Charles I on Trial: Ship Money, the Five Members and the Divine Right Ended

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

On 4 January 1642 King Charles I marched into the House of Commons with about 400 soldiers to arrest five members for treason and found that the birds had flown. The crisis had been building since 1625. Like his father James I, who called kings little gods on earth, Charles believed in the divine right of kings. Short of money after a failed expedition to relieve the French Huguenots, he dissolved Parliament and ruled alone from 1629 to 1640, raising cash through forced knighthood fines and ship money levied on inland counties, a tax John Hampden refused to pay.

Religion broke the system. Charles and Archbishop William Laud imposed a new prayer book on Presbyterian Scotland in 1637, sparking the Covenanter movement and the Bishops' Wars, which bankrupted the crown. The Long Parliament under John Pym passed the Triennial Act and condemned the Earl of Strafford by bill of attainder, and Charles signed his loyal servant's death warrant. After an Irish Catholic rebellion and the failed arrest, civil war followed. Cromwell's disciplined Ironsides and the New Model Army beat the Royalists at Marston Moor and Naseby, and Charles, defeated, secretly drew the Scots into a second war in 1648.

• In St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Jenny Geddes threw a stool at the minister's head in protest at the new prayer book.
• Between 120,000 and 150,000 men were in the field in summer campaign seasons.
• Prince Rupert's cavaliers charged hard but scattered to chase fugitives or loot baggage, while Cromwell's horse regrouped on command.
• Charles laughed at his judges and asked by what lawful authority a king could be tried; prosecutors argued he held an office in trust for the people.
• He was beheaded outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall in January 1649, and the monarchy returned under Charles II in 1660.