TURNOR, Edward (1617-76), of Little Parndon, Essex and the Middle Temple.

It could almost be said that Edward Turnor was a lawyer born and bred. His father, Arthur Turnor, was one of the leading Middle Temple lawyers of the early seventeenth century and Edward would, in turn, climb almost to the top of the English legal hierarchy. His career in Parliament during the 1650s was a key step in that ascent.

The Turnor family had long been established at Haverhill, where Suffolk meets Essex and Cambridgeshire. An estate at Great Parndon, on the border between Essex and Hertfordshire, had come into the possession of the family during the sixteenth century and Turnor’s father chose to make Little Parndon his principal residence. Following a year at Oxford, the young Edward joined his father at the Middle Temple. In May 1639 his elder brother, John, wrote to him from France telling him that he hoped to hear that he had ‘a bar gown on, and a good wife’.51W. Suss. RO, Shillinglee MS lttr. 22. John served in expeditionary force sent against the Irish rebels in 1642 and he was later killed during the civil war.52W. Suss. RO, Shillinglee MS lttr. 28; Morant, Essex, ii. 496. As a result, Edward became his father’s heir. In June 1640 he had been called to the bar. At first he struggled, to build up his own legal practice, largely because the civil war had caused a sharp fall in the business coming before the courts, but thereafter he prospered at the bar.53Harvard Law School Lib. MS 136, ff. 2-18v; MS 145, pp. 1-49 By the late 1650s he was regularly earning over £1,000 a year in legal fees.54Harvard Law School Lib. MS 136, ff. 88, 102, 114v, 126v, 141v. His clients included Sir John Barrington*, Alexander Popham*, John Godbold*, Sir Thomas Fanshaw* and Sir Peter Temple*.55Harvard Law School Lib. MS 136, ff. 14-16v, 18, 21, 21v, 22-23, 23v, 24v, 26, 26v, 27v, 28, 30. Later he often acted for the 2nd earl of Carlisle, the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*), Salisbury’s son, Lord Cranborne (Charles Cecil*), the 5th earl of Bedford (William Russell*) and the countess of Essex.56Harvard Law School Lib. MS 136, ff. 29, 35, 36v, 37v, 39v, 40v, 44v, 45, 47, 50, 52v, 54v-56v, 59, 59v, 60, 61v, 62v, 63, 64, 65v, 69-70, 71-72, 73-76, 77, 78, 78v, 80v, 82. Although much of the estate was left to his mother as life interest on his father’s death in 1651, he was allowed to take possession of them almost immediately.57W. Suss. RO, Shillinglee MS 32/77.

It was probably only in the 1650s, once his father had died and he had established a reputation for himself as one of the sharper London lawyers, that Turnor began to play any part in public affairs. In one of his notebooks he recorded how some of the judges were dismissed for refusing to serve following Charles I’s execution. This was, in his words, a ‘remarkable change’.58Harvard Law School Lib. MS 136, ff. 18v-20. The hint is that he shared their misgivings and he seems to have accepted the protectorate purely on pragmatic grounds. His earlier lack of public experience is likely to have been an advantage in the 1654 elections. He was an unknown quality to the Essex electorate and his views probably difficult to pin down. The family had no tradition of standing in Essex – his father’s sole election had been to the brief 1614 Parliament and that had been at Derby on the Howard interest – but, as a local landowner of some substance, that was not a major problem for Turnor in 1654.

