BAKER, John (1590-c.1668), of Mayfield, Suss.

The Baker family had been resident in Battle, east Sussex, since the reign of Edward III, but it was only in the late sixteenth century that gentry status was attained, in the person of Michael Baker, the father of our MP and a lawyer at Gray’s Inn.33E. Suss. RO, WA3/186. Michael married at St Saviour, Southwark in July 1588.34St Saviour Southwark par. reg. Following his death in March 1595, his widow Jane purchased the wardship of their eldest son, John.35WARD9/159, f. 16. The latter probably received a godly education at Magdalen College, Oxford, to which he was admitted in 1606, before going on to the Inner Temple a year later.36Al. Ox.; I. Temple database. Following an apparently financially advantageous marriage into a City mercantile family in January 1615, two years later Baker enhanced his estate at Mayfield by purchasing the manor from the poet, Thomas May.37St Benet Gracechurch par. reg.; Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 101-2; E. Suss. RO, KIR3/2; Suss. Manors, ii. 295-6; Add. 39477, ff. 93, 94 Prosperity allowed him to acquire the manor of Waldron by 1631, when he compounded his knighthood for the relatively large fine of £25.38Suss. Manors, ii. 458; E401/2450.

In the 1630s Baker emerged as a member of the godly faction in Sussex, and was particularly close to its effective leader, Sir Thomas Pelham*, from whom Baker leased an iron works.39Add. 33144, f. 14. It was probably through Pelham’s influence that Baker began to receive appointments to local positions, including the commission for charitable uses and the commission of the peace, to which he was added in April 1636.40CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 67; C231/5, pp. 203. Thereafter he became one of the dominant figures on the county bench, and an assiduous attender of quarter sessions.41E. Suss. RO, QR/E35-48. As a magistrate, Baker worked closely with Pelham to send reports to the privy council in accordance with the Book of Orders.42SP16/329, f. 146; SP16/364, f. 228; SP16/395, f. 40. Around the end of the decade Pelham possibly also helped him to extend his connections among the wealthy and pious home counties gentry through his second marriage to Anne, daughter of Sir John Rivers of Chafford, Kent, and widow of Matthew Honywood, brother of Sir Thomas Honywood*.43Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 101; (Harl. Soc. lxxxix), 5-6. In his will of September 1638 Matthew, a near contemporary of Baker at the Inner Temple who had become a barrister, had left to Anne £1,000 ‘for the increase of her jointure’ and to Pelham a ‘young Barbary mare’; in April 1639 his widow presented his posthumous son Matthew for baptism at Hamsey, the Sussex home of her brother James Rivers*, another active local magistrate.44PROB11/178/201; IGI.

Pelham certainly assisted Baker to acquire the advowson of Mayfield in 1638.45E. Suss. RO, KIR3/18. Partly through Baker’s influence, and partly through that of the rector, John Maynard, later a member of the Westminster Assembly, the parish became a godly bastion.46‘John Maynard’, Oxford DNB. In the late 1630s both Baker and his brother Thomas acquired reputations as puritan agitators. In 1637 Thomas Baker was examined regarding his association with Thomas Chaloner*, the future republican radical, who was suspected of having published an anti-Laudian pamphlet.47s.v. ‘Thomas Chaloner’; CSP Dom. 1637, p. 176. It is unclear whether John Baker was the man of that name detained in the Fleet prison by the privy council early in 1638: if he was, then his detention was perhaps in connection with this affair.48PC2/48, f. 266. In 1639 he was among the Sussex gentry who refused to contribute towards the first bishops’ war.49Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 914.

On 27 January 1640, reporting to Dr Bray, one of Archbishop William Laud’s chaplains, Dr Edward Burton identified Baker as among a group of puritan activists in Sussex which included the future parliamentarians James Rivers, Anthony Stapley I* and William Hay*. Burton accused them of being ‘steered rather by humour and faction than justice’, and of planning to influence the elections in opposition to ‘loyal’ county figures, in particular the 4th earl of Dorset (Sir Edward Sackville†).50CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 386-7. As Burton anticipated, the influence of Baker and his friends proved decisive in the elections, and in April 1640, Baker signed the election return for Pelham and Stapley as knights of the shire.51C219/42ii/27.

