HARMAN, Richard (d. 1646), of St Peter Hungate, Norwich, Norf.

There had been Harmans living in Norwich for several generations and there were two Richard Harmans in this period. One was the son of Edmund Harman, a worsted weaver, who was apprenticed to Thomas Harman, a skinner, in 1591, but, unusually, apparently not admitted as a freeman of the Norwich corporation until 1622.21Millican, Reg. Freemen Norwich, 121, 227. However, the MP was said to have been the son of Edward Harman and was probably serving as a common councilman as early as 1619.22East Anglian Peds. 98; Index to Norwich City Officers, 76. Thus he is likely to have been the former apprentice of Robert Garsett who had received his freedom in 1613.23Millican, Reg. Freemen Norwich, 104. Moreover, Richard Harman the skinner may well have outlived the MP.24Millican, Reg. Freemen Norwich, 121. The MP’s mother may have been ‘the widow Harman’ with whom he was at odds in 1630, when the Norwich corporation intervened to arbitrate between them.25Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty, 1630-1631, 105.

The future MP was a hosier.26Millican, Reg. Freemen Norwich, 86, 87. In February 1631 he was among local hosiers who informed the Norwich corporation that they were currently employing all their knitters but who warned that, as they were not selling all their goods, redundancies were likely.27Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty, 1630-1631, 132. Already a common councilman, Harman served as sheriff of the city with his brother-in-law, Augustine Skottowe, in 1626.28Index to Norwich City Officers, pp. xxiv, 76. Four years later he was became an alderman.29Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty, 1630-1631, 149. In November 1634 he was one of the Norwich representatives who attended the meeting of Norfolk boroughs to discuss their response to the king’s demand for Ship Money.30Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty, 1632-1635, 189. Harman was not apparently involved in the 1636 Norwich petition against the activities of Bishop Matthew Wren, although in 1641 one of the bishop’s supporters would describe him as ‘an infamous man’.31Bodl. Tanner 68, f. 336. In 1639 Harman served his turn as mayor.

The end of his mayoral term in 1640 opened the way for him to be elected to the Long Parliament. It is a measure of his high standing among his colleagues that he easily topped the Norwich poll on 19 October and that in the resulting double return his name appeared on both indentures. He and Richard Catelyn* were seated by order of the House on 7 November.32CJ ii. 22a-b; Procs. LP i. 37-8, 39, 46. He took the Protestation on 3 May 1641.33CJ ii. 133b. With Sir Edmund Moundeford*, he subscribed £600 (£300 each) to the Irish Adventure in the spring of 1642.34CSP Ire. Adv. pp. 314, 347; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 520; Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 183. That June he also offered to supply a horse for the defence of Parliament.35PJ iii. 473. Although named as a commissioner of array in Norwich by the king in late July, almost immediately he demonstrated that his loyalties were instead with Parliament.36Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. On 1 August he informed the Commons of a letter that he and Catelyn had received from the mayor of Norwich, reporting that the corporation had resisted an attempt by an officer acting on behalf of the 1st earl of Lindsey to raise troops within their city. According to Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, Harman then told the Commons that

he was very glad to see the respect of the city of Norwich to the Parliament and desired that they might receive encouragement for the same and direction what to do with the said persons whom they had committed to prison.37PJ iii. 274.

The Commons therefore instructed Harman to return to Norfolk to help enforce the militia ordinance. Harman however had to decline, pleading ‘indisposition of health’, so Sir John Hobart*, 2nd bt., was instead appointed as a Norfolk deputy lieutenant.38CJ ii. 698b, 704a; PJ iii. 275.

A subsequent letter from the mayor of Norwich about persons arrested there for making disparaging remarks about certain peers and MPs was read to the Commons on 15 September, but, as neither Harman nor Catelyn were then in London, Thomas Toll I* was asked to deal with this.39PJ iii. 356; CJ ii. 767a. However, Harman was probably present on 28 October when he was included on the committee to oversee the money being collected on Parliament’s behalf.40CJ ii. 825b. On 29 November, moreover, he persuaded the Commons to allow £400 from the money already raised at Norwich to be used to buy ordnance for the city’s defence. He presumably also proposed the appointments of the two captains for the Norwich militia which were approved as the preceding item of business.41Harl. 164, f. 175; Add. 22619, f. 31; CJ ii. 868b-869a. In the aftermath of Edgehill and Turnham Green, Harman told the mayor of Norwich that there had been ‘great hopes of accommodation’ with the king, but now there were ‘nothing but preparations for war’.42Add. 22619, f. 31. Those preparations included some arms which Harman arranged to be shipped from London to Norfolk in January 1643.43Add. 22619, f. 23.

