George Fleetwood (regicide)

George Fleetwood (1623–1672) was an English major-general and one of the regicides of King Charles I of England.

Fleetwood was one of the commissioners for the trial of Charles I, 1648–9; member of last Commonwealth Council of State and M.P. for Buckinghamshire, 1653; for Buckingham, 1654; member of Cromwell's Upper House, 1657; joined General George Monck, 1660, and though condemned to death at the Restoration, was never executed.

George Fleetwood was the grandson of Sir George Fleetwood (died December 1620), and the son of Charles Fleetwood (died 1628) and inherited the family estate of the Vache on the death of his father.

In Mercunrius Aulicua, 7 December 1643, it is stated that "Young Fleetwood of The Vache" had raised a troop of dragoons for the parliament, to defend the Chiltern parts of Buckinghamshire; and in an ordinance of 27 June 1644 the name of Fleetwood appears in the list of the Buckinghamshire committee.

Fleetwood entered the Long Parliament in July 1647 as member for Buckinghamshire. In 1648 he was appointed one of the commissioners for the trial of the king, attended two sittings of the court, and was present also when sentence was pronounced, and signed the death-warrant.

In 1649 and 1650 Fleetwood was colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia, and was chosen a member of the eighth and last council of state of the Commonwealth from 1 November to l0 December 1653. He represented the county of Buckingham in the assembly of 1653, and the town in the parliament of 1654 Cromwell knighted him in the autumn of 1656, and summoned him to Cromwell's Upper House in December 1657.

On the occasion of Sir George Booth's rising parliament authorised Fleetwood to raise a "troop of well-affected volunteers". He refused to assist John Lambert against George Monck, opposed the oath of abjuration in parliament, was entrusted with the command of a regiment by Monck in the spring of 1660, and proclaimed Charles II at York on 11 May 1660.

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