Ship of Fools: King Charles the Martyr

Thread: King Charles the Martyr Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

I have just seen the website of the Society of King Charles the Martyr and read the accounts of the annual service in London on 30th January. I understand that there are three commemorations each year.

Although primarily seen by some as a specifically CofE martyr, I notice that he has a number of RC adherents and that there is a branch of the Society in the US.

Do any shipmates have any experience of the SKCM or services organised by it?

Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :

Don't know much about it, but the church of King Charles the Martyr at Falmouth has a friendly cafe! [Yipee]

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

Ah, churchy stuff.

Eccles it is.

Firenze
Heaven Host

Posted by Comper's Child (# 10580) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sebby:

Do any shipmates have any experience of the SKCM or services organised by it?

I have been to a number of the January 30th masses here in the States. They tend to be as extreme in the old fashioned AC manner as humanly possible.

Posted by poileplume (# 16438) on :

By chance I was at a very traditional, or should it be eccentric, Anglo Catholic Church on one of these celebrations. I found out later that they regularly put out copies of ‘The Monarchist’ for the congregation’s edification.

I made the mistake of saying I thought Charles the First probably got what was coming to him. This was a serious mistake....

Posted by St. Punk the Pious (# 683) on :

quote:
Originally posted by poileplume:
By chance I was at a very traditional, or should it be eccentric, Anglo Catholic Church on one of these celebrations. I found out later that they regularly put out copies of ‘The Monarchist’ for the congregation’s edification.

I made the mistake of saying I thought Charles the First probably got what was coming to him. This was a serious mistake....

I would have LOVED to be there. (And FWIW I agree with you.)

Still, I would like to go (politely) to such a service someday. Is it a sin to go to church to be amused?

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

The church of St Mary-le-Strand used to have statues (icons? at any rate I seem to remember a votive stand nearby) of both Charles I and Henrietta Maria.

As a good papist, I trust she would have disapproved.

Archbishop Laud actually dedicated the church of St Katherine Kree in the City of London, and they have a copy of Van Dyck's portrait of him from the Fitzwilliam Cambridge.

I don't really approve of all this monarchist stuff at all.

Posted by jordan32404 (# 15833) on :

I'm a member of SKCM, although I've never been to one of the Masses (it's a shame I couldn't go this year, we had a service at All Saints Cathedral in Albany). Their newsletter is very interesting, although I'm more of a Protestant churchman so I don't go for all the veneration and all but I'm an eccentric Churchman too so I seem to fit in.

Posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop (# 10745) on :

Although not a member of SKCM, I normally go to the commemorative Solemn Eucharist each year on 30 January and this year was no exception. That is to say in the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall, London.

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

Perhaps as a cavalier in most things (though a fairly non-religious one) I ought to join as a sign of recoil and distaste at anything puritanical?

I might find the liturgical stuff rather off-putting though.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

I've always tended to go along with 1066 and All That's assessment of the Cavaliers as Wrong but Romantic, and the Roundheads as Right but Repulsive. But the deification of royalty (especially dead royalty) strikes me as both Wrong and Repulsive.
YMMV.

Posted by LQ (# 11596) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
The church of St Mary-le-Strand used to have statues (icons? at any rate I seem to remember a votive stand nearby) of both Charles I ...

As do we (an icon, that is).

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

Not having attended any such services myself, I can only report from hearsay that the annual commemoration in Whitehall is.....er......interesting - both liturgically (old-fashioned A-C to the Nth degree) and theologically.

IIRC, there are about half-a-dozen churches in the UK dedicated to His Late Majesty. One of them, at least - King Charles, Tunbridge Wells - is not at all extreme. Straightforward MOTR Anglican, with good music, a tiny parish, and yet a fair-sized congregation (Tunbridge Wells is, largely, an Evangelical stronghold!).

Ian J.

