BREWSTER, Francis I (c.1600-57), of Wrentham, Suff.

Francis Brewster was about one year younger than his elder brother, Robert*. He followed him to Pembroke College, Cambridge, but, unlike Robert, he stayed to take his degree. That he then progressed to take an MA may indicate that, at that stage, a career in the church was intended for him.20Al. Cant. Following his marriage to Susanna Bunning in 1626, he continued to live at Wrentham, where his father had his seat, and their eight children were baptised in the local church between 1627 and 1644.21E. Anglian Misc. (1908), 62, 65. During the later 1630s both Robert Bateman of Wrentham and Henry Bulliant of Walberswick left wills appointing Brewster, among others, to supervise the upbringing of their children.22Wills from the Archdeaconry of Suff. 1629-36 ed. M.E. Allen and N.R. Evans (1986), 409-10; Wills from the Archdeaconry of Suff. 1637-40 ed. M.E. Allen and N.R. Evans (1986), 6-7.

All four Brewster brothers were zealous adherents to the cause of Parliament during the civil war and the three of them still resident in Suffolk - Robert, Francis and Humphrey - together formed a powerful faction pressing for the energetic pursuit of victory against the king. Francis Brewster was involved in all the key aspects of the Suffolk war effort, taking part in the command of the militia, the collection of taxation, and the purges of the local malignant clergy. From the outset, he sat on the standing committee which attempted to coordinate the county’s response to the multitude of conflicting demands arising from the hostilities.23Suff. ed. Everitt, 59, 69, 76, 77, 131; SP28/243. Parliament singled him out in May 1643 to become one of the four new Suffolk deputy lieutenants, clearly showing that he was regarded at Westminster as trustworthy. He was charged with organizing the defence of eastern Suffolk.24CJ iii. 80a; P. Fisher, For the...Cttees. for the Co. of Suffolke (1648), 27 (E.448.13). In the summer of 1645, he took a leading part in the county committee’s attempt to assert control over the troublesome garrison at Landguard Fort at the south-eastern tip of Suffolk.25Suff. ed. Everitt, 71; SP28/243: Suff. co. cttee. warrant, 2 Oct. 1645. All the commissions appointed by Parliament to raise money within Suffolk routinely included him, while his eldest son, Francis, found employment as an excise official.26A. and O.; Suff. ed. Everitt, 60; HMC Var. iv. 308; CCC. 693. During 1644 and early 1645 he sat on the local committee for scandalous ministers, perhaps welcoming the chance it gave him to remove those clergymen of whom he and his colleagues disapproved.27Suff. ed. Everitt, 63; Suff. Cttees. for Scandalous Ministers ed. Holmes, 25. It can have occasioned little surprise when both Robert and Francis Brewster were appointed as the elders of the Presbyterian classis for Blything hundred later in 1645.28Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 425.

The Brewsters’ new-found prominence in Suffolk affairs was largely unaffected by the end of the war and the fall of the monarchy in 1649. Francis Brewster may have meant to make a point by not turning up at the Beccles quarter sessions held in April and July 1649 but from October 1649 he resumed his former practice of attending regularly.29 Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/1, ff. 117v, 123v, 127, 132, 135v, 140; B105/2/2, ff. 1, 16, 31. His key role in the Suffolk militia was recognized in 1650 when first he was appointed one of the captains for the defence of the Suffolk coast and later promoted to become the major of one of the county’s regiments of foot.30SP25/119, pp. 65-6; CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 507, 512.

His previous appointment as a Presbyterian elder notwithstanding, Brewster’s religious views were staunchly Independent. Along with the preachers, John Phillip and William Ames, he had established a congregational church at Wrentham in February 1650, endowing it with £100 and two silver cups.31J. Browne, The Congregational Church at Wrentham (1854), 11 and n. One result of this patronage of Independency was his election to Parliament, for it was as a result of the nominations made by such churches throughout Suffolk in their address of May 1653 to the council of state that Brewster found himself chosen for the Nominated Parliament.32Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 94. His only certain committee appointments were those to the two committees for Irish affairs, the second of which prepared the Irish land bill (9 and 20 July). The person added to the committee on the sale of royal forests bill (26 Oct.) was more probably his brother, John, who was one of those MPs nominated from Essex.33CJ vii. 283b, 286b, 340a. In December 1653 Brewster was listed as favouring the idea that the clergy should be maintained at the public expense.34A Catalogue of the Names of the Last Parliament (1654, 669 f. 19.3).

In June 1654 Brewster helped to organize the response to the request from the lord protector, Oliver Cromwell*, for more information about the state of the Suffolk churches in order to gauge their financial needs.35Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 155-8. Those who prepared the Suffolk replies on the state of the local churches possibly hoped that they would encourage action on the subject in the forthcoming Parliament. It may have been for that reason that Brewster decide to stand for one of the ten county seats allocated to Suffolk under the new franchise created by the Instrument of Government. Perhaps also the unorthodox selection methods used in 1653 encouraged him into believing unrealistically that the Suffolk electorate would view him as a suitable MP. However, this sole attempt by him to stand in an open parliamentary election ended in failure. He polled only 569 or 557 votes (William Bloys*, one of the winning candidates, who took a note of the result, was unsure) and so fell well short of the number he needed to gain one of the seats available. James Harvey, the only other person whose name had been put forward from Suffolk for the 1653 Nominated Parliament and who tried his luck in these elections, fared even worse.36Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v.

It was ironically Brewster’s omission from the Suffolk commission of the peace in 1656 which best proves his steadfast support for the protectorate. The omission was a mistake and the local major-general, Hezekiah Haines*, immediately wrote to the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, to remedy the error. Haines took the opportunity to pay handsome tribute to Brewster as ‘a right honest man as any in the country, and the ablest to serve the country of that name’. He added that ‘we have but few honest men, and would not willingly they should be discouraged’.37TSP v. 230.

The loyal servant however did not have long to live. He let the 1656 elections pass without allowing his named to be considered again. It would seem that he was still alive in early October 1657, but he died shortly thereafter. He was buried at Wrentham on 11 November 1657.38Vis. Norf. 1664, ii. 253; E. Anglian Misc. (1907), 68. By 1652 Brewster had already made financial arrangements for his eldest son (then aged 25) and so the will he drew up at that date confined itself to specifying bequests for his wife and their other children.39PROB11/275/267. The fate of these children is largely unknown and it would appear that none of his descendants sat in Parliament.40E. Anglian Misc. (1907), 72-3.