CALIFORNIA STATE UNTVERSITY SAN MARCOS
THESIS SIGNATURE PAGE
TIIESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF T}IE REQUIREMENTS FOR T}IE DEGREE
MASTER OF ARTS
IN
HISTORY
THESIS TITLE: JOHN JONES, PURITAN SAINT: A CASE STUDY IN MOTIVES FORREGICIDE IN
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND
AUTHOR:
Lisa B. Swann
DATE OF SUCCESSFULDEFENSE: November 2A,2Ol4
THE THESIS HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY TI{E T}MSIS COMMITTEE IN
PARTIAL FULFTLLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF IN
HISTORY,
Dr. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall
THESIS COMMIT"TEE C}IA.IR
Dr. Belinda Peters
THESTS COMMITTEE MEMBER
Dr. Jill Watts
THESIS COMMITTEE MEMBER
SIGNATL'RE
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DATE
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John Jones, Puritan Saint:
A Case Study in Motives for Regicide in 17th Century England
By:
Lisa B. Swann
California State University, San Marcos
Department of History
2014
ii
Acknowledgements
I have so many people to thank for their assistance and support throughout this project,
but I first want to dedicate this work to my daughter, Sarah. Sarah sacrificed so much over the
many years it took to complete this thesis, and yet she found it within her very generous and
loving heart to support my efforts with words of encouragement and praise. She is truly a
treasure.
My greatest thanks go to my thesis committee members, Drs. Belinda Peters, Alyssa
Sepinwall, and Jill Watts. I cannot thank you all enough for your patience, guidance,
commitment, and encouragement. At any other university, I may never have completed this
project. You were all so generous with your time, and your dedication and understanding went
above and beyond the call of duty. I am extremely grateful to each of you and consider myself
tremendously fortunate to have had all of you on my team.
To my mentor, Dr. Belinda Peters, I want to express my warm and deeply heartfelt thank
you for all the hours we spent discussing the nuances of this period in British history. It is a time
I will always cherish. Not only have you expanded my knowledge and understanding, you helped
increase my passion for British history in ways I did not think possible. Thank you so much for
your invaluable guidance. You helped me add dimension to this thesis that truly enhanced the
finished product, and for that, and so many other things, I am profoundly grateful.
To my committee chair, Dr. Alyssa Sepinwall, I want to extend a special thank you for
your constant encouragement, your amazing commitment to the timely turnaround of comments
and corrections on all my drafts, and your attention to detail. You were a tremendous asset in
helping me improve my writing, and you challenged me to explore aspects of my arguments in
iii
ways that truly enriched my thesis. You are an amazing scholar with boundless energy and I am
truly privileged to have had the opportunity to work with you.
To my third committee member, Dr. Jill Watts, I offer my unending gratitude for your
willingness to participate in my project. When I needed a third reader, you stepped up to help me
out despite the fact that my topic was not your area of expertise. True to your commitment to the
advancement of scholarship, you provided extremely valuable input. Your consistent
encouragement and unfailing faith in my ability to finish this project gave me energy when I
needed it most. Thank you for being you.
There were many others I’d like to thank for their part in advancing this project. Thank
you Dr. Peter Arnade for believing that I could successfully tackle this topic. When you said it
was “audacious” I should have run the other direction, but didn’t, thanks to your belief in me. I
also want to thank Martin Robson Riley and Hywel C. Jones at the National Library of Wales for
their assistance in my procuring unpublished letters from the Letter Book of John Jones
Maes-y-garnedd and Gregory Carl Seyfer’s unpublished master’s thesis on Jones. I want to
especially thank Mr. Riley for being my eyes on the manuscripts that I did not have in my
possession.
I want to thank all my peers who read drafts and provided feedback. I want to thank my
friends, Cheryl and Laura, for listening to me talk about my master’s program and my thesis
project for hours on end.
Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my family for their unwavering support
throughout this process. I offer my never-ending gratitude to my daughter, Sarah, my son, Tim,
my mom, Diana, my sister, Laura, my brother, Keith, and my dad, Gary. Thank you all for your
love and understanding, and for being there for me whenever I needed you. I am truly blessed.
iv
In honor of two very dear people that left this world before I could complete this project,
I send my love. I miss you - Uncle Krieg and Grandma Estie.
v
Abstract
Charles Stuart was the first and only reigning English monarch to be tried, convicted, and
beheaded for treason and murder. In January 1649, fifty-nine men signed the order that sent King
Charles to his death. Theories offered for motives behind the execution generally include
overarching themes such as republicanism, enmity towards Charles, or military ambition. I
maintain, however, that each man who signed made a conscious choice to do so for individual
reasons. Personal motives behind the decision to sign the warrant have rarely been evaluated. I
offer this case study of one of the regicides as an addition to the scholarship on the topic of
English regicides.
John Jones Maes-y-garnedd, of Merionethshire, Wales, d. 1660, was the forty-second
signatory of the death warrant. He was an army officer and a member of Parliament for Wales. I
argue that Jones’ official capacity as a colonel and an MP had very little to do with his decision
to sign the warrant. For him, religious convictions were by far the strongest factor in the choices
he made. Though religion has long been considered historically significant in seventeenthcentury England, aspects of Jones’ particular puritanism set him apart. John Jones was, in
Michael Walzer’s terms, a Puritan saint. His commitment to Calvinist principles of collective
conscience and dedication to duty, his unwavering belief in the absolute power of God, and his
“calling” to facilitate the creation of a godly commonwealth are evident in his personal letters.
This analysis of many of those letters reveals personal insight into Jones’ character, especially
with regard to his willingness to let faith guide him no matter the consequences.
Key words: regicide, Charles I, Wales, John Jones, saint, England, Walzer.
vi
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements............................................................................................................................................. ii
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................................. v
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Trial and Motives for King Killing ............................................................................................ 15
MOTIVES ......................................................................................................................................................................... 20
REGION OF BIRTH ...................................................................................................................................................... 21
GRIEVANCES AGAINST CHARLES I ..................................................................................................................... 29
MILITARY PRESSURE ................................................................................................................................................ 32
REPUBLICANISM AND REGICIDE ......................................................................................................................... 32
AMBITION AND PERSONAL BENEFIT ................................................................................................................ 40
RELIGION........................................................................................................................................................................ 41
Chapter 2: Religion and the Puritan Saints ................................................................................................ 43
PART ONE: RELIGION .............................................................................................................................................. 43
PART TWO: PURITAN SAINTS ............................................................................................................................... 53
EVALUATION OF WALZER’S REVOLUTION OF THE SAINTS ..................................................................... 54
WALZER’S PURITAN SAINT .................................................................................................................................... 58
Chapter 3: John Jones ...................................................................................................................................... 62
JONES’ CHARACTER AS DETERMINED BY OTHERS..................................................................................... 64
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS............................................................................................................................. 72
MORAL ORDER AND COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE .......................................................................................... 82
POLITICS AND PURITAN SAINTS ......................................................................................................................... 90
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................................... 98
APPENDIX A..................................................................................................................................................... 102
APPENDIX B: ................................................................................................................................................... 103
Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................... 104
1
Introduction
On 29 January 1649, fifty-nine members of England’s High Court of Justice signed the
order to execute Charles I, king of England, Ireland and Scotland.1 Charles I was not the first
reigning English monarch to be removed from his throne, but he was the first to be tried, by his
own subjects, and convicted of treason and murder and publicly beheaded.
Of the one hundred and thirty-five men who were appointed to sit in judgment of the
king, sixty-seven voted for conviction and only fifty-nine were willing to sign their name to the
death warrant.2 The parliamentary act that established the High Court of Justice indicated that
only twenty votes were needed to convict the king.3 What motivated these fifty-nine men to
leave their mark when so many others chose not to? Some scholars argue that the newly
empowered gentry sought to eliminate the monarchy and create a republic in order to gain
power.4 Others insist that Charles’ duplicitous behavior, such as his secret treaty with the Scots
promising to impose Presbyterianism on the English, pushed men to extreme action.5 Some
scholars maintain that Cromwell was determined to execute the king and would have none stand
1
The trial and execution were in January 1648 in England under the Julian calendar.
England did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752. For the purposes of this study, I have
chosen to mark the date as customary in the historiography as 1649. There is debate as to
whether the warrant was signed at one time or over several days. I have noted 29 January as per
the Parliamentary Collection at http://www.parliament.uk.
2
William L. Sachse, “England’s ‘Black Tribunal’: An Analysis of the Regicide Court,”
Journal of British Studies 12, no. 2 (May 1973): 84.
3
Sean Kelsey, “Politics and Procedure in the Trial of Charles I,” Law and History Review
22, no. 1 (Spring 2004): paragraph 29.
4
See Lawrence Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution, 1529-1642 (New York:
Harper & Row, 1972).
5
This is a common contention amongst scholars of the period. For an example, see
Samuel Rawson Gardiner, The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution (New York: Charles
Scribner & Sons, 1898), 156.
2
in his way.6 And there are some that believe religious convictions compelled these men to
execute their king, either because prophesy dictated that Charles should fall to make way for the
second coming of Christ, or because God had abandoned Charles as “that man of blood.”7
The choice to execute the king, a choice with no precedent in English history and one that
was highly unpopular at the time in England and across Europe, was a monumental decision with
potentially fatal consequences. Killing the king was high treason and the punishment was a very
brutal death. Traitors were drawn to their execution on a “hurdle,” or sled, hanged nearly to
death, disemboweled, castrated, beheaded and dismembered into quarters.8 On occasion, a
traitor’s head was posted along the town gates as a reminder to all. In addition to this grizzly
death, traitors often forfeited all their estates, so there were very dire consequences for their
families as well.
To better understand what compelled these fifty-nine men to make such a risky and
revolutionary choice requires in-depth research into what was important to them individually.
Very little research has been conducted into personal motivating factors for regicide. It is this
particular gap in the body of research on this topic that is addressed in this thesis.
6
See Mayfield’s presentation of Gardiner’s discussion regarding Cromwell and the
execution. Noel Henning Mayfield, Puritans and Regicide: Presbyterian-Independent
Differences Over the Trial and Execution of Charles Stuart (Lanham: University Press of
America, 1988), 16-17.
7
For millenarian apocalyptic sects during this period, see Christopher Hill, The World
Turned Upside Down (New York: Viking Press, 1972), and Bernard Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men
(London: Faber, 1972). For more on the Independent faction in Parliament and millennialism
see, Mayfield, Puritans and Regicide: Presbyterian-Independent Differences Over the Trial and
Execution of Charles Stuart (Lanham: University Press of America, 1988). For more on “that
man of blood,” see Patricia Crawford, “Charles Stuart, That Man of Blood,” Journal of British
Studies 16, no. 2 (Spring, 1977): 42.
8
“Punishments at the Old Bailey: Drawn and Quartered,” Proceedings of the Old Bailey,
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Punishment.jsp#drawn-and-quartered (accessed November
5, 2014).
3
Though volumes have been written on the English revolution and civil wars in the 1640s,
and several scholars have focused their research on the trial of Charles I, little historical analysis
has been dedicated specifically to these fifty-nine men who made such a radical choice in 1649.9
David Scott provides the only detailed analysis in his 2001 essay “Motives for King-Killing,” yet
Scott’s argument is focused on a group of the regicides rather than any one individual. Scott
argued that eight of the fifty-nine men were likely prejudiced against the king due to their
experiences with the Scots. Scottish Covenanters invaded the northern counties of England and
took quarter there, on and off, for nearly a decade. Scott contended that this Scottish presence
created a “xenophobic and patriotic reaction” from the inhabitants. It increased antipathy towards
the Scots, and as a consequence, towards Charles I. Many blamed Charles for the wars that
brought the Scots to English soil.10 The eight regicides included in Scott’s work resided in this
northern region.
Another scholar, Noel Henning Mayfield, researched personal motivating factors, and
argued that religion was a primary motivator. In Puritans and Regicide: PresbyterianIndependent Differences Over the Trial and Execution of Charles I, Mayfield presented evidence
that members of the Independent faction in Parliament were able to participate and support the
proceedings against the king because of providential mandate found in scripture. As Mayfield
noted “Charles came to be associated with the antichrist, seen as the papacy, by virtue of his
9
With the exception of biographies or memoirs on the more prominent figures such as
Edmund Ludlow and Oliver Cromwell.
10
Scott cites most of his biographical sources as available in the History of Parliament
Trust. The volume relevant to this study is The Commons 1640-1660. According to the website,
this research will not be available to the public until 2016, so verifying Scott’s citations are not
yet possible. See http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/about/latest-research/1640-1660
(accessed October 29, 2014). David Scott, “Motives for King-Killing” in The Regicide and
Execution of Charles I, ed. Jason Peacey (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 153.
4
identification as one of the 10 kings of Revelation 17:12”.11 The ten kings, or “horns,” ruled the
kingdom on earth. Some interpretations of the prophecies designated the Church of Rome as the
last kingdom, and Charles as an agent of the antichrist, the Pope. After Charles’ fall, Rome
would fall, and the reign of the saints would begin.12 To support his contention, Mayfield
focused his study on seven men and several Independent preachers who espoused millenarian
apocalyptic beliefs and influenced the execution of the king.13 Mayfield’s research included men
like the preacher Hugh Peter who was executed as a regicide because of his influence over the
course of events.14 Only one of the men in Mayfield’s study signed the king’s death warrant:
Oliver Cromwell. Mayfield’s work provides valuable evidence that millennium doctrine
encouraged Independents to view the monarchy and Charles I as agents of the antichrist. This
belief enabled them to justify, to themselves if to no one else, the killing of their king.
Through this study, I evaluated the motivating factors of one of the regicides not included
in Scott or Mayfield’s work: John Jones. Though Jones was a colonel in the army and a member
of Parliament for Wales, it is my contention that his affiliation with the army and Parliament had
little to do with his choice to execute Charles I. In-depth analysis of Jones’ personal writings
show that religious convictions held far greater influence over his decisions than did his military
or public status. This conclusion supports Mayfield’s contention of religion as a key motivating
factor for regicide. Through this study, I explore particular elements of those religious
convictions that weighed so heavily on the heart and mind of this one particular regicide.
11
Mayfield, Puritans and Regicide, 16, 7.
See Bernard Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men (London: Faber, 1972).
13
Mayfield, Puritans and Regicide, 7.
14
The list of regicides included several who did not sign the death warrant but
participated on some level in the trial and execution. In addition to Hugh Peter, trial guards
Daniel Axtell and Francis Hacker, and the solicitor who read the charges against Charles, John
Cooke, were also labeled as regicides and executed as traitors.
12
5
*
*
*
The debate over the causes of civil war and revolution, and by inference the motivating
factors for regicide, are hotly debated amongst scholars of this period. The historians engaged in
this debate and their particular arguments are numerous. In fact, there are so many labels
attached to this particular period of British history that historian John Morrill has defined it as
“the historical moment that dare not speak its name.”15 It is generally accepted, however, that
there are three categories that distinguish the main arguments. Some scholars, such as
Christopher Hill, Lawrence Stone, and Leo Solt, focused their work on long-term causes related
to ideological and social issues, including religion. Others, for example Conrad Russell, Clive
Holmes, and Sean Kelsey, took a more targeted approach directed at a particular event or
personality. The third, and most recent model, exemplified in Ian Gentles’ work, incorporates an
analysis of the interconnectedness of all three kingdoms under the English crown. What follows
is a small representation of the various arguments posed by scholars of this period presented here
over time.
Before the nineteenth century, commentary regarding the regicides focused on their
participation on the High Court of Justice. Critiques of the trial against Charles I concluded that
the “pretended tribunal” had no legitimacy and was comprised of men of “little economic or
social substance.”16 On the contrary, argued William Sachse in his 1973 essay “England’s ‘Black
Tribunal’: An Analysis of the Regicide Court,” the composition of the court was much more
15
As quoted in Ian Gentles, English Revolution and the Wars in the Three Kingdoms
1638-1652 (Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 2007), 3.
16
Mark Noble, The Lives of the English Regicides and Other Commissioners of the
Pretended High Court of Justice, Appointed to Sit in Judgement of their Sovereign, King Charles
the First (London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1798), vi; and Sachse, “England’s ‘Black
Tribunal,’” 69. For further arguments on the legality of the court see Sean Kelsey’s “Politics and
Procedure in the Trial of Charles I.”
6
complex and its members of more substantial talents than perceived.17 Sachse included in his
analysis all one hundred and thirty-five men who were called to serve on the court.18 Of these
commissioners, sixty had received some legal training at one of the Inns at Court and three were
barristers.19 Though many were members of the House of Commons who retained their seats
after Pride’s Purge, they were a diverse body that represented about four-fifths of the counties
and boroughs of England and Wales.20 Sachse did concur with the assessments of Oliver
Cromwell’s influence on the court, however, and noted that all of Cromwell’s colonels did sign
the death warrant.21
In the nineteenth-century, as evidenced by the works of Samuel R. Gardiner, focus
shifted away from the composition of the court towards the issues and conflicts that led up to the
execution and its aftermath. In his 1862 work The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution,
Gardiner declared that a “Puritan Revolution” occurred. Though there is ample evidence from
the literature of this period that religion was a highly divisive force and an important, if not
defining conflict in the civil war and revolution, it is curious that Gardiner would define it so
narrowly as puritan. Though Cromwell was considered puritan, as was John Jones, most of the
other key participants were not puritans, and there was no discernable pressure from the
populace to effect change towards puritanism.22 Puritans were actually in the minority, and
17
18
Sachse, “England’s ‘Black Tribunal,’” 70.
Though they were appointed the task of judging the king, many never attended court.
Ibid., 73.
19
Sachse names Gilbert Millington, Miles Corbett, and John Downes as barristers who
were active on the court. Ibid., 73-74.
20
Pride’s Purge refers to actions undertaken by the army to remove from Parliament
those MPs who supported settlement with the king. Sachse, “England’s ‘Black Tribunal,’” 74.
21
Sachse, “England’s ‘Black Tribunal,’” 76.
22
David Underdown supports the argument of puritan influence in his study of regional
factors that influenced allegiance to the parliamentary or royalist causes in the civil wars in
7
puritanism quite unpopular due largely to its highly restrictive practices. In fact, being called a
“puritan” was considered derogatory.23 It could be argued that one could as easily call it a
Millenarian Revolution if in defining it one seeks to illuminate the religious component most
compelling to the revolutionaries.
It is possible, however, that Gardiner defined it as a Puritan Revolution because, in
hindsight, elements of puritanism did change society after the end of the Protectorate. According
to Gardiner, it was the Long Parliament’s ambition, during their tenure between 1640-1648, to
“keep Protestantism pure from Laudian innovations.” Archbishop Laud, with King Charles’
support, altered certain aspects of English Protestantism in the Church of England in the 1630s.
He rejected the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and incorporated certain ceremonial
components reminiscent of Catholicism.24 Since the Church of England was the established
national church, keeping Protestantism pure required a level of religious tolerance, especially for
those who disagreed with Laud’s revisions of the Church. This toleration was especially
important to men, like Oliver Cromwell, who wielded power during the civil war and revolution.
Gardiner attributed the increase in religious tolerance in the second half of the seventeenthcentury to the revolution in the 1640s. He suggested that without this revolution, “nothing would
have been heard of toleration for many a long year.”25
Throughout the twentieth-century and into the twenty-first century, scholars took their
lead from Gardiner and debated the trial and execution largely in terms also associated with the
Revel, Riot, and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England, 1603-1660 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1985), 183-207.
23
Ann Hughes, Causes of the English Civil War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991),
100.
24
Conrad Russell, Causes of the English Civil War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990),
196, 202; and Hughes, Causes of the English Civil War, 103.
25
Gardiner, The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution (New York: C. Scribner's
Sons, 1898), 191-192.
8
civil war and revolution. Changing views of authority, the nature and behavior of Charles I, the
ambition of parliamentary and army elites, republicanism, and religion were all important factors
analyzed as causes of civil war and revolution.
Christopher Hill posited in his 1966 work Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution
that ideas promulgated by Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Edward Coke in the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth-century prepared men who had “hitherto…existed only to be
ruled” for revolution.26 Hill evaluated the writings of these three men and used both
contemporary sources and secondary analyses of the period to illustrate how their support of
certain ideas influenced the way people thought of God, themselves, and government, and how
those thoughts made revolution possible. For example, scientific and mathematical
advancements influenced a “growing lack of respect for the authority of classical antiquity and a
new critical freedom towards sacred texts,” because traditional theories were proven incorrect or
incomplete.27 “Revolutions are not made without ideas,” stated Hill and “historians must attach
equal importance to the circumstances that gave these ideas their chance.”28 The Scottish and
Irish rebellions in 1639 and 1641 respectively, and the English civil wars in the 1640s, provided
the opportunities for those ideas to be voiced, debated, and acted upon. The intellectual issues
that caused the most turmoil for the people at this time were highly personal. They threatened
their faith; faith in their religion to preserve their immortal souls and faith in those they entrusted
to protect their mortal interests. It is clear through the historiography that ideas were at the heart
of the conflict.
26
Christopher Hill, Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1966), 289.
27
Ibid., 65.
28
Ibid., 3.
9
Leo Solt provided an example of the power of ideas in his 1959 monograph Saints in
Arms: Puritanism and Democracy in Cromwell’s Army. Solt described how the religious
indoctrination of the soldiers in the New Model Army, created by Parliament in 1645, fueled a
belief that they were God’s chosen soldiers and undefeatable, and it awakened their republican
consciousness. Their tremendous victories in battle were understood to be divinely ordained.
William Erbury, an influential New Model chaplain, asserted that only the “appearance of God in
the saints’ could yield so many strongholds and conquer so many royal armies in so short a time
with so few a number.”29 There was strong sentiment among the officers and soldiers that their
victories were evidence of the fulfillment of the prophesies in the Book of Daniel and
Revelation.30 Feeling empowered by their victory in the first civil war, soldiers learned to agitate
for redress of their grievances during the Putney Debates in 1647 by electing their own
representatives to speak to Parliament on their behalf. As a result, the army published military
proposals such as The Case of the Armie Truly Stated and Agreement of the People.31
In 1972, Lawrence Stone argued in Causes of the English Revolution that the driving
force behind the revolution were members of the new gentry class. These men had risen in
wealth and esteem in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century, only to be thwarted by
tradition from solidifying their place in the power structure of the country. Republican
sentiments were fueled out of this frustration over the discrepancy between rising expectations
29
Leo Solt, Saints in Arms: Puritanism and Democracy in Cromwell’s Army (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1959), 77.
30
The Book of Daniel describes four beasts, considered to be the four kingdoms of
Babylon, Assyria, Greece and Rome. The last beast would have ten horns, or kings, and a little
horn that destroyed several of the ten. Some interpretations of the prophecies designated the
Church of Rome as the last kingdom, the Pope as the little horn (the antichrist), and Charles as an
agent of the antichrist. After Charles’ fall, Rome would fall, and the reign of the saints would
begin. For more information, see Bernard Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men (London: Faber, 1972).
31
Solt, Saints in Arms, 180, 186.
10
and falling capacity to achieve power.32 As the new power and wealth of the gentry rose,
aristocratic power and influence declined. This resulted in a change in loyalty and a breakdown
in traditional authority.33 The new gentry were motivated to establish a new republican power
structure of authority.
Where Hill and Stone addressed revolution and larger themes such as new ideas and
change in society, Conrad Russell focused on the civil war specifically and Charles I in
particular. In the Causes of the English Civil War, published in 1990, Russell contended that
though there were three crises that contributed to the outbreak of war (the crises of religion, the
three kingdoms, and authority), he placed a large burden of the responsibility on Charles I. 34
According to Russell, Charles’ own insecurities fueled disrespect which created a lack of fear
resulting in the “diminished majesty” of the crown. This coupled with his inability to
acknowledge the validity of any view but his own, made him politically “unbearable.”35
Clive Holmes supported Russell’s argument regarding Charles’ personal weaknesses as
contributing factors for war, but also contended that the army unduly influenced the outcome of
the trial. In his 2006 monograph Why Was Charles I Executed, Holmes initially proposed that
four key groups and/or players were instrumental in leading Charles to his end: the Scots, the
Presbyterians in Parliament, the New Model Army, and Charles himself. Holmes was
comprehensive in his assessment of each group’s culpability, but he did not really answer the
question of why Charles was executed. Instead, he concluded that Charles drove the other
players to “extreme action.” This action, taken largely by officers of the army, and justified by
32
Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution, 125.
