EVERARD, Sir Richard, 1st bt. (d.1679), of Langleys, Great Waltham, Essex.

The Everards of Great Waltham were an ancient Essex family who claimed a pedigree extending back to the thirteenth century.32Vis. Essex, i. 7-8, 193. Anthony Everard†, this MP’s uncle, had sat for East Looe in the 1589 Parliament.33HP Commons 1558-1603. The Everards’ ancestry and extensive estates made it likely that Richard Everard would take a leading part in local affairs once he reached maturity. His marriage to a daughter of Sir Francis Barrington, head of the county’s leading gentry family, underlined his position among the upper ranks of county society. Great Waltham was close to the Barrington seat at Hatfield Broad Oak, making it easy for the two families to keep in touch, and Everard seems to have remained on friendly terms with his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Barrington*.34Barrington Lttrs. 99-100, 115, 141, 154, 191, 192; F.W. Galpin, ‘The household expenses of Sir Thomas Barrington’ Trans. Essex Arch. Soc. n.s. xii. 215. His other brothers-in-law through this marriage included Sir Gilbert Gerard* and Sir William Masham*. These connections in turn linked him to the circle around Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, and it was Warwick who obtained for him his grant of a baronetcy in 1629.35Barrington Lttrs. 58; Harl. 991, f. 31; CB. In the Short Parliament elections in 1640 he was a signatory to the return electing Warwick’s preferred candidates for the county seats, Barrington and Sir Harbottle Grimston*.36C219/42, pt. 1, f. 101. Everard was involved in land transactions on behalf of Warwick and from 1642 was a trustee for his estates.37Coventry Docquets, 632; PROB11/276/373. He was also one of the earl’s tenants at Great Waltham.38Hunts. RO, M22B/10, p. 15. Everard can be assumed to have shared their disaffection with the religious innovations of the 1630s. As early as 1629 he was expressing concern at the actions taken by William Laud, as bishop of London, against the lecturer at Chelmsford, Thomas Hooker.39Barrington Lttrs. 100.

In 1642 Everard, like most of his relatives, sided with Parliament. The great Essex antiquary, Philip Morant, writing over 100 years later, would claim that two of Everard’s daughters who had been ‘deeply prejudiced in favour of the Parliament against the king, engaged him [Everard] in the same measures, so that he was a committee-man, &c.’.40Morant, Essex, ii. 87. However, contemporary records reveal him as fully engaged in the war effort, casting doubt on the insinuation that he was ever a reluctant parliamentarian. As a deputy lieutenant, an assessment commissioner and a sequestrator of delinquents, he was involved in every aspect of the county’s resistance to the king.41HMC Portland, i. 26, iii. 119; A. and O; Eg. 2646, f. 225; HMC 7th Rep. 549, 550, 551-2, 554, 556, 557, 561; Eg. 2647, ff. 114, 121, 164; Add. 5505, f. 1; Suff. ed. Everitt, 52. In July 1643 he headed the delegation to Westminster to present a petition proposing that Harbottle Grimston* be appointed as the governor of Colchester.42Add. 31116, p. 131; CJ iii. 184a. The following November he was one of the Essex deputy lieutenants who obtained permission from Parliament to raise 800 horse.43Harl. 165, f. 220v; CJ iii. 326a. In 1644 Everard was appointed sheriff.44List of Sheriffs, 46 In August 1645 he was among Essex gentlemen who wrote to the Committee of Both Kingdoms asking that Warwick be made commander of those forces which were to be raised within the county.45HMC Portland, i. 260. In the summer of 1648 he assisted in the attempts to suppress the royalist uprising in Essex.46A. Wilson, The Inconstant Lady (Oxford, 1814), 150. The political upheavals of the late 1640s and early 1650s produced no obvious break in his office holding. His inclusion on the major local commissions was taken for granted as much after 1649 as it had been before.

There were family reasons why Everard might have welcomed the creation of the protectorate, for his first wife had been one of Cromwell’s cousins and so is likely to have been known personally to them. However, Everard’s election to the 1654 Parliament can reasonably be interpreted in terms of his own local importance. The Essex MPs elected along with him included his sons-in-law, Dionysius Wakeringe* and Richard Cutts*. Everard was named to just five committees during this Parliament and, although some were on important subjects, such as the ejection of scandalous ministers, the army and the navy, or the public accounts, he seems not to have been a key player in any of its proceedings. However, he could have used his privilege as an MP to delay the case which had been brought against him in chancery by Henry Hodges. He and the other parties in the case, Sir William Masham* and Carew Hervey alias Mildmay*, who were also MPs for Essex, agreed to waive that privilege, perhaps calculating that the session did not have long to run anyway.47CJ vii. 408a.

