HACKER, Francis (d. 1660), of Stathern, and Withcote Hall, Leics.

The Hackers were a younger branch of a Somerset family once seated at Yeovil. Hacker’s grandfather had moved to East Bridgford, eight miles east of Nottingham, in about 1591, and his father, Francis, had inherited lands both at East Bridgford and at Colston Bassett, two miles from the Leicestershire border.33Briscoe, Old Notts. 129-30; Hubbard, ‘Col. Francis Hacker’, 5. Francis Hacker senior apparently enjoyed the trust of Gilbert Talbot, 7th earl of Shrewsbury, and by the late 1630s was employed as a steward by George Manners†, 7th earl of Rutland and, as such, became closely acquainted with the earl’s legal adviser, Henry Pelham*.34HMC Rutland, iv. 528; Derbys. RO, D 779B/T 480-1; PROB11/200, f. 180. The identity of Hacker’s mother and the date of his birth are not known, although it seems that several of his younger siblings, the children of Francis and Anne Hacker, were baptised in the Nottinghamshire parish of Lowdham between 1609 and 1616.35Lowdham, Notts. par reg. The contention that he was born in about 1618, the eldest son of Francis and Margaret, who was apparently his second wife, is not convincing, for that would make him no more than 15 years old at his marriage in 1632 and a mere 17 or so when he was appointed constable of Stathern in 1635.36Hubbard, ‘Col. Francis Hacker’, 5-6, 7. In fact, it is very likely that he was at least 21 by 1632, when he was party to an indenture by which he leased property from William Cavendish, earl of Newcastle.37Notts. RO, 157 DD/2P/28/102. Moreover, Francis Hacker senior stated clearly in his will, written in 1640, that his estranged son Richard was his eldest.38PROB11/200, f. 180. His decision to disinherit Richard in favour of Francis may well explain the mistaken impression of contemporaries that it was the future MP who was the eldest son.39Hutchinson Mems. ed. Sutherland, 200.

Hacker’s two younger brothers, Rowland and Thomas, fought for the king in the civil war – Rowland losing a hand and Thomas his life – and Rowland would claim after the Restoration that their father had lent the royalists £1,000 and had suffered for his loyalty to the tune of £4,000.40CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 339. Hacker himself, however, deposed in 1652 that his father had taken refuge in Belvoir Castle – the main residence of the parliamentarian peer John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland – at the outbreak of civil war and was there plundered of £1,000 and taken prisoner when the royalists seized the castle in January 1643.41C3/446/1; C9/10/24. Hacker’s decision to side with Parliament probably owed something to his religious convictions, for he would later be described as ‘a professor of religion ... in the Presbyterian way and a great lover of godly ministers’.42A Compleat Collection, 170.

According to Edmund Ludlowe II*, Hacker ‘passed through several degrees of command in the service of the Parliament’, although his early military accomplishments have been exaggerated by a tendency to confuse him with the prominent Lincolnshire parliamentarian and officer Thomas Hatcher*.43Infra, ‘Thomas Hatcher’; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 322; Luke Letter Bks. 350, 463; HMC 5th Rep. 148; HMC 7th Rep. 557. Hacker was among the Leicestershire officers and committeemen that the royalists captured at Melton Mowbray in November 1643, and it took over five months for Parliament to secure his exchange.44Mercurius Aulicus no. 48 (26 Nov.-2 Dec. 1643), 691; CJ iii. 353a, 444b, 505a; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 286. The royalists considered Hacker a resourceful and ‘audacious’ officer.45Bodl. Add. C.132, ff. 55r-v. In October 1644, he and his troops combined with those of Colonel Edward Rosseter* to rout a major royalist force in Lincolnshire and take 1,000 prisoners.46CJ iii. 682b; Luke Letter Bks. 596; Nichols, Leics. iii. app. iv. 38. He was wounded and again taken prisoner when the royalists stormed Leicester late in May 1645.47Nichols, Leics. iii. app. iv. 42; A Narration of the Siege and Taking of the Town of Leicester (1645), 7 (E.289.6); Whitelocke, Mems. i. 441. When his part in the town’s defence, and his military record more generally, were criticised in print that summer, his friends on the county committee – among them Henry Smyth*, William Stanley* and Peter Temple* – defended him as ‘a valiant soldier’ and credited him with numerous victories against the region’s royalist forces. Indeed, they claimed that he was ‘so much prized by the enemy’ that following his capture both in 1643 and 1645 he had been offered the command of a regiment of horse if he would change sides. ‘Of all the prizes that he ever took’, they declared, ‘[he] reserved nothing for himself, but gave all frankly to the state and his soldiers; and ... hath ever carried himself as a man tender of his country, a friend to all honest and good men and fights not for the spoil of the kingdom’.48Examination of a Printed Pamphlet, 3-4; An Examination Examined, 15. He was presumably released or freed soon after the parliamentarian victory at Naseby in June 1645. He was imprisoned again in the autumn of 1646 – on this occasion by the Leicestershire sub-committee of accounts ‘for his contempt in not bringing in his accounts ... after many summons’. Quickly released by his friends on the county committee, Hacker hit back and had ‘divers’ of the accounts sub-committeemen arrested. He subsequently sued them on charges of false imprisonment.49Supra, ‘Committee of Accounts’; infra, ‘Thomas Pochin’; C5/577/12; SP28/252, pt. 1, ff. 382v-383, 383r-v, 384, 385v-386; HMC 7th Rep. 59; Massarella, ‘Politics of the Army’, 15-16.

