Saturday 19 April 1662

Annotations

• N Clement on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 12:11am. Flag this

  “Their Speeches and Prayers being ended, the Executioner cleared the Cart of the rest of the People, who were gotten in, and then pulled down their several Caps over their eyes, and upon the lifting up their hands the Cart was drawn away; at which time Col. Barkstead especially was heard to say, ‘Lord Jesus receive our souls;’ and after he had hanged for a little space, he lifted up his hand.
  That which many did especially take notice of, was, That there was not so much as the least attempt made by any to raise a triumphant shout upon the drawing away of the Cart; but there rather appeared the symptoms of an universal face of Sadness in that vast and generally tumultuous Assembly, who were the Spectators of their several Deaths.”

  http://www.christianheritageworks.com/monarchists.htm
  link provided by Vincenzo at Barkstead’s info page, which includes a transcript of their final words. They were apparently allowed to die hanging, which was not necessarily the intention of a hanging-and-quartering execution.
  

• N Australian Susan on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 02:19am. Flag this

  “I hear they all die defending what they did to the king to be just; which is very strange”
  Now what do we think Sam means by this. Why is it “strange” that people remain true to their principles,even under threat of a slow and barbarous death? Is it because that, all around him, Sam sees people who have accomodated themselves to the new regime or fled beyond English jurisdiction’s reach (as there was not much one could do to outargue a signature on a death warrant). Is his own conscience easy?. I don’t suppose we will ever know just what Sam was really feeling about this event. Wish he had been more forthcoming: it is a most interesting situation in a time of great change.

• N Cumgranissalis on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 03:01am. Flag this

  20%/80% rule appears to apply: a certain percentage will adhere to principle of thought. A large Majority will always go [or drift] with the flow [be it ebb,drag,undercurrent, vortex, rise or even surge or eddy] [the Navy sees it all] ‘Tis why Man be the most successful surviver, stay around for another day: Sam has and is in the employ of two of the well known survivors, Downing and Sandwich, then he has the ear for and of Batten, Penn, Pett and even Monke, great Survivers all.

• N JWB on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 03:39am. Flag this

  “…which is very strange.”
  I too brought up short by this phrase. Re-read Oct 19,20 of 1660.

• N dirk on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 04:24am. Flag this

  “which is very strange”

  I think this is merely Sam bewildered by the notion that the same facts or actions may be considered as justified by some and criminal by others - or the relativity of ethical judgement (no such thing as absolute truth).

  Something most of us have probably considered at some point in our lives.
  

• N Robert Gertz on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 04:35am. Flag this

  “They did all die defending what they did to the King to be just…” Brave bunch…

  “Which is very strange…”
  Former Roundhead Sam rewriting history…And, perhaps, like a Stalinist purge victim in the last sad century, coming to half- (or more)believe the revision. Though at least our boy and the others who’ve turned their backs on Oliver will not have to confess to insane charges, name names, and be grateful for a quick shooting… (Well, at least, maybe not all those three.)
  

• N Cumgranissalis on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 04:42am. Flag this

  also reread thoughts of removal of heads;
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/10/10/index.php#annotationsand
  the month :
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/10/

• N Mary on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 08:55am. Flag this

  “did get a bever … of Sir Wm. Batten”

  You have to smile. Sam is very pleased with himself when he and Elizabeth manage to snub Lady B. at church, but he’s still happy to wear a hand-me-down hat of Sir William’s, even if he does have ‘to give him something’ for it.

• N Robert on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 11:08am. Flag this

  The link for the king goes to information about Charles II, but surely he would have been referring to the previous king (Charles I).

• N Mary on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 12:35pm. Flag this

  Okey.

  L&M add the interesting note that Okey was the only one who made no attempt to try and defend regicide. Thus he alone was permitted Christian burial.

• N JohnT on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 12:48pm. Flag this

  Presumably the denial of Christian burial is because regicide, as a rejection of the divine right of kings, is an offence against God as well as big , big political gamble. Or is it simply that the others, by defending their actions, were still in a state of mortal sin ? Just as a suicide was denied Christian burial on the assumption that there would have been no time for repentance ?

