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5 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Charles' personality
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- had shown himself to be untrustworthy since Petition of Right in 1628
- escape from army custody on 11th November 1648 - inflexibile and refused to accommodate other views - godly Puritan zeal was not inherently anti-monarchical - drove social and political conservatives to develop revolutionary attitudes - often went back on his words - Engagement with the Scots showed his duplicity - rejection of Heads of the Proposals meant that freedom of religious conscience and secure parliamentary power could not be achieved with Charles in the mix - could not make a "mathematical security" (Rudyerd) |
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Army influence
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- Prayer meeting in Windsor in April suggested that God's anger was caused by negotiations with the King: "our duty, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to account"
- after Pride's Purge, the army had the power to enforce its will by military means - polarised and politicised - a settlement with Charles would abandon all the army had fought for in the Civil Wars - soldiers witnessed the bloodshed firsthand: Cromwell could not believe the recklessness with which Charles had launched the country into another bout of civil war - the Remonstrance and army regiments demanded an end to negotiations with Charles, and capital punishment for a "war criminal" - hardened attitudes, i.e. court-martialling after sieges in Pembroke and Gloucester - army was unwilling to disband until until it had created a world fit for its heroes to live in |
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'Eye for an eye'
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- Ireton's Remonstrance demands the trial of the King
- Charles blamed for blood spilt and atrocities committed in the civil wars - Old Testament: "for blood it defileth the land, and that land cannot be cleansed of that blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it" - must be killed |
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Religion
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- Charles was seen as hoing against God's judgment by leading the country into war again
- "a man against whom God hath witnessed" - milinarianism: widespread belief in providence, evident in Cromwell's letters after battles ("the work of God") - radical political and religious thinking created preconditions for the execution - many, including Ireton and Cromwell, believed Charles' death was necessary for God's forgiveness |
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Lack of viable alternatives
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- Morrill: "by Jan 1648 there were two alternatives: capitulation to or decapitation of the monarch"
- if he was imprisoned, he would become a focus for Royalist uprisings - Charles was unwilling to accept abdicational exile |
