ARUNDELL, Thomas (1577-1648), of Trevedarte, Duloe, Cornw.

Thomas Arundell of Duloe was the brother of John Arundell† of Trerice, and his nephews included John Arundell I* and Richard Arundell*.16Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 12. As a younger son, Thomas Arundell pursued a military career, serving in the Low Countries as a young man in the 1590s, ‘with so well-liked a carriage that he outgoeth his age, and time of service, in preferment’, and he may have continued soldiering under James I.17Carew, Survey, 148. In May 1619 Arundell married Mary Capel at St Stephen, Coleman Street, London, and from the early 1620s he was resident in Cornwall, where he may have been the ‘Thomas Arundell’ appointed as a justice of the peace in 1622.18St Stephen, Coleman Street, par. reg.; C193/13, unfol. In this period he was more than usually engaged in the favourite gentry sport of litigation, becoming involved in disputes about purchase agreements and leases, and, in 1631, being prosecuted for a debt contracted by his father decades before.19C3/299/23; C3/330/35; C2/CHAS I/A34/58.

Arundell was returned for West Looe in the Long Parliament election in 1640, presumably on his own interest in the borough, where he was a freeholder renting property from the corporation.20Cornw. RO, B/WLO/63/1, ff. 1, 10v, 30. His early involvement in Parliament suggests that he hoped to use his position at Westminster to further his litigious ends. He may have been the ‘Mr Arundell’ who challenged the election of Sir Richard Buller* and William Coryton* for the borough of Bossiney in November 1640, and who (according to Francis Buller*), was pressing some other charge against the family in Parliament in December.21D’Ewes (N), 536; Cornw. RO, BU/1184; CJ ii. 29a. On 10 February 1641 the Commons ordered that the father of Arundell’s first wife, Sir Gamaliel Capel, be called to the bar of the House, having served a process against Arundell in king’s bench.22CJ ii. 81b. The facts of the case, revealed three days later, suggest that this was a long-standing dispute, as Arundell had originally sued Capel in a civil action through the prerogative courts, and Capel had countered by procuring a ‘prohibition’ from king’s bench. Arundell had then ‘complained of breach of privilege’, but after due deliberation the Commons decided against him ‘because the prohibition was not to stop Mr Arundell’s suit, but to bring the matter into the right channel where it ought to be handled, and that the rights of the common law ought to be maintained’.23CJ ii. 84b; Two Diaries of Long Parl. 85; D’Ewes (N), 355-6. Arundell’s irascibility suggests that he was also the ‘Mr Arundell’ who criticised Sir Henry Herbert*, chairman of the committee of Caernarvon, saying that ‘he ought to leave off his hat when he read any petition’.24D’Ewes (N), 455. Apart from these incidents, Arundell’s activities in the first session of the Long Parliament are relatively obscure, and his only other mention in the Journal is for taking the Protestation on 3 May 1641.25CJ ii. 133b.

As civil war approached, Arundell defied the rest of his family by opposing the king, and far from deserting Parliament in June 1642 he promised to ‘furnish one horse’ for its defence.26PJ iii. 473. On 23 July he was ordered to go to the Tower of London as one of a delegation of MPs sent to stop weapons and equipment from being sent to the king at York; and three days later he was one of the committee ordered to go to Cornwall to execute the Militia Ordinance.27CJ ii. 688a, 694a. This led to a showdown with the Arundells of Trerice at the Launceston assizes in August 1642. The royalist gentry were intent on proclaiming the commission of array, but were blocked by Thomas Arundell and others, ‘assuming the name of a committee of the House of Commons’, who put pressure on the judges to stop the commission being read.28HMC 4th Rep. 307; LJ v. 275b. Arundell and his friends only succeeded in delaying the proclamation of the commission, and the widespread support in Cornwall for the king forced him to withdraw from the county soon afterwards. His appointments to local commissions during 1643 and 1644 were purely notional, as was a Commons’ order of September 1643, granting Arundell, and John Seyntaubyn* of Clovance, the right to appoint a ‘godly minister’ to the sequestered vicarage of Duloe.29A. and O.; CJ iii. 233a. The truth of the matter was that Arundell’s estates in Cornwall had been confiscated by the rival, royalist commissioners, who calculated in 1644 that they were worth a mere £180 per annum.30Cornw. RO, B35/231.

