JENNER, Robert (c.1584-1651), of Widhill, Wilts.

The identity of Robert Jenner’s parents is unknown but it seems likely that his family were of long, if humble, standing in the area around Cricklade in north Wiltshire and in the nearby Gloucestershire parish of Kempsford. Robert had at least one brother, John Jenner of Crudwell and Marston Meysey, with whom he entered into several indentures, and a sister, Margaret, who married into the Oatridge family, also of north Wiltshire.22Vis. Glos. 1682-3, ed. T.F. Fenwick and W.C. Metcalfe (Exeter, 1884), 127. Jenner was made a freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company, after the usual apprenticeship of seven or eight years, in July 1613, and he was sufficiently well established by 1615 to take on his first apprentice in the trade, William Gibbs*, later a prominent figure in City politics.23Goldsmiths’ Co. Appr. Bk. 1, ff. 177, 220. Jenner made his living as a ‘finer’, refining imported silver bullion largely for use in the wire-drawing trade. It was a lucrative business: between October 1617 and February 1621, Jenner handled almost 6,800 lbs of silver bullion, valued at £24,405.24CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 229. Around this time he purchased a house in Foster Lane for £1,400.25W.S. Prideaux, Mems. of Goldsmiths’ Co. i. 249. He also came into possession of the manor of Widhill near Cricklade in 1619, and became resident there from at least 1623.26E115/225/129. In 1624 he extended his landed interests in North Wiltshire, having joined with his brother John Jenner and his erstwhile apprentice William Gibbs in the purchase of the nearby manor of Eysey from Sir John Hungerford† of Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, and his son Sir Anthony Hungerford.27C54/2826/11. They sold this manor in November 1630 for £2,310, to Edmund Dunch* of Little Wittenham, Berkshire.28C54/2829/32.

Jenner’s business success also brought him into conflict with the crown. In the summer of 1622, James I prohibited the manufacture of gold and silver thread altogether, and barely two weeks later Jenner was arrested for flouting the proclamation.29Stuart Royal Procs. i. 540-3; APC, July 1621-May 1623, 259. In 1623 Jenner was made a freeman and assistant of the Gold and Silver Wire-Drawers’ Company, which was dissolved again the following year, after protests from the Goldsmiths’ Company.30C.T. Carr, Select Charters of Trading Companies (Selden Soc. xxviii, 1913), 124; CJ i. 726b-727a; Stuart Royal Procs. i. 593-4. Like many refiners, whose dealings in bullion gave them access to large reserves of cash, there is evidence to suggest that Jenner profited as a money lender. His name appears as a creditor in the recognizance rolls for 1627, when he loaned money to a number of London citizens.31LC4/56/309, 311. Later documents show him to have been lending money to a number of people in London and Wiltshire.32LMA, MS Acc. 258/1; C54/3004/24. Elected for Cricklade in Wiltshire in 1628, Jenner played only a minor part in the proceedings of that Parliament, although he defended the rights of the Goldsmiths’ Company in June.33HP Commons 1604-1629 iv. 888.

Despite his intervention in Parliament on behalf of the Goldsmiths, Jenner’s relationship with the Company remained difficult during the personal rule of Charles I. When appointed to the post of renter (collecting the company’s rents and administering payments to poor members) in November 1629, he only accepted on the condition that he was allowed to appoint a deputy when ‘his urgent occasions’ took him into the country.34Goldsmiths’ Co. Court Bk. Q, ff. 148-9. In fact, Jenner’s ‘urgent occasions’ took him back to Wiltshire for most of the time, while the day-to-day duties of renter fell to William Gibbs, acting on Jenner’s behalf.35C115/226/125; Goldsmiths’ Co. Court Bk. T, ff. 143v-44. On 24 February 1630, Jenner appeared before the Court of Assistants to explain his refusal to provide the customary renter’s dinner for company members, and remained recalcitrant even after imprisonment at Newgate.36Goldsmiths’ Co. Court Bk. Q, ff. 166v, 167-v. Although he seems to have made his peace with the company by December 1631, when he agreed to surrender leases on three tenements near Goldsmiths’ Hall to the company free of charge, he remained reluctant to undertake the burden of elected office.37Goldsmiths’ Co. Court Bk. R, ff. 75, 80v. When, on 17 April 1634, the company appointed him to the position of touch warden, a post requiring service with the assay office, Jenner again declined, ‘in regard of his settling himself in the country and his continual residence there for the most part of the year’. And although he was appointed to the court of assistants on the same day, he attended only twice - in April and May 1634.38Goldsmiths’ Co. Court Bk. R, ff. 222v, 223v, 225v. The main reason for Jenner’s reluctance to serve his company seems to have been his increasing preoccupation with his landed interests in Wiltshire. In 1632 he secured a lucrative marriage for his 15 year old daughter, Anne, to Thomas Trevor*, the only son and heir of Sir Thomas Trevor†, baron of the Exchequer. Jenner had been sufficiently successful in business to provide a £5,000 portion for his daughter as well as lands in Wiltshire.39Flints. RO, Plas Teg MSS 940-1.

