RIVERS, Sir Thomas (d.1657), of Chafford, Kent.

Little is known of the life of Thomas Rivers, who was the heir of sitting MP James Rivers* at the latter’s premature death in June 1641. His mother, Charity, had an interest in the family seat at Combe manor in Hamsey, Sussex, until her death in 1655, and presumably resided there with her numerous children.13PROB11/186/503; PROB11/248/433. His grandfather Sir John Rivers, 1st baronet, was a prominent member of the Kentish county committee after the outbreak of the civil wars, and was evidently a close friend of Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester.14A. and O.; HMC De L'Isle and Dudley, vi. 467, 479, 598. His godfather, Sir Thomas Pelham*, was at the centre of the circle of godly greater gentry in Sussex of which his father had been a member, and had shown himself an attentive patron.15Add. 33145, ff. 20v, 58, 59, 66, 68, 80, 146v.

Rivers was admitted to the Inner Temple in November 1649, but probably left it within two years, following the death of his grandfather and his succession to the baronetcy.16I. Temple database; CB. He soon adopted the roles and responsibilities of his position as a wealthy county squire. In July 1652 he was placed on the commission of the peace in Sussex and in December was named an assessment commissioner in Kent, where he later also became a justice of the peace; he seems to have attended the quarter sessions at Lewes fairly assiduously.17ASSI35/93/9; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW2, ff. 52v, 56, 60, 65v; QO/EW3, ff. 4v, 8v, 12v, 17.

In 1654 Sir Thomas Pelham was elected as a knight of the shire to the first protectorate Parliament at the head of a group of nine men who had little sympathy with the new regime.18TSP iv. 161. Following Pelham’s death less than a week before the session was due to begin, and the issuing of a new writ ordered on 23 October, Rivers was elected to replace him.19CJ vii. 377b. On 2 December Harbert Morley*, one of the other members for Sussex, and the most prominent of the republican opponents of the new regime, informed the House that the clerk of the commonwealth had refused to certify Rivers for admittance to the House until he received the approval of the council of state. Morley persuaded the Commons to admit him, probably thus thwarting a conciliar attempt to exclude him, or at least to control the flow of possible critics into the House.20CJ vii. 394a. Once at Westminster Rivers was named to just one committee (concerning taking away purveyance) before Parliament was dissolved on 22 January 1655.21CJ vii. 407b. His very presence, however, had served to prevent a protectorate loyalist gaining a seat.

Despite his apparent sympathies, following Penruddock’s rising in 1655 it was to Rivers that the government directed its request to Sussex justices of the peace that they, like magistrates elsewhere, would keep watch for potentially subversive persons.22CSP Dom. 1655, p. 94. Rivers was present at sessions that year, but his reaction to the order is unknown.23E. Suss. RO, QO/EW3, ff. 4v, 8v, 12v. The simultaneous death of his mother occasioned the sale of portions of his estate to his uncle, Nizel Rivers†.24E. Suss. RO, SAS/CO/1330.

The second Parliament of the protectorate, which met in September 1656, once more saw Rivers elected for Sussex, as one of a group of men even more obviously opposed to the government, to the major-generals, and to the decimation tax, than in its predecessor. Once more he probably benefited from the assistance of its leader, Harbert Morley.25TSP v. 341. Those returned included known royalist sympathisers such as John Stapley*, Sir John Pelham*, and George Courthop*, the last two of whom were Rivers' close friends.26Add. 33144, f. 181; Add. 33148, ff. 71v, 83. Like Courthop, Rivers was among those excluded from Parliament on 17 September by orders of the council of state.27SP18/130, f. 46; Bodl. Tanner 52, f. 156; Whitelocke, Mems. (1853), iv. 274-80; OPH xxi. 16; A Narrative of the Late Parliament (So Called), (1657), 4 (E.935.5). Rivers did not join the protests signed by 76 of the purged members, and he appears to have retired to his estates, withdrawing his services from the commission of peace.28CJ vii. 424-5; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW3, f. 17.

Rivers, who was already ‘sick’ when he began to draft his will on 1 September 1657, died on 8 December and was buried at Hamsey a fortnight later.29PROB11/273/293; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 229-30; Add. 5698, ff. 55-7; Hamsey par. reg. He was succeeded as 3rd baronet by his brother John.30Comber, Suss. Genealogies. Lewes, 230-31. His will entrusted most of his estate to his executors, Nizel Rivers (his uncle), George Courthop, and William Dyke, on behalf of younger brothers and sisters, who were yet to come of age. They evidently sold Combe manor almost immediately for £2,400.31PROB11/273/293; E. Suss. RO, SAS/SH/581-5. Nizel Rivers, elected to the Convention, was the last member of the family to sit in Parliament.