SOAME, Thomas (1585-1671), of Soper Lane, London and Throcking, Herts.

Soame’s family had been established in Norfolk since the fifteenth century. His father, a merchant, made his fortune in London, became lord mayor, and represented the City in the last Elizabethan Parliament, in 1601. At about the same time Soame began an eight-year apprenticeship in the Grocers’ Company under his father, becoming a freeman in 1615.35GL, MS 11571/9, f. 17v; MS 1592A. He later developed much wider interests, becoming involved in the Russian and East India companies as well as in trade with the Levant and the Adriatic.36BDBR iii. 188-9; Pearl, London, 191-2. His father’s death in 1619, leaving, it was said, ‘a great estate behind him of better than £6,000 land and £40,000 goods’, left Soame well provided for and able to pursue his mercantile concerns.37Chamberlain Letters, ed. N.E. McClure ii. 241. His first contact with central government was in June 1624 when, as a member of the East India Company, he petitioned the king for satisfaction against the Dutch.38CSP Col. E.I. 1622-4, pp. 430-3. In 1627 he was issued with letters of marque for his ship, the Videt of Lynn, and the East India Company reluctantly allowed him and his partners to borrow a mast to repair the Hercules.39CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 295; CSP Col. E.I. 1625-9, p. 425. Despite his refusal to contribute £130 to the Forced Loan in the same year, Soame does not appear to have been arrested.40SP16/44/13, SP16/73/13; Pearl, London, 192. By the 1630s he was a great merchant in his own right, the owner of several ships, and, with an income of more than £1,000 a year, well able to purchase the manor of Throcking in Hertfordshire.41CSP Dom. 1634-5, p. 234; R. Davis, Rise of Eng. Shipping Industry (1962), 338; VCH Herts. iv. 112. His social network was already extensive, ranging from his brother-in-law, Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston* of Suffolk to John Winthrop and his son in New England, and the godparents of his many children included landowners such as Sir Edward Markham as well as London merchants such as John Langham*.42Winthrop Pprs. i. 407, 411; Vis. London, 250-1; St. Pancras Soper Lane Par. Reg. (Harl. Soc. Reg. xliv), 151-3, 155

Soame was first elected to civic office in May 1635 when he became sheriff of London; and in July he was elected as alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without.43CLRO, Rep. 49, ff. 202, 282, 287v; Pearl, London, 89. As sheriff he was responsible for the second writ of Ship Money, but in June 1636 he complained to the privy council of ‘various inequalities and irregularities in assessments’, and he became notorious for his relaxed attitude towards defaulters.44SP16/325/90; CSP Dom. 1635-6, pp. 549, 559; Pearl, London, 192. The parishioners of Enfield complained in 1637 that Soame, ‘a man of great estate besides his lands of inheritance’, was himself assessed at too low a rate.45SP16/376/101. In September 1638, Soame was one of three colonels chosen to command the City regiments.46CLRO, Rep. 52, f. 264v. When the crown restored the Honourable Artillery Company’s freedom of election to the lord mayor and aldermen in 1639, Soame was made president, with John Venn* as his deputy.47Pearl, London, 172. At the end of the year he faced prosecution in star chamber ‘for his offences in depopulation and conversion of lands from tillage’ in Carlton, Nottinghamshire.48CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 144; SP16/435/21.

Soame was elected to Parliament for London on 2 March 1640.49CSP Dom. 1640, p. 142. He seems to have played little part in the House and was named to only two committees: those to consider the petition of the treasurers of the three subsidies and fifteenths granted under James I (21 Apr.) and the bill concerning needlemakers and steel wire drawers of London (1 May).50CJ ii. 8a, 17b. When the City refused to meet the king's demands for a £100,000 loan after the failure of the Short Parliament, Soame was one of four aldermen who stood firm, despite intimidation, and refused to draw up a list of the wealthiest citizens in their wards.51CSP Dom. 1640, 155; CSP Ven. 1640-2, p. 48; Nalson, Impartial Colln. i. 491. When summoned to the privy council on 10 May, Soame ‘let fall offensive speeches’ and protested that ‘he was loath to be an informer, that he was always held an honest man whilst he was a commoner and so he would continue to be so now he was an alderman’.52Bodl. Bankes 18/31; Add. 11045, f. 116. The 1st earl of Strafford (Thomas Wentworth†) wanted an example made of the aldermen for ‘unless you hang up some of them you will do no good upon them’, but the king was content with imprisonment and Soame was sent to the Fleet prison.53Rushworth, Strafforde’s Triall, 585; CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 142. He was eventually released, pending a hearing by the court of star chamber, on 15 May.54CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 168, 170 After this incident, Soame became something of a hero in the City. He was elected to the committee of the East India Company for the first time in July.55Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1640-3, p. 61. In September he was adopted as the popular candidate for the office of lord mayor, although he was famous as ‘a blunt man and one whom his majesty does not so well like’.56Add. 11045, f. 122. Such was the alarm of the court at this turn of events that the secretary of state, Sir Francis Windebanke* opined that ‘if this be permitted the government of the City is utterly lost; and if Alderman Soame be chosen besides his disaffections and disabilities, all the aldermen his seniors … will disclaim to come into place after him’.57Clarendon SP ii. 127. Soame was duly elected but because of procedural irregularities the privy council ordered a re-run, despite protests from the electors that ‘they have a mayor and that is Soame – none will serve after Soame’.58SP16/468/97; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 114-5. At the second election he was nominated again but under pressure the sheriff ensured that a compromise candidate, Edmund Wright, was chosen instead.59CLRO, Jor. 39, f. 138v. As Windebanke commented, ‘though this election be irregular, yet it is not altogether so disorderly as if they had chosen Soame’.60Clarendon SP ii. 127-8.