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
I've always tended to go along with 1066 and All That's assessment of the Cavaliers as Wrong but Romantic, and the Roundheads as Right but Repulsive. But the deification of royalty (especially dead royalty) strikes me as both Wrong and Repulsive.
YMMV.

Then here we would profoundly disagree. I do possess a bust of Charles I on the stair well that gets a bow from time to time, and the main picture on the dining room is the arrival of Charles II in Dover in 1660 at the end of the repulsive years of tyranny, to celebrate the glorious restoration of the monarchy in that year.

Vivat vivat

Posted by Laud-able (# 9896) on :

A mass for King Charles the Martyr is held each January here in Melbourne.

Both King Charles and Archbishop William Laud, Martyrs, are included in the Calendar for January of A Prayer Book for Australia.

We have a window in our church to Archbishop Laud that includes the text from Revelation 2:10: ‘faithful unto death’.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

Angloid:

quote:
But the deification of royalty (especially dead royalty) strikes me as both Wrong and Repulsive.
YMMV.

(I don't know about deification, except in the Orthodox sense)...but, but... What about Queen Margaret of Scotland? It would be hard to find a kinder, more giving saint than she.

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

There's a rather fine holy picture of the King at All Saints, Ashmont, Boston . In a city so identified with rebellion against royal power it seems rather amusing: evidence of incipient jacobitism? Paul Revere, an agent for the restoration of the Stuart successn, anyone?

Posted by dj_ordinaire (# 4643) on :

I find the whole 'Charles-King-and-Martyr' business very tempting. But I'm not sure I believe it - it would be somewhat akin to canonising Neville Chamberlain, another basically decent man who ended up wreaking catastrophe on the country through his own personal weakness.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

In fairness, Charles by all accounts went to his death with dignity and without bitterness for his enemies, which can be honoured as a Christian act.

I'm in the Wrong but Wromantic camp myself, but for many his death would have seemed the end of a tyranny.

PS Bishop's Finger: those dedications at Tunbridge Wells and Falmouth date from the Restoration. They are not a result of the more recent cult with Anglo Catholic touches, evinced by eg the statue of Charles in the shrine church at Walsingham on the back stairs up to the Orthodox chapel.

[ 11. April 2012, 09:13: Message edited by: venbede ]

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
I've always tended to go along with 1066 and All That's assessment of the Cavaliers as Wrong but Romantic, and the Roundheads as Right but Repulsive. But the deification of royalty (especially dead royalty) strikes me as both Wrong and Repulsive.
YMMV.

Except the Roundheads were clearly wrong when it came to their treatment of the Church. One only needs to flick through a list of their Ordinances (Acts of Parliament without Royal Assent) and purported Acts of Parliament to see quite what a vast proportion of their scheming was against anything (or anyone) that represented catholicity or apostolicity in the Church; it includes such dubious gems as:

List here

Although the full Eikon Basilike treatment may go too far, whilst there are still Nonconformists around doing a whitewash job on the so-called Great Ejection, the 29th of January serves as a useful reminder.

[Edited for copyrighted material.]

[ 11. April 2012, 12:45: Message edited by: Mamacita ]

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Pererin, posting a large chunk of text copied verbatim from another source, even if abridged, is a violation of Commandment 7. In future, please post a link instead.

Mamacita, Eccles Host

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

Maybe there should be a perennial thread for discussions of Chuck, since it comes up more than anything since the ancient subject of *shudder* Gin?

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
Pererin, posting a large chunk of text copied verbatim from another source, even if abridged, is a violation of Commandment 7. In future, please post a link instead.

Mamacita, Eccles Host

Mamacita, I do not believe what I posted to be "illegal material", as it consisted solely of my own selection of the titles of Bills, the complete list of which is a matter of public record (not that citations in themselves are in any meaningful sense copyrightable anyway, else no-one would ever be able to cite anything). Notwithstanding Commandment 5, I find your characterization of it as such verging on offensive. If you meant to say simply that you edited me for length, I would ask you kindly to edit your post to say so and to retract your allegation; otherwise I am going to have to raise this in the Styx.

