POVEY, Thomas (1614-c.1705), of Hounslow, and Gray’s Inn, Mdx., and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Westminster.

Thomas Povey was a younger son of Justinian Povey, one of the auditors of the king’s exchequer and auditor of the queen’s revenues. The Poveys were probably descended from the family of that name seated in Staffordshire, but Justinian later implied that he acquired a landed estate only through his own efforts, saying in his will that he had been forced to enter a bond under statute staple when he married his wife as ‘I had no convenient house and land to make her a jointure’. This was rectified shortly afterwards, when the family became seated at Hounslow in Middlesex.27PROB11/220/447.

Thomas Povey was born in 1614, and was educated as a lawyer. He entered Gray’s Inn in November 1633, but it was not until February 1646 that he was called to the bar.28GI Admiss. 202; PBG Inn, i. 357. His activities between these two dates are unclear, although it is unlikely that he was involved in the first civil war in a military capacity. Indeed, in February 1643 – during the Oxford peace negotiations – he published a pamphlet denouncing the war, and saying that

we are making so much haste to the ruin which that grand engineer the Jesuit hath this many years been designing for us, that we have two armies fighting against themselves, for the common good … and how we shall call anything good that shall be bought at so bloody a price, I know not.29[T. Povey], The Moderator Expecting Sudden Peace or Certaine Ruine (1643), 3 (E.89.21).

He held Parliament to be as much to blame for the conflict as the king, for in the months before the outbreak of war the Commons ‘was poisoned with jealousy’, and the rival MPs ‘heightened the quarrel’ and helped drag ‘the amazed people’ into conflict.30The Moderator, 4. The auguries were bad. The inconclusive battle of Edgehill had been fought ‘with almost equal loss and success; as if heaven had told us we were both at fault’.31The Moderator, 5 If the war was for religion, the result would be division, and although the king’s ‘innovations and superstition’ could not be tolerated, if Parliament won ‘it is likely neither root nor branch of our old church order shall be left, nor any sign where it grew’. In that case, he added presciently, ‘the loud people, delighting in change, and grown insolent with their success, will call for a mutation in every circumstance, and when they have found their strength will think nothing enough if they have not all that their wild and unlimited zeal approves of’.32The Moderator, 6. The victory of the king would be no guarantee of religion either.

Do we believe the prelacy and the other ambitious clergy will then be any whit less insolent than they have been? Will they not rather add to, than diminish, their ceremonies? … will the men in cassocks be less vicious in their lives? Less corrupt in their doctrines?33The Moderator, 8.

Outright victory by either side would similarly jeopardise the laws, liberties and prosperity of the people.34The Moderator, 9-11. England would soon share the ruin of Ireland – ‘which now represents the very condition we must look for, if a sudden peace do not happily prevent it’.35The Moderator, 13. Povey concluded by calling for both sides to seek accommodation – ‘a medium betwixt the two extremes’ – as this would bring not only peace but also a workable polity, for ‘I had rather see a little, contributed to the weal of the state by the hands of both, than a great deal accumulated by a single power’.36The Moderator, 27.

Povey’s arguments were controversial, and received numerous replies, including Neutrality is Malignancy, published in February 1648.37Neutrality is Malignancy (1648)(E.427.14). By this time, Povey’s writings had acquired a further edge, as he was now himself an MP. His election, as recruiter MP for Liskeard in the new year of 1647, may have been on the interest of prominent Presbyterians in Cornwall. A letter from the leading Cornish MP Francis Buller I*, undated but probably written around the time of the election, refers to ‘my friend Mr Povey’, who was expected to help in sorting out the inheritance of the son of the deceased Thomas Wise*.38Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/26/18/27. The Bullers did not have direct influence in Liskeard, however, and there may have been other forces working in Povey’s favour, as the author of Neutrality is Malignancy suggested when he warned Povey to expect damaging allegations ‘when the Cornish elections come into debate’.39Neutrality is Malignancy, 6. In the House, Povey did not behave like a typical Presbyterian. In committee lists throughout 1647 he was joined most frequently by Independents like Sir Thomas Widdrington, Sir Henry Vane II, and above all, the Cornishman, Robert Scawen. Povey’s attachment to the Independents is also suggested by his involvement in politics during this period.40CJ v. 181a, 272a, 274a, 274b, 322a. He had taken his seat at Westminster by the end of May, and, despite his inexperience, in early June he was chosen (alongside Scawen, Vane II and others) to be one of the commissioners sent by Parliament to the army headquarters. Although it has been alleged that Povey was the only commissioner hostile to the New Model’s cause, this is not at all clear from contemporary evidence, and it may be significant that he, with Scawen and Vane II, was given the thanks of the Independent-dominated House of Commons later in the summer.41CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 593; Clarke Pprs. i. 148; Woolrych, Soldiers and Statesmen, 131; CJ v. 274b.