With his popular support in the City it was hardly surprising that Soame was again returned to Parliament in the autumn. Soame was employed as a ‘go-between’ between Parliament and the City in the early months of the session. On 16 November he went to inform the City authorities what security the Commons intended to give those who lent money to Parliament.61CJ ii. 30a. When his colleague Isaac Penington* reported that the City required no security for the £25,000 loan, both he and Soame received Parliament’s thanks for their part in the negotiations. Soame’s committee appointments also suggest that he was closely involved in managing business relevant to the City. On 9 November he was named to the committee to consider the removal of Catholics from the capital; on 19 November he was appointed to a committee to consider trade monopolies; and on the same day he was among the London MPs chosen to prepare a bill for a grant of £100,000.62CJ ii. 24b, 31a, 31b. On 2 December Soame was appointed to the committee to consider the claims of his fellow alderman, Richard Chambers, and the London MP, Samuel Vassall*, for their sufferings in opposing tonnage and poundage.63CJ ii. 43a. A few days later Penington managed to secure his own nomination and that of Soame as treasurers of the first London subsidy, giving them control over what was paid and how quickly, according to political circumstances.64D’Ewes (N), 189. In February 1641 Soame and Penington reported that due to lack of progress in drawing up the bill the £75,000 subsidy was unlikely to be collected; and Soame reported rumours they would be unlikely to collect more than half the amount. More financial disappointments followed when Penington reported that instead of the £100,000 he had promised Parliament, only £10-12,000 could be raised in the City. As a result of Penington’s failure, Sir Thomas Jermyn* proposed that in future ‘Alderman Soame should be entreated to move the City to lend money’.65D’Ewes (N), 356, 433

Soame’s trading interests kept him busy in the Commons during the early months of the Long Parliament. When the petition of the Levant merchants was read on 22 December 1640, it was reported that ‘Alderman Soame of his own accord is willing to acquaint the several companies of merchants in London to attend’.66D’Ewes (N), 523. He was also involved in the East India Company’s petition against Endymion Porter*, but after pressure from the king, the company requested Soame to recall it on 12 January 1641.67Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1640-3, p. 130. Soame was appointed to committees to consider abuses in the post office on 10 February and impositions on wine the next day.68CJ ii. 82a, 83a. He was also involved in religious affairs. When the London petition against episcopacy was presented to the Commons in December 1640, MPs were unwilling to debate it, and resolved instead that the Speaker, assisted by Soame and Penington, should ‘in the House openly’ seal up the attached list of signatures ‘that no man’s name be seen’.69D'Ewes (N), 141-2. Soame was later appointed to committees on the bill to prevent clergy from holding temporal office (8 Mar. 1641) and to repeal a proviso in James I’s recusancy act (8 May).70CJ ii. 99a, 139a. On 3 May Soame took the Protestation.71CJ ii. 134a.

In the months following the execution of the earl of Strafford on 12 May 1641, Soame was less involved in parliamentary business. On 17 June he was added to the committee on the king’s army, and five days later he was one of those appointed to consider claims for money as the Scottish army disbanded.72CJ ii. 178a, 182b. In August he was also named to committees to consider the petition of merchant strangers and to establish an African and American trading company.73CJ ii. 251a, 276a. On 30 August he was appointed as one of the commissioners for disarming recusants in London.74LJ iv. 385b. On 9 September he was appointed, with Penington, to the Recess Committee* that would perform a limited executive function during the king’s absence in Scotland.75CJ ii. 288b. Once again the popular candidate for lord mayor at the end of the month, Soame was defeated by the royalist Sir Richard Gurney in an election managed by the sheriff.76CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 132; Pearl, London, 124.

