Noble Blood - The Desperate Young King Charles II

Episode Date: July 23, 2019

By the time he was 17, Charles II was a prince in exile. When his father, the King of England, was beheaded, the country became a protectorate without a monarch. But Charles was willing to sacrifice whatever (and whoever) it took to win his crown back. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Aaron Menke. Listener discretion advised. In 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson visited the battlefield at Fort Royal Hill in Worcester, England. Adams was the ambassador to Great Britain. Jefferson was negotiating trade deals with Europe, and the two were political rivals, but they had traveled together in order to see the place

where the royalists had been utterly defeated by Oliver Cromwell and his army over two centuries prior. Adams and Jefferson found the place deeply moving. After all, like Oliver Cromwell, the pair had firsthand experience in waging war to overthrow a monarch. But to the shock and shame of the future presidents, Worcester locals seemed to barely note or care at all that they live near the historic battle site. And so John Adams delivered what he called an impromptu lecture to the townspeople.

Do Englishmen so soon forget the ground where liberty was fought for? Tell your neighbors and your children that this is holy ground, much holier than that on which your churches stand. All England should come in pilgrimage to this hill once a year. To Adams and Jefferson, Worcester represented the place where liberty-loving Englishmen had risen up to conquer a despotic would-be king. But less than a decade after the battle, England had welcomed Charles II back to their shores with open arms, parades, and celebration. He was a homecoming son, the merry monarch who became synonymous with indulging in women and debauchery. Those familiar with Charles II tend to imagine.

him after the restoration of the monarchy, as king in a flowing curly wig and surrounded by a fleet of spaniels. But just after the Battle of Worcester, he was a man on the run. Hair cut short and ill-fitting shoes, always just an inch ahead of certain death at the hands of parliamentary soldiers searching for him. Charles would spend his young life doing whatever it took to win his crown back and avenge his father's execution. even if it meant sacrificing religion, friends, safety, and dignity. How much would he be willing to give up in order to win back his birth rate? For Charles II, if it meant being king, the answer was everything. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

If Charles II's father, Charles I believed in one thing, it was the divine right of kings to rule. Charles the first lived and breathed the notion that being king meant power bestowed upon him by God. After all, wasn't it God who made him king in the first place? And that belief was one he instilled in his young son from the very beginning. Remember, son, you were chosen by God to rule

and your will is God's will. That was the constant refrain for young Charles, Second in his father's court. That and don't become a Catholic like your mother. Charles II's mother, Henrietta Maria France, had only been given permission by the Pope to marry the Anglican King Charles I if she promised to be a force for Catholicism in Europe. Most of Charles II's childhood was idyllic, cushioned by the luxury of courts, even if that luxury demanded certain restrictions and ritual. For 11 years, his father ruled singularly, until his taxes and continual dismissal of Parliament ignited a rebellion. The parliamentarians, led by Oliver Cromwell,

rose up in civil war against King Charles I, who they accused of tyranny and treason. Even though he was only 14 at the time, Charles II joined his father in the battles of the first English Civil War. Members of the army noticed the young prince's bravery, the boy who was already so tall with the striking dark complexion of his French Italian mother. He stayed with his father on the front lines of battle, on warships refusing to retreat to the safety of below deck, fighting a more and more perilous war against Oliver Cromwell's new model army. Until finally, everyone knew that the cause was lost, and the prince would need to leave the country for his own safety. The prince's mother, the queen, had already left, sobbing and calling out for her husband

until her boat disappeared beneath the horizon. Charles II younger sister and brother were left behind, separated and hidden. But as heir to the throne, Charles II represented a massive threat to the new republic that the parliamentarians were building. His freedom, his freedom meant royalists could still rally behind him, and so they needed him dead. Young Charles II's exile began in Jersey, an island off the coast of France, where his host attempted to maintain

the royal pomp and ceremony that the young prince had been accustomed to, back when he was the heir to a throne that still existed. Charles II would sit alone at elaborate banquet tables every night for dinner. Kneeling squires would offer each dish, one at a time, while another servant carved a portion of the food to serve for the prince, and a third on a bended knee offered a silver bowl for him to rinse his hands.

