The Eikon Basilike reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Eikon Basilike

The Eikon Basilike (Greek: the "Royal Portrait"), The Pourctraiture of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, was a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England. It was published on February 9, 1649, ten days after the King was beheaded by Parliament in the aftermath of the English Civil War in 1649.

Written in a simple, moving, and straightforward style in the form of a diary, the book combines irenic prayers urging the forgiveness of Charles's executioners with a justification of royalism and the King's political and military program that led to the Civil War.

It is by no means certain that Charles wrote the book. After the Restoration, John Gauden, bishop of Worcester, claimed to have written it. Scholars continue to disagree about the merits of this claim.

Whoever wrote it, the work was a master stroke of Royalist propaganda. Because of the favourable impression the book made of the King, Parliament commissioned John Milton to write a riposte to it, which he published under the title Eikonoklastes (The Iconoclast) in 1649.

The heavily allegorical frontispiece of the Eikon Basilike, depicting the King as a Christian martyr. The Latin texts read:

• IMMOTA, TRIVMPHANS — "Unmoved, Triumphant" (scroll around the rock)
• Clarior é tenebris — "Brighter through the darkness" (beam from the clouds)
• CRESCIT SUB PONDERE VIRTVS — "Virtue grows beneath weights" (scroll around the tree)
• Beatam & Æternam — "Blessed and Eternal" (around the heavenly crown marked GLORIA ("Glory"); meant to be contrasted with:
• Splendidam & Gravem — "Splendid and Heavy" (around the Crown of England, removed from the King's head and lying on the ground); and
• Asperam & Levem — "Bitter and Light", the martyr's crown of thorns held by Charles
• Coeli Specto — "I look to Heaven"
• IN VERBO TVA SPES MEA — "In Thy Word is My Hope"
• Christi Tracto — "I entreat Christ" or "By the word of Christ"
• Mundi Calco — "I tread on the world"

The frontispiece was engraved by William Marshall. In the first edition, the frontispiece was accompanied by Latin and English verses that explain it. The English verses go:

''Tho' clogg'd with weighs of miseries

''Palm-like Depress'd, I higher rise

''And as th'unmoved Rock outbraues

''The boist'rous Windes and raging waues

''So triumph I. And shine more bright

''In sad Affliction's darksom night.

''That Splendid, but yet toilsom Crown

''Regardlessly I trample down.

''With joie I take this Crown of thorn

''Though sharp, yet easie to be born.

''That heavn'nlie Crown, already mine

''I view with eies of Faith diuine.

''I slight vain things, and do embrace

Glorie, the just reward of Grace.

The Eikon Basilike and its portrait of Charles's execution as a martyrdom were so successful that, at the Restoration, a special commemoration of the King on January 30 was added to the Book of Common Prayer, directing that the day be observed as an occasion for fasting and repentance. On May 19, 1660, the Convocation of Canterbury and York canonised King Charles at the urging of Charles II, and added his name to the prayer book. Charles I is the only saint formally canonised by the Church of England.

The commemoration was removed from the prayer book by Queen Victoria in 1859. Several Anglican churches and chapels are dedicated to "King Charles the Martyr."

External links

• The Eikon Basilike
• The Society of King Charles the Martyr, dedicated to the commemoration of Charles I as a martyr for the Church of England.

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