STANDISH, Richard (1621-62), of Duxbury Hall, Chorley, Lancs.

The addition of post-1650 material to the Standish of Duxbury pedigree in the manuscript of the 1613 Lancashire visitation has generated considerable confusion surrounding Standish’s lineage and identity. Mis-transcription of this pedigree by the manuscript’s nineteenth-century editor has compounded the problem.20Harl. 1437, f. 72; Vis. Lancs. ed. Raines, 71. The effect has been unfortunate, creating the impression that Richard’s step-siblings through his father’s second marriage were his own children. This, in turn, has suggested that the MP was a much older man than was the case, who married twice and whose father was himself named Richard. In fact, there are no grounds for questioning the generally accurate family pedigree drawn up by the nineteenth-century antiquary Joseph Foster. Foster’s pedigree is consistent not only with the manuscript version, but also with Standish-related entries in the parish registers of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster – where the family’s London residence was located – details in Richard’s will, and a 1647 document in the Duxbury muniments that refers to ‘Thomas Standish esquire, his late father’.21St Martin-in-the-Fields par. reg.; C7/277/54; Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 45, ff. 562-7; Lancs. RO, DP/397/21/16; Foster, Lancs. Peds.

Standish was in arms for Parliament during both the first and the second civil wars.22E121/4/8/43; Lancs. Civil War Tracts, 85, 252; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1148; Lancs. Royalist Composition Pprs. ed. J.H. Stanning (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. xxiv), 235-6; Gratton, Lancs. 180, 192, 294; BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database. Despite indications that he had Presbyterian sympathies, he apparently had little trouble conforming himself to the Rump, serving as a magistrate and even as a collector of revenues for sequestered estates.23Add. 59661, f. 25; CCC i. 392; Lancs. Royalist Composition Pprs. ed. J. Brownbill (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. xcv), 130-2; Craven, ‘Lancs.’, 26, 27, 71, 149. Commissioned by the council of state in 1650 as a colonel in the Lancashire militia, he and his regiment were apparently part of the English force that invaded Scotland that year.24CSP Dom. 1650, p. 509; Craven, ‘Lancs.’, 106, 108. In January 1651, however, he had an altercation – in the process of which he called Robert Cunliffe* an ‘unworthy’ man –with one of the agents of the Lancashire sequestration committee, which complained of his proceedings to Oliver Cromwell*, and, by July, he had been discharged from his colonelcy.25Lancs. Royalist Composition Pprs. ed. Brownbill, 131. Nevertheless, he continued to be named to Lancashire assessment commissions under the Rump.

In the elections to the first protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1654, Standish was returned (apparently in fourth and last place) for Lancashire.26Supra, ‘Lancashire’; Perfect List of the Members Returned (1654, 669 f.19.8). He probably owed his election to a combination of his high profile in the county, his status as one of the county’s leading landowners and, possibly, to the approval of Lancashire’s influential Presbyterian interest. He was named to four committees in this Parliament, including those for bringing in a ‘recognition of the government’ to be subscribed by MPs and to consider the affairs of Ireland.27CJ vii. 370a, 371b, 373b, 381a. He was returned for Lancashire again in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in 1656, taking fourth place behind Sir Richard Hoghton, Gilbert Irelande and Richard Holland.28Supra, ‘Lancashire’. None of the four men returned for Lancashire were among the 100 or so Members who were excluded from the House by the protectoral council as opponents of the government. However, Standish voted with 28 other MPs against a motion on 22 September 1656 that the excluded Members apply to the council for ‘approbation’ to sit – which was interpreted as support for ‘the bringing in of the excluded Members into the House’ and was comprehensively defeated.29Bodl. Tanner 52, f. 166; CJ vii. 426b. Most of these 29 MPs have been accounted Presbyterians.30M.J. Tibbetts, ‘Parliamentary Parties under Oliver Cromwell’ (Bryn Mawr Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1944), 127-9.

Standish was named to only three, minor, committees in the second protectoral Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate.31CJ vii. 443a, 490b, 498a. When the House was called late in December 1656 – purposely to expose those supposedly ungodly MPs who were celebrating Christmas – Standish attended his seat, ‘but out of temper’, and quickly departed Westminster.32Burton’s Diary, i. 285. In the spring of 1657, he wrote several letters from Duxbury to his kinsman by marriage Richard Legh – one of the MPs for Cheshire – in which he mocked those opposed to the Humble Petition and Advice, and in particular the religious radical Samuel Hyland*.33JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp. Lttrs. to Richard Legh, folder 22: Standish to Legh, 17 Apr. 1657; Newton, House of Lyme, 197. Yet he himself was apparently far from satisfied at the way the new constitution’s supporters were pursuing their objective.

