FIELDER, John (c.1614-aft. 1686), of Borough Court, Odiham, Hants.

The Fielders were a yeoman family who had lived at Borough Court in the north of the Hampshire parish of Odiham since 1561.31VCH Hants. iv. 93. In 1630 Fielder’s father pleaded exemption from knighthood composition, claiming that he had been worth less than £40 a year at the time of the coronation.32Add. 21922, ff. 16v, 178, 183. He had four sons, of whom the future MP, John, was the eldest. On the death of Fielder senior in 1638, John therefore inherited most of his lands.33PROB11/178, ff. 59-60; WARD7/92/90. He confirmed his new status by then applying to the College of Arms for a coat of arms.34Grantees of Arms, ed. W.H. Rylands (Harl. Soc. lxvi.), 86. His marriage reinforced his rising social position, as his wife belonged to the Trevors, a wealthy, well-connected court family of Welsh extraction who, as keepers and deputy keepers of Oatlands Park, had links to the neighbouring county.

Fielder’s appointment as sheriff of Hampshire in 1641 marked his debut as a figure in county affairs. However, he took office just at the point when relations between the king and the Long Parliament were coming to a head and, as sheriff, Fielder could not avoid becoming involved in their quarrel. His loyalties were first tested in the aftermath of the king’s attempt to arrest the Five Members. On 28 January 1642 the Commons instructed the Petersfield MP, Sir William Lewis*, to draft a letter to Fielder enquiring as to whether he had received any royal declarations from the new secretary of state, Viscount Falkland (Lucius Cary*).35CJ ii. 402a; PJ i. 213. Reporting from the Commons’ committee meeting in London, John Wylde* was able to confirm to the House on 8 February that Falkland had indeed sent Fielder copies of the king’s declaration against the Five Members. A committee was then appointed to investigate Falkland.36CJ ii. 421a-b; PJ i. 314, 321, 323. Fielder subsequently wrote to the Speaker, William Lenthall*, on this subject, sending him further declarations that he had received from the king.37HMC 5th Rep. 15. This letter was reported to the Commons on 5 April. As a result, a committee was appointed to prepare an order prohibiting sheriffs from reading declarations from the king.38PJ ii. 131; CJ ii. 512a. The decision by the Lords to summon Lord George Digby* to answer charges of high treason soon gave Fielder a reason to seek assistance from Parliament. This time he did so in person. On 29 April he appeared before the Commons to present a petition explaining that he and his bailiffs had been prevented from proclaiming that summons at Portsmouth by the mayor and the deputy mayor.39CJ ii. 548a; LJ v. 28a. Speaker Lenthall then assured Fielder that, ‘the House doth particularly take notice of the good respects and service that you have shown to the performance of the orders of this House’.40CJ ii. 548a. Fielder had, in effect, already sided with Parliament against the king.

Civil war, 1642-8

Others would soon have to make similar choices. By August both sides in Hampshire were raising troops. The governor of Portsmouth, George Goring*, then declared for the king. On 3 September Fielder, Sir William Lewis and Richard Norton*, with other pro-parliamentarian supporters, captured the lightly-defended Southsea Castle.41HMC Portland, i. 61. It was then only a matter of time before Goring surrendered Portsmouth, which he did four days later. Fielder, Lewis and Norton immediately wrote to John Pym* with this news, which Pym was able to report to the Commons the next day.42HMC Portland, i. 61; CJ ii. 758b. Fielder soon joined the Hampshire county committee and the following July he was added by Parliament to the committee for raising money in Hampshire.43CJ iii. 157b; LJ vi. 125a; Add. 24860, ff. 53, 83, 145.

