CAPELL, Arthur (1604-49), of Little Hadham, Herts.

Capell was descended from Sir William Capell†, a Suffolk-born lord mayor of London who represented the City in three early Tudor Parliaments and who purchased the manor of Little Hadham in 1506. This MP’s great-grandfather, Henry Capell†, was knight of the shire for Hertfordshire in 1563, while his father, Henry†, sat for Boston in 1601. After his father’s death in 1622, Arthur Capell’s upbringing was supervised by his grandfather, Sir Arthur Capell, who refused him permission to travel abroad on the grounds that ‘his calling is to be a country gentleman wherein there is little or no use of foreign experience’, although he also feared that he might be converted by ‘wicked priests and Jesuits’.38Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 238n.

Sir Arthur also moved quickly to seek an advantageous marriage for his grandson. In 1623 he concluded an agreement with the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*) by which Salisbury’s eldest daughter, Lady Anne Cecil, was promised in marriage to Capell. The portion would have been £5,000.39Hatfield House, CFEP Deeds 217/5; Add. 40631B, f. 33. But an even more enticing possibility soon presented itself. Elizabeth Morrison was the only surviving child of Sir Charles Morrison and therefore stood to inherit Morrison’s substantial estates centred on Cassiobury. Moreover, her mother was due to inherit half of the large fortune of her father, Viscount Campden (Sir Baptist Hicks†). Morrison made it clear that he was prepared to be generous in whatever immediate settlement was made for the newly-wedded couple.40HMC Buccleuch, iii. 319. This including presenting them with his lands at St Stephen’s, Hertfordshire, as part of the marriage settlement.41VCH Herts. ii. 424-5. The result was that the wedding between Capell and Elizabeth Morrison went ahead in November 1627.42VCH Herts. Fams. 94. (Anne Cecil then married Algernon Percy†, later the 4th earl of Northumberland.)

Capell soon gained the full benefit of the Morrison inheritance, as Sir Charles died less than a year later, leaving Elizabeth extensive estates in Hertfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Bedfordshire and London.43CJ vi. 203a-204a; Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 237; Chauncy, Herts. ii. 354; VCH Herts. ii. 182, 238, 453, 459. Capell’s landholdings expanded yet further four year later on the death of Sir Arthur Capell, whereupon he inherited most of his own family’s estates.44VCH Herts. iv. 52. All this made Capell one of the richest commoners in England with property in ten counties. Edward Hyde* came to know Capell well during the 1640s and his eldest son, Henry†, later 2nd earl of Clarendon, would be briefly married to one of Capell’s daughters, Theodosia. Writing many years later, he summed up Capell’s financial position by saying that he had ‘a very noble fortune of his own by descent and a fair addition to it by his marriage with an excellent wife’.45Clarendon, Hist. iv. 510.

This wealth allowed Capell to live on a grand scale. The incomplete accounts of one of his servants show that he spent at least £700 in London on Capell’s behalf between 1629 and 1631.46Hatfield House, CP 200/108a-h. The author of the brief, anonymous life which prefaced the 1683 republication of Capell’s collection of religious maxims declared that, ‘In our too happy time of peace none was more pious, charitable and munificent’.47A. Capel, Excellent Contemplations, Divine and Moral (1683), 3. As early as 1636 there was speculation that Capell, who certainly had the means to support the dignity, would soon be raised to the peerage.48HMC 4th Rep. 292. The result of his extravagance was that by 1642 he had debts of over £20,000.49L. Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558-1641 (Oxford, 1965), 780. The well-known painting by Cornelius Johnson (now in the National Portrait Gallery) depicting Capell, his wife and five of their children with the formal gardens of Little Hadham in the background shows him at the height of his prosperity.50NPG 4759.

In the Short Parliament election in Hertfordshire in mid-March 1640 many of the voters were probably seeking representatives who would stand up to the king. Capell’s success was probably predicated on his support for a wide-ranging petition condemning many aspects of royal policy which was circulating prior to the poll.51Procs. Short Parl., 277-8. The previous year he had refused to contribute to the costs of the king’s journey to the north to fight the Scottish Covenanters.52Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 912. All that is known about Capell’s role in this Parliament is that he was nominated for the joint conference with the Lords on 22 April to set a date for the proposed fast day.53CJ ii. 9a.

