HILL, Roger II (1605-67), of Poundisford, Pitminster, Som.

The nephew of Roger Hill I, this MP was the eldest son and heir of William Hill of Poundisford. Since the death of his own father in 1608, William had held copyhold leases on the estate at Poundisford Park outside Taunton from the bishop of Winchester.38PROB11/113/448. This created an ambiguity in the family’s status. Although they ranked as one of the more prominent gentry families in the immediate vicinity of Taunton, they were, strictly speaking, no more than tenants. It would be one of the major achievements of the MP’s life that he temporarily remedied that anomaly. In anticipation of the limited landed wealth he could expect to inherit from his father, Hill not only entered the inns of court, but also pursued his legal studies with the aim of becoming a professional barrister. He was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1633.39CITR ii. 204. Between 1635 and 1638 he compiled extensive notes on a number of legal cases, especially in the court of king’s bench.40Add. 61941, ff. 10-270; Inner Temple, Misc. MS 89. These also included full details of the judges’ opinions from 1637 on the legality of Ship Money.41Add. 61941, ff. 110-112v. During these years he married Mary Grene, daughter of his kinsman, Giles Grene*. (His uncle, John Hill† of Dorchester, was already married to Grene’s sister.) He remained close to Grene even after Mary’s death in 1638.42Add. 46500, f. 9. Rising barristers often served as recorders of provincial boroughs and by 1640 the corporation of Bridport had already secured Hill’s services. On 19 October that year the corporation elected him as one of its MPs for the Long Parliament.

Parliamentary apprenticeship, 1640-1

Successful barristers usually thrived in the Commons. Hill would be no exception. During his first year as an MP he was named to a wide variety of committees, on subjects ranging from the Bossiney election dispute (14 Nov. 1640) to one of the naturalization bills (7 Jan. 1641) and from the bill for the conversion of tillage into pasture (25 Feb.) to the affairs of University College, Oxford (2 July).43CJ ii. 29a, 64b, 92b, 196a. The fates of the stannary courts in Cornwall and Devon (23 Dec. 1640) or of the court of star chamber (28 June 1641) were ones of obvious interest to a lawyer.44CJ ii.57b, 191a. Similarly, the cases of high-profile prisoners, such as Alexander Leighton (13 Nov. 1640), John Lilburne (4 May 1641) and Peter Smart (29 July), tended to raise legal issues of considerable political sensitivity.45CJ ii. 28b, 134a, 229a; Procs. LP vi. 140. Hill’s legal knowledge was probably also thought useful for the committees on the estate bills for the 5th marquess of Winchester (Lord John Paulet†) and Sir Francis Popham*.46CJ ii. 103b, 228a. One estate bill, in particular, seems to have attracted his attention. On 10 March 1641 he was among those added to the committee considering the bill to settle the tenures of the king’s copyhold tenants on some of the royal lands in and around the forest of Pendle in the honour of Clitheroe in Lancashire.47CJ ii. 100b. The indications are that Hill then played a leading part in shaping this bill, quite possibly taking over the chairmanship of the committee, as he was the MP who reported to the Commons on 17 and 21 July on the amendments which it had made to it. This secured the House’s agreement to its passage.48Procs. LP v. 687, vi. 44; CJ 219b. As Hill had no known connections with the north west, it may be that he viewed this as a chance to prove he could handle the drafting of a piece of legislation. Indeed, his abilities as a parliamentary draftsman would perhaps be how he would make his most significant contributions to the work of this Parliament.

From the start Hill fully supported the attacks on the king’s two leading ministers, the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) and the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. In January 1641 he told Abigail Gurdon (sister of Brampton* and half-sister of John Gurdon*), whom he was courting at this time, that the Commons was being kept busy ‘in the contriving of our charges against those two great troublers of our Israel’.49Add. 46500, f. 1. Several weeks later, while staying with the Gurdons at Greenforde, Middlesex, he left behind with her a copy of pamphlet concerning Strafford – possibly The Charge of the Scottish Commissioners against Canterburie and the Lieutenant of Ireland (1641) – which he had borrowed from fellow lawyer William Prynne*.50Add. 46500, f. 3. Once Strafford’s trial finally opened in late March, he told Abigail how disappointed he was that she had not had the chance to see ‘the glory of that assembly, representing the whole nation’.51Add. 46500, f. 9. A month later, after the Commons had been forced to resort to its bill of attainder against the earl, Hill and John Glynne* managed the conference with the Lords (26 Apr.) to discuss the petition from the citizens of London demanding swift action to bring Strafford to justice.52CJ ii. 127b, 128b; Procs. LP iv. 87. Hill and his friends doubtless intended that this would put pressure on the peers to pass the attainder bill. Even once Strafford had been executed, Hill continued to support the proceedings against those who had been associated with him, such as Sir George Radcliffe.53CJ ii. 149b; Procs. LP iv. 440.

In the meantime he had emerged as one of those MPs keen to extend the attack beyond Laud to the other bishops. In what may have been his first speech in Parliament, and certainly the first to attract the attentions of the parliamentary diarists, on 2 March 1641 he denounced the 1640 ecclesiastical Canons on the grounds that their introduction amounted to praemunire and that those responsible deserved to be impeached, like Strafford and Laud.54Procs. LP ii. 597-8, 599, 604, 606. According to diarist John Moore*, he said that, ‘Those men have laid their hands upon the crown and as much as in them lay went about to overthrow the king and kingdom’.55Procs. LP ii. 604. Another diarist, Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, noted that after Hill sat down, there followed ‘a long silence’.56Procs. LP ii. 598. Eight weeks later he was also the joint manager of the conference with the Lords about these Canons (29 Apr.).57CJ ii. 130b; Procs. LP 153.

Like most of his colleagues, Hill was deeply concerned that all this work might yet be undone by opponents resorting to subterfuge and violence. He took the Protestation on 3 May, immediately after the first army plot had been made public.58CJ ii. 133a. His reaction to the discovery of the second army plot the following month was to tell his wife that

Every day will now produce a new treason, there will be no rest amongst these wasps that are now stirred. We find new mercies every morning and have still discoveries of sad resolutions to devour us were we not secured by a divine providence by him that is the searcher of their hearts and hath brought them out to their confusion.59Add. 46500, f. 11v.

Two weeks after this, he was temporarily added with John Selden*, John Maynard* and John Glynne, to the close committee to help investigate the rumours of further plots (28 June).60CJ ii. 190b; Bodl. Rawl. D.1099, f. 98v; Procs. LP v. 384.

