Hello, I'm Mr. Marchant, and thank you for joining me for today's history lesson.

I'll be guiding you through all of our resources today, and my top priority is to make sure that by the end of our lesson, you're able to successfully meet our learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on the English Civil War where we've been asking ourselves, what can political pamphlets tell us about 17th century politics in England? By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to explain why Charles I was executed for treason.

So we're really gonna be focusing on the period immediately after the end of the English Civil War as part of this lesson.

There are five keywords which are gonna help us navigate our way through the lesson.

Those are treason, New Model Army, regicide, purge and martyr.

Treason is a serious crime, which involves hurting your country or government.

The New Model Army fought for the parliamentarians and against the Royalists during the English Civil War.

Regicide is the act of killing a monarch.

Getting rid of things you don't agree with can be called a purge.

And a martyr is a person who died for their beliefs and is respected because of that.

Today's lesson will be split into three paths, and we're going to begin by focusing on the failure to make peace.

The First English Civil War ended in 1646.

War broke out again in less than two years.

By 1649, Charles I had been charged with treason and executed.

Although Charles I's armies had been defeated by 1646, the groups who had fought against the king, parliament, the New Model Army and the Scottish became less trusting of one another.

In particular, many members of parliament were concerned about the power of the army.

This made it hard for parliament, the New Model Army and the Scottish to agree on what should be done with Charles I.

At the end of 1647, the king made an agreement with the Scottish.

He would make the religious changes that they wanted in return for the support of the Scottish army.

Fighting broke out again in February 1648 as Royalists and the Scottish supported Charles.

However, the king's supporters were quickly defeated by Parliament and the New Model Army.

The Second Civil War was over by August 1648.

So we've heard some information about the Second English Civil War.

Let's make sure that our understanding is really secure.

Which two groups supported Charles I during the Second Civil War? Was it the New Model Army, parliament, Royalists, or the Scottish Army? Remember, you're selecting two out of these four groups.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answers.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answers were C, Royalists, and D, the Scottish army.

So during the Second Civil War, Royalists continued to support Charles I as they had during the First Civil War.

But it was a new situation for Charles to have the support of the Scottish army.

And let's try another question.

I want you to correct the statement by changing one word.

Our statement says, "After the first English Civil War, parliament and the New Model Army began trusting one another more." So which one word can we change in that statement to make it correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the word to change was more, and you should have changed it to less.

After the first English Civil War, parliament and the New Model Army began trusting one another less.

In many ways, it was because of these trust issues that parliament and the New Model Army hadn't been able to figure out what they should do with Charles I after defeating him in the First English Civil War, The New Model Army blamed King Charles personally for the bloodshed of the Second Civil War.

The army considered the king's agreement with the Scots a betrayal and called Charles that man of blood.

At this point, the New Model Army began to argue that King Charles should be removed from power.

However, most members of parliament believed it would be better if the king was put back in power.

In December 1648, the leaders of the New Model Army sent one of their commanders, Colonel Thomas Pride, to surround parliament with troops.

Colonel Pride only allowed members of parliament who were against King Charles to enter.

This became known as Pride's Purge.

The members of parliament who remained after Pride's Purge became known as the Rump Parliament because there was so few of them.

The Rump Parliament agreed to put King Charles on trial for treason.

After a controversial seven-day trial in January 1649, Charles I was declared a traitor.

On the 30th of January, in front of a large crowd, the king was beheaded.

The execution was an act of regicide.

So thinking about what we've just heard, I want you to write the missing word from the following sentence.

After the Second Civil War, the New Model Army called Charles I that man of blank.

So what is the missing word? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the missing word was blood.

After the Second Civil War, the New Model Army called Charles I that man of blood.

This shows us quite clearly how the New Model Army and its leaders blamed Charles I personally for the deaths and injuries which occurred during the Second English Civil War.

And let's check our knowledge a little bit further.

Starting with the earliest, I want you to sort the following events into chronological order.

The events that we have listed are parliament considers returning Charles I power, regicide of Charles I, Charles I defeated in the Second Civil War.

Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial and Pride's Purge." Arrange the letters A to E to indicate the correct chronological order.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, so to sort those events into chronological order, your letters should have been arranged as C, A, E, D, and then B, because Charles I was defeated in the Second Civil War in August 1648.

Parliament considered returning Charles I to power even after his loss in his Second Civil War.

But the New Model Army did not agree with that and sent Colonel Thomas Pride to purge parliament.

He only let in members who were opposed to the king.

The Rump Parliament, as parliament was called after Pride's Purge, then voted to put Charles I on trial.

And after the trial of Charles I, when he was found guilty of treason, he was executed.

So we refer to that event as the regicide of Charles I.

So really well done if you got all of those letters arranged correctly.

And that means we're now ready to put all of our knowledge about the failure to make peace after the English Civil Wars into practise.

We have a statement that says, "From the moment that Charles I surrendered at the end of the First English Civil War, regicide became inevitable." Keep in mind that inevitable means something that was always going to happen.

Is this statement correct? I want you to provide two examples to support your answer.

You may use the following sentence starters to help frame your answers.

The statement is/is not correct, for example, and then furthermore.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, really well done for all of your effort on that task.

So we had the statement that said, "From the moment that Charles I surrendered at the end of the First English Civil War, regicide became inevitable." And I asked you whether the statement was correct and for you to provide two examples to support your answer.

So your response may have included the statement is not correct.

For example, the New Model Army only became convinced that Charles I should be removed from power after the Second Civil War.

Furthermore, parliament only voted to put King Charles on trial after Pride's Purge removed members from parliament who wanted to return the king to power.

So really well done if your own answer looks something like that model, which we've just seen.

So we're now ready to move on to the second part of our lesson for today where we're gonna think about the king on trial.

There were many doubts about whether it was right to put a king on trial.

During his trial, King Charles repeatedly pointed out that there were no English laws which allowed this to happen.

He also refused to answer any questions he was asked by the judges.

Charles was not the only one who questioned whether his trial was right.

The trial was supposed to involve 180 judges.

However, more than half of the judges refused to show up, including the leader of the New Model Army, Sir Thomas Fairfax.

Anne Fairfax, the wife of Sir Thomas, did watch the trial from the public stands.

At one point, when the lead judge in the trial said that the court was acting in the name of all the people of England, Anne shouted out, "It is a lie, not even a quarter of the people of England," very much challenging how popular the trial of Charles I was.

So thinking about what we've heard about the king on trial, how did Charles I behave during the trial? Was it that he accepted charges that he was guilty, argued that he was innocent, argued it was not legal to put him on trial or refused to show up to his trial? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was C.

During his trial, King Charles I argued it was not legal to put him on trial.

He refused to answer questions as he pointed out that the judges could point to no laws in existence in England that said a king could be put on trial.

And let's try a second question.

How much support did Anne Fairfax say there was in England for the trial of Charles I? Did she say that more than half of England supported it, that half of England supported it, that a quarter of England supported it, or that less than a quarter of England supported it? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was D.

Despite the fact that she was married to the leader of the New Model Army, Sir Thomas Fairfax, Anne Fairfax had pointed out publicly during the trial of Charles I that it was unpopular, telling the lead judge that less than a quarter of England supported it.

So thinking about everything that we've heard so far, we can move on to task B, which is split into two parts.

For the first part, I want you to select an adjective from the following list, which best describes the level of support for the trial of Charles I.

So you'll either select popular, neither popular or unpopular or unpopular.

And once you've done that, I want you to write one paragraph to justify your choice of adjective.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, really well done for all of your effort on that task.

So for the first part of our task, I asked you to select an adjective from the following list, which best described the level of support for the trial of Charles I.

The best adjective you could picked would've been unpopular.

So thinking about our second question, I asked you to write one paragraph to justify your choice of adjective.

Your answer may have included the trial of Charles I can be described as unpopular because many people didn't think it was right to put the king on trial.

For example, more than half of the 180 judges who were supposed to run the case in court refused to show up.

Furthermore, Anne Fairfax disrupted the trial and argued that less than a quarter of people supported it.

So really well done if your own answer looked something like that model which we've just seen.

