God’s FURY, England’s FIRE

by Braddick, Michael

  The most immediate concern was not regicide but the danger of a settlement by personal treaty with Charles, which would be unjust, unsafe and not consistent with the salus populi. Regicide was countenanced as a means to avoid that, but was not the main business. History proved that the King was unreliable but, as they frankly acknowledged, ‘The king comes in with the reputation (among the people) of having long graciously sought peace’.23 The text is dominated by fears that an expedient settlement will be tempting but ultimately disastrous. The digested version appended petitions from Rainborough’s and Overton’s regiments in which fears about an unsafe treaty were more prominent than calls for execution of the King.24 The threat was clearly there, more clearly than in most other discussions from these weeks, but it is part of a complicated text, nearly seventy pages long. A trial, alongside the adoption of a written constitution for the people’s representative, would be the basis for a settlement. It would show who was boss, tie the hands of the monarch for ever and make expiation for the blood spilt. ‘That exemplary justice being done in capital punishment upon the principal author and some prime instruments of our late wars, and thereby the blood thereof expiated, and others deterred from future attempts of the like in either capacity’, the others can be pardoned, and fined, and excluded from public office, having shown proper ‘submission and rendering of themselves to justice’.25

  In principle, this might mean that the King, if he was not the capital author, could be pardoned and readmitted to government on these new terms. His death was clearly compassed, but not necessarily demanded – there was a little distance between the demand for justice and the demand for his head. Shocked responses, while acknowledging the threat of regicide, tended to concentrate instead on the dangers of the power of the sword – a threat to all liberty and law, which made claims about the salus populi plainly hypocritical – and the army’s own record of inconsistency and betrayal.26 The life of the King was clearly at stake, but it was being transformed into a symbolic battle over the origins of political power; if that battle came out in a particular way, the man Charles Stuart need not die. His death might be desirable, but was not an inevitable outcome: having pleaded it did not matter so much if he was convicted, or pardoned.

  This position had been thrashed out over a couple of weeks and, at the final moment, had involved active participation by Lilburne, Wildman and other London radicals. Fairfax called a meeting of the General Council – officers only – at St Albans on 7 November, and Ireton’s draft was considered on 10 November. Fairfax declared himself against it, which was effectively to block it since his soldiers could not confront King and Parliament without the support of their commander. The continuing flow of petitions from the army, however, and Charles’s refusal to abandon the negotiations at Kilkenny, told against more moderate views. So too did news of Rainborough’s ‘murder’ at Pontefract. The compromise was to agree to accept the outcome of the Treaty of Newport but also to put minimal demands before the King which, if he accepted them, would then be put to Parliament. This was, as Ireton surely knew, bound to ensure the failure of the negotiation. In fact, the increasingly obvious danger of a peace which fell short of a full reward for their service and sacrifices stiffened resolve in the army. The final draft of the Remonstrance was agreed as the manifesto of a coalition of army and London radicals, united by their desire to prevent Parliament making a hasty peace with the King. Part of the price for this unity was a committee to draft a new Agreement of the People as the basis of the new constitution – composed of representatives of the Levellers, army, ‘honest party’ in Parliament and London Independents.27

  This was undoubtedly a dangerous conjunction for the King – a revolutionary constitution, the proposal for a court of justice and the backing of the Council of Officers – but he seemed intent on avoiding a settlement reached in these circumstances. By mid-November, Charles was considering escape and on 12 November he had been enquiring about the tides with that in mind. The newsbooks quite correctly guessed what Charles was up to – that if at liberty he would put himself at the head of Ormond’s army and reopen the conflict with foreign help, and Hammond was once again told of the importance of not allowing Charles out. The Remonstrance was presented to the Commons on 20 November, the day before the extension of the Treaty of Newport expired. It took four hours to read and was greeted in silence by members, who must have heard in it the death knell of this parliament. Consideration of the Remonstrance was postponed for a week while a final response was sought from Charles. During that week Charles had been stubborn about negotiation, in this case about the treatment of his supporters, on which issue he had been offered concessions, but not enough to tempt him. Parliament was reluctant to shut the door on him, and voted a final extension, but the key question was now clear: what would the army do to implement its Remonstrance?28

  Through November the army had been gathering ominously: headquarters were moved from St Albans to Windsor on 22 November and representatives of each regiment were summoned to a General Council. In the meantime every unit was invited to declare its support for the Remonstrance. Intervention seemed increasingly likely, but there was disagreement over what was intended – whether to dissolve or purge Parliament, and what kind of constitution would be put in place afterwards. On 28 November it was agreed to move to quarters in or around London, and that a declaration justifying the imminent intervention should be prepared. When it was published, two days later, it protested against the refusal to discuss the Remonstrance, and appealed to ‘the common judgements of indifferent and uncorrupted men’.29 Meanwhile pressure was being applied to Hammond to agree to arrest the King. Eventually he was induced to go to Windsor with Ewer to talk things over with the army commanders personally. There developed a tussle between officers sent by Fairfax and those left in command by Hammond. It became fairly public knowledge that Charles was to be removed to Hurst Castle, across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, but he refused to escape and was duly moved on 1 December. There his room was so gloomy as to require candles at midday.30

