STEELE, William (1610-80), of Hatton Garden, Mdx.

William Steele was born at Giddy Hall, a moated house near Sandbach which had been the family seat for several generations. He was educated at Chester School, where he studied under Mr Williamson, Caius College, Cambridge, where he was a scholar from 1629 until Midsummer 1631 and Gray’s Inn, whence he was called to the bar in 1637.47Biog. Hist. Gonville and Caius Coll., ed. Venn, i. 281-2. In 1638 he married into the Godfrey family of Kent.48Aitken, Richard Steele i. 5; ii. 349. Their influence, and most notably that of his wife’s uncle Thomas Godfrey*, saw Steele returned to the Short Parliament for New Romney.49Lansd. 235, f. 8; A. Everitt, The Community of Kent and the Gt. Rebellion, 74. He made no known impact on the proceedings of the brief session that followed, and apparently did not seek re-election in the autumn. In the early 1640s Steele concentrated his activities in London. There he associated with the City radicals and in April 1643 supported a petition to the common council asserting the supremacy of Parliament.50R. Brenner, ‘The Civil War Politics of London’s Merchant Community’, Past and Present lviii. 98. Although he was unsuccessful in his bid to become a judge in the London sheriff’s court (being defeated by a fellow Cheshireman, John Bradshawe*) in the same year, Steele’s legal reputation continued to grow.51CLRO, Jor. 40, f. 74v; Foss, Judges of Eng. vi. 489. His allegiance to Parliament was not questioned, despite the execution of his uncle, the parliamentary governor of Beeston Castle, for surrendering the garrison to the royalists in December 1643.52D. Lyson, Magna Britannia, Chester, 548-9. In May 1644 Parliament authorised Steele and Bradshawe to collect subscriptions for the relief of Cheshire, on behalf of Sir William Brereton*.53CJ iii. 496a; LJ vi. 573a-b.

Steele was appointed a commissioner for martial law in London in August 1644 and was closely involved in setting up the necessary courts.54CJ iii. 562b; A. and O. He prosecuted many of the most notorious trials of the 1640s. In April 1646 he was made a commissioner for the trial of William Murray as a spy, and in January 1648 he was the prosecutor in the case against Captain Burley, accused of treason for plotting the king’s escape from the Isle of Wight.55LJ viii. 267a; G. Hillier, Charles I… in the Isle of Wight (1852), 67-72. In February 1648 he and Bradshawe were among those appointed to prosecute ‘tumultuous persons’ at king’s bench, and in April Steele also prosecuted the insurgents of Canterbury.56CJ v. 452a, 534a. His zeal won him many friends at Westminster who tried to reward his ‘great ability in his profession and… his fidelity and good affections to the Parliament’ in the early months of 1648 by repeatedly recommending that he should succeed the politically suspect John Glynne* as recorder of London.57CJ v. 450a, 534a; LJ x. 17a, 207a, 212a; HMC 7th Rep., 6; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 267, 300. Glynne refused to resign, however, and this, together with a dispute between the court of aldermen and the common council about appointments to City offices, prevented Steele’s promotion.

Having served Parliament faithfully in previous years, Steele was an obvious choice to put the case against Charles I in January 1649. He was originally named as one of the ‘assistants’ to the prosecution, alongside Bradshawe, on 3 January, but on 10 January, immediately before the start of the trial, he was promoted to attorney-general.58Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 489, 493; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley vi. 578. A week later, however, Robert Tichborne* reported that Steele had contracted smallpox and was ‘in his bed, very sick; and by reason thereof not like, as yet, to attend the service of this court’. Anxious to demonstrate that his illness was not merely diplomatic, Steele sent a message of support for the trial, and declared that he

no way declineth the service of the said court out of any disaffection to it; but professeth himself to be so clear in the business that if it should please God to restore him, he should manifest his good affection to the said cause and that it is an addition to his affliction that he cannot attend this court.59Howell, State Trials iv. 1064.

