MOODY, Samuel (d. 1658), of Bury St Edmunds and Moulton, Suff.

Samuel Moody was probably descended from Edmund Moody of Bury St Edmunds, a footman to Henry VIII, who was granted arms in 1541 by his master ‘for his miraculously saving his life when leaping over a ditch with a pole which broke: that if the said Edmund had not leapt into the water and lifted up the king’s head he [would have] drowned’.29‘Moody of Suff. and America’, 39. Thirty years later Richard Moody held lands at Moulton, a village just outside Newmarket, and, on his death in 1574, these lands descended to his eldest son, George, who was then still a minor.30‘Moody of Suff. and America’, 38. Later said to be ‘famous for his housekeeping and just and plain dealing’, George Moody probably married one of the Newces of Gazeley (the next village to Moulton) and Samuel, the future MP, was one of the nine children born to them.31Harl. 6071, p. 512; Soc. Antiq. MS 667, p. 204; ‘Moody of Suff. and America’, 38; Vis. Suff. 1664-8, 9. Samuel’s exact date of birth is not known but his father remarried in 1604. As Samuel was not yet 21 when his father died in 1607 but was old enough to marry by 1616, the date can be narrowed down to either the late 1580s or the 1590s.32‘Moody of Suff. and America’, 38; PROB11/110/420. While the eldest brother, George, inherited the estate at Moulton, Samuel and his younger brother, John, were each left £200 by their father.33PROB11/110/420.

By 1616, when their eldest son, George was born at Bury St Edmunds, Samuel had married Mary Boldero.34‘Moody of Suff. and America’, 39. In 1618 he was admitted to the Drapers’ Company in London as an apprentice and it was as a woollen draper in Bury St Edmunds that he earned his living over the following four decades.35Drapers’ Co. ed. Boyd, 128; Soc. Antiq. MS 667, p. 204. Among his customers were Sir Edmund Bacon† and the long-serving MP for Thetford, Framlingham Gawdy*.36University of Chicago, Bacon coll. 3151; Eg. 2716, ff. 55, 76; Eg. 2717, f. 4. At some stage, he invested in an ironworks scheme in partnership with, among others, Lionel Copley* and the future secretary to the council of state, Gaultier Frost.37Winthrop Pprs. v. 209. By the 1630s he was well established as one of the leading citizens of Bury. He entered the corporation of the town, rising to the senior rank of chief burgess, and served in 1628 (along with Jeremy Stafford) as the town’s chamberlain.38Suff. RO (Bury), D11/1/1(7); D4/1/2, f. 1. In 1635 he was living in the High Ward of the town.39Suff. RO (Bury), HD12/1(c).

On the outbreak of the civil war in 1642 the Moody family wholeheartedly sided with Parliament. Two of Moody’s sons, John and Samuel, participated directly in the conflict as officers in the parliamentarian armies. The younger Samuel, as a captain under the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†), particularly distinguished himself during the advance to capture Lincoln in October 1643 and later, before his death in about 1657, served in Ireland.40Harl. 6071, p. 512; G. Davies, ‘The army of the Eastern Assoc.’, EHR xlvi. 90; SP28/176: acct. of Samuel Moody, Nov. 1643-Jan. 1644, ff. 13v-15v, 18; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, iii. 63-4; Suff. ed. Everitt, 44, 91, 98; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 647; CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 332; Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 191. His brother, John, was first a captain in one of the parliamentarian foot regiments and in 1651, after a spell in the civilian office of receiver-general of the assessments for Suffolk, was major of one of the militia regiments raised in Suffolk for the Worcester campaign. He went on to become colonel of a regiment of foot in the Suffolk militia between 1655 and 1660.41Harl. 6071, p. 512; Davies, ‘Eastern Assoc.’, 90; J.G.A. Ive, ‘The local dimension of defence’, (PhD diss. Univ. of Cambridge, 1986), 80, 183, 190-1, 223-4; SP25/119, p. 65; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 204; Bodl. Tanner 226, p. 61.