Posted by Spike (# 36) on :

Hosts do not edit posts to alter the content. If Mamacita wishes to retract a hostly comment, that is her business but she is in no way obliged to. Any further discussion on this matter belongs in The Styx

Spike
SoF Admin

Posted by Vaticanchic (# 13869) on :

Of course, King Charles' eldest son died a RC and his next son is often considered to be of saintly character too, so something must have been going on.

Posted by Vaticanchic (# 13869) on :

James didn't just die an RC but lived one too, to clarify. So, bound to be some interest from a wide religious spectrum.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Nice to see you again, Vaticanchic.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Vaticanchic:
Of course, King Charles' eldest son died a RC and his next son is often considered to be of saintly character too, so something must have been going on.

Who on earth by?

Charles II said of him that he feared that when he came to wear the crown, he'd be obliged to travel again. He was.

He's also reputed to have said, on hearing that James had got Anne Hyde pregnant and was marrying her, that marrying ones mistress was like being sick in ones hat and then putting it on ones head.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

His devotees tend to be tories and BCP types. That's why I have nothing to do with it.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
There's a rather fine holy picture of the King at All Saints, Ashmont, Boston . In a city so identified with rebellion against royal power it seems rather amusing: evidence of incipient jacobitism? Paul Revere, an agent for the restoration of the Stuart successn, anyone?

Later 19th Century Anglo-Catholic romanticism and American-Bostonian elite romantic monarchism. That's all. Little to do with the Congregationalist, Yankee mercantile colonial bourgeois Boston that was a hotbead of revolutionary ferment in the second half of the 18th Century. There's a big historical gap between serious, austere John Adams and the affluent toffs of America's Gilded Age.

Posted by dj_ordinaire (# 4643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Vaticanchic:
Of course, King Charles' eldest son died a RC and his next son is often considered to be of saintly character too, so something must have been going on.
Who on earth by?

Ditto - just to clarify, you are talking about James II yes? I somewhat unfortunate man perhaps but I have never heard him described as being remarkable for his holiness.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Vaticanchic:
Of course, King Charles' eldest son died a RC and his next son is often considered to be of saintly character too, so something must have been going on.

I am not certain who considers James II to be a saintly character, but I am perhaps out of the loop on these matters. I believe that his elder brother Charles II, commenting adversely on the looks of James' mistress, said that she must have been prescribed as a penance by the then-Duke of York's confessor.

Posted by Vaticanchic (# 13869) on :

Ahh how unkind and limited. John Callow writes sympathetically of the King, both at home and in exile. Similar saintly cause to his father. When it became apparent that domestic Stuart succession was extinct, overtures were made to James. He was required to agree to his heir being a Prot. He didn't.

Posted by Vaticanchic (# 13869) on :

And yes - the annoying thing about saintly character is that anyone can attain it (cos that's why we are created) and it's generally not what popular culture thinks it is.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Vaticanchic:
Of course, King Charles' eldest son died a RC and his next son is often considered to be of saintly character too, so something must have been going on.

Of course something was going on, it was all taken care of in the Glorious Revolution. May God bless the memory of Dear King Billy and Queen Mary. [Angel]

Posted by CL (# 16145) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:

quote:
Originally posted by Vaticanchic:
Of course, King Charles' eldest son died a RC and his next son is often considered to be of saintly character too, so something must have been going on.
Of course something was going on, it was all taken care of in the Glorious Revolution. May God bless the memory of Dear King Billy and Queen Mary.

An odd position for a Nonconformist to take. Your lot were persecuted almost as much as RCs under the Penal Laws.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

quote:
Originally posted by CL:

quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:

quote:
Originally posted by Vaticanchic:
Of course, King Charles' eldest son died a RC and his next son is often considered to be of saintly character too, so something must have been going on.
Of course something was going on, it was all taken care of in the Glorious Revolution. May God bless the memory of Dear King Billy and Queen Mary.
An odd position for a Nonconformist to take. Your lot were persecuted almost as much as RCs under the Penal Laws.

