STEWARD, Robert (1617-72), of Barton Mills, Suff. and Lincoln’s Inn, Mdx.

Steward was descended from a cadet branch of a Norfolk family which in Tudor times fabricated a descent from the royal house of Scotland.24Vis. Cambs. (Harl. Soc. xli.), 8-10; W. Rye, ‘The Steward genealogy and Cromwell’s “royal descent”’, The Gen. n.s. ii. 34-42. This particular branch descended from Simeon Steward (d. 1568) of Lakenheath, Suffolk, the younger brother of Robert Steward, the last prior of Ely Cathedral.25Vis. Cambs. 11; Vis. Hants. 1686 (Harl. Soc. n.s. x.), 191-3. Several members of the family had sat in Parliament, including this MP’s great uncles, (Sir) Mark† (1524-1604) and Nicholas Steward† (1547-1633), and Sir Mark’s son, Sir Simeon Steward† (1575-1632). Oliver Cromwell*, whose mother was a Steward, was this MP’s third cousin.

In 1553 Simeon Steward had bought the manor of Barton Mills, just outside Mildenhall, which by the early seventeenth century had passed down to his grandson, this MP’s father, Thomas.26Copinger, Manors of Suff. iv. 137. But Robert Steward was only his father’s third son and it was the eldest, Thomas junior, who inherited the lands at Barton Mills.27Vis. Suff. 1664-8, 194. On graduating from Cambridge in 1641, Robert enrolled at Lincoln’s Inn. He presumably then spent the war years pursuing his legal studies in London. He was called to the bar in 1651.28LI Black Bks. ii. 392. He must at some point have acquired property of his own in Norfolk, for when in the late 1650s he was appointed as a justice of the peace and as an assessment commissioner, it was for that county, but nothing is known of those lands.

Steward first sat in Parliament in 1656 when he was elected as the MP for Orkney, Shetland and Caithness. He had no connections at all with Scotland and was evidently unfamiliar to the commander-in-chief in Edinburgh in Scotland, George Monck*, who, in reporting the election results to John Thurloe*, called him ‘Thomas Stuart’.29TSP v. 366. So he may well have been favoured on the basis of his kinship with the lord protector. Not that he was that closely related and the best-known black list of the Members of this Parliament failed to include him in its listing of MPs who were related to Cromwell.30A Narrative of the late Parliament (so called) (1657), 16-17 (E.935.5). The 9th earl of Morton, who held the stewartry of Orkney and Shetland, is the electoral patron most likely to have secured his return.

When the Parliament met in September 1656, some MPs were barred from taking their seats. In the next Parliament Steward would claim that he had been ‘scandalized’ by these exclusions and so had absented himself for ‘two or three months’.31Burton’s Diary, iii. 131, 218. That would explain why it was not until February 1657, when he was named to the committee on the petition from 2nd Viscount Loftus of Ely [I], that he left any trace in the Journal.32CJ vii. 494b. The printed edition of the diary of Thomas Burton* attributes several speeches in this Parliament to a mysterious ‘Colonel Stewart’, but the manuscript actually calls him ‘Mr Steward’, so there is no doubt that these are references to Robert Steward.33Add. 15860, ff. 8, 12, 42, 43v; Add. 15861, ff. 16, 17, 41v, 43v, 69.

Soon after Steward took his seat, (Sir) Christopher Packe* introduced his remonstrance proposing a new constitutional settlement. One issue raised by this was the status of the judicial proceedings of the Other House and Steward was named to the committee to consider this on 12 March.34CJ vii. 502a. A month later, on 9 April, he was also among those sent to seek clarification from the lord protector following his rejection of what had become the Humble Petition and Advice.35CJ vii. 521b. Steward made what may have been his first speeches when he spoke in the debate on 23 April on the clause in the Humble Petition excluding certain groups from voting or from standing for Parliament. The proposal was that those who had taken part in the Scottish invasion of 1648 should be excluded, unless they had since given ‘signal testimony’ of their loyalty. Steward was happy that Parliament should be the ultimate arbiter on this, but recommended that some guidance ought nevertheless to be provided.36Burton’s Diary, ii. 13. Later in the same debate, when the argument had moved on to whether a bill should be brought in to create a process to punish such unqualified MPs, Steward suggested that they should bring in the bill and then reject it. Burton implies that this idea did not go down well with other MPs, who thought it ‘below a Parliament’.37Burton’s Diary, ii. 18. There is no suggestion that Steward supported the offer of the crown to his distant cousin.38Narrative of the late Parliament, 22-3.