Their father’s work in Suffolk on the various committees which took over control of the county was every bit as useful to the parliamentarian cause. From the outset several of the leading Bury burgesses, including Moody, Thomas Chaplin* and John Clarke*, were named to all the local committees which mattered and, by working together, they ensured that Bury, the second largest town in Suffolk and the location of Parliament’s standing committee for the county, remained securely parliamentarian.42Suff. ed. Everitt, 40, 59, 60-1, 72, 74, 76; SP28/243; Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 377-8; Suff. RO (Ipswich), HD36/2781/45; HD36/2781/51a-b; A. and O. To that end, it helped that during 1644 Moody also served as the alderman of Bury, which, as the senior civic office in the town, was the equivalent of a mayor.43SP28/243; Suff. RO (Bury), D7/6/3; A. and O.; Suff. ed. Everitt, 90. Because there was little fighting in Suffolk, the priority was the raising of money to fund the fighting elsewhere and in that Moody excelled. In the autumn of 1642 he worked with Sir William Spring* and Thomas Chaplin in the western half of the county to bring in the money lent to Parliament on the Propositions.44P. Fisher, For the…Cttees. for the Co. of Suffolke (1648), 6, 10, 14-15 (E.448.13). Encouraged by their handling of that operation, Moody and Spring, along with Edmund Harvey II* (who later claimed that he left the work to the other two), were soon acting as the treasurers of the county, with the job of collecting and dispersing all the taxation raised for Parliament in Suffolk.45Fisher, Suffolke, 17-33; Suff. ed. Everitt, 67; E113/11: answers of Christopher Smyth, 14 Jan. 1663, Edmund Harvey, 17 Nov. 1662, and George Moody, 24 Nov. 1662; SP28/176: acc. of Samuel Moody, Nov. 1643-Jan. 1644; SP28/243: warrants from Suff. co. cttee. Jan. 1644-Oct. 1649; Suff. RO (Ipswich), HD36/2781/41; HD36/2672/106. In the years up to 1648 a total of £113,363 passed through his hands from these levies and he paid out £124,424. The accounts published by the Suffolk county committee were honest enough to admit that money had been moved around between accounts ‘upon the extraordinary necessities of the army’ and so claimed that, because ‘it is impossible to bring every accompt to his proper head’, the apparent deficit did not represent a loss to Moody.46Fisher, Suffolke, 42-3. On a much more modest level, he contributed £27 11s. 5d. in May 1647 to the Irish loan and at some stage he acquired a share in the Irish Adventurers’ scheme.47SP28/350/2A, f. 67v; CSP Ire. 1647-1660, p. 406; PROB11/281/306.

Moody evidently made a point of being at the forefront of all the attempts at further reformation in the Bury area during the war years. He deputized for William Dowsing at Bury in February 1644 during Dowsing’s notorious campaign to remove popish images from East Anglian churches. He and Chaplin divided between them the task of cleansing the two local churches, with Moody organizing the removal of the offensive images from St James’s.48The Jnl. of William Dowsing ed. T. Cooper (Woodbridge, 2001), 83, 243. Moody’s appointment to the local committee for scandalous ministers created in March 1644 by the earl of Manchester in his capacity as major-general of the Eastern Association, indicates that he was willing to assist in a reformation of the church in Suffolk. The main purpose of the committee was to search out and remove any ministers thought to be unsuitable. It was not large and Moody turned up, as expected, at most of the meetings held at Bury St Edmunds.49Suff. Cttees. for Scandalous Ministers ed. Holmes, 25. He joined other Presbyterians on the county committee, such as Maurice Barrowe*, Sir William Spring* and Francis Bacon*, in writing to the Committee of Both Kingdoms in London in November 1644 to call for Parliament to settle the affairs of the church as quickly as possible. Their argument was that, in Suffolk, they had less to fear from the royalists (those who shall ‘endeavour to break in upon us’) than from the ‘antinomians and anabaptists’ who ‘do exceedingly increase amongst us’.50University of Chicago, Bacon coll. 4552. The emigration of Moody’s younger brother, John, to New England some time before 1633 hints at a godly outlook which Moody probably shared.51‘Moody of Suff. and America’, 38. Other evidence, such as his appointment as an elder of the Bury St Edmunds classis in 1645, is consistent with that assumption.52Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 428; Suff. RO (Ipswich), HD36/2781/45.

From 1649 Moody had no qualms about serving the new republican government. In the summer of 1648 the Essex rising and the removal of the Suffolk militia to the siege of Colchester had encouraged an attempted royalist rising in the area around his brother’s estates at Moulton and his son, Samuel, had assisted in the capture of some of the rebels. The following year it was Moody, together with Thomas Chaplin, who took the statements preliminary to the prosecution of those accused of involvement in the rising.53Suff. ed. Everitt, 95-103. In May 1650 the council of state ordered that Moody, Chaplin and Clarke be added to the Suffolk commission of the peace (although this had already been effected in March) and, apart from those periods when he was sitting in Parliament, Moody often took his place on the bench at the Bury quarter sessions.54CSP Dom. 1650, p. 143; Names of the Justices (1650), 54 (E.1238.4); Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/1, f. 170v; B105/2/2, ff. 55, 83v, 96v, 109; B105/2/3, ff. 37v, 44v, 52v, 66v, 73v, 80, 111v, 119, 126v, 133v; B105/2/4, ff. 8v, 42v, 49v. It was in his capacity as a justice of the peace that he officiated at several weddings which took place between 1653 and 1655 at St James’s, Bury St Edmunds.55Bury St Edmunds: St James’s Par. Reg.: Marriages 1562-1800 (Suff. Green Bks. xvii.), 40, 52. In late 1650 Parliament also named him to the high court of justice to sit at Norwich to try the Norfolk rebels and in 1653 he was included on the sub-committee to receive complaints for the residents of the fens, so that they could then be sent to London to the commissioners for the draining of the Bedford Level.56A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 447. In 1651 Moody, for a second time, served as alderman of Bury St Edmunds.57Suff. RO (Bury), D4/1/2, f. 24v.

