SADLER, John (1615-74), of Warmwell, Dorset

Sadler’s family came from Shropshire, but his father migrated south after graduating from Cambridge and being ordained deacon in 1607, to take up a position as tutor in the household of Sir George Coppin, clerk of the crown to James I.42Al. Cant.; Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 347. In 1608 Sadler senior became vicar of Patcham, Sussex, and five years later he married the widow of Edward Fenner of that county.43Clergy of the C. of E. database; Berry, Suss. Pedigrees, 64-5; London Marr. Licences (Harl. Soc. xxv), ii. 21. Licensed as a preacher not just in the diocese of Chichester but also elsewhere, in 1626 he became vicar of Ringmer, where he was buried on 3 October 1640.44Clergy of the C. of E. database; Add. 39466, ff. 79, 79v; Add. 5702, f. 128; Ringmer par. reg.; PROB11/184/195.

John Sadler junior was almost certainly raised in a puritan household prior to his admittance in 1630 to the famously godly Emmanuel College in Cambridge. There he was a contemporary of his future brother-in-law, John Harvard, graduated BA in 1634, proceeded MA in 1638, and was elected a fellow early in 1639.45H.F. Waters, John Harvard and his Ancestry (Boston, 1885), 23-4. That March he signed the petition from the governing body to Archbishop William Laud on behalf of one Thomas Cox.46CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 529; SP16/414, f. 26. Among those he tutored was John Pelham*, son of his Sussex neighbour, Sir Thomas Pelham*.47Add. 33145, ff. 129v, 135v, 139v. Soon identifiable as belonging to the circle of Cambridge Platonists, in October 1641 he petitioned with Benjamin Whichcote and Ralph Cudworth for the election of Whichcote’s protégé John Worthington as a fellow of the college.48Diary and Corr. of John Worthington, i. 12-14; C. Webster, The Great Instauration (1975), 144-5. At some point he was ordained: this was the condition stipulated by the House of Commons in May 1642 when it permitted Sadler, Whichcote, Cudworth and others to preach in Cottenham parish church.49CJ ii. 557b. Sadler corresponded extensively with his close friend Samuel Hartlib on academic matters, including his Hebrew studies.50Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 46/9/27, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38. He also exercised his literary talents, contributing a verse to the university’s volume commemorating the birth of Princess Elizabeth in 1635, and another to a volume marking the king’s return from Scotland in 1641.51Carmen Natalitium (1635), sig. K3v; Irenodia Cantabrigiensis (1641), sigs. H-Hv (E.179.4). In November 1640 he published Masquarade du Ciel, an astrological allegory partly in masque form, in which planetary movements in 1639 and 1640 were paralleled by political events in Britain, and dedicated it to Queen Henrietta Maria.52J. S[adler], Masquarade du Ciel (1640), sig. A1 (E.238.3).

Slightly incongruously, by this time Sadler was associated with two prominent godly grandees. Before the death in May 1641 of Francis Russell, 4th earl of Bedford, he became involved in the earl’s projects for draining the Bedford level.53C6/178/61. He also joined the household of Hartlib’s patron, Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke. In September (almost certainly of) 1640 Brooke instructed Sadler to ‘peruse some of his papers’ and to make amendments to what evidently became Brooke’s neoplatonic account of The Nature of Truth, published in 1641 with Sadler’s preface.54Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 46/9/27; R. Greville, Lord Brooke, The Nature of Truth (1641), sig. [A9]. When John Wallis issued a response to Brooke’s work in March 1643, he appeared to find less distance between Sadler, ‘Brooke’s champion’, and himself, than between the earl and himself.55I.W. Truth Tried (1643), 7 (E.93.21). George Thomason considered that epithet so apt that he wrote it in his copy of the Masquarade.56S[adler], Masquarade, sig. A1.

