How did John Milton respond to Eikon Basilike in Eikonoklastes?

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Engraved portrait of John Milton by Jacob Houbraken, showing Milton with shoulder-length hair, a lace collar, and period clothing, facing forward in an oval frame. — John Milton John Milton, engraving by Jacob Houbraken, 1741.

In his 1649 work Eikonoklastes (meaning "Image-Breaker"), John Milton responded to the royalist text Eikon Basilike by systematically dismantling the sympathetic portrait of Charles I that the book had cultivated following the king's execution.1

While Eikon Basilike depicted the late monarch as a pious, gentle, and contemplative martyr, Milton’s rebuttal sought to expose what he viewed as the king's underlying hypocrisy. To effectively challenge the image of the king, Milton drew a comparison to William Shakespeare's portrayal of the treacherous Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in the play Richard III. By using this literary analogue, Milton argued that the king’s outward pretense of piety was merely a mask used to disguise his true nature and political treachery.1

Commissioned by the Council of State to serve as an apologist for the Commonwealth, Milton utilized this polemic to counteract the widespread public sympathy for the executed king and to justify the actions taken by the new republic.1