Throughout English history, Charles 1 stands out as the only monarch who was convicted for treason and executed. Indeed the possibility of trying and not just punishing, but exacting the capital punishment on the monarch would seem ludicrous at any other point in history. It is intriguing how the idea of trialing the King escaped the vulgar whispers amongst fanatics and became echoed within the councils of Westminster and Whitehall. The repulsion towards the execution can be recognized later during the Stuart restoration, when the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw and others deemed responsible for the regicide, were exhumed and posthumously executed. In 11 short years, it seems that the divine right of kings which had previously been disregarded, was now emphatically recognized once more to vilify the men complicit with Charles’ execution. What were then the compelling reasons the regicides provided which enabled them the erasure of centuries old constitution and justify the establishment of a Republican state? The question is undoubtedly difficult to answer given the varied narratives pushed by key players of the regicides which mar the appearance of a united group of prosecutors. Moreover, the matter is in itself multi-faceted and a multitude of factors were considered to warrant Charles’ demise. This research essay hopes to analyze narratives of blood guilt, the army Remonstrance and the proceedings of the Rump parliament, in order to piece together the comprehensive decision-making process as to why Charles needed to be executed. 

A common religious sentiment throughout early modern England, was that innocent spilled blood could only be reconciled with the blood of the aggressor. This was touted within the Bible itself, with several passages alluding to the terrible consequences which could occur from sinning in such a manner. “Who-so sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” Civil war, seen as a national calamity, was considered to be a divine punishment and many cited sins committed in the past, seemingly not atoned for to explain it. These ranged from centuries-old atrocities such as the victims of persecution by Queen Mary to Charles’ own postulation that it was the unjust killing of the Earl of Strafford which brought about the conflict. Both sides employed blood guilt as a means to justify their cause and absolve themselves of any guilt from killing their fellow countrymen. Charles himself is quoted to have said: “We have done Our Duty so amply, that God will absolve Us from the Guilt of any of that Blood which must be spilt.” Towards the start of the conflict, the king’s position as the head of the body politic meant that parliamentarians largely exculpated him from any accusations of blood guilt. As leader of the Royalists however, Charles’s hand in the first and subsequent civil war became harder to ignore, and the Rump parliament began to pin many of the atrocities committed on him. The perpetrator of a “wicked design”, Charles became the target of a narrative exhorted by the Rumpers that an execution of justice unto him would have allowed the debt of blood guilt to be fulfilled. John Bradshaw, the eventual judge to preside over the King’s trial, is quoted to have told Charles: “Sir, I will presume that you are so well read in Scripture as to know what God himself hath said concerning the shedding of man’s blood” and that the King was not exempt. By the commencement of the trial, the notion that Charles was a man of blood had fully taken shape and was a primary means to prosecute him. For this reason, it seems evident that the concept of blood guilt was not a mere rhetoric, and the regicides genuinely believed that executing Charles would bring about a peace through the cleansing of sin.  

As demonstrated, the concept of blood guilt was a primary reason in mobilizing the Rumpers and army to formulate a plan in which to suppress the king. Attributing the king’s demise simply to blood guilt however would be an oversimplification of the convoluted political environment following the second civil war. Kelsey informs us that the concept of blood guilt was “exploited periodically throughout the 1640s as a means to loose the ties of allegiance and obedience which bound king and subjects”. For one, it would seem counter-intuitive to condemn a supposed lieutenant of god, given his absolute authority over all his subjects. The king’s actions were an extension of the divine creator, and criticizing him was considered sacrilegious, to speak nothing of trialing him. Cressy informs us that rather than malevolent, the general public found Charles to be simply lacking in foresight due to the erroneous information he was being fed. “All embraced the ideal of kings as pillars and patriarchs but found his present majesty’s eyes occluded.” In the past, this meant pursuing the king’s closest advisors, accusing them of misguiding him, such was the case of William Laud and the Earl of Strafford. This dramatic change in the Rump’s handling of the king signals a marked shift in his image from a blind ruler to a malevolent “man of blood”. Hence, what remains to be answered is why the king had to be punished in such an excessive manner. The blood spilt during the civil war could have instilled within the regicides a desire to put the King in his place but fails to address a logical gap in their choice of punishment.  

