MARKHAM, Henry (1602-74), of Sedgebrook, Lincs. and Confy, co. Kildare, Ire.

Henry Markham was the third son of Sir Anthony Markham of Sedgebrook in Lincolnshire, who was head of a cadet branch of the Markhams of Northamptonshire.26D. F. Markham, A History of the Markham Family (1854), 84-5. The Markhams had been on good terms with the earls of Rutland - whose seat at Belvoir Castle was close to Sedgebrook - for a century or more, and after his baptism in 1602, Henry boasted as godparents the countess of Rutland, the 4th earl of Bedford, and the 3rd earl of Pembroke.27HMC Rutland, iv. 264-375; Markham, Markham Memorials, i. 150. Other marks of favour were to follow. Markham’s father was knighted at the Rutland seat at Belvoir Castle on James I's accession in 1603, and Henry Markham may have entered the Manners household, serving the 9th earl of Rutland in an official capacity - possibly as steward - by the 1630s.28Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 103; HMC Rutland, iv. 528, 532.

Markham’s father and both of his elder brothers joined the royalists at the very beginning of the civil war (the eldest, Robert, being created baronet by Charles I on 22 August 1642) but Henry Markham chose to buck the family trend, and support the Parliament.29Markham, History of the Markham Family, 94. In 1642 he was listed as a captain in the army of the 3rd earl of Essex, with a banner proclaiming ‘For the cause of the Lord I draw my sword’.30Sloane 5247, f. 77v. The influence of his patron, the parliamentarian 10th earl of Rutland, was no doubt an important factor in Markham’s choice of sides: in September 1643 the House of Lords ordered that Markham, ‘a servant of the earl of Rutland’, should have a pass to go to Oxford to fetch a physician for his lord.31LJ vi. 203b. Later in the first civil war, Markham served as a captain in Edward Rosseter’s regiment of horse, which was attached first to the 2nd earl of Manchester’s army, and then to the New Model army. This unit, which was raised in Lincolnshire, came under the command of Colonel George Twistleton* in the later 1640s.32Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 164-6; E121/3/3-4, unfol.: debentures and certificates of pay arrears; SP28/47, ff. 403-5. Markham was reportedly wounded at Naseby and served at the siege of Newark, and from 1646 he was trusted to organize the defence of Belvoir Castle.33Markham, Hist. of the Markham Family, 94; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 577; HMC Portland, i. 467.

Markham’s appointment as commander of the Belvoir garrison was no coincidence. His correspondence with the earl and his countess shows that his attachment to the Manners family continued to be strong. In August 1646 Markham had ensured that the castle was habitable after its royalist occupation, and was anxious to apprehend the ‘Judas’, Sir Gervase Lucas, who had made off with much of the family furnishings.34HMC Rutland, ii. 2. In October 1647, when Sir Thomas Fairfax* ordered Markham to remove the garrison and return Belvoir to the custody of the Manners family, Markham offered to provide arms and ammunition to the earl to keep the castle secure.35HMC Rutland, ii. 3. The decommissioning of Belvoir was hastily reversed in May 1648, with the onset of the second civil war. Markham was again given charge of the castle, with 40 soldiers drawn from Twistleton’s regiment, and Fairfax told the countess of Rutland that the appointment of Markham was intentional, as it was known he would be careful of the family’s interests.36HMC Rutland, ii. 3. Although the threat from the royalists had long since passed, Markham was still resident at Belvoir in May 1649, and he supported the earl in his efforts to prevent the slighting of the castle.37SP28/60, ff. 532, 534; HMC Rutland, ii. 4.