It was as a Wiltshire landowner rather than as a London businessman that Jenner was returned as member for Cricklade in the spring of 1640. Unnoticed by the diarists of the parliamentary session and in the Journals, his actual attendance during the brief session is only indicated by his departure from London immediately after the dissolution. Avoiding an opportunistic attempt by the Goldsmiths’ Company to elect Jenner as second warden, William Gibbs attended the court of assistants on his behalf on 8 May 1640, giving them an apology, ‘in regard the Parliament was dissolved and [Jenner’s] urgent occasions in the country compelled his departure out of town’. To soften the blow, Gibbs presented a gift of £10 on Jenner’s behalf, ‘as a testimony of his love for the company for their respects unto him.’40Goldsmiths’ Co. Court Bk. V, ff. 56v-57v.

In the parliamentary election of autumn 1640, Jenner was once again returned for Cricklade. During the early stages of the Long Parliament, Jenner seems to have been an infrequent visitor to the Commons, and his interests were narrowly focused on commerce and the internal politics of the City. He was named to a committee to consider the plight of merchants held captive in Algiers on 10 December 1640, and his next committee appointment was not until 27 April 1641, when he was one of those chosen to consider a bill to punish members of Convocation.41CJ ii. 48b, 129a. He took the Protestation on 3 May 1641, and on 10 May the diarist John Moore* noted obscurely that ‘Mr Jenner explained himself for calling the lord mayor an heavy man’.42CJ ii. 133a; Procs. LP iv. 305. This rebuke was aimed at Sir Edmund Wright, whose tardiness in collecting poll money to pay off the northern armies was to bring him under criticism from the House a month later.43CJ ii. 224a, 226b. Jenner took no further part in parliamentary business until after the recess, and on 9 November he was named to a committee to consider propositions from merchants to import foreign coins into Ireland, in response to news of outbreak of rebellion on that island.44CJ ii. 308b-9a. Jenner’s activity in the spring of 1642 was also sporadic. In February he was named to two committees, to inspect an import of saltpetre and to consider a bill on brewing.45CJ ii. 442b, 461a.

As tensions between king and Parliament increased, Jenner became more involved in the affairs of both City and Parliament, and in liaising between the two. As a Goldsmith, Jenner was an obvious choice for a committee appointed on 4 May to oversee to the purchase of a jewel to reward the 12th earl of Ormond for his service against the Catholic rebels in Ireland.46CJ ii. 557a. On 13 May he was named to a committee to request a loan of £50,000 from the livery companies.47CJ ii. 570b. In June he abandoned his earlier policy of refusing office and accepted the post of prime warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, and in the same month he urged the Company to speed the collection of its poll money.48Goldsmiths’ Co. Court Bk. W, f. 1; Court Bk. V, f. 198v. Jenner’s involvement in Parliament gradually increased as war approached. In June he pledged two horses for the defence of Parliament.49PJ iii. 470. On 7 September he took the oath of loyalty to the new lord general, the 3rd earl of Essex.50CJ ii. 755a. The Edgehill campaign and the subsequent threat to London led to a sudden increase in Jenner’s committee appointments. He was named to eight committees during the last three months of 1642, including those to arrest and disarm suspected royalists in London (22 Oct.); to account for contributions of money, plate and horses (28 Oct.); and to make provisions for maimed soldiers in London (2 and 8 Nov.).51CJ ii. 818b, 825b, 832a; Add. 18777, f. 52v. On 23 November Jenner was added to the Committee for Irish Affairs to give advice on abuses in the transport of money there, and to two committees to aid the collection of subscription money in London. 52CJ ii. 860a. On 3 December he and Cornelius Holland* were given charge of providing clothes for soldiers captured at Brentford, and on the same day he was one of a committee of six to interrogate prisoners taken at Farnham.53CJ ii. 874a, 875a. Although preoccupied with London, Jenner did not forget Wiltshire. On 7 December he and Philip Smythe* were ordered to arrange for the relief for the ‘well affected’ of Marlborough, which had been recently sacked by royalist forces.54CJ ii. 879a.

