FOWELL, Sir Edmund (1593-1674), of Fowelscombe, Ugborough, Devon

The Fowells were thought by some to have been at Fowelscombe before the Norman Conquest, but the genealogical evidence confirms only that they were there for three generations before William Fowell†, MP for Totnes in 1455. Perhaps the association between family and place is more likely to date from somewhere between these episodes, from the twelfth century. The mansion at Fowelscombe, now decayed, was built by Sir Edmund’s grandfather in the 1530s.22Vivian, Vis. Devon, 369; W.G. Hoskins, Devon (1954), 509. Fowell himself was the scion of two important gentry families in south Devon: the Fowells and the Reynells of Ogwell. Arthur Fowell, his father, was dead by 1606, when his mother remarried, to Sir Edmund Prideaux of Netherton, making him a half-brother to Edmund Prideaux I*.23Vivian, Vis. Devon, 370. Fowell was the third son of Arthur Fowell and Mary Reynell, but the second to survive infancy. Until he was 19, he expected to remain a second son, although no evidence has survived of the education he would have experienced in order to fit him for a career. In June 1612, however, his prospects were altered when his elder brother, Arthur, was drowned at Ford, a home of the Reynells. After a brief period as a ward of Sir Edward Giles† (then on the eve of a parliamentary career as a moderate critic of the government), Fowell duly inherited the family patrimony, which consisted of manors and lands in the South Hams in and around Ugborough and Totnes. There was also an estate in the parishes of Altarnun and Lewannick in Cornwall.24C142/340/233. This is where he seems to have lived for some of the time, as a contemporary source describes him as living in Cornwall but with a house in Devon.25The Note-Book of Tristram Risdon ed. J. Dalles, H.G. Parker (1897), 183.

Fowell married a daughter of Sir Anthony Paulett, of an important Somerset family, in 1614 and was knighted in 1619. The honour probably owed more to his marriage than to any influence his own family could bring to bear. He settled down to the life of a country squire, dividing his time between his estates. He could never have made his Cornish property his permanent address, as he was included in the Devon commission of the peace from May 1624. He was removed from it temporarily for a period in the mid-1620s, but this seems to have owed more to experimentation by the lord keeper on the size of the commission, rather than to distaste by the government for anything Fowell said or did.26C231/4, ff. 164v, 249; Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black,11; Wolffe, Gentry Leaders, 19, 267 n. 10. Only from 1630 did Fowell attend the meetings of the Devon quarter sessions at Exeter, and then frequently if not without fail.27Devon RO, Devon quarter sessions order bks. 1/6, 1/7. The range of other commissions out of chancery to which he was appointed confirm his standing as one of the workhorses of Devon local government, as do the many references to him from assizes.28Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 16, 54, 78, 111, 117, 159, 172, 208. His estates in Devon were scattered across half a dozen parishes in the south of the county during the 1630s, and he was able to settle property in three parishes when his daughter Mary married in 1634.29Devon RO, Exeter Deeds and Docs. 40657; Z15/43/9/2; SP16/246/24.

When the town of Ashburton was restored to its former status as a parliamentary borough, in time for elections to what became the Long Parliament, Fowell was returned as one of the first two burgesses to be elected. He was surely returned on his own interest as a dominant local landowner. Once at Westminster, he was not in the vanguard of Members seeking for whatever reason to make an impact on the House. Not until the end of January 1641 did he come to the attention of the clerk, when he was added in the company of Walter Yonge I and John Upton, two other Devon men, to the committee investigating the case against William Piers, bishop of Bath and Wells.30CJ ii. 75a. On 4 March 1641, Fowell offered to bring in £1,000 towards paying off the army in the north.31D’Ewes (N), 439n. Between January and 3 May, when he took the Protestation, Fowell was named to a further 16 committees. The majority of these were on practical topics somewhat removed from the main thrust of Parliament’s reform drive. They included the running of the postal service (10 Feb.), agricultural practice (25 Feb.), the abolition of trial by battle (11 Mar.), the bill against usury (19 Mar.), and the bill to increase the rates of the subsidy (30 Apr.).32CJ ii. 82a, 92b, 101a, 108a, 130b. A further group were on religious topics, among them the committee on removing the elements of the Roman Catholic church which surrounded the court (16 Mar.); the bill to disable the clergy from holding secular office (8 Mar.); the bill to prevent the dangers posed by popish recusants (26 Mar.) and bills to stamp out abuses in church courts and to punish the higher clergy who had attended the recent Convocation (27 April).33CJ ii. 99a, 105b, 113b, 128b, 129a, 133a. None of these appointments brought Fowell close to the so-called junto which spearheaded the most trenchant criticism of the king’s government, and there is no evidence that he was a political associate of his half-brother, Edmund Prideaux I. On 1 May he successfully moved that Sir John Evelyn of Surrey should be given leave of absence.34Procs. LP iv. 159.

