BINGHAM, John (1610-75), of Binghams Melcombe, Dorset.

The ‘right ancient family of Bingham’ traced its ancestry back to Robert, brother of Sir William de Bingham of Sutton Bingham, Somerset, who married the daughter and heir of the Dorset Turbervilles in the thirteenth century.30T. Coker, Survey of Dorsetshire (1732), 80-1; Hutchins, Dorset, iv. 374. In the early seventeenth century, the Binghams were among the most respected families in the county, and their influence was also felt beyond the county boundaries. John Bingham’s father married into the Hoptons of Somerset, and his aunt was the wife of the prominent lawyer, Sir John Strode. The latter connection provided John Bingham with contacts at the inns of court from an early age. In May 1620, when he was only ten years of age, moves were made to admit Bingham to the Middle Temple with ‘no fine, by favour of Mr Strode, he being nephew of Anne, Mr Strode’s wife, with freedom from all charges until he comes to commons’; but the admission was apparently cancelled (perhaps because of his youth) and he was not admitted until February 1633, again with a reduced fine ‘by the request of John Strode, knight’.31MTR ii. 651, 805. The Middle Temple became Bingham’s London base, and in later years he was able to change his chambers there, moving from the garret of the older buildings into fine new chambers by the early 1650s.32MTR ii. 941, 976; iii. 1022, 1054. It may have been through Dorset legal circles that Bingham first came into contact with the Trenchards of Wolveton and Warmwell, and he married Frances, daughter of John Trenchard* in the late 1630s. The Trenchard connection incorporated Bingham into a close-knit group of Dorset landowners, including the Strangways of Abbotsbury and the Brownes of Frampton, and soon brought him into contact with the scion of another long-established Dorset family as, in March 1640, John Trenchard’s daughter married William Sydenham* the younger, with Bingham acting as a witness to the marriage settlement.33Dorset RO, D 6161/T1. Bingham’s extended family were not only influential in Dorset, but also among the strongest opponents of Charles I in the shire. There was much common ground between them. Bingham’s father had initially refused to pay Ship Money, and Bingham, like Trenchard and Sydenham, was described as a ‘puritan’.34CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 395; Christie, Shaftesbury, i, appx i., p. xviii.

Although he was named as one of the royalist commissioners of array in June 1642, and was not removed from the bench when the king purged the commission of the peace in July, there was little doubt where Bingham’s sympathies lay during the early stages of the civil war, and Parliament recognised this by appointing him one of their deputy lieutenants in the shire on 19 October.35Northants. RO, FH133, unfol.; C231/5, p. 530; LJ v. 408a. During the spring and early summer of 1643 he was appointed to all the committees charged with raising money in Dorset.36A. and O; Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. When the royalists, flush with their success at capturing Bristol, invaded the county from the north in early August 1643, Bingham withdrew to the port of Poole, where he took charge of the defences and replaced the governor, Sir William Constantine*, who had defected to the king. Indeed, it was Bingham who first broke the news of Constantine’s treachery to Parliament on 15 August.37Bodl. Nalson XI, f. 246. In the meantime, Bingham joined George Skutt* and others in arranging the defence of the town, as ‘we are daily threatened to be besieged’, and it was probably at this time that he became commander of the Dorset regiment of foot, and of a troop of horse.38Bodl. Tanner 62, ff. 252-3; Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 124, 277-8. By January 1644 the position was more hopeful, and Bingham was able to take the nearby town of Wareham, although he was uncertain whether he could hold it without reinforcements.39Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 522. During this period, Bingham had to take extraordinary measures to keep Poole under Parliament’s control, constantly begging for men and ammunition from Portsmouth, and extracting the last coins from the townspeople, including confiscating the recently collected subsidy payments - to the outrage of the exchequer officials.40E179/105/337. Bingham’s efforts ensured his popularity with the burgesses of Poole, who later praised his ‘principles and piety’, which were ‘our great comfort and encouragement’ in a time of great danger.41Clarke Pprs. v. 22-3. Although Wareham was retaken by the royalists in April 1644, when it was captured by Parliament yet again in the summer, Bingham and the Poole troops were involved in the fighting and he played a part in the surrender negotiations which followed.42Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, ff. 1, 19; Bayley, Dorset, 209.

