COMPTON, James (1622-81)

The Comptons had been settled in Warwickshire since the Conquest but rose to prominence under Henry VIII. Their principal holdings lay in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, though there were other estates in Essex, Somerset and several other counties. The barony of Compton was conferred in 1572 and in 1618 the 2nd baron was promoted earl of Northampton. The annual income of the 1st earl was said to have been £6,000, though his extravagance meant that by his death in 1630 he had accrued debts of at least £10,000. His successor did nothing to reverse this trend. Consequently, by the outbreak of the Civil War, the 2nd earl’s debts may have been almost triple this amount. Hughes, Warwickshire, 22; Castle Ashby ms 1086.

Civil War and Restoration

The 2nd earl’s son, then styled Lord Compton, was returned for Warwickshire to the Long Parliament, having beaten off a petition brought in against his election by William Combe and a later effort to smear him with a charge of recusancy. He voted against the attainder of Thomas Wentworth^†, earl of Strafford, and was employed as a messenger between the king and Commons on several occasions before being disabled in 1643. Draft biography of James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, by S.K. Roberts for HP Commons 1640-60; CJ, ii. 967; Maxstone Castle, Fethertstone-Dilke mss, cited in Hughes, Warwickshire, 127 n51. On the outbreak of Civil War, the Compton family demonstrated conspicuous gallantry on the king’s side. Lord Compton fought alongside his father at Edgehill, where he was knighted, and at Hopton Heath, where the earl was killed. The new earl, just short of his majority at the time of his succession to the peerage, continued to be prominent in other engagements during the conflict, though with mixed results. While commanding the garrison at Banbury, Northampton almost came to blows with Christopher Hatton, Baron Hatton, in the presence of the dowager Lady Northampton, who was already ‘very passionate and much afflicted with this carriage of her son and the language she received from him.’ Eventually, the king’s council in Oxford was forced to restrain both Hatton and Northampton. Add. 29570, ff. 18, 20, 34, 37, 41.

Northampton retired to his estates after the king’s defeat. He was fined heavily by Parliament, and though his fine of £20,820 set in 1650 was reduced to £14,153 on account of portions for his younger siblings he continued to struggle throughout the Interregnum to recover his lands from sequestration. CCC, 1246-51. His brother, Sir William, continued to play an active part in royalist conspiracies but financial concerns prevented Northampton from involving himself in such adventures. By the 1650s he was outwardly reconciled to the new regime and able to appeal for its aid when he was faced with legal action by clothiers who had suffered at the hands of his troops during the war. Castle Ashby ms 1087; Hughes, Warwickshire, 299. Nevertheless, he was sufficiently suspected to be arrested in 1653 and 1655. CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 385-6; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 591. He was imprisoned again briefly in 1656 for refusing to pay the decimation. On this occasion he was able to call upon the personal protection of Oliver Cromwell^‡, who wrote an open letter to the forces in London commanding them to allow Northampton, his wife and steward, ‘to reside in London without let, disturbance or molestation… as you will answer for contempt at your utmost perils.’ Letterbook of John, Viscount Mordaunt ed. M. Coate (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. lxix), 19n.; Castle Ashby ms 1083, f. 36.

In 1659 Northampton, by then associated with the royalist grouping of John Mordaunt, later Viscount Mordaunt, agreed to participate in the rebellion of Sir George Booth, later Baron Delamer. Newman, Royalist Officers, 79. Although there were reports of his industriousness in the cause and his promise to secure Warwickshire, Northampton failed to appear. Mordaunt put Northampton’s inactivity down to the failure of Robert Bruce, styled Lord Bruce (later earl of Ailesbury), to rise and to the influence of Northampton’s brother, Sir William, who had cautioned him against participating in the rebellion. John Cooper was more scathing and reported to Sir Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, that the rebellion had been ‘thwarted’ by ‘the great lords, especially Northampton.’ The affair may have contributed to Northampton’s hostility to Hyde and his support of the attempt to impeach him in 1663. For the moment, aside from the damage done to his reputation in the court in exile, Northampton’s hesitancy eroded his influence in Northamptonshire. Letterbook of John, Viscount Mordaunt, 21-22, 31, 66, 70, 73; CCSP, iv. 369, 441.. Although he was committed to the Tower once more he was released in November along with two others ‘to ingratiate with the cavaliers’. CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 83, 112, 178, 208, 566; Whitelocke Diary, 540; Bodl. Tanner 285, f. 162. In spite of his hesitancy in 1659, Northampton was involved in the negotiations in advance of the king’s return. Letterbook of John, Viscount Mordaunt, 157, 168-9. He proved to be a useful intermediary between the old royalists and Presbyterians and appears to have engaged in some discussion with his wife’s kinsman, Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton. Mordaunt may have been referring to Lady Northampton (who, he claimed, ‘wears the breeches’) as responsible for creating some ill feeling against himself. Bodl. Clarendon 71, ff. 332-3, Clarendon 72, ff. 17-18; CCSP iv. 527, 681-2.