A cupbearer poured his wine, always tasting at first to check for poison, and lifted a silver basin under the prince's chin while he drank, so a drop would never fall and soil his fine royal clothes. It was empty, pathetic pageantry. Charles II was a prince without a nation, a teenage exile surrounded by hollow ritual that no longer had any meaning. He had servants, but no power. After Jersey, his exile brought him to Sicily and finally to France, where he was able to join his mother. In France, the prince who had battled on warships alongside his father's army was treated like a child.

His only income was pocket money given to him by his mother. Although later in life Charles II would be famous for his lascivious flirtations and many mistresses. As a young man, he was gawky and awkward, especially compared to the sophistication of the French court. There was a princess there at court, Madame de Montpensier, titled and fabulously wealthy. In short, she would be a strategic match, and the two were sat next to each other at a feast to see if Charles might be able to woo her. Later, Madame de Montpensier would recount the evening back to her friends who shrieked in laughter. The prince humiliated himself, and Madame de Montpensier was humiliated for him.

He sat next to her, so paralyzed with fear, that he didn't utter a single word for 15 minutes. Not long after that banquet, Charles II left France to stay with his elder sister and her husband in the Netherlands, hoping that the Dutch might be more willing than the French to help his father in the fight still raging in England. But it was too late. The former King Charles I was defeated by the parliamentarians and brought into custody awaiting trial. It would be a trial for treason and the penalty was death.

Charles II went to extraordinary lengths to try to protect his father, engaging in every flavor of diplomacy. Begging, forging new allies, offering ransoms, writing to the new parliamentarian government, and all but begging for his father's life. Finally, he made the ultimate concession. Charles II sent the new English government a blank sheet of parchment with his signature at the bottom. A literal carte blanche, a moral blank check.

It said, I will agree to anything to save my father. Cromwell and his government ignored it. On an icy day at the end of January, the former King Charles I was brought to the scaffolding for his execution. He put on two shirts before he left his prison cell, so people wouldn't see him shivering in the cold and think that he was afraid. Even as he walked the steps to his death, Charles I never denounced his faith or his belief in the divine right of kings.

In his final words, Charles I addressed the large crowd that had assembled to bear witness to the regicide. He called himself a martyr of the people, and one final time, he proclaimed his innocence. But the crowd was held too far away, and Charles I was blocked by a wall of parliamentary guards. The king's final address to his people went entirely unheard. Charles I lowered his head onto the block and apologized for his long hand. in case it made the executioner's job more difficult. He gathered it beneath a silk cap. Then, finally, for the first and only time in British history,

the executioner brought his blade down on the neck of a monarch. When the executioner held up the head to the crowd, he was expecting cheers. The crowd only gasped. It was very, very quiet. It said when Charles, the Second heard of his father's execution. He fell to the floor and screamed in agony.

If Charles II was going to win back the English throne, he needed an army, and his best hope was Scotland. Though the deeply pious Presbyterian Scotland had nominally declared Charles II as king, they refused to let him enter the country unless he pledged to accept Presbyterianism and spread the faith across Britain, when he had once again become king.

That would mean Charles II formally renouncing the faith of his Anglican father and the faith of his Catholic mother. He needed to negotiate. Fortunately for Charles II, he had a brilliant bargaining chip, the spectacular General Montrose

who had fought valiantly for Charles I and won several spectacular, surprising victories for the royal forces. Montrose was loyal to Charles II and readily, agreed when Charles II asked him to invade Scotland with a small force to attempt to raise the Highland clans in order to challenge the Scottish government on his behalf. But as Montrose fought, Charles privately continued his negotiations with the Scottish government

until he finally agreed to the terms of the Scottish nobles. Charles wrote a letter to Montrose, telling him that he was making him a knight of the garter, the most prestigious order of chivalry that can be granted by. by a monarch. It was as good as a kiss of death. While Montrose was still battling on his behalf, Charles secretly signed a treaty with the very people against whom Montrose was fighting. Montrose was captured, dragged through the streets, and hangs like a common criminal, not even receiving a nobleman's death of beheading with an axe. Charles II gave up Montrose, his father's finest general and a military hero, but he got his alliance with Scotland.

