PALMER, John (1609-60), of Taunton, Som. and later of All Souls, Oxford

Palmer was said to have been the son of a Taunton apothecary.21Ath. Ox. i. p. lv. His parents, John Palmer the elder and Joan Thear, married at Taunton on 2 April 1607 and John was born there two years later.22Taunton St Mary par. reg. His mother may well have been originally from Woolavington, as one of her relatives, Edward Thear of Woolavington, a merchant, was a party to the marriage settlement when her daughter, Margaret Palmer, married Thomas Colmer of Goathurst, Somerset, in 1631.23Som. RO, DD/PM/5/3/9. The future MP also had at least four other sisters.24PROB11/257/113. In the first phase of his career, the younger John Palmer worked to establish a position for himself, professionally and socially, a slightly above that of his father. The crucial step was the first one. In 1628, at the age of 19, Palmer matriculated as a student from Queen’s College, Oxford. He took his BA later that year and in 1630 he received a further degree as a Bachelor of Medicine. The clear aim was that he should become a professional physician. Other young men, newly qualified in medicine, might have been tempted to move to London, the obvious place for an ambitious physician to prosper. But Palmer did not do so. Nor did he ever join the College of Physicians. Instead, he went back to Taunton. He had returned there by 1632, when he and Walter Cliffe were appointed by the bishop of Winchester, Richard Neile, as bailiffs of his episcopal manor of Taunton and Taunton Deane and of his liberty around the town.25Som. RO, DD/X/VNL/1, pp. 72-3. Otherwise little is known of the years Palmer spent practising as a physician in his home town. In 1637 he treated Lady Rogers, the sister of Thomas Smyth I*.26Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 131. Either he or his father was the John Palmer assessed to pay 6s 8d at Taunton for the 1642 assessment.27Som. Protestation Returns, 258. In early 1646, at about the time he was elected as an MP, Mary Carent, the sister of William Carent*, referred to him in her will as ‘Mr John Palmer, of Taunton, Dr of Physick’.28Brown, Abstracts of Som. Wills, iii. 59. The Carents were cousins of Palmer’s wife, Mary, one of the Tristrams of Bampton in Devonshire.29Wilts. Vis. Pedigrees 1623 (Harl. Soc. cv.-cvi.), 115; Ath. Ox. i. p. lv; ‘Pedigree of Tristram’, Misc. Gen. et Her. 3rd ser. i. 229; Collinson, Som. ii. 495 Many years later, Mrs Palmer was described by Anthony Wood, another of her relatives, as ‘a notorious precisian, an enemy to monarchy and bishops’ and ‘a scornful, proud woman’.30Wood, Life and Times, ii. 192.

These comments on his wife’s views hint at the main reason for Palmer’s sudden emergence as a political figure in Somerset in the mid-1640s. Palmer had probably been a committed supporter of Parliament from the start of the civil war and is likely to have experienced the turmoil at first hand during the royalist occupation of Taunton between June 1643 and July 1644. Once Parliament began to regain control of Somerset, Palmer received appointments as one of its local officeholders. From July 1644 he served on the county standing committee and from October 1644 as an assessment commissioner.31A. and O. When by-elections were then called for the various Somerset constituencies, the hardliners on the county committee, headed by John Pyne*, sought to fill those vacancies with their preferred nominees. In Palmer, a native of the town and one of their own number, Pyne’s allies found their perfect candidate for the vacancy at Taunton. With their support, Palmer was elected as the new MP for Taunton at some point between February and May 1646.32Supra, ‘Taunton’. He also spoke along with Pyne in support of Thomas Harrison I* and Alexander Pym, the candidates favoured by the county committee, at an election meeting at Ilchester in December 1645.33Add. 70087, portfolio 5, no. 15, unf.

