Charles Stuart, that man of blood was a phrase used by
Independents, during the
English Civil War
The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...
to describe King
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
.
The phrase is derived from the Bible:
This and another verse were used to justify
regicide
Regicide is the purposeful killing of a monarch or sovereign of a polity and is often associated with the usurpation of power. A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing. The word comes from the Latin roots of ''regis'' ...
:
Windsor Castle prayer meeting
Although the phrase had been used for a number of years by Independents, it became politically significant in April 1648 during the three-day prayer meeting at Windsor Castle by the leadership of the
New Model Army
The New Model Army or New Modelled Army was a standing army formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians during the First English Civil War, then disbanded after the Stuart Restoration in 1660. It differed from other armies employed in the 1639 t ...
. The Army leadership felt deeply betrayed by the King because they thought that while they had been negotiating in good faith he had duplicitously gone behind their backs in making
The Engagement with the Scots and encouraging a
new civil war. At the end of the meeting the
Grandee
Grandee (; , ) is an official royal and noble ranks, aristocratic title conferred on some Spanish nobility. Holders of this dignity enjoyed similar privileges to those of the peerage of France during the , though in neither country did they ha ...
s of the Army accepted that it was their duty "to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done".
[''The Church of England quarterly review'' Volume 21, 184]
p.367
/ref>
See also
*High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I
The trial of Charles I was a significant event in English history that took place in January 1649, marking the first time a reigning monarch was tried and executed by his own subjects. Following years of conflict during the English Civil War, ...
Notes
References
*Thomas N. Corns. ''The Royal Image: Representations of Charles I'' Cambridge University Press, 1999, ,
*Martin Dzelzainis
Anti-monarchism in English Republicanism
*David Farr. ''Henry Ireton and the English Revolution'', Boydell Press, 2006 ,
*Peter Gaunt, ''The English Civil War: The Essential Readings'', Blackwell Publishing, 2000. , . Chapter 19 Charles Stuart, that man of blood. (Originally published in Journal of British Studies 16 (1977):41-61)
*Martin van Gelderen, Quentin Skinner. ''Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage'', Cambridge University Press, 2002, ,
*A. F. Kirkpatrick (1890), ''The Second Book of Samuel'', READ BOOKS (re-publisher), ,
Further reading
*Newton Key & Robert Bucholz. ''Sources and Debates in English History, 1485-1714'', Blackwell Publishing, 2004. ,
p. 185
*Clive Holmes. ''Why was Charles I Executed?'' Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006 ,
p.18
*Laura Lunger Knoppers. ''Puritanism and Its Discontents'', University of Delaware Press, 2003 ,
p. 43
Cromewell Gidion Galatians act 2 and 2 Corinthians.
*Keith Lindley. ''The English Civil War and Revolution: A Sourcebook'', Routledge, 1998 ,
p.167
*David Lawrence Smith, ''A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707: The Double Crown'', Blackwell Publishing, 1998 , {{ISBN, 978-0-631-19402-6}
p. 158
English Civil War
1649 in England
Cultural depictions of Charles I of England