DISBROWE (DESBOROUGH), John (1608-80), of Eltisley, Cambs.

John Disbrowe was the second son of James Disbrowe, a minor gentleman and lord of the manor of Eltisley in Cambridgeshire. Nothing is known of Disbrowe’s education, but he apparently practised as an attorney, supplementing his earnings with the income from a farm settled on him by his father. The latter occupation perhaps gave ammunition to those who would later denigrate him as ‘a gentleman, or yeoman of about £60 or £70 per annum at the beginning of the wars’, ‘a man of very mean extraction and estate, being a poor farmer in the country’, and even as ‘a ploughman’.50Oxford DNB; Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 3 (E.977.3); The Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 8 (E.1923.2); CSP Dom. 1654, p. 412. Disbrowe married Jane Cromwell in June 1636. The relatively advanced age of the bride (who was 30 in 1636) suggests that theirs had been a long engagement. The timing of the wedding, a few months after her brother had inherited the lands of his uncle, Sir Thomas Steward (whose will was dated 29 Jan.), is also suggestive, as before then Oliver was in no position to raise the money for a reasonable portion for the sixth of his seven sisters.51PROB11/170/250; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 32n. The early death of Disbrowe’s elder brother made him the heir to the manor of Eltisley, which he inherited on his father’s death in 1638.52Genealogical Gleanings, i. 250.

Military career, 1642-53

The connection between the Disbrowes and the Cromwells was evidently a strong one. When Cromwell raised his troop of horse for Parliament in August 1642, Disbrowe served as his quartermaster, signing a receipt of a month’s pay for the unit on 7 September.53SP28/2a/159. In April 1643 Disbrowe became a captain in Cromwell’s newly-raised regiment of horse, and he was promoted to major later in the year, in place of another Cromwell relative, Edward Whalley*, who became a colonel. He retained his rank on the creation of the New Model army in April 1645 but transferred to the regiment of the new lord general, Sir Thomas Fairfax.54Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 7; Wanklyn, New Model Army, i. 50. Disbrowe’s reputation increased over the next six months. He served at Naseby in June; in July he supported Major Bethell’s courageous charge at Langport; the next month he played an important role in defeating the clubmen in Dorset; and in September he led the cavalry into Bristol after the initial infantry assault.55Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 365, 368, 375; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 58-9. From December 1645 Disbrowe was based in Oxfordshire, and he took part in the talks that brought the surrender of Woodstock in April 1646.56Oxford DNB.

After the civil war was won, Disbrowe became involved in attempts to prevent the army’s disbandment on disadvantageous terms and the redeployment of part of it to Ireland. Disbrowe represented the reaction of his men to the general council on 16 May 1647, emphasising that their grievances were ‘very sober things … not mutinously intended’ and ‘fit to be answered and satisfied’.57Clarke Pprs. i. 50. On the same day Disbrowe was chosen as one of the officers to produce a summary of the complaints of various regiments, to be presented to Parliament.58Clarke Pprs. i. 80. In July of that year, he was one of those who argued in favour of the army marching against the Presbyterians in London, reminding the general council at Reading that ‘there is no expectation of [obtaining] what is propounded without the army goes to back it’.59Clarke Pprs. i. 208. Thereafter, Disbrowe was among those ordered to meet with the ‘agitators’ of the regiments, ‘in order to the settling of the liberties and peace of the kingdom’.60Clarke Pprs. i. 216-7. When the army occupied the capital in early August, Disbrowe paraded the cavalry in Hyde Park as a show of force.61Oxford DNB. In 1648 he played a minor role in the second civil war, serving at the siege of Colchester. Fairfax appointed him governor of Great Yarmouth in August 1648, and this explains his absence from London during Pride’s Purge and the trial of the king, although he may have attended the army council on 16 November.62Wanklyn, New Model Army; i. 92; Clarke Pprs. i. 272. Disbrowe was certainly in London in March 1649, when he told the committee of officers that it was right to execute James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton, as ‘our engagements were to serve the visible power of this commonwealth, not to serve our own wills or our own judgements to save any’.63Clarke Pprs. ii. 195.

Disbrowe’s movements during the summer and autumn of 1649 are uncertain. He appears to have moved from Great Yarmouth to become governor of Portsmouth by June, but he did not hold this post for long, as in October 1649 he was referred to as the late governor of the town.64CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 178, 362. By this time Disbrowe had been made colonel of Cromwell’s old regiment of horse, assigned to defend the western counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset.65Wanklyn, New Model Army, i. 107; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 204. In this capacity he liaised closely with the council of state. In January 1650 he was sent intelligence of possible designs by royalists in the west country, and in March he was instructed to take care that recruits for Ireland did not cause trouble in western ports before embarking.66CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 480; 1650, p. 54. In February he was based at Exeter, and was busy establishing contact with reliable local men, like Robert Bennett* in Cornwall, although he admitted that his attempts to settle the Devon militia had come to little as ‘few of the gentlemen appear in it’.67FSL, X.d.483 (49).

Disbrowe’s authority was reinforced soon afterwards. On 15 April the council of state asked Fairfax to send him a commission to command all the forces in the western counties, both in the field and in garrisons; and by August he had been promoted to the rank of major-general.68CSP Dom. 1650, p. 105; Oxford DNB. His primary duty was to prevent any royalist insurrection, and his letters to Bennett in the second half of 1650 are full of rumours of plots against garrisons, invasion threats and the need to retake the Isles of Scilly.69FSL, X.d.483 (64, 68, 70, 73-4, 80). This counter-insurgency role became increasingly urgent during the spring and summer of 1651. In March and April Disbrowe was ordered by the council of state to guard against a landing from France as well as a domestic uprising; and in May and June he suppressed unrest at Gillingham Forest in Dorset and assisted the successful attempt to take Scilly.70CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 78, 89, 143, 206, 239; FSL, X.d.483 (88). In July he warned Bennett of the escape of royalists from Jersey, and included descriptions of the most dangerous men.71FSL, X.d.483 (93). Disbrowe also visited the key port of Plymouth during this period, dining at the corporation’s expense with Bennett, John Clerke II* and others.72Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/132, f. 280v.

The invasion of northern England by Charles Stuart and his Scottish supporters diverted attention from local concerns. At the end of July Disbrowe was ordered to take part of his regiment to join another of Cromwell’s protégés, Charles Fleetwood*, in Berkshire.73CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 297, 326. Thence Disbrowe joined Cromwell at Warwick, was stationed at Upton-on-Severn on 31 August, and on 3 September fought at the battle of Worcester in the brigade commanded by John Lambert* and Thomas Harrison I*.74Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 452, 460; CJ vii. 10a. The victory at Worcester gave Cromwell and the senior officers the opportunity to push for further reforms in church and state, and from this time Disbrowe emerges as a key political ally for the lord general. The personal relationship between the two men had been strengthening gradually since the regicide, despite Cromwell’s absence in Ireland and Scotland for much of that time. Their friendship can be seen in April 1649, when Disbrowe joined John Thurloe* and Francis Allein* as trustees of Barton farm and other lands in Ely purchased for the marriage of Richard Cromwell* to Dorothy Maijor.75Hunts. RO, Acc. 731/27. On receiving news of the battle of Dunbar in September 1650, Disbrowe had written to Cromwell in terms that reveal not only the similarity of their religious viewpoints, but also his awareness of the dangers that success might bring.

Truly, Sir, these dealing of our God call for an acknowledgement of all our mercies to himself; he alone is the Lord of Hosts, your victories have been given you of himself; it is himself that hath raised you up amongst men, and hath called you to high employments; he hath been very good to you. Certainly where much is given, much is required; and so long as we are made to own our God in our mercies, so long will he own us in continuing mercies. Sir, high places are slippery, except God establish our goings. He hath been very faithful to us, and I trust will still do us good himself, help us to trust in him, and then, I am sure, we shall not be ashamed.

Disbrowe ended the letter with a message from his wife, who ‘desires to have her hearty love presented to you’, adding to them the warmest wishes of ‘he who desires a share in your prayers and forgets not you, and is your loving brother’.76Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 26-7.

A year later, the two men were close political allies. On 10 December 1651 Cromwell convened a meeting of MPs and officers to discuss a political settlement, Disbrowe joined Whalley in opposing any talk of restoring a monarchy, countering a request by the Speaker (William Lenthall*) for ‘something of monarchy’ to be retained with the plea, ‘why may not this, as well as other nations, be governed in the way of a republic?’77Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 505-6. In January 1652 Disbrowe was involved in the reform of the law – a matter that also concerned Cromwell. Disbrowe was appointed to an extra-parliamentary committee to consider ‘the inconveniencies in the law on 9 January, and this was confirmed on 16 and 17 January.78CJ vii. 67b, 73b, 74a. He also assisted Cromwell’s careful management of the army in the months that followed. In the following summer the two men discouraged officers who wanted an immediate dissolution of the Rump, asking ‘if they destroyed that Parliament, what should they call themselves? A state they could not be’.79Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 624; CCSP i. 189. When Cromwell deemed the time was right, such arguments were ignored, and on 20 April 1653 the Rump was closed by force. According to Edmund Ludlowe II*, some officers thought this sudden change was dishonourable – or worse – and John Okey*

enquired of Colonel Disbrowe what his meaning was to give such high commendations to the Parliament when he endeavoured to persuade the officers of the army from petitioning them for a dissolution, and so short a time afterwards to eject them with so much scorn and contempt.

Disbrowe made light of the affair, telling Okey ‘that if ever he drolled in his life, he had drolled then’.80Ludlow, Mems. i. 356. A few weeks later, Disbrowe reaffirmed his personal allegiance to Cromwell when he joined Thurloe and Sir Gilbert Pykeringe* as trustee for the estate specified in the marriage settlement of Henry Cromwell* and Elizabeth Russell.81Hunts. RO, Acc. 731/29A-B.

Councillor of State, Apr. 1653-Sept. 1654

On 29 April 1653 Disbrowe was appointed to the new council of state, and he was assiduous in his attendance from then until the autumn.82CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. xxxiv-xl. As a councillor, Disbrowe was now able to develop his interests beyond the military sphere. In April, before the dissolution of the Rump, he had been appointed as one of the judges for the probate of wills, and he continued in this role under the new administration, being appointed to a council committee to liaise with the commissioners of the great seal about the assizes on 20 June.83A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 425. He also played a part in the management of foreign affairs: on 17 and 20 May he was one of those sent to treat with the Portuguese ambassador, and on 11 June he joined the committee that presented the commonwealth’s condolences at the death of the prince of Portugal.84CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 333, 340, 402. On 30 June the Dutch ambassador reported his latest conference with the council of state had been attended by Disbrowe, Pykeringe and Harrison.85TSP i. 308. On 27 July Disbrowe joined Harrison and others, including William Sydenham*, on the committee for foreign affairs.86CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 53. Connected with foreign policy was the administration of the navy, and Disbrowe gradually became involved in this during the following months. On 23 May he was named to a council committee to consider prize goods claimed by Sweden, and on 29 June he was added to the ordnance committee.87CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 347, 451. On 28 July he was named to the new admiralty and navy commission, and he signed warrants later in the year.88A. and O.; Add. 22546, ff. 141-2. During the summer, Disbrowe was also included in committees on intelligence, examining Thurloe’s agents, approving the accounts of Thomas Scot I*, and receiving information on a conspiracy in Dorset.89CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 444; 1653-4, pp. 12, 157. As the last appointment suggests, Disbrowe’s knowledge of the west country was also useful, and this presumably explains his involvement in committees dealing with petitions from Dorset and Gloucestershire during September.90CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 139, 170.

Although Disbrowe was re-elected to the council of state on 1 November, he played little part in the business of the next few weeks, as the Cromwellians became disillusioned with the political situation. It is perhaps indicative that although he was continued as a member of the council’s ordnance committee, Disbrowe was omitted from the committee for foreign affairs.91CJ vii 344a; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 237. On 23 November he made a brief reappearance in the council, when he was appointed to confer with Lambert on Scottish affairs.92CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 267. In a sign of the resurgence of the Cromwellian interest, on 3 December Disbrowe was confirmed as admiralty commissioner and he was also appointed general-at-sea for the next six months, alongside Robert Blake*, George Monck* and William Penn*.93CJ vii. 361b, 362a; Ludlow, Mems. i. 364; A. and O.; Clarke Pprs. v. 124.

