Valentine Walton

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Valentine Walton (or Wauton), (c. 1594 - 1661) was one of the regicides of King Charles I of England. Valentine Walton was a prominent Parliament army officer in the English Civil War. He was also the brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. When Walton's son was killed at the battle of Marston Moor, Cromwell sent Walton a letter telling him of his son's death. The letter itself became famous because of the devotion to the Parliamentary cause which it demonstrated.

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[edit] Background and role in Civil War

Son of a gentry family of Huntingdonshire. At the age of twelve, Walton inherited the manor at Great Staughton on the death of his father. In 1617, he became Oliver Cromwell's brother-in-law on his marriage to Cromwell's sister Margaret. He was elected MP for Huntingdon in the Long Parliament and worked with Cromwell on committees concerned with reforming the church along Puritan lines. In August 1642, during the opening stages of the First Civil War, Walton assisted Cromwell in preventing Cambridge University from contributing its silver plate to the King's war fund. He raised a troop of horse and joined the army of the Earl of Essex, but was taken prisoner at the battle of Edgehill in October 1642. He was imprisoned at Oxford until July 1643 when he was exchanged for Sir Thomas Lunsford. Walton was made colonel of a regiment of foot in the army of the Eastern Association, and was appointed governor of King's Lynn in Norfolk after its capture by the Parliamentarians in September 1643. In July 1644, Walton's eldest son, also called Valentine, was killed at the battle of Marston Moor.

[edit] Commissioner in trial of Charles I

In January 1649, Walton sat as a commissioner on the High Court of Justice. He attended most sessions of the King's trial and signed the death warrant. He was a member of the Council of State throughout the Commonwealth and was appointed a commissioner of the admiralty, but he did not serve under the Protectorate and only returned to Parliament and the Council of State after Richard Cromwell was deposed in April 1659. When Parliament annulled Charles Fleetwood's commission as commander-in-chief of the army, Walton was one of seven commissioners appointed to replace him. He supported Sir Arthur Haselrig in his opposition to General John Lambert, and went with Haselrig to occupy Portsmouth while General Monck marched on London. When Monck restored the Long Parliament in February 1660, Walton was given command of Major-General Disbrowe's former regiment and continued as an army commissioner, but he was deprived of his offices as soon as Monck was appointed commander-in-chief of the army.

[edit] Escape to Germany following the Restoration

At the Restoration of Charles II, Walton was condemned as a Regicide but escaped to Germany and was given the freedom of the city of Hanau. He died in 1661.

[edit] Letter from Oliver Cromwell

On July 5, 1644, following the battle of Marston Moor, Cromwell wrote a letter to Valentine Walton, first telling him of the Parliamentary victory, and then informing him, in these words, of the death of Walton's son in the battle:

Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died. " Sir, you know my own trials this way; but the Lord supported me with this. That the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant for and live for. There is your precious child full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God give you His comfort. Before his death he was so full of comfort that to Frank Russell and myself he could not express it, it was so great above his pain. This he said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him what it was. He told me it was that God had not suffered him to be no[1] more the executioner of His enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and as I am informed three horses more, I am told he bid them open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the Army, of all that knew him. But few knew him, for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious Saint in Heaven, wherein you ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow; seeing these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the Church of God make you forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your strength; so prays your truly faithful and loving brother.[2][3]

The letter's significance may be best summarized by Antonia Fraser:

Perhaps Cromwell's own letter to Walton with its mixture of compassion, sympathy for the bereaved parent, and pride in the unflagging military zeal of the dying boy, making the troopers part so that he could see "the rogues run" where he lay, best sums up that strange aftermath of a battle fought in a civil war, where the heart of the country bleeds with the deaths of both sides.[4]

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[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Some texts substitute "any" for the word "no," here, apparently to avoid having Cromwell use a double-negative, a construction that was perfectly sound at the time. Fraser in her book reprints the actual letter, and the word clearly is "no,"
  2. ^ Church, Samuel Harden, Oliver Cromwell, at pages 220-21, G.P. Putnam, New York, NY 1895
  3. ^ Fraser, Antonia, Cromwell, the Lord Protector, at 129, Primus, New York, NY 1973 ISBN 0-917657-90-X
  4. ^ Fraser, at 130