CAREW, John (1622-60), of Bowhill, Devon.

John Carew was a scion of one of the most illustrious of Cornish families, which dated its origins back to the time of Edward the Confessor, and included as distant cousins the Fitzgerald earls of Kildare and the Vere earls of Oxford. Carew’s father, Sir Richard Carew† of Antony, was knight of the shire for Cornwall in 1614, and his half-brother, Alexander Carew*, also represented the county in the Long Parliament.15Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 67-9. The eldest son of his father’s second marriage, John Carew was sent to Oxford in March 1638 at the age of 15, and entered the Inner Temple in November 1640.16Al. Ox.; I. Temple database. He had returned to Cornwall, and was living with his father at Antony in 1642, when both subscribed the Protestation.17Cornw. Protestation Returns, 211. There is no evidence of Carew’s activities during the first civil war, but he was presumably influenced by the choices of his immediate family. His father, who had purchased a baronetcy in 1641, sided with Parliament but died early in 1643; and his elder half-brother, now Sir Alexander, who had been a prominent parliamentarian and deputy-governor of Plymouth, was arrested for treason in December 1643 and executed a year later.18CJ iii. 329a. The psychological effect of his brother’s downfall is not known for certain, but it may have been significant in shaping Carew’s later career. In terms of his material prosperity, he probably inherited considerable land holdings from his father (who died intestate) under an earlier settlement, but the only sign of this is a later reference specifying that he owned the manor of Bowhill in Devon.19PROB11/192/180; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 604. It was only three years after his father’s death, in the early months of 1647, that Carew, now aged 25, finally emerged from the shadows.

Carew was returned for the Cornish seat of Tregony as a recruiter MP on 9 February 1647, and was at Westminster by 24 February, when he took the Covenant.20CJ v. 97a. During the spring, Carew became involved in adjudicating the row between Parliament and the New Model army. On 27 March he was named to the committee on the officers’ petition and other papers sent to the lord general, Sir Thomas Fairfax*, and on 2 April he was appointed to the committee to consider the ordinance reforming the City of London’s militia.21CJ v. 127b, 132b. As yet there was no firm indication of Carew’s political views, but on 11 May he was named to the committee on an ordinance to reward Fairfax by settling £5,000 a year in lands on him and his heirs.22CJ v. 167a. This, and Carew’s apparent absence from the Commons from then until the beginning of September – throughout the Presbyterian ascendancy and the ‘forcing of the Houses’ – suggests that he inclined towards the Independent faction. There is little doubt that from September 1647 onwards Carew was a loyal foot soldier of the Independents. On 9 September he was added to the Army Committee, which was investigating the payment of the army, and on 6 October he was named to the committee instructed to prepare a proposal for the king, ensuring the tender consciences would not suffer if a Presbyterian church were established in England.23CJ v. 298b, 327b. During the winter of 1647-8, Carew was named to various important committees, including those to consider how to ensure the king’s ‘safety’ on the Isle of Wight (15 Nov.), to consider the grievances of the people (4 Jan.) and to indemnify tenants against popish or royalist landlords (29 Jan.).24CJ v. 359a, 417a, 447b. He was also added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers on 27 December.25CJ v. 407a. The outbreak of the second civil war saw Carew’s activity increase, as in May he was on the committee to confiscate the lands granted to the Welsh turncoat, Rowland Laugharne*, and in June and July he was named to committees to investigate the risings in Kent and Surrey and to suppress royalist propaganda.26CJ v. 557a, 599b, 614b, 631b. Carew seems to have been absent from Westminster during the autumn of 1648, and although there is little direct evidence of his interest in Cornwall and Devon in this period, he was named to the militia commissions for both counties on 2 December 1648.27A. and O.

