LIVESAY, Sir Michael, 1st bt. (?1611-?1665), of Eastchurch, Sheppey, Kent.

Livesay was one of the most controversial and ruthless parliamentarian figures in Kent during the civil wars, and as a supporter of the lesser gentry and radicals has been described as ‘quarrelsome and maladjusted’. He is generally portrayed as an ‘upstart’ without deep roots in the county, but this is misleading.37Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 31, 188, 307, 312. Sir Michael’s grandfather, Robert Livesay of Streatham, was twice sheriff of Surrey (1592 and 1602), and purchased the parsonage of Eastchurch in 1571. Livesay’s father, Gabriel, who grew up in Tooting Bec before his admission to the Inner Temple in 1591, married the daughter of a knight, Sir Thomas Crompton of Hounslow in Middlesex. Subsequently settling in Kent, he rapidly became a figure of influence in the community, not least through his second marriage, to a daughter of Sir Michael Sondes† of Throwley; in 1618 he was pricked as sheriff.38I. Temple database; London Mar. Lics ed. Chester, 850; R.H. Dickson, ‘Eastchurch’, Arch. Cant. xxvi. 326-7; Robertson, ‘All Saints’, 379.

Livesay seems to have been the son of Gabriel and Anne baptised at Throwley in January 1611.39Throwley par. reg. transcript. Following Gabriel Livesay’s death in March 1622 or 1623, the wardship of young Michael was sold for the substantial sum of 1,000 marks to his widow, Anne, who soon married her kinsman Sir John Heyward† (c.1591-1636).40WARD9/162, f. 388; HP Commons 1604-1629. Heyward not only moved from his main base in Shropshire to take up residence at Hollingborne, but also secured ownership of it.41J. Philipot, Villare Cantianum (1659), 381. Shortly before the end of September 1632 he negotiated a rapid sale because, as he informed his brother-in-law, his stepson was telling people ‘that the house is his without paying any money for it: and that he will get it by a trick in law, without money’; now the deed was done, ‘we shall see the young gentleman’s wit and tricks’.42Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/4/49. Whatever the probity or otherwise of the financial transactions that underlay this, it seems clear that Michael Livesay had some grounds for complaint against his stepfather, who had long been in trouble with the ecclesiastical authorities over non-payment of dues during Michael’s minority.43LPL, MS 942; Canterbury Cathedral Archives, DCb/J/J/34/1. On the one hand Livesey had been expensively elevated to the baronetcy in 1627, while still in his teens; on the other hand, he does not appear to have received an education at university or the inns of court, and like other wards he may have been married young.44CB. His wife is known only as Elizabeth; Gabriel Livesay*, baptised in April 1635 and apparently the future MP, was the first of their children to appear in the Eastchurch parish register.45Eastchurch par. reg. transcript. It was later alleged that Michael Livesay was heavily indebted before the civil wars, during which his wealth was ‘very much augmented’; he was unquestionably embroiled in litigation over his inheritance.46M. Carter, A Most True and Exact Relation (1650), 7.g; C8/77/93.

Parliamentarian activist 1640-5

Livesay was nominated to the commission of the peace in 1637, shortly after Heyward’s death; other local appointments soon followed.47C231/5, p. 232; C181/5, f. 144v; SR. After the assembly of the Long Parliament, he emerged as a puritan firebrand in the county. In November 1640 he presented to the Commons information against recusants, while on 8 February 1642 he delivered the Kentish petition of grievances, and on 11 April that year he was called as a witness by the House of Lords in connection with the Kent petition against Sir George Strode.48CJ ii. 34b; Procs. LP i. 247, 255; PJ i. 313, 320; The Petition of the County of Northampton (1642), 6-8 (E.135.36); LJ iv. 710b. Before the end of August, in anticipation of war, Livesay had assembled the troops responsible for defacing Canterbury Cathedral, although Dr Thomas Paske, one of the prebendaries, reported on 1 September that an apologetic Livesay was ‘overwhelmed with sorrow’ about the incident, ‘and the writer is inclined to believe him, on account of his courteous usage that night, and care to prevent further mischief’.49HMC 5th Rep. 45-6. This did not prevent the incident surfacing before the House of Lords later in the month, and however much Livesay may have disavowed his role, it is notable that on 8 November he was one of only two Kentish parliamentarians excluded from pardon by Charles I.50LJ v. 360b-361a; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 54.