By the autumn of 1643 Sir William Lewis was keen to step down as the governor of Portsmouth. The lord general, the 3rd earl of Essex, wanted to appoint Lord Wharton as his replacement, whereas others favoured Sir William Waller*. On 28 October the Commons sent a delegation of MPs to consult with Wharton and Essex in the hope of resolving this dispute. However, they also asked Fielder to perform those duties in the meantime.44CJ iii. 293a. As Essex kept the position vacant, it is possible that Fielder continued to act as governor until William Jephson* was appointed as the lieutenant-governor in May 1644.45CJ iii. 492b. Fielder saw action in August 1644 when he and his men took part in the siege of Winchester and he was wounded during Edmund Ludlowe II's* attack on Salisbury on 5 December 1644.46Godwin, Civil War in Hants. (1904), 232, 286. Fielder seems not to have been considered for a position in the New Model army. His military career however was not yet over.

The resignation of Samuel Jones* in the spring of 1645 created a vacancy as governor of Farnham. Several candidates were proposed, including Jeremiah Baines* and Christopher Whichcote*. Fielder, as a local man (Odiham was just across the county boundary), however had the support of the Surrey county committee and it was this that persuaded the Commons to favour him when it considered the issue on 5 April 1645.47CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 385, 397, 399, 403; Add. 31116, p. 405; CJ iv. 100b, 117b. The Lords confirmed the appointment a fortnight later.48HMC 6th Rep., 55; LJ vii. 327a. One reason for Farnham’s importance was that the major royalist stronghold, Basing House, lay just over ten miles to the west. As governor, Feilder seems to have used Odiham, located half way between them, as an advance position at which to concentrate some of his forces.49HMC 7th Rep., 686. That August he was ordered by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to send ordnance to the troops besieging Basing House, while the following month he was instructed to send 100 men from the Farnham garrison for that same purpose.50CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 55, 61, 148. Discharged at his own request in late October, he was then appointed to command the Surrey forces sent to besiege Donnington Castle.51LJ vii. 670a, 670b, 671a; CJ iv. 328a. It was probably at that point that he was promoted to the rank of colonel.52SP28/135/8. The following January Parliament voted £500 to pay his men’s arrears.53CJ iv. 422b, 424a; HMC 6th Rep. 97; LJ viii. 142a.

Fielder had in the meantime followed wider events with interest. In early July 1645, writing to Jeremiah Baines, he had reported that the Dorset clubmen were ‘very troublesome’, although he considered that their true loyalties were now apparent, ‘having in some unlucky skirmish there killed some of our men’.54HMC 7th Rep. 686. In that same letter he also noted the publication of the contents of the king’s letters captured at Naseby, subsequently printed as The King’s Cabinet Opened. Fielder welcomed these revelations as exposing Charles I’s actual intentions.55HMC 7th Rep. 686.

Fielder was recruited into the Long Parliament for St Ives at some point between March 1647 and April 1648, probably on the interest of Francis Godolphin II*.56Supra, ‘St Ives’. He was completely inactive before the purge of 6 December 1648 and was absent at the call of the House on 24 April 1648.57CJ v. 543b. His career as an MP would really only take off under the Rump.

MP in the Rump, 1649-53

By late 1648 Fielder had spent almost two years apparently doing nothing in Parliament. That changed following the expulsion of the moderates and the execution of the king. He had evidently taken the dissent to the vote of 5 December and resumed his seat by 20 February 1649, when he was named to the committee on the bill to abolish cathedral chapters.58CJ vi. 147b. Over the next four years he became a very visible presence at Westminster. The reason for such a marked and sudden change is not clear. Part of the explanation may be that in a much-reduced House any active MP found themselves with more to do. Some, moreover, have seen Fielder as a conservative force, apparently working hard to stem the radicalism of his colleagues, although much of that depends on some questionable assumptions about his supposed opposition to law reform.59Worden, Rump Parliament, 62, 116; Coleby, Hants 1649-1689, 75. Fielder may not have been so conservative after all.

