GRAVENER (GROSVENOR), Edward (fl. 1643-1668), of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster.

Edward Gravener’s early life is obscure. He probably descended from one of the various Gravener (or Grosvenor) families of Staffordshire, since a connection with the county is suggested by his appointment, in 1653, as the council of state’s agent to settle ‘tumultuous meetings’ in Wolverhampton, and his inclusion in the Staffordshire assessment commission in 1657.19CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 371; A. and O. However, he was described in 1647 as ‘a broken citizen’, suggesting that he had begun his career in one of the London livery companies.20A Paire of Spectacles for the City, 5. This was a plausible background for a future quartermaster. An apparent dynasty of Edward Graveners were Drapers and Haberdashers from as early as 1603 and were probably the family long associated with the parish of All Hallows the Less, London; one namesake was baptized there in 1621, but he is too young to be the MP and his father probably too old.21BHO, Recs. of London Livery Cos. database; All Hallows the Less, London par. reg.; City of London, Haberdashers, Apprentices and Freemen, 1526-1933 database. On the other hand, our MP, who had a daughter old enough to be married by 1648, might have been the ‘Edward Grosvenure’ (the spelling seems always to have been fluid) who became a member of the Honourable Artillery Company in 1635, and was listed as an inhabitant of St Michael Le Querne parish in 1638.22Ancient Vellum Bk. 48; T.C. Dale, The Inhabitants of London in 1638, 152.

Wherever Gravener’s roots lay, at the outbreak of the civil war, he became a soldier, and it is likely that he was the Ensign Edward Grosvenor who served in Lord St John’s regiment of horse in the 3rd earl of Essex’s army in 1642.23Peacock, Army Lists, 34. He had become a captain in Sir William Waller’s* own regiment of foot by the end of 1643, and in February 1644 was one of those chosen by the Commons to organise the muster and payment of Waller’s brigade.24SP28/266/3, ff. 147-55; CJ iii. 383b. Gravener’s initial role in the New Model is unclear, but by the summer of 1646 he had been appointed quartermaster-general, with a salary of over £400 a year, and in August of that year he was with Sir Thomas Fairfax* at the surrender of Raglan Castle; on 16 September he was awarded £50 for bringing news of it to Parliament.25Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 1293; HMC 6th Rep. 134: Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 11 (E.935.5); LJ viii. 476b, 492a. In May 1647 Gravener was arranging quarters for Sir Thomas Fairfax’s regiment of foot in Suffolk.26Bodl. Tanner 58, f. 121. He was present at the general council of officers at Reading in the following July, and during the Putney Debates in late October and early November his lodgings were used for prayer meetings.27Clarke Pprs. i. 176, 259, 281. On 28 October, for example, Oliver Cromwell* invited all participants in the debates to ‘come to us to the quartermaster general’s quarters, and there you will find us [at prayer]’.28Clarke Pprs. i. 259. In April 1648 he was one of the army officers alleged to have been plotting to disarm and plunder the City of London.29LJ x. 235a. That June, during the second civil war, Gravener joined John Barkstead* and Henry Whalley* as Sir Thomas Fairfax’s* commissioners for the surrender of Canterbury.30LJ x. 321a. He was present at the general council in December of the same year.31Clarke Pprs. ii. 274.

In 1649 Gravener was in Oxford with Fairfax and was among those army officers who received an honorary MA from the University.32Wood, Fasti, ii. 136. From the summer of 1650 he served in Scotland under Cromwell, as commander of a newly-raised regiment of horse. The regiment was briefly redeployed to the north west of England in March 1651, but soon returned to Scotland.33CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 87, 103. In August 1651, as Cromwell marched south in pursuit of the main Scottish army, Gravener’s regiment was among those left to besiege Stirling Castle, under the command of George Monck*. Gravener negotiated the articles of surrender with the governor of Stirling on 14 August.34Scotland and the Commonwealth, ed. Firth, 1-3. His regiment spent the winter in the Brechin area, and was disbanded early in 1652.35.Scotland and the Commonwealth, 331; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. xxv. 124. Although he had lost his regimental command, Gravener continued in his post as quartermaster-general, and Cromwell and the other senior officers clearly considered him trustworthy. After the dissolution of the Rump in April 1653, Gravener was chosen to travel to Scotland, ‘to give the ground of the late proceedings’.36Clarke Pprs. iii. 2. On his return to London, Gravener became an adviser to the council of state. In April and May he was an active member of a commission to improve conditions for wounded soldiers at Ely House and the Savoy Hospital; in June he was appointed to a committee to assign lodgings at Whitehall to members of the Nominated Assembly; and in October he was made a commissioner to enquire into ‘discoveries’ of concealed lands and goods.37CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 299, 320, 363, 415, 421; 1653-4, pp. 206, 209, 285.

