PALGRAVE, Sir John, 1st bt. (1605-72), of Barningham Norwood, Norf.

The Palgraves acquired an estate in Barningham Norwood, about five miles from Holt, by marriage in the fifteenth century.27Blomefield, Norf. viii. 94; B.W. Dollin, ‘Moated sites in north-east Norf.’, Norf. Arch. xxxix., 272; B. Cozens-Hardy, ‘Some Norf. halls’, Norf. Arch. xxxii., 167-8. The most notable member of the family before this MP had been his grandfather, John Palgrave (d. 1611), a Middle Temple lawyer. On succeeding his father, Sir Augustine, in 1639, the future MP began to be appointed to local offices, beginning with the commission of the peace.28C231/5, p. 383. By his first marriage, he had been a brother-in-law of Robert Jermy*.29‘Jermy of Gunton’ website. In June 1641 he was one of five Norfolk gentlemen who received baronetcies.30Complete Baronetage, ii. 90. Four days later he was also knighted by the king.31Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 209. However, it was civil war that pushed Palgrave into the forefront of Norfolk politics.

On the outbreak of hostilities in 1642 Palgrave quickly demonstrated his preference for Parliament. He was present at the meeting at Norwich on 6 September at which several of the local MPs joined with the deputy lieutenants in taking control of the trained bands on behalf of Parliament.32Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 152. When subsequently money and men were raised from the local gentry, he offered £100, two horses and ten armed men.33W. Vaughan-Lewis and M. Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court (Lavenham, 2009), 260. That December he was one of the six Norfolk gentlemen who convened a meeting at Norwich to discuss the county’s defences.34Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 267-9. He was then among those appointed by Parliament as deputy lieutenants for Norwich.35CJ ii. 884a. Late the following month he and the other Norfolk deputy lieutenants were invited to a meeting at Mildenhall by the county committee in Cambridgeshire.36Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 211-12. In the event, the meeting took place at Bury St Edmunds on 9 February and was attended by delegations from Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, who approved plans to combine as the Eastern Association.37Suff. ed. Everitt, 40. Three months later Palgrave was among those appointed by Lord Grey of Warke as commissioners for the association.38Suff. ed. Everitt, 82. This was confirmed by Parliament in August 1643.39LJ vi. 176a, 225a; A. and O. As a member of the Eastern Association committee at Cambridge, Palgrave subscribed a letter to Huntingdonshire on 17 June warning that without more money, they would be unable to protect Huntingdon from royalist attack.40Fairfax Corresp. iii. 54-6, He was also included on each of the Norfolk assessment commissions, as well as on the Norfolk sequestration commission.41A. and O.; HMC 9th Rep. i. 312.

Meanwhile, Palgrave had been appointed to command an infantry regiment in the army of the Eastern Association. It was evidently in existence by May 1643, as Palgrave then used £100 of his own money to pay it; he was still being repaid some of that money a year later.42SP28/14, f. 155. The intention was presumably to use the troops against the royalists in Lincolnshire, the most obvious threat to the parliamentarian strongholds of East Anglia. But Palgrave was initially reluctant to allow his men to be deployed outside Norfolk and, at first, they were not sent far.43Holmes, Eastern Assoc. 85. In July Palgrave and his men were stationed at Wisbech in the Isle of Ely, from where they repelled the royalist forces that attempted to take Peterborough on the 18th.44Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 181; A True Relation of Colonell Cromwels Proceedings against the Cavaliers (1643), 2. They then joined Oliver Cromwell* for the siege of Burghley House.45HMC 7th Rep. 555-6.

