SOTHERTON, Thomas (1602-aft. 1665), of Hellesdon, Norf.

The Sothertons, whose ancestry can be traced back to the fifteenth century, were a prolific Norfolk family who had been prominent in the municipal life of Norwich since the early sixteenth century.17Norf. Peds. 157-61. This MP’s great-grandfather, Nicholas Sotherton, a future mayor of Norwich, acquired the manor of Hellesdon, several miles to the north of the city, in 1528.18Blomefield, Norf. x. 428. Four members of the family sat in the Elizabethan Parliaments, including this MP’s grandfather, Thomas† (d. 1583), who represented Norwich in 1558 and 1559.19HP Commons 1558-1603. Sotherton’s father, Matthew, was only a younger son but in 1606 he was able to buy some of the family estates at Hellesdon from his nephew, Samuel Sotherton. Matthew however died only two years later. Thomas, as the eldest of his six surviving sons, therefore inherited these lands when he came of age.20Norf. Peds. 160. His mother later remarried, taking the physician, Thomas Gooch, as her second husband.21Al. Cant. By 1628 the future MP had married Cecily Corbett, the sister of Miles Corbett*.22Norf. Peds. 39, 160. At about this time Sotherton was lending money to another Norfolk gentleman, Thomas Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe.23Eg. 2715, f. 469.

The outbreak of the civil war propelled Sotherton into local politics. Perhaps in part due to his kinship with Corbett, he quickly emerged as one of Parliament’s most dependable supporters in the county. From 1643 he was a member of all the key local commissions. Moreover, on 11 May 1643 he was one of the three new deputy lieutenants named by Parliament for Norfolk.24CJ iii. 80a; LJ vi. 42a. Three months later Parliament passed the legislation creating the committee for the Eastern Association. The ordinance not only appointed Sotherton as a member, but also named him as one of the two Norfolk members who were to reside on a permanent basis at Cambridge.25A. and O; Suff. ed, Everitt, 52. The very next day Sotherton and other members of the Norfolk county committee wrote to their counterparts in Essex suggesting that, in view of the royalist threat from Lincolnshire, a meeting of their deputy lieutenants should be convened.26W. Vaughan-Lewis and M. Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court (Lavenham, 2009), 283. The following December the Norfolk committee sent Sotherton and John Cooke to Cambridge make representations to the Eastern Association committee about the heavy burdens being placed on the county.27R.W. Ketton-Cremer, ‘A note on Thomas Windham’, Norf. Arch. xxxii., 51. In November 1644 the Norfolk committee, including Sotherton, wrote to the governor of Newport Pagnell, Sir Samuel Luke*, defending their record in paying assessments to the association.28Luke Letter Bks. 344, 374.

Sotherton was also an assessment commissioner.29A. and O. In February 1644 corporation officials in Norwich were told by those commissioners that they could collect printed copies of the ordinances concerning the repayment of Scottish loan from Sotherton’s house.30Add. 22619, f. 43. Nine months later he was one of the commissioners who warned the Norwich corporation that money collected at Thorpe next Norwich should be put to one side until the dispute over whether that suburb counted as part of the city for tax purposes had been resolved.31Add. 23006, f. 43. Meanwhile, from its creation in March 1643, Sotherton had been a member of the Norfolk sequestration commission. Sotherton was one of the four commissioners who immediately used those powers to seize the estates of the new bishop of Norwich, Joseph Hall.32J. Hall, The Shaking of the Olive-Tree (1660), 56 (E.185.1). Similarly, in June 1644 he and Robert Wood I* were ordered by Parliament to cut down the timber on the lands at Mutford in Suffolk belonging to a Catholic recusant, ‘Mr Hacon’ (probably Hubert Hacon).33CJ iii. 520b-521a; LJ vi. 582a. Meanwhile, Knyvett had been attempting to use his friendship with Sotherton in the hope of getting favourable treatment over his own sequestration case.34Knyvett Lttrs. 39, 40.

Like many of the leading Norfolk parliamentarians, Sotherton disliked the way in which the county had been supplying and funding forces that had, for the most part, been used to fight elsewhere. The proposal to create a national force, the New Model army, seemed to them to be an even bigger step in the wrong direction. At a meeting of the Eastern Association at Bury St Edmunds on 30 January 1645, Sotherton took the lead in expressing concerns. He presented his assembled colleagues with a draft document for them to discuss. The final version, which probably preserved the thrust of the draft, asserted the rights of the deputy lieutenants and of the county committees over any forces stationed within their county and over any taxes to be collected there.35Suff. ed. Everitt, 88-9.

