Hardress Waller

Sir
Hardress Waller
Mont Orgueil, where Waller died in 1666
Member of the Protectorate Parliament
for County Clare, County Limerick and County Kerry
In office
1654–1659
Governor of Limerick
In office
1651–1653
Member of the Irish Parliament
for County Limerick
In office
March 1639 – January 1649 (did not sit after 1640, formally dissolved by the death of Charles I)
Member of the Irish Parliament
for Askeaton
In office
July 1634 – April 1635
Personal details
Bornc. 1604
Chartham, Kent, England
Died30 July 1666(1666-07-30) (aged 61)
Mont Orgueil, Jersey
SpouseElizabeth Dowdall (1629–1658)
RelationsWilliam Waller
ChildrenWalter (1632?-1658/1659?); James (1636–1702); Bridget (1639-1721); Anne (1641–1709); Mary; Elizabeth (1637–1708)
Parent(s)George and Mary Waller
OccupationRadical politician and soldier
Military service
Years of service1625–1652
RankMajor General
Battles/wars

Sir Hardress Waller (c. 1604 – 1666) was born in Kent and settled in Ireland during the 1630s. A first cousin of Parliamentarian general William Waller, he fought for Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, becoming a leading member of the radical element within the New Model Army. In 1649, he signed the death warrant for the Execution of Charles I, and after the Stuart Restoration in 1660 was condemned to death as a regicide.

A prominent member of Protestant society in Munster during the 1630s, Waller fought against the Catholic Confederacy following the 1641 Irish Rebellion. When the First English Civil War began in August 1642, Charles I wanted to use his Irish troops to help win the war in England, and in September 1643 agreed a truce or "Cessation" with the Confederacy. Waller opposed this and defected to the Parliamentarians; in April 1645, he was appointed a colonel in the New Model Army and fought throughout the final campaigns of 1645 and 1646.

An admirer of Oliver Cromwell, Waller became a political and religious radical; he took part in the 1647 Putney Debates, supported Pride's Purge in December 1648 and was a judge at the Trial of Charles I in January 1649. During the Protectorate, he held considerable political power in Ireland and was arrested in February 1660 after staging a coup in an attempt to prevent the Restoration of Charles II. At his trial for regicide in October 1660, Waller pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. He died in 1666 at Mont Orgueil on the island of Jersey.