• N JWB on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 02:40pm. Flag this

  bever 27 June,’61
  “This day Mr. Holden sent me a bever, which cost me L4 5s.”

• N David A. Smith on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 03:43pm. Flag this

  “what they did to the King to be just; which is very strange”
  The explanation might be simpler: until Charles I, no king had ever been executed for treason against his people — the very idea was unthinkable. (Throughout the Civil War, Charles could not conceive of himself in physical danger from his captors.)
  Sam’s posture might be the equivalent of, “I can understand why you deposed him, fought against him, imprisoned him … but why did you have to *kill* him?” Note also that many who fought were pardoned, only the regicides reaped what they had sown (the block).
  Concur with Australian Susan — wish Sam had been a few words more forthcoming!

• N JWB on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 05:04pm. Flag this

  passing strange
  Tomilin(p33 paperback):”…he(meaning Sam)remembers telling his friends that if he had to preach a sermon on the king, his text would be,”The memory of the wicked shall rot”’ This said while @ St. Paul’s having presumedly witnessed the execution. Perhaps Sam’s trying here in today’s entry to establish bona fides, at least in his own mind.

• N serafina on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 07:16pm. Flag this

  Nothing like witnessing a good hanging and quartering to whip up an appetite for dinner….

• N Cumgranissalis on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 09:15pm. Flag this

  yesterday and today a concern for Sam:Navy and Ordnance Carriages.
  Upon Motion made this Day, informing, That his Majesty’s Affairs were much inconvenienced in relation to his Navy and Ordnance, by the People’s imposing excessive Rates upon Carriages, knowing the Necessity of his Majesty’s Occasions; and his Majesty intended not to have the same at lower Rates than usual; but to give the same Rates that Merchants and others did;
  Ordered, That Mr. William Coventry have Leave to prepare and bring in a Bill, with Blanks, to settle the Rates of such Carriages as shall be made Use of for his Majesty’s Occasions.

  From: ‘House of Commons Journal Volume 8: 18 April 1662’, Journal of the House of Commons: volume 8: 1660-1667 (1802), pp. 409-10. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=26501. Date accessed: 20 April 2005.
  Then there be the worry over the Common Prayer book and it’s contents, then threre be the conformity of worship, still keeping the houses in their seats.
  

• N Sjoerd on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 09:21pm. Flag this

  The link to Okey mentions him getting his commission in the army in 1660…this seems much too late.

  Pepys’s boss Downing was a chaplain in Colonel Okey’s regiment before 1650.

• N dirk on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 09:40pm. Flagged

  the denial of Christian burial

  The site Clement refers to, has this to say about Okey’s burial:

  “When Col. Okey

• N MN on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 09:42pm. Flag this

  Although Okey was initially permitted to have his body returned to his wife for Christian burial in Stepney, the government changed its mind when it learned that a large crowd was expected to attend the execution. Okey was interred in the tower of London.

  Interestingly, it was Sir George Downing who went to the Netherlands to capture today’s three executed regicides. The 2004 DNB says that his apparent treachery was an action from which ‘his personal reputation would never recover’.

• N dirk on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 09:52pm. Flag this

  the capture of the three regicides

  Cfr. Sam’s diary entry for Monday 17 March 1661/62
  
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1662/03/17/index.php
  

• N tc on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 09:58pm. Flag this

  (re: Clement’s annotation) …after he had hanged for a little space, he lifted up his hand…

  Sounds like a rather inhumane hanging, if those being hanged died as a result of slow strangulation rather than the snapping of the neck/spine (when the trap door opened beneath the feet) as became the custom in the US and elsewheres. But is hanging itself inhumane as an execution method? They think so here in the US, mostly I believe opting for the needle (though here in Florida, some have warm memories of the electric chair known as “Old Sparky”.) Anyone with thoughts on hanging to share?

  Quartering, well, now…rather inhumane perhaps by contemporary standards; but then, torture is still alive and practiced by all too many governments, and heads are still being lopped off all over the world on a regular basis today, so certainly our modern world cannot claim to be all that much more humane…sigh.

