CONINGSBY, Thomas (?1591-1652), of North Mimms, Herts.

According to this MP’s son, the Coningsbys were ‘lineally descended from a long and noble race of ancestors that were barons of this kingdom both before and after the Conquest’.19Consolation of Philosophy, sig. A4. More realistically, their pedigree could be traced back to the early thirteenth century.20Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 444. The Hertfordshire branch was established in the 1520s, when a younger son, John Coningsby, succeeded to North Mimms, some five miles from St Albans, by marriage to an heiress.21VCH Herts. ii. 254. This MP’s great-uncle, Humphrey†, sat for St Albans in five Elizabethan Parliaments, while his father, Sir Ralph, one of 13 children, was knight of the shire in 1614. Confusion surrounds Thomas’s date of birth. A work published by his son would claim that he had died in 1654 aged 63.22Consolation of Philosophy, sig. [A7]. But he is known to have died in 1652. Thomas married his stepsister, Martha Button, a daughter of his father’s second wife from her previous marriage; his younger brother Walter married Martha’s sister Jane.23Vis. Wilts, 1623, 34; Berry, Pedigrees Herts. 163-4.

Thomas’s elder brother, Francis, inherited the family estates in 1616 on the death of their father and was knighted later that same year.24Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 159. Relations between the two brothers were difficult. During his lifetime, their father had assigned his lands at North Mimms to feoffees. After his death, his widow and Sir Francis engaged in legal proceedings against those feoffees for their alleged mismanagement of these lands.25CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 426; 1634-5, p. 413. In May 1628 Sir Francis petitioned the House of Lords, claiming that on marrying he had sought to buy back some of the lands, which, according to him, the feoffees had leased to Thomas, seemingly on preferential terms. The reply from Thomas and the feoffees was heard the following month but was rejected. On 23 June, the Lords ordered that the estates were instead to be vested in their own trustees, the 1st earl of Dover (Henry Carey†), 1st Viscount Savage and Sir John North (Sir Francis’s brother-in-law).26LJ iii. 785a, 793a, 800a, 805a, 821b, 833a-834b, 855a-b, 872a, 875b; Lords Proceedings 1628, ed. M.F. Keeler, M.J. Cole and W.B. Bidwell (New Haven, 1983), 369, 395, 396, 397, 416, 418, 443, 448, 485, 527, 543, 560, 572, 573, 574, 599, 603, 608, 644, 693, 700. By the time this Parliament had reassembled in early 1629, Sir Francis had died.27C142/765/35; PROB11/155/502. His widow, Margaret (daughter of Sir John North†), then complained to the Lords that Thomas Coningsby was refusing to obey their previous orders on the subject.28LJ iv. 30b, 37a-b. After her own death soon afterwards, Lady Coningsby’s executor, her brother, Roger North, the explorer who had tried to found an English colony in South America, continued to pursue Thomas Coningsby through the law courts.29Oxford DNB, ‘Roger North’.

Coningsby had served as a justice of the peace even before succeeding his brother. However, in the mid-1630s he got into trouble when he expressed doubts about justices compelling poor boys to become apprentices, as required by the 1631 Book of Orders. He was fined £100 by the court of star chamber and removed from the commission of the peace.30E159/474, rot. 12; Harl. 4022, f. 17; T.G. Barnes, Som. 1625-1640 (Cambridge, Mass. 1961), 186. Dismissal as a magistrate turned out to be only temporary, as he was re-appointed in July 1637.31Coventry Docquets, 73, 74. Two months later he was also named as the new sheriff of Hertfordshire.32List of Sheriffs, 64; Coventry Docquets, 368. That was probably the occasion when he is alleged to have said, ‘I will not keep a man the more, or a dog the fewer on that account’.33T. Fuller, Hist. of the Worthies of Eng. (1662), ii. 32.

The big task he faced as sheriff was organising the collection of the latest Ship Money demand – £4,000 from the Hertfordshire taxpayers. Despite getting to work promptly, in February 1638 he told Edward Nicholas†, one of the clerks of the privy council, that progress was slow because everyone was using the uncertainty over the ongoing legal case against John Hampden* as an excuse for not paying.34CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 244. His task became no easier in the months that followed.35CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 355-6, 392. By late 1639 he had collected £3,444 18s 10d.36CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 274; 1639-40, p. 120. He subsequently managed to squeeze out a bit more, bringing his final total to £3,558 3s 5d.37Gordon, ‘Collection of ship-money’, 158. This was a more effective result than achieved by some sheriffs elsewhere. Meanwhile, in early 1639 he helped collect the money for the Hertfordshire troops to be sent to suppress the Scottish Covenanters.38Hatfield House, CP 131/58, 60, 62, 71.

