SMYTHE, Philip (c.1605-64), of the Inner Temple, London; Baydon, Wilts. and Kensington, Mdx.

The parliamentary career of this MP is often difficult to distinguish from those of others, particularly William Smyth* (until at least June 1643) and Henry Smyth* (from November 1645). His attendance looks intermittent or at least frequently passive or unrecorded. None the less, this well-connected Member was capable of making speeches, and there are occasional glimpses of a confident man with firm opinions. He was certainly the Smith with the longest parliamentary service in this period and he may have been typical of a certain sort of periodically useful back-bencher – a puritan lawyer neither especially enamoured of Presbyterianism nor comfortable with political radicalism, but prepared for the sake of order to co-operate with the powers-that-be.

Smiths or Smythes were established as substantial clothiers in north Wiltshire by the early sixteenth century, but had links through marriage and trade with the capital and Kent, where a senior branch prospered and bought estates at Westenhanger. This MP’s great-uncle was Thomas Smythe† (d. 1591), customer of London, while his wealthy second cousin, also of that name, was created Viscount Strangford in 1628. Philip was the eldest son of his father’s second marriage and of a family notable for the prevalence of unusual biblical names: among his younger siblings were Joseph, Shunamite and twins Moses and Aaron.24Vis. Wilts. 1623, 180-2; CP; Baydon par. reg. His father Henry, whose will exhibited assurance that his ‘many and grievous’ sins were forgiven, seems to have settled the bulk of his estate, based some eight and a half miles north east of Marlborough at Baydon on the Wiltshire/Berkshire border, on the children of his first wife (from a London aldermanic family). At Henry’s death in December 1631 Philip received only a modest sum and the reversion, after his mother’s lifetime, of a lease in Baydon farm and a house there.25PROB11/161/159.

It is likely that this legacy from his father was not the full extent of his inheritance. However, Smythe’s legal career and his Inner Temple connections doubtless also improved his fortunes. In February 1633 he was licensed to marry Cicily Bulstrode, niece of bencher Edward Bulstrode and judge Sir George Croke† and cousin of Bulstrode Whitelocke*.26London Marr. Licences (Harl. Soc. xxv), 26; Vis. Bucks. 1623 (Harl. Soc. lviii), 13. That June, for £1,375, he bought out his inherited leases in Baydon from his cousin Thomas Smythe of Corsham, receiver-general of the Duchy of Cornwall; although he sold some land there in 1638, he still held the bulk of it at his death 26 years later.27Birmingham City Archives, MS 3415/277; VCH Wilts. xii. 57. In 1633 he was also a trustee in the marriage settlement of Inner Temple barrister Simon Mayne*, whose sister’s husband was Cicily’s eldest brother.28Bucks. RO, D 62/1/12, 13; D 63/1/11; Coventry Docquets, 636.

It is not clear when Smythe entered the office of the six clerks in chancery, or by what means this was funded, but crown service was a family tradition.29HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629. In May 1634 he was mentioned as the clerk and solicitor to the commission charged with investigating abuses at the Fleet prison.30CSP Dom. 1634-5, p. 35. Orders of January and March 1635 confirming his appointment gave him free access to the prison and to relevant documentary evidence as well as liberty to speak with any prisoner, albeit in the hearing of a jailor.31CSP Dom. 1634-5, pp. 471, 566-7. At work by mid-March, on 14 April he produced two blank writs of habeas corpus which he had acquired from an unnamed party and which he claimed were of a kind commonly used to procure the release of prisoners, sometimes inappropriately.32CSP Dom. 1635, p. 24. But the inquiry was brought to a premature end. On 4 May Smythe complained to the clerk of the council, Edward Nicholas†, that he had received incomplete instructions too late; two days’ notice was needed to gather witnesses and he clarified his own address as the ‘short street’ from Long Acre into Covent Garden.33CSP Dom. 1635, p. 59. On the 23rd the commissioners, headed by Lord Cottington (Sir Francis Cottington†) and Sir Francis Windebanke*, averred that they had received no substantial complaints, and that the matter should be left to the normal course of law.34CSP Dom. 1635, p. 81. It is plausible that Smythe found the experience unsatisfactory.

