Why was Charles I Executed?

It is fundamental to understand that the execution of Charles I was not a pre-meditated act; while the pressures that drove the regicide were present throughout the civil wars, any understanding of the period 1641-49 and beyond is incomplete without an awareness that the execution of Charles I was an intensely radical act carried out by a political class unconvinced of the necessity of such action. Three key motors of the regicide can be identified, and used to garner a more general understanding of the politics of the Civil Wars in the Three Kingdoms:1) Religious Pressures - radical religious sentiment pervaded and underpinned not only the regicide, but anti-royalist opposition as a whole 2) Personal Pressures - the personal choices and characters of key actors - such as Henry Ireton, King Charles, Oliver Cromwell and Denzill Holles - were instrumental throughout the period3) Situational Pressures - the nature of the New Model Army, which was driven to the assumption of a political role, influenced Civil War, regicidal and later Protectoral politics, must be understood as crucial to the period Students ought to be led to an understanding of the interplay of these factors and of the chronology of their influence, and are encouraged to offer their own opinions on the primacy of one factor over another in causing the Regicide; and in dictating the course of mid-17th century British politics more generally.