Over the next twelve months Livesay was to the fore in rallying the region to Parliament. In November he raised 300 horse and dragoons, was active against malignants in Kent, and arrested the royalist sheriff of the county.51Bodl. Rawl. D.141, pp. 54, 57. Late in the month he was involved in capturing Chichester for Parliament, and during the winter of 1642/3 he apprehended Sir William Sheffield (for which he received the thanks of the House) and seized horses in Kent, upon orders from the Commons, although in January Viscountess Montagu obtained the protection of the House of Lords after complaining that a cornet of Livesey had taken from her horses to the value of £1,000.52Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 100; Bodl. Rawl. D.141, pp. 61, 63; HMC Portland, i. 97; CJ ii. 979b; iii. 4a, 25a; LJ v. 574a. In the spring and summer of 1643 Livesay was involved in military recruiting, and his own troops were called on to execute ordinances for assessments and sequestrations, and to apprehend delinquents.53Add. 33512, ff. 78, 81, 82; CJ iii. 43a, 57b, 58a, 173b, 180a. He played a prominent part in dealing with the insurrection in the county during July and August, working with Thomas Blount* to search for arms employed by the rebels, and he followed this up throughout the remainder of the year.54CJ iii. 185a, 195a, 199a, 209b; HMC Portland, i. 131, 150. Such dedication to the parliamentarian cause led to his nomination as sheriff of Kent in December 1643.55CJ iii. 354b.

While at least one commentator noted in his favour that ‘good Sir Michael Livesey must troop it alone, [where] others are ashamed to appear in God’s cause’, his military service became dogged by controversy.56Praemunitio Kanciae Commitatui (1643), 6. Following his participation in the battle of Cheriton Down in March 1644, articles were preferred against him by a subordinate officer, Major Anthony Weldon, (who had already lodged complaints the previous summer) accusing him – among other misdemeanours and mistakes – of deserting the field.57CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 171-2; CJ iii. 185a, 259a, 508b. On 23 July regional commander Sir William Waller* complained from Abingdon to the Committee of Both Kingdoms that the previous day Livesey and Sir Thomas Pierce had mutinously ordered their troops to march away.58CSP Dom. 1644, p. 370. At the root of the matter was a difference in perception as to how the war should be conducted: while Livesay and the militants on the Kent county committee doubted Waller’s competence and wished to see their forces deployed primarily within the county, Waller and others distrusted Livesay but considered his regiment indispensible to service elsewhere. Having interviewed Livesay, and despatched Sir Arthur Hesilrige* and Sir Henry Vane II* to mollify the Kent committee, in late September the CBK, mindful of the exigencies of the wider conflict, ordered Livesay to rejoin Waller, expressing the hope that the two men would sink their differences so as not to undermine the war effort.59CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 375-7, 384, 386, 387-8, 395, 421, 423, 427, 455, 522, 534. Reports of the taking of Arundel at the turn of the year suggest that they did so at a critical point.60Sir W. Waller, A Full Relation (1645), sig. A2 (E.81.10).

