STEPHENS, William (d. 1658), of Barton, Whippingham, I.o.W. and the Middle Temple, London.

Some uncertainty attends William Stephens’s background. The fact that he was a Middle Temple lawyer might indicate a link with the prominent Gloucestershire puritan family, many of whose members were also at the inn, and who were represented in the Parliaments of the mid-seventeenth century by Edward Stephens*, John Stephens* and Nathaniel Stephens*. In 1686 John Stephens of Northwood and West Cowes on the Isle of Wight, whose father Richard Stephens (d. 1671), a ‘merchant’ and son of John of the same place, was probably a cousin or nephew of the MP, claimed the same arms as the Gloucestershire clan, but the heralds reckoned ‘he must make better proof before it be allowed’.27Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. n. s. x), 97; PROB11/337/393 (Richard Stephens). The compiler of a history of the MP’s immediate family published as ‘a political novel’ gives a different, but still problematic account, compromised by his claim to have deliberately burned the papers on which it was based. According to him, the MP was the grandson of Richard Stephens, yeoman, who owned land in Lymington and Christchurch, Hampshire, and his wife Audrey, who acquired the manor of Barton on the south-east outskirts of Newport, Isle of Wight, as a widow in 1588. That manor was supposedly settled on the MP’s father Richard (but more likely on the MP’s elder brother Richard) – the narrative is ambiguous and the chronology suspect – at his marriage in 1633.28Stephens Castle Builders, 2-3. In the 1620s island grandee Sir John Oglander employed as his man of business in the New Forest one Richard Stevens, perhaps the yeoman of Newtown in the west of the island who made his will in August 1642, but once again the connection is elusive.29I.o.W. RO, OG/EE/62.

The first piece of solid evidence is the record of the MP’s admission to the Middle Temple as ‘William Steevens’, second son of Richard Stevens of Barton ‘gentleman’; the persistent spelling with a ‘v’, in contrast to the ‘ph’ always adopted by the inn when referring to other holders of the name, might be indicative of an attempt by persons unknown to assert a distinction. He was admitted as from New Inn on 18 May 1636, the day before his friend William Smyth*, son of the principal of New Inn.30MT Admiss. i. 132; MTR ii. 848. Both were regularly fined for absence, but Stephens was called to the bar only five years later on 4 June 1641 (indicating significant previous legal training), and he retained his chambers until 1648.31MTR ii. 868, 874, 880, 885, 908, 912, 965. His connections with Smyth persisted, despite their different allegiances during the civil wars, and he helped secure admission for Smyth’s kinsmen, including a son of Sir Alexander Denton*.32MTR ii. 966, 972.

Three weeks before he was called to the bar Stephens was appointed recorder of Newport.33I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 414. Judging by the fact that two of his sons matriculated at Oxford in 1658, by this time he may already have cemented his local ties through marriage into the town’s elite. His wife Anne, recorded by his eighteenth century biographer as daughter of one Redman and widow of Edward Herbert of the Isle of Wight, was almost certainly the eldest daughter of Thomas Redman (d. 1628 or 1629), a Newport attorney who crossed swords with Sir John Oglander, and sister of John Redman of Arreton (d. 1647).34Stephens Castle Builders, 3-4; Oglander Memoirs, 21-2; I.o.W. RO, OG/EE/2, 25, 40, 59, 62, 64-5, 79; C2/JasI/02/41; C8/28/105; STAC8/30/7; WARD2/16/56/1, 4; PROB11/156/7; PROB11/202/462. Her first husband was probably the Edward Harbert, son of a man of the name buried in Arreton church in 1628, who died seised of the manor of Burchmore in 1634 or 1635, leaving his brother Thomas as heir; the biographer mentions Anne going to law with her brother-in-law over her jointure, while Thomas Harbert, yeoman of Arreton, died some time between 1647 and 1653.35VCH Hants, v. 140, 150; Stephens Castle Builders, 3-4; PROB11/230/321.

