Major-General Robert Overton c. 1609 to 1678, was a member of the landed gentry from Yorkshire, who fought for Parliament during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and reached the rank of Major General in 1652. A committed republican and religious Independent who sympathised with the Fifth Monarchists, like others with similar views he opposed the establishment of The Protectorate, and was held in the Tower of London from 1655 to 1659. Since he was not one of the regicides of Charles I, Overton escaped punishment following the May 1660 Stuart Restoration, but was arrested for sedition in December. Apart from a few brief spells of freedom, he was not finally released until 1671, after which he lived with his daughter in Seaton, Rutland, where he died at the end of 1678.