"--After a little
pause, the King stretching forth his hands, the executioner at one blow
severed his head from his body, and held it up and showed it to the
people, saying, "Behold the head of a traitor!" At the instant when the
blow was given, a dismal universal groan was uttered by the people (as
if by one consent) such as was never before heard; and as soon as the
execution was over, one troop of horse marched rapidly from Charing
Cross to King Street, and another from King Street to Charing Cross, to
disperse and scatter the multitude.
Though Joyce and Hugh Peters have been suspected of inflicting the
murderous blow on Charles, and though another claimant for this infamous
distinction is put forward in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1767, there
seems little doubt that Richard Brandon, the common hangman, assisted by
his man, Ralph Jones, a ragman in Rosemary Lane, in fact perpetrated the
deed. Among the tracts relative to the Civil War presented to the
British Museum by George III., in 1762, are three on this subject, which
are fully noticed in a note to Mr. Ellis's Letters on English History,
vol. iii. (second series.) It appears, by the register of Whitechapel
Church, that Richard Brandon was buried there on the 24th of June, 1649;
and a marginal note (not in the hand of the Registrar, but bearing the
mark of antiquity), states, "This R.
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