Coningsby’s role as a Ship Money sheriff was a disadvantage when he came to seek a seat in Parliament in the 1640 elections. Even so, he was returned by the freemen of St Albans to the Short Parliament. There is no record of him participating in its proceedings. In fact, he may have been preoccupied with issues nearer home. On 10 April, three days before Parliament assembled, Coningsby joined the other Hertfordshire deputy lieutenants in writing to the lord lieutenant, the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*), on the major difficulties they had encountered in raising troops for a new campaign against the Scots.39Hatfield House, CP 131/105. They repeated those concerns in a second letter written a week later.40CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 44-5; Hatfield House, CP 131/106. All five were summoned to London to be questioned about this in late May, after Parliament had been dissolved.41CSP Dom. 1640, p. 186. That summer Coningsby had other dealings with the central government. In June the privy council heard his complaint that the executors of one of his late neighbours, Jarrett Searle of South Mimms, were engaged in vexatious ligation against him over alleged trespasses. The council accepted the recommendation from Justice Berkeley (Robert Berkeley†) that the executors, Searle’s sons, John and Bartholomew, had indeed behaved unreasonably.42PROB11/173/386; PC Regs. x. 560-1

Coningsby’s attempt to get re-elected as the MP for St Albans in late October 1640 ended in failure. He is alleged to have tried to prevent the return of the inexperienced Edward Wingate* and appears to have been responsible for the brief imprisonment of the other Member, Sir John Jennings*.43CJ ii. 79b-80a. Complaints about the latter were aired in the Commons on 6 February 1641. After Coningsby had appeared on his knees at the bar of the House, the various petitions relating to his conduct during the election were referred on 18 February to the committee which had previously been created to consider the case of Sir Lewis Dyve.44CJ ii. 79b-80a, 88b; Two Diaries of Long Parl. 87. It was specifically alleged that Coningsby had used ‘many violent words and deeds to hinder a free election’ and to ‘procure himself to be chosen burgess again’.45Procs. LP, ii. 479. He was granted bail, however.46CJ ii. 88b. The committee took evidence against Coningsby several weeks later.47Procs. LP, ii. 797.

But these were only some of Coningsby’s problems. A petition from Watford protesting at his overzealous collection of Ship Money was presented to the Commons by Arthur Capell* on 5 December 1640. A committee was then appointed to investigate this and any other complaints against Ship Money sheriffs.48CJ ii. 45b; Procs. LP, i. 471, 476; Northcote Note Bk. 31. It met six days later to hear the specific allegations about misconduct by the officials employed by Coningsby.49Procs. LP, i. 569. He appeared before the committee in person on 26 January 1641, but, according to Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, ‘made but slender defence’.50Procs. LP, ii. 282. The next day the Commons instructed the sergeant-at-arms to arrest him.51CJ ii. 74a. He was thus in custody when the complaints about the St Albans election were heard three weeks later.

His ongoing dispute with the Searle family was another distraction. In November 1641 John and Bartholomew Searle sued Coningsby, claiming that he had conducted a night-time raid on their house at Shenley on 1 May 1641. In March 1642, after it had been established that Coningsby’s visit had taken place during daylight and that he had not entered their house, one of the witnesses was convicted of perjury.52Herts. County Recs. v. 308. It may also have been during 1641 that the constable of Aldenham, Henry Francis, made a complaint against Coningsby regarding the state of the bridge over the River Colne, which had been damaged by flooding two years previously. Francis alleged that Coningsby had failed to fulfil his responsibility for repairing it. Coningsby countered by arguing that it was instead the responsibility of the inhabitants of the neighbouring hundreds.53Herts. County Recs. i. 281-2. Coningsby was evidently not well-liked among his neighbours.

When the country slid into civil war in 1642, the king saw Coningsby as a potential supporter, naming him July as a commissioner of array for Hertfordshire.54Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. Moreover, four months later he also appointed Coningsby as the new sheriff, presumably on the basis of his past loyalty in that office.55Consolation of Philosophy, sig. A2v. Such confidence turned out to be well-founded.