The following September Capell and Sir William Lytton*, as the two former knights of the shire, travelled to York to present the county’s grievances to the king.54Add. 11045, f. 121v; Autobiography and Corresp. of Sir Simonds D’Ewes, ed. J.O. Halliwell (1845), ii. 242. At about the same time the rector of Much Hadham, Thomas Paske, who was also the master of Clare College, Cambridge, wrote to Capell and Sir John Watts about ‘that barbarous and most impious fact’, a reference to an attack on the altar rails and the stained glass in the church at Hadham.55Herts. County Recs. i. 68; Hazell, Fidelity and Fortitude, 14. Paske’s Laudian tastes may have been similar to Capell’s own. Capell and Lytton were re-elected as the Hertfordshire knights of the shire on 22 October.

Capell has often been seen as a classic example of an MP who began the Long Parliament supporting reform but who rapidly became disconcerted by the radicalism of some of his colleagues. This does fit most of the facts. Instances of his apparent support for criticism of royal policies are easy enough to find. Indeed, at the outset he made what looked like a grand gesture of opposition. On 7 November he presented a petition from Hertfordshire that set out a long list of grievances, evidently including the recent religious innovations, purveyance, monopolies, Ship Money, infrequent Parliaments, the new ecclesiastical Canons, clerical non-residence and the state of the trained bands.56Procs. LP, i. 32-3, 38, 39, 42, 46; CJ ii. 22b. This seems to have been either the same petition or a revised version of the one for which signatures had been collected in the county at the time of the Short Parliament election. It was now the first of many such petitions from throughout the kingdom heard by the Long Parliament. Its presentation at this particular moment, helping to set the reformist agenda just as the Commons got down to serious business, could well have been orchestrated. Three days later Capell was named to the committee on the state of the kingdom.57CJ ii. 25a.

Capell’s other activity in these opening weeks struck similar notes. On 23 November, after the attempted assassination of Peter Heywood† had fuelled fears of Catholic plots, Capell drew comparisons with all the troubles caused by Catholics in France, Germany, the Low Countries and Spain and in England during the previous three reigns.58Procs. LP, i. 250, 259. His late grandfather would have been pleased. Such views doubtless explain why it was on Capell’s motion that John Bastwick, the anti-Catholic polemicist who had been prosecuted by the court of high commission, was called in to speak to the House on 9 December.59Procs. LP, i. 525, 538. He was subsequently appointed to the committee subsequently appointed to consider Bastwick’s petition.60CJ ii. 52b. Other committee appointments, such as those on the high court of chivalry (23 Nov.) and the courts of star chamber and high commission (3 Dec.), indicate alignment with the king’s critics.61CJ ii. 34b, 44b, 45b, 75a. Moreover, it was his presentation of a petition from the inhabitants of Watford on 5 December against the ‘vigorous’ collection of Ship Money two years earlier that prompted the setting up of a committee to inquire into such abuses.62Procs. LP, i. 471; CJ ii. 45b.

But already there were indications of his willingness to adopt stances on controversial issues that were more nuanced than that of his colleagues. A case in point was the proceedings against the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†). The Commons considered the impeachment articles against the earl on 24 November. After Sir William Masham* moved that they vote on each article separately, Capell objected, arguing instead that they should vote on all the articles together. This was never likely to be accepted and he was overruled.63Procs. LP, i. 269. Nevertheless, on 16 February 1641 Capell proposed the motion that the Lords should compel Strafford to give his answer to their charges without further delay.64Procs. LP, ii. 462. Capell’s proposal on 11 December 1640 that the London petition against the bishops (the ‘Root and Branch’ petition) should be sealed for the time being so that the identities of the signatories should not be known won the support of John Pym*, who seconded him, and was approved by the House.65Northcote Note Bk. 52; CJ ii. 49b. But he seems to have felt that the petition went too far. When, eight weeks later, the Commons finally got round to debating whether to appoint a committee on the petition, he spoke against it.66Procs. LP, ii. 391. In the debate on the lord keeper (John Finch†) on 19 December 1640, he was in favour of Finch submitting to the Commons but he also thought that he deserved to be allowed to answer the charges against him.67Northcote Note Bk. 86.

