STRICKLAND, Walter (1600-71), of Rhiwperra, Glam., and Flamborough, Yorks.

Background and early career

Like his elder brother William, Strickland was a student at Queens’ College Cambridge, where the renowned puritan teacher John Preston was a fellow.45Cliffe, Yorks. 267. Very little is known of his activities or whereabouts between his admission to Queens’ in 1619 and his appointment as the Long Parliament’s envoy to the United Provinces in August 1642; and to this extent Sir Edward Hyde* (the future earl of Clarendon) is justified in referring to him as ‘an obscure gentleman’.46Clarendon, Hist. ii. 413. How Strickland had acquired the familiarity with Dutch affairs that would have rendered him suitable for this important office is the most perplexing aspect of his career. If he had married Anne Morgan by 1642 it would render his appointment more explicable. His wife was not only a Glamorgan and Monmouthshire heiress, but was also the daughter of a colonel in the British Protestant forces serving in the Low Countries.47‘Sir Charles Morgan’, Oxford DNB. However, it is far from clear that he had married by 1642. Indeed, it seems more likely that he met his future wife – who was half-Dutch and probably living in the Low Countries at the time of their marriage (she was not naturalised as English until 1651) – as a consequence of his employment at The Hague.48Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib Pprs. 25/7/1A; Clark, Limbus Patrum, 319, 327; Clarendon, Hist. v. 3; CJ vi. 535b. According to a London newsbook, he had ‘lived in Italy, France and so many states as if providence had been educating the gentleman for this very negotiation [as Parliament’s envoy to the United Provinces]’.49Mercurius Britanicus no. 28 (18-25 Mar. 1644), 216 (E.39.5). But in what capacity he had resided in these various states is a mystery. One possibility is that he was a tutor or travelling-companion to English gentlemen making the grand tour, for in about 1640-1, Viscount Mandeville – Edward Montagu†, future 2nd earl of Manchester and commander of the Eastern Association army – sent him to France to report on the progress of two young lords, presumably Mandeville’s kinsmen. Writing to Mandeville from Orléans, Strickland referred to his duty to the viscount as a ‘faithful servant’ and thanked him for ‘the favours you have done me yourself and by my Lord [the future royalist grandee William Seymour†, 2nd earl of Hertford] and Lady Hertford, who have looked upon me through your lordship’s deserts to them’.50Hunts. RO, Acc. 2091, no. 489; HMC 8th Rep. ii. 58. Strickland’s patrons among the English nobility may also have included the lord chamberlain – and future parliamentarian grandee – Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, whose family’s ancestral heartland lay in Glamorgan.51Infra, ‘Philip Herbert, 4th earl of Pembroke’; A Narration of the Siege and Taking of the Town of Leicester (1645), 5 (E.289.6).

Envoy to the United Provinces, 1642-5

Strickland was appointed parliamentary envoy to the United Provinces in immediate response to efforts by the queen and her instruments in the Low Countries to procure men and arms for the king.52CJ ii. 729b; LJ v. 316a-317a, 372a-b. Once at The Hague, however, his role quickly expanded to include the managing of all Parliament’s dealings with the Dutch.53CJ ii. 799a, 873a, 887b, 889a; iii. 100a; LJ v. 392a-b, 490b. The importance of his mission is highlighted by the fact that he reported directly to John Pym* and Parliament’s first war-time executive the Committee of Safety* and was given a salary in 1645 of £400 a year, back-dated.54CJ ii. 729b, 873a, 882b, 884b, 962b, 33b-34a; iii. 99b, 140b, 141b; iv. 225b; LJ v. 372a; Add. 18777, f. 23; HMC Portland, i. 117. It was through Strickland that the parliamentary leadership tried to persuade the Dutch that it was fighting a war of religion against a ‘jesuitical faction’ that threatened both states.55CJ ii. 882b, 884b; LJ v. 316a-317a, 485b, 486a-b; vi. 188b-190a; SP84/157, f. 154. This reading of the civil war accorded closely with Strickland’s own, in which ‘the chief concernment’ in taking up arms against the king was the triumph of ‘reformation’ over ‘episcopal innovations’.56Add. 72435, ff. 33v, 86. A strong party in Holland (the most powerful of the Dutch maritime provinces) was willing to listen to Parliament’s overtures for ‘a stricter and more useful union’ between England and the Dutch republic.57LJ v. 372a-b; HMC Portland, i. 113; Mems. of the Great Civil War ed. Cary, i. 167. But although the States of Holland received Strickland officially and the Prince of Orange granted him audience early in 1643, the States General, anxious to steer a neutral course between king and Parliament, would not admit him to their plenary meetings, but only to a smaller committee and as a private person.58Add. 72435, ff. 31v, 90; SP84/158, f. 7; Beinecke Lib. Osborn Shelves fb 94, no. 23; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, i. 31; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 159; S. Groenveld, ‘The English civil wars as a cause of the first Anglo-Dutch war’, HJ xxx. 544-5; ‘The house of Orange and the house of Stuart’, HJ xxxiv. 960-1.

Frustrated by his reception in the republic, or lack of it, Strickland requested leave to return to England late in 1642: ‘If I can do nothing else, I can add one sword more to those that wait on the lord general [Parliament’s commander-in-chief, the earl of Essex]’ – a comment that suggests he may have acquired some military experience during his time on the continent.59Beinecke Lib. Osborn Shelves fb 94, no. 23. But he soldiered on in Holland, and by early 1644 his work at The Hague was being lauded in the parliamentarian press

He is one that is eminent both in parts and language and faithfulness and religion; and he is not only agent, but active. He hath prevented and crushed many an expedition and confederacy in the shell ... this gentleman hath diverted many a tonne of powder, many a petard and granado, and hath raised up many a contrary wind in Holland and stayed the ships in their havens. And though a strong gale blew from the States General, yet there would come a contrary blast from the States Provincial; and this was raised by Master Strickland.60Mercurius Britanicus no. 28 (18-25 Mar. 1644), 216 (E.39.4).

Not all parliamentarians were so appreciative of his services, however. When Strickland wrote to the Commons later that year, reporting on Dutch disaffection to Parliament, the peace-minded MP Sir Simonds D’Ewes criticised his observations as

full of malice and detraction against the States General, so I exceedingly feared that though he were a man zealously enough affected to the Protestant religion, yet being unfit and unable to manage state affairs, he would raise a war between us and the Low Countries, for upon his letter many spake violently against the States General and their ambassadors here [who were attempting to broker an accommodation between king and Parliament].61Harl. 166, f. 100.

