ALLESTRYE, William (c.1598-1655), of Alvaston, and All Saints, Derby, Derbys.

Allestrye belonged to a junior branch of a family that had settled at Allestree, two miles north of Derby, by the thirteenth century.1D. Lysons, S. Lysons, Magna Britannia, v. p. cliii. His grandfather, an innholder, represented Derby in four Parliaments during the mid-sixteenth century and served five terms as the town’s bailiff.2HP Commons, 1509-1558, ‘William Allestry’. Having entered the legal profession, Allestrye was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in 1625, and by 1638 he had been appointed recorder of Derby. In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, he and Alderman Nathaniel Hallowes were returned for the town, with Allestrye taking the senior place.3Supra, ‘Derby’. He made a few minor contributions to debate, but received no committee appointments in this Parliament.4Aston’s Diary, 34, 77, 163.

In the elections to the Long Parliament that autumn, Allestrye and Hallowes stood for Derby again, but on this occasion they faced competition from two local gentlemen, Thomas Gell* and Christopher Fulwoode. The corporation interest was firmly behind Allestrye and Hallowes, whereas Gell and Fulwoode, although not without friends in Derby, were essentially interlopers. On election day, 19 October 1640, Gell and Fulwoode commanded sufficient support among the freemen to demand a poll. But their request was refused by the mayor, who returned the two corporation candidates. Gell and Fulwoode protested to the Commons that the mayor’s refusal of a poll was not only illegal but also an infringement of the town’s charter. Allestrye and, to a lesser extent, Hallowes evidently agreed, for although they apparently took their seats, they avoided making any contribution to the House’s proceedings while the committee of privileges considered the case. In mid-December 1640, Allestrye informed Fulwoode that ‘he was so tender of the welfare of the town’ he would yield to any ‘indifferent motion’ in order to preserve the mayor and corporation from legal action and the censure of the House.5Supra, ‘Derby’; Procs. LP iii. 134, 136. This conciliatory approach seems to have paid off, for on 25 March 1641, the House passed over the mayor’s indiscretion and resolved simply that a new election be held for the town.6CJ ii. 113a. According to the parliamentary diarist Sir Simonds D’Ewes, Allestrye and Hallowes ‘were both contented without any further dispute of the House to depart out of the same’ and to acknowledge their return void.7Procs. LP iii. 134. Anticipating that the Commons would order another election, Derby corporation had spent the previous months drumming up support for their candidates among the freemen. The new election was held on 14 April 1641, and as Fulwoode had feared, Allestrye and Hallowes were returned again, this time without serious opposition.8Supra, ‘Derby’.

Allestrye was one of the least active Members of the Long Parliament. He was named to just one (very minor) committee and took no recorded part in debate.9CJ ii. 205b. His poor showing as a Parliament-man notwithstanding, he was apparently considered sound in religion, for the Commons nominated him in August 1641 as a commissioner for disarming recusants in Derbyshire.10CJ ii. 267b; LJ iv. 385a. He was present in the House on 7 May 1642, when the Commons ordered him to write a letter of thanks to a group of Derbyshire magistrates.11CJ ii. 563a. However, by early June he had returned to Derby (without taking official leave of the House), and he was in Nottingham on 22 August when the king set up his standard.12SP23/175, p. 185; Derby Local Studies Lib. DBR/E/1, unfol. He later claimed that his presence in the town on 22 August was purely coincidental.13Harl. 164, f. 244v. Nevertheless, his absence aroused the suspicion of the Commons, which on 2 September suspended him from sitting pending investigation by the committee for absent Members.14CJ ii. 750a. In mid-November, the House went one step further and summoned him to Westminster under guard to answer for his negligence of its proceedings.15CJ ii. 845b, 851b. If at any point Allestrye had contemplated joining the king’s party he now thought better of it, for he obeyed this summons, and on 9 December the House received what was essentially a favourable report on him from the committee for absent Members. Allestrye had

confessed that he had gone out of town [London] without leave and had stayed long in the country, and that when his Majesty had imposed [a levy of ] £1,200 upon the town of Derby, he had paid £20 of it and that he had done [it] to avoid further mischief. But he was sorry for it and was resolved to declare himself to be ready to live and die with the House and to contribute according to his ability. And that it was true that he was at Nottingham whilst the [king’s] standard was set up there, but that he went upon private business of his own, and that if anything else could be objected against him after his admission into the House he would be ready to answer it and to stand and abide the pleasure of the House.16Harl. 164, f. 244v.