In the summer of 1642, as civil war approached, Sadler was attending Brooke in the midlands.57Warws. RO, CR1886, vol. 2, unfol. He may have been the ‘J. S.’ who penned an account of the earl’s attempts to implement the Militia Ordinance in Warwickshire, and who in January 1643 published Malignancy Un-masked, in justification of resistance in a mixed monarchy, and in refutation of the royalists’ favourite text, Romans 13 verse 1 – ‘Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God’. This text, it was argued, was not applicable to the king’s personal commands.58J. S. A True Relation of the Lord Brooke’s Setling of the Militia (1642, 669.f.6.50); Some Speciall Passages no. 7 (3-10 July 1642), sig. G2v (E.202.12); Malignancy Un-masked (1643), 4-5 (E.86.10); Some New Observations and Considerations (1643, E.93.14). On 2 February Sadler was appointed on Brooke’s nomination as commissary general of the parliamentarian horse and foot regiments in Staffordshire and Warwickshire, although, as he later explained, Brooke

did expressly retain this deponent’s personal service in London for that association in gathering up money and taking care of such orders as should be necessary for the said association in Parliament.

Since Brooke was killed on 2 March, he held the post for only a month, but may have continued unofficially since he received £100.59SP28/253B/ii, p. 63. Meanwhile, despite his long absence from Cambridge, his fellowship was confirmed.60Emmanuel Coll. Archive, COL.14.1, pp. 55-7.

Sadler remained heavily involved with Brooke’s circle of friends and clients, and lived at Brooke House until at least August 1645, when he was called to appear before the Committee of Accounts.61SP28/252i, f. 137v. The solicitor-general, Oliver St John*, became his most important patron. On 1 June 1644 St John, his kinsman Oliver St John, 1st earl of Bolingbroke, Henry Grey, 10th earl of Kent (Lord Ruthin*), and John Wylde* nominated Sadler as master in chancery, although he was not yet a member of an inn. This was rectified a month later when he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, with Nicholas Love* and John Hervey* acting as his manucaptors.62C216/2/15; Lincoln’s Inn, Admiss. Bk. 7, f. 41v. The society immediately made him an associate bencher and, at the request of St John, he was admitted to the chambers formerly occupied by Robert Holborne*.63LI Black Bks. ii. 364; Lincoln’s Inn, E1a1 (Red Bk. 1), f. 213. In November Parliament nominated Sadler, as of Lincoln’s Inn, to receive money assigned for his friend Gerard Vossius, Professor of History at Amsterdam, another of Brooke’s former clients who was also close to St John.64CJ iii. 683a, 694b; LJ vii. 73b, 75a; Inventory of the Corr. of Gerardus Joannes Vossius ed. G.A.C. van der Lem and C.S.M. Rademaker (Assen, 1993), 325, 327, 338, 341, 346; Bodl. Rawl. C.84, ff. 258, 260, 265; Gerardi Joannis Vossii et Clarorum Virorum (1690), i. 438-9; Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 3/2/84-5, 96-7; Harl. 7011, f. 128; Harl. 7012, f. 313.

The full fruit of Sadler’s connection with St John was realised on 26 June 1645, when he was appointed alongside the pamphleteer Henry Parker as a special secretary to Parliament, in order to prepare a declaration vindicating it over the collapse of the Uxbridge treaty, a task quickly subordinated to capitalisation on the seizure at Naseby of the king’s letters.65CJ iv. 187a; Add. 5880, f. 35. Sadler turned to his friend Hartlib for help in obtaining information about royalist efforts to obtain arms, ammunition and money from foreign states, and he co-authored The King’s Cabinet Opened.66Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 46/9/15; The King’s Cabinet Opened (1645, E.292.27). An alignment with religious as well as political Independents is indicated if he was also the author of other contemporary pamphlets. The Ancient Bounds, published in June, was a plea for liberty of conscience, while Thomason attributed to him Flagellum Flagelli, published in September as a reply to John Bastwick’s Independency Not God’s Ordinance.67J. S[adler], The Ancient Bounds (1645, E287.3); J. S[adler], Flagellum Flagelli (1645, E298.25).