Regicide and commonwealth, 1648-53

It was only after Pride’s Purge of the Commons on 6 December 1648 that Carew became a figure of national importance. There was some confusion about Carew’s position immediately after the purge, with Mercurius Pragmaticus at first listing him among the ‘strange creatures’ who continued to sit in mid-December, but a week later describing him as one of the less committed western members who ‘departed, which the brethren not much distasted, hoping to draw them in another day’.28Mercurius Pragmaticus, no. 38 (12-19 Dec. 1648), sig. Ddd4v (E.476.35); no. 39 (19-26 Dec. 1648), sig. Eee3 (E.477.30). Yet it is clear from the Journal that Carew had resumed his seat by 14 December, when he was teller in favour of an important motion reasserting Parliament’s authority by sending a committee to demand the release of the MPs imprisoned by the army.29CJ vi. 97a. This was not a weakening of the stance of Carew and the Independents – rather a warning shot; and it was followed by other measures designed to bring the army into line.30Worden, Rump Parl. 46. Carew’s commitment can be seen in his many appointments during the next few weeks: he took the dissent against the Newport Treaty negotiations with the king on 20 December, and between 21 December and 17 January he was named to nine committees, including those against bribes, to deal with a petition from the City of London, and (again) to the Army Committee.31PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, pp. 473-4; [W. Prynne], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (1660), 21 (E.1013.22); CJ vi. 102a, 103a, 103b, 107b, 112b, 113b, 118a, 120b. His hard-line attitude can be seen in his appointment to the committee to consider how to bring the king to justice, formed on 23 December, and to the committee to decide how the trial should proceed.32CJ vi. 103a, 112b. On 1 January 1649 Carew was appointed as commissioner and judge in the high court of justice to try the king, and he was assiduous in his attendance at the proceedings at Westminster Hall, being present at as many as 20 meetings in the following weeks.33Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1379, 1395, 1416; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 728n; J.G. Muddiman, Trial of Charles I (1928), 195-228. On 29 January he signed the king’s death warrant.34Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1426.

Although it has been argued that Carew’s relationship with the new commonwealth regime was troubled – on the basis that he was omitted from the council of state elected in the spring of 1649 – there is no direct evidence of this.35Worden, Rump Parl. 179. He was included in the assessment commissions for both Cornwall and Devon from April 1649, and in July the council of state consulted him when choosing new justices of the peace for Cornwall; in June he was appointed to the committee for removing obstructions in the sale of bishops’ lands, and in September he was made one of the governors of Westminster School.36A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 229. In Parliament, Carew was one of the most active MPs from the regicide until the late summer of 1649. On 30 January he joined Oliver Cromwell*, among others, on the committee to repeal several acts in the wake of the king’s death, and the next day they were both named to the committee to facilitate the meeting the court of common council.37CJ vi. 126a, 127a. Carew was appointed to three committees in February, including one to consider admitting Fairfax and Colonel Nathaniel Rich* as MPs for Cirencester.38CJ vi. 142a. This is an indication that Carew was now moving in military circles. As well as Cromwell, he was named to committees in January, February and March that included men like Edmund Ludlowe II*, Rich, and Colonel Thomas Harrison I* – the last to become one of his closest allies in future years.

These, and later committee appointments through the spring and summer, suggest that Carew was particularly concerned with raising money and punishing enemies: he was added to committees on the revenues of the dean and chapter of Westminster (5 Feb.) and on a bill against delinquents (12 Mar.); in early April he joined a committee for the sale of fee farm rents, at the end of the month he was again appointed to a committee on the sale of dean and chapter lands, and in May he was involved in the reform of the commissioners at Haberdashers’ Hall.39CJ vi. 132a, 162a, 178b, 198a, 218a. In June Carew was also made a member of the committee for the sale of bishops’ lands, and in 1650 he bought two manors formerly belonging to the diocese of Exeter; but his involvement in disposing of land was not entirely self-serving, and he seems to have had a genuine desire to improve the state’s finances and right past wrongs.40A. and O.; Bodl. Rawl. B.239, p. 47. This perhaps explains his appointment to committees to repay money owed by Parliament to Colonel Alexander Popham* (26 Apr.) and Arthur Samuel (30 Apr.), to pay army arrears from the sale crown lands (9 May), and to aid widows and orphans and wounded soldiers (14 May).41CJ vi. 196a, 198a, 205b, 209b. This ties in with another of Carew’s interests – and one that would soon come to the fore – the need to reform the legal system. During the spring and summer of 1649 he was appointed to committees to review commissions of the pea (8 Feb.), to reform the minor courts in London and Southwark (10 May), and to recompense the officers of the defunct court of wards (14 July) and to release those imprisoned for debt (17 July).42CJ vi. 134a, 206b, 260a, 262a.

Carew does not appear to have attended Parliament during the second half of 1649 and the early months of 1650. Though he may have returned to Cornwall for much of this period, he must be distinguished from John Carew of Penwarne, Mevagissey, who entertained the royalist ‘water poet’, John Taylor.43Taylor, John Taylor’s Wanderings, 16-17. It was probably this Carew, a justice of the peace in Cornwall since 1647, who in January 1650 was called upon by the commissioners of the great seal to take subscriptions for the Engagement in the county.44C231/6, p. 78; FSL, X.d.483 (47). Carew the regicide had returned to Westminster by the beginning of March 1650, when he was named, alongside Harrison and Richard Salwey*, to a committee on a bill to indemnify tenants against royalist landlords.45CJ vi. 380a. These two MPs, and to lesser extent Ludlowe, frequently appear with Carew on committee lists during 1650 and 1651, and this suggests that they were interested in the same issues, even working together. Their influence was perhaps strongest when it came to religion. Before the spring of 1650 Carew was named to no religious committees, but thereafter he was appointed to a sudden spurt of committees, to maintain a preaching ministry in Essex (24 May) and to propagate the gospel in Yorkshire (7 June), a committee to suppress obscenity and impiety used under the pretence of liberty of conscience (14 June).46CJ vi. 416a, 420b, 423b. Again, the other MPs named to these committees included Harrison and Salwey, and it is tempting to suggest that Carew’s radicalisation can be dated from this point. Carew was also drawing closer to Cromwell and the military high command at this time, being named to the committee to settle lands on Cromwell on 30 May 1650 and to the committee on the petition of Henry Somerset*, Lord Herbert of Raglan, (who challenged the validity of Cromwell’s land grant) in April 1651.47CJ vi. 417b, 566a.

