SCOTTON (SCOTTEN), Edward (fl. 1645-63), ?of Warws.

The precise identity of this MP is elusive. However, it seems almost certain that he belonged to a yeoman family originally taking its name from Scotton in Lincolnshire, and by the seventeenth century scattered over the east midlands in an arc from north east Warwickshire and Northamptonshire to Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, although with a centre of gravity within a triangle to the west created by Birmingham, Coventry and Nuneaton. In that family, the names Edward and Edmund are prominent, creating potential confusion, but it is the distinctive re-use of the relatively rare name Moses which seems to cement certain links. In 1604 one Moses Scotton, ironmonger – possibly the same man who married that year at Sherbourne, near Warwick – acquired property in Daventry, and another was buried there in 1690, but it is (probably) a third who provides the key to the most likely identification of the MP.18Northants. RO, Th855 (indenture 10 Aug. 1609); Daventry par. reg.

According to their father’s will (drafted in 1649 and proved in 1657), this Moses was a younger son of Edmund the testator and younger brother of an Edward, plausibly the same Edward with whose military career he was later associated and also the future Member.19PROB11/269/29. The father appears to be the Edmund Scotten of Wisbech in the Isle of Ely – although possibly the same man who had married in north Warwickshire in 1619 – whose petition against William Gyles, vicar of Elm and Emneth, was submitted to the House of Commons in December 1640; allegedly, Gyles was ‘a man of false doctrine and scandalous life’ who had preached popery.20PA, Main Pprs. 18 Dec. 1640. By December 1643 Edmund of Wisbech had been for some time a sequestration commissioner in the Isle of Ely with one James Whinnell, and by May 1644 Moses Scotten was also in some way associated with their activity, but in time dissension (hinted at in Edmund’s will) opened up.21CCAM 29; CJ iii. 502b. In November 1645 the House of Lords heard depositions from Moses Scotten that Whinnell had asserted that William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, had been responsible for ‘betraying’ Leicester to the royalists and that ‘none of the Fiennes, nor my Lord Saye, never did any good to the state’ – misdemeanours for which Whinnell was in due course punished.22LJ vii. 676a, 707b. The support of Moses for the Fiennes (who had Lincolnshire interests) in factional struggles at Westminster makes it plausible that it was his brother Edward who was an officer in the cavalry regiment of Colonel John Fiennes* in Oxfordshire during the previous spring and summer, and possibly also the Scotten used as a messenger by Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes I* just before the siege of Bristol in 1643 and called to testify at Fiennes’ court martial that December.23BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database; W. Prynne, A True and Full Relation [1645], 48, 58 (E.255.1)

Nevertheless, it cannot be entirely excluded that the parliamentarian officer was instead a cousin or close kinsman of Moses. If so, the most likely candidate is Edward Scotten of Warwickshire, who was admitted as a sizar – implying relatively humble status – to Jesus College, Cambridge, in April 1637.24Al. Cant. Another of the name, almost certainly the student’s father, was chosen to serve as constable of his native Maxstoke at the Epiphany sessions in 1638.25Warwick County Records, ii. 7. The former constable was buried at Maxstoke in 1654, while his son was married, probably in the early 1640s, to Dorothy, daughter of Devereux Thornton of Castle Bromwich.26Castle Bromwich and Maxstoke par. regs.; PROB11/152/492; Staffs. RO, consistory ct. of Coventry and Lichfield (1663, Scotton). The prominence in north east Warwickshire of the family of Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, Parliament’s initial commander-in-chief, or the existence by late 1643 of a permanent garrison at Maxstoke castle could explain this Edward’s recruitment to the parliamentarian army.27A. Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire (1987), 195-7.

