BEDFORD, Samuel (1622-1705), of Henlow, Beds.

Samuel Bedford was a younger son of a clergyman. Nothing is known of the background of his father, Isaac Bedford, although as he attended Queens’ College, Cambridge, from 1607 as a sizar, it can be assumed to have been relatively modest. Having proceeded MA, he was ordained in 1614.17Al. Cant. At the time of the birth of his eldest son, Isaac junior, in 1618, he was living at Sutton at the eastern edge of Bedfordshire, where he was probably employed as the local schoolmaster. His second son, Samuel, the future MP, was born there four years later.18Beds. Par. Regs. ed. Emmison, ii. A10; Al. Cant. That same year the father obtained his first and last living when he was presented to the rectory of Clifton by the patron, Walter Rolt.19C.W. Foster, ‘Institutions to ecclesiastical benefices in the co. of Bedford’, Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. viii. 145. A further brother, James, born there in 1627, also survived infancy.20Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 77. Both of Samuel’s brothers grew up to become clergymen, with the younger, James, becoming a fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford.21Al. Cant.; Al. Ox.; Calamy Revised, 43-4. James would subsequently pay tribute to their parents as the ‘skilful and faithful guides’ who shown him how to live a godly life.22DWL, MS 24.119, p. 2.

Unlike his brothers, Samuel Bedford seems not to have considered a career in the church. The outbreak of the civil war in 1642, when he was still aged just 20, instead opened up for him the possibility of a military career. He would spend the war years serving as a scout in the parliamentarian army. What determined this choice of role was almost certainly the patronage of Sir Samuel Luke*. Luke lived at Cople, only about seven miles from Clifton, and he seems to have known Bedford’s father.23Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 68. By early 1643 Luke was acting as the scoutmaster-general to Parliament’s commander-in-chief Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, with Bedford serving as his deputy.24SP28/5, f. 167; Jnl. of Sir Samuel Luke, 38. Bedford’s duties included handling the funds paid to Luke for his scouting operations.25SP28/7, ff. 55, 140, 302, 359; SP28/8, ff. 79, 234; SP28/9, ff. 158, 219; SP28/10, f. 181; SP28/11, ff. 304, 350, 380; SP28/12, f. 130; SP28/13, ff. 99, 171; SP28/14, f. 344; SP28/15, ff. 124, 176, 245; SP28/17, ff. 55b, 69, 288, 322; SP28/18, f. 347; SP28/19, f. 7; SP28/20, f. 59; SP28/21, ff. 161, 183. By the autumn of 1644 he was on campaign with Essex, coordinating the scouts on the ground, and he then spent the winter with the army at Reading.

Luke addressed some of his many letters to Bedford to ‘Honest Sam’.26Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 191, 195, 215, 248. But by late 1644 relations between the two were becoming strained. In mid-October 1644 there were complaints that Bedford was not supplying enough intelligence and Luke had to warn him that he was ‘not to look after your own ends’ but instead concentrate on Essex’s ‘safety and contentment’.27Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 26. The real problem however was that Luke was increasingly tempted to resign as scoutmaster-general and that, fully aware of this, Bedford was determined to succeed him.28Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 40-2, 67-8, 83, 103, 353, 365-6, 383-4, 393. Luke had his doubts about Bedford’s suitability, partly because the younger man made no secret of his aspirations. Luke even suggested to him that ‘those that think themselves most fit for it [that position] are most uncapable of it.’29Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 67. He also advised that, ‘It is not your own esteem but the esteem of others that must prefer you.’30Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 83. Bedford meanwhile claimed that Essex had told the Committee of Both Kingdoms that he was ‘an honest man and a careful man’.31Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 393. The uncertainty over whether Luke, who was also the MP for Bedford, would continue as the scoutmaster was ended by the passage of the Self-Denying Ordinance. By early March 1645 the expectation was that Bedford would be appointed as his successor, with Bedford claiming that Sir Thomas Fairfax* had promised it to him.32Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 248, 468, 471. A complication then arose when, much to Bedford’s frustration, Philip Skippon* told him that Fairfax had decided to appoint Leonard Watson, with Bedford instead becoming the commissary-general for supply of provisions for the horses.33Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 512. This proved to be unfounded and 6 June the Committee of Both Kingdoms agreed to appoint him to Luke’s former position.34CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 570, 583-4, 623; Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 320, 321, 566, 572. Luke was told by his father, Sir Oliver*, that Bedford was keen to accept whatever help Sir Samuel could provide to him as his successor.35Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 573.

