SEYMOUR, Sir Francis (c.1590-1664), of Savernake Park and Marlborough Castle, Marlborough, Wilts.

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

1640 (Apr.)
1640 (Nov.) - 19 Feb. 1641

Family and Education

b. c.1590,1 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Edward Seymour, styled Lord Beauchamp (d.1612), and Honora, da. of Sir Richard Rogers† of Bryanston, Dorset; bro. of William*. educ. Trowbridge g.s.; ?Oxf.; M. Temple 1626.2 m. (1) 23 Feb. 1613, Frances (d. 6 Sept. 1626), da. and coh. of Sir Gilbert Prinne of Allington, Wilts., 1s. 1da.; (2) Catherine (bur. 5 Mar. 1701), da. of Sir Henry Lee of Billesley, Warws., s.p.3 kntd. 23 Oct. 1613; cr. Bar. Seymour of Trowbridge 19 Feb. 1641.4 d. 12 July 1664.5 sig. F[rancis] Seymour or Seymaur.

Offices Held

J.p. Wilts. by 1614-26, 1629-39, 1641, custos rot. by 1614-26,6 collector of recusancy fines 1624,7 commr. subsidy 1621-2, 1624, 1629,8 dep. lt. by 1624-at least 1625,9 sheriff 1625-6,10 oyer and terminer 1631, Western circ. 1641-2, 1660-d., depopulation, Wilts. 1631-2, 1635-6, charitable uses 1632,11 St. Paul’s cathedral repair 1637,12 sewers, Wilts. and Berks. 1639, Fens 1662,13 array, Wilts. and Som. 1642.14

PC 3 Aug. 1641-at least 1645, 31 May 1660-d.;15 chan. duchy of Lancaster 1644, 1660-d.;16 commr. Uxbridge treaty (roy.) 1645.17

Biography

Described by a contemporary as ‘of a black complexion’ and ‘middle stature’,18 Seymour was a prominent figure in the Commons during the 1620s, but outside the House his profile was low. He considered Parliament to be the ‘soul of the Commonwealth’,19 and regarded himself as one of the elect.20 Although the Seymours were one of the most powerful families in Wiltshire, with connections to the blood royal, injudicious marriages had invited Court disapproval, as in 1610, when Seymour’s older brother, William*, married Arbella Stuart against the wishes of James I. The king imprisoned both parties and suspicion also fell on Seymour, who was confined to his lodgings. Although Seymour claimed to have had no foreknowledge of the union, Arbella later thanked him for his ‘extraordinary kindness’, and confessed her fears for ‘the destiny of your house and my own’.21 His brother’s escape and flight to the continent prolonged suspicion about the family’s motives, although Seymour himself was knighted in 1613.

After William’s reconciliation with the king, both brothers were elected to the third Jacobean Parliament, with Seymour being chosen as one of the Wiltshire knights, probably with the backing of his grandfather, the 1st earl of Hertford. During the Parliament, Seymour was interested principally in the attack on monopolies, in particular the role played by lord treasurer Mandeville (Sir Henry Montagu*) in the notorious inns’ patent. On 21 Feb., after the committee for grievances reported on the activities of the patentee Sir Giles Mompesson*, Seymour raised the question of the part played by the ‘referees’, that is to say those who had advised the king to issue the patent to Mompesson.22 Over the next two days Seymour spoke against the farmers of the related alehouse patent, which had also been recommended by Mandeville, and on 24 Feb. he began a more direct attack on the lord treasurer. After Mompesson presented a petition to the House, Seymour proposed that the Commons should question the referees and not simply pursue their ‘meaner instruments’, the patentees. He then produced a letter from Mandeville, to whom the king had entrusted the reformation of alehouses. This demonstrated that Mandeville had approved the establishment of commissioners in the regions for collecting forfeited recognizances from alehouse-keepers, a measure which had aroused opposition in the country and challenged the authority of local justices.23 Seymour was answered by the lord treasurer’s brother, Sir Charles Montagu, who requested satisfaction in the face of this ‘aspersion,’ but Seymour continued his attack, declaring on 27 Feb. that he had come to the House to learn and that ‘my first lesson shall be to do my king and country service’. After maintaining that he would enlarge upon his accusations, he demanded that the referees be questioned for advising the king on the legality of the patents complained of, and made the striking statement that if they were found guilty they should be punished in the same manner as the patentees themselves. Seymour was supported by Sir Lionel Cranfield, William Mallory and Sir Edward Coke, among others, and in March the matter was referred to the Lords, where Mandeville defended his actions.24

After the Easter recess (21 Apr.), Mallory called for the resumption of the investigation into the inns’ patent and was supported by Seymour, who wished that he ‘had less cause’ to speak, but said that ‘when the public is in question I will speak freely’. After detailing the abuses of patentees recommended by Mandeville, he again rounded on the lord treasurer, advising that ‘since great judges have joined with mean men in this abuse, it will be fit they should be made partakers with them in punishment’, a speech which one diarist thought touched Mandeville ‘to the quick’. After some debate the House authorized further action against the referees, and Seymour was named to the investigating committee.25 Three days later, however, Cranfield announced that the king was unhappy about the continuing investigation of the referees and was resolved to protect the lord treasurer. Seymour responded that he saw nothing in the king’s message which would inhibit their inquiries, and launched another ‘bold’ attack against Mandeville, acknowledging that he had ‘urged this business the most of any man against my lord treasurer’. James had been misinformed, he declared, for he had no other aim ‘but the king’s honour, and desire no longer to live than I shall aim at that’, and he repeated his demand that no Member be allowed to inform the king of their debates.26 Seymour was answered by Secretary Calvert and another of Mandeville’s brothers, Sir Edward Montagu, who accused him of slandering the lord treasurer. When Seymour tried to respond to this slur he was stopped, having already spoken once in the debate, whereupon Sir Guy Palmes asked the House to support Seymour ‘so [that] we may fearlessly go on to do our country service’. However, the matter appears to have been dropped.27 Nevertheless, Mandeville’s role as referee was again raised on 11 May, when Noye’s report into the alehouse patent revealed the lord treasurer’s part in authorizing the grant. During the course of the debate, Seymour maintained that Sir Edward Montagu’s demand that the lord treasurer be allowed redress against him outside Parliament affronted both him and the House. Foreshadowing the debates on free speech at the end of the Parliament, he asserted that he would ‘rather suffer than be silent’, before adding that ‘I will for my country express myself freely’.28

It is not clear why Seymour waged this concerted campaign against Mandeville. There seems no reason to doubt his assertion that he spoke without ‘particular violence or spleen’, but it is noticeable that his attack on the referees was encouraged by Cranfield, who replaced Mandeville as treasurer later that year and defended Seymour as having spoken as ‘freely and stoutly since the beginning of the Parliament as any man’. It may have been that Seymour was operating in concert with Cranfield to try to topple the lord treasurer.29 On the other hand, as Seymour’s speeches often incorporated ‘country’ rhetoric, it is equally possible that he was simply representing anti-patentee feeling emanating from his constituency. Seymour’s concentration on the forfeiture of alehouse recognizances early in the session, and the fact that the depredations of patentees in Wiltshire were brought to the attention of the Commons several times during the Parliament, tends to support this hypothesis.