With the establishment of the Committee of Both Kingdoms* (CBK) in February 1644, Strickland was issued with a new set of instructions: ‘The chiefest care and labour you are to take in your employment (as you already do know) must be to rectify the sinistrous apprehensions and to remove all evil and prejudicial impressions some in those parts have conceived of our proceedings’.62LJ vi. 452b-454b. He was urged to focus his attention on the maritime provinces ‘whom you know either for neighbourhood sake to pity our calamities, or whom by your experience you have discovered to be tied unto us by the bond of love and affection by reason of the same religion with us’. He was ordered to report regularly to the CBK and to cooperate with the Covenanters’ envoy to the United Provinces, Thomas Cunningham.63LJ vi. 452b-454b; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 25. Much, although by no means all, of Strickland’s official correspondence has survived.64Add. 72435, ff. 13-108; Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 489; Tanner 58, f. 309; Tanner 62, f. 78; Nalson IV, f. 160; Beinecke Lib. Osborn Shelves fb 94, nos. 14-23; HMC 10th Rep. vi. 88-94; HMC Portland, i. 112-13, 253, 520; LJ vi. 619b-620b; viii. 15a-b, 205b, 241a-b; Mems. of the Great Civil War ed. Cary, i. 165-9, 226-8, 303-5, 309-12, 340-1; ii. 43-5, 104-9, 131-3, 155-9, 203-9; TSP i. 114-23, 126-8, 130-1. From that it is clear that as early as April 1643 he was an enthusiastic proponent of closer union between England and Scotland.65Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 78. He frequently referred to ‘the interest of the cause of the two kingdoms’ and was confident that Cunningham’s presence

will have a good influence upon my proceedings and mine upon his, for the good of both [kingdoms]; which are both at home and abroad so advantaged by a real and cordial union as no man can seek the good of one but he must do it by endeavouring the good of both.66Add. 72435, ff. 29v, 66v, 68v; Corresp. of the Scots Commrs. in London ed. H.W. Meikle (Edinburgh, 1917), 7, 16.

Moreover, he backed Scottish plans to forge an international Protestant defence league by extending the Solemn League and Covenant to the Dutch republic and Sweden.67Add. 72435, ff. 64, 66v, 79v; J.R. Young, ‘The Scottish Parliament and European diplomacy 1641-1647’, in Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648 ed. S. Murdoch (Leiden, 2001), 88-92. Even as a strong contingent (the Independent grandees) on the CBK were beginning to distance themselves from the Scottish project of a confederal settlement, he was adamant that ‘nothing hurts us in men’s opinion as the rumours of divisions and distastes between the two kingdoms; it is a certain maxim, divide et impera’.68Supra, ‘Committee of Both Kingdoms’; Add. 72435, f. 88. He supported the efforts of the reformers and ecumenists John Dury and Samuel Hartlib to interest the CBK in plans ‘to promote the public religion, justice and liberty of the three kingdoms amongst foreigners’ and ‘to propagate the sacred effect of the most Solemn and National Covenant’ abroad.69Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib Pprs. 3/2/34A, 49A, 59A, 84A, 87a; 7/22/1A-2B; 7/57A; 9/4/1A-B; 25/7/1A-4B; 46/9/40A. As late as November 1645, he clung optimistically to the view that ‘the interest of both [kingdoms] being the same, men will see the same desires in both’.70Add. 72435, f. 104. Yet as his later career reveals, he did not share the desire of many Scottish Covenanters and their English allies for a ‘rigid’ Presbyterian church that denied toleration to tender, Congregationalist, consciences. His admiration for some Scottish divines was not so fervent that it prohibited friendly relations with the noted Independent ministers Philip Nye and Hugh Peters.71Add. 72435, f. 66v; Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib Pprs. 3/1/16A; CJ vi. 487b, 491a; Worden, Rump Parl. 135.

Westminster and The Hague, 1646-50

Early in 1646, Strickland was elected in absentia as a ‘recruiter’ for the Somerset borough of Minehead. He was clearly a carpetbagger and probably owed his return to the Independent grandee and west country electoral power-broker Edmund Prideaux I*.72Supra, ‘Edmund Prideaux I’; Add. 4191, f. 42; D. Underdown, Somerset in the Civil War and Interregnum (Newton Abbot, 1973), 131. It is possible that the grandees believed that a seat in Parliament would strengthen Strickland’s diplomatic credentials with the Dutch. Strickland’s duties at The Hague inevitably prevented him from becoming too closely involved in affairs at Westminster. Nevertheless, his regular requests to return home ‘about his urgent and necessary affairs’ earned him at least four leaves of absence in England between October 1646 and September 1648, and during these months he was named to almost 20 committees, served as a messenger to the Lords twice and took the Covenant (24 Feb. 1647).73CJ iv. 680b, 701b, 710b, 712a; v. 3a, 84a, 97a, 279b, 321b, 327b, 329a, 336a, 346a, 347b, 348a, 351b, 360a, 365a, 494a, 643b, 646b, 648b, 650b, 664a; LJ x. 119a; ADM7/673, pp. 181, 371.

A number of Strickland’s appointments during the autumn of 1647 imply that he was broadly aligned with the Independent interest in the Commons. On 6 October, he was included on a committee to draft a parliamentary peace proposition for establishing Presbyterianism with toleration for tender consciences.74CJ v. 327b. Three days later (9 Oct.), he was named to a new committee for absent Members, which was probably conceived as a means of harrying those MPs who had withdrawn from the House in the aftermath of the abortive Presbyterian counter-revolution that summer.75CJ v. 329a. On 5 November, he was a committeeman to frame a clause in the propositions demanding the king’s assent to any laws that Parliament should tender him.76CJ v. 351b. The House also enlisted his services on committees concerning foreign affairs and the advancement of overseas trade.77CJ v. 352a; LJ ix. 517b. However, he was under more or less constant pressure from the CBK and, from early 1648, the Derby House Committee* to return to his post at The Hague.78CJ iv. 724b; v. 102a, 416b, 452b, 457a; iv. 105a; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 14. Even while he was in England, the Houses were keen to put his knowledge of maritime and Dutch affairs to active use – as in July 1648, when he was appointed a commissioner to accompany Parliament’s lord admiral, Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, on naval operations against the royalist fleet in the North Sea.79CJ v. 639a, 642a; LJ x. 397b-398a; Bodl. Tanner 57, ff. 215, 240. Presbyterian polemicists identified Strickland that summer among the Independents’ ‘Saturnine crew’ at Westminster.80A Letter from an Ejected Member of the House of Commons (1648), 24-5 (E.463.18).

