WILTON, Robert (1599-1657), of Wilby, Norf.

Wilton was descended from a cadet branch of a Yorkshire family which settled in Norwich in the mid-fifteenth century. His great-great-grandfather, Henry Wilton (d. 1507), prospered as a Norwich merchant and alderman.34Bennet, ‘Notes’, 201-2. This MP’s father, Richard, inherited a good estate and acquired two further manors (worth about £530 a year) in the neighbourhood of Wilby, south west of Attleborough. He transferred one of those manors, Beckwith Hall, to Robert, his eldest son, during his own lifetime.35Bennet, ‘Notes’, 205; Blomefield, Norf. i. 364. When exactly Richard or Robert acquired Wilby Hall is uncertain. It is possible that Robert did not buy it outright until the 1650s.36Blomefield, Norf. i. 363; ‘Wilby Hall’, Norf. Arch. xxii., pp. vii-viii; B. Cozens-Hardy, ‘Some Norf. halls’, Norf. Arch. xxxii., 207; Pevsner, Norf.: North-West and South (1999), 781. What is certain is that in 1634 Robert bought the leet of the hundred of Shropham, which included Wilby, from the chief justice of common pleas, Sir Robert Heath†.37Blomefield, Norf. i. 360. From 1633 he was a commissioner of the peace for Norfolk.38Coventry Docquets, 69; Rye, State Pprs. 215; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 238.. That same year fire badly damaged the parish church at Wilby.39Blomefield, Norf. i. 365n. The Wiltons paid for its restoration, with the construction of the west gallery being completed in 1637, the year of Richard Wilton’s death.40Pevsner, Norf.: North-West and South, 781. At some point Robert also erected almhouses at Wilby.41PROB11/274/393.

Some nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians, misled by the wording of his epitaph, incorrectly assumed that Wilton must have been a staunch royalist. In reality, throughout the civil war he was a committed supporter of Parliament. In April 1643 he was among the Eastern Association commissioners appointed for Norfolk by the association’s major-general, 1st Lord Grey of Warke (Sir William Grey†).42Suff. ed. Everitt, 52. In late June 1643 Parliament ordered two of the local MPs, Sir John Holland* and Sir John Potts*, to return to Norfolk. However, on 29 June Holland told the Commons that he was too ill to do so. He was therefore ordered to appoint Wilton as his lieutenant colonel so that he could command Holland’s militia regiment in his absence.43CJ iii. 149a. That order was confirmed by the Commons nine days later.44CJ iii. 159a. The following October Wilton was also one of the five new deputy lieutenants appointed by Parliament for Norfolk.45CJ iii. 287a. In May 1645 he was added to the county standing committee.46CJ iv. 150a. In that capacity, he was then among those who wrote in July 1645 to the Norwich corporation to inform them of the city’s new assessment rating.47HMC Laing, i. 218. Parliament was still relying on Wilton’s loyalty four years later. On 23 and 24 April 1648 serious riots against Parliament disturbed Norwich. Wilton was one of the 12 local gentlemen appointed three weeks later to investigate their cause.48CJ v. 559b; LJ x. 261a.

The execution of the king in January 1649 seems not in any way to have deterred Wilton from continuing in these local offices. He remained a stalwart of the Norfolk commission of the peace, first under the republic and later under the protectorate.49Norf. QSOB, 22-88. Moreover, in February 1650 he was given the command of one of the Norfolk militia regiments.50CSP Dom. 1650, p. 504.

In 1654 Wilton stood in the Norfolk election for the first protectorate Parliament. In 1656, after the elections to the next Parliament, an anonymous source would send complaints against some of the Norfolk MPs to John Thurloe*. That source implied that in the 1654 election Wilton had faced opposition because of his ‘unhandsome using’ of ‘Mr Pooly’.51TSP v. 372. That was probably a reference to Christopher Pooley, the county’s most radical Baptist. But, if some disliked Wilton, this did not affect the outcome of the 1654 election. The 1,555 votes Wilton polled put him in fourth place and so gained him one of the ten county seats.52R. Temple, ‘A 1654 protectorate parliamentary election return’, Cromwelliana, ser. II, iii. (2006), 58.