When Parliament reassembled in October 1641, Soame and Vassall joined forces with the Levant Company to obtain letters of marque against Venetian ships and goods. Their ‘audacious demands’ alarmed the Venetian ambassador, who saw Soame, in particular, as an ‘alderman of influence in these licentious times’.77CSP Ven. 1640-2, p. 227. After news of the outbreak of rebellion in Ireland reached Westminster in early November, Soame was an important figure in harnessing the resources of the City and its merchants to bring immediate relief to the beleaguered Protestants. On 9 November he was named to a committee to consider merchants’ proposals to transport Spanish coins to Ireland.78CJ ii. 308b. When the question of a £50,000 loan from the City to put down the Irish rebellion was discussed on 11 November, Soame reported that some citizens had ‘underwritten to lend £3,000 in one ward, but it was only conditionally that their money might be secured to them’ and that ‘they expected an act’.79D’Ewes (C), 123 The following day he informed the House that the court of aldermen intended to meet and, as a result, four MPs were dispatched with letters from Ireland about the rebellion to support the common council’s case for a loan.80D’Ewes (C), 127, 129. Having failed to get letters of marque against the Venetians, Soame and Vassall began a new campaign in the Commons to prohibit the importation of currants. They were obviously not without influence, as the Venetian ambassador reported to the Doge and Senate, for ‘owing to the bad impression created by these interested persons in the Lower House they [the Commons] were inclined to forbid currants for a certain time in hope of obtaining better conditions by means of fresh negotiations’. The ambassador regarded the measure as ‘for the sole advantage of two merchants who have between them bought up the major part of the currants’.81CSP Ven. 1640-2, pp. 233, 239. Despite this distraction, Soame continued to be an active member of the Commons. On 16 November, he was one of those sent to put a guard on Lord Petre’s house and to search for priests and Jesuits, and on 22 November he and Penington visited the lord mayor to ask for suitable accommodation for the Scottish commissioners.82CJ ii. 317a, 322b; D’Ewes (C), 149. In the meantime he continued his efforts to raise subsidies in the City and was soon able to report that £16,000 had been paid into the chamber of London.83D’Ewes (C), 164. Soame was not one of the ‘fiery spirits’, however, and his support for the tactics of the parliamentary leadership seems to have wavered with the presentation of the Grand Remonstrance and along with ‘the best of the House’ he voted against it.84HMC Cowper ii. 295. Soame seems to have been concerned with the effect a further deterioration in relations between king and Parliament would have on trade and he was a member of the City delegation to the king at Hampton Court urging him to return to London. ‘Anxious to secure himself in the affection of his subjects and of this City in particular’, Charles granted their request and ‘as a token of regard’, knighted all those present on 3 December.85CSP Ven. 1640-2, p. 261; Pearl, London, 129. On 24 December Soame was appointed to a committee to treat with the Merchant Adventurers to raise another loan to put down the rebellion in Ireland.86CJ ii. 357a.

When the king refused to provide a guard for Parliament on 4 January 1642, Soame, Vassall and Penington were sent to inform the City that Parliament was in danger ‘because of preparations in the Tower and the gathering of armed men at Whitehall’.87CJ iii. 367b; CLRO, Jor. 40, f. 11; Nalson, Impartial Colln. ii. 817; D’Ewes (C), 379-80. The attempt on the Five Members and the king’s subsequent withdrawal from London raised political tensions further, but Soame busied himself instead with trading interests. On 14 January he was named to a new committee for navy affairs (which would evolve into the Committee of Navy and Customs) to consider what ships should be provided for the summer fleet, and on 25 January he was named to a related committee to consider merchants vessels to be leased by the navy.88Supra, ‘Committee of Navy and Customs’; CJ ii. 378b, 393a. On 5 February he was added to the committee for customers to consider excessive prices demanded by vintners.89CJ ii. 414b. He and Vassall, with the support of the Levant Company, continued to pursue their case concerning currants, and in March secured an order from the Commons for a total ban on such imports.90CSP Ven. 1642-3, pp. 15, 32, 87; CJ ii. 471a-b. Soame continued to be involved in Irish affairs, being named to committees to consider sending money to the Ulster port of Carrickfergus (29 Jan.), to allocated the funds raised by the Irish ‘contribution’ (19 Mar.), to consider proposals from merchants to supply Ireland (14 May) and to negotiate with the Irish Adventurers in London (16 May).91CJ ii. 403b, 486a, 571b, 572b. He also subscribed the relatively large sum of £1,000 to the Irish Adventure.92CSP Ire. Adv. 244; Bottigheimer, English Money and Irish Land, 191. Yet, as the country slid closer to civil war, Soame could not remain aloof from domestic politics for long. On 8 June Sir Gilbert Gerard* reported that the Grocers’ Company had ‘freely condescended’ to pay in their proportion of the £100,000 to be raised by the City, largely thanks to Soame’s efforts. Soame was appointed to thank the company on the Commons’ behalf, and on 17 June he was sent to the chamber of London to discover how much of the loan had been collected.93CJ ii. 612b, 630b. In June, Soame promised to bring in ‘two horses completely furnished’ for the defence of Parliament.94N. and Q. ser. 1, xii. (1855), 359. He was involved in military preparations in the City and on 14 July was appointed to the committee to ensure the magazine transported from Hull was stored in a safe place.95CJ ii. 672a.

