George Joyce: Difference between revisions

 

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=== Seizing the King at Holdenby House ===

=== Seizing the King at Holdenby House ===

In 1647, after the conclusion of the [[First English Civil War]], Parliament ordered the New Model Army to disband without full payment of their arrears.<ref name=”:4″ /> In response to this threat, Joyce was tasked with leading a troop of 500 men to take control of [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] from where he was held in Parliamentary custody at [[Holdenby House]].<ref name=”:6″>{{Cite book |last=Gentles |first=Ian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hBxeEAAAQBAJ |title=The New Model Army: Agent of Revolution |date=2022 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-22683-6 |pages=197–200 |language=en}}</ref> The plan was possibly formulated by a council of elected representatives of the army, known as ‘[[Agitators]],'<ref name=”:0″ /> however Joyce also seemingly received tacit approval from Cromwell after visiting his house on [[Drury Lane]] on Mary 31.<ref name=”:6″ /> Cromwell later admitted authorising Joyce to secure the King at Holdenby, but denied giving him orders to move him.<ref name=”:2″ />

In 1647, after the conclusion of the [[First English Civil War]], Parliament ordered the New Model Army to disband without full payment of their arrears.<ref name=”:4″ /> In response to this threat, Joyce a troop of 500 men to take control of [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] from where he was held in Parliamentary custody at [[Holdenby House]].<ref name=”:6″>{{Cite book |last=Gentles |first=Ian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hBxeEAAAQBAJ |title=The New Model Army: Agent of Revolution |date=2022 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-22683-6 |pages=197–200 |language=en}}</ref> The plan was possibly formulated by a council of elected representatives of the army, known as ‘[[Agitators]],'<ref name=”:0″ /> however Joyce approval from Cromwell after visiting his house on [[Drury Lane]] on Mary 31.<ref name=”:6″ /> Cromwell later admitted authorising Joyce to secure the King at Holdenby, but denied giving him orders to move him.<ref name=”:2″ />

On June 2, Joyce successfully occupied Holdenby. He soon received word that Colonel Graves, who had been in command of the regiment that was previously guarding the King, had fled the house.<ref name=”:0″ /> Fearful that Graves would return with a superior force and take the King back into Parliament’s control, Joyce made the decision to move Charles to [[Newmarket, Suffolk|Newmarket]], where the New Model Army had set up headquarters.<ref name=”:6″ />

On June 2, Joyce successfully occupied Holdenby. He soon received word that Colonel Graves, who had been in command of the regiment that was previously guarding the King, had fled the house.<ref name=”:0″ /> Fearful that Graves would return with a superior force and take the King back into Parliament’s control, Joyce made the decision to move Charles to [[Newmarket, Suffolk|Newmarket]], where the New Model Army had set up headquarters.<ref name=”:6″ />

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In 1653, Joyce opposed the dissolution of the [[Rump Parliament|Rump parliament]] without a more “righteous and equal Government” to replace it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Krey |first=Gary S. De |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ycNKDwAAQBAJ&q=joyce |title=Following the Levellers, Volume Two: English Political and Religious Radicals from the Commonwealth to the Glorious Revolution, 1649–1688 |date=2018-02-05 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-95330-1 |pages=59 |language=en}}</ref> He was arrested and briefly imprisoned after allegedly stating that [[Robert Lockyer]] should have assassinated Cromwell at [[Bishopsgate mutiny|Bishopsgate]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Krey |title=Following the Levellers, Volume Two: English Political and Religious Radicals from the Commonwealth to the Glorious Revolution, 1649–1688 |date=2018-02-05 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-95330-1 |pages=82 |language=en}}</ref> [[Thomas Pride|Colonel Pride]] offered to stand bail for him.<ref name=”:3″ /> According to Joyce’s own account his downfall was in large part due to a property dispute with [[Richard Cromwell]].<ref name=”:3″ /><ref name=”:2″ />

In 1653, Joyce opposed the dissolution of the [[Rump Parliament|Rump parliament]] without a more “righteous and equal Government” to replace it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Krey |first=Gary S. De |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ycNKDwAAQBAJ&q=joyce |title=Following the Levellers, Volume Two: English Political and Religious Radicals from the Commonwealth to the Glorious Revolution, 1649–1688 |date=2018-02-05 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-95330-1 |pages=59 |language=en}}</ref> He was arrested and briefly imprisoned after allegedly stating that [[Robert Lockyer]] should have assassinated Cromwell at [[Bishopsgate mutiny|Bishopsgate]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Krey |title=Following the Levellers, Volume Two: English Political and Religious Radicals from the Commonwealth to the Glorious Revolution, 1649–1688 |date=2018-02-05 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-95330-1 |pages=82 |language=en}}</ref> [[Thomas Pride|Colonel Pride]] offered to stand bail for him.<ref name=”:3″ /> According to Joyce’s own account his downfall was in large part due to a property dispute with [[Richard Cromwell]].<ref name=”:3″ /><ref name=”:2″ />

