Remember

Remember

Today, again, we “remember” the regicide of the sainted royal martyr King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland on this day in 1649. As he stated so eloquently at his farce of a show-trial, the King fought and ultimately gave his life for a principle; not simply the principle of monarchy and royal legitimacy but the principle that no one could take what legally belonged to another. He fought for the idea that neither his rights as King nor the rights of any of his subjects should be able to be trampled on simply by brute force. King Charles I fought a noble fight, for the protection of all of his subjects, for effective government and respect for religion. In this day and age especially, when republicanism is fashionable amongst the leftist elites in Britain and where treason is tolerated, it is worth remembering that it was the King who fought for his people, who worked to bring the three kingdoms together and who wanted peace with foreign powers while it was Oliver Cromwell, the only republican leader Britain has ever had, who conquered England, Scotland and Ireland, placed everyone under military rule, held power as a dictator and carried out some of the most brutal massacres in the history of the British Isles.

This is what can be very infuriating for monarchists. Republicans (and any monarchist has encountered this, I certainly have often enough) love to speak in hypothetical terms. They invariably begin their arguments with phrases like, “what if…” and then go on to paint every monarchy as being only one breath away from being under the arbitrary rule of a drooling imbecile. However, monarchists have actual facts on our side. Britain actually did become a republic and it was a horrible, blood-soaked tyranny. That is not hypothetical, that was what really happened. We do not have to imagine anything, it is a fact of history, Britain went through it and the lesson should have been well learned. It certainly was by those who actually experienced it and so enthusiastically welcomed King Charles II home for the restoration of the monarchy. The life and death of King Charles I should not be forgotten or avoided by monarchists but proudly cited as solid evidence of what not only could happen but which actually did happen when the British monarchy was abolished.

Monarch Profile: King Charles I
The Trial and Regicide of Charles I
King Charles the Martyr

A Word on King Umberto I

It was on this day in 1900 that His Majesty King Umberto I of Italy was assassinated by an anarchist in Monza. It was a cruel and tragic fate for a man known as "the Good" King. His murderer was the Italian-American Gaetano Bresci who said it was done in retaliation for the so-called Bava-Beccaris massacre in Milan in 1898. For those who don't know, there are many claims and counter-claims and accusations about that event but the bottom line is that there were protests which turned to widespread rioting, endangering lives and property, and all of it pushed by the radical socialists. The government sent in the army to restore order under General Fiorenzo Bava-Beccaris who ended the rioting by having his troops fire on the crowd. When King Umberto I later decorated the general for his service to Italy and the House of Savoy this so infuriated Bresci that he immediately left America to return to Italy for the sole purpose of murdering the monarch. Despite the horror of the assassination, many have tried to generate sympathy for the murderer by slandering King Umberto over what happened in Milan. This is not only dishonest, it is grossly hypocritical in most cases.

In the first place, it is dishonest because the King, if he overreacted, did so on the basis of false information. He was being given reports of a revolution, not simply in Milan but threatening the whole country with partisan bands gathering at the Swiss border to launch a major attack on his country. What would any other leader have done in his place with those same reports? Biased sources make it sound as though the army went in with the intention to harm helpless, innocent people, something which really should be considered too ridiculous to take seriously. However, there were in fact many traitors, many republican socialists who were arrested. One of the republican socialists there at that time was none other than a young Benito Mussolini. This is where the hypocritical element comes into play. I am always astounded by those who so vociferously condemn the strict measures taken in response to the socialist riots at Milan, blaming it all on King Umberto I, yet these very same people are also the ones who usually condemn his son and heir King Vittorio Emanuele III for not declaring a state of siege and sending in the army during the "March on Rome" by the Fascist Blackshirts in 1922. One King is condemned for setting the army on "the people" while another King is condemned for not doing exactly that!

I have often wondered (and we can never know) if the memory of how his father was treated over using the army in Milan was going through the mind of Vittorio Emanuele III when he struggled to deal with the Fascists marching on Rome. If a state of siege had been declared, and the army sent in, how many people would have been killed? Would the chattering class feel the same outrage as they did over the events of 1898? I cannot help but wonder. The problem is that, when it comes to public disorders, one never knows how they are going to work out. Some come to nothing while others can grow larger and larger until the entire country is ruined. One thing is certain. Anyone who knows the facts about the life and character of King Umberto I should know that he would never do anything to intentionally harm his people. This was the King who spared the life of the man who tried to murder him shortly after coming to the throne, the King who went in person and gave from his own private funds to help those displaced by the floods in Verona and Venice in 1882 and the man who saved many lives after the earthquake in 1883 by ordering rescue operations to continue five days longer after others said all hope was lost. This was the King who gave generously to help the victims of the cholera epidemic in the south in 1884 and this was the King who, privately, without public notice, paid the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II in the aftermath of Adowa to buy the freedom of the Italian soldiers being held captive.

