[3] In the republic he was greatly employed, and confided in; he was of the Council of State in the years 1650, 1651, and 1652, appointed governor of King's Lynn and Crowland, with all the level of Ely, Holland and Marshland.
[3] At the return of the Long Parliament, in derision called the Rump Parliament, Walton rose again to greater power and authority than he had possessed before the Protectorate, and having seen the fate of a nation governed by an army, he took a decided part with Parliament, in preference to the military; and they trusted to him as one of those that were to counterpoise General George Monck; but he had no political capacity for such an enterprise, and seeing, what he most feared, that the monarchy would be restored, he prudently retired to the continent, and settled at Hanau in Germany, of which he was elected a burgess; but knowing the extreme hatred the royal family, especially the queen dowager, had to him, he left that town, and hid himself in the garb of a gardener in Flanders, and did not reveal his whereabouts until just before his death in 1661.
Their eldest son Valentine was a captain in Cromwell's regiment of horse and was killed at the Battle of Marston Moor.
[4] His second wife was Friscis,[3] daughter of one Pym of Brill, Buckinghamshire, and widow of one Austen of the same place.
[5] Abandoned by Walton, she died in poverty and wretchedness at Oxford, 14 November 1662,[3] and was buried in St Mary's Church in that city.