Stuart, Charles I, 1600 - 1649

Charles Stuart, the son of James VI and Ann of Denmark, was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.  He ascended to the throne at the death of his father in 1625.  Charles was interested in the expansion of trade and adventuring on a global scale.  Like his father, he granted large tracts of land in America to his friends and family.  Charles incorporated Native peoples into the expanding English empire through the royal prerogative.  In 1644 he received the submission of the Narragansett sachems to his royal authority, followed two years later by a similar submission by Necotowance in Virginia.  However, the development of a coherent imperial policy on American Indians never emerged under Charles since the split between Parliament and the Crown distracted him from his North American interests. The resulting civil wars eventually led to his defeat, imprisonment, and execution on Jan 30, 1649.  At the time of his death, settlers had extended the English empire to the New England colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, as well as in Virginia, Maryland, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. ODNB.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.