HUNT, Robert (1609-80), of Speckington and Compton Pauncefoot, Som.

The Hunt family had held the manor of Forston, in the parish of Charminster, Dorset, since the reign of Henry VIII, and this estate was the principal residence of the family until the 1620s, when Robert’s father, John Hunt, began acquiring land in Somerset.19Dorset Nat. Hist. Procs. liv. 104-110. The source of John Hunt’s new-found wealth is uncertain. Although he may have been the ‘Hunt’ who was the ‘thrifty’ servant of Sir Francis Bacon†, and reputedly left ‘an estate of £1,000 per annum in Somerset’, it seems more likely that his fortune was made as a Middle Temple lawyer.20Aubrey’s Brief Lives ed. A. Clark (Oxford, 1898), i. 71. John Hunt already had interests in south-eastern Somerset because of his marriage to the daughter of John Ewens of Wincanton, and his later purchases in the area brought the family new lands in Wincanton and neighbouring Charlton Musgrove.21CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 526. By 1633 he had also acquired estates in Compton Pauncefoot and Speckington, Yeovilton.22Som. Arch. and Nat. Hist. Soc. xvi (part 2), 19; Dorset Nat. Hist. Procs. liv. 111; Gerard’s Description of Som. 1633 ed. E.H. Bates (Som. Rec. Soc. xv), 183.

Robert Hunt’s early career was influenced by his father’s position as a lawyer in London and a landowner in Dorset and Somerset. After a spell at Rampisham School, under the tutelage of one Mr Allott, Hunt was admitted to the Middle Temple, where he apparently continued his legal studies despite matriculating at Cambridge shortly afterwards.23Al. Cant.; M. Temple Admiss. Admitted to chambers in 1628, Hunt was called to the bar in 1633.24Mins. of M. Temple Parl. 730, 813. He was soon drawn into the network of west country lawyers centred upon the Middle Temple. Of particular importance was his connection with the Stephens family of Gloucestershire: John Hunt had stood surety for John Stephens* on his admission to the Middle Temple in 1620, and Stephens returned the favour for Robert Hunt in 1625.25M. Temple Parl. 650, 700. The Stephens connection also brought Hunt into contact with John Fitzjames* of Leweston in Dorset (who had married John Stephens’ cousin), and in 1642 Hunt and John Stephens were manucaptors, or sureties, for Fitzjames’s brother, Thomas.26M. Temple Parl. 917. Hunt’s Middle Temple connection was strengthened by a series of marriages. In the late 1620s he came into contact with the noted Dorset puritan, John Browne I* of Frampton, and was manucaptor for his son’s admission to the Middle Temple; Browne’s daughter, Grace, became John Stephens’ second wife in 1631; and in 1635, Hunt married another of Browne’s daughters, Elizabeth.27M. Temple Parl. 728; Collinson, Som. ii. 77. Hunt’s connections with the Stephens, Browne and Fitzjames families would strongly influence his later career.

From the early 1630s the Hunts were resident at Compton Pauncefoot in Somerset, eight miles from the borough of Ilchester. In the Long Parliament elections of October 1640 Hunt stood for the seat in partnership with another local landowner, Sir Henry Berkeley*, as opponents of the patron, Edward Phelipps*. Although Hunt and Berkeley were successful and went on to take their seats in the Commons, the election was challenged by Phelipps and his supporters. In February 1641, amid accusations that the election had been held without notifying many of the voters, the committee of privileges declared it void.28CJ ii. 85b; D’Ewes (N), 361. When a new election was held, Hunt was again returned, this time in tandem with Phelipps. Hunt’s early career in the Commons was undistinguished. He took the Protestation on 10 May, was appointed to four committees on private bills during the spring and summer, and seems to have been completely absent from the House from mid-July.29CJ ii. 102b, 116b, 141a, 164a, 164b, 215a. He had returned to the House by February 1642, and from that time became associated with the opposition to Charles I during the crisis which led to civil war. He moved that the bill against bishops be reconsidered on 24 February, and he was appointed to the committee stage of the same bill on 5 March.30PJ, i. 449, 456; CJ ii. 467b. Later in March Hunt was named to a committee for considering the fate of absent Members, and he joined in the debate on the restriction of publishing material relating to the talks between king and Parliament.31CJ ii. 475a; PJ, ii. 77-8. On 5 April he was named to a committee to receive information on unrest and seditious pamphlets and on the same day he was given leave to go to the country.32CJ ii. 511b, 512a. In June Hunt contributed a horse to the defence of Parliament, and probably departed for Somerset soon afterwards.33PJ, iii. 474.

After the outbreak of hostilities between king and Parliament in August 1642, Hunt returned to the Commons, where he was ordered to prepare a letter to the sheriff of Somerset warning about royalist activity (30 Aug.) and was added to committees for raising money and arms and securing recusants (13 Sept.) and disposing of prisoners (14 Sept.).34CJ ii. 744b, 763b, 766a. On 20 September he was involved in moves to persuade the judges to condemn the king’s commission of array as illegal.35Add. 18777, f. 5. Hunt was again in Westminster in the spring of 1643, when he was appointed to the committee of Irish affairs chaired by Sir Henry Vane I*, and he took the Solemn League and Covenant on 1 November 1643.36CJ iii. 78b, 297b. But, despite this formal confirmation of his commitment to the parliamentarian cause, Hunt’s infrequent attendance at Westminster suggests that he was already having second thoughts. The situation had come to a head by the beginning of 1644. In January of that year, Hunt responded to the royal summons to attend the Oxford Parliament (although he did not attend the session), and, as a result, in February he was disabled as an MP by the Westminster Parliament.37Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 575; CJ iii. 389b. Hunt’s defection to the king was probably motivated by fears for his private interests in Somerset and Dorset, which had been under royalist control since the summer of 1643.

Hunt’s movements in the mid-1640s are uncertain, but he seems to have submitted under the Oxford Articles, for, by the end of 1646, he had returned to London, apparently free from constraint by Parliament. Hunt may have owed his freedom from punishment to his connections at Westminster. In October he advised his Presbyterian relative, John Fitzjames, about the latter’s endeavours to secure a seat at the recruiter elections for Shaftesbury. Hunt promised to intercede with his father-in-law, John Browne I, on Fitzjames’s behalf.38Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 48-9, 53. When Fitzjames wrote to his own father-in-law, Nathaniel Stephens* (John Stephens’ cousin), later in the same month, he asked him to ‘discourse with Mr [Thomas] Erle* and my Cousin Hunt’ about the elections.39Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, f. 55. From this exchange, it is clear that Hunt still enjoyed the favour of the west country parliamentarian gentry, despite his own royalist tendencies. Such connections proved very useful to Hunt in 1647-8, when he and his father were dealt with by the Committee for Advance of Money. In January 1647 Hunt was fined £400 and his father £600 for their attachment to the king, and in March 1648 orders were issued to seize their estates to guarantee payment. But in April, Hunt’s old friend, John Stephens (who enjoyed considerable influence in the Committee for Compounding), intervened, arguing that Hunt had lent £100 to Parliament earlier in the decade, and had given horses for the service, and certifying that he had been cleared of delinquency by the Commons. Hunt was discharged on 19 April 1648, and his father was treated leniently.40CCAM 758.

During the commonwealth, Hunt was inactive, although Fitzjames suggests that he was involved in buying and selling soldiers’ debentures for Irish land in the autumn of 1651, and in 1653 he helped to protect the estates of his royalist relatives, the Ewens of Wincanton.41Alnwick, Northumberland MS 549, f. 128; CCC 3173. One reason for his apparent reluctance to participate in Somerset affairs at this time may have been the dominance of John Pyne* and others with sectarian sympathies, who controlled the local commissions and the county committee. With the formation of the protectorate in the winter of 1653-4, Pyne and his allies rapidly lost control of the county, and the more moderate, pro-Presbyterian (or even crypto-royalist) gentry were able to re-assert their position. Hunt was an early beneficiary of this political change: in 1654 he was appointed a justice of the peace for Somerset and a commissioner for scandalous ministers, and in November of that year he was pricked as sheriff - an office he held for two years.42QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, p. xxiv; A. and O.; Som. Assize Orders, 59, 80. As sheriff, Hunt was careful to maintain the status quo. On his appointment, he stated that he intended to do ‘works of charity to poor people’, but also ‘civilities to my friends and civilities to persons of quality’.43Som. Assize Orders, 59. He seems to have fulfilled his promises. In the spring of 1655 he was involved in the arrests and prosecutions which followed Penruddock’s royalist rising, but he intervened to protect the local landowner (and his fellow MP for Ilchester in 1641), Edward Phelipps.44Som. Assize Orders, 69-71. When organising the 1656 parliamentary elections, Hunt, mindful of his duties, refused to stand for election at Bridgwater despite the persuasions of the borough, and he advised the county electorate to take care to choose moderate men as their representatives. ‘Do not cry up any man that cries down government’, Hunt told the voters, ‘unless you are content to have your peace and quiet cried down’.45Som. Assize Orders, 74, 76.

Hunt’s term as sheriff came to an end in September 1656, but he continued to play an important role in county affairs. He was active as a sewer commissioner from March 1656, as a JP from February 1657, and as an assessment commissioner in June 1657.46C181/6, pp. 155, 268, 337; QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, 325-74; A. and O. Hunt’s prominence in the county brought him closer to his Somerset friends. In the spring of 1656, John Fitzjames, acting for ‘some friends above’, asked him to intervene to protect the minister at Yeovilton; and he again called on Hunt’s support in his own disputes with the sewers commissioners in 1658.47Alnwick, Northumberland MS 551, f. 69v; 552, ff. 23v, 24. From the mid-1650s, Fitzjames was increasingly involved in a political alliance in Dorset, led by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, which sought to further reduce the influence of the radicals in the west, and it was this group which encouraged Hunt to stand for Milborne Port in the 1659 elections. Fitzjames had originally supported the candidacy of his cousin, Robert Coker*, but his refusal to stand made it likely that the seat would be taken by the radical, John Pyne. On 29 January 1659, Fitzjames asked Hunt to persuade Coker to choose another candidate or to stand himself.48Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 71. Hunt, who had already been elected for Somerset, stood for Milborne as well, in what seems to have been a deliberate move to block Pyne. Hunt’s refusal to decide which seat to take was an extension of this policy: the Commons, frustrated by his attitude, was eventually forced to decide for him on 17 March, when new writs were issued for Milborne.49CJ vii. 615a. The closure of the Parliament soon afterwards ensured that Pyne and his radical friends remained excluded from Westminster.

Hunt was equally conservative in his religious opinions. As part of his judicial role in Somerset, Hunt became notorious in 1656 and 1657 for his harsh attitude towards the Quakers: he passed sentence on Thomas Budd for holding riotous meetings, attacked Thomas Salthouse as ‘a dangerous, idle and wandering person’, and condemned Quakers in general as being ‘in contempt of government’.50Sufferings of the People Call’d Quakers (1733), i. 217-9; R. Wastfield, A True Testimony of Faithful Witnesses Recorded (1657), 28; D. Underdown, Som. (Newton Abbot, 1973), 187. After the Restoration, Hunt would also acquire a reputation as an obsessive searcher for witches: a preoccupation he shared with his neighbour and friend, the philosopher-cleric, Joseph Glanville.51Som. Assize Orders, 58; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Robert Hunt’. This abiding fear of religious radicalism – or worse – was no doubt a by-product of Hunt’s own Presbyterian views. His closest friends and relatives were moderate Calvinists: the Brownes were puritans, but not sectarian; the Stephens were political Independents but religious Presbyterians; and John Fitzjames had Anglican tendencies, despite his conformity to Presbyterianism during the interregnum. As sheriff in 1654-6, Hunt had imposed a godly form of worship upon Ilchester gaol, funding twice-weekly sermons, and his advice to the county electors in 1656 to ‘choose none but pious, sober, prudent and peaceable men’ was an implicit attack on the sectaries.52Som. Assize Orders, 61-2, 76.

Hunt’s concern for the maintenance of good order in religion and society may have encouraged him to accept the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. His father was nominated to the order of the royal oak (which was never inaugurated) in 1660 at the age of 94, and Hunt himself was returned for Ilchester in the Covention Parliament which met in the same year.53Burke’s Commoners, i. 692. Hunt was inactive at Westminster, but continued to play an important role as a j.p. and (from 1666) deputy lieutenant in Somerset.54HP Commons 1660-1690 His will, written a few weeks before his death in early 1680, shows that the family had by that time fallen into debt, and provision was made for the sale of land to raise money for his children.55PROB11/363/291. Hunt’s eldest son, John Hunt†, who was Member for various Somerset constituencies between 1677 and 1702, was the last of the family to sit in Parliament.