CRESHELD, Richard (c.1585-1652), of Mattishall, Norf., Evesham, Worcs., Lincoln’s Inn, Mdx., and Serjeants’ Inn, Chancery Lane, London.

Richard Cresheld’s family was rooted in Norfolk. His father, Edward Cresheld, was of Mattishall parish, and while his grandfather, Thomas, was described by the herald who drew up the Worcestershire pedigrees in 1634 as of Yorkshire, it is clear that Creshelds were numerous in Mattishall and Mattishall Burgh throughout the sixteenth century.24Vis. Worcs. 1634 (Harl. Soc. xc), 28; Vis. Norf. 1664 (Norf. Rec. Soc. iv), i. 61; Musters of 1569, 1572, 1574 and 1577 (Norf. Rec. Soc. vi.) i. 103, 110. Several were buried in the chancel of Mattishall church in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, although none of the heralds, in Norfolk or Worcestershire, seems to have been able to produce a genealogy that pursued more than one or two lines of the family’s descent.25Blomefield, Norf. x. 236. It seems clear that the Creshelds of Norfolk were parish gentry only: their most eminent representative in 1665 was a gentleman of Norwich.26Vis. Norf. 1664, i. 61. Cresheld’s arrival in Evesham came at the behest of henry Frowyke, a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer whom Cresheld’s father had paid to find him a career in the law. Frowyke was recorder of Evesham, but paid Cresheld to do the legal work that went with the office. Cresheld was accepted into the corporation of Evesham first as prothonotary or clerk of papers to the borough court, and then as a freeman. His career suffered a setback when he was removed from this post during a flurry of civic reform in 1609.27Evesham Borough Records, 3; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Evesham’. By 1611, he had married into the family of Egioke (Egiocke), seated at Pophills, Salford Priors, near Evesham, which may have passed to them after the death of George Egiocke† in 1602.28VCH Warws. iii. 160; HP Commons 1558-1603, ‘George Egiocke’. Like the Creshelds, the Egioke family was scattered and rather reduced in its circumstances. The ancient patrimony at Egioke, in Inkberrow, Worcestershire, was sold by Sir Francis Egioke† at around the time of Cresheld’s union with the daughter of what was in any case a cadet branch of the family.

Sir Francis Egioke, the most eminent of the Egioke family in the first half of the century, was a teller in the exchequer and probably an unsuccessful candidate in Evesham’s first parliamentary election under the charter of 1604. Egioke’s influence in Evesham was considerable, but he was not an uncontroversial figure, and quarrelled with Sir Philip Kighly†, his rival for office.29HP Commons 1558-1603, ‘Sir Francis Egiocke’; Vis. Worcs. 1569 (Harl. Soc. xxvii), 128; Burke, Mems. of St Margaret’s Church, Westminster (1914), 525; Nash, Collections, ii. 7; E178/3832. In 1608 the dismissal from the corporation of the entire Dineley family was probably a by-product of their dispute.30Evesham Borough Records, 3. Nor was Egioke ever recorder of Evesham, as has been asserted.31Evesham Borough Records, passim; HP Commons 1660-90, ‘John Egiocke’; Keeler, Long Parl.146. Nevertheless, despite the ambiguous standing of Egioke in Evesham, Cresheld’s marriage into a leading local family enabled him to capitalise upon the status of his wife’s kinsman, and he was boosted further when Frowyke sponsored his training at Lincoln’s Inn.32LI Admissions bk. iv. 1605-14, f. 34. Cresheld was in 1622 invited to succeed Richard Dover as recorder, a post which he retained until his death.33Evesham Borough Records, 24, 48. The esteem in which he was held in Evesham may be measured by the townsmen’s attempts to persuade him to become mayor, a post he declined.34CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 468.

As the Evesham corporation order book shows, Cresheld was a regular attender at its meetings, from the time of his appointment as recorder down to 1642. In a town generally characterised by a preference for returning men to Westminster who had genuine status there, it is unsurprising that Cresheld was returned without any contest to three Parliaments in the 1620s. On the occasion he was not selected, when the corporation made its choices for the 1626 assembly, he signed what seems an undisputed council order electing Sir John Hare and Anthony Langston.35Evesham Borough Records, 27. Secretary Conway (Edward Conway†), himself of nearby Ragley and thus of local influence, was left in no doubt by his secretary that Cresheld’s opinion carried very considerable weight in the borough. The corporation would offer Conway no insight into their proposals for the 1628 Parliament until they had spoken with Cresheld on his return from Lincoln’s Inn.36Procs. 1628, vi. 149.