As well as monopolies, Seymour spoke on a variety of issues before the summer adjournment. He was especially concerned with the rights and privileges of Parliament, in particular the Commons’ judicial jurisdiction. On 23 Mar. he called for the exemplary punishment of the constables in the Yorkshire election, while on 20 Apr., during debate on Sir John Bennet’s case, he maintained that the Commons had the power to examine and judge any Member and refer its decision to the Lords.30 He proved keen to deal harshly with the Catholic barrister Edward Floyd, suggesting they ‘punish him as far as the power of our House will extend’ (1 May). Indeed, he recommended that Floyd be taken from Westminster with his rosary about his neck and have ‘as many lashes as beads’.31 After the king stayed the sentence imposed by the Commons, Seymour suggested to his colleagues that they ask the Lords to join them ‘out of respect,’ for ‘if we preserve not the honour and power of the House, we preserve not ourselves’.32 On 3 May he supported asking the king to ratify the House’s jurisdiction in this regard, and the next day backed the call to enter its judgment in the Journal.33

Seymour supported the attempt of the House to extend its competence to Ireland following the complaint of Sir John Jephson about the misgovernment of that kingdom. On 27 Apr., the day after the House appointed an investigative committee, he moved for some knowledgeable individuals to attend the committee before they left town. After the king expressed his disapproval of the Commons’ proceedings, Seymour suggested that the House should petition the king for leave to examine the ‘misdemeanours in the state of Ireland’, but this advice was ignored.34 Seymour proved as concerned to uphold the honour and dignity of the House as its jurisdiction and authority. On 28 Apr. he told of a common informer who, intending to provide evidence against a Member, claimed he ‘cared not a fart for the Parliament’.35 On 14 May he condemned Gabriel Towerson for petitioning the king about examination of the Merchant Adventurers’ patent before debate on the matter was concluded.36

During the winter sitting Seymour backed the general call for the defence of the Palatinate (27 Nov.), but he also requested that the session be brought to an end before Christmas and a committee be appointed to consider the bills which should accompany any subsidies, as ‘the country when we come home’ would otherwise ‘be discontented.’37 Seymour was silent during the subsequent discussions over the level of supply to be provided, but became more prominent when the propriety of debating Prince Charles’s marriage and the king’s right of punishing Members for doing so was raised. The latter issue was of particular concern for Seymour, who had indicated his fear of reprisals when speaking against Mandeville. On 5 Dec. he reminded his colleagues that ‘we have been here threatened by our own Members to be complained of for speaking of our consciences freely’, and moved that they stand on the privileges of Parliament and discover who had misinformed the king.38 Seymour’s concern to protect free speech, which was coloured by his own experience in attacking Mandeville, led him, on 10 Dec., to clear Serjeant Ashley of speaking mutinous words against James, and request an order that no man should accuse any Member of anything to the king before he had accused him in the Commons.39

Following the king’s declaration of 15 Dec. that the Commons’ privileges flowed from the monarch and that certain areas of debate were denied to them, Seymour affirmed Parliament’s right to discuss religion and the safety of the king and kingdom. Arguing that it was not worth continuing with bills, he advised that the session be ended and the matter resumed at a subsequent sitting, ‘for he is not satisfied that we stand right in His Majesty’s grace’.40 After a further intervention by James on 17 Dec., Seymour returned to the king’s right to punish Members, an issue which apparently caused him much anxiety. He also reiterated fears that James appeared to consider parliamentary privileges to be conditional upon Members’ good behaviour, and called for a committee to define their nature and extent.41 He raised similar concerns the next day, but James had lost patience with the Commons and terminated their proceedings shortly after.

Seymour’s fears regarding possible retribution after this Parliament proved well founded, as in February 1622 he was questioned by the Privy Council for refusing to contribute to the Palatinate Benevolence. Writing to Cranfield, the marquess of Buckingham advised that the campaign against refusers should be aimed principally against those ‘that were of the Parliament, and especially those which were most refractory, amongst whom Sir Francis Seymour was one of the chief’. He counselled that Seymour be again called upon to pay, and that if he refused a second time he should be sent to the Palatinate ‘that others may be scared by the example’.42 Buckingham’s antipathy may have been grounded on the fact that his brothers were involved in the alehouse patent, though Seymour’s only recorded reference to Christopher Villiers* in this regard was apparently neutral.43 Despite Buckingham’s opposition, Seymour escaped imprisonment, unlike Mallory, Phelips, Pym and Sir Edward Coke, perhaps because, as Buckingham intimated, he enjoyed the protection of the lord steward, the 2nd duke of Lennox. Lennox had recently married the widow of Seymour’s grandfather, who stood as godmother to Sir Francis’s daughter in 1623.44 Seymour may also have escaped imprisonment because he remained silent on the question of the Spanish Match, the most divisive topic raised in this Parliament, which ultimately led to its dissolution.

Seymour’s grandfather, the earl of Hertford, had died in April 1621, whereupon his title descended to Sir Francis’s brother, William. Several Wiltshire manors passed directly to Seymour, while his brother conveyed to him the site of Marlborough Castle, where Seymour had built a house.45 The family’s controlling influence in the borough meant that Seymour was returned to the 1624 Parliament as one of its burgesses.