Umberto I was a "good" King, there should be no doubt, who did the best he could in all circumstances. His assassination was a tragedy for Italy and for the world as well as it was part of a trend of anarchist assassinations. Even for the United States as it was the regicide of Umberto I which inspired the anarchist assassination of U.S. President William McKinley the following year. Additionally, if he is to be criticized for using the troops in Milan in 1898, Vittorio Emanuele III should not be so criticized for not taking the same action in Rome in 1922.

The Trial and Regicide of Charles I

Few events in the history of nations can be as traumatic as civil war. Yet, the English Civil War in particular was a conflict with an outcome unprecedented in the history of the world: the public trial and regicide of a reigning monarch by rebel forces. Unlike similar disturbances in France or Russia, the English rebels who executed HM King Charles I actually made at least a haphazard effort to look like they were showing fairness and providing a legal validation for the murder of their archenemy, who happened to be their anointed sovereign.

It seems like a theme that would appeal to Americans in particular; the idea of Parliament overthrowing and executing a powerful monarch. However, is the situation as simple as it seems? Not likely, and how fair was this trial and how accurate is the picture painted of the Stuart king? Certainly, few people if any could accuse King Charles of being a wicked or immoral man. Charles, son of King James I (of the Authorized Bible fame), never had a mistress, set an example of moral uprightness and required that his court follow the same high standards that he lived by.

The method with which Charles led the British government is a bit more complex, but still does not seem malicious by any leap of the imagination. Nevertheless, he inherited an attitude and mindset that was not always good for his image or government function. S.R. Gardiner wrote that King Charles “looked upon the whole world through a distorting lens” and refused “to subordinate that which was only desirable to that which was possible”.

King Charles believed (like his father) that the monarch was answerable to God alone, not the public and not both. He was afraid, not so much of rule by the people but rule by those who claimed to speak for the people. He felt that government was for kings and not meant for the public. There was no evil intent behind this, it was simply his sincere belief that republican rule would harm society. King Charles did not speak of himself as the divine personification of Britain, as Louis XIV of France might have been tempted to do, but instead spoke of himself as the guardian of his people and their place in society and status as free subjects.

In fact, it has been argued that if King Charles had shown as much ruthlessness in fighting the war as he was accused of showing in government the royalist cause might well have prevailed. The King himself wrote, “It is a hard and disputable choice for a king that loves his people and desires their love either to kill his own subjects or be killed by them”. His enemies were successful, especially in the Irish campaigns, because they were willing to be more cruel than the King was who seemed to only want to use his military force to persuade his enemies to surrender and frighten the rebels into submission. An impartial look shows that the philosophy of the forces of Parliament and the Puritans was even more terrifying than the principles of Divine Right Monarchy. Their warrior-hero, Oliver Cromwell, expressed the belief that Charles was wrong simply because he had lost and in effect stated the very dangerous belief that ‘might makes right’.

Also, as much as His Majesties’ Puritan opponents, Charles I was a man of great faith who was extremely devoted to the Anglican communion of the Christian religion. Part of this faith was his belief that it was his right and duty to rule England as best he could, not as Parliament saw best or advised him. He made it clear that he could never be king if he did not have the power to rule as he saw fit. Even after his defeat Charles remained convinced of the righteousness of his cause. He wrote, “If I must suffer a violent death with my Savior…it is but mortality crowned with Martyrdom”.

This prophetic statement undoubtedly rung in the ears of many when the event that seemed so unthinkable to most people, the regicide of the King of Britain, actually occurred. However, it was not a thing that happened by sheer accident. Before the second war had even started Cromwell was stating that Charles had to be destroyed and his people should not deal at all with the monarch as to negotiation a peaceful settlement. Cromwell’s son-in-law, Henry Ireton, was advocating that the army occupy London, remove all dissenters from the House of Commons, arrest the king and abolish the monarchy by sheer military force. Eventually this was taken to even greater extremes to propose that Parliament should be dissolved altogether and an entirely new voting system be established for entirely new elections and representations. This is important to remember since the rebels claimed to be on the side of popular opinion and called themselves the forces of Parliament. In fact, the Parliament had already declared that the king could not be legally deposed.

