SIDNEY, Philip, Visct. Lisle (1619-98), of Penshurst Place, Kent, and West Sheen, Surr.

Philip Sidney’s grandfather had been created Baron Sidney of Penshurst in 1603, Viscount Lisle in 1605 and earl of Leicester in 1618, and after his father succeeded to the earldom in 1626 Sidney was styled Viscount Lisle. Lisle’s early career was dominated by his family, and especially by his indecisive, spiteful and long-lived father. The relationship between father and son was fraught, with the earl in later years disowning Lisle and effectively disinheriting him, accusing him of leading a ‘lewd, infamous and atheistical life’.38Scott, Algernon Sidney, 59. Tensions between them were already apparent in the mid-1630s, when it was clear that Leicester favoured not Lisle but his younger brother, Algernon. At first, the young Lisle was treated preferentially, accompanying his father on his embassy to Denmark in 1632; but in the following year, aged fourteen, he was admitted to Gray’s Inn at the same time as his ten-year-old brother, and by the time the two sons left for Paris with their father in 1636, there was little doubt who was the favourite.39HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 25; G Inn Admiss. 201. While Algernon stayed with his father in the capital, Lisle was sent to the less fashionable town of Saumur in the south, to attend the Huguenot academy there. Lisle arrived at Saumur in the summer of 1636, and was still there at the end of 1638 – a length of stay that alarmed his mother, who complained that ‘he lives so long in a country town where nothing can be learned’ and asked her husband that ‘If you will neither suffer him at Paris nor send him into England, I wish he might go to Italy, that his time may not be so lost as I fear it is in that obscure place’.40HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 154. While the animosity of Leicester towards his son was real enough, the countess’s views on Saumur were grossly unfair. The academy had a good reputation for theology and language teaching as well as the gentlemanly pursuits of fencing, dancing and horsemanship. Lisle was under the tutelage of the respected Scottish professor of philosophy Mark Duncan, and the academy was attended by other young aristocrats, notably the son of the 1st earl of Cork, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), who remained a close associate of Lisle in later decades.41HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 47, 106-7; P. Little, Lord Broghill and the Cromwellian Union with Ireland and Scotland (Woodbridge, 2004), 20-1, 222-3.

It is uncertain when Lisle left Saumur for Paris, but he appears to have rejoined his father and brother by the autumn of 1639, when his future was under discussion in correspondence between Leicester and his brother-in-law, Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland. Between October and December Northumberland was busy arranging a marriage for Lisle with the daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Bannister, who, he speculated, ‘might be worth forty, or perhaps fifty thousand pounds’.42A. Collins, Letters and Memorials of State (2 vols., 1746), ii. 612, 616, 618, 621. The Bannister match was not pursued, but Lisle’s relatives were soon trying to advance his career in another way – through the army. The king’s determination to raise a new army against the Scots after the failure of the first bishops’ war presented an opportunity for young noblemen, and in December 1639 Lisle’s aunt the countess of Carlisle told Leicester that she had been approached by the earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) who wanted Lisle to command a regiment of horse. The countess was keen that Leicester should agree to this, as Strafford (who ‘intends great kindness and service to you and all your family’) also promised that Lisle’s regiment would be kept in service after the war.43HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 211. Northumberland was also insistent that Lisle should be included in the new commissions, and told Leicester in January 1640 that ‘I shall undertake that my Lord Lisle’s name be not laid aside till you direct it’.44HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 218, 220; HMC 3rd Rep. 79. The stumbling block was Leicester, who quibbled at the expense involved. Strafford, in response, suggested that Lisle take command of a horse troop in the English regiment in Holland, but this plan was in turn ruined by Leicester, who wanted the command for Algernon.45Collins, Letters and Memorials, ii. 634-6. In March, Northumberland, with surprising patience, offered instead a third option – to give Lisle command of his own lifeguard.46HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 231, 234, 238; Collins, Memorials of State, ii. 638, 643.

Short Parliament and campaign in the north

In the meantime, Northumberland had used his influence as lord admiral to secure the seat of Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight for Lisle, in the Short Parliament elections. William Hawkins, who was in charge of Leicester’s affairs in the earl’s absence, wrote on 30 April that he awaited the new MP’s arrival in London, adding that ‘I do fear that the Parliament whereof his lordship is a member may have an end before he comes’.47HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 256-7. Hawkins’s fears were realised, as Lisle did not leave France until the Short Parliament had been dissolved.

In the coming months, the earl of Northumberland became not only Lisle’s commander, but also his advocate. When Lisle left France, Leicester had stipulated that he should receive only £50, and that the contents of Leicester House were not to be at his disposal: ‘that is to say, neither book not any household stuff, for I am well acquainted with the carelessness of young men, and how they squander away all things that come into their hands, without considering their friends’ or their own losses’.48HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 260. A few weeks later, Northumberland told Leicester that he was ‘confident there is no danger of [Lisle] misspending his time in this place, for I never saw a young man freer from indiscretion or vice than I believe him to be’.49HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 270. In June he insisted that Lisle was ‘exceeding frugal in all things’.50HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 282. The campaign against the Scots was a disaster, with the English army’s defeat at Newburn forcing the king back to the negotiating table. According to Hawkins, ‘Lord Lisle was not at the skirmish, but employed in some other place’ – a statement flatly contradicted by Northumberland, who assured Leicester that Lisle ‘acquitted himself very handsomely’ in the engagement. Northumberland continued to favour Lisle in the autumn of 1640, persuading the king to promote his troop to become the royal horse guards, even though this honour had also been claimed by the earl’s brother, Henry Percy*.51HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 323, 329. In October Lisle was again returned for Yarmouth (as well as for the Cornish borough of St Ives) on Northumberland’s interest, and when the Parliament convened on 3 November he was in a place of honour ‘at the back of the king’s chair when the Speaker was presented’.52HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 339.

Long Parliament and the Irish Wars, 1640-3

Despite the claims of Hawkins at the beginning of the session that ‘Lord Lisle is a constant man in the House’ and ‘attendeth the Lower House with great diligence’, the Journals suggest that Lisle played little formal part in the early months of the Long Parliament.53HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 341, 344. On 9 November 1640 he elected to serve for Yarmouth rather than St Ives.54CJ ii. 25a. For nearly a year afterwards he was named to no committees, and was mentioned in the official record only when he took the Protestation on 3 May 1641.55CJ ii. 133a. This public inactivity may have reflected the delicacy of his position, especially in light of Parliament’s prosecution that spring of his family friend, the earl of Strafford, and the inclusion of Lisle’s name on one list of the ‘Straffordians’ – the MPs who voted on 21 April against the earl’s attainder.56Procs. LP iv. 51. Other evidence shows that Lisle was aware of the need to guard his father’s interests closely during this period. In January 1641 he ‘gave good satisfaction’ when debate in the Commons ‘reflected upon’ Leicester’s own character, accusing him of receiving letters from the disgraced secretary of state, Sir Francis Windebanke*.57HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 371; D’Ewes (N), 278. In March Sir John Temple* told Leicester of accusations of popery against the earl, apparently because of the display of devotional paintings at Penshurst. Temple commended Lisle’s ‘discretion in causing that remove at Penshurst’, for Leicester would have been in an embarrassing position ‘if those pictures had remained where they were’. He urged the earl to ‘acknowledge that [Lisle] hath carried himself with great wisdom’ in the matter.58HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 388-9. Suspicions of Leicester’s loyalties were further heightened by the king’s decision to appoint him as lord lieutenant of Ireland, a few days after Strafford’s execution in May. During the summer of 1641 Lisle may have been absent from Westminster on military business, as in early August he was given leave to go north ‘he being the commander of a troop of horse’.59Harl. 479, f. 120.

