Lacey, Andrew 1960-

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Lacey, Andrew 1960-

PERSONAL:

Born November 19, 1960. Education: University of Leicester, doctorate, 1999.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Cambridge and Special Collections Library, Leicester University, England. E-mail—acl28@cam.ac.uk; andrew@andrewlacey.co.uk.

CAREER:

Librarian, educator, and writer. Began working as a professional librarian in colleges and university in 1988; Cambridge University, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, England, college librarian, 1994-2005, senior library assistant and member of faculty of architecture and history of art.

WRITINGS:

The Cult of King Charles the Martyr, Boydell Press (Rochester, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andrew Lacey, a college librarian since 1988, also pursues academic interests focusing on the English Civil War and seventeenth century, the relationship between art and power, and twentieth-century history. In 1999, he was awarded a doctorate by the University of Leicester for research on the cult of King Charles I. This doctoral thesis work has since been published as The Cult of King Charles the Martyr.

Called an "exhaustive analysis of the voluminous printed literature" by Journal of Ecclesiastical History contributor S.J. Connolly, The Cult of King Charles the Martyr deals primarily with the cult surrounding King Charles I and the political theology underpinning the cult. "Andrew Lacey's subject is one that historians might have thought had been explored but that has, in fact, been almost entirely neglected," wrote Kevin Sharpe in the Journal of Modern History. "It is the story of the formation of an image of King Charles I and the performances of that image in the political culture and contests of England for over a century and a half."

Charles I was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625 until his execution in 1649. An advocate of the divine right of kings, Charles found himself in a battle for power with the Parliament of England. With a reign plagued by numerous problems, from a fear of the citizenry that he was trying to gain absolute power, as evidenced by his levying taxes without Parliamentary consent, to religious and economic conflict, Charles eventually led England into the Bishops' Wars, leading to a weakening of the English government and ultimately his own downfall. The end of his reign included the English Civil War, in which members of the Parliament organized a concerted effort to stop Charles's efforts to gain total power. Defeated in this war and a subsequent civil war, Charles was captured, tried, and executed for high treason on January 20, 1649.

In his book, Lacey traces how the cult arose around King Charles the Martyr, as he came to be known. Lacey describes how the cult's component parts first developed during Charles's captivity and then gained momentum with the publication of Eikon Basilike in early 1649, which established an image of Charles as a suffering but innocent king who walked in the footsteps of Jesus to his own Calvary at Whitehall, where he was executed. "Even before his death, Charles's powers in touching to heal the ‘King's Evil’ were becoming something close to magical," noted S.J. Wiseman in the American Historical Review. "Objects handled by the king or, after his death, imbued with his blood were, in certain circles, found to effect miracle cures." Writing in Albion, Charles Carlton noted the author's "thorough scholarship, leaving no stone unturned" in his telling of the creation of the cult. The reviewer went on to note that the author then begins to focus on a puzzling aspect of the cult. Carlton wrote that Lacey "asks the key question. How did such a failure, a ruler whose incompetence and duplicity brought about two bloody civil wars in which he was decisively defeated, a man who was unpopular for most of his life, become the only English king since the Reformation to be canonized?"

In addition to describing what led to the cult's creation, Lacey goes on to detail how the figure of the martyr, and the beliefs surrounding him, contributed to the survival of the royalty and Anglicanism. Following the Restoration, the cult gained official status via the annexing of the Office for the 30th of January in the Book of Common Prayer. The author also explores political and theological factions within the cult in terms of the context of changing political and dynastic circumstance. The story ends in 1859, when the Office for the 30th of January is removed from the Book of Common Prayer.

Tony Claydon, writing in the English Historical Review, referred to The Cult of King Charles the Martyr as an "intelligent, fascinating and cogent study that … provokes far-reaching reflection." In a review on the Institute of Historical Research Web site, Laura Lunger Knoppers wrote: "Andrew Lacey tells—persuasively, clearly, and thoughtfully—the story of the conservative martyr. But he also gestures toward an alternative story of the power of print, propaganda, and political debate in an emergent public sphere."