Original subtitles

(clamouring)

- This is unheard of.

It's the first and only time in British history

that a reigning monarch has been executed.

- (crowd yelling)

- This was the lawful execution of a war criminal,

a last resort to save countless lives.

- They have murdered a king, but that king has a son...

and his name is also Charles.

- Long live the King.

FIENNES: This is Charles Stuart.

He's lost his country, his crown, and now his father.

Isolated in exile, he writes a vow.

'We are firmly resolved to chase...

pursue, kill, and destroy

those bloody traitors who committed our dear father's murder.'

This is the story of how a King's desire for revenge

pushes his country to the brink.

- It's 1660.

England's emerging from a long, puritan winter.

It's been 11 years since the regicides killed Charles,

and Oliver Cromwell declared England a republic.

When Parliament tried to reign in Charles I's power,

the King declared war.

And Oliver Cromwell led a parliamentary army against him.

Defeated in the civil war,

Charles was executed.

But by 1658,

England under Cromwell is a military dictatorship...

..with high taxes...

..and oppressive religious laws.

Until, suddenly, Cromwell dies.

And a power vacuum opens up.

Now England's people are longing for a change.

But who will give it to them?

Now eyes turn to Holland,

where a young Prince is living in exile...

the 29-year-old son of Charles I.

- Charles Stuart. Well, the last decade's been a bit of a blur:

drinking, gambling, whores. Is he happy?

He'd rather be king, but it passes the time...

..while the bastards who murdered his father are ruling England.

- But news has just arrived from London

that turns everything on its head.

The republican parliament is offering a deal.

Charles can come back to England as king...

as long as he agrees to be under their control, unlike his father.

Suddenly, the return that seemed impossible...

seems possible.

- Did you ever think it wouldn't happen?

That we wouldn't go back to England?

- Meet James, Duke of York: Charles's brother.

He's a loose cannon, but he's the only one to stick with Charles

while everyone else left him for dead.

He's the only man Charles trusts.

- No, never. JAMES: Liar.

I know you too well.

- Oh, you don't know me at all.

I always knew I'd come back.

JAMES: Yeah, but Parliament invited you.

- Parliament didn't invite me, James.

God did.

The one true Christian God,

who ordained me as his representative on Earth.

- Well, to God...

and to King Charles.

(laughs)

- Look, to understand Charles, you've got to first understand

what it is to be king.

Like his father and grandfather before him,

Charles believes he was literally appointed by God

to rule England.

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth...

..Charles never had to wipe his own arse.

This magnificent ceiling by Rubens

was commissioned by Charles's father in 1629

to glorify the House of Stuart.

There's an infant Charles II...

receiving the crown from his grandfather, James I.

Ever since he was born,

Charles has been the future of the Stuart dynasty.

You've got God up here, then the king, then the peasants.

And it worked perfectly well for centuries...

..until Cromwell turned up with his merry band of murderous killjoys.

Charles loved his father.

More than anything, he wants to kill the regicides:

the 59 men who signed his father's death warrant. But first...

..he needs to get his throne back.

- But Charles's return to the throne isn't a done deal.

First, he must reassure Parliament that his desire for revenge

won't plunge the country into another bloody civil war.

That's where this guy comes in:

Edward Hyde, chief advisor to Charles.

Hyde is determined that Charles won't repeat

the mistakes of his father.

- England's not the country you remember, Your Majesty.

- Is it not still a damp shithole filled with hypocrites?

-There's a popular belief that... (clears throat)

..all men are created equal.

- Even a king? HYDE: I'm afraid so.

- Even the cunts who killed my father?

- Especially them.

- Charles has dazzling charisma,

but like all the Stuarts, he's prone to arrogance and recklessness.

Hyde must find a compromise to suit both sides.

It's a big ask.

- You must banish...

all memories of your father.

Show them that a king can be moderate.

That a king can exist within a republic.

- And a king...

can kill as many people as he so fucking wishes.

- Seven people.

- Seven. - Seven.

- Seven.

- Why seven? Well, ten seems too many.

Five, not enough.

Hyde calculates that executing seven people

is enough to make Charles appear strong

without antagonising everyone who opposes his return.

- Don't underestimate Charles. Yes, he's untested.

But he's also smart and self-aware.

Desperate as he is to see regicide heads on spikes,

Charles knows he must be the politician his father never was.

- So, Charles orders Hyde to come up with this...

..the Declaration of Breda.

Out of the dozens of men who killed Charles I,

it sanctions the execution of only seven.

And what's more, the list will be determined not by Charles himself...

..but by Parliament.

