The Horrid Thirtieth returns again, once a day of national repentance and Tory pride, now unmarked by anyone except the Society of King Charles the Martyr. A recent glance at a 1734 Book of Common Prayer revealed that the service for the 30th January remained, as did the Gunpowder Plot service albeit unhappily joined to a commemoration of the landing of the Prince of Orange on the same day as the ‘Deliverer from Popery.’ In fact, I am not sure when the service for the 30th ceased to be appended to the Prayer Book, although I have no doubt that by 1734 it was rarely used. By 1858, when Lord Stanhope petitioned for its removal, it was doubtless the sole preserve of pretentious Tractarians. The last great flowering of the 30th as a day of Tory political theatre was surely the reign of Queen Anne, when members of the ‘October Clubs’ maintained the Divine Right of Kings in a vain attempt to stave off the abomination of a Hanoverian succession.
The question of what King Charles represented, and why a feast day was initiated in his honour, is an important one insofar as the celebration of his feast day today can all too easily become no more than a legitimist or Anglo-Catholic festival. The extent to which Anglo-Catholics can claim any inheritance from the seventeenth century I discussed in an earlier post. Certainly, the petititions for the prayers of King Charles (who was never known as St. Charles, incidentally) were never part of the official liturgy. Furthermore, it would be a travesty for the 30th January to have merely a cosmetic religious significance – a way of giving honour to legitimism and not to God.
Charles I was a Protestant through and through; it was on this fact that he fought the Civil War, resenting the implication that his court and his religious policy was infected with ‘popery.’ Charles’ belief was that the episcopal order was Scriptural, and that it best effected the godly order of the English nation. As such, he differed in no way from Elizabeth in his religious policy. Charles was martyred not for ‘Popish prelacy’ as his enemies would no doubt have claimed, but for the episcopal order as established by Scripture, as the preface to the 1559 Prayer Book makes clear. Charles understood better than anyone that the Church of England was imperfect and needed reform; perhaps his reform moved too quickly and antagonised too many, but he lived and breathed the eirenic world of early 17th century utopian Protestantism, which had emerged from the hostile reaction of the 16th century and now longed for the re-union of Christendom in a new culture of freedom. This was his father’s dream and yet for Charles’ sons such a vision would be inaccessible, prompting their eventual conversion to Catholicism (although James II never forsook the dream of toleration).
When Charles’ commemoration was included in the Prayer Book in 1660 it was after careful theological consideration. The commemoration of martyrs with feasts was recognised by antiquaries as a custom of great antiquity in the Church, going back to the apostolic period, and therefore the fact that Charles had been a martyr eased his passage into the Prayer Book. Furthermore, in a national church as the Church of England then was, the only figure who could command universal reverence (and who was effectively uncontroversial) was the King who was Supreme Governor. Consequently, as King and Martyr Charles could be commemorated without theological issues arising (the apostles whoe feasts occurred in the Prayer Book were martyrs, too) and without overt political controversy.
The Horrid Thirtieth is a day on which we remember the challenge posed to the apostolic constitution of the Church of England by the tyranny of Parliament, and inevitably our thoughts are also drawn to the more subtle dismantlement of the Church of England’s integrity in 1688. Charles was the Church of England’s first martyr; by the end of the century there was no Church of England left for which to die.
O LORD, our heavenly Father, who didst not punish us as our sins have deserved, but hast in the midst of judgement remembered mercy; We acknowledge it thine especial favour, that, though for our many and great provocations, thou didst suffer thine anointed blessed King Charles the First (as on this day) to fall into the hands of violent and blood-thirsty men, and barbarously to be murdered by them, yet thou didst not leave us for ever, as sheep without a shepherd; but by thy gracious providence didst miraculously preserve the undoubted Heir of his Crowns, our then gracious Sovereign King Charles the Second, from his bloody enemies, hiding him under the shadow of thy wings, until their tyranny was overpast; and didst bring him back, in thy good appointed time, to sit upon the throne of his Father; and together with the Royal Family didst restore to us our ancient Government in Church and state. For these thy great and unspeakable mercies we render to thee our most humble and unfeigned thanks; beseeching thee, still to continue thy gracious protection over the whole Royal Family, and to grant to our gracious Sovereign a long and happy Reign over us: So we that are thy people will give thee thanks for ever, and will alway be shewing forth thy praise from generation to generation; through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
2 Comments
January 29, 2008 at 8:15 pm
In his novel ‘Sybil’ the Earl of Beckonsfield writes “rightly is Charles the First called a martyr, as he died for the cause of indirect taxation” (quoted from memory, so may not be quite right). It is true that the 3oth January is now only kept by high church monarchists and legitimists. That is a pity. Regicide is a horrid sin, and a national crime. At least those of us who keep the day can continue to do so, and hope and work for the triumph of true monarchy.
March 27, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I understand that the commemoration was dropped during the Victorian period because of the perceived incongruity of the combination of a commemoration of a former king and a major feast day (“a way of giving honour to legitimism and not to God”?).