Ibid., 75.
34
Russell, Causes of the English Civil War, 130.
35
Ibid., 208.
33
11
“providential mandate,” included restructuring government by eliminating the monarchy.36 But
not all army officers signed the death warrant, most notably, Thomas Fairfax, commander-inchief of the New Model Army. Fairfax was appointed to serve on the court, but only attended
one session, and then refused to participate any further.37 Holmes presented persuasive evidence
that army officers wanted to rid themselves of the Presbyterian faction in Parliament who wanted
to disband the army, but he does not provide a compelling argument regarding motives for
executing Charles.38
Ian Gentles formulated his argument of a people’s revolution and placed religion at the
heart of the cause in English Revolution and the Wars of Three Kingdoms published in 2007.
Gentles focused on the interconnectedness of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and
Ireland especially through the conflicts between them from 1638 through 1652.39 He utilized
evidence from specific battles and petitions from particular counties as evidence of the popular
participation in the conflicts and concluded that religious concerns were of primary importance
to the inhabitants.40
Conflicts over religion and changes in society played a part in the civil war that led to the
trial and execution of Charles I. The king’s religion, his personal nature, and his choices also
influenced public sentiment in a way that made arresting, trying, and executing him possible.
36
Clive Holmes, Why Was Charles I Executed? (London: Hambeldon Continuum, 2006),
120.
37
Sachse, “England’s ‘Black Tribunal,’” 77.
The Presbyterian faction in Parliament wanted to disband the army, favored a
settlement with the king, and wanted to persecute religious “deviation.” Clive Holmes, Why Was
Charles I Executed, 106.
39
Ian Gentles, English Revolution & the Wars in the Three Kingdoms 1638-1652
(Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 2007), 3.
40
Ibid., 35.
38
12
The execution of Charles I was not inevitable, however.41 Records of the trial show that the court
repeatedly urged the king to defend himself; they wanted him to answer publicly for his crimes.42
Charles refused on the grounds that he did not recognize the authority of the court.43 Sean Kelsey
argued in “The Death of Charles I,” that execution was forced upon the commissioners as their
only recourse in light of Charles’ obstinate refusal to answer the charges against him.44 Charles
was accused of treason and the punishment for treason was execution. In the end, only fifty-nine
men were willing to sign and seal the document that sent Charles to his death.
John Jones, the forty-second signatory, is the subject of this case study, in part, because
of the rich collection of his letters that have survived. The other, equally important, reason is
because there has been very little scholarly attention given to John Jones. He was one of four
commissioners assigned to create and maintain, in Gregory Seyfer’s words, a “viable civil
government in a foreign land amongst a hostile and explosive Catholic majority” during the
Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland.45 He also became brother-in-law to Oliver Cromwell and was
executed in 1660 for his participation in the killing of his king. Yet there has been relatively little
published work on him.
One reason for the absence of publications is the lack of available primary source
evidence, especially relating to Jones’ life before 1650. Another likely reason is that Jones was
not particularly remarkable during his lifetime. He was not a war hero or an unusually vocal man
41
For further discussion of this idea, see Sean Kelsey, “Politics and Procedure in the
Trial of Charles I,” par. 5-8, and Sean Kelsey, “The Death of Charles I,” The Historical Journal
45, no. 4 (December 2002).
42
See John Nalson, A true copy of the journal of the High Court of Justice for the tryal of
K. Charles I (London: H.C., 1684).
43
Ibid., 34-36, 43-46, 53, 57-59.
44
Sean Kelsey, “The Death of Charles I,” The Historical Journal 45, no. 4 (Dec. 2002):
728-729.
45
Gregory Carl Seyfer, “Colonel John Jones, Puritan Regicide from Merioneth,” (M.A.
Thesis, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1991), 54.
13
in Parliament, he did not write treatises or publish his memoirs, and he was not a man who
caught the attention of other writers or orators. Jones was a pious man passionately committed to
his duty. Though seventeenth-century scholars cite his letters often, there have been only two
previous works centered on John Jones specifically: an unpublished 1991 master’s thesis by
Gregory Carl Seyfer entitled "Colonel John Jones: Puritan Regicide from Merioneth," and a
work by D. Davies published in 1914 entitled, Ardudwy a'i Gwron sef y Cyrnol John Jones o
Faesygarnedd, Cwmnantcol, ger Drws Ardudwy ym Meirion (1600-1660). Unfortunately, Davies
work was not translated into English and has gone out of print. But Seyfer does provide valuable
information about Jones through a biographical study of Jones’ life. Seyfer’s work is focused
mainly on Jones’ experiences in Wales and Ireland, and it contributes to the scholarship on the
Welsh puritan gentry during the 1630s and 1640s. However, there is very little in Seyfer’s
narrative regarding Jones’ participation in the trial of the king.46
Rather than report on Jones’ life, in this thesis, I use Jones as a case study to better
understand motives for regicide. I argue that the strongest motivating factor for Jones was his
religious convictions. He was not only a puritan and a member of the Independent party in
Parliament; John Jones was a radical Calvinist who took part in the revolution because he
believed it was God’s will. John Jones is a model example of the typology Michael Walzer
developed of the Puritan saints in his work The Revolution of the Saints.
The information in support of these contentions is organized as follows: in chapter one, I
offer an overview of the trial and an introduction to the regicides. I then compare motives for
executing the king, as ascribed by other scholars, to Jones. Since the one motivating factor that
required more evaluation in relation to Jones is religion, in chapter two, I focus on religious
46
Ibid., 54.
14
conflict in England and on radical Calvinism. Because Michael Walzer’s depiction of the Puritan
saint was particularly useful in understanding Jones, also in chapter two, I review Walzer’s The
Revolution of the Saints and present his typology. In chapter three, I provide an analysis of Jones
based upon what his contemporaries thought of him, what scholars have presented, and the
content and spirit of his letters. Dates are presented throughout in European style and the
language of the letters is preserved in their original seventeenth-century form.
15
Chapter 1: Trial and Motives for King Killing
On Saturday, 20 January 1649, Charles Stuart, king of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
was brought to Westminster to hear and answer the charges brought against him by England’s
newly commissioned High Court of Justice.47 Mr. John Cooke, solicitor general, read the
following charge against the king of high treason and other high crimes as follows:
That He the said Charles Stuart, being admitted King of England, and therein trusted with
a limited Power to govern by, and according to the Laws of the Land, and not otherwise;
and by his Trust, Oath and Office, being obliged to use the Power committed to him, for
the Good and Benefit of the People, and for the Preservation of their Rights and Liberties;
Yet nevertheless, out of a wicked Design to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and
Tyrannical Power to rule according to his Will, and to overthrow the Rights and Liberties
of the People, yea to take away and make void the Foundations thereof, and of all
redresses and remedy of misgovernment, which by the Fundamental Constitutions of this
Kingdom, were reserved on the Peoples behalf, in the Right and Power of frequent
successive Parliaments or National Meetings in Councel, He the said Charles Stuart, for
accomplishment of such Designs, and for the Protecting of himself and his Adherents, in
his and their wicked Practices, to the same Ends, hath Traiterously and Maliciously
Levied War against the present Parliament, and the People therein represented….much
innocent Blood of the free People of this Nation hath been spilt, many Families have been
undone, the Publick Treasury wasted and exhausted, Trade obstructed, and miserably
decayed, vast Expence and Dammage to the Nation incurred, and many parts of this land
spoiled, some of them even to desolation….All which wicked Designs, Wars, and evil
Practices of him the said Charles Stuart, have been, and are carried on for the
advancement and upholding of a Personal Interest of Will and Power, and pretended
Prerogative in himself and his Family, against the Publick Interest, Common Right,
Liberty, Justice and Peace of the People of this Nation, by and for whom he was intrusted
as aforesaid. By all which it appeareth, that He the said Charles Stuart hath been, and is
the Occasioner, Author, and Continuer of the said unnatural, cruel and bloody Wars, and
therein guilty of all the Treasons, Murders, Rapines, Burnings, Spoils, Desolations,
Dammages, and Mischiefs to this Nation acted and committed in the said Wars, or
occasioned thereby….48
Charles Stuart had sworn “according to the Laws of the Land…to use the Power
committed to him, for the Good and Benefit of the People….” He also swore in his coronation
47
As noted in an earlier footnote, the actual date was 20 January 1648. Some scholars
denote the date as 20 January 1648/49. I have adopted the standard date of 1649 as is most
common in the historiography.
48
Nalson, A true copy of the journal of the High Court of Justice, 29-32.
16
oath to keep the peace.49 Yet, on 22 August 1642, he declared war against Parliament “and the
People therein represented.” After Charles surrendered to the Scots in 1646, rioting and a second
civil war quickly escalated in 1648 when Charles escaped English custody and enlisted the aid of
the Scots against the English. As a consequence of declaring war and then continuing the war,
Charles was accused of being the “Occasioner, Author, and Continuer of the said unnatural, cruel
and bloody Wars,” and was therefore entirely responsible for all the crime, death, damage,
destruction, and “Treasons.” The punishment for treason was to be drawn, hanged,
disemboweled, beheaded, and quartered.50
The king was brought to court at Westminster a total of four days, and at each sitting he
refused to answer the charges against him because he did not recognize the authority of the court
to put him on trial.51 Witness testimony was heard and recorded; evidence of Charles’ leadership
during battle campaigns was provided as evidence. Seven days after the trial began, Charles
Stuart was found guilty, and three days later, on 30 January 1649, the king was publicly
beheaded.
Colonel John Jones was a dedicated participant in the trial of the king. He attended six of
the nine pre-trial meetings, and all of the formal proceedings from 20 January to 29 January,
including all private meetings held in the Painted Chamber during that time. Though Jones was
not formally assigned to the committee designated to examine witnesses, he did attend these
49
“A succinct Account of the Coronation of Charles the First,” Eighteenth-Century
Collections Online: Text Creation Partnership,
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004895348.0001.000/1:6.1? (accessed November 4, 2014).
50 “Punishments at the Old Bailey: Drawn and Quartered,” Proceedings of the Old
Bailey, http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Punishment.jsp#drawn-and-quartered (accessed
November 5, 2014).
51 Nalson, A true copy of the journal of the High Court of Justice, 34-36, 43-46, 53, 5759.
17
sessions as well on 25 January.52 Jones was present during the drafting of the sentencing on 26
January, voted on 27 January to execute the king, and signed and stamped his seal on the death
warrant.
Jones’ level of attendance is evidence of the importance he placed on his duty to
participate as a commissioner of the High Court of Justice. Jones is one of only nine signatories
who attended every meeting during the trial held in both the Painted Chamber, where
commissioners met privately, and at Westminster, where the public trial was conducted. Though
six of those nine other signatories were army officers, not all army officers who sat as
commissioners attended all of the proceedings and several chose not to sign the death warrant.
For example, General Thomas Fairfax, Colonel Edmond Harvey, and Colonel Algernon Sidney
were all commissioners who chose not sign. Colonel Harvey was also one of the nine
commissioners who voted in favor of execution and yet chose not to sign. There was only one
other army officer who voted to execute but chose not to sign the warrant: Thomas Hammond,
an officer in the New Model Army and an MP. Six others were members of Parliament but were
not military officers including John Anlaby, Francis Allen, William Hevingham, Cornelius
Holland, John Lisle, and Nicholas Love, and Isaac Pennington, alderman of London.
Fifty-nine commissioners of the High Court of Justice did sign the death warrant. The
first three signatories in order were John Bradshaw, the president of the proceedings, Lord
Thomas Grey of Groby, the only Lord on the court, and Oliver Cromwell, lieutenant general of
the parliamentary forces and future Lord Protector of the commonwealth. Thirty-eight other
commissioners signed before Jones who was the forty-second commissioner to sign. Though
52
Nalson, A true copy of the journal of the High Court of Justice, 62. For details
regarding each commissioner’s attendance during the trial, see Appendix B, “Trial Attendance
Record.”
18
several of the signatures that followed Cromwell’s and preceded Jones’ were commanding
officers or members of the peerage, several were also of Jones’ military rank or were fellow MPs
with no official affiliation with the army. John Blakiston (12th signatory), Pelegrine Pelham
(20th), Humphrey Edwards (23rd), Daniel Blagrave (24th), and Owen Rowe (25th) were among
those other signatories not directly affiliated with the army. Signatories that followed Jones were
also of varying socio-political ranks. Sir Gregory Norton, Baronet, was the fiftieth signatory, and
Colonels John Alured and Robert Lilburne were forty-sixth and forty-seventh respectively. It can
be inferred by this placement that Jones, as forty-second out of fifty-nine, was more cautious
than zealous in his decision to sign. There is, however, some controversy over whether the
warrant was signed by all signatories on 29 January as recorded.
Image 1: Death warrant of Charles I, property of Sean Davis, used with permission.
19
Scholars have debated the issue of exactly when the warrant was signed and if it was
accomplished in one or more sittings.53 When the order of signatures is compared to the
attendance record for 29 January, it seems possible that signatures at least up to the tenth, Sir
Thomas Mauleverer, could have been acquired on 27 January. Sir John Danvers (7th signatory)
and Sir Thomas Mauleverer (10th) were not listed as in attendance on 29 January, but neither
were many other signatories after Jones. The following, and their order of signature, are not
listed as attending on 29 January: Danvers (7th), Mauleverer (10th), Moore (43rd), Fleetwood
(45th), Alured (46th), Lilburne (47th), Stapley (49th), Norton (50th), Chaloner (51st), Wogan (52nd),
Clement (54th), Downs (55th), Waite (56th), Carew (58th), and Corbet (59th). There is also
evidence that Augustine Garland stated at his trial in 1660 that he signed the warrant on the day
of sentencing, which was 27 January.54 Garland was the twenty-ninth signatory. So, it is possible
that signatures at least to Garland were acquired on 27 January. Since the thirty-fourth signatory
was Richard Ingoldsby, and he was not in attendance on 27 January, and claimed to have been
forced to sign the warrant, it is not likely he signed before 29 January.55 Therefore, it is possible
that the first thirty-three signatures were acquired on 27 January. Since there are seventeen
signatures after Jones, and only five of those are listed as in attendance on the 29 January, it is
53
See A.W. McIntosh, “The Mystery of the Death Warrant of Charles I: Some Further
Historic Doubts,” House of Lords Record Office Memorandum No. 66, House of Lords Record
Office 1981, http://www.parliament.uk/documents/parliamentaryarchives/deathwarrantmemo66.pdf (accessed October 31, 2014).
54
McIntosh argued that it is possible the words recorded at Garland’s trial were
imprecise. “I sat, and at the day of Sentence signed the warrant for the execution,” might have
been “I sat, and at the day of the Sentence, and signed the warrant for the execution.” A.W.
McIntosh, “The Mystery of the Death Warrant of Charles I: Some Further Historical Doubts”
House of Lords Records Office Memorandum, No 66, House of Lords Record Office (1981), 6,
17, http://www.parliament.uk/documents/parliamentary-archives/deathwarrantmemo66.pdf
(accessed October 31, 2014).
55
Plant, “Richard Ingoldsby,” BCW Project, http://www.british-civilwars.co.uk/biog/ingoldsby.htm (accessed November 3, 2014).
20
probable that, regardless of how many were signed, if any, on 27 January, the remaining
signatories were rounded up, after the morning meeting, to sign on 29 January.
According to A.W. McIntosh, Ireton and Cromwell expected approximately fifty
signatures.56 The parliamentary act that erected the High Court of Justice to try the king indicated
that only twenty were needed.57 Both Ingoldsby, the thirty-fourth signatory, and George
Fleetwood, the forty-fifth signatory who also voted for execution, claimed Cromwell coerced
them to sign.58 If true, it is possible that the signatures before Ingoldsby were acquired on 27
January and that Cromwell, concerned about getting the fifty signatures desired, persuaded
Ingoldsby and Fleetwood on 29 January, after the final engrossing was ordered on the warrant. It
is also quite possible that all signatures were signed and sealed on 29 January, as recorded. The
only evidence that puts it into question is Garland’s statement of the date he signed, and that is
based solely upon a third party account at his trial.
MOTIVES
Scholars have suggested several factors that may have influenced the choice to execute
Charles I. David Underdown provided evidence that allegiance to either the royalist or the
parliamentary factions can be traced to region of birth.59 David Scott took this premise a step
further in his study of the northern regicides and suggested that region of birth also influenced
the choice to execute Charles I.60 Other scholars, such as Conrad Russell, argued that Charles’
duplicitous behavior and absolutist agenda persuaded regicides that in order to be stopped, he
56
McIntosh, “The Mystery of the Death Warrant of Charles I,” 21.
Kelsey, “Politics and Procedures in the Trial of Charles I,” par. 29.
58
Plant, “George Fleetwood,” BCW Project, http://bcw-project.org/biography/georgefleetwood (accessed October 31, 2014). Also, see Appendix B for trial participation. Ingoldsby
did not attend any sessions before 29 January.
59
See Underdown, Revel, Riot, and Rebellion, 183-207.
60
See Scott, “Motives for King-Killing.”
57
21
had to be executed.61 Clive Holmes, on the other hand, contended that the army, and Cromwell in
particular, applied undue pressure on commissioners to sign the warrant in order to further their
own agenda.62 Lawrence Stone maintained that the new gentry class, had their own agenda: they
wanted to abolish monarchy and establish a commonwealth, or republic, in England.63 Since it is
my contention that religious convictions were the most persuasive factor for Jones, it is
important first to evaluate whether any of these other motivating factors may have influenced
Jones and to what extent. Through the next several pages, factors related to region of birth,
opinions about Charles I, military persuasion, gentry status as it pertained to republicanism, and
whether or not Jones benefitted personally from the execution of the king are explored.
REGION OF BIRTH
John Jones was a Welshman. He was a younger son born to Thomas Jones, also known as
Thomas ap John, and Elin Wynn, also known as Elin ferch Robert, in Merionethshire, Wales
around 1600.64 Genealogical records indicate that the Jones family line resided in Merionethshire
at least as far back as the twelfth century. Elin Wynn’s forbears are found in both Merionethshire
61
See Russell, Causes of the English Civil War.
See Holmes, Why Was Charles I Executed?
63
See Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution.
64
The number of children born to Thomas and Elin Jones differs by source. Arthur Dodd
includes six children: Edward “the eldest,” John, Humphrey, Henry, Richard “the youngest
brother,” and Lowry. The database compiled by the Church of Latter Day Saints has only
Edward, John, and Humphrey. Gregory C. Seyfer includes nine children: Edward, John, Lowri,
Joanna, Janet, Richard, William, Henry, and Humphrey. See Arthur H. Dodd, “Jones, John
Maes-y-garnedd,” Dictionary of Welsh Biography, http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s-JONE-JOH1597.html? (accessed March 14, 2014); “Family Search Community Trees,”
https://histfam.familysearch.org//pedigree.php?personID=I180673&tree=Welsh (accessed March
14, 2014); and Gregory Carl Seyfer, “Colonel John Jones, Puritan Regicide from Merioneth,”
(MA Thesis, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1991), 87. Jones’ birth is listed as either 1597 or
1600.
62
22
and Caernarvonshire at least as far back as the fourteenth century.65 Both of these counties lie in
the northern region of Wales.
There is evidence that the majority of the population in Wales supported King Charles I
during the civil wars.66 John Roland Phillips asserted in his Memoirs of the Civil War in Wales
and the Marches that allegiance of the Welsh people to the English monarchy was due in part to
their connection to King Henry VII in the fifteenth-century. King Henry was born in Wales. His
father was Welsh and his mother English. It was through his mother that he claimed right to the
English throne. She was a descendant of King Edward III on her father’s side.67 The general
affection for the monarchy continued in the sixteenth-century as Henry VIII enacted several
statutes that improved the social conditions of the Welsh including the uniting of the two
kingdoms under the English crown. But, to Phillips, the most compelling explanation for their
allegiance during the seventeenth-century civil wars was due to their lack of education. The
general population in Wales did not speak or read English so they did not benefit from the mass
circulation of pamphlet materials that educated the populace regarding the important issues and
arguments of the day.68 They relied on their clergy and their gentry for information and
guidance. The clergy were Anglican and preached the Divine Rights of Kings, and the gentry
65
According to the pedigree chart in the “Family Search Communities Trees Project,” the
first decedent born in Merionethshire on Jones’ paternal side was Cadwgon ap Madog in 1130
A.D. http://histfam.familysearch.org/pedigree.php?personID=I165186&tree=Welsh (accessed
March 14, 2014). For Elin ferch Robert’s family line see
https://histfam.familysearch.org//pedigree.php?personID=I165166&tree=Welsh (accessed March
14, 2014).
66
John Roland Phillips, Memoirs of the Civil War in Wales and the Marches 1642-1649
vol. 1 (London: Green & Co., 1874), 138-139. See Phillips, Memoirs of the Civil War in Wales
and the Marches 1642-1649 vol. II for contemporary source documentation supporting this
conclusion.
67
“Henry VII,” BBC History, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/henry_vii (accessed
October 30, 2014).
68
Phillips, Memoirs of the Civil War in Wales and the Marches 1642-1649 vol. 1, 24.
23
benefitted from the grants given at the king’s prerogative.69 During the first civil war, there was
only one Welsh county that openly sided with Parliament. That county was Pembrokeshire in the
southern region of Wales.70
Though there is no surviving evidence regarding allegiance of the Jones family in
particular, there is a reference made by Archbishop Williams of Northern Wales in 1647 that
John Jones was “the most universally hated in these parts that now lives here or there.”71 It is not
clear why Archbishops Williams held such contempt for Jones at this particular time, but it may
have been because Jones sided with Parliament, was amongst the forces assigned to subjugate
North Wales during the civil wars, and/or because Jones was openly puritan in his religious
convictions; the Welsh were generally more faithful to the Church of England.72 It seems clear
from Jones’ own writings that his particular religiosity was not in line with the general
population in Merionethshire. In a letter to Morgan Lloyd in 1651, he wrote “What becomes of
poore Merionethshire, is that countrey denied the tender of gospell mercies?...where is there
more sine to encounter with where more ignorance, where more hatred to the people of God?
where the word saint more scorned? than in Merionethshire.”73 Jones was imploring Lloyd to
visit Merionethshire to provide spiritual guidance to his countrymen.
69
Ibid., 11-12, 14-15, 24, 32.
Ibid., 139.
71
Calendar of Wynn (of Gwydir) Papers, 1515-1690 (Aberystwyth: The Library, 1926),
col. 1834.
72
Arthur H. Dodd, “Jones, John Maes-y-garnedd,” Dictionary of Welsh Biography,
http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s-JONE-JOH-1597.html? (accessed March 14, 2014). Also, see Seyfer
for corroboration regarding Welsh opinions of puritanism. Seyfer, “Colonel John Jones, Puritan
Regicide from Merioneth,” 5.
73
Joseph Mayer, “Inedited Letters of Cromwell, Colonel Jones, Bradshaw, and Other
Regicides,” Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, New Series, vol. 1
(Liverpool; Adam Holden, 1861), 185.
70
24
Evidence supporting Phillips’ contention that Wales was predominantly loyalist during
the civil wars is well documented in the second volume of his Memoirs.74 Archbishop Williams’
statement regarding Jones and Jones’ writing about his perception of Wales is further evidence of
religious differences between Jones and the inhabitants in his place of birth. It is reasonable then
to conclude that being a native of Merionethshire did not influence Jones’ decision to execute
Charles I. This is not surprising though because John Jones spent his formative years in London,
not in Wales.
