NICOLL, Anthony (1611-59), of Penvose, St Tudy, Cornw.

The Nicoll family traced their ancestry to the island of Guernsey, but they had been resident in Cornwall since the early fifteenth century, and 200 years later they were well established in the Bodmin area, with Nicoll’s father serving as MP for the borough in 1628.16Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 344; HP Commons 1604-29. More importantly, Nicoll senior had secured a marriage into the influential Rous family, and in Parliament in the 1620s he aligned himself with the group of critics of the crown centred on Sir John Eliot†, especially William Coryton*.17HP Commons 1604-29. This family and political connection was to prove a strong influence over Anthony Nicoll, bringing him into contact not only with his uncle, Francis Rous*, but also with Rous’s half-brother, John Pym*. Nicoll’s upbringing was uneventful, and he does not appear to have attended a university or an inn of court. He first comes to historical attention in March 1640, when he was elected for the borough of Bossiney, presumably on the interest of the Rouses. He played no part in the brief session that followed.

Pym’s nephew, 1640-3

Nicoll’s legitimacy as MP for Bodmin during the Long Parliament was doubtful. In the original contest, the borough had elected as its second MP the Middle Temple lawyer (and son of a judge), John Bramston.18C219/43/6. Nicoll challenged the return, however, and after the intervention of Pym the committee of privileges’ report in Bramston’s favour was suppressed, and Nicoll was declared elected.19Supra, ‘Bodmin’. According to Bramston, he enjoyed ‘all the popularity of the major part’ of the electorate, but Nicoll was backed at Westminster by not only Pym but also Sir Henry Mildmay and Sir Arthur Hesilrige, who ‘said they were possessed of a good Member, and why should they change for one they could not confide in?’20Autobiography of Sir John Bramston ed. T.W. Bramston (1845), 160-1. Bramston’s claim to have had won the contest locally is supported by his election indenture, which was signed by 28 of the 36 eligible voters, and it is perhaps telling that there were periodic protests in later years claiming that Nicoll should not be sitting at all.21C219/43/6; CJ ii. 155a; Autobiography ed Bramston, 161-2. Nevertheless, Nicoll was apparently present in the Commons by mid-November 1640, when he was named to the committee to decide the disputed Bossiney election, and in December he was named to committees on the abuses of the courts of star chamber and high commission, and to investigate the activities of the stannary courts in Cornwall and Devon.22CJ ii. 29a, 44b, 57b. Both of these appointments suggest that Nicoll was already firmly attached to the group of MPs who opposed the Caroline regime. This connection was confirmed on 2 April 1641, when, in the midst of the proceedings against the earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), John Pym nominated him as one of the MPs ‘to be there present upon all occasions’.23Procs. LP iii. 315; CJ ii. 115b. A fortnight later Nicoll was added to the committee to ensure that all Members had reserved seats for the trial.24CJ ii. 122b. On 3 May he took the Protestation, and on the 5th he was named to the committee to investigate the unauthorised printing of parliamentary business, especially the speech of George Lord Digby* denouncing the Strafford trial.25Procs. LP iv. 173; CJ ii. 133b, 136a.

During the summer of 1641 Nicoll was clearly working with Pym’s friends in the House: on 10 July he was added to the committee to investigate Secretary of state Francis Windebanke*, and on 17 July he was on the committee stage of the bill to settle lands on the heirs of the recently deceased Francis Russell, 4th earl of Bedford, who had been Pym’s patron.26CJ ii. 205b, 215a. In August Nicoll undertook his first task as a messenger for the Commons, when he was ordered (perhaps on the nomination of Pym) to attend the king in Scotland, and inform him of the imminent arrival of Parliament’s commissioners. He remained there for several days, sending letters to his masters with news of progress, and, on his return on 30 August, he acted as a reporter with Denzil Holles, John Pym and others of a conference with the Lords on the king’s replies.27Procs. LP iv. 468, 474, 483-4, 611, 617-8; CJ ii. 263a, 264b, 269b, 276a. Nicoll’s involvement in the Commons during the last months of 1641 was more sporadic, but he was named to two crucial committees during that time: that to prepare heads of a conference to ask the king not to appoint five new bishops (29 Oct.), and, in the wake of news of the Irish rebellion, the committee of both House for Irish affairs (2 Nov.).28CJ ii. 298b, 302a.

In the tense days of the spring and early summer of 1642, as the king gathered his party at York, Nicoll became a more active supporter of Pym and his allies at Westminster. On 1 March he was named to the committee to join the Lords in sending a message to the king concerning the settlement of the militia, and on 5 April he was again sent to the Lords to meet a delegation from the privy council.29CJ ii. 462a, 512b. On 6 June Nicoll was appointed to the committee to consider news from York, and the safety of the kingdom – a committee whose members included Pym, Holles, John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell.30CJ ii. 609b. Five days later, Nicoll was also named to the committee charged with drawing up the impeachments of nine peers who had joined the king at York.31CJ ii. 620a. In the same month, when MPs flocked to make pledges of money and horses for Parliament, Nicoll promised that he would ‘bring in two horses’.32PJ iii. 468. On 1 July he was ordered to attend Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, with the recently-passed ordinance making him commander of the fleet, and on 4 July he joined Pym and Hampden as manager of a conference on insulting words spoken against Parliament.33CJ ii. 648b, 651a. In recognition of his increasing usefulness to the junto, on 16 July Nicoll was added to the Committee of Safety, which organised Parliament’s response to the growing rift with the king.34PJ iii. 285n; CJ ii. 675a.

Nicoll’s activities in the second half of 1642 were closely connected with his membership of the Committee of Safety. On 26 July he reported to the Commons from the committee a declaration that the well-affected must take steps to prevent the county magazines from being seized, and on 6 August he also reported a list of delinquents to be arrested in Shropshire.35CJ ii. 692a, 706b. Service on the Committee of Safety also cemented Nicoll’s ties with the parliamentarian leadership. To take but one example, when the Committee of Safety met on 20 August 1642, it comprised Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, his cousin Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland, Nicoll and Pym.36CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, p. 642. Nicoll’s prominence was not universally popular. On 12 September Sir Simonds D’Ewes* noted, as Nicoll reported to the Commons from the Committee of Safety, that he was ‘a black, tall, ignorant fellow, nephew to Mr Pym’.37PJ iii. 349. Nor did Nicoll’s somewhat abrasive style help to correct this negative impression. On the same day, he took the opportunity to attack a fellow MP, Alexander Rigby I, as ‘the true and only cause of all these calamities in Lancashire and Cheshire’ because of a feud between him and James Stanley, Lord Strange.38PJ iii. 350.

