WITHRINGTON, Sir William (1610-51), of Widdrington, Northumb., and Blankney, Lincs.

Withrington was ‘a gentleman of the best and most ancient extraction’ in Northumberland, where his family had been established since the twelfth century.27Clarendon, Hist. v. 185; Hodgson, Northumb. pt. 2, ii. 230. His father, Sir Henry Widdrington, was one of the county’s greatest landowners and sat as a knight of the shire for Northumberland in the 1604, 1614 and 1621 Parliaments. Although suspected at times of harbouring Catholic sympathies, he conformed (at least outwardly) to the established church – in contrast to his brother Roger, a prominent recusant.28CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 465; Fams. of Skeet, Somerscales, Widdrington, 97; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Sir Henry Widdrington’. Sir Henry died when Withrington was still a minor, and under the terms of his will he entrusted the care of his children to Roger. A petition to the 1626 Parliament alleged that Roger had ‘seduced’ the children to Catholicism, prompting the crown, in 1627, to grant Withrington’s wardship to William Cavendish†, 1st Viscount Mansfield, the future earl of Newcastle.29WARD7/70/189; APC 1626, p. 375; CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 205; HP Commons 1604-1629. The young Withrington became a ‘very particular and entire friend’ of Newcastle, a relationship that would have considerable bearing on his future career.30Chatsworth, Bolton Abbey mss, box 2, II.156; Clarendon, Hist. v. 185.

Just a year after coming of age, Withrington was added to the Northumberland bench and made custos rotulorum – a signal honour for one so young, and a measure of his family’s standing in the county.31C231/5, p. 95. He collected only two thirds of Northumberland’s £2,100 Ship Money levy during his term as sheriff in 1636-7 and might not have escaped with merely being summoned before the council board if Newcastle had not been a privy councillor.32CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 413, 490; 1637, pp. 103, 139, 383; 1637-8, pp. 15, 16; M.D. Gordon, ‘The collection of ship-money in the reign of Charles I’, TRHS ser. 3, iv. 159. Withrington also profited from Newcastle’s appointment in 1638 as governor to the prince of Wales, being made one of four gentlemen of the prince’s privy chamber.33Strafforde Letters, ii. 168. He seems to have resided on his Lincolnshire estate for much of the late 1630s, which probably explains why he was one of the less active of the Northumberland deputy lieutenants during the bishops’ wars.34CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 16; 1639-40, p. 312. Given his apparent failure to have any of his ten children baptised into the Church of England, it is tempting to speculate that the Catholic influences he had been exposed to in his youth had proved persuasive. He would certainly be stigmatised by his parliamentary opponents as ‘papistical’ and ‘popish’, and his heir and at least two more of his sons would become Catholics.35Newman, Royalist Officers, 411; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Hon. Ralph Widdrington’.

In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, Withrington was returned as a knight of the shire for Northumberland. He received no committee appointments in this Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate. He was returned for Northumberland again in the elections to the Long Parliament that autumn, and this time he quickly made his mark in the House.36Supra, ‘Northumberland’. Indeed, on 10 November, just a week after the Long Parliament had assembled, he nearly landed himself in serious trouble by referring to the Scottish Covenanters as ‘invading rebels’.37CJ ii. 25a. He was immediately taken to task by the future parliamentarian grandees Denzil Holles and John Glynne, whereas the future royalist Charles Price sought to excuse him on the grounds that ‘his [Withrington’s] whole estate was under the Scots’ power’. Withrington himself conceded that ‘since the king treated with [the Covenanters] as subjects, he would call them so’, whereupon the matter was dropped, although not before he had related the distressed condition of Northumberland as a result of the Scottish invasion and had presented a petition from the county to that effect.38Procs. LP i. 79, 81, 82, 85, 87; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 38. Three days later (13 Nov.), he and Oliver St John moved to have the supply of the Scottish army taken into consideration – St John as an ally of the Scots, Withrington in order to ease the burden on the northern counties.39Procs. LP i. 131, 133. It was to this end that Withrington pledged £2,000 towards securing a City loan to pay off the Scottish troops.40Procs. LP ii. 628.

