Lucy Hutchinson is best known for her work “The Life of John Hutchinson of Owthorpe in the County of Nottingham Esquire.” The “Life” was composed after John Hutchinson’s death, some time between 1664 and 1667, but it was only published in 1806, under the title Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson. It covers the time span from 1637 to 1664, but also includes some flashbacks that go back to the reign of Henry VIII. The focus of the narrative is Lucy Hutchinson’s husband, John Hutchinson, who was Governor of the castle and town of Nottingham during the first English Civil War, between 1643 and 1647, and who was elected an MP for Nottinghamshire in 1646. In January 1649, he took part in the trial of Charles I and signed the King’s death warrant (1649). After briefly serving the Oliver Commonwealth (1649-1653), i.e. England’s first and only republic, he distanced himself from Cromwell’s monarchical republic, the Protectorate (1654-1658), and retired to Owthorpe, near Nottingham, finding it equally impossible to “assist any tirant or invader of the people’s rights,” or “to rise up against them without a manifest call from God” (Hutchinson 1973: 216). The Colonel was pardoned when monarchy was restored in 1660, with his name figuring in the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion (1660). However, he was arrested in October in 1663 for his alleged participation in the Northern Plot against the monarchy. He was first imprisoned in the Tower of London, before being sent to Sandown Castle in Kent where he died in captivity on 11 September 1664.