This short piece gives the Scot's view of Charles II's efforts to unite Scotland and England's religious observances:
"FROM INTERNAL BATTLES TO FOREIGN incursions, Scotland has seen its fair share of conflicts and disputes. It is their strained relationship with their neighbors to the south, the English, that has seen the most bloodshed.
There is perhaps no better example to showcase man’s barbarity than a period known as the Killing Times. This was a religious war that lasted for roughly 10 years towards the end of the 17th century. An estimated 18,000 Scottish citizens lost their lives for upholding their belief that the ruling monarch was not in a higher position of authority than God.
Of the many examples of martyrs who gave up their lives for the cause of covenanting (the belief that God was the supreme power), perhaps it could be best epitomized by three individuals: Laur Hay, Andrew Pitulloch, and David Hackston. The first two were residents of Cupar and were executed in 1681 by beheading. The latter, being implicated in the murder of the Archbishop of St. Andrew, had his hands removed after his hanging in 1680, because he refused to swear allegiance to King Charles II of England.
Even though all three men met their demise in Edinburgh, their appendages were sent to be buried in Cupar in the county of Fife, as a warning to other Covenanters and to suppress any further uprisings after the murder of James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews.
Due to the ravages of time and weather, their headstone is not very legible, it reads: “Here lie interred the Heads of LAUR HAY and ANDREW PITULLOCH who suffered martyrdom at EDINr. July 16th 1681 for adhering to the word of GOD & Scotland covenanted work and Reformation and also one of the hands of DAVID HACKSTON of Rathillot who was most cruelly murdered at EDINr. July 30th 1680or the same cause.”
The other side bears this inscription: “Our persecutors filled with rage / Their brutish fury to aswage / Took heads and hands of martyrs off / That they might be the peoples scoff / They Hackstons body cutt asunder / And set it up a worlds wonder / In several places to proclaim / These monsters gloryd in their shame”
His Lordships Speech being ended; Thomas Lee of the Middle-Temple, London, Gentleman, was called to give in the Names of his Witnesses. The names of the Witnesses then, and there sworn, follow;
William Clark Esq James Nutley Esq Mr. George Masterson Clerk. George Farringdon. Hercules Huncks. Dr. William King. Martin Foster. John Baker. Stephen Kirk. Richard Nunnelly. John Powel. John Throckmorton. John Blackwel. Ralph Hardwick. Thomas Walkley, Gentleman. Holland Simpson. Benjamin Francis. Colonel Matthew Thomlinson. Griffith Bodurdo Esq Samuel Boardman. Robert Carr Esq Richard Young. Sir Purbock Temple. John Rushworth Esq John Gerrard. John Hearn. Mr. Coitmore. Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Clench. William Jessop Esq Edward Austin. Darnel Esq; Mr. Brown. Thomas Tongue. John Bowler. Mr. Sharp. Page 19 Mr. Lee. Robert Ewer. John King. Edward Folley. Mr. Gouge. Anthony Mildmay Esq.
The Grand Jury returned the Indictment Billa Vera. Court adjourned to the Old-Bailey, 10th of October.
After Proclamation for silence was made, it pleased Sir Or∣lando Bridgman, Lord Chief Baron of His Majestie's High Court of Exchequer, to speak to the Jury, as followeth:
Gentlemen,
YOu are the Grand Inquest for the Body of this County of Middlesex: You may perceive by this Commission that hath been read, that we are authorized by the King's Majesty to hear, and determine, all Treasons, Felonies, and other Offences, within this County: But because this Commission is upon a special occasion, the Execrable Murther of the blessed King, that is now a Saint in Heaven, King Charls the first; we shall not trouble you with the Heads of a long Charge. The ground of this Commission was, and is, from the Act of Oblivion, and Indempnity.
You shall find in that Act there is an Exception of several persons, who (for their Execrable Treasons, in sentencing to Death, and signing the Warrant for the taking away the Life of our said Sovereign) are left to be proceeded against as Traytors, according to the Laws of England; and are out of that Act wholly excepted, and fore-prized.
Gentlemen, You see these Persons are to be proceeded with, according to the Laws of the Land; and I shall speak nothing to you, but what are the words of the Laws. By the Statute of the twenty fifth of Edward the third (a Statute, or Decla∣ration of Treason) it is made High-Treason to compass, and imagine, the Death of the King. It was the ancient Laws of the Nation. In no Case else Imagination, or Compassing, without an Actual Effect of it, was punishable by our Law. Nihil officit Conatus, nisi sequatur Effectus; that was the old Rule of Law: But in the case of the King; His Life was so pretious, that the Intent was Treason by the Common Law; and Declared Treason by this Statute. The reason of it is this, In the case of the Death of the King, the Head of the Commonwealth that's cut off: and what a Trunk, an inanimate Lump, the Body is, when the Head is gone, you all know. For the Life of a single man, there's the Life of the Offendor; there's some Recompence, Life for Life: But for the Death of the King what Recompence can be made? This Compassing, Page 11 and Imagining the cutting off the Head of the King is known by some Overt-Act. Treason it is in the wicked Imagination; though not Treason Apparent; but when this Poison swells out of the Heart, and breaks forth into Action: in that case, it's High-Treason.
"In the County Middlesex. The Proceedings at Hicks Hall, Tuesday the 9th of October, 1660. in order to the Tryal of the pretended Judges of his late Sacred Majesty. The Court being sate; the Commission of Oyer, and Terminer under the Great Seal of England, was first read. It was directed to the Lords, and others hereafter named: viz. Thomas Aleyn, Knight, and Ba∣ronet, Lord Mayor of the City of London. The Lord Chancellor of Eng∣land. [Edward Hyde] The Earl of Southhampton, Lord Treasurer of England. The Duke of Somerset. The Duke of Albemarle. The Marquess of Ormonde, Steward of his Majesties Household. The Earl of Lindsey, Great Chamberlain of England. The Earl of Manchester, Chamberlain of his Majesties Household. The Earl of Dorset. The Earl of Berkshire. The Earl of Sandwich. Viscount Say, and Seal. The Lord Roberts. The Lord Finch. Denzil Hollis, Esquire. Sir Frederick Cornwallis, Knight, and Baronet, Treasurer of His Majesties Household. Sir Charles Barkly, Knight, Comptrouler of His Majesties Household. Mr. Secretary Nicholas. Mr. Secretary Morris. Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper. Arthur Annesley, Esquire. The Lord Chief Baron. Mr. Justice Foster. Mr. Justice Mallet. Mr. Justice Hide. Mr. Baron Atkins. Mr. Justice Twisden. Mr. Justice Tyrrel. Mr. Baron Turner. Page 9 Sir Harbottle Grimston, Knight, and Baronet. Sir William Wild, Knight, and Baronet, Recorder of Lon∣don. Mr. Serjeant Brown. Mr. Serjeant Hale. John Howel Esquire. Sir Geoffry Palmer, His Majestie's Attorny General. Sir Heneage Finch, His Majestie's Solicitor General. Sir Edward Turner, Attorney to His Highness the Duke of York. Wadham Windham Esquire. Edward Shelton Esquire, Clerk of the Crown.
The Grand Jury Sworn were: Sir William Darcy Baronet, Foreman. Sir Robert Bolles, Baronet. Sir Edward Ford, Knight. Sir Thomas Prestwick. Sir William Coney, Knight. Sir Charles Sidley Baronet. Sir Lewis Kirk, Knight. Sir Henry Littleton, Baronet. Sir Ralph Bovey, Baronet. Edward Chard Esquire. Robert Giggon Esquire. John Fotherly Esquire. Charles Gibbons Esquire. Thomas Geree Esquire. Richard Cox Esquire. Robert Bladwell Esquire. Henry Mustian Esquire. John Markham Esquire. Edward Buckley, Gent. Francis Bourchier, Gent. Edward Lole. Hart, Cryer.
