HAWKESWORTH, Joseph (?1621-69), of Kenilworth, Warws.

Joseph Hawkesworth was a trusted servant of the 2nd Baron Brooke. Both were civil war soldiers, and after Brooke’s untimely death in action in 1643, the godly Hawkesworth was described as the peer’s ‘right Cornelius’, after the Roman centurion who had converted to Christianity.15‘The Genealogie, Life and Death of the Right Honourable Robert Lord Brooke’ ed. P. Styles, in Miscellany I ed. R. Bearman (Dugdale Soc. xxxi), 185; Acts 10. He was surely a Yorkshireman. There were many of the name Hawkesworth in seventeenth century Yorkshire, particularly in the West Riding around Sheffield: the name is certainly not a Warwickshire one. There was an important gentry family of that name from Hawksworth itself, a parish further north in the West Riding, although its pedigree does not contain a Joseph.16Foster, Yorks. Peds. sub Hawksworth. There was an important connection between Warwick and the Barnsley area of Yorkshire, however, in the marriage of Fulke Greville with Mary, daughter of Christopher Copley and widow of Ralph Bossevile of Gunthwaite. Their son, Robert Greville, succeeded his cousin as 2nd Baron Brooke on 30 September 1628.17CP ii. 333. Brooke’s estate included not only the patrimony of Beauchamp’s Court, Alcester, but also Warwick castle. A household contingent from Gunthwaite was apparent at Warwick castle by 1635 at the latest, when the puritan schoolmaster of the town, William Dugard, was dining with Godfrey Bossevile*, Brooke’s step-brother.18Add. 23146, f. 44v.

Gunthwaite is only seven miles from Barnsley, where a Joseph Hawkesworth was baptised on 20 August 1621, and thus it is at least possible that this is the MP, who would have migrated south in the employ of the Bossevile and Brooke households.19Barnsley par. reg. There is evidence from 1641 of Hawkesworth and Bossevile working together in financial transactions at Warwick castle, and one Lawrence Hawkesworth was a tenant of Bossevile’s at Gunthwaite.20Warws. RO, CR 1886/CUP 4/21, accts. of John Halford, entry of 6 May 1641; C142/354/114. These connections seem more plausible than any close relationship between Joseph Hawkesworth and the dramatist Walter Hawkesworth (d. 1606), whose work was being read avidly by the Warwick schoolmaster, Thomas Dugard, in 1638.21Add. 23146, ff. 78, 79. There is at least no doubt about Hawkesworth’s status at the castle: he was an estate steward there by the summer of 1640. To judge from the surviving accounts, his duties were mainly the handling of receipts and payments arising from the Warwickshire and Oxfordshire estates. Hawkesworth’s receipts from rents exceeded £2,000 in the year 1640-1, but he was one of a number of servants of Brooke’s with similar duties; that members of the Bridges family audited his books suggests that Hawkesworth was employed at the castle in a junior capacity to John Bridges*.22Warws. RO, CR 1886/ box 411, accts. of Joseph Hawkesworth.

Hawkesworth was at hand to record payments made by Brooke at the muster of the Warwickshire militia in July 1642, although unlike John Bridges, he was not in military service at that time.23Warws. RO, CR 1886/ box 411, accts. of Hawkesworth, 1640-1, pp. 30-1. On 30 August, money for the mobilization of soldiers was taken from Hawkesworth’s ‘closet’ on Brooke’s authority, and he was in some military capacity by October 1642 working under the supervision of Bridges.24SP28/1d/458; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 240. On his own initiative, Hawkesworth brought £47 in money and plate into Warwick castle.25SP28/136/10. With the creation of the Association of Warwickshire and Staffordshire on 31 December 1642, a regiment was put under the command of William Purefoy I*, and Hawkesworth was commissioned in it on 25 April 1643, after having been entrusted with the task of posting to Sir John Gell* in Derby after Brooke was killed in Lichfield.26‘Genealogie, Life and Death’, 185. His command was of 80 horse, and he saw action immediately. On 12 May (even before he began to draw his pay on 25 May) he seized horses and arms belonging to the Catholic Edward Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, near Knowle, where Brooke held an estate.27Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, DR3/711; ‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 24. When Purefoy stormed Tamworth castle on 23 June, Hawkesworth was probably present as an officer of horse in that regiment.

By early March 1644, Hawkesworth had acquired a reputation as a ‘gallant and stout man’; when John Bridges, governor of Warwick castle, required of Purefoy reinforcements for an engagement with the regiment of Charles Stuart, prince of Wales, near Banbury, Hawkesworth and 60 horse were despatched as men who could be relied upon. Hawkesworth attacked the royalist quarters, killed an officer and half a dozen troopers, and took 8 officers and 110 men prisoners to Warwick.28Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 520; ‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 25. Shortly afterwards, Hawkesworth was promoted to the rank of major while still holding his captaincy, with a pay increase from 39s a day to 51s.29‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 48. His commission was from the ‘committee of safety’ for Coventry and Warwickshire, and was signed by Bossevile, George Abbot II* and four Coventry-based committeemen: there was no doubt that after Brooke’s death, Hawkesworth was aligned with the more radical elements of the committee.30‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 27. In December 1644 Hawkesworth burned down Milcote House, the residence built for Lionel Cranfield†, 1st earl of Middlesex, south west of Stratford-upon-Avon. He seems to have launched this spectacular attack on his own initiative, refusing to wait for instructions from the committee on the fate of the goods inside. 31‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 28; A. Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warws. 1620-60, 218. He signed warrants of the committee from June 1645, although he was formally its servant rather than a member himself, suggesting his high status among the Warwickshire parliamentarians.32SP 28/247, warrant of 31 Aug. 1646; SP28/248, warrants of 6 June 1645, 16 Nov. 1646, 20 Jan. 1652.

