SLEIGH, Sir Samuel (1605-79), of Ashe Hall, Sutton-on-the-Hill, Derbys.

Sleigh belonged to a junior branch of a long-established Derbyshire gentry family, the Sleighs of Pilsbury.40Add. 6674, f. 204v; London Vis. (Harl. Soc. xvii), 239; Sleigh, Sleighs of Derbys. 5, 9, 73. His father, Gervase Sleigh, had been granted armorial bearings in 1600, and three years later he had purchased an estate at Etwall and Sutton-on-the-Hill, including the house at Ashe that became the family’s principal residence (Sir Samuel Sleigh should not be confused with his contemporary, Samuel Sleigh of Ashover).41A.J. Jewers, ‘Grants and certificates of arms’, The Gen. n.s. xxvi. 56; A Derbys. Armory ed. M. Craven (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xvii), 149. The family also owned property in Derby and had strong links with the town. Indeed, one of Sleigh’s kinsmen, the merchant Edmund Sleigh†, had represented Derby in the 1604 Parliament.42PROB11/127, f. 163. Sleigh himself became a trustee of Alderman Robert Mellor, one of the town’s leading inhabitants and, as such, was part of a local network that included the future parliamentarians Gervase Bennett* and Thomas Sanders*.43C6/144/147; Derby Local Studies Lib. Deeds, no. 387.

Sleigh’s knighthood and promotion to the Derbyshire bench, which occurred in July and August 1641 respectively, were probably part of the royal initiative that summer to court support for Charles in his struggle with the parliamentary leadership. In the case of Sleigh, however, the king would be disappointed. In February 1642, Sleigh signed a county petition to the Commons calling for tougher measures against papists and the advancement of the ‘blessed work of reformation’.44PA, Main Pprs. 26 Mar. 1642, f. 65. And at some point during the first half of 1642, he signed another petition from the Derbyshire gentry, urging Charles to return to Westminster ‘for the reformation of those great grievances which had crept both into the church and commonwealth’.45G. Sitwell, ‘The Derbys. petition of 1641’, Jnl. of the Derbys. Arch. and Natural Hist. Soc. xix. 22.

It is not clear what motivated Sleigh to side with Parliament at the outbreak of civil war. In 1647, the royalist Philip Stanhope, 1st earl of Chesterfield, referred to him as ‘one that hath between the king and Parliament played jack [i.e. a knave] on both sides’.46PA, Main Pprs. 12 Feb. 1647. Sleigh’s appointment as a Cromwellian ejector in 1654 suggests that he was a man of godly religious convictions. On the other hand, his rival for one of the county seats that year, Nathaniel Barton*, claimed that he had heard Sleigh ‘something publicly to confess, or rather profess, his judgement for episcopacy and the Common Prayer Book’.47N. Barton, The Representation or Defence of Collonel Nathaniell Barton (1654), 3. But given that Sleigh was an active member of the Derbyshire county committee throughout the 1640s, it is hard to credit that he was a closet episcopalian.48SP28/226, unfol.; Derbys. RO, D258/7/13/4, 17; D258/34/7. Certainly the Commons trusted him, approving his addition to the Derbyshire sequestration committee and nominating him as county sheriff.49CJ iv. 5a; v. 361a, 371b-372a. Moreover, in 1645, Sleigh was one of a group of leading Derbyshire parliamentarians who supported Major Thomas Sanders in his quarrel with Sir John Gell, the commander of Parliament’s forces in Derbyshire.50Supra, ‘Thomas Sanders’; Derbys. RO, D258/12/16(i), pp. 42, 56, 62-3; D1232/O/32, 56; HMC Portland, i. 277. And although there were godly men on both sides in this dispute, it was Sanders and his allies (who included Barton, Bennett and Nathaniel Hallowes*) who generally emerged as the more radical figures both in politics and religion.51Supra, ‘Thomas Sanders’.

The county committee delegated Sleigh to present its petition and charges against Gell to the Commons in October 1645. According to Hallowes, Sleigh took the occasion to make ‘a short speech in the House in behalf of them all, which was well performed and took much with the House, insomuch that ... some wise men say a greater charge hath not come against any since the Parliament began’.52Derbys. RO, D1232/O/59. Sleigh subsequently testified against Gell to the Committee for Examinations*.53Derbys. RO, D258/12/16(i), pp. 61-4. The faction-fighting between the Gell and Sanders camps spilled over into the recruiter election at Derby the following month. On election day, 12 November, Sleigh allegedly helped Bennett (the mayor) to rig proceedings in favour of their friend Alderman Mellor and against the rival candidate Thomas Gell*, who was Sir John’s brother.54Supra, ‘Derby’. It was probably the Gells and their allies who brought charges of delinquency against Sleigh and other county committeemen in 1646. They certainly complained when the Derbyshire sequestrations committee – of which Sleigh was a member – heard the charges and dismissed them.55Derbys. RO, D258/10/32/20; D258/34/34; Barton, Representation, 12; CCC 45, 47.

