PHILIPPS, James (c.1624-74), of Tregibby and The Priory, Cardigan.

The Philipps family of Tregibby near Cardigan were descended from Sir Thomas Philipps of Cilsant in Carmarthenshire (d. c. 1520), a government official under Henry VII, but remained relatively obscure until 1616, when they acquired Cardigan Priory. James Philipps’s father, Hector, was sheriff of Cardiganshire in 1634 and Philipps extended the family’s influence further by marrying a kinswoman, the sister of Sir Erasmus Philipps* of Picton Castle in Pembrokeshire.17DWB, sub Philipps family of Picton, Philipps or Philips family of Tregibby. Like his brother-in-law he espoused the parliamentary cause, and was noted as a well-wisher to Parliament in December 1644, when Rowland Laugharne† took Cardigan.18Phillips, Civil War in Wales i. 276. Philipps was appointed to the Cardiganshire assessment committee from June 1647, and he was a commissioner for disbanding the forces in south Wales in February 1648.19A. and O.; LJ x. 63b. In August 1648 he married, as his second wife, the daughter of the London merchant John Fowler, whose widow had recently married Sir Richard Philipps of Picton.20Oxford DNB. Katherine Philipps later achieved fame as a poet, known as the ‘matchless Orinda’ to her circle of admiring friends, which included the cavalier poets Abraham Cowley and Henry Vaughan, the royal musician Henry Lawes and the Caroline divine, Jeremy Taylor.21N. Smith, Literature and Revolution (1994), 257; C.J. Stranks, Life and Writings of Jeremy Taylor (1952), 173; Souers, Orinda, 58; Oxford DNB. Her poems, widely circulated in manuscript during the interregnum, had distinctly royalist undertones, with laments on the regicide and on the battle of Worcester, making her sympathies clear.22Smith, Literature and Revolution, 257-8; Poems of Katherine Philips, ed. P. Thomas (1990). Philipps, although celebrated by his wife as ‘Antenor’ – in an allusion to a Trojan peacemaker – plainly did not share her views.23Oxford DNB. He continued to serve on local assessment commissions during the commonwealth, and was soon appointed as a justice of the peace for Cardiganshire, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.24A. and O.; C231/6, pp. 179, 196, 198. He was made sheriff of Cardiganshire in the autumn of 1649 and of Pembrokeshire the following year; in June 1651 he was added to the high court of justice against insurgents in south Wales; and in June 1652 he was involved with Rowland Dawkins* in the examination of prisoners at Cardiff.25Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 184; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 267; 1651-2, p. 281. A month later he bought property in Cardigan forfeited by the royalist judge, David Jenkins.26CCC 2180. He was one of only two Cardiganshire men to be named as a commissioner for propagating the gospel in Wales, and he attended meetings of the south Wales ‘propagators’.27LPL, Comm. VIII/1.

Perhaps because of his reputation for godliness, Philipps was one of the six MPs called to serve for Wales in the Nominated Assembly. In June 1653 Philipps and Bussy Mansel* were granted the London lodgings lately occupied by Sir Henry Vane II*.28CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 412, 442. In July Philipps informed the House of the grievances of the borough of Haverfordwest, thereby consolidating his reputation as ‘much the town’s friend’.29Cal. Recs. Haverfordwest, 105, 139, 141. He was added to the Committee for the Army on 25 July, but obtained leave of absence on 12 August, and took no further part in proceedings.30CJ vii. 289b, 299b. He was, however, prepared to work with the protectorate. Philipps is often referred to as ‘captain’ during the early 1650s, and even as ‘colonel’ from June 1655, but it is likely these were courtesy titles relating to militia appointments, and his connection with the regular army was minimal.31CJ vii. 299b, 432a, 528b; CCC 3239; Burton’s Diary ii. 237.  Nevertheless, in January 1654 he was appointed to the new Committee for the Army, and later in the year he took on the responsibility of issuing warrants, on the strength of the assessments, to the two treasurers at war, with a salary of £150 p.a.32A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 385, 455. Philipps also retained his judicial function during the early months of the protectorate, as he was re-appointed to the high court of justice on 13 June 1654.33A. and O. After the restoration he was attacked for sitting as one of the judges of John Gerard, Cromwell’s would-be assassin, at the end of June and beginning of July 1654. Philipps protested that his role had been a very minor one, as the order for him to attend was ‘served on him at his inn when he had his boots on to go out of town’, and having attended the opening session on 30 June and ‘seeing a full court’ he made his excuses and left for Wales the next day. Most of the witnesses agreed. One remembered that Philipps had declared he was ‘dissatisfied of it’, refusing ‘to have his hand in blood’; another claimed ‘Mr Philipps had expressed his desire to be in Cardiganshire’ for the forthcoming elections; while Welsh witnesses attested that he had been seen in or around Cardigan on 5 July – the day before sentence was passed on Gerard.34Eg. 5979, ff. 110, 111, 113v, 114

