by Jordan, Don
Death by natural causes deprived the hunters of several other quarry that autumn, including one of Oliver Cromwell’s brothers-in-law, Valentine Walton. Inevitably high on the list of wanted men, Walton had fled in 1660. He too settled in Hanau but eventually quit Germany in fear of royalist killers, finally going to ground in Flanders where he scraped a meagre living as a gardener. He kept his identity secret until he was on his death bed.
Reviewing the difficulties involved in kidnapping the regicides, Downing casually suggested murdering them. In a dispatch to the Earl of Clarendon in the autumn of 1661, he wrote: ‘what if the king should authorize some trusty persons to kill them … let me have the king’s serious thoughts about this business.’ If Charles did give the idea some thought, nothing was put down on paper, and the secretary of state moved quickly to disassociate himself and the king from the idea. Charles would never countenance murder, he insisted.
The breakthrough Downing needed came in September when he found the weak link in the chain of friends protecting the exiles in Germany. An English merchant living in the city of Delft was revealed as the front man for some of the exiles. His name was Abraham Kicke and he acted as the regicides’ post box. Much of their correspondence with wives back in England appears to have gone through him, as did the odd bundle of money sent to keep them going. Little is known about Kicke except that he had the regicides’ trust. Barkstead called him ‘my real friend’. That would prove a fatal misjudgment. Kicke turned out to be weak, equal to anyone in treachery and as money-grabbing as Barkstead himself.
An acute judge of human weakness, George Downing took the measure of Kicke after a single meeting, divining that money and threats would overcome whatever loyalty the merchant felt for the regicides, and quickly proved it. Kicke was given a choice by Downing: a reward of £200 per head for every regicide he helped to snare or the ruin of his business if he didn’t co-operate. From that point on, the merchant was in the control of George Downing and a saga of betrayal began. It would climax in triumph for Downing and disaster for the regicides.
16
ON THE WORD OF A KING
September 1661–July 1663
As George Downing prepared to spring his trap in Holland, the baying for more blood rang out in England. Charles stirred the calls by ordering another clear-out of offending corpses from Westminster Abbey, and the newly elected House of Commons tried to pave the way for another round of mass executions.
The removal of corpses took place in September. Out came the remains of Isaac Dorislaus, the assassinated regicide; Admiral Robert Blake, the scourge of the Dutch and the French navies, and two other admirals; two colonels; several divines; a historian; Cromwell’s beloved mother and sister; and John Pym MP, the parliamentary titan whom Charles I had come stamping into the Commons to arrest in 1642. The remains were dumped in a pit dug in the grounds of St Margaret’s church, next door to the abbey.
The new House of Commons would turn out to be still more royalist than its predecessor and would quickly be known as the Cavalier Parliament. One of its first decisions was to instruct the common hangman to burn the ‘treacherous’ Act setting up the High Court that tried the king. It followed up by instructing the solicitor-general to prepare a Bill authorising the executions of regicides who had been condemned in the October 1660 show trials but were given hope by a decision to leave their fates to a future Parliament. The favourites to escape a repeat of the brutal deaths of October 1660 were those who had given themselves up by the deadline set out by Charles in his proclamation the previous June, assuming that he had given his word that they would not die. Eleven of them were hauled before the Commons in November and asked why they should escape execution. All had spent more than a year in the Tower or other prisons and they seem to have been cowed by their experience. Most made no attempt to justify their own action, instead throwing themselves on the king’s mercy. One claimed he had been tricked by Cromwell into serving as a judge, and three that they had become involved in the trial in order to help the king. The big exception was Harry Marten. Typically he made a dangerous joke of it. The bon viveur of the Rump Parliament told MPs that he had never obeyed any proclamation before this, and hoped that he should not be hanged for taking the king’s word now.1
In February 1662 the Bill authorising more executions had passed all its key stages and the hangman must have been preparing. Before the next batch of prisoners could be selected, George Downing provided other victims.
