Regicides, the Parliament's victory over Charles I, who remained ungracious and dishonest in defeat, in 1645 failed to lead to any lasting political settlement. It became apparent to the Army and their supporters in Parliament that Charles had to be dethroned; and on 6 January 1649 the purged House of Commons named 135 commissioners to try Charles I for treason. The Commons specified that the trial could proceed with a quorum of twenty commissioners and well over half of those named attended in some capacity to try the King.
Charles I's trial began on 20 January 1649 with John Bradshaw chosen as its presiding judge. The barrister John Cook was chosen as Charles’ prosecutor. Charles I was uncooperative and refused to plead, arguing that as the monarch by divine right the Court had no power to try him. He was convicted and sentenced to death. Fifty‐nine of the commissioners signed the death warrant on 29 January 1649 and he was beheaded on 30 January outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London.
With the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, many of the forty‐one or so surviving Regicides were tried and convicted under Treason Act of 1352. In all thirteen men were executed; most who pleaded guilty had their sentences commuted to imprisonment and other Regicides escaped to Holland, Switzerland, or America.
The main protagonists in the Regicide: Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton, John Bradshaw, and Thomas Pride had already died. As symbolic punishment Parliament ordered their bodies to be exhumed, hanged, and beheaded.
Elliot Vernon
How to cite this entry:
Elliot Vernon "Regicides, the" The New Oxford Companion to Law. by Peter Cane and Joanne Conaghan. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 7 September 2011