After the outbreak of the Irish rebellion at the end of October Lisle, as the lord lieutenant’s son, began to be more active in the Commons, and on 2 November he was named to the important committee of both Houses for Irish affairs.60CJ ii. 302a. On 11 November he was named by MPs as one of the officers who should serve in Ireland, and in December he was commissioned as colonel of a horse regiment, but as yet his main role was to be political rather than military.61HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 419; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 164. During the winter of 1641-2, Lisle embodied the most important link between Leicester and the Commons. On 27 December he took part in the debate on Leicester’s departure for Ireland, and protested to the Commons that the earl ‘would go, as soon as he could provide necessaries for his journey’.62D’Ewes (C), 355n. On 31 December he informed the House of his father’s equivocal response to its message, and defended the earl’s reluctance to give a reply; on 24 January he responded to allegations that Leicester’s incompetence ‘hath retarded the business of Ireland’, asking for ‘justice’ against his main accuser, Thomas Tomkins*; and two days later he acted as messenger to the earl, requesting a list of the officers chosen for the Irish service.63CJ ii. 365a, 398a; PJ, i. 151, 156, 182. In February, Lisle continued to pass the Commons’ instructions to his father, and also acted as go-between for the Lords and Commons, delivering the lower House’s concurrence in a letter to the king thanking him for his assent to a bill.64CJ ii. 430b; LJ iv. 582a; PJ, i. 245, 261. His connection with Leicester, and his military experience (however brief), soon took Lisle away from Westminster to Ireland. On 2 April 1642 the Commons ordered that Lisle should retain his seat despite his absence, and by 13 April he was in the north west of England, arranging the transport of troops for Ireland.65CJ ii. 507b, 524b.

Within a month of his arrival at Dublin Lisle was taking part in a major offensive into the Irish midlands, to relieve isolated castles such as Geashill in King’s County, and capture the important town of Trim in co. Meath.66HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 121. Lisle gained ‘the chief honour … of this expedition’, but MPs, angry at Leicester’s continued inactivity, protested that Sir Charles Coote senior was more instrumental in securing victory, and refused John Pym’s* motion that Lisle be sent a letter of thanks by the Commons.67PJ, ii. 317-8. In September Lisle was promoted to lieutenant-general, and put in charge of another expedition against the rebels, which involved burning all the property and crops on the border of cos. Meath and Cavan, and recapturing the house of Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, at Carrickmacross, co. Monaghan.68HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 200, 204, 211; Irish Rebellion ed. Hogan, 144.

From the winter of 1642-3 onwards, Lisle wrote repeated letters to his father, urging that more money be raised for the war, and expressing his disappointment that the earl had not crossed the Irish Sea to take command in person. In January 1643 he praised the ‘chief officers’, especially Colonel George Monck*, for their willingness to fight, but (perhaps pointedly) told Leicester that the earl’s return to London might mean ‘the loss of this next year’s service’.69HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 415. This is an early indication that Lisle’s own political attitude was hardening. During the spring he was drawn into the animosities between the lords justices and their allies (including Sir John Temple) and James Butler, marquess of Ormond. Lisle himself came under attack in April 1643, when his alleged cowardice during the battle of Ross was brought before the council of war in Dublin.70HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 419-28. He was acquitted, but the case, and subsequent attempts to discredit Temple and his friends, turned Lisle into an implacable enemy of Ormond. In May he complained to Leicester of their ‘slow progress’ in the war, saying that ‘the army is much more Irish than it was’ and the civil government ‘wholly guided by the Irish party, grows insufferable’ and claiming that Ormond had prevented him from ‘getting honour or profit’ on the battlefield.71HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 431. The cessation of arms with the Confederate Catholics, negotiated by Ormond against the wishes of the lords justices, was signed on 15 September 1643. By that time, Lisle had already left Dublin, telling his father ‘that no good is to be done in this place’.72J.T. Gilbert, History of Irish Confederation (7 vols., Dublin, 1882-91), ii. 60.

Independent MP, 1644-5

On his return to England, Lisle was briefly placed under arrest by a Parliament suspicious of his political allegiances, but he was released by an order of the Commons of 29 August, and on 5 September he was given safe passage to London from Chester.73CJ iii. 221b; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 433. Later in the month, following the report of the parliamentary committee that had returned from Ireland at the same time, Lisle was given the thanks of the House in acknowledgement of his true and faithful service’.74CJ iii. 256a. Although Lisle had been formally exonerated, he was not entirely free from suspicion. This was mainly because of the activities of his father, who had by this time joined the king at Oxford, and of his uncle, the earl of Northumberland, who had left London for his country estate, and was feared to be about to follow suit. Lisle was also summoned to Oxford, and this prompted the Commons to issue an order on 9 October, demanding that he ‘attend the House, and not go to Oxford’.75CJ iii. 268b. The swiftness of Lisle’s response – he took the Solemn League and Covenant later in the same day – suggests that he had already made up his mind.76CJ iii. 268b.

The question of Lisle’s loyalty was not fully settled, however. He was under suspicion in March 1644, when it was again rumoured that he was about to abandon Parliament and join the king at Oxford. This time, Lisle was able to answer the allegations ‘fully’, saying that ‘he had not heard from Oxford these two months, and that was from the earl of Leicester, his father’; and he added, perhaps truthfully, that ‘he privately dissuaded the earl of Northumberland from going’ to the royalist capital.77Harl. 166, ff. 21v, 25. The seriousness of this last allegation is open to doubt, as there was no interruption in the Commons’ ordinance granting him his pay arrears for his time in Ireland, which was introduced on 8 January, given a second reading at the end of the month, and the source of the initial payment of £1,000 was decided, apparently without any dispute, in May and June.78CJ iii. 361a, 380b, 489a, 539a.

Between the autumn of 1643 and the autumn of 1644, Lisle became more active as a Member of Parliament. His committee appointments suggest that he was now considered something of an expert on Irish affairs. On 19 October 1643 he was named to the committee to consider the Irish Cessation and the role of the pope and the Catholic hierarchy in that nation’s misfortunes.79CJ iii. 282b. In February 1644 he was one of those chosen to consider the threat to the north west of England from the arrival of reinforcements sent by Ormond, and in early March he was among those to decide the fate of the officers of Irish regiments captured at Nantwich.80CJ iii. 400a, 416b. According to the earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde*), Lisle tried to persuade his old comrade, George Monck, to join Parliament immediately after his capture at Nantwich, ‘which he positively and disdainfully refused to accept’.81Clarendon, Hist. vi. 153. Lisle was also fairly regular in his attendance at the Committee for Irish Affairs from December 1643 until June 1644.82SP16/539, pp. 4, 14, 24, 38, 40, 42. Parliament’s position in Ireland improved at the end of July 1644, when Murrough O’Brien, 6th Baron Inchiquin, and the Munster Protestants renounced their allegiance to the king. On 5 August Lisle was named to the committee to consider the Munster declaration, and a week later he was added to Parliament’s committee for the Adventurers. On 20 August he was added to a further committee to consider the complaints of investors in the Adventure and ways to remove obstructions in Irish affairs.83CJ iii. 580a, 587b, 599b.

