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Major General Thomas Harrison | |
|---|---|
_in_Cromwell%27s_Army_(2).jpg) | |
| Nominated to Barebone's Parliament | |
| In office February 1653 – December 1653 | |
| Member of Parliament for Wendover | |
| In office May 1646 – April 1653 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1616 (1616) Newcastle-under-Lyme |
| Died | 13 October 1660(1660-10-13) (aged 44) Tyburn |
| Cause of death | Executed |
| Spouse | Catherine Harrison (1646–his death) |
| Children | 3 died as infants |
| Occupation | Law clerk |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Parliamentarian |
| Rank | Major General |
| Battles/wars | |
Major-General Thomas Harrison (baptised 16 July 1616 - executed 13 October 1660) was a prominent member of the radical religious sect known as the Fifth Monarchists, and a soldier who fought for Parliament and the Commonwealth in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. One of those who approved the Execution of Charles I in January 1649, he was a strong supporter of Oliver Cromwell before the two fell out when The Protectorate was established in 1653. Following the 1660 Stuart Restoration, he was arrested, found guilty of treason as a regicide, and sentenced to death. He was hanged, drawn and quartered on 13 October 1660, facing his execution with a courage noted by various observers, including the diarist Samuel Pepys.
Personal details
Thomas Harrison was baptised 16 July 1616, second of four children and only son of Richard Harrison, four times mayor of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and his wife Mary. In 1646, he married his cousin Catherine Harrison; they had three children, all of whom died as infants.[1]
Career
Harrison was probably educated at a local Grammar school before moving to London, where he became clerk to a lawyer based in Clifford's Inn.[1] When the First English Civil War began in August 1642, the Earl of Essex was appointed commander of the Parliamentarian army, and Harrison enlisted in his personal troop of Lifeguards, which was recruited almost exclusively from the Inns of Court.[2] Other members included Charles Fleetwood, Edmund Ludlow and Nathaniel Rich, all of whom played important roles in the political and religious conflicts that followed. This unit fought in two of the earliest battles of the war, Powick Bridge in September and Edgehill in October 1642.[3]
In summer 1643, he transferred to the army of the Eastern Association as captain of a cavalry troop in the Earl of Manchester's regiment. He had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel by the time it took part in the decisive Battle of Marston Moor in July 1644.[1]
He fought in many of the major battles of the war and joined the New Model Army in 1645. By the end of the conflict he had risen to the rank of major-general and was a noted friend and supporter of Oliver Cromwell.
He was elected to the Long Parliament for Wendover in 1646. His regiment maintained strong Leveller sympathies, mutinying in 1647.[4]
Second English Civil War
When conflict resumed he was wounded at Appleby in July 1648. He had to return to London but was well enough to command the escort that brought the King to London in January 1649. Harrison sat as a commissioner (judge) at the trial and was the seventeenth of fifty-nine commissioners to sign the death warrant of King Charles I.
In 1650, Harrison was appointed to a military command in Wales where he was apparently extremely severe. He was promoted to the rank of Major-General in 1651 and commanded the army in England during Cromwell's Scottish expedition. He fought at the battle of Knutsford in August and at Worcester in September 1651.
By the early 1650s Harrison was associated with the radical Fifth Monarchists and became one of their key speakers. He still supported Cromwell and aided in the dissolution of the Rump Parliament in April 1653. He opposed the parliament on the basis that it was blocking more stringent religious reforms – he wanted a more "godly" parliament. Harrison was a radical member of the Nominated Assembly (Barebones Parliament) that replaced Parliament. When the assembly was dissolved, Harrison and others refused to leave and had to be forced out by soldiers. Harrison was dismissed from the Army in December.
Like many, he was outraged by the formation of the Protectorate and the elevation of Cromwell to Lord Protector. Under the Protectorate (1653–60) Harrison was imprisoned four times.
Arrest and trial
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After Cromwell's death Harrison remained quietly in his home, supporting none of the contenders for power. Following the Stuart Restoration, Harrison declined to flee and was arrested in May 1660.