Previous accounts of Capell’s parliamentary career have underestimated the extent to which one specific issue dominated his thinking. Most of his efforts were devoted to securing funding for the army which had been raised to fight the Scots and which was still under arms in the north of England. The obligation imposed on the king under the terms of the treaty of Ripon to fund both the English and the Covenanter armies made this all the more difficult. Yet disbanding them would require even more money in the short term. Moreover, the political significance of this issue was ambiguous. For many in the Commons disbandment was about dismantling a military force that they feared could be used against them by the king. But it could equally be seen as the only way of removing from England a Scottish army that, to some, seemed dangerously pro-Presbyterian. Both considerations probably influenced Capell’s thinking.

Capell was quick to make his mark in related debates on this subject. On 19 November 1640 Capell took the view that the planned loan from the London financiers would be insufficient to pay troops even in the short term.68Procs. LP, i. 189. However, when the Commons met as a committee of the whole House two days later to discuss this further, Capell personally offered security of £1,000 to underwrite part of the loan. Numerous other MPs followed his example and soon security for the whole loan of £100,000 had been obtained.69Procs. LP, i. 228, 231. Later that same day Capell was included on the committee appointed to establish just how much money these armies needed.70CJ ii. 34a.

During the subsidy debate on 23 December Capell argued in favour of granting four subsidies because anything less would be exhausted in army pay within weeks. Once the committee of the whole House had agreed that those four subsidies would be granted, it was proposed that Sir Thomas Barrington*, Capell and Sir Robert Pye I* should serve as the receivers for this money. Barrington, Capell and Pye all indicated their willingness to serve, but these appointments were never confirmed.71Northcote Note Bk. 106, 108; Procs. LP, ii. 35, 38. Capell alone was added to the committee for the king’s army on 16 January 1641 after it was instructed to find ways of keeping these forces together until more money could be found.72CJ ii. 69a. In response to Pym’s suggestion on 20 February that the Londoners be compelled to lend money, Capell caused general consternation in the House by saying ‘that if he knew his own son had money and would not lend it upon this occasion, he would torture him’.73Procs. LP, ii. 500. His colleagues took him at his word and so appointed him three days later as one of the 12 MPs who were to raise loans from the City merchants.74CJ ii. 91b. When he reported back the next day, he boasted that he had one potential lender for £20,000 already lined up if only they were able to offer sufficient guarantees of repayment.75Procs. LP, ii. 532, 535. It was probably not a coincidence that later that day he was included on the committee to investigate abuses by the customs farmers.76CJ ii. 92a. He spoke again when the Commons returned to the subject of these loans on 27 February, apparently arguing that, if necessary, they should continue borrowing the money required until the Scots had returned to Scotland.77Procs. LP, ii. 579.

In an attempt to raise a loan on the security of the subsidies, Capell moved on 6 March that 25 MPs should join with the lord mayor and aldermen of London to raise a further £100,000. Those 25 naturally included himself.78Procs. LP, ii. 652, 655. But he subsequently had the embarrassing task of explaining to the Commons on 9 March that the lord mayor and aldermen had refused to cooperate.79Procs. LP, ii. 679. Meanwhile, on 8 March, he moved for a conference with the Lords on the treaty with the Scots and, after the Commons had agreed, he carried this request to the Lords.80Procs. LP, ii. 664, 665; CJ ii. 99a; LJ iv. 178a. But any desire on his part for a deal with the Scots was not based on mutual affection but rather on continuing suspicion about their motives. On 6 April Sir John Hotham* reported to the House on proposals that neither army should be permitted to move without Parliament’s permission. Capell agreed, but proposed the further stipulation that if the Scots advanced beyond the Tees they would deemed to be their enemies.81Procs. LP, iii. 413, 417. Meanwhile, on 17 March he had reported to the House from the committee on the private bill concerning the estates of the 5th marquess of Winchester (Lord John Paulet†).82CJ ii. 103b, 106a.