It would also be a mistake to claim that the rebellion against the King was the masses against the upper class. In the end all of the results of the war and the regicide were to the advantage of the merchants and gentry class. The forces of the rebellion were anything but popular or democratic. When rebel troops marched into London and seized Parliament they were acting to prevent the democratic process by turning away close to 200 members who tried to take their seats. When these men protested against this tyrannical, police-state action, many were arrested.

Even before the “legal” process began Cromwell told the remaining 150-man ‘Rump’ that was to judge Charles I, “I tell you, we will cut off the King’s head with the crown on it”. So much for a fair trial. This is not to say, however, that there was even a great deal of popular support for putting the king on trial at all. Had this been the case the rebel troops would not have feared a fair vote by the Parliament. The prosecution for “treason” (legally defined as encompassing ‘the death of the King or the overthrow of the King’s legitimate governments’ -which was exactly what the rebels were doing) of a reigning monarch was opposed by the Presbyterians and the Levellers, both of whom opposed Charles I, who believed that the trial was a trick to divert public attention away from the issues of what they regarded as much-needed social reform. Both Chief Justices and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer all boycotted the proceedings; all of whom were opposed to the King’s policies! The House of Lords likewise was absent, not recognizing the act of putting a monarch on trial. However, had they wished to take part, it is unlikely they would have been allowed to. Even for his enemies, trying a reigning monarch was too much for most people.

Far from being an upright quest for justice, the trial of King Charles is seen by many as perhaps the greatest act of deceit in British history. Author C.V. Wedgwood wrote that,
“Cromwell’s faction was determined to kill the King mainly because this symbolic act of revolution would satisfy discontents that might otherwise be directed toward the more fundamental and more farsighted constitutional changes sought by Lilburne’s Levellers”.
Nevertheless, just or not, King Charles I was taken before what was left of Parliament to stand trial for his actions.

To say that such an act was unprecedented is a vast understatement. The King was accused of making war against Parliament, not the actual nation, and no effort was made to show how this “Rump” (which had been purged by military force) was a true representation of the English people. Realizing this, His Majesty protested that this left his accusers with no legal right to judge him saying, “you never asked the question of the tenth man in the kingdom, and in this way you manifestly wrong even the poorest ploughman, if you demand not his free consent”.

Because of this principle, King Charles refused to enter a plea and demanded to know by what authority was he, a reigning monarch, called to trial? The head “judge” John Bradshaw said he stood accused by “the people of England” at which time Lady Fairfax (wife of the Parliament’s military commander of all people) shouted from the audience, “Not a quarter of them! Oliver Cromwell is a traitor!” At this the officer of the guard actually ordered his troops to fire into the crowd, but relented when the lady’s identity was made known. She was, however, forced to quit the proceedings.

This is a good example of how unfairly this rebel trial was conducted. King Charles conducted himself superbly by all accounts. When told that the court operated in representation of the Commons Charles said, “Show me one precedent” in which it was the King who was answerable to the Commons rather than the reverse. In any case, this was a moot argument since the Commons had been purged by force of arms. Previous cries among the crowd calling Cromwell a traitor led to the court’s order to immediately arrest anyone who “caused a disturbance”.

On His Majesty’s charge that the court had no authority Chief Justice Bradshaw brazenly said that the court was convinced of its own authority and that the king and the country must submit to their judgment. When Charles began to refute this statement he was cut off by the judge. This seemed to be rather typical for this court. When making a speech that came out too logical for the court’s comfort, rebel troops promptly dragged him from the courtroom amid cries of “Justice!” but also of “God save the King!”.

Finally, Bradshaw pronounced the King guilty for refusing to plead. In response, Charles requested that a full Parliament, the Lords and Commons, be called to hear him. His Majesty said, “If I cannot get this liberty, I do here protest that so fair shows of liberty and peace, are pure shows and not otherwise, since you will not hear your King”.

