Ruling WITHOUT ROYALTY

Part One On January 4, 1642 King Charles I took his armed guards and burst into the chamber of the House of Commons. Amid the sudden alarm at such a breach of etiquette, he strode to the Speaker’s chair and demanded the surrender of five members of parliament. But Charles was too late. The men, noted thorns in the royal side, had already fled and the humiliated King could do no more than ruefully mutter: “All my birds have flown.”

Within eight months of this extraordinary scene that revealed Charles for the tyrant he had become, he raised his Royal Standard at Nottingham: King and Parliament were at war. The ensuing strife