Lieutenant-Colonel George Joyce (born 1618) was an officer and Agitator in the Parliamentary New Model Army during the English Civil War. [1]
Between 2 and 5 June 1647, while the New Model Army was assembling for rendezvous at the behest of the recently formed Army Council, Joyce seized King Charles I from Parliament's custody at Holdenby House and took him to Thomas Fairfax's headquarters on Triplo Heath (8 miles south of Cambridge), [2] a move that weakened Parliament's position and strengthened the Army's. [3] [4]
Before joining the army, Joyce worked as a tailor in London. [5] [6] According to the Earl of Clarendon in his work, 'The History of the Rebellion', Joyce at one point, "served in a very inferior Employment in Mr. Holles's House." [5]
By 1644, Joyce had enlisted in the Army of the Eastern Association and was serving in Oliver Cromwell's cavalry regiment, nicknamed the 'Ironsides'. [7] By 1647, he was commissioned as a cornet in Sir Thomas Fairfax's lifeguard. [8] [4] Fairfax would later describe Joyce as an "Arch-Agitator." [9]
In 1647, after the conclusion of the First English Civil War, Parliament ordered the New Model Army to disband without full payment of their arrears. [8] In response to this threat, Joyce was tasked with leading a troop of 500 men to take control of Charles I from where he was held in Parliamentary custody at Holdenby House. [10] The plan was possibly formulated by a council of elected representatives of the army, known as 'Agitators,' [4] however Joyce also seemingly received tacit approval from Cromwell after visiting his house on Drury Lane on Mary 31. [10] Cromwell later admitted authorising Joyce to secure the King at Holdenby, but denied giving him orders to move him. [6]
On June 2, Joyce successfully occupied Holdenby. He soon received word that Colonel Graves, who had been in command of the regiment that was previously guarding the King, had fled the house. [4] Fearful that Graves would return with a superior force and take the King back into Parliament's control, Joyce made the decision to move Charles to Newmarket, where the New Model Army had set up headquarters. [10]
Armed with a pistol, he entered the King's bedchamber in the middle of the night on June 3, and told him that he must leave with his troop the next morning. [9] [10] As they were about to depart, Charles asked to know by what commission Joyce had been authorised to remove him. In reply, Joyce was said to have simply gestured to the 500 troopers who stood behind him. [11]
Fairfax denied any prior knowledge of Joyce's actions and wanted to have him court-martialled. However, Cromwell and Henry Ireton not only interceded on his behalf, but promised him promotion. [12] [6] Eventually Fairfax would come to appreciate Joyce's decision. [4] Concerning his arrest of the King, Joyce reported in a letter:
"Lett the Agitators know once more wee have done nothing in our owne name, but what wee have done hath been in the name of the whole Army." [12]
In early 1648, Joyce was promoted to captain and made governor of Southsea Castle. [7]
According to an account by Sir John Berkley, in 1648, Joyce expressed the view that the King should be brought to trial, so that the parliamentary side "might not bear the blame of the war." [13] [7]
Joyce spoke at the army council debates at Reading in 1648, and at Whitehall in 1649. At Whitehall, he argued that legislative power rested in the hands of the army rather than Parliament, and urged Fairfax and the Grandees to "not to shift off that [power] which the Lord hath called you to." [14] He then claimed that through acting as the instruments of God's will, the council would be able to "remove mountains, [and do] such things as were never yet done by men on earth." [7] [15]
Under the Commonwealth, Joyce became a speculator in confiscated crown lands. By 1651, he owned Portland Castle outright, after buying out his partner Edward Sexby. [7]
On 17 June 1650, Joyce was appointed governor of the Isle of Portland, in the August he was given a commission as lieutenant-colonel in a regiment raised by Colonel James Heane. [6] In October 1651, he accompanied Heane on an expedition to retake Jersey. [16] The expedition was successful; thus the last remaining Royalist stronghold in the British Isles fell to Parliament. [17]
In 1653, Joyce opposed the dissolution of the Rump parliament without a more “righteous and equal Government” to replace it. [18] He was arrested and briefly imprisoned after allegedly stating that Robert Lockyer should have assassinated Cromwell at Bishopsgate. [19] According to Joyce’s own account however, the main reason for his arrest was a property dispute with Richard Cromwell. [7]
In June 1660, Parliament issued a warrant for Joyce’s arrest after William Lily alleged he had been the masked executioner of Charles I. Consequently, Joyce fled to Rotterdam with his wife and children. [7]
He remained a concern to the newly restored monarchy, and was closely monitored by state intelligence agencies. [20] In 1664 he was implicated, along with several other republican radicals, in a plot to raise a rebel army. [21]
In 1670, Charles II sent Sir William Temple to Rotterdam to extradite Joyce to England, however Dutch authorities allowed him to escape. It is unknown what happened to him after this. [6]
The Levellers were a political movement active during the English Civil War who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its populism, as shown by its emphasis on equal natural rights, and their practice of reaching the public through pamphlets, petitions and vocal appeals to the crowd.
