CHOLMLEY, Thomas (1599-1654), of Carlisle and Little Salkeld, Cumb.

Cholmley belonged to a cadet branch of the Cheshire Cholmondeleys – who had settled in Yorkshire at the beginning of the sixteenth century – and was a second cousin of the leading Yorkshire gentlemen Sir Hugh Cholmeley* and his brother Henry Cholmley*.24C6/2/23; Foster, Yorks. Peds.; Cholmley Mems. ed. J. Binns (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. cliii), 1. His father, Richard Cholmley – the son of a prominent Yorkshire Catholic – resided at Tunstall, in the North Riding, settling property there on Henry Cholmley, probably his eldest son, during the late 1610s and early 1620s.25WARD7/72/114; Yorks. Stuart Fines ed. Brigg, 102, 147, 209, 210, 218; H. Aveling, Northern Catholics (1966), 277-8. Henry would be sequestered for ‘supposed delinquency’ in 1646, and another of Thomas Cholmley’s brothers, Richard Cholmley of Tunstall, was presented for recusancy at the Thirsk quarter sessions in 1625 and 1641 and would fight for the king during the civil war.26CCC 2992-3; Yorks. Royalist Composition Pprs. ed. J.W. Clay (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. xx), 57-8; P.R. Newman, ‘The Royalist Army in Northern Eng. 1642-5’ (York Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1978), ii. 15.

Being, as it seems, a younger son, Cholmley was assigned a career in trade. He was apprenticed to one Ralf Harrison of the Draper’s Company of London in 1615 and obtained his freedom of the company in 1623.27Drapers’ Co. Archives, Drapers’ Hall, Boyd’s register of apprentices and freemen; Memorandum Bk. of Richard Cholmley, 211. It was possibly during his time in London that he acquired the godly religious convictions that were to mark his later career in the service of Parliament. Having set up shop as a woollen draper he ran into financial difficulties, and in about 1627 he quit his business and returned to northern England. By 1629, he and his wife had settled in what was probably her home parish of Brancepeth in County Durham, where Cholmley’s second son Conyers was baptised. This may well have been his wife Katherine’s maiden name, and if so she was very probably the Katherine, daughter of William Conyers, who had been baptised at Brancepeth in 1612.28C6/140/25; Brancepeth par. reg. (bap. entries for 11 Nov. 1612, 6 Jan. 1629, 29 July 1630, 4 Aug. 1631, 11 Oct. 1632).

In about 1632, Cholmley was appointed a ‘customer or collector’ for the port of Carlisle by the Cumberland peer Thomas Howard†, 1st earl of Berkshire – an office he seems to have held for at least 15 years.29C6/2/23; C6/140/25; SC6/CHASI/1665, m. 6; SP28/259, f. 391; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 672. The Cumberland gentleman Sir John Lowther recorded in his memorandum book that Cholmley served as searcher for the port of Carlisle from September 1633 until October 1636 – a fact corroborated by the privy council registers.30PC2/45, f. 209v; Cumb. RO (Carlisle), DLONS/W/1/31, p. 39. How a relatively obscure Yorkshire gentleman like Cholmley had come to Berkshire’s attention is not clear. Nevertheless, Cholmley was evidently a man of some standing in Cumberland by the mid-1630s, for in 1636 he was also appointed bailiff of the queen’s liberties in the county.31Cumb. RO (Carlisle), CA/2/390, 399. In May 1640, as the region prepared for the second bishops’ war, he landed another plum office as muster master of the garrison at Carlisle, with a salary of about £70 a year.32Add. 33223, ff. 7v, 27. He was appointed by Carlisle’s governor, Sir Nicholas Byron, who was evidently not concerned, or was not aware, that Cholmley had been targeted by the Covenanters as a potential supporter in the first bishops’ war (he had been sent Covenanter propaganda material, which he had apparently handed over to the authorities).33CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 513; HMC 8th Rep. i. (1881), 383. But if Cholmley was untrustworthy it was on financial rather than political grounds, for he was soon under investigation on suspicion of drawing pay for non-existent soldiers.34Add. 33223, ff. 33, 36. Proceedings against him were still being considered as late as June 1641, but he was probably saved from prosecution by the deepening political crisis in London.35Add. 33223, ff. 47-8.

