A lesson from history: let’s not lose our heads

SUSPENDING Parliament didn’t end well for Charles I when he did it in similar — although very different — circumstances nearly 400 years ago.

His prorogation from 1628-29 was the first of many attempts to muzzle MPs in the build-up to the English Civil War and resulted him in being beheaded in 1649.

Like Boris Johnson, the king felt he had no choice, being confronted by ‘some fewe cunning and ill-affected men’ in the Commons who were plotting against him. But those ‘cunning and ill-affected men’ won the day.

On January 30, 1649, Charles was led to the scaffold by the Banqueting House in Whitehall. Wearing a white nightcap, he made a short speech and concluded by saying: ‘I go from a corruptible, to an incorruptible Crown; where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world.’

He then asked his executioner: ‘Is my hair well?’ After saying two or three words to himself, Charles laid his neck on the block and his head was severed with one clean blow.

The king had paid the price of losing a battle which began when he tried to get the approval of Parliament to raise new taxes after a series of military escapades. But MPs were fed up with Charles’s demands and got him to accept a Petition of Right in return, which was intended to limit his powers.

However, Charles duped MPs by taking the money but he prorogued Parliament in June 1628. He reopened it in January 1629.

In March 1629, he ordered an adjournment which MPs refused to accept. Two held the Speaker in his chair to keep Parliament sitting. Outraged, Charles dissolved Parliament for the next 11 years, ruling unchecked himself. By 1640 when he resummoned Parliament, his authority had drained. That session lasted only three weeks before it was dissolved by the king for several months. This new Parliament lasted for 20 years but tensions swiftly exploded into the Civil War.

When Charles was beheaded on that freezing day in 1649, he wore two shirts to stop him shivering and because he didn’t want the crowd to think he was scared. Today, his second over-shirt is framed in Windsor Castle. It is said the Queen likes to show it to visitors.

Indeed, history tells us the potential dangers of an unruly Parliament and also of stopping MPs conducting their business.