EVERARD, Robert (1628-94), of Great Waltham, Essex.

Robert Everard was probably the third son of Sir Richard Everard, though the genealogical accounts of his place in the family differ slightly.3Vis. Essex 1664-8, 34; Vis. Essex 1552, 1558, 1570, 1612, 1634 (Harl. Soc. xiii), 395; Morant, Essex, ii. 87. There is no doubt of his birth date and parentage, however. Details of his education are lacking, and until his election to Parliament, there seems no record of his entry into public life. He was too young to have fought in the civil war, and was named to no tax or other government commissions during the 1650s. His father had no estates in the west country, but the family had a modest record of parliamentary service in the region, as Everard’s grandfather, Anthony Everard†, had sat for East Looe in 1589.4HP Commons 1558-1603. By the 1640s, the Everards were active parliamentarians, and a connection with the Cromwell family may have predisposed Sir Richard towards sympathy with the Cromwellian regime.

Sir Richard Everard sat in the Parliaments of 1654 and 1656. In 1656 began the opening phase of a protracted quarrel between Sir Richard and his eldest son, Richard†. Furthermore, between 1656 and 1660 Sir Richard was occupied in a lawsuit involving the syndicate he joined with his close relations, the Barringtons of Hatfield Broad Oak, over an award of lands in Ireland. These family and business difficulties may have prevented Sir Richard from seeking a seat in the 1659 Parliament, and from promoting his eldest son. There remains the question of why Okehampton should have been chosen as a likely constituency for an Everard younger son. Evidence to explain this is lacking, but the borough had a history of accepting gentry figures from far afield, in preference to Devonians. Laurence Whitaker*, who had died some years previously, had been a political associate of Sir Gilbert Gerard*, brother-in-law and business partner of Sir Richard Everard. It is possible therefore that some link, however tenuous, may have been forged between Okehampton corporation and Everard through Whitaker and his political circle.

In the event, Robert Everard contributed nothing at all to the 1659 Parliament, nor is it likely that he visited Okehampton at the time of his election. He was named to no committees and made no recorded speeches. This appears to have been his only known venture into public affairs, negligible though it was. His father accepted the Restoration and returned to the commission of the peace after a brief period out of local office. Robert Everard’s brother Hugh was a Presbyterian minister at Hickleton, Yorkshire, who became chaplain to Sir John Jackson after he was ejected from his living in 1662.5CR 186, 558. During the 1660s, Everard seems to have become something of a man-of-business for his cousin Sir John Barrington†, helping him with financial transactions involving Arthur Annesley*, 1st earl of Anglesey. This service involved Everard in travelling to Dublin and London, at one point leaving an address at the house of Lady Seymour, Anne Seymour, wife of Sir Edward Seymour*.6Eg. 2649, ff. 208, 239; Eg. 2650, ff. 240, 241. Everard’s tone in his few letters to Barrington leave no doubt of his intentions to help his more exalted kinsman, but also convey the willingness to speak his mind appropriate for a cousin rather than a servant: ‘if there be any delay it lies wholly at your door’.7Eg. 2650, f. 241.

Robert Everard is not known ever to have married, and appears to have spent his entire life at Great Waltham or on business for the Barringtons. Contrary to one historian of Okehampton, he was not Captain Robert Everard, the Cromwellian soldier and sectary: ‘Buff-Coat’ of the Putney Debates in 1647.8[E. H. Young], Okehampton (Devonshire Assoc. Parochial Histories of Devonshire, i. ?1931), 73; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 503; Puritanism and Liberty ed. A.S.P. Woodhouse (1974), 6-7; CSP Dom. 1668-9, pp. 88, 100. He cannot be identified, either, with the minor gentleman of the same name who lived at Rivenhall Place, Essex, until his death in 1679. This man was a practical farmer, and had children, when the genealogical authorities state that Robert Everard of Great Waltham had none.9Essex RO, D/ABW 69/98; Morant, Essex, ii. 87. He is very likely therefore to have been the man whose burial was recorded at Great Waltham on 18 November 1694, only a few months after the death of his brother, Sir Richard Everard, the head of the family. The lands at Furneux Pelham, inherited in 1679 by Robert Everard from his father, passed to Sir Hugh Everard, the 3rd baronet, and had been mortgaged by 1696.10Herts. RO, DE/MI/83735. No other member of the family is known to have sat in Parliament.