BEECHER (BECHER), William (1580-1651), of Durham Gate, The Strand, Westminster and Putney, Surr.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010
Available from Cambridge University Press

Constituency

Dates

1625
by 17 Mar. 1626

Family and Education

bap. 4 May 1580, 1st s. of William Beecher, Haberdasher, of Old Jewry, London and Judith, da. of John Quarles, Draper, of London.1 educ. Westminster; Corpus, Oxf. 1594, BA 1597; Clifford’s Inn; I. Temple 1598. 2 unm. 1 illegit. s. with ?Mary Bolton, seamstress, of Southwark, Surr.3 suc. fa. aft. 1613;4 kntd. 16 Nov. 1622.5 d. 8 Apr. 1651.6 sig. W[illia]m Becher.

Offices Held

Member, Sir George Carew II’s* embassy to France 1606-9; agent in France 1609-10, 1617-18, Germany 1624-5; embassy sec., Russia 1614-15, Germany 1622.7

Tutor to Henry, Lord Clifford*, France and Low Countries 1610-12.8

Clerk of PC 1623-41;9 sec. to the Council of War 1624-30;10 master of Requests (extraordinary) 1624-?41;11 commr. Irish causes 1625-at least 1636, maltsters and brewers 1631, 1637, soap monopoly 1634;12 sec. to Treas. commrs. 1635-6; commr. gold and silver thread 1636.13

Freeman, Dover, Kent 1625.14

Biography

Beecher should not be confused with a cousin of the same name from Renhold, Bedfordshire, who married the eldest sister of Oliver St. John I*, sat for Huntingdon in the 1601 Parliament and was knighted in 1619. The Stuart MP’s grandfather, a Devonshire man, made his fortune in London, where he served as an alderman between 1567 and 1571, while his father, a younger son, was an army contractor and paymaster for the forces in the Low Countries who, bankrupted in 1596, spent the rest of his life in and out of debtors’ prison.15

Beecher was tutored at Oxford by the antiquary William Camden, who remained a life-long friend, but he owed his initial preferment to Michael Hickes*, who had married the widow of one of his father’s business associates. By 1606 Hickes had interceded to place him with Sir George Carew II, ambassador in Paris, and after the latter’s recall in 1609 he remained as chargé d’affaires, providing detailed reports including an account of Henri IV’s seduction of the princesse de Condé and its international consequences.16 Keen to curry favour with Hickes’s master, lord treasurer Salisbury (Robert Cecil†), he accompanied the latter’s son Lord Cranborne (William Cecil*) on a brief journey into Normandy, but shortly thereafter returned home ‘rather unwillingly’ following the appointment of Sir Thomas Edmondes* as ambassador. Writing from London on 28 June 1610, he informed Edmondes that ‘the Parliament continueth still in opposition, and they are yet in dispute of the king’s right of levying impositions, so as hardly any other thing, private or public, hath been advanced’. He soon returned to the Continent as tutor to Cranborne’s brother-in-law, Henry, Lord Clifford*, challenging Sir Walter Chute* to a duel over gambling debts being twice wounded by his experienced opponent.17

In 1614 Beecher was returned for Knaresborough, probably on a joint recommendation from Sir Thomas Parry*, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and Lord Clifford. However, he was not unknown to the local landowners, the Slingsbys, as his father had settled bills of exchange for Sir William Slingsby* during the latter’s sojourn in Italy in 1594.18 At Westminster he did nothing to prevent Parry’s expulsion for improper interference in the Stockbridge election, but he attempted to make life difficult for Sir Henry Wallop*, the Stockbridge Member who had filed the complaint against Parry. Observing that Wallop had brought a case in Star Chamber following his defeat at the county election, Beecher demanded that the matter be referred to the Commons’ privileges committee, but his motion was denied, as Wallop’s suit was filed not against the MPs but their servants. He also spoke at the second reading of the bill to remedy abuses concerning writs of supersedeas and certiorari, which, employed in conjunction, were often used to transfer suits from inferior courts to those at Westminster. Beecher likened these writs to ‘so many brambles where the wool must be left’, and suggested that the Westminster courts should be prevented from issuing them at all.19