Nicoll’s importance increased still further after the civil war had broken out. On 12 and 15 October he was appointed messenger from the Commons to the Lords, requesting conferences on the protection of London and the defence of the kingdom in general.39CJ ii. 805a, 810a-b. On 19 October, as the two armies converged on Edgehill, Nicoll reported that last-ditch attempts to bring peace had failed, with the king responding caustically that ‘he thought not the lord general worthy to present it’.40Add. 18777, f. 33v. Immediately after Edgehill, on 24 October, Nicoll reported from the Lords that the king was now near Banbury in Oxfordshire with a considerable army, and a day later he brought a further recommendation that a new force should be sent from London, commanded by Essex’s cousin, the earl of Warwick.41Add. 18777, f. 42v. In early November, Nicoll passed on intelligence from the committee to Parliament, including news of the advance of Prince Rupert to Henley, the progress of the king’s forces to Wallingford, and the desperate efforts being made to prevent the royalists from crossing the Thames into Buckinghamshire.42Add. 18777, ff. 49, 50. On 17 November he reported intercepted letters that revealed the intention of William Cavendish, 1st earl of Newcastle, to invade Yorkshire.43CJ ii. 853a. Better news came in December, and Nicoll was able to report from the committee that Sir William Waller* had taken Farnham Castle in Surrey (with Nicoll then being ordered to write a letter of thanks to the general) and that Lord Fairfax’s forces were making steady progress in the north.44Harl. 164, ff. 175v, 270v; Add. 18777, f. 77v; CJ ii. 870b. By this stage it was clear that the war would not be decided by a single battle, and Nicoll was involved in Parliament’s attempt to coordinate action more effectively, and raise the money needed to fund a longer conflict. On 13 December he joined Pym as manager of a conference on the defence of Devon, and he was named to the subsequent committee appointed to raise money for the defence of the west, with Holles suggested as commander of the forces there.45CJ ii. 886a-b. Likewise, on 17 December, he was ordered to write a letter to the merchants of Southampton, asking for a loan to strengthen the defences of Portsmouth, and two days later he wrote another letter to Theophilus Clinton, 4th earl of Lincoln, urging him to continue levying forces for the defence of the eastern seaboard.46CJ ii. 892b, 894b; HMC Portland, i. 81.

The new year of 1643 saw peace negotiations between Parliament and the king at Oxford, and on 20 January Nicoll was named to the committee of both Houses appointed to consider amendments to those propositions to be offered to Charles.47CJ ii. 935a. In the meantime, Nicoll’s activity within the Committee of Safety continued; he was named to a number of parliamentary committees, including the committee for sequestrations on 3 February; and on 23 February he acted as messenger to the Lords with an order that Sir William Waller* should exercise martial law.48Add. 5497, f. 12; SP28/267/1; CJ ii. 953b, 976b. On 4 and 10 March he delivered letters to Parliament from the Committee of Safety.49Harl. 164, f. 312; CJ ii. 997b. The Oxford peace talks had encouraged parliamentarians in the localities to make their own arrangements, and on 11 March the Commons instructed Pym and others to prepare a letter to Exeter warning against any attempt by the Devon parliamentarians to make a local cessation with the Cornish royalists, with Nicoll and Edmund Prideaux I* subsequently being ‘ordered to go away to Exeter … to break off the said treaty, to show that the Parliament did utterly dislike thereof’.50Harl. 164, ff. 321, 324; CJ ii. 998b, 999b. On 17 March Parliament received a letter from Nicoll and Prideaux, dated 15 March, reporting that they had delivered commands to the mayor of Exeter ‘for the not permitting any of the Cornish gentlemen that were appointed to treat … into the city’, and warning that other delegations had come from Dorset and Somerset.51Harl. 164, f. 333; Bodl. Nalson II, f. 342; CJ iii. 7a. On 21 March the Commons issued further instructions, making it clear that they would refuse to accept peace terms negotiated outside the Oxford talks.52CJ iii. 11a-b. By 24 March Nicoll and Prideaux had reached Plymouth, where they discovered that the Cornish negotiators had gone home, ‘having agreed with the commissioners of Devon for a further time of cessation for ten days, but the Devon council of war were not pursuing further talks, instead resolving to raise three more regiments.53Bodl. Nalson II, f. 362. They also recommended that the livings of royalist clergy in the south west should be sequestered, and this was ordered by the Commons on 27 March.54CJ iii. 20a, 22a. Nicoll was in Devon when his father died, leaving him an estate entirely in the hands of the royalists, and his new status as head of the family may have heightened his concern for the south west. The cessation controversy also acted as a warning to Parliament that the region needed careful handling, and in early April Sir John Northcote*, Sir Samuel Rolle* and John Bampfylde* were added to the committee of Nicoll and Prideaux, in what would become the Committee of the West.55CJ iii. 29a. This was followed by an ordinance on Devon, which Nicoll took to the Lords for approval, and he was added to the Devon sequestrations commission by the end of the month.56CJ iii. 55a-b, 59a, 62b; A. and O.

April 1643 saw renewed hostilities after the breakdown of peace talks at Oxford, and the earl of Essex marched up the Thames Valley to besiege Reading. Nicoll had returned to Westminster by 19 April, when he was instructed to attend Essex to find out what was needed for the new campaign, and on 21 April he was ordered to make sure that letters and other intelligence was sent from the Reading siege works daily.57CJ iii. 54b. Nicoll’s close association with Essex did not win him unanimous approval at Westminster. In his absence, on 20 April, he was blamed for persuading the Committee of Safety to allow the plundering of royalists in Kent, and the Commons ordered that he would be questioned on his return.58Harl. 164, ff. 373, 375, 376v. Nicoll’s role in the summer was peripatetic. In May he was in Devon, and was present, as a non-combatant, at the battle of Stratton, where the army led by Henry Grey, 1st earl of Stamford, was comprehensively beaten by Sir Ralph Hopton*.59Harl. 165, f. 199; ‘Anthony Nicoll’, Oxford DNB. He had returned to London by 15 June, when he took the oath and covenant, and later in the month he was at Hatfield in Hertfordshire; but he was back in the capital on 22 June, when he told Lady Judith Barrington of the ‘sad story’ of the death at Chalgrove of ‘my dear friend Hampden’.60CJ iii. 130a; HMC 7th Rep. 552. Nicoll shared the sense of desolation felt by many contemporaries at news of Hampden’s death. As he told Judith’s husband, Sir Thomas Barrington*, shortly afterwards, ‘never kingdom received a greater loss in one subject. Never man a truer and faithfuller friend’.61HMC 7th Rep. 553. On 2 July Nicoll was at Aylesbury, from where he wrote to Pym with news of the royalist incursion into Buckinghamshire, and the preparations being made to oppose Rupert and the garrison at Wallingford, which ‘infest the country very much’.62Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 134. He had returned to Westminster by 10 July, when he delivered a letter to the Commons from Essex, explaining the situation north of the Thames, and over the next few days he was ordered by the Commons to write letters to Waller, congratulating him on his recent victory, and to Essex.63Harl. 165, f. 122; CJ iii. 163b, 166a. Nicoll was again attending meetings of the Committee of Safety from the end of July 1643, working with Pym and ensuring the ready supply of money to Essex.64Add. 5497, ff. 61, 63, 66, 67-8, 75-6, 93-4.