The court recessed after Charles’ request, though not so much for a consideration but so that calm could be restored. For while Bradshaw was accusing the King of delaying tactics a man in the audience began to call out, “Have we hearts of stone? Are we men?”. It was becoming ever more clear to all that this court was not interested in justice at all but vengeance and the idea was a profoundly disturbing one. When the court did reconvene, the King’s request was denied on the basis that it was a ploy to delay his execution, or as they termed it, “justice”. Charles admitted it would cause delay,
“but a little delay of a day or two further may give peace, whereas a hasty judgment may bring on that trouble and perpetual inconvenience to the Kingdom, that the child that is unborn may repent it”.

In his closing Bradshaw referred to the ridiculous notion that the King was elected and even went so far as to compare him to the Roman Emperor Caligula (who was murdered by his guard). He cited the removal of Edward II and Richard II, neither of which was lawful, the Magna Carta, which was forced by and for the lords and not the common people and all in all his argument was high-sounding but full of holes, half-truths and blatant lies. In fact, when King Charles tried to reply to this Bradshaw silenced him and arrogantly declared, “And the truth is, all along, from the first time you were pleased to disavow and disown us, the Court needed not to have heard you one word”. In effect, he was saying that even if the King had not been given a fair trial, he deemed if undeserving of one anyway. His Majesty was sentenced to death by beheading. He was refused permission to respond and was taken out by troops while saying, “I am not suffered to speak; expect what justice other people may have”.

On January 30, 1649 King Charles I was taken to a scaffold outside the palace of Whitehall for his execution. He dressed warmly for fear that shivers of cold would be mistaken for a sign of fear. He addressed his enemies one last time saying,
“I must tell you that the liberty and freedom [of the people] consists in having of Government, those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having share in Government, Sir, that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things. 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…that I am the martyr of the people”
His final words were, “I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be”. A boy in the crowd who witnessed the execution wrote,
“The blow I saw given, and can truly say with a sad heart, at the instant whereof, I remember well, there was such a groan by the thousands then present as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again”.

King Charles was buried in secret at Windsor Castle. In the end, Parliament itself was its own worst enemy. Rather than pointing out the merits of their case (dubious though they were in the best cases), they resorted to strong-arm tactics that only made them look all the more like the disloyal demagogues that they were. King Charles never looked better than when he was seen by all the world as the pious victim of treasonous force. Due to the forceful tyranny and the unjust murder of their anointed king, Parliament also provided the Royalist forces with a martyr in the person of King Charles I. The monarch’s gentle and passive conduct impressed his friends and infuriated his enemies. He was himself no less aware of the course history was taking, and showing both mercy and foresight; Charles told his son in Eikon Basilike, “Let then no passion betray you to any study of revenge on those, whose own sin and folly will sufficiently punish in due time”.

The Greatness of King Louis XVI

Once again, on this day we remember the impious and treasonous regicide of the royal martyr His Most Christian Majesty King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, lastly “King of the French”. Much can and has been said about the spiritual greatness of this late sovereign. At a time when moral decay had taken its toll on France, and nowhere more so than the court it often seemed, King Louis XVI was a man of devout faith. He never took a mistress, never shirked his religious duties, genuinely preferred work to frivolous parties and truly saw his kingship as a sacred duty rather than an opportunity to have the best for himself. All of that is well established and should be well known. However, even those who praise King Louis XVI for his pious spirit often portray him as rather lacking in the more secular qualities most often required of kingship. At times he is contrasted with King Louis XIV who, while certainly far from being a pious man, was a more decisive leader who steered the ship of state with a firm hand, bringing glory to France and around whom almost all the affairs of Europe revolved. The exact opposite of Louis XVI we are to believe. Yet, while it is true that the two men were very different, it is certainly not true that King Louis XVI occupied himself only with other-worldly matters.

It is tragic any time a nation sets to destroying itself rather than accomplishing the great deeds possible if they worked together to channel all of that energy into the pursuit of some more lofty ambition. Although he had trepidations about some of it, there is ample reason to believe that had it not been for the outbreak of the Revolution, King Louis XVI might have gone down in history as one of the greatest Kings of France in secular as well as spiritual terms. In all the focus on the Revolution and his personal character, the great events and foreign policies of his reign are often overlooked. In the first place, he was no despot and from the very start favored giving the people a greater say in how their money was spent and how France was governed. However, even with all of the problems facing France, as a monarch, Louis XVI took a broader look at the past, present and future of France and wanted to see past losses made right and gains made for a greater future for his country. Of course, particularly after the drubbing France had taken in the recent conflicts with Great Britain, it was the British who would be the primary rival in his foreign policy. The King was not malicious or reckless by any means but he was determined to see British gains made at the expense of France reversed.

