After years of civil war between crown and Parliament, Charles I was tried, convicted of high treason, and executed on a scaffold built outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall. Crowds watched in silence as the executioner held up his severed head. The monarchy was abolished within weeks, replaced by a Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.
Charles I mounted the scaffold on a bitterly cold afternoon wearing two shirts, fearing that shivering from cold might be mistaken for fear. He told the crowd, 'I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be.' He asked the executioner to wait for a signal, then stretched out his arms; the axe fell in a single stroke.
An eyewitness described a groan from the crowd 'as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again.' The executioner, whose identity remains disputed to this day (Richard Brandon is the most commonly named), wore a mask and false beard to protect his identity, fearing reprisal.
The execution stunned Europe—regicide was almost unthinkable, and the killing of an anointed king sent shockwaves through every royal court on the continent. England became a republic for eleven years, until the monarchy was restored in 1660 with Charles II, who had his father's executioners hunted down and posthumously punished the corpse of Cromwell himself.