After a brief and extraordinary trial in which Charles I refused to recognize the court's authority to try an anointed monarch, the tribunal established by Parliament pronounced him guilty of tyranny and treason. The verdict, delivered on January 27, set the stage for his beheading on January 30 — the first execution of a reigning English monarch.
Charles I stood before 68 commissioners in Westminster Hall, wearing his hat throughout in a pointed refusal to remove it for men he considered his subjects, not his judges. He never formally entered a plea, insisting no earthly court had jurisdiction over a king who ruled by divine right.
The court, chaired by John Bradshaw and pushed forward by Oliver Cromwell and the parliamentary army, was unmoved. They accused him of turning his power against the very people he was sworn to protect, citing the tens of thousands who died in the civil wars he had waged to preserve his authority.
The conviction was less a legal formality than a revolutionary declaration: that a king could be a criminal, and that sovereignty ultimately rested with the people and their representatives, not with a crown. Six days later, Charles was executed outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall, sending a shockwave through every monarchy in Europe.
Key people: Charles I, John Bradshaw, Oliver Cromwell