In November 1935 the Nazis interred sixteen bodies in two specially designed Ehrentempel—Honor Temples—on the Konigsplatz in Munich. The sixteen sarcophagi contained the remains of Nazis killed in the failed Beer Hall putsch of 1923. The Nazis understood well the emotive power of martyrdom and the Honor Temples become the focus for quasi-religious ceremonies throughout the Third Reich, invoking the presence of the “martyrs” and the mystical strength they gave the movement through their deaths. The Honor Temples were destroyed by the allies in 1947, so powerful was the image of martyrdom created there. Perhaps the most extraordinary manifestation of the martyr cult in Nazi Germany was the “blood flag”: the Blutfahne. This was a swastika flag carried during the 1923 putsch and, reputedly, covered with the blood of the “martyrs” when the army and police opened fire on the demonstration. This flag became the most sacred relic of Nazi Germany, last seen at the end of 1944, and was used each year to “consecrate” new Nazi standards in a special ceremony in which Hitler touched each new standard with the Blutfahne, passing on the “life force” of the movement derived from the blood of the “martyrs.”

Alice Dailey makes no mention of Nazi uses of traditions of martyrology in her excellent book; nevertheless, the discussion about changing understandings and uses of martyrdom stands at the heart of her work. She begins by setting out the classic late medieval understanding of Christian martyrdom as presented in The Golden Legend and the Corpus Christi passion plays, before going on to discuss martyrdom narratives in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England, in particular, the work of John Foxe, and the experience of the Catholic martyrs under Elizabeth I and James VI/I. She ends with a fascinating discussion of the “martyrdom” of Charles I in 1649.

Dailey's thesis is that martyrdom is a story that provides a script or narrative not only for those about to face a violent death for their beliefs but also for those who subsequently write up the martyr's life, sufferings, and death and try to make sense of it. In this way, the traditions of martyrdom enable individuals to both live the story and create it simultaneously. The greatest martyr story in the Christian tradition is, of course, that concerning Christ himself, and to some extent, all narratives of Christian martyrdom model themselves on this central event. John Foxe tried to show how the Marian martyrs conformed to Christ's pattern in their confrontations with persecuting authorities and their approaches to death. Charles I took considerable trouble to fashion himself after the example of Christ at his trial and execution. This was a fashioning enhanced by his reading of Foxe and repeated by Royalist eulogists who delighted in finding ever more unlikely parallels between Charles's execution and Christ's Passion.

The strength of this book is not just that Dailey discusses the traditions of martyrology. She also discusses the ways in which these traditions changed over time. She demonstrates in detail how the Elizabethan and Jacobean prosecution of Catholics as traitors rather than heretics disorientated Catholic attempts to present the martyrs in traditional terms. The state claimed that they were condemned first and foremost for a secular crime rather than a religious belief, and however much Catholic writers might contest this claim, it nevertheless demonstrates how a change in the position of one “actor” in the “story” requires a corresponding change in those attempting to write up that story.

For me, one of the most interesting chapters in the book is chapter 6, which is concerned with the regicide of Charles I. As is well known, Charles took a great deal of care over the presentation of his image and, as I have mentioned, went to a great deal of trouble to fashion himself after the example of Christ in his Passion. Yet it seems appropriate to ask the questions: For what did Charles die? What was the truth for which he witnessed? Some contemporaries argued that it was for the defense of the traditional “rights and liberties” of the people. Many at the time and since have pointed to his defense of an episcopal and Arminian Church of England, a “Catholic” vision of the Anglican church that was under attack by radical Protestantism. Others might say that he died in defense of sacred monarchy. All these reasons have some validity, but in the Eikon Basilike—one of the most popular books of seventeenth-century England—Charles establishes his own conscience as an absolute from which he will not and cannot depart. Conscience, for Charles, is sovereign. It is the one fixed point, sure foundation, and guide to what is true. Rather than violate his conscience, Charles is prepared to defy his enemies and go to his death.

The all-sufficiency of conscience gave Charles an assurance that appears, on one level, to be in keeping with traditional martyrology; yet on closer inspection this “privatisation” of the grounds of assurance subverts the whole tradition of Christian martyrology because it subjectivizes (if there is such a word!) the reasons for and the justification of the martyr's death. As Milton pointed out, merely asserting that one is a martyr does not make one a martyr! By what objective criteria can Charles claim that his appeal to conscience is valid unless we accept that what is claimed in the name of conscience is absolute and infallible?

In a sense, the way in which the cult of “Charles the martyr” objectifies the subjective demonstrates its modernity. Modern man, we are told, creates his own story through the process of living it—we are all self-fashioning all of the time! Much of modern popular psychotherapy is based upon the premise that one should discover the “real” person underneath the social construct and that the feelings and beliefs of that “real” person are valid because they stem from some greater personal reality that demands our assent. At its crudest, this attitude asserts that “my beliefs are valid because I believe them.” In this radical self-referencing of experience we see, it seems to me, most of the dilemma that surrounds the contemporary use of the word “martyr,” and it is to Dailey's credit that she raises some of these issues in her postscript. In provoking such reflections, Dailey's book does us a great service. Her careful and insightful reading of contemporary texts and the thoughtful conclusions she draws from this reading will be of great interest not just to historians of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries but to anyone interested in how the modern world was, and is, constructed and how we both create and re-create the stories of the past.