This was what ultimately led to the French intervention in the American Revolution (or more properly ‘War for Independence’). Louis XVI had deep reservations about helping any rebels in waging war against their sovereign yet he was persuaded to make an alliance with the fledgling United States by a combination of the urging of his advisors and his desire to see an end to the British domination of North America and, perhaps, a much greater French influence in the region. Although not often remembered, following the French and Indian War the French military had been reformed and greatly improved. The expeditionary force sent to North America fought extremely well and, along with the French navy, proved decisive in securing the independence of the United States by forcing Great Britain to give up on the war and come to terms with their former fellow subjects. The islands of Tobago and Grenada were taken from the British (Tobago being retained by France along with Senegal in the final settlement) but, to some extent, Louis XVI was undercut by his American allies who made a separate peace with Great Britain and effectively thwarted the greatest ambition King Louis had for the conflict which was the recovery of Canada. Had the war gone on there is every reason to believe that could have happened.

In the other great arena of colonial competition, Louis XVI also hoped to reverse previous losses and see the growing British dominance in India come to an end. He allied with the Maratha Empire and took the side of the Sultan of Mysore in the Second Anglo-Mysore War in the hope of breaking the dominance of the British East India Company, curtailing British influence in India and increasing French influence. France actually had a much larger sphere of influence in India, controlling large parts of the east coast and holding sway over the majority of the southern subcontinent. French troops and ships were active in the region but due to the distance involved the campaign was overtaken by events elsewhere and when the end of the American Revolution forced France to make a hasty peace with Britain the previous French support for the Indians was withdrawn. In the end Britain and the Indian forces made peace that restored the pre-war status quo in India. Again, had not the situation in American brought hostilities to an end, it is conceivable that France, working through local alliances, might have dethroned Britain from her place of prominence in India.

There was also the Far East to consider and, though not often remembered, it was under King Louis XVI that France first took a serious interest in Vietnam and, indirectly, helped bring about the victory of the last great imperial dynasty of Vietnamese history. Crown Prince Canh, heir of the future Emperor Gia Long, came to Versailles as a boy, converting to Christianity and symbolizing the alliance by which French support was promised to his father in exchange for favorable trade agreements and some minor territorial concessions. The previous regime in Vietnam had viciously persecuted Christians and King Louis was anxious to see a more humane dynasty put in place. A Catholic missionary had saved the life of Gia Long and he vowed that the rights of Christians would always be respected in his domain. However, by the time these great events were to take place in southeast Asia the forces of the Revolution were gaining strength and events rapidly approached a climax. King Louis was not able to play the decisive role he had wished to. Still, the Bishop of Adran acted on his own to help Emperor Gia Long take the throne and so things worked out. The only problems arose in the future when post-revolutionary French regimes tried to collect the payments promised to Louis XVI which the Vietnamese were reluctant to grant since it was the Bishop rather than the government in Paris which had actually helped them at the critical time.

King Louis also sponsored around-the-world voyages of exploration and the world (certainly North America) owes a great deal to Louis XIV for doing the same in his time. The point of all of this is that King Louis XVI was not, as he is so often portrayed, some sort of totally indecisive ditherer who fussed and prayed over one crisis after another. He had big plans for France, he had ambition, he wanted to see France recover her place of greatness in the world and had a few things gone differently there is no reason to believe that she could not have done so. There are those who will say that the Revolution proves that France was too weak to have accomplished anything in that period but this is clearly false. Look at what Napoleon was able to accomplish, once the Revolution was ended, only a few years later with the same country. Considering that the goals of Louis XVI were all about restoration and not conquering every nation in Europe, there is no reason to believe that he could not have been successful. King Louis XVI fully deserves his pious reputation as a martyr for the Kingdom of France but he should also be remembered as a potentially great King who could have done magnificent things for his country.

Anniversary of a Tragedy

Today marks a tragic anniversary in the history of monarchy, at least in the western world. It was on this day, 424 years ago that Mary Queen of Scots was executed by order of her cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England, allegedly for involvement in plots against the English queen but, it is generally recognized today, the fundamental reason was that her own claim to the throne of England was a threat to Elizabeth I that she and her government were not willing to tolerate. She was, of course, not the first monarch or even the first Scottish monarch to be killed by a rival -sadly. Yet, the regicide of the Queen of Scots had very far-reaching effects. In fact, in some ways, the world we live in today, so generally hostile to the very concept of hereditary monarchy, was shaped by the regicide of Mary of Scots. The reason for this, why her death has such a special significance, is the manner of it.