Jenner’s financial expertise was to prove valuable to the Commons during 1643. In mid-February, even as the Oxford peace talks got underway, he joined fellow west country MPs, Nathaniel Stephens, Thomas Hodges I and Edward Ashe, in the provision of £4,000 to raise troops in Gloucestershire, to be repaid at 8 per cent interest from the first money raised by the treasurer-at-war, Sir Gilbert Gerard*.55CJ ii. 964b, 985a-b; LJ vi. 606b. The first instalment, of £700, was repaid on 2 March, and the remainder was charged upon the subscription monies a day later.56LJ vi. 631a; CJ ii. 987b. Jenner continued to be involved in the relief of maimed soldiers in March and April, but his committee appointments in the spring and summer were largely dominated by the problem of financing the war.57CJ ii. 988b; iii. 55b. On 22 March he was added to a committee ‘to enquire after the sums of money raised and issued forth to the army’ alongside Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire and Robert Scawen.58CJ iii. 12a. He was not an enthusiast for all forms of taxation, however, and on 28 March he opposed the excise, proposed by John Pym, saying that ‘the very making of this motion, if it were published abroad, would breed a great distraction in that kingdom’.59Harl. 164, f. 346v. On 1 May Jenner was named to a committee to confer with merchants dealing with foreign currency, to arrange a loan for the state, and on 6 May he was appointed to a committee to investigate abuses by those searching houses and seizing goods to pay the contribution imposed on Londoners.60CJ iii. 65b, 73a. On 19 June he was named to a committee to consider proposals for raising money on the credit of the new excise tax, and on 11 August he joined John Trenchard and John Ashe as a committee of three to seize £20,000 concealed by a papist in London.61CJ iii. 135b, 201b.

Jenner continued to be involved in the war in the west. On 3 August 1643, he was named to a committee to consider the relief of Exeter and the western parts.62CJ iii. 192b. The earl of Essex’s successful march to assist Goucester and the fall of Somerset and Dorset to the king made western affairs more urgent. When the recorder of London, John Glynne*, brought in measures to give the London militia committee more powers to assist Sir William Waller’s* brigade in the west, he was opposed by Samuel Vassall, at which Jenner ‘fell upon the reproving Mr Vassall somewhat bitterly, for which others reproved him, because by the privileges of the House every man ought to speak his conscience freely’.63Harl. 165, f. 168v. On 19 September Jenner was named to a committee to consider propositions from the governor of Gloucester, Edward Massie*, for the maintenance of the garrison.64CJ iii. 247a On 22 November he was ordered to sell goods, including rings, intercepted en route to Oxford, with the proceeds being paid to Sir William Waller’s brigade; and on 11 December he arranged the sale of other jewellery for the benefit of the garrisons of Poole and Lyme Regis.65CJ iii. 317b, 337a. On 18 December he was named with Zouche Tate and Cornelius Holland to order the London militia committee to supply Waller with 500 men needed to assist in the recapture of Arundel Castle, Sussex, and arrest the advance of royalist forces from the west.66CJ iii. 345a.