Strickland had returned to Holland by mid-September 1648 and spent the next few months working with Isaac Dorislaus in a desperate attempt to prevent the States General concluding a treaty for ‘mutual trade and commerce’ with the Irish rebels.81CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 312, 320, 342; LJ x. 634a; Docs. rel. to the Civil War 1642-8 ed. J. R. Powell, E. K. Timings (Navy Rec. Soc. cv), 386, 387; Groenveld, ‘English civil wars’, 562; J. Adamson, ‘The frighted junto’, in The Regicides and the Execution of Charles I ed. J. Peacey (Basingstoke, 2001), 44. The emergence of this unlikely naval axis made his position in Holland increasingly difficult, and in mid-January 1649 he let his frustration show in a thinly veiled attack on Warwick for failing to curb royalist privateering.82Mems. of the Great Civil War ed. Cary, ii. 106-7. He offered no opinion in his letters as to the trial of the king – except to urge the Rump not to offend the Dutch ambassadors sent over to intercede for Charles.83Mems. of the Great Civil War ed. Cary, ii. 105-6, 108-9. However, he clearly welcomed the fact that Pride’s Purge and its aftermath cast the Rump and its servants in a more serious light abroad.

The more the Parliament acts like itself and makes the world to see they will carry on their work, the more they may expect to be owned abroad ... when they [foreigners] see you act like those that intend to do what they say, the more they value you. This is the observation of divers years spent in your service here.84Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 489v.

Four days before the regicide (26 Jan.), the Rump increased his salary from £400 to £600 a year and thanked him for his ‘faithful and extraordinary service’.85CJ vi. 123b. His anger at the fate of his friend Dorislaus – murdered in Holland by royalist ‘bravoes’ in May 1649 for his part in the regicide – and the fact that he had narrowly avoided assassination himself, may well have strengthened his allegiance to the Rump.86Mercurius Pragmaticus (For King Charls II) no. 4 (8-15 May 1649), 30 (E.555.14); Mems. of the Great Civil War ed. Cary, ii. 131-3. Although he made a brief appearance in the House in the summer of 1649, the Rump waived the requirement that he take the dissent to the 5 December 1648 vote that the king’s answers at Newport were a sufficient ground for a settlement.87CJ vi. 225a, 268a.

The Dutch republic’s refusal to recognise the commonwealth, and its willingness to receive the royalist resident in The Hague, put considerable strain on Anglo-Dutch relations.88Groenveld, ‘English civil wars’, 554. Yet the Rump continued to regard the republic as its most natural ally on the continent and, through Strickland, pressed for a ‘nearer union’ between the two nations. Once again, however, only the States of Holland proved in any way receptive to these overtures. In September 1649, Holland gave Strickland an audience and urged the other Dutch states to do likewise, but to no avail.89CJ vi. 295b, 296b, 315b-317a, 425a; TSP i. 114; Mercurius Pragmaticus (For King Charls II) no. 22 (11-18 Sept. 1649), sig. Y4v (E.574.1); HMC Portland, i. 520. For his part, Strickland advised the Rump to do all it could to gratify Holland as ‘a foundation to cut off forever all the hopes of your greatest enemies, who cannot in Europe find a means to recover’.90TSP i. 118, 119, 122, 127. In a further attempt to ‘cut off’ the Rump’s royalist opponents, he entered into covert discussions with some of the exiled Scottish Engagers in Holland.91Surrey History Centre, 1287/13, 29; TSP i. 130. The prospect of a ‘nearer conjunction’ between the two kingdoms was raised in these talks, and though Strickland admitted that he had once seen advantages in ‘our uniting with the Scots’, he was now doubtful that it would be of any profit to the commonwealth.92TSP i. 130. His hopes for the English republic’s survival rested on a ‘defensive and offensive’ alliance with Holland – and ideally the Dutch republic as a whole – and on the exploits of Oliver Cromwell*. By 1649, Strickland had conceived a great admiration for Cromwell and often praised his ‘sound qualities’: ‘‘Those that honour me [God] I will honour’ is seen in him’.93Hugyens English Jnl. ed. Bachrach, Collmer, 72; TSP i. 119, 131.

Career in the Rump, 1650-3

The States General’s continued refusal to receive Strickland prompted the Rump to recall him in July 1650 and to expel the Dutch ambassador the following October.94CSP Dom. 1650, p. 212; Groenveld, ‘English civil wars’, 554. On his return to Westminster, Strickland threw himself enthusiastically into his parliamentary duties. Between August 1650 and February 1651, he was named to 23 committees, including four of the Rump’s major executive agencies – the committee for excise, the Committee of Navy and Customs*, the Committee for the Army* and the committee for regulating the universities.95CJ vi. 455a, 456a, 458a, 459b, 463b, 467a, 469b, 481a, 484b, 487b, 488a, 499b, 502a, 507a, 512b, 515a, 516b, 517a, 520a, 522b, 526a, 533b. He was active on all four of these bodies.96Add. 22546, f. 219; Bodl. Rawl. C.386, unfol.; LPL, Sion L40.2/E16, passim; Belvoir, Original Letters, English Regicides of 1649, QZ.5, ff. 8, 45; Peterhouse, Camb. MS Misc. vol. 3, p. 20. As a member of the Army Committee, he signed several important warrants for the dispatch of considerable sums of money to Cromwell’s army in Scotland.97SP28/67, f. 627; SP28/72, f. 490; SP28/75, f. 238; SP28/77, f. 701; SP28/80, f. 182; SP28/81, ff. 281, 878; SP28/83, f. 483; SP28/86, f. 394; SP28/87, ff. 57-9. A high-powered committee set up on 25 October 1650 to ‘consider of the delays and unnecessary charges in proceedings in the law and to present one or more bills to the House for redress thereof’ was specially referred to Strickland and Henry Marten.98CJ vi. 488a. Strickland probably chaired, and certainly reported from, the 27 December committee to draw up the Rump’s protocols for receiving foreign ambassadors.99CJ vi. 516b, 517b. Similarly, he played a leading role in the Rump’s dealings with the Spanish ambassador over the winter of 1650-1.100CJ vi. 517a, 520a, 526a.

