CARY, Lucius, Viscount Falkland [S] (?1609-43), of Great Tew and Burford, Oxon.

Lucius Cary was one of the leading ‘constitutional royalists’ of the 1640s, celebrated both as an eminent man of letters owing to his patronage of the ‘Great Tew circle’ – the group of intellectuals which met at his house – and also as one of the more romantic cavaliers of the first civil war. He was lionised by his long-term friend Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, in the latter’s memoirs and history of the conflict.29Clarendon, Life, i. 104, 203; Hist. i. 457, iii. 178-9; Add. 4187, ff. 37-8. The outbreak of hostilities cut short Falkland’s parliamentary career, but he left an indelible mark on the institution, as testified by a statue erected to commemorate him 200 years later. In the early months of the Long Parliament he was a leading critic of some policies of Charles I’s personal rule and an advocate of limited reform in the church, but while he remained wedded to the idea of Parliament’s place in a balanced constitution, the more radical agenda of some fellow MPs ultimately nudged him – apparently reluctantly – away from Westminster to become a loyal, though not subservient, counsellor of his king.

Early life and Short Parliament

Cary is usually said to have been born in 1610, a date probably calculated from his reported age at his (indisputably premature) death, but even allowing for the academic precocity of his family, his birth is likely to have been a little earlier. The eldest son of Henry Carey†, 1st Viscount Falkland, he was admitted to St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1621, but migrated to Trinity College, Dublin, when his father became lord deputy of Ireland in 1622.30Al. Cant.; Al. Dublinenses. Privileged and gifted though he was, it would be somewhat surprising if he were only 14 or 15 at graduation in 1625, and a year younger when appointed captain of a company of foot in 1624.31CSP Ire. 1615-25, p. 548. According to one commentator, the latter involved command of 500 or 600 men, ‘whereof he was capable enough while his father domineered’, but just before 1 January 1630, he was deprived of it by the king, who awarded the captaincy instead to Sir Francis Willoughby, causing ‘a great dust’ in the privy council.32HMC Montagu, 111. Cary challenged Willoughby to a duel, in effect calling in question the king’s right to bestow the office, for which in February he was briefly imprisoned in the Fleet, his release being facilitated according to one account by William Lenthall*.33CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 503; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 196; M. T. Lewis, Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Clarendon (1852), 189-94, 196.

Before 25 March 1630 Cary obtained a licence – under age and as early as 1628 on the telling of Hyde, although it seems more likely that he had just attained his majority – for a clandestine marriage with Lettice Moryson, sister of his deceased friend Sir Henry Moryson.34Leics. Marr. Licences, 80; Clarendon, Life, i. 44. The financial independence which had come his way in July 1628, when his maternal grandfather’s widow died and he inherited a substantial estate at Great Tew, enabled him to defy his father, but not to escape his wrath entirely.35M.I. Burford, Oxon.; PROB11/145/620; PROB11/148/241; C142/417/44; WARD7/73/116; Clarendon, Life, i. 44. Viscount Falkland’s displeasure at the fact that his daughter-in-law brought no dowry to pay his debts led the young couple to move to The Hague before the third week in May 1630, but disappointed in his hope of military employment, Cary soon returned to England.36HMC Var. v. 133; Clarendon, Life, i. 44-5; Add. 29974, ff. 144-8.

Thereafter he retired to his Oxfordshire estates, to which were added in September 1633 the encumbered inheritance from his father, whom he succeeded as second Viscount Falkland.37CP; Clarendon, Life, i. 46-7; CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 230-1; 1640-1, p. 240. Although in 1636 he was reportedly again planning to go to the Low Countries, he spent most of the decade in retirement at Great Tew, engaged in literary pursuits, and playing host to prominent divines, poets and intellectuals, among whom his wife became notable in her own right.38Strafforde Letters, ii. 15; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 179; Life, 48-50; J. Duncon, The Returnes of Spiritual Comfort (1648); ‘Lettice Cary’, Oxford DNB. Although Falkland wrote some poetry, his most important work centred on a dispute with the courtier Walter Montagu over Catholicism.39The Poems of Lucius Carey, Viscount Falkland ed. A. B. Grosart (1871). Unlike his siblings, he resisted the attempts made by his Catholic mother, the writer Elizabeth (Tanfield) Cary, to ‘pervert him in his piety to the Church of England’, and in 1635 penned a ‘Discourse of Infallibility’, although it remained unpublished until after his death, as did some correspondence on the subject.40Clarendon, Hist. iii. 180; Lucius Cary, His Discourse of Infallibility (1651, E.634.1); A View of Some Exceptions made by a Romanist (1646); A Discourse of Infallibility (2nd ed., 1660); C. Gataker, The Papists Bait (1674), 71-2; CSP Dom. 1635-6, pp. 431, 444, 451-2; 1636-7, p. 341; ‘Elizabeth Cary’, Oxford DNB. Meanwhile, Falkland played little or no part in political or administrative affairs, and his attitude towards the policies of the personal rule of the king is difficult to fathom. He paid his Ship Money contribution in Oxfordshire in 1636, but the following year he apparently defaulted in Hertfordshire, where the sheriff refused to distrain his property for fear of being sued.41CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 210; 1637-8, p. 88; SP16/336, ff. 107-8; SP16/376, f. 255. Admitted in 1638 to Gray’s Inn at the request of Hyde, Falkland emerged from political obscurity in 1639, when he volunteered for service in the first bishops’ war, and went with the army to Berwick.42LI Admiss. i. 234; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 187; CSP Dom. 1639, p. 39.

