STRODE, William II (1589-1666), of Barrington, Som.

Early life, 1589-1636

A branch of the Strodes had lived at Shepton Mallet since at least the fifteenth century.25Crisp, Fragmenta Genealogica, viii. 135-7. By the late sixteenth century, William Strode, father of this MP, was a clothier in the town.26Symonds, Diary, 32 When he died in 1592, William senior left three young sons, Jeffrey, George and William, and two daughters, Mary and Thomasine. All three sons were bequeathed £200, which they were to receive on reaching the age of 22.27Crisp, Fragmenta Genealogica, viii. 82. Their mother went on to marry Edward Blisse of Spargrove in 1609.28Crisp, Fragmenta Genealogica, viii. 143. Yet, despite the relatively modest inheritance from his father, by the time William junior reached middle age, he was a very wealthy man. Details of how he acquired that fortune are sparse. Many years later Strode is known to have been a freeman of the Girdlers’ Company of London.29Beaven, Aldermen of London, i. 211, 234; Woodhead, Rulers of London, 158 Presumably, as a young man, he had been apprenticed to a London girdler and, on obtaining his freedom, he had traded as a merchant in or to London. In 1644 Richard Symonds recorded the tantalising information that Strode had ‘got his estate by being a factor in Spain’.30Symonds, Diary, 32. In 1636 (to distinguish him from William Strode I*) he was still being described as ‘William Strode, the merchant’.31CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 205, 216.

From the mid-1620s Strode seems to have settled permanently in Somerset. His fortune was used to accumulate substantial estates, mostly in the south and east of the county. In about 1623 Sir Thomas Phelips† sold to him his country house, Barrington Court, at Barrington between Taunton and Ilchester.32Coventry Docquets, 534; Batten, ‘Additional notes’, 41. Some years later Strode was said to have ‘bestowed money and labour to restore it [the house] to its pristine beauty’.33T. Gerard, The Particular Description of the Co. of Som. ed. E.H. Bates (Som. Rec. Soc. xv), 122. He had in the mean time continued to benefit from Phelips’s financial difficulties. In 1625 Sir Thomas mortgaged the surrounding manor to Strode for £3,800. However, following Phelips’s death in 1626, Strode was sued by Sir William Ogle*, guardian of Sir Thomas’s young son, Sir Thomas, 2nd bt. and thereby deprived of possession of those lands.34Batten, ‘Additional notes’, 41-2. Other properties were acquired from other sources. His eldest brother, Jeffrey Strode, who died in late 1625 or early 1626, left property at Huish to the two surviving brothers.35Crisp, Fragmenta Genealogica, viii. 87. Other acquisitions, including lands at Storgursey, Glastonbury, Martock and Charlton Adam, were made by purchase.36VCH Som. iii. 87; iv. 85; vi. 144; ix. 44, 45; Collinson, Som. iii. 5. Strode also used his money in other ways. In 1627 he and his uncle Edward Strode endowed five almshouses and a school at Shepton Mallet.37T. Serel, ‘On the Strode of Som.’, Procs. Som. Arch. and Natural Hist. Soc. xiii. pt. ii. 18. Yet Strode was still something of a parvenu. In wealth, he matched many of the most prominent families of the county, but it was only in 1637, when he became treasurer of the hospitals in the western half of Somerset, that he was appointed to any local office.38QS Recs. Som. Charles I, 271. By then he had already made his mark in local politics.