When on 12 September Oliver Cromwell* announced that all MPs would be required to take an oath acknowledging his authority as lord protector, Wilton was probably among those Norfolk MPs who initially refused and who agreed to take it only after dining together to consider their options.53Burton’s Diary, i. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. On 25 September he was named to the committee on the bill approving that oath. That same day he was also named to the committee on the bill against scandalous ministers, while the next day he was included on the committee to review the size of the armed forces.54CJ vii. 370a, 370b. His only other committee appointments during this Parliament were on the bill to reform the court of chancery (5 Oct.) and on the public accounts (22 Nov.).55CJ vii. 374a, 387b.

The summer of 1656 brought new elections for a new Parliament. Informing his brother-in-law, John Buxton*, that he (Buxton) had been suggested as a possible candidate, Wilton assured him on 13 July that he would have ‘my hearty vote and all the strength I can contribute’. He also expressed the hope that those elected will be ‘such as will serve them [the county] with a faithful heart and not either for profit or preferment.’56CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/103; HMC Var. ii. 270. Wilton himself stood for re-election and again polled strongly, receiving 2,334 votes, which put him in third place.57Norf. Arch. i., 67. Thurloe’s anonymous source, who would imply that Wilton had faced opposition two years earlier, contrasted that with the smoothness with which he was re-elected. This apparently was because Pooley, now a Fifth Monarchist, had since been left in peace.58TSP v. 372.

When Parliament assembled in mid-September 1656, Wilton was named to the committee of privileges.59CJ vii. 424a. Over the following few months he was also named to committees on the bills against customary oaths (7 Oct.), on the probate of wills (27 Oct.), for the relief of creditors and poor prisoners (29 Oct.), to confirm the abolition of the court of Wards (29 Oct.) and for the recovery of small debts (1 Nov.).60CJ vii. 435b, 446a, 447a, 449a. Other committees to which he was named were those on labourers’ wages (7 Oct.), abuses by manorial stewards (13 Oct.), the confiscated estates of delinquents and papists (22 Oct.), excise arrears (11 Nov.) and the petition from the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*) (10 Dec.).61CJ vii. 435a, 438a, 444a, 453a, 466b. He meanwhile sat on the committee on the private bill in favour of the children of the late William Masham*.62CJ vii. 445a. A couple of his committee appointments related to Norfolk. On 14 November he was included on the committee on the bill for the maintenance of the ministers of Great Yarmouth, while on 25 November he headed the list of those MPs appointed to consider the bill to regulate the manufacture of Norwich stuffs.63CJ vii. 453b, 459a. On 10 December he joined with Luke Robinson* to argue that Parliament should honour its debts by selling the remaining unsold land in public ownership in England and Ireland.64Burton’s Diary, i. 93.

One item of business was presumably the result of Wilton’s own initiative. On 25 November 1656 the House ordered that Drugo Wright be summoned to appear before them for breaching parliamentary privilege. The accusation was that the previous evening he had served a subpoena against Wilton on behalf of Edward Parker of Barnard’s Inn. Parker, who was originally from Stuston, Suffolk, was a protégé of the former principal of Barnard’s Inn, Robert Morse.65Admiss. Reg. of Barnard’s Inn, ed. C.W. Brooks (Selden Soc. xii.), 33, 94. Wright appeared at the bar on 3 December.66CJ vii. 458b, 462b, 464a. Sir John Hobart*, the 3rd baronet, sought to defuse matters by arguing that Wright was naïve and inexperienced, enabling Wilton to be lenient. Having cowed Wright, Wilton magnanimously declared that, ‘though very tender of the breach of ... privilege’, he was willing to let the matter drop because Wright was ‘young and ignorant’.67Burton’s Diary, i. 9-10.