As well as Ireland, Lisle was involved in English and Scottish affairs, and especially the advancement of the combined war effort. He was messenger from the Commons to the Lords in November 1643 concerning orders to the lord admiral, Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, to reinforce north Wales, and in December he was named to the committee on the ordinance for preparing militia regiments from London.84CJ iii. 321a, 349a. On 11 April 1644 he was appointed to the committee to raise money for the armed forces, and at the end of the month to the committee to make a permanent peace between Parliament and its new Scottish allies.85CJ iii. 457b, 466a. In the summer and autumn of 1644 he was appointed commissioner for martial law and commissioner for the court martial in London, and he was also named to the committee to raise and pay the army of Sir William Waller*, the committee of both Houses to encourage further recruits from London, and the committee to treat with the City’s militia committee.86CJ iii. 544b, 562b, 626b, 629a; A. and O.

Lisle’s involvement in efforts to further the war in England during 1644 might indicate his dissatisfaction with the slowness of the campaigns, and the apparent reluctance of Parliament’s commanders to make decisive moves against the enemy. Such criticism had political implications, and during 1644 it is arguable that divisions over the conduct of the war were already creating two distinct factions at Westminster, which would become known as the Presbyterian and Independent parties. There is little doubt that Lisle, perhaps influenced by the earl of Northumberland, was in agreement with the Independent point of view. On 17 June 1644, for example, he made a surprisingly violent attack on John Glynne*, who had moved that Parliament should give the earl of Essex a message of encouragement, saying that ‘he wondered that any man should offer to make such a motion’ seeing that the earl of Essex ‘refused to obey the Committee of Both Kingdoms’.87Harl. 166, f. 74. The attack on Essex would reach its peak in the winter of 1644-5, when the Self-Denying Ordinance and the creation of the New Model army ensured that control of the war passed into other hands; but Lisle, whose recorded activity in the Commons virtually ceased from September 1644 until July 1645, seems to have played little part in this process. It is significant, however, that on 31 March 1645 he was chosen to draw up a message for the Lords, ‘to acquaint them with the necessity of present expediting Sir Thomas Fairfax’s* commission’ as general of the new army.88CJ iv. 94a; LJ vii. 293a.

One reason for Lisle’s absence from Westminster was his marriage, in May 1645, with Catherine Cecil, daughter of the William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury.89CP. This was a match replete with political significance, as Salisbury was a close political ally of Northumberland, and one of the leading Independent peers. Although Leicester accepted the match (and agreed to provide lands in a marriage settlement and a greater allowance for Lisle), it was not his work, but that of his brother-in-law Northumberland.90Add. 32680, f. 2. When Lisle’s son was christened in January 1647, it was only right that the godfathers should be Northumberland and Salisbury (with the countess of Leicester as godmother), and the child named Algernon.91HMC De L’Isle and Dudley , vi. 560.

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1646-7

Lisle’s tour of duty in Ireland had given him a reputation as a soldier, and there was much speculation as to his next command during 1644 and 1645. In March 1644 it was thought by the Confederate Catholics that Lisle would command a fleet bound for Munster, where Lord Inchiquin and his officers were expected to rise up and join him.92Gilbert, Confederation, iii. 134. In May 1645 there were rumours in Oxford that Fairfax was to be replaced as lord general by Lisle, and for one royalist commentator, ‘if that takes, it will much weaken us’.93CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 461. Lisle’s commission, when it came, was no less dramatic than those wrongly forecast by the rumour-mongers. In December 1645 he was one of the candidates mooted to be Parliament’s lord lieutenant of Ireland. According to Sir Philip Percivalle*, ‘about ten days ago, the Lord Lisle was named publicly in the House (by Sir John Evelyn [of Wiltshire]*) as a fit person for that place … but it proceeded no further that I can hear’.94HMC Egmont, i. 268. In January 1646 it was reported that ‘those at London cannot agree in the choice of a lord deputy for Ireland’, with Inchiquin and Oliver Cromwell* being possible candidates, as well as Lisle.95Bodl. Carte 16, f. 489v. It was not until 21 January that Lisle was formally nominated as ‘chief governor of the kingdom of Ireland’, and the appointment was approved by the Lords five days later, with a proviso limiting his term of office to one year.96CJ iv. 413b, 418b. During March the terms of Lisle’s appointment were finalised, and his patent as lord lieutenant was passed on 15 April 1646.97CJ iv. 475b, 476a-b, 494b, 504a-b; C231/6, p. 42. In early May 1646 the Independents seized control of the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs, with Lisle, Temple, Nathaniel Fiennes I*, Gregory Norton*, Evelyn of Wiltshire and Thomas Chaloner* being added to it, and it was hoped that a new invasion of Ireland would now proceed apace.98CJ iv. 532a; LJ viii. 305a.

In fact, preparations were agonisingly slow. In the spring and summer of 1646 Lisle was allowed to issue new commissions, and the Star Chamber Committee began to levy new regiments for Ireland, including a cavalry regiment and lifeguard for Lisle and new regiments for Algernon Sydney and three other colonels. In the meantime, soldiers disbanded from Edward Massie’s* brigade were to be re-employed in the Irish wars and existing Irish regiments under Broghill, Sir Arthur Loftus and Sir Hardress Waller* were reinforced.99CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 441-505; CJ iv. 537a, 577b. In the autumn, however, there was little progress, and it was only in the new year of 1647 that a concerted effort was made to send a new force to Ireland. This was not entirely the fault of Lisle, whose enthusiasm for the expedition can be gauged from his attendance at the Irish committees: in the five months from mid-May to mid-October, he missed only three meetings of the Star Chamber Committee.100CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 448-532. In mid-October 1646 he was added to the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs – which rapidly replaced the Star Chamber Committee as the most important body managing the Irish war – and attended most of its meetings until the middle of January 1647.101CJ iv. 690b; CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 726-9.

Yet Lisle’s preparations were also very controversial. John Harington I* suspected as early as July 1646 that Lisle’s problems raising ‘men and money’ were caused by the fact that ‘his person was disliked of some’; and in September, when some moved in the Commons to send the Presbyterian grandee Sir William Waller*, as commander in Lisle’s absence, the factional basis for this ‘dislike’ became apparent.102Harington’s Diary, 30, 39. Thomas Juxon*, writing in January 1647, provided more detail: ‘tis a sad story that the Independents, to support their own party, do not only court and do favours to the Lord Northumberland’s party – whom they know are not godly – but send upon that account such men for the conduct of Irish business as they do pre-intend and know shall come to nothing, but consume men and money; and all this for support of the faction’.103Juxon Jnl. 147. Despite his cynicism, Juxon recognised that Lisle was closely associated with Northumberland and the broader Independent interest at Westminster, and that his lieutenancy was clearly designed to have a political as much as a military end.104J. Adamson, ‘Strafford’s Ghost’, in Ireland from Independence to Occupation ed. J. Ohlmeyer (Cambridge, 1995). 128-59; P. Little, ‘The Irish “Independents” and Viscount Lisle’s Lieutenancy of Ireland’, HJ xliv. 941-61.