John Cooke was a radical for his day (as befitted his Puritan background). He railed against rampant corruption and cronyism in the legal profession and the justice system. He created the first lawyer's code of ethics (although not accepted during his lifetime and for centuries to follow) whose basic principles now form the bedrock of legal codes of ethics in both Britain and the United States. Cooke was extremely concerned with the plight of the poor. He wrote in a number of publications calling for action to be taken to secure a better standard of living for the poor. In his book, "The Poor Man’s Case", Cooke called for social equality and even called for a national health service. In another far-sighted way Cooke believed poverty was a significant cause of crime; he would later call for limits to the death sentence and abolition of imprisonment for debt. He even urged fellow barristers to give away small parts of their salary in order to carry out legal work for the poor.
Cooke, for his trouble, was hunted down like a common criminal and was a given the traitor’s death: hanged, drawn and quartered.
John Cook/Cooke (1608 –1660) was the first Solicitor General of the English Commonwealth and led the prosecution of King Charles.
“The proceeding against King Charles in 1649 secured the constitutional gains of the Civil War – the supremacy of Parliament, the independence of judges, individual freedom guaranteed by Magna Carta and the common law”. Having said this, it is true many of the regicides have been woefully under-researched and their ideas and motivation have been largely left to small footnotes in old history books.
One such figure is the leading regicide and republican lawyer John Cooke who has finally been recognized in a 2007 biography by Geoffrey Robertson, “Tyrannicide Brief”. Cooke is more known for his refusal to pick up King Charles' silver cane top than for providing the theoretical, constitutional and practical justification for killing the King. As Cooke said "We fought for the public good and would have enfranchised the people and secured the welfare of the whole groaning creation, if the nation had not delighted more in servitude than freedom."
One thing is clear: many who took part, including John Cooke, did not believe the trial and execution of King Charles was a foregone conclusion. The majority of the leading figures of the revolution “did not at first want to kill the King”. Cooke at the beginning thought “the proceedings would end with some form of reconciliation”. It was only the threat of an intervention from the New Model Army that moved most of the leading regicides to kill the King. It was, after all, the army that wanted "to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done".
During the summer of 1659, Thomas Scot MP's agents infiltrated Viscount Mordaunt's Royalist-Presbyterian conspiracy, which enabled the Commonwealth government to suppress Booth's Uprising with little difficulty.
When Major-Gen. John Lambert forcibly dissolved Parliament and the Council of State in October 1659, Thomas Scot MP was elected President of the 9 members of the Council who refused to accept the dissolution and continued to meet in secret in defiance of the military junta.
Scot and his associates appealed to Gen. Monck and his army in Scotland to uphold the Commonwealth.
With Gen. Monck's support, Parliament was duly reinstated in Dec., 1659 Thomas Scot MP was appointed Secretary of State in Jan., 1660. However, Monck went further than the republicans expected by recalling the MPs excluded at Pride's Purge in 1648.
The restored Long Parliament voted for new elections and set in motion the train of events leading to the Restoration.
Denounced as a regicide, Thomas Scot MP fled to Brussels in April 1660, where he was persuaded to give himself up in the hope of obtaining a pardon.
Thomas Scot MP was sentenced to death at his trial in October 1660.
He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 17 Oct., 1660. He conducted himself bravely at his execution and died unrepentant "in a cause not to be repented of."
SOURCES: C. H. Firth, revised by Sean Kelsey, Thomas Scot, Oxford DNB, 2004 Godfrey Davies, The Restoration of Charles II, 1658-60 (San Marino 1955) David Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy in England 1649-60, (New Haven 1960)
THOMAS SCOT, MO - Died 1660 -- Member of the Council of State and director of the Commonwealth's intelligence network, he was executed as a regicide at the Restoration.
Nothing is known for certain about Thomas Scot's early life until 1626, when he made an advantageous marriage to Alice Allinson of Chesterford, Essex.
In 1644, Thomas Scot was a member of the county committee for Buckinghamshire. In 1645 Thomas Scot was elected recruiter MP for Aylesbury. He emerged as a zealous Independent and supporter of the King's trial, serving as a member of the High Court of Justice and signing King Charles' death warrant.
Thomas Scot MP became prominent in the government of the Commonwealth as a leading member of the Council of State, and was sometimes referred to by the title of Secretary of State.
In July 1649, the Council of State commissioned Thomas Scot MP to manage the government's spying and intelligence network. In association with Capt. George Bishop, he built up a formidable intelligence organization, employing agents provocateurs, cryptographers and a network of agents in foreign courts and among Royalist exiles. However, Scot was a strong supporter of the republican Commonwealth.
Scot opposed Cromwell's dissolution of the Rump Parliament in 1653 and his assumption of the office of Lord Protector. In July 1653, the spying network established by Scot was taken over by the loyal Cromwellian John Thurloe.
Thomas Scot was elected to the First Protectorate Parliament in 1654 as MP for Wycombe, but was among the Members excluded from Parliament for refusing to sign the Recognition of the Protectorate insisted upon by Cromwell.
In 1656, Thomas Scot MP was elected MP for Aylesbury in the Second Protectorate Parliament. But Scot once again was one of 100 republicans excluded from the first session of Parliament. The excluded Members were admitted to the second session, which opened in January 1658, and Thomas Scot MP became one of the leading critics of the new second chamber, or Upper House, established by Cromwell under the terms of the Humble Petition and Advice.
After Cromwell's death in Sept. 1658, Scot was elected to the Third Protectorate Parliament called by Richard Cromwell in Jan. 1659, during which he was among the opposition MPs who worked for the overthrow of the Protectorate.
After Richard Cromwell's resignation and the re-establishment of the Rump Parliament, Thomas Scot MP once again became a prominent member of the Council of State and resumed his former role as director of intelligence.
L&M: Thomas Scot, republican and regicide. In 1659 he was given control of the intelligence services for the 3rd time, and a week later made Secretary of State.
While serving in the New Model, Col. Waller becamean admirer of Oliver Cromwell with zeal for the Independent cause, which led to a split with Inchiquin in February 1647.
Col. Waller was involved in the political struggle between the Army and Parliament during 1647.
Col. Waller took part in the Putney Debates and argued the Army should not hesitate to use force to coerce the Presbyterians in Parliament.
On the outbreak of the Second Civil War early in 1648, Col. Waller was sent into Devon and Cornwall to subdue Royalist insurgents.
In December 1648, Col. Sir Hardress Waller was with Col. Pride at the purging of Parliament.
Col. Sir Hardress Waller was appointed one of King Charles' judges in January 1649; was a signatory of the King's death warrant and helped arrange his execution.
In 1650, Col. Waller returned to Ireland as a major-general in Cromwell's invasion force.
When Cromwell returned to England in May 1650, Major Gen. Waller stayed in Ireland and helped Ireton and Ludlow complete the subjugation.
Major Gen. Waller captured Carlow Castle in July 1650 and played a major role in the siege of Limerick in 1651, after which he was appointed governor of Limerick.
Gov. Waller was involved in the settlement of Ireland and remained loyal to Cromwell throughout the 1650s.
Major Gen. Sir Hardress Waller supported the establishment of the Protectorate against opposition from fellow officers, and came over to the republicans after Richard Cromwell's resignation in 1659.
Major Gen. Waller opposed Gen. John Lambert's coup against Parliament in October 1659
Major Gen. Waller led the officers who seized Dublin Castle in Parliament's name in December, 1659.
Early in 1660, Major Gen. Waller became alarmed at moves to reinstate the MPs he had helped to expel during Pride's Purge.
Major Gen. Waller seized Dublin Castle again on 15 February, 1660 but, finding little support, he was obliged to surrender to Sir Charles Coote 3 days later.
Major Gen. Sir Hardress Waller was imprisoned at Athlone, then returned to England on the intervention of his cousin, Sir William Waller.
Major Gen. Sir Hardress Waller fled to France at the Restoration, but surrendered, hoping for the lenient treatment offered to repentant regicides.
Although Major Gen. Sir Hardress Waller was condemned to death, his cousin Sir William Waller interceded for him, and the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on Jersey, where he died in 1666.
SOURCES: Patrick Little, Sir Hardress Waller , Oxford DNB, 2004
A New Model Army officer with interests in Ireland, Sir Hardress Waller was imprisoned for life at the Restoration for his role in the regicide.
Hardress was the son of George Waller of Groombridge, Kent, and Mary, daughter of Richard Hardress.