On balance it seems more likely that these ties pre-dated Stephens’s connection with the man who was to be his patron in and beyond the island, Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, and that the concurrence of the Herbert/Harbert name was purely coincidental. According to the Stephens family biographer, Pembroke, who became lord lieutenant of Hampshire in February 1641, appointed Stephens steward and bailiff of the Isle of Wight in 1642, and was responsible for his becoming woodward and verderer of the New Forest (1644) deputy steward of the bishopric of Winchester (1646), and (very plausibly) steward to the dean and canons of Windsor (1647).36Stephens, Castle Builders, 5. Stephens was certainly to the fore in resisting the promotion of royalism on the island in the summer of 1642: very shortly after Pembroke had been confirmed by Parliament as governor, Stephens joined the mayor of Newport in forwarding to the Commons for their ‘judicious consideration’ the declaration of loyalty (effectively to the king) subscribed by many leading local gentlemen, and in requesting urgent supplies of powder to counter the threat.37HMC Portland, i. 49; CJ ii. 720a; Bodl. Nalson II, f. 101. Soon – perhaps within little more than a year – Stephens was serving Pembroke, and by extension the earl’s distinctly moderate brand of parliamentarianism, in a more personal capacity. As emerged somewhat later, in November 1643, when a wavering Pembroke was attempting to keep his lands in Wales out of the hands of the king, secretary of state at Oxford Edward Nicholas† issued Stephens with a pass from Charles on what was presumably the earl’s business.38CJ v. 44a; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 500. Much more employment was to come.

When in June 1644 an attempt to remove Stephens as recorder of Newport failed, the borough sought Pembroke’s authority to confirm his position.39I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 460. Later that year the earl may have assisted Stephens to become recorder of Portsmouth.40Portsmouth RO, CE 1/5, p. 85. Some time before July 1645, when he petitioned the House of Lords complaining of the failure of tenants to comply with a parliamentary ruling, Stephens was appointed receiver of Pembroke’s rents from sequestered lands at Sutton Marsh, Lincolnshire.41LJ vi. 48b. In this context the earl was almost certainly behind the approval given to Stephens on 11 November 1645 by most of the Newport corporation as a candidate for the recruiter election in the borough.42I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 485. He was returned on 24 November by the mayor and a majority of the chief burgesses, in preference to Sir John Dingley and Robert Dillington (son of Sir Robert Dillington* and father of Robert Dillington*).43I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 490. Opponents amongst the freeholders complained that Stephens had ‘made new burgesses to strengthen his party against the day of election’, and when it arrived had ‘assembled a tumultuous rabble of the scum of the town, in order to awe the freeholders’ and, using his authority as recorder, had ‘in open hall ... peremptorily ordered the serjeants to lay a gentleman of known integrity and a freeholder by the heels’. On 25 November two burgesses sought the return of a new indenture in favour of Dingley, but were outvoted.44I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 491. The dispute prompted the committee of privileges at Westminster to issue a summons to the mayor on 11 February 1646, but the outcome is not recorded.45I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 493.

Meanwhile Stephens took his seat, taking the Covenant on 28 January 1646.46CJ iv. 420b. He received his first appointment a week later, when he was added to the Committee of Navy and Customs (7 Feb.). That he was also instructed on that occasion to put ‘his propositions regarding the navy’ both to that body and to the Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports* reveals that he came with a ready-made agenda, presumably the fruit of his experience in Isle of Wight administration, and with the blessing of Pembroke and perhaps other grandees.47CJ iv. 431a. This by itself might go a long way towards explaining his election. The scanty record of his activity in the House over the next few years, moreover, suggests that his primary function remained to serve the earl.

