LENNARD, Francis, 14th Baron Dacre (1619-62), of Herstmonceux, Sussex.

The future 14th Baron Dacre was born at the house of his maternal grandfather, Sir Arthur Throckmorton, at Paulerspury in Northamptonshire, and inherited a share of Throckmorton’s sizeable estate there and elsewhere at the latter’s death in June 1636.32Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 267. By this time he had already been six years an orphan in wardship. For the duration of his minority, due to end in 1640, his father, the 13th baron, had entrusted his lands to his brothers-in-law Sir William Brooke and Sir Thomas Parker*, and nominated Sir Francis Barnham* as the young heir’s guardian.33WARD7/79/166; Essex RO, D/DL/C43/4/27 (Will Richard Lennard); D/DL/F61/1-2; D/DL/F65, pp.1-23; D/DL/L25; Kent AO, U1590/T23/22-3; U1590/T23/27; U1590/T23/28. Meanwhile, the 13th baron was survived by his second wife Dorothy, daughter of Dudley, 3rd Baron North, who in October 1650 married Chaloner Chute I*.34Suss. N. and Q. xiii. 205; Kent AO, U1590/T23/24-5; Essex RO, D/DL/C43/1/22.

Having entered Merton College in 1635, in October the following year Dacre, still a ward, travelled to the continent with George Courthop*.35Al. Ox. Courthop’s memoirs reveal that they were robbed at sea between Rye and Dieppe, a story confirmed by Robert Sidney†, 2nd earl of Leicester, whose secretary was on board the same vessel, which had been hired by Dacre. Dacre was forced, ‘though very seasick, to be carried by two men on the bed he lay on, upon the deck to testify to them that there were no French goods in the ship’. Dacre and Courthop spent two months in Paris visiting ‘the noblemen and gentry of England that were there’. Dacre then went on to Orleans, Tours, Blois, and Saumur, and finally to Angers, where he took up residence with his tutor, Monsieur Dupont, while Courthop moved on.36‘Memoirs of Sir George Courthop’, 104–5.

During his time abroad proceedings were made to secure the estates of Lord Dacre of the North, which this MP claimed by descent upon the death in 1634 of Randolph Dacre. Competing claims by the powerful Howard family, based on the marriage between Philip Howard, 20th or 13th earl of Arundel (1557-1595), and Anne Dacre (1557-1630), resulted in ‘many years of fruitless litigation’.37M.F.S. Hervey, The Life, Corresp. and Collns. of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (1921), pp. xxx-xxxi, 5n; Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 268-74; Essex RO, D/DL/F70; D/DL/L25; D/DL/L30/1; D/DL/L30/2; D/DL/L30/3; CCC 1670. Initially, further confusion arose from Dacre’s position as a royal ward. Attorneys of the court of wards Sir Rowland Wandesford and Heneage Finch†, notionally acting ‘on behalf’ of Dacre, claimed that the estates had been forfeited because of the role played by Leonard and Edward Dacre a century earlier in the Pilgrimage of Grace.38Essex RO, D/DL/L30/1-3. Other attorneys were enlisted by Dacre’s guardian, Sir Francis Barnham, to prove that the crown was not entitled to the estates. Foremost among these were John Maynard* and (Sir) John Glanville*, who were to defend Dacre’s interests from 1636 to 1650.39Essex RO, D/DL/L30/1-3 Glanville tried to force the issue in 1637 by directing John Pattenson to enter the manor of Dacre in Cumberland, but was hauled before star chamber.40CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 137.

That Dacre and his guardian were not happy with the crown’s attitude to its ward is indicated by a letter of 7 February 1639 from Barnham to Secretary of state Sir Francis Windebanke*, in response to the requirement that Dacre attend the king in his northern headquarters at York. Barnham complained that Dacre’s ‘small estate’ was charged with paying to the crown £5,000 a year in rent, as well as 4,000 marks for composition of the ward’s marriage. Barnham’s aim was to avoid any levying of knights’ service.41CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 436. A further grievance was that the crown had exploited Dacre’s minority by appointing controversial divines such as Stephen Goffe at Herstmonceux.42CSP Dom. 1639, p. 1; ‘Stephen Goffe’, Oxford DNB; Walker Revised, 356; Surr. Arch. Coll. lxxxvi. 148.