Livesay remained in the army until the creation of the New Model, serving under Waller as a colonel of horse and dragoons from February to April 1645. His tenure was again contested. In February Anthony Weldon posted charges of cowardice and mutiny against Livesay in Westminster Hall, but following an affirmation from Hesilrige (no friend of Waller but no defender of the half-hearted) that Livesay ‘behaved himself valiantly, like a soldier of such charge’, Weldon was imprisoned.61HMC 6th Rep. 48; LJ vii. 240; The Declaration of Colonel Anthony Weldon (1649), 13-19; SP28/267iv, ff. 1-11. In the provisional plans for the new army Livesay was nominated as colonel of the eleventh regiment of horse, but following the ‘mutiny’ of late April, in which his troops were reported to have withdrawn from Waller’s army into Kent, Livesay was replaced by Henry Ireton*. While at least one of his men was executed as a mutineer, the whole incident and Livesay’s role in it is opaque, and it is not clear whether he forfeited his new commission or declined it.62L. Spring, The Campaigns of Waller’s Southern Association (1997), 68; CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 419-20, 436-7, 440-1, 443, 452-3, 471; Sloane 1519, f. 106; The Moderate Intelligencer no. 11 (8-15 May 1645), 88 (E.284.6).

Recruiter MP and Independent, 1645-8

Freed – perhaps involuntarily, perhaps consciously – from any potential disqualification under the Self-Denying Ordinance, on 19 September Livesay was returned to Parliament as MP for Queenborough, following the issue of a writ to secure a replacement for William Harrison*.63Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/RPr6; Qb/JMS4, f. 171v. Livesay had strong ties with the borough, and had been a freeman since September 1641.64Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMS4, f. 153. His presence in the House was first recorded on 7 October, when he was named to a committee to consider how to raise money for the army, but a week later he was given permission to return to the county, and did not reappear in the Journal that year.65CJ iv. 299a, 308a. From January 1646 until the forcing of the Houses in July 1647, Livesay was named to just ten further committees, discussing issues such as assessments, the response to scandalous offences, financial maintenance for ‘parliamentarian’ bishops, and provisions for preventing the ‘escape’ of members of the royal family, as well as matters relating to Kent, and the case of Colonel John Birch*.66CJ iv. 521a, 563a, 702b, 703a, 712a; CJ v. 27a, 171b. Most notable, perhaps, was his nomination in May 1647 to the Committee for Indemnity, where he evidently became an active figure.67CJ iv. 174a. That July Sir Thomas Peyton*, complaining about the progress of his cause before the committee, alleged that his rival

having used Sir Michael Livesay (a man I have had the happiness never to be intimately acquainted with, and the honour to have received from him many disobliging acts since these late troubles) he easily in my absence procured an order against me.68Add. 44846, f. 39v.

Meanwhile Livesay’s 17 tellerships reveal that he was a supporter of the Independents, and that he worked closely with the most radical members of the Commons. On 1 January 1646, for example, he worked with Sir Henry Heyman* against the Presbyterians Denzil Holles* and Sir William Lewis* to ensure that the ordinance regarding martial law would not be referred to a committee of the whole House, and was duly named to the select committee.69CJ iv. 394a-b. On 14 April Livesay was a teller in divisions which saw the House split along factional lines over the proceedings against Alderman John Warner, for non-payment of customs on tobacco.70CJ iv. 508b. On 16 April Livesay and Sir Henry Vane were tellers in a successful bid to commit an ordinance for bringing in the arrears of the court of wards, and Livesay was placed on that committee too.71CJ iv. 511b, 552a. On 29 April he and Sir Peter Wentworth* lined up against two Presbyterians to press for consideration of the information against one Mr Jenkins, and on 29 June he and Sir Arthur Hesilrige were tellers against Holles regarding a motion to command Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice to leave the country.72CJ iv. 527a, 588b. The following September Livesay and Hesilrige again combined in opposition to Holles against a motion concerning the disbandment of forces in Wiltshire, and in October they marshalled sufficient votes to reverse a Presbyterian-inspired decision to prevent Members from serving as commissioners of the great seal.73CJ iv. 675a, 700b. In November Livesay was a teller in favour of extending the authority of the treasurers at war.74CJ iv. 713b.