On 1 July 1644, Bingham had been appointed to the new county committee for Dorset, and he was among the most active members during the first months of its existence, signing letters and orders in August, October and November 1644, and March 1645.43PRO30/24/2, nos. 43, 72/1; Add. 29319, ff. 21-2, 26-8; LJ vii. 67b. Thereafter, Bingham led his men in support of the New Model army’s campaign to relieve Taunton in May 1645.44CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 459. In the autumn of 1645 both Bingham and Sydenham were elected as recruiter MPs, with Bingham being returned for the borough of Shaftesbury, in place of the disabled royalist, Dr Samuel Turner*, on 12 November 1645.45C219/43/171. Military duties kept Bingham from taking up his seat for another six months. From December 1645 he was in charge of the blockade of Corfe Castle, and he was also involved in the plot that led to its betrayal to the parliamentarian forces in February 1646.46Bayley, Dorset, 296. When Corfe fell, Bingham’s prestige rose. He also gained materially, taking furniture and other goods from the castle, estimated to be worth £1,000, while his troops were granted their own reward by the county committee.47Bankes, Corfe Castle, 249-51; Bodl. Gough, Dorset 14, f. 27v.

Bingham arrived at Westminster in May 1646, and took the Covenant in June.48CJ iv. 538b, 586a. His attendance thereafter was sporadic, and he was named to only six committees during the next seven years.49CJ iv. 538b, 587a; v. 14b; vii. 538a, 270a, 358a. This was mainly because he was constantly called back to Dorset to take charge of the local administration on Parliament’s behalf. He was involved in the reduction of Edward Massie’s* unruly cavalry brigade in the summer of 1646; in October 1647 he was again absent from Westminster, with Sydenham and Trenchard, although their reasons were not accepted by the Commons; and in November 1648 he was one of those MPs sent to the localities to help levy assessments.50CJ iv. 640a; v. 329a; vi. 87b. Other local duties included attendance at the county committee, where he sat frequently between November 1647 and January 1648, December 1648 and March 1649, and occasionally from then until June 1650.51Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 289-572. There is no doubt as to Bingham’s political affiliations during the later 1640s. When the Presbyterians seized control of Parliament in July 1647 he was among the Independent MPs who fled to the safety of the New Model army.52LJ ix. 385b. Although he played little part in the ‘revolution’, Bingham was present in the Commons on 2 February 1649, when he took the dissent from the treaty of Newport with the late king.53PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, pp. 631-2; CJ vi. 129a. The council of state trusted Bingham, and employed him in its local business in April 1649 and June 1650, although this again necessitated his absence from the Commons.54CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 106-7; 1650, p. 214.

Even when at Westminster, Bingham was constantly distracted by Dorset matters. This can be seen most clearly in the recruiter elections in the autumn of 1646, which were managed by Bingham and Sydenham from Westminster. John Fitzjames* was eager to take the vacant seat at Shaftesbury, but he soon learned that the rival candidate, George Starr*, was backed by the colonels. Although remaining hopeful that ‘Sir Thomas Trenchard and my cousin John [Trenchard] his brother may effectually persuade Colonel B and Colonel S to take off Starr considering how near a relation I have to them all’, by November 1646 it was clear that the Shaftesbury election had been sewn up by Bingham and his allies.55Alnwick, Northumberland 547, ff. 53v-54, 64v-65. Dorset rivalries also impinged on Bingham’s conduct in the Commons. On 4 June 1647, when rumours of ‘a great insurrection for the king’ reached Parliament, there were recriminations between Bingham and the former governor of Lyme Regis, Thomas Ceely*, who left the chamber ‘expressing some great distaste between them’ and were ordered to appear at the bar, where they were ‘charged to be at peace’.56Harington’s Diary, 55; CJ v. 198b. Despite his long absences and preoccupation with local affairs, Bingham was able to profit from his membership of the House. From September 1646 he and Sydenham pursued their claims for payment of military arrears, and in February 1648 they were awarded £1,000 each from delinquent estates – although this was not paid in full until 1653.57CJ iv. 672b; v. 464a, 474a; LJ x. 79b, 83a, 84b; Add. 29319, ff. 107-8. Those who had lent money for the defence of Poole in 1643-4 were rewarded under an order of May 1649, and Bingham narrowly lost a vote to allow him the ‘pre-emption’ of the lands of his royalist cousin, Sir Ralph Hopton*, in December 1651.58CJ vi. 215b; vii. 49a.

