Richard Deane (regicide)

Essex (Letter to Sir Philip Stapleton, Rushworth Collection) calls him "an honest, judicious and stout man", an estimate of Deane borne out by Clarendon's "bold and excellent officer" (book xiv.

[1] Appointed comptroller of the ordnance, Deane commanded the artillery at Naseby (14 June 1645) and during Fairfax's campaign in the west of England in 1645.

He is rightly called by Sir J. K. Laugkiton (in the Dictionary of National Biography) Cromwell's "trusted partisan", a character which he maintained in the active and responsible part taken by him in the events which led up to the trial and execution on 30 January 1649 of King Charles.

In 1653 Deane was with Blake in command at the Battle of Portland and later took the most prominent and active part in the refitting of the fleet on the reorganisation of the naval service.

His body lay in state at Greenwich and after a public funeral was buried in Henry VII's chapel at Westminster Abbey, to be disinterred at the Restoration.

[1] His daughter, Hannah, was the fourth wife of Godwin Swift (1628–1695), Attorney-General at Tipperary to the Court Palatine of the 1st Duke of Ormonde.