Gravener evidently had no qualms about the creation of the protectorate in December 1653. In March 1654 Cromwell chose him, and another officer, for a covert mission to search ‘for money hid and concealed … by an enemy and delinquent of the state’ near Moorfields.38Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 225. In April the council referred Monck’s petition for the payment of his arrears to Gravener and other officers.39CSP Dom. 1654, p. 106. In June royalist suspects arrested in Middlesex were brought before Gravener.40CSP Dom. 1654, p. 204. In April 1655 Gravener examined a Stepney man imprisoned for slandering the protector, and he attended the council about the case the following month.41CSP Dom. 1655, p. 154. Loyalty brought tangible rewards. In March 1653 Gravener bought the mills and fishing rights on the River Dee in Chester, and thereafter was in dispute with the county sequestration commissioners, who demanded the payment of arrears of the fee farm rent.42CCC 1875. In January 1655 he purchased a house in Channel Row, Westminster, formerly belonging to the bishop of Norwich, for £566.43Bodl. Rawl. B.239, p. 57.

On 23 August 1656 Gravener was elected for Westminster alongside Edward Carey*, receiving ‘above 4000 hands apiece for their elections’.44Clarke Pprs. iii. 70. An eye witness account made clear that this victory was not gained without considerable unrest, as ‘the soldiers came in to cry for Gravener, the citizens cried for no sword men, no mercenary men, whereupon they fell together by the ears’, leaving ‘two men slain and many wounded’.45TSP v. 337. Gravener’s election was later held up as an example of military interference, as ‘the better to carry it in the choice at Westminster, the soldiers were bid to pull of their red coats and put on others, and to give their vote to him’ – in contravention of the property qualification set in the Instrument of Government.46Narrative of the Late Parliament, 11. The election was not challenged, however, and Gravener had taken his seat in the Commons by 18 September, when he was named to the committee for privileges.47CJ vii. 424a. Unusually, the bulk of Gravener’s committee appointments during the next eight months concerned private petitions.48CJ vii. 433a, 434b, 439b, 457b, 464b, 472a, 472b, 473a, 473b, 483a, 484a, 485a, 488b, 496b, 504a, 505a, 505b, 513b, 514b, 515b, 532a, 539a. These ranged from the breaking of entails for the sale of land to appeals against confiscation by former royalists and matters of sexual immorality. Gravener also intervened in when these private causes came up for debate, which often took place many weeks after the initial committee had been appointed. He was named to the committee on the notorious case of Lady Katherine Scott on 22 December, and when it was debated on 10 January 1657, he joined those who ‘were much for the lady’ in urging leniency.49CJ vii. 473a; Burton’s Diary, i. 335. On 14 March he was appointed to a committee on the petition of the countess of Worcester, and on 2 May he moved that the bill to compensate her should be read a second time, and he was appointed to the committee stage on the same day.50Burton’s Diary, ii. 102; CJ vii. 504a, 529b. He had been named to the committee on the petition of Captain Edmund Lister on 22 December, and on 6 June joined Thomas Cooper II* in moving that a bill might be brought in to decide the matter.51CJ vii. 472a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 184. In many of these cases, it is unclear what motivated Gravener. Others are more straightforward. On 2 February 1657, for instance, he was added to the committee on a petition by the duchess of Hamilton that challenged the bill settling Scottish lands on his former commander, George Monck.52CJ vii. 485a. On 4 March and 9 May he was appointed to committees on measures to divide the parish of St Andrew Holborn and to prevent unrestricted building in the London suburbs: both were of interest to Gravener as a local MP, and in both cases he was listed alongside Edward Carey.53CJ vii. 498b, 531b.

By contrast, Gravener’s involvement in national politics was slight. He had been selected to attend the protector to ask for a day of thanksgiving to celebrate Captain Stainer’s victory over the Spanish plate fleet on 2 October 1656, but from then until the end of March 1657 he appears to have been preoccupied with lesser trusts.54CJ vii. 432b. He made no known contribution to the debates on James Naylor in December; he was absent from the House at the height of the Militia Bill controversy in January; and there is no indication that he was involved in the early weeks of the kingship debates.55Burton’s Diary, i. 285. This was not a sign of his indifference to the Cromwellian regime, however. Indeed, at the end of March 1657, Gravener was one of only a handful of senior officers who voted in favour of Cromwell accepting the crown.56Narrative of the Late Parliament, 22. On 9 April he was named to a committee to choose those MPs who would attend Cromwell to address his ‘doubts and scruples’ over the Humble Petition and Advice.57CJ vii. 521b. It may also be significant that Gravener’s last committee appointment during this sitting, on 5 June, was on a clause in the bill to settle Irish lands on the leading supporter of kingship, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*).58CJ vii. 546a. That December he was presumably the ‘E. Grosvenor’ who signed a warrant in the name of the protector addressed to the constables and officers of the peace in Middlesex and Westminster.59LPL, MS933/72.

