Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/217

Venn ‘Missionary Life of Xavier,’ 1866, an attempt to construct the life of the famous saint entirely from his own letters.

There is a portrait of him, by George Richmond, in the committee-room of the Church Missionary Society, and a marble relief in the crypt of St. Paul's.

[Venn's Life, principally written by the Rev. W. Knight, his fellow-secretary, 1880; family knowledge.] 

VENN, JOHN (1586–1650), regicide, was second son of Simon Venn of Lydiard St. Lawrence, Somerset, where he was baptised on 8 April 1586. He sprang from an old yeoman stock which may be traced back thither to the beginning of the fourteenth century. He was apprenticed in the Merchant Taylors' Company, 8 June 1602, and admitted to the freedom of the company, 27 Aug. 1610. He served as warden of his company in 1640–1, but was excused the mastership in 1648, being then in parliament. He belonged to the Artillery Company, and became ‘captain serjeant major’ in 1636, whence his early title of Captain Venn. He seems to have been always a substantial citizen, contrary to the royalist statements (, Lives of the English Regicides; Universal Mag. December 1751). He was one of the original members of the Massachusetts Bay Company enumerated in the royal charter of 4 March 1628–9; attended their meetings while these were held in England, and is mentioned as a stockholder in 1644 (Records of Massachusetts, vol. i., Boston, 1853). According to Hutchinson (History of the Colony of Massachusetts, i. 18, Boston, 1764), he had intended at one time himself going to New England. At home he was engaged in the silk and wool trade with the west of England and Ireland, being one of the merchants who complained in a petition that their visits to the fairs at Exeter and Bristol were forbidden by the local magistrates from fear of the plague (Cal. State Papers, 1 May 1637). He was elected a burgess for the city of London in 1640, and began at once to take a prominent part on the side of the parliament. He was accused on 2 Dec. 1641 of fomenting the gathering of armed citizens in the neighbourhood of the House of Commons, by saying in a shop in Cheapside, ‘You must go to the parliament with your swords, for that party which is best for the commonwealth is like to be over-voted.’ His defence is given in a brief pamphlet, ‘A True Relation of the most wise and worthy Speech made by Captain Venn to the apprentices of London who rose in Cheapside, upon the Combustion at Westminster …’ (29 Dec. 1641). He was one of six members who, together with those charged with treason, were excepted from the king's pardon on 17 June 1642. He shortly after appears as a colonel of foot in the parliamentary army, and took part in the fight by Worcester on 23 Sept. 1642. In an account in a letter (Cal. State Papers) he is said to have been in command of a party of horse there, employed in guarding the passages of the Severn. He was sent on 28 Oct. 1642 to take possession of Windsor Castle, where he remained as governor till June 1645. In this capacity he showed himself harsh and fanatical. He plundered the chapel of St. George, destroyed the furniture and decorations of the choir, and expelled the canons ( and, Annals of Windsor, 1858). A letter from him, refusing to allow any kind of religious service over the body of one of his prisoners, is given in Malcolm's ‘Anecdotes of Manners and Customs of London’ (i. 266). In his military capacity he was vigorous and successful. While in command at Windsor he repelled, on 7 Nov. 1642, a sharp attack by Prince Rupert, who for a time succeeded in obtaining mastery of the town. ‘Colonel Venn behaved himself very bravely, to the wonder and amazement of the beholders’ (A Most famous Victory obtained by that valiant religious Gentleman, Colonel Venn, against Prince Robert … London, 1642). Another contemporary account says: ‘Colonel Venn's dragooners have done of late very good service. His name is grown so terrible to the cavaliers that for fear of him they have taken up the bridge at Staines’ (A True Relation of two merchants of London who were taken prisoners by the Cavaliers, London, 1642).

By 3 April 1646 Venn was in command at Northampton, whence he was ordered to send recruits for the attack on Woodstock. For these services he received the thanks of parliament on 26 April 1646. For the next few years he resided in or near Hammersmith, but was constantly at Westminster, where he was often in attendance as a member of the army committee of the House of Commons. A grant of 4,000l. had been made to him by parliament on 8 March 1647–8, principally for his outlay and other expenses at Windsor. This he was to receive out of the estates of papists and delinquents discovered by him. He was appointed ‘treasurer of petty emptions’ on 14 Aug. 1649.

Venn was nominated a commissioner for the trial of the king. He was present at all but two of the sittings of the commission,