Sotherton nevertheless supported the moves later that year to ensure that Norfolk sent forces to Lincolnshire and to the siege of Oxford.36Add. 27447, f. 288; Add. 22620, f. 31. By late 1647 he was also acting as Parliament’s receiver of the rents from crown lands in Norfolk and Huntingdonshire. He and twelve of the other receivers then had their appointments confirmed by letters patent on the orders of Parliament.37LJ ix. 508b.

On 16 May 1648 the Commons appointed a twelve-man committee of local gentlemen to investigate the riots that had disturbed Norwich on 23 and 24 April. Sotherton was one of the 12.38CJ v. 559b. He was also still active as an assessment commissioner.39CUL, Buxton pprs. 96/26; HMC Var. ii. 266. But later accusations, made at the time of his election in 1656, would cast doubt on Sotherton’s own conduct at this time. He would be accused of having ‘contrived the petition for a personal treaty with the late king and caused the same to be on foot in this county at the sessions’.40TSP v. 371. Even more explosively, it was alleged that he was associated with the 1st earl of Norwich (Sir George Goring†) during the second civil war and that he had discouraged some from volunteering during the siege of Colchester.41TSP v. 371. What however casts some doubt on these claims is that Sotherton happily continued to hold local office under the republic.42Norf. QSOB, 29-63. In 1650 he was one of the justices of the peace entrusted with the money for the repair of the castle and the shire house at Norwich.43Norf. QSOB, 21, 26.

Sotherton’s parliamentary career began in 1654. That summer he stood in the poll for the ten Norfolk county seats. The 1,513 votes he received were enough to put him in fifth place and so earned him one of the seats.44R. Temple, ‘A 1654 protectorate parliamentary election return’, Cromwelliana, ser. II, iii. (2006), 58. Along with most of his Norfolk colleagues, he probably hesitated to take the oath against the alterations to the government which the lord protector, Oliver Cromwell*, then demanded from all MPs.45Burton’s Diary, i. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. He otherwise left no trace in the records of this Parliament.

On standing again in 1656, Sotherton increased his vote in the Norfolk poll (1,856 votes), but with more electors voting, he dropped to eighth place.46Norf. Arch. i., 67. The bigger challenge was then claiming his seat at Westminster. An anonymous informant condemned the election of several of the new Norfolk MPs and those accusations were passed on to the government in London. The charges against Sotherton, which were among the more detailed, were those concerning his conduct in 1648.47TSP v. 371. As a result, he was not allowed to sit.48CJ vii. 425a; CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/104; HMC Var. ii. 271. His name was included among the signatories to a purported remonstrance from the secluded Members, protesting at their exclusion from the House.49To all the Worthy Gentlemen ([1656], E.889.8). He was also removed from the commission of the peace at about this time. It is not known whether he took his seat when this Parliament re-assembled in January 1658.

In 1658 Sotherton was included on the Norfolk and Suffolk sewers commissions.50C181/6, pp, 291, 342. Two years later, in January 1660, he signed the Norfolk address for a free Parliament.51Address from Gentry of Norf. ed. Rye, 61. No trace has been found of him after June 1665 when he filed a petition in chancery against the widow of his younger brother, Augustine.52C7/323/41. It is just possible that he was the Thomas Sotherton who was added to the Norfolk commission of the peace in June 1684; if so, he was subsequently removed by James II, no doubt after his replies to the Three Questions showed that he was opposed to the repeal of the Test Act.53C231/8, p. 103; Norf. Lieut. Jnl. 1676-1701, ed. B. Cozens-Hardy (Norf. Rec. Soc. xxx.), 89; Penal Laws and Test Act, ed. G. Duckett (1882-3), i. 310. Sotherton’s marriage had produced five children, but it is not known whether his only son, Matthew, survived him or whether he was able to continue the male line of this branch of the family.54Norf. Peds. 160. One of the daughters, Anna, married William Bell (1625-83), vicar of St Sepulchre, Holborn, later archdeacon of St Albans.55Blomefield, Norf. x. 431; Oxford DNB, ‘William Bell’.