STAWELL, Sir John (1600-62), of Cothelstone and Netherham, Som.

The Stawell family traced their ancestry back to the Conquest, when they were awarded the manors of Cothelstone and Stawell in Somerset by William I.24Stawell, Quantock Fam. pp. xxv, 5, 18-19; Gerard’s Description ed. Bates, 53; Collinson, Som. i. p. xxxviii. Originally known by the surname ‘de Cothelstone’, the family had adopted the name ‘de Stawell’ by the thirteenth century, and sent various of its members to Parliament from the early fifteenth century. By the early 1600s the Stawells had acquired one of the largest estates in the county, centred on the ‘fair and ancient house’ at Cothelstone, seven miles north of Taunton. They also owned land in Devon, Dorset and Wiltshire.25Gerard’s Description ed. Bates, 53; Som. RO, DD/SAS/N/49; CCC 1427-30. This wealth provided a stable base from which the Stawells could resist the vagaries of heredity. The deaths of Sir John Stawell and his son and heir (also Sir John) in close succession during 1603-4 left the inheritance in the hands of the infant John Stawell, who became a royal ward.26Som. RO, DD/SAS/N/49; Stawell, Quantock Fam. 78-82. Stawell, who spelled his name thus, was sent to Oxford at the age of 16.27SP23/119, p. 853; Al. Ox. In 1617 he was married to an heiress, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Hext, whose Somerset seat at Netherham was 15 miles west of Cothelstone. On Sir Edward’s death in 1624, the Hext fortune was united with that of the Stawells, and the young John Stawell became one of the richest landowners in Somerset.28Collinson, Som. iii. 445.

Once he was of age, Stawell took his rightful place among the highest ranks of Somerset society. He served as a justice of the peace from April 1621; was made a knight of the bath on the coronation of Charles I in 1626; became deputy lieutenant of Somerset in the same year; and was appointed sheriff of the county in 1628.29Stawell, Quantock Fam. 84; QS Recs. Som. James I, 287; Collinson, Som. i. p. xxxviii. During this period, Stawell struck a local alliance with John Poulett† (created Lord Poulett in 1627), and through him gained the favour of the 1st duke of Buckingham.30CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 445; 1625-49, p. 259. Though eminent, Stawell was also hot-headed, and in the 1620s (with the encouragement of the Pouletts) he became involved in the local factionalism which centred on another Somerset grandee, Sir Robert Phelips†. Originally, Stawell was courted by Phelips, who tried to encourage the young man to join him as candidate for Somerset in the Parliament of 1625. Yet, despite expressions of ‘mutual assurance of affection and gratitude’ and the success of both men in securing county seats, this alliance broke down soon afterwards, with Phelips accusing Stawell of aggressive behaviour towards the sheriff.31Som. RO, DD/PH/223, ff. 256, 272. When Stawell stood again in the county election in 1628 he was defeated by the Phelips faction, and in 1629 he was imprisoned and fined for his misdemeanours four years earlier.32HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 430-1.

There had been hopes of reconciliation between Stawell and Phelips at the very end of the 1620s, but any subsequent truce was short-lived.33CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 120. In 1633, Stawell supported the efforts of Sir Ralph Hopton*, Alexander Popham* and other Somerset MPs in opposing the Laudian Book of Sports.34CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 350. Phelips, a strong supporter of Archbishop William Laud and William Pierce, the Laudian bishop of Bath and Wells, in the 1630s, was conspicuous by his absence from the justices’ petition, and this may indicate that his rivalry with Stawell and his friends had acquired a religious dimension, although it is conceivable that Stawell supported the puritan line merely to undermine his rival.35Som. RO, DD/PH/221, ff. 38, 43v, 45. In 1637 the quarrel between the two men reached its height, when Phelips, who had served as sheriff in 1635-6, was accused of over-charging the hundred of Tintinhull for his own benefit.36CSP Dom. 1637, p. 98. Stawell petitioned the privy council against Phelips in early May 1637, and although the accusation was dismissed, further charges were soon levelled.37Som. RO, DD/PH/223, ff. 137-40, 149, 163-4. Phelips was in no doubt that the complaints had been occasioned ‘to satisfy the humour and spleen of Sir John Stawell’, and he also suspected that Stawell’s ally, Lord Poulett, was involved.38Som. RO, DD/PH/223, f. 264. At the end of May the king and council intervened. Stawell was warned that only his previous service to the crown had saved him from censure, and both parties were ordered to bury their differences.39CSP Dom. 1637, p. 133. This warning was effective, but only because Sir Robert Phelips died in 1638, and his son, Edward*, could not command the factional support necessary to carry on the feud.