Steele did not manage to attend any of the court’s meetings during the trial of the king, but by 9 February he sufficiently recovered to act as ‘counsel for the people of England’ in the trial of the 1st duke of Hamilton, and he was also involved in the prosecution of the earls of Holland and Norwich and Arthur Capell*, Lord Capell.60Foss, Judges of Eng. vi. 489-92; Howell, State Trials iv. 1155, 1167-87, 1209; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 529-31. In March he joined John Cook as prosecutor of Thomas Cawton, who was accused of proclaiming Charles Stuart as king.61CJ vi. 157b. In April, his task completed, he was replaced as attorney-general by Edmund Prideaux I*.62CJ vi. 157b; Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 11. Steele continued to serve the state thereafter. In May he was made trustee for the maintenance of ministers, a commissioner for the draining of the Great Level, and a member of a committee to investigate the state of the Charterhouse.63CJ vi. 199b; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 130; A. and O. In the same month he led the prosecution against John Liburne, William Walwyn and other leading Levellers.64CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 121. In July he was ordered to attend the commissioners for articles as their legal counsel, and appointed trustee for the sale of the lands of the royal family and a member of the corporation for propagating the gospel in New England.65CJ vi. 250b; A. and O.

In August 1649 Glynne finally resigned as recorder of London, and the court of aldermen confirmed the common council’s election of Steele as ‘a very fitting man for the place’ on 25 August, with the oath being tendered on 28th.66CLRO, Jor. 41x, ff. 1v, 4; Rep. 59, ff. 461v-462, 472, 474-5; Recorders of London, 13. The Commons, considering ‘the many services done to the commonwealth by William Steele’, relieved him from the duty of public readings at the bar in the same month.67CJ vi. 279b; Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 88; Pension Bk. of G. Inn i. 374. In October and November he was again assisting the prosecution of troublemakers, including those accused of producing counterfeit currency.68CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 329, 331, 401. In February 1650 he was appointed solicitor to the Committee for Compounding and in March he was made commissioner for a new high court of justice and trustee for the sale of fee farm rents.69CCC 178; CJ vi. 384b; A. and O. In December he was added to the committee to examine the proceedings of the high court of justice in Norfolk.70CSP Dom. 1650, p. 461. During the summer of 1651, when the threat of Scottish invasion became a reality, Steele was ordered to arrest suspects in London, and he joined the lord mayor, Thomas Andrews, in petitioning the council of state for immediate action to close the bear garden and other places of entertainment in Southwark ‘where many dissolute and evil disposed persons by thousands at a time, as we are informed, frequently resort’.71CSP Dom. 1651, p. 286; Bodl. Tanner 54, f. 165. With the defeat of Charles Stuart at Worcester, there was a chance for far-reaching reform. Steele had been involved in discussions on legal reform since August 1649, when he attended a private meeting at Prideaux I’s house to consider proceedings in chancery.72Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 89. In January 1652 he was appointed to the Hale commission on law reform, becoming one of its most active members.73CJ vii. 67b, 71a, 74a; Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 385-6. Later in the year he was re-appointed as commissioner for relief under articles (29 Sept.), nominated as assessment commissioner for London (10 Dec.), and made trustee for the sale of the king’s lands (31 Dec.).74A. and O. On 8 April, a few days before the dissolution of the Rump Parliament, Steele was appointed as judge for the probate of wills.75A. and O.

Steele continued his legal work during the Nominated Assembly, in July 1653 joining Prideaux and John Wylde* as prosecutor of John Lilburne during his second trial.76TSP i. 367; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 254. He welcomed the establishment of the protectorate in December 1653, and was made serjeant-at-law in January 1654.77Foss, Judges of Eng. vi. 413, 489. At the City’s entertainment for Oliver Cromwell* in February Steele assured him, in his formal speech, of the desires of the citizens ‘to oppose the common enemy and, after all our distractions, see the nation established upon the firm basis of peace and righteousness which is the end of government’.78Mr Recorders Speech (1654), 5. According to one royalist commentator, immediately after the feast Cromwell knighted the lord mayor, Thomas Vyner, and Steele ‘was called for (tis supposed for the same service) but he was too cunning to be found’.79Bodl. Clarendon 47, f. 379. Less partial sources did not see this as a deliberate evasion; rather, Steele had been ‘called for, but had been sent away upon special business before’.80Clarke Pprs. v. 151. There is no other hint that Steele was reluctant to accept offices and dignities during this period. In March he was appointed as a commissioner for the new high court of justice, and this was confirmed in June.81A. and O. Steele also became involved in the awkward case of the murder committed in a fracas at the New Exchange by Don Pantaleon Sa, and in May he was one of the commissioners in the subsequent trial.82CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 419; 1654, p. 156, 169; TSP ii. 228; Bodl. Rawl. A.13, f. 120.