As a member of the Scottish peerage, Falkland was eligible to be returned to Parliament in the spring of 1640, being elected for Newport in the Isle of Wight on the interest of the 2nd earl of Portland (Jerome Weston†). Clarendon later observed that, from his experience of the Short Parliament, Falkland ‘contracted such a reverence to Parliaments that he thought it really impossible that they could ever produce mischief or inconvenience to the kingdom, or that the kingdom could be tolerably happy in the intermission of them’, and that ‘from the unhappy and unseasonable dissolution of that convention, he harboured, it may be, some jealousy and prejudice of the court’.43Clarendon, Hist. iii. 181. However, while Falkland is recorded as having said (2 May) that ‘the sunshine of a Parliament will disperse those mists’ which had descended in the 1630s, and as having defended liberty of speech in the House (18 Apr.), he was named to just two committees.44Aston’s Diary, 14, 124; CJ ii. 17b, 18b. His personal interests probably ensured his nomination to the committee relating to ecclesiastical courts (1 May), but although he contributed to a debate an altar policy, he does not appear to have adopted a firm line on church affairs (29 Apr.).45CJ ii. 17b; Aston’s Diary, 88, 96. Possibly this reflected his concern that Ship Money should be discussed before religious grievances (2 May).46Aston’s Diary, 124; Procs. 1640, 191. Although not hostile to the concept behind the tax, he was opposed to money being levied without parliamentary consent (4 May).47Aston’s Diary, 137, 140.

Long Parliament 1640-1: Ship Money and Strafford

Re-elected for Newport in the autumn, Falkland quickly assumed a much more prominent role in the Commons. Like many future royalists, at first he displayed some zeal for reform and for satisfaction of grievances. Clarendon later wrote of Falkland’s concern for legality in state affairs, and this may have underlain Falkland’s appointment to committees relating to the courts of the high constable and earl marshal (23 Nov. 1640), and to the grievances of merchants, the customs farm and the vintners.48Clarendon, Hist. iii. 181-2; CJ ii. 34b, 43a, 92a, 157a. When the first committee reported on 19 February 1641 Falkland showed himself keen to systematise its proceedings, and declared that the onus was on the courts to prove their validity: Sir Thomas Peyton heard him say that ‘they that hold pleas of any causes should produce their right and power of jurisdiction by which they hold, and not put those on whom they exercise their power to do it’.49Procs. LP ii. 490-1. Concern for legality was also evident in his nomination to committees to consider the publication of works by Sir Edward Coke†, and the king’s breach of parliamentary privilege in 1628, and in his subsequent involvement in investigating the treatment of John Lilburne, while ‘the passing of [the] bill of triennial parliaments was of so great importance’ that he advocated a grand committee to debate it (19 Jan. 1641).50CJ ii. 45b, 91a, 134a; Procs. LP ii. 225. Falkland’s support for reform was reflected in his high opinion of John Hampden*, and his willingness to oppose the government was most evident from his attitude towards Ship Money, Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford, and the bishops, although his stance on the last exposed also the limits of that opposition.51Clarendon, Hist. iii. 182.

Hostility to Ship Money was apparent in Falkland’s second recorded speech to the Commons on 7 December.52CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 300-301; CCSP i. 212; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 86-8; Procs. LP i. 488, 493; Northcote Note Bk. 37, 39; Add. 64921, f. 136v. Although not disposed ‘to severity, much less to cruelty’, he described the Ship Money judges as men who ought to have been ‘as dogs to defend the flock’, rather than ‘the wolves to worry it’, and accused them of having over-stepped their authority by making themselves judges of ‘necessity’ rather than law, and of having contradicted both legislation and evidence, ‘by supposing mighty and eminent dangers, in most serene, quiet and halcyon days’. In the absence of ‘state enemies’, he argued, there existed no risk sufficient to prevent recourse to Parliament. He deplored the idea that the king could take from the people ‘what he would, when he would, and how he would’, and concluded that

the cause of all the miseries we have suffered and of all the jealousies we have had … is that a most excellent prince hath been most infinitely abused by his judges telling him that in law, his divines telling him that in conscience, his councillors telling him that in policy he might do what he pleased.53L. Cary, The Lord Faulkland His Learned Speech (1641), 1-6 (E.196.9).

Falkland singled out for criticism Sir John Finch, and proposed a committee to draw up a charge against him and the other judges.54Lord Faulkland His Learned Speech, 7-9; Procs LP i. 493. Duly named to this committee, Falkland reported at length the next day, expatiating on Finch’s role in inciting other judges, and was responsible for carrying to the Lords the articles of impeachment (21 Dec.).55CJ ii. 46b, 55b; LJ iv. 115; Procs LP i. 512-3, 515, 517, 518; Northcote Note Bk. 40-1, 42, 86, 100, 103; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 348. In tandem with his friend Hyde, on 14 January 1641 Falkland delivered and explained to the Commons the articles against Finch.56CJ ii. 66a, 68a; Procs LP ii. 182, 185, 194. Finch was ‘an unjust judge and an unconscionable keeper’, whose ‘life appears a perpetual warfare … against our fundamental laws, which … several conquests had left untouched’. He had ‘gagg’d the commonwealth’, by ensuring the dissolution of the Short Parliament, and ‘pursued his hatred to this fountain of justice by corrupting the streams of it, the laws, and perverting the conduit pipe, the judges’. By taking from the king ‘the ground of his rule’ (laws), the ‘principal honour of his rule’ (rule over free men), and ‘the principal support of his rule’ (their hearts and affections), Finch was responsible for causing ‘mutual distrust’ and ‘mutual disaffection’, and was guilty of treason, and not simply treason of a cumulative nature.57L. Cary, The Speech or Declaration of the Lord Favlkland (1641), 2, 3-4, 7 (E.196.26); HMC 10th Rep. vi. 138. On 6 February Falkland was named to the committee to consider printing Oliver St John’s* speech on Ship Money, while on the 12th he reinforced Hyde’s report on the charge against Judge Robert Berkeley†: ‘for where other judges gave their judgement only in Hampden’s case’, Berkeley had also refused to ‘suffer the plea’ when another case was brought in the court of king’s bench, ‘and so foreclosed the whole right of the subject by that judgement’.58CJ ii. 80a; Proc. LP ii. 433. A few months later he was still involved with the reform of courts and the charges against judges.59CJ ii. 198a; Harl. 479, f. 27.