Stephen’s next appearance in the Journal was on 30 May, when he obtained leave to go into the country, quite probably in connection with his appointment earlier in the month as recorder of Salisbury in place of Robert Hyde*, who had been removed from Parliament.48CJ iv. 559b; Hoare, Hist. Wilts. iv. 393; Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 19v. Doubtless it was again Pembroke who secured the place for him, conceivably as a reward for service, but from the earl’s point of view probably as part of a design to consolidate his influence in central southern counties. In the interim, Stephens had already absented himself informally from the Commons. In March, as not only ‘the steward of his lordship’s lands’ but also as a trusted agent in other spheres, he was dispatched to Gloucester to negotiate with the imprisoned royalist Sir Henry Spiller† for a marriage between Spiller’s granddaughter and heiress Jane and Pembroke’s son James Herbert*; his brief was to hold out the carrot of lenient treatment from the Committee for Compounding*.49Sheffield Archives, EM1355/1; CJ iv. 358a, 597b, 620a.

Stephens did not resurface in the Journal until 22 September 1646, when he was added to the committee to negotiate loans from the City, and then three days later he obtained leave once again.50CJ iv. 673b, 676a. He returned to the House in time to be included on a joint committee investigating business concerning Pembroke and the 4th earl of Northumberland (Algernon Percy†), probably to defend his patron from political detractors (2 Dec.).51CJ iv. 735b. On 6 January 1647, however, he himself faced political embarrassment when Sir Richard Onslow* informed the Commons of the ‘protection’ given to Stephens by the king in 1643.52CJ v. 44a. Surviving this, on 26 February he was given permission to visit the ailing and still suspect Pembroke, who was at Holdenby.53CJ v. 98b. Another leave of absence followed on 2 April, for reasons unspecified.54CJ v. 133a.

These could very easily have been the responsibilities attached to his being by now steward of Pembroke estates in Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Kent, Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. In the later 1640s this position brought him a yearly fee of £33 6s, betokening a status somewhat below the earl’s deputy on the Isle of Wight and receiver in Wales, Colonel Thomas Carne, and a more subordinate relationship to Pembroke than that enjoyed by other MPs in the latter’s immediate circle like Michael Oldisworth*, Sir Benjamin Rudyerd* and Sir Robert Pye I*.55Sheffield Archives, EM1356. It seems to have been at least partly at Pembroke’s behest that from 1647-8 Stephens, in a series of transactions involving also his friend William Smyth, acquired mortgaged land at Hackney from the royalist general Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of Cleveland.56LMA, M79/G/008/01, 02; Stephens, Castle Builders, 4-5; HMC 7th Rep. 6; LJ x. 12a; VCH Mdx. x. 79-80. During this period Stephens’s appearances at Salisbury were rather rare, but he does seem to have made some effort to fulfill obligations as a newly-appointed justice of the peace, attending quarter sessions there in January 1647 and 1648, and being delegated examinations at the assizes in August 1648.57C231/6, pp. 76, 203; Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 19v-44v; A1/160/1, ff. 102, 128.

In the meantime Stephens reappeared at Westminster by 20 July 1647, when he was named to a committee considering the ordinance for restoring Pembroke to the chancellorship of Oxford University.58CJ v. 251b. His intent was evidently political as well as personal. Named on the 22nd to the committee drafting an ordinance to overturn the Presbyterian attempt to take control of the London militia, he reported on it the following day, thereby signalling clearly his own, and Pembroke’s, allegiance to the Independents.59CJ v. 254b, 255b. Indeed, he may have been the ‘Mr Stephens’ who was included on one of the lists of those Members who took refuge with the army following the Presbyterian coup at Westminster of late July.60HMC Egmont, i. 440. His name was certainly absent from the Journal during this crisis, and there is no indication that he resumed his seat before 3 September, when he was named to a committee on an ordinance for continuing Robert Hammond as governor of the Isle of Wight.61CJ v. 291a. This accomplished, he once again obtained leave (27 Sept.) and was recorded as absent at the call of the House on 9 October; whether or not he returned before being granted further leave on 1 December is not clear.62CJ v. 317b, 330a, 373b. His only other certain committee appointment before Pride’s Purge concerned a grant to be made to Colonel Thomas Horton* in recognition of his victory over royalist insurgents in south Wales (11 May 1648) – a matter of obvious concern to Pembroke.63CJ v. 557a.