On 24 July, the Commons on 24 July ordered the Eastern Association committee at Cambridge to send Palgrave’s regiment northwards to retake Gainsborough, but specified that Palgrave himself should go to the assistance of the deputy lieutenants in Norfolk.46CJ iii. 180a. A week later, with Cromwell now in occupation of Gainsborough, the Commons redirected Palgrave or his lieutenant colonel there with Sir Miles Hobart and Sir John Gell.47CJ iii. 188a. It seems that Cromwell used Palgrave to convey the urgency of supplying reinforcements there, but this was too late to prevent William Cavendish, earl of Newcastle taking the town on 31 July.48Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 244. That August Palgrave took part in the siege of King’s Lynn and was among commissioners who negotiated the surrender of the occupying garrison under Sir Hamon L’Estrange†.49A briefe and true Relation of the Seige and Surrendering of Kings Lyn [1643], 3 (E.67.28). Not everyone was impressed by Palgrave’s military record. At about this time, a Norwich alderman, Adrian Parmenter, complained that Palgrave lacked ‘the courageous spirit of a brave commander but is very timorous’.50Add. 22619, f. 80.

In December 1643 Sir John Meldrum retook Gainsborough. Palgrave may have served as governor during the brief period when the town was again in parliamentarian hands.51Knyvett Lttrs. 139. In February 1644 Meldrum moved on to besiege royalist-held Newark-on-Trent, taking with him Palgrave’s regiment.52HMC Hastings, ii. 125; Newark on Trent: The Civil War Siegeworks (1964), 96. But on 21 March Prince Rupert arrived to relieve the town. The following day Palgrave and Hobart, acting as Meldrum’s commissioners, negotiated the terms by which the parliamentarian army was permitted to march away.53His Highnesse Prince Ruperts Raising of the Seige at Newarke [1644], 6-7 (E.38.10). Gainsborough was then retaken – a major humiliation. Hobart and Palgrave were summoned to London to face an investigation by the Committee of Both Kingdoms and information from Colonel Edward King† was passed on to a Commons committee.54CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 109, 115; Knyvett Lttrs. 144; CJ iii. 469b-470a. Representations were made by Hobart and Palgrave on 16 May to the Commons, which referred them to that earlier committee.55CJ iii. 494a. On 20 July the Commons decided that Hobart should face a court martial but that proceedings against Palgrave should be dropped.56CJ iii. 566b.

Palgrave’s regiment was meanwhile stationed at Lincoln.57Holmes, Eastern Assoc. 238. Palgrave still held this command as late as November 1644, but by December he had been succeeded by his former lieutenant-colonel, Sir Thomas Hoogan.58SP28/20, f. 108; SP28/21, ff. 104, 108; Holmes, Eastern Assoc. 238. He was not happy with the way the war was developing. In early November he and other members of the Norfolk county committee had written to the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†) complaining that the military burdens of the Eastern Association had fallen disproportionately on Norfolk.59Suff. ed. Everitt, 81-2. The desire of the Norfolk committee to retain a measure of control over the forces raised within the county was soon threatened more directly by the proposal to create the New Model army. Palgrave shared those concerns and on 30 January 1645 he was among Norfolk delegates to the meeting of the Eastern Association at Bury St Edmunds held to oppose those plans.60Suff. ed. Everitt, 84. He signed the resulting letter to Parliament.61LJ vii. 178a. Unsurprisingly, he was not then offered a commission in the New Model.

The death of Sir John Hobart*, 2nd bt. in April 1647 created a vacancy for one of the Norfolk county seats in Parliament. When the by-election was called that autumn, Palgrave was keen to stand, although a rumour spread that his opponents planned to get him appointed as the new sheriff of Norfolk in order to block his election. His nephew by marriage, (Sir) John Potts*, who strongly supported Palgrave’s candidacy, wrote to Sir Simonds D’Ewes* on 20 October in the hope that D’Ewes could use his influence in the Commons to prevent this and in the event the new sheriff was not named until over a fortnight after the election.62Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 310-11; CJ v. 361a. Potts was sure that this was the only obstacle to Palgrave’s election. This proved to be correct and Palgrave was elected as the new MP for Norfolk on 1 November.

