It had started so well. Francis Leak, the son of Sir Francis Leak, a prosperous landowner in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, was the first of his family to try to establish himself on the national stage. He had already taken the important first step of marrying the sister of a rising star at court, Sir Henry Carey (later Viscount Falkland in the Scottish peerage). Yet Leak’s ambitions were undermined by a fierce row with his father, who had resigned the patrimonial estate to him in return for a relatively high rent-charge. Once the documents were sealed, Leak refused point-blank to pay anything to his father, on the preposterous grounds of poverty. His true financial state was revealed in 1624, when he paid James I’s favourite, George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, £8,000 to be made Baron Deincourt. The son’s ennoblement enraged the father, who was already engaged in a lengthy legal battle with his son. Even the death of Sir Francis in 1626 did not stop the wrangling, as Deincourt’s mother and half-brother disputed the will and won a chancery order for him to pay them rent arrears; this was upheld by the Lords in 1629. Deincourt’s parliamentary service in the later 1620s had been overshadowed by this constant rowing, and the dispute continued into the early 1630s, ending only with the intervention of the privy council, which ruled against the baron. His reputation at court and among the aristocracy never recovered.

Although Deincourt was treated with distain by the royal court during the 1630s, his son, also Francis, was able to succeed where the father had failed, joining the royal family for racing at Newmarket and being given minor ceremonial roles at court. His career was, however, spoiled by his father’s parsimony. Two potential marriages were ruined by Deincourt’s refusal to make realistic financial provision for his son, and by the end of the decade, Francis was languishing in debtors’ prison. Deincourt was equally mean when it came to public affairs. Although a supporter of the king, he was reluctant to give the king money to fight the bishops’ wars against the Scots in 1639-40, and he went on to play very little part in the Short and Long Parliaments. At the outbreak of civil war in 1642, he sided with the king. Francis, who had gone to France (possibly to avoid his creditors) died at about this time, leaving the second son, Nicholas, heir to the barony. Needless to say, Deincourt and Nicholas Leak immediately fell out, with Nicholas joining the parliamentarians.

Civil war did not improve Deincourt’s miserliness. In September 1642, the prominent courtier, John Ashburnham, was sent to Deincourt to secure £5,000 for the king, while Arthur Capell (later 1st Baron Capell), went on a parallel mission to the equally parsimonious Robert Pierrepont, 1st earl of Kingston-upon-Hull. The cunning Kingston deflected the request by suggesting the wealthy Deincourt – ‘who was good for nothing and lived like a hog, not allowing himself necessaries’ – could easily supply the money instead. Deincourt, who had ‘so little correspondence with the court that he had never heard his name’, did not accept Ashburnham’s credentials until he had consulted with his wife’s nephew, Lucius Carey, 2nd Viscount Falkland, but afterwards reacted ‘with so different a respect’ that the envoy became hopeful of receiving the money after all. He was soon ‘undeceived’:

The lord, with as cheerful a countenance as his could be (for he had a very unusual and unpleasant face), told him that though he had no money himself, but was in extreme want of it, he would tell him where he might have money enough … that he had a neighbour, who lived within four or five miles, the earl of Kingston, that never did good to anybody, and loved nobody but himself, who had a world of money, and could furnish the king with as much as he had need of. (Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, ed. Macray, ii. 332-4)

Despite being something of a joke at royalist Oxford, Deincourt did serve the king faithfully, not least in the defence of Newark, and in sending two of his younger sons to serve in the king’s army – both were killed in combat. He was made earl of Scarsdale at the end of 1645, probably in a deal in which he finally agreed to give material support to the king. At the end of the war, the new earl of Scarsdale refused to do a similar deal with Parliament. Unlike almost all peers who were given the option, he declined to compound for his estates, which continued to be sequestered. His heir, Nicholas Leak, who had managed to rent the Derbyshire properties from Parliament, now made a concerted effort to secure legal title to the whole estate, not least to ensure that his mother and the younger children were provided for. He finally succeeded in 1651.

Overriding Scarsdale’s wishes was easy to justify, as his mental health appears to have deteriorated in the immediate aftermath of the first civil war, reaching a low point after the execution of Charles I in 1649, when ‘he apparelled himself in sack-cloth, and causing his grave to be digged some years before his death, laid himself down in it every Friday, exercising himself frequently in divine meditations and prayers’. (W. Dugdale, Baronage of England, ii. 450). That this was not normal behaviour is underlined by the strangeness of earl’s will, written in 1651. He gave unusually detailed instructions about his burial at Sutton Scarsdale church: he was not to be disembowelled or embalmed, and he was to be buried without a coffin, covered only by a sere-cloth or winding sheet, and ‘a little round board of an inch think laid upon my face’. (TNA, PROB11/251, f. 139v). As if this was not odd enough, in the main body of the will the earl completely ignored the fact that the estate had effectively been taken out of his hands: his younger son, Henry, was provided with lands; his four unmarried daughters were given their full marriage portions of £4,000 each; and, in a highly unusual move, these younger daughters were appointed executors. Reality reappeared only after the old man’s death. When probate was passed in 1655, it was granted to Nicholas Leak, now 2nd Baron Deincourt and 2nd earl of Scarsdale, his sisters and widowed ‘having renounced the execution of the said will’. (PROB11/251, f. 140)

PL

Further reading

The biography of Francis Leak will appear in the forthcoming House of Lords 1640-60 volumes; for his earlier career, see House of Lords 1604-29.

Biographies of Sir Henry Carey and Sir Francis Leak in House of Commons 1604-29; George Villiers in House of Lords 1604-29; John Ashburham, Arthur Capell and Lucius Carey in House of Commons 1640-60; Nicholas Leak in House of Lords 1660-1715.

William Seymour, 2nd earl (and later 1st marquess) of Hertford married Frances Devereux, sister of Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, in 1617. This was a match between two powerful families, both of which had experienced the ups and downs of life at the Tudor and early Stuart courts. Hertford’s great-grandfather was Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset and protector of Edward VI; but it was another ancestor, Lady Katherine Grey, granddaughter of Henry VIII and sister of Lady Jane Grey, who made Hertford particularly controversial, and James I was deeply suspicious of him, as a potential pretender to the throne. Essex’s career was equally chequered: he was the son of Elizabeth I’s favourite, the 2nd earl of Essex, who rebelled against his mistress and was executed as a result. It was no surprise that both Hertford and Essex were out of favour under James I, and during the 1620s they became involved in opposition to Charles I in Parliament and without.

