Thomas Armstrong (English politician)

Sir Thomas Armstrong (c. 1633 – 20 June 1684) was an English Army officer and politician who was executed for treason.

In 1657, he married Catherine, daughter of James Pollexfen and niece of Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon.

[1] Armstrong served with James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth in France from 1672, fighting at the Siege of Maastricht (1673) and alongside the Dutch, in 1678.

In 1679, he helped suppress the covenanter rising and fought at the battle of Bothwell Bridge, at the same time that the Popish Plot in England was scaring the Anglican establishment.

A wanted man, Armstrong fled to Cleves and then Rotterdam but was captured in Leiden and sentenced to death by Judge George Jeffreys.

An engraving of Armstrong
A True Account of the Apprehending of Sir Thomas Armstrong , printed at London , 1684
Engraving depicting the execution of Sir Thomas Armstrong in 1684