Hardress Waller was knighted by King Charles in 1629 and married Elizabeth Dowdall, the daughter of an "Old English" landowner in Ireland. Through his marriage, Sir Hardress Waller acquired a large estate at Castletown, Co. Limerick.
During the 1630s, Waller supported Old English interests in Ireland against the administration of Sir Thomas Wentworth and opposed further English colonization in the west of Ireland.
After the Irish Uprising of 1641, Sir Hardress Waller turned against the Old English and campaigned against the Confederates in Munster as an ally of Lord Inchiquin.
In September 1642, Waller went to England to support Lord Inchiquin's claim to the presidency of Munster.
Sir Hardress remained at King Charles' court in Oxford for a year, but left in disgrace after criticizing plans for the Cessation of 1643.
Waller deputized as governor of Munster in January 1644 while Inchiquin went to lobby King Charles.
On Inchiquin's return to Ireland, he sent Waller back to Court again, but King Charles appointed the Earl of Portland as the governor of Munster.
This prompted Inchiquin and the Munster Protestants to declare for Parliament in July 1644, while Waller went to London and joined the New Model Army.
Sir Hardress Waller was commissioned colonel of a regiment of foot and fought at Naseby in June 1645.
In October 1645, Col. Waller was wounded leading his regiment in the storming of Basing House.
I feel sympathy with these in-coming preachers. The ministers their congregations were used to preached inspirational, emotional, hellfire-and-brimstone sermons for hours on end, and now the CofE was back, with a Book of Prayer everyone associated with the hated Archbishop Laud. The choirs and lay preachers were unfamiliar with the "catholic" rituals, so I suspect there was a shortage of books (why store something outlawed "in case it comes in useful" for 15 years?) -- so the clergy were probably "winging" the services.
The Restoration of Charles II was still very tentative -- if the Vicar got too enthusiastic about it, he'd lose what was left of his congregation. Plus it's hard to preach with any enthusiasm about a loving, merciful God when his representative on earth is trying 4 regicides for traitors' deaths just down the road.
The ministers were probably waiting for Charles to lead on what the CofE was going to look like in 1660s -- so the likes of Pepys waited for entertainment, enlightenment, inspiration and leadership at their weekly required church attendance and were sadly disappointed.
The clergy sensed they were awaiting a revision of orthodoxy; being too outspoken about anything was dangerous -- it would be very easy to end up on the wrong list and your career and livelihood ended.
It's too early to talk about the Savoy Conference of 1661 which aimed to clarify and resolve these problems, as that would be spoilers. Just know that no one really knew what they were doing, or had any deep conviction that what they thought could/would last.
I feel sympathy with these in-coming preachers. The ministers their congregations were used to preached inspirational, emotional, hellfire-and-brimstone sermons for hours on end, and now the CofE was back, with a Book of Prayer everyone associated with the hated Archbishop Laud. The choirs and lay preachers were unfamiliar with the "catholic" rituals, so I suspect there was a shortage of books (why store something outlawed "in case it comes in useful" for 15 years?) -- so the clergy were probably "winging" the services.
The Restoration of Charles II was still very tentative -- if the Vicar got too enthusiastic about it, he'd lose what was left of his congregation. Plus it's hard to preach with any enthusiasm about a loving, merciful God when his representative on earth is trying 4 regicides for traitors' deaths just down the road.
The ministers were probably waiting for Charles to lead on what the CofE was going to look like in 1660s -- so the likes of Pepys waited for entertainment, enlightenment, inspiration and leadership at their weekly required church attendance and were sadly disappointed.
The clergy sensed they were awaiting a revision of orthodoxy; being too outspoken about anything was dangerous -- it would be very easy to end up on the wrong list and your career and livelihood ended.
It's too early to talk about the Savoy Conference of 1661 which aimed to clarify and resolve these problems, as that would be spoilers. Just know that no one really knew what they were doing, or had any deep conviction that what they thought could/would last.
I doubt Pepys would have agreed to a joint credit card account with Elizabeth. She's only 20, and you know how young people are with money -- I'm surprised he lets her buy a bed without his approval first.
Nevertheless, Downes and Edmund Harvey MP (1601 – 1673) do seem to have withdrawn from the proceedings, and Downes’ story was not laughed out of court, and whatever we think about the motives of men like Cromwell, it is plausible to suggest more humble regicides questioned the sentence, especially when the sentence being considered was death, something on which the record is silent until 26 January.
The author’s third task was to examine the claims made after October 1660, and the stories spun by the regicides who evaded the death penalty. Here the aim was to explore the possibility that the fates of the regicides reflect not just that some had surrendered, but also that some were perceived to be less guilty than others, so credence was given to their excuses.
The 4 most interesting cases are those of George Fleetwood MP, Thomas Waite MP, John Downes MP and Capt. James Temple MP.
Lt-Col. William Wetton claimed to have observed the disturbance caused by Downes and Waite on 27 January, and to have been an eyewitness to the events in the Court of Wards.
Wetton testified that Downes and Waite ‘did strongly move that the king’s proposals might be heard, for he offered without the spilling of blood to settle the nation for the good of all’, and that Cromwell responded by asking whether the trial should be ‘obstructed by 2 or 3 peevish men’, as well as that neither MP returned to Westminster Hall.
Wetton was also called as a witness by Downes, in order to prove other judges were suspicious about his zeal for the trial, and to provide testimony about the events in the Court of Wards.
Wetton recalled hearing Downes speak ‘with a great deal of earnestness’, recalled hearing Cromwell describe him as ‘a peevish man’ who ‘pretended conscience and the public good’ while intending ‘the service of his own master’, and recalled he had been unable to spot Downes when the court reassembled.
Downes was also supported by his brother, Richard Downes, a London draper, who claimed to have witnessed the events of 27 January, and to have observed Downes did not resume his place after the adjournment, even if he had to admit to not being able to hear the interjection which prompted the pause in proceedings. Richard Downes also reported the opprobrium heaped upon his brother by radical republicans, and to the legacy of bitterness which the episode caused.
George Almery recalled how, before the trial began, Downes told him ‘they would not take away His Majesties life, but only show their power to bring His Majesty to terms’, while another witness, Samuel Taylor, recalled how even in 1656 Downes feared being ‘ruined’ by Cromwell, such was the latter’s rage against him.
Whatever we make of the plausibility of such witnesses, who may all have been friends and kinsmen, some contemporaries must have listened, and in January 1662, John Downes MP’s name was ordered to be ‘struck out’ of the bill for execution.
Thirdly, when the regicides explained their involvement in the trial, they often claimed youthful stupidity, ‘want of years’, respect for authority, pressure from elders and betters, and ‘ignorance’.
Downes talked of an ‘express order’ commanding his attendance, and of being ‘ensnared’ as a result of ‘weakness and fear’.
He claimed not to have known the king was brought to London ‘to take away his life’, but realized this was the intention when ‘the bill was brought into the House to erect a High Court of Justice’.
Fourthly, 4 regicides claimed to have intervened in the proceedings on 27 January, to support King Charles’ belated request for talks.
The most important was John Downes MP, who claimed to have protested the decision to ignore King Charles’ plea, to have spoken with other judges – William Cawley MP (1602–1667) and Valentine Walton MP (1593/4-1661) – and to have resisted Cromwell’s attempt to silence him, until he ‘started up in the very nick, when the president commanded the clerk to read the sentence’, in order to protest that ‘I am not satisfied to give my consent to this sentence, but have reasons to offer to you against it, and I desire the court may adjourn to hear me’. Downes claimed it was his intervention which prompted President of High Court of Justice, John Bradshaw (1602-1659), to adjourn the court. In the meeting which followed, Downes claimed to have argued there was time to reach a settlement, reminded fellow judges about an earlier resolution that the trial could be interrupted in the event of an emergency. Downes apparently said ‘if this were not an emergency, I could not tell what was’, and his order had been passed in the expectation the king would eventually recognize the need to recognize the power of the court. For such comments John Downes MP claimed he incurred the ‘scornful wrath’ of Cromwell, who called him a ‘peevish tenacious man’, accused him of seeking to save ‘his old master’ (Downes once held minor office in the Duchy of Cornwall) and labelled him a malignant. Downes’ response to such accusations, and to threats which followed, was to withdraw into the Speaker’s chamber, and to boycott the rest of the trial.
