With Roman Catholics, in contrast, gaining the upper hand in Europe, the stage was set for both religious and civil wars in Scotland, Ireland, and England… the end results unthinkable, regicide and the assumed end of the English monarchy. Unfortunately for him, his family, closest advisors, and those loyal to his perceived ultimate authority, Calvinist Protestants were gaining support and power, and with them the notion of a representative governmental rule. An obsessive patron of Arts with the world’s most expansive collection of portraiture, Charles I, was a staunch believer of both clerical authority and the divine right of kings. “The White King” Charles Stuart I was like his father King James Stuart I/VI and Queen Elizabeth Tudor before him, a High Church Anglican and supreme monarchist. Charles I the victim of regicide, his wife and children the victims of pervasive religious persecution, and their subjects the victims of religious and governmental infighting culminating in both religious and civil wars, the release date could not be more fitting. Whether knowing or unknowing, publisher Hachette Book Group chose this date to release Leanda de Lisle’s brilliant new biography The White King – Charles I, Traitor, Murderer, Martyr.

As historian Diarmaid MacCulloch will teach us here at the website tomorrow, Martin Luther had no idea the religious tug-of-war he was about to unleash - nor the theological debate among Evangelicals, Lutherans, Roman Catholics and later varying Protestant denominations - as well as the ultimate literal fight for survival between Evangelicals, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics that would unfold. October 31, 2017, marks the 500th anniversary of a momentous day in World History, the day an Augustinian friar got the notion to post his 95 Theses to the door of the Whittenburg Castle Church.

The White King by Leanda de Lisle