Much of Jenner’s committee work in the winter of 1643-4 related to matters of trade, such as the committee to consider regulation of the farthing token office (16 Dec.), the excise on soap (23 Dec.), the activity of excise commissioners (8 Feb. 1644), and an amended ordinance on saltpetre (15 Mar.).67CJ iii. 343b, 350b, 393a, 428b. On 5 February, Jenner was also included in a committee to take charge of furniture and religious items from the duke of Richmond’s lodgings at Whitehall, including a bed valued at £5,000 (according to Laurence Whitaker*) or £500 (according to Walter Yonge I*). Vestments and altar cloths were to be burned, but the other items were reserved for sale, the profits to be employed in paying off the arrears due to the garrison at Windsor.68CJ iii. 389a; Add. 31116, p. 228; Add. 18777, f. 62v. Thereafter, Jenner was to prove a valuable assistant to those responsible for the payment of the Parliament's armies. On 25 March he was named to a committee, headed by Robert Scawen, to draw up an establishment for Essex’s army based on that provided for the king’s army against the Scots in 1640, and to consider commissioners to reside with the army in the field.69CJ iii. 437a-b. Jenner was subsequently named to other committees which related to army affairs, such as the committee to raise ‘a stock of money’ for the army, which was empowered to negotiate with citizens and merchants in London on 11 April 1644.70 CJ iii. 457a-b. He was also named to committees to ‘recommend’ a plan to allow the Common Council to borrow £200,000 from the United Provinces (17 Apr.); on additional ordinances for the excise (11 May); and to consider ‘all ways and means’ to raise money, including loans from livery companies and foreign merchants and the sale of sequestered estates (27 May).71CJ iii. 462b, 489a-b, 508b-509a. On occasion, Jenner was also called on to serve the House in his capacity as a goldsmith. On 4 June he and the Master of the Jewel Tower, Sir Henry Mildmay, were given particular charge of an order to present the notorious Captain Swanley and Captain Smith with gold chains and medals worth £200 and £100 respectively in token of their service for Parliament in Wales. (Swanley’s ‘good service’ included the capture of a ship full of royalist troops out of which he had had every Irishman drowned).72CJ iii. 517b. In October, Jenner was called on again to oversee the sale of jewels confiscated from Sir James Palmer, a Buckinghamshire delinquent.73CJ iii. 660a.

During this period, Jenner continued to back a vigorous war effort, and in particular supported the army under Sir William Waller. When Glynne presented the Commons with a letter from the governor of Windsor, Colonel John Venn*, complaining of lack of pay and provisions, Jenner ‘offered to pay £200 freely for two months towards the payment of them’, and the Commons agreed to approach to lord mayor and aldermen for further sums, to be repaid by the Committee for Advance of Money.74Harl. 166, f. 75v. Concern for the west and support of Waller may have been behind two of Jenner’s appointments at the end of August 1644. On 21st he was named to a committee, responding to a report by Giles Grene*, to consider reducing the costs of the army and navy, and on 26th he later joined Grene and others (including Edmund Prideaux I and Robert Scawen) on the committee on the ordnance office.75CJ iii. 601a, 607a. The same day he signed a warrant, directed to the officers of the ordnance, requesting them to make an inventory of ordnance and ammunition in the Tower of London.76WO46/1, ff. 52v-53. After the humiliating defeat of Essex at Lostwithiel in early September, Jenner was involved in measures to strengthen local forces. On 1 October he was added to the committee of both Houses for the Midland Association, and on 12 October he was ordered to sell seized goods, including jewels, to support the forces in Plymouth and Wiltshire.77CJ iii. 647b, 660a; LJ vii. 24b. His disillusion with Essex can perhaps be seen in his appointment, on 6 November, to a committee on the ordinance to appoint as register of the Prerogative Court, the 4th earl of Pembroke’s secretary, Michael Oldisworth* who was granted the post against his rival, the earl of Essex’s secretary, Henry Parker.78CJ iii. 688a.

