WI Charles I lives/reforms?

[trekchu]

A friend of mine and myself have been discussing a few things and what came up was that he asked me "What if Charles I hadn't been beheaded or if the Civil War would have been prevented somehow?" (Not his exact words but the gist of it).

Now, what I know about the English Civil War is limited at best, only that the only thing that ever came close to a British Republic mad followed and that the Coldstream Guards are direct descendants of the New Model Army. Can someone else answer this?

 

[Cymraeg]

The problem is that Charles was, to put it politely, a total nipple. He was a firm believer in his father's professed theory of the Divine Right of Kings (it's possible however that James's belief in this was more political than integral) and what was worse had proven himself to be totally untrustworthy. After he was captured Parliament tried to work out some kind of deal with him, but then they discovered that Charles was in secret correspondence with the Scots to try and gain their support. They couldn't trust him so they executed him for high treason (making him guilty, strictly speaking, of crimes against himself).
Best way to prevent the Civil War is to have a brick fall on his head when he was a sickly child and kill him. That or have him killed at the same time that Buckingham was assassinated.

 

[Erebus]

Charles really dosnt have much chance to do anything in late 1648, he's proved to be utterly untrustworthy to just about every faction in play. I think that the best thing that could have happened (For England and the Monarachy if not Charles) would have been Charles's death in battle by a stray bullet or something. Charles can be played off as a matyr and Charles II gets a blank slate. The King is dead so Parliament really have no cause to distress over, they really have very little choice other than to make nice with Charles II, probably in their best behaviour over one of their stray bullets killing the King. Regency issues butterfly though.
Charles's death as a child or pre-consumation of his marriage however leads to the reign of an Elizabeth II in the 1600's