Stephens was not excluded at the purge, but he played no noticeable part in political affairs in the weeks leading up to the trial and execution of the king. However, his patron indicated in February 1649 a willingness to serve Parliament after the abolition of the House of Lords, and on the 12th Stephens took the dissent to the vote of 5 December (for the treaty with the king).64PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, p. 681. In April Pembroke himself was elected to the Commons and on the 30th of that month both men were nominated to a committee to consider security for money lent by one Arthur Samuel.65CJ vi. 198a.

On the evidence of the Journal, Stephens’s contribution to the Rump was as slight as it had been to the Long Parliament: on the face of it he received only three further committee appointments. This is a very misleading guide to his activity, however. In the first place, it seems probable that he was engaged in promoting the interests of Newport on such matters as funding for ministers.66I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 563. He also worked closely with other Pembroke clients on Salisbury business, including the preparation of petitions to Parliament, holding a number of meetings in London to that end.67Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 44v, 54, 54v, 57, 63, 64, 64v, 71; G23/1/42. With Sir John Danvers*, he was dispatched to convey the approval of the House to the mayor of Salisbury Francis Dove, brother of John Dove*, for his prompt actions (23 Nov. 1649).68CJ vi. 325b. Furthermore, on 25 May 1649 he and John Dove were added in company with some leading MPs to the committee considering the bill for army accounts.69CJ vi. 217a.

This, which drew on his experience as steward of extensive and varied estates both coastal and inland, was merely the visible tip of a substantial iceberg of important standing committee or commission appointments that year. On 29 May he was revealed as a commissioner for fen drainage, and on 20 June as a member of the committee for removing obstructions in the sale of episcopal lands.70A. and O. At some point he joined the committee for excise, and, as appears from its order book running from November 1649 to May 1652, he was among its core of active members.71Bodl. Rawl. C.386; D. Coffman, ‘Towards a new Jerusalem’, EHR cxxviii. 1436. On 16 August 1649 he was named as a judge of the admiralty in place of the murdered Isaac Dorislaus, and although fellow lawyer Bulstrode Whitelocke* cavilled that he was ‘not very fit’, his Hampshire background and his plans for the navy suggest otherwise, as does his record in post.72CJ vi. 279b; Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 88. Without either civil law training or patronage from the 4th earl of Pembroke (who died in January 1650), Stephens was awarded a DCL at Oxford in May 1651, and admitted to Doctors’ Commons, where he retained chambers until at least May 1653.73Al. Ox.; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 580. On the recommendation of the council of state, he was confirmed as an admiralty judge in November 1651, and when elections were held for these positions in November 1652, Stephens was chosen in third place.74CJ vii. 44b, 221b-22a, 223a; CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 36. Meanwhile, he seems to have commended himself to the 5th earl of Pembroke (Philip Herbert, Lord Herbert*) who was probably instrumental in securing his admission to the Mineral and Battery Works Company in 1651, and his appointment as deputy governor in the following year.75Loan 16/2, ff. 105v-6, 108-24. By August 1651, when he was the first signatory to one of its orders, he was sitting on the committee dealing with the claims of the creditors and former servants of Charles I.76A Remonstrance manifesting the lamentable miseries (1653), 3 (E.693.13). On 13 November he joined the committee for indemnity.77SP24/10, ff. 6, 6v, 8, 56v, 101, 101v.

