Commonwealth regicides and rebels , the first person found guilty of regicide during the Restoration 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. Thirty-one of the
59 commissioners (judges) who had signed the death warrant in 1649 were living. The regicides were hunted down; some escaped but most were found and put on trial. Three escaped to the American colonies.
New Haven, Connecticut, secretly harboured Edward Whalley, William Goffe and John Dixwell, and after American independence named streets after them to honour them as forefathers of the American Revolution. In the ensuing trials, twelve were condemned to death. The
Fifth Monarchist Thomas Harrison, the first person found guilty of regicide, who had been the seventeenth of the 59 commissioners to sign the death warrant, 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 Scrope,
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. The 10 judges who were on the panel but did not sign the death warrant were also convicted.
Oliver Cromwell,
Henry Ireton, Judge
Thomas Pride, and Judge
John Bradshaw were posthumously
attainted for high treason. Because Parliament is a court, 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 hanged in chains at
Tyburn. In 1661
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 and hanged, drawn and quartered on 19 April 1662. A further 19 regicides were imprisoned for life.
John Lambert was not in London for the trial of Charles I. At the Restoration, he was found guilty of high treason and remained in custody in
Guernsey for the rest of his life.
Henry Vane the Younger served on the
Council of State during the
Interregnum even though he refused to take the oath which expressed approbation (approval) of the King's execution. At the Restoration, after much debate in Parliament, he was exempted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act. In 1662 he was tried for high treason, found guilty and beheaded on
Tower Hill on 14 June 1662. Though regicide was widely condemned and many Regicides were executed or imprisoned after 1660, the revolutionary idea of conditional monarchy endured. In political writings and the debates of the period, the notion that a king should rule in accordance with the will of the people or law became increasingly widespread. Even Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and Charles II's chief advisor, acknowledged the need for a balanced constitutional arrangement in his efforts to secure a lasting postwar settlement.
Regrant of certain Commonwealth titles The
Instrument of Government,
The Protectorate's written constitutions, gave to the
Lord Protector the King's power to grant titles of honour. Over 30 new
knighthoods were granted under the Protectorate. These knighthoods
passed into oblivion upon the Restoration of Charles II, but many were regranted by the restored King. Of the eleven Protectorate
baronetcies, two had been previously granted by Charles I during the Civil War, but under
Commonwealth legislation they were not recognised under the Protectorate (hence the Lord Protector's regranting of them). When that legislation passed into oblivion these two baronets were entitled to use the baronetcies granted by Charles I, and Charles II regranted four more. Only one now continues:
Richard Thomas Willy, 14th baronet, is the direct successor of Griffith Williams. Of the remaining Protectorate baronets one,
William Ellis, was granted a knighthood by Charles II.
Edmund Dunch was created
Baron Burnell of East Wittenham in April 1658, but this barony was not regranted. The male line failed in 1719 with the death of his grandson, also
Edmund Dunch, so no one can lay claim to the title. The one hereditary
viscountcy Cromwell created for certain, (making
Charles Howard Viscount Howard of Morpeth and Baron Gilsland) continues to this day. In April 1661, Howard was created
Earl of Carlisle, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and Baron Dacre of Gillesland. The present Earl is a direct descendant of this Cromwellian creation and Restoration recreation.
Venner rebellion (1661) On 6 January 1661, about 50
Fifth Monarchists, headed by a wine-cooper named
Thomas Venner, tried to gain possession of London in the name of "King Jesus". Most were either killed or taken prisoner; on 19 and 21 January 1661, Venner and 10 others were hanged, drawn and quartered for high
treason.
Church of England settlement The
Church of England was restored as the national Church in England, backed by the
Clarendon Code and the
Act of Uniformity 1662. People reportedly "pranced around
May poles as a way of taunting the Presbyterians and Independents" and "burned copies of the
Solemn League and Covenant". ==Ireland==