On 27 Feb., shortly after the session opened, Sir John Eliot complained that Members had been questioned after the previous dissolution and called for a petition to the king to secure their privileges and ensure secrecy of debate. Seymour, who had himself complained that Commons’ debates in 1621 were not kept secret and had been brought before the Council after the Parliament, seized the opportunity to press home this issue. The House should not be satisfied with the general promise to defend parliamentary privilege contained in James’s opening speech, he said, for this was a standard component of all such addresses and yet Members had still been imprisoned. He called for the Commons’ Protestation of December 1621 which James had torn from the Journal to be re-entered, demanded that those imprisoned after the previous assembly indicate whether they had been incarcerated for their actions in Parliament, and insisted on the punishment of Members who informed the king of their proceedings.46 This speech demonstrates clearly that Seymour had not subscribed to the ‘undertaking’ engineered by Prince Charles and Buckingham to pass over the dissolution of 1621 and concentrate on breaking off the marriage negotiations with Spain. His highly provocative motions regarding the Protestation and imprisoned Members were designed to resurrect the major privilege disputes of December 1621, but, as Pym noted, many were afraid that to follow Seymour’s advice ‘would have put the House into some heat as to disturb the great business [breaking off the treaty negotiations]’. Seymour’s priorities were clearly not those of the ‘patriot’ coalition, and it is significant that he was answered by Phelips, who had shared many of his views in 1621 but had now reconciled himself to Buckingham and the aforementioned undertaking.47 The matter was defused by being referred to a select committee of which Seymour was a member.48

Seymour spoke in the debate over breaking off the treaty negotiations initiated by Rudyard on 1 March. In a ‘grave and vehement manner’, he inveighed against the deleterious effects in England of a Spanish Match, and claimed that the recent de facto toleration of papists had led to an increase in Jesuit activity, the conversion of many hundreds of Protestants and the attempted conversion of the prince and Buckingham. He called for the treaty negotiations to be ended, the Spanish ambassador to be sent home and the laws against recusants executed. Unlike the members of the ‘patriot’ coalition, who were wary of mentioning the practicalities of war, Seymour moved that a ‘diversive war might be enterprised’, thereby pressuring the king of Spain into ‘an exchange for as good or better than the Palatinate’.49 The question of war was tied intimately to religious considerations, and although Seymour was a Calvinist the increased tensions with Spain appear to have caused him to reflect on religious conditions at home and action against domestic recusants rather than belligerence in foreign policy.50 The debates on foreign policy in 1624 indicate that he supported limited military action against Spain, but was very reluctant to endorse a potentially expensive continental war.

In debate on 5 Mar. over the propriety of a request made by the earls of Southampton and Pembroke for the Commons to declare its intention of supporting a war, Seymour averred that the matter should be suppressed so it would not be thought that the king ‘did accept of our advice upon promise and contract’.51 He was clearly wary of engaging the Commons to support any undefined and potentially costly action, and again expressed his reservations in the subsidy debate of 19 March. Quailing at the level of support requested by James, he maintained that a general grant would satisfy neither the king nor themselves and stressed that they should ‘level our declaration to our abilities and the action His Majesty will put us upon’. His anxiety over committing the country to a costly continental war was articulated forcefully: ‘war is spoken of and an army but where and against whom is fit to be known’. If the war was to be in the Palatinate, Seymour considered this ‘a thing of infinite charge and to us impossible’.52 He supported the limited plans contained in the ‘four propositions’, but stressed the need to have a session and pass good legislation for the commonwealth. Counselling a pitiful grant of one subsidy and two fifteenths, he also called for papists to be charged double.53 As the debate continued the next day, it seems that Seymour had been reassured that a grant would not be open-ended and involve an expensive land war, for he agreed to three subsidies and three fifteenths, although he reiterated that recusants should pay double so as to sweeten the grant with the people.54

His subsequent contributions over the subsidy further indicate his preoccupation with the domestic consequences of breaking with Spain. On 9 Apr. he asked whether a letter in which James informed the king of Spain of his determination to dissolve the treaty negotiations constituted the declaration which the Commons had demanded on 20 Mar. as a precondition of the subsidy grant; the House resolved it was not, and on 20 Apr. he advised the inclusion of such a declaration in the bill’s preamble.55 At the subsidy bill’s first reading on 22 Apr. he requested that public matters should also be addressed, ‘that the honour of the king and good of the subject may go hand in hand’. When the bill received a second reading two days later, Seymour crossed Eliot’s motion to give thanks to the king and prince, stating that the House should express their gratitude ‘rather in action than words’.56

Seymour was also involved in the debate over the recusancy petition. Separate petitions from the Lords and Commons for the execution of the laws against Catholics had been referred to a committee, which had divided over the manner of their enforcement. The Lords’ petition advocated leaving the question of enforcement to the king, but Seymour rejected this and advised that a Proclamation be issued, and rebutted accusations that this might give the appearance of a war of religion to James’s declaration against Spain.57

Seymour often deployed images of ‘country’ interests in his speeches. These were probably not merely rhetorical devices, but an expression of genuine concern for the affairs of his constituents. When he opposed the pretermitted customs, for instance, he doubtless had the interests of Wiltshire’s clothiers in mind. Describing these duties as ‘mere impositions’, he asserted that the king lost more through the reduction in cloths sold than he would if he abandoned the duty (13 April).58 On 22 Mar. he also made a motion on behalf of a family associate, Sir Francis Popham, regarding the latter’s disputed election at Chippenham.59 His concern at the abuses perpetrated by heralds evidently arose from the Wiltshire visitation of 1623. On 28 Apr. Seymour reported that the heralds had entered Wiltshire and Dorset, summoned many knights and gentlemen, demanded money and threatened fines for non-appearance. He also described the refusal of ‘Mr. Hyde’, a Wiltshire justice, to appear before them.60 It is quite possible that this was the Marlborough lawyer, Nicholas Hyde*, whom Seymour retained as his legal counsel.61 Seymour secured a committee to investigate heralds’ abuses, and reported its findings on 8 May. Drawing on the experience of Wiltshire and Dorset, he detailed the monies the heralds had secured without authority, decrying their practice of declaring gentlemen ‘infamous’ if they did not appear before them, and also chronicling the abuses of the earl marshal’s court.62

Seymour was personally interested in a bill which allowed him and his elder brother to sell the entailed manors of Isle Abbots and Puryton-with-Downend for the payment of debts incurred by their grandfather. The measure, which was enacted, also permitted Sir Francis to raise portions for his children. The entailed manors were replaced with Seymour’s ‘newly built’ mansion house in Marlborough and by lands purchased from his grandfather in Savernake Park, which became part of the settled estate.63

