CAMBELL, James (1615-59), of Woodford, Essex.

The Cambell family may have been descended from the Campbells of Argyll in Scotland, but they were living in Norfolk in the early sixteenth century, and a hundred years later had become one of the richest and most influential families in London, using an anglicised version of the name.15LMA, MS 10091/19 (Surr. m. bonds), f. 200. James Cambell’s grandfather, Sir Thomas, was lord mayor in 1610-11; his uncle, Sir James, was lord mayor in 1629-30; and his father, Robert, was the master of the Ironmongers’ Company, an alderman and sheriff of London.16Cokayne, Lord Mayors, 41-3; Keeler, Long Parliament, 125. Cambell was educated at Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn, and in November 1638 married the daughter of the Cornish landowner, John 1st Baron Mohun (Sir John Mohun†).17Al. Ox.; LI Admiss. i. 223; London Mar. Lics. 228; Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 325. Cambell’s father died in the same month, leaving James, then aged 23, two manors in Essex and Surrey.18C142/580/100. His uncle, Sir James Campbell, had been made an alderman by May 1640, and was responsible for raising loans in Lime Street Ward for the king’s war against the Scots.19CSP Dom. 1640, p. 171. His close relation’s eminence, together with his wife’s family’s local influence, doubtless helped him secure the Cornish seat of Grampound on 19 October 1640.20C219/43/23.

Cambell’s parliamentary career was dominated by disputes over his family’s wealth. The death of Cambell’s mother in October 1640 caused him considerable difficulties, as his step-father, Sir Edward Savage, challenged the will, which had left the bulk of the estate to her children.21CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 190. On 17 December the judge of the prerogative court, Sir Henry Marten*, granted letters of administration against Cambell, and this led to a furious response from the House of Commons, which summoned Savage and Marten to the bar for breach of privilege.22CJ ii. 53b; Procs. LP i. 654; D’Ewes (N), 167. On 23 December the matter was referred to the committee of privileges, and Savage was charged with contempt.23CJ ii. 57b; Northcote Diary, 109-110; Procs. LP ii. 36. The outcome of this case is not known, and it is likely to have succumbed to more pressing business. Cambell was almost entirely inactive as an MP in the coming months. On 3 March 1641 he offered to give £500 for the preservation of Parliament, and on 3 May he took the Protestation.24D’Ewes (N), 439n; Procs. LP ii. 620; CJ ii. 132b. He was not named to any committees, and his attendance at the House was no doubt infrequent. On the death of his childless uncle, Sir James Cambell, in January 1642, Cambell inherited further property in Somerset and £2,500 in cash, and he was chosen as one of the executors of the will – a lengthy document which gave most of the uncle’s fortune to charity.25PROB11/188/18. The Commons, eager for funds, put pressure on the executors to release at least part of the estate for use in the Irish war, but met with prevarication.26PJ i. 84n. Alderman Isaac Penington* reported on 17 January that he had met Cambell, who answered ‘that he had it in his thoughts before; and, as soon as the rest of the executors came, he would move it unto them’.27CJ ii. 384a. Parliament did not succeed in redirecting the family fortune – they were still waiting for a response in September 1644; nor was Cambell willing to open his own coffers.28CJ iii. 626a. He invested the relatively modest sum of £300 in the Irish adventure in March 1642.29Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 178. On 23 September he offered to lend £500 for two years for Parliament’s service, and he repeated the offer on 31 December, but it was not paid, leading to complaints and threats from the Commons on 22 March, 10 June and 14 July 1643.30Add. 18777, f. 110; CJ ii. 778b; iii. 15b, 16b, 123b, 166a.

Cambell remained in the parliamentarian camp, and duly took the oath and covenant in June 1643 and the Solemn League and Covenant in the following November, but his political position was almost supine.31CJ iii. 118a, 299a. The Essex committee even considered his estate fair game, seizing horses in the spring of 1644, and including him in the 5th and 20th part assessments, until warned off by the Commons, which considered such actions to be breach of privilege.32Harl. 166, f. 51; CJ iii. 466b. Cambell’s inactivity continued in the later 1640s, with only two exceptions. On 4 March 1645 he was named to the committee stage of the ordinance settling lands in trust to pay the debts of John Pym*, probably at the behest of his Cornish brother-in-law John Harris I* of Hayne; and on 20 November 1647 he was appointed to a committee to report to the Lords a letter from Sir Thomas Fairfax* complaining that the City had not paid its share of the assessment for the army.33CJ iv. 69a; v. 365a. Despite playing no apparent part in the factional politics of the period, Cambell was secluded from Parliament at Pride’s Purge in December 1648.34A Vindication (1649), 29 (E.539.5); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 369.

Cambell retired from public life in December 1648, and ceased to be named to Essex local commissions in the same month.35A. and O. In the early months of the commonwealth, he visited Cornwall, where he associated with his wife’s family, and especially his brother-in-law, John Harris I. His activities were viewed with some suspicion by the local authorities. On 18 June 1649 Harris complained to Colonel Robert Bennett* that he and Cambell had had their swords confiscated by troops from Pendennis as they visited the former royalist, Sir Richard Vyvyan*, at his house at Trelowarren.36FSL, X.d.483 (41). Cambell also maintained close links with another brother-in-law, the royalist Warwick, 2nd Baron Mohun, and Mohun was granted passes to visit the Cambells at Woodford in May and June 1656.37Add. 34014, ff. 78v, 83v. This was not the only connection Cambell maintained with royalist relatives. He had protected the estate of his sister’s husband, Henry Coningsby, at North Mimms in Hertfordshire, which he held while Coningsby’s father was a prisoner in the Tower in February 1645.38HMC 6th Rep. 45; Cokayne, Lord Mayors, 43n. In November 1650 he bought out another claimant to the estate, and pursued the Hertfordshire committee for arrears of rent, eventually winning the support of the Committee for Compounding in August 1652.39CCC 854-5. Cambell seems to have spent much of the 1650s increasing his wealth still further. In August he joined his cousin, Sir Thomas Abdy, and other investors, in petitioning Cromwell for a confirmation of their rights in the Hatfield Chase Level project, which was being challenged by the Hertfordshire sewers commissioners.40CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 81. In December 1657 it was reported that his eldest daughter, Theophila, would enjoy a marriage portion of £15,000 – the same as that provided for the lord protector’s daughters a month earlier.41HMC 5th Rep. 152. In July 1659 he was lending money to Bulstrode Whitelocke* and his son William.42Whitelocke, Diary, 522.

Cambell died in December 1659, and was buried in the family vault at Barking in Essex.43Cokayne, Lord Mayors, 43. He was survived by his heir, James, who died in August 1660 and was in turn succeeded by the younger son, John, who was created baronet by Charles II in 1661 and died without heirs a year later. Cambell’s daughters lived long and married well. The eldest, Theophlia, married Sir John Corbet bt., and the second married Sir William Bassett of Claverton, Somerset.44CB.