EXECUTIONER OF CHARLES I.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3442, 12 March 1932, Page 3

EXECUTIONER OF CHARLES I.

LETTER ESTABLISHES IDENTITY. In connection with the history of King Charles the First, a letter is still in existence'written by a notorious Mother Redcap, who lived in a small thatched building on rough ground, leading from the Tyburn Road over Crack Skull Common to Hampstead. The legend runs that one wild night she was disturbed by a stranger at her door imploring shelter, as he was a fugitive from justice. After a stormy scene, in which he displayed plenty of money, the old woman consented to admit him. He remained with her some years, when he died. At the inquest one of the doctors declared that he knew the body to be that of a man who had been employed to decapitate King Charles I. Mr. Walter Crick writes: “I have not seen the book myself, but I am told that this entry concerning the identity of King Charles I’s executioner may be found, as a marginal note, in the burial register of St. Mary’s, Whitechapel: ‘This Richard Brandon received £3O for the job, which was paid in half-crowns within an hour after the execution had taken place; he took an orange stuck with cloves and a handkerchief from the King’s pocket and sold the former to a gentleman for 10s.’ ”