In the Irish context, the Independents’ desire for a new lord lieutenant probably stemmed from their hostility to Scottish involvement in Ulster, and the Scots’ enjoyment (as agreed by Parliament in 1644) of the office of commander-in-chief. The lieutenancy, with its vice-regal pretensions, would trump the Scots, and allow the Independents to pursue their own reconquest without having to take ‘British’ sensibilities into account. Another important target was Lisle’s old adversary, the marquess of Ormond. Sir Edward Nicholas† saw this as early as February 1646, when he said that Parliament’s nomination of Lisle showed that MPs no longer hoped to win over Ormond.105Bodl. Carte 16, f. 531. Sir John Temple’s book, The Irish Rebellion, published in the same month that Lisle became lieutenant, was an attack on the Old English and, by implication, on Ormond; Adam Meredith’s Ormonds Curtain Drawn, of October 1646, accused Ormond of preventing Lisle from leading an effective war effort in 1642-3 in the hope that the Irish rebels would prevail.106J. Temple, The Irish Rebellion (1646), passim (E.508); [A. Meredith], Ormonds Curtain Drawn (1646), 24 (E.513.14). The pro-Presbyterian president of Munster, Lord Inchiquin, was also in Lisle’s sights. This was apparent in September and early October 1646, when the pro-Independent Lord Broghill was promoted to command a brigade of new soldiers in Munster, ‘distinct… from the army there’ and answerable to Lisle rather than Inchiquin.107SP63/262, ff. 103, 128. Nevertheless, Lisle was at pains to convince Inchiquin that ‘it is far from my intentions either to stretch my own authority or diminish yours’, and although the president was suspicious, he had little option but to work with his superior.108HMC Egmont, i. 312, 319-20, 332.

The factional nature of Lisle’s expedition was the decisive factor in delaying his embarkation for Munster. Once his peace treaty with the Irish Confederates had failed in the autumn of 1646, Ormond offered to surrender Dublin to Parliament. Instead of encouraging Lisle, this move undermined his position, not least because Ormond was a rival lord lieutenant, and his political contacts at Westminster lay with the Presbyterian party. Lisle was named to the committee to treat with Ormond’s agents in October, but the collapse of the agreement within a few weeks was probably welcome to him, and it was not long before the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs was considering new instructions for his Irish expedition.109Bodl. Carte 19, ff. 158, 210v; CJ iv. 709b. The factional tensions over the Ormond talks also revealed the different agendas followed by the Independents at Westminster and their allies among the Irish Protestants. Indeed, there are indications that the Irish Protestants were becoming impatient with Lisle’s lacklustre performance as lieutenant. In December a group of them sent in a set of detailed recommendations, with the immediate departure of the lord lieutenant at its centre.110Bodl. Carte 19, ff. 604-5. Under renewed pressure, the final arrangements were made for an expeditionary force to leave for Ireland. In December it was decided that Lisle would land in Munster; his personal transport money was paid on 1 January; and his privy council was appointed three days later.111CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 727-8; CJ v. 41a. On 28 January, Lisle took his ‘solemn leave’ of the Commons, and he set sail from Minehead on 19 February 1647.112CJ v. 68b; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 564.

Although Lisle talked a good fight, his arrival in Ireland did not look like the start of a re-conquest. As soon as he arrived in Munster he made a speech proclaiming ‘how really he would follow the public good, without bias and partiality’, and then proceeded to undermine Inchiquin and his friends while promoting his own men into positions of influence.113HMC Egmont, i. 365, 367-8, 373, 380. On 26 February he promised Parliament that he would be the new broom, sweeping away corruption and ‘all abuse’ in the Munster army, and leading a new campaign against the Irish.114Bodl. Nalson VI, f. 66. There was plenty to justify Inchiquin’s complaints in March that ‘my lord lieutenant hath nothing in design or action but plots how to place and displace such as are and are not Independents, the public service in the meanwhile neglected’.115HMC Egmont, i. 380. On the wider stage, Lisle proved equally ineffective. When he received news that Ormond was once again negotiating with Parliament in early March, he sent a message to Dublin promising to send supplies and to make diversionary raids to ease the pressure on the Irish capital.116Bodl. Carte 20, f. 405; HMC Egmont, i. 366-7. Neither undertaking was fulfilled. The Confederates’ verdict on Lisle’s achievements was scornful: in his short tenure he ‘did little, and those attempts he made were successless’.117Gilbert (ed.), Confederation, iv. 19. One Protestant officer in Munster wrote on 16 April 1647 (the day before Lisle’s departure) that the province ‘was never in so desperate a condition’.118HMC Egmont, i. 390.

It had been rumoured since December 1646 that Lisle’s commission would not be extended when his year elapsed.119Bodl. Carte 19, f. 728. The resurgence of the Presbyterians at Westminster in the spring, and their strengthened position once Ormond restarted negotiations, made any extension of the term unlikely, and on 31 March the Commons voted that the Irish government should henceforth be in the hands of two lords justices.120HMC Egmont, i. 364, 383; CJ v. 131b. In fact, the ending of the lieutenancy was essential to ensure Ormond’s defection. As John Giffarde told Ormond, ‘it was hoped that your excellency would be the less displeased at this change of government in regard no man succeedeth you in equal honour as lord lieutenant’.121Bodl. Carte 20, f. 613. Lisle’s commission came to an end on 15 April, and he left Ireland two days later, with Inchiquin, as president of the province, taking over the government of Munster once again.122HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 566. The transition was anything but orderly, however. In the days before the expiry of the commission, the Independents tried to set up a new committee to command the Munster army, including Lord Broghill, Sir Hardress Waller and Algernon Sydney, claiming that the president’s commission ran out with Lisle’s.123Bodl. Nalson VI, f. 80. As a last resort, troops loyal to Lisle and Broghill tried to seize the city of Cork and keep Inchiquin out of his command by force. The end result was to weaken to Munster forces, not least because several senior officers had left with Lisle, while the regiments he had brought with him had not been integrated into the existing army.124A True and Brief Relation of the Lord Lisle’s Departure (1647), 1, 4-5 (E.385.13). Inchiquin might have been left in charge, but he felt betrayed by Parliament – a feeling that only increased in later months as the Independents took control at Westminster.125Bodl. Nalson VI, f. 78; C. Walker, The Complete History of Independency (1660), 86 (E.1052).

Lisle reached Bristol on 23 April, and Sir Adam Loftus and Sir John Temple lost no time in firing off their allegations to Westminster, ‘to make known the Lord Inchiquin’s carriage herein to the Parliament’ and to defend Lisle’s conduct.126Bodl. Nalson VI, f. 80. It was reported on 4 May that the ‘lord lieutenant was in the House today, but no report was made’; on 7 May Lisle and Temple gave a ‘narrative’ of the expedition, and received the thanks of the House; and many thought that Inchiquin would now be charged with treason.127HMC Egmont, i. 398; CJ v. 166a. Formal proceedings against the president did not follow, but during the summer Lisle and his allies continued to slander Inchiquin and to attack their enemies at Westminster, notably Sir Philip Percivalle, who was framed as ‘a special confidante of the Lord of Ormond’s’.128HMC Egmont, i. 400, 404, 428-9, 430. Lisle had returned to the Derby House Committee by the end of June, but absented himself again after only a few days, and he did not attend for most of July, August, September and October 1647.129SP21/26, passim.