  As we have all noticed so many times enjoying Sam’s diary, the more things change, the more they stay the same…

• N chocolate chip on Wed 20 Apr 2005, 11:30pm. Flag this

  that’s where word OK comes from - they said it was OKey for his wife to have the body

• N A. De Araujo on Thu 21 Apr 2005, 12:05am. Flag this

  “Okey”
  “In 1649 the University of Oxford made him a Master of Arts after he had crushed the Leveller mutineers at Burford……Okey an Anabaptist and diehard Republican,was a man of courage and cheerfulness”
  cf C.P.Hill-Stuart Britain 1603-1714

• N Cumgranissalis on Thu 21 Apr 2005, 02:51am. Flagged

  ‘The link to Okey mentions him getting his commission in the army in 1660

• N JonTom Kittredge on Thu 21 Apr 2005, 03:52pm. Flag this

  Slow Hanging
  My understanding is that the hanging part of “Hanged, Drawn and Quartered” was *meant* to not break the neck, so that the condemned would be alive for the castration and disembowlment (the “drawing”) which followed.

  Clement, above, said that it appears that the executioner did not cut them down until they were actually dead, which would have been meant as a mercy on his part.

• N dirk on Thu 21 Apr 2005, 11:48pm. Flag this

  the hanging

  Sam mentions only hanging & quartering. No “drawing”. Is this an oversight on his part - or did the sentence not include drawing? The descriptions so far didn’t mention anything more than (slow) hanging, and then the beheading & quartering of the bodies. Have I missed something?
  

• N Australian Susan on Thu 21 Apr 2005, 11:58pm. Flag this

  The purpose of the quartering of hanging, drawing & quartering,was to have different sections of the body which could be sent round and hung up in different places to serve as a warning to others and to prove the person was dead. The head would be stuck on a spike on London Bridge or at the Tower. Because of the popularity of executions, they were being held at Tyburn, not on Tower Green (where the present Merchant Marine War Memorial is), but Tower Green was still used for some traitors - such as the 1745 rebels who were captured and condemned.(But they were executed with an axe).
  Drawing was all part of the punishment. Maybe it has been decided to dispense with this for these people or maybe drawing has ceased as a pratice. Any more recent mentions of this ghastly practice?

• N Cumgranissalis on Fri 22 Apr 2005, 03:00am. Flag this

  Maybe, just maybe, they that decided such guilt and issued punishment had a few pangs of Conscience. There by recipients of change of venue, could have a religeous burial [less an ‘ead] and their wordly goods were not pick over by human carrion. Remember, although a few of the Revolutioners with unpopular necks received negative rewards, others did benefit with lands, ribbons and coin. The blood bath was truly minimal, unlike many other changes of radical power structures, before and since.
  You name any political struggle, very few have not failed to shed blud. One notable event was the Portuguese, girls were v.cute and put red carnations down the barrels of the armed young men,so no blud be spilt.
  Most successful changes in radical powers be when the the new regime removes the bad key elements and make use of the the rest.

• N Clement on Fri 22 Apr 2005, 04:49pm. Flag this

  A “private” beheading on the Tower Green was a priveledge formerly reserved for noblemen and women, but one that hadn’t been offered since Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex was executed there in 1601.
  http://www.britannia.com/bios/lords/essex2rd.html

• N Australian Susan on Fri 22 Apr 2005, 11:30pm. Flag this

  Clement you are quite right - I meant Tower HILL, not Tower GREEN. Sorry. The latter is inside the Tower walls. It is is the former which is the raised area now across the road from the Tower which was the site of public executions. My mind was muddled. Even a lord got executed on Tower Hill in public after the 1745 rebellion.

• N dirk on Wed 27 Apr 2005, 03:01am. Flag this

  The diary of Ralph Josselin for sunday 27 April 1662 mentions the execution of the regicides:

  ”[…] on 19. Feb. when Corbett . Barkstead and Okey were executed at Tiburne, Okey said that prophaneness was at such a height that if true as said England could not stand 3 years. the Court looked on this with a jeer. indeed man knows not tomorrow. its not for us to prophesy. but when our sins deserve a curse, its wisdom to hear, fear and repent. the Lords day is most sadly profaned in all places, lord look on and help.”

  (Clearly the reference to 19 **Feb** is an error - either by the rev. Josselin himself, or a scanning error.)