On his father’s death in 1646, Hacker inherited not only his estate in at Colston Bassett, but also an obligation to pay such sums received by his father as guardian of the Nottinghamshire ward, George Strelley.50PROB11/200, f. 180. This brought Hacker into conflict with the future regicide Colonel John Hutchinson*, who was the guardian of Strelley’s heir Richard Byron. If Hutchinson’s adoring wife Lucy can be credited, Hacker was unwilling to pay the money his father had owed Byron – a sum of between £1,000 and £1,800 – and was supported in this matter by his ‘great patron’, the Leicestershire parliamentarian and Independent grandee, Sir Arthur Hesilrige*. Hacker was ‘such a creature of Sir Arthur’s’, claimed Lucy Hutchinson, ‘that, without questioning justice or honesty, he was more diligent in obeying Sir Arthur’s than God’s commands’.51C9/10/24; Hutchinson Mems. ed. Sutherland, 200.

During the second civil war, Hacker raised troops in Leicestershire for Parliament and was wounded while commanding the left wing of Rosseter’s forces in the parliamentarian victory at Willoughby Field, Nottinghamshire, in July 1648.52Supra, ‘Thomas Lord Grey of Groby’; HMC Portland, i. 468; An Impartiall and True Relation (1648), unpag. (E.451.41); Desiderata Curiosa ed. F. Peck (1735), ii. lib. ix, p. 45. Thereafter, he and his troops moved north, on the orders of Oliver Cromwell*, to assist in pursuing the defeated Scottish Engagers and in securing Yorkshire against the royalists.53Add. 36996, ff. 72, 90; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1264; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 639. It was possibly on Cromwell’s recommendation that Hacker was given command of the company of halberdiers that guarded the king during his trial in January 1649. Sir Thomas Herbert, one of the royal grooms, later claimed that Hacker would have placed two musketeers in the bedchamber on the night after sentence was pronounced against Charles, 27 January, had Bishop Juxon and Herbert not dissuaded him.54T. Herbert, Memoirs of the Last Two Years of the Reign of Charles I (1813), 187, 188, 277; State Trials v. 1176, 1177, 1178; Muddiman, Trial, 76. Hacker was one of three army officers to whom the execution warrant was addressed, and, after a dispute among them as to who should sign it, he agreed (at Cromwell’s prompting) to do so.55State Trials v. 1177, 1180-1; Muddiman, Trial, 132. On 30 January, ‘in trembling manner’, he summoned the king to Whitehall and then accompanied him on to the scaffold and supervised the execution.56Herbert, Memoirs, 281, 283; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1428, 1430; State Trials v. 1183, 1184. He was also a member of the high court of justice that tried James, 1st duke of Hamilton – the commander of the Scottish army that had invaded England in 1648 – and on 6 March he signed the warrant for his execution.57Worc. Coll. Oxf. Clarke ms LXX, f. 16; A List of the Names of the Judges of the High Court of Justice (1649, 669 f.13.83); HMC 7th Rep. 71. Through Hesilrige’s patronage as governor of Newcastle, Hacker, Major Jeremiah Tolhurst* and other officers became lessees in 1650 of a sequestered, and highly lucrative, colliery in Harraton, county Durham. In several of the pamphlets by John Lilburne and his allies, denouncing Hesilrige’s proceedings in county Durham under the Rump, Hacker and his troops are depicted as rapacious and unprincipled despoilers of other people’s property.58Add. 21418, f. 301; Hedworth, The Oppressed Man’s Out-Cry, 3, 6-7, 12, 15; J. Musgrave, A True and Exact Relation of the Great and Heavy Pressures and Grievances...of the Northern Bordering Countries (1650), 12 (E.619.10); J. Lilburne, A Iust Reproof to Haberdashers-Hall (1651), 33, 35 (E.638.12); Musgrave Muzled, or the Traducer Gagg’d (1650), 15-16; Royalist Composition Pprs. ed. Welford, 390-2.

