Premium
The Remonstrance of the Army and the Execution of Charles I
Author(s) -
HOLMES CLIVE
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.12
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1468-229X
pISSN - 0018-2648
DOI - 10.1111/1468-229x.12872
Subject(s) - parliament , historiography , law , spanish civil war , constitution , negotiation , government (linguistics) , settlement (finance) , capital (architecture) , history , political science , sociology , politics , philosophy , linguistics , archaeology , world wide web , computer science , payment
Henry Ireton's Remonstrance of the Army has an assured place in the rich historiography of the English Civil War as a text that promises insights into the most revolutionary months of England's history. The document savagely criticizes the prospective settlement that the majority in Parliament, conservative in their constitutional and religious preferences, were discussing with Charles at Newport, and provides a justification for the army's subsequent interruption of those negotiations with Pride's Purge. It provides some outlines of a new republican constitution, which became the focus of subsequent debates between the army and the Levellers at Whitehall. Traditionally it has been read as requiring the trial and execution of the king. Recent studies have challenged such arguments: the Remonstrance suggested a route by which the king might be reintegrated into the government with a limited, figure‐head, role. This article argues that the army, inspired by the Remonstrance and by Ireton's emphasis within it on the need for the expiation of blood guilt, intended the trial to end with the capital punishment of the king.