GLYNNE, John (1603-66), of Westminster and Henley Park, Surr.

Despite their long pedigree, the Glynnes of Glynllifon did not sit in the House of Commons until 1624, when John’s elder brother Thomas was returned for Caernarvonshire. Their mother’s family, the Griffiths of Caernarfon (a cadet branch of the Griffiths of Penrhyn) had often represented the local boroughs in the past. It was presumably Thomas, rather than John, on whose behalf their father tried to obtain a place in the 1st duke of Buckingham’s retinue in 1617, as at that time John was a fourteen-year-old at Westminster School.76Cal. Wynn Pprs. 128; Keeler, Long Parl. 187. John Glynne followed his brother to Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn, and he was called to the bar in 1628. A resident of Westminster, Glynne was advising the parish of St Margaret’s on legal matters, including Ship Money, by the mid-1630s.77Oxford DNB; J.F. Merritt, The Social World of Early Modern Westminster (2005), 16. He was appointed deputy steward of Westminster by the 4th earl of Pembroke in January 1636, and in August 1638, at Pembroke’s request, he was granted the reversion of the custos brevium of common pleas, during the lives of the earl’s two sons.78Rec. Old Westminsters, i. 377; Coventry Docquets, 206. Glynne was appointed to the sewers commissions for Westminster in 1637 and Middlesex in 1638 and by the new year of 1639 was arbitrating local disputes.79C181/5, ff. 81, 115; CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 351, 516. In the elections for the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640 he was returned for Caernarvon Boroughs, where John Griffith I* procured his election.80HMC 4th Rep., 24; CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 522. He was also a successful candidate at Westminster, probably with Pembroke’s backing, even though his rivals included two noted opponents of the crown, and it was thought that they would gain the most support among the electorate, having ‘least relation to the court, for the stream runs that way’.81HEHL, EL7825; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 235, 236.

The Short Parliament

Although he was a newcomer to the Commons, Glynne was probably made chairman of the committee of the whole House for grievances on 16 April, and was added to the committee of privileges the following day.82Aston’s Diary, 5; CJ ii. 4b. He soon became a leading critic of the crown’s policies, including religious affairs: on 20 April he reminded the House that the ecclesiastical courts were not within the jurisdiction of the common law; as Member for Westminster he was required to arrange for and scrutinise the taking of communion by MPs on 25 April; on the same day he was credited with a caveat against the inclusion of clergy in the commission of the peace; and on 1 May he was named to the committee for the ecclesiastical courts bill.83Aston’s Diary, 60, 149; CJ ii. 9b, 12a. Glynne’s overriding concern was, however, the illegal conduct of the regime, especially over Ship Money. On 23 April he reported from the committee for grievances that Ship Money was one of the greatest abuses ever committed by a monarch.84CJ ii. 9b; Procs. Short Parl. 222. He elaborated on this on 24 April, arguing that ‘the word legality’ ought to be avoided, as ‘we put a disadvantage on ourselves’: the main point was not that due process had been abused but the ‘grievance in the execution’.85Aston’s Diary, 56. Consistent with this, he was in favour of hearing the king’s counsel on the legality of Ship Money on 30 April.86Aston’s Diary, 105. Glynne’s underlying point was that Ship Money was an extra-parliamentary tax that encroached on the privilege of the Commons. His concern for the wider issue of privilege had already been apparent on 18 April, when, in the debate on the proceedings on the last day of the 1628 Parliament, he seconded the proposal to arrive at a clear account of that momentous episode; and on 20 April he suggested that the then Speaker’s conduct in vacating the chair, and the king’s personal responsibility for the debacle, be investigated further.87Aston’s Diary, 14, 17, 19-20.

The raising of tax was the most effective lever the Commons could use against the king, and Glynne was determined that as much pressure should be brought to bear as possible, asking the House on 23 April ‘whether we should grant supply till some eminent dangers were relieved’. He denied that this was an affront to the king, ‘for the king, he said, looked not for a full plenary supply, not we now for a perfect relief’, and, in a conciliatory gesture, ‘desired the honourable persons near the chair to acquaint the king that the House was ready for supply, only wished their grievances first’.88Procs. Short Parl. 171-2; Aston’s Diary, 40. On 27 April Glynne supported John Pym* and Sir Walter Erle* in their protest against the resolution of the Lords that the subsidy to the king should come before grievances, saying of the Lords’ response that ‘I will not say [it] breaks the privilege, but treads on the heel of it very close’, and might be considered ‘a bending of privilege’.89Aston’s Diary, 69; Procs. Short Parl., 179. In debate on 2 May he reiterated his resolve that ‘some things must be taken away ere we go to any supply’, including whatever religious grievances had already been resolved, and as far as the ‘property of the subject’ was concerned, certainly Ship Money, and possibly coat and conduct money, even though it had not yet been debated; and he also cautioned against the House feeling obliged to give a ‘categorical answer’ whether they would furnish supply.90Aston’s Diary, 126-7. As the last point suggests, Glynne’s opposition to the crown was tempered by his concern not to allow the Commons to be out-manoeuvred. This can also be seen in his final contribution to this Parliament, on 4 May: when the Commons was confronted with the royal suggestion of 12 subsidies in return for the abandonment of Ship Money, Glynne questioned John Hampden’s call for a clear vote for or against Ship Money, as it risked a ‘flat denial’ to the king or, equally damaging, a ‘long debate’ that would split the House.91Aston’s Diary, 136, 142.

The opening of the Long Parliament, Nov. 1640-Mar. 1641

Glynne was again returned for Westminster in the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640. He was named for the committee of privileges on 6 November, and the following day he was appointed to the committee to peruse the records of the House and report on their condition.92CJ ii. 21a, 21b. As a Westminster MP, on 9 November Glynne was detailed to prepare St Margaret’s Church for Members to take their oaths.93CJ ii. 24a. In the months that followed, Glynne was keen to pursue the grievances that had tabled by the Short Parliament, and to pursue those individuals who had been behind the abuses. His approach was, however, tempered with caution, as he wanted the charges to stick. For instance, in debate on 12 November he wished to know who informed the king of the details of the debate concerning his secretary of state, Sir Francis Windebanke*, who was under accusation in the House.94D’Ewes (N), 32. The cases soon accumulated: on 16 November Glynne was named for the committee to investigate allegations against William Watkins* and other monopolists, and on 21 November he was appointed to the committee to consider charges against Sir Henry Spiller†.95CJ ii. 30a, 33b. In December, Glynne was appointed to the committees to investigate the illegal taking of coat and conduct money in Leicestershire (14 Dec.), and to consider breaches of privilege in the last two Parliaments (18 Dec.).96CJ ii. 50b, 53b. On 30 December he was named to the committee on a bill for the holding of annual Parliaments, and on 12 February 1641 he was manager of a conference on the bill for triennial Parliaments that replaced it.97CJ ii. 60a, 83b. In January he was involved in committees to consider the cases of the lord keeper, Sir Edward Littleton* (4 Jan.) and the prisoners in the serjeant’s custody (16 Jan.), and he continued to support proceedings against Windebanke. But there were limits: on 12 February he was among the lawyers in the House who ‘could not conceive’ that the judge, Sir Robert Berkeley†, should be impeached for high treason, and doubted whether malicious intention could ever be proved against him.98CJ ii. 62a, 69a; D’Ewes (N), 327, 354. Glynne was also named to the committee to review the administration of the customs (24 Feb.), but in debate on abuses within the system a few weeks later he disagreed with Pym, who wished six merchants accused of exporting bullion to be sent for ‘upon a bare information’.99CJ ii. 92a; D’Ewes (N), 497n. On 2 March he was given responsibility for Spiller’s case, which would be considered by the committee on Secretary Windebanke, chaired by Glynne.100CJ ii. 95a. On 10 March he questioned the bishops’ right to sit in the Lords, emphasising that the clergy were already represented in Convocation represented the parochial clergy, and the bishops could only enjoy the lesser status of barons.101D’Ewes (N), 469.

Amid the mass of business, four issues seem to have been of particular importance to Glynne in the first five months of the Long Parliament. The first was the need to come to an honourable settlement with the Scots, whose army had occupied the north of England since the summer of 1640. Glynne’s pro-Scottish attitude was obvious as early as 10 November 1640, when he joined Denzil Holles in calling Sir William Withrington to task for describing the Scots as ‘rebels’.102D’Ewes (N), 20. Glynne’s interest in Scottish affairs developed rapidly over the next few weeks. On 19 November he was named to the committee to prepare the subsidy bill, and moved for exemption certificates to prevent one man being ‘rated in several places’; the following day he was a reporter of a conference with the Lords on Anglo-Scottish affairs.103CJ ii. 31b, 32b; D’Ewes (N), 44. Glynne was reporter of conferences about the Scottish treaty on 2 and 12 January and 11 February.104CJ ii. 62a, 67a, 83a. He also reported the Lords’ amendments to the subsidy bill on 6 January, and was one of 6 MPs chosen to review progress and prepare for another conference on 5 March.105CJ ii. 80a, 97a. He reported a further conference with the Lords on relations with the Scots on 9 March.106CJ ii. 100a.

Glynne’s second concern was the state of the Church of England. Glynne was more cautious than many of his colleagues, warning the House on 21 November that summoning the Laudian divine, Dr John Cosin, might infringe on the privilege of the Convocation.107D’Ewes (N), 50. There was no doubting Glynne’s commitment to church reform, however. On 25 November he supported the complaint of the godly parishioners of St Gregory’s by St Paul’s, whose church had been demolished by order of privy council.108CJ ii. 36a; D’Ewes (N), 65. In a major speech of 26 November against the 17 Canons promulgated by Convocation, he maintained that canon law could not have the binding force of the common law, and that this was the case even before Henry VIII’s statute requiring it to respect the royal prerogative and existing laws and customs. He concluded that these new Canons could have no force ‘without consent’ of Parliament, and were thus ‘utterly illegal’.109D’Ewes (N), 70-1. Glynne’s pursuit of abuses within the church continued in December. On 1 December he was added to the committee to consider the case of one of Archbishop Laud’s most notorious victims, Dr Alexander Leighton, and on 9 December he was named to the committee to inquire into the new Canons of the church.110CJ ii. 41a, 48a. A week later he was named to the committee to prepare the indictment of Laud as instigator of the Canons.111CJ ii. 52a. On 17 December he was chosen to examine the petition of another of Laud’s opponents, Dr John Bastwick, and on 19 December he was appointed to a committee to consider demands for more preaching ministers.112CJ ii. 52b, 54b. By this time, Glynne had renewed his involvement in church affairs. On 12 February he was ordered to attend the committee on the new Canons, on 23 February he was appointed to the committee to consider proceedings against the bishop of Norwich, and in early March he was named to committees on bills to disable the clergy from lay office and to prevent them from holding multiple livings.113CJ ii. 84a, 91a, 99a, 100b.

Thirdly, Glynne evidently shared with his parliamentary colleagues an abiding fear of Catholicism. As burgess for Westminster, he was included in the committee to inquire into recusancy in the London area (appointed on 9 Nov.), and on 23 November he reported the examination of John James, a Catholic who had stabbed a Westminster magistrate, concluding that the perpetrator was ‘a distracted fellow and a fit instrument of mischief’; he was later included on the committee to consider forfeiting James’s property.114CJ ii. 24b, 128b; D’Ewes (N), 55. On 28 November his report from the committee on recusancy exposed the inadequacy of the current proclamation expelling Catholics from the metropolis.115CJ ii. 38b. On 1 December, in a further report from the recusancy committee, Glynne provided information about the lack of enforcement of the laws against Catholics, and he handed in a petition from St Giles-in-the-Fields complaining of the ‘increase of popery’ in Westminster.116CJ ii. 41a; D’Ewes (N), 89, 91. On 10 December he reported on the activities of the committees appointed ‘to search out the number of recusants about London and Westminster’.117D’Ewes (N), 133. On 23 January he was named to a committee to prepare the heads of a conference on the king’s reprieve of a Catholic priest, John Goodman, and the following day he reported their conclusion that the Lords should ‘mediate with his majesty for the execution of this priest, and for the banishment of the rest’.118CJ ii. 72a; D’Ewes (N), 279. He returned to the theme on 26 January, when he ‘made a large relation’ to the House about the pardoning of Goodman and other Catholic priests and Jesuits for treason under the recusancy laws.119CJ ii. 73b, 74a; D’Ewes (N), 286. The next day he told the House of the urgent need for a conference with the Lords on the Goodman case and the recusant problem generally; the heads for the conference were then drawn up and Glynne took them to the upper House, where they were well received.120D’Ewes (N), 289, 292, 294. On 5 February he persuaded Members to include in the charges against Secretary Windebanke the granting of licences to Catholics to study in seminaries overseas.121D’Ewes (N), 327.

Glynne’s fourth major concern was the need to hold the king’s chief minister, the 1st earl of Strafford, to account. Once again, his approach to this was cautious and legalistic. On 11 November, for example, he questioned Oliver St John’s* statement that the bishops must not take part in the trial, as this was ‘an entrenchment on the privileges of the upper House’.122D’Ewes (N), 30n. Despite his diffidence, Glynne soon became one of Strafford’s most trenchant opponents. On 19 November he was named to a committee to search the records of attainder in king’s bench in anticipation of Strafford’s trial.123CJ ii. 31b. He supported Pym’s demand, made on 28 November, that the Commons be represented at Strafford’s trial, and on the same day he was one of the MPs chosen to prepare the case for this and to put it to the Lords.124D’Ewes (N), 80; CJ ii. 39a-b. On 18 February he was named to a committee to examine the role of the Commons in the impeachment proceedings, on 22 February he reported the committee’s wish for a conference with the Lords about Strafford’s trial, with an agreed agenda, and on 23 February he reported the lord keeper’s answer concerning it.125D’Ewes (N), 374, 388; CJ ii. 88b, 90a, 91b. On 27 February he urged the House to decide what part its members might play in the proceedings, and on 15 March he was one of those chosen by the House to stage manage the trial in Westminster Hall.126D’Ewes (N), 415n, 489n. On 18 March he was added to the committee of 12 which would monitor its progress.127CJ ii. 107a.

The Strafford trial, March-April 1641

Glynne’s name was made by the Strafford trial. He was one of four managers of the prosecution, alongside John Maynard*, Bulstrode Whitelocke* and Geoffrey Palmer*, and over the weeks of the trial became a thorn in the flesh for Strafford, who said Glynne and Maynard treated him with the severity of advocates, while Palmer and Whitelocke behaved like gentlemen.128Whitelocke, Mems. i. 124. Glynne was added to the committee on Strafford on 18 March, and between 25 and 30 March he led the prosecution team, introducing the early articles, which dealt with abuses in the government of Ireland, including such notorious cases as those of the 1st earl of Cork and Lord Mountnorris.129LJ iv. 199b-202a; CJ ii. 107a; Procs. LP iii. 120-219; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 121. The thrust of Glynne’s argument was that Strafford had intended to impose ‘arbitrary government’ upon Ireland by encouraging the king to think ‘as a conqueror, [he] might put what laws upon them he would’.130Procs. LP iii. 139, 144; Baillie, Letters and Journals, i. 323, 325. He was keen to prevent the earl from causing delays or complications, opposing requests for more witnesses, objecting to his ‘impertinences’ in asking for precedents to be researched, and insisting that representative cases should be discussed, ‘though we could produce 40 other examples at the least’.131Procs. LP iii. 140-1, 164, 193. In early April Glynne assisted his colleagues in their attacks on Strafford, and on 5 April he objected to the earl’s attempt to separate out articles 20-23, which had been presented to him altogether, with the withering comment that ‘it was never seen that a prisoner at the bar, especially charged with high treason, should direct how the evidence against him should be managed’.132Procs. LP iii. 247-335, 368-9; Baillie, Letters and Journals, i. 340. On the same day, Glynne accused Strafford of flouting his oath ‘to give the king faithful counsel’, by advising such an outrageous course of action, although he hastened to add that ‘we have so gracious a king that he could not do so’. 133Procs. LP iii. 375, 387. On 8 April he moved for the evidence to be summed up, and on 9 April he was appointed as one of Pym’s two assistants in managing the conference with the Lords about the trial.134LJ iv. 210a; CJ ii. 117b.

On 10 April Glynne reported to the Commons from the committee on Strafford, and on the same day he again took the lead in the impeachment proceedings, calling as a witness Sir Henry Vane II*, who provided crucial new evidence of the earl’s intention to bring an Irish army to subjugate England.135CJ ii. 118a; LJ iv. 212a; Procs. LP iii. 487, 496. This revelation caused consternation. On 12 April Glynne reported the conference with the Lords, and gave the Commons a ‘narrative’ of how Vane II had come by this new evidence.136CJ ii. 120a; Procs. LP iii. 509, 515. Whitelocke thought Glynne and Pym had done their best to ‘aggravate’ Strafford’s offences on this occasion, and the next day Glynne followed this up with a blistering attack designed to discredit the earl’s closing speech.137Whitelocke, Mems. i. 129; Verney Notes, 44; LJ iv. 215b. Strafford had ‘attempted to kill the laws, the fundamental laws of the kingdom’; he ‘arrogates authority to himself above the laws’; and ‘made the king think he was above the law’; he had plotted the dissolution of the Short Parliament and the renewal of war with the Scots, and hoped ‘to make the people begin to loath the crown, and the king hate his people’.138The Replication of Master Glyn (1641), 9-10, 12, 15-17 (E.207.10). Concerning the charge that Strafford had intended to bring the Irish army to Britain, Glynne was contemptuous: ‘he will say it was intended for Scotland; perhaps the king indeed intended it so, but his designs were for England’.139Procs. LP iii. 526. Glynne’s speech was long, systematic and exhausting - according to one observer, ‘the great length of the speech made him fag in the end’, and it was left to Pym to sum up - and however effective it was, the House moved to drop the impeachment proceedings in favour of a straightforward bill of attainder.140Baillie, Letters and Journals, i. 347-8; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 290. Glynne was named to committees to prepare a conference with the Lords on the attainder on 15 and 16 April, and secured the first reading of the bill in the Commons.141CJ ii. 120b, 122a. Procs. LP iii. 568. In debate on 19 April he assured the House that he was satisfied ‘in his conscience’ that Strafford was guilty, ‘and desired the question might be put touching the subversion of the common law to be treason’.142Procs. LP iv. 8, 13. He reported to the House the amendments to the bill of attainder on 21 April.143Procs. LP iv. 39, 41. When the bill was read for the third time on the same day, George Lord Digby mounted a last-ditch defence of Strafford which was ‘confuted’ by Glynne and others, with Glynne delivering another powerful speech against the earl

This door is marked, the plague is in that act, for it is a great crime to subvert the fundamental laws of this kingdom than to counterfeit the king’s coin or kill a judge exercising justice, nay, or to kill the king himself: for in subverting the laws he kills the king and his posterity forever.144Procs. LP iv. 46.

Glynne also denounced Digby, and upheld the attainder bill: ‘for any man to say [that] to create an act and then to take away the man’s life is against acts of Parliament … he is mistaken’.145Procs. LP iv. 46; Verney Notes, 57.

The army plot, Apr.-Sept. 1641

The period between the passing of the attainder and the execution of Strafford was one of great tension at Westminster, with rumours of plots among the king’s supporters to free the condemned man. Glynne was named to a committee to draft a protestation on 23 April, and the following day, after urging the Commons to consider ‘a petition of divers thousand citizens of London, by which among other things they desired the hastening of the execution’, he was appointed manager of the conference on the same business.146CJ ii. 127a, 127b; Procs. LP iv. 86-7; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 235. He was ordered with Maynard, his fellow prosecutor, to assist St John (as solicitor-general) in the conference to state the case against Strafford on 29 April.147Verney Notes, 60; Procs. LP iv. 127, 130-1; CJ ii. 136a. On 1 May he was one of four Members asked to retire and insert a clause in the subsidies bill to prevent its passage from terminating the session of Parliament.148CJ ii. 131b. On 3 May, after being named to the committee to promulgate the Protestation, he took it himself.149CJ ii. 132b, 133a. On 4 May he joined Serjeant John Wylde* in advising that Londoners might voluntarily take the Protestation, and was one of those asked to draft a preface for the printed copy of it on 5 May.150Procs. LP iv. 196. Glynne was also busy with a range of other business. He was named to a committee to review star chamber sentences on 4 May, the same day he was one of five Members directed to establish how many recusants were still to be found in and about London in defiance of proclamation, and he was appointed as reporter of conference with the Lords about the safety of the kingdom.151CJ ii. 134a, 134b. On 6 May he was named to the committee on a bill against recusants, and on 7 and 8 May he was reporter and manager of a conference on military matters and the securing of mariners for the defence of the realm.152CJ ii. 136b, 139a. He was reporter of the conference with the Lords about the treaty with Scotland on 10 May, and next day named for the committee to prepare a conference with the Lords about the future of the queen mother and the danger posed by tumults in London and elsewhere.153CJ ii. 141a, 143b. As the date for Strafford’s execution drew nearer, there were concerns for the safety of those involved in the trial, including Glynne. On 5 May, he had brought in and condemned a printed copy of Digby’s speech in defence of Strafford, and was named for a committee to investigate such unauthorised publications.154Procs. LP iv. 216. On 11 May the publication of Glynne’s own speech in answer to Strafford’s defence was suppressed, and the printer punished, and on 14 May, two days after the execution, Glynne was granted leave of absence ‘to go into the country’.155CJ ii. 142b; Procs. LP iv. 377, 383. The following day he reported from a conference on the Lords concerning ‘weighty affairs’.156CJ ii. 147b.

If Glynne did withdraw from the House it was not for long, as he was attending the Commons again by 20 May, when he was named to a committee to meet the Lords to arrange for the disbandment of the armies in the north.157CJ ii. 151b, 152a. The removal of the Scottish army was a particular concern for Glynne over the coming months. He was teller on 21 May, and again the next day, on divisions concerning article in the treaty with Scotland.158CJ ii. 153b, 154b. Mid-June he was a critic of the solicitor general’s argument that Scots ‘incendiaries’ were punishable in England for their offences, this having been the case ‘during the reigns of Edward I and Edward III’ only. As for the Scots remanding any English Members, on 19 June Glynne asserted that ‘he that spoke in Parliament spoke with authority legislative, and by virtue of that was free from any impeachment for words there i.e. words free for a man to speak: extends not to treason or blasphemy but to speak nonsense it is very free’.159Procs. LP v. 239, 242. During the same period Glynne resumed his support for religious reform, both locally and nationally. On 25 May he was named to the committee on a bill to make St Paul’s, Covent Garden, a separate parish, and on 17 June he was appointed to a similar committee to divide the parish of St Andrew’s, Holborn.160CJ ii. 156a, 177b. Glynne was also named to committees to answer the Lords’ objections to the bill abolishing bishops (3 June), to expedite the charges against Archbishop Laud (5 June), and to consider the Lords’ response to the case of one of the victims of Laudianism, Peter Smart (7 June).161CJ ii. 165a, 168b, 169a. Although Glynne supported moves against individuals, he was wary of undermining the property rights of the church more generally. On 15 June he opposed moves against deans and chapters, saying that ‘we could not take away their inheritances by a legislative power, for then we might as well take away a man’s estate from him that has £1,000 per annum or more’.162Procs. LP v. 168, 175. Nevertheless he spoke in favour of Parliament’s right to tax the clergy on 22 June, and on 24th he was added to the committee on the bill to punish scandalous clergy.163Procs. LP v. 280; CJ ii. 184b. Glynne still pressed for tighter controls on Catholics. On 26 May he was made a commissioner to tender the oaths of supremacy and allegiance to the Catholics of London, including such courtiers as Sir Kenelm Digby and Sir John Wintour.164Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 278; Procs. LP iv. 594; CJ ii. 158a. On the same day he was one of the commissioners appointed to administer the oath to recusants in Middlesex, and on 31 May he was one of three Members directed to urge the judges to proceed against offending recusants.165CJ ii. 158a, 161b; Procs. LP iv. 656, 658. The issue of recusancy reappeared on 30 June, when Glynne challenged the right of the privy council to handle such investigations – an opinion that led to a discussion of precedents with St John.166Procs. LP v. 424. He was appointed a commissioner of inquiry into arrears in recusant fines on 2 July, and on 9 July was one of the MPs instructed to investigate allegations that priests were being sheltered in the house of one Peter de Fountaine.167CJ ii. 197a, 204a. On 11 August Glynne joined Wylde and Pym in opposing the Lords’ request that the bishops should be charged with specific crimes, arguing that their authorship of the book of Canons was sufficient to condemn them, and he urged the Commons to stand by their former votes on the issue.168Procs. LP vi. 354-5, 347.