In advance of the Convention Northampton was noted by Wharton among those who had been ‘with the king’ during the Civil War. Northampton sent a letter to Charles II protesting his loyalty. Bodl. Carte 30, ff. 588-9. He took his seat in the Convention on 8 May 1660, and was present on 72 per cent of all sitting days before the autumn adjournment. It may have been part of his policy of distancing himself from the former regime that he refused his assistance to Edmund Ludlow, whom he deemed to have been ‘a great enemy to the king’, in anticipation of the debates on the Indemnity Act. Ludlow Memoirs ed. Firth, ii. 282. On 18 May he informed the House that he had been advised that some of the troops formerly quartered in Brentwood and now posted to Maidstone were engaging in treasonable utterances against the king. He was deputed by the speaker, Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester, to take the informers to George Monck, later duke of Albemarle, to settle the problem. On 29 May Northampton was present at the king’s entry into London, leading a troop of 200 gentlemen. On 7 June he was one of five peers nominated to prepare a draft petition to the king requesting that the proclamation against profaneness might be read in all chapels and churches. A week later, he reported from the committee for petitions concerning the estate of George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and on 21 June he presented the king with a congratulatory address from the gentlemen of Warwickshire. HMC 5th Rep. 184; Comptons of Compton Wynyates, 114. Over the remaining months before the adjournment, Northampton steadily developed a role as a prominent manager of business. For the remainder of his time in the House he was a frequent chairman of committees On 10 and 11 July 1660 he reported from the committee examining deeds belonging to peers which were then in the hands of the trustees for ministers, while on 28 Aug. he reported from the committee considering the bill for Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, which was recommended as being fit to pass. Northampton returned to the House at the opening of the second part of the Convention on 6 Nov. 1660. Although he was present on over 95 per cent of the total number of sitting days in the Convention’s final weeks, he appears not to have played so prominent a role as a committee-member, perhaps being more concerned with sorting out his own affairs. At the beginning of 1661 he was included in a list of members of the nobility who had so far failed to pay their share of the poll tax. Bodl. Clarendon 74, f. 91.

Northampton was eager throughout the early months of the Restoration to secure restitution of his own property. His estates had suffered dramatically during the Civil War and he had been forced to sell an estate at Newnham Abbey to pay his composition in ‘the cursed rebellion’. In all, he claimed that his losses amounted to some £60,000. Hughes, Warwickshire, 267-8 n. 53. He complained that ‘his chief houses at Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire and Compton in Warwickshire (which in these times of distraction have been plundered, and almost pulled down and of late uninhabited) are daily falling into greater decay and his two parks and chase lying unfenced and almost waste.’ On 26 June 1660 he was given permission by the House to seek restitution of goods which had been ‘illegally taken from him’. The order granted him power, ‘if resistance be offered, to break open in the day time with a lawful officer any door, trunk, chest or box that shall not be opened in obedience and conformity to this order’. Northampton was subsequently forced to bring a case before the House to compel one of his trustees, Thomas Doughty, to produce evidence relevant to the estate, which Doughty claimed no longer to possess. The House ordered that Northampton should be relieved by a bill in chancery. Castle Ashby ms 1083, ff. 37, 38, 40, 41. The following year Northampton brought further legal actions concerning lead mines at Wirksworth, which he claimed had been appropriated by John Gell^‡ (probably the son of the first earl’s opponent at the battle of Hopton Heath). The case was settled favourably for Northampton but in 1666 he was again involved in a dispute over the mines. Add. 6681, ff. 233, 276.

Northampton was recognized as the principal royal agent in Warwickshire and was appointed lord lieutenant in that county as well as recorder of the city of Coventry in the summer of 1660, although there are suggestions that he was already informally acting as the king’s agent in that county before the Restoration. In the summer of 1660 a petition for a position in the management of Whittlewood Forest in Northamptonshire was referred to him, indicating his family’s long connection with that forest, and Northampton also applied to the secretary of state, Sir Edward Nicholas^‡, for warrants like those granted to his father as master of the game to arrest and punish poachers. It was not until March 1665 that Northampton was addressed as chief ranger of both Whittlewood and its neighbouring Saulcey Forest. CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 118, 216; CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 270; Comptons of Compton Wynyates, 115, 117. In the latter forest he was also made deputy keeper of hawks in 1666. His estate Northamptonshire was valued at £1,200 p.a. in 1662. Add. 34222, f. 38v. His influence also extended into Staffordshire: he was appointed high steward of Tamworth when Charles II granted the borough a new charter in 1663. Northampton’s usefulness as a military man was also recognized and in 1662 Monck commissioned him as a colonel of foot, ‘under my command for the service of his majesty.’ Castle Ashby ms 1083, f. 39; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 475.

From 1661 to the fall of Clarendon

Northampton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661. He was present on more than three quarters of all the first session’s sitting days. On 10 May he was entrusted with the proxy of Isaac Astley, Baron Astley, kinsman of his chaplain, Herbert Astley. C. Littleton, ‘Three (More) Division Lists’, PH, xxxii. 248; Bodl. Tanner 285, f. 157. On 20 May Northampton chaired a session of the committee for privileges and two days later he reported from the committee considering the bill against tumults. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1, p. 59. In early July, he was noted as being likely to support the attempt by Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, to be restored to the office of lord great chamberlain. On 15 July he presided at a session of the privileges committee considering the case of his Northamptonshire neighbour, Nicholas Knollys, 3rd earl of Banbury. Northampton reported the committee’s findings four days later, recommending that Banbury should be summoned to the House. Ibid. 64. Northampton’s personal sympathies were evidently with Banbury, whom he appointed the following year his deputy as master of the leash, a household office Northampton had been granted in the early months of the Restoration. Hants RO, 1M44/1. Northampton appears to have been eager to employ his patronage to promote royalists who had suffered for their loyalty to the king and church. He
certified the loyalty of one James Harwood, who had been driven from his church for using the Book of Common Prayer, and also testified to the losses incurred by George Goodman in support of his petition for the place of woodward of the forests and chases in Northamptonshire and Rutland. Later in July 1663 he recommended the petition of an old royalist lieutenant-colonel. CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 118, 148; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 208.

Over the remainder of the session Northampton was again active as a committee chairman. On 22 July 1661 he reported from the committee considering the bill to prevent illegal killing of deer. Two days later he reported from the committee considering the petition of Dr Porey, who claimed that one Matthew Hardy had exhumed Archbishop Parker’s coffin, sold the lead and disposed of the remains on a dunghill. Hardy pleaded the Act of Oblivion but was ordered to make good the damage, and see to the body’s reburial. On 9 Jan. 1662 he reported from the committee for Edward Wise’s bill. Later that month he appears to have been active on the committee for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament and on 8 Feb. he reported from the committee for repealing Strafford’s attainder. Beinecke Lib. OSB mss, fb 159, no. 16. A week later, Northampton was one of a group of peers to wait on the lord chancellor, the earl of Clarendon (as Sir Edward Hyde had become) to communicate their opposition to the proposed revival of the presidency of the north. Chatsworth, Cork mss, Misc. Box 1, Burlington Diary, 15 Feb. 1662.. Northampton’s interest in the area probably stemmed from his connection with his mother-in-law, Anne, dowager countess of Pembroke. Sir Joseph Williamson^‡ was advised, when he sought election at Appleby in March 1668, to ensure that the countess was ‘well plied with letters’ from Northampton and other of her relations. CSP Dom. 1667-8, p. 174.