For Lisle, the most important result of his inglorious term as lord lieutenant of Ireland was the strengthening of his position within the Independent alliance. Before 1646 he had been Northumberland’s protégé, but during 1646-7 he became a significant politician in his own right, engaged in affairs of national importance. In May 1646, for example, he was teller with Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire against a motion of the Lords to demand that the king surrender to Parliament – to avoid a Presbyterian-dominated settlement.130CJ iv. 542a. In September he was named to the committee to negotiate with the Scots for the king’s delivery into Parliament’s hands.131CJ iv. 675a. After the Presbyterian coup in the summer of 1647 – during which he withdrew from Westminster and sought refuge with the New Model – Lisle was less active, but he remained a man of some standing among the Independent interest.132LJ ix. 385b; HMC Egmont, i. 440. In September 1647 he presented Broghill’s ‘narrative’ to the Commons, reiterating the allegations against Inchiquin, this time within the context of the impeachment of the Eleven Members.133HMC Egmont, i. 462. In November he was added to the committee to investigate the culpability of two leading Presbyterians, Edward Stephens* and Thomas Gewen*, in the events of the summer.134CJ v. 366b. The Star Chamber Committee ordered in December that Lisle be allowed to keep his leading staff and insignia of office as lord lieutenant – perhaps in the hope that he would be reinstated in the near future.135CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 749. From November 1647 he was a regular member of the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs (except for a four month gap in the spring of 1648) until its dissolution in February 1649, and he was added to the main Derby House Committee in June 1648, serving assiduously in June, October, November and December.136CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 29-39; SP21/26; CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 90-340. In October 1648 the Commons ordered that his accounts as lord lieutenant were to be dealt with, and all money owed to him paid.137CJ vi. 60b. Lisle’s position at Westminster also brought him into contact with the grandees of the New Model army, and especially Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell had been a rival candidate for the lieutenancy in 1645-6, but there was no hint of animosity between the two men in April 1648, when it was reported that ‘some roaring boys’, looking to attack the lieutenant-general, missed their target, ‘he being in my Lord Lisle’s [coach]’.138BL, Robert Browne Corresp. 2, vol. x (6 Apr. 1648).

Commonwealth politician, 1649-53

Lisle played no part in the politics of December 1648 and January 1649. Although he was named on 23 December to the committee to consider how to bring the king to justice, and appointed on 6 January 1649 one of the commissioners and judges for the trial of the king, he did not attend either.139CJ vi. 103a; A. and O. As the trial came to its conclusion, Lisle and Algernon Sydney left London for Penshurst, and, according to their father, ‘neither of them was at the condemnation of the king, nor was Philip at any time at the high court’.140HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 580. Despite his reticence over the regicide, when the council of state was formed in February 1649 Lisle was chosen to be a member, and he continued to serve in this capacity until February 1651, and again from December 1651 until April 1653, and he was briefly president of the council in February-March 1652.141A. and O.; CJ vi. 141a, 362b; vii. 42b, 220a; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. lxxiv-v; 1650, pp. xl-xli; 1651-2, pp. xlvii, 150; Add 29319, f. 101.

The records of the successive councils of state show that Lisle was concerned with three main issues: Ireland, finance, and foreign policy. His position as a former lord lieutenant made Lisle an obvious choice for various committees on Ireland during 1649 and 1650. He was named to the committee to consider propositions about Ireland in March 1649; a month later he was present when George Monck’s letter concerning his unauthorised treaty with Owen Roe O’Neill was discussed; and he again served on the Irish committee in the spring of 1650.142CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 48, 93; 1650, pp. 2, 18. On 16 June 1649 Lisle was named to the treasury committee; in December he was one of those who oversaw the creation of a new mint; and in April 1650 he was one of the committee to draft the act for the sale of delinquent estates.143CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 188, 430; 1650, p. 73. He was also a member of the Committee for the Revenue, and signed warrants from May 1649 until May 1652.144Add. 21482, ff. 13-14; SP28/269, ff. 320, 325, 337, 347-8; E404/237, unfol.; E404/238, unfol. Lisle’s involvement in foreign affairs began in March 1649, when he was named to the council committee to consider foreign alliances, and from the beginning of 1650 he was routinely involved in committees to choose and advise ambassadors, and served on delegations to meet foreign envoys.145CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 37, 465, 496; 1651, p. 19; 1651-2, pp. 105, 247, 284, 290, 436. In December 1652 Lisle was himself nominated as ambassador to Sweden, and during the early months of 1653 the preparations for his departure took up much of the council of state’s time.146CSP Dom. 1652-3, 63, 84, 91, 118, 125, 171, 185, 214; Whitelocke, Diary, 284.

Lisle’s activities as a councillor of state dovetail with his known involvement in the Rump Parliament. He took the dissent against the Newport Treaty on 1 February 1649, and his first parliamentary committee appointment after the regicide was on 8 February, when he was named to the committee to approve local justices of the peace, and in March he was named to the committee on the bill for abolishing the monarchy.147PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, p. 625; [W. Prynne], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (1660), 23 (E.1013.22); CJ vi. 103a, 158a. In 1649 and 1650 Lisle was employed as an expert on Irish affairs, reporting in July 1649 from the committee to raise loans on the excise and dean and chapter lands, and in August signing a letter urging that the arrears of the Munster officers be paid.148CJ vi. 253a, 282a. In February 1650 he was named to the committee considering accusations of corruption, dating from the mid-1640s, against Sir John Clotworthy* and John Davies*.149CJ vi. 360a. At the end of 1650 he was named to the committee to consider the claims of the London Adventurers over Londonderry.150CJ vi. 512b. His role on the Committee for Revenue may have influenced other parliamentary appointments, to committees on the sale of dean and chapter lands (Apr. 1650) and on the bill for sale of delinquent estates (Jan. 1651), and as teller against the extension of the excise to cover pepper (Dec. 1649) and against the doubling of investments under the delinquent estates scheme (June 1651).151CJ vi. 334a, 400b, 528a, 588b.

As the Rump continued, Lisle was predominantly involved in the conduct of foreign policy, and this is reflected in his various appointments. In December 1650 he was named to the committee to consider the answers of the Spanish ambassador, and in January 1651 he reported from the council of state their advice that envoys be sent to the Dutch Republic.152CJ vi. 517a, 525b. In April and May 1651 he was appointed to committees on diplomatic exchanges with Portugal and Tuscany, and in August he was one of those chosen to draft a bill preventing English ambassadors from accepting gifts, pensions or rewards from foreign states.153CJ vi. 558a, 576b, 618b. In March 1652 Lisle was teller with Bulstrode Whitelocke* on a motion to refer the business of Anthony Ascham’s murder back to the council of state.154CJ vii. 100b. The culmination of Lisle’s activity in foreign policy came with his nomination as ambassador to Sweden (on the report of Sir Henry Vane II*) in December 1652, and in the early months of 1653 he was busy meeting representatives from Hamburg and Sweden, and awaiting the perfecting of his instructions, which were reported to Parliament by his brother Algernon on 22 March.155CJ vii. 240b, 252a, 262a-b, 269b-270a, 273b, 276b-277a. Lisle still had not left England by the time of the dissolution of the Rump in April 1653, but the plans were far advanced.

The records of the council of state and of Parliament suggest that Lisle was a fairly conservative figure in the new republican regime. This is the impression also given by other sources. He was pleased when in October 1649 ‘the Parliament began a good work, the reforming of money matters’, as he was aware that the army needed to be paid without the imposition of crushing assessment taxes; at the same time, he was concerned about ‘the discontent of the general [Fairfax]’, and his refusal to sign the Engagement.156Add. 14410, f. 42. In Parliament in July 1651 Lisle was teller with Philip Skippon* against putting the question of granting a pardon to the Presbyterian minister, Christopher Love, probably expecting the motion to be defeated, which it was.157CJ vi. 603b; Worden, Rump Parliament, 247. The next month he was teller in favour of reading a final petition from Love – a motion that was also voted down.158CJ vii. 5a.