Stephens appears to have been conscientious regarding admiralty business. During the Rump he was a signatory to numerous reports and letters issued to the council and its members, and occasionally attended it in connection with admiralty affairs.78SP46/96, ff. 64-64v, 178-9; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 365; 1650, p. 444; 1651, pp. 106, 121; 1651-2, pp. 36, 246, 267, 345; 1652-3, pp. 70, 206; HMC 8th Rep. pt. 1 (1881), 385. This assiduity may explain both his usual low profile in the chamber of the Commons and his isolated prominence. He reported amendments to potentially far-reaching bills for erecting a high court of justice (20 Mar. 1650) and for restructuring the parliamentary committees concerned with confiscated lands (1 Apr. 1652).79CJ vi. 348b; vii. 113a. However, the only other committees to which he is known to have been appointed before the dissolution of the Rump were concerned with supply of the army and navy (somewhat predictably, 28 Apr. 1652) and the treatment of conforming Catholics (30 June 1652).80CJ vii. 128a, 147a.

Although Stephens appears to have played a less prominent role in admiralty affairs after the dissolution of the Rump, he was clearly not out of favour, and in this period he consolidated his property holdings on the Isle of Wight.81I.o.W. RO, JER/SEL/50/1, 12; Hants RO, 1M53/461-5. The seniority within the legal profession which had led to his being made an associate bencher of the Middle Temple (26 June 1652) continued: he became a bencher in February 1655.82MTR iii. 1038, 1090. In March 1654 he was named to the commission of oyer and terminer for the western circuit, and he remained a commissioner until his death.83TSP iii. 296; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 114. That autumn he secured election to the first protectoral Parliament, for Salisbury, where he continued to serve as recorder.84Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 82, 82v. He made no recorded speeches, but received several early nominations, including to the committee to inquire into the proceedings of the judges at Salters’ Hall (15 Sept. 1654), and the privileges committee (5 Sept.), from which he reported on Irish elections (5 Oct.).85CJ vii. 366b, 368a, 373a. He was appointed to the committees for both Irish and Scottish affairs, as well as for the regulation of printing, and most notably, to that considering the bill for the recognition of the protectorate (25 Sept.).86CJ vii. 369b, 370a, 371b. Stephens delivered at least one report on the ‘bill for the government’, on the question of revenue for defence and the encouragement of trade (15 Jan. 1655).87CJ vii. 417.

In January 1656, when Major-general William Goffe* encountered him chairing the Hampshire sessions and giving the charge to the jury, Stephens gave every appearance of a protectorate loyalist: ‘in all things [he] expresseth himself very cordially for his Highness and the present affairs’.88TSP iv. 408. However, he was not returned to the second protectorate Parliament later that year, although he was an unsuccessful candidate at Portsmouth, another town which he served as recorder.89Portsmouth RO, CE 1/7, p. 59. Two days before that Parliament assembled on 17 September, Stephens was manoeuvred out of his position as recorder of Salisbury and replaced by Henry Eyre*, falling victim to a wider, politically-motivated purge that had been percolating for some months.90Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 89, 89v, 92. As he had explained to fellow member of the corporation John Ivie as early as mid-May, ‘the alteration aimed at will be so great, that indeed I cannot consent unto it’. While he had been ‘very active ... in the acquiring power and privileges to and for the city’, he had ‘declined and forborne to have any hand’ in remodelling the corporation. He evinced some bitterness that those who were to be removed included himself and John Dove: ‘I have attended the city, without any charge or cost, save only to myself, and did never yet burden the city, as other recorders have done, with bills for one penny of monies’. His replacement would, he noted, ‘punish sin, suppress alehouses and administer justice with greater courage than I have done: for the omission of the former duties is said to be my ruin’.91Hoare, Hist. Wilts. iv. 438-9.

Although resentful, Stephens does not appear to have challenged his dismissal. It is possible that he was suffering from ill-health by this date. He died, intestate, sometime before November 1658, when administration of the estate was granted. His son (Sir) William Stephens† represented Newport during the 1680s, and his grandson William Stephens sat for Newport and then Newtown in the early eighteenth century.92HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1690-1715; HP Commons 1715-1754.