Jenner’s status in the Commons rose considerably during the first few months of 1645 with a series of appointments to major executive committees. He was appointed to the Committee for Compounding on 31 January and later to the Army Committee, established to oversee the New Model, on 31 March.79CJ iv. 38b; LJ vii. 294a. Jenner was heavily involved in the creation of the new army. He was named to a committee to raise £80,000 from the City on 10 March, the committee-stage of the second Self-Denying Ordinance on 24 March, and his first appointment as a messenger to the Lords, on 29 March, was to desire a conference concerning Sir Thomas Fairfax’s* commission as commander in chief of the army.80CJ iv. 73b, 88a, 93a. On 30 May Jenner was one of those chosen to negotiate a loan of £20,000 for the reduction of Oxford by the New Model.81CJ iv. 157a-b. After the New Model army’s victory at Naseby in June, Jenner was named to a committee to have a jewel worth £500 made for Fairfax as a token of the Parliament’s esteem.82CJ iv. 175b. Jenner was not partisan for the New Model, rather supporting any means to win the war against the king. In April he was named to a committee to raise money for the Scottish army; in June he was one of five MPs chosen to negotiate with the common council for an advance of pay to the Scots; in July he joined William Spurstowe* in a similar negotiation with Goldsmiths’ Hall; and in August he and Sir Anthony Irby* were ordered to attend the lord mayor to press for the payment of arrears of the assessment to maintain the Scots.83CJ iv. 105a. In a further sign of his impartiality, on 21 August Jenner signed a warrant from the Compounding Committee to pay £2,000 to the earl of Essex.84Add. 5501, f. 38. Later in the year, Jenner was named to committees on the ordinance to borrow £40,000 from the City to pay Fairfax’s army (7 Oct.) and to confer with common council concerning the refusal of the Adventurers for Ireland to consider a loan for the Irish service (8 Dec.).85CJ iv. 299a, 368b.

Much of Jenner’s activity during 1645 centered on the Committee for Compounding. He attended his first meeting of the committee on 11 February, and soon became assiduous in his attendance, missing only five meetings from then until the end of the year.86SP23/2, pp. 50-137; SP23/3, pp. 1-11. Compounding business also dominated Jenner’s parliamentary career. On April and July he attended the Compounding Committee to arrange advances of money and the repayment of sums raised by the sale of royalists’ estates.87CJ iv. 105a, 115a-b, 202b. On 12 and 16 August he made his first reports to the House on sequestration fines, requesting the approval of the Commons for the level of fine imposed by the committee on several delinquents.88CJ iv. 237b, 243b-244b; Add. 31116, pp. 450, 452; Harl. 166, f. 254v. He was subsequently named to committees to investigate abuses in sequestrations (16 Aug.); to decide which royalist prisoners should be allowed to compound (13 Sept.); and to consider proposals from Samuel Browne* concerning sequestration fines (6 Dec.).89CJ iv. 244b, 273b, 367a. Despite, or perhaps because of, his activity at the Committee for Compounding, Jenner received no other committee appointments in the House between 9 December 1645 and 9 March 1646, although his attendance at Goldsmiths’ Hall did not waver during this time.90SP23/3, pp. 2-53.

On 27 April 1646 Jenner was sent to the Assembly of Divines with a request for them to sit the following day, and on 29 April he and Sir Peter Wentworth* were ordered to thank the fast day preachers, James Nalton and John Owen, for their efforts in the pulpit, with orders for the sermons to be printed.91CJ iv. 524a, 526b. On this occasion, Nalton, the Presbyterian minister of Jenner’s London parish, St Leonard’s, Foster Lane, gave a sermon entitled Delay of Reformation Provoking Gods Further Indignation, which added his voice to recent criticisms made by the Scottish commissioners of Parliament’s failure to establish a High Presbyterian church settlement.92Walker Revised, 360; J. Nalton, Delay of Reformation Provoking God’s Further Indignation (29 Apr. 1646) (E.334.13); Add. 31116, p. 533. Nalton complained that even after war and bloodshed, reformation of religion had not yet been achieved, and warned his parliamentary audience to

Take heed, lest there be any found among you, that are zealous for vindicating civil liberties, but when church government comes to be settled, ye shrink and start, and withdraw the shoulder, as being afraid of a Reformation that will be too strict.93Nalton, Delay of Reformation, 29, 38.

