Richard Brandon

Richard Brandon (died 20 June 1649), also known as Young Gregory, was the common executioner of London from 1639 to 1649, a role which he inherited from his father Gregory Brandon. Brandon is often named as the executioner of Charles I, though the executioner's identity is not definitively known.

In his father's later years as an executioner, Brandon worked alongside him and succeeded him around 1639, ostensibly obtaining the position through inheritance. Despite this, a contemporary letter reports that he refused £200 to kill the king, and he continually denied having committed the act, even until his death in June 1649. The Confession of Richard Brandon, the Hangman, 1649; and A Dialogue, or a Dispute between the Late Hangman and Death. The most notable of these tracts, The Confession of Richard Brandon, claimed to be a deathbed confession of Richard Brandon, but it is now regarded as a forgery, and apparently received little attention in its time. However, an ancestry of Richard Brandon from the Duke of Suffolk's illegitimate son Charles is highly unlikely. Charles Brandon died in 1551, eight years before Elizabeth I's accession to the throne, and therefore cannot be identical with the Charles Brandon who was this Queen's jeweller.

Notoriety The notoriety of Gregory and the "Young Gregory" led to "the Gregory Tree" becoming a euphemism for the gallows, and was one of the reasons for the decline in popularity of the name Gregory. The name "Gregory" became a general nickname for executioners:

The two also appeared in satire and works of fiction at the time, like the print "Portrait of Archbishop Laud and Mr. Henry Burton".