The things you learn here... I had already assumed that he was a real person, but didn't have the faintest idea who he was. Thanks!
"The Bloody Man"
- Thread starter EdT
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Anyhow, recap time. I'll progress from this point, which will involve a couple of reposts but I think is a natural (re)starting place.
"One Act of our lamentable Tragedy being ended, we are now entering again upon the scene."
The deathmask of Charles I, Holyrood 1648
It is February 1648 and King Charles, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, is bleeding to death in a bathtub in a Tyneside stately home, his throat cut with a razor. His murderer, a poor disturbed Geordie scullery maid named Alice Hume, has no idea that her act of violence ultimately came to take place because of the drunken decision fifteen years earlier by an obscure gentleman farmer named Oliver Cromwell to gaze up at the stars, rather than stop for a piss. It is unlikely that this knowledge would do anything to stop her sobbing and retching into the dead monarch’s shaving bowl; if anything it might make matters worse.
That beer-soaked night in St Ives changed little at first; nobody much in England missed another impoverished Puritan setting off to make a new life in the New World, and while the investors of the Saybrook Colony were pleased that their venture benefited from an unexpectedly vigorous Governor, they were not to know how things would have proceeded in Cromwell’s absence. In any case, they soon had more important matters on their minds, for the fledgling New England colonies were utterly overshadowed by the spectre of conflict, first between their King’s three Kingdoms, and then within them.
The removal from the scene of a single man did little to change the outcome of the wars in England, Scotland and Ireland, although the ripples of his absence changed many of the details. The King was still defeated and imprisoned, his kingdoms still grappled with the conundrum of how he could be allowed to reign but not rule, and the victorious parties still quickly fell out amongst themselves. Had Cromwell been present at this point, he would have imposed himself on the situation; but when the hour came, he was forging a new nation in the New World, rather than concerning himself with the old.
The result? After barely a year of peace the war erupted again, this time between the King and his parliamentary allies on one side, and a loose coalition of revolutionaries, soldiers and religious fanatics on the other. 1647 was a year of madness. As London burned, both sides made desperate bargains in order to survive. Foreign invaders, Witch-burners and mad Prophets roamed the land, as did more familiar enemies like hunger and disease.
The ripples of this conflict have spread far beyond the British Isles. In the Netherlands, the young Stadtholder’s impetuous support of his father-in-law King Charles has provoked a civil war of his own; in France, Cardinal Mazarin’s gamble in meddling in English matters has backfired catastrophically and forced him and his patron Queen Anne to flee Paris.
Despite all this, King Charles fared no better in his second attempt to crush his enemies than the first. He was defeated again, and, fearing for his head, fled from his English enemies to the mercies of his old foes the Scots. But the King caused trouble wherever he went; and, just as in England, his presence provoked violent divisions amongst his captors that could only be resolved through violence. Even as he takes his last breath, the King's Scottish subjects are engaged in a new civil war over what settlement should be made with him.
Which brings us back to Tyneside, a bathtub overflowing with royal blood and a retching young girl. It is difficult to tell what will be the result of Alice Hume’s act of pious madness. The King was the main obstacle to a new constitutional settlement within his three Kingdoms; could it be that the regicide will cut the Gordian knot and finally enable a lasting peace? It is equally likely, however, that the King’s murder will merely trigger a third round of conflict. Either way, many will say that the terrible act portends the end of the world. There are many Bloody Men abroad.
"One Act of our lamentable Tragedy being ended, we are now entering again upon the scene."
The deathmask of Charles I, Holyrood 1648
It is February 1648 and King Charles, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, is bleeding to death in a bathtub in a Tyneside stately home, his throat cut with a razor. His murderer, a poor disturbed Geordie scullery maid named Alice Hume, has no idea that her act of violence ultimately came to take place because of the drunken decision fifteen years earlier by an obscure gentleman farmer named Oliver Cromwell to gaze up at the stars, rather than stop for a piss. It is unlikely that this knowledge would do anything to stop her sobbing and retching into the dead monarch’s shaving bowl; if anything it might make matters worse.
That beer-soaked night in St Ives changed little at first; nobody much in England missed another impoverished Puritan setting off to make a new life in the New World, and while the investors of the Saybrook Colony were pleased that their venture benefited from an unexpectedly vigorous Governor, they were not to know how things would have proceeded in Cromwell’s absence. In any case, they soon had more important matters on their minds, for the fledgling New England colonies were utterly overshadowed by the spectre of conflict, first between their King’s three Kingdoms, and then within them.
The removal from the scene of a single man did little to change the outcome of the wars in England, Scotland and Ireland, although the ripples of his absence changed many of the details. The King was still defeated and imprisoned, his kingdoms still grappled with the conundrum of how he could be allowed to reign but not rule, and the victorious parties still quickly fell out amongst themselves. Had Cromwell been present at this point, he would have imposed himself on the situation; but when the hour came, he was forging a new nation in the New World, rather than concerning himself with the old.
The result? After barely a year of peace the war erupted again, this time between the King and his parliamentary allies on one side, and a loose coalition of revolutionaries, soldiers and religious fanatics on the other. 1647 was a year of madness. As London burned, both sides made desperate bargains in order to survive. Foreign invaders, Witch-burners and mad Prophets roamed the land, as did more familiar enemies like hunger and disease.
The ripples of this conflict have spread far beyond the British Isles. In the Netherlands, the young Stadtholder’s impetuous support of his father-in-law King Charles has provoked a civil war of his own; in France, Cardinal Mazarin’s gamble in meddling in English matters has backfired catastrophically and forced him and his patron Queen Anne to flee Paris.
Despite all this, King Charles fared no better in his second attempt to crush his enemies than the first. He was defeated again, and, fearing for his head, fled from his English enemies to the mercies of his old foes the Scots. But the King caused trouble wherever he went; and, just as in England, his presence provoked violent divisions amongst his captors that could only be resolved through violence. Even as he takes his last breath, the King's Scottish subjects are engaged in a new civil war over what settlement should be made with him.
Which brings us back to Tyneside, a bathtub overflowing with royal blood and a retching young girl. It is difficult to tell what will be the result of Alice Hume’s act of pious madness. The King was the main obstacle to a new constitutional settlement within his three Kingdoms; could it be that the regicide will cut the Gordian knot and finally enable a lasting peace? It is equally likely, however, that the King’s murder will merely trigger a third round of conflict. Either way, many will say that the terrible act portends the end of the world. There are many Bloody Men abroad.
Might as well peak early, to be sure of it 
Chapter 34
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(Taken from “Bloody Charles” by Michael Fraser, Free Press 1945)
“The death of Charles I is an iconic moment in the history of western civilization. It is also central to any attempt to define the nature of the English revolution of I647-8. The violent death of the King was not so much willed by as forced upon victim and perpetrators, the terrible, even tragic consequence of their loss of control over unpredictable circumstances. Regicide was the natural by-product and ultimate expression of the preceding decade of chaos which had turned England upside down, proof positive of the hurricane force of religious and political radicalism that had swept the nation. It solved everything and nothing at the same time; while he lived, the King was the single most obdurate obstacle to some sort of lasting peace in Britain, yet his death would spark civil war in two of his three Kingdoms, and embroil the third in further military campaigns.
