THISTLETHWAYTE, Alexander (1611-70), of Winterslow, Wilts.

The Thistlethwaytes originated in Yorkshire, but had been established at Winterslow, 11 miles north-east of Salisbury, since at least 1537, when the first in a line of Alexanders presented to the living. Collateral branches settled in the different hamlets of the parish included those of Peregrine Thistlethwayte, who in 1628 married his cousin Dorothy, the future MP’s eldest sister, and of Alexander Thistlethwayte, gentleman, of Middle Winterslow, whose 1641 will (like that of the MP’s grandfather and namesake 20 years earlier) displayed a pronounced Protestant piety.20Hoare, Hist. Wilts. v: Alderbury, 46; Vis. of Wilts. 1623, 193-4; Winterslow par. reg.; PROB11/185/442; Wilts. RO, P2/T/114. Alexander Thistlethwayte esquire, the MP’s father, inherited a comfortable estate and settled several hundred acres of land around the parish on his son-in-law Peregrine in 1630; the following year he paid knighthood composition at the locally higher rate of £28.21Coventry Docquets, 580, 608; Wilts N. and Q. i. 107. It thus seems unlikely that it was for reasons of financial hardship that, having been placed on the commission of the peace in November 1631, by June 1632 he had requested omission.22Coventry Docquets, 66, 67. In 1635 he presented to the vicarage of Winterslow the redoubtable and by now elderly John Barnston, a canon of Salisbury and founder of a Hebrew lectureship at his old college. Barnston had a record of promoting order and conscientious discharge of duty in the church, but was not necessarily in favour of ceremonialism or the ecclesiastical policies of the 1630s; the keynotes of his ministry were charity, hospitality and geniality.23The Subscription Bk. of Bishops Tounson and Davenant 1620-40 ed. B. Williams (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xxxii), 65; ‘John Barnston’, Oxford DNB. However, the fact that the same year Thistlethwayte was the dedicatee of a Shrove Tuesday sermon preached in St Paul’s cathedral by the Arminian clergyman John Gore, who acknowledged Alexander’s family as ‘the ark out of which I was sent’, suggests that at this date he was no puritan.24J. Gore, A Winter Sermon (1635), sig. A2, collected in his Certain Sermons (1636).

A conversion, if there was one, probably came about through the connections or preferences of his son. Alexander the younger attended both Oxford and the inns of court. His marriage in 1633 to Cecilia or Cecily, one of the many younger siblings and protégés of Sir Edward Hungerford*, brought him the patronage of one of Wiltshire’s wealthiest and best-connected gentlemen, as well as an entrée into godly circles. This connection outlasted Cecilia’s early death in 1637.25PROB11/205/492 (Sir Edward Hungerford). Shortly before 1 June 1642 Thistlethwayte married Katherine, widow of Andrew Chaldecott of the Isle of Purbeck. That the accompanying settlement envisaged a possible future marriage between Katherine’s daughter, Andrew’s sole heiress, and Alexander’s eldest son, at that time aged seven, indicates a determination to secure Chaldecott wealth for the Thistlethwayte family.26Wilts. RO, 11/60; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 239.