Given Withrington’s evident distaste for the Scots, it is no surprise that he was one several Northumberland MPs who voted against the attainder of the earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) on 21 April.41Procs. LP iv. 42, 51. Withrington’s probable Catholic leanings (to put it no more strongly) did not deter him from taking the Protestation when it was introduced on 3 May.42CJ ii. 133a. But he aroused further suspicion among the godly interest in the House when he moved, on 20 May, that Newcastle’s Laudian minister Yeldard Alvey – whom the Commons had detained for his allegedly ‘very scandalous and popishly affected’ behaviour – be granted bail.43Procs. LP iv. 84, 486; Howell, Newcastle, 84.

Withrington was at the centre of controversy again on 8 June 1641, when he and another future royalist, Herbert Prise, denounced George Goring* for perjury in revealing details of the army plot contrary to the oath of secrecy he had taken to his fellow conspirators.44Procs. LP v. 45-6, 63-6, 68; Diurnall Occurrences (1641), 120 (E.523.1); CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 8; Verney, Notes, 90-1. Withrington was particularly concerned to discredit Goring, for among those compromised by the latter’s revelations was the earl of Newcastle.45Supra, ‘George Goring’; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 8. The debate growing ‘high’ and the hour late, most of the House wanted to rise, and when the serjeant brought in candles by mistake they were ordered to be removed. Withrington and Prise, however, were determined to have their say, and they snatched the candles from the serjeant and brought them back into the House. Questioned by the House the next day (9 June) for his rash behaviour, Withrington claimed that he and Prise had been motivated merely by a desire to have the debate continue and the fate of the army plotter put to a vote ‘that so they [the House] might go on in the disbanding of the armies, wherein his country [Northumberland] ... was most interested’.46Sl. 1467, f. 100; Procs. LP v. 63, 64-7, 68-72; Two Diaries of Long Parl. 120-1; Diurnall Occurrences, 120; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 8; Verney, Notes, 91. But this explanation was not convincing enough to prevent the House dividing on whether to send the two Members to the Tower. The tellers for the yeas, the future parliamentarians Denzil Holles and Sir John Clotworthy, won this division from the future royalists Sir John Culpeper and Sir John Strangways, whereupon Withrington and Prise were confined to the Tower during the pleasure of the House.47CJ ii. 171b; Diurnall Occurrences, 120. Leading members of the godly interest in the House alleged that one of the imprisoned MPs – very probably Withrington – had spoken approvingly in May of the army’s ‘great design’ to crush the pro-Scottish party at Westminster. Nevertheless, Withrington and Prise were released on 14 June and allowed to resume their seats.48CJ ii. 174b, 175a; Procs. LP v. 130, 137, 140, 143, 150.

Withrington was named to 11 committees in the Long Parliament, of which at least five concerned the supply and disbanding of the armies in the north and the relief of their reluctant hosts.49CJ ii. 21a, 77b, 88a, 99b, 152a, 156b, 190b, 196a, 229a, 394a, 591b. His appointment as a manager of a conference (21 May 1641) and as a messenger to the Lords (7 Aug.) likewise related to the payment and disbandment of the Scottish army.50CJ ii. 153a, 243b. On 25 June, he reported the names of commissioners for drawing up the accounts of the billet money owed to the northern counties, and on 4 August he claimed that the sum outstanding was £22,000.51CJ ii. 187b; Procs. LP vi. 201, 359. Granted leave on 16 August, he had returned to the House by 9 December, when he presented a petition from the inhabitants of Northumberland complaining that they were still owed over £10,000.52CJ ii. 259b; D’Ewes (C), 256; Northcote Note Bk. 82. He received only two Commons appointments in 1642 – to committees for examining Colonel Lunsford and other leading members of the king’s party (25 Jan.) and for the redress of grievances in Northumberland (28 May).53CJ ii. 394a, 591b. His last recorded contribution to proceedings on the floor of the House excited almost as much controversy as his first had done. On 2 June, he presented a petition from about 700 inhabitants of Newcastle requesting that Alvey and his fellow Laudian minister George Wishart, who were undergoing questioning by the ‘Committee for Scandalous Ministers*’, be sent back to their livings. The Newcastle petition was ‘very ill resented’ by the House, not only because the two ministers were regarded as ‘delinquents’ but also because it pre-empted the committee’s findings.54PJ iii. 2; Walker Revised, 288, 291.

