EDWARDS, Richard (1604-57), of Henlow and Arlesey, Beds.

The Edwards family had been resident at Henlow in Bedfordshire since at least the end of the fifteenth century.23VCH Beds. ii. 262, 282. In the early seventeenth century a cadet branch at Arlesley was headed by Richard Edwards’ father and namesake, who died in 1638, leaving the estate to his widow for life as her jointure, with the reversion only to Richard junior as his heir, along with some local leases as an incentive to fulfilling his duties as executor.24PROB11/178/328. Since the widow outlived her eldest son by a decade, it is not clear to what extent Richard junior ever enjoyed the associated income.25PROB11/325/330. Called, like his father, to the bar at the Inner Temple, he pursued a career as a lawyer and also inherited the position as registrar in chancery which had been held by both his grandfather (d. 1623) and father.26E215/405/3; E215/410; SP18/23, f. 144; Catalogue of the Lords Chancellors, 120. In 1626 he made what was almost certainly an advantageous marriage, to a daughter of Sir Henry Whithed†.27Vis. Beds. (Harl. Soc. xix), 101-2. Whithed was one of the most prominent and wealthy members of the gentry in Hampshire, and it was undoubtedly through his contacts, or those of his son, Richard Whithed I*, that Edwards eventually secured his seat in Parliament.

Like Richard Whithed, Edwards supported the parliamentarian cause during the civil war. On 17 September 1642 he was among Bedfordshire gentlemen charged with raising troops and money.28LJ v. 361a. He himself served in a military capacity, probably in a county regiment; it was another Richard Edwards who served in Ireland in the early 1650s.29Christchurch Bor. Council, Old Letters, no. 41; Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 225; Peacock, Army Lists, 106. Despite his Hampshire connections, in the first half of the 1640s his civilian service appears to have been performed exclusively in his own county, as a member of the county committee and an assessment commissioner.30A. and O.

However, the elections held in 1645 to recruit Members for the Long Parliament offered opportunities in Hampshire that did not exist in Bedfordshire. As early as mid-June it became apparent that two seats would be available at Christchurch, although the precept was not issued until 21 November.31Christchurch Bor. Council, Old Letters, no. 39; Dorset RO, DC/CC: F2/10. During this period John Lisle*, one of the most active and radical parliamentarians in the county, attempted to influence the elections and to undermine more moderate candidates, probably including Edwards.32Christchurch Bor. Council, Old Letters, nos. 42, 46. When John Bulkeley* informed the corporation that he would not be standing (having secured a place at Newtown), he hoped they would ‘proceed to the choice of Colonel Edwards from whom I hope you will not by any workings whatsoever be drawn off, sure I am you cannot have an honester nor abler man’.33Christchurch Bor. Council, Old Letters, no. 41. Such approval was echoed by John Hildesley*, a former mayor of Christchurch, who on 22 November, asked the corporation to ‘proceed to the election of Mr [John] Kemp* and Colonel Edwards according to your promise’.34Christchurch Bor. Council, Old Letters, no. 44. Both men were duly returned as burgesses on 25 November, the date on which they had jointly requested the election to be held.35Dorset RO, DC/CC: F1/10; Christchurch Bor. Council, Old Letters, no. 45. Both undertook to fulfil their duties at their own charge, and without claiming expenses.36Dorset RO, DC/CC: F3/1.

Edward arrived at Westminster in time to take the Covenant on 31 December.37CJ iv. 393a. Correspondence from the following month indicates that he was active in representing the interests of the borough in Parliament, on subjects such as the excise.38Christchurch Bor. Council, Old Letters, no. 40. Subsequently, however, Edwards left little mark on the records of proceedings. He was named to a committee regarding the petition of poor Irish Protestants (20 Apr. 1646), and to the large committee to determine scandalous offences (3 June 1646), but thereafter his career is sometimes difficult to distinguish from those of two other Members with the same surname.39CJ iv. 516b, 562b. References in the Journal to ‘Mr Edwards’ probably relate to Humphrey Edwardes, who was returned for Shropshire in May or June 1646, but ‘Colonel Edwards’ was applied equally to Colonel William Edwardes, Member for Chester from December 1646. Plausibly, affairs in Cheshire or the northern counties were the preserve of William, rather than Richard.40CJ v. 141b, 265b, 337b, 339b. Since William was to be secluded at Pride’s Purge, it may also be safe to assume that he was the Member who acted as teller with Presbyterian grandee Denzil Holles* in a factional division on 14 May 1647 over payments to the army commissioners.41CJ v. 175a. On the other hand, it was almost certainly Richard Edwards who was nominated to the committee to consider the fees taken by the registrar in the court of chancery (13 Feb. 1647).42CJ v. 87a. It was certainly he who was granted leave to go to the country in early March.43CJ v. 106a. Otherwise, there are a further ten committees to which Richard may have been named between February 1647 and July 1648. They demonstrate no discernible pattern, being concerned with a wide range of issues, from the accounts of the army and the customs commissioners, to delinquent landlords and monopolists, and the reform of the militia.44CJ v. 86b, 320a, 322a, 383a, 447b, 480a, 593a, 599a, 624a, 630b.

