York in American History: The fate of Thomas Venner

Note: Thomas Venner migrated to Salem, Massachusetts, from England in 1637, residing for 22 years in New England, which included his residence and ownership in a house in York (Gorgeana until 1652), probably in the late 1640s. A restless soul, driven by visions of creating a utopian government with Christ as its head, Venner moved back to England in the early 1650s and became a leader of the Fifth Monarchists. 

"In our way" through the streets of London, "meeting Venner and Pritchard upon a sledge, who with two more Fifth Monarchy men were hanged today."

Samuel Pepys, the famed seventeenth-century English diarist, had witnessed Thomas Venner as he was conveyed to the place of execution on Saturday, January 19, 1661. He was to suffer a gruesome death that day, the punishment administered to those found guilty of treason.

"Oh Lord comfort me into thy hands, Oh Lord I commit my spirit," Venner's last words, spoken just before he was hanged.

His strange odyssey was over, an odyssey that had included time spent here in York as an inhabitant of this settlement. He had even owned a house that after July 1653 became the property of fisherman Edward Start. Venner was restless by nature and moved from place to place. He had resided at Salem and at Boston and contemplated a move to Providence Island in the West Indies.

He had arrived at Salem in 1637 accompanied by his wife Alice, where he was to remain for the next six years. While at the town, two daughters were born – Mary and Hannah, the latter was to become the wife of William Medley, a fully committed Fifth Monarchist. Venner became a member of the church there, and served in town offices, elected constable. At Boston in 1643, he joined the Artillery Company, and was a leader among the local coopers, the trade he practiced, who advocated that they be organized into a corporation.

What were the circumstances that encouraged him to make the migration to Maine? Perhaps there may be a clue in the 1653 transaction with Start for the house. From the brief document, it appears that a man named William Payne conducted the action, as the agent of "William Cotton of Boston," who seems to have been entrusted with power of attorney by Venner.

Interestingly, there was a Boston butcher named William Cotton, who was a sergeant in the Artillery Company. If this identification is correct, and it is of course only tentative, Venner had established acquaintances in that town prior to the move north. Very possibly it was close to the end of his New England sojourn that the restless man sought yet another place to live. He would certainly not have the same opportunities for employment as he would have in the populated port towns, but that may not have mattered.

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By the early 1650s, he had moved back to England and was now a religious zealot who identified himself with the cause of the Fifth Monarchists, one of a multitude of radical sects that had emerged in the tumultuous period of the English civil war. The execution of King Charles I in 1649, was interpreted by them as the critical event that was a prelude to the reign of Christ on Earth.

"You ought to believe that the Fourth Monarchy is come," Venner declared before his death, "and that it is the duty of the people of God to look for liberty." As with the other Fifth Monarchists, Venner perceived authority figures as enemies because they stood in the way of Christ's rule. His successive acts of rebellion, which became the basis of treason, were intended to defeat authority.

Venner represented himself as being only Christ's instrument, and that in truth it was Christ who was at the head of the insurrections. "Live King Jesus!" his followers were heard to exclaim during the fateful rising that proved to be his last. In printed manifestos, especially the one titled “Door of Hope” of 1661, the world he envisioned was revealed, as one without any rulers to rival the divine, and no customs, excise, or any form of taxes.

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As he contemplated treasonous acts and resorted to violence to bring the new age into being, all but the most faithful repudiated his conduct. His core of support was the gathering of members at Swan Ally in London, mostly young men, apprentices – the numbers vary as to the totals from fifty to perhaps hundreds.

In April 1657, there had been an aborted rising, as the participants were defeated before they could organize themselves. Venner was imprisoned in the London Tower for the next two years, but there was never a trial, and he was released. Before punishment was administered, he was brought before Oliver Cromwell, and as reported, he “spoke and behaved himself with great impudence, insolence, pride and railing as... you ever heard of.”

In 1661 a very different political and cultural climate prevailed. Cromwell was dead and King Charles II, proclaimed in May of the previous year, was exacting revenge upon the group who had been responsible for the execution of his father, Charles I in January 1649. Three months prior to the rising, in mid-October of 1660, multiple executions for treason occurred for the condemned regicides. Reverend Hugh Peter, a man who had been here two decades earlier in 1640, was among them.

"A sad sight to see," diarist Pepys remarked, "and a bloody week this and the last have been, there being ten hanged." As would be expected, the severed heads of the men would be put on display at different public places. It was a strange moment that was to include the executions of those who had already died. Only a few weeks after Venner's death in January 1661, Oliver Cromwell and others were subjected to this treatment.

The violent street fighting of but a few days duration that Venner had led was only the beginning of an assault upon other established governments in Europe. This was the larger vision presented in the manifesto. In the aftermath of his insurrection, thousands were apprehended and imprisoned, and the Quakers felt compelled by events to adopt the now well-recognized peace principle of nonviolence.

James Kences is the town historian for the town of York. 

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: York in American History: The fate of Thomas Venner