That he would be an active Member of the Rump soon became clear. He was among MPs sent to accompany the elector palatine, Charles Louis, to Gravesend as a diplomatic courtesy in mid-March 1649.60CJ vi. 163b. That he was included on the committee concerning the records of the House of Lords (19 Mar.) suggests that he accepted the abolition of the second chamber.61CJ vi. 168b. A supporter of harsh measures against the Levellers, he was teller in the majority on 12 May against putting the question that the Leveller leaders should be allowed maintenance during their imprisonment.62CJ vi. 208a. On 19 September he and John Dove* were given charge of the new committee on pensions.63CJ vi. 298a. On 12 October he was among MPs appointed to ensure that all their colleagues took the Engagement.64CJ vi. 307b. He was ordered on 9 April 1650 to bring in a bill concerning the Westminster militia.65CJ vi. 394a.

Fielder took a particular interest in the bill to settle Westminster School and the Westminster almshouses, giving progress reports to the House on 19 June, 21 August and 18 September 1649.66CJ vi. 225a, 237a-b, 283a, 295a, 297b. He was one of the governors named in the resulting Act.67A. and O. A cynical interpretation of his motivation is possible. The lands with which the school and the almshouses were endowed under the Act included the manor of Islip, one of the former properties of the dean and chapter of Westminster Abbey. The following year, in what might be considered an abuse of his position, Fielder (together with John Staunton) bought this manor from his fellow governors.68VCH Oxon. vi. 210. In 1651 he bought another Oxfordshire estate, the manor of Bampton Deanery, which had previously belonged to the chapter of Exeter Cathedral.69VCH Oxon. xiii. 49.

Fielder presumably fully supported the reconquest of Ireland, being added to the committees on the Irish contributions (4 July 1649) and Irish affairs (20 July).70CJ vi. 249b, 266b. Later, following the taking of Drogheda, he was appointed to ask Stephen Marshall to preach at the day of thanksgiving for Cromwell’s victories.71CJ vi. 301a. On 3 October he was teller in the minority with Henry Marten* against allowing the Irish committee to pay the arrears of Algernon Sydney*.72CJ vi. 302b. In June 1650 he was one of five MPs nominated to receive the £2,000 granted to fund the travel costs of anyone wishing to relocate from England to Ireland.73CJ vi. 418b. The following December he sat on the committee considering the petition from the Irish Adventurers (20 Dec.).74CJ vi. 512b.

His committee appointments relating to religion included those on the bill for the maintenance of preaching ministers (26 Apr. 1649), for regulating the universities (4 May), for propagating the gospel in New England (13 June), on the bills for the maintenance of ministers in Bristol (15 Feb. 1650), Colchester (24 May), Yorkshire (7 June) and Coventry (23 Aug.), on the additional bill for the maintenance of ministers (15 Mar.).75CJ vi. 196a, 199b, 201a, 231a, 365b, 382b, 416a, 420b, 458b. Meanwhile, in February and March 1650 he had reported twice to the House from the committee on the bill to suppress incest, adultery and fornication.76CJ vi. 366a, 385b. Moreover, he was included on the committee on the bill for the suppression of the Ranters (24 June).77CJ vi. 430b. In early July 1650 he was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers.78CJ vi. 437a. All this tends to suggest that he was of Presbyterian sympathies.

He seems to have taken at least some interest in the public finances. On 8 May 1649 he was named to the committee on the bill for taking the public accounts.79CJ vi. 204b. Two months later he was named to the committee on the bill for the sale of the former crown estates (7 July).80CJ vi. 254a. Later that year he sat on the committee to review all expenditure being funded by the excise (23 Nov.).81CJ vi. 325a.

