CORBETT, Miles (c.1595-1662), of Lincoln’s Inn, Mdx., and Great Yarmouth, Norf.

In 1662 one anonymous royalist writer said of the famously swarthy Miles Corbett that, ‘To write his life, or draw his picture in its proper colours, were to attempt impossibilities, since neither his actions or his face can be paralleled by any but the Devil’.41J.T. The Traytors Perspective-glass (1662), 32. Yet, in reality, behind the caricature created by his enemies, there is no great mystery about Corbett’s career. In 1640 he shared the views of many that England badly needed a more thorough religious reformation and so, as an MP in the Long Parliament, he found a role for himself in which he relentlessly pushed that agenda, even when it necessitated civil war and ultimately the execution of the king.

Early career

The Corbetts were a well-established Norfolk gentry family with estates centred on Sprowston on the outskirts of Norwich. Miles’s eldest brother, Sir John†, had been one of the ‘Five Knights’ arrested in 1627 for their opposition to the Forced Loan and that period of imprisonment had contributed to Sir John’s death the following year. Miles had meanwhile embarked on a career as a barrister. That had brought him into close association with the preacher of Lincoln’s Inn, John Preston, and with James Ussher, who studied in England before becoming archbishop of Armagh.42Ludlow, Voyce, 300. In 1625, just two years after he had been called to the bar, Corbett was appointed recorder of Great Yarmouth and he represented that town in the 1628 Parliament as one of its two MPs.43Norf. RO, Y/C 19/5, f. 336; Le Strange, Norf. Official Lists, 170. In the early 1630s he was one of the Norfolk gentlemen, who also included Richard Catelyn*, Thomas Atkin* and John Tolye*, who set themselves up as the Norfolk equivalent of the national feoffees for impropriations. Their most high-profile appointment was that of William Bridge as rector of St Peter Hungate, Norwich, in 1631.44SP16/531, f. 196. In about 1632 Corbett appears to have settled permanently in Great Yarmouth; the previous year he had been one of the adjudicators to whom a dispute between the Norwich corporation and the vicar of South Walsham St Mary had been referred, only for him to be replaced in May 1632 on the grounds that he was now resident at Great Yarmouth.45Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty 1630-1631, 142, 244.

But this did not mean that Corbett had abandoned his legal practice in London. Indeed, in 1630 he and Amyas Bamfield (possibly acting as the deputies for Charles Rich, younger son of the earl of Warwick) had been granted the reversion to the office of custos brevium of the court of common pleas.46CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 182. Meanwhile Corbett seems to have been close to his fellow Lincoln’s Inn barristers Oliver St John* and Samuel Browne*.47Herts. RO, DE/K/46559; Coventry Docquets, 656. It is possible that he was not entirely successful as a lawyer. Later, one of his major critics, Clement Walker*, who insinuated that Corbett’s support for Parliament had been entirely self-interested, hinted at financial difficulties, claiming that in 1640 Corbett and his mother had owed debts amounting to £3,000.48C. Walker, Relations and Observations, Historical and Politick (1648), 168. One of the clerks employed by Corbett during these years was Thomas Dunne*.

In the Short Parliament election in 1640 the Great Yarmouth corporation resisted overtures from the earls of Northumberland and Dorset in favour of their preferred candidates and instead on 19 March pointedly elected Corbett and Edward Owner*, who were both closely associated with the corporation. When Parliament assembled, Corbett was soon included on the committee of privileges (16 Apr.) and on the committee concerning the violations of privileges in the previous Parliament (20 Apr.).49CJ ii. 4a, 7b. His two other committee appointments were those on the bills concerning needlemakers and against abuses in the ecclesiastical courts (1 May).50CJ ii. 17b.

A new Parliament, 1640-2

Corbett and Owner were re-elected as the Great Yarmouth MPs on 15 October 1640, apparently unopposed. Corbett probably took his seat in the Long Parliament determined to pick up where its predecessor had been interrupted. Some of his first committee appointments involved reversing the most notorious legal judgements of the king’s period of personal rule, such as those involving John Hampden*, William Prynne*, Henry Burton and John Bastwick.51CJ ii. 38a, 44b, 52b On 22 February 1641, as the Commons planned reprisals against Charles I’s leading advisers, he and Francis Rous* were asked to seek out the legal precedents from the major impeachment cases earlier in the century. The following day Corbett was added to the committee which had resumed the investigations into the breaches of privilege in the 1628 Parliament.52CJ ii. 90a, 91a.

Corbett saw the new Parliament as an opportunity for a new reformation in the English church. He therefore quickly placed himself in the vanguard of those who wished to cleanse it of what they regarded as endemic Laudian corruption. His appointment on 19 December 1640 to the committee on the petition from Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, reflected a wish to see a renewed emphasis on preaching and it would appear that he took the lead in that committee’s deliberations, for later that month he summoned Sir John Lambe, vicar-general to William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, to be questioned before it about the lack of preaching ministers.53CJ ii. 54b; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 329. He was added to the committee on the bill to disable clergymen from holding secular offices on 1 April 1641, after the bill to prevent bishops interfering in secular affairs had been referred to it, as well as being included on the committee to consider the bill for the security of religion (6 May 1641).54CJ ii. 115a, 136b. He was also keen on firm action against Catholic recusants.55CJ ii. 39a, 268a, 349b, 409a; PJ i. 256, 263. He took the Protestation as soon as it was introduced on 3 May 1641. Later that year he supported the moves to impeach the twelve bishops.56CJ ii. 133a, 314b. According to Richard Harman*, Corbett was also active in the proceedings against the bishop of Norwich, Matthew Wren.57Add. 22619, f. 23.

Corbett’s most notable contribution to the Long Parliament would be as a committee chairman. His skill in chairing meetings and in reporting their deliberations to the House made him the dominant figure on two of the major standing committees, those on Scandalous Ministers and for Examinations. One satirist (possibly John Taylor writing under a pseudonym) dubbed him the ‘universal chair-man’.58A. Roily, A Briefe Relation of the Gleanings of the Idiotisms and Absurdities of Miles Corbet (1646), 2. The Committee for Scandalous Ministers now gave some focus to his desire for thorough religious reform. Corbett probably chaired it from the outset: it was he who secured the agreement of the Commons on 8 May 1641 to the motion that the committee should next meet two days later.59Procs. LP iv. 272. Later that month he persuaded the Commons to condemn the vicar of Chigwell, Emmanuel Utie, as ‘a man of very scandalous and vicious life’.60CJ ii. 148a. He was certainly acting as the committee’s chairman by 1 June, when he told the Commons that it had received 900 petitions, a figure which to him showed that the Church of England was encumbered with ‘a corrupt clergy’.61CJ ii. 163a, 186b, 189a; Procs. LP iv. 679. Two days later he raised the case of a man who had been fined for criticising the late archbishop of York, presumably Richard Neile.62Procs. LP iv. 707. This committee remained active, with Corbett still acting as its chairman well into the following year.63CJ ii. 300a, 449a, 496b, 616b. Its most conspicuous achievement was the bill against scandalous ministers, which Corbett presented to the Commons on 21 March 1642.64CJ ii. 490a, 491a; PJ ii. 69. When in June 1642 the cases of two clergymen from Newcastle-upon-Tyne were raised in the Commons, Corbett responded by telling the House that his committee had already established that one of them was ‘a common drunkard’. The Commons then formally endorsed that view.65CJ ii. 604a; PJ iii. 2, 100-1.

