The King’s attitude throughout the trial made the contemplation of spilling royal blood more palatable: it was clear that, if the possibility ever arose, Charles would seek full vengeance against his enemies. ‘The gentlemen that were appointed his judges,’ wrote Lucy Hutchinson, whose husband was one of the commissioners, ‘and divers others, saw in him a disposition so bent to the ruin of all that had opposed him and all of the righteous and just things they had contended for, that it was upon the consciences of many of them that if they did not execute justice upon him, God would require at their hands all the blood and desolation which should ensue by their suffering him to escape, when God hath brought him into their hands.’34
Many of the commissioners had assembled to try the King in the expectation that he would either be excused the charges, or be punished in a way that did not extend to the ending of his life. However, they now all agreed to proceed to the death sentence on the basis that Charles was ‘a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the Commonwealth’.35 The majority of the judges seem to have been motivated by a sincere belief that they were doing what needed to be done, rather than acting out of a hatred for the King himself. ‘Concerning myself,’ recorded Edmund Ludlow, ‘I bear no [more] malice to the man’s person, than I do to my dear father; but I hate that cursed principle of tyranny that has so long lodged and harboured within him, which has turned our waters of law into blood.’36
Preparation of the precise terms of the warrant was left to Harrison, Ireton, Marten, Lisle, Love, Say and the Parliamentary spymaster Thomas Scott, with the manner of execution left blank for now. Eager to share responsibility for this act of regicide, the commissioners in Westminster sent urgent instructions to all their absent colleagues to join them immediately.
On the morning of Saturday 27 January, the commissioners assembled in the Painted Chamber to agree the final version of the sentence. Once formulated, it would be sent for publication in key points of the capital. It was agreed that all that could have been done, had been done: that the King had been given ample opportunity to defend himself against the charge. Once condemned, he must not be allowed by Bradshaw to speak, for he would be ‘dead in law’. To demonstrate the unanimity of the judges, they would all stand once the sentence had been read.
On his final appearance, that afternoon, Charles once more refused to acknowledge the court. He seems to have appreciated that judgment against him was imminent, and asked if he might make a proposal in front of a combined assembly of the Lords and Commons; it would, he promised, reconcile all parties, and return peace to the three kingdoms. Ludlow, one of the better-informed commissioners, heard rumours that the King would have offered his abdication in favour of his eldest son, Charles, Prince of Wales, upon terms to be agreed.
The King had not realised that his trial would be ended quite so abruptly. When he made to speak he was silenced by Bradshaw. One of the judges, John Downes, protested that this was too heartless, and urged that the accused must be heard. He was determined and loud enough to force a recess.
The judges withdrew to the Inner Court of Wards to consider the King’s proposal, and Cromwell now turned on Downes, attacking him for his ill-timed intervention. Downes was reduced to tears by this dressing-down. The commissioners considered the King’s proposed meeting of both Houses of Parliament for half an hour, but decided it was too late for anything positive to come of it: they would press on. They returned to the courtroom, and the sentence was pronounced. After recapping, at length, the charge, the judges’ definition of kingship, the evidence and the King’s obstructive attitude throughout the trial, it concluded: ‘For all which treasons and crimes this Court doth adjudge that he, the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of this nation, shall be put to death by the severing of his head from his body.’37
After standing up in acknowledgement of their unanimous support of the sentence, the commissioners adjourned to the Painted Chamber. They chose five of their regimental commanders – Waller, Harrison, Dean, Okey and Ireton – to find a suitable and secure place of execution, and to advise when this should take place. They concluded that the King should be executed on a scaffold in front of Whitehall on Tuesday 30 January, and that the officers to oversee the execution would be Colonel Francis Hacker, Colonel Hercules Huncks and Lieutenant Colonel Robert Phare. To these three officers was addressed the death warrant:
Whereas Charles Stuart, King of England, is and standeth convicted, attainted, and condemned of high treason and other high crimes, and sentence was pronounced against him by this Court, to be put to death by the severing of his head from his body, of which sentence execution yet remaineth to be done: These are therefore to will and require you to see the said sentence executed, in the open street before Whitehall, upon the morrow, being the thirtieth of this instant, month of January, between the hours of ten in the morning and five in the afternoon of the same day, with full effect. And for so doing, this shall be your sufficient warrant. And these are to require all officers and soldiers, and other good people of this nation of England, to be assisting unto this service. Given under our hands and seals.
There then followed seven columns of signatures, the first three those of Bradshaw, Lord Grey of Groby (the only titled nobleman present) and Cromwell. Also present among the fifty-nine signatories prepared to endorse the King’s execution were Charles’s former custodians, Whalley and Harrison; the organisers of the purge of the Commons, Pride and Waller; the arch-republicans Ludlow and Marten; the Civil War heroes Goffe, Barkstead and Okey; the spymaster Scott; and the Parliamentary stalwarts, Corbet and Carew. Next to their signatures they pressed their seals into hot melted wax. During the signings, Cromwell and Henry Marten were in such high spirits that they flicked ink at one another from their pens, like naughty schoolboys.