- Parliament will take the heat, and Charles will...

rise above the fray.

ATIM: The task of drawing up the list of seven falls to this man,

the Tower of London's record keeper, William Prynne.

William Prynne's a royalist fanatic,

who spent a decade in the political wilderness.

His face bears the scars of his uncompromising beliefs.

But Prynne has a major problem:

the death warrant has vanished, and without it,

Prynne has no hard evidence

to convict the regicides he so fervently hates.

PRYNNE: Out of my way!

- (laughter)

- Brother Prynne.

How long has it... been?

- And there's no-one he hates more than this guy.

- Edmund Ludlow, triple threat.

A brilliant military general who led the feared New Model Army.

A skilful politician...

- And a traitorous bastard who signed the king's death warrant.

- Is he tough? Absolutely.

Violent?

Yes.

And right now, he's the biggest threat to Charles.

If anyone opposed the return of the King,

Ludlow is the man they'd rally round.

- Remind me what the letters stand for. Stupid layabout?

- Shit licker.

- (laughter)

- Seditious libel.

You see, in his youth, Prynne did something foolish.

He declared that women who perform on stage

are no different from prostitutes...

on the very day the Queen made her stage debut.

Charles I had Prynne's ears sliced off

and letters carved into his cheeks.

Despite this, Prynne's monarchism hasn't dimmed...

it's turbo-charged.

- In anticipation of the King's God-ordained return...

- He returns...

at the pleasure of Parliament.

- I am taking the names...

of the regicides who killed his father.

ATIM: Prynne knows that many of the men who killed the King

now sit in parliament,

and he knows Edmund Ludlow is top of the list.

- You know who you are.

ATIM: Prynne just needs to prove it.

HARRIS: Ludlow knows that the clock is now ticking.

- (door opens, closes)

HARRIS: Charles has set sail to return to England...

..and it's only a matter of time before the death warrant is found.

HARRIS: Ludlow's options are narrowing by the day.

He can feel the republic he dedicated his life to

crumbling around him.

Run and hide, then? Well, he'd rather die.

No.

He must wait to see if the King will work with Parliament,

as he's promised. Maybe, just maybe...

there's a chance he could work with Charles.

(scoffs) Would you trust him?

A Man With A Perm

ATIM: After almost 14 years as a fugitive,

and on his 30th birthday,

Charles Stuart finally arrives back on English soil.

- Charles returns to the country that hounded him out.

He has no idea which of these men murdered his father.

In a sea of bowed heads and shit-eating grins,

who can he trust?

And a dulcet home

Stomp all over you

- Welcome, Your Majesty.

- This book's caused me enough trouble, don't you think, Prynne?

(chuckles) - (men laugh)

PRYNNE: Oh, Your Majesty, how we've missed you.

We could have done with a few of your jokes these... past years.

- Remember, these are men who, only months ago,

would have slit Charles's throat to claim a reward.

- You're welcome. It seems I should never have left.

- (laughter)

Now, remind me, which of you cunts killed my father?

Was it you?

Hm?

Was it you?

Was it you?!

I can forgive almost anybody...

..except for my horse who threw me off yesterday.

I'm gonna have that fucker killed, and then I'm gonna fucking eat him!

- (laughter)

- Good day.

- How to be a king. There's no handbook.

Inspire a bit of fear, project a bit of majesty. Basically...

..keep them on their toes.

As Charles settles in to his London life as King-in-waiting,

his constant companion is his new mistress,

much to the disgust of his spurned brother, James.

- (laughter)

- You're gonna kill seven people?

What about the rest of them? Make them fucking Dukes?

- It's politics, James. Even if I explained, you wouldn't get it.

- Oh, it's got to you.

- I want their heads on spikes as much as you do, brother.

- Oh, in London, we're so over heads on spikes.

(chuckles)

- This is Barbara Villiers, Charles's new mistress.

She's worked her way into his inner circle, sensing an opportunity.

Barbara is already married,

but she's symptomatic of this new world

where you can be anything you want.

- Barbara? Well, she's a lot of fun.

But what he really likes is that she doesn't try to bullshit him.

He knows exactly what she wants.

They're cut from the same cloth.

- Your greatest danger isn't the regicides,

and tired old men like Hyde.

It's the pretenders and sycophants...

..when any one of them could have had a hand in father's murder.

- No-one lost more than I did.

- (scoffs) I lost my father. - Well, so did I.

- Barbara's father was killed in the civil war,

leaving his family destitute.

This opportunity feels as personal for Barbara as it does for Charles.

She knows Charles doesn't trust anyone,

and that's a problem.

