WYNDHAM, Francis (c.1610-76), of Kentsford, St Decumans, and Trent, Som.

In the early 1630s, as Francis Wyndham reached adulthood, other members of the family were beginning to establish themselves at court. Francis himself had been included in the grant to his eldest brother, Edmund, of the office of clerk of errors in the courts of king’s bench and exchequer.19Coventry Docquets, 184. It may have been envisaged that Francis too would make his career in royal service and, perhaps for that reason, he completed his education in fashionable style with a trip to Italy. In 1635 he enrolled as a student at Padua University.20Andrich, De Natione Anglica et Scota, 142 From the spring of 1638 he was being employed by his brother Edmund to manage the king’s allocation of 12,000 acres in the newly-drained lands in the Isle of Ely, which had been leased to Edmund Wyndham and Sir Edward Savage†. Wyndham and Savage employed Francis Wyndham and Humfrey Walrond to find the necessary tenants, but the continued risk of flooding deterred most potential lessees and Edmund made substantial losses.21E179/5970; E163/24/33; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 463.

Wyndham’s election to the Short Parliament in 1640 as MP for Minehead may have depended, at least in part, on the support of Thomas Luttrell†, the local landowner and neighbour of the Wyndhams who held the dominant interest in that constituency. Edmund Wyndham had represented the seat on two previous occasions but this time stood at Bridgwater. There was a double return at Minehead, but the decision by Alexander Popham* to sit elsewhere averted any challenge on those grounds.22Aston’s Diary, 148. However, Wyndham left no trace on the Short Parliament’s proceedings.

The civil war split the Wyndham family. The Kentsford branch staunchly supported Charles I throughout. The page in William Dobson’s portrait of the prince of Wales (Scottish National Portrait Gallery) is traditionally identified as a member of the Wyndham family and sometimes as Francis in attendance on the prince at Edgehill.23The Age of Charles II (Royal Academy, 1960-1), 9; O. Millar, The Age of Charles I (1972), 99; M. Rogers, William Dobson 1611-46 (1983), 35-6. But the page looks too young and there is no evidence that Francis Wyndham was present on that occasion. His initial experience of warfare took place nearer home.

In June 1643 Wyndham played a significant part in the reconquest of Somerset for the king. By persuading Thomas Luttrell to surrender without a fight on 7 June, Wyndham secured Dunster Castle, an important strategic location in the north west of the county close to Minehead, and was appointed its governor.24Clarendon, Hist. iii. 78; Bellum Civile, 47-8. He was based at Dunster for the next three years.25Bellum Civile, 47-8. In June 1644 he raided Orchard Wyndham, the house of his pro-parliamentarian kinsman, Sir John Wyndham at St Decumans, just five miles from Dunster and adjacent to his brother’s seat at Kentsford; he was reported to have looted goods worth over £3,000.26HMC 4th Rep. 296; VCH Som. v. 151. Following Sir Thomas Fairfax’s* re-establishment of Parliament’s hold on most of the county and his decisive victory over Lord Goring at Langport (10 July 1645), Goring fled to Wyndham, who still held out at Dunster. Robert Blake* laid siege to the castle in early November 1645, but Wyndham resisted for over five months.27Perfect Passages no. 56 (12-19 Nov. 1645), 446 (E.266.19); no. 63 (31 Dec. 1645-6 Jan. 1646), 501 (E.314.20); no. 68 (4-11 Feb. 1646), 543 (E.322.15); The Cities Weekly Post no. 9 (10-17 Feb. 1646), 5 (E.322.30); J.R. Powell, Robert Blake (1972), 65-7. Following his surrender on 19 April 1646, he and his men were allowed to march away to Oxford.28Foure strong Castles taken by the Parliaments Forces (1646), 11-13 (E.334.8); Mercurius Civicus no. 152 (23-30 Apr.), 2222-3 (E.335.3); Lttrs. of Robert Blake, 3-4. He was almost certainly present when it too surrendered on 24 June, and on 30 June he applied to compound with Parliament for his delinquency under the terms of the Oxford articles of surrender.29Som. Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 20; CCC 1372.

