The Royal Martyr Church Union (RMCU) is a Church of England devotional society dedicated to the restoration of the observance of King Charles the Martyr in the calendar of the Book of Common Prayer. It was founded in 1906 by Captain Henry Stuart Wheatly-Crowe (1882-1967). Like the Society of King Charles the Martyr, the RMCU hosts an annual commemoration of the beheading of Charles I of England. It has historically had close connections with Jacobitism. Among other activities, the RMCU funded the construction of the Church of King Charles the Martyr in Potters Bar in the Diocese of St Albans. The current headquarters of the RMCU is at St Albans in Hertfordshire.
Jacobitism was a political ideology advocating the restoration of the Catholic House of Stuart to the British throne. When James II of England chose exile after the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, the Parliament of England ruled he had "abandoned" the English throne, which was given to his Protestant daughter Mary II of England, and her husband William III. On the same basis, in April the Scottish Convention awarded Mary and William the throne of Scotland.
Saint George, also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition, he was a soldier in the Roman army. Of Cappadocian Greek origin, he became a member of the Praetorian Guard for Roman emperor Diocletian, but was sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith. He became one of the most venerated saints, heroes, and megalomartyrs in Christianity, and he has been especially venerated as a military saint since the Crusades. He is respected by Christians, Druze, as well as some Muslims as a martyr of monotheistic faith.
Thomas Becket, also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket, served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then notably as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his death in 1170. He engaged in conflict with Henry II, King of England, over the rights and privileges of the Church and was murdered by followers of the King in Canterbury Cathedral. Soon after his death, he was canonised by Pope Alexander III. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.
Edmund the Martyr was king of East Anglia from about 855 until his death.
The Eikon Basilike, The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, is a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England. It was published on 9 February 1649, ten days after the King was beheaded by Parliament in the aftermath of the English Civil War in 1649.
Amphibalus is a venerated early Christian priest said to have converted Saint Alban to Christianity. He occupied a place in British hagiography almost as revered as Alban himself. According to many hagiographical accounts, including those of Gildas, Bede, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Matthew of Paris, Amphibalus was a Roman Christian fleeing religious persecution under Emperor Diocletian. Amphibalus was offered shelter by Alban in the Roman city of Verulamium, in modern-day England. Alban was so impressed with the priest's faith and teaching that he began to emulate him in worship, and eventually became a Christian himself. When Roman soldiers came to seize Amphibalus, Alban put on Amphibalus' robes and was punished in his place. According to Matthew Paris, after Alban's martyrdom, the Romans eventually caught and martyred Amphibalus as well.
The Jacobite succession is the line through which Jacobites believed that the crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland should have descended, applying male preference primogeniture, since the deposition of James II and VII in 1688 and his death in 1701. It is in opposition to the legal line of succession to the British throne since that time.
The Nonjuring schism refers to a split in the established churches of England, Scotland and Ireland, following the deposition and exile of James II and VII in the 1688 Glorious Revolution. As a condition of office, clergy were required to swear allegiance to the ruling monarch; for various reasons, some refused to take the oath to his successors William III and II and Mary II. These individuals were referred to as Non-juring, from the Latin verb iūrō, or jūrō, meaning "to swear an oath".
The Society of King Charles the Martyr is an Anglican devotional society dedicated to the cult of Saint Charles the Martyr, a title of Charles I of England (1600–1649). It is a member of the Catholic Societies of the Church of England, an Anglo-Catholic umbrella group. It is also active in the Scottish Episcopal Church and North America, and has international members elsewhere.
Saint Alban is venerated as the first-recorded British Christian martyr, for which reason he is considered to be the British protomartyr. Along with fellow Saints Julius and Aaron, Alban is one of three named martyrs recorded at an early date from Roman Britain. He is traditionally believed to have been beheaded in Verulamium sometime during the 3rd or 4th century, and has been celebrated there since ancient times.
Saints in Christianity are a people recognised as having lived a holy life and as being an exemplar and model for other Christians. Beginning in the 10th century, the Catholic Church began to centralise and formalise the process of recognising saints through canonisation.
Julius and Aaron were two Romano-British Christian saints who were martyred around the third century. Along with Saint Alban, they are the only named Christian martyrs from Roman Britain. Most historians place the martyrdom in Caerleon, although other suggestions have placed it in Chester or Leicester. Their feast day was traditionally celebrated on 1 July, but it is now observed together with Alban on 20 June by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches.
The Venerable English College, commonly referred to as the English College, is a Catholic seminary in Rome, Italy, for the training of priests for England and Wales. It was founded in 1579 by William Allen on the model of the English College, Douai.
The Caroline Divines were influential theologians and writers in the Church of England who lived during the reigns of King Charles I and, after the Stuart Restoration, King Charles II. There is no official list of Caroline-era divines; they are defined by the era in which they lived, and Caroline Divines hailed from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, of these four nations, it is Caroline England which is most commonly considered to have fostered a golden age of Anglican scholarship and devotional writing, despite the socio-cultural upset of civil war, regicide, and military rule under Oliver Cromwell. Importantly, the term divine is restricted neither to canonised saints nor to Anglican figures, but is used of many writers and thinkers in the wider Christian church.
The Royal Stuart Society, founded in 1926, is the largest extant Jacobite organization in the United Kingdom. Its full name is The Royal Stuart Society and Royalist League, although it is best known simply as the "Royal Stuart Society". It acknowledges Francis, Duke of Bavaria as head of the House of Stuart, while refraining from making any claim on his behalf that he does not make himself.
King Charles the Martyr, or Charles, King and Martyr, is a title of Charles I, who was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1625 until his execution on 30 January 1649. The title is used by high church Anglicans who regard Charles's execution as a martyrdom. His feast day in the Anglican calendar of saints is 30 January, the anniversary of his execution in 1649. The cult of Charles the Martyr was historically popular with Tories. The observance was one of several "state services" removed in 1859 from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England and the Church of Ireland. There remain some churches and parishes dedicated to Charles the Martyr, and his cult is maintained by some Anglo-Catholic societies, including the Society of King Charles the Martyr founded in 1894 and the Royal Martyr Church Union founded in 1906.
In the spring and summer of 1715 a series of riots occurred in England in which High Church mobs attacked over forty Dissenting meeting-houses. The rioters also protested against the first Hanoverian king of Britain, George I and his new Whig government. The riots occurred on symbolic days: 28 May was George I's birthday, 29 May was the anniversary of Charles II's Restoration and 10 June was the birthday of the Jacobite Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart.
The Neo-Jacobite Revival was a political movement active during the 25 years before the First World War in the United Kingdom. The movement was monarchist, and had the specific aim of replacing British parliamentary democracy with a restored monarch from the deposed House of Stuart.
The Order of the White Rose was a Jacobite society founded in 1886 by Bertram Ashburnham, 5th Earl of Ashburnham, as a successor to the Cycle Club. The Order attracted many writers and artists and began the Neo-Jacobite Revival that flourished in the 1890s. The Order closed during the First World War, but in 1926 the Royal Stuart Society was formed to carry on its ideal and mission.
Saint Lewina was a British virgin and martyr who was put to death by Saxon invaders. Her feast day is 24 July.