Memento of Kings' execution up for grabs

YOUR WEEKLY ROUND-UP OF THE REGION'S LEADING AUCTIONEERS

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THIS Friday is the 377th anniversary of the execution of King Charles I, publicly beheaded on the afternoon of January 30, 1649 - and with superb timing, a particularly fine memento of the event will be going under the hammer in Yorkshire just 24 hours earlier.

The execution shocked the country, indeed the whole of Europe. The Royalists had lost a bitter civil war but few people expected that Cromwell and the extremist wing of the parliamentarians would actually kill the King.

Within weeks of the execution, memorial medals and badges were being created and were circulating in Royalist circles, hidden pieces that were held by people who had the wherewithal to buy one and prepared to risk owning such a dangerous treasure at a time when even publication of an anti-government pamphlet could result in arrest and an accusation of treason.