At their trial in October 1660, some regicides reiterated claims made earlier about the planning process for the trial, and made statements which are beyond scrutiny, but which cannot be dismissed entirely. What comes into focus now is that some who were appointed as judges and who served on the High Court were odd appointments, whose political records and status did not mark them out as important radicals.
There is no evidence it was Downes, or any other commissioner, who provoked John Bradshaw’s decision to adjourn the court, or to corroborate the claims made about the conversation which took place in the Court of Wards. Key witnesses – William Cawley MP (1602–1667) , Valentine Walton MP (1594-1661) – were in exile, and Oliver Cromwell was dead.
Highlights from: “The lies of the Regicides? Charles I’s judges at the Restoration” -- by Dr Jason Peacey, Senior Lecturer in History at University College, London.
Those involved in the trial of King Charles, and alive in 1660, found themselves marked men. Vilified in public and in print, they faced choices about how to behave, and how to respond to the probability they would be punished by Charles II or parliament.
Some fled, to live out their days in relative safety, or to live troubled lives, either because of the threat of violence or of capture, and some lived in obscurity, covered their tracks and assumed new identities. Some were eventually caught, and 3 were brought back to England, tried, sentenced and executed.
Others surrendered under the terms of a June 1660 proclamation, either in the hope of securing pardon or of mitigating their guilt, although it was always clear their fates depended upon the attitude of MPs, who were given the power to determine who should be punished and who should be pardoned. As it turned out, MPs proved more vindictive than Charles II, resulting in the trial of 29 men in October 1660, 27 of whom pleaded guilty. The author suggests the claims made by the regicides (which fall into 4 main areas) should be taken seriously.
First, some of the men protested they had played no part in planning the proceedings.
John Downes MP (1609 – 1666) professed that he ‘never was in consultation about the thing’, that he ‘was never of any junto or cabal’, and that he sat on no committees regarding the ordinance for the king’s trial; and this too may have been true, although he was at least nominated to one committee to consider the erection of the High Court.
Secondly, claims were made about the process by which the judges were nominated.
Simon Mayne MP (c.1640-1725) claimed to have tried to remove his name from the ordinance during a Commons debate, only to have been brow-beaten by Thomas Chaloner MP (1595–1661), while Downes insisted his name was initially omitted from the plans, only to be inserted against his wishes at a later date after he bumped into the trial’s organizers in a Westminster corridor.
Mayne’s story cannot be verified, as we lack evidence on parliamentary debates during the relevant weeks, and Downes' name seems to have been incuded when the first ordinance was submitted to Parliament on 1 January, 1649. It is now clear the process of formulating legislation and picking judges was convoluted, the first ordinance was rejected, and there followed a process of personal lobbying and factional maneuvering which saw some names removed and others inserted before plans were approved on 6 January.
It now makes sense to argue the planning process was bedeviled by divisions over the intended outcome, which became manifest in debates over the nomination of individual judges, and the claims of both Downes and Mayne become more difficult to dismiss.
Regicide whose life was spared because he claimed that Cromwell had bullied him into signing the King's death warrant.
Born at Manby in Lincolnshire, John Downes studied at the Inner Temple and was called to the bar in 1642.
John Downes became an auditor of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1633 and was elected MP for Arundel, Sussex, in December 1641. The election result was contested by a client of the Catholic Earl of Arundel, but with the support of Puritan MPs of the Long Parliament, Downes' claim was upheld.
During the First Civil War, John Downes directed income from lands belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall to Parliament rather than to King Charles, and was active in the local administration of Sussex.
John Downes MP was associated with the Independent faction in Parliament, but he did not play an active role until after Pride's Purge in December 1648 when he worked on the suppression of the protests against the purging of Parliament, and was appointed to the powerful Army Committee.
In January 1649, John Downes was appointed to the High Court of Justice. During the King's trial, John Downes MP was moved by King Charles' words and rose to protest, "Have we hearts of stone?" — for which he was furiously rebuked by Oliver Cromwell. Downes withdrew from the High Court, but despite his reservations, he signed the King's death warrant, later claiming that he was forced to do so.
John Downes MP remained active in the administration of the Commonwealth and was appointed to the Council of State in 1651, but withdrew from public life after the establishment of the Protectorate. John Downes MP returned to power briefly in 1659 when the Rump Parliament was recalled.
When John Downes MP realized the Restoration was inevitable, he published a vindication of his actions. However, this did not prevent his arrest as a regicide in June 1660.
John Downes MP was found guilty at his trial in October 1660 and condemned to death, but the sentence was revoked because of Downes' defense that Cromwell had bullied him into signing the King's death warrant against his better judgment.
John Downes MP spent the rest of his life a prisoner in the Tower of London and died around 1666.
SOURCES: Graham Edwards, The Last Days of Charles I, 1999 J. T. Peacey and Ivan Roots, John Downes, Oxford DNB, 2004
"But it sticks in my stomach to see the actions of turncoats such as Monck and Sandwich who will condemn their former colleagues to death for the sake of preferment."
On 16 March, 1660 Gen. Monck forced the Long Parliament to vote for its own dissolution and call for new elections. At the same time, Charles II made the Declaration of Breda, and when the Convention Parliament met on 25 April, 1660 (Matthew Hale MP represented Gloucestershire) it immediately began negotiations with Charles II.
Judge Matthew Hale MP moved in the Commons that "a committee might be appointed to look into the overtures that had been made, and the concessions that had been offered, by [King Charles]" and "from thence to digest such propositions, as they should think fit to be sent over to [Charles II]" who was still in Breda.
On 1 May, 1660 Parliament restored the monarchy, and Charles II landed in Dover 3 weeks later.
Judge Hale's first task in the new regime was as part of the Special Commission of 37 judges who tried the 29 regicides not included in the Declaration of Breda, between 9 and 19 October, 1660.
All were found guilty of treason, and 10 of them were hanged, drawn and quartered.
Sitting as a judge in this trial led to some viewing Chief Justice Hale as hypocritical, with F.A. Inderwick later writing "I confess to a feeling of pain at finding [Hale] in October 1660, sitting as a judge at the Old Bailey, trying and condemning to death batches of the regicides, men under whose orders he had himself acted, who had been his colleagues in Parliament, with whom he had sat on committees to alter the law".[58] 58 Sainty, John (1993). The Judges of England 1272 -1990: a list of judges of the superior courts. Oxford: Selden Society. OCLC 29670782. p.96
Perhaps as reward, Judge Hale became Chief Baron of the Exchequer on 7 November, 1660. He had no wish for the knighthood that accompanied this appointment and avoided being near Charles II. So Chancellor Edward Hyde invited him to his house, where the King was present. Hale was knighted on the spot.[60] 60 Hostettler, John (2002). The Red Gown: The Life and Works of Sir Matthew Hale. Chichester: Barry Rose Law Publishers. ISBN 1-902681-28-2. p.84
Comments
Third Reading
About James Sharp (Archbishop of St Andrews 1661-79)
San Diego Sarah • Link
This short piece gives the Scot's view of Charles II's efforts to unite Scotland and England's religious observances:
"FROM INTERNAL BATTLES TO FOREIGN incursions, Scotland has seen its fair share of conflicts and disputes. It is their strained relationship with their neighbors to the south, the English, that has seen the most bloodshed.
There is perhaps no better example to showcase man’s barbarity than a period known as the Killing Times. This was a religious war that lasted for roughly 10 years towards the end of the 17th century. An estimated 18,000 Scottish citizens lost their lives for upholding their belief that the ruling monarch was not in a higher position of authority than God.
Of the many examples of martyrs who gave up their lives for the cause of covenanting (the belief that God was the supreme power), perhaps it could be best epitomized by three individuals: Laur Hay, Andrew Pitulloch, and David Hackston.
The first two were residents of Cupar and were executed in 1681 by beheading.
