Sir John the Regicide - Tales from the Tree

Last week we looked at Barb's 10th great grandmother, Lady Alice Beconsawe Lisle. Of course, in order for Barb to be in the genealogical succession, there had to be a 10th great grandfather, and a 9th great grandmother, and so on. That would be Sir John Lisle "the Regicide," who married Lady Alice - who, as we saw last week, ended up at odds with the king's court - and their daughter Margaret, who later had troubles of her own.

Sir John, born on the Isle of Wight in 1609, was a lawyer and a politician, graduating from Oxford in 1626 and called to the bar in 1633. He was elected MP for Winchester, and while in Parliament he was chairman of the committee that investigated Oliver Cromwell's allegations against the Earl of Manchester in December 1644.

In 1648 after the second civil war, John Lisle voted against continuing negotiations with King Charles I. Shortly thereafter he was appointed a commissioner of the High Court of Justice for the trial of the King. During the trial he acted in an advisory position and helped to draw up the  sentence, but he was not a signatory of the King’s death warrant. Nevertheless, King Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649.

Lisle then helped frame the new constitution for the Commonwealth, and was one of five appointed to the new Council of State. He was also made a commissioner of the Great Seal. In 1653 he administered the oath of office when Cromwell became Lord Protector, and became a member of the Upper House in 1657 ("Cromwell’s House of Lords”).

So, all in all, Barb's 10 great granddad was a big wheel in jolly old England. But, as it almost always did back then, the tide turned and in 1659 the monarchy was restored and Sir John was dismissed from office. Rather fond of keeping his head on his shoulders, John left Alice and the kids to keep the home fires burning (which later proved rather prescient for Alice) and skipped town, ending up in Lausanne, Switzerland.

In August 1664, as he was leaving the acapella service at the Church of Lausanne, Sir John was shot dead by an Irish Royalist named Sir James Fitz Edmond Cotter, doing the King's business under the alias Thomas MacDonnell. Shipping the body home wasn't in the cards, so grandad was buried on the spot, in the courtyard of the Church of Lausanne.

So, looking back at Lady Alice's story from last week, it becomes evident that her harsh punishment was a result of a long-held grudge against Sir John Lisle. The moral here is that Regicide is seldom a good idea.

And what of 9th great grandmother Margaret? Born in 1643 in Temple Church, Hampshire, England,  she married the Reverend Robert Whitaker in 1662. Whittaker, a scholarly churchman from Lancashire. was, however,  a "Nonconformist" minister. In English church history, a nonconformist was a Protestant Christian who did not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established Church of England. If you grew up in the churches of Christ, you understand this concept very well.

Denied a Cambridge degree because of his Nonconformity, he preached as a Presbyterian from about 1662, when he set up an Academy for Dissenting Students for those refused entry to the universities at Stucton, a village near Fordingbridge.

The local Ministerial Alliance wasn't happy that they were there, and the Fordingbridge church wardens excommunicated Whitaker in March 1679 for not attending church, and an arrest warrant followed in September - and while there is no record of its being implemented, it is clear that he and his family (wife and several children) suffered. No doubt they struggled to get by, and when Robert died in 1683, Margaret must called Mom for financial help but the record says the 70 pounds Mom promised never arrived, because Lady Alice had problems of her own. Margaret died on 27 March 1686, a year after her mother's unfortunate demise.