During the Parliament Seymour supported his ally of 1621, Sir Lionel Cranfield, now earl of Middlesex, during the latter’s impeachment. Although their association in 1621 probably was important in securing Seymour’s assistance, it may also be significant that Middlesex opposed war with Spain.64 On 15 Apr. the charges against Middlesex were reported prior to being transmitted to the Lords, whereupon Seymour asserted that ‘it is not fit to suffer such aggravations as are not proved in this House’. In his efforts to repudiate the claim that Middlesex caused the previous dissolution of Parliament, he recalled the king’s remark that he had broken the necks of three Parliaments, and so concluded that ‘if the king did it, then the lord treasurer did not’. Seymour gave Middlesex further support on 28 May, when he acted as a teller for the noes at the third reading of a bill to make Middlesex’s lands liable for the payment of his fine.65 Seymour’s defence of Middlesex can only have served to alienate him further from Buckingham, who orchestrated the impeachment.66

Following the dissolution, Seymour returned to Wiltshire and helped organize the levy for Mansfeld’s expedition, despite having opposed action in the Palatinate during the Parliament.67 After Charles’s accession and the decision to call a new Parliament, there was some jockeying for the Wiltshire seats. Seymour wrote, rather unconvincingly, to one hopeful candidate, (Sir) Thomas Thynne*, that he had not planned to stand originally but had received a letter from the two principal Wiltshire magnates, his elder brother and the 3rd earl of Pembroke, that ‘they would give their assents for none but myself’.68 Although there was some discussion that Seymour might stand down having represented the shire before, he was again returned for the county.

Seymour’s first contribution to debate indicated that his priorities were sharply opposed to the government’s agenda, which was to obtain a vote of supply and postpone domestic matters to a later session. His major concern was not supply but the state of religion. On 22 June, after requesting that the king be petitioned to restrain access to ambassador’s houses and implement the laws against papists, Seymour proposed that religion and supply be considered together.69 The following day he was nominated to the committee for a bill to explain the 1606 Act to suppress popish recusants, and on the 24th, at the grand committee for religion, he alerted his colleagues to the fact that Catholics wishing to become priests no longer needed to go abroad to be invested. Later that same morning he was appointed to the committee to frame articles against the anti-Calvinist polemicist, Richard Montagu. Three days later he was nominated to another committee concerned with religion, this one on the perennial bill to allow clergy to dispense with the need to subscribe to the Canons of 1604.70

By the morning of 30 June Seymour was satisfied that matters of religion were now far enough advanced for the House to turn its attention to supply. Consequently, as soon as the House read and approved the petition to the king against recusants, Seymour initiated a supply debate. Under normal circumstances Members would have frowned upon any discussion of supply so soon after the beginning of a Parliament, but in 1625 many of Seymour’s colleagues were anxious to return to their homes as soon as possible because the plague was now raging in the capital. Although Seymour now initiated a supply debate, he was not inclined to be generous, as he proposed that the Commons should vote the king just one subsidy and one fifteenth ‘for the present’. This meagre sum underlined Seymour’s opposition to the type of war envisaged by the king and Buckingham, and the fact that Seymour had not co-ordinated his motion with the courtiers, whom he took entirely unawares, suggests that he was hoping to deprive the government of a larger grant. These tactics proved almost wholly successful, for, to the horror of Charles and Buckingham, the House resolved to vote the king just two subsidies.71

During the debate over accounting for the 1624 subsidies on 1 July, Seymour demonstrated his concern for his constituents by insisting that local military expenses be allowed out of the subsidies.72 He also backed a temporary grant of Tunnage and Poundage for one year only on 5 July.73 Before the adjournment to Oxford, Seymour supported Sir Thomas Wentworth over the contested Yorkshire election, and acted as a teller for the yeas for Wentworth’s counsel to be heard.74 This was an early manifestation of a significant political connection which endured down to 1641.

Buckingham attempted to woo Seymour before the Parliament reassembled at Oxford, requesting his support in an attack on lord keeper Williams, but Seymour rebuffed these advances.75 Shortly after the Parliament resumed, Seymour spoke against the king’s attempt to divert the attack on Richard Montagu - Charles had made him a royal chaplain - by asking that his censure be left to the House. He also reiterated familiar concerns with parliamentary privilege and royal cognizance of Commons’ debates: ‘the king ought not to take no [sic] notice what we do’.76 The fundamental difference of priorities between Seymour and the Court was clearly indicated by his response of 5 Aug. to the Crown’s request for additional supply, wherein he also made his first clear suggestion of an intention to attack Buckingham. In a speech of ‘much boldness and some asperity’, he wondered at the demand for a second grant, which would impose an intolerable burden on the nation, maintaining that the Oxford meeting arose from ‘private ends to put dissension between the king and his people’. Recalling the 1624 subsidy, he declared that an enemy had not been named nor the queen of Bohemia assisted, and claimed ‘we have set upon and consumed our own people’. Clearly focusing on Buckingham, he stated ‘how happy is that king who reposes his counsel upon men of worth, and how unhappy he who relies upon one or two, and they such as know how to flatter and beg of him than how to give him good counsel?’77 The next day a Buckingham dependent, Edward Clarke, accused some in the Commons of ‘invective speeches’. Clarke was immediately countered by Seymour, who called for him to be brought to the bar and removed from the House.78

After the case for supply was again put by the Crown’s agents, Seymour, on 10 Aug., implicated Buckingham as the reason for the king’s wants. He asserted that ‘the causes of this necessity are more fit to be opened than the necessity itself’, and claimed that the money from Parliament and Benevolences had been given to ‘private’ men. Turning his attention to the sale of honours, which many attributed to Buckingham’s influence, Seymour lamented that the king’s honour had become a ‘merchantable commodity’. He continued, ‘if His Majesty hear not of this by us, he shall never hear of it in his Bedchamber’. He also declared himself dissatisfied with the plans for war, as they did not proceed from good counsel, and consequently he rejected the idea that there should be any further grant of money.79 The next day the delivery of a petition regarding the spoils of pirates on the coasts afforded Seymour another opportunity to attack the duke. He was moved to ‘lay the fault where it is; the duke of Buckingham is trusted [with coastal defence] and it must needs be wither in him or his agents’. Indeed, as Eliot later recalled, Seymour was the first Member to name Buckingham directly, so opening the way for further assaults on the duke and convincing Charles to dissolve the Parliament.