He was tried on 11 October 1660. Edmond Ludlow described the trial in his memoirs,
...(Harrison) not only pleaded not guilty, but justified the sentence passed upon the King (Charles I), and the authority of those who had commissioned him to act as one of his judges. He plainly told them, when witnesses were produced against him, that he came not thither with an intention to deny anything he had done, but rather to bring it to light, owning his name subscribed to the warrant for executing the King, to be written by himself; charging divers of those who sat on the Bench, as his judges, to have been formerly as active for the cause, in which he had engaged, as himself or any other person; affirming that he had not acted by any other motive than the principles of conscience and justice; for proof of which he said it was well known, he had chosen to be separated from his family, and to suffer a long imprisonment rather than to comply with those who had abused the power they had assumed to the oppression of the people. He insisted that having done nothing, in relation to the matter in question, otherwise than by the authority of the Long Parliament, he was not justly accountable to this or any other inferior Court; which being a point of law, he desired to have council assigned upon that head; but the Court over-ruled; and by interrupting him frequently, and not permitting him to go on in this defense, they clearly manifested a resolution of gratifying the resentments of the Court upon any terms. So that a hasty verdict was brought in against him, and the question being asked, if he had anything to say, why judgement should not pass, he only said, that since the Court had refused to hear what was fit for him to speak in his defense, he had no more to say; upon which Bridgeman pronounced the sentence. And that the inhumanity of these men may the better appear, I (Edmond Ludlow) must not omit, that the executioner in an ugly dress, with a halter in his hand, was placed near the Major-General, and continued there during the whole time of his trial, which action I doubt whether it was ever equaled by the most barbarous nations. But having learned to condemn such baseness, after the sentence had been pronounced against him, he (Major-General Harrison) said aloud as he was withdrawn from the Court, that he had no reason to be ashamed of the cause in which he had been engaged.[5]
Harrison's sentence was "That you be led to the place from whence you came, and from thence be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution, and then you shall be hanged by the neck and, being alive, shall be cut down, and your privy members to be cut off, and your entrails be taken out of your body and, you living, the same to be burnt before your eyes, and your head to be cut off, your body to be divided into four-quarters, and head and quarters to be disposed of at the pleasure of the King's majesty. And the Lord have mercy on your soul."[6]
Execution
Major-General Harrison was the first of the regicides to be executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered on 13 October 1660.[7] Harrison, after being hanged for several minutes and then cut open, was reported to have leaned across and hit his executioner—resulting in the swift removal of his head. His entrails were thrown onto a nearby fire.[8][9] His head adorned the sledge that drew fellow regicide John Cook to his execution, before being displayed in Westminster Hall; his quarters were fastened to the city gates.[10]
Samuel Pepys wrote an eyewitness account of the execution at Charing Cross, in which Major General Harrison was drily reported to be "looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition". This account is also quoted on a plaque on the wall of the Hung, Drawn and Quartered public house near Pepys Street, where the diarist lived and worked in the Navy Office. In his final moments, as he was being led up the scaffold, the hangman asked for his forgiveness. Upon hearing his request, Thomas Harrison replied, "I do forgive thee with all my heart... Alas poor man, thou doith it ignorantly, the Lord grant that this sin may be not laid to thy charge." Thomas Harrison then gave all of the money that remained in his pockets to his executioner and was thereafter executed.
Edmond Ludlow also provided an account of the execution at Charing Cross:
The sentence which had been pronounced in consequence of the verdict was executed upon Major-General Harrison at the place where Charing Cross formerly stood, that the King might have the pleasure of the spectacle, and inure himself to blood." According to Ludlow, "On the fifteenth (15 October 1660), Mr. John Carew suffered there also, even their enemies confessing that more steadiness of mind, more contempt of death, and more magnanimity could not be expressed. To all who were present with them either in prison or at the place where the sentence was executed, they owned that having engaged in the cause of God and their country, they were not at all ashamed to suffer in the manner their enemies thought fit, openly avowing the inward satisfaction of their minds when they reflected upon the actions for which they had been condemned, not doubting the revival of the same cause; and that a time should come when men would have better thoughts of their persons and proceedings."[11][12]
In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker wrote about the execution:
Even when they were not actively enjoying torture, people showed a chilling insouciance to it. Samuel Pepys, presumably one of the more refined men of his day, made the following entry in his diary for October 13, 1660: Out to Charing Cross, to see Major-general Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy. … From thence to my Lord's, and took Captain Cuttance and Mr. Sheply to the Sun Tavern, and did give them some oysters. Pepys's cold joke about Harrison's "looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition" referred to his being partly strangled, disemboweled, castrated, and shown his organs being burned before being decapitated.[13]
References
- ^ a b c Gentles 2004.
