Henry Marten (regicide)

Henry "Harry" Marten was born at his father's house on 3 Merton Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England[3] and educated in the same city.

[citation needed] In the House of Commons, he joined the popular party, spoke in favour of the proposed bill of attainder against Strafford, and in 1642 was a member of the committee of safety.

[6] When the English Civil War broke out Marten did not take the field, although he was appointed governor of Reading, Berkshire, but in Parliament he was very active.

[2] In 1643 he was expelled from the Houses of Parliament and briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London for expressing the view that the royal family should be extirpated and monarchy brought to an end.

He spoke of his desire to prepare the king for heaven; he attacked the Presbyterians, and, supporting the New Model Army against the Long Parliament, he signed the agreement of August 1647.

[2] Having sat among the restored members of the Long Parliament in 1659, Marten surrendered himself to the authorities as a regicide in June 1660, and with some others he was excepted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act, but with a saving clause.

[2] Having escaped the death penalty for his involvement in the regicide Marten was sent into internal exile, first in the far north of England and then (1665) to Windsor Castle, where he remained until Charles II ordered him to be moved further away from himself.

[10] He married twice (to Elizabeth Lovelace and Margaret Staunton, née West) but had an open and lengthy relationship with Mary Ward, a woman not his wife, by whom he had three daughters.

In 1643, even while the king was losing the First Civil War and Parliament's cause was beginning to triumph, Marten's republican sentiments led to his arrest and brief imprisonment.