Whether Jenner approved of this outspoken criticism is unclear, but his own religious conservatism is suggested by the sort of committees to which he was appointed in the mid-1640s. These included committees on ordinances for observing the sabbath (29 Mar. 1644), against idolatry (27 Apr. 1644), and against incest, adultery and drunkenness (29 Jan. 1645), together with his appointment as a parliamentary commissioner for scandalous offences (3 June 1646).94CJ iii. 440b, 460b; iv. 35b, 562b.

Jenner was granted a leave of absence in the country on 4 July 1646, possibly to deal with his losses in Wiltshire for which he had recently been awarded £500 compensation.95CJ iv. 529a, 603a. He stopped attending the Committee for Compounding on 10 July, but he may not have had left Westminster until the end of the month, as he was named to a committee to request the Common Council to extend their £40,000 loan for the Irish service on 30 July.96SP23/3, p. 169; CJ iv. 629b. He was in attendance at the assizes at Salisbury by 10 August 1646.97Western Circ. Assize Orders, 236. Jenner reappeared at Goldsmiths’ Hall on 22 September, but did not return to the Commons until the beginning of October, when he took part in the reduction of Edward Massie’s* unruly brigade which had plagued the west country since the fall of Oxford.98SP23/3, p. 240. On 6 October, three days after commissioners were ordered to go to Devizes to oversee the process, Jenner received £3,000 out of the composition fines of prominent Wiltshire royalists to assist in the disbandment of soldiers in the county.99CJ iv. 681b, 685b. Thereafter, Jenner’s time was once again dominated by Compounding Committee business. He reported composition fines to the House on 8 Oct. 1646; he acted for the first time as a teller with ‘Mr Ashe’ (probably fellow compounding commissioner John Ashe) when they acted for the minority, voting against a reduction in the composition fine of a Buckinghamshire delinquent on 27 October; and he was named to a committee concerning the sequestration of Sir Robert Napier’s* estates on 3 November.100CJ iv. 687a, 707a, 712b; Add. 31116, p. 569. He signed a committee warrant allowing the composition of a Rutland royalist on 17 November 1646.101Eg. 2978, f. 200. Jenner was reappointed to the Committee for Compounding in the new ordinance of 6 February 1647, and was acting as its chairman in the same month.102CJ v. 78a; CCC 902.

On 27 February 1647 Jenner was named to a committee (with his fellow compounding commissioners John Ashe, Sir Anthony Irby* and Francis Allein*) to raise £10,000 from the receipts at Goldsmiths’ Hall for the proposed Irish campaign, which was to be led by the Independent MP, Viscount Lisle (Philip Sidney*).103CJ v. 99b-100a, 100b. Again, this did not indicate that Jenner was an ally of the Independents and their army allies at this time. On 9 March Jenner and fellow compounding commissioner John Swynfen acted as minority tellers against an apparently non-partisan motion to pay £900 to Sir William Constable for his army arrears.104CJ v. 108a-b. Jenner and Swynfen may have opposed the motion fearing a precedent for other officers to demand their arrears from the already stretched resources at Goldsmiths’ Hall. Jenner was awarded a leave of absence to go into the country on 16 March, which he probably took between 25 March and 15 April, during which time he was absent from Compounding Committee meetings.105CJ v. 113b; SP23/4, ff. 52-72. On his return to Parliament in May 1647, however, Jenner was named to three committees which show that he was siding with the Presbyterians in their struggle with the New Model. Two of them concerned ordinances to grant substantial land holdings to Oliver Cromwell* and Sir Thomas Fairfax, in an attempt to buy their loyalty and keep the army under control.106CJ v. 162b, 167a. The other committee, consisting of Jenner, Irby, John Birch and Sir Robert Harley, was appointed to see to the provision of money from Goldsmith’s Hall to transport Birch’s regiment to Ireland, as part of a new Presbyterian-led campaign that involved the shipment of New Model regiments across the Irish Sea.107CJ v. 176b. Yet even in the summer of 1647 Jenner should not be characterized as a firm ally of the Presbyterians. He appears to have opposed demands for the unconditional restoration of the king, as championed by the ‘personal engagement’ of the London citizens in the summer, and on 22 July he was named, alongside City radicals Isaac Penington* and John Venn, to a committee to investigate the promoters of the royalist campaign in the City.108CJ v. 254a.