Much of Carew’s involvement in parliamentary affairs between the spring of 1650 and the autumn of 1651 was routine, including a series of committees on the settlement of forfeited estates and the punishment of former royalists that was in effect a continuation of his activities in 1649-50.48CJ vi. 437b, 457b, 463b, 519b, 528a, 598b, 616b,. He also retained his interest in law reform and prison improvement, being named to committees on the high court of justice (20 Aug.), abuses in prisons (24 Oct.), to monitor the law (25 Oct.) and to settle a new gaol in Surrey (12 Mar. 1651).49CJ vi. 456a, 487b, 488a, 548b. Carew was named to committees on trade (25 Apr., 23 July 1650) and added to the committee for regulating universities (19 Sept. 1650); he was named to the committee for investigating the corruption allegations against Edward Howard*, Lord Howard of Escrick, and reported its findings (18 Sept. 1650, 20 June 1651) and, in a rare example of his continuing involvement in Cornish affairs, on 21 March 1651 he was teller against fining his kinsman, John Arundell I* of Trerice, £10,000 for delinquency.50CJ vi. 403b. 444a, 469a-b, 552a, 591a. Another issue that interested Carew was foreign policy. On 7 January 1651 he was added to the committee to draft an answer to the Spanish ambassador; at the end of the same month he was charged with taking a message to the Portuguese ambassador; and in August he was named to a committee to prevent English representatives from taking gifts or rewards from foreign states.51CJ vi. 520a, 528a, 618b.

In February 1651 Carew was at last appointed to the council of state, and immediately became a figure of some importance in the government.52Worden, Rump Parl. 249; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 44; A. and O. He was named to the committee for removing obstructions of the sale of forfeited estates in the same month.53A. and O. Carew’s activities on the council complemented his work in the Commons, as he was appointed to committees on abuses in the law courts (1 Mar.), the regulation of local commissioners (21 Feb., 21 Apr.) and the protocols when dealing with foreign ambassadors (19 Feb, 3 June).54CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 53, 56, 66-7, 151, 159, 235. Once again Cornwall does not figure very prominently in Carew’s political world, although in late June and early July he was involved in the appointment of a new governor for the Isles of Scilly, and he reported the council’s recommendations to the House of Commons.55CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 269, 271; CJ vi. 594a. As in Parliament, Carew was often appointed to council committees alongside Harrison and Salwey, and this strengthens the impression that the three were working together.56CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 56, 66, 159, 315. From the early summer of 1651, he was heavily involved in the important matter of arranging defence and suppressing dissent in the face of Charles Stuart’s invasion from Scotland, joining the committee for the safety of the commonwealth with Fleetwood and others, examining a number of prisoners and spies, and, on 21 August, having a hand in drafting the proclamation denouncing Charles as a traitor.57CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 315, 335, 349, 374, 393, 411.