Opposing the king, 1636-42

In late 1636 Strode emerged as the most significant Somerset opponent of Ship Money. When he refused payment towards the latest writ, the local constable, Thomas Walden, tried to distrain goods from him worth 24s. As Strode claimed to be disputing the rate he was being charged, Walden even offered to pay the difference of 6s himself. An initial attempt by Walden to seize a cow from Strode was foiled when two of Strode’s servants blocked the gate of the field against him, but in the end Walden was able to remove one of the cows. Strode responded by filing a replevin suit against the constable.39CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 205; Som. RO, DD/HI/B/463: information of Thomas Walden, 28 Feb. 1637. In late November 1636 Strode was summoned to appear before the privy council. Writing to his kinsman, Edmund Taverner†, Strode maintained that his objection was to the rating allocation, asserting that he had paid ten times his subsidies assessment for the previous Ship Money demand. Strode asked Taverner, who was a secretary to the lord chamberlain, Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, to intercede with the chancellor of the exchequer, Lord Cottington (Sir Francis Cottington†) on his behalf.40CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 222. However, when he appeared before the council on 15 and 29 January Strode made the less personal argument that the three neighbouring parishes of Barrington, Shepton Beauchamp and South Petherton should each be rated at the same amount, but that the constable, an inhabitant of Shepton Beauchamp, had favoured his own parish. He repeated that it was the amount, not the principle, to which he was taking exception. The privy council ordered Strode to pay the money, but asked the local bishop, William Piers of Bath and Wells, to investigate Strode’s complaints against the constable. Two months later Strode informed Secretary of state Edward Nicholas† that the new constable had agreed to apply the old rates. However, the following May, Piers reported to the council that the higher rate for Barrington had been fair and that Strode had given a misleading account of his own conduct in this dispute.41CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, pp. 548, 549; 1636-7, pp. 341, 400-1, 405, 522; 1637, p. 61. Some in Somerset felt that Strode was being deliberately obstructive, using the local dispute as a pretext to disguise his more fundamental objections to Ship Money and one anonymous informant dismissively said of him that ‘of the puritans’ faction he was held a good commonwealth man here [in Somerset]’.42Som. RO, DD/HI/B/463: informations against William Strode, [1647]. On the basis of Piers’s report, the council ruled against Strode on 25 May. By August Strode had formally apologised to Piers.43CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 148, 348, 549.

Strode’s reputation for obstinacy was further enhanced during the second bishops’ war. In April 1640 the Somerset deputy lieutenants, headed by Sir Thomas Wroth*, asked Strode to serve as treasurer for the coat and conduct money to be collected within the county for the troops being assembled for the latest Scottish campaign. Strode replied that he was in London, but that he would serve on his return at the end of that law term. This was interpreted as a refusal, as the planned rendezvous of the troops would by then have already taken place.44CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 221, 314. Strode’s lack of cooperation was almost certainly deliberate, for there can be little doubt that his sympathies were entirely with the Presbyterian Covenanters. Contrast this with his reaction to the Catholic uprising in Ireland two years later. Like many in England, Strode was keen to see the Irish rebellion crushed as urgently as possible and, with money to spare, he was willing to help fund its suppression. In the spring of 1642 he joined with Sir Nicholas Crisp* to invest in the Irish Adventurers, personally putting up £700. (He and Crisp were distantly related, as the wife of Strode’s elder brother, Sir George, was a cousin once removed to Sir Nicholas.) At some point Strode invested a further £600 in his own name.45CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, pp. 232, 260; Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 192.

Fighting the king, 1642-6

Strode was at the centre of the action in Somerset when the political crisis of 1642 descended into actual civil war. In late July the new lieutenant-general of the western counties, the 1st marquess of Hertford (William Seymour†), arrived in Somerset to implement the king’s commission of array. Parliament’s principal supporters in the county planned a meeting at Shepton Mallet on 1 August to organise opposition.46PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/131, f. 364; The Lord Marquesse of Hertford, His Letter (1642), 5-6, E.109.24; Bellum Civile, 3-4. To counter this, Sir Ralph Hopton*, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Thomas Smyth I* assembled there the day before. Strode, being ‘a great stickler for the other party, and a neighbour to the town’, then set out to stop them.47Bellum Civile, 4. With a handful of other horsemen, he rode into the town, and challenged Hopton in the market square. Hopton immediately arrested him but later that day a group of parliamentarians came to his rescue. On hearing of their approach, Hopton and his party fled and, in the confusion, Strode escaped. Joining up with his friends, he was then able to secure the town.48PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/131, f. 364; The Lord Marquesse of Hertford, His Letter, 6-8; Bellum Civile, 4-5. This incident directly prompted the Commons’ decision to expel Hopton and Smyth from Parliament.49CJ ii. 703b-704a. The following day, Strode, who had travelled to Street, tried to send word to John Pyne* warning him that Henry Lunsford was gathering royalist forces outside Wells.50Bellum Civile, 8. Over the next week forces from both sides converged on Wells and, in the face of superior numbers, Hertford was forced to withdraw. These events proved to be the point of no return. The county was obviously divided and, more seriously, some on both sides had shown themselves willing to fight to prevail.