Fowell’s taking of the Protestation in fact marked the start of a diminution of his parliamentary activity. He was added to the innocuous committee on regulating the passenger trade on the Thames (21 May) and was named to one of the numerous conferences with the Lords organised by John Pym and other leading junto members (28 June). On 1 July Sir Walter Erle moved that Fowell be allowed to go home because his wife and children were sick, and he was granted leave on the 9th ‘for some convenient time’. He was not reported in the House again until 4 November.35CJ ii. 152b, 190b, 205a; Procs LP v. 576. Neither did his departure herald a return to active service in Devon local government. His last recorded attendance at Devon quarter sessions before the civil war was in the autumn of 1640, just before he set off for Westminster. Not until January 1649 did Fowell attend there again.36Devon RO, QS 1/8. He remained interested enough in local government in the summer of 1641 to recommend a client for a customs place in Plymouth, however.37Buller Pprs. 47. He returned briefly to Parliament in the autumn, to be named to a committee on the sending of soldiers to suppress the rebellion in Ireland (4 Nov.), but on 9 February 1642 was given a further period of leave.38CJ ii. 305b, 422a.

Fowell returned to Westminster in June 1642, offering on the 10th to bring in two horses for ‘king, kingdom and Parliament’.39PJ iii. 468. Between then and mid-October he was named to three committees: a committee which met with the Lords to discuss information on the king’s activities in York (6 June); another on the king’s revenue (12 Sept.); and a third on finding the culprits who had started the civil war (16 Sept.), on the last of which he joined John Waddon, the burgess for Plymouth.40CJ ii. 609b, 762b, 769a. On 5 October he helped a client of Sir Simonds D’Ewes* acquire a pass to travel to Flanders.41Harl. 163, f. 418v. On the 18th, he was one of a group of Devon men named deputy lieutenants by Parliament, the first decisive confirmation that Fowell was indeed committed to the parliamentarian side in the civil war.42CJ ii. 812b; Add. 18777, f. 31v. This was in effect an invitation to Fowell to raise a regiment.

By early in January 1643 such a regiment was in existence. It was a foot regiment, based at Plymouth, with shared responsibility it seems for security of the town rather than the fort and island there.43R.N. Worth, ‘The Siege of Plymouth’, Jnl. Plymouth Institution v. 274. This would have made it essentially a defensive regiment, playing only a subsidiary part in the skirmishes in the hinterland beyond the town which were a feature of the early stages of the civil war. It is not even likely that Fowell played much of a part in the training and conduct of his regiment except in the embryonic period of its formation. He was absent from the House during most of 1643, when he must have exercised some influence on the regiment’s activities, but even in January of that year, it is clear that the most significant figure in the regiment was his lieutenant, meaning in this case his deputy, one Mercer.44SP28/128, pt. 20. Another important officer in Fowell’s regiment was Captain Ellis Crymes*.45SP28/128, pt. 19. He himself was named by the Commons as a sequestration commissioner for Devon in February, with the appointment confirmed by the Lords the following month.46Add. 18777, f. 156v; A. and O.

Fowell was one of the group of Devon deputy lieutenants, which included (Sir) John Northcote*, Sir John Bampfylde* and Sir Nicholas Martyn*, who negotiated a treaty with the Cornish royalists in March 1643.47The Protestation taken by the Commissioners (1643), 12 (E.94.21). The treaty disgusted and horrified those at Westminster unwilling to contemplate a truce when, as it seemed to them, the Devon parliamentarians had everything to gain by pressing their military advantage. Fowell’s half-brother, Edmund Prideaux I, was part of the delegation despatched to Devon to talk Fowell and his colleagues out of what they had done.48Bodl. Nalson II, ff. 332, 362. This episode can have done little to whet Fowell’s appetite for heightened confrontation with the cavaliers. In August, his son was given permission by Parliament to visit Geneva, suggesting that puritan piety was probably a more important ingredient in the outlook of the Fowell family than was militant parliamentarianism.49CJ iii. 222b. Fowell was in Plymouth in the later summer or early autumn to witness proceedings against Sir Alexander Carew*, who had tried to betray the town to the royalists but who like Fowell himself had supported the treaty with the Cornish.50The Answer of Philip Francis (1644), sig. A2iii. Fowell was back in the House by November, before Carew was brought up for trial. He took the Covenant in the House on 1 November 1643, and was named on the 3rd to a committee with the Lords on the siege of Plymouth. On the 11th he signed a warrant with Walter Yonge I* for the purchase of supplies for Plymouth garrison.51CJ iii. 297b; Add. 18779, f. 5v; Harl. 165, f. 201.

