King Charles I Statue - Charing Cross, London, UK - Satellite Imagery Oddities on Waymarking.com

The British History website tells us about the King Charles I statue:

The statue represents the King, bareheaded, on horseback, in a demi-suit of armour, with a high falling collar, and across his chest is a scarf tied with a bow on the right shoulder. The George was originally suspended from the collar of the Order, but this was stolen in 1844. The King holds in his right hand a baton, which rests upon the pummel of the saddle, and in his left hand the reins. Neither sword nor buckles are present. His legs are cased in long boots, much crinkled, as was the fashion at the time.

The horse is a sturdy Flemish animal, with full equipment. His neck is arched and he stands with his right foreleg raised, and his full flowing tail almost reaching to the ground.

The statue displays grace and distinction and is without doubt one of the best examples of its kind of the period in the country. Speaking of it, Horace Walpole remarks: "the commanding grace of the figure and exquisite form of the horse are striking to the most unpractised eye."

The stone pedestal was executed by Joshua Marshall from a design by Wren. The upper part has a heavily moulded cornice, with carved laurel and other enrichments. The sides of the pedestal each consist of a moulded square panel with rounded surfaces to the ends, which contain carved cartouches in strong relief. The carving represents the Royal Stuart arms with heraldic supporters and amorini respectively, and also folded draperies with swags entwined amongst a medley of martial trophies at the base. The plinth to the pedestal is moulded and stands on a plain high rectangular base. The top of the pedestal is covered by a shaped granite slab to which are fixed (with four bolts to each) three bronze plates, each about 12 inches square, taking the three legs of the horse which reach the ground. The plate under the left foreleg has around the hoof the inscription, in letters 11/8 inches high: "Hvber Le-Svevr Fecit 1633."

The carving to the mouldings and cartouches is much weather-worn and in parts almost unrecognisable. There are also traces of repairs to holes on the flat surfaces of the panels, which may have been caused by dowels supporting descriptive tablets.

Three drawings relating to the statue are preserved in the Wren Collection at All Souls' College, Oxford. These presumably were preliminary sketches prepared by Wren for the design of the proposed pedestal to support Le Sueur's statue. As in the case of the engravings by Hollar, Morden and Lea, and Sutton Nicholls, the left foreleg and right hindleg of the horse are shown raised.

The BBC website tells us about King Charles I:

Charles I was king of England, Scotland and Ireland, whose conflicts with parliament led to civil war and his eventual execution.

Charles I was born in Fife on 19 November 1600, the second son of James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark. On the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 James became king of England and Ireland. Charles's popular older brother Henry, whom he adored, died in 1612 leaving Charles as heir, and in 1625 he became king. Three months after his accession he married Henrietta Maria of France. They had a happy marriage and left five surviving children.

Charles's reign began with an unpopular friendship with George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who used his influence against the wishes of other nobility. Buckingham was assassinated in 1628. There was ongoing tension with parliament over money - made worse by the costs of war abroad. In addition, Charles favoured a High Anglican form of worship, and his wife was Catholic - both made many of his subjects suspicious, particularly the Puritans. Charles dissolved parliament three times between 1625 and 1629. In 1629, he dismissed parliament and resolved to rule alone. This forced him to raise revenue by non-parliamentary means which made him increasingly unpopular. At the same time, there was a crackdown on Puritans and Catholics and many emigrated to the American colonies.

Unrest in Scotland - because Charles attempted to force a new prayer book on the country - put an end to his personal rule. He was forced to call parliament to obtain funds to fight the Scots. In November 1641, tensions were raised even further with disagreements over who should command an army to suppress an uprising in Ireland. Charles attempted to have five members of parliament arrested and in August 1642, raised the royal standard at Nottingham. Civil war began.

The Royalists were defeated in 1645-1646 by a combination of parliament's alliance with the Scots and the formation of the New Model Army. In 1646, Charles surrendered to the Scots, who handed him over to parliament. He escaped to the Isle of Wight in 1647 and encouraged discontented Scots to invade. This 'Second Civil War' was over within a year with another royalist defeat by Parliamentarian general Oliver Cromwell. Convinced that there would never be peace while the king lived, a rump of radical MPs, including Cromwell, put him on trial for treason. He was found guilty and executed on 30 January 1649 outside the Banqueting House on Whitehall, London.

A Bing bird's eye view of the statue can be seen here.