Parliament was no sooner dissolved than Beecher was chosen to serve as secretary to Sir John Meyrick’s embassy to Russia, during which mission he helped to conduct peace negotiations with the Swedes. Granted a reversion as auditor of the Wards in his absence, he disliked being ‘locked in Russia’ over winter, and returned to England at the end of the following year.20 He subsequently cultivated George Villiers, the new favourite. Consequently, when Edmondes relinquished the Paris embassy in 1617, Villiers, now earl of Buckingham, ensured that it was Beecher who secured the appointment as agent instead of the outgoing embassy secretary, John Woodford*. As agent Beecher sent regular letters to Camden and the newsletter-writer John Chamberlain, in which he was not afraid to express his own views. Indeed, on forwarding a book attacking the English recusancy laws, he tartly observed that ‘if the sharpness of them were mitigated, and the execution quickened, they would be of more use at home and less offence abroad’. He was recalled in 1618 following a diplomatic rift over the intrigues of Sir Walter Ralegh† and the French agent in London.21

When relations with France were restored in 1619, Buckingham, now a marquess, selected Sir Edward Herbert* rather than Beecher for the Paris embassy. However, at the general election of December 1620 Beecher was returned on the favourite’s interest at Leominster, waiving election for a second seat at Shaftesbury, where he had presumably been chosen at the behest of the earls of Pembroke and Arundel. A more vociferous figure than he had been in 1614, Beecher supported the king’s stated intention of seeking a negotiated settlement of the Palatine crisis, but insisted that James had to be given the means to mount a military response in the event of diplomatic failure. In the subsidy debate of 15 Feb. he welcomed a swift grant of supply, and also moved ‘to signify to the king that if the treaty [with Spain] be not honourable unto him we will be ready to help as much as ever subjects were’. He supported the lottery devised to maintain the Virginia colony, but after this was abolished he warned that the proposed ban on Spanish tobacco, intended to help Virginian growers, would breach one of the articles of the 1604 peace treaty with Spain. As the House adjourned for the summer on 4 June, he seconded Sir James Perrot’s motion to support the Palatine cause ‘with persons and estates’, offering a paean of praise to Jacobean diplomacy: ‘since our Saviour, I think there never was such a peacemaker. I think nothing can be more conducing to his ends or advantageous to his reputation than this declaration’.22

During the spring Beecher also assiduously defended his patron’s interests, which came under repeated, though indirect attack in the Commons. On 16 Mar., during the proceedings against Buckingham’s kinsman (Sir) Giles Mompesson*, he attempted to forestall an investigation into the wider activities of the Villiers clan by claiming that Mompesson’s confession and flight had sufficiently established the latter’s guilt. Attacks on Buckingham’s interests were renewed after the Easter recess, when there were calls to investigate Irish affairs. Beecher opposed any such move, and on 2 May he also sprang to the defence of the favourite’s half-brother, Sir Edward Villiers*, one of the principal beneficiaries of the gold and silver thread monopoly: ‘I do not conceive, however this gentleman was accused ... that he [sic] should be thought worthy to put him out of the House’.23 Where Buckingham’s interests were not directly involved, Beecher took a more conciliatory line: in both Floyd’s case, in which James challenged the Commons’ right to proceed against a Catholic lawyer who had insulted his daughter, and in the investigation of corruption charges against the judge Sir John Bennet*, he merely advised the House to proceed with caution. On 28 May, the king’s unexpected demand for a swift end to the sitting led to protests that legislation to reform Chancery would be lost. To counter such objections, Beecher moved that the king be petitioned ‘that for those complaints where corruption is proved there may be a bill of review allowed’. Three days later, as MPs argued over which bills should be given priority before the summer recess, he proposed that an enabling bill be passed allowing existing legislation to be revived as it now stood when Parliament reassembled in the autumn. In the event it proved unnecessary to adopt this suggestion, as the king was eventually persuaded to adjourn the sitting rather than end the session.24