Disbrowe’s first experience as an MP followed a similar pattern. He had been co-opted to sit in the Nominated Assembly on 5 July.94CJ vii. 281b. As with the council of state, much of his parliamentary activity in the following months concerned routine business. He was named to committees on such varied issues as Scottish affairs (9 July), the management of parliamentary committees (14 July), the making of appointments to the admiralty (25 July), and the raising of money from church lands and the sale of royal forests (13, 20, 23 Aug., 20 Sept.).95CJ vii. 285a-b, 289a, 300a, 305a, 307b, 322a. His committee appointments also reflected his interests as a councillor. He was named to a committee to consider how to fill up the remaining places on the council (9 July), and reported from the council the need to arrange for oaths to be taken by commissioners for accounts (16 July), the new establishment for the garrison of the Isle of Man to the House (15 September), and a Gloucestershire petition concerning tobacco (15 Aug.).96CJ vii. 283b, 285b, 319a. Disbrowe also pursued legal reform in Parliament as well as the council chamber. On 20 July he was named to a committee ‘for the business of the law’; on 13 and 16 August he was appointed committees to draft additional clauses for a bill on the registration of marriages, baptisms and burials, and on 17 August he was one of those chosen to peruse the final draft of the same bill.97CJ vii. 286b, 300a, 301b, 302a. Disbrowe’s approach to reform appears to have been very conservative, however. On 19 August he was teller against creating a new committee to consider an entirely new ‘body’ of law – a vote that he lost by eight votes; and it is revealing that he was not included in the resulting committee.98CJ vii. 304b. Nor is there is any sign than Disbrowe supported a radical religious agenda. His only religious appointments during this period were to the committee to consider the thorny question of clerical rights to tithes on 19 July, and a committee on a petition from the ‘well-affected’ of Essex concerning liberty of preaching on 26 July.99CJ vii. 286a, 290a.

Just as Disbrowe’s involvement in the council of state had declined during the autumn, so his activity in the Nominated Assembly fell rapidly after the end of October.100CJ vii. 340a. This was not the result of lack of influence: when he was reappointed to the council of state on 1 November, he came third in the ballot, with 74 votes.101CJ vii. 344a. On 4 November, however, he was given leave to go into the country for ten days, and he does not seem to have returned to the Commons after that period.102CJ vii. 346b. This absence was probably related to his growing opposition to the regime. In early December, Disbrowe was a prominent figure in the moves to dissolve the Nominated Assembly, working with Sydenham, Pykeringe, and, above all, Lambert.103Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 343, 346. He went on to sign the warrant proclaiming Cromwell as lord protector.104Oxford DNB. As a staunch Cromwellian, Disbrowe made an obvious choice for the new protectoral council appointed on 16 December, alongside old friends and associates like Lambert, Fleetwood, Sydenham and Pykeringe.105TSP i. 642. And as general-at-sea he played an important part in maintaining discipline within the fleet in the days that followed.106CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 311.

In the first half of 1654, Disbrowe’s role in the new council was very similar to that in the old. He remained an important figure in naval affairs, reporting the advice of the admiralty commissioners on an ordinance for pressing seamen on 15 March, he was appointed to the committee to continue the powers of the commissioners on 30 May, and he liaised with the council over ordnance for the navy on 24 August.107CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 30, 190, 330. His naval position brought him into the management of foreign affairs. On 5 January he was at Gravesend with Blake to see off the latest Dutch envoys, seeking an end to the naval war between the two countries.108TSP ii. 9. On 2 March he was put on the rota of councillors who would dine with the new Dutch ambassador and thus smooth the path of peace negotiations.109CSP Dom. 1654, p. 3. On 25 July he was one of the councillors who considered the reports of Bulstrode Whitelocke* concerning his Swedish embassy.110CSP Dom. 1654, p. 263. He continued to play a role in law reform, being named to the committee on an ordinance for the regulation of chancery on 13 and 27 July.111CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 252, 267. Disbrowe also retained his involvement in affairs of the west, ordering changes to the garrison of Exeter Castle (14 Apr.), joining a committee on a petition from Bath (12 June), or arranging for soldiers to police the on-going dispute over tobacco growing in Gloucestershire (14 June).112CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 100, 207, 212.

Disbrowe was also drawn into more routine administrative work. On 10 February he was appointed to a committee to raise money; on 31 May he was ordered to report on stocks of gunpowder held in the Tower; and on 20 July he was named to a committee to enquire into forces in Scotland and Ireland.113CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 398; 1654, pp. 191, 258. Disbrowe’s activity in the council reflected his closeness to the lord protector. In June he was involved in gathering intelligence of plots against Cromwell, and the next month there were reports he was himself a target of royalist conspirators.114TSP ii. 336, 416. In the same period, it was reported that Cromwell had referred a petition of Vincent Gookin* and the Irish Protestants directly to Disbrowe and Lambert, who were instructed to report back to the protector.115HMC Egmont, i. 544. It is also interesting that throughout this period he was negotiating the repurchase of the former crown property of the Little Park at Windsor, sitting on the committee on the matter (30 May), and being appointed (with Lambert) as a delegate to attend the protector to encourage him to agree to the investment (29 June, 31 July).116CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 189, 227, 276.

The First Protectorate Parliament

Disbrowe attended the protectoral council less frequently during the late summer of 1654, and played little part in the preparations for the sitting of the first protectoral Parliament in September.117CSP Dom. 1654, pp. xxxvi-xliv. Through his western contacts, Disbrowe was elected for Somerset and Totnes, but he chose to sit for his home county of Cambridgeshire.118CJ vii. 372b. In the early weeks of the session, Disbrowe’s role was unexciting. He was named to the committee of privileges on 5 September, and thereafter was appointed to committees that suited his position as councillor, and the interests he had pursued in the council.119CJ vii. 366b. Thus, on 15 September he was named to the committee on the judges at Salters’ Hall; on 25 September he was appointed to the committee on an ordinance for scandalous ministers; on 26 September he was named to a committee to consider the army and the navy, and what forces should be retained; and on 29 September he joined Lambert, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Walter Strickland* and other councillors on the committee for Scottish affairs.120CJ vii. 368a, 370a, 370b, 371b. On 5 October Disbrowe was included in the committee for regulating chancery, no doubt in the light of his work for law reform in the council; on 3 November he was appointed to a committee to consider a petition concerning the case of Sir John Stawell*, which concerned the honour of the army; and on 6 November he was teller with another Cromwellian, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) against the suspension of the council’s ordinance on scandalous ministers while a new bill was being prepared.121CJ vii. 374a, 381a, 382b.

By the beginning of November, attempts by critics of the protectorate to re-write the Instrument of Government, had caused supporters of the protectorate to close ranks. On 9 November, Disbrowe and Broghill were again tellers, this time in favour of adjourning the debate on the government bill until the next day – a vote that was won by a comfortable margin.122CJ vii. 384a. This adjournment bought time for the Cromwellians to marshal their forces. When the debate proceeded, it centred on whether the protector should have a ‘negative voice’ to veto legislation. Disbrowe took the opportunity to defend his brother-in-law in uncompromising terms, arguing that, as it stood, the Instrument was already a major concession by Cromwell.

The Parliament had no cause to be jealous, to trust the lord protector with the half, that not long since had the whole, and might have kept it without any competitor. He had power to have done it, and yet he hath given us some part of it, and in truth we have not an opportunity to do what we will, but to amend the [Instrument of] Government only where (in effect) he would give us leave.123Burton’s Diary, i. p. lxiv.

Throughout this Parliament, Disbrowe was distracted by naval affairs. This can be seen in his continuing involvement in the council. On 21 September he presented to the council the recommendations of the admiralty committee on the ships suitable to form the ‘winter guard’; on 12 October he reported from the admiralty new contracts for the victualling of the navy; and on 16 November he made another report on investigations against counterfeitors.124CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 370, 375, 397. Thereafter, Disbrowe was closely involved in preparations for the ‘Western Design’ – the amphibious campaign against Spanish possessions in the Caribbean – and this explains his absence from the Journal from mid-November until the end of December, as he was busy making arrangements in person. On 27 November he wrote to Cromwell from Portsmouth, reporting on progress, and also complaining of the difficulties of the task in hand: ‘I am sometimes encouraged in our business, and sometimes cross rubs come, and new proposals; but we do what we can to get over them, and there shall be no pains wanting for dispatch’.125TSP ii. 740. One of the commanders, Robert Venables*, had so ‘incensed’ Disbrowe over the provisioning of the fleet that (according to his later account), ‘he publicly fell out with me, and told me I sought to hinder the design, and raised an untrue report’. Venables, in turn, accused Disbrowe of having defended the victuallers of the navy because ‘he had a share of the profit of the place’.126Narrative of General Venables ed. Firth, 4-5. Whatever the truth of these allegations, on 2 December Disbrowe was authorised by the council to issue warrants for the payment of the land forces mustering at Portsmouth to be sent with the fleet; in the days that followed he reported progress to Cromwell and Thurloe; and on 28 December (perhaps on his return to London) he was thanked by the council for his efforts in hastening the dispatch of the expedition.127CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 404, 414; TSP iii. 3-4, 11-12.

Disbrowe was again sitting in the Commons at the beginning of January 1655, and he immediately rejoined the debate surrounding the government bill. On 1 January he showed a degree of flexibility by telling in favour of including copyhold lands in the voting qualifications, but thereafter he was uncompromising.128CJ vii. 411a. On 10 January he was teller with another councillor, Philip Jones*, in a failed bid to prevent the bill being engrossed before it was discussed in conference before the protector; on 12 January he joined Broghill, Ashley Cooper and other Cromwell supporters on a committee on the clause to allow no changes to the new legislation unless both protector and Parliament consented; and a day later he was among a group of councillors (including Ashley Cooper, Pykeringe and Jones) appointed to a committee to consider what revenue should be stipulated in the new government bill.129CJ vii. 414b, 415a, 415b. The report of the last committee on 16 January led to a motion to propose that the civil revenue should be set at £400,000 per annum – but this was rejected despite Disbrowe and Jones telling in favour.130CJ vii. 418a. On the same day Disbrowe and Jones were also tellers in favour of adjourning, rather than voting whether the protector’s consent was required for the government bill to become law, but again they were defeated.131CJ vii. 418b. Worse was to come. On 19 January Disbrowe and Sydenham were tellers in favour of giving a second reading of the clause allowing the protector and council sole control over the militia, and were defeated; and the next day Disbrowe and Broghill were also defeated as tellers against giving control of the militia to Parliament.132CJ vii. 420b, 421a. The repeated reverses experienced by the Cromwellians, even when backed by the authority of senior councillors such as Disbrowe, threatened to overturn the Instrument of Government and reduce the power of the protector. It was small wonder that Cromwell intervened to dissolve Parliament on 22 January.

Penruddock’s Rising and the Western Design

Despite Disbrowe’s strong support for the protectorate during the parliamentary session, he also retained close links with radical groups within the army. A letter to Disbrowe from the rebellious colonel, Robert Overton*, of January 1655, reveals that the major-general had intervened on his behalf. This attempt to restore Overton to his command was apparently motivated by Disbrowe’s loyalty to the officer corps, not any personal friendship with Overton, as the latter thanked him effusively, ‘though I am a stranger to you, yet encouraged by your late unexpected civilities’.133TSP iii. 68. As yet, there was no tension between Disbrowe’s attachment to the army and his fidelity to the lord protector. He continued to be one of Cromwell’s closest advisers, attending the council assiduously in January and February, taking charge of investigations of fraudulent debentures, and being appointed to committees on the settlement of Ireland and Scotland.134CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 27, 42, 43, 58-9, 65. He was present when Cromwell interviewed the Fifth Monarchist leader, John Rogers, in February 1655.135Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 612. He was also involved in the negotiations that led to the marriage of the Scottish MP, Sir William Lockhart*, to the protector’s niece, Robina Sewster, and he was a trustee under their marriage settlement, signed on 19 February, and assisted the purchase of her jointure lands thereafter.136NLS, Lockhart Charters A. 1, folder 2, no. 4; TSP iv. 342.

