Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (30 page)

But Guy Fawkes, the last to stand on the scaffold, jumped from the gallows as soon as his head was in the noose. The fall broke his neck, so he died without suffering the further torments. Keyes had tried the same trick, but the rope broke.

During the trial, the Attorney General had quoted part of a psalm to the court, “Let his posterity be destroyed, and in the next generation let his name be quite put out.” For one of the conspirators, nothing could be further from the truth. With Catesby killed before trial and Guy Fawkes having been the man to light the gunpowder, his name is remembered as well as anyone else in English history.

commemoration of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, and an effigy of Guy Fawkes is set atop of the flames. Children raise money to purchase the customary fireworks
²¹
by displaying their ‘guy’, begging for “a penny for the guy” – Fawkes’s first name having become part of the language (originally a ‘guy’ was a strangely dressed man, but now it is any man or an effigy of Guy Fawkes).

Unlike the Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta and other notable historical events, the day and the month, but not the year, of the Gunpowder Plot are remembered by everyone: “Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot; there is no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.”

At first the anti-Catholic feeling was controlled. King James wanted retribution to be limited to the conspirators, but as more details emerged and more Catholics were arrested, the anger increased. As a result, further anti-Catholic laws were introduced, some lasting centuries.

The Catholics having been dealt with, James and the court busied themselves with grandeur and pleasure. It was now that James found a new favourite, Robert Carr, a handsome young Scotsman whom James insisted on kissing in public. Carr soon became Viscount Rochester, and then Earl of Somerset.

In order to pay for his pleasures, James raised money by selling peerages and then secured further funds by inventing the concept of hereditary knighthoods (baronets). It was not enough, and James’s demands for more money led to conflict with Parliament. The relationship deteriorated when the Commons insisted on debating the extent of the King’s powers, infuriating James who believed that God-given rights were not for discussion.

21 One of the principal manufacturers of fireworks to this day being Pains, founded by Charles Pain who manufactured the gunpowder used (unknown to him at the time) in the Gunpowder Plot.

Prince Henry. There were no real rivals, but there was another possibility. That was Lady Arbella Stuart, James’s cousin, the daughter of Darnley’s younger brother. So James kept her at court and forbade her from marrying. When she married William Seymour (the grandson of Lady Catherine Grey), James sent Arbella to the Tower where she remained until she starved herself to death.

It did not help Prince Henry. He died of typhoid in 1612. James’s younger son, Charles, became the heir. However, the royal lineage was more radically affected when James married off his daughter Elizabeth to Frederick the Protestant PrinceElector of the Palatinate of the Rhine. That marriage would provide the succession six monarchs later, introducing German blood to the monarchy.

Another decision would also have a long-term effect. James granted to Protestant English and Scottish settlers most of the lands in Ulster (in the north-east of Ireland) that had been confiscated from the Catholic Irish lords defeated at the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. It would lead to perpetual Catholic/ Protestant conflict in Ireland, as well as several attempts to murder future sovereigns.

Unpopularity with the Catholics was not all. A foreign-born ruler who believed that he had been appointed by God, and who was the leader of a debauched court, became hated by his subjects. It did not help that James had a tongue too large for his mouth and walked with a limp.

In 1615 James fell out with Somerset and found a new favourite, a new love: George Villiers, who became Sir, then Earl, then Marquess and finally Duke of Buckingham. James referred to Villiers as his “sweet child and wife”. Under the influence of Villiers, royal expenditure soared. To add to the problem, monopolies giving control of trades were handed out to James’s cronies, particularly Villiers and his family.

There was another apparently minor event that would become hugely significant: the voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers in the Mayflower. They were non-conformists, most of whom had fled England for the toleration of Amsterdam and Leiden, and were then financed by English investors to settle in North America. Others followed, establishing English settlements in NorthAmerica, South America, the East Indies and India. One venture did not fare well; after 13 years in prison, Sir Walter Raleigh had been released to search for El Dorado (the city of gold) in Venezuela. He failed, but took the opportunity to destroy a Spanish settlement. To placate Spain, on Raleigh’s return to England, the death sentence passed 15 years earlier was carried out.

The disputes with Parliament about finance were aggravated by James’s dealings with Spain. Foreign policy was still the King’s prerogative, and in 1623 an agreement was made for the marriage of the Infanta Maria Anna (sister of King Philip IV) to Prince Charles. A secret addendum promised the lifting of various restrictions on English Catholics. But the Spanish smelled a trick. They knew that the English Protestant Church regarded itself as the Catholic Church freed from rule by the Pope; the English might later say that the reference in the addendum to Catholics (‘Catholic’ from the Greek for ‘universal’ –
katholikos
) meant followers of the Church of England. So to make it clear, the Spanish changed the reference from ‘Catholics’ to ‘Roman Catholics’; and that term, peculiar to England, came into common use. In the end, the Infanta was not allowed to leave Spain, and the marriage plans were abandoned.