Sleigh continued to receive local parliamentary appointments after the regicide, although Barton implied that he neglected his duties as a magistrate under the Rump.56Barton, Representation, 13. Like Barton, he stood for one of the Derbyshire county seats in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament in 1654. But whereas Barton and two other candidates were ‘publicly assented to without question’, Sleigh was defeated on a poll for the fourth, and last, place by John Gell (Sir John’s son).57Barton, Representation, 2. Evidently a sore loser, Sleigh petitioned the Commons in an attempt to have Barton’s return disqualified on the grounds that he was still in holy orders.58Barton, Representation, 1-2; CJ vii. 375a. The petition was read in the House on 9 October 1654, ‘but being mistaken in the direction’ was delivered back to Sleigh.59CJ vii. 375a. The petition worked to the extent that Barton’s return was referred to the committee of privileges. However, since the committee was still considering the case when the Parliament was dissolved early in 1655, both men were disappointed of a seat.

Sleigh was apparently considered one of the more committed of the Cromwellian ejectors in the north midlands, and his appointment as a commissioner for securing the peace in the autumn of 1655 suggests that he was also regarded as sympathetic to the rule of the major-generals.60CSP Dom. 1655, p. 144; TSP iv. 211. After his first meeting with the Derbyshire commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth, Major-general Edward Whalley* lamented to Secretary John Thurloe* that Sleigh had been unable to attend, being then absent in London.61TSP iv. 211. Sleigh may have enjoyed Whalley’s backing as a candidate for one of the county seats the following year. On election day, 20 August 1656, the contest went to a poll in which Sleigh came second to Gell with 992 votes.62Supra, ‘Derbyshire’. He was named to 26 committees in the second protectoral Parliament, many of them concerning matters of private business and often with a strong midlands link.63CJ vii. 433a, 457b, 464b, 465a, 466a, 472a, 488a, 490b, 496b, 538b. The moves to improve the yield from fines on the estates of Catholic recusants, to confirm the abolition of the court of wards and to legislate against vagabonds all seem to have enjoyed his support.64CJ vii. 444a, 447a, 453b. In addition, several of his committee appointments point to a concern on his part for promoting a godly, learned ministry.65CJ vii. 434a, 441b, 448a. His attitude to the larger political questions of the time is harder to fathom. His role as teller in the division on the Colchester corporation petition on 9 May 1657 suggests that he sympathised with those who opposed the return of the two pro-government candidates for the borough.66CJ vii. 532a. It may also be significant that he was named to just one committee relating to the Humble Petition and Advice and the offer of the crown to Cromwell.67CJ vii. 540b. He was certainly not listed among the ‘kinglings’ in the House. He appears to have made no impact during the brief second session of this Parliament in early 1658. There is no evidence that he stood as a candidate in the elections to the third protectoral Parliament of 1659.

Sleigh was active as a Derbyshire militia commissioner under the restored Rump in 1659 and again in the weeks preceding the 1660 Convention.68St. 185, ff. 151r-v; SP28/226; SP28/322, ff. 679-85. He negotiated the transition to monarchy with remarkable ease and remained a force in local government into the 1670s. He even retained his place on the Derbyshire bench – much to the disgust of the county’s royalists, who regarded him as an even greater enemy to the king than that ‘great Presbyterian’ Sir John Curzon*.69Newton, ‘The gentry of Derbys.’, 6. Both Sleigh and Curzon refused to sign a declaration of the Derbyshire gentry in 1666 pledging money for a new royal army to guard England against the Dutch.70NRA 618, Misc. pprs. at Radbourne Hall, no. 1.

Sleigh died in the spring of 1679 and was buried in the chancel of Sutton-on-the-Hill church on 15 April.71Sutton-on-the-Hill par. reg. In his will, he charged his estate with an annuity of £25 to the vicar of Sutton and his successors. His personal estate was valued at £887. His legatees included Curzon, his long-time friend German Pole*, and the vicar of Etwall.72Staffs. RO, B/C/11, will of Sir Samuel Sleigh, 1679; Derbys. RO, D5557/2/9/2-4. Sleigh was the last of his line to sit in Parliament.