Text/Fast Wind
Charles I was the only king in English history to be publicly executed. In Dumas's novel Twenty Years Later, he is described as having one of the three musketeers, Athos, hiding under the guillotine in order to rescue him, and the king shouts at him before he dies, "Remember!" ”
Pictured: The cinematic image of Charles I
This detail is very touching, but unfortunately it is fictional. So, what did charles I say before the death penalty?
30 January 1649, the last day of Charles I. Captured after losing the Civil War, he was executed for "treason" by the head of parliament Cromwell, and the beheading table was set up in front of the Whitehall Ballroom.
Pictured: Painting depicting the death penalty of Charles I
After waking up in the morning from the imprisoned St. James's Palace, Charles I asked to wear two shirts, because the weather was very cold, afraid that the trembling body would make others misunderstand him for fear.
At about ten o'clock in the morning, Charles I, escorted by guards, walked through the park to the guillotine, surrounded by a group of people. At noon, he drank a glass of red wine and ate a slice of bread.
Pictured: Portrait of Charles I
In front of the guillotine, there were many people who came to watch. Charles I came to the decapitation table very calmly, first looking at the terrible mat, and then giving a final speech to the crowd.
Pictured: Axes and headswood for decapitations in Europe
After the speech, the masked executioner approached with an axe in tow, and Charles I reminded, "Beware of the axe." Be careful not to get a blunt axe. ”
At about two o'clock in the afternoon, after Charles's prayer was over, he asked the doctor to take his nightcap, put it on, and apologized to the executioner, saying, "Isn't my hair in the way?" Then he bent down and put his neck on the cushion wood, and the executioner helped him put his hair under his hat. At the last moment, Charles I said, "Wait a minute, look at my gesture." The executioner replied, "Yes, sir." ”
After a while, the king spread his hands to indicate that he was ready, and the executioner took the axe and fell, and with one axe he cut off his head, and the crowd gathered let out an irrepressible sigh.
For treasonists, the usual practice is for the executioner to raise the head of the torturer, show it to the people and shout, "Look at the head of the traitor!" But the executioner, though showing the king's head, did not speak, and probably did not want his voice to be recognized.
The next day, Charles I's head was sewn back into his body, and then he was put embalmed into a lead coffin and transported to Windsor for burial.
Speaking of the details of Charles I's execution, it is inevitable to think of Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, who also died on the guillotine. At that time, under the guidance of the executioner, the queen staggered up to the guillotine, but accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot, and she immediately apologized without thinking: "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean it." ”
Pictured: Painting depicting the death penalty of a French queen
By the way, Cromwell, who ordered the execution of the king, ended more tragically, and after Charles II, the son of Charles I, returned to the throne in England in 1660, he ordered Cromwell's body to be exhumed and hung on the gallows after two years of death, and beheaded for public display, and his head was nailed to the roof of a church for 25 years, which is an English version of the gravedigging whip.