With the untimely death of the stadtholder William II late in 1650, Holland assumed de facto leadership of the Dutch republic, and within a few months all the Dutch provinces had officially recognised the commonwealth.101TSP i. 119, 121-5, 127-8, 130; Groenveld, ‘English civil wars’, 555. The Rump now had seemingly the perfect opportunity to forge an alliance with the Dutch, as Strickland informed Cromwell in January 1651

it will be our interest to be fast friends with them [the Dutch], theirs to be so with us; and that being, no foreign enemies could do you harm ... I am sure it is honourable to do our business and shut the door of the Scots king [Charles II] for all foreign troops, which I am assured by as good hands as any in those parts may now be done ... My lord, I have no ends but those of God and this commonwealth, which makes me desire to see those men you now have to do with [the Scots] shut out of all hopes.102Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 51.

Strickland’s support for a Dutch alliance, like Cromwell’s, was grounded on a desire to create a Protestant power bloc that would secure the commonwealth against its foreign and domestic enemies.103Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 280. Neutralising Dutch mercantile power was apparently of secondary importance to him, and he was apparently unmoved by the apocalypticism of some of the alliance’s more radical proponents.104J.E. Farnell, ‘The Navigation Act of 1651’, EcHR xvi. 443-52; S. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism (Camb. 1996), 18, 26-7, 33-5. In the debate over what course to pursue with the Dutch, his optimistic assessment of the influence wielded by his friends in Holland may partly account for the boldness of the Rump’s policy towards the republic.105Ludlow, Mems. i. 266; Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, 29. On 23 January 1651, the Rump appointed Strickland and Oliver St John* as ambassadors extraordinary to the States General and instructed them to seek a confederal union with the Dutch.106CJ vi. 527b; HMC Portland, i. 557-8, 561-3, 569; TSP i. 179. Shortly before he embarked for the Low Countries, he was elected to the third council of state and would attend 122 of its 249 meetings.107CJ vi. 533a; CSP Dom. 1651, p. xxxv. He was named to numerous conciliar committees, including that for the admiralty (of which he was an active member), and was regularly teamed with Sir Gilbert Pykeringe* – a man with whom he formed a close political and personal bond.108Add. 23113, f. 58v; Bodl. A.226, passim; CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 6, 66, 309, 389, 470, 472, 480, 505. In the event, St John’s and Strickland’s embassy was doomed almost before it began. While the English were eager for ‘confederation of the two commonwealths’ in order to counter the threat of a Stuart-Orangist alliance, the Dutch were focused on their economic interests.109TSP 179, 181-4, 187-95; Ludlow, Mems. i. 266-7; Clarendon, Hist. v. 251-2; Groenveld, ‘English civil wars’, 555-6; Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, 15-39. In June 1651, the Rump recalled its ambassadors, and a year later the two republics were at war.110CJ vi. 595b.

After finally resuming his seat at Westminster in the summer of 1651, Strickland emerged as one of the Rump’s most prominent members. Between July 1651 and April 1653, he was named to approximately 50 committees and served as teller in 18 divisions.111CJ vi. 598b, 605a, 43a-b; vii. 78b, 89b, 90a, 95a, 129b, 135a-b, 150b, 166b, 203b, 234b, 235a, 236b-237a, 245a. The majority of these tellerships reveal nothing substantial about his broader political alignment in the House or the identity of his closest collaborators. His most frequent opponents as teller were the politically disparate trio of Marten, Henry Mildmay and Sir William Masham. His three tellerships with Algernon Sydney on 26 November 1651 in favour of monthly rotation for chairmanships in the council of state and the House’s committees have been taken as evidence of his affinity with Sydney’s godly republican interest in the House.112CJ vi. 43a-b; J. Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English Republic 1623-77 (Camb. 1988), 99-100. But the grounds for linking him closely with the Sydney circle are largely circumstantial. Both men were prominent in the realm of foreign and diplomatic affairs under the Rump, both were active in 1652-3 on the council’s standing committees for trade and foreign affairs and for uniting Scotland and England as one commonwealth, and both were apparently on friendly terms with Sir Henry Vane II.113Infra, ‘Algernon Sydney’; SP25/132-3, 138; Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib Pprs. 61/9A; Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, 25; Scott, Algernon Sidney, 80, 82, 89, 95, 100-1. However, Strickland’s support for republican forms and ideals was almost certainly more de factoist in character than that of Sydney or Vane – he would have little difficulty negotiating the transition from commonwealth to protectorate in 1653-4 – and his brand of puritan ecumenism probably more open to an accommodation with Presbyterianism.114Infra, ‘Algernon Sidney’; ‘Sir Henry Vane II’. His involvement in the work of the committee for regulating the universities confirms that he shared his brother’s concern commitment to the cause of godly reformation. One of only three reports he is known to have made to the House from the council of state was taken up with proposals for appointing commissioners for ejecting scandalous ministers and installing godly incumbents in their place (4 July 1651).115CJ vi. 597a. But he was named to only two ad hoc committees in the Rump that related directly to settling a godly parish ministry.116CJ vi. 458a; vii. 12b.

Gauged solely on the basis of his appointments, he showed more interest in the sale and administration of royal and other forfeited property.117CJ vii. 46b, 104a, 112a, 115a, 191b, 222b, 245a-b. However, it is perhaps significant that he was a teller with Marten on 20 August 1652 against a draconian amendment to a bill for the sale of forfeited estates – particularly in light of his role that year in buying lands on behalf of their former owner, the royalist peer the marquess of Winchester.118C8/107/92; C8/139/17; C8/311/133; CCC 2533-4; TSP iv. 239. The only forfeited property that Strickland is known to have purchased for himself was a Yorkshire fee farm rent worth £18 a year; although in 1650 he took advantage of the royalist Sir Henry Griffith’s financial difficulties to acquire the manor of Flamborough.119SP28/288, f. 31; CJ vii. 198b.

