Thomas Harrison

Thomas Harrison was an English Parliamentarian soldier and political radical who rose to senior command during the civil wars. A committed religious Independent, he fought in major Parliamentarian campaigns and became associated with the army’s republican wing. He served as one of the commissioners at the trial of Charles I and signed the king’s death warrant in 1649.

Harrison later broke with Oliver Cromwell over the Protectorate and became associated with the Fifth Monarchists. After the Restoration of Charles II he was excluded from the general indemnity, prosecuted for regicide and executed in October 1660. His trial and death make him one of the central figures in the retribution examined in Charles Spencer’s Killers of the King.