Turnor made his mark in the 1654 Parliament almost immediately. One observer, Robert Rawlins, writing to John Buxton* on 14 September, just 11 days after the Parliament had assembled, linked Turnor, ‘a young counsel’, to the republicans John Bradshawe*, Sir Arthur Hesilrige* and John Weaver* as those MPs opposed to the Instrument of Government. Rawlins even thought that these four might be barred from Parliament.59CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/100. Other evidence suggests that Turnor was immediately recognised as being knowledgeable about legal matters and that he quickly became an expert on parliamentary procedure. On 29 September 1654 he was named to the committees on Scottish and Irish affairs, both of them important committees.60CJ vii. 371b. Over the following months he was named to most of the major committees on law reform, including those concerning chancery (5 Oct.), the relief of poor prisoners and creditors (25 Oct.), the abolition of the court of wards (31 Oct.), abuses involving the writs of certiorari and habeas corpus (3 Nov.) and proposals that a probate court equivalent to the old prerogative court of York be created for the north of England.61CJ vii. 374a, 375b, 378b, 380a, 381b, 401a. He was also prominent among those named to consider the teaching of civil law at Oxford and Cambridge (22 Dec.), and to draft the bill concerning forfeitures (30 Dec.).62CJ vii. 407b, 409b. His presence on the committees to enumerate damnable heresies and to prepare a bill against Quakers indicates that he was among those particularly concerned about the spread of heterodox religious views.63CJ vii. 399b, 410a; Burton’s Diary, i. p. cxxvii. It was an indication of just how quickly he had earned the respect of his colleagues that within three months of his arrival in the Commons he was appointed to take the chair during the committee of the whole House on the assessment bill. During the second of the two days on which he did so, the committee apparently drew up the list of commissioners to be included in the bill.64CJ vii. 392b, 393b, 394b. Some may already have been thinking of him as a potential future Speaker. Throughout December 1654 and January 1655 his drafting skills possibly had an influence on the new constitution, the ‘Government Bill’, which, as a critic of the Instrument of Government, he doubtless strongly supported – he sat on the committee which drew up the original bill and was included on the various committees to which the bill or individual clauses were recommitted.65CJ vii. 398a, 403a, 411b, 415a.

His second marriage only caused him problems. In 1654 his new wife (a former daughter-in-law of Sir William Ashton†) was accused by her son-in-law, John Buck, of abducting his wife, Mary, who was her daughter from her first marriage. When Mary Buck subsequently gave birth, her husband accused Mary Turnor of planting a suppositious child in order to defraud him of his estates.66CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 115. Turnor’s own relations with his wife became equally strained and by the late 1650s the couple were living apart.67W. Suss. RO, Shillinglee MS lttrs. 93-4. By the late 1650s he was making investments on the basis of advice from Thomas Toll II*, who was married to one of his Jermy cousins and who was another Middle Temple barrister.68W. Suss. RO, Shillinglee MS lttr. 43, lttr. 49.

In 1656 Turnor was again elected as one of the Essex MPs. He was unable to take his seat, however, being one of those MPs proscribed by the council of state.69CJ vii. 425a. It was therefore in his absence that this Parliament debated his personal interest in the Irish land bill in June 1657. In 1642 his father had invested £200 in the Irish Adventure.70Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 193. By the time the lands had been allocated by lot in 1653, Turner had joined a syndicate comprising various friends and neighbours, including Sir Gilbert Gerard*, Sir John Barrington*, Sir William Waller* and Sir William Masham*. The complication was that the lands at Slane in East Meath which were allocated to them had already been awarded to the serjeant-at-arms to the council of state, Edward Dendy*.71CSP Ire. Adventurers, 1642-60, p. 345; Eg. 2651, ff. 218, 221-229, 234v; Eg. 2648, ff. 251-2, 268-9; CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 353; CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 410, 482, 501, 596-7, 834. The bill before this Parliament confirmed all the other land grants but was amended so that the resolution of this particular dispute would be left to the law courts.72Eg. 2651, ff. 235-236; CJ vii. 472b, 526a-b, 550a-b; Burton’s Diary, i. 202-3, ii. 66-7, 196-7; Eg. 2648, f. 284; A. and O. This was probably what Turnor and his friends had hoped to achieve and the following year the Irish courts seem to have ruled in their favour.73Eg. 2648, ff. 311, 313, 317.

Turnor was allowed to take his seat in the short second session of this Parliament in early 1658, and he played a full part in its proceedings. Much of his time was taken up with the dispute over the appointment of John Smythe as clerk of the Commons. Turnor’s view was that, as there were now three estates, the old system whereby the clerk was appointed by patent ought to be revived. This argument might have been thought to favour the rival claimant, Henry Scobell.74Burton’s Diary, ii. 318. Once Smythe’s appointment had been confirmed, the question then arose as to what oath he should take and, with it, the related problem that the records of the House could not be consulted because they had been retained by Scobell. Turnor took the lead in the efforts to force Scobell to hand over the records.75CJ vii. 579a, 581a, 587b, 588a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 336-7, 348-9. When Francis Bacon* moved that a committee be created to consider how to increase the salary of one of the clergymen at Ipswich, Turnor spoke on behalf of those who instead preferred the idea of creating a committee to consider the general question of improved maintenance for ministers.76Burton’s Diary, ii. 331. He also spoke in support of the motion that a grand committee be appointed to prepare a bill to clarify the terms of the Humble Petition and Advice, telling the Commons that, ‘I come here with a spirit not to dispute what is settled, and this is the foot upon which all depends’. He suggested that MPs refer to the Other House as ‘Lords and Gentlemen’, a compromise formula intended to sidestep the problem.77Burton’s Diary, ii. 435, 437.

