Preface

Summary

Volume XXVII of the Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society was devoted to the Life and Letters of Sir Lewis Dyve, a distinguished royalist who, although born in Bedfordshire, spent but little of his long, adventurous life in his native county. The present volume is concerned with a distinguished Parliamentarian, Colonel John Okey, a London merchant, who, as the owner of extensive estates in Bedfordshire, became very influential in county affairs during the period 1650-60. He served on numerous county committees, was a Justice of the Peace, Custos Rotulorum and Member of Parliament. He resided in the house which still stands and is known as Brogborough Park Farm or, more popularly, as Brogborough Round House.

Although there is a wealth of material relating to Okey, no life of him has been written hitherto, apart from Mark Noble’s sketch in his Lives of the Regicides and the necessarily short article in the Dictionary of National Biography. This is surprising, for Okey was prominent as one of the most successful officers of the New Model Army and in the days before the Restoration was ‘as much a general as Monck himself.’ The peculiar circumstances of his arrest in Holland and his subsequent execution in England, ensured for him the sympathy of many who were hostile to the cause of which he had been a faithful supporter.

In addition to providing a documentary life of one who is still remembered in Bedfordshire, this volume throws some light on that frequently-ignored period of English history— the months between the death of Oliver Cromwell and the Restoration of Charles II.

My indebtedness to the British Museum, Bodleian Library, Public Record Office, Society of Genealogists, Somerset House and the County Record Office, Bedford, will be immediately apparent. My thanks are also due to Dr. Williams’ Library, Gordon Square, London, to Hackney Public Library, whose local history collection I consulted, to Mr. E. S. de Beer, who read the typescript and made a number of valuable suggestions which I have incorporated, to Lieut.-Col. Peter Young for advice on the military history of the period, and to Mr. Norman Okey-Gurney who kindly supplied me with a complete family tree of the Okey family from the seventeenth century to the present time.