Bedford was provided with ten scouts to monitor the movements of the king’s army, three agents to be employed in Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire and the south west, and four messengers.36CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 584. From August 1645 he had the use of the stables in Scotland Yard at Whitehall.37CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 75. His services may have been most crucial soon after, when, in late August, the king led a raid into Huntingdonshire. Bedford’s reports on the subject certainly seem to have impressed Sir Henry Vane II*.38CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 104, 123. But as an outright victory for Parliament became ever more likely, Bedford’s usefulness declined. In March 1646 he was told to withdraw his men from the western counties.39CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 385. On 22 October he helped carry the coffin at the earl of Essex’s funeral.40The True Mannor and Forme of the Proceeding to the Funerall of the Right Honourable Robert Earle of Essex (1646), 24 (E.360.1). Finally, in early December 1646, with the war clearly over, the Committee of Both Kingdoms decided that he was no longer needed.41CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 493-4. His arrears, which then amounted to £391, had been paid off by the following April.42CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 494; HMC Laing, i. 221.

Bedford’s thoughts had, in any case, already turned to his future. In June 1646 he had enrolled as a student at Barnard’s Inn and then, five months later, had been admitted to Gray’s Inn.43Brooks, Adm. Regs. of Barnard’s Inn, 94; GI Admiss. i. 242. By 1651, when his eldest son, Pemberton Bedford, was born, he had returned to Bedfordshire, settling at Henlow, just a mile to the east of his father’s parish at Clifton.44Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 137. Moreover, from this point onwards he began to emerge as a prominent figure in Bedfordshire local government. The new republic needed new men in the localities and Bedford, a veteran of the parliamentarian army, proved to be a willing public servant. In December 1650 he was one of those men appointed by the council of state to serve as the new Bedfordshire militia commission.45CSP Dom. 1650, p. 455. Within a year he had been added to the commission of the peace and appointed as an assessment commissioner.46C231/6, p. 209; CJ vii. 54b, 227a; A. and O. In 1653 the Nominated Parliament also named him as one of the Bedfordshire judges for poor prisoners.47A. and O. Another significant appointment followed under the protectorate when, in the spring of 1654, he was appointed as the new sequestration commissioner for Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, so, for at least the next two years, he was kept busy dealing with the remaining sequestration cases.48CCC 673, 679, 723, 726-7, 732, 737, 739, 1307, 2260, 2575, 1306. By 1655 he was also acting as the receiver-general for sequestrations for those two counties and for Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire as well.49CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 321; CCC 767; Museum Eng. Rural Life, MS 145/EN 1/2/13. Moreover, it was possibly during this period that he became the auditor of Christ Church, Oxford.50CSP Dom. 1667, p. 386.

Anthony Wood thought Bedford’s brother, James, ‘a young forward Presbyterian’.51Wood, Fasti, iv. pt. ii. 201. The description could equally be applied to Samuel Bedford himself, with him firmly supporting the principle that there should be some official structure to finance the parish clergy. This indeed may have played a major part in his election to Parliament in 1654. The master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, William Dell, seems to have viewed the 1654 Bedfordshire election as one involving a slate of anti-tithes candidates, including John Okey*, Nathaniel Taylor*, Edward Cater* and John Croke.52CSP Dom. 1654, p. 334. While that analysis may say more about Dell’s own strong views, none of those candidates was successful, so someone like Bedford, who was elected, quite possibly succeeded because he had openly opposed them.53Beds. RO, CH 30A, unfol. If so, Bedford soon repaid that trust by supporting the bill to remove scandalous ministers (25 Sept. 1654).54CJ vii. 370a. His enthusiasm was such that the bill appointed him as one of the commissioners to implement it in Bedfordshire.55A. and O. Moreover, two years later Bedford would claim that he had submitted complaints against the Quakers to this Parliament. This is likely to have been in connection with the bill on that subject, which would have been why he was included on the committee to which it was referred (30 Dec.).56Burton’s Diary, i. 169; CJ vii. 410a. But his two most notable contributions to the proceedings of this Parliament would be as a teller in two of the divisions on the attempt to revise the Instrument of Government. On 27 November Parliament voted on the clause concerning the parliamentary franchises. The proposed clause sought to deprive voters in borough elections of an additional vote in the county elections, but an amendment had been put down which would have had the effect of reinstating the old county franchise. Bedford and John Clarke II* were then the tellers for those who tried to block that amendment.57CJ vii. 392a. The following month (29 Dec.) he again acted as a teller, although the exact subject of the clause in that division is unclear.58CJ vii. 409b. He also acted as a teller to support the attempt to hear a petition from three London merchants (including Thomas Papillon†) (15 Dec.).59CJ vii. 403a.

