BREWSTER, Robert (1599-1663), of Wrentham, Suff.

The Brewsters had been landowners in the hundreds of Mutford and Blything in north-east Suffolk since at least the fifteenth century.40E. Anglian Misc. (1907), 66. Their seat at Wrentham had entered the family’s possession in 1576 when Humphrey Brewster (grandfather of Robert Brewster) had bought the manor from Lord Norris of Rycote (Henry Norris†).41Copinger, Manors of Suff. ii. 212, 217. Very little it known about Robert Brewster before the civil war. His captaincy in the local militia and membership of the commission of the peace (from mid-August 1641) were standard appointments for someone of his background.42C231/5, p. 468; Add. 39245, ff. 103v, 157v; Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/1, f. 43. There were thus no indications of the importance within Suffolk which he and his family quickly achieved as a result of the opportunities created by the civil war.

The Brewsters responded eagerly to the task of organizing Suffolk to support Parliament in its rebellion against the king. From their seat at Wrentham they were well placed to ensure that north-east Suffolk, with its string of the vulnerable ports along the coast, was kept in a state of readiness. Their links with the most important of the East Anglian ports, Great Yarmouth, were particularly strong because Robert Brewster’s brother-in-law, Miles Corbett*, was the town’s long-serving recorder. So, in October 1642, Robert Brewster was the obvious person for the Suffolk deputy lieutenants to appoint to meet with the Norfolk justices of the peace at Great Yarmouth to decide how to put the town’s fortifications into order.43HMC 9th Rep. 312. In March 1643 he and his brother, Francis I, were among the group of local gentlemen to whom the Commons delegated the investigation into the royalist attempt to capture another of the nearby ports, Lowestoft.44CJ iii. 15b; Harl. 163, f. 341v. He and John Woodcock were the receivers for the £2,350 lent on the Propositions within Blything hundred in 1642 and Brewster also made the easy transition from subsidy commissioner to parliamentarian assessment commissioner.45Fisher, For the...Cttees. for the Co. of Suffolke, 8, 12; A. and O.; Suff. ed. Everitt, 39, 43, 60. Within Suffolk he was an energetic participant in the work of the county standing committee and may have been responsible for compiling the surviving record of its proceedings. Further use of his enthusiasm was made by the lord lieutenant, James Howard, 3rd earl of Suffolk, who appointed him as one of the deputy lieutenants.46Suff. ed. Everitt, 38, 39, 52, 59, 69, 76, 77, 131; SP28/243. Brewster’s efforts were not however confined only to Suffolk. He took part in the Suffolk delegation which attended the February 1643 meeting at which the Eastern Association was formed and he later took part in some of the sessions of the association committee at Cambridge.47Suff. ed. Everitt, 39-40; Add. 22620, f. 2. In early 1645 he and Sir Thomas Barnardiston* spent ten days in London consulting with the Committee for Both Kingdom on behalf of the county committee.48SP28/243: order of Suff. co. cttee. 21 Feb. 1645.

Brewster probably wanted a thorough reversal of the Laudian innovations. The long-serving rector of Wrentham, John Phillip, who had opposed the policies of the bishop of Norwich, Matthew Wren, had been excommunicated and had emigrated to New England. Encouraged by the backlash against Archbishop William Laud during the early 1640s, Phillip returned to England and resumed his place at Wrentham. He went on to sit in the Westminster Assembly.49Al. Cant. ‘John Phillip’; Calamy Revised, 386; Mins. and Pprs. of the Westminster Assemby 1643-1652 ed. C. Van Dixhoorn (Oxford, 2012), i. 132. Robert Brewster’s own fervour for further reformation of the church found one outlet in his appointment to the committee which carried out the 1644-5 purge of the Suffolk clergy.50Suff. ed. Everitt, 63; Suff. Cttees. for Scandalous Ministers ed. Holmes, 25. His nomination as a Presbyterian elder of the Blything classis in November 1645 did not prevent him from encouraging the congregations at Wrentham and Frostenden to take a more independent line.51Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 425; Calamy Revised, 10.