Yet the strength of the relationship between the two peers was not based on politics. Their friendship was obvious by the end of the 1620s. In July 1629, Hertford had invited his brother-in-law to treat one of his Wiltshire houses as his own, insisting that there must be ‘no ceremonies passed between two so nearly linked in friendship and alliance as we are’ (BL, Add. 46188, f. .114). Numerous affectionate (but undated) letters between the families survive from the 1630s, mostly concerning domestic matters such as the countess of Hertford’s pregnancies or arrangements to meet socially. In a striking example of their closeness, in 1639 Essex leased half of his London mansion, Essex House on the Strand, to Hertford and his wife for 99 years. According to this agreement, private apartments were set aside for both households, while the great hall, chapel and gardens were shared.

The political crisis of the late 1630s and early 1640s once again brought Hertford and Essex together politically. They both visited another critic of the crown, John Digby, 1st earl of Bristol, in the summer of 1639, in what looks like a counsel of war. In signing the Petition of the Twelve Peers at the end of August 1640, demanding peace with the Scots and the calling of a new Parliament, Hertford was almost certainly influenced by his brother-in-law. The two men worked closely together in the early stages of the Long Parliament, and in February 1641 they were among those peers made privy councillors, in a move designed to placate the king’s opponents. But it soon became clear that Hertford and Essex differed on policy. In the spring of 1641, Hertford backed away from executing the king’s chief adviser, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of Strafford, while Essex famously decreed ‘stone dead hath no fellow’ (Clarendon, History of the Rebellion ed W.D. Macray, i. 320). During the summer, Hertford was won over by further promotions granted by the king, who made him marquess and then governor of the prince of Wales. The latter appointment was particularly significant, as it echoed the relationship with the crown enjoyed by Hertford’s illustrious ancestor, Protector Somerset, and promised a full reconciliation with the royal family. When the king raised his standard in Nottingham in August 1642, Hertford followed his royal master. Essex, chosen as Parliament’s lord general, now became estranged from his brother-in-law.

Although the rift between the two peers appeared unbridgeable, Essex did try to help his sister. She was made the main beneficiary of his estate when he drafted a new will in the summer of 1642, and in the following winter, Essex was involved in the recovery of her dower house, Netley Abbey, and took custody of household goods seized by Parliament. A few months later, in February 1643, he was probably also behind the grant of a pass for the marchioness to travel freely between London and the royalist capital at Oxford. That summer, Hertford arranged lodgings in Oxford for his wife, whose arrival was imminent, and, he reassured her, ‘I make no doubt your brother will secure your passage’ (HMC Bath, iv. 218). Other links also survived. The shared concern for the fate of another close relative, Essex’s half-brother Ulick Bourke, 5th earl of Clanricarde and 2nd earl of St Albans, brought the two peers together. In February 1644, for example, Clanricarde informed Francis Cottington, 1st Baron Cottington, that Essex was making every effort to protect his estate in England and had ‘written to my lord of Hertford that he would deliver the profits to my use’ (Clanricarde Letter-book ed. J. Lowe, 39). The case of Clanricarde – who was not only a royalist but also an Irish Catholic – demonstrated how far Essex was prepared to go in order to protect the financial interests of his immediate family; and the earl’s flexibility may have encouraged Hertford to hope that he might use his own leverage with Essex for other than personal reasons.

The connection between Hertford and Essex was tantalising for those who supported efforts to make peace between king and Parliament. In the autumn of 1643 and the spring of the 1644 the newsbooks reported that Hertford was one of the ‘moderate’ peers at Oxford who sought to make peace. There were also seem to have been informal peace overtures by Hertford, who wrote to Essex in May, asking for household goods of the prince of Wales to be sent to Oxford and taking the opportunity to enclose letters, on the king’s order, outlining terms for peace. Essex immediately handed the incriminating material to the parliamentary authorities. In August the king again used the Hertford interest to make another approach to Essex, who had marched with his army into Cornwall and had found himself trapped, and at the royalists’ mercy, at Lostwithiel. In the midst of this crisis, Essex was visited by Hertford’s son and heir, Robert Lord Beauchamp, on the pretext of taking leave of his uncle (and namesake) before leaving for a continental tour. However, this proved to be the cover for Beauchamp to introduce Richard Harding, a Seymour client well-known to Essex, who then delivered a private message from the king. Beauchamp’s foreign tutor, John Richaud, also went to the meeting and went on to make a full report of the assignation. Hertford, his family and servants, played every role in this drama, thus confirming the marquess’s closeness to the king and his counsels at this time, as well his commitment to peace. None of this would have been possible without the close friendship between the two peers. Yet Hertford over-estimated the political leverage he could exert on his brother-in-law. As in the previous May, Essex immediately sent the king’s letter, and all other such correspondence he had received, to his masters at Westminster.

The failure of Hertford’s efforts to influence Essex to make peace with the king suggests that Parliament’s lord general was not as weak – or as duplicitous – as his opponents at Westminster tried to portray. On the other hand, the fact that Hertford and his family were emboldened to make this approach at all in August 1644 reveals their continuing relationship with Essex, which can also be seen in the various acts of kindness between them in the previous two years. When considering the social ties between leading politicians, historians must, however, proceed with caution. As the Hertford/Essex example demonstrates, private connections did not always translate into political obligations.

PL

Further reading:

Patrick Little, ‘Blood and Friendship: the earl of Essex’s protection of the earl of Clanricarde’s interests, 1641-1646’, English Historical Review 112 (1997), pp. 927-41.

The biographies of Hertford, Essex, Clanricarde, Bristol, Strafford and Cottington will appear in the forthcoming Lords 1640-60 volumes; that of Richard Harding is available in Commons 1640-60, published last year.

Oliver Cromwell is blamed for many things without any basis. There are ruined castles said to have been destroyed by him (even though he never went near them); Christmas was famously banned by him (it wasn’t – blame the Long Parliament); and his hatred of entertaining sports and pastimes, including racing, is also well known. In this summer of sport, it might be appropriate to reconsider this last accusation.