He was added to the Committee for Compounding on 2 November 1649, but seems never to have attended any of its meetings.82CJ vi. 318a; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 373. Several weeks later he was also named to the committee on the bill concerning sequestered estates (11 Dec.).83CJ vi. 330b. His interest in this subject was probably more personal than simply a concern to oversee the compounding process. On 21 July Parliament had agreed that he should be paid £1,148 11s 1d for his arrears from his time as governor of Portsmouth.84CJ vi. 266b-267a. On 31 August, however, this was made dependent on him uncovering concealed lands to the Committees for Advance of Money and for Compounding.85CJ vi. 286a, 288b-289a, vii. 108b. He had already in October 1649 reported several such cases to the Committee for Advance of Money.86CCAM 1145, 1148. He similarly presented evidence to the Compounding Committee in February 1650 that a Yorkshire royalist, Sir Michael Warton (father of Michael Warton*), had concealed the true value of his sequestered estates. As a result, Fielder was granted half of Warton’s composition fine of £1,450 in late 1652.87CCC 404, 956-8; HMC 7th Rep. 122. Meanwhile, in March 1652, Parliament had granted him a total of £2,348 11s 1d from other compounding revenues as his reward for all his information on undervaluations.88CJ vii. 108b; CCAM 1149. Fielder also had a direct personal interest in one of the major compounding cases. By the spring of 1650, Fielder was acting as the guardian to the children of John Denham†, the royalist poet (and another former governor of Farnham), and so became a tenant of some of Denham’s sequestered estates on their behalf. In 1654 he would buy some of Denham’s lands at Horsenden, Buckinghamshire.89CCC 1790-3.

On 13 September 1650, after Cromwell’s victory at Dunbar, Fielder was ordered to ask William Strong, pastor of a congregation which met at Westminster Abbey, to preach before Parliament.90CJ vi. 468b. Appointed to a committee to review the poor laws on 9 October, Fielder was inactive thereafter until 6 December when he was teller on a minor question with Luke Robinson*.91CJ vi. 481a, 506b. Over the following weeks he was named to several committees, including those on the bill for auditing soldiers’ accounts (15 Jan. 1651) and on complaints about the militia (28 Jan.).92CJ vi. 512b, 513a, 524a, 528b. He was again teller on 28 January against adhering to the vote to send Oliver St John* as ambassador to the United Provinces.93CJ vi. 528b.

On 10 February 1651 Fielder was narrowly elected to the council of state, securing the penultimate place. He and Lord Lisle (Philip Sidney*) were then the tellers in favour of Sir William Brereton* in the vote for the final place.94CJ vi. 532b-533a. Over the next ten months Fielder was one of the most regular attenders at meetings of the council.95CSP Dom. 1651, pp. xxv-xxxv. In that time he also sat on a variety of council committees, including those on timber, the admiralty, the mint, the safety of the commonwealth, repairs to the former royal palaces and the post office.96CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 63, 66, 67, 315, 403, 410, 464. That April he and Sir James Harington* were asked by the council to compile information on the garrisons throughout England.97CSP Dom. 1651, p. 155. When, in June, the council wished to invite Joseph Caryll, the lecturer at Westminster Abbey, to become their preacher, Fielder was sent to inform him.98CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 241, 263.

Given that he had already been so active, his membership of the council cannot be said to have increased his profile in Parliament. Only occasionally did he formally act as the council’s spokesman in debates. However, he was soon being named to the committees on the powers of the admiralty (13 Feb.) and on the indemnity bill (4 Mar.).99CJ vi. 534a, 544b. On 28 February he reported from the council that there were no funds with which to contract for the supply of the public stores.100CSP Dom. 1651, p. 59; CJ vi. 542a. Inactive at Westminster throughout most of March, he was named to the committee to transact with Portugal on 9 April and, a week later, on the bill to annul titles granted by the late king.101CJ vi. 558a. 562b. That same day he was the teller with Valentine Wauton* in the minority against accepting the temporary arrangements for the security of Dover Castle.102CJ vi. 563a. He was again a teller on 5 June against giving a second reading to the proviso in the first bill for the sale of confiscated estates to enable trustees to give allowances to delinquents’ dependants.103CJ vi. 584b. Later, on 8 July, he and Thomas Scot I* were the tellers for those who tried to oppose the appointment of John Baker as the surveyor-general named in that bill, while on eight days later they were then tellers for those who wanted to include the lands of Maximilian Mohun in the sale.104CJ vi. 599a, 604b. He was on 5 August ordered to take charge of the committee to investigate the claim that the Compounding Committee’s report on the delinquency of Sir Richard Gurney, a former lord mayor of London, had not been sufficiently proved.105CJ vi. 616b. On 6 September he was one of those MPs asked to consider how Cromwell ought to be rewarded for his victory at Worcester three days earlier.106CJ vi. 13b. The following week he was also a member of the committee on how to assist those parliamentarian supporters who had suffered in that battle.107CJ vii. 15a. Meanwhile, he sat on the council committee which organised the MPs’ dinner held to mark this victory.108CSP Dom. 1651, p. 431. On 1 October he was named to the committee on the bill to grant Irish lands to Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*).109CJ vii. 23b.

