The Second Civil War and the execution of the king

The return of the king 

The Putney debates continued during the following days but made little progress. On 11 November Charles escaped from Hampton Court

The gateway of
Carisbrooke Castle

and fled to Carisbrooke castle on the Isle of Wight.  Two days after his arrival he re-opened negotiations with Parliament on the basis of a three-year trial period for Presbyterianism.

In the face of a renewed threat by the king, the army closed ranks. Discussions of religious and constitutional issues were suspended, and on 15 November a Leveller-inspired mutiny in two regiments near Ware was easily crushed. 


On 26 December Charles concluded a secret ‘Engagement’ promising to establish Scottish Presbyterianism in England for three years; in return the Scots recognized the king’s right to control the militia, veto legislation, appoint officers of state and promised to invade England and restore him to the throne. These were far better terms than those offered by parliament.  Inevitably it meant war. 

The Second Civil War

News of the agreement soon leaked out. On 3 January 1648 parliamentary radicals pushed through a vote (majority 50) that they would no longer negotiate with the king.  During the debates Cromwell ominously warned the Commons not to break its trust to ‘the honest party of the kingdom’ or else ‘the godly’, especially in the army ‘might take such courses as nature dictates to them’.  The meaning of these words would become clearer later in the year.  

At first the king benefited from a Royalist backlash. In April, May, and June 1648 this desire for a return to traditional forms of government exploded into rebellion in south Wales, Essex, and Kent, a series of uncoordinated risings that hardly deserves to be called a war.


The most brutal events in the war took focused on the eleven-week siege of Colchester, from June to August and even involved the dismembering of corpses.  The town surrendered after the last dog and cat had been eaten. 

On 17-18 August an invading Scots army was easily defeated by Cromwell with a much smaller force at Preston.  As with Naseby, Cromwell regarded this victory as ‘nothing more than the hand of God’. By October the war was over.

Consequences of the Second Civil War

The risings and the Scottish invasion transformed the Army’s view of the king. In April the army had withdrawn from London and its officers assembled for a prayer meeting at Windsor Castle. In an atmosphere of high emotion the officers resolved 

‘to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed and mischief he had done to his utmost against the Lord’s cause and people’.  

It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this resolution and of the ‘man of blood’ language that was henceforth used to describe Charles.  Such language could be used against Charles because in restarting the Civil War he had rebelled against the providence that had granted parliament the victory. He had allied with a foreign power, and he had plunged the country into renewed war and could never be trusted. 

However parliament did not share this apocalyptic attitude and still wished to negotiate with the king. But the Army regarded these negotiations and even the king’s major concessions as a betrayal of all that it had fought for. On 2 December the Army entered London and occupied Westminster. 

On 25 November Cromwell had written to his cousin Thomas Hammond, who was guarding the king, describing him as 

‘this man against whom the Lord hath witnessed’.  

The letter was ambiguously worded but the overall meaning was clear: God had pronounced sentence on the king, the Army (not Parliament) must find the means to execute it.  On 1 December Charles was moved to Hurst Castle on the mainland.  

Pride’s Purge

However on 5 December the Commons voted 129/83 to continue negotiations with the king.  On 6 December troops led by Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Pride (d. 1658) purged parliament of the army’s opponents.  The soldiers arrested 45 MPs and excluded 186 others (all Presbyterians); a further 86 withdrew in protest. Nearly half the MPs were now barred from attending. What remained was a ‘Rump’ of about 150 members. 

In London Independent ministers preached inflammatory sermons. Before the end of the year parliament received a spate of petitions and declarations from radical puritans praising the army and urging the members to complete the work of reformation - and in many cases bring stern justice upon the king. 

The regicide

On 23 December the king was brought to Windsor from Hurst Castle. By the end of the month Cromwell was converted to the view that negotiations with the king could not succeed and he vowed to ‘cut off his head with the Crown upon it’.  From then on his execution was inevitable. 

On 1 January the Commons voted that Charles had committed treason by levying war ‘against the parliament and commons of England’. On 4 January the Rump Parliament passed a motion, greatly influenced by Leveller ideas, claiming that 

‘The people are, under God, the original of all just power ... That the Commons of England being chosen by and representing the people, have the supreme power in this nation ... whatever is enacted or declared for law, by the Commons ... hath the force of law ... although the consent and concurrence of King, or House of Peers, be not had thereunto.’  

The Lords did not vote on this - they were excluded from the proceedings as an irrelevance and their consent was not needed for the king’s execution. The Commons declaration was printed and distributed within the next few days.

On 6 January the Commons voted to establish a high court of some 135 named judges to hear the case against Charles Stuart. Whereas previous monarchs had been murdered, and Elizabeth I had disclaimed responsibility for the execution of Mary Stuart, the future regicides were proud of their action. They chose Westminster Hall,  for the trial. At his own treason trial in 1661 the regicide Thomas Harrison said, 

‘It was not a thing done in a corner.’ 

On 8 January only 53 of the nominated commissioners turned up for the court’s first session. Two prosecutors were appointed. The barrister John Bradshaw, the chief justice of Chester, a man with known republican sympathies, was elected Lord President of the court. He and the principal prosecutor John Cook had made their reputations by prosecuting royalists and for taking a hard line over the sequestration of the goods of convicted royalists.

The trial of Charles I

On Friday 19 January Charles was brought to St James’s Palace. On 20 January the trial began in Westminster Hall.  On excellent legal grounds, Charles refused to recognize the court. But defendants who refused to enter a plea were judged guilty. He was accused of  

‘a wicked design to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power according to his will and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people’ 

and levying war against Parliament and being an enemy to ‘the Commonwealth of England’. Charles laughed aloud when he heard the phrase ‘tyrant, traitor, and murderer’ and (his speech impediment deserting him) argued that the court had no authority to try him and did not represent the will of the kingdom and that he (not they) was the true defender of the liberties of the people. He repeated this argument on the second day of his trial: 

‘I do plead for the liberties of the people of England more than you do.’  

This argument wrong-footed his opponents but it did not prevent them from condemning him to death. If he had recognized the court’s jurisdiction and agreed to abdicate probably in favour of his third son the eight-year-old Henry, duke of Gloucester, he might have saved his life. 

On Saturday 27 January the judges (fewer than half of them turned up) voted that he was guilty and should be executed.  Charles was indignant when he was denied the right to speak after sentence. 

The death warrant, with Cromwell's signature third

On 29 January his death warrant was signed by only 59 of the 153 members of the High Court, including Bradshaw, Cromwell, and Ireton; some of those who signed had not been present throughout the trial.  The majority signed quite willingly. 

 

A contemporary German depiction of
Charles's execution

On 30 January Charles stepped out of the window of the Banqueting House to his death.  In his speech he declared himself the martyr of the people. Many bought this argument.

The Eikon Basilike (King's Book)
the beginning of the cult of
King Charles the Martyr

Conclusion

1. The generally accepted view is that the so-called English Revolution was carried out against the wishes of the vast majority of the country.  But both the king and those who brought about his death believed they were in the right.
2. With the Royalists defeated and the king executed, the challenge was to find a new form of government.
3. Scotland and Ireland needed to be pacified.