The restoration of the old franchises did not prevent Turnor regaining one of the county seats in November 1658. According to Ralph Josselin, he headed the poll on a low turnout.78Josselin, Diary, 436. Turnor was also present at the Hertford election held 11 days after the Essex contest and he later claimed that he would have been elected there had he not already secured his place in the forthcoming Parliament. Asked for his professional opinion in the dispute over the junior Hertford seat, he recommended to the mayor that two returns be made in order to leave the final decision to Parliament. This was probably intended to favour the more moderate candidate, James Cowper*, as the mayor then ignored this advice and returned the other candidate, William Packer*, an army officer and a Baptist.79Burton’s Diary, iv. 252. If so, Turnor had accurately foreseen the mood of the new Parliament, for the Commons unseated Packer in favour of Cowper.

On the constitutional issues which took up much of the time of this new Parliament, Turnor adopted a cautious, traditionalist line. While not yet openly supporting a return to the old pre-1649 constitution, he always sought answers on the basis of legal precedent and was happy to nudge discussion towards more conservative solutions. During the debates on the attempt by Henry Neville* to pursue the dispute surrounding the 1656 Berkshire election through the courts, Turnor maintained that, as the Commons was no longer the sole legislature, the Other House ought to be allowed to become involved.80Burton’s Diary, iii. 20, 21, 23. He was willing to live under the terms of the Humble Petition and Advice, and so accepted Richard Cromwell* as lord protector. On 10 February 1659 he denounced those novice MPs who wished to ignore the decisions by previous Parliaments which had established the office of lord protector.81Burton’s Diary, iii. 197-8. Four days later he proposed that the bill of the protector’s title should neither ‘recognise’ nor ‘declare’ him, simply stating instead that Richard Cromwell was the lord protector.82Burton’s Diary, iii. 279. His sympathy for Edmund Jones*, the attorney-general for south Wales who faced expulsion from the Commons for his earlier record of delinquency, was understandable.83Burton’s Diary, iii. 238. Turnor probably saw in him another lawyer of moderate views who regarded the protectorate as the best available interim solution. He was willing to vote money to maintain the public dignity of the lord protector but was suspicious of requests for additional naval funding.84Burton’s Diary, iii. 447, 455, 492; iv. 314; Derbys. RO, D258/10/9/2, f. 9v.

His interventions in the debates of the Other House led Jerome Sankey to include him among seven MPs to whom he attributed the desire for a restoration of the old House of Lords.85Henry Cromwell Corresp. 472. This was an understandable assumption for Sankey to make. On 22 February 1659 Turnor had contended that the Commons would be within its rights to restrict the powers of the Other House if they did regard it as an entirely new body but that it would be wrong to do so if they thought of it as a reformed House of Lords.86Burton’s Diary, iii. 418. He almost certainly favoured the latter interpretation. Six days later he argued that they should vote on the question of whether the old peerage should be readmitted to the Other House before voting on whether those presently sitting there should be allowed to remain, presumably because he wanted the old peerage readmitted.87Burton’s Diary, iii. 544. By 28 March he was openly arguing against moves which would limit the potential rights of those who held such peerages.88Burton’s Diary, iv. 289; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, p. 156. The argument he used for transacting business with the Other House – that this would allow them to legislate to limit its powers – was rather disingenuous, as two days later he argued that the Other House should have the same powers as the old House of Lords.89Burton’s Diary, iv. 28, 68. He also had difficulty accepting the presence of the Scottish and Irish MPs in the Westminster Parliament. In speeches on 12, 17 and 19 March he presented technical reasons why he thought that their writs of summons had been invalid and he felt that there were strong legal reasons for opposing their presence. He did acknowledge that it might be more practical to allow them to remain in place until the end of this particular Parliament, but made clear that he would prefer if the legal objections carried the day.90Derbys. RO, D258/10/9/1, unfol.; Burton’s Diary, iv. 170-1, 194-5. He conceded, however, that the distribution of English seats ought to be reformed because it was ‘very unequal’.91Burton’s Diary, iv. 311; CJ vii. 622b.

