A NARRATIVE

OF THE

IMPRISONMENT AND USAGE OF COLONEL JOHN
HUTCHINSON,

Of Owthorp, in the County of Nottingham, Esq. now close Prisoner in the Tower of London.

Written by himself, on the sixth of April, 1664, having then received intimation that he was to be sent away to another Prison; and therefore he thought fit to print this, for the satisfying his Relations and Friends of his Innocence.

Let the proud be ashamed, for they deal perversly with me, without a cause; but I will meditate in thy precepts. Psal. cxix. 78.

Printed in the Year 1664. Quarto, containing twelve Pages.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Narrative, being written with an air of the strictest veracity, ought to be preserved among the other Materials for History, which we accumulate in these Collections, as it affords a very just idea of the Methods of Justice, which were at that time in use, and may assist our Readers in forming a judgment of the Reign of Charles the Second.

One advantage at least will be afforded by the perusal of this piece; the Reader, amidst his Indignation at the Cruelties, and his Pity of the Hardships which are here recounted, cannot fail to congratulate himself upon the Happiness of living at a Time, when no such Miseries are to be felt, or such Practices to be feared.

-J.*

UPON the eleventh day of October, 1663, being the Lord'sday, about seven of the clock at night, there being at that time no one person but my own family in the house with me, a party of horse came to my house at Owthorp in Nottinghamshire, commanded by one Coronet Atkinson, who told me, I must immediately go with him to Newark, I demanded to see his warrant; and, after some dispute, he shewed me a scrip of paper, signed by Mr. Francis Leke, one of the deputy lieutenants, to this effect, as near as I can remember, for he would not give me a copy of it.

Y

To Coronet Atkinson.

YOU are hereby required, to repair to the house of John Hutchinson, Esq. at Owthorp, with a party of horse, and him to seize and bring forthwith to Newark, and to search the said house for what arms you can find, and bring them away also.

IMPRISONMENT OF COLONEL HUTCHINSON. 285

Having shewed me this order, they searched the house, and found no arms, but four birding guns of my sons, which hung openly in the kitchen, and them at that time they left; but although the night was very foul and rainy, and I myself was not at that time well, and had not any accommodation for riding, neither of horses, saddles, or other necessaries, not having been on horseback for many months before; and though I and my family urged these reasons to them, offering all civil entertainment, if they would but have staid till the next morning, when I might have gone with the less hazard of my life and health; yet could I not prevail with them, but he forced me to borrow horses and go out of my house at midnight; and, about four of the clock the next morning, they brought me to the Talbot at Newark, which is twelve miles distant from my house, and set two sentinels upon me in my chamber.

While I was thus kept prisoner at Newark, a greater party of horse than that which fetched me, was sent again to my house at Owthorp, under the command of Tomson the Innkeeper where I lay, who, on Tuesday the 13th of October at night, came thither, and made a stricter search all over the house, in every box and trunk, in all the barns, mows, and every hole they could imagine, yet found no more arms than the four guns, which the former party left behind them, but these took away; the rest of the arms, which I had of old, having been all taken away immediately after the act of oblivion past, which, as I conceive, left me as rightful a possessor of my own goods, as any other Englishman; yet, when I was at London, Mr. Cecil Cooper sent a party of soldiers, and took them all out of my house, leaving me not so much as a sword, though at that time there was no prohibition of my wearing one.

Having been removed out of the chamber where I was first lodged at Tomson's, into a very bad room, upon pretence that the other looked into the market place, I received many more insolences and affronts from the drunken Host, till at length I was resolved to bear them no longer; seeing, although I had now been four days at Newark, neither the gentleman by whose warrant I was fetched, tho' he came every day to the house where I was, nor any of the king's officers came at me, to let me know why I was kept there. Whereupon, being provoked by the insolence of the Host to throw something at his head, upon the bustie between us, Mr. Leke came in, and I had then opportunity to tell him that I stood upon my justification, and desired to know my crime, and my accuser; and in the mean time that I might be kept as safe as they pleased, so I might be delivered out of the hands of this insolent fellow, and have accommodation fit for a gentleman; which when they saw I would no longer want, with much difficulty, after two days, I obtained to be removed to the next Inn, where I was civilly treated, with guards still remaining upon me.

On Monday, October the nineteenth, Mr. Leke carried me with a guard of horse to Welbeck, the Marquess of Newcastle's house,

where I was honourably entertained by the marquess, who, upon discourse with me, told me, he heard I desired to know my accuser, which he said, he knew no more than I; and my lord, upon the arguments I alledged to him, to evince my innocence, being persuaded of it, sent me back without a guard, only engaging me to stay one week at home at my own house, in which space, if I heard no more from him, I might be free to go whither I would. I was not willing to have accepted this favour, but rather desired to stay in custody till my accuser was produced, and I could clear myself, but, my lord pressing it upon me, I could not refuse it; so that night I returned to Newark, and the next day to my own house, where I stayed only till Thursday, the twenty-second, on which day about eleven of the clock in the forenoon, I was fetched again prisoner by a party of horse, commanded by Corporal Wilson, with a warrant signed by Mr. Leke, and brought again to Newark to Mr. Twentimans, where I was last quartered, and two sentinels again set upon me.

The twenty-third, Mr. Leke came to me, and shewed me a letter he had received from the Marquess of Newcastle, acquainting him, he was sorry he could not pursue the civility he intended me, having received orders from the Duke of Buckingham, that Í should be kept prisoner, without pen, ink, or paper; and, to shew the reality of this, there was a copy of the letter that brought the order to the marquess, wherein there was an expression to this effect: 6 That, though the duke could not make it out as yet, he was confident he should find me to be in the plot. After Mr. Leke had communicated this to me, he told me, that he himself was to go to London, and the mayor of Newark was to take me into his charge.