There were limits. Soame was sympathetic when Lord Mayor Gurney refused to appoint a locum tenens while he was awaiting trial for publishing the king’s commissions of array in the City, and on 20 July he signed a declaration from the court of aldermen pointing out that there was no precedent for them to make such an appointment.96LJ v. 229b; Eg. 1048, f. 17. After Gurney’s impeachment, Soame, together with many other senior aldermen were passed over in favour of Penington, who became the new lord mayor.97Pearl, London, 157. On 9 August Soame was sent to the Guildhall to deliver the Commons’ promise of protection to those who had seized the money and goods of Sir George Benyon, a wealthy merchant recently imprisoned for stirring up resistance to the Militia Ordinance in the City.98CJ ii. 711a. During September, he was appointed to three committees: for Irish Affairs (3 Sept.), disposing of prisoners of war (14 Sept.) and to consider the request of the London and Middlesex sheriffs to be exempt from unnecessary charges at assizes (26 Sept.).99CJ ii. 750b, 766a, 782b. Soame’s lukewarm attitude was transformed by the immediate threat to London posed by the royalist advance on the capital after the indecisive battle of Edgehill. On 2 November he was given care of providing accommodation for wounded soldiers in the London hospitals.100CJ ii. 832a. On 7 November he was appointed to the joint committee with the Lords to inform the City that all soldiers were to be punished according to the orders drawn up by the lord general, the 3rd earl of Essex.101CJ ii. 842a. On 26 November Soame was ordered to go to the City to execute measures for raising money for the maintenance of the army.102CJ ii. 866a. On the same day he was made a member of the Committee for Advance of Money* at Haberdashers’ Hall, and he was subsequently active in London to ensure that the assessment tax was collected.103CCAM, 1. On 10 December he was sent to ask the London militia committee to recommend suitable persons to be commissaries at the musters of the trained bands.104CJ ii. 884a. On 15 December he carried to the City the Commons’ recommendation that John Glynne* should be appointed recorder of London.105CJ ii. 889a.

With the start of peace talks at Oxford in the new year of 1643, Soame’s enthusiasm waned. Once again, his committee appointments were largely confined to matters of trade. He was appointed to a committee on abuses by customs officials on 9 January, on 12 January he was instructed to prepare heads for a conference with the Lords to prevent ships going to royalist Newcastle, and on 16 January he was added to the committee for trade.106CJ ii. 919b, 923a-b, 928b. On 17 February he was named to a committee to consider complaints by Spanish merchants against the court of admiralty.107CJ ii. 968b. Soame was also named to a committee to consider the London charter on 28 February; on 6 March he presented to the House an ordinance to raise money for fortifying London; and on 12 April he was appointed to a committee to confer with the City authorities about raising money by an excise tax.108CJ ii. 983b; iii. 41a; Harl. 165, f. 313. Nevertheless when Parliament attempted to obtain a £40,000 loan from the court of aldermen, Soame was unenthusiastic and on 29 April he refused to pay the £2,000 demanded of him despite being ordered to attend the House to give his ‘positive and absolute answer’.109CJ iii. 63a, 64a. Perhaps as a result of this, on 2 May he was removed from the Committee for Advance of Money.110CCAM, 19; CJ iii. 67b. Thereafter, Soame reopened the currant question. When his attempts to get permission to land a consignment failed, he managed to get his case referred to the Committee of Navy and Customs in May, and he was eventually allowed to import the cargo in August.111CJ iii. 92a, 191b. In the meantime, Soame remained fairly busy in the Commons. He advised the Lords chosen to treat with the City on 13 May and on 26 May he was appointed to a committee to consider propositions from the common council for recapturing Newcastle-upon-Tyne and supplying the eastern counties with coal.112CJ iii. 84a, 105a. On 9 June he took the oath and covenant.113CJ iii. 122b.

