- The Oxford Handbook of The English Revolution
- List of Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Civil War and Revolution in England, Scotland, and Ireland
- Post-Reformation Politics, or on Not Looking for the Long-Term Causes of the English Civil War
- The Rise of the Covenanters, 1637–1644
- The Collapse of Royal Power in England, 1637–1642
- The Irish Rising
- War and Politics in England and Wales, 1642–1646
- Scottish Politics, 1644–1651
- The Centre Cannot Hold: Ireland 1643–1649
- The Regicide
- Security and Reform in England’s Other Nations, 1649–1658
- English Politics in the 1650s
- The Restoration in Britain and Ireland
- Oliver Cromwell
- Parliaments and Constitutions
- The Armies
- The Revolution in Print
- State and Society in the English Revolution
- Urban Citizens and England’s Civil Wars
- Crowds and Popular Politics in the English Revolution
- ‘Gender Trouble’: Women’s Agency and Gender Relations in the English Revolution
- State, Politics, and Society in Scotland, 1637–1660
- State, Politics, and Society in Ireland, 1641–1662
- The Persistence of Royalism
- Varieties of Parliamentarianism
- Political Thought
- Religious Thought
- ‘May You Live in Interesting Times’: The Literature of Civil War, Revolution, and Restoration
- The Art and Architecture of War, Revolution, and Restoration
- The Long-Term Consequences of the English Revolution: Economic and Social Development
- The Long-Term Consequences of the English Revolution: State Formation, Political Culture, and Ideology
- Cultural Legacies: The English Revolution in Nineteenth-Century British and French Literature and Art
- The English Revolution in British and Irish Context
- Kingdom Divided: The British and Continental European Conflicts Compared
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
The beheading of King Charles I was the most startling and symbolic act of the English revolution. This chapter considers how public discussion of the idea of regicide developed during the 1640s and how prominent opponents of the king’s execution unwittingly contributed to its ideological foundation. The pivotal role of the New Model Army in bringing Charles to the block is highlighted, but the chapter also engages with recent arguments that neither the army’s public demands nor even the trial itself need have led inexorably to his death, and that there was a vital multiple kingdoms context to the regicide. The chapter concludes by reviewing the structural impact of the abolition of the monarchy and raises the question of whether the process of civil war state-formation had created a non-regal state before the regicide.
Keywords: Charles I, execution, monarchy, New Model Army, regicide, state-formation, trial
Philip Baker is a Research Assistant at the History of Parliament Trust, London, and Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities Research Institute, University of Buckingham. He is the editor of The Levellers: the Putney debates (2007), the co-editor of The Agreements of the People, the Levellers, and the constitutional crisis of the English revolution (2012), and the author of a number of articles and essays on the civil war period and the history of early modern London.
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- The Oxford Handbook of The English Revolution
- List of Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Civil War and Revolution in England, Scotland, and Ireland
- Post-Reformation Politics, or on Not Looking for the Long-Term Causes of the English Civil War
- The Rise of the Covenanters, 1637–1644
- The Collapse of Royal Power in England, 1637–1642
- The Irish Rising
- War and Politics in England and Wales, 1642–1646
- Scottish Politics, 1644–1651
- The Centre Cannot Hold: Ireland 1643–1649
- The Regicide
- Security and Reform in England’s Other Nations, 1649–1658
- English Politics in the 1650s
- The Restoration in Britain and Ireland
- Oliver Cromwell
- Parliaments and Constitutions
- The Armies
- The Revolution in Print
- State and Society in the English Revolution
- Urban Citizens and England’s Civil Wars
- Crowds and Popular Politics in the English Revolution
- ‘Gender Trouble’: Women’s Agency and Gender Relations in the English Revolution
- State, Politics, and Society in Scotland, 1637–1660
- State, Politics, and Society in Ireland, 1641–1662
- The Persistence of Royalism
- Varieties of Parliamentarianism
- Political Thought
- Religious Thought
- ‘May You Live in Interesting Times’: The Literature of Civil War, Revolution, and Restoration
- The Art and Architecture of War, Revolution, and Restoration
- The Long-Term Consequences of the English Revolution: Economic and Social Development
- The Long-Term Consequences of the English Revolution: State Formation, Political Culture, and Ideology
- Cultural Legacies: The English Revolution in Nineteenth-Century British and French Literature and Art
- The English Revolution in British and Irish Context
- Kingdom Divided: The British and Continental European Conflicts Compared
- Index
