Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mr. Olivey, and I can't wait to teach you today for the third lesson in our inquiry into the ways in which 17th century Britain was turned upside down.

Before we start the lesson, though, I do need you to do two things.

The first is for you to get a paper and pen, so you can write stuff down at various points.

If you haven't got a paper and pen, pause the video now.

Good, you now have got a paper and pen, well done.

Second thing, can you try and find a relatively quiet space to work in? Just so you can really focus and try and understand this story? Because I'm going to tell you now, it's absolutely unbelievable, I still can't believe it when I read about it, and I think you're going to find it really interesting.

I can't wait to make a start, so let's get started.

Okay, this is lesson three of a six-lesson inquiry, and the title for today's lesson is "Regicide." And our inquiry question remains, "In what ways was Britain turned upside down in the 17th century?" First, I'd like you to look at this image from 1649, depicting the regicide, and I'd like you to guess what have I obscured by the blue box? Tell your screen the first guess now.

Okay, good.

Let's reveal a bit more of the picture.

What else can you notice? You might have said that there are people on top of the roof, and you'd be right.

There are people crowding round to watch something or other.

Let's reveal a bit more of the picture.

Okay, we can see it's taking place in front of some sort of hall, and there are lots of people pouring out the windows to try and watch.

People are pointing, something very important is happening.

So we'll to reveal a bit more.

Here we can see a stage.

What do you think the people on the stage are doing? Tell your screen now.

Good, you might have guessed that someone is being crowned king perhaps, but let's reveal what's actually going on.

Okay, this image shows an execution.

But not the execution of anyone, it shows the execution of Charles I, which took place on the 30th of January, 1649.

The English people chose to kill their king, and people gathered round from everywhere to watch this shocking event unfold.

They climbed on top of the roofs of Whitehall to watch.

And people fainted in the crowd when they saw this thing, they just couldn't believe what people of England had done.

Charles I was executed on the 30th of January 1649, and this was regicide.

Regicide means killing a king or killing a monarch.

And this shocked England.

If nothing else did, this truly turned the country, turned Britain, upside down.

So if we come back to our inquiry question, and this image that we've been looking at in the previous two lessons, this image of a world turned upside down, we're going to try and find out where the killing of the king fits into this story, and how that will help us answer the question of, "In what ways was Britain turned upside down in the 17th century." But first we need to know how we got here.

So I'm going to try and do a very brief run-through of the story so far.

Make sure that you pause the video and rewind it if there's anything that you're really unsure about, because we have covered all this material in the previous two lessons.

So, let's see how quickly I can do the story.

So we began with Charles I.

He believed he had a divine right to rule England.

And the problem was that this brought him into conflict with his Parliament, who disliked some of the taxes and some of the rules that Charles was trying to bring in.

And this led to the first English Civil War between the Roundheads, who supported Parliament, and the Cavaliers, who supported Charles.

Now, this war was won by Parliament after they created something called the New Model Army, which was an incredibly efficient, powerful fighting force that was easily able to defeat Charles's Royalists.

And when Charles's capital, Oxford, surrendered, Charles lost the first English Civil War.

But the problem was that after the first English Civil War, the New Model Army didn't just want to go away, they wanted to secure rights for ordinary men like themselves.

Now they failed to achieve this aim for various reasons, but this was a radical new idea in British politics.

But it all sort of fell apart when Charles I, because he was a very sly, crafty king, escaped from Hampton Court on the 11th of November.

And very quickly, he gathered together an army of people who still supported him, and started the second English Civil War.

But once again, the Royalists lost the second English Civil War, and Charles was captured again, and Parliament were left with a real problem.

What on earth should they do to this naughty king who has taken an army to war against his own people, not once, but twice? So that's where we got so far, and we've already seen various different ways that Britain was turned upside down in the 17th century.

Just pause the video now, and write a few bullet points down.

What have we already seen about how Britain was turned upside down? Okay, good, you're back.

So, you might have put that ordinary people, like the levellers in the New Model Army, we're trying to be involved in politics.

You might have put that there was a war within England, between Parliament and the king, and that this killed lots of people and caused lots of disruption.

So those are the stories we've encountered so far, but today we're going to try and make sense of how on earth the English people killed their own king.

How on earth could this have happened on the 30th of January 1649? So, we need to first find out what happened to Charles after the second English Civil War, so write that heading down on your piece of paper now.

Pause the video, and then we'll go through the story.

Okay, let's find out what happened to Charles after the second English Civil War.

So Parliament were not happy with Charles, and their clever plan that they came up with was to imprison Charles on the Isle of Wight, off the coast of Britain, because that way they thought it'd be very hard for him to escape.

So, Parliament sent Charles to this island, this remote island off the coast of Britain, and they imprisoned him in Carisbrooke Castle.