Cholmley’s allegiance and career during the early years of the civil war are difficult to reconstruct. When charges of malignancy – brought against him by the radical Cumberland lawyer and pamphleteer John Musgrave – were investigated in 1651, one of the witnesses testified that Cholmley had been imprisoned for two weeks in 1642 by the mayor of Carlisle ‘because he would not take the king’s part against the Parliament’.36SP23/171, p. 158. Several other witnesses, however, deposed that Cholmley had assisted Sir Philip Musgrave* in raising men for the king in 1642 or 1643 and had seen active service either under Musgrave or another Cumberland royalist, Sir Patricius Curwen*.37S23/171, pp. 149, 151, 156, 159. John Musgrave was adamant that in 1642 and 1643 Cholmley had been ‘in actual arms against the Parliament and in the said years was aiding and assisting to the late king and other enemies of the Parliament and did take the treasonable oath against the Parliament called the earl of Newcastle oath’.38SP24/65 (Musgrave v. Burton); SP24/1, f. 179v; J. Musgrave, A True and Exact Relation (1650), 15 (E.619.10). Musgrave further alleged that Cholmley had been a consistent upholder of the Book of Common Prayer.39J. Musgrave, Yet Another Word to the Wise (1646), 13 (E.355.25); Musgrave, A True and Exact Relation, 15. Another victim of Musgrave’s allegations, however, Thomas Craister*, testified that Cholmley had advanced £10 upon the propositions for maintaining the earl of Essex’s army and that ‘from the beginning of the late differences in this nation, the said Colonel Cholmley hath expressed his good affection to the Parliament and hath several times met with honest and well-affected parties in Carlisle … to seek God for a blessing upon the endeavours and affairs of the Parliament’. He added that in January 1643, he and Cholmley

were sent for by the commissioners of array, who charged them with countenancing nonconformable ministers and factious men, dangerous and seducers of the people from their loyalty to their king, for which they were all committed to prison [in Carlisle] … notwithstanding Colonel Cholmley’s infirmity in the gout ... And in the beginning of May 1643 ... this deponent acquainted Colonel Cholmley with his resolution of flying into Scotland for security, and the said colonel, with tears in his eyes, told this deponent that ... he was so engaged by his wife and children and other relations to his family that he could not possibly leave them.40SP23/171, p. 157.

If Cholmley did begin the civil war in the service of the king, as Musgrave claimed, he seems to have switched sides in the spring of 1643, when he was allegedly involved with Richard Barwis*, Sir Wilfrid Lawson* and Craister in an abortive rising to seize Carlisle for Parliament.41Supra, ‘Richard Barwis’; Tullie, Siege of Carlisle ed. Jefferson, 1. Like Lawson, however, he may have turned his back on Parliament once again, for he was possibly the ‘Mr Cholmley’ whom the Cumberland royalists sent into Scotland with correspondence late in 1643.42Cumb. RO (Carlisle), DMUS/5/5/1/18. Assuming that this was indeed Cholmley, he had returned to the parliamentarian fold by August 1644, when he began to liaise with Barwis and Sir William Armyne* for the reducement of Cumberland and Westmorland to Parliament.43SP23/171, pp. 157, 158. In response to his defection, the royalists plundered his personal estate in Carlisle – reportedly to the tune of £1,000 – and burnt and then pulled down his house in the city.44SP18/131/53, f. 123.

In the autumn of 1644, Cholmley was commissioned as a colonel by the commander of Parliament’s northern army, the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*), and raised a regiment of foot and a troop of horse to assist the Scots in besieging Carlisle.45SP28/140, ff. 360-7; Tullie, Siege of Carlisle ed. Jefferson, 10. During the course of the siege, which lasted until June 1645, Cholmley fell out with his fellow parliamentarian commander Sir Wilfrid Lawson over what Cholmley seems to have regarded as dereliction of duty on Lawson’s part.46LJ vii. 454a; Musgrave, Yet Another Word to the Wise, 10, 25. When the Scots, too, fell out with Lawson, accusing him and Barwis of treachery, Cholmley initially supported their allegations and was described by them as ‘a religious and worthy gentleman, of whose affection and forwardness in the cause the kingdom of Scotland hath had much experience’.47LJ vii. 465a; J. Musgrave, A Word to the Wise (1646), 4 (E.318.5); Musgrave, Yet Another Word to the Wise, 13. But his ‘affection’ for the Scots proved to be short-lived, for in August 1645 he joined Lawson and other members of the Cumberland county committee in complaining about the oppressions of the Scottish forces in the region.48Bodl. Nalson IV, f. 35. Apparently oblivious of this letter, the commander of the Scottish army, Alexander Leslie, earl of Leven, recommended Cholmley to the corporation of Carlisle as a candidate in the ‘recruiter’ election to replace the town’s royalist MP, Sir William Dalston. However, the Scots commissioners wrote to Leven in November 1645, informing him that although Cholmley had given ‘divers testimonies of his affection, yet of late ... [he] signed a letter full of injurious complaints against your forces and justifying the former complaints made by Sir Wilfrid Lawson and others’.49Corresp. of the Scots Commrs. ed. H.W. Meikle (Edinburgh, 1917), 137-8. The Scots commissioners put up their own candidate and secured the support of the mayor and the town’s Scottish military governor.50Corresp. of the Scots Commrs. ed. Meikle, 140, 141, 148. There was apparently a long delay in sending down the writ, however, and it was not until after the Scots had left Carlisle – that is, on or shortly after 19 February 1647, when he was made a freeman – that Cholmley was returned for the city.51Supra, ‘Carlisle’; Cumb. RO (Carlisle), CA/2/27.