No evidence has emerged of his career over the next few years, although it is conceivable that in building up his legal practice he developed business in his native county. Marlborough, the nearest borough to Baydon and the chief residence of receiver Thomas Smythe before his death in November 1637, would have been an obvious focus. Although there were several Philip Smythes in Wiltshire, it seems likely that the MP’s eldest daughter Mary – old enough to be married in 1653 – was the child of this name, paternity and social status baptized at Marlborough in September 1636. If so, her mother was probably not Cecily Bulstrode, who must have died soon after her marriage, but the otherwise elusive Mary, ‘wife of Mr Philip Smith esquire’ buried there in November 1639.35St Peter and St Paul par. reg. Marlborough; St Olave, Old Jewry par. reg. (Aug. 1653). It is likely that Smythe maintained a close connection with some in the borough over succeeding months of notable discontent. Following the elevation to the peerage in February 1641 of its representative Sir Francis Seymour* of Marlborough Castle – until recently a vocal critic of crown policy – there was a vacant seat in Parliament.36C231/4, p. 433. At an election on 12 March Smythe was narrowly returned, receiving 33 votes to the 31 of ‘H’, identified only by the initial.37Wilts RO, G22/1/21, p. 39. The choice of Smythe perhaps had some connection with his kinship to Receiver Smythe, whose daughter and heir Mary had married Seymour’s son Charles Seymour*.38Abstracts Wilts. IPMs Chas. I, 266-8; PROB11/175/403.

By 20 March Smythe had appeared in the Commons. On that day he was added with Sir Simonds D’Ewes* and two others to the committee for judges, which had been given the particular remit of considering the judgement delivered in the exchequer on the unpopular policy of distraint of knighthood.39CJ ii. 109b. Smythe did not prove to be much of a committeeman, but he was not completely inactive. Having taken the Protestation on 3 May, three days later he carried to committee a petition from the inhabitants of Marlborough.40CJ ii. 133a, 137a. On 12 August, during the debate on the ‘army plot’, D’Ewes noted that ‘Mr Smith, an utter barrister of the Inner, spoke after me and showed briefly that this was treason in several respects according to the matters of fact voted formerly by this House’.41Procs. LP vi. 374. Others less focussed on their own contribution expressed his argument more vehemently.

Whosoever shall go about to subvert the fundamental laws of this kingdom no question is a traitor and so formerly adjudged, and whosoever shall attempt to compel the Parliament who has power to make laws no question is a traitor.42Procs. LP. vi. 379-80, 382.

This suggests a man of confidence and conviction, but Smythe’s subsequent stance in the House is difficult to discern. A lengthy speech on 28 October which has been attributed to Smythe was almost certainly given by William Smyth, who was, as the published version proclaimed, a member of the Middle Temple.43An honourable and worthy speech spoken in the high court of Parliament (1641) (E.199.8); CSP Dom. 1641-2, p. 148; CJ ii. 297b. It is less clear which Mr Smith addressed the Commons on 29 December in a speech also later published: William was probably the most likely candidate, but Philip also seems more plausible than the apparently inactive John Smith* of Oxford, and even Thomas Smyth I*. While the speech expressed a common conviction of the seriousness of the rebellion in Ireland and an understandable alarm at the riotous assembly of petitioners at that juncture besieging Parliament, it exhibited distinctive characteristics, not inconsistent with what is definitely known of Philip. Its author had concluded that ‘all our endeavours in suppressing the rebels in Ireland will little avail’ if peace were not settled first at home. Parliament was thwarted in its efforts to this end not only by an excess of petitions, but also by the ‘open clamour’ of the ‘abrupt and disordered persons’ who crowded around Westminster to ‘prescribe us what laws to enact and what not, and what persons to prosecute and what not’. Two solutions were proposed. There should be ‘a strict guard about the House’ with orders to disperse demonstrators ‘not only by persuasions ... but to shoot at them if they obstinately refuse to be persuaded’, and a ‘diligent search’ for recusants and papists; without speedy execution of the relevant laws and exemplary prosecutions ‘neither this city nor other places of this kingdom can be secure from their devilish practices and plots’.44Mr Smith's speech in Parliament on Wednesday the 29 of December, 1641 (1641) (E.199.46).

