The Regicides of Charles I

My novel, Conditions Are Different After Dark, begins with a brief prologue, set in 1662. Captain George Massey is about to be executed, having been framed as one of the signatories of the death warrant of Charles I.

My novel, Conditions Are Different After Dark, begins with a brief prologue, set in 1662. Captain George Massey is about to be executed, having been framed as one of the signatories of the death warrant of Charles I.

When Charles II came to the throne in 1660, he passed the Indemnity and Oblivion Act. This granted an amnesty for acts omitted during the Civil Wars and the Interregnum, except for the fifty-nine signatories of his father’s death warrant, who were to be prosecuted for treason. The bodies of those who had already died, including Cromwell, were exhumed. They were hanged, beheaded and their remains cast into a pit below the gallows. Their heads were placed on spikes above Westminster Hall, where Charles I was tried.

Samuel Pepys commented on the aftermath of some of the executions in his diaries. Some of the regicides escaped to the continent or America to evade capture.

The House of Lords ordered the return of the Death Warrant from Charles I’s executioner, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London. It has been in the custody of Parliament ever since. A complete list of the regicides of Charles I and their fates can be found on Wikipedia.