On 27 July 1643 Nicoll was ordered to prepare a letter to Waller, announcing that he was to take command of a new army.65Harl. 165, f. 131. This was a crucial measure, that threatened to divide Parliament, and on 2 August, Nicoll was again away from his lodgings, prompting Pym to complain to Barrington that ‘I cannot find my nephew Nicoll’.66HMC 7th Rep. 558. The next day, MPs demanded to know why preparations for the new army were proceeding so slowly, and they ‘called upon Mr Anthony Nicoll to know what he had done in that particular’, with Nicoll retorting that he had only been asked to draft the letters, and that ‘the lord general had yet returned no positive answer what he would do therein’.67Harl. 165, f. 134v. On 16 August Nicoll was one of a delegation sent to Essex to speed his answer.68CJ iii. 208a. It soon became apparent that Nicoll was being disingenuous, as he had tried to ensure that Essex had the right to vet all the colonels appointed to the new force, whereas the general had merely asked to see the list beforehand. This led to an embarrassing exchange in the Commons on 25 August, in which Nicoll ‘confessed the naked truth’.69Add. 18778, f. 19v; Harl. 165, f. 157v; CJ iii. 218a-b. This was probably the result of partisanship for Essex, rather than malevolence, and no action was taken against Nicoll, who was again reporting Essex’s letters to the Commons by the end of the month.70Harl. 165, f. 161v. It is also telling that in his letter to Nicoll, dated 29 August, Essex signed himself ‘your assured friend’.71Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 309.

The high pitch of Nicoll’s enthusiasm for the war can be seen in his letters to Barrington of 28 August and 9 September. In the first he reported that now that London had agreed a substantial loan, Essex was marching to relieve Gloucester, and ‘the Scots have with one consent declared their resolution of coming to our assistance, and have sent us a Covenant to unite us the firmer together, which I hope we shall in our House take with a unanimous consent’.72HMC 7th Rep. 561. In the second letter he said he had attended Essex in person, and that the relief of Gloucester was now imminent. The earl’s army was ‘so strong that I have very great confidence he will give you a good account of that service’, and he also had great hopes of Waller, who was moving against Oxford, and of the Scots, who are ‘very sensible of our condition’.73HMC 7th Rep. 562. Nicoll’s support for Waller can also be seen on 20 September, when he and Sir Arthur Hesilrige* were ordered to attend the different committees charged with supplying the new forces, and three days later he joined Pym and Thomas Hatcher as manager of a conference with the Lords on the state of the army in general.74CJ iii. 249a, 253a. On 29 September Nicoll was given special care of raising £20,000 for Essex’s army, and at the beginning of October he was hopeful of unity, as many MPs had taken the Covenant, and the differences between Essex and Waller ‘are very well reconciled’.75CJ iii. 258b; HMC 7th Rep. 565. Nicoll’s optimism was not shared by the Commons. When on 7 October Nicoll reported from the Committee of Safety their view that Waller should surrender his commission to allow a united command, the House disagreed, and instead ordered Nicoll to attend Essex with instructions clarifying that Waller was indeed subordinate to the lord general, despite the wording of the commission.76Add. 18778, f. 62; CJ iii. 266b.

Throughout October and November Nicoll continued to liaise with Essex and Waller, and to speed the raising of money and supplies for the two armies.77CJ iii. 310a, 313b, 320a, 322b. His obvious allegiance to Essex made him the target of criticism, but the attack, when it came, was to do with his conduct in the west. On 30 October the Commons considered ‘two papers from the earl of Stamford touching Mr Anthony Nicoll … being an accusation of him under the earl of Stamford’s hand’ about his behaviour at Stratton in the previous May.78Harl. 165, f. 199. The matter was referred to a committee which included Nicoll’s old friends Prideaux and Holles and ‘all the gentlemen of the west’.79CJ iii. 294b. The lurid details were gleefully relayed by the royalist press, which reported that Nicoll had gone against an ‘express order’ to encourage the withdrawal of ‘divers troops of horse upon a design of his own, and would not obey his lordship’s directions, which (my lord said) was the loss of all the west; but divers western men stood up in defence of Master Nicoll (for I told you he is of John Pym’s race)’ and instead accused Stamford of bringing defeat on himself.80Mercurius Aulicus no. 44 (2 Nov. 1644), pp. 624-5 (E.18.11). Nicoll, who had been attending Essex at St Albans, returned to face the charges on 20 November.81Add. 18779, f. 6v; Harl. 165, f. 212v. On hearing the committee’s advice, the Commons concluded that the papers against him ‘do contain in substance a charge against him’, but resolved to do nothing until he gave his side of the story.82CJ iii. 315b. On 28 November Stamford told Lisle’s committee that he could not attend to press his charges against Nicoll, ‘being somewhat indisposed by an extreme cold’.83HMC Portland, i. 163. The House of Lords had given permission for Stamford to attend the committee, but when the committee reported on 2 December they could do nothing more, explaining that ‘no evidence was offered to them to prove any part of it’.84CJ iii. 316b; Add. 31116, p. 195. In response, the Commons ruled that ‘no proof or accusations is to come in against Mr Nicoll to the committee’, and there the matter rested.85CJ iii. 327b, 328a. No doubt to Stamford’s further discomfiture, Nicoll continued in the Commons as if nothing had happened, taking ordinances to the Lords on 7 December, acting as go-between with the Committee of Safety on 9 December, and, a week later, delivering to the Commons the news of Waller’s defeat of Hopton at Alton in Hampshire.86CJ iii. 332a-b, 335b; Harl. 165, f. 244v.

