top of page

Col John Pickering - A brief history

The Pickerings were a Northamptonshire family that rose to prominence during the Tudor period. By the 17th Century the family estate lay in the boundaries of the village of Titchmarsh near Oundle, on the outskirts of the City of Peterborough, where they remained for 200 years. The family was very well connected and, as landed gentry, involved in both local and national affairs. Famous connections involve both good and bad; Robert Keyes, one of the Gunpowder plotters, was married to a Pickering but once caught was tried and convicted by ‘one of his own’ , Sir Gilbert Pickering, who was charged by the Crown with the responsibility of bringing the plotters to justice and England's first Poet Laureate, John Dryden also married a Pickering. Both Dryden and Keyes were considered ‘black sheep’ having very different religious and political views to the established family.

​

The Pickerings were staunchly Puritan, or ‘independant’, in their religious views and it’s through these beliefs that they strongly supported the parliament cause during the English Civil War. The family's most famous and important connection during these turbulent times is to being related through marriage to the Cromwell family. Colonel John Pickering was the 7th of 8 Children to his father, Sir John Pickering and mother Susannah Dryden.

​

 He was born in 1615 and, not being the eldest son, was not going to inherit the family estate or titles. He trained as a lawyer helping the family in that capacity and when the war broke out in 1642, he began his career in the parliament cause using the skills he learned as an administrator and negotiator to the army. He was given command of a Regiment of Dragoons (mounted infantry) in 1644 but famously caused a near riot when he preached a sermon to his men, half of which were not ‘Independently minded’, but Presbyterian. The incident was mentioned in the House of Commons and, when Pickering was then put forward to lead a Regiment as the New Model Army was being put together, it was only Oliver Cromwell’s personal intervention that allowed his commission to go through. Pickering’s Regiment was known as one of the ‘Psalming Regiments’ with the soldiers having a reputation for their strong Puritan beliefs. Cromwell encouraged prayer, fasting, and the singing of the Psalms by his soldiers and so John became very much part of Oliver’s ‘inner circle’.

​

The Regiment famously saw action at all the major battles of the first Civil war: Marston Moor, Naseby, (where it was at the centre of the Parliament line), and Langport, as well as being involved in many smaller actions, sieges and the taking of Royalist strongholds including leading the assault of the very last to hold out, Basing House. Unfortunately John would not see the end of the war; he died of a disease spreading through the Parliament Army during the siege of Exeter, 24th November 1645, just before his 30th birthday.

​

The Regiment then fell to his second in command John Hewson. Under Hewson, the Regiment was involved in both the second and 3rd Civil wars up to 1651. Hewson became a very prominent figure, being one of the Regicides responsible for Charles 1st trial and execution. He was made Governor of Dublin following the Regiment’s involvement in Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland and remained one of his trusted followers during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Hewson managed to escape the fate of the Regicides once the Restoration came in 1660 by fleeing to the continent.

​​

bottom of page