THURLOE, John (1616-68), of Wisbech, Isle of Ely; and later of Great Milton, Oxon. and Lincoln’s Inn, Mdx.

Thurloe is mainly remembered as Cromwell’s spymaster, a reputation which overestimates his capacities as an intelligence gatherer, while, at the same time, underplaying the true importance of his role in the government of the commonwealth. Thurloe’s duties, first as secretary to the council of state and later as secretary of state to both the protectors, was far from glamorous and he was no more Cromwell’s ‘spymaster’ than Walsingham had been Elizabeth I’s. He should instead be understood as one of the more distinguished in the line of able men-of-business who kept the wheels of English government turning throughout the early modern period. It is quite possible that, under different circumstances, he would have proved as loyal a servant to the monarchy as he did to the protectorate.

Early life, 1616-52

The origins of the Thurloe family are obscure. Even the assumption that Thurloe’s father, Thomas Thurloe, rector of Abbess Roding in Essex between 1612 and 1632, was the person born in 1578 at Landbeach, on the outskirts of Cambridge, is not absolutely certain.47Aubrey, Thurloe, 7-8. Thurloe and Isaac Ewer, colonel in the New Model army, called each other ‘my brother’.48PROB11/215/603; TSP vii. 211. Ewer was probably Thurloe’s half-brother from their mother’s first marriage, although it has more often been assumed that Ewer married one of Thurloe’s sisters.49Aubrey, Thurloe, 8-9. Information about Thurloe’s early career is also very sketchy. In March 1660 Samuel Morland would tell (Sir) Edward Hyde* that Thurloe had been ‘first Sir Gamaliel Capel’s butler’s man, then Sir William Masham’s clerk, then St John’s man’.50T.H. Lister, Life and Administration of Edward, First Earl of Clarendon (1837-8), iii. 94; CCSP iv. 617. Although Sir Gamaliel Capell† died in 1613 when Thurloe was still a boy, an earlier connection with the Capell family is most plausible, as it had been Sir Gamaliel who had presented Thurloe’s father to the Abbess Roding living. Employment by Sir William Masham* would also make sense. The Masham seat, Otes at High Laver, was only three miles from Abbess Roding and this would, in turn, help explain how Thurloe came to enter the service of Oliver St John*, the ambitious lawyer who had married Masham’s stepdaughter. The link with St John is well attested, for it would be that which would later propel Thurloe to centre of political power. A number of transactions in the late 1630s by the Barrington family, by the Fiennes family and by St John himself indicate that he was then employed as one of St John’s legal clerks, confirming that he started out as a minor member of the St John-Masham-Barrington network in west-central Essex.51Coventry Docquets, 690; Barrington Lttrs. 6; Dorset RO, D/BLX/F2; Essex RO, D/DU 472/14; Berks. RO, D/ED T268. He would work for and with members of that circle throughout his career.

The prospects for a barrister’s clerk were usually rather limited, but Thurloe’s master was soon to emerge as one of the leading political figures of the 1640s. It seems probable that he witnessed at first hand St John’s period of ascendancy in the Commons and learnt valuable lessons from it. His status as the servant of an MP meant that the Commons ordered that his horses should be returned to him after they were seized in July 1643.52CJ iii. 154a. He was also one of the three servants St John took with him when he went to Uxbridge in January 1645 as one of the parliamentarian commissioners to negotiate with the king’s representatives.53TSP i. 59. Moreover, once they got to Uxbridge, Thurloe was appointed as one of the two secretaries waiting on the two delegations for the duration of the negotiations.54LJ vii. 167a-168b, 169b-172b, 175b-176b, 181b-184b; TSP i. 54-70; Whitelocke, Diary, 163. The relationship between the two men was changing. Thurloe’s admission to Lincoln’s Inn in July 1646 was an important step, potentially opening up a way out of St John’s service.55LI Admiss. i. 253; Lincoln’s Inn, Admiss. Bk. 7, f. 57v.

In the meantime, Thurloe seems to have been doing work on behalf of the Cambridgeshire sequestrations commission. As part of the feud between rival factions on the commission, James Whinnell published allegations in 1646 about William Fisher* and his supporters. According to Whinnell, Thurloe got Fisher added to the commission of the peace for the Isle of Ely and was one of the ‘mercenary men’ who corruptly assisted malignants to escape sequestration.56J. Whinnell, Matters of great Concernement (1646), 17, 18. Whatever the exact truth about these allegations, this is the first clear evidence linking him to the Isle of Ely. It is possible that he had become involved in Ely politics through the influence of Richard Fiennes, a younger son of William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, and a close ally of Fisher. Thurloe’s appointment to the chancery office of receiver of the cursitors’ fines in March 1648, which the commissioners of the Great Seal no doubt regarded as a favour to St John, brought Thurloe a substantial independent income for the first time.57Whitelocke, Diary, 216, 218, 226. St John’s own career underwent a change of direction in October that year when he accepted the position of chief justice of common pleas. The two men would remain friends, but Thurloe was already looking elsewhere for patronage.

The earliest evidence of Thurloe’s association with Oliver Cromwell* dates from 1647, when he and Richard Graves sponsored the admission of Cromwell’s eldest son, Richard*, to Lincoln’s Inn.58Lincoln’s Inn, Admiss. Bk. 7, f. 67. There is no great difficulty in explaining how he had come to Cromwell’s attention – St John was now married to one of Cromwell’s first cousins. Thurloe’s recent links with the Isle of Ely might also be relevant. However, there was more to this than a favour to a friend to get his son into Lincoln’s Inn. The evidence arising from the chancery case later that year in which Cromwell sought to obtain the records of the confiscated estates of Edward Somerset, 2nd marquess of Worcester, is more specific; Worcester’s steward gave a statement claiming that he had delivered a survey of the manor of Chalton in Hampshire to ‘one Mr Thurloe’, whom he believed was the steward Cromwell had appointed to take over the management of these lands.59D. Farr, ‘Oliver Cromwell and a 1647 case in Chancery’, HR lxxi. 341-6. It thus seems likely that it was Thurloe who was the Lincoln’s Inn lawyer mentioned by Cromwell in a letter of April 1648 as having searched through the Worcester archives seized from Raglan Castle and whom Cromwell describes as ‘my own lawyer, a very godly able man, and my dear friend’.60Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 591-2; Farr, ‘Oliver Cromwell’, 345. Moreover, Thurloe was one of the six trustees (three of the others being Francis Allein*, John Disbrowe* and John Barton*) whom Cromwell appointed in April 1649 to administer his estates in Hampshire and Monmouthshire.61Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/27. It was in that capacity that he had dealings with the Committee for Compounding on Cromwell’s behalf in 1651 and 1652.62CCC 393, 465, 603.

St John had been involved in the project to drain the Great Level in the 1630s and in 1649 he was one of the Adventurers who joined with William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, when those plans were revived. This opened up new opportunities for his protégé. As early as June 1649 Thurloe had attended a meeting of the new Bedford Level corporation on St John’s behalf.63Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.1, second foliation, f. 9v. Three months later he became an Adventurer himself when he bought 1,850 acres for £323 15s and then made a joint purchase with Mark Bradley of 500 acres for £62 10s.64Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.2, unf.; R.59.31.9.3, first foliation, ff. 1-3v, 6, 14. He bought a further 30 acres the following year.65Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.4, f. 66. A reform of the corporation’s finances in February 1651 led to the office of its treasurer being divided between four of the Adventurers. Thurloe and John Trenchard* were two of the four appointed.66Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.4, ff. 92v, 93. When a new drainage channel was constructed, running the ten miles between Popham’s Eau and Vermuyden’s Drain, it was named Thurloe’s Drain (now the Sixteen Foot Drain) in his honour.

