Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burley, John (d.1647)
BURLEY or BURLEIGH, JOHN (d. 1647), royalist captain, belonged, according to Clarendon, to a good family in the Isle of Wight. In a ‘List of his Magestie’s Navy Royall and Merchant Ships in 1642’ (Peacock, Army lists of the Roundheads and Cavaliers, p. 61) his name appears as captain of the Antelope. Clarendon states that being put out of his command when the fleet rebelled against the king he joined the army, in which he became a general of ordnance. At the end of the war he took up his residence in the Isle of Wight, and, unable to control his indignation when the king entered Newport a prisoner, he caused a drum to be beaten, to gather a force to rescue him from the castle. The attempt was so quixotic as scarcely to deserve any severer punishment than ridicule; but in such a serious light was it regarded by the parliament that a special commission of oyer and terminer was sent to try him at Winchester, by whom he was found guilty of high treason and condemned to death. He was accordingly executed 10 Feb. 1647.
[Winstanley’s Loyall Martyrology, pp. 12-13; Peacock’s Lists of the Roundheads and Cavaliers, 61; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, v. 381, vi. 198, x. 145.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.43
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 372 | ii | 19 f.e. | Burley, John: for 1647 read 1648 |
| 373 | i | 4 | for 1647 read 1647-8 |