Major-General Thomas Harrison: Millenarianism, Fifth Monarchism and the English Revolution 1616-1660

Thomas Harrison is today perhaps best remembered for the manner of his death. As a leading member of the republican regime and signatory to Charles I’s death warrant, he was hanged, drawn and quartered by the Restoration government in 1660; a spectacle witnessed by Samuel Pepys who recorded him ‘looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition’. Beginning with this grisly event, this book employs a thematic, rather than chronological approach, to illustrate the role of millenarianism and providence in the English Revolution, religion within the new model army, literature, image and reputation, and Harrison’s relationship with key individuals like Ireton and Cromwell as well as groups, most notably the Fifth Monarchists.