Under the [[Commonwealth of England|Commonwealth]], Joyce had became a [[Speculation|speculator]] in confiscated [[crown land]]s. On 1 October 1651, Parliament had voted to grant him confiscated land worth 100 pounds clear profit per anum for himself and his heirs.<ref name=”:2″ /><ref name=”:3″ /><ref name=”:10″>{{Cite book |last=Southcombe |first=George |url=https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Revolutionary_England_c_1630_c_1660/LureDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title=Revolutionary England, c.1630-c.1660: Essays for Clive Holmes |last2=Tapsell |first2=Grant |date=2020-04-22 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-06339-1 |language=en}}</ref> By 1651, he owned [[Isle of Portland|Portland Manor]] outright, after buying out his partner [[Edward Sexby]].<ref name=”:3″ /> He also purchased the manors of East and West [[Enborne]] after they had been sequestered from royalist [[William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven (1608–1697)|Lord Craven]].<ref name=”:10″ /> In a 1659 pamphlet, he was named as [[Colonel]] Joyce, one of the “Great Men of the Army”, who had purchased [[Enfield Chase|Enfield Chase,]] a former royal hunting Lodge and enclosed it, evicting by use of force the local commoners who had subsisted on it. This led to a riot which troops were sent in to suppress.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Linebaugh |first=Peter |url=https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Red_Round_Globe_Hot_Burning/0HI-EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title=Red Round Globe Hot Burning: A Tale at the Crossroads of Commons and Closure, of Love and Terror, of Race and Class, and of Kate and Ned Despard |date=2021-02-23 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-38303-6 |language=en}}</ref>

On 1 October 1651, Parliament had voted to grant confiscated land worth 100 pounds clear profit per anum for himself and his heirs.<ref name=”:2″ /><ref name=”:3″ /><ref name=”:10″>{{Cite book |last=Southcombe |first=George |url=https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Revolutionary_England_c_1630_c_1660/LureDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title=Revolutionary England, c.1630-c.1660: Essays for Clive Holmes |last2=Tapsell |first2=Grant |date=2020-04-22 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-06339-1 |language=en}}</ref> By 1651, he owned [[Isle of Portland|Portland Manor]] outright, after buying out his partner [[Edward Sexby]].<ref name=”:3″ /> He also purchased the manors of East and West [[Enborne]] after they had been sequestered from royalist [[William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven (1608–1697)|Lord Craven]].<ref name=”:10″ /> In a 1659 pamphlet, he was named as [[Colonel]] Joyce, one of the “Great Men of the Army”, who had purchased [[Enfield Chase|Enfield Chase,]] a former royal hunting Lodge and enclosed it, evicting by use of force the local commoners who had subsisted on it. This led to a riot which troops were sent in to suppress.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Linebaugh |first=Peter |url=https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Red_Round_Globe_Hot_Burning/0HI-EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title=Red Round Globe Hot Burning: A Tale at the Crossroads of Commons and Closure, of Love and Terror, of Race and Class, and of Kate and Ned Despard |date=2021-02-23 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-38303-6 |language=en}}</ref>

When the Rump Parliament was restored in the summer of 1659, Joyce was employed in the search for [[Cavalier|royalist]] conspirators.<ref name=”:2″ /> A blacksmith named William Houlbrook published an account claiming Joyce manipulated him into expressing pro-royalist sentiment and then pressed him to incriminate others, which led to Houlbrook’s arrest and interrogation by [[John Bradshaw (judge)|John Bradshaw]] and other republican officials.<ref name=”:2″ /><ref name=”:3″ />

When the Rump Parliament was restored in the summer of 1659, Joyce was employed in the search for [[Cavalier|royalist]] conspirators.<ref name=”:2″ /> A blacksmith named William Houlbrook published an account claiming Joyce manipulated him into expressing pro-royalist sentiment and then pressed him to incriminate others, which led to Houlbrook’s arrest and interrogation by [[John Bradshaw (judge)|John Bradshaw]] and other republican officials.<ref name=”:2″ /><ref name=”:3″ />

Officer in the New Model Army

Lieutenant-Colonel George Joyce (born 1618) was an officer and Agitator in the Parliamentary New Model Army during the English Civil War.^[1]

Between 2 and 5 June 1647, while the New Model Army was assembling for rendezvous at the behest of the recently formed Army Council, Joyce seized King Charles I from Parliament‘s custody at Holdenby House and took him to Thomas Fairfax’s headquarters on Triplo Heath (8 miles south of Cambridge),^[2] a move that weakened Parliament’s position and strengthened the Army’s.^[3][4]

Before joining the army, Joyce worked as a tailor in London.^[5][6] According to royalist historian the Earl of Clarendon in his work, ‘The History of the Rebellion‘, Joyce at one point, “served in a very inferior Employment in Mr. Holles’s House.“^[5]

By 1644, Joyce had enlisted in the Army of the Eastern Association and was serving in Oliver Cromwell‘s cavalry regiment, nicknamed the ‘Ironsides‘.^[7] By 1647, he was commissioned as a cornet in Sir Thomas Fairfax’s lifeguard.^[8][4] Fairfax would later describe Joyce as an “Arch-Agitator.”^[9]