Meanwhile, Falkland had been named to the committee which initially considered impeachment proceedings against Strafford (30 Nov. 1640), and to at least one subsequent committee dealing with specific charges (5 Feb. 1641).60CJ ii. 39b, 79b. Soon after the death of the 1st Viscount Falkland, Strafford had remarked that his predecessor as lord deputy ‘hated me perfectly’, and there appears to have been some longstanding mutual antipathy between the 2nd viscount and the lord deputy.61Strafforde Letters, i. 163; ii. 15. Falkland spoke of Strafford’s ‘manifest enormities and oppressions’, the like of which ‘have not been committed by any governor since Verres left Sicily’ – a reference to a Roman magistrate notorious for misgovernment in the first century BC.62L. Cary, A Speech Made to the House of Commons Concerning Episcopacy (1641), 10 (E.196.36). When on 18 February 1641 the Lords granted Strafford more time to prepare his defence, Falkland accepted this, but urged that rather than adjourning the Commons (as proposed by Arthur Goodwin* and Henry Marten*), MPs should get on with other pressing business, for ‘we could not do a better courtesy to the earl of Strafford than to jar with the Upper House, or retard our own proceedings’.63Procs. LP ii. 480. In March and April Falkland was involved in conferences relating to Strafford’s trial, and he seems to have taken a major part in demonstrating to fellow MP’s how the lord deputy’s offence might be construed in the worst terms

endeavouring ... to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws of these realms [and] kingdoms of England and Ireland and to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government against law in both these kingdoms is treason (15 Apr.).64CJ ii. 98a, 123b; Procs. LP iv. 114; Verney, Notes, 49.

On 19 April he proposed sparing Strafford’s estates, for the sake of the innocent members of his family, but added that ‘in equity Lord Strafford deserves to die’.65Verney, Notes, 53; Harl. 164, f. 183a. Indeed Falkland professed to have hardened his heart, despite Strafford’s contrition, explaining on 21 April that at first he had dissented from the committee view that it was treason, but whereas George Digby*, 2nd Baron Digby, had since relented and argued the opposite, he himself was obliged to ‘confess I must again differ from him, for now my conscience is satisfied that it is one of the highest and greatest treason that ever was’.66Procs. LP iv. 41, 46. The charge was cumulative: ‘how many illegal acts makes a treason is not certainly well known, but we well know it when we see it’. 67Mems. of the Verney Fam. i. 206. As he lined up with ‘opposition’ leaders John Glynne*, William Strode I* and John Pym*, some detected personal animosity in Falkland’s actions, but he was far from being the only future ‘constitutional royalist’ to support the attainder.68Clarendon, Hist. iii. 182.

Long Parliament 1640-1: Religion

As might be expected in one who had expressed himself trenchantly against Catholicism, relatively early in the Parliament Falkland was appointed to committees investigating the covert activities of priests and recusants (26, 28 Jan. 1641).69CJ ii. 73b, 74b, 91a. Pursuing an old antagonist, he joined with William Strode I to seek more time to prepare questions to put to Walter Montagu and Sir Kenelm Digby over their suspected links to the papacy (28 Jan.).70Procs. LP ii. 299. Some time that year a version of his ‘answer’ to Montagu’s account of his conversion appeared in print.71W. Montagu, A Copy of a Letter (1641), 21-36 (E.168.1).

As regards controversy within the national church, on 11 December 1640 Falkland sought to obtain copies of the London root and branch petition against the hierarchy for MPs to scrutinise.72Northcote Note Bk. 53. According to Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, on 8 February 1641 he argued that it should not be committed, but moved that the ministers’ remonstrance against perceived abuses in the church should receive such scrutiny. The diarist appeared to find his stance irritatingly inconsistent: he ‘entered ... very impertinently into the merits of the cause, and pleaded long for the continuance of bishops and then desired they might yet be reformed’.73Procs. LP ii. 390. The next day Falkland and Sir John Culpeper* – who was to become his chief associate in the House – ‘spoke severally that they desired that business should be referred to a committee but that the same committee might have no power to meddle with episcopacy’.74Procs. LP ii. 399.

The published version of Falkland’s speech is less equivocal, however, albeit not as radical in conclusion as some reformers would have wished. It was acknowledged by all except the ‘great stranger in Israel’ and those of limited acquaintance and intelligence, ‘that this nation hath long laboured under many and great oppressions both in religion and liberty’, and ‘that a great, if not a principal cause, of both these hath been some bishops and their adherents’.75Speech Concerning Episcopacy, 3. They had ‘been the destruction of unity under pretence of uniformity’ and had ‘brought in superstition and scandal, under the titles of reverence and decency’, ‘defiled our church’ by adornment, and ‘slackened the strictness of that union which was formerly between us and those of our religion beyond the sea, an action as unpolitic, as ungodly’. The penalties faced by those who sought out sermons had been worse than for recalcitrant recusants; while ‘masses have been said in security, a conventicle hath been a crime’; ‘the conforming to ceremonies hath been more exacted than the conforming to Christianity’. Catechising introduced by ambitious prelates had ‘thrust out preaching’ and ‘cried down lectures’. There had been an insistence on the divine right of bishops and ‘the sacredness of the clergy’, and a drift towards Rome, as well as an attempt to justify monopolies, Ship Money and arbitrary government in the state. None the less, in considering the bishops as a whole, Falkland wished ‘we may distinguish between those who have been carried away with the stream, and those who have been the stream that carried them’, ‘between the more and less guilty’ and ‘between the guilty and the innocent’. Due consideration of the evidence would lead to the conclusion that ‘bishops may be good men, and let us but give good men good rules, we shall have both good governors and good times’. Means to this end included the bishops’ shedding of temporal distractions and temptations – including the voices in the House of Lords which were ‘not necessary to their authority’ and other opportunities to interfere in civil affairs – and the confirmation of ecclesiastical canons by triennial Parliaments. Ultimately, however, ‘since all great mutations in government are dangerous’, it was ‘convenient’ to retain them.76Speech Concerning Episcopacy, passim.

