CEELY, Thomas (1602-aft.1661), of Lyme Regis, Dorset, and Penryn, Cornw.

Thomas Ceely was a member of a Cornish family with connections with Dorset through his paternal grandmother, Avis Marchant, who was a native of that county.21Brunton and Pennington, Long Parliament, 166; signature: 1648: SP24/39, bundle ‘Ceely’, unfol.. Ceely probably became connected with the borough of Lyme Regis in the 1630s, when he married a relative of Richard Roze*, who was mayor in 1633-4.22Dorset RO, DC/LR/D1/1, 73-4. In March 1638, Ceely became a burgess, and he was himself elected as mayor in 1641.23Dorset RO, DC/LR/D1/1, 81. He was active in making provision for the defence of the town from September 1642, and had been promoted to the rank of colonel in the local parliamentarian forces by July 1643.24Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, ff. 87, 94, 97. Military promotion was accompanied by civilian advancement. Ceely was appointed to the Dorset commissions to sequester delinquents and levy money in March and August 1643.25A. and O. On 21 August, he was recommended by order of the Commons to be collector of the customs at Lyme, while his brother, Peter Ceely was to be surveyor.26CJ iii. 213a. Ceely was again elected mayor in the autumn of 1643, and petitioned Parliament on behalf of the town when it was threatened by the activities of the royalist commanders in the south west, Sir Ralph Hopton* and Prince Maurice, in the first few days of 1644.27Bayley, Dorset, 128.

The siege of Lyme began in earnest in April 1644, and continued until the town was relieved by the army of the 3rd earl of Essex in June. Ceely, as governor of the town, commanded a force of 1,100 men, aided by Lieutenant-colonel Robert Blake* and Colonel John Were, and was the author of constant appeals for men and supplies made to the Houses of Parliament and the nearest parliamentarian garrison, at Poole.28Bayley, Dorset, 137, 143, 173-4; CJ iii. 525b. Once the siege was lifted, Ceely was presented with formal letters of thanks, and a gratuity of £150 from Parliament, and around this time he was dubbed ‘a second Massie’, after the hero of the defence of Gloucester, Edward Massie*.29Bayley, Dorset, 154, 190; Harl. 166, ff. 77v, 84-5. Ceely continued to be involved in the military affairs of Dorset for the remainder of the first civil war. In October 1644 he routed a party of horse under Sir Richard Cholmley, and in the following month he led the Lyme garrison in a joint expedition with Colonel William Sydenham* to prevent the royalists from fortifying Axminster.30Bayley, Dorset, 221. In April 1645 Ceely complained to Speaker William Lenthall of the ‘miserable’ condition of the Lyme garrison, which could not collect the assessments assigned it because of the strength of the local royalists.31Bodl. Tanner 60, f. 107. On 8 May 1645 the Committee of the West appointed Ceely as one of five commanders of Plymouth garrison.32Bodl. Nalson XIV/1, ff. 94-5. This was a paper appointment that did not remove him from Lyme, however: in July 1645, he again saw action against the local clubmen stirred up by George Goring’s* officers; in October he entertained the victorious Sir Thomas Fairfax* when the New Model marched into the west; and in December Oliver Cromwell* wrote to him from Tiverton, asking that the brother of Sir Gilbert Pykeringe* might be buried at Lyme.33Bayley, Dorset, 263, 265, 293; Abbott, Writings and Speeches i. 391.

On 13 December 1645 Ceely was elected as recruiter MP for Bridport, replacing Giles Strangways*.34C219/43/159. The reasons for his election are obscure. Although an Edward Ceely lived in Bridport in 1641, there is no record of Thomas Ceely’s previous involvement in the borough, and it is probable that his local prestige alone was sufficient to secure him the seat. Ceely soon travelled to Westminster, taking the Covenant on 31 December 1645.35CJ iv. 393a. His career in the Long Parliament was short-lived. He was a regular attender in the Commons only from April 1646 to July 1647, and during this period his attendance record was poor. He was presumably in the House by 16 April 1646, when the Committee of Accounts was ordered to certify his claim to arrears; he was named to the committee on an ordinance for an assessment to relieve Ireland on 24 April; and on 2 May the Commons ordered that the Committee for Compounding would consider his case.36CJ iv. 511a, 521a, 530a. Ceely was again in the House on 4 August, when he was named to a committee to consider the petition of the inhabitants of Tothill Fields in Westminster.37CJ iv. 632a. There was then another gap until 15 October, when he was appointed to a committee to consider the petition of officers in London claiming indemnity for their actions while in military service.38CJ iv. 694b. On 25 December he was also appointed to a Presbyterian-dominated committee concerning the payment of soldiers, which was ordered to consider the petition of the Massie’s disbanded brigade.39CJ v. 28b. The connection with Massie is interesting, as during 1647 Ceely emerged as an opponent of the New Model army and its Independent backers. He may have supported moves to ship units of the army over to Ireland in the spring of 1647, as the Cornish treasurer disbursed sums for his own regiment to cross the Irish Sea in the same period.40Coate, Cornwall, 224. The revival of Presbyterian fortunes in the same period brought tangible benefit for Ceely: on 13 February the Commons ordered that he was to be paid £2,000 on account, from delinquency fines, with the order being carried to the Lords by the Presbyterian leader and Dorset MP, Denzil Holles*.41CJ v. 85b. At this time Ceely was also able to use his new-found influence to support the applications made by his subordinates to the committee for petitions, concerning arrears.42SP28/265, ff. 275, 298-9, 544-5; SP28/266/1, ff. 111-2; SP28/267/3, ff. 180-1; SP28/4, f. 14.

