James Temple

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James Temple was a regicide, 1606-c.1674.

Only surviving son of Sir Alexander Temple of Etchingham in Sussex. In 1627, Temple participated in the Duke of Buckingham's ill-fated expedition to the Isle of Rhé, during which his older brother was killed. During the 1630s, he was associated with the Puritan gentry of Sussex. When the First English Civil War broke out in 1642, he served as captain of a troop of horse under his uncle Lord Saye and Sele in the Midlands. By December 1643, he had returned to Sussex and played a major part in the defence of Bramber Castle against a Royalist attack during Lord Hopton's advance into Sussex. He was subsequently appointed governor of Tilbury Fort in Essex.

Elected recruiter MP for Bramber in September 1645, Temple emerged as a strong Independent. During the Second Civil War, he secured Tilbury Fort, which was of vital strategic importance against the Royalist uprisings in Kent and Essex. In January 1649, Temple was appointed to the High Court of Justice that brought Charles I of England to trial, and was one of the 59 signatories of the King's death warrant. With the establishment of the Commonwealth, he served on various parliamentary committees, but came under suspicion of corruption, which led to his dismissal from the governorship of Tilbury in September 1650.

Temple attempted to escape to Ireland at the Restoration in 1660, but was arrested in Warwickshire and brought to trial as a Regicide. He claimed that he had sat on the High Court of Justice in order to pass information to the King's friends and that he had begged Cromwell not to execute the King. However, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Jersey, where he died around 1674.