After four months’ absence from the Journal, Livesay’s factional allegiance became yet more transparent in the spring of 1647. On 27 April he was a teller alongside Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire* against Sir William Lewis and another Presbyterian, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Robert Lilburne* being summoned to the House to explain his opposition to the policy of sending troops to Ireland.75CJ v. 154b. The same day Livesay joined Hesilrige in opposing Sir Philip Stapilton* on a motion to pay six weeks arrears to troops willing to be so despatched.76CJ v. 155a. On 14 May, with the aforementioned Colonel Birch, he was twice very narrowly defeated by Presbyterians marshalled by Stapilton and Waller for the motion to grant a publishing monopoly to Thomas May for his History of Parliament.77CJ v. 175a. A month later, alongside Edmund Prideaux* and Henry Marten*, he was more convincingly defeated in attempts to block a Presbyterian motion to order Sir Thomas Fairfax* to deliver the king to a parliamentary appointee at Richmond (15 June).78CJ v. 211a.

Following the Presbyterian coup, Livesay was among those Independent members who fled to the safety of the army and signed the ‘engagement’ of 4 August.79Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 755. He returned to Westminster in the aftermath of the army’s march on London. Once again, he was not a zealous committee man, being named to just six between August 1647 and Pride’s Purge in December 1648. Apart from that to consider the cases of absent members (9 Oct. 1647), the bulk of Livesay’s appointments related to the army: the establishment of a new Army Committee (9 Sept.); the petition of sick and wounded soldiers (11 Nov.); the punishment of defaulters upon musters (20 Apr. 1648); and the settling of the militia (4 May).80CJ v. 298b, 329a, 356a, 538a, 551a. This time Livesay’s tellerships did not always follow straightforward factional patterns. On 13 August 1647 he was a teller in favour of reading a declaration of the House of Lords regarding the London militia, and against approving the ordinance repealing the votes passed during the enforced absence of the Independent members, while in early November he was a teller for those who sought to fine absent members, and to approve funds for the disbanding of forces.81CJ v. 273b, 348b, 349b.

Ordered to Kent in December 1647 to expedite the collection of assessments, Livesay became involved in investigating and prosecuting royalist rioters in Canterbury.82CJ v. 400b, 410a, 544b, 559b; CCSP i. 424; SP28/130 iv, f. 27. He may not have returned to the Commons until late April 1648, by which time his political resolve appears to have been stiffened by signs of royalist resurgency.83CJ v. 538a. He was a teller in favour of firm punishment of delinquents (21 Apr.), and against a Presbyterian proposal to restrict the hours during which Members could seek leave of absence from the House (24 Apr.).84CJ v. 539b, 544b. More importantly, in three divisions on 28 April he twice opposed the wording of the parliamentary resolution against altering the fundamental government of king, Lords and Commons, and sought to uphold the Declaration of No Further Addresses against a proposal to enable new negotiations with Charles I; he was defeated in each case.85CJ v. 547a.