Northampton was busy in his home county of Warwickshire, where, in his capacity as lord lieutenant, he sought to bring under heel the factious city of Coventry. Noting that one Pidgeon, and several other senior members of the corporation, had been put out for their loyalty to the king, and an Anabaptist, Hobson, elected mayor, Northampton advised that the ejected aldermen should be restored. He professed himself eager to ensure ‘all things carried peaceably there, and [to] prevent the sword, entrusted to him by the king, be drawn against his majesty.’ CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 90. In the summer of 1662 Northampton was ordered to oversee the destruction of the city’s walls. He undertook the task with characteristic efficiency, leaving the place in such a condition that it would be ‘impossible for any that have any skill in martial affairs to think of it for the future as a place fit to possess in order to a stand.’ Bodl. Clarendon 77, ff. 236-7. He received £600 in expenses. CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 423-4, 454, 462, 477; CTB, i. 415, 421, 429, 495. Both Coventry and the town of Northampton were notorious for their active dissenting communities and shortly before the coming into effect of the Act of Uniformity Northampton sought to expunge these through his thorough enforcement of the Corporation Act, purging those whom he described as the king’s ‘implacable enemies’:

those who for their own fanatic humours resist the laws of the land, and glory in their strength as if they had or meant to frighten your Majesty to condescensions, I think Sir your Majesty is not so low in the people’s opinion, nor so destitute of loyal subjects but your command would if but pronounced strike them to dust. Bodl. Clarendon 77, f. 236; Swatland, 156.

Northampton’s attention was not just concentrated on the management of his locality. In the month prior to the opening of the new session of February 1663 it was reported that he was on the point of taking a new wife following the death of his countess in late 1661. Marriage to Mary Noel, which seems to have happened by the beginning of 1664 at the latest, brought Northampton a welcome boost to his finances. It is not clear, however, whether it was on account of early difficulties with the second marriage or in reference to his relations with his first wife that Northampton wrote to the king at one point to disabuse him of the belief that he had been ‘severe’ to his countess. He protested that he had married her ‘in all affection’ but that he had been greeted in return by ‘great unkindnesses and scorns’ from her relations. His wife had refused him his conjugal rights, thereby denying him an heir. She had also run up huge bills with tradesmen and appropriated jewels and plate worth £600. None of the children of his first marriage outlived him so Northampton may have been referring to his relationship with his first countess. If relations with the second were similarly uneven, they must have been sufficiently reconciled to have five children together. Bodl. Carte 47, f. 385, Clarendon 77, ff. 302-3.

Northampton took his seat on 20 Feb. 1663 after which he proceeded to attend 94 per cent of the sitting days of this session. On 6 Mar. he received the proxy of Charles Stuart, 3rd duke of Richmond, which he held until Richmond’s return to the House on 23 March. Once again he was active during the session presiding over a series of committees. Between 21 and 28 Mar. he chaired several sessions of the committee considering the bill for the water-commanding engine, which Edward Somerset, 2nd marquess of Worcester, claimed to have invented. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 300, 302, 303, 304, 314. On 11 May he reported from the committee for the bill for settling John Guest’s charitable gift. Ten days later he reported from another committee, considering the Charlotte Hessen Killigrew naturalization bill. In June he was involved with the efforts made by Lady Pembroke to secure her rights to the Clifford barony. Chatsworth, Cork ms 33/62. Northampton opposed moves to ameliorate the terms of the Act of Uniformity for nonconformists. On 25 July he joined 13 Anglican hard-liners in entering his protest against a clause in the bill for relief to those unable to subscribe to the Act which would dilute the strength of the terms of the required declaration of consent. Swatland, 155; Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 97.

Along with a number of other royalist peers such as George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, Northampton was discontented with the Restoration settlement. He feared that too much leniency had been shown towards those who had previously been the king’s enemies. He had previously attempted to persuade the House to increase the number of those to be excluded from the Act of Oblivion In a letter to the king in August in which he informed the king of his successful slighting of the walls of Coventry, ‘so far as that it is untenable, and impossible for any that have any skill in martial affairs to think of it for the future as a place fit to possess in order to a stand, he proceeded to argue that…’he argued that those such as Manchester and William Fiennes, Viscount Saye and Sele, who had been well rewarded for their belated conversion to the king’s return, had merely ‘connived at your Majesty’s restoration, as a degree to their rise, and yours and the monarchy’s eternal destruction and the Church’s fall.’ Bodl. Clarendon 77, f. 236; Swatland, 235, 238. He was listed by Wharton as likely to support Clarendon in the impeachment proceedings initiated by Bristol in July 1663, though this seems unlikely given his dislike of the policy of conciliation of former Presbyterians, strongly associated with Clarendon, and his actions at the beginning of the 1664 session. Northampton may well have had some lingering personal antipathy to Clarendon and his associate Mordaunt following the failed rebellion of 1659. Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 230.