Shortly after the session resumed in November, king and Commons fell into a privilege dispute. Most Members preferred to remain silent in such trying circumstances, but Beecher attempted to put a positive gloss on the situation. On 13 Dec. he seconded Sir Robert Phelips’s motion to allow Secretary Calvert to thank the king for permitting the House to proceed with the punishment of those guilty of plotting against Sir Edward Coke*. Two days later, when the king called for the passage of the grievances and two bills pending a prorogation, Beecher was one of several speakers who urged an end to the suspension of business which had stymied the session for ten days, regretting that existing disputes were already noised abroad ‘to the great rejoicing of our enemies and discouragement of our friends’. However, the session ended in acrimony shortly thereafter, and James reverted to his earlier intention to resolve the Palatine crisis by means of a Spanish Match.25

Beecher spent the summer of 1622 in Germany as secretary to Lord Chichester, who was charged with the thankless task of negotiating an armistice in the Palatinate. Upon his return that autumn, Beecher was knighted and appointed clerk of the Privy Council in succession to Sir Albertus Morton*. In 1623 he persuaded Buckingham, now a duke, to support his quest for a reversion to the provostship of Eton, but when he found the king ‘grown somewhat cooler in my behalf’ he persuaded Morton’s uncle Sir Henry Wotton* to agree to an exchange which resulted in his appointment as an extraordinary master of Requests instead.26

Re-elected for Leominster in 1624, Beecher played a less prominent role in the Commons’ debates than he had in 1621, although he clearly supported those who pressed James to break off the Spanish Match, as he was one of those appointed to confer with the Lords about a petition advising the king to terminate negotiations with Spain (3 March). At the same meeting the 3rd earl of Southampton tabled a declaration of intent to fund a war, which was reported to the Commons on 5 Mar. by his ally Sir Edwin Sandys. The latter was promptly attacked for breaching the convention that votes of supply originated in the Commons, but Beecher sprang to his defence, insisting that ‘modesty in this case is treachery’, as failure to vote supply for a war with Spain would be tantamount to a betrayal of the national interest. He also noted the similarity between Southampton’s declaration and that of 4 June 1621:

We by giving such our advice do engage us as much as if we should give an affirmative answer to the paper offered by the Lords concerning our assisting His Majesty, and he thinketh there is no man’s intentions are other than to assist according to our ability, and we made a Protestation the last Parliament to the same effect.27

Beecher played no part in the next debate over war, which took place on 11-12 Mar., but on 20 Mar., immediately after the House settled on a vote of three subsidies, he moved to ‘set down a certain time when these subsidies and fifteenths shall be paid’; it was eventually agreed that this should be done within a single year. Even after the supply vote, James remained reluctant to effect a breach with Spain, whereupon the Commons promoted a petition for enforcement of the recusancy laws as an indicator of the king’s attitude. James protested that this limited his ability to make alliances with Catholic princes, and on 7 Apr., Beecher urged the Commons to drop its demand for a Proclamation to enforce the recusancy laws, on the grounds that such evidence of persecution might be used to justify the persecution of Protestants by Catholic princes.28

The nearest James came to a declaration of war in the final year of his reign was to dispatch reinforcements to the Continent under the German mercenary Count Mansfeld. As secretary to the Council of War, Beecher liaised with Mansfeld in the autumn. He was subsequently sent to Paris to help with the negotiations for a marriage between Prince Charles and a French princess, but before departing he ensured that Buckingham would protect his Court of Wards auditorship, which he was engaged in selling.29

Buckingham’s nomination of Beecher at Dover in 1625 was unenthusiastically received by the corporation. Nevertheless, Beecher was returned with the lieutenant of the castle, Sir John Hippisley*, who was married to his ‘loving cousin’, the daughter of Sir Richard Norton*. In the Commons on 21 June he relieved Secretary Conway of the task of reading the king’s marriage declaration. King Charles’s hopes for a generous supply were frustrated on 30 June, when the Commons voted him just two subsidies. Buckingham sponsored an attempt to increase this sum, against the advice of some of his own clients and the privy councillors in the Commons, and instructed John Coke to inaugurate a further supply debate on 8 July. Beecher was one of the few who supported Coke’s unsuccessful motion:

Public contribution granted by public authority and spent upon public affairs never hurt the kingdom. This last year there had been greater burdens of contribution than ever before, yet we find not the stock of the kingdom decayed, for more commodity had been exported than in former years.