Strode was unquestionably one of those most willing to fight for Parliament. Recently appointed a deputy lieutenant, he now took a leading part in preparing the county for war. On 5 August the Commons gave him permission to transport weapons and ammunition to Somerset.51CJ ii. 705a. He probably assisted Sir Francis Popham* in his defeat of Sir John Stawell* outside Somerton six days later.52Exceeding Joyfull Newes from the Earl of Bedford (1642, E.113.17). Afterwards he wrote to the lord lieutenant, the 5th earl of Bedford (William Russell†), telling him that Hertford had retreated into Dorset, but asking that Bedford travel to Somerset with reinforcements as soon as possible. Bedford reported this to the Lords on 13 August.53Belvoir Castle, letters of Long Parliament MPs, i. f. 31; LJ v. 286a-b. At the same time, Strode sent the same request to John Pym* and William Strode I; the latter raised this in the Commons on 17 August.54PJ iii. 303-4. Bedford’s response was to head immediately to Somerset. On 19 August Strode was among those deputy lieutenants who wrote to the corporation of Wells, whose loyalties they considered suspect, warning them to give a friendly welcome to the earl.55Wells Convocation Act Bks. 834. By mid-September the parliamentarians controlled most of the county. Strode was now the colonel of one of the troops of horse raised within Somerset, responsible for recruiting and training men, and collecting weapons and armour.56Wells Convocation Act Bks. 844. He was also a commissioner for assessments.57A. and O.

Nor had the military threat disappeared. Hopton still held Cornwall. In early 1643 Strode’s troop was part of the forces under Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford, despatched to counter him. By mid-January Strode had advanced into Devon towards Tiverton.58Harl. 164, f. 276v; Certain Informations no. 1 (16-23 Jan. 1643), 1 (E.85.45). He may thus have been among those defeated by William Ruthin at Braddock Down on 19 January. Following that defeat, Strode took refuge in Dorset and several weeks later he was reported to have retreated from Sherborne after being attacked by John Hele.59Mercurius Aulicus no. 8 (19-25 Feb. 1643, E.246.41). On returning to Somerset, together with Sir John Horner* he suppressed the uprising at Bruton and then helped disrupt royalist attempts to raise fresh troops.60CCAM 741; Special Passages and Certain Informations no. 31 (7-14 Mar. 1643), 252 (E.93.7). That spring he assisted in the attempts to secure western Wiltshire. In early May he was with Sir Edward Hungerford* at Mere and joined him in the successful attack on Wardour Castle.61CJ iii. 79b-80a; Certain Informations no. 17 (8-15 May 1643), 135-6 (E.101.24); Joyfull Newes from Plimouth (1643, E.102.9); Ludlow, Mems. i. 50-1. Later that month Hungerford had to deal with trouble in Malmesbury occasioned by Strode’s attempt to remove troops from the town.62CCSP i. 240. But the advance of Hopton westward that summer forced Strode’s return to Somerset. In early June, with Hopton at Chard, some of Strode’s men were among those assembled at Somerton.63Bellum Civile, 86. On 12 June he and Edward Popham* attempted to halt Hopton’s progress without success in an engagement outside Glastonbury.64Trevelyan Pprs. ed. W.C. Trevelyan and C.E. Trevelyan (Cam. Soc. lix), 236. Within weeks, in the aftermath of Roundway Down, Strode was among those who had taken refuge in Bristol and who then tried without success to defend that city when it was besieged by Prince Rupert.65SP28/128, pt. 21; CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 377. On giving evidence as a witness at the subsequent court martial of Nathaniel Fiennes I*, Strode claimed that he was one of the few present at the council of war on 26 July who opposed Fiennes’s proposal that they open negotiations for the surrender.66W. Prynne and C. Walker, A True and Full Relation (1644), pt. ii, 8-9 (E.255.1).