These fifty-nine were now fully signed-up regicides – a term that would be extended by the Royalists to include the officers of the court during Charles’s trial, and those involved in the act of execution. In all, there would be around eighty men who were considered directly responsible for killing the King.
The officers in the Tower of London were ordered to deliver up the ‘bright execution axe for the executing [of] malefactors’, which would be used for the beheading. Lieutenant Colonel Goffe was told to furnish the King with suitable puritanical preachers, to prepare him for the afterlife. Charles chose instead to be tended by William Juxon, Bishop of London, who had previously served him as a royal chaplain, and as lord high treasurer of England.
The Royalist Clarendon maintained that, though not the best of kings, Charles I was ‘the best husband, the best father and the best Christian that the age in which he lived had produced’.38 It was a side of his character acknowledged by his enemies, Ludlow recalling Cromwell saying that ‘he had lately seen the tenderest sight that ever his eyes beheld, which was, the interview between the King and his children; that he wept plentifully at the remembrance thereof’.39 Three of the King’s children, Charles, James and Mary, were safely out of Parliament’s reach, overseas. The two younger ones – eight-year-old Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth – were now brought to say their final farewell to their father. They burst into tears on seeing him. Elizabeth recalled much of the subsequent conversation clearly, writing soon afterwards:
He bid us tell my mother that his thoughts had never strayed from her, and that his love would be the same to the last. Withal, he commanded me and my brother to be obedient to her; and bid me send his blessing to the rest of my brothers and sisters, with communications to all his friends. Then, taking my brother Gloucester on his knee, he said, ‘Sweetheart, now they will cut off thy father’s head.’ And Gloucester looking very intently upon him, he said again, ‘Heed, my child, what I say: they will cut off my head and perhaps make thee a King. But mark what I say. Thou must not be a King as long as thy brothers Charles and James do live; for they will cut off your brothers
’ heads when they can catch them, and cut off thy head too at the last, and therefore I charge you, do not be made a King by them.’ At which my brother sighed deeply, and made answer: ‘I will be torn in pieces first!’
And these words, coming so unexpectedly from so young a child, rejoiced my father exceedingly. And his majesty spoke to him of the welfare of his soul, and to keep his religion, commanding him to fear God, and He would provide for him. Further, he commanded us all to forgive those people, but never to trust them; for they had been most false to him and those that gave them power, and he feared also to their own souls. And he desired me not to grieve for him, for he should die a martyr, and that he doubted not the Lord would settle his throne upon his son, and that we all should be happier than we could have expected to have been if he had lived; with many other things which at present I cannot remember.40
The King gave Elizabeth and Henry his remaining jewels, before the children were taken from their father. The deeply devout Charles countered the agony of their final parting with prayer.
The scaffold was erected outside the Banqueting House, a new doorway being knocked through the building’s external wall to allow direct access to the place of execution. It was covered in black cloth, the block and the axe placed together at its centre. Elsewhere a coffin was prepared, trimmed with black velvet.
On the winter morning of his execution, so bitter that the Thames had frozen over, Charles is said to have chosen to wear two shirts beneath his doublet to counter the cold in case he shivered: he would not have his enemies say he had trembled in fear. At ten in the morning, Charles was escorted from St James’s to Whitehall on foot, a New Model Army regiment in attendance, flags flying, drums beating, marching before and behind the condemned man. The King remained in conversation with Colonel Tomlinson, who had proved to be a kind and respectful custodian, while Bishop Juxon followed, offering Christian platitudes as comfort during his final ordeal.
Some reports have Jane Whorwood rushing into her lover’s arms during this procession to the scaffold, though this is not certain. What is for sure is that, with customary ingenuity, she had managed to communicate with the King in the days between his death sentence being proclaimed and carried out.
Charles noted various figures in the crowd, including one of his servants, sobbing wildly as his master passed. Another, Parliamentary, man mocked the King as he went by.
In Whitehall, Charles remained composed. He spent time praying, declined to dine, but – as his wait extended – at around noon he picked at some bread and sipped on a glass of claret.
Two hours later the King was taken through to the scaffold, Juxon by his side. Charles looked around, seeing the enormous multitude that had come to witness his death. Between them and the scaffold were thick knots of soldiers, guarding against any last-minute rescue attempt or disruption. The King then focused on the scene directly in front of him. He was troubled by the height of the block where he would soon lay his head: it was only six inches high. When he asked Colonel Hacker, the senior officer present at the execution, if a higher one might be brought in its place, his request was politely brushed off. Around the block were four pins, with pulleys attached: these were to be used to secure the King if, when it came to it, he physically resisted his fate.