Dacre himself probably played no part in these dealings; not only was he abroad in 1636, but on 25 September 1639 he was granted a pass to travel for three years with four servants and £60, although local appointments suggest he may not have availed himself of it.43CSP Dom. 1639, p. 521. He was certainly in England in April 1641 for his marriage to Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Paul Bayning, 1st Viscount Bayning.44CP. By this marriage he was promised £20,000 and became brother-in-law to Henry Pierrepont†, Viscount Newark, Philip Herbert*, Lord Herbert of Cardiff, and William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison, while he was pledged to settle on his wife lands worth £1,500 a year.45CP; Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 277. The marriage produced six children, but it seems to have been far from happy, with both sides eventually claiming that the terms of the settlement had not been honoured.46Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 276-9.

Dacre’s political career is paradoxical. For the most part, he tried to avoid engagement in public life: ‘a prince in his own little country of the Pevensey marshland’, he was ‘normally reclusive’, although he was named a commissioner of sewers for Sussex between July 1639 and July 1641.47Fletcher, Suss. 49, 285; C181/5, ff. 144, 167, 205v, 253. One of his few surviving letters, to Sir Thomas Pelham* in July 1644, concerned nothing more important than the prosecution of ‘certain deer stealers’.48Add. 33084, ff. 60-61v. He was also interested in yachting, and is reckoned to be one of the earliest known Englishmen to have pursued that hobby.49Surr. Arch. Coll. xlviii. 104, 127, 129-31. Yet periodically he played an active role in national politics.

His youth may partly account for his low profile at Westminster before 1642, although he appears to have been a witness in the prosecution of the king’s minister Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford.50HMC Buccleuch, iii. 398. In late January 1642, in the aftermath of Charles’s abortive attempt to arrest the Five Members, Dacre joined opposition peers like Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, and William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, in protesting against the Lords’ vote which declined to join with the Commons in ‘putting of the kingdom in a posture’ of defence.51Harl. 480, ff. 2v, 56v. A little over a week later he joined with the same group of peers in voting for ‘root and branch’ reform of the church, and in petitioning (with the Commons) for the kingdom to be put in a posture of defence, and for settlement of the militia.52PJ i. 288; Harl. 480, ff. 1v, 103v. Within days, Dacre was nominated lord lieutenant of Herefordshire, despite local MP Sir Robert Harley* pressing for the appointment of Saye.53PJ i. 334; Harl. 480, f. 129; Add. 14827, f. 36v; CJ ii. 424b. In June, however, calls were issued for Dacre’s attendance, suggesting that his commitment had lapsed somewhat.54HMC 5th Rep., 29. Dacre expressed his desire to attend the house in a letter to Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, but claimed that he was prevented by ill-health. In the Lords’ reply it was promised that they would ‘command nothing prejudicial to your health ... and seeing your service here is necessary, and much conducing to your honour, the sooner you come it will be the better’.55LJ v. 141b, 143b In September Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland, acquainted the House that, while Dacre was in London, he had fallen ill, and that he desired a few days to recover his health, permission for which was granted.56LJ v. 366b. Less than a month later Dacre’s absence from the benches was once more excused, and leave granted for him to return to Sussex.57LJ v. 400b.

This process was repeated periodically throughout 1643.58LJ vi. 202a, 285a, 349b; HMC 5th Rep. 103. In October he wrote that he had been advised to retire to the country because the woman in whose house he lodged in London ‘was sick of a violent fever, judged to be pestilential, and therefore hopes to be excused sudden departure’. While recognising the need for his attendance, he begged to be spared ‘on account of the ways, the weather, and his own infirmity’ until he could return ‘without danger of bringing infection’.59HMC 5th Rep. 109. In January 1644 Dacre wrote to William Grey†, Baron Grey of Warke, deputy Speaker of the Lords, in response to another call for his attendance. While he proclaimed his willingness to attend as requested, he noted that his route to London had

ever since been so extremely clogged by a very deep snow, that men pass not without much difficulty and danger; I beseech your lordship to add to this reason the weakness of my own health, not being able to endure the rigour of the journeying on horseback in such exceeding cold weather.60Essex RO, D/DL/C43/1/27; TSP i.7 9; LJ vi. 392b; Surr. Arch. Coll. iv. 160.

Twice more during 1644 Dacre’s absence was excused.61LJ vi. 392b, 481a.

