Richard Deane
Richard Deane (
1610–
1653),
English general-at-sea, major-general and
regicide, was a younger son of Edward Deane of Temple Guiting or Guyting in
Gloucestershire, where he was born, his baptism taking place on
8 July 1610. His family seems to have been strongly
Puritan and was related to many of those
Buckinghamshire families who were prominent among
Oliver Cromwell's supporters during the
English Civil War. His uncle or great-uncle was Sir Richard Deane,
Lord Mayor of London in
1628-
1629.
Few records of Deane's early life survive, but he seems to have had some sea training, possibly on a ship-of-war. At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the parliamentary army as a volunteer in the artillery, a branch of the service with which he was constantly and honourably associated.
In
1644 he held a command in the artillery under
Essex in
Cornwall and took part in the surrender after the second
Battle of Lostwithiel (
2 September 1644). Essex (
Letter to Sir Philip Stapleton, Rushworth Collection) calls him "an honest, judicious and stout man", an estimate of Deane borne out by
Clarendon's "bold and excellent officer" (
book xiv. cap. 27), and he was one of the few officers concerned in the surrender who were retained at the remodelling of the army.
Appointed comptroller of the ordnance, Deane commanded the artillery at
Naseby (
14 June 1645) and during
Fairfax's campaign in the west of England in 1645. In 1647 he was promoted colonel and given a regiment. In May of that year
Parliament appointed
Oliver Cromwell as lord-general of the forces in Ireland, and Deane, as a supporter of Cromwell who had to be reckoned with, was appointed his lieutenant of artillery. Cromwell refused to be thus put out of the way, and Deane followed his example. When the war broke out afresh in 1648 Deane went with Cromwell to
Wales. As brigadier-general his leading of the right wing at
Preston contributed greatly to that victory.
On the entry of the army into
London in 1648, Deane superintended the seizure of treasure at the
Guildhall and the Weavers' Hall the day after
Thomas Pride "
purged" the
House of Commons, and accompanied Cromwell to the consultations as to the "settlement of the Kingdom" with
William Lenthall and Sir
Thomas Widdrington, the keeper of the
great seal. He is rightly called by Sir J. K. Laugkiton (in the
Dictionary of National Biography) Cromwell's "trusted partisan", a character which he maintained in the active and responsible part taken by him in the events which led up to the trial and execution on
30 January 1649 of King
Charles. He was one of the commissioners for the trial, and a member of the committee which examined the witnesses. He signed the
death warrant.
Deane's capacities and activities were now required for the
navy. In 1649 the office of
Lord High Admiral was put into commission. The first commissioners were Edward Popham,
Robert Blake and Deane, with the title of generals-at-sea. His command at sea was interrupted in 1651, when as major-general he was brought back to the army and took part in the
battle of Worcester. Later he was made president of the commission for the settlement of
Scotland, with supreme command of the military and naval forces.
At the end of 1652 Deane returned to his command as general-at-sea, where
George Monck had succeeded Popham, who had died in 1651. In 1653 Deane was with
Blake in command at the
Battle of Portland and later took the most prominent and active part in the refitting of the fleet on the reorganisation of the naval service.
At the outset of the
Battle of the Gabbard on
1 June 1653, Deane was killed. His body lay in state at
Greenwich and after a public funeral was buried in
Henry VII's chapel at
Westminster Abbey, to be disinterred at the
Restoration.
* J. Bathurst Deane,
The Life of Richard Deane (1870).