Strafford’s trial, which overshadowed all other business during late March and early April 1641, was intertwined with this since, as the former lieutenant-general of the English northern army, he was accused of encouraging and exploiting the conflict between the two kingdoms. His alleged past misconduct fed into fears about how that army might be misused in the future. Possibly as a result, Capell seems to have been happy to see the attack on the earl proceed. On 6 March he was one of 48 MPs appointed for the joint conference with the Lords on the preparations for the trial.83CJ ii. 98a. Nine days later he advised the House that, according to the lord great chamberlain, the 1st earl of Lindsey, and the surveyor of the king’s works, Inigo Jones†, the workmen would not be able to complete the seating for the trial in Westminster Hall in the time available.84Procs. LP, ii. 753, 756. By mid-April some of Strafford’s critics in the Commons had concluded that the impeachment might well be unsuccessful and that they should instead proceed against the earl by a bill of attainder. Capell gave the impression of supporting this. During the debate on the subject on 14 April, he suggested that the written deposition from the earl of Northumberland which had been submitted as evidence at the trial should be re-read. His intention may have been to remind MPs that Northumberland had confirmed the existence of plans to transfer troops from Ireland to Scotland. However, Capell’s motion was blocked by Sir Philip Stapilton*, who had himself given evidence at the trial, on the grounds that all the other statements would then have to be re-read as well.85Procs. LP, iii. 403-4, 556.

The next day Capell was sent to the Lords to desire a conference so that the Commons could inform peers of their intention to bring in the attainder bill.86CJ ii. 120b, 121a; LJ iv. 217b. Once that bill had been sent to the Lords, Capell was again called on to assist in resolving peers’ confusion as to how to proceed (21, 22 Apr.).87CJ ii. 125b; LJ iv. 225a; Procs. LP, iv. 61. There is no doubt that he had voted in favour of the bill when it had been before the Commons. On the eve of his own execution eight years later he would tell George Morley, the future bishop of Worcester and Winchester, that he had voted against Strafford ‘out of a base fear’ of the ‘prevailing party’.88HMC 12th Rep. ix. 35; Capel, Excellent Contemplations, 138-9. Moreover, on the scaffold the next day he similarly expressed regret at his ‘unworthy cowardice not to resist so great a torrent as carried that business’, although he also averred that ‘malice I had none’.89Capel, Excellent Contemplations, 197; Several Speeches, 39.

Capell took the Protestation on 3 May.90CJ ii. 133a. Five days later he reported from the joint conference on the state of the navy, informing the House that the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†) had proposed that steps be taken to authorise the impressment of sailors. Capell was then sent to tell the Lords that MPs would be willing to agree to a joint order to that effect.91CJ ii. 139b; LJ iv. 240b. When the exposure of the first army plot confirmed just how dangerous continuing the forces in the north might be, Capell was included on the committee created on 2 June to investigate whether loans could be raised on the basis of melted plate to pay them off.92Procs. LP, iv. 691; CJ ii. 165a. On 18 June, after the loan from the Merchant Adventurers was cancelled, Capell was named to the committee to draft a bill for a poll tax to make up the shortfall.93CJ ii. 180a. When Parliament appointed a commission to oversee the payments to the Scots, he was among 16 MPs nominated to it.94CJ ii. 182b. As progress was made on this, Capell participated in discussions with the Lords on 26 June about the king’s proposed visit to Scotland.95CJ ii. 189b.

Capell’s role in securing the funding that would make the disbandment possible was recognised on 3 July when he was given the honour of carrying the associated bill to the Lords, together with the bills abolishing the courts of star chamber and high commission.96CJ ii. 197b; LJ iv. 298b. This resulted in a certain amount of confusion. On Pym’s suggestion, Capell was told to ask that the Lords encourage the king to approve the latter two bills. Slightly misunderstanding what he had been told to do, Capell informed the Lords that the Commons wanted them to send a delegation to the king, whereas the Commons had merely been thinking in terms of a written communication.97Procs. LP, v. 477, 480. His inexperience was also evident on 5 July when, contrary to tradition, he tried to move a bill (against abuses by sheriffs) when the Commons was waiting to be summoned to the Lords to hear the king. Other MPs shouted him down.98Procs. LP, v. 497, 498.

