ARCHER, Sir Simon (1581-1662), of Umberslade, Tanworth-in-Arden, Warws.

The Archers were settled at Umberslade, in Tanworth-in-Arden, west Warwickshire, from at least the time of Henry II. Thomas Archer's ancestors were esquires of the Neville earls of Warwick; John Archer (d. 1519) fought in the wars of the Roses with Richard, earl of Warwick, 'kingmaker'. Andrew Archer, Thomas Archer's grandfather, was sheriff of Warwickshire in 1609, and began the process of accumulating manors around Umberslade. Claverdon, Tanworth, Clay Hall and the Codbarrow estate, and the manor of Solihull, were added to the family holdings between 1596 and 1640.20Dugdale, Warws. ii. 782; Burman, Story of Tanworth, 43, 45-6, 47-9. The first of the family to sit in Parliament was Sir Simon Archer*, the father of Thomas, who was an antiquary and associate of Sir William Dugdale. The mutual interest that Archer and Dugdale shared in 'antiquities' was strong enough to withstand their different loyalties in the civil war.21Dugdale, Diary and Corresp. 155, 175, 199, 249, 269, 279.

The origins of the Archer family were obscure even in the time of Sir Simon Archer and his friend the antiquary William Dugdale, because its association with Umberslade went back to the time of Henry II, and probably to the Norman Conquest. Archer was of at least the 14th generation of his name to live there, and for much of the middle ages the family had been retainers of the earls of Warwick. Simon Archer’s maternal ancestry was also deeply rooted in Warwickshire, as the Raleighs had been at Farnborough, in the south east of the county, for three centuries before his birth. Until the time of Andrew Archer, Sir Simon’s father, the Archers had not been lords of the manor of Tanworth-in-Arden, however; it was Andrew who bought Claverdon manor and the Botley estate, the advowson of Tanworth and in 1604 acquired the manorial rights over that manor. In what was something of a golden age for the family, in 1623 Andrew Archer added the nearby estate of Clay Hall to the patrimony he bequeathed to his eldest son.22Burman, Story of Tanworth, 43-8; Vis. Warws. 1619 (Harl. Soc. xii), 309; Styles, ‘Sir Simon Archer’, 5, 7, 12. After a conventional legal education, Simon Archer returned to Tanworth to assist his father in the running of the estate. His marriage to Anne Ferrers, daughter of Sir John Ferrers of Tamworth, Staffordshire, was contracted after two other planned matrimonial alliances, with Elizabeth Brauthwaytt and then with the daughter of Sir William Whorwood of Sandwell, came to naught on the question of the size of the jointure. When Archer married Anne Ferrers in October 1614, it gave him a standing in Tamworth, where his new father-in-law was the most eminent gentleman. When Sir John Ferrers died, Archer became a trustee by the terms of his will of 2 April 1630 for the civic charity which bore Ferrers’s name.23Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, DR 37, box 87/57-9, 61-2, box 88/43; Styles, ‘Sir Simon Archer’, 7; C.F. Palmer, Hist. of Town and Castle of Tamworth (Tamworth, 1845), 457. Archer also acquired as an uncle by marriage Sir Thomas Puckering†, who had had to be content with representing Tamworth in Parliament when he had set his sights on Warwick.24Warws. RO, CR 1618/W21/6 p.269; Styles, ‘Sir Simon Archer’, 7-8.

Archer recorded in the tiny volume he kept for copying coats of arms the births and baptism details of his five children, and his notes reveal how much his family life centred on his immediate Ferrers and Archer kin. Beyond these, the godparents he chose for his children were county gentry such as Roger Burgoyne, father of John Burgoyne* of Wroxall, and the father of Clement Throckmorton*: choices that revealed no personal connexions far removed from Tanworth or Tamworth.25Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, DR 37/vol. 48, ff. 28v-31v.Archer became a Warwickshire magistrate in 1620, and kept his place in the commission until his death, except for a period between 1644 and 1650. He was active both in and out of quarter sessions, and was unrivalled in his time both in his frequent attendances and as a delegatee of business out of court.26Warwick County Records, ii. p. xxi; Styles, ‘Sir Simon Archer’, 36. The liquidity of his estate was sufficient for him to become a lender to prominent local individuals such as Lady Lettice Digby of Coleshill, and Sir William Somervile of Wootton Wawen.27Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, ER1/141. He took an informed interest in public affairs beyond the county. Among his personal papers are notes on the Five Knights case of 1627. The Ship Money case interested him too, and he was sent a copy of the legal argument on behalf of John Hampden* by Dugdale.28Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, DR 37, box 91/21; box 85/3; SP16/73/70. He studied theological questions, and owned a rare commentary on the Book of Revelation which was attributed to a disciple of John Wycliffe. He was proud of his ownership of this manuscript, and was willing to lend it to learned friends. Even though there is no evidence to suggest that Archer himself was Wycliffite in his religious views, his interest in uncompromising Protestantism was rather more than a merely antiquarian one. His steward between 1633 and the late 1640s, Henry Kerbye, saw the civil war as a struggle between ‘Christ and Antichrist, the pope and the Protestant’.29Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, DR 37, box 87/96, box 123/2.

