Thomas Pride
Thomas Pride set up a successful business as a brewer in London during the 1630s. When the First Civil War broke out, he was serving as an ensign in the Red regiment of the London Trained Bands. On the formation of the New Model Army in 1645, Pride was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in Colonel Edward Harley's regiment. In Harley's absence during the campaigns of 1645, Pride was effectively commander of the regiment.
Pride was one of the most militant of the officers who supported the soldiers' right to petition Parliament for redress of their grievances. His commanding officer Colonel Harley accused Pride of using threats to extract signatures for a petition circulating amongst the soldiers. In July 1647, Pride helped draft the articles of impeachment drawn up by the Army against the Presbyterian Eleven Members who were regarded as its leading enemies in Parliament. Colonel Harley, who had been elected recruiter MP for Herefordshire in November 1646, was one of the Eleven. When Harley withdrew from the Army out of loyalty to Parliament, Pride was promoted to colonel and took over command of the regiment
During the Second Civil War, Pride's regiment marched with Oliver Cromwell to the siege of Pembroke and the battle of Preston. Pride was among the most vocal of the officers who demanded that King Charles I should be brought to account for provoking a second war. Under orders from Commissary-General Henry Ireton, Pride commanded the troops that ejected the Members of Parliament who continued to favour a negotiated settlement with the King, thus giving his name to Pride's Purge in December 1648. Appointed to the High Court of Justice, Pride sat as a judge at the King's Trial and was one of the 59 signatories of the death warrant.
Despite his republican principles however, he was knighted by Cromwell in 1656 and nominated to the Upper House as Lord Pride in 1658, prompting accusations of hypocrisy from radicals. Amongst other land and property acquisitions, Pride had bought Henry VIII's old palace of Nonesuch. At the Restoration, Pride was posthumously attainted a traitor. Like the corpses of Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw, his body was to be exhumed and hanged in chains at Tyburn, though in Pride's case, the order was never carried out
| Date"Date" is a type and predefined property provided by Semantic MediaWiki to represent date values. | |
|---|---|
| Act Abolishing the Office of King | 17 March 1649 |
| Army Remonstrance | 18 November 1648 |
| Civil War - Regicide | 6 December 1648 30 January 1649 |
| Civil War - Restoration | 4 April 1660 |
| Commissions of Array | 1 June 1642 |
| Execution of Archbishop William Laud | 10 January 1645 |
| Execution of Charles I | 30 January 1649 |
| Execution of Thomas Wentworth | 12 May 1641 |
| Four Bills | 24 December 1647 |
| Grand Remonstrance | 22 November 1641 |
| Heads of Proposals | 22 September 1647 |
| Instrument of Government | 16 December 1653 |
| Militia Ordinance | 7 December 1641 |
| Naseby | 14 June 1645 |
| National Covenant | 27 February 1638 |
| Newcastle Proposals | 1 July 1646 |
| Nineteen Propositions | 1 June 1642 |
| Petition of Right | 7 June 1628 |
| Petition of the Leveller Women | 11 September 1649 |
| Putney Debates | 1 October 1647 |
| Representation of the Army | 5 June 1647 |
| Root and Branch Petition | 11 December 1640 |
| Saffron Walden | 1 May 1647 |
| Scottish Prayer Book | 23 July 1637 |
| Short Parliament | 13 April 1640 |
| The Bishop's War | 1 January 1639 |
| The Five Members | 4 January 1642 |
| The Second Civil War | 22 February 1648 |
| The Self Denying Ordinance | 19 December 1644 |
| Treaty of Uxbridge | 29 January 1645 |