The recess in September and October 1641 enabled Hill to spend some time in Somerset and indeed he probably set out for the west over a fortnight before Parliament rose.61Add. 46500, ff. 12, 15, 17. Before returning, he travelled to Bridport to hold the borough sessions.62Add. 46500, f. 19. Once back at Westminster his main concern over the next few months seems to have been the fate of the bishops. Earlier that year, on 30 July, he had been among those MPs appointed to prepare impeachments against the 13 bishops who had approved the 1640 Canons, which was exactly what he had called for in his speech of 2 March.63CJ ii. 230b. He was now among those who wanted to warn the king against making appointments to the five vacant episcopal sees.64CJ ii. 298b. With the resumption of the former proceedings, he also continued to be named to the major committees on the bishops’ impeachments.65CJ ii. 314b, 364b, 385b.

Diarist, 1642

In early January 1642 Hill began to keep a diary of proceedings in the Commons, which he continued to compile over the next seven months.66Bucks. RO, D/W/97/7; PJ. (The surviving manuscript is, however, incomplete.)67PJ ii. 59n. The entries mostly record events in Parliament in apparently neutral terms, although, as all the other evidence shows that Hill was strongly supporting it in its growing dispute with the king, it should probably be assumed that most of what he was recording had his approval. Only one event, the arrest of the Five Members on 4 January, caused him to declare his feelings to his diary more openly. Indeed, this was probably what prompted him to begin the diary in the first place, as it opens with the attempt by the king’s officials, headed by the attorney general, (Sir) Edward Herbert I*, to present the articles against the Five Members the day before.68PJ i. 5. The entry for the following day contains perhaps the most vivid record of the reactions of an individual MP to the king’s own calamitous intervention.

The king came in person into the Commons house, attended with his servants and pensioners and about 4 or 500 desperate soldiers, captains and commanders, of papists, ill-affected persons, being men of no rank or quality, divers of them being traitors in France, Frenchmen fled hither, panders and rogues, in a hostile manner in arms forced to the Parliament door not suffering it to be shut, expecting when the word should be given that the king coming thither was to demand those accused of treason; but those that came with him, that is to say the soldiers, papists and others of the queen’s servants being French papists and English as is proved, came with a resolution that in case the Commons should deny to render these that were accused, to fall upon the House of Commons and to cut all their throats.69PJ i. 11-12.

The rest of the diary can be read as Hill’s narrative of how the country then descended inexorably into civil war. It is probably not a coincidence that the notebook he used for the diary also contains brief notes by him on the powers of the king extracted from authorities such as Bracton, Sir John Fortescue† and Sir Edward Coke†.70Bucks. RO, D/W/97/7, unfol.

One of the first actions taken by the Commons immediately following the king’s failure to arrest the Five Members was to send a delegation of four MPs to brief the inns of court on this development. Hill was included as the representative of the Inner Temple.71CJ ii. 367b; PJ i. 7-9. He then supported the flurry of measures introduced by Parliament in response to this crisis, including its call to the king for the country to be placed into a state of readiness against their enemies.72CJ ii. 376b, 382b, 383b, 387a, 398a, 406b. One of his particular concerns was to identify those who had advised the king as to the legalities of his recent actions. Parliament’s initial target was Sir Edward Herbert as the attorney general.73CJ ii. 382b, 464b, 539b. But on 29 January the queen’s attorney general, Sir Peter Ball*, appeared before the Commons to answer accusations that he had drafted the king’s articles against the Five Members. Hill then intervened with the sensational claim that Ball had told him that he thought it obvious that Lord Digby (George Digby*) had been responsible.74PJ i. 221, 223. That day the Commons complained about the suggestion made by James, 1st duke of Richmond and Lennox, in the House of Lords that Parliament should be adjourned for six months. Hill shared in the general disapproval, pronouncing Richmond ‘one of the most malignant councillors in the kingdom’.75PJ i. 201. Continuing news reports about the Irish rebellion only heightened the sense of crisis and so Hill backed the various steps taken by the Commons at this time to try to assist the beleaguered Protestants in Ireland.76CJ ii. 391a, 415b, 453b, 493b, 563a, 636b, 713a, 733b; PJ iii. 208.

One bill from this period can be directly associated with Hill, for he was one of the three lawyers in the House asked on 7 March to prepare the bill to authorise the publication of the works of Sir Edward Coke.77CJ ii. 470a. Given that the king, who regarded Coke’s ideas with the deepest suspicion, had previously blocked such an edition, this was, in the circumstances, an especially provocative proposal. One of the other lawyers appointed was Edmund Prideaux I*, one of Hill’s closest professional friends.78Add. 46500, f. 31. They can often be found acting together in the Commons from this point onwards.

On 21 May, the day after they had been passed, Hill reported to his wife the votes by which Parliament declared that the king intended to make war against Parliament, that this was a breach of trust with his subjects and that any who assisted him in that war would be traitors. In doing so, there was no hint that Hill disapproved of those votes.79PJ iii. 490-1. The priority now was for Parliament to make military preparations of its own. One step was to begin using the powers Parliament had asserted for itself under the Militia Ordinance. Hill himself had supported that bill when it had first been introduced earlier that year.80CJ ii. 478b, 485b. But attempts to assert control over the local militias were not always uncontested. On 27 May Sir Gilbert Gerard* claimed that another MP, possibly Henry Killigrew*, had told Hill that half the Middlesex trained bands were refusing to cooperate.81CJ ii. 590a; PJ ii. 378. On 17 August, Hill informed the Commons that Denis Bond* had written to him asking that Denzil Holles* should travel to Bristol at once in order to assist in the implementation of the Militia Ordinance there.82PJ iii. 304. Meanwhile, Hill sat on the committee which drafted the declaration against the king’s proclamation warning everyone not to obey the Ordinance (24 June). Two months later he probably also helped draft Parliament’s response to the king’s defence of his commissions of array (18 Aug.).83CJ ii. 638b, 725b. But the other elements to these military preparations was raising money as fast as possible. On 10 June Hill therefore offered £100 to Parliament as his personal contribution towards its military preparations.84PJ iii. 473. He was reassured when most of his colleagues turned out to be equally generous and told his wife a week later that

We shall not be wanting to defend his majesty, ourselves and kingdom against that wicked brood that would destroy both prince and people and make both a prey unto themselves. Horse, money and plate come in apace.85PJ iii. 492.

In his next letter, written on 25 June, he reported that, ‘we sit every day till ten at night.’86Inner Temple, Misc. MS 205, unfol.

Among the backlog of bills now awaiting the royal assent was that to summon the body which eventually met as the Westminster Assembly. In the face of the danger that this delay would overtake the date for its summons specified in the bill, Hill headed the list of MPs appointed on 14 July to make the necessary adjustments. This committee got to work at once, and Hill secured the Commons’ approval for the new bill a mere two days later.87CJ ii. 672a, 676a.