The instructions to the June commissioners made it clear that their main function was as a conduit between the army commanders and Parliament, ‘to preserve a good understanding’ between them.42CJ v. 202a; LJ ix. 247b. Povey acted as a messenger, returning to Westminster on at least four occasions, and also signing letters from the commissioners to Sir Thomas Fairfax*.43CJ v. 206b, 208b, 212a, 223b; LJ ix. 269a, 298a, 300b, 308b, 312a. Povey also seems to have sided with the Independents during the late summer of 1647, although he is not listed among the MPs who fled to the army during the ‘forcing of the Houses’. On 11 August he was named to the committee on the ordinance repealing all votes passed during the ‘forcing of the Houses’ in July, and a week later he was appointed to another committee for the same.44CJ v. 272a, 278a. On 21 September Povey was one of those who ‘delivered in the Heads of Proposals, agreed on by the general and the council of the army’, and on 1 October he was appointed to the committee to prepare a formal declaration denouncing the ‘late force upon the Houses’.45CJ v. 311b, 322a. He continued to be appointed to high-profile committees in the autumn, including those to examine MPs absent at the call of the House (9 Oct.) and to examine the king’s escape from Hampton Court (12 Nov.), and on 17 November he reported the conference concerning information sent to Parliament by Fairfax.46CJ v. 329a, 357a, 360b.

During 1648, Povey’s cordial relationship with the Independents seems to have gradually soured. He was appointed to only two committees in the first four months of the year: those to consider the grievances of the people (4 Jan.) and to settle the court of admiralty (20 Mar.).47CJ v. 417a, 505b. During the late spring and summer he seems to have drawn closer to the Presbyterian Bullers. He was named with Francis Buller I to the committee for settling the militia on 4 May, and in July he was ordered to prepare a letter to Colonel Anthony Buller*, governor of the Scilly Isles, assuring him that Parliament would soon send him relief.48CJ v. 551a, 649b. When the Committee of the West was instructed to supervise the supply of Scilly, it was stipulated that ‘Mr Povey take special care of that business’.49CJ v. 649b. Povey’s activity in the Commons tailed off in the early autumn of 1648. On 31 August he was named to the committee to consider the suppression of ‘scandalous pamphlets’, and on 13 September he was appointed to consider an ordinance indemnifying the commanders and crews of the ships that had mutinied earlier in the year.50CJ v. 695b; vi. 21a. His last committee appointment was on 22 September, and on 6 December Povey, now held suspect in the eyes of the army and its allies, was secluded from the House at Pride’s Purge.51CJ vi. 27b; A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649, 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5).

During the commonwealth, Povey remained a suspicious figure for the government. In May 1650 the council of state ordered Colonel Robert Bennett* to arrest Francis Godolphin I* and to question him about a seditious letter from Povey, and a few days later Povey was himself arrested and interrogated about letters that he had allegedly sent to Cornwall.52CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 149, 516, 541. In April 1651 he was again accused of plotting against the regime, with one informer alleging that Povey had supported Sir Richard Page, the agent who maintained contacts between the London Presbyterians and Charles Stuart.53HMC Portland, i. 586, 599. Neither of these incidents led to further proceedings, and Povey was soon free to return to his legal career. As a younger son, the death of his father in the winter of 1651-2 had little financial impact on Povey, as he was granted only the residue of the sale of his father’s lands in Cambridgeshire (purchased from the state for £1,200 a few months earlier), once his sister and younger brother had been provided for.54PROB11/220/447.

Although Povey is mentioned as being one of the commissioners for the affairs of America as early as 1652, it was only after the foundation of the protectorate in December 1653 that he emerged as a leading player in colonial affairs.55CSP Col. 1574-1660, p. 9. The exact details of his early involvement in foreign trade are obscure, but by the summer of 1655 he was the commissary arranging store ships for General Robert Venables’s* expedition to the West Indies, and a letter from Venables to the London financier Martin Noell*, suggests the initial link was provided by the former governor of the Scilly Isles, Colonel Anthony Buller, now a senior commander in the new venture.56HMC Portland, ii. 96; Narrative of General Venables ed. C.H. Firth (1900), 49. Even after the catastrophic failure of the Western Design, Povey could rely on both Noell and Buller for support, telling his brother, Richard, in November 1655 that he expected to procure him some employment, and that ‘Colonel Buller and Mr Noell can vindicate my care and kindness to you’.57Add. 11411, f. 6. When another brother, William, showed little gratitude for efforts to gain him the provost-marshal’s place in Barbados, Noell reminded him that ‘my friendship and intimacy with your brother, Mr Thomas Povey, have prevailed with me to engage my self and that little interest I have for the confirming you’ and he added that he had used his influence with Secretary of state John Thurloe* to have rival claims to the office ‘suppressed’.58Add. 11411, f. 7-v. Povey freely admitted that his influence was largely based on his friendship with Noell. As he explained to the commander-in-chief of Jamaica, Lieutenant-General Brayne, in April 1657

I am daily witness that Mr Noell … is indeed the most active, I had almost said the most considerable, instrument which I can see to be working for you. I am sometimes his journeyman, and taken into consultation and do only yet want power and opportunity to serve you effectually.59Add. 11411, f. 15.