That September Sadler married a daughter of John Trenchard*, whereupon he became the brother-in-law of other prominent parliamentarians including William Sydenham* and John Bingham*. It was through Trenchard’s connections that on 3 November Sadler – notwithstanding the previous ordination which should have disabled him – stood for election at Weymouth and Melcombe Regis. Sydenham, who was among six others who also stood, supported Sadler’s candidacy, but the latter’s recent arrival in the county led to his coming last in the poll.68Weymouth and Melcombe Regis Minute Bk. 1625-1660 ed. M. Weinstock (Dorset Rec. Soc. i), 55-6. Sadler remained active at Westminster, however, and in January 1646, as further papers were provided to assist in his planned vindication of Parliament, he was awarded £100 for his work, and a salary of £200, which was paid until at least July 1653.69CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 315; CJ iv. 410b-411a; SC6/Chas. 1/1663, m. 8d; SC6/Chas.1/1664, m. 16r; SC6/Chas. 1/1665, m. 18r; SC6/Chas. 1/1666, m. 14r; SC6/Chas. 1/1667, m.14; SC6/Chas. 1/1668, m. 10d; SC6/Chas. 1/1669, m. 10d; SP18/38, f. 140v. His duties were largely literary in nature. In May 1646 he was involved in composing A Word in Season, which is generally attributed to William Walwyn, and which was distributed at Westminster by John Lilburne on the day that the London Presbyterian petition was presented (26 May).70[J. Sadler], A Word in Season (1646, E.337.25, E.1184.3). Early in 1647 Sadler researched the king’s relations with the Scots during 1640-1.71CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 522. More importantly, he was responsible for drafting the Commons’ declaration justifying the vote of ‘No Further Addresses’ (15 Feb. 1648).72[J. Sadler], A Declaration of the Commons (1648, E.427.9); Woolrych, Soldiers and Statesmen, 328; Hamilton Pprs. ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. 2nd ser. xxvii), 155.

In the meantime, Sadler exploited his contacts with Trenchard, St John and Oliver Cromwell*, to help secure Hartlib’s parliamentary pension (late 1646), and he was the favoured conduit for Hartlib’s dealings with the Independents at Westminster.73Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 46/9/2, 25, 29, 40; 46/7/20. Made an assistant to the House of Lords on 15 January 1647, Sadler was a messenger between the two Houses on at least 60 occasions before the end of the year.74LJ viii. 675b; CJ v. 151-392; LJ ix. 146-590. He may also have served as a parliamentary agent in the Low Countries, on a pass granted by the Lords on 18 July 1648.75LJ x. 383b. His correspondence with Hartlib, for whom he was engaged in negotiations related to a trade project, reveals that he may also have been working for his Independent friends in Parliament, before returning to England sometime in October.76Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 31/22/14a; 46/9/4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 22.

Following Pride’s Purge Sadler served under the Rump regime. On 2 January 1649 he was mentioned in relation to the drafting of an unspecified declaration.77CJ vi. 108b. He may have been the ‘Mr Sadler’ who attended the general council of officers at Whitehall on 5 January, and who questioned the prophetess, Elizabeth Poole, over her conduct in relation to the king’s trial, although he was not himself involved in its proceedings.78Clarke Pprs. ii. 167. He was confirmed as one of the masters in chancery (10 Apr.), and in late May was made a commissioner for the Great Level of the Fens, in evident recognition of his personal interests as a private investor in the project, and as a member of Hartlib’s circle.79CJ vi. 183a; A. and O.; Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 46/9/14; C6/178/61; C7/583/49. In June Sadler demonstrated his allegiance to the regime in Rights of the Kingdom, delivering a forthright historical and legal justification of the removal of a king by the Commons, and of regicide once it became clear that the king’s life was incompatible with the people’s safety. He declined to discuss either Charles’s ‘private failings as a man’ or ‘his public failings as a king’, but aimed ‘to see the kingdom’s rights, the laws and customs of our ancestors, concerning king and Parliament, that we may know their power and privilege, their duty and their limits’; to identify measures taken by ‘our [?fore]fathers ... to keep them just; and reduce them to their duty, when they erred, or deserted trust’ and to whom the making, implementation and judging of law was committed; and to establish what power they gave the monarch ‘over us, and what they did not give him, over any of his subjects’, and how subjects ‘should behave our selves, and how we may have justice, from the highest to the lowest’. In the state, he remarked, ‘as in the church, I fear them most who pretend most to divine right, and a form of godliness’.80[J. Sadler], Rights of the Kingdom (1649), sig. ¶¶3, A2 (E.561.3). This work, like his correspondence with Hartlib, revealed Sadler’s millenarianism and his interest in the readmission and conversion of the Jews, and, since on 3 July he had been appointed town clerk of London, that December he may have played an active part in the petition from its mayor and aldermen of London concerning the Jews.81Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 46/9/23; Severall Proceedings in Parliament no. 10 (30 Nov-7 Dec. 1649), 115-18 (E.533.27); CLRO, Jor. 41x, f. 1v, 2v; GL, Misc MS 48.66; B.R. Masters, ‘City Officers III: The Town Clerk’, Guildhall Misc. iii. 63-4; Perfect Diurnall no. 17 (1-8 Apr. 1650), 173-4 (E.534.25).