In the summer of 1643, Soame’s personal finances began to unravel. In July he retired from the committee of the East India Company, probably on the grounds that he could not afford to invest in their ventures.114Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1640-3, p. 331; 1644-9, p. 32. On 21 August he was ordered not to repay the £1,000 he owed to John Barcroft, a Somerset merchant accused of delinquency, until given express permission by the House.115CJ iii. 213a. His political position was not affected by these reverses. On 7 August he was appointed to the committee to investigate complaints against Pym, Gerard and Oliver St John* for transporting money and papers.116CJ iii. 196b. On 28 September he was appointed to the Committee for Scottish Affairs*, from which would emerge the Committee for Compounding.117Supra, ‘Committee for Compounding’; CJ iii. 258a. On 3 October he subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant.118CJ iii. 262a. He was also appointed to a committee on plantations on 20 October and the committee to consider trade with towns in enemy hands on 11 November.119CJ iii. 283a, 308a.

During 1644, Soame became a much more prominent figure at Westminster. This may have been prompted by his concerns for the security of London and its environs. On 8 January he was a member of the delegation sent to common hall to inform them of the discovery of Sir Basil Brooke’s plot to bring the City over to the king.120CJ iii. 360a. On 22 February he was appointed to the committee to establish exactly what his home county of Hertfordshire was owed for free quarter, and on 21 March he was named to a committee to consider two ordinances concerning Middlesex.121CJ iii. 405a, 434a. On 6 April he was sent to the London militia committee to inform them of the necessity of sending immediate reinforcements to the brigade under Sir William Waller*, who was under threat from the royalists in the west.122CJ iii. 451a. A few days later Soame was appointed to a committee to raise the necessary funds to enable their speedy dispatch and he himself contributed £50 to enable the artillery train to march.123CJ iii. 457a; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 126; LJ vi. 524b. During this period, Soame’s own finances remained fragile. In April he successfully obtained a parliamentary discharge for two of his ships which had been stopped in the Downs by one of his creditors, but only on payment of a £1,800 debt; and in May an ordinance for supplying money to Sir Thomas Myddelton* included £1,000 owed by Soame to the Catholic Lady Shelley.124LJ vi. 524b, 563a; CJ iii. 424a, 460a, 468b, 477b, 485b, 491b, 492a, 494a; Harl. 166, ff. 52, 57v; Add. 31116, pp. 242, 271.

Soame’s personal difficulties did not affect his public role, however. On 3 May he was one of the joint committee sent to the City to report on the progress of the Committee of Both Kingdoms in drafting peace propositions and to receive their comments.125CJ iii. 478a. On 15 May he was sent to ask the City authorities to remove from London ‘all suspicious persons’, including recusants and royalist defectors, and to prepare the City forces to march out at short notice.126CJ iii. 493b. Two days later Soame, Penington and Vassall were sent to the lord mayor to ask for arrears of the assessment to be collected to fund Essex’s army.127CJ iii. 497a, 498a. On 25 May Soame was named to a committee to ensure supplies were sent to Windsor Castle and other strongholds to the west of the capital, and two days later he was chosen for a committee to consider ways of raising more money.128CJ iii. 507b, 508b. He was again sent to the City on 6 June to tell them of a report from Anthony Nicoll* on the threat of royalist incursion into Oxfordshire and further east.129CJ iii. 519b. Also on 6 June he was named to the committee on a bill for taking the accounts of the kingdom, and on 5 July he was appointed to a committee on a bill for regulating the excise in London and Middlesex.130CJ iii. 519b, 551b. Soame’s standing in London is attested in July, when he was elected master of the Grocers’ Company.131GL, MS 11588/4, p. 101. On 19 August Soame and Penington were again sent to the lord mayor to exhort him to collect the City’s assessment arrears.132CJ iii. 597a. On 6 September Soame carried messages to the City about farthing tokens, informing the lord mayor that £5,000 would be provided for the exchange of farthings to prevent ‘a great many inconveniences’ to the poor.133CJ iii. 619a. On the same day he reported that the pressing problems of Ireland would require a further levy on the City.134CJ iii. 619a. Soame and Vassall again visited the City about farthing tokens on 14 September.135CJ iii. 627a. Soame was appointed to committees to examine the controversy surrounding Colonel Samuel Jones* and Farnham Castle on 18 October, and to consider an ordinance for defraying the charge of maintaining the London fortifications on 25 October.136CJ iii. 669b, 676a. On 6 November he was named to a committee to consider an ordinance for coordinating the activities of the local committees in Kent.137CJ iii. 688a. His creditors were still on the trail, however. When Thomas Hall, a London merchant, petitioned the Commons for £1,000 Soame owed him on 8 November, Soame ‘voluntarily’ offered ‘to be examined upon oath as to this particular debt ... and to declare his full knowledge therein’.138CJ iii. 690b. As a result, by order of the Commons of 26 December, Soame was ordered to pay the money to the Committee for Compounding.139CJ iv. 1b; CCC, 829, 866-7. In the same period he was investigated by the Committee for Advance of Money for the recovery of £1,500 he had borrowed from a Gloucestershire delinquent.140CCAM, 449, CCC, 10.

