ABSTRACT
Shelley sketched the framework for ‘Charles the First’ between 1817 and 1822. Following Thomas Medwin, who described this fragment as ‘an inextricable web of difficulties’, 1 critics have tended to ignore this interlined and interworded text. More recently, it has emerged ‘as a far more conceptualized piece than it has hitherto appeared to be’, and Nora Crook enjoins us to believe it ‘will appear increasingly so as all the material connected to it is collated’ (BSM XII, xiiv). The title of Shelley's fragment marks it more clearly than The Cenci or Swellfoot the Tyrant as a national tragedy: one that I believe Shelley would have reformulated into a liberating historical drama if he had finished his project. Charles I ascended the throne in 1625, and his reign proved to be contentious, when he attempted multiple times to rule without Parliament. A series of legal battles ensued between the Court and Parliament and this contest eventually devolved into civil war. The debate centred on the extent of the King's prerogatives and whether Parliament had the constitutional right to limit his power. The colonial upheavals in Scotland and Ireland seemed to merge into England's first Civil War, which lasted from 1642 until 1647. After the Scots captured Charles I and turned him over to Parliamentary forces, the King escaped to the Isle of Wight, where he encouraged the Scots to invade England. The Second Civil War was over within a year. Claiming the need to bring Charles I to account, Parliament charged him with treason and brought him to trial. Throughout the trial Charles I refused to play his assigned role. He never acknowledged the court's legitimacy; he never entered a plea, and Parliament found him guilty. Charles I was executed by order of the English Parliament on 30 January 1649. The King's execution brought the violent contest between the monarchy and Parliament to a conclusive end. The English Commonwealth rose out of the ashes of this regicide and civil strife, but it too was haunted by political, religious and cultural turmoil. Two documents exemplify this clash between the Commonwealth and the royalists: Eikon Basilike; The Pourtraiture [sic] of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings (London, 1648) and John Milton's response, Eikonoklastes (1649).