At about the same time as he was appointed joint treasurer to the Bedford Level Adventurers, Thurloe acquired another job through St John’s patronage. On being appointed as ambassador to the United Provinces, along with Walter Strickland*, St John was able to secure for Thurloe the position of secretary to the embassy. Thurloe thus travelled with them to Holland in March 1651 and assisted them over the next three months in their ill-fated attempt to negotiate an Anglo-Dutch alliance. Thurloe was perhaps the only real beneficiary of this mission, for he conducted himself well during its course and returned with some experience of foreign affairs. That experience helped recommend him for his next job.

Secretary Thurloe

His big break came in late March 1652 on being named as secretary to the council of state in succession to Gualter Frost.67CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 198, 199. On hearing the news, St John (who was in Scotland) advised him, ‘let not your hands faint, wait upon him [God] in his ways, and he that hath called you, will cause his presence and blessing to go along with you’.68TSP i. 205. At this stage, his position was still far more akin to that of a clerk of the privy council than a secretary of state. In time his influence may have grown; the decision by the council in July 1653 which gave him sole control over foreign intelligence (in place of Thomas Scot I*) certainly strengthened his position.69CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 14. His qualifications for that role were not as great as they could have been – he did not speak French and his knowledge of Latin was limited.70L. Huygens, The English Journal 1651-1652 ed. A.G.H. Bachrach and R.G. Collmer (Leiden, 1982), 50. The Spanish ambassador, Alonso de Cárdenas, thought him ‘the protector’s close friend but quite talentless.’71A. de Cárdenas, La Revolución inglesa (1638-1656) ed. Á. Alloza and G. Redworth (Madrid, 2011), 106, 153. It may therefore not have been until the advent of the protectorate, when he enjoyed Cromwell’s confidence and when he controlled all the key sources of information, that he unquestionably equalled the secretaries of state of the past.

Cromwell’s appointment as lord protector in December 1653 transformed Thurloe’s position from that of secretary to the council to that of secretary of state. His responsibility for managing the central secretariat was now confirmed.72CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 386-7. These arrangements were much the same as had existed in the offices of the pre-war secretaries of state, and Thurloe’s officials were just as hard pressed. His role in the collection of intelligence should be understood as a natural adjunct to his work as secretary. The vast sums of money he was reputed to have spent on this seem to have been largely mythical. In 1668 (Sir) William Morice* would, in all seriousness, tell the Commons that he could only spend £700 on intelligence gathering, compared to the £70,000 a year which had been available to Cromwell; John Birch* then famously observed that this was why Cromwell had been able to carry ‘the secret of all the princes of Europe at his girdle’.73Pepys’s Diary, ix. 70-1. Even as an approximate figure for total expenditure for all eleven years between 1649 and 1660, £70,000 must be an absurd overestimate. Taking together all the available evidence, it seems likely that Thurloe regularly spent rather less than £3,000 a year.74CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 454, 458; CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 370; TSP vii. 785-8; SP18/95, ff. 194-312; SP18/102, ff. 163-266; SP18/154, ff. 226-369; SP18/180, ff. 108-172; SP18/200, ff. 147-210. In other words, he was spending roughly twice the £1,400 which had been spent each year by his predecessors under James I and Charles I.75F.M.G. Evans, ‘Emoluments of the principal Secretaries of State in the seventeenth century’, EHR xxxv, 515-16; C. Russell, ‘Charles I’s financial estimates for 1642’, BIHR lviii, 118. It was also not much more than his immediate predecessor, Thomas Scot, claimed to have spent.76C.H. Firth, ‘Thomas Scot’s account of his actions as intelligencer during the Commonwealth’, EHR xii, 124. Most instructive of all is the comparison with his successors, for Morice was being less than truthful in 1668. From 1660 the two secretaries would again be allocated £1,400 (£700 each), but soon after were receiving payments of £4,000 a year.77Evans, ‘Emoluments’, 517, 525; Lister, Clarendon, iii. 507; A. Marshal, Intelligence and espionage in the reign of Charles II (Cambridge, 1994), 55.

It was through public office that Thurloe became a wealthy man and he now aspired to own a country estate. The sales of the confiscated royal and episcopal lands gave him his big chance. At some point during the early 1650s he purchased the manor of Wisbech Barton, which had formerly been part of the estates of the bishops of Ely and which had been sold off in 1649.78VCH Cambs. iv. 243; Bodl. Rawl. D.239, p. 22. Included in this sale was Wisbech Castle, which he proceeded to demolish, replacing it with what was, in effect, despite its location in the middle of the town, a country house. Fragments of this house, which may have been designed by Peter Mills, survive in the later house now on the site and in its grounds.79VCH Cambs. iv. 254; Lansd. 722, f. 32; G. Anniss, A Hist. of Wisbech Castle (Ely, 1977), 16-17; Mowl and Earnshaw, Architecture without Kings, 116; T. Fletcher, Archaeological Investigations at Wisbech Castle (2010); S. Bradley and N. Pevsner, Cambs. (2014), 701, 702. His connections with the Wisbech area presumably dated from before September 1650, as at that date the town used him to lobby the Bedford Level Adventurers for a subsidy for a new bridge over the River Nene.80Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.4, ff. 57, 58v-59.

The novice parliamentary manager, 1654-5

There was a certain inevitability about Thurloe’s election to the 1654 Parliament. Anyone who held the office of secretary of state had usually been regarded as quite a catch by most constituencies, and, once elected to Parliament, they had almost always played a prominent part in its proceedings. These considerations still applied. There is no sign that Thurloe’s lack of parliamentary experience or of a strong local powerbase hampered him in the 1654 elections. The seat which he made it known that he was most interested in was the new county constituency formed by the liberty of the Isle of Ely. This made sense as Wisbech lay within the limits of the Isle and, in the event, it was there that the poll was held. Thurloe seems also to have lent his support to the candidacy of Francis Underwood, a local man from Whittlesey who had risen to become a lieutenant-colonel.81CSP Dom. 1654, p. 327. What followed was one of the messiest of the elections held for this Parliament, with the returning officer, the chief bailiff of the liberty, George Glapthorne*, himself challenging Underwood for the second place. However, the acrimonious dispute which then followed over Glapthorne’s election did not diminish Thurloe’s success. Thurloe was happy with the results elsewhere, because, as he told the envoy to the Swiss cantons, John Pell, ‘very good elections are made, for the most part, in all places’.82The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ed. R. Vaughan (1839), i. 37.

Thurloe’s involvement in the proceedings of the 1654 Parliament was strikingly limited for someone who was a serving secretary of state. During the five months in which this Parliament sat, he was named to only five committees. There is however a simple explanation for much of this inactivity: the injuries he suffered in Cromwell’s coach accident on 29 September put him out of action until early December.83TSP ii. 652-3, 688; Clarke Pprs. v. 215; Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ed. Vaughan, i. 69; CSP Ven. 1653-4, p. 269; Bodl. North c.4, f. 101. What is therefore of note is that he was so inactive even when he was able to attend the Commons. During the first four weeks of the session, before his accident could excuse his absences, there were just two committees to which he was named. In the case of the committee on the abuses in printing (22 Sept.), his position as secretary of state gave him a direct interest in the matter, while that on the bill to eject scandalous ministers (25 Sept.) was the sort of important committee from which a secretary of state could hardly be omitted.84CJ vii. 369b, 370a. His appointment to the committee on merchants on 4 December 1654 probably marked his return to the Commons, but that was not followed by any obvious flurry of activity.85CJ vii. 395a. In his absence, the Commons had got bogged down in the whole question of the bill to settle the government. This lack of progress left him unimpressed. On 23 November he said as much in a newsletter to William Clarke.

This Parliament has now sat almost three months and have not passed any one Act or done any one thing of the peace and settlement of the nation. Their whole time has been taken up in debate about the government which the nation expected had been settled before their meeting, and when they will come to the end of their debate is very uncertain.86Clarke Pprs. v. 227.

