Western Civilization II / Unit 2 WC2 0107 short lesson, about 20 seconds
A King Executed, 1649
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The idea
Captured and tried by parliament, Charles I was executed as a traitor in sixteen forty-nine. The anchor's point is the charge: a king judged by his subjects' representatives for treason against the kingdom.
In practice
England became, in the anchor's phrase, a technically republican state, the Commonwealth.
Where people slip
Regicide settled nothing; Louis XIV learned the opposite lesson from the Fronde.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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