The Skaggs-Files

English lawyer and one of the Regicides of King Charles I of England.

Lisle was elected Member of Parliament for Winchester during the Short and Long Parliaments and was active on the Hampshire county committee during the First Civil War. In the Parliament of England, he was chairman of the committee that investigated Oliver Cromwell's allegations against the Earl of Manchester in December 1644. He also chaired the committee that framed the ordinance to create the New Model Army early in 1645. Lisle voted against continuing negotiations with the King after the Second Civil War (1648) and was appointed a commissioner of the High Court of Justice for the King's trial in January 1649. He sat beside Lord-President John Bradshaw during the trial to advise him on points of law. He also helped to draw up the sentence, but he was not a signatory of the King's death warrant. With the establishment of the Commonwealth of England, Lisle was one of the commissioners who framed the new republican constitution. He sat on the five-man committee appointed to select members of the Council of State, and in February 1649 he was made a commissioner of the Great Seal. Lisle was active as a law reformer, but he also gained a reputation for acquisitiveness and sharp practice.

Lisle continued to hold high office after Cromwell's dissolution of the Rump Parliament in April 1653, and administered the oath of office when Cromwell became Lord Protector. He supported the offer of the Crown to Cromwell and was appointed to the controversial Upper House in December 1657. When the Rump was restored in May 1659, Lisle was dismissed from most of his lucrative offices. He escaped abroad at the Restoration and settled at Lausanne in Switzerland with other exiled republicans.

He was murdered in Lausanne by an Irishman known as Thomas Macdonnell, an alias of Sir James Fitz Edmond Cotter.

The Complete Peerage article on John Lord Lisle
(Vol IV, Appx G, p.622)
"JOHN LISLE, Regicide, of Moyles Court. Ellingham, Southants, s. and h. of Sir William L., of Wooton, Isle of Wight, by Bridget, da. of Sir John Hungerford, of Down Ampney, co Gloucester; b.1609; matric at Oxford (Magd Hall) 25 Jan 1625/6; admitted Middle Temple 11 May 1626; called to the Bar 1633; Bencher 9 Feb 1648/9; Gov of Westminster School 26 Sep 1649. MP for Winchester 10 Mar 1639/40; again, in the Long Parl., 27 Oct 1640, and for Southampton 12 July 1654. He was a violent anti-royalist, and active promoter of the King's trial, and drafted the sentence. He was present in Westminster Hall, 27 Jan 1648/9, when the sentence was pronounced, though he did not sign the death-warrant. Councillor of State 14 Feb 1648/9, 13 Feb 1649/50, 13 Feb 1650/1, and 24 Nov 1652; member of the LORD PROTECTOR's Council, with a salary of £1,000 per ann., 16 Dec 1653; Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal with a further £1,000 per ann., 8 Feb 1648/9, 15 June 1655 and 22 Jan 1658/9; and a member of the High Court of Justice, in which Sir Henry Slingsby and other royalists were condemned, 21 Nov 1653; President thereof 1654. He was sum. to the OTHER HOUSE, 10 Dec 1657, and took his seat, as "JOHN LORD LISLE," 20 Jan 1657/8. He was app. Commissioner of the Navy 28 Jan 1659/60. At the Restoration he was absolutely excepted from the Act of Indemnity, 29 Aug 1660, and attainted, but fled to Switzerland, where he was assassinated by Thomas MacDowell, 11 Aug 1664. He m., 27 Oct 1636, at Ellingham afsd., Alice, 1st da. and coh. of Sir White BECKONSHAW, of Moyles Court afsd., by Edith 1st da. and coh. of William BOND, of Blackmanston, Dorset. His widow was tried on a charge of High Treason, sentenced to death by Judge Jeffreys, 28 Aug and beheaded 2 Sep 1685, in the market-place at Winchester aged 70."