Lisle’s obligation to his kinship network was as strong as ever. On 14 February 1649 he was one of the tellers in favour of his father-in-law, the earl of Salisbury, being chosen for the council of state; and in April 1650 he was named to the committee considering the earl’s claims to Theobalds and Cheshunt parks.159CJ vi. 141a, 398b. Interestingly, Lisle also remained in contact with his uncle, the earl of Northumberland, despite the unwillingness of the latter to countenance the new regime. In April 1649 Lisle reported to the Commons Northumberland’s letter concerning the late king’s younger children, who were in the earl’s care, and a month later he was ordered to tell Northumberland that he was to deliver the children to the earl of Leicester. 160CSP Dom. 1649-50, 76; CJ vi. 193a, 194a-5b, 216b. In 1650-1 Northumberland’s personal accounts suggest that the two families were visiting one another, and in April 1651 Lisle was appointed to a parliamentary committee on a petition by the earl.161Petworth House Archives, MS 5828, unfol; CJ vi. 567a. Lisle was also prepared to work for his brother’s interests, as in January 1651, when he was named to a committee on Algernon’s petition, and it seems that relations between them were cordial at this time.162CJ vi. 523b. At the same time as fostering his private connections, Lisle was careful to keep in with the leading politicians at Westminster and Whitehall, by making a show of his commitment to the cause. As one contemporary put it, Lisle now spouted the ‘cant expressions of the times, that don’t seem to quadrate with his former style’.163HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 475. In March 1653 the royalist agent Daniel O’Neill† considered Lisle to be one of Cromwell’s chief followers, along with such unlikely bedfellows as Thomas Scot I* and John Carew*.164Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 617.

The one relationship that stretched Lisle’s diplomatic skills to their limits and beyond was that with his father. Throughout 1649 and 1650 Lisle was in close contact with Leicester, sending him the latest news from London, and trying to secure the money owed to the earl as lord lieutenant from 1641 to 1643. Leicester had never really shaken off his reputation as a royalist, even though his support for the king in the mid-1640s had been lukewarm at best. Thanks to the persuasions of Lisle, in April 1650 the earl finally took the Engagement, as ‘the surest way, concerning all things which depend upon the favour of the present government’.165HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 455-6, 458, 461-4, 472-5, 478. Even before this, Lisle had gone out of his way to please his father. It is possible that Lisle secured the guardianship of the late king’s younger children for Leicester in May 1649 when it was clear that Parliament did not want Northumberland to continue in the role.166CJ vi. 216b. In December of that year the birth of a son gave Lisle a further opportunity to curry favour with his father. He asked Leicester to be godfather, and named the child Robert, ‘my desire truly being to have him as completely your lordship’s as may be’.167HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 466. Yet, despite Lisle’s efforts, the commonwealth period witnessed a further deterioration in relations between him and his father. The seeds of this were sown in Lisle’s marriage settlement of 1645, which allowed Leicester to charge the estate with his own debts and the marriage portions of his seven daughters.168Scott, Algernon Sidney, 60-1. Worse still, in December 1648 Leicester and Lady Lisle’s father, the earl of Salisbury, fell out over the terms of the settlement. Leicester claimed that Salisbury still owed £6,000, and insisted that the capital sum be paid with interest; until he was satisfied, Leicester refused to perfect the terms of Lady Lisle’s jointure.169HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 446-9. Leicester may have suspected that Lisle was on Salisbury’s side in this dispute, and when Lady Lisle died of puerperal fever in August 1652 he immediately reduced Lisle’s allowance from £800 to £600 a year.170Scott, Algernon Sidney, 61n. In December Lisle confronted his father, and soon added injury to insult, as Leicester recorded in his diary: ‘The Lord Lisle most unnecessarily and causelessly, undutifully and impiously, defied and affronted me, and not only so assaulted and struck me in my own house at Penshurst’.171HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 614. Lisle then sent Leicester a message (through his mother) that ‘he esteemed himself discharged of all obedience towards him’.172Scott, Algernon Sidney, 61. The rift between the two men was now irreparable.

Lisle’s willingness to risk an open row with this father in the winter of 1652-3 may have been influenced by his increasing financial independence. Excess money was clearly available to him by the late 1640s: in November 1647 he purchased a £300 stake in the Irish Adventure, and in March 1648 he bought a £225 share in his brother’s East India stock.173CSP Ire. Adv. 66; Add. Ch. 70777. The commonwealth provided further opportunities. As a councillor of state from February 1649 Lisle received a salary of £1,000 per annum; in June 1649 Parliament ordered that he would receive £4,864 to cover his allowances and entertainment as lord lieutenant of Ireland; and in April 1650 he was assigned £1,371 of this from the revenues of the Irish trustees.174CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 184; CJ vi. 232b-233a; CCC 814. Yet Lisle was careful how he played his hand. When Leicester suggested, in March 1650, that his son might take control of Ashdown Forest in Sussex, Lisle replied that ‘it cannot be obtained without making friends, which is a high price … and though many of us gain private advantages, yet those are looked upon with an evil eye’. He thought Ashdown a poor investment, moreover, and ‘having never yet asked anything of gift from the Parliament’ he did not want ‘to begin with a thing of so little value’.175Collins, Letters and Memorials, ii. 677-8. Despite this cautious attitude, the signs of material prosperity were there for all to see. In May 1650 Lisle bought a mansion at West Sheen, near Richmond in Surrey, and set about rebuilding it, and at the same time he invested heavily in the late king’s goods, buying paintings and sculptures and indulging his taste for the Italian renaissance.176Maddicott, ‘Lisle’, 4, 6-7, 13-14.

Cromwellian loyalist, 1653-9

The forced dissolution of the Rump Parliament by Oliver Cromwell in April 1653 created few difficulties for Lisle, perhaps because of his existing friendship with the lord general. He was added to the new council of state on 14 July 1653, but was infrequent in his attendance over the next few months, perhaps owing to ill-health.177CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. xli; 1653-4, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii, 25. Illness might also explain his apparent inactivity in the Nominated Assembly, from July until December. In late August 1653, just as reports circulated that his journey was ‘much hastened, and the liveries are already bespoke’, Lisle declined the Swedish service, being ‘out of health’, and was replaced as prospective ambassador by Bulstrode Whitelocke.178TSP i. 442; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 146; Whitelocke, Diary, 290. Despite his resignation, Lisle’s occasional visits to the council chamber saw him becoming involved in his usual areas of interest. Chief among them was foreign policy. In August 1653 he was appointed to council committees to treat with the Spanish ambassador and to deal with foreign affairs in general; in October he attended the leave-taking of the Swedish ambassador, and on 8 November he was again appointed to the foreign committee.179CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 87, 90, 207, 237. He was also appointed to committees on Irish and Scottish affairs in September, October and November (working with John Lambert* amongst others), and in a new twist, on 18 August he was chosen to be one of the committee to take care of the former royal library at St James’s Palace, and to take an inventory of the books and medals kept there.180CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 93, 171, 199, 267.

