SUTTON, Robert (1594-1668)

Described by his parliamentarian detractors as ‘the devil of Newark’, Sutton was the head of an established Nottinghamshire family that had been settled in the county since the thirteenth century. A.C. Wood, Hist. of Notts, 187. By his first marriage he was connected to the influential Manners family, earls of Rutland, while his sister Susan was married to William Oglethorpe, ancestor to the Jacobite lords Oglethorpe. Following the death of his first wife, Sutton’s subsequent marriages, while less illustrious, further consolidated his position in Midlands society as did his election as one of the knights of the shire in 1624. By 1640 Sutton’s estates were providing him with an annual income in the region of £1,700, and in 1664 his house at Kelham was assessed at 21 hearths. Notts Hearth Tax 1664-1674 (Thoroton Soc. xxxvii), 6.

An inactive member of James I’s last Parliament, having spent the intervening period concentrating on the development of his local interest, Sutton was returned again for Nottinghamshire in 1640. On the outbreak of Civil War, along with many of the greater gentry of Nottinghamshire, he rallied to the king. He then passed the majority of the conflict in the garrison at Newark acting as a financier to the forces there rather than as an active fighting man. Hist. Notts, 176. Sutton’s services on the king’s behalf were rewarded in November 1645 with his elevation to the peerage; shortly afterwards he attempted to submit to Parliament. His offer was refused. After the king’s execution he was eventually able to compound for his estates for £4,861. Add. 46553, f. 125.

Lexinton’s royalist connections were reinforced in 1653 with the marriage of his stepdaughter, Anne Browne (mistakenly described as Lexinton’s daughter in some sources) to John Poulett, 2nd Baron Poulett, but the alliance did nothing to alleviate Lexinton’s woeful economic predicament. J. Throsby, Thoroton’s Hist. Notts., iii. 111. Lexinton’s finances suffered so much during the Civil Wars and Interregnum that he was imprisoned for debt in 1655. There is no evidence that he took part in royalist plots; by the beginning of 1660 his focus seems to have been on his own and his wife's poor health and other family concerns. Belvoir Castle, Rutland mss xviii. f. 58. He delayed taking his seat in the Convention until 1 June 1660 along with the majority of the Oxford creations. Once there he proved an assiduous member of the House, attending approximately 64 per cent of all sitting days of the first session of the Convention, during which he was named to 13 committees, several of which appear to have concerned matters of local interest. On 13 Aug. he was named to the committee considering the bill for the Nottinghamshire magnate, William Cavendish, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle, and the same day he was also appointed to that considering a bill for his stepson-in-law, Poulett. On 7 June Lexinton was appointed one of the peers to put into execution the order to stop the waste of timber in Havering Park, and on 19 June he was added to the sub-committee for the Journal. Shortly after taking his seat, Lexinton launched an action to recover £2,680 out of the estate of Colonel John Hutchinson^‡. Hutchinson’s wife, Lucy Hutchinson, complained that Lexinton ‘forged many false pretences to obtain this.’ M. Schoenfeld, Restored House of Lords, 119; Mems. of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson (1806 edn), 372-3. Lexinton’s petition was read on 20 June and was ordered to be considered when the bill of indemnity was brought up from the Commons. In August Lexinton was granted leave to exhibit his bill for a proviso to be inserted into the bill of indemnity allowing him to recover money from Hutchinson. On 10 Sept. in spite of the intervention of Henry Pierrepont, marquess of Dorchester, making use of his influence as chairman of the committee on behalf of Colonel Hutchinson, the bill was engrossed. Lexinton’s proviso, however, was rejected in the Commons. Mems. of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, 375-6; HP Commons, 1660-90, ii. 624; Schoenfeld, 119. Lexinton resumed his seat for the second session on 12 Nov. 1660. Present on 38 of the 45 sitting days, he was named to a further four committees during the session, and on 13 Dec. he entered his protest against the resolution to pass the bill to vacate Sir Edward Powell’s fines.

It is not known whether Lexinton attempted to influence the elections to the new Parliament, but it seems likely that he was satisfied with the return of Sir Gervase Clifton^‡, one of Lexinton’s former colleagues in the Newark garrison, as one of the Nottinghamshire members. Lexinton took his seat in the first session on 8 May 1661 and, three days later, he introduced his Nottinghamshire neighbour, Denzil Holles, as Baron Holles. The manor of Averham was held of the Holles manor of Haughton by knight service, which may explain their connection. Letters of John Holles, 1587-1637 (Thoroton Soc. Rec. Ser. xxxvi), i. 47. Lexinton again proved an active member of the House, being present for 82 per cent of sitting days in the session, during which he was named to 61 committees. On 10 June he presented the petition of five Roman Catholics, among them Francis Smith, later 2nd Baron Carrington, complaining of ‘having their unalterable loyalty to his majesty … brought daily in question, by the pressing upon them certain oaths’, i.e. the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and imploring the House to procure them ‘some ease and relief’. Schoenfeld, 163-4. Lexinton’s interest in the petition may have been a result of a distant connection between his family and the Smiths through their Molyneux relations. On 15 June Lexinton was entrusted with Poulett’s proxy which was vacated two days later, and on 10 July he chaired the committee considering Sir Ralph Baesh’s bill. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, 54. He reported the committee’s findings to the House three days later and the same month also reported from the committee concerning the draining of the Great Level of the Fens, but he was thought to be likely to be absent from the House for the vote to determine the dispute between Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, and Montagu Bertie, 2nd earl of Lindsey, for the great chamberlaincy.