On 2 September 1645, as part of its new policy of replacing those MPs who had been disabled from sitting, the Commons approved the issue of a new writ for a by-election at Dunwich.52CJ iv. 262a. The corporation met on 22 September and chose Brewster to join Anthony Bedingfield* in the Commons as their MP.53Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/3, f. 152. During his first two years in Parliament, Brewster kept a low profile. He took the Covenant on 29 October 1645 and thereafter his activity was confined to being named to a handful of committees. Those included the Committee for Plundered Ministers (15 May 1646) and on scandalous offences (3 June).54CJ iv. 326a, 362a, 545b, 563a, v. 253a. In the aftermath of the flight of the Eleven Members in August 1647, he remained at Westminster, lending his weight throughout the following month to the new Independent majority in the Commons.55CJ v. 287a, 295b, 301b, 320a; SP16/512, f. 83.

The outbreak of the uprising in Kent and of the naval rebellion in the Channel in May 1648 made Brewster’s presence in Suffolk desirable. He was therefore granted leave on 1 June to be absent from the Commons.56CJ v. 581a, vi. 34b. By the middle of June the advance of the rebels through Essex towards Suffolk had been halted and both armies were pinned down at Colchester. In the absence of most of the county’s militia at the siege of Colchester, the great fear in Suffolk now was that the revolted fleet, lying just off the coast, would attempt a landing at Great Yarmouth. As a precaution against this threat, the Derby House Committee instructed Brewster and Sir John Wentworth on 7 July to secure the area around the town. Attempts by the Derby House Committee to order Brewster to move his militia company into Great Yarmouth were opposed by the corporation, who feared that their town would be overrun by soldiers and would become the object of a siege. The danger of an attack soon passed, allowing the Derby House Committee to drop the matter.57CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 170, 171, 202, 205, 209, 210, 214-15, 218; HMC 9th Rep. 313. When Brewster returned to London is not known, but he was not among those excluded or imprisoned at Pride’s Purge in December.

On 1 February 1649, two days after the king’s execution, the Commons agreed to readmit anyone who agreed to register dissent to the 5 December vote approving further negotiations with the king. Brewster immediately availed himself of this option.58Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 369. Almost as soon as he was readmitted, Brewster recommenced his attendance at the Committee of Navy and Customs, having joined this body by mid-September 1647. He was there on 3 February 1649 and continued to attend regularly over the next four months.59Bodl. Rawl. A.224, ff. 9v, 15v, 22v, 25, 27v, 28, 33v, 34, 35v, 36v, 37, 41, 43v, 44-46, 47v, 48v-49, 52, 55, 60, 61, 63, 66v, 68, 70, 72-74, 77v. This closely mirrored his activity in the House itself. He was present in the chamber on 5 February to be added to the committee on the Westminster Abbey revenues. Between then and 24 May he was named to a further four committees, including the committee for excise.60CJ vi. 132a, 137b, 154a, 179b, 216a. This period of activity came to an end on 19 June 1649 (when he went to his last meeting of the Committee of Navy and Customs) and was followed by only occasional traces in the parliamentary record.61Bodl. Rawl. A.224, f. 77v; SP22/2A, f. 262; CJ vi. 336a, 388b, 576b. Between April 1650 and January 1651, he is known to have spent some of his time in Suffolk, for he was present at all four Beccles quarter sessions. One of his reasons for being away from London in December 1650 and January 1651 was that he was named to the high court of justice held at Norwich to try the Norfolk rebels.62Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/1, ff. 140, 147v, 151v; B105/2/2, ff. 1, 16, 45; A. and O. Thus, his absence from Westminster cannot be interpreted as disaffection.

