JAMES, William (1605-61), of Ightham Court, Ightham, Kent.

James’s great-grandfather was Jacob van Haestrecht of Cleve, near Utrecht, whose son, Roger (d. 1591), fled from the Low Countries and became a substantial London brewer, based at the Ram’s Head brewery, Lower Thames Street, which he acquired in 1566.20Bowra, ‘Dutch James fam.’, 111. James’s father, a younger son, grew up in London, where he married the daughter of another immigrant, Henry Kule, originally of Bremen, who had settled in the parish of St Mary Abchurch. William James senior moved to Kent in the early years of seventeenth century.21Bowra, ‘Dutch James fam.’, 112; Morrish, ‘James fam. of Ightham’, 115-18. At his death in 1627, he held lands in Erith, Wrotham, and Ightham, where James had established hiis residence at Ightham Court, and held the advowson.22PROB11/151/742. Meanwhile, other family members had settled in Surrey; another grandson of Jacob van Haestrecht, Sir Roger James† of Reigate sat in Parliament for that town in 1625.23HP Commons 1604-1629.

William James junior was educated at the Middle Temple, although he returned to Kent rather than pursue a career at the bar. Despite becoming heir to a substantial estate, he did not emerge as a leading figure in the county during the personal rule of Charles I. This possibly reflected concern that he was hostile towards the regime: a fear which may have stemmed from his refusal to compound for his knighthood.24E178/5368. However, there is little evidence of James’s religious or political dissent in this decade. In 1632, he levelled accusations against his neighbour and local justice, Sir William Selby, but only of having acted leniently towards recusants, and of various other acts of ‘unfriendliness’ towards the church, as well as oppression of the poor.25CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 478; SP16/229, f. 44. While James queried his Ship Money assessment in 1635, he was concerned about an administrative error, rather than voicing any political opposition to the tax.26CSP Dom. 1635, pp. 459, 492. In the county election in the spring of 1640 the puritanically inclined Sir Edward Dering* expected James to support his rival, the future royalist, Sir Roger Twysden*.27J. Peacey, ‘Tactical organisation in a contested election’, Parl., Politics and Elections, 1604-1648 ed. C.R. Kyle (Cam. Soc. ser. 5, xvii), 261. By March 1642 James’s position had changed somewhat. When Twysden circulated copies of the conservative Kentish petition, he was surprised to find that he did not receive his support, noting that James ‘refused to accept it … he was the first I met with being a person of integrity and judgment, that did not approve it’. James’s objections, as Twysden recalled, ‘was the not giving the House of Commons enough expressions of thanks, but turning them with reflection on the king for the good laws had been lately passed’.28‘Sir Roger Twysden’s narrative’, i. 210.

Although James’s political stance before the summer of 1642 had been ambiguous, once war broke out he supported Parliament, and soon became an assiduous deputy lieutenant, overseeing intelligence gathering, as well as orchestrating the arrest of known and suspected delinquents, and managing the financial side of the war effort in the county. He was involved in the payment of Sir Michael Livesay’s* troops, and the collection of plate and assessment money.29‘Papers relating to proceedings in Kent, 1642-46’, 2-3, 6, 7-8, 14-15, 15-16, 22, 23; HMC Portland, i. 702; Bodl. Nalson XI, f. 154; Nalson II, f. 171. As political tension in the county rose yet further in 1643, James became a regular attender at meetings the county committee, with whom he shared an evident concern regarding the threat posed by both delinquents and military deserters, and regarding the need to reform the local militia.30Bodl. Nalson XI, f. 155; Add. 33512, f. 81; ‘Papers relating to proceedings in Kent, 1642-46’, 25-6. During June 1643, James and his colleagues also had to deal with the lukewarm support being offered to their cause by some Kentish MPs, which it was feared would encourage royalist malignants, and he joined those who proposed harsh fines and sequestration for men like Sir Norton Knatchbull*, Sir Thomas Peyton* and Sir Francis Barnham*.31Bodl. Nalson XI, ff. 192-3, 197, 198; CJ iii. 216b. Such enthusiasm for the parliamentarian cause, and for the adoption of a hardline policy towards neuters and royalists, made James a target for Kentish rebels in the summer of 1643. Along with Sir Henry Vane II*, James faced death threats and was briefly detained by those involved in the local uprising, which he may even have provoked with the attempt to arrest the rector of his own parish, John Gryme, for refusing the parliamentary covenant.32‘Papers relating to proceedings in Kent, 1642-46’, 26-8; Bowra, ‘Dutch James fam.’, 114; CJ iii. 185a. Such threats to James’s personal safety did little to deter him, however, and he continued to be an active member of the county committee for the remainder of the first civil war, known for his vigour in suppressing the preaching of malignant clergymen.33Bodl. Tanner 62, ff. 186, 487, 534; Nalson XI, ff. 161-2; ‘Papers relating to proceedings in Kent, 1642-46’, 35, 36, 39, 40-1; SP28/130iii, f. 4v.