With war now imminent, desertions from Westminster had begun. On hearing that some of the peers and MPs had joined the king at York, Hill’s sanguine reaction was that, ‘I resolved long since not to trust one man.’88PJ iii. 491. But he did not just voice his disapproval, for he was then named to the committee to prepare for those peers’ impeachment (11 June). Before long the Commons had created its own committee to investigate the missing MPs.89CJ ii. 620a-b, 725a. Hill’s role on that committee was sufficiently prominent that he was given the task of reporting to the Commons on 2 September its list of MPs to be expelled for non-attendance.90CJ ii. 729a, 747b, 750a; PJ iii. 330.

MP in wartime, 1642-6

In late July 1642 the 1st marquess of Hertford (William Seymour†) began organising men in Somerset to fight for the king. The supporters of Parliament responded in kind. On 7 August the superior forces of the latter surrounded Wells, trapping Hertford inside the city, thereby persuading him to surrender. Hertford then fled across the county border into Dorset, taking refuge at Sherborne Castle. Several weeks later Hill was among MPs instructed by the Commons to prepare impeachments against Hertford’s leading Somerset supporters.91CJ ii. 745a. On 3 September, probably prompted by the fact that the 5th earl of Bedford (William Russell*) was now besieging Sherborne, Hill received permission to leave Westminster.92CJ ii. 751b. On 24 September he was able to write to London from Poundisford with the good news that Hertford had now abandoned Sherborne and taken refuge in south Wales. This letter was delivered to the Commons by Grene three days later.93CJ ii. 783b; Harl. 163, ff. 385v, 390v. With Somerset now securely under the control of men committed to Parliament, Hill returned to London.94CJ ii. 812b.

But Hill naturally remained concerned about the security of the whole south west. On 10 December he informed the Commons that he had received news from Taunton that the royalists were refortifying Sherborne Castle and that Sir Ralph Hopton* had taken control of much of Devon.95Harl. 163, f. 246v. The following week he told them of a letter he had received from Bristol relating the citizens’ concern that Lord Wilmot (Henry Wilmot*) had taken Marlborough, a mere 30 miles away. He and Holles were asked to reply with appropriate reassurances.96Harl. 164, f. 248bv; CJ ii. 886b. On 20 February 1643, with Hopton threatening to break out of Cornwall, Hill reported to the House on the bill to allow the inhabitants of Taunton to fortify their town.97Harl. 164, f. 302v. The following month he and Thomas Hodges I* broke the news of the unsuccessful royalist plot to capture Bristol.98Harl. 164, ff. 325, 326v; CJ ii. 1001a, 1002b, 1003a. (This occasioned Sir Simonds D’Ewes to describe Hill as ‘a little lawyer’.)99Harl. 164, f. 326v. That month Hill and Grene were the two MPs to whom Prideaux wrote from Exeter with news about developments in Devon and Cornwall.100Harl. 164, f. 337. A proposal from some of the Devon parliamentarians that they be allowed to form themselves into an association was received with favour by the Commons, which on 27 March asked Hill and Walter Yonge I* (Hill’s uncle) to draw up such a document. That day Hill and Michael Noble* were also assigned the task of organising the printing of letters from Sir William Waller* concerning the retaking of Malmesbury.101CJ iii. 20a, 20b. On 11 April Hill informed the Commons that some of the Cornish and Devon gentry had concluded a defensive pact in the hope of excluding the armies of both sides from those counties.102Harl. 164, f. 362v-363; CJ iii. 38b. In the context of a war fought on several fronts, Hill was also fully committed to the vigorous conduct of the campaigns being fought elsewhere.103CJ ii. 829a, 831b, 857b, 863a, 882b, 883b, 915b; Add. 18777, f. 48. This included assisting the passage of the latest assessment legislation.104CJ ii. 856a, 860a; Add. 18777, f. 62v. It is telling that it was to Prideaux and Hill that the Commons on 6 December 1642 delegated the task of combining their votes on the subject into a single bill.105CJ ii. 878b. Moreover, eight weeks later, it was Hill and Samuel Browne* who brought in the next assessment bill.106CJ ii. 944a; Add. 18777, f. 133v.

The workings of the law courts had inevitably been much disrupted by the outbreak of civil war. Most of the judges had joined the king. Hill backed the moves by the Commons to object when the king ordered that the law courts were henceforth to sit at Oxford rather than Westminster.107CJ ii. 915b, 932b; Add. 18777, ff. 116, 128. In early February 1643, Hill took the lead in Parliament’s clash with Sir Francis Bacon, the sole remaining justice of king’s bench still sitting at Westminster, over his use of habeas corpus. Bacon had ordered the release of a number of prisoners who were being held in custody by order of the Committee of Safety. MPs therefore now sought to have them re-arrested. An new order to that effect was approved by the Commons on 2 February on the basis of a report by Hill from the committee on the subject. He and John Glynne were given the job of informing Bacon.108Harl. 164, f. 287v; CJ ii. 928b, 953a. Hill was also included on the subsequent committee that drafted the declaration to make clear that no inferior court, even king’s bench, could overrule decisions by Parliament.109CJ ii. 959b; Add. 18777, f. 147. Bacon ignored these commands, so Hill had to seek the Commons’ approval for new orders on the same subject only a few weeks later.110Harl. 164, f. 307v. In the meantime he had backed the legislation to postpone the assizes.111CJ ii. 964a, 986b, 979b; Add. 18777, ff. 154, 157. He later helped organise the commissioning of a new great seal, part of the concern being that otherwise the law courts would be unable to continue functioning.112CJ iii. 91b, 92b, 155b, 269a, 283b. He was also regularly named to the relevant committees whenever there was vacancies to be filled among the officeholders of the various secular and ecclesiastical courts.113CJ iii. 152b, 371a, 500b, 537b, 541b, 687b. In late January 1644, when the Commons voted that the judges could not adjourn the courts from Westminster without Parliament’s permission, Hill carried the order up to the House of Lords for its approval.114CJ iii. 379b. The abolition of the court of wards probably had his unqualified support.115CJ iii. 179b, 409b, 592a.

During the summer of 1643, among numerous military reversals for Parliament, Hopton and his royalist army gained control of most of Somerset and Bristol was taken on 26 July. Hill’s estates were now in the hands of the enemy. It may therefore not have been entirely coincidental that the following week Hill (along with John Wylde* and Prideaux) was asked to draft a bill to allow men to be conscripted into the parliamentarian armies.116CJ iii. 190b. Other evidence tends to confirm that he remained committed to the vigorous prosecution of the war.117CJ iii. 214a, 230b, 269a, 291b, 333a, 345b.

