PORTMAN, Sir William, 5th bt. (1608-45), of Orchard Portman, Som.

The Portmans claimed an ancestry stretching back to the thirteenth century, which was only a slight exaggeration as they can be traced back to Taunton in the very earliest years of the fourteenth century.20Vis. Som. 1623, 126; M.J. Hawkins, ‘Wardship, royalist delinquency and too many children’, Southern Hist. iv. 57. The family had been closely associated with the town ever since and their principal seat, Orchard Portman, an estate they had acquired by marriage in the fifteenth century, lay only a few miles to the south. In the sixteenth century, as major purchasers of ex-monastic lands, they accumulated vast estates across several counties, transforming them into one of the principal Somerset gentry families. Sir William Portman† also rose to become the lord chief justice of queen’s bench under Mary I. At his death in 1612, Sir John Portman, this MP’s father, owned manors in Somerset, Dorset, Middlesex (the future site of Portman Square), Devon, Wiltshire, Sussex and Surrey.21Hawkins, Sales of Wards, 137-43.

Sir John’s death was the start of a half-century of near-disastrous setbacks, however. All three of the future MP’s elder brothers – Sir Henry†, Sir John and Sir Hugh† – inherited their father’s baronetcy in turn, only to die soon after while still young.22CB i. 90. With each death the new heir became a royal ward, while Sir Henry, left a widow, Anne, the future countess of Ancram. It has been estimated that the cost of successive wardships between 1612 and 1629 amounted to over £7,000.23Hawkins, ‘Wardship’, 64. Yet this did not bankrupt them. The huge sums in entry fines and wardship sales imposed on them by the court of wards actually underestimated their vast wealth and so the estates remained intact.24Hawkins, ‘Wardship’, 64-5. In 1629, aged just 21 and therefore not liable for yet another wardship, Sir William inherited almost everything.25Orchard Portman par. reg.; Coventry Docquets, 326. He almost immediately extended those estates by marrying an heiress, Anne Colles, who brought with her substantial lands at Pitminster.26Som. RO, DD/PM/9/1/5; T. Gerard, Particular Description of the Co. of Som. ed. E.H. Bates (Som. Rec. Soc. xv), 60; Brown, Abstracts of Som. Wills, i. 34; Collinson, Som. iii. 275, 285.

Portman had been admitted as a fellow-commoner at Wadham College, Oxford, in 1626, probably with his cousin, Wadham Wyndham.27Regs. of Wadham College, i. 79. When his brother Sir Hugh died in 1629, he was a student at the Middle Temple.28M. Temple Admiss. i. 120; MTR ii. 729, 731, 743, 803. Despite his youth, he was soon added to the Somerset commission of the peace, possibly while still studying in London.29Coventry Docquets, 64. He then became one of the most hard-working Somerset justices of the peace.30QS Recs. Som. Charles I, 138-278; Som. Assize Orders 1629-1640, 62. In 1633 he joined with his colleagues to complain to the king about the ruling by Lord Chief Justice Richardson (Thomas Richardson†) in favour of church ales.31CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 350. Four years later, in 1637, he supported the attempts by the inhabitants of Taunton to get their assessment for Ship Money reduced.32CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 536. Later that year he made use of his contacts at court to save his friend, Thomas Smyth I*, from being named as sheriff of Somerset. Those contacts were powerful ones, as they included Lord Keeper Coventry (Sir Thomas Coventry†), whose son, John*, was married to Portman’s sister-in-law. He also approached the lord chamberlain, Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke.33Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 132. However, this lobbying backfired when Portman, not Smyth, was named as the new sheriff.34List of Sheriffs, 125; Coventry Docquets, 368; Som. Assize Orders 1629-1640, 61. This office was especially unattractive at a time when the sheriff’s duties included the collection of Ship Money. Throughout much of his year in office he struggled to enforce the latest writ.35Som. RO, DD/AH/21/16/1; PC Regs. ii. 381; CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 222, 354, 479; 1639, p. 237; 1639-40, 588. The extent of his own estates complicated this task. Faced with ratings disputes between two of the hundreds adjacent to Taunton, Portman persuaded the privy council to allow him to refer this to the assize judges on the basis that he was such a major landowner in the area.36CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 398-9, 433. In the end, he was unable to collect £270 8s 6d of the £8,000 demanded from this county.37Gordon, ‘Collection of ship-money’, 160.

