PARRY, Dr George (c.1601-60), of Doctors’ Commons and Larkbear, Exeter St Leonard, Devon.

George Parry was a younger son of Dr Henry Parry, a renowned preacher (and less well known experimenter with hallucinatory drugs) who became royal chaplain in the last years of Elizabeth I’s reign and then bishop, successively, of Gloucester and Worcester under James I.25Oxford DNB. George Parry entered the Inner Temple in 1616, but then moved into academia, studying at Oxford (where he graduated in 1619) before proceeding to Cambridge as fellow of Magdalene College. While at Cambridge Parry was appointed as chancellor of Exeter diocese, and in 1628, having become doctor of laws, he left the university to take up a place at Doctors’ Commons, and was in the same year inducted into the court of arches.26I. Temple database; Al. Ox.; Al. Cant.; Levack, Civil Lawyers, 26; Court of Arches, List of Civilians. This pluralism brought controversy, however, as in 1627 and 1628 the Exeter chancellor’s court became notorious for corruption, with extraordinary fees being levied on the granting of licences to marry, probate of wills, profits from vacant benefices and, above all, the lifting of threats of excommunication. Parry swore that he had ‘never received any such sums … by mine own hands, neither do I know or believe that any officer of mine hath received such to my use’, but as an absentee he may not have known if others were lining their own pockets at his expense.27SP16/178, ff. 117-8; SP16/530, ff. 194v-7v; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 426.

During the 1630s Parry continued to do various jobs at once. He remained as chancellor at Exeter, but was also busy as a judge of the court of high commission, being involved in cases in October 1634, February, May and October 1635, and he was still attending the court in the spring and summer of 1639.28CSP Dom. 1634-5, pp. 268, 545; 1635, pp. 100, 164; 1635-6, pp. 57, 104; 1639, pp. 69, 364. The records of the high court of delegates – a civil court responsible for ecclesiastical and admiralty cases – show that he presided only sporadically in the early 1630s, but from April 1634 until June 1638 he attended regularly, and this meant that he was mostly resident in London.29DEL8/70, ff. 72-115. By the end of the decade, however, Parry seems have been devoting more time to the west country, perhaps influenced by his marriage to the widow of the wealthy Devonian landowner and merchant, Sir Nicholas Smith†. He pursued various cases with the Exeter corporation in 1637 and 1638, was appointed to the piracy commissions in 1637 and 1639, and from 1635 was judge martial of the county’s militia forces.30Devon RO, Exeter City Archives, Act Bk. viii. ff. 55, 68v. Again, Parry was not the most diligent of pluralists. He attracted further criticism by neglecting his duties towards the militia and defaulted at the musters both in the summer of 1635 and in the winter of 1638-9, even though the deputy lieutenants rallied to his defence.31CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 316, 365.

Parry’s excuse on both occasion was that he was rendered incapable by his ‘present sorrows’ – possibly meaning his wife’s death, which seems to have brought on a crisis in his financial affairs.32CSP Dom. 1635, p. 133; 1638-9, p. 496. An additional problem, which may have been connected to this, and certainly preoccupied Parry in 1638, was the fate of his late wife’s son, George Smith, whose wardship had passed jointly to him and to the receiver of the court of wards, Sir Miles Fleetwood*.33CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 256. Further problems arose in December 1638, when Parry bought five manors and an advowson in Cornwall in return for agreeing to pay off the debts of their original owner, James Walker, who was related to the Smiths.34C23/208, pp. 60-1. This purchase presumably stretched Parry’s finances still further; but there were compensations, not least the fact that the estate included the manors of Tolverne and St Mawes, which gave Parry a controlling stake in the borough of St Mawes itself. It was this, rather than the patronage of the bishop of Exeter or the crown, that led to Parry’s election as MP for the constituency in the election of March 1640.35Levack, Civil Lawyers, 46, 261; Keeler, Long Parliament, 297.

During the Short Parliament, Parry emerged as a strong defender of the crown. On 1 May he was named to the committee on the bill for the reformation of abuses in ecclesiastical courts – a matter in which he had an obvious interest – and his speech on the next day was widely reported.36CJ ii. 17b. Parry began conventionally enough, admitting that it was ‘the first time that ever I had the honour to be of this House’, but adding that ‘I have read a story of one born dumb, [who] seeing the kingdom in danger, spoke’. Parry claimed there was ‘a double necessity’ for him speaking out, as ‘our grievances stand in need of relief, [and] the king of supply’, but he was eager that they should not ‘multiply’ the problems they faced, ‘and make our grievances appear much greater than they are’. He denied that the ‘innovations’ of the Laudian church were ‘so great as they are painted’, and ‘for those grievances which concerned the church he said many of them … he believed might be obtained in point of law and many denied in point of fact’. He argued that the ‘church never more flourished’, and that it was matched by the country itself, for ‘we exceed all other commonwealths’. Besides, opposition could have its drawbacks. He reminded MPs of the case of Lucius Crassus, who ‘was so zealous and fervent in his expressions’ while speaking that he ‘either broke a vein or contracted a pleurisy and died within seven days’. The opponents of the crown should not risk the same fate. Instead, they should accept that ‘his majesty cannot be less than a king, and that he hath made gracious promises’, and agree with him that ‘the king ought to be relieved in his wars’.37Aston’s Diary, 121; Procs. Short Parl. 188-9. Such sentiments were unlikely to persuade the majority of MPs, and they mark Parry out as one of the few proto-royalists in this Parliament.