In his attacks on Buckingham, Seymour was consistently supported by Sir Edward Coke and Sir Robert Phelips, both of whom were to share his fate in the aftermath of the dissolution. Although there were rumours that the agitators against Buckingham would be imprisoned, the king resolved to obtain a more compliant Commons in a subsequent Parliament by pricking the duke’s main opponents as sheriffs, thus disabling them from election.80 Seymour, who was pricked for Wiltshire, deeply wished to attend the next Parliament, presumably to continue his attack on Buckingham, and in November 1625 he approached Wentworth with a scheme for securing re-election. Seymour believed he could be returned as a burgess for a town outside his county and so requested that Wentworth secure his election for a northern constituency. In return, he would ensure that Wentworth was elected in the west. However, Sir Arthur Ingram and the earl of Clare (Sir John Holles*) counselled Wentworth that this would incur the wrath of the king and Buckingham. ‘I could wish Sir Francis Seymour were a burgess’, wrote Clare, ‘so you were not seen in it’. Consequently Wentworth, though he wished Seymour success, resolved to maintain a low profile and declined to participate in the scheme.81 Rumours circulated in January 1626 that Seymour had been returned as a knight of the shire proved to be unfounded.82

Seymour’s absence from the 1626 Parliament did not shield him from further reprisals, however, and in July he was removed from the Wiltshire commission of the peace, of which he was custos, in a purge orchestrated by Buckingham.83 Thereafter Seymour laid low, despite popular hostility to the Forced Loan and the widespread billeting of troops. In 1628, however, he secured re-election, both at Marlborough and for Wiltshire, choosing the county seat at the beginning of the Parliament.84 At the same time he continued to maintain his close political relationship with Wentworth and his associates, among them Christopher Wandesford*, who noted that he had approached Seymour and other ‘tribunitial orators of the west’ for a seat.85 This connection helps account for Seymour’s appointment to the committee for Coryton’s election in Cornwall (20 March).86

Seymour arrived in Parliament determined to address the unlawful policies undertaken to support a war he had never endorsed, and he denounced recent abuses in a powerful speech of 22 Mar. which circulated widely as a separate. He stressed the Commons’ role in delivering impartial advice and counsel to the king without fear or flattery. Recalling the dissolutions of 1625 and 1626 and the disastrous expeditions on the Continent, he condemned the employment of commanders who possessed neither the skill nor experience for the task. He also appeared to target Buckingham once again when he described how the king could be abused by the misinformation of his counsellors, and how unsuccessful monarchs in general had relied upon unworthy ministers. He denounced billeting, the Forced Loan and the widespread imprisonment of refusers without cause shown, matters which provided the chief impetus behind the drive to safeguard the subjects’ liberties. He also condemned divines like Robert Sibthorpe and Roger Manwaring, who ‘prattled the absolute authority of the king in levying money, to poison ... His Majesty’s ears and the clean and wholesome fountains of our ancient rights and laws’. If the king were persuaded to ‘take from his subjects what he will,’ as they counselled, Seymour wondered ‘what we have to give?’ Employing forceful rhetoric, he claimed that all men should lay down their lives for the service of the king and commonwealth, but affirmed that if the subject had his goods unlawfully taken from him, it was incumbent upon Parliament to redress the balance. He moved for a committee to draw a petition of grievances for presentation to the king, and asserted that consideration of supply should only follow the redress of these grievances.87

Seymour followed Sir John Eliot on 25 Mar. in condemning recent government policy as an affront to liberty and answered Sir Richard Shilton’s speech that the Commons should not trench on the king’s prerogative. As on 22 Mar., he maintained that the liberty of the subject should be secured through a petition to the king rather than a bill.88 In the debate over supply on 2 Apr. Seymour again criticized the Forced Loan and the policies which had drawn England into war with Spain and France, and demonstrated his continued antipathy towards Buckingham by calling on the king to ‘employ men of integrity and experience, otherwise all that we give will be as cast into a bottomless bag’ - a reference, almost certainly, to Buckingham’s dependant Sir James Bagg II*. However, it appears that Seymour, like Wentworth and Sir Edward Coke, had agreed not to attack the duke in person, as he called on those about the king to ‘amend themselves’ rather than face the censure of the House, affirming ‘I will not name any man’.89 In another well reported speech over the renewed demands for supply on 4 Apr., Seymour declared that the subjects’ liberty had to be considered in tandem with subsidies. He maintained that this was not conditional bargaining as the Commons was asking only for confirmation of something the subject already possessed. He moved for five subsidies to be voted in principle, and added that his constituents could not shoulder the burden of fifteenths.90 Later that day he again made some barbed comments in Buckingham’s direction when he described the proposed supply as

so great a gift as that I hope it will be fit for other things than masques and may take (I trust) that mask from the king’s eyes that keeps him from the sight of those that would faithfully serve him did not the foul ends of baser instruments divert him from his own royal dispositions.91

On 23 Apr. he objected to the Lords’ attempt to consider on their own the question of arbitrary imprisonment, claiming that many of their Members had, as privy councillors and lord lieutenants, signed the orders to commit refusers. He may have adopted this position in the knowledge that several peers supported the king’s right to imprison for reasons of state. Seymour was not a lawyer, and his contributions to the debates over the subjects’ rights were not couched in legal argument or precedents, but on 28 Apr. he was named to the committee for framing the bill on the liberty of the subject. On 1 May he acknowledged the bill to be a ‘great business’ and stressed the need to strike a balance between the royal prerogative and the liberties of the subject. He believed the king would not allow the provision in the bill which denied him and the Council the right to imprison without cause shown. He then rounded on those (unlike him) who held office as justices of the peace or as deputy lieutenants. They were often more blameworthy than their superiors, he argued, as they executed all orders for fear of being dismissed, and he demanded that penalties be imposed upon those who ‘exceed the law in points of imprisonment’.92 Seymour also called for the punishment of John Baber*, the recorder of Wells, who had signed warrants for billeting soldiers on his own authority (9 April). Baber claimed to have the direction of a deputy lieutenant, Sir Edward Rodney*, a Seymour associate, which may account for Sir Francis’s intervention.93

After the king requested that the Commons rely upon his promise to abide by Magna Carta and the explanatory statutes rather than pass a law for their liberties, Seymour recalled that it had been Charles who allowed the House to proceed by bill in the first place. Once again he demonstrated his concern for ‘country’ opinion, claiming that ‘we come not to satisfy ourselves but our country: and if we bring home only promises it will not give them satisfaction’. He went on to support Wentworth’s proposed reply to the king, which some opposed for its reference to illegal government actions, and in so doing he apparently took another swipe at Buckingham, commenting that he feared the king ‘never heard the truth in any place so well as from here’.94 Seymour again raised his frequently repeated concern about the misrepresentation of parliamentary proceedings on 3 May, after the king informed the House that he would admit no new interpretation of the law.95 On 6 May he supported the motion to extricate the Commons from the impasse it had reached with Charles by means of a Petition of Right, as he would not trust the king’s general undertaking to maintain the liberties of the subject.96 After the resolution to proceed by petition, on 8 May Seymour moved that supply should now be considered along with grievances.97 However, when the Lords introduced a saving clause for imprisonment upon occasions of state, Seymour was quick to defend the Commons’ earlier wording ‘and not fall to less till we fall to nothing’ (13 May). Similarly, when the Lords’ proposed addition reserving sovereign power to the king was considered in the Commons on 20 May, Seymour averred that this saving subverted the whole intention of the Petition. Although he opposed the Lords’ clause, he nevertheless followed Wentworth’s line (as in many other instances during the Parliament) in recognizing the need for the peers’ backing if the Petition were to have any legal status. Despite Phelips’ opposition, he supported a joint committee with the Lords to move the Petition forward on 24 May. Later that day, after the Lords had provided a positive answer to the Petition, Seymour again tied supply to redress of grievances by moving that the subsidy bill be read and the Petition brought to a vote.98

