SLYNGESBY, Guilford (1610-43), of Hemlington, Stainton, Yorks.

Slyngesby belonged to a cadet branch of the well-established Yorkshire gentry family, the Slingsbys of Scriven, and was a cousin of the MP for Knaresborough in the Short and Long Parliaments, Sir Henry Slingesby. Slyngesby’s father, Sir Gylford Slingisby, had a long, if undistinguished, career in naval administration, rising to the rank of comptroller of the navy in 1628.12A. Thrush, ‘The Navy under Charles I’ (London Univ. PhD thesis, 1991), 75, 77, 86, 116, 365. According to John Rushworth*, Slyngesby was educated first at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland, ‘and afterwards studied some years’ at Oxford. Upon the death of Sir Gylford in 1631, Slyngesby’s distant kinsman and Yorkshire’s most powerful politician Thomas Viscount Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) ‘received this gentleman [Slyngesby] in his retinue, among other young gentlemen of quality, upon his first going into Ireland [as lord deputy in 1633], where his deportment, after some time, made his lord to promote him to be secretary and afterwards lieutenant of the ordnance and vice-admiral of Munster’.13Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 774.

In the elections to the Irish Parliament of 1634, Slyngesby was returned for the County Wicklow constituency of Carysfort on Wentworth’s recommendation.14FSL, X.d.428(185); CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 67. He was entrusted with several important tasks by the lord deputy, including the establishment of ‘a great magazine’ in Ireland, the setting up of naval dockyards at Kinsale and the transportation of ammunition over to Scotland in the summer of 1639 to support the projected Irish offensive against the Scottish Covenanters.15SO3/12, f. 145; Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Str P17/51, 196; Strafforde Letters, ii. 93; CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 181, 293; Procs. LP iii. 383, 399. In the process, he contracted very large personal debts that by 1641 threatened to sink his entire estate.16SP23/218, p. 227; PA, Main Pprs. 17 May 1641; Bodl. Carte 161, f. 9; HMC 4th Rep. 64. He also incurred Wentworth’s displeasure in the spring of 1639 for his ‘insolence and indiscretion’ – although exactly how he had offended the lord deputy is not clear. Wentworth instructed Sir Edward Osborne*, vice-president of the council of the north, to defer Slyngesby’s proposed appointment as a Yorkshire deputy lieutenant ‘till I be better satisfied of his affections to the king’s service’.17Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Str P10a/273-8, 324-5, 22/44. Slyngesby had evidently regained the favour of Wentworth (created earl of Strafford early in 1640) by February 1640, when the king authorised the earl to transfer a crown pension of £120 from Sir Francis Slingsby to his cousin, Guilford.18SO3/12, f. 79.

Like several members of Strafford’s administration in Ireland – notably, Sir Philip Mainwaring and Sir George Wentworth I – Slyngesby was elected to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640. However, he was apparently not among the earl’s first choice of prospective Parliament-men, for he secured his seat only after a by-election at Newton – the Welsh courtier Sir Richard Wynne having waived his return for the Lancashire borough and opted instead to sit for Andover.19CJ ii. 3b. Wynn’s fellow successful candidate at Newton had been William Sherman, a dependent of Archbishop William Laud and, like Wynn, a carpetbagger.20Supra, ‘William Sherman’. Evidently the Lancashire borough was susceptible to crown influence at this time, and Strafford seems to have used the opportunity to secure the return of Slyngesby to the House.

Slyngesby’s return for Newton cannot be established with absolute certainty. Nevertheless, the evidence for identifying him as Wynn’s replacement in Lancashire is compelling. On 4 May 1640, the parliamentary diarist Sir Thomas Aston and another, unidentified, chronicler of the House’s debates recorded a speech by an MP they both referred to as ‘Mr Slingsby’.21Procs. Short Parl. 196; Aston’s Diary, 140. The modern editions of these two accounts, and at least one other authority, have assumed that the man in question was Slyngesby’s uncle, Sir Henry Slingesby, who had been returned for Knaresborough.22Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 120. In that status-obsessed age, however, it seems very unlikely that both diarists would have referred to Sir Henry as ‘Mr’, especially as there is no evidence that they collaborated in the compilation of their respective accounts. Moreover, Sir Henry was a man ‘reserved in speech’, as one contemporary put it, who made no recorded contribution to debate in either of the other two Parliaments to which he was returned – the 1625 Parliament and the Long Parliament.23Supra, ‘Sir Henry Slingesby’; HP Commons, 1604-29, ‘Henry Slingsby’. The content of the speech itself, which was highly inflammatory, is likewise inconsistent with Sir Henry’s reserved character, if not necessarily his political opinions at that time. In the debate on 4 May as to whether the House should accept the offer made by Sir Henry Vane I* of 12 subsidies in return for Charles’s abandonment of Ship Money, ‘Mr Slingsby’ is reported to have ‘urged the grace of the king in his offer of remitting Ship Money, for as long as his Majesty hath a judgement of his side [against John Hampden* in 1637] it was rebellion in any to withstand the payment of it’.24Procs. Short Parl. 196. These words, which were ‘vehemently excepted against’ by some MPs, are precisely the kind of sentiments that a secretary of Strafford’s might be expected to have uttered at this juncture.25Procs. Short Parl. 197; Aston’s Diary, 141 That this ‘Mr Slingsby’ was not Guilford but one of his brothers or a more distant kinsman is possible. But Guilford fits the bill far better than any other ‘Mr Slingsby’ in that he possessed a patron (Strafford) who was both sufficiently powerful and determined to secure his return. And although it is impossible to verify that Slyngesby was returned for Newton specifically, the Lancashire borough was not only peculiarly amenable to accommodating court-sponsored candidates, but also the only constituency in the northern counties – where Strafford’s influence was strongest – for which a new election writ was issued.26CJ ii. 3b; Supra, ‘Newton’.