Following his return to the House, he was added to the committee on the bill to settle the government when it was recommitted on 18 December and was later named to the committee to consider what revenues should be granted by it (13 Jan.).87CJ vii. 403a, 415b. Even when present, there was little Thurloe could do to divert his colleagues from this dead-end.

Writing to John Pell after Cromwell had abruptly dissolved Parliament, Thurloe defended what the lord protector had done. He thought the dissolution would ‘make no such alteration in affairs as some persons might apprehend’, that this Parliament had come to its natural end and that the constitution remained unaltered. Any failure to achieve more had been due mostly to MPs’ ‘slowness and dilatoriness’, which any future Parliament would not repeat.88Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ed. Vaughan, i. 125-6. He had begun this Parliament with an alarming lack of experience and, through no fault of his own, he had not had as much of a chance to remedy this as he must have hoped. He clearly still had much to learn in the art of reading the House and accommodating its moods.

Thurloe’s political position was greatly strengthened in the spring of 1655 when the council of state ruled that he should take over control of the postal services.89CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 138-9, 285-6. Thurloe thus became postmaster-general, reviving the arrangement which had existed between 1637 and 1642, when the secretaries of state had likewise controlled the Post Office. This position enabled him to employ Isaac Dorislaus junior to open and read all letters passing through the London office.90C.H. Firth, ‘Thurloe and the Post Office’, EHR xiii, 527-33. Much of his supposed omniscience can be attributed to this simple method. He was also able to use the local postmasters as a network of paid informants in the provinces.91TSP vi. 86. It was said that, once the rent had been deducted, Thurloe would be left with at least £6,000 a year from this arrangement.92CSP Ven. 1655-6, pp. 106-7. The creation in October 1655 of the office, headed by Thomas Dunne*, to monitor the movements of royalists provided Thurloe with another important source of information.93Add. 34011-16; C. Durston, Cromwell’s Major-generals (Manchester, 2001), 133-7.

Another Parliament, 1656-7

In the elections of the 1656 Parliament Thurloe was again returned as MP for the Isle of Ely. Even more obviously than in 1654, his official position smoothed the way. All the early signs were that the interested parties were equally eager to secure his favours. On the day (28 Aug. 1656) his election was almost certainly uncontested.94TSP v. 165, 297, 311-12, 352-3, 365. His links with the Isle of Ely were reinforced the following month when the shareholders in the Bedford Level drainage scheme appointed him as their deputy governor.95TSP v. 475. It should be noted that there was one piece of legislation considered by this Parliament of direct relevance to his constituents, namely the bill which sought to clarify any remaining doubts about the legal status of the Isle of Ely. The most likely sponsor for such a bill was Thurloe himself and it was probably for that reason that he headed the list of those to whom it was committed on 21 November 1656. Bulstrode Whitelocke* reported back from this committee on 23 December and an order was issued for the bill to be ingrossed, but thereafter nothing more was heard of this measure.96CJ vii. 456b, 460b-461a, 461b, 473b. Thurloe’s interest in the Peyton land bill, suggested by the fact that he was first-named to the committee appointed to consider it (16 Oct. 1656), no doubt reflected links with that family dating back to his first marriage.97CJ vii. 439b.

If there was any evidence for management of the House in the 1656 Parliament by Cromwell’s agents, it would be natural to assume that Thurloe was a central figure in such a process. The difficulties in the 1654 Parliament should have given sufficient warning of what could go wrong. As it is, all the Protectoral Parliaments were more notable for the absence of such evidence. It is in this respect particularly frustrating that Thurloe did not use his weekly letters to Henry Cromwell* in Ireland, William Lockhart in France and John Pell in Switzerland , which are some of the key sources for the events in the 1656 and 1659 Parliaments, to discuss his own role in their proceedings. What one should not think in terms of is a well-disciplined bloc of dependant officials voting according to instructions. There is certainly no evidence that any of the intelligence payments made by Thurloe to men who were MPs in the 1654 Parliament (George Downing) or in the 1656 Parliament (Downing again, Philip Skippon, Lord Broghill and Robert Lilburne) were bribes intended to sway their votes.98SP18/95, ff. 227, 307; SP18/154, ff. 288, 300v-301, 311; SP18/200, f. 185. (The payments made to Martin Noel*, Thomas Kelsey*, Thomas Lilburne*, Sir John Reynolds*, Thomas Temple* and Andrew Marvell* were all made at times when they were not sitting in Parliament.)99SP18/102, ff. 200, 203, 254; SP18/154, ff. 248-250; SP18/180, ff. 130, 151; SP18/200, ff. 183-184, 188. That said, Thurloe probably did try to coordinate his actions in the Commons with other leading members of the council of state, although it must be granted that coordination could break down over particular issues and conflict between councillors was possible. Thurloe probably became a more dominant figure among his colleagues on the front bench, reaching the height of his influence only in 1659.

Thurloe’s role in the 1656 Parliament seems to have been far more specific. Very much Cromwell’s man, he spoke with authority whenever he reported the lord protector’s views or dealt with matters which fell within his own official responsibilities. In so far as he had a particular remit, it was foreign affairs. He was most often to be found initiating business by the simple means of reporting news. Such business was often no more than a formality and some sort of indication from him of the response expected of them was usually welcomed. Other interventions by him could carry considerable weight and, despite his lack of experience, he seems to have had a good grasp of procedure. He was perhaps at his most impressive when intervening to draw attention to the bigger legislative picture, encouraging the House to avoid becoming bogged down on less urgent or mischievous proposals, so that the government’s preferred measures could take priority. This was management of the most traditional and least clandestine sort.

The management of the 1656 Parliament began even before it assembled. The government’s principal concern was that there should be no repeat of the failure of the previous Parliament. Two months before the new Parliament met, Thurloe wrote that

We hope for good from it; and that we shall have none of those, who during the last Parliament were continuing very bloody designs against the protector and peace of the nation, and used all endeavours to seduce the army from their integrity and obedience.100TSP v. 213.

A month later he repeated his fears that the wrong sort of people were trying to influence the elections.101TSP v. 303, 317. He attempted to block the election of John Davies* by warning Henry Cromwell that he had plenty of evidence to prove that Davies was a royalist spy.102TSP v. 398; Burton’s Diary, ii. 269. So he was not being entirely honest when he told Pell that the elections had been ‘very quiet’.103Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ed. Vaughan, ii. 18. In the end the council decided to use its powers to exclude those MPs whom it deemed to be unsatisfactory. Reporting these exclusions, Thurloe recognised that, ‘this grieves very much’, but added that ‘it also disappoints also some men, who expressed very great readiness to be at their old work’.104TSP v. 424. It is difficult to believe that Thurloe did not play the leading part in drawing up this blacklist.

Thurloe summed up the purpose of this Parliament when it was summoned as seeking ‘their advice in the war with Spain, and to settle such other things, as may be for the peace and good of the nation’.105TSP v. 176. He played a prominent part in its proceedings from the outset, and there was no evidence of the low profile which had marked his conduct in 1654. His role was now very much that traditionally expected of a secretary of state sitting in the Commons. It made sense to name him to the committee which took their declaration on public fasts to the protector (22 Sept.) and, for the same reason, he was included on the committee which considered what procedures should be followed when bills were sent to the protector for his approval (26 Sept.). No one in the House was better placed than he was to give advice on the bill to protect Cromwell’s person (26 Sept.). He also formed part of the official presence on both the Scottish and Irish committees (23 Sept.).106CJ vii. 426b, 427a, 429a, 429b. Thurloe felt that these opening weeks had gone well. He naturally welcomed the decision to refer the appeals against the exclusions to the council of state, which amounted to an endorsement of their actions and which Thurloe went so far as to interpret as ‘a great providence of God’.107TSP v. 453, 454. Moreover, progress was made as early as 1 October on what he had singled out as the first priority, when Parliament agreed that a declaration should be issued justifying the war against Spain.108CJ vii. 431b; TSP v. 472.