Corbett shared the general sense of anxiety following the king’s attempted arrest of the Five Members on 4 January 1642. On 12 January he drew the attention of the Commons to suspicious troop movements in the vicinity of Kingston-upon-Thames.66PJ i. 40, 46. Then, on 17 January, he reported on the interrogation of Michael Pemberton, who had admitted accompanying the king to Westminster on the 4th and who had defended Westminster Abbey against rioting apprentices later that day.67CJ ii. 91-2. He was still chairing an active investigation of Pemberton in early March. Meanwhile, he had been included on a committee to check on those visiting persons in custody on suspicion of plotting against Parliament (25 Jan.). This committee would be joined in mid-February with the committee for informations, which would come to be known as the Committee for Examinations.68Supra, ‘Committee for Examinations’; CJ ii. 396a, 439b; PJ i. 410, 490

Related to the fears of civil disorder in England was the undeniable reality of the disorder in Ireland. Corbett, who probably shared the belief that the uprisings there might soon spread to England, supported all the efforts to reassert the Protestant interest in Ireland, although he is unlikely at this stage to have foreseen how big a part that kingdom would play in his later career. He backed the efforts to raise money to assist the Irish Protestants and soon invested a total of £800 in the Irish Adventure, although some of that was on behalf of his younger brother, Thomas, a London merchant.69CJ ii. 415b, 713a ; Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 179; CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, pp. 66-7.

By the summer of 1642 Corbett was prominent among those voicing fears about the king’s preparations for war. On 23 June the Commons heard how he had received reports from Great Yarmouth of suspicious ships allegedly heading across the Channel from Dunkirk.70PJ iii. 121. A week later he was appointed joint manager of the conference with the Lords to discuss developments incuding the king’s alarming decision to begin raising forces using commissions of array.71CJ ii. 645a. The following day he told the Commons about two reports he had received from Rotterdam alleging that Prince Rupert and the prince of Orange, among others, were travelling over to England to aid the king.72PJ iii. 160. On 9 July he headed the list of those MPs to whom to the order to bring in tax arrears was re-committed. Four days later Corbett, Sir John Potts* and John Lisle* were asked to prepare an order designed, in vain as it turned out, to prevent troops being stationed within towns. On 23 July he was one of the three MPs sent to the Tower of London to prevent weapons being removed to the king at York. He was subsequently included on the committee to take similar precautions concerning the magazine at Norwich (3 Aug.). On 17 August he and two of the other Norfolk MPs, Robert Reynolds* and William Heveningham*, were asked to prepare an order to set up road blocks on the bridges between Norfolk and Suffolk.73CJ ii. 662b, 670b, 701b, 724a. Three days later Corbett and Reynolds were among MPs given the task of drafting an order authorising the arrests of any persons found implementing the commissions of array.74CJ ii. 729b, 734b. When, several weeks later, a ship with a cargo of ammunition was intercepted at Great Yarmouth, Corbett was responsible for drawing up the order permitting its confiscation (6 Oct.). In mid-October he and his cousin John Gurdon* prepared the instructions permitting the Suffolk deputy lieutenants, in the absence of a lord lieutenant, to appoint colonels and captains for the forces they were raising. Corbett may also have helped draft the declaration which condemned the king’s employment of Catholic army officers. He was also named to committee to consider how royalists could be disarmed (22 Oct.).75CJ ii. 796b, 810b, 812b, 815b.

In June 1642, when many MPs offered personal donations for Parliament’s mobilisation of armed forces, Corbett had paid in £50.76PJ iii. 473. He probably returned to Great Yarmouth in late August or early September in order to encourage its inhabitants to contribute money and horses towards its defence, but he was back at Westminster by 12 September, when he was first-named to the committee planning to seek nationwide contributions.77CJ ii. 735a, 763a, 805a. On 8 October he reported to the Commons from the committee created to establish which MPs had failed to respond.78CJ ii. 801b; Harl. 164, ff. 10, 12. He later singled out Simon Snowe* and Hugh Potter* as culprits.79Harl. 164, f. 291. Corbett and Sir Thomas Barrington* had meanwhile helped secure a loan from the Merchant Adventurers of London.80CJ ii. 798a.

Inquisitor-general, 1642-5

The committee for informations (or the Committee for Examinations as it would become), under the chairmanship of Laurence Whitaker*, had been in existence since January 1642, and the following month it had been merged with Corbett’s committee investigating Michael Pemberton.81Supra, ‘Committee for Examinations’; CJ ii. 439b; PJ i. 410. In September 1642, as chairman of a committee on anti-parliamentarian opposition in Stepney, Corbett worked with the Committee for Examinations in proceedings against the local vicar, William Stamp, for critical remarks about Sir John Hotham*.82CJ ii. 724b, 768b, 815a. Late in October, the powers of the Committee for Examinations were augmented, and by December, Corbett was regularly described in the Journal as its chairman.83Supra, ‘Committee for Examinations’; CJ ii. 825b, 871b, 888b, 893a. Under him, it soon made full use of its authority to investigate or simply harass anyone whom Parliament, or, more specifically, it saw as a threat. Corbett developed a popular reputation as Parliament’s inquisitor-general. Thus, a satirical poem about him in 1646 took it for granted that he was abusing his position.

He hath full power, east, west, and north and south,
To make malignants, even by word of mouth;
Faults, he can make to be no faults at all,
And mountain crimes can turn to molehills small
He can make guiltless guilty, guilty guiltless,
As soon as cutlers can make swords be hiltless.84Roily, Briefe Relation, 2.

Denzil Holles* would sarcastically refer to the committee under Corbett’s chairmanship as ‘like Doomsday itself’.85D. Holles, Mems. (1699), 130. Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, who had formerly been a friend but who came to dislike him intensely, thought him a ‘dull fellow’ who chaired this committee ‘with so much pride, folly and vanity’.86Harl. 165, f. 105v.

Some of Corbett’s most high-profile victims were equally keen to denounce him. The astrologer William Lilly was summoned before the Committee for Examinations in 1645 over comments he had made in his most recent almanac about the high fees taken by excise officials.87Mr William Lilly’s History of his Life and Times (1715), 47-8. Lilly recorded that, ‘For these words a black ass (Miles Corbett) like a Jew questioned me’, before Robert Reynolds* intervened on his behalf.88K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1978), 442n. (Other contemporary sources confirm that one of Corbett’s nicknames was ‘the Jew’, while he was probably the unnamed MP whom D’Ewes said had an ‘African face’.)89Mercurius Aulicus no. 39 (25-30 Sept. 1643), 548 (E.70.8); The Diary and Pprs. of Henry Townshend, ed. S. Porter, S.K. Roberts and I. Roy (Worcs. Hist. Soc. n.s. xxv), 308; The Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 8, E.1923.2; W. Vaughan-Lewis and M. Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court (Lavenham, 2009), 269. That same year the Committee also targeted John Lilburne. Never one to submit meekly to persecution, Lilburne would later argue that his interrogation by Corbett, during which Corbett refused to give details of the charges against him, had violated Magna Carta and was as great a violation of his rights as his star chamber case in 1638.90J. Lilburne, Innocency and Truth Justified (1645), 13-15 (E.314.21). Yet others complained that Corbett was sometimes remiss. Following Prince Rupert’s capture of Leicester in late May 1645, it emerged that several weeks earlier the Committee for Examinations had been asked by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to investigate rumours from Bristol that the royalists intended to attack Leicester next. One of the sources, Henry Purefoy, had been questioned by Corbett at a secret meeting at Corbett’s house. But Corbett had then done nothing. His failure to act was criticised by some in the Commons on 4 June.91Harl. 166, ff. 215v-216; Add. 31116, p. 426; CJ iv. 163a.

Some also saw him as the key person to influence in the hope of obtaining a favourable hearing. In May 1644 Corbett intercepted letters written by John Knyvett, son of a Norfolk royalist, Thomas Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe, which contained strong language about Parliament. Thomas Knyvett hoped to use Sir John Holland* as an intermediary to dissuade Corbett from using them against the son.92Knyvett Lttrs. 145. Corbett eventually told Knyvett that he was ‘very sorry to see a young gentleman poisoned in his religion’, but this followed what Knyvett assumed had been a positive intervention by Sir John Potts on their behalf.93Knyvett Lttrs. 147-8. At subsequent meetings Corbett’s mood seemed extremely variable and entirely capricious. The whole experience therefore left Knyvett frustrated by ‘this cruel hearted man’.94Knyvett Lttrs. 150, 153, 154, 155, 157, 159, 161. In February 1645 Thomas Ashfield, who had arrested by Sir Samuel Luke*, likewise asked Luke to use his influence with Corbett so that he might be released from prison.95Luke Lttr. Bks. 416-17, 451-2.

