PHESANT, Stephen (1617-59), of Upwood, Hunts.

The first Stephen Phesant, this MP’s great-great-grandfather, had been a Venetian who had settled in London before 1523.15Returns of Aliens dwelling in the City and Suburbs of London, ed. R.E.G. Kirk and E.F. Kirk (Huguenot Soc. x), iii. 300; Cass, East Barnet, ped. opp. 32. In 1561 his grandson, Peter Phesant, was admitted to Gray’s Inn, and went on to found a minor dynasty of lawyers. Marriage to an heiress brought him lands in Lincolnshire, in and around Barkwith.16Lincs. Ped. 777. His son, also called Peter, later followed in his footsteps and by the 1630s was establishing himself as a respected barrister in the London courts. When his eldest son, Stephen, the future MP, was born in 1617, he was living in the City in the parish of St Olave Old Jewry; 21 years later he had moved to the neighbouring parish of St Margaret Lothbury.17St Olave Old Jewry, London par. reg.; Inhabitants of London, 1638 (1931), 97; Principal Inhabitants, 1640, 12.

Peter Phesant’s position as reader allowed his son, Stephen, to be admitted as an honorary member of Gray’s Inn in 1624 at the age of only seven; he was readmitted five years later two weeks before his twelfth birthday.18G. Inn Admiss. 174, 187. In view of this, it must have been his time at St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, to which he was admitted in 1631 at the age of about 14, which represented the real completion of his education.19Al. Cant. As he was never called to the bar, it is unclear how far his legal studies progressed.

Peter Phesant’s legal career prospered during the 1640s. From 1640 he held the rank of serjeant-at-law, in December 1642 his appointment as one of the judges of common pleas was mooted by the Lords in their peace proposals for the king, and in May 1643 he briefly held office as recorder of London. Parliament finally implemented the idea suggested three years before when in October 1645 it was agreed that he should be appointed to fill one of the vacancies as a judge of the court of common pleas. He held this position until his death, being one of those judges who agreed to continue in office in 1649 after the execution of the king.20LJ v. 504b; vii. 624b; CJ vi. 134b, 138a, 165b, 233a. In contrast, his son’s career appears very modest and very much in his father’s wake. In the early 1640s he was probably acting as little more than his father’s clerk.21Essex RO, D/DHt/T140/21. In 1643 Serjeant Phesant’s promotion to become recorder opened the way for his son to succeed him as one of the common pleaders of London, and he went on to follow him as steward of the manor of Barnet.22Prest, Rise of the Barristers, 159-60; Cass, East Barnet, 35, 37, 39. By his first marriage in 1639 he became a brother-in-law of Thomas Bludworth†, the lord mayor of London in 1666.23All Hallows, Lombard St. London par. reg.; PROB11/260/448.

The Phesants’ interests in Huntingdonshire seem to have arisen through Peter Phesant’s involvement in the affairs of the Cromwell family. As early as 1622 Sir Oliver Cromwell† was mortgaging the rectory of Great Stukeley on the outskirts of Huntingdon to Phesant and another Gray’s Inn lawyer, Thomas Brickenden, to raise £1,900.24Hunts. RO, CON.3/3/6/2-5. Sir Oliver’s financial difficulties soon multiplied, leading to the sale of the family seat at Hinchingbrooke in 1627. Phesant was well placed to benefit from these misfortunes and plausibly handled the disposal of property which Sir Oliver was forced to make from time to time. At some stage even the Cromwells’ new seat at Ramsey seems to have been mortgaged to the Phesants.25PROB11/302/15. Among estates which passed out of their hands was the manor of Upwood in the north east of the county. Phesant had acquired this manor by September 1649, when he transferred it into the hands of trustees, with the profits being assigned to Stephen for life. After his father’s death a month later, Stephen Phesant appointed new trustees, who included Bludworth.26Norris Museum, St Ives, UMS/UPWOD/508; UMS/UPWOD/201; PROB11/210/84. As he was buried in the local church, it also seems probable that Judge Phesant had already been living at Upwood.27Hunts. RO, 2130/1/1, f. 29v; RCHME Hunts. 281, pl. 25. It was also there that several of Stephen’s children would be born over the next six years.28Hunts. RO, 2130/1/1, ff. 9v-10, 29v.

Had the 1653 Parliament been elected by conventional means, it is extremely unlikely that Stephen Phesant would have secured one of the Huntingdonshire seats. He was a relative newcomer to the county and it was only the previous year that he had been included on the local commission of the peace and the assessment commission.29A. and O. However, he may have been recommended by a strict upbringing, for his father had used his will to tell him ‘to be very watchful over himself that he go not out of the way of godliness whereby he shall surely keep God’s blessings upon him’.30PROB11/210/84. Having been summoned to sit by the council of state, Phesant made little impact at Westminster. His only committee appointments came on 5 September 1653 when he was added to the committees for public debts and for the inspection of the treasuries. The month-long leave of absence which was granted to him on 21 September can provide only part of the explanation for this apparent anonymity.31CJ vii. 314a, 322a.

Phesant’s election in 1654 is at least partly explained by the fact that Edward Montagu II*, current owner of Hinchingbrooke and member of the council of state, had made it known that he supported Phesant. In late June 1654 Montagu instructed one of his servants to canvas support for both Phesant and Griffith Lloyde* in those parts of Huntingdonshire where Montagu influence held sway.32Bodl. Carte 223, f. 334. With Montagu’s backing, there was no need for Phesant to have an electoral interest of his own. He was probably seen as a loyal supporter of the protectoral government, and, although Sir Oliver Cromwell’s heir, Henry Cromwell alias Williams*, took second place, preventing the election of Lloyde, the result of the Huntingdonshire poll on 12 July 1654 allowed Montagu and Phesant to return to Westminster once again. As before, Phesant made no visible impact in Parliament. He may have been more active at a local level and there is evidence that he turned up to at least one meeting of the Huntingdonshire commission for securing the peace of the commonwealth in November 1655.33TSP iv. 229. There is no reason to suppose that he stood a third time when the next round of parliamentary elections was held in 1656.

Phesant did not live to see the Restoration.34Hunts. RO, 2130/1/1, f. 30v. At the time of his death in May 1659 he may have had as many as nine surviving children, of whom only one, Peter, was a son, and at least three of the daughters were very young, having been born to his second wife, Mary, whom he had married as recently as 1655.35Lansd. 921, f. 71; Hunts. RO, 2130/1/1, f. 10; Littledale, Regs. of St Bene’t and St Peter, Paul’s Wharf, 294. Making provision for so many unmarried daughters required drastic measures. Phesant left specific instructions that his land at Langton in Lincolnshire be sold off to raise portions of £1,500 for each of them. The rest of his estates, including some land in Somerset, passed to his son.36PROB11/302/15. The lands at Upwood remained in the family until Phesant’s great-grandsons, William and Mansel Phesant, sold them in 1707 and, on their deaths later in the eighteenth century, the male line of the family died out.37VCH Hunts. ii. 239. Phesant’s presence in the 1653 and 1654 Parliaments is proof that, on the back of his father’s distinguished and lucrative career as a lawyer, the family was then on the verge of achieving a secure place among the ranks of the Huntingdonshire gentry, but these initial gains were not maintained, making Stephen Phesant the only member of the family ever to sit in Parliament.