Yet it was also, for some, a cathartic moment. There was widespread hope in the war-ravaged towns and villages of England that the death of the King might draw a line under the suffering and conflict of the past six years. That did not mean a lack of regret, sorrow, or even anger, for what had happened. A commonly expressed sentiment had it that Charles was by no means the worst ruler England had ever had, simply that he was unfortunate and misguided. Compared to many who had gone before him, he was not a particularly evil man; indeed, some even came to the view that he was a martyr, a true Christian who died to extirpate the sins of his people[1].
In any case, even as the King’s body lay in state, under heavy guard, at the chapel of North Dissington, the shockwaves of Alice Hume’s violent act were beginning to reverberate around the country. When the Earl of Leven heard the news, he reportedly wept; then, collecting himself, remarked despairingly that "One Act of our lamentable Tragedy being ended, we are entering again upon the scene". Leven attempted to conceal the news for as long as possible, in order to buy time both for himself and his superiors in Edinburgh; he understood the danger that the King’s death would plunge Scotland’s already unstable situation into full-scale civil war. Yet despite his efforts, news of what had happened reached the Army Council almost immediately. Sir Richard Willis[2], a member of the King’s household who was secretly in the pay of Parliament, slipped away from Dissington Hall almost as soon as it became apparent that the King had been murdered, and by the following day was with the New Model Army in Richmond, as despatch riders were hurriedly sent south to warn Parliament of the news. This gave the House of Commons valuable time to prepare for what was to come; by the time the news of the King’s murder had become widely known, ordinances had already been passed decreeing that Parliament, representing the people, could make laws without the agreement of the King, quickly followed by the wholesale abolition of the House of Lords[3]. King Charles I was dead, yet the drama of the British Revolution moved onwards regardless.”
(Taken from “The Wars of the Five Kingdoms” by James Price, Miskatonic University Press 1947)
“On a cold, windswept day, March 7th 1648, a column of Scottish cavalry accompanied by several wagons stole furtively across the river Tweed at Coldstream. They carried with them the body of King Charles I for burial at Holyrood Abbey; no Scot would be willing to see the King buried in Westminster so close to his enemies. As the murdered King crossed the Scottish border, fifty miles to the south in Newcastle another ceremony was taking place. This was the execution of the regicide, Alice Hume, who in accordance with Scottish law was burned at the stake[4]. While the evidence provided by the Earl of Leven as to the circumstances of the King’s death was detailed and, so far as any later historian is able to determine, scrupulously accurate, few who saw the slight, weeping girl being taken to her death could credit her with such an act. A large crowd watched her execution in eerie silence; then, a few hours later, serious rioting broke out in the city as the people vented their rage. For four long years, Newcastle had cherished a simmering resentment against their Scottish occupiers; the execution of a local daughter for a crime many blamed on the Scots was the final straw.
Faced by rioting in Newcastle, a local population enraged by the presence of his army and determined to resist, the New Model Army lurking somewhere to the south, and a deteriorating political situation at home, Earl of Leven, not unreasonably, panicked. For just over a week he dithered, apparently unsure of what to do; then, realising that only through a rapid return to Scotland could he salvage what was left of his reputation in the wake of his failure to protect the King, Leven gathered his army and marched northwards back to Scotland. The Army Council was quick to exploit his decision, and keen to ensure that the Scots did not have the opportunity to change their mind. On March 17th, the New Model Army arrived in Newcastle to a rapturous welcome from a population who cared far more about the Englishness of the new arrivals than their radicalism…”
(Taken from “The British Revolution” by Richard Moore, Miskatonic University Press 1937)
“The removal of Charles I was only one step in reforming the governance of England; the next stage was in putting in place an alternative to Royal power. The chosen means was the Commonwealth, which had technically come into being on March 5th 1648 when the Commons asserted its right to make laws without Royal approval, but would formally date its creation from March 10th, when it was declared that;
“the office of King in this nation, and the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety and public interests of the people of this nation, and therefore is abolished, so as to return to the most happy way of its ancient right, which is being governed by its own representatives”[5]
In little more than a week after the King had met his end, the symbols of his rule were being erased wholesale. A new Great Seal was produced, with all references to the King omitted; the Royal Arms were removed from the mace and the liveries of all Parliamentary servants, and at the Royal Exchange the King’s statue was removed, to be replaced by an inscription bearing the words ‘Exit tyrannus, Regen ultimus’. The coinage was replaced, and everywhere the cross of St George was replaced by the cross of St Edward[6]. As one newspaper put it, “old England is grown perfectly new, and we are in another world”.
With the abolition of the Monarchy and the House of Lords many administrative and legal institutions had also disappeared- the Privy Council, the Exchequer, the Admiralty, the Star Chamber, and with them the important offices of state associated with them. All that was left was the rump House of Commons, whose Speaker, the indifferent William Lenthall[7], had become by default the highest dignitary in the land. Clearly this state of affairs could not continue; a permanent constitutional settlement would be required, but this would be require the dissolution of Parliament, and with this would prove difficult while the New Model Army was in the field and key members of the Army Council were away from London[8]. As a stopgap measure, a Council of State was formed, an executive body comprising of 30 members, all of whom would be chosen by the Commons to settle “the Government of this nation for the future in the way of a Republic without a King or House of Lords”. In turn the Council would govern through a series of standing committees; John Bourchier[9], a Yorkshire moderate regarded as trustworthy by all parties, was appointed as its first President…”
(Taken from “The Wars of the Five Kingdoms” by James Price, Miskatonic University Press 1947)
“The death of Charles I, amongst everything else, marked a milestone in Anglo-Scottish relations. Scotland had been linked to England primarily through the dynastic tie of the shared Stuart monarchy. Although that tie was cut, along with the King’s throat, in February 1648, the question remained whether a dynastic tie must be replaced with something else. In the confused weeks following the death of Charles I, it initially seemed as if the answer to this question was no. The Commonwealth proclaimed in London was an English, rather than British one; when the new regime produced a replacement Great Seal, it showed a map of England and Ireland with no reference to the third Stuart Kingdom[10]. The Army leadership and their Parliamentary friends seem to have hoped to leave Scotland in the hands of the Earl of Argyll and his radical Presbyterian allies, leaving them free to pursue their own policy in England and, in time, Ireland; as Charles Fleetwood put it, the Scots “may ... live as happily without us, as we can do without them”. Even the prospect of a Stuart King north of the Scottish border seemed acceptable, provided that there was no attempt at an English restoration; the prevailing attitude in London appeared to be, as one contemporary pamphlet put it, “If they enthrone him, let them keep him to themselves”[11].