Beecher subsequently travelled to Oxford after Parliament adjourned there to escape the plague, but when one of his servants died from the disease, he ‘absented himself presently ... and came not into the House after’. He obtained a passport for Spa even before the dissolution, but does not appear to have used it.30

Hippisley was unable to secure Beecher’s re-election at Dover in 1626, but when Edward Kirton chose to sit for Marlborough, Beecher was brought in for Ilchester, presumably with the consent of Kirton’s patron, William (Seymour*), earl of Hertford. He had arrived in the Commons by 17 Mar., when he was appointed to a committee concerning a petition from English merchants whose goods had been detained in France. In a House where many sought to avoid involvement in Buckingham’s impeachment, Beecher quickly became one of the duke’s more outspoken defenders. As early as 18 Mar., when Buckingham was being blamed for lending English ships to the French for use against the Huguenots of La Rochelle, Beecher protested that his actions had been approved by the king. The duke answered the charges brought against him at a conference on 30 Mar., but when the Commons came to debate the issue two days later, Beecher rose with further information about the loan of the ships, whereupon there were cries for him to speak. However, he had no sooner begun than he was stopped, and the debate diverted to other matters.31 He also defended Buckingham against other charges. When the duke was accused of having converted to Catholicism in Spain in 1623, Beecher reminded the House that in 1624 ‘we thought the duke against any such countenancing of popery, because he broke the treaties with Spain’. He also insisted that the increased threat to English shipping from the Dunkirkers arose not from naval incompetence but the vastly increased numbers of privateers. As for the legality of Buckingham’s detention of a French ship, the St. Peter of Le Havre, which had provoked the embargo against English shipping in France, he argued that the details of the case had not been established, and attempted to change the subject by calling for letters of marque to be issued to enable merchants to recoup their losses. None of this diverted the House from its intention to impeach the duke, and consequently when the detailed charges were read on 2 May, Beecher made a desperate attempt to avert the inevitable:

Though the king gave us leave to proceed against the duke, yet rather in the general, to reform hereafter, than upon [t]his particular. The duke has petitioned this House for favour; he may prove a faithful minister hereafter. If we spare him we engage the king the more. We have but two enemies: the Spaniard and the papistical faction within, and both hate the duke next the king.

The House resolved to send the charges against Buckingham to the Lords at the end of this day’s debate, and on the following morning they discussed the time for payment of the fourth subsidy voted on 26 April. A range of dates between June 1627 and January 1628 were suggested, but Beecher pleaded for earlier payment, arguing that continued warfare against Spain would require a further vote of supply in the following year. However he was ignored and the date was set for 31 July 1627.32

The progress of Buckingham’s impeachment was halted when the king had Sir John Eliot and Sir Dudley Digges arrested for presenting the charge that the duke had hastened King James’s death with poor medical advice. The Commons ceased all business pending the release of the two men, whereupon Beecher recommended a swift vote to clear them, adding that anyone who had not been present during the impeachment proceedings should be excluded from voting. On 8 June Sir John Savile, another of the duke’s defenders, came under attack for writing a letter to the Yorkshire clothiers which slighted the Commons for pursuing impeachment rather than economic grievances. Although he insisted that ‘I speak not against the censure’ of Savile, Beecher nevertheless questioned the testimony of one of the witnesses who insisted upon the authenticity of the letter. Shortly thereafter the Commons began debating further charges against the duke. When it was moved that sales of Crown lands should be brought to an end (10 June), Beecher declared that he ‘would not have the king tied from contracts ... lest necessity constrained it to be broken’, as over-hasty sales in time of necessity would merely depress the sale price.33