Concerns at the security risk posed by Catholics were linked with fears of violence against Parliament by hotheads in the king’s army. On 9 June Glynne asked the House to investigate allegations made against Lord Digby and Henry Wilmot*, in order to ‘vindicate the honour’ of George Goring*, who had revealed the existence of the army plot, ‘and free him from the aspersion had been laid upon him’.169Procs. LP v. 67. On 14 June he moved the detention of the leading three plotters, Henry Percy*, Henry Jermyn* and George Goring; and on 16 June, when Goring gave evidence, Glynne thought it was too general, and asked ‘to reduce in the reading to particulars’.170Procs. LP v. 136, 142, 195. He was one of the lawyers added on 28 June to the committee to prepare charges against the plotters.171CJ ii. 190b. He reported from the committee to investigate the army plot on 22 July, and was involved in the debate on its findings over the next two days, contributing further information about the role of Jermyn and Sir John Suckling*.172Verney Notes, 110; Procs. LP vi. 72, 84. Although other business intervened in the next fortnight, Glynne remained determined to bring the plotters to justice. On 12 August, when others argued that their offences did not amount to treason, he ‘did abundantly answer them, and showed where in like cases such intentions had been adjudged treason’, not least because it was a conspiracy ‘to compel the Parliament … and such a combustion must endanger the king’s person’.173Procs. LP vi. 376, 384.

Glynne was active in a variety of other matters during the early summer. He was appointed to a committee to review the arrangements for collection of customs and to uncover abuses by customers.174CJ ii. 154b. On 26 May he told the Commons of the nefarious activities of a consortium of vintners who had imposed a swingeing impost on wine; he headed the list of MPs appointed to a committee to examine the patent on wine imports; and he was authorised to draft a bill to punish the culprits.175CJ ii. 156b, 157a; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 277. Glynne had already been involved in this case in the previous November and December, when his report from the committee of grievances exposed the activities of this group of patentees, led by two London aldermen, William Abell and Rowland Wilson*.176CJ ii. 37a; D’Ewes (N), 73, 187. On 31 May, as part of his renewed investigations, Glynne encouraged the Commons to issue a warrant for the seizure of goods, including ‘two chests of plate and money’, hidden by Abell.177Procs. LP iv. 656, 658. Glynne was one of seven MPs ordered to retire and amend the tonnage and poundage bill on 10 June, and few days later he was again involved in business concerning wine prices.178CJ ii. 172b. He sat as chairman of the committee on the vintners’ conspiracy on 28 June and 20 July, reported its findings on 21 July and 13 August, and on 16 and 19 August was instructed to prepare a bill against them.179Procs. LP v. 226, 390; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 57, CJ ii. 218a-b, 257b, 264a.

Glynne’s involvement in the wine question was part of his wider concern to redress long-standing grievances against the crown. On 14 June he obtained leave to report on the breaches of privilege in 1628, although he did not deliver the report until 6 July.180Verney Notes, 102; Procs. LP v. 130, 136; CJ ii. 200b. On 19 June he was named to the committee on a bill to render Ship Money invalid.181CJ ii. 181b. On 26 June he was a manager of the conference with the Lords about abolishing the courts of star chamber and high commission; he reported the Lords’ alterations to the latter – ‘conceived to be the overthrow of the bill’ - on 28 June; and was named the same day for the committee to amend the bill on the star chamber.182Procs. LP v. 391; CJ ii. 189b, 191a, 192b. On 30 June and 1 July he was a reporter and manager of conferences with the Lords about the two bills.183Procs. LP v. 461, 465-7; CJ ii. 194a, 195a. Also in the summer Glynne was involved in moves to disband the king’s army in the north peacefully. He was named on 25 June to the committee to give directions about disbanding the army, and he was a manager and reporter of the conference with the Lords on the poll money and army disbandment bills on 1 and 2 July.184CJ ii. 188b, 193b, 195b. At the conference on the poll tax on 2 July, Glynne asserted the Commons’ right to set the rates but also acknowledged that the upper House had to give their assent, and was careful to emphasize ‘how tender the House of Commons were that they should no ways entrench upon the Lords’ privileges.185Procs. LP v. 461, 465-6. He also gave advice on eligibility to pay the poll money, and on 12 July intervened in a dispute about the status of barristers with the suggestion that should all be ‘reputed to be esquires’ for tax purposes.186Procs. LP v. 608. While such details were being considered, Glynne continued to push for disbandment, reporting a conference on the issue on 9 July.187CJ ii. 205a. On 24 July he was named to the committee on a bill concerning the trained bands; three days later he was added to the committee for the royal army, and was made a draftsman of the bill to secure public creditors under the poll money bill.188CJ ii. 223a-b, 226a. On 28 July he was appointed to the committee on a bill for the ‘speedy raising’ of public money.189CJ ii. 228a.

In the late summer of 1641 news of the king’s intention to travel to Scotland raised considerable concern at Westminster. On 28 July Glynne was named to a committee to draw up a programme of business for the Commons in the king’s absence, and in debate argued that recent measures to prevent the dissolution of Parliament trumped any precedents, for ‘whatsoever the law were formerly, yet now the late act would give us authority to sit’ even when the king was away.190CJ ii. 227a; Procs. LP vi. 120. As time was short, an attempt was made to push important business through. On 30 July Glynne was named to a committee to prepare the bill for the impeachment of the bishops.191CJ ii. 230b. On 6 August he reported six bills that commissioners ‘might pass’ during a recess, asserted that ‘that the act of Parliament lately made would keep the Parliament afoot’, and supported the appointment of a custos regni during the king’s absence.192Procs. LP vi. 237, 242, 244, 246; CJ ii. 240a, 242a. Glynne was manager and a reporter of conferences with the Lords on the same subject on 6 and 7 August, and on 9 August he reported on various bills, including that for the removal of suspect army officers.193CJ ii. 242a, 243a, 243b, 248a; Procs. LP vi. 312-3, 316. On 10 August he reported the recommendation that a commission be established to pass bills while the king was away, although he emphasised the importance of abiding by precedents, and conceded that such a commission, if ill-defined, had the potential to be ‘very dangerous’.194CJ ii. 249a-b; Procs. LP vi. 338. The next day he reported the conference with the Lords about proceedings against the bishops, and moved that the basis of the impeachment should be their involvement in the new Canons, which could be proved as a matter of fact.195CJ ii. 251b, 252b, 253b. Glynne does not seem to have played much of a role in the last days of the session, except in pursuit of the vintners’ business. On 17 August he was one of those sent to the 3rd earl of Essex to deliver his commission as general of the trained bands south of the Trent.196Harl. 478, f. 165. On 31 August Secretary Nicholas reported from Westminster, ‘Mr Glynne’s house (which is near Sir Robert Pye’s [Sir Robert Pye I]*) is shut up, there having one died there of the plague’.197Nicholas Pprs. i. 37. On 9 September Glynne was named to the Recess Committee.198CJ ii. 288b.

Political crisis, Oct. 1641-Feb. 1642

Glynne was in the Commons two days after Parliament reconvened, on 22 October 1641, when he chaired the committee of the House on the bill abolishing the clergy’s temporal jurisdiction, designed to ensure ‘that no clergyman should intermeddle with secular employments’; he reported the committee’s findings later the same day.199CJ ii. 292a-b; D’Ewes (C), 24, 27, 28. Over the next few weeks he was involved in a wide range of parliamentary business. On 28 October he was named to a committee to prepare a petition to the king against evil counsellors, and the next day took part in the debate on a petition from the London citizenry.200CJ ii. 297b; D’Ewes (C), 50. He was named to committees to peruse statutes on the oaths of supremacy and allegiance (9 Nov.), to prepare an order concerning the court at York (15 Nov.), to legislate for trained bands (15 Nov.), and to confer with the Lords on the seizure of papists (17 Nov.).201CJ ii. 309b, 315b, 316b, 318b. Glynne does not seem to have been involved in the formulation of the Grand Remonstrance. Although on 22 November he followed Hampden and Holles in defending the necessity for such a statement as a defence of Parliament’s honour, for ‘tis against nature not to have liberty to answer a calumny, and there is no way but by remonstrance’, he went on to concede that similar tactics in the late 1620s had not worked.202Verney Notes, 125. During December Glynne was named to committees to consider further measures against recusants (3 Dec.), to justify the reservation of tonnage and poundage receipts for naval defence (8 Dec.), and to consider how to disburse the remaining Ship Money (27 Dec.).203CJ ii. 329a, 331a, 335b, 357b.

Two issues seem to have been of particular importance to Glynne at this time. The first was the prosecution of the bishops. Glynne was appointed to a committee to prepare for a conference on denying the right of bishops to vote in the Lords on 26 October.204CJ ii. 295b. He was named to committees to consider the bishops’ plea on 13 November, and in debate backed calls to prevent the prelates from having the right to answer, and suggested that further legal advice be sought.205CJ ii. 314b; D’Ewes (C), 134n, 137n. He managed a conference on the proceedings against the bishops on 1 December.206CJ ii. 329a. He was appointed to a committee to those proceedings on 6 December, reporting back to the Commons later that day, and in debate on the following day he blamed the bishops for the new Canons, which were ‘against the king’s prerogative, against the liberty and propriety of the subject, and tending to sedition’.207CJ ii. 333a-b; D’Ewes (C), 240; LJ iv. 464b. He went on to report the conference on the 13 bishops on 13 December, and on 30 December, after the indictment of the bishops by the Lords, he attended the Lords to ask that they would ‘commit them to safe custody’.208CJ ii. 341a; D’Ewes (C), 280, 367; LJ iv. 497b. The next day he was one of nine MPs chosen to review the documentation to see if the trial of the bishops could begin.209CJ ii. 362b, 363a, 364b. Secondly, Glynne, like most MPs, was greatly alarmed at news of the rebellion in Ireland, and became involved in early moves to suppress it. On 2 November he was named to a committee to go to the City to procure a £50,000 loan and also to the Committee of both Houses on Irish Affairs, and on 4 November he was appointed to another committee to raise soldiers for Ireland.210CJ ii. 302a, 305b. He managed conferences with the Lords on Irish matters (3, 8 and 14 Dec.), and was named to committees to examine Irish lords detained by the serjeant-at-arms (24 Dec.) and to prepare a declaration on the obstructions in Irish affairs (29 Dec.).211CJ ii. 331a, 336a, 343a, 357a, 361a, 362a.

As December continued, such issues were increasingly side-lined by the need to provide for the security of Parliament against rioting and unrest. Glynne had already been named to committees concerning the ‘watch’ arrangements for the City of Westminster and the security of the Houses of Parliament on 29 and 30 November, and on 1 December, when Pym called for a ‘strong watch’ to guard Parliament, Glynne and William Wheler*, ‘both dwelling in Westminster and being justices of the peace there’, were chosen to liaise with the local authorities.212CJ ii. 327b, 328a; D’Ewes (C), 219. Two days later, Glynne reported on a conference with the Lords on the safety of the kingdom more generally.213D’Ewes (C), 228. Fears of an army plot had revived, and on 9 December Glynne supported Sir Simonds D’Ewes and Arthur Goodwin when they called for formal charges of treason to be brought against three of the ringleaders.214D’Ewes (C), 259. He was named to committees to provide a sure guard for Parliament (13 Dec.), and to confer with the Lords on breaches of privilege and security of the Tower (14, 24 Dec.).215CJ ii. 340a, 342b, 343b, 356b. He was also chosen to prepare a petition to the king to expose the slanderers of Members of both Houses on 27 December, and took part in the attack on the 1st earl of Bristol and his son, Lord Digby, orchestrated by Holles, Pym and William Strode I.216CJ ii. 358a-b; D’Ewes (C), 361n; Fletcher, Outbreak, 168. The same day he was one of four MPs sent to the Lords to confer about the unruly mob that threatened the palace of Westminster, and reported from another conference on false allegations that the royal family was at risk, on 28 December.217CJ ii. 358b, 359a. Glynne was again involved in measures to ensure the defence of Parliament on 30 December, and the following day he was named to committees to furnish the kingdom with powder and arms, inquire into volunteers, and consider the king’s answer to the request to provide a guard for Parliament.218CJ ii. 364a, 364b, 365a, 365b.

In the new year of 1642, the king’s attempt to overawe Parliament caused uproar. Glynne was again a manager of conferences with the Lords, on 3 and 4 January, to unite against threats to the safety of Parliament.219CJ ii. 367a, 368a. Following the king’s attempt to arrest the Five Members, and the flight to the City of London of Pym and the other marked men, Glynne attained a new prominence in the House.220Fletcher, Outbreak, 182. On 5 January he was named to the committee to withdraw and draw up a vindication of the privileges of Parliament and providing for the safety of both kingdoms, which produced in a very short time what D’Ewes described as ‘a long declaration ready-penned, which was doubtless prepared and ready written by some Members of this House before we met’.221CJ ii. 368b; PJ i. 14. On the same day Glynne presented to the House counter-charges against the king’s attorney general, Edward Herbert I*, who had advised the king to attempt the coup. In his speech on this occasion, published in February, Glynne attacked Herbert as ‘ambitious or malicious, which of the two I am not able to distinguish’, and accused him of committing ‘a great offence against his sacred majesty himself, in seeking to work an evil opinion in his majesty of his Parliament’.222Mr Glyn his Speech in Parliament (1642), Sig. A3-v (E.200.31). On 6 January Glynne was named to the committee to sit ad interim in the Guildhall, where he was among those delegated next day to draw up a declaration against the attempted arrest of the Five Members.223D’Ewes (C), 391; PJ i. 20-1. On 10 January, at Grocers’ Hall, he was put in charge of proceedings against the author of the ‘scandalous paper’ against the Five Members, and told the House he had spoken to Lord Herbert, who had agreed to give up his gunpowder works at Vauxhall.224D’Ewes (C), 397; PJ i. 28.

Even after the king and his entourage had withdrawn from London, Glynne kept up the pressure. On 11 January he was named to a committee on the bill to prevent the adjournment of the present Parliament from place to place, and he also presented a petition from the Westminster trained bands, promising their fidelity to Parliament.225CJ ii. 370a; PJ i. 32. On 12 January he reported the findings of the Guildhall and Grocers’ Hall committees, and was one of five appointed to draw up a single declaration for publication.226CJ ii. 373b, 374b; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 251. He continued to be involved in security issues, joining a committee to prepare a conference on news of troops mustering at Kingston-on-Thames, moving that the Sussex trained bands be mobilised against Colonel Thomas Lunsford, and informing the House of the worrying news that ammunition was being stockpiled in the Tower of London.227CJ ii. 372a; PJ i. 46. He was appointed to a committee to scrutinize information coming into the House on 13 January. On the same day indicating his view that the king should show his hand within two or three days, he was named to a committee to prepare a conference with the Lords about the Five Members.228PJ i. 59; CJ ii. 376b. He was also named to committees to draft an order concerning the safety of the kingdom.229CJ ii. 376b. On 14 January he reported this conference, passing on to the Commons a letter from the king to Lord Keeper Littleton, in which he denied that any violation of the privileges of Parliament had been intended.230CJ ii. 380a; PJ i. 72. He was also appointed to a committee for naval affairs (which would be reconstituted in August as the Committee of Navy and Customs) and another to confer with the Lords about ‘peace and safety’ at sea and land, and was one of eight MPs required to present a plan for the defence of the kingdom next morning.231Supra, ‘Committee of Navy and Customs’; CJ ii. 378b, 379b. On 15 January he was one of a committee to prepare charges against the attorney-general, and a manager of conference with the Lords on this subject.232PJ i. 84, 86; CJ ii. 382b. On the same day he was one of the MPs chosen to investigate warrants for the raising of men, and who had authorized them.233PJ i. 83. On 17 January he was named to committees to meet the Lords on a petition to the king and to sit at Grocers’ Hall during the expected adjournment.234CJ ii. 384a, 385a. He was also chosen to withdraw on 20 January to draft an answer to a message from the king.235PJ i. 124; CJ ii. 388a.

After the initial alarm had passed, Glynne and his allies set about making political capital out of the crisis. Glynne’s concern for religious reform soon re-emerged, although, as before, he was concerned not to act against the law. On 17 January he was sent to the Lords to hear the bishops’ answer to their impeachment, but in debate on 22 January he argued, against St John, that the proposed assembly of divines should not be chosen by Parliament, which should merely supply guidelines for selection, as there were no precedents for such interference.236CJ ii. 385b; PJ i. 139. Glynne’s conservatism can also be seen later on the same day, when he opposed the order to punish only Catholics for non-attendance at church, as this would ‘let loose the reins of liberty to so many idle persons’.237PJ i. 141. His attitude towards the bishops was less cautious, however. On 24 January he moved that the Commons should send a request to the Lords to be represented when witnesses testified against the bishops; he took up this message himself, and on his return was named to a committee to attend the trial.238PJ i. 146, 164-5; CJ ii. 391b. Glynne’s attitude to Catholics also remained uncompromising. On the same day he promoted the petition of soldiers in St. Martin-in-the-Fields to replace their popish captain, Endymion Porter*, with the more reliable Robert Cecil*.239PJ i. 150. On 24 January, Glynne also was named to the committee to investigate the reason for delays in sending relief to Ireland, which were seen as suspicious, and on 25 January he was given care of the execution of all orders for Ireland, and two days later he was involved in a conference to consider who was advising the king on Irish affairs.240CJ ii. 391a, 394b, 400a. Also on 25 January he was appointed to committees to examine Colonel Lunsford and other supporters of the king, to prepare an order for the detention of all Irish papist immigrants, and to investigate injuries recently sustained by citizens at the hands of the guards at Whitehall.241CJ ii. 394a, 394b, 395a.

At the end of January, Glynne returned to his attack on the king. On 26 January he moved that an answer be framed to the king’s letter about the attempt on the Five Members; his name was first on the list of those chosen to draft it; and the following day he was named to a committee to make this the preamble to the declaration, already printed, ‘setting forth the dangers of the kingdom’.242PJ i. 182, 188; CJ ii. 398a, 398b. On 28 January Glynne reported that the attorney-general disclaimed having framed the articles against the Five Members, and he was also named to a committee to prepare a conference with the Lords on the duke of Richmond’s conduct, with his report the following day being responsible for Richmond’s removal from office.243PJ i. 212, 218, 222; CJ ii. 402a, 403a; LJ iv. 549b. On 31 January he reported the revised petition to the king concerning the Five Members, and took it to the Lords.244PJ i. 234; CJ ii. 405b, 406b. The following day he was appointed to a committee to confer with the Lords on another petition to the king, to place the Tower and other strongholds in the ‘safe hands’ of nominees chosen by Parliament, and to put the entire militia into a defensive posture.245PJ i. 250; CJ ii. 409a.

The road to civil war, Feb.-July 1642

Despite his aggressive stance during the new year of 1642, from February Glynne became increasingly involved in negotiations with the king. He was one of the committee named to consider the king’s placatory answer to Parliament’s petition on 7 February, and was both a committeeman and conference manager on the same business the next day.246PJ i. 298, 305. He was also involved in moves against the king’s chief advisers, being named to committees to investigate letters of Lord Falkland (Lucius Cary*) and Lord Digby, and on 15 February reading eight resolutions from the committee on the removal of the evil counsellors.247CJ ii. 421a, 431a, 433a-b; PJ i. 385, 390. On 16 February he was appointed to the committee on a bill to exonerate the Five Members from charges of treason.248CJ ii. 436a. By this stage he was becoming something of a hate-figure in royalist circles. On 21 February Sir Walter Erle reported to the Commons that Sir George Wentworth I* and his nephew had boasted in their cups that they would cut Glynne to pieces. Although Wentworth denied this, and was exonerated, this no doubt reflected the level of antipathy towards Glynne among king’s supporters.249PJ i. 430. Glynne’s involvement in Parliament’s encroachment of royal prerogatives did not help matters. On 8 February he had been manager of a conference on the militia ordinance, and he was appointed to a committee to consider the king’s message about the same on 21 February.250CJ ii. 421b, 446b. He managed conferences with the Lords on the king’s response to the Militia Ordinance on 28 February.251CJ ii. 460b. On 18 and 19 March he was involved in the House’s investigations of the reported activities of the king’s agents in Denmark; and on 19 March, after reporting from committee on the Lords’ alterations in the militia votes, he was made sole manager of a conference on the same.252CJ ii. 484b, 487b, 488a, 489a; PJ ii. 64. On 29 March he was named to the committee to prepare conference with the Lords regarding the king’s attempt to force sheriffs to publish messages concerning Parliament, and on the same day he was named for another to prepare a declaration justifying the conduct of the Houses.253CJ ii. 503b, 504b. On 2 April he was appointed to committees to prepare for publication Parliament’s recent exchanges with the king, and to plan provision for the royal children and household.254CJ ii. 509a. That day he was teller with Henry Marten in favour of using the word ‘scandal’ to describe the king’s slur on parliamentary proceedings, although the vote was defeated by 116 votes to 53, with Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapilton telling against.255CJ ii. 508b.

In the spring of 1642 Glynne continued to be at the forefront of the attack on the bishops, and other religious affairs. He was manager of a conference on 14 February on the bill against clerical pluralities, and on 16 February he moved that the House should show its disapproval of the Lords’ decision to bail the bishops.256PJ i. 375, 397. On the following day he was named to the committee to suppress religious innovations, advance preaching and enforce observation of the Sabbath, and he was also manager of a conference with the Lords on the pluralities bill.257CJ ii. 438a; PJ i. 402, 405. On 18 February he presented a petition from the inhabitants of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, that Stephen Marshall should be their lecturer (a request which was well received by the Commons) and he reported on 25 March that the parish ‘had chosen him accordingly and so desired to enjoy him’.258PJ i. 412; ii. 85. On 19 February, as spokesman of the Commons, he opened the formal charge against the bishops at the bar of the Lords.259PJ i. 417n; LJ iv. 597b, 598b. His attitude to the case was more moderate than some of his colleagues. On 21 February, when he reported from the committee to manage the trial, he told the House that he did not wish to see the bishops forfeit their lives, but their estates; and he was subsequently chosen to draft a bill for their forfeiture and imprisonment.260CJ ii. 447b; PJ i. 428, 433-4, 436. The bill for punishing the bishops was reported to the House by Glynne the next day.261PJ i. 437, 445; CJ ii. 448b. He continued to pursue church matters in the next few days, moving for a conference on the pluralities bill (24 Feb.), telling the House that three bishops wished to appeal to the committee (25 Feb.), and reporting that the committee on the bishops’ bill should again meet (4 Mar.).262PJ i. 450, 464, 500. On 12 March he was added to the committee on the amended bill against innovations, and reported the findings of the committee on the bishops’ bill to the House on 21 March.263CJ ii. 476b, 490b; PJ ii. 67-8. On 25 March he was named to the committee to maintain the ministry, and next day he was one of eight called on to prepare the charges against Archbishop Laud.264CJ ii. 496b, 499b. On 11 April he reported the amendments to the bill against the 12 bishops, and presumably voted in favour when it was eventually passed on 4 May.265CJ ii. 521b; PJ i. 500n; ii. 151.

