DODDRIDGE, John (1610-59), of Bremridge, South Molton, Devon, Cheshunt, Herts. and the Middle Temple, London.

The Doddridges held a manor of that name in Devon from the time of Henry III, but the most prominent of the family at any time in its history was Sir John Doddridge†, the eminent Jacobean judge, whose tomb survives in Exeter Cathedral. Sir John’s brother, Pentecost, was a Barnstaple merchant who represented that town in three Parliaments of the 1620s. Pentecost Doddridge – named in an Elizabethan flowering of staunch Protestantism in North Devon – inherited his brother’s property, including the new house he had built at Bremridge, South Molton, a parish south east of Barnstaple. Pentecost Doddridge was mayor three times of Barnstaple, and a feoffee of lands there. In 1637, with other townsmen he invited Edward Sackville†, 4th earl of Dorset, to become high steward.14HMC 9th Rep. i. 214, 215. He married a daughter of another Barnstaple merchant, and their son, our John Doddridge, grew up in the town and attended the grammar school there. When he went up to the Middle Temple in 1629, his sureties or manucaptors were two Devon men, George Peard* and Amias Bampfylde of Poltimore, and the inn noted his relationship to Sir John Doddridge, recently deceased.15MTR ii. 754.

It must be assumed that Doddridge remained in London at the Middle Temple, studying and practising law to be called to the bar in 1637. He seems not to have entered public life during the first civil war, and his election for Barnstaple in December 1646 went unnoticed by the newspapers beyond an oblique reference to the success of Philip Skippon*, with whom he was returned.16Perfect Diurnall, no. 177 (14-21 Dec. 1646), 1419 (E.513.29). The background to his election was the success of the New Model in the south west in making recruiter elections possible, but Barnstaple petitioned Devon quarter sessions at Exeter with their grievances in 1647. The town was ruined

partly by the late distractions of the kingdom, partly by decay of trade, partly by great losses sustained partly by the death and departure of the ablest and men of best abilities of the town and partly by God’s late visitation with the plague and pestilence.17Devon RO, QS box 55/bdle. Epiph. 1648; quarter sessions order bk. Epiph. 1648.

Pentecost Doddridge was one of the ‘ablest and men of best abilities’ who had died. John Doddridge had since 1644 been the heir not only of his father, but also his uncle, and was now proprietor of Bremridge.

Doddridge took the Covenant on 1 February 1647, and this occasion may have marked his first appearance in the Commons.18CJ v. 69a; Perfect Diurnall no. 179 (1-8 Feb. 1647), 1431 (E.513.37). On 17 March he was put in charge of a committee to ensure that MPs of both Houses paid to the state the fee farm rents due to the king, which bore fruit eventually in a very short ordinance (21 Sept.).19CJ v. 114b; A. and O. i. 1014. His legal skills evidently recommended him for the position. In March he was named to the committee entrusted with the task of adjudicating in the dispute between Parliament's committee at Coventry and the Coventry corporation over the continuation of the garrison there. In this, Doddridge was likely to have been unsympathetic to the local military interest. He took personal control of an ordinance to relieve Protestant refugees from Ireland, camped around Barnstaple, and in May and June was involved in developing the legislation for indemnity of soldiers.20CJ v. 122b, 163a, 166a, 198b, 199a. He reported amendments to the ordinance repealing the parliamentary ‘Declaration of Dislike’ of 30 March. This Declaration had been produced by the Presbyterians as a mark of their detestation of challenges from the soldiery over pay and conditions. Doddridge’s involvement in its repeal in June is more likely to have been motivated by regret at repeal than enthusiasm for it.21CJ v. 199b; Add. 31116 p. 623; Woolrych, Soldiers and Statesmen, 37-8, 123. He was not noted by the clerk between 2 July and 14 August, so his role in the ‘forcing’ of the Houses and the flight to the army by Independents is not clear. That he was a member of a committee that worked on an ordinance to nullify proceedings of the House during that period suggests that he was not a diehard Presbyterian.22CJ v. 231a, 274a, 278a, 279b.

Among the legislative committees to which Doddridge contributed in the first three days of September 1647 were those on the seal of south Wales, the problem of clipped coinage and the suppression of libels circulating on the streets of London.23CJ v. 287b, 289b, 290b. But on 3 September he was given leave to go the country, was reported ill at a call of the House in October, and did not re-appear until early November.24CJ v. 291a, 329b, 352a. On his return, he was again involved in forensic committees on the summer’s tensions between army and Parliament (16 and 23 Nov.), and with Arthur Annesley* was put in charge of the propaganda benefits of the capture in Ireland of the correspondence of Theobald Taaffe, 2nd Viscount Taaffe.25CJ v. 360a, 367a, 373b, 374a. On 27 December, Doddridge was placed on the Committee for Plundered Ministers*, and a few days later gave the thanks of the House to the Presbyterian minister, Lazarus Seaman, for his fast sermon: both appointments indicate his Presbyterian religious sympathies.26CJ v. 407a, 410a.

