Published just after the execution of King Charles I in 1649,
Eikon Basilike
is a defence of the king’s motivations and actions prior to and during the British civil wars. Nine chapters of
Eikonoklastes
, John Milton’s response to
, are also included in this edition. Here Milton, writing from a republican perspective, attacks the substance and style of the King’s Book. These fascinating texts are now available in an edition that also includes a rich selection of historical documents.
This Broadview edition’s critical introduction discusses the publication history and both seventeenth-century and current debates regarding the work and its authorship, while the appendices provide a generous selection of contemporary responses to
and accounts of the king’s trial and scaffold speech.