Despite this litany of excuses, Dacre remained one of the 20 or so peers who adhered to Parliament from 1642. That he was named as being privy to the counsels of the small group of leading peers might explain why every effort was made to bring him to London, without alienating him by over zealous pursuit of his participation.62Clarendon, Hist. iii. 286-7, 297. In January 1644 and 1645 he was named a commissioner of oyer and terminer in Middlesex, suggesting at least some residence in or near the capital.63C181/5, ff. 231, 246, 372. From 1645 Dacre’s visible activity in Parliament increased: that this period also saw the presentation of petitions over his property claims may not be entirely co-incidental. He was appointed to committees for excise and customs (6 June 1645, 17 Dec. 1647), and to the Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports. He was included on the Northern Association commissions for the three ridings of Yorkshire and for Westmorland, was twice named to committees adjudging scandalous offences and exclusion from the sacrament, and joined the committee for the sale of bishops’ lands (30 Nov. 1646). In March 1646 he was added to the Committee for Foreign Plantations, headed by Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick.64A. and O.; Add. 63788B, f. 24.

Significantly, in July 1646 Dacre was also made a commissioner for the preservation of peace between England and Scotland, an issue in which, apart from any political or religious considerations, he had a particular territorial interest.65Surr. Arch. Coll. iv. 160; TSP i. 79. In May 1645 he had petitioned for recovery of his ‘ancient’ lands in Cumberland and Westmorland, also claimed on behalf of the exiled Thomas Howard, 21st or 14th earl of Arundel.66LJ vii. 379b. In a letter to Lord Wharton late in 1645 Dacre had expressed hostility towards the Scots, claiming that all Cumberland would ‘as one man’ engage against them, but he also sought advice as to whether he should use the friendship of a Scottish commander to get possession of his disputed estate.67Jones, Saw-Pit Wharton, 105. According to a petition proffered on Arundel’s behalf in February 1646, Dacre had proceeded to do just that. It complained that some of Arundel’s lands in Cumberland were in the hands of Scottish troops, to the use of Lord Dacre; the earl’s agents had been evicted from Drumburgh castle on 17 November 1645 by John Hodgson and Colonel Douglas, governor of Carlisle.68LJ viii. 143a. In his reply, given on 18 February 1646, Dacre admitted that he had issued a warrant to Hodgson, but protested that the latter had ‘used no unlawful force’ and that the action was outside the remit of the parliamentarian county committee, who had sided with Arundel. The Lords referred the matter to the law courts, but in the meantime Dacre, whose disputes with Arundel over presentations to northern livings continued to surface in the Lords into 1647, was beholden to the Scots for his possession of the property, and indeed temporarily forfeited it to them in 1648.69LJ viii. 175a, 176a, 443b, 470b, 484a, 717b; x. 587-8; HMC 7th Rep. 62.

Meanwhile, another dispute over inheritance impacted on Dacre’s activity at Westminster. From 1642 he had periodically petitioned Parliament in relation to 3,500 acres of Sutton Marsh in Lincolnshire in which – like fellow supplicant Philip Herbert*, Lord Herbert – he had an interest as husband of one the co-heiresses of the viscounts Bayning, but which were also claimed by James Stuart, 1st duke of Richmond. The latter’s sequestration as a royalist delinquent threatened to deprive his rivals of a sizeable income: in a petition of 1645 Dacre stated that the sequestered rents then due amounted to £18,000.70CCC 1530, 1533; HMC 5th Rep. 20, 84; HMC 6th Rep. 91; LJ vii. 401b; C21/D15/2; C5/396/32, 39; C5/404/73; C2/CHAS 1/D63/141; C10/51/60.

By 1647 Dacre, like Lord Herbert, was identified with the Presbyterian party in Parliament. One of its leaders, Sir Philip Stapilton*, who in 1638 had married one of Dacre’s aunts, was a visitor to Herstmonceux during the mid-1640s.71  Essex RO, D/DL/E22, f. 102. In April 1647, when the Presbyterians were in the ascendant, Stapilton instigated a remodelling of the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs in which Dacre was one of six like-minded peers added to that body. 72CJ v. 135b, 138a; LJ ix. 127; Woolrych, Soldiers and Statesmen, 26-31. In pursuit of the Presbyterian goal of disbanding the New Model army, together with Sir William Waller* (a cousin and frequent guest at Herstmonceux that summer), Sir Edward Massie*, Sir John Clotworthy* and the 2nd earl of Warwick, Dacre was ordered to treat with Sir Thomas Fairfax* for drawing up regiments to go to Ireland.73CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 709; CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 738-40; Essex RO, D/DL/E22, ff. 201-3, 205, 207. On 15 April the commissioners dined and conferred with the general at Saffron Walden, intending that he should publish a Declaration which they had drafted, to quell the opponents of Irish service. They then faced the questions and opposition of 200 officers, but their mission was doomed to failure once Fairfax, their best hope for assistance in their negotiations with the officers, travelled to London.74Woolrych, Soldiers and Statesmen, 44-54; Clarke Pprs, i. 5-10; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 457-63; Bodl. Tanner 58, ff. 59-68.