At the same time as hunting down the bishops, Glynne was also heavily involved in Irish affairs. He was named to the committee on a bill to reduce the Irish rebels on 5 March, and was recommitted to the same on 10 March.266CJ ii. 468b, 474a. On 14 March he moved that relief for the distressed Irish Protestants might as well be applied in Ireland, ‘lest we should draw them all into England’, and he was one of four MPs chosen to prepare orders for deportation of refugees two days later.267PJ ii. 36; CJ ii. 480b. Glynne had first-hand knowledge of the situation, as, working with his Westminster neighbour, Sir Robert Pye I, he had played an important role in the distribution of money to distressed Protestants: their accounts were submitted for examination on 22 March.268CJ ii. 467b, 491a. Glynne was ordered to report on moves to prevent Irish refugees on 2 April, and when his report was finally delivered on 11 April the matter was recommitted.269CJ ii. 509b, 521b. In the meantime, on 25 March, Glynne responded to a report by Pym that there were problems raising money for the Irish war, by moving ‘that this matter might be again referred to the Committee for Irish Affairs to consider of it… which would be a means to bring us to a speedy resolution’.270PJ ii. 87. On 29 March he was reporter of a conference on Irish affairs, informing the Commons that the 2nd earl of Leicester, as lord lieutenant, would travel to Ireland when he received clear instructions from the king and Parliament; and on 11 April he was added to the committee on the adventurers’ bill. Although he later called for all those with an income of over £100 to contribute £10 to defeating the Irish rebels, he does not seem to have invested any of his own money in the scheme.271PJ ii. 108, 351; CJ ii. 503b, 521a.

Throughout this period, Glynne’s legal expertise was often brought into play in debate, although his views could be unorthodox. On 10 March, for example, he advised on the case of the late Lady Hales, ‘that if any man die in actual rebellion, he forfeits not his lands and goods by the common law, for that he was never attainted or convicted’ and gave as his opinion that ‘if the lord chief justice, etc., cause inquisition to be made upon the body before it be buried, it may be found [in] rebellion, and then a confiscation of all lands and goods will follow’.272PJ ii. 25. Similarly, when on 14 March John Vaughan I* objected to Dr Howell, a royal chaplain, being charged with delinquency on the strength of evidence from a single informant, Glynne retorted that ‘in the courts of Westminster it is an ordinary thing upon the oath of a single person to send forth an attachment’.273PJ ii. 38. Glynne on occasion advised the Commons on constitutional issues, although when the advice on the judicial relationship between the Houses proffered by him and Serjeant Wylde was rejected out of hand on 18 March, D’Ewes sniffed that they ‘might very well have spared their pains’.274PJ ii. 56. As before, Glynne could be more conservative in his views than the hardliners, and his defence of the royal veto on 4 April attracted the scornful comment that his argument ‘was a more gross error than the error’.275PJ ii. 125; Fletcher, Outbreak, 238. Nevertheless, Glynne was still in great demand when it came to pursuing the king’s advisers. On 15 March he was named to a committee to consider the grievances of the common council, and two days later he joined two other lawyers, Wylde and Samuel Browne*, in drawing up a case against the recorder of London, Sir Thomas Gardiner*.276CJ ii. 479a, 484a; PJ ii. 53n. On 22 March Glynne reported on the sequestration of the offices of Secretary Windebanke, and four days later he was instructed to bring in articles against him, reporting to the House on 28 March.277CJ ii. 493a, 499b; PJ ii. 95-6. At the end of March and early April he was also involved in the management of charges against George Benion and Judge Bartlett.278CJ ii. 499a, 504a, 505b; LJ iv. 701b; PJ ii. 90. On 19 April he was one of five Members appointed to consider the best way to initiate impeachment proceedings against Lord Digby, who had recently fled to the king.279CJ ii. 535a.

In the late spring and early summer, Glynne was closely involved in Parliament’s attempts to prevent the king from building up a support base in the north of England. On 16 April he headed the committee to review persons refusing the Protestation, county by county, and was named for another to prepare a justification of Parliament’s intention to disarm Hull, which would be published with their petition to the king and his reply.280CJ ii. 530a, 531a. Glynne was drawn into the war of words that followed. Between 26 and 28 April he managed conferences with the Lords on Hull, and on 29 and 30 April he was named to committees to consider the king’s messages concerning the town and how to respond.281CJ ii. 542b, 546a-b, 547a, 549a, 550a-b; LJ v. 26b; PJ ii. 223, 225, 232-3, 238, 240-1. He was a reporter and manager of further conferences on messages from the king on 7 and 12 May, and manager of others on the news from York on 16 May.282CJ ii. 563a, 568a, 573a. He was also concerned about the security of London, delivering to the Commons an order for the training of the City’s trained bands, and acting as manager of a conference concerning the king’s threatening letter to their commander, Philip Skippon*, on 17 May, which he saw as a breach of privilege.283PJ ii. 269; CJ ii. 575a. Glynne was also involved in Parliament’s moves to strengthen its own military position. He was named to a committees to go to the City and ask for a loan (13 May), to consider an order for raising troops under the adventurers’ act (23 May) and to consider how to raise further sums in case the king made war on his Parliament (24 May).284CJ ii. 570b, 583a, 586a. He was one of the joint committee with the Lords on the defence of the kingdom, appointed on 27 May.285CJ ii. 589a. On 30 May he was appointed to committees to prepare denunciations of the king’s conduct, and reported a conference with the Lords regarding the demands to be sent to the king.286CJ ii. 594a-b. On 3 June he was named to committees to consider an ordinance for the security of London and was one of those chosen to prepare an order for the execution of the ordinance, to allow troops to be raised in England.287CJ ii. 601b, 602a-b. On 6 June he was a manager and reporter of conference with the Lords about the latest news from the king’s quarters at York, and was named to committees to meet the Lords to decide what to do about it, to look into provision of horses, men and money for the defence of the kingdom, and how to involve members in it.288CJ ii. 608a-b, 609b. Shortly afterwards he promised to provide £100 and the costs of a horse for the defence of Parliament.289PJ iii. 469. On 11 June he was also appointed to a committee to draw up an impeachment against nine peers who had joined the king at York, and was manager of conference with the Lords that followed.290CJ ii. 620a-b.

Parliament’s efforts to secure Scottish support also involved Glynne. On 17 May he had been added to the committee to prepare a declaration to be sent to Edinburgh, and on 13 June he was one of a quartet asked to prepare commissions to conserve peace and commerce between England and Scotland.291CJ ii. 576a, 621b. A week later he was reporter of a conference with the Lords on Anglo-Scottish negotiations.292CJ ii. 634a. These talks soon had a greater sense of urgency, as the slide into civil war accelerated. On 17-18 June Glynne joined committees to consider the royal commissions of array recently issued in Leicestershire, and he moved ‘a new vote against all those who should put this commission of array into execution’.293CJ ii. 630a, 632a; PJ iii. 100-1. Between 21 and 24 June he was named to three more committees to consider an answer to the king’s proclamation against the Nineteen Propositions and to vindicate the actions of Parliament.294CJ ii. 635b, 637a, 638b. On 23 June he told the House that they should not ‘acquiesce with the king’s answer’ but instead ‘insist upon this proposition as it now went to the king, and resolve to put out all officers’.295PJ iii. 122, 124. On 28 June Glynne reported on the commission of array and managed a conference on the king’s declaration, and on 30 June he managed a conference on the commission and over the next few days he was again named to committees on the activities of the king’s supporters in Leicestershire.296CJ ii. 643b, 645a-b, 652a; PJ iii. 145, 149. On 4 July Glynne was appointed to Parliament’s new executive body, the Committee of Safety, and two days later he delivered his final verdict on the Leicestershire commission of array, which, he claimed, incited ‘warlike forces gathered without legal authority, in intention to resist the authority of Parliament’, and thus amounted to ‘levying war against the king’.297CJ ii. 651b; PJ iii. 180. On 9 July Glynne was named to the committee stage of a bill to order the militia in England and Wales.298CJ ii. 663b. In the same period there was increased concern about the security of London, and Glynne was manager of a conference on the safety of the Tower (5 July), and a committee to receive a petition from the common council against the lord mayor (7 July).299CJ ii. 654b, 658b. After 11 July Glynne disappears from the Journals for over a month, perhaps owing to illness, although he was not granted any formal leave of absence.300CJ ii. 664a.

The outbreak of civil war, Aug.-Dec. 1642.

Glynne resurfaced in mid-August, and in the weeks that followed he was busy with measures to frustrate the king’s efforts to build support while encouraging those who backed Parliament. On 18 August he was one of eight MPs chosen for a committee to draft a reply to the king concerning a previous declaration on the commission of array; on 22 August he was named to a committee to instruct towns to defend themselves against possible attack; and the next day he was among the lawyers appointed to consider the king’s order removing sheriffs and magistrates suspected of supporting Parliament.301CJ ii. 725b, 732a, 734a. Glynne took the Vow and Covenant to adhere to Parliament’s lord general, the earl of Essex, on 27 August, although some privately doubted his true attachment to the junto: on the same day was described as ‘a swearing, profane fellow yet now temporising with the fiery spirits’.302CJ ii. 740a; PJ iii. 322. In the days that followed Glynne was frenetically busy. On 29 and 30 August he was named to committees to consider how to protect the estates of Parliament’s supporters and to prepare a declaration to counter the king’s claims that his enemies’ forces were being funded by money siphoned from the adventurers’ scheme; and at the same time he was named to committees to prepare impeachments against Lord Strange and other supporters of the king.303CJ ii. 742b, 743a, 744a, 745a-b.

There was no let-up in early September. On 7 September he was named to a committee to issue a declaration approving of the activities of the Northamptonshire committee in resisting the king, and on the same day he was added to the committee to consider those MPs who had left Westminster, whether they should be expelled and new elections held.304CJ ii. 756a. On 9 September he was one of the reporters of a conference on the departure of the earl of Essex.305CJ ii. 760a. On 13 September Glynne was named to committees for raising horse, money and plate, sequestering recusant revenues, and to answer the latest message from the king.306CJ ii. 763b, 764a. On 17 September, among much else, he was appointed to a committee to oversee the printing of a letter to the king from the earl of Essex, and went to the Lords as messenger with two orders.307CJ ii. 770b, 771a; LJ v. 360b. Glynne continued to take a hard line against suspected royalists. On 22 September, when Henry Marten criticised D’Ewes because his brother was a royalist, Glynne joined in, prompting D’Ewes to retort publicly ‘he may be well skilled in his own profession, yet he cannot know the condition of my affairs’, while privately noting that he expected little else of Glynne ‘who had long sided with the fiery spirits’.308Harl. 163, ff. 376, 381. When Sir William Uvedale sought leave of absence on 23 September, Glynne moved that he first declare ‘what he will do in contribution’ to the parliamentary war effort.309Add. 18777, f. 9v. On 27 September Glynne was involved in preparing still more impeachments, and was named to the committee to consider the sequestration of the estates of Lord Capel (Arthur Capel*) and other ‘delinquents’.310CJ ii. 783b, 784b, 785b; Add. 18777, f. 12v. On 29 September he informed the House of precedents relating to the issue of proclamations against defaulting delinquents, suggesting that as ‘we have not the great seal’ the Lords should issue an order to sheriffs on their own authority.311Add. 18777, f. 16r-v. On 30 September he joined Wheler as majority teller in favour of putting the question of bailing Sir John Lucas (which Glynne had favoured in a motion of 21 Sept.), and a reporter of conference with the Lords about the king’s address to his army.312CJ ii. 788b, 789a; Add. 18777, f. 6v. He contributed to debate on 1 October on the question of how to prosecute royalists in Yorkshire, voicing concerns that the king ‘may bring all delinquents to York and there they may be safe’.313Add. 18777, f. 19v. On 5 October he was one of the reporters of a conference on propositions sent to Parliament in response to Essex’s letter, and on 10 October he was appointed to a committee to consider ways to recruit horses.314CJ ii. 795b; LJ v. 393b.

During the Edgehill campaign in October, Glynne was mostly involved in negotiations with the Scots and providing for the security of London. On 18 October he answered Pym’s concerns that Parliament could only negotiate with the Scots through official commissioners with the argument that ‘the Parliament, which gave the power have the same power themselves’; and on the same day he was chosen to help draw up an answer to the Scottish commissioners.315Add. 18777, f. 32; CJ ii. 813a. On 20 October he was manager of a conference with the Lords on the safety of the kingdom, and the next day he was appointed as a commissioner to preserve peace with Scotland.316CJ ii. 817a; Add. 18777, f. 37v. As MP for Westminster Glynne was named to a committee to regulate the entry of ‘strangers’ into London on 14 October, and three days later he was named to a committee to consider Windsor Castle, which commanded the western approaches to the City.317Add. 18777, f. 29; CJ ii. 811b. On 22 October he was one of those requested to withdraw and consider how to secure and disarm suspects in London, and on the same day he was named to the committee to compose an oath of association.318CJ ii. 818b, 819b. Also on 22 October he reported that a muster of trained bands at Holborn was planned for the next day.319Add. 18777, f. 38v. Although he can scarcely have welcomed the news, Glynne commended the messenger who informed the House of the indecisive battle of Edgehill on 25 October, saying that ‘this man is religious and speaks nothing but what he saw’.320Add. 18777, f. 44.

The danger of an immediate attack on London led to Glynne’s involvement in practical measures in the days that followed. On 28 October he reported from the committee which had examined royalist prisoners, and was put in charge of a declaration against the king’s willingness to issue commissions to ‘notorious papists’, telling the Commons the following day that he had discovered ‘upon examination’ that these allegations were true.321CJ ii. 826a, 829a; Add. 31116, p. 8. On 2 November he was named to a committee to find hospital provision for wounded soldiers in London, and was a manager and reporter of a conference with the Lords on ‘the great affairs of the kingdom’ on the same day.322Add. 18777, f. 49; CJ ii. 832a. On 4 November he was named to a committee to issue a proclamation for the arrest of papists in London and Westminster, and the next day he was appointed to a committee to consider expelling the Capuchin friars at Somerset House.323CJ ii. 835a, 835b. On 7 November Glynne was manager of a conference on a suitable message of thanks to Essex for his efforts, together with the plea that the earl would prevent royalist forces from plundering the home counties.324CJ ii. 838a.

Glynne was clearly shaken by recent events, and from early November he sided with those calling for a speedy end to the conflict. On 7 November he was one of five ordered to draw up a protest at the king’s refusal to receive a delegation from Parliament to discuss a treaty; the next day he was involved in drafting a letter refusing the king’s offer of a safe conduct; and on 9 November was one of the managers for conference with the Lords about an ultimatum to be sent to the king.325CJ ii. 838b, 840b, 841b. He was a reporter of another conference, on the king’s answer to Parliament’s petition on 12 November, and the following day he was named to a committee to prepare a further declaration on the proposed treaty.326CJ ii. 845b, 848a. At the same time as supporting a negotiated settlement, Glynne was busy reinforcing London against the imminent threat of attack. On 16 November he was one of four MPs chosen to prepare an ordinance to allow the trained bands to defend the City and Parliament; on 17 November he complained in debate that the officers were ‘daily up and down the town away from their charges’; and on the 18th moved for a declaration that self-defence might justify homicide in resistance to ‘whosoever shall go about to disarm any except by authority of both Houses of Parliament’.327CJ ii. 852b; Add. 18777, ff. 60-1. On 19 November he was added to the committee reviewing the repulse of the king’s army at Turnham Green, and on 21 November he joined William Strode I as teller against forming a committee to consider the king’s latest message.328CJ ii. 857a, 858a. Although the immediate danger had receded, Glynne continued to press for peace. D’Ewes noted his change of stance in the debate on 21 November, listing him with Holles, Whitelocke, William Pierrepont and others ‘who had formerly been very opposite against an accommodation … [but] did now speak earnestly for it’.329Harl. 164, f. 99-v. When MPs made suggestions for peace proposals to present to the king on 22 November, Glynne suggested moderate terms, and ‘would have but few propositions as could be, and as just as could be’. His heads included religious reform (‘the bill of the synod and what the Parliament shall by advice of that synod conclude upon’); the punishment of the king’s chief advisers and the confiscation of their estates to compensate of war victims; and the disbanding of both armies – a list that bore similarities to that put forward by another recent convert to peace, Denzil Holles.330Add. 18777, ff. 66-7.

With the king’s retreat from London, Glynne returned to parliamentary business. He was a manager of a conference with the Lords about the 2nd earl of Warwick’s command on 22 November (reporting back the next day), and on 23 and 24 November he reported from another conference on the latest message from the king.331CJ ii. 859a-b, 861a, 862b. On 26 November he was selected to consider the form of warrant wherewith Parliament might imprison delinquents, and on 1 December he reported from a conference on the custody of the king’s children.332CJ ii. 865b, 871a. Glynne’s continuing eagerness for peace can be seen throughout December. On 2 December he was ordered to bring in an answer to the king’s declaration at Oxford, which he did on the 8th, and he was named to the subsequent committee to prepare a manifesto for the parliamentary cause.333CJ ii. 872b, 873a One sticking point was the king’s reliance on Catholic support. On 8 December Glynne was ordered to draft a statement of Parliament’s hostility to popery to preface a list of the king’s Catholic commanders; on 12 December he was one of the MPs chosen to meet the Lords concerning the ‘idols’ in the chapel at Somerset House; and on 15 December he was also named to a committee to consider the 1st earl of Newcastle’s ‘popish army’, and how to oppose it.334CJ ii. 881a, 885a, 890b. Other issues were also pressing. On 16 December Glynne was one of a number of lawyers named to a committee to frame a declaration about the indictment of prisoners of war, in response to royalist threats to try officers captured by them for treason; the treatment of prisoners (he said there were ‘about 4 or 5,000 about the town’) was the subject of another declaration Glynne and Strode I were asked to prepare on 21 December.335CJ ii. 891a, 898a; Add. 18777, f. 99v. Glynne was appointed to the committee on a bill for the sequestration of delinquents’ estates on 22 December, and on the same day provided the third proposition intended for the king, concerning the employment of papists in his army.336CJ ii. 899a. He was named for the committee to draw up the preamble to the propositions to the king on 26 December, and for others on the sixth proposition (27 Dec.) and the ninth and tenth propositions (2 Jan.).337CJ ii. 904b, 911a.

Despite his efforts to secure peace, in the final weeks of 1642 Glynne continued to be involved in efforts to strengthen Parliament’s military position and to raise the money needed to fund it. On 3 December he criticised the assessment as ‘very unequal’ on the curious grounds that the rich would pay the lion’s share, and on 9 December he was named to a committee to investigate what money was left in the exchequer and to secure it.338Add. 18777, f. 80; CJ ii. 881b. He was one of the Members sent to the City on 13 December to expedite the assessment ordinance and to ascertain their power to try rioters, and after examination of some of them next day, he concluded that the corporation ruled by charter and not by commission.339CJ ii. 885b; Add. 18777, f. 94r-v. The same day, in a sign of Glynne’s importance as a link between Parliament and the City, the Commons agreed to recommend him as the next recorder of London.340CJ ii. 889a; Add. 18777, f. 94v. On 19 December Glynne was sent to the Lords with petitions from the City to the king and both Houses, and on 21 December he was a draftsman of an order to bring the trained bands to heel.341LJ v. 499a. CJ ii. 895a, 898b. On 23 December, during the debate on the assessment, he suggested that ‘a general tax upon all persons’ was the answer, only those who had already contributed voluntarily should ‘have allowance’.342Add. 18777, f. 102. On 24 December Glynne was added to the Committee of Navy and Customs to consider the king’s declaration on the customs revenue, and he and Whitelocke were ordered to prepare a counter-declaration on 27 December.343CJ ii. 901b, 903b. On 27 December Glynne was also directed to prepare a letter to the counties concerning the collection of assessment arrears, and on 31 December he was one of three MPs instructed to draft orders for raising money in Northamptonshire and other counties in the midlands.344CJ ii. 903b, 909a; Add. 18777, f. 104v. At the end of December, Glynne offered a further £20 of his own money towards army maintenance, and early in the new year, Glynne and Whitelocke took custody (as ordered by the House on 23 December), of the contents of Lambeth Palace, including its library.345Add. 18777, ff. 109v, 111v; CJ ii. 900b.

The Oxford peace, Jan.-May 1643

Glynne had been a strong advocate of peace in the closing weeks of 1642, and in the new year of 1643 he advised on the formal negotiations at Oxford. On 5 January he was named to a committee to meet the Lords to draw up a petition to the king not to remove the judges and their courts to Oxford.346CJ ii. 915b; Add. 18777, f. 116. On 11 January he joined a committee to prepare a conference with the Lords about the king’s latest message, and in the debate on the propositions on 14 January, he suggested that instead of proposing a year’s control of the militia, Parliament should demand that the king give his assent to a bill to settle the militia ‘by land and sea’, ‘else we tacitly affirm the militia’ unilaterally.347CJ ii. 921b; Add. 18777, f. 126. He also countered the king’s assertion of control over the courts by suggesting that the judges should hold office only during Parliament’s pleasure, and he called for some of the present bench to be removed.348Add. 18777, f. 126v; Harl. 164, f. 277. On 16 January Glynne and Pym were asked to draft a declaration about the treatment of prisoners in the king’s army, and Glynne was given special care of this.349CJ ii. 929a. On 18 January he was appointed to a committee to answer the king on his insistence on transferring the courts to Oxford, and to safeguard subjects who under duress of royalist decrees disobeyed parliamentary orders.350CJ ii. 932b; Add. 18777, f. 128. In connection with this, on 21 January Glynne was asked at the next conference with the Lords to justify the amendments in the law courts bill.351CJ ii. 937a. He also prepared a conference with them on the king’s letters to the sheriff and City companies on 24 January, and was reporter of another on the propositions for the king sent up by the Commons on 26th.352CJ ii. 941a, 944b; Harl. 164, f. 282v. On 6 February he was again named a reporter on a conference on the king’s reception of the propositions, and on 11 February he headed a committee to prepare conference with the Lords about their differences on the propositions.353CJ ii. 958a, 963a. On the same day, in debate on whether the treaty should be agreed before the armies were disbanded, Glynne joined Pierrepont and others in speaking ‘very honestly, earnestly and solidly for it’, in opposition to his former associates in the war party, such as Strode I and Marten.354Harl. 164, f. 295v. On 24 February Glynne was named to a committee to consider the last article of the cessation and to confer with the Lords about further propositions to be made to the king, and on the 28th was one of four asked to justify the House on these topics.355CJ ii. 978b, 983b. By the beginning of April the peace talks had run out of steam. Glynne continued to go through the motions, however. On 8, 11, and 15 April he served a manager of conferences with the Lords on the treaty, on the 18th he was appointed to a committee to peruse the proposed treaty, as drawn up by Parliament’s commissioners at Oxford, and on the 24th he joined a committee to prepare a justification of Parliament’s refusal to continue the talks.356CJ iii. 35a, 40b, 44b, 50b, 58a. Thereafter, in early May, Glynne reported from the committee to draw up a declaration on the treaty negotiated at Oxford, brought in the final version of declaration, and was given responsibility for its publication.357CJ iii. 70a, 73a-b; Add. 31116, pp. 95-6.