On 10 January 1648, Doddridge was named to a committee on war damage to property suffered by the supporters of Parliament. He was appointed to the chair, and over the next months, the committee considered, for example, petitions from Gilbert Millington* and from a Forest of Dean ironmaster. Among his fellow members of this committee was Richard Aldworth of Bristol, the city where Doddridge was later to become recorder.27CJ v. 425a, 446a, 461a, 484b. A particular concern of this committee was the sufferings of towns; Liverpool is an example of a city that petitioned Doddridge’s committee about its losses.28CJ v. 446a, 461a, 503a. Doddridge’s role in relation to his own town and county was as a critic of the army. In the autumn of 1647, the Devon justices of the peace framed a petition to the lord general, Sir Thomas Fairfax*, about a troop of horse taking free quarter, and he replied allowing the magistrates the initiative of disbanding the soldiers. The following April, Doddridge helped draft another letter to the lord general concerning free quarter in Devon, in response to complaints from Barnstaple and Dartmouth. In early May 1648, after a confrontation between the troops of Sir Hardress Waller* and the local populace around Exeter, the latter supported by the Exeter city fathers, Doddridge and John Maynard* drafted a letter for the Speaker requiring Waller to withdraw. There is no doubt that the Exeter civic leaders, backed by Doddridge and Maynard, were taking a Presbyterian, anti-army, stance. As some kind of placatory gesture, four days later (23 May), Doddridge was asked to draft an ordinance addressing the long-standing financial problems of the Plymouth garrison, led by Ralph Weldon*. In June, Doddridge drafted a letter asking Waller to forbear from enlisting troops in Devon.29CJ v. 541a, 565b, 571b, 606b; S.K. Roberts, Recovery and Restoration in an English County (Exeter, 1985), 9-10, 12, 17, 18.

While he was a critic of the New Model, Doddridge was a promoter of the militia under county control. He was on a committee of the House in May 1648 to settle the militia nationally, and a few days later with Sir Harbottle Grimston* and Zouche Tate* drew up an expression of confidence by the Commons in the City of London’s capacity to order its own force. It was hoped that this London militia would include guarding Parliament among its duties. Their discussions on this last point were given heightened urgency by the riot outside Parliament that month; Doddridge was named to the investigating committee.30CJ v. 551a, 555a, 562b, 565a, 574a. Plans for a reorganised militia, tacitly understood to be at the expense of the field army, continued to be promoted by Presbyterians through the summer. Doddridge was named to Sir Robert Harley’s* committee on the militia in June, and was involved in discussions about its role in London in July and August.31CJ v. 597b, 624a, 671b.

Doddridge was an enthusiast for the treaty of Newport with the king, and was especially involved in its religious clauses. He was one of a small group who were asked to prepare a Presbyterian scheme to put before the king (29 May), and which reported to the House the following day the proposal that Presbyterianism be imposed for a limited term of three years. These discussions formed the basis of the treaty negotiations in the autumn, but meanwhile a full-blown scheme for Presbyterian restructuring of the church had to be devised, and Doddridge took a leading role in the drafting of it. On 26 June, he chaired a committee of the whole House on the ordinance for Presbyterian government, and late in July was asked to draft an ordinance on the powers of the classis to make institutions of clergy. A few days later (5 Aug.), the ordinance to settle a Presbyterian government was sent to the Lords after Doddridge had reported final amendments.32CJ v. 577b, 612b, 649b, 662a He himself was named a commissioner for judging scandalous offences, with powers to exclude from the Lord’s Supper. As the treaty with the king ran into difficulties through the autumn, Doddridge was on hand to offer advice. When Charles rejected the proposals on church government and stood out for episcopacy, Doddridge formulated the Commons’ response for its commissioners on the Isle of Wight. On 27 October, Charles's objections were minuted in the Journal, and Doddridge was required to report on legislation passed earlier in the Parliament: this and the attempts to explore ways by which the king might be persuaded to take the Covenant got nowhere because of Charles’s strategy of spinning out the discussions interminably in the hope of a deus ex machina. Doddridge’s last appointment in connection with the treaty was on 4 November to go the City to arrange a loan to continue the negotiations.33CJ vi. 62a, 62b, 63a, 63b, 68b.