If he doesn't mind me speaking for him, SPK is only a Nonconformist in part - and that part is mainly Methodism, which was not around at this time.

The main part of SPK's UCCan ancestry is the Church of Scotland - most definitely not nonconformist, but very much the National Church. And after all the trouble we non-bishop types went through under Charles II and James VII, King Billy's arrival on the scene was greeted with some understandable relief in the lowlands of Scotland. The Stuarts were a pest and a plague to us, and we were loyal to them longer than they deserved.

Ach, you have awoken the Covenanter in me. Tread softly, CL ... [Biased]

[ 11. April 2012, 23:25: Message edited by: Cottontail ]

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

Who you callin' a Nonconformist? The Church of Scotland achieved its final settlement of Presbyterian polity through the Glorious Revolution and the Scottish Episcopalians were ejected.

Down south the Act of Toleration, 1689 did well for most things. In Scotland Anglicans were treated as Nonconformists.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

For Christ's Crown and Convent! [Angel]

Posted by otyetsfoma (# 12898) on :

Scottish Presbyterianism in Canada owes as much to Scottish non-conformity as to the Kirk. My presby ancestor came from the Secession (anti-burgher and auld licht) and thought the CofS minister in Halifax was "just as bad as the CofE". He founded churches throughout northern NS ,PEI and New Brunswick .

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

quote:
Originally posted by otyetsfoma:
Scottish Presbyterianism in Canada owes as much to Scottish non-conformity as to the Kirk. My presby ancestor came from the Secession (anti-burgher and auld licht) and thought the CofS minister in Halifax was "just as bad as the CofE". He founded churches throughout northern NS ,PEI and New Brunswick .

Fair point - although once again, these splits happened quite a few years after the period in question. The Auld Lichters in particular identified strongly with the Covenanters.

Out of interest, the churches your ancestor founded - did they eventually work their way into the UCCan, or are their descendants more identified with the Presbyterian Church in Canada, for example?

quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:For Christ's Crown and Convent!

SPK - ahem! - Covenant! [Big Grin]

Posted by Quam Dilecta (# 12541) on :

In the United States, the Whig version of English history is still so dominant that efforts to include a commemoration of Charles I in the calendar of the Episcopal Church have thus far been unsuccessful. Just as one need not be a monk or a nun to recognize sanctity in the life of a religious, one need be a monarchist to recognize sanctity in the life of a king.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

That CoS minister in Halifax was the minister of St. Matthew's United Church (as it is now), established 1754. It was originally a joint Congregationalist/Presbyterian endeavour too.

It's never that simple with Scots Presbyterians. The Presbyterian Church in Canada brought itself together in 1875. That ended the Great Disruption and in fact every other Disruption in Canada. There was only one Presbyterian Church in Canada from 1875 to 1925. The main components were the Auld Kirk and the Canada Presbyterian Church (=United Frees).

From 1875 to 1925 the PCC built a large number of churches which had no previous identity, in particular everything from Manitoba west.

The Church Union talks started in 1904 and went on hiatus during WWI. The Union question was sent down on Remit twice. 60% voted in favour both times. The Presbyterian Churchmen's Association was the main opposition group, the PCC senior leadership was pro-union.

The final result was that the Presbyterian Church in Canada merged into the United Church in 1925 as an organization but individual congregations could choose to stay out, they were the "Non-concurring Congregations." 70% went in, 30% stayed out. The common denominational property was split by Commission. The final General Assembly in Toronto at Bloor Street Presbyterian Church had an interesting end: 70% stayed seated and adjourned for the Inaugural Service the next day, 30% walked out, went round the corner to College St. Presbyterian Church and resumed as the General Assembly.

