FIENNES, James (c. 1603-74)

The least prominent son of the 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, James Fiennes was described by Wood as ‘an honest Cavalier and a quiet man.’ Ath. Oxon. He was neither the firebrand his brother Nathaniel proved to be, nor so ambitious a politician as his father. Even so, he was an active member of the local nobility, proud of his ancestry and proved to be a conscientious member of the House. Whitelocke Diary, 122. Reckoned by Nugent to have been a man ‘of a shrewd mind and a persevering and resolute temper,’ the contrast between Fiennes and his father is perhaps most apparent in the causes which he supported. T.M. Davenport, Oxfordshire Lords Lieutenant, High Sheriffs and Members of Parliament, 7 n2. While his father had narrowly escaped trial for treason for his political activities before the Civil War, Fiennes contented himself with less contentious issues, though of undoubted personal interest to him, such as adding his name to a petition to the king of July 1664 requesting that traditional rights of way be maintained for those owning land in Pall Mall adjoining the king’s gardens. HMC Popham, 195.

Before succeeding to the family seat of Broughton Castle, Fiennes resided principally at Shutford in Oxfordshire and at Weston-under-Edge in Gloucestershire. Williams, 53. With his brother, Nathaniel Fiennes, he also had interests in Ireland in co. Wicklow, where he purchased part of a 200-year lease on the barony of Shellelowe. HMC Egmont, i. 97. In the 1630s he was admitted an adventurer in America. CSPC 1661-8, p. 166. Although less rigid than his father in matters of religion, he retained some of the 1st Viscount’s prejudices. Thus, although he released the Quaker, Edward Vivers, who had served two years and seven months in gaol despite the lack of evidence brought against him, he was quite as hostile to the sect as his father had been. A. Beesley, History of Banbury, 482; W. Potts, Banbury. Thirteen Quakers living on his estates were fined between 1662 and 1663, while ten people from Banbury were imprisoned for attending Quaker meetings in 1664. VCH Oxon. x. 110.

Fiennes broke with the family tradition of attending New College, Oxford, and instead matriculated at Queens’ Cambridge in 1618 before migrating to Emmanuel in 1622. Both were puritan institutions. In 1630 he married Frances Cecil, daughter of his co-religionist, Viscount Wimbledon, but the marriage was not successful and was said to have failed by January 1648 when the future viscount and viscountess separated. Fiennes’ wife complained that her husband was not ‘holy enough.’ Verney Mems. i. 394. Of their five children, the first two sons, James and William, died in their infancy, while the third son, also William, drowned in the Seine while still a minor. LJ, xix. 70. A number of sources mention a fourth son, Francis, serving in a parliamentarian regiment, but this appears to be a mistake. Beesley, 305n.; Potts, 151. No evidence has been found to support the suggestion that Fiennes fought at Edgehill alongside his father and brothers. C. Peters, Lord Lieutenants and High Sheriffs of Oxfordshire, 9; E. Peacock, Army Lists of the Roundheads and Cavaliers, facs. passim. However, he was active in Parliament before his exclusion in Pride’s Purge. Verney Mems. i. 300. Having been forced from the Commons, he retired to his estate at Shutford and from there was one of the Oxfordshire gentry who petitioned General George Monck, later duke of Albemarle, for a free Parliament in February 1660. Beesley, 474. Although he was returned unopposed as knight of the shire for Oxfordshire to the Convention along with Thomas Wenman^‡, 2nd Viscount Wenman [I], he seems not to have contested the seat again the following year, perhaps in anticipation of his inheritance of the peerage. HP Commons, 1660-1690, ii. 312; M.F. Keeler, Long Parliament, 1640-1, pp. 177-8.