With most of Somerset now in royalist hands, Strode was probably unable to return there after the fall of Bristol. But he did not give up the fight. That autumn he asked Parliament for advice on how the taxes which had previously been collected in Somerset and Wiltshire could be used.67CJ iii. 244b-245a. The loss of Somerset meanwhile exacerbated tensions between the leading local parliamentarians. Strode himself soon became involved in a quarrel with ‘Colonel Horner’, who may well have been George Horner*. Although the subject of their dispute is not known, it was of sufficient seriousness that the Commons began taking an interest. On 23 December 1643 the pair were ordered to appear two days later and on that day a committee was appointed to investigate.68CJ iii. 351a, 351b, 352a, 355b. Significantly, a fortnight later Strode was questioned in connection with the escape of Colonel Reade, who had been accused of involvement in an attempt to make contact with the king.69CJ iii. 358b, 361a, 364b.

In the summer of 1644, in the wake of the battle of Cheriton, parliamentarian forces extended their influence in the western half of Wiltshire. To that end, Strode helped Edmund Ludlowe II* and Alexander Popham* set up the new Wiltshire county committee at Devizes.70Mercurius Aulicus no. 27 (30 June-6 July 1644), 1070-1 (E.2.30); E. Walker, Historical Discourses (1705), 39. He was with them on 6 July when they were defeated outside Salisbury.71Harl. 166, ff. 93v-94. Later that summer he managed to enter the southern parts of Somerset. But the crisis at Lostwithiel was soon more pressing. By early September Strode was based at Dorchester.72CJ iii. 623b. On 9 September, with Cornwall already lost, the Committee of Both Kingdoms instructed him and John Fitzjames* to send some of their troops to protect Plymouth. However, on hearing this, Sir William Waller* and Sir Arthur Hesilrige* decided their forces were too depleted to be spared.73CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 484, 487, 502.

The creation of the New Model army in early 1645 removed Strode from his military command. Quite possibly he did not want to serve in an army about which he increasingly had doubts. Moreover, the parliamentarian re-conquest of Somerset later that year transformed Strode’s civilian role. He now got his chance to stand for Parliament. But his route to Westminster was complicated by the continuing factional divisions among the victorious Somerset parliamentarians. His efforts to get elected as one of the new MPs for Somerset in the recruiter election of December 1645 resulted in an especially messy by-election. His enemies, who objected to him ‘not giving his accounts, opposing the New Model, favouring the malignants’ and, surely less plausibly, ‘to some, his inclination to Independency’, quickly organised against him.74Scottish Dove no. 119 (21-29 Jan. 1646), 942 (E.319.17). The more radical members of the county committee, led by John Pyne*, instead promoted the claims of Henry Henley*. On the other hand, Humphrey Willis, the most vocal of the Somerset clubmen, endorsed Strode as ‘an honest man, and a good commonwealth man’.75H. Wills, The power of the Cttee. of the Co. of Som. [1646], 7 (E345.3). After much underhand manoeuvring directed against Strode, the sheriff, Sir John Horner, secured the returns of George, his son, and Sir John Harington I*.76Scottish Dove no. 113 (10-17 Dec. 1645), 893-4 (E.313.1); no. 119, 942-5. Strode’s next option was to stand in the by-election at Ilchester two months later. Anxious not to allow Pyne to interfere, some of the Ilchester voters initially favoured pairing Strode with Henley, but, in the event, he was elected by them alongside Thomas Hodges II* on 2 February 1646. A rival return promoted by Pyne’s supporters gave rise to another rancorous election dispute which was still unresolved seven months later. Strode nevertheless took his seat at Westminster.

