That memorable scene in 1649, on a January day so cold that the lake in St James's Park had frozen over, stands as one of the climactic events in British history. It was the culmination of a decade of war and strife throughout the British Isles; a time of division between parties, factions, friends and within families; a time of disappointed hopes and failed ambitions. For three years Parliamentarians and soldiers, victorious on the battlefield, had endeavoured in vain to reach a settlement with the king, until, to cut the Gordian knot of their failure, the Army and its Parliamentary allies brought the king to public trial and, having been condemned to death for waging war against his own people, he was executed outside the Banqueting House of his palace of Whitehall. Something momentous and terrible had taken place, the stain of which could never be removed. Thomas Fairfax, ostensibly the king's enemy, consoled himself by writing bad poetry in which he begged, ‘Oh let that day from time be blotted quite.’ But that day could not be blotted out, the deed was done, the king was dead.