King Charles I’s reign ended in execution and an English republic.
Anthony Van Dyck/Wikimedia Commons
King Charles III has been praised for keeping it simple by choosing to reign under his own name. But the royal name of Charles comes with some heavy historical baggage.
English Quakers on a Barbados plantation.
Image courtesy of New York Public Library
Eighteenth-century Quakers attempted to align their religious beliefs with what they purchased. These Quakers led some of the early campaigns against sugar being produced by enslaved people.
John Lacy, a Restoration actor and playwright, satirised puritans, including in his role as Mr Scruple in The Cheats by John Wilson (right).
John Michael Wright (died 1694/National Portrait Gallery
Puritans were often depicted as fools until they had a shot at government, and then the humour got darker.
Principled revolutionaries: the Pilgrim Monument at Provincetown, Massachusetts.
TWA Photography via Shutterstock
Puritan leaders argued vehemently for a church to be free of any higher authority – which caused problems in England and the new world.
‘The Queens Closet Opened,’ first published in 1655, shared recipes and support for the deposed monarchy. Here, portrait of Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, by Anthony van Dyck, 1632.
(Arcidiecézní muzeum Kroměříž/Wikimedia)
Recipe sharing is all the rage in the pandemic as in other times of turmoil. English cookbooks of the 16th and 17th centuries promised recipes for comfort with a dash of glamour.
Charles I in Three Positions by Anthonis van Dyck.
Wikimedia Commons
John Major was right – it didn’t end well for the 17th-century king, who ignored parliament and lost his head.
Onwards to a Brexit paradise regained.
tefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images
Milton’s famous defence of free speech, Areopagitica, was a strange choice for the attorney general.
Die show muss weitergehen!
The Ian Lowes Collection
Many thousands of Germans got through internment by performing farces, dressing up as women and clapping along to the can-can.
Sir Anthony Van Dyck’s Charles I. Google Art Project.
Charles I’s belief that art was a way of projecting power bankrupted England and alienated his people. The rest is history.
Statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Palace of Westminster, London, UK.
Shutterstock
He strapped on a sword aged 43 – and changed British history.