This was not due to any pro-Scottish sentiment in England; quite the reverse. During the early months of 1648 the newspapers and pamphlets of London were full of diatribes against the barren, inhospitable land to the north and against the brutality, bestiality, and hypocrisy of its inhabitants. Despite the nationality of the King’s murderer, the Scots were almost universally blamed for his death in addition to all their other sins. Yet this was an argument against intervention, not in favour; as the Essex minister Ralph Josselin wrote, “the disproportion between our Nation and Scotland, in our enjoyments, and privileges" led him to believe that "we can get nothing worth our labour and cost there. " In no way, he argued, could “power and domination” be the English aim in invading Scotland, “seeing it would cost us more to gain such a power, then ever we could get by the most entire communion in it; and it would be a sad exchange for English men to remove from such a fertile and flourishing Nation, to make a plantation of the fag end of the Creation. ”[12]
The contrast between the English and Scottish interest in a British identity is striking. One English critic, castigating the Scots' constant “[]ithirst after the power and privileges of England, [/i]” warned that they had never loved Charles Stuart “as King of Scotland, but of Great Britain”. At the same time as an English soldier put on trial for murder could complain that his victim “was but a Scotch woman... the women in Scotland had murdered many Englishmen, and ... he would kill more of them if they came in his way”, the Gentlemen of Morayshire could record their desire;
“to be incorporated and made one with England, they being of all Nations dearest to us and chief in our affections and respect and with whom we would Associate and take part against any or all the Nations of the Earth... and being as it were naturally divided from the rest of the world or in an inseparable contiguity so embodied together as one of us cannot be well without the other.”[13]
Given these sentiments, it was entirely understandable that one of the few things both sides in the northern Kingdom’s incipient Civil War could agree upon was the declaration, on March 11th, of James Stuart as king of Great Britain, rather than merely king of Scotland, though this was accompanied by an Act of the Scottish Parliament that suspended the title until the new King signed the Solemn League and Covenant. The English, who during the last ten years might have been expected to have recognised the Covenanters' deep commitment to a shared British ecclesiastical-and hence political-destiny, were shocked and appalled. The likely consequences of the Scottish proclamation were not lost even on Scottish observers; as Robert Baillie gloomily predicted; "Let Scotland choose what side they please, that poor land shall still be the seat of war, by all appearance, this summer."[14]
(Taken from “Scotland and the Revolution” by Ernest Gomshall, Picador 1946)
“It might have been expected that the murder of King Charles would have halted Scotland’s slide into civil conflict, shocking the two rival parties into negotiation and fostering a more cautious and moderate approach. To the despair of moderates like Baillie, the regicide did precisely the reverse. Until the beginning of March 1648, the initiative in Scotland was strongly with the Earl of Argyll and his Remonstrants; even after the fracas at Gallows Hill, the majority of the Scottish Parliament was firmly against a renewed engagement with the King, and the Earl and his allies were confident that any armed resistance could be stamped out. Then, when news of the King’s death became widely known, the political calculus shifted. Across Scotland, spontaneous demonstrations of fealty to the new King were performed; as a fifteen year old who had never strayed north of the border, the former Duke of York was a blank canvass on whom any hope could be projected. Time was now firmly on the side of the Resolutioneers. Were the prospective James VII to land on Scottish shores, thousands were likely to flock to his banner and the Remonstrants would be immediately marginalised; more seriously still in the short term, the withdrawal of the Earl of Leven from Northumbria meant that a large and experienced army, likely to incline towards an engagement with the new King, was about to arrive north of the border.
If the principals simply saw the disagreement over the status of the King as a political squabble, then some sort of compromise might have been possible; however, the Remonstrants saw the dispute as nothing less than a struggle over the soul of the Scottish people. They were a “godly minority” who considered “the great and mother sin of this nation ... to be the backsliding breach of Covenant”[15], and would force Scotland away from error for its own good. As such, Lord Warriston, the leading Remonstrant in Parliament, acted quickly. On March 11th, he attempted to split his foes by making the popular move of proclaiming James Stuart King of Great Britain, while simultaneously introducing an Act of Parliament that prohibited all those who had ‘undermined the Covenant’ from public office[16]. The legislation was ostensibly aimed at Royalists, but its terms were broad enough to purge many of those who supported compromise with the King and even the signatories of the Engagement of 1647; it was in effect a legislative coup designed to exclude the Resolutioneers from power and ensure that any negotiation with the King was conducted in a Godly manner.
All the Act of Exclusion achieved was to drive the Resolutioneers into violence. Many Commissioners fled southwards to meet the Earl of Leven, who had by now reached Selkirk; most dramatic of all was the action of the Earl of Lanark, who gathered a small force of 300 men, stormed Stirling Castle to capture the weapons stored there, and then raised the Royal Standard from its walls. By March 20th, the same day that the late King Charles was buried at Holyrood in a pointedly Presbyterian ceremony[17], he had amassed a force numbering over a thousand, which he planned to use to march on Edinburgh. Renewed Civil War in Scotland was by now inevitable…”
****
Devil’s Hole
Lancashire, March 1648
Edward Sexby watched impassively as the sobbing girl was manhandled onto the pyre. It was not his place to interfere, he knew, even if she was innocent. Not a witch, he thought, just a wench. And one with too much virtue, and too little money, to submit to her tormentor.
The villagers clambered down from the heap of logs, leaving the girl tied by her wrists to a stake. “I am wronged!” she screamed at the crowd. A man, tall, elegantly-dressed in an expensive doublet and hose, stepped forward and raised a brazier with a theatrical flourish.
“I’ll be the judge of that, witch,” he replied, “and the jury. And the executioner.”
The crowd cheered, and Sexby nodded to himself. He is good. This makes excellent theatre, so the local folk do not think too carefully about the charges, or that they know this girl. And so he steals their money, and their daughters, and they thank him for it. He patted the butt of his pistol on his belt. I shall enjoy levelling this one, when the time comes. But for now he must serve a greater purpose.
The witch-hunter turned to the crowd. “Sarah Henderson! You are found guilty of meeting the Devil in the church at night! You have lain with him, and kissed his anus. You have suffered from the disease of astonishment, and given suck to demons from your breast. You have devoted yourself to doing evil. In short, you do be a witch. Now, by Satan’s trident, thou art forked!”
He thrust the brazier into the kindling and span on his heel, walking away from the pyre and its screaming, writhing occupant as the fire spread. The crowd cheered as he went; and Sexby detached himself from the wall he was leaning upon and walked over to him. As he approached he heard the man giggle. “completely forked,” the witch hunter said to himself, with a smile.
Sexby put out his arm to bar the witch-hunter’s passage. “You and I must talk, Captain,” he remarked, casually.
The man retained his composure so well that even an expert like Sexby was only able to detect a moment’s hesitation.
“I am no Captain, sir,” he said, carefully, “Merely a private gentleman.” He proffered his hand. Tobias Slater, Witch-Locator. Am I to assume you have news of ungodly acts to investigate? I do charge a small fee.”
Sexby raised an eyebrow. “You have done very well for yourself, Captain. The people pay good money for you to cheat them, and it keeps you in fine clothes and good wine. But all things come to an end.” He nodded downwards, to the pistol he had drawn inches from the other man’s waist. “Tobias Slater must now retire. The reign of Blood is now over.”