John Jones was sent to London as an apprentice in his youth. He began as a “servant to a
gentleman” and then was transferred to Sir Thomas Myddelton, lord mayor of London.75 Since
the record shows Sir Thomas Myddelton served in that particular capacity as mayor in 1613 and
1614 only, Jones was between thirteen and sixteen years of age (depending upon whether he was
born in 1597 or 1600) when he began his apprenticeship under Sir Thomas.76 It is likely Jones’
parents, Elin and Thomas, were able to secure the apprenticeship for him through his mother’s
connections to the Myddelton family. Elin was a distant relative of the Myddeltons through the
line of Sir John Donne, Knight.77 Sir Thomas Myddelton also had property in Merionethshire
74
A few examples that support this argument include “A Petition from Flintshire to the
King at York, August 1642,” 1-2; and “Chester declares against the Array,” 8-9 in Phillips,
Memoirs of the Civil War in Wales and the Marches 1642-1649 vol. II (London: Green & Co.,
1874).
75
Mark Noble, Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, 2 (London: G.G.J. &
J. Robinson, 1687), 214.
76
See Dodd, “Jones, John Maes-y-garnedd,” DWB; “Apprenticeship: City Custom of
Apprenticeship,” British History Online. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/
report.aspx?compid=36671#n50 (accessed October 31, 2014); and Mark Noble, Memoirs of the
Protectoral House of Cromwell, 2 (London: G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1687), 214. Jones’ birth year
varies in the records listed as either 1597 or 1600. Dodd notes 1597 as questionable. Pedigree
information pulled from the genealogical database of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints notes it as “about” 1600.
77
Sir John Donne was 5 times great uncle to Elin ferch Robert and 2 times great
grandfather to Sir Thomas Myddelton according to Family Search Community Trees, Church of
25
and served in Parliament for Merionethshire in 1597 and was lord lieutenant in 1599.78 It is
possible that the Jones family had interactions with Sir Thomas during this period.
The Myddeltons were a very influential family both in Wales and in London. Richard
Myddelton, Sir Thomas’ father, was governor of Denbigh castle in Wales. Sir Thomas’ younger
brother, Charles, also held the governorship of Denbigh castle and was Alderman of Denbigh.79
Hugh Myddelton, also a younger brother, was the first to find silver deposits in Wales. He is best
known, however, for engineering a system to bring fresh water to London.80 He was also a
goldsmith, a banker, was an alderman and recorder of Denbigh, and was MP for Denbigh on and
off from 1603 through 1628. He became a baronet in 1622.81
Sir Thomas Myddelton was a very astute businessman, was civically active, and was
known for his piety. As a youth, he apprenticed to a London grocer and earned his freeman status
in 1582 at the approximate age of thirty-two. He was an original shareholder in the East India
Company, was involved in his brother Hugh’s New River project for London’s water supply, and
was an investor in the Drake, Raleigh, and Hawkins expeditions and the Virginia Company. In
1595, he bought Chirk Castle and lordship for about £5,000. In 1603, be became alderman and
sheriff of London and was granted knighthood. As mentioned previously, he served as lord
mayor of London in 1613 and 1614, and he represented the city in Parliament from 1624 to
Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints (2011),
https://histfam.familysearch.org//pedigree.php?personID=I165166&tree=Welsh (accessed
October 31, 2014).
78
“Sir Thomas Myddelton (1550-1631)” in “Myddelton,” Dictionary of Welsh
Biography, http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s3-MYDD-ELT-1207.html? (accessed November 3, 2014).
79
Jones was also an alderman for Denbigh in 1649.
80
The fresh water system was called The New River Project. Welsh Mines Preservation
Trust, http://welshminestrust.org/400-anniversary-of-sir-hugh-myddeltons-new-river/ (accessed
October 30, 2014).
81
“Hugh Myddleton, ID I89539,” Family Search Community Trees. Church of Jesus
Christ and the Latter Day Saints (2011), www.histfam.familysearch.org (accessed October 31,
2014).
26
1626. In 1628/29, he bought the crown lordship of Arwystli and Cyfeiliog. Around 1630, a year
before his death, he helped finance the publication of the first portable Welsh Bible. He was
considered strongly puritan.82 Though it is probable that John Jones’ indoctrination into
puritanism came from his service to the Myddelton family, living in London may also have
influenced his religious, and therefore political, perspective.
When Jones entered the service of Sir Thomas Myddelton in London around 1613, James
I of England and VI of Scotland had been king for ten years. James ascended the throne of
England after his mother’s cousin, Queen Elizabeth, died in 1603. Unlike his mother, Mary,
James was Protestant. James is most renowned historically for commissioning the translation of
the Bible known throughout the world as the King James Version.83
As an apprentice to Sir Thomas Myddelton, it is likely Jones spent approximately five to
seven years in his service in London. An apprentice learned a skill or craft from a master that
would result in the means to earn a living.84 As the Myddeltons were businessmen and public
office holders, we can assume that Jones interned in one of the many business ventures in which
Sir Thomas was involved. Professor Arthur Herbert Dodd mentioned in his biographical sketch
of Jones that he “had a good education, including a competent knowledge of Latin and probably
some legal training.”85 All of which would have been expected consequences of working amidst
82
“Sir Thomas Myddelton,” Dictionary of Welsh Biography,
http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s3-MYDD-ELT-1207.html (accessed March 14, 2014), and Archives
Wales, “National Library of Wales Chirk Castle Estate Records,”
http://www.archiveswales.org.uk/anw/get_collection.php? (accessed March 14, 2014).
83
“James I: 1603-1625,” The Official Website of the British Monarchy,
http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensoftheUnitedKingdom/TheStuar
ts/JamesI.aspx (accessed October 26, 2104).
84
Patrick Wallis and Christopher Minns, “Apprenticeships in Early Modern London:
Economic Origins and Destinations of Apprentices in the 16th and 17th Centuries,” Gresham
College, 26 January 2012, http://www.gresham.ac.uk/print/2973 (accessed October 26, 2014).
85
Dodd, “Jones, John Maes-y-garnedd,” DWB.
27
the business affairs of a man as involved in commerce as Sir Thomas. Though there is a large
gap in the evidence as to Jones’ whereabouts after termination of his apprenticeship, sometime
around 1620, and before his marriage to Margaret Edwards in the 1630s, it seems most likely
that he spent the majority of this time in London. Dodd noted that Jones held lands in
Llanenddwyn, Llanddwywe, and Llanfair Merionethshire from Myddelton in 1633.86
Considering the very rural nature of Merionethshire, London would have offered Jones more
opportunities to cultivate connections and acquire some level of wealth necessary to obtain such
lands.87
London in the early seventeenth-century was the first point of conflict between king and
country. Sir Walter Besant provided a snapshot of the controversies that were ripe at this time in
London in the Time of the Stuarts. Besant set the population of London at between 100,000 and
150,000 and described it as over-crowded and congested.88 Issues that effected Londoners most
were religion, taxation, commerce, and the plague. As king, James was disliked due in part to his
extravagance, penchant for favoritism in court appointments, his unwavering contention that
kings were not bound by the law and were answerable only to God, and his ambition to secure an
alliance with Spain through their Catholic king. James “hated Puritans and persecuted
Catholics,” and granted monopolies, a practice that interfered in the city’s conduct of its
86
Dodd, “Jones, John Maes-y-garnedd,” DWB.
The inhabitants of Merionethshire depended chiefly on sheep and cattle and upon wool
and dairy as their means of sustenance and support. See a “Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for
Merioneth or Merionethshire,” A Vision of Britain Through Time,
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/995440 (accessed March 14, 2014). Seyfer
disagrees with this assumption and places Jones in Wales for the majority of this period.
(“Colonel John Jones, Puritan Regicide from Merioneth,” 3-7).
.
88
Sir Walter Besant, London in the Time of the Stuarts (London: Adam and Charles
Black, 1903), 19, 28.
87
28
commerce.89 As someone connected to the Myddeltons, Jones may have benefitted from the
Virginia Company monopoly, but in all other areas, he was likely as discontented as his fellow
Londoners. After James’ death, when Charles became king in 1625, Londoners were very
displeased with Charles’ marriage to a Catholic, Henrietta Marie of France, because they were
“fiercely Protestant.”90 Besant claimed that nine-tenths of London’s population were puritans, or
as Besant qualified, “at least strong Protestants.”91 There were unresolved issues regarding
religion and the ecclesiastical courts, and another bout of plague beset the city. Charles sought to
control the city, as his father had tried before him, by imposing restrictions on building and
requiring that tradesmen set up shop in only designated quarters, but Londoners refused to
comply. He taxed the city extensively demanding Ship Money, forced loans, forced forfeiture of
Irish Estates, and additional fines.92 Charles was punishing Londoners for their recalcitrance, so
Parliament reacted. In 1628, Parliament passed the Petition of Right that stated no man could be
compelled to pay a tax not first approved by Parliament, but Charles did not abide by the act.
Besant included the story of how the news spread quickly throughout London when the Speaker
of the House was forced to sit while the commons passed resolution after resolution against
“innovations in religion and the illegal levy of taxes.” Buckingham, Charles’ chief minister and
Laud, Bishop of London, were detested in the city. There are stories of Londoners beating one of
Buckingham’s men to death, and reveling when news of Buckingham’s murder reached town.93
Laud heavily persecuted puritans. He suppressed puritan sermons and expelled puritan clergy.
He prohibited the Geneva Bible and continued to “desecrate” the Sabbath through enforcement
89
Ibid, 21.
Ibid., 20, 24.
91
Ibid., 31.
92
Ibid., 24-27.
93
Ibid., 31.
90
29
of the Book of Sports, a manual of Sunday recreational activities recommended by the Church of
England. Laud’s restoration of ceremony and ritualism inspired fear of the rise of “popish”
influence in England, a threat to their nationalism and sovereignty. The years in which Laud held
most power and influence were during the eleven years of Charles’ personal rule, from 1629 –
1640. During those years, there were no Parliaments called and Charles ruled as an absolute
monarch.94
Though region of birth was not the influencing factor in Jones’ decision to execute
Charles, his years spent in London most certainly influenced his development. His service as an
apprentice to the Myddeltons, his adoption of puritanism, and his years as a Londoner, likely in
the commercial sector, did influence all the choices he made in his later years.
GRIEVANCES AGAINST CHARLES I
There is very little documentation regarding Jones’ particular opinion of Charles I. Dodd
asserted in his biographical sketch of Jones that Jones held Charles I responsible for the Irish
massacre of thousands of English Protestants in the Irish Rebellion of 1641.95 It is possible that
Dodd interpreted the following passage from one of Jones’ letters as evidence. In a letter to Mr.
Scott in March 1652, Jones described the capture of Sir Phelim O’Neale during the Cromwellian
campaign in Ireland:
Sir Phelim O’Neale was taken, and was Isterday tryed at our high court of Justice at
Dublin, and condemned of High Treason, and within a few hours a period will be given
to his high titles as being [among others]…Prince and Cheefe actor in the Horrid
Massacres and Rebellion, by comission of the late Charles Stuart, as himself hath often
confessed, and published in his manifestas; all which was made good by evidence at his
tryall.96
94
Ibid., 74, 141.
Dodd, “Jones, John Maes-y-garnedd,” DWB.
96
Jones to “Mar” Scott, 1 May 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 203-204. This letter is dated
st
“1 March 1652” according to the manuscripts held at the National Library of Wales.
95
30
In this letter, Jones stated that O’Neale claimed, by “confession” and in his manifesto, that the
king had commissioned him to lead the rebellion. There were other rumors that the Earl of
Antrim, another leader, also received King Charles’ support.97 There was a proclamation
supposedly sanctioned by Charles, later determined to be a forgery, inciting the Gaelic Irish to
take up arms against the Protestants prior to the rebellion.98 It is possible that Jones was referring
to this same proclamation in regard to the commission. There are some that argued that at this
trial, O’Neale was given the opportunity to save his life and property if he would confess that the
“forged” commission detailing Charles’ financial and personal support of the rebellion was in
fact “genuine.” Rather than make “good by evidence at his tryall,” as Jones reported, O’Neale
refused to confirm Charles’ support.99
Jones’ enmity against Charles in relation to the massacre was likely developed over the
years he spent in Ireland in the 1650s. As a devout puritan, surrounded by Catholics hostile to
Protestants, serving England on foreign soil in a war-ravaged area, it is understandable that Jones
developed animosity and negative perspectives of the native inhabitants. As an example, in the
same letter written to Scott, Jones suggested that the only way to achieve peace was for the army
to destroy “all fast countreyes in Ireland, and suffer noe mankind to live there, but within
garrisons….”100 Though the massacre of Protestants in 1641 engendered a great deal of fear
amongst the English and the Welsh at the time, and that the memory of the terrible brutality of it
was not something any Protestant would soon forget, there is no evidence that Jones blamed
97
William Lamont, “Great Fear,” London Review of Books, 5, no. 13 (July 21, 1983): 19-
20.
98
Gentles, English Revolution & the Wars in the Three Kingdoms, 54.
John Lawless, A Compendium of the History of Ireland: From the Earliest Period to
the Reign of George I, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Michael Anderson, 1823): 152.
100
Jones to “Mar” Scott, 1 May, 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 206.
99
31
Charles for it at the time of the trial. In fact, neither the indictment nor the witness testimony at
Charles’ trial included any facet of the Irish Rebellion.101
Jones was among those in Parliament who opposed further negotiations with the king, as
evidenced by the fact that he was not excluded during Pride’s Purge. It is likely Jones held
certain opinions about Charles, his religion, and his culpability for the civil wars, but there is no
evidence to tell us exactly what those ideas were. What was certain, according to the charges
against the king, was that Charles had taken an oath to rule according to the “Good and Benefit
of the people,” and had, according to the commissioners of the court, broken that oath. The
witness testimonies at the trial all placed Charles at one battle or another as evidence of his
leadership and participation in those battles, and therefore his responsibility for all that
transpired.102 Jones chose to attend the court sessions of witness testimony and likely considered
that evidence in his determination of Charles’ guilt or innocence. It is also likely, though
unverifiable, that Jones saw in Charles’ fall from power, God’s sign of his unworthiness to rule.
At his trial for treason in 1660, John Jones stated that it was never in his heart to commit
murder, but he did “very freely quit his Majesty, considering what he doth in this case …
especially the judges telling him that it is the Law, and I conceive that the Courts did nothing but
what they to their best understandings, judged right as to Law.”103 According to Jones’ statement
he “quit” his Majesty due to the charges against him and the king’s refusal to defend those
charges. Jones made his decision to execute because it was his duty and was right according to
the law. As Dodd mentioned, Jones did have some knowledge of the law through legal
101
Nalson, A True Copy of the Journal of the High Court of Justice, 63-81.
Ibid., 63-81.
103
Person of Quality, Rebels No Saints (London: Booksellers, 1661), 108.
102
32
training.104 There is nothing in Jones’ statement that implies that he held any malice towards
Charles personally. Though he certainly had preconceived ideas, grievances against Charles
specifically do not appear to be the strongest motivating factor for Jones.105
MILITARY PRESSURE
As mentioned earlier, there were two signatories who claimed Cromwell forced them to
sign: Richard Ingoldsby and George Fleetwood. There is no evidence in Jones’ letters or in his
statements at his trial in 1660 that he was pressured to sign. Though the military did hold
significant control over Parliament after Pride’s Purge in December 1648 and also during the
trial, and Jones was an officer under Cromwell, Jones’ letter to Cromwell in 1652 is compelling
evidence that Jones was not influenced or coerced to sign due to military pressure. In his letter to
Cromwell, discussed in detail in chapter three, Jones clearly placed duty to God above secular
duty to commanding officers. It is possible, however, that Jones was influenced through
Cromwell from a puritan perspective, but that is not the argument put forth by scholars in this
respect.
REPUBLICANISM AND REGICIDE
Due to its anti-monarchial component, republicanism was another potential factor that
could motivate someone to support regicide. Lawrence Stone argued that the gentry sought to
eliminate the monarchy in order to gain power.106 Though it is true that the most vocal
proponents for a governing structure more “republican” in form than the status quo were from
104
Dodd, “Jones, John Maes-y-garnedd,” DWB.
Seyfer, on the other hand, contended that Jones held an “enduring hatred” of Charles
and that it was a factor in his assignment to the High Court of Justice. Seyfer, “Colonel John
Jones, Puritan Regicide from Merioneth,” 34.
106
This is one of Lawrence Stone’s main theses in The Causes of the English Revolution,
1529-1642 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).
105
33
the gentry class (men like James Harrington, Algernon Sidney, and Henry Vane), being a
member of the gentry did not automatically equate with holding republican sentiments.
Conversely, supporting a republican form of government did not necessarily include supporting
the trial and execution of the king. In fact, Harrington did not attend any of the pre-trial
meetings, attended only one day of the trial proceedings, and did not vote to execute nor did he
sign the death warrant. Sidney attended three days of the pre-trial meetings, none of the trial
proceedings, and did not vote to execute nor signed the death warrant. Vane refused to
participate in the trial process altogether.107 Yet all of these men voiced their republican ideas
years after the execution. Though Jones was a member of the gentry as MP for Merionethshire
and Denbigh in the 1640s and 1650s, whether he embraced republican ideas sufficient enough to
compel him to regicide is questionable.
C.H. Firth, a highly respected nineteenth and early twentieth-century historian, did label
Jones a “strong republican” who was “greatly dissatisfied at Cromwell’s assumption of the
protectorate.”108 Firth may have associated Jones’ opposition to the protectorate as synonymous
with the anti-monarchial element of republicanism. Blair Worden noted that as scholars of this
period strove to define its republican elements, most agreed that seventeenth-century
republicanism included “principled hostility to rule by kings.” Since Cromwell’s title of Lord
Protector was thought to be a kingship by another name, opposing the Protectorate could imply
opposition to kingly rule.109 Since there is clear evidence that Jones opposed the Protectorate,
Firth’s label of “republican” could be correct. The question then is whether Jones’ republicanism
107
See Appendix B; spreadsheet on trial participation.
C.H. Firth and Sidney Lee, eds., “Jones, John,” Dictionary of National Biography, vol.
30 (London: Macmillan and Co., 1892): 125-126.
109
Blair Worden, “Liberty of Export: ‘Republicanism’ in England, 1500-1800,” in
European Contexts for English Republicanism, ed. Gaby Mahlberg and Dirk Wiemann
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013): 15.
108
34
compelled him to execute his king. In an effort to offer an answer to that question, the following
is a brief examination of what may be termed “republicanism” during this period.
First of all, most of the best known works advocating one form or another of
republicanism in England were circulated after 1650, so there is no agreed-upon definition for
what republicanism meant to Englishmen before then. Prior to the execution of the king and
before the civil wars began in 1642, the questions revolving around government were generally
about the “character and scope” of the English monarchy, not about completely restructuring
government.110 England’s king-in-parliament system was actually quite “republican” in nature
due to its distribution of responsibilities and privileges across the three estates: King, House of
Lords, and House of Commons.111 Even throughout the civil war period, debates focused upon
limiting the power and privilege of monarchy, not abolishing it. It wasn’t until the second civil
war in 1648, that the possibility of governing without a monarch was seriously propounded. Blair
Worden stated that if any moment before the 1650s reflected republicanism, it would be the
execution of the king.112 Even at this juncture, though, Parliament did not hail the change in
government as the most favored structure; they explained it as unavoidable given Charles’
actions that led to his execution.113
With that in mind, the republicanism that James Harrington, Algernon Sidney, John
Milton, and others advocated in the 1650s and 1660s was a reaction to changes in England’s
governing structure. The abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords in 1649 broke the
110
Worden, “Liberty of Export: ‘Republicanism’ in England, 1500-1800,” 16.
J. G. A. Pocock might disagree with this assessment due to the descending order of
authority. According to Pocock, monarchs only deigned to share power. J. G. A. Pocock,
Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition
(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1975), 354-355.
112
Blair Worden, “Liberty of Export: ‘Republicanism’ in England, 1500-1800,” 22.
113
Ibid., 23.
111
35
mold of how England’s monarchs and elites had governed for hundreds of years. The period of
military rule between 1649 and 1653 was generally accepted as necessary due to the ongoing
conflict with Ireland. After Cromwell succeeded in conquering Ireland in 1652, more
experimentation in governing commenced with the creation of an oligarchic governing body
known as the Nominated Assembly or Barebones Parliament.114 This assembly did not last long,
however, and by December 1653, all power was vested in Cromwell as Lord Protector of the
Protectorate, or English Commonwealth. The debates over republican ideas were directly linked,
then, to this work-in-progress formation of England’s commonwealth.
A commonwealth was defined as “for the common good” as opposed to self-interest, said
Blair Worden, and David Wootten reminded us that République meant commonwealth in
French.115 According to J. G. A. Pocock, the republic was “that community in which each
individual was defined by his activity.”116 The overriding theme is that republican ideas were
generated for the common good of the community and its individual members. Most scholars do
agree that the two main camps of republican ideas at this time were classical republicanism and
Hobbesian republicanism. Classical republicans generally lobbied for a complete separation of
church and state, whereas Hobbesian republicans supported a national church under firm control
of the state.117 Classical republicans opposed monarchy, while Hobbesian republicans considered
monarchical rule as a natural response to the needs of civilization. Ellen Meiksins Wood
114
Barebones is also listed as “Barebone’s” in the records.
Blair Worden, “James Harrington and ‘The Commonwealth of Oceana,’ 1656,” in
Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 1649-1776 (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1994): 90, and David Wootten, Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 16491776 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994): 5.
116
Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 349.
117
Rachel Hammersley, “The Harringtonian Legacy in Britain and France,” in European
Contexts for English Republicanism, ed. Gaby Mahlberg and Dirk Wiemann (Burlington VT:
Ashgate, 2013): 198-199.
115
36
described Hobbes’ position in defense of “absolute sovereignty” as “the voluntary and
unconditional submission of individuals in pursuit of their own good.”118
While these divisions are helpful, not all of the key individuals whose republican ideas
were influential during this period can easily be designated as either classical republicans or
Hobbesian. James Harrington, for example, is labeled by Pocock as a classical republican and by
Paul Rahe as Hobbesian.119 Since scholars agree that Harrington’s ideas were instrumental in
defining English republicanism during this period, a brief review of some of his ideas is
useful.120
In his signature work The Commonwealth of Oceana, published in 1656, Harrington
outlined his proposed constitutional reforms for England’s commonwealth. Harrington argued
“against any return to the ‘traditional’ or ‘balanced’ constitution by showing that it had rested on
foundations which had always been insecure and were now swept away,” stated Pocock.121 This
means that Harrington wanted to dispose of England’s ancient and established constitution. He
advocated sweeping reforms in politics and the economy. Harrington supported a popular
commonwealth, as opposed to an aristocratic commonwealth or oligarchy, and advocated a
limited democracy as a system that “would produce a virtuous whole out of the self-interested
behavior of individual citizens.”122 This popular commonwealth was restricted, of course.
According to Pocock, Harrington believed that “only a democracy of landholders…possessed the
human resources…necessary to distribute political authority in the diversified and balanced ways
118
Ellen Meiksins Wood, “Why it Matters,” London Review of Books 30, no. 18, (25
September, 2008): 3-6, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n18/ellen-meiksins-wood/why-it-matters
(accessed October 4, 2014).
119
For Rahe, see Hammersley, “The Harringtonian Legacy in Britain and France,” 198.
120
Ibid., 198.
121
Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 385.
122
Hammersley, “The Harringtonian Legacy in Britain and France,” 202.
37
that created a self-stabilizing politeia...”123 Harringtonian republicanism was therefore based
upon the sovereignty of those possessing property.