Corbett’s dominance of the Committee for Examinations was reflected in his activities on its behalf in the Commons. In October 1643 the Commons decided that army officers and other soldiers were to deliver intercepted letters unopened to the Committee for Examinations or the London militia committee. Corbett was then instructed to draft the necessary order. The following month he was ordered to use some of the money the committee had confiscated to pay soldiers under Sir Arthur Hesilrige*. On 19 December 1644 the Commons ordered that the Speaker should sign warrants for the arrests of any persons specified by Corbett.96CJ iii. 287a, 312b, 313a, 728b. Moreover, Corbett often reported back to the Commons on the progress of individual investigations by his committee.97CJ ii. 880a, 989a; iii. 48a, 158a; iv. 78b, 89b, 235a; Harl. 165, f. 223; Add. 31116, pp. 87, 236, 401. In one such case from October 1643 Daniel Featley was accused of making disparaging remarks about fellow members of the Westminster Assembly and about Parliament in intercepted letters addressed to Corbett’s old friend Archbishop James Ussher.98CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 489.

The case of the Knyvetts was not the only occasion when Corbett’s activities on the Committee for Examinations had a specific Norfolk dimension. In March 1643 the Committee investigated several royalists arrested at the house of Augustine Holl at Heigham on the outskirts of Norwich.99CJ ii. 995a, 1004b. Holl’s wife was then believed to have persuaded Corbett to treat him leniently.100Knyvett Lttrs. 151. Two months later Corbett was first-named to a separate committee created to examine prisoners from just Norfolk and Suffolk.101CJ iii. 65b. At about the same time the mayor of King’s Lynn sought from him, as the chairman of the Committee for Examinations, powers to arrest suspicious persons.102HMC 11th Rep. III, 180; HMC Portland, i. 709. Corbett arranged such a grant by the Commons the very next day, with instructions to seek out and detain a list of the most prominent local royalists.103CJ iii. 76b-77a.

Corbett combined his role on the Committee for Examinations with chairing the committee on the Tower of London, which often oversaw the imprisonment of those being investigated. He had been a member of the latter committee from its creation in November 1642 to ensure that Parliament retained control of this key military stronghold in the capital.104CJ ii. 833a, 948a; iii. 151b. In March 1643 he claimed that the Committee for Examinations had uncovered a plot to seize it.105Harl. 164, f. 328. When in August 1643, Parliament decided to give control of the Tower to the lord mayor and sheriffs of London, the Commons sent Corbett, Sir Robert Harley* and Denis Bond* to perform the handover.106CJ iii. 201a. The escape of two of the leaders of the 1641 Irish rebellion, Lord Maguire and Hugh Macmahon, in August 1644 was a major embarrassment. Following their recapture, Corbett seems to have taken charge of the proceedings against them which eventually resulted in their convictions and executions.107CJ iii. 297a, 607b, 633b, 673a, 673b; iv. 27b; Harl. 166, ff. 109v, 127; Add. 31116, pp. 312, 336-7; Harl. 483, f. 110v. By April 1644 Corbett was also chairing the committee on the mint, which was still operating from the Tower.108CJ iii. 470b.

The most important prisoner held in the Tower remained Archbishop Laud. He too would be sent to a traitor’s death in part as a result of Corbett’s efforts. In the spring of 1643 Corbett was included on the committee created to manage proceedings against Laud and Matthew Wren (3 May).109CJ iii. 68a. Again he took the chair. When Bulstrode Whitelocke*, who had been taught by Laud at Oxford, repulsed Corbett’s attempts to persuade him to assist this committee, Corbett raised the matter in the Commons, but Whitelocke persuaded the House that Corbett had overreacted and, according to Whitelocke, even Corbett admitted that he was ‘ashamed of his rugged accusation.’110Whitelocke, Diary, 148. When in March 1644 Parliament finally felt able to proceed with Laud’s trial, Corbett was was one of those MPs given permission to testify as witnesses.111CJ iii. 422a.

Over time Parliament developed other methods to cow its enemies. Corbett supported some of the earliest sequestration cases, such as that of Lord Capell (Arthur Capell*).112CJ ii. 785b, 808b. And he emerged during 1643 as an important figure in Parliament’s financial administration. On 11 February 1643 he replaced Samuel Vassall* on the Committee for Advance of Money, which was involved in collecting a wide range of fines, punitive levies and loans to Parliament and, from 1645, in the ‘discovery’ of estates concealed by delinquents seeking to compound, meaning that its work overlapped with that of the Committee for Compounding.113Supra, ‘Committee for Advance of Money’; CJ ii. 963a. In August 1643 he was named to the committee to consider the Lords’ amendments to the bill to explain the sequestration ordinance (16 Aug.), and that autumn he made several appearances at the Committee for Sequestrations. In June and July 1644 he sat on the committees on the wardships of those fathers who died fighting against Parliament and on the keeping of manorial courts for estates under sequestration.114SP20/1, ff. 67r-v; CJ iii. 207a, 526b, 550a, 550b. A year later he was included on the committee on the additional sequestrations bill (18 June 1645). Then in November 1645 he was among those added to the committee on the bill to draft pardons for delinquents willing to compound with the Committee for Compounding.115CJ iv. 178b, 331a. He was also named to several committees on individual sequestration cases.116CJ iii. 73a, 472b, 485b, 615b; Harl. 166, f. 57v; Add. 31116, p. 271.

The war beyond Westminster, 1642-6

Naturally enough, Corbett viewed the pursuit of royalist delinquents, whether by the Committee for Examinations or the Committee for Compounding, as part of a larger struggle which would probably be won primarily on the battlefield. He was therefore one of those MPs who wanted a military victory by Parliament at all costs. His practical involvement in the war was mostly focused on East Anglia, where he was one of the leading supporters of the Eastern Association. Indeed, he played an instrumental role in its creation, being the MP who presented the draft of the association to the Commons on 28 November 1642.117Harl. 164, ff. 174v, 247v; Add. 31116, p. 28. (He similarly supported the creation of the midland association.)118CJ ii. 890a. He was despatched to Norfolk by the Commons in early August 1643 to raise forces there to assist Francis, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham in Lincolnshire.119CJ iii. 188b; Add. 22619, f. 93; Knyvett Lttrs. 122; Harl. 165, f. 136v. In mid-October he was also part of the delegation sent to warn the lord general, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, that the royalist advance into Bedfordshire threatened the eastern counties.120CJ iii. 277a. In March 1644 he drafted the letter in which the Commons sought advice from the association’s major-general, the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†), as to what arms and ammunition the Eastern Association forces required.121CJ iii. 434b; Harl. 166, f. 37v. Several weeks later Corbett, Sir Thomas Barrington* and Oliver St John* were asked to prepare legislation to fund those forces for a further three months. Having probably chaired the committee on the resulting bill, he reported back to the Commons on its amendments on 24 June.122CJ iii. 469a, 540b, 547b; Harl. 166, f. 76v. When that Act was due to expire, Corbett got another bill passed extending that funding again.123CJ iii. 622b, 655b, 671b; Harl. 166, ff. 129, 130. In May 1645, with Sir Dudley North* and Valentine Wauton*, he travelled to the Isle of Ely to seek information on suspected plots.124CJ iv. 138a; Add. 31116, p. 418. On his return to Westminster, he secured the payment of arrears due to some of the soldiers stationed there and seconded Wauton’s proposal that martial law be extended to the Eastern Association.125CJ iv. 155a, 165a-b; Harl. 166, f. 216. On 7 June, as Prince Rupert marched southwards from Leicester, the Commons appointed Corbett and Sir Henry Mildmay* to prepare a letter to be sent to the county committees of the Eastern Association instructing them to move their cavalry forces to counter this threat.126CJ iv. 167b. The Committee of Both Kingdoms then asked him, with Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston* and John Gurdon, to look into the loyalties of the garrison at Landguard Fort, which protected to the entrance to the Stour and Orwell estuaries, and to establish whether anyone in Suffolk was in contact with royalists at Oxford.127CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 624. The following month Corbett was in charge of the bill to raise money for horses to be sent from the Eastern Association to assist in Lincolnshire.128CJ iv. 201a, 202a; Harl. 166, f. 236v. Several weeks later he secure more funding for the garrisons in the Isle of Ely and Crowland, more horse to assist in the siege of Newark-upon-Trent and the controversial appointment of Sir Francis Russell* as governor of Ely.129CJ iv. 206a, 217a, 220b, 222a, 230a, 232a, 233a, 253a; Harl. 166, f. 250; Add. 31116, p. 455. The following October he brought in a new bill to provide further funding for the Eastern Association forces.130CJ iv. 307b, 327b, 328b.