The local prominence of Moody, Chaplin and Clarke as active agents of the government was acknowledged by the congregations of Bury St Edmunds in 1653 when they proposed the three of them as suitable nominees for the forthcoming assembly, the Nominated Parliament. In fact, nominations had already been returned by the Suffolk churches and the decision by the Bury churches to submit separate nominations may indicate a feeling that they had been insufficiently consulted.58Original Letters, ed. Nickolls, 94-5, 126. There would have been little for the council of state to choose between all eight of the names which had been submitted and they preferred to summon five of the official nominations (who, in any case, included Clarke). Moody therefore had to wait until the following year to get his first chance to sit in Parliament. In the meantime, he was one of those who signed the report to the lord protector, Oliver Cromwell*, in 1654 from the congregational church at Bury St Edmunds which informed him that they were finding the cost of renting the shire hall a considerable burden. Moody may well have been one of the six members of the congregation who were paying the minister’s stipend.59Original Letters, ed. Nickolls, 155.

Moody was an obvious choice to be one of the two Bury MPs in the 1654 Parliament. Indeed, discussions as to who to elect probably came down to the same three names, Moody, Chaplin and Clarke, which had been considered for the summons the previous year. When they met in early July, their colleagues on the corporation decided to pair Moody with Clarke. Moody’s activity in this Parliament seems to have been confined to three committee appointments – those on which military forces should be continued (26 Sept.), on the encouragement of the transportation of corn (6 Oct.) and on the bill to abolish purveyance (22 Dec.).60CJ vii. 370b, 374b, 407b.

The decision in August 1656 by the members of Bury St Edmunds corporation to re-elect Moody and Clarke was one exception to the general anti-government backlash throughout East Anglia in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament.61TSP v. 328. During his second term as an MP, Moody made a greater impact, frequently intervening in debate and being regularly named to committees. There is even evidence that he turned up to some of those committees. Early in the first session (20 Oct. 1656) he was included on the committee for trade and it is known that he supported the Merchant Adventurers when their dispute with the Clothworkers’ Company came before the committee in December 1656. In siding with the Merchant Adventurers, he was evidently not persuaded by the Clothworkers’ complaints that the Adventurers were ignoring the ancient statutes which, to protect the domestic clothworking industry, banned the export of undressed woollen cloths.62CJ vii. 442a; Burton’s Diary, i. 221. He also attended the meetings in early 1657 of the committee hearing the petitions from the Levant Company and Sir Sackville Crow, but in May 1657, when supporting the motion by Sir Thomas Wroth* that the legal proceedings in this case should be stayed to allow the committee to complete its much-delayed report, he implied that these meetings had achieved little, claiming that ‘the business was very foul’.63CJ vii. 483a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 99. Throughout both sessions he voiced support for the view that restrictions should be imposed to limit the amount of such private disputes coming before them.64Burton’s Diary, i. 191, 292, ii. 133, 375. In the case of the time-consuming attempts by Lord Craven to recover his sequestered estates, Moody took the hard-headed view that the purchasers of the lands should not be represented, for, whether or not the sequestration had been justified, nothing should override the advantage Parliament had gained from it.65Burton’s Diary, ii. 129.