His sudden reappearance in the Journals in February and March 1652 after a gap of nine months, followed by further silence for much of the rest of that year, probably indicates that he was away from Westminster during most of this period. This was certainly true of the autumn of 1651, when Brewster was busy signing militia warrants back in Suffolk.63SP28/243. Yet the warrants of the Committee for Plundered Ministers reveal that, having been a member since 1646, it was probably only in late 1651 that Brewster began to play a regular part in the committee’s work of providing financial relief to deserving clergymen. Taken together with the Journal evidence, it would seem that he was at Westminster during much of the winters of 1651-2 and 1652-3, as well as in July 1652.64Add. 15669, f. 1v; SP22/2A, f. 262; SP22/2B, ff. 66, 70, 79, 81, 281; SP22/3, f. 33; Mins. for the Cttee. for the Relief of Plundered Ministers ed. W.A. Shaw (Lancs. and Ches. Rec. Soc. xxviii), 106-7, 111, 116, 121, 221, 224; CJ vii. 79b, 104a, 112a, 215a, 244a. Another committee that he attended after his addition to it in March 1650 was that for regulating (reforming) the universities, which worked alongside the Committee for Plundered Ministers in settling a godly ministry.65CJ vi. 388b; LPL, Sion L40.2/E16, passim; CUL, Univ. Archives, Grace Book H, pp. 99-100. It was probably not a coincidence that he was in the House to be named to the committee on the bill for the removal of obstructions on the sale of royal and ecclesiastical land (30 Mar. 1652).66CJ vii. 112a. In 1650 he had bought lands at Hindolveston and Wood Norton that had hitherto belonged to the dean and chapter of Norwich Cathedral and at some point he also bought Ludham, the former seat of the bishops of Norwich, which had been sold to Samuel Moyer*.67Norf. RO, Consistory Court of Norwich, original wills 64; Soc. Antiq., MS 667, p. 475; CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 234-5; Copinger, Manors of Suff. ii. 212.

It is perhaps surprising that Brewster was not nominated for the 1653 Parliament. His parliamentary experience and his Independent views should have appealed to the gathered churches who submitted the Suffolk nominations. As it was, his brothers, Francis I and John, both sat in this Parliament. It is likely that Brewster could have claimed the place given to Francis had he wanted it. By 1654 the number of MPs allowed to Dunwich had been reduced to only one but Robert Brewster had no difficulty getting re-elected in June 1654. The Brewster interest in the borough was stronger than ever, not least because in 1645 the dying Sir Robert Brooke†, who had been MP for the town three times in the 1620s, had appointed Brewster and Thomas Bacon* to manage Hinton Hall, his estate just outside of Dunwich, until his young heir, Robert†, came of age.68Suff. RO (Ipswich), HA30/312/267. Several weeks after the Dunwich election, Brewster’s brothers, Humphrey and Francis I, failed to secure election for the county seats.69Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v. Nothing is known of Brewster's activities in this Parliament.

The timetable of the Suffolk elections in 1656 caused Brewster to alter the tactics he had used two years before. With the Dunwich vote arranged to take place two days after the county vote, he allowed his name to be put forward for one of the county seats. On 20 August he gained ninth place with 1,274 votes - not a handsome endorsement but enough to secure one of the ten seats.70Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v. He then got his son, Francis II*, elected for the Dunwich seat.71Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/4, f. 66v.

The presence of both Brewsters in the 1656 Parliament creates problems of identification. The father, as the veteran MP, is more likely to have been active in proceedings and the fact that the Journal rarely distinguishes between them suggests that the son made so little impression that the clerk was barely aware of his presence. In fact, neither was especially busy and in the case of the two most significant appointments, the tellerships on 25 December 1656 and 12 February 1657, there can be little doubt that the Brewster involved was Robert.72CJ vii. 450a, 475a, 485a, 488b, 490a, 497b, 504b. The first of these divisions saw Brewster supporting a further tax on delinquents to fund the militia.73CJ vii. 475a; Burton’s Diary, i. 243. The second division also centred on the treatment of delinquents. Why Brewster and Adam Baynes* should have wanted to stop or delay the report on the commissioners for the sale of delinquents’ estates is obscure and the matter at stake may actually have concerned the commission’s location, Drury House, rather than its work.74CJ vii. 490a. One of the Brewsters was absent when the House was called on 31 December 1656, but Luke Robinson* seems to have got him excused.75Burton’s Diary, i. 287. Unlike his son, Robert was listed as having voted for kingship on 25 March 1657.76Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5).