Norfolk largely escaped the fighting, but Corbett predictably took a close interest in its military affairs. In January 1643 he was responsible for obtaining a Commons order allowing local officials to act within the liberties of Norwich Cathedral.131Add. 22619, f. 23; CJ ii. 949a. He was included on the committee concerned with news from the bailiffs of Great Yarmouth about the attempted landing there by the queen (13 Feb. 1643).132CJ ii. 963b. (It fell to Corbett to inform the Commons on 14 March that Henrietta Maria had finally managed to land at Bridlington.)133Harl. 164, f. 328v. As royalists plotted to take control of the Norfolk-Suffolk coast around Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, on 21 March Corbett told the Commons that Oliver Cromwell* had secured Lowestoft.134Harl. 164, ff. 337v, 340, 341. Two days later he advised that Henry Coke*, who had been captured at Great Yarmouth, be transferred to London.135Harl. 164, f. 341v.

On 26 June 1643 Corbett secured the agreement of the Commons to the request from the committee at King’s Lynn that the town’s defences should be improved. As it turned out, the real danger there came from within, as in August 1643 the town’s parliamentarian governor, Sir Hamon L’Estrange†, changed sides and declared for the king. In early October, after the earl of Manchester had retaken it, Corbett raised renewed concerns about the safety of the town.136CJ iii. 146a, 159a, 260b. In January 1644 the town’s corporation appointed Corbett as their recorder as a visible demonstration of their loyalty to Parliament. The Commons also appointed him to the commission to pay damages to any inhabitants of the town who had suffered during Manchester’s siege. When the surrender terms Manchester had agreed with L’Estrange became an issue in 1645, Corbett was also named to the related Commons committee.137King’s Lynn Borough Archives, KL/C7/10, f. 130; Le Strange, Norf. Official Lists, 200; Cal. Lynn Freemen, 157; CJ iii. 636a; iv. 52b.

Corbett had meanwhile been sceptical of the proposal to re-fortify Norwich Castle, as this would require the removal of the royalist prisoners there. When he returned to Norfolk in August 1643, he was asked to consult with the sheriff and the deputy lieutenants.138Add. 22619, ff. 97, 101, 105. That visit only confirmed Corbett in his view that many there were too sluggish in their support for Parliament. Back at Westminster on 13 September 1643 he denounced such lukewarm supporters to the Commons. Asked to give names, he singled out Sir John Holland* and Framlingham Gawdy*.139Harl. 165, ff. 190-191.

In March 1645 the Commons asked Corbett and the Norwich MP, Richard Harman*, to draft a letter to the Norwich corporation concerning the city’s assessment arrears.140CJ iv. 75a; Add. 22619, f. 173. When, four months later, the Commons wanted to encourage army recruitment in Norfolk, they got Corbett to write to Sir John Potts to take this up with the county committee and the deputy lieutenants.141CJ iv. 192b.

One issue of immediate concern to Corbett’s constituents were fears that the English fishing fleets operating in the North Atlantic might come under direct attack from their foreign competitors. In August 1643 Corbett and one of the Ipswich MPs, William Cage*, were given authority to negotiate with the merchants of their constituencies for loans to pay for naval protection for their ships. This made possible the provision of a convoy for the Great Yarmouth fishing fleet in the spring of 1644.142CJ iii. 216b, 325b. However, the Merchant Adventurers of London thought that this was insufficient and so demanded further protection. Corbett and Edward Owner* then made sure that the interests of the Yarmouth fishermen were not forgotten.143CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 420. The result was that a levy on herring was introduced in August 1644 in order to extend the naval protection. Corbett and Owner were among persons nominated to receive the money.144CJ iii. 604b-605a; A. and O. Four months later Corbett was also instructed to prepare a further bill on the subject, while meanwhile he and Sir John Potts were asked to draw up a bill for the protection of shipping along the whole east coast between Great Yarmouth and Edinburgh. In December 1645, when they voted to reimburse the owners of the ships which had been used to protect the fishing fleets the previous summer, the Commons relied on Corbett and Potts to provide the detailed figures.145CJ iii. 716a, 728b; iv. 390a. One by-product of all this was that Corbett now began to take an interest in naval matters.146CJ iii. 431b; iv. 57a.

The confiscation by Parliament of several court offices personally benefitted Corbett. When the crown office in king’s bench was confiscated in November 1643, the Commons rewarded Corbett for his enthusiastic support for the war by nominating him as its clerk. Moreover, when Robert Henley was deprived of the office of chief clerk of king’s bench, its revenues were allocated for the defence of King’s Lynn, with Corbett being asked to oversee this.147CJ iii. 319b, 384b. He was meanwhile appointed as one of the clerks of the court of wards after the holder, Richard Chamberlaine, fled to Oxford. Corbett held that office until June 1645, when Gabriel Becke* was appointed to take his place.148CJ iii. 382a, 474b, 484b, 485b; iv. 169a. However, he almost certainly supported the legislation to abolish that court.149CJ iii. 422b.

It is unlikely that Corbett was ever enthusiastic about negotiations with the king. His attitude towards the peace negotiations at Oxford in early 1643 may have been sceptical. When, on 8 February, the Commons attempted to debate the latest offer from Charles, Corbett derailed the discussion by raising the issue of those MPs who had failed to offer any money to Parliament.150Harl. 164, f. 291. He tried a similar tactic two months later during a debate on another message from the king. When Henry Marten* caused uproar on 14 April by suggesting it should be ignored, Corbett saved his friend from censure by raising a completely unrelated matter.151Harl. 164, f. 367. On 30 September 1644 the king issued a declaration announcing that he wished to come to London to reach a peace settlement. Corbett drew the attention of the Commons to this three weeks later, although not necessarily because he thought they should take up the offer.152Harl. 166, f. 154. He took part in the discussions for a new set of peace proposals in late 1645, but his exact views about them remain obscure.153CJ iv. 354b, 364a, 365a.

Bound up with all this is likely to have been his attitude towards religion. His passion for reform was undimmed and he continued to support action against scandalous ministers, including the purging of Cambridge University.154CJ iii. 338b; iv. 174a, 229b, 312a, 350b. He was occasionally named to other committees on religious subjects, such as those to remove idolatrous monuments from London churches (24 Apr. 1643) and for the better observance of the sabbath (20 Jan. 1646).155CJ iii. 57b, 201a; iv. 413b. In the spring of 1644 he suggested to Richard Harman that he could draft a bill for the maintenance of the Norwich clergymen for Harman to promote in the Commons, although the latter soon found that Corbett was too busy to act.156Add. 22619, f. 190. Beyond Parliament, Corbett asked Robert Jenner* in June 1643 to thank the Goldsmiths’ Company on behalf of the inhabitants of Cromer for its agreement to the dismissal of the local vicar, Richard Talbot, as the schoolmaster of Cromer grammar school.157Goldsmiths’ Co., court bk. 1642-5, ff. 60v-61, 68v. But church government seems to have been less important to Corbett than to some other MPs, possibly because the shape of any religious settlement remained unclear. When the enemy had been the Laudians, some form of Presbyterianism might have seemed to him a tolerable short-term solution. In October 1642 he had chaired the grand committee of the whole House when it had considered the bill to summon an assembly of divines.158CJ ii. 804a. But Corbett’s preferences may have been changing: in time he became associated more with a congregationalist solution.