Regarding the public business which he thought so urgent, Moody supported at least parts of the Humble Petition and Advice. The sections with which he agreed included those concerning religion. Several weeks before the Commons began preparing the Petition, he had been added to the committee to prepare the confession of faith and he certainly had little sympathy with the blasphemies of James Naylor, arguing first that he should appear before them and later that he ought not to be reprieved.66CJ vii. 448a, 477b; Burton’s Diary, i. 34, 219, 262. As a member of the committee which considered parts of clause 11 (19 Mar. 1657), Moody may have been involved in the preparation of the final version of the provisions in the Petition and Advice to protect all ministers prepared to take the confession of faith.67CJ vii. 507b. Given his own possible connections with the Independent congregation at Bury St Edmunds, it would have been understandable if he wanted to support those Independent sects with orthodox beliefs. This however did not prevent his inclusion on several committees on matters such as the maintenance of ministers, impropriations and sequestered parsonages, which might indicate otherwise.68CJ vii. 453a, 455a, 469a, 475b, 485b, 488a, 515b, 581b. Moody may have played a small part in the efforts by the Commons to persuade Cromwell to accept the Petition but his support for its content was not absolute.69CJ vii. 521a-b. On 30 April, when the Commons voted that the acts and ordinances passed by Parliament between 1642 and 1653 remained valid, he and Samuel Hyland* opposed John Disbrowe’s* proposed proviso protecting any parts of the Petition which conflicted with the earlier legislation.70Burton’s Diary, ii. 91. He was later named to the large committee which prepared the Additional and Explanatory Petition (27 May).71CJ vii. 540b.

As someone who had his own claim to lands in Ireland and who had a son serving with the army there, Moody supported the measures to reward soldiers with Irish land grants.72CJ vii. 472b, 491b, 539a. This support extended to the more controversial grants to leading political figures. On 5 June 1657 he spoke in favour of a grant of lands in Ireland to Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*). Three days later he was unimpressed by the attempts of Thomas Bampfylde* and others to block similar grants to the lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood*, and to Bulstrode Whitelocke* (who, like Broghill, had, only weeks before, led the attempts to persuade Cromwell to accept the crown).73Burton’s Diary, ii. 176, 198; CJ vii. 546a. Earlier he had probably supported the grant of some of the Hamilton estates in Scotland to George Monck*.74CJ vii. 476b. He welcomed the government’s military successes elsewhere, for he seconded the motion by George Downing* that the House’s thanks should be conveyed to Robert Blake* for his victory in April 1657 over the Spanish at Santa Cruz.75Burton’s Diary, ii. 145.

Moody occasionally intervened when the House was debating taxation to offer advice learned from his own extensive tax-collecting experiences. He favoured the collection of the assessment by a precise rate in the pound (he wanted a rate of 6d.), rather than the cruder system of collection according to the old subsidy proportions. His argument was that the method of rate poundage was ‘so equal none can except against it’.76Burton’s Diary, ii. 232. What is less clear is whether his request for more information about the decimation bill, which Disbrowe introduced in December 1657 and which proved unpopular with other members of the House, was a technical query or a warning that he was unimpressed.77Burton’s Diary, i. 237. On other matters, Moody may have some sort of personal interest. His support for a rebate on the fine which the Covent Garden scheme of the 5th earl of Bedford (William Russell*) would incur under the act against new buildings in London raises the possibility that he had some connection with Bedford through the draining of the East Anglian fens. The particular form of the rebate he advocated (a one-third discount on whatever the fine came to, rather than a fixed figure) may have been thought favourable to Bedford.78Burton’s Diary, ii. 181. There is however no evidence that Moody himself owned or leased any property in London, so, although he acted as teller with Wroth in the vote on the subject (20 June 1657), it seems unlikely that he had direct interest in the question of whether Moorditch, the open channel that ran along the outside of the City walls at Moorfields, should be exempt from this act against new buildings.79CJ vii. 565b. His final recorded contribution in the Commons was an ill-judged intervention, along with William Burton*, on 30 January 1658 to challenge the claim by John Trevor* that the records were silent on what exactly the ‘Other House’ should be called. A check of the records revealed that Trevor was right.80Burton’s Diary, ii. 399.

Moody did not long survive the end of this Parliament. On 18 February 1658, only two weeks after the dissolution, he made out his will and he died at some point over the next four months.81PROB11/281/306. Six years before, his elder brother, George, had died, leaving him the estates at Moulton which he had inherited from their father.82PROB11/221/42; Harl. 6071, p. 512. These lands now passed to Samuel’s eldest son, George. The rest of his lands passed to the other two surviving sons, with George (the second son) getting a 40-acre estate on the outskirts of King’s Lynn and John getting the lands in Ireland. The house in Bury (which had doubled as his shop) was left to George and Henry, while John received stock worth £1,100. The bequests to his daughters and granddaughter totalled £1,800.83PROB11/281/306. In August 1659 George joined with Clarke in asking the Bury corporation for the money due to Moody and Clarke for their services as the town’s MPs.84Suff. RO (Bury), D4/1/2, f. 25. Moody’s immediate descendants were also leading merchants in Bury St Edmunds but none of them sat in any Parliaments.85‘Moody of Suff. and America’, 38-9; Fragmenta Gen. ed. F. A. Crisp, ix. 65, 67. The New England Moodys descended from his brother, John.