On 9 July the Lords sought a joint conference to discuss the proposed disbandment. Afterwards Capell reported to the Commons that the disbandment had already begun, assuring them that ‘the army was ever willing to obey the directions of the Parliament’.99CJ ii. 205a; Procs. LP, v. 576, 579. When the French ambassador sought permission from Charles I for his country to recruit some of these ex-soldiers, Capell was a reporter of the joint conference between the Houses which discussed this.100LJ iv. 320a; CJ ii. 217b. On 23 July he and several other MPs offered to lend money to expedite the payments to the northern army; Capell advanced £1,000.101CJ ii. 222a. (This was repaid to him in early 1642.)102CJ ii. 440a; PJ i. 411. Since improving the trained bands could be seen as a necessary corollary to the decision to pay off the army, Capell supported the new legislation for that purpose.103CJ ii. 212b, 223a. When the Lords wanted further conferences about the disbandment on 28 July and 4 August, he was again one of the reporters.104CJ ii. 228a, 235b. Perhaps appropriately, his final appointment as an MP came on 5 August when he was included on the committee to prepare for another conference with the Lords on that same subject.105CJ ii. 238b.

Rumours that the king intended to raise Capell to the peerage had been circulating for several weeks.106CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 38. A patent creating him Baron Capell of Hadham was issued on 5 August.107CP. At least initially, the Commons did not dispute the validity of his promotion, so immediately authorised a by-election to fill the vacancy.108CJ ii. 244a. Charles had good reason to be pleased with him. The progress made towards disbanding the two armies, for which Capell had worked so hard, was the only policy being pursued by Parliament at this point that Charles could view in something other than a wholly negative light. Honouring Capell also implied that the king was committed to its success. But there was another factor as well. In January 1642, in the aftermath of the attempted arrest of the Five Members, during a Commons’ committee meeting at Grocers’ Hall which questioned the validity of all the peerage creations made since the beginning of this Parliament, Sir Simonds D’Ewes* coyly alluded to the money Capell had paid for his peerage as the ‘very weighty reasons’ that explained his elevation.109PJ i. 107.

Capell’s loyalty had been secured: when the political crisis worsened during 1642, he sided firmly with Charles. As a result, in June 1642 the Commons instigated impeachment proceedings against Capell and the eight other peers who had signed the declaration at York proclaiming the king’s peaceful intentions.110CJ ii. 619b-620b, 623a, 626a, 683a; LJ v. 136a; PJ iii. 64, 70, 74-5, 76, 77, 79. When the actual fighting broke out, Capell took up the king’s call to arms. Writing several decades later, Clarendon would insist that, when he chose to do so, Capell had ‘no other obligations to the crown than those which his honour and conscience suggested to him’.111Clarendon, Hist. iv. 510. There is no reason to doubt this.

Capell’s career as a royalist commander was notable for conspicuous incompetence. Even by the low standards of both armies, he proved to be a complete amateur. His most useful contribution to the royalist cause was financial, for he put much of his considerable wealth, in so far as it had not been sequestered by Parliament, at the king’s disposal. Of various estimates made later as to how much he had given or lent, those suggesting over £10,000 seem plausible enough.112CCSP v. 69; Add. 40630, ff. 285-286; Kingston, Civil War Herts. 111. In the summer of 1643 the king assigned several of the largest royal forests to Capell and other leading royalists as security on loans amounting to £60,000.113Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 358-9.

Capell’s final military failure was his participation in the second civil war, which ended with his being taken prisoner at the surrender of Colchester. He was subsequently condemned to death. On 7 March 1649 the Rump heard his request for clemency. According to Clarendon, Oliver Cromwell* ‘spoke so much good of him’, but rejected the idea of a reprieve on the grounds that he was ‘the most bitter and the most implacable enemy they had’ and ‘the last man in England that would forsake the royal interest’.114Clarendon, Hist. iv. 506. The Rump agreed and so rejected Capell’s petition.115CJ vi. 159a-160a. He was therefore executed at Westminster two days later.116Several Speeches; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 551; Clarendon, Hist. iv. 509-10. His body was later interred at Little Hadham.117Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 240, iii. 413. The manner of his death more than his actual military achievements meant that he would be remembered as a royalist hero. His eldest son, Arthur, created earl of Essex in 1661 as a tribute to his memory, and his third son, Henry†, who sat for Tewkesbury from 1660 to 1681, were both whigs during the Exclusion crisis.