Essex’s man, 1643-6

Nicoll’s victory over Stamford was offset by the death of his uncle and primary patron, John Pym, on 8 December. On 11 December Nicoll was named to the committee to consider the financial state of Pym’s family and to arrange a suitable monument, and three days afterwards Pym’s funeral procession included Nicoll.87CJ iii. 336b; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 504. Pym’s death brought Nicoll even further into the Essex camp. On 1 January 1644 he showed the Commons a letter he had received from Waller, complaining that ‘the lord general’s granting of this commission, [was] as that he did not esteem the said commission to be worth anything’; and Nicoll was duly ordered to attend Essex and ask for a new commission for Waller.88Harl. 165, ff. 265v-266v; CJ iii. 356a. On 3 January he was named to the committee to deliver the thanks of the House to Essex for his speedy compliance with their desires, and in the middle of the month he was a reporter, alongside such prominent supporters of Essex as Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapilton, of a conference with the Lords about the state of the lord general’s army.89CJ iii. 357a, 367b. In the second half of January Nicoll was ordered to attend Essex no fewer than three times.90CJ iii. 373b, 375a, 382b.

This set the tone for the first half of 1644. Nicoll was repeatedly employed as a messenger to Essex and Waller, working with other supporters of the general, like John Glynne*, John Bampfylde and William Strode I*.91Harl. 165, f. 281; Harl. 166, ff. 20v, 41; Add. 18779, f. 68; CJ iii. 375a, 389a, 408b, 442a, 500b. He was also an important supporter of Waller, on 6 March offering to raise £3,000 on the credit of the tin money farmed by London merchants (in his role as receiver of the duchy of Cornwall revenues), and on 2 April he was messenger to the Lords with an ordinance to provide Waller with a further £5,000.92CJ iii. 418b, 444b. In a new development, from February Nicoll became a regular visitor to the excise commissioners, seeking loans on the revenues for the payment of the troops, and on 30 March he was named to the committee for auditing the excise.93CJ iii. 397a, 408b, 442a, 466a, 500b. In the midst of all this business, Nicoll became the subject of another attack by the earl of Stamford. On 20 April the Commons ordered that the committee on Nicoll meet to make a final decision, threatening that without a ruling they would proceed ‘to the vindicating and clearing of him’.94CJ iii. 465b In May the earl petitioned the Commons, seeking compensation for the slanderous attacks against him. In response, the Commons discussed Nicoll’s charge that the earl ‘had been the cause of the loss of the west’, and, in a further insult, Nicoll was asked to investigate the matter and report back.95Harl. 166, f. 58v; CJ iii. 489a. The committee to investigate Stamford ran in parallel to that to examine Nicoll until 24 July, when all charges against Nicoll were dropped after a vote in the House.96CJ iii. 498b, 498b, 529b, 552a, 553a, 559b, 569a.

Nicoll’s role as Essex’s man-of-business became even more pronounced over the summer of 1644. At the beginning of June Nicoll was with the army, leaving Essex at Woodstock and quickly returning to Westminster by 6 June, when he reported that Charles I had left Oxford for Bristol, leaving the royalist capital open to a surprise attack.97HMC 7th Rep. 447; Add. 31116, p. 285. He was immediately despatched to Waller, to urge him to advance against Oxford with all speed, and the Committee of Both Kingdoms also asked him to go to the common council of the City of London to set out the state of the army, and to urge the payment of assessment arrears.98Harl. 166, f. 69v; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 211; CJ iii. 520a, 521a. On 18 June Nicoll was sent to the excise commissioners to raise further money for Essex and Waller, and on 24 June he was a messenger to the Lords with an ordinance to put the supply of arms and ammunition on a more regular footing.99CJ iii. 534a, 541a-b. By this time the chance of seizing Oxford had passed, and Waller dragged his feet while Essex set off in pursuit of the king, who had taken his army into the west country. Nicoll remained loyal to the two commanders, and during August in particular he was a frequent visitor to the excise commissioners, and was named to committees to raise money for the service of the west as well as the payment and supply of Essex and Waller.100CJ iii. 577a-b, 587a, 590b, 597b, 601a-b, 607b, 609b. In the same month Essex’s long march took him into Cornwall, where he was trapped at Lostwithiel, and his army effectively destroyed in the early days of September. The disaster not only ruined Essex’s military reputation, it also made Nicoll vulnerable to his enemies in the Commons. On 27 September Nicoll had to answer charges he had made against Colonel Butler, and he and another of Essex’s acolytes, Sir Philip Stapilton, came in for criticism.101Harl. 166, f. 125v-126. On 8 October, Zouche Tate, who chaired the committee on the Lostwithiel campaign, moved that Nicoll and Stapilton should be investigated for their part in advising the general to march westwards.102Add. 31116, p. 329.

Essex’s disgrace was a set-back for Nicoll, but it did not affect his activity in the Commons. In the six months from September 1644 to March 1645, Nicoll continued to play a vital role in arranging loans to Parliament from the excise commissioners; he also arranged their reimbursement for former loans; and eventually, on 11 April, he was named to the new excise committee.103CJ iii. 728a, 731a, 733a-b; iv. 25b, 36b, 39a, 58b, 107a. In conjunction with this, he also busied himself with the recruiting and resupplying of Essex’s shattered army, and also in supporting the forces under Waller. On 27 September 1644 he was messenger to the Lords with ordinances to supply Essex, and on the same day he was ordered to draft a further ordinance to raise more troops, which he took to the Lords the next day.104CJ iii. 640b, 641a, 642b. His continuing membership of Essex’s inner circle was confirmed in October, when the committee for reforming the army asked to examine him and Stapilton.105CJ iii. 656a. He attended Essex on behalf of the Commons in November, and was raising further money for his army in January and February.106CJ iii. 700a, 709a; iv. 14b, 47a, 65a. Significantly, Nicoll performed a similar function for Waller, raising money for his army in November, December and February.107CJ iii. 706a, 720a; iv. 39b, 42a. He was also prepared to defend Waller in the House. On 20 February Nicoll reported to the Commons on his mission to Waller that the general’s refusal to march westwards ‘according to former express orders’ was not wilful disobedience but a response to the threat from Lord Goring’s cavalry, which had advanced as far as Winchester.108Add. 31116, p. 388; CJ iv. 53a. Waller also protested that his troops had grown mutinous, and in these claims he was backed by Nicoll, who ‘confirmed the truth thereof’ in the chamber.109Harl. 166, f. 178v.