But they were still negotiating with Charles, Parliament still thought that Charles would get to come back and be king, but that his powers would be really limited, and Parliament would be more powerful.

Now that was good enough for some Parliamentarians, but some of the more extreme people in the New Model Army were not happy with this, and one of them was a man called Colonel Pride.

Now what Colonel Pride did was he purged Parliament of 180 MPs, MPs who wanted to negotiate with Charles I.

He and his soldiers from the New Model Army stopped them from entering.

And what he created was a much more radical Parliament that became known as the Rump Parliament.

And, on the 20th of January, 1649, this Rump Parliament did the unthinkable, and they put Charles, the King of England, on trial for treason, for murder, and for atrocities against his own people.

This was truly unthinkable.

The king was accused of a crime that could see him executed.

Okay, let's sort these statements into whether they are true or false.

So pause the video now, and sort them into whether they are true or false.

Okay, let's find out the answers.

So one is false, Charles wasn't imprisoned on the Isle of Dogs, which is a small bit in the river Thames in London, he was actually imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, so that he couldn't escape.

But it is true that many MPs continued to negotiate with Charles I in 1648.

And it's also true that Colonel Pride became very frustrated with these MPs, so he purged all 180 of them from Parliament in December 1648.

But it's not true that this Rump Parliament were Royalists who loved the king.

In fact, they were people who really hated Charles, and did not want to negotiate with him.

And it's true that Charles, shockingly, was put on trial on the 20th of January 1649.

So we come back to our inquiry question.

Just add a few more bullet points to your list, the ways that Britain was turned upside down in the 17th Century.

Pause the video now.

Okay, you may have put down that the king has quite literally been put on trial for crimes against his people.

This is truly unthinkable.

But we now need to find out about the trial itself, which took place from the 20th to the 27th of January, 1649.

And write that heading down on your piece of paper.

Okay, let's hear the story.

The trial took place in Westminster Hall, which was a grand hall in London, normally full of shops and stalls where people could buy pens and ink and food, but all of that was cleared out, and between 4,000 and 5,000 people crammed into this hall.

Now, Charles was only allowed to have three servants with him, and he was forced to sit with his back to the audience in front of a jury of over 150 people, many of whom Charles didn't even know.

Now the person in charge of proceedings was a man called Lord President John Bradshaw, and this is what he accused Charles of being.

He said, "Charles, you are a tyrant, a traitor, and a murder." A tyrant is someone who rules in a very cruel and evil way, a traitor is someone who betrayed their country, and a murderer is someone that kills people illegally.

But Charles responded to John Bradshaw, like this, he said, "Outrageous! God has made me king.

Why am I on trial? In whose name? You are a rump." He called the Parliament a rump, because he said they just didn't have the right to try him, he was made king by God, after all, or at least that's what he believed? The Parliament responded like this, Lord President John Bradshaw said, "We have 23 depositions about your Royalist atrocities.

God is on our side." So he said, they've got 23 people who are willing to tell the court about all the horrible things Charles's Royalists had done in the English Civil War.

And Parliament, and John Bradshaw believed that God was actually on their side, and they compared Charles to someone called Nebuchadnezzar.

Now, Nebuchadnezzar was a very evil king in the Old Testament of "The Bible," who, despite being incredibly powerful, was said to have been driven mad by his power, and he turned into sort of an evil monster.

Here's a later drawing of him by the artist, William Blake.

So they compared Charles to this evil king from the Old Testament, called Nebuchadnezzar.

But Charles remained determined not to listen to the court, and he said that, "I will not enter a plea.

I will not plead guilty nor innocent," because they have no authority to judge him, "that you have no authority to judge me.

You are a rump." And this carried on for several days, and eventually John Bradshaw and the jury lost their patience.

So they just said, on the seventh day, "Charles, you are a tyrant.

You are guilty.

This court sentences you to death." And with that, Charles realised that he was doomed, but he could not speak, because the sentence had already been handed down.

He could not negotiate.

And when he realised that his fate was sealed, it is said that Charles just let out a single word, or not even a word, a sound.

He just said, "Hah." And with that, Charles was led away to be executed.

Okay, let's again, sort these statements into whether they are true or false.

So, pause the video now and do that.

Okay, let's find out the answers.

It's true that Charles, the King of England, was called a tyrant, a traitor and a murderer, well done if you've got that one right.

But it's false that Lord President John Bradshaw defended Charles I, in fact it was John Bradshaw who was leading the case against him.

But it is true that Charles called Parliament a rump, and refused to recognise it.

And it's also true that Bradshaw compared Charles I to Nebuchadnezzar, that evil king from the Old Testament of "The Bible." But it's false that Parliament found Charles not guilty.