Parry was once again returned for St Mawes in the elections for the Long Parliament, held in October, and his activities in the Commons over the next year show that he had lost none of his fervour for the king’s cause. As in the previous May, he seems to have concentrated on his areas of expertise, and was named to the committee on petitions to the high constable and earl marshal’s court (23 Nov. 1640), acted as messenger from the House to Doctors’ Commons (5 July 1641), and was appointed to the committee to oversee the collections for disbanding the army (16 July).38CJ ii. 34b, 199a, 214a. This last appointment fitted with his call for the Short Parliament to fund the king’s wars, and with his speech of 10 December 1640 in favour of voting a subsidy rather than a fixed amount, as ‘the giving of certain sums’ was ‘the antiquated way, and is left off’.39Procs. LP i. 557. The honourable conclusion of the Scottish war seems to have been one of Parry’s preoccupations, and on 9 April 1641 he disagreed with Denzil Holles*, who had proposed that they should ask the Scots for an extension of the truce, saying it was ‘not fit for us to desire a cessation having formerly been proposed to us’, warning that ‘honour is easier retained than recovered’.40Procs. LP iii. 482. On 21 April Parry underlined his position by voting against the attainder of the king’s chief minister, Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford.41Procs. LP iv. 42, 51.

Given his political views, it was hardly surprising that during the civil war Parry became a committed supporter of the king in the west country. Through his first wife he was well connected with a number of Cornish royalists, including Sir Bevill Grenvile* and John Arundell I* of Trerice, and he may have had contacts with other royalist gentlemen in the St Mawes area, like Sir Richard Vyvyan* and Sir Charles Trevanion*.42Vivian, Vis. Devon, 692. Parry’s main area of activity was Devon. He was made a justice of the peace for the county in May 1643 and also involved in recovering tax arrears and raising the posse comitatus that autumn.43Roberts, ‘Devon JPs’, 159; Som. RO, DD WO56/6/61; DD WO53/1/140; M. Wolffe, Gentry Leaders in Peace and War (Exeter, 1997), 244, quoting Som. RO, DD WO53/1/146, 147. These local activities brought Parry to the notice of both Parliament and the king: he was disabled by the Westminster Parliament for attending the rival House of Commons at Oxford in January 1644; and in May he was knighted at Oxford by the king.44CJ iii. 374a; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 573; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 217. It was not long before Parry returned to the west country, however. He was an active member of the royalist council of war at Exeter from January 1644 until the early months of 1645.45Devon RO, 1392M, 3799-3. He was also a commissioner for the militia in Devon in 1644, in April 1645 he was listed as one of the commissioners for the western counties, and in the same year he was made surrogate judge of the admiralty in the west.46Levack, Civil Lawyers, 261; Coate, Cornw. 173n, 185; CCSP i. 353. Despite this apparent activity, Parry was again accused of idleness in March 1645, when measures against recusant clergy in Exeter were found to be in abeyance; but in August he was back in favour, as an adviser to the senior officers in the city, as they sought to maintain the garrison against increasing pressure from the victorious parliamentarians.47CCSP i. 260, 273. Parry was in Exeter when the city surrendered in the new year of 1646, and he was apparently willing to cooperate with Sir Thomas Fairfax* thereafter, as in April he was one of the former excise commissioners charged with levying the arrears that remained from the royalist taxes imposed during the war.48CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 414.

Although Parry was eligible to claim for leniency under the Exeter Articles, and he petitioned to compound in July 1646, the proceedings were painfully slow.49CCC 1381. His statement to the Committee for Compounding reveals his fragile financial state at this time. He claimed that his house and other buildings at Larkbear, immediately outside Exeter, ‘are burnt most of them, and the orchards and gardens rooted up and damaged, by reason of the late siege’; he had been unable to finalise the sale of the manors entrusted to him by the Walker family; and he had been forced to raise money after the fall of Exeter by the hasty sale of his goods and chattels in the city, leaving him with ‘my books and study in Doctors’ Commons, which I value at £20’.50SP23/208, pp. 60-1. Eventually, in January 1649, he was fined £200 – a tenth of the theoretical value of his estate – and the sequestration of his land was lifted.51SP23/208, p. 65. Once this was settled, the final deal with Tredenham over Tolverne, St Mawes and the other Cornish manors could be agreed in July 1649, and a month later both Parry and John Tredenham petitioned the Committee for Compounding, and secured an undertaking that no further proceedings would be taken against the Walker lands.52Cornw. RO, G/1148/1, 2; CCC, 1381. Oddly, in the early 1650s Parry was allowed to return to the bench, serving as a judge for the high court of admiralty in 1650-1 and as surrogate judge for the prerogative court of Canterbury around 1652.53HCA30/840/91, 93, 98 (ff. 216-7, 220-1, 232-3); Levack, Civil Lawyers, 261. Nothing is known of his activities during the protectorate, and despite his first wife’s connections with both the Monck and the Grenviles, he was unable to reap any reward at the restoration of the Stuarts, as death intervened. He was dead by June 1660, when another civilian petitioned to be appointed chancellor of Exeter in his place.54CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 84. Parry did not leave a valid will, and the administration of his estate was granted to his son, Suetonius, only in November 1670.55Levack, Civil Lawyers, 261.