As the royalist inland blockade of Plymouth confined his regiment increasingly to within the town’s fortifications, Fowell would inevitably find more to occupy him at Westminster than in the south west. When the Lords appointed a body of three to manage and provide at Westminster for the needs of besieged Plymouth (3 Nov. 1643), Fowell was appointed to a larger committee in support, which had a remit to consider the affairs of Poole and Lyme Regis.52CJ iii. 300b. Among other committees relating to the war in the south and west were those on funding the army of Sir William Waller* (27 Feb. 1644); for the Isle of Wight (29 Mar.); on petitions from Exeter merchants (20 Apr.) and on complaints about the former commander, Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford (18 May).53CJ iii. 300b, 409b, 440b, 465b, 498a. In 1644, Fowell was named to 16 parliamentary committees, his highest yearly total. These included committees on aspects of taking the Covenant (22 Feb.), on a petition of parishioners of St Margaret’s Westminster on religious observance (7 June) and for an ordinance to ensure that tithes were paid (22 July).54CJ iii. 405a, 521a, 566b. These were a suggestion that Fowell’s Presbyterian faith was a motivating force in his political outlook. As the colonel of a regiment, Fowell would naturally be interested in the work of the committee to raise money for the army (11 April), and legislation to raise money for military intervention in Ireland (27 Aug.).55CJ iii. 457a, 609a.

A number of Fowell’s committee appointments in 1644-5 related to offices, appointments, allowances and reimbursements of Members. He was called to work on an ordinance to make Michael Oldisworth* registrar of the prerogative court of Canterbury (6 Nov.) and on a committee to look into offices and allowances enjoyed by MPs (14 Nov.). This developed into another body charged only with deciding what allowances were suitable for them (19 Dec.). This was a move to compensate those Members whose home properties had been fired or ransacked by the enemy, and Fowell evidently was numbered among these himself, as on 3 June 1645 he was awarded the pension of £4 per week along with another five Devon MPs.56CJ iii. 687b, 695b, 729a; iv. 161a; Add. 18780, f. 29. He was involved marginally in the political preparations for launching the New Model army, accompanying Sir Philip Stapilton* on a deputation to the Lords about it (6 Mar. 1645), but his own regiment at Plymouth remained in being to be described as his at least until the summer of 1646. That he was apparently unaffected by the Self-Denying Ordinance of April 1645 suggests only that it was indeed his regiment only in name by this time.57CJ iv. 71b; SP28/128, pts. 17, 26. On 30 December, when the regiment saw action at St Budeaux, just outside Plymouth, Fowell’s captain-lieutenant was killed, but in command was Lt.-col. Crocker, not Fowell himself.58Bodl. Nalson V, f. 169.

As the tide of war began to run in Parliament’s favour after Naseby (14 June 1645), Fowell was named to a number of committees that supported the push towards military victory over the king. Among these were committees on taking the city of Chester (5 Aug.), for providing debentures for demobilized officers called back to the colours to help take Taunton (12 Aug.) and for relieving Leicester (4 Sept.).59CJ iv. 230b, 238a, 263b. He was called to committees on the war records of two former aristocratic commanders, the earl of Stamford (11 Sept.) and Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh (25 Sept.), and in both cases Fowell might be expected to have been sympathetic to them.60CJ iv. 271a, 286a. On 16 August 1645, he was named to a committee to examine abuses in sequestration procedures.61CJ iv. 244b. He himself has been identified as ‘president of the Devon committee for sequestration’, but no evidence has been discovered to verify this.62CB iii. 189. It is unlikely that he could have held this position in the early years of the war, as the ordinance authorising sequestrations in Devon (27 Mar. 1643) came at a time when Parliament was losing the war in the south west. He was part of the delegation of MPs sent to the west with the advancing New Model in February 1646, but had returned to Westminster by May, so could hardly have taken a hand in sequestration business in that time.63CJ iv. 440a, 545b.