In these Parliaments, Cresheld’s most noted contribution was his long speech delivered on 27 March 1628, when the House was a committee of the whole House. His address was marked by a range of rhetorical devices: thus, despite his recordership, he described himself as ‘one of the puisnes of our profession which are members of this House’ before delivering his ‘unlearned opinion’, stuffed with Biblical and classical allusions and quotations from the Year Books and statute and case law. Cresheld focussed on the issue of imprisonment without trial. He vehemently disavowed any disrespect for the royal prerogative, ‘those flowers of the princely crown and diadem’, but among ‘the fundamental laws and liberties’ of the realm, ‘daisies and wholesome herbs’, was the right to freedom of the person. Reviewing the property law as it applied to freemen and indeed anciently to villeins, he concluded that arrest without trial was unsupportable, before moving on to an erudite survey of the principles of the common law. His peroration was apparently more one of reassurance: ‘what doubt need we have but that his majesty ... will vouchsafe unto us our ancient liberties and birthrights with a thorough reformation of this and our other just grievances’?37CD 1628, ii. 146-50; versions in Add. 24064, ff. 3-6; Harl. 6799, ff. 348-51; Harl. 1721, ff. 33-41; Lansd. 211, ff. 66-7; Harl. 6846, ff. 181-88.

As the leading lawyer in south Worcestershire, Cresheld was in demand among gentry families for his services, and provided Sir John Pakington, grandfather of Sir John Pakington* the 2nd baronet, with much advice on the marriage he planned between his grandson and the daughter of Lord Keeper Coventry (Sir Thomas Coventry†).38Worcs. Archives, 705:380/BA 2309/61; BA 4657/iii/4. Cresheld served as trustee during the wardship of Sir John Pakington, and of the trustees seems to have been the most active, as he was managing the estate, albeit at a distance.39Worcs. Archives, 705:349/ BA 5117/2 (x), 3; Bucks. RO, D/X 1007/1-3. He continued to supervise Pakington’s Buckinghamshire estates even after the young heir had been elected knight of the shire for Worcestershire. Cresheld approved, and may have been active in arranging, Coventry’s assumption of the high stewardship of Evesham in 1631.40Evesham Borough Records, 31.

Cresheld sided with the government in the Ship Money judgements: there was nothing in his career in the 1630s to suggest that he was predisposed to support the king’s opponents, despite his 1628 speech. In May 1636 he was made serjeant-at-law; at the ceremonies in Serjeants’ Inn his sponsors included Thomas Windsor, 6th Baron Windsor, representing the leaders of Worcestershire society, and Sir Dudley Digges†, master of the rolls.41Baker, Serjeants at Law, 440. In one of his first tours of the Oxford circuit in his capacity as a judge, during the February 1637 assizes, a case was brought against the Shropshire undersheriff for distraining goods for non-payment of Ship Money. The case was in fact deliberately aborted so that it could be moved to a higher court, but Judge William Jones†, who had already found for the king in the judges’ ruling on Ship Money, was ready to try, and Cresheld was ready to plead, the king’s cause.42T. Birch, Court and Times of Charles I (2 vols. 1848), ii. 272, 275. In March 1639 Cresheld was listed with other senior members of the legal profession who contributed sums to Charles I’s expedition to fight the Scots.43CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 604.

Cresheld did not stand for election to the Parliament of April 1640, and although he was elected to the Long Parliament seems not to have recovered the high profile he had attained during the 1628 assembly. He seems also to have held aloof from the feverish side-taking which characterised Worcestershire between 1640 and 1642, probably because he stayed in London, attending the House, or rode the circuit. In the Commons, he was first noticed by the clerk on 17 February 1641, when he was named to a committee considering a bill confirming grants to the queen, and on 14 May, with another serjeant-at-law, Sampson Eure, he was given charge of the bill to satisfy the financial demands of the Scots for their army.44CJ ii. 87b, 147a. A week after the majority of Members, on 10 May, Cresheld took the Protestation to uphold the Protestant religion, the rights of the monarchy and the liberties of Parliament. A small number of low-key committee appointments followed, in which his legal expertise would be useful; but after he was given leave to be examined in the Lords about the case of William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury (2 Aug.), he did not appear in the Journal again for another eight months, until 23 April 1642.45CJ ii. 141a, 175a, 217a, 233a, 538b, 570b.