Perhaps the most damning document advocating the execution of Charles, is Henry Ireton’s contribution to the army’s Remonstrance. Amidst the political chaos of the time, Ireton stands out as a prominent voice of the New Model Army and amongst the most vocal of the regicides. Initially a moderate, he became disillusioned with the King and politically aligned himself with the radicals. With the failure of the Treaty of Newport, Ireton began to draft the Remonstrance spelling out the many qualms he had with parliament’s continued negotiations with the King. A comprehensive character-assassination, the writings capture the army’s utter distrust and bitter hatred towards their monarch. It reiterates sentiments about blood guilt but unlike previous sources which skirt around implicating the King, Ireton’s writing is far more seditious and direct. To tackle Charles’ supposed authority as the King, Ireton goes to describe his power as “arbitrary”, revealing to us an explicit willingness to supplant Charles’ position at the head of state. He also attacks the monarchic establishment in itself, referencing events of the past to emphasize the futility in negotiating with Kings, convinced in their propensity to employ duplicitous tactics. “there is abundant experience to teach us how ordinary a thing it hath been for Kings and Princes in such cases, when they could not prevailed in the way of force, to leave that and apply themselves by fraud to accomplish their ends and wills upon the people.” He excoriates Charles’ lack of guilt towards his actions, reflecting his inability to take responsibility and giving no indication that future settlements would be possible. Royalists were naturally outraged by the publication while radicals lauded it for its sound arguments and sagacious remedies. Contemporary sources such as William Sedgwick, a Royalist preacher, interpreted the document as unambiguously demanding for capital punishment. This point was made even clearer when an abridged version was published on 27 December 1648, as a pillar to support the trial of the king. Within the text, a bloated list of old-testament king killings legitimize the action of regicide and further ground it within scripture. For this reason, scholars like Woolrych seem convinced that its “central demand” was the “capital punishment upon the principal author”. Taking the Remonstrance at face value, we can hence determine that Charles was executed primarily due to the regicides’ weakened impression that a king was still needed in the governing of a state.  

The Rumpers and the army believed by the Treaty of Newport that justice had to be executed, but did justice strictly demand execution? Cromwell, lieutenant general of the New Model Army, for one did not seem convinced that capital punishment was condign. Gardiner informs us that “It can hardly be doubted that Cromwell and his allies amongst the officers desired at this time to save the King’s life.” Kishlanksky also demonstrates that “While Cromwell dragged his feet, Ireton wished to sprint to the finish and reports claim that their views clashed openly in the council of the army.” Cromwell’s position at the head of the army and a member of the Rump meant that he had a sizable number of allies who shared the same views as him. Given these circumstances, it seems evident that the Remonstrance did not capture the views of a large portion of the would-be regicides. We delve further into the events that transpired during late 1648 to 1649 and analyze two possible key moments which could explain a radical shift in opinion.   

Most historians believe the turning point to be the aftermath of the Denbigh mission in December 1648. Amidst the Vote of No Addresses, Basil Feilding, the 4th Earl of Denbigh, covertly travelled to Windsor Castle with terms for a settlement with the King. Supported by Cromwell and the Army Council, it was essentially a last ditch effort by the Rump parliament to keep the king in line. Through what little details we could determine from the mission, it had fallen through entirely when the king had insisted on his “retention of his negative voice, and on the inviolability of the property of the bishops”. Proponents of this Denbigh mission hence assert that it dispelled any doubts within Cromwell and his allies to execute the King, and was the event horizon which led to the eventual execution. In recent years, Kelsey has also offered a revisionist reading of the King’s trial; painting it as an extended negotiation and its judges as unwilling to condemn the king. Notwithstanding the failure of the Denbigh mission and his previous transgressions, the intention was still to preserve the monarchy. Kelsey cites the purposefully lenient charges placed on the King, and the several delays which took place over the course of the trial as a willingness to compromise. Charles however, in his refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the court and enter a plea, prevented the commons from securing an upper hand in establishing its supremacy. This was ultimately what forced the hand of his judges who begrudgingly signed his death warrant. The convenience of the Denbigh mission and the revisionist reading in pinpointing the exact moments of this dramatic shift in opinion is certainly compelling. By these accounts, we could naturally credit the final reason as to the King’s execution to be his unwillingness to compromise and be reduced to a simple ceremonial position of power. If not by Charles, this transferal of power from the monarchy to the commons would have to be accomplished through forceful removal. 