The first occasion on which Thurloe is known to have spoken in the House came the following day and could hardly have been more dramatic, for it fell to him to inform the Commons that the naval force commanded by Sir Richard Stayner had captured part of the Spanish treasure fleet. This was the perfect way in which to reinforce Parliament’s willingness to support the war. It was probably mainly Thurloe who then drafted the Commons’ declaration setting aside a day of thanksgiving in celebration.109TSP v. 399-400, 432-5, 472; CJ vii. 432b, 433b; Burton’s Diary, i. p. clxxxi; Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ed. Vaughan, ii. 25-6. This left the Commons in ‘a very good temper’, and several weeks later he was able to write that, ‘affairs here proceed without any trouble, there appearing no contradicting spirit to anything which is good and honest in Parliament’.110TSP v. 472, 524. When the question of how addresses should be presented to the protector became an issue, he was able to assist Bulstrode Whitelocke* in ironing out the difficulties – he reassured the Commons on 14 November by informing them that Cromwell had reached a decision on the matter. Thurloe also seems to have taken an interest in the bill for the confirmation of land sales.111TSP v. 605; CJ vii. 454a. Otherwise, his activity in the House in October and November 1656 left no traces in the records, except his nominations to a number of unimportant committees, including those on the Isle of Ely and Peyton bills.112CJ vii. 439b, 441b, 446b, 457b, 460b.

On 3 December 1656 Thurloe congratulated himself on the fact that ‘we still jog on in the Parliament without doing anything very extraordinary’ and that they had even completed the passage of ten bills.113TSP v. 672. This confidence was about to receive its first real test. The case of James Naylor was just the sort of business which could spring surprises on the unwary parliamentary manager. Thurloe’s major speech on the subject on 11 December began by acknowledging that Naylor was ‘vile in his principles, and in his practices too’, and went on to call him ‘a gross idolator, and an imposter and deceiver’. He also agreed that Parliament did have the right to pass retrospective legislation against him. His doubts however centred on whether it was ever right to use the death penalty against blasphemy. His instinct was to argue that the sort of offence Naylor had committed was relatively harmless and that more extreme cases could easily be prosecuted under other statutes. He thus supported the proposal that a lesser punishment should be imposed on Naylor.114Burton’s Diary, i. 110-13. This was the view which then prevailed. He was now prepared to admit that the Commons was badly split, and by 23 December expressed annoyance that, as a result, Parliament was giving insufficient attention to the need to raise money for the Spanish war.115TSP v. 708-9, 727. By the following week he was more optimistic, judging that the Naylor business was ‘like to end in love’ and that some MPs who had absented themselves were becoming more supportive.116Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ed. Vaughan, ii. 77. By 8 January 1657 Samuel Morland was reporting that Thurloe was ‘exceedingly weary, and full of business’.117Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ed. Vaughan, ii. 81.

The attempt to pass the decimation bill turned out to be just as stormy. Thurloe recognised as early as 13 January 1657 that it was unlikely that they would be able to get it through the House.118TSP v. 788. One reason why so much was made of the discovery of Sexby’s plot to assassinate Cromwell, which Thurloe announced to the Commons on 19 January, was that it served as a convenient reminder of the dangers faced by the regime.119CJ vii. 481a; Burton’s Diary, i. 354-6. It was during the debates on the decimation bill that Thurloe made the speech in which he recalled the circumstances surrounding the origins of the civil war. The rest of the speech was used to reassure the Commons that only those who remained unrepentant royalists would be required to pay this tax.120TSP v. 786-8. Thurloe seems to have thought that the bill was doomed by the fear that it would entrench the powers of the major-generals. He found it odd that, having rejected this bill, the Commons should then proceed to vote funds for the war against Spain.121TSP vi. 7-8, 38.

Misreading Cromwell, 1657

The Humble Petition and Advice, with its proposal that Cromwell become king, was an unexpected development. Someone else in Thurloe’s position might have been thrown by this development, but Thurloe came to see it as an opportunity which should be embraced. The Petition soon had his full support. He knew that it was controversial, reporting to Lockhart that it had been received ‘with very great applause by most, yet much opposed by some’, but telling Henry Cromwell that ‘the great man and some other considerable officers are against it’.122CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 292; TSP vi. 74 Progress was slow, and Thurloe’s mood in his letters to Henry Cromwell and Lockhart appears to swing as the Commons worked its way through the Petition clause by clause.123CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 297-8, 306-7, 309; TSP vi. 93.

The changing mood could be exploited to good effect. Thus, on 7 March he had made use of what he took to be a positive atmosphere in the House to secure its approval for the council’s proposals that further forces be raised for the war effort.124CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 306-7; CJ vii. 499b-500a. By 17 March he regarded the article on religion as the biggest obstacle, but that he did not think ‘that there can be any great difficulty to come to a just settlement, if the business of religion can be well agreed’.125TSP vi. 123. He then welcomed the approval of this article as giving the greatest security to liberty of conscience which had ever existed in England. At that stage, he was optimistic that, ‘if the Lord bless the endeavours of some men, we may come to a settlement’.126CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 315. There is other evidence that he took a particular interest in this point. He was first-named to the committee which then drafted the clause protecting the interests of those Protestants who dissented in matters of discipline and worship, and he acted as teller for the yeas in the division on 20 March in which the Commons approved it.127CJ vii. 507b, 508b-509a. This was indeed a controversial point, as this clause was approved by only a single vote. The vote on 25 March to offer the crown to Cromwell passed by a more comfortable margin, with Thurloe unsurprisingly voting with the majority.128Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5). Thurloe again played down the scale of opposition from within the army.129CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 320.

By the time the Commons presented the Humble Petition to Cromwell on 31 March 1657 Thurloe was uncertain whether Cromwell would accept it.130TSP vi. 157; CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 324. His letter to Lockhart telling him of Cromwell’s announcement on 3 April that he wished to refuse the crown betrays little of the disappointment he must have felt. When he described how ‘the answer caused great consternation in Parliament, who hoped to come to a settlement by this means’, he left it to Lockhart to conclude that he shared in that sense of alarm.131CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 327-8. He clearly supported Parliament’s decision that Cromwell be asked to think again, and, on the same day that he wrote this letter to Lockhart (6 Apr.), he was named to the committee which drew up the paper restating their case.132CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 328; CJ vii. 520b, 521a. He was present on 8 April when Cromwell told the delegation from Parliament that he stood by his previous statement, but that he was willing to discuss his scruples with them. In naming him as one of those who were to conduct these discussions, the Commons may have looked to Thurloe as one possible broker to bring about the desired compromise.133CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 335; CJ vii. 521b. The statement by Thurloe to the Commons on 11 April about the latest conspiracy he had uncovered was a convenient way of distracting Parliament’s attentions while these discussions continued in private; the Commons spent most of the third week of April assessing the significance of Thurloe’s announcement.134CJ vii. 521b-522b; TSP vi. 184-7; Burton’s Diary, ii. 2-4.

Thurloe was privy to all the discussions between Cromwell and the Commons delegation as they tried to iron out the various objections Cromwell had raised. The letter of 21 April, in which he explained the current position at length to Henry Cromwell, is therefore of considerable value. As Thurloe saw it,

Certainly [Cromwell] hath very great difficulties in his own mind, although he hath had the clearest call that ever man had; and for ought I see, the Parliament will not be persuaded, that there can be any settlement any other way. The title is not the question, but it’s the office, which is known to the laws and this people. They know their duty to a king, and his to them. Whatever else there is will be wholly new, and be nothing else but a probationer, and upon the next occasion will be changed again. Besides, they say, the name protector came in by the sword out of Parliament, and will never be the ground of any settlement; nor will there be a free Parliament so long as that continues; and as it savours of the sword now, so it will at last bring all things to be military.135TSP vi. 219-20.

