A British Navy Document From The English Civil War; It Is Autographed By Miles Corbet, Who Signed King Charles’s Death Warrant. After The Restoration, Corbet Was Arrested, Then Hanged, Drawn And Quartered

MILES CORBET (1595-1662). Corbet was an English politician who sided with the Roundheads in the English Civil War. He was one of the fifty-nine men who signed King Charles I’s death warrant. After the Restoration, Corbet fled to the Netherlands, where he thought he would be safe. The English ambassador has him arrested, returned to England and charged. He was found guilty and hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn with two other regicides. DS. 1pg. 7 ¾” x 12”. August 22, 1648. No place [likely England]. A document signed “Miles Corbet”, as well as “Giles Greene”, “Wm Earl”, “Wm Edwards” and “Geo Snellinge”. The document, written during the English Civil War, states: “Commissioners Navy It is ordered that sd Commrs of the Navy do give present order for ye ships Tyger & Providence now at ye…”. It is docketed “22 Aug 1648 C N [Commissioner Navy] for…the Tyger & Providence at Harwich”. The HMS Tyger was a Royal Navy frigate, built by Peter Pett II at Woolwich and launched in 1647. Giles Greene was a Commissioner of the Navy from 1642 and the Admiralty from 1645. The document is browned with some waterstains and other minor faults. The American Book Prices Current shows only one other Corbet manuscript selling in the last forty years.