The removal of his main local rival allowed Stawell to re-assert his position in county affairs, and in the Long Parliament elections for Somerset in October 1640 he was returned as knight of the shire with the son of Lord Poulett, Sir John Poulett. Stawell’s activities in this Parliament can be divided into two parts. In November and December 1640 he supported the attack on the unpopular bishop of Bath and Wells. The Somerset petition against the bishop was presented to the House of Commons by Stawell on 26 November, and he was first-named to the committee appointed on 12 December to consider the same petition and the complaints of the puritan parish of Beckington near Taunton.40D’Ewes (N), 542; CJ ii. 50a. Later in December, when the Commons discussed the impeachment of various officers of state, Stawell was at pains to include the bishop in their number, and on 24 December he provided information about the implementation of the Laudian Book of Sports in the diocese – an innovation which he had opposed in 1633.41Northcote Note Bk. 101, 111. Stawell’s second concern in 1640-1 was the disbandment of the northern armies and the security of the kingdom against the threat of army and Catholic plots. In November 1640 he had agreed to stand surety for £1,000 of the City’s loan to pay the army in the north; on 10 May 1641 he took the Protestation; on 2 July he was named to a committee to secure compensation for the northern counties who had suffered billeting since the previous summer; and on 15 July he was appointed to a committee for drafting a bill to regulate the militia.42D’Ewes (N), 52; CJ ii. 141a, 196a, 212b.

Despite his opposition to Laudian innovation and his fear of plots within the royal army, by the summer of 1642 Stawell had become the king’s leading supporter in Somerset. The reasons for this apparent change of heart are unclear, but his absence from Parliament after July 1641 may indicate a reluctance to countenance the ‘further reformation’ which ‘Pym’s junto’ were intent on pursuing. The influence of Stawell’s friends from the 1620s and 1630s, and especially of the future royalists Lord Poulett and Sir Ralph Hopton, must also be taken into account. By the end of July 1642, Stawell’s absence from Parliament had been noted with suspicion, and he was included in a list of west country Members summoned to attend the House, along with Sir John Poulett (the peer’s son), Thomas Smyth I, Sir Edward Rodney and Sir John Strangways.43CJ ii. 685b. Parliament’s suspicions were well founded, for Stawell, with Hopton, Lord Poulett and his son, Rodney and others, had already been appointed commissioners of array for Somerset by the king.44Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. The attempt by this group, led by the marquess of Hertford, to execute the commission at Wells in August 1642, faced robust opposition from the Somerset parliamentarians. On 8 August John Pyne* alerted the Commons that the royalists had mustered, and immediate orders were issued for their apprehension. Soon afterwards, John Ashe* reported that Pyne had been arrested by Stawell and his sons at Shepton Mallet.45PJ, iii. 286-7; CJ ii. 708b, 711b; LJ v. 279a. Later in August, Stawell was condemned for high treason, and impeachment proceedings against him were conducted in the Lords during September.46CJ ii. 745a; LJ v. 360a. By this time, the royalist commissioners had been forced to retreat towards Sherborne Castle in Dorset, stopping at Stawell’s house at Cothelstone en route.47Add. 18777, f. 11v; Harl. 163, f. 390. Stawell signed a justification of the royalist activities in Somerset on 23 September, and shortly afterwards the small force divided, Hertford making for Wales while Hopton journeyed west into Cornwall.48A Declaration made by the Lord Marquesse of Hertford (1642) (E.118.31).