This was an argument which Thurloe was right to think enjoyed a widespread appeal. The implication that he seems to have been drawing from this analysis was that Cromwell was now more likely than Parliament to back down first.

Events moved back to Parliament on 23 April when Whitelocke reported what progress had been made. The Commons then began the task of adjusting the amendments which Cromwell had suggested. Thurloe’s role over the next two days was clear – he had to steer the Commons through the redrafting process with the minimum of fuss so that enough ground was surrendered (in some cases against their better judgments) to allow Cromwell to agree to the central proposal: the offer of the crown. This involved much small-scale troubleshooting.136Burton’s Diary, ii. 10, 18, 22, 32, 36, 42-3, 44, 88, 91; CJ vii. 524a. Care was being taken by him to ensure that all the legal details had been thought through before Cromwell committed himself to the Humble Petition. Thurloe was operating in the dark. Writing to Henry Cromwell on 29 April, he confessed that he was still unsure what Cromwell would do:

The issue is in the hands of the Lord, to whose pleasure we must submit, yea therein we ought to rejoice. I know his highness is under great difficulties from friends, which makes his way the more darksome. I trust the Lord will be a light to him.137TSP vi. 243.

By 7 May Thurloe probably believed that success was within his grasp, for it is plausible that he was among those MPs in whom he later claimed Cromwell had confided at that time that he would indeed accept the title of king.

The disappointment came all too swiftly: on 8 May 1657 Cromwell publicly refused the kingship. Thurloe’s comment to Henry Cromwell that ‘I perceive this hath struck a damp upon the spirits of some, and much raised and elevated others’, amounted to yet more sanguine understatement in the face of a considerable setback.138TSP vi. 281. The truth was that he was badly shaken by Cromwell’s refusal. He had no reason to believe that Cromwell had turned against him (the issue of the kingship was far bigger than that), but Thurloe’s claim to be able to speak for his master had been somewhat tainted. The temptation now was to suppose that those in the army who had persuaded Cromwell to refuse might seek to remove him from the secretaryship. As he now put it in a gnomic comment to (Sir) Francis Russell*, he had come to realise that ‘nothing is so considerable in any business as simplicity’.139Henry Cromwell Corresp. 273..

Thurloe was once more to the fore when the Commons turned its attention to tying up the various loose ends of the Humble Petition.140CJ vii. 535a, 540b. On the question of whether the revised text should make it explicit that Cromwell would have the same powers as a king, Thurloe was among those who argued that it should, although the Commons decided otherwise, preferring instead to leave this particular point unstated in the final version.141TSP vi. 310-11. By 26 May Thurloe had hopes that, ‘the Lord can bring light out of this darkness, and heal the great divisions, which are amongst us’.142TSP vi. 311. Given the arguments which he had outlined to Henry Cromwell in his letter of 21 April, he must have realised that, whatever Cromwell’s formal powers, a protector was not quite the same thing as a king; what he could console himself with was the knowledge that the settlement which emerged from this long process was the next best thing. He would remain committed to the principles of the Humble Petition for as long as they remained practical.

The news that Robert Blake* had gained a major victory over the Spanish at Santa Cruz served to lighten the mood at Westminster. ‘It is the Lord’s doing, and the glory be his’ was how Thurloe summed it up when he broke this news to the Commons on 28 May (the hint that this was God’s endorsement of the new constitutional settlement was no doubt deliberate), and it was Thurloe and George Downing* who then drafted the letter of thanks sent to Blake.143CJ vii. 541a-b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 142-3, 145. The following day the Commons turned its attention to the question of what legislation needed to be passed during what remained of the session.144CJ vii. 542a. It is clear that the official view was (as always) that the voting of revenue remained the first priority. The decision to proceed with the customs bill the following day was a positive sign and Thurloe used his speech in that debate to drive home the point that they had not yet raised the full £1,300,000 promised by the Humble Petition. He then got the Commons to agree to the appointment of the committee to inspect the public treasuries in order that this shortfall be addressed.145Burton’s Diary, ii. 164; CJ vii. 543a. Having been instrumental in its creation, Thurloe was keen that this committee report as soon as possible; he moved on 13 June that its report be heard two days later and, in the event, Thomas Bampfylde* was able to inform the House of their deliberations on 16 June.146Burton’s Diary, ii. 247; CJ vii. 559a. Bampfylde’s report encouraged good progress on the assessment and customs bills later that week.

The managers’ concern that the Commons concentrate only on essential business was evident in Thurloe’s other interventions. During the final month of this session he constantly harried the Commons to press on with the various measures linked to the Humble Petition. On 15 June he successfully pressed them to turn their attentions to the Additional Petition and Advice, as it was important that this be completed before the adjournment. Later that day he persuaded the Commons to abandon all private business for the rest of that week and to sit on both mornings and afternoons.147Burton’s Diary, ii. 248, 251, 253; CJ vii. 557a-558a.

There were only a few other measures brought before Parliament in late May or early June 1657 which can be said to have had Thurloe’s support. His backing for the bill granting lands to Lord Broghill (Robert Boyle*) was one way of repaying favours to someone with whom he had worked closely during the kingship controversy and he was able to assure the Commons that ‘this noble person well deserves your favour, much more your justice’.148Burton’s Diary, ii. 176. The bill to restrict further development in the London suburbs was allowed to pass, but only after Thurloe had got a special exemption for the naval dockyards at Deptford.149CJ vii. 563a-b. It was almost certainly Thurloe himself who promoted the bill which, by endorsing the protector’s authority over the Post Office, confirmed his own control of the postal services.150CJ vii. 542a; A. and O.

So far as Thurloe and the other ministers were concerned, it was only the absence of a full revenue grant by the middle of June which stood in the way of the adjournment. Their target for the passage of these bills was 21 June, and as late as 18 June Thurloe seems to have been optimistic that this could be met.151CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 10. As it turned out, the revenue bills were not ready in time and the deadline had to be extended to 26 June.152TSP vi. 367. When this extension was announced to the Commons on 20 June, Philip Jones* and Thurloe advised them in the strongest possible terms to devote that extra time to the passage of the revenue bills and the Additional Petition and Advice.153Burton’s Diary, ii. 259. Thurloe kept up this pressure to the end. He probably helped draft the oaths to be taken by the lord protector and the council of state, making sure that they were ready for insertion into the text of the Additional Petition by 24 June and he then supported the proposal that an oath for future MPs also be included.154CJ vii. 570b, 572b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 289, 296. Once that was done, he was concerned to squeeze in the bill of attainder against the Irish rebels. To do so, he made sure that it took priority over the probate bill, with the result that the attainder bill reached the statute book whereas the probate bill did not.155Burton’s Diary, ii. 303; CJ vii. 573b. With time ticking away, he secured one final technical amendment to the Additional Petition: at his prompting, the Commons agreed that anyone ‘of good conversation’ employed by the Scottish council of state would be eligible to sit as one of the Scottish MPs. This emergency move averted the potential embarrassment to George Monck*, because it had been realised that he would otherwise (as a former Royalist) be ineligible to sit.156Burton’s Diary, ii. 306; CJ vii. 575a. Thurloe was a member of the committee appointed on 25 June to complete the last-minute preparations for the protector’s second investiture the following day, and he was also named to the eight-man committee which met that evening to draft the bill to improve the customs and excise revenues.157CJ vii. 575a. They were able to get that bill passed on the nod the next morning. Almost the last piece of business approved by the Commons before it adjourned on the afternoon of 26 June was to order that Lambert, Thurloe, Disbrowe and Jones wait on Cromwell to ask him to promote Christian unity abroad between the various Protestant churches.158CJ vii. 578a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 313.