MP, 1646-8

Strode took the Solemn League and Covenant in the Commons on 25 February, which may well have been the first day he attended the House.77CJ iv. 264a. He then quickly made his mark. Within weeks he had been named to committees on funds for soldiers under the command of Richard Browne II* (3 Mar.) and to investigate which MPs still held civilian or military offices (16 Mar.).78CJ iv. 461a, 477a. On 22 June he was asked to assist Bulstrode Whitelocke* in overseeing the passage of the bill concerning ordinances.79CJ iv. 583b. The following week he was one of several Somerset MPs, led by Sir Thomas Wroth, who obtained orders to prevent soldiers being billeted in their houses.80CJ iv. 593a. This was not the only way in which he used his new position for his own personal advantage. The previous September the Commons had ordered that he should receive £300 from the Committee for Advance of Money as repayment for money he had lent to Sir William Waller* for emergency military supplies at Bath in June 1643.81CJ iv. 264a. Strode got this order confirmed on 28 March 1646.82CJ iv. 493b.

This pace of activity was maintained over the coming months, although it may have been briefly interrupted by a return visit to Somerset in September 1646.83CJ iv. 660a. Strode’s views were very much in tune with the prevailing Presbyterian mood in the Commons and he took an interest in an eclectic range of subjects, from the powers of the Revenue Committee (27 Aug.) to support for soldiers’ widows (4 Dec.), from the indemnity bill (15 Oct.) to the compensation to be paid to the officers of the abolished court of wards (24 Nov.).84CJ iv. 653a, 694b, 727a, 738b. He was always willing to back measures against delinquents, including the sales of their estates and provision of debts owed to their creditors.85CJ iv. 603a, 625a, 708a, 710b. His strong Presbyterian sympathies were particularly evident in his appointments to the committees on the bills for repairing churches (4 Nov.) and for the maintenance of ministers (11 Nov.).86CJ iv. 714b, 719b. He may well have been the person who helped arrange for William Strong, the lecturer of St Dunstan-in-the-West, to preach the Gunpowder Plot sermon to the Commons on 5 November, as he was subsequently asked to thank him.87CJ iv. 715b; W. Strong, The Commemoration and Exaltation of Mercy (1646).

He is likely to have supported the efforts to negotiate a settlement with the king. It was probably in relation to the king’s answer to the Newcastle Propositions that he spoke in the House on 13 August. According to Harington, ‘Mr Brown’ responded and ‘freed him [Strode] from nonsense’.88Harington’s Diary, 32. Equally, he supported the efforts to reach an amicable deal with the Scots and moves by the Commons to suppress anti-Scottish pamphlets.89CJ iv. 644b. On 5 September Strode was included on the delegation to raise a loan of £200,000 from the corporation of London to pay off the Scottish army in northern England.90CJ iv. 663a. He then took part in the discussions on 14 October concerning the latest offer from the Scots for their withdrawal, apparently siding with the Scots against the views of most of his colleagues.91Harington’s Diary, 43.

He had come to see the English army as the main problem. A year later Colonel Thomas Gallop, the former royalist governor of Portland, claimed that in February 1647 he had discussed with Strode the future of the New Model. Strode had told him that Parliament needed to disband the army without paying their arrears, and that, ‘We will destroy them all, for Sir Thomas Fairfax will be deceived, for part of his army with join with us, and besides the Scots are very honest men and will come to assist us’. He then claimed that he would emigrate if the Independents gained power, that the members of the Somerset county standing committee were ‘all rogues’ and that he wanted John Pyne hanged.92HMC Portland, i. 447-8.