For one monarch to be killed by another over a contested succession would have been nothing new. The Tudor dynasty in England began when King Richard III was killed at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 and his throne claimed by King Henry VII. However, what made the death of Queen Mary different was the veil of legality. The test of battle had long been accepted as a means of settling disputes, trusting that God would ensure that the righteous would prevail. It was quite another thing for one sovereign to undertake the death of another by means of the law. We are today so far removed from the sanctity with which the sovereign was once treated that it is hard for us to understand how significant this act was. Queen Elizabeth actually forced Mary Queen of Scots to answer to a court made up of Elizabeth’s own English subjects. A monarch, of much the same royal blood as their own Queen, was actually to be judged by the subjects of another. The verdict being a foregone conclusion, the sovereign of another independent kingdom was then to actually be put to death as a criminal.

This was shocking for the world at the time and sent waves of indignation all across Europe, particularly the Catholic royal courts. Religion certainly played a part in the whole affair. It was the English Catholics who most supported Mary of Scots as their own Queen, seeing Elizabeth I as illegitimate and thus it was the Protestants who most viewed her as an enemy. However, it is worth noting that, at the time, there was greater religious freedom in Scotland under the Catholic Queen Mary than in England under the Protestant Queen Elizabeth. To be fair though, such tolerance was the exception rather than the rule in those days and not viewed as the good, liberal ideal that it is today. Queen Mary (a devout Catholic) inherited a kingdom where Protestantism held most of the power and a policy of toleration for all was an effort on her part to avoid civil war (of course other reasons were found). In England, on the other hand, the Protestants were the base of power for Elizabeth I and one of the things they most expected in seeing her become their Queen was to get rid of the Catholics and restore the rule of the Protestant establishment. For Elizabeth to have shown toleration for Catholics would have been to alienate her staunchest supporters in favor of a group which did not view her as legitimate in the first place.

Given all of that, I would suggest that religion be put aside just for a moment in considering the ramifications of this tragedy. It cannot be put aside from the act itself for if the Queen of Scots had not been a Catholic she almost certainly would not have been executed; for that matter she may not have been forced out of Scotland and into the captivity of England in the first place. The evidence of the case against her can and has been endlessly debated, as has the religious aspects. In the same way people can argue whether or not the English were acting out of a justified strategy of defense or if the meddling in a Scottish civil war (which were far from uncommon) was more malicious. What cannot be debated was the unprecedented nature of the trial and execution of the Queen of Scots and the consequences this had for subsequent generations in Great Britain and to some extent the western world as a whole. Whether it was trial and regicide of King Louis XVI in the French Revolution or the trial and regicide of King Charles I in the English Civil War, both batches of regicides could look back to the case of Mary of Scots for precedent.

In the past, as stated, disputes between monarchs were decided on the battlefield. In some cases diplomacy was used and, before the rise of Protestantism at least, disputes between kings would be sent to Rome with both agreeing to submit to the judgment of the Pope; the only man on earth generally recognized by everyone as outranking a monarch. Taking the legitimate sovereign of a country to be judged in a court of law was something totally groundbreaking. Here was a monarch, someone of royal blood, not being judged by God, not by the Vicar of Christ or even by the nobility of her own country but being judged by a committee of noblemen who were the subjects of another queen. This was exacerbated by the fact that the Queen of Scots had come to England for refuge, had already been imprisoned for quite a few years and in the eyes of many her execution seemed unwarranted and vindictive, regardless of the evidence produced. She was already a prisoner, completely within the power of the English queen after all. Why on earth would one Queen strike a blow against the sacred nature of monarchy and royal blood by executing another Queen, her own cousin, who was already her prisoner?

