OXBURGH alias HEWER, Lawrence (1610-78), of Emneth, Norf.

Their surname implies that the Oxburgh family had their origins in the Norfolk village of Oxborough and our MP’s great-great-grandfather, William Oxborough, is said to have lived at Beechamwell, a village only two miles from there.22Vis. Norf. 1563, 1589 and 1613, 211. The first member of the family about whom much is known, Thomas Oxborough†, established himself during the reign of Elizabeth I as one of the leading citizens of King’s Lynn, becoming its town clerk and then the recorder. He served as MP for the town five times between 1586 and 1614. His career as a lawyer, together with his marriage into the Hewar family, brought the Oxburghs the landed estates which gave them a secure place among the Norfolk gentry.

Lawrence Oxburgh was Thomas Oxburgh’s grandson, being the younger son of his eldest son, who was also called Thomas. A succession of deaths ensured that most of the family estates passed to Lawrence as soon as he came of age late in 1628. His father died while Lawrence was still a child, so, for a time, he and his elder brother, Hewar, were brought up by their grandfather. Before his death in December 1623, Thomas Oxburgh entrusted their education to his brother-in-law (their great-uncle), Sir Thomas Hewar, and their uncle, John Adderley. His wish that the court of wards should appoint Sir Thomas and Adderley as their guardians was, however, ignored.23PROB11/143/70. Instead, the wardship was assigned to their mother and her new husband, Sir Thomas Cony.24CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 582; SP39/27, no. 49. Hewar and Lawrence benefitted directly from Thomas Oxburgh’s will, for they were included in the arrangement whereby each of his grandchildren, in turn, received the revenues of his estates for a year at a time.25PROB11/143/70. Hewar Oxburgh came of age some time in 1628 but by the end of that year (26 Dec.) he was dead. Lawrence now found himself heir to those lands his brother had inherited in Lincolnshire and Norfolk (mostly at Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen).26C142/449/48; WARD7/78/73; SP39/27, no. 49.

The final major bequest made to the young Lawrence Oxburgh was by Sir Thomas Hewar on his death in 1630. Hewar’s own son had predeceased him and so it was on Oxburgh, the senior surviving grandson of his sister, that Sir Thomas bestowed his estates in England. Oxburgh gained a country seat, Hackbeach Hall, at Emneth, just outside Wisbech, on the Norfolk-Cambridgeshire border. (The other major landowner at Emneth was Sir Thomas Steward who on his death in 1636 bequeathed his lands there to his nephew, Oliver Cromwell*.) Other lands Oxburgh inherited from Sir Thomas were in the surrounding area, at Walsoken, Walpole and Walton (all in Norfolk) and at Elm (in the Isle of Ely).27PROB11/158/470; C142/467/80; WARD7/79/152; Blomefield, Norf. viii. 404-5, ix. 122-3; Norf. Hearth Tax Assessment Mich. 1664 ed. M.S. Frankel and P.J. Seaman (Norf. Geneal. xv.), 35. His combined inheritance now stretched throughout the fenlands of the western corner of Norfolk, with some further holdings over the borders in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. The one condition Sir Thomas Hewar placed on Oxburgh was that he take the surname of Hewar to prevent it dying out. He thus formally became Lawrence Hewar alias Oxburgh, although he retained Lawrence Oxburgh as the usual form of his name.28PROB11/158/470; HMC 6th Rep., 92; HMC 9th Rep. 294. Sir Thomas Hewar had also had estates in Ireland. These he left to Oxburgh’s uncles and so created an Irish (and Roman Catholic) branch of the Oxburgh family.29PROB11/158/470; HMC Ormonde, ii. 156; CSP Dom. 1676-7, pp. 520-1.

In January 1630, when Sir Thomas Hewar drew up his will, Oxburgh was still a bachelor.30PROB11/158/470. His marriage to Dorothy Peyton probably took place before the death early in 1635 of her father, Sir John Peyton of Doddington, Cambridgeshire. Peyton, who had been MP for Castle Rising in 1601 and served as lieutenant-governor of Jersey between 1628 and 1633, made no mention of Dorothy in his will, suggesting that she was already provided for.31Vis. Norf. 1664, ii. 152; Waters, Chester of Chicheley, i. 317; Burke Dorm. and Extinct Baronetcies, 412; PROB11/167/453.