Accommodating the army, 1646-7

In February 1646 John Corbett* was returned as an MP in the by-election at Bishop’s Castle. Thereafter, the Commons clerks did not always specify which ‘Mr Corbett’ was referred to in the Journals. This is especially problematic during the first half of 1646 when almost no effort appears to have been made to distinguish between them. The first unequivocal references to Miles Corbett date only from 2 July, when he was added to the committee for regulating Oxford University, and when he was asked to inform William Bridge, now a celebrated Independent preacher and Corbett’s own local minister at Great Yarmouth, that he was to preach before the Commons.159CJ iv. 598a, 600b. However, it was undoubtedly he who, having previously secured the allocation of the revenues of the office of the chief clerk of king’s bench for the benefit of King’s Lynn, on 19 March 1646 acted as teller to block the grant of some of those revenues to Sir Edward Bayntun*. As its chairman, he must have been the member of the Committee for Examinations to whom the case of George Wither was referred.160CJ iv. 480b, 531b. Other evidence confirms that it was he who, with Valentine Wauton, was assigned command of the forces at King’s Lynn on 5 May in order to disarm all known delinquents in Norfolk and Suffolk.161CJ iv. 535a-b; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 434. As one of its former clerks, it was presumably he who was named to the committee on the rents still owed to the now-abolished court of wards.162CJ iv. 552b. He probably sat on the committee concerning the seizure of the personal property of James Hamilton, 2nd duke of Hamilton (10 June), handled the case of David Jenkins (19 June), was asked to draft a bill to discharge the excise commissioners (19 June), reported on a debt owed to the royalist Sir Roger Palmer* (4 July), was added to the committee to prepare a declaration concerning sequestered ministers (8 July) and was named to the committee on the bill for the sale of delinquents’ estates (10 July).163CJ iv. 571b, 581b, 582a, 602a-b, 608a, 613a. He is also likely to have been the MP involved, at various points, in the passage of what became the Newcastle Propositions.164CJ iv. 478b, 576b, 612b. From mid-1646 onwards, the problem of the two Corbetts eases but does not disappear. Perhaps most of the ambiguous mentions refer to Miles Corbett, who certainly remained the more high-profile of the two.

The flight of the king to the Scots in the spring of 1646 and the surrender of Oxford on 13 July left no possible doubt that Parliament had won the war. As many royalists submitted to Parliament. Corbett continued to be busy dealing with various cases involving delinquents and other suspected persons.165Add. 31116, p. 556; CJ iv. 625a, 702b, 725a, 728b, 735b; v. 42a, 50a, 164b, 167b, 220a-b. In early December 1646 he and Samuel Browne* were given the job of drafting the declaration which announced that any person who now took up arms against Parliament would have their estates confiscated. On 9 March 1647 he, rather than John Corbett, probably reported on the plans to prosecute those delinquents who had been exempted from Parliament’s pardon. Moreover, on 5 July he got Edmund Hudson*, newly elected as MP for King’s Lynn, expelled from the House by claiming that Hudson had taken part in one of the royalist plots in the town.166CJ v. 6b, 109a, 233b. Corbett took the lead in promoting the bill to prevent suspect clergymen being appointed to church livings.167CJ v. 119b, 228b. The possibility of peace was also an opportunity to consider reform of the law courts. In October 1646 Corbett was included on the series of committees on reforms of chancery and the exchequer, as well as the more immediate matter of appointing commissioners to hear chancery cases. In July 1647 he obtained the Lords’ agreement to the list of judges for that summer’s assizes.168CJ iv. 701a, 701b, 703b; v. 240a.

But what quickly became the most pressing issue of all was the future of the army that had defeated the king. Part of the proposed solution was that some of the troops should be sent to serve in Ireland. For Corbett, as an investor in the Irish Adventure, the great attraction of this was that it represented a renewed commitment by Parliament to the continuing war in Ireland. In early August 1646, with Thomas Toll I* and Sir Anthony Irby*, he was sent to ensure that the foot regiment based at King’s Lynn and Boston set out for Ireland as ordered.169CJ iv. 633a. In October and November Corbett chaired the grand committee on the bill to provide pay for the rest of the army under Fairfax.170Add. 31116, pp. 572, 574, 576, 578; CJ iv. 722b. He may well have done the same for the subsequent bill to continue those monthly assessments in April 1647. Meanwhile, he helped secure continued funding for the garrison at King’s Lynn and carried the bill concerning the committee of the Eastern Association to the Lords (30 Nov. 1646).171CJ iv. 731b; v. 134b; Add. 31116, p. 613. He probably took a close interest in the bill to give soldiers indemnity from any prosecutions over actions performed in the course of their duties, being first on the list of those nominated to the soon-to-be established Committee for Indemnity on 7 May 1647.172CJ iv. 694b; v. 166a, 198b.

The crisis of 1647 and its aftermath

Years later one hostile source would claim that, on hearing the news of George Joyce’s seizure of the king in June 1647, Corbett gloated that ‘since the army had gotten the cavalier idol (for so he styled his sovereign) into their power, they would soon put the Parliament, and all their enemies, into their pockets’.173J.T. Traytors Perspective-glass, 36. By early July, as the army talked of marching on London and the capital became increasingly restless, Parliament felt threatened on all sides. Corbett’s sympathies were now with the army rather than with the London apprentices and reformadoes. On 8 July he helped water down the proposal to allow the London militia committee to raise horse in the capital; he was specifically asked to take charge of amendments to the bill limiting the forces to be raised to just one regiment. That same day Corbett, Edmund Prideaux I* and Roger Hill II* undertook to draft an order authorising the soldiers protecting Westminster to arrest any troublemakers. Similarly, the following week he was first-named to the committee on the bill to prevent tumultuous assemblies (13 July). On 22 July he was also included on the committee to investigate the engagement supporting the Covenant which had been signed at a meeting of Londoners at Skinners’ Hall the previous day. The next day he was first-added to the committee to re-appoint the old London militia committee, as requested by the army.174CJ v. 236b, 238a, 243a, 254a, 255b.

Following the Presbyterian coup at Westminster of late July 1647, Corbett was among those MPs who took refuge with the army and signed their declaration on 4 August. He resumed his seat on 6 August when the army entered London.175LJ ix. 385b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 755. He was then one of the MPs appointed to investigate the forcing of the Houses on 26 July. Three days later he took the chair for the grand committee on the bill to repeal all votes passed by the Presbyterians in the Independents’ absence between 26 July and 6 August. He later sat on the ordinary committees on that bill (11, 18 Aug.). On 13 August he was among those named to the secret sub-committee to the committee to investigate the forcing of the Houses, which was created as a means of excluding the Presbyterians who sat on the larger committee.176CJ v. 269a, 270a, 272a, 273a, 278a. Beginning on 24 August, he made a series of reports back to the House, presenting evidence against some of the leading Presbyterian supporters.177CJ v. 283a, 289b, 290b-291a, 293b, 296a. Thus, on 3 September Corbett, who, in the words of Clement Walker, was the ‘interpreter to that state-puppet-play behind the curtain’, called for action against the Presbyterian members of the ‘committee of safety’, which had been set up in June to join with the City militia for mobilising London against the army.178[C. Walker], The Hist. of Independency (1648), 25-7. The next day he extended his attack to Walker, whom he accused of having encouraged the rioters, and to the recorder of London, John Glynne*.179Walker, Hist. of Independency, 27-31. On 8 September he persuaded the Commons to impeach the 3rd earl of Suffolk, Lord Willoughby of Parham, 4th Baron Hunsdon, 2nd Baron Maynard, the 4th earl of Lincoln, 8th Baron Berkeley and the 2nd earl of Middlesex (James Cranfield*), all of whom had remained at Westminster in late July.180CJ v. 296a. Corbett was so prominently associated with the Independent reaction that a spoof speech, satirising his extreme views and his verbosity, appeared in print at about this time.181A Most Learned and Eloquent Speech (1647, E.298.3).