The committee further reported that ‘whereas it had been objected against him that he had led 500 men to Nottingham [for the king], that could not be proved’. His case provoked a long debate, but in conclusion it was ordered that he be re-admitted to the House.17Harl. 164, f. 244v; CJ ii. 881b. Three days later (12 Dec.), he declared his assent to the vote for assisting Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, with life and fortune, and he offered to contribute £50 to Parliament’s war-chest.18CJ ii. 884b.

Allestrye’s commitment to the parliamentarian cause proved both lukewarm and short-lived. He seems to have been entirely inactive at Westminster following his return (he received no appointments), and a few weeks after the king’s proclamation of 20 June 1643, requiring all ‘loyal’ MPs to present themselves to his headquarters at Oxford, he abandoned his seat entirely.19SP23/175, p. 185. It is not clear what motivated his withdrawal from Westminster, or his subsequent adherence to the king’s party. The advance of the royalist army of William Cavendish, 1st earl of Newcastle, into the north midlands that summer may have influenced his decision. It is also possible that he objected to the idea of a military alliance with the Scottish Covenanters, which was dominating the agenda in the Commons by July 1643. On 10 September, the Derbyshire county committee sent up ‘divers articles’ against him, alleging (among other things) that he had refused to prosecute papists, that he had contributed to the royalist war effort but given nothing to Parliament, and that he associated with ‘malignants’.20CJ ii. 281b; Add. 18778, f. 72v; Add. 31116, p. 169; Bodl. Nalson XII, f. 51; HMC Portland, i. 130. But the House was evidently not convinced by these charges, for rather than call time on his parliamentary career (such as it was) it ordered him (on 28 September) to attend its service on pain of sequestration.21CJ iii. 256b. On this occasion, however, Allestrye ignored the summons to Westminster, and on 19 October the Commons disabled him from sitting and ordered the Derbyshire county committee to sequester his estate.22CJ iii. 281b.

Early in 1644, Allestrye confirmed his royalist allegiance by attending the Oxford Parliament, which the king had summoned in order to raise money to help repel the invading Scots.23SP23/175, p. 187. The Commons responded by ordering that Allestrye be discharged from his place as recorder of Derby – although it took the Lords almost a year to assent to this measure.24CJ iii. 374a; LJ vii. 96b, 97b. On 27 January 1644 he signed the letter from the two Houses at Oxford to the earl of Essex, urging him to compose a peace.25Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 573. By his own admission, Allestrye attended the Oxford Parliament for a total of two months, but did not give his assent to the Oxford Parliament’s vote of 12 March proclaiming the Parliament-men at Westminster traitors. Moreover, although he ‘constantly continued in his Majesty’s garrisons and quarters’ for most of the war, he claimed that he never bore arms against Parliament nor executed any royal commission.26SP23/175, pp. 185-7.

By the autumn of 1645, Allestrye considered the king’s cause lost, and on 2 October he surrendered himself to the Derbyshire county committee. In his petition to the Committee for Compounding*, he asked that allowance be made for his ‘wasted’ personal estate, his debts (which amounted to £1,200) and the smallness of his landed estate.27SP23/175, pp. 185-7. The committee set his fine at £737 – or a third of his estate – which he reckoned excessive, ‘considering that he is much in debt and at present debarred from his profession as barrister-at-law’.28CCC 991; CCAM 420. The Commons confined itself to having him brought to the bar of the House on 29 November and placing him in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms for a week thereafter.29CJ iv. 358a, 365a. The following year, he succeeded in persuading the Committee for Advance of Money* to lower its 1644 assessment upon him from £600 to a mere £40 in regard of his parlous financial state.30CCAM 420.

Allestrye seems to have eschewed public affairs for the remainder of his life. He died on 4 September 1655 and was buried at All Saints, Derby, on 6 September.31Vis. Derbys. 11; All Saints, Derby par reg. In his will, he referred to debts of £350 and lands held on lease in two unspecified locations, presumably in Derbyshire, worth £100 a year. He charged his brother George and half-brother Roger with the provision of a ‘godly and virtuous’ education for his younger children.32PROB11/266, ff. 311r-v. Roger Allestry† sat for Derby in the 1660 Convention and the Cavalier Parliament, and Roger’s son William† represented the town in 1685.33HP Commons 1660-1690.