Why King Charles I Was Executed On A Low Wooden Block JJ

On the 30th of January 1649, King Charles I walked onto a scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall in London. Within a short time, the King of England would place his head on a wooden block and be killed by a single blow of an axe. It was one of the most extraordinary moments in British history. Never before had a reigning English monarch been publicly tried by his own subjects, found guilty of treason, and formally executed.

Yet one strange detail of Charles’ death often attracts attention. The execution block was extremely low. Many pictures of this sort of execution often show a condemned person kneeling comfortably behind a large wooden block. The prisoner places their neck across the top while an executioner stands behind them with an axe.

 Charles’ execution appears to have been very different. The block prepared for him was so low they reported they questioned its height. Instead of simply kneeling upright, Charles had to lower and stretch his body forward and practically lie on the scaffold. So, why was the block so low? The most important thing to understand is that execution blocks were not standardized.

There was no 17th century rule stating that a block had to be a particular shape or height. Methods varied according to the executioner, the prisoner, and the circumstances. The familiar tall chopping block seen in films should therefore not be regarded as the universal way in which historical beheadings were carried out.

A low block, though, could actually be quite useful. The purpose was simply to provide a stable position for the condemned person’s neck and also a clear target for the executioner’s axe. If the prisoner was lying or bending forward, the neck could be presented horizontally. The executioner could then stand above the prisoner and deliver a powerful downward stroke.

There is no strong evidence that Parliament deliberately ordered an exceptionally low block specifically to humiliate the king. This is important because almost every aspect of his execution carried enormous political significance. It’s tempting to imagine that forcing a king to bend almost flat out on the scaffold was intended as a final insult.

However, the simpler explanation is that the block reflected the practical execution arrangements being used. Charles’ execution was itself anything but ordinary, though. England had been devastated by civil war during the 1640s. Charles and his supporters had fought against Parliament and its armies over questions concerning royal authority, taxation, religion, and political power.

Parliament’s forces eventually defeated the royalists, and Charles was captured. After further political turmoil and another outbreak of fighting, the king’s most determined opponents concluded that peace would be impossible while Charles remained alive and capable of encouraging further resistance. In January 1649, a specially established High Court of Justice placed him on trial.

Charles flat-out rejected the authority of the court. He argued that no earthly court possessed the legal authority to put a king on trial. His judges disagreed. He was found guilty of being a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy, and sentenced to death by beheading. The execution was fixed for the 30th of January.

 Charles spent his final hours preparing himself. The weather was extremely cold, and one of the most famous stories concerning his execution relates to his clothing. Charles I reportedly asked for an extra shirt because he feared that the cold would make him shiver. He did not want the spectators, his public, to see him trembling and mistakenly believe that he was frightened.

“I would put on my shirt,” he reportedly explained, “because the season was so sharp that it might make him shake, which some observers may imagine proceeds from fear.” This concern tells us something important about Charles’s attitude towards death. He understood that the execution was also a political performance.

Thousands of people might judge his courage from his behavior during his final moments. Charles wanted to die calmly and with the dignity he believed appropriate for a king. Now, the scaffold had been erected outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall in London. Charles reached it through a window rather than simply walking through the crowd.

The scaffold itself was surrounded by soldiers, partly because the authorities were very concerned about the enormous public reaction that killing a king might produce. Once on the scaffold, Charles attempted to address those close enough to hear him. He continued to defend his actions and his understanding of monarchy.

He declared himself innocent of beginning the war and maintained that a ruler had obligations to his people, but that subjects did not have the right to overthrow their sovereign. Charles was accompanied by William Juxson, the Bishop of London, who did provide spiritual comfort during his final moments. He then approached the low block.

Its low height apparently surprised him. Some accounts describe Charles asking whether the block could be higher. Whatever the precise exchange, the block was not altered. Charles therefore had to lower himself considerably to the position to place his neck on it. This posture would have looked extremely dramatic.

A man who’d spent most of his life surrounded by royal ceremony was now stretched out on a scaffold with his neck resting only a short distance above its floor. Charles nevertheless remained remarkably controlled. Another unusual feature was the executioner. His identity remains uncertain. The men involved concealed their faces, apparently because executing a king was extremely dangerous act.

If the monarchy was ever restored, and obviously it was, the man responsible could become a target for punishment or revenge. Richard Brandon, London’s common hangman, has traditionally been suggested as the executioner, although the evidence is disputed. Other names have been proposed. Well, for a hundred and fifty years later, historians still cannot say with certainty who actually swung the axe.

Charles carefully arranged himself on the low block. Importantly, he did not want the executioner to strike before he was ready. He therefore told the man that he would give the signal. Charles prayed briefly, then he stretched out his hands. The executioner immediately brought down the axe. The blow was so sharp, it severed Charles’s head with one single stroke.

The fact that only one blow was apparently required demonstrates that the low block did not make the execution ineffective. If anything, Charles’s position provided the executioner with a clear target and allowed him to deliver a powerful downward blow. According to the accounts of the execution, one of the masked men then may have lifted Charles’s severed head and displayed it to the crowd.

 A groan reportedly spread amongst the spectators. The traditional proclamation made after executions for treason was apparently not delivered in the usual way. Charles I’s first body was subsequently prepared for burial. He was eventually buried at St. George’s Chapel within Windsor Castle alongside King Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour.

The monarchy itself was abolished shortly after Charles’s death. England became a republic, eventually dominated by Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. Yet, the Republican experiment did not survive for long after Cromwell’s death. In 1660, Charles I’s son returned from exile and became King Charles II. The restoration made the identity of King Charles I’s executioner even more significant.

Several surviving regicides, men involved in condemning Charles to death, were arrested and were executed. This helps explain why the executioner’s identity had been kept so secret, so carefully in 1649. But the low block remains one of the most memorable details of Charles I’s final moments. But it should not automatically be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to degrade him.

Execution equipment was not standardized and different executioners used different arrangements. The low block allowed the condemned person’s neck to be positioned for a strong downward strike. Nevertheless, the symbolism is very difficult to ignore. Charles I had spent his reign defending the authority and dignity of kingship.

On a freezing January afternoon in 1649, he was forced to lower himself almost completely onto a wooden scaffold and place his neck upon a small block. Seconds later, he stretched out his hands and then the axe fell. With one single blow, King Charles I was dead and for the first and only time in English history, a reigning king had been publicly executed following a formal trial conducted by his own subjects.

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