When Cromwell, responding to popular complaints about bans on racing and other sports in September 1656, told Parliament, ‘I do not think these are unlawful, but to make them recreations, that they will not endure to be abridged of them’ would be the greatest ‘folly’ (Letters, Writings and Speeches ed. Morrill, iii. 316), he was considering them as occasions of vice, where people would (certainly) gather to drink and gamble and (probably) plot against the regime. Plotting was the principal reason for a series of bans on racing in England during the protectorate. The earliest ban was imposed on 4 July 1654, after intelligence that such meetings would be used as a cover by royalists to muster cavalry, and this was renewed for six months in February 1655, and, after the rising in Wiltshire instigated by John Penruddock in the spring of the same year, the policy was adopted by the major-generals who governed the English and Welsh localities. Yet Parliament’s decision to end the major-generals scheme at the end of January 1657 also ended the ban on racing, and a new injunction was not imposed until April 1658, when new plots were suspected. Such inconsistency suggests that there was no ideological opposition to racing in itself. This is also suggested by the fact that a similar ban in Scotland – also imposed for security reasons – was not matched by one in Ireland, where popular meetings, as at the Strand at Youghal in County Cork, continued throughout this period.

To reinforce the point, it is clear that racing was something of a passion within the Cromwell family during the protectorate. In March 1654 – a few months before the first ban came into force – the protector’s own horse, the ‘Dun Arabian’, competed on Banstead (that is, Epsom) Downs in Surrey. In April 1657, after the ban had lapsed, the protector’s son and heir, Richard, gave £30 to the corporation of Winchester for a race cup. In August 1658, a race at Youghal was held in honour of the protector’s younger son, the lord deputy of Ireland, Henry Cromwell. The devotion to the turf shown by the Cromwells was shared by others at the protectoral court. Surviving evidence shows that such key figures at court, such as the protector’s sons-in-law, Viscount Fauconberg (Thomas Belasyse), and John Cleypoole, as well as political advisers such as Viscount Lisle (Philip Sidney), Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle), and Charles Howard (later 1st earl of Carlisle), all shared the Cromwellian passion for horses and racing. Other former parliamentarians, including the earls of Northumberland and Warwick, were also enthusiasts. It was not just royalists who were keen on a day at the races.

In banning racing, Cromwell was limiting his own pleasure and that of his friends for the greater good. But there were other ways to promote the sport. The protector devoted much time, money and effort in establishing his own stud, including importing valuable horses from abroad to improve the blood-lines, including Barbs from North Africa and Spanish Jennets. Although occasional Arabian horses (probably Turcoman-Arabians) had been seen in Britain in the early seventeenth century, they did not impress contemporaries, and their potential was only accepted at the end of the century, after three Arab stallions were capture at the siege of Vienna in 1683 (the famous ‘foundation sires’ of modern-day thoroughbreds: the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian and the Byerley Turk). Yet Cromwell was ahead of his time in showing great interest in the breed, trying to secure them at source from Aleppo, even though the Turkish authorities went to great lengths to ban their export. At least one stallion made it to England during the protectorate – the ‘White Turk’, which later joined Charles II’s stud, where it was probably matched with the king’s ‘Royal Mares’, whose bloodlines are also considered foundational. It is an odd thought that, despite being famous for banning racing, Cromwell may have contributed to the genetic make-up of the thoroughbred race-horses of today.

P.L.

Further reading:

Patrick Little, ‘Uncovering a protectoral stud: horses and horse-breeding at the court of Oliver Cromwell, 1653-8’, Historical Research, 82 (2009), pp. 252-67.

Peter Edwards, Horse and Man in Early Modern England (2007)

C.M. Prior, The Royal Studs of the 16th and 17th Centuries (1935).

The biographies of Oliver, Richard and Henry Cromwell, as well as Thomas Belasyse, Roger Boyle, John Cleypoole, Charles Howard and Philip Sidney, appear in the House of Commons, 1640-60 volumes.

The English Civil War divided communities along religious and political lines. But those divisions did not always extend to social networks, the ties of family, friendship or even neighbourhood, which often survived intact. Even the most convinced parliamentarian or most extreme royalist had personal connections with those on the other side. The initial choice of sides in the conflict may have been determined by religious or political beliefs, but it did not remove the bonds of friendship, family or community, which were maintained not just by affection and by a prudent need for an insurance policy against defeat, but also by the notion of ‘honour’ and of private obligation. It was within this context that the ‘turn-coat’ (or side-changer) became a relatively common phenomenon, and one that did not always meet with the condemnation usually meted out to a ‘traitor’, who served another nation and thus betrayed his own.

There are numerous turn-coats in the 1640-60 Commons volumes. Some, like Sir John Hotham and his son John, were executed by Parliament for defecting to the king; others were treated more leniently, such as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper and George Monck, who both served the king before joining Parliament, re-emerged at the Restoration as earl of Shaftesbury and duke of Albemarle, respectively. Here we shall consider two more obscure figures, both Dorset MPs, who changed their minds and switched sides: William Constantine and Sir Gerard Napper.

William Constantine, MP for Poole, was from a well-established east Dorset family, with links to Poole and also to Wimborne Minster, having married into the Hanham family. Encouraged by another local figure, Bartholomew Hall, Constantine became a successful lawyer. He became recorder of Poole in 1639, and he went on to serve the borough as an MP in both the Short and Long Parliaments. His parliamentary career was unremarkable, but from the summer of 1641 onwards he seems to have become increasingly concerned about the threat to England of Catholic fifth-columnists, and his fears were heightened by the Irish rebellion of October 1641. By the spring of 1642 he was a firm supporter of action against the king, and in the summer he returned to Poole to help organise the town’s defences. Initially, there were no doubts about Constantine’s allegiances: he continued to sit in Parliament, and he was critical of attempts by some west country gentlemen to arrange a local ceasefire in March 1643. But in mid-July he suddenly declared for the king, sending a letter to Poole resigning as recorder and advising them to surrender to the king before it was too late. The royalists were advancing from the west, and retribution would surely follow. ‘How some of you as have been most active will be handled I tremble to imagine, perhaps to the loss of life, doubtless [to the loss] of liberty and estate’ (Bodl., MS Tanner 62, fo. 170). Despite Constantine’s warnings, Poole stood firm against the royalists who arrived before their gates in later weeks. Parliament moved swiftly, summoning Constantine on 15 August, and by the end of September he had been disabled as an MP and his estates sequestered. Constantine, meanwhile, had fled to the king’s headquarters at Oxford, where he sat in the royalist parliament in January 1644.