Like Sir Edward, the two Alexander Thistlethwaytes, together with Peregrine and the latter’s brothers Henry and Francis (a captain of foot under Hungerford), were prominent supporters of Parliament in Wiltshire from the autumn of 1642.27Waylen, ‘Falstone Day Bk.’ 361-2, 385. The following February and March Alexander the younger was appointed a commissioner for raising money and troops, and for sequestrations, and he was a founder member of the county committee which sat initially at Malmesbury and then at Falstone House, near Wilton. A commissioner for the associated western counties from June 1644, he evidently distinguished himself from the greater men around him whose leadership had been found wanting (like Hungerford) or whose loyalty was sometimes suspect (like Sir Edward Bayntun* and his son).28Wilts. RO, 11/60; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxvi. 343-4; A. and O. In October 1645 he was simultaneously elected to the Commons for Downton and chosen by Parliament as its sheriff for Wiltshire; to clarify any confusion, arising perhaps as much from the patent incompatibility of functions as from the existence of two Thistlethwaytes, on 27 October ‘the younger’ was inserted in the ordinance for the latter.29LJ vii. 628a; CJ iv. 323b, 324a. Thistlethwayte’s full participation at Westminster was thereby postponed for at least a year, during which his skills were tested and proved in a county which had changed hands many times and was not yet secure. In January 1646 the majority of the county committee had gathered at Marlborough with other gentry for an election when they were surprised by a party of royalist horse on a sortie from Oxford. ‘Many’ of the committee-men and others were taken prisoner until Thistlethwayte appeared with a force to rescue them: ‘God send us more such sheriffs and fewer committees’ opined The Scottish Dove in reporting the event.30The Scottish Dove, no. 119 (21-29 Jan. 1646), 941-2 (E.319.17); no. 120 (28 Jan.-4 Feb. 1646), 953 (E.120.16). As calmer conditions prevailed in May, he and John Dove* were part of the committee sitting at Salisbury which ordered the implementation of parliamentary directions for the slighting of the defences at Longford Castle and Devizes.31Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxvi. 374. Local responsibility ceased only in December, when he was replaced as sheriff by his friend Anthony Ashley Cooper*.32J. Waylen, ‘Notes from the diary of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper’, Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxviii. 23-4.

Thistlethwayte’s first appearance in the Commons Journal was on 9 December, when he took the Covenant, but he may have been active outside the chamber before that date.33CJ v. 7b. On 17 November he signed, with Dove, Sir Edward Hungerford and Henry Hungerford*, an order to the Wiltshire administration from the Westminster committee for the safety of the western counties.34Add. 22084, f. 14; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxvi. 380. Between 10 and 16 December Thistlethwayte received four committee nominations: preparing an ordinance for the committee for compounding at Goldsmiths’ Hall; privileges; the examinations of two publications, one on divine right in church government and the other the fast day sermon delivered by controversial army chaplain William Dell the previous month and now issued with an attack on his fellow preacher, the Presbyterian Christopher Love.35CJ v. 8b, 10b, 11a, 15a. However, this level of implied activity was not sustained. On 19 January 1647 Thistlethwayte was a teller with leading Presbyterian Sir Gilbert Gerard* for the minority who opposed the payment to Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, of compensation for his losses in the wars.36CJ v. 57b. A month later he was among those deputed to review the case made against Edward Vaughan* in his dispute with Sir Thomas Myddelton*.37CJ v. 90a. But on 4 March he was given leave to go into the country, perhaps on his own account, perhaps to assist with suppression of disorder.38CJ v. 106a. A letter directed to Presbyterian leader Denzil Holles* on 27 March from ‘Colonel Thistlethwayte’ and others in Salisbury brought the attention of the House to seditious petitions, probably emanating from the army, which were circulating there seeking signatures.39CJ v. 130a. The letter-writer could have been one of Alexander’s kinsmen, but may have been the MP himself, accorded at some date a role in the county militia for which evidence is not otherwise extant. He was certainly to hold such a rank later.

Thistlethwayte was probably back in the Commons by 23 April, when he was nominated to a committee to investigate papers disseminated in the army in Essex.40CJ v. 153a. It is likely that he supported the Presbyterian scheme for military dispersal: the three occasions he put his hand to orders of the committee of safety for western counties that year related to payments to officers (21 Jan., 13 May) and the disbandment of Wiltshire troops under Captains William Ludlowe and John Thistlethwayte (4 May).41Add. 22084, ff. 23v, 26, 32v. When on 26 June there was a division over whether the Commons should debate further the grievances of the army encamped at Uxbridge, Thistlethwayte was a teller with Edward Bayntun* for the minority who rejected this.42CJ v. 225b. Two days later, following the withdrawal of the Eleven Members, he once more obtained leave to go into the country, and thereby probably missed both the retaliatory Presbyterian coup and its crushing by the army.43CJ v. 226b. Noted with Sir Edward Hungerford, Sir Edward Bayntun and two other Wiltshire Presbyterian Members as absent on 9 October, five days later, after the Presbyterian church settlement had been reaffirmed, he was among six absentees whose fines of £20 were to be restored.44CJ v. 330b, 332b. This may have heralded imminent reappearance in the chamber, but it was not until 12 November that he was visible in the Journal, being on that day delegated to investigate the king’s escape from Hampton Court.45CJ v. 357a. Sent to Wiltshire as an assessment commissioner on 23 December, he may simply have failed to return to Westminster: this was the last mention of him in the record.46CJ v. 400b.

