self; saith he, they
have been on service with you many a time; pray, sir, said I,
let me know their names? Truly, said he, we would not employ
persons of low spirits that we did not know, and therefore we
pitched upon two stout fellows. Who were those? said I. It was
Walker and Hulet, they were both serjeants in Kent when you were
there, and stout men. Who gave the blow? said I. Saith he, poor
Walker, and Hulet took up the head; Pray, said I, what reward
had they? I am not certain whether they had thirty pounds apiece
or thirty pounds between them.

_Col. Thompson_ and _Benjamin Francis_ both saw the execution, and said
that it was a man disguised in a light wig that cut off the King's head.

Hulet said he could bring thirty or forty witnesses to prove that some
one else did the act, and others to prove that he was not there on that
day; he also produced a paper of examinations taken before the Lord
Mayor, being of Mary Brandon and others. He was reminded that he had
been examined in the Tower, and admitted that he was then charged with
cutting off the King's head. 'Then,' said the Chief-Baron, 'you had time
to provide your witnesses,' to which Hulet replied that he had been a
close prisoner since then. He further said that he had been a prisoner,
together with six or eight others, on the day of the execution; they
were imprisoned because they refused to be on the scaffold. Hulet wished
to call Hacker, Huncks, and Phayre, but the Court pointed out that
Hacker had already been tried for his life (and condemned), and that
Phayre was a prisoner in the Tower. Huncks had been called as a witness
against Axtell. Hulet then called a _Sheriff's Officer_, who said that
he had been told by one of his fellow-officers

that he was in Rosemary Lane a little while after the execution
of the King, drinking with the hangman [_i.e._ George Brandon],
that he did urge him whether he did this fact; God forgive me,
saith he, the hangman, I did it, and I had forty half-crowns for
my pains.

ABRAHAM SMITH--My Lord, as soon as that fatal blow was given I
was walking about Whitehall, down came a file of musketeers; the
first word they said was, Where be the bargemen? Answer was
made, Here are none; away they directed the hangman in my boat;
going into the boat he gave one of the soldiers a half-crown.
Said the soldiers--Waterman, away with him, be gone quickly;