John Cook (regicide)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other persons named John Cook, see John Cook (disambiguation).

For other persons named John Cooke, see John Cooke (disambiguation).

John Cooke (1608 –1660) (sometimes spelled John Cook) was the Solicitor General and the leading prosecutor at the trial of Charles I.

He was the son of a Leicestershire farmer, educated at Wadham College Oxford, and at Gray's Inn. Prior to his appointment as prosecutor, he had established a reputation as a radical lawyer and an Independent.

In his recent biography, Geoffrey Robertson (2005) has argued that Cooke was a highly original and progressive lawyer, but he was not fundamentally anti-monarchist. However, he was forced to this stance when Charles refused to recognise the legality of the court or answer the charges of tyranny against him. Robertson says that Cooke bravely accepted his fate at the Restoration when many others compromised with the new regime.

As a regicide, Cooke was exempted after the Restoration of Charles II from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act which indemnified most opponents of the Monarchy for crimes they might have committed during the Interregnum (1649–1660). John Cook was tried and found guilty of high treason for his part in the trial of Charles I. He was hanged, drawn and quartered with Hugh Peters the radical preacher and another of the regicides on 16 October 1660.

The journalist, historian and anti-Corn Law propagandist William Cooke Taylor (1800-49) claimed descent from Cooke. (see Patrick Maume (ed.) William Cooke Taylor MEMOIRS OF DANIEL O'CONNELL (University College Dublin Press rerint, 2004)