The other man slumped. “I have committed… such crimes. What would you see done to me?” he asked, and Sexby’s eyes widened in surprise at the evident fear in the other man’s voice.
“The Commonwealth is uninterested in your crimes. We have need of your services, Captain, whether you wish to furnish them or not. You are wasted here in these parts.”
Thomas Blood sighed in relief, and his composure returned as if it had never left. “A great shame, that. There are a lot of pretty girls in this part of Lancashire, and,” a sly smile spread across his face, “you would not believe what wicked acts they are capable of.”
Sexby tried to ignore the agonised shrieks coming from the pyre behind them, now fully alight. “You will come with me down south. There is much work to be done, if we are to secure our freedom, and my master wishes to meet with you.” He indicated the barrel of his pistol, pointed at Blood’s gut. “Although frankly, I would sooner see you meet an accident, so feel free to refuse.”
Blood chuckled. “No need to be so… agitated, my friend,” he replied. “I never say no to a man with a gun.” He paused, a sly grin spearing across his face. “Your master? I thought men such as you had levelled all such distinction. Tell me, what is his name? He must be a great man indeed, to remain exalted while you cut down all others above you.”
Sexby glanced around to make sure he was not observed, before shoving the pistol into Blood’s stomach, hard. He smiled at the wheezing sound the other man made as he doubled over in pain, before levelling the weapon again.
“I serve no man, Colonel,” he spat, “only the Common Weal. As for my-“ Sexby caught himself just in time “-superior, he serves too, only in a different fashion. I am a soldier; he takes the wider view. You will know him simply as ‘M’. Now come, Blood. London awaits.”
Blood tried to issue a mocking chuckle, but it soon descended into a racking cough. Finally, he straightened, and shakily walked in the direction that his captor directed him. “Let us leave quickly then,” he gasped, “This smoke will stain my lace cuffs, otherwise.”
Sexby sighed. It was going to be a long ride to London.
****
(Taken from “The Wars of the Five Kingdoms” by James Price, Miskatonic University Press 1947)
“On March 11th 1648, the armies of the Dutch Stadtholder crushed a force raised by the states of Gelderland at the town of Hillegersberg, in southern Holland. The Staatsarmee were sent fleeing back to the safety of the walls of Rotterdam; it was in the aftermath of the battle, as the Prince of Orange celebrated with an extravagant feast in Delft, that James Stuart, a participant in the fighting, discovered that his father was dead. Fourteen days later, he was proclaimed King in the Channel Island of Jersey, which remained, along with Scilly, one of the few remaining Royalist possessions[18]. It was a noble gesture, but by this point England was a lost cause for the Royalists. Since the defeat of the Cornish holdouts at the hands of Robert Blake in February, there was no resistance left in the country; in country houses men might make drunken loyal toasts or talk quietly about raising a new army to restore the monarchy, but in the spring of 1648 the reality was that the Royalist cause in England was as dead as the late King.
If James was to make any serious effort to regain his father’s throne he would have to look to his other Kingdoms. Luckily, for all that religious considerations complicated matters in both Scotland and Ireland, there nevertheless seemed to be opportunities available. By the beginning of April, the new King had in his possession two letters; the first was from the Earl of Callander, his father’s envoy to the Scots, advising him that his sudden arrival in Edinburgh would be enough to reunite the warring parties there; the second was from the Earl of Ormonde, begging him to come to Ireland and save his throne…”
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[1] The ‘Charles as Martyr’ concept has some adherents IOTL, but nowhere near as many; the King hasn’t had the chance to win sympathy at a trial ITTL, and most importantly of all, given the circumstances of the murder, TTL’s equivalent to the Eikon Basilike, which crystallised a lot of the narrative around Charles’ death, is nowhere near as successful.
[2] Sir Richard Willis was a double-agent IOTL as well; after being appointed Governor of Newark, he fell afoul of the Earl of Digby, who accused him of treason, and while he eventually reconciled with the King he remained embittered. ITTL something broadly similar has happened, and Willis has become the Army’s main source of information regarding the King’s court.
[3] Both ordinances were passed IOTL in the days leading up to the King’s death, as a way of ironing out the various legal and constitutional loopholes; while ITTL everything is being done in a rush, the same principle applies.
[4] Under both English and Scottish law, women convicted of high treason were burned at the stake rather than the more familiar hanging, drawing and quartering; this was because the drawing out of the intestines would have exposed the breasts and was therefore regarded as indecent.
[5] A very similar declaration was passed OTL upon Charles I’s death too.
[6] A similar process happened in 1649 IOTL, although without the use of St Edward’s Cross.
[7] For all that Lenthall’s most celebrated moment- his resistance to Charles I on the day the King tried to arrest the five members- is rightly remembered with pride, he was otherwise a complete nonentity, and certainly not a popular Speaker.
[8] IOTL, the Levellers were extremely keen for an early dissolution of Parliament and distrusted the Army Council’s motives in failing to do so; ITTL, the Army Council is more radicalised, so leading Agitators like Rainsborough want to be back in London as much as conservatives like Ireton, and this is less of an issue.
[9] IOTL Bourchier was one of Charles I’s regicides; he was a noted moderate but nonetheless kept his seat after Pride’s Purge.
[10] This was the case IOTL too; the Commonwealth was initially intended to be a wholly English thing.
[11] This was the early Commonwealth’s default attitude to the Scots IOTL as well; it took a fair bit to trigger Cromwell’s OTL invasion.
[12] Similar views were expressed IOTL too; when Cromwell did invade Scotland in 1650, it was to decidedly lukewarm support south of the border.
[13] All three of these views were expressed IOTL; Scottish sentiment towards union with Britain was far more supportive than the English equivalent.
[14] Charles II was proclaimed King of Great Britain IOTL as well.
[15] This was precisely the quote used of the Remonstrants IOTL too.
[16] This is similar to OTL’s Act of Classes, albeit slightly watered-down, which was passed in 1649 for similar reasons.
[17] This is precisely the sort of tactless thing that the Covenanters excelled at.
[18] Charles II did the same IOTL, and had based himself in Jersey for much of 1648. His sentiment towards the Channel Islands is the principal reason why New Jersey got the name it did.
Chapter 34
And Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back?
2 Samuel 19: 10.
2 Samuel 19: 10.
_____________________________________________
(Taken from “Bloody Charles” by Michael Fraser, Free Press 1945)
“The death of Charles I is an iconic moment in the history of western civilization. It is also central to any attempt to define the nature of the English revolution of I647-8. The violent death of the King was not so much willed by as forced upon victim and perpetrators, the terrible, even tragic consequence of their loss of control over unpredictable circumstances. Regicide was the natural by-product and ultimate expression of the preceding decade of chaos which had turned England upside down, proof positive of the hurricane force of religious and political radicalism that had swept the nation. It solved everything and nothing at the same time; while he lived, the King was the single most obdurate obstacle to some sort of lasting peace in Britain, yet his death would spark civil war in two of his three Kingdoms, and embroil the third in further military campaigns.
