BUXTON, John (1608-60), of Channonz, Tibenham, Norf.

The Buxtons were first recorded around Oulton and Irmingland, close to Aylsham in north-east Norfolk.16John Buxton, ed. A. Mackley, 3. This MP’s great-grandfather, Robert Buxton† (c.1533-1607), a servant of the 4th duke of Norfolk and surveyor-general of the 13th earl of Arundel, was a considerable landowner in that county and in Suffolk. His purchases included Channonz Hall at Tibenham, which he rebuilt, as well as Rushford (or Rushworth) College, a few miles from Thetford.17A.P. Baggs, ‘Channons Hall’, Norf. Arch. xxxiv. 9-13; E.J. Rose, ‘The Aslacton painting of Channonz Hall, Tibenham’, Norf. Arch. xl. 109-13; [E.K.] Bennet, ‘The college of S. John Evangelist of Rushworth’, Norf. Arch. x. 301. As a client of the Howards, he sat in three Elizabethan Parliaments.

This MP’s father, Robert Buxton, died in 1611 when John, his only son, was aged only two. Two years later John’s mother, Elizabeth, joined together with her father, Edmund Doyly of Shotesham, to buy John’s wardship from the crown for £800.18CUL, Buxton pprs. 30/18; HMC Var. ii. 249-50. Doyly died only a few months later, however, leaving Elizabeth Buxton as John’s sole guardian. She subsequently married an Essex gentleman, William Pert of Brentwood and Mountnessing.19Blomefield, Norf. iii. 348, v. 509. By this marriage Buxton gained not only a stepfather, for, in 1627, he was married off to Margaret, Pert’s only daughter by a previous marriage.20Vis. Essex 1552, 1558, 1570, 1612, and 1634, i. 468; Vis. Norf. i. 45; Morant, Essex, ii. 45. Initially, Buxton and his new wife resided in London, where they seem to have aspired to a fashionable metropolitan lifestyle.21CUL, Buxton pprs. 127/2, f. 80; McKitterick, ‘Ovid with a Littleton’, 194-8. Buxton took a particular interest in the theatre, both as a playgoer and as a reader; one of his early book purchases was a Shakespeare First Folio.22McKitterick, ‘Ovid with a Littleton’, 197-8, 215. Later, in 1629-30, they settled at Channonz.23McKitterick, ‘Ovid with a Littleton’, 199-203. Already Buxton was something of a bibliophile. His acquisitions, which he accumulated at a steady rate, were mostly literary and religious works and always in English.24McKitterick, ‘Ovid with a Littleton’, 204-34.

During the 1630s Buxton began to play a part in local affairs in Norfolk. In 1632 he was added to the commission of the peace, while by 1637 he was serving as a lieutenant-colonel and captain in the county militia.25Coventry Docquets, 66; CSP Dom. 1635, p. 115; 1637-8, p. 238; CUL, Buxton pprs. 96/17; HMC Var. ii. 251. His big test came in the spring of 1638 when the sheriff of Norfolk, Sir Francis Astley, died suddenly and Buxton was named as his emergency replacement.26List of Sheriffs, 89; CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/67; 127/3; 21/1-2; 21/4; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 452. His mother believed that his name had been proposed by enemies who ‘intended a mischief.’27CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/75; HMC Var. ii. 252. The appointment entailed the unwelcome task of completing the collection of the county’s contribution towards Ship Money. The sum Norfolk was expected to provide had been set at £7,800.28HMC Var. ii. 251-2; CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/65. Of that, Astley had already delivered £4,420 to the treasurer of the navy.29CUL, Buxton pprs. 122/9. By mid-June Buxton and his subordinates were ready to resume the collections.30CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/70; HMC Var. ii. 251. Over the next three months they raised another £1,850.31CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/72-4; 44/80; HMC Var. ii. 252. But in late September he still had to find £785 19s 7½d.32CUL, Buxton pprs. 122/9. Inevitably, Astley had done the easy bit first and the task of extracting further arrears became increasingly difficult. Buxton complained to the secretary of state, Edward Nicholas†, that he had ‘daily labour and travail, besides great expenses in journeying up and down the country’ and that this was

a work of that difficulty and excessive charge for me, besides the hate I have incurred of my country for executing those commands imposed on me for which I am grown even odious to them that were I not supported by His Majesty's acceptance of my service it were unsupportable and I should sink under the burden.33CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 48-9.