Northampton took his seat in the new session on 21 Mar. 1664 and was present on all bar one of the sitting days. His support for Bristol was made apparent that day when the Speaker, the lord chief justice, Sir Orlando Bridgeman^‡, bt., produced a letter from Lady Bristol, which she had entrusted to Northampton and which he requested should be read out. Several other peers had refused the task, being unwilling to invite criticism after the king had made his support for Clarendon so apparent. Consideration of the matter was put off to the following day. In the debates that ensued over whether or not the letter should be read, Northampton, supported only by John Lucas, Baron Lucas, argued in favour of its being heard, claiming that Bristol was still entitled to his privileges as a peer. In spite of his efforts, the House voted against reading the letter and sent it instead, unopened, to the king. Ibid. 232-3; Add. 38015, ff. 77-78; Bodl. Rawl, A. 130, ff. 2, 4-5, Carte 76, ff. 7-8, Carte 44, f. 513. Having failed to have his address heard by the Lords, Bristol offered to surrender himself into custody naming several peers, Northampton among them, to act as his gaoler. TNA, PRO 31/3/113, pp. 117-19.

Northampton continued to be extremely active in the House in the following, 1664-5, session. Before taking his seat he was entrusted on 23 Nov. 1664 with the proxy of George Nevill, 11th Baron Abergavenny. He took his place the following day, and was present on 94 per cent of the sitting days. On 16 Dec. he presided over the committee considering the bill for Philip Smythe, Viscount Strangford [I], and he chaired subsequent sessions of the same committee on 20 Dec. and on 12, 13 and 14 Jan. 1665. On 3 Feb. he chaired the committee for the Deeping Fen bill. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 2-3, 12, 15, 17, 41. In the following session convened at Oxford on 9 Oct. 1665 he attended every day but one of all sitting days. Once again his staunch support for the Church and distrust of Dissent came to the fore in his support of the five mile bill, although he expressed some ambivalence about bringing in the bill at this time. He insisted that he ‘wished the bill had not been brought in, but would not now leave it laid aside’. C. Robbins, ‘The Oxford Session of the Long Parliament of Charles II’, BIHR, xxi. 220; Bodl. Carte, 80, ff. 757-9.

In early 1666 Northampton replied to a letter from the countess of Banbury about reports circulating of his being engaged in raising a regiment for the Dutch War. He explained that ‘if any such thing should be as I have had some inkling, it is upon an old dormant commission, wherein long since I had named all my officers’. The rumours Lady Banbury had heard were soon realized for in June 1666 Northampton received an order reminding him of a ‘commission received long ago’ (in 1662) ‘to enlist a regiment of horse’. He spent much of the remainder of that spring and summer was spent in raising this regiment. Belvoir mss, QZ2, vol. i, f. 53; CSP Dom. 1665-6, pp. 454, 469, 489, 490, 500; Verney ms mic. M636/21, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 28 June 1666. In April he was one of the peers appointed to try Thomas Parker, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle. Along with the vast majority he concluded that Morley was guilty of manslaughter. HEHL, EL 8398; Stowe 396, ff. 178-90. In late September 1666 Northampton was again required to intervene in Coventry and in the county town of Warwick, where mounting hostility to Catholicism in the aftermath of the Fire of London was threatening to boil over into civil unrest. After one of his deputies failed to stem the disturbances, Northampton marched into Warwick in person. Along with his deputies and the local justices he was reported to be ‘very industrious in discovery and apprehension of pragmatical praters, who, from disaffection or loquacity, have reported false ill news’. CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 168; Kenyon, Popish Plot (2000), 12. Northampton took his seat in the House of Lords once more a fortnight into the new session on 1 Oct. 1666. He was present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was, on 21 Sept., entrusted with his father-in-law Campden’s proxy. Later in the session, on 17 Dec., he also received that of Worcester (the proxy was entered in the proxy book twice). Once again, Northampton was heavily involved in the committee work of the House. On 11 Oct. he appeared at the committee for the bill for settling a jointure on Lady Elizabeth Noel to testify his father-in-law’s consent to the measure. He was at the committee again four days later to testify to Lady Elizabeth’s satisfaction, while Richard Sackville, 5th earl of Dorset, offered similar assurances on behalf of Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 98-9. On 10 Nov. and again on 4 Dec. he reported to the House from the committee considering the bill concerning Thomas Wentworth, earl of Cleveland, and on 4 Jan. 1667 he reported from the committee for Strangford’s additional bill (further to the measure he had steered through two years previously). On 12 Jan. he was added to the committee for privileges and two days later nominated one of the members of a sub-committee for the poll bill. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/2, p. 22. He was named on 31 Jan. to the committee considering the bill for James Bertie, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). On 5 Feb. he was added to the committee for the Bedford level bill, while on 17 Feb. he chaired a further session of the committee for privileges. Ibid. p. 39. On 23 Jan. he dissented from the rejection of a clause in the bill to establish a judicature for disputes arising from the Fire which gave final appeal in the king and on 5 Feb. he also dissented from the refusal to hold a free conference on Mordaunt’s impeachment. When at the end of December 1666 Clarendon was drawing up a list of peers to be appointed to a public accounts commission as an alternative to the statutory commission proposed in the accounts bill, Northampton (along with the duke of Buckingham and Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury) was one of those whose omission was said to have angered the court’s opponents. Bodl. Carte 35, f. 197.

Northampton took his seat in the autumn 1667 session ten days after the opening, on 17 Oct. 1667. On 6 Nov. he brought to the House’s attention the arrest of one of his servants, Arthur Capes, contrary to privilege. The House ordered Capes’s release from his confinement in the gaol at Northampton, and those who had arrested him were brought to the bar and forced to apologise for their mistake. The originator of the suit against Capes, Sir Peter Wentworth, was also brought to the bar and subsequently reprimanded for certain remarks he made about Northampton in the course of his hearing. Bodl. Rawl, A.130, f. 96. Northampton was deeply engaged during the session in the impeachment of the lord chancellor. Add. 22263, f. 21. After the Commons submitted their articles of impeachment, Northampton was one of those peers to enter his protest on 20 Nov. 1667 against the House’s refusal to commit the former lord chancellor on non-specific charges, noting that a comparison that had been made with the impeachment of Henry VI’s favourite, William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, in 1450 was ‘no precedent at all’. On 5 Dec., after Clarendon had left the country, Northampton himself brought into the House the bill for Clarendon’s banishment, and then presided over the committee considering the measure on 9 and 10 Dec. before reporting the bill as fit to pass on 11 December. Samuel Pepys^‡ considered Northampton’s actions as ‘only a thing of vanity and to insult over him [Clarendon]; which is mighty poor I think, and so doth everybody else’. Bodl. Rawl, A.130, ff. 103, 113, PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 221-2; Pepys Diary, viii. 565. Northampton also joined Ashley and Bridgeman in working on behalf of Sir John Nicholas^‡ (who had married his sister, Penelope) to ensure the rejection of Lady Dacre’s bill, which had been promoted by Buckingham, Bristol and Charles Howard, Viscount Andover. The bill, introduced in the Commons, failed to make it to the Lords. Eg. 2539, ff. 135, 137; Swatland, 66-67.

