GLAPTHORNE, George (c.1594-1667), of Whittlesey, Cambs.

At least three generations of Glapthornes had lived at Whittlesey in the Isle of Ely before this MP.18Vis. Cambs. 1575 and 1619, 75. His father, Thomas Glapthorne, was bailiff to Lady Hatton, widow of Sir William Hatton† and granddaughter of Lord Burghley (William Cecil†), on her estates at Whittlesey St Andrews.19VCH Cambs. iv. 127. From 1598 his effective employer would have been Lady Hatton’s second husband, Sir Edward Coke†. It may not have been until as late as 1613, when Thomas bought the neighbouring manor of Whittlesey St Mary, that the family made the transition from yeomen to gentlemen.20VCH Cambs. iv. 127. George, the eldest son from the first of Thomas’s three marriages, was evidently born about 1594, for he was aged 25 at the time of his marriage in 1619, and so was probably only in his early teens when he matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1607.21CUL, EDR G/2/21, f. 281v; Al. Cant. Glapthorne married a local woman, Sara Compton, in 1619, apparently with the approval of her parents.22CUL, EDR G/2/21, f. 281v; EDR H3/85/1; Ely Episcopal Recs. 377. His appointment as a gentleman of the privy chamber in 1628 was little more than an honorific court office, but it was an honour nonetheless and proved that the family could indeed rank themselves among the gentry of the county.23Carlisle, Privy Chamber, 131 There then followed a number of local appointments, beginning in 1631 with his appointment to the local sewers commission, a body of considerable importance in the fens.24C181/4, f. 95 The commission of the peace, which had probably been beyond his father’s aspirations, included him from 1632.25C231/5, p. 90.

What more than anything else made Glapthorne a figure of consequence in his locality was the decision by the 4th earl of Bedford (Sir Francis Russell†) to proceed with his grand scheme to drain the Cambridgeshire fens. Glapthorne had been a member of the local sewers commissions since 1631 and a justice of the peace since 1632, but the vast scale of the operations envisaged by Bedford opened all sorts of new opportunities. Glapthorne’s own estates fell within the limits of the proposed drainage.26S. Wells, A Coll. of the Laws which form the constitution of the Bedford Level Corp. (1828), 215, 217. In the first instance, Glapthorne’s involvement was as an agent of the crown, for in the summer of 1637 he administered the division of the 12,000 acres owned by the king himself.27CSP Dom. 1637, p. 210. The standing at court of Dudley North, 3rd Baron North, increased after Glapthorne, reporting in person to the king, praised North’s decision to drop his opposition to the project.28Bodl. North c.4, f. 34. However, the powers delegated by the government to Glapthorne as their man on the spot also made him useful to Bedford and by September 1637 the earl was instructing his senior officials on the project to take their instructions from Glapthorne.29CSP Dom. 1640, p. 178. He was present at the meeting of the sewers commissioners, held at St Ives on 12 October 1637, at which the set of rules for the future management of the Great Level were approved.30Wells, Coll. of the Laws, 237. The decision by the king in 1638 to take over the undertaking from Bedford confirmed Glapthorne’s role as one of the key figures in the scheme. Yet, from this point onwards, Glapthorne was very much the earl’s man as well. What made this role all the more delicate was that Bedford and the 2nd earl of Portland (Jerome Weston†) had only recently acquired much of the land in and around Whittlesey, and their attempts to enclose it had been opposed by the local residents.31C5/591/11; PROB11/188/141. These tensions came to a head in the spring of 1641 when rioters threatened to reclaim these lands by force. Glapthorne signed the petition to Parliament organised by Bedford and Portland condemning the rioters.32PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/152: petition of earl of Bedford and others [1641]. However, the protestors organised their own petition, which placed the blame on Glapthorne and another of Bedford’s agents, Francis Underwood, for pressing ahead with the enclosures regardless.33PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/152: petition of inhabitants of Whittlesey [1641]. Discontent continued to erupt sporadically in this area for several years thereafter.34LJ iv. 224b-225a, 269b, 312a, 336a, 453a; K. Lindley, Fenland Riots and the English Revolution (1982), 116, 157-9. At least some of the antipathy towards Glapthorne which surfaced in 1654 probably had its origins in his direct involvement in this unpopular drainage scheme.

By 1639 Glapthorne was of sufficient local standing that he was able to persuade the authorities in Northamptonshire to exempt one of his servants when he was impressed by them to serve in the campaign against the Scots.35M.C. Fissel, The Bishops’ Wars (Cambridge, 1994), 234. He himself, as one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber, served as part of the king’s entourage on that campaign.36The Portraiture of the Mighty Monarch Charles (1639).

Through Bedford, Glapthorne was indirectly linked to those who opposed Charles I at the beginning of the Long Parliament, but that can hardly be more than part of the explanation of why he came to support Parliament during the civil wars and, in any case, Bedford was dead by May 1641. Moreover, what is known about Glapthorne’s character does not suggest that he was especially godly. Nor was it the case that all his family were committed parliamentarians; his half-brother Henry, who had been building up a reputation for himself as a poet and dramatist, probably remained loyal to the king.37The Plays and Poems of Henry Glapthorne (1874); ‘Henry Glapthorne’, Oxford DNB. Whatever his reasons, it is clear that George backed Parliament from the outset. When his character was being impugned by his critics in 1654, he was able to tell the council of state that he had ‘always adhered to Parliament, and contributed beyond my estate, sending four horses, two of which I maintained and recruited, and was at much other expense’, adding that Oliver Cromwell* could personally confirm this.38CSP Dom. 1654, p. 327. These particular claims were probably accurate and Cromwell would certainly have been in a position to confirm them: not only had Cromwell been governor of the Isle of Ely, he also had strong connections with Whittlesey through his brother-in-law, Roger Whetstone. During the course of the civil war the Isle of Ely was largely administered by Henry Ireton* (acting as deputy governor to Cromwell), with the assistance of the local standing committee at Wisbech. As one of those who regularly attended these committee meetings, Glapthorne appears to have been a dependable ally to Ireton.39SP28/338: warrant to Richard Slane, 28 Mar. 1644; SP16/539/2, f. 124; SP28/222, ff. 160, 175, 178, 246, 248, 399, 400, 412, 425, 443, 527, 529, 532-3, 536-7, 539, 541, 543, 551-2, 601, 618-19, 641, 645-6; SP28/152/21. Other evidence confirms the impression of Glapthorne’s importance at this local level. In January 1645 he was sent to London by the Cambridgeshire standing committee with their petition to the Commons concerning the local garrisons. While in London, Glapthorne was arrested and, after he complained to the Commons on 27 January, his case was referred to the Committee for Examinations.40CJ iv. 31b. Moreover, several months later he was sent by the Ely committee to consult with the authorities in London on their behalf, and in May of that year, when the Committee of Both Kingdoms wrote to the Ely committee informing them of the steps which were to be taken to improve the defence of the Isle, it was to Glapthorne that their letter was delivered.41SP28/152/19, f. 20; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 489. He also served on most of the key wartime commissions which had jurisdiction within the area.42A. and O. An attack on his house at Whittlesey in the spring of 1643 may, in part, have reflected local perceptions that he was one of the leading parliamentarians in the area.43S.L. Sadler, ‘Cambs. soc. during the First and Second Civil Wars, c.1638-c.1649’ (Anglia Polytechnic Univ. PhD thesis, 1998), 88-95. Also, when on 15 May 1643 he tried to prevent the locals invading the lands of Bedford and Portland at Whittlesey, the rioters threatened him with pitchforks and told him ‘that he was no justice, for he was against the king and was all for the Parliament’.44PA, Main Pprs. affidavit of John Newton, 24 May 1643.

Glapthorne strongly supported the decision to revive the drainage works in the Great Level in the late 1640s. He had said so when he appeared as a witness before the Commons’ committee on the subject on 25 June 1646. His testimony strongly supported what Bedford had done in the 1630s while acknowledging that further work was needed.45Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.3, second foliation, ff. 5v-6v. Glapthorne then went on to play a key part in the power struggle within the Bedford Level Company when it was resuscitated in 1649. Having recently obtained an Act of Parliament allowing the drainage project to continue, the leading Adventurers now sought to side-line their director of operations, Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, the Dutch specialist who had overseen the work for the king in the late 1630s. To this end, they called in Glapthorne and William Dodson in June 1649 to advise them on how they should proceed.46L.E. Harris, Vermuyden and the Fens (1953), 98-9, 102, 111. Glapthorne was then appointed as the overseer general.47Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.1, second foliation, f. 8v. He was also one of those who signed the agreement which resolved this dispute the following January. He later gave evidence before the hearings of the adjudication commission, which met at Peterborough in March 1651, prior to their award of the Great Level to the trustees named in the 1649 Act.48S. Wells, The Hist. of the Drainage of the Great Level (1830), 218. It was doubtless through this involvement with the Bedford Level Company that Glapthorne came to know the lord chief justice, Oliver St John*, who in April 1652 asked John Thurloe* to send his regards to him.49TSP i. 206.

