STARRE, George (1615/16-1647), of Bradford Abbas, Dorset.

There is no doubt that George Starre was a member of the Starre (Storr or Sterr) family of Bradford Abbas near Sherborne in Dorset, as he remembered the poor of that parish in his will; but it is unclear whether he was the son of William Sterr (baptised 30 July 1615) or of George Sterr (baptised 7 March 1616).6Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, f. 6v; PROB11/217/468. His first definite appearance on the historical record was in 1635, when he married Agnes Reade, at her home parish of Gillingham, near Shaftesbury.7Dorset RO, PE/GIL:RE1/1. The absence of Starre and his wife from the heraldic visitations suggests that they were of only middling status, although his contribution of £150 to the Irish Adventurers’ scheme in April 1642 implies that he was far from destitute.8Bottigheimer, English Money and Irish Land, 192; J. P. Prendergast, Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland (1875), 429. Starre was of sufficient standing to gain a commission in the parliamentarian forces at the beginning of the civil war. By late 1643 he was serving as a captain in the cavalry troop of William Sydenham*, the future MP for Weymouth, transferring to George Thomson’s* regiment the next year.9SP28/267/3, ff. 79v-80. Starre soon acquired a reputation for efficiency and trustworthiness. He was an active commander, accompanying Sydenham on a raid on Blandford and at the relief of Dorchester in the summer of 1644,10Bayley, Dorset, 194, 204. and he acted ‘incomparably bravely’ at the capture of Sir John Strangways’s* house at Abbotsbury in November of that year.11Christie, Shaftesbury, 64, 66. Starre was also involved in a skirmish near Bristol in December 1645 which left Winston Churchill seriously wounded.12CCAM 1092. His political reliability in parliamentarian eyes was confirmed in November 1644, when he was one of only two Dorset officers deemed completely loyal during the threatened mutiny against Sir William Waller’s* attempt to renew his commission as an independent commander.13Bayley, Dorset, 230. Starre’s reward came in August 1645 when Sir Thomas Fairfax* ordered that he should be put in charge of the newly captured Sherborne Castle, and later that year he was made colonel of a regiment in the brigade commanded by Major-general Edward Massie*.14Bayley, Dorset, 289; SP28/267/3, ff. 79v-80. Starre’s military standing was perhaps enhanced by his ruthlessness. In 1646, for example, the royalist Susanna Strangways (wife of Giles Strangways*) petitioned the county committee in an attempt to prevent Starre implementing an order evicting her from their house ‘carrying with me my wearing apparel only’.15Dorset RO, D/FSI/233 (ii), unfol.

Despite his reputation as a soldier, Starre’s military career was dominated less by heroics on the battlefield than by a desperate lack of funds to pay and feed his troops. The Dorset county committee was able to pay Starre’s contingent in 1644, but at the end of that year no further sums were forthcoming locally.16Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, ff. 18v, 20. The problem of extracting arrears from both central and local sources would continue for years to come. From 1646 to 1649, for example, there were five separate claims for payment of arrears to the Dorset committee by officers and men who had served under Starre earlier in the decade; and in 1646-7 there were two similar claims considered by the parliamentary committee for petitions in Westminster, as well as an order to examine Starre’s accounts as a whole.17Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 62, 114-5, 186, 289, 559; SP28/266/3, f. 87, SP28/267/1, f. 116; SP28/267/3, ff. 79v-80. There were also a number of claims for payment for goods requisitioned by Starre in Dorset during the first civil war: as well as the confiscation of numerous horses, he was involved in supplying cattle to the garrison at Weymouth (where Sydenham was governor) from as far afield as Somerset.18Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 76, 129, 256, 295, 309, 310, 494.

The death of William Whitaker* in the autumn of 1646 created a Commons vacancy in the borough of Shaftesbury. This was contested in a three-cornered election, involving Colonel Starre, another officer from Massie’s brigade, Colonel John Fitzjames*, and a local candidate, William Hussey. According to Fitzjames, writing in October 1646, Starre and Hussey were both very eager to sit for Shaftesbury, and ‘had that business in agitation before Whitaker was dead’; but Starre pretended that he had had been forced into standing by his superiors.19Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 48-9. Starre’s claim was perhaps closer to the truth than Fitzjames allowed. Although Hussey had secured the support of his patron, the 2nd earl of Salisbury, and of the 4th earl of Pembroke (who had considerable influence in Shaftesbury),20Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS 457, ff. 49, 53v, 54-5. Starre was apparently backed by a group of local gentlemen who had been his colleagues in the army, including William Sydenham and his brother-in-law, John Bingham*. Fitzjames thought that ‘Colonel Sydenham and Colonel Bingham have set him [Starre] on work’, and suspected that Starre had used these contacts to enlist local support within the borough of Shaftesbury, including that of James Baker*, the solicitor to the county committee, who was ‘his chief engineer’.21Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 50-2, 53v-4.

In the next few weeks Fitzjames set about persuading Starre to withdraw from the election, in order to leave the field free for himself. His efforts in this reveal the wider network within which Starre operated. Fitzjames hoped that Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, another of Starre’s military colleagues, could be prevailed upon to ask him to stand down.22Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 58v-9v. He later added that: ‘I do not think the latter is so confident but that either of those colonels [Sydenham or Bingham], or Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper’s letters, if effectually and timely written, may yet persuade him to desist’.23Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 61v-2v. Fitzjames also thought that Starre’s influences were not merely military, widening his approach to include the influential county gentlemen, Sir Thomas Trenchard*, and his brother, John Trenchard* (father-in-law of both Sydenham and Bingham), during his campaign to encourage Starre not to stand.24Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 64v-5v. The dispute was apparently over by the second week of November 1646, when both Hussey and Fitzjames themselves gave up the seat, and Starre was elected, apparently unopposed.25Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 66-8.

After the drama of the election, Starre’s parliamentary career was a damp squib. He took the Covenant on 24 February 1647, but thereafter his only mention in proceedings at Westminster was when the committee for petitions referred his military accounts to Parliament.26CJ v. 97a. The Commons ordered that these accounts should be referred to the non-parliamentary Committee of Accounts on 14 April 1647.27SP28/267/3, ff. 77-8; CJ v. 141b. Six months later, Starre’s career came to an abrupt end. On 15 October 1647 the Commons was informed that he had died, and writs were sent to Shaftesbury for the election of his replacement.28CJ v. 334a. Starre may have been ill for some months, as he drafted his will at the end of August, at which time he was lodging with relatives at Sherborne. He gave small bequests to the poor of Sherborne and Bradford Abbas, and left clothing and military effects – including two pairs of pistols, a sword and his grey gelding – to his servants and close friends. He did not leave any landholdings, instead bequeathing his interest in the Irish Adventure and what was owed to him in unpaid military arrears to his heir, his nephew, John Starre. Starre’s executors were his brothers-in-law, John Chetnell of Sherborne and William Allen of Bradford Abbas, and two friends: Edward Penney of Bradford and Walter Foy, a member of the county committee. He also called on his patrons, Sydenham and Bingham, and their colleague, Denis Bond*, ‘out of their known and approved integrity unto me, to be aiding and assisting unto my said executors for the obtaining such dues as belong to me’.29PROB11/217/468. It is not known whether this last request was ever acted upon. Starre’s heir received the Irish lands in 1654, but nothing more is known of the family.30CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 494, 510.