Strickland’s Dutch embassy in 1651 was by no means the only initiative in which the commonwealth put his expertise in diplomatic and foreign affairs to use. Almost a fifth of his committee appointments in the Rump related to receiving foreign ambassadors.120CJ vi. 618b; vii. 45b, 54a, 64b, 86a, 99a, 130a, 141a, 233b, 262a, 270a. Likewise, several of his tellerships were in divisions that had foreign policy implications.121CJ vii. 89b, 90a, 234b, 236b-237a. In February 1652, for example, he was several times a teller against granting dispensations to the Navigation Act – a piece of legislation that helped to provoke war with the Dutch.122CJ vii. 89b, 90a. Yet he was still showing every courtesy to the Dutch ambassadors several weeks after the naval battle between the English and Dutch fleets in the Downs on 19 May 1652.123Hugyens English Jnl. ed. Bachrach, Collmer, 146. The likelihood is that he opposed, or at least regretted, war between the two republics – a fact that may well account for his election to the fifth council of state on 25 November 1652 (having failed to gain a place on the fourth council).124CJ vii. 220b, 221a. Certainly the staunchest advocates of war – the circle around Harbert Morley and Thomas Chaloner – did badly in these elections and, in some cases, lost their places. Strickland was one of the most active members of the fifth council, particularly in matters relating to trade and foreign affairs.125CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. xxxiii, 2, 9, 41, 62, 157, 175, 228; SP25/132, passim; SP25/133, passim.After the defeat of the English fleet off Dungeness, late in November, the Rump decided that naval administration needed a radical overhaul, and Strickland was named to the 9 December committee for putting the powers of the admiralty committee into commission – a measure that Sir Henry Vane II, Denis Bond and other less hawkish figures had been pressing for since 1651.126Infra, ‘Sir Henry Vane II’; CJ vii. 227b. It was possibly a desire to resolve the conflict with the Dutch that prompted Strickland to serve as teller with Bond on 24 December against a clause in the articles of war enjoining strict punishment for any who wronged the commonwealth’s allies on the high seas.127CJ vii. 234b. On this occasion, Algernon Sydney was one of the opposing tellers.

Cromwellian grandee, 1653-5

Strickland probably looked favourably on the army’s campaign in 1652-3 for seeking reconciliation with former royalists, satisfying the Rump’s poor creditors and for further legal reform.128CJ vii. 164b, 166b, 203b, 215a; M. Brod, ‘The uses of intelligence’, in Revolutionary England, c.1630-c.1660 ed. G. Southcombe, G. Tapsell (2017), 116, 117. By March 1653, he and his brother Sir William were being identified with the Cromwellian interest at Westminster.129C.H. Firth, ‘Cromwell and the expulsion of the Long Parliament in 1653’, EHR viii. 530. He evidently had few qualms about the army’s dissolution of the Rump, for three days later (23 Apr.) he and several other former Rumpers were busy in consultation with Cromwell and leading officers about what to put in its place.130Clarke Pprs. iii. 2. Then, on 29 April, he was appointed to an interim council of state consisting of 13 members, including Cromwell, Major-general John Lambert* and Pykeringe.131Clarke Pprs. iii. 4; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 106-7.

Given his influential position in the new administration, it was perhaps inevitable that on 7 May he became the first man selected by the council of officers to represent Yorkshire in the Nominated Parliament.132Clarke Pprs. iii. 5; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 117. Named to 18 committees in this Parliament, he reported from, and may well have chaired, three of them.133CJ vii. 281b, 282a, 282b, 283b, 285b, 286a, 287a, 287b, 295b, 312a, 320b, 322a, 323b, 326a, 326b, 328a, 334a, 339b, 340a. As a member of the 19 July committee to consider the vexed question of ‘the propriety of incumbents in tithes’, he almost certainly aligned with the ‘moderates’ – or those favouring a publicly maintained, national preaching ministry.134Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 240-1. The majority of his eight tellerships were in divisions of little significance in terms of wider factional rivalries in the House.135CJ vii. 289b, 292a, 292b, 317b, 325a, 332a, 334a, 335a; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 306. The exception was his tellership with Major-general Thomas Harrison on 15 October in favour of putting the question that proceedings in chancery be suspended for a month.136CJ vii. 335a. Chancery was regarded as a ‘great grievance’ by radicals such as Harrison, and on this particular issue, as perhaps on legal reform generally, Strickland may have shared their view.137[S. Hyland*], An Exact Relation of the Proceedings and Transactions of the Late Parliament (1654), 12 (E.729.6); Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 296. In both the first and second protectoral Parliaments he was to be named to committees for limiting and regulating chancery, and in debate he ‘grew a little angry’ that nothing had been done to ‘put us in a way to regulate not only the law, but the proceedings of the law’.138CJ vii. 374a, 428a, 528a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 36, 40. He retained his place on the council of state in both the July and November 1653 elections and received appointment to numerous conciliar committees on trade and foreign and diplomatic affairs.139CJ vii. 283a, 344a; CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. xli, 301, 333, 340, 342, 347, 349, 354, 387, 402, 420, 445; 1653-4, pp. xl, xxxv, 17, 39, 47, 51, 53, 90, 172, 209, 223, 237. He also figured prominently in the council’s treaty negotations with the Dutch and in managing its business in the House.140Staffs. RO, D593/P/8/2/2 (entry 22 Nov. 1653); CJ vii. 284b, 285a, 296b, 311a, 311b, 312b, 323a, 338a, 340b. On the day before John Lilburne’s trial (13 July), Strickland delivered a lengthy report from the council exposing the Leveller leader’s dealings with royalists abroad.141CJ vii. 283b; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 253. Indeed, to judge by his appointments he was closely involved in the council’s autumn offensive against the Levellers and other radical opponents of the emerging Cromwellian interest.142CJ vii. 294b, CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 22, 66, 114, 151, 200, 236. His nomination in November, with Cromwell, William Sydenham and Henry Lawrence, to a council ‘committee of secrecy’ to manage all secret intelligence should probably be seen in this context.143CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 236; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 314.