In July Steele was elected as one of London’s representatives in the first protectorate Parliament, coming second in the poll.83Harl. 6810, f. 164; HMC 6th Rep., 437. Rumours that he was about to be sent to Ireland as a member of the new Irish council caused the City to petition the protector, requesting ‘that Master Recorder Steele may not be taken from them and sent for Ireland’.84Clarke Pprs. v. 199, 200; HMC Egmont i. 549, 554; CLRO, Jor. 41x, f. 100v. In July and August the lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood*, wrote to John Thurloe* in support of Steele’s appointment, explaining that ‘he is a person of that eminent worth, reputation and abilities that I must make it my humble suit to his highness and the council that he may be appointed for the service in this nation’.85TSP ii. 493, 530. Fleetwood was prepared to negotiate, however, telling Thurloe that ‘if his being now chosen for this next Parliament cannot well admit his present coming over, yet nevertheless I shall humbly desire he may continue his relation to Ireland’.86TSP ii. 530-1. In a compromise arrangement, Steele was appointed to the Irish council but remained in England to represent the views of both Ireland and the City in Parliament.

In the early weeks of the Parliament, Steele dutifully fulfilled his role as a state functionary. On 4 September he was appointed to the committee to draw up a fast declaration and later reported back to the House, being added to the committee to attend the protector with the document.87CJ vii. 366a, 368b, 368b He was named to the committee of privileges on 5 September.88CJ vii. 366b. On 14 September he was a member of the committee appointed to draft the recognition of the government to be taken by all MPs, and on 25 September he was named to the committee to consider the resulting bill.89CJ vii. 367b, 370a. A day later, he was appointed to the committee to consider the size of the army and navy and how it might safely be reduced.90CJ vii. 370b. This was an issue that had a particular bearing on Ireland, and was thus of interest to Steele as an Irish councillor. His involvement in Irish business can be seen in other committee appointments. On 29 September he was named to the committee of Irish affairs – an appointment that prompted Fleetwood to again press him to come over to Ireland, ‘well knowing how much the access of a person of so much integrity and understanding might avail us therein’.91Dunlop, Ireland under the Commonwealth, ii. 461. On 27 November Steele was named to a committee for drafting an article in the ‘act of settlement’ to allow repentant Irish royalists to vote in future elections, and on 14 December he was appointed to a committee to settle the probate of wills in Ireland.92CJ vii. 371b, 390b, 401a. Steele was also much in demand as a legal expert. On 18 September he was named to a committee to consider the proceedings of the judges at Salters’ Hall.93CJ vii. 368a. He was appointed to committees on the regulation of chancery (5 Oct.) and the ending of abuses in habeas corpus writs (3 Nov.) and debentures (22 Nov.).94CJ vii. 374a, 381a, 382a, 387b. Steele was later appointed to committees on reducing the workload on sheriffs (4 Dec.), the erection of a high court of justice in York to serve the northern counties (14 Dec.), to take away purveyance (22 Dec.).95CJ vii. 394b, 401a, 407b. Steele’s legal experience was also useful in constitutional debates that increasingly dominated the session. When the House began to reach agreement on the articles for settling the government on 21 September, he was appointed to the committee for drafting the necessary bill.96CJ vii. 369a. In November he was named to committees to prepare and rewrite specific clauses.97CJ vii. 390b, 392b. On 7 December he joined another prominent lawyer, Nathaniel Bacon, in taking care of the business of ‘settling the government’, to ensure all its articles were in accordance with the votes in Parliament.98CJ vii. 398a. In January 1655 he was appointed to three more committees on the Government Bill: on the quorum for Parliament to sit, its right to change the constitution, and what revenue would be settled on the executive.99CJ vii. 411a, 415a, 415b. Steele’s views on the new constitution are not clear from this evidence, but no doubt he supported the status quo, as enshrined in the Instrument of Government. Steele was less prominent in religious affairs, but again he seems supported official policy. On 25 September he was named to a committee to consider the ordinance for ejecting scandalous ministers that would become a central plank of the programme of religious reform.100CJ vii. 370a. On 12 December he was appointed to a committee to consider the ‘enumeration of damnable heresies’ in the Government Bill.101CJ vii. 399b. This connected with the thorny issue of ‘liberty of conscience’, which Steele was to engage with again when he was appointed to a committee on the bill against Quakers on 30 December.102CJ vii. 410a. He was also named to the committee which examined the case of Theauro John Tany, who was accused of burning a Bible and denying that it was the word of God.103Burton’s Diary i. p. cxxvii.