Unbelievably, they found him guilty of these crimes of being a tyrant, a traitor, and a murderer, and with that condemned Charles to death.

So once again, let's come back to our inquiry question, pause the video now, and add a few more points down there.

So, you might have noted that Britain was turned upside down in the 17th century not only because they put their king on trial, but they found him guilty of being a tyrant, a traitor and a murderer.

Truly, this was unbelievable.

And the world of England and Britain was being turned upside down.

Finally then, let's think about the execution itself.

Why did the execution of Charles I turn the world upside down? So, Charles was executed in London, in front of a huge crowd of people.

And he was forced to lie down when he was executed.

And they even shackled him to the stage, because they were worried that he was going to try and escape.

Now, the execution of Charles I shocked people in the crowd.

Women fainted, and people turned away in shock, and cries and people weeping could be heard in the crowd.

Cries of "God save the king!" Cries of "Murder!" Cries of "Justice!" You can see how people from all around wanted to watch this unbelievable, this shocking event, and some people turned away, and some people fainted.

But something unusual happened after Charles I was executed, because a book called "Eikon Basilike" was written, and became very popular.

And "Eikon Basilike" was a book called "The Portrait of His Sacred Majesty, in His Solitudes and Sufferings." And what "Eikon Basilike," this book by William Marshall did, was it turned Charles into this holy figure, this king appointed by God, doomed to die, but seen as a sort of Christian martyr figure.

This was remarkable because years earlier, people had been going to war with their king, but now this book about how holy, and how good a king Charles was, was becoming incredibly popular.

So after the execution of Charles I, something that most people in England did not support, lots of people hated Charles, but most did not want him dead, because they still believed he'd been a king appointed by God, a book called "Eikon Basilike" became very, very popular.

Finally let's sort these statements into whether they are true or false.

Pause the video now and do that.

Okay, let's find out the answers.

So it's true that Charles was made to lie down when he was executed.

It's also actually true that Charles's executioner wore a fake moustache.

Now, I don't know if you will have noticed that one in the picture, sorry, that was a bit of a harsh, tricky question there, but they wore a fake moustache because they were worried that if people found out they had killed the king, they would be attacked.

And it's not true that most people in England wanted Charles to be executed, in fact, most people still believed that a king was appointed by God.

Many people still believed in the idea of the divine right of kings.

And it's not true that "Eikon Basilike" listed all of Charles I's atrocities.

In fact, it was a book all about what a good king Charles was, and what a religious figure he was.

Finally then, just pause the video now, and add a few more bullet points to thinking about our inquiry question.

Okay, so in what ways was Britain turned upside down in the 17th century? You might've put that it was turned upside down because it killed the king.

The court that put Charles on trial found him guilty and had him executed.

The regicide truly turned Britain upside down, because many people still believed that the king was appointed by God.

So to some, it seemed like the English had quite literally killed God.

Okay, pause the video now and then read the slides on the next page, and answer the comprehension questions, and resume the video once you're finished.

Okay.

Question one.

Where was Charles imprisoned in 1648? The correct answer is Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, but a better answer would be, "Charles I was imprisoned and Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight.

He still hoped that he could return to England, and rule it as king.

Question two.

What did Colonel Pride do to Parliament in December, 1648? The correct answer is he purged Parliament, But a better answer would be, "Colonel pride and his soldiers from the New Model Army purged Parliament, 180 moderate MPs, who wanted to negotiate with Charles I.

Question three, what crimes was Charles I accused of committing? The correct answer is being a tyrant, a traitor and a murderer, but a better answer would be, "Charles I was accused of being a tyrant, a cruel and wicked ruler, a traitor, someone who betrays that people, and a murderer.

Lord John Bradshaw found him guilty of these crimes." Question four, how did Charles I plead during his trial? The correct answer is Charles didn't plead, Charles I refused to plead.

But a better answer would be, "Charles I refused to plead because he did not recognise the authority of the court.

He believed that he had a divine right to rule, and called the Parliament a rump." Question five, how did most English people react to the execution of Charles I? The correct answer would be, they were traumatised, but a better answer would be, "The people in England were shocked by the execution of Charles I.

Some believed that the rump Parliament had killed God.

"Eikon Basilike," a book about Charles I, became very popular." So we come back to the pamphlet, the world turned upside down, and we come back to our inquiry question.

We've seen that in 1648 and 1649, the King of England, Charles I, was not only put on trial, accused of being a tyrant, a traitor and a murderer, he was found guilty and he was executed.

Truly, this turned Britain upside down in the 17th century.

Okay, we've reached the end of the lesson.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Well done for all your hard work today, you now know what a regicide is, you now know what the English people did to their king on the 30th of January 1649.

I can't wait to tell you what happens next in this story, because it's going to get even more unbelievable, and even more upside down.

I'll see you next time.

Bye for now.