The first edition of Eikon Basilike was in print from the day of Charles I's execution on 30 January 1648/9. Charles has traditionally been identified as the author, but there has been some controversy over this since John Gauden, Bishop of Worcester, emerged as a probable ghostwriter in the 1690s. It is now thought to have been a collaboration between Gauden and Charles I.

'Eikon Basilike' means 'portrait of the king'. The book reviews the course of the civil wars from the calling of the Long Parliament in 1640 to Charles's imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle in 1647, and defends the king's policies. As well as being a political memoir, it uses the language of spiritual autobiography, presenting Charles as the defender of both Church and State. The penultimate chapter is addressed from Charles I to the Prince of Wales, the future Charles II. He is exhorted to become "Charles the Good", thinking of the welfare of his subjects; to be steadfast in his religion; not to dislike Parliament, despite its current 'insolencies'; and to defer to his mother, Henrietta Maria. The chapter concludes: 'if God will have disloyalty perfected by My destruction; let My memory ever, with My name, live in you…. Farewell, till We meet, if not on Earth, yet in Heaven.'

The portrayal of Charles I in the text as a moderate, peace-loving ruler transformed opinion of his execution so that it came to be viewed by many as an act of martyrdom. The frontispiece of the book, originally by William Marshall but in this edition usually by Wenceslaus Hollar, helped establish this image of Charles as saint and martyr: the king grasps a crown of thorns whilst his royal crown lies at his feet, discarded in favour of the heavenly crown of glory he fixes his gaze upon, the martyr's reward. Charles himself was aware of this imagery. In his execution speech he said 'I am the Martyr of the People'.

Since 1645 a powerful parallel had been being drawn by Charles's supporters between Charles and the crucified Christ, and the Eikon Basilike participated in this by encouraging readers in this view. Given this strong imagery, it is unsurprising that in 1660 an anonymous writer claimed that the Eikon Basilike was 'inferiour to none but Scriptures themselves'.

Despite the government’s attempts to suppress the words of the king they had just executed, Eikon Basilike became an immediate best-seller: it was one of the most influential books of the seventeenth century. In 1649 alone thirty-five editions were published in England, with a further twenty-five issued elsewhere in Europe. Its popularity and its scriptural qualities, along with its anticipation of the return of the Stuart monarchy in Charles's advice to his son, helped to bring about support for the Restoration of Charles II in 1660.

This edition of Eikon Basilike is more expensively produced than many others of the 1649 editions, and was perhaps intended for a more well-to-do consumer. The gold-tooled skull and crowned 'CR' cypher (for Carolus Rex or Charles I) on the cover boldly proclaims the book's subject.

Text adapted from Charles II: art & power (London: 2017)