Stawell remained a firm supporter of the king’s cause throughout the first civil war, and became known as a man who had ‘from the beginning ... heartily and personally engaged himself and his children for the king’, and as one who was ‘in the first form of those who had made themselves obnoxious to the Parliament’.49Clarendon, Hist. iii. 78. In a later remonstrance to Parliament, Stawell outlined his military career. After attending Hertford at Wells, he had remained with the marquess, who had appointed him governor of Taunton once Somerset had been regained for the king in June 1643. At the same time, Stawell had been granted commissions to raise regiments of horse and foot and a detachment of dragoons. Stawell had commanded Taunton until June 1644, when he was discharged by Prince Maurice, and had then gone to Bristol. In June 1645, while his regiment defended Bridgwater against the advance of the New Model army led by Sir Thomas Fairfax*, Stawell had left Bristol and fled to Exeter, where he had remained until the royalist garrison surrendered in April 1646.50Remonstrance of Sir John Stawell, 3, 12-15, 21-2; Stawell, Quantock Fam. 92-3.

A military man rather than a politician, Stawell spent little time at the royalist court at Oxford. Although he attended the king as part of Hertford’s entourage in January 1643 (when he received two honorary degrees from the university), Stawell did not sit in the Oxford Parliament, instead being listed as ‘one employed in his majesty’s service’.51Al. Ox.; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 575. The closest he came to acting as a courtier was in 1645, when he was appointed to the council for the western associated counties under Prince Charles.52Clarendon, Hist. iii. 505. Stawell’s service in the army and the prince’s council was hampered by his bad temper. In August 1643 the king was concerned to compose ‘personal differences’ which had arisen between Stawell and John Coventry*, which ‘drew the whole country into factions’; furthermore, in April 1645 Stawell argued with the rest of the prince’s advisers over policy decisions, and later that year issued a number of bitter complaints to the prince against Sir Francis Mackworth, the governor of Langport.53Clarendon, Hist. iii. 146n; iv. 21, 53.

The fall of Exeter in April 1646 marked the end of Stawell’s military career and the beginning of his political problems. Stawell travelled to London in early July 1646 to compound on the Exeter articles, which had been negotiated by Fairfax in the previous spring. Yet, on his application to compound at Goldsmiths’ Hall, Stawell was refused, and was immediately arrested. The official line was that he had failed to appear before Parliament until after the expiry of the limitation period specified at Exeter, and had then refused to sign the Covenant – for which offences he was indicted for high treason before the Commons on 18 August.54CCC 1425; CJ iv. 647b-8a. But in later petitions, Stawell vigorously denied that he had delayed submitting, and protested that the Exeter articles merely required him to agree to relinquish his support for the king, and did not make taking the Covenant compulsory.55The Humble Petition of Sir John Stawell (n.d., c.1655), 1-2 (E.1072.1). Stawell also attributed his treatment at Westminster to the malice of a coterie of west country Parliamentarians, especially John Ashe and John Stephens* (who wielded great influence at Goldsmiths’ Hall), claiming that ‘all my wrongs and sufferings have flown from Mr Ashe his construction of my petition to be a remonstrance, and that therein I had refused the Parliament’s mercy, and put a contempt upon the authority of Parliament; and from Mr [John] Stephens his report’.56Remonstrance of Sir John Stawell, 27-8. Stawell also alleged that Ashe coveted his Somerset estates, and, during his confinement by the House had even offered to purchase lands at Aubrey at a great discount.57Remonstrance of Sir John Stawell, 28.

Stawell’s accusations were retrospective and emotive, but may contain an element of truth. John Ashe and his local ally, John Pyne, had already come into conflict with Stawell over the commission of array in 1642, and after Stawell’s arrival in London in 1646 (but before his case came before the Committee for Compounding) the Commons issued an order allowing Ashe and others £10,920 for ‘engagements and disbursements of the state’, from the estates of Stawell and others.58CCC 43. Similar vested interests were brought into the legal proceedings against Stawell at an early stage. Once he had been arrested, the Commons directed the case to the Somerset assize justices, who were instructed to indict him ‘for levying war against the king, kingdom and Parliament’.59Som. RO, DD/HI, unfol.: HC orders of 18 and 22 Aug. 1646. The judicial system in Somerset had long been dominated by Pyne and his friends on the county committee.60D. Underdown, Som. in the Civil War and Interregnum (Newton Abbot, 1973), 121-37. With Ashe standing to gain from a guilty verdict, and his friends conducting the trial, Stawell was perhaps right to be suspicious.

