ROBERTS, Sir William (1604-62), of Neasden, Willesden, Mdx.

The Roberts family held land in Willesden from the beginning of the fifteenth century, and firmly established themselves as the major landowners in the area with the building of Neasden Manor during the reign of Henry VIII. Sir William became heir to his grandfather Francis Roberts after the deaths of his father (in 1610) and his twin brother Barne (c.1618-20). At Cambridge, Roberts was a pupil of the puritan divine John Preston, and was one of the ‘twelve disciples’ who moved from Queens’ to Emmanuel on Preston’s appointment as master of the latter.44I. Morgan, Prince Charles’s Puritan Chaplains (1957), 32. Roberts was knighted at the relatively young age of 19 and was married soon after, extending his landed interest into nearby Kilburn. In 1631, on the death of his grandfather, he at last inherited the family estates in Middlesex.45PROB11/160/635. It was later alleged that Roberts’s hostility to episcopacy led him to live in Holland during ‘the bishops ruffling’, and that he did not return until after the outbreak of civil war, but other evidence renders this questionable.46Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 16 (E.977.3). Roberts was appointed to the commission for disarming recusants in Middlesex in August 1641, and in November of that year he was included in the oyer and terminer commission, and the Commons instructed him to join Sir John Francklyn* in confiscating arms from the home of their fellow JP, Sir Edward Spencer*.47LJ iv. 385b; C181/5, f. 213v; CJ ii. 866b. Roberts had been appointed deputy lieutenant of Middlesex by Parliament before December 1642.48CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 417. In the following winter, he participated in the collection of relief for the inhabitants of Old Brentford whose property had been damaged during the king’s advance on London.49CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 417. Roberts was voted one of the feoffees in trust for the sale of bishops’ lands in the bill to abolish episcopacy which was included in the peace proposals presented at Oxford in January 1643, and this probably provoked the king to removal him from the commission of the peace two months later.50Add. 18777, f. 131. From the spring of 1643 Roberts was appointed to numerous local commissions, including those for assessment, sequestration and raising volunteers for the defence of the county.51A. and O. In November 1644 he was ordered by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to arrange for militia troops from Middlesex to suppress a mutiny by the garrison at Windsor.52CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 127. Roberts was appointed as a contractor for the sale of bishops’ lands in November 1646, and took a leading role in the business thereafter.53LJ viii. 560a; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 377. He presented petitions to Parliament on behalf of the contractors in October 1647 and September 1648,54Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 223; CJ vi. 22b. and gained personally from the sales with the purchase of the manor of Witherington in Northamptonshire, formerly belonging to the bishop of Peterborough, in March 1649.55Bodl. MS Rawl. B.239, p. 27. Roberts had been appointed to the high court of justice to try the king in the previous January, but did not sit.56Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1379.

In the early years of the commonwealth, Roberts remained an important figure in local affairs. A petition from the sword makers of Hounslow Heath was referred to him by the council of state in June 1649; he was made governor of Westminster School in September 1649; and as a militia commissioner he was called upon to report to the government in May and June 1650.57CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 186; 1650, pp. 157, 188; A. and O. Roberts was also busy in the sale of forfeited estates. He continued as contractor for bishops’ lands, extended his remit to include dean and chapter lands in April 1649 and crown lands in July, and he was made a trustee for fee-farm rents in March 1650.58A. and O. In January 1652, the Rump appointed him to the Hale commission on law reform, despite the fact that the commission was meant to rectify the shortcomings of the sale of confiscated estates for which Roberts was himself responsible.59Aylmer, State’s Servants, 252. Roberts was not slow to line his own pockets. Amongst his purchases in this period were the former crown manor of Neasden and the prebendal lands of Neasden, Oxgate, Harlesden and Chambers, which had been attached to Westminster Abbey.60Lysons, Environs iii. 613; VCH Mdx vii. 211, 216-7; Stowe 862, f. 38. On 8 April 1653 he was appointed judge for the probate of wills.61A. and O.