Hacker commanded a regiment of horse under Cromwell in the invasion of Scotland in 1650 and helped to repulse a Scottish attack outside Musselburgh, near Dunbar, in July.59CSP Dom. 1650, p. 95; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 55, 133, 276, 281, 298, 388, 422. Hacker and his regiment presumably saw action at the battle of Dunbar in September. In December, Cromwell reprimanded him for referring disparagingly to an officer that the lord general wished to place in Hacker’s regiment as ‘a better preacher than a fighter or soldier’. To Cromwell’s way of thinking, if not necessarily Hacker’s, ‘he that prays and preaches best will fight best … and I expect it to be encouraged by all chief officers in this army...and I hope you will do so’.60Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 377-8. Ludlowe claimed that Hacker ‘particularly distinguished himself at the battle of Worcester (3 Sept. 1651), in the head of a regiment of horse which he had raised on that occasion for the defence of his country’.61Ludlow, Mems. ii. 322. In August 1652, he was one of six officers who presented Cromwell and subsequently the Rump with a petition that called, among other things, for the election of a new Parliament.62To the Supreame authoritie the Parliament of the Common-wealth of England (1652, 669 f.16.62); Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 571; I. Gentles, New Model Army (Oxford, 1992), 419-20.

At the dissolution of the Rump in April 1653, Hacker sided with Cromwell rather than with Hesilrige and was appointed to the council of officers that was responsible for deciding the membership of the Nominated Parliament.63Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 112. He supported the establishment of the protectorate and was active in the suppression of royalists, republicans, Fifth Monarchists and Quakers alike.64SP46/95, f. 152; Clarke Pprs. iii. 26; TSP iii. 220, 395; iv. 248, 335, 598-9; Massarella, ‘Politics of the Army’, 346, 393; Oxford DNB, ‘Francis Hacker’. When the Quaker evangelist George Fox toured Leicestershire early in 1654, Hacker had him arrested and sent up to Cromwell – although not before they had discoursed earnestly together on the subject of the ministry and the nature of the Quaker concept of Christ within.65Jnl. of George Fox, i. 159-60. Hacker’s wife became a Quaker, and he supposedly admitted, shortly before his death, ‘that he had formerly born too great a prejudice in his heart towards the good people of God that differed from him in judgement’.66Jnl. of George Fox, i. 162, 194, 424; A Compleat Collection, 170.

In the summer of 1654, Hacker was one of at least seven candidates who stood for Leicestershire in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament. One observer discerned two parties on election day, with Hacker and John Pratt* standing against what proved to be the prevailing interest headed by Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford and Thomas Beaumont.67Supra, ‘Leicestershire’; The Faithful Scout no. 192 (11-18 Aug. 1654), 1519 (E.233.5). Hacker reportedly attended at least one of the meetings of republicans and disgruntled officers in London that September from which would emerge The Humble Petition of Several Colonels. But although John Thurloe* noted that there was ‘great depending on Hacker’ among the protectorate’s leading opponents, he was not arrested; and indeed, it is possible that he acted as a government spy on their proceedings. If he had entertained any doubts about the protectorate he had clearly banished them by February 1655, when he wrote to inform Cromwell that he had arrested his civil-war commander, the prominent republican Thomas, Lord Grey of Groby*.68TSP iii. 147, 148, 395; B. Taft, ‘The Humble Petition of Several Colonels of the Army: causes, character, and results of military opposition to Cromwell’s protectorate’, HLQ xlii (1978-9), 20, 33.