If one can grasp just how outrageous this was considered by most of the crowned heads of Europe, it becomes a little more understandable that King Philip II of Spain launched his famous Armada against England the very next year. There were of course other and long standing reasons for the antagonism between England and Spain but it is nonetheless easy to view the regicide of the Queen of Scots as the last straw for Philip II, generally regarded as the Catholic royal champion of Europe in his day. That could have changed the course of history in a big way but, thanks to the weather and the English navy it did not have much of an impact. However, from the immediate reactions to it to the long-term consequences for the house of Stuart and the royal families of Scotland, England and France the regicide of Mary Queen of Scots set a very dangerous precedent indeed. This act sent a message that monarchs, even among themselves, could not take for granted their sacrosanct status and from that point on other peoples would look to royals, even their own, and say, ‘you can be judged’.

Remember, Remember

Everyone is familiar with the names, the Gunpowder Plot, Guy Fawkes, Bonfire Night and so on. Growing up all I knew was that November 5 was “British Halloween” when children roamed the neighborhood demanding a “penny for the Guy” instead of “trick or treat”. Today it is generally a tradition for the sake of tradition, like most national holidays these days, with few people thinking about what it was all about. Most Britons are probably familiar with the basic story they heard in school. Guy Fawkes was a Catholic terrorist who tried to blow up King James I and the houses of Parliament with gunpowder. He was caught, arrested and executed and ever since the night of his capture, November 5, has been celebrated as a triumph over treason and attempted regicide. However, even this rather simplistic story had become more muddled in recent years thanks to the media and pop culture. A number of misconceptions seem to have taken root regarding Guy Fawkes and November 5. Given that, it is worth looking in to what we know and what we do not.

We know that King James I had whispered sweet things to English Catholics about tolerance and religious freedom, as he whispered sweet things to about every group to smooth his transition from King of the Scots to King of England. However, once on the throne and a worrying number of recusants coming out of the woodwork James refused to repeal the anti-Catholic laws. A disgruntled group of Catholics led by Sir Robert Catesby (not Guy Fawkes) hatched a scheme to blow up the King and Parliament together with gunpowder (King James knew his father Lord Darnley had been almost killed by means of gunpowder and was terrified of the stuff). Catholic convert Guy Fawkes, a veteran soldier who had fought with the Spanish in Holland, was put in charge of the explosives and Catholics were warned to stay away from the houses of Parliament on November 5.

However, on October 26, 1605 the Catholic Lord Monteagle received a very poorly written and unsigned letter warning him to stay away from Parliament on November 5 and he immediately reported this to Robert Cecil. Cecil sent troops to search the cellars of Parliament on 4 November and there they discovered the stockpile of gunpowder and the now notorious Yorkshire mercenary Guy Fawkes. He was taken away and tortured until he named the others involved in the plot on November 8 after which the plotters were arrested, drawn, quartered and beheaded. November 5 became a national holiday. Many parts of the official story, on the other hand, do not quite add up and have led some to suspect a conspiracy. For instance, it is unclear how the plotters came to possess such a large amount of gunpowder when it was a government monopoly. It also seems suspect that Robert Cecil would not order an investigation into the missing stores of gunpowder from the Tower of London which was assumed to be the source of the explosives. How was it that the plotters obtained access to a house right next to Parliament that was owned by a government official? Why did he die mysteriously on November 5? Why were two of the plotters shot on sight instead of being arrested and interrogated? How was it that several plotters were arrested on November 5 when the government claimed that they only learned the identity of these men on November 8 when Guy Fawkes named them under torture? Why was the sitting of Parliament postponed from February until November which gave the plotters the time they needed to arrange the attack?

The answers to these questions will never be known but even at the time the whole episode was deemed highly suspicious. This has caused some to speculate that the plot was actually a conspiracy arranged by Cecil to cause an anti-Catholic backlash which would harden the Stuart line against them and encourage a ‘rally effect’ around the monarchy as the King of Scots was not widely popular when he arrived in England. Whether or not this was what was intended it certainly was the effect. The treaty made previously with the Catholics in Ireland was broken, the Act of Uniformity was enforced again with increased zeal and things became rather unpleasant for both Catholics and dissenting Protestants alike. However, King James was clear that the plotters were an isolated minority not reflective of English Catholics as a whole and he assured the Catholic powers that the plot would not effect his foreign policy. The Catholic countries condemned the plot as well, though a Jesuit executed for involvement in the plot was regarded by some as a saint afterwards. In any event, religious policy was not very extreme throughout the reign of James I or indeed the whole Stuart reign over the British Isles. In the end, ironically enough, it would be the Protestants who brought down the House of Stuart.