After the dissolution of the Rump on 20 April 1653, Roberts was prepared to work with the new regime. He was in favour with the council of state, which gave him the right to present a minister at Kingsbury in June and assigned him lodgings in Whitehall on 1 July.62CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 414; 1653-4, p.1. Roberts was also selected to represent Middlesex in Nominated Assembly. His involvement with the circle around Oliver Cromwell* soon became apparent. On the first day of the session he was entrusted with the text of the lord general’s ‘instrument of supreme authority’ and reintroduced it the following day.63CJ vii. 281b. On 6 July he told for the majority with another Cromwellian, Colonel William Sydenham* in favour of recognising the Assembly to be a Parliament and on 7 July he was ordered to request Cromwell to sit on the council of state.64CJ vii. 282a. Roberts’s main role during this session was administrative. He was named to the committee on committees on 14 July, and to some of the most important standing committees established by it, namely those on the treasuries (16 July) and tithes (19 July).65CJ vii. 285b, 286a. On 20 July he was named to the committee for inspecting the treasuries and to regulate their offices and salaries.66CJ vii. 287a. He reported the membership of the committee for the advancement of learning on the following day and was himself added to the committee.67CJ vii. 287b. On 31 July he was defeated as teller with Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* in a move to appoint Lislebone Long* as an Admiralty judge.68CJ vii. 292b. Roberts reported from the committee considering amendments to a bill on legal reform, based on the recommendations of the Hale Commission, on 1 August.69CJ vii. 293b; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 264-5. On 29 August he was appointed to a committee concerning arrears in excise, but thereafter his activity tailed off, and he received no further mention in the House until 26 October, when he was ordered to make a report from the committee for obstructions.70CJ vii. 309b, 340a.

During the summer and autumn of 1653 Roberts had retained his administrative and local offices, working closely with the council of state. In July he and Josias Berners* were among those instructed to hear and determine outstanding cases concerning the sale of delinquents’ estates and in the same month he joined Arthur Squibb* as one of the commissioners named in an act on the receipts of treasuries.71CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 8, 55. In August, he was among the commissioners of oyer and terminer ordered to attend the justices of the Old Bailey.72CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 92. On 1 November Roberts was elected as a member of the council of state, receiving 63 votes – the second highest number for the new entrants.73CJ vii. 344a-b. In the next few weeks he proved an active councillor, being appointed to committees to consider papers from the Spanish ambassador and the parliamentary commissioners in Ireland (7 Nov.), to the committee for the ordnance (8 Nov.) and the committee for the mint (18 Nov.), and he also reported to Parliament on the state of the post office (1 Dec.).74CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 233-4, 237, 258, 279. In the Commons, he made two reports from the committee on the bill for the sale of forest lands, on 9 and 11 November, and on 1 December he and Squibb were ordered to investigate the appearance of a man ‘with a naked knife’ at the doors of the House.75CJ, vii. 347b, 349a, 361a. Roberts was implicated in the break-up of the Nominated Assembly in December. One commentator listed him among a self-interested faction openly hostile to the ‘saints’.76A Faithfull Searching Home Word (1659), 28 (E.774.1). After the dissolution it was said that Roberts, who had ‘helped to break it … rejoiced and made merry with the rest of his brethren in Colonel Sydenham’s chamber’.77Second Narrative, 16.

On the establishment of the protectorate Roberts was not made a member of Cromwell’s council, but he was heavily involved in other aspects of the new government. His position as a treasury commissioner was renewed in December; he was appointed a commissioner for ‘preservation’ (i.e. improvement) of the customs; he advised the revenue committee on the preparation of an ordinance for continuing excise and customs levies in February 1654; and in March he was made one of five commissioners to handle appeals concerning arrears of excise.78CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 316, 317, 358, 425; 1654, pp. 35, 342; 1655, p. 51. On 31 August Roberts was made co-auditor of the receipt of exchequer, working alongside Thomas Fauconberge*.79Officers of the Exchequer, 207. In the same month, Roberts was elected for Middlesex for the first protectorate Parliament. He was named to the privileges on 5 September, and later in the month he was appointed to two important committees: for ejecting scandalous ministers (25 Sept.) and to consider the state of the army and navy (26 Sept.).80CJ vii. 366b, 370a, 370b. Roberts was subsequently appointed to the committees to regulate the jurisdiction of chancery (5 Oct.), to consider a petition from Lincolnshire fen drainers (31 Oct.), and to redress abuses in writs of certiorari and habeas corpus (3 Nov.).81CJ vii. 374a, 380a, 381b. His final appointment in this Parliament, on 22 November, was to a committee to receive accounts of public money in order to investigate fraud against the state.82CJ vii. 387b. Roberts’s extensive involvement in administrative and financial measures is fairly clear from the Journals, but there is no evidence that he was engaged in politics at this time, and he apparently took no part in the debates on the Government Bill, which dominated the second half of this Parliament.