By July 1643 Arundell was commanding the fort of the parliamentarian stronghold of Plymouth, and was implicated in the activities of the turncoat, Sir Alexander Carew*, despite the assurances of the mayor, Philip Francis, that he had ‘demeaned himself with great honesty and integrity’.31Misdemeanours of a Traitor, sig. A2. On 1 August the Commons ordered Arundell and Carew to attend the House, but Arundell may have been let off, as he was still in Plymouth in September, when he joined Francis Godolphin I* of Trevaneage and others in sending a letter to Speaker William Lenthall*, warning of a plot to betray a parliamentarian ship.32CJ iii. 190b; HMC Portland, i. 130. Arundell had travelled to Westminster by January 1644, when he took the Covenant, but he may not have stayed for long, as he was again at Plymouth when it was relieved by Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, in the summer of 1644.33CJ iii. 383b. It was at this time that Arundell’s allegiances were again questioned, perhaps because of the prominence of his brother and nephews in the royalist army. The Committee of Both Kingdoms considered evidence against Arundell from Sir John Berkeley*, and a formal charge was made by Christopher Worthyvale, ‘who informed against him’, while the Commons ordered on 16 August that the appointment of officers for the fort at Plymouth during the previous year were to be investigated.34CSP Dom. 1644, p. 437; CJ iii. 592a. There can have been few real doubts as to Arundell’s loyalty, however, as on the very same day he was appointed as one of the commissioners to constitute a court martial in London, but he clearly resented the stain on his honour.35A. and O.; CJ iv. 484a.

From the new year of 1645, Arundell was more regular in his attendance in the Commons. He was named to committees to consider recruiting soldiers for the New Model on 17 February, to satisfy debts incurred by MPs on 18 April, and on 3 June he was granted £4 a week as maintenance while his estates were occupied by the enemy.36CJ iv. 51a, 115b, 161a. In August 1645 he was appointed to committees to settle the debentures of reduced officers who had served in the campaign to relieve Taunton, and to distribute money released by the Commons for needy Scottish officers.37CJ iv. 238a, 249b. As the victorious New Model began to move into the south-west, in the closing months of 1645, Arundell followed on, as a member of Parliament’s committee for Devon and Cornwall, and in February 1646 he was one of those who took charge of the executive of the counties, under the auspices of the Western Association.38CJ iv. 440a. In March Arundell, supported by the leading Presbyterian Sir Robert Harley*, petitioned to be cleared from ‘any of the scandals or imputations’ made by Worthyvale in 1644.39CJ iv. 484a. He does not seem to have sided openly with the Presbyterian faction in Parliament during the spring and summer of 1647. Despite his connection with Harley, and his appointment to the Derby House Committee on 9 April, during its discussions on the army establishment (and reduction of the forces?) in England and Ireland, he was not associated with the army’s enemies at Westminster later in the summer, and was even named to the committee, appointed on 11 August, to repeal the votes made during the Presbyterian ‘forcing of the Houses’ a few days before.40CJ v. 138a, 272a, 278a.

In September 1647 Arundell was given leave to go to the country, and this may have been the first sign that his health was declining. He was absent from the call of the House a year later, and illness was almost certainly the cause on this occasion.41CJ v. 306a; vi. 34a. In his will, drawn up in London on 3 November 1648, Arundell left his lands in Duloe parish to his son and heir and executor, John, other lands to his second son, Francis, and £300 to his daughter, Gertrude Mitch or Meech, if she did not obstruct her brothers’ claims. The overseers of the will included his ‘good friends’, the MPs John Seyntaubyn and Francis Godolphin I, with the latter serving as a witness to it.42PROB11/206/146. Arundell died soon afterwards, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on 7 November.43Cornw. RO, Duloe par. regs. He was succeeded by his eldest son, John Arundell II*, who had been elected as a recruiter MP, and parliamentary colleague for his father, at West Looe in January 1647.