Harrington also clearly favored secular rule over the rule of the saints.124 Harrington
perceived the saints as claiming an authority “as an elite elect” that they “denied to other
citizens.” On the contrary, Harrington envisioned a republic where all citizens with property
were equal under God.125 He considered “Englishman as citizen and the English republic as
standing nearer to God than any oligarchy of self-selected saints.”126
As will be evident in the next chapters on religion and the analysis of Jones’ letters, there
is very little of Harringtonian republican thought that Jones would have embraced. There is no
evidence that Jones supported any sort of popular commonwealth or democracy. He believed in
an oligarchic structure comprised of godly men. Where Harrington wanted religion to make
citizens, not saints, of men, Jones was clearly more focused on the saints as the guiding force in
the commonwealth.127
The other form of republicanism considered influential in the mid seventeenth-century
was Hobbesian republicanism. Since one of its most defining elements was the absolute
sovereignty of the infallible monarch, it is unlikely that Jones would have embraced Hobbes’
philosophy during or after the civil wars and revolution. Also, many of Jones’ contemporaries
considered Hobbes an atheist, and Jones may have concurred, on the grounds that Hobbes
123
Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 387-88.
Ibid., 385.
125
Ibid., 398.
126
Ibid., 385.
127
Worden, “James Harrington and ‘The Commonwealth of Oceana’, 1656,” 85.
124
38
believed sovereigns were all-knowing.128 Men like Jones, on the other hand, believed that only
God was all-knowing, and that all was created, maintained, and destroyed at God’s will.
Through this very cursory review of the two main types of republicanism in this period,
one can see that Jones did not fit neatly into either camp. Jones was a commonwealthman
though, and Firth may have been referring to him as a republican by virtue of his commitment to
the commonwealth. As mentioned earlier, Jones did support a commonwealth ruled by godly,
Calvinist, men.
Some scholars have argued that republicanism and Calvinism were “intrinsically
incompatible.” According to Michael Winship, Blair Worden identified opposition to “Calvinist
orthodoxy” as a “unifying characteristic of seventeenth-century republicanism.”129 In Winship’s
view, the intransigence of radical Calvinism did not blend with republicanism ideals. Still, there
is one way in which Winship’s work points toward the possibility of John Jones’ holding some
form of republican views.
Winship argued in “Algernon Sidney’s Calvinist Republicanism,” that Algernon Sidney
found his republican voice as a result of his disillusionment with Charles II and Parliament’s
handling of the Restoration after 1660, the kidnapping, assassinations, and executions of the
regicides in 1660, and the “judicial murder” of his friend, Henry Vane, in 1662.130 As mentioned
earlier, Sidney chose not to participate in the trial and execution of Charles I, yet in his Court
128
J. P. Sommerville, “Hobbes’ Politics,”
http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/367-092.htm (accessed October 5, 2014). Willis
B. Glover refutes Hobbes’ atheism in “God and Thomas Hobbes,” Church History 29, no. 3
(Sept., 1960), 275, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.csusm.edu/stable/10.2307/3162212 (accessed
October 9. 2014).
129
Michael P. Winship, “Algernon Sidney’s Calvinist Republicanism,” Journal of British
Studies 49 (October, 2010): 753.
130
Ibid., 755.
39
Maxims, written in 1664-65, he strongly advocated king-killing.131 Sidney believed in the 1660s
that a “willingness to kill kings is implicitly a sign of genuine conversion and thus of salvation,”
because God gave man the right and the duty to “overthrow tyrannical governments.”132 But the
element of Sidney’s republicanism that may provide insights into Jones’ republicanism is not
found in Sidney’s support of king-killing, but rather in Sidney’s religiosity.
Sidney considered himself a puritan keenly aware of the “theopolitical struggle of the
‘saints’ against the devil and his minions.” According to Winship, Sidney believed that “divinely
sanctioned republicanism was the form of polity best suited to support [the saints] in those
struggles [against the devil]; and the saints themselves were a republic’s ideal citizens.”133 In
direct opposition to Hobbes’ philosophy of the all-knowing monarch, Sidney asserted that only
“those to whom God has given the true light of his spirit” were suited to guide others, and those
so enlightened, the saints, were not monarchs.134 It would seem from Winship’s interpretation of
Sidney’s works that Sidney revered the regicides for the performance of their duty.
In light of Winship’s argument, it certainly seems possible that Jones was a republican –
a Calvinist republican. However, there is no evidence that Jones’ republicanism was mature
enough in 1648 or 1649 to compel him to regicide. Neither Harrington nor Sidney was
sufficiently induced by their republicanism to commit regicide in 1649, and yet both went on to
strongly advocate one form or another of anti-monarchical republicanism. Harrington tirelessly
promoted constitutional reform in the 1650s and Sidney incited rebellion against Charles II in the
1660s. Jones, on the other hand, spent his years in the 1650s managing to work within the
system that existed. Though Jones opposed the Protectorate, this position, like the evolution of
131
Ibid., 755.
Ibid., 759, 753.
133
Ibid., 755.
134
Ibid., 761.
132
40
Sidney’s passionate rejection of monarchy in the 1660s, was likely the result of years of political
maturation. At the time of Charles’ execution, Jones was a relatively unnoticeable MP from
Wales and a dedicated colonel in the army. There is no evidence that Jones was remarkably
politicized until after the execution.
AMBITION AND PERSONAL BENEFIT
The last question to ponder is whether Jones benefitted personally from Charles’
execution. He was nominated and did serve on the first Council of State after the execution, was
given a commission to assist Ludlow in overseeing the affairs in Ireland, and, as a consequence
of his work in Ireland, acquired land. He also ultimately became Oliver Cromwell’s brother-inlaw. So it can be argued that he did, in fact, benefit personally from the change in power. But, as
Blair Worden described in the Rump Parliament, 1648-1653, Jones was not among those
regicides that benefitted most from the change. Worden included the following men as those
assuming the most power after the execution. Thomas Scot, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Arthur
Heselrige, and Sir Henry Vane were most influential in creating policies after the execution.
Those regicides Worden noted as prominent were Henry Marten, Thomas Chaloner, John
Blakiston, John Carew, Sir John Danvers, Gilbert Millington, Humphrey Edwards, Sir Gregory
Norton, John Venn, Miles Corbet, William Purefoy, Augustine Garland, Lord Grey of Groby,
Henry Ireton and Thomas Harrison.135 Nowhere does Worden mention John Jones. Though Jones
did benefit substantially, he was not among those who seized power after the execution of
Charles I. In fact, there is evidence in Jones’ letters that he preferred that others take the reins of
authority.
135
Blair Worden, The Rump Parliament, 1648-1653 (Cambridge: University Press,
1977), 35-39.
41
RELIGION
Jones was known in Parliament as a puritan. As one of the “leading Puritan gentry in
Wales,” Jones was one of seventy-one commissioners assigned to enforce the Act for the Better
Propagation of the Gospel in Wales in 1649. According to Vavasor Powell, puritan spiritual
leader, most of these commissioners were well known for their godliness.136 Not all
commissioners were from Wales, however. Thomas Wogan, the only other regicide from Wales,
was not assigned this duty. Colonel Thomas Harrison, who was given the task of drafting the
propagation and listed as a commissioner, was English, and was the only other regicide
appointed to the commission.137
Simply being a puritan did not, of course, predetermine that faith would compel a man
towards regicide. However, Jones’ letters, analyzed and discussed in chapter three, provide
evidence that he believed strongly in the absolute power of God and that his convictions drove
him to action.
Having addressed each of the other possible motivating factors, it is likely that there were
elements of a few that influenced Jones on some level, but the strongest thread interwoven
throughout was his religion. His years in London were definitely developmentally important. It
was in London that Jones developed the relationships that brought him into the military and into
Parliament, and it was in London where he found and embraced his puritan faith. It was also in
136
An Act for the Better Propagation of the Gospel in Wales, 1649 (Cardiff: William
Lewis, 1908), preface, 5.
137
For Harrison’s assignment, see C.H. Firth, R.S. Rait, eds. "House of Commons
Journal Volume 6: 17 January 1650," Journal of the House of Commons: volume 6: 1648-1651,
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=25822 (accessed October 19, 2014). For
the list of all commissioners and their responsibilities, see C.H. Firth, R.S. Rait, eds. "February
1650: An Act for the better Propagation and Preaching of the Gospel in Wales, and redress of
some Grievances," Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56383 (accessed March 14, 2014).
42
London where Laud’s oppression of puritanism was most keenly felt. Laud’s persecution of
puritans may have radicalized Jones’ faith. Any grievances Jones held against Charles would
likely have been typical in relation to other parliamentarians. Jones was one of many who
endured Charles’ eleven-year rule from 1629-1640 and two civil wars. If he blamed Charles in
1648 and 1649 for the massacre of Protestants in Ireland in 1641, there is no evidence of it at that
time. And, though scholars have attributed republican ideas as motivational factors, for Jones at
least, any republicanism he embraced was in early stages of development and therefore not
nearly sufficient enough to warrant sending the king to his death. Also, though Jones did benefit
from the change of government, he was not among those who seized power, so there is no
evidence that ambition drove him to sign his name. One could argue that Jones’ increased
position in governmental affairs in Ireland, his marriage to Cromwell’s sister, and his continual
participation in Parliaments in the late 1650s could be construed as evidence of Jones being one
of the elect, a religious concept discussed more in detail in chapter two.
Before presenting the data that best supports the argument that Jones’ religious
convictions were the strongest influencing factor for him, it would be helpful to have an
understanding of religious conflicts in England during this period. Therefore, the next chapter is
devoted to religion in general and puritanism in particular.
43
Chapter 2: Religion and the Puritan Saints
Since religion was a critical component in seventeenth-century English society,
supporting my contention that it was the key, most important influencing factor for John Jones,
requires some background regarding religion in England during this period and the puritanism
Jones embraced. Jones’ commitment to his religious convictions transcended mere personal
faith; he saw his faith as a “calling” to keep his brothers on the path God designed for them.
Jones was, in Michael Walzer terms, a Puritan saint. To better understand religion in England
and what it meant to be a Puritan saint in the mid seventeenth-century, the following information
is presented in two sections. In the first section, I offer a general overview of religion and the
larger religious conflicts in England before Charles’ execution, during the 1630s and 1640s, and
a discussion of Calvinism and puritanism.138 In the next section, I review Michael Walzer’s
work, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics, and demonstrate
how it provides key insights into the religious and political mindset of the Puritan saints in
England in the 1640s and 1650s.
PART ONE: RELIGION
Scholars agree that religious differences were divisive and explosive issues both between
and within the three kingdoms under the English crown in the late 1630s and 1640s. Disputes
over matters of religion ignited passionate rebellions in Scotland and Ireland, and fueled
dissension amongst Englishmen that engorged existing divisions. These divisions were
significant factors in the English civil wars in 1642 and 1648 and are ultimately linked to the
138
General puritanism and puritans are presented in lower case as has become customary
in recent literature. Capitalized “Puritan” is presented in this project to distinguish Walzer’s
Puritan saints from other discussions of puritan saints such as in Murray Tolmie’s The Triumph
of the Saints: The Separate Churches of London, 1616-1640.
44
dissolution of religious conformity in England. Military action began in 1639, in the rebellion
known as the Bishop’s War, when the Scots took arms against Charles because of his attempt to
force upon them a Scottish version of the Book of Common Prayer and the Episcopal structure of
church government. Scottish Kirks were governed by a group of elders using the Presbyterian
structure of government and were rigorously Calvinist in doctrine. Charles’ Scottish Book of
Common Prayer, adapted from the English version, was unpalatable to the Scots and the design
to establish bishops intolerable. The Scots prided themselves on achieving a higher level of
Protestant Reformation than the English and strongly opposed any interference in their religious
practices.139 Then, in 1641, after decades of conflict between the Catholic Irish and English
Protestant settlers, also called Planters, a horrific massacre of Protestants occurred in Ireland and
incited a great rebellion referred to as the Irish Uprising of 1641.The massacres occurred as a
reaction against English discrimination and ill treatment of the native Catholic Irish and were
likely seated in the fear of continued Protestant domination. This uprising fueled fears of a
“popish” insurgency that threatened Protestant sovereignty in England, and was a precursor to
the outbreak of the first civil war in England between Charles I and Parliament beginning in
1642.
Fear of an increase in “popery” was a vital concern to many Englishmen during this
period.140 As an example, “popery” was cited as a key factor for enacting the Solemn League and
Covenant in Parliament in 1643. Reasons given for the need to bind every man by oath to their
commitment to the fight against the king and his adherents were cited as follows in the Journal
of the House of Commons: “there hath been, and now is, in this Kingdom, a Popish and traiterous
139
Gentles, English Revolution & the Wars in the Three Kingdoms, 31-32.
For example, a 1640 petition of the peers to Charles stated that the chief grievance
was “the great increase of popery,” (Gentles, English Revolution & the Wars in the Three
Kingdoms, 76).
140
45
Plot, for the Subversion of the true Protestant Reformed Religion, and Liberty of the Subject;
and, in pursuance thereof, a Popish Army hath been raised, and is now on Foot, in divers Parts of
this Kingdom.” This issue was reiterated again in the Solemn Oath and Covenant itself wherein
every man swore “in the Presence of Almighty God, declare, vow, and covenant, that, in order to
the Security and Preservation of the true Reformed Protestant Religion, and Liberty of the
Subject, I will not consent to the laying down of Arms, so long as the Papists, now in open War
against the Parliament, shall, by Force of Arms, be protected from the Justice thereof…”141
Though is can be assumed that this “Popish” insurgency, plot and army all refer in some way to
the Pope, what it truly meant to seventeenth-century Englishmen is deeper and more complex.
The terms “popish,” “popery,” and “papist” were used most often in the pejorative in the
contemporary records, so defining them conclusively is challenging. Scholars who specialize in
this period do provide some helpful insights. According to Conrad Russell, for example,
“popery” referred to the “false church” and was identified with the Pope. A “papist” was
someone who followed the Pope and his precepts through the Church of Rome.142 For some,
following the Pope in this particular period was akin to following the antichrist.143 None of the
terms “popery,” “popish,” or “papist” referred to Catholicism, however. One could deny the
Pope’s authority and call him corrupt but could not repudiate the validity of Catholicism because
Catholicism was a legitimate part of the “visible Church of Christ since the time of the apostles.”
Denying Catholicism meant denying the continuity of the church and invalidating the
141
Journal of the House of Commons: volume 3: 1643-1644 (1802), pp. 116-118. URL:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=1826&strquery (accessed September 25,
2014).
142
Russell, Causes of the English Civil War, 71-72, 75.
143
Mayfield, Puritans and Regicide, 17, 7.
46
sacraments.144 In fact, the Church of England was, for the first thousand years of its existence, a
Catholic Church. Its roots stretched back to the early Church when Christianity was first
introduced to the British Isles through the Roman occupation. It wasn’t until the sixteenthcentury, as a consequence of the Protestant Reformation and fissures between English monarchs
and the Church of Rome that the Church of England evolved as a Reformed Church. According
to this quote from Bishop John Cosin sometime before 1672, the Church of England was
“Protestant and Reformed according to the principles of the ancient Catholic Church."145
England was a staunchly Protestant nation.
Englishmen in the 1640s feared that any subversion of their Protestantism was a threat to
their personal safety and freedoms. These concerns had historical precedents. Both Protestants
and Catholics had experienced their share of persecutions and restricted liberties in England
throughout the century preceding the civil wars in the 1640s. For example, under Mary I in the
1550s, hundreds of Protestants were burned at the stake and many went into exile.146
Throughout Elizabeth’s long reign from 1558 to 1603, there were fears of Spanish invasions,
assassination attempts, and papal conspiracies that resulted in harsh laws against Catholics in
England. In 1572, news of the thousands of Protestants that were slaughtered at the Saint
Bartholomew’s Massacre in France ignited fierce anti-Catholic sentiments in England. In the
1580s, Elizabeth had at least sixty-four Jesuit priests executed for harboring priests believed to
be conspiring with Spain and Rome to assassinate Elizabeth and crown Mary, Queen of Scots as
144
Russell, Causes of the English Civil War, 71-72.
The date in the record refers to the Bishop’s death. It is not clear when he wrote or
said the information quoted. Rev. Dr. Hassert, “Anglicanism: Protestant or Catholic?” An
Anglican Priest, http://anglicancleric.blogspot.com/2013/01/anglicanism-protestant-orcatholic.html (accessed September 14, 2014).
146
BBC History, “Mary I,”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/mary_i_queen.shtml (accessed September 14,
2014).
145
47
Queen of England.147 For the English Protestants, the massacre of thousands of Protestants in
Ireland in 1641 was still much too vivid a part of their very recent memory. The fears associated
with subversion of religion were therefore very valid. For many, any element of “popery”
threatened their security and faith: faith in their true religion to preserve their immortal souls and
faith in those they entrusted to protect their mortal interests.
Many Englishmen during the first civil war believed the king’s “popish” advisors held
undue influence over him and persuaded him into military action against Parliament. This
“popish” influence began years before the civil wars, however. Charles married a Catholic,
Henrietta Marie of France, three months after his coronation in 1625, and also endorsed
Archbishop Laud’s disciplined approach to religious conformity throughout the three kingdoms
in the 1630s. The Church of England had always preserved the Episcopal structure of church
government, with the exception that England’s monarch rather than the Pope was the ultimate
authority, and retained some of the ceremonies and rituals of the Catholic Church. Laud imposed
mandates and introduced “innovations” that inflamed Englishmen who already believed the
Church of England was too “popish.” Laud exacted harsh punishments upon clergy who did not
conform to his dictates requiring usage of the Book of Common Prayer, he changed the
composition and placement of the communion table, and eliminated the doctrine of
predestination from the Church’s precepts. He supplanted predestination, the belief that salvation
and damnation were predetermined, with the Arminian doctrine of man’s “free will” to achieve
salvation or fall from grace.148 Since the majority of the King’s subjects were Calvinist, and each
147
J.P. Sommerville, “Elizabethan Catholics,”
http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/361/361-18.htm (accessed September 19, 2014).
148
“Archbishop William Laud,” History Learning Site,
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Archbishop-William-Laud.htm (accessed September 21,
48
of these directives and “innovations” were in direct conflict with Calvinist precepts, these
changes in the Church of England created a great deal of conflict and resistance, especially for
those who were more puritan minded.149 Archbishop Laud was a “zealous enforcer of his
beliefs,” and puritans were his most trenchant opponents.150 In an effort to crush puritan
opposition, Laud prohibited the ministry and publication of puritanical beliefs, removed clergy
from their livings, and imprisoned and mutilated some who dared disobey his commands.151
Issues revolving around puritans and puritanism have been heavily researched, but there
is very little consensus in the scholarly community about what either term truly means.
Historians of the English civil war period see puritanism as a reaction to anxieties in society.
Ann Hughes suggested that this reflected fears that society was degenerating.152 Calvinist
puritans, with their devotion to individual action, sought to remedy society’s ills and “root out
sin and promote godliness” while building a community of the elect and ridding the world of
“popery.”153 They believed that “popery” led people astray; it seduced them with its sensuality in
imagery, music, and rituals.154 Lawrence Stone attributed this anxiety to new ways of thinking in
the late sixteenth-century that undermined confidence in traditional concepts. He argued that
2014), and J.P. Sommerville, “The Personal Rule, 1629-40,”
http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/361/361-25.htm (accessed November 24, 2014).
149
The term “innovations” is used extensively in the literature of the period to refer to
changes in religious practices. For more information regarding life in London under Laud, see
for example Sir Walter Besant, London in the Time of the Stuarts (London: Adam & Charles
Black, 1903).
150
Tristam Hunt, “Laudians and Puritans,” The Open University,
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/world-history/laudians-and-puritans
(accessed September 19, 2014).
151
For example, Laud’s “barbaric treatment of Puritan nonconformists like William
Prynne…whose ears were cut off and face branded with hot irons….” (Kelly M. Kapic, Randall
C. Gleason, ed. “Who Were the Puritans,” The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan
Classics [Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004], 21).
152
Hughes, Causes of the English Civil War, 105.
153
Ibid., 106 & 102.
154
Ibid., 105.
49
there was an intellectual movement of skepticism fueled by new perceptions of science and
scientific discoveries that diminished faith in traditional values and structures of authority.155 He
suggested that the seventeenth-century puritan belief in “the superiority of the individual
conscience and biblical interpretation over the dictates of the law” undermined confidence in the
legal system, state government, and the Church thereby unsettling the traditional order.156 Ian
Gentles, Christopher Hill, and Ann Hughes described seventeenth-century English puritanism as
a philosophy of life - choosing to live life as one of the elect and following the scriptures with a
precision befitting one chosen by God.157
Determining exactly who was a puritan is problematic, though; like “popery,” the term
“puritan” was used in a derogatory fashion in the contemporary records. Scholars of the Caroline
and Interregnum periods also rarely prescribe to any one clear definition of it. According to Ann
Hughes, John Morrill argued that puritans were elitists who attacked traditional religious practice
as either idolatrous or impious, and wanted to eliminate festivals and celebrations.158 Michael
Walzer argued that the poorer classes were less likely to be puritans because they did not have
the leisure to practice “puritan discipline, introspection, and self-affirmation.”159 Ann Hughes
suggested instead that puritanism was popular with the middling sort because it taught skills in
discipline that helped them survive hardships and gave them an identity elevated above the
poor.160 For Lawrence Stone, puritans were identified by their “independent judgment based on
155
Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution, 108-109, and Hill, Intellectual Origins
of the English Revolution, 293
156
Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution, 102, 109-110.
157
Gentles, English Revolution & the Wars in the Three Kingdoms,135; Hill, Intellectual
Origins of the English Revolution, 293; and Hughes, Causes of the English Civil War, 102.
158
Hughes, Causes of the English Civil War, 100.
159
Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical
Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), 218.
160
Hughes, Causes of the English Civil War, 101.
50
conscience and bible reading.”161 Conrad Russell defined puritans as “hotter” Protestants who
preferred to be referred to as “the godly.”162 Murray Tolmie described puritans as those
“disgust[ed] with the ceremonies and non-preaching ministry of the Church of England, and with
the authoritarian ecclesiastical hierarchy that sustained… ‘abuses.’”163 Hill also designated
puritans as those radical Protestants who wanted Church reform but did not, at least initially,
want to separate from it.164 He relegated the radical quality of puritanism to the secular realm
rather than the religious, because its most zealous proponents wanted more than church reform,
they wanted to “transform the whole of society.”165 All of these definitions together provide a
rich image of a seventeenth-century puritan.
In order to simplify the definition of puritan and puritanism in this study, one can say
that, generally, English puritans of the 1630s and 1640s were those who advocated a more
exhaustive reformation of the Church of England, toward an unadulterated Calvinism. They
devoted themselves to conducting their lives as members of the elect. Most English puritans
practiced their religion under the umbrella of the Church of England. According to Murray
Tolmie, even the more fervent, or radical puritans, maintained their memberships, attended
services, and received sacraments in the Church of England. Though there were some who
completely severed their connections to the national Church, these separatists were not generally
condoned by puritans.166 Those radical puritans who engaged in conventicles, the illegal activity
161
Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution, 99.
Russell, Causes of the English Civil War, 85.
163
Murray Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints: The Separate Churches of London, 16161640 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 2.
164
Hughes, Causes of the English Civil War, 26.
165
Hill, Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution, 293. Quoting the research of
Professor Frank, and David Underdown, “Puritanism, Revolution and Christopher Hill,” The
History Teacher 22, no. 1 (November 1988): 67.
166
Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints, 31.
