LAWRENCE, Henry I (1600-64), of St Ives, Hunts. and Stanstead St Margarets, Herts.

John Milton, writing in 1654 in praise of the advisers around Oliver Cromwell*, described Henry Lawrence and Edward Montagu II* as ‘men of supreme genius, cultivated in the liberal arts’.30Complete Prose Works of John Milton (New Haven and London, 1953-82), iv. 677. The Lawrences were a Huntingdonshire family who had first risen to prominence as the relatives of one of the early-sixteenth century abbots of Ramsey Abbey. In the years immediately before the dissolution of the monasteries this MP’s great-grandfather was the tenant of the Abbey holding the manor of Slepe at St Ives and thereafter he was able to acquire those lands outright.31VCH Hunts. ii. 218; ‘Antient fam. of Lawrence’, 12-14. Lawrence’s father, Sir John Lawrence, died on 18 January 1605, when Henry was still only a young boy.32C142/283/93; WARD7/27/118; Norris Museum, St Ives, UMS/S.IVE/152; Coventry Docquets, 317. It is possible that the young Henry was brought up along with his cousin, Sir Gilbert Pykeringe*, at the Pykeringe seat at Titchmarsh in Northamptonshire.33Al. Cant. (Their fathers had been stepbrothers.) His mother remarried, taking as her second husband Robert Bathurst of Lechlade, Gloucestershire.34CB. Henry’s education was thorough – he completed an MA at Cambridge – and his later writings suggest that Milton’s praise of his learning was not entirely without foundation.

Lawrence’s marriage in 1628 allied him to one of the leading families of Cambridgeshire. Once married, he seems not to have settled at St Ives. That may, in part, have been because it was only the following year, when Lawrence was aged almost 30, that the court of wards allowed him to take possession of his estates.35Norris Museum, St Ives, UMS/S.IVE/152. That he was not living in the county might also explain why, on being summoned to compound for his knighthood fine at Huntingdon in September 1630, he sent a message asking if he could ‘be respited till another time.’36Bodl. Carte 74, ff. 191, 194v. One further consequence of his probable residence elsewhere was that it allowed him from 1631 to lease some or all his land at St Ives to a local gentleman who had fallen on hard times. That this tenant was Oliver Cromwell is the earliest indication of the friendship between the two men which would later become a crucial factor in Lawrence’s political career. Cromwell retained the lease at least until 1636 when he inherited the estates of his uncle, Sir Thomas Steward, at Ely.37VCH Hunts. ii. 218-19; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 73, 83. What the friends probably shared was an unease with the prevailing religious policies of the 1630s. In Lawrence’s case, his objections were sufficiently great to persuade him to leave England for refuge abroad.

The earliest indications of Lawrence’s intention to emigrate date from 1635. As one of the proprietors of the Saybrook Company, he was involved in the plans to create a new colony on the Connecticut River and he was one of those who approved the appointment of John Winthrop junior as the prospective governor of Saybrook in July of that year.38Winthrop Pprs. i. 198-9. A letter he wrote to Winthrop two months later makes it clear that he was determined to join him in New England.39Winthrop Pprs. i. 212. That November he crossed the Channel to the continent.40W.D. Cooper, ‘Extracts from the passage-bk. of the port of Rye, 1635-6’, Suss. Arch. Coll. xviii. 175. But the collapse of the company forced him to abandon any plan to travel on to America. If he had not since remained abroad, he was probably among that group of Saybrook investors who fled to the United Provinces in 1637, given that in 1639 and 1640 he was reported to be living at Arnhem, along with Sir William Constable* and Sir Matthew Boynton*.41Cornwallis Corresp. 256; The Saltonstall Pprs., 1607-1815, ed. R.E. Moody (Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Coll. lxxx-lxxxi), i. 131. In 1655 the Swedish envoy in London, Peter Julius Coyet, mentioned that ‘while the civil war was being fought in this country he [Lawrence] remained for many years in Holland’.42Swedish Diplomats at Cromwell’s Court, ed. M. Roberts (Cam. Soc. 4th ser. xxxvi), 95. However, absence abroad seems not to have prevented him from attempting to sue the Cromwells of Ramsey over some disputed lands at Broughton, Huntingdonshire, in 1640.43C5/379/115; C6/138/110.

