Why was King Charles 1 executed?
The King raised money by selling monopolies and by instituting a ‘ship money’ tax. Things came to a head when he entered the House of Commons with an armed guard and demanded the arrest of five Members of Parliament who had opposed him (they managed to escape). It was the final straw, Charles left London and the first Civil War began. Despite help from foreign relatives (his impoverished Palatinate nephews Princes Rupert and Maurice – rather than the government of his wife’s nephew Louis XIV King of France) Charles failed to win the first War and surrendered in 1646 to the Scots (his father was the King of Scotland and he was born there so he expected loyalty) who handed him to the English. In 1648 Charles was brought to trial in Westminster Hall before 135 judges and found guilty by 68 votes to 67. Charles faced his execution on the 30 January 1649 at Whitehall. He was beheaded on a specially built scaffold. The crowd groaned as the act took place. Later that day Cromwell was heard to
Charles the 1st of England made several very unpopular decisions that the public abhorred. The first of these was his marriage to Henrietta Maria, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Henri IV of France. As Henrietta Maria was a Roman Catholic, this marriage was not very popular with the English people. The Puritans were particularly irrate when they heard that the king had promised that Henrietta Maria would be allowed to practice her religion freely. This matter was very unsettling since she had the responsibility for the upbringing of the kings children until they reached the age of 13. Charles’s later attempts to force religious reforms upon Scotland led to the Bishops’ Wars that weakened England’s government and helped precipitate his downfall. At this time King Louis XIII was involved in a civil war against the Protestants (Huguenots) in France. Parliament wanted to help the Huguenots but Charles refused as he did not want to upset his wife or brother-in-law. Eventually it was agreed