Initially at least Thistlethwayte had the excuse of settling the affairs of his father, who died in January 1648.47Winterslow par. reg. However, it is probable that Thistlethwayte experienced the same Presbyterian disillusionment with Parliament exhibited by Hungerford. The latter also, through a combination of illness and disinclination, kept away from the House from January 1648 until his death in October. Thistlethwayte, who was one of Sir Edward’s trustees, was liberally rewarded in the will for his pains.48PROB11/205/492. An indicator of shared religious preferences is the fact that John Carter, incumbent at Winterslow since Barnston’s death three years earlier, signed in 1648 the Presbyterian ‘Concurrent Testimony of Ministers of Wiltshire’.49Calamy Revised, 557. Yet Thistlethwayte did not go into political retirement. Unlike Henry Hungerford, who lingered to pursue a defiantly moderate course until excluded from the Commons on 6 December and then spent the next seven years out of public life, Thistlethwayte – also secluded according to William Prynne – weathered the purge in so far as it had repercussions for local activity.50W. Prynne, A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members [1648]. Perhaps by now too influential a figure in Wiltshire to be ignored, he continued to serve as an assessment commissioner throughout this period and in June 1649 belatedly became a justice of the peace. He retained this position too, although he was never among the most prominent attenders at quarter sessions.51A. and O.; C231/6, p. 160; Wilts. RO, A1/160/1, A1/160/2.

A rare appearance at Salisbury was noted in January 1654, while that August Thistlethwayte was named to the commission of triers and ejectors of scandalous ministers, plausibly a testament to his own acknowledged godliness.52Wilts. RO, A1/160/1, f. 239. Later that year he was among the contingent of ten MPs elected for the county to Parliament, predominantly men who probably found it easier to accommodate themselves to the protectorate than they had to the commonwealth. This should not suggest, however, that Thistlethwayte, like other Presbyterians purged in 1648, was uncritical of the Cromwellian regime. Placed on the committee of privileges (5 Sept.), Thistlethwayte collected eight further nominations relating to a variety of important issues under discussion.53CJ vii. 366b. Appropriately, he was among those delegated to work on the ordinance for regulating ministers and schoolmasters (26 Sept.), and he was also mentioned in connection with bills encouraging the corn and dairy trades (6 Oct.) and addressing legal abuses (3 Nov.).54CJ vii. 370a, 374b, 381b. He was several times appointed to consider aspects of the Government Bill that sought to reform the Instrument of Government: formulating a subscription to the government to be taken by Members (25 Sept.); review of the continuation of army and navy, involving periodic attendance on the protector (26 Sept.); public accounts (22 Nov.); revenue to be fixed in the act of government (13 Jan. 1655).55CJ vii. 370a, 370b, 387b, 415b. On 16 January he joined Joachim Matthews*, another Presbyterian who had also involved himself in commonwealth local government, as a teller for those in favour of including the reduced two-year limit on the financial provision for the army and navy in the settlement.56CJ vii. 417b. They were defeated, but on the 18th Thistlethwayte, like Matthews, was included on the committee discussing payment for the disbandment of the army, only for Parliament to be dissolved four days later.57CJ vii. 419a.

These last two entries in the Commons Journal accorded to Thistlethwayte the rank of colonel. Unlike his brother-in-law Henry, he had not been given officer status in the 1650 militia ordinances, but evidently he had either retained an earlier position or been accorded a new one in the context of the security crisis of late 1654/early 1655, which was especially acute in Wiltshire.58CSP Dom. 1650, p. 508. He was to keep the title, if not the duties, into 1660. His involvement, if any, in the suppression of Penruddock’s rebellion is unknown, but in January 1656 he put in his second recorded appearance at a well-attended quarter sessions in Salisbury.59Wilts. RO, A1/160/2, p. 47. In the meantime, his dynastic aspirations were realised in November 1655 with the marriage of his nineteen-year-old son Alexander Thistlethwayte† to his wealthy stepdaughter Katherine.60HP Commons 1660-1690.