The latter, being implicated in the murder of the Archbishop of St. Andrew, had his hands removed after his hanging in 1680, because he refused to swear allegiance to King Charles II of England.
Even though all three men met their demise in Edinburgh, their appendages were sent to be buried in Cupar in the county of Fife, as a warning to other Covenanters and to suppress any further uprisings after the murder of James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews.
Due to the ravages of time and weather, their headstone is not very legible, it reads: “Here lie interred the Heads of LAUR HAY and ANDREW PITULLOCH who suffered martyrdom at EDINr. July 16th 1681 for adhering to the word of GOD & Scotland covenanted work and Reformation and also one of the hands of DAVID HACKSTON of Rathillot who was most cruelly murdered at EDINr. July 30th 1680or the same cause.”
The other side bears this inscription: “Our persecutors filled with rage / Their brutish fury to aswage / Took heads and hands of martyrs off / That they might be the peoples scoff / They Hackstons body cutt asunder / And set it up a worlds wonder / In several places to proclaim / These monsters gloryd in their shame”
Pictures of the weathered headstone at
https://www.atlasobscura.com/plac…
This is Archbishop James Sharp's legacy.
About Tuesday 9 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
PAGE 3
His Lordships Speech being ended; Thomas Lee of the Middle-Temple, London, Gentleman, was called to give in the Names of his Witnesses. The names of the Witnesses then, and there sworn, follow;
William Clark Esq
James Nutley Esq
Mr. George Masterson Clerk.
George Farringdon.
Hercules Huncks.
Dr. William King.
Martin Foster.
John Baker.
Stephen Kirk.
Richard Nunnelly.
John Powel.
John Throckmorton.
John Blackwel.
Ralph Hardwick.
Thomas Walkley, Gentleman.
Holland Simpson.
Benjamin Francis.
Colonel Matthew Thomlinson.
Griffith Bodurdo Esq
Samuel Boardman.
Robert Carr Esq
Richard Young.
Sir Purbock Temple.
John Rushworth Esq
John Gerrard.
John Hearn.
Mr. Coitmore.
Mr. Cunningham.
Mr. Clench.
William Jessop Esq
Edward Austin.
Darnel Esq;
Mr. Brown.
Thomas Tongue.
John Bowler.
Mr. Sharp.
Page 19
Mr. Lee.
Robert Ewer.
John King.
Edward Folley.
Mr. Gouge.
Anthony Mildmay Esq.
The Grand Jury returned the Indictment Billa Vera.
Court adjourned to the Old-Bailey, 10th of October.
You can read the whole thing at
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…
About Tuesday 9 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
After Proclamation for silence was made, it pleased Sir Or∣lando Bridgman,
Lord Chief Baron of His Majestie's High Court of Exchequer, to speak to the Jury, as followeth:
Gentlemen,
YOu are the Grand Inquest for the Body of this County of Middlesex: You may perceive by this Commission that hath been read, that we are authorized by the King's Majesty to hear, and determine, all Treasons, Felonies, and other Offences, within this County: But because this Commission is upon a special occasion, the Execrable Murther of the blessed King, that is now a Saint in Heaven, King Charls the first; we shall not trouble you with the Heads of a long Charge. The ground of this Commission was, and is, from the Act of Oblivion, and Indempnity.
You shall find in that Act there is an Exception of several persons, who (for their Execrable Treasons, in sentencing to Death, and signing the Warrant for the taking away the Life of our said Sovereign) are left to be proceeded
against as Traytors, according to the Laws of England; and are out of that Act wholly excepted, and fore-prized.
Gentlemen, You see these Persons are to be proceeded with, according to the Laws of the Land; and I shall speak nothing to you, but what are the words of the Laws. By the Statute of the twenty fifth of Edward the third (a Statute, or Decla∣ration of Treason) it is made High-Treason to compass, and imagine, the Death of the King.
It was the ancient Laws of the Nation. In no Case else Imagination, or Compassing, without an Actual Effect of it, was punishable by our Law.
Nihil officit Conatus, nisi sequatur Effectus; that was the old Rule of Law: But in the case of the King; His Life was so pretious, that the Intent was Treason by the Common Law; and Declared Treason by this Statute. The reason of it is this,
In the case of the Death of the King, the Head of the Commonwealth that's cut off: and what a Trunk, an inanimate Lump, the Body is, when the Head is gone, you all know.
For the Life of a single man, there's the Life of the Offendor; there's some Recompence, Life for Life: But for the Death of the King what Recompence can be made? This Compassing,
Page 11
and Imagining the cutting off the Head of the King is known by some Overt-Act. Treason it is in the wicked Imagination; though not Treason Apparent; but when this Poison swells out of the Heart, and breaks forth into Action: in that case, it's High-Treason.
AND SO IT GOES ON FOR SEVERAL PAGES
About Tuesday 9 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Meanwhile, at Hicks Hall, Middlesex,
"In the County Middlesex. The Proceedings at Hicks Hall, Tuesday the 9th of October, 1660. in order to the Tryal of the pretended Judges of his late Sacred Majesty.
The Court being sate; the Commission of Oyer, and Terminer under the Great Seal of England, was first read. It was directed to the Lords, and others hereafter named: viz.
Thomas Aleyn, Knight, and Ba∣ronet, Lord Mayor of the City of London.
The Lord Chancellor of Eng∣land. [Edward Hyde]
The Earl of Southhampton, Lord Treasurer of England.
The Duke of Somerset.
The Duke of Albemarle.
The Marquess of Ormonde, Steward of his Majesties Household.
The Earl of Lindsey, Great Chamberlain of England.
The Earl of Manchester, Chamberlain of his Majesties Household.
The Earl of Dorset.
The Earl of Berkshire.
The Earl of Sandwich.
Viscount Say, and Seal.
The Lord Roberts.
The Lord Finch.
Denzil Hollis, Esquire.
Sir Frederick Cornwallis, Knight, and Baronet, Treasurer of His Majesties Household.
Sir Charles Barkly, Knight, Comptrouler of His Majesties Household.
Mr. Secretary Nicholas.
Mr. Secretary Morris.
Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper.
Arthur Annesley, Esquire.
The Lord Chief Baron.
Mr. Justice Foster.
Mr. Justice Mallet.
Mr. Justice Hide.
Mr. Baron Atkins.
Mr. Justice Twisden.
Mr. Justice Tyrrel.
Mr. Baron Turner.
Page 9
Sir Harbottle Grimston, Knight, and Baronet.
Sir William Wild, Knight, and Baronet, Recorder of Lon∣don.
Mr. Serjeant Brown.
Mr. Serjeant Hale.
John Howel Esquire.
Sir Geoffry Palmer, His Majestie's Attorny General.
Sir Heneage Finch, His Majestie's Solicitor General.
Sir Edward Turner, Attorney to His Highness the Duke of York.
Wadham Windham Esquire.
Edward Shelton Esquire, Clerk of the Crown.
The Grand Jury Sworn were:
Sir William Darcy Baronet, Foreman.
Sir Robert Bolles, Baronet.
Sir Edward Ford, Knight.
Sir Thomas Prestwick.
Sir William Coney, Knight.
Sir Charles Sidley Baronet.
Sir Lewis Kirk, Knight.
Sir Henry Littleton, Baronet.
Sir Ralph Bovey, Baronet.
Edward Chard Esquire.
Robert Giggon Esquire.
John Fotherly Esquire.
Charles Gibbons Esquire.
Thomas Geree Esquire.
Richard Cox Esquire.
Robert Bladwell Esquire.
Henry Mustian Esquire.
John Markham Esquire.
Edward Buckley, Gent.
Francis Bourchier, Gent.
Edward Lole.
Hart, Cryer.
About John Cook
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
John Cooke was a radical for his day (as befitted his Puritan background). He railed against rampant corruption and cronyism in the legal profession and the justice system.
He created the first lawyer's code of ethics (although not accepted during his lifetime and for centuries to follow) whose basic principles now form the bedrock of legal codes of ethics in both Britain and the United States.
Cooke was extremely concerned with the plight of the poor. He wrote in a number of publications calling for action to be taken to secure a better standard of living for the poor.