Although not himself returned to Westminster, Baker remained active as a justice of the peace and contributed £5 towards the relief of Irish Protestants.52E. Suss. RO, QR/E49-57; Suss. QSOB 1642-49, 15; E179/191/390/3 The king was sufficiently convinced of his disaffection to remove him from the commission of the peace in July 1642, but when war broke out this had no effect on Baker’s involvement in the administration of the county.53C231/5, p. 532. In May 1643 Baker was appointed with Harbert Morley* to implement the ordinance for the weekly assessment; on 3 June he was ordered to pay £700 which had reached his hands to Sir Gilbert Gerrard*, the treasurer at war.54A. and O; CJ iii. 114a. On 5 July Baker was among those approved as deputy lieutenants for Sussex, while on 18 July he was named to the county committee.55CJ iii. 156a, 173a, 354a

Baker soon came to be recognised as one of ‘the most active men’ in Sussex.56SP46/105, f. 107. On 3 August he signed a letter from its committee to Speaker William Lenthall*, advocating the association of the southern counties for mutual defence, and that autumn, as a ‘patriot’ and ‘a gentleman of quality and known integrity’, he was appointed sheriff.5754 Bodl. Nalson III. no. 21; CJ iii. 333b, 354b; LJ vi. 334a; E. Suss. RO, KIR 3/19; Mercurius Britannicus no. 18 (21-28 Dec. 1643), 139 (E.79.20); Kingdoms Weekly Intelligencer no. 35 (5-13 Dec. 1643), 268 (E.78.14). He was among committee members who in January 1644, urged Parliament to tender the Solemn League and Covenant to the entire county, since it would be ‘of special use for uniting of the minds and hearts of men to stand firm for the common cause’, as well as a useful way of flushing out malignants.58Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 493. Shortly after his shrieval year ended late in 1644, Baker was also restored to the county bench, whereupon he again became one of its leading members.59E. Suss. RO, QR/E66-85; Suss. QSOB 1642-49, 76, 100, 156, 157, 168, 169, 191. He remained equally active on the county committee, particularly in the wake of the threat from the Clubmen in 1645.60SP28/181, unfol.; Bodl. Tanner 60, ff. 251-55.

A strong contender for a place in Parliament at the recruiter elections of 1645, Baker stood at East Grinstead, where a vacancy had resulted from the expulsion of Lord Buckhurst (Richard Sackville*), eldest son of the earl of Dorset and an active royalist. Baker’s zealous pursuit of the war effort suggests that he was aligned with the Independent faction in the county, and with Anthony Stapley and Harbert Morley, rather than with his old friend Sir Thomas Pelham. Opposition from one Robert Pickering gave rise to a double return involving rival returning officers. On 9 February 1646 the Commons resolved that the return made for Pickering was invalid, since the bailiff who had drawn it up had himself been wrongfully elected, approving instead one Mr Bowyer as bailiff, and his return of Baker.61CJ iv. 432a.

For nearly three years Baker was more active in the county than at Westminster, and made little impact in the House.62SP28/343, unfol. Granted leave to go to the country on 12 June, Baker reappeared in the Journal only on 23 October, when he was named to a committee to consider a petition against the governor of Hereford.63CJ iv. 574a, 703a. He then vanished again until 11 May 1647, when he was appointed to a committee for settling lands on the commander of the New Model army, Sir Thomas Fairfax*.64CJ iv. 167a. He appeared only twice more that year, being nominated to committees considering the cases of private individuals (8 July, 8 Sept.), and thus could well have avoided the dramatic events of the summer, including the Presbyterian coup, the New Model’s entry to London and the Independents’ return.65CJ v. 237b, 295b. His sole appointment of 1648 was on 29 January, to a committee considering an ordinance to protect tenants from the financial penalties suffered by their delinquent landlords.66CJ v. 447b. On the other hand, over the summer he was actively involved in countering the threat of royalist revolt in Sussex.67SP28/181, unfol.; Bodl. Nalson XI, f. 290.

This was apparently sufficient to ensure he survived Pride’s purge on 6 December 1648. There is nothing to identify him directly as a supporter of the trial and execution of Charles I, and there is no sign of him in the Commons until 1 February 1649, two days after the regicide, when he took the dissent to the vote of 5 Dec. 1648 in favour of a negotiated settlement.68PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, p. 625; [W. Prynne], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (1660), 23 (E.1013.22). Joining a relatively ‘strong band’ of Sussex MPs in the Rump, Baker was among the moderate majority whose attendances were infrequent, but his contribution to proceedings was less slender than heretofore.69Fletcher, Suss. 294. Between 4 May and 7 August 1649 he was mentioned in the Journal six times, receiving five committee appointments of varying degrees of importance: two related to Ireland, including, significantly, the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs (20 July); two related to religion (the propagation of the gospel in New England, 13 June; the declaration on the maintenance of the ministry and church government, 7 Aug.).70CJ vi. 200b, 231a, 247b, 266b, 275b. As befitted a former associate of Pelham, his piety was evidently of a mainstream cast, but his appointment with Harbert Morley on 9 November (after a period of invisibility) to the committee considering how to implement the Engagement reveals his commitment to the commonwealth.71CJ vi. 321b.