The Restoration almost at once plunged the Fiennes family into an acrimonious lawsuit involving Andrew Ellis, husband of Fiennes’ younger daughter, Frances. Ellis, along with Sir John Trevor^‡ and Colonel George Twisleton, parliamentarian governor of Denbigh, had purchased the manors of Hawarden, Hope and Mold from Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, during the Interregnum. J. Williams, Records of Denbigh and its Lordship, 133-5; LJ, xi; J. Seacome, Memoirs … of the House of Stanley; True Progress of the Contract between Charles, Late Earl of Derby and Purchasers of Hawarden, Hope and Mold; B. Coward, The Stanleys, passim. One of Fiennes’ other relatives, Beaumont Percival, had been rector of Hawarden before moving to the family living of Broughton. VCH Oxon. ix. 98. Fiennes petitioned the king not to return the estates to Derby, as the manor of Hawarden had been especially set aside as a portion for Frances Fiennes on her marriage to Ellis. CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 291. Fiennes’ father was a member of the Lords’ committee deputed to investigate the affair. Both Houses of Parliament supported the bill to return the lost estates to Derby, with Fiennes being one of only six members of the Commons to vote against the measure, the king refused his assent to it. The case rumbled on until 1678 when the Stanley family finally achieved the return of their property, but in Fiennes’ lifetime the king assured the estates to Ellis and the other purchasers.

Fiennes succeeded his father in the peerage in April 1662, marking his accession to the viscountcy by presenting a silver standing cup surmounted with the family arms to the church of St. Mary’s, Broughton. VCH Oxon. ix. 100. It was not until 5 Mar. of the following year that he finally took his seat in the Lords, a fortnight into the session that had commenced on 18 Feb., having been excused at a call of the House on 23 February. He was thereafter present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to at least 28 committees. An implacable opponent of the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, in July Saye and Sele was included in a list prepared by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of those likely to support the attempt by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, to have Clarendon impeached. Jones, Party and Management, 6-7.

Saye and Sele resumed his seat at the opening of the new session on 16 Mar. 1664 after which he was present on each day of the 36-day session. Named to at least ten committees in addition to the sessional committee for privileges and the sub-committee for the Journal, on 12 May he reported from the committee for the bill to continue the act for regulating the press and also from that considering the bill for establishing Abraham Colfe’s free school at Lewisham. The following day he reported from two more committees, that for Francis Cottington’s bill (the committee of which he had chaired two days previously) and the committee for Charles Cotton’s bill. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, 462.

Saye and Sele returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 24 Nov. 1664 after which he was present on 87 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to 17 committees. On 15 Dec. he chaired a session of the committee for privileges considering the complaint of Seth Ward, bishop of Exeter, against Gilbert Yard for suing a writ against the bishop during the time of privilege. Saye and Sele reported the committee’s conclusion in Bishop Ward’s favour the same day, following which Yard was summoned to the bar to make his submission. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/2, 6-7; LJ, xi. 638. On 1 Mar. 1665, having chaired a session of the committee for the bill for taking away damage clear, Saye and Sele reported the committee’s recommendation that the bill should pass with certain amendments; the House resolved instead that the measure should be recommitted. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, 76. The following day his signature to the proceedings attests to his activity in the committee for the Journal.

In advance of the new session, presumably anticipating being absent at its opening, Saye and Sele registered his proxy with Humble Ward, Baron Ward, but the proxy was vacated when Saye and Sele appeared on the first day of the new session, on 9 Oct. 1665. Present on 15 of the session’s 19 sitting days, he was named to six committees, chairing sessions of four committees on 30 October. Ibid. 91. On 31 Oct. he reported back from three of these, including the committee considering the bill to continue the act for regulating the press and that considering the distresses of rent bill, after which it was ordered that a conference should be held with the Commons over amendments in the latter, some of which the committee had determined not to approve.

Saye and Sele was absent at the opening of the 1666-7 session. Still missing from the attendance list on 8 Oct., it seems likely that he resumed his seat later that day when he was named to the sessional committee for privileges and the sub-committee for the Journal. Named to some 20 further committees during the session, on 9 Jan. 1667 he chaired the committees for Henry Mildmay’s bill and for the bill for George Nevill, 12th Baron Abergavenny, reporting back to the House from the former two days later. Ibid. 149-50. On 21 Jan. he chaired a session of the committee for the plague bill, and the following day (22 Jan.) he reported from a naturalization bill. Ibid. 161. The same day he chaired two further committees considering the bills for Sir Seymour Shirley and Sir John Poyntz. Ibid. 162. He reported from the former on 23 Jan. and the same day subscribed the protest over the rejection of a clause granting the right of appeal to the king and House of Lords from the fire court.

