John Rushworth

He compiled a series of works covering the English Civil Wars throughout the 17th century called Historical Collections and also known as the Rushworth Papers.

[1] Rushworth followed the lead of John Pym, who, in a speech in the House of Commons on 17 April 1640, attacked the King and his government for problems within the country.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, Rushworth as an "embedded journalist" followed the battles of Edge Hill (1642), Newbury (1643 and 1644), Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645).

On 7 June 1660 he presented to the Privy Council certain volumes of its records, which he claimed to have preserved from plunder "during the late unhappy times", and received the king's thanks for their restoration.

[2] Reports were spread, however, of Rushworth's complicity in the late king's death, and he was called before the lords to give an account of the deliberations of the regicides, but professed to know nothing except by hearsay.

[1] Though he had held lucrative posts and had inherited an estate from his cousin, Sir Richard Tempest, Rushworth's affairs were greatly embarrassed.

[7] He spent the last six years of his life in the King's Bench Prison in Southwark, "where, being reduced to his second childship, for his memory was quite decayed by taking too much brandy to keep up his spirits, he quietly gave up the ghost in his lodging in a certain alley there, called Rules Court, on 12 May 1690".

Although his senior, he also shared much in common with Oliver Cromwell (born 1599), because they were evangelical Christians who believed that the Church of England should undergo a total reformation, contrary to the wishes of King Charles I.