A beheading at Whitehall

On 30 January 1649, 365 years ago today, a man stepped from a first floor window of a building on Whitehall and onto a scaffold that was draped in black cloth for his execution. It was a bitterly cold winter's day, so cold that the Thames had frozen over. He had put on two shirts under his doublet so as to keep warm enough to stop him from shivering: King Charles I did not want the assembled crowd to think he was afraid to die.

The king told the crowd: " I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be." He then knelt and placed his neck on a block, prayed for a moment, then extended his hands to indicate he was ready - and the axe came down.

Banqueting House today

My regular running route via the central parks takes me across Whitehall: at its corner with Horseguards Avenue stands the very building from which King Charles stepped to his death. Today, it's again shrouded in scaffolding, this time for renovation work.

It's the Banqueting House: the only surviving remnant of the royal Palace of Whitehall - the main residence of English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698, when the palace was destroyed by fire.

Banqueting House c1810

The Banqueting House was built in 1622 for Charles I's father, King James I. After Charles came to the throne in 1624, he commissioned Reubens to paint huge panels for its ceiling, where they remain today. These six massive paintings are a glorification of monarchy, their themes representing Charles' belief that kings have a god-given right to rule and are answerable only to God. It was his uncompromising adherence to this belief in the Divine Right of Kings that more than anything else led to his own destruction.

The interior of the Banqueting House

During Charles' lifetime Whitehall Palace sprawled over a large area. It was more a royal town than a palace, extending from Northumberland Avenue in the north to Downing Street in the South.

Palace of Whitehall in 1680

Today, a statue of Charles I stands below Nelson's Column at the top of Whitehall, looking down toward the Banqueting house and the site of his execution.

The story of the statue is a good one. It was cast in 1633 for King Charles' Treasurer, Charles Weston, who wanted a statue of his king for his garden in Roehampton. After the Parliamentary army defeated Charles' forces in the Civil War the statue was sold to a Holborn metalsmith called John Rivet, along with instructions from Parliament to destroy it. Rivet disobeyed the instructions and hid the statue on his premises - it's said he buried it. He produced some broken pieces of brass as evidence that he had followed his instructions, and for some time he sold brass-handled cutlery to both Royalists and Parliamentarians which he claimed was made from the remains of the statue.

John Rivet was clearly an enterprising man.

After the Restoration of the monarchy, the truth about the statue came out; Charles II eventually bought it, and in 1675 had it sited where it still stands at the head of Whitehall.

So Charles I's statue would have been there 23 years later in 1698, looking on as Whitehall Palace burned down, leaving only the site of his execution untouched.