During this period Nicoll also played an important part in the trial of Archbishop William Laud, who had languished in prison since 1640. He was named to the committee to consider proceedings against the archbishop on 14 September 1644, and reported its deliberations on 28 September and 4 October, including the answers to objections raised by the defence counsel.110CJ iii. 628a, 642b, 651a-b. On 31 October he was one of four MPs charged with the care of business in the committee to consider Laud’s trial, and on 2 November he reported amendments on the attainder.111CJ iii. 682b, 685a. On 24 December, during the conference with the Lords, Nicoll was also one of a small number of MPs appointed to be reporters and managers, and he reported the same to the Commons on 1 January.112CJ iii. 734b; iv. 7a. During the conference, according to one source, Nicoll was one of the most vociferous of the members calling for speedy action against Laud, and ‘did allege unto their lordships several reasons why they should join with us in passing the ordinance for the attainder’.113Add. 31116, p. 366. The execution of the archbishop on 10 January 1645 may have afforded Nicoll some grim satisfaction, but it is not clear what his motives were in pursuing the primate, as there is little sign of religious zealotry in his public career until the winter of 1644-5, and later evidence suggests that he was a moderate Presbyterian in his private beliefs.

It is unclear how far Nicoll was involved in the debates on the Self-Denying Ordinance or the creation of the New Model army, and with his strong ties to both Essex and Waller it doubtful that he would have welcomed either development. He was not prepared to resist the inevitable, however, and it seems that in the spring of 1645 he was concerned with securing as smooth a transition as possible. On 17 March he was sent to attend Major-general Philip Skippon*, who was bound for Reading, where the army was mustering, and in the same month he was involved in raising money for the disbandment of local forces and garrisons, and paying off Essex’s lifeguard.114CJ iv. 79b, 80a, 81a, 84a, 87a, 88b, 91a. On 2 April the Commons ordered that Nicoll take care of the business of paying arrears to the officers of all regiments, and on 12 April he was sent to the excise commissioners to secure money to pay for Waller’s horse regiments to join the new brigade commanded by Edward Massie*.115CJ iv. 97a, 108b. On 10 May Nicoll was even messenger to the Lords with the Commons order allowing Oliver Cromwell to continue as an officer for a further 40 days, notwithstanding the Self-Denying Ordinance.116CJ iv. 138a-b. As this last action suggests, Nicoll was prepared to accommodate the new arrangements, but there was no disguising the fact that, with the creation of the New Model army, he had lost his role as a military fixer.

From the spring of 1645, Nicoll found a new centre of operations in the Committee for the West. Nicoll had been a reporter from this committee in November 1644, and in December he and Prideaux had worked together to arrange money for the west from the excise.117CJ iii. 685a, 715a, 717b. In April and May he was active on the committee, signing orders alongside Prideaux, Thomas Erle, John Trenchard, Sir Samuel Rolle and other west country MPs, and he played an important part in informing Sir Thomas Fairfax* and the Committee of Both Kingdoms on the state of Taunton, and urging them to make its relief a strategic priority.118Add. 29319, ff. 29-30, 32-3; SP28/266/2, ff. 44-5; CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 433-4; CJ iv. 112b. In the Commons, Nicoll was instrumental in making sure the Committee of the West could influence the appointment of officers to serve there, and he was messenger to the Lords with the ordinance appointing Massie as commander of the Western Association on 30 May.119CJ iv. 131a, 154a. He also used his experience of raising money to raise new loans for the service of the west, including the relief of Taunton and Plymouth, and he was messenger with an ordinance for the same on 2 June.120CJ iv. 111a, 125b, 126a-127a, 157b, 160a. On 14 July Nicoll and Prideaux were ordered to approach preachers for the day of thanksgiving for Fairfax’s victory at Langport, and in the late summer, as the New Model continued to operate in the west country, Nicoll was named to committees to recruit his army and to borrow £30,000 to pay for it.121CJ iv. 207a-b, 264b, 267b. Nicoll probably visited the south west twice in 1645: he was excused absence from the Commons for a month on 31 July, and on 27 September he was chosen as one of the MPs from the west to attend Fairfax. The latter commission presumably explains his uncharacteristic absence from the Journal from the end of September until the new year of 1646.122CJ iv. 226b, 292a; Add. 18780, f. 129v.

As factional politics at Westminster intensified during 1645, Nicoll naturally aligned himself with the Presbyterian interest. Such a stance fitted well with his religious views, which had perhaps encouraged his involvement in the trial of Laud, and on 16 May he was an active member of the committee for religion, bringing in an ordinance for dispersing and enforcing the use of the new Directory of Worship.123Harl. 166, f. 210. It is also significant that on 25 July he was appointed to the committee to choose the elders of the Presbyterian classis in London.124CJ iv. 218a. The earl of Essex, although divested of his military command, remained an important political figure, at the heart of the Presbyterian interest, and Nicoll continued to be one of his key supporters. On 20 May he reported from the committee to arrange an allowance for the earl, suggesting that he should be granted £10,000 a year from sequestered estates as well as £4,300 for his arrears as lord general.125Add. 31116, p. 421; Add. 18780, f. 23; Harl. 166, f. 211; CJ iv. 148a, 148b. In September Nicoll was also reporter from the resulting ordinance, suggesting that the earl receive a total of £10,000 a year for life.126Harl. 166, f. 265v. In the same month he signed the order which paid off the reformado officers who had served with Essex in the ill-fated Cornish campaign.127CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 159. During this period Nicoll was also well placed to further Presbyterian links with the Scots – an alliance that he had favoured since 1643 – and on 7 June 1645 he was sent north to the Scots, to liaise with the Scottish army in its march south against the king’s main army, and to arrange provisions for them with the local authorities.128Add. 31116, p. 427; CJ iv. 167a; CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 577, 595-6. He remained with the Scots for the next few weeks, even after the New Model’s decisive defeat of the king at Naseby on 14 June had reduced their usefulness to the parliamentarian cause.129CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 595-6. Nicoll went on to serve as messenger to the Lords with a letter from Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven, on 28 June, and at the end of July he was named to the committee to investigate Scottish allegations against Richard Barwis*, but after Naseby his involvement with the Scots declined.130CJ iv. 189a, 226a. The west, rather than the north, was his always his true priority.

