The Trial and Execution of Charles I

Bibliographic Data

ID8956702
AuthorsClive Holmes (0000-0003-1999-6912, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume53
Issue2
Pages289-316
Publication date2010-04-27
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x10000026
OpenAlexW1981017225
LanguageEN
Citations received8

This article challenges the recent interpretation of the trial of Charles I which sees it as an ‘extended negotiation’, an attempt to achieve a settlement with the king, and depicts the execution as the by-product, contingent and reluctantly undertaken, of the failure of that attempt. This argument was developed by Dr Sean Kelsey in a number of articles, not least one in this journal, and has been embodied in recently published general works on the period. I argue that this revisionist account of on-going negotiation with Charles I up to and during the trial is defective. It relies on an uncritical approach to the evidence, particularly that distilled from newspaper accounts. It misunderstands the significance of several key texts, notably the army's November Remonstrance , the Act establishing the High Court of Justice, and the charge against the king. Finally, it emphasizes a unity of purpose among conservative judges eager to do a deal with Charles, and fails to comprehend the force of the army's and Cromwell's insistence on public justice upon ‘this man against whom the Lord hath witnessed’

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis · Economic Justice · Economics · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Law and economics · Negotiation · Newspaper · Period (music · Political science · Product (mathematics · Settlement (finance · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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