Oxford and Charles, King and Martyr

I will get it out of the way that, although I venerate Edward the Confessor and Henry VI, I am not a devotee of Charles I.  I will leave it at that out of consideration for a number of my Anglo-Catholic friends and because my opinion on his worthiness is not that important anyway.

At the same time, one of the venerable charms of Oxford is its devotion to Charles I.  Statues and portraits of him are all over the University on college quads, in libraries, in dining halls, in chapels, and more.  And that although he “borrowed” most of the colleges’ silver plate to mint coins!  There is even a window in a college chapel in which the face of Jesus looks suspiciously like Charles.

It is as if Oxford, which was Charles’ de facto capital during the Civil War, never really fully recognized his defeat in said war.  It is a perpetual, very civilized rebellion of the elite, a refusal to give in to defeat along with a willingness to forgive Charles’ errors, even the silver.  As far as the University of Oxford is concerned, Charles I remains and always will be their king.

And in case one thinks I am waxing a bit much about an unwillingness to bother to take down statues and portraits no one cares about anymore, I urge such impious skeptics to repent and get thee to Pusey House tomorrow at 6:30pm for a High Mass for “Charles, King and Martyr.”  See for yourself Oxonian devotion to His Sacred Majesty, King Charles the First, of Glorious Memory.