The New Model Army or New Modelled Army was a standing army formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians during the First English Civil War, then disbanded after the Stuart Restoration in 1660. It differed from other armies employed in the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms in that members were liable for service anywhere in the country, rather than being limited to a single area or garrison. To establish a professional officer corps, the army's leaders were prohibited from having seats in either the House of Lords or House of Commons. This was to encourage their separation from the political or religious factions among the Parliamentarians.
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, also known as Sir Thomas Fairfax, was an English politician, general and Parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War. An adept and talented commander, Fairfax led Parliament to many victories, including the crucial Battle of Naseby, effectively becoming military ruler of England, but he was eventually overshadowed by his subordinate Oliver Cromwell, who was more politically adept and radical in action against Charles I. Fairfax became dissatisfied with Cromwell's policy and publicly refused to take part in Charles's show trial. Eventually he resigned, leaving Cromwell to control the country. Because of this, as well as his honourable battlefield conduct and active role in the Restoration of the monarchy after Cromwell's death, he was exempted from the retribution that was exacted on many other leaders of the revolution.
Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles, was an English statesman, best remembered as one of the Five Members whose attempted arrest by Charles I in January 1642 sparked the First English Civil War.
Major-General John Lambert was an English military officer and politician. Widely regarded as one of the most talented commanders of the era, he fought on the Parliamentarian side throughout the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and was largely responsible for the English victory in the Anglo-Scottish war of 1650–1652.
Holdenby House is a historic country house in Northamptonshire, traditionally pronounced, and sometimes spelt, Holmby. The house is situated in the parish of Holdenby, six miles (10 km) northwest of Northampton and close to Althorp. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Colonel Edward Sexby was an English Puritan soldier and Leveller in the army of Oliver Cromwell. Later he turned against Cromwell and plotted his assassination, which Sexby considered tyrannicide, as a decapitation strike, which would then be followed by a joint regime change uprising by both Cavaliers and Levellers. Failing in his efforts, Sexby was taken prisoner and died in the Tower of London.
The Putney Debates, which took place from 28 October to 8 November 1647, were a series of discussions over the political settlement that should follow Parliament's victory over Charles I in the First English Civil War. The main participants were senior officers of the New Model Army who favoured retaining Charles within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, and radicals such as the Levellers who sought more sweeping changes, including one man, one vote and freedom of conscience, particularly in religion.
The Corkbush Field Mutiny occurred on 15 November 1647, during the early stages of the Second English Civil War at the Corkbush Field rendezvous, when soldiers were ordered to sign a declaration of loyalty to Thomas Fairfax, the commander-in-chief of the New Model Army (NMA), and the Army Council. When some refused to do this they were arrested, and one of the ringleaders, Private Richard Arnold, was executed.
The Agitators were a political movement as well as elected representatives of soldiers, including members of the New Model Army under Lord General Fairfax, during the English Civil War. They were also known as adjutators. Many of the ideas of the movement were later adopted by the Levellers.
Sir Edward Rossiter was an English landowner, soldier and politician from Lincolnshire. He fought with the Parliamentarian army in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and sat as an MP at various times between 1646 and 1660.
The Army Council was a body established in 1647 to represent the views of all levels of the New Model Army. It originally consisted of senior commanders, like Sir Thomas Fairfax, and representatives elected by their regiments, known as Agitators.
Colonel John Okey was a religious radical from London, who served in the Parliamentarian army throughout the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A supporter of Oliver Cromwell, he was one of those who approved the Execution of Charles I in January 1649.
Thomas Rainsborough, or Rainborowe, 6 July 1610 to 29 October 1648, was an English religious and political radical who served in the Parliamentarian navy and New Model Army during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. One of the few contemporaries whose personal charisma and popularity rivalled that of Oliver Cromwell, he has also been described as "a soldier of impressive professional competence and peerless courage".
The Heads of Proposals was a set of propositions intended to be a basis for a constitutional settlement after King Charles I was defeated in the First English Civil War. The authorship of the Proposals has been the subject of scholarly debate, although it has been suggested that it was drafted in the summer of 1647 by Commissary-General Henry Ireton and Major-General John Lambert.
Thomas Rawton was one of the highest-ranking officers to support the Levellers, and served with Parliament on both land and sea. He was the eldest son of Captain John Rawton, a naval officer who made his fortune in the Baltic trade, and inherited his father's property in the London Borough of Southwark.
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Events from the year 1647 in England.
Edmund Chillenden was an English soldier, known as an agitator and theological writer. At different times he was a Leveller and a Fifth Monarchist.
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