When the patent of his brother William was confirmed in August 1657, Povey reported that it was ‘by Mr Noell’s favour’, and when in the same month he offered to lobby Noell on behalf of the governor of Barbados, Daniel Searle, he noted that Noell ‘is rendered considerable everywhere by the extraordinary favour allowed him by his highness’.60Add. 11411, ff. 39, 41v.

Aside from Noell, Povey also cultivated important figures around the protector, especially in the legal profession. In the summer of 1656, for example, he invited the treasury commissioner, Bulstrode Whitelocke* to dinner at his house, the other guests including the solicitor-general, William Ellys*, and the leading barrister Chaloner Chute*, and later took Whitelocke to see his family’s estate at Hounslow.61Whitelocke, Diary, 442, 448. Perhaps as a result of his legal contacts, in May 1658 Povey was called to be ‘of the grand company of ancients’ at Gray’s Inn.62PBG Inn, i. 422. By this time, prominence in the colonial administration had given Povey a political influence of his own. In January 1656 he was advising Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, about the colonisation of Surinam, and looking after ‘a cabinet of … rarities’ for the peer.63Add. 11411, f. 7v. In April 1657 he implied, in a letter to Brayne, that he was on intimate terms with Oliver Cromwell* himself, saying of the state of the colony that ‘I find his highness is exceedingly pleased’, and promising further attention to the West Indies once ‘affairs of the highest magnitude’ had been settled.64Add. 11411, f. 15. After October 1657, when Povey was added to the committee for America reporting directly to the protector’s council, his influence – and his own self-importance – increased still further.65CSP Col. 1574-1660, p. 460. In March 1658 he told Colonel Doyley at Jamaica that the protector was still keen to support the colony, adding, meaningfully, that ‘I am almost a continual solicitor in your behalf, and shall not cease to importune those who have more power than I have’.66Add. 11411, f. 61. Such boasts were not without some foundation. In April he mentioned to his brother Richard that John Barrington* ‘who is of the bedchamber, is my good friend’.67Add. 11411, f. 70v. When the Nova Scotia Company was founded in May, it was backed not only by Povey and Noell but also two protectoral councillors, Nathaniel Fiennes I* and Sir Charles Wolseley*.68CO1/13, f. 109; Add. 11411, f. 98v. In January 1659 Povey helped Whitelocke to find a parliamentary seat for his son, William*, in West Looe – ‘a town of Mr [Francis] Buller’s in Cornwall’, and Whitelocke was sufficiently impressed to contact George Monck* about the possibility of finding Povey a seat in Scotland in return.69Whitelocke, Diary, 504, 506. The request came too late, but Monck promised to support him if any by-election should arise.70Longleat, Whitelocke Pprs. 19, f. 5. The eagerness of Whitelocke and Monck to oblige Povey is a benchmark of his importance during the protectorate of Richard Cromwell*.

Instead of waiting for Monck’s patronage, in March 1659 Povey secured a seat for the borough of Bossiney in Cornwall, in place of the recently deceased Anthony Nicoll*. Povey’s involvement in this Parliament was brief. On 8 April the committee for elections reported that the by-election at Bossiney had resulted in a double return, with Povey’s election being challenged by a later meeting, which returned Colonel John Mill. As both elections had been properly conducted, the Commons decided in Povey’s favour.71CJ vii. 631b-632a. In the three weeks before the dissolution of this Parliament, Povey was named to just two committees, including one to consider the petition of the family of the bankrupt Scottish financier, Sir William Dick, whose ruin was of significance to his fellow speculators.72CJ vii. 637b, 638a. The closure of Parliament and the collapse of the protectorate a few weeks afterwards was certainly very unsettling for Povey, who lamented to his brother Richard that

these changes in government and the evils and disorders which seem to be gathering have altered my purpose and advice, and made me rather to wish myself in some foreign and more secure retirement than to draw you to me, in a time of so great uncertainty and hazard, whilst all men are at gaze and apprehension of things which must make us miserable, if the wisdom and the felicity of our governors cannot prevent them.73Add. 11411, f. 18-v.