In his book, "The Poor Man’s Case", Cooke called for social equality and even called for a national health service.
In another far-sighted way Cooke believed poverty was a significant cause of crime; he would later call for limits to the death sentence and abolition of imprisonment for debt.
He even urged fellow barristers to give away small parts of their salary in order to carry out legal work for the poor.
Cooke, for his trouble, was hunted down like a common criminal and was a given the traitor’s death: hanged, drawn and quartered.
Much more at https://www.libertarianism.org/ar…
https://www.amazon.com/Tyrannicid…
About John Cook
San Diego Sarah • Link
John Cook/Cooke (1608 –1660) was the first Solicitor General of the English Commonwealth and led the prosecution of King Charles.
“The proceeding against King Charles in 1649 secured the constitutional gains of the Civil War – the supremacy of Parliament, the independence of judges, individual freedom guaranteed by Magna Carta and the common law”.
Having said this, it is true many of the regicides have been woefully under-researched and their ideas and motivation have been largely left to small footnotes in old history books.
One such figure is the leading regicide and republican lawyer John Cooke who has finally been recognized in a 2007 biography by Geoffrey Robertson, “Tyrannicide Brief”.
Cooke is more known for his refusal to pick up King Charles' silver cane top than for providing the theoretical, constitutional and practical justification for killing the King.
As Cooke said "We fought for the public good and would have enfranchised the people and secured the welfare of the whole groaning creation, if the nation had not delighted more in servitude than freedom."
One thing is clear: many who took part, including John Cooke, did not believe the trial and execution of King Charles was a foregone conclusion. The majority of the leading figures of the revolution “did not at first want to kill the King”.
Cooke at the beginning thought “the proceedings would end with some form of reconciliation”.
It was only the threat of an intervention from the New Model Army that moved most of the leading regicides to kill the King. It was, after all, the army that wanted "to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done".
About Thomas Scott
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
During the summer of 1659, Thomas Scot MP's agents infiltrated Viscount Mordaunt's Royalist-Presbyterian conspiracy, which enabled the Commonwealth government to suppress Booth's Uprising with little difficulty.
When Major-Gen. John Lambert forcibly dissolved Parliament and the Council of State in October 1659, Thomas Scot MP was elected President of the 9 members of the Council who refused to accept the dissolution and continued to meet in secret in defiance of the military junta.
Scot and his associates appealed to Gen. Monck and his army in Scotland to uphold the Commonwealth.
With Gen. Monck's support, Parliament was duly reinstated in Dec., 1659
Thomas Scot MP was appointed Secretary of State in Jan., 1660. However, Monck went further than the republicans expected by recalling the MPs excluded at Pride's Purge in 1648.
The restored Long Parliament voted for new elections and set in motion the train of events leading to the Restoration.
Denounced as a regicide, Thomas Scot MP fled to Brussels in April 1660, where he was persuaded to give himself up in the hope of obtaining a pardon.
Thomas Scot MP was sentenced to death at his trial in October 1660.
He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 17 Oct., 1660. He conducted himself bravely at his execution and died unrepentant "in a cause not to be repented of."
SOURCES:
C. H. Firth, revised by Sean Kelsey, Thomas Scot, Oxford DNB, 2004
Godfrey Davies, The Restoration of Charles II, 1658-60 (San Marino 1955)
David Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy in England 1649-60, (New Haven 1960)
About Thomas Scott
San Diego Sarah • Link
And from the now-disappeared BCW Project:
http://bcw-project.org/biography/…
THOMAS SCOT, MO - Died 1660 -- Member of the Council of State and director of the Commonwealth's intelligence network, he was executed as a regicide at the Restoration.
Nothing is known for certain about Thomas Scot's early life until 1626, when he made an advantageous marriage to Alice Allinson of Chesterford, Essex.
In 1644, Thomas Scot was a member of the county committee for Buckinghamshire.
In 1645 Thomas Scot was elected recruiter MP for Aylesbury.
He emerged as a zealous Independent and supporter of the King's trial, serving as a member of the High Court of Justice and signing King Charles' death warrant.
Thomas Scot MP became prominent in the government of the Commonwealth as a leading member of the Council of State, and was sometimes referred to by the title of Secretary of State.
In July 1649, the Council of State commissioned Thomas Scot MP to manage the government's spying and intelligence network. In association with Capt. George Bishop, he built up a formidable intelligence organization, employing agents provocateurs, cryptographers and a network of agents in foreign courts and among Royalist exiles.
However, Scot was a strong supporter of the republican Commonwealth.
Scot opposed Cromwell's dissolution of the Rump Parliament in 1653 and his assumption of the office of Lord Protector.
In July 1653, the spying network established by Scot was taken over by the loyal Cromwellian John Thurloe.
Thomas Scot was elected to the First Protectorate Parliament in 1654 as MP for Wycombe, but was among the Members excluded from Parliament for refusing to sign the Recognition of the Protectorate insisted upon by Cromwell.
In 1656, Thomas Scot MP was elected MP for Aylesbury in the Second Protectorate Parliament.
But Scot once again was one of 100 republicans excluded from the first session of Parliament.
The excluded Members were admitted to the second session, which opened in January 1658, and Thomas Scot MP became one of the leading critics of the new second chamber, or Upper House, established by Cromwell under the terms of the Humble Petition and Advice.
After Cromwell's death in Sept. 1658, Scot was elected to the Third Protectorate Parliament called by Richard Cromwell in Jan. 1659, during which he was among the opposition MPs who worked for the overthrow of the Protectorate.
After Richard Cromwell's resignation and the re-establishment of the Rump Parliament, Thomas Scot MP once again became a prominent member of the Council of State and resumed his former role as director of intelligence.
About Thomas Scott
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M: Thomas Scot, republican and regicide. In 1659 he was given control of the intelligence services for the 3rd time, and a week later made Secretary of State.
About Sir Hardress Waller
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
While serving in the New Model, Col. Waller becamean admirer of Oliver Cromwell with zeal for the Independent cause, which led to a split with Inchiquin in February 1647.
Col. Waller was involved in the political struggle between the Army and Parliament during 1647.
Col. Waller took part in the Putney Debates and argued the Army should not hesitate to use force to coerce the Presbyterians in Parliament.
On the outbreak of the Second Civil War early in 1648, Col. Waller was sent into Devon and Cornwall to subdue Royalist insurgents.
In December 1648, Col. Sir Hardress Waller was with Col. Pride at the purging of Parliament.
Col. Sir Hardress Waller was appointed one of King Charles' judges in January 1649; was a signatory of the King's death warrant and helped arrange his execution.
In 1650, Col. Waller returned to Ireland as a major-general in Cromwell's invasion force.
When Cromwell returned to England in May 1650, Major Gen. Waller stayed in Ireland and helped Ireton and Ludlow complete the subjugation.
Major Gen. Waller captured Carlow Castle in July 1650 and played a major role in the siege of Limerick in 1651, after which he was appointed governor of Limerick.
Gov. Waller was involved in the settlement of Ireland and remained loyal to Cromwell throughout the 1650s.
Major Gen. Sir Hardress Waller supported the establishment of the Protectorate against opposition from fellow officers, and came over to the republicans after Richard Cromwell's resignation in 1659.
Major Gen. Waller opposed Gen. John Lambert's coup against Parliament in October 1659
Major Gen. Waller led the officers who seized Dublin Castle in Parliament's name in December, 1659.
Early in 1660, Major Gen. Waller became alarmed at moves to reinstate the MPs he had helped to expel during Pride's Purge.
Major Gen. Waller seized Dublin Castle again on 15 February, 1660 but, finding little support, he was obliged to surrender to Sir Charles Coote 3 days later.
Major Gen. Sir Hardress Waller was imprisoned at Athlone, then returned to England on the intervention of his cousin, Sir William Waller.
Major Gen. Sir Hardress Waller fled to France at the Restoration, but surrendered, hoping for the lenient treatment offered to repentant regicides.
Although Major Gen. Sir Hardress Waller was condemned to death, his cousin Sir William Waller interceded for him, and the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on Jersey, where he died in 1666.