162
51
of religious communion in personal residences and informal meeting halls, were in the minority,
and did so in addition to their duties to the Church of England.167
Michael Walzer evaluated radical puritanism in The Revolution of the Saints: A Study of
the Origins of Radical Politics. Walzer, like other scholars, viewed puritanism as a reaction to
anxieties prevalent in society. But Walzer, a sociologist, also maintained that puritanism in
seventeenth-century England was a crucial factor in the emergence of the modern state due to its
impact on society during this period of transition away from feudalism toward capitalism. 168 He
further argued that Calvinism was an ideology, and that radical English Calvinists, or Puritan
saints, were a political force much like Jacobinism or Bolshevism.169
Walzer’s analysis focused on the importance of English Calvinism on the evolution of the
Puritan saint. According to Walzer, Calvin sought relief from the anxieties of life on earth
through obedience. Obedience in Calvinism was to the supreme being, God. With that in mind,
Walzer described Calvinism as a social system driven by obedience to the scriptures, repression
of all things worldly, discipline in all things, and dedication to the common good. Calvinists did
not promote allegiance to any established hierarchy, said Walzer. They rejected the traditional
“chain of being” theory that designated some as superior to others based upon birth and
occupation. In Calvinism all, regardless of wealth, family, or social status, were accountable to
each other equally for the performance of their faith.170 According to Walzer, Calvinism dictated
adherence through personal conscience, and that conscience was clearly directed by God through
167
See Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints: The Separate Churches of London, 16161640, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1977).
168
Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints, 2.
169
Ibid., 19.
170
For Walzer’s discussion on the “chain of being,” see Walzer, The Revolution of the
Saints, 154-160, for the Calvinist “chain of command,” see Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints,
166.
52
scripture.171 Calvinists were to be vigilant in maintaining obedience to God’s Word, not just
individually, but as a collective conscience.172
Though Calvinists depended upon scripture for guidance in the conduct of their lives,
Walzer pointed out that they did not eschew traditional authoritative structures; in fact, they
depended upon them.173 Governments were necessary to keep order through repression, and
order, discipline, and repression were of paramount importance in Calvinism.174 As Walzer
explained, since God willed everything to be just as it was, it was not the duty of man to question
governments or those put in positions of authority, both were legitimate simply because they
existed.175 But, it was the duty of the elect to be vigilant administrators of God’s laws and
monitor how magistrates and rulers exercised their authority. Since God changed governments as
He pleased, it was important that the saints were ever watchful for signs of change.176 If a ruler
lost his ability to elicit obedience from his subjects, then he was a “defeated sovereign…deposed
by God.”177
*
*
*
Religious issues during the Caroline and Interregnum periods, between 1625 and 1659,
were intensely divisive in England and were the cause, at times, of deadly conflicts. The
Bishop’s War in 1638, the Irish Uprising of 1641, the English first and second civil wars in the
1640s and 1650s, and the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland all resulted in bloodshed and all
revolved, to one extent or another, around religion. Fear of “popery,” fear of subjugation, fear of
171
For examples, see Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints, 37, 57, 167.
Ibid., 170, 301.
173
Ibid., 45, 52,
174
Ibid., 42.
175
Ibid., 38, 40-41.
176
Ibid., 38.
177
Quoted as a “Hobbesian conclusion,” and as referenced in the Bible in Jeremiah 38.
Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints, 38.
172
53
damnation: these too all rested in religion, but more specifically, in Protestantism. The Protestant
Reformed Religion in England was English Calvinism. The English Calvinists who objected
most deeply and strenuously to the “popish” dictates in the Church of England, and who turned
instead to the Bible for direction and security and conducted their affairs in a manner befitting
one chosen by God – these were puritans. Those puritans who were compelled to take action to
facilitate change were, according to Walzer, the Puritan saints.
PART TWO: PURITAN SAINTS
There are few works specifically devoted to the topic of England’s puritan saints. In
addition to Michael Walzer’s The Revolution of the Saints, Murray Tolmie offered his
interpretation of the development of the saints in his 1977 monograph The Triumph of the Saints:
The Separate Churches of London, 1616-1640. The evolution of the saints in England can be
traced through the works of Tolmie and Walzer. Tolmie defined puritans as those who were
“known godly” and maintained their worship in the Church of England. This could be considered
the first stage of evolution. Tolmie argued that Laud’s strict policies of religious conformity, his
persecutions of puritans, and his censorship in the 1630s helped to strengthen membership in the
separatist churches.178 The “visible saints” were, according to Tolmie, those puritans who joined
the Independent “gathered” churches around 1641.179 Members of these Independent churches
held strong millenarian beliefs, and preached the imminent Kingdom of Christ on earth. The
Independent churches limited their membership to the “visible” or unquestionably converted,
saints. Since the poorer classes did not have the leisure to absorb themselves in religious
transformation, the Independent churches tended to be filled with the gentry and lesser nobility.
178
179
Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints, 16.
Ibid., 113.
54
Though Tolmie argued that these visible saints were the ones who created a revolution,
lack of membership records makes this assertion difficult to validate. Plus, Tolmie does not
address other factors in the 1640s that were directly linked to the revolution, for example, the
New Model Army. There is extensive evidence that the religious quality of the New Model
Army was tremendous. Combine that religiosity with the political awakening of soldiers in 1647
through the Putney Debates, the petitions to Parliament, and the participation of the soldiery as
agitators, or representatives, on behalf of their units, and the result was a new body of saints.180
One other obstacle to Tolmie’s saints as the revolutionaries was that Tolmie’s Independent
church saints embraced chiliastic movements such as the Fifth Monarchists in the late 1640s
through the 1650s. Though there were certainly some, like Thomas Harrison, who did become
Fifth Monarchy Men, they were in the minority amongst the regicides and leaders during the
Interregnum. Therefore, the Independent saints of the gathered churches, and more importantly
the ideas they promulgated, could be considered the second stage. Some of Walzer’s Puritan
saints were Tolmie’s puritans and Independent saints. They were members of the gentry or lesser
nobility, members of Parliament, itinerant preachers, and officers and soldiers in the army. But,
most importantly, they were radical Christian activists. They were the ones who achieved the
apex of their calling and created a revolution.
EVALUATION OF WALZER’S REVOLUTION OF THE SAINTS
Before presenting Walzer’s argument regarding Puritan saints, an evaluation of his work
by other scholars helps place Walzer’s interpretation amongst the larger debates of seventeenthcentury puritanism. Walzer’s theories were controversial in the 1960s and 1970s, and are still
questioned, though they have not been debunked, in the twenty-first century. Scholars both
180
On the religiosity of the New Model Army, see for example Leo Solt, Saints in Arms:
Puritanism and Democracy in Cromwell’s Army (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959).
55
criticized and applauded Walzer’s The Revolution of the Saints. For example, some disagreed
with his interpretation of puritanism and Calvinism, others pointed out flaws in his historical
accuracy, and some took exception to his use of source material.181 Richard T. Vann projected in
1968 that Walzer’s book would be “one of those most seminal works which stimulate historical
thought.”182 This comment was both a commendation of Walzer’s work and an allusion to the
contentious nature of his arguments.
The elements of Walzer’s work that spurred the most debate in the 1960s were his
interpretation of puritanism and his use of primary sources. For example, Dr. Vann was not
“wholly convinced by the picture of ‘puritan ideology’ that Walzer [drew] from the puritan tracts
and sermons,” because there was no evidence that the attributes were distinctly puritan. English
puritans were most often parishioners of the Church of England, noted Vann, so their writings
would therefore be colored by that experience.183 Vann also objected to Walzer’s method of
evidence selection, claiming he chose only those pieces that provided more “striking or original”
content and ignored other evidence because this method of exclusion bolstered his “interpretation
of Puritanism as a revolutionary ideology.”184 Wallace T. MacCaffrey disagreed with Vann’s
critique of Walzer’s methodology. He commended Walzer for using a “large and varied range of
contemporary material with perception and intelligence.”185
181
For examples see David Little, “Max Weber Revisited: The "Protestant Ethic" and the
Puritan Experience of Order,” The Harvard Theological Review 59, no. 4 (Oct., 1966): 417,
footnote 11, and John F.H. New, “Book Review,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series
24, no. 3 (Jul., 1967): 478-479.
182
Richard T. Vann, Review of The Revolution of the Saints. A Study in the Origins of
Radical Politics, by Michael Walzer, History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968): 113.
183
Ibid., 109-110.
184
Ibid., 108.
185
Wallace T. MacCaffrey, “Review of The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the
Origins of Radical Politics, by Michael Walzer,” Political Science Quarterly 82, no. 1 (March
1967): 95.
56
One of the most interesting analyses of Walzer focused on his interpretation of
Calvinism. In his essay, “Calvinist Resources for Contemporary American Political Life: A
Critique of Michael Walzer’s Revolution of the Saints,” Timothy Beach-Verhey argued that
Walzer’s interpretation of Calvinism was too narrow and negative.186 Walzer’s view “so
emphasized the negative consequences of sin,” said Beach-Verhey, “that natural law became
morally and theologically irrelevant.”187 In other words, Walzer’s view of Calvinism left man
dependent solely on God for guidance and ignored man’s inherent ability to reason according to
natural law. On the contrary, argued Beach-Verhey, Calvin took a much more positive view of
mankind’s inborn ability to reason. Where Walzer argued that, according to Calvin, God held all
power, Beach-Verhey contended that the state had innate duties to “preserve and sanctify.”188
Lastly, Beach-Verhey argued that Walzer’s Calvinist saint was depicted as intolerant and
tyrannical. According to Beach-Verhey, Walzer’s saint was a “politically volatile character”
created from “the arbitrariness of God’s will” and “the notion of…Christian conscience.”189
Beach-Verhey’s critique of Walzer’s interpretation of Calvinism in no way impugns
Walzer’s position, however. Beach-Verhey commented that Walzer’s work helped shape the
“reformed” tradition of Calvinism. One could interpret this to mean that The Revolution of the
186
See Greg Garrett, “Robust Liberalism: A Conversation with Tim Beach-Verhey on H.
Richard Niebuhr,” http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Robust-Liberalism-AConversation-with-Tim-Beach-Verhey-on-H-Richard-Niebuhr-Greg-Garrett-04-19-2012
(accessed September 13, 2014), and Timothy A. Beach-Verhey, “Calvinist Resources for
Contemporary American Political Life: A Critique of Michael Walzer’s Revolution of the
Saints,” Journal Of Religious Ethics 37, no. 3 (September 2009): 476-479.
187
Timothy A. Beach-Verhey, “Calvinist Resources for Contemporary American
Political Life: A Critique of Michael Walzer’s Revolution of the Saints,” Journal Of Religious
Ethics 37, no. 3 (September 2009): 479.
188
Ibid., 484.
189
Ibid., 478.
57
Saints influenced Calvinist thought after 1965, likely to a more conservative position.190 BeachVerhey’s interpretation of Calvinism was, apparently, more moderate then Walzer’s. That is not
surprising given that Walzer studied Calvinism from a very conservative seventeenth-century
perspective based upon contemporary records.
Though other historians have disagreed with Walzer’s analysis of puritanism, scholars of
seventeenth-century puritanism rarely agree about the definition and what it meant to be a
puritan during this period. The earlier discussion in this chapter regarding the definitions reflects
these varied interpretations. In this regard, Walzer provides yet another contribution to the body
of information on this topic. The criticism that did require more research for the purposes of this
study was Vann’s objection to Walzer’s use of source material to characterize English puritans.
A review of Walzer’s bibliographic notes does indicate that he did not analyze all
available sermons considered puritan in origin. The enormous volume of material would have
made such an undertaking overly ambitious. He narrowed his examination to those sermons that
addressed more political themes as opposed to those that focused on theological issues.191 Since
it is customary in a situation where the source material is vast to limit the parameters of
collection based upon the historical question being evaluated, and given that Walzer did provide
explanations about his choice of material, it seems that his method was not unusual for this topic.
He did, in fact, select a large pool of available sermons in an effort to better characterize the
puritans he was evaluating.
With the exception of Beach-Verhey, none of the reviewers critiqued Walzer’s
characterization of the Puritan saint. MacCaffrey did, however, offer an additional perspective.
He claimed the “great mass of gentry” who converted to puritanism “gave it historical
190
191
Ibid., 475.
Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints, 325-326.
58
importance” that might otherwise have been inconsequential if not for the “turn in royal policy”
near the end of the 1620s.192 In other words, Charles’ support of Laud’s designs for religion and
dictates on conformity compelled the mass of otherwise amiable puritans to make the radical
choices of resistance and activism that resulted in revolution.
WALZER’S PURITAN SAINT
The distinction between English puritans and Walzer’s Puritan saints, according to
Walzer, was clearly in their level of activism. Puritans promoted the “collective discipline” of
their brethren with a “tense, mutual watchfulness.”193 Man’s inability to truly comprehend God’s
will engendered anxiety, argued Walzer, and the only way to alleviate the angst was through
conscientious and dedicated study of scripture, through prayer, and through unqualified
obedience.194 In an effort to solidify their commitment to God and thereby provide themselves
with some level of comfort and security, Puritan saints promoted a covenant theology that bound
them to God voluntarily, yet at the same time was not a matter of choice. It was a “calling.” As
Walzer described, “God’s command sought out not only pious acquiescence, but a kind of eager
consent, a response registered…not in the mind or the heart so much as in the conscience and the
will.”195 The difference then between puritans and saints was in their calling, their confidence,
and in their action.
Walzer’s focus on the puritan commitment to the collective conscience of faith,
obedience, and duty, as directed through Calvinism, is a key element in the evolution of the
Puritan saint. The saints, armed with the unquestionable knowledge of man’s moral weakness
192
Wallace T. MacCaffrey, “Review of The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the
Origins of Radical Politics, by Michael Walzer,” Political Science Quarterly 82, no. 1 (March
1967), 96.
193
Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints, 301.
194
Ibid., 168.
195
Ibid., 167.
59
and corruptibility, were “called” upon to actively cultivate virtue and obedience to God not only
amongst their brethren but throughout their world. According to Walzer, those puritans who
were of “unusually strong character,” resolutely rigorous in their own self-discipline and in
promoting the same in others, and “called” to activism in pursuit of their holy cause became
known as the saints.196 Saints were expected to actively transform their communities into a more
godly state: a “holy commonwealth.”197 They were “God’s instrument[s].”198 So, when the saints
marched into their cities and government on a mission to transform them, they pursued their aim
in a fashion reminiscent of roman warriors huddled with shields overhead moving as one large
body. Saints kept themselves in formation by constantly reminding each other of God’s
commands. They kept each other from straying from the path because to do so would not only
harm the individual, but also destabilize the collective and cause the failure of their holy cause.
Walzer defined the saints as revolutionaries who “would not resist the king; but overthrow
him…would not assassinate the king, but put him on trial.”199
One very important difference in Walzer’s interpretation from those of other scholars is
in his depiction of the seventeenth-century Puritan saint as the ideal citizen. He emphasized civic
virtue, duty, and discipline. Walzer argued that English puritans snatched the mantle of political
thought from the prince and bestowed it upon the saints thereby creating a “novel view of
politics as a kind of conscientious and continuous labor.”200
The Puritan saints were, according to Walzer, “militant Christian activist[s].” They
carried with them the self-assurance that their path was divinely ordained and their successes
196
Ibid., 16, 17, and 30.
Ibid., 3.
198
Ibid., 28-29.
199
Ibid., 110.
200
Ibid., 2.
197
60
were the “divine sign” that legitimized and reaffirmed their commitment to their cause.201 The
Puritan saints were soldiers fighting the devil. Their battlefield was the political arena, and their
champion was God and His son, Jesus Christ.202
John Jones was a prime example of Walzer’s Puritan saint. He was first a puritan by
virtue of his “independent judgment based on conscience and bible reading.”203 He was a man
who chose to live life as one of the elect and followed the scriptures with a precision befitting
one chosen by God.204 He promoted the “collective discipline” of his brethren with a “tense,
mutual watchfulness.”205
Jones’ religiosity became infused with activism. Though there are no records to
corroborate exactly when the transformation occurred for Jones, it is possible that participating in
the trial was the catalyst that converted Jones into a Puritan saint. Based upon his letters in the
1650s, Jones was resolutely rigorous in his own self-discipline and in promoting the same in
others. He felt compelled as if “called” into action as a steward directing others toward the
correct path to achievement of their holy cause.206 This cause was, for Jones, first the
maintenance of the commonwealth and then its transformation into a more godly governing
body. Jones was among those who took their puritan ethic beyond the church and their
community and in to their government.207 Jones’ decision to execute Charles I was the result of a
systematic, organized thought process, as was indicative of the Puritan saints according to
Walzer. It also involved a deep and abiding trust in God’s direction as provided through
201
Ibid., 58-59, 109.
Ibid., 64, 104, 110.
203
Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution, 99.
204
Gentles, English Revolution & the Wars in the Three Kingdoms,135, Hill, Intellectual
Origins of the English Revolution, 293, and Hughes, Causes of the English Civil War, 102.
205
Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints, 301
206
Ibid., 16, 17, 30.
207
Ibid., 54.
202
61
scriptures and prayer. Evidence of Jones’ particular commitment to his religious convictions is
found in his private correspondence which will be analyzed in the next chapter.
62
Chapter 3: John Jones
Much of what we know of Colonel John Jones comes from letters he wrote in the years
after the execution of Charles I, in the 1650s, while serving as commissioner of civil affairs in
Ireland. These letters have survived in both published and manuscript form. The manuscripts are
preserved at the National Library of Wales. Many of the letters are available for review online
through a digitized copy of the journal in which they were published in the nineteenth-century.
Published in Liverpool in 1861, the Inedited Letters of Cromwell, Colonel Jones, Bradshaw and
Other Regicides is a collection of letters lent to Joseph Mayer by Reverend Cyrus Morrall for
presentation to the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire in 1860 that were printed in the
Historic Society Journal in 1861.208 The Inedited Letters are a rich collection of letters primarily
to and from John Jones written throughout the 1650s. Other authors and recipients of note
include Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, General Charles Fleetwood, Major-General Thomas
Harrison, Colonel Philip Jones, Mr. Morgan Lloyd, Lieutenant General Edmund Ludlow,
General George Monck, and Sir Hardress Waller. Of the seventy-four letters included in the
journal, fifty-seven were written by Colonel John Jones.
There are a few inaccuracies in the presentation of the collection of letters in the journal.
The title indicates that there should be “Bradshaw” correspondence included, but there are in fact
no letters to or from any Bradshaw, either John Bradshaw the regicide, or any one else with that
name. A senior enquiries assistant at the National Library of Wales confirmed that in the entire
208
Joseph Mayer, “Inedited Letters of Cromwell, Colonel Jones, Bradshaw, and Other
Regicides,” Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, New Series, vol. 1
(Liverpool; Adam Holden, 1861). Joseph Mayer was one of three founders of this Historic
Society and was himself a successful collector of antiquities. He is also remembered as a civic
philanthropist in Bebington, England, where he spent most of his adult life. See The Mayer
Trust, http://www.themayertrust.org.uk/joseph.html (accessed November 4, 2014).
63
collection of ninety-seven letters, there are no letters to or from any Bradshaw.209 This omission
may have been a simple anomaly or may be evidence that something was removed prior to
publication. In addition, there is evidence that Mayer held certain biases that likely influenced his
selection. He noted in his introduction that it was “not my intention to discuss the legality of the
trial and execution of Charles the first, or to offer any remarks respecting the unpatriotic and
treasonous conduct of the king towards the people, and his desire to subvert the religion which
by his coronation oath he had sworn to defend.”210 Mayer also stated he hoped the letters would
convince the reader of “the piety and religious enthusiasm” of the authors.211 Mayer’s overt
opposition to Charles and his intention to present the authors in a particularly religious light
likely influenced his decision as to which letters should be included.
The other, less obvious, misrepresentation in the journal is the error in organizing the
letters chronologically. The dating used was based upon the Gregorian calendar, often referred to
as the new calendar, instead of the Julian calendar, the old calendar. Britain did not adopt the
new calendar until 1752. Since the calendar year under the old calendar designated 25 March as
the first day of the New Year, letters from 1 January through 24 March should have been
organized according to the following year. For example, a letter dated “22 January 1652” to
Colonel Cromwell was written approximately nine months after April 1652 yet it is presented in
the collection four months before April 1652. In other words, if the new calendar had been used
in England at that time, January 1652 would have been January 1653. Also, a letter dated “12th
March 1660” could not have been written by Jones, because 12 March came after 17 October
according to the old calendar, and Jones was executed on 17 October 1660. Personnel at the
209
Martin Robson Riley provided by email a list of all the manuscripts held in the letter
book for John Jones, National Library of Wales, April 4, 2012.
210
Mayer, “Inedited Letters,” 177.
211
Ibid., 177.
64
National Library of Wales confirmed that the last letter was in fact written on 12 March 1659.212
Though Mayer’s organizational method is problematic, the letters themselves are an excellent
source for information about the character and life of Colonel John Jones.
In this chapter, I explore characteristics about Jones through a review of contemporary
accounts, scholarly interpretations, and his personal letters. My objective is to explain what type
of person he was and what was important to him, as revealed through these sources. I find strong
evidence that his puritan faith was the most powerful force influencing his choices. Jones'
dedication to his faith went beyond his personal sphere; he was determined to keep those
entrusted with governing on the Lord's path. His boundless faith, his dedication to duty, and his
commitment to virtuous governing are key characteristics that distinguish Jones as a Puritan
saint, according to Walzer’s definition. Though other scholars have addressed the importance of
puritanism for some of the other regicides, such as Oliver Cromwell, there have been none that
identified a regicide that fits Walzer’s model like Jones does. Rather than religious fanatics, as
they have often been portrayed, some of the regicides, like Jones, could be more aptly
characterized as godly citizens.
JONES’ CHARACTER AS DETERMINED BY OTHERS
Jones’ contemporaries varied in their interpretation of him. Edmund Ludlow, Jones’
superior officer in Ireland and fellow regicide, respected Jones for his “diligence, ability and
fidelity” in the execution of his responsibilities. Jones showed “much tenderness and care of all
such as feared the Lord, and much zeale in making provission for a godly minestrey, and
bringing those to justice who had bin instrumentall in the murthering of the poore Protestants
212
Email from Martin Robson Riley, National Library of Wales, April 5, 2012.
65
there.”213 The “murthering” he referred to was the massacre of Protestants at the onset of the
Irish Uprising of 1641. Ludlow, though historically portrayed as a republican regicide, shared
Jones’ millenarian perspective regarding God’s plan for the commonwealth. It is therefore not
surprising that Ludlow applauded the “zeale” with which Jones executed his responsibilities in
Ireland.
Major-General James Berry also thought highly of Jones. In his letter of 12 January 1655
to John Thurloe, Cromwell’s Secretary of State, he requested that Thurloe, inform “his highnes”
[Oliver Cromwell] that Jones had been “very active and usefull to the carrying on of your worke
in Wales,” and recommended him for further service.214 Berry was one of twelve Major-Generals
who ruled specified regions throughout England and Wales during the period of martial law
known as the Rule of the Major-Generals from 1655-1656. Berry’s region was the largest of the
twelve and included three English counties and all of Wales. Berry was also considered a radical
and associated with Fifth Monarchists such as Vavasor Powell, a puritan spiritual leader, with
whom Jones also corresponded. Surprisingly, in view of his Fifth Monarchist inclinations, Berry
was one of the few Major-Generals who encouraged Cromwell to take the crown in 1653.215
Most Fifth Monarchists opposed secular kingship.
Not all of Jones’ contemporaries thought highly of him, however. Henry Cromwell,
Oliver Cromwell’s son, and a member of the more “moderate” faction of the Barebones
Parliament, reported Jones’ service to the Cromwellian government in Ireland as severely
213
Edmund Ludlow, A Voyce From the Watch Tower, Part 5, 1660-1662, ed. A.B.
Worden, ed., Camden 4th series, vol. 21 (London: Butler and Tanner Ltd.), 248.
214
Thomas Birch, ed., A Collection of State Papers of John Thurloe, Volume 4: Sept.
1655-May 1656 (1742), British History Online, http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=55432&strquery=jones (accessed June 6, 2014).
215
David Plant, “James Berry, d. 1691,” BCW Project, http://bcwproject.org/biography/james-berry (accessed June 6, 2014).