In January 1643 Coningsby read the king’s proclamation against Parliament’s lord general, the 3rd earl of Essex, in the market place at St Albans. Writing over four years later, Coningsby gave the date as 13 January, but it was more probably 14 January, a Saturday, the town’s traditional market day. He claimed that he acted ‘in a peaceable manner, not doing any the least thing in my own interest or accompanied with any force’.56T. Coningsby, To All the World to View (1647), 1 (E.406.7). However, when he tried to read the proclamation, several soldiers from the troop of Oliver Cromwell* attempted to arrest him, whereupon members of the crowd helped rescue him. When the troopers returned with reinforcements, Coningsby holed himself up in one of the local inns, traditionally said to have been the Great Red Lion. But he soon surrendered. Cromwell then had him sent to London.57Perfect Diurnall, no. 32 (16-23 Jan. 1643); [J. Vicars], God on the Mount [1643], 246 (E.73.4); Kingston, Civil War Herts. 30-3. On 16 January the Commons ordered that he be imprisoned.58CJ ii. 930a. (Some reports of this incident describe him as ‘Sir Thomas’, but there is no other evidence that he had been knighted.)59Perfect Diurnall (16-23 Jan. 1643); Vicars, God on the Mount, 246.

On 11 March the House of Lords was told that, on being advised to petition Parliament, Coningsby had replied that it would be ‘below him’ to do so. Regarding this as an insult, the Lords summoned him before them.60LJ v. 645a-b. When Coningsby appeared two days later, Roger Kirkham*, receiver-general to the earl of Salisbury, gave evidence against him. Kirkham testified that on being sent by Salisbury to question him, Coningsby had asserted that it would be inappropriate for him as the king’s sheriff to petition anyone other than the monarch, although he had denied intending to disrespect Parliament. The House reprimanded Coningsby and remanded him to remain under arrest. However, he took the opportunity to complain that his coach horses had been confiscated when his wife and children had come to London to visit him in prison.61LJ v. 646a. That same day Miles Corbett* reported from the Committee for Examinations to the Commons on Coningsby’s case.62Coningsby, To All the World to View, 2. The Commons then asked that committee to investigate the order Coningsby had sent to the lord lieutenant, Viscount Cranborne (Charles Cecil*), instructing him to raise the trained bands to restore order in Hertfordshire.63CJ ii. 1000a. Meanwhile, Coningsby was sent to the Tower.64Coningsby, To All the World to View, 2. On 8 April the Commons ordered that he was to be confined to his chamber there.65CJ iii. 35a. Yet the Hertfordshire justices of the peace continued to regard him as their nominal sheriff until the following autumn.66Herts. County Recs. v. 325, 328.

The main source of information on Coningsby’s troubles over the next four years is his own self-serving account published in 1647.67Coningsby, To All the World to View. But his claim that his property had been thoroughly trashed by his parliamentarian enemies is not implausible. On 26 March 1644 Parliament passed an ordinance to fund the forces in Cheshire under the command of Sir William Brereton*. This gave Brereton the right to confiscate the estates of royalist delinquents close to London.68A. and O. On that basis, Sir William seized some of the lands controlled by Coningsby’s wife, Martha.69Coningsby, To All the World to View, 2-4. Meanwhile, on 9 May 1644, Coningsby was questioned by the Committee for Examinations about the incident at St Albans in January 1643. According to Coningsby, there was some uncertainty, raised by Samuel Browne*, as to whether he could be punished for actions done before the sequestration ordinance of 27 March 1643 had been enacted.70Coningsby, To All the World to View, 4; Consolation of Philosophy, sig. A3. Thereafter Martha Coningsby and their son, Henry, prepared to petition the Commons, taking care to give prior notice to Brereton, who apparently indicated that he would be happy to follow the lead of William Ashhurst* (one of Brereton’s closest allies in the Commons) and Sir William Lytton*.71Coningsby, To All the World to View, 5. On 8 June the Commons referred the petition to the Committee for Sequestrations.72CJ iii. 523a. Coningsby would subsequently allege that when the matter was then referred to the officials in the county, Brereton’s friends plundered the estates before returning false valuations.73Coningsby, To All the World to View, 5-12; The Impact of the First Civil War on Herts. ed. A. Thomson (Herts. Rec. Soc. xxiii.), 170. The family claimed that the damage amounted to more than £2,000.74Consolation of Philosophy, sig. A3v.