Strode was, at that moment, particularly mindful that Pyne and his other local enemies could equally strike against him. On 25 January 1647 the Committee of Accounts had informed the Commons that Strode was owed £2,163 6s 1d. This had then been referred back to the Committee, with instructions to receive further information on the subject.93CJ v. 62b. The danger was that Pyne’s allies would take this opportunity to question Strode’s honesty. As some protection against that possibility, Strode was immediately added to the Commons’ committee on cases from the Committee of Accounts.94CJ v. 62b. He probably then spent several weeks back in Somerset gathering his own information. That return visit would have been the occasion of the conversation with Gallop. The following May Strode’s accounts were still under investigation at Westminster.95CJ v. 171b.

On his return to London, he continued to back the efforts to reach an agreement with the king. On 14 April 1647 he was included on the committee to prepare instructions for the commissioners to be sent to seek the king’s reply to the Newcastle Propositions.96CJ v. 142b. On a number of issues, such as the bill to remodel the London militia (2 Apr.), the committee on the Newcastle-upon-Tyne by-election (6 Apr.) and the bill to regulate Oxford University (15 Apr.), he was a dependable team player working hard to shore up Presbyterian influence at all costs.97CJ v. 132b, 134a, 143a. But deteriorating relations with the army dominated everything. It is unsurprising that Strode should have been hostile to some of the army manifestos, such as the Apology of the Soldiers.98CJ v. 153a. On occasions when he displayed some understanding of the army’s concerns, it concerned relatively uncontroversial concessions, such as the indemnity bill (7 May) or assistance for injured veterans (28 May).99CJ v. 166a, 190b. Then, in early June, when the Commons attempted to take the wind out of some of the army’s complaints by reviving the committee to investigate corrupt MPs, Strode was added to it.100CJ v. 196a, 205a. What he cannot have endorsed were the moves against the Presbyterian leaders, the Eleven Members.

With the army threatening to march on London, on 1 July Strode was included on the committee considering the bill to force ex-soldiers already in London to leave.101CJ v. 229a. Sixteen days later Strode and Thomas Atkin* were deputed by the Commons to tell the former army officers that their arrears would be paid only after they had departed.102CJ v. 249b. But by then other Presbyterian MPs had already begun abandoning the struggle. On 20 July the Eleven Members asked to be allowed to go into exile. Two days later Strode obtained permission to go into the country.103CJ v. 254b. He thus missed the short-lived Presbyterian coup which followed and was still absent the following October.104CJ v. 330a; QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, 45; Som. Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 19.

He resurfaced at Westminster only in mid-November 1647.105CJ v. 360a, 364b, 366b, 371a. By then, the king had escaped and had taken refuge on the Isle of Wight. The day after Sir Thomas Fairfax* and Oliver Cromwell* stifled the potential mutiny at Ware, Strode was among those included on the Commons committee to counter suspected plots to encourage dissension within the army (16 Nov.).106CJ v. 360a. Three weeks later, on 7 December, he was named to the committee to consider the declaration issued by Fairfax and the army council on 15 November in the hope of reassuring their mutinous troops.107CJ v. 376b. If Strode remained afraid of the growing radicalism of the army, he may also have been wary of the Independents’ attempt to obtain the king’s consent to the Four Bills. Yet the king’s rejection of those Bills set back the prospects for a negotiated settlement, which were then further undermined by the Vote of No Addresses (3 Jan.). Plausibly dismayed, Strode probably withdrew again from Parliament. He seems to have spent the early months of 1648 in Somerset.108QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, 53, 54, 62; Som. Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 22. On 31 March, however, the Commons ordered to him back to Westminster to answer questions about the comments he had reported made to Gallop in February 1647.109CJ v. 522a.

