SMITH, Charles (c. 1598-1665)

Carrington’s family appears to have been descended from Sir John Smith, a baron of the exchequer in 1539, who was himself descended from a family based in Essex. J.H. Round, Peerage and Pedigree, ii. 140. The title of Carrington was derived from a myth that the family’s founder was Sir Michael de Carington, Richard I’s standard bearer on Crusade. By the seventeenth century, the Smyths had relocated to the Midlands and were one of the wealthier Catholic gentry families of Leicestershire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. A. Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire 1620-60, p. 62. They were also connected with other prominent recusant families including the Carylls of Sussex, the Throckmortons of Warwickshire and the Brudenells of Northamptonshire. Cooper, 29; E. Barnard, A Seventeenth Century Country Gentleman: Sir Francis Throckmorton, 1640-80 (1948), 44. By 1649 Carrington’s estates were estimated to be worth over £2,743. TNA, SP 25/125/40-49.

In 1642 Smith acquired a certificate of conformity prior to his elevation to the English barony and Irish viscountcy of Carrington, granted as a reward for his loyalty to Charles I. By 1646 he appears to have reverted to his Catholic faith. VCH Leics. ii. 65; Dugdale, ii. 810. Carrington remained loyal to the royalist cause throughout the Civil War; his brother, Sir John Smith, was killed during the conflict. Clarendon, Rebellion, iii. 338. In 1647 Carrington’s Warwickshire estates were sequestered; his Leicestershire estates in 1648. Add. 35098, f. 32; W.A. Copinger, History and Records of the Smith-Carrington Family, 268; VCH Leics. ii. 214. In 1651 Carrington claimed that he and his family were ‘in great necessity’, and Carrington’s son estimated that his father’s property was worth only £797 ‘at the best of times.’ CCC, 1913-14. Carrington was forced to quit England for Liege in Belgium, ‘in order the more freely to serve God and his conscience,’ while Lady Carrington and their children remained in England.

At the Restoration Carrington was present in Charles II’s retinue on his entry into London. Add. 6063, f. 44; Cooper, 30; Copinger, 278. He took his seat in the House on 23 July but sat on just two days before absenting himself for over a fortnight. He returned on 10 Aug., after which he was present for a further 17 days of the session (16 per cent of the whole). He resumed his seat after the adjournment on 6 Nov. and was thereafter present on just under 69 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just one committee. He took his place in the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on 60 per cent of all sitting days but was again named to just one committee. Carrington was missing from the attendance list on 20 May, but he was not included among those noted as absent at the call of the House that day, so had presumably taken his seat during the day. On 11 July he was included among those thought likely to oppose the attempt of Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, to secure the great chamberlaincy.

In April 1662 Carrington obtained permission to travel overseas with his family, ‘to pass the rest of his days peacefully in the true faith.’ CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 347; CSP Ven. 1664-6, p. 88. He sat for the final time on 7 May, when he registered his proxy with his co-religionist, Francis Talbot, 11th earl of Shrewsbury. Carrington registered his proxy with Shrewsbury again the following year on 7 March. Shrewsbury used it to support the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol. The proxy was registered with Shrewsbury once more on 30 Mar. 1664.

Carrington settled at Pontoise in France where one of his daughters was a nun. Herald and Genealogist ed. J.G. Nichols, iii. 62. Three years later he was murdered there by his valet acting, ‘out of revenge, because he had been beaten by his master.’ Carrington’s killer suffered the full horrors of being broken on the wheel and immolated while still alive. CSP Ven. 1664-6, p. 88. Carrington was buried in the church at St Maclou, where a monument was later erected to his memory. Herald and Genealogist, iii. 62-63. He was succeeded in the peerage by his son, Francis Smith, as 2nd Baron Carrington.