- ^ Graham 2009, p. 889.
- ^ Ashley 1954, pp. 40–43.
- ^ Ashley, Maurice (1954), Cromwell's Generals (Cromwell's Generals. ed.), London: Cape, OCLC 798976, OL 6150316M
- ^ The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, Lieutenant-General of the Horse in the Army of the Commonwealth of England, 1625–1672, Edited with Appendices of Letters and Illustrative Documents, by C.H. Firth, M.A., in two Volumes, Oxford, At the Clarendon Press, 1894, Vol. 2, pp. 303–304
- ^ Abbott 2005, p. 158
- ^ Selections from the Trial and Execution of Col. Daniel Axtell in October 1660.
- ^ Nenner, Howard (September 2004). "Regicides". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70599.
- ^ Abbott 2005, pp. 158–159
- ^ Gentles, Ian J. (2008) [2004]. "Harrison, Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12448. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Memoirs of Ludlow, Vol. 2, p. 309, with some light editing in spelling and punctuation
- ^ The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, Lieutenant-General of the Horse in the Army of the Commonwealth of England, 1625–1672, Edited with Appendices of Letters and Illustrative Documents, by C.H. Firth, M.A., in two Volumes, Oxford, At the Clarendon Press, 1894, Vol. 2, p. 309
- ^ Smail, Daniel Lord (2021), "The inner demons of The Better Angels of Our Nature", The Darker Angels of Our Nature, Bloomsbury Academic, doi:10.5040/9781350148437.0008, ISBN 978-1-3501-4060-8, retrieved 4 November 2021
Sources
- Abbott, Geoffrey (2005) [1994]. Execution, a Guide to the Ultimate Penalty. Summersdale Publishers. ISBN 978-1-84024-433-5.
- Gentles, Ian (2004). "Harrison, Thomas (bap. 1616, d. 1660)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12448. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- Graham, Aaron (2009). "Finance, Localism and Military Representation in the Army of the Earl of Essex (June-December 1642)". The Historical Journal. 52 (4): 879–898. doi:10.1017/S0018246X09990343. JSTOR 25643862. S2CID 154847523.
11 Annotations
First Reading
Glyn • Link
Two accounts of his speech and actions on the day of his execution on 13 October 1660:
"...God hath covered my head many times in the day of Battle. By God I have leaped over a wall, by God I have runned through a Troop, and by my God I will go through this death..."
'Next to the sufferings of Christ', he claimed, 'I go to suffer in the most glorious cause that ever was in the world'. And one, as he passed by, asking him in derision where the good old cause was, he with a cheerful smile clapped his hand on his breast and said, Here it is, and I go to seal it with my blood.'
Paul Brewster • Link
A biographical sketch of Harrison and note concerning the Fifth Monarchists ...
http://www.british-civil-wars.co.…
http://www.british-civil-wars.co.…
Kevin Peter • Link
Harrison's death was recorded to be particularly gruesome.
The punishment of hanging, drawing, and quartering involved drawing a condemned man behind a horse through the streets tied to a hurdle, which is a fence-like mesh of branches (much earlier, the hurdle was not used and the condemned was simply dragged behind a horse).
The condemned man would then be hung, the executioner making sure that he didn't have a long drop, so that his neck didn't break. After the condemned man was in agony for a while, the executioner would cut him down before the condemned lost consciousness.
While the condemned man was still conscious the executioner would cut off the man's penis and testicles and then open him up and start removing the internal organs. The condemned man would of course die during the removal of the organs.
Quartering would involved cutting up the man into pieces after his death, and the pieces would usually be publically displayed as a warning.
As you can see, this was a most painful and gruesome way to die.
Usually, by the 17th century, the executioner was lenient and let the condemned die during hanging before they started ripping the condemned man's internal organs out, but Harrison apparently had no such luck.