At the end of the previous year, two of the regicides in Germany had taken a decision that put them into Downing’s hands. John Okey and John Barkstead agreed to venture out of Frankfurt and risk meeting their wives in Holland. Their intentions were set out in a letter written by Barkstead to his ‘real friend’, Abraham Kicke. The projected meeting place was to be Kicke’s home in the town of Delft. Barkstead planned to collect money and a trunk of clothes to be brought by his wife. ‘Myself and Mr Williamson [Okey] intend to be with you about the latter end of February or the beginning of March and hope there to meet our wives with you.’ He added that the women had promised to be present. Kicke received the letter at the beginning of December and passed it on to a delighted George Downing.2
The ambassador knew that he could use the extradition clause in the new Anglo-Dutch treaty to snatch the two men legally and bundle them off to England. Anticipating an outraged reaction from the Dutch public and possible attempts at sabotage by the Dutch leadership – after the fiasco over Dendy he had little trust in Johan de Witt – he planned the timing of his moves so tightly no one would be able to stop him. He aimed to be on hand himself to supervise the capture.
Downing also hoped to net more than two of the judges. He suggested that Kicke get word of Okey and Barkstead’s visit to Miles Corbet, a regicide living somewhere on the outskirts of Amsterdam, and invite him to supper with the two guests from Germany. Aged eighty-three, Corbet was the oldest of the fugitives. Unlike most of the others, he was no military man, but instead a lawyer who had been a member of the Long Parliament. Corbet’s elegant lawyer’s signature had been the fifty-ninth and last on Charles I’s death warrant. He readily accepted the invitation.
Barkstead was evidently nervous, wanting reassurance before leaving Frankfurt and writing to Kicke asking what risks they would be running in the Netherlands. George Downing dictated the merchant’s reply: there was no order to arrest or detain them, wrote Kicke, they ‘might be as safe there as himself’.
Okey and Barkstead reached Delft on 4 March 1662, arriving at Abraham Kicke’s house early that evening. The men were always prepared for trouble and, beneath their heavy greatcoats, were well armed. But once inside their friend’s house they relaxed. Cloaks, greatcoats and arms were discarded and left in a room indicated by their host. At some time later in the evening Kicke slipped away from his guests and, unbeknown to them, locked the room that held the arms, retaining the key.
Timing was everything. Sir George wanted to avoid any repeat of the Dendy episode. With that in his mind, he needed to get the warrant issued and verified as late in the day as possible to lessen the chances of his targets being warned, but early enough so the three men could be seized before their supper party broke up and Corbet went home. He also wanted the trio in irons and safely en route for England before Holland woke up to what was afoot.
In a similar kidnap venture a few years later, the king’s royal yacht would be sent ready to transport captives. This time a vessel called the Blackamoor had been provided, probably laid on by the Royal Africa Company. This new mercantile venture was largely owned by Charles’s brother and heir, James, Duke of York, and their sister the Duchess of Orléans. The Blackamoor lay moored and waiting in Rotterdam.
There is no record of the talk that evening but there must have been much to catch up on. It was at least eighteen months since Corbet had seen his two fellow fugitives and in that time the world had turned upside down. Perhaps the three men mulled over the betrayal by General Monck, or
Okey’s attempts to stop him. Perhaps they read together some of the last speeches of their friends, the fellow regicides who had been executed and whom they regarded as martyrs. No doubt they speculated on the vulnerability of the Stuart regime and the chances now for the success of the Good Old Cause. Presumably there was also talk of hearth and home and some excitement at the arrival next day of two of their wives. Perhaps, too, they talked of Okey’s old comrade Sir George Downing, and praised God that he and not some vengeful royalist was the ambassador here.
