King Charles I

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King Charles I

by Wenceslaus Hollar
etching, 1649
4 1/2 in. x 5 1/4 in. (113 mm x 134 mm) paper size
Given by Sir Herbert Henry Raphael, 1st Bt, 1913
Reference Collection
NPG D20318

Sitterback to top

  • King Charles I (1600-1649), Reigned 1625-49. Sitter associated with 335 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677), Etcher. Artist or producer associated with 540 portraits, Sitter associated with 10 portraits.

Events of 1649back to top

Current affairs

Charged with subverting the nation's laws and liberties and cruelly making war against Parliament and the English people, Charles I is found guilty by a court of 159 commissioners, and beheaded outside the Banqueting House, Whitehall.
England is declared a commonwealth and power is entrusted to a Council of State.

Art and science

Eikon Basilike, a self-exonerating account of Charles I's rule, is published days after his death. Allegedly written by the king himself, John Gauden, Bishop of Worcester, claimed authorship after the Restoration. Other tributes followed the king's death giving rise to a royalist cult of Charles the Martyr.

International

Oliver Cromwell, as lord lieutenant of Ireland, begins his campaign in Ireland to subdue royalist support, and leads English Parliamentarian forces against the Royalist-Confederate coalition. The campaign's bloody massacres, in particular, the Siege of Drogheda and Wexford where Cromwell's troops slaughtered soldiers and civilians alike, became notorious.



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