CEELY, Peter (b. 1618), of St Ives, Cornw.

During the sixteenth century the main branch of the Ceely family moved gradually west, from Somerset to Plymouth, and finally settled in St Ives in Cornwall.23Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 82. Peter Ceely, the third son of William Ceely of St Ives, may have been destined for a mercantile career, and in 1638, at the age of 20, he was married to the daughter of another burgess of the town, Thomas Purefoy; in later years he owned ships with his father-in-law.24Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 82; Parochial Hist. Cornw. ii. 268. The Ceelys sided with Parliament during the first civil war, and the lands of William Ceely were sequestrated.25Cornw. RO, B/35/26. In the early stages of the war Peter Ceely (by his later account) was imprisoned by the royalists for seven months, and had £300 taken by the king’s men.26CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 308. By August 1643 Ceely appears to have joined his brother, Colonel Thomas Ceeley*, who was governor of the garrison at Lyme Regis, as in the same month the Commons ordered that the brothers should be appointed, respectively, collector and surveyor of the customs in the town.27CJ iii. 213a. In July 1645, when the clubmen attacked Lyme, it was reported that they were repulsed after a skirmish, ‘the governor’s brother (Major Ceely, a stout man) hardly escaping’.28Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, 64. Shortly afterwards, according to a later petition, he was governor (with the rank of major) of the garrison at Poltimore, which formed part of the blockade of Exeter in the winter of 1645-6.29CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 308. Ceely may have been demobilised after the New Model recaptured Cornwall in the spring of 1646, and by December he was serving as a sub-commissioner for excise in the western division of the county.30E113/5, unfol. In May 1648, he joined another local parliamentarian, John Seyntaubyn*, in an attempt to quell the royalist uprising at Penzance.31Coate, Cornw. 239. According to a published letter from Helston, Ceely and Seyntaubyn went to Marazion to parley with the rebel leaders, pretending to sympathise with their complaints, but Seyntaubyn ‘in the meantime had sent eastward’, with an urgent request for troops to move against the royalists.32A Letter from the Isle of Wight (1648), 3 (E.445.28).

During the interregnum, Ceely became more prominent in Cornwall. In February 1650 he was commissioned as captain of militia foot in the county and appointed as the local sequestrator; and in November of the same year he was named to the assessment commission.33CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 521; CCC 177; A. and O. Other appointments followed. He was made sequestrations commissioner in October 1652; added to the commission of the peace ‘according to a new model’ in September 1653; named to the commission for poor prisoners in October 1653; and made commissioner against scandalous ministers in August 1654.34CCC 614; C231/6, p. 266; A. and O. By January 1656 Ceely had also been appointed as a commissioner for securing the peace of the commonwealth, under the local major-general, John Disbrowe*.35TSP iv. 451. None of these was a paper appointment: Ceely was one of the most active of Cornish administrators. He worked as an assessment commissioner alongside the likes of Robert Bennett*, John Seyntaubyn and Richard Lobb* in the early 1650s.36E113/5, unfol. As commissioner for securing the peace, he can be found corresponding with London about passes for royalists, organising the conduct of prisoners to the assizes, and administering the decimation tax.37Cornw. RO, B/WLO/188; Add. 34014, ff. 43, 50, 66v; Add. 19516, ff. 34v, 96; TSP iv. 497. As justice of the peace, he raised money for the relief of the Savoy Protestants from parishes in western Cornwall in 1656.38E113/5, unfol. As militia officer, Ceely moved quickly to muster his men to prevent any local royalists from rising in support of Penruddock’s rebellion in 1655; he received regular pay during the rule of the major generals in 1655-6 and in later years was involved in coastal defence, as in November 1657 when he informed the admiralty of a pirate off the Cornish coast, or in September 1658 when he assisted Colonel Anthony Rous* in the seizure of masts and equipment from prize ships.39SP46/98, ff. 1, 16-17, 22; CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 308; 1657-8, p. 454; 1658-9, p. 455. When Disbrowe commented to John Thurloe* in 1656 that ‘the gentlemen of this county are very cordial’, and mentioned a ‘Colonel Ceely’, he was probably referring to Peter not Thomas, but the mistaken promotion was apposite.40TSP iv. 462. Ceely was well aware of his value to the government, and he sought to use it to secure payment of arrears in May 1656. After recounting his service during the civil wars, he pointed out that he had shown ‘good affection’ through his work as an assessment commissioner, justice of the peace and commissioner for scandalous ministers.41CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 308. His plea seems to have had some effect, for in the same month he was allowed £1,000 from the profits of any concealed royalist estates he might ‘discover’.42CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 377. In August 1656 he submitted a further petition for other losses incurred by him, and was granted an additional £1,000 from concealed lands.43CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 85-6.

During the protectorate, Ceely acquired a reputation as a persecutor of the Quakers. His most famous victim was George Fox, who was arrested by Ceely on a visit to St Ives in November 1655.44Recs. Quakers Cornw. 1-2. Fox said that he had at first escaped notice, but publicly reproved Ceely for the unfair treatment of his companions, telling him that ‘he should show forth gravity and sobriety and his authority, and keep the people civil, for I never saw any people ruder, for the Indians were more like Christians than they’. Such talk had inevitable consequences, and Ceely arrested Fox as well.45Jnl. of George Fox, i. 207-8. The three Quakers were taken to Ceely’s house, where the major ‘made sport of them, as if he had gotten a prey, and with reviling speeches abused them, and cursed’, taking their books and papers, and sending the accused to Launceston gaol to await trial.46G. Fox, The West Answering to the North (1657), 2-4 (E.900.3). The trial that followed nearly collapsed, thanks to Ceely’s determination to bring charges of sedition against the Quakers, claiming that Fox had privately invited him to join a royalist uprising. Fox pointed out that if that were true, Ceely was himself guilty of treason for concealing the fact until the trial. Ceely retorted with a further accusation, that Fox ‘struck me and gave me such a blow as I never had in my life’. Fox demanded witnesses, and Ceely called upon his fellow magistrate, William Braddon*. Braddon, unwilling to commit perjury, refused to confirm or deny the story, and the new charges were not pursued. According to Fox, Braddon and other justices of the peace visited the Quakers afterwards, ‘and they told us they did believe neither the judge nor any there did believe any of those charges that Major Ceely had charged against me’, and warned that Ceely had hoped that Fox might be executed, ‘if he could have got another witness’.47Jnl. of George Fox, i. 214-7. Fox and his companions were freed shortly afterwards.