During the Oxford negotiations, Glynne supported efforts to revamp the parliamentarian finances, using his influence in the City of London to good effect. On 11 January Glynne and Whitelocke were sent to procure a loan from the Merchant Adventurers.358CJ ii. 922a. On 12 January he was a manager and reporter of a conference about the City petition concerning raising finance for the army, and he was named to a committee to provide a justification of Parliament’s proceedings to present to Common Hall.359CJ ii. 924b, 925a. On 16 January he was added to the committee of trade.360CJ ii. 928b. Glynne had been called upon to prepare the assessment bill on 3 January, and he followed this through in later weeks.361CJ ii. 912b. He was chosen as one of the draftsmen of the assessment ordinance for the west of England on 17 January, and on 1 February he was named to a committee to consider a general weekly assessment to fund the army.362CJ ii. 930b, 951a. Glynne also played a role in the sequestration of royalists’ estates. On 3 February he was named to a committee to consider the confiscation of the estates of royalists in arms, and on 6 February he was added to one which considered how to extend sequestration.363CJ ii. 953b, 957b; Add. 18777, f. 141. Glynne’s own activities in the administration were not always transparent: on 16 February he and his old crony, Sir Robert Pye I, were asked to bring in an ordinance ‘for putting in an able man’ as clerk of the petty bag, and this later led to allegations that Glynne had annexed the office for his own profit.364CJ ii. 968a. On 18 February Glynne was a reporter of a conference about the weekly assessment; on 20 February he was minority teller with Sir Gilbert Gerard in a vote for recommitting a clause in the assessment bill affecting Middlesex and Westminster; and in consequence, on 25 February he was asked to bring in a bill to ease the Westminster and Middlesex assessments.365CJ ii. 971a, 973a, 979a. He took part in debate on levying money in Warwickshire and Staffordshire on 28 February, and was one of those asked to prepare a conference on it; he was also a manager to confer on financial bills not passed by the Lords.366CJ ii. 983a, 984a.

Unsurprisingly, Glynne was keen to reduce the burden on London and Westminster wherever possible, and on 6 March he joined Pye in opposing an ordinance to raise money for building the ‘lines of communication’ around the capital because it involved a tax on the citizens.367Harl. 164, f. 313. Other forms of tax were more acceptable to Glynne. On the 15 March, with Sir William Armyne, Glynne was asked to draft an ordinance confiscating Lincolnshire delinquents’ estates for the benefit of the army.368CJ iii. 2a. He was appointed to a committee to review the king’s dealings with the Eastland Company and to look into merchants’ grievances on 24 March, and on the same day he was also chosen to draft an ordinance to borrow over half the City’s assessment in advance.369CJ iii. 16b. On 27 March he reported from conference the Lords’ amendments to the sequestration ordinance, and he was named to the bicameral Committee for Sequestrations established the same day.370CJ iii. 21a-b. Glynne agreed with Pym that sequestration was the best source of money, pointing out that the king had already set a precedent by targeting ‘not only the estates of those that were in army against him but of those that had contributed to the maintenance of the army’.371Harl. 164, f. 344v. On 30 March he was one of a trio required to write to the lord general about the implementation of the same legislation.372CJ iii. 23b. As the Oxford negotiations faltered, Glynne continued to manage London affairs for Parliament. He was ordered to prepare the ordinance to regulate the City’s weekly assessment on 1 April; on 10 April he was appointed to the committee to consider the citizens’ desires regarding a covenant and oath of association; and on the 12th was named to a committee to consult with the City about raising more money through an excise tax on commodities.373CJ iii. 26b, 37b, 41a.

During this period, Glynne also was involved in efforts to embarrass and irritate the royalists. On 18 January he was named to a committee to prepare and manage a conference with the Lords about the appointment of the earl of Warwick as lord admiral, in a challenge to the royal prerogative.374CJ ii. 933a. On 30 January he was named to formulate a commentary to accompany the publication of an intercepted letter from the king to the queen.375CJ ii. 948b. On the same day he was a manager, with Pym, of a conference with the Lords on the intercepted letter, and was one of four named to edit for publication other letters announcing Lord Fairfax’s success in Yorkshire.376CJ ii. 947b, 948b. The following day he reported that the Lords agreed to the latter, but not to the former, being published.377CJ ii. 949a. He was one of four MPs named on 4 February, when the House was confronting the absence of delinquent Members, to ‘mend the returns’, and on the same day he was made manager and reporter of conference about Warwick’s commission.378CJ ii. 954b, 955a. Glynne was also involved in efforts to keep the parliamentarians from falling out of line. On 11 March he was one of five MPs detailed to send instructions to Exeter following the news of a local truce made there without Parliament’s consent, and he reappointed to the same committee ten days later.379Harl. 164, f. 323v; CJ ii. 998b; iii. 10b. On 18 April he was a messenger to the Lords with the complaint that Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, had assaulted Henry Marten, and brought back their promise of satisfaction.380CJ iii. 51b; Add. 31116, p. 88. On 25 April he was named to another committee to discuss with the Lords the wish of the Commons that peers taken prisoner might not be released without the knowledge of Parliament and the lord general.381CJ iii. 58b. The collapse of the peace talks encouraged Glynne and his friends to voice more open criticism of the king and his advisers. On 3 May Glynne was named to another committee to consider the plight of Members and others victimised by the royalists for obeying Parliament.382CJ iii. 68b. Later in May, Glynne, Wylde and Pym sought to further encroach on the royal prerogative when they tried to convince the House of the necessity for appropriating the great seal.383Add. 31116, p. 102. D’Ewes was not impressed by the case Glynne put forward on this occasion, saying he argued ‘so weakly as I did wonder such light and impertinent matter should come from him who usually spoke with weight and reason’.384Harl. 164, f. 389. Glynne was also named to a committee to investigate obstructions in the courts of justice on the same day, and on the 24 May he was given special care of the case for impeaching the queen.385CJ iii. 92b, 100b.

As the Oxford talks proceeded to their unsatisfactory conclusion, Glynne was also busy tidying up outstanding religious issues. On 7 January he offered an amendment to the pluralities bill to safeguard incumbents whose livings consisted of ‘two or three distinct parsonages or vicarages with cure of souls’, and on 12 January he was also one of the four Members appointed as sequestrators to supply a godly ministry for St Martin-in-the-Fields.386Add. 18777, f. 119; CJ ii. 924b. On 21 January he was ordered to take the bill to abolish the episcopacy to the Lords and on 26 January he reported from the ensuing conference.387CJ ii. 938b, 944b. He was requested to invite Mr [William?] Bridges to preach to the House at the next fast day on 25 January, and on 11 February he was named to the committee to amend the fast day confession.388CJ ii. 942b, 962a, 975b. Glynne remained committed to suppressing Catholicism in England. On 3 January he was committed to provide an oath of abjuration to identify Catholics to allow their speedy prosecution and the education of their children as Protestants, and on 18 May he was given special care, with Francis Rous, of preparing a declaration that Parliament’s enemies were bent on the extirpation of the Protestant religion in England and Ireland.389CJ ii. 913a; iii. 91a. This declaration was prompted by intelligence of attempts by the Confederates in Ireland to negotiate a truce with the king. Glynne had been involved in this business since the news broke in the previous February. On 14 February he had been put in charge of the committee to consider a letter from the ‘committees’ in Dublin concerning these negotiations, in consultation with the Lords, and in debate on that day he argued for ‘ some votes that the king would not make any agreements with the papists in England without us’.390CJ ii. 965a; Add. 18777, f. 155. Concern at this development may have revived Glynne’s involvement in Ireland and Scottish affairs more generally. On 20 February he was named to a committee to review subscriptions to the adventurers’ act.391CJ ii. 973b. On 16 April he was added to the committee for Ireland, on 20 April he was one of the MPs chosen to consider the Lords’ amendments to the ordinance to encourage more money to be subscribed for Ireland, and on 22 April he was manager and reporter of conference on the ‘bill for Ireland’.392CJ iii. 47b, 53b, 56b. In May Glynne also became more involved in Parliament’s dealings with Scotland. He was named to a committee to devise the reproach to be sent to Scotland about the breach of the act of pacification disclosed in an intercepted letter subscribed by ‘six lords incendiaries’ on 8 May; he was also a manager of conference with the Lords on the subject on 12 May; and a day later he was named to a committee to consult with the Scottish commissioners, and chosen to manage a conference with the Lords on the same business.393CJ iii. 78a, 82a-b, 96b. He was a manager and reporter of a further conference with the Lords concerning a message from the commissioners on 22 May.394CJ iii. 96b.

Recorder of London, May-Dec. 1643.

Glynne finally received recompense for his Herculean labours on 30 May 1643, when he was elected recorder of London. He was sworn in two days later.395CLRO, Rep. 56, ff. 179, 185. This move was not universally popular. The royalists thought Glynne, like the recently-appointed lord mayor, Isaac Penington*, was a usurper; and even some parliamentarians found the appointment distasteful. Thereafter, every time D’Ewes mentioned Glynne’s name, he carefully noted that he was ‘the new recorder’ or the ‘new-made recorder’, although it is uncertain whether this poked fun at Glynne’s legitimacy or his pomposity.396Harl. 165, ff. 97, 100v, 148v, 151, 168v, 222 and passim. There was no doubting Glynne’s increasing importance, however, and his appointment to the recordership was soon followed by other promotion. On 5 June he joined John Trenchard, Edmund Prideaux I and three others on a committee to audit the weekly receipt of revenue and authorise payments from it, and on 7th he was named to the Assembly of Divines.397CJ iii. 115b, 119a-b. In addition, from May Glynne became a more active member of the Committee of Safety, signing a number of warrants for the payment of money to the army.398SP28/267/1, ff. 155-6; Add. 5497, ff. 58, 61, 63, 66.

Immediately after Glynne’s election as recorder, news broke of Edmund Waller’s* plot. On 31 May Glynne was appointed to a committee to examine suspects and seize documents, and the next day he was the spokesman chosen to ‘declare to the House… the most horrid and dangerous plot’.399CJ iii. 110b; Harl. 165, f. 95. Over the following days, he urged the House to be patient while evidence of the plot was collected, and the details were only released on 6 June.400Harl. 164, f. 396; Harl. 165, f. 97. On the same day, Glynne was named to another committee to prepare a new ‘oath and covenant’ to counter similar plots, and took the oath on the same day; and on the following day he managed a conference with the Lords about the plot, and reported back to the House.401CJ iii. 117b, 118a, 119a; Add. 31116, p. 108. He was manager of conferences in the case of the royalist peers, the 2nd earl of Portland and the 2nd Lord Conway, who were implicated in the plot, on 12 and 17 June.402CJ iii.126a-b, 133a. On 29 June he reported the evidence against the royalist conspirators, and counselled his colleagues against pushing the Lords too far: the earl of Northumberland should be only examined, and not imprisoned, as the upper chamber had not agreed to the latter even in the cases of Portland and Conway.403Harl. 165, ff. 100v, 102-3. Glynne also moved that MPs holding army commands could legitimately sit in court martial on Waller and his fellow-conspirators.404CJ iii. 149b.

As the controversy surrounding the Waller plot continued to fester, Glynne was involved in other business in the Commons. On 14 June he reported a conference with the Lords (which he had helped to prepare) about the great seal, and on 26 June he was named to a committee to consider reasons to be presented to the Lords on the great seal, the impeachment of the queen and talks with commissioners from Scotland.405CJ iii. 129a, 145b. Also on 26 June Glynne was appointed to a committee to remove papists from the household of the royal children now at St James’s Palace and to purge the chapel there of ‘disaffected’ ministers and superstitious pictures.406CJ iii. 145b. On 1 July he managed and reported a conference on the same issue.407CJ iii. 151b. The Commons were eager to defend Glynne’s dignity at this time: a captain who had ‘affronted and abused Mr. Recorder’ was sent for as a delinquent on 3 July.408CJ iii. 152a. On 11 July he acted as teller, with Holles, against the sequestration of the parsonage of Lambeth from the moderate incumbent, Dr Daniel Featley, and he was named to a committee to prepare the abolition of the court of wards on 24 July.409CJ iii. 161b, 179b. Alongside these activities, Glynne was involved in moves to settle the London militia - a situation was made more urgent by unrest in Kent. On 11 and 13 July he was named to committees to consider the complaints of the lord general concerning the militia committee, and on 18 July he was ordered to prepare an ordinance to place the new regiments raised in London under the control of that body.410CJ iii. 162a, 165a, 171b. On 20 July Glynne was a manager and reporter of conference about the rebellion in Kent, and on the 24th he was selected to prepare another conference, on a proclamation prohibiting trade between London and other parts of the kingdom.411CJ iii. 176b, 180b. On 25 July he was instructed to prepare a letter thanking the commander of the London forces, Richard Browne II*, for his service in putting down the rising, and over the next few days he was ordered to bring in ordinances to sequester the rebel estates in Kent and to fine their supporters.412CJ iii. 181a, 184b, 185b. On 29 July he reported from the Committee of Safety ‘that they though it very expedient that Sir William Waller* should be made commander in chief of the new army which was now to be raised’ in London, and also that the care of the Tower should be given to the lord mayor and sheriffs of the City’.413CJ iii. 187a; Harl. 165, f. 131v. The same day he was a manager of conference about the safety of the City, and was chosen to go to common hall to give thanks for the City’s expense in confronting the rebels in Kent, for which he was ordered to arrange compensation.414CJ iii. 187a-b.

During August 1643, royalist successes in the west of England caused alarm at Westminster, and some MPs called for new efforts to make peace with the king. On 5 August Glynne was a reporter of conference about possible peace proposals to be sent to the king, and he seems to have supported the peace initiative at this stage.415CJ iii. 196a. By 7 August, however, he had swung behind Pym and those who rejected it. D’Ewes thought Glynne and other waverers who ‘gave their voices contrary to what they had voted on Saturday’ had been intimidated or bought off.416Harl. 165, f. 148v. Whatever the truth of the matter, from that point onwards Glynne seems to have repented of his earlier support for peace, as he consistently backed a new military offensive and played an important part in the diplomacy necessary to make sure the lord general and the City of London worked together. Glynne was added to a committee to meet the London militia committee on 7 August, and on the same day reported from the Lords on letters from the earl of Essex about the current ‘tumults’.417CJ iii. 197a. He was also named to a committee to present to the Lords the Commons’ objections to peace negotiations, and was added to the delegation intended to raise money and men through the City companies.418CJ iii. 197b. Assisted by constables, on 8 August Glynne persuaded the women of Southwark, intent on finding and physically abusing Viscount Saye and Pym, to return to their homes.419Add. 31116, p. 137.

The strength of the relationship between Glynne and Pym during this period can be seen on 3 August, when Glynne was teller in favour of adding Pym to the committee to attend the earl of Essex.420CJ iii. 193a. The two men did not always see eye to eye, however. Only a week later, on 11 August, Pym ‘reversed’ an order obtained by Glynne two days earlier, to allow Denzil Holles and his family to leave the country, a move that ‘was the occasion to many of much discourse’.421Harl. 165, f. 151. On 15 August Glynne joined Pym and Sir Henry Vane I on a mission to Essex to encourage him to march to the relief of Gloucester, and to reassure him of the support of the City, and on 16th Glynne was named to a committee to attend the City to secure money and clothing for Essex’s army.422Add. 31116, p. 139; CJ iii. 205a, 207b. On the same day he was one of the committee told to prepare powers for a committee to sit during the possible adjournment of the House, and he was also sent to tell the Lords that the House would not adjourn without warning them.423CJ iii. 206b, 207a. On 17 August Glynne and Wylde were asked to provide a clause in the ordinance for levying money in London, to exempt MPs and their servants and the refugees that had taken shelter in the City.424CJ iii. 209b. On 18 August Glynne was named to a committee to consider how to deal with Essex and the City to speed the departure of the army, and he was sent to the lord mayor with the request that the common council be assembled to the same end.425CJ iii. 210a, 211a. He was again a member of a delegation that attended the lord general on 19 August with propositions and instructions agreed by both Houses, and on 25 August he went with Pym, Saye and Lord Wharton to attend Essex with the request that Waller’s commission be hastened.426CJ iii. 211b; Harl. 165, f. 157v. The Commons continued to protect Glynne’s reputation during this period. On 24 August the House insisted that Captain Edward Wingate make a formal apology to Glynne for offensive remarks made in debate, even though the recorder ‘was content to pass it by’.427CJ iii. 217b; Add. 18778, f. 19; Add. 31116, p. 145; Harl. 165, f. 155.

In the autumn of 1643, Glynne worked tirelessly to secure support for Parliament’s army. He was named to a committee to consider the fifth article of the Solemn League and Covenant and to arrange the accommodation of the Scottish commissioners on 4 September, and he went on to be a manager and reporter of a conference on the Anglo-Scottish treaty on 15 September.428CJ iii. 227b, 242b. On 12 September he was named to a committee to send agents to Protestant states abroad asking for help, and on 16th he was committed to treat with the customs commissioners about supply for the navy.429CJ iii. 237b, 243b. The resources of the City were key to Parliament’s war effort, and Glynne remained an important go-between. On 6 September he had carried to the Lords the ordinance requiring the London militia to assist the lord general – a measure supported by Glynne on the grounds of necessity and popularity, but one opposed by Samuel Vassall* and other moderates in the City and described by D’Ewes as ‘a most desperate ordinance by which we gave a more vast power to the militia of London than was doubtless remaining in the two Houses’.430CJ iii. 229b; Harl. 165, ff. 168v, 169. On 23 September Glynne was sent by the Commons to attend the common council.431CJ iii. 253b. As recorder, Glynne was ordered to call the mayoral election at the Guildhall on 28 September - with the warning that ‘none be nominated to be mayor of London that voted to be opposite to the Parliament’ - and the following day he was sent to the City to negotiate a further £20,000 for the army.432CJ iii. 257a, 258b; Add. 18778, f. 56. He was thanked for his services in the City on 2 October, and on the same day sent back to the common council with a further request for funding for the forces under Essex and Waller.433CJ iii. 260b, 261a. During September Glynne had been guiding through an ordinance to find alternative sources of fuel for the City (as the royalists had cut off the supply of coal from Newcastle), and on 2 October he was named to the committee to implement the measure.434CJ iii. 237a, 257a, 261a.

Glynne took the Solemn League and Covenant on 3 October, and later defended its imposition, even on those with tender consciences, as in his view it was no different from the oaths of supremacy and allegiance routinely taken by MPs.435CJ iii. 262a; Harl. 165, f. 222. Thereafter he was busy reinforcing the position of the earl of Essex as lord general. On 7 October he was sent to the Lords with an order for a further loan for Essex’s army, and he was also a member of a delegation sent to the lord general to reassure him that Waller and his forces were to be under his sole command.436CJ iii. 265a, 266b, 267a. He headed another delegation to Essex on 9 October, and on 12 October he was named to committees to procure supply for the army from the City, to join the militia committee in raising forces for him, and to consider the needs of the forts and garrisons.437CJ iii. 269b, 274a. On 17 October Glynne was send to ask the lord mayor to summon the common council, and he was also named to a joint committee to meet at Essex House and discuss army supply, on 19 October he was sent to the common council to discuss delegates to be sent north with a committee of both Houses, and he was again sent to the lord mayor, this time to discuss arrangements for wounded soldiers and provision for the dependents of the slain.438CJ iii. 278b, 281b, 282a-b. On 20 October Glynne managed part of a conference on the funding of the army.439CJ iii. 283a.

As winter approached, Glynne continued his efforts to shore up Parliament’s military position. Early in November he worked with Vassall in attempts to obtain funds for Windsor Castle, which was garrisoned by forces from London.440CJ iii. 298a, 302b. On 22 November he brought in an ordinance for a monthly assessment to maintain the lord general’s army as ‘a standing army for the defence of the kingdom’, paid for by assessments on London and the home counties.441Add. 31116, p. 189. On 27 November he and Sir Philip Stapliton were also sent to the lord general to obtain relief for Sir Thomas Myddelton* in north Wales (and a month later he was named to a committee to consider Myddelton’s proposals).442CJ iii. 321a, 345b. On 28 November Glynne and St John were ordered to draft an ordinance to continue Essex’s cousin, the earl of Warwick, as lord admiral, and reported the opinion of the Committee of Safety that Warwick himself should name the naval officers.443CJ iii. 323a; Add. 18779, f. 16v. On 30 November Glynne reported the City’s willingness to allow their forces to remain at Newport Pagnell, and he was ordered to consider an ordinance concerning the militia committee’s recruitment of horses.444CJ iii. 325b, 326a. He was appointed to the committee for the ordinance constituting Warwick admiral on 5 December, and the next day he was a reporter from the Lords and a messenger to the earl with a request of support from Sir William Brereton* in the north west.445CJ iii. 329a, 331a. On 13 December Glynne was ordered to consider votes on the ordinance for maintaining Essex’s army to and present them to a committee.446Add. 31116, p. 200. News that the king’s forces were gathering close to London, reported by Glynne in mid-December, raised concerns about the readiness of the capital and its defences.447Harl. 165, f. 246. On 11 December Glynne took to the Lords an ordinance to repay money borrowed from the excise for the City’s troops; on 15 December he was named to a committee on an ordinance to maintain the garrison at Uxbridge; on 20 December he was involved in the negotiations with the Lords about sending a further regiment to Newport Pagnell; and on 22 December he was named to the committee for an ordinance enabling auxiliary regiments to be sent out of London.448CJ iii. 337a, 341b, 346b, 347a, 349a. Throughout this business, Glynne was acutely aware of the need to balance the interests, and save the face, of the various protagonists, although this was not always appreciated by observers. During the debate on the auxiliary ordinance, for example, Laurence Whitaker* noted that Glynne had expressed concern that the sending of forces under Richard Browne II to Surrey infringed the power granted by the lord general to Waller.449Add. 31116, p. 205. D’Ewes saw matters in a very different light, recording that Glynne hoped thereby to increase Browne’s powers, allowing him to imprison and fine suspects, ‘with some other particulars equally monstrous and unsufferable’.450Harl. 165, f. 253v.