In December 1646 the Committee for Compounding fixed Wyndham’s composition fine at £197 10s, but it was not until November 1648, when he complained that it was being wasted by his tenants, that he regained possession of his modest estate.30CCC 1372. During this period Wyndham married Anne, daughter of another Somerset gentleman, Thomas Gerard, and possibly already the prospective heir of the Gerard estates at Trent in the south of the county.31Collinson, Som. ii. 387, iii. 492; Wyndham, Fam. Hist. 216. Following the regicide, the exiled Charles Stuart issued a commission to Wyndham to organise the forces in Somerset for a planned royalist uprising in the south west.32CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 354-5. In the spring of 1650 Wyndham told other royalist plotters that he would seize Weymouth in that event.33CSP Dom. 1650, p. 153. But the Wyndhams’ allegiance was obvious and the republican government in London intercepted information about these plots. At some point, Wyndham was arrested and held at Weymouth; in September 1651 he had only recently been released.34A. Wyndham, Claustrum Regale Reseratum (1667), 9. He then joined his wife at Trent, which she had just acquired following the death of her father.

On 17 September, following his defeat at the battle of Worcester, Charles Stuart sought refuge at Trent with Wyndham, whom he later described as ‘my old acquaintance and a very honest man’.35Charles II’s Escape from Worcester ed. W. Matthews (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966), 58-9; Wyndham, Claustrum Regale Reseratum, 14-15. Keen to assist, Wyndham first approached his neighbour, Giles Strangways*, who was unable to help organise a boat to smuggle Charles out of the country but who did contribute £100 (later alleged to be only a loan). A Lyme Regis merchant, William Ellesdon, agreed to provide a boat at Charmouth on 22 September, but this did not materialise. After narrowly evading soldiers at Bridport, Charles and Wyndham returned on 24 September to Trent, where the former stayed until 5 or 6 October.36Wyndham, Claustrum Regale Reseratum, 15-18, 21-9, 30-6, 40-8; Matthews, Charles II’s Escape, 58-9, 60-7, 124, 126-7, 130-6. He finally sailed for France from Shoreham on 15 October. Wyndham’s wife later presented this as a story ‘in which the constellations of providence are so refulgent that their light is sufficient to confute all the atheists of the world.’37Wyndham, Claustrum Regale Reseratum, 6.

Wyndham’s involvement in the king’s escape remained secret for the time being, but throughout the 1650s he was under suspicion as a likely royalist plotter. In February 1655, in advance of Penruddock’s uprising, the government received information that Wyndham and his uncle Sir Hugh Wyndham planned to attack the cavalry forces stationed at Taunton.38TSP iii. 182, 191. William Boteler* therefore had him arrested and sent as a prisoner to Bristol. From there Wyndham petitioned the lord protector, Oliver Cromwell*, denying everything.39TSP iii. 397. His arrest probably deterred Somerset royalists from joining the wider rising. When exactly Wyndham was released is not known.

After the Restoration Wyndham’s name was on the list of persons Charles II wished to reward.40CCSP v. 71. But the Convention pre-empted this. Wyndham, who sat as MP for Milborne Port, was thanked by the Commons on 17 December 1660 for his assistance to the king in 1651. They also voted him a jewel worth £1,000.41CJ viii. 210a-b; CTB i. 212. Wyndham meanwhile compiled and presented to the king a manuscript account of his escape, which does not survive.42Wyndham, Claustrum Regale Reseratum, 7-8. A tangible reward was forthcoming only after 1667, when Anne Wyndham published her own account, and was granted a pension of £400 a year.43CTB ii. 141, 143, 210, 253, 269, 329, 535. In 1670, Wyndham received explicit recognition in a promise of £10,800.44CTB iii. 697. That was later converted into the grant of a baronetcy (1673) and an annual pension of £600.45CTB iv. 167, 282, 285, 385, 411, 416, 670; CB iv. 57.

On his death in 1676, Wyndham was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir Thomas, 2nd bt. Wyndham’s younger son, Francis†, MP for Ilchester between 1695 and 1705, became the third baronet on Sir Thomas’s death in 1693. The male line of this branch of the family and the baronetcy became extinct in 1719.46CB iv. 57-8. Meanwhile, the female line were still pursuing their pension under George I.47HMC Downshire, i. 456; Som. RO, DD/HN/4/1/7, 11.