Committed Presbyterian, 1646-8

For much of 1646, Nicoll’s political horizon continued to contract, perhaps in response to the dominance of the rival Independent interest, which squeezed the Presbyterians and sidelined Essex and the Scots still further. The death of Essex in September was a bitter personal blow to Nicoll, as well as a major setback for the Presbyterian interest. Throughout the year, there are occasional signs that Nicoll remained loyal to his old friends, if only in a muted way. For example, in January he was ordered to bring in an ordinance to pay the arrears due to the artillery and wagon trains of Essex and Waller, and he took the same ordinance to the Lords in February.131CJ iv. 411a, 431a-b. In July he reported from the committee for reduced officers their recommendation that Stapilton should receive the arrears owed to Essex.132CJ iv. 630b. And in September he was named to the committee to raise a loan of £200,000 for the Scots: part of the deal for handing over the defeated Charles I into Parliament’s custody.133CJ iv. 663a.

Nicoll’s main focus in Parliament continued to be the west of England. On 14 February Nicoll was ordered to accompany Francis Buller I*, Francis Godolphin II*, Thomas Arundell* and Richard Erisey* as a committee to take over the running of the newly conquered Cornwall, and this occasioned his absence for some months, until the middle of June.134CJ iv. 440a, 456a. On his return he was named to the committee to raise money for Massie’s brigade to prevent disorders on 11 July, and on 14 July he reported from the committee of the west its recommendation that the defences of Exeter should be razed, and the garrison reduced, leaving a mere 200 soldiers to guard the castle – a motion ‘long debated’, but the question was postponed, despite the support of Holles and Stapilton.135CJ iv. 615b, 617a-b; Add. 31116, p. 554. At the end of July Nicoll carried the ordinance for Massie to the Lords, and on 7 August he reported from the committee of the west their instructions for the disbanding of Massie’s unruly troops, which, it was hoped, might be recruited to regiments to be sent to Ireland: a matter reported to the Commons by Nicoll a week later.136CJ iv. 629b, 630a, 640a-b, 644a.

Nicoll was given leave to go into the country in September 1646, and it was probably at this time that he was involved in the recruiter elections in Cornwall, although the only evidence of this is the later charge that ‘by his threats, power, solicitations, and indirect practices in the west country he brought in above 28 Members more out of Cornwall, of purpose to carry on the designs’.137A Brief Justification of the XI Accused Members (1647), 8. It is unlikely that a modest landowner who had been mostly absent from Cornwall for six years could have managed such an electoral feat, but his ‘indirect practices’ no doubt influenced those who could influence individual constituencies.

On his return in November the political situation had changed, as the Presbyterians, having recovered from the shock of Essex’s death, began to assert themselves in the Commons. Nicoll was involved in some of the faction fights of the time. For example, on 20 November he was teller against adding Edward Vaughan*, an Independent, to the Monmouthshire committee, with Cromwell and Hesilrige acting as tellers in Vaughan’s favour.138CJ iv. 726b. He was also named to the committee on the case of the Independent peers, Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland and Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, on 2 December.139CJ iv. 735b. Nicoll’s support of the south west – a notoriously pro-Presbyterian region – had also acquired a sharper factional edge. On 3 December he was teller in favour of reducing the assessments paid by the western counties – a motion defeated by a majority of 30.140CJ iv. 736b. In the same month Nicoll was named to three important committees, for the sale of bishops’ lands, composition and privileges, in what was a sign of his own influence within the increasingly confident Presbyterian interest.141A. and O.; CJ v. 8b, 14b.

In the new year of 1647, Nicoll resumed his usual range of activities in the Commons. On 13 January he was messenger to the Lords with the ordinance to pay £50,000 to the Scots; on 9 February he was ordered to take care of raising further money for Massie’s disbanded brigade; and on 15 February he was named to the committee to investigate the ‘killing of persons in cold blood’ by the Cornish royalist Warwick, 2nd Baron Mohun.142CJ v. 52a, 82a, 89a. In March he was named to the committee against malignant ministers and added to the committee to regulate Oxford University.143CJ v. 119b, 121a. With the growth in tension between Parliament and the New Model, which resisted moves to weaken its power by sending regiments to Ireland, Nicoll was drawn into more controversial territory. On 2 April he was named to the committee on the London militia, which represented the best hope of challenging the New Model in military terms; on 23 April he was named to the committee to investigate ‘obnoxious’ publications attacking Parliament; and on 6 May he was messenger to the Lords with an ordinance to reduce extraneous garrisons.144CJ v. 132b, 152b, 164a. In May he was involved in negotiations with the army officers, being named to the committee to settle £5,000 a year on Fairfax as a goodwill gesture, and on 18 May he was one of the MPs sent to attend the general with the request that he rejoin the army immediately, to prevent further disturbances.145CJ v. 167a, 176b. On 11 June, as an attack on Parliament became more likely, Nicoll was named to the committee to consider the defence of London and the safety of Parliament – a committee almost entirely formed of Presbyterian members.146CJ v. 207b.

In the face of such provocations, on 26 June the army moved against the 11 leading Presbyterians, including Nicoll, accusing them of trying ‘to overthrow the rights and liberties of the subjects of this nation in arbitrary, violent or oppressive ways’.147Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 570. Nicoll joined the other ten Members in leaving London before any further action could be taken.148CJ v. 225b. The charges against him centred on his irregular election in 1640, which was considered void; his undue influence over the Cornish recruiter elections; allegations that he had taken bribes; and that he had enjoyed too many lucrative offices. Whether these charges had any basis is difficult to tell. His original election was almost certainly irregular, but the Commons committee set up to consider the matter came to no conclusion, merely delaying the decision for a month when it reported on 5 July.149CJ v. 233a. The charges of election-rigging and bribery are harder to substantiate. When it came to office-holding, Nicoll’s detailed explanation makes clear that, for a man of his standing, his perquisites and profits were remarkably few. He had deputised for his brother as receiver of the duchy of Cornwall from the start of the war ‘until he came to town’, ‘and had all the benefit, which was very little, in respect the county of Cornwall was not then reduced’.150Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 491. He had accounted for the same in September 1644, and his accounts had been passed in March 1645.151E101/528/1. Nicoll had also been master of the armoury for two years until the Self-Denying Ordinance, but ‘never received one penny from the revenue’.152Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 491. In fact, as Nicoll argued, with his estates in royalist hands until very recently, and with ‘several journeys in the north, the west and other parts of the kingdom’ he was left considerably out of pocket, and the only recompense he had received was an allowance of £4 per week from the Commons, granted in June 1645.153Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 491; CJ iv. 161a, 217b.