There is no doubt that Constantine deserves the title ‘turn-coat’; but why did he do it? There was a degree of self-interest in his decision, as the king’s army approached, but that was not the only reason. As a lawyer, Constantine had become disillusioned with Parliament, not least with its increasingly irregular – even illegal – behaviour: in February 1643, for example, he opposed the arbitrary searching of chambers in the Inns of Court by Parliament’s officers. Perhaps the most important factor in Constantine’s change of sides was at once local and personal. His brother-in-law, John Hanham, a royalist officer, was the man chosen to secure the surrender of Poole just days after Constantine’s attempts to do the same. With the king’s army closing in, an already disgruntled Constantine drew closer to his royalist relatives, and was encouraged to turn his coat. Interestingly, after the parliamentarian victory at Marston Moor in July 1644, and the recapture of Dorset by the earl of Essex in the same period, Constantine tried to defect back again, surrendering himself to the governor of Poole. He was imprisoned, but not treated harshly, and by the end of 1645 he had regained both his freedom and his estates (on the payment of a fine). He was back in London, as a professional lawyer, during the summer of 1647, and there enjoyed the continuing favour of Dorset friends, including Bartholomew Hall. By using his friends and relatives on both sides of the divide, Constantine was able (in effect) to become a turn-coat twice over.

Sir Gerard Napper (or Napier) of More Crichel, was of higher social status than Constantine, being part of the East Dorset social set that included young wealthy landowners such as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. Despite being known as ‘a good housekeeper’ (or host) to the local gentry, and a shrewd businessman, Napper was not universally liked. As Ashley Cooper admitted in private ‘[he was] of a temper inclined to envy, not obliging, and to speak as ill as he could of the absent’. (W.D. Christie, Life of Anthony Ashley Cooper, I, appx. I, p. xvii). In other respects, Napper’s views were conventional enough. Religiously, he seems to have conformed to the Church of England; politically, as MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, he was a moderate opponent of the crown. He was, however, increasingly unhappy with some of the demands made by the more radical elements in the House of Commons, and his absence from controversial votes may have marked him as a potential ally of the crown as early as May 1641. It may not be a coincidence that in the king, looking for allies, made Napper a baronet at this time. Napper’s attendance in the Commons ceased soon afterwards, and he became an active royalist by the beginning of June 1642, and was appointed to the king’s commission of array in Dorset.

On the surface, Sir Gerard Napper seems to be a conventional royalist; but his career during the first year of the Civil War suggests that his allegiances were in fact still very fluid. His relationship with Parliament was certainly ambiguous. He was not immediately disabled from sitting, with another Dorset MP, Sir Water Erle, defending him in the chamber in April 1643, saying that he had privately contributed money, horses and weapons to the cause. As a result, the case against Napper was dropped, and he remained an MP. The lack of evidence for Napper’s ‘delinquency’ shows that his royalism was at best passive during the early stages of the war. Only with the royalist invasion of Dorset in July 1643, did Napper emerge as an active royalist. On 3 August, Napper was appointed with Ashley Cooper to treat for the surrender of the parliamentarian garrisons at Dorchester and Weymouth. In January 1644 he went further, joining the king at Oxford, and sitting in the rival House of Commons convened there. It was only at this stage that the Westminster Parliament finally disabled him as an MP. Characteristically, once he had declared unequivocally for the king, Napper began to have second thoughts. By the beginning of March 1644, when the fortune of war was beginning to turn against the king, he joined his friend, Ashley Cooper, in defecting to the parliamentarians. Understandably, the government in London was wary of Napper. He did not regain his seat in Parliament, and his lands remained sequestered. In fact, he was perhaps unique in being sequestered by both parliamentarians and royalists in the mid-1640s! Through the good offices of Ashley Cooper, Sir Walter Erle and other major local figures, he soon became accepted in Dorset, but even ten years on he was still considered a ‘suspected person’ by the authorities in London.

Like Constantine, Napper was naturally guided by self-interest, and his allegiance depended in large part on which side held sway in Dorset. Both men were heavily influenced by friends and family – in Napper’s case by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, whose initial royalism, and subsequent defection, had a strong bearing on his own decisions. There were differences between the two men, however. The proud and irascible Napper does not seem to have been troubled by an over-active conscience, whereas Constantine had religious and professional scruples that had a major influence on his actions. Interestingly, it was Constantine who was more successful in navigating the political landscape later in the 1640s, even returning to his legal practise, while Napper remained a suspicious presence in London. By contrast, both men still had friends in Dorset, and were readily welcomed back into local society, where their coat-turning was apparently forgiven, if not entirely forgotten.

P.L.

Biographies of William Constantine, Sir Gerard Napper, Sir John Hotham, John Hotham, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, George Monck and Sir Walter Erle all appear in the 1640-60 Commons volumes.

Further reading:

 Andrew Hopper, Turncoats and Renegadoes: changing sides during the English Civil Wars (Oxford, 2012)

John Mohun, 1st Baron Mohun, was proud of his ancestry, boasting descent from the Mohuns of Dunster, who had arrived with the Conqueror, and this pride may have contributed to his irascibility. His career was marred by constant rows with his father, Sir Reginald Mohun, over the patrimonial estate and, latterly, by a massive falling out with his political ally, Sir James Bagg – the man who had secured his peerage in 1628. Anger did not become violence, as far as we know. There was one incident in the 1630s, when Mohun trod on the toe of Mountjoy Blount, 1st earl of Newport at an important court function, but that may have been an accident. His elder son, John, had less self-control. In July 1637 John Mohun and his followers – including his father’s chaplain, the wonderfully named Obadiah Gossip – reacted to a traffic jam on Ludgate Hill by starting a brawl in which the Irish peer Lord Lumley was stabbed. Young Mohun was sent to Fleet Prison to cool off.