In the closing weeks of 1643 Glynne also found time for non-military matters. His involvement in religious affairs continued, but was much more parochial than before. On 3 October he was named to a committee to consider the Catholic priests held in London prisons and to ensure they had no visitors.451CJ iii. 262a. He was sent with Nathaniel Stephens* to invite Bridges and Mewes to preach for a fast day on 25 October, and on the same day he joined Wheler and William Bell* in advising on suitable preachers for the weekly sermon at St. Margaret’s, Westminster.452CJ iii. 288a. As a religious conservative, Glynne was the obvious choice to bring in an ordinance for the better observation of the sabbath on 26 October, and was named to the committee for a bill preserving the rights of patrons to livings on 6 November.453CJ iii. 302b; Add. 31116, p. 173. He and Wheler were ordered to bring in an ordinance to sequester the tithes and profits of St Margaret’s, Westminster on 29 November, prompted by complaints of the poor preaching inflicted on the parish.454CJ iii. 324a; Harl. 165, f. 221v. At about this time, Glynne, Trenchard, Michael Oldisworth* and others also took over the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields and its dependent chapel of St Paul’s Covent Garden.455Merritt, Westminster, 1640-60, 115. Glynne continued with his vendetta against Archbishop Laud, on 27 October persuading his colleagues on the Committee for Sequestrations not to allow the prelate an allowance while in prison.456Hist. Troubles and Tryal of… William Laud (1695), 211. On 30 November he was instructed to draft an ordinance granting a weekly allowance to the members of the assembly of divines.457CJ iii. 326a. Curiously, Glynne was said to be among the MPs who supported a motion on 23 December ‘that in respect of the ensuing holidays the House might be adjourned’.458Harl. 165, f. 257. On 27 December Glynne and St John were asked to thank Henderson and Strickland for preaching at St Margaret’s, and to arrange for the printing of their sermons.459CJ iii. 353a. Glynne continued to pursue the creation of a parliamentarian great seal. On 21 October he was named to a committee to consider the votes to invalidate the king’s seal at Oxford, and he was appointed to a committee to prepare a commission for the new seal on 11 November.460CJ iii. 283b, 308a. Glynne was also involved in the parliamentarian administration. He continued to sit in the Committee of Safety, and on 21 September brought in the ordinance giving the management of the crown estate into the hands of a new Committee for the Revenue, being appointed to the committee itself when the ordinance was passed the same day.461Supra, ‘Committee for the Revenue’; Harl. 165, f. 197; CJ iii. 263b. On 22 November he was named to a committee to settle the revenue of the court of wards.462CJ iii. 317a. He occasionally intervened on a point of order, as on 7 December, when, during discussion of the case of Sir Henry Mildmay*, he supported calls to bring in Pym as a witness, as ‘we must give him [Mildmay] this way or some other way to have him examined in point of justice, otherwise it will be a failure of justice’.463Add. 18779, f. 23v. In arguing thus, Glynne seemed ignorant of the fact that John Pym was seriously ill, and would die the following day.

The Committee of Both Kingdoms, Jan.-May 1644

The death of Pym gave Glynne the chance to increase his influence in the Commons still further. Characteristically, he proceeded with caution, even circumspection. He played only a minor role in religious affairs, his main aim being the dismantling of the episcopal system and the punishment of its leaders. On 3 January 1644 he was named to the committee to manage the evidence against Archbishop Laud.464CJ iii. 357b. On a more positive note, on 16 February he was a reporter of conference about church government.465CJ iii. 401a. On 8 January Glynne, St John and John Selden* were asked to advise the Lords on impeachment proceedings against the queen, and this was approved by the Commons.466LJ vi. 369b, 372a; Add. 31116, p. 211; Harl. 165, f. 270. During this period Glynne secured further personal rewards. On 1 February he was appointed custos brevium in place of the disabled Sir Henry Compton*, confirming a grant made to him before the civil wars by the sons of his old patron, the earl of Pembroke.467CJ iii. 385b; LJ vi. 405a, 406b; Add. 18779, f. 50; Add. 31116, p. 218. On 7 February the House confirmed his right, against the lord chief justice, to nominate the second prothonotary in common pleas, then vacant, and he went on to name Richard Barnard.468CJ iii. 392a. Glynne was also able to repay some long-standing debts to Pembroke, on 16 May acting as the House’s messenger with a vote of thanks to the earl for his services on the Isle of Wight to aid the besieged town of Lyme Regis.469CJ iii. 494b. Glynne’s political connections with the Scots may have encouraged his involvement in the closer collaboration that followed the entry of the Scottish army into the English war. On 30 January he was named to the committee for the ordinance to set up joint commissioners of both kingdoms residing near the Houses, according to the terms of the treaty and the Solemn League and Covenant.470CJ iii. 382a. On 3 February he was named to a committee of both Houses to consider the Scots commissioners’ message to Parliament.471CJ iii. 387b. He was nominated as a member of the new executive body, the Committee of Both Kingdoms on 7 February, and the appointment was confirmed by ordinance on 16 February.472CJ iii. 391b, 392b; LJ vi. 430a; A. and O.

Glynne’s position as a member of the Committee of Both Kingdoms involved him in the highest levels of political and military planning, and he was a frequent reporter from the committee to the Commons.473CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 32, 86, 140. On 29 February he reported a letter from the earl of Essex concerning the safe conduct of a royalist envoy, making ‘some motion touching a treaty of peace’ and on 6 March he reported a conference on a letter carried from the king.474Add. 31116, p. 238; CJ iii. 418b. On 8 March he was one of six appointed to prepare for the impeachment of Sir William Davenant and other royalist intriguers, the next day was committed to amend the ordinance for the association of the south-eastern counties.475CJ iii. 421b, 423a. The latter move proved controversial: in a division on whether to agree with the Lords on the same ordinance on 13 March, Glynne and Stapilton were tellers in favour, but lost by 69 votes to 52, with St John and Hesilrige telling against.476CJ iii. 427a. Glynne was named to a committee to prepare a conference with the Lords on peace negotiations on 15 March, and was made a reporter of the same on 20 March.477CJ iii. 428b, 433a. The chances of peace were not high, however. On 22 March Glynne reported a declaration against the ‘pretences’ for a peace issued by the king, and next day he reported additions to it and was put in charge of its publication.478CJ iii. 434b, 435b; LJ vi. 482b. In debate he had particularly objected to the king’s statement concerning the ‘assembly of Lords and Commons’ at Oxford as ‘equal to our Parliament at Westminster’, which, according to Glynne, ‘showed how far the king and that ill counsel that are about him were from any true intentions of a firm and honourable peace’.479Add. 31116, p. 251.

Despite this set-back, Glynne continued to involve himself in the peace process. On 20 April he was appointed to a committee to draft a further clause to the ordinance giving the grounds for peace.480CJ iii. 466a. On 3 May he was a messenger to the Lords and named to the subsequent committee sent to the City to discuss the London peace propositions.481LJ vi. 539a; CJ iii. 478a. Glynne’s role could also be conciliatory. On 2 May he and Rous and ‘some other discreet men’ stepped in to prevent a row between the Houses over the earl of Manchester’s ordinance.482Harl. 166, f. 54v. Glynne’s appointment on 13 May to open letters to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, and report to the House, also suggests that he was trusted.483CJ iii. 490b. The initial term of the Committee of Both Kingdoms was only for three months, and in early May its renewal was discussed. On 15 May, it was reported that the Lords wanted a brand new ordinance, with altered powers, rather than an extension, but this was opposed by a group that included radical such as Vane II and St John as well as Glynne and Sir Gilbert Gerard.484Harl. 166, f. 61v. On 16 May Glynne was named to a committee to answer the City petition expressing fears their own fears about the committee falling into abeyance at such a critical moment.485CJ iii. 495b. Despite such concerns, on 23 May Glynne and his colleagues were formally reappointed to the committee.486A. and O.

Glynne continued to be a key point of contact between the Commons and the City in the first half of 1644. On 8 January he was a messenger to the militia committee to direct Richard Browne II to march out with the City regiments to support Waller, and on the same day he was named to a committee to attend common hall with a report of the latest design against Parliament.487CJ iii. 360a, 360b. On the 13th he was a member of a committee of four asked to withdraw and prepare the Speaker’s answer to the City, which Glynne then delivered to the councillors waiting at the door.488CJ iii. 365a-b. On the same day he was appointed to a committee to inquire into the abuses at Westminster College, and suggest a remedy.489CJ iii. 365a. On 20 January he was ordered to thank the City for their ‘great entertainment’.490CJ iii. 370b. On 29 January he was sent to ask the militia committee to despatch a regiment of horse to reinforce Waller.491CJ iii. 381b. Despite his involvement in moves to support Waller, Glynne’s primary aim in the early months of 1644 was the strengthening of the main field army under the earl of Essex. His connection with Essex was already well established in mid-January, when Thomas Juxon* noted that Glynne and Stapilton were deeply involved in moves against those who had tried to block the return to the Lords of Essex’s cousin, the 1st earl of Holland.492Juxon Jnl. 43. On 29 January Glynne reported from a conference on reinforcing Essex’s army, and when a London petition supporting it was presented to the House the same day, D’Ewes commented it was ‘by the procurement, I believe, chiefly of Mr Glynne, the new recorder’.493CJ iii. 381b; Harl. 165, f. 284. On 1 February Glynne and Robert Scawen* were instructed to prepare the ordinance for recruiting the lord general’s army to a total strength of 7,500 foot and 3,000 horse, at a cost of £20,000, and Glynne was also named to the committee on an ordinance for improving the supply of provisions to the army.494CJ iii. 384a, 385a. He was sent with another Essexian, Anthony Nicoll, to wait on the lord general on 5 February to obtain a list of his officers.495CJ iii. 389a. Ten days later Glynne was one of three to treat with the excise commissioners about the loan of £20,000 for Essex, and he reported on his successful negotiation of this sum on 27 February.496CJ iii. 400a, 408b, 409a; Harl. 166, f. 18v. In the meantime a new ordinance concerning the London militia was put before Parliament. On 3 February the Lords sent the Commons a list of their preferred committee members, provoking complaints that this was a breach of privilege. Glynne, perhaps defending Essex’s part in the process, defended the Lords, saying that only money bills had to begin in the lower chamber, ‘but for any other law it may as well in the Lords’ House as well as in ours’.497Add. 18779, f. 61v. On 17 February Glynne was appointed a commissioner for volunteers for the defence of London and Middlesex, on 18 February he was appointed to a sub-committee of the Committee of Both Kingdoms to report on the state of the armed forces, and on 19 February he and Scawen were instructed, after consultations with the London militia committee, to nominate commissioners from the City and Parliament for the recruitment of Essex’s army.498A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 18; CJ iii. 403a. This was the last clause of the ordinance to be decided, but, as D’Ewes noted, it proved as controversial as the rest, as St John and Waller’s ally, Sir Arthur Hesilrige, ‘who had for some months retarded it, moved new and impertinent objections, which Mr Glynne … Sir Philip Stapilton and Sir Henry Cholmley answered’.499Harl. 166, f. 14v.

Even though Glynne was now working closely with Stapilton, Cholmley, Nicoll, Gerard and other Essexians, he was not entirely partisan. He was, for example, included in a committee named on 27 February to consider how to raise money to allow Waller to march out, and to maintain his forces on campaign.500CJ iii. 409a. Glynne needed to be on his guard, however. On 13 March the ‘violent spirits’ took advantage of the absence of Holles, Sir William Lewis and others to try to push through an ordinance favouring Waller, but were stymied by Glynne and Stapilton and others who ‘spake very fully, speaking three or four times apiece’ to gain time for their supporters to muster, and arguing ‘that this was a dishonour to their House and to the lord general’.501Harl. 166, f. 32v. On 16 March Glynne was one of three MPs ordered to arrange the musters of Essex’s army, and on 24 March he was sent to the militia committee by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to press the case for maintaining the forces; he spoke in a discussion concerning Essex’s cavalry officers on 26 March, and on 2 April he was named to the committee on an ordinance to repay the money borrowed for recruiting the army.502CJ iii. 430a, 445a; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 70; Harl. 166, f. 39. On 8 April Glynne was a member of the committee of three instructed to withdraw and amend the ordinance to continue the excise receipts crucial to funding the army, and he reported the Lords’ concurrence the same day.503CJ iii. 452a, 452b. In a speech at the Guildhall the following day he urged the citizens to assist in bringing the war to a speedy end by advancing men and money for the parliamentary cause.504Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 662; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 252. On 17 April he was named to a committee to attend the excise commissioners for an advance to allow Essex’s army to march, and also to the City to persuade them to provide security for a loan from the United Provinces.505CJ iii. 462b.

The additional funding encouraged the City, and on 20 April Glynne was able to report from the common council that they were at last making progress in raising men in London, and he moved that Wheler should attend the excise commissioners and the London and Westminster committees to collect arrears of assessments.506CJ iii. 466b; Harl. 166, f. 50v. On 29 April he was sent by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to press for the City regiments to march to join Essex without delay.507CSP Dom. 1644, p. 140. The Commons instructed him to go to the militia committee on 7 May to obtain five tons of bullets for the lord general, and the following day he moved an ordinance for the London militia to ‘have power to send out regiments to assist Essex to take Oxford or Reading or other service’ – a vote passed and taken to the Lords by Pye.508CJ iii. 485a; Harl. 166, f. 57v. On 9 May Glynne was sent with five others to the London militia committee to ask them to deal with abuses reported by their sub-committee in the suburbs, and on 15 May he was sent to the corporation and the militia committee with orders from the Commons for the removal of suspects from London and for the marching out of the City regiments.509CJ iii. 493b. He was named to another committee to consider ways to raise money on 27 May, attended the militia committee to encourage Colonel Edmund Harvey I* to join Essex on the same day, and on 30 May he was appointed to a related committee to consider how to maintain the London forces garrisoning Newport Pagnell.510CJ iii. 508b, 510a; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 172.

Supporting Essex, June-Dec. 1644

In the second half of 1644, Glynne’s primary role was as a supporter of the parliamentarian war effort, once again liaising with the City of London. Although politically he could by this time be characterised as an Essexian, as before he was careful not to undermine the war effort by starving Waller of support. On 7 June the House sent Glynne and others to the common council to offer them prospects of reducing Oxford, and a day later he was sent to the House by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to remind them of the need to maintain the garrison at Aylesbury.511CJ iii. 521a; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 216. On 13 June he reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms letters from Waller and Essex, and 17 June he again reported letters from Essex, and on 18 June he was sent to the excise commissioners for ready cash to pay both armies.512CJ iii. 527a, 534a; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 229. In a debate on 17th, which concentrated on Essex’s complaint that he was being restricted while Waller’s remit was expanded, Glynne ‘stood up and desired that some engagement might be given to the earl of Essex to proceed with the reducing of the west’, and was immediately attacked by Viscount Lisle (Philip Sidney*), ‘siding with [the] violent spirits’, who said Essex had refused to co-operate with the Committee of Both Kingdoms.513Harl. 166, f. 74. On 22 June Glynne reported further letters from Essex; on 25 June he was sent to the excise commissioners to raise money for Waller and was named to the committee to write to the lord general concerning his advance into the west; and on 28 June he was appointed to another committee to consider recruiting and paying Waller’s army.514CJ iii. 539b, 542a, 542b, 544b; CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 243, 244.

Concern about Prince Rupert’s activities in the north west led to Glynne’s involvement in further discussions with the Scots. On 10 June he was named to a committee to attend the Scottish commissioners, and on 13 June he was among the three Members named as delegates to the Committee of Both Kingdoms to urge the relief of Lancashire.515CJ iii. 524b, 527a. On 17 June he reported from the committee on the state of Hull and the progress of the siege of York, and on 21 June he delivered a letter from Colonel John Venn* on the mutinous state of the Windsor garrison.516CJ iii. 532b, 533a; Harl. 166, f. 75v. On 22 June Glynne reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms an offer by the Scots to raise another 10,000 men, and was a messenger to the Lords to secure their agreement.517CJ iii. 539b. The victory against Rupert’s forces at Marston Moor on 2 July gave Parliament renewed confidence. On 6 July Glynne brought in a controversial ordinance to raise a new army in London and the home counties to besiege Oxford, and was named to the subsequent committee; on 8 July he and Vane II were instructed to draft a letter to Waller thanking him for his services.518Harl. 166, f. 80; CJ iii. 552b. On 20 July he joined Strode I in drafting a reply to the lord general, who had now reached Tiverton.519CJ iii. 555a. Glynne received news of Essex’s decision to march beyond the Tamar with some concern, warning the Commons on 9 August of ‘what danger the earl of Essex in Cornwall’ and passing on the recommendation of the Committee of Both Kingdoms that Waller should make all haste to support the lord general.520Harl. 166, f. 106. On 12 and 13 August Glynne was sent to the City to raise money for Abingdon and to ask that four or five regiments be released for service against Oxford, and on 17 August he was named to a committee to bring in a nationwide militia bill.521CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 421, 425; CJ iii. 594a.

The humiliating defeat of Essex at Lostwithiel at the end of August was a blow to Parliament’s confidence and to Glynne’s political position. On 7 September Glynne was one of six MPs asked to draft instructions to the earl of Manchester to march west with his Eastern Association army to counter the expected royalist advance; on 10 September the Committee of Both Kingdoms sent him to the militia committee to ask for the recruitment of horses; and on 13 September he was given care of a Commons’ committee to meet the Lords and go to the common council about raising additional forces.522CJ iii. 621a, 626a; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 488. As these last measures suggest, Glynne and his allies considered it crucial to persuade London to continue its support of Essex. On 14 September he was again sent to the militia committee to ask them to keep their regiments in lord general’s army.523CSP Dom. 1644, p. 501. He reported the propositions of the Committee of Both Kingdoms concerning the supply of new clothes for Essex’s army on 27 September, and he and John Crewe I were asked to press the militia committee to get the City forces to advance at once, an errand repeated on 1 October.524CJ iii. 641a, 647a; Harl. 166, f. 125v. Glynne remained doggedly loyal to Essex. On 7 October, Vane II and St John tried weaken Essex, ‘and so to draw all power to Waller, Hesilrige, etc’ by transferring his major-general, Philip Skippon, to the command of the City militia; but Glynne ‘after long debate discovered the knavish packing, and so it was exploded by the House’.525Harl. 166, f. 128v. On 10 October Glynne joined Pierrepont in reporting letters from the Committee of Both Kingdoms once again ordering Manchester to take his army west, and on 12 October he joined Holles in reporting on an incident concerning the countess of Peterborough, and prepare a letter to the governor of Gloucester, Colonel Edward Massie*, thanking him for his services.526CJ iii. 658a, 660b; Harl. 166, f. 129. Later in the same month Glynne was involved in settling the differences between various officers, and on 25 October he was named to the committee on an ordinance to raise money for maintaining the ‘lines of communication’ around London and Westminster.527CJ iii. 669b, 673b, 676a.

After the indecisive second battle of Newbury, Glynne continued to press for an effective military response to the king. On 2 November Glynne and St John, supported by three others, formed a committee to handle the money assigned to the lord general, and on 4 November Glynne brought in a letter to Manchester ‘that they should proceed’ westwards as ordered.528CJ iii. 685b; Harl. 166, f. 152. On 5 November he reported that the parliamentary committee attending the army had news of a change of plan, for which he was directed to obtain the Lords’ assent; on 16 November he reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms the need for an ordinance to raise money for provisions for the army; and on 21 November he was appointed to the sub-committee to consider the military situation.529CJ iii. 687b, 698b; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 137. On 31 December Glynne and Sir Thomas Widdrington were ordered to draft an ordinance for continuing the weekly assessment to fund the army.530CJ iv. 6a.

As the military fortunes of Parliament waxed and waned, Glynne was also involved in a range of other business at Westminster. On 15 June 1644 he was named to a committee to consider increasing the scope of the excise; on the same day he was a reporter of conference with the Lords about the desertion of Members of both Houses; and on 18 June he was given charge of a committee to decide on the disposal of delinquents’ chambers at the inns of court.531CJ iii. 531b, 532a, 533b. On 29 July he was appointed to a committee to meet with the Irish adventurers to discuss the difficulties of the British regiments in Ulster, and how they might be reorganized.532CJ iii. 574a, 640b. Irish affairs also gave Glynne to opportunity to clip the wings of the former lord mayor, Isaac Penington, now lieutenant of the Tower. The escape of two notorious Irish rebels from the Tower led to an attempt to oust Penington, which would have succeeded ‘might the recorder and his party had their will’ but was prevented by Hesilrige.533Juxon Jnl. 57. Glynne continued to be an important figure in Irish affairs during the autumn. On 27 September he was named to a committee to consider a petition of the Irish adventurers, and on 14 November he was added to the sub-committee for Irish affairs by the Committee of Both Kingdoms.534CJ iii. 640b; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 123.

Glynne also played a greater role in religious affairs in the second half of 1644, apparently prompted by local concerns. On 7 June he was named to a committee on a petition of the newly established church at Tuthill Fields in Westminster, and on 20 July he was named to a committee to consider providing a preaching ministry in north Wales.535CJ iii. 521a, 566a. Glynne was named to committees to consider a paper from the Lords concerning Archbishop Laud on (16 Sept.) and to consider heads for a conference on his trial (19 Sept.).536CJ iii. 628a, 633b. Glynne did not, however, agree with those Essexians who sought to impose a Scottish-style Presbyterian church. On 1 November he joined Whitelocke in obstructing the proposal of the assembly of divines that Presbyterian church government should be established iure divino, apparently provoked by the attempt to spring it upon the House while attendance was as yet thin; and both men ‘had thanks from divers for preventing the surprisal of the House upon this great question’.537Whitelocke, Mems. i. 327. Glynne was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers on 30 November, when it considered an ordinance appointing godly ministers as lecturers at St Paul’s Cathedral, and on 11 December he was one of four to draft a bill to repress the ‘enormous vices’ of fornication, drunkenness and blasphemy.538CJ iii. 709b, 721b.

The military disappointments of the late summer and autumn may have encouraged Glynne to support the renewal of peace negotiations with the king, and in this he was more in line with Essex and his friends. On 1 August Glynne was sent to common council to encourage them to submit peace proposals, on 17 August he was named to a committee to draw together the proposals and was sent to the lord mayor to hasten the City’s response, and on 16 September he was named to a committee to meet the Lords on the king’s letter to both Houses.539CJ iii. 576a, 594a-b, 629a. At the end of August he was also named to committees to consider how to receive the elector palatine, known to be sympathetic to Parliament, and to advise on the negotiations with him.540CJ iii. 612b, 613b. Glynne was asked to encourage the Committee of Both Kingdoms to submit their peace propositions for early scrutiny on 23 October, returning with assurances that they would be presented the next day, and on 25 October he joined a delegation of six which took some of these to the common council.541CJ iii. 673b, 677a; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 66. He was a reporter of conference with the Lords about peace propositions on 4, 7 and 8 November.542CJ iii. 686a, 690a, 690b. In debate on 7 November he joined Pierrepont and others who ‘spake often as if in a committee’ on the question of which MPs should be disqualified from sitting, and on 8 November he was named to a committee on the same (and to the committee charged with bringing in an appropriate ordinance on 9 December).543Harl. 166, f. 155; CJ iii. 690b, 718b. On 3 December Glynne reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms the request for passes for two of the king’s negotiators, the 1st duke of Richmond and the 4th earl of Southampton.544CJ iii. 712a. On 16 December he was named to a committee to consider how to meet Richmond and Southampton, on the same day he was appointed to the joint committee to receive the king’s proposals, and on 19 December he joined his Committee of Both Kingdoms colleague, Sir Henry Vane II, as majority teller against putting the question whether to add to the answer proposed to the king.545CJ iii. 724b, 725b, 729b. On 30 December he was appointed to a sub-committee of the Committee of Both Kingdoms to formulate the propositions into a suitable message to be sent to the king.546CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 203.