In 1646, shortly after his election to the Long Parliament, Lawrence published a book, Of our Communion and Warre with Angels. He used its dedication to his mother to reflect on and justify his absence during the civil war.

During this busy time, in the which our country (subjected to those calamities, of which by faith we see the catastrophe glorious) hath been the stage of so much action, and the field of so many battles, my lot was cast to be from home, and in this retirement, if I enjoyed not the happiness of his wish, to have otium cum dignitate, leisure with dignity, (for I pretend but to an excuse) yet it was without any just cause of reproach, for the war found me abroad, not sent me thither, and I have been only wary without a just and warrantable reason, to engage my self in that condition, from which a providence seem’d to rescue me.44H. Lawrence, Of our Communion and Warre with Angels (1646), sig. * (E.509.2).

He visited London in April 1644, when Sir Simonds D’Ewes* noted that he had recently returned from the Low Countries (‘qui nuper ex Belgio’).45Harl. 483, ff. 54, 68v. But when D’Ewes wrote to him in December 1645, he addressed the letter to him at Arnhem, and when Lawrence replied on 11 January, he did so from Altona near Hamburg.46‘Antient fam. of Lawrence’, 15. Lawrence must therefore have been elected to Parliament as recruiter MP for Westmorland on 1 January 1646 in his absence.

Lawrence had no pre-existing links with Westmorland and he owed his election entirely to the patronage of Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, one of the leading Independent peers.47[J. Musgrave], A Fourth Word to the Wise (1647), 2 (E.391.9). Lawrence had taken his seat in the Commons by late March 1646.48CJ iv. 481b. Almost at once he was included on the committee which consulted with the Scottish commissioners about the decision to refuse the king’s request to be allowed to return to the capital.49CJ iv. 491a. At this stage, he may have been pro-Scottish. On 27 May 1646, eight days after the Commons had voted that the army of the Scots was no longer required in England, Lawrence took the Solemn League and Covenant.50CJ iv. 556a. A week later he became one of the commissioners for scandalous offences and in July 1646 he served as one of the English commissioners for the conservation of peace between England and Scotland.51CJ iv. 563a; A. and O.; TSP i. 79. All this might suggest that he was sympathetic towards Presbyterianism. His true position may have been more complicated.

Some indications of his religious opinions at this time are revealed by the two books which he published during the course of 1646.52J.E. Bailey, ‘President Henry Lawrence and his writings’, N. and Q. 5th ser. xi. 502 Both may have been written earlier. One, which was published that spring, set out his views on the reality of angels and the devil. In theological terms, this was entirely conventional.53Lawrence, Communion and Warre with Angels. The second, Of Baptisme, was potentially more controversial and was published anonymously several months later. This argued against the practice of infant baptism and in favour of baptism by immersion.54[H. Lawrence], Of Baptisme (1646, E.1116). Lawrence’s scruples with regard to infant baptism seem to have been what caused him to reconsider his faith. He would soon distance himself from the religious radicals and he may not have seen his views on baptism as especially heterodox, but from this point onwards he probably became increasingly uncomfortable with the notion of unqualified Presbyterianism.

Some of his committee appointments, such as those on the question of compensation for William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, following the abolition of the court of wards (24 Nov. 1646) or for the rewarding of Cromwell with the grant of the estates of the earl of Worcester (5 May 1647), suggest that by 1647 he was close to the Independent leadership at Westminster.55CJ iv. 727a, v. 162b, 301b. This was confirmed following the Presbyterian coup at Westminster of late July, when he was among those MPs who took refuge with the army. He joined 57 of his colleagues on 4 August in signing the fugitive Members’ declaration in support of the army’s proceedings.56LJ ix. 385b; HMC Egmont, i. 440; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 755. On their return to Westminster he was named to the committee which considered the bill reversing all the decisions made by their Presbyterian opponents between 26 June and 6 August.57CJ v. 278a.

