Hercules Huncks was a soldier in the army of Parliament during the English Civil War, sometimes listed as one of the regicides of King Charles I of England.
[8] He married twice: first (as Hercules Honcksz ) in the Netherlands at Utrecht on 1 January 1630 to Elizabeth Boudeloot,[9][10] and secondly in London to Frances Blundell, widow of Christopher Phillips, licence issued 10 May 1637.
In June 1640 "Captain Hercules Hunks" was under the command of the Earl of Northumberland in His Majesty's army, taking delivery of 100 men of Lincolnshire impressed for military service.
[17] On 7 June 1647, Colonel Michael Jones landed in Ireland to take the island for Parliament,[18] and Hercules Huncks was part of his army, as on 13 October 1648 his wife Frances was petitioning to receive his arrears of pay "from his service in Ireland, whither he has again returned to spend his dear blood for the good of that kingdom, while she has nothing left meantime for the maintenance of herself and her children.
[21] According to Hunck's own testimony at the trial of his fellow-officer Daniel Axtell, Cromwell called him a "froward, peevish fellow" and wrote out the warrant himself.
[22] Following the execution of the king, Parliament moved to send the army to complete the conquest of Ireland, offering allotments of confiscated Irish lands to settle the pay of the English soldiers, which were greatly in arrears.
Two of his companies were sent in advance to reinforce Londonderry in July, and the rest sailed with the main body of the army to Dublin, [25] [26] where the regiments of the vanguard, including Huncks', joined the forces of Parliamentary governor Colonel Jones for the decisive 2 August 1649 Battle of Rathmines.
He shall have the benefit of our Declaration in relation to his arrears and lands, notwithstanding a clause therein which excepts from its benefits all who were 'of the guard of halberdiers assisting to put the bloody sentence of death in execution upon the 30th January, 1648'[32] He returned to Ireland, where he resided at Lisburn in Ulster, the seat of his Rawdon kinsmen, close connections of the Conways, who had been granted extensive lands in the area, from which they took the title Viscount Killultagh.