The royalist rising in the western counties, led in part by John Penruddock, caused great alarm at Whitehall. On 12 March Cromwell instructed Disbrowe, as ‘major-general of the west’ to march into the region with troops drawn from his own and other regiments, to put down the insurgency.137TSP iii. 221-2. On 15 March, Disbrowe was at Newbury, where he consulted agents from Wiltshire, and the next day he was met at Wincanton by Captain Henry Hatsell*, and issued orders for the arrest of royalists across the south west.138CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 80, 84; TSP iii. 247. On 17 March he reported back to Cromwell the success of the local forces in containing the rebellion, and his own intentions ‘forthwith to ride to Exeter, there to spend two or three days in examining those prisoners taken’.139TSP iii. 263. After visiting Devon, he went into Somerset before attending the trials of some of the conspirators at Salisbury.140TSP iii. 305-6, 308-9, 379. Disbrowe was back at Whitehall by mid-April, perhaps hastened by news that his wife was seriously ill.141CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 117, 120. Over the next two months he managed western affairs in absentia, receiving reports from Sir John Copleston* in Devon and sitting on a council committee concerning the fate of one of the Salisbury rebels, John Lucas.142CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 120, 153. His commission as major-general was renewed on 28 May, and he returned to the west in June, settling the militia troops in Devon, Dorset and Gloucestershire.143TSP iii. 486, 585; CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 241, 244. On 25 June Disbrowe wrote to Thurloe from Exeter that plans to reform the Cornish militia were also on foot, but had been hindered by the absence of Robert Bennett.144TSP iii. 585. Bennett was an old comrade of Disbrowe, but he was also an opponent of the protectorate, and his involvement in the Cornish militia may have raised eyebrows at Whitehall. Disbrowe was again forced to return to London at short notice before the end of July, prompting one officer in Somerset to write for further instructions, as their planned meeting had been cancelled ‘on account of your lady’s illness’.145CSP Dom. 1655, p. 252.

Throughout this period, Disbrowe had played an active role in the administration of the navy. In February 1655 he was one of those chosen to meet the admiralty judges concerning prize goods, and received information on a prize dispute; in March, even when dealing with the royalist insurrection, he was still writing to the admiralty commissioners concerning shipping and trade with France; and on his return to London he was again involved in prize disputes and petitions from the ballast officers.146CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 38, 45, 85, 118, 124, 164. In particular, Disbrowe had continued to support the Western Design against Spanish interests in the Caribbean. In January and February he had consulted with the treasurers-at-war on the funding of the expedition and presented their accounts to the council.147CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 22, 37. In April and May he was named to committees on a petition from the soldiers accompanying the fleet to the West Indies and to consider the pay owed to Venables’s troops.148CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 126, 158. In June General Venables inferred that Disbrowe had been the leading member of the council committee supervising the Design, and was thus responsible for the failure to supply proper medicine chests to the fleet.149HMC Portland, ii. 96. News of the disastrous defeat at Hispaniola, and the consequent failure of the Western Design, reached London at the end of July. Disbrowe was personally implicated in the failure. He was one of the first to receive news of the fiasco, in a private letter from Francis Barrington at Jamaica, blaming Venables for everything.150TSP iii. 646-7. Venables, in his ‘narrative’ of the affair, claimed that the lack of stores available to the troops revealed ‘how the promises of General Disbrowe were made good to us’.151Narrative of General Venables, ed. Firth, 70. Cromwell was devastated at the reverse, fearing that this was God’s judgement against the protectorate. Whether he chose to blame Disbrowe is uncertain, although it is interesting that when Henry Cromwell’s father-in-law, Sir Francis Russell*, encountered the general on 10 September, the mood was sombre: ‘he made himself a kind of stranger both by his looks and deportment at first’, although the genial Russell persisted and ‘my freedom with him prevailed’.152Henry Cromwell Corresp. 11. Thereafter, Disbrowe took out his frustration on the Spaniards. He was appointed to the committee to consider imposing an embargo on Spanish goods on 24 October, was one of the councillors ordered to prepare orders for the seizure of Spanish ships on 26 October, and was named to a committee on Spanish imports on 16 November.153CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 394, 400; 1655-6, p. 26.

Major-general, Aug. 1655-Aug. 1656

On 3 August 1655 Lambert, Pykeringe and Disbrowe attended the protector to ‘perfect’ what had been debated in council that day concerning a new scheme to settle the militia forces throughout England and Wales.154Durston, Major Generals, 21; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 268. On 9 August the major-generals were chosen, and Disbrowe was confirmed as the governor of the western precinct of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.155TSP iii. 710. Although it is usually considered to be the brainchild of Lambert, the model for the scheme was Disbrowe’s governorship of the west country, and Disbrowe’s letters in previous months reveal that he was thinking how to make the militia stronger and better financed. At the end of March 1655 he had told Cromwell of the difficulties of settling the militia in the immediate aftermath of the Penruddock rising; and in mid-June he had kept Thurloe abreast of his efforts to replace old militia units, and the need for proper funding for them.156TSP iii. 308-9, 556-7. On 25 June he had again written to Thurloe with his thoughts on how to improve the militia: ‘I think it very strange that men should be raised, and kept up for five months, and no pay allowed them, no not one penny’.157TSP iii. 585.

Disbrowe did not visit his charge until December. In the intervening period he attended the council assiduously, and once again his work was dominated by a mixture of naval and trade matters. Apart from his involvement in measures to restrict Spanish trade, he was appointed to committees on foreign merchants (3 Sept.), French wine imports (26 Sept.), the wool trade (3 Oct.) and London merchants (9 Oct.).158CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 312, 355, 367, 373. He was named to the committee to consider the powers of the admiralty commissioners on 7 November, and the next day his own commission was renewed.159CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 9-10. On 13 November he was one of those councillors chosen to attend the customs and excise commissioners, and on 29 November he reported on the seizure of a French ship and Spanish money.160CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 16, 41. By the end of November, however, Disbrowe was increasingly distracted by the demands of his western precinct. There was still a certain amount of tidying up to be done after the Penruddock rising On 20 November Disbrowe and the local militia commissioners were ordered to finish the process of paying off the additional troops raised during the insurrection, and on 28 November Disbrowe reported to the council his recommendations on the fate of the prisoners taken in the previous spring, and how the disbandment of troops might be effected.161CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 29, 37. Both matters were partly resolved on 30 November, when Disbrowe received orders from the council to arrange for the transport of prisoners to Barbados and the disbandment of two foot companies at Exeter Castle.162CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 43-4. Although it was already apparent that Disbrowe could not govern his precinct by pen, he remained at Whitehall until 4 December. According to one of the Cromwell circle, William Stane*, this further delay was owing to ‘his wife’s sickness, [which] kept him here till this time’.163Henry Cromwell Corresp. 84. Domestic problems continued to worry Disbrowe during his absence. On 10 December he ended a report to Thurloe with a personal plea: ‘Pray be his highness’s remembrancer in visiting my wife’, and on 19 January he asked for his speedy recall, ‘that I may return unto my poor wife’.164TSP iv. 302, 439.

Disbrowe had reached Salisbury by 8 December, and for the next two months he travelled into Dorset and Somerset, Gloucester and Bristol, then Devon and Cornwall, before returning to Whitehall in mid-February.165TSP iv. 300, 320, 353, 391, 413, 451; CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 189. During his tour, Disbrowe’s personal touch and attention to detail won him the cooperation of local administrators. In mid-December, he met local commissioners in Devon and Dorset to arrange for the summoning of former royalists to Exeter and Blandford to give information on their estates and households, ready for the imposition of the decimation tax.166Cornw. RO, T/1643. On 18 December he was given dinner by the corporation of Bristol, and a few days later he was entertained at Gloucester, and bells were rung across the city in his honour.167Bristol RO, 04264/5, p. 96. Glos. RO, GBR/F4/6; G3/SO 2, f. 76. On 8 January he attended the Somerset quarter sessions at Wells, presumably to get to know his fellow justicesof the peace rather than to take part in their discussions, which on that day involved only routine local business.168QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, 278. During his visit to Cornwall he made time to meet local officers, but when accosted in his coach by the Quaker, George Fox, he allowed only a brief exchange of words, saying that ‘he could not stay to talk with us as his horses would take cold’.169Jnl. of George Fox, i. 209-10. He was also careful to prevent the dissemination of Quaker pamphlets in Dorset and Devon.170TSP iv. 531.

Disbrowe’s attitude to the well-affected gentry was very different, however, and he was careful to listen to their advice.171TSP iv. 320. His familiarity encouraged locals to approach him with information or requests. For example, during the winter of 1655-6 the Dorset Presbyterian, John Fitzjames*, wrote to Disbrowe concerning a dispute over a horse seized by Dorset militia, and he hoped to use his influence to gain concessions for his royalist cousin, Thomas Fitzjames, then imprisoned at Exeter.172Alnwick, Northumberland 551, ff. 49v, 51v. In this atmosphere of mutual cooperation, intelligence could be gathered easily, and Disbrowe and his subordinates had soon drawn up a comprehensive list of royalist suspects, covering all the counties of the west except Cornwall.173Add. 34012. Disbrowe was intent on rooting out royalism wherever he found it. He purged suspects from the corporations of Gloucester, Tiverton, Tewkesbury and Bristol. He was not heavy-handed, however. When arranging for the removal of burgesses at Bristol, he ‘resolved to do it with as little noise as I could’, asking the mayor to ‘advise them tacitly to resign, otherwise I should be necessitated to make them public examples’.174TSP iv. 396; Bristol RO, 04417/1, ff. 34-6. At Barnstaple, Disbrowe wrote to the mayor, with the result that an offender ‘dismissed himself out of the office of common council’ without unseemly fuss, shortly afterwards.175N. Devon RO, B1/4026.

Disbrowe was not content merely to obey orders – he sought to develop his role, and that of the other major-generals, further. As early as 15 December he told Thurloe that the decimation tax should be extended, for ‘there are more dangerous persons under £100 per annum than above’.176TSP iv. 320. Two weeks later he raised the matter with Cromwell directly, reporting that there had been some confusion among the commissioners in Wiltshire and Dorset about eligibility for the tax, and concerns that the rule being used was not that intended. ‘I must request this favour’, Disbrowe continued

that your highness will order Mr Secretary to signify your approbation or disapprobation upon the instructions, because in some things I have exceeded my commission; and also that I may have an explanation in that clause, and have a clear ground to proceed upon.177TSP iv. 360.

On 4 January 1656 Disbrowe again wrote to Thurloe with his concerns.

The objection I hinted unto his highness in my last I frequently meet withal, and therefore if the council see not cause to make those of the £50 p.a. or £500 personal estate liable to this additional tax, it will be but expedient that an explanatory order of the council be sent to the commissioners in each county for their satisfaction therein.178TSP iv. 391.

The council instructions to Disbrowe and his officers in the western counties had been finalised on 2 January, and he had evidently received them by 12 January, when he told Thurloe of his disappointment that decimation had not been extended: ‘for the council’s dissatisfaction in making persons of £50 p.a. liable to this additional tax, I shall not mention more, until I have had conference with the rest of the major-generals’.179CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 102; TSP iv. 413.

Another bone of contention was the tendency of the protector and council to reduce the penalties imposed on individual royalists. In December 1655 Disbrowe was forced to write to Cromwell arguing that he doubted Lord Seymour (Sir Francis Seymour*) and Sir James Thynne* had changed their ways, despite their protestations, and by way of contrast he told Thurloe of his own attitude towards Sir John Strangways* and other royalist appellants in Dorset: ‘after I had dealt very plainly and indeed roundly with them, they with the rest fairly submitted’.180TSP iv. 324-5, 336-7. In January, after his purge of the corporations, Disbrowe asked Cromwell, ‘that if any addresses should be made in the behalf of any that I have lain aside, that his highness will favour me so far as to respite judgement until providence returns me to London’.181TSP iv. 396. On 19 January he warned Thurloe of the risks of exempting ‘hundreds of cavaliers’ from the tax, as it would leave them ‘as free to set up that corrupt interest as ever’, but added that he was bound to submit to the orders of his brother-in-law, for ‘whatever his highness’s pleasure is, if signified to me, it shall be observed’.182TSP iv. 439. Regardless of such warnings, Cromwell remained well-disposed towards petitioners, and on 1 February he ordered Disbrowe and the Cornish commissioners to exempt Warwick Mohun, 2nd Baron Mohun of Okehampton, from the decimation tax.183TSP iv. 494. Disbrowe probably knew that the council was also receiving a number of petitions from western royalists, and that these were receiving similarly lenient treatment. On 16 January Disbrowe was sent orders to discharge the estate of William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford; on 1 February he was told that further proceedings against the Dorset gentleman John St Loe were to cease; and on 14 February he was informed that no more action would be taken against the Devon lands of Lionel Cranfield, 3rd earl of Middlesex.184CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 117, 157, 182. These decisions were a source of great frustration for Disbrowe, who shared the feeling of other major-generals that their work was being hindered by those who should have supported their efforts.185Durston, Major Generals, 108-113. There were ominous parallels between Disbrowe’s situation and that of Charles Fleetwood, whose policy of transplantation in Ireland had been constantly undermined by Cromwell’s willingness to make exceptions.