On his return to London plans for negotiations with the king had revived. Strode was as keen as anyone. On 29 May he was named to the committee to prepare the propositions to be offered to Charles.110CJ v. 577b. On 6 June, after the Commons made amendments to those propositions, he was sent up to the Lords to inform them of the fact and the following day he was able to report back that the Lords had agreed to those changes.111CJ v. 587b, 588a. He was later included on the committee to prepare a declaration justifying their wish for a negotiated settlement.112CJ v. 593b. To those like Strode who supported such negotiations, the incentive had been increased by the series of royalist risings in Kent, Surrey and Essex and later by the unrest in the navy. He therefore supported the efforts to achieve a swift victory over these new royalist rebels.113CJ v. 599a, 614b, 630b, 640b; vi. 10b, 21a. Moreover, despite the risk that this might complicate any future deal with the king, Strode’s personal preference for religious Presbyterianism was consistent enough for him to back the abolition of the cathedral chapters.114CJ v. 602a, 603b. When talks with the king finally got underway at Newport in September 1648, Strode almost certainly wanted to see them succeed.115CJ vi. 29b. In the meantime, he supported the moves to raise money to keep the army on side.116CJ vi. 30a, 47a, 83b. By early December Strode was probably among those who still hoped that the negotiations might be resumed. He was certainly sufficiently prominent a Presbyterian that at Pride’s Purge on 6 December he was not merely expelled from Parliament but also imprisoned. He was one of the 18 MPs still in custody in late December.117The Parliament under the Power of the Sword (1648, 669.f.13.52); A Vindication (1649), 28 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5); CCSP i. 460; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 168n.

Political isolation, 1649-60

The execution of Charles I represented everything that Strode had done his utmost to oppose. He was now removed from all his local offices. In any case, it is most unlikely that he would have been willing to serve. He subsequently refused to take the Engagement. The republican government, not unreasonably, saw him as a potential threat. In May 1650 the Somerset militia commissioners were told by the council of state that they were to arrest him and to gather information against him, although this investigation seems to have got nowhere.118CSP Dom. 1650, p. 135. Two years later Strode also tangled with the Somerset county committee and the Committee for Compounding. The two other owners of the manor of Martock, his brother Sir George, and the late Sir Henry Compton, had both been sequestered for delinquency. Sir George had been badly wounded fighting for the king at Edgehill and had spent part of the 1640s in exile abroad. Despite this, William Strode had since been collecting all the rents. When the county committee discovered this in early 1652, the Committee for Compounding reprimanded them for this oversight and ordered Strode to repay the full outstanding sum, which by then would have exceeded £250.119CCC 541, 542. But there were ways in which he personally benefitted from republican rule. Later in this decade, once the re-conquest of Ireland had been completed, he finally obtained a return on his investment in the Irish Adventure. Having invested a total of £1,300, he was allocated 2,166 acres in the barony of Tinnahinch in Queen’s County.120CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 348; Bottingheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 210.

In 1656 he came out of political retirement and put his name forward for the second protectoral Parliament, but this ended in humiliation. When he stood as one of the Somerset knights of the shire at Wells on 20 August, he came towards the bottom of the poll.121Som. Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 77. A more mundane return to public office came later when this Parliament appointed him to its assessment commission.122A. and O.

The reassembled Rump continued Strode as a Somerset assessment commissioner when the new commission was appointed in late January 1660.123A. and O. But when the commissioners met at Somerton on 21 February, Strode’s son, William†, took the opportunity to accuse his colleagues and the militia commissioners of oppressing the county. The governor of Taunton, Richard Bovett, immediately arrested him on a charge of high treason.124HMC Leyborne-Popham, 158; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 379. But events were moving decisively against the republicans. The same day the Rump had agreed to readmit the secluded Members. Strode senior was technically an MP once again, a fact he did not hesitate to invoke, when, four days later, he wrote to the Taunton corporation ordering them to ignore any instructions from Bovett and his friends.125HMC Leyborne-Popham, 157-8. On 1 March the council of state sent instructions to Bovett ordering him to release Strode junior. They also told Bovett to disband the Somerset militia.126HMC Leyborne-Popham, 158; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 379. This probably still left insufficient time for Strode senior to travel to London to resume his seat in the Long Parliament before its final dissolution later that month.