Returned a second time for a county seat to the 1656 Parliament, Thistlethwayte was named to the committee of privileges (18 Sept.) and four days later to that to wait on the protector with a request for a public fast.61CJ vii. 424a, 426b. There is then no mention of him in the Journal until 31 December. That this was not a sign of inactivity or disaffection with the parliamentary process but rather owing to legitimate and exceptional personal distractions, perhaps at least partly related to the death of his second wife on 13 December, is indicated by the manner of his return to the House and his subsequent level of engagement.62Winterslow par. reg. Thomas Burton* noted that on 31 December Thistlethwayte, ‘who came in today’, endorsed a motion that no MPs should absent themselves without leave. He justified this, according to Burton, on the ground that it was ‘a business of universal concernment and settlement to the nation, and the expectation of many, that the foundation of Parliament should be established’; this could not ‘be done better than by inquiring into your Members, and upon what account they are detained’.63Burton’s Diary, i. 290. Having thus drawn attention to himself, he was nominated to work on a bill for settlement of land in Ireland (31 Dec.) and added to the committee for the public faith (1 Jan. 1657).64CJ vii. 477a, 477b.

Thereafter Thistlethwayte’s pattern of activity was uneven but significant – he evidently shared Presbyterian concerns for securing a conservative but pragmatic political settlement, and also displayed a meticulous approach to parliamentary proceedings. Added on 31 January to the committee which solicited and secured the protector’s consent to the declaration proclaiming a day of national thanksgiving after the discovery of the Sindercombe plot, he had three nominations in February: to prepare a bill for promoting preaching and supporting ministers in Exeter (9 Feb.); to address the debts of Sir William Dick (9 Feb.); and to discuss the petition of fellow MP John Jones (probably John Jones II*, who had been excluded; 17 Feb.).65CJ vii. 484b, 488a, 488b, 493a. His next appearances in the Journal occurred some weeks later, when he was added (3 Apr.) to the delegation engaged in persuading Oliver Cromwell* to accept the crown and to committees (6 and 7 Apr.) to answer the protector’s stated reservations.66CJ vii. 519b, 520b, 521b. When on the 23rd a discussion of treatment of delinquents in the intended settlement ensued after a report on the group’s further deliberations, Thistlethwayte voiced his conviction that Parliament should retain control of this issue; in this connection he also opposed the double punishment (meaning the investigation and potential exclusion) of MPs who had already atoned for suspect past conduct. Rejecting calls for adjournment, he argued for settling the matter there and then.67Burton’s Diary, ii. 12, 17, 18. The next day, when he was among those nominated to work further on meeting Cromwell’s objections to the Humble Petition and Advice, he displayed a similar determination to resolve rather than suppress difficulties arising in debate, seconding the motion of the leading Presbyterian, Lambarde Godfrey*, a ‘stickler’ for parliamentary process, that ‘business of weight’ ought to be ‘cleared’.68Burton’s Diary, ii. 21; CJ vii. 524a. A concern for clarification in a direction that limited the freedom of action of the proposed chief magistrate impelled him to stand up again later in the debate in the face of silence from other Members. While raising money was ‘a very unacceptable service’ and he wished ‘government might be so sweetened’ that land tax could be dispensed with, since it was unavoidable he desired that the House would expedite the debate on extending monthly assessments, but would fix them ‘for as short a time as may be’. Responding to a motion that the grant be for four years, he proposed that ‘no longer’ be added to the question.69Burton’s Diary, ii. 24, 31. As attention turned to the legal standing of previous ordinances under the new regime, his approach was similarly precise and thoroughgoing, while ready to put the past to rest. Logically, if unrealistically, he argued that ‘all the acts and ordinances be revised, that such as are fit to be continued may have your [ie parliamentary] authority upon them’; as to those which were discarded as ‘not fit’, ‘those that have acted upon them’ should ‘have indemnity’.70Burton’s Diary, ii. 39.