So now we're ready to move on to the third and final part of our lesson today where we're gonna focus on reactions to regicide.

Many pamphlets were produced discussing the king's execution.

These were usually propaganda, which tried to either defend or attack the regicide.

One pamphlet entitled "Pretended Judges," published after the execution, provided important information about the trial and regicide of Charles I.

This included a list of the judges from the trial, another list of the witnesses, and a copy of the official charge made against Charles I.

The pamphlet also included an illustration of the scene just before Charles I was publicly beheaded.

Although the authors of the pamphlet never said directly whether they supported or opposed the regicide, the language used in the pamphlet's titles, and subheadings make it clear how the authors felt about the execution, and how they wanted others to react too.

The heading of the pamphlet said, "A list of the names of those pretended judges who sat and sentenced to death our King Charles I in the place which they called the High Court of Justice." Elsewhere in the pamphlet, the regicide was described as a cruel murder.

Furthermore, the authors of the pamphlet provided a caption to describe their illustration of Charles I on the scaffold before his execution.

This caption described the illustration as depicting the royal martyr upon the scaffold at Whitehall.

So let's make sure that our understanding of some of these reactions to the regicide Charles I is really secure.

What did the pamphlet which we heard about mean by calling the people who tried Charles I pretended judges? Was the pamphlet saying that they had no right to put the king on trial, that they were not knowledgeable enough of the law, or that they were not old enough to be real judges." Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well to everybody who said that the correct answer was A, the pamphlet was suggesting that those who led the trial of Charles I had no right to put the king on trial.

This was actually very similar to what King Charles I himself had said during his trial when he repeatedly questioned the judges what laws they were using to justify putting him on trial.

And let's try another question.

How did the authors of the pamphlet entitled "Pretended Judges" feel about the regicide of Charles I? Was it that they did not care about it, that they opposed it or they supported it? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the authors of the pamphlet entitled "Pretended Judges" opposed the regicide, and we can tell that from some of the language they used.

So if we're gonna think about that language, I now want you to answer this question.

Identify one word from each of the following quotes, which shows that the "Pretended Judges" pamphlet opposed the regicide of Charles I.

So the two quotes which we have got are first, the royal martyr upon the scaffold at Whitehall.

And then secondly, the names of those that approved his execution; and the manner of his cruel murder.

So just to repeat the instruction, for both of those quotes, you need to identify one word which shows that the authors of the pamphlet oppose the regicide of Charles I.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answers.

Okay, so from our first quote, the word which you should have identified was martyr.

By describing Charles I as a martyr, the authors of the pamphlet "Pretended Judges" were suggesting that he died for something that was right and that people should support him.

In our second quote, there are two words that you may have chosen that show the authors oppose regicide of Charles I.

Those are cruel and murder.

Both of those clearly suggest that the execution of Charles I was not something that was right and shouldn't have occurred.

So now we're ready to put all of our understanding and knowledge into practise.

I want you to explain how historians can tell that the regicide of Charles I was unpopular for many people.

You must include at least one quotation from the pamphlet "Pretended Judges" to support your answer.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, really well done for all of your work on that task.

So I asked you to explain how historians can tell that the regicide of Charles I was unpopular for many people.

Your answer may have included historians can tell the regicide of Charles I was unpopular for many people because it was criticised in pamphlets published at the time.

For example, Charles I was described as a royal martyr.

The execution of Charles I was also described as a cruel murder, showing that some people thought regicide was wrong.

So really well done if your own response looked something like that model which we've just seen.

And that means we've now reached the end of our lesson for today.

So we're in a good position to summarise all of our learning.

We've seen that after the First Civil War, parliament and the New Model Army became less trusting of one another.

The New Model Army blamed Charles I for the Second Civil War and purged parliament to make sure that the king would stand on trial for treason.

Many people did not think it was right to put a king on trial.

Charles I was executed for treason in January 1649.

The regicide of Charles I was unpopular with many people.

So thank you for all of your hard work during today's lesson.

It's been a pleasure to help guide you through the lesson, and I look forward to seeing you again in future as we think further about what pamphlets can tell us about politics in England in the 17th century.