CARTER, Richard (c.1618-68), of St Columb Major, Cornw.

The Carters had owned land in the Cornish parish of St Columb Major since the sixteenth century, and although only a minor gentry family were well connected locally, with Richard Carter’s father, John Carter, having married into the influential Moyles of St Germans. Richard matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford, in September 1634.16Vivian, Vis. Cornw., 78; Al. Ox. Little is known of his early career, although he joined his father in signing the Protestation in May 1641.17Cornw. Protestation Returns, 91. John Carter sided with Parliament in the early 1640s (he was dismissed as a justice of the peace in July 1642 and then fined as a delinquent in October 1644) and Richard presumably followed suit.18C231/5, p. 529; Cornw. RO, B35/229. The date of the father’s death is unclear, but it probably occurred in the mid-1640s, since it was as ‘Richard Carter esquire’ that the son married in London in February 1646, and thereafter emerged as a player in local politics in his own right.19Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 78; Burton’s Diary, i. 2, 81. Richard was appointed to the commission of the peace in March 1647, and served as an assessment commissioner from June of the same year.20C231/6, p. 78; A. and O. In May 1648, when a force of royalist insurgents captured the town of Penzance, Carter was a member of the Cornish county committee that monitored the situation, working with the army and reporting back to the MPs at Westminster.21Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2, nos. 166, 168.

In February 1650 Carter was commissioned by the council of state as one of the captains of militia in Cornwall; he occasionally acted as a justice of the peace in Cornwall, for example in November 1650; and was re-appointed assessment commissioner for the county in the same month.22CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 521; CCC 2001; A. and O. In October 1651 Carter was one of the county committeemen who reported from Bodmin on a case involving a local sequestration dispute.23HMC Portland, i. 616. But during the two years from the spring of 1650 Carter was mostly busy elsewhere, as in April 1650 he was appointed as agent to manage the seizure of delinquent estates in Devon for the local committee for compounding.24CCC 198. He proved a zealous minor official, despite the quantity of cases which were deemed too great for a single person to deal with, and the apparent reluctance of the local committeemen to attend meetings. In May 1650 one of the sequestration commissioners praised Carter’s ‘diligence and pains to set the business on foot, though to his great expense’, and thought him ‘a very honest man, and fit for the employment’.25CCC 210. Carter certainly made sure that the Committee for Compounding in London had a favourable impression of him. Any problems, he claimed, were caused by the local officials, or by former agents, who were not as committed to the task as he was; he protested that the neglect of the work would ‘very much damage’ the state; and he played up the difficulties of tracking down concealed estates.26CCC 219-220, 251, 258, 283, 342.

By November 1650 the local compounding commissioners were beginning to become irritated by this ‘stranger’ who went over their heads to the national committee.27CCC 352. Matters were not improved in December, when the local committee received a stinging rebuke from the London headquarters (working on information provided by Carter), accusing them of inactivity.28CCC 381. In the spring of 1651 Carter went to London in person – there were to be many such visits – and asked for ‘power to act by your orders, as well as those of the county commissioners’.29CCC 418-9, 421, 527-8. Although he redoubled his efforts to bring in delinquent lands in the next few months – bringing complaints that his activities were ‘vexatious’ – he did not enjoy the confidence of the national committee for long.30CCAM 89, 97, 1156; CCC 487. In January 1652 the local commissioners retaliated, complaining that Carter was often absent, and when in Devon looked to his own business (especially the farming of delinquent estates for his own benefit) rather than that of the state, and added, acidly, that ‘Mr Carter knows how to be beforehand with you for his salary, for at his own pleasure he goes where money is due, and takes it to satisfy himself’.31CCC 527-8. Faced with this, the compounding committee changed its attitude towards Carter, accusing him of embezzlement, refusing to pay his salary, and threatening to ‘choose someone who will discharge [business] better’.32CCC 529. Despite his protests of innocence, Carter seems to have been sacked shortly afterwards, and in June 1653 he was left to petition the committee for £80 due to him, the refusal of which had put him ‘much in debt’.33CCC 536-7, 590.

The failure of the compounding committee to pay up was not the root cause of Carter’s financial problems, which seem to have originated with the death of his father and would remain a constant cause for concern during the 1650s. He was embroiled in a series of legal cases concerning both money matters and property between 1649 and 1653.34C9/2/52; C9/10/40; C9/13/85; C10/16/109; C10/18/138. Between 1651 and 1653 he was forced to sell the manors of Hellwyn and Ventongimps, and in the summer of 1653 he petitioned the council of state, possibly for the payment of the arrears (his case was referred to a committee on 5 August, although there is no record of a decision being taken).35Cornw. RO, GP/119/1-2; GP/120; GP/623; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 75. In November 1653 Carter lobbied the Nominated Assembly, asking for a bill to be introduced allowing him to sell some of his lands to pay his mounting debts.36CJ vii. 350b. Again, his request was unsuccessful.