Second Reading
Bill • Link
Thomas Harrison, son of a butcher at Newcastle-under-Line, appointed by Cromwell to convey Charles I. from Windsor to White Hall, in order to his trial. He signed the warrant for the execution of the King.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.
Bill • Link
And the question being asked, If he [Harrison] had any thing to say why judgment should not pass? he only said, That, since the court had refused to hear what was fit for him to speak in his defence, he had no more to say. Upon which Bridgman pronounced the sentence. And, that the inhumanity of these men may the better appear, I must not omit, that the executioner, in an ugly dress, with a halter in his hand, was placed near the Major-General, and continued there during the whole time of his trial. Which action I doubt whether it was ever equalled by the most barbarous nations. But having learned to contemn such baseness, after the sentence had been pronounced against him, he said aloud, as he was withdrawing from the court, that he had no reason to be ashamed of the cause in which he had been engaged. This sentence was so barbarously executed, that he was cut down alive, and saw his bowels thrown into the fire.
---Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, Esq. E. Ludlow, 1751
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
Thank goodness I had copied the entry on Major Gen. Thomas Harrison from the BCW Project:
http://bcw-project.org/biography/…
Zealous army officer who rose to high military and political office; he was a leader of the Fifth Monarchy Men and an unrepentant Regicide.
Thomas Harrison was the second of 4 children and the only son of Richard Harrison (d.1653), a butcher who became an alderman and was 4 times mayor of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, and his wife Mary.
Harrison was probably educated at a local grammar school, then went to London where he became clerk to Mr. Hulk, an attorney at Clifford's Inn.
When the First Civil War broke out in August 1642, Thomas Harrison volunteered for Parliament and served as a trooper in the Earl of Essex's lifeguard, which was recruited from among the young gentlemen of the Inns of Court.
In 1644, Thomas Harrison accompanied Charles Fleetwood when he transferred to Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester's Eastern Association army.
Harrison became a major in Charles Fleetwood's regiment of horse, which was noted as one of the most radical in religion in the Parliamentarian army.
Major Harrison was denounced as an Anabaptist by Manchester's Presbyterian officers, but praised as God-fearing and zealous by Oliver Cromwell.
Harrison fought at Marston Moor in July 1644 and was sent after the battle to report Parliament's victory to the Committee of Both Kingdoms.
Major Thomas Harrison's praise of Cromwell and the Independent faction greatly annoyed the Scots and Presbyterians on the committee.
After the second battle of Newbury (October 1644), Harrison strongly supported Cromwell in his dispute with Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester.
Harrison remained in Charles Fleetwood's regiment when it transferred to the New Model Army in 1645.
Harrison fought at the decisive battle of Naseby.
At the battle of Langport in July 1645, Major Harrison was observed by the chaplain Richard Baxter to break into a rapturous psalm of praise when the Royalists began to fall back.
Major Thomas Harrison was an enthusiastic participant in the slaughter of the Catholic defenders of Basing House, which Cromwell took by storm in October 1645.
In 1646, Major Harrison was elected to the Long Parliament as recruiter MP for Wendover.
Major Thomas Harrison MP married his cousin Catherine in 1646. They had 3 children, none of whom survived infancy.
From January to May 1647, Harrison served in Ireland at the request of Viscount Lisle when he took up his appointment as lord-lieutenant.
When Harrison returned to England, he became actively involved in the political dispute between the New Model Army and Parliament. He was one of the officers who signed the letter sent to London outlining the Army's grievances on 10 June, 1647, and was among those appointed by Gen. Thomas, Lord Fairfax to negotiate with Parliament's commissioners.
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
When Col. Sheffield declared his support for the Presbyterians, Major Thomas Harrison MP was given command of his cavalry regiment. He emerged as one of the most radical of the Army officers.
He opposed further negotiations with King Charles, who denounced Harrison as the "Man of Blood" in November 1647.
During the Second Civil War, Major Thomas Harrison MP joined Major-Gen. Lambert's army holding the north against the Engagers.
On 18 July, 1648, Harrison distinguished himself by holding off an attack by Sir Marmaduke Langdale on Lambert's quarters at Appleby. He captured the enemy's colors, but was badly wounded during the skirmish.