Later life, 1660-6

Strode accepted the Restoration. He briefly became involved in London civic politics when on 7 February 1661 he was nominated as alderman of the Vintry ward by the lord mayor, (Sir) Richard Browne II*, and Sir John Frederick†, presumably without his prior consent. Strode was allowed to resign on 14 March on the grounds of ill health and his residence in Somerset.127Beaven, Aldermen of London, i. 211, 234; Woodhead, Rulers of London, 158; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 544. But his conduct in Somerset was about to get him into trouble. The previous November he had asked that the number of horses levied from him for use by the Somerset militia be reduced from two to just one. He now persisted in his refusal to supply more than one horse. Finally, on 10 September 1661, the sheriff of Somerset had him arrested for non-compliance.128H.A. Helyar, ‘The arrest of Col. William Strode’, Procs. Som. Arch. and Natural Hist. Soc. xxxvii. pt. ii. 15-18, 20-3 Strode soon loudly asserted that his arrest violated the Petition of Right.129Helyar, ‘Arrest’, 26, 36-7. He also protested his loyalty. On being asked if he was a Presbyterian and ‘therefore did not approve of the king and church government’, he declared that

indeed he was a presbyter and ever was so since he knew what religion was but was withal as good a subject and much rejoicing in his Majesty’s government as any man whatsoever professions he made or pretended to.130Helyar, ‘Arrest’, 33.

One reason for his unwillingness to supply a second horse was his scepticism about the argument that the militia forces were needed as protection against conspirators. To him, the only problem in that part of Somerset was ‘Anabaptists and Quakers, whose principles are daring in anything, but their numbers are not considerable, yet a people that must be carefully looked after’.131Helyar, ‘Arrest’, 27. Francis Wyndham* summed up Strode’s offences as ‘his vain behaviour before the deputy lieutenants [and] his slighting the king’s prerogative, with his owning himself a Presbyterian’.132Helyar, ‘Arrest’, 24. When Strode was summoned before the privy council on 10 January 1662, he apologised in full and was released.133CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 145; Helyar, ‘Arrest’, 19-20. This misbehaviour ensured that he remained excluded from all local offices for the rest of his life. Strode’s political career ended exactly as it had been begun, with another disputed contribution towards a military levy.

Strode died in late 1666 and was buried at Barrington on 20 December.134Crisp, Fragmenta Genealogica, viii. 144, 148. His late wife, Joan, had produced 16 children, of whom ten were still alive in 1666.135Crisp, Fragmenta Genealogica, viii. 148-50. With his great wealth, Strode had no difficulty leaving substantial provision for them all.136PROB11/323/96. In the case of the youngest surviving son, Barnard, this included a number of his books, among which were William Perkins’s Works, John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, Sir Walter Ralegh’s† History of the World, James Ussher’s A Body of Divinity and John Cotton’s Practical Commentary. Some of the books were in Spanish, which supports the claim that he had been a factor in Spain.137PROB11/323/96. Four years previously Strode had endowed a grammar school at Martock.138VCH Som. ii. 458-9. However, the charitable bequests in his will were confined to a conventional gift of £20 to the poor of the parishes of Barrington, Kingsbury and Glastonbury, provided that they were ‘not common beggars but labourers, godly indigent poor’.139PROB11/323/96. The eldest son, William†, twice sat as MP for Ilchester in 1679 and, as a committed whig, was suspected of involvement in Monmouth’s rebellion in 1685, while one of his brothers, Essex†, the high bailiff of Westminster, represented Stockbridge in the 1681 and 1685 Parliaments.140HP Commons 1660-1690.