In August 1645, Hawkesworth’s troop mustered 2 officers, 5 NCOs and 59 men under his command.33SP28/122, ff. 222-9. Soon afterwards, his unit was seconded to fight under Sednham Poyntz, commander-in-chief of the Northern Association, and saw action at the battle of Rowton Moor on 24 September. At the battle of Denbigh on 1 November, Hawkesworth and his men were conspicuous, pursuing the routed royalists eight miles.34Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 7, 24. From mid-November, the Warwickshire committee was lobbying Sir William Brereton* to return the horse for duty in that county, where a concentration of royalist soldiers from various garrisons was building up. Hawkesworth himself joined in this campaign of persuasion, but by early December he was personally implicated by the committee in fomenting unrest in the horse regiment, suggesting that his relations with the committee were under significant strain.35Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 257-8, 262, 313. Sir Richard Skeffington was Hawkesworth’s most fierce critic, defending Col. Colemore, sent in command over Hawkesworth, who was the butt of insubordination by the Warwickshire men. Skeffington considered Colemore’s treatment intolerable. Hawkesworth evidently felt some grievance that he was no longer in command of the seconded horse, and it was left to Brereton to mediate between him and the committee. He urged the men in Coventry to recognise Hawkesworth, ‘valiant and careful’, as motivated by ‘principles of godliness and humility’, and advised the latter to submit to his masters, remembering that God would recompense him for any unresolved injustices.36Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 314, 439, 444.

While the dispute simmered, Hawkesworth’s men were involved in manoeuvres relating to the siege of Chester, and eventually returned to Warwickshire, where the committee had maintained the pressure on Brereton to release them for local service.37Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 484-5. His standing with the committee survived the strain of the period of secondment. There is no evidence of his having ventured beyond Warwickshire military service during the period when elements of the army were resisting demobilization in 1647, although his own pay was reduced to 39s per day from 29 May 1647.38‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 48. He was entirely loyal to the county committee, and as the radical elements in it prevailed over the conservatives in 1648, it was perfectly natural that when John Bridges vacated the governorship of Warwick garrison, Hawkesworth should assume the command of the castle. Less than ten years previously he had been steward there, and indeed even in 1648 was still an accountant to the Brooke estate, as either a tenant or an under-steward of some kind.39‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 19; Warws. RO, CR 1886/box 414, Brooke House disbursements, Mar. 1648-Mar. 1649, p. 33. He held this command throughout the 1650s, in tandem with other military appointments: as colonel of the county militia under the Rump, and as captain of a troop of 100 horse in Warwickshire during the protectorate.40‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 32, 36.

Hawkesworth’s troop was mobilized during the campaign against Charles Stuart in the summer of 1651, but by October that year he oversaw the reduction of the garrison establishment after the emergency was over. His social position was enhanced by residence at Kenilworth castle from that year. In February 1651 the castle and manor had been made over to elements of the horse regiment of Col. Thomas Saunders, in lieu of pay. A troop of the regiment had been stationed at Warwick under Hawkesworth’s command.41‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 20-1, 34; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 283. In the share-out of the property among the officers, Hawkesworth got the gatehouse of the semi-ruinous castle as a dwelling, and drained the large pool, evidently with an eye to improving the estate. The scandalized vicar recorded the officers’ farming schemes as outrageous, but noted as remarkable that they never took the church plate or impropriated the tithes, ‘but from time to time set up ministers and allowed them to have and enjoy all the tithes’. This was evidence from a hostile source that Hawkesworth was not a sectary, but supported the concept of a state-run church, funded by tithe payments by the populace.42‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 21. In October 1653, he was asked by the council of state to assist in appointing a minister to the living of Henley-in-Arden.43CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 182.

