Pride’s Purge

Pride's Purge laid in place the stepping stones that ended with the scaffold and the execution of Charles I. By Alice Hunt.

Colonel Pride refusing admission to the Presbyterian Members of Parliament (1912)

Early in the morning of 6 December 1648, soldiers began to gather around Whitehall. Some were on foot, some on horse.

A pale light was beginning to show in the sky. It was cold, and the atmosphere was edgy. At the heart of the mass of buildings that sprawled along the Thames and made up the Palace of Whitehall was St Stephen’s Chapel – the seat of the House of Commons. On that morning, standing at the top of the long flight of stone steps that led into the narrow medieval chapel was Colonel Thomas Pride, uniformed, hat in hand. He was waiting for the MPs to arrive, to take their place on their benches, to press on with what they had agreed the day before: to make a treaty with Charles I and end the terrible civil wars.