When the committee for revising ordinances, of which he was not officially a member, reported on 28 April, Thistlethwayte was as alert to detail as ever. To wide approval, according to Burton, he moved for the alteration of a statement in the preamble to the bill declaring that ‘several acts and ordinances ... have been made not according to the fundamental laws and rights of the people’ to the more decisive (and damning) ‘contrary to the laws’. He argued that the ordinance for the approbation of preachers should apply only for three years, or failing that for the duration of Cromwell’s life or his tenure as chief executive.

It may be of dangerous consequence if the supreme magistrate should be a papist, or a Fifth Monarchist. He might change but the names of six approvers, and turn out all the godly ministers in the nation.

The compromise suggestion of Roger Boyle*, Lord Broghill – the inclusion of a proviso that ministers appointed during intervals between Parliaments be vetted retrospectively once MPs assembled – was unacceptable. Thistlethwayte declared he would ‘look upon this proviso as a mere shadow’ since ‘approbation in this House, after another has nominated, signifies nothing at all, if the chief magistrate have a negative’; with or without the proviso, he would vote against the measure.71Burton’s Diary, ii. 47, 50-1, 54.

He maintained his vigilance the next day (29 Apr.), moving that the Act for Marriages might apply for only six months. When the ensuing division produced stalemate, a flustered Speaker cast his vote ambiguously, compounding the confusion as he appeared to contradict himself, to general laughter. Quick to take advantage and deploy his legal knowledge, even in the company of Chief Justice John Glynne*, who verified his stance, Thistlethwayte explained that there were precedents allowing the Speaker to rectify his mistakes before orders were entered, but not afterwards. To allow the latter was to court trouble. ‘Once quit your orders, and you lose all.’ If ‘you give way’ to re-run any division, ‘you put it in the power of any Member hereafter, to stand up and say he is mistaken. If a man be of that conscience, as such men may be, it may prove of dangerous consequence’.72Burton’s Diary, ii. 70-1. Letting nothing pass unchallenged, later in the day when there was a move by several MPs to insert a clause confirming a financial award made by the ‘Little Parliament’, Thistlethwayte and Nicholas Pedley* pressed for a separate bill, ‘which is as effectual’. Otherwise, they asserted, the current legislation would collapse under the weight of appended provision.73Burton’s Diary, ii. 79. Thistlethwayte’s combination of briskness and tenacity was also exhibited on the 30th in his ironic or exasperated remark that ‘This is the way to hold a debate all day, first to consider the power of a committee before you appoint it; [this] is not parliamentary’; fellow Members’ appreciation of its veracity may well have contributed to his three nominations that day.74Burton’s Diary, ii. 84. He was among those deputed to refine a clause in the ordinance to lend security to the purchasers of royal forest; to regulate the court of chancery; and to examine a petition by the executors of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke and Wiltshire grandee, relating to his debtors.75CJ vii. 528a, 528b The business this entailed might have made him keen to support a motion on Friday 1 May to adjourn until the following Monday, but he was a teller for the majority who voted to keep going.76CJ vii. 529b. However, this was his last visible contribution to proceedings before the Houses finally adjourned on 26 June.