In March 1647 Scotten transferred to serve as a lieutenant of horse under Lieutenant-general Oliver Cromwell*.28Clarke Pprs. i. 436; Wanklyn, New Model Army i. 107, 124, 142. A month later, in April 1647 he signed the Vindication of army officers who supported the soldiers’ grievances and on 12 July in Cambridge put his name to the letter from the agitators into Wales.29Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 471; Clarke Pprs. i. 161. On the 16th, as one of two lieutenants present at the council of war at Reading, he reported that those he represented were prepared to waive their previous intention to march on London to impose the army’s will on Parliament, but he pushed their desire to see John Lilburne, the Leveller, released from the Tower of London.30Clarke Pprs. i. 178, 208. By October, when he received pay due to the troop of Captain Reynolds (who later left his post to pursue Leveller activities), he had been delegated to attend the army’s general council and he was its last and most junior nomination to the committee of officers to consider The Case of the Army.31A Declaration of the Engagements…from…Sir Thomas Fairfax and the Generall Councel (1647), 20 (E.409.25); CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 574; Clarke Pprs. i. 436; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 849; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. 202. More moderate than his former superior, on 9 November during the debates at Putney he was among signatories to a disavowal of opposition to Parliament’s treating with the king.32Clarke Pprs. i. 416. Promoted to captain in November 1648, he was a fairly regular attender at council and committees between 14 December 1648 and February 1649, and was a signatory to the petition for the taking away of free quarter presented to Parliament by the army at the beginning of March.33Wanklyn, New Model Army i. 107; Clarke Pprs. i. 278-9; The Petition of the General Councel of Officers (1649), 13 (E. 545.30). As an attorney for his regiment he acted in contracts for the acquisition of land, as with part of Windsor Great Park in March 1649.34SP28/142, pt. 3, f. 57; S.J. Madge, Domesday of Crown Lands (1968), 212, 224, 392, 394. On 21 May he was one of four officers sent by General Sir Thomas Fairfax* from Andover with a letter to mutinous Levellers enjoining their return to obedience.35A Narrative of the proceedings of his excellencie Lord General Fairfax (1649), 5.

Captain Scotten remained with his regiment when it was transferred to the command of John Disbrowe in April 1649, and presumably went with it to the west country and fought at the battle of Worcester; in late December 1649 his troop was at Truro.36Wanklyn, New Model Army i. 107; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. 204; PROB11/212/186 (David Meredith). In the aftermath of Penruddock’s rising in March 1655 Disbrowe sent him to Bridport to round up fleeing rebels, but otherwise at this period he was quartered at Devizes.37TSP iii. 263; Bodl. Rawl. A.27, f. 753; Guild Stewards’ Accts. of the Borough of Calne ed. A.W. Mabbs (Wilts. Arch. and Nat. Hist. Soc. vii), 68. By late 1655 he had been appointed with John Dove*, Thomas Eyre* and James Hely* to the Wiltshire commission to assist Disbrowe as major-general for south-west England.38TSP iv. 295. Scotten’s standing was evidently such that he was considered to have influence with the government. According to a 1660 petition from authorities at Wilton seeking the return of the county court to their town, Scotten had been chosen as a burgess at Devizes in 1656 ‘of purpose to be instrumental for the continuance of the said court at the Devizes’.39J. Waylen, ‘The Wilts county court: Devizes versus Wilton’, Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxvii. 114-5.

Once at Westminster Scotten sat on a variety of committees. Named in October 1656 to those for redressing abuses in the prices and quality of wines and for increasing the revenue from papists’ estates, he was not called on in November.40CJ vii. 436b, 444a. In late December and into the new year he collected a clutch of nominations: as well as the settlement of the Wiltshire sheriff’s court at Devizes (for which he was listed first), he was deputed to deal with improving the maintenance of ministers in Northampton (possible confirmation of his family’s origins) and the highways of the commonwealth, the petition from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for their right to presentation in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire rectories, and a bill for land settlements within the Pale and in county Kildare, Ireland.41CJ vii. 469a, 475a, 477a, 478a. He was also among those added on 1 January 1657 to the committee for the public revenue.42CJ vii. 477b. The matter of Irish lands elicited his one recorded speech, when on 24 December, endorsed by the Speaker, he proposed that allocations previously earmarked for Henry Cromwell* but omitted from this intended settlement, be compensated for by land in ‘Galloway’ (i.e. Galway).43Burton’s Diary, i. 223. He was chosen to deal with Irish land grants again on 19 February.44CJ vii. 494a. Three final nominations that session related to the division of the parish of St Andrew, Holborn, London (4 Mar.), the punishment of immoderate living (June) and (for the second time) public debt (19 June).45CJ vii. 498b, 559b, 563a. Scotten does not appear to have taken up a visible position on the Instrument of Government, and he is absent from both the Commons Journal and surviving diaries during the second session of the Parliament.