Stawell’s refusal to co-operate in taking the oaths before Parliament in August 1646 would cost him dear. His case was shuffled round the local assize sessions in 1647, where a variety of his enemies, including the townsmen of Taunton (a hotbed of parliamentarian sympathy), were given their say.61Remonstrance of Sir John Stawell, 30-2. Having kept Stawell a close prisoner for two years, in October 1648 Parliament decided that his case should be resurrected, under the oversight of the new solicitor-general, Edmund Prideaux I*, who was an ally of both Ashe and Pyne in the west country.62CJ vi. 53a. During the proceedings against the king the proceedings against Stawell were interrupted, but in March 1649 the Commons debated whether Stawell should join his royal master in being tried for his life.63CJ vi. 164a; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 39. Indeed, Stawell had the dubious honour of being one of only two prisoners exempted from the general commutation of sentences.64CJ vi. 165a. Further delays ensued, but in September 1649 authorisation was given for Stawell’s estates to be sequestered, with £7,000 set aside to compensate the town of Taunton for its losses in the 1640s.65CJ vi. 291b. In June 1650 Stawell’s case was again brought to Parliament’s attention, following suggestions that he and other prisoners should be sent before the high court of justice, in retaliation for the murder of two diplomatic envoys, Anthony Ascham and Isaac Dorislaus, by royalist agents on the continent.66CSP Dom. 1650, p. 220; CJ vi. 434a. The act authorising the trial was passed in July, Stawell was transferred to the Tower, and in December Ashe was called before the court to give evidence.67CJ vi. 437b, 438b, 511a; CCC 1427; SP23/119, p. 877. After six months of deliberation, the high court of justice submitted its report to Parliament in June 1651, finding Stawell guilty of treason, but declining to pass sentence on the grounds that his submission under the Exeter articles had indeed been valid.68CJ vi. 569a, 585b-6a.

The decision of the high court of justice may have suspended proceedings against Stawell, but he was not set free, and his estates were still held under sequestration. Indeed, shortly after the court announced its findings, Stawell’s lands were incorporated into the act for the sale of delinquent estates, which was finalised in September 1651.69CJ vii. 21a. The dispersal of Stawell’s estates, which had been eagerly awaited by the Somerset parliamentarians, now proceeded, but not without opposition.70SP23/119, pp. 863-7. From 1652, Stawell’s case became involved in a much wider political contest between Parliament and the army. The New Model had become increasingly frustrated with Parliament’s willingness to subvert the various articles of war for its own gain, as this detracted from the army’s honour. Stawell became something of test case once the high court of justice had admitted the validity of his claim under the Exeter articles. The initiative came from Stawell himself: he had already (perhaps as early as 1649) complained to Fairfax, seeking redress ‘from your excellency whose honour particularly and personally and the honour and faith of the army in general is concerned to have them made good’.71Stawell, Quantock Fam. 385-7. On 14 October 1652 Stawell renewed his efforts to involve the army in his case, petitioning the commissioners for relief upon articles of war, asking to compound under those of Exeter. The following day (15 Oct.) the commissioners found in Stawell’s favour, and certified this decision.72Humble Petition of Sir John Stawell, 11.

The purchasers of the estate seem to have taken fright at the army’s support of Stawell. They petitioned Parliament in early 1653 and the case was considered during the last months of the Rump, amid growing fears that the act for sale of all delinquent estates would prove unworkable.73CJ vii. 246b, 262a. The Nominated Assembly took up the same cause in the late summer and autumn of 1653, pushing through legislation to ensure that former decisions concerning the Stawell estate would not be invalidated by new orders, and the act confirming the sale of the estate was passed on 13 October 1653.74CJ vii. 296b, 301a, 310a-b, 320a, 328a, 334b. Throughout this period, Stawell sought the support of the army factions which was becoming increasingly opposed to the Nominated Assembly for other reasons. On 10 August, he again petitioned the committee of the articles (as well as Parliament and the Committee for Compounding) complaining of his treatment.75SP23/119, p. 853; Somers Tracts, vi. 32-6. Upon investigation, on 5 October the Committee for Compounding found in Stawell’s favour, advising that he should be discharged on the payment of £1,986.76CCC 1426-7. Parliament’s reversal of this decision barely a week later was seen as typical of its high-handed attitude towards the army. One London newsletter-writer identified Oliver Cromwell* as a supporter of Stawell as early as the summer of 1653, and Edmund Ludlowe II* was certain that the demise of the Nominated Assembly was largely because ‘they had not a frame of spirit to do justice, which they would have made out by their not relieving Sir John Stawell, when he made application to them’.77CCSP ii. 228; Ludlow, Mems. i. 366-7. Cromwell’s dissolution of the Parliament seems to have been in direct response to complaints from the court of articles, Sir William Brereton* and others, of the Nominated Assembly’s ‘want of effectual justice’ and demands that the army’s honour should be vindicated by Stawell’s reinstatement.78Humble Petition of Sir John Stawell, 12; SP23/226, pp. 331-2. The irony of New Model officers justifying an unrepentant royalist cannot have been lost on contemporaries.