This was too good an opportunity for the Independents to bring down leading opponents for them not to exploit it to the full, and Corbett relentlessly pursued prosecutions over the coming months. His committee on the forcing of the Houses continued to gather evidence and began impeachments against other individuals, including, most notably, the lord mayor of London, Sir John Gayer.182CJ v. 315a-316b, 317b, 322a-323a, 344b; Walker, Hist. of Independency, 33. By 29 January 1648 the impeachment articles against the Presbyterian peers were ready and Corbett secured the agreement of the Commons.183CJ v. 374b-375a, 376b, 377b, 380b, 448a-450a. Later, on 13 March, he carried the impeachment articles against Gayer and several other London aldermen to the Lords.184CJ v. 494a, 495a.

The Independents remained keen to vote more money to keep the army happy. On 23 September 1647 Corbett was sent to inform the excise commissioners that the Commons wanted them to advance £32,000 to the Army Committee. Three weeks later he reported on the proposal that the customs commissioners should likewise advance money to the navy.185CJ v. 315a, 331a. Moreover, throughout October and early November he was kept busy chairing the grand committee on the tonnage and poundage bill; he then opposed the Lords’ attempts to amend it.186CJ v. 327a, 328a, 330b, 333b, 342a, 345b, 348b, 351b, 353b-354a, 379b. That November and December he attended several meetings of the committee on fen drainage.187Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.3, second foliation, ff. 24v-26v. On 22 December he was included on the committee on the bill to secure the soldiers’ arrears. Having been delegated on 9 November to draw up a bill to raise £20,000 from the excise to pay the Eastern Association, Corbett then took part in the negotiations to persuade the excise commissioners to advance that money immediately. However, by February 1648 it had been decided to allocate that money instead to the navy. Corbett arranged for the bill to be amended accordingly and then carried it to the Lords. Perhaps with this in mind, Corbett was then added to the Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports on 4 March. Five days later, he reported on the amendments to the latest bill to provide money for the army.188CJ v. 397b, 353b, 358b, 360b, 459a-b, 468a, 470b, 476b, 481a. There were also other bills passed during late 1647 and early 1648 with which Corbett seems to have been particularly associated. In November 1647 the bill for the relief of the poor was specifically entrusted to his care; he probably chaired the committee which drafted the bill to expel Catholics and malignants from London (15 Dec.); and he reported the amendments to the bill to limit the transportation of wool and fuller’s earth, a matter of some concern to the Norfolk weavers.189CJ v. 366b, 386a, 422a-b. The Great Yarmouth corporation had meanwhile asked him to seek a reduction in the town’s monthy assessment.190Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 115.

In March 1648 the Commons rewarded him with the grant of another legal sinecure. This time the office in question was that of the registrar of the court of chancery, which he was now to hold along with Robert Goodwin*.191CJ v. 477a. This had originally been confiscated from two royalists, Thomas* and Henry Jermyn*, sons of the late Sir Thomas Jermyn*. The deal now was that Corbett and Goodwin were to pay a proportion of their income from this office to Sir Thomas’s widow.192CSP Dom. 1655, p. 63. That income was not negligible: Clement Walker claimed that Corbett was receiving £700 a year from this source.193Walker, Relations and Observations, 168.

The Second Civil War, 1648

Armed opposition to Parliament flared up again during the summer of 1648. Corbett’s reaction was as resolute as before. When petitioners from Surrey rioted in Westminster Hall on 16 May, the Commons once again turned to him as their most experienced inquisitor; Corbett was first-named to the committee set up the next day to investigate the riot. When the following month the Kentish rebels crossed over into Essex and took hostage the county committee, including Sir William Masham*, Corbett was among MPs appointed to seize hostages of their own to be used as bargaining chips. In July he obtained additional funding for the forces stationed in the Isle of Ely. On 24 August he briefed the Commons on the discovery of a plot in London organised by Marcellus Rivers.194CJ v. 562b, 601b, 620a, 636a-b, 673b, 681b. On 29 September, by which time any danger of further rising had passed, Corbett and the other members of Parliament’s Eastern Association Committee issued a flurry of orders to ensure that the troops in East Anglia were all paid.195SP28/251, unfol.

For Corbett’s constituency, the most significant aspect of the uprising was the decision by the sailors of six of the navy ships in the Downs to declare for the king in late May. On 5 June the Derby House Committee asked Corbett to ensure that the bailiffs of Great Yarmouth received a copy of the letter which the new lord admiral, the earl of Warwick, had written to those rebel ships.196CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 99, 101. Four days later the Commons asked Corbett to draft a letter of encouragement to thank the Great Yarmouth corporation for their continuing loyalty, as the fear was that the ships might try to land there. Corbett subsequently sought the Lords’ approval for the order calling on the Derby House Committee to secure the East Anglian coast.197CJ v. 591a, 602b. The possibility of a rebel incursion was real enough. On 24 July the bailiffs wrote to inform Corbett that the ships had appeared off the coast of the town, but that, on being provided with some supplies, the prince of Wales had agreed to sail away.198CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 208-9. The need to keep the rest of the navy on side explains why the next day Corbett, on behalf of the Committee of Navy and Customs (of which he was a leading member), updated the Commons and obtained their agreement that the customs commissioners be approached for an urgent loan of £10,000. The following month Corbett, Potts and Sir John Palgrave* were ordered to instruct the Norfolk deputy lieutenants and the county committee to arrest anyone who came ashore from the rebel fleet. By mid-September, however, Warwick had managed to confine those ships to the port at Hellevoetsluis. Later that year Corbett was among MPs appointed to draft a letter to Walter Strickland* warning him that the rebel sailors were not to be allowed to sell their cannon to the Dutch.199Supra, ‘Committee of Navy and Customs’; CJ v. 647a, 675a; vi. 30b, 101b.

The wave of new royalist rebels reopened the issue of sequestration and composition. On 8 September 1648 Corbett presented a bill to raise £5,000 for the troops who had taken part in the recent siege of Colchester by sequestering the lands of rebels who held out there. He was therefore almost certainly the ‘Mr Corbett’ named to the committee on the bill to sequester the new Essex delinquents (1 Nov.). On 10 November he was the teller for those who wanted to banish Lord Willoughby of Parham, who a year earlier had evaded Corbett’s attempts to impeach him by fleeing to the continent and who had since served as the vice-admiral of the rebel fleet.200CJ vi. 10b, 67a, 73b.

The renewal of the fighting made many of the more hard-line MPs such as Corbett even less inclined to make a generous settlement with the king. On 27 October he was included on the committee to prepare bills based on what the king had already conceded at Newport, but that was after the Commons had rejected the king’s proposal for limited episcopacy.201CJ vi. 62b. All this became largely irrelevant after Thomas Pride* purged the Commons on 6 December. Corbett was exactly the sort of MP favoured by the army, and he and his friends now found themselves in charge. On 13 December they repealed the votes of 2 August and 5 December which had authorised the Newport negotiations and which had acknowledged the result as the basis for further talks. Corbett was then one of those MPs appointed to ensure this was entered into the Journal.202CJ vi. 96a, 96b. His later dissent to the 5 December vote, which he made on 1 February 1649, was just a reassertion of the stance he had taken at the time.203PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, p. 625; [W. Prynne], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (1660, E.1013.22), 23. With secluded MPs now absent from the various executive committees, from December 1648 Corbett emerged as perhaps the most dominant member of the Committee of Navy and Customs and one of its main spokesmen in the House.204Supra, ‘Committee of Navy and Customs’; CJ vi. 97b, 100b, 106a-b, 109a, 112a, 115b, 117a, 119b-120a.