The extent of his landholdings and the fact that his brother Sir Hugh had represented Taunton in the previous Parliament make Portman’s decision to stand there in both the 1640 elections was unsurprising. His support for Taunton’s Ship Money complaints in 1637 probably offset any unpopularity he may have risked as sheriff the following year. Portman was returned to the Short Parliament with Roger Hill I*. Five days later, on 30 March, Portman supported his kinsman John Coventry and the other losing candidate, Sir Ralph Hopton*, in the election for the county seats.38Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 195. Portman made no known contribution to the proceedings of the Short Parliament.

Re-elected to the Long Parliament, Portman’s participation in its business was also slight. His main contributions were financial, for his great wealth enabled him to promise loans to it totalling £1,500 in November 1640 and July 1641.39Procs. LP i. 228, 231, 235; CJ ii. 222a. He also took the Protestation.40CJ ii. 133b. He may well have been unhappy with the direction most of his fellow MPs wished to take and on 21 April 1641 he registered his disquiet by voting against the bill to attaint the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†).41Procs. LP iv. 42, 51; Verney, Notes, 58; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 248. This occasioned his one confirmed intervention in debate. On 8 May Sir John Strangways* objected to the inclusion of his own name in the unofficial printed list of those who had opposed the Strafford attainder. Portman, who was sitting in the gallery, then rose to speak, apparently to make the same complaint. One of the Smiths, presumably Thomas Smyth I, stopped him. Both Sir Simonds D’Ewes* and John Moore* thought that Portman had made himself look ridiculous as he had actually voted against the attainder.42Procs. LP iv. 277, 283. It is just possible that he was the ‘Sir William Parkins’, who apparently spoke on 5 July 1641 to warn that the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, ‘that great incendiary’, was still a threat and to argue for pressing on with efforts to protect the church.43Sir William Parkins Speech to the House of Commons (1641, E.198.33). This could have been delivered in the context of that day’s debates on the bishop of Ely, Matthew Wren, or the ecclesiastical Canons. But there is also a strong possibility that the printed speech was entirely spurious. Portman’s single committee appointment concerned the estate bill of Sir Francis Popham* (29 July 1641).44CJ ii. 228a. Portman was a distant relative, as his mother’s second husband, Edward Popham, had been Sir Francis’s cousin once removed. Following his recent death, Edward Popham had left his lands at Huntworth and Buckland to Portman in trust.45Brown, Abstracts of Som. Wills, v. 108; VCH Som. vi. 293.

Once the civil war broke out, both sides viewed Portman as a supporter of the king, doubtless not least because of his support for Strafford. The king named him as a commissioner of array for Somerset.46Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. The Commons for its part set out to test Portman’s loyalty. On 26 January 1643 he and another Somerset MP, William Bassett*, were ordered to attend. Receiving no response, on 10 April the Commons instructed the sergeant-at-arms to arrest them, along with a third absentee MP, Portman’s brother-in-law, Sir Gerard Naper*. On 2 June the Commons ordered that Portman’s Middlesex estates were to be sequestered.47CJ ii. 943a; iii. 38a, 113a, 267b. However, military events in the south west soon gave Portman even less reason to cooperate with Parliament. Later that month the various royalist forces under Prince Maurice, the 1st marquess of Hertford (Sir William Seymour†) and Hopton assembled at Chard and marched north towards Taunton. En route they spent a night at Portman’s house at Orchard Portman and entered Taunton the following day.48Bellum Civile, 47. Whether Portman was then present is not clear. Within weeks these royalist forces had gained control of most of Somerset. Portman was among Somerset royalists who now reinstated local government in the king’s name throughout the county. That October the king confirmed him in office as a justice of the peace.49QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, p. xx. Not alone in preparing his will at this time, Portman pondered ‘the frailty of mankind’ in ‘this vain and turbulent world’.50PROB11/205/458. When Thomas Luttrell† drafted his in October 1643, Portman headed the list of five gentlemen who, along with Luttrell’s widow, were instructed to acquire the wardship of Luttrell’s son and heir, George, the elder brother of Francis Luttrell*.51PROB11/198/44. As their family seat, Dunster Castle, was then under royalist occupation by Francis Wyndham*, Luttrell may have calculated that it would be expedient to have such a prominent (and wealthy) local royalist as Portman protecting his son’s interests. Portman attended the session of the Oxford Parliament in January 1644 and signed its address to the 3rd earl of Essex.52Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 574. This finally prompted the Commons at Westminster to expel him. He was one of 35 MPs disabled on 5 February 1644 from sitting in that Parliament.53CJ iii. 389b.