After the final defeat of the royalist cause at the battle of Worcester in September 1651, Carew became a central member of the radical group in the Commons, led by Cromwell and Harrison, which pressed for social and religious reform.58Worden, Rump Parl. 270. For the most part, evidence of Carew’s personal connection with Cromwell can be inferred rather than proved, but there are traces in the parliamentary record. Carew was named to the committee which considered a suitable reward for Cromwell on 6 September 1651, and also to the committee of 9 December that considered lands to be granted to his widowed daughter, Bridget Ireton.59CJ vii. 13b, 49a. It is also interesting that in October 1652 Carew was able to intercede with the lord general to get his own man, Major Peter Ceely*, appointed as a compounding commissioner in Cornwall.60CCC 614. Carew’s ties to Harrison are even more difficult to trace, although once again they served on numerous parliamentary committee together.61CJ vii. 49a, 55b, 56a, 58b, 86b, 93a, 100a, 112a, 127b, 128a, 138b, 159a, 164b, 171b, 182a, 191b, 205a, 215a, 257a. No doubt service in the council of state also encouraged Carew to forge closer links with both Cromwell and Harrison. Carew remained reasonably active on the council of state after September 1651, being appointed to committees to dispose of Scottish prisoners and to examine those held in the Tower of London during September and October, and advising how the royalists taken on the Isles of Scilly should be treated.62CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 431, 450, 452, 462, 497, 502; CJ vii. 35b. On 24 November Carew was re-elected to the council of state, and soon afterwards he was appointed to standing committees, such as those on the ordnance, examinations, and the supply of timber, where he joined leading figures such as Cromwell, Fleetwood and Salwey.63CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 43; CJ vii. 42a. Through the winter he continued his administrative role, whether in legal matters, the raising of money through the sale of estates, or matters of foreign policy, and he was reappointed to the Army Committee on 2 January 1652, but in the spring he added to these an important new interest: the admiralty and navy.64CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 54, 81, 150, 158, 173, 278; A. and O. On 12 March he was added to the council of state’s admiralty committee; by early June he was considering instructions for the navy and conferring with the navy commissioners about victualling; and in August he was arranging the fitting of ships and advising on appointments.65CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 177, 285, 360, 369. According to Ludlowe, Carew, Salwey and Sir Henry Vane II* were ‘the principal’ members of the admiralty committee, and the success of the Dutch War depended in part on the efficiency of their organisation.66Ludlow, Mems. i. 337. Carew’s importance in the naval administration may have influenced his involvement in foreign affairs, which seems to have peaked during the summer and autumn, following his appointment to the committee of foreign affairs on 17 June.67CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 295, 351, 389, 421.

Significantly, Carew’s undistinguished role in Parliament fits awkwardly with his prominence on the council of state during this period. Despite his importance in the council, he was named to only one committee on foreign affairs: that on 8 January 1652 to consider how far contact between MPs and foreign powers should be restricted.68CJ vii. 64b. As in earlier years, he was engaged in Parliament’s efforts to raise money for the state and facilitate the sale of delinquents’ estates, and he was drawn into new business, such as the need to sort out the union between England and Scotland, but in other areas he appears to have been cold-shouldered.69CJ vii. 14a, 56a, 104a, 112a, 128a, 138b, 159a, 189a, 190b, 191b, 210a. For example, he was named to no committees on the navy until November 1652 – nearly ten months after his appointment as an admiralty commissioner.70CJ vii. 210a. It is also surprising that Carew was named to very few religious committees during this period, although this may be a sign that his views, like those of Harrison, were becoming too radical for the majority of MPs to stomach. He was included in a committee to consider an Independent petition (10 Feb. 1652), he reported on the weight of cases before the Committee for Plundered Ministers (7 May 1652) and was named to the committee on popish recusants (30 June 1652), but these were relatively uncontroversial measures.71CJ vii. 86b, 130b, 147a.

The oddly insignificant parliamentary career of Carew during 1652 probably reflects the fact that, as an ally of Cromwell and Harrison, he was at the forefront of unwelcome attempts to force the Rump Parliament to reform. Law reform was of great importance to this group, and Carew had been named on 26 December 1651 (along with Cromwell, Harrison, Fleetwood, Rich and others) to the committee to regulate the law – the precursor to the famous Hale Commission appointed in the spring of 1652.72CJ vii. 58b; Worden, Rump Parl. 271. If this was not controversial enough, reform of Parliament was also on the agenda, with efforts by Cromwell and others to pressurise the Rump being aided by agitation from the army. On 13 August 1652 Carew became chairman of the committee to consider the army’s petition demanding political change and criticising the Rump (a committee that also included Cromwell, Harrison, Salwey, Rich and a Cornishman, Robert Bennett*).73CJ vii. 164b. The army’s discontent was focused on a call for new elections, and when Carew reported back to the Commons from the committee on 14 September, this was the main recommendation.74CJ vii. 178b. A bill for a new representative was sent to a committee apparently headed by Carew, but although it reportedly sat every day, the strength of opposition from MPs was such that it still had not reported by the end of the year, and in January 1653 Carew was replaced as chairman.75Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 293; Worden, Rump Parl. 308-10; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 48-9. The lack of progress thereafter was one of the main reasons that Cromwell and his allies – including Carew and Harrison – had turned against the Rump by April 1653. It is telling that Carew did not sit on the council of state after November 1652, although he remained involved with the admiralty, and that his activity in Parliament drops off at about the same time.76CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 501, 510, 548; CJ vii. 225b, 256a, 257b.

