Dimensions
138 x 216 x 33mm
Charles I's Puritan Nemesis
Unequalled as a social document, these are the contemporary memoirs of the wife of Colonel Hutchinson, one of the men who signed the death warrant of Charles I. Having taken a pivotal role in the English Revolution, John Hutchinson died an ignominious death in prison four years after the Restoration. The Royalists would have allowed him to be forgotten had his wife not written his memoirs as a defence against the allegation that he was not a "gentleman".
Lucy Hutchinson was a skilled linguist who published translations of Virgil, Lucretius and composed a work of systematic theology. She and John Hutchinson were both committed Puritans and convinced republicans who became disenchanted with Oliver Cromwell's assumption of personal power. Consequently Colonel Hutchinson retired from public life, escaping execution upon the Restoration, in part due to the intervention of Lucy. However he was arrested in 1663 and died is prison. Following her husband's death, Lucy wrote this memoir presenting a hero - a creative, generous and kind man who stood resolutely by his beliefs and whose allegiance to the Puritan cause was just and noble.