From Thurloe’s point of view this session had fallen into four distinct parts: in the opening months, the managers had had a relatively easy time with the House showing a willingness to respect their agenda, the Naylor case and the decimation bill had then revealed that the Commons’ cooperation could not be taken for granted, the subsequent debates over the Humble Petition had been a problem less of managing the Commons than of managing Cromwell, while the looming deadline had given the ministers the upper hand in the final weeks. In the end Thurloe and his colleagues got most of the legislative programme they had wanted. It had certainly been a bumpy ride but, for all the importance of the constitutional issues they had had to address, the difficulties they had faced were much the same as in any seventeenth-century Parliament. The outcome of the session understandably left Thurloe in buoyant spirits. Several weeks later he told Henry Cromwell

I believe both the Parliament and army have a very good opinion of, and affection for his highness. There is no visible cause of desponding; but, on the contrary, of giving thanks to God for disposing affairs as they are, whereby (as some wise men judge) [Cromwell] hath the greatest opportunity of the settling the state upon solid foundations, that ever man had; and I trust the Lord will give him wisdom and a heart to do it.159TSP vi. 412.

It was understandable if Thurloe was glad to make the most of the adjournment and get back to the real business of governing the country.

Thurloe’s health during the 1650s was never good and at certain times he had been unable to perform his official duties.160CSP Ven. 1655-6, pp. 82, 186; CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 123. An especially prolonged bout put him out of action between Christmas 1657 and February 1658; in early January 1658 he was reported to be confined to bed with a very bad fever.161CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. liii, 258, 274; Add. 22919, f. 11; TSP vi. 734, 745, 747-8, 751, 770, 789; Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ed. Vaughan, ii. 94-5, 99, 307, 318; CSP Ven. 1657-9, pp. 136, 150, 151. The result of this was that he played no part in the second session of the second Protectoral Parliament (20 Jan.-4 Feb. 1658). He nevertheless told George Downing from his sickbed that ‘the general air and inclination of the House is right and tends to all things of sobriety and settlement’.162Add. 22919, f. 11v. On 4 February Cromwell visited Thurloe on his sickbed immediately before going to Westminster to dissolve Parliament, although it was reported that Cromwell refused to tell even him the reasons for this decision.163C.H. Firth, ‘Lttrs. concerning the dissolution of Cromwell’s last Parliament’, EHR vii, 108.

Clinging on to power, 1658-60

The death of Cromwell on 3 September 1658 was, for Thurloe, first and foremost, a personal bereavement. The letter which he wrote the following day to Henry Cromwell expressed his bewilderment:

…this stroke is so sore, so unexpected, the providence of God in it so stupendous, considering the person that is fallen, the time and season wherein God took him away, with other circumstances, I can do nothing but put my mouth in the dust, and say, it is the Lord; and though His ways be not always known, yet they are always righteous, and we must submit to His will, and resign up ourselves to Him with all our concernments.164TSP vii. 372.

This emphasis on the unexpected as the inscrutable expression of God’s will is entirely characteristic. The response was the same as that which Thurloe had shown in the face of the kingship controversy. Far from seeing himself as the mastermind controlling events, he repeatedly took refuge in the notion that he was no more than a humble servant of the Lord for whom the workings of Providence remained a mystery.

The smooth succession of Richard Cromwell was easily accomplished. Thurloe was able to report on 7 September, ‘there is not a dog that wags his tongue, so great a calm are we in’.165TSP vii. 374. The difficulties of securing the future of the new lord protector emerged soon enough. The struggle now began to storm the closet to capture control of the malleable Protector Richard (if only with the intention of then subverting the whole protectoral constitution). The tactic adopted was the traditional one: those manoeuvring for power were quick to claim that Richard’s advisers, and Thurloe in particular, were evil counsellors seeking their own personal advantage. By early November 1658 Thurloe had gone so far as to offer his resignation to Richard as one way of mollifying the army.166TSP vii. 490-1. The decision to call a Parliament was the strongest card Richard had to play and it seemed likely that Thurloe’s future would depend on its success. There was a real sense that this Parliament was an act of desperation; it is not even clear that Thurloe had any real idea what it was supposed to achieve. On 14 December 1658, 11 days after the writs had been sent out, he felt that the formal preparations for the forthcoming Parliament were going well, but that insufficient attention had, as yet, been paid to a possible legislative programme. He was working on the assumption that there would be a consensus in favour of upholding the Humble Petition, although he correctly foresaw that some would try to create trouble.167TSP vii. 562.

His election to this Parliament could not have been easier. His influence was now such that he could even play the part of electoral patron, for his recommendation was enough to secure the elections of Lawrence Oxburgh alias Hewer* and Thomas Waller* for two of the Scottish seats.168TSP vii. 572, 584. At Cambridge the influence of St John as chancellor of the university meant that there were no serious obstacles standing in the way of Thurloe’s own return for the senior university seat.169TSP vii. 559, 565, 574; CUL, University Archives, O.III.82; C219/46: Camb. Univ. election return, 31 Dec. 1658; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 439. On the same day (31 Dec. 1658), the borough of Huntingdon (Cromwell’s birthplace) also returned him as their MP. The proposal that he be elected there had been promoted by Edward Montagu II* and, again, the decision was unanimous.170TSP vii. 586, 588. The third constituency for which he was elected was Wisbech, which had been enfranchised as a parliamentary constituency only as recently as the previous July. The grant enfranchising it had almost certainly been approved by the late lord protector as a personal favour to Thurloe and this gave him a strong claim on the town to return him as their first MP. Even before his successful election for the parliamentary seat on 6 January, doubts had probably been expressed about the legality of the enfranchisement. This did not trouble Thurloe. On 23 February, almost a month after the new Parliament had assembled, he announced that he wished to sit for Cambridge University, by far the most prestigious of these three seats.171CJ vii. 606b; Burton’s Diary, iii. 450.

Thurloe began the 1659 Parliament as the government’s leading spokesman in the Commons, and he sought to take control of its agenda from the outset. The first substantial item of business was the bill recognising Richard Cromwell as lord protector, which Thurloe laid before the Commons on 1 February.172CJ vii. 596b. (A copy of the bill survives among his papers.173TSP vii. 603-4.) His speech recommending its acceptance was used by him to present the accession of the new protector in providentialist terms; it was almost as if he was claiming that God had toppled the Stuarts in order to elevate the Cromwells. He went on to reject the demands of some that, instead of recognising Richard Cromwell, they should yet again revise the constitution.174Burton’s Diary, iii. 25-6, 26n; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, p. 89; [S. Bethell], A true and impartial narrative (1659, E.985.25), sig. A2v. One of those who wanted to embrace this opportunity for change was Edmund Ludlowe II*, who later recalled of this move by Thurloe that

This action was by impartial men esteemed to be a great injury to the assembly; but he [Thurloe] had a sufficient strength amongst them to carry him through whatsoever he thought fit to undertake, and therefore he was not only defended for what he had done, but it was resolved that the declaration should be received and debated.175Ludlow, Mems. ii. 54-5.