However, ordered on 15 May to assist in suppressing the insurrections in Kent, Livesay became preoccupied in local affairs.86CJ v. 559a-b. According to one hostile account, Livesay ‘made it his brags that … he would endeavour to set some of those [rebel] gentlemen packing to another world’.87Carter, Most True and Exact Relation, 7-8. He played his part vigorously, both as a member of the county committee and a local military commander, and by June was reported to have gained control of Dover.88Clarke Pprs, ii. 14-17; Carter, Most True and Exact Relation, 14-15; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1135. Livesay’s hardline zeal is reflected in his correspondence with the Commons and Derby House Committee over the summer.89CJ v. 606a, 633b, 650b, 659b; MS Tanner 57, fo. 444. In mid-June he expressed his dissatisfaction with the moderation which the Commons appeared inclined to display regarding ‘those who have been misled by others, so as to difference them from the ringleaders’, which he conceived would be ‘a winning mercy upon ingenious spirits and an awful exemplary justice upon such as are most unworthy of favour’.90HMC Portland, i. 459; Bodl. Nalson VII, f. 50. Livesay’s diligence and success, both in Kent and Sussex, drew thanks from the Commons and the Derby House Committee, and a commission of martial law to punish spies; his capture of communications from Prince Charles underlined his value in the context of fear of an invasion.91Ludlow, Mems. i. 198; HMC Portland, i. 480, 485, 494; CJ v. 633b, 670a; CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 149, 152-5, 157, 160, 161, 163-73, 175, 224, 241, 243, 257; HMC 7th Rep. 35; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 573; H. Bate, Prince Charles Sailing from Callice (1648), 1-2 (E.452.32); The Landing of the Forces in Kent, 3-4 (E.453.14); The Princes First Fruits (1648, E459.23); A Great Victory Obtained (1648), 2 (E.452.15). Yet there were also growing concerns regarding the radicalism of the troops of the ‘plunder-master general for Kent’ and ‘notorious thief’, who were accused of disorders, indiscipline, seizing the property of disaffected individuals in Surrey, circulating radical papers, and incivility towards Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester, at Penshurst.92CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 178-83, 191-2, 194-6, 198, 204-6, 208, 223-4, 291-2; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1210; A List of the Names of the Members (1648, 669.f.12.103); ‘Mercurius Melancholicus’, The Parliament Arraigned (1648), 20.

Rump Parliament

There is no direct evidence of Livesay’s presence in the chamber of the Commons between the middle of May 1648 and the end of January 1649, although on 25 November he was instructed to return to Kent to oversee the collection of the assessments.93CJ vi. 87b. Before the end of December, as ‘commander-in-chief in the county of Kent’ and probably from the country, he proffered an endorsement of army’s action in Pride’s Purge.94The Declaration and Engagement (1648) 1, 7 (E.536.15). Having been appointed to the high court of justice for the trial of Charles I he attended ten meetings of the commissioners in the Painted Chamber (19-29 Jan.), as well as the four sessions of the trial in Westminster Hall, and he signed the death warrant. He took his dissent from the vote of 5 December only after the sentencing of the king, on 29 January.95CJ vi. 124b.

Named on 31 January to the committee deliberating on the disposal of the king’s body, for the next three weeks Livesay had an unprecedentedly high profile in the Journal.96CJ vi. 127a. In February he received ten further appointments, and although none were to the major standing committees which were replenished during this period, they were not insignificant, relating to matters including justices of the peace, the navy and customs, Presbyterian propaganda against the regicide, and (especially) the abolition of deans and chapters.97CJ vi. 127b, 131b, 134a, 137a-b, 147b. Predictably, he was added to the committee for petitions to consider representations from Kent (2 Feb.).98CJ vi. 130a, On 19 February the House approved the actions in Kent of the lord general, Livesay and Algernon Sydney*, governor of Dover, in keeping up military forces there notwithstanding parliamentary orders the previous October, thanked Livesay formally for his ‘good and faithful service’, and clarified arrangements for payment to disbanded and to continuing troops.99CJ vi. 146a. Livesay was then among those appointed to a small committee tasked with investigating the actions of the county committee in relation to the fines on delinquents intended to fund these payments.100CJ vi. 146b.

