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| Oliver Cromwell (L) and King Charles I (R). |
Two months later, the King was beheaded.
King Charles had retreated to loyalist Oxford University after the Parliamentarians defeated Royalist troops at Naseby three years earlier, and Marston Moor before that.
While all the Oxford University colleges except Merton were loyal to the King, and donated their silver plate to help pay for the King's troops, the Oxford townspeople were Parliamentarians.
Charles I was put on trial for high treason. He vociferously claimed the monarch's divine right to rule, which he had been coached to uphold by his father James I. Charles was sentenced to death and was beheaded on January 30.
Charles I was the last reigning English monarch to be executed. After him, Britain's royals have soft-pedaled their divine right to rule. More in Oxford College Arms (Boissevain Books, 2018), p 11.
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