Fielder assisted in the conduct of the election to the fourth council of state on 24 November 1651, but was not himself re-elected.110CJ vii. 42b. Four days later, some six weeks after he had been asked to raise the matter in Parliament by the council, he requested instructions for the disposal of prisoners taken at Worcester, who were being held at St James’s Palace.111CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 426, 431, 478-9; 1651-2, p. 8; CJ vii. 46a. He took the part of Sir Arthur Hesilrige* against John Lilburne following the petition of Josiah Primatt, owner of a Durham colliery, acting as a teller on 6 January 1652 in favour of widening the terms of reference of the committee investigating the petition’s printing.112CJ vii. 55b, 64a. He was subsequently a teller on 15 January in favour of proceeding with the committee’s report.113CJ vii. 71b. Six days after that he was also named to the committee on the bill against Lilburne.114CJ vii. 75b. He partnered Hesilrige in the division on 17 March against exempting 2nd Baron Lovelace from the interest penalty imposed on him for non-payment of his composition fine.115CJ vii. 106b. On 12 May he headed the list of MPs appointed to make arrangements for the payments of the debts owed by the late John Pym.116CJ vii. 131b. In late August he was included on the committee for petitions, while in late September he sat on the committee on the bill to bar delinquents from holding civic office.117CJ vii. 171b, 187b.

The fate of the sequestered estates remained a particular concern. As before, this may partly have been related to his military arrears, especially as the August 1649 order that those were to be paid to him was reiterated by Parliament on 24 March 1652.118CJ vii. 108b. But there were other, more public reasons. When Fielder reported to the House on 26 March on the case of Robert Mason, who wanted to compound for some of the estates of the late Archbishop William Laud, it was with the aim that most of that money would be used to pay the navy.119CJ vii. 111a-b. But the important issue was now raising money not so much from the compounding fines as from the sale of the remaining sequestered estates. This was a shift that Fielder seems to have supported. On 30 March he and John Corbett* took charge of the bill appointing new commissioners for compounding.120CJ vii. 112a. He was subsequently a teller in three of the divisions over the inclusion of individuals in that bill (2, 8 July), as well as in a similar division relating to the additional bill on the same subject passed later that year (10 Nov.).121CJ vii. 149a, 151b, 154b, 189a, 205a, 213a. When a committee was created on 27 July to answer the various queries submitted by the compounding commissioners, Fielder was a member.122CJ vii. 158b. On 19 November, the day after the additional bill was passed, he and William Say* were ordered to draft a bill to raise £100,000 by borrowing against the sales authorised by the earlier bill.123CJ vii. 218b. Earlier, on 6 April, he had been named to the committee on further sales of church lands.124CJ vii. 115a. On 27 November he was also named to the committee asked to consider how to raise loans secured against the future sales of more former royal lands.125CJ vii. 222b.

In September 1652 Fielder bought the lease on the Newcastle-upon-Tyne coal imposts which had been confiscated from the royalist, Sir Thomas Ashfield. This was doubtless because his in-laws, the Trevors, had long possessed similar rights over the Newcastle coal trade. Under this deal, Fielder paid £825 for one-fifth of the revenues from the taxes on coal being shipped from the Tyne to anywhere in England for the next seven years.126CCC 2259, 2261-2. He also acquired the leases to other parts of Ashfield’s sequestered estates.127CCAM 1335.