Lexinton resumed his seat following the adjournment on 20 Nov. 1661 after which he continued to be regularly appointed to select committees. He was absent from the opening of the ensuing (1663) session, taking his seat on 23 Mar. 1663. Present on just over three-quarters of sitting days, during which he was named to 27 committees, on 11 May he chaired the committee considering Robinson’s bill, which he reported to the House on 18 May. On 20 May he was named to the committee considering the bill for his neighbour Richard Byron, 2nd Baron Byron. On 30 June Lexinton chaired one of the sessions of the committee considering the bill for the encouragement of trade, and the following day he chaired the committee for John Newport’s bill. After further deliberations of the latter, on 6 July, the bill was returned to the House where it was rejected, following the judges’ opinion that it was contrary to the act for confirmation of judicial proceedings. Ten days later Lexinton chaired the committee concerning the Bedford level. Matthew Wren, bishop of Ely, was initially clearly meant to have chaired the committee but Lexinton’s name was written in over Ely’s in the committee minutes, so he presumably replaced the bishop for the session. Ibid. 356, 369, 408, 412, 427. The same month Lexinton was estimated by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, to be opposed to the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, launched by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol.

Lexinton resumed his seat in the new session on 21 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on all but one of the 36 sitting days and during which he was named to a dozen select committees. That year it was noted that a debt of £10,000 owing to Lexinton, Byron and Sir Thomas Williamson for their services at Newark during the Civil War had finally been paid in full, though this was later challenged by Williamson. CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 630; CSP Dom. 1660-70, pp. 297-8. Lexinton’s attendance declined markedly in the second session that year which commenced in November 1664; however, although he was present on only 22 per cent of all sitting days, he was still named to seven committees. On 21 Dec. Lexinton registered his proxy in favour of his neighbour, Dorchester (who had been Hutchinson’s protector against his proviso in 1660) which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 14 Jan. 1665 he was excused at a call of the House. He attended on nine of the 19 sitting days of the October 1665 session, during which he held Dorchester’s proxy. Lexinton was named to four committees during the session, including that considering the bill preventing the importation of foreign cattle on 26 Oct., but he appears not to have taken a leading role in managing any of them.

Said to have been ‘very kind’ in assisting the attempts made by Henry Cavendish, styled Lord Ogle (later 2nd duke of Newcastle), to raise money in Nottinghamshire in 1666, Lexinton attended the 1666-7 session on approximately 23 per cent of all sitting days. Again named to four committees, he was granted leave of absence on 8 Nov., and on 10 Nov. he again entered his proxy in Dorchester’s favour.

Lexinton attended just one day of the brief seventh session of July 1667, but he then resumed his former pattern of attendance for the following (1667-9) session, attending on 56 days before his eventual retirement from the House in March 1668. Named to 18 committees during the session, Lexinton was again entrusted with Dorchester’s proxy on 28 Sept. 1667, vacated by Dorchester’s return to the House on 26 Feb. the following year. Absent at a call of the House on 29 Oct. 1667, Lexinton resumed his seat on 7 Nov., and on 12 Dec. he was one of only five peers to dissent from the resolution to banish and disable Clarendon.

Granted leave to go into the country for his health on 17 Mar. 1668, Lexinton took his seat in the House for the final time on 26 March. He died in October 1668, shortly before the birth of a posthumous daughter, Anne. Add. 36916, f. 116. There is some confusion as to the precise date of his death. In the funeral sermon delivered by his chaplain, Samuel Holden, the preaching of which was delayed to coincide with Lexinton’s birthday on 21 Dec., it was given as 11 Oct., but on the memorial inscription the date is recorded as 12 October. In his will of 28 Jan. 1667, Lexinton declared that ‘I die of the Catholic Church of England, which I look of as the most exact copy of the primitive church of all the churches in the world’. He requested that he should have ‘no funeral, but some of my neighbours and friends and as private a burial as maybe not undecent,’ reiterating later in the document that there should be ‘no funeral no feasting no drinking’ but setting aside £100 for the construction of a tomb and £40 or £50 towards rings for his friends. Lexinton named his father-in-law, Sir Anthony St. Leger, his maternal relative, Sir William Cony, and two other Nottinghamshire figures, Sir Clifford Clifton^‡ and Sir Robert Butler, as trustees. He made a number of other bequests including the provision of a portion of at least £20,000 for his daughter, Bridget Sutton, several small annuities to his immediate relatives, and the sum of £50 to bind ten or 12 of the poor of Kelham as apprentices. Thoroton stated that during his life Lexinton ‘much increased his patrimony’ and an inventory of Lexinton’s estate compiled in February 1669 appears to bear this out, declaring goods to the value of £5,284. 16s. T. Bailey, Annals of Notts., iii. 929; TNA, PROB 4/10760. Lexinton was succeeded in the peerage by his young son, Robert Sutton, then aged about six, as 2nd Baron Lexinton.