Noting Falkland’s ‘sharp expressions’, Clarendon recalled that his support for removing the bishops’ voices in the Lords led some to believe that he was no friend to the church.77Clarendon, Hist. iii. 185-6. Indeed, Clarendon himself considered that in insisting that the bishops’ exclusion from Parliament was ‘absolutely necessary for the benefit of the church’, Falkland did not understand ‘the original of their right and suffrage there’: to his assertion on 10 March 1641 that it was ‘a privilege enjoyed for many hundreds of years’, Falkland countered that ‘all pious men are not good legislators’ and produced a judgement of 7 Henry VIII that ‘Parliaments might be holden without bishops’.78Clarendon, Hist. i. 311; Procs. LP ii. 702. But Clarendon could appreciate with hindsight his friend’s pragmatic conclusion that ‘the combination against the whole government of the church by bishops was so violent and furious, that a less composition than the dispensing with their intermeddling in secular affairs would not preserve the order’.79Clarendon, Hist. iii. 186. Falkland was essentially a latitudinarian, who did not believe any part of the church to be

so essentially necessary to religion, but that it might be parted with and altered, for a notable public benefit or convenience and that the crown itself ought to gratify the people in yielding to many things, and to part with some power rather than to run the hazards which would attend the refusal.80Clarendon, Life, 105.

Falkland’s stance, if not his mode of argument, was common to many in the House, but his concessions still did not satisfy the militants. Disappointed by his opposition to root and branch reform, the Scottish Presbyterian Robert Baillie detected coordinated activity in Parliament by the supporters of episcopacy, and alleged that Digby and Falkland ‘with a prepared company about them, laboured, by premeditated speeches, and hot disputes, to have that petition cast out of the House without a hearing’.81Baillie, Letters and Journals, i. 302. Indeed, he expressed a general caution about dealing with petitions on religion.82Procs. LP iv. 6.

Named to committees to consider the bill for the removal of superstition and idolatry (13 Feb. 1641), proceedings against Richard Montagu, bishop of Norwich (23 Feb.), the ministers’ remonstrance (27 Feb.), and the bill for disabling clergy from exercising temporal authority (8 Mar.), Falkland supported reform of specific abuses and abusers, but was hostile to radical restructuring of the church.83CJ ii. 84b, 91a, 94a, 99a. He was ‘well known to be far from having any kindness’ for William Laud, whom he wished to be ‘less entangled and engaged in the business of the court or state’, but he counselled against haste in bringing the archbishop to account.84Clarendon, Hist. i. 225; iii. 186. Baillie was again disappointed that, although Falkland ‘did declaim most acutely, as we could have wished, against the corruptions of bishops’, nevertheless the ‘conclusion was the keeping in of a limited episcopacy’ (15 Mar.).85Baillie, Letters and Journals, i. 307. When it came to deans and chapters, Falkland admitted that ‘their chanting [was] not useful’, but although ‘some deans [were] of evil life, yet this [was] not a reason to take away deaneries’ (26 Mar.).86Procs. LP iii. 154.

Amid committee appointments to address more localised issues – including a rare indication of engagement with his constituency, in the shape of one to discuss making a parish of Newport (24 May) – Falkland maintained his moderate stance on the major religious questions.87CJ ii. 151a, 155a. This came at some personal cost. From the early days of the Parliament Falkland and Hyde were identifiable as close allies. In his first recorded contribution to debate Falkland ‘spoke notably for the defence of’ Hyde’s cousin, Robert Hyde*, whose election to Parliament had been challenged (3 Dec. 1640), and Hyde later recalled that Falkland ‘always sat next to him (which was so much taken notice of, that if they came not into the House together, as usually they did, every body left the place for him that was absent)’.88Procs. LP i. 439; Clarendon, Hist. i. 311. In March 1641 Falkland defended Hyde himself from aspersions cast by Isaac Penington*.89Procs. LP ii. 586. However, the two men continued to differ sharply on the temporal power of the episcopate. On 3 and 4 June Falkland worked with leading ‘root and branch’ campaigner Nathaniel Fiennes I* to present ‘some new reasons’ for the exclusion of bishops from the Lords, arguing that ‘several ... have of late much encroached on the liberty and consciences of the subject’ and that if that went unchallenged, there would be ’26 voices’ in the upper chamber ‘encouraged still to encroach’.90CJ ii. 165b, 167b; Procs. LP iv. 719, 726, 728. Hyde was pained that Falkland spoke with ‘some facetiousness’, the more because some in the Commons delighted at the division between the friends, and at his own visible discomfort; the reformers, he was convinced, ‘entertained an imagination and hope that they might work the Lord Falkland to a farther concurrence with them’.91Clarendon, Hist. i. 31-12. But a limit had been reached. Falkland reverted to his cautious self when the House turned to consider the punishment of London lay preachers (7 June) and the bill for root and branch reform (11 June), calling for further questioning of the former and careful attention to the preamble of the latter.92Procs. LP v. 11, 95. On the 12th and 13th he stood opposed to Fiennes, Sir Arthur Hesilrige* and their allies: Fiennes’ contention that ‘if we find a fault constant still in the bishops we may well conclude that it is not personal but of the office’ received the rejoinder that ‘this argument ... will take away as well judges and other officers as bishops’; Hesilrige’s claim that ‘bishops have been enemies to the commonwealth and trampled upon the laws of this kingdom’ was dismissed with the observation that ‘Sir Arthur ... should say that whosoever should speak for bishops was either papist or popishly affected’.93Procs. LP v. 113, 115, 168. Not all had his courage: the difficulty of finding such spokesmen prompted Falkland’s famous observation that ‘they who hated bishops hated them worse than the devil, and that they who loved them did not love them so well as their dinner’.94Clarendon, Hist. i. 363.