He certainly showed little sympathy for anyone misguided enough to support the king. On 2 May 1643 he was one of three MPs added to the Committee for Advance of Money.118CJ iii. 67b; CCAM 19. He also supported the new sequestration bill.119CJ iii. 112a, 152b. Moreover, his committee on absent MPs remained active. Sir Henry Anderson* had recently been re-admitted on its recommendation, but that was not a sign that they were becoming any more lenient, as that May Hill and the committee began to prepare an updated list of absentees.120CJ iii. 43a, 77b. Hill also sat on the committees created to establish which MPs had violated the Solemn League and Covenant (23 Aug.) and to consider whether absent MPs should have their estates sequestered (28 Aug.). At about the same time (5 Sept.), he was asked to draft a bill to sequester the estates of anyone who travelled abroad without permission.121CJ iii. 216b, 220a, 228a. As before, he continued to assist in the preparation of many of the impeachment proceedings begun by the Commons, such as those against Sir Lewis Dyve†, Lord Goring (George Goring*), John Glanville*, Lord Hunsdon (John Carey†) and Sir Robert Heath†.122CJ iii. 286a, 363a, 537a, 560b, 565a, 567b. These also included the continuing efforts to convict Laud and the bishop of Ely, Matthew Wren.123CJ iii. 68a, 469a, 580a. Indeed, in January 1644, when Laud’s trial was finally about to get under way, Hill was one of the MPs given permission by the Commons to appear as a witness against him. However, in October 1644, Hill was first-named to the committee on the bill which saved the life of Edmund Waller* by reducing his punishment for plotting against Parliament from a death sentence to banishment abroad.124CJ iii. 361a, 671a

The successes of the 3rd earl of Essex in Dorset in June 1644, which included the recapture of Bridport, and the prospect of an advance westwards, encouraged Hill to think that it might not be long before it would become possible for him to visit Somerset.125Add. 46500, f. 30. He was to be disappointed, as Essex’s advance westwards would end in disaster at Lostwithiel. Hill was therefore forced to remain at Westminster, where he continued to be as active as ever, although he was given permission to take a short break in early September.126CJ iii. 612a. He was probably back in London by 24 September, when he was added to the Committee for Compounding.127CJ iii. 638b; CCC 11. This was one of the most important of all his committee appointments, for he thus became one of the select number of MPs charged with overseeing the process by which sequestered royalist were able to regain their estates – work that routinely encountered arguments which turned on the technicalities of land law. He may have owed his appointment, in part, to his local links with its chairman, John Ashe*. Hill’s membership of the Compounding Committee now became a further reason for him to be included on any Commons’ committees concerning delinquents and their estates.128CJ iv. 146b, 225a, 225b, 244b, 304b, 580b.

Hill most likely supported the peace propositions which Parliament presented to the king in early November 1644. He had sat on a number of the committees which had promoted them and the idea of an ecclesiastical settlement based on the Covenant was probably in line with his own personal preferences.129CJ iii. 569a, 594a, 647b. When negotiations finally got under way at Uxbridge in late January 1645, however, he may have been wary about some of the precise details being discussed. On 15 February, one week before the talks were due to end, Hill was one of four MPs asked to instruct the parliamentarian negotiators that they must seek assurances from the king that he would not do any further deals with the Irish rebels.130CJ iv. 50b. This suggests that Hill did not want a settlement with the king at any price. Whether he could be as confident about some of his fellow MPs was more doubtful. On 31 March, possibly while the House was debating case of the earl of Holland (Henry Rich†), (Sir) John Evelyn of Surrey* claimed that Hill had remarked to him that, ‘if the devil himself came in question in the House of Commons, he would find some advocate.’ Hill denied this, but, with some MPs demanding that he be summoned to the bar, the House had to adjourn ‘to prevent further confusion’.131Harl. 166, f. 196v.

One legislative speciality Hill had now developed was an interest in martial law. On 26 August 1644 he was the second MP named to the committee to amend the quorum specified in the newly-passed ordinance to create a special military court in London.132CJ iii. 607a. From this point onward until the end of the first civil war, Hill seems to have been the man trusted by the Commons to handle bills on this subject. Thus, later that year he tried to promote a bill to extend the powers of that court for a further three months.133CJ iii. 704b; iv. 2b. In April 1645 Hill and John Lisle* drafted the ordinance which created a similar court in Kent.134CJ iv. 114b, 117a; Harl. 166, f. 211v. In July the Commons ordered Hill and William Ellys* to prepare a bill to re-establish the military court for London and Westminster. The two of them soon had it ready.135CJ iv. 201a, 215a, 236b. The bill then languished, however, and, despite Hill’s efforts at every stage, made very slow progress through the Commons.136CJ iv. 316a, 375b, 394a, 412a, 417a. It finally became law only in early April 1646. Connected to this was Hill’s interest in the laws concerning desertion.137CJ iv. 135b, 299b. One other bill from this period with which Hill seems to have been particularly associated was that against incest, adultery, whoredom, drunkenness, swearing and blasphemy. Hill may have first promoted such a bill in September 1644, but once introduced, it stalled in committee in early 1645.138CJ iii. 639a, 721b; iv. 35a.

In the spring of 1645 the royalist forces in Somerset renewed their efforts to retake Taunton. That May they were able to secure most of the town, although the parliamentarian defenders under Robert Blake* retained control of the castle. Hill would later write of how some of his family papers had been ‘preserved from plundering by the forces of the late King Charles in the wars betwixt him and the Parliament of England’.139Som. RO, DD/X/VNL/1, p. 1. That implies that Poundisford Park had been raided by royalist forces and, although Taunton came under attack several times during the war, the siege in May 1645 is perhaps the most likely moment at which such a raid could have occurred. Over that summer Sir Thomas Fairfax* was able to regain control of Somerset for Parliament. Damages to Hill’s Somerset estate may have been one reason why the Commons on 20 September voted £500 to him for his ‘losses’. This was to be paid from money owed the Committee for Advance of Money which Hill himself would collect. This vote was then carried up to the House of Lords for its approval by Hill’s former father-in-law, Giles Grene.140CJ iv. 281a, 297a; LJ vii. 624a, 624b.

