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From Charles I's execution to Yoon's punishment, history moves forward

Published: 02 Mar. 2026, 00:01

Cho Gab-je

The author is a journalist and the head of ChoGabje.com and Cho Gab-je TV.

The Dec. 3, 2024, martial law declaration has been described as Korea’s first “failed palace coup.” It left an unprecedented record: a sitting president arrested in the act and brought to justice.

In a ruling delivered on Feb. 19, Presiding Judge Ji Gwi-yeon cited the execution of England’s King Charles I in 1649 as historic precedent for the punishment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol. The beheading of Charles I in the courtyard of Whitehall Palace in London marked a turning point in the history of democratic development. While monarchs had been assassinated or killed in battle, this was the first execution carried out after a formal trial, declaring that the law stands above the king.

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol (back row, left) attends the first trial verdict hearing on Feb. 19 at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District, southern Seoul, in a case charging him as the alleged ringleader of insurrection related to the declaration of martial law. Yoon was sentenced to life imprisonment at the hearing, 443 days after proclaiming emergency martial law on Dec. 3, 2024. [SEOUL CENTRAL DISTRICT COURT]

Judge Ji noted that the attack on Parliament by a monarch helped establish the principle that even a sovereign could be guilty of treason. He stressed repeatedly that the core issue in Yoon’s case was the deployment of troops to the National Assembly, adding that a president, like a king, is subject to punishment for insurrection.

In London’s Westminster Abbey, there once stood the stone coffin of Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan leader who oversaw Charles I’s execution and established a republic. When the monarchy was restored after Cromwell’s death, Charles II returned to the throne and began executing those involved in his father’s death, compiling what later came to be called a blacklist. He even ordered Cromwell’s body exhumed and symbolically executed on the 12th anniversary of his father’s beheading, displaying the skull atop Westminster Hall for more than two decades. The remains were passed among private owners for centuries before finally being buried on the grounds of Cambridge University in 1960.

Supporters watch a live broadcast of the first trial verdict on Feb. 19 near the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District, southern Seoul, for former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was indicted as the alleged ringleader of insurrection in connection with the Dec. 3 declaration of martial law. [YONHAP]

Yet the course of history did not stop. Charles II’s brother and successor, James II, a Catholic, clashed with Protestant forces and was driven out in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. His Protestant daughter Mary II and her husband William III were invited to rule jointly. At that time Parliament proclaimed the Bill of Rights, which became a model for modern democratic constitutions. It affirmed parliamentary control over the military and taxation and prohibited cruel punishment. Britain thereafter avoided military coups, unlike France, where a coup attempt occurred as late as 1961.

On Feb. 20, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that President Donald Trump’s aggressive reciprocal tariff policy violated the Constitution and invalidated it. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution assigns the power to levy taxes to Congress, and the president was found to have exceeded that authority. The American Constitution drew heavily on the English Bill of Rights, including parliamentary control over taxation, a principle that now served as a check on presidential power. A provision in the English document guaranteeing Protestants the right to bear arms was expanded in the United States to apply to all citizens, a key reason gun ownership cannot be broadly prohibited despite frequent gun violence.

Long before Judge Ji’s ruling, however, a Korean had cited Charles I in an academic context. Syngman Rhee (1875–1965), the first president of the Republic of Korea, mentioned the English monarch in his 1910 doctoral dissertation at Princeton University, a study in international law titled “Neutrality as Influenced by the United States.” At age 35, Rhee discussed Hugo Grotius, often called the father of international law, and examined British wartime neutrality, including policies during the reign of Charles I. His choice of a major theme from European history reflected a broad intellectual perspective.

Princeton itself was founded by Presbyterian settlers from Scotland, whose religious tradition had once aligned with Cromwell during the Puritan Revolution. The university later became a center for Scottish Enlightenment thought, represented by figures such as Adam Smith, and trained many leaders of the American founding. James Madison, a principal architect of the U.S. Constitution, was among its graduates.

Rhee, who had completed a master’s degree at Harvard, was strongly influenced at Princeton by its president at the time, Woodrow Wilson, who later became the U.S. president. At Princeton, Rhee absorbed an intellectual climate that emphasized free trade, a market economy and civic virtue in a republic. Through Rhee and Protestant networks, the democratic struggles of Britain and the United States were central currents in world history which would also influence Korea’s founding and development.

A military helicopter carrying martial law troops lands on the grounds of the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, early on Dec. 4, 2024, after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law in a televised address to the nation the night before. [JUN MIN-KYU]

Thomas Jefferson once wrote that the tree of liberty must be refreshed with blood, and Rhee described himself as a Jeffersonian. The core idea of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is reflected in Article 10 of the Korean Constitution, often called its moral foundation. In many late-developing countries, a failed palace coup leads to civil war. Korea, however, is resolving its crisis without bloodshed through the constitutional principles shaped by centuries of democratic struggle.

Having joined the mainstream of world history, the country is overcoming communism, dictatorship and premodern political practices. Resistance from far-right groups that invoke authoritarian rule represents a reaction against historic progress. History, ultimately, must move forward.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.