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• Thomas Harrison

Thomas Harrison, the son of a butcher, was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1606. He was admitted to the Inns of Court and worked as a lawyer in London.

A Puritan Harrison joined the Parliamentary army on the outbreak of the Civil War. He became a Major in the Eastern Association army and during the conflict he fought at Edgehill (1642), Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645). He supported Oliver Cromwell in his dispute with the Edward Montagu and became one of the leading figures in the New Model Army.

Harrison was elected to the House of Commons in 1646 and soon emerged as one of the leaders of the radicals. Accused of being an Anabaptist he was opposed to negotiations with Charles I and advocated that he should be placed on trial. Later he was one of those willing to sign the king's death warrant.

In 1646 John Lilburne, John Wildman, Richard Overton and William Walwyn formed a new political party called the Levellers. Their political programme included: voting rights for all adult males, annual elections, complete religious freedom, an end to the censorship of books and newspapers, the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, trial by jury, an end to taxation of people earning less than £30 a year and a maximum interest rate of 6%.

Leveller supporters were elected from each regiment of the army to participate in the Putney Debates that began at the Church of St. Mary on 28th October, 1647. The debate was based on An Agreement of the People, a constitutional proposal drafted by the Levellers. Harrison took part in the debate and was one of the few senior officers in the New Model Army that supported the demands of the Levellers.

Harrison was now one of the most important political figures in England and was given command of home forces while Oliver Cromwell fought in Scotland (1650-51) and as a member of the Council of State presided over an official commission for missionary work in Wales.

Harrison retained his radical political ideas and became a member of the Fifth Monarchist group that sought the abolition of tithes, an increase in the help for the poor and the release of debtors from prison. In 1653 he was dismissed from the army. He was also imprisoned four times between 1653 and 1658 on suspicion of involvement in various plots against Oliver Cromwell and his government.

On the Restoration Harrison was an obvious target for the Royalists. Harrison refused to flee the country and was therefore like other Regicides arrested and brought to the Tower of London. At his trial in October 1660 he was found guilty of treason and was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. Harrison said on the scaffold: "Gentleman, by reason of some scoffing, that I do hear, I judge that some do think I am afraid to die... I tell you no, but it is by reason of much blood I have lost in the wars, and many wounds I have received in my body which caused this shaking and weakness in my nerves."

Samuel Pepys commented that: "I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-General Harrison, hanged, drawn, and quartered... he looked as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there were great shouts of joy... Harrison's head has been set up (on a pole) on the other side of Westminster Hall." John Evelyn did not see the execution but arrived on the scene soon afterwards: "The traitors executed were Scroop, Cook and Jones. I did not see their execution, but met their quarters mangled and cut and reeking as they were brought from the gallows in baskets."