ROBINSON, Richard (1613-79), of Thicket Priory, Wheldrake, Yorks.

Robinson belonged to a junior branch of the London mercantile family from which Luke Robinson* was also descended.20Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. iii. 169-70, 399; Cliffe, Yorks. 357-8. The family’s connection with Yorkshire was established by Robinson’s grandfather, a merchant of the staple and alderman of London, who purchased the Thicket Priory estate – some eight miles south east of York – in 1596.21VCH E. Riding, iii. 115. Robinson’s father, Humphrey Robinson, a London grocer, settled initially at Bethnal Green, Middlesex, although he acquired a house and lands at Ridding Grange, a few miles from Thicket, by his marriage to a daughter of the London alderman, Richard Pyot.22C54/2500/26; C142/429/148; Hull Hist. Cent. U DRA/554. In 1622, Humphrey Robinson purchased from his elder brothers, for £1,200, part of the Thicket Priory estate; and at some point between 1622 and 1626 – when he was made a magistrate for the East Riding – he took up permanent residence in Yorkshire.23C54/2500/26; E163/18/12, f. 23. He died in October 1626, only a few months after his appointment to the East Riding bench, leaving Richard a ward of the crown. Robinson’s wardship and marriage were purchased by his mother for £200.24WARD9/208, f. 17; Hull Hist. Cent. U DRA/559. Although he does not appear to have joined Yorkshire’s ‘disaffected’ gentry in their petitions to the king during 1640, in which they complained about the local impact of the bishops’ wars, he did sign the county election indenture of 5 October, returning two of the leading petitioners, Lord Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*) and Henry Belasyse, to the Long Parliament.25C219/43/3/89.

Little is known about Robinson’s activities during the early 1640s (he should not be confused with Alderman Richard Robinson of Hull), although there can be no doubt that his allegiance lay with Parliament.26Hull Letters ed. T. T. Wildridge, 188. In February 1642, he signed a petition from the Yorkshire gentry to the Lords, requesting that they work more closely with the Commons for the relief of Ireland’s Protestants.27PA, Main Pprs. 15 Feb. 1642, f. 55; LJ iv. 587a. Most of the petition’s signatories were to side with Parliament during the civil war. However, his commitment to Parliament was not such that he felt compelled to take up arms against the king; and he was not trusted with local office by Parliament until June 1645, when he was named to the East Riding committee for the Northern Association, of which he was an active member.28Hull Letters ed. Wildridge, 93. He is known to have signed only two of the Northern Association committee’s numerous letters to Parliament in 1645-6, complaining about the abuses committed by the Scottish army in the northern counties and requesting that it be removed from the region.29Bodl. Nalson IV, ff. 212-13; Tanner 59, f. 366; LJ vii. 640b.

When, late in 1645, the parliamentarian grandee Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, was looking for a person of ‘credit’ in the East Riding to safeguard his house and castle at Wressle, some ten miles south of Thicket, his steward Hugh Potter* recommended Robinson.30Alnwick, O.I.2(f): Northumberland to Potter, 16 Dec. 1645. Writing to Potter early in 1646, Northumberland approved his choice: ‘Mr Robinson of Thicket I have inquired after and am told that he is a very honest gentleman, therefore if you can persuade him to live in my house at Wressle I shall take it as a great respect and favour to me’.31Alnwick, O.I.2(f): Northumberland to Potter, 13 Jan. 1646. Robinson, however, was reluctant to assume full stewardship of the property, for as Northumberland complained to Potter in February: ‘I should be glad Mr. Robinson would be contented to take the preservation of that place a little into his care, which I perceive ... will be no great trouble to him seeing that I do not expect his residence there but at his own convenience’.32Alnwick, O.I.2(f): Northumberland to Potter, 10 Feb. 1646.

By 1648, Robinson was active on several local parliamentarian committees, in particular the East Riding assessment and sequestration committees. He signed numerous warrants and committee orders during the late 1640s and early 1650s, often in conjunction with Richard Darley*, who was one of the most powerful figures in the East Riding under the Rump.33SP28/215, pt. 2, unfol.; SP28/250, ff. 36, 65, 140, 186, 300; SP28/353, f. 297; Doncaster Archives, DD/CROM/11/30; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 1-2; The Countrey Committees Laid Open (1649), 5 (E.558.11). Robinson was also, it seems, a diligent and trusted member of the East Riding bench.34CSP Dom. 1651, p. 250; Depositions from York Castle ed. J. Raine (Surt. Soc. xl), 25, 39, 53. Although he did not withdraw from local government after the king’s execution in January 1649, there is no indication that he was as extreme in his political views as his cousin, Luke Robinson, with whom he was involved in several property settlements during the late 1640s (mostly concerning Luke Robinson’s inheritance at Deighton, a few miles to the west of Thicket).35Hull Hist. Cent. U DDBH/3/44, 97, 98. Nevertheless, Robinson’s politics, or perhaps his association with Luke Robinson and Richard Darley, were looked upon disapprovingly by the Nominated Parliament, for he was removed from the East Riding bench in October 1653, along with several men of radical inclination or who had been active under the Rump, notably Sir William Allanson*, James Nelthorpe* and Matthew Alured*.36C231/6, p. 270. In their place were inserted men who were generally more zealous in religion and more moderate politically, including Thomas Harrison II*, William Ayscoughe* and George Smithson*.

