CROMPTON, Thomas (1607-73), of Stone Park, Stone, Staffs.

Crompton’s great-great-grandfather had served as bailiff of Stafford in the 1520s.27F. Parker, ‘Chetwynd’s hist. of Pirehill Hundred’ (Collns. for a Hist. of Staffs. n.s. xii), 109. However, it was his great-grandfather, William Crompton, a London merchant, who had established the family among Staffordshire’s gentry with his purchase of the site of Stone priory (about seven miles north of Stafford) after the dissolution of the monasteries.28VCH Staffs. vi. 78; S. Erdeswick, Survey of Staffs. ed. T. Harwood (1843), 37-8; Bowers, Clough, Hist. of Stone, 141. Crompton’s father, Thomas, was described as ‘being of great power, friends and alliances in the county of Stafford’ – a position he enjoyed very largely as a result of his close association with Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, who was appointed lord lieutenant of Staffordshire in 1612.29C3/400/53; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Thomas Crompton’. Thomas Crompton senior was one of Essex’s deputy lieutenants, and it was probably on the earl’s interest that he was returned for Staffordshire to the 1614, 1621 and 1628 Parliaments.30HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Thomas Crompton’.

One of the most active men in county affairs during the 1620s and 1630s, Thomas Crompton senior served diligently as a Forced Loan commissioner, a commissioner for the collection of knighthood fines, a magistrate and as a deputy lieutenant.31Staffs. RO, Q/SO 4, ff. 1-283v; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Thomas Crompton’; H.S. Grazebrook, ‘Obligatory knighthood temp. Charles I’ (Collns. for a Hist. of Staffs. ser. 1, ii. pt. 2), 18-20; G. Wrottesley, ‘The Staffs. muster of 1640’ (Collns. for a Hist. of Staffs. ser. 1, xv), 202-7. In the summer of 1642, he was appointed to the Staffordshire commission of array, but although he seems to have worked with Sir Richard Leveson* and his fellow commissioners during the early months of the war he declined to contribute money to the king’s cause.32Northants. RO, FH133; Staffs. RO, D948/4/6/2; D593/P/8/1/7, 37. During 1643, he abandoned the royalist party in Staffordshire, and by the end of that year he had become a member of the parliamentary county committee.33Staffs. Co. Cttee. 10. The ‘Mr Crompton esq’ who signed many of the committee’s orders between December 1643 and May 1645 has been identified as his son, the future MP.34Wedgwood, ‘Staffs. parlty. hist.’, 74-5; Staffs. Co. Cttee. 10, 307, 351. However, it is clear from the committee order book and contemporary correspondence that the committeeman was also a magistrate (or he was until the king ordered his removal from the bench in April 1644) and a deputy lieutenant, neither of which offices were held by Thomas Crompton junior.35Staffs. Co. Cttee. 284; HMC 4th Rep. 269; Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 195. Moreover, whereas the future MP was probably a parliamentarian captain from the autumn of 1642 and a colonel by September 1645, the committeeman was not credited with military rank in any source and was evidently a civilian.36CJ ii. 862a; HMC 4th Rep. 273. In keeping with his links to the Devereux circle, Crompton senior was part of the faction among the Staffordshire parliamentarians that supported Essex’s political ally Basil Feilding†, 2nd earl of Denbigh, as commander-in-chief of the associated counties of the west midlands.37LJ vi. 654a-b; vii. 125a; HMC 4th Rep. 269, 271; Staffs. Co. Cttee. 146-8, 151, 152-3. In May 1645, the king spent a night at Crompton senior’s house at Stone, which one of the royal party described as ‘a sweet place in a fine park’, adding that its absent owner was ‘a rebel’.38Erdeswick, Survey of Staffs. ed. Harwood, p. xvi.

Crompton senior died in July 1645, and the following month the Lords sent down to the Commons the names of those Staffordshire men whom the earl of Essex recommended for appointment as his deputy lieutenants. That Crompton junior was among those named is further evidence that it was his father – a deputy lieutenant already – who had served on the Staffordshire county committee. In the event, the Commons consented to the appointment of only one man on the list, Michael Noble* – probably because he was an MP.39CJ iv. 251b.