John’s early death in 1639 meant that the title passed to the younger son, Warwick Mohun, who became 2nd baron in 1641. Warwick was politically unreliable, initially fighting as a royalist but deserting the king before the end of the civil war, pledging allegiance to Oliver Cromwell in 1656 and then trying (and somehow managing) to persuade the Restoration House of Lords that he had been loyal to the Stuarts all along. He was also accused of involvement in numerous acts of violence, including encouraging his servants to beat up the estate workers of a rival, and in 1646 parliamentarians raised concerns that he ‘had killed divers men in cold blood and therefore should not be admitted to his composition’ (Bulstrode Whitelocke, Memoirs ii. 114). Ominously, in May 1653 he was arrested as the principal in a duel.

His father’s bad luck and miscalculation left Charles, 3rd Baron Mohun, in financial difficulties. Charles was only 16 when he succeeded in 1665. In his short life he acquired an unenviable reputation as a wife-beater, a drunkard and a brawler. In November 1676 he agreed to act as a second to William Cavendish (later 4th duke of Devonshire) behind Southampton House, not far from the current History of Parliament offices. Although the duel ended without bloodshed, a subsequent row led to a fight in which Mohun was run through the abdomen with a rapier. Although seriously wounded, the baron hung on for nearly a year, dying in September 1677, at the age of 28.

The succession of the infant 4th baron, also Charles, brought the madness of the Mohuns to its ultimate crisis. Even as a teenager, the new Lord Mohun was notorious for drunkenness, gambling and ever-increasing acts of violence. In 1692 he was accessory to the murder of an actor: he was tried in the House of Lords but acquitted. In the mid-1690s he was involved in random assaults, another duel in St James’s Park, and a murderous brawl in a tavern. Interactions with his creditors could also turn violent. In 1699 he was again tried by his peers after the death of an army captain in a duel, and again acquitted. Thereafter Mohun seemed to have settled down, becoming a useful ally for the Whigs under Queen Anne. But boorishness was part of his DNA. His final duel had a political edge, as Mohun was provoked into challenging the Tory 4th duke of Hamilton (James Douglas) in November 1712. They met in Hyde Park, and in the sword-fight that followed both men were killed. The 4th baron was the last – the line died with him.

Various reasons for this constant resort to violence can be posited. The Mohuns seem to have been particularly prickly when it came to their honour. They were relative newcomers to the nobility, frustrated by their inability to move up from the lowest rank of the peerage, and in later generations, by a lack of cash; but they were also conscious that their ancestry was second to none. It was a bitter irony that the 4th baron, who seemed at last to be achieving some success politically, was cut down before he could re-establish the family’s fortunes.

Another likely factor is that most of them came to the title at a tender age – the 2nd baron was 21, the 3rd was 16, the 4th only six months old. These youngsters entered an aristocratic milieu that was dissolute and violence-prone, with the habitual carrying of swords encouraging lethal escalation in even the most minor of disputes. Bearing in mind the chronic lack of self-control common to all the Mohuns, hereditary mental instability cannot be ruled out as a third factor.

Two more general points. It is noteworthy that the House of Lords protected its own, even in the most trying of circumstances, with the 2nd baron being welcomed back in 1660 and the 4th baron enjoying repeated acquittals for the most heinous of crimes. This seems to have given a degree of security for hot-blooded nobles and their sons, who could challenge each other with apparent impunity. The scandalous death of the 4th baron had one more-or-less positive consequence, however. In the years that followed, duelling with swords fell out of fashion, and honour was usually satisfied with less accurate and (marginally) less lethal weapons: pistols.

P.L.

Further reading:

V.G. Kiernan, The Duel in European History (Oxford, 1988)

Andrew Thrush (ed.), House of Lords, 1604-1629, (Cambridge, 2021)

Ruth Paley (ed.), House of Lords, 1660-1715, (Cambridge, 2016)

Find more blogs from our Revolutionary Stuart Parliaments series here.

When trying to understand debates in early modern Parliaments, historians rely on diaries: the private journals kept by individual members, which in those pre-Hansard days give us a vivid account – sometimes verbatim – of speeches and other business conducted in the House of Commons. Yet the diarists rarely give us a good impression of what it was actually like to sit in the chamber. There is little indication of how speeches were received, still less of the bustle and busyness of the chamber, the noises-off, the unspoken mood of the Commons as a whole. The diaries of the protectorate Parliaments of the 1650s, as edited in 1828 by J.T. Rutt, are an exception, as they do occasionally take note of some of the times when the House reacted in non-verbal ways, in particular times of altum silentium and altum risum – high silence and high laughter.

Silence in the House was spontaneous, but it seems to have happened at particular times. The most common was a pause – like a collective drawing of breath – before debate started. The reading of orders for the day was followed by such a silence on 12 June 1657, 29 Jan., 28 Feb. and 4 Mar.1659. On 8 December 1656 the Speaker had to prompt MPs to start the debate, reminding them ‘you have heard the order’; and, even then, there was ‘silence a pretty long while’ (Burton’s Diary i. 66). In other cases there was a definite pause in proceedings, when difficulties arose, or MPs seemed unsure what to do. On 30 December 1656 a proposal to adjourn discussions on the fate of the notorious Quaker, James Naylor, was not voted on but by-passed, and debate only resumed ‘after altum silentium’ (Burton’s Diary i. 271). On 24 April 1657 silence ensued when there was no obvious solution to raising money without an unpopular land tax.

The other use of silence seems to have been as a pressure-valve, a quick way of defusing tensions. Thus on 4 December 1656, in a debate on a private petition, ‘there was high language between Lord Lisle and Lord Whitelocke; but they both being wise men, and deeply concerned in the business, suppressed their passion with an altum silentium’ (Burton’s Diary i. 19). Likewise, on 23 April 1657, after hearing the report of a committee sent to attend Oliver Cromwell to answer his objections to kingship, the actions of the Speaker when managing business left the House ‘growing a little angry’, but the situation calmed down after ‘altum silentium for a while’ (Burton’s Diary, ii. 10).