MPs returned to the issue of which Scots to exclude from Parliament two months later when they debated the Additional Petition and Advice. Steward seems to have been wary of barring too many Scots, for he advised the House on 15 June that they ‘ought to sweeten that nation’ and that ‘if you give a privilege with one hand, and take it away with another, it will discourage that people.’39Burton’s Diary, ii. 251. He was then named to the committee on the subject.40CJ vii. 557a. But he was not at all happy with the clause that committee then drafted. On 25 June he warned the Commons that accepting it would ‘set aside all the magistrates in Scotland.’ He instead took the pragmatic view that, ‘Some that, happily, were not capable of serving you before, by their coming in betimes, and their constant faithfulness, are now capable.’41Burton’s Diary, ii. 308.

Steward had views on a number of issues beyond the Humble Petition. During the debate on 29 April on bill for the registration of marriages, he supported Nathaniel Fiennes I* when he argued that the clause continuing the Act for only six months was unnecessary. Steward added the observation that marriages conducted using the Directory would still be valid anyway.42Burton’s Diary, ii. 71-2. Later in that same debate he supported those who wanted women aged under 21 to be allowed to marry only with parental consent.43Burton’s Diary, ii. 75. He took an interest in the bill to restrict the construction of new buildings around London. He was named to the committee to which it was committed on 9 May and to the committee on one of the provisos to it a month later.44CJ vii. 532a, 555a. On 8 June he spoke in support of the proposal that the lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood*, be granted Irish lands worth £1,500 a year.45Burton’s Diary, ii. 197. Five days later he agreed with the minority who thought that the monthly assessment from Ireland should be reduced by £2,000.46Burton’s Diary, ii. 247. The only time he acted as a teller was on 9 June, when he sided with those opposed to reviving the committee on the private bill to allow the 10th (or 3rd) Lord Abergavenny to sell land to pay off his debts.47CJ vii. 552b. On 16 June Steward was one of the ten MPs added to the committee on the indemnity bill.48CJ vii. 559a. Nothing is known of his role in the brief second session of this Parliament in early 1658.

Steward’s name was one of several that Thurloe passed on to Monck in late 1658 so that they could be found Scottish seats in the new Parliament.49TSP vii. 572, 584. Monck however then heard (from Thomas Clarges*) that Steward had already found a seat in England.50TSP vii. 613. Steward probably owed his return for Thetford to the influence of Henry Howard, who was managing the Howard interests on behalf of his elder brother, the 23rd earl of Arundel, as the earl was being held in a lunatic asylum in Italy. But, if so, this did not prevent Steward working against Henry Howard in other matters. Howard’s efforts to get John Fielder* elected at Castle Rising resulted in a double return. When this was subsequently considered by the Commons, Steward seems to have spoken in favour of the return by the burgesses who had elected Robert Jermy* rather than Fielder.51Burton’s Diary, iii. 50. Steward was also included on the committee appointed on 8 April 1659 to investigate the circumstances of Arundel’s detention. That committee was then also asked to investigate not only the Castle Rising election but also any other elections in which Howard had had an influence.52CJ vii. 632a. Steward’s only other committee appointment during this Parliament was to the privileges committee (28 Jan.).53CJ vii. 595a.

But Steward was far from idle and he spoke often during debates. A particular interest was privilege questions. Thanks to the obstinacy of Henry Neville*, the Berkshire election dispute from the previous Parliament continued to take up parliamentary time. Steward was one of those MPs who insisted that if the relevant records from the court of common pleas were to be received as evidence by the House, the lord chief justice, Oliver St John*, should be required to present them in person.54Burton’s Diary, iii. 19, 21. Later, on 3 February, Steward argued that, as the case was unique, hearing it could not undermine their privileges.55Burton’s Diary, iii. 54. Meanwhile, Steward thought that the case against Lewis Audley* for the insulting remarks he had made during the Gatton election ought to be dropped.56Burton’s Diary, iii. 39-40.

