Thomas Waite (regicide)

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Thomas Waite, (died 1688 in Jersey) also known as Thomas Wayte was an English soldier who fought for Parliament in the English Civil War, a Member of Parliament for Rutland, and one of the regicides of King Charles I.

Waite was probably the son of Henry Waite of Wymondham, Leicestershire;[1] but some royalist sources said he was the son of an alehouse keeper in Market Overton in Rutland.

He was admitted to

Burley-on-the-Hill, in Rutland.[2]

Waite wrote to Parliament in 1648, that he had fallen upon those who had made an insurrection at Stamford, Lincolnshire, and, at Woodcroft Castle, had killed Dr Hudson, who had commanded those forces, with some others, and taken many prisoners, but had dismissed the countrymen. The House replied with their thanks, and ordered that the general should send him a commission to try the prisoners by martial law. Soon afterwards he reported the defeat and capture of the Duke of Hamilton.[2]

As one of the

trial of Charles I. He attended the trial on 25, 26, and 27 January 1649, the first two in the Painted Chamber, and in the last of these in Westminster Hall, when sentence was pronounced against Charles, and he signed and sealed that instrument, which commanded Charles to execution.[3]

After this event, we hear nothing of Waite, until the restoration; he seems neglected by Parliament, and totally given up by Oliver Cromwell, when he became Lord Protector, who even omitted his name as one of the committee for Rutland, which he had enjoyed during the first Commonwealth.[4] In 1650, he acquired the Duke of Buckingham's Rutland estates. On 13 March 1654 his tenants at Hambleton, Rutland petitioned the council of state complaining of Waite doubling their rents, diverting their water supply, enclosing their commons, and endeavouring to evict eighty families.

He was not granted a general pardon under the

Saint Saviour, Jersey on 18 October 1688.[7]

Notes

  1. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28405. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. ^ a b Noble, p.310
  3. ^ Noble, pp. 310,311
  4. ^ Noble, p. 311
  5. ^ Noble, pp. 311–317
  6. ^ Lemprière, p. 100. "Dr Gilbert Millington, Sir Hardress Waller, Henry Smith, Colonel James Temple and Colonel Thomas Waite (Wayte), who were among those who condemned King Charles I to death were imprisoned in Mont Orgueil Castle."
  7. ^ Balleine, p. 148. "Thomas Wayte was buried at St Saviour on 18 October 1688"

References

Baptism Records Wymondham, Leicestershire, Wills of Thomas Waite, John Waite, and Henry Waite of Wymondham, Leicestershire. Will of Theodore Gulston MD of London.

Attribution
  • Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: "The lives of the English regicides: and other commissioners of the pretended High court of justice, appointed to sit in judgement upon their sovereign, King Charles the First" Volume II, by Mark Noble (1798)
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