Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud was beheaded during the reign of which king?

William Laud (7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was an English archbishop and academic. He was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, during the personal rule of Charles I. Arrested in 1640, he was executed in 1645.

The Long Parliament of 1640 accused Laud of treason and, in the Grand Remonstrance of 1641, called for his imprisonment. Laud was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he remained throughout the early stages of the English Civil War. Apart from a few personal enemies like William Prynne (and possibly Archbishop Williams), Parliament showed little anxiety to proceed against Laud; given his age, most members would probably have preferred to leave him to die of natural causes. In the spring of 1644 he was brought to trial which, however, ended without a verdict. Parliament took up the issue and eventually passed a bill of attainder under which he was beheaded on 10 January 1645 on Tower Hill, notwithstanding being granted a royal pardon.

Laud was buried in the chapel of St John's College, Oxford, his alma mater.