HARVEY, Edmund II (c.1590-1664), of The Abbey, Wickham Skeith, Suff.

Harvey may have been descended from the same Berkshire family as the more prominent Harveys of Ickworth but there is no evidence of a connection between the two branches during this period. Harvey was of minor gentry status, with a small farming concern at Wickham Skeith worth no more than £400 a year.18Add. 15520, f. 76v. He is recorded as having paid Ship Money as late as April 1640, but was no friend to the Caroline government.19Ship Money Returns, Suff. 1639-40 ed. Redstone (1904), 108. After the outbreak of civil war he became active for Parliament in the locality, and was appointed as an assessment and sequestration commissioner and as deputy lieutenant in the spring of 1643.20A. and O.; CJ iii. 80a. Between September 1643 and October 1645 he was the most assiduous member of the Suffolk county committee, from the beginning of 1644 serving as one of its six chairmen.21A. Everitt, Suff. and the Great Rebellion, 1640-1660 (Suff. Rec. Soc. iii, 1960), 27, 59. He was also a member of the Eastern Association committee from August 1643, and in the same month was in Cambridge, where he joined Oliver Cromwell* in signing a letter concerning recruits from Essex.22A. and O.; Abbott, Writings and Speeches i. 255; HMC 7th Rep. 561-2.

Harvey extended his landed interest in Suffolk in 1646, with the purchase of the manor of Stoke Ash from the Poley family.23Add. 15520, f. 81. He continued to serve Parliament and the commonwealth through the late 1640s and early 1650s. In May 1648 he was one of those instructed to assist in quelling riots and disorder in Suffolk, and in October 1648 he signed orders of the county committee.24CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 66; Everitt, Suff. 76. He remained as an assessment commissioner from April 1649, and became a JP in 1652.25A. and O.; C193/13/4. In the autumn of 1655 he was appointed as a commissioner for securing the peace of the commonwealth, working with the local major-general, Hezekiah Haynes, and he signed letters to the protector in November 1655 and January 1656, concerning the instructions they had been issued and providing information on the decimation tax.26TSP iv. 225, 272, 427.

Harvey stood for Parliament in Suffolk for the first and only time on 20 August 1656 and polled in second place with 1824 votes.27P. Pinckney, ‘Suff. Elections’, in Politics and People in Revolutionary England ed. C. Jones et al. (1986), 206. He probably owed his candidature to his connection with prominent families in the county, including the Bacons. Harvey was Nathaniel Bacon’s* colleague on the Eastern Association during the 1640s and in 1659 would be chosen as executor of the will of Bacon’s widow, alongside Sir Harbottle Grimston*.28Suff. RO (Bury), P545/894. It was perhaps his association with such men that brought his exclusion from Parliament in September, despite his willingness to assist the major-generals earlier in the year.29CJ vii. 425b. On his admission to the second session, his only appointment was on 23 January 1658, when he was added to the committee for the maintenance of the ministers, which already included two Suffolk MPs, Mr [Nathaniel?] Bacon and William Gibbs.30CJ vii. 580b, 581b.

Harvey signed Suffolk’s petition to General George Monck* in January 1660 for ‘a free and full Parliament’ but never himself sought re-election.31Everitt, Suff., 128. He died on 16 May 1664 and was buried at Wickham Skeith leaving a personal estate valued at £500.32Suff. RO (Bury), IC500/5/5, ff. 57-8 His only son, Henry, who had married his stepmother’s kinswoman, Elizabeth Cutler, died in the following July, leaving three small children.33Add. 19134, ff. 255-6.