Creating the Republic, 1649-50

Thirteen years later, when he had every reason to do so, Corbett tried to play down in his involvement in the king’s trial. He claimed that he had not been present in the Commons when nominations as commissioners for the trial had first been discussed. He also maintained that he had subsequently spoken against the bill.205Howell, State Trials, v. 1313, 1325. Far from volunteering to become one of the king’s judges, he had wrestled long with a troubled conscience, before finally concluding that Parliament was the legitimate government and that, in these extreme circumstances, it was entitled to try the king.206Howell, State Trials, v. 1313-15. What apparently particularly convinced him were ‘the blood of Ireland and the [king’s] levying war against the Parliament’.207Howell, State Trials, v. 1314. But any initial hesitations on his part may not have been quite so evident at the time. He had been included on the committee appointed on 23 December to consider how to proceed against the king, while, even more tellingly, his name had been third on the list of 34 MPs appointed on 29 December to consider the resulting bill. He was also on 6 January 1649 included on the committee on the bill establishing the high court of justice, the bill in which he was named as one of the king’s judges.208CJ vi. 103a, 106a, 112b. Corbett later claimed that he attended only the final day of the trial.209Howell, State Trials, v. 1314-15, 1326. Strictly speaking, that was true, but he had been present at several of the pre-trial meetings of the commissioners and, as a lawyer, he had been included on the committee of the commissioners appointed on 15 January to advise the trial lawyers over any difficulties in the charges. Moreover, as he later admitted, he was present on 27 January and, in the context of his fate in 1662, that was all that mattered, as he then signed the death warrant.210Muddiman, Trial, 105, 195, 202, 210, 223, 224, 226, 228.

Corbett had long been one of the more active Members of the Long Parliament, so the drastic reduction in the number of MPs in the Rump simply confirmed his prominence – palpable despite some continuing difficulty in distinguishing him from John Corbett. The biggest drain on his time during the early months of the republic seems to have been the work of the Committee of Navy and Customs. His immediate priority was preparation for the fleet to be put to sea that summer.211CJ vi. 129a, 134a, 136a, 147a, 148a. He needed the Rump’s approval for the bills to impress seamen, to revoke the earl of Warwick’s commission as lord high admiral, and to re-allocate funding for the garrisons in the Isle of Ely and Crowland (including the money he had obtained for the Ely garrison the previous July?) to the navy. Other funds transferred to the navy at his suggestion had formerly been used for judges’ salaries.212CJ vi. 129a-b, 147a-b, 149a, 161a. On 17 March, acting on behalf of the Committee of Navy and Customs, he raised the issue of prize goods, which led to an act appointing commissioners for their sale.213CJ vi. 166b, 186b, 188a. He was meanwhile included on the committees on the bill granting additional powers to the court of admiralty to try piracy cases.214CJ vi. 185a, 185b. In April 1649 and then again in July he reported from the Committee of Navy and Customs on the appointments of London customs officials.215CJ vi. 193a, 194b, 268b, 269a. On 12 June he was asked to prepare the legislation to raise £120,000 for the navy from the excise.216CJ vi. 230b.

Corbett was heavily involved in addressing the innumerable legislative loose ends arising from the abolition of the monarchy. Indeed, he or his Shropshire namesake sat on the committee on the bill to formalise that abolition (7 Mar. 1649) and was later asked to consider how it might then be proclaimed nationally.217CJ vi. 158a, 166b. In February, he and Nicholas Love* had been appointed to draft bills against counterfeiting the great seal and to adjust the process for sealing writs.218CJ vi. 134b, 136b. He also took the lead in preparing the new oaths for sheriffs, justices of the peace, commissioners of oyer and terminer, and London freemen. On 11 May he may have reported back to the House on the proposed changes to the treason laws.219CJ vi. 137a, 140a, 141b, 142a, 163-164a, 208a. Moreover, he supported the legislation to sell off the royal lands to help pay the army arrears.220CJ vi. 205b, 254a, 258b, 259a, 259b, 260b, 358b, 485a. In late 1649 he secured the passage of the bill to require all adult men to take the Engagement.221CJ vi. 307b, 314a, 321b, 326b, 337b, 339a, 370b.

The remainder of Corbett’s parliamentary activities under the Rump were even more varied than before. An increasing interest in excise matters led to his appointment to the relevant committee in November 1649.222CJ vi. 161b, 234b, 272a, 278b, 325a, 333a, 335a, 336b, 350a, 353b, 380b-381a, 438b. In July and August 1650, on the eve of the invasion of Scotland, he was probably the MP primarily responsible for promoting the bill to prohibit trade between England and Scotland.223CJ vi. 444b, 450b, 451a. He made a point of concerning himself with the interests of the Norfolk weavers.224CJ vi. 260a, 359b, 488a. One of the Corbetts seems to have supported the legislation to relieve debtors and creditors, while in May 1650 Miles was asked to take care of the bill to reform the poor laws.225CJ vi. 190b, 276a, 327a, 416a, 425a, 481a. He also continued to support prosecutions against unrepentant royalists.226CJ vi. 127b, 343a, 420a, 434a, 437b, 456a, 463b, 499b. With respect to religious issues, Corbett’s activities are unfortunately especially difficult to disentangle from those of John Corbett.227CJ vi. 275b, 336a, 352a, 359a, 365b, 382b, 430b, 444a. What can be said is that he was named to the committees on the bill for presentations to livings (18 July 1649), to consider the articles relating to the Christian religion (26 July) and on the maintenance of a preaching minister in Colchester (24 May 1650).228CJ vi. 263b, 270a, 416a. He also certainly wanted to see further sales of church lands.229CJ vi. 199b, 201a, 238b, 462a, 485a. Moreover, on 13 September 1650 he was involved in the redrafting of the bill to prevent towns holding mayoral elections on Sundays, while the following month he promoted the bill to allow the law courts to ignore saints’ days.230CJ vi. 468a-b, 488a.

Ireland, 1650-60

When Richard Salwey* declined his appointment as one of the four parliamentary commissioners to take over the civil government of Ireland, on 27 November 1650 Parliament named Corbett as his replacement.231CSP Dom. 1650, p. 442; CJ vi. 501b; A. and O.; Ludlow, Mems. i. 257. Corbett was still at Westminster three weeks later, as he reported to the House on 17 December about the value of the estates of Catholics and delinquents still under sequestration.232CJ vi. 510b, 511a. But thereafter his presence in Dublin kept him from the remainder of the Rump. In his absence, Henry Scobell, the clerk of the Parliament, deputised for him as registrar of chancery.233CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 161. Guybon Goddard* replaced him as recorder of King’s Lynn, while Charles George Cock* deputised for him at Great Yarmouth.234King’s Lynn Borough Archives, KL/C7/10, f. 303; Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 188, 198v.

The four commissioners landed at Waterford on 25 January 1651.235HMC Portland, i. 555; Ludlow, Mems. i. 486; CJ vi. 530a. Corbett’s wife joined him in Dublin in late 1651.236CSP Dom. 1651, p. 534. Parliament renewed their powers in August 1652.237CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 365; CJ vii. 164b, 167a. The main task the commissioners faced during these years was the re-establishment of some measure of stable government in the wake of the English re-conquest. Corbett was clearly committed to the English project in Ireland and he may even have begun to consider settling there permanently. He certainly extended his property interests there. As one of the original investors in the Irish Adventure, he already stood to benefit from the proposed land settlement. In 1654 he also took the opportunity to buy out a number of other investors, including his brother Thomas.238CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, pp. 51, 102, 163, 278, 285. When the lands were finally distributed, Corbett was allocated estates in the baronies of Maryborough, Queen’s County, and Rathconrath, County Westmeath.239CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, pp. 347, 355. At some point he was granted Malahide Castle, the confiscated seat of the Talbot family to the north of Dublin.240Irish Census, 1659, 388; W.H. Hardinge, ‘Observations on the earliest known ms. census returns of the people of Ireland’, Trans. Royal Irish Academy, xxiv. 322-3.