Philipps was certainly present for the Cardiganshire elections, on 12 July 1654, when he was returned with Jenkin Lloyd.35Eg. 5979, f. 116. On 2 September they presented to the protectoral council a petition calling for the reduction by half of the county’s assessment, and this was acted upon and approved on 11 September.36CSP Dom. 1654, p. 359. There is no evidence of Philipps’s involvement in the parliamentary session that followed, but in May 1655 he was still in London, securing a further abatement of the Cardiganshire assessment from the council.37CSP Dom. 1655, p. 176. When the reduction was overlooked in February 1656 Philipps and Lloyd protested to the protector, and in July Philipps secured a further rebate, ‘theirs being the least and poorest county in the nation’.38CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 154; 1656-7, p. 13. While this campaign continued, Philipps was busy building up his local influence in other ways. In June 1655 he had obtained the lease for a year of sequestered recusant estates in Brecon, Glamorgan and Radnor.39CCC 3239. He had become a commissioner for securing the peace of the commonwealth in the south-western counties by early March 1656, when he signed a letter from the commissioners asking for further information on the case of Sir Robert Shirley.40TSP iv. 583. Philipps was also beginning to dominate the town of Haverfordwest. In November 1655 he was one of seven appointees to examine the petition of the ‘well-affected’ of Haverfordwest.41CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 35. He was elected a member of the common council in February 1656, and mayor in the following April. He acquired the mayoralty only because of an order from Major-general Rowland Dawkins ejecting the incumbent.42Cal. Recs. Haverfordwest, 128-30. As the elections for the second protectorate Parliament approached, he was allowed the nomination of the borough’s next MP, and chose John Upton II*.43Cal. Recs. Haverfordwest, 148 Philipps was himself returned both for Cardiganshire and for Pembrokeshire, but opted for the latter on 2 October 1656.44CJ vii. 432a.

Philipps had been maligned by the anti-Cromwellian puritan, Jenkin Jones, for his wife’s association with suspected royalists, causing her to write in his defence, distancing him from her ‘follies’ and ‘errors’.45Souers, Orinda, 84; Poems of Katherine Philips, 347. Any lingering doubts as to his loyalty to the regime were removed by an intelligence report that crossed the desk of John Thurloe* in the autumn of 1656. It recounted events at a gathering of Welsh gentlemen at the Horseshoe in Chancery Lane on 26 November, when an attack on the government by a former royalist, Thomas Evans, provoked a violent reaction from Philipps and Henry Williams*, who ‘were very much offended with him and left him immediately after’.46TSP v. 656-7. In the Commons, Philipps was appointed to the committee to consider which ordinances were to be continued (27 Sept.) and to the committee for trade (20 Oct.).47CJ vii. 429b, 442a. On 4 December he presented to the protector and council a further petition for the Cardiganshire assessments to be reduced.48CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 187. He was one of those who voted for Cromwell to be king on 25 March 1657, and he was named to committees to arrange an interview with the protector on the Humble Petition and Advice on 27 March and 7 and 9 April.49Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 23 (E.935.5); CJ vii. 514b, 521a, 521b. He was appointed to committees on the indemnity bill (31 Mar.), on the cases of the 4th earl of Pembroke and the countess of Worcester (30 Apr., 2 May) and on the petition of John Carter* (2 June).50CJ vii. 516a, 528b, 529b, 543b. On 12 June he again intervened on behalf of his constituents, moving in the debate on the assessment rates ‘that a proviso might be brought in to abate Cardigan, which pays eight pence and ten pence per pound’. He was supported by the protectoral councillor, Sir Gilbert Pykeringe*.51Burton’s Diary ii. 237.

In the summer of 1657 and the spring and summer of 1658 Philipps was heavily involved in the Army Committee’s administration of the assessments.52CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 76, 114, 282, 334; 1658-9, p. 48. His ‘deportment’ was summed up subsequently as that of

one that had the fortune to be in with all times, but thrives by none, an argument that covetousness (the root of all evil) was not the motive for him to undertake employments. His genius is to undertake public affairs, regarding sometimes more the employment than the authority from whom he received the same. He hath done much good, and is ill rewarded by those he deserved most of, but they were principally such as were perfidious and ungrateful to most they were obliged unto.53NLW Jnl. ix. 145.

Philipps remained involved in the affairs of Haverfordwest in the last months of the protectorate. In February 1658 he was ordered to investigate the financial ‘distress’ of the widow of Stephen Love, the late minister of the town, and to allocate to her arrears owed to her husband.54CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 287. In December of that year he again nominated John Upton II as Haverfordwest’s MP, and in the spring of 1659 he advised him on procuring a new charter for the borough.55Cal. Recs. Haverfordwest, 159, 160. Philipps was elected as MP for Cardiganshire in this Parliament, but there is no evidence of his activity in the House.

Philipps was still involved with the Army Committee in the second half of May 1659, and was one of those authorised by the restored Rump to sign army pay warrants, but his political influence did not long survive the collapse of the protectorate.56CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 362; CJ vii. 657a. In 1659 his local appointments were curtailed, and his correspondence with the mayor of Haverfordwest shows how aware he was of the political drift. His chief concern was to retain an option on the borough seat, if not for himself at least for a friend. In 1660, when he was restored to local office, his kinsman William Philipps was elected for Haverfordwest, despite local expectation that he himself would stand.57Cal. Recs. Haverfordwest, 164-8, 172. Philipps was instead elected for Cardigan Boroughs in 1660 and 1661. He died on 2 May 1674 and was buried at St. Mary’s, Cardigan.58HP Commons 1660-1690. His three marriages produced only two children: a son who died in infancy and a daughter, Katherine, who married Lewis Wogan of Boulston.59DWB. The estate, which was heavily mortgaged by the time of Philipps’s death, was redeemed by his brother, Hector.60Aubrey, Brief Lives ii. 154.