The events of the early 1650s did not appreciably alter Glapthorne’s position. He was clearly not someone who rose far in the wake of that group of men closely associated with the Isle of Ely – Ireton, John Disbrowe*, Thurloe and, of course, Cromwell – who were going on to greater things. In fact, it was this which made him most useful. As with all experienced local officials with limited ambitions but of undoubted loyalty to the republic, Glapthorne’s services were in demand in the 1650s. Cromwell and Thurloe, in particular, probably looked to him as someone who could be trusted to administer their local preserve. Thus in 1654 he and John Fowke* were asked to prepare a report for the council of state on what should be done with the former royal forests. (Forests were hardly a feature of the Cambridgeshire fens, so it was presumably for his wider knowledge of estate management that Glapthorne was chosen.) Their recommendation was that some woodland should be sold off to raise immediate revenue, while the rest should be let out on short leases to provide a permanent source of income.50CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 14, 19, 97.

By that stage Glapthorne had risen to become chief bailiff of the Isle of Ely, which was why he was appointed one of the commissioners for the Isle in March 1654.51CSP Dom. 1654, p. 327; TSP, iii. 233. Among his duties as chief bailiff was organising the local assizes, for which he was reimbursed by a government pension worth £60.52DK 5th Rep. app. ii. 564; Bodl. Carte 223, f. 58. The job of chief bailiff was one which had taken on additional importance with the enfranchisement of the Isle in the 1653 Instrument of Government, for it now fell to him to preside over its parliamentary elections. With no precedents to constrain him, this gave Glapthorne plenty of scope to manipulate the process when, following the summoning of the 1654 Parliament, the Ely electorate exercised their newly-gained right for the first time. The hope by Thurloe and Glapthorne’s old colleague, Francis Underwood (now a lieutenant-colonel), that they would be returned unchallenged was disappointed when, at the last minute, Glapthorne himself came forward as a third candidate. Amid complaints of gross misconduct, Glapthorne defeated Underwood in the poll on 12 July to take the junior seat.53SP18/75, ff. 12-19v. However, Underwood’s supporters were able to lodge objections to the result with the council of state before Parliament assembled. Their complaints initially centred on the conduct of the election. According to them, Glapthorne had sent round his under-bailiffs to threaten voters with arrest or jury service and had then held the election at Wisbech, where his support was greatest, but only after giving the impression to his opponents that it was to be held at Ely. It was also claimed that 124 people, who would have declared for Underwood, had been prevented from voting.54SP18/75, ff. 12, 16-17; The Perfect Diurnall of Some Passages and Proceedings (14-21 Aug. 1654), 3756 (E.233.7). These were standard accusations often made by defeated candidates. A further argument – that a returning officer could not return himself – was certainly valid, but such cases were not unprecedented in this period. There was however another angle available to Glapthorne’s opponents. The seventeenth article of the Instrument of Government had specified that MPs should be ‘persons of known integrity, fearing God and of good conversation’. It was this which gave Glapthorne’s opponents their real chance.

A list of vices allegedly practised by Glapthorne was now submitted to the council of state by those objecting to his election: he was, they alleged

a known swearer, curser and bitter imprecator, a frequenter of alehouses and an upholder of them that are of evil fame, himself likewise famed for his familiarity with those women which are of loose and light conversation.55SP18/75, f. 12; A brief Relation of the Proceedings before his Highness Councel [1654, E.814.2], 1

They also cited ‘the evil government of his family’.56SP18/75, f. 15. In what could be interpreted as a tacit admission that there was some truth to them, Glapthorne did not directly deny these allegations. Instead he counterattacked by denouncing Underwood. He accusing his rival of being in league with Richard Harrison, who had been Glapthorne’s sworn enemy ever since he had tried to recover money Harrison had embezzled from funds raised during the civil war for the defence of Crowland in Lincolnshire. Harrison, it was alleged, had used this money to acquire an estate by fraudulent means and, in a telling detail, Glapthorne also claimed that Harrison had frightened the tenants with rumours that Glapthorne had plans to steal their marshes.57SP18/75, f. 19v; Bodl. Rawl. A.30, pp. 143-7.