The bill to recognise the lord protector’s title gave an opportunity to those MPs who wished to question the succession of the new lord protector, Richard Cromwell*. Steward was happy to accept Richard and he may have considered the time taken to legislate on this to be wasted. He was impatient to move on to other things.57Burton’s Diary, iii. 31, 131, 154, 218. But if he thought the bill to be unnecessary, he still gave it his full support. In the debate on 8 February he defended the previous Parliament and, by implication, the Humble Petition and Advice. He also considered that they had already recognised the succession by the oaths they had taken at the beginning of the session.58Burton’s Diary, iii. 131. He returned to these themes three days later, when he argued that, however much he had disapproved of them, the exclusions from the 1656 Parliament had not undermined the Petition’s validity. The provisions in the Petition about the militia might have been less than perfect but it was not worth spending time trying to improve them.59Burton’s Diary, iii. 217-18. When the case of Robert Danvers alias Villiers* was considered the next day, Steward took the chance to reassert his support for the Humble Petition.60Burton’s Diary, iii. 250.

Consistent with that support, Steward believed that the Commons ought to accept the existence of the Other House. On 5 March he warned that they should not seek to query the constitutional status of the second chamber as this could be used as a precedent to undermine it in future.61Burton’s Diary, iv. 30. Similarly, on 6 April, he supported those who thought that MPs taking messages to the Other House should remove their hats, because he judged that, ‘to be civil is no dishonour to this House’. But he also thought that these messengers should be ‘such as understand your debate’ and not those that ‘deliver your message like a parrot’.62Burton’s Diary, iv. 358.

His comments on religious matters were rare, but those he made suggest that he was a conventional Presbyterian. Thus, he had no problem with the suggestion that blasphemy charges could be brought against Henry Neville*.63Burton’s Diary, iii. 299. He was also hostile to the Quakers. When some of them petitioned the Commons on 16 April, he described them as ‘wolves under sheep’s clothing’ who may yet prove to be a menace, particularly as their books, in his view, showed ‘a denunciation of judgement’.64Burton’s Diary, iv. 443,

Given Steward’s strong backing for the protectorate, he had every reason to disapprove of the army coup in April 1659. On 18 April he spoke in support of the motion that meetings of the general council of officers should only be held with Parliament’s permission and while Parliament was sitting. He also believed that it would be better if the army was instead sent back to the provinces.65Burton’s Diary, iv. 454. The officers thought otherwise and within days Parliament had been dissolved and the protectorate ended. That June Steward’s colleagues at Lincoln’s Inn waived the charges for the meals he had taken in their hall during these two Parliaments.66LI Black Bks. ii. 425. In early 1660 he and Sir Horatio Townshend* were already making preparations in Norfolk for any forthcoming elections, although on 23 February he informed Townshend that, as he did not think there would now be any by-elections to fill the vacancies in the Long Parliament, there would be no contests until the new Parliament was summoned.67Add. 41656, f. 13.

Steward did not stand in those elections for the 1660 Convention but, with Henry Howard’s backing, he was returned for Castle Rising in 1661.68C. Robbins, ‘Election corresp. of Sir John Holland’, Norf. Arch. xxx. 132. He had meanwhile succeeded Guybon Goddard* as the recorder of King’s Lynn. By the time he was knighted in 1670, on his appointment as one of the masters in chancery, he seems to have settled at Wisbech.69Le Neve’s Peds. of the Knights, ed. G.W. Marshall (Harl. Soc. viii), 239; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 244. But when he died in 1672, he was buried at Barton Mills.70HP Commons 1660-90. As he had left no will, the administration of his estate was granted to his widow, Elizabeth, ten days later.71PROB6/47, f. 89v. When she died in 1692, she left some copyhold lands at Wisbech and Leverington to their two unmarried daughters, Sarah and Mary.72PROB11/412/432.