After the closure of Parliament, Steele resumed his legal duties as an assize judge, but he was recalled from his circuit in Essex at the end of March 1655, when he was issued with a special commission to try those arrested during the Penruddock rising in the west.104TSP iii. 244, 304; CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 90, 98; Clarke Pprs. iii. 31-2. He arrived at Salisbury on 11 April, where he met Prideaux I, Glynne, John Lisle* and the other commissioners.105TSP iii. 371, 376. The imprisoned royalists objected to Steele and his fellow-commissioners who were not judges at Westminster Hall because they were ‘practitioners and pleaders, servants to the lord protector and are made judges only for this purpose to take our lives contrary to law because the sworn judges refused it’.106TSP iii. 393. Despite this, Steele executed his commission with energy, dealing with prisoners at Salisbury before setting up another court at Chard in Somerset.107TSP iii. 378; Clarke Pprs. iii. 34-5. At the beginning of May Fleetwood renewed his appeals for Steele to be sent to Ireland, and recommended him for the post of lord chancellor.108TSP iii. 421. Instead, Cromwell appointed Steele lord chief baron of the exchequer on 28 May, prompting his immediate resignation as recorder of London four days later.109Foss, Judges of Eng. vi. 407; Recorders of London, 13; CLRO, Rep. 63, f. 347; Clarke Pprs. iii. 41. Rumours about future promotion continued, but on 12 June Steele wrote to John Thurloe* requesting that ‘no alteration will be made as to my condition, and asking to be consulted about any changes which were necessary for ‘the glory of God and good of the people’.110Bodl. Rawl. A.27, f. 289. Steele seems to have been in no hurry to travel to Ireland. Instead he travelled north to try those involved in the Yorkshire rising in July; he was appointed by the council to the committee for trade in November; and later in the same month he was called upon to give legal advice on the re-admission of the Jews to England.111HMC 5th Rep., 183; CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 1, 23. In January 1656 he was added to the committee for collections for the persecuted Protestants of Savoy.112CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 100. Steele soon found such matters got in the way of his legal duties. In October 1655 he complained to Thurloe that he had been recalled while barely ‘a mile or two out of town’ by a messenger ‘with his highness’s desire have me attend him this night or in the morning’. Steele politely declined this request, ‘my business being indispensable’, and promised to return to Whitehall only ‘after my circuit’.113Bodl. Rawl. A.31, f. 109.

In the summer of 1656 there were renewed attempts to get Steele to travel to Ireland.114Henry Cromwell Corresp., 152, 156, 164; TSP v. 214. Fleetwood’s persistence eventually paid off in August 1656, when Steele was at last appointed lord chancellor of Ireland, with a salary of £1,200 a year.115Foss, Judges of Eng. vi. 407; CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 47-8. On his arrival in Dublin in September he undertook an immediate reform of the Irish judiciary, and even his critics conceded his impartiality in dispensing justice.116TSP v. 398, 405. The former royalist 2nd earl of Cork (Sir Richard Boyle*), who visited Steele regularly in Dublin, found him willing to assist his legal cases, and happy to appoint him as JP in the southern counties.117Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 13 Nov. 1656, 13 and 20 Apr., 23 July 1657; 6 and 10 Feb., 2 and 7 May, 22 Nov. 1658. Bishop Griffith Williams later recalled an encounter with Steele: ‘although he hated my person, he said, though I deserved it not I should have justice, and so he did me justice presently’.118Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 285. Yet Henry Cromwell*, who was de facto governor of Ireland during Fleetwood’s absence, found Steele an uncongenial colleague. As he later recounted

my lord chancellor at his coming over made large professions how officious and serviceable he would be to me. I suppose he meant not as a subject but as a tutor or guardian to a minor; for at his first coming he appointed several private meetings with me … and then he read lectures to me of affairs and maxims of state … and lest I should forget my lesson, gave me three or four sheets in writing of those rules he thought of most importance.119TSP vii. 198-9.