If she can help him navigate London society,

she thinks she'll be rewarded.

- One whiff of power, and you're here like a rat.

- Charles knows of my ambitions.

I've made no secret of them.

- The Declaration of Breda.

More like the Declaration of fucking Barbara!

- James, um... how to put this.

He's not a man of intellect.

He's a man of action. He sees the world in black and white.

He wants Charles to go on a killing spree to intimidate his enemies.

Luckily, Charles has more self-control than his brother.

He hasn't forgotten about revenge...

but he knows he needs to play Hyde's game.

- With the King back on English soil,

Prynne's hunt for the seven leading regicides,

and the royal death warrant,

goes into overdrive.

Royalist agents search every record office...

noble house and library in England for the death warrant.

Royalist MPs take over Parliament...

and order all those who assisted

in the horrid and detestable murder of Charles I

to hand themselves in.

For the hunted men, it's a classic Catch-22,

stay and risk arrest,

or flee and move to the top of the list.

- Edmund.

Edmund, will you listen to me?

- You think Ludlow's formidable?

Meet his wife, Elizabeth.

She's a fierce political operator in her own right.

Elizabeth can see straight through Charles's promises of forgiveness.

She knows there won't just be seven.

She also knows her husband's too pig-headed to see he's in danger.

ELIZABETH: You lost your command, Edmund.

They stripped you of your seat.

You think they won't find a way to destroy you?

- It is up to Parliament to decide which men to indict.

- Even if your name's not on the list,

do you think William Prynne will settle for killing only seven men?

You signed the death warrant.

EDMUND: And I will never apologise for it.

- Let's hope anyone who still has a copy has the sense to destroy it.

- You have to remember Ludlow's fighting for an idea:

that a king has to be accountable to Parliament.

And with the army and the country's purse strings

still in Parliament's control,

the King will have his hands tied.

- Charles Stuart needs independent-minded men like me

to curb his worst excesses, not weak-minded, feminine men

who flee at the first sign of trouble.

- Every idea you have had in your life

has you at the heart of it, right until they execute you.

And then you'll be no use to anyone.

- With rumours swirling about the existence of the warrant,

everyone's trying to avoid being identified

as one of the seven ringleaders.

Well... almost everyone.

- Yes, I killed the King...

but anyone who comes for me

will have the Lord Jesus Christ to contend with!

He takes no fucking prisoners!

- Meet Thomas Harrison.

While most regicides are terrified

of being implicated in the execution of the King,

Harrison is shouting it from the rooftops.

- According to the word of Christ,

according... according as it is written.

- Like Ludlow, Harrison signed the death warrant,

but there the similarities end.

Harrison's a Fifth Monarchist, an extremist.

He believes the execution of King Charles I

has paved the way for the apocalypse.

- For he shall reign!

HARRIS: Harrison has no fear of death: in fact, he craves it.

You see, the sooner he is martyred

the sooner he can return to Earth

as a soldier in Jesus's army of the Second Coming.

Wait on the Lord,

be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thy soul.

Wait on the Lord. SOLDIER: Thomas Harrison!

- What took you so long, gentlemen?

SOLDIER: We believe you sat in judgement on King Charles.

- Sat in judgement? SOLDIER: Do you deny it?

- I pressed for his trial.

I took personal charge of getting him there.

I attended every fucking session.

(chuckles)

If you've got a list...

I'm top of it.

- Is he deranged? Probably.

Fanatical? Definitely.

But remember, he's far from alone.

This is a time of deep superstition.

Angels and devils walk the Earth.

Innocent women are burned as witches.

SOLDIER: Expect no mercy.

- No, brother, no.

No, it is you...

who will receive no mercy.

- Bastard regicide.

ATIM: Harrison's the first of the seven king-killers to be secured.

Charles has the first regicide on his kill list.

Narrowing down the others is no easy task.

- A regicide behind bars. Feels great.

One down, six to go.

HARRIS: Harrison's arrest sends a shockwave through the republicans.

Of the 59 who signed the death warrant,

many now go into hiding in England.

Others flee across the Channel...

..and some to the puritan colonies of the new world.

These are good men...

whose only crime was loving their country.

- (crowd clamouring)

ATIM: And with his enemies on the run,

Charles builds public support.

He orders theatre, live music and folk celebrations,

all banned under Cromwell, to begin again.

England under the new King will be one long party.

- Ludlow knows star quality when he sees it.

Unlike his father, Charles can work a crowd,

and this poses a huge dilemma for Ludlow.

You see, he fought a war for the right of people

to choose how they're governed, so if they want a King...

this King...

well, then, he has a stark choice.