I am much engaged unto you that you will be pleased to honour me so much for to remember one of your dissenting brethren. I am very sorry that our party [the Presbyterian interest?] is so worldly-minded as for to be hired to let you [the supporters of the Humble Petition and Advice?] have your ends. For I do hear that you have no ways to bring your royal design about but by money, for this £600,000 [a proposed new assessment bill] may do (perhaps) as much towards the making up of a king as the £400,000 did with the Scots [in 1646-7] in delivering of a king. I shall say no more, but I love not this honour which is bought so dear ... I could wish that you would take care to make your way so clear and plain in your k[ingly?] design, that there may be no rubs in the way.34JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp. Lttrs. to Richard Legh, folder 22: Standish to Legh, 8 May 1657; Newton, House of Lyme, 197-8.

By ‘dissenting brethren’ he probably meant those Presbyterian MPs who scrupled at the compromises over kingship and the protectoral church settlement that surrounded the introduction of the Humble Petition. Standish asked Legh to pass on his regards to Gilbert Irelande and ‘honest Major Brooks’ – i.e. the Cheshire MP Peter Brooke – ‘if he were not turning from his old principles’.35JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp. Lttrs. to Richard Legh, folder 22: Standish to Legh, 17 Apr., 8 May 1657. Revealingly, Brooke, Ireland and Legh (but not Standish) were listed among the ‘kinglings’ at Westminster – that is, those MPs who had supported offering Cromwell the crown.36[G. Wharton], A Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22, 23 (E.935.5). There are no grounds for the claim that he was the ‘Mr Standish’ who was included by the royalist exile Roger Whitley† on his 1658 list of potential leaders of a projected uprising in England.37Bodl. Eng. hist. e. 309, p. 18; ‘Richard Standish’, HP Commons, 1660-90.

Standish was returned for Preston in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659.38Supra, ‘Preston’. The bulk of the Standishes’ estate lay about ten miles to the south of the borough and it is therefore unlikely that he enjoyed a strong proprietorial interest there. However, he had been a freeman of Preston since his infancy, and his father had represented the town in the Short and Long Parliaments.39Infra, ‘Thomas Standish’; Preston Guild Rolls ed. Abram, 78. Standish was named to only two committees – one of which related to disbanded supernumerary forces in Lancashire – and again was apparently silent in debate.40CJ vii. 623b, 638a. There is no evidence that he was implicated in Sir George Boothe’s* Presbyterian-royalist uprising during the summer of 1659.

In the Lancashire elections to the 1660 Convention, Standish seems to have supported the return of the ‘Anglicans’ Sir Robert Bindlos* and Roger Bradshaigh† (Standish’s cousin) over that of the Presbyterian grandee Sir Richard Hoghton* and his electoral partner.41JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp. Lttrs. to Richard Legh: Standish to Legh, 15 Mar. 1660; ‘Lancashire’, HP Commons 1660-90. Standish himself was re-elected for Preston, and he and Bradshaigh were marked by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton as likely supporters of a Presbyterian church settlement.42G. F. T. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix. 337. On 20 June, however, the Commons declared Standish’s election void on the grounds that the mayor of Preston had refused a poll.43‘Preston’, HP Commons 1660-90. Standish does not appear to have stood as a candidate in the elections to the Cavalier Parliament the following year.

Standish and his wife died within days of each other in the spring of 1662 – their demise being lamented by the Lancashire godly.44Newcome Diary ed. T. Heywood (Chetham Soc. o.s. xviii), 63, 67. He was buried at Chorley on 14 March.45Chorley par. reg. In his will, he confirmed a deed of feoffment made in June 1657 whereby he had assigned the bulk of his estate in trust to Richard Legh, Henry Porter I* of Lancaster and another gentlemen for the use of his eldest son Richard. His executors included his sister-in-law Frances – the wife of Lawrence Parsons* – and the soon-to-be ejected Presbyterian minister of Chorley, Henry Welsh. He charged his estate with bequests totalling £4,600 and annuities of £450 a year.46Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 45, ff. 562-7; Calamy Revised, 517. His son Sir Richard Standish† was returned for Wigan as a whig in 1690.47HP Commons 1690-1715.