The Executions of British and French Royalty: The Lives of the Royals Who Were Put to Death in England and France

Over 450 years after his reign, Henry VIII is still the most famous and recognizable King of England, but it’s for all the wrong reasons. Though well regarded by contemporaries as a learned King and 'one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne', he is best remembered today for his gluttony and multiple marriages, particularly the gruesome way in which he was widowed on more than one occasion. Naturally, that was the focus of the popular ShowTime drama series centered around his life, The Tudors. 

While Henry’s reign is not considered as favorably as his daughter’s, Queen Elizabeth I would ultimately sentence a queen to death herself. Mary, Queen of Scots’ fame as a monarch lies less in her personality or achievements than in her position within the dynastic maneuvers and political-religious upheavals taking place in northwest Europe in the 16th century. Most monarchs spend their early years learning in preparation to rule and then spend the latter part of their lives wielding power and status, but Mary was thrust upon the throne when she was only a week old, and she ceased to be queen nearly 20 years before her death.

With French society in open revolt by the late 1780s, the King appeared indecisive at a number of crucial moments, including during a famous attempted escape that was thwarted at Vergennes, and he had to literally run for his life when a mob stormed the royal palace at Tuileries. Soon after, he was stripped of his dignity and his royal name, convicted of high treason in a sham trial as Citizen Louis Capet. Ironically, in death, some historians have asserted that his execution and the sympathy it engendered helped bring about the Restoration a generation later. 

Nearly 220 years after she was put to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette is more famous than ever, fairly or unfairly coming to epitomize royalty and everything that was wrong with it.