The reality was that Thurloe, who assumed that Parliament would want ‘peace and settlement’, had badly miscalculated.176Add. 22919, f. 75. The recognition bill divided the House, creating bitter deadlock which dragged on over the following fortnight. In the end, the Commons agreed to pass the bill, but only if they were allowed to insert additional clauses ‘as may bound the power of chief magistrate’.177CJ vii. 603b. This threatened to reverse any advantage Thurloe had hoped to gain by this measure and the claim by Slingsby Bethell* that Thurloe was the one MP who opposed this motion sounds as if it is probably true.178Bethell, A true and impartial narrative, sig. [A3-A4]; Burton’s Diary, iii. 287. With this vote, the controversy broadened out to encompass the doubts about the Other House and the Scottish and Irish MPs, which were just the sort of topics Thurloe wished to avoid. The best that can be said of Thurloe’s strategy is that some in the Commons were determined to open up the whole constitutional settlement as a subject for debate whatever happened and at least Thurloe instigated that debate on his preferred terms; the worst that can be said is that he and his new master never really recovered from the setback.

The dispute over the recognition bill infected most other business during the early weeks of this Parliament. On 3 February Thurloe had to argue against the proposal by Sir Arthur Hesilrige* (the leading opponent of the recognition bill) that a committee be created to nominate army officers. For Thurloe, the point was that they were ‘now under another constitution’ and that the Humble Petition reserved that right of nomination to the protector.179Burton’s Diary, iii. 59, 60n; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, pp. 93-4. Hesilrige was fully aware of this, which was precisely why he was promoting that particular proposal. Thurloe successfully blocked Hesilrige’s idea that a finance committee be created (a finance committee which might become too powerful) in favour of the requirement that the Treasury, Army and Admiralty commissioners present their accounts direct to the Commons.180Burton’s Diary, iii. 59-60, 60n, 62; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, pp. 93-4; CJ vii. 599b. When these accounts were presented a fortnight later, they were accompanied by a letter from the protector. This gave Hesilrige his pretext to declare, ‘the Lord deliver us from such evil counsellors as King Charles had about him’. Thurloe was unable to let this slur pass without comment. He responded

If any evil counsellors be, let them be known. I am, for my part, here ready to answer any charge. It is an easy thing to charge in general terms. I was never a soldier, but shall have the courage to withstand any charge.181Burton’s Diary, iii. 308-9.

Hesilrige was content to leave the matter there and probably got what he was wanted when these accounts were referred to a Commons’ committee. Thurloe regained the initiative when Hesilrige’s ally, Henry Neville*, then raised the question of the war with Spain, allowing Thurloe to propose that a day be set aside to discuss foreign policy.182CJ vii. 605a; Burton’s Diary, iii. 314-15.

This tactic worked, for the Commons thus briefly turned its attention away from the constitutional debate. An endorsement of his diplomatic activities, in particular the policy of support for Sweden in its war against Denmark, was also just the sort of useful personal boost Thurloe needed at this point. He opened the debate on 21 February with a long speech explaining that the protector’s priority was the promotion of peace, and that to do so, as well as to protect English interests, they needed a strong fleet. His request that permission be given for the fleet to be sent to the Baltic set the terms for the subsequent debate. Thurloe refused to commit himself when Sir Henry Vane II* then asked which side it was he thought was to blame for the renewed hostilities.183CJ vii. 606a; Burton’s Diary, iii. 376-85; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, pp. 120-4; Bethell, A true and impartial narrative, sig. [A4]. What lay behind Vane’s question was the suspicion that the government had a secret pact with the Swedes, and when the Commons returned to this subject on 24 February, Thurloe firmly denied this. The Commons accepted Thurloe’s arguments and agreed to the request that the fleet be despatched.184Burton’s Diary, iii. 481-9, 493; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, pp. 148-9; CJ vii. 607a-b.

Thurloe, the most steadfast defender of the Humble Petition, was determined to ensure that the Commons agreed to transact business with the Other House. As he put it in a speech on 7 March, to do otherwise would be a step backwards to the uncertainties of 1648.185Burton’s Diary, iv. 68-70. The phrase that particularly struck Anthony Morgan* was his warning that if they were not careful, they would ‘fall into a sneaking oligarchy’.186Henry Cromwell Corresp. 469. But he approached these debates unsure whether the Commons could be convinced.187Add. 22919, f. 86. The move to amend the motion on 8 March also seems to have wrong-footed him. An addition tacked on to the main motion declared that its recognition of the Other House should not infringe the rights of those peers who had supported Parliament.188CJ vii. 611b-612a. Thurloe admitted to Jerome Sankey* that, although he disapproved of the amendment itself, he had been unsure how to response. He seems to have spotted that this could well have been intended as a wrecking amendment but that it might alternatively increase support for the main motion.189Henry Cromwell Corresp. 473. So he remained silent.

On 11 March he maintained that the presence of the Scottish and Irish MPs also conformed to the provisions of the Humble Petition and that the protector had been right to summon them.190Burton’s Diary, iv. 128; Derbys. RO, D258/10/9/1, unfol. He was a teller on 21 March in the division which paved the way for the vote approving the presence of the Scottish MPs and he performed the same role on 23 March when he was a teller for the majority which approved the presence of their Irish counterparts.191CJ vii. 616b, 619a; Burton’s Diary, iv. 205, 219. In the aftermath of the latter vote, Thurloe was among those who unsuccessfully argued that, having resolved that question, they should lose no time in completing their deliberations on the status of the Other House.192Burton’s Diary, iv. 243. It was not until 28 March that the Commons got round to accepting the arguments by Thurloe and others that they should indeed recognise the second chamber. In those votes, he and the marquess of Argyll (Archibald Campbell*) were tellers against the wrecking amendment.193CJ vii. 621a; Burton’s Diary, iv. 285. He was also appointed to the committee which was later established (6 Apr. 1659) to deal with the practical details as to how the two Houses should transact business with each other.194CJ vii. 627a.

By 22 March, following the vote to admit the Scottish MPs, Thurloe had realised that the big problem with this Parliament would be its reluctance to vote supply. In his mind this was linked to the fear that a discontented army would side with the radicals in the Commons. As things then stood, he was surprised that the army officers were not more restive.195TSP vii. 636. It was not until the report of the committee for the inspection of accounts and the public revenue was presented on 7 April that any real progress on the question of supply became possible. In the ensuing debate Thurloe made a long speech designed to encourage the Commons to vote the sums requested, while, at the same time, arguing that the debt was not as great as it seemed and that the government’s financial difficulties were not of its own making. Although he claimed that ‘my business never was to meddle with money’, the notes made by Thomas Burton* and John Gell* as they listened to this speech suggest that Thurloe had been well-briefed.196Burton’s Diary, iv. 365-7; Derbys. RO, D258/10/9/2, ff. 30-31 Two days later when Robert Scawen* failed to appear in the House to present a further report on this matter, Thurloe intervened to prevent the Commons proceeding to other business, pointing out that there was an urgent need for them to debate an excise grant so that the army arrears could be paid. He estimated that the shortfall they needed to match amounted to almost £200,000.197Burton’s Diary, iv. 383. On 13 April he complained to Henry Cromwell that Parliament was not making enough progress, that relations with the Other House remained difficult, and that the need to reduce the debt was becoming urgent.198TSP vii. 655. Fortunately, he was able to block the declaration prepared by the Commons which would have cast doubt on the excise revenues collected since Cromwell’s death.199Burton’s Diary, iv. 436, 438; CJ vii. 640a. A rumour which had circulated in the taverns of Westminster in February 1659 claiming that the farmers of the ale and beer excise were bribing Thurloe with an annual retainer of £1,000 and that he had promised to press their case in Parliament appears to have been unfounded.200TSP vii. 623-4; Aylmer, State’s Servants, 166.