Charles had prepared notes on stubs of paper, to help him with his final speech. He soon realised that the crowd was too far away, beyond the soldiers, to hear his words, but insisted on speaking to those on the scaffold, rather than have his silence misinterpreted as an acceptance of guilt. The King directed the majority of his words directly at Tomlinson, perhaps because he thought him most likely to give an honest recollection of what had been said. Meanwhile, reporters stood behind the King and wrote down his last words.
Charles was determined to talk of his innocence, particularly on the greater charges against him: he insisted with disdain that he had not begun the war with Parliament, pointing instead to how his opponents had taken his militia from him; that had been, he said, the first act of the hostilities. He also insisted that he had not encroached upon Parliament’s privileges: ‘That is, so far as I have said, to show you that I am an innocent man.’
Charles now turned to those who were responsible for his imminent execution – his regicides: ‘I have forgiven all the world, and even those in particular that have been the chief causes of my death. Who they are, God knows, I do not desire to know, God forgive them. But that is not all, my charity must go further. I wish that they may repent, for indeed they have committed a great sin in that particular. I pray God, with St Stephen, that this be not laid to their charge.’ Instead, he urged these sinners to dedicate themselves to the peace of the kingdom.
His attention turned to the best way ahead for his people, in terms of government and religion. He broke off when he saw a man touching the axe, fearing he might dull the blade: ‘Hurt not the axe, that may hurt me,’ he implored. He was keen to avoid a terrible end such as that suffered by his grandmother, Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587. She had had to endure three strokes of the axe, before her head was severed from her body: it was said her lips had twitched for fifteen minutes after the stubborn gristle was finally cut through.
Resuming his speech, Charles repeated his wish for the people to enjoy liberty and freedom. To the end, he was adamant that this could not be achieved through a share in kingly government. ‘Sir, that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things,’ he maintained.
Charles was proud of the stand he had made, believing it correct, despite its fatal consequences for him: ‘If I would have given way to an arbitrary way, for to have all laws changed according to the Power of the Sword, I needed not to have come here. And therefore I tell you, and I pray God it be not laid to your charge, that I am the martyr of the people.’
He thought that he had said all he wanted to, but Bishop Juxon prompted him to reaffirm his Christian faith. This he did, briefly, before addressing Colonel Hacker. ‘Take care that they do not put me to pain,’ he implored, ‘and, sir, this, and it please you –’ before breaking off again, having spied someone else toying with the axe. ‘Take heed of the axe,’ he repeated, ‘pray, take heed of the axe.’
The King now dealt with the practicalities of preparing for execution. ‘I shall say but very short prayers,’ he told the axeman – the leader of the two masked executioners present: ‘and when I thrust out my hands . . .’ That would be the signal that he was ready to die. He asked Juxon for his nightcap, and pushed some of his hair up into it. ‘Does my hair trouble you?’ he asked the executioner. It did: he and the bishop tucked all of it up beneath the white satin, so the King’s neck could be presented clean. ‘I have a good cause,’ Charles reassured himself, ‘and a gracious God on my side.’
‘There is but one stage more,’ soothed Juxon. ‘This stage is turbulent and troublesome; it is a short one. But you may consider, it will soon carry you a very great way. It will carry you from Earth to Heaven. And there you shall find a great deal of cordial joy and comfort.’
Charles persisted with this heartening thought: ‘I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown; where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world.’
‘You are exchanged from a temporal to an eternal crown,’ the old bishop concurred, ‘a good exchange.’
The King checked his hair once more, before turning to Juxon, pressing the George – the jewelled medal, symbolic of high and courtly honour – into his hand, and saying to him, forcefully: ‘Remember!’41 On the scaffold, they took this to be a reminder that the George be passed on to the Prince of Wales.
Charles took off his doublet, draped a cloak around his shoulders for warmth, and asked the executioner to set the block fast, before again asking for a higher one to be brought. The executioner was polite but clear: the block was fast, and it was of the necessary height.
After raising his arms and eyes to the skies, the King lay down in prayer, his head on the low block, t
he executioner tucking some unruly hair back under the nightcap.
Charles soon stretched out his arms in the agreed manner and the axe fell. Death was delivered in one powerful blow, the head severed at around the third/fourth vertebra. It was held high by the masked second executioner. The shock of the sight of the bloodied top of the freshly killed King drew a groan from many in the crowd, who could scarcely believe what they had seen. In a posthumous vindication of Charles’s belief in the Divine Right of Kings, some rushed forward to dip their handkerchiefs in the royal blood, believing it to have sacred properties.
Immediately after Charles’s execution, Colonel John Hewson, one of the signatories of the death warrant, rode through the centre of London from Charing Cross to the Royal Exchange. Clattering behind him went a squadron of cavalry, as he rushed to spread a clear and uncompromising message: anyone, he declared repeatedly, who so much as questioned the justice of Charles Stuart’s death would in turn forfeit their own lives. For many Londoners this was a heavy-handed postscript to an already overwhelming day. The following week Bradshaw approved payment to the guards on the scaffold, for the care they had taken, and the cheerfulness they had shown while performing their duties.
Killers of the King Page 6