King of England Charles I

British royalty, who reigned as King Charles I of Scotland and Ireland from 1625 to 1649, a patron of the arts who laid the foundations of the royal art collection and brought Anthony van Dyck to England to revolutionize portraiture. Called the most unfortunate of Princes for his unhappy life, Charles was the fourth child and second son of James I of Great Britain. As a child, he was a stammerer. He married Henrietta Maria, youngest daughter of Henri IV of France and Marie de Medicis, in 1625. He had nine children; the first child, a son, died soon after birth.

Politically, he aroused great enmity, leaning too far toward Catholicism in an age of strident Puritanism in England, and ruling without the approval or say of Parliament. He abandoned Strafford to execution in 1641, set up his standard at Nottingham in July 1642 to confront Parliament, and executed Archbishop Laud in 1645. Parliament passed a special ordinance to try their overlord on 1 January 1649 OS, and the King was executed by beheading outside the Banquet House in Whitehall a few minutes after 2:00 PM on 30 January 1649 OS.