Holy Despot

Regarding the personal character of Charles, it is difficult to get at contemporary accounts that are at the same time free from initial prejudice and robust enough to bear reading. One thing is certain, that Milton's portrait in "Eikonoklastes" is much more life-like than the other-worldly saint pictured in the forged "Eikon Basilike." and also more probable when compared with the facts of history. Why, pray, was the Petition of Right necessary? And the revolt of the Covenanters? What about "divine right"? It is to be remembered that while the popular, but less organised forces of Levellers and Diggers, opposed Charles' execution, they were emphatically not monarchists.

A most impassioned apology for Charles was made in the (C. of E.) Cathedral in Auckland on the tercentenary of his decapitation, by Rev. D. S. Millar. He claimed that the decapitated was a martyr for "the preservation of the ancient polity and pattern of worship of the C of E., i.e., of the episcopacy, that hierarchical organisation which the Anglican Church, alone of English Protestant Churches, has inherited from the feudal Church of Rome. If that was his cause, then I think he comes nearer to an "enemy of the people" than a democratic martyr.