66
lacking in loyalty.216 He commented in 1653 that Jones was very “cuninge and close” in his
dissatisfaction with the government, inferring that Jones was devious and manipulating. Henry
Cromwell also remarked that both Jones and Ludlow “managed business of late with much
peevishness and frowardness endeavoring to render the government as unacceptable as
possibeley they could.”217 Since Henry Cromwell’s chief objective in Ireland in 1653 was to
solidify the support there for the Protectorate, it is not surprising that the dissatisfaction
expressed, either overtly or covertly, by Jones and Ludlow would engender negative perceptions
of them both. There is evidence in the letters that Jones was extremely concerned about Oliver
Cromwell’s wielding so much power. As a consequence of Henry Cromwell’s assessment, Jones
was not reinstated for another term in Ireland at that time.
Henry Cromwell’s opinion of Jones did not, apparently, change over time, but it may not
have been entirely related to the Protectorate. In a letter from Jones to his brother Humphrey,
Jones mentioned land he recommended to Henry Cromwell for purchase in March 1653. Perhaps
something in the interaction or transaction did not go well for Henry Cromwell and he held Jones
responsible.218 Regardless of whether his opinion was personal or professional, Henry Cromwell
opposed Jones’ appointment to posts in Ireland. In March 1655, Henry Cromwell expressed
concern over Fleetwood’s suggestion to bring Jones back to Ireland. He believed Jones would
use his power there toward “selvish ends,” and that he knew of “noe old protestant in Ireland
216
David Plant, “Henry Cromwell, 1628-74,” BCW Project, http://bcwproject.org/biography/henry-cromwell (accessed June 6, 2014).
217
Henry Cromwell to secretary Thurloe, “8 Martii” 1653, in "State Papers, 1654: March
(2 of 5),” A Collection of The State Papers of John Thurloe, volume 2: 1654, ed. Thomas Birch,
British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=55308 (accessed
June 6, 2014).
218
Jones to Humphrey Jones, 24 March 1653, in “Inedited Letters,” 228.
67
[who could be] more dangerous and prejudicial to the publique.”219 Then, in April 1656, he
wrote that it had come to his attention that Jones might become his uncle through marriage to his
aunt, Catherine, and hoped it would encourage “faithfulness to his highness and
governement.”220 It is quite possible that engendering loyalty was a motivating factor in Oliver
Cromwell’s agreement to the marriage, and though it may have influenced Jones for a time, it did
not endure after the Lord Protector’s death.221 Jones did not support Oliver Cromwell’s son,
Richard, when he assumed power.
Scholarly assessments of Jones are, unfortunately, extremely sparse. Mark Noble, an
eighteenth-century biographer and English clergyman, did not think highly of Jones. He
considered him a “soldier of fortune.”222 According to Noble, Jones needed no inducement to
sign the death warrant, because it was “the darling wish of his heart, to destroy the king and
monarchy, and in their stead erect a commonwealth.”223 Noble claimed:
his enemies…affirm, that he executed his office of commissioner with great tyranny,
persecuting all that were of contrary principles, reviving old laws concerning brewing,
punishing innkeepers, and those who frequented public houses, not suffering any one to
enjoy any employment under government, who had ever been in such a place; so that
going into a tavern or a church, were crimes equally dangerous and punishable: his
severity was certainly highly unpopular, and only pardonable from the wretchedness of
his narrow mind....224
219
Henry Cromwell to Secretary Thurloe, 12 March 1655, “State Papers, 1656: March (4
of 8),” A Collection of State Papers of John Thurloe, volume 4: Sept. 1655-May 1656, ed.
Thomas Birch, British History Online, http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=55447 (accessed June 6, 2014).
220
Henry Cromwell to Secretary Thurloe, 2 April 1656, “State Papers, 1656: April (1 of
7), "A Collection of State Papers of John Thurloe, volume 4: Sept 1655 - May 1656, ed. Thomas
Birch, British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=55452
(accessed June 6, 2014).
221
David Plant, “Henry Cromwell, 1628-74,” BCW Project.
222
Noble, Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, vol. 1 (London: G.G. J. &
J. Robinson, 1787), 372.
223
Ibid., 215 footnote.
224
Ibid., 215.
68
These observations, though intended as derogatory, actually illustrate how Jones executed his
duties as commissioner on the basis of his religious faith. Jones’ drive to restrict or eliminate
brewing and punish innkeepers and “those who frequented public houses,” or any mandate
against frequenting taverns was wholly in line with puritan doctrine. The enemies Noble spoke
of in Ireland were likely the Catholics and the non-puritan Protestants, so it is not surprising that
they would disagree with Jones’ execution of his responsibilities. Puritans were shunned for their
rejection of worldly pleasures and celebrations and their rigid, dogmatic approach to religious
practice. Also, as a Puritan saint, Jones believed it his duty to prepare a holy commonwealth, and
as one of the commissioners, he was directed to suppress “Idolatry, Popery, Superstition, and
Profaneness.”225
In Noble’s other biographical study, The Lives of the English Regicides, he denounced all
those who participated on the High Court of Justice. He called them an “impious” lot,
responsible for the “destruction of the legal government” and the “murder” of the king - a
“lasting disgrace and infamy.”226 And though his description of Jones was less vitriolic than in
the Memoirs, it was still steeped in contempt. According to Nobel, Jones was a “weak,
enthusiastic fanatic” who was “overawed by Oliver’s superior genius,” and acted “entirely as
directed by him.”227
Noble’s perspective of the regicides may have been influenced by the time in which he
wrote. His works, Memoirs of the Protectorate and Lives of the English Regicides, were
published in 1787 and 1798 respectively. Noble, an English clergyman, condemned both
225
Quoted from the Journal of the House of Commons in Seyfer, “Colonel John Jones,”
55.
226
Noble, Lives of the English Regicides, vol. 1 (London: John Stockdale, 1798), ix, 372,
and Noble, Lives of the English Regicides, vol. 2 (London: John Stockdale, 1798), 12.
227
Ibid., 372-373.
69
England and France and declared them “ruined by religious fanaticism, [and] by hypocritical
pretences to piety.”228Both England and France experienced intense religious conflicts internally
during their respective revolutions that led, in part, to the deaths of their kings and a complete
restructuring of governmental authority.
It is unfortunate that Noble’s biographical review of Jones was not more objective. Sir
Sidney Lee, editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, considered Noble’s work to be the
product of “an imperfectly educated, vulgar-minded man” adding that his “moral reflections are
puerile.”229 Historians C.H. Firth and Arthur Herbert Dodd, both writing at least one hundred
years after Noble, provide invaluable statistical information about Jones, and an occasional
commentary, in their contributions to the entries for Jones in the Dictionary of National
Biography and the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, respectively. Unfortunately though, Firth and
Dodd provide very little information that tells us more about who Jones was personally.230
Gregory Carl Seyfer offers the most valuable details of Jones’ life in his unpublished
1991 master’s thesis. Seyfer argues that Jones should be counted as one of the “founders of
Welsh Puritanism.” He maintained that Jones’ puritan faith, though introduced through the
Myddeltons in London, blossomed in Wales. Seyfer portrays Jones as an honest, generally
peaceful, dedicated puritan and republican. Jones was as a “survivor,” according to Seyfer,
because he adapted to the constant changes in government in the 1650s. He was “a last enduring
defender of the Good Old Cause.” 231 Seyfer’s discussion on Wales during the second civil war is
228
Ibid., x.
Sidney Lee, ed., The Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 41 (New York,
Macmillan, 1895), 82.
230
For C.H. Firth see Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 30 (New York: Macmillan,
1892), 125-126, and for Arthur Herbert Dodd, see National Library of Wales: Dictionary of
Welsh Biography, http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-JONE-JOH-1597.html (accessed March 14, 2014).
231 Seyfer, “Colonel John Jones, Puritan Regicide from Merioneth,” 82.
229
70
particularly informative, and overall he provides valuable contributions toward understanding
Jones’ life history. Seyfer did not, however, focus much on the trial and execution of the
king. His brief discussion of Jones’ participation mentioned only his attendance at the pre-trial
and formal trial proceedings. In this citation, included shortly after introducing Jones’
participation on the court, Seyfer implies that Jones was bent on judgment of the king as an “evil
doer.” In a letter from Jones to Morgan Lloyd in 1651, as cited by Seyfer, Jones stated, “In a
magistraticall cognizance it is good to be severe that the world may know yt the power is
ordained for the terror to evill doers and yt ye sword is not borne in vayne, but in Xtian
cognizance.”232 Seyfer chose to end the citation too soon, however. Jones wrote “…and yt ye
sword is not borne in vayne, but in Xtian cognizance and gospel administracons, the ruling
power is love.”233 By omitting “the ruling power is love,” Seyfer implies, erroneously, that
Jones believed the sword was “borne” in “Xtian cognizance,” when he was in fact imparting his
belief that Christian governments wield the power of love, not the sword.
Where Seyfer’s conclusions and my own differ are primarily with regard to Jones’
perception of Charles and his reasons for participating in the trial and execution. Seyfer argues
that Jones nurtured an “enduring hatred” of Charles and that it was that enmity which drove him
to participate in regicide.234 According to Seyfer, Jones blamed Charles for “commissioning Sir
Phelim O’Neal and others to instigate the Irish Rebellion of 1641.” As I have made clear thus
232
Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 19 November 1651, quoted in Seyfer, “Colonel John Jones,”
34. There are also several errors in Seyfer’s reconstruction of the events of the trial. He stated
that the trial “began in earnest on 10 January,” was conducted in the Painted Chamber, that
sentencing was on 28 January, and that fifty-eight commissioners signed the warrant. (Seyfer,
“Colonel John Jones,” 35-36). As outlined in chapter one, the formal proceedings against the
king began on 20 January, were held at Westminster, sentencing was on 27 January, and fiftynine commissioners signed the warrant.
233
Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 19 November 1651, in “Inedited Letters,” 194.
234
Seyfer, “Colonel John Jones,” 34.
71
far, I do not find this argument persuasive; Jones’ comments regarding Phelim O’Neal were
written after Jones had spent several years embroiled in the war in Ireland, and any animosity
Jones did feel toward Charles at the time of the trial was typical of the general hostility and
discontent of puritan Independent parliamentarians at that time. Instead, Jones participated in the
trial because he strongly believed it to be his duty to his country. He was one of the elect who
felt compelled to guide his people and government toward a more godly state. To Jones, the
matter of trying the king required men of impeccable Christian faith in order to ensure that God’s
will was understood and implemented; it was therefore his duty to participate.
ANALYSIS OF THE LETTERS
Jones wrote all the letters contained within the Mayer collection during his commissions
in Ireland throughout the 1650s.235 There was a period between 1654 and 1658 when Jones was
not stationed in Ireland. There is reference to him serving in the forces in Wales in 1655, and he
served in Parliament for Merionethshire under the Second Protectorate beginning in 1656.236 The
first years in Ireland were during the Irish Confederate Wars against England and the First
Protectorate. These were tumultuous years between the Irish and the English. The last year,
1659, was shortly before the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.
Much of Jones’ character survives in his writings, albeit from his own perspective. When
reviewing these letters, one should keep in mind how Jones might want himself perceived by the
recipient, and also what common ideologies he and the recipient likely shared. My analysis of
235
All quotations from the letters have been presented using their seventeenth-century
spelling. For easier reading, note that “ye” means “the” and “yt” means “that.”
236
Major General Berry to Secretary Thurloe, 12 January 1655, ed. Thomas Birch, "State
Papers, 1656: January (4 of 9)," A collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, volume 4: Sept
1655 - May 1656, British History Online, http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=55432, and Dodd, “Jones, John Maes-y-garnedd,” DWB.
72
Jones’ letters is broken into two segments. The first segment is dedicated to Jones’ personal
characteristics as illuminated through his own writings. In the second segment, Jones’ letters are
examined for the evidence they provide about his religious convictions.
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
On several occasions, Jones presented himself as a somewhat modest man, referring to
himself as unworthy. After the death of Deputy General Henry Ireton in 1651, he wrote to
Thomas Harrison in 1652 expressing the general “longing expectation of some persons armed
with authority” to replace the Deputy General in Ireland, stating that though he considered
himself privileged to be considered, he could not “take comfort in any Imploymt for which I am
not fittly Qualified.” Jones was not only being modest; he also believed “the rest of my fellow
Comrs are of the same minde…”237 Though Jones did not mention why his fellow officers held
that opinion of him, it could be that the demands of the position necessitated a younger, more
agile man, both mentally and physically, than Jones. In 1653, in a letter to his cousin, Ellis
Hughes, regarding upcoming elections for Parliament, Jones stated that he did not consider
himself “worthy or fitt to serve my countrey is soe criticall a tyme as this…”238 He proclaimed
his modesty again in 1659 in a letter to Lord Fleetwood describing himself as “unfit for soe great
a Trust” in reference to his taking command of General Ludlow’s troops in the General’s
absence.239
Though these references to himself as unfit may come from a concern that he was not the
most qualified for the duty, there may have been other reasons why he preferred to have others
take the reins. Born in either 1597 or 1600, depending upon the source, Jones was in his mid-to
237
Jones to Thomas Harrison, 21 June 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 208.
Jones to Ellis Hughes, 24 May 1653, in “Inedited Letters,” 230.
239
Jones to Lord Fleetwood, 22 October 1659, in “Inedited Letters,” 263. This letter is
dated “22d 8m 1659.”
238
73
late fifties when he wrote those letters, a considerable age at that time. Scholars E. A. Wrigley
and R. S. Schofield estimate life expectancy in the mid seventeenth-century to have been
approximately 40 years of age.240 It is feasible that Jones did not want to take on the extra
burdens of command. In the same letter to Ellis Hughes, Jones remarked that he would welcome
retirement as a “greate mercy (and that wch my heart would willingly embrace), to be att libertie
to live in the most retired and private course of life…”241
His reasons for rejecting a parliamentary run may have had more to do with the
composition of Parliament at that time than his age. The letter to Hughes is dated after the
expulsion of the Rump Parliament in April and before the first sitting of the Barebones
Parliament in July. It is possible that Jones was being considered as a delegate to the Barebones
Parliament. As will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter, the Barebones Parliament
was the governing body most advocated by the saints. It was comprised of men deemed most
spiritually worthy and capable to govern. Jones’ reluctance to include himself as “worthy or fitt”
may have been a true sign of his humility, or it may have been based upon fear that he would
prove unworthy to the task. Jones held extremely high expectations for this godly governing
body. Given his inclination to shepherd others, a quality revealed in his letters, Jones’ “calling”
as a Puritan saint was to keep others on the path, not to take the reins.
Other characteristics that can be gleaned from Jones’ letters are that he, as a commander,
could show compassion for his troops, and, as a landlord, could show compassion for those
struggling during lean times. Several of Jones’ letters discuss the lack of funds to support the
240
For discussion of life expectancy, see E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The
Population History of England 1541-1871: A Reconstruction (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1981) as quoted from “The Fairfax Battalia,”
http://learn.fairfax.org.uk/index.php?title=Life_expectancy_in_the_17th_century (accessed
November 4, 2014).
241
Jones to Ellis Hughes, 24 May 1653, in “Inedited Letters,” 230.
74
troops in either food or payment. In a letter to Thomas Scot, an influential member of the
Council of State, Independent MP, and fellow regicide, in November 1651, Jones inquired as to
whether anything had been decided regarding salaries for him and his men; they were constantly
in arrears.242 He wrote “Here is noe money to be had, and it were a sinne to take it if it were,
while soe many poore sick souldiers are dayly perishing for want of competent sustenance.”243
And, in the same letter to Ellis Hughes noted above, Jones offered to take cattle and lambs as
payment for rents from his tenants in Merionethshire if they could get them to Holyhead, a port
with transportation to Dublin. He understood they couldn’t pay because of the “badnesse of the
Marcatts [markets] for cattle.”244 Though it is not specifically stated, Jones could have used that
cattle to feed the troops or he could have used his connections in commerce acquired through his
years working in London to sell the cattle.
As commissioner, Jones demonstrated business acumen and thoughtful consideration
regarding some of the issues faced by the Irish under his care. In 1654, Jones proposed a remedy
for the financial situation of the widows of Ireland after the end of the Irish Confederate War and
Act of Settlement. The widows were to receive parcels of land, called “baronyes,” as
compensation for their losses. In Jones’ proposal to Oliver Cromwell, lord protector of England’s
commonwealth during this period, he stated that the parcels were quite large “and have some of
the best seats in Ireland in them…,” meaning they had been held by powerful families. He said if
sold they could easily get “double the value sett for the widdowes….” If left as land grants, they
would be of little value to the widows “because their respective proporcons will be soe
242
For Thomas Scot, see Blair Worden, The Rump Parliament, 1648-1653 (Cambridge:
University Press, 1977), and Constance Charlotte Elisa Lennox Russell, “Thomas Scot, the
Regicide,” in Three Generations of Fascinating Women: and Other Sketches from Family
History (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1905), 260-277.
243
Jones to Thomas Scot, 19 November 1651, in “Inedited Letters,” 196.
244
Jones to Ellis Hughes, 24 May 1653, in “Inedited Letters,” 231.
75
inconsiderable as that noe man will deale with them for the same but upon very low tearms.” The
widows were too poor to produce anything from the land themselves. As a consequence, they
would be vulnerable prey to men. Jones proposed that the widows be paid in “ready money” and
that Lord Cromwell assign someone he trusted to sell some of the “baronyes” to reimburse the
coffers.245 Jones concluded his proposal with the understanding that “halfe the lands appointed
for their [the widows’] satisfaccon, and those of the best Seats will be reserved for yor Highnesse
disposal….”246
There are three possible reasons why Jones offered this proposal; each reflects different
aspects of his character. First, he may truly have been concerned for the welfare of the widows.
He knew the financial strain incurred as a consequence of death from his own personal
experience having lost his wife in 1651.247 As he noted, “ready money” would provide
immediate benefit whereas land would not. He knew that women were at the mercy of men
financially and wanted to prevent these widows from further loss.
The other two reasons were related more to the value of the land. Knowing that the
“poore people will be pressing for liberty to sell their Debentures, or contriveing some other way
by private contracts, to make sayle of their Interests when lands are sett out on to them,” Jones
wanted to acquire the lands for the benefit of the commonwealth.248 He did not want this land to
go to those in Ireland who had “raised themselves from nothing to greate estates by the troubles
of the tymes,” and he could not afford to purchase land himself.249 He did claim in his letter of
245
Jones to Oliver Cromwell, 17 April 1654, in “Inedited Letters,” 254.
Ibid., 255.
247 Ibid., 256
248
Ibid., 255.
249
Jones to Oliver Cromwell, 17 April 1654, in “Inedited Letters,” 256, and Jones to
Henry Cromwell, 17 April 1654, in “Inedited Letters,” 256.
246
76
the same day to Henry Cromwell that his only “end in this matter” was to “his Highnes
service.”250
The third reason may have been that he hoped for some remuneration for his proposal.
Though he does not specifically mention how he might benefit, he may have hoped to be the one
Cromwell would entrust with the sale and therefore receive some sort of compensation as a
consequence. I found no direct evidence, though, that Jones benefitted personally from his
proposal. In a letter to his brother, Humphrey, Jones did reference lands he held “as Tenant of the
State,” but he held those as of March 1653, so they were not acquired as a consequence of his
proposal to Oliver Cromwell, which was sent in April 1654.251 Jones’ motivation for his proposal
may have been a combination of compassion and a result of the sound business judgment he
acquired during his apprenticeship in London. Even had Jones believed that he could profit from
the transaction, he would likely have seen it, according to Walzer's analysis, as a sign of
God's election.
Another example of Jones’ political sense that also provides a glimpse of the more
peaceful side of this military man can be found in a letter to Dr. William Stane, auditor general
of the New Model Army, written in November 1651. Jones recommended a peaceful transition to
the commonwealth’s governing in Ireland after the Irish Confederate Wars when he stated, “let
their be patience, used until burthens may be taken of, and the people enjoy some Rest, and
opulency under ye new chaunge, let the old weeds that lye dead on the ground, have time to Rott,
let the Comonwealth have some time to take roote in the interests of men, before it be
250
Jones to Oliver Cromwell, 17 April 1654, in “Inedited Letters,” 256.
These lands were “ye Townshipps and lands of Newcastle, Coleman’s Towne,
Ashgoe, Rathcredan, Greenoge Loughtowne, Ballinakelly, and some other small parcells…” in
the counties of Dublin and Kildare, Ireland. Jones to Humphrey Jones, 24 March, 1653, in
“Inedited Letters,” 228.
251
77
transplanted or grafted on another stocke.”252 By the time this letter was written in November
1651, Ireland and England had been at war for a decade, and though the war was not yet over,
most of Ireland had surrendered. Jones showed empathy for the war-weary people of Ireland in
his letter to Dr. Stane; he also exhibited a keen political sense. He had faith in the commonwealth
and believed that the best way to persuade the Irish of its advantages was to let them experience
the benefits, and to do that they would first need to heal. Jones was suggesting to Dr. Stane that
integration should not be forced.
Showing compassion for the general population in Ireland did not mean that he had the
same for the leaders of the Irish rebellion. In a letter to Major Scott in March 1652, about a year
and a half after the letter to Dr. Stane, Jones informed Major Scott that “There is noe way to
reduce this land to a p’fect and lasting peace, but by removing all heads of Septs and Preists and
men of knowledge in armes, or otherwise repute, out of this land, and breaking all kinds of
interest among them, and by laying waste all fast countreyes in Ireland, and suffer noe mankind
to live there, but within garrisons….”253 When Jones recommended “laying waste all fast
countreyes,” he was referring to the Catholic provinces in Ireland. In this section, Jones was
advising Scott that the only way to achieve peace in Ireland was to remove all papist leaders and
all armed insurrectionists, and then devastate and occupy the area. This letter was the harshest
example of Jones’ perception of the Irish Catholics found in the letters in the Mayer collection.
Jones strongly opposed “popery” and was a devout puritan working as a magistrate in a
predominantly Catholic country that had been the site of a horrific massacre of Protestants. After
spending approximately two years in Ireland as a representative of the foreign occupying power,
252
Jones to William Stane, 19 November 1651, in “Inedited Letters,” 191.
Jones to Major Scot, 1 May 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 203. This letter is dated “1st
March 1652” according to the archives held at the National Library of Wales.
253
78
it is not surprising Jones recommended brutal tactics against his enemies. This letter is also
evidence that supports the position argued in chapter one, that Jones held the Irish Catholics
responsible for the deaths of the Protestants more than he blamed King Charles.254
Beyond those aspects of his life that revolved around his military and civic duty to the
commonwealth, Jones was also devoted to his family. He wrote to family members, including his
brother Humphrey and his cousin Ellis, and mentioned his wife and son in his correspondence
several times. John Jones and Margaret were married some time in the 1630s. She bore him eight
children, but Jones’ namesake, John, was the only child that survived. Jones wrote about missing
his son on several occasions in his letters to Morgan Lloyd. Apparently, Jones’ son was with
Lloyd for a period of time. In August 1652, Jones thanked Lloyd for his “great love and kindness
to my boy.”255 He also held Margaret in very high personal esteem calling her “a precious godly
woeman, and a faithful yokefellow.”256 After Margaret’s death in Ireland in 1651 from a longterm illness, he spoke of her warmly describing her as “endued with soe much grace, meekness,
humility, love, comeliness, and wisdom.”257
Jones mentioned his second wife, Catherine, Cromwell’s sister, a few times in his letters
in 1659. She, like his first wife, suffered from a long-term illness. He wrote twice to Lord
Fleetwood first indicating that Catherine “continues ill of her late distempers,” and then later that
254
Also see the section regarding the trial of Sir Phelim O’Neall in Jones to “Mar” Scott,
1 May 1652, actually 1st March according to the manuscripts held at the National Library of
Wales, in “Inedited Letters,” 203-204.
255
For examples of Jones’ references regarding missing his son, see Jones to Mr. Morgan
Lloyd, 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 210; Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 23 August 1652, in “Inedited
Letters,” 213; and Jones to Unknown, likely Lloyd, 15 September 1652, in “Inedited Letters,”
215.
