649; A True Narrative in a Letter written to Col. B. R. of the Apprehension of the Grand Traitor Thomas Scot, 1660, 4to; Mr. Ignatius White his Vindication from all Imputations concerning Mr. Scot, &c., 1660, 4to). Scot was brought to England, and at once sent to the Tower (July 12). The House of Commons had excepted him from pardon on 6 June, and the exception was maintained in the act of indemnity. Some promise of life appears to have been made to him if he would discover the agents from whom he had obtained information of the plans of Charles II during the time he was intelligencer. He drew up accordingly ‘A Confession and Discovery of his Transactions,’ to which he appended a petition for his life, apologising for his ‘rash and over-lavish’ words in parliament, and pleading his constant opposition to Cromwell (English Historical Review, January 1897), but his revelations were not held sufficiently valuable; he was tried with the other regicides on 12 Oct. 1660. Scot pleaded not guilty, argued that the authority of parliament justified his actions; and, when his words about the king's death were urged against him, claimed that they were covered by the privilege of parliament. He was condemned to death, and executed on 17 Oct. 1660 (Trial of the Regicides, pp. 82–85, 99). He behaved with great courage, and died protesting that he had engaged in ‘a cause not to be repented of’ (Ludlow, ii. 315; Speeches and Prayers of some of the late King's Judges, 4to, 1660, pp. 65–73).
Scot had property at Little Marlow in Buckinghamshire, and was also for a time recorder of Aylesbury. During the Commonwealth he bought an estate from Sir John Pakington at Heydon Hill, and was one of the purchasers of Lambeth House. He also made some small purchase of church lands, though he asserts that his official gains were small (Lispcomb, ii. 11, iii. 601; Thurloe, v. 711). Scot is charged with throwing down the monument of Archbishop Parker at Lambeth, and causing his bones to be disinterred (Wood, Athenæ, ii. 783; Strype, Life of Parker, pp. 494, 498; Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 149).
He was thrice married, first to Alice Allinson at Chesterford in 1626; secondly, to Grace Maleverer or Mauleverer (buried in Westminster Abbey 26 Feb. 1646); and thirdly to Alice (surname unknown), who petitioned to visit him before execution (Noble, Lives of the Regicides, ii. 197; Chester, Westminster Reg. p. 140). His son William was made a fellow of All Souls' by the parliamentary visitors of Oxford, and graduated B.C.L. on 4 Aug. 1648 (Wood, Fasti, ii. 62; Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, i. 1326). In April 1666 William, who was then an exile in Holland, was summoned by proclamation to return to England. He preferred to remain in Holland as a spy for the English government, who secured him by means of his mistress Afra Behn [q. v.] (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1665–6 p. 342, 1666–7 pp. 44, 82, 135, 142, 145). Another son, Colonel Thomas Scot, was arrested in Ireland in 1663 for a plot, turned king's evidence, and was expelled from the Irish parliament (Carte, Ormonde, iv. 138; Pepys, Diary, 1 June 1663). Alice Scot, daughter of the regicide, married William Rowe, who was scoutmaster-general in 1650 (Thurloe, v. 711; Biographia Britannica, p. 3528).
Scot the regicide, who never served in the parliamentary army, is often confused with Major or Colonel Thomas Scot (or Scott) who was elected member for Aldborough in 1645, and was concerned in the mutiny at Ware in November 1647 (Rushworth, vii. 876; Commons' Journals, v. 362; Clarke Papers, i. 231). He died in January 1648 (Cal. Clarendon Papers, i. 408).
[The only life of Scot is that in Noble's Lives of the Regicides, ii. 169–99, which is full of errors; see authorities cited.]
SCOTT, THOMAS (1705–1775), hymn-writer, younger son of Thomas Scott, independent minister of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, afterwards of Norwich, brother of Joseph Nicol Scott, M.D. [q. v.], and nephew of Dr. Daniel Scott [q. v.], was born at Hitchin in 1705. He was probably educated by his father. As a very young man he took charge of a small boarding-school at Wortwell, in the parish of Redenhall, Norfolk, and once a month preached to the independent congregation at Harleston in the same parish. In 1733 he became minister of the dissenting congregation at Lowestoft, Suffolk. He is said to have retained this office till 1738, but in 1734 he succeeded Samuel Say [q. v.] as colleague to Samuel Baxter at St. Nicholas Street Chapel, Ipswich; henceforth he probably divided his time between the two places till Baxter was disabled. On Baxter's death on 13 July 1740 he became sole pastor, and remained so till 1761, when Peter Emans became his colleague, followed by Robert Lewin (1762–1770), and William Wood, F.L.S. (1770–1773). Except during the three years of Wood's able ministry, the congregation languished. On 26 April 1774, being in broken health, Scott was elected minister by the trustees of an endowed chapel at Hapton, Norfolk. He died at Hapton in 1775, and was buried in the
