Sir Thomas Pride

English parliamentarian during the Civil War, born (possibly) near Glastonbury, Somerset, SW England, UK. Little is known of his early life. He commanded a regiment at Naseby (1645), and served in Scotland. When the House of Commons indicated it might effect a settlement with Charles I, he was appointed by the army (1648) to expel its Presbyterian Royalist members (Pride's Purge). He sat among the king's judges, and signed the death warrant. He was knighted by Cromwell in 1656.

For the recipient of the Victoria Cross see Thomas Pride (VC).

Thomas Pride (died October 23, 1658) was a parliamentarian general in the English Civil War, and best known as the instigator of "Pride's Purge".

Pride is stated to have been brought up by the parish of St Bride's, London but is thought to have been born in Somerset.

The next step was the expulsion of the Presbyterian and Royalist elements in the House of Commons, who were thought to be prepared to reach a settlement with Charles. This, resolved by the army council and ordered by the lord general, Fairfax, was carried out by Colonel Pride's regiment. After about a hundred members had been thus dealt with (Pride's Purge), the mutilated House of Commons, now reduced to about eighty in number, proceeded to bring the king to trial.

Pride was one of the judges of the king and signed his death-warrant, appending to his signature a seal showing a coat of arms.

Pride died at Nonsuch House, an estate which he had bought in Surrey. After the Restoration of 1660 his body was ordered to be dug up and suspended on the gallows at Tyburn along with those of Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw, though it is said that the sentence was not carried out (probably because his corpse was too decayed).

Bibliography:

Noble, Lives of the Regicides Bate, Lives of the Prime Actors and Principal Contrivers of the Murder of Charles I Thomas Carlyle, Cromwell's Letters and Speeches