Strickland was reportedly involved in, and certainly profited from, the political manoeuvrings that led to the collapse of the Nominated Parliament in December 1653 and the establishment of the protectorate.144[G. Wharton], A Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (1659), 16 (E.977.3); A Faithfull Searching Home Word (1659), 18-19, 28 (E.774.1). In mid-December, he and Sir Gilbert Pykeringe were among the first group of men appointed to a new protectoral council of state – a 21 strong body whose members enjoyed their places for life.145Ludlow, Mems. i. 371; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 379. Edmund Ludlowe II* (Strickland’s kinsman by marriage) observed that ‘in the choice of this council, such were put in for the most part who had been principal instruments in the interruption of the late assembly [i.e. the Nominated Parliament] and leading men in the resignation of that power into the hands of Cromwell’.146Ludlow, Mems. i. 371. Strickland seems to have earned his £1,000 a year salary as a protectoral councillor.147TSP iii. 581. With the exception of the council president, Henry Lawrence, no member attended more of its meetings than Strickland.148CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. xl; 1654, p. xliv; 1655, p. xxviii; 1655-6, p. xxx; 1656-7, p. xxii; 1657-8, p. liv; 1658-9, pp. xxiii-xxiv. In fact, by 1657 his attendance record was outstripping that of Lawrence as well. His activities on the council were apparently many and varied. But if his conciliar appointments are any guide, his main briefs were diplomatic and foreign affairs and maritime trade. Strickland was a member of almost every protectoral commission to conclude treaties with foreign powers – beginning in March 1654, when he was one of the commissioners to negotiate a peace treaty with the Dutch.149Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 213, 278, 375, 429, 924, 925, 937; iv. 86, 208, 213, 646, 904, 911; TSP i. 643; ii. 154, 257, 290, 449; iii. 32, 749; iv. 17, 258, 588, 656, 733; v. 5, 537, 663; vii. 504, 513, 535, 547, 555; Whitelocke, Diary, 390, 419, 424-8, 434, 439, 444. His pro-Dutch sympathies (the Swedish ambassador referred to him as ‘a good Dutchman’) were probably a factor in his support in council for an alliance with France against Spain.150Swedish Diplomats at Cromwell’s Court, 1655-6 ed. M. Roberts (Cam. Soc. ser. 4, xxxvi), 127, 249; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 272; Gardiner, Hist. Commonwealth and Protectorate, iii. 119. His friend Sir Gilbert Pykeringe also backed a French alliance.151[Wharton], Second Narrative, 12; Gardiner, Hist. Commonwealth and Protectorate, iii. 119. Speaking purely as an Englishman, however, Strickland endorsed the view that the French were ‘the worst and meanest of men, if not much less then what becomes men, as men, to be’.152Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 51. Strickland, Pykeringe and Sir Oliver Fleming – the master of ceremonies at the Cromwellian court – were the key figures when it came to receiving and entertaining foreign ambassadors during the protectorate.153Swedish Diplomats ed. Roberts, 56, 62, 64, 71, 113, 116, 139, 211; Whitelocke, Diary, 411, 448. Strickland’s knowledge of aulic protocol, as well as his intimacy with the protector, were factors in securing him the captaincy of Cromwell’s household guard – in effect, his bodyguard – an appointment he may have owed to Lambert.154Supra, ‘John Lambert’; [Wharton], Second Narrative, 12; Sherwood, Ct. of Oliver Cromwell, 78, 80-1, 92. Except perhaps Fleming, no man played a larger role in managing the ceremonial side of Cromwell’s court than Strickland.155Sherwood, Ct. of Oliver Cromwell, 16, 18, 28, 30, 33, 42, 43, 91-2.

In the elections to the first protectoral Parliament summer of 1654, Strickland was returned for the newly-created constituency of the East Riding, taking the second of its four places, with his brother Sir William taking the first.156Supra, ‘Yorkshire’. Strickland owned relatively little property in the East Riding, and though he probably benefitted from his brother’s considerable proprietorial interest in the region, his own reputation as a leading figure in the Cromwellian establishment may well have been the decisive factor in his election. Surprisingly, he was named to just 11 committees in this Parliament – less than half the number of his brother – although these included the Scottish and Irish committees and several relating to the settlement of government.157CJ vii. 366b, 368a, 371b, 374a, 374b, 381a, 392b, 395a, 401a, 415b. All three of his tellerships in the first protectoral Parliament were in divisions relating to the bill for settlement of government and saw him paired with fellow Cromwellian councillors or courtiers – in most cases against opponents of the protectorate.158CJ vii. 367a, 398b, 414a. Nevertheless, his second tellership defies easy analysis. On 8 December 1654, in a division on the protector’s negative voice on legislation requiring sabbath attendance at churches or congregations, Strickland and the Cromwellian courtier John Maidstone were tellers against adding the words ‘approved of by the magistrate [according to law]’ to this clause in the bill for settling government.159CJ vii. 398b. The likeliest explanation for their opposition to this phrase is that they saw it as in some way limiting the protector’s power over religious policy. That Strickland approved of the Cromwellian settlement of religion is evident from his appointment to the East Riding commission for ejecting scandalous ministers and from his nomination to conciliar committees for remodelling such commissions and for affirming the protectoral policy on tithes.160A. and O. ii. 970; CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 16; 1657-8, p. 50; 1658-9, p. 93.

In the wake of Penruddock’s rising in 1655, Strickland was willing to overlook the precise letter of the law in order to prosecute the regime’s enemies.161TSP iii. 385. When it came to the protectorate’s republican enemies he was prepared to try persuasion, although if Ludlowe’s case is typical then without much success.162Ludlow, Mems. i. 432-3; ii. 13-14. There is little to indicate that he contributed much to establishing the rule of the major-generals in 1655. But he was included on several council committees for strengthening their authority and worked with Lambert and Pykeringe on at least one of them.163SP28/354, pt. 1, unfol. (cttee. report 9 Oct. 1654); CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 370, 395; 1655-6, pp. 200, 202. Strickland and Pykeringe were regarded as notable ‘favourers and abettors’ of the ‘army interest’ on the council (headed by Lambert) in 1655-7 and of its anti-Engager Presbyterian allies in Scotland.164Baker, Chronicle, 639; Little and Smith, Cromwellian Protectorate, 109, 113, 279; P. Little, Lord Broghill and the Cromwellian Union with Ireland and Scotland (Woodbridge, 2004), 126, 132, 133; C.S. Egloff, ‘The search for a Cromwellian settlement: exclusions from the second protectorate Parliament. Part 1’, PH xv. 193.