Over the winter of 1645-6 Hill remained preoccupied at Westminster with his martial law bill. But one reason for its slow passage through the Commons may well have been that military victory was now in sight. Following the surrender of Oxford on 24 June, Hill and some of his colleagues were assigned to search some of the goods being transported from there to London to see if, as was rumoured, they contained equipment belonging to the mint. With Parliament taking the initiative to offer new peace proposals to the king, now with the Scots – the so-called Newcastle Propositions – Hill among MPs asked to make a final check of the text for mistakes before they were sent off. Two months later he sat on the committee to draft a bill based on those Propositions (22 Sept.).141CJ iv. 606b, 617a, 673b. In August the cessation of fighting had enabled Hill to travel to Somerset, quite possibly for the first time since the autumn of 1642.142CJ iv. 629b. His immediate purpose was probably to assist, in accordance with the Commons’ wishes, in the indictment of Sir John Stawell* at the Somerset assizes.143CJ iv. 647b-648a; Som. Assize Orders ed Cockburn,12.

Aftermath of war, 1646-8

With military defeat driving many royalists to cooperate with the Committee for Compounding, that summer Hill was involved in the preparation of new legislation to allow the further sale of delinquents’ estates.144CJ iv. 608b. Later that year he unsurprisingly sat on the committee on the bill to re-appoint the Compounding Committee and was confirmed as a member of that Committee when that bill was finally passed in February 1647.145CJ v. 8b, 78a; A. and O. In the meantime he was included on the committee to consider how some delinquents could be brought to trial (25 Jan.).146CJ v. 61b. Hill also helped tie up various legal loose ends. In late October 1646 he probably drafted the bill to reappoint the commissioners for the great seal.147CJ iv. 700b, 714b. At about the same time he was named to the committees to allow the master of the rolls, in the absence of a lord chancellor or lord keeper, to preside over the court of chancery.148CJ iv. 701a, 702a. Now that the ecclesiastical courts were defunct, a reform of probate procedure was necessary and in late 1646 Hill tried to promote a bill to address the problem, this time without success.149CJ iv. 696b, 697a.

Having been granted leave of absence on 27 February, Hill probably spent much of the spring of 1647 in Somerset.150CJ v. 100b. At the spring assizes at Taunton several prisoners on murder charges requested that Hill and John Maynard* be appointed as their counsel, although, in Hill’s case, another barrister was appointed instead.151Som. Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 16. By mid-May Hill was back at Westminster.152CJ v. 168b, 171b. The seizure of the king by George Joyce in early June gave the increasingly strident demands of the army a new urgency. Hill seems to have agreed that some concessions to the army now needed to be made. Whether he did so primarily on the grounds of justice or of political expediency is less clear. He certainly backed the speedy moves to pass an indemnity bill.153CJ v. 198b, 199a. Hill, Samuel Browne* and Sir Peter Wentworth* were the three MPs appointed on 7 June to prepare the announcement disowning Parliament’s earlier declaration of 30 March which had criticised the army for demanding redress of their grievances. He probably also agreed with the petition from the corporation of London which advised that the army arrears be paid off as quickly as possible.154CJ v. 201b, 203b. In mid-July, when Parliament faced riots by the reformadoes and the London apprentices in support of those Presbyterian MPs less sympathetic to the army, Hill wanted firm action to be taken against them.155CJ v. 237a, 243a. On 23 July, following the flight of the Eleven Members, he was added to the committee reasserting Parliament’s control over the London militia.156CJ v. 255b.

Following the Presbyterian coup at Westminster of late July, Hill was among those MPs who took refuge with the army and signed their declaration on 4 August.157LJ ix. 385b; HMC Egmont, i. 440; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 755. When he reappears in the records at Westminster, it was to be appointed to the new committee on absent MPs on 9 October. A week later he was included on the committee to iron out the differences in their votes on the latest set of peace proposals from the House of Lords based on the temporary establishment of Presbyterianism. He may also have helped draft one of the Commons’ letters to the Scottish commissioners on the same subject.158CJ v. 329a, 336a, 367a.

By early 1648 Hill’s immediate concern was probably probate reform, to which the future of the civil lawyers was also intimately connected. In February 1648 he reported from the committee on the probate bill which he had introduced over a year earlier on the slow progress being made on it.159CJ v. 387b, 426b, 432b, 439b, 441a, 452a. Another piece of unfinished business was the legal proceedings against Sir John Stawell. On 19 January 1648 Hill was among MPs asked to help the solicitor general, Oliver St John*, prepare the cases against several royalist delinquents, including Stawell, as well as Sir Lewis Dyve†. The result was that just over a month later John Maynard and Hill were told to indict Stawell at the next Somerset assizes.160CJ v. 473a. Not that this brought Stawell’s trial any closer.

The sell-off by Parliament of the lands formerly held by the bishops was a one-off opportunity for Hill. Now, for the first time, he was able to acquire the freehold of his lands at Poundisford. In February 1648 he reached agreement with the contractors for the sale to buy the manor of Taunton Deane for £9,210 17s 0½d, although when the sale was concluded, it was his father-in-law, Brampton Gurdon, and his youngest brother, John Hill, who acted as the nominal purchasers.161Som. RO, DD/X/WA/2-3; DD/X/WA/6; DD/X/VNL/1, pp. 45-9, 59-67. Moreover, this purchase was only possible because Hill had borrowed £3,000 from his uncle, Roger Hill I, who therefore from 1650 onwards was granted one-third of its profits.162Som. RO, DD/X/WA/4. Clearly Hill thought that this opportunity was too important to miss and so had turned to his immediate relatives to raise the necessary money. Hill may also have been paying over the odds for these lands, as by the late 1650s their rental value was just £270 1s 7d.163Inner Temple, Misc. MS 205, unfol. (The claim in a 1659 satire that they were worth £5,000 a year was absurd.)164A proper new ballad on the Old Parliament [1659, 669.f.22.7]. What probably mattered more was the prestige in owning these lands outright, thus becoming the principal landlord in Taunton and the owner of Taunton Castle. This was why within weeks of his purchase, when the town’s inhabitants petitioned Parliament for relief, the Commons asked the Speaker to consult with Hill.165CJ v. 497b. Over the next decade Hill spent at least £149 4s 1d on repairs to Taunton Castle, plus a further £123 14s 8d in 1659 rebuilding its gatehouse.166Inner Temple, Misc. MS 205, unfol. In 1652 he purchased another former episcopal manor, this time at Otterford.167Som. RO, DD/X/WA/12; DD/X/VNL/1, pp. 86-8.

