Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harvey, Edmond
HARVEY, EDMOND (fl. 1661), regicide, a citizen of London, was apparently a mercer in partnership with Alderman Edmund Sleigh. With Sleigh he contributed 300l. towards equipping the sea forces raised to repress the rebellion in Ireland, under an ordinance of the commons dated 14 April 1642 (Prendergast, Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, ed. 1870, p. 443). During the same year he was appointed a colonel of horse in the army of the parliament under the Earl of Essex (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1641–3, p. 466), and received a vote of thanks for his services (Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, ed. 1854, p. 6; Commons' Journals, ii. 726). Several charges of plundering and extortion were afterwards brought against him. When in May 1644 the committee of both kingdoms proposed to send him to the Earl of Essex with money and arms (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1644, pp. 172, 175), he refused to march unless the arrears of pay due to himself and his regiment were first discharged (Commons' Journals, iii. 488). The committee were accordingly instructed to secure the horse and arms, discharge his quarters, take his musters, and despatch his pay (ib. iii. 490, 505). An ordinance was passed on 3 March 1647 for paying him 1,448l. in satisfaction of his arrears (ib. v. 477). At the sale of bishops' lands in 1647 and 1648 Harvey purchased for 7,617l. 2s. 10d. the manor of Fulham, Middlesex, other land in Fulham for 674l. 10s., and a fee farm rent out of the manors of Burton and Holnest, Dorsetshire (Nichols, Collectanea, i. 3, 123, 127). He also bought from the Nourse family of Woodeaton, Oxfordshire, the lease of the great tithes of the see of London, and resided at the episcopal palace at Fulham. On being nominated one of the commissioners to try the king he attended regularly; but on the last day (27 Jan. 1649) he expressed his dissatisfaction with the proceedings, and refused to sign the warrant. Soon afterwards he was made first commissioner of customs and a navy commissioner. In the beginning of November 1655 Harvey sumptuously entertained Cromwell at Fulham (Mercurius Politicus, November 1655, p. 5740), but on the 7th of that month was ordered to the Tower for joining with three other commissioners of customs in defrauding the Commonwealth, and he was subsequently dismissed from his office. In January 1656 his wife Judith obtained permission for him to reside at Fulham for a month, on his giving security for 10,000l. (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1655–6, pp. 8, 55, 92). On his promising to refund the money fraudulently acquired he was discharged from custody in the following February (ib. Dom. 1655–6, pp. 169, 352–3, 1656–7, passim). At the Restoration, though he surrendered himself, he was excepted both as to life and property; on 16 Oct. 1660 was brought to trial at the Old Bailey, and was sentenced to death, but was ordered on 31 Oct. 1661 to be confined in Pendennis Castle, Cornwall (ib. Dom. 1661–2, pp. 130, 134).
[Commons' Journals, vols. ii. iii. iv. v. viii.; Coxe's Cat. Cod. MSS. Bibl. Bodl., pars v. fasc. ii. 735; Noble's English Regicides, i. 337–45; Trial of Regicides in State Trials (Cobbett and Howell); Faulkner's Fulham, 1813, p. 159.]