Jenner was not named to another committee during the rest of the year, and he was absent from the Compounding Committee’s meetings at Goldsmiths’ Hall between 22 July and 5 Oct. 1647, perhaps withdrawing in protest at both the London apprentices’ attack on the Commons in July and the New Model’s occupation of the City in August.109SP23/4, ff. 114-22. Jenner had reappeared at Goldsmiths’ Hall by early October, but did not receive another appointment in the Commons until 4 January 1648, the day after the vote of no addresses, when he was named to a committee for the redress of grievances and to appease radical opinion.110SP23/4, f. 123; CJ v. 417a. Again, this appointment should not suggest that Jenner had sympathies with hardline Independents. For the remainder of 1648, Jenner appears to have been reluctant to engage with any of the controversies at Westminster. He made few recorded appearances in the House and when he did, it usually concerned Committee for Compounding business. On 14 January he reported Sir Henry Frederick Thynne’s composition fine; on 15 February his report on obstructions in the receipt of money was referred to Goldsmiths’ Hall; and on 6 March, he delivered several ordinances to the Lords, including one to give increased power to the Compounding Committee to bring delinquents to London under safe custody.111CJ v. 431b, 462b-3a, 481a; LJ x. 98a. Jenner had a particular interest in the outcome of Thynne’s case. Described as of Shropshire, Thynne was the brother of the Wiltshire royalist, Sir James Thynne* of Longleat, and was also lord of the manor of Kempsford, Gloucestershire where Jenner had family connections.112CCC 910. Thynne’s composition fine was reduced when he agreed to settle the rectory of Buckland and Laverton, also in Gloucestershire, on Nathaniel Stephens, Thomas Hodges I, John Stephens and Jenner (who jointly had loaned money for the war effort in Gloucestershire in 1643), to be employed in the maintenance of the ministry.113CJ ii. 985a-b; CJ v. 431b.

In the summer of 1648 Jenner seems to have left London altogether. He attended no meetings of the Committee for Compounding between 14 July and 30 Oct. 1648.114SP23/4, ff. 207-19, SP23/5, ff. 1-17. He was noted as absent without leave from the House on 26 September, though he later had his £20 fine returned to him when the House accepted his excuses for absence.115CJ vi. 34a, 57b. At least part of his time had been spent in Wiltshire, where he attended the quarter sessions at Marlborough on 3 October.116Wilts. RO, A1/160/1, unfol. He was present in the House on 24 October when he was named to a committee on the ordinance to settle £4,000 from the confiscated estates on Dr John Bastwick, as compensations for his sufferings in the 1630s.117CJ vi. 60a.

With so little evidence of Jenner’s activity during the summer and autumn of 1648, it is difficult to be certain of his political allegiances. He remained an active member of the Army Committee as late as November 1648, when he was still signing warrants with Scawen, Venn, Prideaux and Luke Hodges*.118SP28/56, ff. 95-240. Yet his prominent role on the Compounding Committee, which was considered unduly lenient towards former royalists, made him suspect in the eyes of the army. Cromwell, in a letter to Jenner and John Ashe, dated 20 November 1648 at Knottingley, near Pontefract, complained bitterly of the easy terms offered to soldiers who had participated in the 1st duke of Hamilton’s invasion, ‘a more prodigious treason than any that had been perpetrated before’. Cromwell continued

I wonder how it comes to pass that so eminent actors should so easily be received to compound. You will pardon me if I tell you that, if it were contrary to some of your judgements that at the rendition of Oxford [in 1646], though we had the town in consideration, and blood saved to boot, yet two years purchase was thought too little to expiate their offence; but now, when you have such men in your hands, and it will cost you nothing to do justice; now after all this trouble and the hazard of a second war, for a little more money all offence shall be pardoned ... Gentlemen, though my sense does appear more severe than perhaps you would have it, yet give me leave to tell you I find a sense amongst the officers concerning such things as these, even to amazement; which truly is not so much to see their blood made so cheap, as to see such manifest witnessings of God (so terrible and so just) no more reverenced.119Abbott, Writings and Speeches i. 691-2.