However, Sadler mixed such millennial enthusiasm and political radicalism, as well as Hartlibian reforming impulses, with a profound legal conservatism, and his enthusiasm for the republic was demonstrated most clearly through membership of the upper echelons of the legal establishment. In December 1649 Sadler rejected Cromwell’s offer of the post of chief justice of Munster, and remained in England, where he was named as a commissioner for propagating the gospel in Wales (Feb. 1650), a commissioner for the high court of justice (Mar. 1650), and a commissioner for regulating trade (June 1650), as well as an admiralty judge (Nov. 1651).82Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii.186-8; CJ vi. 385a, 426a, 586a; CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 36. Sadler remained active in Hartlib’s reforming circle, not least as regards educational plans – the invisible college, the reform of Winchester School and the establishment of an academy in London.83Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 62/2, 47/9/32, 33; 47/3/1; Corr. of Robert Boyle ed. M. Hunter (2001), i. 88. But unlike many Hartlibians, Sadler refused to shun the universities, and on 31 August 1650 was installed as master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, following the removal of Edward Rainbow, who had refused the Engagement.84Kennett, Register, 222; E.K. Purnell, Magdalene College (1904), 115-6; SC6/Chas. 1/1669, m. 18d; SC6/Chas. 1/1670, m. 22; SC6/Chas. 1/1671, m. 13.

Sadler’s legal conservatism, meanwhile, was evident in December 1650, when he backed the London livery companies during their dispute over election procedures with the freemen, who were supported by John Wildman*, the Leveller.85London’s Liberties (1651), sig. A4 (E.620.7). Sadler’s conservatism was also apparent from his involvement in law reform, and in producing the cautious proposals which emerged from the Hale Commission. He was appointed to the commission in January 1652 on the nomination of Sir John Danvers*, who said that he was ‘eminently known for his abilities and integrity’, and who suggested that Sadler be appointed ‘to collect the register, sense and arguments inducing such conclusions, as may be thought fit to be presented to the Parliament’.86Longleat, Whitelocke Pprs. xi. 159-59v; CJ vii. 67b, 73b-74a. Sadler proved an active member of the committee from February to July 1652, sometimes chaired it in April and May, and probably drafted its proposals, which were read in the House on 20 and 21 January 1653.87Somers Tracts ed. W. Scott (1811), vi. 177-245; CJ vii. 250a; Add. 35863, ff. 3-95v. That Sadler was by now firmly entrenched within the legal establishment is also evident from his zeal as a commissioner for relief upon articles of war, and from his appointment in April 1653 as one of the judges for the probate of wills.88Chatsworth, CM/28/34-5; A. and O.; PROB29/43, ff. 23-87.

Sadler’s conservatism was apparent in his service as a Member for Cambridgeshire in the Nominated Assembly of 1653. It is unlikely that his selection stemmed from involvement with congregational churches, since his views on toleration seem to have co-existed with a personal preference for the limited episcopalianism of Archbishop James Ussher, whose congregation he and St John appear to have attended.89Add. 10114, f. 28v; Harington Diary, 65. In the early weeks of the assembly the House drew on Sadler’s polemical skills for the drafting of declarations, including those inviting the people of God to seek the Lord for a blessing upon the Parliament (7 July), establishing a day of thanksgiving for victories against the Dutch (6 Aug.), and giving fitting liberty to all who feared God (10 Oct.).90CJ vii. 282b, 297b, 332b. His educational experience doubtless lay behind his chairmanship of the committee for the advancement of learning (21 July).91CJ vii. 287b; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 61. Sadler may also have served as chairman of the committee for public debts, bribery and breaches of public trust (20 July), from which he reported on a number of occasions, both on specific cases and on the preparation of legislation for taking accounts.92CJ vii. 287a, 295b, 296a, 299a, 307b, 317a, 326a, 327b, 334b, 335a.