A draft of one of his speeches, published in royalist Oxford in 1644 but evidently written – although not necessarily delivered – in the early summer of 1641, suggests an increasing impatience with the agenda of the reformers, and their allies the Scots, with their leverage based on occupation of the northern counties. Falkland affirmed that bishops were of ancient lineage, and although possibly inconvenient, yet ‘there is no inconvenience which might not be sufficiently remedied without destroying the whole’. Such inconvenience would disappear through ‘the fear sunk into them of this Parliament’. The triennial act and the reform of high commission would provide ‘such banks to these rivers, that we need fear their inundations no more’, even though ‘we should neither give them the direction of strict rules, nor the addition of choice assisters’. The replacement of episcopacy, in contrast, would prove worse than the disease: ‘when it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change’. Falkland cautioned against accepting the proposals of a vocal minority while ignoring a silent majority, and opposed bowing to Scottish pressure for uniformity. If episcopacy were abolished before their army departed, ‘we shall in all likelihood be aptest to receive that which is both next at hand and ready made’. The jure divino pretensions of the Presbyterians were as bad as those of the episcopalians.95A Draught of a Speech Concerning Episcopacy (Oxford, 1644), 1-4, 7-8. Resurgent demands for root and branch reform had perhaps convinced him that the religious impulse of the reformers had gone far beyond the anti-Arminianism with which he agreed, while it is also possible that he considered himself to have been deceived by Hampden, who had ‘assured him that if that bill might pass there would be nothing more attempted to the prejudice of the church’.96Clarendon, Hist. i. 312.

Long Parliament 1640-1: the Scots, the army and the crown

In the early weeks of the Parliament there had been little sign of Falkland’s engagement with Anglo-Scottish affairs, but in succeeding months these assumed a greater significance in his profile in the House. Ultimately they helped to alter his relationship to the crown and to cement his alignment with Hyde. In the meantime, however, he also displayed wider interests.

In the midst of religious controversy and the Strafford case, in February and March 1641 Falkland was nominated to committees addressing economic and social grievances – customs duties (24 Feb.), the conversion of arable to pasture (25 Feb.) and usury (19 Mar.).97CJ ii. 92a, 92b, 108a. In the summer he acted for fen drainers, securing against considerable opposition an order against rioters in Lincolnshire who had overthrown enclosures and thereby allegedly threatened thousands of pounds worth of growing corn (30 June, 10 July) and later preferring a petition from Sir William Killigrew about a parallel incident (19 Aug.).98CJ ii. v. 425, 586; Procs. LP vi. 487. In so doing, he may have earned friends among some powerful fellow MPs and peers, but in another area he clashed with the nexus of the leading proponent of Parliament’s co-operation with the Scots, Nathaniel Fiennes’ father William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, as well as exposing himself as someone who did not always uphold that institution. Probably motivated by longstanding Irish connections, in July Falkland twice tried to obtain a lifting of parliamentary privilege so that Thomas Roper, 2nd Viscount Baltinglass, could pursue a suit in chancery against his father-in-law, Sir Peter Temple*, a kinsman of the Fiennes family. He ‘moved earnestly’, but ultimately failed.99Procs. LP v. 534, 576.

Having spoken in favour of the disbandment of the army (11 Feb.), four days later Falkland was appointed to the committee to seek royal assent to the bill for paying it off, and into the late summer he served on money-raising and logistics committees, sometimes reporting and drafting letters.100Procs. LP ii. 419; vi. 518, 528, 533; CJ ii. 86a, 113a, 131b, 152a, 172b, 232a, 235b, 243a, 258a, 259b, 268b, 269b, 270b. From March he was involved, several times as a reporter, in committees and conferences relating to negotiations with the Scots, and with the administration of affairs in the north.101CJ ii. 103a, 120b, 125b, 128a, 155a; Harl. 164, f. 187v; Harl. 477, f. 9v. In early May he may have been further alienated from war-mongers by the demonstrations in the final days before the execution of Strafford and the initial revelations of the ‘army plot’; his close association with the issue of the Protestation probably represented for him an affirmation of Protestant middle ground.102CJ ii. 127a, 132b, 133a, 134a-b, 139b. His wife, at least, was impressed by Strafford’s changed demeanour before his death, even though ‘the believing his salvation possible is almost a heresy here’.103HMC Hastings ii. 82. At the same time, Falkland’s attitude to the Scots hardened. Later in May he followed Hyde in upholding the English commissioners’ firm negotiating position that no additional money should be voted for the ‘brotherly assistance’, commenting that ‘he was sorry it was not a Scotch’ proverb that ‘a given [gift] horse is not to be looked in the mouth’ (17, 28 May).104Procs. LP iv. 416, 630. As he continued to be involved in conferences on the Anglo-Scottish treaty in June, the issue from Edinburgh of arrest warrants for royal advisors said to have slandered Archibald Campbell*, marquess of Argyll [S], perhaps prompted Falkland’s unsuccessful attempt to block the inclusion of a clause in the settlement which responded by proposing reciprocal apprehension of delinquents (19 June).105CJ ii. 170a, 181a, 190b.

When the army plot resurfaced in July and August, in several interventions in debate Falkland appeared keen to explore the potential guilt of participants individually. He thought it ‘fit to sever each man’ (23 July); questioned the value of indirect evidence (24 July); and argued that votes should be based on precise articles (26 July).106Procs LP vi. 72, 83-4, 96. Not only did Falkland seem on 12 August to pronounce Henry Percy* ‘not ... so guilty as the rest’ – a conclusion potentially attributable to the latter’s discovery of the plot to his brother Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland – but he also later displayed what looks like leniency to some of the other conspirators.107Procs LP vi. 386. On 8 September, in a sparsely-attended House, he and Culpeper managed to marshal a majority in favour of granting arrears of pay to William Ashbournham* and Hugh Pollarde*.108Harl. 479, f. 149a; CJ ii. 284a. Falkland’s involvement from August in proceedings related to the raising of men for service in Spain and France, creating employment opportunities and diverting potential troublemakers, was probably the logical extension of his advocacy of disbandment.109CJ ii. 275b, 282a-b, 284a-b, 285b. As his comments in debate revealed, he had faith in the king’s promise not to do anything in the matter without parliamentary order (14 Aug.).110Procs. LP vi. 420, 432.