Facing increased opposition from Parliament and struggling with debt, in early 1625 James suffered a stroke. He lingered on until he died on 27th March. Prince Charles and Buckingham were accused of having poisoned the King, but there was no evidence against them other than their desire for power.

However, as will be seen in the following century, it was not through Charles, but through Princess Elizabeth that the line of English sovereigns would eventually run. It was what the gunpowder plotters had wanted; but perversely, it would be solely to avoid a Catholic monarch.

Charles was born in Scotland three years before his father was crowned King of England. Twelve years later, Charles became heir to the throne when his older brother, Henry, died. Charles grew up to be an arrogant little man with a stammer; obstinate and not at all clever.

When he succeeded to the throne, Charles was as dominated by George Villiers Duke of Buckingham as King James had been. The problem was not so much Buckingham’s lust for wealth, rather it was his combination of power and stupidity.

Angry at the failure of the Spanish marriage proposal, Buckingham and Charles had demanded war against Spain. Parliament resisted, only agreeing to grant funds for a naval war, and totally forbade Buckingham and Charles’s proposed expedition to recover the Palatinate for his sister Elizabeth’s husband. Frederick had accepted the crown of Bohemia at the request of the Protestants (the majority of the population), as a result of which the Catholic Habsburgs seized not just Bohemia (making Catholicism compulsory), but also Frederick’s own lands.

Putting the Spanish failure behind him, six weeks after succeeding to the crown Charles agreed to marry the 14-year-old HenriettaMaria,sisterofKingLouisXIIIofFrance–thewedding taking place hurriedly by proxy in Paris before Parliament could object. As part of the agreement, Charles lent Louis several ships, and Louis used them to attack the Protestants in La Rochelle. Charles also undertook to grant concessions to Catholics in England. At the same time, Charles agreed to Parliament’s proposals for increased persecution of Catholics.

Buckingham, jealous of the new Queen and irritated by her French courtiers, now demanded war against France. He led a force to relieve the Protestants of La Rochelle, but he was driven back to England. Parliament was against war with either France or Spain, and refused to provide finance unless Buckingham was removed. Charles treated the refusal as a personal insult. He told Parliament to remember that parliaments were for him to call and dismiss; adding that he was not threatening them, as he scorned to threaten anyone but his equals.

Without sufficient funds from Parliament, Charles exercised his prerogative powers. He demanded loans from landowners, he billeted troops with townsfolk and he made those living in seaports pay for the fleet. Having lost the support of Parliament, Charles now started to lose the people. But he did not care; there was no need for his subjects’ approval – just like his father, he had been appointed by God.

In 1628, Buckingham was murdered by a former officer who had been wounded in one of the failed wars. That led to peace with Spain and France. With foreign problems solved, domestic issues took over as the tension between Parliament and the King centred on an argument about the right to make religious appointments. Parliament would not accept Charles’s claim that they were not entitled to interfere. So Charles dissolved Parliament. He decided to rule alone.

Queen Henrietta Maria (after whom Charles named the American colony of Maryland) became his principal adviser. She was no cleverer than Buckingham. At least she produced seven children, two of whom would become sovereigns of England, as would three of her grandchildren.

No Buckingham, no war, no Parliament; for some time absolute rule stifled dissent. It was known as the Eleven Year Tyranny, the peace being maintained by unlawful taxation, confiscations and the use of the law courts and torture to silence opposition. However, the absence of Parliament meant that Charles became increasingly out of touch with the people. It was not just the English. When Charles tried to force the Scottish Church to adopt the English prayer-book, it led to riots and the creation of the National Covenant under which Scots swore to resist to the death.

So Charles led an army north to quell the Scots. He accomplished little except the unification of the Scottish and English opposition. At last, Charles realised that he needed assistance, so he recalled the iron-fisted Thomas Wentworth from Ireland. In 1640 Wentworth advised Charles to recall Parliament. Wentworth believed that Parliament would be willing to provide the finance for a further attack on the Scots in exchange for Charles abandoning the right to levy ship money – a tax on people in coastal areas to support the navy in times of war, which Charles had imposed throughout the country as a general money-raising exercise.

Wentworth was wrong, very wrong. The recalled Parliament threw up a new leader, John Pym, a brilliant parliamentarian, who led the House of Commons in opposition to the King’s demands. When Charles realised that Wentworth’s plan had failed, he again dissolved Parliament. That caused anger throughout the country, and there were outbreaks of disorder, as well as rejection of royal appointments and refusal to pay tax. With the administration collapsing, the Scots marched into England and seized the northern counties.

Desperate to raise more forces, Charles summoned a new Parliament; but the members were in no mood to help. Instead, they impeached Wentworth and sent him to the Tower and then the scaffold; other ministers fled the country. So Charles sought advice from the Queen, and she told him to rely on his absolute powers – it would prove to be fatal.

An apparently minor event occurred in 1641 that would turn out to be almost as important in the future as his sister’s marriage to Frederick; Charles’s daughter Mary married William, the son of the Prince of Orange. Critically for the succession, both marriages were to Protestants.