Glynne and the New Model army, Jan.-Dec. 1645

In the new year of 1645 Glynne was finally able to bring about a conclusion to the case of Archbishop Laud. He was one of four chosen on 7 January to justify the temporary refusal of the Commons to alter the arrangements for the archbishop’s execution, and the next day he was ordered to prepare an ordinance providing for the sentence of decapitation, and a burial without ceremony, to be carried out.547CJ iv. 12b, 13b. Laud’s death coincided with the start of the formal peace negotiations at Uxbridge, and most of Glynne’s activities in the House in the early weeks of 1645 were directly or indirectly concerned with the propositions. As before, he was an important figure in liaising with the Scots. He was ordered to draft letters to the Scottish Parliament on 2 January; on 13 January he reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms regarding the treaty and the Scots; and on 28 January he was one of four MPs sent to the Scots commissioners concerning Parliament’s alterations to instructions concerning the treaty.548CJ iv. 7b, 18b, 34b. Glynne was also involved in equally delicate negotiations with the Lords. On 3 January he was named to a committee to consider the Lords’ amendments to the public worship ordinance, and on 8 January he was appointed to a committee to justify to the Lords the Commons’ stance on the ordinance governing the disqualification of errant MPs.549CJ iv. 9b, 13b. On 29 January he was manager with Pierrepont of a conference with the Lords and the Committee of Both Kingdoms on the Scottish treaty.550CJ iv. 36b. Religious matters were of obvious importance to the success of negotiations with the king. On 22 January Glynne had been added to the Committee of Both Kingdom’s sub-committee on the abolition of episcopacy and on 1 February, he was asked to report the difficulties encountered by the committee in perfecting an ordinance on the matter; he was asked to confer with the Scots commissioners about alterations to the ordinance on 6 February; and on the same day he was named a draftsman for a similar measure disposing of bishops’, and deans’ and chapters’ lands in Ireland.551CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 269; CJ iv. 39a, 43a. On 4 March Glynne he was manager with Vane I of a conference with the Lords to arrange a meeting of common council about the treaty of Uxbridge on a programme to be devised by both Houses.552CJ iv. 68a.

In the meantime, Parliament pressed on with the reform of the army prompted by the failures of Essex, Manchester and the other generals in the second half of 1644. Although he was involved in this process, Glynne’s attitude to the New Model Army was equivocal. He was messenger to the Lords to expedite the New Model ordinance on 3 February, on 5 February he was named to a committee to consider a proviso sent down by the Lords to the defence bill making Sir Thomas Fairfax* commander-in-chief, and on 13 February he was named to a small committee ordered to produce a justification to the Lords of the Commons’ dissent from the last clause sent down by them for the New Model ordinance.553CJ iv. 40a, 42a, 48a. Under the ordinance Glynne was made a local commissioner for Middlesex and Surrey.554A. and O. He was also instrumental in raising money for the new army. On 18 February he was named to the committee to arrange a loan of £80,000 for the army, on 10 March he was sent to the City to negotiate this loan, and on 25 March he was involved in moves to use assessment arrears as security for the loan.555CJ iv. 52a, 73b, 89a. Late in March he was made a member of the New Model’s financial executive, the Committee for the Army.556A. and O. Despite this, Glynne had considerable doubts about the make-up of the army, and especially the inclusion of Independents and other radicals in its officer corps. On 28 February he joined Sir Christopher Wray as teller against putting the question to approve of the radical Colonel Nathaniel Rich* as an officer in Weldon’s regiment, and although on 17 March he was added to the managers of the conference with the Lords to justify the Commons’ adherence to the New Model Army officers as they stood, he was probably not a strong supporter of the move.557CJ iv. 64b, 81a. This is also suggested by his involvement in moves to strengthen non-New Model commanders (notably Edward Massie in the west midlands and Rowland Laugharne† in south Wales) as well as the London militia, and his inclusion, on 18 March, in a committee to mend relations with the Lords, strained by the dispute over the officer list.558CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 250; CJ iv. 37b, 42b, 64a, 65a, 83b, 88b; Harl. 166, f. 179v.

Glynne’s continuing support for the Scots also suggests he was less than happy with the way the new army was turning out. On 4 February he had been appointed by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to consider ways to encourage the Scottish army to march south from Newcastle; four days later he was sent to the Lords with a draft letter to the Scottish Parliament (and brought their reply on 10 Feb.).559CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 285; CJ iv. 44a, 45a. On 4 March he presented to the Commons a paper from the Scottish commissioners demanding that all new officers subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant; a move that provoked a furious response from Vane II, Strode I and others, but was defended by Stapilton, Holles and Glynne himself.560Harl. 166, f. 181. Glynne was named to the committee on the Self-Denying Ordinance on 24 March, he was one of four managers in conference on the New Model ordinance on 29 March, and on 4 April he reported a conference on the Self-Denying Ordinance.561CJ iv. 88a, 93a, 100a. The debate on the latter was seen with hindsight by the 1st earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde*) as a turning point, from which time Glynne could clearly be identified with Holles, Stapilton and others of the ‘Presbyterian party, which passionately opposed the ordinance’, and others were speculating about Glynne’s position in the same period.562Clarendon, Hist. ii. 507; Rowe, Vane the Younger, 73. Glynne’s association with the Presbyterian faction neatly dovetailed with his loyalty to the old commanders. This loyalty is suggested by his signing of a warrant for the payment of over £6,000 of arrears to Essex in January, and his inclusion in a committee, appointed on 2 April, to decide how to reward the earls of Essex, Denbigh and Manchester, and his choice as reporter of the same.563Add. 5459, f. 128; CJ iv. 96b. On 20 May he was named to the committee on an ordinance to grant £10,000 from delinquents’ estates to the earl of Essex.564CJ iv. 148b.

During the spring of 1645 Glynne continued to work to improve the financial position of Parliament and its armies. He was one of five MPs named on 7 April to draft an ordinance to regulate the public revenue, and on 11 April he was appointed to another committee on the ordinance to set up an excise commission.565CJ iv. 102b, 107a. The following day he was added to the committee to consider how to regulate excise receipts, and was also one of seven asked to treat with the City for a £5,000 loan.566CJ iv. 109a. On the 26 April he was named to a committee to consider what powers should be granted to the Committee of Accounts, and in debate joined D’Ewes and Selden in opposing the extension of its authority.567CJ iv. 123b; Harl. 166, f. 205. On 8 May he was one of seven MPs sent to the City to expedite the payment of their three-month assessment, and on 17 May he was given charge of the committee for an ordinance concerning the London subsidies.568CJ iv. 135a, 146a. Also on 17 May he was named to another committee to draft an ordinance raising funds from the sale of delinquent estates.569CJ iv. 146b. There were limits, however. On 27 May, when it was proposed that London and Westminster should be forced to lend £20,000 for the New Model to besiege Oxford, Glynne joined those who ‘showed this ordinance to be very unjust and exercised as great oppression and tyranny over the subject as ever any that was complained of before the Parliament’.570Harl. 166, f. 213.

Glynne’s support for the rival armies also indicated his continuing doubts about the New Model. Glynne and Nathaniel Stephens were ordered to draft a letter to Colonel Massie to encourage him to remain in Parliament’s service (3 Apr.), he was sent to the Committee of the West to negotiate reinforcements for Massie (9 Apr.), and was named to consider an ordinance making him commander of the forces in the west (16 May).571CJ iv. 99a, 145b; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 396. After the capture of Evesham he reported Massie’s victory to the House (28 May), and called for artillery and muskets to be sent to him (29 May).572Harl. 166, f. 213v; Add. 18780, f. 27v. In the same period, he corresponded with another commander independent of the New Model, Sir William Brereton, about the situation in Cheshire and north Wales.573Brereton Letter Bks. i. 248-9, 295-6, 320. Glynne also supported the London militia committee in its attempt to control the appointment of new commanders at Farnham and Windsor (4-5 Apr.), reported to the House petitions of disappointed Scottish officers (23 Apr.), and advised the sending of reinforcements to Laugharne at Pembroke (19 May).574CJ iv. 121b; Harl. 166, ff. 198, 211; Add. 31116, p. 405. Although he baulked at making London pay for it, Glynne seems to have supported giving the New Model the subordinate role of capturing the royalist capital of Oxford. On 17 May he was chosen for a joint committee to advise the common council of plans to reduce Oxford; on 29 May he reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms their requirements for the siege of the city; on 30 May he was one of a delegation sent to procure an advance of £20,000 to fund it; and on 2 June he was one of three MPs sent to press London to send two further regiments to Oxford.575CJ iv. 147a, 157a, 157a, 160b.

Despite his misgivings, the New Model Army’s decisive victory over the king’s army at Naseby on 14 June was welcomed by Glynne. He was sent to acquaint the lord mayor with the parliamentary provision of a day of thanksgiving for the victory on 16 June, and on 1 July he was named to a joint committee to examine the ‘king’s cabinet’ seized after the battle.576CJ iv. 175b, 191b. Glynne was also involved in other business at this time: he was named to the committee on an ordinance for the sale of delinquents’ estates (16 June), put in the chair of a revived committee to consider those Members who suffered for their loyalty to Parliament (30 June) and added to the committee to review public offices (3 July).577CJ iv. 176a, 189a, 194a. He was added to the committee for petitions on 2 August.578CJ iv. 228b. But Glynne’s co-operation with the political Independents was more apparent than real. On 30 June, when compensation for one of star chamber’s victims, Walter Long*, was debated , William Strode I, although ‘his old friend, did somewhat unworthily undervalue his sufferings’, and Glynne ‘did fully answer him, and notably jerk him for it’ to the delight of the Presbyterians in the House.579Harl. 166, f. 222v. Similarly, on 7 July, Glynne, a member of the committee to consider revelations made by Lord Savile, came to the defence of his old associates Holles and Whitelocke, moving that Savile ‘might prove what he only averred upon his honour, which he could not do’.580CJ iv. 195a; Whitelocke, Diary, 171. At the end of August he was named to a committee to prepare a justification for the Lords of the House’s disinclination to bail Lord Savile.581CJ iv. 257b.

In other cases, Glynne is less easy to read: for example on 15 July he was involved in preparing the ordinance to settle the treasurership of the navy on his colleague on the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the leading Independent Sir Henry Vane II.582CJ iv. 207b. Glynne’s opposition to radicals in the army can be seen in early August, when he informed the Commons of Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburne’s ‘most scandalous book’, A Letter to a Friend, and was then put in charge of arrangements for Lilburne’s trial.583CJ iv. 235a, 237a; Add. 31116, p. 449-50. Yet Glynne’s position was not straightforward, as he was reluctant to abuse the law even in Lilburne’s case, and it was on his information that the lieutenant-colonel, who had languished in Newgate without trial for nearly three months, was freed on 14 October.584CJ iv. 307a. Similarly, Glynne remained outwardly hostile to royalists - he was named for a committee to decide on penalties for communication with Oxford on 15 September – but he was also considered an honest broker in dealings with the royal family.585CJ iv. 274a. In October it was thought that if he could be got into the chair of the relevant committee, the queen of Bohemia would obtain the £10,000 promised for her maintenance, and on 1 November he was named to consider the granting of a passport to her son, Prince Rupert; and on 8 November he was added to the committee on the ordinance to allow pensions to the servants of the royal children.586CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 179; CJ iv. 330a, 335b.

Glynne’s underlying political Presbyterianism was reinforced by his concern for groups outside Westminster. He continued his efforts to support the Scots. On 28 June he was sent to the Scottish commissioners to inform them of progress in raising £30,000 for their army.587CJ iv. 188b. On 5 July he was named to a committee to consult with the Lords about instructions to be sent to the Scottish Parliament, he was one of five MPs chosen to draft an ordinance to revive the ordinance to pay the Scottish army on 9 July, and on the 12th he reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms on the same and headed a delegation of three to obtain expeditious payment for them from Goldsmiths’ Hall.588CJ iv. 198a, 202b, 205b. On 1 August he was named to a committee to draft a letter to the earl of Leven and on 5 August Glynne and Crewe were asked to write to the Scottish army, instructing them to prevent the royalists from crossing the River Severn.589CJ iv. 227a, 231b. On 15 September he reported the request of the Scottish commissioners that their army return to Scotland for lack of pay, and the committee’s recommendation that money be raised for them to avoid leaving the north of England ‘defenceless’, and the following day he was ordered to withdraw a prepare a formal answer to the Scots.590CJ iv. 274a-b, 275a. He was added to the committee to considering relations with the Scots on 27 September, on 9 October he was added to the committee to raise £30,000 for the Scots army, and after reporting to the House from the Committee of Both Kingdoms on 8 December he attended the common council of London to thank them for agreeing to lend the money.591CJ iv. 291b, 302a, 369a; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 251. The summer also saw Glynne’s growing concern at the situation in Wales. On 5 July he was named to a committee to consider the propositions sent by the gentry of Pembrokeshire, and on 5 August he was appointed to a committee to consider how to capture Chester, which still represented a threat to north Wales.592CJ iv. 197a, 230b. On 23 August Glynne and William Wheler* were ordered to arrange maintenance for Laugharne’s family, and on 26 September and 25 October he was ordered to draft letters of thanks to the colonel for his good service to Parliament.593CJ iv. 252a, 288a, 320b. On 25 October he drafted a letter to Glamorganshire for the arrest of Sir John Strangways* and other fugitive royalists, and on 4 November he was ordered to produce yet another letter – this time to Colonel Thomas Mytton* for his service in the Welsh marches.594CJ iv. 321a, 333b. On the same day Glynne was named to a committee to attend the common council and request a loan for the forces under Brereton, now besieging Chester.595CJ iv. 334a.

During the summer and autumn of 1645, Glynne remained an important point of contact between Parliament and the City of London. On 10 July he was sent to the militia committee to speed the implementation of their proposal to raise more cavalry.596CJ iv. 203a. On 23 July he was instructed to answer the City petitioners who asked that Alderman John Fowke’s* accounts be passed despite obstructions by the Committee of Accounts.597Add. 31116, p. 444. On 9 August he reported that the common council had added members to the London militia committee, and was ordered to bring in an ordinance to authorise this, which he took the Lords for approval on 13 August.598CJ iv. 235a, 240a. On 15 October he introduced the lord mayor elect for the House’s approbation, on 19 and 21 November he was involved in negotiations with the lord mayor and aldermen for the mustering of the London regiments at Uxbridge, and on 4 December he was sent back to the City to discuss the militia committee.599LJ vii. 643b; CJ iv. 350a, 351a, 365a. Glynne was also involved in measures to ensure the good governance of Westminster after the demise of the dean and chapter. On 7 July he was added to the committee to regulate the college and abbey church, and on 18 November was appointed as one of the commissioners to take charge of their rents and profits.600CJ iv. 198b; LJ vii. 711a; A. and O.

Glynne had considerable sympathy with the citizens who were becoming increasingly restive at the failure of Parliament to implement a Presbyterian church system – an issue which may have influenced his good relations with the Scots. He was named to a committee to advise ministers on the election of elders in classical presbyteries on 25 July, and on 29 August he acted as majority teller against the immediate consideration of the grand committee’s recommendations about church government.601CJ iv. 218a, 257a. In the midst of this controversy, Glynne also pursued his old religious agenda: he was granted power as recorder to warrant the enforcement of ordinances against sabbath-breaking and immoral activities on 30 August, and on 16 September he was chosen to draft an ordinance confiscating the estates of the dioceses and deaneries for the benefit of Parliament.602CJ iv. 258b, 276a. The question of Presbyterian structures had not gone away, however. On 20 September Glynne was chosen as emissary to the common council to inform them that the House had rejected out of hand the London petition ‘taxing the slackness of the proceeding of the House in settling church government’.603Add. 31116, p. 465. There was also the matter of parliamentary involvement in the rules on admission to communion, seen by many as an unacceptable interference by the state in church affairs. On 15 October Glynne was teller against immediate second reading of the ordinance regulating exclusion from the sacrament: a vote passed by 67 votes to 66, with Hesilrige and Crewe I telling in favour.604CJ iv. 309a.

Factionalism and the search for settlement, 1646

The new year of 1646 saw increasing unrest in London, and Glynne was involved in efforts to deal with the unruly and mollify the citizens. On 1 January he was named to the committee on an ordinance to enforce martial law, and on 8 January he went to the Lords with an ordinance enabling the militia committee to search for papists and delinquents and seize their arms.605CJ iv. 394a, 398b, 399a; LJ viii. 90b. The following day he was manager of a conference on a controversial ordinance to continue the Army Committee and the treasurers-at-war.606CJ iv. 400b. Glynne remained involved in efforts to secure a Presbyterian church settlement in London, on 21 January being named to a committee to consider incorporating Whitefriars and other churches within the system of classes already established in the capital.607CJ iv. 413a.

Relations between London and the Independent faction which now dominated the Commons reached a new low in the early spring, with the common council suspected of being ‘debauched by Serjeant Glynne and others of that party in the House’.608Ludlow, Mems. i. 136. On 13 February the aldermen snubbed the Commons by declining to send the original of a letter they had received from the Scottish Parliament, ‘but instead thereof the recorder said that the court of aldermen which met yesterday sent by their solicitor a copy’.609CJ iv. 439b; Add. 31116, p. 509. In a vote on 21 February, Glynne was teller with Holles against putting the question whether Alderman Francis Allein’s* narrative was improperly entered in the Journal: a move supported by the leading Independents, Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire and Hesilrige.610CJ iv. 449a. Matters came to a head on 13 March, when the common council tried to deliver a petition to the Commons objecting to the plan to allow Parliament oversight of measures governing the rules of admission to communion. When the petitioners arrived at the House, Glynne ‘came out to them, and … did persuade them not to deliver it’, as it would be taken as a breach of privilege.611Juxon Jnl. 108-9; Add. 31116, p. 518. When the petition was withdrawn, Glynne was sent to express the Commons’ approval of the City’s conduct.612CJ iv. 479a. On the 16 April Glynne was named to the committee to highlight the breach of privilege intrinsic to a petition from the assembly of divines.613CJ iv. 511a. In May he was named to other committees to frame an ordinance adjudicating exclusion from the sacrament (22 May) and to consider the ordinance for better observation of the monthly fast (27 May); and on 3 June he became a commissioner for the scandalous offences that would bar people from communion.614CJ iv. 553b, 556b, 562b. On 8 July Glynne was added to the committee to prepare a declaration concerning sequestered ministers.615CJ iv. 608a. On 29 September he was said to be involved in an ordinance, backed by London, for confiscating church lands; and on 3 October he was one of four MPs chosen to draft an ordinance to enable JPs to enforce ordinances relating to church government.616Harington’s Diary, 39; CJ iv. 681a.

Intertwined with the politics of London was the question of how to broker peace terms with the king, and who would lead the negotiations. This issue had resurfaced even before the end of the first civil war, and Glynne was heavily involved in the process at an early stage. On 30 January 1646 he was appointed to a committee to draft propositions to send to the king; the next day he was one of six managers sent to confer with the Lords on the subject; and on 3 February he was chosen for the committee to prepare an answer to the king’s letter.617CJ iv. 423a, 425b, 428b. On 7 February he was a manager and reporter of conference about the propositions adopted for the king, and in the next few weeks he was involved in further discussions on these terms: he was named to committees to justify to the Lords adherence to the fifth proposition to the king (26 Feb.) and to consider the Scots commissioners’ views on peace propositions (18 Mar.).618CJ iv. 431a, 454a, 478b. On 14 April he was added to a committee to prepare a declaration on Parliament’s policy towards the king and the peace negotiations.619CJ iv. 508a. Glynne also advised on other delicate issues in the last months of the war, such as the way to treat Prince Rupert: he was named to the committee to help draft a letter to Fairfax asking him to receive the prince on 18 March, and the following day he was chosen to draft a letter, with the Lords, inviting the prince to come into the parliamentarian camp.620CJ iv. 478b, 479b.

The flight of the king from Oxford to the Scottish army at Newark created enormous difficulties. On 16 May Glynne was made reporter of a conference with the Lords about what to do with the king, and on the same day he was named to a committee to prepare a declaration to the Scots asserting the rights and privileges of Parliament.621CJ iv. 547b, 548b. He was also appointed to a committee to draw up the Commons’ complaints to be represented to the Scottish commissioners (9 June).622CJ iv. 570b. Soon afterwards, Glynne was again involved in peace talks with the king: he was named to a committee to consider how to re-open negotiations on 22 June, and on 27 June he was re-appointment as a commissioner for the conservation of peace between the two kingdoms – a measure confirmed on 3 July.623CJ iv. 584b, 589b; LJ viii. 411a. On 30 June he was named to a committee to ratify acts of the great seal under Parliament, and void those made by the royalists at Oxford.624CJ iv. 592b. On 6 July he was teller with Sir John Clotworthy in favour of omitting a clause in the draft letter to the king congratulating him on his having ‘of late’ expressed ‘detestation of that wicked and desperate rebellion’ in Ireland, although the motion was defeated by 101 votes to 69, with Hesilrige and Robert Reynolds telling against.625CJ iv. 603a. On the same day Glynne was named to a committee to consider a clause in a paper from the Scottish commissioners, and on 7 July his name was included in the 15th proposition as a conservator of the peace.626CJ iv. 604a, 606a. On 14 August he was named for the committee to punish anti-Scots publications, and on 5 September he was named to a committee to borrow £200,000 from the City to pay off the Scottish army.627CJ iv. 644b, 663a. On 22 September he was named to a committee to reduce the propositions to the king, including the measure to compensate the Scots, into an ordinance.628CJ iv. 673b. On 24 September Glynne was one of the joint committee to confer with the Scots commissioners about the disposal of the king.629CJ iv. 675a. In December he was involved in the House’s attempts to satisfy the Scots commissioners concerning the payment of arrears owed to their army, and on 5 January 1647 he was one of the six asked to prepare a letter to them detailing the votes passed about the hand-over of the sovereign.630CJ v. 12a, 23a, 30a, 42b.

Glynne’s involvement in these negotiations was complicated by his other concerns. In the early months of 1646 the war continued unabated in Wales and its hinterland. Glynne had kept in close touch with Sir William Brereton during the siege of Chester in the previous winter, and in February, after news of the capture of Chester reached Westminster, he was named to committees to give thanks to Brereton for his service, to prepare a day of thanksgiving, and to consider how to reduce the remaining royalist strongholds in north Wales.631Brereton Letter Bks. ii. 247, 302-3, 381-2, 434, 462, 470; CJ iv. 429a-b. On 16 February he was one of a committee of four given the task of raising £10,000 for reducing the area.632CJ iv. 443b. On 19 March the Commons passed an ordinance making Glynne prothonotary and clerk to the crown in Denbighshire, Flintshire and Montgomeryshire, and this measure was agreed by the Lords the next day.633CJ iv. 474a, 479b; LJ viii. 221a, 223a-b. This new appointment promised to give Glynne a more active role in Wales, and it was followed by his appointment, on 28 March, as one of five MPs to travel to north Wales to assist in the suppression of royalism there.634CJ iv. 493b. As Glynne continued to sit regularly in the House over the next few months it seems unlikely that he took up the latter post. Instead he was charged with preparing a letter of instructions to Colonel Mytton for his service in north Wales on 13 April, and on 25 April he reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms the instructions for the commissioners to be sent to the region.635CJ iv. 507a, 522a. In the summer, Glynne was named to an ordinance for settling the committees of north Wales and to improve the ministry there.636CJ iv. 622a.

With situation in Wales under control, Glynne turned his attention to the military settlement. He remained a strong supporter of forces outside the New Model army. In March 1646 he was one of four MPs chosen to consider a report from the Committee of the West concerning the future maintenance of Massie’s brigade.637CJ iv. 467b. In the same month he was named to a committee to consider how to raise money for the London forces under Richard Browne II, and he was also appointed to committees concerning the troops garrisoned at Windsor.638CJ iv. 461a, 468a, 502b. During the summer, Glynne’s opposition to the New Model became more overt. On 13 June he was named to a committee to consider an order by the Lords concerning the militia of the whole kingdom.639CJ iv. 576a. Glynne was the first MP listed for the committee to inquire into the re-arrest of John Lilburne on 9 July.640CJ iv. 611b. Shortly afterwards the Presbyterians made their first attempt to reduce the power of the New Model by sending some of its regiments to Ireland. On 30 July Glynne was chosen to join the Presbyterian-dominated Star Chamber Committee of Irish affairs when it treated with the adventurers for the release of funds raised for Ireland, and on 11 August he was appointed to another committee to negotiate for loans for the same cause.641CJ iv. 629b, 641b. On 10 October he named to a committee to define the role of the major-generals in charge of non-New Model forces, and on 15 October he was named to a committee to consider a petition from the London officers, who feared they might be prosecuted for actions authorized by Parliament.642CJ iv. 689b, 694b.