Yet it was also, for some, a cathartic moment. There was widespread hope in the war-ravaged towns and villages of England that the death of the King might draw a line under the suffering and conflict of the past six years. That did not mean a lack of regret, sorrow, or even anger, for what had happened. A commonly expressed sentiment had it that Charles was by no means the worst ruler England had ever had, simply that he was unfortunate and misguided. Compared to many who had gone before him, he was not a particularly evil man; indeed, some even came to the view that he was a martyr, a true Christian who died to extirpate the sins of his people[1].
In any case, even as the King’s body lay in state, under heavy guard, at the chapel of North Dissington, the shockwaves of Alice Hume’s violent act were beginning to reverberate around the country. When the Earl of Leven heard the news, he reportedly wept; then, collecting himself, remarked despairingly that "One Act of our lamentable Tragedy being ended, we are entering again upon the scene". Leven attempted to conceal the news for as long as possible, in order to buy time both for himself and his superiors in Edinburgh; he understood the danger that the King’s death would plunge Scotland’s already unstable situation into full-scale civil war. Yet despite his efforts, news of what had happened reached the Army Council almost immediately. Sir Richard Willis[2], a member of the King’s household who was secretly in the pay of Parliament, slipped away from Dissington Hall almost as soon as it became apparent that the King had been murdered, and by the following day was with the New Model Army in Richmond, as despatch riders were hurriedly sent south to warn Parliament of the news. This gave the House of Commons valuable time to prepare for what was to come; by the time the news of the King’s murder had become widely known, ordinances had already been passed decreeing that Parliament, representing the people, could make laws without the agreement of the King, quickly followed by the wholesale abolition of the House of Lords[3]. King Charles I was dead, yet the drama of the British Revolution moved onwards regardless.”
(Taken from “The Wars of the Five Kingdoms” by James Price, Miskatonic University Press 1947)
“On a cold, windswept day, March 7th 1648, a column of Scottish cavalry accompanied by several wagons stole furtively across the river Tweed at Coldstream. They carried with them the body of King Charles I for burial at Holyrood Abbey; no Scot would be willing to see the King buried in Westminster so close to his enemies. As the murdered King crossed the Scottish border, fifty miles to the south in Newcastle another ceremony was taking place. This was the execution of the regicide, Alice Hume, who in accordance with Scottish law was burned at the stake[4]. While the evidence provided by the Earl of Leven as to the circumstances of the King’s death was detailed and, so far as any later historian is able to determine, scrupulously accurate, few who saw the slight, weeping girl being taken to her death could credit her with such an act. A large crowd watched her execution in eerie silence; then, a few hours later, serious rioting broke out in the city as the people vented their rage. For four long years, Newcastle had cherished a simmering resentment against their Scottish occupiers; the execution of a local daughter for a crime many blamed on the Scots was the final straw.
Faced by rioting in Newcastle, a local population enraged by the presence of his army and determined to resist, the New Model Army lurking somewhere to the south, and a deteriorating political situation at home, Earl of Leven, not unreasonably, panicked. For just over a week he dithered, apparently unsure of what to do; then, realising that only through a rapid return to Scotland could he salvage what was left of his reputation in the wake of his failure to protect the King, Leven gathered his army and marched northwards back to Scotland. The Army Council was quick to exploit his decision, and keen to ensure that the Scots did not have the opportunity to change their mind. On March 17th, the New Model Army arrived in Newcastle to a rapturous welcome from a population who cared far more about the Englishness of the new arrivals than their radicalism…”
(Taken from “The British Revolution” by Richard Moore, Miskatonic University Press 1937)
“The removal of Charles I was only one step in reforming the governance of England; the next stage was in putting in place an alternative to Royal power. The chosen means was the Commonwealth, which had technically come into being on March 5th 1648 when the Commons asserted its right to make laws without Royal approval, but would formally date its creation from March 10th, when it was declared that;
“the office of King in this nation, and the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety and public interests of the people of this nation, and therefore is abolished, so as to return to the most happy way of its ancient right, which is being governed by its own representatives”[5]
In little more than a week after the King had met his end, the symbols of his rule were being erased wholesale. A new Great Seal was produced, with all references to the King omitted; the Royal Arms were removed from the mace and the liveries of all Parliamentary servants, and at the Royal Exchange the King’s statue was removed, to be replaced by an inscription bearing the words ‘Exit tyrannus, Regen ultimus’. The coinage was replaced, and everywhere the cross of St George was replaced by the cross of St Edward[6]. As one newspaper put it, “old England is grown perfectly new, and we are in another world”.
With the abolition of the Monarchy and the House of Lords many administrative and legal institutions had also disappeared- the Privy Council, the Exchequer, the Admiralty, the Star Chamber, and with them the important offices of state associated with them. All that was left was the rump House of Commons, whose Speaker, the indifferent William Lenthall[7], had become by default the highest dignitary in the land. Clearly this state of affairs could not continue; a permanent constitutional settlement would be required, but this would be require the dissolution of Parliament, and with this would prove difficult while the New Model Army was in the field and key members of the Army Council were away from London[8]. As a stopgap measure, a Council of State was formed, an executive body comprising of 30 members, all of whom would be chosen by the Commons to settle “the Government of this nation for the future in the way of a Republic without a King or House of Lords”. In turn the Council would govern through a series of standing committees; John Bourchier[9], a Yorkshire moderate regarded as trustworthy by all parties, was appointed as its first President…”
(Taken from “The Wars of the Five Kingdoms” by James Price, Miskatonic University Press 1947)
“The death of Charles I, amongst everything else, marked a milestone in Anglo-Scottish relations. Scotland had been linked to England primarily through the dynastic tie of the shared Stuart monarchy. Although that tie was cut, along with the King’s throat, in February 1648, the question remained whether a dynastic tie must be replaced with something else. In the confused weeks following the death of Charles I, it initially seemed as if the answer to this question was no. The Commonwealth proclaimed in London was an English, rather than British one; when the new regime produced a replacement Great Seal, it showed a map of England and Ireland with no reference to the third Stuart Kingdom[10]. The Army leadership and their Parliamentary friends seem to have hoped to leave Scotland in the hands of the Earl of Argyll and his radical Presbyterian allies, leaving them free to pursue their own policy in England and, in time, Ireland; as Charles Fleetwood put it, the Scots “may ... live as happily without us, as we can do without them”. Even the prospect of a Stuart King north of the Scottish border seemed acceptable, provided that there was no attempt at an English restoration; the prevailing attitude in London appeared to be, as one contemporary pamphlet put it, “If they enthrone him, let them keep him to themselves”[11].