A strong indication that these sentiments might have been those of Philip Smythe is given by his addition on 17 January 1642 to the Committee for Examinations.45CJ ii. 385a. Investigating suspicious activity may have proved time-consuming, for there is no sign of his making any further contribution to parliamentary business until the summer. Following a motion by George Buller*, he was given leave to on 26 February to go into the country.46CJ ii. 457a; PJ i. 475. In view of what followed he may have spent at least part of the time rallying support in Marlborough for Parliament’s policies with fellow Member John Francklyn*.

By 11 June, when he promised to lend £40 for the defence of Parliament, Smythe was back in the Commons.47PJ iii. 475. Marlborough itself made a notably generous response to the ordinance seeking loans for the war effort in Ireland and on 12 July the treasurers were instructed to give receipts for money which had reached London to Smythe and Francklyn.48CJ ii. 664b, 668b. Two weeks later Smythe presented to the House a letter he had received confirming that the mayor had taken advantage of parliamentary authorisation to remove a magazine of powder and match into safe hands; recognising ‘the carriage of townsmen there’, the Commons ordered Smythe to convey its thanks.49CJ ii. 695a.

Insofar as William Smiyh did not signal his willingness to lend to Parliament until 19 September, it is somewhat more likely that Philip Smythe was the man named on 26 August to the committee to examine the alleged packing of grand juries and the particular case of Shropshire; that the nominee was a lawyer seems reasonable.50CJ ii. 737b; 772b. It was explicitly Philip who was added on 7 September to the committee to investigate absent Members.51CJ ii. 756a. Neither Philip nor William appear in the Journal again in 1642, but the fact that the latter was made a DCL at Oxford in November points to a temporary withdrawal from Westminster significantly before this time. Meanwhile, Philip may have joined Francklyn in directing defensive works at Marlborough, although he was not present when it was taken in December by royalist forces under Henry Wilmot* and George Digby*. The destruction of property there and the capture of leading townspeople including Francklyn doubtless stiffened Philip’s resolve, or at least reduced his options.52Infra, ‘Smith, William’; Waylen, Hist. Marlborough, 163-4.

Circumstances suggest Philip as the most probable candidate when ‘Mr Smith’ appeared in the Journal in the first few months of 1643. Thus he may well have been the Smythe included with Bulstrode Whitelocke on a small committee to work on an act confirming the liberty of subjects in their person (7 Jan. 1643).53CJ ii. 918b. He must have been the Smythe who chaired the committee considering the petition from Marlborough citizens imprisoned at Oxford and the charges for the town’s defence (7 Mar.).54CJ ii. 992a. By extension, he was probably the Smythe added with Wiltshire Members Edward Bayntun* and Robert Jenner* to the committee to enquire into monies raised for the army (22 Mar.).55CJ iii. 12a. Especially if he was already one of the six clerks, he was the most obvious Smith to be ordered to notify the receiver of casual fines in chancery to appear before the committee at Haberdashers’ Hall and pay in money to the treasurer at wars (24 Mar.).56CJ iii. 15b.

‘Philip Smyth’ was included on a committee delegated on 19 May to investigate and address any difficulties in the courts arising from the absence of the great seal or individual judges.57CJ iii. 92b. Inns records indicate that he was the Smythe ordered with other lawyers on the 27th to obtain (?for melting down) the silverware lately used on the altar of the Temple church and to arrange the demolition of altar rails and the removal of the communion table from the east end.58CJ iii. 106b; CITR ii. 1004. He was the obvious ‘Smith’ to be chosen the same day as an arbitrator (with Whitelocke and others) in the dangerous dispute between north Wiltshire parliamentarian leaders Sir Edward Hungerford* and Sir Edward Bayntun*.59CJ iii. 107a. In this context it was probably he who was appointed on 23 May with the solicitor-general, John Maynard* and Whitelocke to prepare the part of the case for the impeachment of Judge Bartlett which related to his Ship Money judgement, and he who was named again with Maynard to the same task on 5 July.60CJ iii. 93a, 155b. Since John Smith had by this time evidently resigned himself to staying in his Oxford constituency, Philip was almost certainly responsible for bringing in an ordinance to prevent (?the legal) term from being kept in the city (29 May).61CJ iii. 108b. It was he who was added to the committee preparing additional an additional explanatory ordinance for sequestrations on 2 June.62CJ iii. 112a.