Stay and hand himself in,

or run away and leave his beloved England.

- (banging at door)

- I'm looking for your husband.

- Anyone who's lived under the tyrant's boot

knows this is how it starts.

No warning, no summons,

just the dreaded knock at the door at the dead of night.

- Well, let me know when you find him. I've hardly seen him.

- I hear you've been sticking your nose into political affairs.

- You are mistaken. Politics is no sphere for a wife.

- If you were my wife,

I'd have no choice but to... punish you.

But I never had a wife...

good... or bad.

- It is a perpetual source of shame to my sex...

..that you did not.

- (floor creaks)

ELIZABETH: Rats. We're overrun with them.

- Or a priest hole. - (Elizabeth chuckles)

Edmund's many things, but he's neither a Catholic nor a priest.

- Parliament's already agreed to execute seven men for regicide.

It's not nearly enough.

I have three times as many names.

- You have found the warrant?

- It is a matter of time.

One way or another...

..your husband will be on the list...

..sweet lady.

- Ludlow's a soldier: running away from a fight

goes against every fibre in his being.

But... well, there's a fine line between being brave...

and being reckless.

Ludlow makes his decision.

He's going on the run.

Smart boy.

FIENNES: It's been six weeks since Charles Stuart returned to England,

and as royalist agents search for his father's death warrant,

Charles enjoys the perks of being King.

- Charles has an emptiness at his heart,

which he tries to fill with hedonistic excess.

- Emptiness? Charles is loving this.

He spent ten years as a nobody. Give me a break.

By any standards, he's a handsome guy.

But as a King...

he's a fucking rock star.

Women are throwing themselves at him. Get over it.

- (moaning)

Alright, mate?

- Whores and knaves, the lot of them.

- (chuckles) They're the cream of London society.

Your willing servants, eager to do your bidding.

- They'll chop your balls off.

- Oh, they'll do more than that.

- James hates Barbara's influence on Charles.

He's convinced she's blunting his desire for revenge.

- You might have him fooled...

but not me.

- (laughs)

ATIM: Barbara wants revenge.

But she wants money and power even more.

She might be playing the accommodating woman,

but don't be fooled.

Barbara is on the make.

Enabling Charles's worst excesses is how she controls him.

- You know the bastard regicides are walking round free men.

Everyone knows who they are... apart from you, apparently.

- Fuck you.

- James doesn't see why there needs to be a death warrant

to start convicting regicides, and he's convinced the delay

is sending a dangerous signal to their enemies.

- (chuckles) What's happened to you, Charles?

- I became King!

JAMES: The people don't fear you.

They pity you.

Everyone says the same thing.

Charlie's cunt-struck.

- Fuck you.

- (grunting)

- (grunts)

(panting)

- James can provoke his brother better than anyone,

and what he wants is to get Charles to take control

of the hunt for the regicides.

Why exactly did Charles let Hyde talk him into

Parliament choosing the names? Fuck Hyde.

There's one thing Charles really can't tolerate...

..feeling powerless.

- (inhales)

- Your Majesty.

CHARLES: Where's my fucking list, Prynne?

Dithering little prick!

Find me...

the seven most guilty.

PRYNNE: With the right evidence, we can kill far more than seven men.

But we do need evidence.

- The evidence he needs is the death warrant.

Sure, they could kill seven people now,

but if they can prove who signed it,

they could kill many more.

- You'll find, compared with me, my father was a fucking pussycat.

At least he left you with a face.

Hm? (chuckles) Sort of.

- (door closes)

ATIM: The King wants results, and fast,

so Prynne ramps up the hunt,

tearing apart the homes of suspected regicides,

whipping up fear and paranoia.

Until, finally...

- (door opens, footsteps approach)

- My lord. PRYNNE: Not now.

- There's something you should see.

PRYNNE: What is it, my dear?

- Within my husband's desk.

PRYNNE: Thomas Hacker.

- Isabelle Hacker's married to a prominent republican officer,

and she's found what everyone's been looking for.

- His name is not listed.

This proves he cannot be your regicide.

- (laughs)

- Oh, my dear lady.

It's addressed to your husband.

He's guilty as fucking Judas. (chuckles)

(laughs)

- (gasps)

- At the eleventh hour, Prynne has struck gold.

There are 59 names on the warrant,

more than anyone expected.

And anyone who's on it... had better find a good place to hide.

- Here it is.

The smoking gun.

Each of these signatures is unequivocal evidence

of a King's murder in cold blood.

- Again with the cold blood. This was a war crimes trial.