In early 1650 Markham was rewarded for his loyal service with a grant of episcopal land in Sutton Under Whiston Cliff, Yorkshire, and at this time he signed himself as ‘Henry Markham of Muston, Leicestershire’; but instead of retiring to his country estates, later in the same year he travelled to Ireland to resume his military career. 38C54/3450/3. Markham was serving as a colonel when he was captured on the fall of Ross to the Irish in 1651 – only being freed during an exchange of prisoners in March 1652.39Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 368-9; Mercurius Politicus no. 95 (25 Mar.-1 Apr. 1652), 1496. Markham’s later activities in Ireland were to prove administrative rather than military in nature. His first appointments came under the commonwealth regime, probably through the influence of his brother-in-law, John Weaver*, who was one of the parliamentary commissioners to Ireland appointed in October 1650. In February 1651, Parliament appointed various colonels of the army in Ireland as commissioners for taxes, and gave oversight of the scheme to Markham and Colonel Thomas Herbert ‘to be inspectors over the rest, and to go from place to place to see that their instructions were put into execution'.40Ludlow, Mems. i. 261. In March 1652 the parliamentary commissioners in Ireland appointed Markham and others to assist them in hearing and answering petitions.41Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 162. This involved dealing with requests for exemption from transplantation to Connaught from Irish landowners, and there is evidence for Markham’s activity in this area in 1653 and 1654.42J.P. Prendergast, Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland (1865), 39n, 70. The assistance afforded by Markham to the commissioners brought further promotion under the protectorate. In November 1654 the lord deputy (Charles Fleetwood*) and his council nominated Markham as commissioner for the Irish revenue.43Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 459. In September 1655 Henry Cromwell*, who had taken charge of the Irish government in Fleetwood’s absence, chose Markham to oversee the letting of forfeited estates in cos. Dublin, Carlow and Kildare, at a salary of £300 a year.44Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 538; Harl. Misc. iii. 459.

Markham’s involvement in the Irish administration gave him ample opportunity to line his own pockets. In April 1656 Markham, with John Perrin of London, was granted 1,000 acres of reserved land within three miles of the River Shannon.45Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 589; HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 151. This land, in St Peter’s parish, co. Roscommon, was granted by order of the Irish council.46Transplantation to Connaught, 1654-8 ed. R.C. Simington (Dublin, 1970), 241-3. No doubt using his position as commissioner for leasing in the area, Markham also acquired land in Confy, co. Kildare, and tenements in the Dublin parishes of St Bride and St John.47Irish Census, 1659, 364, 366, 401. As well as material gains, Markham’s service also gained him important allies in the government. When his actions as revenue commissioner were challenged by Edward Brabazon, earl of Meath, Markham petitioned the commissioners of the great seal in Ireland (12 Mar. 1656); and after a visit to Hampton Court in July he secured the support of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell*, who in August announced himself pleased with his ‘constant fidelity and good service from the beginning’, and ordered that he and his colleagues be granted indemnity.48CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 600-1; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 167; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 226; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 615-16. Parliament later ratified the protector’s order, and indemnified Markham specifically on 18 December 1656.49CJ vii. 465a, 469b-470a. During his visit to England the previous summer, Markham had acted as Henry Cromwell’s agent, and it was that he ‘hath been serviceable in most places where he came’.50Henry Cromwell Corresp. 167. In November he was appointed as a commissioner for the protector’s security in Ireland: yet another indication of his acceptability to the Cromwellian regime.51A.and O.

Markham’s election for the Scottish seat of Linlithgow Burghs for the second protectorate Parliament in the summer of 1656 was also the result of his Cromwellian connections. His appointment was almost certainly the work of Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), who, as president of the Scottish council, enjoyed considerable electoral patronage north of the border.52TSP v. 366. Markham’s Presbyterian sympathies may also have recommended him to the Scottish electors. His former patron, the earl of Rutland, and his commander in the 1640s, Edward Rosseter, were both well-known Presbyterians; and Edmund Ludlowe II* later identified Markham as being ‘of the Presbyterian interest’ in Ireland.53Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 164-5; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 36. The combination of support for Cromwell, the patronage of Broghill and his allies, and an underlying Presbyterian sympathy manifested itself in Markham’s activities during the second protectorate Parliament. Named to the committee to consider the blasphemies of the Quaker James Naylor on 31 October, he was eager to press on with the trial during debates on the case in the following December.54CJ vii. 448a; Burton’s Diary, i. 31. On 27 December he reacted furiously to the suggestion that a petition presented in Naylor’s favour should be considered

If this should pass in the affirmative, you will do my lord protector the greatest dishonour that ever was. He does abhor the crime. I am confident he does not desire a reprieve. If he did not abhor it, for my part, I would never serve him. It will be ill news through all the three nations, to say that a letter came to us on behalf of a blasphemer.55Burton’s Diary, i. 264.