After agreeing to uphold Presbyterianism, Charles II entered Scotland as their king. He and his men made their way from the coast into Edinburgh, passing through the north gates into the city. What's that, Charles asked, looking up an irregular shape on the gate. It was twisted and blackened, pecked up by birds and run through with a large nail.

one of the Scottish guards answered him. It was one of Montrose's arms, hung up on the city gate as a warning and deterrent to others. Charles was silent the rest of the ride. Even though he was technically king in Scotland, having signed the Presbyterian covenant meant that that crown was almost more symbolic than anything. It had about the same power as a crown made a foil or a Burger King paper crown a few hundred years too early. See, while his father had a foundational faith in the divine right of kings to rule as granted by God himself, the Presbyterian Scots saw a king as more of a magistrate than anything else.

Charles was a king again, but with no real kingliness. In Scotland, the king was a man just like anyone else, and, like other men, Charles II was required to obey the strict protocols of the religion. He was forbidden from walking about on Sundays. and forced to sit through six hours of Sunday sermons. With the covenant, Charles had signed away his religion and his divine power, but at least he had an army willing to go up against Oliver Cromwell in England. And on September 3, 1650, they got their chance.

Cromwell and his men had advanced in a preemptive strike towards Edinburgh when they met with the Scottish forces in the Battle of Dunbar. The Scots massively outnumbered the Englishmen, and they also occupied the high ground, leaving the English soldiers trapped between a hill and the North Sea. All the Scottish Army needed to do was wait them out, but the Scottish General believed that England was already fatally weakened, and so Scotland charged. Cromwell watched with amazement,

The Lord hath delivered them into our hands, he said. It was a decisive. victory for England that put the entirety of Southern Scotland under their control and left Scotland completely humiliated. Needing a scapegoat for the victory, they forced their king, Charles II, to publicly declare that the outcome of the battle was God's punishment for the sins of his parents and his entire family. What could the young king do but agree?

He was a king in name only, a puppet for the Scottish Presbyterian covenaners. And so Charles II swallowed his pride and did as they asked. Now Charles II's path for winning back the English throne would require him doing it on English soil. And so he and a small army of Scottish men and the English royalists he could gather along the way went down south to make their final stand against Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester. This time it was the English who had the advantage of numbers. Nearly 30,000 men, the largest army ever assembled on British soil and double what Charles had been able to gather.

Cromwell had predicted the movements of Charles and his armies and made a strategic decision to delay the charge three days so it would occur on September 3, 1651, exactly one year to the day after he had beat Scotland in the ground in the Battle of Dunbar. Worcester was an instant massacre for, Charles II and his army. Three thousand of his men were killed, and another ten thousand were captured, deported off

to work as indentured servants or worse. As Charles and his close cadre of men rode away from the battle site, the king kept stopping his horse. His father had taught him to always fight on the front lines. We have to go back, Charles II said. We have to keep fighting. His men looked at one another, but only for a split second. That was it, one of his men.

finally said, the battle is over. The parliamentarians needed Charles dead. Even though the parliamentarians had won a decisive military victory, there were still those loyal to Charles, and as long as he lived, he was still a symbolic threat to the new republic. Almost no one in Charles' army had escaped from Worcester. Cromwell's men had cast a wide net around the battle, and they assumed that the king,

who had been on the front lines leading, his army for most of the fight would be among the many dead bodies left when the fighting was over. But by some miracle, a brilliant stroke of luck, Charles had escaped. And so the would-be king spent the next six weeks weaving through the English countryside in an increasingly perilous series of near captures, trying to make it to safety while the parliamentarian guards searched for him. Escape was a risky and dangerous prospect. The king was six-fetched. The king was six-farlest, at a time when the height of the average Englishman was closer to five foot six, and he had an astonishing price on his head, a thousand pounds.