Strickland’s return for Newcastle to the second protectoral Parliament arose from the leading townsmen’s need for a patron to help them defend their monopoly on the River Tyne coal trade.165Supra, ‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne’. Strickland had been on friendly terms with the town fathers since at least March 1654, when he had presented an address from Newcastle corporation to the protector.166Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/2/2, Newcastle Common Council Order Bk. pp. 199, 201. In January 1656, the corporation had been informed that ‘Lord Strickland’ (as he was generally styled by this date – probably in recognition of his former ambassadorial rank, for he lacked any formal title) had declared his ‘affection to the good of the town’.167Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/2/2, p. 319. The corporation clearly needed a powerful spokesman at Whitehall and in the forthcoming Parliament, and the town’s principal friends and agents in London – Sir Thomas Widdrington*, John Rushworth* and Samuel Hartlib – had probably been united in recommending Strickland.

Parliamentary career, 1656-8

Strickland, like his brother Sir William, was one of the most active members of the second protectoral Parliament, receiving over 60 committee appointments and serving as teller in ten divisions.168CJ vii. 430b, 455b, 474a, 483a, 496b, 497b, 500b, 535a, 562a, 575a. His contributions to debate, although frequent, were usually brief and often related to questions of procedure.169Burton’s Diary, i. 35, 115, 118, 181, 219, 300, 320; ii. 71, 136, 139, 147, 218, 225. It was only in the debates in December over the crime and punishment of the Quaker evangelist and alleged blasphemer James Naylor that he became at all prolix. Although he agreed that Naylor was ‘exceeding scandalous, proud and sinful’, he insisted that the Quaker should not be condemned until he had received a fair hearing.170Burton’s Diary, i. 28, 38, 56. Having evidently listened carefully to Naylor’s words and examined his offence, he came to an unusually subtle understanding of his mind and motives

I do not believe (by what I have heard) that he did say he was Jesus or Christ ... He does not blaspheme God. He says he honours God wherever he finds him. He [neither] curses nor reviles at God ... He has no evil spirit or malice in him against God; but he is under a sad delusion of the devil ... He believes that more of Christ is in him than in any other creature; but he showed no malice to Christ, or envy.171Burton’s Diary, i. 56.

He accepted the House’s vote that Naylor was guilty of blasphemy, but clearly preferred that he be charged with ‘taking adoration’ rather than blasphemy, which he continued to equate with cursing God.172Burton’s Diary, i. 87. As to Naylor’s punishment, he voiced Cromwell’s wishes in asking the House not to resort to the death penalty: ‘Restrain him, rather, to some country or place; banish him … It is against the Instrument of Government to proceed to further punishment upon this business’.173Burton’s Diary, i. 88, 164. Whenever the subject of Naylor resurfaced in the following months, Strickland sided with those urging leniency. On 23 December, he was a majority teller in favour of hearing a petition from divers ‘well-affected’ Londoners, requesting the House ‘to remit the remainder of punishment to be inflicted upon James Naylor and leave him to gospel remedies as the proper way to reclaim him’.174CJ vii. 474a; Burton’s Diary, i. 215, 216, 217. On 24 February 1657, he was a majority teller in favour of hearing an account of Naylor’s condition in prison.175CJ vii. 497b. Strickland and Pykeringe moved on 26 May that Naylor be provided with a keeper: ‘If you care not for him, so as to let him have a keeper, he will die in your hands’.176Burton’s Diary, i. 194-5, 215; ii. 131. On the subject of the Quaker threat generally, Strickland again took a subtle approach, highlighting the perils of a law against the Quakers by name

We may all, in after ages, be called Quakers. It is a word nobody understands ... But we all know how the edge of former laws against papists has been turned upon the best Protestants, the truest professors of religion, the honest puritan, as they called him – a good profession, but hard to understand, as this word Quaker will be in after ages.177Burton’s Diary, i. 173.

A charitable interpretation of the Quaker notion of Christ within, which one authority has attributed to Strickland, was in fact uttered by William Sydenham.178Burton’s Diary, i. 69; ‘Walter Strickland’, Oxford DNB.

Strickland’s evident unwillingness to attach a particular name or denominational label to ‘the honest puritan’ is also clear from his choice of ministers to preach to the House. Not only did he favour orthodox Independent divines, notably Joseph Caryl and John Owen*, but also the Scottish Presbyterian minister and leading figure among the ‘Protestors’ (the hardline anti-Engager faction in the Kirk), Patrick Gillespie.179CJ vii. 542a; Burton’s Diary, i. 359, 360; ii. 97, 144, 146; CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 62, 110. Settling a godly preaching ministry remained one of his priorities – and he received several parliamentary appointments to this end – but not at the expense of the sometimes fragile accommodation between Presbyterian and Independent congregations in the provinces.180CJ vii. 453b, 562b, 569a. Thus in December 1656 he presented a letter to the protector from the Newcastle corporation denouncing certain Presbyterian ministers in the region for endeavouring to ‘stir up the people to join with them in their addresses to his Highness and Parliament for the setting up of church discipline’.181Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 362; Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/1/1, Newcastle Common Council Order Bk. for Sealing Docs., p. 117. A campaign of this kind threatened the religious settlement not just in Newcastle but throughout the country and provoked one of Cromwell’s most heart-felt discourses on the blessings of unity and mutual toleration among God’s people.182Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 360-2. Strickland was somewhat less effective in addressing the corporation’s concerns over commercial matters. He made only a handful of speeches on mercantile issues, and when debate in the House turned, on 23 June 1657, to the Newcastle coal trade, he argued at cross-purposes to another of the town’s friends, Thomas Lilburne.183Burton’s Diary, i. 180, 326; ii. 156, 172, 173.

Strickland and Pykeringe were unusual among the ‘civilians’ on the protectoral council in supporting the militia bill that was presented to the Commons by Major-general John Disbrowe* on 25 December 1656.184TSP iv. 367; Burton’s Diary, i. 233, 239. The bill proposed making the decimation tax permanent; and unless it passed the House the rule of the major-generals could not continue. The esteem in which Strickland held certain individual royalists did not extend to the cavalier interest as a whole, as he made clear in a speech on Christmas Day 1656.185CJ vii. 562a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 80, 102.

You have a civil quarrel with the cavaliers, and the question is, whether you will maintain it out of your own purses or your enemies’. I am sure they are the sole occasion, both of your foreign and intestine broils, and it is but reasonable they should bear the burthen. They are very irreconcilable.186Burton’s Diary, i. 239.