This wishful thinking reveals Markham’s own conservatism, especially when it came to religion. This is reflected in his committee appointments: he was named to committees for upholding and maintaining ministers in England and Wales (31 Oct. 1656) and to consider a bill to enforce observation of the Lord’s Day (18 Feb. 1657); and on 20 March he joined the leading Dorset Presbyterian, John Fitzjames*, as teller against allowing non-conformity among ministers if they subscribed a public profession of faith, even though the measure had government backing, with John Thurloe and Sir Charles Wolseley telling in favour.56CJ vii. 448b, 493b, 509a.

In this Parliament Markham was also notable as a supporter of the ‘Old Protestant’ cause in Ireland, championed by Lord Broghill in the Commons, supported by Henry Cromwell in Dublin. He was named to the committee of Irish affairs on 23 September, and on 10 November he was appointed to the committee on a petition by another of Henry Cromwell’s agents, Major Anthony Morgan*.57CJ vii. 427a, 452a. On 3 December 1656 he was named to the committee stage of a bill to settle land in Ireland on two adventurers, Henry Whalley* and Erasmus Smith.58CJ vii. 436b. The original occupants of the land, Lord Montgomery of the Ards and Lord Claneboy, claimed that they had already compounded for their support of the king in the 1640s, and Markham joined Henry Cromwell’s allies, Sir John Reynolds and Anthony Morgan, in their defence, begging that if displaced from their lands they should be resettled elsewhere.59Burton’s Diary, i. 2-4. When the bill re-emerged later in the month, a proviso was added, allowing Henry Cromwell an estate at Portumna in co. Galway, and in debate Markham insisted that the award should be increased, as 6,000 acres ‘is too little for his good service’.60Burton’s Diary, i. 260. December saw Markham’s vindication in his dispute with the earl of Meath, and at the end of the month he also became involved in opposing a massive land grant in cos. Dublin and Kildare to the ex-New Model officer, John Blackwell, ‘for it seems his adventure was not above £2,000 and the land is now worth £20,000’.61Burton’s Diary, i. 282; CJ vii. 465a, 469b-470a, 477a.

Markham’s identification with Broghill and the Irish Protestants made him a controversial figure at Westminster. On 22 December 1656, he exchanged angry words in the House with the regicide and radical sectarian, Luke Robinson. As Burton noted

Colonel Markham stood up very often to offer a petition, but he could not get in, and was very angry with Mr Robinson for interrupting him ... Mr Robinson stood up to justify himself, and reflected upon Colonel Markham as if new members were not well acquainted with these proceedings ... Mr [Philip] Skippon* told me, as I came home, that they were at very high words both in their seats and at the door.62Burton’s Diary, i. 207.

Markham’s friends were keen to keep him in the House, despite his administrative responsibilities in Ireland. As early as October 1656 it had been pointed out that the absence of Markham and his colleague on the land commission, Vincent Gookin*, was severely hampering the activities of his commission in Ireland.63Henry Cromwell Corresp. 184. When, in January 1657 the Irish council formally requested their return, Broghill and his allies intervened.64Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 648-9. As Gookin told Henry Cromwell on 3 March

my Lord Broghill, Sir Charles Wolseley and Colonel Philip Jones upon my acquainting them of my sudden departure were much against it, and told me that his highness would be pleased to write to the council to dispense with mine and Colonel Markham’s stay here [Ireland].65Henry Cromwell Corresp. 211.

The intervention of Broghill and his allies on the protectoral council was decisive, and a week later Markham reported back to Henry Cromwell that ‘Mr Gookin informs me that his highness hath commanded both our stay’.66Henry Cromwell Corresp. 222. The fight to keep Markham and Gookin in the Commons came at a crucial time, when the new civilian constitution, the Humble Petition and Advice, was being debated by the Commons. Both Markham and Gookin were listed among the ‘kinglings’ who voted in favour of offering the crown to Cromwell on 25 March.67Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 23 (E.935.5). Markham’s continuing role in constitutional change can be seen in the Journals: on 9 April he was named to the committee which waited on the protector to receive his answers to the Humble Petition, and on 24 April he was appointed to the committee to consider the protector’s answers to the 16th article of the Petition.68CJ vii. 521b, 524a.

