To return to the year 1660, Colonels Axten and Hacker, the latter of whom had commanded the guard at the King’s trial and at his execution, together with one of his judges, Thomas Scott, were hanged at Charing Cross.

In October of the same year, Henry Martin, one of the most prominent of the regicides, was imprisoned for life, and died twenty years later in Chepstow Castle. Another was General Edmund Ludlow, author of the “Memoirs,” who died in Switzerland, after an exile of thirty-two years. Some twenty persons in all were executed in the most brutal fashion, while the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and the greatest sailor that England ever had before Nelson, Blake, were torn from their graves in the Abbey, gibbeted at Tyburn, and buried beneath the gallows, Cromwell’s head having been cut from the body and stuck up on Westminster Hall. Charles’s government respected neither the dead nor the rights of nations in the matter of taking vengeance upon the late King’s judges.

Old Cannon and Mortars on the west side of the White Tower

On the 22nd of April 1661, Charles left Whitehall in state for the Tower, to prepare for his coronation in the Abbey the following day, as was the custom. Charles the Second was the last of our sovereigns to sleep in the Tower on the eve of his coronation, he being lodged that night in the royal apartments on the southern side of the White Tower, the greater part of the Palace, including the Great Hall, having been pulled down during the Protectorate.

We will let Pepys recount the procession from the Tower—where, as was also the custom, Charles had created a number of Knights of the Bath—to Whitehall. “Up early and made myself as fine as I could, and put on my velvet coat, the first day that I put it on, though made half a year ago. And being ready, Sir W. Batten, my Lady, and his two daughters, and his son and wife, and Sir W. Penn, and his son and I, went to Mr Young’s, the flagmaker, in Corne-hill; and there we had a good room to ourselves, with wine and good cake, and saw the show very well. In which it is impossible to relate the glory of the day, expressed in the clothes of them that rid, and their horses and horse-clothes, among others my Lord Sandwich’s embroidery and diamonds were ordinary among them. The Knights of the Bath was a brave show of itself; and their Esquires, among which Mr Armiger was an Esquire to one of the Knights. Remarquable were the two men that represented the two Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine. The Bishops came next after Barons, which is the higher place; which makes me think that the next Parliament they will be called to the House of Lords. My Lord Monk rode bare after the King, and led in his hand a spare horse, as being the Master of the Horse; the King, in a most rich and embroidered suit and cloak, looked most noble. Wadlow the vintner (Wadlow was the original of ‘Sir Simon the King,’ the favourite air of Squire Western in ‘Tom Jones’) at the Devil in Flete Streete, did lead a fine company of soldiers, all young comely men, in white doublets. Then followed the Vice-Chamberlain, Sir G. Carteret, a company of men all like Turks; but I know not yet what they are for. The streets all gravelled, and the houses hung with carpets before them, made brave show, and the ladies out of the windows, one of which over against us I took much notice of, and spoke to her, which made good sport among us. Glorious was the show with gold and silver, that we were not able to look at it, our eyes at last being so much overcome with it. Both the King and the Duke of York took notice of us, as they saw us at the window.”

Another contemporary writer says: “Even the vaunting French confessed their pomps of the late marriage with the Infanta of Spain (the wedding of Louis XIV. with Maria Theresa of Spain) at their Majesties’ entrance into Paris, to be inferior in state, gallantry, and riches, to this most glorious cavalcade from the Tower.”

The same year that saw the coronation of Charles witnessed a strange form of punishment to three prisoners in the Tower. These were Lord Monson, Sir Henry Mildmay, and Robert Wallop, who were imprisoned for holding republican views. They were sentenced to lose their rank, to be drawn on hurdles to Tyburn from the Tower and back again, and imprisoned for life.

A large number of other political prisoners were sent to the different prisons throughout the country, and many were also shipped off to the Pacific Islands, where they were sold as slaves. Perhaps the worst case of any was that of three of the late King’s judges who had escaped into Holland. They were seized in that country by an emissary of the English Government, and, against all the laws of nations, brought back to England, imprisoned in the Tower, and suffered death as felons. These three men were Colonel Okey—whom we mentioned as having attempted to seize the Tower after Cromwell’s death—Colonel Barkstead, and Miles Corbet. They were executed in April 1662. Barkstead had been knighted by Cromwell, the Parliament had entrusted him with the custody of the Tower, and he had also acted as Major-General of London. He is supposed to have enriched himself whilst head of the Tower, by exacting money from the prisoners in his keeping. His head was placed over the Traitor’s Gate in the Tower. Although he and his companions may have deserved their fate, the manner of their seizure reflects the greatest discredit upon the government of Charles, which, as I have already said, neither respected the rights of the living nor reverenced the dead.

STEEPLE IN SOUTHWARKE IN ITS FLOURISHING CONDITION BEFORE THE FIRE
Designed by W. Hollar of Prage