On 4 July 1647, as the struggle between the Presbyterians and the army intensified, Ceely incurred the displeasure of the Commons by quarelling in the chamber with another Dorset soldier, Colonel John Bingham*, and they had ‘gone out, expressing great distaste between them’, presumably to fight a duel.43CJ v. 198b. It is also significant that Ceely was given permission to return to the country just as the petitions of the army agitators were presented on 19 July.44CJ v. 251a. Ceely was thus away from Westminster during the ‘forcing of the Houses’ at the end of the month. His military and administrative duties no doubt account for his continuing absence from the Commons – he was excused on 9 October 1647 and 9 February, 24 April and 26 September 1648. The leading authority on the purge of Parliament by the New Model army in December 1648 includes him in the list of those secluded, but direct contemporary evidence appears to be lacking, whatever Ceely’s later account of events may have been. If indeed he was secluded, it would have been caused by his political unreliability in the eyes of the New Model.45CJ v. 330a, 460b, 543b; vi. 34a, 38a; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 370.

After the Purge, Ceely returned to the west country, where he soon established himself as a key member of the regional administration. He was appointed to the assessment commissions for Devon in April and December 1649 and became captain of a militia foot company in Cornwall in February 1650.46A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 521. In the following May Ceely and John Pyne* were entrusted with keeping order in Somerset, and Ceely also sat as justice of the peace in Cornwall, having been added to the bench by early 1650.47C193/13/3, f. 10; CSP Dom. 1650, p. 175. In April 1649 Ceely had established himself among the Cornish gentry by purchasing the former episcopal manor and lordship of Penryn.48Bodl. Rawl. B.239, p. 28. His investment in Cornwall may have been encouraged by his growing unpopularity in Dorset, where he was attacked as ‘the late imperious governor of Lyme’, who had used his privileged position ‘to glory in the innocent blood of the well-meaning countrymen he has so unlawfully spilt’, and also subjected to legal proceedings for his confiscation of cattle and raising money during the civil wars.49Bayley, Dorset, 353; SP24/39, bundle ‘Ceely’, unfol. A particular thorn in his side was the case of John Jeffries, a Dorset royalist who had compounded in 1646. In August 1649 Jeffries petitioned that much of his land had been mortgaged to Ceely before the war, and that although Ceely still owed him money for the transaction, he had later ‘discovered’ them to his own advantage, ‘having friends in Parliament’.50CCC 1066. The judges allowed Jeffries to compound again, but Ceely petitioned the Committee for Indemnity against the order in 1650.51SP24/6, ff. 12, 93; SP24/39, bundle ‘Ceely’, unfol. The case continued until 1652, when the estate was restored, and Ceely forced to pay Jeffries rent arrears since 1649.52CCC 1066-7. The decision against him added to Ceely’s growing financial difficulties. In a later petition he complained that he was close to ruin: the £2,000 compensation granted in 1647 had been rendered worthless by Parliament’s ready acceptance of composition by the delinquents from whose estates the money was to come, and also that he had been forced to sell land to pay the £1,325 which he now owed to Jeffries.53CCC 1067.

Despite his financial difficulties, Ceely’s position improved during the protectorate. By the end of 1653 he seems to have been resident in Cornwall, where he became involved in the affairs of the borough of Penryn, and struck up a friendship with the governor of Pendennis, Captain John Fox*.54Cornw. RO, B/PENR/411, ff. 21-2, 26, 27. He also had friends at Whitehall. In April 1654 his petition for redress was referred by the council to four of their number, including Ceely’s military colleagues William Sydenham and Philip Skippon*.55CSP Dom. 1654, p. 134. In August 1654 he was elected as MP for Cornwall in the first protectorate Parliament. His activity in this session was unremarkable: he appears to have joined the House only in November and to have remained there little more than a month. During this time he was named to committees on merchants (4 Dec.), the uniting of parishes (7 Dec.) and a report on the settlement of government (12 Dec).56CJ vii. 395a, 397b, 399b. He was added to the committee for printing to consider two heretical works by the Socinian, John Biddle, on 12 December.57CJ vii. 400a.