Alone of the Mr Smiths in the House, Philip and William took the vow and covenant on 6 June 1643.63CJ iii. 118b. But this is quite likely to have been William’s last act at Westminster before he was disabled in January 1644: there are no further explicit references and it seems indicative that it was Philip rather than Kentish Member William who was named on 17 July 1643 to a committee considering a petition from Sussex.64CJ iii. 170a. If the deduction is correct, Philip Smythe then had a relatively busy few months – which would in turn explain his emergence as a regular local commissioner in 1644. Named on 19 June to a committee reviewing proposals for a loan by a Dutch merchant, ‘Smyth’ was included on 19 July among those discussing proposals from members of the Westminster Assembly for the better observation of the sabbath in individual parishes.65CJ iii. 135b, 173b. On the latter day he was also added with Whitelocke and two others to the committee preparing an ordinance for the raising of forces and placed on another to supply Ferdinando Fairfax*, 2nd Baron Fairfax, with arms to further the campaign in the north.66CJ iii. 174a, 174b. On 1 September ‘Smith’ was sent with Robert Reynolds*, Member for the Wiltshire borough of Hindon, to prepare an ordinance for buying arms for the lord general, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, while on the 21st he was ordered to go ‘forthwith’ with William Whitaker* or Lawrence Whitaker* to prepare an ordinance for providing wood for the city.67CJ iii. 224b, 250a. Having been nominated on 10 October to another committee to consider business from the Assembly – this time involving a curb on Antinomian preaching – on 7 December ‘Smith’ was placed on further committee charged with assisting Lord Fairfax.68CJ iii. 271b, 333a.

By December 1643 there can be little doubt that Philip was the sole Mr Smythe in the chamber. On the 18th Smythe was among those delegated to investigate the proceedings of the royalist judges in the west against certain MPs and other parliamentarians.69CJ iii. 344b. On 12 January 1644 he was an obvious choice to refine an ordinance from the Lords which provided for the tendering of the Covenant to all officers in chancery and pleaders at the bar.70CJ iii. 364b. By the end of the month his namesakes had all been declared delinquents. Yet at this point Smythe faded back into the shadows: for the next 15 months he had no nominations, and he did not appear in the Journal at all until August 1644.

In the meantime Smythe joined the Wiltshire county committee, expanded as the royalists lost their grip on the county, and in subsequent months he also became an assessment commissioner.71A. and O. But it seems unlikely that provincial activity accounted entirely for his period of invisibility – likewise family tragedy. On 17 August it was decided that, since his wife had ‘lately died of the sickness’ at rooms belonging to the six clerks’ office, ‘during his abode in the Temple’ Smythe and his family should keep to his chamber ‘in the day time, and not walk abroad but in the evening’, while his servants who normally resided in the plague-infected office should be ‘forthwith removed thence’.72CJ iii. 594a. The deceased woman looks to have been his third wife. If, as would seem to fit with the date of his later admission to the Inner Temple, Smythe’s son was the Philip son of Philip baptised at St Dunstan-in-the-East on 20 May 1643, then the boy’s mother was called Elizabeth, but nothing else is known about her.73St Dunstan-in-the-East par. reg. Smythe was given leave on 24 September to return to the House, but he does not appear in the Journal until the following May.74CJ iii. 637a. This gave him ample opportunity to contract what was probably his fourth marriage, to Elizabeth Goddard, a near neighbour in north east Wiltshire and seemingly the widow of one Thomas Norris. Like her younger sister Lucy, she had been apportioned a £1,000 dowry under the will of their father and became the joint heiress of family property as other relatives died childless, so was a potentially wealthy woman. Her uncle and trustee Vincent Goddard (d. May 1643), a friend of Lord Digby, had been imprisoned by order of Parliament for his activities on behalf of the royalists at Marlborough in 1642, but her cousin Edward Goddard of Upham was regularly with Smyth on local parliamentarian commissions in the 1640s.75VCH Wilts. xii. 57, 144; Vis. Wilts. 1623, 19, 25; Ogbourne St Andrew, Ogbourne St George par. regs.; CJ ii. 879a; s.v. ‘Marlborough’; PROB11/167/375 (John Goddard); PROB11/198/216 (Vincent Goddard); PROB11/315/170; A. and O.; R. Jeffries, A Memoir of the Goddards of North Wilts. (Swindon, 1873), 41.

