PARKER, Sir Philip (1601-75), of Erwarton, Suff.

The Parkers of Erwarton traced their ancestry in the male line back to Sir William Parker – a loyal retainer to Richard III – who, according to family tradition, had carried the royal standard at Bosworth Field, and who had married Alice Lovel, de jure Baroness Morley. By this marriage the baronage had passed to the Parkers and in the seventeenth century the senior line of the family was represented by the Barons Morley and Monteagle.26Vis. Suff. 1561, 1577 and 1612, 155; Birch, ‘Erwarton’, 107; Add. 24121, f. 145. The Suffolk branch to which the MP belonged were the offspring of Sir William Parker’s grandson, Sir Henry Parker†, who in 1549 inherited the estates at Erwarton from his father-in-law, Sir Philip Calthorpe.27Copinger, Manors of Suff. vi. 37. Sir Henry’s grandson, Sir Calthorp Parker, was so named as a reminder of the importance of this inheritance. Having already sat as one of the knights of the shire for Suffolk in Elizabeth I’s final Parliament, Sir Calthorp inherited the family estates from his father in the early years of the seventeenth century. His heir, Philip, born in 1601, was the eldest of six sons by his marriage to the daughter of a former lord mayor of London.

Philip was aged 17 and was probably a student at Cambridge when his father died in September 1618.28C142/369/134. The need to provide for the seven children who survived Sir Calthorp required complicated arrangements which were laid out in detail in his will. Each of the five younger sons was to receive a bequest of £1,500. However, no cash was available to fund these and the other bequests, and the four executors (who included his brother-in-law, Nathaniel Barnardiston*, and the Ipswich attorney, William Cage* both future parliamentarians) were therefore, in the first instance, authorized to lease most of the Parker lands in Norfolk and Suffolk. Then, once Philip had reached his majority at the age of 21, the executors were to have powers to sell off the estates to raise the required sums. To proceed with these sales the executors had to act within two years, and Philip had the power to avert this sell-off if, within five months of his 21st birthday, he undertook to pay the £3,000 that had to be raised.29PROB11/133/79. Clearly his father envisaged that Philip would agree to pay this sum, thereby taking on the responsibility for administering the will. Whether Philip raised the necessary capital is unclear: the lands at Erwarton, Wenham and Shotley certainly remained in the family and he probably retained some of the estates in north Norfolk. Nevertheless, some reduction in the family’s total landholdings may well have been necessary. Many years later Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston complained that his role as one of Sir Calthorp’s executors had brought him nothing but trouble.30PROB11/232/242.

By the time Philip was required to make this decision, he had been admitted with Sir Dudley North* (another future parliamentarian) to study at the Inner Temple.31CITR ii. 130. It is therefore possible that he had served with North on the recent expedition of the earls of Oxford and Essex to the Palatinate. In the final months of his reign, James I knighted Parker while visiting Newmarket.32Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 187. As Parker’s eldest son would be admitted to Gray’s Inn in 1641, it is likely that Parker married in the mid-1620s.33HP Commons 1660-1690, iii. 206. His father-in-law, Sir Robert Gawdy†, who had sat for East Looe in 1597, was the uncle of Framlingham Gawdy*, while his mother-in-law was a cousin of Nathaniel* and Francis Bacon* (all of whom would also become parliamentarian MPs in the 1640s).

In 1627 Parker was added to the local commission of the peace and by the early 1630s was serving as a captain in the Suffolk militia.34Coventry Docquets, 60; Add. 39245, f. 157v. His turn as sheriff came round in 1636.35List of Sheriffs, 132. Like all other sheriffs appointed at that time, his year in office was dominated by the unenviable task of collecting the latest instalment of the Ship Money levy. Under the terms of the third Ship Money writ, issued on 12 August 1636, the county was required once again to pay £8,000. Parker was zealous in his collection of the levy, and by late January 1638, was only £55 19s short of that total.36Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, f. 81; CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 428; 1637, pp. 128-9, 401, 408-9, 413, 475; 1637-8, p. 200. That figure was eventually reduced to £34 18s 2d.37Gordon, ‘Collection of ship-money’, 160. This indisputable success was not matched by any of his successors, although the first of them, Edward Duke*, came close. The only real evidence from this period that Parker may have been opposed to royal policies lies in his involvement in a 1634 case in the court of high commission. It is however far from clear that there was any religious significance in his alleged neglect of the chancel of the church at Burnham Overy. After all, Burnham Overy, a parish on the north coast of Norfolk, was far from Erwarton, so his inattention to its upkeep was perhaps understandable.38CSP Dom. 1634-5, pp. 52, 125, 537.