Laughter was also unscripted. MPs in positions of authority were open to mockery. On 25 May 1657, as the discussion on presenting bills to the protector was in full swing, the scoutmaster-general, George Downing, told the House that Cromwell and his entourage were passing by in the street. ‘Some called out, “scout, scout!”, and altum risum’ (Burton’s Diary ii. 122). The chairman of the privileges committee, George Starkey, got into a muddle when managing the Colchester election dispute on 3 February 1659, ‘and was laughed at sufficiently for a quarter of an hour’ (Burton’s Diary iii. 63). New MPs were also deemed suitable victims. On 22 February 1659, Mr Buller (Anthony or Francis Buller II) read out his speech on the old peers sitting in the ‘Other House’ and was ‘laughed down’ by MPs, prompting Sir Henry Vane II to ask, in mock-civility, if they would let Buller finish, ‘seeing he is pleased to bestow his pains among us’ (Burton iii. 406). Another rookie, William Ross, assured MPs on 18 March 1659 that his fellow-Scots had not departed from the House: I believe none of them had the ingenuity to withdraw’ – a Scoticism that ‘caused altum risum’ (Burton’s Diary iv. 187).

The long-winded or pompous could also give rise to mirth. When John Sadler gave a long speech on the right of Scottish MPs to sit at Westminster on 19 March 1659, he finished by telling the House ‘I could speak of this till you were all weary’, a remark that caused ‘altum risum’ (Burton’s Diary iv. 201). On 24 June 1657, when the arrangements for Cromwell’s re-inauguration were discussed, William Lister suggested that the protector should be presented with a robe, but ‘some understood it a rope, and it caused altum risum’. Lister was not amused, insisting ‘he had spoken as plain as he could, a robe’ (Burton’s Diary ii. 303). The famously long-winded Sir Arthur Hesilrige fell into a similar trap on 8 March 1659, when he claimed in the debate about the ‘Other House’, ‘I have not spoken to the matter yet’. When this was met with laughter, he reacted with good grace: ‘I confess men have reason to laugh when I say I have not spoken to the matter; for I never speak to the matter’ (Burton’s Diary iv. 76).

Such incidents give us something of the atmosphere in the Commons, a glimpse of a common culture among MPs, a sense of what was humorous and what was grave; and it might be suggested that such shared, spontaneous reactions reinforced their own collective identity. These echoes of silence and laughter also serve as a caution to historians, reliant on surviving diaries: there is so much about early modern Westminster that we simply do not know.

P.L.

Further reading:

Diary of Thomas Burton, Esq. ed. J.T. Rutt (4 volumes, 1828).

Jason Peacey, ‘Disorderly Debates: noise and gesture in the seventeenth century House of Commons’, Parliamentary History xxxii (2013).

Jonathan Gibson, ‘“A Place to Speak One’s Conscience in”: disciplines of debate in the Protectorate Parliaments’, Parliamentary History xl (2021).

Biographies of all MPs mentioned will feature in our upcoming House of Commons 1640-1660 volumes.

Stories of Oliver Cromwell’s sexual adventures became commonplace after the Restoration. Two rumours circulated. In the first, he was linked with Elizabeth Murray, countess of Dysart in her own right, wife of the royalist Sir Lionel Tollemache and later duchess of Lauderdale, a woman some thirty years Oliver’s junior. She was certainly part of London society in the early 1650s and perhaps was acquainted with Cromwell; but stories that her second child, Thomas Tollemache (born in 1651), was in fact Oliver’s son seem most unlikely, not least because the general was in Scotland at the time when the boy was conceived. The second story is slightly more plausible, but not much. This featured Frances, wife of General John Lambert. Frances Lambert was closer to Oliver than Elizabeth Murray ever had been, and they shared a puritan faith, but again the only evidence dates from after the Restoration, with a lascivious tale propagated by Cromwell’s first biographer, the disreputable James Heath. ‘They say’, reported Heath, ‘that the lord protector’s Instrument [of Government] is found under my Lady Lambert’s petticoat’ (quoted in Fraser, 481). By contrast, evidence from Cromwell’s lifetime is very thin. There were very occasional jokes about Cromwell’s virility in the late 1640s, but they were generalised in nature, part of the medley of allegations of drunkenness and misbehaviour and deformity – not least his big red nose (as explored in last month’s blog). For evidence of Cromwell’s love-life, we must look closer to home.

On 22 August 1620, at St Giles’, Cripplegate, Oliver Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier. She was the daughter of a successful London fur dealer and leather-seller who had acquired a knighthood and an estate in Essex. This was no doubt an arranged marriage, perhaps brokered by the Barringtons who were related by marriage to both families [see Sir Francis Barrington], but it was also seems to have been a love-match. While the evidence does not allow us to follow the Cromwells into the bedroom (even if we wanted to), there is no doubt of what they did there. Between 1621 and 1638 they had nine children. The first three arrived in rapid succession. Robert was born on October 1621, Oliver sixteen months later, in February 1623, and Bridget seventeen months after that, in July 1624. There was then a gap of two years and three months before the arrival of Richard in October 1626, followed fifteen months later by Henry (Jan. 1628) and seventeen months subsequently by Elizabeth (June 1629). James was born two and half years later, in January 1632. A considerable gap ensued, until the birth of the youngest girls, Mary in February 1637 and Frances in December 1638. Not all these children survived. Robert died as a schoolboy in 1639, Oliver as a young officer in 1644 and poor little James lived less than a month. Losing a third of one’s children was about average in early modern England.

In later years, the relationship between Oliver and Elizabeth remained very close. Elizabeth probably stayed in Ely during the first civil war, but she moved to London to be with her husband in 1646. They were to be together for the next twelve years, except when he was away on military campaigns, notably in Ireland in 1649-50 and Scotland 1651-2. Only a handful of letters between them survive, but they speak of a high degree of intimacy and love. Oliver was not the most faithful correspondent, but he assured his wife in May 1651, ‘indeed I love to write to my dear, who is very much in my heart’, while elsewhere he was gruffly affectionate: ‘thou art dearer to me than any creature; let that suffice’ (W. C. Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (1989), ii. 329, 412). Elizabeth missed her husband deeply, telling him in December 1650, ‘truly my life is but half a life in your absence’ (J. Nickolls, Original Letters and Papers of State (1743), 40). Only Oliver’s death in September 1658 would break the marriage bond.

