What Do You Know About British King Charles I?

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Now here was an interesting fellow. Born in 1600, he holds the dubious honor of being the only English king to be executed. What was that all about? His problem was that he believed in the “divine right of kings” which meant that the king had absolute power. The Parliament did not agree. So, King Charles dissolved Parliament and ruled by himself, all the time suppressing political and religious opposition to his rule by using the royal courts. He then was forced to reinstate Parliament when he ran short of money and things deteriorated quickly. Then, following a rebellion in Scotland, civil war broke out in 1642. Parliamentarian forces defeated King Charles’ royalist armies and he was tried and convicted of treason. On January 30, 1649 he was beheaded for waging war against his own country. He was known to be a learned man who supported the arts, but he was also known to be obstinate and quarrelsome, which eventually led to his demise at the age of 49. I enjoy learning about British kings and queens and I have collected quite a bit of information over the years. I also have researched other monarchs of other countries.