In the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656, Hacker was returned – probably in second place after Thomas Beaumont – for Leicestershire. Although a printed list of the newly-elected Members referred to him as of Oakham, Rutland, his main residence by the mid-1650s actually lay a few miles to the west, at Withcote Hall, Leicestershire.69Perfect List of the Names of the Several Persons Returned (1656), 5 (E.498.5); Jnl. of George Fox, i. 424. A man of few words, who readily acknowledged that he lacked the gift of oratory, he made no recorded contribution to debate in this Parliament and was named to only five committees.70A Compleat Collection, 169, 175; CJ vii. 434a, 466a, 472a, 513b, 521b. He would perhaps have received more committee appointments had he not been obliged to join his regiment in Scotland in December.71CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 214. He had returned to Westminster by 27 March 1657, when he was a minority teller with the prominent Cromwellian and merchant Martin Noell on a division for settling the price of excise duty upon wine-retailers.72CJ vii. 514a. His last, and perhaps most revealing, appointment in this Parliament was to the committee set up on 9 April to satisfy the protector’s ‘doubts and scruples’ about accepting the projected new settlement, the Humble Petition and Advice.73CJ vii. 521b. One contemporary listed Hacker among the ‘kinglings’ – the supporters at Westminster of a monarchical settlement.74A Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22 (E.935.5).

In April 1658, in the aftermath of Cromwell’s dissolution of the second protectoral Parliament, Hacker’s regiment presented a loyal address to the protector, anticipating ‘the complete settlement of the government upon such a good basis as may give the best security against the common enemy, [and] be most for the glory of God and comfort of all the good people throughout your Highness’s dominions’.75Mercurius Politicus no. 411 (8-15 Apr. 1658), 461-2 (E.750.6). That autumn, Hacker, Beaumont and Pochin headed the signatories of Leicestershire’s loyal address to Richard Cromwell* on his succession as protector, requesting that he ‘endeavour the just freedom and liberty of these nations … according to the Humble Petition and Advice’.76Bodl. Rawl. A.61, f. 164; A True Catalogue (1659), 42 (E.999.12). In November, Hacker’s regiment was listed among those ‘firm to the protectoral party’.77TSP vii. 495. Returned for Leicestershire again in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659, he received no committee appointments and made no recorded contribution to debate. He did, however, vote with the republican interest in favour of a motion on 22 March that implicitly questioned the right to sit of the Irish Members, who were regarded by the Commonwealthsmen as Cromwellian placemen.78Burton’s Diary, iv. 233; CJ vii. 618b.

Stationed near Cheapside in April 1659 when a group of senior army officers staged what amounted to a coup, he excused himself from marching to the protector’s assistance, saying that he had received orders from Lieutenant-general Charles Fleetwood* to keep to his post.79Ludlow, Mems. ii. 69; Clarke Pprs. iii. 193. One of Richard Cromwell’s last acts as protector had reportedly been to knight Hacker in what had proved a futile attempt to engage his support.80Clarke Pprs. iii. 191; Massarella, ‘Politics of the Army’, 531. It would seem that Hacker’s loyalty to the protectoral government had been eroded by the death of Oliver Cromwell – and perhaps also through contact with the inveterate republican Hesilrige, who had worked hard to turn the army against the protectorate. It would be alleged after the Restoration that Hacker had been a member of the ‘great club … called the Commonwealth Club’ that John Wildman* had set up in a ‘victualling house’ in Bow Street, Covent Garden, where Hesilrige, Henry Marten*, John Okey* and other prominent republicans had ‘constantly met’ during the later 1650s.81SP29/41/32, f. 98; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 86; TSP iii. 147, 148, 395. Hacker was one of the signatories to the 13 May petition from a group of senior officers, headed by John Lambert*, pledging their loyalty to the restored Rump. However, one of the petitioners’ proposals for securing the ‘fundamentals of our Good Old Cause’ was the establishment of a ‘select senate, coordinate in power’ with a unicameral Parliament – a scheme favoured by Lambert and Sir Henry Vane II*, but firmly opposed by Hesilrige and his closest parliamentary allies.82The Humble Petition and Addresse of the Officers of the Army (1659, E.983.7); Prose Works of Milton ed. Ayers, vii. 71-3. Nevertheless, it was reportedly through Hesilrige’s persuasion that Hacker agreed in June to make his regiment the first to accept re-commissioning under the Rump’s authority.83CJ vii. 675b; Clarke Pprs. iv. 4-6; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 90-1.