Lisle was re-appointed to the council of state on 1 November, and when the Nominated Assembly came to an end in December he was also included in Cromwell’s new protectoral council. Lisle’s inclusion in this powerful new body has raised some eyebrows among historians who have condemned him as a ‘lazy councillor’ with ‘loose … morals’ who ‘owed his place mainly to Cromwell’s desire for some aristocratic blood in his service’.181Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 167, 231, 313, 382. This is not entirely convincing, however. While Cromwell was keen to appoint Lisle and others of high social standing (notably Edmund Sheffield, 2nd earl of Mulgrave, and Nathaniel Fiennes I) to his council – and Lisle was one of the few councillors to stand in for the president, Henry Lawrence I*, in his absence – the protector was also well aware of Lisle’s experience in the areas of foreign policy and Irish affairs, both of which were matters of the highest importance in the winter of 1653-4.182CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 215, 247.

The minute books of the protectoral council show that Lisle’s expertise was used to the full. In January 1654 he was appointed to a council committee to attend the protector about Irish affairs, and especially the need for a ‘change of government to the commissioner for Ireland’ – an initiative that led to the appointment of Charles Fleetwood* as lord deputy in the following summer.183CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 369. A few days later he was appointed to committees to consider the Irish Adventure ordinance and to examine the petition of the army in Ireland.184CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 381, 407. Other committee appointments in 1654 suggest that Lisle was dealing with individual cases, including those relating to unfinished business – mainly financial – from the 1640s.185CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 32, 58, 60, 146, 338. In February 1655 he was added to the committee for settling Ireland, and in August the petition from the committee for claims on Irish lands was referred to Lisle and others.186CSP Dom. 1655, p. 50, 284. Lisle’s interest in Ireland was not so pronounced in the later 1650s, although he was named to committees on financial matters in January 1657.187CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 198, 246. Other administrative business does not seem to have been part a major part of Lisle’s brief, although he was named to various Scottish committees in 1654-5, including that to consider the civil government in Scotland – which presumably had a hand in the appointment of his old friend, Lord Broghill, as president of the Scottish council in the following month.188CSP Dom. 1655, p. 58. In October 1655 Lisle was also one of the councillors who considered Lambert’s paper giving further orders to the major-generals in the English and Welsh localities, and in January 1656 he was involved in the scrutiny of petitions from royalists seeking exemption from the decimation tax, and the related issue of how to pay the militia.189CSP Dom. 1655, 370; 1655-6, 89, 141. He was also named to committees for the readmission of the Jews in 1654-5, and to oversee the treasury and the sale of delinquent estates in 1656, and the excise in 1657.190CSP Dom. 1654, p. 393; 1655-6, pp. 15, 20, 312, 364-5; 1656-7, p. 14; 1657-8, p. 15.

One reason for Lisle’s relatively slight involvement in ‘British’ affairs was his importance in foreign policy. In March 1654, as the peace treaty with the Dutch was discussed, it was noted that the ambassadors ‘have treated several times with the English commissioners’, including Lisle; he attended the Dutch representatives to their formal meeting with Cromwell on 10 March; and in the same month it was rumoured that he was soon to be sent as Cromwell’s ambassador in France – apparently on no firmer ground than that he had been ordered to dine with the French ambassador.191Clarke Pprs. v. 161; TSP ii. 154; CCSP ii. 323; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 3, 54. In April 1654 Lisle was chosen as one of the commissioners to treat with the French, but as he was out of town he was replaced within a fortnight by another councillor, William Sydenham*.192CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 82, 108. In 1655 Lisle was one of three councillors who signed the secret article in the treaty with France, and when English troops were sent to Flanders in 1657-8, Lisle was named to various committees to ensure they were paid.193Stowe 193, ff. 3-5v; CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 30, 217, 269, 270; 1658-9, p. 102. In 1654 Lisle had been involved in Swedish affairs, and in the summer of 1655 he became a key figure in the negotiations with Sweden, and was accounted by the ambassador as ‘well affected to the crown of Sweden’, even to the extent of attending secret meetings (as councillors were not allowed to fraternise with foreign envoys).194CSP Dom. 1654, p. 246; 1655, pp. 199; Swedish Diplomats ed. Roberts, 15, 16, 65. He retained his interest in Swedish matters in 1656.195CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 207; 1656-7, p. 50. In 1655, Lisle was one of those concerned with the fate of the persecuted Piedmontese Protestants.196CSP Dom. 1655, p. 176; 1655-6, p. 63. In December 1657 it was again reported that Lisle had been chosen as the new ambassador to the Dutch republic.197CCSP iii. 400.

Lisle’s religious affiliations continued to be less than obvious, and once again contemporaries were quick to condemn him as an irreligious hypocrite. The Swedish ambassador, Peter Julius Coyet, described Lisle, with Lambert, as having ‘pretty much no religion, they nevertheless wish to appear as men of great piety, and as very anxious for the liberty of religion against the papists’.198Swedish Diplomats ed. Roberts, 70. Having said that, there is evidence that Lisle was not uninterested in religious matters, and he was named to the committee which considered the ordinance for regulation of ministers and preachers in March 1654, and was appointed as a commissioner for scandalous ministers in two English and seven Welsh counties in August 1654.199CSP Dom. 1654, p. 27; A. and O. In April 1656 he was also on the committee to consider additions to the local ejection committees.200CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 252. There is also some evidence to suggest that Lisle was associated with the leading Independent minister, Dr John Owen*. In April and May 1656 Lisle was appointed to committees to consider the arrears of pay due to Owen and to deal with his ‘false arrest’ at Whitehall; and in October of the same year he was one of those chosen to speak to Owen about augmentations to ministers’ salaries.201CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 288, 319; 1656-7, p. 132. Lisle’s inclusion in a committee to meet the rival parties in the Scottish Kirk in August 1657 may also have reflected his closeness to Owen, who was one of those who ‘certified’ the papers presented by the Protester ministers.202Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 105; CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 69.

Lisle’s cultural interests expanded during the protectorate. In the mid-1650s he began a second round of art purchases, including more works from the former royal collection, which he displayed in the house and gardens at Sheen.203Maddicott, ‘Lisle’, 7. His council appointments suggest that his intellectual interests were broadening in the same period to include scientific discoveries, such as patent for a new water-pumping engine (Feb. 1656); the new college of Scottish physicians (Dec. 1656); and the patent on the ‘royal mines’ (Aug. 1657).204CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 202; 1656-7, p. 183; 1657-8, p. 70 In September 1657 he was included in the committee to consider the repair of the royal tapestry factory at Mortlake.205CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 109.

His interest in music is suggested by his appointment to committees to consider payments to the five ‘masters of music’ in February 1656, and, a year later, to consider the petition of these and other musicians for a new college to be set up with official backing.206CSP Dom. 1655-6, 204; 1656-7, p. 285. Lisle was also on committees to set up the new college at Durham in March 1656, and in October 1657 he was one of those appointed to read the historical collections compiled by John Rushworth*.207CSP Dom. 1655-6, 213, 218; 1657-8, p. 142.

