Among those who watched the spectacle was Samuel Pepys who that evening wrote that Harrison looked ‘as cheerful as any man could do in that condition’. Two days later, Harrison’s fellow Fifth Monarchist John Carew was taken to the scaffold, where he conducted himself with similar bravery. He prayed for some time before loudly addressing friends and colleagues in the crowd with, ‘Farewell, my friends, farewell!’
Having been summarily tried themselves, on the evening of 15 October, Hugh Peters and John Cook made what preparations they could before their
executions in the morning. Peters remained in a state of dread and anguish. He told the others that he was unprepared for
death and feared he would not face his suffering on the scaffold with courage. Cook tried to comfort him, saying, ‘Brother
Peters, we shall be in heaven tomorrow in bliss and glory.’ After midnight, neither man was sleeping (Cook had slept for only
an hour and a half). Cook again comforted Peters, saying, ‘Come brother Peters, let us knock at heaven-Gates this morning.
God will open the doors of eternity to us before twelve of the clock.’
9
On the morning of Tuesday 16 October, Cook took leave of his wife, saying, ‘Farewell my dear lamb, I am now going to the souls
under the altar that cry, “How long, O Lord holy and true? Dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on
earth?” And when I am gone my blood will cry and do them more harm than if I had lived.’
Cook’s wife embraced him and wept. He said, ‘Why weepest thou? Let them weep who part and shall never meet again, but I am
confident we shall have a glorious meeting in heaven.’
When the sheriff came to take him away, his wife clung fiercely to his arm, crying bitterly as she pulled him back. Cook gently
chided her for preventing him from going to meet Jesus Christ. He eased his arm away from her grasp and went out to the yard
where a wooden sledge of the type used to carry condemned prisoners to Tyburn awaited him. He was greeted by the head of Thomas
Harrison, strapped to the sledge so that it faced him as he lay down and was tied on. As the horses started up and the sledge
jerked forward, Cook shouted out, ‘This is the easiest chariot that ever I rid in all my life.’
On the scaffold, Cook said he had no malice towards anyone and forgave everyone. He had no hard thoughts regarding the king,
whose throne he prayed would be upheld by truth and mercy. For those who put him and his colleagues on trial, he had less
forgiving words: ‘But I must needs say that poor we have been bought and sold by our brethren, as Joseph was. Brother hath
betrayed brother to
death.’ When he said he wished the king could show some mercy, the sheriff interrupted, saying that the king ‘hath clemency
enough for all but his father’s murderers’.
Cook went on to talk about his hopes for a better judicial system ‘good for both king and people’, but the sheriff interrupted
him again. Cook replied sternly, ‘It hath not been the manner of Englishmen to insult over a dying man – nor in other countries
among Turks or galley slaves.’
Interrupted by the sheriff a third time, Cook retorted, ‘Sir, I pray take notice of it: I think I am the first man that ever
was hanged for demanding justice, therefore I hope you will not interrupt me.’
He turned to the friends who had accompanied the sledge from Newgate and asked them to look after his wife and child, and
that the king and Parliament would not take all the property from either them or the other attainted men. Finally he prayed
that no more might suffer and said, ‘Blessed Father, I come into the bosom of thy love.’
Cook was cast off the ladder and swayed above the crowd. Among those who watched his torture was Hugh Peters, who had been
cruelly brought from the prison to observe what awaited him. He was brought up to the scaffold when Cook was being quartered.
The hangman came over to him and, rubbing his bloodied hands together, said, ‘Come, how do you like this, Mr Peters, how do
you like this work?’
Peters gathered up what spirit he could and replied, ‘I am not, thank God, terrified. You may do your worst.’
10
When Cook’s entrails were cut from his body and burned, the smell was reported to be overpowering. Many people turned away,
covering their noses. After what remained of him was dragged away on the sledge, Hugh Peters was put on the scaffold. He spotted
a man he knew in the crowd and gave him a golden coin, asking for it to be given to his daughter as a token from him. Before
the coin came into her hands, Peters said, he would be with God.
