SHEILD, William (1607-73), of Preston, Rutland.

Sheild belonged to a large family – of yeoman and minor gentry status – that had established itself in and around the parish of Preston, in Rutland, by the end of the sixteenth century.20Preston, Rutland par. reg.; E134/28&29Eliz/Mich14; VCH Rutland, ii. 91. He was probably the William Sheild, son of Stephen of Preston, who was baptised in 1607, and he may have been the man of that name who married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Ireland of Preston, in 1629. However, the future MP made no allusion in his will, written in 1673, to any offspring by what would have been his first marriage (although there are baptismal entries during the 1630s for Anne, Elizabeth and other children of William and Elizabeth) – unless it was a reference to his three grandchildren Thomas, William and Edward Palmer.21Preston, Rutland par. reg.; PROB11/345, f. 90. Not mentioned on the 1629 subsidy roll for Preston, he was assessed for £7 16s. in goods in 1641.22Eg. 2968, f. 114v. That same year (1641) the will of one Edward Ireland of Preston refers to William Sheild ‘yeoman’ of the same, whom he made his executor, and to Sheild’s two daughters Anne and Elizabeth.23PROB11/186, ff. 345, 346. A year later, in 1642, Sheild donated ten shillings towards the relief of Irish Protestants: the largest donation made in his parish.24SP28/194, f. 156.

Sheild sided with Parliament during the civil war, and by June 1644, ‘William Sheild gent’ was serving as ‘general high collector’ of parliamentary revenues for Rutland.25SP28/162, pt. 4, f. 8. In the contested ‘recruiter’ election for the county in 1646, Sheild joined Abel Barker* and other leading freeholders as a party to the indenture returning Sir James Harington and the future regicide Thomas Waite to the Long Parliament.26Supra, ‘Rutland’; C219/43, pt. 2, pieces 114-15; Leics. RO, DE730/3, ff. 54v-55. By June 1650, Sheild had been appointed a captain of horse in the Rutland militia regiment commanded by William Boteler*.27CSP Dom. 1650, p. 214. However, he received no civilian appointments under the Rump and was not added to the county bench until September 1653.28C231/6, p. 269.

The basis of Sheild’s future parliamentary career may well have been his marriage in December 1650 to a daughter of John Cleypoole*. In 1647, Cleypoole’s eldest son John Claypoole* had married a daughter of Oliver Cromwell*, and in 1654 he would be appointed one of the lords of the protector’s bedchamber and his master of horse.29Supra, ‘John Claypoole’; Northants. Par. Regs.: Marriages ed. Phillimore, Faithfull, Longden, i. 20. Sheild’s return for Rutland to the first protectoral Parliament in 1654 probably owed a great deal to his connection with the Cleypoole family, whose proximity to Cromwell would have conferred influence both locally and at Whitehall. Sheild’s only appointment in this Parliament was to the committee of privileges set up at the beginning of the session (5 Sept.), after which he made no recorded impression upon the House’s proceedings.30CJ vii. 366b. Either he was an inactive Member, or he never took his seat in the first place. Another possibility is that he withdrew from the House rather than sign the Recognition pledging to be true and faithful to Cromwell and the protectoral government – although his public career during the 1650s was hardly consistent with that of a principled opponent of the protectorate. As a magistrate, militia captain and a commissioner for securing the peace of the commonwealth, he worked closely with Major-general Boteler, Colonel Francis Hacker* and other Cromwellians during the mid-1650s in administering the decimation tax and suppressing opponents of the protectorate.31Eg. 2986, f. 279; TSP iv. 720; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 323.

Returned for Rutland again in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament, Sheild was named to 18 committees – of which 14 were in the first three months of the session – including those for improving the excise revenues from beer and ale (25 Oct. 1656), the better provision of the ministry (4 Nov.) and for enforcing observance of the Sabbath (18 Feb. 1657).32CJ vii. 445b, 450a, 493b. The majority of his appointments, however, were to committees for handling relatively routine business (public debts, indemnity, naturalisations, recusants) or of local concern – for example, on a bill for the maintenance of Northampton’s ministers (17 Dec. 1656).33CJ vii. 469a. In mid-December 1656, he took care to inform the protectoral council that a cornet in the Northamptonshire militia had spoken slightingly of his brother-in-law Claypoole.34CSP Dom. 1656-7, 191, 225, 243. At the call of the House on 31 December it was resolved, on the motion of Boteler and Isaac Puller, that Sheild’s absence be excused on the grounds that ‘his wife is very ill and he hath hitherto attended close’.35Burton’s Diary, i. 285.

Sheild received only one appointment in relation to the new protectoral constitution, the Humble Petition and Advice, and that was to a committee set up on 7 April 1657 for explaining the House’s adherence to the Humble Petition following Cromwell’s first refusal of the crown.36CJ vii. 521a. This was Sheild’s last appointment in the first session, and he would not be listed among the ‘kinglings’ – that is, the supporters at Westminster of a monarchical settlement. He attended the second session, early in 1658, but received only one committee appointment and made no known contribution to debate – a consistent feature of his parliamentary career.37CJ vii. 588a. Although he was returned for Rutland to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament of 1659, he left no recorded impression upon its proceedings. He was apparently vigilant that summer in rounding up political suspects in Rutland.38CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 117. At the Restoration, rather than sign the declaration of loyalty to Charles II from the leading inhabitants of Rutland, he made his own personal address.39HMC 5th Rep. 398.

Sheild died late in 1673 and was buried at Preston on 10 December of that year.40Preston, Rutland par. reg. In his will, he charged his estate with bequests for his children and grandchildren worth £2,100.41PROB11/345, ff. 88v-89v. Among his legatees was his kinsman, the Inner Temple barrister and future attorney-general and judge, Edward Ward, who was also a native of Preston.42Oxford DNB, ‘Sir Edward Ward’. Sheild was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.