Parker’s first parliamentary election appears to have passed off without incident. He and his uncle, the godly Suffolk knight, Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston*, faced no opposition when they were nominated at Ipswich on 9 March 1640 as knights of the shire for Suffolk and so were elected accordingly. Both were seen as being the approved candidates of the godly interest.39Harl. 384, f. 69. Barnardiston’s previous experience as an MP made it uncontroversial that he should take the senior place and Sir Philip the junior one.40Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v; Winthrop Pprs. iv. 218. A single committee appointment (on the Bramber election dispute) forms the extent of Parker’s known activities in this Parliament.41CJ ii. 18b. During that summer Parker was kept busy, in his capacity as one of the captains in the Suffolk militia, by the preparations for a new campaign against the Scots.42Add. 39245, ff. 189, 192. Once it became known that a new Parliament was to be summoned, the outcome of the election for the Suffolk county seats initially seemed to promise a re-run of the non-contest in the spring. There may indeed have been a feeling that, with the new Parliament picking up where the old one had left off, the same MPs should be returned. What ended the prospect of Barnardiston and Parker getting a clear run was the intervention of Henry North* in what may have been a direct challenge to the dominant Barnardiston interest. The result was a four-day contest between 19 and 22 October during which the presiding sheriff, Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, struggled to keep control while the Norths used every possible trick against their opponents. Despite this sharp practice, North still managed to lose by a considerable margin. The Barnardiston bloc remained solid and Parker (with 2,293 votes) even had the edge on Sir Nathaniel (2,186). North trailed both with only 1,422 votes.43T. Carlyle, ‘An election to the Long Parl.’, Critical and Misc. Essays (1888), vii. 55-78; Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v.

During the 1640s Parker was a far more important figure in Suffolk than he would ever be at Westminster. His known activities during the early years of the Long Parliament are negligible, for he was named to just four committees.44CJ ii. 44a, 52b, 60b, 108a. He took the Protestation on 3 May 1641.45CJ ii. 133b. He probably never spoke in the debates in the Commons and he only very rarely came to the attention of D’Ewes. The unsuccessful attempt by Sir William Masham* to obtain leave for Parker on 6 August 1641 received no more than a brief, uninformative note in D’Ewes’s diary.46Procs. LP, vi. 238. His father’s old friend, William Cage, had greater success in this respect on 23 May 1642.47PJ ii. 362; CJ ii. 584a. As the crisis with the king developed into civil war, Parker’s attentions were probably as much focused on events in Suffolk, where, at least initially, he worked hard to support the cause of Parliament. His experience in the militia gave him a strong claim to play a leading part in any military preparations within the county. Thus his omission from the commissions of array issued by the king in June and August 1642 was both a deliberate snub and an indication that the king’s advisers assumed he could no longer be trusted.48Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. During the collections of the loans to support the parliamentarian cause in 1642, he and Cage were able to raise over £10,000 from the central hundreds of Suffolk.49Fisher, For the…Committees for the Co. of Suffolke, 6, 12. He was one of the five local MPs appointed by the Commons to return to Suffolk in early February 1643, probably to help organize military preparations in the county.50CJ ii. 956b. He was sent back to Suffolk again the following month, reportedly against his will, to sort out the problems in collecting the assessment revenues.51CJ ii. 992a; Harl. 163, f. 316v. He also sat on the standing committee which organised the parliamentarian war effort in Suffolk and further uses were found for him when Parliament appointed him to the commissions for the sequestration of delinquents and for the assessment.52Suff. ed. Everitt, 79, 137; A. and O. In early June 1643 he took the oath introduced in response to the revelations about Waller’s plot.53CJ iii. 118b, 120a. Several weeks later, on 6 July, he and Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston* were sent to Suffolk amid fears that the royalists from the north of England were about to attack East Anglia.54CJ iii. 158a; Harl. 165, f. 119; Eg. 2647, f. 72.

The great crisis in Parker’s service as an MP came in November 1643 over the Solemn League and Covenant. The requirement for all MPs to subscribe to it evidently placed Parker in a quandary. From 25 September, when the first of his colleagues took the oath, until the beginning of November, his failure to subscribe was overlooked. Then, on 1 November, the Commons began to ask questions. Parker, along with Sir Norton Knatchbull*, James Fiennes* and Robert Scawen*, was summoned to attend the House the following day to take it. Knatchbull, Parker and Fiennes turned up as ordered to explain that ‘some scruples stuck with them’ which prevented them from subscribing to it. No details were given as to what these scruples might be, leaving it unclear whether they were anti-Presbyterians, opponents of the alliance with the Scots, or neutrals finally forced to make a choice. In Parker’s case, the fact that he would be appointed as an elder of his local classis in November 1647 does suggest that he had no insuperable objections to the principle of a Presbyterian church. The three of them were given until 6 November to make up their minds.55CJ iii. 297b, 299a; Harl. 165, ff. 200, 202; Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 423. Returning to face the Commons again, they explained that ‘they were not yet satisfied; and desired to be excused’. That request was granted, but at the cost of their suspension from the House forthwith.56CJ iii. 302b; Harl. 165, ff. 222-3. During this debate D’Ewes gave assurances of the good characters of both Fiennes and Parker, telling the House

I have known them long to be men of integrity and piety who have maintained the honour and worship of God in their own persons and in their families for divers years past, and for the latter of them [Parker] I may assure you that his known integrity was the main motive for the choice of him by the county who sent him hither to serve as one of their knights of the shire.57Harl. 165, f. 222v.