As in previous sessions, Northampton maintained a high profile as a man of business within the House. On 14 Dec. 1667 he reported from the committee for Palmes’s bill and on 17 Dec. he chaired the committee for the leather bill. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, p. 231. In January 1668, along with Buckingham, Northampton was one of the English commissioners deputed to put into effect the Act of Parliament for settling freedom of trade with Scotland. CSP Dom. 1667-8, p. 156; NLS, ms 14492, ff. 2, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13-15, 18-19, 23, 28, 35, ms 7023, letter 117. On 11 Feb. he reported from the committee for privileges concerning the draft of an address to the king about foreign nobility as well as about minors sitting in the Lords. On 31 Mar. he reported from the privileges committee again concerning pre-1640 precedents for putting the Commons in mind of bills depending in their House. Northampton was also a prominent participant during the case of Skinner v. The East India Company. Along with Algernon Capel, earl of Essex, he chaired the majority of committee hearings held on the business. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 254, 262, 266-7, 270-1. On 29 Apr. 1668 he reported the committee’s findings to the House, estimating Skinner’s losses to total some £28,322 7s. 5d. Following ‘a long debate’ the House awarded Skinner £5,000. PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/15, 29 Apr. 1668. Northampton was subsequently named one of the reporters of the conference with the Commons on the subject on 5 May 1668; at another conference three days later he addressed the Commons underlining the Lords’ privileges and insisting that the Lords had no desire to ‘entertain suits causelessly’ but that ‘religion has taught the Lords a wiser method, for they have learnt by the advice of Jethro to Moses to set up inferior courts for their own ease’. Stowe, 303, f. 22; Leics. RO, DG 7, box 4956, P.P. 18 (i), p. 28.

From Clarendon to Danby, 1669-75

Northampton was absent from the House for the subsequent session of October 1669. Ironically, considering his close involvement in the earlier proceedings relating to Skinner, on 9 Nov. he was fined £40 for his failure to attend the House without reasonable excuse during the continuing debates on it with the Commons. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 267, 270-1; Swatland, 36. The same month he submitted a petition to Henry Bennet, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, relating to problems in Whittlewood Forest, of which he was by that time chief warden. CSP Dom. 1668-9, pp. 564, 576. In December he employed his interest with John Cosin, bishop of Durham, to secure a scholars’ place for a client at St Peter’s (Peterhouse) Cambridge. Cosin passed on the request: even though it meant that two others eager to secure places for their sons would be disappointed he was adamant that Northampton ‘must not be denied’. Durham UL (Palace Green), GB 033 COL (Cosin Letter-books), 4a, no. 1.

Northampton took his seat once more on 12 Mar. 1670, after which he was present on three quarters of all sitting days. That month he was noted as one of the principal speakers arguing against the passage of the bill to enable John Manners, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to remarry after his divorce. He joined the majority of those who had voted against the measure in subscribing the protest of 17 Mar. against the committal of the bill. Harris, Sandwich, ii. 318-24. Northampton’s disillusionment with the state of affairs had not abated following the removal of Clarendon. In July, when he wrote to Herbert Astley, his former chaplain, to congratulate him on his appointment as dean of Norwich (a post for which Northampton seems to have employed his interest on Astley’s behalf) he commented, ‘I could well wish to see you in the house of peers, but I fear the kingdom deserves not now so great a happiness as to have you take a place on that bench, for fortune not merit sways this world.’ Bodl. Tanner 44, f. 215, Tanner 46, f. 56, Tanner 285, f. 178. Northampton later attempted to exploit his relation with Astley to recommend one Hughes to a position. It is unclear whether or not he was successful but no-one of that name appears to have occupied significant office at Norwich at this time. Bodl. Tanner 115, f. 135. On 3 Oct. Northampton was entrusted with the proxy of John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor). Northampton resumed his place in the House following the adjournment on 14 Nov. and continued to sit until the prorogation of 22 Apr. 1671. On 2 Dec. 1670 he was one of four peers to enter a dissent from the passage of the bill for general naturalization. Between 26 Jan. and 11 Feb. 1671 he was involved as one of the managers for the five heated conferences which met on the Lords’ amendments to the bill to prevent malicious maiming and wounding which followed the assault on Sir John Coventry^‡. On 13 Mar. he reported from the committee for Neville Yelverton’s bill and between 13 Mar. and 12 Apr. he continued to preside over a series of committees. On 10 Apr. he offered a proviso to be incorporated within the game bill and on 18 Apr. reported the result of the conference concerning frauds in the buying and selling of cattle. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 425, 434, 448, 450.

