The Execution of Charles I

Charles I was executed today in 1649 – the first English monarch to stand trial, and the last to be executed. He had been brought to trial ten days previously on the charge of treason for provoking the outbreak of the second English Civil War – resulting in unnecessary bloodshed – and working with the Scots. Throughout the trial, Charles had refused to recognise the authority of the court, and only after the verdict was announced did he seem to realise he would have to negotiate, and that these men intended to put him to death. But this realisation came too late. Not even given his title as the sentence was handed down, it was declared that ‘Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of this nation, shall be put to death by the severing of his head from his body.’

While Charles attempted to speak in his defence against the verdict, the court felt that he had squandered his opportunities to defend himself. The sentence had been passed, and he would be executed. ‘I am not suffered to speak, expect what Justice other People will have,” Charles is reported to have said.

Charles spent the two days between his verdict and execution with two of his children – thirteen year old Elizabeth and eight year old Henry. The rest of his children had fled the country, as had his wife Henrietta Maria, for their own safety. He also spent much time in prayer.

While efforts had been made by some to save the king, they ultimately proved futile. The day of Charles’s execution was bitterly cold, and as he dressed he requested an extra shirt – he said the cold would make him shake, something that ‘some observers will imagine proceed from fear. I would have no such imputation. I fear not death! Death is not terrible to me.’ 

He was brought to the scaffold where he would face his death. It was draped in black, and the executioner and his assistant wore masks and wigs to prevent themselves being recognised. A crowd had gathered, although the large number of soldiers present had pushed them back, and they would not be able to hear anything Charles said. Instead, he directed his speech to those near him – ‘I shall be very little heard of anybody here, I shall therefore speak a word unto you here.’ This included William Juxton, the bishop Charles had chosen to deliver his last rites, who recorded Charles’s words. 

In his speech, Charles declared his innocence, and that ‘for all the world knows that I never did begin a War with the two Houses of Parliament.’ He denied any intention to remove Parliamentary privileges, and while he did forgive those who had brought about his death, Charles said, ‘I wish that they may repent, for indeed they have committed a great sin in that particular.’

When a soldier touched against the headsman’s axe, Charles, apparently concerned that this might blunt the axe, paused his speech to turn to the man and say, ‘Hurt not the Ax, that may hurt me.’ Perhaps he was thinking of the execution of his grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, whose beheading had been a gruesome affair – the first blow did not go clean through her neck, and the executioner had to raise the axe to strike her again. It was only after a third blow was her head lifted from her body for the crowd to see.

Charles continued with his speech. ‘For the people, and truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as any body whomsoever. But I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having of government. Those Laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having share in government, sirs. That is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things.’ He then said, ‘I am the martyr of the people.’

After a reminder from the bishop to say something about the church, Charles declared that he ‘had almost forgotten it’ and that he would ‘die a Christian, according to the profession of the Church of England, as I found it left me by my father.’

His speech over, Charles asked Colonel Hacker, who was supervising the execution, ‘Take care that they do not put me to pain,’ before once again asking a soldier brushing against the axe to ‘take heed of the ax, pray, take heed of the ax.’

The bishop and the executioner helped Charles put on his nightcap to keep his hair out of the way, and then to the bishop Charles said, ‘I go from a corruptible, to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world.’ Juxon replied, ‘You are exchanged from a temporal to an eternal crown. A good exchange.’

Most execution blocks were about two feet high, permitting the victim to kneel. However, the block that was prepared for Charles on the scaffold was unusually low – only ten inches high and therefore required an almost prone position. It is unclear whether the use of this block was an intentional act to humiliate Charles or a simple oversight, however when Charles remarked on the size of the block, the executioner told him it could be no higher. A moment after he lay down, Charles stretched out his hands, and the executioner lifted his axe. Unlike Mary Queen of Scot’s execution, this blow fell clean, and Charles’s head was severed from his body with one cut.

A royalist account of the day states that after Charles’s head was held aloft, that the crowd gave up a ‘groan as I have never heard before and I desire I may never hear again.’ But in truth, while the death of the king may have left many in shock, when the executioner dropped Charles’s head, many people swarmed to the body to dip their handkerchiefs in the king’s blood, and to cut off locks of his hair. 

With Charles’s death, his son Charles II became a king in exile, only learning of his father’s death when he was addressed with his new title. Back in England, royal furniture and goods – including Charles and Henrietta Maria’s impressive art collection – were put up for auction, and the king’s embalmed corpse with his head stitched back onto his neck was put on display at Whitehall, where people paid a ha’penny to view him. Parliament were taking no chances that there would be doubt about Charles’s death. They knew such questions could challenge their rule, as history had shown. Charles’s body remained on view until 7 February. Two days later he was finally buried at Windsor Castle, in the same vault as Henry VIII.

Image: The Execution of Charles I, by unknown artist, c.1649, PGL 208, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, via Wikimedia Commons.