According to D’Ewes, Harman introduced a motion to the Commons on 31 January 1643 for the defence of Norwich but, because this ‘had so many strange passages in it touching the disarming of malignants in general terms and taking of their horses from them’, the Commons only passed it after making significant amendments.44Harl. 164, f. 286. There is, however, no record of such an order in the Journal. The following month Harman wrote to Norwich with the news that the city would have to pay about £2,530 under the proposed assessment ordinance. While recognising that ‘the kingdom is much in debt’, Harman thought this ‘so great a charge I know not how the poor city of Norwich will be able to undergo it’ and he assured the corporation that he and Catelyn had tried to get it reduced.45Add. 22619, f. 49.

On 22 March 1643 Harman was added to the committee to investigate money raised for the army.46CJ iii. 12a. On 6 June, he took the oath affirming that he would assist Parliament’s army against that of the king.47CJ iii. 118a-b. He enclosed a copy of that oath with his next letter to the mayor.48Add. 22619, ff. 71, 83, 86. Meanwhile, when Sir Anthony Irby* and Thomas Hatcher* were sent to brief Parliament’s commander-in-chief Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex about the details of the plot of Edmund Waller*, Harman asked Irby to remind 1st Baron Grey of Warke (Sir William Grey†) about some business that the Norwich corporation had tried to raise with him.49Add. 22619, f. 71. That July, Harman arranged for two cannons to be sent to Norwich in fulfilment of the order of the previous November.50Add. 22619, ff. 69, 83, 84, 93.

In the late summer of 1643 the Norwich corporation, having devised plans to re-fortify Norwich Castle which required that the prisoners being held there be removed to the old county gaol, asked Harman to obtain permission from Parliament.51Add. 22619, f. 95. He agreed to do so, but the Great Yarmouth MP, Miles Corbett*, was sceptical and Harman came to believe that obtaining such an order would be ‘very difficult’.52Add. 22619, ff. 97, 99, 101. He raised the matter in the Commons, probably on 24 August, only for other MPs to reject it. As Corbett was returning to Norfolk, he was instead asked to seek further advice from the sheriff and the deputy lieutenants.53Add. 22619, f. 105; CJ iii. 216b.

In early August 1643 Harman told the mayor of Norwich that the Commons was unhappy with the peace proposals that had been prepared by the Lords.54Add. 22619, f. 97v. But when a mob opposed to those proposals gathered outside Parliament on 7 August, Harman thought that they behaved in ‘a most outrageous manner’.55Add. 22619, f. 99. The following month he welcomed the news that King’s Lynn had been re-taken for Parliament.56Add. 22619, f. 117. He took the Solemn League and Covenant on 30 September.57CJ iii. 259a. On 1 November the Commons passed an order granting powers to the Norwich corporation to appoint the preachers for the cathedral.58CJ iii. 298a-b. This was likely to have been in response to a motion that the corporation had been pressing Harman to introduce; they granted him £10 in recognition of his efforts.59Add. 22619, ff. 124, 133, 134; Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, f. 13. When he was granted leave to go to the country on 11 November, Harman was assured by the Commons that he would ‘suffer no prejudice thereby’.60CJ iii. 307b.

Harman may have remained in Norfolk until the spring of 1644. His next letter to the mayor of Norwich, written on 2 May, related his unsuccessful attempts to get the city’s Great Hospital exempted from the weekly assessment. Corbett had meanwhile been discussing with him the idea that the pair should promote a bill for the maintenance of the Norwich clergymen.61Add. 22619, f. 190. At the end of that month Harman was ordered by the Commons to thank Mr Hall, possibly William Hall, vicar of St Bartholomew the Less, London, for his recent sermon.62CJ iii. 510a.