As his continued role in a number of committees suggests, Northampton remained an influential figure. Following the death of Manchester in May 1671, he was one of those spoken of as a possible successor as lord chamberlain, though the position was eventually granted to Henry Jermyn, earl of St Albans. Add. 36916, f. 222. He did however succeed Manchester both as custos rotulorum of Northamptonshire and eventually as recorder of the borough of Northampton. His election to the latter post was not without controversy. Upon Manchester’s death Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough, had initially been appointed, a choice approved by the king. However, after about one year the corporation exercised its right to replace him and at an assembly on 14 Oct. 1672 unanimously elected Northampton in his stead. Peterborough protested and brought his case before the Privy Council, where the king made clear his disapproval of the corporation’s action, but eventually acceded to it. However, the attorney-general was ordered to instigate quo warranto proceedings against the town, ‘because of their contemptuous proceedings in this business, and the disrespect they have shown to the earl of Peterborough, who had formerly honoured them by accepting the office.’ Northampton continued to be re-elected each year for the rest of his life, in keeping with the provisions of the borough charter. Records of the Borough of Northampton, ii. 106-8; HMC Le Fleming, 98; CSP Dom. 1672-3, pp. 46, 191. In January 1673 he was said to have been one of two peers to turn down an offer of a command of a new regiment. Verney ms mic. M636/25, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 30 Jan. 1673.

Northampton took his seat in the House the following month on 4 Feb. 1673, after which he was again present on every day bar one of the session. In advance of the session he was entrusted, on 23 Jan., with Robartes’s proxy. Notice of his activity in this session is scarce, but he must have been seen as worth cultivating by the court, for on 7 Mar. 1673 Northampton was sworn of the Privy Council. Shortly afterwards, in May, he was commissioned colonel of the regiment of the Catholic John Belasyse, Baron Belasyse, who was forced to resign by the terms of the Test Act. CSP Dom. 1673, p. 287. Northampton failed to attend the brief session of October 1673 but returned to the House at the opening of the following session on 7 Jan. 1674, having again been given Robartes’s proxy in the preceding month. On 4 Feb. he was also entrusted with that of his Warwickshire neighbour, Thomas Leigh, 2nd Baron Leigh. Present on each day of the session, he quickly identified himself with the opposition to the anti-Catholic measures presented to the House. On 11 Jan. he was one of only three peers, the others being James Stuart, duke of York and Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, to vote against the motion to address the king for a proclamation banishing all papists to at least ten miles from London. Swatland, 193; Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 12 Jan. 1674; TNA, PRO 31/3/130, ff. 34-6. Later that month he was identified (as were Anglesey and Buckingham) by the French envoy de Ruvigny among those thought sympathetic to closer ties with France. TNA, PRO 31/3/130, ff. 41-3. Northampton received Robartes’s proxy again on 1 Apr. 1675 for the following session commencing 13 April. The same month he was noted by the lord treasurer Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), as among those thought likely to support the non-resisting test. Northampton took his seat once more in the new session on 13 Apr. 1675, after which he was present on each of its 41 sitting days.

Danby’s associate, 1675-8

Soon after the prorogation of 9 June 1675, Northampton was at last rewarded with a return to office as constable of the Tower of London, with the accompanying post of lord lieutenant of Tower Hamlets. Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford, 233. His appointment was said to have been owing to the influence of Danby, with whom Northampton increasingly came to be associated as indicated by his earlier support for Danby’s non-resisting test. Eg. 3329, ff. 89-90; Eg. 3338, f. 58. Edmund Verney commented dismissively of the office itself and even more so of its new incumbent, suggesting that ‘his lordship is an erected thing that may easily be managed.’ Verney’s assessment was corrected by his father, Sir Ralph Verney^‡, who pointed out that Northampton’s post was the practical one of constable of the Tower, not the honorific one of high constable, and that the result was likely to be a limitation of the authority of the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Robinson^‡. The immediate effect appears to have been a breakdown in control in the environs of the Tower with Robinson refusing to move against local rioters as he had not received orders to do so from Northampton. Verney ms mic. M636/28, E. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 21 June 1675, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 24 June 1675, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 11 Aug. 1675.

Northampton’s attention was drawn to local concerns in the autumn of 1675 as a result of the devastating fire that gutted the town of Northampton in early October. Eg. 3338, f. 58. He was quick to take advantage of the new parliamentary session, which convened on 13 Oct., to seek assistance for the inhabitants. Present on each day of the 21-day session, he dominated meetings convened to organize the town’s reconstruction and was, appropriately enough, chairman of the committee formed to oversee passage of a bill for rebuilding the town, from which he reported on 22 November. CSP Dom. 1675-6, p. 318; Swatland, 64 n50. He seems to have petitioned the king to delay proroguing the session so the bill could be finalized. His promotion of the measure intrigued Charles, who professed himself surprised that Northampton might wish to assist a place which had been instrumental in bringing about his father’s death in the Civil War. Northampton’s insistence that he had forgiven the town’s inhabitants was said to have prompted the king to concede that he would do likewise. VCH Northants. iii. 14. Consequently, the town was presented with a royal gift of 1,000 tonnes of timber and seven years of revenue from the chimney tax to enable them to rebuild. Northampton headed the list of the rest of the donors, providing £120. Records of the Borough of Northampton, ii. 249-51. On 20 Nov. Northampton was, unsurprisingly, to be found among the majority voting against the motion to address the king to request a dissolution of Parliament.

Following the prorogation, Northampton’s attention was taken up with management of the Tower. His task proved a trying one. His poor relations with Robinson had been apparent from the outset and towards the end of April 1676 he petitioned Danby for his deputy’s removal. He complained that Robinson had permitted a number of abuses. Robinson had previously been the subject of criticism for demanding excessive fees from his prisoners and hoarding his soldiers’ pay, but no action had been taken. Northampton submitted a detailed list of his complaints among them that the regicide Robert Tichborne^‡, ‘a very dangerous man’, had no particular warder assigned him and was free to wander as he chose. There were other examples of Robinson’s slovenly attitude to the Tower’s security:

The gates of the Tower are too frequently kept open in the nights till twelve, two, and four o’clock in the morning for the coming home of Sir John, to the hazard of that place which is his Majesty’s great magazine of arms. Eg. 3329, ff. 89-90, 92; HP Commons, 1660-90, iii. 342.

Despite Northampton’s complaints, Robinson remained in post. An attempt was made to improve the prevailing conditions, though, and Robinson entered into a bond of £10,000 ‘to answer for the concerns of the Tower.’ Eg. 3331, f. 113.

