The Execution of Charles I with Dan Snow

Few moments in history match the drama of January 30th, 1649, when a reigning king was publicly beheaded by his own subjects. On this walking tour with historian Dan Snow, you'll retrace Charles I's final journey through London, from his last night in a royal palace to the scaffold outside his own home. You'll hear how political paranoia, religious conflict, and one king's unshakeable belief in his divine authority brought a monarchy to its knees.

The tour starts at the corner of Piccadilly and St James's Street, walking down to St James's Palace, where Charles spent his final night saying goodbye to his two youngest children. You'll cross St James's Park – the same route the king walked on the morning of his execution, flanked by 1,200 soldiers – before heading toward the seat of Parliament. Along the way, Dan traces how eleven years of Charles ruling without Parliament, illegal taxation, and secret dealings with foreign powers turned a political crisis into a civil war that killed one in ten adult men.

You'll pass St Margaret's Church, where Parliamentary preachers used the phrase Vox Populi, Vox Dei to argue that the people, not the king, held divine authority, and Westminster Hall, where Charles stood trial – refusing to remove his hat in a final act of defiance. The tour ends at the equestrian statue of Charles I in Trafalgar Square, the oldest bronze statue in London, which a secret Royalist hid underground to save it from being melted down during the Civil War.

On this 60-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Hear Charles's parting words to his 11-year-old daughter, recorded in her diary that night
• Learn how Speaker William Lenthall's response to the king became a cornerstone of parliamentary democracy
• See Banqueting House, where Charles stepped onto the scaffold beneath Rubens's paintings glorifying divine kingship
• Explore Old Palace Yard, where Guy Fawkes was executed just 40 years before Charles's own trial
• Find the sculptor's hidden signature on the statue's horse hoof

This is a story about the limits of power – told in the streets where it played out.

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