WOOD, Robert I (1601-80), of Bracon Ash, Norf.

It took the Wood family four generations to make the transition from provincial merchants to country gentlemen. The MP’s great-grandfather, Edmund Wood, a successful Norwich grocer, was serving as mayor of his home town at the time of his death in 1548. His son Robert in turn rose to become mayor of Norwich and in 1578, during his second term in office, he presided over the visit by Queen Elizabeth to the town, thereby gaining the customary knighthood.20Vis. Norf. 1664, ii. 242; Cozens-Hardy, Kent, Mayors of Norwich, 53, 59-60. Sir Robert’s eldest surviving son, Robert (the MP’s father), then, in two stages, acquired most of the family’s estates. The manor of Tharston, about eight miles to the south of Norwich, came to him through his wife when she inherited it from her father, John Wolmer, and this alone seems to have been a considerable bequest.21Blomefield, Norf. v. 306. Although he was no doubt exaggerating, a local official in 1621, on including Robert Wood senior on his list of ‘miserable usurers’ who were refusing to contribute to the benevolence requested by the king, estimated the sale value of the Wood estates at £100,000.22‘Assessment of the hundred of Forehoe, Norf. in 1621’ ed. W. Hudson, Norf. Arch. xxi. 302. Shortly before his death, Wood senior added to his land holding by purchasing the nearby manor of Bracon Ash. The house there then became the seat of his eldest son.23Blomefield, Norf. v. 84.

Robert junior had only recently come of age when his father died in May 1623.24‘Funeral certificates’, 178. Soon afterwards he married a daughter of Sir Thomas Richardson†, the prominent lawyer who had been Speaker in the 1621 Parliament and who went on to become lord chief justice of common pleas and later of king’s bench. In his will Richardson appointed Wood as one of his executors (the others included Thomas Bedingfield*), although, after Sir Thomas’s death in 1635, the executors quickly devolved their responsibilities on to Richardson’s son.25PROB11/167/415; Diary of Sir Richard Hutton 1614-1639 ed. W.R. Prest (Selden Soc. ix), 104; Knyvett Lttrs. 87.

By the time the civil war broke out in 1642 Wood was serving on all the major local commissions in Norfolk, including the commission of the peace and the assessment commissions. Even more importantly, as a deputy lieutenant of the county militia he had a military role from the outset, as a key supporter of Parliament.26Bodl. Tanner 64, f. 99. When his military duties allowed, he was probably active in raising money and men for the parliamentarian cause and in early 1643 he helped set up the Eastern Association to co-ordinate Norfolk’s effort with those of the neighbouring counties.27Suff. ed. Everitt, 40, 52; A. and O.; HMC Var. ii. 263; HMC Laing, i. 218. In January 1645 he attended the meeting of the association at Bury St Edmunds which opposed the concept of the New Model army.28Suff. ed. Everitt, 84. This did not undermine his support for Parliament, however. That summer, as a member of the county committee, he helped raise the loans to pay for cavalry to be sent from Norfolk to Lincolnshire.29Add. 27447, f. 288. In the spring of 1648, at a time when the anti-parliamentarian discontents were at their height in East Anglia, he remained active, collecting assessments and investigating the Norwich riots.30HMC Var. ii. 266; CJ v. 559b; LJ x. 261a.

Throughout the 1650s Wood proved to be a dependable supporter of the republic. Most notably, he served on the high court of justice which met at Norwich in December 1650 to try the leaders of the most recent East Anglian rebellion. The Rump only dared appoint those local men whom they could trust absolutely to perform this task.31A. and O. He was also routinely included on all local commissions throughout this decade.32A. and O. The records of the Norfolk quarter sessions, which survive from the 1650s, show that, as one of the more regular attenders, Wood was kept busy with the mundane minutiae of county business. Bridge maintenance and the repairs to Norwich Castle were among the more pressing matters which required his attention.33Norf. QSOB 19, 21-2, 26, 28, 30, 33, 36-8, 42, 44, 46, 49, 53-4, 56-8, 60-1, 63, 66, 69, 75-6, 78, 81, 83, 86, 88; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 193.

One result of Wood’s high profile involvement in county business was his election to the 1654 Parliament, although the ranking of the return (Wood was placed eighth) was probably intended to indicate that he was not quite the equal of men like Sir John Hobart, 3rd bt.* or Sir William Doyley*.34R. Temple, ‘A 1654 protectorate parliamentary election return’, Cromwelliana, ser. II, iii. 58. On arriving at Westminster he may have been among the group of Norfolk MPs who, according to Guybon Goddard, the MP for King’s Lynn, only subscribed to the Recognition forswearing any alteration to the constitution after dining together to co-ordinate their responses.35Burton’s Diary, i. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. Thereafter he played little visible part in this session’s proceedings. He was appointed to a number of committees, of which the most important was probably that to consider the status of all the legislation passed by the Nominated Parliament.36CJ vii. 375b. He may have been one of those MPs lobbied by the civil lawyers in connection with their petition for the continued use of civil law.37Bodl. Tanner 51, f. 10.