On 26 and 27 October 1654 formal statements were taken from seven of the inhabitants of Whittlesey. Their evidence seemed damning. All agreed that Glapthorne swore regularly, frequented alehouses and consorted with loose women. The necessary details were provided. Six women were named who, it was said, had slept with him. One witness reported that Robert Compton (a relative of Glapthorne’s wife?) had told him that one of Glapthorne’s under-bailiffs kept a ‘wench’ for him at Wisbech. Another had heard it said that a local man had offered Anne Martin, wife of William Martin, 5s for her favours, only for her to reply that ‘old Justice Glapthorne’ had offered her 18s. A different version of Glapthorne’s attempts to seduce Mrs Martin was provided by William Manesty. Manesty testified that he visited Martin’s unlicensed alehouse at Whittlesey at about midnight one evening. On entering he had overheard Glapthorne being ‘uncivilly familiar’ with Mrs Martin and promising that ‘he buy her a roll of tobacco, give her husband to brew and sell ale, and that he would make her husband as rich as Henry Atkins’, so long as she surrendered to him. As an added incentive, he offered to take her back to his house to issue her with a license for the alehouse. Mrs Martin was said to have resisted. Within days of them being sworn, these depositions appeared in print in a pamphlet attacking Glapthorne.58Brief Relation. As always, salacious detail and moral indignation were an effective combination. Whether the council of state formally excluded Glapthorne from Parliament is not known, but there is no evidence that he took his seat during the remaining weeks of the session. It seems almost certain that the attempt to undermine Glapthorne’s credibility had worked.

On the other hand, this incident did not visibly diminish Glapthorne’s importance within the Isle of Ely. No move was made to dismiss him from any of the local commissions and he probably continued to serve as chief bailiff. In 1656 the local deputy major-general, Hezekiah Haynes*, relied on him as chief bailiff to secure Thurloe’s re-election for the Isle of Ely constituency. When Haynes proposed that the poll be moved from Wisbech to Ely (as a ploy to benefit Thurloe), Glapthorne vetoed the plan, with Haynes deferring to him because ‘he better understood the Isle, and the temper of them, than myself’.59TSP v. 311-12. Glapthorne may well have been one of those who persuaded Haynes to stand for the Ely seat; he was certainly one of those who supported him against the opposing candidate, William Fisher*.60TSP v. 165, 297, 311-12, 352-3. (Glapthorne was one of the benefactors of the public library Fisher had recently helped found at Wisbech.61Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech town library catalogue, 1660-1830, p. 336; HMC 9th Rep. i. 294.) Other evidence confirms that, whatever his indiscretions, Glapthorne was still a loyal supporter of the protectorate and that he was viewed with favour by the authorities. It may have been as early as 1655, less than a year after the fuss over the Ely election, that he was appointed register of the prerogative court for the probate of wills (the old prerogative court of Canterbury), an office which is likely to have been especially lucrative.62Bodl. Rawl. A.28, p. 262.

This loyalty would soon prove to be to Glapthorne’s disadvantage. By early 1660 he was being left off many of the local commissions on which his presence would once have been taken for granted. Particularly significant was his omission from both the new commission of the peace and the militia commission issued by the restored Rump in March 1660. By 1661 he had been succeeded as chief bailiff of the Isle of Ely by William Wren†, the son of the restored bishop.63Walker and Craddock, Wisbech, 546. In the years which followed he continued to be excluded from most local offices. Yet it would be wrong to argue that Glapthorne’s public career was entirely ended by the Restoration. Twice, in September 1660 and August 1664, he was included on local commissions of the sewers, no doubt because the expertise gained by him during the draining of the Bedford Level was still thought useful.64C181/7, pp. 41, 287. This was one area in which doubts about his political loyalties (or, for that matter, his sexual morals) were irrelevant. Glapthorne survived until 1667 and, when he died, he was buried at Whittlesey.65CUL, EDR H3/81/50. No will left by him has been traced, but it is likely that his estates passed to his only son, Robert, who three months later brought a case in chancery to recover some lands at Whittlesey which his father had previously leased.66C5/608/6. Thereafter the family reverted to its former obscurity.