With the removal of Colonel William Edwardes on 6 December 1648 problems of identification diminish, but the attendance of Richard Edwards, which may never have been zealous, appears to have become almost non-existent. His subsequent career suggests that his attitude towards the events of December and January, and in particular the trial of the king, was at the least ambivalent, and while he appears to have been named to a committee regarding a private petition on 29 January 1649, he was probably absent thereafter.45CJ vi. 124a. Following the report of the committee for absent Members on 4 June that year, he was granted permission to return to the House.46CJ vi. 224a; Whitelocke, Memorials, iii. 44. But on the assumption that he continued to be referred to as ‘Colonel Edwardes’ and that ‘Mr Edwards’ signified to the knight of the shire for Shropshire, it seems clear that Richard Edwards played very little part in the proceedings of the Rump thereafter. In late November 1650 he was summoned to attend the House, suggesting a lengthy absence.47CJ vi. 501a. He evidently obeyed, and indeed on 20 December attended the committee for removing obstructions to the sale of dean and chapter lands, even though there is no record of his having been appointed to it.48Add. 37682, f. 26. Subsequently he was nominated only to committees to receive claims regarding the sale of delinquents’ estates (24 Jan. 1651) and to remove obstructions from the sale of forfeited estates (16 July 1651).49CJ vi. 528a; A. and O. However, he enjoyed sufficient confidence to be named as an assessment commissioner in Bedfordshire (2 Dec. 1650, 18 Apr. 1651, 8 Dec. 1652).50CJ vii. 564a; CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 452, 455.

Edwards’ attitude towards the dissolution of the Rump does not appear. He did not sit in the first protectorate Parliament, but he was named as a ‘trier’ in August 1654, and was an active commissioner for securing the peace of the commonwealth in Bedfordshire in November 1655.51A. and O.; TSP, iv. 208. He was returned as one of the knights of the shire for Bedfordshire in the Parliament which assembled in September 1656. Records suggest that this time Edwards played a more active part in proceedings. Among numerous committee nominations were many which reflect his legal background, including those relating to the continuance of existing legislation, the laws relating to shipwrecks, the erection of courts of law and equity at York, and a petition from the civil lawyers.52CJ vii. 429b, 446b, 456a, 462b. In a debate on the issue of the charters of Scottish corporations he expressed reservations about the notion of a union of the two countries (4 Dec. 1656).53Burton’s Diary, i. 12-13. Unfortunately, although Edwards was named to a committee to consider the additional votes regarding the Humble Petition and Advice (27 May 1657), his view on the much broader constitutional proposals contained in it are unknown.54CJ vii. 540b.

Edwards was also named to a number of committees dealing with social and economic reform: controlling alehouses and the excise on ale; debtors; the abolition of purveyance; measures to prevent limit building work in the capital; the settlement of the postal system; and the inspection of the treasury.55CJ vii. 430a, 445b, 449a-b, 532a, 542a, 543a. His attitude towards reform appears to have been ‘conservative’: during a debate on 5 December 1656 he took a hard line against proposals to ease restrictions on the movements of vagabonds.56Burton’s Diary, i. 22.

Edwards also took an interest in religious policy, and here his attitudes are more transparent. Nominated to committees dealing with the propagation of the gospel in Exeter, and the bill for the better observance of the sabbath, he was also named to the committee appointed on 31 October 1656 to consider the information against the notorious blasphemer, James Naylor.57CJ vii. 448a, 488a, 493b. Here he exhibited extreme intolerance. During a debate on 15 December he was recorded as having ‘concluded that he could not agree to a lesser punishment than the highest’.58Burton’s Diary, i. 137. On 23 May 1657 he was a teller for the majority who defeated a motion to allow Naylor a month’s liberty from prison.59CJ vii. 538b.

Edwards appears to have remained active at Westminster for the duration of the first session of the Parliament, which was adjourned on 26 June, but he died before the second session commenced.60CJ vii. 557b. He was buried on 3 September 1657.61Al. Cant., 7. His widow lived at Arlesey until November 1672.62Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 7. Although none of Edwards’ sons sat in Parliament, at least two became lawyers, and succeeded their kinsman Jasper Edwards (who was occupying it by 1652 and who was chief registrar in 1658) to the post in chancery which had once been their father’s. It remained in the family until at least 1712.63SP18/23, f. 144; SP18/182, f. 158; Al. Cant.; Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 339.