By 18 June 1645 Portman was a prisoner of Parliament.54CJ iv. 178a. It has often been claimed that he had been captured at the battle of Naseby four days earlier.55CB i. 91; Keeler, Long Parliament, 311; Hawkins, ‘Wardship’, 71. However, it seems rather more plausible that he had fallen into parliamentarian hands five weeks earlier when the forces under Robert Blake* holding out at Taunton had been relieved and when the parliamentarian army had secured the surrounding area. The parliamentarian advance in Somerset meant that Parliament could now sequester the Portman estates there. On 17 and 18 July the Lords and the Commons agreed that £20,000 should be raised from the sale of parts of Sir William’s confiscated lands.56LJ vii. 498a, 498b, 500b, CJ iv. 211b. For the second time in a generation the unity of those estates was under threat. Portman was meanwhile kept in custody in London, probably as a prisoner in the Tower. Imprisonment proved to be fatal. He died on 20 August.57Orchard Portman par. reg. Four weeks later, on 16 September, the Commons agreed that his body could be transported back to Somerset. However, fearing that the cortège might be used to smuggle supplies to the local royalists, John Browne I* and Sir Robert Pye I* were told by the Commons to examine it first.58CJ iv. 276a. The funeral finally took place at Orchard Portman on 22 September.59Orchard Portman par. reg.

Portman’s death further complicated the fate of his estates. He left his widow and an only child, his infant son, Sir William†, who now became the 6th baronet. His widow later married Thomas Nevill.60Som. RO, DD/PM/7/4/36; Bucks. RO, D 193/1/22. Portman’s wish, as expressed in his 1643 will, was that, after providing for extensive bequests to his three sisters and their families, his estates should pass to his wife and any surviving children.61PROB11/205/458. But it was not quite that simple. In 1642 Portman had transferred his estates into the hands of feoffees, headed by Sir Gerard Naper.62Som. RO, DD/PM/5/6/16-17. He had since revised that settlement in two significant ways. First, in July 1643, he had granted the manor of Orchard to be held by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* and John Wyndham for 60 years after his death.63Som. RO, DD/PM/5/6/18. Secondly, in February 1645, he had granted two-thirds of his lands to various relatives and friends, including Robert Wallop*, to be held by them for 21 years after his death.64Som. RO, DD/PM/5/6/19; DD/PM/5/3/12. Those 1643 and 1645 grants were probably intended to cause difficulties in the event of sequestration and the decision to involve Cooper and Wallop was surely a political insurance policy. Despite those precautions, however, those estates were now in the hands of the parliamentarian sequestrators. In fact, in the long term, Portman’s death worked to his family’s advantage, as Parliament was reluctant to penalise the son for the disloyalty of his father. But it was not until June 1648 that Lady Anne agreed to compound with the Committee for Compounding on the basis of a composition fine equivalent to one-tenth of the value of the estates. In the end, she paid fines totalling £6,271 14s 8d.65CCC 93, 105, 118, 900-1; Som. RO, DD/PM/7/4/9; Hawkins, ‘Wardship’, 72-3. The fine later forced her to sell the remainder of a lease on lands at Pitminster to Roger Hill II*.66Bucks. RO, D 193/1/22.

In approving this deal, the Commons decided to award the fine to the town of Taunton, which had been badly damaged during the successive sieges, ‘towards recompense of their great losses and sufferings for their eminent faithfulness to the Parliament’.67CJ v. 592a. Under an agreement reached with Lady Anne in January 1649, trustees were appointed by her to manage some of the Portman estates and to make those payments direct to the Taunton corporation.68Som. RO, DD/PM/7/4/3-12; DD/PM/7/3/8. Six Somerset MPs, headed by John Palmer*, were appointed to disburse that money.69CJ vi. 291b; CCC 150, 614. At the Restoration £414 of this money remained unspent and so the younger Sir William Portman successfully reclaimed it. In doing so, he claimed that his father had lost £30,000 during the civil war.70CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 63. Yet, whatever Portman’s actual losses, which must certainly have been substantial, their estates had survived intact for a second time. Under the son, who is best-known for his role in the capture of the duke of Monmouth in 1685, they flourished once again as one of the major Somerset gentry families.