It was only now that serious attention was being given to the public finances that it can be said that Thurloe and the other front benchers showed any sign of gaining real control over proceedings. For much of the time it had been Hesilrige, Vane and their allies who had been making the running. They seem in particular to have singled out Thurloe for attack. Hesilrige’s comment about evil counsellors on 17 February had been one early warning. Moreover, the petition which came before the Commons in late March 1659, which accused Thurloe of having sent several captured Royalists to Barbados so that they could be sold into slavery, has the appearance of a put-up job. Vane was only too happy to push the evidence to suggest that Thurloe had extracted false confessions from the prisoners.201Burton’s Diary, iv. 253, 257-61, 301-6; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 488-9; Bethell, A true and impartial narrative, sig. [A4v]. That Thurloe made a conspicuous attempt to defend the honesty of William Boteler*, the controversial former major-general for Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland, in the face of the attempts to bar Boteler from public office, is unlikely to have enhanced his popularity.202Burton’s Diary, iv. 407, 410. Yet, writing to Henry Cromwell on 29 March, Anthony Morgan declared that, ‘By all I can guess, by such as I converse with abroad, Mr Secretary is the man of the most absolute power’.203Henry Cromwell Corresp. 492. If so, that was not to last.

With Richard Cromwell’s decision on 21 April 1659 to bow to the army’s demand that Parliament be dissolved, Thurloe’s authority began to ebb away. It could even be argued that at this stage he, rather than his master, was the army’s principal target. He knew something of what was afoot, but only something.204Add. 22919, f. 96. The end of the protectorate and the recall of the Rump sealed his fate. On informing Lockhart on 5 May of these events, he claimed, ‘I am in such confusion that I can scarce write about it’; four days later he told him ‘I write to you as a private person’ and that he had ‘no relation to public affairs’.205CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 340, 342-3. Thurloe had come to symbolise the old regime, which was why he had been removed, and the only political importance he retained was because there remained a possibility that he might be reinstated to office as just such a symbol.

It was not entirely true that he had abandoned all his public offices, for he remained postmaster general, but he soon came to see that as a burden which exceeded its lucrative income. It was with some reluctance that he agreed to continue operating the service until 25 December 1659.206A. and O.; TSP vii. 807. There was still a danger that some of his enemies might try to discredit him. Thus, in early 1660 he faced questions from the Commons’ committee for the inspection of the treasuries about the payments to him for intelligence. The patent of 12 December 1659 granting him £2,999 for this purpose was cancelled by order of the Commons on 2 February 1660.207TSP vii. 807; CJ vii. 832a, 833a. Given more time, this investigation might have dug deeper into the profits Thurloe was reputed to have accrued from his various offices.208Aylmer, State’s Servants, 165-7.

In fact, within weeks it was Thurloe who was back in power. The arrival of Monck, the readmission of the secluded Members and the appointment of a new council of state changed everything once again and on 27 February 1660 this new council recommended that John Thompson* and Thurloe be appointed secretaries of state. This may well have reflected the influence of Monck himself, given that he and Thurloe had worked closely together during Thurloe’s previous period in office. Significantly, the Commons immediately agreed to Thompson’s nomination, but divided over Thurloe’s. The subsequent vote (65 for, 34 against) made it clear that there were still some who distrusted him.209CJ vii. 855a. Some who supported Thurloe’s appointment may have done so because he was indelibly associated with the Cromwells, but, even as he resumed this office, Thurloe must have realised that he could be no more than an interim appointment. This may indeed have been part of the reason why he agreed to return. As the man who was credited with having broken the royalist underground, there was no doubt that he was loathed by the royalist hardliners. The possibility that he would not be allowed to survive the Restoration was a very real one. Given this, Thurloe may well have calculated that his chances would be much improved if he was the incumbent secretary and, as the meeting of the Convention approached, he made his own overtures to the exiled court. These were naturally treated with great caution by Charles and Hyde, who had, in any case, already decided to spare everyone except the regicides.210TSP vii. 898. At this stage, Thurloe appears to have been associated with the Presbyterian group around Philip, 4th Baron Wharton.211G.F. Trevallyn Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix, 334, 336. It has to be supposed that he was one of those who still held out vain hopes for a conditional Restoration. However, on 1 May he was able to write to Edward Montagu II giving a detached, dispassionate account of the presentation of the king’s Declaration of Breda to the two Houses.212NMM, SAN/A/1, f. 25. From that point onwards, all real power passed to the officials of the exiled court.

Final years, 1660-8

This time his retirement was permanent. He withdrew with good grace and showed a willingness to assist the new regime in whatever way he could – the Convention (on the king’s advice) gave him permission to work with the new secretaries of state, he drafted a memorandum briefing Hyde on diplomatic events since 1653, he handed over some of his official papers to Charles II and the privy council sub-committee on the American plantations sought his advice in September 1660 about the situation in Jamaica.213CJ viii. 77b; Bodl. Dep. F.9, f. 30v; TSP i. 759-61; vii. 915; Lttrs. of Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, ed. L.M. Baker (1953), 313-14; APC Col. 1613-80, p. 298. This proved to his advantage, as there were many who wanted him excluded from the Act of Indemnity and a clause to that effect was included in the version of the bill originally passed by the Commons. The removal of that provision was one of the Lords’ amendments to which the Commons subsequently agreed.214LJ xi. 120b; CJ viii. 117b. The king then granted him a pardon in November 1660, but only on condition that he never again held public office, which had probably been the main thrust of the deleted clause in the Act of Indemnity.215PSO5/8, unfol. From time to time, he came under suspicion, but his involvement in any real plots remains doubtful.216CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 207; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 144. The only evidence of illegal activity is his attendance in May 1667 at a nonconformist conventicle at which the Independent minister and chaplain to Cromwell, John Owen*, preached.217Whitelocke, Diary, 718. The reality of these final years was rather more prosaic. He is believed to have spent them living quietly in a house he leased at Great Milton in Oxfordshire (although it should be noted that his name does not appear in the 1665 hearth tax returns for the village).218VCH Oxon. vii. 119; Hearth Tax Returns, Oxfordshire, 1665, ed. M.M.B. Weinstock (Oxfordshire Rec. Soc. xxi), 49-51. In December 1667 he was considering whether to buy Whitelocke’s Buckinghamshire estate, Greenlands, but, on deciding that this would be ‘too great for him’, he instead turned his attention to an estate close to Hungerford in Berkshire.219Whitelocke, Diary, 725. These negotiations were probably overtaken by other events.

In July 1667 Thurloe told Lord Wharton that his health was getting ‘worse and worse every day’ and that he intended to take the waters at Wellingborough in Northamptonshire.220Bodl. Rawl. letters 52, f. 292. Early the following year he was operated on for the removal of a gallstone. He referred to this operation on 14 February 1668 when he told Wharton, ‘I would not for anything have been without this late providence. I know the worst of death, and it is nothing for me to die’. A week later he suffered a seizure after dining at his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn with Philip Jones and died immediately.221Firth, ‘Secretary Thurloe’, 83; Smyth’s Obit. 77. The burial took place in the chapel of Lincoln’s Inn, no doubt in accordance with the instruction in his will that it should be inexpensive. In that will he had declared that he remained confident of ‘the covenant of grace he [God] hath established with me through Jesus Christ’, which, together with his remarks to Wharton, suggests that he continued to draw solace from his belief in God’s providence to the end. More than most testators, Thurloe showed a concern that his debts be paid and it may be that his finances had suffered since his fall from power, especially as so much had been invested in church lands.222PROB11/326/382.

Thurloe’s widow, Anne, was still alive in October 1689, when she was living at Astwood in Buckinghamshire, but by December 1690 she was dead.223PROB11/402/380. What wealth his husband had been able to bequeath to his children was not enough to establish a dynasty, even at a local level. The most notable of his descendants was his grandson, John Thurloe Brace, who sat for Bedford as a whig in the 1715, 1722 and 1727 Parliaments. He acquired by marriage lands at Brompton in Kensington, which gave rise to the spurious tradition, commemorated in the street name of Cromwell Road, that those lands had been a gift to Thurloe from Cromwell.224D. Stroud, The Thurloe Estate (1959), 5-8.