Execution of Charles I of England

You are approaching the Banqueting House on Whitehall, the sole surviving structure of the sprawling Palace of Whitehall that once stood here. On a freezing January afternoon in 1649, this building became the stage for the only public execution of a reigning English monarch in history. The scaffold was constructed specifically for the event, positioned directly outside the building to ensure the King would pass through the hall, beneath the grand ceiling paintings he had commissioned years earlier, before stepping out of a first-floor window to his death.