Further evidence about his stance towards any religious settlement emerges from his role in the attempts that October to construct a viable system of Presbyterian church government. His prominent place among the nominations to the committee to prepare proposals effecting such a settlement – he was second-named to the committee – probably reflected his interest in exemptions to be made for tender consciences which formed part of that committee’s remit. His support for these proposals was certainly not without its limits. When the Commons voted on the subject a week later on 13 October, he and Cromwell acted as tellers for the minority who wanted to limit the proposed Presbyterian settlement to only seven years. In other words, he was prepared to support Presbyterianism (with provisions for tender consciences) as a temporary political expedient.58CJ v. 327b, 332a.

In the spring of 1648 Lawrence was still playing a role in the proceedings of the Commons.59CJ v. 498a, 532a. This seems to have changed after he obtained permission on 21 June 1648 to go abroad. There is no reason to believe that this absence was a short one and the events of December 1648 and January 1649 may not have encouraged him to return. At least one contemporary would claim that he disapproved of the regicide.60A Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 2nd pag. 2. If he was out of the country, it becomes easier to explain why he made no attempt to resume his seat in the Long Parliament after Pride’s Purge. On the other hand, if he was in England at this point, he can be counted as one of those MPs who were not excluded but who refused to sit thereafter.61Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 378. Clear evidence that he did withdraw from public life are the comments made by Cromwell in the letter which he wrote to Wharton after his victory at Dunbar in September 1650. Lawrence was among those friends of Wharton whom Cromwell criticised for their failure to support the Rump.62Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 328.

In the meantime, Lawrence had written a third book which appeared in print anonymously in the spring of 1649. This perhaps offers some clues to his quandary. In his own phrase, this work, Some Considerations Tending to the Asserting and Vindicating of the use of the Holy Scriptures, was intended as a challenge to those ‘spiritual Levellers’ who were undermining orthodox religious doctrines.63[H. Lawrence], Some Considerations Tending to the Asserting and Vindicating of the use of the Holy Scriptures (1649), sig. A2-[A4v] (E.554.25). Unsurprisingly, given that he had previously published on the subject, the doctrine which he was most concerned to defend was that of baptism.64Lawrence, Some Considerations, 55-76. When this book reissued in 1652 under a different title but with acknowledgement of his authorship, the new title page indicated that its specific target was William Dell and his radical views on the subject of baptism.65H. Lawrence, A Plea for the Use of Gospell Ordinances (1652, E.654.2). It may be significant that the original publication coincided with the controversial appointment of Dell as master of Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge.

The purchase by Lawrence in 1651 of an estate at Stanstead St Margarets just to the south of Hertford may have marked his final return to England. The Stanstead estate, which was more convenient for London, became his principal country residence.66VCH Herts. iii. 474. It was therefore as one of the two Hertfordshire MPs that he was summoned to sit in the Nominated Parliament of 1653. In the first week of that Parliament, he was named to the committee on Scottish affairs, an early indication that he was seen as a potential heavyweight figure. On 14 July he was duly elected to the council of state.67CJ vii. 283b, 284b.

Very quickly Lawrence emerged as the council’s principal specialist on foreign affairs, deploying the experience of his time abroad and a knowledge of foreign languages which was probably more extensive than that of most of his colleagues. He certainly knew French and Latin and he had probably picked up some Dutch while living in Holland.68Lawrence, Of Baptisme, 69-70; ‘Antient fam. of Lawrence’, 15. He sat on all three sub-committees on foreign affairs appointed by the council over the next four months and plausibly chaired that established on 8 November.69CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 53, 90, 237. He also became the council’s unofficial spokesman on foreign policy in the House, although this mostly consisted of routine reports on uncontroversial subjects, since the subject did not divide this Parliament to any significant degree.70Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 311.

