CHARLES I

CHARLES I. (1600-1649), king of England, third son of James I., born at Dunfermline; failing in his suit for the Infanta of Spain, married Henrietta Maria, a French princess, a devoted Catholic, who had great influence over him, but not for good; had for public advisers Strafford and Laud, who cherished in him ideas of absolute power adverse to the liberty of the subject; acting on these ideas brought him into collision with the Parliament, and provoked a civil war; himself the first to throw down the gauntlet by raising the royal standard at Nottingham; in the end of which he surrendered himself to the Scots army at Newark, who delivered him to the Parliament; was tried as a traitor to his country, condemned to death, and beheaded, 30th January, at Whitehall.