The fall of the protectorate may have been a serious setback for Povey, but it was not an unmitigated disaster. He continued to be active in the colonial administration, and even made a point of denigrating Cromwell’s Western Design: ‘the old protector and his council were so much ashamed of the miscarriages of the first enterprise … that they almost wholly did cast off the thought of it, as it were deserted it, as unprofitable and of remote and hopeless consideration’.74Add. 11411, f. 21v. This was a very different story to the one he had peddled to the Caribbean commanders during the protectorate, but it was politically prudent. Povey’s continued influence can be seen in September 1659, when the beleaguered lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, Thomas Temple*, needing assistance, naturally turned to Povey.75CO1/13, f. 126; CSP Col. 1574-1660, 476. In the same month Povey told his old colleague, Daniel Searle, of the need for caution in the face of political changes in England. The rebellion of Sir George Boothe* had failed, and he bewailed that the scare had encouraged ‘a sort of men of new principles, armed and enabled to pursue their own imaginations, who affect a strange government which the world until now never heard of, and which I do not well understand’. It looked likely that these new men

would not only take up all foundations by which we are known to be English in the ecclesiastical and civil state, but it is likely to obstruct the settlement of the commonwealth … what these divisions tend to is easily discovered, but where they will end, God only knows.76Eg. 2395, f. 177v.

Povey, the author of the Moderator, had lost none of his old fear that the radicals would drive the country to destruction. Despite this, he was outwardly bullish that the old colonial hands would weather the storm, telling Searle that even Martin Noell, though ‘represented to you as a person ruined’, had not ‘withdrawn himself from Whitehall or from the Exchange’ and hoped ‘ere long to be restored to a good proportion of his former interests’.77Eg. 2395, f. 176-v. He was also confident of his own powers as a politician, advising Searle to send him letter to be delivered to Vane II and John Lambert*, ‘because I might take the better rise from thence to solicit them in your behalf’.78Eg. 2395, f. 178.

The failure of the commonwealth and the decisive intervention by George Monck at last promised to bring the stability that Povey craved. With the return of the secluded members to the Rump Parliament in February 1660, he once again became an active MP. On 22 February he was named to the committee to prepare qualifications to be imposed on MPs, and two days’ later he was appointed to the committee on a bill to make Monck commander-in-chief.79CJ vii. 848b, 850b. At the end of February and the beginning of March, Povey was appointed to committees to dissolve the Rump and call a new Parliament, although he apparently did not seek election in the Convention, which met in April.80CJ vii. 855a, 868b. In the meantime, he was made militia commissioner for Cambridgeshire, Middlesex and Westminster, and continued to serve in the colonial administration, being appointed secretary for the affairs of foreign plantations by the end of March.81A. and O.; CJ vii. 867b; Eg. 2395, f. 243-4. His letter to Thomas Temple of 3 April 1660 marked yet another careful repositioning, as he welcomed ‘the grand and supreme settlement’ that was now approaching, saying that they were now governed ‘by a council of state made up of most of your old friends’, and he even expressed the hope that ‘the king may be admitted to make up the three estates, upon which the government of these nations have been founded and continued’.82Add. 11411, f. 27-v.

After the Restoration, Povey’s political importance increased markedly. His reputation as a colonial administrator and financier led to a number of appointments in the early 1660s: as treasurer to the duke of York and member of the council of trade (1660); as secretary to the committee for foreign plantations and receiver-general of the rents from Africa and America (1661); and as treasurer of Tangier and master of requests extraordinary (1662).83Oxford DNB. These appointments brought him into the same circles as Samuel Pepys, who initially treated Povey with great respect, admiring his wealthy lifestyle and, in particular, his new house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In December 1662, for example, Pepys noted that Povey was ‘a fine gentleman and one that lives nobly and neatly, as I perceive by his discourse of his house, pictures and horses’.84Pepys’s Diary, iii. 300. By the mid-1660s, however, Pepys was actively involved in attempts to oust Povey, whom he now considered to be incompetent, and, perhaps more pertinently, an obstacle to his own career. In May 1664 he recorded that ‘of all the men in the world, I never knew any man of his degree so great a coxcomb in such employments. I see I have lost him forever, but I value it not; for he is a coxcomb and I doubt not over-honest by some things which I see’.85Pepys’s Diary, v. 139. Pepys was not alone in his loss of faith in Povey. In 1665 Povey was forced to resign the treasurership of Tangiers to Pepys, and a year later he stepped down as treasurer to the duke of York. Despite efforts to re-establish himself in the central government (including, in 1673, a scheme to become clerk of the privy council), Povey’s political career never recovered. Instead, it was his nephew, William Blathwayt, who was able to capitalise on Povey’s connections both in Britain and the colonies. Povey was still alive in 1702, but had died by July 1705, when Blathwayt was granted the administration of his estate. His only daughter, Frances, married the notorious Virginian rebel, Giles Bland.86Oxford DNB.