XIII - London

Summary

These were sad days for Mary Okey, and together with the wives of Barkstead and Corbet she petitioned the King “for permission to visit or be with their husbands, who having been abroad, are this week committed to the Tower.” The royalists could not be generous even to an opponent entirely at their mercy and it appears that a fortnight elapsed before a warrant was issued for Mary to speak with her husband, but only in the presence of his keeper.

On Monday, 14 April, Sir John Robinson was ordered to bring the three prisoners to the King’s Bench Bar at Westminster on the 16th. Accordingly on Wednesday, Okey, Barkstead and Corbet were conveyed under the charge of the Gentleman Gaoler by a guard of halberdiers from the Tower, and two files of musketeers, in barges up the Thames to Westminster and then to the King’s Bench Bar in Westminster Hall. As the three prisoners had already been attainted for high treason by Act of Parliament, all that was required was evidence of their identity. The judges were Lord Chief Justice Foster, Justice Mallet, Justice Twisden and Justice Wyndham. The proceedings were opened by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, the King’s Attorney General, who formally acquainted the Court that “these Prisoners were brought thither by his Majestie’s Order, to shew Cause and to offer what they could say for themselves by way of defence, or otherwise, why execution should not be awarded against them, according to an Act of Atteynder made in the twelfth year of his Majestie’s Raigne, and confirmed by the present Parliament, wherein and whereby, these three Persons stood attainted of Treason, for the execrable murther of his late Martyred Majesty.” The two Acts were then recited at the Attorney General’s request, after which the Secretary of the Court required the prisoners to hold up their hands and answer to their names.

Next the Lord Chief Justice asked the prisoners severally what they had to say for themselves why judgment and execution should not pass upon them.