James’s personal correspondence from this period reveals that he maintained a close eye on political developments at Westminster.34‘Papers relating to proceedings in Kent, 1642-46’, 36-8. Nevertheless, discerning precisely where he stood within the spectrum of parliamentarian factions is far from easy. In the aftermath of the Kentish rising he was one of those parliamentarians who wrote to the Speaker, William Lenthall*, expressing concern at the excessive financial demands being placed on the county.35Bodl. Nalson V, f. 95. On the other hand, he supported efforts to raise money for the Scots in late 1643, as well as the controversial initiative to impose the Solemn League and Covenant in early 1644.36‘Papers relating to proceedings in Kent, 1642-46’, 40-1; Add. 33512, f. 89. The sheer frequency of his attendance at meetings of the county committee suggests support for vigorous prosecution of the war, rather than an inclination to the ‘peace party’.37Bodl. Tanner 62, ff. 561, 573; SP28/235, unfol.; SP28/210B, unfol.; SP28/130iii, ff. 2v, 103, 103v; E. Kent RO, H1257, unfol.; FSL, G.c.13. In November 1645 he joined those within the county who called for the continuation of martial law, and in the following month he lent his support to those local Independents and radicals, like Thomas Blount*, William Kenwricke* and Lambarde Godfrey*, who expressed opposition to the exemption of the lands of Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester, from sequestration, while ‘every poor man may be taxed for £5 or £10 per annum’.38HMC Portland, i. 312; Bodl. Nalson V, f. 51; LJ viii. 69. James could also be surprisingly moderate in his views. Unlike some of his colleagues, his treatment of delinquents suggests a willingness to draw a distinction between committed royalists, like John Tufton, 2nd earl of Thanet, who needed to be sequestered, and those inactive and perhaps even neutral figures, like Sir Roger Twysden*, to whom leniency could be shown.39Cent. Kent Stud. U455/O4; ‘Tufton sequestration pprs.’ ed. F. Hull, Seventeenth Century Misc. (Kent Arch. Soc. Recs. xvii), 40, 49; PA, Main Pprs. 2 Sept. 1645. He was prepared to go out of his way to raise the issue of Twysden’s treatment, even at the risk of splitting the county committee.40‘Sir Roger Twysden’s narrative’, iii. 158; iv. 138, 141.

After the end of the first civil war, James remained a member of the county committee, not least to oversee the demilitarisation of the region, and the settling of financial accounts.41‘Papers relating to proceedings in Kent, 1642-46’, 48-9; SP28/234, unfol.; SP28/210A; SP28/210B, unfol.; SP28/234, unfol.; Bodl. Tanner 58, f. 181; Eg. 2978, f. 239; SP28/130iv, f. 13. Like other Kentish parliamentarians, he soon became worried by the resurgence of royalism from within the ranks of those who had remained on the county bench, and nominally loyal to Parliament. In April 1647 he joined those who complained about justices like his neighbour Sir John Sedley, and later in the year he joined the delegation from the county which went to Westminster to pursue their case against him.42Cent. Kent Stud. Q/SO/W1, f. 169; SP28/130iv, f. 17. In May 1648, James was one of the deputy lieutenants who sought to prevent meetings which were being planned by local royalists, and when the Kentish rising began he joined a delegation of those who had been ‘faithful and active’ for Parliament which was sent by the Derby House Committee to meet Sir Thomas Fairfax*.43M. Carter, Most True and Exact Relation (1650), 18-20; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 79. James remained active on the county committee in the months that followed, and to a lesser extent during the early 1650s, although this may have reflected a desire to settle matters, both political and financial, which were as yet unresolved, including the fate of Sir Roger Twysden’s estates.44HMC Portland, i. 491; Bodl. Nalson VII, ff. 201-v; SP28/234, unfol.; Add. 5494, f. 281; SP23/118, p. 395; SP28/210A; SP28/130iv, f. 35v; SP28/235, unfol.; SP23/228, f. 85; ‘Sir Roger Twysden’s narrative’, iv. 192; SP23/158, p. 293.

In 1654 James was elected to the first protectoral Parliament as one of the knights of the shire for Kent. Although he made no recorded impression on the proceedings, he was probably an opponent of the protectorate, and this is also suggested by the decision of the protectoral council to prevent him from sitting when he was returned again in 1656, and to remove him from the commission of the peace in the following spring.45SP18/144, f. 111; CJ vii. 425a; Cent. Kent Stud. Q/SO/W1, f. 169; C231/6, p. 362. James may eventually have been readmitted to the Commons in 1658, although this is only evident from the mention of his name among a list of MPs who supported a petition from the civil lawyers.46Bodl. Tanner 51, ff. 8-10. Returned for a third time to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament in 1659, on this occasion James proved more active in the House. In addition to being named to the committee to consider the electoral representation of Durham (31 Mar.), he was named to standing committees regarding both Irish and Scottish affairs (1 Apr.), and to the committee appointed on 6 April to debate the contentious issue of the manner in which the Commons ought to ‘transact’ with the Other House.47CJ vii. 622b, 623a-b, 627a. Unfortunately, James’s views on such issues, as on the country’s future constitutional direction, remain unknown.

James played no further role in local affairs after the collapse of the protectorate, although he was appointed to the Kent militia commission in the spring of 1660.48Add. 42596, f. 8. He prepared his will in the November of the same year, including in it bequests to the minister of Ightham, James Hackford, as well as his ‘singular good friend’ John Parker I*. He also made provision for portions totalling £5,000 for three daughters, one of whom married Dr George Bate, sometime physician to both Charles I and Oliver Cromwell*.49PROB11/307/467; Bowra, ‘Dutch James fam.’, 115. None of his immediate family sat in Parliament, but his second cousin from the Surrey branch, Roger James†, sat four times for Reigate after the Restoration.50HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1690-1715.