By December 1656 a major controversy raged over the fate of James Naylor, the Quaker whom Parliament had already concluded was guilty of ‘horrid blasphemy’. Wilton firmly sided with those who thought that Naylor should face the highest possible penalty. Speaking on 10 December against the motion that Naylor should be whipped and then imprisoned, he sneered that this would be ‘like condemning a man for high treason and punishing him with the pillory.’ He had no doubt that, given the choice between ‘the life of a man and the honour of God’, the latter was the only imaginable option. To him, the Quakers were ‘vipers’ who had ‘crept into the bowels of your commonwealth, and the government too.’ He therefore warmly praised Philip Skippon* (‘an honourable person in my eyes’). who the previous week had been at the forefront of the attack on Naylor. The danger Wilton thought was that they would be like Eli, whose line had been extinguished by God after he had failed to rebuke his sinful sons (1 Samuel 2). The legal niceties as to whether the death penalty could be applied against Naylor did not bother him; Wilton simply thought that they should bring in an attainder bill authorising his execution.68Burton’s Diary, i. 96. On 18 December he was among those added to the committee on Naylor, after it was asked to consider how they should act on all the complaints that had come in against other Quakers.69CJ vii. 470a. He was probably no more sympathetic towards Roman Catholics; although he had not been formally named to it, he attended the meeting of the committee against recusants on 11 December.70Burton’s Diary, i. 117.

Skippon soon repaid the compliment that Wilton had paid to him. When the call of the House was taken on 31 December, Skippon, Barnard Church* and Sir John Hobart reported that Wilton was unable to attend because his daughter was ‘very sick’.71Burton’s Diary, i. 285. He had presumably resumed his attendance by late January 1657, when he was named the committees on the petitions from the Levant Company (27 Jan.) and from the Gresham family (31 Jan.).72CJ vii. 483a, 484a.

By late February 1657 some MPs were promoting the Remonstrance (later the Humble Petition and Advice) which proposed a new constitutional settlement with, they hoped, Oliver Cromwell* as king. During March Wilton was named to three of the committees that reviewed specific sections of the Remonstrance. On 10 March he was named to the committee on the section dealing with the procedures to decide whether individual MPs were qualified to sit in future Parliaments.73CJ vii. 501b. Two days later, when a committee was created to consider the judicial powers of the Other House, Wilton was also named to it.74CJ vii. 502a. His third committee was that which was asked to propose an adjustment to the clause on government revenue to protect liberty and property.75CJ vii. 505a. Moreover, on 18 March, following the addition of a proviso that a confession of faith ‘be held forth and recommended’ to the people, he acted as teller in the minority against the motion that the word ‘recommended’ stand in the question.76CJ vii. 507a. Wilton was listed among those who voted to offer the crown to Cromwell on 25 March.77A Narrative of the late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5).

On 3 April Wilton was a member of the committee that agreed that MPs could wait on the lord protector later that same day to hear Cromwell’s reply to the Humble Petition.78CJ vii. 519b. Cromwell then refused the offer of the crown, so three days later Wilton and other MPs were asked to prepare reasons on why they thought Cromwell should reconsider.79CJ vii. 520b. On 9 April he was also included on the committee appointed to receive a further explanation from Cromwell.80CJ vii. 521a, 521b.

Wilton had meanwhile sat on committees on the bill of attainder against the Irish rebels (30 Mar.) and on the bill for the purchase of impropriations (31 Mar.).81CJ vii. 515a, 515b. On 30 April he was also named to the committee on the debts of the late 4th earl of Pembroke (Philip Herbert*).82CJ vii. 528b. His last committee appointment, on the bill for restricting building in the London suburbs, was on 9 May.83CJ vii. 532a. Parliament was adjourned on 26 June, following Cromwell’s second installation as lord protector.

Wilton died aged 58 on 19 November 1657 and was buried at Wilby, where his monumental inscription described him as a ‘faithful patriot and true lover of his country’.84Blomefield, Norf. i. 367. In his will he bequeathed £12 to the poor of twelve Norfolk parishes and portions of £1,000 apiece to his children, as well as five manors, his library and arms to his only son, Nicholas. Buxton and Robert Wood* were among those named as executors, while Sir John Holland was appointed as the supervisor.85PROB11/274/393. Nicholas Wilton subsequently sold the lands at Wilby and Topcroft.86Blomefield, Norf. i. 364, x. 186; Manning, ‘Three old halls’, 330.