This was not due to any pro-Scottish sentiment in England; quite the reverse. During the early months of 1648 the newspapers and pamphlets of London were full of diatribes against the barren, inhospitable land to the north and against the brutality, bestiality, and hypocrisy of its inhabitants. Despite the nationality of the King’s murderer, the Scots were almost universally blamed for his death in addition to all their other sins. Yet this was an argument against intervention, not in favour; as the Essex minister Ralph Josselin wrote, “the disproportion between our Nation and Scotland, in our enjoyments, and privileges" led him to believe that "we can get nothing worth our labour and cost there. " In no way, he argued, could “power and domination” be the English aim in invading Scotland, “seeing it would cost us more to gain such a power, then ever we could get by the most entire communion in it; and it would be a sad exchange for English men to remove from such a fertile and flourishing Nation, to make a plantation of the fag end of the Creation. ”[12]
The contrast between the English and Scottish interest in a British identity is striking. One English critic, castigating the Scots' constant “[]ithirst after the power and privileges of England, [/i]” warned that they had never loved Charles Stuart “as King of Scotland, but of Great Britain”. At the same time as an English soldier put on trial for murder could complain that his victim “was but a Scotch woman... the women in Scotland had murdered many Englishmen, and ... he would kill more of them if they came in his way”, the Gentlemen of Morayshire could record their desire;
“to be incorporated and made one with England, they being of all Nations dearest to us and chief in our affections and respect and with whom we would Associate and take part against any or all the Nations of the Earth... and being as it were naturally divided from the rest of the world or in an inseparable contiguity so embodied together as one of us cannot be well without the other.”[13]
Given these sentiments, it was entirely understandable that one of the few things both sides in the northern Kingdom’s incipient Civil War could agree upon was the declaration, on March 11th, of James Stuart as king of Great Britain, rather than merely king of Scotland, though this was accompanied by an Act of the Scottish Parliament that suspended the title until the new King signed the Solemn League and Covenant. The English, who during the last ten years might have been expected to have recognised the Covenanters' deep commitment to a shared British ecclesiastical-and hence political-destiny, were shocked and appalled. The likely consequences of the Scottish proclamation were not lost even on Scottish observers; as Robert Baillie gloomily predicted; "Let Scotland choose what side they please, that poor land shall still be the seat of war, by all appearance, this summer."[14]
(Taken from “Scotland and the Revolution” by Ernest Gomshall, Picador 1946)
“It might have been expected that the murder of King Charles would have halted Scotland’s slide into civil conflict, shocking the two rival parties into negotiation and fostering a more cautious and moderate approach. To the despair of moderates like Baillie, the regicide did precisely the reverse. Until the beginning of March 1648, the initiative in Scotland was strongly with the Earl of Argyll and his Remonstrants; even after the fracas at Gallows Hill, the majority of the Scottish Parliament was firmly against a renewed engagement with the King, and the Earl and his allies were confident that any armed resistance could be stamped out. Then, when news of the King’s death became widely known, the political calculus shifted. Across Scotland, spontaneous demonstrations of fealty to the new King were performed; as a fifteen year old who had never strayed north of the border, the former Duke of York was a blank canvass on whom any hope could be projected. Time was now firmly on the side of the Resolutioneers. Were the prospective James VII to land on Scottish shores, thousands were likely to flock to his banner and the Remonstrants would be immediately marginalised; more seriously still in the short term, the withdrawal of the Earl of Leven from Northumbria meant that a large and experienced army, likely to incline towards an engagement with the new King, was about to arrive north of the border.
If the principals simply saw the disagreement over the status of the King as a political squabble, then some sort of compromise might have been possible; however, the Remonstrants saw the dispute as nothing less than a struggle over the soul of the Scottish people. They were a “godly minority” who considered “the great and mother sin of this nation ... to be the backsliding breach of Covenant”[15], and would force Scotland away from error for its own good. As such, Lord Warriston, the leading Remonstrant in Parliament, acted quickly. On March 11th, he attempted to split his foes by making the popular move of proclaiming James Stuart King of Great Britain, while simultaneously introducing an Act of Parliament that prohibited all those who had ‘undermined the Covenant’ from public office[16]. The legislation was ostensibly aimed at Royalists, but its terms were broad enough to purge many of those who supported compromise with the King and even the signatories of the Engagement of 1647; it was in effect a legislative coup designed to exclude the Resolutioneers from power and ensure that any negotiation with the King was conducted in a Godly manner.
All the Act of Exclusion achieved was to drive the Resolutioneers into violence. Many Commissioners fled southwards to meet the Earl of Leven, who had by now reached Selkirk; most dramatic of all was the action of the Earl of Lanark, who gathered a small force of 300 men, stormed Stirling Castle to capture the weapons stored there, and then raised the Royal Standard from its walls. By March 20th, the same day that the late King Charles was buried at Holyrood in a pointedly Presbyterian ceremony[17], he had amassed a force numbering over a thousand, which he planned to use to march on Edinburgh. Renewed Civil War in Scotland was by now inevitable…”
****
Devil’s Hole
Lancashire, March 1648
Edward Sexby watched impassively as the sobbing girl was manhandled onto the pyre. It was not his place to interfere, he knew, even if she was innocent. Not a witch, he thought, just a wench. And one with too much virtue, and too little money, to submit to her tormentor.
The villagers clambered down from the heap of logs, leaving the girl tied by her wrists to a stake. “I am wronged!” she screamed at the crowd. A man, tall, elegantly-dressed in an expensive doublet and hose, stepped forward and raised a brazier with a theatrical flourish.
“I’ll be the judge of that, witch,” he replied, “and the jury. And the executioner.”
The crowd cheered, and Sexby nodded to himself. He is good. This makes excellent theatre, so the local folk do not think too carefully about the charges, or that they know this girl. And so he steals their money, and their daughters, and they thank him for it. He patted the butt of his pistol on his belt. I shall enjoy levelling this one, when the time comes. But for now he must serve a greater purpose.
The witch-hunter turned to the crowd. “Sarah Henderson! You are found guilty of meeting the Devil in the church at night! You have lain with him, and kissed his anus. You have suffered from the disease of astonishment, and given suck to demons from your breast. You have devoted yourself to doing evil. In short, you do be a witch. Now, by Satan’s trident, thou art forked!”
He thrust the brazier into the kindling and span on his heel, walking away from the pyre and its screaming, writhing occupant as the fire spread. The crowd cheered as he went; and Sexby detached himself from the wall he was leaning upon and walked over to him. As he approached he heard the man giggle. “completely forked,” the witch hunter said to himself, with a smile.
Sexby put out his arm to bar the witch-hunter’s passage. “You and I must talk, Captain,” he remarked, casually.
The man retained his composure so well that even an expert like Sexby was only able to detect a moment’s hesitation.
“I am no Captain, sir,” he said, carefully, “Merely a private gentleman.” He proffered his hand. Tobias Slater, Witch-Locator. Am I to assume you have news of ungodly acts to investigate? I do charge a small fee.”
Sexby raised an eyebrow. “You have done very well for yourself, Captain. The people pay good money for you to cheat them, and it keeps you in fine clothes and good wine. But all things come to an end.” He nodded downwards, to the pistol he had drawn inches from the other man’s waist. “Tobias Slater must now retire. The reign of Blood is now over.”
The other man slumped. “I have committed… such crimes. What would you see done to me?” he asked, and Sexby’s eyes widened in surprise at the evident fear in the other man’s voice.
“The Commonwealth is uninterested in your crimes. We have need of your services, Captain, whether you wish to furnish them or not. You are wasted here in these parts.”
