KENWRICKE, William (1614-?1683), of Boughton-under-Blean, Kent.

Kenwricke’s family hailed from Lancashire, but his father sold the family estate and migrated to Northamptonshire. He also acquired property interests in Biddenden and Maidstone in Kent following his marriage to a sister of Sir Edward Hales*, but when he died in February 1617 he was buried in King’s Sutton, where his heir Richard (1601-1674) continued the senior family line.23Vis. Northants, 96-7; Vis. Kent, 90. As a younger son, it is plausible that William Kenwricke was apprenticed; equally plausibly, he was brought up in the circle of the wealthy Hales family; probably, given his later career, he received some commercial or legal training. He might have been the freeman of the Skinners’ Company who was registered as living in Horselydown in Southwark in 1641, although this was probably the older man who had been a member of the company since at least 1615 and who owned property in St Botolph Aldgate.24Inhabs. of London, 1638, 91, 217; Members of the City Cos. 1641 ed. T.C. Dale (1935), 101; London Mar. Lics. ed. Chester, 787. Nothing further has emerged to illuminate his early life or his first marriage, recorded like his second in the 1663 visitation of Kent; as is confirmed by the will of his uncle Sir Edward Hales*, his second wife Martha was the widow of his cousin Samuel Hales.25Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. liv), 90; C5/379/111; C9/7/134; PROB11/237/499 (Sir Edward Hales).

Unlike his uncle, Kenwricke was a consistently loyal parliamentarian from the beginning of the civil wars. He may have been the man who was styled Corporal Kenwricke among the Kentish forces in November 1643, although when the House of Commons nominated him as a deputy lieutenant on the 2nd of that month, he was listed as a ‘captain’.26SP28/11, f. 32; CJ iii. 298b; BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database. In the spring of 1644 he was busy raising forces in the county, and had begun to emerge as a prominent member of the county committee.27E. Kent RO, H1257, unfol.; SP28/235, unfol.; SP28/130/3, ff. 2v, 4v, 13, 103v; SP28/210, unfol.; SP28/234, unfol.; F. Hull, ‘The Tufton sequestration papers, 1644-7’, in A Seventeenth Century Miscellany (Kent Arch. Soc. xvii), 49; Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 573; Tanner 58, ff. 181, 211, 653, 672-4, 731; Tanner 57, ff. 476-87; Bodl. Nalson VII, f. 101. Later in the year he was active in ordering the removal of altars, images, and crosses from local churches, not least the chapel of the royal palace at Eltham, and his godly zeal – which he shared with his uncle – was also apparent in attempts to regulate alehouses.28SP28/235, unfol.; Add. 33512, f. 96. He had attained the rank of colonel in Kent by April 1645, when he was engaged in countering royalist insurgency in his native county.29Perfect Declaration, 7; Weekly Post-Master no. 3 (22-29 Apr. 1645), 5. By January 1648 he was commander of a company of Kentish auxiliaries.30SP28/130/3, f. 25.

Kenwricke’s political radicalism was evident from his clash with Sir John Sedley, a more conservative figure. Responding to a communication from the deputy lieutenants, on 6 May 1647 the Commons gave attention to charges of appropriating horses for the war effort which had been laid against Kenwricke at the autumn 1646 assizes, and examined Sedley, who had apparently orchestrated the prosecution. Called in several times, Sedley not only repeated his allegations, but attempted to associate Sir Michael Livesay* with the criticism of Kenwricke. That this became subject to factional tension is evident from the fact that Sedley was defended, unsuccessfully, by Presbyterian grandees including Denzil Holles* and Sir William Waller*, while the incident appears to have precipitated the creation of the Committee for Indemnity to which Livesay, who presumably repudiated Sedley’s account, became an enthusiastic member.31SP28/130/3, f. 17; Clarke Pprs. i. 27; CJ v. 163b-4b, 171b, 174a; Add. 31116, p. 617; HMC Portland, i. 421; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 479.