Saye and Sele attended on two days in July 1667 and resumed his place a week into the 1667-9 session on 17 October. Present on over 88 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to at least 24 committees, including that concerning Thomas Skinner’s case against the East India Company. In keeping with his earlier support for Bristol’s attack on Clarendon, in November 1667 Saye and Sele supported the Commons’ motion to impeach Clarendon. On 20 Nov. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ request to commit the former lord chancellor on a general charge. Saye and Sele, who had served as a deputy lieutenant in Oxfordshire since the Restoration, became lord lieutenant of the county following Clarendon’s fall. His appointment as lieutenant is striking. He was by no means the most substantial landowner in Oxfordshire at the time, but his reputation as a moderate (as well as his consistent opposition to the disgraced former incumbent) may have recommended him.

Saye and Sele did not take his seat in the 1669 session until 12 November. On 9 Nov. he had been excused on the grounds of ill health. He was present on 64 per cent of all sitting days in this short session and was named to just three committees. He returned to the House three days into the next (1670) session on 17 Feb. 1670. Although he was named to 14 committees, he attended just 18 per cent of all sitting days, quitting the session on 2 April. Shortly before this, on 26 Mar., he registered his dissent against the resolution to pass the conventicles bill. Returning to the House just over a week into the first 1673 session on 13 Feb., Saye and Sele’s level of attendance improved markedly being present on more than three-quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to eight committees.

Saye and Sele failed to return to the House for the brief session of October to November 1673, almost certainly on the grounds of poor health. Noted as missing at a call of the House on 12 Jan. 1674, he died just over two months later on 15 Mar. and was buried at Broughton. Despite the family’s success in adapting to the Restoration, Saye and Sele’s niece, Celia Fiennes, noted that at her uncle’s death the family seat of Broughton Castle, its park and gardens were ‘much left to decay and ruin’. Certainly little improvement work was undertaken on the site from the time of the Civil War, when it was besieged by the royalists, until the eighteenth century. Journeys of Celia Fiennes ed. Morris, 25; VCH Oxon. ix. 91. By 1675 the castle, which was assessed at 26 hearths in 1665, generated income from half-yearly rentals amounting to little more than £450. VCH Oxon. ix, 91; M. Weinstock, Hearth Tax Returns Oxfordshire 1665, 141; Bodl. Rawl. D 915. This is not to say that Saye and Sele had been reluctant to make the most of his comparatively modest estate. He was quick to take advantage of the 1671 Game Act, which gave landowners extensive powers to regulate hunting and repeated the wording of the act almost verbatim when he commissioned his gamekeeper, John Guy, to confiscate all poaching ‘engines’ and provide him with a list of names for prosecution. P.B. Munsche, Gentlemen and Poachers, 3-15; Bodl. Rawl. D 892, f. 211.

Besides concerns over falling revenues, Saye and Sele had also long been embarrassed by the relationship between his estranged wife and Joshua Sprigge, the Banbury-born author and independent minister, whom Anthony Wood described as her ‘gallant.’ Beesley, 468; Life and Times of Sir Edward Cecil, Viscount Wimbledon, ed. C. Dalton, ii. 366; Yule, Independents in the English Civil War, 143; Wood, Life and Times, i. 177. Sprigge’s father, William, had been steward to Saye and Sele’s father. Wood, i. 177. Sprigge himself had published an account of Sir Thomas Fairfax’s armies during the Civil War, at least in part as a vindication of the activities of Saye and Sele’s brother, Nathaniel Fiennes, as the parliamentarian governor of Bristol. J. Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva. Within a year of Saye and Sele’s death the dowager viscountess and Sprigge married, but they attracted unwelcome attention for holding conventicles and were forced to move to Highgate, where they died within weeks of each other in July 1684. HMC 7th Rep. i. 499A. In the absence of a will, administration of Saye and Sele’s estates was granted to his daughter, Frances Ellis. The barony fell into abeyance, but the viscountcy descended to his nephew, William Fiennes, who succeeded as 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele.