John Downes (regicide) John Downes (regicide) Colonel John Downes (1609 – c. 1666) was a commissioner who signed the death warrant of Charles I of England. After the English Restoration he was found guilty of regicide and was imprisoned until he died. John Downes; family had moved southwards from Cheshire to Warwickshire. They were said to be able to trace their Cheshire lineage back to 864 AD, according to John Parsons Earwaker's "History" of East Cheshire families. It is said that when the King came hunting in Macclesfield Forest, a Downes would hold the King's stirrup, whilst he mounted and Lord Stanley would
Thomas Hammond (regicide) Thomas Hammond (regicide) Thomas Hammond (c. 1600–1658), was an officer in the New Model Army and a regicide. Hammond was the third son of the five children of Dr John Hammond (c. 1555–1617), physician to the royal household under James I, who purchased the site of Chertsey Abbey in Surrey in 1602. In 1642, at the start of the English Civil War he was commissioned as an artillery officer. As he was an experienced officer he must have seen military service in the continental wars that preceded the Civil War although there is no direct evidence of this. His motives