Nominated Assembly, 1653

Cromwell’s decision to force the closure of the Rump on 20 April 1653 was fully supported by Carew. Indeed, the two men were probably at their closest in this month. In mid-April, when Cromwell wrote to Richard Deane, advising him to join Admiral William Penn* and await further instructions, he mentioned that he was being backed by two admiralty commissioners, Carew and Salwey.77Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 629 Soon after the Rump was dissolved, Ludlowe records that Cromwell

sent for Major Salwey and Mr John Carew, to whom he complained about the great weight of affairs that by this undertaking was fallen upon him; affirming that the thoughts of the consequences thereof made him tremble, and therefore desired them to free him from the temptation that might be laid before him; and to that end to go immediately to the Chief Justice [Oliver] St John*, Mr [John] Selden* and some others, and endeavour to persuade them to draw up some instrument of government that might put the power out of his hands.78Ludlow, Mems. i. 358.

Whether or not Ludlowe’s story is to be taken at face value, his identification of Carew as one of Cromwell’s chief advisers at this time is surely correct. A similar impression can be gleaned from Carew’s activity in the administration during the spring of 1653, not just in running the admiralty but also being charged (with Harrison) with reviewing the excise, and working with Cromwell’s client, John Thurloe*, in arranging the release of captives held in north Africa.79CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 289, 305, 337, 342, 350, 387. More promotions followed, and again the hand of Cromwell may be suspected. On 29 June Carew was added to the ordnance committee, and committees to facilitate the sale of crown lands in order to pay the army.80CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 451-2. In July he joined the new council of state and was confirmed in his position as a commissioner of the navy and admiralty.81CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 16; A. and O. Thereafter, Carew took the lead in council when it came to naval affairs, working closely with men like Thomas Kelsey* and Thurloe, and his continuing importance can be taken as a sign of his good relationship with Cromwell.82CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 23, 76, 85, 87, 98, 125-6, 199, 209, 223, 479.

In the early weeks of the Nominated Assembly, which convened in July 1653, Carew can also be seen as a loyal Cromwellian. This was how he was treated by his fellow Members, as on 5 July he was one of those chosen to visit Cromwell and invite him to attend the Assembly.83CJ vii. 281b. On 9 July he and Harrison were on the committee to choose men to be co-opted onto the council of state, and they were both named to the committees of Irish and Scottish affairs on the same day.84CJ vii. 283a-b. In Parliament, as in the council, Carew was pre-occupied with naval affairs during the summer, and in the autumn his involvement in ship-building brought him into the related business of the fate of the royal forests.85CJ vii. 307b, 314b, 322a, 340a, 340b, 341a. Despite his activity, there were already signs that Carew, like Harrison, was moving on a different track from Cromwell and his army allies. The problem was the radical, ‘Fifth Monarchist’, views now held by Carew and his friends, which led them to view politics as subordinate to the need to prepare the way for the reign of King Jesus. Such men were few in number, but they worked as a team. It was probably Carew who secured the nomination of John Bawden* and John Langdon* as members for Cornwall; and in the chamber he worked closely with Hugh Courtney* as well as Harrison.86Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 209-11. An early sign of his commitment to radical change came on 6 July, when Carew acted as teller against a motion renaming the Assembly as a ‘Parliament’, reflecting the Fifth Monarchists’ aversion to using a name that implied that power was derived from the people rather than from God.87CJ vii. 282a; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 153. On 27 July he was teller in favour of ‘general liberty’ in preaching – another controversial measure which threatened to undermine the monopoly of the ‘national church’.88CJ vii. 290b; B. Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men (1972), 70.

Although the evidence is less clear, Carew may also have been keen to pursue his earlier campaign to reform the legal system, this time with an increasingly radical edge, as it was felt that the law, with the church, was one of the ‘outworks of Babylon’ and an obstacle to the Millennium.89Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men, 70. Neither church nor law reform on this basis received wide support in the Assembly – as the defeat of both motions told by Carew suggested; meanwhile, Cromwell and other senior officers began to tire of the demands made by their radical colleagues, and Carew and his friends became increasingly isolated. By September the Fifth Monarchists had begun to withdrew from the council of state and the Nominated Assembly, disillusioned with the failure of their radical programme, although Carew was one of the last to admit defeat, and he apparently attended both the Assembly and the council until early November.90Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men, 72; CJ vii. 341a, 344a; CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 230, 237. Even then the rift was not complete until 3 December, when the Assembly voted to renew his post as commissioner of the admiralty and navy, only to be met with a refusal, as Carew ‘being present, made it his humble request to be excused herein’.91CJ vii. 362a.

