A King Condemned

Book excerpt: The reign of Charles I, defined by religious conflict, a titanic power struggle with Parliament, and culminating in the English Civil Wars, the execution of the king, and the brief abolition of the monarchy, was one of the most turbulent in English history. Six years after the First Civil War began, and following Charles’ support for the failed Royalist uprising of the Second Civil War, an act of Parliament was passed that produced something unprecedented in the history of England: the trial of an English king on a capital charge. There followed ten extraordinary weeks that finally drew to a dark end on January 30, 1649, when Charles was beheaded in Whitehall. In this acclaimed account, C. V. Wedgwood recreates the dramatic events of the trial and Charles’s final days, to vividly bring to life the main actors in this tragic and compelling story