Soame apparently welcomed the formation of the New Model army. He was named to a committee to consider raising money from the City on 18 February 1645 and on 6 and 10 March was appointed to committees to negotiate directly with the aldermen and common council.141CJ iv. 52a, 71a, 73b. Late in March, he was named to the New Model’s financial executive, the Committee for the Army.142A. and O. He may have seen the new army as a supplementary force, rather than a national army, as he was also involved in measures to increase funding to other military units. On 12 April he was sent to the corporation to negotiate a loan, secured on the excise, to pay Sir William Brereton’s* forces in the north west.143CJ iv. 109a. On 21 April he was sent to the London militia committee to show them letters lately received from Philip Skippon* in the field, and to hasten the dispatch of reinforcements.144CJ iv. 118b. A few days later he was appointed to a committee to consider what powers should be given to the committee of accounts charged with collecting arrears.145CJ iv. 123b. He was also named to the committee to consider a bill for a weekly assessment in London on 17 May.146CJ iv. 146a. From June onwards, Soame was involved in measures to support the Scottish army. On 13 June he was appointed to a committee to attend the City authorities to request the payment of money owed to the Scots; on 23 August he was named to a committee to consider petitions from Scottish officers for their pay arrears; and on 6 October he was sent into the City to borrow £30,000 to pay the Scots.147CJ iv. 173b, 249b, 298b. During this period, Soame was also appointed to committees to consider the choice of elders for the London churches (25 July), abuses in sequestrations (16 Aug.) and to the committee of privileges when it considered a petition from Cockermouth (7 Oct.).148CJ iv. 218a, 244b, 300a. In December Soame was one of those appointed to consider the common council’s reasons for refusing to lend money for the Irish wars, provoked by the London Adventurers’ concerns about corruption, and in particular the activities of John Davies*.149CJ iv. 368b.

As sympathies in the City moved towards a peace with the king and disbandment of the army, Soame was less involved in business at Westminster, and during 1646 he was appointed to fewer parliamentary committees. He was named on 21 January to the committee to consider extending the Presbyterian system to Whitefriars and other London parishes previously exempt.150CJ iv. 413b. On 17 February he was appointed to a committee to review the powers granted to the Committee for Advance of Money.151CJ iv. 445b. In early March Soame was involved in raising money for the forces under Major-general Richard Browne II* and the garrisons of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire.152CJ iv. 461a. On 28 April he was named to the committee on an ordinance to settle lands confiscated from the 5th earl of Worcester on the Independent preacher, Hugh Peter.153CJ iv. 525a. With the flight of the king to the Scottish army in May, and the subsequent surrender of Oxford, Soame was free to pursue other matters. On 30 July he was chosen to meet the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs to consider how to extract money long-since promised for Ireland.154CJ iv. 629b. Commercial affairs remained important. On 17 September he was appointed to a committee to confer with the Levant Company concerning the seizure of their goods and factors by the royalist deputy in Constantinople, Sir Sackville Crowe†; and on 3 October Soame and Colonel Edmund Harvey I* presented a petition to the House from the owners of ships employed in Parliament’s service.155CJ iv. 671a, 682a. During this period Soame appears to have been suspicious of moves within the City to hasten a settlement with the king. On 15 July he and Vassall were sent to the City to express the Commons’ disapproval of the intended London petition to the king.156Juxon Jnl., 130. On 4 December he was one of those sent to the common council to urge them to bring in the assessment arrears to enable Parliament to pay the New Model army.157CJ iv. 738a.