  Over the following days London was the scene of tense discussion. Parliament began debate on the King’s responses at Newport on 1 December and continued as the army established its headquarters in Whitehall on 2 December. Two days later news of the seizure of the King reached London; a week earlier there had been bonfires celebrating rumours that a deal had been reached at Newport. There followed a mammoth debate in the House of Commons, lasting until 8 a.m. the following morning. It is not well-recorded, but seems to have centred on whether the King’s answers could be trusted, and it was finally agreed that Charles’s position at Newport offered a viable basis for further negotiation. Prynne, recently elected for the first time, thought this reasonable and that the King would see further sense once he came to London.31 This can only have been, for most of those present, because it was a more palatable way forward than the Remonstrance. At a meeting of figures from Parliament and army later the same day Ireton had argued for a dissolution, but was out-voted. Instead a purge was agreed upon, using two criteria: those who found the King’s response to the Newport treaty a sound basis for further negotiation; and those who had resisted the declaration in August that the Scottish invaders were enemies, traitors and rebels. Between eighty and ninety MPs were listed for arrest on this basis.32

  So it was that members arriving on the cold, dry, blustery morning of 6 December were met on the stairs of the palace by Colonel Pride. The City Trained Bands had been turned back from their duties defending the House and a regiment of foot and one of horse deployed in and around the palace. Two others patrolled the neighbouring streets. Pride, initially helped by a doorman in identifying those on his list, was joined by Lord Groby. Together they arrested forty-one MPs, and more the next day. Others were excluded but not arrested, while many stayed away from fear or disapproval. The best estimate is that the purge actively excluded no more than 110 members in all, but that because so many stayed away voluntarily,
the House was reduced by about 270 of its 470 members. On the other hand, many others attended, in the full knowledge of what was going on outside – some with approval, many more apparently simply conforming. What was in the minds of those conducting the purge is not clear but what most of those included had in common was a record of hostility towards the army or, more recently, a favourable attitude towards the Newport treaty.33 The latter point, in particular, suggests that the purge had a relatively restricted rationale – to avoid settlement on the terms proposed at Newport. It was in favour of the Vote of No Addresses rather than regicide. The purge did not make the death of the King inevitable; there were some who wanted that, but others who supported the purge with other purposes in mind.

  The first step of those who had escaped the purge, naturally enough, was to call for the liberation of the prisoners, something which had no effect (they were eventually freed on 7 December in return for undertakings not to try to resume their seats). Cromwell arrived on 6 December, claiming to have had no knowledge of proceedings, ‘yet since it was done, he was glad of it, and would endeavour to maintain it’. As was often the case, Cromwell had been absent at the crucial moment, and his attitudes hard to discern. He had a record of trying to preserve the possibility of a monarchical settlement which included Charles, but his absence in these crucial weeks was probably not the result of hesitation. He had serious military business in the north, and there is evidence that he kept in contact with radicals during this time. Once back in London he made several visits to the Duke of Hamilton, who following capture at Uttoxeter was being held prisoner in Windsor Castle. Cromwell was at pains to get from Hamilton an admission that he had invaded at the invitation of Charles I: this would have established who the ‘principal author’ of the late war had been, and provided damning evidence for any trial of the King. Cromwell, it seems, was quite willing to see a trial and condemnation.34

  The purged House was weak – clearly a creature of the military, its meetings were thinly attended in the following days. This was an important part of the post-purge calculations – anything done by Parliament needed as much support as possible. Money was sought for army arrears, recent votes were repealed (including the revocation of the Vote of No Addresses and those authorizing the Treaty of Newport for example). Although the purged parliament had secured the release of the excluded members from prison, there was little hope of their readmission to Parliament. A request for a formal explanation of the grounds for their exclusion was made on 14 December with no effect, and on the following day the House actually branded as scandalous a protestation drawn up by Waller on behalf of the excluded members. There was little resistance in the City, and in the House dissent was expressed mainly in absence. The brute fact of the purge seems rapidly to have been accepted, but it left a real problem of legitimacy for those who had engineered it.35 In the counties it seems that it was now the ‘honest radicals’ who had the upper hand in mobilizing petitions.36