On 23 October 1644 the Commons granted Coningsby permission to compound.75CJ iii. 674a; CCC 853. The Committee for Compounding set his fine on 6 March 1645 at £1,000. However, he ‘obstinately’ refused to pay this and so was sent back to the Tower.76CCC 853. Two months later, in mid-May, it was reported that he and some of other prisoners there had celebrated following a false report that Cromwell had been wounded or killed in battle.77The true Informer (10-17 May 1645). By his own account, he spent over a year trying to petition the House of Lords without getting anywhere.78Coningsby, To All the World to View, 14. Frustrated by this lack of progress, he turned instead to the printed word. In August 1647 he brought out a short pamphlets setting out his grievances.79Coningsby, To All the World to View. At about the same time he figured in the poem by his fellow prisoner, Sir Francis Wortley†, marking the feast held by the royalist prisoners in the Tower after the king had sent them some venison. Wortley thought that Coningsby was ‘stout and stern,/Yet of a sweet condition/To them he loves’.80F. Wortley, A Loyall Song of the Royall Feast ([1647], 669.f.11.82). He did not, as has sometimes been claimed, spend his time translating Lipsius’s De Constantia; that was instead undertaken by his eldest son, Harry.

Harry Coningsby would claim that his father had been imprisoned in the Tower for over seven years, which would imply that he was not released until about 1650. Harry also claimed that he could secure that release only by paying bribes.81Consolation of Philosophy, sig. A3v. Coningsby was by then ‘broken and languishing in body’.82Consolation of Philosophy, sig. A3v. In February 1650 Harry complained to the Committee for Compounding that the lands at North Mimms were in a very poor state.83CCC 854. A survey then conducted by Alban Coxe* and another local justice of the peace unsurprisingly discovered that most of the buildings were indeed in a state of considerable disrepair.84Impact of the First Civil War, ed. Thomson, 197-9. In May 1650 the county committee pointed out to the Committee for Compounding that Coningsby’s intransigence was preventing them from renting out these lands for as much as they had hoped.85CCC 211. As a further complication, Roger North, still acting as Lady Coningsby’s executor, had revived the arguments from the 1620s about the settlement of these lands by Coningsby’s father, first with the House of Lords in 1648 and now with the Committee for Compounding.86LJ x. 235b, 237a, 551a, 552a-b, 567b, 569a, 582a; HMC 7th Rep. 23, 57, 59, 62; CCC 854-5. Stubborn to the last, Coningsby was still petitioning the Hertfordshire and Cambridge sequestration commissioners in May 1651 querying the nature of his delinquency.87CCC 853. He also apparently suffered a further period of imprisonment after he attempted to use the law courts to challenge the damage done to his estates.88Consolation of Philosophy, sig. A4.

Coningsby died on 1 October 1652.89SP23/77, pp. 16, 45. He was buried at North Mimms five days later.90SP23/77, p. 36; Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 445; Berry, Pedigrees Herts. 163. That same month the Rump agreed that his lands should be included in the sale of forfeited royalist estates.91CJ vii. 196a, 199a; A. and O. ii. 625, 636. Only in November 1653 was the sequestration finally discharged.92CCC 854-6. Harry Coningsby managed to buy back some of those lands, although only by accumulating yet more debts.93Consolation of Philosophy, sig. [A5]. In the end, this was too much of a struggle. In 1658 he and his mother were forced to sell the manor of North Mimms (‘worth more than £10,000’) to Sir Thomas Hyde of Aldbury.94VCH Herts. ii. 254; Consolation of Philosophy, sig. [A5]. Harry, who was knighted at the Restoration, unsuccessfully contested St Albans in 1661.95Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 227; HP Commons, 1660-1690, ‘St Albans’. His 1664 verse translation of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae included a preface in praise of his father’s memory.96Consolation of Philosophy, sig. A1-[A6]. The MP’s widow, evidently a woman of iron constitution, survived her 18 pregnancies, lived until 1677 and endowed a charity in North Mimms.97PROB11/355/376. The family continued to live in a small house in the village until 1753, but none of them sat in Parliament again.98Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 445, 458; Berry, Pedigrees Herts. 165; VCH Herts. ii. 255.