18. Fear of assassination punctuated Charles’s childhood
So Charles grew up in a thoroughly unsuitable atmosphere of paranoia and grumblings about his father’s autocratic approach to ruling. Imagine being the son of a published demonologist who feared that witches and assassins lurked around every corner yet refused to pacify his enemies. But to make matters worse, Charles was a small and sickly child, and was too fragile to travel to England when James became king. Shortly after he joined his parents in England, Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators (above) were caught just before they could light a fuse to blow James to smithereens.
Thus along with fears for his own health, Charles had to put up with his father’s paranoia and the near-constant presence of armed guards, visual reminders that people wanted his father and his family dead. It is perhaps no coincidence that Charles worked hard to build up his strength. He became a fine horseman, an accomplished archer, and learned how to fence, all regal pursuits with a practical purpose: young Charles had a much better chance of surviving assassination as a result. Still, good thing he wasn’t heir to the throne, eh? That was his strapping, healthy older brother, Henry…