After the dissolution there were plans to file the impeachment charges against Buckingham in Star Chamber, in anticipation of which Beecher was authorized to disclose details of the Privy Council’s proceedings, if questioned. He accompanied the duke to La Rochelle in July 1627, but failed to persuade the Huguenot townsmen to admit an English garrison. Buckingham’s forces therefore established a bridgehead on the nearby Ile de Ré, following which Beecher was sent to England to raise supplies and reinforcements. His speedy return was expected, but shortage of cash meant that he reappeared ten weeks later with only 400 men rather than the 2,000 expected, and after the French garrison was reinforced, the English withdrew.34

With the Treasury empty, Charles was obliged to call a fresh Parliament, and as soon as the news became known Hippisley begged Buckingham to solicit a seat for Beecher at Dover. However, the duke’s secretary Edward Nicholas was returned there instead, which meant that Beecher had to be brought in for New Windsor, where he succeeded the Navy treasurer, Sir William Russell*.35 His seniority meant that he was named to the privileges committee (20 Mar.), but as in 1626 he mainly promoted his patron’s interests, to the extent that one poetic libel of the time dismissed him as no more than the duke’s mouthpiece. With no legal training, he did not play a significant part in the debates over liberty of the subject, but he did speak occasionally. When the question of martial law was debated on 11 Apr., for instance, he testified that the Privy Council had drawn up commissions that were to be used only where the Common Law was inapplicable. Later the same day the subsidy committee agreed that the five subsidies already voted in principle would be paid within a single year, a major concession to the Crown’s needs, but it was decided not to report this to the House until the investigation into the liberties of the subject was complete. The king protested at this delay the following morning, when Beecher was one of those who tried to smooth over the difference: ‘I verily believe His Majesty will receive whatever we offer, yet a real answer will be more acceptable’, he insisted, moving that the Commons sit both morning and afternoon until its inquiries were complete.36 On 3 May the king undertook to uphold Magna Carta and other statutes relevant to the liberties of the subject, a promise Beecher moved to have written into the preamble of the subsidy bill. Three days later, as the Commons began to doubt that the draft legislation under consideration would serve to confirm their liberties, Beecher again urged that the king’s promise of 3 May be held sufficient guarantee: ‘the king’s meaning [is] that as all laws [be] left with the judges to interpret them, so he will leave these laws, if we trust in him not’.37 The House ignored this proposition, resolving instead to proceed by Petition of Right. However, when this was drafted the Lords attempted to insert a ‘saving clause’ preserving the royal prerogative. On 20 May Beecher observed that there was little enough to choose between the two options, but admitted ‘for our advantage [the Petition should pass] as it is’. Four tense days of brinkmanship followed, and on 24 May Beecher advised against applying further pressure on the Lords; his instinct (or perhaps his briefing) proved correct when the Upper House gave way to the Commons a few hours later. Three days later, Edward Littleton moved that the Petition should have the status of an Act of Parliament. Beecher observed that this would delay its passage until the last day of the session, but this objection was overruled by Sir Edward Coke.38