The extent of Nicoll’s complicity in a broader Presbyterian conspiracy is also unclear. There were rumours that Nicoll had been one of those who had met at the lodgings of Lucy Hay, countess of Carlisle, who were in contact with Henrietta Maria before June, and who planned ‘to raise a new war in this kingdom’.154Fairfax Corresp. iv. 370-1. A more sober – and probably more accurate – view was expressed by the diarist Thomas Juxon*, who wrote that Nicoll ‘confessed he only intended the disbanding of the army, but no new war; but affirmed that the ministers were the men that did continually importune them to it by virtue of their Covenant’, and that they had opposed sending the army into Ireland, fearing that it would become a powerbase for the Independents.155Juxon Jnl. 169-70. Hugh Peter’s account of his interview with Nicoll in August also stressed that it was the ministers, not the MPs, who drove Presbyterian policy, but differs in that ‘when the army offered at first to go to Ireland, [Nicoll] with other impeached Members fully condescended to it … but (as he protested) the ministers in London came to them with violence, pressing the contrary … and therefore would hear of nothing but the disbanding it’.156H. Peter, A Word to the Army (1647), 6 (E.410.16). Nicoll was evidently complicit in the Presbyterian ‘coup’ at Westminster of late July and early August, signing at least one warrant from the so-called ‘committee of safety’ (the Presbyterians’ anti-army executive) in its attempt to bolster London’s defences against Fairfax’s troops.157Perfect Occurrences no. 31 (30 July-6 Aug. 1647), 207 (E.518.14).

With the army’s march on London on 6 August 1647, Nicoll prudently used the Speaker’s warrant, issued earlier, to leave the capital for Cornwall. On the outskirts of Salisbury he was arrested ‘by order from the general’, and taken to the army’s headquarters at Kingston upon Thames. Even though he had been ‘very civil used’ he saw his imprisonment as an affront to Parliament.158Bodl. Tanner 58, f. 466. A report was made to the Commons by his friend Edmund Prideaux, who argued that Nicoll should be released so that he could answer charges against him before the House.159CJ v. 275b, 278a. Fairfax refused, but allowed Nicoll to be passed into the custody of a servant of the serjeant-at-arms. On 24 August came news that Nicoll had ‘escaped away’, and hurried orders were passed to watch the ports and to punish the gaoler.160CJ v. 282b, 283a. Nicoll’s whereabouts during the next few months are unknown, but he presumably slipped back to Cornwall. He ignored a Commons order to attend on 16 October to answer the accusations against him and was duly impeached, and he was formally disabled from sitting as an MP on 27 January 1648.161CJ v. 330a, 445a, 590a. A writ for a new election at Bodmin was issued on 2 March.162CJ v. 476b.

It was only with the Presbyterian resurgence during the early summer of 1648 that Nicoll was rehabilitated. On 3 June the Commons overturned his impeachment, and five days later the vote disabling him from sitting as an MP was also rescinded.163CJ v. 584a, 590a. Nicoll’s attendance at Westminster was very patchy thereafter. He was named to a committee on the Surrey insurrection on 11 July, and excused absence on 26 September.164CJ v. 631b; vi. 34b. During the summer and autumn Nicoll spent much of his time in the south west. In July he was one of the more active of the Cornish committee members, working with Thomas Gewen*, and in August he and Francis Buller I, meeting at Truro, relayed to Colonel Robert Bennett orders from London that he take care of the defence of the Scilly Isles.165Coate, Cornw. 224-5; FSL, X.d.483 (26). He had returned to Westminster by the end of October, when Sir Hardress Waller* wrote to him from Penzance warning Parliament that James Butler, 1st marquess of Ormond, had returned to Ireland.166CJ vi. 65a. On 4 November 1648 Nicoll was reappointed master of the armoury by order of the House of Lords, and he was soon exercising his old role as messenger for the Commons, as on 24 November, when he take charge of the ordinance making Prideaux solicitor-general.167HMC 7th Rep. 61; CJ vi. 66b, 76a-b, 86a-b. This apparent return to normality would last only a matter of days, until Thomas Pride’s* purge of the House on 6 December. It was Nicoll’s notoriety as one of the Eleven Members, rather than his current importance as an opponent of the army, that ensured his seclusion.168A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 381.

Retirement and return, 1649-59

The purge brought Nicoll’s political career to a sudden halt. He probably retreated to Cornwall, to nurse his damaged estates. In February 1650 he travelled to London on behalf of Jonathan Rashleigh*, who was too ill to attend a hearing before the Committee for Advance of Money and on this occasion he worked with two other Cornish MPs, Thomas Arundell and Robert Bennett.169Coate, Cornw. 235. In the same year he used his influence to secure the appointment of Nicholas Leverton as rector of St Tudy.170Maclean, Trigg Minor, iii. 315. In 1652 Nicoll was pursued by the Committee for Compounding, which sought to recover £81 worth of goods belonging to Sir Lewis Dyve*, a royalist, held in Nicoll’s custody since March 1648; and in 1653 he was involved in the case against another delinquent, John Holman, to whom he owed money.171CCC 523, 581, 608, 646. It was only with the dissolution of the Rump that Nicoll was encouraged to become involved in local affairs. In a letter to Bennett of November 1653, Nicoll made it clear that he was pleased with some of the measures proposed in the later stages of the Nominated Assembly, including the peace talks with the Dutch, and the reform of the legal system. He also told Bennett that ‘I am very joyful to hear that you are about some settlement in matters of religion’, and added that ‘I have ever inclined to have a fair … respect to dissenting Christians, so as you would punish those that deny the Lord that bought us, and that deny the Scriptures, and the means of grace and salvation, and some other clear truths’.172FSL, X.d.483 (112).