Bingham’s attendance in Parliament ceased altogether in April 1651, when, on the motion of the Dorset MP, Denis Bond, he was commissioned to go to Guernsey to command the forces besieging the royalist-held Castle Cornet.59CJ vi. 557b; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 124. Bond also supported the council’s advice to Parliament that Bingham be given judicial as well as military power over the island in October.60CSP Dom. 1651, p. 480. Castle Cornet fell on 19 December 1651, the parliamentarian forces were reduced in January 1652, and Bingham was given leave to return to England in May.61Bayley, Dorset, 30; CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 81, 118-9, 241. But this was only the beginning of Bingham’s association with Guernsey, which lasted until the beginning of 1660. Although he was only an infrequent visitor to the island, he took a genuine interest in the concerns of its inhabitants and used his influence in London to press for such measures as the extension of free trade, the re-establishment of appeals to the council and the restoration of the authority of the bailiff. He even attracted the hostility of the council by supporting requests for the demolition of Castle Cornet and the handing-over of the defence of the island to the local people – measures which were considered ‘dangerous’ to the security of the state.62CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 93-4, 345; 1655, p. 362; 1655-6, pp. 13, 39, 130, 353.

At the same time as serving as governor of Guernsey, during the early 1650s Bingham was increasingly involved in the central and local government in England. He was nominated as one of the Members for Dorset in the Nominated Assembly, but sat only intermittently in July and August and was given leave to go into the country on 8 September.63CJ vii. 287a, 295b, 316a. On 1 November 1653 he was elected, alongside William Sydenham, as a councillor of state.64CJ vii. 344b. He was present at council meetings throughout November, being appointed to committees on the settlement of the government of Jersey, and on the problem of reducing the defences in Dorset and paying arrears to retired officers there.65CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 229-30, 233, 237, 241, 265, 273. With the establishment of the protectorate in December 1653, Bingham lost his position as councillor, but he retained considerable influence at Whitehall, not least because Sydenham continued to serve on Cromwell’s council. Bingham was also an important supporter of the protectoral government in Dorset. In January 1655 he alerted Secretary John Thurloe* to reports of royalist conspiracies in the shire, and ‘cabals every night’ in the houses of delinquents, urging the government to act swiftly against them.66TSP iii. 122. In March Bingham was one of those chosen as militia commissioners for Dorset when the rising in the south west eventually flared up, and in December he was one of the commissioners appointed to assist Major-general John Disbrowe* as major-general of the shire.67SP25/76A, f. 14; TSP iv. 305. Bingham was also involved in more humdrum Dorset business. The letters to Bingham from John Fitzjames between 1655 and 1658 show that they collaborated frequently, with Bingham using his influence in London (especially in legal cases) on behalf of Dorset cases, while Fitzjames protected his interests in the local quarter sessions.68Alnwick, Northumberland 551, ff. 23v, 55v; 552, ff. 7v, 16, 21.

On 12 July 1654 Bingham was returned as one of the six county MPs allowed under the Instrument of Government, but there is no evidence that he attended the session.69C219/44, unfol. In August 1656 he was a key figure behind the carefully managed county election, visiting prominent gentlemen to ensure that the six county MPs would be returned unopposed, and ensuring that he was among their number.70Alnwick, Northumberland 551, f. 94. Bingham was present in the Commons from the middle of October, and he was named to a number of committees, including those tackling abuses by lawyers (13 Oct.) and reforming probate of wills (27 Oct.), and he was also involved in committees considering individual petitions, including that of Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby (22 Dec.).71CJ vii. 438a, 445a, 446a, 457b, 472a, 472b. He was added to the committee on public debts on 1 January 1657.72CJ vii. 477b. Overall, Bingham’s activity at Westminster was undistinguished, and his bet with the diarist Thomas Burton* on 5 January 1657 that ‘if I would lay him five pieces to one, he would wager that the House would be up before I had writ out this book’ suggests that he found parliamentary business (even during the crucial debate on the Militia Bill) somewhat irksome.73Burton’s Diary, i. 299. Bingham was listed among those who voted for kingship on 25 March, but on 19 May he acted as teller in favour of putting the question that ‘protector’ – rather than ‘king’ - should be the title included in the revised Humble Petition and Advice, and this suggests that Bingham had fallen into line with the army interest, whose leaders in the Commons included William Sydenham.74CJ vii. 535a; Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22 (E.935.5). Barely a week afterwards, Denis Bond moved that Bingham have leave ‘to go to the country, his sister being sick of the smallpox’, and he does not seem to have attended again during this Parliament.75Burton’s Diary, ii. 120; CJ vi. 538b.

