King Charles I

Eyewitness accounts of the trial and execution of Charles I portray a revolutionary moment in English history

How did the most wanted man in the country outwit the greatest manhunt in British history?

In January 1649, after years of civil war, King Charles I stood trial in a specially convened English court on charges of treason, murder, and other high crimes against his people. Not only did the revolutionary tribunal find him guilty and order his death, but its masters then abolished monarchy itself and embarked on a bold (though short-lived) republican experiment. The event was a landmark in legal history. The trial and execution of King Charles marked a watershed in English politics and political theory and thus also affected subsequent developments in those parts of the world colonized by the British. This book presents a selection of contemporaries’ accounts of the king’s trial and their reactions to it, as well as a report of the trial of the king’s own judges once the wheel of fortune turned and monarchy was restored. It uses the words of people directly involved to offer insight into the causes and consequences of these momentous events.

The subject of a BBC TV series on Charles I The prize-winning biography of Charles I * Winner of the HWA Crown for Best Work of Historical Non-Fiction 2018 * * Times Book of the Year * * Shortlisted for the Catholic Herald Biography Award 2019 * Less than forty years after the golden age of Elizabeth I, England was at war with itself. At the head of this disintegrating kingdom was Charles I, who would change the face of the monarchy for ever. His reign is one of the most dramatic in history, yet Charles the man remains elusive. To his enemies he was the 'white tyrant of prophecy: to his supporters a murdered innocent. Today many myths still remain. It is an epic story of glamour and strong women, of populist politicians and religious terror, of mass movements and a revolutionary new media: one that speaks to our own divided and dangerous times. 'This is the most gripping piece of revisionist history I have read for a long time' - The Spectator

An exhaustive and revealing biography of Britain’s new monarch, King Charles III, with fresh reporting by the journalist the Wall Street Journal dubbed “the Godfather of royal reporting.” With exclusive interviews and extensive research, King Charles delivers definitive insight into the extraordinary life of His Royal Highness, former Prince of Wales, as he takes the throne, a watershed moment in modern history and in the British monarchy. New York Times bestselling author Robert Jobson debunks the myths about the man who became king, going beyond banal, bogus media caricatures of Charles to tell his true story. Jobson—who has spent nearly thirty years chronicling the House of Windsor, and has met Charles on countless occasions—received unprecedented cooperation from Clarence House, what was the Prince’s office, in writing this illuminating biography. King Charles divulges the full range of Charles’s profoundly held political beliefs: the United Kingdom’s special relationship to the United States, climate change, Brexit, and immigration—to ultimately portray the kind of monarch Charles III will be. Jobson taps a number of sources close to the now-King who have never spoken on the record before, plus members of the Royal Household who have served Charles during his decades of public life. This comprehensive profile also reveals the late Queen Elizabeth’s plans to transition Charles to the throne; how at her insistence he already reads all government briefings; and why he feels it is his constitutional duty to relay his thoughts to ministers in his controversial “black spider memos.” Moreover, King Charles reveals the truth about Charles's deeply loving but occasionally volatile relationship with his second wife and chief supporter, Camilla. The result is an intriguing new portrait of a man who at last has become king.

A major perspective on Charles I's relationship with the English aristocracy in the lead up to the Civil War.