John Hutchinson (Roundhead)

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Colonel John Hutchinson

Colonel John Hutchinson (1615�1664) was an English politician who sat in the House
of Commons of England from 1648 to 1653 and in 1660. He was one of the Puritan
leaders, and fought in the parliamentary army in the English Civil War. As a member
of the high court of justice in 1649 he was 13th of 59 Commissioners to sign the
death-warrant of King Charles I. Although he avoided the fate of some of the other
regicides executed after the Restoration, he was exempted from the general pardon,
only to the extent that he could not hold a public office. In 1663, he was accused
of involvement in the Farnley Wood Plot, was incarcerated and died in prison.

He invested very successfully in buying paintings from the art collection of

Charles I after his execution, spending very large amounts relative to his wealth.
After a few years he resold them for substantial profits.[1]

Contents
1 Life
2 Assessment
3 Family
4 Notes
5 References
Life
Hutchinson was the son of Sir Thomas Hutchinson (1589�1643) of Owthorpe Hall and
Margaret Byron, daughter of Sir John Byron of Newstead and Margaret FitzWilliam
(daughter of Lord Deputy Sir William FitzWilliam and Ann Sidney, daughter of Sir
William Sidney).

Hutchinson was baptised on 18 September 1615.[2] He was educated at Nottingham

Grammar School, Lincoln Grammar School where he considered John Clarke the Master
'a supercilious pedant',and Peterhouse, Cambridge.[3] In 1636 he entered Lincoln's
Inn to study law,[4] but devoted himself to music and divinity rather than the
study of law.[3]

Unlike his Royalist father, Sir Thomas Hutchinson, who represented Nottinghamshire
in the Long parliament, he took the parliamentary side. He first distinguished
himself by preventing Lord Newark, the lord-lieutenant of the county, from seizing
the county powder-magazine for the king's service. He next accepted a commission as
lieutenant-colonel in the regiment raised by Colonel Francis Pierrepont, and became
one of the parliamentary committee for Nottinghamshire.[3]

St Margaret's Church, Owthorpe

Commemorative Plaque at St Margarets

On 29 June 1643, at the order of the committee and of Sir John Meldrum, Hutchinson
undertook the command of Nottingham Castle; he received from Lord Fairfax in the
following November a commission to raise a foot regiment, and was finally appointed
by Parliament governor of both town and castle.[5] The town was unfortified, the
garrison weak and ill-supplied, with the committee torn by political and personal
feuds.[3]

The neighbouring royalist commanders, Hutchinson's cousin (Sir Richard Byron), and
William, Marquess of Newcastle, attempted to corrupt Hutchinson. Newcastle's agent
offered him �10,000, and promised that he should be made "the best lord in
Nottinghamshire",[3] but Hutchinson indignantly refused to entertain such
proposals.[6]

The town was often attacked. Sir Charles Lucas entered it in January 1644 and
endeavoured to set it on fire, and in April 1645 a party from Newark captured the
fort at Trent-bridges. Hutchinson succeeded in making good these losses, and
answered each new summons to surrender with a fresh defiance.[7]

The difficulties were increased by continual disputes between Hutchinson and the
committee, which were a natural result, in Nottingham as elsewhere, of the divided
authority set up by Parliament. But there is evidence that Hutchinson was
irritable, quick-tempered, and deficient in self-control. The Committee of Both
Kingdoms endeavoured to end the quarrel by a compromise, which Hutchinson found
great difficulty in persuading his opponents to accept.[8]

On 16 March 1646 Hutchinson was returned to Parliament as member for

Nottinghamshire, succeeding to the seat held by his father, who had died on 18
August 1643.[9] His religious views led him to attach himself to the Independent
rather than the Presbyterian party. As governor he had protected the separatists to
the best of his ability, and now, under his wife's influence, he adopted the main
tenet of the Baptists.[10] He was commissioner for exclusion from sacrament in 1646
and commissioner for scandalous offences in 1648.[11]