Fielder was one of the four MPs who counted the ballot papers in the elections for the fifth council of state on 24 and 25 November 1652.128CJ vii. 220a-b. He himself received 40 votes in the second ballot, which was just enough to secure him a place on the new council.129CJ vii. 221a. He was joined on it by his father-in-law. His attendance at council meetings was again more assiduous than that of most of his colleagues.130CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. xxviii-xxxiii. The council committees on which he sat this time including those on the admiralty, foreign affairs, the mint and Scottish and Irish affairs.131CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 2, 38, 48, 128. Unsurprisingly, he was one of the councillors given the job of interrogating John Denham in March 1653 on his return from France in the company of Lord Herbert (William Herbert†), the eldest son of the 5th earl of Pembroke (Philip Herbert, Lord Herbert*).132CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 193.

Fielder’s supposed opposition to reform of the legal system rests on his role in the division on 31 March 1653 on the bill for probate of wills. Fielder did have some interest in the subject of law reform. In December 1651 he had been a member of the committee which had nominated the members of the Hale commission, chaired by Matthew Hale*, and he had since been included on that committee whenever it had been revived.133CJ vii. 58b, 107b, 253b. The probate bill before the Commons in late March 1653 was undoubtedly a stopgap measure intended to delay more radical reform. Moreover, that Fielder and Sir Henry Vane II* were the tellers for those who wanted the duration of this temporary arrangement to be extended to 1 October of that year means that they can fairly be seen as supporting this particular bill.134CJ vii. 274a. But that is not quite the same as saying that Fielder opposed further reform in principle.

This was not his only contribution during the Rump’s final months. On 17 December he was added to the Army Committee.135CJ vii. 230b. On 28 January 1653 he and Sir James Harington* were the tellers for those who, by getting the question blocked, prevented the radical preacher, William Dell, being invited to preach before Parliament.136CJ vii. 252a. Meanwhile, the council had asked him on 26 February to seek more money from Parliament for public expenditure, although, after Fielder failed to do so, this task was instead assigned to Sir Henry Mildmay*.137CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 187, 196, 200. Fielder’s final committee apointment before Cromwell dismissed the Rump was on one of his familiar subjects, the latest bill for the sale for forfeited estates (1 Mar.).138CJ vii. 263b. On 23 March the council asked him to seek Parliament’s approval for the instructions for the ambassador to be sent to Constantinople.139CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 233.

Later career

The fall of the Rump created a hiatus in Fielder’s political career. Possibly, this was partly because of personal reasons, as in May 1653, in the immediate aftermath of the dissolution, he was reported to be ill.140CCC 2261. And, although he was not named to any other commissions under the protectorate, he did continue as a justice of the peace. It was in that capacity that he wrote in July 1655 to Francis Rous* seeking a pass from the council of state to allow a former royalist to travel to attend the next Surrey and Essex assizes.141CSP Dom. 1655, p. 256; 1657-8, p. 330. He is not be confused with his namesake, the John Fielder who was a London printer and who by the late 1650s had become a prominent Quaker.142CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 147-8.