In May 1648 Kenwricke played a prominent part in attempts to preserve order in Kent as a mass petition was organised calling on Parliament to negotiate a treaty with the king and disband the army.32Petition of the Knights, Gentry, Clergy and Commonalty of Kent (1648), pp. 4-5. Later Kenwricke appears to have played a leading role in organising the Kent petition which demanded instead the prosecution of Charles I. It requested that the trial be ‘vigorously prosecuted’, and insisted that

no pretences or overtures should cause the high court of Justice to be satisfied for the blood of three nations with less than the blood of those who had been the principal authors of its effusion.33Bodl. Tanner 57, ff. 477-87; Bodl. Rawl. A.298.

As a prominent supporter of the republican regime, Kenwricke was named as a trustee for the sale of crown lands and fee farm rents, and in July 1650 was made colonel of militia horse in Kent.34CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 211, 507, 510, 513. His forces were mobilised later in the year, and in the spring of 1651 he was ordered to oversee the suppression of planned races near Dover, for fear that they might occasion royalist insurrections.35CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 449, 450-1; 1651, p. 114. In the following summer, it was intended that Kenwricke’s force would be used as a parliamentary guard, although they were eventually despatched to serve in Oxfordshire.36CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 352, 358, 374, 376, 378. In subsequent months, Kenwricke participated in the trial of prisoners before a court martial, and undertook investigations on behalf of the council of state.37CSP Dom. 1651, p. 479; 1651-2, p. 70.

That Kenwricke’s political support for the republican regime was combined with religious Independency is indicated by his recommendation in the summer of 1653, by 19 of the congregational churches in Kent, to the Nominated Parliament, where he was considered to have been opposed to the maintenance of a public ministry.38Original Letters, ed. Nickolls, 95-6; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 420. He was assigned lodgings in Whitehall on 2 July, but his role in the proceedings of the assembly was modest.39CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 4. He was named to early committees on the public revenue (12 July), tithes (19 July) and accusations of bribery and breach of public trust (20 July).40CJ vii. 283b, 286a, 287a. That he took some sustained interest in financial matters is suggested by the fact on 15 October he was a teller for the majority who favoured granting the accounts commissioners the use of Duchy House.41CJ vii. 334b. Appointed on 19 August to discuss legal reform, on 7 November he was a teller in favour of a successful motion regarding the fines levied upon various legal writs.42CJ vii. 347a. He was also named to a committee relating to the Forest of Dean (21 Oct.).43CJ vii. 337b. Perhaps his marshalling of votes on 19 September to defeat a motion for an adjournment arose from a concern to ensure that he could attend debates on issues – for instance the sale of delinquents’ estates – before he took up the fortnight’s leave of absence granted him on 21 September.44CJ vii. 321a, 322a. His militia duties in Kent may well have occasioned regular trips away from Westminster which also affected his attendance at meetings of the trustees for the sale of crown lands at Worcester House: present there on 6 September, he did not appear again until 27 December, by which time the experiment of the Nominated Parliament had ended.45SP26/8, pp. 9, 33.

It is likely that Kenwricke had little sympathy for the protectorate, but he continued to receive nominations to local commissions (except for a brief unexplained omission from the commission of the peace in March 1657), and he was named as a trustee for the sale of forests in August 1654.46A. and O.; C181/6, p. 362; C181/6, pp. 23, 226, 365, 367. He also became a regular attender of the meetings of the trustees for the sale of crown lands from February 1654 until February 1660.47SP26/8, pp. 55, 56, 58, 71, 83, 101, 105, 114, 118, 119, 122, 124, 125, 128, 135-7, 145-6, 159, 161, 168-71, 178, 180, 183. However, with elections for the Parliament of Richard Cromwell* in prospect, Kenwricke wrote to the corporation of Hythe, some 20 miles south of his estate at Boughton-under-Blean, to propose his candidacy as one of their burgesses.48E. Kent RO, H1211, p. 154; The Gen. n.s. viii. 104. He was duly elected alongside his kinsman Sir Robert Hales*.

