Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2009/January 2010 | Página 52

life

ISLAND HISTORY

Photo: The building where Charles was initially housed

A Merry Christmas?
In December 1647, His Majesty King
Charles Ist spent Christmas at Carisbrooke
Castle. If this conjures up an image of
tables groaning with food, halls decked
with ivy and mead flowing like a drain then think again for as far as celebration
went Christmas was cancelled.
After nearly five years of civil war the
King had lost but he was not ready to give
up the struggle. His arrival on the Island
was greeted with a mixture of shock and
disbelief. Sir John Oglander, a devout
royalist who lived at Nunwell House could
only see the net closing around him but it
was Colonel Robert Hammond, the newly
appointed governor who suffered the
52

Article by Jan Toms
severest blow.
From the outbreak of civil war Hammond
fought fearlessly for the Parliament.
Twice he was wounded and once he was
court-martialled for killing a fellow officer
although he was acquitted. Battle-weary
and increasingly disillusioned, in 1647
he asked to be released from his military
command. Both Parliament and army
agreed that he should be rewarded and
on September 13th he arrived at Cowes to
take up his new appointment. In modern
parlance, as post traumatic stress set in he
was due a period of rest and recuperation.

As Christmas approached, Charles
considered three options that might
get him back into his palace in
Whitehall. He could negotiate with the
Puritan Parliament, the still influential
Presbyterian Scots, or the ever more
radical army.
While he laid his plans Charles graciously
accepted Robert Hammond’s hospitality,
enjoying trips out to hunt or to visit
friends. Soon after his arrival he went to
Nunwell House to spend the day with Sir
John Oglander. On one occasion he rode
as far as the Needles and took a meal
with the Urrys of Thorley. At Bonchurch,
coming across a funeral cortege he