On 5 June, after the king’s unsatisfactory first answer to the Petition of Right and his injunction that the Commons not lay any scandal on his government by naming Buckingham in a Remonstrance, Seymour supported Digges’ motion to sit in silence, adding ‘we are all so miserable that I know not what to do’.99 The following day he joined in the condemnation of the Cadiz expedition, but only in rather muted terms. Significantly, his criticism was levelled at Viscount Wimbledon (Sir Edward Cecil*) rather than Buckingham, and noticeably he did not follow other Members in naming Buckingham as the cause of the country’s troubles.100 It is true that in the debate on the proposed Remonstrance of 11 June he observed that, ‘I cannot say the duke has deserved well of the commonwealth. I am sure he has deserved as ill of me as any man. I think there are those that have deserved as ill of the commonwealth as my Lord of Buckingham’.101 However, compared with the other accusations levelled at Buckingham in the Remonstrance debates (wherein Seymour was noticeably absent) these comments were subdued. It is curious that the man described by one historian as Buckingham’s ‘most consistent enemy’ should have resorted to such muted criticism, especially when he had appeared to hint at his continued opposition to the duke in his earlier speeches.102 It may be that Wiltshire’s lord lieutenant, the 3rd earl of Pembroke, who had reconciled himself with the duke in 1626, dissuaded him from attacking Buckingham openly. Seymour had served Pembroke as a deputy lieutenant and it should be recalled that Pembroke had supported Seymour’s candidacy for the 1625 Parliament.103 Another possibility is that Seymour’s continued exclusion from the Wiltshire bench threatened his local standing, and that he recognized that his rehabilitation depended upon improved relations with the favourite.

During the 1628 session Seymour demonstrated considerable interest in a bill to allow the 2nd earl of Devonshire (Sir William Cavendish I*) to sell lands to pay his debts. He was named to the committee on 21 Apr. and, when the measure was reported with a mistake in the title on 10 May, he asked that it might be amended at the clerk’s table. After some opposition to this suggestion, it was decided that the House should vote on whether to recommit the bill, whereupon Seymour acted as teller for the yeas. On 29 May Seymour requested that those who objected to the bill might be permitted to be members of the committee before adding that ‘he hoped to give satisfaction to all, else he would not offer it to the House’. The bill nevertheless continued to meet with resistance when it was reported on 10 June. Seymour attempted to answer these criticisms by recalling the similar Act passed for the benefit of himself and his brother in 1624, and acted as teller for the yeas when it was questioned whether the bill should be engrossed.104 Quite why Seymour was so concerned to ensure the passage of this measure remains a mystery, but an association with Devonshire’s political ally, Pembroke, may have some bearing on the matter. The fact that the Seymour Act had passed in 1624 may have made him an attractive sponsor in the Commons, and Devonshire must have appreciated the value of Seymour’s connections in the Upper House in the shape of his brother, the earl of Hertford.

Seymour was a relatively active Member during the brief 1629 session, when he spoke on the pressing matters of religion and privilege. On 26 Jan. he followed Francis Rous’s lengthy speech on Arminianism with his own observations on the difficulties facing the Church. Although he concentrated on the increase of papists at home, his later speeches make it clear that he believed Arminian churchmen represented a dangerous threat to the commonwealth. He claimed that proceedings against papists had been hindered in the king’s name during the prorogation, and targeted the attorney-general, (Sir) Robert Heath*, when he asserted that the culprit could be discovered ‘upon a little examination’.105 He was alluding to the pardons granted to the divines John Cosin, Richard Montagu, Robert Sibthorpe and Roger Manwaring, who had been attacked during the previous session, the latter two by Seymour himself. In the committee for religion on 3 Feb., Seymour derided the ineffectual Proclamation against Montagu’s Appello Caesarem, and, referring to the author’s recent elevation to the bishopric of Chichester, argued that he ‘did not believe that his book is condemned when the party that wrought it is advanced’.106 He was again to the fore in debates over the pardons three days later, once more condemning Heath for his role in the business.107 Seymour was concerned that the influence of Arminian opinions about the king was corrupting the exercise of royal authority. The stay of proceedings against recusants by Heath appeared to underline his case, and he was prominent in investigating the issue. His fears were articulated in a speech of 14 Feb., when he detailed the damaging effects of Arminian counsel in rendering the king effectively powerless to fight popery.108

Seymour was much less loquacious in the case of John Rolle*. He appeared to be wary of diverting attention away from religion, for on 19 Feb. he noted that, although Rolle’s case was a privilege matter, he was ‘doubtful whether to take it into consideration now will not disadvantage us’.109 He spoke only once in committee on the issue, claiming that the men who seized Rolle’s goods had acted on their own authority and used ‘only art’ to allege the king’s sanction.110 In the turbulent events of 2 Mar. Seymour was not a leading agitator, although he did move to have Eliot’s declaration read, and called for the House to adjourn itself rather than admit a message from the king.111

Seymour was not interrogated after the Parliament, and indeed was restored to the Wiltshire bench in 1629, probably through the influence of Pembroke. Although not an especially active county governor, he was prominent in opposing a local commission for the reformation of abuses in cloth-making in the 1630s.112 His affiliation with Wentworth endured, and during the Personal Rule he wrote to the lord deputy acknowledging his ‘noble favours’, who returned the compliment by describing Seymour as an ‘old’ friend.113 This lasting connection helps explain why Seymour opposed Wentworth’s attainder in 1641, a key moment in his political career which saw him ennobled as Baron Seymour of Trowbridge and taken into the king’s confidence. His emergence as a ‘constitutional royalist’ was seen by some as the apostasy of a man ‘who once passed for a patriot’, a view based very much on the reputation he forged in the Parliaments of the 1620s and on his refusal to pay Ship Money.114 He was not politically active after the king’s defeat, composing a volume of private meditations on religious and moral questions that ruminated on the merits of patience, which ‘make[s] us silent though wronged as knowing the wicked shall be rooted out’.115 Re-appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1660, having previously held the office in royalist Oxford, he made little impression on Restoration politics and died in 1664, being buried in Great Bedwyn church. In his brief will he bequeathed an annuity of £600 to his wife and provided for his grandchild and the poor of Marlborough and Preshute.116 His only son, Charles, survived him, representing Great Bedwyn in the Short Parliament and Wiltshire in the Cavalier Parliament. The line eventually inherited the dukedom of Somerset. A portrait of Seymour hangs at Petworth House.117

