ABSTRACT
When the High Court of Justice sentenced Charles I to death, it appointed a committee to identify the most suitable place for his execution. After surveying several sites in and around London, the committee selected the Banqueting House at Whitehall, and the court had the king beheaded before a large crowd gathered in its yard. Fifteen years before the execution, James Shirley staged the Triumph of Peace at the same hall. The masque staged in 1634 and the king’s execution in 1649 appear to have little more in common than their location, but parliament considered the site significant. The High Court of Justice considered a variety of locations in and around London, and their decision begs the question: why did they choose to execute Charles I outside the Banqueting Hall? How did the event both capitalize on and transform the symbolic value of that site? To answer these questions, this essay analyzes Shirley’s masque and the king’s execution as related forms of historical discourse. It examines how these different spectacles used the same location, signs, and symbols to promote competing historical narratives. It analyzes the first performance of the Triumph of Peace at the Banqueting House in 1634 and compares its form and content to the grim aesthetic and solemn narrative that the execution provided outside the same hall in 1649. These events used innovative and compelling forms of stagecraft to offer competing interpretations of England’s history. Though the events promoted different agendas, they shared similar characteristics. Each endowed words, music, gestures, objects, buildings, and London’s streets with special significance. They also relied upon skilled performers to effectively reinterpret shared traditions and invite different audiences to participate in the process of making history.1