During the second sitting of this Parliament in the new year of 1658, Gravener was named to only two committees - to consider bills for the registration of births marriages and deaths, and against the non-residence of heads of colleges at the two universities – both appointments being made on 22 January.60CJ vii. 581a-b. In an embarrassing incident on 3 February, John Fagge* told the House that he and Gravener had come in just after a tied vote on putting the question for a grand committee to debate on the Other House. Gravener had to insist, in the face of protests by Fagge and [?Edward] Butler*, that he had indeed been present in the House before the question was put. When the main question finally went to a vote, Gravener told for the majority against the motion, probably fearing that the appointment of a grand committee would delay proceedings, to the detriment of the government.61Burton’s Diary,ii, 436-7.

In the last months of the protectorate, Gravener increased his wealth and his social standing. In November 1657 Gravener, then described as ‘of St Martin’s-in-the Fields’ in Westminster, purchased lands in Lincolnshire for £3,600; his wife, Margaret, was named in related transactions.62Lincs. RO, 2 RED 1/8/2-3. At about this time, his daughter married a kinsman of the prominent financier and supporter of the protectorate, Martin Noell, who, in the following spring, was recommended by Noell to Henry Cromwell* as ‘somewhat upon my encouragement become concerned in the farm and management’ of the customs and excise in Ireland.63Henry Cromwell Corresp. ed. Gaunt, 367. After Oliver Cromwell’s death in September 1658, Gravener was part of the army council of September which declared Richard Cromwell* as the new protector.64Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 336. At the old protector’s funeral in November, Gravener was one of the officers bearing the ‘banner of Union’ in the procession.65Burton’s Diary, ii. 523.

Re-elected for Westminster in the 1659 parliament, Gravener began the session with appointments as commissioner to administer to MPs the oath of loyalty to the protector (26 Jan.), and to the committee of privileges (28 Jan.).66CJ vii. 593a, 594b. On 5 February he was named to the committee on the petition of the wife of John Lilburne and was one of two MPs ordered to oversee charity provisions in Westminster.67CJ vii. 600a. Later in the day, he spoke in the debate on the discovery of an imposter in the House, recommending that he should be sent to the Tower.68Burton’s Diary, iii. 78. In the following weeks, he acted as teller on three occasions, each time in support of the protectoral government. On 14 February he was with the majority in favour of allowing the word ‘recognise’ to stand in the Recognition Bill, in opposition to Sir Arthur Hesilrige* and Henry Nevill* and other critics of the protectorate.69CJ vii. 603b. Similarly, on 11 March he told for the minority in favour of continuing the debate on allowing the Scottish members, most of whom were supporters of the regime, to continue to sit at Westminster.70CJ vii. 613a. On 4 April he was again with the minority against a motion to read the petition of the mayor of Taunton on the election there, apparently in support of Thomas Gorges*.71CJ vii. 625a. In an appointment that reflected his previous role as commissioner for the Savoy and Ely hospitals, on 6 April Gravener was named to a committee to consider a petition of maimed and sick soldiers.72CJ vii. 627b. He spoke in defence of the brewers on 11 April, against the accusations of the farmers of the beer excise concerning their arrears.73Burton’s Diary, iv. 398. He was named to his final committee on 15 April to implement the order to record deaths in Middlesex and Surrey, and he spoke for the last time on the following day. Having noticed many Quakers congregating in Westminster Hall, he requested that their petition be heard and that they then be dispersed.74CJ vii. 640a; Burton’s Diary, iv. 440.

As a staunch Cromwellian, Gravener’s relations with the majority of his fellow officers were becoming strained in the spring of 1659, and immediately after the military coup that forced the closure of the third protectorate Parliament in April, he was ‘confined to his chambers’ as one of those ‘active against the officers in their late actings’.75Clarke Pprs. v. 289. In August it was reported that he had been ‘secured … upon suspicion of being engaged’ in a royalist plot and sent to the Tower of London, but the newswriter may have confused him with Lieutenant Colonel Richard Grosvenor, a Cheshire royalist who later underwent questioning about his part in George Boothe’s* rising.76.Clarke Pprs. iv. 31, 37, 39; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 137, 211; P. Newman, Royalist Officers, 170. Edward Gravener was still resident in Westminster in May 1668, when one of his Lincolnshire tenants surrendered a lease to him.77Notts RO, DD/P/6/1/16/72. He may have been the man of that name buried at St Giles-in-the-Fields on 14 April 1678.78St Giles-in-the-Fields par. reg.