"The British Josiah": the blood of the Royal Martyr and the restoration of the Laudian vision

On this 30th January, we turn to a 1660 sermon delivered on the anniversary of the day - as its title states - "on which that Sacred Martyr, King Charles the First was murdered". The preacher was John King, who, as Dean of Tuam (the office to which he was appointed in 1638), ministered to and served the interests of King Charles II in exile. (He is found in Bosher's 'A List of Clergy in Exile'.) From January 1660, it was increasingly evident that opinion in the political nation was moving in the direction of the restoration of the monarchy. That said (as Henry Reece has superbly explored in his The Fall: Last Days of the English Republic), restoration was by no means a foregone conclusion during the days of January 1660. The ending of King's sermon certainly speaks of uncertainty, albeit with a recognition that, unlike even as late as 1659, restoration was now a realistic possibility:

The Lord in mercy look upon us, and wipe away these tears from our eyes, and their causes, our sins from our souls; and since the bloud of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church, in mercy unto his Church restore the seed of his Martyr King Charles the First unto the Government of these Kingdoms, that Religion, Peace and Liberty may be restored unto us: I conclude these ours, as the Prophet doth his Lamentations, Turn thou unto us, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our dayes as of old, if thou hast not utterly dejected us.

Looking back to 30th January 1649, King lamented the fall of Church and Kingdom, when "the British Josiah, King Charles" was "taken from us":

let England, let Scotland, let Ireland, let every of them Remember (as Jerusalem did) in the dayes of her afflictions and her miseries, the pleasant things that she had in the dayes of old. All the pleasant things they had in the blessed dayes of King Charles his blessed Reign, the glory and truth of her Religion, the just execution of her Laws, her peace, her riches, her plenty, her liberty at home, and her protection and honour abroad ... The Kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed that the Adversary and Enemy should have entred into the Gates of (our) Jerusalem, London, that Churches should be turned into stables, Gods Houses made Courts of Guards, the Royall Palaces made Garrisons, the Tythes (the portion of Gods Ministers) made the Souldiers salary, that the Law should be turned into wormwood, our Religion and Liberty measured out unto us by the Pikes length, the decisions of the Sword become the Principles of Faith ...

Here, then, was a Laudian vision, of "the British Josiah" restoring the temple in the 1630s, governing wisely, securing the peace and welfare of the realm and its Church. Then came the dark days, when "Churches should be turned into stables", and the pike and sword determined the realm's religion. Against those days of the 1640s and 50s, King invoked the Laudian vision of Church and King. In particular, he pointed in robust Laudian fashion to the necessity of ceremonies, of outward forms, of "railes" (a term which almost certainly was also intended to recall altar rails) so that Church and Realm might be rightly ordered: 

Thus we see the many sacred Impressions of Divine Jurisdiction imposed by God himself on Kings through holy Unction, whereby his Dominion over Mankind, is delegated unto Kings, the Lords Anointed; God by this Symbole, and outward signe agreeable and connaturall unto man, consigning the ordinary exercise of his Government over Mankind unto them; so that the holy Oyle thus employed is no longer bare and common Oyle, but the gift of Grace; which (however vilified by Enthusiastiques and Solifidians) betokens the Grace of Christ unto Kings; and prescribe necessary submission and duty unto their Subjects: We are not (whatever phantastique men may presume) so spirituall in this life, but that we stand in need of outward representations to carry on our faith and hope unto things spirituall, the greatest favours unto lapsed mankind are the Sacraments, where the visible and corporeall Elements are the meanes to convey by faith spirituall graces and the whole benefit of Christs sufferings unto us: the sublimated and metaphysicall Professours of our times endeavour too irreverent a close with Almighty God, they will have no King but Christ, no Unction but that of the Spirit, which is not that sober & peaceable Spirit that leadeth into all truth, but the Spirit of giddinesse; Elihu's spirit, the spirit of their belly which leadeth into all errour, Carnal interests constraining them to shake off Gods Government in Princes; to effect which, the most compendious way is, to throw all Ceremony (which is unto Religion as the Scaberd unto the Sword, to preserve it from the rust of contempt,) (as Saint Augustine speaks.) The sacred regards of Unction, of King, of Priest, of Prophet, of Churches, of Tythes, stand betwixt them and their sacrilegious ends, they must be removed, no railes or bounds must be set unto them, they will up into the Mount and run the hazard if not of temporall flames, yet certainly (without hearty repentance) of the Everlasting burnings: These men who will be solely swayed by the guidance of their own spirit, (which being as various as the severall tempers of the Continents it inhabits) will make Religion full of uncertainties, meerly imaginary and wholly depending upon the doubtfull Insufficiencies of mens weak Conceptions, so that hereby, the essentiall truths of Religion must needs daily decay, the substance thereof be reduced into the smoake of every mans unbounded Fancy.

Remove these "raills" and the Three Kingdoms were deprived of that which sustained religion, prey to the machinations of Enthusiasts and "Enthusiastiques" and "metaphysicall Professours", with their "giddy preachments, and undigested, swelling, and tedious prayers", "reduced all Religion unto lip-worship, and canting Scriptures". By contrast the "raills" spoke of a Church of England embedded in society and culture, through rites and ceremonies, common prayer and episcopacy, securing a broad-based national Church, contrasting with the concerns and obsessions of "Enthusiastiques and Solifidians".

What was to be done to restore this vision of the British Josiah? King invoked both Israel's Josiah - who "setled the Church, restored Religion, encouraged the Priests, judiciously ordered the whole service of Gods houses" - and the first anointed Christian emperor, Constantine:

Socrates tells us, that after the Emperours became Christians, matters of the Church wholly depended upon them, and that it was by their summons and pleasures that the greatest Counsels were called, and therefore Constantine the Great would usually say unto the Bishops, Vos intra, ego extra Ecclesiam Episcopus à Deo sum constitutus, ye are Bishops within the Church, and without the Church I am a Bishop appointed by God; he was Communis Episcopus, the common and ecumenicall Bishop in his Empire.

Restoration of the Laudian vision, the Church of "the British Josiah", required the Restoration of the monarchy. With Charles II's restored to the throne in May 1660, the Laudian vision emerged from the long, bitter years of exile. John Morrill notes that, even before Charles' return to England, "there was a spontaneity and responsiveness in the restoration of the old Church in most areas". The memory of the Royal Martyr was a significant factor in affirming this ecclesiastical vision. As Jeremy Taylor had said of the Church of England, "a King died in the profession of her Religion". What came to pass on Saint Bartholomew's Day 1662 was the conformity and order which Charles I and his Archbishop had sought to uphold. Eamon Duffy has described the 1662 settlement as "the secure replanting of the Laudian ideal". This replanting was the fruit of the blood of the Royal Martyr, our Josiah.