Despite his fears that he would let himself and his fellow prisoners
down, Peters met his death with bravery. Speaking to the crowd, he said, ‘Oh, this is a good day. He is come that I have long
looked for and I shall be with him in glory.’
11
His last words were drowned out by jeering and booing from the crowd.
The day continued at the Old Bailey with the trial of Charles I’s remaining judges. This group of sixteen were in a different
category from those who had been tried before. Though potentially facing the death penalty, it had been stipulated that they
could only be sentenced to death by a further Act of Parliament. Therefore, they faced life imprisonment or loss of property
or both. Some were more distinguished than others, some had been more active in the court or in the Rump Parliament. All but
three had signed the death warrant. They were John Downes, Augustine Garland, Edmund Harvey, William Heveningham, Robert Lilburne,
Henry Marten, Simon Meyne, Gilbert Millington, Sir Isaac Pennington, Vincent Potter, Owen Rowe, Henry Smith, James Temple,
Peter Temple, Robert Tichborne and Thomas Waite.
Among them, one man’s name stood out. Henry Marten’s strong republican sentiments were well known to the House of Stuart.
Although friendly with Sir Edward Hyde, Marten had consistently called for the Stuarts to be swept away. Charles I had called
him ‘an ugly rascal and a whore-master’.
12
Marten repaid the compliment by playing a central role in setting up the High Court that tried the king. Given all this,
it was remarkable that he had not been included in the primary death list. His omission seems to have been due only to sheer
weight of numbers. Even he and the others on the secondary list, of course, were not entirely secure for their lives.
In his defence, Marten said that he was not guilty according to the wording of the charge, namely that he ‘maliciously, murderously
and traitorously’ conspired to kill the king, for there was no malice in his actions. Hence, while not denying what he had
done, he did deny he was guilty under the Act. Among his accomplishments, Marten was a lawyer and this was a good point. The
bench must have collectively groaned.
But the prosecution was up for the fight and sought to prove that Marten had on the contrary acted maliciously. Heneage Finch
recalled the moment in Whitehall Palace when Cromwell and Marten marked one another’s faces with ink before signing the king’s
death warrant:
Finch | We shall prove against the prisoner at the bar (because he would wipe off malice), he did this very merrily, and was great |
Marten | That does not imply malice. |
After this, Marten based his defence solely on the fact that he had acted on instruction from the Parliament that existed
at the time. In the same spirit, he would obey any Parliament; he would thus obey the present Parliament that had invited
Charles II back and hence would be obedient to the king.
On the court’s stated position that the Rump was not a real Parliament, Finch asked the jury to find Marten guilty ‘out of
his own mouth’.
The two men among the remaining prisoners who had not been signatories to the death warrant were Edmund Harvey and Sir Isaac Pennington.
Harvey told the court he had not signed the warrant because he was against killing the king and had done all he could to argue
against it. This was a reasonable argument. Pennington pleaded stupidity for sitting in the court in the first place, saying,
‘I knew not what I did.’ It was a wretched defence by a thoroughly wretched man.
Among the rest of the unhappy crew, Gilbert Millington changed his plea to guilty and asked for forgiveness, saying he had
been ‘awed’ by the previous Parliament and court. Robert Tichborne did much the same, changing his plea to explain he had
been led astray ‘by want of years’ (he was thirty-eight at the time). Owen Rowe pleaded ignorance, as did Robert Lilburne.
Henry Smith claimed he couldn’t remember what he had signed.
Edmund Ludlow, who must have received the published court record in Switzerland, summed it all up well: ‘Some of them pleaded
simply guilty; but others, though they acknowledged the guilt, denied the malice; and some confessing the fact, denied the
guilt.’
14
The court chose to ignore the fact that men like Marten had given themselves up under the king’s promise of clemency. Bridgeman
recapped the evidence and, following a short discussion, the jury found all of the men guilty. They were returned to Newgate
until the court decided what sentence awaited them. Ludlow said of the court’s decision, with particular reference to his
friend Henry Marten: ‘the sentence of condemnation was passed against him; the convention making no provision for securing
the lives either of him or the rest of the gentlemen that had been decoyed into the surrender of their persons, though they
had implicitly promised them favour.’