Only eight of the Dunwich freemen turned up on 3 January 1659 to exercise their recently-restored right to elect MPs. They chose Brewster and an outsider, John Barrington*. There were no other candidates.77Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/4, f. 74v. The selection of Barrington, a relation and former servant of the Cromwells, appears at odds with the mood elsewhere in the country at this time but is most likely to have been the result of the Brewsters’ own influence. A desire on Robert Brewster’s part to assist the court would help explain why, seven weeks later, he was a teller in one of the votes on the bill to recognize Richard Cromwell* as lord protector. The division on 18 February was one stage in the long battle over how far the constitution should revert to more traditional forms. By forcing debate on the Other House, the critics of the new protector hoped to link that issue to any acknowledgement of Richard Cromwell’s authority. Those whom Brewster and Thomas White* counted as yeas preferred to proceed to a discussion of the protectoral veto because they were only too aware that the issue of the Other House had obstructed business in the previous Parliament. The yeas lost by the very wide margin of 217 to 86 and the Commons moved on to waste predictably large amounts of time debating the Other House over the following weeks.78CJ vii. 605b; Burton’s Diary, iii. 345. Brewster’s sole committee appointment was to the committee to prepare the impeachment articles against William Boteler* (12 Apr.).79CJ vii. 637a.

Following the dissolution of this Parliament on 22 April, Brewster was qualified to sit in the recalled Rump, although Arthur Annesley* discounted him as no more than ‘a cipher to make up the number’.80[A. Annesley], Englands Confusion (1659), 10 (E.985.1). That was rather unfair, as Brewster quickly proved to be more active in the House. One immediate reason for this was the fire which had destroyed much of Southwold on 25 April 1659. Brewster took the lead in the early weeks of this session in organizing the circulation of a brief to raise money for the assistance of those afflicted.81CJ vii. 658b, 664a. His own distrust of ecclesiastical control explains the attention he gave to the subject of prisoners in custody for reasons of conscience: he was named to the appropriate committees on 10 and 20 May.82CJ vii. 648a, 659b. Throughout the summer of 1659 he was named to a varied range of other committees, including that to prepare a new sequestrations bill (22 Aug.).83CJ vii. 676b, 684b, 694b, 704b, 705b, 714b, 717b, 763b, 766b. The council of state was evidently satisfied with his performance, for they approved the gift of some New Forest venison to him on 22 August.84CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 566. He was in Suffolk on 3 October (the date of the Beccles quarter sessions) and may well have spent that winter at Wrentham.85Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/4, f. 99; B105/2/5, f. 20. He was, however, back in the Commons at least six days before the secluded Members were readmitted on 21 February 1660.86CJ vii. 843b. His final two committee appointments on 1 March both concerned proposals to assist soldiers and sailors who had fallen on hard times.87CJ vii. 857a, 857b.

Brewster had few reasons to welcome the Restoration and during the course of 1660 he was removed from his various local offices. He died in February 1663 and was buried at Wrentham.88E. Anglian Misc. (1908), 66; Cent. Kent Stud. U951/F15, unfol.; C.M. Hood, ‘An East Anglian contemporary of Pepys’, Norf. Arch. xxii (1926), 170. His will, dating from 1657, was mostly concerned with making provision for his younger son, Robert, who was left the former dean and chapter lands, but was required to pay off his father’s debts, which amounted to £400.89Norf. RO, Consistory Court of Norwich, original wills 64.