Fielder resumed his career in national politics in the 1659 Parliament. Refusing to stand for the constituency ‘where he else certainly had been chosen’, he was put up at Castle Rising by Henry Howard, the Catholic younger brother of the 16th and 23rd earl of Arundel, seemingly at the request of the secretary of state, John Thurloe*.143TSP vii. 643. Sent up on a double return after ‘great disorder and confusion’ at the poll, Fielder was declared elected by the Commons on the merit of that return on 3 February.144TSP vii. 642-4; CJ vii. 598a, 626b; Burton’s Diary, iii. 50-1. In the Commons he joined his brother-in-law, John Trevor*, in supporting the government, but he was not an active member, with no committee appointments and only 12 recorded speeches, mainly on procedural points. In the debate on the recognition bill on 9 February, Fielder spoke in support of the Petition and Advice because, although it was ‘in some things imperfect’, he considered that, ‘there is nothing clear in [it] to limit the negative voice, but that of money; which your chief magistrate will stand more need of than you will do of laws, having the old laws’.145Burton’s Diary, iii. 170. The next day he agreed that they should vote on the motion that the bill be committed.146Burton’s Diary, iii. 195. Later, on 24 February, he moved to substitute ‘Parliament’ for ‘House’ in the question on the power of disposing of the militia, while on 28 February he seconded Trevor’s motion that in future the Members of the Other House should be approved by both Houses.147Burton’s Diary, iii. 460, 545. On 11 March he acted as teller with Edward Gravener* in favour of bringing in candles amid ‘great noise and horrid confusion’ to continue the debate on the right of the Scottish Members to sit.148CJ vii. 613a; Burton’s Diary, iv. 138-9. In the debate on pardoning Robert Overton on 16 March, Fielder supported Trevor by moving that the other three prisoners should be included in the question to declare the imprisonment illegal.149Burton’s Diary, iv. 159, 161. When the House voted by voice on 19 March on whether to adjourn the debate on the status of the Scottish MPs, Fielder challenged the acting Speaker, Thomas Bampfylde*, when he declared that motion had been passed and so forced a division which then showed that Bampfylde had been right after all.150Burton’s Diary, iv. 202. He was no more successful five days later when he moved, with John Maynard* seconding him, that the charges against William Petty* should not be read in his absence.151Burton’s Diary, iv. 245. However, his participation in this Parliament was brought to abrupt end on 6 April when his election was declared void because of irregularities in the poll.152CJ vii. 626b; Burton’s Diary, iv. 318, 350-1.

Fielder had taken his seat in the restored Rump by 4 June 1659 when he was named to the committee on the bill to make Charles Fleetwood* commander-in-chief.153CJ vii. 672b. He was named to a further five committees, the most important of which was on the bill for the sale of delinquents’ estates (5 Aug.), but he was absent at the call of the House on 30 September and so was fined £5.154CJ vii. 705b, 706a, 748b, 763b, 789b. Returning to Westminster with the re-assembly of the restored Rump on 27 December, he acted as teller with his father-in-law against Thomas Scot I and John Fagge* in the vote on whether John White should be appointed as a customs commissioner.155CJ vii. 798a. Three days later he was appointed a teller in the elections to the council.156CJ vii. 801a. He then sat on the committees on the bill to appoint the Army Committee (13 Jan. 1660) and to investigate the management of the post office under Edmund Prideaux I* (2 Feb.).157CJ vii. 811a, 833b. He supported the readmission of the secluded Members, attending the second secret meeting held by George Monck*, and, after their re-admission, he again helped count the ballot papers in the elections for the council of state on 23 February.158Diurnal of Thomas Rugg, ed. W.L. Sachse (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. xci.), 43; CJ vii. 849a. During the dying days of the Long Parliament, he was included on the committees on the London militia bill (29 Feb.), on assistance for widows, orphans and wounded soldiers (1 Mar.) and on the bill to revive the duchy of Lancaster and the palatinate of Chester (3 Mar.).159CJ vii. 856a, 857a, 860b.

During the Convention of 1660 Michael Warton†, grandson of Sir Michael Warton, tried without success to get a proviso added to the bill for indemnity and oblivion to allow him to sue Fielder for the money he had been granted from his grandfather’s composition.160HMC 7th Rep. 122. The Restoration seems otherwise to have reduced Fielder’s public profile to almost nothing. By the summer of 1660 he had been removed from all offices. He was however still alive, aged 72, in 1686.161Vis. Hants. 1686, 170. His date of death is unknown. Either he or his eldest son, John junior, sold Borough Court in 1699.162VCH Hants. iv. 93.