Despite the obstructions from Whitehall, Disbrowe had reason to be pleased with progress so far. He had cemented alliances with a number of garrison commanders and well-affected gentlemen, including Robert Bennett, Henry Hatsell*, Robert Blackborne* and the high sheriff of Devon, Sir John Copleston*.186CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 278, 302, 485. In general, he considered the commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth to be of a high standard, with ‘a freeness and cheerfulness to the work’.187TSP iv. 462. At the end of his tour, he could report to Cromwell that there were now 700 soldiers guarding the west, ‘very unanimous to serve your highness and the commonwealth. They are well-armed, stout men in appearance, and well-horsed’.188TSP iv. 520. Yet Disbrowe was determined that the system could be made to work even better. In the same letter he recommended to Cromwell

that if you were pleased to summon all the major generals up to wait on you in a fortnight, there might be somewhat propounded to your highness which might be of great use and advantage to this poor nation; especially if they find the temper of the gentlemen, where they come, as I do generally in these parts.189TSP iv. 520; Bodl. Rawl. A.35, f. 102.

As yet, Cromwell did not follow Disbrowe’s advice, and a meeting of the major-generals was postponed. Disbrowe was, nevertheless, able to advance the position of the major-generals’ scheme in the council chamber. On 27 February he was named to a committee to consider earlier decisions by the council to suspend proceedings against delinquents, and a day later he was appointed to a committee to prepare a full establishment for the payment of the new militia forces.190CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 200, 201-2. Thereafter, he concentrated on fighting for improvements in his own precinct. On 7 March he was ordered to provide information on the decimation of lands mortgaged by Sir Robert Tracy*, and on 10 March the matter was referred back to him and the Gloucester commissioners to remove the tax or explain why it should be continued.191CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 214, 217. Disbrowe’s presence in the council chamber made it less easy for decisions to be made without his involvement. He was included in committees to consider relevant cases, such as the petition of Thomas Mompesson of Salisbury (21 Mar.), and petitions from the cities of Gloucester and Bristol (12 and 24 June).192CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 234, 371, 385. Other cases were referred immediately to Disbrowe and the local commissioners, including the petitions of a number of Dorset royalists (27 May).193CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 334, 336.

There were limits to Disbrowe’s influence, however. He was not made a member of the council’s committee on petitions against decimation, and the only part he played in the case of Lord Mohun – confirmed by Cromwell on 26 June – was to implement his discharge as major-general for Devon.194CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 393. Despite the continuing difficulties of his role as major-general, there is no sign that Disbrowe was disaffected towards the regime. He was apparently content to return to his general duties on the council, and during the spring and summer he worked to improve the finances of the regime and was involved in admiralty affairs.195CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 194, 218, 230, 247, 251, 273, 312, 330, 352, 365. In his capacity as general-at-sea, he travelled to Portsmouth in March to investigate a mutiny, returning to Whitehall with information about the fleet from its commander, Edward Montagu*.196TSP iv. 582, 589. His personal relationship with the protector was as strong as ever in the late spring. An intercepted royalist letter of 4 April noted Cromwell’s appearance at Hyde Park ‘in his coach, and in it with him Disbrowe and Sydenham’.197TSP iv. 675-6. At the end of the same month, Disbrowe wrote to Henry Cromwell in Ireland, asking for the speedy settlement of the land allocated to his brother, Samuel Disbrowe* (a member of the Scottish council).198Henry Cromwell Corresp. 122. In May Cromwell at last held a meeting of the major-generals, and it was probably on their advice that in June he made the decision to call another Parliament.199Durston, Major Generals, 188.

At the end of July 1656, Disbrowe travelled back to the west country to supervise the elections for the second protectorate Parliament. His reception was encouraging. Having arrived at Blandford in Dorset on 18 July, he was immediately invited to dine with the corporation at Dorchester, who ordered ‘a gallon of sack and a gallon of white and claret and a sugar loaf ... together with a fat sheep’ for his entertainment.200Recs. of Dorchester ed. Mayo, 645. At Launceston in Cornwall he played bowls ‘with the justices and other men’ on the Castle Green, much to the irritation of the Quakers imprisoned in the gaol nearby.201Jnl. of George Fox, i. 241. On 12 August, when Disbrowe was still at Launceston, he sent upbeat assessments of the progress of the elections to Cromwell and Thurloe. Despite ‘all the endeavours of the old dissatisfied party’, he told Cromwell, he had resolved ‘to make it my business to encourage the honest, sober people and strengthen their hands as much as in me lies’. The boroughs had already elected suitable MPs, including Major Jenkins at Wells, Robert Blake at Taunton, Sir John Copleston at Barnstaple, and Disbrowe himself at Bridgwater.202TSP v. 302. His letter to Thurloe was also confident of success, for the borough returns showed ‘that that spirit of opposition to the present government bears not that sway that some men fancy’, while he had ‘consulted with the honest people of every county, as I came along, and with them agreed upon names’.203TSP v. 303.

This approach worked in Dorset, where a compromise was struck, albeit with the inclusion of only one active Cromwellian on the slate of six MPs – William Sydenham.204Little and Smith, Parliaments and Politics, 234. Disbrowe was forced to intervene only very rarely, and the results were mixed. He prevented the re-election of Christopher Guise* for Gloucestershire.205Durston, Major Generals, 192. He narrowly failed to secure the return of Robert Bennett for East and West Looe, although he declared himself satisfied with the election of John Buller*. The relative success of the elections across the precinct can be seen in the low rate of exclusions made by the council in later weeks (22 per cent). No MPs were excluded from Dorset and Gloucestershire, and the only a handful in Cornwall and Somerset.206Little and Smith, Parliaments and Politics, 88-9. The election was a personal success for Disbrowe. As well as Bridgwater, he had also been elected at King’s Lynn in Norfolk (perhaps through the good offices of the major-general, Hezekiah Haynes*), Gloucester and the county of Somerset, eventually electing to sit for the last.207TSP v. 328; HMC Soton and King’s Lynn, 149, 183; Burton’s Diary, i. p. clxxxv; CJ vii. 428a, 442b.

A new Parliament: Sept.-Dec. 1656

On 28 August 1656 the president of the protectoral council, Henry Lawrence*, ordered Disbrowe and other councillors to return to London to prepare for the new Parliament.208CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 90. Disbrowe’s standing in the council was now at a high point. Soon after his return, on 4 September, he was appointed to the committee to consider the powers of the Army Committee; and the next day he was involved in the payment of £500 from the decimation tax raised in the west to the poorer precincts of Hezekiah Haynes and William Goffe*.209CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 98-9. The surplus produced by his own region – calculated as amounting to £5,550 by September 1656 – was another mark of Disbrowe’s success as a major-general.210Durston, Major Generals, 118. His influence in admiralty affairs also continued. On 9 September the admiralty commissioners requested that Disbrowe report to the council their concerns about the vulnerability of the ships stationed before Dunkirk as the season for winter storms approached.211TSP v. 397. At the end of September he was ordered to consult with the admiralty about convoys for the merchant adventurers, in November and December he was involved in council committees on the ballasting office, prize disputes and the deployment and victualling of the fleet, and his involvement in admiralty matters continued into the new year of 1657.212CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 115, 164, 168, 181, 189, 193, 232, 237, 241, 244; TSP, v. 781. There are other signs of Disbrowe’s increased status during this period. When, after many months of illness, his wife died at the end of October, she was buried at Westminster Abbey in a quasi-regal funeral, as befitted the sister of the lord protector. According to the Venetian resident, the obsequies took place at night, when her corpse ‘was carried with great pomp to Westminster and buried in one of the tombs which in other days were reserved for royal bodies only’.213Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 314; CSP Ven. 1655-6, p. 280. Only a few days later, the accounts of the surveyor general for nearly £2,000 of work done to Disbrowe’s official residence in the Spring Garden at Whitehall were submitted for the council’s approval.214CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 143.

Despite his obvious closeness to the centre of power, Disbrowe had grave doubts about the increasingly ‘civilian’ character of the protectorate. In November 1656, according to John Bridges*, Disbrowe argued privately in favour of the status quo, ‘being led to it by Providence’ and opposed any suggestion that the protectorate should become a monarchy, asserting ‘the inconveniences of a sudden alteration of the constitution from elective to hereditary’.215Henry Cromwell Corresp. 187. On 20 December, when the calling of the House was discussed, Denis Bond had commented that the people ‘say we are now made up of none but soldiers and courtiers and friends to my lord protector – this is a scandal to us’. Disbrowe, riposted: ‘I hope no man thinks it is a scandal to be a soldier, or my lord protector’s friend’.216Burton’s Diary, i. 193. Significantly, he did not defend the protector’s civilian courtiers.

The mixture of instinctive loyalty towards the protector and growing distrust of his advisers would characterise Disbrowe’s role throughout the first session of the second protectorate Parliament. In September 1656, his tasks were largely formal, even formulaic, in nature. He was named to the committee to prepare the declaration for a fast day on 18 September, and was one of the MPs chosen to attend the protector with the declaration three days later; also on 18 September he was named to the committee of privileges; and on 19 September he was named, with a number of councillors and courtiers, to the committee on a bill for renouncing Charles Stuart’s title to the throne.217CJ vii. 424a, 425a, 426b. The legitimacy and security of the protectorate also concerned Disbrowe during September. He was teller in favour of adjourning the controversial debate on exclusions (22 Sept.); he was named to committees to consider the correct way to address the protector with bills, on a bill for the security of the protector’s person (26 Sept.), and to revise all previous acts and ordinances (27 Sept.).218CJ vii. 426a, 429a-b. In a similar vein, on 2 October Disbrowe, with Lambert, Fleetwood, Sydenham and others, was named to a committee to attend Cromwell to request a day of thanksgiving for the recent victory against the Spanish fleet.219CJ vii. 432b. In the next two months, Disbrowe’s range of activity seems to have increased, to include many of the concerns he had pursued in earlier Parliaments or the council He was involved in discussions on law reform, and was named to committees on customary oaths (7 Oct.), abuses by lords of manors (13 Oct.), encumbrances (18 Oct.), the recovery of small debts (1 Nov.), the creation of courts in York (20 Nov.), and the petition of the doctors of civil law (22 Nov.).220CJ vii. 435b, 438a, 441b, 449a, 456a, 457a

The prominence of Disbrowe’s brother in the Scottish government may have prompted him to maintain that the Scottish union bill should take precedence over other business on 3 December, and the next day he was named to a committee on the bill for suppressing theft in the borders.221Burton’s Diary, i. 6; CJ vii. 464a. This concern with the north may also reflect Disbrowe’s closeness to Lambert at this time. On 23 December he supported a petition from the north which was backed by Lambert; and the next day Disbrowe and Lambert moved that the consideration of Irish land cases should be referred to ‘two of three or more of his highness’s council, whereof the lord deputy [Fleetwood] to be one’.222Burton’s Diary, i. 209, 222. Disbrowe also played a minor part in discussions on trade. He was named to the committee on a bill to repeal legislation on the transport of corn and meal on 7 October.223CJ vii. 435b. On 9 December he was among the MPs who supported the hastening of a bill for trade, and ten days later he argued in favour of foreign merchants paying their share of the assessment arrears owed by London.224Burton’s Diary, i. 82, 180. The shortage of money was another concern, and on 10 December he said that while he agreed in principle that Parliament should honour sums borrowed on the public faith in the previous decade, there was no money available, and ‘I doubt we can do nothing till we be stored for our own occasions’.225Burton’s Diary, i. 93-4.

