Charles I

Sean Kelsey reconsiders the events of January 1649 and argues the trial was skilfully appropriated by rump politicians in paving the way for the new Commonwealth.

Barry Coward grapples with a question which has become more difficult to answer as a result of recent scholarship. He finds the answer lies in the New Model Army, in religious passion and in Charles himself.

On a cold January morning in 1649 Charles I stepped out onto a scaffold in Whitehall and into history, seen by some as a tyrant, by others as a martyr. But how far was the intellectual climate of mid-17th-century England ready for the republic that followed? Sarah Barber presents the latest thinking.

Richard Cust reassesses the Stuart monarch's political style.

The way in which the church commemoration of King Charles I's 1649 execution became a potent instrument in the political war of words after the Restoration is examined, and the history of the king's execution and the clergy's promotion of the event are discussed.

Helen Davidson on a new search into recovering Charles I's treasure boat.

Richard Cavendish looks at all things Stuart in the month when Charles I lost his head.

Dame Veronica Wedgwood turns to one of the great set pieces of English history – Charles I's January 1642 attempts to settle his differences with Parliament by the attempted arrest of five MPs.

The campaign to preserve the Battle of Naseby site in Northamptonshire, a pivotal moment in the English Civil War.

Conrad Russell finds that it is easier to understand why sheer frustration may have driven Charles to fight than to understand why the English gentry might have wanted to make a revolution against him.