These two insightful interpretations, as tantalizing as they may be however, have faced their fair share of criticism. Kishlansky, remains unconvinced about the supposed prominence of the Denbigh mission. His primary concerns are the dubious nature of the available sources, the inherent difficulties in carrying out the mission and the assumptions made by scholars. If the Denbigh mission even happened, Kishlansky posits that it would not have altered the opinions of the moderates as dramatically as most scholars suggest. The revisionist reading has itself been lambasted by Holmes who articulates that the trial was run primarily by the radicals and army leaders, with no tenable evidence of an attempt to save the king. Holmes’ Cromwell is a cunning man who below the surface was as vindictive and bloodthirsty as Ireton. His opposing views towards Ireton were simply manipulative tactics, and the political division within the army was not as distinct as Kelsey asserts. The delays within the trial he dismisses as simply the result of Charles’ refusal to “play the role” the army had assigned him.  

What sparse evidence to support the Denbigh mission and revisionist reading, hence leave them susceptible to contradiction by critics, giving us no definite nor satisfactory answer about the motivations of the regicides. Should we then conclude that the King’s execution was by and large due to the events leading up to the Treaty of Newport and that Cromwell and Ireton were both vying for it to happen? I for one do not think so. Till the king’s final moments, many reasons could have contributed to Cromwell’s apparent fence sitting, which oppose the theory that it was merely a facade. Holmes himself engages in his own picking and choosing of sources in a bid to construct the narrative that Cromwell had no aversions to execute the King. Out of the many contemporary sources of Cromwell’s views, Holmes fixates on the few which support his idea that he and Ireton differed “only a matter of tactics”. What’s most overlooked by Holmes is possibly the value that the Rumpers had in keeping the king alive. “The King had it in his power not only to end the mutiny in the English navy, but also to countermand the negotiations of his Lord Lieutenant with the Catholic rebels in Ireland and to facilitate the restoration of the Protestant interest.” Cromwell himself was apparently aware of this and brought up on occasion that an execution would embolden the exiled Prince of Wales. While a third civil war remained imminent, it would be naive to think that Cromwell did not weigh these factors against the King’s recalcitrance thoroughly. Scholarship also seems to concur that Cromwell at some point was driven in some measure to save the king, with Kishlansky himself admitting that Cromwell could have changed his mind about the execution – albeit not by the outcome of the Denbigh Mission. Without the existence of a source confirming a facade which Cromwell was fervently putting up, his conciliatory approach towards the king could be read only as pragmatism. By the public proceedings, it remains highly contested whether any substantial number of the judges still persevered in averting an execution, much less Cromwell or Ireton. However, what seems most likely is that Cromwell and his coterie were engaging in deliberations on preserving the king as late as the Denbigh mission; with the king’s perceived usefulness eventually outweighed by the cost of keeping him alive.  

The difficulty of answering the question of why the king had to be executed can primarily be attributed to the taboo nature of the subject and the consequences for even discussing it. Kishlansky informs us that “It remained treason to imagine the king’s death and very few were willing to advocate it openly.” Even the 70-page Remonstrance fails in directly calling for the execution of the King without the aid of speculation by the historiography surrounding it. The task is made even harder, with the many persons which make up the regicides and their own idiosyncratic views on how justice should be delivered to the monarchy. Viewing the matter of the king’s execution as entirely perpetrated by a mostly united force of radicals, as Holmes suggests, requires a highly subjective interpretation of the trial and one requiring prejudice and oversimplification. Our course of action should be to compare the verbiage of contemporary sources around the time of the trial with that of those before the second civil war to deduce whether the shift in expression implicitly called for the king’s execution. Through it, I believe we can assuredly say that the king was executed due to blood guilt, the belief that the monarchy was unnecessary and the diminishing strategic value of preserving Charles. By Charles’ recapture in 1648, the blood of two civil wars had irreversibly tarnished the sacredness and reputation of the throne. Men like Ireton were no longer optimistic that a monarchy was conducive to the governing of a country and pressed for his execution. Moderates like Cromwell who harbored some intention to divert an execution eventually swung over to the radicals when it became clear that Charles would only adhere to a constitution which was gradually being superseded. Charles was then executed not just for what he did, but for what he represented—an unaccountable, and outdated monarchy that had to be removed to make way for peace and the establishment of a republic.  

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