There have been great disputes about the person who beheaded Charles I.
Mr. Ellis says, "it seems most probable that the person who actually
beheaded the king was the common executioner." And then adds the
following valuable and interesting note, which seems to us to settle the
question.
"Among the tracts relating to the civil war, which were given to the
British Museum by his late majesty King George III. in 1762, there are
three upon this subject. One is entitled, 'The Confession of Richard
Brandon the Hangman (upon his death-bed), concerning his beheading his
late Majesty. Printed in the year of the hangman's downfall, 1649.' The
second is entitled, 'The last Will and Testament of Richard Brandon,'
printed in the same year. The third is, 'A Dialogue or Dispute between
the late Hangman (the same person), and Death,' in verse, without date.
All three are in quarto."
The following are the most important paragraphs of the first tract:
"The confession of the hangman concerning his beheading his late majesty
the king of Great Britain (upon his death-bed) who was buried on
Thursday last in Whitechapel church-yard, with the manner thereof:--
"Upon Wednesday last (being the 20th of this instant, June 1649),
Richard Brandon, the late executioner and hangman, who beheaded his late
majesty, king of Great Britain, departed this life; but during the time
of his sicknesse his conscience was much troubled, and exceedingly
perplexed in mind, yet little shew of repentance for remission of his
sins, and by past transgressions, which had so much power and influence
upon him, that he seemed to live in them, and they in him. And on Sunday
last, a young man of his acquaintance going to visit him, fell into
discourse, asked him how he did, and whether he was not troubled in
conscience for cutting off the king's head. He replyed, 'yes, by reason
that (upon the time of his tryall, and at the denouncing of sentence
against him,) he had taken a vow and protestation, wishing God to punish
him body and soul, if ever he appeared on the scaffold to do the act, or
lift up his hand against him.'
"He likewise confessed that he had thirty pounds 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 handkircher 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 Whitehall,
but refused the same, and afterwards sold it for ten shillings in
Rosemary-lane. About six of the clock at night, he returned home to his
wife living in Rosemary-lane, and gave her the money, saying, that it
was the deerest money that ever he earned in his life, for it would cost
him his life; which prophetical words were soon made manifest, for it
appeared, that ever since he hath been in a most sad condition, and upon
the Almightie's first scourging of him with the rod of sicknesse, and
the friendly admonition of divers friends for the calling of him to
repentance, yet he persisted on in his vicious vices, and would not
hearken thereunto, but lay raging and swearing, and still pointing at
one thing or another, which he conceived to be still visible before
him."
"About three days before he dy'd, he lay speechlesse, uttering many a
sigh and heavy groan, and so in a most desperate manner departed from
his bed of sorrow. For the buriall whereof great store of wines were
sent in by the sheriff of the city of London, and a great multitude of
people stood wayting to see his corpse carryed to the church-yard, some
crying act, 'Hang him, rogue!' 'Bury him in the dunghill;' others
pressing upon him, saying, they would quarter him for executing of the
king: insomuch that the churchwardens and masters of the parish were
fain to come for the suppressing of them, and (with great difficulty) he
was at last carryed to White Chappell church-yard, having (as it is
said) a bunch of rosemary at each end of the coffin, on the top thereof,
with a rope tyed crosse from one end to the other.
"And a merry conceited cook living at the sign of the Crown, having a
black fan (worth the value of thirty shillings), took a resolution to
rent the same in pieces, and to every feather tied a piece of
pack-thread dyed in black ink, and gave them to divers persons, who (in
derision) for a while wore them in their hats.
"Thus have I given thee an exact account and perfect relation of the
life and death of Richard Brandon, to the end that the world may be
convinced of those calumnious speeches and erroneous suggestions which
are dayly spit from the mouth of envy against divers persons of great
worth and eminency, by casting an odium upon them for the executing of
the king; it being now made manifest that the aforesaid executioner was
the only man who gave the fatal blow, and his man that wayted upon him,
was a ragman (of the name of Ralph Jones) living in
Rosemary-lane."--_Ellis's Historical Inquiries._
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