Regicides on the Run

This is how you tell a story. I know what it's about from the beginning, and they tell the actual story, not some crazy diversion for pages, avoiding any mention of the lead.

I'm a descendent and (coincidental) namesake of one of those 59 regicides, though one who fled to Amsterdam and avoided an interesting death. Fascinating times, for sure.

'The King's Revenge' by Don Jordan covers the manhunt Charles II instigated against the regicides after his restoration- the amount of reach his agents had even in other countries and across the ocean was really surprising. Most of the regicides met untimely ends, even those who made it to 'friendly' territory in Protestant Europe or Puritan America. It really showed how hard it is to disappear, even when an informant's tip had several weeks latency.

Sounds like a very interesting book - I hadn’t heard/read much about the regicides who successfully evaded capture before as it’s something of a very minor subplot in the overall story of the civil war.

There’s a very good documentary series on the English Civil War called ‘The English Civil War’ from 2005 which it looks like is available on YouTube.

The episode on the trial of the regicides (called The Trial of the King Killers) who were apprehended in England is well worth watching.

If this period of history sounds interesting to you, Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast covers Charles I as its first subject.

It’s amazing to think of how the world was interconnected, despite distance, at that time. Capturing adversaries in Switzerland and North America!

My high school, in Boston, was chartered by Charles I. I’d always assumed it was in the middle of nowhere, and perhaps it was, hence being chosen as a place to hide. But there was a lot of commmunication and legal process in place as well!