Soame was appointed as a commissioner for compounding on 6 February 1647, although the committee attendance lists show that he was rarely present at its meetings.158CJ v. 78a; SP23/4, pp. 109, 181. Although he had as yet distanced himself from factional politics, and did not sit on the more controversial common council committees, there are signs that Soame was drawing closer to the Presbyterian party in the City during the spring.159Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 491-2. He was appointed to a committee to consider the bill to remodel the London militia on 2 April.160CJ v. 132b. On the same day he was sent to the City again, as part of a parliamentary delegation, to urge the lord mayor to call a common council to raise £200,000 for England and Ireland.161CJ v. 133a. In a major concession, on 6 May the Commons ordered that £1,440 due to Soame ‘for money previously lent by him for the service of Parliament’ should be charged on the excise, and he was to retain a further £1,000 which he owed to Gibson and Hall, in recompense for money owed to him.162CJ v. 164b; HMC 6th Rep., 174; LJ ix. 181a; Harington Diary, 51. On 27 May Soame was named to a committee to consider a petition from the Weavers’ Company.163CJ v. 187a. Soame’s association with the Presbyterian interest strengthened during the summer. On 14 July he and Vassall were made responsible for giving the Commons’ reply to the petition of the London apprentices calling for an accommodation with the king and the disbanding of the army.164CLRO, Jor. 40, f. 188-9; CJ v. 243b. When the ‘Solemn Engagement’ demanding the king’s restoration was brought to the Commons from the City on 26 July, Soame and Venn were sent to receive it. But, having met the petitioners, they reported that the delegation wished to present it in person.165CJ v. 258b. On the same day, rioting by the apprentices forced many MPs to withdraw from the chamber. Soame apparently played no part in the initial stages of the Presbyterian coup, but he was present in the House on 3 August, when he was added to the Presbyterian-dominated ‘committee of safety’ (for mobilising London against the army) and named to a committee to inform the common council of the votes to invite the king to come to London, and to encourage them to defend the capital against the approaching New Model army.166CJ v. 266a.

After the New Model had occupied the capital, Soame attempted to mediate between the military and the City. On 21 August he was among those sent to arrange a meeting between the Army Committee and the common council about a loan equivalent to a month’s pay for the army.167CJ v. 280b. As the City continued to refuse to pay its taxes despite the army’s presence, on 3 September Soame was sent again to the City with other London MPs to request a ‘positive answer’ to Parliament’s demand for a £50,000 loan. They served notice on the City that Parliament held them responsible for the presence of the army in London, but their exhortations fell on deaf ears.168CJ v. 290b. On 9 September the City petitioned the Commons, stating their reasons for not raising the money required, but the House was not satisfied and Soame and Vassall were sent to demand payment of the arrears of the City’s assessments (which amounted to £64,000) as well as the £50,000 loan by 18 September.169CJ v. 298b. In the autumn election for a new lord mayor Soame, now a senior alderman, was again nominated, but he was defeated by the army’s candidate.170Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 826. Absent at the call of the House on 9 October, he was fined £25, although this was later refunded.171CJ v. 330a, 332b. After his return to Westminster on 14 October, Soame was appointed to committees to raise money for Ireland (1 Nov.), and to obtain a loan of £20,000 from the excise commissioners ‘for the present service of the army’ (16 Nov.).172CJ v. 347a, 360b. On 17 December he delivered copies of the ordinances concerning the election of London municipal officers to the lord mayor and the militia committee.173CJ v. 390b.

Soame was only an occasional visitor to the Commons in the first few months of 1648. He was appointed to the committee of grievances on 4 January and on the 14th was sent to the City to demand payment of the assessment and punishment of rioters on 14 January.174CJ v. 417a, 432b. He was named to committees to consider the state of the customs on 4 March, and an ordinance for settling the jurisdiction of the court of admiralty on 20 March.175CJ v. 480a, 505b. In April, as relations between the City and the army deteriorated, Soame became more active. On 27 April he was one of those appointed to consider the corporation’s demands that the City chains be repaired and that the militia committee be put in charge of all the London forces with Skippon as its commander-in-chief.176CJ v. 546a. In early May he was one of the London MPs sent to negotiate alternative arrangements for Parliament’s defence after Fairfax had requested permission to withdraw urgently-needed regiments from Whitehall to counter royalist insurrections in the localities.177Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1099. The following week he was one of those sent to inform the City that the Welsh rising had been successfully quashed but further funds would be required to put down the north.178CJ v. 558a. News of the army’s success was not welcomed in the City which continued to prove difficult over assessment arrears. On 13 July Soame and Venn went to desire their answer about the imposition of a coal tax for the defence of Newcastle, which the City had impeded.179CJ v. 634b. Amid rising fears that London was about to declare unequivocally for the king, on 3 August Soame and Venn were again sent to warn the lord mayor that the City was not to answer the prince of Wales’s letters.180CJ v. 660b. A few days later Soame was put in charge of a delegation of London MPs sent to inform the City that Parliament had rejected the city petition calling for the disbandment of the armies and a treaty with the king.181CJ v. 665b. 666a. Soame’s activities during the autumn confirm that he was in favour of the peace negotiations at Newport. On 8 September he was a member of the committee sent to the City to press for the payment of money promised for the commissioners to treat with the king, and on 23 September Soame, Penington and Vassall were ordered to take care of the money collected for the same purpose.182CJ vi. 9b, 29b. On 17 October Soame was appointed to another committee to take charge of sending the remaining money to the commissioners.183CJ vi. 51a. Parliament became increasingly concerned for its own safety in November, and Soame was a member of the committee sent to common council to voice Parliament's anxieties over security on 4 November.184CJ vi. 69b.