Towards the end of June 1676 Northampton was summoned as one of the triers of Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. Unlike Anglesey, Danby and his father-in-law, Campden, who were among seven to find Cornwallis guilty of manslaughter, he divided with the majority and found his colleague not guilty. HEHL, EL 8419; State Trials, vii. 157-8. The afternoon of 13 Oct. was spent in London in company with Anglesey, with whom he also dined on 25 November. Add. 18730, ff. 17, 19. Northampton returned to the House four days into the new session, on 19 Feb. 1677, and the only time he was absent during the entirety of this long session were on its first three days. In mid-April it was noted that both he and George Berkeley, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, spoke on both days of the lengthy conference held with the Commons concerning amendments to the supply bill for building 30 new warships, though ‘it so happened that the rest of the lords and the commoners were discoursing at that time that very few knew what they said.’ Add. 29571, f. 388. Towards the end of the year, on 20 Dec. 1677, he was again entrusted with Robartes’s proxy and on 31 Jan. 1678 he also received that of Thomas Cromwell, 6th Baron Cromwell (better known by his Irish title of earl of Ardglass), which was shortly afterwards vacated by his return to the House on 6 February. On 4 Apr. Northampton was present in the House for the trial of Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, whom he found guilty of manslaughter. PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/19, 4 Apr. 1678. Personal concerns were to the fore early that year when Northampton was dismayed to discover that his only daughter by his first marriage, Lady Alathea Compton, had contracted a secret marriage with Edward Hungerford, son of Sir Edward Hungerford^‡. She meekly responded to his command to return home but this came too late to prevent her being ‘bedded with’ her new husband. The marriage proved a short one as Lady Alathea died in childbirth later that same year. HMC Rutland, ii. 46-7; Verney ms mic. M636/32, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 18 Oct. 1678.

Northampton took his seat in the following session on 23 May 1678, after which he was present on 95 per cent of sitting days. On 7 June he subscribed the protest against the resolution to investigate the claim of Robert Villiers to the viscountcy of Purbeck. He then subscribed two further protests on 20 June and 9 July against the resolution to petition the king for leave to bring in a bill disabling Villiers from making any further claims on the title. Following the close of the session, Northampton attended the prorogation day of 1 August. In spite of his extensive patronage, he appears to have been able to exert only limited electoral influence. He arrived in Northampton towards the end of September intending to offer his backing to Danby’s 15-year-old son-in-law, Donogh O’Brien, Lord O’Brien [I], in the by-election caused by the death of O’Brien’s father, Henry O’Brien^‡, Lord Ibrackan [I], only to find his expected candidate unwilling to stand. Having written to Danby seeking his guidance, Northampton transferred his interest to Sir William Temple^‡, although he expressed his concerns that Temple, ‘being so absolute a stranger to this country’, might prove unacceptable to the local electors. Eg. 3331, ff. 61, 65. In spite of Danby’s and Northampton’s backing, as well as local willingness to accept Temple as someone ‘acceptable to the king’, the sheriff of Northampton so blatantly attempted to skew the election in Temple’s favour that it was easy for the supporters of his opponent, Ralph Montagu, later duke of Montagu, to challenge the result. Following an investigation at the bar of the Commons on 11 Nov. into a double return, the House resolved that Montagu was duly elected for the borough. HMC Ormonde, iv. 471; HMC Egmont, ii. 76-7; J.R. Jones, First Whigs, 27-28.

In advance of the following session of autumn 1678, Robartes again ensured that his proxy was safely lodged, from 14 Oct. 1678, with his usual holder. Northampton returned to the House a fortnight into the new session on 8 Nov., and was present for just over 70 per cent of all sitting days. A week after his arrival he voted in favour of making the declaration against transubstantiation stand under the same penalties as the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in the test bill. On 6 Dec. he was one of only four peers to enter a protest against the proposed address to the king calling for a proclamation to disarm and secure all Catholics convicted of recusancy, while on 26 Dec., he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill. The following day he voted against committing Danby.

The 1679-81 crisis

Too closely identified with Danby to escape the repercussions of the treasurer’s fall from grace, at the close of 1678 Northampton was removed from his office as constable of the Tower. He was replaced by his brother-in-law (and the son of Northampton’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth, widow of Sir William Compton) William Alington, Baron Alington. CSP Dom. 1678, p. 558; CSP Dom. 1679-80, p. 137. Northampton’s removal had been long-anticipated following a series of arguments with his deputy Sir John Robinson. Their relationship had failed to improve and at one point Northampton was said to have boxed Robinson on the ear. Robinson, however, did not benefit from Northampton’s removal. He was also put out as a result of continuing complaints about his fondness for carousing with his prisoners. Verney ms mic. M636/32, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 21 Nov. 1678.

Northampton took his seat in the abortive session of the new Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679. He then took his seat once more at the opening of the second session on 15 Mar., and was present on almost 97 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was noted by Danby among those thought likely to support him, and throughout the session Northampton remained loyal to the former lord treasurer. On 19 Mar. he pressed for the Lords to ‘go the milder way and not with rigour’. Bodl. Carte 228, ff. 229-30. The following day he received the proxy of Jacob Astley, 3rd Baron Astley, vacated on 2 May. On 21 Mar., during the continuing debates over whether or not Danby should be attached, Northampton argued ‘for my part I would disallow all impeachments from the Commons till they allow our judicature’, for which he earned a rebuke from George Savile, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, who complained that ‘this speech was not offered in its proper place, he is against impeachments at all.’ On 22 and again on 26 Mar. Northampton entered his dissent from resolutions furthering the Lords’ bill for banishing Danby. On 1 Apr. Northampton was among those voting against the early stages of the Commons’ bill for Danby’s attainder. The following day he spoke once again on behalf of the embattled Danby, warning that the Lords’ privileges were under threat if they agreed to the bill:

the thickest head of hair may be pulled out hair by hair: if you part with one privilege and another, you may at last lose all… they say vox populi is vox dei but I must tell you that the greatest curs make the greatest noise in a pack of dogs. The passing this bill would be more prejudicial to the kingdom than if my Lord Danby were here sitting with his staff in his hand. The bill takes away the King’s power of command and his power of pardon, I am therefore against committing it. Add. 28046, ff. 52, 55-56.

