Vincent Potter

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Vincent Potter ( –1661) was one of the Regicides of King Charles I of England.

Born in Warwickshire, Potter was a Puritan merchant and founder member of the Massachusetts Bay Company. He settled in Massachusetts in 1635, and probably fought in the Pequot War of 1637. Potter returned to England in 1639 and continued trading with Massachusetts until the outbreak of the First English Civil War, when he joined the Parliamentarian army. He was commissioned a captain of horse by Lord Brooke in January 1643. After Brooke's death, Potter served in Colonel William Purefoy's regiment of horse until July 1645 when he was appointed a parliamentary commissioner to the New Model Army with responsibility for provisioning and supplying the Army. Potter proved to be an able administrator, and was severe in his condemnation of plunder and free quarter among the New Model soldiers.

Potter was nominated to the High Court of Justice in January 1649. He was a signatory of the King's death warrant, and also signed the death warrants of the Royalist leaders of the Second Civil War — the Duke of Hamilton and the Lords Capel, Holland and Norwich (Norwich's life was spared by the casting vote of the Speaker of the Commons). In June 1649, Potter was promoted to colonel and was responsible for provisioning Oliver Cromwell's campaigns in Scotland and Ireland. Arrested in 1660, Potter was brought to trial as a Regicide. He was found guilty and condemned to death, but died in the Tower of London in late 1661 or early 1662 before the sentence could be carried out.^[1]