The Dorset elections for the 1659 Parliament were not as smoothly organised as before, partly because of the tensions which had built up between the supporters of Richard Cromwell* and the army interest, and partly because the reintroduction of the old franchise under the Humble Petition had reduced the number of Dorset county seats from six to two. The result was a fragmentation of the gentry coalition, and a divisive four-way contest, with Bingham and the veteran MP, Sir Walter Erle*, standing against John Fitzjames and Richard Coker. As polling day drew near, Fitzjames realised that he had been out-manoeuvred, as ‘Sir Walter Erle and Bingham sit close in counsel at Dorchester, where I am confident … there are monstrous plots in agitation’, and it became inevitable that he and Coker would fail to secure the county seats.76Alnwick, Northumberland 552, ff. 50v, 51, 58, 65. After all the fuss associated with the election, it is ironic that Bingham apparently did not attend the Commons during the third protectorate Parliament.

With the fall of the protectorate in May 1659, Bingham resumed his seat as MP for Shaftesbury in the restored Rump, and he sat fairly frequently through the summer, being named to committees on the assessment bill (with Sydenham and Trenchard), the problem of imprisoned debtors, and the maintenance of maimed soldiers and widows.77CJ vii. 684b, 722a, 741b, 771b. Bingham was clearly on good terms with the commonwealth regime, and when Sydenham was granted grand new lodgings in St James’s Palace in August 1659, Bingham and Trenchard were allowed to move into the rooms he vacated at Whitehall.78CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 79. In the same month, Bingham was given command of a militia regiment of 1,000 men to be recruited in Dorset.79CJ vii. 749a, 756a. On 4 October the committee of safety confirmed Bingham as captain and governor of Guernsey; but, as relations between the Rump and the army worsened, on 8 October Bingham was given leave to return to Dorset, perhaps to ensure the security of the county in the face of renewed crisis at the centre.80CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 240; CJ vii. 794b.

Nothing is known of Bingham’s activities during the brief period of military rule in the final months of 1659, or the months of uncertainty that preceded the Restoration, but after May 1660 he mostly lived in retirement in Dorset. There he defended himself against the newly resurgent royalists, who set on foot an investigation of the money received by him during the 1640s.81E113/13, unfol. Sir Ralph Bankes* spared little time in forcing Bingham to return the goods taken from Corfe Castle. Bingham was careful to comply with Bankes’s demands, saying that he was happy to return items, and apologising for damage to a bed which had occurred when he was in Guernsey. His attitude was one of resignation, if not repentance, as he told Bankes in October 1661: ‘I follow the direction and advice of our lord lieutenant, that is, to live retired and keep at home; it was the best course I could steer as yet, by which I never go abroad’.82Bankes, Corfe Castle, 248-51, 259-60.

Bingham died in 1675, leaving three daughters: Penelope, who had married John Michell of Kingston Russell (and whose own daughter married George Duckett†), Frances and Grace.83Hutchins, Dorset, iv. 375. In his will, dated 3 June 1675, Bingham left his houses and their contents to his second wife, and divided the rest of the estate between his daughters, with provision that, once the legacies had been settled, sole control might be purchased by his nephew, Richard Bingham, if he paid £2,000 within six months of his death.84PROB11/349/266. The smallness of the sum seems to confirm allegations that Bingham was in financial difficulties by this time.85Bayley, Dorset, 30. He could still call on influential trustees for the portions of his younger daughters, however, including the 1st earl of Shaftesbury (Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*), Giles Strangways*, and the executors of John Trenchard and William Sydenham.86PROB11/349/266.