Bedford was one of the three Bedfordshire MPs re-elected in 1656. In this second Parliament, his Presbyterian views would be even more evident. He was, for example, never going to have much sympathy for James Naylor. There was no doubt in his mind that Naylor was guilty of blasphemy and that he deserved the harshest possible punishments.60Burton’s Diary, i. 44, 52, 67-8. On 8 November 1656 Bedford headed the list of those MPs added to the committee to examine him.61CJ vii. 452a. During the debates of early December he took the view that this was a matter of the greatest urgency requiring MPs’ full, immediate attention.62Burton’s Diary, i. 28-9, 37, 44, 52, 146. Speaking on 8 December, he accused Naylor of assuming ‘the names, attributes, titles, power, and honour of Christ’, building up to a denunciation of him as ‘a horrid blasphemer’.63Burton’s Diary, i. 67-8. Four days later, he set out in detail his view that the old laws against blasphemy still applied and that civil magistrates had a duty to enforce them. On that basis, he concluded that the death penalty ought to be imposed.64Burton’s Diary, i. 121-2. Bedford was not alone in seeing the Naylor case as part of a bigger crisis. Having called for action on the matter, he was again added to the committee to examine Naylor on 18 December when it was asked also to consider what to do about the Quakers.65Burton’s Diary, i. 169; CJ vii. 470b. In February 1657 he was included on the committee to receive information on Naylor’s current condition from the governors of Bridewell.66CJ vii. 497b.

There were two Acts passed by this Parliament, both of them on religious issues, with which Bedford can be associated. One was the Act for the convicting, discovering and repressing popish recusants. Not that his role in its passage showed him as much of a skilled legislator. The bill may have had its origins in the decision on 3 November 1656 to add Bedford and Anthony Nicoll* to the committee for recusants.67CJ vii. 449b. The original version of the bill was ready by 29 November, when it received its first reading. Bedford was included on the committee to which it was committed on 3 December and he then became one of that committee’s more active members.68CJ vii. 458b, 461a, 461b, 463b; Burton’s Diary, i. 117, 148. It would take almost another six months, however, before the committee completed its deliberations.69CJ vii. 464b, 473a, 486b, 494a, 503b, 516b, 519a, 536a. At Bedford’s request, the Commons agreed to consider the amended bill on 28 May 1657.70Burton’s Diary, ii. 125, 139; CJ vii. 540a. But when Bedford produced that bill, the Speaker, Sir Thomas Widdrington*, noticed that it lacked the covering note by the clerk certifying when it had received its first and second readings.71CJ vii. 541a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 147. The best that a very embarrassed Bedford could do was to assure Widdrington that, ‘being a young Parliament man, he was ignorant as other men, and nothing being writ on that leaf, it was casually lost’.72Burton’s Diary, ii. 147. There then followed some discussion as to whether the bill could be accepted in that state, as there could be no certainty that it was the same bill that had passed the previous readings. Bedford had to return to his lodgings to locate ‘a dirty paper’ which turned out to be the missing page. Somewhat reluctantly, the House agreed that this could be re-attached to the bill.73Burton’s Diary, ii. 147-8; CJ vii. 541a. But this was not the end of Bedford’s problems, for he was no more impressive the following day when the Commons returned to this matter. The centrepiece of the bill was a requirement that suspected recusants would have to appear at the assizes or quarter sessions to take an oath of abjuration denying various Catholic doctrines. Many MPs now expressed reservations about the exact wording of that oath.74Burton’s Diary, ii. 148-54. Bedford rather lamely defended it by saying that the committee had spent two hours on that wording alone.75Burton’s Diary, ii. 149. Doubts were then raised as to whether the text of the oath under discussion was the same as in the original bill. It was hardly reassuring when Bedford responded that, ‘there were but two or three words different’.76Burton’s Diary, ii. 150. When the House voted on the oath, with Bedford acting as a teller for the yeas, that version was rejected, thus necessitating that the whole bill be re-committed.77CJ vii. 541b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 155. Unsurprisingly, others took over the subsequent management of this bill, which eventually completed its passage on 26 June.