On 4 and again on 14 Apr. Northampton voted and protested against agreeing to the passage of the bill for Danby’s attainder, in both the milder form amended by the Lords and the harsher version finally agreed on with the Commons. The following month, he was again vocal in the debates over whether or not the bishops should be permitted to vote in the House in cases of blood. Following on from contributions by Buckingham and by Peter Mews, bishop of Bath and Wells, Northampton interjected that ‘instead of assisting the people in their liberties you take away the benefit to them of the king’s grace and pardon.’ Bodl. Carte 81, f. 566. On 10 May he voted against appointing a joint committee to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, and four days later he dissented from the resolution to pass the bill for regulating the trials of peers. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. Too clearly a follower of the court, he was excluded in April 1679 when the Privy Council was remodelled to bring more opposition members into the government.

During the elections for the new Parliament in the summer of 1679 Northampton’s steward in Warwickshire was supposed to be prominent among those eager to ‘show their love to the country by breaking heads.’ But Northampton himself surprised one prospective candidate, Sir John Knightley, by failing to turn out for him, and even though Knightley claimed to have ‘800 in the field’ he seems not to have made it as far as the poll. Both county seats went to court candidates. SCLA, DR 37/2/87/122, J. Knightley to T. Archer, 19 Aug. 1679. Northampton took his seat at the opening of the second exclusion Parliament, on which day he introduced Robartes in his new title as earl of Radnor. He continued to attend every one of the 59 sitting days of the session. On 15 Nov. he voted against rejecting the exclusion bill on first reading and on 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom. Northampton’s apparent change of tack in favour of exclusion may have been on account of concerns about York’s ability to safeguard the Church of England, though his decision to abandon York was less a step in the direction of the opposition and more a parallel shift with Danby, who had resolved to jettison York to save himself. Swatland, 220; Jones, First Whigs, 35. Nevertheless, it is notable that whereas in May 1677 Shaftesbury (as Baron Ashley had become) had noted Northampton as triply vile, he seems later to have been amended this assessment to ‘worthy’. Having resolved to give exclusion a hearing at least, Northampton persisted on his course. On 7 Dec. 1680 he joined with the majority in finding William Howard, Viscount Stafford guilty of treason.

On the dissolution and summoning of a new Parliament, Northampton determined this time to back Knightley for one of the Warwickshire seats, anticipating Knightley’s request for his support. SCLA, DR 37/2/87/128, J. Knightley to T. Archer, 5 Feb. 1681. In the event, however, Knightley did not cause a poll and both seats went to country candidates. Northampton returned to the House for the new Parliament convened at Oxford on 21 Mar. and was present on each day of the brief session. Soon after his arrival he was waited on by Danby’s son, Edward Osborne^‡, styled Viscount Latimer, as were all of the other peers Danby had calculated would support his renewed effort to be bailed. HMC 14th Rep. ix. 423. Northampton also received a request from Sir William Howard, mentioned in a letter of Lady Northampton as a ‘friend of the family’, to use his interest with Halifax on behalf of Howard’s son. Howard closed his letter with the assurance that:

although your lordship has been a long time used very basely, and unworthily yet you can neither say nor do anything this Parliament that shall seem to reflect on or lessen your constant and immortal loyalty. Castle Ashby mss, folder 1092, W. Howard to Northampton, 20 Mar. 1681; Comptons of Compton Wynayates, 129.

The Oxford Parliament proved short and ill-tempered and left Danby without time to secure his release. Northampton seems to have retreated to the country following the dissolution, though he was kept informed of developments at court by regular newsletters. Castle Ashby mss, folder 1092; Comptons of Compton Wynyates, 129. By this time, aged almost 60 years old, Northampton’s health seems to have been in decline. One of his correspondents, concerned by reports that he was suffering from swelling in the legs (presumably gout) advised him to seek medical intervention. Although Northampton seems to have heeded the advice, his efforts proved futile and on 3 June he fell downstairs at his Warwickshire seat of Compton Wynyates. Castle Ashby mss, folder 1092, W. Howard or H. Legge to Northampton, 12, 19 May 1681. In November he was believed to be well enough to be transferred to Castle Ashby but he died there just over a month later on 15 December. Comptons of Compton Wynyates, 129; Verney ms mic. M636/36, J. Verney to E. Verney, 19 Dec. 1681. For all the concerns about his health, Northampton’s death appears to have been unexpected. He seems not to have left a will and his family was left ‘in great disorder’. It was said that his widow ‘minds nothing but fasts and grieves’ and was thought likely to endanger her own life by her excessive mourning. Belvoir mss, Letters, vol. xix. f. 58. After a brief period of confusion, Northampton’s corpse was returned to Compton where he was buried in the church he had rebuilt.

In the course of his career, vigorous campaigning enabled Northampton to achieve restitution of his property, which significantly improved his financial position. On the marriage of his sister, Lady Anne Compton, to Sir Hugh Cholmley^‡ in 1666, Northampton was able to make a ‘noble present’ of £1,000 besides her £5,000 portion. Rawdon pprs. 215-6. Four years later, he was able to create a settlement providing for an annuity of £500 for his heir, George Compton, later 4th earl of Northampton, as well as £12,000 to be raised to provide for his daughter’s portions. Castle Ashby ms 1086. In addition to this, Northampton undertook considerable restoration work: that at Compton Wynyates cost some £358 17s. 3d. Comptons of Compton Wynyates, 125. At his death, the estates at Compton, Castle Ashby and the contents of his London home in Lincoln’s Inn were estimated to be worth over £12,155. Castle Ashby ms 1084, f. 30. He was succeeded in the peerage by Lord Compton as 4th earl of Northampton.