Protectorate and opposition, 1654-8

Carew’s estrangement from Cromwell and the army seems to have begun reasonably passively, but it would not remain so for long. He may have been the ‘Johannes Cornubiensis’ who published the anti-protectorate pamphlet, The Grand Catastrophe, in January 1654. There are serious doubts as to Carew’s involvement in this work, however. The pamphlet took the form of a dialogue, with objections against the protectorate being answered with biblical parallels that justified the rule of a single person and council, and in the process seems to dismiss accusations that Cromwell would wield ‘absolute power’ and be prey to ‘temptations’ to abuse his office, pointing out that there was no evidence ‘to think him a man of so much ambition and so little faith’ and that was in any case bounded by the council, ‘for how little a part of power hath he without the advice and consent of his council[?]’. There is also praise for Parliament – which is likened to ‘a Sanhedrin of elders’ – and an upbeat direct appeal to Cromwell to govern justly: ‘God so guide you in this your new honour and office as that we may have… good and great a ground to admire and bless God for you as protector’.92J. Cornubiensis, The Grand Catastrophe (1654), 10-13, 16 (E.726.12). As one authority had argued, The Grand Catastrophe might have given the protectorate only a qualified welcome, but its tone was hardly that of a Fifth Monarchist, who would have roundly denounced protector, council and Parliament as obstacles to the Millennium.93Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 211n.

There is no doubt that during the early years of the protectorate Carew was an implacable enemy to the new regime. Colonel Robert Bennett*, another Cornish critic of the protectorate, was in touch with Carew in the new year of 1654, and members of their circle hoped that despite ‘the great overturnings that now are’ God would not let them down, as He ‘hath kept the spirit to those just principles from which some (I fear being blinded with popularity) are turning aside’.94FSL, Add. 666. It was also rumoured that Carew had been involved in the ‘Wildman’ plot in 1654. Thurloe noted that Carew and Harrison were still among ‘the junto for the Fifth Monarchy’, and also suspected that Carew had ‘endeavoured to seduce some great officers from their trust’.95Oxford DNB; TSP iii. 148; Clarke Pprs. ii. 245. In February 1655 Carew, Harrison, Courtney, Rich and others demanded the release of two radical preachers, John Rogers and Christopher Feake. According to Thurloe, Carew and his friends were interviewed by Cromwell in person, and they asked that ‘the prisoners of the Lord might be set at liberty’. Cromwell denied that anyone was in prison for religious reasons, explaining that Rogers and Feake had been detained as ‘evil-doers’. The four ringleaders were allowed to depart, but shortly afterwards they were summoned to appear before the council, ‘because of the certain information my lord had of their endeavours to stir up the people against the government’.96Clarke Pprs. ii. 242-3; Ludlow, Mems. i. 380. They refused to appear, however, causing some alarm at Whitehall, and all four were arrested while attending a day of humiliation in Westminster.97Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 615, 625, 634. Carew took the opportunity to make an open denunciation of the government, saying that Cromwell, ‘when the Little Parliament [i.e. Nominated Assembly] was dissolved, took the crown off from the head of Christ and put it on his own’.98Clarke Pprs. ii. 244. After this outburst, it was hardly surprising that Carew’s request to be confined at his own home was refused, and he was instead imprisoned at St Mawes Castle in Cornwall.99Clarke Pprs. ii. 245; iii. 23-4.

At St Mawes, Carew was unrepentant. Captain Henry Hatsell*, who visited him in May 1655, reported that Carew still insisted the God would ‘do great things speedily’ to bring in a new world order.100CSP Dom. 1655, p. 478. In December 1655, when the mystic Anna Trapnel journeyed into the south west, it was said that ‘she came on purpose to visit Master John Carew’ at St Mawes; and her visit sparked fears that the Fifth Monarchists would take the opportunity to plot ‘destroying magistracy and ministry’.101The Publick Intelligencer no. 13 (24-31 Dec. 1655), 193 (E.491.10); Mercurius Politicus no. 312 (29 May-5 June 1656), 6997-8 (E.493.21). It was presumably at this time that the daughter of George Kekewich*, governor of St Mawes, became ‘one of Mr Carew’s converts’ and ‘learned the art of Anna Trapnel’, indulging in her own ‘singing trances’ for hours on end.102TSP vii. 542. The protectoral council was in two minds about what to do with Carew. On 19 February 1656 it issued an order for his release, but this was modified on 28 February, and eventually, on 7 March 1656, it was ordered that the release of Carew should be postponed until further notice.103CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 190, 202, 215; Clarke Pprs. v. 248; TSP iv. 590. The reasons for this are unclear. Ludlowe claimed that Cromwell was the main obstacle to Carew’s release, and this might explain the apparent reversal of the council’s order; but it was also said that Carew refused to promise not to work against the regime, and that this led to his continued imprisonment.104Ludlow, Mems. ii. 6; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 121. In any case, Carew was not set free until October 1656, perhaps in a conciliatory gesture to Cromwell’s enemies at the start of the second protectorate Parliament, and even then he was held in great suspicion by the authorities.105CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 130.