After the dissolution of the first protectorate Parliament, Roberts continued in his role as auditor of the exchequer, which he exercised single-handed during the illness of Thomas Fauconberge, who died in September 1655.83Add. 4196, ff. 5, 9; HMC Laing i. 298, 300. As auditor, Roberts processed warrants received from the treasury commissioners (Bulstrode Whitelocke*, William Sydenham*, Sir Thomas Widdrington* and later Edward Montagu*), and played an important role in disbursing money to the protectoral household, the council and the navy.84Add. 4196-7; E404/238. In February he was confirmed in his position as a commissioner for preservation of customs, and in June he was among those charged with drawing up legislation to prohibit the growing of tobacco in England.85CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 51, 201. Roberts’s administrative duties were briefly interrupted in August, when he was wounded, and one of his sons killed, when attacked by thieves near Tyburn.86Clarke Pprs iii. 51. He was back in harness by the end of the month, however, and signed exchequer accounts and committee of appeals warrant in the next few weeks.87CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 311, 330. In November he was given charge of the investigations into the corrupt behaviour of the customs commissioner, and his fellow MP for Middlesex in the previous Parliament, Edmund Harvey I*.88Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 216. By January 1656 Roberts had joined the commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth, working with the local major-general, John Barkstead*, and was active in this capacity as late as May.89TSP iv. 406, 771. As Roberts had fingers in so many pies, it was small wonder that a satirical account of the protectorate, penned later in the year, had him exclaim: ‘I have all the small cards, and now at picquet I have all the great’.90‘The Royall Game at Picquet’ (1656, E.886.4). Roberts was re-elected for Middlesex in a hotly-contested election in August 1656, as a government placeman.91Clarke Pprs iii. 70; TSP v. 286, 337.

In the early months of the second protectorate Parliament, Roberts was again mainly involved mainly with administrative affairs. He was named to the committee of privileges on 18 September and to that for Irish affairs on 23 September.92CJ vii. 424b, 427a. On 3 October he joined a councillor, Nathaniel Fiennes I, as teller against a motion rewording the bill against arbitrary fines on copyhold lands; the next day he was named to a committee on a bill for the quiet enjoying of sequestered ecclesiastical lands; and on 7 October he was appointed to a committee to consider statutes on artificers’ wages.93CJ vii. 433b, 434a, 435b. After a report by his treasury colleague (and protectoral councillor), William Sydenham, on the cost of the naval war against Spain, Roberts was named to the committee on the arrears of excise on 17 October.94CJ vii. 440a. On 6 December Roberts and the Westminster MP, Edward Gravener*, were added to the committee on civil law, and three days later he was named to the committee on the bill for Wyggeston’s Hospital in Leicester, proposing in the discussions that followed that leases of the hospital lands should be for fixed terms rather than lives.95CJ vii. 464b, 466a; Burton’s Diary i. 84.

Roberts played very little part in political controversy in this period. During the debate on the Quaker, James Naylor, his interventions were procedural. On 8 December he insisted that if Naylor’s offence was to be described specifically as a ‘horrid’ blasphemy, then it should be made clear that was the opinion of the House as opposed to the committee which drew up the charges.96Burton’s Diary i. 66. On 12 December, during a lengthy debate on how Naylor was to be punished, Roberts’s contribution was limited to advice on the order of speakers in the debate.97Burton’s Diary i. 125. On 18 December Roberts and Sir Thomas Wroth called for the Commons’ order should be clarified, to make it clear when Naylor’s punishment was to be carried out.98Burton’s Diary i. 168. By the end of the month, however, Roberts had changed his tune. On 25 December, when the militia bill that would underpin the regime of the major generals was introduced by John Disbrowe, Roberts acted with Richard Hampden as teller against putting the question for the introduction of the bill.99CJ vii. 475a. At the call of the House on 31 December Roberts was recorded as absent having been excused, and apart from a single committee appointment on 6 January he seems to have been away from the Commons until 4 March, when he was appointed to the committee on a bill of local interest, for dividing the parish of St Andrew’s Holborn.100Burton’s Diary i. 285; CJ vii. 479b, 498a.