In the ‘recruiter’ elections for Staffordshire in the summer of 1646, Crompton was one of at least four candidates who stood for the two vacant places.40Supra, ‘Staffordshire’. The resulting contest ended in a two day poll on 12-13 August, in which the principal competition was between Crompton and Sir Richard Skeffington*. According to a purported eye-witness, Crompton

was thought clearly to have it, but afterwards the other [Skeffington] had more voices. Many of Colonel Crompton’s men had more mind to make hay [it being harvest-time] and save a night’s charges than to pleasure their friends or for the country and therefore went home the first night; and when he [Crompton] had need of them they were absent and when all had passed [they] came in.41Perfect Occurrences no. 34 (14-20 Aug. 1646), sig. Ii2v (E.513.5).

When the votes were counted, Colonel John Bowyer* emerged the clear winner, with Skeffington in second place on 621 votes and Crompton in third on 613, at which the sheriff returned Bowyer and Skeffington. The other defeated candidate, Colonel Simon Rugeley, was one of Essex’s local allies, and it is likely that Crompton also fell into this category.42Supra, ‘Staffordshire’; ‘Sir William Brereton’. It is worth noting that his addition by the two Houses to the Staffordshire sequestrations committee only occurred in February 1647, after the Independents’ ascendancy in the Commons had been broken.43CJ v. 76b; LJ viii. 715b.

Crompton stood as a candidate for Staffordshire again in the by-election that took place either in late 1647 or early 1648, following Sir Richard Skeffington’s death – and on this occasion he was successful. There is no evidence of a contest.44Supra, ‘Staffordshire’. His first recorded action in the House was not until 23 February 1648, when he took the Covenant; two days later (25 Feb.), he was granted leave of absence.45CJ v. 471a, 472a. In May, he was named to two committees concerning the disposal of the London militia and securing Parliament against the rising tide of royalist sympathy in the capital.46CJ v. 565a, 574a. But otherwise he made little appreciable impact on national or local affairs in 1648. On 26 September, he was declared absent and excused at the call of the House; and he was presumably in Staffordshire on 25 November, when the Commons appointed him and Bowyer to collect the county’s assessment arrears.47CJ vi. 34a, 88a. All that is known about him between then and the spring of 1649 is that he attended the Staffordshire quarter sessions on 24 January.48Staffs. RO, Q/SO 5, p. 276.

Although Crompton almost certainly disapproved of both Pride’s Purge and the regicide, he was unwilling to forsake the Rump entirely, and on 22 May 1649 he was re-admitted to his seat – presumably having taken the dissent to the 5 December 1648 vote (that the king’s answers at Newport were an acceptable basis for settlement).49CJ vi. 214a. He was named to only one committee in the Rump – that set up on 6 July 1649 to consider a petition from Yorkshire for the establishment of a court of judicature in the county.50CJ vi. 251b. However, the fact that he was granted leave of absence from the House on 14 August 1650, and attended several meetings of the Committee for Plundered Ministers* in the summer of 1652, suggests that he sat in the Rump a little more frequently than his tally of appointments implies.51CJ vi. 455a; SP22/2B, ff. 190, 220v. Whatever his views on the legitimacy or otherwise of the Rump, he was one of its most active, and apparently trusted, servants in Staffordshire.52Staffs. RO, D593/P/8/1/30; D793/83-4, 86-7, 91. In May 1650, he was commissioned by the council of state as a colonel of militia horse, and, with the council’s support and approval, he helped to raise troops, seize ‘dangerous persons’ (among them Richard Weston*) and generally to secure Staffordshire against the threat of royalist insurrection.53CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 165, 176, 278, 301, 340, 506, 613. The following summer, with a Scottish invasion looming, he was again active on the county’s militia commission.54SP28/242, f.360. Similarly, he was one of the more conscientious Staffordshire justices of the peace under the Rump.55Staffs. RO, Q/SO 5, pp. 276, 315, 363, 480, 491; D593/P/8/1/30, 36.

In the elections to the first protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1654, Crompton was returned for Staffordshire again, taking the second place to Sir Charles Wolseley.56Supra, ‘Staffordshire’. A few weeks after the House had assembled, Crompton (writing from London) confided to a friend in Staffordshire that ‘if my lord protector live but seven year [sic], I am confident we shall be a happy people and see great part of the taxes taken off’ – sentiments that suggest he had welcomed the establishment of the protectorate.57Add. 4159, f. 123. He was named to four committees in this Parliament, including that set up on 25 September to consider the powers and persons referred to in the ordinance for ejecting scandalous ministers.58CJ vii. 370a, 373b, 381a, 387a. At local level, he remained a trusted servant of the government. He was active as a Staffordshire commissioner under Major-general Charles Worsley*, and three of his five attendances at the county’s quarter sessions during the protectorate were during Worsley’s tenure as major-general.59Staffs. RO, D793/94; QS/O 6, ff. 1, 38, 45, 51, 86; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 93; Staffs. and the Great Rebellion ed. D.A. Johnson, D. G. Vaisey (Stafford, 1965), 60.