Nicoll’s relations with the protectorate were more positive still, and in the summer of 1654 he even returned to administrative duties, as one of the Cornish commissioners for assessment and for ejecting scandalous ministers.173An Ordinance for an Assessment (1654, E.1064.10); A. and O. In August he petitioned Cromwell, acknowledging his right to rule as lord protector, and listing his own losses in ‘the cause’ during the 1640s, which he claimed had left him with debts of £7,000. The protectoral council granted him £200 towards the arrears he was owed for his journeys on Parliament’s behalf in the previous decade.174CSP Dom. 1654, p. 344. Whether the hope of recouping more money influenced Nicoll’s return to Parliament in September 1654 is not known. His fellow MPs for the county of Cornwall were mostly conservatives, including in their number Anthony Rous and the veteran Presbyterian, Thomas Gewen.175C219/44, unfol. Nicoll was in the Commons by 29 September, when he was named to the committee of Irish affairs, and he was appointed to the committee for the relief of prisoners on 25 October and added to the committee of privileges a day later.176CJ vii. 371b, 378b, 379a. Two more minor committees followed in November, and it was only in the last weeks of the session that there was any indication that Nicoll’s interests from the 1640s were having any influence on his activity: on 12 December he was added to the committee of printing, to assist its investigation into the controversial antinomian, John Biddle; and on 13 January he was appointed to the committee to consider the revenues to be established in the new Government Bill.177CJ vii. 382a, 387a, 400a, 415b. As Nicoll had intimated to Bennett a year earlier, he may have seen the protectorate as a necessary bulwark against anarchy, and despite his earlier Presbyterian affiliations, he does not seem to have been involved in the attempt by some MPs to alter the basis of the government.

The first protectorate Parliament may have been a political disappointment, but there were compensations for Nicoll, as he revealed in a subsequent letter to John Thurloe* in which he thanked the secretary for ‘all the care and abundant love you have showed me in my business’. ‘I shall say no more as to that’, he added, ‘but that you have obliged one that will faithfully serve his highness in anything that comes within the compass of my poor power’.178TSP iii. 227. His first service was to send intelligence about the Cornish, whom he characterised as ‘generally cavalierish’, but he was hopeful that ‘if you keep quiet above, and grow towards a settlement, the country will quickly settle’.179TSP iii. 227. Nicoll’s protests of fidelity were not unfounded, and he soon increased his involvement in the local administration. He appeared on the list of western circuit oyer and terminer commissioners for the first time in March 1655.180C181/6, pp. 98-100. At about the same time, Nicoll was appointed to the commission for the peace, and it was in this capacity that he was involved in the suppression of the Quaker movement.181Cornw. RO, B/WLO/187/1; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 94. In 1656 he gaoled James Myers for heckling the minister after a service, and James Cole ‘for not putting off his hat’ before the bench, and attracted the opprobrium of George Fox, who pointed out that Nicoll had been one of the Eleven Members, and ‘who knows how much he had a hand in bringing in the Scotch army in 1648 into England?’182Recs. Quakers Cornw. 1, 2, 4, 14; G. Fox, The West Answering to the North (1657), 43-4, 68, 134 (E.900.3).

In the winter of 1655-6 Nicoll was appointed as one of the commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth in Cornwall, under the regional major-general, John Disbrowe*. In January 1656, during his tour of the far west, Disbrowe listed Nicoll, with Anthony Rous, among the Cornish gentry who ‘are very hearty and cordial’, and in February Nicoll and Disbrowe worked together in lifting the decimation tax imposed on the Cornish peer Lord Mohun.183TSP iv. 451, 462, 497. In the autumn of 1656 Nicoll was also appointed sheriff of Cornwall.184List of Sheriffs, 23. This latter appointment explains his lacklustre contribution to the second protectorate Parliament, for which he was once again returned as one of the MPs for Cornwall. The appointment as sheriff was made only after the session had started, and there was a marked lack of enthusiasm for the post among the Cornish gentry, with John Buller* warning his brother, Francis I*, that he was on the shortlist, although ‘General Disbrowe, Nicoll and Rous promise me to be your friends in this’.185Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/72. Nicoll does not seem to have attended the Commons until 25 October 1656, and his appointments between then and the beginning of December were to committees of only minor importance, although he was added to the committee for recusants on 3 November, and on 3 December was also added to the committee for the subsequent bill.186CJ vii. 445a, 448a, 449b, 453b, 463b. On 9 December Nicoll was among a number of Cornish MPs named to the committee on a bill allowing Richard Carter* to sell part of his estate to pay off the debts of his recently deceased father.187CJ vii. 466a. From that time onwards, Nicoll was rarely in the chamber, and he took no part in the key debates on James Naylor, the militia bill or kingship. At the call of the House on 31 December he was absent without leave, but it was explained that he was sheriff and thus ‘tied to attend’, and on the motion of Joachim Matthews* he was formally excused.188Burton’s Diary, i. 284. His only committee appointment in the last six months of the session came on 9 February 1657, when he was included in the committee for uniting and maintaining the parishes of Exeter.189CJ vii. 488b. In January 1658, when the Parliament reconvened, Nicoll was present, and he was teller against a move by Hesilrige and Lister to prevent any private business from being discussed for a further month.190CJ vii. 589a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 377.

In January 1659 Nicoll was again elected for the borough of Bossiney, and he was named to the committee of privileges on 28 January.191CJ vii. 594b. On 1 February he participated in the debate on the Reading election, joining the Bodmin MP, William Turner, in calling for the mayor to be punished for his part in the irregular return.192Burton’s Diary, iii. 23. Nicoll fell ill and died on 20 February, while Parliament was still in session. He had drawn up his will a week before, ‘being sick in body but of sound and perfect mind’, but its terms were severely restricted by the jointure of his mother (who outlived him by ten years), leaving his bequest of £500 each to his two younger sons unfulfilled until her death.193PROB11/309/191. Nicoll’s eldest son, Humphrey†, his executor and main beneficiary, sat for Bossiney in 1689 and 1694.194HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1690-1715. It was Humphrey who erected the splendid monument to Nicoll that still survives in the church at St Tudy.195Maclean, Trigg Minor, iii. 322, 323n.

Conclusion

Nicoll was not one of the front-line politicians of the Long Parliament. Instead he was an active, and reliable, supporter of a succession of principals: John Pym until his death in December 1643; the earl of Essex until his death in September 1646; and the Presbyterians led by Holles and Stapilton until the army’s march on London in August 1647. Nicoll was a hard-working committeeman, and a tireless messenger between the Houses and between Parliament and the headquarters of the various armies; but he was also an abrasive character who made enemies easily, and his downfall in 1647 was caused by a general aura of distrust, rather than any specific charge against him. His re-emergence during the protectorate – and as a fairly enthusiastic supporter of the regime at that – reflects the conservatism of that regime rather than any change of heart on Nicoll’s part. Whether in the 1640s or 1650s, Nicoll’s career is marked by stolidity and endurance, rather than brilliance and flexibility.