Palmer quickly made his mark in the Commons. As early as 15 May 1646 he was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers and he was soon included among the commissioners to prevent scandalous offenders receiving the sacrament. Over the next two months he was named to several other committees, including that to consider the latest petition from John Lilburne (3 July). He also took the Solemn League and Covenant on 24 June.34CJ iv. 545b, 562b, 576a, 586a, 601b, 615b. Then, on 18 August, he headed the list of seven Somerset MPs asked by the Commons to indict the leading local royalist, Sir John Stawell*, for treason at the next county assizes.35CJ iv. 648a; Som. RO, DD/HI/B/466: Som. MPs to [Som. standing cttee.], 18 Aug. 1646. Palmer may therefore have then returned to Somerset, although he was still included on the committee on oaths created on 30 September.36CJ iv. 678b. This may then have been followed by a longer spell away from the capital. Between then and the following spring the only possible sign of his activity at Westminster was his appointment to the committee of privileges on 16 December, which need not be a certain indication of his presence there.37CJ v. 14b. He reappears in the Journal in late March 1647, when he was appointed to the committee to suppress the Apologie of the Soldiers, which some viewed as unwarranted political interference from the army.38CJ v. 127b. Palmer’s personal views are clearer in the decision by the Commons on 22 April to appoint a committee to prepare a declaration warning scrofula sufferers not to travel to Holdenby to receive the royal touch from the king. As Palmer was then singled out to take the lead in preparing this document, it is plausible that he had proposed the idea.39CJ v. 151b. Now very much one of the Independent MPs in Parliament, Palmer was a predictable choice for the committee of 18 August to nullify all the measures passed between 26 July and 6 August 1647.40CJ v. 278a. In March 1648 he and Robert Andrews* were assigned the task of drafting a bill to assist one of the creditors of Robert, Lord Rich*.41CJ v. 497a; CCC 1729-30.

The watershed in Palmer’s life came in the spring of 1648. The previous year the commission of visitors appointed by Parliament had begun its purge of Oxford University. On 30 March 1648 Parliament’s committee for regulating the university voted to dismiss the future archbishop of Canterbury Gilbert Sheldon from the wardenship of All Souls. Palmer was appointed by the committee as Sheldon’s replacement.42Reg. Visitors Univ. Oxford, 20-1. Sheldon refused to vacate the warden’s lodgings and so was placed under arrest until the following October.43Reg. Visitors Univ. Oxford, 20-1, 207. Palmer’s appointment was shamelessly political. His academic credentials were slight. The warden was usually already a fellow of the college, yet Palmer had never held any college fellowship and it was only in the wake of his appointment that the university hurriedly granted him a doctorate.44Wood, Fasti, 115. His main qualification was that his Independent friends at Westminster wanted a dependable ally in the position. Palmer was soon joined in the college by another firm parliamentarian, Jerome Sankey*, and in March 1649 Sankey became sub-warden. It was therefore Sankey, in Palmer’s absence, who entertained Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell* when they stayed at All Souls in May 1649. However, Sankey’s prolonged absence in Ireland over the next few years prevented him acting as Palmer’s deputy in Oxford while Palmer remained at Westminster. One advantage for Parliament in appointing a trusted ally such as Palmer as the warden was that, as a head of house, he could play his part in the wider affairs of the university. An early indication of the role expected of him came in July 1648 when the visitors included him on the committee created to vet all nominees for fellowships and scholarships.45Reg. Visitors Univ. Oxford, 141.

The need for Palmer to be in Oxford presumably explains why he was granted a leave of absence from the Commons on 9 May 1648.46CJ v. 554b. His interest in the bill to grant a patent for the manufacture of bath stoves to the controversial physician Peter Chamberlen – he was named to the committee considering it (22 Sept. 1648) – is likely to have been primarily a professional one, but he may also have viewed Chamberlen’s radical religious beliefs with some sympathy.47CJ vi. 27b. The purge of the Commons on 6 December 1648 was not a problem for him. He continued to sit and in January 1649, in the weeks before the king’s execution, he was named to three committees, including that on the sale of church lands to raise money for the navy (12 Jan.).48CJ vi. 112b, 116a, 124a. Although not a judge of the high court of justice, he seems to have accepted its decision to execute Charles I: Anthony Wood later claimed that he was ‘deep or conscious at least of the king’s death’.49Wood, Life and Times, ii. 192. Six days later Palmer ensured his continuing presence in Parliament by entering his dissent to the vote of 5 December.50Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 382.