The House also drew upon his expertise on parliamentary procedure, record keeping, and the law. Appointed to the committee for the law (20 July), he was involved in drafting legislation concerning writs of error, the registration of marriages, the collection of excise money, the probate of wills, and the sale of delinquents’ estates.93CJ vii. 282b, 285a, 285b, 286b, 288a, 300a, 301b, 302a, 309b, 310a, 313a, 322a, 326a, 332a. The last saw him twice act as teller in August 1653 over glebe lands, alongside Francis Rous* and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, and against radicals like Colonels William West* and John Clarke II*, and Samuel Hyland*.94CJ vii. 302b, 305a, 310b, 336b. Sadler partnered Hyland, however, in a division over a clause in the bill for satisfying the claims of the adventurers for forfeited estates in Ireland.95CJ vii. 323b.

Sadler’s many committee nominations included those to prepare the bill for the relief of creditors and poor prisoners (21 Sept.), and to consider the erection of a high court of justice (13 Oct.), and he also chaired a committee of the whole House on the issue of equality of taxes (28 Sept.).96CJ vii. 371b, 322a, 325b, 334a. His prominence ensured that he was chosen to give an audience to Lord Lagerfeldt, minister from the queen of Sweden (26 Oct.), and as a member of the council of state (1 Nov.).97CJ vii. 340a, 344a-b. In November 1653 the council became the prime focus of Sadler’s activity, once again especially in drafting declarations, including that which sought to prohibit the disturbance of any public worship, and in delivering reports to the Commons, not least on a petition from Cambridge University.98CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 229, 233-4, 237, 262, 267, 280-2, 287; CJ vii. 361b.

Perhaps Sadler’s most significant appointment, however, was to the committee to consider tithes (19 July).99CJ vii. 286a. Two months earlier he had given a strong indication of his views when, with two other commissioners for propagating the gospel in Wales, he had ordered the retention of tithes collected from livings now vacant, pending the replacement of the commissioners’ expired powers with new ones – the motive evidently being to prevent the disappearance of the money and the setting of an unhelpful precedent.100Caern. RO, XQS/1653+1654/11. His report from the parliamentary committee on 2 December manifests his conservatism, and became his most important single political act. By advocating commissions of triers and ejectors for the removal of scandalous ministers and the settlement of tithe disputes, Sadler affirmed the legality of tithes, to the dismay of the radical opponents of a nationally maintained church, and provoked the lengthy debates of 6-10 December 1653 which ultimately prompted the resignation of the assembly.101CJ vii. 361b.

Having helped to thwart the religious radicals and legal reformers, Sadler remained one of the country’s most powerful lawyers during the protectorate. Still a master in chancery, in January 1654 he was also was appointed a master of requests, and shortly afterwards was called to the bench at Lincoln’s Inn.102Add. 4184, f. 5; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii.167; Severall Proceedings of State Affairs no. 226 (19-26 Jan. 1654), 3569 (E.223.25); Add. 18738, f. 88; LI Black Bks. ii. 401. He regularly advised, and received legal commissions from, the protector’s council.103CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 243, 323; 1655, p. 363; 1655-6, pp. 90-91. He played a prominent part, for example, in preparing for the trial of the Penruddock rebels in March 1655, although he did not personally travel to the West as was initially planned.104CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 91, 97, 120; Clarke Pprs. iii. 32; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 671; Som. RO, DD/PH/224, f. 208. In addition, he remained active in the city of London, where he was almost certainly valued for his connections at court, just as members of Hartlib’s circle took advantage of his access to Cromwell.105SP18/75, f. 1; Add. 22546, f. 193; Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 4/3/118. That Sadler supported a national Cromwellian church is evident from his appointments to commissions for the approbation of ministers (Mar. 1654) and for trying and ejecting scandalous ministers (Aug.), the latter in accordance with the report he had delivered to Parliament the previous December. He was also an obvious candidate for the commission to appoint visitors to the universities (Sept.).106A. and O.