When relations between the Lambert-Vane axis and Hesilrige’s faction deteriorated from the summer of 1659, Hacker aligned with those who were ‘perfectly Commonwealth’s men’ – notably Hesilrige, Ludlowe and Thomas Scot I.84Baker, Chronicle, 656; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 134; Mayers, 1659, 53, 244; Massarella, ‘Politics of the Army’, 579, 609, 643, 671. Archibald Johnston of Wariston* noted that Hesilrige’s ‘party is more for ordinances [church discipline] and against Quakers, but less for godly men; and Sir Henry Vane more for godly men but less for ordinances’.85Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston ed. J. D. Ogilvie (Scottish Hist. Soc. 3rd ser. xxxiv), 139. A steadfast opponent of the army’s dissolution of the Rump in mid-October, Hacker was suspended from command and imprisoned for several months, and his regiment was sent north to join Lambert’s campaign against George Monck*.86Clarke Pprs. iv. 63, 165; CCSP iv. 431, 434; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 148, 150; Mayers, 1659, 246. Late in December, he collaborated with Thomas Sanders* and Nathaniel Barton* in a plot to seize Coventry and to secure the north midlands in the cause of recalling the Rump.87CJ vii. 801b; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 299-300; Clarke Pprs. iv. 188; CCSP iv. 512; Mercurius Politicus no. 601 (29 Dec. 1659-5 Jan. 1660), 998-9 (E.773.39); Z. Grey, An Impartial Examination of the Fourth Vol. of Mr. Daniel Neal’s History of the Puritans (1739), 136-7; Hutchinson Mems. ed. Sutherland, 222. A month later the Rump restored him to the command of his regiment.88CJ vii. 824. Early in March 1660, he was summoned to London by the council of state (for reasons unknown), and there were reports of growing tension in relations between Monck and Hesilrige and his friends.89CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 383; CCSP iv. 606, 630. Nevertheless, Monck issued a fresh commission to Hacker on 24 March.90Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 237; Massarella, ‘Politics of the Army’, 721. The mutiny of part of Hacker’s regiment in April in support of Lambert doubtless lent substance to reports that Hacker, Hesilrige and Okey were in Leicestershire, agitating against the government.91CCSP iv. 658; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 237-8. Hacker was removed from command of his regiment on 25 June, and he was arrested on 5 July for his part in the execution of Charles I.92Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 238; Oxford DNB, ‘Francis Hacker’. According to Ludlowe, Hacker had received assurances from Monck that he would be fully indemnified, ‘so that when he came to London he made a visit to Monck and was received with all the appearance of friendship and affection. But the next day after he had been thus caressed, he was seized, examined and sent to the Tower’.93Ludlow, Mems. ii. 322.

Although Hacker was not a regicide, he was treated as such because he had superintended the execution of Charles I. Under examination by the lieutenant of the Tower on 23 July, he revealed that the warrant for the king’s execution was still in his possession, whereupon his wife was despatched to Leicestershire to retrieve it.94LJ xi. 101a, 101b, 104a. The Lords received the warrant on 31 July, and the next day Hacker was exempted from the bill of indemnity.95LJ xi. 113a, 114a. The Commons consented to his exclusion from the bill on 13 August.96CJ viii. 118a. At his trial on 15 October, he excused his actions in January 1649 on the grounds that ‘I was a soldier and under command, and what I did was by that commission you have read ... I have been no counsellor, no adviser, nor abettor of it [the regicide], but in obedience to the command over me I did act’.97State Trials v. 1178, 1183. He was sentenced to death and hanged, until he was dead, on 19 October.98HMC 5th Rep. 174. At the request of either his son or his brother Rowland (or both), his body was not quartered and displayed, but is said to have been buried by his family in the church of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, London, although there is no entry to that effect in the parish registers.99HMC 5th Rep. 175; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 316; G. Bate, The Lives, Actions, and Execution of the Prime Actors, and Principall Contrivers of that Horrid Murder of...King Charles the First (1661), 92; BDBR ii. 37. Rowland Hacker petitioned the king for a grant of his brother’s attainted estate, although with what success is not clear.100CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 339, 494. Hacker was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.