Throughout the Rump Baker remained active on the Sussex commission of the peace, a fact which goes some way to account for his absences from Westminster and suggests that local considerations weighed highly with him.72E. Suss. RO, QR/E86-102; QO/EW2, ff. 4v, 16, 31v, 52v. Surfacing briefly again in the House in the early summer of 1650, the first of his three committee appointments was to consider a petition concerning Sackville College in his own constituency of East Grinstead (31 May).73CJ vi. 418a, 430b, 437a. Sometime before mid-November 1649 summer he and William Hay had proposed a motion in the House that a convoy be supplied to escort cargoes of iron – a commodity in which they both had personal interests – en route from Sussex to Kings Lynn.; they were successful, although it seems to have taken some time for the ships to materialize.74CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 269, 553.

Baker’s standing with the regime is above all demonstrated by the fact that, despite his apparently modest record in Parliament, in July 1650 he joined another standing committee, the Committee for Plundered Ministers.75CJ vi. 437a. Although he did not prove one of its more prominent members, he continued to attend until late 1652, eighteen months after his last appearance in the Journal.76SP22/2b, ff. 216, 227, 232, 283, 326. In addition, he was active on the committee for regulating the universities (to which he was added in March 1650), which worked with the Committee for Plundered Ministers in settling a godly ministry.77CJ vi. 388b; LPL, Sion L40.2/E16, passim. An insight into his religious preferences is offered by the fact that in October 1651, with William Cawley I*, he recommended as vicar of Patcham Elié-Paul D’Arande, who had been serving as assistant to the theologically conservative controversialist Francis Cheynell.78Add. 36792, f. 30v; ‘Elié D’Arande’, ‘Francis Cheynell’, Oxford DNB. Even more importantly, on 25 July 1650 Baker was appointed surveyor-general for the act for the sale of delinquents’ estates – a position of potentially great influence and profit, suggesting that there had been much more to Baker’s early career and business experience than meets the eye.79CJ vi. 446b. That employment apparently lay behind his final nomination in the House in April 1651, when he was added to the committee on the bill for removing obstructions in the sale of church lands.80CJ vi. 558a. Activity arising from it might also explain his disappearance from the House.

Like fellow Sussex MPs, including Harbert Morley, Baker probably opposed the dissolution of the Rump in April 1653. He continued as surveyor-general of delinquents’ estates and as an assessment commissioner, and was appointed to commissions of oyer and terminer, but was absent from the county bench for two and a half years from January 1654.81C181/6, pp. 13, 60, 90, 125, 146, 171, 219, 277, 306, 373. That in February 1656 the council of state considered information laid against his work as surveyor suggests some in the protectorate government entertained suspicions about him, the investigation apparently came to nothing.82CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 169. Baker reappeared at sessions that July.83E. Suss. RO, QR/EW112.

Baker apparently made no attempt to secure a seat for himself in the second or third protectorate Parliaments, however. Even after the restoration of the Rump in May 1659, he seems not to have returned to Westminster until early September, in the wake of the victory by John Lambert* over the rising led by Sir George Boothe*, and the award by the council of state to Baker of a buck, presumably in recognition of his services against Sussex insurgents.84CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 566. Named on 1 September to a committee considering a bill for assessment, Baker had probably already disappeared from the chamber by the 26th when he was nominated to another concerning the excise.85CJ vii. 772a, 786b. On 30 September his absence at a call of the House resulted in a £20 fine.86CJ vii. 789b.

Baker’s withdrawal from London may have been prompted by the unrest in the army which soon led to the ‘interruption’ of Parliament. He reappeared in the Journal more than six weeks after the Rump reassembled, and only after the arrival in the capital on 3 February 1660 of General George Monck*. Baker was named to two committees before the Long Parliament finally dissolved itself on 16 March – to investigate a scandalous pamphlet (15 Feb.), and to prepare the qualifications for members to sit in the next Parliament (22 Feb.).87CJ vii. 843b, 848b.

By the time that Charles II was restored in May 1660, Baker was 70 years old. He kept his place as n assessment commissioner in June, received a royal pardon in April 1661, and thus might have been the John Baker (re-appointed that January to the commission of the peace.88E. Suss. RO, KIR3/31; C231/7, p. 95. By the time he drew up his will in October 1663, his son from his first marriage, Robert, an Inner Temple barrister from 1646, had died.89Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 101; (Harl. Soc. lxxxix), 5-6; I. Temple database. His estate had been settled the previous spring at the marriage of his surviving son with his second wife, also John Baker.90Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. lxxxix), 5-6; London Marr. Lics. ed Foster. Baker senior died some time before 3 December 1668, when the will was proved by his brother-in-law, George Rivers.91PROB11/328/454. He left a personal estate valued at nearly £700.92PROB4/4405. No-one else from his branch of the family served in Parliament.