The establishment of the protectorate late in 1653 prompted a revival in Robinson’s political fortunes such that in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1654 he was returned for the East Riding, taking the fourth and last place behind Sir William Strickland, Walter Strickland and Hugh Bethell.37Supra, ‘Yorkshire’. He probably owed his election more to his prominence in local affairs since the mid-1640s, and to his connections with the influential Darleys and Luke Robinson, than to any proprietorial interest he may have enjoyed, for his estate in the East Riding was probably worth less than £500 a year. Indeed, like so many Yorkshire Members who were returned for constituencies created under the Instrument of Government, he would not have secured a parliamentary seat in the traditional, pre-civil war electoral order. He received only three appointments in this Parliament – to committees on the transportation of agricultural produce, for reviewing the ordinances passed by the protectoral council and for wording a clause concerning the summoning of Parliaments in the bill for settling the protectoral constitution.38CJ vii. 374b, 375b, 392b. He took no further part in national politics after Parliament’s dissolution early in 1655, although he continued to be named to local office.

In January 1656, Major-general Robert Lilburne* reported to the lord protector that Robinson was being touted as the next sheriff of Yorkshire, an appointment which Lilburne strongly advised against.

it gives distaste, as I understand, to many conscientious people, he being noted amongst them as one somewhat of a loose conversation and one that is too much addicted to tippling and that which is called good fellowship, and [he] was lately accused before the commissioners [the Yorkshire commissioners for preserving the peace of the commonwealth] to be somewhat concerned in point of delinquency. He is reasonable able of parts, but I doubt not but it is your highness’s care and advantage rather to call good men to places of magistracy than such; and I know it will be more acceptable to godly men ... and tending more to the quieting of the spirit of all good people ...39TSP iv. 397.

How exactly he had offended against Lilburne and the commissioners ‘in point of delinquency’ is not clear. There is no evidence that he had been implicated in the 1655 Yorkshire royalist uprising – indeed, he had been named to the militia and oyer and terminer commissions set up in response to the rising.40C181/6, p. 101; SP25/76A, f. 16. What is more probable is that, like the Darleys, he objected to the rule of the army and the major-generals.41Carroll, ‘Yorks’, 361. If this was indeed the case, he would have found himself in disagreement with Luke Robinson as well as Lilburne, both of whom were zealous supporters of the military. In the event, the proposal for Robinson’s appointment came to nothing, and Thomas Harrison II was appointed sheriff.

Robinson may well have supported the Restoration; he was certainly considered conformable by the new regime, retaining his place on the East Riding bench after 1660. In June 1661, he was granted a royal pardon.42Hull Hist. Cent. U DRA/572. In 1662, when the crown began to investigate how royal revenues had been employed during the Interregnum, he was forced to admit that he had been a committeeman ‘under divers of the late pretended authorities’.43E113/7, pt. 1, unfol. Evidently willing to accept the re-establishment of an episcopal church, he witnessed the subscription of Wheldrake’s parish minister to the Book of Common Prayer in August 1662.44Wheldrake par. reg. He remained active in local government after the Restoration, serving on the East Riding bench and as a sewers commissioner.45Add. 40133, f. 79; Depositions from York Castle ed. Raine, 78, 130, 219. As a magistrate he would have had to contend with the Quakers, but he appears to have looked upon them with less hostility than did most of his fellow justices. Though critical of Friends, certainly, he could also see how they had been misrepresented by their enemies, and he thought that some of their publications ‘hath more of simplicity and less of rancour’ than those of their enemies.46Depositions from York Castle ed. Raine, 130. However, he is not to be confused with the North Riding magistrate William Robinson, who was accused of turning a blind eye to Quaker meetings in his division during the 1660s.47CSP Dom. 1665-6, pp. 376-7; 1666-7, pp. 63-6.

Robinson died intestate and without surviving children in the summer of 1679 and was buried at Wheldrake on 17 August.48Wheldrake par. reg. He was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.