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Illustrated portrait of Charles I of England

A character in Twenty Years After

Charles I of England

The king the four friends fail to save, who speaks his last word to Athos through the boards of the scaffold.

The book

Cover of Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas
Twenty Years AfterAlexandre Dumas, 1845

The four musketeers at forty, split by a civil war in Paris and reunited under a scaffold in London.

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At a glance

In the book
King of England, prisoner of the Scots and then of Cromwell
Real person
Charles I, 1600–1649

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Charles Stuart is the real king of England, in the novel already beaten in the field and in the hands of the Scots army when Athos and Aramis reach him. Dumas makes him dignified, unlucky and stubborn, a man who refuses to run because he has fought too long, and who meets his death with more composure than anyone around him.

How Charles I of England Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • Sold by the ScotsIn Chapter LV he tells his new French officers that the Scots, among whom he was born, have sold him to Parliament, and that the shame of a treble treason will fall on their heads.
  • Cromwell's prisonerChapter LVI ends with couriers riding across England and Europe to announce that Charles Stuart is the prisoner of Oliver Cromwell.
  • The scaffold outside the windowIn Chapter LXV he is woken at Whitehall by hammering and learns from his servant Parry that the scaffold is being built level with his window.
  • Remember!In Chapter LXVI he tells the executioner to strike only when he says the word, speaks through the boards to Athos about a million in gold at Newcastle, and calls out "Remember!" as the axe falls.

Charles I of England quotes

Lines spoken by or about Charles I of England, each verified verbatim against the text and located in the book.

this is not a moment for recrimination, but a time to show yourself a king and a gentleman. Up, sire! up! for you have here at least three men who will not betray you.
— Athos (dialogue) · Alexandre Dumas, Twenty Years After (1845), the anonymous nineteenth-century translation, Chapter LVI
I leave you to brave the tempest; I go before you to a kingdom which knows no storms. Farewell.
— Charles I (dialogue) · Alexandre Dumas, Twenty Years After (1845), the anonymous nineteenth-century translation, Chapter LXVI
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

He is beheaded at Whitehall in Chapter LXVI. The masked man who takes the axe is Mordaunt; the four friends had already spirited away the real executioner.

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