In the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640, Slyngesby’s place at Newton was taken by a scion of the borough’s leading proprietors the Leghs of Lyme.27Supra, ‘Newton’. He remained steadfastly loyal to Strafford after the earl was arrested and imprisoned by the newly-assembled Parliament – indeed, Rushworth claimed that the earl ‘made choice of him [Slyngesby], before all others, to stand by him and manage all his papers during his confinement and trial’.28Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 774. Slyngesby also testified during the trial, in the spring of 1641, giving detailed evidence in Strafford’s defence with respect to his governorship of Ireland ‘that he [had] followed but the practice of former [lord] deputies’.29Procs. LP iii. 123, 124, 127, 162, 207, 257, 261, 266, 268, 338, 342, 344, 350, 352, 383, 390, 391, 398, 399.

Shortly after the Commons had passed Strafford’s bill of attainder, late in April 1641, it learnt that Slyngesby had kept a ship in readiness at Tilbury for the previous two months – which both Houses perceived as part of a design to convey the earl out of London, probably to a rendezvous with the king’s army in northern England.30Procs. LP iv. 121, 123, 124, 127; LJ iv. 229b, 230a; Adamson, Noble Revolt, 249, 267. Slyngesby had informed the ship’s master that the vessel was bound for Ireland with a cargo of pipe staves. However, the two Houses were suspicious of the fact that the ship had apparently been fully manned and victualled for several months, presumably at great expense, while lying at anchorage – which was hardly the way merchants normally conducted their business. Parliament ordered that Strafford be kept a close prisoner, while the Lords summoned Slyngesby to explain himself.31LJ iv. 230a. There is no evidence that he obeyed this summons, however, and it may be that he followed Strafford’s advice – in a letter that the earl wrote a few days before his execution on 12 May – to ‘absent yourself for a time ... albeit never so innocent as you are, till you see what become of me’. Strafford concluded his letter to Slyngesby by asking him to remember that

there was a person whom you were content to call master, that did very much value and esteem you and carried to his death a great stock of his affection for you, as for all your services, so for this your care towards me all this time of my trial and affliction.32Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 774-5.

After Strafford’s execution, Slyngesby went abroad, where, according to Rushworth, he was received ‘into the queen’s [Henrietta Maria] favour and by her Majesty designed secretary to the prince of Wales [the future Charles II]’ – although a letter addressed to Slyngesby early in 1643 refers to him as secretary to the queen herself.33PA, Main Pprs. 5 Jan. 1644 [recte 5 Jan. 1643]; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 773-4.

Late in 1642, Slyngesby returned to his family’s residence in Cleveland – ‘where he had but a small estate, but so much a bigger interest’ – in order to raise a regiment in preparation for the queen’s landing in Yorkshire that spring. On 16 January 1643, however, his troops were attacked by a larger parliamentarian force under Sir Hugh Cholmeley* and Sir Matthew Boynton*, and having been ‘wholly educated an civil affairs, never in the active military part’, he was defeated. Worse still, he was ‘wounded with many case-shot’ and taken prisoner. In an effort to save his life, both of his legs were amputated above the knee, but to no avail, for he died three days later. His body was carried to York, the northern royalist headquarters, where it was buried on 26 January in York Minster after a funeral sermon preached by John Bramhall, bishop of Londonderry, ‘who had a large experience of him’.34Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 773-4; LJ v. 579b; R.H. Skaife, ‘The reg. of burials in York Minster’, Yorks. Arch. Jnl. i. 231-2.

Slyngesby made a nuncupative will ‘a little before his death’ in which he left his personal estate to his brother Robert, who was a captain in the king’s army. The family’s real estate was mortgaged ‘and in other men’s hands’.35PROB10/640, f. 326. Slyngesby died unmarried and was the first and last of his branch of the Slingsby family to sit in Parliament.