In 1647, after the conclusion of the First English Civil War, Parliament ordered the New Model Army to disband without full payment of their arrears.^[8] In response to this threat, Joyce led a troop of 500 men to take control of Charles I from where he was held in Parliamentary custody at Holdenby House.^[10] The plan was possibly formulated by a council of elected representatives of the army, known as ‘Agitators,’^[4] however Joyce may have also received approval from Cromwell after visiting his house on Drury Lane on Mary 31.^[10] Cromwell later admitted authorising Joyce to secure the King at Holdenby, but denied giving him orders to move him.^[6]

On June 2, Joyce successfully occupied Holdenby. He soon received word that Colonel Graves, who had been in command of the regiment that was previously guarding the King, had fled the house.^[4] Fearful that Graves would return with a superior force and take the King back into Parliament’s control, Joyce made the decision to move Charles to Newmarket, where the New Model Army had set up headquarters.^[10]

Armed with a pistol, he entered the King’s bedchamber in the middle of the night on June 3, and told him that he must leave with his troop the next morning.^[9][10] As they were about to depart, Charles asked to know by what commission Joyce had been authorised to remove him. In reply, Joyce was said to have simply gestured to the 500 troopers who stood behind him.^[11]

Fairfax denied any prior knowledge of Joyce’s actions and wanted to have him court-martialled. However, Cromwell and Henry Ireton not only interceded on his behalf, but promised him promotion.^[12][6] Eventually Fairfax would come to appreciate Joyce’s decision.^[4] Concerning his arrest of the King, Joyce reported in a letter:

“Lett the Agitators know once more wee have done nothing in our owne name, but what wee have done hath been in the name of the whole Army.”^[12]

In early 1648, Joyce was promoted to captain and made governor of Southsea Castle.^[7]

According to an account by Sir John Berkley, in 1648, Joyce expressed the view that the King should be brought to trial, so that the parliamentary side “might not bear the blame of the war.”^[13][7]

Joyce spoke at the army council debates at Reading in 1648, and at Whitehall in 1649. At Whitehall, he argued that legislative power rested in the hands of the army rather than Parliament, and urged Fairfax and the Grandees “not to shift off that [power] which the Lord hath called you to.”^[14] He then claimed that through acting as the instruments of God’s will, the council would be able to “remove mountains, [and do] such things as were never yet done by men on earth.”^[7][15]

During Pride’s Purge, in which parliamentarians deemed to be opponents of the New Model Army were barred from entering Parliament, and in some cases, arrested, Joyce led a group of soldiers into the capital. He personally arrested the Sheriff of London, Major-General Sir Richard Browne; a leading figure of the Presbyterian faction.^[7] When Browne protested his arrest, Joyce was reported to have said,

“Do you think that I who laid hands upon a King, fear to apprehend you but his Sheriff?”^[7][14]

On January 30, 1649, Charles I was executed and the Commonwealth of England was established. Joyce continued serving in Army.

On 17 June 1650, Joyce was appointed governor of the Isle of Portland, in the August he was given a commission as lieutenant-colonel in a regiment raised by Colonel James Heane.^[6] In October 1651, he accompanied Heane on an expedition to retake Jersey.^[16] The expedition was successful; thus the last remaining Royalist stronghold in the British Isles fell to Parliament.^[17]

In 1653, Joyce opposed the dissolution of the Rump parliament without a more “righteous and equal Government” to replace it.^[18] He was arrested and briefly imprisoned after allegedly stating that Robert Lockyer should have assassinated Cromwell at Bishopsgate.^[19] Colonel Pride offered to stand bail for him.^[7] According to Joyce’s own account his downfall was in large part due to a property dispute with Richard Cromwell.^[7][6]

On 1 October 1651, Parliament had voted to grant Joyce confiscated crown land worth 100 pounds clear profit per anum for himself and his heirs.^[6][7][20] By 1651, he owned Portland Manor outright, after buying out his partner Edward Sexby.^[7] He also purchased the manors of East and West Enborne after they had been sequestered from royalist Lord Craven.^[20] In a 1659 pamphlet, he was named as Colonel Joyce, one of the “Great Men of the Army”, who had purchased Enfield Chase, a former royal hunting Lodge and enclosed it, evicting by use of force the local commoners who had subsisted on it. This led to a riot which troops were sent in to suppress.^[21]

When the Rump Parliament was restored in the summer of 1659, Joyce was employed in the search for royalist conspirators.^[6] A blacksmith named William Houlbrook published an account claiming Joyce manipulated him into expressing pro-royalist sentiment and then pressed him to incriminate others, which led to Houlbrook’s arrest and interrogation by John Bradshaw and other republican officials.^[6][7]

In June 1660, Parliament issued a warrant for Joyce’s arrest after William Lily alleged he had been the masked executioner of Charles I. Consequently, Joyce fled to Rotterdam with his wife and children.^[7]

He remained a concern to the newly restored monarchy, and was closely monitored by state intelligence agencies.^[22] In 1664 he was implicated, along with several other republican radicals, in a plot to raise a rebel army.^[23]

In 1670, Charles II sent Sir William Temple to Rotterdam to extradite Joyce to England, however Dutch authorities allowed him to escape. It is unknown what happened to him after this.^[6]