ANDREWES, Robert (1605-67), of Harlestone, Northants. and the Middle Temple, London.

The Andrewes family had been settled at Harlestone, and had occupied the manor of that name, for at least six generations before Robert Andrewes inherited. In 1479, the manor was leased by the Andrewes from the senior branch of the family seated at Charwelton before Robert’s cadet branch ancestors purchased it around 1500.12Vis. Northants. ed. Metcalfe, 66; Baker, Northants. i. 167. The eldest son of his family, Andrewes evidently did not expect to inherit more than his modest patrimony. His father was described in the post mortem inventory of his estate as ‘gentleman’, rather than ‘esquire’.13Northants. RO, A.93. Andrewes’ studies at Oxford were possibly pursued through to graduation – there is some doubt, as the 1626 graduate ‘Roger’ Andrewes was at a different college from the one from which Robert Andrewes matriculated – and he certainly enrolled at the Middle Temple. His father and uncle had attended that inn before him.14MTR i. 330; ii. 506, 685. His successive moves of chambers, in 1628 and 1629, can be traced in the Middle Temple records, but Andrewes achieved no other eminence there, and curiously there is no record of his call to the bar.15MTR ii. 685, 732, 748. He seems never to have married, or if he did, his wife’s name is lost to the various compilers of his pedigree, but he possibly had at least one son out of wedlock. He had two brothers, both dead before 1640.16Baker, Northants. i. 168. He is not known to have served on any commissions out of chancery before 1647. The family was not distinguished by Protestant godliness: Robert Andrewes’ uncle (his father’s brother) was in the 1620s known to be a Catholic recusant.17Northants. RO, A.160.

The mystery is how Andrewes, from such an obscure background, came to be Member for Weobley in 1646. No property purchases that might have given him an interest in Herefordshire have been discovered. The only connection between Andrewes and the group surrounding the Harley family, in 1646 dominant in Herefordshire, and particularly in the north of the county, was the Middle Temple. By this time, Andrewes was a senior figure at that inn, benefiting in 1647 from an assignment for life of a chamber there.18MTR ii. 950. Sir Robert Harley* had a list in 1645 of Londoners with connection with Herefordshire, which must have been compiled for reasons beyond sentimental celebration of county origins.19Add. 70005, f. 31 (2nd foliation). William Crowther, elected at the same time as Andrewes for Weobley, was on the list. Andrewes was not, but if a pair of candidates was sought, as seems likely, then it would have been logical to extend the search in the capital beyond the Herefordshire-born. Furthermore, Andrewes was a near-contemporary of Bennet Hoskins, who was prominent in the Middle Temple and secured his election for Hereford the same month as Andrewes was returned for Weobley. Another Herefordshire Middle Temple man of probably even greater influence at the inn was the Leominster Member, Walter Kyrle, who had long been patron to young men from his native county when they studied the law in London. Hoskins was a client of Sir Robert Harley, and the most plausible explanation for Andrewes’ taking the Weobley seat is through the approval of Sir Robert and Edward Harley, at the suggestion of either Hoskins or Kyrle. It seems highly unlikely that Andrewes could have acquired the seat through any other means.

Andrewes’ performance as an MP was limited. He took the Covenant on 11 February 1647, but was given leave of absence on 14 April, making no further impression on the clerks until March 1648, when he was added to the committee for grievances to investigate the complaint of a London citizen that may have involved an abuse of privilege by Robert Rich*, Lord Rich.20CJ v. 69a, 142a, 497a; CCC 1730. He then disappeared from the journals until after the execution of the king. On 28 February 1649, the House took a lenient view of his not having entered his dissent to the vote of 5 February in favour of further treating with the king, and on 27 April, Edmund Ludlowe II* reported satisfaction with Andrewes’ explanation for his continuing absence.21CJ vi. 153a, 197a. On 28 August he at last made an appearance, and was named to a committee dealing with the petition of Colonel Thomas Horton’s brigade, the victors at the battle of St Fagans in May 1648 and since shipped to Ireland, for recompense.22CJ vi. 286b. Andrewes put in a petition of his own on 9 April. This may have related to his lease from the vicars-choral of St Paul’s Cathedral of a tenement in London, and subsequently sequestered as belonging to the bishop of Chichester.23CJ vi. 395b, CCC 2801.

Another year elapsed before Andrewes was noted again in the Journal. On 4 July 1650 he was among 33 Members newly recruited to the Committee of Plundered Ministers in the wake of its proceedings against the Presbyterian minister, William Jenkyn.24CJ vi. 437a. This was an indication that in religious terms at least, Andrewes was not in sympathy with the Harleys or Walter Kyrle, who not only left political life after Pride’s Purge, but were also supportive of Presbyterianism. This appointment, the most significant of his parliamentary career, was also his last. He was raised to the bench of magistrates in his native county in 1652, and sat on tax commissions there, but not after the Rump was turned out in April 1653. Although he was not favoured by the protectorate with any appointments, he returned to Parliament in 1659 when the election of that year was conducted under the pre-1653 franchise. Andrewes was returned on that occasion along with Herbert Perrott, who represented the interest of the single most important family in Weobley, that of Tomkins. Bennet Hoskins, who sat in both the Parliaments of Oliver Cromwell’s* protectorate, as well as that of his son, seems again the most plausible supporter of Andrewes’ candidature, probably hoping to build an interest of his own. Andrewes seems not have made any impact at all on this Parliament.

After the Restoration of the monarchy, like Hoskins, Andrewes was apparently content with only a place in the commission of the peace. At the Middle Temple, his natural environment, in 1662 he held the very modest office, considering his seniority, of reader’s steward.25MTR ii. 1170. He died in 1667, with one or two sons surviving him. One of these, his namesake, was sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1667. It is unclear whether Andrewes ever married, despite the existence of his offspring. He was buried in a vault in Harlestone church, under a pious but unremarkable memorial inscription.26Bridges, Northants. i. 515; Baker, Northants. i. 168.