He had a few allies, a small network of England's secret Catholics, but anyone he meant could betray him, and would certainly be tortured as to his whereabouts if soldiers discovered that they had been associated. Among that Catholic network were five brothers with a surname Pendrell who sought as a mission from God to protect their king, against the enemy of Cromwell's Protestantism. One of the brothers, Richard, cut the king's hair

so that it was short on top and long at the side in the style of a common laborer. Charles was trained in the local dialect and given workmen's clothes and shoes. For King Charles II, who had up until that point only ever worn the finest footwear, the rough shoes left his feet bleeding and blistered.

Thanks to his height, none of the shoes the pendrils had on hand, would fit him, and so Charles was forced to slice open the sides of a pair of shoes several sizes too small. Charles would go days without sleep, making escapes in the middle of the night to estates where he might be welcomed and smuggled in. Charles was hidden inside secret priestholes, where Catholics hid priests to keep them safe from forced conversions after the religion had been outlawed. A captain, of all things, William Careless, had been one of the final royal soldiers to make it out of Worcester alive. He and Charles had made it to the Boscabel Estates, where the Pendrel brothers were caretakers, only to hear of an approaching battalion of Puritan guards.

Careless knew that if he brought the king inside, no matter how well hidden the house's priest's holes were, eventually the soldiers would find him. And so, at Careless's suggestion, William Pendrell brought out a ladder. Careless and the king climbed high into an oak tree dense with leaves and stayed there for an entire day while a troop of Cromwell's guards marched beneath them, searching the countryside for a king who, at that very moment, was a dozen feet above their heads. The king was asleep in the branches when a pair of guards sat at the base of the tree, taking a break from their search to clear the rubble from their shoes. Careless was awake and came to a terrible realization.

His leg was asleep. And Charles was lying on his leg. If the sleeping Charles didn't move, careless's numb leg would cause them both to tumble from their perch directly onto the guards below. And so, covering Charles' mouth so he wouldn't yell, careless pinched him, and then pinched him again.

Mercifully, Charles woke up and quietly shifted his weight, and the two remained safely hidden in their perch until the guards moved on. After the king successfully evaded troops at Boscabel, two of the Pendrell brothers went with him to the estate of Mosley Old Hall, the home of a man named Thomas Whitegrave. There, Charles II was given his first proper bed to sleep in

since he had escaped from the Battle of Worcester. A family priest was also there, a man by the name of Father John Huddleston, who bathed and bandaged the king's torn and bloody feet. Charles had been shown so much generosity and loyalty by Father Huddleston and by all of the Catholic Englishmen who had aided him along in his escape, that Charles pledged then and there

that should he become King of England again, he would once again grant Catholics' religious freedom. If it pleases God I come to my crown, he told Father Huddleston, both you and all your persuasion shall have as much liberty as any of my subjects. Charles stayed relatively comfortably at Mosley-Old Hall for two days until parliamentary troops arrived on the afternoon of the third day. Charles and Father Huddleston were quickly hidden in a priesthole, but the troops tortured and interrogated their host, Thomas Whitegrave,

convinced that he had fought with Charles at Wooster, even though the truth was that he hadn't. Eventually, after hours of interrogation, the troops left, but the forces of danger were only closing in on Charles faster. The Pendrell's brother-in-law had already been captured by English forces, interrogated, tortured, and hanged. But the entire time, he had refused to give Charles up. For the final leg of his journey, Charles rode with a woman named Jane Lane, who had received a permit from the military to travel to Bristol with one of her servants in order to visit a family member. If he made it to Bristol, Charles could find a boat to take him to France. And so he adopted the alias William Jackson and rode on Jane's horse with her, maintaining the charade that he was her

servant to anyone they meant. When the two stopped at an estate for lodging, Charles as William Jackson was sent to the kitchens to work as any servant would have been. He was assigned to to wind up the jack that would be used to roast meat in a fireplace. But Charles, having been royalty his entire life, had no idea how to do it. The cook was immediately suspicious. What kind of servant are you who doesn't know how to work a jack? he spat. Charles thought quickly and came up with an excuse. His family was so poor, he said, that they so rarely ate meat

that he had no experience with roasting it. The cook was satisfied. The entire escape lasted six weeks, and when Charles finally made it to Bristol, he was able to smuggle his way onto a French merchant ship and make his way to safety, right under the noses of the parliamentary guards. It was the most heroic experience Charles II would have for the next decade.

