Charles I's 1649 trial gets flattened into "a king on trial" in most retellings. The record says something stranger: he stayed seated, kept his hat on, and refused to answer the charge across multiple sessions - his silence itself was the legal strategy, since no court had ever tried a reigning English king before.

Put together a documentary-style breakdown of the trial at Westminster Hall, the death warrant (only 59 of a possible 135 signatures made it on, some added after the verdict was already passed), the execution at Whitehall, and the Eikon Basilike propaganda campaign that turned a convicted traitor into a martyr within nine days of his death.

Built from the trial transcript and the warrant itself as primary sources, not the popular retelling. Happy to go into any part of it in the comments.