SOURCES:
Patrick Little, Sir Hardress Waller , Oxford DNB, 2004
About Sir Hardress Waller
San Diego Sarah • Link
Fortunately I had copied the BCWar entry for Sir Hardress:
http://bcw-project.org/biography/…
A New Model Army officer with interests in Ireland, Sir Hardress Waller was imprisoned for life at the Restoration for his role in the regicide.
Hardress was the son of George Waller of Groombridge, Kent, and Mary, daughter of Richard Hardress.
Hardress Waller was knighted by King Charles in 1629 and married Elizabeth Dowdall, the daughter of an "Old English" landowner in Ireland.
Through his marriage, Sir Hardress Waller acquired a large estate at Castletown, Co. Limerick.
During the 1630s, Waller supported Old English interests in Ireland against the administration of Sir Thomas Wentworth and opposed further English colonization in the west of Ireland.
After the Irish Uprising of 1641, Sir Hardress Waller turned against the Old English and campaigned against the Confederates in Munster as an ally of Lord Inchiquin.
In September 1642, Waller went to England to support Lord Inchiquin's claim to the presidency of Munster.
Sir Hardress remained at King Charles' court in Oxford for a year, but left in disgrace after criticizing plans for the Cessation of 1643.
Waller deputized as governor of Munster in January 1644 while Inchiquin went to lobby King Charles.
On Inchiquin's return to Ireland, he sent Waller back to Court again, but King Charles appointed the Earl of Portland as the governor of Munster.
This prompted Inchiquin and the Munster Protestants to declare for Parliament in July 1644, while Waller went to London and joined the New Model Army.
Sir Hardress Waller was commissioned colonel of a regiment of foot and fought at Naseby in June 1645.
In October 1645, Col. Waller was wounded leading his regiment in the storming of Basing House.
About Sunday 7 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
I feel sympathy with these in-coming preachers. The ministers their congregations were used to preached inspirational, emotional, hellfire-and-brimstone sermons for hours on end, and now the CofE was back, with a Book of Prayer everyone associated with the hated Archbishop Laud.
The choirs and lay preachers were unfamiliar with the "catholic" rituals, so I suspect there was a shortage of books (why store something outlawed "in case it comes in useful" for 15 years?) -- so the clergy were probably "winging" the services.
The Restoration of Charles II was still very tentative -- if the Vicar got too enthusiastic about it, he'd lose what was left of his congregation.
Plus it's hard to preach with any enthusiasm about a loving, merciful God when his representative on earth is trying 4 regicides for traitors' deaths just down the road.
The ministers were probably waiting for Charles to lead on what the CofE was going to look like in 1660s -- so the likes of Pepys waited for entertainment, enlightenment, inspiration and leadership at their weekly required church attendance and were sadly disappointed.
The clergy sensed they were awaiting a revision of orthodoxy; being too outspoken about anything was dangerous -- it would be very easy to end up on the wrong list and your career and livelihood ended.
It's too early to talk about the Savoy Conference of 1661 which aimed to clarify and resolve these problems, as that would be spoilers. Just know that no one really knew what they were doing, or had any deep conviction that what they thought could/would last.
About Sunday 7 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
I feel sympathy with these in-coming preachers. The ministers their congregations were used to preached inspirational, emotional, hellfire-and-brimstone sermons for hours on end, and now the CofE was back, with a Book of Prayer everyone associated with the hated Archbishop Laud.
The choirs and lay preachers were unfamiliar with the "catholic" rituals, so I suspect there was a shortage of books (why store something outlawed "in case it comes in useful" for 15 years?) -- so the clergy were probably "winging" the services.
The Restoration of Charles II was still very tentative -- if the Vicar got too enthusiastic about it, he'd lose what was left of his congregation.
Plus it's hard to preach with any enthusiasm about a loving, merciful God when his representative on earth is trying 4 regicides for traitors' deaths just down the road.
The ministers were probably waiting for Charles to lead on what the CofE was going to look like in 1660s -- so the likes of Pepys waited for entertainment, enlightenment, inspiration and leadership at their weekly required church attendance and were sadly disappointed.
The clergy sensed they were awaiting a revision of orthodoxy; being too outspoken about anything was dangerous -- it would be very easy to end up on the wrong list and your career and livelihood ended.
It's too early to talk about the Savoy Conference of 1661 which aimed to clarify and resolve these problems, as that would be spoilers. Just know that no one really knew what they were doing, or had any deep conviction that what they thought could/would last.
About Monday 8 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
I doubt Pepys would have agreed to a joint credit card account with Elizabeth. She's only 20, and you know how young people are with money -- I'm surprised he lets her buy a bed without his approval first.
About John Downes (b, regicide)
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
Nevertheless, Downes and Edmund Harvey MP (1601 – 1673) do seem to have withdrawn from the proceedings, and Downes’ story was not laughed out of court, and whatever we think about the motives of men like Cromwell, it is plausible to suggest more humble regicides questioned the sentence, especially when the sentence being considered was death, something on which the record is silent until 26 January.
The author’s third task was to examine the claims made after October 1660, and the stories spun by the regicides who evaded the death penalty. Here the aim was to explore the possibility that the fates of the regicides reflect not just that some had surrendered, but also that some were perceived to be less guilty than others, so credence was given to their excuses.
The 4 most interesting cases are those of George Fleetwood MP, Thomas Waite MP, John Downes MP and Capt. James Temple MP.
Lt-Col. William Wetton claimed to have observed the disturbance caused by Downes and Waite on 27 January, and to have been an eyewitness to the events in the Court of Wards.
Wetton testified that Downes and Waite ‘did strongly move that the king’s proposals might be heard, for he offered without the spilling of blood to settle the nation for the good of all’, and that Cromwell responded by asking whether the trial should be ‘obstructed by 2 or 3 peevish men’, as well as that neither MP returned to Westminster Hall.
Wetton was also called as a witness by Downes, in order to prove other judges were suspicious about his zeal for the trial, and to provide testimony about the events in the Court of Wards.
Wetton recalled hearing Downes speak ‘with a great deal of earnestness’, recalled hearing Cromwell describe him as ‘a peevish man’ who ‘pretended conscience and the public good’ while intending ‘the service of his own master’, and recalled he had been unable to spot Downes when the court reassembled.
Downes was also supported by his brother, Richard Downes, a London draper, who claimed to have witnessed the events of 27 January, and to have observed Downes did not resume his place after the adjournment, even if he had to admit to not being able to hear the interjection which prompted the pause in proceedings.
Richard Downes also reported the opprobrium heaped upon his brother by radical republicans, and to the legacy of bitterness which the episode caused.
George Almery recalled how, before the trial began, Downes told him ‘they would not take away His Majesties life, but only show their power to bring His Majesty to terms’, while another witness, Samuel Taylor, recalled how even in 1656 Downes feared being ‘ruined’ by Cromwell, such was the latter’s rage against him.
Whatever we make of the plausibility of such witnesses, who may all have been friends and kinsmen, some contemporaries must have listened, and in January 1662, John Downes MP’s name was ordered to be ‘struck out’ of the bill for execution.
About John Downes (b, regicide)
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Thirdly, when the regicides explained their involvement in the trial, they often claimed youthful stupidity, ‘want of years’, respect for authority, pressure from elders and betters, and ‘ignorance’.
Downes talked of an ‘express order’ commanding his attendance, and of being ‘ensnared’ as a result of ‘weakness and fear’.
He claimed not to have known the king was brought to London ‘to take away his life’, but realized this was the intention when ‘the bill was brought into the House to erect a High Court of Justice’.
Fourthly, 4 regicides claimed to have intervened in the proceedings on 27 January, to support King Charles’ belated request for talks.
The most important was John Downes MP, who claimed to have protested the decision to ignore King Charles’ plea, to have spoken with other judges – William Cawley MP (1602–1667) and Valentine Walton MP (1593/4-1661) – and to have resisted Cromwell’s attempt to silence him, until he ‘started up in the very nick, when the president commanded the clerk to read the sentence’, in order to protest that ‘I am not satisfied to give my consent to this sentence, but have reasons to offer to you against it, and I desire the court may adjourn to hear me’.