In May 1645 Smythe was nominated to two committees to raise money for the war effort, one in Hampshire (24 May) and one in London and Westminster (27 May).76CJ iv. 153b, 155b. On 11 July he signed instructions issued by the Westminster committee for the safety of western associated counties concerning the ‘better direction’ of the Wiltshire county committee and the garrison at Malmesbury.77Add. 22084, f. 25. Having been made a commissioner of sewers for Middlesex on 15 October and added to the committee of privileges on 16 October, he was then absent from the Journal for another 11 months, but while he may well have been more frequently in Wiltshire on local business, as the 11 July signature indicates, it cannot be assumed that he was also absent from the chamber.78CJ iv. 311a; A. and O.

By the time Smythe surfaced again in the Journal in the autumn of 1646 there was another of that surname in the House. In the long term, the army officer Henry Smyth* was evidently more radical than Philip, but there is still potential for some confusion, especially since Henry, though never called to the bar, kept chambers at Lincoln’s Inn. It was probably Philip, as a practising lawyer, who was nominated on 3 September with Edward Bayntun, Whitelocke and others to examine the case of Serjeant John Glanville*.79CJ iv. 662a. It was explicitly he who was named on 17 October to discuss the ordinance on the probate of wills.80CJ iv. 696b. Both the lawyer and the officer were placed on the committee investigating the complaints made by Sir Robert Harley* against the governor of Hereford, Colonel John Birch* (23 Oct.).81CJ iv. 703a.

With Presbyterian influence in the Commons gaining ground, both Smythes disappeared from view in the chamber. On 11 March 1647 Philip was given leave to go into the country.82CJ v. 109b. Following the Presbyterian coup at Westminster of late July, both men were among those MPs who took refuge with the army and signed the ‘engagement’ of 4 August, although their motives for doing so are obscure.83LJ ix. 385b; W. Prynne, A legal vindication of the liberties of England (1660), 17 (E.772.4). Since Philip was recorded as absent from the House on 9 October, it seems more likely to have been Henry who was nominated to committees to consider the ordinance declaring the proceedings of 26 July to 6 August null and void (18 Aug.) and to sell delinquent lands (8 Sept.).84CJ v. 278a, 295b. It was almost certainly Henry who was chosen to prepare a proposition on the settlement of Presbyterian church government to be sent to the king (6 Oct.) and to look into malignants at Cambridge University (12 Oct.), and it must have been he who was put on the committee for absent Members (9 Oct.).85CJ v. 327b, 329a, 331b. Yet there is room for an element of doubt. Philip was among several Members whose fines for absence were ordered on 14 October to be returned to them; one explanation for this might be error or confusion in the original enumeration, or at least a temporary coincidental absence. He was also a more plausible proponent of peace and of a Presbyterian ecclesiastical settlement, and the same confusion might have led to his continuing to be nominated even when away from the chamber.

Whatever the truth of this, Philip Smythe was probably back in the Commons in the new year. As violence erupted in the capital following MPs’ Vote of No Addresses, on 14 January 1648 he was added to the committee for the Westminster militia.86CJ v. 433a. As Member for Marlborough he had a good claim to be the Smythe included on the committee of 10 January to address petitions for the repair of towns and buildings damaged in the wars, and as a lawyer he had as firm a reason as Henry the Leveller sympathiser to be nominated to draft an indemnity for well-affected tenants against the oppressions of delinquent landlords (29 Jan.).87CJ v. 425a, 447b. Around this time he signed an order from the Committee of the West for an increment in the salary of the minister of Hurst, Wiltshire.88Add. 22084, f. 39v. Given the identity of the others nominated, he is perhaps less likely than Henry to have been the ‘Smith’ nominated to the committees to prepare a letter to the General Assembly reporting progress in the settlement of religion (22 July, although as the first-named some experience might have been presupposed) and to examine those accused of plotting for a Scottish invasion (28 Aug.).89CJ v. 643a, 689a.