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629

Author: Lloyd Bowen

Notes

  • 1. E. Kent Archives Cent. NR/CPw222.
  • 2. The Gen. n.s. xvii. 103 ; CD 1628, iv. 42; MTR, 703.
  • 3. Vis. Wilts. (Harl. Soc. cv-cvi), 157; Vis. Warw. (Harl. Soc. lxii), 70-1; HMC Bath, iv. 203; C.J. Feret, Fulham Old and New, i. 220; Wilts. RO, 1300/55, unfol.
  • 4. CP, xi. 640.
  • 5. Eg. 71, f. 104.
  • 6. C66/1988, 66/2527; Som. RO, DD/PH219/66; Cal. of Docquets of Ld. Kpr. Coventry 1625-40 ed. J. Broadway, R. Cust and S.K. Roberts (L. and I. Soc. spec. ser. xxxiv-vii), 77; C231/5, p. 431.
  • 7. CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 276.
  • 8. C212/22/20-1, 23; Add. 34566, f. 132.
  • 9. SP14/178/21; APC, 1625-6, pp. 55, 111; SP14/185/21.
  • 10. List of Sheriffs comp. A. Hughes (PRO, L. and I. ix), 154.
  • 11. C181/4, ff. 78v, 87v; 181/5, ff. 1, 189, 221; 181/7, ff. 8, 271; Cal. of Docquets of Ld. Kpr. Coventry, 53, 57; SP16/229/112.
  • 12. Add. 32324, f. 14.
  • 13. C181/5, f. 135v; 181/7, f. 148.
  • 14. Add. 32324, f. 47v; D.L. Smith, Constitutional Roy. 144.
  • 15. PC2/53, pp. 176, 232; HMC 3rd Rep. 90.
  • 16. Docquets of Letters Patent 1642-6 ed. W.H. Black, 387; Duchy of Lancaster Office-Holders ed. R. Somerville, 3.
  • 17. CSP Dom. 1645-6, p. 279; HMC 7th Rep. 453.
  • 18. E. Kent Archives Cent. NR/CPw222.
  • 19. Procs. of the Short Parl. ed. E.S. Cope and W.H. Coates (Cam. Soc. ser. 4. xix), 140.
  • 20. Eg. 71, ff. 30-31v.
  • 21. SP14/64/8; Letters of Arbella Stuart ed. S.J. Steen, 250.
  • 22. CD 1621, ii. 113. It may not be coincidental that Mompesson was charged with tyrannizing the people of Marlborough, where Sir Francis lived: C. Russell, PEP, 102.
  • 23. CD 1621, vii. 312-22; Stuart Royal Procs. ed. J.F. Larkin and P.L. Hughes, i. 409; Russell, 69-70, 101-2; CD 1621, ii. 119, 130; iv. 99-100.
  • 24. CD 1621, ii. 146-7; v. 260-1; vi. 7, 15; CJ, i. 530b. The ‘X’ diarist gives a rather ambiguous report of the beginning of this speech, which led to the erroneous analysis in R. Zaller, Parl. of 1621, p. 58.
  • 25. CD 1621, iii. 42-3; iv. 243-4; v. 343; CJ, i. 586a-b.
  • 26. Nicholas, Procs. 1621, i. 309-11; CD 1621, iii. 68-9; v. 347; vi. 95; CJ, i. 589a.
  • 27. CD 1621, iii. 70-1, vi. 96; CJ, i. 589b.
  • 28. Nicholas, ii. 55-7; CD 1621, iii. 225-8; iv. 331; CJ, i. 617b-18b.
  • 29. CD 1621, ii. 359, iii. 227; v. 260-1; vi. 15; M. Prestwich, Cranfield, 295-7.
  • 30. CD 1621, iii. 31, v. 66; CJ, i. 571a, 583b.
  • 31. Nicholas, i. 371; CD 1621, iii. 123, 360; CJ, i. 601a.
  • 32. CD 1621, iii. 140, 145; v. 133; vi. 363; CJ, i. 605a.
  • 33. CD 1621, iii. 168.
  • 34. CJ, i. 595a, 598a; CD 1621, iii. 101.
  • 35. Nicholas, i. 348-9; CD 1621, iii. 109-10; vi. 109; CJ, i. 596a.
  • 36. Ibid. iii. 247-8; CJ, i. 620b.
  • 37. CD 1621, vi. 326, 203, ii. 459, iii. 473; iv. 445; v. 408; Nicholas, ii. 226; CJ, i. 649b; Wilts. RO, 9/34/2, p. 53.
  • 38. Nicholas, ii. 281; CJ, i. 658b; CD 1621, ii. 501; Wilts. RO, 9/34/2, pp. 87-8.
  • 39. CD 1621, vi. 231.
  • 40. Nicholas, ii. 331; CD 1621, ii. 522; vi. 236; CJ, i. 664a.
  • 41. Nicholas, ii. 342; CD 1621, vi. 241, 333; CJ, i. 666b.
  • 42. CKS, U269/1 OE108; C. Russell, Unrevolutionary Eng. 81-2.
  • 43. CD 1621, iii. 131; CJ, i. 603a.
  • 44. CP, vii. 606; Wilts. N and Q, iii. 361.
  • 45. Wilts. IPMs ed. G.S. and A.E. Fry (Brit. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 20-31; VCH Wilts. xii. 169.
  • 46. ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 4v; KSRL, E237, f. 96v; ‘Nicholas 1624’, ff. 28v-29; ‘Pym 1624’, i. ff. 8v-9; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 31v; Holles 1624, p. 6; CJ, i. 719b.
  • 47. Russell, PEP, 149-52, 161-2; T. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 150-1.
  • 48. CJ, i. 720a; ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 5.
  • 49. Ferrar 1624, pp. 39-40; ‘Spring 1624’, pp. 45-6; ‘Jervoise 1624’, ff. 22-3; CJ, i. 722b.
  • 50. For Seymour’s religious beliefs, see Eg. 71.
  • 51. ‘Spring 1624’, p. 87; Holles 1624, p. 23; Ferrar 1624, p. 63; ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 32v.
  • 52. CJ, i. 741a; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 128; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 34.
  • 53. The Journal and Spring both record Seymour as advocating two subsidies and two fifteenths, but are contradicted by seven other diarists. He recommended the larger grant from papists only.
  • 54. ‘Spring 1624’, p. 148; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 101; ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 68v.
