The cult of Charles the martyr did not spring into life fully formed in January 1649. On the contrary, the component parts of the cult were known and available to the eulogists and preachers well before the execution obligingly provided them with a body. Perhaps more importantly, there was a substantial part of the nation who by 1647–8 were ready to receive sympathetic images of Charles and who could identify their hopes and fears with the figure of the defeated king. Although we are familiar with the ‘cult of personality’, it is impossible to speak of a martyr cult in the traditional Christian sense, before there has been a killing. However, it was in the period 1646–8 that the imagery, typology and ideology of the cult were created. This typology, and the political theology which underpinned it, developed principally out of the confusion and anxiety of the late 1640s.