The king’s first answer to the Petition, on 2 June, was deemed unsatisfactory, and on the following day Sir John Eliot hinted that Buckingham was to blame. Beecher sprang to his patron’s defence, demanding that Eliot explain why he had colluded with others against the duke, but Eliot retorted that he was only saying what everyone else was thinking. When the king’s continued refusal to compromise was reported on 5 June, many Members exploded with rage and started recounting Buckingham’s past failings. In these extreme circumstances, Beecher was one of the few who defended the duke: ‘I went along with him [Buckingham] in the service to the Island of Ré, and I protest I never saw in him but great affection to the church and state. I often saw him expose his life for the safety of others that were with him’. He recalled that when an early victory seemed possible the duke prepared a message to the king ‘to desire him presently to call a Parliament’. However, Beecher’s intervention had no effect, and it was quickly resolved to compile a Remonstrance listing all the grievances of the past few years. The following morning the House considered the rise of Arminianism within the church. Beecher welcomed this discussion, and called for the theological issues to be debated at a synod, according to ‘the constant practice of the Church since Christ’s time’. On 7 June Eliot raised fears of the king’s intentions towards Parliament by drawing attention to the imminent arrival in England of a regiment of German horse, but Beecher tried to reassure the House that troop and arms shipments had not been intended for domestic use.39 The king’s second answer to the Petition later the same day put an end to this febrile debate, and occasioned widespread public rejoicing. It was later learned that the Arminian cleric Richard Montagu had suppressed the celebrations at Windsor, which prompted an investigation, to which Beecher, as a local MP, was naturally appointed (13 June). The Remonstrance, however, continued to be compiled, despite Beecher’s best efforts to prevent it. On 14 June he insisted that the casualties at Ré had not been as high as some claimed, and two days later, when the complete text was reported, he unsuccessfully moved

that no copies of the Remonstrance be given to any but to the king; for however no scandal is on the king, yet if this come into the hands of the king’s enemies they may make use of it. They seek by all means to withdraw His Majesty’s subjects and to defame our state, and this may turn to ill purposes.

In the closing days of the session, Beecher answered those who wished for an adjournment rather than a prorogation by explaining that the Privy Council had settled on a prorogation because there was a danger that parliamentary privilege might be abused during a long adjournment.40

Buckingham’s assassination left his clients without leadership when Parliament reconvened in January 1629. Beecher made only one recorded speech during the session, defending the Admiralty judge Sir Henry Marten* against allegations of having improperly administered a nuncupative will. After the dissolution he was ordered to take Oliver St. John† into custody and search his chambers at Lincoln’s Inn for seditious papers.41 He obtained no further advancement after Buckingham’s death. As clerk to the Privy Council he formally received only £50 p.a., but his income from gratuities must have been far larger and he also received £500 in 1636 for ‘his long attendance upon the committees of Irish affairs’. Imprisoned by the Lords early in the Long Parliament for having seized the papers of the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich*) and the 2nd Lord Brooke (Robert Greville*), he was quickly released on the grounds of ‘age and infirmity’, although he may also have agreed to relinquish his clerkship, which he resigned in February 1641.42

In March 1642 Beecher was granted a passport on medical grounds, and sat out the Civil War in Rouen, from where it was alleged he supplied the king with arms and ammunition. He returned to England in 1647, redeeming his estate from sequestration for £40, and entering his illegitimate son at the inns of court. In his will of 6 July 1650 he described the latter as ‘my cousin William Beecher of the Inner Temple, gentleman, whom I have bred of a child’. Beecher made his son his executor and chief beneficiary, while a Southwark seamstress called Mary Bolton, presumably the boy’s mother, was assigned a legacy of £50. The total value of the bequests listed in the will exceeded £1,000, and included £500 ‘to be distributed among the poor persons of the clergy’ from the profits of four rectories, and a furred gown, which was left to Hippisley. Beecher died on 8 Apr. 1651, and was buried in Putney church. His epitaph commemorates his diplomatic and official career, but makes no mention of the six parliaments in which he served.43