Despite his high standing, Sadler apparently developed political reservations about the protectorate, and he played a far less active public role in the second half of the 1650s.107Publick Intelligencer no. 116 (15-22 Mar. 1658), 398 (E.748.24); CLRO, Jor. 41x, f. 190v. This alteration coincided with his developing millenarian interests and religious enthusiasm. In November 1654 Sadler recommended the petition of Manuel Martines Dormido, a member of Menasseh Ben Israel’s mission to England seeking readmission for the Jews. Although there is no evidence of Sadler’s having played a formal part in the conference on this issue held in December 1655, in January 1659 he petitioned Richard Cromwell* in an attempt to secure financial assistance for Menasseh Ben Israel’s family.108Eg. 1049, ff. 6-7v; SP84/161, f. 48; SP18/200, f. 23; Bodl. Rawl. A.260, f. 57; A.261, f. 37v; CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 242. In July 1655 the diarist Ralph Josselin recorded a story about ‘those that have communion with angels’, and specified Sadler, who was reported to have ‘gone off unto them and that he had had a vision and trance for three days together’.109Josselin, Diary, 350. In January 1657 Samuel Morland wrote that Sadler was ‘distempered more than you can imagine’, adding that ‘you would wonder to hear some discourse which I have heard come from him’.110R. Vaughan, Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell (1839), ii. 82. In the same year Benjamin Worsley suggested to Hartlib that Sadler was drifting away from his old friends.111Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib 42/1/11-12.

When Sadler returned to public prominence it was as a critic of the protectorate early in 1659, having been returned to Parliament as Member for Yarmouth. This was doubtless through the influence of his brother-in-law William Sydenham, governor of the Isle of Wight. Now revealed as a leading republican, Sadler made notable and lengthy speeches in the Commons expressing opposition to the extension of the protector’s power, identifiable among those ‘able men who have notably bestirred themselves against the petition and advice’.112Lansd. 823, f. 247. On 14 February he took issue with the executive, although he claimed to speak ‘for the life and liberty of the protector’ and ‘to plead for him’, by suggesting that ‘the more power is added, the sooner will he down’. Confirming powers such as the negative voice would involve a ‘leap into all regal majesty’, while ‘if you declare him to be the supreme magistrate, and say not what it is, you give up all fought for lately, body, soul, and spirit’. Moreover, if ‘you declare him to be whatever he does think himself to be’, then ‘he shall rule over slaves, not over fools’; ‘we are taught to cry down monarchy, as the head of the beast. I am afraid we shall make him the image of that beast, to give him an unlimited power’.113Burton’s Diary, iii. 279-81. Sadler took up this theme again on 17 February, advocating that the protector be ‘so bounded by the bill as to give him an affirmative power, and let him have no more’. The essential was ‘to be satisfied whether the chief magistrate has power to dissolve you’.114Burton’s Diary, iii. 321.

Perhaps it was speeches in this vein that led to the questioning of Sadler’s election. On 1 March Thomas Juxon* asserted that Sadler had not been ‘duly returned’, since the indenture had not yet been filed by the clerks of Parliament. Sadler claimed that, on receiving his return, the clerks had required financial payment from both Members; any failure to make an official return was because his fellow burgess had not paid the fees, having been returned elsewhere, and because the writ had not been attached to the return. He protested that he had acknowledged procedural problems, saying: ‘I kept seven days out before I came in’. In ensuing debate Serjeant John Maynard* challenged Sadler’s right to sit, while another prominent lawyer, Robert Reynolds*, defended him. Sadler’s claim that some boroughs could make returns without the sheriff was challenged by the solicitor-general, and Sir Henry Vane II* moved that it be left to Sadler’s discretion whether or not to withdraw pending clarification by the sheriff and clerk, who were ordered to attend the House.115Burton’s Diary, iii. 549, 560, 562; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XXXI, f. 40v; CJ vii. 608b-609a. Sadler duly withdrew. On 2 March the deputy clerk explained that the return had not been made because of the late arrival of the indenture, and while Sir Arthur Hesilrige* and Slingisby Bethel* spoke in Sadler’s favour, the House resolved to summon the sheriff.116Burton’s Diary, iii. 579; CJ vii. 609b.

By 7 March Sadler was back in the Commons to make another lengthy speech.117Burton’s Diary, iv. 75. He quickly returned to prominence among the republicans, and on 9 March attacked the right of Scottish and Irish Members to sit in the English Parliament.118Burton’s Diary, iv. 110-11. He attempted to extend this debate before a division on 18 March, and another speech on the issue on 19 March was sufficiently controversial to prompt an adjournment.119Burton’s Diary, iv. 192, 200-201. Yet another speech about Celtic representation on 22 March provoked outrage because of Sadler’s use of scripture, although once again he was defended by Vane.120Burton’s Diary, iv. 226-8, 231-2. On 16 March he also spoke in favour of the release of Major-general Robert Overton, on the grounds that he was a commoner imprisoned by the chief magistrate’s authority, that the warrant expressed no cause, and that Overton had been detained for four years without trial.121Burton’s Diary, iv. 157.