This annual reminder probably does not help the situation regarding Catholic-Protestant relations in Great Britain (which as we have seen lately are far from being as friendly as we once thought). However, political movements have become more of a problem in co-opting the Gunpowder Plot for their own purposes. Pop culture had made the situation worse and this has led to the misconception about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot that annoys me the most. That is, the image that has been painted in recent years of Guy Fawkes as some sort of liberal revolutionary or even an anarchist. Nothing could be farther from the truth! These treasonous oddballs only focus on the attempted bombing, the attempted regicide and pay no attention to the stated goals of the plotters. These conspirators were not revolutionaries, indeed not even republicans and indeed not even wishing for a change of dynasty. Their only goal was to eliminate the Protestant monarch and leaders with a Catholic monarch and leadership. Had they succeeded their goal was to place the young Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth of Bohemia) on the throne as Queen and to see her brought up as a Catholic. Those who celebrate Guy Fawkes today as some sort of heroic, left-wing anarchist are actually insulting not only the memory of King James I but even Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators who were all monarchists to a man -odd as that may sound. Which is of course not the same as romanticizing a regicide and not even because you thought he was innocent or because he was a principled sort of renegade but specifically for being an attempted mass murderer!

A Tragic Anniversary

It was on this day in 1793 that His Most Christian Majesty King Louis XVI of France and Navarre was executed by guillotine by a mob of revolutionary traitors. The horror and far-reaching effects of this monstrous crime cannot be overstated. King Louis XVI, almost every serious historian now admits, was no tyrant and no villain. He was a good, upright, compassionate, God-fearing man devoted to his wife, his children and his beloved France. He was also a hard working monarch doing everything he could to set France again on firm financial ground and repair the slow decay the kingdom had been experiencing for some time.

The vision that Louis XVI had for France was a great one. He saw France restoring herself as the dominant power in Europe, recovering at least somewhat the influence lost to Great Britain in North America, pushing the British out of India to be the primary European power in the subcontinent and establishing new ties with the Far East in Indochina. His vision was also for a more religious France, a vision shared by his dear wife Queen Marie Antoinette –though few today would know it. They were a devoutly religious couple and if anything pained him more than the pressure to give up the powers of the monarchy that were his birthright it was being forced to accept legislation that attacked the Church in France.

In King Louis XVI the French people had a monarch who was at the same time benevolent, pious and committed to their national greatness. Why then was this man, who had harmed no one and done nothing but that which he thought would better his kingdom, so cruelly deposed, humiliated and put to death? Some still maintain that this was an unfortunate but necessary step to forever put away the era of the Kingdom of France and usher in the era of the revolutionary French republic. If that is so, one must truly ask what that says about a political system which can only come to fruition through the vicious shedding of innocent blood; the taking of an innocent man’s life. What is the fruit that will be brought forth by a tree that required chopping off the head of a monarch, husband and father to grow?

The fruit, as the world soon saw, was terror and death on a scale never before imagined in Europe. The revolutionary rats were driven into a frenzy by their execution of the king, drunk on their own power, and they let loose a wave of chaos, mass murder, persecution and vile criminality of all sorts that defies description. Multitudes went to their deaths and all of Europe was eventually plunged into long succession of wars in a bloodletting and political upheaval unmatched until World War I.

However, the loss was deeper than that. There were restorations, times when things got better and worse over and over again in the future, but to a large extent it was not just Louis XVI who died on this day in 1793; it was France. When Louis XVI, or Citizen Louis Capet as the traitors mockingly called him, went up to the guillotine the Kingdom of France went with him. The France of St Joan of Arc with her blessed banners, the France of St Louis whose benevolent leadership set a standard for the world, the France of King Clovis, Charlemagne and Charles Martel, the France that was the 'Eldest Daughter of the Church'. The loss of Louis XVI, and all that he stood for, the idea of France that he represented, was a loss not only to his own family and his own country but a loss for Europe, the west and a loss for the world.

His Holiness Pope Pius VI spoke of Louis XVI as a martyr and Louis' daughter campaigned for the Church to recognize him as a saint. This issue was finally dropped as the Church could not determine to what extent he was killed for his faith or for political reasons. However, there is no doubt that Louis XVI was a martyr of a kind; he was a martyr for the Ancien Regime, a martyr for Christendom and a martyr for sacred monarchy. May His Most Christian Majesty rest in peace, may the crime of his regicide never be forgotten and may his house be one day restored to France and the wrongs of the past set right again.