Disbrowe was also active in religious affairs. He was named to the committee on a bill to allow incumbents to enjoy sequestered livings (4 Oct.), on the committee stage of a bill for the maintenance of ministers at his old stamping ground of Great Yarmouth (14 Nov.).226CJ vii. 434a, 453b. Ten days later he was teller in favour of passing amendments to the same bill, and on 17 December he was named to the committee stage of a similar bill, to support the ministers of Northampton.227CJ vii. 458a, 469a. During the latter debate, he called for a more regular system for the maintenance of ministers, involving investigations into tithe rents still held by delinquents.228Burton’s Diary, i. 160. There is also evidence that Disbrowe was continuing to support the western counties. On 22 November he was appointed to the committee on a bill to settle Gloucester Cathedral on the corporation of the city, and a month later he was added to a committee to consider Gloucester’s claim to compensation from Irish lands for its sufferings in the first civil war.229CJ vii. 457a, 473a. In December he received a letter from the mayor of Bridgwater, asking that stones from the demolished garrison might be used to rebuild properties damaged destroyed during the wars, and he raised the matter in the council on 23 December.230Som. RO, T/PH/tem/5; CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 207.

As major-general, Disbrowe had shown little sympathy for George Fox in Cornwall, and in early October 1656 the council had to order him to release Quakers held in prisons at Exeter and Dorchester.231CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 122. James Naylor, whose re-enactment of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem had taken place at Bristol, a city in his own precinct, may have embarrassed Disbrowe. Yet during the parliamentary debates on the fate of Naylor, Disbrowe stuck to the council line, which upheld liberty of conscience and thus opposed the more extreme penalties demanded by some MPs. On 5 December he counselled caution, ‘for we may offend as well in proceeding and sudden stepping into judgements, especially in matters that concern life, which, when taken, we cannot restore’. He was aware that others would judge Parliament’s actions, and argued that ‘I would have us to do things so as to justify us, before both the face of God and the nation, too’.232Burton’s Diary, i. 31. The crime of blasphemy raised difficulties for Disbrowe, as he admitted on 8 December.

I speak not to extenuate Naylor’s offence, but, if we judge by Christian rule, the other persons are more guilty of blasphemy in that sense, than he. They gave him the honour... He is a great sinner, a vile sinful man; but to call him a horrid blasphemer, I shall not give my vote.233Burton’s Diary, i. 55.

Later on the same day, he returned to the theme, saying, ‘you heard in the gospel of false Christs to arise; but no judgement is passed upon them, but only to bid us take heed of them, beware, and the like’; and arguing that ‘where the law of God and law of men is silent, I never heard it in a Christian commonwealth to condemn any man in that high nature that is offered’.234Burton’s Diary, i. 71-2. The violence of the protracted debate also concerned Disbrowe, and on 12 December he recommended laying the matter aside, ‘till we be of better temper, so as to hear one another speak with patience’.235Burton’s Diary, i. 119. Three days later he again called for an adjournment, as ‘I have observed nothing but repetitions five days together’.236Burton’s Diary, i. 146. On 16 December he urged MPs not to demand corporal punishments, as ‘if you slit his tongue, you may endanger his life. It will be a death of a secret nature’.237Burton’s Diary, i. 153. Disbrowe’s ambivalence over Naylor was shared by the protector, who intervened at the end of December to curb the more bloodthirsty MPs. On 30 December he urged MPs to comply with Cromwell’s letter, and he moved for the appointment of a committee ‘to satisfy him of the grounds and reasons for our judgement’.238Burton’s Diary, i. 271. By then Disbrowe had more pressing matters to attend to.

The militia bill, Dec. 1656-Jan. 1657

From the very beginning of the Parliament, Disbrowe had been deeply involved in security issues, prompted by the common fear that Charles Stuart planned an invasion, backed by Spain, in concert with a new insurrection by royalists in England. His sense of urgency can be seen in a letter sent to Bennett in September 1656, warning that he should be on his guard, as ‘the old enemy is attempting again, not only from abroad but indeed at home’.239FSL, X.d.483 (120). His support for harsh policies against Spain, evident in the council proceedings in the previous winter, reappeared in the autumn, and on 20 December he called for ‘two days a week for Spanish business’, until the money to fund the war had been agreed.240Burton’s Diary, i. 191; CJ vii. 432b.

The domestic counterpart to a vigorous policy against Spain was the need to reinforce the rule of the major-generals. This had long been Disbrowe’s ambition, and there are signs that he was again pushing for such measures in the autumn of 1656. On 20 November, for example, he was appointed, alongside Lambert, Fleetwood, Sydenham and Philip Jones, to receive from the major-generals their views on the alteration of the establishment of the militia forces and other matters affecting regional government.241CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 167. This latest attempt by Disbrowe and his allies to strengthen the rule of the major-generals would lead, little more than a month later, to the introduction of a brand new militia bill into the Commons, on 25 December. Addressing the House, Disbrowe offered a ‘short bill ... for continuance of a tax upon some people, for the maintenance of the militia. It will be for the security of your peace. It can fall upon no persons so fitly as upon those that occasion the charge. Let us lay the saddle upon the right horse’.242Burton’s Diary, i. 230. Disbrowe’s blunt little speech did not attract much support even in a House depleted by those surreptitiously enjoying the Christmas festivities. In the debate that followed he was forced to allow some exceptions for those who ‘have given testimony of their affection to you, both before or since the decimation’, as ‘it is far from me to offer to lay a tax upon any of them that either have, or shall come into a cheerful compliance with us, and disclaiming their party. If they become our friends, let them benefit by their change’.243Burton’s Diary, i. 236-7. Contrary to appearances, Disbrowe claimed to seek repentance not retribution.

In January 1657 it was reported that Disbrowe and Lambert were the leading supporters of the major-generals scheme, and that they were strongly opposed by Lord Broghill and other civilian courtiers and councillors, with support from the Presbyterian and ‘country’ interest in the Commons.244CCSP ii. 239. On 7 January Disbrowe was on the back foot, as his opponents insisted that the decimation tax was incompatible with the Act of Oblivion passed in 1652. He countered that the Act had not worked: ‘tell me one man that discovered any part of the plot, but when we came to seek any houses for them, they were ready to excuse them and conceal them, upon the rising at Salisbury. It is plain they have gone contrary to this Act of Oblivion’.245Burton’s Diary, i. 315-6. Disbrowe also took the opportunity to recommend that the tax on royalists should be increased: ‘I think it is too light a tax, a decimation – I would have it higher’.246Burton’s Diary, i. 316. This suggests that the need to change the way in which the militia was financed was at the heart of Disbrowe’s bill; an impression reinforced by his appointment, on 27 January, to a council committee to reconsider the funding of the new militia forces, in consultation with the Army Committee.247CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 256. The attempt to redesign and strengthen the system was, however, destined to fail. The second reading of the militia bill was rejected by Parliament on 29 January, and the rule of the major-generals was effectively brought to an end. It has been said that Disbrowe’s decision to ask Parliament to confirm decimation was ‘both unnecessary and ill-conceived’; but what Disbrowe wanted was not the confirmation of the tax but its extension – to increase the rates imposed and, perhaps, to include those poorer royalists he had identified as a threat in the winter of 1655-6.248Durston, Major Generals, 224.

Debating kingship, Feb.-June 1657

The collapse of the major-generals scheme left Disbrowe dismayed. According to Thomas Burton*, the defeat led to much bitterness in the Commons.

It was a serious debate, and not without sharpness and reflections. The exceptions between Major-general Disbrowe and Mr [James] Ashe were debated next morning, but upon some explanation, though the words were high, all was put up.249Bodl. Carte 228, f. 88.

In the days that followed, Disbrowe returned to his committee duties in Parliament and the council, but he continued his involvement in his own precinct and that of other major-generals, perhaps in the hope of salvaging something from the wreckage. On 10 February he was appointed to a council committee on Portland Castle in Dorset, and on 12 February he joined another committee, to consult with Major-general Goffe about Quakers in Sussex.250CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 273, 278. Disbrowe was also named to the committee stages on three bills: for propagating and preaching the gospel and maintaining ministers at Exeter on 9 February; for the observation of the Lord’s Day on 18 February; and to settle Irish lands on the city of Gloucester on 19 February.251CJ vii. 488a, 493b, 494a. As the weeks went by, the chances of reviving the major-generals reduced; worse still, the unveiling of a new, civilian constitution, the Remonstrance, on 23 February 1657, confirmed Disbrowe’s fears that the protectorate was becoming corrupted.

According to Henry Cromwell, Disbrowe received news of the Remonstrance calmly – by contrast to the violent reaction of Lambert and others.252Henry Cromwell Corresp. 203, 205. But behind the calm exterior, Disbrowe was busy marshalling his myrmidons. He held a meeting of the major-generals at his lodgings, and there received a committee of army officers, ‘to acquaint them with the fears and jealousies that lay upon them in relation to the protector’s alteration of his title’ and this led to a conference in which Lambert ‘opened the substance of the bill for kingship’.253Clarke Pprs. iii. 92. There is no indication that Disbrowe attended the notorious meeting between Cromwell and the officers on 27 February, but he was surely the intended target for the barbed question: ‘who bid you go to the House with a bill and there receive a foil?’254Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 417.

The friction between the protector and his brother-in-law was now public. It is telling that Disbrowe, who had been an almost constant presence in council meetings in January and February, was absent on 24 February. Thereafter his attendance became erratic. In March he was present only twice, and in April he stopped attending altogether, and he made only occasional appearances in May.255CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. xx-xxii. According to William Jephson*, the decision to defer the vote on kingship in the first article of the Remonstrance was designed ‘for the satisfaction of Fleetwood and Disbrowe, who I think will be now very firm and endeavour to convert their brethren’.256Henry Cromwell Corresp. 214. This seems to have worked, at least temporarily, for in mid-March it was said that Disbrowe and many officers were now prepared to support a new constitution.257Henry Cromwell Corresp. 229. Some kind of rapprochement is also suggested by Disbrowe’s reappearance in the Commons on 12 March, and from then onwards he was included on committees to consider the judicial role of the upper chamber or ‘Other House’ (12 Mar.); to consider ministers who could not accept the national church (19 Mar.), to draft a clause for Ireland and Scotland in the 12th article (20 Mar.); and to suggest ways to secure the peace of the nation against former royalists in the new constitution (20 Mar.).258CJ vii. 502a, 507b, 508b. Kingship remained the sticking point, however. On 24 March the 1st article was at last considered by the House, but only after a stalling motion, which attempted to adjourn until the afternoon sitting, presumably so that opponents could muster more support. Disbrowe was a teller in favour of delay, but was defeated by 107 to 75.259CJ vii. 511a. This vote was followed by a ‘pitched battle’, with Disbrowe and the major-generals in violent opposition to kinglings like Broghill and Whitelocke.260Henry Cromwell Corresp. 236. A week later, when Parliament voted through the constitution, renamed the Humble Petition and Advice, it was said that Disbrowe, like Lambert, remained ‘sullen’ in his opposition.261Henry Cromwell Corresp. 245.

The protector’s refusal to give an immediate answer to Parliament revived the hopes of Disbrowe and his allies. In the first week of April, Disbrowe was involved in managing Parliament’s response to the delay. On 3 April he was added to the committee to attend Cromwell to ask for a formal audience concerning the Humble Petition, and the next day he was teller with John Hewson* against a motion that the Commons ‘adhered’ to the new constitution in its monarchical form.262CJ vii. 519b, 520b. Disbrowe was named to the committee to explain the reasons for the Commons’ obduracy on 6 April, and on the next day he was named to a committee to attend the protector to request a further meeting.263CJ vii. 520b, 521a. As Cromwell deliberated further, the fears of Disbrowe, Lambert and Fleetwood began to return – as was obvious to the French ambassador and the Venetian resident.264PRO31/3/101, ff. 86, 128; CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 35. Thurloe saw Disbrowe as a close ally of Fleetwood during this period. Kingship was still the key issue for these men, but Thurloe was being rather optimistic when he wrote to Henry Cromwell on 21 April that ‘my lord deputy and General Disbrowe oppose themselves with all earnestness against this title, but think the other things in the Petition and Advice are very honest’.265TSP vi. 219.

The change of mood was obvious in Parliament at the end of April. Disbrowe’s involvement in committees was low key, and confined to safe topics such as the sale of forests and the regulation of chancery.266CJ vii. 526b, 528a, 528b. In debate, however, he sought to undermine the validity of the new constitution. When the confirmation of all the previous acts and ordinances in a single bill was considered, Disbrowe made disparaging remarks about the protectorate Parliament, while upholding the protectoral ordinances and the acts of the Rump Parliament. On 28 April he claimed that

where the supreme power and authority is, there is the legislature; and what was done by them [the council] are as good laws, as any that have been done by us [the current Parliament]. All that the Long Parliament did is as contrary to the laws, upon this account, as what is done by his highness and the council, and by that rule what is done by us, is as far from the rule. It reflects upon the Long Parliament by the back-hand.267Burton’s Diary, ii. 47-8.