If the MP was indeed the son of Edmund of Wisbech, he may have had other preoccupations. Having continued somewhat controversially in local administration in Cambridgeshire into the commonwealth period, the latter died some time before 7 October 1657.46CCAM 67; CCC 277, 349, 366, 399. In a will drafted during a bout of illness in June 1649, Edmund mentioned his wife Elizabeth and younger sons Moses and John, and gave to Edward two leases, one of them from Thomas Bennet esquire, conceivably the Cambridgeshire assessment commissioner of that name; Edward was also made executor

not doubting but that blessed God that moved his heart to be so much helpful to me when I was brought low by wicked men who rendered me evil for my good and hath showed almost unparalled respect and love to his mother, brothers and sisters, not ceasing to supply all our wants until my innocency appeared clearly in that behalf and my adversaries made ashamed

would also induce him to show the same wisdom and care in this respect.47PROB11/269/29; A. and O. In 1657 Edward was also named to the commission of the peace in Wiltshire and Berkshire, and became an assessment commissioner in the latter, as well as in the Isle of Ely.48A. and O.

Elected to Parliament again for Devizes in 1659, Scotten appears to have been an inactive Member, perhaps overwhelmed with renewed military duties. Following the return of the Rump in May, on 7 July he was re-commissioned as a captain of horse in Disbrowe’s regiment, with Moses Scotton as quartermaster.49CJ vii. 704a, 707b. When in January 1660 Disbrowe was deprived of his command and his regiment purged, Scotten was the only captain to keep his commission (although again with Moses as quartermaster) under the replacement colonel, Valentine Wauton*, but had lost it by 4 June as a result of further changes effected by General George Monck*.50CJ vii. 808b, 809a, 812b; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. 209.

This appears to have marked the end of Scotten’s public life and of his family’s service in Parliament. He and one John Scotten were among several former army officers who petitioned by February 1661 for a quarter’s rents in about 900 acres of crown lands which they had purchased in Windsor Great Park; Edward’s share amounted to 185 acres, and would explain his nomination to local office. They appear to have been rebuffed: although one of their number was considered well-affected to the king, none had been on an officers’ list delivered to the treasury on Monck’s orders in July 1660.51CTB vii. 1546. However, this may not have spelt the end of a connection with Berkshire: a Moses Scotten, son of Edward or Edmund, was buried at St Nicholas, Hurst in October 1662.52Berks. Burial Index. In February 1663 Scotten was summoned to Parliament to surrender or give account of bonds entered into by Wiltshire royalists imprisoned during the previous decade.53CJ viii. 438b. Two months later, having failed to appear, he was sent for in custody, but the upshot is not clear.54CJ viii. 468b.

It is possible that Scotten was already dead. The will of Edward of Maxstoke was drafted and proved in April 1663, leaving a widow, Dorothy, and sons Edward and John.55Staffs. Consistory ct. (1663 Edward Scotten); Warwick County Recs.: Hearth Tax Returns i. 298; Warws RO, CR 1291/53. The East Anglian connection seems to disappear, but Edward Scottons continued to be found, generally as yeomen, in north east Warwickshire.56Maxstoke, Fillongley, Wolvey par. regs.; Warwick County Records vii; Birmingham City Archives, 021/329339. In the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Scottons were prominent among Quaker families in the Coventry area.57VCH Warws. vi. 376n.