Radicals and Revisionists: Examining the Constitutional Crisis of Charles I

On January 30th, 1649, Charles I stepped out of his decadent Banqueting House in Whitehall onto a makeshift scaffold before a crowd of silent onlookers. His execution was the culmination of years of warfare and division that consumed England and her territories. Others view the crisis as having links to England’s storied legal past. Some viewed it as a violation of the “ancient constitution” and connected Charles’ reign to that of the Norman kings of the Middle Ages. This paper seeks to answer the question if the constitutional crisis of Charles’ I reign has precedent in England’s legal past. It will argue that contemporaries of the period did see Charles’ actions as a violation of their constitutional rights as free men of England. This view is not carried by most historians and legal scholars who often discount this notion as being dated or “whiggish.” First, this paper will examine the views of contemporaries from the radical Levellers to those of MPs in Parliament. It will be followed by an examination of the historiography covering the period which will weigh the opinions and arguments of historians and legal scholars.