| Lingerie is part of a rich tapestry of history in | | | | charges of tyranny and treachery. The most |
| which underwear has played a formative role. The | | | | hated man in the land was sentenced to death by |
| underwear of Charles I on a cold morning in late | | | | beheading; a sentence he served on 31st January, |
| January 1649 probably saved the British | | | | 1649. The monarchy was abolished, and Oliver |
| monarchy. | | | | Cromwell was proclaimed Lord Protector. |
| Grievances against the king's government had | | | | After the king's public execution, pamphlets |
| grown over the course of his reign resulting in | | | | immediately circulated lauding the king's |
| rebellion in Ireland and Scotland. In 1640, the king | | | | supernatural bravery with which he faced the axe. |
| clashed with the English parliament over the | | | | Witnesses described his dignity and courage as he |
| expensive new taxes he demanded in order to | | | | stood on the scaffold. Books, including the |
| crush the uprisings. Their refusal led the king to | | | | best-selling Eikon Basilike, were written about the |
| dissolve the parliament and claim the right to rule | | | | supreme majesty of the former monarch in life |
| by royal prerogative. Eventually the parliament | | | | and death. Soon, hundreds of thousands declared |
| was recalled, refusing to dissolve for the next | | | | him a martyr, wrongfully struck down by evil and |
| twenty years. Suspicion about the king's absolutist | | | | bloodthirsty roundheads. A pseudo-cult called for |
| pretensions was exacerbated by Charles's armed | | | | his canonisation, a society which survives to this |
| arrest of five MPs in January 1642, leading to the | | | | day. The monarchy was welcomed back with |
| outbreak of civil war in the summer. Following | | | | open arms in 1660, and Cromwell's body was |
| defeat at the hands of Oliver Cromwell's New | | | | exhumed for its own decapitation. How did |
| Model Army in 1646, the imprisoned and unpopular | | | | Charles manage this amazing coup at his death? |
| Charles negotiated a secret deal with the Scots in | | | | The answer was underwear. Charles, anticipating a |
| order to raise forces for a second civil war. | | | | cold day, took the unprecedented step of |
| The royalist uprising ended in a tame defeat in a | | | | ordering cotton undergarments so that he |
| few months, but Charles I was now seen as a | | | | wouldn't shiver on the scaffold and appear scared |
| traitor and tyrant unfit for government and with | | | | of his immanent fate. The plan worked. Without |
| whom no negotiation could now take place. 'Pride's | | | | Charles's underwear on that fateful day |
| Purge' in December 1648 ensured that no | | | | three-hundred and fifty years ago, there might |
| royalists or moderates were left in parliament - a | | | | not be an English monarchy today. |
| court was formed, trying the deposed king on | | | | |