Cholmley was ‘received a Member in the House of Commons’ on 25 June 1647 but seems to have been entirely inactive at Westminster, receiving no committee appointments.52Perfect Occurrences no. 26 (25 June-2 July 1647), 164 (E.515.24). On 15 July 1647, his case was referred to the committee for absent Members, but no proceedings seem to have been begun against him, and he was declared absent at the call of the House on 9 October and absent and excused on 24 April and 26 September 1648.53CJ v. 245a, 330a, 543b; vi. 34b. His absence on these last two occasions was enforced, for when the royalists seized Carlisle that April, he was ‘surprised by the cavalier party in his house ... taken prisoner, his house ransacked, plundered and utterly spoiled of goods ... to a very considerable value, his wife and children cruelly expelled the town and himself detained prisoner’ until Parliament’s forces re-took the city in October.54E134/1653/MICH17; E134/1653-4/HIL8; SP18/131/53, f. 124. Musgrave, on the other hand, claimed that Cholmley had sent intelligence and aid to the Scots and had hailed them as his ‘brethren in [the] covenant’.55Musgrave, A True and Exact Relation, 15. These allegations seem doubtful, however, given that Cholmley’s eldest son was killed fighting the Scots in the second civil war and that Cholmley himself was commended to Parliament by no less a person than Oliver Cromwell* at the re-taking of Carlisle in October 1648.56Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 671-2.

It was probably Cholmley’s continual absence which explains his failure to gain admission to the Rump, rather than any judgement upon his politics. His case was referred to the committee for absent Members on 23 July 1649, but Cholmley seems to have made no effort to satisfy the Rump of his good affection.57CJ vi. 268a. There is no evidence for Musgrave’s claim that Cholmley ‘left the House [after Pride’s Purge] for his delinquency’ or that he was an enemy of the Independent interest.58J. Musgrave, Musgraves Musle Broken, or Truth Pleading against Falshood (1651), 7 (E.626.26); Musgrave, A True and Exact Relation, 15. In fact, Cholmley retained his place on the Cumberland bench under the Rump and was evidently trusted by the council of state, Sir Arthur Hesilrige* (the commander-in-chief of the northern counties) and by the Committee for Compounding*, which appointed him a sequestration commissioner in 1650.59SP28/240, f. 26; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 108; 1651-2, p. 68; 1652-3, pp. 206, 259, 291; CCC 312, 813. Likewise, Musgrave’s insistence that Cholmley was a ‘great upholder of such ministers as are against the Engagement [abjuring monarchy and the Lords]’ is difficult to reconcile with Cholmley’s work during the early 1650s on the commission for propagating the gospel in the northern counties, which was responsible for settling godly ministers across the region.60Cumb. RO (Carlisle), DLONS/L/13/1/9; Musgrave, A True and Exact Relation, 15; Nightingale, Ejected of Cumb. and Westmld. 147, 426, 442, 661, 687, 710, 929, 961, 1192, 1213.

Cholmley died shortly after writing his will on 1 July 1654; by 12 July, he had been replaced as mayor of Carlisle by Thomas Craister.61PROB11/235, f. 246; Cumb. RO (Carlisle), CA/2/392. In his will, in which he asked to be buried in St Mary’s, Carlisle, he charged his estate with a bequest of £500 and referred to property he had leased from the royalist peers Francis Clifford, 4th earl of Cumberland, and his son Henry Lord Clifford.62PROB11/235, f. 246. In 1656, his widow petitioned the protector for her husband’s arrears of pay from the first civil war, which amounted to £1,521. She claimed that as a result of repeated royalist plundering of his estate he had died leaving debts of over £350.63SP18/131/53, f. 123; CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 211, 266, 290. In a letter supporting her petition, Deputy Major-general Charles Howard*, William Brisco*, Craister and several other prominent Cumberland parliamentarians described Cholmley as ‘eminently devoted to religion ... and always a firm and faithful friend to the Parliament’s cause’, and they referred to his great ‘sufferings’ at the hands of the royalists, by which he was ‘very much weakened, impaired and impoverished in his estate and died very deeply engaged in debts’.64SP18/131/53, f. 124. One of Cholmley’s creditors, however, claimed that he had greatly enriched himself in Parliament’s service and had left a large personal estate.65C6/140/25. None of Cholmley’s immediate descendants sat in Parliament.