Underlying all his activity during the protectorate was Lisle’s personal attachment to the Cromwell family. His official duties as councillor sometimes gave him responsibility for Cromwell’s private arrangements, as in March 1654 when he considered a ‘model of the protector’s family’, as they prepared to move to the former royal apartments at Whitehall.208CSP Dom. 1654, p. 46. His personal attachment to the extended family can be seen in the spring and summer of 1657, when he was eager to make a second marriage, this time with the niece of Sir Francis Russell* – an intimate of the protector, whose daughter had married Henry Cromwell*. On 11 April Russell told Henry that ‘the treaty with my Lord Viscount Lisle, about my niece Bodvill, goes on as if it were likely to come to a good issue’, and on 20 June he again reported that ‘my Lord Lisle pretends strong affections still to my niece Bodvill, and I cannot think but that match will be concluded ere long’.209Henry Cromwell Corresp. 253, 288. The marriage did not take place, but Lisle’s identification with the Cromwells was soon demonstrated in other ways. When the protector was re-inaugurated at Whitehall on 26 June 1657, Lisle was one of the chief supporters, carrying a drawn sword, and, after the ceremony, attending Oliver in the boot of his coach.210Whitelocke, Diary, 471; Burton’s Diary, ii. 513, 515. In December of the same year, Lisle was an obvious choice to be one of the lords of the newly created Other House.211Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 685n. He was duly present during the brief second sitting of the 1656-8 Parliament, attending almost every day, but, like the sitting itself, he achieved little of substance.212HMC Lords , n.s. iv. 503-23.

The accession of Richard Cromwell* did not affect Lisle’s position as a councillor or as a leading Cromwellian. He took the new oath for councillors on 4 September 1658, and was soon sitting on committees to consider a closer treaty with Sweden and to meet with Dutch representatives.213PRO31/17/33, pp. 16, 70, 76. In October and December he was also appointed to committees to raise money for the late protector’s funeral and to ensure adequate payment for the army, and these suggest that he was still in demand as a financial expert.214PRO31/17/33, pp. 121, 278. When the funeral was held on 23 November, Lisle joined the late protector’s son-in-law, Viscount Faunconberg (Thomas Belasyse*), as a supporter of Charles Fleetwood* as chief mourner, walking behind the hearse.215Burton’s Diary, ii. 529. Lisle’s cultural interests lay behind his involvement in two matters brought before the council in this period: a warrant to allow the former master of the king’s music, Nicholas Lanier, ‘to come from Flanders to England and bring with him such pictures as he shall think fit to transport’, was ‘moved by the Lord Viscount Lisle’; and when the nature of Sir William Davenant’s opera playing at Drury Lane was investigated, Lisle was given special care of the matter.216PRO31/17/33, pp. 90, 350.

The opening of Richard Cromwell’s Parliament in January 1659 saw Lisle again taking his seat in the Other House, and in late January and early February he was named to the committees against breaches of the Sabbath and on the bill of recognition of the government.217HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 529, 530. Apart from the second half of February, Lisle’s attendance during this Parliament was regular, and in mid-April, as tensions between Parliament and the army grew, he was a figure of some importance, acting a teller on an adjournment on 15 April, and as teller on whether to consider the Commons’ votes against the army as a priority on 19 April. On 20 April he was again teller, this time on whether the Other House should vote to give its consent to the inflammatory resolutions against the army passed by the Commons. Lisle was present in the House when Parliament was dissolved, under pressure from the military, on 22 April.218HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 561-6.

The collapse of the protectorate in May 1659 cut Lisle adrift, not only from the centre of political power, but also from his main source of income. When Anthony Morgan* met Lisle and Whitelocke on 10 May, they could only tell him what others were doing in the restored Rump.219Henry Cromwell Corresp. 514. When it became clear that there would be no rising in favour of Richard Cromwell, Lisle acquiesced with the new regime – at least to the extent of making occasional appearances in the Rump in September 1659, although he was fined for unauthorised absence from the Commons at the call of the House on 30 September.220CJ vii. 774b, 780a, 790a. Whether through dissolution or prudence, Lisle took no further part in public affairs.

Restoration and recovery, 1660-98

During the later 1650s, Lisle was still in contact with his father, and willing to give him advice. In June 1656, for example, he encouraged Leicester to cooperate with the protectoral regime, saying that he had offered Leicester House in London to the protector for the time being, and explaining that he had only accepted the post of custos rotulorum for Kent when Leicester had been refused it. The end of the letter betrays the true relations between the two, however, as Lisle complained that Leicester ‘never omits an opportunity of reproach to me’ and allows ‘the younger son… [to] domineer in your house’ while he was banned from his father’s presence.221HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 499. Although Lisle’s relationship with Algernon had worsened, he was still close to his sister, the countess of Sunderland, and in April 1658 he arranged passes for her sons to travel abroad.222CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 554. Lisle continued to associate with the earl of Northumberland during the protectorate. In March 1654 the petition of Northumberland’s servant, Hugh Potter*, was considered by a committee that included Lisle; and in April 1654 the earl’s own petition, concerning the estate of the late 4th earl of Pembroke (Philip Herbert*), was also referred to Lisle.223HMC 3rd Rep. 88; CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 45, 72. Northumberland’s accounts for the year to January 1657 show that the earl paid money to Lisle’s groom and coachman, suggesting that he had been visited by his nephew at Syon or Petworth.224Petworth House Archives, MSS 5884, 5890. In August 1658 a pass for the servant of Northumberland’s son, Lord Percy, to travel to France ‘to solicit a suit of great value’ was granted on Lisle’s motion.225CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 115. Their friendship was perhaps further encouraged by Northumberland’s own difficulties with Leicester. In October 1656 Northumberland tried to mend fences with the earl, telling his sister that ‘this interruption of our friendship will appear to have been occasioned by mistakes or misunderstandings’, and in February 1658 Leicester was prepared to apologise for ‘some passionate and hasty words upon great provocations’ spoken to his countess, which may have been the basis for the ‘interruption’ in the first place.226HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 500. Soon afterwards Lisle’s aunt the countess of Carlisle also reappeared as one of his supporters. As one royalist complained in February 1660, ‘whatever Lady Carlisle hears she immediately tells to her nephews, Lisle and Algernon; and all her intelligence comes from France’.227CCSP iv. 562. No doubt people like Northumberland and Lady Carlisle were on hand to advise Lisle as the restoration of the Stuarts became inevitable.

After the Restoration, Lisle did his best to secure his position with the new king and his court. In May 1660 he returned all the artworks he had acquired from Charles I’s collection, including around 120 paintings and sculptures valued at £3,000.228Maddicott, ‘Lisle’, 1; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 502-3. He was granted a pardon under the great seal on 30 October 1660.229Oxford DNB. The remainder of Lisle’s career was undistinguished. His relationship with the earl of Leicester continued to deteriorate after 1660.230HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 523-4. When Lisle’s daughter was married he felt constrained by ‘duty’ to ask Leicester’s consent, but he was angry that ‘your lordship’s intention was not to give any help towards the marrying of my daughter, that you were pleased to esteem me rich, and sometimes that I was blamed for not marrying her’.231Add. 32680, ff. 13, 15. In 1672 he denounced his father in even stronger terms, accusing him of ‘shutting me out everywhere’ and claiming that ‘I heartily believe that your lordship, in driving me from you, hath cast off the person most true and faithful to you’.232Add. 32680, f. 17. The death of the old earl of Leicester in November 1677, and Lisle’s succession as third earl, did not mark the end of his misfortunes, and he proceeded to quarrel with his brothers Algernon and Henry about the massive sums awarded them in their father’s will. It was only when Algernon lay in prison awaiting execution in 1683 that the earl effected a reconciliation with him.233Oxford DNB. In his will, drawn up in March 1684 and added to on numerous occasions thereafter, Leicester made bequests to his four illegitimate children, the offspring of two mistresses.234Add. 32683, ff. 123-124. He died in March 1698 and was succeeded by his only legitimate son, Robert Sidney, who became 4th earl of Leicester.235CP.