After reading these different texts, I didn’t have an answer to whether or not Charles should have been executed. What I took away from this was not the right or wrong or even why but the historical context that he was executed. King Charles should have been executed from the side of the parliament because in their eyes he was a tyrant and challenged their power. Had King Charles cooperated with them, his death could have been avoided. However, I believe that in the Position of Charles, he did the correct thing by continuing to preserve the monarchy as well as he could. He was a martyr and royalists rallied behind his cause.
The entire concept is interesting when it comes to the divine right vs the law of the land. When the people of the land demand one thing and the king who claims to be the chosen of God has another idea in mind there is bound to be conflict. It’s especially interesting when one the monarch truly believes he is doing the work of god because morally there is no correct side.
I believe that the king must do anything and everything he can to maintain the monarchy and the inheritance of god and I believe that the people must dispose of a tyrant in order to enact the law of the land. A king cannot be allowed to be above the law or else the effectiveness and legitimacy of the parliament are void.
I definitely agree about the importance of the historical context. For example, when Charles I got some Scots to invade for him, isn’t successful conquest acceptable for kingship? Therefore, the only reason that was a ‘bad’ thing was because he lost. I am also curious about how divine right ties into tyranny, because if a king does something in the name of God, is that truly for himself and therefore tyrannical, or something different?