_Execution of Charles I.--Sir T. Herbert's "Memoir of Charles I_." (Vol.
ii. pp., 72. 110.).--Is P.S.W.E. aware that Mr. Hunter gives a
tradition, in his _History of Hallamshire_, that a certain William
Walker, who died in 1700, and to whose memory there was an inscribed
brass plate in the parish church of Sheffield, was the executioner of
Charles I.? The man obtained this reputation from having retired from
political life at the Restoration, to his native village, Darnall, near
Sheffield, where he is said to have made death-bed disclosures, avowing
that he beheaded the King. The tradition has been supported, perhaps
suggested, by the name of Walker having occurred during the trials of
some of the regicides, as that of the real executioner.
Can any one tell me whether a narrative of the last days of Charles I.,
and of his conduct on the scaffold, by Sir Thomas Herbert, has ever been
published in full? It is often quoted and referred to (see "NOTES AND
QUERIES," Vol. i., p. 436.), but the owner of the MS., with whom I am
well acquainted, informs me that it has never been submitted to
publication, but that some extracts have been secretly obtained. In what
book are these printed? The same house which contains Herbert's MS. (a
former owner of it married Herbert's widow), holds also the stool on
which King Charles knelt at his execution, the shirt in which he slept
the night before, and other precious relics of the same unfortunate
personage.