treason and other high crimes began on 20 January 1649, but he refused to enter a plea, claiming that no court had jurisdiction over a monarch. When Cook began to read the indictment, King Charles I twice tried to stop him by ordering him to "Hold" and twice tapping him sharply on the shoulder with his cane. Cook ignored this so King Charles then rose to speak, but Cook resumed speaking, at which point King Charles struck Cook so forcefully on the shoulder that the ornate silver tip of the cane broke off and rolled onto the floor. The King nodded to Cook to pick it up, but Cook stood his ground and after a long pause, King Charles stooped to retrieve it himself. This is considered an important historical moment that was seen as symbolising the divine monarch bowing before human law. Trial and execution As a regicide, Cook was excluded after the Restoration of Charles II from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act which indemnified most opponents of the Monarchy for crimes they might have committed during the Civil War and Interregnum (1642–1660). The memoirs of Edmund Ludlow give an account of Cook's trial and his public execution the next day. Thus, John Cook was tried and found guilty of high treason for his part in the trial of King Charles I. He was hanged, drawn and quartered with the radical preacher Hugh Peters and another of the regicides on 16 October 1660. Shortly before his death, aged 52, Cook wrote to his wife Mary: Descendants Cook's only known surviving child was Freelove Cook (named in Cooke's letter from his condemned cell). She was married at St Mary's Church, Newington, Surrey, on 13 June 1674, to John Gunthorpe, an apprentice goldsmith (1671) and the son of John Gunthorpe, citizen and innholder of London. John and Freelove Gunthorpe emigrated to Antigua, West Indies, before August 1677 (date on grant of Buck's Plantation to Gunthorpe); they were both dead before 9 September 1693, as indicated in the will of her mother, Mary (Chawner) Cook. John Cook's widow Mary, subsequently married John Shenton in 1669 at Barwell. Mary (Cook) Shenton died 1679. John and Freelove Gunthorpe had three sons Robert, John Junior and William (Born around 1682). John Gunthorpe Junior died in Antigua in 1740, leaving issue. William Gunthorpe had a son called William, also born in Antigua. The journalist, historian and