The Interregnum is airbrushed as a mere gap between two kings, but we were among the first in Europe to scrap the monarchy.

England makes much of its monarchy as a symbol of continuity. It is part of this country’s identity and sense of distinctiveness, particularly now that it is one of the few remaining monarchies in Europe. Yet it is worth remembering that in the mid-17th century it was, for 11 years, one of the few republics in Europe, blazing a trail that shocked many contemporaries on the Continent. In January 1649, the monarch was put on trial and publicly executed, and shortly afterwards the monarchy itself was abolished and England was declared a republic. How did these extraordinary events come about?

Back in the summer of 1642, when England descended into civil war, such an outcome would have seemed inconceivable. Parliament had taken up arms against Charles I not with a view to deposing him, let alone establishing a republic, but because they felt that he had been “seduced by evil counsellors” who were encouraging him to establish “popery and arbitrary power”. In such a national emergency, the Houses of Parliament argued that they could exercise royal authority on his behalf, “after a more eminent and obligatory manner than it can be by personal act or resolution of his own”. Drawing on the medieval idea of the monarch’s two bodies, they claimed to be fighting to protect the royal office from the person of Charles I.

But as the war dragged on, it seemed to a growing minority, especially among the leaders of parliament’s army, that the King was himself to blame for causing the conflict and then, following his defeat, for the failure to find a settlement. In the spring of 1648, the army officers held a prayer meeting at which they resolved “to bring Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for the blood that he had caused to be shed”. A few months later, they urged parliament to bring Charles Stuart, “the capital and grand author of all our troubles”, to justice. Finally, when the House of Commons persisted in trying to negotiate a settlement with the King, the army intervened and purged the Commons of all but a radical minority.

This army coup, known as Pride’s Purge after the officer who led it, paved the way for the revolutionary events that followed. On 4 January 1649, the purged ‘Rump’ of the Commons, now comprising fewer than a hundred members, declared itself sovereign by passing the following resolutions: “the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, being chosen by and representing the people, have the supreme power in this nation; and […] that whatsoever is enacted and declared for law by the Commons in Parliament assembled has the force of law […] although the consent and concurrence of the King and House of Lords be not had thereunto”. They then used this authority to establish a special High Court to try the King.

Charles I’s trial lasted just one week. He refused to enter a plea, claiming that the court had no authority in law to judge him. On 27 January, the court passed sentence: “Charles Stuart is guilty of levying war against the said Parliament and people, and maintaining and continuing the same, for which in the said charge he stands accused.” The sentence concluded: “For all which treasons and crimes, this Court doth adjudge that he, the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor and murderer, and public enemy to the good people of this nation, shall be put to death by the severing of his head from his body.”

The next day, 59 members of the court – fewer than half of those who had been appointed to it – signed the King’s death warrant. This was very much the act of a determined minority rather than a popular rebellion. On 30 January, Charles was led to a specially constructed scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. He made a dignified speech in which he claimed to be “the martyr of the people”; then the axe fell, and the executioner lifted up Charles’s head, shouting to the crowd to “behold the head of a traitor”.

A few weeks later, the Rump parliament passed acts abolishing the House of Lords and the monarchy. The act abolishing the office of king on 17 March 1649 declared that “it is and hath been found by experience, that the office of a King in this nation [is] unnecessary, burdensome and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the people, and that for the most part, use hath been made of the regal power and prerogative to oppress and enslave the subject”. It was “therefore enacted and ordained” that “the office of a King in this nation shall not henceforth reside in or be exercised by any one single person”. On 19 May, England was declared “a Commonwealth and Free State” in which “supreme authority” now lay with “the representatives of the people in Parliament […] and that without any King or House of Lords”. In January 1650, all adult males were required to undertake an ‘engagement’ declaring that they would be “true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established”.

For 11 years, until 1660, England remained a republic. In that year, however, the monarchy was restored, and Charles II was recognised as having already been king ever since his father’s execution. Acts of parliament were dated as if Charles II had been on the throne since 1649: constitutionally the 11 years of republican rule were simply airbrushed out, and the monarchy has remained with us ever since. The period 1649-60 became known as the Interregnum – between kings – as if to emphasise that it was an aberration. Yet, whether one regards those years positively or negatively, they are worth remembering for they saw a series of unparalleled events: the trial and public execution of the monarch, the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, and the creation of a republic in this country for the first and so far only time in its history.