17. King Charles I reached too high for power and ended up losing his head for it.
When he ascended to the throne, King Charles I expected to be all-powerful. As the head of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, he believed he had a God-given right to rule how he wished. Indeed, while some of Europe’s monarchies were starting to accept the power of their respective parliaments, for Charles, the divine right of kings was absolute; he was determined to rule according to his conscience alone. And for a while, he succeeded in doing so. In the end, however, his fall from power was brutal and similarly absolute.
King Charles I was crowned in March 1625. From the very start of his reign, he vehemently opposed Parliament’s attempts to impose checks and balances on his power. Moreover, since he was married to a Roman Catholic, many nobles also worried he was too pro-Catholic and against the Anglican Church. The animosity grew and grew and finally led to the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642. The bloody conflict between Royalists and Parliamentarians lasted three years and ended with the King’s defeat. For a while, he was imprisoned but then, in late 1648, Oliver Cromwell order Charles to be put on trial.
Charles was convicted of high treason in January 1649. On Tuesday, January 30, 1649, he was executed in the heart of London, just a stone’s throw from Parliament. By all accounts, Charles did what he could to make the experience as dignified as possible. For instance, he famously wore two shirts so that his shivering in the cold would not be mistaken for fear. The executioner held up his severed head for the baying crowd to see, though Charles was at least given the dignity of being buried at Windsor Castle, alongside Henry VIII.