Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Scene of The Whitechapel Murders and the infamous Jack the Ripper.
And in Whitechapel is buried Richard Brandon the man who decapitated Charles the First.
On the 20th of June 1649 there died, in his own house at Rosemary Lane, Richard Brandon, the official executioner for the City of London, and the man who, as is generally supposed, decapitated Charles the First. A rare tract, published at the time, entitled The Confession of the Hangman, states that Brandon acknowledged he had £30 for his pains, all paid him in half-crowns, within an hour after the blow was given: and that he had an orange stuck full of cloves, and a handkerchief out of the king’s pocket, so soon as he was carried off from the scaffold, for which orange he was proffered twenty shillings by a gentleman in White Hall, but refused the same, and afterwards sold it for ten shillings in Rosemary Lane. The tract further informs us that the sheriffs of the City ‘sent great store of wine for the funeral, and a multitude of people stood waiting to see his corpse carried to the churchyard, some crying out, “Hang him, the rogue! Bury him in a dunghill:” others pressing upon him, saying they would quarter him for executing the king. Insomuch that the church-wardens and masters of the parish were fain to come for the suppression of them, and with great difficulty he was at last carried to White-chapel churchyard, having a bunch of rosemary at each end of his coffin, on the top thereof, with a rope tied across from one end to the other.’ In the Burial Register of Whitechapel there is the following entry under 1649: ‘June 21st, Richard Brandon, a man out of Rosemary Lane. This R. Brandon is supposed to have cut off the head of Charles the First.’
http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/june/20.htm