Corbett seems to have happily accepted the advent of the protectorate. In August 1654 an Irish council of state, with Corbett as one of its members, was created to assist the new lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood*.241Clarke Pprs. v. 201; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 437-8, 443; TSP ii. 545; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 453. The subsequent appointment of Henry Cromwell* as the major-general of the Irish army weakened Fleetwood. It also threatened Corbett’s position, for he was sympathetic to those more radical religious nonconformists who were viewed by Henry Cromwell with particular suspicion. However, Fleetwood assured the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, in early 1655 that Corbett was ‘a worthy person, and a faithful servant to his highness [the lord protector] and the commonwealth’.242TSP iii. 145. The inclusion of Corbett, who allied himself with William Steele* and Matthew Thomlinson*, helped ensure that the Irish council remained divided along religious lines throughout its existence. The appointment of new Irish judges in June 1655 also gave Corbett an important additional responsibility. Those councillors with professional legal backgrounds were each given one of the senior judicial offices; Corbett became chief baron of the Irish exchequer.243CSP Dom. 1655, p. 207; TSP iii. 549; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 55. He then resigned as the recorder of Great Yarmouth, making way for his deputy, Charles George Cock.244Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 264. Corbett’s reputation had preceded him to Ireland and his critics would soon allege that he presided over the court of exchequer with much the same high-handedness and venality as he had the Committee for Examinations.

The fall of the protectorate in the spring of 1659 initially left officials in Dublin in limbo. Only in early June did the Rump turn its attention to the government of Ireland. Moves were begun to appoint a new set of parliamentary commissioners, but Parliament seems to have hesitated about including Corbett. When his name was proposed on 7 June, the House voted by 39 to 32 against taking an immediate decision.245CJ vii. 674a-b. Yet two days later his name was accepted without any fuss. These commissioners were appointed for only three months and Parliament specified that Corbett was to return to England after that term had expired to report on the state of affairs there.246CJ vii. 678a; CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 372-3; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 862. Early the following month the Rump passed a bill to define their powers. At the same time, it also named Corbett and William Steele as English serjeants-at-law. Given his absence in Dublin, Corbett would never act as such.247CJ vii. 700a; A. and O.; Whitelocke, Diary, 521; Baker, Serjeants at Law, 192.

In September 1659, in the absence of any further instructions, Corbett, Steele, John Jones I* and Thomlinson continued to act even although their commission had now expired.248Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 713. Corbett also ignored the earlier order that he should now return to England. As they pointed out to Speaker William Lenthall* in a letter of 17 October, the Irish courts had now ceased functioning.249CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 691-2. What they did not know was that by then the Rump had already been dismissed by the army. In the short term, the confused events in England only made it easier for Corbett and his colleagues to cling on in Dublin. But on 13 December the army in Dublin mounted a coup in support of the Rump. One of the plotters’ first actions was to arrest Corbett and Thomlinson at a congregationalist meeting house in Werburgh Street.250J. Nicoll, A Diary of Public Transactions (Edinburgh, 1836), 263; R. Cox, Hibernia Anglicana (1689), 2; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 186. Once the Rump had reassembled at Westminster, MPs were keen to punish the former commissioners for their defiance, while the officers in the Irish army began to prepare impeachment articles against them.251Ludlow, Mems. ii. 464-70. As Corbett, Ludlowe and Jones were themselves MPs, Parliament ordered them on 5 January 1660 to travel to London to resume their seats. Thomlinson was also recalled.252CJ vii. 803b; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 199-200. Corbett was, in any case, already making preparations for a return to England. That evening he was stopped when trying to board the packet boat from Dublin to Holyhead, but allowed to take a boat to Bristol.253CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 301-2, 303, 311, 313, 317. The following day, while off the Welsh coast, he wrote a letter of submission to Parliament. This was read to the House on 12 January.254CJ vii. 808b; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 308; Whitelocke, Diary, 561. Corbett seems not to have been allowed to resume his seat in the Rump, however, and his former colleagues preferred instead to contemplate his prosecution. On 19 January the Rump allowed Sir Charles Coote* to present the articles of impeachment against Jones, Corbett, Thomlinson and Ludlowe as proposed by the Irish council of officers. All four were ordered to attend to answer those charges.255CJ vii. 815b; Whitelocke, Diary, 562; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 202. Two months later, in one of its final acts, the Long Parliament stripped Corbett of his position as the registrar of chancery.256CJ vii. 877b. In the weeks thereafter, Corbett, Jones and Thomlinson gave assurances for their good behaviour to the council of state.257Ludlow, Mems. ii. 253, 255; Ludlow, Voyce, 103, 104.

Outlaw and martyr, 1660-2

There was now little doubt that the new Convention would agree to the restoration of the monarchy in some form. Corbett’s political career was on the verge of ruin. Yet some still looked him as a possible republican counterweight, for on 12 April the Great Yarmouth corporation attempted to nominate him and Sir John Palgrave* as their MPs for the Convention. The freemen, who disputed the corporation’s right to make the return, instead elected Sir John Potts* and Sir William Doyley* and it was those two whom the Commons would, in due course, allow to sit.258HP Commons, 1660-1690 ‘Great Yarmouth’. Corbett, clearly less naïve than his friends on the corporation, realised that, as a regicide, his life was now in danger and so he fled to the continent. His fears were fully justified. The Act of Indemnity, passed by this Parliament later that year, exempted him by name from its general pardon and proscribed him as a traitor and an outlaw.259SR. All his property was therefore now subject to confiscation. In February 1661 his estates in Ireland were granted to Sir John Grenville and Sir William Morice*, although when Corbett’s wife petitioned to the king claiming that she had now been reduced to poverty, Charles II agreed that she should be allowed to retain some of his lands in Ireland.260CSP Ire. 1660-2, pp. 211, 221.

What little luck Corbett still had ran out in March 1662. On the evening of 11 March he was arrested, along with John Okey* and John Barkstead*, by Sir George Downing* at Delft in the United Provinces. Within days they had been shipped over to London and committed to the Tower.261A True and Certain Relation of the strange discovery and sudden apprehending of the three grand Traytors (1662); HMC Hastings, iv. 128; Pepys’s Diary, iii. 44-5, 47-8; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 316; Soc. Antiq. MS 283, f. 10; Diary and Pprs. of Henry Townshend, 308; Howell, State Trials, v. 1304-5. The trio were tried in king’s bench on 16 April. Corbett, as the one with the most legal experience, took the lead in arguing that the court had not yet proved that they were the specific individuals excluded from the Act of Indemnity. He also claimed that the trial procedure was irregular. All this failed and the three were found guilty.262Howell, State Trials, v. 1310-12; The Reports of S[i]r Creswell Levinz (1722), pt. i, 61. The death sentences were carried out on 19 April.263William Schellinks Jnl. 82-3; Add. 41654, f. 23; Soc. Antiq. MS 283, f. 10v; Diary and Pprs. of Henry Townshend, 309; Ludlow, Voyce, 302. Samuel Pepys†, who saw them on their way to Tyburn, thought that they went to their deaths ‘very cheerfully’, although he also thought it ‘very strange’ that they continued to maintain that the king’s execution had been justified.264Pepys’s Diary, iii. 66-7. In his speech on the scaffold, Corbett declared that his aims had always been to secure ‘a standing, settled government, a godly magistracy, and likewise a godly ministry in this nation’, while proclaiming his belief ‘that what is called the congregational way to be nearest to the word of God’.265Howell, State Trials, v. 1325. His head was afterwards displayed on London Bridge.266CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 344; Diary and Pprs. of Henry Townshend, 309; William Schellinks Jnl. 83; Ludlow, Voyce, 302. He was survived by his wife and by at least one son, John. That Mary Corbett had been allowed to retain some of the lands in Ireland may have encouraged them to settle there, but the confiscation of the rest of his estates ensured that they and his other descendants disappeared into obscurity.