At Westminster he was revealed as an opponent of the regime. On 9 February he made a speech against recognition of the new protector, arguing that there was a danger of invalidating everything done in the Long Parliament, and that it was uncertain whether Richard Cromwell’s authority was supposed to originate in the Instrument of Government or in the current assembly. Kenwricke also sought clarification regarding the power of the chief magistrate in relation to the ‘other House’ and the militia, and on whether he possessed a ‘negative voice’ and ‘uncontrollable power’. Kenwricke observed that ‘if the … prerogative of these things go along with the office, then I look upon it as the king’s cause, and the maintenance of his quarrel’.49Burton’s Diary, iii. 155-6. Five days later he argued against the continued application of the ‘Humble Petition and Advice’, which he suggested had only been introduced in reaction to plots and dangers, and he voiced his opposition to the sitting of the Scottish members.50Burton’s Diary, iii. 269. He also contributed to debates relating to the cases of individual members, and supported the removal of delinquent MPs like Edmund Jones* and Robert Danvers (alias Villiers)*, although he supported despatching only the former, and not the latter, to the Tower.51Burton’s Diary, iii. 241, 250, 303. Later, as attention turned to relations with the ‘other House’, Kenwricke indicated his opposition to transacting with ‘those that have no foundation in prescription, custom, law or reason, no being by God or man’, and his support for measures to restrict the power of the peers (4 Mar.).52Burton’s Diary, iv. 8-9. Thereafter, however, Kenwricke played a less conspicuous role in the House, although he was named to two committees during the final week of the Parliament: to investigate claims on the estate of the late Scottish financier Sir William Dick (13 Apr.) and – probably of greater personal interest – to consider the fate of the records stored at Worcester House (14 Apr.).53CJ vii. 637b, 639a.

Kenwricke’s support for the restored Rump is suggested by his nomination as colonel of the militia in Kent in September 1659.54CJ vii. 772a. Although his activity during the tumultuous events of the following months is unclear, his allegiance to the army republicans appears to explain the order for his arrest, issued by the council of state, on 29 March 1660.55CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 572. It is not known if this order was executed, but Kenwricke was certainly apprehended in mid-December 1660. He received letters of support from several siblings and their spouses, especially his sister-in-law Mary Kenwricke, who assured the archbishop of Canterbury that Kenwricke had greatly assisted her and his brother, the sequestered clergyman Robert Kenwricke of Somerton, Oxfordshire, and requested that he might retain his estate in Kent. His relatives enlisted the ostensibly unlikely support of John Crew*, a connection of the family’s from Northamptonshire, who described Kenwricke as ‘a faithful colonel for king and parliament, who has laid out much money in purchasing church lands and building thereon’.56CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 417-18; SP29/23, ff. 231-6; Al. Ox.; Walker Revised, 364.

The date of Kenwricke’s release is unclear, as are his subsequent movements. He probably returned to Kent, since he was named in intelligence regarding conventicles there in June 1663, as someone who was ‘striving privately in our country’, and who was suspected of involvement in a ‘great design’ for an ‘open rebellion’.57CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 177; SP29/75, f. 172; Kent Hearth Tax Assessment, ed. Harrington, 295. Thereafter, Kenwricke’s name disappears from the public record until his death (probably) in 1683. His will had prescribed a modest funeral, and he left to his two sons, William and Charles, an equally modest estate in Kent, including the rectory and advowson of St James on the Isle of Graine. As well as two married daughters, he also mentioned his stepson, Edward Hales† of Chilston, son-in-law of Sir John Evelyn of Surrey*, others who may have helped ease his life after the Restoration.58Canterbury Cathedral Lib. PRC32/55, f. 70v; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 418; HP Commons 1660-1690.