An unrepentant Jenner joined Ashe, Irby, and others in signing a warrant from the Compounding Committee suspending the sequestration of Lord Aston on 27 November.120Add. 36452, f. 123.

Jenner’s final recorded appearance in the House of Commons, on 4 Dec. 1648, saw him as minority teller with Sir Walter Erle against a motion to bring in candles and allow further debate on the army’s removal of the king from the Isle of Wight. The motion was narrowly carried (124 votes to 113, with Thomas Lord Grey of Groby and Sir John Curzon as tellers for the yeas), and led ultimately to an all-night session, during which motions were passed that the army had removed the king without the consent of the House, and affirming that the treaty of Newport provided a basis for further negotiation with the king.121CJ vi. 93a-b. Jenner’s action in opposing the continuance of debate that evening suggests that he was by this time openly siding with the moderates in the House, and it was probably this incident that led to his seclusion at Pride’s Purge two days later.122A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5). That he was not strongly identified with the Presbyterian faction even at this stage is indicated by his continued attendance at the Compounding Committee until 24 February 1649.123SP23/5, f. 65. Thereafter, Jenner seems to have retired to Wiltshire where his exclusion from Parliament proved to be no barrier to local office. Later in 1649 he was reappointed to the bench and named as an assessment commissioner.124C231/6, p. 160; A. and O.

By the end of his parliamentary career, Jenner’s Wiltshire estate consisted of the manors of Widhill and Marston Meysey. He purchased the latter from the trustees for the sale of bishops’ lands in February 1648 for a total purchase price of £1,092.125Bodl. Rawl. B.239, p. 8. By a parliamentary ordinance of 21 April 1648, Marston Meysey was divided from the ecclesiastical parish of Meysey Hampton in Gloucestershire, and given parochial status in Wiltshire.126CJ v. 539a. Jenner, who was granted the advowson of the rectory, built a new parish church at his own expense and donated a communion cup bearing the inscription, ‘This church was built and this Cup given by Robert Jenner Esq. 1648’.127J.E. Nightingale, Church Plate of Wiltshire (Salisbury, 1891), 174. Jenner died on 7 December 1651 and was buried in the parish church of St Sampson’s, Cricklade. The funeral inscription on his tomb lists several of the bequests made by Jenner in his will, including £40 a year for the upkeep of almshouses built by him in Malmesbury. Charitable bequests were made to the London parishes of St Leonard’s, Foster Lane, and St John Zachary (both in the vicinity of Goldsmiths’ Hall) to St Bartholomew’s Hospital and to the poor of the Goldsmiths’ Company.128Thomson, History of Cricklade, 46.

By his will, proved on 17 December 1651, Jenner bequeathed the manor of Marston Meysey to Robert, son of William Jenner of Marston Meysey. The advowson of the rectory was bequeathed to John, the eldest son of his cousin, John Jenner, also of Marston Meysey, who was named as heir to the manor of Widhill, confirming a deed of settlement of 1643.129Wilts. RO, 490/229. Jenner’s house in Foster Lane, London was given to his wife for her jointure, and thereafter to the Goldsmiths’ Company, with instructions to employ its profits in charitable uses. A codicil to his will, sworn by witnesses on 14 February 1652, requested the inhabitants of Cricklade to buy a plot of ground in the parish for the building of a free school. Jenner provided £20 a year for its upkeep, on condition that its use would be restricted to the tuition of Latin scholars.130Wilts. RO, 490/230. His charity failed, however, as a result of debts acquired by his heir, John Jenner.131Wilts. RO, D3/16/2, unfol. The absence of the name Trevor from Robert Jenner’s will suggests that his only daughter, Anne, died childless before the will was made.132PROB11/219/736; Sadler, ‘Widhill chapel and manor’, 15.