Cabinet 9: Political Conspiracies
Eikon Basilike was published a few days after the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649. It offers a sentimental and self-exonerating account of the king’s rule and his conflict with the parliament. Although the text may have been based on writings supplied by Charles, the king himself was not the author. John Milton had already suspected this, and the author was probably the clergyman John Gauden, a fact revealed by his correspondence with Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon in 1661.
Eikon Basilike; or, The King’s Book, edited by Edward Almack (De La More Press, 1903) Special Collections DA 396 A4 1903