Although his regiment played a major role in the battle of Preston in Aug. 1648, Major Thomas Harrison MP was probably not present as by Nov. 1648, he was back in London.
Col. Thomas Harrison MP acted as a mediator between Henry Ireton and John Lilburne in negotiations to gain Leveller support for King Charles' trial.
Col. Thomas Harrison MP commanded the military escort that brought King Charles to Windsor and then to London in January 1649.
Royalists were outraged this duty was entrusted to the fanatical Harrison. King Charles believed Harrison intended to murder him, but was surprised to find him courteous and correct in his behavior.
Col. Thomas Harrison MP sat as a judge at King Charles' trial; he was a signatory of the death warrant; and he was commissioned to supervise security at his funeral.
In January 1649, Col. Thomas Harrison MP was nominated to the Council of State. At first, his nomination was rejected by Parliament because of his extremist views.
Harrison finally took a seat on the Council in February 1651.
Meanwhile, in 1650 Col. Harrison was appointed president of the Commission for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales — a body empowered to seize church livings and to fund Puritan missionaries in Wales, where the Anglican clergy had been influential in raising Royalist support. Harrison was virtually military governor of Wales and gained a reputation for severity.
Promoted to the rank of major-general in 1651, Thomas Harrison MP commanded the army left to guard England during Cromwell's invasion of Scotland.
When Charles II and his Covenanter allies invaded England in August 1651, Maj. Gen. Thomas Harrison MP marched to head them off from London.
He linked up with Cromwell's main force and fought at the decisive battle of Worcester in September 1651.
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
The Fifth Monarchy
By the early 1650s, Col. John Harrison was associated with the Fifth Monarchist sect. He sponsored the radicals Vavasor Powell, John Simpson and Christopher Feake to preach before the Rump Parliament, although their criticisms of the government were not appreciated.
In his zeal to establish the rule of the Saints, Harrison secured the expulsion from Parliament of Lord Howard of Escrick for accepting bribes, and of Gregory Clement MP for committing adultery.
Col. Thomas Harrison MP grew increasingly hostile towards the Rump for its lethargy in implementing radical reform, and played an active role in Cromwell's dissolution of Parliament in April 1653, during which Harrison is said to have pulled Speaker Lenthall out of the Chair and ejected him from the Chamber.
In the constitutional discussions that followed the expulsion of Parliament, Col. John Harrison MP proposed a government based upon the Old Testament Sanhedrin of 70 elected "Saints". This model was adapted as the Nominated Assembly ("Barebones Parliament"), which governed England from July to December 1653.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Harrison MP influenced the nomination of several Fifth Monarchists and Welsh Saints to the Assembly, and he sat as one of 5 co-opted members.
Harrison headed the radical faction, calling for the abolition of tithes and the excise, and reform of the law.
But Maj. Gen. Harrison MP was not an effective politician. He had no patience for committee work or parliamentary debate and his attendance at the Assembly was erratic.
Like other Fifth Monarchists, Harrison called for the continuation of the Anglo-Dutch War, believing it was part of the violent process which started with the civil war and the beheading of King Charles, and would lead ultimately to the overthrow of the Antichrist (the Pope) and the reign of Christ on Earth.
In December 1653 — less than 6 months after the inauguration of the Nominated Assembly — moderates voted to surrender its powers to Cromwell.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Harrison MP fiercely opposed the dissolution of the "Parliament of Saints" and refused to acknowledge the Protectorate set up in its place.
Cromwell reluctantly withdrew his army commission on 21 Dec., 1653.
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 4
With his uncompromising Fifth Monarchist beliefs, Thomas Harrison MP came to be regarded as a dangerous opponent of the Protectorate.
He was imprisoned 4 times between 1653 and 1658 on suspicion of involvement in various plots and insurrections.
Harrison's attempts to seek election to the First and Second Protectorate Parliaments were blocked by the government.
After Oliver Cromwell's death, Thomas Harrison lived quietly in Staffordshire, supporting neither Richard Cromwell, the Army Grandees nor the republican Commonwealthsmen in the political turmoil that followed. His inactivity may have been the result of declining health brought about by his war wounds and his periods of imprisonment.