He was safe while he was abroad, but he was also politically impotent, relegated to attempting to beg for treaties with princes from surrounding countries who had little to know in terms. in his plight. But then something happened. A little less than 10 years later, Oliver Cromwell died

on the exact anniversary of the battles of Dunbar and Worcester. Cromwell's son, Richard, was milk-toast and passive, and with no strong leader to take over, parliamentarians recognized that the country was on the verge of civil war. To stave off anarchy, the leaders of the government

had secretly written to Charles the Senate, who had been living in the Spanish Netherlands. Charles II agreed to their terms of forgiveness and leniency for those who had fought him, with the exception of those who had committed regicide against his father. And so in 1660, Charles II was welcomed back to England. He hadn't won the crown, really. This was, if anything, a victory of wading and circumstance. But it didn't matter.

Even if it was a role stripped of its power, Even if he was a symbol, even if he was a puppet, none of it mattered. He was finally the king of England. Charles would spend much of his later life recounting the story of those six weeks he had spent on the run to rapt audiences. It had been the only time in his life where he interacted with common people and lived by his wits, completely free of palace ritual and formality. They were weeks of piracy and adventure, of death-defying odds and close calls that became. the more often the stories were told.

Charles II would be an indulged king, famous for his feasts and mistresses, known for his flamboyant fashions and general hedonism. And though he was a king, Parliament still retained much of the power that they had had in the interregnum. When Charles attempted to pass a rule permitting Catholic worship,

as he had promised his loyal supporters who had risked their lives to aid in his escape, Parliament instantly forced him to withdraw. Charles capitulated. There was nothing he could do or nothing he would be willing to do if it meant risking his position, the throne for which he had sacrificed so much to gain. When Charles was on his deathbed,

suffering from organ failure and internal bleeding that even the most dedicated blood-letting efforts of the royal physicians couldn't cure, his brother James came to comfort him. Though Charles had over a dozen illegitimate children, He had none by his wife, and so James would be next in line for the throne. James brought his dying brother a priest. Sire, he said, this good man once saved your life.

He now comes to save your soul. It was Father John Huddleston, the very man who had once bandaged Charles' feet when he was escaping from English soldiers so long ago. Though King Charles had outwardly portrayed himself as loyal to the Church of England for his entire adult life, he had secretly been Catholic, devoted to the faith of his mother and of the people who had shown such courage in helping him escape. Before Charles II died, Father Huddleston performed the right to formally receive him into the Catholic Church. Charles was finally free to be loyal to his true beliefs when he had nothing left to lose. That might be where

Charles died, but there's still a little more to the story. Stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear more about Charles II and his legacy. Everyone, I'm Ago Wodam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever.

I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved.

And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes. other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change.

We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the I-Heart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1619, astronomer Edmund Haley of Haley's Comet Fame named a new constellation in the southern skies. With 12 stars, Haley drew a mighty tree with far-extending roots and a thick, leafy canopy. He called his new constellation, Robert Carolina, Charles's Oak. But this new constellation overlapped heavily with the constellation Argonavis. the great ship. And as astronomers mapped the stars of the area in the years to come,

they largely forgot or ignored Robert Carolina, such that now the constellation is considered obsolete. But just because it's no longer marked in the stars doesn't mean that Charles's tree is forgotten. To this day, the Royal Oak remains a popular name for establishments frequented by the labors the king had once spent time with. English. Pubs. Noble Blood is a co-production of IHeart Radio and Aaron Mankey. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Blood Tales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Everyone, I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.

Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot in luck. Yeah. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

Guaranteed human.