Withrington was apparently still at Westminster on 20 June 1642, when the Commons ordered him to request Sir William Carnabye to attend the service of the House.55CJ ii. 634a. But by the time Parliament received reports on 27 June that Withrington’s tenants in Northumberland were mustering for the king, it is likely that he had left for the royal court at York.56PJ iii. 144; LJ v. 170b; HMC 5th Rep. 37. By 14 July, he had joined Carnabye at Newcastle, where the two men busied themselves fortifying the town for its newly-appointed royal governor, the earl of Newcastle.57Supra, ‘Sir William Carnabye’; HMC 5th Rep. 37. On 26 August, Withrington and Carnabye were disabled by the Commons for raising arms against Parliament.58CJ ii. 738a. With the outbreak of civil war, Withrington ‘was of the first who raised both horse and foot at his own charge and served eminently with them’ under Newcastle – the commander of the northern royalist army.59Clarendon, Hist. v. 185; HMC Portland, i. 69; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 339. That Newcastle was able to raise a ‘very considerable army’ was attributed partly to Withrington, ‘both by his interest in Northumberland and by his unwearied pains in following my Lord Newcastle’s directions’.60Bodl. Clarendon 26, f. 118.

Withrington probably fought in most of the northern army’s engagements of 1643-4, but the only major battle in which he is known to have taken part was the royalist defeat at Winceby on 11 October 1643.61HEHL, Hastings ms 13286; Mercurius Aulicus no. 5 (29 Jan.-4 Feb. 1643), 59 (E.246.16); no. 22 (28 May-3 June 1643), 284 (E.106.2); A True…Relation of the Great Defeat Given by My Lord Fairfax [sic] Forces to my Lord Newcastles Forces (1643), 7 (E.88.19); Newcastle Mems. ed. Firth, 31; HMC Hastings, ii. 105; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 282; Fams. of Skeet, Somerscales, Widdrington, 96. As a reward for his ‘many signal services’ to the royal cause he was created Baron Widdrington of Blankney in November 1643 and, at about the same time, signed the letter of the royalist peers at Oxford to the Scottish privy council, condemning the Solemn League and Covenant.62Clarendon, Hist. v. 185, 287-8; CP. He had returned to active duty by early January 1644 and therefore did not attend the opening session of the Oxford Parliament.63Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 574. It seems likely that he fought at Marston Moor in July 1644, and he was certainly one of the men who accompanied Newcastle into exile after that defeat.64Newcastle Mems. ed. Firth, 43; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, i. 155. One of the more politically active members of the royalist exile community in Paris, he was consistently named in Parliament’s peace propositions among those of the king’s party who would be exempted from pardon as to life and estate.65Add. 4200, f. 19; Add. 12185, f. 150; Add. 23206, f. 24; Bodl. Clarendon 31, f. 106; Newcastle Mems. ed. Firth, 45; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 61; CJ iii. 363a; iv. 356b; vi. 165b; LJ vii. 55a; x. 548b.

In 1650, Withrington accompanied Charles II on his expedition to Scotland, and though regarded as ‘profane, scandalous, malignant and disaffected’ by the Covenanters he was allowed to attend the king on his march into England in 1651.66Mercurius Politicus no. 6 (11-18 July 1650), 91 (E.607.18); Clarendon, Hist. v. 186; Hist. Works of Sir James Balfour ed. J. Haig (Edinburgh, 1824), iv. 65, 109-10, 121, 225. In Lancashire, he joined James Stanley, 7th earl of Derby in an attempt to gather ‘a body of English...that might give some limits to the unbounded imaginations’ of the king’s Scottish supporters’.67HMC Portland, i. 614; Clarendon, Hist. v. 179, 182-3, 186. But when Derby’s small force was surprised and routed at Wigan by Colonel Robert Lilburne’s* cavalry on 25 August, Withrington was mortally wounded and died later that day.68A Great Victory...Obtained by the Parliaments Forces against the Scots Forces (1651), 6 (E.640.27); Two Letters from Col. Robert Lilburne, 3. According to Clarendon, he had been offered quarter ‘in respect of his brave person and behaviour’, but knowing that he could expect no mercy from his captors had refused to be taken alive.69Clarendon, Hist. v. 186. He was buried at Wigan on 27 August 1651.70Wigan par reg. No will is recorded. His eldest son William sat in the Restoration House of Lords as 2nd Baron Withrington of Blankney, and his third son Ralph† represented Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1685.71HP Commons 1660-1690.