[5] The first Renaissance-style equestrian statue in England, it was commissioned by Charles's Lord High Treasurer Richard Weston for the garden of his country house in Roehampton, Surrey (now in South London).

[2] The contract, in French with an English translation, is thought to have been drafted by the architect Balthazar Gerbier, who was then building Putney Park, Weston's country house in Roehampton.

He produced some broken pieces of brass as evidence that he had followed his instructions, and for some time sold brass-handled cutlery to both Royalists and Parliamentarians, which he claimed was made from the remains of the statue.

[3] The pedestal itself is made of Portland stone with a carved coat of arms; the work was completed by Joshua Marshall, who was mason to Charles II.

[10] In late 1892, the Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland, led by Herbert Vivian, applied to the government for permission to lay wreaths at the statue, on the anniversary of Charles I's execution.

Permission was refused by Prime Minister Gladstone, and George Shaw-Lefevre, Vivian's one-time travelling companion and now the First Commissioner of Works, enforced the order.