That summer grievances which had originally prompted Falkland into opposition to the crown had been or were being redressed by legislation. On 3 July he took to the Lords a message signalling the need for royal assent to the act abolishing the court of star chamber (duly obtained) and that month was named to several committees mopping up other contentious issues.111CJ ii. 198a, 199b, 200a, 208a, 212b. Falkland was still visibly committed to the parliamentary process, and indeed could still be seen acting in concert with MPs who were more militant than himself. On 20 July, in one of several instances of his involvement in private business in the House, he and Hyde were tellers for the majority in favour of a committee hearing for the petition of Sir James Thynne*, which entailed the invocation of privilege and which also had support from Oliver Cromwell* and other members of the Rich circle.112CJ ii. 215a, 217a, 228a, 237a. However, a subtle shift in Falkland’s stance away from reform and towards sympathy for the king begins to be discernible.

From late July Falkland was prominent in planning for Charles’s journey to Scotland to finalise peace with the Covenanters, especially in discussing proposals for the appointment of a custos regni; he apparently thought that delegated powers, both inside and outside Parliament, should be very carefully defined (5-6 Aug.) and was possibly less than content with some of the king’s suggested delegates (11 Aug.).113CJ ii. 220a, 227a, 230a-b, 238a, 242a, 243a; Procs. LP vi. 244, 250, 362. He moved to ask the king to defer his journey to Scotland until the army was disbanded and Scottish affairs settled (7 Aug.), and in the following week was a leading light at conferences with peers over the proposals to be put to the Scots.114Harl. 164, f. 2b; CJ ii. 243a, 245a-b, 256b. He remained at the centre of such business after Charles’s departure for the north, was among the organisers of the 7 September public thanksgiving for the conclusion of the peace (named 26 Aug.), and was still at work on 9 September, the last day before the recess.115CJ ii. 265b, 273b, 276a, 286a.

Meanwhile, amid varied other activity in the House over the same period, Falkland’s continued support for limited religious reform is evident from his nomination to committees regarding the disarming of recusants (21 Aug.) and the removal of altars and other innovations from universities and inns of court (31 Aug.).116CJ ii. 257a, 276a, But that he wished to defend established liturgy was equally clear from his having acted as a teller, alongside Sir John Culpeper, and against Sir Thomas Barrington* and Arthur Goodwin*, in a crucial division on the ordinance for removing innovations, over a clause upholding the Book of Common Prayer (6 Sept.).117CJ ii. 268a, 278b, 280b; Harl. 164, f. 89b. When Falkland was named to the committee to respond to the Lords’ reiteration of their order of 16 January regarding divine service, it was probably as an opponent of the more radical puritans (9 Sept.).118CJ ii. 287a.

Emergence as a royalist 1641-2

Falkland helped establish, and was a member of, the Recess Committee, which sat at Westminster from 10 September until 19 October 1641, although it is not possible to demonstrate the level of his attendance.119CJ ii. 286b, 288b. As prominent as ever – he was named on 20 October to prepare for a joint conference on the security of the kingdom – his alignment with the proto-royalist cause was now increasingly evident.120CJ ii. 290a. That day he resisted attempts to make the ‘incident’ – the conspiracy against Covenanter leaders – a significant issue in English political affairs, insisting that Parliament should leave the business to the Scottish Parliament, ‘and not take up fears and suspicions without very certain and undoubted grounds’.121D’Ewes (C), 15. More significantly, when the bill for the removal of bishops’ temporal jurisdiction was revived, Falkland fell into line with his closest friends on ecclesiastical policy. Having previously supported the measure, Falkland now delivered a speech against the bill ‘with great frankness’ (23 Oct.).122D’Ewes (C), 30, 32; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 186. Named, notwithstanding this, to the committee to confer with peers over sequestering the bishops, and to state the reasons for removing them from Parliament, he sought to be ‘excused in that service’, having ‘given so many reasons against it’.123CJ ii. 295b; Clarendon, Hist. i. 402-3. Furthermore, when after the outbreak of rebellion in Ireland he was nominated to committees and conferences on affairs in that kingdom, he resisted moves to seek assistance from the Scots and thereby to bolster their influence, although his stated reasons were practical rather than principled.124CJ ii. 302a, 309a, 316b, 321b, 324b, 357b; D’Ewes (C), 91.

Debates surrounding the Grand Remonstrance also highlighted Falkland’s new perspectives. In late October Falkland defended ‘evil counsellors’ attached to the court, and the king was told that he was one of the ‘champions in maintenance of your prerogative’.125Evelyn Diary ed. Wheatley, iv. 116. On 29 October he was a teller against Sir Thomas Barrington and Arthur Goodwin in an unsuccessful bid to defeat the motion to summon Sir John Coke as a delinquent, and on 1 November he delivered a speech against removing Portland – his own electoral patron – from the governorship of the Isle of Wight, saying he was not a Catholic.126CJ ii. 298a; D’Ewes (C), 51, 63-4. Falkland was named to committees working on the Remonstrance, but delivered speeches in opposition to it on 22 November, not least because of a desire to distinguish between Arminians and papists, and to oppose the removal of the bishops.127CJ ii. 317b; Verney, Notes, 121-2; Add. 64922, f. 65. With Giles Strangways*, Falkland tried unsuccessfully to marshal support for rejecting a motion to send Geoffrey Palmer* to the Tower for his outburst in the Commons over plans to print the Remonstrance; once again he was up against Sir Thomas Barrington, together with Sir John Clotworthy* (25 Nov.).128CJ ii. 324b. Such action probably explains why Oliver Cromwell was supposed to have told Falkland that he would emigrate if the Remonstrance failed.129Clarendon, Hist. i. 420.