The first committee to have a bearing on his future political commitments was that on 16 May 1642 dealing with proceedings against Sir Robert Berkeley†, the judge and Worcestershire grandee who had supported the king in the Ship Money judgement.46CJ ii. 572b. Later that month, he was named with eight other leading parliamentarian lawyers to peruse the legal means by which the king raised troops. John Wylde* was among his colleagues, and may have been an influence upon him.47CJ ii. 588a. The following month Cresheld pledged £100 in defence of Parliament, and may from this point be considered to have taken sides: at the same time, the Worcestershire gentry was dividing after gatherings at quarter sessions and assizes; Pakington, for whom Cresheld had been an active trustee, became a strong adherent of the king.48PJ iii. 474; ‘Sir John Pakington’ infra.

In the autumn of 1642 Cresheld was somewhere in the country, probably in Worcestershire, rallying opinion to the paying of money upon the ‘propositions’. As he was congratulated in the House on 2 November, it is quite possible that he had been active in the cause of Parliament while on circuit, or at least in some judicial capacity. On the back of this expression of esteem, he was asked to write a letter of thanks to the mayor of Exeter for similar service.49CJ ii. 831a. On 30 December the House resolved to ask the king to accept him as a baron of the exchequer. This same request was incorporated into the peace proposals sent to the king at Oxford, in February 1643.50CJ ii. 908a; Clarendon, Hist. i. 442.

In February 1643, Cresheld was named to the first local committees for Worcestershire, for assessments, and the following month, for sequestrations. The latter was a response to the disappointing results of the former, but neither committee was able to achieve a great deal in the face of royalist dominance in the county. However, Cresheld did not retain the affections of the House for long. His loyalties may have been wavering in the summer of 1643. He was required to attend the House in June: he did so, and took the Vow and Covenant to support Protestantism and Parliament; but on 28 September he and 23 others were ordered to attend the parliamentary committee for sequestering the estates of absent Members, to give an account of themselves.51CJ iii. 119a, 125b, 256a. By February 1644 these doubts seem to have been resolved. After taking the Solemn League and Covenant on 5 February, Cresheld was named to several committees, again on detailed issues concerning petitions of individuals, where his legal expertise was useful.52CJ iii. 389a, 498a, 534a; iv. 403b.

His continued absence from Evesham, and apparently from Worcestershire, and his low profile in Parliament suggest that his business was mainly in legal work in London. In February 1647 this was confirmed by parliamentary order that he should ride the Kent circuit, thus widening his territorial activity. He was occupied in this for 22 days, riding through Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Hertfordshire and Essex.53Add. 21506 f. 56. In the summer assizes that year he was again on circuit in the south east, in Essex, which kept him well away from London during the disturbances in Parliament that summer. On 9 October he was excused attendance at the House because of this work, but the following week was in any case added to the committee chaired by the lawyer John Maynard* which was charged with investigating the case of John Lilburne, in the Tower since the summer of 1646 for denying the authority of the Lords over commoners.54CJ v. 76a, 236b, 330a, 334a; P. Gregg, Freeborn John (1961), 201-2. By this time Cresheld was a senior member of the judiciary, and on 1 December he was added to the committee appointed to produce four bills from the propositions selected by the Lords from those presented at Newcastle and Hampton Court. The essence of these was that Parliament should exercise authority over the militia for 20 years and subsequently enjoy a power of veto over it in perpetuity; that the king’s declarations against both Houses of Parliament should be revoked, and his recently-granted honours withdrawn; and that Parliament should have the power to adjourn itself to a place of its own choosing.55CJ v. 373b; OPH vi. 405; Gardiner, Hist. Civil War, iv. 31-2. Cresheld was only added at a late stage, however; and the whole exercise was in any case overtaken by political events when it became clear that Charles had clinched an alliance with the Scots.