Turnor was called upon to use his legal expertise on a number of other issues.92CJ vii. 609a, 610a, 614b, 623a. He headed the list of those named to the committee to consider the purchase by John Lambert* of the manor of Wimbledon.93CJ vii. 622b. He also made regular interventions in the debates on disputed elections, correcting the claim by Slingsby Bethell* that freemen could make a valid return if the sheriff failed to do so and challenging John Maynard* and Thomas Gewen* over whether clergymen had the vote.94CJ vii. 594b; Burton’s Diary, iii. 579; iv. 45, 236, 318. However, his attempt to get the report by the committee for elections on the Castle Rising contest recommitted was motivated by the fact that the candidate against whom the committee had found was his uncle, Robert Jermy*.95Burton’s Diary, iii. 50, 53. His appointment to the committee which was created to ensure that the Journal was being kept properly probably reflected the key part he had played in the Smythe-Scobell dispute in the previous Parliament.96CJ vii. 608b. Meanwhile, outside of Parliament, he was in March 1659 included on the shortlist for the appointment of a successor to Lislebone Long* as the recorder of London.97CLRO, COL/CA/01/01/070, f. 223.

Clear evidence of his growing reputation as a respected member of the House came on 15 April 1659 during the debate on the appointment of a new Speaker to replace the late Chaloner Chute I*. The response of Thomas Bampfylde* to being nominated for this honour was to argue that he was unfit for the position and that they ought to appoint Turnor instead as ‘a person of great abilities, and fitness for their service’.98CJ vii. 640a. This was, of course, the ritual reluctance expected from any new Speaker, but it can have been no accident that he pitched on Turnor. This Parliament in fact had only another week to run. On 18 April Turnor warned the Commons of the rumours that the army would break them up on 21 April and he was then named to the committee to investigate reports of plots in and around London. He wanted the soldiers’ arrears paid to them as a matter of urgency. Three days later he wanted an immediate clarification as to who controlled the militia.99Burton’s Diary, iv. 460, 461, 474; CJ vii. 641b. The fears of Turnor and others proved to be justified. Richard Cromwell bowed to pressure from the army and dissolved Parliament.

Among that generation of MPs who had come of age during the 1630s, there were few who had adapted so well to the varied demands of membership of the House. Turnor was a natural Commons man. The only limitation on his prospects was perhaps the expectation that it was only a matter of time before he became Speaker. His fondness for the traditions of English law made it easy for him to welcome the return of the king. His private notes for 1660 summed up the year by declaring, ‘Vivat rex: floreat lex’ [Long live the king: let the law flourish].100Harvard Law School Lib. MS 136, ff. 152v. When the Convention met in April 1660, he was the preferred candidate for the Speakership of those who wanted an unconditional Restoration, although they were outmanoeuvred at the last minute by the supporters of (Sir) Harbottle Grimston*.101CCSP iv. 675; Bramston, Autobiog. 116-17. Turnor’s friend, the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*), who had sat in the Commons following the abolition of the Lords, sought his advice, as someone who knew the mood of the new Parliament, on whether it would be politic for him to resume his seat in the Lords just yet.102W. Suss. RO, Shillinglee MS lttr. 52. By July 1660 Turnor was attorney-general to the duke of York, a king’s counsel and a knight. The following May he finally took his place in the Speaker’s chair and he would vacate it only on his elevation to become chief baron of the exchequer ten years later. He died in March 1676 while on circuit as an assize judge. Lord Chancellor Finch (Heneage Finch†) quipped that his death was ‘like that of a general in the field’.103HMC Finch, ii. 28. He was then buried alongside his first wife in the church at Little Parndon, because, as he had expressed in his will, he hoped

our dust may lie and sleep together till the last trump shall sound when I do steadfastly believe our souls shall repossess our bodies and I trust by the merits of Jesus Christ we shall both be glorified in heaven.104RCHME Essex, ii. 162; PROB11/352/15.

He had also used that will to forgive his second wife ‘all her unkindnesses’.105PROB11/352/15. His estates were left to his eldest son, Sir Edward†, who was later bequeathed Shillinglee Park in Sussex by his maternal grandfather and that thereafter became the family’s principal seat. The chief baron’s great-great-grandson, Edward Turnour Garth-Turnour†, inherited Shillinglee Park and was raised to the Irish peerage as Baron Winterton in 1761 and Earl Winterton in 1766.