Fowell was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers on 15 May 1646, a further indication that he was a pious Presbyterian. On 3 June he was made a commissioner for judging the cases of individuals excluded from the Lord’s Supper, as part of the plans for inaugurating a Presbyterian state church.64CJ iv. 545b, 563a. Twelve days later he was given leave of absence and cannot be said for certain to have been in the House until 10 December.65CJ iv. 576a; v. 8b. He played no discernible role in the formation of the Devon county committee, although he sat on all Devon committees by virtue of his position as an MP. He may have gone home to tend to his own affairs at Fowelscombe. When he returned to the House, his enthusiasm for parliamentary business had not been re-kindled. Fowell was named to only three committees between 10 December 1646 and 16 April 1647, including one on the ordinance to prevent ‘malignant’ clergy from officiating in or enjoying the profits of their livings.66CJ v. 8b, 21b, 119b. A further period of leave was granted to him (16 Apr.), but Fowell was in the House on 21 May, to consider the petition of Sir Martin Lister*.67CJ v. 145a, 181a.

Fowell was absent from the House at the call of 9 October, but had returned by 12 November, when he was part of the committee charged with investigating the escape of the king from Hampton Court to the Isle of Wight.68CJ v. 330a, 357a. Fowell is not likely to have been sympathetic to the army in these discussions. The following month, when the question was put whether the Independent and radical Thomas Rainborowe* should be allowed his command as a vice-admiral of the fleet, Fowell acted for the only time in his parliamentary career as a teller. He and Sir Edward Hungerford told for the noes, and lost by 22 votes to the Independents Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Edmund Ludlowe II in a House of 154.69CJ v. 403b. This was in fact Fowell’s last recorded appearance in the Commons. He was excused at the call on 24 April 1648, and is unlikely to have been in London at all during that year. On 15 August, when the Devon standing committee reorganised itself into regional committees so that the workload could be spread and so that all areas of the county could be covered, Fowell was named to the third committee, serving with William Fry*, Ellis Crymes*, William Morice*, John Waddon*, Robert Shapcote* and William Bastard*.70Add 44058, ff. 26v-27. His name appears on one of the contemporary lists of those secluded at Pride’s Purge (6 Dec.), but not on William Prynne’s* contemporary listing. The fact that his name is included in Prynne’s 1660 list of surviving secluded Members is probably more an indication of Fowell’s wish in 1660 to associate himself with the victims of the purge than a guide to his behaviour in December 1648.71A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); W. Prynne, A Vindication of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1649), 28, 29 (E.539.5); W. Prynne, A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members (1660, E.1013.22).

In the light of what had patently been Fowell’s growing disenchantment with the drift of politics at Westminster, and his lacklustre performance in local government since 1640, it is curious that he should have chosen to turn up at Devon quarter sessions in January 1649, at the time of the trial and execution of the king.72Devon RO, QS 1/8. It may have been intended as a gesture of defiance towards the Rump Parliament. In any event it turned out to be a curious anomaly. He resigned or was removed from the Devon bench soon afterwards, and kept out of politics and local administration completely until after 1660. There is no evidence that he attended Parliament when the secluded Members were admitted to the revived Long Parliament in 1660. Even after the Restoration of the monarchy, he did not travel to Exeter for quarter sessions meetings, even though he had recovered his place as a justice and as a tax commissioner. In 1660 he took depositions in the case of John Hill, a Presbyterian clergyman threatened with eviction from his living for seditious words.73Calamy Revised, 264. Some doubts about Fowell’s own loyalty were still harboured in official circles. He returned to the deputy lieutenancy in 1660, but was regarded with suspicion by Bishop Seth Ward of Exeter, who counted him among the ‘great favourers’ of Presbyterianism in the diocese.74J. Simmons, ‘Some Letters from Bishop Ward of Exeter’, Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxi. 284. Fowell was buried at Ugborough on 9 October 1674. His will, proved at Exeter principal registry a year later, has been lost.75Vivian, Vis. Devon, 370. He was father of John Fowell*, and his first cousin was Edmund Fowell*.