The issue which consumed much of his time was the planned embassy to Sweden. It fell to him to make the announcement on 14 September 1653 that Viscount Lisle (Philip Sidney*) had reconsidered his appointment as ambassador and that Bulstrode Whitelocke* was now to be nominated to take his place. Parliament agreed.71CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 146-7; CJ vii. 318b. Over the following month Lawrence secured Parliament’s approval for the instructions and letters of credence to be issued to Whitelocke, ensured that payment of his arrears was authorised before he set out, and received from Whitelocke the control of the former royal library at St James’s Palace.72CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 195, 200, 215; CJ vii. 333a, 334b; Burton’s Diary, i. xii; Whitelocke, Diary, 292. (Lawrence had earlier served on the committee which had catalogued that collection.73CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 93, 238, 273, 291; Whitelocke, Diary, 295.) He took charge of the formalities associated with the simultaneous departure of Queen Christina’s envoy, Israel Israelsson Lagerfelt.74CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 211; CJ vii. 338b, 340a, 342b. Other formal diplomatic business which Lawrence handled included the presentation to Parliament of the council’s draft of the letter to be sent to the Protestant cantons of Switzerland (4 Oct.) and the request for its approval of the letter of safe conduct to be issued to the eldest son of Frederick III of Denmark and Norway (1 Dec.).75CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 170; CJ vii. 329b, 361a; Burton’s Diary, i. xi, xiv.

On behalf of the council, he raised additional miscellaneous matters in Parliament. On 11 October he informed MPs of various seditious pamphlets that had appeared.76CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 188; CJ vii. 333a-b; Burton’s Diary, i. xii. The bill for the abolition of rural prebends, which he was asked to introduce on 26 August, may have been overtaken by Parliament’s own request on 12 September for the drafting of a bill for the sale of remaining dean and chapter lands.77CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 104; CJ vii. 317b. Neither he nor Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* seem to have got round to presenting the new treason bill before the dissolution.78CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 241. On a few occasions his actions probably reflected his own views rather than those of the council. His tellership in the division on 27 September 1653 suggests that he favoured allowing the countess of Derby to compound for her estates.79CJ vii. 325a. Similarly, he probably opposed the appointment of John Yates as the new master of St John’s College, Cambridge.80CJ vii. 359a.

Lawrence’s re-election to the council of state on 1 November 1653 can be seen as an endorsement of his conduct over the previous three months. His 68 votes in the ballot put him in fifth place.81CJ vii. 344a. The following month he was among councillors who were retained by Cromwell on his acceptance of the protectorship. When this new council met on 19 December, they chose Lawrence to serve as their president for one month, an appointment extended for an indefinite period by the council on 16 January 1654.82CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 299, 360. This office remained Lawrence’s principal public responsibility over the next five and half years and brought with it a salary of £1,200 a year.83TSP iv. 590, vii. 481, 483, 485; DKR v. app. ii. 276.

