Right. You need an article. On a king who managed to lose three kingdoms and his own head. Don't say I never give you anything. Just try to keep up.
Charles I
A man who mistook stubbornness for principle and paid for it with his neck. King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625 until the rather abrupt end of his reign in 1649.
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Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) [a] was the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. His reign was a masterclass in how to alienate every possible constituency, culminating in a civil war that tore his kingdoms apart and a scaffold that separated his head from his body.
Born into the House of Stuart, Charles was the second son of King James VI of Scotland. He was never supposed to be king, a fact that seems to have escaped him later in life. When his father added the English throne to his collection in 1603, the family moved south, and Charles spent the majority of his life in England. He became heir apparent to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612, following the untimely death of his more popular and promising elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. His early attempt at diplomacy was a spectacularly misjudged effort to marry the Spanish Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, which involved an eight-month incognito trip to Spain in 1623. The trip was an abject failure, demonstrating only the futility of the negotiation and Charles's profound capacity for misreading a room. Two years later, having ascended the throne, he married Henrietta Maria of France instead, swapping one Catholic problem for another.
From the moment he became king in 1625, Charles was locked in a bitter struggle with the English Parliament, which had the tiresome notion that his royal prerogative should have limits. Charles, a fervent believer in the divine right of kings, was determined to govern by the dictates of his own conscience—a conscience that conveniently aligned with absolute power. This did not sit well with many of his subjects. They viewed his policies, particularly the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, as the actions of a tyrannical absolute monarch. His religious sensibilities only made matters worse. His marriage to a devout Catholic and his own high church Anglican leanings stoked deep mistrust among Reformed groups like the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters, who were convinced his views were a Trojan horse for Catholicism. He championed controversial ecclesiastics and failed to provide meaningful aid to continental Protestant forces during the Thirty Years' War. His attempts to hammer the Church of Scotland into a high Anglican mold triggered the Bishops' Wars, which not only strengthened the English and Scottish parliaments but also lit the fuse for his own destruction.
Beginning in 1642, Charles waged war against the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War. Following a decisive defeat in 1645 at the hands of the Parliamentarian New Model Army, he fled his base at Oxford. In a moment of questionable judgment, Charles surrendered to a Scottish force, who, after protracted negotiations, sold him to the Long Parliament in London. Even in captivity, Charles refused to accept demands for a constitutional monarchy, escaping briefly in November 1647. He was re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, where he managed to forge an alliance with Scotland. It was too little, too late. By the end of 1648, the New Model Army had consolidated its power over England. Charles was subsequently tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished, and the Commonwealth of England was born, a short-lived republic. The monarchy was eventually restored in 1660, with his son, Charles II, taking the throne, presumably having learned a few things about the importance of keeping one's head.
Early life
!Engraving of Charles with his parents An engraving by Simon de Passe depicting Charles with his parents, King James and Queen Anne, circa 1612. A family portrait before everything went spectacularly wrong.
The second son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, Charles entered the world at Dunfermline Palace, Fife, on 19 November 1600. He was promptly baptized in a Protestant ceremony at the Chapel Royal of Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh on 23 December 1600. The officiating clergyman was David Lindsay, the Bishop of Ross. At the same event, he was created Duke of Albany, the traditional title for the second son of the king of Scotland, along with the subsidiary titles of Marquess of Ormond, Earl of Ross, and Lord Ardmannoch.
James VI was the first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth I of England, a relationship that paid off when she died childless in March 1603, making him king of England as James I. While his parents and older siblings decamped for the richer kingdom in the spring of that year, Charles, a weak and sickly infant, was left behind in Scotland. His fragile health was deemed too great a risk for the journey. He remained in the care of his father's friend, Lord Fyvie, who was appointed his guardian.
By 1604, at three-and-a-half, Charles had managed to walk the length of the great hall at Dunfermline Palace unassisted—a feat deemed sufficient proof of his resilience. The decision was made that he was finally strong enough to join his family in England. In mid-July 1604, he left Dunfermline, beginning a journey to a country where he would spend most of his life and also lose it. Upon arrival, Charles was placed in the care of Elizabeth, Lady Carey, the wife of courtier Sir Robert Carey. She took it upon herself to correct his weak ankles by forcing him into boots made of Spanish leather and brass, a rather unsubtle metaphor for the forceful and ultimately damaging pressures that would shape his life. His speech was also slow to develop, and he was afflicted with a stammer that he never overcame.
!Portrait of young Charles Portrait by Robert Peake the Elder, c. 1611. He looks unimpressed even then.