Further pressure was applied to Parker on 25 November, when the Commons told the Committee for Advance of Money to proceed against him and two other Suffolk MPs, Sir Thomas Jermyn* and Sir William Playters*, because the loans they had made to Parliament were either insufficient or had not been forthcoming. Parker’s loan of £44 was thought too small, and he was now expected to pay half of the £800 for which he had been assessed by the Committee for Advance of Money.58CJ iii. 319b; CCAM 302. The combination of his reluctance to take the Covenant with the modesty of his financial contribution strongly suggests that he now had serious misgivings about Parliament’s policies. On 22 January 1644, the Commons ordered Parker, Fiennes and Knatchbull to appear before them two days later, suggesting that the trio had given some sort of indication that they might drop their scruples.59CJ iii. 374a. The Committee for Advance of Money acted the following day by giving Parker a fortnight in which to pay to them the rest of the £400 due from him. This demand was still outstanding at the end of February.60CCAM 302. The Commons also extended its deadline and it was not until 28 February that Parker made clear what his final decision would be. Whatever doubts he may have had, he was now at long last able to subscribe to the Covenant and so was allowed to resume his seat in the Commons.61CJ iii. 389b, 405a, 410b. By 27 April he had also managed to pay in the £356 which was needed to bring his loan up to the required £400.62CCAM 302. During his remaining years in the Long Parliament, Parker did little to attract much notice. The main evidence that he was present at Westminster is the occasional authorization for him to return to Suffolk. The leave granted to him in May 1645 may have been to allow him to assist the preparations by the forces in Suffolk for the Naseby campaign.63CJ iv. 156a, 285a, 518b, v. 282b, 330a.

Parker is most unlikely to have approved of the execution of the king. He was among MPs excluded from the Commons in Pride’s Purge in December 1648 and he did not subsequently seek readmission.64A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5). There was thus a scrap of truth in the testimony of George Reeve† and Sir Charles Cornwallis in 1662 (when Parker was claiming the reversion on a land grant by James I) that Parker had always been a loyal subject.65CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 554. (Another MP purged by Thomas Pride* was Sir Walter Long*, whose daughter, Rebecca, married Parker’s son and heir, Philip†, in April 1649). The 1650s saw Parker’s withdrawal or removal from all his local offices. By 1653 he had ceased to serve on the county committee, the commission of the peace and the assessment commission.66Suff. ed. Everitt, 137; A. and O. He seems to have spent most of that decade in retirement at Erwarton and, although he was appointed as one of the sewers commissioners for Norfolk and Suffolk from June 1658, it was not until 1660 that his political fortunes really began to revive.67Bodl. Tanner 226, p. 62. In January 1660 he signed the petition from the inhabitants of Suffolk to George Monck* calling for a ‘free Parliament’.68Suff. ed. Everitt, 128. At about the same time his son, Philip, joined with Robert Broke† and Thomas Bacon* to organise a similar petition to the corporation of London.69A Letter Agreed unto and subscribed by the Gentlemen, Ministers, Freeholders and Seamen of the County of Suffolk (1659, 669.f.23.22). With events moving swiftly towards the restoration of the king, Sir Philip was among those re-admitted to the county committee and from March 1660 he resumed his former places on the commission of the peace and the militia commission.70Suff. ed. Everitt, 137; Bodl. Tanner 226, p. 187; A Perfect List (1660), 51; A. and O.

Parker probably did not make as much as he could have done of the opportunities presented by the Restoration. The occasional references to him, whether as the supplier of timber to the naval shipyards at Harwich or as a justice of the peace conducting investigations on behalf of the secretaries of state, do not dispel the impression that, whether by choice or otherwise, he did not carry the same weight in south-east Suffolk which he had once done.71CSP Dom. 1664-5, pp. 264, 342; 1665-6, p. 55; 1672-3, p. 428. His second period of service as a colonel in the Suffolk militia came to an abrupt end in 1667 when he resigned after a quarrel with his neighbour, Sir Henry Felton*.72CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 549; S.H.A. H[ervey], Shotley Par. Recs. (Suff. Green Bks. xvi), 485. It may be that Sir Philip by now preferred to take second place to his eldest son, who had been elevated to the rank of baronet in 1661 (shortly before he married Anne Bacon, the former daughter-in-law of the recently-deceased Sir Thomas Bedingfield*, the judge who had withdrawn from public life after the regicide in 1649). Sir Philip died on 22 June 1675. His son, who married, as his third wife, one of the daughters of the late parliamentarian colonel, Joachim Matthews*, in 1677, sat for Harwich in 1679 and 1681 and for Sandwich in 1685. The male line and the baronetcy died out in 1741 on the death of Sir Philip’s great-grandson, Sir Philip Parker-a-Morley-Long†.