FOX, John (d. ?aft. 1661), of Pendennis Castle, Cornw.

John Fox is a good example of an obscure soldier who was thrust into the world of politics for a brief period during the 1650s only to return to the shadows soon after the Restoration. Fox’s background is a mystery, thanks in part to the ubiquity of the name in contemporary records. The failure to unmask him is particularly galling as he was clearly related by marriage to the Cromwell family. Fox was one of the parties to the marriage contract of Oliver Cromwell’s niece, Robina Sewster, in February 1655; he was included among the ‘relations’ who joined Cromwell’s funeral procession in 1658; and a year later he was described as having married a kinswoman of the protector.14NLS, Lockhart Charters A.1, folder 2, no. 4; Burton’s Diary, ii. 527; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 206; CCSP iv. 474. Fox’s initial introduction to the Cromwells no doubt came through his military service in the previous decade, as he was cornet in Oliver Cromwell’s own troop of horse by April 1647, and when the regiment was passed to Oliver’s brother-in-law, John Disbrowe*, in the spring of 1649 Fox was promoted to captain-lieutenant.15Wanklyn, New Model Army, i. 124, 143; ii. 68, 95.

Disbrowe was Fox’s most useful patron. With his colonel’s support, Fox became an influential figure in the south west in the early 1650s. He had been made constable of Exeter, with the rank of captain, by December 1651, but was serving as deputy-governor of Pendennis Castle in Cornwall by the beginning of 1653, when the mayor of Penryn – the borough closest to the castle - noted money spent both ‘for wine at the giving Major[-general] Disbrowe a visit’ and also ‘giving the governor a welcome to the town’.16SP28/85, f. 584; Cornw. RO, B/PENR/411, f. 21. In September 1653 there is a more specific mention of wine being provided for ‘Governor Fox … in company of the alderman and assistants’ – a meeting that perhaps reflected the fact that Fox had been made a Cornish justice of the peace earlier in the same month.17Cornw. RO, B/PENR/411, f. 22; C231/6, p. 266. The close relationship between Fox and Penryn was to develop in later years. On 20 July 1654, he was sworn in as the new recorder for the borough (presumably on the strength of his position as governor of Pendennis, rather than any legal training), and on the same day he was elected as one of its MPs. A few days later his departure for Westminster was celebrated with more wine, although there is no indication that Fox was an active constituency MP once he had arrived at the House of Commons.18Cornw. RO, B/PENR/411, f. 23.

Immediately after the first protectorate Parliament, Fox became more involved in the local administration, mixing his military duties with his civilian roles as justice of the peace and recorder. In February 1655 Fox passed on to the navy commissioners Disbrowe’s wishes concerning the continued employment of one of the naval lieutenants, and in March he was busy arranging for detailed accounts of the arms and ammunition at Pendennis and St Mawes to be sent to London.19CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 429, 444. In the summer, after John Penruddock’s abortive rising, Fox interrogated suspected royalists in Cornwall.20CSP Dom. 1655, p. 237. In July 1655 the protector wrote to Fox asking him to aid the neighbouring town of Smithwick in establishing a fair, probably in response to a petition presented on its behalf by Fox himself.21Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 768; Cornw. RO, J/1956. Fox’s activity increased further when Disbrowe was appointed major-general for Cornwall in the autumn of 1655, and he was among the commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth ordered to assist him. On 24 January 1656 he joined his fellow commissioners in writing to the protector thanking him for his ‘tender respect and care of us’ in sending Disbrowe to take up his Cornish duties in person, and in early February he attended Disbrowe in adjudicating the decimation tax imposed on Warwick, 2nd Baron Mohun.22TSP iv. 451, 497. In the same month Fox was involved in pressing men for the navy, in March he authorised royalists travelling to London, and in April he and his soldiers petitioned for a minister to be appointed to their garrison, as the nearest church was several miles away, and regular worship there would risk leaving the castle vulnerable.23CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 164, 299, 485; Add. 34104, ff. 33v, 34v.

As a local official, Fox became well known for his hostility to religious radicals. Like Disbrowe, Fox was probably a religious Independent, and it is telling that he does not seem to have enjoyed a close relationship with Robert Bennett* and the Baptist congregations in Cornwall, although the junior officers at Pendennis included Bennett’s friends.24Coate, Cornw. 342; FSL, X.d.483 (115). In April 1654 he was entrusted with the arrest the mystic Anna Trapnel, who had just arrived in Cornwall with the tacit support of Bennett and other Baptist officers, especially Hunt Greenwood*.25CSP Dom. 1654, p. 86; A. Trapnel, Anna Trapnel’s Report and Plea (1654), 25-6. Fox was, however, more than happy to join the Baptists in their persecution of the Quakers. According to George Fox, in the summer of 1656 his namesake visited him in Launceston gaol

and looked me in the face, and said never a word but went his ways to his company and said he never saw a simpler man in his life. And I called after him and said stay man, and we will see who is the simpler man; but he went his ways a light chaffy man.26Jnl. of George Fox, i. 241.