Downes claimed it was his intervention which prompted President of High Court of Justice, John Bradshaw (1602-1659), to adjourn the court. In the meeting which followed, Downes claimed to have argued there was time to reach a settlement, reminded fellow judges about an earlier resolution that the trial could be interrupted in the event of an emergency.
Downes apparently said ‘if this were not an emergency, I could not tell what was’, and his order had been passed in the expectation the king would eventually recognize the need to recognize the power of the court.
For such comments John Downes MP claimed he incurred the ‘scornful wrath’ of Cromwell, who called him a ‘peevish tenacious man’, accused him of seeking to save ‘his old master’ (Downes once held minor office in the Duchy of Cornwall) and labelled him a malignant.
Downes’ response to such accusations, and to threats which followed, was to withdraw into the Speaker’s chamber, and to boycott the rest of the trial.
At their trial in October 1660, some regicides reiterated claims made earlier about the planning process for the trial, and made statements which are beyond scrutiny, but which cannot be dismissed entirely.
What comes into focus now is that some who were appointed as judges and who served on the High Court were odd appointments, whose political records and status did not mark them out as important radicals.
There is no evidence it was Downes, or any other commissioner, who provoked John Bradshaw’s decision to adjourn the court, or to corroborate the claims made about the conversation which took place in the Court of Wards.
Key witnesses – William Cawley MP (1602–1667) , Valentine Walton MP (1594-1661) – were in exile, and Oliver Cromwell was dead.
About John Downes (b, regicide)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Highlights from:
“The lies of the Regicides? Charles I’s judges at the Restoration” -- by Dr Jason Peacey, Senior Lecturer in History at University College, London.
Those involved in the trial of King Charles, and alive in 1660, found themselves marked men. Vilified in public and in print, they faced choices about how to behave, and how to respond to the probability they would be punished by Charles II or parliament.
Some fled, to live out their days in relative safety, or to live troubled lives, either because of the threat of violence or of capture, and some lived in obscurity, covered their tracks and assumed new identities.
Some were eventually caught, and 3 were brought back to England, tried, sentenced and executed.
Others surrendered under the terms of a June 1660 proclamation, either in the hope of securing pardon or of mitigating their guilt, although it was always clear their fates depended upon the attitude of MPs, who were given the power to determine who should be punished and who should be pardoned.
As it turned out, MPs proved more vindictive than Charles II, resulting in the trial of 29 men in October 1660, 27 of whom pleaded guilty.
The author suggests the claims made by the regicides (which fall into 4 main areas) should be taken seriously.
First, some of the men protested they had played no part in planning the proceedings.
John Downes MP (1609 – 1666) professed that he ‘never was in consultation about the thing’, that he ‘was never of any junto or cabal’, and that he sat on no committees regarding the ordinance for the king’s trial; and this too may have been true, although he was at least nominated to one committee to consider the erection of the High Court.
Secondly, claims were made about the process by which the judges were nominated.
Simon Mayne MP (c.1640-1725) claimed to have tried to remove his name from the ordinance during a Commons debate, only to have been brow-beaten by Thomas Chaloner MP (1595–1661), while Downes insisted his name was initially omitted from the plans, only to be inserted against his wishes at a later date after he bumped into the trial’s organizers in a Westminster corridor.
Mayne’s story cannot be verified, as we lack evidence on parliamentary debates during the relevant weeks, and Downes' name seems to have been incuded when the first ordinance was submitted to Parliament on 1 January, 1649.
It is now clear the process of formulating legislation and picking judges was convoluted, the first ordinance was rejected, and there followed a process of personal lobbying and factional maneuvering which saw some names removed and others inserted before plans were approved on 6 January.
It now makes sense to argue the planning process was bedeviled by divisions over the intended outcome, which became manifest in debates over the nomination of individual judges, and the claims of both Downes and Mayne become more difficult to dismiss.
About John Downes (b, regicide)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Fortunately I had copied the BCW-Project.org entry:
Col. John Downes 1609-C.1666
Regicide whose life was spared because he claimed that Cromwell had bullied him into signing the King's death warrant.
Born at Manby in Lincolnshire, John Downes studied at the Inner Temple and was called to the bar in 1642.
John Downes became an auditor of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1633 and was elected MP for Arundel, Sussex, in December 1641. The election result was contested by a client of the Catholic Earl of Arundel, but with the support of Puritan MPs of the Long Parliament, Downes' claim was upheld.
During the First Civil War, John Downes directed income from lands belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall to Parliament rather than to King Charles, and was active in the local administration of Sussex.
John Downes MP was associated with the Independent faction in Parliament, but he did not play an active role until after Pride's Purge in December 1648 when he worked on the suppression of the protests against the purging of Parliament, and was appointed to the powerful Army Committee.
In January 1649, John Downes was appointed to the High Court of Justice.
During the King's trial, John Downes MP was moved by King Charles' words and rose to protest, "Have we hearts of stone?" — for which he was furiously rebuked by Oliver Cromwell. Downes withdrew from the High Court, but despite his reservations, he signed the King's death warrant, later claiming that he was forced to do so.
John Downes MP remained active in the administration of the Commonwealth and was appointed to the Council of State in 1651, but withdrew from public life after the establishment of the Protectorate.
John Downes MP returned to power briefly in 1659 when the Rump Parliament was recalled.
When John Downes MP realized the Restoration was inevitable, he published a vindication of his actions. However, this did not prevent his arrest as a regicide in June 1660.
John Downes MP was found guilty at his trial in October 1660 and condemned to death, but the sentence was revoked because of Downes' defense that Cromwell had bullied him into signing the King's death warrant against his better judgment.
John Downes MP spent the rest of his life a prisoner in the Tower of London and died around 1666.
SOURCES:
Graham Edwards, The Last Days of Charles I, 1999
J. T. Peacey and Ivan Roots, John Downes, Oxford DNB, 2004
About Wednesday 10 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"But it sticks in my stomach to see the actions of turncoats such as Monck and Sandwich who will condemn their former colleagues to death for the sake of preferment."
On 16 March, 1660 Gen. Monck forced the Long Parliament to vote for its own dissolution and call for new elections. At the same time, Charles II made the Declaration of Breda, and when the Convention Parliament met on 25 April, 1660 (Matthew Hale MP represented Gloucestershire) it immediately began negotiations with Charles II.
Judge Matthew Hale MP moved in the Commons that "a committee might be appointed to look into the overtures that had been made, and the concessions that had been offered, by [King Charles]" and "from thence to digest such propositions, as they should think fit to be sent over to [Charles II]" who was still in Breda.
On 1 May, 1660 Parliament restored the monarchy, and Charles II landed in Dover 3 weeks later.
Judge Hale's first task in the new regime was as part of the Special Commission of 37 judges who tried the 29 regicides not included in the Declaration of Breda, between 9 and 19 October, 1660.
All were found guilty of treason, and 10 of them were hanged, drawn and quartered.
Sitting as a judge in this trial led to some viewing Chief Justice Hale as hypocritical, with F.A. Inderwick later writing "I confess to a feeling of pain at finding [Hale] in October 1660, sitting as a judge at the Old Bailey, trying and condemning to death batches of the regicides, men under whose orders he had himself acted, who had been his colleagues in Parliament, with whom he had sat on committees to alter the law".[58]
58 Sainty, John (1993). The Judges of England 1272 -1990: a list of judges of the superior courts. Oxford: Selden Society. OCLC 29670782. p.96
Perhaps as reward, Judge Hale became Chief Baron of the Exchequer on 7 November, 1660. He had no wish for the knighthood that accompanied this appointment and avoided being near Charles II. So Chancellor Edward Hyde invited him to his house, where the King was present. Hale was knighted on the spot.[60]
60 Hostettler, John (2002). The Red Gown: The Life and Works of Sir Matthew Hale. Chichester: Barry Rose Law Publishers. ISBN 1-902681-28-2. p.84
For more about Hale's life, see
https://www.britannica.com/biogra…
About Thursday 11 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... in St. James’s Park, where we observed the several engines at work to draw up water, with which sight I was very much pleased."
Was this part of Charles II's alterations to the Park, or some sort of competition?