Unsurprisingly, there was said to be ‘distaste’ between the two men by November 1656, and in the summer of 1657, as changes to the Irish council were considered at Whitehall, Henry himself complained that the protector ‘cannot but know who of the council I am weary of’ – a veiled reference to Steele and his allies, Miles Corbett* and Matthew Thomlinson*.120Henry Cromwell Corresp., 187, 312. In the following September Henry was still prepared to give Steele the benefit of the doubt, as he told Thurloe: ‘I am apt to think my lord chancellor had never warped so much, unless his ambition be, as some say, to be chief of some party or other, for he is civil and I think in himself a good-natured gentleman’.121TSP vi. 506. The protector clearly valued Steele, and in December appointed him to his Other House, although his absence in Ireland meant he never sat in the upper chamber.122TSP vi. 668.

It was only after Henry Cromwell’s appointment as lord deputy in November 1657 that his relationship with Steele broke down completely. The main cause was their fundamental disagreement over religious policy. In April 1658, when the question of replacing ministerial salaries with the old system of tithes was discussed by the Dublin convention of ministers, the Independents, backed by Steele, were out-voted by the moderates, led by Edward Worth and supported by Henry Cromwell.123Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 126-7. The defeat over tithes left Steele embittered. In June 1658 he announced that he had written a letter to the protector ‘wherein he desired liberty to retire’ so that he ‘might the better take care for his soul’s concernment’. But in an interview with Henry Cromwell he admitted that dissatisfaction with the protectorate, and concern for the Independents in Ireland, underlay his decision

He said he must confess he did not like the tendency of things, though he should satisfy himself with a government by a single person, at least while his highness was that person. He said also that there was a people here whom he favoured and that he was accounted their head, and he feared lest they should suffer; and that by his management of things in order to their protection, himself might fall under some jealousy.124TSP vii. 198-9.

Such words heightened Henry’s concern that Steele had ambitions to usurp his authority in Ireland, ‘to draw dependencies upon himself’, ‘to make the Independents think themselves neglected’ and even ‘to rule the roost here’. In the same interview, Steele was also critical of the Irish judges, whom he accused of partiality, deciding cases ‘not according to their conscience but to please’ – a remark apparently aimed at his fellow-councillor, Richard Pepys, an ally of Henry’s who had championed the re-introduction of tithes.125TSP vii. 198-9; Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 283. Steele’s misgivings were apparently calmed by his friends in England, who persuaded him to remain in Ireland. This did little to calm the fears of his enemies. Henry Cromwell had already suspected that Steele had ‘a secret correspondency by cypher into England’, and Thurloe thought he was operating ‘under the shadow of another’.126TSP vii. 199, 269. The prime suspect was presumably the former lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood.

On hearing of the lord protector’s death in September 1658, Steele was anxious that the government’s overall strategy in Ireland should remain unchanged, that ‘we may see a glorious accomplishment at home and abroad of many of those things as to the ruin of Babylon and the prosperity of Sion, which his highness longed to see and to be an instrument for’.127Bodl. Rawl. A.61, f. 81. Despite his earlier misgivings that ‘government by a single person’ would continue after Oliver Cromwell’s death, Steele signed the proclamation of Richard Cromwell* as his successor in Ireland.128TSP vii. 383. On 9 March 1659, during the third protectorate Parliament, Steele pressed Thurloe to make sure Irish business was not neglected at Westminster, and in particular advocated measures for ‘accomplishing a well-grounded Union’ between the two countries.129TSP vii. 631-2. After the dissolution of the Parliament in April, and the collapse of the protectorate in May, there was speculation about what would happen in Ireland. For a time it was ‘credibly reported’ that Henry Cromwell had first imprisoned and then hanged Steele because he was ‘not conformable to his will’.130Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 503; Nicholas Pprs. iv. 135, 140. The reality was less lurid. After Henry’s resignation, in June Steele was appointed by the restored Rump Parliament as one of the new Irish commissioners who would now run the civil affairs of the island, and he and Corbett acted as a duumvirate before their fellow commissioners arrived in Dublin.131CJ vii. 674a, 684a; CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 367, 372-3; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 862. On 22 June they were able to report to the Speaker that Ireland was ‘at present in a peaceable and quiet condition’.132Bodl. Tanner 51, f. 84. Their appointment was confirmed on 1 July, when detailed instructions for the commissioners were drawn up, and on the same day Steele was confirmed in his position as serjeant-at-law.133CJ vii. 700a; Bodl. Carte 67, ff. 307-10; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 353.

