That the next Sunday but one after Charles the First was beheaded, Robert Spavin, Secretary unto Lieutenant-General Cromwell at that time, invited himself to dine with me, and brought Anthony Peirson, and several others, along with him to dinner: that their principal discourse all dinner-time was only, who it was that beheaded the King; one said it was the common hangman; another, Hugh Peters; others also were nominated, but none concluded. Robert Spavin, so soon as dinner was done, took me by the hand, and carried me to the south window: saith he, 'These are all mistaken, they have not named the man that did the fact: it was Lieutenant-Colonel JOICE; I was in the room when he fitted himself for the work, stood behind him when he did it; when done, went in again with him: there is no man knows this but my master, viz. Cromwell, Commissary Ireton, and myself.' 'Doth not Mr. Rushworth know it?' said I. 'No, he doth not know it,' saith Spavin. The same thing Spavin since had often related unto me when we were alone. Mr. Prinn did, with much civility, make a report hereof in the House; yet Norfolk the Serjeant, after my discharge, kept me two days longer in arrest, purposely to get money of me. He had six pounds, and his Messenger forty shillings; and yet I was attached but upon Sunday, examined on Tuesday, and then discharged, though the covetous Serjeant detained me until Thursday. By means of a friend, I cried quittance with Norfolk, which friend was to pay him his salary at that time, and abated Norfolk three pounds, which we spent every penny at one dinner, without inviting the wretched Serjeant: but in the latter end of the year, when the King's Judges were arraigned at the Old-Bailey, Norfolk warned me to attend, believing I could give information concerning Hugh Peters. At the sessions I attended during its continuance, but was never called or examined. There I heard Harrison, Scott, Clement, Peters, Hacker, Scroop, and others of the King's Judges, and Cook the Sollicitor, who excellently defended himself; I say, I did hear what they could say for themselves, and after heard the sentence of condemnation pronounced against them by the incomparably modest and learned Judge Bridgman, now Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.