CONFESSION OF THE EXECUTIONER OF CHARLES I.
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.