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
Regicide were disinterred and hanged, drawn and quartered in posthumous executions. In 1662, three more regicides John Okey, John Barkstead and Miles Corbet were also hanged, drawn and quartered. The officers of the court that tried Charles I, those who prosecuted him and those who signed his death warrant, have been known ever since the restoration as regicides. The Parliamentary Archives in the Palace of Westminster, London, holds the original death warrant of Charles I. Different cultures and authors in history have used different definitions for what constitute the crime of regicide, as such it is difficult to make a universally