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Dr Andrew Hopper investigates the recent controversy among historians about the nature of the trial of King Charles I. Which individuals drove the king's trial and what were their aims and goals? Did the king know he was doomed from the outset or did doubts remain over the trial's outcome? How committed were the trial commissioners to a capital sentence and what pressures constrained their freedom of action?

The trial papers of Charles I are on view in The Keeper's Gallery.

Dr Andrew Hopper is senior lecturer in the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester. He is a historian of the British Civil Wars, and best known for his two monographs Black Tom: Sir Thomas Fairfax and the English Revolution (Manchester University Press, 2007) and Turncoats and renegadoes: Changing sides in the English Civil Wars (Oxford University Press, 2012).