LIFE

OF

SIR JOHN HOTHAM,

GOVERNOR OF HULL.

THIS unfortunate gentleman was descended from an ancient family, named De Trehouse, the founder of which, for his good services at the battle of Hastings, had a grant from the Conqueror, of the castle and manors of Colley-Weston, Northampton, and Hotham in Yorkshire.

The fourth, in a direct descent, Peter de Trehouse, from his constant residence at Hotham, assumed that sirname, which his descendants ever after retained.

The subject of the present article, Sir John Hotham, was created baronet by King James I. January 4, 1621; but, at the commencement of the civil wars, he adhered to the parliament, and was appointed Governor of Hull. On the 23d

of April, 1642, Charles I. came before the town, attended by a vast number of the nobility and gentry, when, contrary to all expectation, especially the King, his entrance was denied, and the gates shut against him, as Sir John Hotham, then upon the wall, peremptorily told him, by authority of parliament, by whose trust he kept it; nor could he, by any means, after a long parley, be prevailed upon to reverse the orders of the parliament. This so enraged the king, that he caused Hotham to be immediately proclaimed a traitor. The Duke of York and the Prince Elector Henry Frederick had gone into the town the day before, but were, after some deliberation, suffered to go out again and join the king, who, obtaining no satisfaction from his addresses to the parliament against Hotham, soon after erected his standard at Nottingham, and commenced the war, which cost him his crown and life.

Although he ventured so far in the service of his masters at Westminster, it appears they never reposed implicit trust in him, as they kept spies upon all his actions, among whom was his own son; but, both intriguing with the Marquis of

Newcastle, upon a design to deliver up Hull to the king's party, the correspondence was discovered, and both father and son were taken prisoners, and sent to the Tower.

When brought to trial, he endeavoured to evade the charge, and produced some witnesses of quality, on purpose to take off the testimony of the evidence against him, but failed in the proofs. He then insisted on the great service he had done before at Hull, from which he expected honor and preferment: his disappointment in this respect seems to have induced him to join the king's interest.

He received sentence of death on the 27th of December, 1644, and was ordered for execution on the 31st, on Tower-hill, where a great multitude was assembled round the scaffold to witness the scene; but, as he was on his way thither, a reprieve came from the lords for four days, which the commons so resented, conceiving their privilege invaded, that they ordered he should die on the 2d of January, which accordingly took place, (his son suffering the day before for the same offence.) They both departed this life with much reluctance, and, at the awful moment when all the apparatus of death was before them, they

could not refrain from throwing out some severe aspersions.

Pennant, in his account of London, gives a long detail of persons executed on Tower-hill, but has most unaccountably omitted the two Hothams.

Sir John Hotham fell unpitied by both parties, as true to neither, and one in whom no confidence could be placed. King Charles mentioning him, says, "That which makes me more pity him is, that, after he began to have some inclination to repentance for his sin, and a reparation of his duty to me, he should be so unhappy as to fall into the hand of their justice and not my mercy, who could as willingly have forgiven him, as he could have asked that favor of me. Poor gentleman, he is now become a notable monument of an unprosperous disloyalty, teaching the world, that by so sad and unfortunate a spectacle, that the rude carriage of a subject carries always its own vengeance, as an unseparable shadow with it; and those often prove the most fatal and implacable executioners of it, who were the first employers in the service. Less than this could

not be afforded to this most notable passage of the times, whose ill beginning with this man brought him to this ill and unfortunate end."

Sir John Hotham married five wives; and his eldest son being beheaded the day before himself, he was succeeded by his grandson, the second baronet; and the title remains with his descendants to the present time.

VOL. II.