When the confirmation of all acts passed between 1642 and 1653 was considered on 30 April, it was argued that there was no need, as they were assumed to be valid if they did not contradict the Humble Petition and Advice. Disbrowe disagreed. In the shifting sands of the new settlement, ‘clear and undoubted sanction’ was crucial, or the lawyers would pull the old laws apart: ‘though Westminster Hall question them not now, we know not what they may do, and that were very disingenuous for you to permit ... by denying a confirmation to them, you overthrow the settlement upon which you are’.268Burton’s Diary, ii. 86, 91. This was hardly a ringing endorsement of the Humble Petition and Advice.

On 5 May Thurloe reported that the disillusion of Disbrowe and Fleetwood had reached new depths. ‘My lord deputy and General Disbrowe seem to be very much fixed against [Cromwell’s] being king, and speak of nothing but giving over their commands, and all their employments, if he doth accept that title’.269TSP vi. 261. According to Ludlowe (who claimed to have heard it from Disbrowe himself), Cromwell had arranged a private meeting with Disbrowe and Fleetwood, ‘where he began to droll with them about monarchy, and speaking slightly of it, said it was but a feather in a man’s cap, and therefore wondered that men would not please the children, and permit them to enjoy their rattle’. The answer Cromwell received ‘was not at all suitable to his expectations or desires’, but he tried again shortly afterwards, only to receive a sharper retort from Disbrowe, ‘that he gave the cause and Cromwell’s family also for lost; adding that though he was resolved never to act against him, yet he would not act for him after that time’.270Ludlow, Mems. ii. 24. Ludlowe’s account is corroborated by a newsletter by Gilbert Mabbott, who reported that both Disbrowe and Fleetwood ‘did very earnestly press [Cromwell] against it, and the Lord Disbrowe told him that he had and would fight against kingship in any person whatsoever that should accept it’.271Clarke Pprs. v. 261. This sense of personal loyalty did not prevent Disbrowe and Fleetwood from involvement with the army officers’ petition on 8 May, although they were careful to ‘disown the knowledge of the petition in the House, yet they both perused it and saw it and showed it my lord protector before ever it was presented to the House’.272Ludlow, Mems. ii. 25-6; Clarke Pprs. v. 261. It was this intervention by the army, backed by pressure from Disbrowe and Fleetwood, that prompted Cromwell to publicly refuse the crown on the same day.

With Cromwell’s definite refusal of the crown, Disbrowe’s attitude changed. Instead of petulant opposition, he now used his influence in the Commons to modify the new constitution before it could become law, and to pass the financial measures that had been put on hold during the kingship debate. On 12 May he was teller in favour of the formation of a grand committee to discuss the assessment bill.273CJ vii. 533b. On 19 May he was named to a committee to consider how the title ‘protector’ might be defined and limited, following the vote to continue with that office in the Humble Petition.274CJ vii. 535a. On 23 May he was also included in a committee to attend the protector, to ask when the modified constitution might be presented for his approval.275CJ vii. 538b. Further changes were now possible, and on 27 May Disbrowe was named to a large committee ordered to peruse and rationalise the additional votes on the constitution, in what would become the Additional Petition and Advice.276CJ vii. 540b. On 30 May he was appointed to a committee to inspect the treasuries of the three nations to consider how to raise the revenue stipulated in the constitution.277CJ vii. 543a.

On 4 June Disbrowe told Parliament that ‘it is our life and being to perfect the Petition and Advice’, and reminded them that ‘the soldiery are two months behind in pay’.278Burton’s Diary, ii. 170. He went on to support the reading of money bills as a priority (even before the Additional Petition and Advice was considered) and supported the collection and distribution of assessments locally, against strong Presbyterian and ‘country’ opposition.279Burton’s Diary, ii. 171, 173. On the same day he was named to a committee to attend Cromwell to ask for a time to present bills, including those for the assessment.280CJ vii. 545b. Disbrowe opposed extravagant grants that the nation could ill afford. He was appointed to the committee on the bill to grant a landed reward to Lord Broghill on 5 June, but when the vote was tabled he joined Lambert, Fleetwood and Sydenham in withdrawing from the House in protest.281CJ vii. 546a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 178. When a similar gift of Irish land for Fleetwood was proposed in the Commons on 8 June, Disbrowe ‘opposed it with vehemence, as he said out of kindness to him’, and as teller narrowly lost a vote to prevent the vote from taking place.282Henry Cromwell Corresp. 281; CJ vii. 550b. His arguments were couched in economic terms: ‘It is neither for his honour nor yours, at this season, to give gratuities of this nature. You are in debt to many poor people that want bread, whose cries ascend high, many poor soldiers unsatisfied, and great occasion for monies as ever you had’.283Burton’s Diary, ii. 197. There was also undoubted factional advantage in contrasting the selfless attitude of army interest with the venality of Broghill. Disbrowe followed this up with the pious motion that ‘you will let no business break in upon you, but only the matter of raising monies and the settlement of the nations’.284Burton’s Diary, ii. 200.

Haste had other advantages. On 9 June Disbrowe argued that the bill for catechising (which he had opposed earlier in the sitting) should be ‘left behind, to be better considered on’, not only because of lack of parliamentary time but also because of fears it would ‘discontent the godly’; and a few days later he also pressed for the bill for better of observation of the Lord’s Day should be ‘laid aside’, to prevent similar ‘inconveniencies’.285Burton’s Diary, ii. 202, 266; CJ vii. 536b. As time grew tight, Disbrowe again pressed for financial bills to be finalised. On 10 June he urged that the assessment proportions should be discussed in the chamber and not in a grand committee, to prevent delay; and when the suggested rates were challenged on 12 June, he suggested a temporary continuation of the existing arrangements rather than laying the bill aside.286Burton’s Diary, ii. 208, 235. The next day the proposal to sell off the remaining royal forests and the ‘excepted’ counties in Ireland was opposed by Disbrowe, as they removed collateral for future government borrowing.287Burton’s Diary, ii. 238-9. On 19 June he was named to the committee to state the debts incurred on the ‘public faith’, and on the last day of the sitting, 26 June, he was added to the committee on public revenues.288CJ vii. 563a, 576a.

Disbrowe was also busy putting the finishing touches to the new constitution. On 23 June he was teller with his fellow councillor Philip Jones, in favour of appointing a committee to prepare a draft oath for the protector – a vote won against the opposition of his natural allies, Sydenham and Jerome Sankey*.289CJ vii. 570a. On the same day he was also named to a committee to consider what else should be included in the Humble Petition and the Additional Petition.290CJ vii. 570b. In debate, Disbrowe spoke as a senior councillor, and adviser to the lord protector, and his tone was blunt.

Your time of rising draws near. I desire to know, now, upon what foundation we are. How shall we know how to act? His highness is under the obligation of an oath to the former government, and you have in your Petition and Advice declared that his highness shall take an oath. I would have some course taken in that, to absolve his highness from his former oath, and that you declare to the people, in some solemn way, your alteration; and that an oath may also be prepared for people to take, on the other hand. Otherwise his highness is in a pretty dangerous case.291Burton’s Diary, ii. 274.

When an oath was presented to the House on 24 June, Disbrowe commended it, but then criticised the rushed nature of the Humble Petition and Advice itself: ‘my principle is for settlement, and I hope it is in your Petition and Advice provided for’. He remained sceptical that the changes were necessary, or permanent, and warned MPs of the risks, ‘when we come again, to throw up all that we have done, and lay the legislation open again to the people’, which would invite the use of ‘open force’. ‘It would have been more ingenuous’, he continued, ‘to tell his highness we have set him up and will pull him down again’.292Burton’s Diary, ii. 295. He ended with a statement of his own trust in the protector, who should be allowed to choose his own upper chamber, the ‘Other House’, without the interference of the Commons: ‘if we have the same confidence in his highness that formerly we had, that he will do things for the good of the nation, we need not fear to leave it to him’.293Burton’s Diary, ii. 299. He then pressed for a speedy reinauguration of Cromwell as protector, ‘with respectful deliberation, and not expensively’.294Burton’s Diary, ii. 302. The next day he was named to the committee to prepare for the ceremony, providing the instruments of state and other trappings.295CJ vii. 575a.

Disbrowe’s public acclamation of the protector under the new constitution (despite his reservations as to the latter) signalled that the private reconciliation between the two men was complete. As one royalist agent put it: ‘Fleetwood and Disbrowe since this settlement declare themselves more absolutely the protector’s friends than before, and by them the army ... [is] secured beyond any danger of any considerable revolt’.296Clarendon SP, iii. 349. This is confirmed by a letter from Sir Francis Russell of 4 July, telling Henry Cromwell that ‘my lord deputy and General Disbrowe begin to grow in request at Whitehall. Disbrowe has made a notable speech in the Parliament house in answer to one of my Lord Lambert’s. Twas very like him, blunt and honest’.297Henry Cromwell Corresp. 298. Russell may have been referring to the vote on 8 June, when Disbrowe and Lambert found themselves on opposite sides of the question whether to vote on an award of lands to Fleetwood.298CJ vii. 550b. This had been an early indication that the army interest was not necessarily a unified faction. The final confirmation came immediately after Parliament’s adjournment. On 11 July Cromwell sent for Lambert, in the presence of Disbrowe and Fleetwood, and gave him a dressing down.299CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 88. Lambert was stripped on his military and civilian offices immediately afterwards. Disbrowe, by contrast, took the new oath and rejoined the council on 13 July.300CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 26.

Rapprochement with Cromwell, July 1657-Aug. 1658

From July 1657 until Cromwell’s death in early September 1658, Disbrowe was arguably the dominant figure in the protectoral council. He attended the majority of council meetings in ten of the thirteen months, and in three of them (July 1657, Jan. and Aug. 1658) he was present on every occasion.301CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. lii; 1658-9, p. xxiii. Much of his activity on the council was a continuation of his earlier duties. The rickety state of the public finances remained a matter for concern. On 16 July he reported to the council proposals for the distribution of the assessment between the forces of the three nations.302TSP vi. 406. Thereafter, Disbrowe was appointed to council committees on public money and debts on the public faith (21, 28 July, 20 Aug. 1657), fraudulent debentures (3 Dec. 1657, 4 May 1658), the sale of forests (8 Dec. 1657, 11 May 1658) and the beer excise (14 Jan., 15 June, 26 Aug. 1658).303CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 33, 43, 73, 199, 206, 262; 1658-9, pp. 3, 19, 64, 120. The affairs of the admiralty and navy naturally took up a considerable part of Disbrowe’s time. It was even rumoured in September 1657 that he would replace Blake as admiral, and it may be at this time that he lent £5,000 of his own money to pay the wages of the fleet.304CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 87; 1659-60, p. 290. He was named to a committee to oversee the discharge of sailors on 12 November, and thereafter he was appointed to committee on disputes over prize ships and other admiralty matters (17, 24, 29 Dec. 1657, 5 Jan., 6 May, 12 and 26 Aug. 1658).305CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 161, 218, 230, 234, 256; 1658-9, pp. 8, 112, 122. On 10 June 1658 he was named to a committee to consider a report from Edward Montagu on the convoying of merchant ships, and also submitted a report from the admiralty commissioners on the state of the navy.306CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 58. His involvement in Scottish affairs – presumably in support of his brother, Samuel – led to his appointment to a committee to consider papers from the Scottish Protesters (18 Aug.), and to a revived committee of Scottish affairs (25 Mar. 1658).307CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 68, 344. On 10 June 1658 he reported from the latter committee new instructions for the Scottish council.308CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 57.

Oddly, there is little evidence that Disbrowe was active in ensuring the security of the state at this time, although he was included in a committee, appointed on 9 November, to investigate commissions issued by Charles Stuart for the command of troops to be raised in England, and on 8 June he joined a committee to consider a plot against the protector.309CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 155; 1658-9, p. 53. Nor did Disbrowe have any role in the supervision of the western counties, and it was only in the summer of 1658 that he was included in committees on individual cases, such as that on John Seyntaubyn’s* claim to St Michael’s Mount in July.310CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 93. His lack of involvement in the core concerns of the late major-generals may have been deliberate attempt to keep the erstwhile major-general on a tight rein. He was able to maintain informal contacts, however, and in August he was in correspondence with the corporation of Bristol.311Bristol RO, 04264/5, p. 161.