256
Jones to Thomas Scott, 19 November 1651, in “Inedited Letters,” 196.
257
Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 23 August 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 213.
st
79
she had recovered. Apparently, she had been ill for three years.258 There is no other mention in
his letters of Catherine, so it is unclear what his feelings were for her. They married in 1656 and
Jones was executed in 1660, so they did not have much time together, and had no children. He
did mention in a letter to Morgan Lloyd in 1652 that if he were to find another wife, he hoped
she would “love my boy as her own,” and accept him as the “Elder brother” to any children.259
These are all signs of Jones’ affection for his family.
Jones also held Wales and his native Merionethshire close to his heart and was deeply
concerned for its inhabitants’ spiritual wellbeing. He referred to his countrymen as a “tender
plant” in need of nourishment.260 In a letter to Morgan Lloyd dated “9d 8m 1651,” he enquired as
to why there were no spiritual ministers reaching out to the people of his homeland. He wrote,
“What becomes of poore Merionethshire, is that countrey denied the tender of gospel mercies? Is
there no prophet, noe messenger of Xt [Christ] yt will make Duffryn Ardidwey in his way?”
Duffryn Ardidwey was a village in Merionethshire. He rebuked Lloyd and Vavasor Powell for
neglecting his countrymen. It was their duty to “encounter wth sinn and the power of the prince
of the ayre [Satan].”261
For Jones, as a dedicated puritan, spiritual health for all was of particular importance. In
a letter dated “15th September 1653,” presumably to Morgan Lloyd, Jones expressed a level of
258
This first letter referenced is dated “22d, 8m, 1659.” Jones to Lord Fleetwood, 22
October 1659, in “Inedited Letters,” 264, and Jones to Lord Fleetwood, 4 November 1659, in
“Inedited Letters,” 270.
259
Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 23 August 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 213.
260
Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 19 November 1651, in “Inedited Letters,” 194.
261
There are only a few letters in the Mayer collection dated this way. Most of them were
from Thomas Harrison. There is evidence that Fifth Monarchist rejected the Roman names for
the months and used this number system instead. This is the only letter to Lloyd in the Mayer
collection that Jones dated this way. Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 9 October 1651, in “Inedited
Letters,” 185.
80
religious tolerance that is worth noting.262 Since Lloyd was a puritan spiritual leader, it is
possible that Jones was expressing ideas he knew would resonate with Lloyd, but there is also no
evidence that Jones did not embrace these beliefs himself. In response to a story about a man
who worried about the effectiveness of the baptism of his child because he doubted the faith of
those performing the baptism, Jones wrote, “Lett every man doe as he is persuaded in his owne
heart, but let noe man despise his brother that hath not attained his light, or withdraw his
communion, because he submits not his judgmt to him….” Jones continued to expound on the
importance of communion when he stated:
the communion and fellowship of saints in the ordinances of Xt [Christ] is one of the
most principall parts of the S’ts privilidges and enjoyment in the fflesh, and the greatest
Tirany that can be exercised upon any member of Xt is to debar him from those
Privilidges and enjoymts upon acct of being different in judgmt or upon any account for
which our heavenly father will not keepe him out of heaven….263
Jones did not believe the benefits of baptism were dependent upon the faith of those performing
the baptism. His statement that it was tyrannical to bar “any member of Xt [Christ]” from
communion based upon a difference in belief, is evidence of his puritan faith but also shows a
262
This letter has no recipient listed. In the “Inedited Letters,” it was suggested that the
letter was written to Morgan Lloyd. There is evidence refuting this assumption and supporting it.
Jones began and ended most, but not all, of his other letters to Lloyd with salutations such as
“Dear Brother in Lord Jesus,” of “Most Deare and beloved in ye Lord,” and he concluded with
“Yours in Lord Jesus” and “Your assured friend in Christ.” This letter begins simply “Dear
friend,” and ends “Yours most affecconably.” Evidence that supports the recipient being Lloyd
includes the passage in Welsh (Lloyd was Welsh) and the reference Jones makes to his son, also
referenced in other letters to Lloyd. See Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 15 September 1653, in “Inedited
Letters,” 201, and Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 23 August 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 213.
263
Jones to Unknown, 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 216. Dated 1653 on the manuscripts
held at the National Library of Wales.
81
level of compassion for this man who was so deeply concerned for his son out of fear that those
baptizing him weren’t of sufficient faith.
Since Jones’ puritanism was influenced in part by those with whom he associated most
closely, as mentioned in chapter two, it is possible that Morgan Lloyd was also quite influential.
Jones’ first wife certainly held Lloyd in high esteem. She rejoiced when his letters arrived and
had them read aloud many times, and Jones entrusted Lloyd with the care of his son.264 Jones
corresponded often with Lloyd. Of the seventy-three letters in the Mayer collection, six were
written to Lloyd. Of the thirty-five letters of the original manuscripts held at the National Library
of Wales, not published in the Mayer collection, three were to Lloyd.265 Of these surviving
letters, Jones wrote more to Lloyd than to any other person.
Lloyd was a Welsh poet and itinerant preacher who served under Parliament in both the
first and second civil wars. He was “deeply influenced” by the precepts of the Fifth Monarchy
Men and is known to have labored for years to prepare his Welsh countrymen for the second
coming of Christ on Earth.266 Fifth Monarchists believed that the fifth kingdom (after Babylon,
Assyria, Greece and Rome) was the kingdom of Christ. Though many millenarians believed this
as well, the difference for the Fifth Monarchists was that they believed in the temporal rule of
Christ and the saints rather than the spiritual.267 In 1650, Lloyd, Jones, and Colonel Thomas
Harrison, a leader in the Fifth Monarchy movement, were among those designated by Parliament
264
Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 9 October 1651, in “Inedited Letters,” 183. This letter is dated
“9d 8m 1651.”
265
Martin Robson Riley provided a list of all the manuscripts held in the letter book for
John Jones, National Library of Wales, April 4, 2012.
266
National Library of Wales, “Morgan Lloyd, A dialogue between a child and a old
man,” http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=morganllwydnlwms11431b (accessed November 5,
2014).
267
For more on Fifth Monarchy Men, see Bernard Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men
(London: Faber and Faber, 1972).
82
to participate in the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales; Jones and Harrison were
commissioners, and Lloyd was an “approver” of ministers to replace those removed from their
parishes.268 It is in these letters to Lloyd, and to those like Thomas Harrison who held similar
beliefs, that Jones so freely wrote of the saints.
Based upon this analysis of Jones’ letters, one can conclude several aspects of Jones’
character. He was a man of duty. His particular devotion to duty is one of the characteristics that
set him apart as a Puritan saint. By the 1650s, Jones had no desire to take the helm of power.
This may have been due to his humble nature, or his advanced age, or because he was most
comfortable shepherding others toward the righteous path. Jones could exhibit compassion for
his troops, for those in need during lean times, and for women in need of an advocate. He had
sound business and political sense. He did not blame the innocent for the rebellion and resulting
chaos, destruction, and death in Ireland. Jones held the “papist” leaders and insurrectionists
responsible. Jones was warmly connected to his family and friends, and loved his homeland,
Merionethshire. Jones embraced his puritan faith with a commitment that he did not hesitate to
spread throughout every aspect of his life and to all he knew. He was an activist for change
towards a more godly state.
MORAL ORDER AND COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE
Since I argue in this thesis that religion held greater influence over Jones’ decisions than
did other motivating factors, I focus in this section on analyzing Jones’ letters to see what they
tell us of Jones’ religious convictions – in particular, his puritanism. Though many letters written
at this time were peppered with religious allegory and scriptural references, there is a pattern in
268
C.H. Firth, R.S. Rait, eds., "February 1650: An Act for the better Propagation and
Preaching of the Gospel in Wales, and redress of some Grievances," Acts and Ordinances of the
Interregnum, 1642-1660, British History Online, http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56383 (accessed March 14, 2014).
83
Jones’ letters that belies the assumption that his religious references were all superficial,
courteous, or simply commonplace. True, letters he wrote to Christians of like convictions
received many more religious references than his letters to others such as Major Sallway or his
cousin, Theophilus Jones. Letters to Morgan Lloyd and Thomas Harrison are excellent examples
of this tendency. But the religious references included in letters written to others in positions of
power were very often designed specifically to remind the recipient of the truly dire
consequences of misuse of power. Jones believed very deeply in the divine mandate of their
cause to create a more godly state. He fully embraced his duty as a Puritan saint to be vigilant in
keeping his brothers mindful of the responsibilities and the temptations of power lest God punish
them and bestow His gifts upon their enemies. While the following letters provide examples of
such warnings, they are also evidence of Jones’ rejection of societal hierarchy. Each of the
recipients was of superior military rank. Jones’ conviction that God held absolute,
unquestionable, power is also clearly evident.
Jones warned his fellow officers often about the power of God to discard those who
disobeyed his commands. In one of the earliest letters in the Mayer collection, Jones wrote to
Adjutant General William Allen, a man Jones described as having a “Xtian [Christian] temper,”
meaning of a particular Christian mindset. According to Cromwell, Allen was “a most authentic,
earnest man … a strenuous Anabaptist … a rugged true-hearted, not easily governed man; given
to Fifth Monarchy and other notions though with a strong head to control them.”269 Since, as
Adjutant General, Allen outranked Jones in terms of military status, this letter is one of several
examples of how Jones ranked religious concerns over military hierarchy. Jones warned, “our
Father, who hath said that he is noe respecter of Persons, but pulleth downe ye proud from their
269
Quote from Carlyle’s Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, as cited in H. Wheeler
Robinson, "A Baptist Soldier - William Allen," Baptist Quarterly 3.5 (January 1927): 237-240.
84
seates, and exalteth the humble and meeke, weh he hath not onely made good in or dayes,
whereof we are witnesses, but he hath raised poor sinfull-Creatures, above their spheares in the
Affairs of the World….270 The belief that God removed the prideful from positions of power was
a common understanding during this period. Jones used it to remind Allen of that fact, but also
wanted to impress upon him that they were living in a time of great transition. God’s will was
visible. He had chosen “poore sinfull-Creatures” and lifted them beyond their traditional places
in society to instigate change. Jones believed that they, the Puritan saints, were God’s
instruments. This belief - that what was written in scripture was coming to pass on earth - is a
part of the millenarian belief in the second coming of Christ. Since Fifth Monarchists saw
themselves as Christ’s soldiers preparing the way for the second coming, and Allen was
embraced some Fifth Monarchy “notions,” Jones’ warning was likely understood.
In this same letter, Jones reminded Allen of his duty to God to lead his men responsibly.
Jones cautioned:
The Lord hath given you a talent, whereof you are to give an accompt. Examine well
whether you are as frequent in speaking a word of exhortacion in publiqe for the helpe of
simple ignorant soldiers as formerly, and if not, see that you have a good warrant for it.
We must be alwayes listning behinde us, for that word wch is promised in Esaiah 30, 21
saying ‘this is the way, walke in it.’271
It is likely Jones was referring to some incident that came to his attention through the course of
military action against the city of Limerick in Ireland the summer before. Allen was listed among
the officers engaged in that particular action in An Answer of the Commissioners of the English
Army to the particular Exceptions of the Commissioners for the City of Limerick, against the
270
271
Jones to General Allen, 3 September 1651, in “Inedited Letters,” 179.
Jones to General Allen, 3 September 1651, in “Inedited Letters,” 180.
85
Conditions tendred upon the Treaty in June and July, One thousand six hundred fifty one.272 This
passage from Isaiah 30:21, states “And thine eares shall heare a word behinde thee, saying; This
is the way, walke ye in it, when ye turne to the right hand, and when ye turne to the left.”273 By
choosing this particular verse, Jones did not rebuke Allen too harshly because the chapter
actually begins with a much more foreboding admonition. Chapter 30:1 states “Woe to the
rebellious children, sayth the Lord, that take counsell, but not of mee…” By selecting this verse,
Jones was clearly warning Allen to be obedient to God’s commands in all things.
One of the best examples in Jones’ letters of the lengths to which he would go to do his
part in reaffirming the collective obedience to God’s commands is found in his letter to Oliver
Cromwell written approximately eleven months before Cromwell became Lord Protector of
England.274 In January 1652, Jones wrote to Cromwell and quite openly voiced his concern that
power, taken for granted, would lead Cromwell, and their common cause, down a path of
destruction. Cromwell, a fellow puritan, was commander-in-chief of the entire parliamentary
army at this time. Through the next several months, Cromwell’s influence over the governing of
the three kingdoms increased substantially, culminating in December 1653 when he became
Lord Protector of England.
272
“Diary 2: Diary of the Operations of Parliamentary Forces,” Proceedings of the forces
in Ireland under Sir Hardress Waller and Lord-Deputy Ireton by Parliamentary army officers
1650-1651 (University College Cork): 244, http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E650001001/text002.html (accessed October 26, 2014).
273
“Isaiah Chapter 30 (1611 Bible),” The Official King James Bible Online,
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611-Bible/book.php?book=Isaiah&chapter=30&verse=21
(accessed October 26, 2014).
274
Since the New Year began on 25 March, the period between Jones’ letter and
Cromwell’s assumption of the title Lord Protector was approximately 11 months. “Oliver
Cromwell, 1599-1658,” BCW Project, http://bcw-project.org/biography/oliver-cromwell
(accessed June 6, 2014).
86
In the excerpt below from the 1652 letter, Jones urged Cromwell to be ever mindful of
the origin and benefactor of power, an example of Jones’ belief in the absolute power of God.
Truly Sr I have had many thoughts of that sinne of forgetting the Lord, and what he had
done for us: how dangerous it is producing naturally the sinnes of Ingratitude and Pride,
which the Lord fearfully punisheth. The Prosperous state is the slippery and dangerous
state of a Christian, because then the Poore Creature is apt to have his affextions fixed
upon outward enjoymts and to waxe fatt, lightly esteeming in the Roote of his Salvations,
and forgetting God that formed him…wee advanced by free grace, and not by any thing
in ourselfes. That the higher we advanced in the world, the more dangerous is the Pinacle
wee stand upon, and this should teach us not to be high minded butt feare.275
Jones warned Cromwell not to forget that God bestowed power upon him and the saints at His
will; it was not something Cromwell, or anyone else, accomplished through personal
achievement. Jones considered forgetting God’s absolute power to be as much a sin as
ingratitude and pride. God granted salvation, or “free grace,” to his elect, but also promised to
discard anyone who broke His commands.276 Also, as discussed in relation to Walzer’s Puritan
saints and their commitment to the collective conscience of all believers, one man’s fall from the
“Pinacle” could lead to the downfall of all. Jones’ focus in this letter on the temptations of power
and prosperity and man’s feeble ability as the “Poore Creature” to reject it, are evidence that
Jones saw man as inherently wicked and, on his own, weak. According to Walzer’s interpretation
of Calvinism, man required collective repression to garner the strength and resolve to be
275
Jones to Oliver Cromwell, 22 January 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 200-201. Marked in
error in the “Inedited Letters” as “1852.”
276
This is one of the several passages Jones recommended that Cromwell consult. Moses
tells the Israelites “Your eyes have seene what the Lord did because of Baal Peor: for all the men
that followed Baal Peor, the Lord thy God hath destroyed them from among you.” Moses was
reminding the Israelites that God destroyed all those who followed a false god. “Deuteronomy
Chapter 4 (1611 Bible),” The Official King James Bible Online
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611Bible/book.php?book=Deuteronomy&chapter=4&verse=3 (accessed October 28, 2014).
87
obedient to God’s commands, and Puritan saints could only succeed in their mission for God if
they were obedient.
Jones was very concerned that Cromwell had or would stray from the path God designed
for the saints, so he appealed to Cromwell’s puritan faith. He humbly requested that Cromwell
consult several verses of scripture, to “helpe and quicken [his] speret to the Dutyes before
mentioned,” meaning his duty to be humble, grateful, and mindful. These verses were:
Deuteronomy 4: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Deuteronomy 6:3-14; Corinthians 2:2, 4; and 15-23; Isaiah
17:10, 11; and Numbers 25. This is the only letter in the Mayer collection in which Jones sites a
string of so many specific verses of scripture. Though it is common in Jones’ letters, and in other
letters written from Protestants during this period, to reference biblical texts, this string of
recommended scriptures provided to a man as powerful as Cromwell is testament to the level of
Jones’ concern that Cromwell would fall from the path Jones believed God designed. Jones, true
to his duty as steward to the cause of the saints, was committed to doing all he could to keep
Cromwell on course. The string of scriptural references is also evidence of the power Jones
placed in scripture to direct men toward the correct path. He did not encourage Cromwell to seek
advice from a pastor, nor to look within himself for guidance. He directed him to scripture.
The scriptural verses reiterated the themes Jones focused on in his letter. For example, by
recommending Deuteronomy 4:3 instead of Deuteronomy 5, Jones was honing his focus
specifically on the first of the Ten Commandments, “thou shalt have no other gods before
me.”277 In other words, nothing that belonged to God, including all forms of adoration, could be
277
“Ten Commandments,” http://www.bibletruths.net/archives/btar187.htm (accessed
October 28, 2014).
88
invested anywhere else.278 In Deuteronomy 4:3, Moses reminded the Israelites that God
destroyed all those who followed a false god.279 Following a false god included worshipping at
the altar of power, prestige, wealth, etc. Through Deuteronomy 6:3-14, Jones instructed
Cromwell not to forget God; there was one god only, one must fear and revere him, and serve no
other god. Moses commanded: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with
all thy soule, and with all thy might…beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee
forth…feare the Lord thy God, and serve him, & shalt sweare by his Name. Yee shall not goe
after other gods….”280 Jones wanted to rouse the fear of God in Cromwell.
Jones made particular reference to this next verse as a prime example of the
“haynousness of the sinne of Ingratitude Towards God.”281 Isaiah condemned the people of
Israel,
Because thou has forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not beene mindfull of the
rocke of thy strength: therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with
strange slips. In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou
make thy seeds to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heape in the day of griefe, and of
desperate sorrow.282
278
“Exposition of Moral Law,” John Calvin: Institutes of Christian Religion,
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/calvin/bk2ch08.html (accessed October 28, 2014).
279
“Deuteronomy Chapter 4 (1611 Bible),” The Official King James Bible Online.
280
“Deuteronomy Chapter 6 (1611 Bible), The Official King James Bible Online,
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611Bible/book.php?book=Deuteronomy&chapter=6&verse=3 (accessed October 26, 2014).
281
Jones to Oliver Cromwell, 22 January 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 201.
282
“Isaiah Chapter 17 (1611 Bible),” The Official King James Bible Online,
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611-Bible/book.php?book=Isaiah&chapter=17&verse=10
(accessed October 26, 2014).
89
The consequences for forgetting “the God of thy salvation” was that their labor would produce
only grief and sorrow.283 Jones feared that if Cromwell did not remain humble, grateful, and true
to his faith, the labor of the saints would produce only suffering.
By selecting Deuteronomy 4:5, Jones was reminding Cromwell that England was God’s
chosen nation, and was therefore especially bound to be obedient to God’s commands. Moses
said all nations would “heare all these statutes” and think “Surely this great nation is a wise and
understanding people.”284 English puritans especially promulgated this assertion, that the English
were the chosen people. Some scholars attribute the rise in nationalism during his period to the
English puritan movement.285
This particular letter to Cromwell has several components that support my argument that
Jones fits Walzer’s typology of a Puritan saint. Like the letter to Allen, Jones’ determination to
influence Cromwell’s choices demonstrates that Jones believed the norms of military hierarchy
were less important than the duty of the Puritan saints to keep their brothers on the Lord’s path.
As mentioned, Allen was an adjutant general and Cromwell was a colonel and commander-inchief at this time. Shortly thereafter, Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, a title never
before or since held by anyone. Though Cromwell’s supporters encouraged him to take the
crown, Cromwell accepted the title of Lord Protector of the commonwealth instead. This
designation was effectively a kingship, however, complete with hereditary accommodations in
the event of his death. With that in mind, Jones’ bold effort to influence Cromwell could be seen
283
Interpretations of “pleasant plants” and “strange slips” range from flowery plants on
foreign soil to allegorical references to foreign and idolatrous worship. For example, see
“Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible,” under “Isaiah 17:10,”
http://bibleapps.com/commentaries/isaiah/17-10.htm (accessed October 28, 2014).
284
“Deuteronomy Chapter 4 (1611 Bible),” The Official King James Bible Online,
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611Bible/book.php?book=Deuteronomy&chapter=4&verse=5 (accessed October 26, 2014).
285
Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution, 99.
90
as extremely risky. In actuality, it was consistent with what a Puritan saint, like Jones, would
have done in support of a godly commonwealth.
Jones’ treatment of Cromwell and the manner through which he attempted to
communicate his concerns and recommendations lend further proof to the premise that religious
concerns were the most important influencing factor for Jones. Mark Noble maintained that
Jones signed the death warrant because he was “overawed by Oliver’s superior genius,” yet there
is no evidence in this letter, written approximately three years after the execution, that Jones
considered Cromwell anything more than a man chosen by God to work in great capacity on His
behalf.286 In fact, the content and spirit of this letter exemplifies Jones’ belief in the weakness
and fallibility of all men, including Cromwell. Also, by relying on scripture to hammer his
message through the repetition of the same theme repeatedly, Jones provided evidence of his
own thought process and procedure for finding the right path, a procedure he most certainly used
himself in deciding whether to sign the death warrant. All the answers were in scripture. Lastly,
Jones’ constant reaffirmation of God’s absolute power supports Walzer’s chain of command
theory for Puritan saints.
POLITICS AND PURITAN SAINTS
Politics and religion were intricately interwoven during this period, especially with regard
to the Puritan saints. As Walzer argued, the saints took their puritanism out of the local
community and into their national government with the intention of transforming it. Walzer’s
Puritan saints were activists - “called” to action to further their collective mission to create a holy
commonwealth.
286
Noble, Lives of the English Regicides, 372.
91
Jones wrote to Lloyd in 1651, reiterating his belief that the saints governed with God’s
blessing.287 He asserted “it hath pleased the Lord to exalt himself above the nations in England
and Scotland by casting downe the power of the Earth, and giving his Sts honor to bind kings in
chains, and nobles in fetters of iron….”288 This was the theme preached by Hugh Peter on
Sunday, 21 January, the first day after Charles was brought to court.289 Jones was likely alluding
here to the downfall of the royalist forces in the previous decade, and King Charles in particular.
Though it was a common belief among victors that God blessed success in war, and writing of
such godly support was extremely commonplace, Jones referenced the saints in particular more
often to brother saints than to others.
The most important sign for the saints that their work was divinely ordained was the
creation of the Barebones Parliament in 1653.290 The Barebones Parliament, also known as the
Nominated Assembly or the Parliament of Saints, was a governing body chosen by the Council
of Officers and the Counsel of State. This Parliament was an attempt to inaugurate the reign of
the saints and was introduced and heavily lobbied by Fifth Monarchist leader Colonel Thomas
Harrison. Thomas Harrison was one of the most radical officers in the New Model Army during
287
The date of this letter was “9d 8m 1651.” Jones dated his letters in this fashion only
once before 1659 (in the Mayer collection.) There are three dated this way in 1659. All of the
letters to Jones from Thomas Harrison are so dated. As noted previously, there is evidence that
Fifth Monarchists rejected the Roman labels of the months as being pagan and chose to note the
date using the number of the day, month, and year instead. Using the order in which the letters in
the Jones’ book are arranged at the National Library of Wales, this letter was written in October
according to the old calendar. See Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 9 October 1651, in “Inedited Letters,”
185.
288
Jones to Morgan Lloyd, 9 October 1651, in “Inedited Letters,” 183-184.
289
Kelsey, “Death of Charles I,” 745. Hugh Peter is also listed as Hugh Peters in some of
the records.
290
Named after Praisegod Barebone, a very active non-ordained preacher in London, as a
derogatory title embraced by opponents. History of Parliament Online,
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1640-1660/parliament/1653 (accessed
October 28, 2014).