The accession of Cromwell as protector brought new expectations that Stawell would be released and his estates would be returned. In March 1654 Sir Edward Hyde* had suspicions that Cromwell was trying to reconcile former enemies to the new regime, starting with Stawell.79CCSP ii. 323. Stawell repeatedly petitioned the Committee for Compounding from February 1654, asking that the decision of the court of articles be upheld, and his estate returned, but the committee would only allow him to claim back land which had not already been sold.80CCC 1427-8. He also badgered the court of articles directly, urging them to force the compounding committee to abide by the earlier ruling.81SP23/119, p. 885. Yet, although the Instrument of Government had decreed that the orders of the court of the articles were to be upheld, the 1653 act of sale was not rendered void. In a sop to Stawell, he was granted an allowance of £6 a week in September 1654, but he remained incarcerated in the Tower.82CCC 1427-8. In November 1654 the first protectorate Parliament considered Stawell’s complaints, but no decision was reached.83CJ vii. 380b, 381a, 382b. The protectoral council proved equally ineffectual, and in 1656 was forced to intervene only when the purchasers of the estate complained about Stawell’s ‘scandalous petition’ (asserting his rights) against them.84CSP Dom. 1654, p. 162; 1655, p. 198; 1656-7, p. 30. Although the 1656 Parliament considered Stawell’s case, the issue was again set aside, and Stawell remained in prison until a few weeks before the Restoration.85CJ vii. 508a, 510b, 516b.

Stawell was released in the spring of 1660, and was among the gentry who attended Charles II on his entry into London on 29 May of that year.86Stawell, Quantock Fam. 99. He immediately set about regaining his estates, which had been out of his hands for over 14 years. In July 1660 he petitioned the House of Lords asking that the rights of the purchasers of the 1650s be annulled, and that he should be returned to full possession. The issue was contested through August before a restitution was effected.87HMC 7th Rep. 98, 122, 276. Elected to sit for Somerset in April 1661, Stawell took his seat, but the strains of imprisonment had taken their toll. He died in February 1662, aged 62, having already settled his personal and landed estate by earlier deeds agreed with his son and executor, George Stawell.88PROB11/307/1. His request that he might be ‘decently buried’ at Cothelstone was translated into an almost theatrical event, with representatives from the major gentry families, the bailiffs of all his manors, four heralds and pursuivants and at least nine clergymen attending the cortege as it processed through Langport, Taunton and Lydeard on its way to the parish church at Cothelstone.89Som. RO, DD/CM/51, C/134a; HMC 5th Rep. 316. Despite his opposition to Laudian ‘innovation’ during the 1630s, Stawell’s funeral was conducted with all high Anglican pomp of the newly re-established Church of England, with the communion table taking pride of place, ‘set to the east end of the chancel and covered with black’.90Add. 32094, f. 9.

An irascible and proud man, Stawell had quarrelled his way through the 1620s, 1630s, and 1640s, and he himself must bear most of the blame for his later misfortunes at the hands of Parliament. Although there were many in Somerset who were jealous of his wealth, and some who were happy to assist in his downfall, Stawell’s stubborn refusal to submit to the victors in 1646 was the true cause of his imprisonment and the ruin of his estates. Stawell would never admit his failings. According to David Lloyd, writing after the Restoration, he would lecture others about eirenicism, for ‘he would say he learned patience himself by looking at the inconvenience of impatience and anger in others’.91D. Lloyd, Worthies of the World (1665), cited in Stawell, Quantock Fam. 102. The details of his career suggest otherwise.