With the Commons now much reduced in numbers, he became a more visible contributor to its proceedings. Some of his activity in the House during the spring and summer of 1649 related to Oxford University, and followed from his appointment on 14 April to a committee for regulating the university, which would evolve in May into a committee for regulating both universities and for settling a godly ministry more generally. Palmer was an active member of this body.51CJ vi. 187a, 200b; LPL, Sion L40.2/E16. Members of the university would also be directly affected by the bill to settle ecclesiastical promotions (21 May) and by the proposed reform of probate, about which the doctors of civil law submitted a petition (25 July).52CJ vi. 213a, 270a. However, these were also part of the continuing religious reforms which retained Palmer’s full support. He probably also sat on the committees on the bill to abolish the cathedral chapters (20 Feb.), on the articles of religion (26 July) and on the maintenance of the ministry (7 Aug.).53CJ vi. 147b, 270a, 275b.

Several of his assignments in the Rump had an obvious Somerset connection. One was the payment of arrears to the Bath MP, Alexander Popham* (2 May).54CJ vi. 199b. The other related to the repair of war damage within his constituency. Taunton had been badly damaged during the sieges of 1643 and 1644, so Parliament agreed to grant £10,000 to the town to rebuild the destroyed houses. This was to be paid for from the composition fines of, among others, the previous Taunton MP, Sir William Portman*, and Sir John Stawell. Palmer was among MPs appointed to organise this and, indeed, he had quite possibly been one of the main proponents of this idea.55CJ vi. 291b. Moreover, in one other matter, one of especial importance, Palmer is known to have been directly involved. On 15 May Parliament appointed a committee to consider how future Parliaments might be elected. The two MPs to whom this was specially referred were Palmer and Sir Henry Vane II*.56CJ vi. 210a.

Yet this period of intense activity soon tailed off. It would be almost a full year after September 1649, when the relief for Taunton had been voted, before Palmer re-appears in the Journal. Even then, his appointment to the committee to consider the petition of Sir James Stonehouse (15 Aug. 1650) was an isolated occurrence.57CJ vi. 455b. Possibly he had spent some of that time back in Taunton overseeing the distribution of the relief fund. He may well have reappeared at Westminster only in June and July 1651 and then possibly only briefly.58CJ vi. 587a, 589a, 605a. Later that year he submitted proposals to the council of state for the demolition of Taunton Castle.59CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 31. In November 1650 the committee to regulate the university (of which, of course, Palmer was a member) had ordered that all the Oxford heads of house were to reside in Oxford. The possibility that this was directed against Palmer has been briefly considered in the past.60Reg. Visitors Univ. Oxford, 309 and n. Yet, quite apart from the fact that the committee is unlikely to have intended this order to apply to a serving MP, it is not at all obvious how much time Palmer was spending in Parliament. He was certainly present for at least some of that time in London, for it was in the capital that his wife’s uncle, John Harington I*, called on him in November 1651 and May 1652.61Harington’s Diary, 71, 74, 75. For all Palmer’s reputation as a strong supporter of the Rump, it is possible that from the autumn of 1649 he had largely lost interest in its actual proceedings.

The dismissal of the Rump in April 1653 seemed to bring Palmer’s parliamentary career to an abrupt end. Thereafter university affairs took up some of his time. When a new visitation commission was appointed in 1654, Palmer acted as the dons’ spokesman when presenting the visitors with the university representations.62Reg. Visitors Univ. Oxford, 400. The appointment of new fellows of All Souls continued, including, from 1653, Christopher Wren†. Later, in 1657, Palmer had to fight off the allegations that some fellowships within the college had been sold.63CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 225, 235. Throughout the 1650s he remained the obvious symbol in Oxford of the new, intruded dons. However, it was John Owen*, who, as the vice-chancellor and a friend of Cromwell, dominated the university and played a national political role.