However, this was probably one indication of underlying tensions. On the one hand, in his tellerships Livesay had revealed opposition to the creation of a powerful council of state: with Henry Marten* he had opposed the inclusion on it of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke (14 Feb.) and the proposal that it should have a lord president (15 Feb.); later on 19 February he was a teller for those opposed to its considering the Engagement to the new commonwealth.101CJ vi. 140b, 143b, 147a. On the other hand, the council was receiving complaints about Livesay’s troops. On 23 February, the day when he received his last committee nomination for some months – a reasonably important one to help receive the ambassador from the United Provinces – Livesay was summoned to attend the council, who proceeded to review the Commons order of 19 February.102CJ vi. 149b; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 13, 22. On 9 March the council requested the prompt removal of Livesay’s forces from Sandwich, because of a conjunction of troops which ‘that place is not any way able to bear’, but three weeks later, having learned that the regiment, now in Sussex, was ‘a very great burden both in regard of their free quarter and their disorderly carriage, expressing very great disaffection to the commonwealth’, the council ordered them back home again.103SP25/62, p. 31; SP25/94, pp. 27, 60. The soldiers were to be despatched to Ireland under a new commander, but the funding requested from the county committee may have been difficult to obtain.104CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 63, 66, 68, 528. As indicated, the committee was under investigation, among other reasons perhaps as to Livesay’s role on it: his kinsman Sir Thomas Peyton*, a delinquent who may have profited from it, wrote that Livesay used it to take ‘an advantage of gratifying his own prejudices against any are not in his favour’.105Add. 44846, f. 48.

The departure of the regiment without their former commander may have defused the tensions, and in any case, Livesey almost certainly had friends on the council. On 25 April he surfaced again in the Commons as a teller for the hardliners who successfully blocked a plan to permit Charles I’s daughter Elizabeth to go abroad.106CJ vi. 195a. A month later the council needed him ‘to observe the motions in your county’ and prevent ‘desperate designs’ of the ‘disaffected’, and he did not reappear in the Commons Journal until 20 July, when he was added to the Army Committee.107SP25/94, p. 94; CJ vi. 265a. This important appointment, like that on 2 November to the Committee for Compounding (which represents the next occurrence of his name in the record), indicates that he was too influential and experienced to be ignored, and that his absence from view at Westminster was no eclipse.108CJ vi. 318a.

Livesay’s patchy record of involvement in parliamentary proceedings during the remainder of the Rump probably reflected an interplay of distractions in Kent and the airing at Westminster of issues he considered especially important. He reappeared in the Journal for a six week period after 29 January 1650 for an apparent burst of activity during which he received six committee nominations, of which five related to religion (propagation of the gospel in Wales, 29 Jan.; presentations to livings, 8 Feb.), Kent (1 Feb.), assessments (18 Feb.) and shipping (9 Mar.).109CJ vi. 352a, 354a, 359a, 368a, 379b. But the particular impetus behind this appears to have come from a desire once again to shape the conciliar elections. On 12 February Livesay was a teller for those who, after two divisions, rejected the nomination of Sir John Danvers* (a maverick former courtier of whom he was conceivably suspicious), and with Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, for consideration of the option of a using a ballot box in the election.110CJ vi. 362b, 363b. He was also named to a committee to identify a means of selecting four additional councillors, although notwithstanding their earlier stance, he and Hesilrige were tellers against its recommendation that every member should list his favoured candidates (19 Feb.).111CJ vi. 363b, 368b. Taking up once again with the question of the Engagement, Livesay was a teller with radical Henry Marten on 23 February in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent a longer time being allowed for taking it.112CJ vi. 370b.

Livesay’s next spell of visible activity in the summer of 1650 exhibited both radical sympathy – in his nomination to the committee to consider the petition of Robert Lilburne (27 June) – and continued reservations about the council – as a teller to ensure excise commissioners were elected by the Commons rather than nominees of the executive (9 July).113CJ vi. 433a, 439a. A stern attitude to delinquents probably lay behind his nomination to a committee to consider information against Edward Howard*, Lord Howard of Escrick (30 July): he was to be a teller in favour of a radical motion to set the fine of James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, at £16,000 (23 Aug.).114CJ vi. 448b, 459a. Indications of a similar stance appear in a subsequent flurry of activity: he was a teller in favour of the bill for the sale of fee farm rents (4 Feb. 1651); he was appointed to committees considering taking away titles of honour conferred by Charles I (16 Apr.) and regarding the king’s goods (21 May); he was a teller against reading a proviso regarding delinquents’ estates which would have protected their families (5 June). 115CJ vi. 530a, 562b, 576b, 584b. In November 1651 Sir Roger Twysden* complained that Livesay spoke against him at the committee for sequestrations at Haberdashers’ Hall, and that he ‘delivered himself plainly that he meant they should squeeze me as much as they would’.116‘Sir Roger Twysden’s Journal’, Arch. Cant. iv. 189-90.