In a House dominated by the opponents of the major-generals, Strickland and Pykeringe were minority tellers on 28 January 1657 against resuming debate on the militia bill – obviously fearing that it would be cast out, as indeed it was.187CJ vii. 483a. From support for the militia bill, Strickland moved naturally into opposition to the Remonstrance – the blueprint for the Humble Petition and Advice. In February, it was reported that Strickland, Pykeringe and at least three other protectoral councillors were against offering the crown to Cromwell.188Henry Cromwell Corresp. 205. And though Strickland participated very little in the debates on the Remonstrance, his tellerships confirm that he was hostile to the proposed new constitution.189Burton’s Diary, ii. 89, 92, Having partnered Lambert in a division on 24 February against giving the Remonstrance a reading in the House, he was a teller in March for adding an amendment to impose moral qualifications for election to future Parliaments and, in May, in favour of setting up a committee to consider how the protector’s power under the Humble Petition might be ‘bounded and limited’.190CJ vii. 496b, 500b, 535a, 575a. He was also included on a series of committees to revise the new constitution in light of the protector’s reluctance to accept the crown.191CJ vii. 508b, 520b, 521a, 521b, 524a, 535a, 538b, 540b, 570b. The watered-down monarchy that had emerged by the summer was evidently acceptable to him, for on 25 June he was named to a committee for providing a sceptre and other royal accoutrements at Cromwell’s investiture ceremony, and, on 13 July, he took the oath prescribed for members of the protectoral council under the Additional and Explanatory Petition and Advice.192CJ vii. 575a; CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 26. Summoned to the Cromwellian Other House late in 1657, he attended this body regularly from its first day of sitting, on 20 January 1658, until Parliament was dissolved the following month.193TSP vi. 668; Sl. 3246; HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 504-23. The author of the Second Narrative of the Late Parliament, in reviewing the membership of the Other House, depicted Strickland as an unprincipled time-server,

... one that can serve a commonwealth and also a prince, so [long] as he may serve himself and his own ends by it, who having so greatly profitted by attending the Hogan Mogans [the Dutch republic], and become so expert in the ceremony postures and thereby so apt like an ape (with his brother Sir Gilbert [Pykeringe] and the president [Henry Lawrence]) to imitate or act the part of an old courtier in the new court, was made captain-general of the protector’s ... foot guard in Whitehall.194[Wharton], Second Narrative, 30.

Decline and fall, 1659-60

Strickland retained his place on the protectoral council under Richard Cromwell* and attended the Other House assiduously in the third Cromwellian Parliament in 1659.195HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 525-67. According to one royalist source he was not among the most loyal or trusted of Richard’s councillors.196TSP vii. 495; Complete Prose Works of John Milton vii ed. R.W. Ayers (Yale, 1975), 65. However, he continued to attend the council on a regular basis after September 1658.197PRO31/17/33, passim. There is no evidence that he welcomed the fall of the protectorate in April 1659. But nor is there any sign that he had much difficulty accepting the resurrection of the commonwealth. Indeed, as plain ‘Mr Strickland’ once more, he had taken his seat in the restored Rump within a few days of the House reconvening.198CJ vii. 648b. His failure to secure a place on the commonwealth’s council of state is very likely an indication of how far he had fallen in the esteem of commonwealthsmen like Vane since the early 1650s. Nevertheless, he was named to 30 committees between 11 May and 7 October, including those for constituting a new council of state and admiralty commission and for settling the militia.199CJ vii. 656a, 656b, 694b. He was also named to three committees for receiving foreign dignitaries.200CJ vii. 685a, 769a, 793b. Furthermore, the Rump’s leaders allowed him to keep his lodgings at Whitehall and made sure that he was named to the Glamorgan militia commission in July.201CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 27; CJ vii. 725a. The fallout from Sir George Boothe’s* rebellion in August exacerbated tensions among the Rump’s leading politicians, prompting the establishment of committees on 6 and 8 September – to which Strickland was named – to consider the introduction of a new engagement ‘against any king, single person and House of Peers and every of them’ and ‘to prepare something to be offered to the House in order to the settlement of the government of this commonwealth’.202CJ vii. 774b, 775b.

When the army dissolved the Rump in mid-October 1659, Strickland jumped ship yet again, and on 26 October he was one of several former Cromwellian grandees who was named the new executive council, the committee of safety – despite the objections of some sectarian army officers.203True Narrative of the Procs. in Parl. 41; Wariston Diary, 147-8; Works of John Milton, vii. 131-2. Although Strickland had been an ally of Lambert and other anti-kingship officers in 1657, his collaboration with the army republicans in the autumn of 1659 savours strongly of trimming and political expediency. One of the committee’s republican critics denounced Strickland, Lawrence, Bulstrode Whitelocke* and several more of its members as ‘unconverted apostate protectorians’.204Faithfull Searching Home Word, 43. Nevertheless, ‘Lord Strickland’, as he was once again styled, seems to have been an active member of the committee and was named to the 1 November sub-committee to ‘prepare a form of government’. He was also one of the ‘conservators of liberty’ that the committee appointed early in December to determine any disagreement between the army and a future Parliament over the fundamentals of government.205True Narrative of the Procs. in Parl. 62-3; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 173-4. With the collapse of the committee of safety late in December 1659, Strickland’s own career in national politics came to an end. William Prynne* was probably mistaken in reporting that Strickland attended the Rump on 27 December.206W. Prynne, A Brief Narrative (1659), 7 (E.1011.4). In fact, he was probably lying low by this stage and with good reason, for on 24 January 1660 he was one of several men that the House summoned to answer for their conduct in the committee of safety.207CJ vii. 820b; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 201.

Strickland was granted a royal pardon by letters patent on 19 December 1660 and seems to have emerged unscathed from the Restoration, although he was removed from all local commissions.208E. Riding RO, PE85/94. He died in the autumn of 1671 and was buried at Flamborough on 29 October of that year – although according to the memorial tablet in Flamborough church, he had died on 1 November.209Flamborough bishop’s transcript; MI Flamborough church. He died intestate and without issue; the administration of his estate was granted to his widow.210Borthwick, Dickering Deanery Act Bk. f. 19. None of his immediate family sat in Parliament.