From 1656 until 1659 it is difficult to separate Carew’s true activities from those merely feared by Thurloe and his allies. When the Fifth Monarchist Thomas Venner led an abortive rising in London in 1657, Carew refused to join him, apparently considering that the time was not right, and therefore ‘the spirit of God’ would not bless the venture.106TSP vi. 164. In February 1658, Henry Cromwell* reported to his new brother-in-law, Thomas Belasyse*, Viscount Fauconberg, that ‘the worms and vipers’ were still gnawing at the commonwealth, and ‘500 maggots… are now again busily crawling out of the excrements of Mr Feake’s corrupted church’. Among these invertebrates he listed ‘Harrison, Carew, [and John] Okey*’ who plotted ‘to disturb the peace of these nations’.107TSP vi. 790. Yet in reality the extent of Carew’s influence in the spring of 1658 was probably fairly limited, and his main concern seems to have been the forging of an alliance with the Baptists. He and Harrison and Courtney had been rebaptised by the beginning of February, with the official newsbook expressing surprise at this concession, seeing they had been ‘formerly supposed to be persons a storey or two above ordinances’.108Mercurius Politicus no. 402 (4-11 Feb. 1658), 294 (E.748.12). At a Baptist meeting at Dorchester in May, Carew, accompanied by two renegade soldiers, Captain Vernon and Adjutant Allen, tried to persuade them to join with the Fifth Monarchy men, but without success.109TSP vii. 138-40.

The approach and the rebuttal both suggest that the Fifth Monarchists were a spent force; but this did not reduce their status as the prime bogeymen of the protectoral government. The death of Oliver and accession of Richard Cromwell* did little to reduce tensions. On 11 September Sir John Copleston* reported from Exeter his efforts to monitor the activities of Carew and his confederates, telling Thurloe that

Though I believe you have not forgotten how strictly his late highness and yourself commanded me to eye Carew, Vernon and Allen, yet I take the boldness to say that I apprehend there never was more necessity to watch them than at this ticklish posture of affairs. They continue my neighbours, and although I think it is yet early enough to fear their attempts, yet the contrariety they possess against his highness’s interest engageth me to mind his late highness and your commands. I have, I hope, already indifferent good spies among them: they intend speedily a great meeting of their party.110TSP vii. 385.

In December of the same year the governor of Pendennis Castle, John Fox*, was also anxious to tell Thurloe about messages sent into Cornwall by Carew, and of the network of contacts he had in the county, although the extent of Fox’s knowledge suggests that the government already had the situation in hand.111TSP vii. 542.

Restoration and retribution, 1659-60

The collapse of the protectorate in May 1659 did not encourage Carew to rejoin the fight for the radical cause, even though he was eligible to return to Parliament under the restored Rump. He may have considered the uneasy alliance between his enemies, the army and the old commonwealthsmen, as of no concern to him. They, however, were willing to bring him back into the fold, and on 26 May the restored Rump resolved that Carew was to resume his position as commissioner for the admiralty and the navy, although there is no sign that he rejoined the commission, or attended Parliament.112CJ vii. 666b. For the first time since 1652 Carew was also appointed to local commissions, including the Cornish militia commission on 26 July and the assessment commission on 26 January 1660.113A. and O.

There is no evidence of Carew’s activities in the spring and early summer of 1660, and it is likely that he had retired to the west country long before the Restoration. He was living in Plymouth in June, when he was arrested after a proclamation was issued by Parliament accusing him of being ‘deeply guilty of that most detestable and bloody treason’ – the execution of Charles I.114LJ xi. 32b, 52b. The arrest itself was a fiasco. The warrant held by one Henry Chubb, a customs official in Plymouth, named John Carey not Carew, and had to be amended. According to Parliament’s account, Carew ‘took advantage of getting away’ but was then seized, but other sources agree that he took a nobler part, telling Chubb where he could be found when the mistake had been rectified.115CJ viii. 52b; The Speeches and Prayers of Some of the Late King’s Judges (1660), 11 (SP9/246/40); Ludlow, Voyce, 180-1. Any hope Carew might have had that he would be saved from execution for refusing to abscond was soon dashed, as on 9 June he was excepted from the act of pardon and oblivion, and on 21 June, on his arrival in London, he was put into the custody of the serjeant-at-arms.116CJ viii. 61a, 70b. In August the Lords refused to accept that Carew had indeed surrendered freely, and proceedings began in October, when he was indicted (10 Oct.), tried (12 Oct.) and finally executed for high treason at Charing Cross.117CJ viii. 140a; State Trials, v. 994-5, 1004, 1047, 1058, 1237-8.

