Charles I of England

Charles I was born on 19 November 1600 at Dunfermline Palace, second son of James VI (later James I of England) and Anne of Denmark. Sickly as a child, he grew up with a persistent stammer and a height of about 162 cm. The death of his elder brother Henry Frederick in 1612 made him heir apparent.

In 1623 he made a clandestine journey to Madrid with Buckingham to conclude his betrothal to the Spanish Infanta in person; it collapsed after six humiliating months. He became king in March 1625 and married Henrietta Maria of France, whose Catholicism fed parliamentary distrust.

Conflict began at once. Buckingham's failed expeditions to Cadiz and La Rochelle generated impeachment demands; Charles dissolved three parliaments. In 1628 the Commons forced through the Petition of Right. From 1629 to 1640, the Personal Rule, he convened no parliament, extended ship money to inland counties, and used Star Chamber to discipline opponents. John Hampden's 1637 challenge galvanised opposition.

The rupture came through Scotland. When Archbishop Laud imposed an Anglican prayer book in 1637, a riot erupted in Edinburgh. The Covenanters' Bishops' Wars of 1639-40 defeated the king. The Long Parliament abolished ship money and the prerogative courts, and brought Strafford to the scaffold in 1641. In January 1642 Charles marched into the Commons with armed guards to arrest the Five Members, only to be told the birds had flown.

War broke out in August 1642. Cromwell's New Model Army defeated the king at Marston Moor and Naseby. Charles surrendered in 1646, opened a second civil war and was defeated at Preston. After Pride's Purge the Rump tried him for treason; he refused to recognise the court and was beheaded on 30 January 1649 at Whitehall.

After the Interregnum his son Charles II was restored in 1660 and Anglicans canonised him as King Charles the Martyr. His execution also established that a king's body could be reached by due process, a hinge moment toward constitutional monarchy.