When on 16 May 1648 the Surrey petitioners advanced on Westminster to demand the king’s return, Hill was among MPs who saw them primarily as a threat. The Commons’ reaction was to ask him to help draft a bill to secure London by appointing Philip Skippon* as commander-in-chief of its militia. The next day Hill was among those appointed to investigate the fighting which had broken out when the petitioners had reached Westminster Hall. On 23 May, with royalist risings breaking out around the country, Hill drafted the Commons’ letter to Sir John Horner* encouraging him to take firm action against any rebels in Somerset.168CJ v. 561b, 562b, 569b-570a. The return of civil war revived some familiar issues. Within weeks Hill was sitting on committees on a bill to sequester delinquents in south Wales (6 June) and on deciding how one of the leaders of the risings in north Wales, Sir John Owen, ought to be brought to trial (10 June).169CJ v. 587a, 593a. It was probably at about this time that Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, as the high steward, appointed Hill as the steward of the court of burgesses of Westminster. Earlier that year the Commons had removed John Glynne from that position and on 8 June it confirmed Pembroke’s right to nominate a replacement. But at some point, possibly within months, Glynne was reinstated.170CUL, MS Gg.I.9, ff. 71, 72; CJ v. 450a, 590a.

After news reached London that the army of the Scottish Engagers under James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton, had entered England, Hill was among MPs appointed to establish whether they had any English partners. On 21 August, when the Scots and some of the rebels had not yet been crushed, Hill was given permission by the Commons to spend some time in the country.171CJ v. 640b, 677a. But before leaving London, he headed the list of MPs to whom the bill to raise horse within the capital was committed (22 Aug.) and he may have helped draft the bill to revive the martial court for London (23 Aug.).172CJ v. 678a, 680a. Hill was still absent on 26 September, but had probably returned by late November.173CJ vi. 34b, 81a.

Rumper, 1648-53

Hill survived the purge of 6 December 1648 unscathed. That he was later named the committee to investigate the publication of the Solemn Protestation by MPs who had been purged suggests that he had limited sympathy for their plight. That day (14 Dec.) he and Alexander Rigby I* were asked to prepare a bill to repeal the Militia Ordinance of 2 December.174CJ vi. 97a, 97b. What troubled him, however, was the increasing likelihood that the king would be put on trial. He was included on the committee appointed on 23 December to consider what form such a trial might take.175CJ vi. 103a. Moreover, when the Commons agreed to proceed with the creation of the high court of justice to sit in judgement on the king, Hill was named to serve on it as a judge.176A. and O. But this was too much for him. He pointedly refused to have anything to do with its proceedings and instead confined himself to what could be considered damage limitation. His only committee appointments during January 1649 were to those on the bill to postpone the start of the Hilary law term (10 Jan.) and to safeguard the contents of the royal palaces (17 Jan.).177CJ vi. 115b, 120b.

The most revealing clues about Hill’s state of mind at this time are provided by the series of letters he wrote to his wife. Abigail Hill (whose half-brother, John Gurdon, had also refused to serve as one of the judges) probably wrote to reassure him during the course of the trial. On 27 January, the day on which the sentence against the king was announced, Hill replied with a lengthy discussion about the nature of salvation and predestination. Something was evidently troubling his conscience. Yet as a conventional Calvinist, who knew that his own ultimate fate was in God’s hands, he wanted to take a more detached view. Some things were beyond his control.178Add. 46500, ff. 39-40. Two further letters, written to her in the weeks following the regicide, reiterated those themes.179Add. 46500, ff. 41-5. Their son, Roger†, then aged just six, was later said to have seen the king being executed.180HP Commons 1660-90.

Hill was not the only lawyer with doubts about the legality of the king’s execution. Several of the judges made it clear that they would not serve under the new republic. In the days that followed the regicide, Hill was one of those MPs who met with them and he probably chaired the committee that then drafted a declaration which tried to dissuade them from resigning.181CJ vi. 133b, 134b, 135a. At a local level, it was equally important that the commissions of the peace contained men willing to serve and Hill was included on the committee which began to draw up lists of new justices (8 Feb.). Perhaps with unwarranted optimism, his colleagues also included him on the committee which was to prepare a public declaration defending Parliament’s recent actions (16 Feb.).182CJ vi. 143b. On 21 February he declared his dissent from the vote of 5 December, an essential step to remaining as a Member of the Rump.183CJ vi. 148a.

Whatever doubts Hill may have had about the regicide did not deter him from participating fully in the Rump’s proceedings. Over the next four years he was as active as ever in the House. In 1649, while not sharing in the view of some that this was a moment of radical transformation, he did embrace the opportunities for reform. For example, he supported the bills to confirm the abolition of the cathedral chapters, to sell off the fee farm rents and to reform the court of admiralty.184CJ vi. 147b, 178b, 185a, 185b. That May he probably took the lead in reviving his former proposals for reforming probate, although, as before, this was unsuccessful. He was a teller for the minority in the division which defeated that bill on 18 May.185CJ vi. 186b, 209b, 211b. He may have chaired the committee which considered how to return those private records which had been submitted as evidence to the former court of wards. He was also an obvious person to be included on the committee to review the powers of the Committee for Compounding (28 May). On 1 June Parliament agreed to send a letter of thanks to Sir Thomas Wroth* and John Pyne* to congratulate them on the suppression of a minor uprising in Somerset. Hill was one of those given the job of drafting it.186CJ vi. 217b, 221b, 271b. At about this time there was talk of reforming Winchester College.187CJ vi. 219a. According to Nicholas Love*, Hill spoke in the House in support of his efforts to block those moves and, on Love’s advice, the college then began to retain Hill as their legal adviser with an annual pension of £5 8s 9d.188Winchester College muniments, no. 446; VCH Hants. ii. 328. Hill’s high profile, perhaps as much in Parliament as in the law courts, was now recognised by his legal colleagues in his promotion to the bench of the Inner Temple.189CITR ii. 288.

Hill was probably absent from Westminster between July and September 1649. Possibly for some of that time he was on circuit as a barrister. He seems to have resumed his place in Parliament by 12 October, when he was named to the committee to ensure that all MPs took the Engagement.190CJ vi. 307b. Later that same month he probably assisted the attorney general, Edmund Prideaux I*, in the treason trials of John Lilburne, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince and Henry Overton.191CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 121. All four defendants were acquitted. Hill’s known activities in Parliament over the next eight months covered an eclectic mix of subjects. There seem to have been several pieces of business with which he was particularly associated. In January 1650 he was asked to bring in a bill for the registration of conveyances.192CJ vi. 348b, 350a. With Lislebone Long* and Nicholas Lechmere*, he was also asked to bring in a bill to punish perjuries by witnesses appearing before parliamentary committees (2 Feb.).193CJ vi. 356a. Another bill in the drafting of which he may have played a leading role was that for the relief of creditors.194CJ vi. 416a, 424b. When the bill for the propagation of the gospel in Yorkshire was committed on 7 June 1650, Lislebone Long and Hill (both Somerset men) were asked to take particular care of it.195CJ vi. 420b-421b. Other matters in which Hill took an interest included the laws on swearing and cursing (2 Nov. 1649), on robbery (8 Nov.) and on the export of bullion (25 Apr. 1650).196CJ vi. 317b, 320b, 403b. Hill may have returned briefly to Taunton in May 1650.197CCC 221. This may have been in connection with the bitter dispute between John Ashe and John Pyne over the remodelling of the Somerset sequestration commission, which divided the county’s political elite. In that dispute Hill sided with Ashe, his colleague on the Compounding Committee.198CCC 222, 226.