In the Lords, Dacre appears to have been aligned with peers like Northumberland and Warwick. With them on 11 February 1647 he voted in favour of proposals to readmit to the House repentant defectors to the king – Holland, William Russell, 5th earl of Bedford, and John Holles, 2nd earl of Clare.75HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 563. It should come as little surprise that late in 1648 Dacre, by that time probably one of the most moderate of the Lords left in London, retreated from parliamentary activity. A call for his attendance was issued on 28 December, but he was excused at the behest of Charles Howard, 3rd earl of Nottingham.76Suss. Arch. Coll. iv. 161; LJ x. 639a. In the most forthright political move of his career, on 2 January 1649 Dacre joined ten other peers (including Manchester, Northumberland and Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke) in voting against the bill for the high court of justice to bring the king to trial.77OPH iii. 1256; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 577-8.

Following Charles I’s execution and the abolition of the House of Lords, Dacre continued to act as vice-admiral for Sussex, but on 19 June 1650 he was replaced by Anthony Stapley I*, having refused to sign the Engagement to the commonwealth.78CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 206; 1650, p. 549. On 5 July a pass was granted for him to go overseas, but once again it is not certain that he used it.79CSP Dom. 1650, p. 551. The continuing quest to secure his and his wife’s lands appeared to keep him in England. On 27 November he lodged a claim on behalf of his wife before the Committee for Compounding; twice in 1651 the couple, acting with Dacre’s step-father Chaloner Chute I, or his brother-in-law Chaloner Chute II*, raised before the committee the longstanding issue of Sutton Marsh property.80CCC 1530, 1670. The return on Dacre’s efforts was mixed. In addition to a house in Colchester fortified by royalists insurgents in 1648 and lost in ensuing destruction, in 1650 Chevening, in which his step-mother Dorothy had a life interest, was sold by the commissioners for the sale of crown lands, despite his petitions.81[Sir T Fairfax], A Declaration of the Proceedings of the King’s Majesty (1648), 5–6 (E.451.8); Kent AO, U1590/T6/65, U1590/T23/32; Essex RO, D/DL/F70. When Dacre attempted to sell parcels of land in Northampton in 1654 he found his tenants refusing to move, and disputing his estimate of their worth.82C8/98/31. On the other hand, in 1650 arbitration by Sir Thomas Widdrington* and Matthew Hale* led to an agreement with the Howards over the northern properties (finally concluded in the middle of the decade) which seems largely to have operated in Dacre’s favour.83Hervey, Life....of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, pp. xxx-xxxi, 5n; Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 268-74; Essex RO, D/DL/F70; D/DL/L25; D/DL/L30/1; D/DL/L30/2; D/DL/L30/3. His son was to receive over £1,800 per year from these Cumberland and Westmorland estates alone.84Essex RO, D/DL/C43/4/23.

In 1654 Dacre was elected as a knight of the shire for Sussex and became one of only a handful of peers to sit in the Commons after having sat in the Lords. Two of the four committees to which he was nominated exhibit further evidence of his interest in Ireland: he joined those examining all acts and ordinances made regarding that country (29 Sept.) and investigating Irish elections (5 Oct.).85CJ vii. 371a, 373b. His involvement in the committee investigating the draining of the Lincolnshire Fens (31 Oct.) may have sprung from his personal property interests, while the nomination to the committee concerning ‘damnable heresies’ (12 Dec.) seems to reflect his long-standing engagement with religious questions.86CJ vii. 380a, 399b. His visible service in the chamber was modest, but that he was elected at all is a sign of the weakness of the protectorate regime in Sussex.