On other occasions John Fox and his cornet allegedly threatened imprisoned Quakers, telling them ‘that if they slew them who should gainsay it?’, and he is said to have commented that the dire conditions faced by George Fox and others in Launceston gaol were all they deserved as they were ‘worse than thieves and murderers, and not fit to live in a commonwealth’.27G. Fox, The West Answering to the North (1657), 33, 56, 70 (E.900.3). Another Quaker, Anne Blakinge, who had been arrested by Bennett’s sidekick Richard Lobb*, was ‘much abused by Captain Fox, then governor of Pendennis Castle’, and in 1657 a meeting of Friends at Penryn was attacked by Fox, who came ‘with a troop of horse rushing and riding in upon them, endeavouring to have trod them under foot … fearing lest Pendennis Castle should have been surprised by this company of unarmed men and women’.28Recs. Quakers Cornw. 2, 10.

Fox was again returned for Penryn in the elections for the second protectorate Parliament in August 1656, but his parliamentary career remained undistinguished. He was mentioned in the Journal only to record that he had been given leave to ‘go into the country’ on 6 October 1656 - a few weeks after the session opened - and he was excused for his absence at the call of the House on 31 December.29CJ vii. 435a; Burton’s Diary, i. 284. There is no evidence that Fox returned to the Commons later in the Parliament. Over the next few years Fox continued to serve as deputy-governor of Pendennis, and he maintained good relations with Penryn. In the closing months of 1658 the mayor noted that the comparatively large sum of £12 9s had been spent on ‘a flagon presented to Mr Recorder’; in January 1659 more celebrations were held when Fox was yet again returned at the borough’s MP; and in June more wine was provided for him ‘at a welcoming home’.30Cornw. RO, B/PENR/411, f. 29v. Again, there is no evidence that Fox was an active member of Parliament at this time.

Fox’s association with Disbrowe presumably afforded him some protection at the fall of the protectorate in the spring of 1659, and he continued to be a significant figure in Cornish affairs. In May he was one of the justices of the peace authorised to administer the oath to new justices, and in July he was named to the local militia commission.31C231/6, p. 432; A. and O. Fox was confirmed as captain of Disbrowe’s regiment in the same month, and in August he was promoted to be governor of Pendennis, his junior officers were confirmed, and arrears of pay sent to the garrison.32CJ vii. 704a, 750a; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 78, 580. Despite his apparent closeness to Disbrowe, Fox did not welcome the army’s suspension of the Rump in October 1659, and his uneasiness soon came to the attention of royalist agents eager to secure Pendennis in case of a restoration of the monarchy by force.33CCSP iv. 416. According to Sir Edward Hyde*, Fox’s dissatisfaction with the turn of events was based on his residual loyalty to the Cromwells, and his fear that he was to be penalised for this attachment, although Hyde’s hopes that Fox ‘may easily be wrought upon’ to yield Pendennis were probably based on wishful thinking.34CCSP iv. 474, 490. Instead, Fox made common cause with his colleagues among the local gentry. At the very end of December he moved against the sectarians in his own garrison who, it was rumoured, were planning to oust him from his command and ‘surprise the castle’. Working with Charles Boscawen*, and with the support of Major Peter Ceely’s* troop and 300 locals, Fox evicted the troublemakers, promising that he would secure Pendennis for Parliament.35The Publick Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660), 997-8 (E.773.41); CCSP iv. 511, 525. In January 1660 Fox also detained Captain Allgate, commander of the Oxford, who was suspected of supporting Edmund Ludlowe II’s* attempts to retain power in Dublin.36CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 311-2, 318.

Although he had done more than enough to secure the favour of the restored Rump, Fox’s military career came to a sudden end shortly afterwards. On 12 January he was removed from his regimental command, and on 13 February he was replaced as governor of Pendennis by Colonel Anthony Rous*.37Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 207, 209; CJ vii. 842b. He continued to play some part in the local government, however, being named to the assessment commission on 26 January and the militia commission on 12 March, and he was even included in the assessment commission on 1 June, but this was not to last.38A. and O.; An Ordinance… for an Assessment. Soon after the Restoration, Fox went to ground. A last, brief, mention of him came in November 1662, when a suspected plotter, Captain Nathaniel Disbrowe, was arrested near Pendennis riding a horse belonging to the former governor of the castle, Captain Fox.39CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 541.