By late November Falkland was identified by the London crowd as one of the ‘persons disaffected to the kingdom’.130Clarendon, Hist. i. 464. That he was firmly aligned with the nascent royalist party is evident from the motion by Strangways that Falkland and Hyde should investigate a reported plot to destroy some Members of the House (30 Nov.).131D’Ewes (C), 214. This alignment may also explain why Falkland played a less visible role in the Commons in December, when he was named to just four committees.132CJ ii. 333a, 338b, 340a, 357b. One of these was charged with discussing a guard for Westminster (13 Dec.), but Falkland’s other contributions reflected the king’s interests. On 2 December he moved for the reading of a letter from Charles giving Parliament authority to proceed regarding Ireland, while on 24 December he moved to allow Edward Sackville†, 4th earl of Dorset, and Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford to provide security for one of the army plotters.133CJ ii. 340a; D’Ewes (C), 223-4, 345.

Falkland’s allegiance was eventually recognised on 1 January 1642 with his addition to the privy council, and in this capacity he played a prominent role in the machinations surrounding the Five Members, although Clarendon later claimed that he knew nothing of the king’s plans in advance.134CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 240-1; HMC Hastings, ii. 83; Clarendon, Life, i. 102. On 3 January Falkland was named to a small committee to attend the king in response to his message regarding the indictment of the Members, and two days later to the committee appointed to investigate their attempted arrest by the king.135CJ ii. 367a-b, 369a; Add. 64807, f. 25. As a privy councillor, on the other hand, Falkland was ordered by Charles to receive back the staff and key of the lord chamberlain (Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex) and the groom of the stool (Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland), whose resignations were requested.136HMC Montagu, 140. On 8 January he received a rapid and ostensibly unexpected promotion, being appointed secretary of state.137SO3/12, f. 183; PC2/53, pp. 207, 209; CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 249, 253, 264; CCSP i. 223; Clarendon, Hist. i. 457, 493. According to Clarendon, Falkland did not think himself fit for the job and was afraid of being regarded as ambitious for preferment: he ‘affected even a morosity to the court and to the courtiers’, and did not like resigning his judgment or submitting to commands. Furthermore, he ‘had a presaging spirit that the king would fall into great misfortune’, and also foresaw his own ruin in serving the king.138CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 276; Clarendon, Hist. i. 457-8; iii. 182-3; Life, i. 104. Nevertheless, Falkland, persuaded by Hyde that to reject the post would signal opposition to the court, accepted it.139Clarendon, Hist. i. 458-9. Indeed, Falkland performed his duties zealously, although his friend asserted that he felt able to contradict the king ‘with more bluntness’ than most, ‘and by sharp sentences’.140CCSP i. 224-34; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 185; Life, i. 105.

Clarendon recalled that before Charles left Whitehall on 10 January he instructed Falkland, Culpeper and Hyde ‘to meet constantly together and consult upon his affairs and conduct them the best way they could in the Parliament and to give him constant advice what he was to do, without which he declared again very solemnly, he would make no step in the Parliament’.141Clarendon, Life, i. 102. By the next day the House was indeed aware that Falkland and Culpeper were ‘made friends’ to the court.142CJ ii. 369b; Add. 64922, f. 88. Although the bond between Falkland and Hyde was closer than that of either with Culpeper, the three men met nightly to plan their strategy, ‘there being very many persons of condition and interest in the House who would follow their advice and assist in anything they desired’.143Clarendon, Life, i. 102, 104. The trio resolved that one of them should always be in the house, but rarely two, and never all three at once, because of concerns of a plot to arrest them.144Clarendon, Life, i. 133-4.

Doubtless at the instance of the king’s supporters in the House, in the weeks that followed, Falkland received important appointments, including to the new committee for naval affairs (which would evolve in August into the Committee of Navy and Customs), the committee to sit at Grocers’ Hall regarding the safety of the kingdom, the committee to petition the king on issues relating to parliamentary privilege (all 17 Jan.), the committee for petitioning that the kingdom be placed in a posture of defence (25 Jan.), and the committee for informations – or what would become the Committee for Examinations (24 Feb.).145Supra, ‘Committee for Examinations’; ‘Committee of Navy and Customs’; CJ ii. 384a, 385a, 394a, 452b; PJ i. 76-7, 81. In part, he was preoccupied with Ireland, and with the English war effort against the rebels, providing Parliament with intelligence, and engaging in correspondence with Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester, the lord lieutenant of Ireland.146CJ ii. 375a, 381a, 478a, 492a-b, 508a; PJ i. 472-3, 478; HMC 9th Rep. ii. 433a. As secretary of state, Falkland occupied a key position both in relaying messages to and from the king and in negotiations with the French, and he proposed a parliamentary message to the French ambassador on the matter (22 Feb.).147CJ ii. 388a, 394a, 449b, 456b; PJ i. 45, 441; ii. 71. His dual role as royal servant and MP inevitably created tension, as on 8 February, when it was alleged that he had breached parliamentary privilege by dispatching letters and royal declarations into the localities, on subjects such as the Five Members and the Grand Remonstrance, and perhaps also when he acted as a teller alongside Sir Ralph Verney* in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the impeachment of the attorney general (22 February).148CJ ii. 421a, 450a; PJ i. 314-5, 321, 323; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 452-3.

