King of Great Britain and Ireland (1625–49). He was the second son of James I and Anne of Denmark. He was neglected by his father in favour of his favourite, Buckingham, who also dominated Charles in the opening years of his reign. A disastrous foreign policy, Charles’s illegal levying of tunnage and poundage, and the mildness of his policy towards Roman Catholics (recusants) culminated in the forcing through by a hostile Parliament of the Petition of Right (1628). From 1629 he ruled without a Parliament.

Charles was a man of strong religious conviction: he was also stubborn and politically naïve. During the ‘Eleven Year Tyranny’ (1629–40) he relied increasingly on Laud, Strafford, and his French Catholic queen, Henrietta Maria; their influence, and the king’s use of unconstitutional measures, deepened the widespread antagonism to the court, especially after the ship money crisis (1637). The fiasco of the Bishops’ Wars drove him to recall Parliament in 1640. The Long Parliament forced him to sacrifice Laud and Strafford, who were impeached and executed. He had to accept severe limitations of his powers, but an open breach came in January 1642, when he tried to arrest five members of the House of Commons, a blunder which united the Lords and Commons against the king and made the English Civil War inevitable.

The royal standard was raised at Nottingham in August. Charles was soundly beaten at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645) and in 1646 surrendered to the Scots near Newark, was handed over to Parliament the following year, and subsequently captured by the Parliamentary army. After escaping to Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight, he signed the ‘Engagement’ with the Scots (1647) that enabled him to renew the war with their help, but with little success. He was recaptured in 1648, tried, and publicly executed in London.