  • 55. CJ, i. 744b, 761a; ‘Holland 1624’, ii. f. 41r-v; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 74v. He was named to the committee which composed the preamble: CJ, i. 762a.
  • 56. CJ, i. 772b, 774b; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 80; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 152.
  • 57. Holles 1624, p. 64. See also ‘Spring 1624’, p. 183.
  • 58. Holles 1624, pp. 78-9; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 63v; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 150; CJ, i. 765b.
  • 59. CJ, i. 745a.
  • 60. Add. 32324, f. 8; ‘Holland 1624’, ii. ff. 56v-57; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 81v; CJ, i. 692b-693a, 695a.
  • 61. C2/Jas.I/S28/24; 2/Jas.I/S32/28.
  • 62. I. Temple Lib., Petyt ms 537/29, ff. 76-9; ‘Pym 1624’, i. ff. 33v-5v; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 176r-v; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 198; CJ, i. 701a-b.
  • 63. HLRO, HL/PO/PB/1/1623/21J1n39; Wilts. RO, 9/1/34.
  • 64. Russell, PEP, 148.
  • 65. ‘Holland 1624’, ii. ff. 27v-28; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 155; CJ, i. 797b. Cf. Prestwich, 433-4.
  • 66. His relationship to Buckingham during the Parliament is difficult to assess, as indicated by his nomination to the committee to clear Buckingham of dishonouring the King of Spain in his ‘Relation’: CJ, i. 722a.
  • 67. CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 72-3; APC, 1623-5, p. 446, 1625-6, p. 55.
  • 68. Procs. 1626, iv. 397.
  • 69. Procs. 1625, pp. 216, 220.
  • 70. Ibid. 226, 240, 253.
  • 71. Ibid. 240, 274, 277, 507; C. Thompson, ‘Court Pols. and Parl. Conflict’, in Conflict in Early Stuart Eng. ed. A. Hughes and R. Cust, 174-5.
  • 72. Procs. 1625, p. 283. See also SP14/185/21.
  • 73. Procs. 1625, p. 314.
  • 74. Ibid. 296.
  • 75. J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), pt. 2, p. 18.
  • 76. Procs. 1625, pp. 379, 382.
  • 77. Ibid. 393-4, 537-8.
  • 78. Ibid. 413.
  • 79. Ibid. 444, 450.
  • 80. HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 232, 238; CSP Ven. 1625-6, p. 231; Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 29; Procs. 1625, p. 725.
  • 81. Strafforde Letters, i. 30-1, 33.
  • 82. Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 628.
  • 83. Som. RO, DD/PH219/66; Wilts. RO, A1/150/5; R. Cust, Forced Loan, 188-9.
  • 84. CD 1628, ii. 28; Wilts. RO, G22/1/20, f. 118.
  • 85. Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. ser. 4. xii), 278-9.
  • 86. CD 1628, ii. 28-9. He was later named to the committee to set down the form of recognition regarding this election: ibid. iii. 386.
  • 87. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM1331/46, 47; CD 1628, ii. 55-7, 67, 71-2; vi. 103, 184.
  • 88. CD 1628, ii. 104, 111, 115.
  • 89. Ibid. 245, 256, 261.
  • 90. Ibid. 300, 306, 311.
  • 91. Ibid. 309; HMC 4th Rep. 290.
  • 92. CD 1628, iii. 46, 50, 53, 55, 123, 187,194, 202; Russell, PEP, 370-1.
  • 93. CD 1628, ii. 377, 384, 388, 392; The Gen. n.s. xvii. 103; C2/Jas.I/S32/28. Seymour acknowledged he knew Baber.
  • 94. CD 1628, iii. 211, 215, 220, 223, 212, 222, 226, 228.
  • 95. Ibid. 235, 237, 240-1, 244, 246. He had also broached this issue in response to the king’s message of 12 Apr. urging haste in voting supply: ibid. ii. 432, 435, 440.
  • 96. Ibid. iii. 272, 277, 283, 286, 290, 296.
  • 97. Ibid. 327-8, 329-30, 332.
  • 98. Ibid. 496, 501, 560, 596, 599, 602, 605, 615, 617.
  • 99. Ibid. iv. 118-19, 123.
  • 100. Ibid. 148, 160, 165.
  • 101. Ibid. 267.
  • 102. Russell, PEP, 151n.
  • 103. R. Cust, ‘Chas .I, the Privy Council and the Parl. of 1628’, TRHS (ser. 6), ii. 48.
  • 104. CD 1628, iii. 3, 355, 364; iv. 19, 226, 502; HLRO, HL/PO/PB/1/1627/3C1n12.
  • 105. CD 1629, pp. 14, 109; HMC Lonsdale, 63; Russell, PEP, 406-7.
  • 106. CD 1629, p. 122.
  • 107. Ibid. 176.
  • 108. Ibid. 76, 148-9, 207, 210, 78-9, 215, 152, 220; HMC Lonsdale, 72.
  • 109. CD 1629, p. 157.
  • 110. Ibid. 89, 164, 230.
  • 111. Ibid. 172, 240, 244, 256.
  • 112. PC2/44, pp. 170-1, 229; CSP Dom. 1634-5, pp. 3-4, 306; VCH Wilts. v. 132-3.
  • 113. Strafforde Letters, i. 264; SCL, WWM Str. P. 10A/104; 14/103.
  • 114. Voyce from the Watch Tower ed. A.B. Worden (Cam. Soc. ser. 4. xxi), 176; Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion ed. W.D. Macray, ii. 534; Smith, 43-7.
  • 115. A number of copies of this work exist: Eg. 71; Alnwick Castle (BL microfilm) 106/51/9; Wilts. RO, 9/1332/58; Windsor Castle, St. George’s Chapel Archives.
  • 116. PROB 11/315, f. 226r-v; J. Aubrey, Wilts. ed. J.E. Jackson, 378.
  • 117. VCH Wilts. v. opp. p. 138.