Everard remained an active public official in the interval between the 1654 and 1656 Parliaments. During 1655 he was confirmed in his place as a militia commissioner, he was among those investigating the dispute dividing the Colchester corporation and he helped enforce the decimation fines.48CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 78, 354, TSP iv. 317, 320, 435-6. Hezekiah Haynes* informed John Thurloe* in December 1655 that Everard, Wakeringe and Sir Thomas Honywood* were the most zealous of the Essex commissioners in implementing fines on recalcitrant royalists.49TSP iv. 320. The following year Everard served briefly as custos rotulorum, acting as a stop-gap between Masham and Honywood.50Essex QSOB ed. Allen, p. xxxv. His very public support for the protectorate does not seem to have harmed his re-election chances later in 1656. He was again successful when the Essex poll was held at Chelmsford on 20 August 1656.51Josselin, Diary, 378.

On 23 September Everard was among the minority who tried to reverse the council of state’s decision to exclude MPs from the new Parliament.52Bodl. Tanner 52, f. 166. His activity in the House was, on the face of it, otherwise confined to his appointments to three committees, one of which – on the private bill of James Hay, 2nd earl of Carlisle, regarding his estates at Nasing (15 Dec. 1656) – had an obvious Essex interest.53CJ vii. 468a, 477a, 581a. However, Everard’s attention was almost certainly dominated by the bill to confirm the land grants in Ireland, a matter in which he had a direct financial stake. Although he does not seem to have been one of the original investors who had subscribed to the Irish Adventure in 1642, he had since joined the syndicate headed by his nephew, Sir John Barrington*. Fellow investors in the group included his brothers-in-law, Gerard and Masham, as well as Sir William Waller* and Edward Turnor*. A mistake on the part of the Adventurers led to the barony of Slane in East Meath being included in the lottery of Irish lands held in 1653, with the result that the barony was awarded to Barrington and his syndicate. It was only later realised that these lands had already been granted to Edward Dendy*, serjeant-at-arms to the council of state, under the terms of an order by the Rump. What followed was much confusion and prolonged litigation.54Eg. 2651, ff. 218, 221-229, 234v; Eg. 2648, ff. 251-2, 268-9; CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 177, 353; CSP Ire. 1647-1660, pp. 596-7, 834. Dendy saw the 1656 Parliament as an opportunity to assert and confirm his claim. In the event Barrington and his allies, who presumably included Everard, proved stronger and the bill to confirm the land grants was amended to state that the dispute should be left to the courts.55Eg. 2651, ff. 235-236; CJ vii. 472b, 526a-b, 550a-b; Burton’s Diary, i. 202-3, ii. 66-7, 196-7; Eg. 2648, f. 284; A. and O. The following year Barrington seems to have obtained a ruling in the syndicate’s favour from the Irish courts.56Eg. 2648, ff. 311, 313, 317. Dendy would revive his complaint when the Rump was recalled in 1659 without achieving a clear decision either way.57CJ vii. 775a; Eg. 2648, ff. 355-356, 358. The cost and inconvenience Everard incurred through this dispute no doubt outweighed any return he ever got on his investment.

Everard seems to have accepted the Restoration. Apart from a brief interruption in his time as a justice of the peace during the early 1660s, he held his local offices until his death. On a personal level, these years were less satisfactory. By the time he came to prepare his will in October 1678, he had lost all confidence in his eldest son, Sir Richard†. Following two separate incidents in 1656 and 1668, the son had been indicted for assault.58J.T. Cliffe, The Puritan Gentry Beseiged, 1650-1700 (1993), 59; Essex RO, Q/SR 369/136; Q/SR 418/33; Alumni Felstedienses, ed. F.S. Moller (1931), 6. Probably only his position as MP for Westminster and an official pension to secure his support for the court was preventing him becoming bankrupt. Everard’s own debts were considerable. His biggest creditor seems to have been his stepson, Sir Gervase Elwes†. To ensure that Elwes was repaid and that the interests of his grandson, Richard Everard junior, was protected, the estates were vested in two trustees, Sir Charles Lee and (Sir) Gobert Barrington*, relatives by his two marriages. Lee and Barrington were specifically barred from conveying any of the lands to Richard junior during the lifetime of his father.59Essex RO, D/AER 23, ff. 352-355. These arrangements came into effect a year later in October 1679 when Everard died. He was buried at Great Waltham.60Gt Waltham par. reg. Everard’s efforts to protect the family estates seem to have worked, but only in the medium term – one of his great-grandsons was eventually forced to sell them off in 1710. That great-grandson, Sir Richard Everard, 4th bt., then went on to become governor of North Carolina.61Morant, Essex, ii. 88.