Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England episode 379, The King's Party.

Now I have to admit, last week was a driven indulgence and I am sitting here wearing white

and carrying the candle of contrition. I am heartily sorry. I just have a bit of a patch

for the protestation, such an extraordinary thing, nation building, attempt to build a

sense of unity. This week though, we're going to see that while the protestation was hugely

successful at engaging communities in a shared desire for unity and peace. In practice,

the battle lines now were becoming more clearly drawn and therefore much harder to bridge.

So this time we're going to hear how Charles began to build an opposition to the Junto

in Parliament. Now I remember when I was a lad, we went to the seaside on holiday and

we went to a tidal estuary. There was lots of sand and there was lots of mud, to be honest,

a lot of mud. Anyway, there was this exciting uncertain time at the top of the flood tide

when the waters in the river became uncertain. Lots of eddies and ripples one way then the

other. The river was no longer sure whether it was coming or going in flood or in

ebb. The turning of the tide as it were and that's what's happening now politically in England.

The current no longer quite knows which way it's going. Surely some thought. Surely the

flood had gone on long enough now. Now it was time to stop.

And Charles, to give the lad his due, was wise to this. He knew this was an opportunity to

build a party. Build it and they will come, said Charles, thereby sparking an idea for

a film in a few hundred years time. The idea of achieving consensus and unity in Parliament

that was gone now, that was dead. Charles would rather eat his liver than deal with strafford's

murderers and the architects of his shame. They must be politically defeated and then when

defeated politically crushed and punished. To do that there must be a royalist party to

...