Despite this humiliating reverse, Ceely did not give up. He refused to give the books and papers back to the Quakers, and when he met one of them, William Salt, in Guythian parish, he cajoled him into coming to the ‘meeting place’ – presumably the parish church – ‘saying that he might come and hear, and then judge’. Predictably, Salt used this as an opportunity to witness, ‘whereupon P. Ceely was offended, and his countenance fell, and became pale, and called for a constable to take him away’.48West Answering to the North, 126-8. A few days later, Ceely arrested another Quaker, Joseph Cole of Reading, and sent him with Salt to Launceston.49West Answering to the North, 133-6. In 1657 he also arrested one John Ellis ‘for not putting off his hat’ while in his presence, and he was also sent to Launceston gaol. Ellis, who lived near Marazion, became a constant irritation to Ceely, and was arrested at least twice thereafter, and ‘many false accusations’ were levelled against him.50Recs. Quakers Cornw. 3, 7, 9. Fox’s personal hatred of Ceely is palpable. He blamed him (‘with whom it begins, and with whom it ends’) for all the Quaker sufferings in Cornwall, and described him as a man ‘whose iniquity hath no end, whose rage hath no bound, whose cruelty is without mercy, and whose inhumanity is without natural affection’.51West Answering to the North, 131. Without an objective account of Ceely’s actions, it is hard to decide whether Fox’s diatribe was justified. Nor is it certain why Ceely had reacted so strongly to the arrival of the Quakers. His invitation to Salt to attend a church service suggests that religion was his primary concern. Fox’s description of that service, which was led by ‘the priest, one Tregose, a youth, one of P. Ceely’s sister’s sons (as is said)’, and the fact that it consisted of ‘reading his notes, papers, and other services’, suggests that this was a Presbyterian service, and this ties in with what we know of Peter Ceely’s brother, Thomas. It also accords with the violent reaction of other leading Cornish opponent of the Quakers, Thomas Gewen*.52West Answering to the North, 127; cf. Coate, Cornw. 342. As with Gewen, it is likely that Ceely was motivated by the threat to law and order as well as religion, and a secondary concern may have been to keep such disturbing elements away from his home town.

The townspeople had apparently shared Ceely’s hard line against the Quakers, and the publication of Fox’s vituperative attack would have done nothing to diminish Ceely’s popularity in the town. There is no doubt of Ceely’s standing in St Ives during the 1650s. He continued to be involved in the trade of the town, and appears to have owned several ships. In November 1652 he was granted the right to equip one of his vessels as a privateer, and in 1656 he claimed that he had lost £1,500 to pirates in the previous ten years – a statement corroborated by the mayor of St Ives, who said Ceely had had a share in six captured vessels.53CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 577; 1655-6, p. 308; 1656-7, p. 85. During 1654 and 1655 he made frequent visits to London, and acted as an agent for some of the St Ives merchants, receiving money and paying bills.54CSP Dom. 1654, p. 413; 1655, pp. 21, 49, 140, 163. His return for St Ives during the elections for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament was no doubt a reflection of his position in the borough. There is, however, no evidence that he attended Parliament.

With the collapse of the protectorate, Ceely managed to retain his local position. In May 1659, when the new council of state warned of a royalist invasion, Ceely was still serving in the Cornish militia, and in June he was receiving pay for his unit despite earlier orders that he and his men were to be discharged.55CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 360, 365-6, 587-8. Indeed, he was acceptable to such supporters of the commonwealth as Richard Lobb, who in August told Robert Bennett that he thought Ceely should be continued in his command.56FSL, X.d.483 (127). It is doubtful that Ceely was ever an enthusiastic supporter of the new regime, however, and when the army staged a coup in October, he soon sided with the moderate Presbyterians. In December 1659 Ceely was one of the Cornish gentlemen who met at Truro to declare their support for a ‘free Parliament’ and their opposition to the army.57Publick Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660), 998 (E.773.41). In January 1660 he was named to the assessment commission, and in March he was appointed to the militia commission.58A. and O.

After the Restoration, Ceely refused to make his peace with the new regime. He is not listed among the inhabitants of St Ives who paid the ‘free and voluntary present’ to Charles II in 1661, and this may have been intended as a political statement.59Cornw. Hearth Tax, 257. In return, the government investigated his activities during the interregnum, especially his involvement in the receipt of public funds, and in 1666 it was reported that Ceely had been arrested on suspicion of ‘fanaticism’, and then refused to give security for his release.60E113/5, unfol.; E351/1298; CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 222. The years after 1660 were also beset by legal and financial difficulties. From September 1660 he was pursued through the courts by Walter Langdon of Keverell, who disputed his claim (through his second wife) to lands in St Erth parish; and between 1666 and 1668 he was forced to sell off lands.61C10/59/101; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 285; 1661-2, p. 544; Cornw. RO, G/1471/1; G/107. Ceely had three sons but apparently left no will.62Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 82. Nothing is known of the later history of the family.