On 22 December 1648 Hutchinson signed the protest against the votes of the House of
Commons accepting the concessions made by the king at the treaty of Newport, and
consented to act as one of the judges at the trial of Charles I.[12] According to
his wife, he was nominated to the latter post very much against his will; "but,
looking upon himself as called hereunto, durst not refuse it, as holding himself
obliged by the covenant of God and the public trust of his country reposed in him".
[13] After serious consideration and prayer he signed the sentence against the
king.[13]

From 13 February 1649 to 1651 Hutchinson was a member of the first two Councils of
State of the Commonwealth,[11] but he took no very active part in public affairs,
and with the expulsion of the Long parliament in 1653 moved back to his family seat
at Owthorpe near Nottingham and lived in retirement until 1659 when he was made
High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire.[3]

His neighbours thought of electing him to the First Protectorate Parliament in

1656, but Major-general Whalley's influence induced them to change their minds.[14]
According to his wife Lucy Hutchinson, Cromwell attempted to persuade her husband
to accept office, "and, finding him too constant to be wrought upon to serve his
tyranny", would have arrested him had not death prevented the fulfilment of his
purpose.[15]

The certificate presented in Hutchinson's favour after the Restoration represents

him as secretly serving the royalist cause during the Protectorate, but of this
there is no independent evidence of this. The real object of his political action
seems to have been the restoration of the Long parliament. He took his seat again
in that assembly when the army recalled it to power (May 1659), and when John
Lambert expelled it (October 1659) prepared to restore its authority by arms, he
secretly raised men, and concerted with Francis Hacker and others to assist George
Monck and Arthur Hesilrige against Lambert and his party,[16] In his place in
parliament he opposed the intended oath abjuring the Stuarts, voted for the re-
admission of the secluded members, and followed the lead of Monck and Cooper,[17]
in the belief that they were in favour of a Commonwealth. He retained sufficient
popularity to be returned to the Convention Parliament as one of the members for
Nottingham, but was expelled from it on 9 June 1660 as a regicide. On the same day
he was made incapable of bearing any office or place of public trust in the
kingdom, but it was agreed that he should not be excepted from the Act of Indemnity
either for life or estate.[18] In his petitions he confessed himself "involved in
so horrid a crime as merits no indulgence", but pleaded his early, real, and
constant repentance, arising from "a thorough conviction" of his "former misled
judgment and conscience", not from a regard for his own safety.[19] Thanks to this
submission, to the influence of his kinsmen, Lord Byron and Sir Allen Apsley, to
the fact that he was not considered dangerous, and that he had to a certain extent
forwarded the Restoration, Hutchinson escaped the fate of most of the other
regicides. Yet, as his wife owns, "he was not very well satisfied in himself for
accepting the deliverance. � While he saw others suffer, he suffered with them in
his mind, and, had not his wife persuaded him, had offered himself a voluntary
sacrifice".[20]

In October 1663 Hutchinson was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in what was
known as the Farnley Wood Plot. The evidence against him was far from conclusive,
but the government appears to have been eager to seize the opportunity of
imprisoning him.[21] Imprisonment restored Hutchinson's peace of mind. He regarded
it as freeing him from his former obligations to the government, and refused to
purchase his release by fresh engagements. During his confinement in the Tower of
London he was treated with great severity by the governor, Sir John Robinson, and
threatened in return to publish an account of his malpractices and extortions.[22]
He even succeeded in getting printed a narrative of his own arrest and usage in the
Tower, which is stated on the title-page to be "written by himself on the 6th of
April 1664, having then received intimation that he was to be sent away to another
prison, and therefore he thought fit to print this for the satisfying his relations
and friends of his innocence".[23]

A warrant for Hutchinson's transportation to the Isle of Man was prepared in April
1664, but he was finally transferred to Sandown Castle in Kent on 3 May 1664. The
castle was ruinous and unhealthy, and he died of a fever four months after his
removal to it on 11 September 1664. His wife obtained permission to bury his body
at St Margaret's Church, Owthorpe.[15]