The need to secure a favourable military settlement was matched by the need for administrative reform. Glynne remained a stalwart of the parliamentary administration during this period, handling matters of finance and diplomacy. On 16 and 17 February 1646 he was named to committees to ascertain the House’s privilege ‘in the matter of revenue’, and to regulate the Committee for Advance of Money.643CJ iv. 444a, 445b. On 23 February he was nominated by the Commons to replace the late Sir Christopher Wray on Parliament’s naval executive, the Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports; the Lords concurred on 2 March.644CJ iv. 450a, 459b, 461a. On 4 March he was appointed to a committee to consider how to react to the French ambassadors and agents active in England but not ‘employed to the Parliament’, who were known to be interfering in the peace negotiations with the king.645CJ iv. 462b. An order passed by the Commons on 16 March and by the Lords on 21 March, decreed that Glynne would continue as commissioner for foreign plantations.646CJ iv. 477b; LJ viii. 225b. In April he reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms their advice that the queen of Bohemia be allowed £10,000 p.a.647Add. 31116, p. 530. He was ordered to bring in an ordinance to regulate the House’s own committees and to consider instructions for judges on 20 June.648CJ iv. 583b. He was added to the committee to regulate Oxford University on 2 July, and was named to the committee on the resulting ordinance in January 1647.649CJ iv. 598a; v. 51b.

In the autumn of 1646 Glynne was also drawn into plans for the reform of the legal system. On 30 September he was named to a committee to consider public oaths and how to enforce laws on marriage.650CJ iv. 678b. On 13 October he was majority teller (with Sir John Hippisley) against an amendment to the great seal ordinance, and on the 19th he was appointed to a committee to prepare the House’s case reasons for opposing the Lords on this.651CJ iv. 691b, 699b. He was made a member of the committee on the probate ordinance on 17 October, and on the 21st he was appointed to committees to consider reforming the courts of exchequer and chancery, purging the commissions of the peace, and reforming the duchy courts.652CJ iv. 696b, 701a-b. On 24 he was named to the committee on an ordinance concerning the custody of the great seal and regulation of chancery, and on 29 October he was chosen for a small committee to withdraw and consider future safe-keeping of the great seal.653CJ iv. 703b, 708b. He was also appointed to committees to instruct county committees on the valuation and sale of the estates of delinquents in arms (29 Oct.), to recommend new sheriffs and JPs (30 Oct.) and to consider an ordinance to wind up the court of wards (30 Oct.).654CJ iv. 708a, 709b, 710a.

The Eleven Members, Jan. 1647-Dec. 1648

In the depths of the winter of 1646 and the new year of 1647 Glynne’s role in Parliament appears to have declined, possibly because of the strength of his Independent enemies. He continued to be involved in some aspects of the financial administration, acting as reporter and manager of conference with the Lords about obstructions to delinquent compositions at Goldsmiths’ Hall on 28 December, and being named to a committee to prepare another conference on reforms to the Committee for Compounding on 2 February.655CJ v. 31b, 70a. Glynne was still engaged with long-awaited measures to alleviate the sufferings of MPs who had imprisoned for opposing the crown in 1628-9: on 18 January he reported on this, and the matter was referred to the committee in tertio Caroli, of which he was already chairman.656CJ v. 44b, 54b. Glynne also continued to support legal reform: he was named to committees on judges’ instructions and the putting of landlord and tenant relations on a statutory basis on 21 January, and for the regulation of trials of delinquents excepted from pardon on 25 January.657CJ v. 59b, 60a, 61a. The appointment of judges could be politically sensitive. On 6 February Glynne joined Holles as teller in favour of putting the question that his old friend Serjeant Wylde should go the Lincoln circuit – a division lost by ten votes, with the Independents Hesilrige and Sir William Masham telling against.658CJ v. 76a. On 19 and 20 March Glynne carried ordinances to the Lords concerning Welsh judges and the great seal.659CJ v. 118a, 119a; LJ ix. 90a.

In the spring, as the hopes of the Presbyterian party revived, Glynne was again at the heart of factional politics. He was heavily involved in moves to suppress political dissent in the City of London. On 9 March he was named to a committee of six to examine a libellous pamphlet, and on 15 March he was added to a committee to establish the authorship of a petition ‘taken at a conventicle’, which he brought in.660CJ v. 109a, 112b; Add. 31116, p. 608. On 22 March he was appointed to the committee on an ordinance to exclude ‘malignant’ ministers.661CJ v. 119b. From the end of March, Glynne made another attempt to reduce the power of the New Model and encourage rival forces. On 23 March he reported on a conference with the Lords concerning the army, and on 27 March he was named to a committee to consider the army’s petition to Fairfax.662CJ v. 121a, 127b. He was named to the committee on an ordinance to reform the City militia on 2 April, and given charge of the matter – a decision that caused ‘a great dispute’ between Glynne and his old adversary, Isaac Penington.663CJ v. 132b; Add. 31116, p. 612. On the same day Glynne was one of a delegation sent to the City to borrow £200,000 for the ‘service’ of England and Ireland, and on 8 April he moved that Colonel Michael Jones be governor of Dublin when it was finally surrendered to Parliament, instead of the Independent candidate, Algernon Sydney*.664CJ v. 133a, 136a; HMC De Lisle and Dudley, vi. 565. On 15 April Glynne was teller with Stapilton in favour of an additional clause in the City militia bill, extending it to cover Westminster and the suburbs – a move passed by a 20 vote majority despite the opposition of Sir John Danvers, Hesilrige and other Independents - and in early May Glynne reported from the common council their nominations for the new militia commissioners.665CJ v. 143b; Add. 31116, p. 617.

The counterpart to securing the future of the City forces was the disbandment of the New Model. On 27 April Glynne joined Stapilton as teller in favour of putting the question that the reduced soldiers, destined for Ireland, would be paid 6 weeks’ arrears on disbandment: a vote opposed by the Independents led by Hesilrige and Sir Michael Livesay, but won by an overwhelming majority.666CJ v. 155a. Such measures provoked the soldiers and their supporters, and on 11 May Glynne was once more named to a committee to investigate scandalous publications, while a London petition brought before the House on 20 May cast ‘aspersions’ on him and the common council, along with Holles, Stapilton and Erle.667CJ v. 167b; Harington’s Diary, 52; Add. 31116, p. 619. On 25 May it was reported that Glynne was involved in consultations with Holles, Stapilton and others – described as the ‘chief of their party’ - about ‘their design of disbanding the army’.668Whitelocke, Diary, 193; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 146. The increasing power of the Presbyterians could also be seen in the executive committees: after a long absence, in May Glynne suddenly reappeared at the Committee for Revenue, signing warrants and being awarded his fee as recorder of London.669E404/236, unfol.; Add. 20778, f. 11. On 21 May he was added to the Committee for Indemnity.670A. and O.

In early June Glynne and his allies were intent on forcing a show-down with the army. On 5 and 7 June he was one of a small number of MPs ordered to draft letters to Fairfax, and on the 8th he was appointed to a committee of four to draft an ordinance to meet the grievances of the City of London.671CJ v. 198b, 201a, 203a. On the 11th he was named to a committee to meet the Lords and militia committee to consider the defence of the City and the suppression of tumults.672CJ v. 207b. Glynne and Penington were asked on 14 June to ask the militia committee to provide a guard for Parliament, and he was named for a joint committee to produce a declaration to satisfy the army.673CJ v. 209b, 210a. On 15 June Glynne and Holles were tellers in favour of the king to taken from the army’s custody and placed under guard at Richmond, with custodians chosen by Parliament. This was opposed by the Independents, with Livesey and Marten acting as teller, but passed by a majority of 31.674CJ v. 211a. It was a pyrrhic victory: on the same day the army demanded the impeachment of Glynne as one of the Eleven Members.675Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 570.

On the 26 June, with the rest of the Eleven Members, Glynne secured leave of absence from the Commons, though it had been supposed that he, with strong backing from the City, would stand his ground.676CJ v. 225a; Clarke Pprs. ii. 141. He alone did not petition for a speedy trial on 29 June, and indeed advised against it.677Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 170; Whitelocke, Diary, 194. He was eighth in the list seen by the House on 6 July, when formal charges were made, and with the others he obtained further leave of absence on 20 July after they had been denied.678CJ v. 236a, 252a. There is no direct evidence of Glynne’s involvement in the ‘forcing of the Houses’ on 26 July, but he was later accused of inciting the apprentices to violence, recruiting men to defend London (in conjunction with Massie) and supporting a resolution to bring the king to the capital.679LJ x. 16b. There is no doubt of his popularity among the MPs who remained at Westminster: on 30 July he was invited to resume his seat and on the same day he was appointed to the revived ‘committee of safety’, which had been set up in June to join with the City militia for mobilising London against the army.680CJ v. 262a; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 653; LJ ix. 369b. After the New Model’s occupation of the capital in early August, Glynne refused to flee and was soon arrested and sent to the Tower.681Juxon Jnl. 169. On 4 September he was summoned to attend the House, and three days later ‘gave a general answer to many of the matters objected against him, and particular to some’.682CJ v. 292a, 294a. When giving his replies Glynne spoke ‘very prudently and clearly’ and Whitelocke and other friends ‘did him all the service they could’.683Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 205; Whitelocke, Diary, 198. In a further mark of respect for Glynne, Whitelocke refused an invitation to replace him as recorder.684Whitelocke, Diary, 199 Even so, the question on whether to move his discharge from the Commons was carried by 58 to 53, and the discharge itself by 58 votes to 52. He was to be committed to the Tower during pleasure and to receive judgment at the bar of the House next day; but was allowed a week’s grace to put his affairs in order before being sentenced.685CJ v. 294a, 295a-b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 804-5.

Of the 25 charges brought against the Eleven Members by the army, Glynne is mentioned in eight. Three of these were general accusations: that he had joined his fellow conspirators in plotting to bring back the king on their own terms, and to recruit troops to ‘beget a new war in England’. Five articles dealt with Glynne individually. In the fifth article, Glynne, with Holles and Stapilton, was charged with obstruction of petitions of grievance to the House. The 15th article charged Glynne and Sir William Lewis with abusing their authority as Welsh committeemen by stopping all sequestrations in Wales the previous April, ‘whereby the ill-affected gentry and ministry of that country are grown so high and insolent, that honest men dare scarce live amongst them’. The 16th article accused Glynne and Lewis of ingratiating themselves with Welsh delinquents, Glynne having ‘within two years last past’ procured for them places of trust and commands as well as places on the commissions of the peace in north Wales. The 18th article charged Glynne in particular with accepting rewards for services performed in the House by him from ‘several persons’, including ‘divers drovers from Wales, who, by his means and procurement, had an allowance by order of the House for £3,000, in satisfaction of losses they had sustained by the enemy’. The 19th article, perhaps the most immediately damaging to Glynne, alleged that he had deliberately excluded worthy men from the militia and common council of London and the magistracy of Middlesex, including his rivals Isaac Penington, Robert Tichborne* and Samuel Moyer*.686Fairfax Corresp. iv. 367-83. In response, Glynne asked for more time to consider, but this was denied and the prosecutors ‘put him upon it to answer ex tempore’. Glynne strenuously denied the charges, and dismissed the notion that he had conspired with the common council with the remark that ‘he was but the City’s servant, and had no voice amongst them, but when his opinion was demanded’.687C. Walker, History of Independency (1648), 59 (E.463.19).

On 16 September the House resolved that Glynne, like Sir John Maynard* and Lionel Copley*, should be impeached of ‘high crime and misdemeanours’ and, although this did not go ahead, over the following weeks he was stripped of his positions of responsibility.688CJ v. 305b. On 23 September it was agreed by both Houses that Nathaniel Fiennes I* should replace Glynne on the Army Committee; on 11 December he was replaced on the Committee for Sequestrations by Thomas Scot I*; and on 3 January 1648 he was replaced on the Committee of Both Kingdoms by Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire.689CJ v. 315a, 379b, 416a; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 1. On 29 January the Commons resolved that it should be recommended to the corporation of London that William Steele* should replace him as recorder of London, while the earl of Pembroke was desired to find a replacement for him as deputy steward of Westminster.690CJ v. 445b, 450a; HMC 7th Rep. 6; Whitelocke, Diary, 205. On 31 January 1648 the Commons announced to the Lords their determination to remove Glynne from the recordership, and on 3 February John Lisle and Thomas Scot I used a conference to provide detailed allegations of Glynne’s involvement in the ‘forcing of the Houses’ the previous summer, and concluding that his influence over the City was ‘so potent, and the effect it may be so dangerous’ if he were not immediately removed.691Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 980; LJ x. 16b. On 16 March Glynne was replaced on the committee for Westminster College by Sir Anthony Irby*, and on the Committee for Revenue by Sir John Trevor*.692HMC 7th Rep. 15; LJ x. 118b; CJ v. 500b. On 17 April the Commons reminded the Lords of the need to remove Glynne as recorder, and replace him with Steele, and on 20 April the previous votes on this were read and debated in the lower House.693Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1062; LJ x. 212a.

As the spring of 1648 continued, Glynne’s position steadily improved. He was released from custody by order of the House on 23 May, following a petition from common council, and was also discharged from any proceedings upon the vote for his impeachment.694CJ v. 570b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1125-6. On 7 June, a petition of Westminster inhabitants to the House to restore him as their MP was well received by the Commons, and on 10 July, as ‘Mr Recorder’, he was welcomed back to the House and named to the committee for the ordinance to associate Westminster, the Hamlets and Southwark with the London militia.695Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 327; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1135; CJ v. 588a, 630a. On 29 July Glynne (or possibly John Venn) was ordered to request the lord mayor to call a meeting of common council.696CJ v. 651a. Two days later he was appointed to a committee to go to the City, and in mid-August he was named to committees to confer with the London militia committee to discuss the presence of Philip Skippon’s* forces in the capital and to enquire into plots against Parliament.697CJ v. 654b, 671b, 673b. By this time he had also regained his position as deputy steward of Westminster, a position which had briefly been reassigned to Roger Hill II*.698CUL, Gg.1.9, f. 71; Merritt, Westminster, 161n, 174n. Glynne’s rehabilitation seemed complete on 1 September when, apparently in absentia, he was appointed a commissioner to re-open negotiations with the king at Newport, Isle of Wight.699CJ v. 697a-b; vi. 6a. Glynne’s journey south was delayed by the legal circuit, but he was on hand to sign the commissioners’ letters at Newport from 25 September until 6 November inclusive, and it was reported that he had spoken ‘learnedly’ in answer to the king’s doubts about relinquishing episcopacy and church lands in view of his coronation oath.700HMC Portland, i. 500-4; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 296. Glynne had returned to London by 9 November, when he and his fellow commissioners received the thanks of the House.701CJ vi. 72a. On 13 November he was sworn in as serjeant (a position for which he had been nominated on 12 October).702CJ vi. 50b; Whitelocke, Diary, 222; LJ x. 551a, 587b. On 17 November he was twice named for committees, to discharge arrears of fee farm rents and to pass on ordinance to justify Parliament’s conduct during the civil war.703CJ vi. 78b, 79a. The following day he was a reporter of conference about procedural abuse in the Houses.704CJ vi. 75a.

Commonwealth and protectorate, 1649-59

Glynne was secluded from the Commons at Pride’s Purge on 6 December 1648, but managed to evade arrest by going into hiding.705Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 147, 152. In July 1649 he was replaced as recorder of London by Steele, and on 9 August the court of aldermen requested his formal resignation on the grounds that ‘by the law and custom of this city the recorder should be an apprentice of the law, and not a serjeant at law’. Glynne, whose predecessor in office had also been a serjeant, refused this request on the 18th, but gave in a week later on receipt of £300 compensation.706Recorders of London, 13; J.E. Farnell, ‘The Politics of the City of London, 1649-57’ (DPhil thesis, Chicago Univ. 1963), 146-7. Glynne also faced financial embarrassment, owing to his purchase of goods belonging to the delinquent marquess of Worcester in 1643, as it was now alleged that, ‘on behalf of Colonel John Hutchinson*’, he had concealed jewels, plate and furniture belonging to the recusant peer. On 18 May the Committee for Advance of Money ordered an investigation, and on 27 November Glynne at length cleared himself. He was discharged on 4 December, it being stated that no goods of Worcester’s had been found in his house, and there being no proof that he had ever had any except what he had bought from the Westminster commissioners for compounding.707CCAM, 208, 215-6; CJ vi. 333b. Over the next few years, Glynne’s activities are harder to trace. He seems to have spent some time in Caernarfonshire, for which he had become a magistrate in 1650, and where his daughter Jane was wife of Robert Williams* of Penrhyn.708Cal. Wynn Pprs. 333. In June 1651 he lent £100 to Lincoln’s Inn, interest free, and a year later was awarded his ‘present lodgings’ and the chambers allocated to the custos brevium office for a rent of £270.709L. Inn Black Bks. ii. 391, 395-6. In April 1652 Glynne was a broker in the mortgage of forfeited lands of the executed earl of Derby to Sir John Trevor, George Twisleton* and Andrew Ellis*, and on 2 November 1653 the heir to the earldom disposed of his interest in three Flintshire lordships to Glynne for £1,700.710The True Progress of the Contract Between Charles, Late Earl of Derby ... and Sir John Trevor (BL, 1890, e.3(6)). On 9 December of the same year Glynne arranged the conveyance of two of these lordships to the mortgagees, and the purchase of the third, Hawarden, by himself for £9,000.711NLW, Hawarden Deeds and Docs. pp. 80-82.

Glynne re-emerged as a public figure only after the appointment of Oliver Cromwell* as lord protector. On 22 May 1654 he was appointed protector’s serjeant.712Oxford DNB. His prosecution of three would-be assassins of Cromwell, headed by John Gerard*, led to rumours in the summer of 1654 that he was ‘certain to be made lord chief baron’.713CSP Dom. 1654, p. 235; Cal. Wynn Pprs. 338. Glynne was returned for Caernarvonshire for the first protectorate Parliament, and the strength of his attachment to the new regime soon became apparent: he was one of those chosen to attend the protector with the recommendations for a fast day on 18 September, and four days later joined the committee to suppress controversial newsbooks.714CJ vii. 368b, 369b. He was named to a committee to review the armed forces on 26 September and to the committee of Irish affairs three days later.715CJ vii. 370b, 371b. Glynne was an important figure in legal affairs, being named to committees on the regulation of chancery (5 Oct.), the abolition of the court of wards (31 Oct.), abuses in writs of certiorari and habeas corpus (3 Nov.) reform of the office of sheriff (4 Dec.) and the encouragement of civil lawyers (22 Dec.).716CJ vii. 374a, 380a, 381b, 394b, 407b. He was also involved in religious affairs, being named to committees on the ordinance for the ejection of scandalous ministers (25 Sept.), to enumerate damnable heresies (12 Dec.) and to suppress Quakers (30 Dec.).717CJ vii. 370a, 399b, 410a. Towards the end of the session, Glynne was drawn into the debates on the reform of the constitution. He was appointed to committees to consider drafting the new Government Bill on 7 and 18 December, and on 12 January 1655 was one of those chosen to consider a clause that nothing in the bill might be altered without the consent of the protector and Parliament.718CJ vii. 398a, 403a, 415a.

Glynne’s activities during the first protectorate Parliament reinforced his standing at Whitehall. At the end of January 1655, a few days after the dissolution of Parliament, it was even rumoured that Glynne would be added, with his old friend Bulstrode Whitelocke, to the protector’s council.719Clarke Pprs. iii. 20. In March, while finishing his duties on the Oxford circuit, he was commissioned, with others, to try the royalists involved in Penruddock’s failed rebellion in the west country.720Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 668; Clarke Pprs. iii. 31-2; TSP, iii. 332; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 90. Glynne arrived at Salisbury on 11 April, and then travelled to Exeter, where he had to convince the grand jury ‘very learnedly and fully of the ground of treason’ before they would proceed.

The serjeant in his charge observed their ungrateful return after an act of oblivion passed, ingratitude being condemned by the very heathen: and their restless spirits to set up an interest, which God by so many signs and wonders had fought against. He likewise observed the care of his highness to preserve the people in their lives, liberties, and properties, and that this was the only end of his highness, not any private end to himself.721TSP, iii. 371-2, 376, 378, 379, 398; Clarke Pprs. iii. 34.

Glynne returned to London at the end of April, where he waited on the protector.722TSP, iii. 442; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 696. Perhaps as a reward for his services, he was appointed chief justice of the upper bench in June 1655, in succession to Henry Rolle†, who had resigned over Cony’s case.723Clarke Pprs. iii. 43-4. Glynne was eager to bring the embarrassing episode to a rapid end, as Edmund Ludlowe II* noted: ‘before he came to sit on the bench, [Glynne] took care to have this business accommodated with Cony, who lost his reputation by withdrawing himself from a cause wherein the public was so much concerned’.724Ludlow, Mems. i. 413. Any doubt as to Glynne’s loyalties was dispelled by his speech on receiving his patent from the commissioners of the great seal. According to the Swedish ambassador, he ‘delivered a handsome sermon demonstrating the happy constitution of the present government, and how far it excelled the achievements of former kings and princes’.725Swedish Diplomats at Cromwell’s Court ed. Roberts, 81. Glynne’s importance in government circles grew further in the months that followed. In July 1655 he was advising John Thurloe* on changes to the commission of the peace in Caernarfonshire, and in November he presented to the protector a list of suitable men to be sheriff of Cheshire.726Bodl. Rawl. A.28, pp. 406-10; TSP, iv. 171. He was added to the committee of trade on 1 November, and to the committee to consider proposals from the Jews seeking to live in England on 15 November.727CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 1, 23. When the latter committee met in December, Glynne gave his opinion that no law prevented their return.728Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 34, 36. On 4 January 1656 he was added to the committee for relief of the distressed Protestants of Piedmont.729CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 100.

In the late summer of 1656 Glynne was again chosen as MP for Caernarfonshire, with the support of the local gentry, and he was also returned for Flintshire, a mark of his establishment at Hawarden. Glynne’s electoral influence in north Wales was considerable, as he could add to his own interest an extensive kinship network. At the end of July he thanked Sir Owen Wynn for his ‘love and sincerity to me and my friends in reference to your choice of Members to the ensuing Parliament’.730NLW, Wynn (Gwydir) 9065E/2120. The MPs returned included obvious allies, such as Robert Williams* (Caern.), his son-in-law, and John Trevor* (Flints.), a Presbyterian veteran of the Long Parliament, and he may also have had some influence over the elections in Denbighshire and the other northern counties. When Glynne chose to sit for Flintshire on 2 October, he recommended that his other seat should be offered to Henry Lawrence I*, ‘a person of great parts and integrity whose interest is able to return to the country for their love tenfold’, and his wishes were duly carried out.731CJ vii. 431b; NLW, Wynn (Gwydir) 9065E/2126.

In the early months of the Parliament, Glynne was involved in a wide range of committees, beginning with the committees for Scottish and Irish affairs on 23 September.732CJ vii. 427a. Much of his activity centred on legal business. In September he was appointed to committees on abuses in writs of certiorari and the suppression of alehouses and similar establishments, and in October he was named to committees on customary oaths, incumbrances, probate law, and the problems concerning the abolition of wards and liveries.733CJ vii. 428a, 430a, 435b, 441a, 446a, 447a. Cromwell had written to the Commons requesting their approval of Glynne’s appointment as lord chief justice, and this was voted through on 11 October.734CJ vii. 437b. Glynne’s extensive parliamentary experience may have led to his inclusion in committees to review legislation, to what should be continued and what repealed (27 Sept.), and to examine statutes governing wages of artificers and labourers (7 Oct.), and his interest in religious matters can be seen in his appointment to committees on sequestered parsonages (4 Oct.), papists’ estates (22 Oct.) and the maintenance of ministers (31 Oct.).735CJ vii. 429b, 434a, 435a, 443b, 448b. Glynne was also involved in matters concerning the lord protector: on 26 September he was appointed to the committee to advise on how bills might be presented to Cromwell – a matter on which he reported on 1 October - and on the same day he was appointed to a committee to consider a bill for his personal security.736CJ vii. 429a, 431a. Glynne’s closeness to the government is also suggested by his appointment to the committee to consider corn imports on 7 October, and by his addition to the committee to revise the declaration of reasons for war with Spain (17 Oct.).737CJ vii. 435b, 440a. Glynne’s legal expertise was certainly in great demand. With other ‘gentlemen of the long robe’, he was asked to leave his duties in Westminster Hall to attend the debate on the ‘some clauses about the laws’ in the Scottish union bill on 4 November, and he may have been the author of a list of queries concerning the continuance of a separate Scottish legal system.738Clarke Pprs. iii. 80; v. 258-9. A month later, in debate on another clause of this bill concerning the confirmation of the rights of the Scottish burghs, he suggested leaving the clause out altogether, as ‘to confirm their privileges generally, it cannot be to your service, unless you know what they were’. In this case, he continued, ignorance of the law would be an excuse, for these were ‘the laws of another commonwealth’.739Burton’s Diary, i. 17-18.

Glynne played an important part in the debate on the notorious Quaker, James Naylor, who was accused of blasphemy for re-enacting Christ’s entry to Jerusalem at the gates of Bristol. Glynne had been named to the committee to investigate Naylor’s crimes on 31 October, and when the matter came before the House on 5 December he voiced his doubts about the judicial proceedings of a unicameral Parliament.740CJ vii. 448a. If Naylor confessed his guilt, Glynne argued, no witness was needed: but if not, at least one was necessary, to be examined by the House on oath, for ‘there must be proof in this case… in this place, to justify your proceedings’.741Burton’s Diary, i. 30. He continued to expand on the theme on 9 December, remarking that ‘as this is without precedent, I would have us very tender in what we do in this business’, and suggested that avoiding a sentence of death would be less open to the accusations that the Commons was acting ultra vires.742Burton’s Diary, i. 90. He again voiced his concerns about the proceedings on 17 December.

It hath been the usual practice for a man that is committed only by vote or order of Parliament to be discharged by habeas corpus, when the Parliament is dissolved, unless you proceed upon the judicial way, to judgment as a court of judicature. I only stand to inform you.743Burton’s Diary, i. 161.

Glynne went on to reiterate his earlier warnings about allowing Naylor a fair hearing

though you have the authority of the House of Lords united to you, yet they would never proceed in a judicial way but according to the law. I never knew them do otherwise. This is a new case before you, and it will be a precedent.744Burton’s Diary, i. 163.

Glynne’s concerns about the Naylor case were based firmly on the law rather than any concern for liberty of conscience. A religious conservative with strong sympathies for Presbyterianism, his experience of Quakers in recent years had not been a happy one: at the Launceston assizes in March 1656, three of them, including George Fox, had refused to take off their hats in acknowledgement of his authority.745Fox Jnl. ed. Penney, i. 211. When a group of Quakers petitioned the Commons on behalf of Naylor on 18 December, Glynne spoke out against the sect

It is high time to take a course with them. They daily disturb our courts of justice; several indictments against them; their persons and pamphlets daily pestering of us. I was, in my private opinion, against punishing old offences with a new punishment, and am also for tender consciences. But those that openly profess against the ministers and ordinances and magistracy too, it is fit they should be taken a course withal; for they grow to a great number. There was a bill in last Parliament against them; I desire that may be confided, with all those petitions, to a committee, to provide a law against them.746Burton’s Diary, i. 169.

When on 26 December the Commons digested the contents of Cromwell’s letter asking them to justify the sentence passed on Naylor, Glynne was keen to return to first principles: ‘it is fit that leave should first be given to speak against this judgement, and, no doubt, when the business is fully debated, about the judicatory power, but a way may be found out to preserve a right understanding between his highness and us’. He saw the matter in constitutional terms, as a balancing of the authority to be enjoyed by protector and Parliament: ‘we assert our power, and he asserts his; no doubt but, in a fair way, by a meeting, this may be understood’.747Burton’s Diary, i. 251. On 30 December Glynne was more supportive than before of Parliament’s claim to judicial power, in such cases as Naylor’s, adding ‘I find nothing in the Instrument against it’. But the position was not at all clear-cut: in a long recital of previous cases he reminded the House that ‘if you wade into precedents, you will find variety of judgments’, and also that ‘the judicial power is not boundless ... There must be rules to all judicial power’, before recommending that a committee should consider an answer to the protector.748Burton’s Diary, i. 278-9.

During the Naylor debates, Glynne had had to engage with the contradictions inherent in the protectorate: the unsatisfactory nature of a unicameral Parliament, Parliament’s awkward relationship with the protector, and how all this squared with the written constitution, the Instrument of Government. It is perhaps telling that during the debates he mostly withdrew from the ordinary business of the House: his only appointments during December were to committees to consider three private petitions (including that of the earl of Derby, which was of personal concern) on 22 December, and he intervened in debate only very occasionally.749CJ vii. 472a, 473a; Burton’s Diary, i. 105, 187-8, 198. Exceptions to this were when the affairs of London or pressing legal issues came before the House. On 23 December Glynne argued against levying sums from the inns of court to pay part of the arrears of assessment owed by the City, but for practical rather than legalistic reasons: ‘we that have many children, must, by this means, have their charge increased; for though this be laid upon our sons, the parents must bear it’.750Burton’s Diary, i. 210. On 24 December he joined William Lenthall in responding to a London petition concerning the poor of the City, and on the same day Glynne, with the councillors John Disbrowe and Charles Howard, moved for the recommitment of the bill on probate of wills.751Burton’s Diary, i. 226-7.

A further exception is of great importance in understanding Glynne’s political position, for on 25 December he opposed the reading of a bill to confirm the controversial decimation tax that funded the militia units commanded by the major-generals, arguing that it would be better to wait until the measure had been ‘debated, very leisurely, and in a full House’. Once again Glynne was careful to frame his objections in procedural terms: ‘the motion is very general, to charge some persons, not knowing who, or how … You ought to ascertain the thing. If it be for decimation, or the like, to ascertain upon what persons it must lie’. He insisted that ‘I shall not be against the bill’ but then called for the debate to be postponed until the following week, as ‘it is fit for our honour that serve here for the nation, to do things regularly and fairly’.752Burton’s Diary, i. 235. Some interpreted this as tantamount to opposition to the measure, and it was soon reported that Glynne ‘spake stoutly against it’.753Verney Mems. ii. 44. The fate of the militia bill was still undecided on 19 January 1657, when the House was told of the attempt by Miles Sindercombe and his associates to assassinate Cromwell. This brought home to MPs the fragility of a protectorate, dependent on the life of one man. In the debate that followed, Glynne denounced the ‘wicked design’ and moved that a committee wait on the protector to give the House leave ‘to congratulate with him for this deliverance’.754Burton’s Diary, i. 361. In February Glynne was the judge presiding over the trial of Sindercombe: he found him guilty of treason, and sentenced him to be hanged, drawn and quartered (14 Feb.).755Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 405.

On 20 February the protector held a feast for MPs to celebrate his survival of the Simdercombe plot, and three days later a group of influential politicians introduced a new, civilian, constitution, initially known as the Remonstrance, into the Commons. The Remonstrance, which promised to restore the monarchy and the House of Lords, and thus solve many of the problems raised by the Naylor case and other issues in the previous winter, would have obvious attractions for Glynne; but contemporaries agreed that he was more than a mere supporter of the new initiative. Bulstrode Whitelocke listed him as a key figure behind the Remonstrance, and one of those who had ‘put it forward’ in late February.756Whitelocke, Diary, 464. In March, Robert Beake* reported that a ‘cabal’ had been behind the new constitution, and named Glynne among its members.757Coventry City Archives, BA/H/Q/A79/302. Edmund Ludlowe II also suspected that the Remonstrance was the brainchild of ‘Lord Broghill, Serjeant Glynne and others, who were acquainted with Cromwell’s design’.758Ludlow, Mems. ii. 22. That this view was widely held is suggested by the case a Somerset man investigated by the Commons for telling his neighbours that ‘such fellows as Glynne… would have a king, but my lord protector will not be ruled by knaves and fools’.759CJ vii. 533a-b. The hint that Glynne may have been one of the authors of the Remonstrance is supported by evidence from the Journals of his close involvement in the long process of revising and improving the constitution that ensued. On 6 March he was named to a committee on a new clause in the Remonstrance, and on 10 March he was appointed to a committee on the fourth article, concerning the qualification for voters and officials.760CJ vii. 499b, 501a. On 12 March he was named to a committee to consider the judicial responsibilities on the new upper chamber, the Other House, and on 16 March he joined Broghill, Edmund Prideaux I, Thurloe, Whitelocke and others on a committee to consider the wording of the 8th article.761CJ vii. 502a, 505a. On 20 March Glynne was appointed to two committees on the 12th article, concerning ways for ‘securing the peace of the nation’ and to consider the effect of this on Ireland and Scotland – the latter committee being dominated by supporters of reform – and he reported from it later in the day.762CJ vii. 508a-b. When the House divided on whether the offer of the crown to Cromwell should be included in the 1st article of the Remonstrance, on 25 March, Glynne voted with the other ‘kinglings’.763Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657) 23 (E.935.5). The following day he was added to a committee on the title, preamble and conclusion of the new constitution, alongside a number of its most prominent supporters including Broghill, Thurloe, Prideaux I, Philip Jones and Sir Charles Wolseley; and later in the day he reported back to the House their recommendation that the Remonstrance should be renamed the Humble Petition and Advice.764CJ vii. 511b, 512b. On 27 March Glynne was one of the delegation sent to Cromwell to ask him for an interview on the Humble Petition.765CJ vii. 514a.

The protector’s reluctance to accept the crown when the Humble Petition was first presented to him on 31 March, caused consternation among the kinglings. According to John Bridges*, the rebuff ‘caused many of our best friends to absent themselves from the said House, as Lord Broghill, Sir Charles Wolseley, the lord chief justice, and others’.766Henry Cromwell Corresp. 247-8. Glynne soon recovered his spirits, however, as on 4 April he reported to the Commons Cromwell’s decision to receive a delegation the next day, and on the 6th he was one of the committee to draw up a justification of their request to Cromwell to take the crown.767Burton’s Diary, i. 422; CJ vii. 520b. The following day Glynne was again one of the committee sent to Cromwell to arrange an interview, reporting that the protector would meet them the next day.768CJ vii. 521a. On 9 April Glynne was named to the committee appointed to hear Cromwell’s ‘doubts’ about accepting the crown, and over the next few weeks he attended the ‘kingship debates’ alongside Whitelocke, Broghill, Wolseley, Jones and others.769CJ vii. 521b. On the first meeting, on 11 April, Glynne argued that kingship was ‘a lawful office, and the title too, approved of by the word of God’; it had been ‘exercised in this nation from the time it hath been a nation’; and there ‘never was any quarrel with the office, but the maladministration’. He reminded Cromwell that whereas ‘the name of king is a name known by the law, and the Parliament doth desire that your highness would assume that title’, the office of protector ‘is a new office not known to the law, and made out of doors’.770Monarchy Asserted to be the Best, most Ancient and Legall form of Government (1660), 16-17. At a subsequent meeting on 16 April, when the delegation were asked to reinforce their arguments, Glynne stated seven reasons: kingship was known to the law, an alternative would be unsafe, it had both parliamentary sanction and ancient custom on its side, any other title might provoke popular clamour for fresh rights, the people need no other safeguard, a new stock would more likely flourish if grafted on to the old, the title was unexceptionable.771Monarchy Asserted, 44-5. Glynne’s efforts in committee were complemented by his activity in the Commons: on 24 April he was named to a further committee to consider an answer to the protector’s objections about the 16th article of the Petition and Advice.772CJ vii. 524a. Cromwell’s final refusal of the crown on 8 May came as a heavy blow to Glynne, but he continued to work to perfect the Humble Petition in its non-monarchical version later in the month. On 19 May he was named to the committee to consider how to the title ‘protector’ might be limited constitutionally, and on the 23rd was named to a delegation to Cromwell to seek an interview on this.773CJ vii. 535a, 538b. On the 25 May he was able to report to the House that a date had been agreed for the presentation of the revised Humble Petition to the protector, and two days later he was named to a committee to consider amendments and additions to the new constitutional arrangements.774Burton’s Diary, ii. 120; CJ vii. 538b, 540b.

During the alternating excitements and longueurs of the constitutional debates, Glynne’s role in the ordinary business of the House was much reduced, but he still found time to be involved in legal matters and other business in the House. On 4 March he was named to the committee to consider dividing the parish of St Andrew’s, Holborn and on 10 March he joined the committee on Lord Abergavenny’s bill.775CJ vii. 498b, 501a. On 14 March he joined Sir Richard Onslow in bringing in a bill to confirm the return of the perambulation of the forests, and on 30 March he was appointed to the committee on a bill for attainting the Irish rebels.776CJ vii. 503b, 515a. While debating kingship with the protector, Glynne appears to have been mostly absent from the House, but on 29 April he was in the chamber to lend his support to the marriage act, albeit for six months only, while a new one was prepared. He approved the Speaker’s last minute change of his casting vote when there was a tie on the same measure, arguing that ‘the precedent to be dangerous to divide again. By that rule any vote may be recalled’.777Burton’s Diary, ii. 68, 70-1. Glynne was named to the committee to consider reforming chancery on 30 April, and after another gap he was named to a committee on a bill concerning the electoral rights of Co. Durham on 23 May.778CJ vii. 528a, 538a. At the end of May there were concerns that Parliament would be dissolved once the revised Humble Petition had been accepted by Cromwell, leaving important parliamentary business undecided. On 25 May Glynne reassured the House there was a ‘clause, already provided, against the dissolving the Parliament, which will preserve your proceedings afoot’, but when it was read, it was found not to be adequate.779Burton’s Diary, ii. 120. Perhaps as a result, the following day Glynne obtained priority for Lord Craven’s business to be examined properly, and on the 27th moved that the House confine itself to assessment and excise matters for a week or fortnight, and resist other business.780Burton’s Diary, ii. 126-8, 139-40. On 28 May Glynne was named to a committee to attend the protector to secure his consent for a day of thanksgiving for Robert Blake’s* naval victory over the Spaniards.781CJ vii. 541a.

Glynne seems to have been absent from the Commons for much of June, but he had returned by 20th, when he objected to a clause in the Lord’s Day observance bill enabling constables to enter private houses, which he denounced as ‘a snare to the nation; and knaves in the night time may enter and rob men’s houses under this pretence’, and he thought other measures in the bill would ‘cause discord, prying amongst neighbours, into the actions of one another’.782Burton’s Diary, ii. 263, 265. On 23 June he objected, in the customs bill, to a proviso proposed by the provost of Edinburgh (Andrew Ramsay*) to halve the duty on small coals from Scotland, which he thought infringed the procedures governing money bills.783Burton’s Diary, ii. 272. In the final days of the sitting, Glynne was also involved in measures to complete the Humble Petition and Advice. He was a member of the committee on 23 June to settle the oath for the protector and his council, and next day reported a suitable oath for Cromwell on his investiture.784CJ vii. 570b, 571b. In the debate on the protector’s oath, Glynne refused to re-open the question of whether he should enjoy a veto, saying ‘that this was debated when the Petition and Advice was debated’ and that the privilege of Parliament had also been settled then, as ‘it is comprehended under the word laws’.785Burton’s Diary, ii. 287. When an oath was proposed for MPs, he justified it as at least a means of keeping ‘the children of cavaliers, that are of a contrary opinion’ from seeking to ‘creep into the House’.786Burton’s Diary, ii. 291. He went on to report from committee an amendment to the article on the Other House and presented a draft proclamation to accompany the Humble Petition.787Burton’s Diary, ii. 301-2. On 25 June Glynne was named to the committee to consider the appropriate way to re-invest Cromwell as lord protector, and the following day he took his place with the other judges in the formal procession that preceded the ceremony.788CJ vii. 575a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 512.

Glynne was chosen for Cromwell’s Other House on 10 Dec. 1657.789TSP, vi. 668. A satirical account of the new ‘Lords’ attacked him as a stooge of the protector, who

took him up, and made him a judge; and finding him so fit for his turn, did also make him chief justice of England; so that of a little man, he is grown up into a great bulk and interest, and of complying principles to the life; who, being so very useful to advance and uphold the protector’s great negative voice, is thereby questionless (in his sense) fit to be taken out of the House, and to have a negative voice himself in the other House; not only over the people, but over the law he is to be chief-judge of; and in a capacity to hinder that no good law, for the future be made for the ease of the people, or hurt the lawyers’ trade.790[G. Wharton] Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 8 (E.977.3).

Glynne took his seat in the Other House on 20 January 1658, was named to the committees of privileges and petitions the next day, and attended every meeting until Parliament was dissolved on 4 February.791HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 504-24. Glynne continued to serve as lord chief justice for the remainder of the protectorate. When the royalist conspirators Sir Henry Slingsby and Dr John Hewett were convicted and executed in June 1658, it was Glynne who risked the backlash, as ‘his opinion only amongst all the judges was for setting up the high court of justice for this business’.792HMC 5th Rep. 167. In fact, Glynne had considerable regard for lawyers’ ‘quirks’, as Cromwell called them, and retorted that ‘it could not be otherwise, when soldiers drew up the act’, but it was doubted whether juries could be relied on to make an example of these royalist plotters.793Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 793; HMC 5th Rep. 181. He took his place with the other ‘peers’ in Oliver Cromwell’s funeral procession in November and sat in Richard Cromwell’s* Other House from January 1659.794Burton’s Diary, ii. 527; HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 524-66. In this Parliament Glynne was named to various committees, including those on petitions (27 Jan.), the laws on the observation of the sabbath (31 Jan.), the bill to recognise the protector (1 Feb.), the limitation of the rights and privileges of the upper chamber (15 Mar.) and the act of indemnity (23 Mar.).795HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 527, 529, 530, 548, 552.

Later career, 1659-66

Glynne was put out of office under the restored Rump in May 1659, and many thought he and his friends would be punished further for their adherence to the protectorate.796CCSP iv. 210. According to one commentator, ‘not only the licentious press damn Fiennes, Glynne, St John, Maynard, Thurloe and Jones, but the members themselves do cry them in the House’.797Nicholas Pprs. iv. 139. In early July he was also expected to be among those excepted from indemnity by the Rump, ‘and destined in their persons or purses to the public sacrifice’.798Nicholas Pprs. iv. 165; Conway Letters ed. Nicolson, 160. Despite such threats, Glynne remained active in the law courts, practising in common pleas before Judge Wyndham as late as October.799CCSP iv. 425. Glynne was restored to the Rump with the other secluded Members in February 1660, and re-emerged in the Journal on 21 February as a draftsman of an ordinance to repeal the army commissioners’ act.800CJ vii. 847b. Over the next month he was a prominent figure in Commons, being named to committees to get a loan from the City (22 Feb), bring in a new militia bill (23 Feb.), recognise George Monck* as commander-in-chief (24 Feb.) and arrange the dissolution of Parliament (27 Feb.).801 CJ vii. 848b, 849a, 850b, 855a. He was also appointed to committees to vet the appointment of ministers (2 Mar.), prepare a proclamation against popery and redress Welsh grievances (9 Mar.).802CJ vii. 858a, 866a, 867a, 868a. On 9 March he was also named to a committee to call a new Parliament, and the following day he way among those chosen to amend the militia act by adding a declaration of the justice of the civil war.803CJ vii. 868b, 871a. On 13 March he was named to a committee to examine relations with the other House, and on 15 March he was appointed to a committee to confirm settled ministers.804CJ vii. 872b, 877a.

In April 1660 Glynne was again returned for Caernarvonshire for the Convention, but he no longer enjoyed the influence he had once commanded locally or nationally. On the eve of the restoration of the king he was excluded from the Presbyterian ‘cabal’ and suspected by the ‘honest party’.805CCSP iv. 674, 681; HP Commons 1660-1690. Neither Flintshire nor Caernarvonshire would return him to the Cavalier Parliament; and although he was pardoned, made king’s serjeant, and even knighted, he had been thought fortunate by his enemies to secure indemnity, and was denied judicial office.806HMC 5th Rep. 153-4, 157, 196. When he was injured by a fall from his horse at the coronation in 1661, it was said ‘they jeer him in the town, and say he vomited up a great deal of Penruddock’s blood, whom he condemned in the west’.807HMC 5th Rep. 146; Pepys Diary ii. 87-8. Glynne died on 15 November 1666, in his 64th year, and was buried with ‘very great’ solemnity at St Margaret’s, Westminster.808Misc. Gen. et Her. ser. 2, i. 43-4; Diary of John Milward, 49. His friends thought he had made £100,000 in the last 19 years of his life, and his will, drafted in August 1664, shows that he enjoyed extensive estates in Surrey, Oxfordshire and north Wales, as well as holding property in Middlesex. He divided these lands between his three sons, including William Glynne*, who sat for Caernarvonshire in 1659 and Caernarvon boroughs in 1660, and whose own son, Sir William† was MP for Oxford University (1698-1700) and New Woodstock (1702-5).809Bodl. Carte 217, f. 356; PROB11/323/53.

Conclusion

As a relatively inexperienced MP, Glynne had become prominent in the early months of the Long Parliament through his involvement in Strafford’s trial in 1641 and his fierce resistance to the illegal activities of the king in the winter of 1641-2. His association with the ‘fiery spirits’ did not last long, however. Like Denzil Holles he was appalled by the outbreak of civil war and sought peace in the winter of 1642-3, although he had recovered from this by the late spring of 1643, when he became an associate of John Pym, and was made recorder of London. During 1644 and 1645 Glynne mostly sided with the Essexians and then the Presbyterians; but he was not a natural party man, preferring to work with men of his own stamp, notably Westminster residents such as Pye and Wheler or lawyers including Wylde and Whitelocke. His allegiances were further complicated by his obligations to the City of London, his good relations with the Scots, his concern for north Wales, and his inclination towards peace with the king. It is only in 1646-8 that Glynne can be described as an outright political ‘Presbyterian’. Purged by the army in 1648, during the commonwealth Glynne was allowed to retire, and was clearly not considered a danger to the regime. Cromwell encouraged Glynne to return to legal office in 1654, and he became a prominent example of those Presbyterians who became avid supporters of the protectorate. In particular, Glynne was a strong advocate of a return to the ‘ancient constitution’ under the terms of the Humble Petition and Advice of 1657, and he may have assisted in drafting the original Remonstrance that offered the crown to Cromwell. Glynne was occasionally accused by contemporaries of venality, prolixity and poor judgement, but such assessments miss the point. He was essentially a conservative, concerned for moderate reform in church and state, and increasingly supportive of strong, legitimate government. It was this, rather than a cynicism or ambition that led him to support repeated attempts to make peace with Charles I in the 1640s, to join Cromwell in 1654, and ultimately to accept the restoration of Charles II.