Note 41 — THE REGICIDES

It seems now to be considered fairly certain that Richard Brandon was the man who actually cut off the King's head. He died the next June, after having executed Lord Capel and his companions in the rising which terminated in the siege of Colchester. It is the more curious that Hulet should have been tried for the offence, because Brandon certainly incurred the odium attaching to the act at the time of his death; and it seems that the fact was mentioned on an inscription on his grave. As far, however, as the evidence given at the trial is concerned, it seems possible that Hulet was the second masked figure on the scaffold. All that is known on the subject is set out in the Dictionary of National Biography, under the title 'Brandon.' See too a note by Mr. . G. Stephens in Notes and Queries, 5th series, vol. v. p. 177.