After this the stances of the two Smythes diverge more clearly. Both survived the purge of the Commons on 6 December. However, while Philip was among those Members censured by William Prynne* on 23 December for retaining their seats, he was not listed by Clement Walker as voting to reject the peace treaty with the king.90W. Prynne, A remonstrance and declaration (1648), 4; C. Walker, Anarchia Anglicana, 48-9 (E.570.4). A few days after the regicide (5 Feb. 1649) Philip is recorded as taking the dissent to the 5 December vote, but the Mr Smith who on the same day was a teller and received a committee nomination was almost certainly Henry.91PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, p. 645; CJ vi. 132a. Since there is no clear evidence of his activity in the House thereafter, it seems likely that Philip withdrew quietly at some point. Yet he continued to hold local office, being chosen as an assessment and militia commissioner for Wiltshire, and sometimes also for Middlesex or Westminster, at regular intervals from 1648 to 1660.92A. and O. He was consistently listed as a Wiltshire justice of the peace through the 1650s, although there is no firm evidence that he attended even sessions held at Marlborough.93C193/13/3, f. 69; C193/13/4, f. 109; C193/13/5, f. 115v; C193/13/6, f. 96; A Perfect List (1660), 59; Wilts. RO, A1/160/1, A1/160/2.

It appears that, for the most part, Smythe simply continued with his professional work in London. He may well have been the Philip Smythe who with John Corbett* certified in September 1651 as to the godliness of a poor London widow who petitioned the Committee for Compounding for accommodation in the house near the custom house.94CCC 2875. He must have been the man who on 25 November 1652 signed a note naming commissioners appointed to hear a case in chancery.95Warws. RO, N3/775. However, contradictory orders of the council in August 1654 suggest that he may have then lost his place in the six clerks’ office to Lawrence Maidwell, by means and for reasons that are unclear.96CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 303, 337.

It was from Hammersmith that Smythe’s daughter Mary married Thomas Knight of Fulham in 1653.97St Olave, Old Jewry, London par. reg. By 1658, and perhaps a year or two earlier, Smythe had married for perhaps the fifth time, to Theodosia, and settled in Kensington. Since the couple’s (?younger) daughter Philadelphia was baptized on 14 November ‘in the parsonage on a sabbath day’ and their younger son Samuel was baptized as ‘from the parsonage house’, it seems highly likely that Theodosia was one of the daughters (from his second marriage) of the vicar, Thomas Hodges.98The Par. Reg. of Kensington, 44, 46, Hodges, who had acquired his living through the patronage of the earls of Holland and Mulgrave, had preached several times before Parliament in the 1640s and been an important member of the Westminster Assembly, but although he was a critic of antinomianism, he himself entertained some rather mystical beliefs. An enigmatic man who survived the Restoration to become dean of Hereford, he might provide a key to Smythe’s equally ambiguous trajectory.99‘Thomas Hodges’, Oxford DNB.

Surprisingly, Smythe evidently resumed his seat in the Rump soon after it was restored on 7 May 1659. He was nominated on the 14th to the committee drafting an act of indemnity for action ‘during these late times’ and on the 23rd to a committee investigating which furniture and other goods at the former royal palaces belonged to the commonwealth. Since the latter named both ‘Smith’ and ‘Henry Smith’ it seems moderately likely that the ‘Smith’ placed on a committee set up the same day to hear a complaint against Colonel Philip Jones* was also Philip.100CJ vii. 655a, 663a; A catalogue of the names of this present Parliament, interrupted April 19. 1653 (1659, 669.f.21.43. However, as so often previously, he then disappeared from view again. On 30 September he was fined £20 for absence.101CJ vii. 790a.

Smythe did not sit in subsequent Parliaments and held no public office after the Restoration. He was appointed steward at the Inner Temple in January 1662 and may have been the lawyer ‘Smith’ mentioned by Whitelocke in connection with land transactions in 1662 and 1663.102CITR iii. 8; Whitelocke, Diary, 661, 670. He drafted his will on 2 August 1664, some eight weeks after the death of his eldest son Philip.103St Dunstan-in-the-East par. reg. The inheritance of his five children with Elizabeth Goddard at Cricklade and Ogbourne St Andrew had been allegedly kept out of his hands for 16 years by her relatives, occasioning expenditure of £300 on a lawsuit, but there was still provision for all and also Mary Knight. Smyth’s original patrimony at Baydon was to go to the surviving children of his fifth marriage, Theophilus (baptized in December 1660), Theodosia and Philadelphia, unless the girls were bought out with dowries of £1,000 each by their eldest half-brother. Smythe died, evidently a prosperous man, before 25 October.104PROB11/315/170; HP Commons 1660-1690. None of his sons followed him into Parliament, but his second cousin, Philip Smythe†, 2nd Viscount Strangford [I], elected for Hythe in 1660, was among several more distant relatives who sat at Westminster.