With its depleted membership, Hill would have been even more visible in the Rump than before and his ability to handle complex and sometimes unglamorous pieces of parliamentary business continued to be much valued by his colleagues. Over the next three years a host of measures can be linked to him. Thus, in September 1650 he and Prideaux were asked to assist the Army Committee in consolidating the recent parliamentary votes on army pay into a single bill.199CJ vi. 473a. The following month he reported on the amendments to the bill concerning exchequer accounts (10 Oct.) and took care of the bill renewing the assessments (18 Oct.). Soon after he and Lislebone Long probably drafted the instructions to the barons of the exchequer on, among other things, that assessment bill (15 Nov.).200CJ vi. 481b, 485a, 498a. Later Hill and Long were asked to prepare a new bill concerning the fee farm rents.201CJ vi. 525b, 527b. This was a bill from which Hill would personally benefit, as this sale of the fee farm rents enabled him the following year to purchase the manor of Glastonbury.202Som. RO, DD/X/WA/13; DD/X/VNL/1, pp. 89-96; VCH Som. ix. 44. Hill probably also drafted the bill to extend the existence of the high court of justice.203CJ vi. 504a. In late 1650 he may well have chaired the committee on the divorce bill, while in January 1651 he and Sir Thomas Widdrington* were asked to prepare a bill against abuses in marriage.204CJ vi. 509b, 522b. In October 1651 he and John Corbett* prepared the bill confirming the sale of church lands.205CJ vii. 22b. Moreover, in late 1652 he seems to have taken a particular interest in the latest bill for the sale for forfeited estates.206CJ vii. 185b, 189a, 205a. Yet, despite all this activity, Hill was never elected to the council of state and so he remained outside the inner circle of Rumpers driving the major policy decisions of the new republic. Like so many of his fellow lawyers and closest colleagues in the Rump, such as Prideaux, Lechmere and Long, he was in these changing times always more prosaically pragmatic than passionately radical.

An example of his lack of revolutionary zeal would be the key role he played in the further proceedings against Lilburne. During 1651 Lilburne had continued his personal vendetta against Sir Arthur Hesilrige* by taking up the case of Josiah Primat, a London leatherseller who claimed that Hesilrige and the Durham county committee had unlawfully deprived him of possession of some coal mines at Harraton. One of Primat’s grievances was that, according to him, the Committee for Compounding had ignored his complaints. When Primat petitioned Parliament in December 1651, Hill probably chaired the committee on the matter and the following month, on 15 January 1652, he reported its conclusions to the House. The result was not only that Parliament found against Primat, but that they treated the complaints against Hesilrige as an attack on itself and so used this as a pretext to exile Lilburne.207CJ vii. 55b, 65a, 71-73a.

What Hill probably saw as one of his principal achievements as an MP was finally secured just days before the Rump was dissolved. In December 1650 he had tried to resurrect the issue of the reform of probate procedure. Then, in May 1651 he had been asked to bring in a new bill on the subject. However, it was only in November 1652 that this bill completed its committee stage, enabling Hill to report the proposed amendments to the House.208CJ vi. 505b, 573b,;vii. 213b. Even then it took until 8 April 1653 before it was enacted into law. The resulting statute appointed a panel of lay probate judges to assume the powers to prove wills and grant administrations formerly exercised by the defunct ecclesiastical courts.209A. and O. Twelve days later Oliver Cromwell* ejected the Rump. Just the day before, in one of the last items of business it was able to transact, the House had asked Hill and one of the Corbetts to prepare amendments to the bill for the Irish Adventurers.210CJ vii. 280b.

Judge and retirement, 1654-67

Never one of ‘the saints’, Hill was not summoned to sit in the Rump’s replacement, the Nominated Parliament, and, although he accepted the protectorate, he seems not to have stood in the elections for the first protectoral Parliament in 1654. As Bridport was no longer a constituency, the obvious option would have been to stand at Taunton, where he had also served as the recorder, but he had probably already been replaced in that role by Thomas Gorges* and it was the two Gorges brothers who sat for the Somerset town in 1654. Hill instead concentrated again on his career at the bar. That he retained chambers in the Inner Temple caused him some minor difficulties in June 1654 when John Mostyn*, in seeking to have his sequestration lifted, claimed that his chambers there were now occupied by Hill, who had allegedly also seized the contents. Hill strongly denied that he had taken possession of any of Mostyn’s goods and the Committee for Compounding seems to have believed him.211CCC 1200. The one group of trials in this period in which Hill is known to have been involved were those of the Penruddock rebels at Salisbury, Exeter and Chard in April 1655. Beforehand the council of state had instructed Hill and Richard Graves to assist Prideaux, who was still the attorney general, with these prosecutions.212CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 97, 98, 121; TSP iii. 365. Hill had meanwhile been providing legal advice to Brampton Gurdon.213Suff. RO (Ipswich), HA54/1/9: R. Hill to B. Gurdon, 3 Jan. 1655.

On his return to London he was promoted to become one of the serjeants-at-law. Prideaux and Chaloner Chute I* acted as the parties in his fictitious first case before the court of common pleas on 3 July.214Som. RO, DD/X/VNL/1, p. 109; Baker, Serjeants at Law, 190, 402, 442, 518; CITR ii. 318. As a further mark of how far he was trusted as a safe pair of hands by the government, he and Unton Croke I* were sent as the assize judges for the Home circuit.215Add. 46500, ff. 59-73. Rather embarrassingly for him, Hill was then only just reaching agreement with the Taunton corporation over the use of the Great Hall of Taunton Castle for the Somerset assizes on the Western circuit and for the sessions of the peace. This had already occasioned a case in the court of upper bench. Perhaps with his new role in mind, Hill finally agreed to make the hall available in return for an annual fee of 10s.216Som. RO, DD/X/WA/5. Acting as an assize judge may now have become a regular duty for Hill, given that, with Matthew Hale, he also conducted the summer assizes for the Midland circuit the following year and he undertook the Home circuit again in the spring of 1657.217CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 81, 91; Add. 46500, f. 91v. Having proved himself in this way, a permanent judicial appointment soon followed. The protectoral government promoted him to the bench in June 1657 when it named him as one of the three puisne barons of the exchequer.218Som. RO, DD/X/VNL/1, p. 108; Sainty, Judges, 125. He had finally reached the upper ranks of his chosen profession. His notes on one of the cases he heard later that year survive.219Add. 61941, ff. 270v-272.