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629

Authors: Sabrina Alcorn Baron / Simon Healy

Notes

  • 1. St. Lawrence Jewry (Harl. Soc. Reg. lxx), 17; C78/167/16; Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. v. 134; Vis. Beds. (Harl. Soc. xix), 81.
  • 2. Al. Ox.; I. Temple Admiss.
  • 3. PROB 11/216, f. 77.
  • 4. STAC 8/277/5.
  • 5. Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 180.
  • 6. Smyth’s Obit. ed. H. Ellis (Cam. Soc. xliv), 30.
  • 7. Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives comp. G.M. Bell, 104-5, 144, 224; Cott. Julius C.V, f. 266; Lansd. 89, f. 158; J.W. Stoye, Eng. Travellers Abroad, 49, 70-72.
  • 8. Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, iii. 213, 226, 335-6; Stoye, 72-4.
  • 9. CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 483; 1640-1, p. 433.
  • 10. Ibid. 1623-5, p. 378.
  • 11. APC, 1625-6, p. 21.
  • 12. Ibid. 1623-5, p. 462; T. Rymer, Foedera, ix. pt. 2, p. 70; CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 340; 1636-7, p. 404; C181/4, f. 186.
  • 13. CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 178.
  • 14. Add. 29623, f. 67.
  • 15. CSP Dom. 1595-7, pp. 22, 373; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 241; REQ 2/306/10; Lansd. 92, f. 90; A.G.R. Smith, Servant of the Cecils, 102-3.
  • 16. The tract, which survives in many ms copies, is often (wrongly) attributed to his Bedfordshire cousin.
  • 17. Cott. Julius C.V, ff. 78-81; Lansd. 89, f. 158; 90, f. 191; Winwood’s Memorials, iii. 102, 335-6; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 120; HMC Hatfield, xxi. 215; xxiv. 190.
  • 18. Yorks. Arch. Soc. DD56/A5/2; Slingsby Diary ed. D. Parsons, 243, 247.
  • 19. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 282, 397. For a discussion of these writs and the 1614 bill, see Kyle thesis, 222-3.
  • 20. Chamberlain Letters, i. 542-3; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 280; Stoye, 72-4.
  • 21. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 97-98, 138; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 399; Cott. Julius C.V, f. 252; Birch, ii. 92.
  • 22. CD 1621, ii. 91, 293; v. 200-1; vi. 8; C. Russell, PEP, 119- 20.
  • 23. CJ, i. 558a; CD 1621, iii. 92, 131; R. Zaller, Parl. of 1621, pp. 118-19, 124-5.
  • 24. CD 1621, iii. 153, 175; CJ, i. 587a, 634a; Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 112.
  • 25. CJ, i. 663a, 665a; CD 1621, ii. 525; Zaller, 165-70.
  • 26. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 437, 487, 543-4, 572-3; Harl. 1581, ff. 90-2, 288; Stowe 743, f. 52; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 91.
  • 27. CJ, i. 676b; Ferrar 1624, p. 63; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 51v; T. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 184-5.
  • 28. ‘Nicholas 1624’, ff. 103-4; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 184.
  • 29. Harl. 1581, f. 94; Add. 34324. f. 234; Add. 35832, f. 156.
  • 30. Add. 29623, f. 67; Procs. 1625, pp.352, 480, 706, 722; APC, 1625-6, p. 130.
  • 31. Procs. 1626, ii. 306, 314, 418.
  • 32. Ibid. ii. 358, 361; iii. 113-15, 129-30, 147; R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 320.
  • 33. Procs. 1626, iii. 278, 400, 418-19; Russell, 305-7.
  • 34. APC, 1627, p. 19; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 255, 259, 262, 278; Lockyer, 380-400.
  • 35. Procs. 1628, vi. 143-4.
  • 36. CD 1628, ii. 420, 432; Procs. 1628, vi. 245; Russell, 360-1.
  • 37. CD 1628, ii. 29; iii. 281; Russell, 368-9; Procs. 1628, vi. 86.
  • 38. CD 1628, iii. 500, 597, 627, 632; Russell, 372-4.
  • 39. CD 1628, iv. 69, 73, 116, 157, 180, 186-7; Russell, 377-82; N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 133-4.
  • 40. CD 1628, iv. 291, 310, 334, 456; Russell, 384-5.
  • 41. CD 1629, p. 212; APC, 1629-30, p. 170.
  • 42. G.E. Aylmer, King’s Servants, 178; CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 340; 1640-1, p. 294; 1641-3, pp. 298, 426; LJ, iv. 87; Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 374; Lismore Pprs. ed. A.B. Grosart (ser. 2), v. 123.
  • 43. CCAM, 333, 1059-60; PROB 11/216, f. 77; Smith’s Obit. 30; Aubrey, Antiqs. Surr. i. 118.