Accompanied by three English officers serving as mercenaries in Holland, along with some sailors, presumably from the Blackamoor, Downing was hidden in a house nearby. He had set the wheels in motion early that afternoon, arriving at Johan de Witt’s home with a request for a warrant and informing the Dutch leader that he was presenting him with an opportunity to do the king of England a ‘most acceptable kindness’. There were, as Downing expected, long delays. Not till early evening was the warrant ready and then it had to be rushed to Delft.
As the minutes went by, Kicke became worried. He told Downing later that Miles Corbet (‘the hunchback’, he called him) was showing signs of leaving, which might mean only two regicides in the net – and £200 less for himself. One imagines the old man getting up from the fireside table and beginning to make his farewells when there was a knock at the door. In his report to Clarendon, Downing gloated over what happened next:
Knocking at the door one of the house came to see who it was and the door being open, the under Scout and the whole company rushed immediately into the house, and into the room where they were sitting by a fireside with a pipe of tobacco and a cup of beer. Immediately they started up to have got out at a back door but it was too late, the room was in a moment full. They made many excuses, the one to have got liberty to fetch his coat and another to go to the privy but all in vain.
No doubt the king was thrilled as Clarendon passed him Downing’s dispatch.
There was still hope for the three fugitives. The Delft authorities had insisted on taking them into local custody and Downing’s hopes of a quick departure were thwarted. The following day news of the Englishmen’s seizure spread, a crowd gathered outside the Delft prison and there was immediate pressure on the local magistrates to release them. Amsterdam magistrates sent a message to their Delft colleagues calling on them to ‘Let the gates of the prison open’, and the chief bailiff at the prison warned that ‘the common people will force the gates’.
Another day passed before bribery and sheer opportunism won the day for Downing. Two English merchants arrived offering payoffs to the bailiffs to release the prisoners. Downing offered more and stationed one of his men in the cells to ensure they didn’t vanish overnight. Finally he fixed them legally. The Delft authorities offered the three the chance to receive legal advice and on their behalf found a friend to seek out the best advocate available. The ‘friend’ was Abraham Kicke. Perhaps his dinner guests still did not realise that he had betrayed them, or perhaps the Dutch authorities asked him without consulting the three. On leaving the prison, Kicke went straight to the waiting Downing, and Downing – doubtless hugging himself – provided an advocate who could be trusted not only to fail but to ensure that no other lawyer was brought in. The three men were handed back to Downing.
On 16 March, Mercurius Publicus carried a report that the Blackamoor and her cargo was off Gravesend and His Majesty had ordered a barge ‘with a sufficient guard of soldiers to receive and conduct them to the Tower where they are to be kept closed prisoner till further order. They are expected there by this night’s tide.’
A month later, on 16 April, the three were brought to court, in order, in the words of the Lord Chief Justice, ‘to offer what they could say for themselves, why execution should not be awarded upon them’. John Okey, saying ‘I am ignorant of the law,’ asked for access to a counsel. It was refused. Similarly with Barkstead and Corbet. The three were now told that they had only two options – either to plead for the king’s mercy or to claim they were not the persons named in the indictment. Confused, and without legal advice, they each chose the second option and watched as witness after witness testified to seeing them sitting among the jurors who had condemned the king. One farsighted observer had attended the whole of the king’s trial and noted down the names of jurors every day. Now, twelve years later, he produced his list and read out the names: Okey, Barkstead and Corbet. After another lengthy admonition on their ‘horrible crime’, they were taken away.
Three days later, Londoners turned out in their thousands to watch the condemned trio dragged on separate sledges from the Tower of London to Tyburn and the scaffold. Extra troops had been drafted in to control the crowds, with Mercurius Publicus reporting the mood as being so hostile to the condemned men that the guards barely prevented the people ‘anticipating the executioners’.