Thomas Blood sighed in relief, and his composure returned as if it had never left. “A great shame, that. There are a lot of pretty girls in this part of Lancashire, and,” a sly smile spread across his face, “you would not believe what wicked acts they are capable of.”
Sexby tried to ignore the agonised shrieks coming from the pyre behind them, now fully alight. “You will come with me down south. There is much work to be done, if we are to secure our freedom, and my master wishes to meet with you.” He indicated the barrel of his pistol, pointed at Blood’s gut. “Although frankly, I would sooner see you meet an accident, so feel free to refuse.”
Blood chuckled. “No need to be so… agitated, my friend,” he replied. “I never say no to a man with a gun.” He paused, a sly grin spearing across his face. “Your master? I thought men such as you had levelled all such distinction. Tell me, what is his name? He must be a great man indeed, to remain exalted while you cut down all others above you.”
Sexby glanced around to make sure he was not observed, before shoving the pistol into Blood’s stomach, hard. He smiled at the wheezing sound the other man made as he doubled over in pain, before levelling the weapon again.
“I serve no man, Colonel,” he spat, “only the Common Weal. As for my-“ Sexby caught himself just in time “-superior, he serves too, only in a different fashion. I am a soldier; he takes the wider view. You will know him simply as ‘M’. Now come, Blood. London awaits.”
Blood tried to issue a mocking chuckle, but it soon descended into a racking cough. Finally, he straightened, and shakily walked in the direction that his captor directed him. “Let us leave quickly then,” he gasped, “This smoke will stain my lace cuffs, otherwise.”
Sexby sighed. It was going to be a long ride to London.
****
(Taken from “The Wars of the Five Kingdoms” by James Price, Miskatonic University Press 1947)
“On March 11th 1648, the armies of the Dutch Stadtholder crushed a force raised by the states of Gelderland at the town of Hillegersberg, in southern Holland. The Staatsarmee were sent fleeing back to the safety of the walls of Rotterdam; it was in the aftermath of the battle, as the Prince of Orange celebrated with an extravagant feast in Delft, that James Stuart, a participant in the fighting, discovered that his father was dead. Fourteen days later, he was proclaimed King in the Channel Island of Jersey, which remained, along with Scilly, one of the few remaining Royalist possessions[18]. It was a noble gesture, but by this point England was a lost cause for the Royalists. Since the defeat of the Cornish holdouts at the hands of Robert Blake in February, there was no resistance left in the country; in country houses men might make drunken loyal toasts or talk quietly about raising a new army to restore the monarchy, but in the spring of 1648 the reality was that the Royalist cause in England was as dead as the late King.
If James was to make any serious effort to regain his father’s throne he would have to look to his other Kingdoms. Luckily, for all that religious considerations complicated matters in both Scotland and Ireland, there nevertheless seemed to be opportunities available. By the beginning of April, the new King had in his possession two letters; the first was from the Earl of Callander, his father’s envoy to the Scots, advising him that his sudden arrival in Edinburgh would be enough to reunite the warring parties there; the second was from the Earl of Ormonde, begging him to come to Ireland and save his throne…”
_____________________________________________
[1] The ‘Charles as Martyr’ concept has some adherents IOTL, but nowhere near as many; the King hasn’t had the chance to win sympathy at a trial ITTL, and most importantly of all, given the circumstances of the murder, TTL’s equivalent to the Eikon Basilike, which crystallised a lot of the narrative around Charles’ death, is nowhere near as successful.
[2] Sir Richard Willis was a double-agent IOTL as well; after being appointed Governor of Newark, he fell afoul of the Earl of Digby, who accused him of treason, and while he eventually reconciled with the King he remained embittered. ITTL something broadly similar has happened, and Willis has become the Army’s main source of information regarding the King’s court.
[3] Both ordinances were passed IOTL in the days leading up to the King’s death, as a way of ironing out the various legal and constitutional loopholes; while ITTL everything is being done in a rush, the same principle applies.
[4] Under both English and Scottish law, women convicted of high treason were burned at the stake rather than the more familiar hanging, drawing and quartering; this was because the drawing out of the intestines would have exposed the breasts and was therefore regarded as indecent.
[5] A very similar declaration was passed OTL upon Charles I’s death too.
[6] A similar process happened in 1649 IOTL, although without the use of St Edward’s Cross.
[7] For all that Lenthall’s most celebrated moment- his resistance to Charles I on the day the King tried to arrest the five members- is rightly remembered with pride, he was otherwise a complete nonentity, and certainly not a popular Speaker.
[8] IOTL, the Levellers were extremely keen for an early dissolution of Parliament and distrusted the Army Council’s motives in failing to do so; ITTL, the Army Council is more radicalised, so leading Agitators like Rainsborough want to be back in London as much as conservatives like Ireton, and this is less of an issue.
[9] IOTL Bourchier was one of Charles I’s regicides; he was a noted moderate but nonetheless kept his seat after Pride’s Purge.
[10] This was the case IOTL too; the Commonwealth was initially intended to be a wholly English thing.
[11] This was the early Commonwealth’s default attitude to the Scots IOTL as well; it took a fair bit to trigger Cromwell’s OTL invasion.
[12] Similar views were expressed IOTL too; when Cromwell did invade Scotland in 1650, it was to decidedly lukewarm support south of the border.
[13] All three of these views were expressed IOTL; Scottish sentiment towards union with Britain was far more supportive than the English equivalent.
[14] Charles II was proclaimed King of Great Britain IOTL as well.
[15] This was precisely the quote used of the Remonstrants IOTL too.
[16] This is similar to OTL’s Act of Classes, albeit slightly watered-down, which was passed in 1649 for similar reasons.
[17] This is precisely the sort of tactless thing that the Covenanters excelled at.
[18] Charles II did the same IOTL, and had based himself in Jersey for much of 1648. His sentiment towards the Channel Islands is the principal reason why New Jersey got the name it did.
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Thanks, good spot! I've corrected that.
Funnily enough Anglo-Dutch relations will be a major theme going forward; not for a few chapters yet though.
Reading about support, and lack of it, for forming a British Union is pretty hilarious now, when looking at right now IOTL with a large minority of Scots voting SNP and a rising lukewarmness/apathy in many English quarters on the potential inevitable break-up of the Union. It must be all the more interesting to write on, even compared to before.
James II has a tricky choice ahead. He could head for Ireland, where it could be easier to rally support to him personally and not as a blank slate, but he'd be in open conflict with the Commonwealth and would need to deal with the many bickering factions there along with his own issues. Scotland would put him closer to the Commonwealth, but he could make a deal for peace after a few defeats, but he most likely wouldn't for personal and political reasons, and has to deal with not being whatever the Scottish want him to be while the whole place is seeing a civil war brew. Not the best time to be the King, I should say.
I don't suppose you've answered what's going on with Hobbes and Locke? It'd be interesting to see how the increased chaos in both the British Isles and France has impacted on Hobbes' writings, and whether the rising radicalism of the Commonwealth may alter Locke's perspective on the role of government, and the justifications of rebellion.