Disbrowe’s relationship with the protector and his family had improved greatly since June 1657. He showed a suitably avuncular attitude towards the younger members of the family. In August he joined Thurloe and Philip Jones in concluding the marriage negotiations for Frances Cromwell with Robert Rich, grandson of his namesake, the 2nd earl of Warwick.312TSP vi. 477. On 31 December Disbrowe and Edmund Sheffield, 2nd earl of Mulgrave, were chosen to administer the oath to Richard Cromwell* when he joined the council.313CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 239. By this time Disbrowe had received another sign of the protector’s confidence, when he was made a member of the Other House.314TSP vi. 668. When Parliament reconvened in January 1658, Disbrowe sat in the upper chamber, and he attended almost every day until Cromwell’s sudden dissolution of the session on 4 February. The official records of the Other House reveal little of his attitude to the tumultuous proceedings in the Commons, as he was named only to the standing committees on privileges, petitions, and committees on Lord’s Day and to write to the protector warning of the activities of papists in London.315HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 506-23.

Yet, despite the apparent solidity of Disbrowe’s loyalty to the protector, from the new year of 1658 there were new tensions. In January 1658 it was common knowledge that Fleetwood and Disbrowe were hostile to the influence of the civilian courtiers, especially Edward Montagu and the protector’s new son-in-law, Viscount Fauconberg (Thomas Belasyse*).316CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 261. Soon afterwards, Henry Cromwell agreed with Broghill about the threat posed by those who trusted on the power of ‘the sword’, and who now looked to their old comrades for leadership: ‘what you say of Disbrowe’s being general of horse discovers their intentions, which have been industriously masked’.317TSP vi. 790. The protector was well aware of the influence of Disbrowe and Fleetwood over the army, and when he cashiered Major William Packer* in February he made sure the first interview was held privately, in their presence, before allowing other senior officers to take part.318TSP vi. 806. By March Henry Cromwell had received alarming news of ‘the intimacy ... of Fleetwood and Disbrowe with Lambert’, and asked Thurloe ‘if there be, whether it was upon the account of civility and old acquaintance only, or by appointment, or otherwise’?319TSP vi. 857-8. He spelled out his concerns in a letter to Broghill: ‘when such as they dare correspond with such as he, it argues their power to be greater than of all the rational and interested men of the three nations, who, I am confident, will not comply with their designs’.320TSP vi. 858.

In April and May 1658 there were further signs that Disbrowe and his allies were exerting a strong influence over policy at Whitehall. Although Henry Cromwell remained confident that the protector ‘sees the condition of his family, inclines to a Parliament [and] hopes he can regulate the army’, he noted two developments that suggested otherwise.321TSP vii. 56. First, that the calling of a new Parliament was delayed because of ‘the unripeness of the design of Disbrowe and Fleetwood’; and secondly, that Disbrowe had resurrected ‘illegal proposals ... against the cavaliers, and for raising money without a Parliament’.322TSP vii. 56, 146. That this might refer to the possible revival of the major-generals’ scheme is also suggested by a newsletter report of 10 April, which stated that revelations of an insurrection meant that ‘his highness hath spent much of his time in private debate with the major-generals concerning the safety of the people’.323Clarke Pprs. iii. 146. Disbrowe’s part in such discussions is confirmed by a letter from Thurloe in June, recounting a meeting of nine men, including Disbrowe and Fleetwood, to discuss the next Parliament. Top of the agenda was the need to prevent a royalist uprising, but it was admitted that an oath of allegiance would be pointless, as ‘they’ll all take it, and none keep it’. Instead, ‘it is offered that a burden may be laid up upon them all promiscuously, for maintaining a force to keep them down, and a moiety of their estates is spoken for’.324TSP vii. 192. This looks suspiciously like the extension of the decimation tax which Disbrowe had proposed in the winter of 1655-6 and had failed to effect in Parliament in January 1657.

Richard Cromwell’s Protectorate, Sept. 1658-May 1659

The death of Oliver Cromwell on 3 September, and the acclamation of Richard Cromwell as his successor, brought all such schemes to abrupt end. Disbrowe appears to have accepted this sudden change with relative equanimity. On 4 September he attended the council when Richard was proclaimed as protector, and he renewed his oath as councillor the same day.325PRO31/17/33, p. 16. According to one source, he was instrumental in winning over waverers, telling the council they should declare any doubts as to Richard’s legitimacy, ‘as he professed he would have done, had any doubt remained with him’.326Baker, Chronicle, 635.

Disbrowe’s duties on the council do not seem to have altered over the next few months. In September he was appointed to committees on the Scottish royalist John Maitland, 2nd earl of Lauderdale, to consider relations with Sweden, and to decide what to do with imprisoned Quakers.327PRO31/17/33, pp. 60, 70, 83. In October he was one of the councillors chosen to prepare the accounts for the government.328PRO31/17/33, p. 117. He was active in admiralty affairs in the council in November and December, and in the former month was able to use to his position to provide a warship to bring back his eldest son from a visit to France.329CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 177, 217-18, 463, 467. In December 1658 and early January 1659 he was appointed to committees on repairs to the accommodation of the horse guards at Whitehall and the castle at Windsor, to peruse the accounts of the trustees for the sale of the late king’s goods, and to oversee various matters concerning the customs and the revenue.330PRO31/17/33, pp. 268, 321, 413. In public he remained a firm supporter of the Cromwell family, and on 23 November 1658, when Oliver Cromwell was buried in state at Westminster Abbey, Disbrowe took his place in the procession, among the peers of the Other House.331Burton’s Diary, ii. 527.

Behind the scenes, the situation was very different. As early as October 1658, Fauconberg had warned Henry Cromwell that ‘Disbrowe, [James] Berry*, [Thomas] Cooper II* and inferior officers worse than themselves, if possible, have daily meetings’ and were preparing a petition to the protector, and there were rumours that ‘there is fire yet in the ashes’ despite the denials of Disbrowe, Fleetwood and Sydenham.332TSP vii. 450, 490. A source more sympathetic to the army reported that Disbrowe and his colleagues had in fact told the officers of ‘the dangerous consequences of such petitions in this juncture of time’ and advised them to remain patient.333Clarke Pprs. iii. 165. At the end of the month the officers demanded the appointment of a new commander-in-chief, and Richard Cromwell was forced to confront them in person. Once again, according to the French ambassador, Disbrowe and other ‘principal men among them, have disavowed all share in their proceedings’, although it was an open secret that they had ‘excited the others to take this step’.334F. Guizot, Hist. of Richard Cromwell and the Restoration of Charles II trans. A.R. Scoble (2 vols., 1856), i. 246; Baker, Chronicle, 639. It was thought that Disbrowe and Fleetwood had done so in part ‘to find out the sentiments of the officers’, but also out of jealousy, ‘because the protector places greater confidence in others than in them’.335CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 257; Guizot, Richard Cromwell, i. 248. In particular the prominence of Fauconberg was said to have ‘given them most offence’.336Guizot, Richard Cromwell, i. 248. Disbrowe was also said to be the main obstacle to the return to England of Henry Cromwell.337Henry Cromwell Corresp. 414. A new representation from the officers was presented to the protector by Disbrowe on 16 November.338Whitelocke, Diary, 500. A few days later this rivalry sparked ‘a great quarrel in the council, in the presence of the protector, between Major-general Disbrowe and Admiral Montagu, the former accusing the latter of having conspired with Lord Fauconberg’ to arrest both Fleetwood and Disbrowe. It was said that ‘Disbrowe grew so angry as to say he would never set foot in the council again if Lord Fauconberg, who was then present, were not excluded’.339Guizot, Richard Cromwell, i. 271, 273-4.

Such jealousies were suppressed in the run-up to the third protectorate Parliament, which opened in January 1659. The appointment of Disbrowe and Fleetwood as joint wardens of the Cinque Ports and constables of Dover in December or early January was no doubt an attempt to mend fences, initiated by the protector.340TSP vii. 559; Clarke Pprs, iii. 173. Cooperation continued during the elections. When Thurloe was approached by the borough of Tewkesbury in December he replied that he had already been elected for another constituency, but instead recommended ‘a worthy person’ sponsored by Disbrowe.341TSP vii. 585. Disbrowe took his seat in the Other House on 20 January, and would sit almost every day until the dissolution of Parliament on 22 April 1659.342HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 506-567. He was named to the committees of privileges and petitions on 28 January and on 1 February he was appointed to the committee on the bill for the recognition of Richard Cromwell as head of state and the rejection of any claim by the Stuarts.343HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 526-7, 529. The work of the Other House was severely restricted by the delay of the Commons in agreeing to ‘transact’ with it, and like other peers, Disbrowe found progress slow. He was named to the committee for indemnity on 3 March, reported from it on 16 March, and was re-appointed to the same committee on 23 March.344HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 544, 549, 552. On 17 March he reported on the recognition bill, and the next day he was named to the committee on a bill to limit the rights and privileges of the Other House.345HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 549, 551. At the end of March he was named to committees to reduce the tax burden and to sell remaining royal and episcopal lands, and on 11 April he was appointed to a committee to consider the revenues necessary for the security of the nation.346HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 551, 554, 559. These were, in the main, causes that Disbrowe had supported in previous Parliaments, and this may have made the lack of progress doubly frustrating. In any case, as the spring of 1659 continued, Disbrowe was increasingly distracted by events outside Westminster.

Within a month of the beginning of the Parliament it was apparent that the truce within the Cromwellian council was over. On 15 February Fauconberg told Henry Cromwell that the officers were again preparing a petition, and that ‘those that bandied things were the parties of Disbrowe and Lambert; the last appearing only covertly, the other openly’, while Disbrowe and Fleetwood had ‘appointed a committee of that gang to draw up some heads to be offered to his highness’.347TSP vii. 612. Richard’s robust opposition to the officers put a stop to this latest challenge to his authority, and caused Disbrowe and his friends ‘to withdraw from the project’ and they ‘publicly disavowed them’.348Guizot, Richard Cromwell, i. 304, 306. Thereafter, according to a royalist source, Richard was ‘reconciled to Disbrowe and Fleetwood’.349Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 153. There were further grumblings in March, rumours that Disbrowe harboured ambitions to replace Richard as protector, that there was ‘an inveterate hatred’ between uncle and nephew, and by the end of the month it was said that the protector ‘apprehends that Fleetwood and Disbrowe do betray him, notwithstanding the seeming reconciliation’.350Bodl. Clarendon 60, ff. 224v, 304; CCSP ii. 267. March also saw a worrying development, as Arthur Annesley* reported: ‘Dr [John] Owen* hath gathered a church in the Independent way, and that Lord Fleetwood and Lord Disbrowe, Lord Sydenham, Berry, Goffe and divers others were admitted members, which hath divers constructions put upon it, and is not, that I can hear, very well liked at Whitehall’.351Henry Cromwell Corresp. 475; Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 158.

In April Disbrowe was known as a critic of the Other House in its present form, but there were hopes that ‘he might in other things be taken off from the triumvirate, though the other two have still great influence on him’, and ‘there may be ways thought on to remove the rest of his scruples, if the debate concerning the Lords’ House were over’.352TSP vii. 661. In other respects Disbrowe’s views were immutable: ‘he pretends himself to have been much exasperated by some of my lord protector’s party, threatening in the House the Parliament should be dissolved, and the major-generals re-established’.353TSP vii. 661. It was also said that Disbrowe was seen with a new bill to make approval of the regicide the test for military or civilian office in his hands.354Henry Cromwell Corresp. 500. A new army petition in mid-April was seen as ‘the contrivance of Disbrowe, who hath so great an influence upon the army, and is so united to the violent persons of the republic party as that he intends as well the ruin of Cromwell as of the cavaliers’.355Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 347v; Clarke Pprs. iii. 182. Three days later one royalist agent put the matter in starker terms: ‘you will either have a commonwealth or Disbrowe instead of Cromwell’.356Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 322v.

