Matthew Tomlinson

Matthew Thomlinson (1617–1681) was an English soldier who fought for Parliament in the English Civil War. He was a regicide of Charles I. He was a colonel of horse (cavalry) in the New Model Army, he was one of the officers presenting the remonstrance to parliament in 1647. He took charge of Charles I in 1648, until the execution, but refused to be his judge. He followed Cromwell to Scotland in 1650.

On Cromwell's dissolution of the Rump Parliament he was chosen as one of the members of the Council of State that succeeded it, and of the Barebones Parliament. Sent to Ireland to join the government there, he was knighted by Henry Cromwell who, nevertheless, distrusted him; in 1658 he was recalled to London as one of Ireland's representatives in Oliver Cromwell's new House of Peers. He was impeached by the parliamentary party in 1660 but escaped punishment at the restoration of the monarchy.

Thomlinson baptised 24 September 1617, was the second son of John Thomlinson of York, and Eleanor, daughter of Matthew Dodsworth.

Thomlinson was one of the gentlemen of the Inns of Court who enlisted to form the lifeguard of Robert,Earl of Essex in 1642. On 25 March 1645 Whitelocke mentions the defeat of a party of the garrison of Wallingford by Captain Thomlinson and a detachment from Abingdon. In the Mew Model Army he held the rank of major in Sir Robert Pye's regiment of horse, becoming colonel of that regiment in the summer of 1647.

During the quarrel between the army and the Long Parliament, he adhered to the former and was one of the officers presenting the remonstrance of the army (25 June 1647) to Parliament. On 23 December 1648 the Army Council ordered him to take charge of the King, then at Windsor, and Charles remained in his custody at St. James's during the trial, and up to the day of his execution. Thomlinson then delivered Charles up to Colonel Hacker, the bearer of the death-warrant, but, at the King's request, accompanied him as far as the entrance to the scaffold. Charles gave him a gold toothpick and case as a legacy. Thomlinson had been appointed by the Rump Parliament one of the King's Judges, but had declined to sit in the court.

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