The Non-Concurrers fought tooth and nail to recover the title "Presbyterian Church in Canada"; the Supreme Court of Canada deemed that the United Church abandoned the title in 1925 and gave it to them in 1939.

The United Church of Canada's line of moderator terms is unbroken from the Presbyterian Church in Canada's. Very Rev. George Pidgeon served a standard two year term length, one year as PCC Moderator and one year as United Church of Canada Moderator.

We have been in Disruption in Canada since 1925.

Posted by Bran Stark (# 15252) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Quam Dilecta:
In the United States, the Whig version of English history is still so dominant that efforts to include a commemoration of Charles I in the calendar of the Episcopal Church have thus far been unsuccessful. Just as one need not be a monk or a nun to recognize sanctity in the life of a religious, one need be a monarchist to recognize sanctity in the life of a king.

But then why does PECUSA's calendar include Laud? I don't see much of a difference in their ideologies.

On the other side of the Atlantic, I found a proposed revision of the English Prayer Book, the one that eventually became the ill-fated 1928 edition. This earlier draft included the Royal Martyr, but apparently he was too controversial to have in the final proposal.

Posted by SeraphimSarov (# 4335) on :

The Warming Pan Baby (aka King James III) was much more saintly then his father and would have made a much better King if only Anne had seen sense

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Siegfried's comment upthread about the perennial nature of this topic prompted me to take a stroll around Oblivion. There are, in fact, any number of threads dedicated to SCKM stashed away in the Ship's attic. And it's interesting to note that they all tend to end up in similar tangents and polarizations as this thread (although this one has taken on a particularly Presbyterian flavour).

All of that being prelude to this hostly request:

This being Ecclesiantics, can we rein in the tangents and return to a discussion of liturgical observances related to King Charles? Thanks for your cooperation.

Mamacita, Eccles Host

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

Anne's opinion was irrelevant, the Act of Settlement was in force.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
For Christ's Crown and Convent!

You mean Covenant surely rather than Little Gidding?

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Later 19th Century Anglo-Catholic romanticism and American-Bostonian elite romantic monarchism. That's all. Little to do with the Congregationalist, Yankee mercantile colonial bourgeois Boston that was a hotbead of revolutionary ferment in the second half of the 18th Century. There's a big historical gap between serious, austere John Adams and the affluent toffs of America's Gilded Age.

I did know that, LSK,. I was just being mischievous.

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:

quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
For Christ's Crown and Convent!
You mean Covenant surely rather than Little Gidding?

Freudian slip, obviously. [Devil]

Posted by Matariki (# 14380) on :

I find devotion to King Charles eccentric to say the least. Here was a man who sought to cling to power and was unafraid of using violence to do so and who did not shy away from attacking the religious liberty of his non-Anglican subjects. It takes a very great deal to bring out the prickly non-conformist in me but really!!!

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matariki:
I find devotion to King Charles eccentric to say the least. Here was a man who sought to cling to power and was unafraid of using violence to do so and who did not shy away from attacking the religious liberty of his non-Anglican subjects. It takes a very great deal to bring out the prickly non-conformist in me but really!!!

I find devotion to King Charles eccentric to say the least. Here was a man who took so seriously his coronation promises that he was unafraid of facing violence and did not shy away from opposing the religious and civic chaos enjoined upon the people he had sworn to govern even to the loss of his life. It takes a great deal to bring out the prickly defender of the CofE in me but really!!!

Of course, YMMV.

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

Charles I would have been OK if he hadn't lost his head.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

I have occasionally mused on what propers and hymns/worship songs would be used in an emerging church commemoration of the Royal Martyr.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
I have occasionally mused on what propers and hymns/worship songs would be used in an emerging church commemoration of the Royal Martyr.

Crown Him With Many Crowns, nu?

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Charles I would have been OK if he hadn't lost his head.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

"O Sacred Head Sore Wounded", the next clause of which is "O Sacred Head laid down."

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

OK, I think we're done here.

Mamacita, Eccles Host

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