Markham may have shared the sense of despair felt by other ‘kinglings’ after the protector’s final refusal of the crown in early May. He apparently played no further role in parliamentary affairs, and may have returned to Ireland, where he grew even closer to Henry Cromwell. Ludlowe noted that in this period, Henry ‘began to caress Major [sic] Markham … and others of the Presbyterian interest’.69Ludlow, Mems. ii. 36. It was presumably Henry Cromwell who was behind Markham’s appointment as a commissioner for settling land not already assigned to the adventurers or the military in July 1657.70Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 665; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 305. Vincent Gookin was also named to this commission, and the friendship between the two is hinted at in 1658, when Markham’s son entered the King’s Inn in Dublin on the same day as Gookin’s nephew.71King’s Inn Adm. Pprs, 1607-1867 ed. E. Keane, P.B. Phair and T.U. Sadleir (Dublin, 1982), 193, 327. Others in Markham’s social circle at this time seem to have included Sir Hardress Waller* and Sir Henry Ingoldsby*, who were patrons of Markham’s nephew, Claudius Gilbert, the minister of Limerick.72C. Gilbert, A Pleasant Walk to Heaven (1658), Sig. A2-4 (E.939.2); C. Gilbert, The Blessed Peacemaker (1658), Sig. A2 (E.939.3); C. Gilbert, A Sovereign Antidote Against Sinful Errors (1657) (E.939.4). Markham also drew closer to Lord Broghill, as by September 1657 was acting as a land agent for the Boyles in Munster.73Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 24 Sept. 1657. Henry Cromwell’s letter to Broghill of 1 December 1657 also suggests that at this time Markham was using his official position as commissioner to help settle the Boyle estates: ‘Your friend Colonel Markham and Dr [William] Petty* make me believe your business of lands is all forwardness. I shall require a strict account of their diligence therein’.74TSP vi. 661. Broghill rewarded such services by assigning his salary as lieutenant-general of the ordnance to Markham between 4 February 1658 and 13 January 1659.75Petworth, MS 13192, unfol.: acct. of Broghill’s entertainment from 27 Oct. 1656.

The confidence of the Old Protestants in Ireland, which had been boosted by the stable rule of Henry Cromwell, who had governed as lord deputy since November 1657, was undermined by the death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658. In the elections for the Parliament of the new lord protector, Richard Cromwell*, in January 1659, Markham was returned for the counties of Wicklow and Kildare, presumably on his own interest, both as a commissioner for letting lands and as a local landowner. Henry Cromwell, now lord lieutenant of Ireland, no doubt supported Markham’s election, as did Lord Broghill. There is no formal record of Markham taking any part in the third protectorate Parliament, although he may have been the ‘knight for Kildare’ said to have been ‘a negative, and a loud one’ in the vote on whether to transact with the Other House, ‘to the wonder of many’.76TSP vii. 640. Markham certainly seems to have been on better terms with the army than most of his Irish friends, and survived the subsequent collapse of the protectorate reasonably well: in July 1659 he was sufficiently in favour with the restored Rump to be nominated and commissioned as colonel of a foot regiment in the reformed Irish army.77CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 12; CJ vii. 722b. Any co-operation with the new regime was, however, shortlived. The army coup in England in October provoked unrest in the Irish army. On 1 November Markham joined Harbert Morley* and other officers in a petition to Fleetwood, arguing for a return to the parliamentary government which was their birthright as ‘freeborn Englishmen’, adding, pointedly, that ‘an arbitrary sword may tyrannize over men’s persons and estates for a time; but it doth never conquer spirits’.78TSP vii. 771-4.