In the summer of 1656, Crompton was re-elected for Staffordshire – once again taking second place to Wolseley.60C219/45/1, unfol. All but one of his nine committee appointments in this Parliament occurred between mid-September and early December 1656, and he made no recorded contribution to debate.61CJ vii. 424a, 433a, 434a, 442a, 443a, 444b, 463b, 464b, 528a. Perhaps the most important of the committees to which he was named were those for the advancement of trade and for collecting the arrears of excise.62CJ vii. 442a, 443a. Despite his modest tally of appointments, he reportedly attended his place constantly and was therefore excused when the House was called at the end of December 1656.63Burton’s Diary, i. 286. Returned for Staffordshire again to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament in 1659 (apparently taking second place to his nephew Sir Thomas Whitgreave), he was mentioned only once in the House’s proceedings – on 1 March 1659, when he was granted leave of absence.64A Perfect List (1659); CJ vii. 609a.

With the restoration of the Rump in May 1659, Crompton resumed his seat at Westminster, and during the next two months he was named to four committees.65CJ vii. 663a, 668a, 684b, 694b. His appointment to the committee set up on 27 June for settling the militia was particularly appropriate, for the council of state clearly regarded him as the leading figure on the Staffordshire militia commission.66CJ vii. 694b. In response to royalist unrest that summer, culminating in Sir George Boothe’s* rebellion, the council ordered Crompton to raise troops in Staffordshire and to secure Stafford – of which he had been made governor.67Bodl. Rawl. C.179, p. 240; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 52, 115, 192; CJ vii. 719b, 772b; HMC Portland, i. 686-7. In the wake of Boothe’s defeat in August, the council authorised Crompton to raise a regiment of militia foot in Staffordshire and thanked him for his ‘great care and diligence’ in securing the county against the rebels.68Bodl. Rawl. C.179, p. 304; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 115.

How Crompton reacted to the fall of the Rump in October 1659 is not known, but the committee of safety evidently regarded him as trustworthy, ordering him to garrison Stafford against ‘the common enemy’. Following the second restoration of the Rump, late in December, Crompton wrote to the Speaker excusing his absence from the House, ‘being in a course of physic’, and claiming that as soon as his troops ‘understood that the Parliament was sitting they all unanimously made great acclamations of joy and said they would live and die under your command’.69HMC Portland, i. 690. A few days later, Nathaniel Barton* informed Sir Arthur Hesilrige* that Crompton and his officers at Stafford were ‘at a great stand what to do, although professing for the Parliament’.70CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 298. Barton, a veteran parliamentarian officer, thought Crompton and his men

very good soldiers and well armed; I conceive they may be very serviceable to Parliament. The chief inhabitants of the town [Stafford] not only give them a good character, but desire they may be continued for the safety of this place ... Col. Crompton has been an old servant of Parliament and professes he will so live and die, as also that he has had no other end in calling this force together than to defend these parts against the common enemy.71CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 299.

In February 1660, the council of state ordered Crompton to ‘seize and secure such persons in that county as are known enemies’, and it promised pay ‘for such officers and soldiers there as have, in these late times of difficulty, retained a constant affection to the Parliament’s interest’.72CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 354-5. Crompton’s ‘affection’ to Parliament did not stretch to resuming his seat in the Commons.

If Crompton welcomed the restoration of monarchy in 1660, the compliment was not returned, for he lost all his offices during the course of that year. In 1663, it was reported that he and other Staffordshire parliamentarians had been holding secret meetings, but there is no evidence that he was deemed a significant threat to the crown.73CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 197. One local cavalier evidently thought him unscrupulous but harmless, describing him as of ‘any religion’, and ‘a witty man and a good fellow’.74‘Gentry of Staffs.’ ed. Kidson, 11. This is one of the last known references to Crompton in contemporary records. He died on 1 December 1673 and was buried at Stone two days later.75Stone par. reg.; Bowers, Clough, Hist. of Stone, 145. No will is recorded. He was the last of the Cromptons of Stone to sit in Parliament.