Inevitably, as such a prominent Presbyterian, treaty enthusiast and critic of the military in Devon, Doddridge was a target of the army when it purged Parliament. He and William Prynne* were both turned away on 6 December, in the face of Prynne’s expostulations, and the following day, Doddridge and his soon-to-be father-in-law, Sir Thomas Dacres* of Cheshunt, wrote to the Speaker to report that morning they had again been prevented by force from attending the House.34CJ vi. 94b; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 144, 151-2. He never sat again in this Parliament. He left the Devon commission of the peace, either of his own volition or not, and he may have intended this to be the end of his public career. He returned to legal practice, and was prominent enough to offer advice to the corporation of Bristol in November 1652 on a case before one of its courts.35Bristol Reference Lib. Bristol MS 10160 p. 58. Like Matthew Hale*, he may have been a retained counsel for the city, as payments for entertaining him were also recorded in 1654.36Bristol RO, 04026/26 p. 53. The Aldworth family may have been the conduit for his relationship with Bristol. He had served with Richard Aldworth* on a parliamentary committee, and in his will later in the decade he would remember Robert Aldworth* among his friends. After the resignation of Bulstrode Whitelocke* from the post of recorder, Doddridge was appointed on 4 May 1655, although he was not sworn until 26 September.37Bristol RO, 04264/5 p. 82; 04417/1 f. 29.

Doddridge was appointed recorder at a lively time in Bristol’s history. Elections to the 1654 Parliament had been turbulent, with a group sympathetic to the sectaries led by Dennis Hollister* clashing with the official candidates promoted according to custom by the city’s common council. By January 1655, Quaker leaders including George Fox and James Naylor were known to the civic authorities.38Bristol RO, 04417/1 ff. 14, 14v. The choice of the Presbyterian Doddridge as recorder is evidence of the city council’s robust approach to what it regarded as the Quaker menace. His role involved attending the city to conduct a gaol delivery, which he did for the first time in October 1655.39Bristol RO, 04026/25 (i), p. 45. In May 1656, wine and other gifts were sent by the corporation to Doddridge when he was at Bath, where he was staying: probably on the last stage of his journey to Bristol, or perhaps to take the curative waters.40Bristol RO, 04026/25 (i), p. 51. The city council invested much faith in Doddridge, and when the burgesses paired him with Aldworth to take the two seats in the second protectorate Parliament, they were sending to Westminster their best legal counsellors. Doddridge was in Bristol on 5 and 8 September 1656, the occasion of the annual civic elections.41Bristol RO, 04417/1 ff. 48, 54. By this time he had probably been selected to go to Westminster, but he was excluded from taking his seat by the protectoral council. When the deputy clerk in chancery responded to the Speaker’s request for information on the absence of certain Members, the journal clerk recorded Doddridge as ‘not approved’ but noted him as sitting for Devon. This must have been an error.42CJ vii. 425a. His offence must have been his Presbyterianism. Other Devonian MPs of the same outlook also excluded by the protector’s council were Sir John Northcote, William Morice and Sir John Yonge.

At the time of the James Naylor affair of October 1656, therefore, one of Bristol’s MPs was being kept out of the House, hardly a situation conducive to cordial relations between the government and the city corporation. While in this limbo, Doddridge continued to visit the city to conduct the gaol delivery, and eventually took his seat, in time to be added to one committee, for marriages, in the final session of the Parliament (3 Feb. 1658).43Bristol RO, 04026/25 (i), p. 54. On 2 February he spoke in the House, urging caution in deciding what title the second chamber should retain, but declaring himself all for ‘settlement’. He proposed a grand committee, but the motion was lost the following day. On the 4th, Doddridge revealed a lack of enthusiasm for the Other House, describing it as ‘an embryo, a child of five months old, [wanting] form and figure’. The context of these remarks was his drawing out other imperfections in the Humble Petition and Advice.44Burton’s Diary, ii. 418, 436, 457. It may have been his unhappy experience of this assembly that moved him to produce an edition of learned legal works, in May 1658. This was a collection of writings, including by his own uncle, Sir John Doddridge†, on the powers and authority of Parliament. The introduction by Doddridge, dated from the Middle Temple (3 Dec. 1657), made no reference to the protectorate, and reads like a product of monarchical times. Doddridge asserts the right to free election, refers to the ‘higher House’, and ends by with a prayer that ‘our English Parliaments may recover and enjoy their ancient honour and lustre’.45The Several Opinions of Sundry Learned Antiquaries (1658), preface (E.2143.2).

Doddridge's health seems not to have been robust. He is not known to have attended any Bristol council meetings later than June 1658, when gifts were despatched to Richard Cromwell* and John Disbrowe* at Bath. He made his will on 20 January 1659, declaring himself ‘infirm of constitution and body through the manifold troubles and afflictions which I have met with in this miserable world’. He died a little over a month later, on 23 February, probably at Cheshunt. He had expressed a wish to be buried there if his death occurred within 30 miles of the town. He left bequests to the city of Bristol, in the form of a piece of plate, to Presbyterian clergy friends including Edmund Calamy, James Nalton and William Bates.46see Oxford DNB for these men. He had been pre-deceased by his only son.