CAPELL, Sir Arthur (1585-1653), of Little Hadham, Herts. and Whitehall

Capell was descended from a London Draper who served twice as lord mayor, represented the City in the Parliaments of 1491, 1512 and 1515, and acquired great estates in Essex and Hertfordshire.6Trans. Essex Arch. Soc. n.s. ix. 244; VCH Herts. iv. 55. Capell’s father, knighted in 1598, was renowned for his hospitality and prominent in local government, but pleaded poverty when assessed at £100 for a Privy Seal loan in 1604, on the grounds that he had to fund an annual jointure of £420 to his father’s widow, and provide over £800 for dependent relatives.7Chauncy, Herts. i. 308; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 334. The family were on friendly terms with the local magnate, Robert Cecil, 1st earl of Salisbury, who appointed Capell to a senior position in his household.8CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 88. After Salisbury’s death, Capell immediately entered the service of the Crown as a gentleman pensioner, and was knighted when the king visited Enfield in 1617.9HMC Hatfield, xxi. 375. In February 1622 he was summoned before the Privy Council to explain his failure to contribute towards the Palatinate Benevolence, and persuaded to hand over £50.10SP14/127/77, 82; 14/156/15.

As ‘Sir Arthur Capell, junior’, he was elected to Parliament in 1624 for St. Albans, where he had been nominated by the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*), whose eldest daughter, a child of 12, was betrothed to his nephew, Arthur†, the heir to the Hadham estate.11L. Stone, Fam. and Fortune, 121-2. Once in the Commons, Capell was appointed to the committee for a bill to confirm the patent of the New River Company, a matter of local concern since it involved the diversion of water from Hertfordshire to supply London (22 Mar. 1624); and to attend a conference with the Lords on 1 May 1624 concerning two Exchequer bills.12CJ, i. 695a, 745a. He was reproached for failing to write to the countess of Salisbury about some business he had promised to conduct on her behalf, but as she observed in December 1624, ‘London is a forgetful place’.13HMC Hatfield, xxii. 87, 120, 202.

Capell does not appear to have stood for Parliament again. It was reported in December 1628 that his courtship of an unnamed widow ‘went but coldly forward’, and he gave up entirely after breaking his shoulder in a traffic accident.14HMC Buccleuch, iii. 330. Following James’s death he was retained in the Household of the new king until at least 1636, when he had the misfortune to kill his Hertfordshire neighbour, Sir Thomas Leventhorpe, in a duel at Hadham.15T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, ii. 248. Both were reputed ‘very honest, fair-conditioned men’ and friends of long standing; the fatal quarrel had erupted over a complaint by Sir Edward Howard II* that a hawking party led by Leventhorpe and the 1st earl of Dover (Henry Carey*), together with Capell’s nephew, had trespassed on his property.16C115/108/8607. At the inquest the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, but when Charles instructed the judges of assize to impose no punishment considering ‘the manner and occasion of the fact’, Capell was granted a free pardon.17CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 49, 50; C231/5, p. 227.

Capell maintained neutrality during the Civil War, corresponding with the parliamentarian (Sir) William Lytton* over the sequestration of the estates of his nephew, who had joined the royalists.18HMC Var. vii. 344-5. He drew up his will on 13 Jan. 1649, leaving his property to be divided between his surviving brothers, and died almost five years later.19PROB 11/236, f. 294. He was buried at Little Hadham on 24 Dec. 1653.