to raise an army against Parliament.

English Civil War

Both sides began to arm as the summer of 1642 progressed.
Charles raised the royal standard in Nottingham on 22 August 1642, the anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth.
He set up his court at Oxford, when his government controlled roughly the west Midlands, Wales, the West Country and north of England.
Parliament controlled London and the south-east as well as East Anglia.
Charles raised an army using 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 in favour of Parliament.
There were numerous defeats for the Royalists, and then the Siege of Oxford, from which Charles escaped in April 1646.
He put himself into the hands of the Scottish Presbyterian army at Newark, and was taken to nearby Southwell while they decided what to do with him.
They arrived at an agreement with Parliament and delivered the king 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.
Mutual suspicion had developed between the New Model Army and Parliament, and Charles was keen to exploit it.
He was then transferred to Oatlands 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.
He decided on the latter, believing Hammond to be sympathetic, and fled on 11 November.
Hammond opposed Charles, whom he confined in Carisbrooke Castle.
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 in return for the establishment of Presbyterianism for three years.
The Royalists rose in July 1648, starting 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 led to pitched battles and prolonged sieges.
The Royalists lost any chance of winning the war after defeats at Preston. Warrington, Wigan and Worcester.
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.

Trial

Charles was moved to Hurst Castle at the end of 1648, and then to Windsor Castle.
January 1649, the House of Commons passed an Act of Parliament creating a court for Charles's trial.
After the first Civil War, Parliament 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."
Cromwell had up to this point supported negotiations with the king, but now rejected further talks.
Charles was accused of treason against England by using his power to pursue his personal interest rather than the good of England.
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."
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; this was in 1650 out of a population of only 5.1 million, or 3.6% of the population.
The indictment against the king 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."
The High Court of Justice established by the Act consisted of 135 Commissioners but only 68 ever sat in judgement (all firm Parliamentarians).
Charles's trial on charges of high treason and "other high crimes" began on 20 January 1649, but he refused to enter a plea, claiming that no court had jurisdiction over a monarch
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."
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...?"
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'."
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.
But, the trial did call witnesses.
The King was declared guilty on Saturday 27 January 1649 and sentenced to death.
Fifty-nine of the Commissioners signed Charles's death warrant.
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.

Execution

Charles was beheaded on Tuesday, 30 January 1649.
The execution took place at Whitehall on a scaffold in front of the Banqueting House.
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.
The ability to execute a king, believed to be the spokesman of God, was a shock to the country.

Political effect

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
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 until Cromwell forcibly disbanded it completely in 1653.
Cromwell 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.

Assessments of Charles

Archbishop William Laud described Charles as "A mild and gracious prince who knew not how to be, or how to be made, great."
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."

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