In December 1657 Hill was summoned as one of the judges to attend on the new Other House when it met for the first time the following month.220Bucks. RO, D 192/16/3; Som. RO, DD/X/VNL/1, p. 109. Among his duties was carrying the message from the Other House to the Commons suggesting that the a day of fasting be appointed, which he and Justice Wyndham delivered on 22 January.221HMC Lords, iv. 511, 512-13; CJ vii. 581b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 340. This became the occasion for a dispute between the two Houses as many in the Commons were unwilling to acknowledge the existence of a second chamber whose legitimacy they did not recognise.222Whitelocke, Diary, 484. Hill was also asked by the Other House to assist its committee for petitions (21 Jan.) and its committee on the bill against the profanation of the sabbath (26 Jan.).223HMC Lords, iv. 509, 516. On the death of the lord protector later that year he was confirmed in office as a baron of the exchequer.224Bucks. RO, D 192/16/2; Sainty, Judges, 125. On 23 November he walked with the other judges in Cromwell’s funeral procession between Somerset House and Westminster Abbey.225Burton’s Diary, ii. 526.

In the 1659 Parliament, summoned by Richard Cromwell*, Hill again attended on the Other House as one of its judicial assistants.226Bucks. RO, D 192/16/4. In that capacity he was given the job of drafting two of the major bills considered by that Parliament, namely those to deny Charles Stuart’s claim to the throne and to confirm the sales of royal and church lands.227HMC Lords, iv. 530, 531, 534, 536, 549, 552, 554. He also attended on the committees for privileges (28 Jan.) and on the bill against swearing, breaches of the sabbath and drunkenness (31 Jan.).228HMC Lords, iv. 527, 529.

The re-assembling of the Rump in early May 1659 presented Hill with a potential conflict of interest. He was now entitled to resume his place as MP for Bridport, but it was doubtful whether he could do so while continuing to hold his judicial office. Hill had resumed his seat in Parliament by 14 May, when he headed the list of those appointed to draft the indemnity bill.229CJ vii. 654b-655a. This was two days before some attempt was made to clarify the judges’ position with the granting of temporary patents to a number of them to ensure that the courts could continue to function.230R.E. Mayers, 1659: The Crisis of the Commonwealth (Woodbridge, 2004), 35n. That Hill was not one of those thus continued doubtless reflected his decision to reclaim his seat in Parliament. But it would not be long before he was asked to resume some of his judicial duties. On 16 June he was, on the recommendation of the council of state, appointed by Parliament as one of the circuit judges to conduct that summer’s assizes. He was, at the same, re-appointed as a serjeant-at-law.231CJ vii. 686a-b, 687b. Before he set out however he oversaw the successful passage of the indemnity bill through Parliament, chairing the House whenever it resolved itself into a grand committee to consider its contents.232CJ vii. 692a-693a, 694b, 695a, 697a, 707b. He was still in the capital on 14 July when he was first-named to the committee on the bill concerning the powers of the Westminster militia commissioners.233CJ vii. 717a. At some point over the next fortnight he and his fellow judge John Wylde, now the chief baron of the exchequer, set out on the Oxford circuit. However, by 2 August, by which time they had reached Gloucester, news of the uprising by Sir George Boothe* prompted them to seek guidance from London. Parliament’s advice was that they should hold the assizes at Monmouth as planned, but that the decision as to whether to continue to the other counties should be left to their own judgment.234CJ vii. 748a; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 75, 79, 91. The quick suppression of the rebellion in any case made that advice unnecessary. Wylde and Hill are likely to have completed their circuit before the dismissal of the Rump in mid-October, but, if so, Hill seems not to have resumed his seat.

He did however take that seat almost immediately when the Rump resumed its sittings in late December 1659, as two days later, on 28 December, he was one of the MPs asked to prepare a bill concerning delinquents’ estates.235CJ vii. 798b. As one of the most prominent barristers in the House and a former judge himself, he was an obvious person to include on the committee to propose names to be promoted in the reshuffle of judicial appointments (9 Jan. 1660).236CJ vii. 806a. With or without his knowledge, that committee then recommended him to become one of the justices of the upper bench (the former court of king’s bench). Parliament approved his appointment on 18 January.237CJ vii. 814b; Whitelocke, Diary, 562; Bucks. RO, D 192/16/5; Sainty, Judges, 33. But there was no suggestion that he could not continue as an MP. Indeed, just three days later, he was named to the committee on the offices of custos brevium, one of which was an official of the court to which Hill had now been appointed.238CJ vii. 818a. Moreover, his next two committee appointments were ones of some political sensitivity. On 15 February, with tensions between them at their height, the Rump attempted to mollify George Monck* by amending the oath of the councillors of state and by drafting a bill for by-elections to fill the vacant seats. Hill was included on both the relevant committees.239CJ vii. 843b, 844a. He also continued to sit after the secluded Members had been re-admitted. During the Long Parliament’s final weeks he was included on the committees on the bill to continue the customs and excise (22 Feb.), to appoint Monck as commander-in-chief (24 Feb.) and for approbation of ministers (2 Mar.).240CJ vii. 848a, 850b, 858a.

The Restoration ended Hill’s public career at a national level. He was not re-appointed as a judge, with Charles II preferring to staff the revived court of king’s bench with men less tainted by collaboration with the protectorate. He also ceased to be a serjeant-at-law. Moreover, Hill seems not to have stood in the elections either for the 1660 Convention or for the 1661 Cavalier Parliament. In June 1660, with the assistance of John Rushworth, he thought it prudent to seek a royal pardon for his past actions.241Bucks. RO, D 192/16/7; Add. 46500, f. 94. He therefore probably spent his final years in quiet retirement. He died on 21 April 1667 and, in accordance with his instructions, was buried two days later close to his second wife, Abigail, in the Temple Church ‘under the great chest by the vestry’.242PROB11/323/570; CITR iii. 447; Reg. of Burials at the Temple Church 1628-1853 (1905), 18. His will, which, even for a lawyer, was one of exceptional length and complexity, divided his estates between his two sons, William and Roger†.243PROB11/323/570; PROB11/323/639. Within three months the latter had married his step-sister, Abigail, daughter of his father’s third wife, Abigail Barnes, with one of her previous husbands, John Lockey.244London Mar. Lics. ed. Foster, 683; St Alphage London Wall, London par. reg. The elder Abigail, the MP’s widow, subsequently married George Thomson*. Roger junior, who was knighted in 1668, settled at Denham in Buckinghamshire and represented Amersham as a whig in the two 1679 Parliaments, as well as Wendover between 1702 and 1715.