Since 1633 Oxburgh had held court office as a gentleman of the privy chamber extraordinary.32LC5/132, f. 348. Usually its duties were more honorary than substantial, but on the rebellion in Scotland he was called up as one of the king’s servants to serve in the Scottish campaign in 1639.33The Portraiture of the Mighty Monarch Charles (1639). Meanwhile, in early 1637 he had brought a case in the court of chivalry against one of his neighbours, Matthew Tayler of Wisbech. The ground of his complaint is not known.34BHO, High Court of Chivalry 1634-1640 database.

Other legal proceedings involving Oxburgh from this period are even more mysterious. In the mid-1630s Oxburgh was apparently indicted at the Middlesex or Westminster sessions for causing trouble at the house of Elizabeth, ‘Lady Paulett’, who otherwise remains unidentified but who presumably was one of the many relatives of the marquess of Winchester. Oxburgh was acquitted, but Lady Paulett and her husband, Robert Pitt, then successfully brought a case against him in the court of star chamber.35SP16/346, f. 149; HMC 6th Rep. 92. Testimonies taken from witnesses in early 1637 told of how Oxburgh had forced his way into the gentlewoman’s house and threatened to cut the throats of some of her servants. One of the men accompanying Oxburgh was also alleged to have said that Lady Paulett was Pitt’s ‘whore’.36SP16/346, f. 151. Oxburgh would later claim that Paulett and Pitt had used their connections with Lord Keeper Coventry (Thomas Coventry†) to overrule the objection that he had already been tried and acquitted. The outcome of the star chamber case was that Oxburgh was fined £300 and ordered to pay £100 in damages to Pitt. In 1646 he had to resort to petitioning Parliament in an attempt to be relieved of paying those parts of these sums that were still outstanding.37HMC 6th Rep. 92.

It is not known whether Oxburgh took part in the civil war. Then in his thirties, he could have done military service. His social standing and wealth was such that Parliament would probably have been happy to appoint him to the major commissions in Norfolk if he had been willing. Nor is anything known about him during the Rump. Elias Ashmole visited him at Hackbeach in May 1657.38Elias Ashmole ed. C.H. Josten (Oxford, 1966), ii. 705. When William Fisher* founded the public library at Wisbech in about 1654, Oxburgh added nine volumes to the collection.39Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech town library catalogue, 1660-1830, p. 320; HMC 9th Rep. i. 294.

Oxburgh’s entry into politics can be explained by his friendship, by the late 1650s, with Secretary John Thurloe*. Oxburgh may have been related by marriage to Thurloe’s first wife and the two were now near neighbours as a result of Thurloe’s purchase of the former episcopal estates in and around Wisbech. Oxburgh wrote a witty, almost mocking, letter to Thurloe in July 1655 which had no purpose other than to provide him with some light relief from the rest of his paperwork. That he sent Thurloe his regards for ‘my honoured cousin and yourself’ suggests a kinship link.40Bodl. Rawl. A.28, p. 732. The influence of Thurloe probably explains why Oxburgh was appointed to local office for the first time in 1656 and 1657.41C193/13/6, ff. 31, 63; C231/6, pp. 362, 372; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 207. It certainly explains why Oxburgh, who is unlikely ever to have visited Scotland, was elected as MP for the Forfar burghs in 1659.

Thurloe wrote to George Monck* in December 1658 with instructions concerning the parliamentary elections in Scotland and recommending Oxburgh and four others as suitable candidates. Tellingly, Monck replied asking who Oxburgh was. Samuel Disbrowe* soon informed Thurloe that the government in Edinburgh was confident that they could get him elected.42TSP vii. 572, 584. The group of burghs comprising Forfar, Dundee, Arbroath, Montrose and Brechin did as they were told and accepted Oxburgh as their MP. Oxburgh’s decision to stand for the Suffolk constituency of Aldeburgh in early January 1659 has the appearance of an insurance policy against the Forfar election falling through. He had no obvious direct connection with the borough and, perhaps more importantly, neither did Thurloe. Possibly Oxburgh may already have had dealings with Thurloe’s brother-in-law, John Upton II*, who had links with the town through his first wife, Elizabeth Bence. It was Elizabeth’s brother, John Bence*, who secured the other Aldeburgh seat. Perhaps Thurloe had thought of nominating Oxburgh for the new Wisbech seat, only to realize that its status was even more dubious than that of the Scottish seats. Meanwhile, Oxburgh signed the Norfolk election indenture.43C219/47, Norf. indenture, 10 Jan. 1659.