He made no response to Lambert's last desperate attempt to rally support for the "Good Old Cause" on the eve of the Restoration.
With the return of the monarchy imminent, Thomas Harrison MP was among the first of the regicides to be singled out for punishment. He stood by his principles and made no attempt to escape.
Parliament ordered Harrison's arrest.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Harrison MP was imprisoned in the Tower of London in May 1660.
At his trial in October 1660, Harrison asserted he had acted in the name of the Parliament of England and by its authority. He was convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered on 13 Oct., 1660 at Charing Cross.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Harrison MP went bravely to his gruesome death, his religious zeal undiminished to the end. According to one account, whilst being quartered, he struggled to his feet and boxed the executioner's ears.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Harrison MP was regarded as a martyr by the Fifth Monarchists, who believed that he would rise again to judge his judges and restore the rule of the Saints.
Sources:
Maurice Ashley, Cromwell's Generals (London 1954)
Bernard Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men (London 1972)
C.H. Firth, Thomas Harrison, DNB, 1891
Ian J. Gentles, Thomas Harrison, Oxford DNB, 2004
Austin Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate (London 1982)
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Fifth Monarchists became an organized political body in 1651.
Before that, members were content to bear witness to the new society. But when it became apparent the Rump Parliament was not furthering a more godly society, they decided to act.
The movement had its roots in urban centers, mostly concentrated around London.
Outside London, groups were scattered around southern England with a couple of chapters in Wales. Many were tradespeople, often in the cloth and leather industries, but an important source of recruitment was the army.
Their spokesman became Major-Gen. Thomas Harrison, member of the Council of State and president of the Commission for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales.
Another notable Fifth Monarchist was John Carew, also on the Council of State.
Both Major-Gen. Thomas Harrison and John Carew served as commissioners during the trial of King Charles and were amongst those who signed his death warrant.
Their first meeting was held at Allhallows Church in London in December 1651, led by preachers Christopher Feake, John Simpson and Henry Jessey. Prior to this, they did try to gain Cromwell’s support, but while Cromwell wanted reform, he had a different idea on how to achieve it.
To understand their position, it’s necessary to understand their core religious beliefs: The Fifth Monarchists believed in the Millennium, when the Kingdom of Heaven would be realized on earth.
Their name relates to the Fifth Kingdom, a utopia described in the book of Daniel that follows after the rise and fall of four successive kingdoms.
In the prophecy, the first four kingdoms became progressively baser as the ages progressed, and were thought to be
Babylon (gold),
Persia (silver),
Greece (bronze)
and Rome (iron mixed with clay).
“In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.” (Daniel 2:44)
The preoccupation with prophecy and celestial portents became common during the 16th and 17th century, and many theologians debated the meaning of prophetic tracts such as the book of Daniel and Revelations.
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Prior to the Reformation, theologians interpreted the prophecies metaphorically, but with the upheaval of the English Civil Wars, more literal views took root.
At this time, the struggles against King Charles became symbols of the struggles of Christ and the Saints against the Anti-Christ. It was a way to make sense of a chaotic upheaval and look forward to utopia. People needed a measure of control in a world gone mad.
The over-throw of the monarchy was equated with the end of the fourth, or base, kingdom and King Charles was an agent of the Anti-Christ.
They even had a year for this new Kingdom: 1666.
Like many millenarians of that time, the Fifth Monarchists saw themselves as Saints, the preordained elect and chosen ones. They saw it as their calling to prepare the way for King Christ and the New Jerusalem.
The following were their requirements:
legal reform,
purging the clergy,
abolishing tithes,
imposing puritanical morality and reducing taxes.
The reduction of taxes and law reform sounds familiar.
Some of the Fifth Monarchists, like Major-Gen. Thomas Harrison, even offered to serve without pay if it lowered taxes, but even then, the courts were clogged with meaningless lawsuits.
Purging the clergy meant these Saints could remove clergy if they were deemed to preach outside the prescribed doctrine;
abolishing tithes involved tearing down the state church.
The Rump Parliament didn’t deliver.
Taken from http://englishhistoryauthors.blog…