Hutchinson used his influence with the Committee for Compounding with Delinquents to help Apsley regained his estates on extremely favourable terms. In return, he carried messages from the Army to Charles, then being held by the Scots in Newcastle and was knighted by him in October 1646. After the Execution of Charles I in January 1649, he avoided involvement in Royalist conspiracies in order not to compromise his brother-in-law, although in 1651 his brother James allegedly tried to assassinate Oliver St John, Commonwealth ambassador to the Dutch Republic. He remained on good terms with Clarendon and Charles II, while his cousin Allen Broderick provided them useful intelligence on political affairs in the late 1650s.