On Wednesday, the 9th of January, 1661, Thomas Venner’s men reappeared in the streets of London, having dispersed their company only days before. They chose the hour when the watch had newly been relieved. In Threadneedle Street, their sudden arrival alarmed the militia; a detachment sent against them fell back upon its post. When the royal forces returned in strength, the insurgents retreated toward Bishopsgate Street. Several took refuge within an inn called the Helmet. There the combat was renewed. Two men were slain; others, on either side, fell or were grievously wounded.
Venner next led his followers to College Hill. He wore a morion and wielded a halberd. The militia and the King’s Guards engaged them at point-blank range. The insurgents held their ground long enough to repel an initial charge from the royal guard, but superior numbers at last overwhelmed them. Venner was struck down, pierced by musket ball. Two preachers attached to the movement, Tufney and Crag, were slain. The band broke; several fled toward Wood Street, firing behind them at the pursuing militia.
Ten men entrenched themselves within the Blue Anchor, near a postern gate. Lieutenant-Colonel Cox ordered every egress secured. Men of the militia mounted the roof of an adjoining house, tearing away tiles to fire down upon those trapped in the upper chamber. Others forced the staircase, battered down the door, and burst within. Six insurgents were killed; one was wounded. Another, still refusing all surrender, was struck down and shot dead. When the survivors were asked why they had not sued for quarter sooner, they answered that they feared being shot by their own fellows. Borrow records this explanation as their reply, without probing the circumstances under which it was given.
Flight scattered the remnants of the band in several directions. The narrative attributes twenty-two deaths to the royal forces and an equal number to the rebels. Twenty prisoners were subsequently tried together; others were detained upon suspicion. The figures in the chronicle do not always clearly align, nor is it possible within these pages to assign every death to a precise location. Yet the violence of that day remains palpable: barricaded streets, militia hunting down fugitives, shattered doors, and musketry raining from the rooftops.
To understand Venner’s return to the streets, one must turn back to the preceding Sunday. On the 6th of January, his conventicle had assembled in a meeting-house in Coleman Street. Its members armed themselves and advanced upon St. Paul’s Cathedral at nightfall. They posted sentinels. A passerby was killed by one of their number after declaring that he was for God and King Charles—so Borrow relates. Companies of the trained bands attempted to beat them back; the insurgents made for Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, and Aldersgate, escaping the city despite constables and watchmen. They proclaimed their allegiance to "King Jesus."
They marched toward Beech Lane, where they slew a headborough who barred their passage, and thence retired into the woods of Cane Wood. A detachment of horse and foot dispersed them there; some thirty men were carried before General Monck and committed to prison. Others made good their return to London. Their leader, Venner, a cooper by trade, assured them that no weapon formed against them should prosper, and that not a hair of their heads should perish. Their escape sustained the hope of another rising.
The sect to which they belonged awaited a fifth monarchy—the reign of Christ foretold in their reading of the Scriptures, destined to supplant all earthly empires. Borrow’s chronicle dismisses them as fanatic zealots and reduces their convictions to madness. Yet it records their words in terms that illuminate the chasm between their millenarian faith and the restored order. King Charles II had regained the throne in 1660; to these men, royal power and established institutions were mere earthly authorities that must yield before the sovereignty of Jesus. Such convictions had not prevented them from bearing arms, posting sentinels, charting routes, and submitting to military discipline.
Prior to their second sally, they published a declaration styled A Door of Hope opened, which Borrow abridges as an invective against the royal house. They seized upon the King’s absence, his Majesty being then at Portsmouth. Though the band that took to the streets was small, it did not act as a headless rabble: they had equipped themselves at their meeting-place, sought an egress from London, secured defensible positions, and rallied their numbers after their first defeat. It was the resistance they encountered that transformed their enterprise into a running hunt and the siege of an alehouse.
Following their capture, Venner and nineteen fellow prisoners were arraigned together upon indictments of high treason and murder. Chairs were provided for the wounded. Called upon to answer the charge, Venner launched into a religious discourse concerning his life in New England and the convictions that had possessed him for over twenty years. He confessed to his part in the insurrection, but denied having intended to levy war against the King. The court demanding a direct answer, he at last pleaded not guilty.
Hodgkins likewise wandered from the matter before entering his plea. The other prisoners submitted to the court. Witnesses testified that Venner, Tufney, and Crag had exhorted their congregation to take up arms in the name of King Jesus against all earthly powers, and to slay any who resisted them. They affirmed that the men had armed themselves within the Coleman Street meeting-house, detailing each man's participation. The record transmitted by Borrow does not furnish an equally detailed individual defence for every prisoner at the bar.
The evidence was deemed insufficient against four men: Martin, Hopkins, and Wells were acquitted, as was Patshal, against whom but a single witness appeared. The remaining sixteen were found guilty. When charged with the blood that had been shed, Venner replied that he had not led them; the witnesses being recalled, he declared that it was Jesus who had been their leader. Three of the condemned acknowledged their crime and sued for mercy. Sentence was pronounced upon the sixteen according to the gruesome penalty reserved for traitors.
Borrow subsequently relates two days of execution. Venner and Hodgkins were drawn upon hurdles from Newgate through Cheapside to the site of their former meeting-house, over against Swan Alley. The leader spoke little; Hodgkins cursed the King, the judges, and the city, falling silent only when the sheriff hastened the executioner’s work. The chronicle proceeds with nine other men put to death on the 21st of January: two near St. Paul’s, two at the Bull and Mouth, two in Beech Lane, two at the Royal Exchange, and Leonard Gowler at Bishopsgate. It records that their bodies were decapitated and their heads exposed upon London Bridge. Borrow further mentions a young man hanged in Redcross Street, who repented of his actions while clinging to his faith. The passage leaves unclear whether this youth belonged to the number already accounted for. Through these several executions, the same division persisted: some sued for royal clemency, while others remained unyielding even at the foot of the gallows. The severed heads set upon the bridge bore lasting civic testimony to the Crown’s answer to their rising.