It is less clear where Livesey stood on other radical issues. He was named on 25 October 1650 to the committee to consider reform of legal proceedings, but his attitude to this is unknown.117CJ vi. 488a. That he was at least interested in a range of business is suggested by sundry tellerships with various partners: supporting with the earl of Pembroke committal of a petition from Grocer and benefactor Henry Box (10 July 1650), and with Carew Raleigh the appointment to the Wiltshire shrievalty (7 Nov.); opposing with Henry Marten a clause in the assessment bill relating to hospitals.118CJ vi. 439a, 492b, 500a.

Livesay’s occasional appearances in the Journal in 1651 again revolved partly around the council of state. On 7 February he was a teller for and reporter of the election results and in November he was a teller for the majority in favour of continuing conciliar elections.119CJ vi. 531b, 532a; vii. 42b. Otherwise, as a justice of the peace now in Surrey and Sussex as well as Kent, his preoccupation seems to have been regional security.120Names of the Justices, 28, 55, 56. Named on 11 February to the committee reviewing stores and magazines of military provisions, on 16 April he was twice a teller for enjoining the council of state to report on the governorship of Dover Castle, held to much local discontent by Algernon Sydney*.121CJ vi. 533b, 563a. For the duration of the commonwealth he had dealt with Kentish matters referred to his attention by the council, but that August his proposal to raise a regiment of horse and a regiment of foot in Kent led to a commission as its commander.122CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 157, 384-5, 409, 435-6; 1650, pp. 27, 29, 33, 178, 337; 1651, pp. 53, 64-5, 174, 331, 391, 482; 1651-2, p. 70; 1652-3, p. 160. In complementarity, his other appearance in the Journal that year was as a teller in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the disbanding of another regiment (2 Oct.).123CJ vii. 25a.

After November 1651 Livesay was absent from the Journal for a longer period than heretofore, possibly partaking of a wider disillusionment which saw others forsake the House. His four appearances in 1652 defy wholesale characterisation. On 30 June 1652 he was a teller with Sir Henry Vane I* in opposition to a motion to consider a petition from Catholics, but whether his motive was religious or political (and of a piece with his views on delinquents) is unknown, as is the rationale behind his inclusion on a committee to hear a petition from Leicestershire (2 June).124CJ vii. 139a, 147a. Less puzzlingly, given his previous record, were his nominations to consider a petition from the army (13 Aug.) and the sale of state lands (27 Nov.).125CJ vii. 164b, 222b.

After yet another gap, Livesay resurfaced to be three times a teller on 16-17 March 1653, suggesting that his influence had never entirely gone away. On the 16th he was fortunate to get the Speaker’s casting vote to secure Queenborough’s representation in future Parliaments, something in which he had an obvious vested interest, but he then failed to do the same for Andover.126CJ vii. 268a. The next day he and Henry Marten were defeated in an attempt to expedite amendments to the act for the probate of wills (17 Mar.).127CJ vii. 268b.

Protectorate and after

In October 1653 Livesay was appointed a judge for the relief of poor prisoners, usually a sign of perceived radicalism.128A. and O. He was not elected to Parliament under the protectorate, to which he was plausibly opposed. Nominations to commissions for assessment and of oyer and terminer continued, but he was not included on the important protectoral commissions in Kent during the 1650s. 129Act for an Assessment (1653), 282 (E.1062.28); A. and O.; C181/6, pp. 12, 59, 89, 124, 145, 170, 219, 236, 277, 305, 372. His appointment as sheriff in both 1655 and 1656 may have been an exercise in neutralisation, preventing him from sitting in Parliament; his son, Gabriel Livesay*, represented Queenborough in 1656, but as an inexperienced 21-year-old.130List of Sheriffs (List and Index ix), 70.