In January 1605, he was created Duke of York, a title customary for the English sovereign's second son, and was made a Knight of the Bath. A presbyterian Scot, Thomas Murray, was appointed as his tutor, tasking him with the usual curriculum of classics, languages, mathematics, and religion. In 1611, he was made a Knight of the Garter.
Charles, it seems, eventually overcame the physical frailties of his infancy, which may have been caused by rickets. He developed into a skilled horseman, an adept marksman, and took up fencing. Despite these accomplishments, he remained in the shadow of his physically stronger and taller elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. Charles adored Henry and tried to emulate him, a classic case of second-son syndrome. But in early November 1612, the narrative took a sharp turn. Henry died at the age of 18, likely from typhoid (though porphyria has also been suggested). Charles, who turned 12 just two weeks later, was suddenly the heir apparent. As the sovereign's eldest surviving son, he automatically acquired a raft of titles, including Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay. In November 1616, he was formally created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, stepping into shoes he was never meant to fill.
Heir apparent
In 1613, Charles's sister Elizabeth married Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and relocated to Heidelberg. The family ties would soon drag England into the vortex of European conflict. In 1617, the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, a staunch Catholic, was elected king of Bohemia. The following year, the Protestant Bohemians rebelled, expressing their displeasure by defenestrating the Catholic governors. In August 1619, the Bohemian Diet offered the crown to Frederick, a leader of the Protestant Union, while Ferdinand was simultaneously being elected Holy Roman Emperor in the imperial election. Frederick's acceptance of the Bohemian crown in defiance of the Emperor was the spark that ignited the Thirty Years' War. This conflict, initially a local Bohemian squabble, metastasized into a continent-wide religious war, which the English Parliament and public viewed as a clear struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism. In 1620, Frederick was routed at the Battle of White Mountain near Prague, and his hereditary lands in the Electoral Palatinate were promptly invaded by a Habsburg force from the Spanish Netherlands. King James, however, was pursuing a marriage between Prince Charles and Ferdinand's niece, Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, viewing the Spanish match as a clever diplomatic tool to restore peace in Europe. It was not.
The proposed alliance with Spain was deeply unpopular with both the public and James's court. The English Parliament was virulently anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic. When James summoned it in 1621, the members were hoping for stricter enforcement of recusancy laws, a naval war against Spain, and a good Protestant wife for the Prince of Wales. Instead, they got a lesson in royal prerogative. The session saw James's Lord Chancellor, Francis Bacon, impeached before the House of Lords for corruption. This impeachment was the first since 1459 without the king's direct sanction via a bill of attainder, setting a dangerous precedent that would later be turned against Charles and his favorites: George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, Archbishop William Laud, and Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford. James angrily insisted the House of Commons should stick to domestic affairs, but its members protested, claiming the privilege of free speech and demanding war with Spain and a Protestant princess of Wales. Charles, like his father, found the discussion of his marriage in the Commons to be an impertinent intrusion on his father's royal prerogative. In January 1622, James dissolved Parliament, furious at their audacity.
!Portrait of Charles as Prince of Wales Charles as Prince of Wales, after Daniel Mytens, c. 1623. Already perfecting the look of divine disappointment.
In a move of astounding diplomatic ineptitude, Charles and Buckingham, James's favorite who held immense sway over the prince, traveled incognito to Spain in February 1623 to finalize the long-stalled Spanish match. The trip was a humiliating disaster. The infanta considered Charles little more than an infidel, and the Spanish court initially demanded his conversion to Catholicism as a precondition. They also insisted on religious toleration for Catholics in England and the repeal of the English penal laws—terms Charles knew Parliament would never accept. To cap it off, they demanded the infanta remain in Spain for a year post-wedding to ensure compliance. A personal feud erupted between Buckingham and Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, the Spanish chief minister, leaving Charles to personally conduct the doomed negotiations. He returned to London in October, brideless, but to a relieved and ecstatic public welcome. He and Buckingham, now vehemently anti-Spanish, pushed a reluctant James to declare war on Spain.
With the encouragement of his Protestant advisors, James summoned Parliament again in 1624 to request funds for a war. Charles and Buckingham threw their weight behind the impeachment of the Lord Treasurer, Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex, who opposed the war for its cost and was swiftly dispatched in the same manner as Bacon. James, with weary foresight, told Buckingham he was a fool and warned Charles he would live to regret reviving impeachment as a parliamentary weapon. An underfunded, makeshift army under Ernst von Mansfeld was sent to recover the Palatinate but was so poorly equipped it never made it past the Dutch coast.
By 1624, James's health was failing, and his control over Parliament was slipping. By the time of his death in March 1625, Charles and Buckingham were already the de facto rulers of the kingdom, a partnership that would prove catastrophic for all involved.