Archer became interested in antiquarian pursuits around the time he married Anne Ferrers, and this became his abiding passion for the rest of his life. It has been amply demonstrated that the enthusiasms of the midlands antiquaries, among whom Archer and his friend William Dugdale occupied a prominent place, contributed much to their self-image as gentry.30Styles, 'Sir Simon Archer'; J. Broadway, William Dugdale and the significance of county history in early Stuart England (Dugdale Soc. Occasional Ppr. xxxix), passim. Archer’s researches in court rolls and manorial deeds helped him in his business dealings, and secured his title in parts of his recently-expanded patrimony. His antiquarian pursuits also strengthened his links with Warwickshire office-holders. Escheators and feodaries were among his regular contacts: they helped each other with genealogical research and the completion of inquisitions post mortem. Through his persistence and energy in collecting materials, Archer was the original driving force behind what became Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire.31Styles, 'Sir Simon Archer', 29.

As a backbone of the Warwickshire bench, and with 20 years of service in county government behind him, Archer was well equipped for a parliamentary seat in 1640, and his marriage into the Ferrers family at Tamworth castle secured him a place in the Short Parliament. Dugdale wrote enthusiastically to him on his election

I am right glad that we shall enjoy you in London some time, and the rather in that you are a Parliament man. I wish that there were many more of your judgement and moderation, whose zeal and knowledge might worthily commend them, so should we all hope of an happy issue.32Dugdale, Diary and Corresp. 202.

For all Dugdale’s aspirations for Archer, he made no impact on this abortive assembly. Between its dissolution in May 1640 and the calling of the second Parliament in that year, the local politics of Tamworth had changed enough to deny him a seat there, even though Dugdale hoped that his friend would once again be returned.33Bodl. MS Eng. Lett. b.1, f. 329. The deepening political crisis seems to have driven Archer to withdraw from public life, as he stopped attending quarter sessions from the summer of 1641.34Styles, 'Sir Simon Archer', 37. At the outbreak of civil war, the king’s party had hopes of him, as he was named to the commission of array, and for their part, the parliamentarians expected him to respond to the Militia Ordinance: in the event, Archer acted under neither.35Northants. RO, FH133 unfol., FH 4284; Styles, 'Sir Simon Archer', 37. Unlike Dugdale, however, who was actively for the king, Archer was more sympathetic to Parliament, and by November 1644 he had become a committeeman in Warwickshire. He was never a member of the main county committee, but of the sub-committee of accounts, which he chaired from November 1644. As chairman, he was the most assiduous attender of the committee, which from a base at Warwick attempted to bring to the heel of the political Presbyterians in Parliament the radical and non-elite members of the main committee, which met at Coventry.36A. Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warws. 1620-60 (Cambridge, 1987), 238-41. The county committee refused to co-operate with Archer’s sub-committee, identifying Archer himself as one who had frequented the quarters of royalists. Archer’s group in turn declined to visit Coventry, because they considered there to be a threat to their safety in travelling to the city37SP28/ 247/585-6; 246, sub-cttee. at Warwick to sub-cttee. at Coventry, 12 Sept. 1645.

Archer was out of the commission of the peace between November 1644 and March 1650, but then returned to the bench to resume an active part in county government.38Styles, 'Sir Simon Archer', 40. His antiquarian studies were only minimally disrupted by the civil war, and his correspondents on aspects of Warwickshire muniments included the royalist Sir Richard Shuckburgh* as well as a range of individuals somewhat more in sympathy with the regimes of the 1650s.39Dugdale, Diary and Corresp. 225, 239, 243-4, 244-5, 257. None of these, including Sir Simonds D’Ewes* and Sir John Driden* could be called radicals: whatever the changes in public affairs, Archer’s natural milieu remained the world of the county gentry. Archer was the executor of Sir Thomas Puckering, and became embroiled in efforts to secure the discharge of Puckering’s estate from sequestration. He longed to bury himself ‘in the search of antiquities, but new troubles do daily arise’.40Dugdale, Diary and Corresp. 249. Despite his good standing with the corporation of Warwick in the mid-1650s, he never again stood for Parliament, and ceased to attend quarter sessions after the summer of 1658, probably because of ill-health. There is evidence that his financial affairs worsened in his last years, as he owed sums of several hundred pounds to local minor gentry, but he was still able to make cash bequests of £1,000 and £1,500 to his two youngest children.41Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, ER 1/141; DR 37/box 90/30. He died at Tanworth-in-Arden, and was buried there on 4 June 1662.42Dugdale, Diary and Corresp. 287; Tanworth par. reg.