Like many republicans, Livesay returned to Westminster when the Rump was recalled in May 1659. Although illness delayed his appearance, he informed Lenthall that ‘there is no joy under the sun more welcome to me than to do service for this Parliament … to make us comfortable restorers of this nation’s freedom’.131Bodl. Tanner 51, f. 50. Livesay’s first recorded appearance in the House was on 6 July, when he was named to a committee regarding petition of claimants to Irish lands; shortly afterwards he was assigned lodgings in Whitehall.132CJ vii. 706a; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 15, 338. In succeeding weeks Livesey was named to only two committees, to discuss the bills for assessment (1 Sept.) and customs and excise (26 Sept.).133CJ vii. 772a, 786b. He was twice a teller, with Carew Raleigh in support of named additions to the Middlesex militia commission (10 Aug., unsuccessfully), and with Thomas Chaloner* to secure the termination of George Foxcroft’s appointment as a customs commissioner (27 Sept.).134CJ vii. 754b, 787a.

That Livesay supported civilian rule rather than the army faction based at Wallingford House is evident once the Rump resumed its sittings after the autumn’s ‘interruption’. He was named to the committee to consider the cases of those imprisoned by the army (30 Dec. 1659), and in January 1660 was among those appointed to consider money raised for the militia and was awarded the lodgings of Bulstrode Whitelocke*, who had co-operated in the interruption.135CJ vii. 800a, 822a. He was also made a commissioner for the admiralty and navy (28 Jan.).136CJ vii. 825b; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 517. Livesay was at Westminster on 13 February, when as a teller with Luke Robinson* he just failed to secure a military command for Thomas Lilburne, but that was his last visible contribution to parliamentary proceedings.137CJ vii. 842b. It is possible that he withdrew on or before the readmission of the secluded Members.

The Restoration prompted Livesay to flee to the continent. Complaints regarding his activities as a sequestrator in Kent began to surface as early as 19 May 1660, and to his long-standing reputation with some as ‘a most notorious coward’ were added perceptions of ‘a penurious sneaking person, and one that could act an hypocrite to the life, in voice and humble gesture’.138HMC 7th Rep. 86; The Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 18 (E.1923.2); The True Characters (1660), 2 (E.1080.15). Livesay’s estate, worth perhaps £200 a year, was forfeited to the crown because of his signature to the king’s death warrant, and as a fugitive he was the subject of rumours and the target of bounty-hunters.139CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 214, 232, 261, 293, 342, 356, 414; 1661-2, p. 52. It was falsely reported from the Low Countries in October 1660 that he had become involved in an argument and a fight with a gentleman ‘whom he had formerly highly abused in Kent’, and that the locals, upon identifying him as a regicide ‘cut Sir Michael in pieces and trod his body into the dust’.140HMC 5th Rep. 174. In October 1661 an ‘ill-principled fanatic’ called Captain May, who was thought to be one of Livesay’s creatures, was arrested and searched, and by March 1662 he had been traced to Hanau in Hesse.141CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 127; SP29/43, f. 217; CCSP v. 202. Over the next three years he was reported to have travelled to Arnhem, and to have been engaged with John Disbrowe* in a plot which supposedly involved a return to England in October 1663. Livesay’s last known residence was in Rotterdam where he probably died sometime between June 1665 and February 1666, when letters of administration of Dame Elizabeth Livesay’s estate described her as a widow; their daughter Deborah was named as executrix, while all their sons appear to have predeceased them.142CSP Dom. 1663-4, pp. 266, 309, 460; CCSP v. 495; PROB6/41, f. 43v.