He then thanked the king, the privy council and particularly the 14th (or 21st) earl of Arundel for their backing.34CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 49. By mid-October he had reduced his arrears to less than £200.35CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 61. His main problem by then was a dispute with the constables of Blofield hundred, whom he considered to be a pair of ‘factious, peremptory fellows’.36CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 78. This was resolved only after they had been summoned before the privy council.37CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 597; 1638-9, pp. 48-9, 61, 67-8, 78-9, 121-2, 233-4, 402-3; CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/77; 59/80-1; 59/83; HMC Var. ii. 252-3. By January 1639 Buxton had managed to pay in almost all the outstanding money.38CUL, Buxton pprs. 44/81; 59/79; 59/82. In the end, only £78 2s 11d. remained uncollected.39M.D. Gordon, ‘The collection of ship-money’, TRHS 3rd ser. iv. 159. It had been Buxton’s bad luck that he had taken over as sheriff when the last of the judgements in the Ship Money case against John Hampden* were about to be handed down. But it helped him that Norfolk was a coastal county and, thanks to some very hard work, he had been markedly more successful than some sheriffs elsewhere. Meanwhile, he had all the sheriff’s normal duties to perform as well. His expenses for hospitality and entertainment during the Norwich assizes in July 1638 came to £448 2s. 3d.40CUL, Buxton pprs. 96/3.

In August 1638 Buxton’s mother feared plotting to have him reappointed when his term as sheriff came to an end.41CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/75. She need not have worried, as Augustine Holl took over as Buxton’s successor that November.42List of Sheriffs, 89; CUL, Buxton pprs. 21/3. But the rebellion in Scotland soon threatened to impose a new burden on Buxton’s time. In the spring of 1639 he was among those members of the Norfolk militia summoned to join the army to be sent to fight the Scottish Covenanters, although Buxton may well not have set out before the Pacification of Berwick rendered this unnecessary.43CUL, Buxton pprs. 96/19; 59/84; HMC Var. ii. 253-4. His purchase during those months of a number of books relating to events in Scotland and on military subjects was presumably intended as background reading.44McKitterick, ‘Ovid with a Littleton’, 211-12. The meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640 caused him great concern as he feared that it might proceed against him for his efficiency in collecting Ship Money.45Knyvett Lttrs. 96; CUL, Buxton pprs. 102/11; HMC Var. ii. 260-1; G.L. Owens, ‘Two unpublished lttrs. of Thomas Knyvett’, Norf. Arch. xxxv. 430. Writing to him in March 1641 about the new subsidy commissioners, Thomas Knyvett quoted back at him Buxton’s comment that, ‘the nomination of the commissioners is a mystery understood by none but our grave country senators; nor scarcely by them neither’.46Owens, ‘Two unpublished lttrs.’, 430. Buxton himself was added to that commission later that year.47SR.

Faced with the outbreak of civil war in 1642, Buxton’s reaction was to adopt a stance of unobtrusive neutrality. The king named him as one of the commissioners of array for Norfolk, but there is no evidence Buxton acted as such.48Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. In any case, Norfolk was quickly secured for the parliamentarians. In the summer of 1643 Buxton moved to Essex, an even more strongly parliamentarian county, where he joined the Perts at their house at Brentwood.49CUL, Buxton pprs. 102/15. The strongly royalist Knyvett thought him as cowardly as Thomas Atkin*, commenting in August 1643 that, ‘I never heard of so poor a spirited fellow in my life’, adding ‘He is got amongst the Essex ——, and I fear will partake of their nature’.50Knyvett Lttrs. 123. Buxton’s presence in Essex confused the Committee for Advance of Money, which tried to assess him for £500 at Brentwood in August 1644, only to concede two months later that his case should instead be dealt with in Norfolk. The Norfolk county standing committee then reduced his assessment to £200, which Buxton paid immediately.51CAM 440; CUL, Buxton pprs. 96/22; HMC Var. ii. 262-3. He seems to have been equally swift in paying the other parliamentarian taxes demanded from him during the war years.52CUL, Buxton pprs. 96/20-1, 23-5; HMC Var. ii. 262, 265-6.

