Carolus Stuardus by Gryphius: He compared the first Charles to Jesus

2023-05-05 12:06:06

literature execution of a king

This German compared the first Charles to Jesus

Status: 12:06 p.m | Reading time: 3 minutes

Andreas Gryphius, actually Andreas Greif (1616-1664)

Credit: pa/imageBROKER/Dr. Wilfried Bahnmuller

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King Charles is the third bearer of this name on the British throne. A cruel fate befell the first. Immediately afterwards Andreas Gryphius wrote a drama about it. A mistake that Charles I. made, Charles III. do not repeat.

KKing Charles is the third bearer of that name to the British throne. The first two followed one another as Charles I and Charles II in the 17th century – with a very significant pause in between when England was a republic under Oliver Cromwell. It is probably no coincidence that for centuries after that no heir to the throne was baptized with the name Karl/Charles. For Charles the Father was sentenced to death and beheaded in 1649 by Cromwell’s revolutionaries for high treason. Before that, he had alienated parliament and the lower nobility through his fanatical belief in his divine right, through blackmail, breaching treaties and making deals with enemies.

The process was unique at the time and excited all of Europe. It was 140 years before anything comparable happened in France. To date, the French, considered potentially fatal to any king, do not have a higher rate of reigning monarchs beheaded than the British. Add in the death of Mary Stuart, albeit beheaded by a rival queen, and statistically it has been far more dangerous to sit on the British throne than on the French.

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Mary Stuart, Charles I’s grandmother, appears as a ghost in the tragedy Murdered Majesty or Carolus Stuardus; König von Groß Britanien”, which Andreas Gryphius, the most important German baroque poet, wrote in 1649/1650 immediately after he had heard about the events from newspapers. In 1663 he revised the piece again; meanwhile Gryphius had studied more than 20 books. It’s not the only German drama about the case, but Karl Stuart, written by Marieluise Fleißer during World War II, was only performed in 2009 and cannot claim the status of a classic.

In Gryphius’ second version in particular, the executed king is portrayed as a Christ-like martyr figure. In the fifth “treatise” (act), where he speaks most, Karl speaks directly to God. The people, whom the real Karl did not see as a worthy dialogue partner, do not appear here. This is how Gryphius, of all people, who was horrified at the death of the monarch, unintentionally explains his political failure. The comet-like, world-historically incomparable figure of Karl’s opponent Oliver Cromwell, who invokes “God’s ax”, is more convincing. But maybe that’s just the democratically tinged view of us later-born almost 400 years later.

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Charles III did two things. and Carolus Stuardus in common: They both have to deal with a crisis of legitimacy of kingship, and they are both highly religious. Today, however, Charles is not so stubborn as to rely solely on his divine right, but tries to win the goodwill of the masses with pomp and PR. Even if that doesn’t work, the guillotine doesn’t threaten him.