In the spring of 1657, Roberts was a strong supporter of constitutional change. On 24 March he was again teller with Hampden against the postponement of the debate on the 1st article of the Remonstrance, which offered the crown to Cromwell.101CJ vii. 511a. At the end of the month he voted in favour of kingship, appearing later in the printed ‘catalogue of the kinglings’ alongside Gravener.102A Narrative of the Late Parliament (Feb. 1658), 22 (E.935.5). On 7 April Roberts was appointed to the committee sent to urge Cromwell to accept the new constitution, renamed the Humble Petition and Advice.103CJ vii. 521a. On 5 May Roberts urged the House to continue the adjournment of all other business until ‘this great business’ was concluded – a motion supported by William Lenthall but rejected by MPs tired of delays in other pressing legislation.104Burton’s Diary ii. 106-7. On 19 May Roberts was teller with Lord Broghill (Robert Boyle*) in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the replacement of the title of king with that of lord protector in the Humble Petition. The motion was defeated by 77 to 45, with the councillors Charles Fleetwood and Walter Strickland telling against.105CJ, vii. 535a. It may be significant that Roberts was not named to the consequent committee to consider how the powers of the new-style protector might be limited. Roberts had returned to financial matters by 30 May, when he was appointed to a committee to reorganise the treasury with a view to raising the revenues stipulated in the Humble Petition.106CJ vii. 543a. In his final recorded speech, on 4 June, Roberts warned the House not to postpone the trial of one Colonel Cooke for fear of tumults such as those which had ensued at Westminster Hall during the trial of Sir Sackville Crowe†.107Burton’s Diary ii. 174. On 15 June Roberts was named to the committee on a bill for the better choosing of officers and others in positions of trust.108CJ vii. 557b.

On 9 December 1657 Roberts was summoned to Cromwell’s Other House. As one critic put it, his appointment was an acknowledgement of his ‘right principles to the court interest’.109Second Narrative, 16. When Parliament reconvened in January 1658, Roberts took his seat in the upper chamber, taking the oath on 20 January. He sat regularly until the dissolution on 4 February, being named to the committee for petitions on 21 January and the committee on a naturalisation case on 28 January.110HMC Lords n.s. i. 504, 506, 508-23. In the early months of 1658 Roberts also worked closely with the council, providing a list of the fees of exchequer officials in January, and reporting on a petition concerning the tin trade in March.111CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 263, 337. After the death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658 and the accession of Richard Cromwell* as protector, Roberts continued to fulfil his official functions at the exchequer.112E404/238, unfol.; Add. 4197, f. 112. On 23 November 1658 he joined the other peers in Oliver Cromwell’s funeral procession.113Burton’s Diary ii. 527. He sat in the Other House during Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, attending almost all meetings until the forced closure of the Parliament on 22 April, and being appointed to committees on stage plays (15 Feb.) and the bill of indemnity (23 Mar.).114HMC Lords n.s. iv. 525-67. Although Roberts lost much of his political influence with the fall of the protectorate in May 1659, he remained an exchequer official, processing warrants in July and September of that year.115Add. 4197, ff. 199, 200, 207, 234. After the military coup of October 1659 he seems to have suspended operations, but he resumed in January 1660.116Add. 4197, ff. 118-9, 122, 126, 132, 145, 264, 268. In March he was instructed by the council of state to arrange for a payment of £20,000 to George Monck*, and in the next few weeks he was involved in raising money to pay the army.117CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 398, 415, 593-600. Roberts stood with Sir James Harington* for Middlesex during the elections to the Convention Parliament in April 1660 but their bid was unsuccessful.118CCSP iv. 644.

Roberts lost his title, commissions and ecclesiastical lands at the Restoration, but he was not considered an implacable enemy by the new regime, which was content to retain him as auditor of the exchequer until the second half of June, and there is some evidence that he was even nominated for the order of the Royal Oak.119Add. 4197, f. 279; Officers of the Exchequer, 207; Oxford DNB. He remained a wealthy man at his death on 19 September 1662. He was buried at St. Mary’s, Willesden on 27 September.120Lysons, Environs iii. 623. In his will, Roberts bequeathed a life interest in the bulk of his estate to his wife for her jointure and named her sole administratrix.121PROB11/309/474. In 1672 she took advantage of the Declaration of Indulgence to license Neasden Manor as an Independent meeting house.122Turner, Orig. Recs. of Early Non-conformity i. 451. Roberts was succeeded by his son, Sir William†, who was created first baronet in 1662 and entered Parliament for Middlesex in 1679.123Valentine, ‘Roberts Family’, 186.