James II has a tricky choice ahead. He could head for Ireland, where it could be easier to rally support to him personally and not as a blank slate, but he'd be in open conflict with the Commonwealth and would need to deal with the many bickering factions there along with his own issues. Scotland would put him closer to the Commonwealth, but he could make a deal for peace after a few defeats, but he most likely wouldn't for personal and political reasons, and has to deal with not being whatever the Scottish want him to be while the whole place is seeing a civil war brew. Not the best time to be the King, I should say.
I don't suppose you've answered what's going on with Hobbes and Locke? It'd be interesting to see how the increased chaos in both the British Isles and France has impacted on Hobbes' writings, and whether the rising radicalism of the Commonwealth may alter Locke's perspective on the role of government, and the justifications of rebellion.
Well, the first thing I realised is that I'd forgotten your footnotes. Open up the post in two windows, scroll down to the bottom in one, flick back and forth- and I was so pleased to see that so many of the notations were the traditional EdT "just as in OTL..."
Ah, Thomas Blood. A scoundrel so awful even Flashman would blanch at associating with him. Not that that's so different from the real man, of course, but I doubt he swam threw such a sea of pop culture allusions.
On that note, I forget what's the last thing that happened to D'Artagnan?
Ah, Thomas Blood. A scoundrel so awful even Flashman would blanch at associating with him. Not that that's so different from the real man, of course, but I doubt he swam threw such a sea of pop culture allusions.
On that note, I forget what's the last thing that happened to D'Artagnan?
Blood. Thomas Blood. (What? He's working for M now.)
I do find it funny that Parliament apparently had the power declare it didn't need the king anymore, yet felt they needed to declare it.
Also didn't know the Stuarts were reduced to the Channel Islands as holdings. I'd have totally mentioned it as a repeat of history in my timeline when I had the French set up a Stuart puppet on the Channel Islands.
I do find it funny that Parliament apparently had the power declare it didn't need the king anymore, yet felt they needed to declare it.
Also didn't know the Stuarts were reduced to the Channel Islands as holdings. I'd have totally mentioned it as a repeat of history in my timeline when I had the French set up a Stuart puppet on the Channel Islands.
Please tell me you're using his old man, Ed! Praise-God is just too cool to leave alone!
Also, at the risk of sounding like a jerk, wasn't this previously published?
Oh, quite; the way that the Scots were the pro-Union ones in the 17th century and vice versa is s a classic example of how attitudes shift over time.
Speaking which, I’ve been struck at how the SNP’s latest rhetoric about imposing ‘progressive’ policies on the rest of the country post-election recalls to the Covenanters’ attempts to do the same with Presbyterianism. It’s tempting to say “and look what happened next”, but I’ll be good…
James really is at the horns of a very difficult dilemma- much more difficult than OTL, too. It’s a measure of the desperate situation the Royalists find themselves in that on one level, the choice is more about which is the least worst than anything.
Scotland is perhaps the most obvious choice; there are still plenty of Royalists there, particularly in the Highlands. The Scots are waiting for James to arrive, and they’ve already proclaimed him King of Great Britain. If James can land in Scotland, add his own strength to the Scots and defeat the New Model Army, then he can launch an invasion of England and reclaim his southern Kingdom into the bargain. On the other hand, the Covenanters haven’t gone away; James would need them, but they’re expecting him to sign the Covenant and will get increasingly angry if he doesn’t. Scotland’s civil war between Remonstrants and Resolutioneers is theoretically a plus- James could potentially play divide and rule- but then a divided Scotland risks bogging him down in local politics when he could be invading England.
Then there’s Ireland. The single biggest threat to the crown here is the imminent arrival of the Duke of Lorraine; James’ mum the Queen has really cocked up here. Although Lorraine is theoretically only coming to Ireland as Viceroy, the papal faction within the Confederacy led by Cardinal Rinnucini are fairly openly hoping that he’ll eventually be crowned King of an independent, Catholic Ireland; and while the Duke might have been inclined to defer to Charles I, he’s less likely to take his 15 year old son seriously. James’ appearance might force the Duke in line, but then again it might make him look completely irrelevant, or worse, the Duke’s puppet. On the up side, between them the Confederacy (which supports the King at least in theory) and the Irish Royalists control all of Ireland apart from Londonderry and the eastern chunk of Ulster; there’s certainly the potential for James to land in Dublin, gather a new army, and then move on to Scotland, improving his chances there hugely. Choosing Ireland would also nip up the incipient conflict between the Earl of Ormonde and the Confederates in the bud.
The problem James has is that whichever choice he makes alienates the other. If he goes to Scotland, he hangs the Irish Royalists out to dry and potentially loses his crown there to Lorraine; if he goes to Ireland, he disillusions the Scots and abandons the Scottish Royalists. Both choices have things to commend them; he’s also potentially screwed either way. Who’d be King, eh?
I’ve made some reference to Hobbes- just as IOTL, he’s in Paris, and will be even more traumatised by seeing a revolution first-hand ITTL. He will pop up again later. As for Locke, he’s still a schoolboy at Westminster at this point ITTL; he is beginning to come into his intellectual own though, and London’s intellectual life has some interesting additions to influence him.
Sorry, hope you see it as a feature rather than a bug! Hopefully the text still makes sense without having to recourse to the footnotes, although I think it’s important for people to be able to see my working if they’d like…
The last time we saw D’Artagnan he was executing the Prophet Theauraujohn; we will see more of him presently.
We’ll be meeting ‘M’ in a few chapters, along with his organisation. It involves one of my favourite bits of historical trivia, funnily enough.
Also didn't know the Stuarts were reduced to the Channel Islands as holdings. I'd have totally mentioned it as a repeat of history in my timeline when I had the French set up a Stuart puppet on the Channel Islands.
At this point both IOTL and ITTL, the Royalists were basically reduced to places that didn’t really matter, and were difficult to take; the Channel Islands, Scilly and the Isle of Man.
He’ll feature when I get round to doing something on politics within the Commonwealth…
It was- as I said above, I wanted to restart from the King’s death, so this means reposting a couple of chapters. The next one will be entirely new, however! I'll post it in the next few days.
Sulemain
Banned
A compromise, maybe? A Presbyterian Scotland under James, a Kingdom of Ireland (Catholic with perhaps some rights for Anglicans) under the Duke of Lorraine and a Commonwealth of England (I'm imagining some sort of Act of Tolerance for all Protestants).
An island of tolerance in the 17th Century would be nice. I can also imagine TTL's Commonwealth's colonial/overseas endeavours to be a lot more, well, coperatised. An tacit alliance between overseas traders, colonial companies, the military establishment and religous dissidents to rule England.
I actually had an idea for a TL once whereby the EIC grows so powerful it ends up invading Britain.
An island of tolerance in the 17th Century would be nice. I can also imagine TTL's Commonwealth's colonial/overseas endeavours to be a lot more, well, coperatised. An tacit alliance between overseas traders, colonial companies, the military establishment and religous dissidents to rule England.
I actually had an idea for a TL once whereby the EIC grows so powerful it ends up invading Britain.
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