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The Impact of the Regicide of Charles I on Contemporary English Notions of Time and the Future’

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The Impact of the Regicide of Charles I on Contemporary English Notions of Time and the Future’ THE IMPACT OF THE REGICIDE OF CHARLES I ON CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH NOTIONS OF TIME AND THE FUTURE Meng Yan Wong (Matthias) Wolfson College Faculty of History University of Cambridge This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2019 Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It does not exceed the prescribed word limit of 80,000 words, as specified by the guidelines of the Faculty of History Degree Committee. Signed: Date: 10 June 2019 Meng Yan Wong (Matthias) MSc BA/PhB ii Abstract ‘The impact of the regicide of Charles I on contemporary English notions of time and the future’ Meng Yan Wong (Matthias) This thesis focuses on the execution of King Charles I of England on 30 January 1648/9. It seeks to investigate and document the impact of the event on the English, specifically its effect on contemporary senses of time. Charles was a king put on trial and executed by members of his own Parliament. Organised by radical supporters of the Army who had taken over the government in a coup, his execution shook the nation to its core. The king was God’s lieutenant on earth, and he was the font of all law and justice. His execution sparked a wave of mourning and commemoration, as well as a sense of loss and psychic disorganization. His death left the country at a crossroads, unsure of how to proceed. What sort of time were they living in, and what did the future hold? Were there discernible shapes and patterns of time? Were these altered by an event as unprecedented as the regicide? I focus on three groups of writers: astrologers, history writers, and newsbook authors, performing a diachronic analysis of their publications to understand how their ideas of time and the future evolved in the tumultuous time of civil war and regicide. Through a close examination of sources like almanacs, newsbooks, and polemical histories, I conclude that the early moderns tried to normalise the disruptive regicide by embedding it within larger narratives of time. They downplayed the radical nature of the event in search of order, incorporating it within grand narratives of God’s providential plans on earth, of generational changes in society and politics, or of recurring cycles of rebellious behaviour. The regicide gave contemporaries an opportunity to create, clarify, and strengthen their grand narratives and schemes of time. iii Acknowledgements I would like to express my profound gratitude to my supervisor, Dr David L. Smith, for taking me under his wing and guiding me in my research. His patience, constant encouragement, and generosity have been essential to this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr Christine L. Corton, who always believed in me and cheered me on from the wings. I would also like to formally thank the Cambridge Trust, the National University of Singapore, and Wolfson College for their kind support, both financial and pastoral, which has allowed me to pursue my research and to travel to archives and conferences. I am also grateful to the conveners and participants of the Early Modern British and Irish History Seminar, which has provided much intellectual stimulation, as well as valuable feedback for my work. Faculty and colleagues at the Faculty of History have broadened my approach to doing history, both in the archives and in the public domain. I have also had many fulfilling experiences at the Other Place, in particular The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities and St Antony’s College. A cheerful thanks also, to the staff of the University Library, the Bodleian, the British Library, and the Lambeth Palace Library for their assistance and advice. There are many individuals who have enriched my life since I started my doctoral studies. Joe, Kai, Edgar, Dong Heng, Eugene, Andrew, Yong Jun, Nailya, Kelly, and many more, thank you all for coming into my life and making it better. Thanks also to Ali, who read through parts of this dissertation and still considers me a friend after. A special thanks to Justin Yang, who has been part of this journey from the very beginning, and who has always offered support, tea, and biscuits despite my preference for using the term ‘Commonwealth’ over ‘Interregnum’. Lastly, I would like to thank my family. Their constant encouragement and understanding have inspired me to do my best. iv Abbreviations and Conventions N&S Carolyn Nelson and Matthew Seccombe, British newspapers and periodicals, 1641-1700, New York, NY: Modern Language Association of America, 1987. ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography PFKCII Marchamont Nedham, Mercurius pragmaticus (for King Charles II). Communicating intelligence from all parts… (Apr 1649-May 1650), N&S 370. Original spelling and punctuation are retained in all quotations, except where confusion would otherwise arise, other than the use of i and j, u and v, which has been modernised. Dates are given in the Old Style but with the year taken to begin on 1 January. For primary printed sources the place of publication is London, unless otherwise stated. v Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv Abbreviations and Conventions v Introduction 1 1. Almanacs and Astrologers before the Regicide 22 2. Almanacs and Astrologers after the Regicide 69 3. Histories and Historians 104 4. Royalist Newsbooks 157 5. Parliamentarian Newsbooks 222 Conclusion 301 Bibliography 308 vi Introduction How do we react to unexpected and traumatic events? For early moderns living through the English Civil Wars, society was turned upside down. The brutality of war, the billeting of soldiers, the brutish and unsystematic dispensing of arbitrary justice was a marked change from the many years of peace that came before. Ronald Hutton called the period ‘arguably the most traumatic experience that the English, Welsh and Cornish people had ever had’.1 According to Charles Carlton, around one in four English males fought between 1642-1646, and around 3.7% of the total English population perished. To put this in perspective, the figure for the First World War in Britain was 2.61%.2 Relative peace and hopes for a settlement came with the success of Parliamentary armies. However, the greatest act of political violence was yet to come. The military coup led by Colonel Pride in December 1648 left the Army and the more extreme members of Parliament in charge. Convinced that Charles was not to be trusted, they put the king on trial for treason. The trial, which lasted seven days, found him guilty of levying war and spilling the blood of his own subjects for his own personal gain. Charles was publicly executed on 30 January 1649. What qualifies the regicide as a disruptive and traumatic event? As Jason Peacey has noted, reigning kings had previously been murdered or deposed, but never 1 Ronald Hutton, Debates in Stuart History (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 32-3. 2 Charles Carlton, Going to the Wars: The Experience of the British Civil Wars, 1638–1651 (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 340 and 214, cited in Peters, ‘Trauma Narratives of the English Civil War’, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 16:1 (2016), p. 91. 1 put on public trial and executed.3 Sanctioned and carried out by a small minority in Parliament, the regicide shocked both English and continental sensibilities.4 We can gauge the magnitude of the trauma by looking at some contemporaneous reactions. The diaries of Philip Henry contain the oft-cited eyewitness account: The blow I saw given, and can truly say with a sad heart, at the instant whereof … there was such a grone by the thousands then present, as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again.5 The anonymous author of The Bloody Court embellished the Henry account, adding that ‘there was scarce a Protestant in the World, to whom the true Relation came, but shed tears for him’.6 In a 1649 compilation of epitaphs entitled Monumentum Regale, Charles’s execution was even compared to deicide: Kings are Gods once remov'd. It hence appears / No Court but Heav'ns can try them by their Peers / So that for Charles the good to have been tride / And cast by mortal Votes, was Deicide. / No Sinne, except the first, hath ever past / So black as this.7 3 Jason Peacey, ‘Introduction’, in Regicides and the Execution of Charles I, ed. Jason Peacey (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), p. 1. 4 Peacey, ‘Introduction’, p. 1. 5 Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry, ed. Matthew Henry Lee (London: Kegan Paul, 1882), p. 12. 6 [Robert Wild?], The Bloody Court; or the Fatall Tribunall . (Printed for G. Horton; And published by a Rural Pen, for general Satisfaction, n.d.), sig. B4r, Oxford, Worcester College Library copy, cited in Nancy Klein Maguire, ‘The Theatrical Mask/Masque of Politics: The Case of Charles I’, Journal of British Studies 28:1 (1989), p. 3. 7 [John Cleveland], Monumentum Regale: Or A Tombe, Erected for that incomparable and Glorious Monarch, Charles the First, King of Great Britane, France and Ireland, &c., in select Elegies, Epitaphs, and Poems (n.p., 1649), sig.
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