Falkland’s appearances in the Commons became less frequent after the end of February 1642, although he did not withdraw from Westminster until June. He received occasional committee appointments until the end of April, his final nomination being to the committee charged with putting into execution resolutions regarding church government (25 Apr.).149CJ ii. 478a, 515a, 535b, 541b. On 4 May he delivered a speech in which he argued that Parliament had not done enough to justify the legality of its message regarding possession of the magazine at Hull.150PJ i. 516; ii. 272. Remaining at Westminster long after other leading royalists, he seems to have done so at the king’s request and as his agent. He defended Hyde when exceptions were taken to his absence, and strove to excuse him as a witness against Laud and the judges (23 Mar.).151CCSP i. 226-7; Add. 4187, f. 39. He received the ensigns of office of the earls of Holland and Essex in mid-April, and the seal of the lord keeper in May, and visited the French ambassador.152CCSP i. 227; CJ ii. 525a, 526a; HMC Buccleuch, i. 297, 299; CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 312, 325; PJ ii. 162-3; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 17-18, 113-15. Critically, in late March Falkland was commissioned to sign the bill of tonnage and poundage, and he was also employed to secure the passage of particular measures, and to deliver certain petitions, as well as royal messages during the ‘paper war’.153CCSP i. 227, 228; PJ ii. 96, 158; HMC 5th Rep. 178. His value in this capacity undermines the credibility of the rumour, circulating in early May, of a plan to make Falkland deputy to the prince of Wales as lord lieutenant of Ireland.154HMC Franciscan, 136.

Falkland left London sometime between 4 June, when he made a relation to the House regarding Irish troops bound for Ireland from France, and 15 June, when he was a signatory at York to the declaration that the king did not intend war, but aimed to preserve the privileges of Parliament.155CJ ii. 605b; PJ iii. 15-16, 19-20; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 186. Depicted in the press as walking with Charles in an alderman’s garden at York, Falkland was recorded as being absent at the call of the House on 16 June.156The last newes from York (1642), [?sig. A2v] (E.154.23); CJ ii. 626. On 15 July the Commons heard allegations that, evidently perceiving him as a well-disposed intermediary, some members of the common council in the City had secretly sent Falkland a letter, enclosing a petition to the king, while on 4 August published intelligence placed Falkland on the royalist council of war.157PJ iii. 249; A Catalogue of the Moneys, Men and Horse (1642, 669.f.6.64). However, he was not disabled from sitting in the Commons until 22 September, when the House read his intercepted correspondence.158CJ ii. 777a, 779b; Add. 18777, f. 8v. He would not sit there again.

Constitutional royalist 1642-3

Long before then, Falkland had subscribed £20 to the king’s cause (22 June), and he had also helped draft the king’s answer to the Nineteen Propositions, having divided the task between himself and Culpeper. Looking back on this, Clarendon commended the work for its ‘wit and sharpness’, but famously regretted that ‘there were some expressions in it, which he liked not, as prejudicial to the king and in truth a mistake in point of right’, although he claimed these had occurred ‘in that part which had been prepared by Sir John Culpeper’.159A catalogue of the names of the Lords that subscribed to levie horse (1640, 669.f.6.42); CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 344; Clarendon, Life, i. 154.

Despite his withdrawal from Westminster, Falkland was evidently party to attempts by leading ‘constitutional royalists’ to maintain contacts and avenues of negotiation with parliamentarians.160Soc. Antiq. MS 140 (Lyttelton Pprs.), f. 22; D. L. Smith, Constitutional Royalism and the Search for Settlement (1994), 97; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 205. On 5 September he brought a message from the king to Westminster.161CJ ii. 751b-752a; PJ iii. 333; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 307, 308; HMC 7th Rep. 440b; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 394. However, it was rumoured that he was to be involved in negotiating a cessation with the Irish rebels, and he was present at Edgehill in late October 1642.162Add. 18777, f. 21a; Harl. 163, f. 418b; HMC Franciscan, 205, 212; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 352, 354. Excepted by Parliament from pardon that month, he was nevertheless allowed to travel between Westminster and the king in the weeks which followed.163CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 399, 408, 410; CJ ii. 778a, 862b; Add. 18777, ff. 50a, 51b, 73b; HMC 5th Rep. 57; Harl. 164, f. 277a; HMC Portland, i. 119; LJ vi. 57. Not until July 1643 was Falkland assessed at £300 by the Committee for Advance of Money.164CCAM, 190; SP19/61, f. 23.

In the spring of 1643 Falkland fulfilled his secretarial duties at Oxford, and by April he was serving as lord privy seal; he later became master of the rolls.165HMC Hastings, ii. 90; HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 242-4; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 201-3; Harl. 164, ff. 313v, 314, 341, 356, 363v, 365v; Handbook of British Chronology (3rd ed.), p. 97; Clarendon, Life, i. 195. He provided the principal link at the Oxford court for the London ‘plot’ hatched by Edmund Waller* and Nathaniel Tompkins, and may also have played some part in maintaining channels of communication with the earl of Northumberland.166CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 456-7; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 46, 49-50; Harl. 165, ff. 100, 102, 103v, 104. In the summer, however, he joined the king on campaign at Bristol and Gloucester – motivated, it would seem, by a love of soldiering, a concern not to be regarded as having ‘an impatient desire of peace’, and a growing ‘dejection of spirit’.167HMC Bath, i. 17; CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 456-7, 484; Clarendon, Life, i. 195, 201-2; Hist. iii. 187-89. Forgetting his station as one of the king’s leading counsellors, Falkland recklessly joined the royalist troops at the battle of Newbury, where he was killed from a shot to the stomach on 20 September 1643, prompting some to conclude that he committed suicide.168Clarendon, Hist. iii. 190; HMC 7th Rep. 445a; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 434. Thereafter, the Committee for Sequestrations refused to grant any relief on his estate, on the ground that ‘he died in actual war against the Parliament’, and it is probable that his family endured financial hardship.169SP20/1, p. 104. Falkland was survived by his wife, who died in 1647, and he was succeeded by their son Lucius. The latter died unmarried in Montpellier in 1649, when the title passed to a younger son, Henry Cary*, who represented Oxfordshire in 1659 and thereafter until his death in 1663.170Duncon, Returnes of Spiritual Comfort, sig A4v; CP; HP Commons 1660-1690.