The other Act linked to Bedford was that confirming clergymen holding sequestered benefices in those livings. When this bill was first introduced, Bedford was named to the committee appointed to consider it (4 Oct. 1656).78CJ vii. 434a. He then reported to the House on 3 November the changes that committee wished to make. However, in what may be another example of his carelessness, the bill seemed to apply retrospectively, so the Commons re-committed it with instructions that its provisions had to commence at some date in the future.79CJ vii. 449b. When the bill came back to the Commons on 28 November, with Bedford again reporting it, a further problem with its wording caused it to be re-committed a second time.80CJ vii. 461a. Only when Bedford brought the bill back on 13 February 1657 were those amendments accepted.81CJ vii. 490b. Even then, the bill was not passed until it was completed in the rush of business before the end of the session the following June. On 17 June Bedford was a teller in a division to prevent a further amendment.82CJ vii. 560a.

Perhaps it is not too surprising that Bedford, the son and the brother of clergymen, should have taken such an interest in this issue. But it also connected directly to his committed backing for the principle of a parish clergy supported by adequately funded benefices. He thus not only supported the bill for the maintenance of ministers (4 Nov.), but also sat on many of the committees on the measures to deal with individual local cases, whether in Great Yarmouth or the Isle of Wight.83CJ vii. 450a, 453b, 455a, 469a, , 475b, , 498a, 500b As a sceptic about some of the newer, more tolerant forms of religious worship, he also supported the bills for the better observation of the sabbath and on the catechism.84CJ vii. 493b, 536a. Moreover, Bedford’s personal connections with some of the prominent Presbyterian clergymen had its practical uses. In May 1657 Bedford was able to inform the House that Thomas Manton, the clergyman who had been appointed to preach to them, was not in London.85Burton’s Diary, ii. 146. Manton was almost certainly a personal friend, as he had contributed the preface to the printed edition, published just a few weeks earlier, of the sermon that James Bedford had preached at the funeral of Samuel’s daughter Frances the previous year.86J. Bedford, The Perusal of an Old Statute (1657, E.941.2). With Manton unavailable, Bedford recommended that Thomas Jacombe take his place.87Burton’s Diary, ii. 146.

In secular issues Bedford also sided with the Presbyterian interest in the Commons. On 25 December 1656 he spoke in favour of the proposed decimation tax against delinquents.88Burton’s Diary, i. 239-40. Moreover, he was one of those said to have supported the offer of the crown to Oliver Cromwell* in the Humble Petition and Advice.89A Narrative of the late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5). But even then it is striking that the one clause in the Humble Petition in which he can be shown to have taken interest – he was named to the relevant committee (19 Mar. 1658) – was that on whether Protestant clergymen should be allowed to hold public office.90CJ vii. 507b. He was also included on the delegations which arranged for the Humble Petition to be presented to the lord protector and later to hear Cromwell’s reasons for refusing the kingship.91CJ vii. 514a, 521a, 521b. On 27 May, when the House was trying to decide whether to proceed with the printing of the Humble Petition before completing the additional resolutions, Bedford made the helpful suggestion that those proposed resolutions should be read first before they committed themselves on this point.92Burton’s Diary, ii. 135.