Steele was reluctant to stay in Ireland, and ‘earnestly desired’ to return to England, but was persuaded to stay by Edmund Ludlowe II* and others.134Ludlow, Mems. ii. 125. He only managed to escape in November, on the pretext that he had been appointed to the commonwealth’s new supreme executive, the committee of safety.135CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 502; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 131; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 366. According to Ludlowe, on Steele’s departure ‘the affairs of Ireland suffered much, he being generally esteemed to be a man of great prudence and uncorrupted integrity’.136Ludlow, Mems. ii. 153. Yet, on his arrival in London, Steele did not throw in his lot with Fleetwood and his friends. He refused to serve on the committee of safety, and although he was willing to discuss ‘a future establishment’ with Fleetwood and the Wallingford House party, ‘he always declared his opinion to be that the Parliament were the proper judges of that matter and used the best of his endeavours that they might be restored to their authority’.137Ludlow, Mems. ii. 153. In January 1660 the council of state hoped to persuade him to return to Ireland as a commissioner for governing the army.138CJ vii. 811b. Steele was not included in the new commission, however, perhaps because of his numerous enemies amongst the ‘Old Protestants’ in Ireland. One of them, Sir Theophilus Jones*, complained to George Monck* on 1 February that Steele was ‘the principal discountenancer of ministers and of the very ministry itself’ who had used his power to keep ‘honest men’ from local commissions, favouring instead Baptists and Quakers.139HMC Leyborne-Popham, 141.

Although Steele had served successive commonwealth regimes, he was treated with grudging respect after the monarchy had been restored. Even a satirical account of his career limited itself to noting his ‘employments’ without comment, and concluded that ‘he was very active and as true as steel’.140Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 50 (E.1923.2). Some of his victims tried, unsuccessfully, to exclude Steele from the act of indemnity for his part in the Penruddock trials in 1655.141HMC 7th Rep., 123. His accounts as trustee of the funds for the maintenance of ministers were investigated in the new year of 1661, but otherwise he was unmolested by the new regime.142CTB i. 202. Rumours that he secured his own safety by betraying the secrets of Henry Cromwell appear to be untrue.143Biog. Hist. Gonville and Caius, ed. Venn, i. 282. In October 1662, however, he was implicated in plans to raise a force of over 20,000 men which he was to command with Ludlowe, and within a month he had fled to Holland, where he was soon said to be ‘conversant with the fanatics’ in exile.144CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 526, 575; 1663-4, p. 505. Although his wife’s belongings were thoroughly searched on her return to England in March 1664, Steele evidently thought it safe to return soon afterwards, and he went to live in Hatton Garden.145CSP Dom. 1663-4, pp. 498, 507; SP44/16, p. 60. His material prosperity was not affected by government disfavour, and in December 1671 he was able to provide a marriage fortune of £2,000 when his daughter married the Turkey merchant and future director of the Bank of England, George Boddington†.146Familiae Minorum Gentium (Harl. Soc. xxxix), 1112.

Steele drew up his will on 17 and 18 September 1680, when ‘possessed with an expectation of my departure’.147PROB11/364/149. He died soon afterwards and was buried on 8 October.148Add. 18730, f. 76. Although he had sold his manors in Cheshire at the Restoration, he was still able to leave £4,000 as well as jewels, plate and the house in Hatton Garden to his wife. He also made provision for his younger sons, William and Benjamin, who had not received payment in full for their ‘share’ of the family wealth, which amounted to £3,000 and £2,000 respectively. Smaller bequests were made to other relatives and £50 was given to the poor of Sandbach. A codicil made arrangements for the cataloguing and distribution of his books.149PROB11/364/149. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard, the father of the author and dramatist, Sir Richard Steele†.