  England was now in the hands of men willing to put Charles on trial for his life and to change the basis of the constitution, even if their views were hardly consensual. But it was another five weeks before legislation passed to enable the King’s trial, and another fortnight after that before public sessions began. Throughout that time the leaders of the coup were in negotiation, a key aim of which was to prevent another war. The King had slender hopes of raising an army in England, or Scotland. Following the defeat of Hamilton’s army Scotland was in the hands of the kirk party – not likely to co-operate with the English army, but not likely to take up arms for the King in the near future. That left Ormond. While the King pursued that option he could still hope, and his opponents could still feel that they did not quite have him completely over the barrel. It also emerged in December that the Confederates had concluded a commercial treaty with the Dutch which would have made their naval strength very formidable indeed. With their own fleet, that of the Prince of Wales and Dutch maritime strength behind them, they could mount an effective trade blockade.37 The King had been militarily defeated in England and Scotland, but not Ireland, and previous form suggested that he should be willing to engage in a third war – thus ran the charge, and it was correct.

  Moves towards the trial of the King went in tandem with attempts at negotiation, which probably reflected the desire to avoid this third war as much as anything else. Those who promoted the purge had been united by a desire to prevent the progress of the Treaty of Newport, probably in the face of this menacing international situation, rather than to execute the King and abolish monarchy. In the face of the growing naval threat, the allegiance of the navy was crucial. The experience of 1648 had been that the navy was not four square behind the most radical army programmes, and the arrival of the Earl of Warwick back in London seems also to have had a restraining influence on the course of political action: it is plausible that he wanted prominent royalists tried, not the King, and it is unlikely that he supported regicide at this point. Those opposing the treaty at Newport feared that this treaty would give too much ground to the King, and that delay was simply offering him the opportunity to re-gather his strength. On the other hand, killing the King was not a particularly attractive alternative. With peace on the cards in Ireland, and Scotland divided but hardly supportive of the army programme, it could plausibly be said that the best way to start a third war would be for the English to execute Charles, who was after all the King of Ireland and Scotland too. With the legitimate claimant beyond the seas and out of reach, there was more than enough reason to think that regicide would precipitate further armed conflict. And this line of thinking was vindicated after the fact too – following the King’s execution the army was indeed forced into battle again, in both Scotland and Ireland, against armed supporters of the Prince of Wales.38

  This is the context for another attempt to engage the King, the ‘Denbigh mission’ of late December. The details of the offer are unclear, but seem to have been that the King should accept the alienation of the bishops” lands (and hence, by implication, the perpetual abolition of episcopacy), abandon his Negative Voice and renounce any role for the Scots in the settlement of English affairs. Denbigh was also keen in these months to secure a disavowal of Ormond from the King. Such a deal would have allowed Charles to keep his life and throne.39 Charles met the approach with a rebuff – Denbigh was not admitted to the presence. Another approach made by the Earl of Richmond, on 11 January, is even more obscure in its details, but it too bears testimony to the continuing desire to negotiate a settlement. Even during the trial there were apparently attempts to get the King to abdicate in favour of the Duke of Gloucester.40

  Purge, and even trial, did not lead directly to regicide. Throughout the period from the purge on 6 and 7 December 1648 until the eve of the King’s execution there were hesitations and delays. The best explanation for this is that at least some of those organizing the trial and passing judgement – those at the heart of the action – were seeking ways to achieve a settlement that included the King, or at least had his acquiescence. In fact, these initiatives probably show that important players were actually trying to avoid having to kill the King, not just trying to seem to want to avoid it. An acquiescent king was more useful than a definitely dead one, as the execution was to prove. That he knew this probably explains something of Charles’s attitude towards these proceedings – the almost unflinching confidence with which he resisted the political demands being made of him. On the other side, the trial seems to have been almost a threat, intended to demonstrate that they really meant business this time. In this sense Charles called that threat as a bluff, and only at that point realized that there were a sufficient number of his opponents, in sufficient authority, who were willing to have the bluff called.

  Certainly, for a number of the key players the main purpose of the trial seems to have been settlement, not regicide. For over a year the army’s politics had been as much anti-parliamentarian as anti-monarchical – the intervention of the army ha
d been against a corrupt representative, which was acting against the interests of the people. Regular elections and franchise reform had been designed to restrain Parliament, and secure the good of the people; implied in that was a new role for the crown, but there was nothing in these arguments to suggest that popular sovereignty was incompatible with monarchical rule. The army was the instrument by which popular sovereignty would be restored: this was not a position that required the execution of Charles, let alone the abolition of monarchy. If time had been on their side, then those like Ireton calling for dissolution, rather than purge, might have made the case more clearly. Central to post-purge politics was a need to define the nature of the new regime, and to secure the King’s recognition of its legitimacy. With these fundamentals in place a settlement might then have been achieved. It is for this reason that the central drama of the trial seems to have been to get the King to plead.