by Jordan, Don
* In the seventeenth century England and Scotland still adhered to the old style or Julian calendar, according to which the new year began not on 1 January but on 25 March. The New Style or Gregorian calendar was not adopted until 1752. Hence, from our modern perspective, Charles I was executed on 30 January 1649. As is usual when writing of the period, we have used modern dating throughout.
* Constitutionally, only the sovereign can summon Parliament in England. On the occasions when Parliament has convened without royal summons, it is called a Convention Parliament.
* The others were: Sir Hardress Waller, Thomas Harrison, William Heveningham, Isaac Pennington, Henry Marten, Gilbert Millington, Robert Tichborne, Owen Rowe, Robert Lilburne, Adrian Scroop, John Carew, John Jones, Henry Smith, Gregory Clement, Edmund Harvey, Thomas Scot, John Downes, Vincent Potter, Augustine Garland, George Fleetwood, Simon Meyne, James Temple, Peter Temple and Thomas Waite.
* While William Joyce was undoubtedly a despicable individual, he should not have been tried under the 1351 Act for, as an Irish national, he was not strictly committing treason against the British crown.
* There is no reference in any of the contemporary shorthand court accounts to soldiers shouting ‘Execute.’
* The Venetian resident’s dispatches are available on the parliamentary website at British History Online: www.british-history.ac.uk
* This Anglo-Scottish pact signed in 1643 saw England officially adopt the Presbyterian form of church government operating in Scotland.
* Oliver, Protector of the English, Scottish and Irish Republic. Born 25 April 1599, inaugurated 15 December 1653, died 3 September 1658. Here he rests.
* Ludlow is unclear in his memoirs about just when he heard of Vane’s death. He says he learned in a letter in July, two months after he had left Geneva for Lausanne, but he also says he learned when at Geneva. This seems impossible, for Vane died on 14 June.
* This list, as near as we can make out, is: Slingsby Bethel, Andrew Broughton, Edward Dendy (fresh from his narrow escape in Rotterdam), Cornelius Holland, Nicholas Love, William Say and a Colonel John Bisco, who had sided with Lambert against Monck in the convulsions of 1660.
* These regiments had come into existence when companies of English soldiers were raised to help the Dutch in their war with the Spanish (the Thirty Years’ War). There were also several Scottish regiments.
* There is debate among Behn scholars about her trip to Suriname. On balance, it does appear to have taken place.
* The treaty was essentially a mutual-aid pact in which both parties agreed to help the other militarily – but it also included an agreement that Charles would convert to Catholicism whenever it was prudent to do so.