Eikon Basilike

The Eikon Basilike (Greek: Εἰκὼν Βασιλική, the "Royal Portrait"), The Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, was a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England. It was published on February 9, 1649, ten days after the King was beheaded by Parliament in the aftermath of the English Civil War in 1649.

Contents and authorship

Written in a simple, moving, and straightforward style in the form of a diary, the book combines irenic prayers urging the forgiveness of Charles's executioners with a justification of royalism and the King's political and military program that led to the Civil War.

It is by no means certain that Charles wrote the book. After the Restoration, John Gauden, bishop of Worcester, claimed to have written it. Scholars continue to disagree about the merits of this claim, though assuming that Gauden wrote it, he had access to Charles's papers when he wrote it. Jeremy Taylor is also said to have had a hand in its revision, and to be the source of its title; an earlier draft bore the name Suspiria Regalia, the "Royal Sighs."

Some later editions of the Eikon Basilike contained a sworn statement by William Levett, Esq., longtime courtier and groom of the bedchamber to the King, that Levett had witnessed Charles writing the text during the time that Levett accompanied him in his imprisonment on the Isle of Wight. A witness to the King's execution, Levett later helped transport the King's body back to Windsor Castle for burial.

Whoever wrote the Eikon Basilike, its author was an effective prose stylist, one who had partaken deeply of the solemn yet simple eloquence of Anglican piety as expressed in Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer. The end result is an image of a steadfast monarch who, while admitting his weaknesses, declares the truth of his religious principles and the purity of his political motives, while trusting in God despite adversity. Charles's chief weakness, it says, was in yielding to Parliament's demands for the head of the Earl of Strafford; for this sin, Charles paid with his throne and his life. Its portrait of Charles as a martyr invited comparison of the King to Jesus.

The pathos of this dramatic presentation made it a master stroke of Royalist propaganda. The book was quite popular despite official disapproval during the Protectorate and the Restoration; it went into 36 editions in 1649 alone. Because of the favourable impression the book made of the King, Parliament commissioned John Milton to write a riposte to it, which he published under the title Eikonoklastes ("The Icon-Breaker") in 1649. Milton's response sought to portray the image of Charles, and the absolute monarchy he aspired to, as idols, claiming a reverence due only to God, and therefore justly overthrown to preserve the law of God. This theological counterattack failed to dislodge the sentimental narrative of the Eikon itself from public esteem.

Its famous frontispiece

The heavily allegorical frontispiece of the Eikon Basilike depicts the King as a Christian martyr. The Latin texts read:

• IMMOTA, TRIVMPHANS — "Unmoved, Triumphant" (scroll around the rock);
• Clarior é tenebris — "Brighter through the darkness" (beam from the clouds);
• CRESCIT SUB PONDERE VIRTVS — "Virtue grows beneath weights" (scroll around the tree);
• Beatam & Æternam — "Blessed and Eternal" (around the heavenly crown marked GLORIA ("Glory")); meant to be contrasted with:
• Splendidam & Gravem — "Splendid and Heavy" (around the Crown of England, removed from the King's head and lying on the ground), with the motto Vanitas ("vanity"); and
• Asperam & Levem — "Bitter and Light", the martyr's crown of thorns held by Charles; contains the motto Gratia ("grace");
• Coeli Specto — "I look to Heaven";
• IN VERBO TVO SPES MEA — "In Thy Word is My Hope";
• Christi Tracto — "I entreat Christ" or "By the word of Christ";
• Mundi Calco — "I tread on the world".

The frontispiece was engraved by William Marshall. In the first edition, the frontispiece was accompanied by Latin and English verses that explain it. The English verses go:

Tho' clogg'd with weighs of miseries

Palm-like Depress'd, I higher rise

And as th'unmoved Rock outbraues

The boist'rous Windes and raging waues

So triumph I. And shine more bright

In sad Affliction's darksom night.

That Splendid, but yet toilsom Crown

Regardlessly I trample down.

With joie I take this Crown of thorn

Though sharp, yet easie to be born.

That heavn'nlie Crown, already mine

I view with eies of Faith diuine.

I slight vain things, and do embrace

Glorie, the just reward of Grace.

King Charles venerated by the Church of England

The Eikon Basilike and its portrait of Charles's execution as a martyrdom were so successful that, at the Restoration, a special commemoration of the King on January 30 was added to the Book of Common Prayer, directing that the day be observed as an occasion for fasting and repentance. On May 19, 1660, the Convocation of Canterbury and York canonised King Charles at the urging of Charles II, and added his name to the prayer book. Charles I is the only saint formally canonised by the Church of England.

The commemoration was removed from the prayer book by Queen Victoria in 1859. Several Anglican churches and chapels are dedicated to "King Charles the Martyr." The Society of King Charles the Martyr was established in 1894 to work for the restoration of the King's name to the Calendar and to encourage the veneration of the Royal Martyr.

Quotation

I would rather choose to wear a crown of thorns with my Saviour, than to exchange that of gold, which is due to me, for one of lead, whose embased flexibleness shall be forced to bend and comply to the various and oft contrary dictates of any factions, when instead of reason and public concernments they obtrude nothing but what makes for the interest of parties, and flows from the partialities of private wills and passions. I know no resolutions more worthy a Christian king, than to prefer his conscience before his kingdoms.

References

External links

• The Eikon Basilike
• The Society of King Charles the Martyr, dedicated to the commemoration of Charles I as a martyr for the Church of England.
• Selections and summary of Milton's Eikonoklastes.
• Eikon Basilike at Literary Encyclopedia