Thoughts on Charles I of England

I've been going through a study of this period of English history, and MAN, am I torn about this guy.

First off, right out of the gate, he has to be viewed as a failure of a King. He takes an ok-bad hand that he got handed from his father in terms of growing tensions and treasury issues, as well as conflict with Parliment. But then, for the entirety of his career, it's one blunder after another.

I thought for a while that it wasn't fair to judge him as a bad king. Because, maybe it was a personality thing, and how sometimes there's savvy people who just have difficult personalities, which means if we were judging kings based on skills, he still would've been fine, it was just his personality that was the problem. But after getting through most of his life, and coming near to the point where he's about to executed, I realized that that actually isn't a correct assessment. A) A person's personality is their fault. So if Charles has a difficult to work with personality, that's because his choices have made him unworkable with. But more importantly B) It wasn't really his personality, or even his heightened sense of his own royalty that was the problem. Because we've had very bossy and power hungry and self righteous kings who did great, because they were good handlers of situations. No, the problem was that he botched every opportunity he had to either make peace with Parliment or establish himself as an absolute monarch. He is a failure when it comes to working a room, reading the temperature of a country, but also a failure in terms of keeping his position and authority intact by making wise decisions. Which he categorically did not do

I think if I had to describe Charles as a King, it would be a man who made all the wrong choices

But, the really weird thing is, I kind of like him. He's courageous, there's no doubt about that. He's the only king, that I know of, who got into a war with both Spain and France at the same time, because he felt it was the right thing for him to do. Which is something that you kind of want some kings to do. You WANT them to make such a ballsy decision, because we've been bombarded throughout history with kings who will ditch their allies if it's convenient. He's very loyal to his friends and to his family, and actually is the first king that I'm aware of who went to bat for his servants, saying that he, Charles, was the one that his enemies should blame, not his workers. He's stubborn, which means he can make some very difficult personal choices, which I find admirable, but it also means he's unwilling to compromise, which can cause him problems that he didn't need to have.

Another factor of Charles personality is that he is EXTREMELY flexible in terms of how honest he's willing to be with other people. There are TENS of examples where Charles breaks the trust of Parliment by lying through his teeth about his intentions. And he's definitely a threat to Protestantism, even though I think he genuinely thought that he was a moderate.

Overall... man. I think the closest thing I can say about him is he's like a Dad in a divorce. He was a nightmare with his wife (Parliment), and the divorce was absolutely horrific for the kids, and it happened mostly because of him and his own stubbornness and bad habits. So the pain that his kids grew up with (England) were awful, and they're deserved in their dislike of him, and their rejection of him as their father. But, he also was the kind of Dad who you hated what he did, for all the pain he caused you, but you liked him as a Dad because he really did care about you, and went above and beyond for you at times when he didn't have to, and you have a lot of good memories about him.

Charles I. Terrible politician, and terrible king. Great friend. Heinous principles. Great family man. Good administrator. Terrible manager. Very courageous, and protective, and loyal. But also untrustworthy, horribly stubborn, with no sense of reality.

What do you guys think?