Eikon Basilike
The Eikon Basilike (/ˈaɪ.kɒn bəˈsɪl.ɪ.kiː/ EYE-kon bə-SIL-ih-kee; Greek: Εἰκὼν Βασιλική, translit. Eikṑn Basilikḗ, lit. "Royal Portrait", Greek pronunciation: [iˈkon va.si.liˈci]), The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, is a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England. It was published on 9 February 1649, ten days after the King was beheaded by Parliament in the aftermath of the English Civil War in 1649.
The frontispiece was engraved by William Marshall. Seven versions are known to exist, with minor variations (for example, the angle of the King's head, and thus whether or not his left eye is visible).[4]
The heavily allegorical frontispiece of the Eikon Basilike depicts the King as a Christian martyr. The Latin texts read:
In the first edition, the frontispiece was accompanied by Latin and English verses that explain it. The English verses go:
King Charles venerated by the Church of England[edit]
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 30 January was added to the Book of Common Prayer, directing that the day be observed as an occasion for fasting and repentance. On 19 May 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". The Society of King Charles the Martyr was established in 1894 to work for the restoration of the King's name to the Calendar and to encourage the veneration of the Royal Martyr.
Representation of Charles as martyr in the text[edit]
Richard Helgerson suggests that Eikon Basilike represents the culmination of the representational strategies of Charles' immediate Tudor and Stuart predecessors: the textual absolutism of King James and the "iconic performativity" of Elizabeth.[5][6] In addition to the way it recapitulates previous modes of royal representation, Helgerson notes a certain affinity between the textual aesthetics of the "King's Book" and those of the Counter-Reformation: "Eikon Basilike drew on a set of culturally conditioned responses against which the new culture of print was defining itself, responses that had previously served Elizabeth and Shakespeare and that even then were serving Counter-Reformation Catholicism. This unbookish—indeed anti-bookish—book thus turned print against itself".[7] In Helgerson's view, Eikon Basilike draws upon devotional impulses that both precede and supersede the dominance of the print-obsessed Protestant scripturalism ascendant at the moment of Charles' execution.