The White King by Leanda de Lisle, Chatto and Windus, 399pp, £20
First, the title – it whets one’s curiosity – for few of us, I guess, have heard Charles I called “the White King”. It was, Leanda de Lisle writes, “a sobriquet used by Charles’s contemporaries. To supporters he was the saintly White King crowned in robes the colour of innocence. To opponents he was the White King of the prophecies of Merlin, a tyrant destined for a violent end.”
The subtitle, Traitor, Murderer, Martyr, may seem more familiar, and certainly reflects the passions he provoked. But in truth, Charles was neither villain nor saint. He was a man of high ideals and narrow intelligence, firm in his opinions but devious in his conduct, a devout defender of the Church of England as established by law and an incompetent, eventually untrustworthy politician. His reign ended in disaster – civil war, defeat, his trial and execution, and the replacement of hereditary monarchy by a Republic which was in reality a military dictatorship.
Yet in the 1630s, the decade when he governed without recourse to parliaments, Charles’s court was reckoned the happiest and most elegant in Europe. He was happily married to the French princess, Henrietta Maria. He collected magnificent works of art and was the discerning patron of Rubens and Van Dyck. Best of all – though some of his subjects objected – he kept England out of the ghastly Thirty Years’ War that ravaged Germany and the Low Countries.
So what went wrong? First, he was king not only of England but also of Scotland. Though born a Scot, he did not understand Scotland. His attempt to force the Presbyterian Church of Scotland into uniformity with the Church of England provoked rebellion. That rebellion gave his English critics, now opponents, their opportunity. He needed money to fight the Scots and, in 1640, had to call a parliament for the first time since 1629. The opposition colluded with the Scots, and then proceeded to dismantle the conciliar state – that is, the means by which the Tudor despots had governed. The king’s ministers were arrested, William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, imprisoned in the Tower, the Earl of Strafford impeached.
When the impeachment was heading for failure, the Commons passed an Act of Attainder, declaring Strafford guilty of treason and sentencing him to death. This was a Tudor device, but Henry VIII and Elizabeth had used it against failed ministers or suspected traitors – now it was being used against the king. This was revolutionary. A mob was stirred up howling for more blood. Charles, afraid for the safety of his wife and children, gave way and signed Strafford’s death warrant.
Nevertheless, Charles’s cause wasn’t hopeless. Moderate men thought the Revolution had gone far enough. They had voted to correct the king’s errors, not to subvert the constitution. The balance was shifting. Charles, having made peace with the Scots, had only to wait.
But a rebellion of the native Catholic Irish changed everything. The parliamentary leaders would not trust Charles with command of an army. Charles would not surrender this essential royal authority. This was the trigger for the Civil War.
The Royalists needed a quick victory. They failed to get it. After the first months, the odds were always on the side of the rebels, especially once they did a deal with the Scots Covenanters in 1643. Yet military defeat didn’t seal Charles’s fate. Though the army was more revolutionary than even the parliamentary leaders had been, there was still no intention to get rid of the monarchy. Negotiations were strung out.
A more astute, more flexible politician than Charles might have turned confusion to his advantage. Instead, he stupidly encouraged a second Civil War in which the Royalists were quickly defeated. It was this that sealed his fate.
Leanda de Lisle has written a highly intelligent, fair and sympathetic biography. She has found new material – the correspondence of Henrietta Maria – in the archives at Belvoir Castle.Yet her sympathy and her admiration for the king’s courage, dignity and steadfastness in his last weeks and on the day of his death do not blind her to his weaknesses: “He was unable to act spontaneously. He found people difficult to read and his inability to interpret their actions and feelings often left him angry and frustrated.” He couldn’t put himself imaginatively in another man’s place. In other words, he lacked the political nous of his father, James VI and I, and his eldest son, Charles II, both men capable of riding a storm.
The final irony of his sad story is that the monarchy that was restored in 1660 was, constitutionally, the reformed monarchy which had emerged from the first parliamentary sessions of 1640-41. All the subsequent experiments were discarded.
The Civil War, it might be held, had achieved nothing. The king was still head of the Church of England, commander of the army and navy, arbiter of foreign policy – still, of course, by God anointed.
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