Nothing more is known about Harman’s activities at Westminster until that autumn, when he faced the accusation that Norwich had failed to pay its full share of the money owed to the Scottish army. In early September 1644, Harman was called out of the House by Sir Anthony Irby to face the ire of one critic, a certain Mr Sampson.63Add. 22619, f. 207. Harman later met with Sampson at one of the committees at Goldsmiths’ Hall, presumably the Committee for Scottish Affairs, and at the house of one of its members, John Ashe*.64Add. 22619, ff. 207, 208, 215. In early October Harman assured the Norwich corporation that if Ashe tried to pursue this issue, he would raise the matter in Parliament.65Add. 22619, f. 215. Progress on this was slow, but by early November Harman thought that they were beginning to bring Ashe round.66Add. 22619, ff. 217, 230.

Norwich had meanwhile presented Parliament with a petition proposing that some of city’s parishes should be combined, which Harman had been unable to get this read in the Commons.67Norf. RO, Norwich mayor’s court bk. 1634-46, f. 432; Add. 22619, ff. 149, 230, 235, 236. Once it had been referred to a committee, he was unable to get that committee to report back to the House.68Add. 22619, ff. 146, 166. He had more success in early December 1644 when he had persuaded the lord lieutenant, the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†), that the Norwich corporation should be allowed to nominate the colonel of the forces that had been raised there.69Add. 22619, f. 236. But in January 1645 the Commons ignored his plea that the latest assessment demand for Norwich was again too high.70Add. 22619, f. 146.

On 25 February 1645 Harman informed the mayor that Sir John Potts* had received a letter which he had been showing around Westminster. Harman had not yet seen it and its contents are not known, but he clearly saw this as a threat to Norwich and promised that he would ‘carefully attend’ the House so as to be ready whenever Potts raised it there.71Add. 22619, ff. 161, 164. It would appear that Potts revived the complaints about the Norwich assessment arrears on 11 March. On that day the Commons ordered Corbett and Harman to draft a letter on that subject from the Speaker to the Norwich corporation.72CJ iv. 75a. Harman’s covering letter to the mayor, written on 18 March, noted that ‘our adversaries are potent and many’, but assured him that he had ‘laboured to the utmost of my power in the prevention hereof.’73Add. 22619, f. 173. Harman subsequently delivered the replies from the Norwich corporation to the Speaker, William Lenthall*.74Add. 22620, ff. 20, 22. On 9 April the Committee for Scottish Affairs raised the general issue of the arrears owed to the Scots in the Commons.75CJ iv. 105a. When it was then alleged that Norwich still owed its arrears, Harman denied this. Lenthall confirmed his explanation that the corporation had written to that effect to the Speaker.76Add. 22620, f. 22.

Thereafter, Harman’s activities at Westminster began to tail off. In early June he was named to the committee to seek loans to pay the army (5 June), and to the new Excise Committee.77CJ iv. 164a; A. and O. The following month he was also included on the committee to consider how to take Chester (5 Aug.).78CJ iv. 230b. The Norwich corporation was still paying him wages, making their last payment of £50 to him in February 1646.79Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, f. 38v. Granted leave on 15 May 1646, he was still at Westminster in June but departed for Norwich on 13 July.80CJ iv. 546a; Add. 22620, ff. 62, 64, 66.

Harman’s will, drawn up on 20 September 1646 but not signed until 17 November, divided his properties between his two eldest sons, Richard and Thomas. Each of his five surviving children received £1,000. He also left funds for the repair of some of the Norwich churches, including St Andrew’s, where he was buried on 2 December, and a small gift to the minister of that parish.81PROB11/199, ff. 385-386v. The eldest son, Richard, received a gentleman’s education and married the daughter of Sir Charles Le Gros*.82East Anglian Peds. 98. The second son, Thomas, married Elizabeth Mileham, sister-in-law of the famous Norwich physician and writer, Sir Thomas Browne.83M. Toynbee, ‘Some friends of Sir Thomas Browne’, Norf. Arch. xxxi. 389, 394.