Thistlethwayte arrived promptly for the start of the second session on 20 January 1658, as confident as before in his grasp of precedent. When there was discussion that day of the procedure for the replacement of clerk Henry Scobell, he asserted the ‘undoubted right’ of Members to choose this officer. Cautious Christopher Lister* moved to take the precaution of declaring the right formally, but Thistlethwayte dismissed this course as having the opposite effect to that intended, observing that, ‘to pass any such previous vote is to call in question what is your undoubted right’; he advised simply holding a division on the proposed candidate.77Burton’s Diary, ii. 318. On the other hand, he was no advocate of hasty and ill-considered decision-making. The next day he moved successfully to delay a vote proposed by the Speaker on whether there should be an assembly of divines to advise on religion, arguing that for ‘a matter of this consequence’ ‘it would look ill to have a negative’.78Burton’s Diary, ii. 336. Nominated on the 22nd to the committee to consider the act on registration of births, marriages and burials, on the 28th he was again among those deputed to attend on the protector to convey the Parliament’s concern for progress in settlement.79CJ vii. 581a, 589a. The report of Cromwell’s response at this meeting was delivered to the Commons on the 29th. According to Burton, it occasioned a silence eventually broken by Thistlethwayte, who drew attention to the protector’s stated commitment to the inclusion of the Other House in the legislature and to the preservation of the privilege in both Houses. Since this was the case, ‘our sitting here is fruitless, unless we come to an understanding between the two Houses’. He therefore pressed for debate to resolve the conflict that had thus far so hampered other parliamentary business.80Burton’s Diary, ii. 380. His impatience for a moderate constitutional settlement was revealed on 3 February, when in reply to a motion for a grand committee he burst out that, ‘you will come to an end if every gentleman take liberty to launch into the whole Petition and Advice, which cannot be altered but by consent of the three estates’. Rather than voicing criticism, he wished Members would speak to the merits of the traditionally-conceived scheme, as he promised to do himself. At this, the republican Sir Arthur Hesilrige* objected that he was acting against the rules of the House in altering the question, but having been defended by the Speaker, Thistlethwayte intervened again. The House had already ‘sat 14 days’: if they ‘launch[ed] into this debate’, they would ‘never come to a question’. Attempting to cut to the heart of disagreements he identified ‘two rocks’ upon which discussion might be wrecked: the exclusion from the Other House of the ‘old peerage, which have right and are a considerable party, property we ought to be tender in’; the admission of ‘a negative voice’, a veto which might be exercised by that interest but also ‘which the liberties of the people claim, as their right’. As ‘an expedient’, for the time being he proposed co-operation with the Other House: ‘this does not constitute a House of Lords’. He counselled ‘a day of humiliation, if it be but for the sad division amongst people that fear God’: only then – presumably in the calmer atmosphere which it should induce – should there be a debate of ‘the whole in a grand committee’.81Burton’s Diary, ii. 428. As he had doubtless feared, however, Parliament was dissolved the next day without any such outcome.

Thistlethwayte was not elected to the 1659 Parliament, but was back at Westminster the following year. Two days after the restoration of the Long Parliament on 21 February 1660, ‘Colonel’ Thistlethwayte was added to the committee for the militia.82CJ vii. 853a. On 1 March he was placed on a relatively small committee devising a bill to provide for the financial and spiritual needs of maimed soldiers and army widows and orphans.83CJ vii. 857a. This was to be his last recorded contribution to parliamentary business.

While on a personal level he appears to have adapted to altered political conditions, Thistlethwayte did not sit again in Parliament and was never again a notable presence in local government. He continued to act as a trustee to Sir Edward Hungerford’s nephew and heir Edward Hungerford* and, despite anxieties expressed in a letter of 1664 to one of his brothers-in-law among the Wiltshire élite, lived in comfortable circumstances.84Wilts. RO, 1461/679; 1370/1. His will, drawn up in May 1669, displayed both piety and pride in his lineage. He commended his soul to God

my glorious Creator and [the] giver thereof, trusting only and alone upon the invaluable merits and mediation of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, my precious Redeemer, for life and salvation through faith in his blood.

He desired burial in Winterslow church ‘in the aisle there wherein I have usually sat to hear God’s Word’, next to his great-uncle and his ‘dear’ father, with

an inscription made with gilt letters in black marble ... mentioning my said great uncle John as also my father and myself lying there who were the third and fourth heirs male of that name.

His three surviving daughters and his younger son Gabriel each received £1,000. An original intention that the latter should receive a double portion was abandoned: instead the young clergyman, who in 1660 had been appointed chaplain to, the secretary of state and Thistlethwayte’s fellow Wiltshireman Sir Edward Nicholas, was to be presented by his brother to the living of Winterslow when its current incumbent – still the erstwhile Presbyterian Carter – should die.85Wilts. RO, P1/T/156; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 542. Following his death in December 1670 Thistlethwayte was buried in accordance with his wishes in the church of which Gabriel duly became vicar.86Winterslow par. reg.; MIs Wilts. 1822, 345. The former MP’s elder son, the next Alexander Thistlethwayte†, sat as an exclusionist in the three Parliaments from 1679.87HP Commons 1660-1690.