Which of his two seats Oxburgh elected to sit for is unclear. Those in his position were supposed to decide before 7 March 1659, but no new writ was moved during the session for either of his constituencies.44CJ vii. 608b. Oxburgh’s position was complicated by doubts about the status of those MPs sitting for Scottish and Irish seats: in the second week of March some in the Commons launched attempts to exclude them from sitting. It is at least known that he took one of his seats, because he was in the House on 2 March 1659 to be named to the committee on a petition from Spalding, a town not far from Emneth over the Lincolnshire border.45CJ vii. 609a.

In political terms, Oxburgh adjusted easily to the Restoration and was even nominated to the abortive order of the royal oak.46Burke Commoners, i. 691. He retained his local offices, continuing as a justice in Norfolk and the Isle of Ely and as an assessment commissioner in Norfolk until his death. In 1661 he would have served as sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire had he not persuaded the privy council to withdraw the nomination because he had insufficient estates in those counties.47PC2/55, f. 48v. He also became the captain of the troop raised in the Freebridge Marshland hundred for the Norfolk militia and later served as lieutenant-colonel under Sir Christopher Calthorpe†.48CTB i. 74; Norf. Lieut. Jnl. 76, 85-6, 135, 136; Norf. Lieut. Jnl. 1676-1701 ed. B. Cozens-Hardy (Norf. Rec. Soc. xxx.), 16; Bodl. Tanner 96, f. 133. In 1664 he took action against the negligence of the rector of Walsoken, Edward Brooke, by bringing a prosecution against him in the court of arches.49LPL, Arches A 4, ff. 39, 85.

However, Oxburgh was facing serious financial difficulties. As early as November 1659 he had had to mortgage the lands at Emneth and Walsoken to Upton.50Wisbech and Fenland Museum, E.M.3: indenture, 27 Nov. 1659. By August 1664 he was forced to transfer lands to two trustees, the solicitor-general, Sir Heneage Finch†, and Sir Anthony Irby*. Finally, in December 1669, some of the lands were sold to John Colvile, the London goldsmith, and John Wyse for £3,581, while the profits from the rest of the estates were assigned to two of his relatives, Thomas Cony and John Buckworth.51Wisbech and Fenland Museum, E.M.3: indentures and receipt, 24-29 Dec. 1669. His decision to plough up some of the common land at Emneth was probably a desperate attempt to make the most of his estates. In early 1669 the barrister, Nicholas Pedley*, was advising some of the inhabitants to take legal action against him for this.52W. Suff. RO, Shillinglee MS lttr. 81. Oxburgh was not entirely destitute, as he had only recently managed to lease some wasteland at Upwell, and he was probably able to continue living at Emneth until his death.53Cambs. RO, L.30.3. It was there that he was buried on 28 July 1678.54Venn, Biographical Hist. i. 265; Vis. Norf. 1664, ii. 152. He died intestate and, presumably because of his financial difficulties, administation of his estate was not granted to his kinsman, Thomas Oxburgh, until four years later.55PROB6/57, f. 136.

Oxburgh’s eldest son, Lawrence junior, survived him and, in due course, seems to have re-acquired at least some of the estates. These remained in the hands of the family until the late eighteenth century.56SR v. 819, 915; Vis. Norf. 1563, ed. Dashwood, i. 151; Blomefield, Norf. viii. 405. None of their descendants were elected to Parliament. However, Hewar (or Heward) Oxburgh, a cousin of Lawrence senior and a colonel in the Jacobite army, sat for King’s County in the Irish Parliament summoned by James II in 1689.57J. O’Hart, The Irish and Anglo-Irish Landed Gentry (Dublin, 1884), 352, 502, 511; HMC 2nd Rep. 221-2; HMC 8th Rep. 494; HMC Downshire, i. 599; HMC Stuart, vii. 333; Oxford DNB, ‘Henry Oxburgh’.