PL

Further Reading:

The allegations have been considered in most detail in Antonia Fraser, Cromwell: Our Chief of Men (1973), 478-81.

See also The Letters, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, ed. John Morrill (3 vols. Oxford, forthcoming).

Biographies of Oliver Cromwell, Richard Cromwell, Henry Cromwell and John Lambert are being prepared for publication by the Commons 1640-1660 project.

Oliver Cromwell is famous for his warts. In the Horrible Histories series, the volume devoted to the lord protector is called Oliver Cromwell and his Warts; a Google search of ‘Cromwell warts’ yields 1.4 million results; ‘warts and all’ has become a household saying. Historians have traced all this back to George Vertue, writing in the eighteenth century, who recounted Cromwell’s advice to a portrait painter (Sir Peter Lely or perhaps Samuel Cooper) that he was to include his ‘pimples, warts and everything as you see me’ [quoted in L. L. Knoppers, Constructing Cromwell (Cambridge, 2000), 80]. There is no doubt that Cromwell had warts – they feature in almost all his portraits and images, and are certainly present on his death-mask. But it is curious to note that there is no mention of them in the writings of his contemporaries, whose eyes were instead drawn to his large, red nose.

References to Cromwell’s nose grew with his notoriety. In 1645, when he was already a successful cavalry general, the royalist pamphlet, The Character of a London Diurnall, poked fun at his ‘bloody beak’, appropriate for a rapacious ‘bird of prey’ [quoted in Knoppers, 12]. The satirical pamphlet series, Mercurius Pragmaticus, had great fun at Cromwell’s expense, in January 1648 describing an intervention in the House of Commons: ‘then Mr Cromwell … stood up, and the glow-worm glistening in his beak, he began to spit fire’ [quoted in Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, ed. W. C. Abbott (4 vols. New Haven, 1937-47), i. 576]. Pragmaticus could not leave Oliver’s nose alone, christening him ‘Snout’ or ‘Snout Almighty’ in the early months of 1649 [Mercurius Pragmaticus, 10-17 Apr. 1649, 29 May-5 June 1649, 5-12 June 1649]. A pamphlet from January 1650 launched into verse:

            Of Nolls nose my muse now sings,

            His power, force and might:

            subduing kingdoms, murdering kings

            And winning all by fight

            [The Right Picture of King Oliver (1650), quoted in Knoppers, 48].

The Man in the Moon greeted Cromwell’s return from Ireland in 1650 in a similar vein: ‘God bless us: my Lord Cromwell is come safe home: pray ring the bells backward, and bring all the town-buckets to quench his nose, lest it set fire on the Parliament-House’ [The Man in the Moon, 29 May-5 June 1650].

Even when he was lord protector, Cromwell and his nose were not safe from ridicule. A song written during the first Dutch War (1652-4) began ‘Cromwell, Cromwell, lend us thy nose, to fire the navy that doth us oppose’ [James Fraser, Triennial Travels, quoted in Knoppers, 2]. A warship nearing completion at Woolwich in 1655, its ornate carving, including a statue of the protector, already in place, ‘was in the night-time exceedingly defaced, by having the nose of the rich and glorious picture cut off’ [The Faithful Scout, 12-19 Jan. 1655]. Cromwell died in 1658, and after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 there was an outpouring of jokes and rhymes poking fun at the late protector. Typical in quality and subtlety, was The Blazing Star, or Nolls Nose Newly Revived, of August 1660:

            Thy copper nose and brazen face

            Were fit conjoined with Joan’s fat A[rse]

            … Joan hath a hole and they call it hell

            More fit for thy nose then Whitehall to dwell…

[The Blazing Star, or Nolls Nose Newly Revived, and taken out of his Tomb (Aug. 1660), p. 1].

Cromwell’s nose was not just a physical feature. It was also understood to give the public an insight into the private flaws of this very public man. Inevitably, having a red nose led to accusations of drunkenness, although there is no reason to think Cromwell was guilty of that particular vice. For his critics, this was invariably linked with (almost certainly unfounded) allegations that Cromwell’s family had been brewers, in Huntingdon or Ely, and were thus of lowly social status. An early example, from 1647, brought the two together:

            He’s the realm’s ensign, and who goes to wring

His nose, is forced to cry God Save the King…

His soldiers may want bread, but n’ere shall fear

(While he’s their general) the want of beer.

[Cromwell’s Pengyrick (1647)].

The revolutionary years produced such doggerel as this from The Man in the Moon:

            Of all the brewers, Cromwell bears the grace,

He carries his copper in his brazen face

[The Man in the Moon, 16 Apr. 1649]

In March 1650 the same newsbook posed a question for its readers: ‘What if Cromwell were stewed a little in his own copper to see if his nose would melt at his treasons?’ [The Man in the Moon, 13-20 Mar. 1650]. This was a favourite theme among later royalists, too. One post-Restoration burlesque on scaffold confessions, had Cromwell tell the crowd:’ I was the son of a brewer in the Isle of Ely, which I need not have told you, for it is visibly to be seen in my nose, being the colour of his copper’ [The Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw (1661), quoted in Knoppers, 187].

For some, drunkenness was also linked with sexual immorality, a deformed nose being an obvious outward symptom of syphilis. Cromwell, it was said, ‘got the sulphur into his nose by the inordinate devouring of his father’s new wort, coming to London got the Naples scab and the looseness of his joints … he brewed small beer in the Isle of Ely till he had six wenches with child at one time’ [A New Bull-Bayting: or, a Match Play’d at the Town-Bull of Ely (1649), p. 4]. But rumours of Cromwell’s insatiable sexual appetite are a subject for another day…

PL

Further Reading:

Laura Lunger Knoppers, Constructing Cromwell: ceremony, portrait and print (Cambridge, 2000).

Antonia Fraser, Cromwell, Our Chief of Men (1973)

Patrick Little is one of the editors of The Letters, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, ed. John Morrill et al (Oxford, forthcoming 2022)

A biography of Oliver Cromwell is being prepared by the Commons 1640-1660 project.

