Restoration (England) - Regicides and Rebels

Regicides and Rebels

The Indemnity and Oblivion Act, which became law on 29 August 1660, pardoned all past treason against the crown, but specifically excluded those involved in the trial and execution of Charles I. 31 of the 59 commissioners (judges) who had signed the death warrant in 1649 were living.

In the ensuing trials, twelve were condemned to death, the full penalty for Fifth Monarchy Men. Thomas Harrison, the first person found guilty of regicide, was the seventeenth of the 59 commissioners to sign the death warrant. He was the first regicide to be hanged, drawn and quartered because he was considered by the new government still to represent a real threat to the re-established order.

In October 1660, at Charing Cross or Tyburn, London, ten were publicly hanged, drawn and quartered: Thomas Harrison, John Jones, Adrian Scroope, John Carew, Thomas Scot, and Gregory Clement, who had signed the king's death warrant; the preacher Hugh Peters; Francis Hacker and Daniel Axtell, who commanded the guards at the king's trial and execution; and John Cooke, the solicitor who directed the prosecution.

On 6 January 1661, 50 Fifth Monarchy Men, headed by a wine-cooper named Thomas Venner, tried to gain possession of London in the name of "King Jesus". Most of the 50 were either killed or taken prisoner; on 19 and 21 January, Venner and 10 others were hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason. John Okey, one of the regicides who signed the death warrant of Charles I, was brought back from Holland along with Miles Corbet, friend and lawyer to Cromwell, and John Barkstead, former constable of the Tower of London. They were all imprisoned in the Tower. From there they were taken to Tyburn to be hanged, drawn and quartered. A further 19 were imprisoned for life.

Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton, Judge Thomas Pride, and Judge John Bradshaw were posthumously attainted for high treason. Because Parliament is a court, the highest in the land, a bill of attainder is a legislative act declaring a person guilty of treason or felony, in contrast to the regular judicial process of trial and conviction. In January 1661, the corpses of Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw were exhumed and hung in chains at Tyburn.