After he was gone from me, the mayor sent one Robert Beck to tell me, I must go along with him to his house. I asked him who he was; he told me, he was the jailor. I asked if his house were the jail; he told me he had prisoners in it. I asked him what warrant, mittimus, or order he had to take me into his custody, as his prisoner; he told me, he had none in writing, but the mayor's verbal order. I told him, I would not go to jail upon a verbal order, for no magistrate could send me to jail without a mittimus, expressing some crime, as the cause of his so doing; and therefore I desired him to return to the mayor, and wish him to consider what he did, and to take counsel of any of the lawyers in his own town, whether he could legally carry me to the jail, without calling me before him, or having any complaint against me. But he was resolved, right or wrong, I should go thither; and, after many vain messages to intreat me to go, when I would not be persuaded to it voluntarily, he sent five constables, without any warrant, but his own word, to seize and carry me by force. I admonished them also of their illegal violence upon me; but they were bold to affront the laws, and forced me out of my quarters, along the streets, and into the jail, where I again told the jailor what danger of the law he incurred, by receiving and detaining me

prisoner; and asked him if he had any mittimus under any magistrate's hand, to take me into his custody as prisoner? He told me, he had none but the mayor's verbal order, and he must do it, for the mayor had promised to bear him out; which I desired the constables, soldiers, and the rest of the company to bear witness of, how that, without any legal commitment, I was forced into the jail, where afterwards the fellow used me, for the time I stayed, as civilly as his house would afford; but, by reason of the plaisterfloors, which I was not used to, I fell sick there, where I remained, from Friday at night, October the twenty-third, till Wednesday the twenty-eighth, about ten of the clock in the morning.

Upon the twenty-seventh, Mr. Leke came to me at the jail, and with him the Marquess of Newcastle's secretary, and told me the marquess had received express orders from the king, to send me up in safe custody to London: But Mr. Leke, finding me very ill, was so civil as to allow me to go up to London by my own house (which was near a road) that I might take accommodations for my journey, and be carried up in my own coach, without which, I had not been able to have gone at that time. Mr. Leke himself, being necessitated to make more haste, went away before the party of horse, that was to guard me up, came into Newark; and left his orders for sending me away with Mr. Atkinson, who first seized me prisoner.

The same twenty-seventh of October, another party of horse came again late in the night to my house, and searched my papers, my wife and I being both at Newark, what cabinets they found not the keys of, they broke open.

On the twenty-eighth, in order to my going to London, I was brought by Beck the jailor back to Twentimans, to be delivered to the party of horse that was to guard me to London: But, they coming very slowly and unwillingly upon that account, I remained all that day in the custody of the jailor at the inn. At night when I was in bed, the mayor, being in his cups, sent to command me, to be carried back to the jail; but the jailor being then more civil and wise, knowing that I had been some time in bed, refused to disturb me, and offered that he, and his man, would sit up as a guard upon me; which would not satisfy, but they sent two soldiers to be set at my door. The next day, the party, commanded to guard me up, not being come into Newark, a mean fellow, which was to command them, came and told me, I must go another way, and not by my own house, nor have the privilege of being carried by my own coach, which Mr. Leke had allowed me. Whereupon I sent to Mr. Atkinson, who had the order from Mr. Leke to send me away, and he having been formerly a great prosecuter of me, though unsuccessfully, to have broken the act of oblivion upon me. Whether malice, or ignorance how to behave himself, or vexation to find the country so unready in this service, moved him to it, I know not, but he was so obstinate, in a peevish cross humour, to have cut me off from all the humanity that Mr. Leke had shewed me; that, although Mr. Cecil Cooper, and Mr.

Penistone Whalley, one a deputy lieutenant, and both justices of the peace of the county, persuaded him all they could, yet no reasonable thing could be obtained from him, till I, growing as resolute as he, was dispatching a post to the Marquess of Newcastle, to intreat a countermand of his barbarism, who would have forced me on horse-back when I was so ill that I could not have ridden one stage, without manifest hazard of never being able to ride another. At length, by the renewed civil interposition of Mr. Cooper, he was overruled to condescend, that, some of the horse appointed for my guard being come in, I should go with them to my own house that night, and there expect the rest the next morning. This contest ending about sunset, the twenty-ninth day I was brought out of Newark, and the coach overthrown and broken in the night, so that I was forced to stay the next day at Owthorp to mend it, and, on Saturday the thirty-first, was brought to Stamford where I would have rested the Sabbath-day, but, they not suffering me, on Tuesday the third of November, I was brought to the crown in Holbourn, and the next morning received by Mr. Leke, and immediately carried, with part of the guard that brought me up, to the Tower of London; and, by the same Mr. Leke, now Sir Francis Leke, delivered there a prisoner, by a warrant signed by secretary Bennet, bearing date the twenty-fifth of October, wherein I stood committed close prisoner for treasonable practices, although the secretary had never seen nor examined me, nor any other magistrate, to know whether or no I could clear myself from the charge of treasonable practices, if there were any such given against me.

On Friday, November the sixth, I was sent for by secretary Bennet to his lodgings at White. Hall, which was the first time I was examined, and the questions he asked me were,

1. Where I had lived these four or five months?

I answered, constantly at my own house in Nottinghamshire. 2. What company used to resort to my house?

I told him, none, not so much as my nearest relations scarce

ever saw me.

3. What company I frequented?

I told him, none, for I never stirred out of my own house to visit any.

He said, That was very much.

4. Whether I knew Mr. Henry Nevil?

I answered, Very well.

He asked, When I saw him?

I said, To my best remembrance, never since the king came in. Then he asked, When I writ to him?

I said, Never in my life.

When he writ to me?

I said, Never.

Whether any messages had passed from him to me, or me to him?

I answered, None at all.