Palgrave made no mark on the parliamentary records until 23 February 1648 when he took the Covenant and was named to the committee on the additional ordinance for stricter observation of the sabbath.63CJ v. 471a. Granted leave on 17 March, he was still absent, with no excuse allowed, at the call of the House on 24 April.64CJ v. 503a, 543b. He had probably returned by 26 May when, with the rebels in Kent having advanced as far as Deptford, he was named to the committee to meet with the common council and the London militia committee to ensure the security of Parliament and London.65CJ v. 574a. As disorders continued in the south east, on 1 July Palgrave was among those sent to confer with the excise commissioners to raise funds for the defence of Ely.66CJ v. 620a. On 31 July he was included on the delegation sent to London.67CJ v. 654b. Meanwhile, on 8 August, he was a member of the committee that met with former army officers who wanted their arrears to be paid.68CJ v. 664b. Together with Sir John Potts and Miles Corbett*, he was sent to Norfolk on 19 August to arrest any rebels who had landed there from the navy ships that had gone over to the prince of Wales.69CJ v. 675a. Late the following month he was among the trustees appointed by Parliament to manage the sequestered estates of the Norfolk royalist, Clement Paston of Thorpe juxta Norwich.70CJ vi. 36b; LJ x. 526b; CCC 1829. In late November Potts, Palgrave and Corbett were the three Norfolk MPs sent to encourage the collection of the assessments in the county.71CJ vi. 88a.

Palgrave may well have remained wary of the New Model and its influence. He was excluded from the Commons in the army’s purge on 6 December 1648.72A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5). Nevertheless, within days he was included by John Lilburne and the Levellers in their revised version of the Agreement of the People on their list of commissioners who, it was proposed, would control the appointments of judges, sheriffs and justices of the peace until a new Parliament could meet.73Several Proposals for Peace and Freedom (1648), 9 (E.477.18). But nothing came of that.

Palgrave either refused or was barred from public office under the Rump. Removed from the Norfolk bench by early 1650, he was restored in March but does not seem to have been active as a magistrate under the commonwealth.74C231/6, p. 181. He was no longer a member of the Norfolk assessment commissions. However, the advent of the protectorate seems to have persuaded him to come out of retirement. In July 1654 he stood in the Norfolk parliamentary election, but, with just 549 votes, he came second from last in a field of 19 candidates.75R. Temple, ‘A 1654 protectorate parliamentary election return’, Cromwelliana, ser. 2, iii. 58. From that autumn, he began to attend some of the Norfolk quarter sessions as a justice of the peace.76Norf. QSOB, 72-95. He was also appointed to the commissions of oyer and terminer.77C181/6, pp. 10, 338, 378. In 1657 he was again included on the Norfolk assessment commission.78A. and O.

In the opening weeks of 1660 Palgrave signed the Norfolk address to George Monck* asking for a free Parliament.79Address from Gentry of Norf. ed. Rye, 57. Acting on instructions from Monck, he then took control of the area around Great Yarmouth, before meeting with the other militia commissioners at Norwich in order to appoint new officers for the county militia.80HMC Leyborne-Popham, 181. He stood in the election at Great Yarmouth on 12 April, when he was paired with Corbett in the return made by the corporation. But it was the rival return in favour of Potts and Sir William Doyly* from the freemen that was upheld by the Convention.

Palgrave continued to be named as a justice of the peace until he was removed from the commission in 1670; the notebook of his neighbour and fellow magistrate, Robert Doughty, shows that he took those duties seriously.81C231/7, p. 374; Notebk. of Robert Doughty, ed. J.M. Rosenheim (Norf. Rec. Soc. liv. 1989), 21-84. He was buried at Barningham Norwood on 20 April 1672.82Vis. Norf. ii. 154; Palmer and Tucker, Palgrave Fam. Mems. 166. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Augustine. The baronetcy became extinct in 1732 on the death of the third baronet, Sir Augustine’s only son, Sir Richard.83CB.