The court finished its deliberations by considering the fate of the remaining members of the group: Augustine Garland, William
Heveningham, Simon Meyne, Vincent Potter, James Temple, Peter Temple and Thomas Waite. They all resorted to similar arguments:
that they now pleaded guilty but had been under duress or had misunderstood what they were involved in. All were declared
guilty by the jury.
It was evening now. All that remained was the sentencing. The clerk ordered the sheriff’s officer to bring Sir Hardress Waller
back to the bar. Waller had admitted his guilt on the very first day of the hearings, six days before. He was accompanied
by George Fleetwood, the major-general who also had pleaded guilty. They were joined by all the others previously found guilty
but not yet sentenced: Axtell, Hacker, Harvey, Hulet, Lilburne, Marten, Millington, Pennington, Rowe, Smith, Tichborne and
Heveningham.
In an extraordinary last-minute development, Heveningham, the wealthy MP and religious radical, was told he should stand aside
from the others, away from the bar. He was evidently not about to be sentenced. Heveningham was one of those who pleaded that
he had
been duped into participating in the trial and had not signed the king’s death warrant. The court had heard all this before.
There was one possible reason why the case was suddenly set aside – the influence of Heveningham’s father-in-law, the wealthy
and influential Earl of Dover. The earl seems to have let his son-in-law sweat before putting in a word.
With the light fading fast, Bridgeman made his speech to the guilty. He told them they belonged to three distinct categories.
For the first group, the death penalty would be suspended until a further Act of Parliament; for the second, comprising Axtell
and Hacker, there could be no mercy. The third category included only one member, William Heveningham, and here Bridgeman’s
speech swerved from his usual direct and decisive manner. He became evasive. ‘I presume some time will be given to him to
consider something relating to him before any order will be given for his execution,’ he offered.
15
It was a clumsy cover-up. Bridgeman, who edited the court reports, did not even bother to insert a better choice of words
for posterity.
Squinting to read his prepared text, Bridgeman complained about the light before sentencing all to death by hanging, drawing
and quartering. In total, ten were actually executed. Harrison, Carew, Cook and Peters had already been disembowelled, leaving
six still to be attended to. The next day, 17 October, John Evelyn recorded in his diary that the regicides died ‘in sight
of the place where they put to death their natural prince, and in the presence of the king, his son, whom they also sought
to kill’.
16
So, if we can believe Evelyn, Charles was present and watched the executions. According to Evelyn – who had very good connections
at the royal court – curiosity proved too much for Charles and he watched some of those who passed sentence on his father
meet their terrible deaths. If this is the case, why did the courtiers not record this interesting fact? It is impossible
to say why a courtier such as Hyde might not have known about it and therefore recorded it, except out of fealty to Charles.
Others might not have known of the presence of
the king: perhaps he watched from the gallery in the Holbein Arch, which overlooked Charing Cross, or from an unmarked coach
on the edge of the crowd. Either way, it was only natural that the king should wish to see those who had held the monarchy
in such contempt pay with their lives.
Charles would not have cared much for the nuance that most of the men he now watched tortured to death did not detest the
monarchy itself but had run out of patience with a duplicitous and obdurate king. Indeed, Cromwell and Ireton had once seen
the younger Charles, when still Prince of Wales, as a substitute for his father. That had all ended with the second Civil
War and the realisation by Cromwell and others that the king could never be trusted.
Now the men who had judged him to have been guilty of treason were paying dearly. Evelyn said of it: ‘I saw not their execution,
but met their quarters, mangled and cut and reeking as they were brought from the gallows in baskets on the hurdle.’
The noxious smells from the gruesome executions led to petitions from local residents asking the king to remove the scaffold
from Charing Cross. Perhaps, having witnessed the stench at first hand, Charles was more than receptive. Whatever the reason,
the scaffold was moved more than a mile north-west to Tyburn, a traditional site of executions, situated at what is today
Marble Arch.