Although it seems that Carew’s radical enthusiasm had moderated during the later 1650s, and his appetite for politics had also tailed off, his arrest, trial and execution allowed him a last hurrah. Contradictory sources make this period peculiarly difficult to interpret. According to the official account, when he came before the judge on 12 October, Carew made two assertions. First, that he was following God’s wishes, that ‘what I did was in His fear, and I did it in obedience to His holy and righteous laws’. Second, he justified the authority of Parliament, ‘the supreme authority of this nation’, to bring the king to trial, for ‘what we did was by an act of Parliament’. These two assertions were enough for Carew to have ‘satisfaction in my conscience’, but they were hardly radical in nature.118State Trials, v. 1052-4, 1057; Ludlow, Voyce, 217-9. There is a curious discrepancy between this and contemporary accounts of Carew’s words on his arrest, when it was said that he had proclaimed that ‘he had committed both his life and estate to the Lord, to save or destroy, as He thought meet; and therefore he would not by any means go out of the way, though provoked thereunto by several friends’. It was said that Carew refused to escape ‘knowing how much the name and glory of God was concerned in his faithful witness to the cause of Christ’.119State Trials, v. 1238. Accounts of the hours before Carew’s execution are also inconsistent. Sir John Nicholas condemned both Harrison and Carew as ‘the blackest of traitors’ but he saw Carew as the less extreme of the two, noting privately that he ‘showed remorse’.120CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 313-4. There is no hint of remorse in other sources, however, which portray Harrison and Carew as united in death. Carew is said to have greeted news of Harrison’s fate with the words, ‘well, my turn will be next, and as we have gone along in our lives, so must we be one in our death’, and Ludlowe commented that ‘in their deaths they were not divided’.121Speeches and Prayers, 11; Ludlow, Voyce, 217. Carew, we are told, now set his heart on ‘a glorious crown’ and prophesied that God’s enemies would come to ‘destruction’ in the end, for ‘this was the last beast, and his rage was great because his time was short’.122Speeches and Prayers, 12-13. Ludlowe records that Carew was proud that ‘the sealing of the cause wherein they were engaged with their blood would be of much advantage to the churches of Christ in foreign parts, as well as in England’, and that ‘the blood which was now to be poured forth would warm the blood that had been shed, and cause notable execution to come down upon the head of the enemy’.123Ludlow, Voyce, 217. It is difficult to tell from all this whether Carew was back to his old millenarian form, or whether these were appropriate sentiments put into his mouth by later commentators, keen to encourage the godly. Perhaps more reliable are his public pronouncements from the scaffold, which once more showed a flash of millenarian zeal. Once again, Carew asserted that ‘what I have done, I have done it in obedience to the Lord’, but while he also upheld ‘the true magistracy’, he added that he meant not Parliament or the king, but ‘that Magistracy that is the Word of God’.124Speeches and Prayers, 19.

As a well-connected member of the greater gentry, Carew was spared the final humiliation of having his quarters displayed in public. There had been moves by ‘his nephew [Sir John Carew] and others’ to gain him a reprieve before his execution, and when these had failed, it was asked that he might not be quartered.125Speeches and Prayers, 12-13. Samuel Pepys noted that while Carew was not spared the full horrors of execution for treason, ‘by great favour’ it was conceded that the body was not to be mutilated further, and it was passed quietly to his brother, Thomas Carew* of Barley, to be buried privately.126Pepys’s Diary, i. 266. Ludlowe concurs with this, saying that ‘Mr Carew’s body was granted to his friends’.127Ludlow, Voyce, 266. Other concessions to the family followed. The rents of Carew’s lands were not immediately assigned to the duke of York (as had happened with the other executed regicides) and Thomas was able to secure the manor of Bowhill in Devon, which his impecunious brother had sold to him in the later 1650s.128CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 559, 604. The nature of the demise of this ‘gentleman of an ancient family’ seems to have caused a great deal of embarrassment, and this awkwardness was set to continue.129Ludlow, Voyce, 217. While the life and death of Carew was celebrated among radicals, later antiquarians, whether through accident or design, have tended to obscure his connections with ‘respectable’ society. The usually reliable Vivian, in his Visitation of Cornwall, manages to omit Carew entirely, identifying John Carew of Antony with another man altogether; likewise, the editor of the Inner Temple Admissions Register confuses him with his uncle, ‘one-handed Carew’ of Penwarne, even though the latter must have been well into his forties when he supposedly entered the inn.130Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 69, 234; I. Temple Admiss.; cf. CITR, ii. pp. cix, cxi. The apparent reluctance of such authorities to include Carew points to a central feature of his career. Carew was not one of the lower orders who came to sudden prominence during the 1640s and drove on political and religious radicalism thereafter: he was a member of the greater gentry, who had everything to lose from revolution, yet he embraced it, and the rule of ‘King Jesus’, whole-heartedly.