King Charles the Martyr

King Charles the Martyr, or Charles, King and Martyr, is a title of Charles I, who was King of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland from 1625 until his execution on 30 January 1649. The title was used by high church Anglicans who regarded Charles' execution as a martyrdom. His feast day in the Anglican calendar is 30 January, the anniversary of his execution in 1649. The cult of Charles the Martyr was popular with Tories. The observance was one of several "state services" removed in 1859 from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England and the Church of Ireland. There remain some churches and parishes dedicated to Charles the Martyr, and his cult is maintained by some Anglo-Catholic societies, including the Society of King Charles the Martyr founded in 1894.

Charles I, head of the House of Stuart, was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his death on 30 January 1649. He believed in a sacramental version of the Church of England, called High Anglicanism, with a theology based upon Arminianism, a belief shared by his main political advisor, Archbishop William Laud. Laud was appointed by Charles as the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633 and started a series of reforms in the Church to make it more ceremonial. This was actively hostile to the Reformist tendencies of many of his English and Scottish subjects. He rejected the Calvinism of the Presbyterians, insisted on an episcopal (hierarchical) form of church government as opposed to presbyterian or congregational forms, and required that the Church of England's liturgy be celebrated with all of the ceremony and vestments called for by the Book of Common Prayer. Many of his subjects thought these policies brought the Church of England too close to Roman Catholicism. The Parliament of England objected both to Charles' religious policies and to his Personal Rule from 1629 to 1640, during which he never summoned Parliament. These disputes led to the English Civil Wars.