Richard was determined to prevent any further meetings, and issued orders for the officers to rejoin their regiments, but on 18 April ‘the Lord Disbrowe and the protector had very high words about the officers going from London’.357Clarke Pprs. v. 284. Anthony Morgan* provided further details: ‘General Disbrowe replied he wondered that any honest man should be offended at their meetings to regulate disorders among themselves’, and when the protector withdrew, he added a parting shot: ‘Sir, the meeting is not dissolved for all this, for they adjourned themselves to a meeting at Wallingford House’.358Henry Cromwell Corresp. 505; Guizot, Richard Cromwell, i. 366. There was a brief respite on 21 April, as Disbrowe and Fleetwood attended the protector, ‘and then declared their full satisfaction in what his highness had said to answer the desires of, and to live and die with, the armies of the three nations’.359Clarke Pprs. iii. 192. It was not to last. On 22 April, Disbrowe went to the protector with a group of fellow officers, ‘and told him that if he would dissolve his Parliament, the officers would take care of him; but that, if he refused so to do, they would do it without him, and leave him to shift for himself’.360Ludlow, Mems. ii. 69; Guizot, Richard Cromwell, i. 370. Richard at first refused, and Disbrowe then resorted to threats, telling him ‘that he was not in a position even to defer for an hour the execution of the resolution which the army had adopted’.361Guizot, Richard Cromwell, i. 371; CSP Ven. 1659-61, p. 13. The third protectorate Parliament was dissolved the same day, and the next month Richard was forced to resign as protector.

Restored Rump and Restoration, 1659-1680

Disbrowe has been castigated for his disloyalty to Richard Cromwell, and held up as ‘a prodigious example of ingratitude’.362Mystery of the Good Old Cause, 8; Whitelocke, Diary, 511. Yet it is unlikely that he intended to bring down the protectorate as well as the Parliament. Rather, he and Fleetwood seem to have sought to make Richard a puppet protector, while they ruled for him – perhaps through a purged council. The French ambassador reported that ‘many are persuaded that the protector will remain in his place at least for some time’, with Disbrowe and Fleetwood having the reins of power.363Guizot, Richard Cromwell, i. 373. One royalist reported that ‘although Fleetwood and Disbrowe were the chief cause of the breaking up of the Parliament, yet they do not intend to destroy the protector, but to hold him still up and act under his name’.364Nicholas Pprs. iv. 127; Baker, Chronicle, 642. According to another royalist source

both Disbrowe and Fleetwood are now as low in the esteem of the officers as before they were high, being looked upon as self-seekers, in that they are for a protector (now they have got a protector of wax, whom they can mould as they please, and lay aside when they can agree upon a successor); whereas the common vogue of the army is for a commonwealth, and the Long Parliament revived.365TSP vii. 666.

This last account is corroborated by a newsletter from the well-informed Gilbert Mabbott, who told George Monck* on 30 April that ‘Colonel [Robert] Lilburne*, Colonel [Francis] Hacker*, Colonel [Edward] Salmon* and Colonel Ashfield [are] for the returning of the Long Parliament, Fleetwood and Disbrowe said to be against it’.366Clarke Pprs. v. 290; Clarke Pprs. iii. 196; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 509. From this it is clear that Disbrowe and Fleetwood were already outnumbered. This meeting was followed by another, on 5 May, which Disbrowe attended as one of the eight men who considered re-establishing ‘a commonwealth constitution’.367Clarke Pprs. iv. 8. Thereafter, Disbrowe appears to have reluctantly agreed to join forces with the supporters of the commonwealth, agreeing with Fleetwood that ‘it was already too great to be resisted’, and seeking ‘the preservation of their authority’.368Baker, Chronicle, 642. On 9 May the restored Rump ordered that Disbrowe be added to the new committee of safety, and in the next few days he signed letters from this committee concerning the command of the army, and he attended the House with other officers to present a petition from the army.369CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 342; CJ vii. 646b, 649a, 650b, 651a. On 13 May the Commons resolved that he be co-opted to the council of state, as one of the non-MPs on its membership, and he was formally inducted on 19 May.370CJ vii. 652b; A. and O.

Despite his public support for the new commonwealth, Disbrowe remained a figure of suspicion. There were rumours in the weeks that followed that Disbrowe ‘is laid aside and much discontented’, and that ‘Lord Lambert’s growing greatness [is] narrowly observed by Fleetwood and Disbrowe’.371CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 388; Clarke Pprs. v. 296. The truth of these accounts is difficult to verify, but it was certainly no more than royalist wishful-thinking that led to the story that Disbrowe ‘refuses to accept his commission from the House, [and ] tells the soldiers they are lost and undone’, as the grant of a number of important military positions followed.372Nicholas Pprs. iv. 155. He was nominated as one of the commissioners for the army, to work with Fleetwood as commander-in-chief, on 31 May.373CJ vii. 670a. On 25 June Sir Arthur Hesilrige* recommended that Disbrowe should be retained as colonel, he received his commission from Parliament on 7 July, and the officers of his regiment were commissioned soon afterwards.374CJ vii. 694a, 704a, 706b; Whitelocke, Diary, 522. On 25 July Disbrowe was nominated, on the recommendation of the committee of safety, as governor of the fort and island at Plymouth, and the commission was passed on 18 August.375CJ vii. 730a, 763a; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 36. During the royalist uprising associated with Sir George Boothe* in August, Disbrowe was given care of the city of Winchester and then moved to Gloucester, and on his return to Whitehall in early September he gave an account of the state of the western party to the council of state.376CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 76, 105, 110, 115, 131-2, 160, 172. Disbrowe’s part in suppressing unrest silenced any doubts as to his loyalty, and also encouraged him to reaffirm his support for the regime. His attendance at the council of state had been very infrequent in May, June, July and August (even taking into account his absence in the west for part of the summer), but he became more regular from the beginning of September.377CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. xxiv; 1659-60, pp. xxiii-iv. He was also appointed to council committees on a wider range of issues than before. Even before his return from the west he had been included in the committee for Irish and Scottish affairs appointed on 30 August; on 6 September he joined the committee to confer with the Dutch ambassador; and on 15, 20 and 21 September he reported to the council on the affairs of Dunkirk.378CSP Dom., 1659-60, pp. 160, 173, 199, 214, 217. During September he was also signing warrants from the council of state.379Add. 4197, ff. 223, 226. On 8 October the business of the mayor of Plymouth was referred to Disbrowe.380CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 246. By this time the growing tensions between the army and the commonwealthsmen had begun to destabilise the regime. On 22 September the army demanded changes to the high command, with Fleetwood as general and Disbrowe as lieutenant-general of the horse.381Clarke Pprs. v. 57. On 5 October the officers, led by Disbrowe, presented a petition and representation to Parliament.382CJ vii. 792a. The Commons reacted to their demands on 12 October by cashiering Disbrowe and his fellow petitioners.383CJ vii. 796a; Clarke Pprs. v. 60. This high-handedness ‘nettled the officers of the army ... and of these Lambert, Disbrowe, Berry, and the rest who were outed of their commands, were the chief’.384Whitelocke, Diary, 534-5.

On 17 October Disbrowe was one of the ten former councillors who met to consider establishing a new government, and when a committee of safety was formed on 26 October, he was chosen as a member.385Whitelocke, Diary, 536-7; Guizot, Richard Cromwell, ii. 272. In November he was among those who tried to persuade the city of London to join the army in resisting the threat from George Monck.386Whitelocke, Diary, 541-2. He also worked with Sir Henry Vane II* and Richard Salwey* in drawing up measures to ensure religious toleration.387Wariston Diary, iii. 151. At the beginning of December 1659 Disbrowe signed warrants to pay the treasurers of the army and navy.388Add. 4197, ff. 247-50. On 6 December he was active in suppressing unrest in London, allegedly entering the City at the head of three troops of cavalry ‘with drawn swords and pistols in hand’ to deliver an ultimatum to the lord mayor, and he took possession of the Tower of London on 12 December.389Whitelocke, Diary, 165, 186; Guizot, Richard Cromwell, ii. 300. Such shows of force could not be effective against the general tide of public opinion, however, and Disbrowe soon joined Sydenham, Owen and others in arguing ‘there was nothing but to send and treat’.390Wariston Diary, iii. 159-60. On 29 December Disbrowe submitted to the restored Parliament, writing to the Speaker that

it having pleased God ... to bring the Parliament again to the exercise of their trust in the government of these nations, I thought it my duty to acquaint you that I cheerfully and with much quietness of mind acquiesce in the Providence of God therein.

He also took the opportunity to assert that he had ‘no self-ends or evil purposes in anything wherein I have appeared’.391Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 206.

Yet Disbrowe’s part in the politics of the previous decade could not be forgiven so easily. When his letter was read in the House of Commons on 31 December, Vane ‘jeered at it’.392CJ vii. 800b; Wariston Diary, iii. 165. On 9 January 1660 the council of state evicted Disbrowe from his lodgings at Whitehall and Parliament ordered him to leave London and retire to one of his country houses until further notice.393CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 305-6; CJ vii. 806b. On 12 January Disbrowe was stripped of his military commission.394Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 208. This suspicion of Disbrowe was shared by the former Cromwellians. In January 1660 Samuel Pepys described Richard Cromwell’s distracted condition, ‘and how he will say that “who should a man trust, if he may not trust to a brother and an uncle?”’.395Pepys’s Diary, i. 21. A few weeks later the loyal servant of the Cromwells, John Maidston*, told John Winthrop that Disbrowe and Fleetwood were still hated as ‘the principal instruments ... in overthrowing the family’.396TSP i. 768.

On 20 March 1660 Disbrowe again submitted to the government, promising to be ‘peaceable’.397Whitelocke, Diary, 578. On the arrival of Charles II at the end of May, he made an attempt to flee abroad, but he was too late In June he was briefly arrested on suspicion of involvement in a plot against the king; he was banned from public office for life under the Act of Oblivion in the same month; and in November he was again arrested in connection with a conspiracy to seize the Tower of London.398Whitelocke, Diary, 605n; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 80; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 328. Thereafter he crossed to the Dutch Republic. In March 1661 there was intelligence that Disbrowe and others in Holland were planning a rising in England.399CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 550-1. In April 1665 the crown demanded the return of Disbrowe and others to return to England by the following July or face prosecution for treason.400Ludlow, Mems. ii. 393. Disbrowe met the deadline, but nevertheless he was imprisoned shortly afterwards, and was released only in February 1667. Samuel Pepys encountered him a few weeks later, recording that he ‘looks well, and just as he used to do heretofore’.401Pepys’s Diary, viii. 169. Disbrowe retired to Hackney, not far from Fleetwood’s abode at Stoke Newington, and continued to attend Owen’s conventicle.402Oxford DNB. He died in 1680, leaving three sons – Valentine, Samuel and Benjamin – and his will shows that he managed to retain at least his pre-war landholdings, including the manor of Eltisley.403PROB11/363/651.

Conclusion

John Disbrowe owed his military and political career to his close relationship with Oliver Cromwell: as brother-in-law, comrade in arms and counsellor. He shared Cromwell’s frustration with the failure of the Rump Parliament to implement radical reform after the battle of Worcester, and welcomed its dissolution in April 1653. He joined the council of state and the Nominated Assembly as a supporter of Cromwell, and was an obvious choice as councillor under the protectorate. The early years of the protectorate – at least until September 1656 – clearly suited Disbrowe. The Instrument of Government provided a safeguard for the army and the godly, and he defended it vigorously in Parliament in January 1655; the major-generals were the perfect solution for security and local governance. Yet even at this stage there were worries that Cromwell, beguiled by civilian advisers promising ‘healing and settling’, was being too lenient to royalists, too reluctant listen to advice from his old colleagues in the army.

Disbrowe’s faith in the major-generals, and his desire to extend the scheme even further, brought political humiliation when the militia bill was rejected in January 1657, and this was followed by the unsettling weeks of the kingship debates, when his faith in Cromwell was severely tested. This period also saw Disbrowe’s close alliance with another critical in-law – Charles Fleetwood. From June 1657 Disbrowe sought to re-establish the glory days of 1653-6, first through ingratiating himself once again with the protector, and then by trying to bully Richard Cromwell. When Disbrowe forced Richard to close his Parliament in April 1659, he probably intended to continue the protectorate as a puppet regime; but events soon ran beyond his grasp. His discomfort during the commonwealth led to desperation in the winter of 1659-60, as he tried in vain to work with those who had always been his enemies. He could not make this work, any more than he could coexist happily with men like Montagu and Fauconberg. For Disbrowe had not made the transition from soldier to subtle, inconstant politician, as some had done; he remained at heart one of Cromwell’s godly captains.