The presidency placed Lawrence at the heart of decision-making within the protectoral administration. How far he was able to use that position to influence policy is impossible to say, but his tireless activity in the exercise of his duties is not in doubt. In all, he managed to attend at least 768 of the 796 council meetings held between December 1653 and September 1658.84CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. xxxvii-xxxix; 1655, pp. xxv-xxviii; 1655-6, pp. xxviii-xxx; 1656-7, pp. xx-xxii; 1657-8, pp. lii-liv; 1658-9, p. xxiii. No other councillor came close to this record of attendance. As Lawrence was often present on those occasions when the protector was not, it is likely that, by virtue of their existing friendship, he acted as a link between Cromwell and the council. Indeed, he was a key member of the network of friends and relatives clustered around Cromwell within the Cromwellian court. The new lord chamberlain was his cousin, Sir Gilbert Pykeringe.85Vis. Northants. ed. Metcalfe, 126-7; VCH Hunts. ii. 382, iii. 237. The marriage of Lawrence’s daughter, Martha, to Irish peer Richard Barry, 2nd earl of Barrymore, in November 1656 cemented an alliance between Lawrence and another major Cromwellian courtier, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), who was Barrymore’s uncle.86CP. The possibilities for influence open to Lawrence were considerable. In March 1654 Elizabeth of Bohemia wrote to him seeking his support for William Craven, 1st Baron Craven, in the controversy over his sequestered estates, telling him that she was ‘confident you had never accepted the employment you are now in, but that it may give you means to help those that suffer wrongfully’.87TSP ii. 139-40. As before, it was his involvement in diplomatic policy which is most evident. He was often present when Cromwell gave private audiences to representatives from foreign governments.88Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 533, 555, 860. As president, he tended not to be named to the council’s sub-committees, but he continued to sit on its main foreign policy committee.89CSP Dom. 1654, p. 215. He also headed the delegation which signed the 1654 treaty with the Dutch.90Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 213-14, 278, 905; TSP ii. 290; Clarke Pprs. v. 161. Coyet, the Swedish envoy, believed that the years Lawrence had spent in Holland meant that he favoured Dutch interests rather those of Sweden.91Swedish Diplomats at Cromwell’s Court, ed. Roberts, 95.

It was Lawrence who obtained the consent of the council of state for the wording of the writs to be sent out to summon the 1654 Parliament.92CSP Dom. 1654, p. 186. Lawrence’s election as one of the five Hertfordshire MPs probably presented him with few problems. Perhaps deferring to the high office he held, Parliament seems to have been reluctant to burden him with further responsibilities. The day after the session opened, he accompanied the lord protector to Westminster Abbey to hear Thomas Goodwin preach to MPs, and then – his employment in this doubtless intended to confer a great honour on Goodwin – was sent to thank him and to ask for another sermon nine days later.93Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 432n; CJ vii. 366a. Lawrence’s appointments to the committees for privileges (5 Sept.), for the drafting of the bill to settle the government (21 Sept.) and to consider abuses in printing (22 Sept.) were probably formalities, but do not preclude his playing an active part in their deliberations. On 6 September he and fellow councillor Nathaniel Fiennes I* were tellers in the procedural division related to freedom of speech in Parliament; Lawrence and the council probably felt that this issue was a potential distraction which ought to be ignored.94CJ vii. 366b, 367a, 369a, 269b.

The parliamentary election at Colchester in September 1656 took place in the immediate aftermath of the purge of the corporation by the council of state. The choice of Lawrence was one way by which the beneficiaries of the remodelling could acknowledge their debt to the council.95Essex RO, D/B 5/Gb4, ff. 145v-146. In this Parliament Lawrence was joined by his sons, Edward* and Henry II*. (Edward was the ‘virtuous son’ to whom, in Milton’s words, Lawrence was the ‘virtuous father’.96J. Milton, Complete Shorter Poems ed. J. Carey (1968, reissued 1971), 408.) Unfortunately, the trio were also joined by William Lawrence*, which makes it difficult distinguish them in the Journal. The clerk only intermittently identified the president of the council by his office. In early October, writing to Henry Cromwell*, Lawrence mentioned Parliament’s ‘present good temper’, suggesting that he thought the session had got off to a good start.97Henry Cromwell Corresp. 181.

Lawrence’s involvement in the James Naylor case is not in doubt. His relatively sympathetic interventions during those debates sought to explicate the precise nature of Naylor’s errors. On 8 December 1656 he linked Naylor’s claim to be Christ to the Familist belief that Christ was in everyone. While he acknowledged that this was still heresy, his intention was to convince his colleagues that the accused was not as heretical as his critics claimed. The following day, he argued that Naylor should be whipped and imprisoned rather than mutilated or executed, but specifically denied that he was defending him.98Burton’s Diary, i. 62, 90, 152, 154, 254. On 16 December he was a teller for those who blocked moves to sentence Naylor to death. In another division on 23 December he sided with those who voted to admit the pro-Naylor London petitioners.99CJ vii. 468b, 474a; Burton’s Diary, i. 216. His tellership during the division on the proposed bill to confirm incumbent clergymen in their existing benefices on 28 November 1656 seems to show him opposing a loosening of the wording of the bill as drafted.100CJ vii. 461a.