Cider has been produced in England since Norman times, if not before, with different traditions emerging in the east (notably East Anglia and Kent) and in the west country. The latter was particularly strong in Somerset, in the area south and west of Bridgwater town. In the mid-seventeenth century, however, the focus was on Herefordshire. There, thanks to the efforts of Viscount Scudamore (Sir John Scudamore), orchardmen were beginning to specialise in bitter apples, full of the tannins that made the finest cider – the most famous variety becoming known from its colouring as ‘red streak’. Cider made from such apples was highly prized. According to one story, when Charles I visited Hereford after his defeat at Naseby in 1645, ‘the gentry presented him with the best sort of red streak, which was … hugely admired’ by the king and his attendant courtiers [Sheffield University Library, Hartlib Papers 52/23A-B].

Cider-making soon benefited from scientific advances. The Cromwellian period is famous for the growth of Baconian scientific experimentation, with the likes of Robert Boyle and Samuel Hartlib becoming leading lights in what was known as ‘the Great Instauration’. Among Hartlib’s friends was John Beale, whose book promoting the industry, Herefordshire Orchards, a Pattern for England, was published in 1658. Beale’s collaborators included the MP for Hereford in 1659, Dr Roger Bosworth. Bosworth’s proper job was as a physician to the Scudamore family, but by the late 1650s he had become an acknowledged expert in cider-making, and judge of the local tasting competition. As Beale told Hartlib, ‘he that hopes for victory sends his sampler into Hereford to Dr Bosworth’, who would judge between them ‘touching gust and wholesomeness’ and restore perfect harmony among local producers [Hartlib Papers 52/23A-B]. To win Bosworth’s approval was not merely a matter of personal pride. There were hopes that the best quality cider would replace imported wine on the tables of the rich, with wider economic benefits for an area unsuited for growing brewing barley.

Yet being a cider drinker was not without its risks. In May 1658 Beale recounted an incident that suggests that Bosworth’s own home-made scrumpy could be a little on the rough side. By accident, Bosworth

dropped his knife into a vessel of cider … When the vessel was emptied he looked for his knife, but the knife, steel and iron, and all the blade and all that was within the haft was totally consumed, the ivory haft remaining whole and perfect. [Hartlib Papers 52/101b]

Beale was quick to reassure his friend – ‘that this story may not affright you’ – of ‘the long lives of cider-drinkers’ and the well-known beneficial effects of the beverage as a ‘preserver of the balsam of life’ [idem]. Such rural myths held considerable sway, even among the scientific community. In the face of the evidence, Bosworth did not give up drinking scrumpy, and there were no surprises when he became seriously ill during the parliamentary session in March 1659. He apparently recovered sufficiently to sit in the Convention Parliament in 1660, but died in the autumn of that year, some weeks short of his 53rd birthday.

Another casualty of cider-drinking was Captain John Herring, MP for Herefordshire in the Nominated Assembly of 1653, who died in 1657. Again, Beale’s correspondence with Hartlib tells the story. Advised that cider ‘was a special remedy against the stone, and being grievously tormented’ by the obstruction in his kidney, Herring ‘drank freely of the cider for a remedy’. Far from soothing all his troubles away, he found that ‘the cider wrought so violently upon the stone that it hastened the captain’s death’, leading Beale to ‘caution against violent operators’ when treating similar medical cases [Hartlib Papers 52/144A-B]. Herring’s age at death is not known, but he was probably in his late 40s – a few years younger than Dr Bosworth – when he too was buried in the shade of a cider-apple tree.

PL

Further reading:

Charles Webster, The Great Instauration: science, medicine and reform, 1626-1660 (1975)

Sheffield University Library, Hartlib Papers are available online (www.dhi.ac.uk/hartlib/).

A further biography of Roger Bosworth and a biography of John Herring are being prepared for publication by the Commons 1640-1660 project.

Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84) is frequently quoted in Parliament. His devotees come from all political persuasions and from both Houses, from Lord Hailsham to Tony Banks. But, according to Hansard, one of his most famous sayings, expressing his attitude towards futile endeavour, has never been quoted at Westminster:

It has been a common saying of physicians in England, that a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.

James Boswell, Journal of the Tour of the Hebrides (1785), entry for 5 Oct. 1773.

It seems a shame that this pithy quotation has not been deployed in debate in recent times, even during the discussion of the ‘Cucumbers Order’ in the Commons in 1946 or when the business of the ‘Tomatoes and Cucumbers Marketing Board’ was considered in 1950 and 1962. But it does have a parliamentary pedigree.

As Dr Johnson indicated, his condemnation of cucumbers was not original. It seems that the vegetable was universally despised in the late seventeenth century, too. Thomas White, bishop of Peterborough, when writing to his fellow Member of the House of Lords, Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in 1689, dismissed the oath he was expected to take to signify his allegiance to the newly-arrived William and Mary in similar terms:

I regard it like a plate of cucumbers dressed with oil and vinegar and yet fit for nothing but to throw out of the window

Memoirs of Thomas, earl of Ailesbury (Roxburghe Club, 2 vols., 1890), i. 234

Although the vinaigrette was slightly different, and defenestration was now the approved method of disposal, this is clearly the same saying. And White was true to his aphorism, refusing what he believed to be an empty oath and as a result being deprived of his see in 1690, as a Non-Juror.

The pointlessness of cucumbers was not confined to the Lords, however. On 4 December 1656, when the Scottish Union Bill was discussed in the House of Commons during the second of Oliver Cromwell’s protectorate Parliaments, the debate, which centred on the rights and privileges of the burghs, became increasingly arcane. In despair, Colonel Philip Jones, MP for Glamorgan,

compared this to the dressing of a cucumber. First pare, and order, and dress it, and throw it out of the window

J.T. Rutt, Diary of Thomas Burton, Esq. (4 vols., 1828), i. 18

It seems unlikely that Colonel Jones coined this calumny of the cucumber either, but its origins cannot be traced back further. The future of the saying is also in doubt, not least in parliamentary circles; but Dr Johnson, who satirised the eighteenth century Parliament in his ‘Debates in the Senate of Magna Lilliputia’ (published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in the early 1740s), would surely approve if this much maligned vegetable made a reappearance at Westminster.

P.L.

Further Reading:

B.B. Hoover, Samuel Johnson’s Parliamentary Reporting: Debates in the Senate of Lilliput (University of California Press, 1953)

P. Little, ‘The Scottish Union Bill of 1656-7’ Parliamentary History 36 (2017).