Sadler’s sole committee nomination during the session was to the crucial body appointed on 6 April to consider the manner of transacting with the ‘Other House’.122CJ vii. 627a. Unlike some republicans, Sadler was in favour of close formal relations, saying on 6 April not only that he ‘would have’ the second chamber ‘addressed to in all civility and heartily’, but also that ‘if you be the root and they the branches, the root is always placed lowest’.123Burton’s Diary, iv. 357. His attitude was pragmatic: he sought to lay aside ‘ceremony’ on both sides and opposed the idea that members of the ‘Other House’ should be forced to come to the Commons.124Burton’s Diary, iv. 372, 378. Thereafter, however, Sadler may have withdrawn from the House. He was granted leave for a month on 9 April and there is no mention of him for the remainder of the Parliament.125CJ vii. 632b.

Sadler appears to have played little part in political life during the tumultuous second half of 1659, returning instead to his personal academic interests and his duties as a bencher at Lincoln’s Inn.126Diary and Corr. of John Worthington, i. 132-4; Lincoln’s Inn, E1a1, f. 260v. Nevertheless, he resumed activity as a judge for the probate of wills in May, and was confirmed in this position in late November. At the end of December he signed a letter from the mayor and aldermen of London to General George Monck*.127PROB29/49, ff. 309-594; Whitelocke, Diary, 547; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XXXII, ff. 199-200; OPH xxii. 48-50.

After the Restoration Sadler faced the loss of his many public positions. On 5 June 1660 Sir John Weld petitioned to be reinstated as town clerk of London, issuing a writ of restitution on the 23rd. Deliberation on Sadler’s role in the 1651 trial of Christopher Love and his signature to the Presbyterian minister’s death warrant, led to his suspension, and although this was taken off on 6 September, he was finally removed on the 18th.128CLRO, Jor. 41x, ff. 235, 236, 237v, 240v-41v. In the summer Rainbow returned to displace him as master of Magdalene College.129Cunich, Magdalene College, 133-4. Early in 1662 Sadler’s poor attendance at Lincoln’s Inn provoked concern within the society, and although he made occasional visits later in the year, in the summer of 1663 moves were made to remove him from his chambers. Sadler managed to pass his rooms to his son in June 1664, but thereafter there is no further mention of his attendance, although he was still officially a bencher when another son was admitted in March 1667.130LI Black Bks. iii. 16; Lincoln’s Inn, E1a1, ff. 263, 273, 273v, 280v-85v, 287; LI Admiss. i. 293, 299.

Sadler may have been glad to be freed of official duties. Having been ‘so much entangled’ in civil affairs, far ‘beyond his expectation or desire’, he turned to the pursuit of ever more esoteric personal and literary interests. His Olbia (1660) was a description of a utopian commonwealth which in many ways satirised Hartlib’s utopian visions, and which was partly a millenarian prophecy musing on the lost tribes, and partly intended to demonstrate by mathematical calculations the apocalyptic significance of 1666.131[J. Sadler], Olbia (1660), 1. Hartlib, to whom the work was addressed, professed his initial dissatisfaction with it, although he quickly forgave Sadler upon recognising his old friend’s authorship.132Diary and Corr. of John Worthington, i. 245-52. In 1661 Sadler reportedly predicted both the Plague and the Fire of London, as well as a victorious invasion in 1688, and at least some contemporaries came to believe that he was ‘not always right in the head’.133Add. 4460, f. 42; Lansd. 98, f. 208; Diary and Corr. of John Worthington, i. 252-5; Kennett, Register, 913. His last known work, Times of the Bible (1667) contained a recalculation of the apocalypse, based on biblical evidence, and stressed the significance of 1675 or 1676.134[J. Sadler], Times of the Bible (1667). Thereafter, little is heard of him, other than that he occasionally preached at the house of his old friend, Bulstrode Whitelocke*.135Whitelocke, Diary, 737, 747. Sadler died some time before 12 June 1674, when letters of administration were granted to his son John and widow Jane, who was still alive in 1692. Sadler left five sons and two daughters, as well as complicated legal legacies which remained unresolved into the 1690s.136PROB6/49, f. 68v; C7/328/2.