Despite being based in Oxford, Palmer retained interests in Somerset. The relief money for Taunton was one reason. He had also been a Somerset justice of the peace since 1649 (and possibly earlier) and was confirmed as such in the new commission of July 1654. Later that year he attended the sessions of the peace at Bridgwater in person.64C231/6, p. 149; QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, pp. xxi, 248. That year he was also included on the Somerset commission for ejecting scandalous ministers.65A. and O. Two years later he assumed that these local connections would be enough to secure his election as one of the county’s MPs in the second protectoral Parliament. He was mistaken. In the poll held at Wells on 20 August 1656 he did very badly and came nowhere near being elected.66Som. Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 77. As a further humiliation, the government in London purged the Somerset commission of the peace in March 1657, removing some of the more militant justices. Palmer was one of the more high-profile casualties.67C231/6, p. 360. The decision, following Cromwell’s death, to summon a new Parliament for late January 1659 therefore seemed to offer Palmer a chance to reassert his Taunton links. He put himself forward for one of those two seats, doing so alongside one of his kinsmen, another of John Pyne’s allies, Richard Bovett. (Palmer’s sister, Anne, was married to Philip Bovett.)68PROB11/257/113; PROB11/303/295. However, Sir William Wyndham* and Thomas Gorges* stood as more moderate alternatives and, following a double return, the Commons found against Palmer and Bovett.69Burton’s Diary, iv. 276, 299, 333; CJ vii. 624b-625a.

Only with the fall of the protectorate and the recall of the Rump in early May 1659 did Palmer’s political career revive. Wood thought him ‘a great Rumper’, and he welcomed the reinstatement of proper republican government.70Wood, Life and Times, i. 304. The sheriff of Oxford, Timothy Box, told the Speaker, William Lenthall*, that, on receiving the letter summoning him back to Westminster, Palmer had ‘expressed abundance of affection and willingness to the service of the republic’.71Bodl. Tanner 51, f. 149. Within days Palmer had resumed his seat in the Rump. He was certainly present on 14 May, when he arrived late in the House for the elections to the new council of state.72CJ vii. 658b. That over the next month he was named to nine committees suggests that he threw himself into work at Westminster with renewed vigour.73CJ vii. 655a, 656a, 657a, 663a, 666a, 668a, 672b, 684b, 685a. His radicalism was indicated by his support for the moves to sell off the remaining royal palaces (16 May), while he probably backed the appointment of Charles Fleetwood* (Sankey’s old patron) as commander-in-chief of the army (4 June).74CJ vii. 656a, 672b. On 21 July his colleagues made a special point of adding his name to the new militia commission for Oxfordshire.75CJ vii. 727a. Thereafter his activity in the Commons may have tailed off once more, although he was named to a further two committees in late September and early October 1659.76CJ vii. 786b, 791b. His health may already have been failing.

There is no evidence that Palmer resumed his place in the Rump after it reassembled in late December 1659. By 13 February he was ‘very ill and weak’.77Wood, Life and Times, i. 304. On that day, news arrived in Oxford of the decision by George Monck* to demand the Rump’s dissolution. Palmer, as the university figure most obviously associated with the Rump, became the target for the celebrations and a rump was thrown at one of the windows of the warden’s lodge at All Souls.78Wood, Life and Times, i. 303, 304. In the event, Palmer did not outlive even the Long Parliament. On 29 February he was so ill that he was unable to make out a written will and had to declare his wishes verbally.79PROB11/303/295. He died four days later and was then buried in the college chapel.80Wood, Life and Times, i. 306; Longleat, Thynne MS 12, f. 152v. His son, John, and his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were all still children, so he had instructed that all his properties were to be left to his wife.81PROB11/303/295. Anthony Wood bought part of his book collection.82Wood, Life and Times, i. 307. Palmer’s widow, who lived until 1690, later married Ralph Bathurst, dean of Wells Cathedral and president of Trinity College, Oxford.83Collinson, Som. ii. 495. John Palmer junior (d. 1689) became a London merchant.84Ath. Ox. i. p. lv; Collinson, Som. ii. 495. No other member of the family is known to have sat in Parliament.