SHUTTLEWORTH, Richard II (1613-49), of Cornfield nr. Padiham, Whalley, Lancs.

In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, Shuttleworth was returned for Clitheroe, taking the senior place. He owed his election to the strength of his father’s interest in the borough, where the Shuttleworths owned at least one burgage-tenement and possibly the town’s mill.11Supra, ‘Clitheroe’; Lancs. RO, DDFR 1/20; DDFR 4/1-8. Moreover, his father held the office of out-bailiff of Clitheroe at the time of the election and was therefore one of the borough’s returning officers.12Infra, ‘Richard Shuttleworthe I’; C219/42/2/144. Like his father, who was returned for Preston, Shuttleworth made no recorded impression upon the proceedings of the Short Parliament.

In the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640, Shuttleworth was re-elected for Clitheroe, although on this occasion, Raphe Assheton I may have taken the senior place.13Supra, ‘Clitheroe’. Shuttleworth’s father was again returned for Preston, and the clerk of the House’s failure to distinguish between the two men – if indeed both MPs were active in the Commons at the same time – makes it difficult to work out precisely what part, if any, Shuttleworth played in the Long Parliament’s proceedings. The evidence suggests that the majority of the committee appointments received by ‘Mr Richard Shuttleworth’ during the early months of the Parliament were those of Shuttleworthe I.14Infra, ‘Richard Shuttleworthe I’. However, both men were present in the House on 3 May 1641 when they took the Protestation.15CJ ii. 133b.

For someone who appears to have remained silent in debate and who never chaired a committee (so far as is known), Shuttleworth seems to have attracted an unusual amount of controversy. On 1 March 1641, during a division on whether to send an anti-puritan clergyman to the Tower, ‘Mr Shuttleworth’ remained in his seat and refused to explain himself – apparently he was anxious not to lose his place in the crowded chamber. After debating which side he was on in this division, ‘it was concluded that he must be an “no”’ – although on what basis is not clear – and the motion to commit the cleric was defeated by one vote.16Procs. LP ii. 585, 589-90. Grumbling by one parliamentary diarist after the vote about the evils of admitting ‘infants’ (i.e. men under the age of 21) into the House, ‘when it may come to their single vote to overthrow any law’, implies that the offending MP was Shuttleworth rather than his father – even though Shuttleworth II was 27 at the time.17D’Ewes (N), 420; Procs. LP ii. 589. He may have been at the centre of attention again on 17 August, when for some reason a request by ‘Mr Shuttleworth’ for leave to go into the country ‘upon urgent occasions’ was objected to by many Members and passed only after a vote.18CJ ii. 259b; Procs. LP vi. 455.

At the outbreak of the civil war, Shuttleworth joined his father and five of his brothers in taking up arms for Parliament.19BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database. He appears to have served as lieutenant-colonel in his father’s regiment – at least until the Self-Denying Ordinance came into effect – but details of his military career are shrouded in mystery.20Gratton, Lancs. 195. One of the Shuttleworth MPs – again, very probably Shuttleworthe I – attended the House between May 1646 and early 1648.21Infra, ‘Richard Shuttleworthe I’. The only firm evidence for Shuttleworth II’s presence in the House during the mid-1640s is a Commons’ order of 26 August 1647 granting him leave of absence for the recovery of his health.22CJ v. 284a. He was declared absent and excused at the call of the House on 9 October 1647, 24 April 1648 and again on 26 September.23CJ v. 329b, 543b; vi. 34a. It was reported in May 1648 that he was ‘very weak by his tedious infirmities and not like to recover’.24Chetham’s Lib. A.3.90, f. 4v.

Shuttleworth II was almost certainly in Lancashire at the time of Pride’s Purge in December 1648, and although he was not included on several contemporary lists of the secluded Members, both he and his father were named by William Prynne* in 1660 among those who had been secluded or had refused to sit.25A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669 f.13.62); [W. Prynne], A Vindication of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1649), irreg. pag. (E.539.5); A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members (1660), 57 (E.1013.22).

Shuttleworth died early in 1649 and was buried at Padiham on 21 January.26Regs. of Padiham, ed. Laycock, 100. No will is recorded. His grandson and namesake represented Lancashire as a tory from 1705 to 1749.27HP Commons, 1690-1715.