Daughters of the Winter Queen by Nancy Goldstone

Author:Nancy Goldstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography / Historical, History / Europe / Great Britain / General, History / Women, History / Europe / General
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2018-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

ALTHOUGH THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA and her family had been forced by the Treaty of Westphalia to cede the Upper Palatinate to the elector of Bavaria, the agreement was nonetheless cause for rejoicing. At least now they could safely return to their beautiful castle in Heidelberg, and Karl Ludwig would still wield some influence in Germany as an elector (although not nearly as much as before). But the news of the signing of the historic agreement had barely had time to sink in before the family was confronted with yet a further ominous development in the struggle for power in England. For on December 15, 1648, exactly two months after peace was declared in Germany, it was resolved by Parliament “that the King be forthwith sent for to be brought under safeguards to Windsor Castle, and there to be secured in order to the bringing of him speedily to justice.”

The timing of this decree was not coincidental. With the conclusion of the war in Germany, the Puritan leaders of Parliament were concerned that the French court would now turn its attention (and its victorious army) toward England. Certainly this was what Queen Henrietta Maria, who had established herself at St. Germain so as to be near her sympathetic sister-in-law Anne of Austria, was clamoring for. Charles I’s eldest son, the prince of Wales, had already (unsuccessfully) attempted a rescue mission by sea, using the decamped ships of the royal navy. Cromwell and his supporters felt they could not take the risk that the king would escape only to return at the head of a large foreign army that would impose unpalatable conditions on a defeated Parliament. To prevent this possibility, they had determined on an extreme and savage course of action.

On December 23, Charles was brought under heavy guard from the Isle of Wight to London. There, on January 20, 1649, in an eerie replication of the proceedings against his grandmother Mary, queen of Scots, the king of England stood trial for high treason in front of English judges at Westminster Hall.

And just as Mary had protested that as a queen, she could be tried only by a gathering of her peers (other members of royalty), so Charles argued that the parliamentary action against him was illegal, as his judges did not have the standing necessary to pass judgment on a king. “It is not my case alone: it is the freedom and liberty of the people of England; and do you pretend what you will, I stand more for their liberties; for if power without law may make laws, may alter the fundamental laws of the Kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life, or anything he calls his own,” he asserted eloquently.

But of course it didn’t matter, and the trial continued inexorably along its grim path. Again like Mary, the king was not allowed to speak in his own defense. His inquisitors wanted only to hear him confess

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