On 23 February 1657 Christopher Packe* proposed that Cromwell be asked to become king. According to Anthony Morgan*, Lawrence was one of the seven councillors in the Commons who strongly supported this idea.101Henry Cromwell Corresp. 205. The problems of identification, however, make his remaining activity in the Commons in this Parliament difficult to assess. He was probably the teller in the division on 20 May 1657, counting those who tried to insert protection for members of congregated churches into the catechism bill.102CJ vii. 535b. Some Journal references more likely relate to William Lawrence, while the rest are of less importance.103CJ vii. 457b, 646a, 475b, 477b, 478a, 485a, 486a, 490a, 491b, 496b, 549a, 557b, 558a. The parliamentary diary kept by Thomas Burton* tends to confirm the impression that Henry Lawrence was becoming less active in the House. He complied with the provisions of the Additional Petition and Advice, taking the oath required of all councillors of state at a council meeting on 13 July 1657.104CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 26.

As one of the highest ranking officials under the protectorate, Lawrence was an obvious choice for the new Other House.105HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 503. As president, he was deemed to outrank all other peers except the commissioners for the great seal. When the new peers assembled at Westminster on 20 January 1658, Lawrence was among those who administered the oath to them.106HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 505. He missed only one of the days the Other House sat before the dissolution 15 days later and, in that time, he was appointed to the committees for privileges, petitions and the bill for penalties against the profanation of the sabbath.107HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 507-24.

In the aftermath of Cromwell’s death in September 1658, Lawrence remained committed to the protectorate. He proclaimed Richard Cromwell* as the new lord protector and gave him full support over the next few months.108TSP vii. 495. Lawrence was a regular presence in the Other House when it reassembled the following January, attending 46 of the 62 days on which the second chamber sat during this Parliament.109HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 524-67. He sat on most of its major committees, including those on the bills concerning the title of Charles Stuart (1 Feb.), limiting the Other House’s privileges (15 Mar.) and securing the nation against a common enemy (11 Apr.).110HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 530, 548, 559.

Richard’s abdication in May 1659 left Lawrence without a public position. He was not included on the new council of state – being presumably too associated with the Cromwells – and the recall of the Rump reconvened a body in which he was still not prepared to serve. On the other hand, five months later, after the army ejected the Rump and created the committee of safety to fill the resulting political vacuum, Lawrence was prepared to accept appointment to this new supreme executive.111Whitelocke, Diary, 537. With the reconvening of the Rump in late December 1659, Lawrence’s public career was over.

He retired to Stanstead, but remained the subject of suspicion after the Restoration. In April 1663 a presentment was made to the Hertfordshire quarter sessions accusing him of non-attendance at church. The following year the bailiff of the liberty of Cheshunt reported that Lawrence was absent from his usual place of residence and the Hertfordshire justices of the peace issued a summons to him.112Herts. County Recs. vi. 92, 100. The under-secretary of state, Joseph Williamson†, had information that he was regularly attending a nonconformist group at Cheshunt.113‘Some nonconformist ministers and Quakers in 1662-3’, Ped. Reg. iii. 169. Lawrence died on 8 August 1664 and was buried in the church at Stanstead St Margarets.114Cussans, Herts. iii. 138; RCHME Herts. 211-12. Two of his daughters, Theodosia and Henrietta, survived him by less than eight weeks.115‘Antient fam. of Lawrence’, 16. Lawrence died intestate, so his lands passed to his eldest surviving son, Henry.116VCH Hunts. ii. 218. The Hertfordshire estates were later sold to Thomas Westrow*.117VCH Herts. iii. 474. Another son, John, emigrated to Jamaica.118‘Antient fam. of Lawrence’, 16-17. The male line of the family remaining in England died out in 1749.119VCH Hunts. ii. 218.