While trying to sort out his financial problems, Carter resumed his place in Cornish society. He had acted as an arbitrator during a dispute over lands in Lawhitton parish between John Clobery*, Robert Bennett* and Ambrose Manaton* in October 1652.37FSL, X.d.438 (159). He was appointed as a commissioner for poor prisoners in October 1653, and as commissioner for scandalous ministers in August 1654.38A. and O. He was also active as a justice of the peace, as an entry for the St Columb parish register records that he married a local couple there on 18 September 1654.39Coate, Cornw. 343. It was presumably Carter’s local standing that led to his inclusion in the list of candidates for one of the six county seats in the elections for the first protectorate Parliament in August 1654, and he may have sought election in the hope of securing his bill to sell lands, or at the least of evading his creditors by claiming parliamentary privilege. Carter’s committee appointments suggest that he was keen to pursue the ejection of scandalous ministers at Westminster as well as in Cornwall, and he was also named to committees to consider the petition of Sir William Killigrew and to take away purveyance.40CJ vii. 370a, 380a, 407b. There is no evidence, however, that Carter’s own bill was considered in this Parliament.

In the elections for the second protectorate Parliament, Carter was again returned for Cornwall. In this Parliament he was again appointed to a modest number of committees in the autumn of 1656, dealing with such matters as the licensing of alehouses (29 Sept.), trade (20 Oct.) and the taking away of purveyance (3 Nov.), and in the spring of 1657 he was named to the committee on the petition of the executors of the late Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke.41CJ vii. 430a, 442a, 449b. By the end of December, however, Carter was absent at the call of the House.42Burton’s Diary, i. 284 He had returned to the Commons by 25 March 1657, when he was listed as one of those who voted in favour of kingship – evidence that suggests that his political position was essentially conservative – and he was named to a further committee in April.43Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5); CJ vii. 528a For Carter, however, the most important business in this Parliament was his own bill, which was introduced on 3 December 1656, received its second reading on 9 December, the third on 16 December, and finally gained the protector’s consent on 9 June 1657.44CJ vii. 463b, 466a, 468a, 552b. The first reading made clear the extent of Carter’s financial difficulties – he was liable for ‘his father’s debts, three thousand pounds, wherein [he] stands engaged per bond’ – and also the depth of support he enjoyed from his fellow Cornishmen. His main backer was Colonel Francis Rous*, who said that Carter was ‘sued’ with ‘judgements, executions and ousters against him’ and he was ‘in daily danger to be laid in prison’. The Yorkshire MP Luke Robinson was less sympathetic, pointing out that a quick second reading would not be fair ‘for it may concern other persons’.45Burton’s Diary, i. 2. The second reading was introduced at the behest of the Devon MP Robert Shapcote. Carter was again championed by Rous, who said that it was ‘a just bill’, and also Shapcote, who blamed ‘the crossness of the trustees’ for Carter’s trouble. As before, Robinson argued that ‘all parties may be heard’, but his arguments did not prevent a committee being appointed.46Burton’s Diary, i. 81-2. The committee included a number of Carter’s Cornish colleagues, including Rous, William Braddon, Anthony Nicoll, John Seyntaubyn, Thomas Ceely and John Buller.47CJ vii. 466a. The western MPs may have been closing ranks to protect a man who was generally considered to have been ill-treated.

Carter’s bill eased the financial pressures on him, and it may also have removed the need for him to sit as an MP in 1659 and afterwards. In the late 1650s his activities become sketchy. He was again appointed as an assessment commissioner in June 1657, and as militia commissioner in July 1659.48A. and O. In August of the latter year Richard Lobb* told Robert Bennett* that he wanted the Cornish militia to be in ‘faithful hands’ and included Carter in his list of suitable appointments.49FSL, X.d.483 (127). In October 1659 Carter was at St Columb, where he was negotiating with the agent of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne about duchy rents due by one of his neighbours, and he said he represented ‘My cousin Seyntaubyn’ as well as his own interests.50Cornw. RO, AR/10/14. He joined the predominantly Presbyterian gentlemen who met at Truro in the dying days of December 1659 to proclaim their support for the Rump and their opposition to military rule, and in the early months of 1660 again served on local commissions.51Publick Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660), p. 998 (E.773.41); Coate, Cornw. 308n; A. and O. After the Restoration, Carter played little part in politics, and by 1664 he had sold his remaining lands to his brother, John Carter, who had taken over the family home at St Columb Major.52Cornw. Hearth Tax, 157-8. Richard Carter died, childless, in January 1668.53Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 78.