Two of Bedford’s three committee appointments during the short January-February 1658 session continued earlier themes. He was appointed to the committee on the bill against non-residence by the heads of house at Oxford and Cambridge (22 Jan.) after joining with Sir Lislebone Long* in arguing that this needed to take into account the question of their remuneration.93Burton’s Diary, ii. 339; CJ vii. 581a. Also, on 3 February he was added first to the committee on the bill to merge the parishes in Huntingdon, which was intended to give the incumbent a living stipend (3 Feb.).94CJ vii. 591a. His other committee appointment related to the bill for the registration of marriages (22 Jan.).95CJ vii. 581a. In the debate on 28 January on whether, with time so short, grievances should be heard before supply, Bedford appears to have suggested that any further grants of money should depend on how well existing tax revenues were being spent.96Burton’s Diary, ii. 374.

The reinstatement of the old parliamentary seats for the 1659 Parliament narrowed Bedford’s options and it is likely that he did not seek re-election. The restoration of the monarchy the following year also threatened to end his public career. He stopped being named to the commission of the peace and the other local commissions. Moreover, neither of his brothers, Isaac, rector of Willian, Hertfordshire, and James, rector of Bluntisham, Huntingdonshire, were willing to conform to the Church of England, and so both were ejected in 1662.97Calamy Revised, 43-4. Their father, Isaac senior, may only have narrowly avoided the same fate, as he had lived on until November 1661.98Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 78. After being ejected, Isaac junior moved to Clifton, where in 1672 he was licensed to hold Independent nonconformist meetings in his house.99Calamy Revised, 43; L.M. Marshall, The Rural Population of Beds. 1671-1921 (Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. xvi), 85; CSP Dom. 1671-2, pp. 587, 590; Beds. Chapels and Meeting Houses ed. E. Welch (Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. lxxv), 54.

But Samuel Bedford’s religious and political trajectory was to be rather different. From 1667 he was reinstated as a justice of the peace and from 1672 he was again included on the Bedfordshire assessment commissions.100C231/7, p. 302; SR. Moreover, in due course, both his surviving sons, Pemberton and William, followed the family tradition and became clergymen, conforming to the Church of England. The elder brother, Pemberton Bedford, became rector of Upper Stonden, Bedfordshire, in 1679, before transferring two years later to become the vicar of Henlow.101Al. Cant. William Bedford went on to become rector of the London parish of St George, Botolph Lane.102PROB11/485/402. This was not all, for by the 1680s Samuel Bedford had managed to reinvent himself as a tory. In 1685 he signed the letter of congratulations to James II on his accession from the Bedfordshire gentry organised by Robert Bruce, 1st earl of Ailesbury.103J. Collett-White, How Beds. Voted, 1685-1735 (Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. lxxxv), 9. In the Bedfordshire parliamentary election later that year, Bedford and his son Pemberton voted for the two tory candidates, Sir Villiers Chernocke† and William Boteler†.104Collett-White, How Beds. Voted, 14, 15. Then, like many tory loyalists, he was removed from the commission of the peace in late 1686.105PC2/71, p. 363; G. Duckett, Penal Laws and Test Act (1882-3), ii. 58. In the 1690s he was again being named as an assessment commissioner and in the 1695 election, in the absence of a clear tory candidate, he and his son voted for the court whig Thomas Browne†.106SR; Collett-White, How Beds. Voted, 59. By the end of William III and the accession of Queen Anne, he was even serving as a deputy lieutenant.107CSP Dom. 1700-2, p. 226; CSP Dom. 1702-3, p. 395.

Bedford died in 1705.108PROB11/485/402; Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 392. His eldest son, Pemberton, continued as vicar of Henlow until his own death in 1726.109Al. Cant.; Episcopal Vis. in Beds. 1706-1720, ed. P. Bell (Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. lxxxi), 47, 139, 213. Pemberton’s son Samuel, hitherto vicar of Southill, then succeeded him to that living. Samuel’s son William Fuller Bedford, later became the vicar of Bernay in Norfolk.110Al. Cant. The Bedfords had therefore been a clerical dynasty over five generations. That made Samuel the MP the conspicuous exception.