These men set an historic precedent in a court of law:

tyrants must be held to account.

- Murdering bastards.

I want them all, Hyde.

FIENNES: This is the moment.

Seeing these names...

how many of them there are, what king, what man...

wouldn't want to subject them to the most excruciating deaths imaginable?

Now all he has to do is find and kill them.

- I want them all.

FIENNES: In August 1660,

Charles II's government passes the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion.

It indicts ten regicides who are in custody, including Thomas Harrison.

They face death in the most heinous way imaginable.

They will be hung, drawn and quartered,

their butchered bodies sent to the four corners of the kingdom.

ATIM: But 19 of these men have gone on the run and are now at large:

chief among them, Edmund Ludlow.

- Men who unwisely turned themselves in,

or were captured, like Thomas Harrison...

are facing their day of reckoning.

- I demand to know the indictment!

- That instigated by the demon you summoned...

to take away the life of Charles Stuart, the late King of England.

- Oh, you think that were a demon?

Oh, just wait for what's coming. (chuckles)

- It's a farce.

Charles has rigged the trial so there can only be one outcome.

- It's only fair.

Charles's father wasn't allowed a lawyer.

Why should they be?

- With the first regicide finally sentenced,

and the execution date fixed,

the stage is set for a public bloodbath.

- (crowd yells angrily)

MAN: Yeah, kill the regicide bastard!

MAN 2: Yeah, hang him! - (Harrison mouthing)

- Finally, Charles can cross some names off his list

and get down to the fun part...

..staging public executions.

- (crowd yelling)

- However many of us you kill...

the idea we die for will rise,

again and again...

..until the return of the one TRUE king,

Jesus Christ!

(chuckles)

PERSON IN CROWD: Liar, liar!

- (crowd clamouring)

Of the footwell floor

Everything is turning to black ash

- Sadistic? No. No, no, no, no. This isn't an abattoir.

These rituals have been carefully thought through.

They're richly symbolic.

Castration, for example,

demonstrates that the man's descendants will be disinherited.

The most evil part of a man is, of course, his gut,

so fire cleanses the infected area.

- (crowd clamouring)

- (grunts)

- This day is a day of joy...

for my soul! (cries)

- (wet squelching)

- The head, in turn, contains traitorous thoughts,

so it must be removed from the body.

Finally, it's turned in the direction of the crime...

..so it can reflect for all eternity.

- And the greatest remaining hope for the republicans, Edmund Ludlow,

is still at large.

- (birdsong)

HARRIS: As long as he remains at liberty, there's still hope

for the republican cause.

But Charles is pulling out all the stops to bring him in.

SOLDIER: Where are you, Edmund?

HARRIS: An underground network of dissidents helps Ludlow escape.

- Charles was once hunted like an animal...

..so it's deeply satisfying to know his enemies

are running in fear of their lives.

- But Charles's bloodlust has blinded him

into making a huge mistake.

The powerful final speeches of Thomas Harrison,

and other regicides, are now used by republicans to stir dissent.

Spread across England by a rapid new innovation...

print media.

ATIM: It's a masterstroke of PR, and no-one is more concerned about it

than Charles's chief advisor, Edward Hyde.

- The men are dying too well.

We're making martyrs of them.

The art of battle is knowing when to stop.

- You might as well tell me to stop taking this shit, Hyde.

(sighs)

- You will regret it if you don't.

- My dear Hyde, you never regret the ones you kill.

It's the ones that you don't kill that keep you up at night.

What I'd give to have Cromwell alive.

I'll rip his fucking face open.

I'd press my thumbs into his eyes and I'd scrape out the jelly

so the last thing he ever saw... was me.

(exhales)

(chuckles)

Shall I?

- This is a sickening moment.

Hyde brokered Charles's return,

hoping he could be the moderate king

that Hyde believes is the ideal form of government.

And killing the regicides has only inflamed

an already volatile situation.

- You want to know who Charles really was? This. This is it.

Petty, vindictive.

- Charles has decided what kind of king he'll be.

No more compromise, no more magnanimity...

only bloody revenge.

- (faint conversation)

HARRIS: But until he brings Edmund Ludlow to heel,

his bloodlust will never be sated.

And Ludlow is in no mood for surrender.

He won't sit by while his country sinks into despotism.

He may be on the run, but he's more determined than ever

to take the fight to Charles.

- Fuck Charles Stuart.

(departing footsteps)

- (man grunts)

- They've forgotten what strong leadership looks like.

- Charles's vendetta is backfiring.

- (crowd clamouring)

- You want to talk about murder? This is murder.

- (grunting, groaning)

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