By the end of November Markham was in touch with George Monck*, general of the army in Scotland, who also protested at Parliament’s dismissal. Markham and Colonel Atkins acted as Monck’s agents in delivering a letter to the lord mayor and common council of London, and they were imprisoned by the committee of safety on arrival in London.79Clarke Pprs. iv. 134-5, 301. Markham, who was suspected of forging the letter, remained incarcerated until the middle of December, despite the protests of Independent parliamentarians such as Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, Harbert Morley, and Valentine Wauton*, who bluntly told Fleetwood on 14 December: ‘we expect Colonel Markham and Mr Atkins be released, according to your promise’.80HMC Leyborne-Popham, 130-1; Clarke Pprs.v. 352; TSP vii. 795. Markham’s imprisonment seems to have enhanced his reputation among Monck’s allies, whose position had been further strengthened by the defection of the Irish army on 13 December 1659. Monck’s brother-in-law, Dr Thomas Clarges*, approved of Markham, whom he described as ‘a very honest Presbyterian’ and ‘one that heretofore was a great acquaintance of my Lord Broghill, and did do some ill offices to my brother, but he has made large amends here, for he has been an active stickler for him’.81HMC Leyborne-Popham, 137. Indeed, Markham may have played a role in improving relations between Broghill and Monck.

Markham was a figure of some importance in the winter of 1659-60. In December he was given joint-command of the troops of horse in London loyal to Parliament, and at the end of the month the restored Rump appointed him one of seven ommissioners for governing the army.82Clarke Pprs. iv. 219-20; CJ vii. 797a. In early January 1660, Markham seized Windsor Castle for the Rump.83CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 299. He was rewarded with the command of Colonel Thomas Cooper’s* horse regiment in Ireland, and an appointment as one of the five parliamentary commissioners for Irish affairs, in place of those recently indicted for treason by Parliament.84CJ vii. 814a; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 389; Whitelocke, Diary, 562. Monck was delighted with the selection of new commissioners, as he told Broghill on 27 January, ‘I am confident they are persons of ability and conscience, and such as will act conscientiously in reference to the ordinances of magistracy and ministry’.85HMC Var. vi. 438. Despite Monck’s optimism, Markham was not entirely happy with the political situation. In late January he was appointed commissioner for Scotland, and he went north with his new regiment, under the command of Major-general Thomas Morgan, shortly afterwards.86Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 560. In early March, part of the army remonstrated against proceedings in Parliament and were censured by Monck. Markham was reported to be the ringleader of a conference between 15 MPs and nine officers, at which the army demanded indemnity, confirmation of land sales, and objected to provisions for the militia.87CCSP iv. 591. Writing in Scotland, John Nicoll suspected the motives of the nation’s commissioners, who ‘essayed by all means to retain the government in their own hands’, in order to secure their arrears.88John Nicoll’s Diary ed. Laing, 282-3. Nicoll’s estimate of the motives of Markham and his colleagues cannot, however, be substantiated.

Markham’s path through the restoration of the monarchy was smoothed by the continuing favour of his powerful friends. In November 1660 Markham petitioned the king for the confirmation of his lands in co. Kildare, arguing that they had been lawfully purchased, rather than awarded under debenture. His application was referred to Lord Broghill (recently created 1st earl of Orrery) and two others, and he was supported by a certificate from George Monck (now 1st duke of Albemarle), who detailed Markham’s service in December 1659 as proof of his loyalty.89CSP Dom. 1660-2, p. 78. The report by Orrery and his colleagues recommended that Markham should be granted his lands, or an equivalent estate.90CSP Dom. 1660-2, p. 84. When Orrery requested letters patent of pardon from the king on behalf of a number of Irish Cromwellians, he included Markham.91CSP Dom. 1660-2, p. 318. Markham’s reconciliation with the Stuart regime was by this time completed with his activities in the privy chamber. In 1662 he received licence to remain in London during the winter months because of his duties, and this was renewed in November 1664.92Worcester College, Oxf. Clarke MS XLIX, ff. 162, 177. In the same year he was formally enrolled as gentleman of the privy chamber, although his later absence from the establishment lists suggests that he had retired by 1669.93Carlisle, Gent. of the Privy Chamber, 175; E. Chamberlayne, Angliae Notitia (1669), 249-57. Service in the royal household probably made Markham further influential friends, for he was granted a commission as lieutenant-colonel of the regiment raised by the lord chamberlain, the earl of Manchester, in 1667.94CSP Dom. 1667, p. 180. When Markham came to draw up his will in December 1672, he described himself as ‘of London’, but his estates by now included lands at Castle Donnington in Leicestershire, and Bennington Grange in Lincolnshire. Markham died in 1674, leaving a widow and two young sons.95PROB11/345/329.