A very different crowd – perhaps equally big, certainly too big for Charles’s comfort – turned up at Okey’s funeral. Previously none of the executed regicides had been allowed a Christian burial. After the ritual butchery their heads had been boiled and stuck on spikes in Westminster Hall or London Bridge, their quarters carted away. Okey’s interment was to be different. Charles agreed that his body should be treated with respect and interred in the family vault in the East End parish of Stepney. No such concession was offered the families of his two comrades. On the appointed day, the remains were taken to Christ’s Church, Stepney. There had been no publicity but the Puritan grapevine sufficed. People began to stream towards Stepney. The news quickly filtered through to Charles that hordes of ‘fanatics’ were on their way to pay tribute to this murderer of his father. The king – outraged, horrified or both – ordered it stopped. The Sheriff of London was dispatched to Stepney to end the ceremony. By the time he and his constables arrived, however, as many as twenty thousand people were assembled round the church. They were dispersed ‘with much harshness and many bitter words’, but appear to have gone home peacefully. To prevent another demonstration of solidarity with the ‘Godly martyrs’, Okey was buried where no crowds could gather – in an unmarked plot, somewhere in the grounds of the Tower of London.
The unexpected beneficiaries of this spectacle were the other regicides awaiting their own deaths. The Bills authorising more executions had reached their final reading but were dropped and up to twenty regicides were saved. Instead of Tyburn they were kept in the Tower or dispersed to strongholds in the furthest reaches of the realm. Why were no more of them executed? Charles’s own dwindling blood lust was undoubtedly part of it. As early as the first batch of deaths he had written to Clarendon that he was ‘weary’ of the hangings. The new butchery can only have increased his distaste. Another factor was the propaganda bonus the ‘fanatics’ secured from the executions. The victims’ heroic performances on the scaffold were retold in pamphlets and books like Prayers and Speeches of the Regicides which were constantly reprinted and turned men who were supposed to be damned for martyring their king into martyrs themselves.
Admiration for the executed men spread beyond London, indeed beyond England. ‘Every body here admireth the constancy and resolution of those men who were lately executed in England for having judged the late King’, wrote a Paris-based correspondent. Naturally the authorities came down hard on the printers and booksellers. Four men involved in the trade were put on trial for publishing and selling seditious literature. Three were fined, pilloried and imprisoned. The crime of the fourth, a John Twyn, made the king overcome any distaste for spilling more blood. Having published a book entitled A Treatise on the Execution of Justice, calling for an end to the royal family, Twyn was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Another display of punishment, had been ordered a few months earlier, to mark the anniversary of the day when the death sentence was passed on the king. Three of his judges were roped to sledges, each with a halter round his neck, and dragged through the streets from the Tower to Tyburn – then back again. None
of the three – Sir Henry Mildmay, Viscount Monson and Robert Wallop – had signed the death warrant or had been present when sentence was pronounced, so they didn’t qualify as regicides. Indeed all three insisted that they agreed to act as judges in order to help the king. That cut no ice. The trio had all been ardent republicans and they were all sentenced to life and, on top of that, to the humiliating trip to Tyburn. According to Pepys it was to be an annual excursion.3
Though regicides like Sir Henry Mildmay and Harry Marten were saved from death, there were two heads which the Cavalier Parliament and the court still seemed determined to have. Neither Sir Harry Vane nor John Lambert was a regicide. But they were regarded as the most dangerous men in the realm: Lambert for his popularity among the thousands of discharged soldiers wandering the country, Vane because of his rhetorical power and appeal to the extremist Fifth Monarchists. Both had been prisoners since 1660, Vane in the castle of St Mary on the Scilly Isles, Lambert on Guernsey in the Channel Islands. The fresh intake of MPs was determined to execute them and circumvent the deal done to save their lives in 1660. That convoluted three-way arrangement had allowed the Lords to claim that it had condemned the two men to death while supposedly ensuring that a death sentence would never be carried out. It involved the two houses jointly excluding Vane and Lambert from pardon and the king pledging to save them if ever they were attainted and faced execution. A joint petition from Parliament embodying the deal went to the king on 5 September 1660. It read:
