The Regicides of Charles I were the people responsible for the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649. The term generally refers to the fifty-nine commissioners who signed the execution warrant. This followed his conviction for treason by the High Court of Justice.
After the 1660 Stuart Restoration, the fifty-nine signatories were among a total of 104 individuals accused of direct involvement in the sentencing and execution. They were excluded from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act, which granted a general amnesty for acts committed during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and subsequent Interregnum.
Regicide is not a term recognised in English law, and there is no agreed definition, with some historians including all 104 individuals. Twenty of the fifty-nine Commissioners died before the Restoration, including John Bradshaw, who presided over the trial, and Oliver Cromwell, its originator. Eight of the survivors were executed, sixteen died awaiting trial or later in prison, two were pardoned, and the remainder escaped into exile.
The 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms were fought by Royalist supporters of Charles I, and an alliance between his Parliamentarian and Covenanter opponents in England and Scotland respectively. Although Royal authority in political and religious matters were key issues, fought primarily over political power and religious authority. Charles was defeated in the 1642 to 1646 First English Civil War [1]
In January 1649 a trial was arranged, composed of 135 commissioners. Some were informed beforehand of their summons, and refused to participate, but most were named without their consent being sought. Forty-seven of those named did not appear either in the preliminary closed sessions or the subsequent public trial. [2] At the end of the four-day trial, 67 commissioners stood to signify that they judged Charles I had "traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present Parliament and the people therein represented". [3] [2] Fifty-seven of the commissioners present signed the death warrant; two further commissioners added their names subsequently. The following day, 30 January, Charles I was beheaded outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall; [2] [4] Charles II went into exile. [2] The English monarchy was replaced with, at first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and then the Protectorate (1653–1659) under Cromwell's personal rule. [5] [6]
Following the death of Cromwell in 1658 a power struggle ensued. General George Monck—who had fought for the King until his capture, but had joined Cromwell during the Interregnum—brought an army down from his base in Scotland and restored order; he arranged for elections to be held in early 1660. He began discussions with Charles II who made the Declaration of Breda—on Monck's advice—which offered reconciliation, forgiveness, and moderation in religious and political matters. Parliament sent an invitation to Charles to return, accepting the Restoration of the monarchy as the English political form. [7] Charles arrived in Dover on 25 May 1660 and reached London on 29 May, his 30th birthday. [8]
In 1660, Parliament passed the Indemnity and Oblivion Act, [lower-alpha 2] which granted amnesty to many of those who had supported the Parliament during the Civil War and the Interregnum, although 104 people were specifically excluded. Of those, 49 named individuals and the two unknown executioners were to face a capital charge. [2] [9] According to Howard Nenner, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Charles would probably have been content with a smaller number to be punished, but Parliament took a strong line. [2]
Of those who were listed to receive punishment, 24 had already died, including Cromwell, John Bradshaw, the judge who was president of the court, and Henry Ireton. [2] They were given a posthumous execution: their remains were exhumed, and they were hanged, beheaded and their remains cast into a pit below the gallows. Their heads were placed on spikes above Westminster Hall, the building where the High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I had sat. [10] In 1660, six of the commissioners and four others were found guilty of regicide and executed. One was hanged and nine were hanged, drawn and quartered.
On Monday 15 October 1660, Pepys records in his diary that "this morning Mr Carew was hanged and quartered at Charing Cross; but his quarters, by a great favour, are not to be hanged up." Five days later he writes, "I saw the limbs of some of our new traitors set upon Aldersgate, which was a sad sight to see; and a bloody week this and the last have been, there being ten hanged, drawn, and quartered." [11] In 1662, three more regicides were hanged, drawn and quartered. Some others were pardoned, while a further nineteen served life imprisonment. [12] Most had their property confiscated and many were banned from holding office or title again in the future.
Twenty-one of those under threat fled Britain, mostly settling in the Netherlands or Switzerland, although some were captured and returned to England, or murdered by Royalist sympathisers. Three of the regicides, John Dixwell, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, fled to New England, where they avoided capture, despite a search. [2] [lower-alpha 3]
Nenner records that there is no agreed definition of who is included in the list of regicides. The Indemnity and Oblivion Act did not use the term either as a definition of the act, or as a label for those involved, [lower-alpha 4] and historians have identified different groups of people as being appropriate for the name. [2]
Shortly after the Restoration in Scotland, the Scottish Parliament passed an Act of Indemnity and Oblivion. It was similar to the English Indemnity and Oblivion Act, but there were many more exceptions under the Scottish act than there were under the English one. Most of the Scottish exceptions were pecuniary, and only four men were executed, all for treason but none for regicide, of whom the Marquess of Argyll was the most prominent. He was found to be guilty of collaboration with Cromwell's government, and beheaded on 27 May 1661. [13] [14]
In the order in which they signed the death warrant, the Commissioners were:
Order [15] [16] | Name | At the Restoration | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | John Bradshaw , President of the Court | Dead | Posthumous execution: disinterred, hanged at Tyburn and beheaded. His body was thrown into a pit and the head placed on a spike at the end of Westminster Hall, facing the direction of the spot where Charles I had been executed. | [17] [10] |
2 | Lord Grey of Groby | Dead | Died in 1657 | [18] |
3 | Oliver Cromwell | Dead | Posthumous execution: disinterred, hanged at Tyburn and beheaded. His body was thrown into a pit and the head placed on a spike at the end of Westminster Hall, facing the direction of the spot where Charles I had been executed. | [10] |
4 | Edward Whalley | Alive | Fled to the New Haven Colony with a co-commissioner, his son-in-law William Goffe, to avoid trial. He was alive but in poor health in 1674, where he was sought by the agents of Charles II but shielded by the sympathetic colonists. He probably died in 1675. | [19] [20] [21] |
5 | Sir Michael Livesey | Alive | Fled to the Netherlands. In June 1665, he was known to be at Rotterdam, and probably died there shortly afterwards. | [22] |
6 | John Okey | Alive | Fled to Germany, but was arrested by the English Ambassador to the Netherlands, Sir George Downing. He was tried, found guilty and hanged, drawn and quartered in April 1662. | [23] [24] |
7 | Sir John Danvers | Dead | Died in 1655 | [25] |
8 | Sir John Bourchier | Alive | Too ill to be tried and died in 1660 | [26] [27] |
9 | Henry Ireton | Dead | Posthumous execution: disinterred, hanged at Tyburn and beheaded. His body was thrown into a pit and the head placed on a spike at the end of Westminster Hall, facing the direction of the spot where Charles I had been executed. | [10] [28] |
10 | Sir Thomas Mauleverer | Dead | Died 1655, but was exempted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act | [29] |
11 | Sir Hardress Waller | Alive | Fled to France; later returned and was found guilty. Sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Died 1666 in prison on Jersey. | [30] |
12 | John Blakiston | Dead | Died 1649 | [31] |
13 | John Hutchinson | Alive | Pardoned in 1660, but was implicated in the 1663 Farnley Wood Plot; he was imprisoned in Sandown Castle, Kent where he died on 11 September 1664. | [32] |
14 | William Goffe | Alive | Fled to the New Haven Colony with a co-commissioner, his father-in-law Edward Whalley; escaped from being arrested in 1678. Burke's Peerage reports that William Goffe died in New Haven, Ct in 1680. [33] | [34] |
15 | Thomas Pride | Dead | Died 1658. Posthumous execution alongside Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw was ordered but not carried out | [35] |
16 | Peter Temple | Alive | Brought to trial, sentenced to death but sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He died in the Tower of London in 1663 | [36] |
17 | Thomas Harrison | Alive | First to be found guilty. Was hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 13 October 1660. He was a leader of the Fifth Monarchists, who still posed a threat to the Restoration. | [37] |
18 | John Hewson | Alive | Fled to Amsterdam, then possibly Rouen. He died in one of those cities in either 1662 or 1663. | [38] |
19 | Henry Smith | Alive | Brought to trial, sentenced to death but sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He was held in the Tower of London until 1664 and was transported to Mont Orgueil castle in Jersey. Died 1668. | [36] |
20 | Sir Peregrine Pelham | Dead | Died in 1650. | [39] |
21 | Richard Deane | Dead | Died in 1653. Disinterred and buried in a communal pit. | [40] |
22 | Sir Robert Tichborne | Alive | Brought to trial, sentenced to death but was reprieved. He spent the rest of his life imprisoned in the Tower of London. Died 1682. | [41] |
23 | Humphrey Edwards | Dead | Died in 1658 | [42] |
24 | Daniel Blagrave | Alive | Fled to Aachen — now in Germany — where he probably died in 1668 | [43] |
25 | Owen Rowe | Alive | Brought to trial, sentenced to death, but died in the Tower of London in December 1661 while awaiting execution. | [44] |
26 | William Purefoy | Dead | Died in 1659 | [45] |
27 | Adrian Scrope | Alive | Tried, found guilty: hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 17 October 1660 | [46] |
28 | James Temple | Alive | Brought to trial, sentenced to life imprisonment on Jersey; he is reported to have died there on 17 February 1680. [47] | [48] |
29 | Augustine Garland | Alive | Brought to trial, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He died in or after 1677. | [49] |
30 | Edmund Ludlow | Alive | Surrendered to the Speaker of the House of Commons, and then escaped to Vevey in the Canton of Bern. Died 1692. | [50] |
31 | Henry Marten | Alive | Tried and found guilty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in Chepstow Castle in 1680. | [51] |
32 | Vincent Potter | Alive | Brought to trial, he received the death sentence but it was not carried out; he died in the Tower of London, probably in 1661. | [52] |
33 | Sir William Constable, 1st Baronet | Dead | Died in 1655. His body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey and reburied in a communal burial pit. | [53] |
34 | Sir Richard Ingoldsby | Alive | Pardoned. Died 1685. | [54] |
35 | William Cawley | Alive | Escaped to Switzerland, where he died in 1667 | [55] |
36 | John Barkstead | Alive | Arrested by the English ambassador to the Netherlands, Sir George Downing, extradited and executed in 1662 | [56] |
37 | Isaac Ewer | Dead | Died in 1650 or 1651 | [57] |
38 | John Dixwell | Alive | Believed dead in England, he fled to the New Haven Colony, where he died in 1689 under an assumed name. | [58] |
39 | Valentine Walton | Alive | Escaped to Germany after being condemned as a regicide. Died in 1661. | [59] |
40 | Simon Mayne | Alive | Tried and sentenced to death, he died in the Tower of London in 1661 before his appeal could be heard. | [60] |
41 | Thomas Horton | Dead | Died of dysentery in 1649 while serving with Cromwell during the conquest of Ireland | [61] |
42 | John Jones Maesygarnedd | Alive | Tried, found guilty: hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 17 October 1660 | [62] |
43 | John Moore | Dead | In 1649, Moore fought in Ireland against the Marquess of Ormonde and became Governor of Dublin, dying of a fever there in 1650. | [63] |
44 | Gilbert Millington | Alive | Tried and sentenced to death, but sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Millington spent his final years in Jersey and died in 1666. | [64] |
45 | George Fleetwood | Alive | Brought to trial and sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London. He may have been transported to Tangier. Died c. 1672. | [65] |
46 | John Alured | Dead | Died in 1651 | [66] |
47 | Robert Lilburne | Alive | Tried in October 1660 and sentenced to death, although this was later commuted to life imprisonment. Died in prison in August 1665. | [67] |
48 | William Say | Alive | Escaped to Switzerland. Died 1666. | [68] |
49 | Anthony Stapley | Dead | Died in 1655 | [69] |
50 | Sir Gregory Norton, 1st Baronet | Dead | Died 1652 | [70] |
51 | Thomas Chaloner | Alive | Excluded from pardon and escaped to the Continent. In 1661, he died at Middelburg in the Netherlands. | [71] |
52 | Thomas Wogan | Alive | Held at York Castle until 1664 when he escaped to the Netherlands; still alive in 1666 | [72] |
53 | John Venn | Dead | Died in 1650 | [73] |
54 | Gregory Clement | Alive | Went into hiding, he was captured, tried and found guilty. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 17 October 1660. | [74] |
55 | John Downes | Alive | Tried, found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Died 1666. | [75] |
56 | Thomas Waite | Alive | Tried, found guilty of regicide, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Died 1688 Jersey | [76] |
57 | Thomas Scot | Alive | Fled to Brussels, returned to England, was tried, found guilty; and hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 17 October 1660. Died unrepentant. | [77] |
58 | John Carew | Alive | Joined Fifth Monarchists. Tried, found guilty; and hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 15 October 1660. | [78] |
59 | Miles Corbet | Alive | Fled to the Netherlands; arrested by the English ambassador to the Netherlands Sir George Downing; extradited; tried; found guilty; and was hanged, drawn and quartered on 19 April 1662. | [79] |
The following Commissioners sat on one or more days at the trial but did not sign the death warrant:
Name [80] [81] | At the Restoration | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
Francis Allen | Dead | Attended several sessions including 27 January when the sentence was agreed upon. His name was one of 24 dead regicides who were excepted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act 1660 (section XXXVII of the act). | [82] |
Sir Thomas Andrewes (or Andrews) | Dead | Attended three sessions, including 27 January when the sentence was agreed upon. His name was one of 24 dead regicides who were excepted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act 1660 (section XXXVII of the act). | [83] |
Thomas Hammond | Dead | Attended 14 sessions. He was excepted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act, allowing the state to confiscate the property that had belonged to him (section XXXVII of the act). | [84] |
Sir James Harington, 3rd Baronet | Alive | Escaped and died in exile on the European mainland in 1680. Due to an oversight in the Indemnity and Oblivion Act, although he lost his title, the baronetcy passed to the next in line on his death. | [85] |
Edmund Harvey | Alive | He was tried in October 1660, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in Pendennis Castle, Cornwall, in June 1673. | [86] |
William Heveningham | Alive | Found guilty of treason but successfully petitioned for mercy and was thereafter imprisoned in Windsor Castle until his death in 1678 | [87] |
Cornelius Holland | Alive | He fled to the Netherlands, then on to Lausanne and Vevey where he died, probably in 1671. | [88] |
Sir John Lisle | Alive | Escaped to Lausanne, Switzerland but was shot or stabbed by the Irish Royalist James Fitz Edmond Cotter (using the alias Thomas Macdonnell) in August 1664. | [89] |
Nicholas Love | Alive | Escaped to Hamburg. Died in Vevey, Switzerland in 1682. | [90] |
Isaac Penington | Alive | Sentenced to life imprisonment and died in the Tower of London in 1661 | [91] |
James Chaloner (or Challoner) | Alive | Brother of Thomas Chaloner. He died in July 1660 from an illness caught after being imprisoned the previous year for supporting General Monck. | [92] |
John Dove | Alive | He took no part in the trial other than being present when the sentence was agreed. At the Restoration he was contrite and, after making an abject submission to Parliament, he was allowed to depart unpunished. Died 1664 or 1665. | [93] |
John Fry | Dead | He was debarred from sitting on the High Court for heterodoxy on 26 January 1649, one day before the sentence was pronounced. His name was one of 24 dead regicides who were excepted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act in 1660. Died 1657. | [94] |
Sir Henry Mildmay | Alive | Tried, stripped of his knighthood and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in Antwerp in 1664 while being exiled to Tangier. | [95] |
William Mounson, 1st Viscount Monson | Alive | Tried, stripped of his titles and property and imprisoned for life in the Fleet Prison where he died in 1673. | [96] [97] |
Sir Gilbert Pickering, 1st Baronet | Alive | He only attended two sittings at the trial and he did not sign Charles's death warrant, so he was able to use the influence of his brother-in-law Earl of Sandwich, to secure his pardon, although he was banned for life from holding any office. | [98] |
Robert Wallop | Alive | Sentenced to life imprisonment and died in the Tower of London in 1667 | [97] |
Name [80] [81] | Office | At the Restoration | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Daniel Axtell | Officer of the Guard | Alive | Tried, found guilty of participating in the regicide; hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in October 1660. | [99] |
Andrew Broughton | Clerk of the Court | Alive | Escaped to Switzerland in 1663. Died 1687. | [100] |
John Cook | Solicitor-General | Alive | Tried, found guilty of regicide; hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross in October 1660 | [101] |
Edward Dendy | Serjeant-at-arms | Alive | Escaped to Switzerland in 1663; died 1674 | [102] |
Dr Isaac Dorislaus | Assistant to the Solicitor-General | Dead | A distinguished scholar from the Netherlands, he was murdered in the Hague in 1649 by Royalist refugees. | [103] |
Francis Hacker | Officer of the Guard | Alive | Tried, found guilty of signing the execution order; hanged at Tyburn in October 1660 | [104] |
William Hewlett | Captain in the Guard | Alive | Found guilty of regicide at the same trial as Daniel Axtell, but not executed with him. | [105] |
Cornelius Holland | Member of Council of State | Alive | Escaped to Lausanne, Switzerland at Restoration. Died in 1671. | [100] |
Hercules Huncks | Officer of the Guard | Alive | Refused to sign the order to the executioners, which Francis Hacker did in his place. He testified against Daniel Axtell and Hacker, and was pardoned. Died in 1660. | [106] [107] |
Robert Phayre | Officer of the Guard | Alive | Refused to sign the order to the executioners. He was arrested but not tried; released in 1662. Died in 1682. | [108] |
John Phelps | Clerk of the Court | Alive | Escaped to Switzerland. Died in 1666. | [109] |
Matthew Thomlinson | Officer of the Guard | Alive | Was appointed a commissioner but never sat in the court. [110] He was pardoned for showing courtesy to the King and for testifying against Daniel Axtell and Francis Hacker. Died in 1681. | [111] |
Hugh Peter | Alive | A radical preacher, he was tried and found guilty of inciting regicide; hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross in October 1660. | [112] | |
Anonymous | Headsman and assistant | Unknown | Article XXXIV of the Act of Pardon and Oblivion listed by name 49 of the men mentioned here and also two others who were unnamed and identified as "those two persons, ... who being disguised by frocks and vizors, did appear upon the scaffold erected before Whitehall". This was the headsman and his assistant. Sidney Lee states in the Dictionary of National Biography (1866) that the headsman may have been Richard Brandon. | [113] |
Name [114] [115] | At the Restoration | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
John Lambert | Alive | 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 for the rest of his life, first in Guernsey and then on Drake's Island, where he died in 1683/84. | [116] [117] |
Sir Henry Vane the Younger | Alive | After much debate in Parliament, he was exempted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act. He was tried for high treason, found guilty and beheaded on Tower Hill in June 1662. | [118] |
Under the Scottish Act of indemnity and oblivion (9 September 1662), as with the English act most were pardoned and their crimes forgotten, however, a few members of the previous regime were tried and found guilty of treason (for more details see General pardon and exceptions in Scotland):
Name | Fate | Notes |
---|---|---|
Archibald Campbell (8th Earl of Argyll) | Beheaded 27 May 1661. [119] | At his trial in Edinburgh Argyll was acquitted of complicity in the death of Charles I, and his escape from the whole charge seemed imminent, but the arrival of a packet of letters written by Argyll to Monck showed conclusively his collaboration with Cromwell's government, particularly in the suppression of Glencairn's Royalist rising in 1652. He was immediately sentenced to death. [120] |
James Guthrie | Hanged 1 June 1661. | On 20 February 1661 Guthrie was arraigned for high treason before the parliament, with Earl of Middleton presiding as commissioner. The indictment had six counts; the contriving of the "Western Remonstrance" and the rejection of the king's ecclesiastical authority were, from a legal point of view, the most formidable charges. The trial was not concluded until 11 April. On 28 May parliament, having found him guilty of treason, ordered him to be hanged. [121] |
Captain William Govan | Hanged 1 June 1661 (after Guthrie). [119] | |
Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston | hanged 22 July 1663 [119] | At the Restoration Warriston fled to Holland and thence to Hamburg in Germany. He was condemned to death (and stripped of his properties and title) in absentia on 15 May 1661. [122] In 1663, having ventured into France, he was discovered at Rouen, and with the consent of Louis XIV was brought to England and imprisoned in the Tower of London. In June he was taken to Edinburgh and confined in the Tolbooth, and was hanged on 22 July 1663. [123] |
John Swinton (1621?–1679) | Imprisoned | Swinton was condemned to forfeiture and imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle, where he remained for some years before being released. [124] |
John Home of Kelloe | Estates sequestrated | In 1661, Home had his estates sequestrated for being with the English Parliamentary army against King Charles II's army at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. [125] [126] After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 the estates were restored to his son George. [127] |
The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and Head of Civil Justice. As a judge, the Master of the Rolls is second in seniority in England and Wales only to the Lord Chief Justice. The position dates from at least 1286, although it is believed that the office probably existed earlier than that.
The Rye House Plot of 1683 was a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother James, Duke of York. The royal party went from Westminster to Newmarket to see horse races and were expected to make the return journey on 1 April 1683, but because there was a major fire in Newmarket on 22 March, the races were cancelled, and the King and the Duke returned to London early. As a result, the planned attack never took place.
Thomas Digges was an English mathematician and astronomer. He was the first to expound the Copernican system in English but discarded the notion of a fixed shell of immoveable stars to postulate infinitely many stars at varying distances. He was also first to postulate the "dark night sky paradox".
Helen of Galloway was a daughter and co-heiress of Alan, Lord of Galloway and his first wife, a daughter of Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester. Helen was the first wife of Roger de Quincy, Earl of Winchester. Although Helen was the first of Roger's three wives, his only descendants were his three daughters by Helen. The eldest daughter, Margaret, married William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby ; the second daughter, Elizabeth, married Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan ; the third daughter, Helen, married Alan de la Zouche.
Gregory Clement (1594–1660) was an English Member of Parliament (MP) and one of Charles I's regicides, who was tried, found guilty and hanged, drawn and quartered in October 1660.
John Butler, 6th Earl of Ormond was considered one of the first gentlemen of the age in which he lived. He was an ambassador to the most important courts of Europe.
The British Poet Laureate is an honorary position appointed by the monarch of the United Kingdom on the advice of the prime minister. The role does not entail any specific duties, but there is an expectation that the holder will write verse for significant national occasions. The laureateship dates to 1616 when a pension was provided to Ben Jonson, but the first official Laureate was John Dryden, appointed in 1668 by Charles II. On the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who held the post between November 1850 and October 1892, there was a break of four years as a mark of respect; Tennyson's laureate poems "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" were particularly cherished by the Victorian public. Four poets, Thomas Gray, Samuel Rogers, Walter Scott and Philip Larkin turned down the laureateship. Historically appointed for an unfixed term and typically held for life, since 1999 the term has been ten years. The holder of the position as at 2024 is Simon Armitage who succeeded Carol Ann Duffy in May 2019 after 10 years in office.
The Lieutenant of the Tower of London serves directly under the Constable of the Tower. The office has been appointed at least since the 13th century. There were formerly many privileges, immunities and perquisites attached to the office. Like the Constable, the Lieutenant was usually appointed by letters patent, either for life or during the King's pleasure.
Justice of the Common Pleas was a puisne judicial position within the Court of Common Pleas of England and Wales, under the Chief Justice. The Common Pleas was the primary court of common law within England and Wales, dealing with "common" pleas. It was created out of the common law jurisdiction of the Exchequer of Pleas, with splits forming during the 1190s and the division becoming formal by the beginning of the 13th century. The court became a key part of the Westminster courts, along with the Exchequer of Pleas and the Court of King's Bench, but with the Writ of Quominus and the Statute of Westminster, both tried to extend their jurisdiction into the realm of common pleas. As a result, the courts jockeyed for power. In 1828 Henry Brougham, a Member of Parliament, complained in Parliament that as long as there were three courts unevenness was inevitable, saying that "It is not in the power of the courts, even if all were monopolies and other restrictions done away, to distribute business equally, as long as suitors are left free to choose their own tribunal", and that there would always be a favourite court, which would therefore attract the best lawyers and judges and entrench its position. The outcome was the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, under which all the central courts were made part of a single Supreme Court of Judicature. Eventually the government created a High Court of Justice under Lord Coleridge by an Order in Council of 16 December 1880. At this point, the Common Pleas formally ceased to exist.
The head of the Bodleian Library, the main library at the University of Oxford, is known as Bodley's Librarian: Sir Thomas Bodley, as founder, gave his name to both the institution and the position. Although there had been a university library at Oxford since about 1320, it had declined by the end of the 16th century. It was "denuded" of its books in 1550 in the time of King Edward VI when "superstitious books and images" that did not comply with the prevailing Anglican view were removed. Poor management and inadequate financial resources have also been blamed for the state of the library. In the words of one history of the university, "as a public institution, the Library had ceased to function." Bodley volunteered in 1598 to restore it; the university accepted the offer, and work began soon afterwards. The first librarian, Thomas James, was selected by Bodley in 1599. The Bodleian opened in 1602, and the university confirmed James in his post. Bodley wanted the librarian to be "some one that is noted and known for a diligent student, and in all his conversation to be trusty, active, and discrete, a graduate also and a linguist, not encumbered with marriage, nor with a benefice of Cure". James, however, was able to persuade Bodley to let him marry and become Rector of St Aldate's Church, Oxford.
Affreca de Courcy or Affrica Guðrøðardóttir was a late 12th-/early 13th century noblewoman. She was the daughter of Godred Olafsson, King of the Isles, a member of the Crovan dynasty. In the late 12th century she married John de Courcy. Affrica is noted for religious patronage in northern Ireland.
Arthur Phillips was an English musician and composer. He was organist of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Heather Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. He converted to Catholicism and resigned his positions in 1656 to travel to France to become organist to Queen Henrietta Maria, widow of the executed King Charles I.
K. D. Reynolds is a historian who specialises in the Victorian era. She earned her D.Phil. at the University of Oxford, where in 1995 she completed her thesis under the title "Aristocratic women and political society in early- and mid-Victorian Britain". She was a Research Editor from 1993 until 2004 for the New Dictionary of National Biography. She has contributed or revised approximately 259 articles for the online edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Subjects have included Queen Victoria and Diana, Princess of Wales.
The Battle of Pitgaveny, also called the Battle of Bothnagowan, was fought between the forces of Duncan I of Scotland and Macbeth, at the time the ruler of Moray, on 14 August 1040. The battle was part of a campaign by Duncan into Moray against Macbeth. It was fought at Bothganown, modern day Pitgaveny, near Elgin. The battle was a victory for Macbeth and resulted in Duncan's death.