Ceely returned to the west in the new year of 1655, and played a role in the suppression of Penruddock’s rising in the spring, although he refused to march under Colonel John Gorges*, whom he claimed was inferior to him in seniority of rank.58Bayley, Dorset, 372. He was named to the oyer and terminer commission appointed in the aftermath of the rebellion, and in later months he worked with John Fox in suppressing the early Quakers in and around Penryn.59C181/6, p. 99; Jnl. of George Fox ed. N. Penney i. 205; Coate, Cornwall, 344; Recs. of the Suffering of Quakers in Cornw. ed. N. Penney (1928), 7, 10. The comments of Major-general John Disbrowe* to Secretary Thurloe in January 1656, that Ceely and others ‘are very hearty and cordiall’ probably referred to his brother, Peter.60TSP iv. 462. Thomas Ceely was re-elected for Cornwall in 1656, and again his attendance seems to have been intermittent at best. He was named to the committee on trade on 20 October, but he was not involved in further business until December, when he was named to committees on bills to allow the Cornish MP, Richard Carter*, to sell lands (9 Dec.), to settle Wyggeston’s Hospital in Leicester (9 Dec.) and to change the venue for the Wiltshire county court (30 Dec.).61CJ vii. 442a, 466a, 476b. On 1 January 1657 Ceely was added to the committee for stating the public faith, which had obvious relevance for those seeking the payment of arrears.62CJ vii. 477b. During this Parliament Ceely was able to pursue his own claim for financial compensation. In November 1656 the protectoral council finally ordered that Ceely should be granted the lease of Sir James Bagg’s lands at Cromwell’s instigation, until his arrears of £4,500 had been repaid.63CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 157. This grant was performed on 13 January 1657, 11 days after Ceely had been granted leave to go into the country.64CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 242; CJ vii. 478a. In May of the same year Christopher Paine testified to Ceely’s improved fortunes, when he asked the admiralty commissioners for preferment, and added that he hoped they would comply for the sake of his kinsman and friend, Thomas Ceely.65CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 570, 574.

By the end of the first sitting of this Parliament, in June 1657, Ceely seems to have completed his move from Dorset to Cornwall. It is perhaps telling that in the next few years he was appointed to local commissions for Cornwall but not for Dorset, and in October 1658 his eldest son, also Thomas, married the daughter of a Cornish landowner, John Silly*, with the manor of Penryn forming part of the settlement.66A. and O.; Antony House, Carew-Pole HD/6/9. As lord of the manor of Penryn, Ceely had no difficulty in securing one of the seats – alongside his old friend, John Fox – in the elections for Richard Cromwell’s Parliament in 1659.67Cornw. RO, B/PENR/411, ff. 21-2, 26, 27. There is no record of his taking an active role at Westminster during the session that followed, but his return to the House may have been encouraged by his continuing financial problems: in January 1659, shortly before the elections to the new Parliament, he had petitioned Richard Cromwell, complaining that his grant of Bagg’s estates had been held up by a protracted legal suit.68CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 244.

The collapse of the protectorate, and the increasing power of his old enemies in the army, made Ceely’s position precarious, although he did his best to maintain good relations with the influential Cornish officer, Colonel Robert Bennett*, writing to him on 10 October to ask for news of ‘my old and true friend, Major General Skippon, and sent his best wishes to Sir Henry Vane II* and Sir Arthur Hesilrige*.69FSL, X.d.483 (130). Ceely could not stomach the army’s coup later in the month, however, and he joined this brother and other Cornish gentlemen at Truro on 27 December, when they met to declare their support for a free Parliament.70Public Intelligencer (2-9 Jan. 1660), 998 (E.773.41); Coate, Cornwall, 308. Early in 1660, Ceely was listed among the surviving secluded Members of 1648 demanding their restitution, but the restoration of the Stuarts in the following May brought him little comfort.71A Full Declaration (1660), 55 (E.1013.22). In October 1662, the commissioners for regulating Dorset corporations ordered that Ceely and two others must appear and swear an oath of allegiance, or they would be dismissed from the corporation at Lyme; Ceely was replaced shortly afterwards.72Dorset RO, DC/LR/D1/1, 97; DC/LR/D2/1, unfol. Nothing is known of Ceely’s movements after 1662. He is not recorded in the 1664 Hearth Tax records for Lyme, and may have retired to Cornwall, and died there.