S8 Ep546: ### HEADLINE: EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION AND THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES IISUMMARY: Dennis Sewall describes Downing’s betrayal of former allies, his role in capturing regicides, and the grisly display of Cromwell’s head at the House of Commons. GUEST: Denniis

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I'm John Bachelworth, Dennis Sould, bookies, Kramel Spy, this is a man who didn't want us

to see everything.

That's why he didn't leave what he would call an autobiography, but Dennis has worked

what we do see of George Downing, Harvard graduate, on the battlefield and off.

We see a man who's able to adapt quickly, and part of the adaptation at the end was

to convince the king whom he has plotted against the king's father and the king's family

for years as part of Oliver Kramwell's revolution is now in the service of the king, and everybody

is welcoming him, except one man, Edward Hyde, Lord Clarenton, who is he, Dennis?

Lord Clarenton has become the king's essentially, he has to take over as the equivalent of a

prime minister.

He's going to run the country.

He is a seasoned statesman, he's been with the king for years, he's run intelligence

operations himself, he's run foreign policy, he's run domestic policy, he knows what's

what, and he is the shooter still bird of the lot.

He also sees right through Downing, come on, bear him, he cannot understand how Downing

is given the royal favor at all, and he tries his best to do him down whenever he can.

He regards Downing as, he gets slightly wrong idea, he is a bit of a standard English aristocratic

snob actually, I mean he really, what he really dislikes about Downing is that he thinks

Downing comes from a poor background, it's not actually true, Downing's father is a lawyer

quite well off, and he thinks Downing isn't properly educated, not true, because Harvard

is at least the murder of Oxford and Cambridge at that time, and he thinks Downing is essentially

a kind of jumped up from the provinces, or even worth the colonies, and he despises him.

We are now at the restoration, and that means revenge, and you understand Downing has gone

from somebody who's suspect to somebody who's trusted, but Downing's going to watch everyone

he's served with, how did, if they're still alive, the registites are called, and the

one in particular that comes to me is the most amazing thing that Downing watches is Hugh

Peter, who signed the death warrant, and Downing does not speak up for him, is that correct,

Downing?

No, Downing just really abandons him, and Hugh Peter doesn't say, is somebody who may

well have been sort of largely innocent or at least not there, it is true that he argued

in favour of the execution, but the evidence against him is thin, and he could have been

got off with a little help from Downing.

Also there are, what happens is that the government say, and this is where Clarendon sort

of slightly gleefully says to Downing, well, you know, you've now got to prove that you're

an ally of the King, and the one of ways you can do it is that you better get out there

and capture some of these people that signed the death warrant, the registites, and, you

know, perhaps start with some of the ones that you know well, what about that carnal

that is regiment that you were trapped in for, what about him, you know, bring him in?

And Clarendon is sort of making Downing really go and betray the people that he was

this is too, when he was working on the Commonwealth side, and Downing does, he lays elaborate traps

around Europe.

It's extraordinary how suddenly he's trying to turn the voice, it's not, you know, one

of, oh gosh, I'm aggrieved, he is going back to Clarendon and others to say, right, we'll

capture those rogues, I've got a plan, and he's enthusiastic about it, and he forces

the pace, and what happens is that he does in trap a number of them to come to the city

of Delft in Holland, and he has them captured, he goes down there himself with our men, and

he grabs them, locks them up in the local prison, and he then has them sort of, the people

of the town don't want them taken away an executed, so they try to save them, and the authorities

in the town don't want a tab, Downing gets the prison in the middle of the night, and

bullies and badges until he gets them down the stairs, and onto a little boat, and off

to an English ship waiting in a nearby port, and they're brought back, it's the first

case of what we call extraordinary rendition to have happened in history.

And Downing will become a very wealthy man, very powerful man, and live out his day as

we said, he's Downing Street, I believe there's a Downing Street in America as well, but

the part that I puzzle about is what happened to Cornwell's head, did Downing ever write

or speak about watching that head for all those years?

Well, that he didn't, but Cornwell, we think that we've seen all of the savagery that

you need to be in the course of an actual war, but then the expiation, it isn't really

revenge, it's a sort of symbolic revenge, is that the people who had killed the king and

had died prior to being able to be brought on trial, they didn't get away with it, their

bodies were dug up from Graveyard, were some Strauby and other places, and the skeletons

were hanged, and the heads, well, in many cases, caught off. Cornwell's head was stuck

on a pole and stuck above the roof of the house of commons, you know.

How long was it there, Dan? How long was it there?

For years, actually I think it didn't, when did it fall down? I don't know when it fell

down until he was on the street, but when it did fall down, it became a fairground attraction,

a kind of peep-shirt thing, people paid a penny to get and see it.

The book was into a gallery and in Bond Street, people would go and pay for it.

The book is Kramel Spy from the American Collins to the English Civil War, the Life of George

Downing, Dennis Sewell as the author, I'm John Baxter.

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