task of kidnapping James VI. In support of this scenario, it is known that there was a large English ship lurking off the coast of Scotland at Dirleton near North Berwick. At Dirleton, Gowrie had a fully manned castle. The Governor of Berwick was in close contact with Cecil. All this points to a developing plot to kidnap James. It also shows that the Gowrie family was indeed a danger to James VI of Scotland; the Earl of Gowrie stood to succeed to the English throne instead of James, and he was – probably – being encouraged to abduct James.
Death Of A Leveller: The Assassination Of Colonel Rainsborough
In Doncaster at eight o’clock in the morning on Sunday 29 October 1648, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough was killed by a party of horsemen. That much is certain. Various versions of what happened exist, but they differ from each other in significant ways. The contemporary accounts that were printed at the time were produced by angry Parliamentarians, their view distorted by their anger, and none of them seems to have seen the assassination anyway. One version has the murderers entering Rainsborough’s lodgings, where they stabbed him, dragged him to the door, cut his throat and pitched him down the stairs before leaving. Another version has Rainsborough quietly accompanying his murderers outside and the murder only taking place when Rainsborough started to resist abduction.
At the time, there were two leading figures on
the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War. One was Oliver Cromwell, the other was Thomas Rainsborough. In the previous autumn, Rainsborough shouted at Cromwell, ‘One of us must not live,’ and threatened Cromwell with impeachment for what was seen as his betrayal of the common cause. In Westminster, it was a matter of speculation whether Cromwell would survive. With hindsight, we see Cromwell as the man of destiny, the man of steel, but at the time it looked as Rainsborough was pre-eminent, and that Cromwell would fall.
The death of Rainsborough was one of those turning points in history that have been overlooked. If he had lived, he would probably have carried through Parliament the Agreement of the People. This was to the seventeenth century what the Social Contract was to the eighteenth century and the Communist Manifesto was to the twentieth. The Agreement would have created in one step the social levelling process that did not in fact begin to happen until 1884.
Rainsborough was also Cromwell’s only rival, the political and military leader of the far Left of the revolutionaries. Fairfax represented the far Right, and Cromwell the Centre. The three of them acted out their separate roles, with, as late as the autumn of 1647, Cromwell working for the restoration of Charles I to the throne, though with himself wielding the unseen power. Rainsborough’s position was more straightforwardly anti-monarchist. Once Rainsborough was dead, Cromwell was able to shift his own position smoothly to the left, towards the destruction of the monarchy and the total removal of Charles.
On that much evidence, Cromwell could well have been the instigator of the assassination, but Rainsborough had many enemies. The royalists hated him for his ruthlessness at the siege of Colchester, where in defiance of all the rules of war he ordered the judicial murder of the leading defenders, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle. At the end of the siege Rainsborough had Lucas and Lisle tried by court martial and sentenced to be shot. The two men died with great courage and inspired universal admiration; the incident generated boiling hatred for Rainsborough. So Royalists who wanted revenge for the Colchester atrocity, a murder for a double murder, might have been the assassins. In fact just a month after the execution of Lucas and Lisle an attempt was made to kill him on the road between St Albans and London; he was attacked by ‘three men of the king’s party’.
Rainsborough was equally hated by the
Death Of A Leveller: The Assassination Of Colonel Rainsborough
In Doncaster at eight o’clock in the morning on Sunday 29 October 1648, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough was killed by a party of horsemen. That much is certain. Various versions of what happened exist, but they differ from each other in significant ways. The contemporary accounts that were printed at the time were produced by angry Parliamentarians, their view distorted by their anger, and none of them seems to have seen the assassination anyway. One version has the murderers entering Rainsborough’s lodgings, where they stabbed him, dragged him to the door, cut his throat and pitched him down the stairs before leaving. Another version has Rainsborough quietly accompanying his murderers outside and the murder only taking place when Rainsborough started to resist abduction.
At the time, there were two leading figures on
the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War. One was Oliver Cromwell, the other was Thomas Rainsborough. In the previous autumn, Rainsborough shouted at Cromwell, ‘One of us must not live,’ and threatened Cromwell with impeachment for what was seen as his betrayal of the common cause. In Westminster, it was a matter of speculation whether Cromwell would survive. With hindsight, we see Cromwell as the man of destiny, the man of steel, but at the time it looked as Rainsborough was pre-eminent, and that Cromwell would fall.
The death of Rainsborough was one of those turning points in history that have been overlooked. If he had lived, he would probably have carried through Parliament the Agreement of the People. This was to the seventeenth century what the Social Contract was to the eighteenth century and the Communist Manifesto was to the twentieth. The Agreement would have created in one step the social levelling process that did not in fact begin to happen until 1884.
Rainsborough was also Cromwell’s only rival, the political and military leader of the far Left of the revolutionaries. Fairfax represented the far Right, and Cromwell the Centre. The three of them acted out their separate roles, with, as late as the autumn of 1647, Cromwell working for the restoration of Charles I to the throne, though with himself wielding the unseen power. Rainsborough’s position was more straightforwardly anti-monarchist. Once Rainsborough was dead, Cromwell was able to shift his own position smoothly to the left, towards the destruction of the monarchy and the total removal of Charles.
On that much evidence, Cromwell could well have been the instigator of the assassination, but Rainsborough had many enemies. The royalists hated him for his ruthlessness at the siege of Colchester, where in defiance of all the rules of war he ordered the judicial murder of the leading defenders, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle. At the end of the siege Rainsborough had Lucas and Lisle tried by court martial and sentenced to be shot. The two men died with great courage and inspired universal admiration; the incident generated boiling hatred for Rainsborough. So Royalists who wanted revenge for the Colchester atrocity, a murder for a double murder, might have been the assassins. In fact just a month after the execution of Lucas and Lisle an attempt was made to kill him on the road between St Albans and London; he was attacked by ‘three men of the king’s party’.
Rainsborough was equally hated by the
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