Since 1650, Hawkesworth had been a magistrate in Warwickshire, although there is no evidence of his having acted before 1655, and even then his participation in the work of the bench was modest.44Warwick County Records, ii. p. xvi; iii. p. xxi. He was one of the freeholders listed in the return for the Warwickshire parliamentary election of 13 December 1654.45C219/44/pt. 3, unnumbered indenture of 13 Dec. 1654. His own election, however, to the second protectorate Parliament was not so much as a gentleman with an estate in the county, but as a reliable supporter of the military interest and thus as a friend of the major-generals. During the election campaign he was absent from Warwick castle, so probably took no part in it.46CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 399. He was appointed to 14 committees in this Parliament, but none of them were politically very sensitive. They were, in fact, largely uncontroversial, and it is probably fair to deduce from their pattern that Hawkesworth was happy to act as a workaday committeeman, with no particular political aspirations. His first appointment, on 29 September 1656, was to consider abuses in the drink trades, and in December - after two full months where no mention at all is made of him in the Journal at all - he was named to bodies considering the case of the doctors of civil law, land improvements by James Hay, 2nd earl of Carlisle, a petition by Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby and a bill to bestow lands on John Blackwell.47CJ vii. 430a, 462b, 468a, 472a, 477a.

If Hawkesworth ever spoke in the House about the case of James Naylor, or had a view on it, the sources are unrevealing. As a soldier himself, he would presumably have sympathised with the case of John Jones I*, whose petition for arrears of pay was referred to a committee on which Hawkesworth sat from 17 February 1657; on the same day that this committee was constituted, he was also named to a committee on the bill for the better observation of the sabbath.48CJ vii. 493a, 493b. In March 1657, during the kingship debates and progress through the House of the Humble Petition and Advice, Hawkesworth sat on a committee which considered part of Clause 4 of the Remonstrance, as it then was, dealing with the parliamentary franchise and qualifications of MPs. He was also named to committees on the judicial standing of the Other House, and on preserving the principle of taxation by consent of Parliament.49CJ vii. 501b, 502a, 505a. After the lord protector had rejected the Humble Petition’s kingship clause, Hawkesworth was one of those appointed to a committee to define the title of protector for the future. There can be no doubt that he was content with the regime of Oliver Cromwell*, evidenced by his willingness to serve in his locality as a commissioner to judge scandalous ministers, and for the security of the protector.50CJ vii. 535a; A. and O.

In the last month of this Parliament, Hawkesworth was active in two matters dealing with finance. On 17 June, he was a teller for the losing side against a grand committee resolution to delete a word in a clause of the bill on the customs. Two days later he was one of those considering a bill for stating debts on the ‘public faith’; on 26 June, the Parliament was adjourned until January.51CJ vii. 560a, 563a. If Hawkesworth played any part in the short final session of that assembly, it is unrecorded. In the 12 months between October 1658 and October 1659, he was a frequent attender at the Warwickshire quarter sessions, suggesting that local affairs were absorbing more of his time and interest.52Warwick County Records, iv. p. xxv. On 21 December 1658, Hawkesworth carried the standard at the funeral in Warwick of Francis Greville, 3rd Baron Brooke, confirming that his relations with the family that had employed him were still cordial.53‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 36-7. He was again returned for Warwickshire for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament, perhaps remarkable in the light of the return to the old franchise, which tended to favour gentry families rather than such obvious parvenus as himself. Again, however, he seems to have been inactive, being appointed to no committees, and remaining unrecorded by Thomas Burton* in his diary. He was acceptable to successive regimes as the leading figure in the Warwickshire militia and governor of Warwick castle through the changes of 1659, being confirmed in his position by the Rump during its two re-assemblies that year.54CJ vii. 772b; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 50; HMC Portland, i. 689. During the rising led by Sir George Boothe* in the summer of 1659, Hawkesworth’s garrison and county troops were on full alert.55CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 16. On 23 April 1660, two days before the Convention assembled, Hawkesworth was finally ordered to surrender control of the castle to the 4th Baron Brooke (Robert Greville).56‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 19. He had been dropped from tax commissions by June.57An Ordinance...for an Assessment (1660, E.1075.6).

As one who was still a serving soldier at the Restoration, Hawkesworth was bound to be viewed with suspicion by the restored monarchy. He seems to have headed north in December 1661, being monitored by the government in Derbyshire, and thus may have been trying to reach his birthplace.58CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 169, 199. It is not known whether he was arrested and imprisoned, but he was doomed to lose his ostentatious residence at Kenilworth castle. By 1664 he was living at Feckenham in Worcestershire, not far from the Warwickshire border. This was the home of his married daughter, probably his only child, who died in 1662, not before giving birth to Hawkesworth’s grandchild.59‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 38. He was sued that year in the exchequer for recovery of a debt incurred by a third party he had evidently had dealings with as a military officer.60E134/16 Chas II/ Trin. 5. After his daughter’s death, he seems to have moved towards his wife’s home territory of the east midlands, and died at Lubenham, Leicestershire, on the borders with Northamptonshire, in May 1669.61‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, 39. In his will he made provision outside the family for his grand-daughter’s upbringing - ‘he would trouble his wife with nothing’ - and her education was left to his wife and the new wife of his son-in-law.62PROB11/339, f. 262. His grandson-in-law, Henry Neale, sat for Buckinghamshire in 1696, while his great-grandson, John Neale, represented Chipping Wycombe in 1721, and Coventry between 1722 and 1741.63‘Hawkesworth Pprs.’, plate v; HP Commons 1715-1754, ii. 289-90, where Freckenham, Suff. is mistakenly given for Feckenham, Worcs.