Soame’s support for the Newport Treaty led to his imprisonment at Pride’s Purge on 6 December 1648.185Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1355. Soame and 15 other MPs were brought before Commissary-general Henry Ireton* at Whitehall on 20 December, and told that they would be released ‘provided they attempted nothing against the present proceedings of the Parliament and the army’. When the MPs declined to give such an undertaking, they were released ‘without any engagement’ and they ‘were left at liberty to sit in the House again if they thought proper’.186OPH xviii. 476-7; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1369. Although Soame did not return to the Commons, he did attend the Committee for Compounding at Goldsmiths’ Hall a few days before the king’s execution.187SP23/5, f. 48. As the Rump began to re-organise its finances, the £1,440 owed to Soame by Parliament was removed from the excise accounts on 21 April 1649.188CJ vi. 191b. On 31 May Penington reported to the Commons that Soame, although in London, had not attended the ceremony proclaiming the commonwealth in the City.189CJ vi. 221a. He was ordered to attend the House to answer for his contempt and appeared the following day. He admitted that the lord mayor had required his attendance at the proclamation but, because he considered it ‘against his judgement and conscience ... it was contrary to many oaths of allegiance he had taken’, he had absented himself. As a result Soame was discharged from being a Member of Parliament and barred from holding municipal office.190Sir Thomas Soame Vindicated ([31 Mar.]1660, 669.f.24.51); CSP Ven. 1647-52, p. 108; Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 42-3; CJ vi. 222a.

Soame’s activities for the remainder of the commonwealth and during the protectorate period are difficult to follow, but it is clear that he was in severe financial difficulties. During the winter of 1648-9 the Committee for Advance of Money investigated claims that he owed money to delinquents, but on 3 August 1649 he managed to prove that he had been released from £1,000 of the debts by order of Parliament.191CCAM 276-7. During the 1650s he was involved in protracted negotiations with the East India Company over large sums of money he owed them for consignments of sugar. The company failed to achieve any satisfaction and eventually issued a statute of bankruptcy against Soame in December 1652, which led to his imprisonment until May 1653, when he agreed to pay what was due.192Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1650-4, pp. 100, 105-6, 110, 137, 192, 211, 234. Perhaps in connection with this, in August of the same year Soame sold his share of the Irish Adventure.193CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 435, 556. During 1654 he is listed as patron of the parish of Carlton, Nottinghamshire where the incumbent, John Phillips, was absent and the services were conducted by Joseph Ridding, who was considered ‘an able constant preaching minister free from scandal’.194Lansd. 459, f. 179v. In January 1656, Nathaniel Parker claimed that in May 1643 Soame, as his father’s executor, had lent £2,000 to Parliament out of the estate in lieu of his own debts, but the committee for petitions dismissed the case.195CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 143. A month later, Soame’s request to the East India Company that money he had adventured might be returned was flatly refused, and the commissioners of bankruptcy subsequently ordered that this money should be distributed among his creditors.196Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, pp. 83, 85.

Soame took his seat again in the Commons when the secluded Members returned on 21 February 1660, and on 29 February he was appointed to a committee to consider a bill for the security for a City loan.197CJ vii. 856a. On 12 March, following William Prynne’s* report, the House ordered ‘that the votes touching Sir Thomas Soame of 1 June 1649 be and hereby are discharged and that they be also obliterated’.198Sir Thomas Soame Vindicated; CJ vii. 871a. This vote was confirmed at the Restoration, and Soame was also allowed to return to the aldermanic bench in August 1660, and was sworn in in September.199Beaven, Aldermen of London i. 103; CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 240v. Although now the senior alderman, he declined nomination in all the subsequent elections for lord mayor. During the 1660s Soame’s financial situation improved somewhat and by July 1661 the East India Company was once again accepting him as security for goods.200Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1660-3, p. 120. He was discharged without fine from being an alderman ‘because of his age and great infirmity’ on 22 January 1667.201Beaven, Aldermen of London i. 103. He appears to have retired to Throcking where he began to rebuild the church, but in 1670 he sold the manor there.202Clutterbuck, Herts. iii. 463. Where Soame lived for the remainder of his life is uncertain, but after his death on 1 January 1671 he was buried in the church at Throcking.203Clutterbuck, Herts. iii. 467-8. His son, Samuel, was granted the administration of his estate.204PROB6/46, f. 10v. Soame’s service to the City of London was eulogized in a poem by his kinsman Robert Herrick who wrote

Seeing thee, Soame, I see a goodly man
And in that good a great patrician ...
Not wearing purple only for the show
(As many conscripts of the City do)
But for true service worthy of that gown

The golden chain too, the civic crown.205Poems of Robert Herrick, ed. L.C. Martin (1956), 176.