From 1645 Parliament began appointing Buxton as a Norfolk assessment commissioner.53A. and O. How far he performed those duties is however unclear. That he was among those commissioners specially summoned to a meeting of the commission at Norwich on 5 May 1648 may imply that he had previously been attending only infrequently.54CUL, Buxton pprs. 96/26; HMC Var. ii. 266. In April 1649 he sought and was granted a letter of protection from Sir Thomas Fairfax* to prevent soldiers disturbing him or interfering in his affairs.55CUL, Buxton pprs. 122/10; HMC Var. ii. 266. The execution of the king had only increased his reluctance to hold public office. One informant told John Thurloe* in 1656 that Buxton had ‘refused to act anything since the late king’s death and therefore was put out of all employments’.56TSP v. 371. It was certainly the case that Buxton was removed from the Norfolk commission of the peace in March 1652, although the Rump again appointed him as an assessment commissioner later that same year.57C231/6, p. 230; A. and O.

On 13 July 1656 his brother-in-law, Robert Wilton*, wrote to him with the news that Buxton’s name had been put forward for the election to the second protectorate Parliament.58CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/103; HMC Var. ii. 270. Buxton’s previous detachment from public affairs now worked to his advantage, as there were probably some voters who wanted MPs unassociated with the protectorate. Buxton came seventh in the Norfolk poll, with 2,190 votes.59Norf. Arch. i. (1847), 67. He did not however travel to Westminster for the opening of Parliament and so learned in a letter from his cousin, Sir William Doyly*, that they were among those MPs who were not to be allowed to take their seats.60CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/104; HMC Var. ii. 271. His name subsequently appeared as one of the signatories to the remonstrance published by those secluded Members.61To all the Worthy Gentlemen [1656], E.889.8. The following December Doyly advised him to travel to London so that he could join with the others in pressing to be allowed to take their seats in the forthcoming second session.62CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/108; HMC Var. ii. 272. There is no evidence that Buxton did so and it is likely that he never actually sat in Parliament. He held no further office under the protectorate but was appointed to the January 1660 assessment commission.63A. and O. In early 1660 he signed the Norfolk address for a free Parliament.64Address from Gentry of Norf. ed. Rye, 50.

Buxton lived to see the opening of such a Parliament (the ‘Convention’) – he voted for Sir Horatio Townshend* in the Norfolk poll on 2 April – but not the restoration of the monarchy.65GL, Norf. poll bk. 1660, f. 8v. He died on 29 April 1660, aged 51, and was buried at Tibenham. His monumental inscription described him as an example of virtue and piety.66Blomefield, Norf. v. 276. He had already settled most of his lands on his eldest son, Robert, or, as a life interest, on his wife.67CUL, Buxton pprs. 96/6. His books and manuscripts were left to whichever of his four sons became a clergyman, a lawyer or a physician. Those four sons were then appointed as the executors of his will, while the four supervisors appointed by him to oversee them included his wife, Doyly and Sir Robert Kemp†.68Norf. RO, Norwich consistory court, will reg. Tennant 374; CUL, Buxton pprs. 34/12. Robert Buxton survived his father by only two years, but left several young sons to continue the male line.69Vis. Norf. i. 45; John Buxton, ed. Mackley, 4-6. No further members of the family sat in Parliament until this MP’s great-great-great grandson, Sir Robert John Buxton†, 1st bt. (1753-1839), sat for Thetford in 1790 and Great Bedwyn in 1806.