Major-general William Goffe* (brother of Stephen, the controversially-appointed clergyman) expressed his relief when late in 1655 Dacre left the country, because ‘it is feared by many here, that [otherwise] he should have had the custos rot[ulorum]’. Writing to Secretary John Thurloe* on 13 November he explained that ‘Lord [Dacre] is gone beyond sea upon some discontent betwixt him and his lady’.87TSP iv. 190. Indeed, Dacre’s will, drawn up two months earlier, made no mention of her at all, although apparently he claimed that he would have provided for her if she had been content to live with him in the country.88PROB11/308/147; Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 291.

It is not clear for how long Dacre remained abroad, but he was named to the Sussex commission of the peace in 1657.89C193/13/5/105v. He was clearly in England in 1659, when he contributed £20 militia money and laid claim to lands of his grandfather Sir Arthur Throckmorton, alleged to have gone to his cousin Sir Peter Temple.90SP28/335/50; C8/136/41. With Northumberland he headed the list of militia commissioners for Sussex in March 1660, and with Northumberland and Richard Sackville, 5th earl of Dorset, Dacre led those in the county who welcomed the return of Charles II in May.91A. and O.; SP29/1/89. He narrowly lost out to the 1st earl of Sandwich (Edward Montagu II*) in the elections for the post of master of Trinity House later in the year, and was nominated, although not eventually chosen, a warden.92  W. R. Chaplin, The Corporation of Trinity House (n. d.), 50; HMC 8th Rep. pt. 1 (1881), 250. He is said by a descendant to have presented Charles II with ‘a model of a light vessel, built in a new manner, invented by himself, which was greatly approved of by the king’.93Surr. Arch. Coll. xlviii. 127-8. In December 1661 he obtained a general pardon under the great seal; but the rehabilitation under the restored monarchy bore no greater fruits, on account of Dacre’s sudden death in 1662 at his lodgings in St Martin’s Lane, London.94Essex RO, D/DL/F166. This has been stated to have been on 12 May, but since that is the date of probate given on the PCC copy of his will, it must have occurred earlier.95Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 294; PROB 11/308/147. He was buried at Chevening in Kent, the funeral expenses running to £700.96C10/69/42; Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 300.

Dacre’s will, drafted on 18 September 1655, placed his son and heir Thomas, who had been born in May 1654, under the guardianship of his executors – his cousin Robert Barnham and his uncle Sir Thomas Parker – thus echoing the provisions of the previous generation.97PROB11/308/147; Essex RO, D/DL/F72; Kent AO, U1590/T23/33. But family tensions gave rise to disputes and enmired the executors. Confusion over the will of Richard, the 13th baron, and the legality of a deathbed codicil, led rapidly to a lawsuit with the MP’s brother.98Essex RO, D/DL/F69; Kent AO, U1590/T23/31. Further complaints were made by Dacre’s children, particularly his daughters, Philadelphia and Elizabeth, who claimed that they had not received their portions of £3,000.99Essex RO, D/DL/L31. His widow, Lady Dacre, initiated litigation in 1662 and brought an action in Easter term 1664 with her new husband, courtier David Walter, claiming that, despite her huge portion, she had never received her jointure, and that properties assigned to her had been sold. A cross bill of complaint claimed that Dacre had received under half of his wedding portion, and that Dacre’s widow should have foregone her estates to help pay his huge debts. The matter took several years to be resolved.100C10/69/42; Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 295-7. Lady Dacre was created countess of Sheppey in 1680.101CP.

The estate could ill afford such wrangling. Dacre had borrowed money from his friends, including Parker and George Courthop, to the latter of whom he owed £1,000 at his death.102Surr. Arch. Coll. xlviii. 134; C10/69/42. Having recently bought property to the value of £5,000, he left debts and legacies totalling £18,000, and an estate worth – on varying estimates – £8,500, £6,000 or (according to his executors) only about £3,000.103C10/69/42; Essex RO, D/DL/L31; Barrett Lennard, Fams. Lennard and Barrett, 294. Furthermore, the Sutton Marsh dispute rumbled on at least until 1664.104HMC 7th Rep. 168, 177.

Thomas Lennard, 15th Baron Dacre, was created earl of Sussex in 1674 on his marriage to Anne Palmer, an illegitimate daughter of Charles II, to whom he was a gentleman of the bedchamber and by whom he prospered. Active in promoting the revolution of 1688, he proved even less financially prudent than his father. Shortly before his death in 1715 he sold the estate for £38,000.105Essex RO, D/DL/C43/1/29; Horsfield, Hist. Suss. i. 555; CP.