Thomas Walcot (Lieut Colonel)
Col. Thomas Walcot (1625 – July 20, 1683) born in Warwickshire as the fourth son of Charles Walcot and Elizabeth Games, was a Puritan and lieutenant colonel in the Parliamentary Army.[1]
Biography
[edit]He married Jane Blayney, daughter of Thomas Blayney and niece of Edward Blayney, 1st Baron Blayney. In 1655, he purchased Ballyvarra Castle and later, in 1659, settled at Croagh, County Limerick, Ireland, managing an estate worth £800 per annum, along with lands in Lower Conneloe.[2] Though offered the Governorship of Carolina, he declined.[3]
In 1672, Walcot was arrested on suspicion of aiding a Dutch invasion of Ireland but was exonerated after eight months in the Tower of London.
In July 1683, Walcot was implicated in the Rye House Plot, a conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II and James, Duke of York. He was tried for high treason at the Old Bailey on July 12, 1683, and executed on July 20, 1683, at Tyburn Hill.[4] His remains were hanged, drawn, and quartered, with his head displayed at Aldgate—marking him as the last person in England subjected to this punishment.
Walcot’s cousin, William Russell, Lord Russell, and Algernon Sidney[5] were also executed in connection with the plot. His attainder was reversed in 1696, restoring his legacy to his eldest son, John, under King William III of England.
References
[edit]- ^ Ludlow, Edmund, and C. H. Firth. 1894. The memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, lieutenant-general of the horse in the army of the commonwealth of England, 1625-1672 (Volume 1), p 416 Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- ^ Burton, Rev. John, 1930 The History of the Family of Walcot of Walcot, p 24
- ^ The Province of Carolina, originally chartered in 1629, was an English and later British colony of North America. Because the original Heath charter was unrealized and was ruled invalid, a new charter was issued to a group of eight English noblemen, the Lords Proprietors, on March 24, 1663. Led informally by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, the Province of Carolina was controlled from 1663 to 1729 by these lords and their heirs. Thomas Walcott and Robert Ferguson had accompanied Shaftesbury to the Netherlands, in his self-imposed exile of November 1682. They then both returned to London, and associated with West, who learned from Walcott of Shaftesbury's own plan for a general rebellion. Walcott went on to say that he would lead the attack on the royal guards, but he was another of the plotters who drew the line at assassination
- ^ A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Year 1783, with Notes and Other Illustrations, Volume 9, p. 519 (Google eBook)
- ^ Algernon Sidney was the great-Grandson of Sir Henry Sidney and Charles Walcot, the grand Father of Thomas Walcot was the ward of Sir Henry the result of the old feudal system
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