In January 1648 Cresheld was sent to ride the Kent circuit, and it was in this capacity that he performed for Parliament what should have been the greatest practical service of his career.56CJ v. 451a. Canterbury had been the scene of extensive rioting on Christmas Day 1647, which it had taken the county committee a week to quell. Disturbances spread to other parts of the county, and Cresheld’s circuit must have been an uncomfortable one.57Everitt, Community of Kent, 231-5. The county committee was only partially successful in suppressing the royalists, who published an apologia for their rioting. The Kent county committee had been a by-word for oppressive authority, and circumstances at Westminster were such that the cause of committee government found little favour. The committee was summoned to attend the Commons to explain itself.58Everitt, Community of Kent, 236. Its leader, Sir Anthony Weldon, insisted that trials of the Kent rebels should be held under the principles of martial law, since juries summoned in the usual way of oyer and terminer would, as sympathetic to the royalists, be unreliable. Rejecting this advice, the Commons renewed Cresheld’s commission on 18 April, and with him sent down John Wylde*, the pair to act as commissioners of oyer and terminer with the MPs of the county.59CJ v. 534a.

Two trials were held, one for the city at the town hall in Canterbury, and one for the county at the Castle Yard there. Wylde’s charge to the jury at the town hall was so ‘full of blood-thirstiness that the people were ready to destroy him’. Cresheld, by contrast, was much more conciliatory, and having ended his charge called ‘God save the king’, provoking from the people in the packed court-room a mighty shout, which persuaded the judges that a heavier guard was required. The grand jury did not perform according to their expectations, as it twice returned ignoramus bills: ‘a jury from hell’ would have done better, thought Wylde. The reporter of these proceedings was hostile to the judges and their cause, but made a clear distinction in his report between ‘bloody villain’ Wylde and Cresheld, who ‘honestly’ remonstrated with his colleague that the statute 25 Edward III could not be used against the rebels as they had not waged war against the king.60Bodl. Clarendon 31, ff. 80, 96. In the face of jury intransigence the trials had to be adjourned, and within days the Kentish Rebellion had begun. On 15 May the House of Commons thanked Cresheld and his colleagues for their service in managing the trials, but these were hollow thanks for what had been a fiasco.61CJ v. 559b. Cresheld was named again to the Kent circuit, but when he returned there in the summer, it was in very different circumstances. The main body of rebels had been defeated in the storming of Maidstone, and mopping-up operations were in progress under Sir Thomas Fairfax’s* direction.62CJ v. 598a; Everitt, Community of Kent, 260-70.

On 12 October 1648, Cresheld was finally appointed to a senior judgeship by Parliament. It was not to the exchequer, for which he had been recommended to the king in 1642. John Wylde, made lord chief baron of the exchequer at the same time, may have ensured that Cresheld was kept away from that court, as their uncomfortable experience at Canterbury would have been fresh in his mind. Instead, Cresheld was appointed to the court of common pleas.63CJ vi. 51a. By convention he thus no longer attended the House. His whole career had been based on caution and a desire, even in extremis, as at the Canterbury assizes, to find an accommodation with the king. He was therefore totally out of sympathy with the purge of Parliament by the army on 6 December, and the events that followed it, and on 8 February 1649 desired to be excused from accepting further commissions as a judge.64CJ vi. 134b. By this time he was in ill health, and played no further part in Evesham or public life elsewhere. He drew up his will in August 1650, and left cash bequests of over £700.65PROB11/221, f. 136. In his will there was no mention of his son, William, who was called to the bar in 1634, and who probably predeceased him.66LI Black Bks. ii. 318. Cresheld died early in 1652, and was buried on 22 January at St Andrew Holborn, burying place of many members of the inns of court.67St Andrew Holborn par. reg.; C. Barron, The Parish of St Andrew Holborn (1979), 44-5. He remembered the poor of Evesham in a legacy of £100,which formed an important component of the borough’s civic stock. Cresheld’s daughter, Mary, in 1646 married William Draper of Crayford, Essex; their son, Cresheld Draper†, sat for Winchelsea between 1678 and 1685, and was the only one of Cresheld’s descendants to sit in Parliament.68C8/320/61; HP Commons 1660-1690.