Charles I (1600–1649)

King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1625, son of James I of England (James VI of Scotland). He accepted the petition of right in 1628 but then dissolved Parliament and ruled without a parliament from 1629 to 1640, a period known as the Eleven Years' Tyranny. His advisers were Strafford and Laud, who persecuted the Puritans and provoked the Scots to revolt. The Short Parliament, summoned in 1640, refused funds, and the Long Parliament later that year rebelled. Charles declared war on Parliament in 1642 but surrendered in 1646 and was beheaded in 1649. He was the father of Charles II.

Charles was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and became heir to the throne on the death of his brother Henry in 1612. He married Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV of France. When he succeeded his father, friction with Parliament began at once. The parliaments of 1625 and 1626 were dissolved, and that of 1628 refused supplies until Charles had accepted the petition of right. In 1629 it attacked Charles's illegal taxation and support of Arminianism in the church, whereupon he dissolved Parliament and imprisoned its leaders.

For 11 years he ruled without a parliament, raising money by any possible means, such as ship money, which alienated the nation, while the Star Chamber suppressed opposition by persecuting the Puritans. When Charles attempted in 1637 to force a prayer book on the English model on Presbyterian Scotland, he found himself confronted with a nation in arms. The Short Parliament, which met in April 1640, refused to grant money until grievances were redressed, and was speedily dissolved. The Scots then advanced into England and forced their own terms on Charles. The Long Parliament met on 3 November 1640 and declared extra‐parliamentary taxation illegal, abolished the Star Chamber and other prerogative courts that acted independently of Parliament, and voted that Parliament could not be dissolved without its own consent. Laud and other ministers were imprisoned, and Strafford condemned to death.

After the failure of his attempt to arrest the parliamentary leaders on 4 January 1642, Charles, confident that he had substantial support among those who felt that Parliament was becoming too radical and zealous, withdrew from London, and on 22 August declared war on Parliament by raising his standard at Nottingham (see Civil War, English). Charles's defeat at Naseby, near Leicester, in June 1645 ended all hopes of victory; in May 1646 he surrendered at Newark, Nottinghamshire, to the Scots, who handed him over to Parliament in January 1647. In June the army seized him and carried him off to Hampton Court palace, near London. While the army leaders strove to find a settlement, Charles secretly intrigued for a Scottish invasion. In November he escaped, but was recaptured and held at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight; a Scottish invasion followed in 1648, and was shattered by Oliver Cromwell at Preston, Lancashire. The army was determined ‘to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to account’. In January 1649 the House of Commons set up a high court of justice, which tried Charles and condemned him to death. He was beheaded on 30 January in front of the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London.