Wood was lucky to secure his seat in the next Parliament. The prevailing mood at the Norfolk poll in 1656 was one of hostility to the major-generals and, in particular, to Hezekiah Haynes*, the loyal deputy to the local major-general, Charles Fleetwood*. This made things difficult for Wood, for, in the minds of the electorate, he seems to have been closely associated with Haynes, perhaps because he had assisted in the collection of the decimation tax earlier that year.38CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 201; TSP iv. 705. Haynes himself recognised that the success of Fleetwood and Wood in the Norfolk poll were the only exceptions to his view that the result was ‘as bad as it could well have been made’.39TSP v. 328. As it was, these two candidates only just scraped home, gaining the last two available places. Fewer than 100 votes separated the 1,692 votes cast for Wood and the losing candidate in eleventh place.40Norf. RO, MS 197, unfol.; Norf. Arch. i. 67. Explanations for this poor showing differed. Haynes reported to the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, that Fleetwood and Wood had succeeded despite the absence of ‘any considerable assistance given [by] the honest party in their choice’, an interpretation challenged by one of his army officers who thought that they were successful only by the ‘extraordinary engagements’ of their outnumbered supporters. What they agreed on was that both these candidates had been hampered by their close associations with the authorities.41TSP v. 328, 370. Unlike the fate which befell six of the other successful Norfolk candidates, there can never have been any doubt in Wood’s case that he would be allowed to take his seat at Westminster.

Wood’s known involvement in this Parliament consisted mainly of nomination to committees on a wide-range of routine local matters. It was probably mere chance that in the early months of the session these mostly concerned bills proposing new economic regulations. In at least one case, that to control the production of Norfolk stuffs, some of his constituents had an immediate interest in the proposal.42CJ vii. 430a, 435b, 436b, 449b, 549a. A bout of ill health in late December 1656 occasioned no more than a temporary absence from the Commons and he seems to have resumed his place within a matter of weeks.43Burton’s Diary, i. 285; CJ vii. 483a. On the kingship question, which became the major issue dominating much of this session, little can be drawn from Wood’s nomination to two committees on the Humble Petition and Advice.44CJ vii. 521b, 535a. But Wood was listed among those who voted in favour including the offer of the crown to Oliver Cromwell* under the new constitution.45A Narrative of the late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5).

Caution should be exercised in drawing conclusions from the several committees on religious questions on which Wood may have sat, for these typically concerned local bills for the maintenance of ministers or the redrawing of boundaries in particular parishes.46CJ vii. 453b, 485b, 488b, 588a. A more substantial clue to his religious views, however, is the small role he played in the passage of the bill to encourage catechising. On 20 May 1657 he and Samuel Bedford* acted as the tellers for those who wanted a vote on the proposal that members of Congregationalist churches should be allowed to have friends with them when being catechised by their local minister. As those on the opposing side no doubt wanted to bury this proposal, it is likely that Wood was siding with those who favoured it. This at the very least suggests that Wood was sympathetic towards Congregationalist fears that ministers would abuse the powers granted to them in this bill.47CJ vii. 535b-536a.

On a more personal level, in May 1657 Wood used his position as an MP to block a legal action brought against him. Such cases were a well-established breach of privilege and so he had little difficulty convincing the Commons that his opponents, Thomas Denman and William Stanton, ought to be sent to prison.48CJ vii. 531b, 534a. During the short second session of this Parliament in early 1658, Wood was named to just two committees.49CJ vii. 588a, 589a.

Wood left it too late before accepting that the commonwealth was doomed, and as a result was removed in 1660 from all his local offices. Even as he was being included in the March militia commission, he was being dropped from the commission of the peace.50A. and O. Within days of the king’s return, he took the precaution of accepting a royal pardon for any misdemeanours he might have committed during the previous two decades.51CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 41. This, however, was not enough. Until his death 20 years later it would appear that he was blacklisted as someone who could not be trusted. What little evidence there is about these final years of his life suggests that he accepted this fate quietly.52Norf. Lieut. Jnl. 144. He did not even, as might have been expected, apply for a licence to establish a nonconformist meeting house at Bracon Ash in 1672. He died on the final day of 1680 and was buried in the church at Bracon Ash, next to his wife who had died quarter of a century before.53Blomefield, Norf. v. 84-5. His estates passed to his descendants. He was the only member of this family ever to sit in Parliament.