92
the first and second civil wars, and was one of the regicides listed in Blair Worden’s The Rump
Parliament who gained power after Charles’ execution.291 In 1647, he opposed the House of
Lords and gained much notoriety as the man who declared Charles I “that man of Blood.”292 This
label was a defining element in the trial because it meant that Charles was responsible for all the
blood spilt as a consequence of the wars. As Patricia Crawford argued in “Charles Stuart, That
Man of Blood,” blood guilt meant, in Charles’ case, “a king polluted by blood could be a king no
more.”293 Harrison was in charge of the military escort for the king at his trial, was seventeenth
signatory on the death warrant, and was among those executed in 1660.294 Harrison was also a
commissioner for the Better Propagation of the Gospel in Wales 1650. Jones and Harrison
corresponded often. The Mayer collection includes eight letters from Harrison to Jones and two
from Jones to Harrison.
As a consequence of the creation of the Barebones Parliament in June 1653, Jones
conveyed a level of excitement rarely included in his letters as he anticipated the reign of Christ.
Though the recipient of this letter is not noted, it follows a letter written to Mr. Courtney
(possibly Hugh Courtney who sat on the Barebones Parliament for Wales), and may therefore
have been a postscript to him. It is likely that Hugh Courtney held very similar religious views as
Jones and Harrison. Thomas Harrison nominated him to the Barebones Parliament because of his
religious convictions, and Courtney, like Jones and Harrison, was a commissioner assigned to the
291
Worden, The Rump Parliament, 1648-1653, 38.
There are numerous sources corroborating this statement including C.F. Firth,
“Memoir of Major-General Thomas Harrison.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society
8:3 (1893): 394-395, and “Thomas Harrison, 1616-1660,” BCW Project, http://bcwproject.org/biography/thomas-harrison (accessed March 14, 2014).
293
Patricia Crawford, “Charles Stuart, That Man of Blood,” Journal of British Studies 16,
no. 2 (Spring, 1977): 42.
294
David Plant, “Thomas Harrison, 1616-1660,” BCW Project, http://bcwproject.org/biography/thomas-harrison (accessed March 14, 2014).
292
93
Propagation of the Gospel in Wales.295 Jones exclaimed in this letter that “the world may be
convinced yt our blessed eternall, wise, powerful, and patient King Jesus can and now doth begin
to Governe ye Nacons of the earth by his Spirit in his Saints.”296 This exaltation is evidence of
Jones’ millenarian belief in the imminent thousand-year rule of Christ.
Jones was a constant, unwavering supporter of a holy commonwealth. In Jones’ letter to
Major General Thomas Harrison in August 1653, he described how he hoped the new Barebones
Parliament would be a shining example of governing under the saints. Jones believed the Lord
called together men who were “more Religious, more meeke in spirit, and more selfe denying
than those yt went before them…to act the Supreme authority of the Nacon…” These men were
especially chosen by God to do His work, to be “instrumts of healing of and repayrors of
Breaches amongst the people of God…” For Jones, this godly governing body was infused with
“the powerful love of God in Christ to the Saints begetting in their Spirits and overflowing of
p’fect love towards one another and striveing by a holy emulacion, who should exceede each
other in offices of Love and spirit of humility.” They were “the choisest and most singularly
elected Parliament that ever was in England.” Jones’ passion and unabashed, fervent belief in
the utopian possibilities of a nation governed by truly godly men is clearly evident in these lines.
Unfortunately, the Barebones Parliament crumbled under the weight of its internal
divisions. Due to concerns over some of the more extreme propositions advocated by the more
radical members, the moderates abruptly and secretly relinquished to Cromwell all powers of the
295
Henry Alexander Glass, The Barebone’s Parliament (Great Britain: J. Clarke &
Company, 1899), 62, 73.
296
This letter has two dates according to the Mayer publication. I believe the date printed
just above the salutation, “13th June, 1653,” was intended for the previous correspondence to Mr.
Courtney. It is likely that the letter referenced here and dated 14 June 1653 with no recipient
listed was meant as a postscript to the letter to Mr. Courtney. Jones to Mr. Courtney, 14 June
1653, in “Inedited Letters,” 235-236.
94
assembly only six months after its creation.297 The most contentious, and ultimately fatal,
disagreement was over state regulation of church tithes and other forms of property. The more
radical members advocated removal of state authority.298 After the moderate members
surrendered the authority of the assembly to Cromwell, he became Lord Protector of the
Commonwealth.
Jones opposed the Protectorate, first because it replaced, all too suddenly, the Barebones
Parliament, and secondly because he feared instilling so much power in one man and a small
advisory council.299 As a puritan, Jones believed sincerely in the innate weakness and
corruptibility of man. As a believer in the collective conscience of obedience, he feared the
consequences of failing to follow God’s commands. In a letter written to his cousin, Philip Jones,
John Jones expressed a deep foreboding concern for this new assembly. Philip Jones was also a
puritan, and, like John Jones, was a commissioner for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales in
1649. Dubbed “Philip lord Jones,” he became a very influential insider during Cromwell’s reign
as Lord Protector.300
In this letter to Philip Jones, John Jones stated that he was not as concerned with the form
or shape of the government, only that it be “soe Established as may produce the fruits of
Righteousness, peace and love to the Sts [for] ‘when the righteous are in authority the people
297
David Plant, “The Nominated Assembly (Barebone’s Parliament),” BCW Project,
http://bcw-project.org/church-and-state/the-commonwealth/nominated-assembly (accessed
March 14, 2014).
298
“1653 Parliaments, Barebones,” History of Parliament Online,
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1640-1660/parliament/1653 (accessed March
14, 2014).
299
Jones to Philip Jones, 13 January 1653, in “Inedited Letters,” 219.
300
John Jones and Philip Jones were distant cousins on his mother’s side. “Jones, Philip”
Dictionary of Welsh Biography, http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s-JONE-PHI-1618.html (accessed
March 14, 2014).
95
rejoice, but when ye wicked beareth Rule the people mourne.’”301 Jones warned his cousin, as if
preaching fire and brimstone from a pulpit:
Have a care that you (that greate burthen of ye government of 3 Nacons and preserveing
the Interest of all the S’ts in the world is fallen) aprove yorselves Righteous on the acct of
Christ and that you prove not a burthensome stone with a rock of offence to his people,
least he breake you with a Rodd of Iron and dash you in pieces like a potter’s vessel. You
are now lead unto a masterpiece of Sathan’s Temptations, and are sett upon a high
pinacle, where you may see all Nacons, peoples, and contries bowing to you and
prostituteing their riches, Splendour and all other carnall and worldly honor and contentmt
if you will but fall downe and worship their Prince. You have neede, therefore, to guird
your lynes with the strength of Christ, and engage all his people to wrastle manfully for
you at the throne of Grace, that you may be strengthened in the power of temptation and
delivered from ye snare yt is spread before you….302
This letter is an excellent example of the passion with which John Jones embraced his
calling as a Puritan saint. Walzer’s image of the saints fighting the devil is clearly evident in this
passage. John Jones exhibited very deep concern that the assembly was ripe for succumbing to
Satan’s temptations, and could be easily lured into worshipping Satan, “their Prince.” His
warning against becoming a “burthensome stone” is a scriptural reference to the antichrist’s
army’s siege of Jerusalem; God crushed that army like a burthensome stone for attempting to
overthrow Jerusalem.303 The message was that God would crush those who did not follow His
commands.
Jones also seemed to be instructing the council to rouse a holy brigade to fight against
Satan and strengthen the moral constitution of the assembly by engaging “all his people to
wrastle manfully for you at the throne of Grace.” The “holy brigade” was collective prayer and
was common throughout the period of the civil wars and the 1650s. The godly spent hours, and
301
Quoted Proverb 29:2, King James Version. Jones to Philip Jones, 13 January 1653, in
“Inedited Letters,” 220.
302
Jones to Philip Jones, 13 January 1653, in “Inedited Letters,” 220.
303
Matthew Henry, An Exposition of All the Books of the Old and New Testaments
(London: W. Gracie, 1809): 13-14.
96
sometimes days, praying together to God for guidance. Harrison mentioned such a vigil in his
letter to Jones dated in 1652. First they spent “4 or 5 howers in prayer,” seeking full
understanding of their duty but it was agreed that “one day more might be spent in solume
seeking unto God for the pouringe forth of his spirit.” Harrison encouraged Jones to gather “the
people of God” in his “quarters” on the same day to “joine wth us in putting up this great
request.”304 In like fashion, but with an urgency not included in Harrison’s letter, John Jones was
entreating Philip Jones to gather all the people of God to seek God’s guidance in governing the
nations of England.
In many ways, Jones epitomized Walzer’s definition of a Puritan saint. Not only did he
carry his Puritanism with him into his duties as commissioner of civil affairs in Ireland, he
tethered himself to the spiritual concerns of the English nation as placed in the hands of his
brother saints. He confidently and consistently directed others to conduct themselves and their
affairs in accordance with God’s laws, regardless of social, political, or official capacity. He was
sincerely and deeply committed to the creation of a holy commonwealth, and did his part to keep
those in power on the right path toward that end.
One thing is evident in Jones’ letters, though: his fervent preaching to his fellow saints
regarding their conduct reduced substantially by 1658. Though there is a gap in the letters from
Jones in the Mayer collection from 18 April 1654 to 1 July 1658, there are twenty-six letters
written from Jones from 1 July 1658 to 4 April 1660. Amongst those twenty-six letters, only two
include any spiritual direction from Jones. In a notice “to the Governors of ye respective
Precincts, to be communicated to Xan [Christian] friends” in Ireland, Fleetwood, Ludlow, Corbet
304
Jones to Thomas Harrison, 30 November 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 218. This letter
is dated “9m 30d 1652.”
97
and Jones were entreating fellow Christians to come forward with the names of “evil doers.”305
Another letter to Fleetwood mentioned ever so briefly that Jones and the other commanders and
officers of the army were praying that their “friends in England” would be led by the “blessed
Spirit” of the Lord rather than their own ambitions.306 This reduction in his commitment to the
stewardship of the cause of creating a godly commonwealth was likely the result of the failure of
the Barebones Parliament and the continued military rule of the Protectorate. Though Jones did
not lose his puritan faith during the last years of his life, his activism for change, according to the
letters in the Mayer collection, was substantially reduced.
305
This letter is signed “C.F., E.L., M.C., J.J.” The initials likely represent Charles
Fleetwood, Edmund Ludlow, Miles Corbet, and John Jones. “To the Governors of ye respective
Precints,” 1 July 1658, in “Inedited Letters,” 259-260.
306
Jones to Lord Fleetwood, 22 October 1659, in “Inedited Letters,” 263-264. This letter
is dated “22d 8 m 1659.”
98
Conclusion
Fifty-nine men put their reputations, estates, and lives on the line to sign their names to
the document that sent their king to his death. There is no question that these men knew the
potential consequences of their decision. Regardless of the care the council took to ensure the
legality of the proceedings, Charles was still king, and killing the king was treason. There were
nine commissioners who voted to execute but were unwilling to leave their mark for posterity.
Those fifty-nine men who did sign had compelling individual reasons why they were willing to
engrave their names on that moment of history. Understanding what compelled them to make
such a dangerous, revolutionary choice is important. On a tangible level, the information gained
regarding seventeenth-century English society in general and motivations for regicide in
particular are valuable additions to the body of knowledge on this topic. On an intangible level,
this understanding adds dimension to the people and events of our past in a way that makes them
real – not just words on a page. Their choices affected the way our history unfolded.
For John Jones, forty-second commissioner to sign the death warrant, religious
convictions were the most compelling factor in his decision to participate in the execution of his
king. Jones was not only a puritan and a radical. He was what Walzer described as a Puritan
saint, a godly citizen-soldier, at a time when the concept of English “citizen” was in its infancy.
Though Jones was not one of the leaders in parliament given the task of creating this new
commonwealth, he was one of its stewards. His commitment to the Calvinist principles of
obedience to God’s commands and the collective conscience of faith, as described in Walzer’s
The Revolution of the Saints, drove him to steer those men in positions of authority towards the
righteous path. He reminded other officers and MPs, regardless of official rank, of God’s
absolute power to discard those who sinned against Him and bestow His gifts upon their
99
enemies, the papists. Jones believed the downfall of those men given God’s gift to govern would
result in the failure of what he deeply believed was God’s plan for England: the creation of a
godly commonwealth. Though Jones was not the only Puritan saint who signed the death
warrant, he was among the few that were executed as a consequence.
Though it is possible that Jones’ radical puritanism was ignited as a result of the trial and
execution of the king, his commitment to his puritan faith was clearly present at the time. As
Powell observed, those assigned to enforce the Act for the Better Propagation of the Gospel in
Wales in 1649 were well known for their godliness. As Walzer described, those that became
Puritan saints were resolutely rigorous in their own self-discipline and in promoting the same in
others. Jones’ letters to Allen, Cromwell, and Philips all reveal that his commitment as steward
for the cause of creating a godly commonwealth was so compelling that military hierarchy
mattered little in relation to keeping his brethren on the righteous path. Jones developed this
characteristic over time. His letter to Cromwell is particularly revealing in regard to Jones’
personal decision-making process. The long string of suggested scriptural readings was presented
unabashedly to Cromwell, his military superior officer, in order to urge Cromwell to follow
God’s direction. Also, Jones, in his letter to Harrison in June 1652, talked of the “ernest prayer to
and wrestlings with the Lord” in relation to guiding Parliament toward “peace and tranquility, of
the nations committed to theire care…”307 Consulting scripture and praying for guidance were
the tools Jones used in making decision, especially one as important as executing the king.
In addition, though it is difficult to corroborate definitively, Jones’ beliefs in the
preordained will of God may have convinced him that God had already dethroned Charles, by
virtue of the fact that Charles sat in custody at the command his own subjects. As noted earlier,
307
Jones to Thomas Harrison, 21 June 1652, in “Inedited Letters,” 207.
100
some believed that if a ruler lost his ability to elicit obedience from his subjects, then he was a
“defeated sovereign…deposed by God.”308
My objective in this study has been to provide additional insights into the motivating
factors for regicide in seventeenth-century England. In addition, I have hoped to expand the
existing scholarship regarding one particular man who made a very fateful choice in 1649,
Colonel John Jones. Though the available contemporary records for Jones were very limited,
especially for the period before 1650, Jones’ surviving letters were invaluable assets in this
investigation. Perhaps another researcher will explore these letters more for the valuable
information they contain of the Interregnum period in England’s history. It is my hope that this
study will encourage others to delve deeper into the lives of the other, less well-known, regicides
in order to gain even more insights and tell the stories of these men who made such a
revolutionary choice in 1649.
As for John Jones, shortly after Oliver Cromwell’s death and the collapse of the Second
Protectorate, Jones was indicted for treason in Ireland and returned to London. He was arrested
for the last time while taking a walk. He never attempted to flee. On 10 October 1660, thirty-two
regicides were indicted for “compassing, imagining [the death], and adjudging the king.”
Twenty-six of those indicted were signatories on the death warrant. Three of these signatories
fled the country before they could be brought to trial, but were later captured and executed. Of
the twenty-three who stood trial, six were executed: John Carew, Gregory Clement, John Jones,
Thomas Harrison, Thomas Scot, and Adrian Scrope.309
308
As referenced in the Bible in Jeremiah 38. Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints, 38.
Twenty of the signatories had died before 1660, and several, including Edmund
Ludlow, escaped abroad. Only Richard Ingoldsby and John Hutchinson were pardoned. All
others who were captured were imprisoned for life. See David Plant, “The Regicides,” BCW
309
101
At his trial on 12 October 1660, according to the transcript, Jones confessed that though
he did sit on the court, he had “not maliciously contrived the death of the king.” Witnesses could
not swear that Jones was present on the day of the king’s sentencing, 27 January, but did confirm
that the signature on the death warrant was in Jones’ handwriting. When he received his guilty
sentence, he responded “I am not fit to plead any thing, especially in matter of law; I must
wholly put myself upon the Lord, and this honourable Court and Jury.” When asked to
acknowledge the guilty verdict, Jones, along with John Carew, Adrian Scroope, Thomas Scot,
and Gregory Clement were asked to respond. After Scot said “I do only cast myself upon his
majesty and pray mercy,” Jones also stated, “I pray his majesty’s clemency.”310
On the day of his execution, Jones was seen as an “Aged Gentleman who was drawn on
one sled, with his Aged companion Col. Scroop, whose grave and graceful countenances,
accompanied with courage and chearfullness, caused great admiration, and compassion in the
Spectators, as they passed along the streets to Charing-cross, the place of their Execution.”311
At his life’s end, as in his decision over Charles I, Jones put his faith in God. He was
sincerely at peace with the decisions he made. With these words, he reaffirmed his beliefs:
The next thing is toward God, and it is that should be last upon my heart: it is not
expected that I should give an account here of my state and condition, for that is betwixt
God and my own soule. And I do through grace and Goodness of God, firmly believe,
that my Redemption is wrought, and my Pardon is sealed, and that I shall be immediately
in my Father’s Arms, and that I shall be translated and brought to behold the Lord Jesus
in Glory, with comfort and fulness of joy.312
Project, http://bcw-project.org/biography/regicides-index and Howell, A Complete Collection of
State Trials And Proceedings for High Treason (London: T.C. Hansard, 1816-1828).
310
Howell, T. Bayly, et al.. A Complete Collection of State Trials And Proceedings for
High Treason And Other Crimes And Misdemeanors…With Notes And Other Illustrations vol. v
(London: T.C. Hansard, 1816-1828), col. 1072-1077.
311
Person of Quality, Rebels No Saints, (London: Booksellers, 1661), 58.
312
Person of Quality, Rebels No Saints, 59. It should be noted that this is a third party
account of Jones’ last words.
102
APPENDIX A
Table 1: Signatories of the Death Warrant for Charles I, in order of signature and seal.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
John Bradshaw
Lord Thomas Grey of Groby
Oliver Cromwell
Edward Whalley
Sir Michael Livesey
John Okey
Sir John Danvers
Sir John Bourchier
Henry Ireton
Sir Thomas Mauleverer
Sir Hardress Waller
John Blakiston
John Hutchinson
William Goffe
Thomas Pride
Peter Temple
Thomas Harrison
John Hewson
Henry Smith
Peregrine Pelham
Richard Deane
Robert Tichborne
Humphrey Edwards
Daniel Blagrave
Owen Rowe
William Purefoy
Adrian Scrope
James Temple
Augustine Garland
Edmund Ludlow
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
Henry Marten
Vincent Potter
Sir William Constable
Richard Ingoldsby
William Cawley
John Barkstead
Isaac Ewer
John Dixwell
Valentine Walton
Simon Mayne
Thomas Horton
John Jones
John Moore
Gilbert Millington
George Fleetwood
John Alured
Robert Lilburne
William Say
Anthony Stapley
Sir George Norton
Thomas Chaloner
Thomas Wogan
John Venn
Gregory Clement
John Downes
Thomas Waite
Thomas Scot
John Carew
Miles Corbet
APPENDIX B
Attendance During the King's Trial
Signatory Last Name
†
†
†
†
†
†
†
†
†
46 Aldred/Alured, John
Allen, Francis
Andrews, Thomas - Alderman
Anlaby, John
36 Berstead/Barstead, John Esq.
12 Blackistone/Blakistone, John Esq.
24 Blagrave, Daniel Esq.
8 Bourchier, Sir John - K
1 Bradshaw, John - LP
Brown/e, John Esq.
58 Carew, John Esq.
35 Cawley, William
Challoner, James
51 Challoner, Thomas
54 Clement, Gregory
33 Constable, Sir William - B
59 Corbet, Miles Esq.
3 Cromwell, Lt. Gen. Oliver Esq.
7 Danvers, Sir John
21 Deane, Col. Richard
38 Dixwell, John Esq.
Dove, John Esq.
55 Downs, John Esq.
23 Edwards, Humphrey Esq.
37 Ewers, Col. Isacc Esq.
Fagg, John Esq.
Fairfax, Thomas
45 Fleetwood, George
Fry, John Esq.
29 Garland, Augustine Esq.
14 Goff/Goffe, Col. William Esq.
2 Grey, Lord Thomas Grey of Groby
Hammond, Thomas Esq.
Harrington, Sir James - K
17 Harrison, Col. Thomas Esq.
Harvey, Col Edmond
Heath, Thomas
Heveningham, William Esq.
Holland, Cornelius Esq.
41 Horton, Col. Thomas Esq.
18 Huson, Col. John Esq.
13 Hutchinson, Col. John Esq.
34 Ingoldsby, Richard
9 Ireton, Gen. Henry Esq.
42 Jones, John Esq
Lassells, Francis Esq.
47 Lilbourn/Lilbourne, Robert Esq.
Lisle, John
Lister, Thomas (?)
5 Livesey, Sir Michael - B
Love, Nicholas
30 Ludlow, Col. Edmund Esq.
10 Maleverer, Sir Thomas - B
31 Martin/Marten Henry
40 Meyne, Simon
Mildmay, Sir Henry
44 Millington, Gilbert Esq.
Monson, Lord William
43 Moore, John Esq.
Morley, Herbert Esq.
50 Norton, Sir Gregory - B
6 Okey, Col. John Esq.
20 Pelham, Peregrine
Pennington, Isacc - Alderman
Pickering, Sir Gilbert - B
32 Potter, Vincent
15 Pride, Col. Thomas Esq.
26 Purefoy, Col. William Esq.
25 Roe, Col. Owen
48 Say, William Esq.
57 Scot, Thomas Esq.
27 Scroope, Col. Adrian Esq.
19 Smith, Henry Esq.
49 Stapeley, Anthony
Sydney, Algernon Esq.
28 Temple, James Esq.
16 Temple, Peter Esq.
22 Tichbourne, Col. Robert
Tomlinson, Col. William
53 Ven/Venn, John Esq
56 Waite, Thomas
11 Waller, Sir Hardress - K
Wallop, Robert Esq.
39 Wauton, Valentine Esq.
4 Whaley/Whalley, Col. Edward
Wild, Edmond
52 Wogan, Thomas
Wroth, Sir Thomas
Attended
†
88 of 135 were ever counted as
attending at least one day of the pretrial meetings, formal trial
proceedings, or private meetings in
the painted chamber.
88
Executed in 1660
PRETRIAL
8-Jan
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
First Day
Painted West- Painted WestChamber minster Chamber minster
8-Jan 10-Jan 12-Jan 13-Jan 15-Jan 17-Jan 18-Jan 19-Jan 20-Jan 20-Jan 22-Jan 22-Jan
sealed
King
King
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*Mistake in date on record
*28 Jan
** Witness testimony (62-79)
***67 Voted to execute
Painted West- Painted Painted Painted Painted Painted West- Painted Painted Warrant
Chamber minster Chamber Chamber Chamber Chamber Chamber minster Chamber Chamber Sealed &
23-Jan 23-Jan 24-Jan 25-Jan same 26-Jan 27-Jan 27-Jan 27-Jan 29-Jan Subscribed
**
**
***
King
King
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55
67
61
70
63
71
"all in
/around
London
"and "agreed Called
divers
upon to come
others" death" to court"
46
32
46
62
24-25
27
37-38
40-41
50
52
60
"and
divers
more"
58
Nalson pgs.
5
6
8
11
14
15
17
21
Nalson, A True Copy of the Journal of the high Court of Justice for the Tryal of K. Charles I… (London: H.C., 1684)
22
62
79
82-83
"whole
court
stood up
and
owned
it"
68
67
64
48
59
84 86 & 92
93
108
110
For Trial and Judgement, see Howell, T. Bayly, et al.. A Complete Collection of State Trials And Proceedings for High Treason And Other Crimes And Misdemeanors…With Notes And Other Illustrations vol. v (London: T.C. Hansard, 1816-1828), col. 947-1301.
For more information on the fate of the regicides, see David Plant,"Regicides," BCW Project, http://bcw-project.org/biography/regicides-index
104
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