HOSKINS, Edmund (c.1607-65), of the Inner Temple and Mascalls, Carshalton, Surr.

Hoskins’s grandfather, Charles Hoskins (d. 1597), a Merchant Taylor of Monmouthshire origins, had married Ann Ingler of Reigate and purchased estates in Surrey at Bletchingley and Oxted. Within the latter parish his father built ‘a fine house’ at Barrow Green.23Lambert, Bletchingley, 515; VCH Surr. iv. 314. Following Sir Thomas’s death, his widow married Sir Henry Capel† (d. 1622), so it is possible that the MP was brought up for a few years with his slightly older step-brother, Arthur Capell*.24Berry, Pedigrees Herts. 1-2. It may have been because Hoskins’s maternal aunt, Elizabeth, was the second wife of Thomas Coventry†, 1st Baron Coventry, that Hoskins was sent to the Inner Temple.25PROB11/220/24 (Dame Dorothy Capel); Nash, Collections, i. 261; I. Temple database. Proceeding to the bar, he certainly benefitted from his connection with the lord keeper. In May 1632 he obtained a reversion of the office of keeper of the king’s signet for the Council of the North, while in January 1636 he became a clerk of the petty bag in the court of chancery.26Principal Officers in Chancery, 127. He found a well-connected City bride in the eldest daughter of Sir Job Harby; their eldest surviving child, Thomas, was baptized at St Olave, Hart Street, London, in March 1640.27Manning, Bray, Surr. ii. 386; St Olave, Hart Street, par. reg.

Coventry died a few weeks before the spring elections of 1640, but by this time Hoskins probably had other patrons and in Surrey he had resident kin. On 20 March he was returned for Bletchingley with Edward Bysshe I* and Sir Francis Carew.28C219/42. The Commons agreed on 17 April that Bysshe’s election was good, but found the difference in votes between the other two too close to call without further investigation.29CJ ii. 4b. Hoskins, who seems to have been quicker off in mark in presenting his petition (16 Apr.), was eventually admitted without a formal decision being recorded.30CJ ii. 3b. On 4 May he spoke in the debate on grievances, apparently arguing against Ship Money, although evidence for the rest of his speech is opaque.31Aston Diary, 131. He was not named to any committees.

It is not known whether Hoskins sought re-election in the autumn. It is possible that he was already disenchanted with the tone of parliamentary politics. In 1642 his step-brother Capell (executed in 1649) and his cousin John Coventry* became royalists, but Hoskins, tied to London by professional commitments, seems to have opted for evasive action like his elder brother Charles, who was named an assessment commissioner for Surrey in August 1643.32A. and O. Hoskins’s own original parliamentary assessment of £50 (30 June 1643) was increased to £200 on 10 November, but he had not paid anything when in February 1644 it was ordered that he be brought in custody to discharge his dues. In March his father-in-law and his mother, now again living at Oxted, stood guarantors that he would produce £100, which he duly paid within the stipulated fourteen days. He was respited the rest until he should recover the profits of office lost by the disruption of the war, but he still owed the remaining £100 in February 1651.33CCAM 177.

Meanwhile, Anne Hoskins evidently spent much of this period on her father’s estate at Aldenham in Hertfordshire, bought from Lucius Cary*, 2nd Viscount Falkland in June 1642 to finance the latter’s contribution to the royalist war effort.34The Parish Regs. of Aldenham ed. K.F. Gibbs and W. Brigg (1902), 189. Four of Hoskins’s children were baptized there between March 1644 and February 1650.35Par. Regs. of Aldenham, 64, 66, 68-9. Lady Capel’s will, drafted at Barrow Green in January 1651 and proved by Hoskins in February 1652, testified to a close-knit family, referring to ‘my brother Sir Job Harby’ as well as ‘my dear and noble sister Lady Coventry’, although no mention was made of the Capels.36PROB11/220/24.

Called to the bench in June 1649, Hoskins pursued his career.37CITR ii. 288. He was still at the petty bag office in February 1652, when accounts were submitted to the Commons committee considering legal reform, but probably lost his place at the beginning of the protectorate.38CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 162; Chancery Officers, 127. By 1647 he was sufficiently prosperous to purchase a property at North Ockenden in Essex, but following his acquisition of the manor of Carshalton in 1655 he appears to have made Surrey his country home.39VCH Essex, vii. 112; VCH Surr. iv. 182, 185. Two more sons were baptized there in August 1657 and May 1663.40Carshalton, Surr. par. reg.

When in late 1658 Hoskins again sought election to Parliament, he may have been better known than previously. Returned again as a Member for Bletchingley, he evidently brought a traditionalist agenda and might perhaps be counted among the House’s covert royalists. He was appointed to the committee for privileges (28 Jan. 1659).41CJ vii. 594b. His only other appearance in the Journal occurred on 9 April when, with Robert Scawen*, he was a teller for the minority who tried to uphold the precedent that it was beneath the dignity of Members of the Upper (now Other) House to bring messages to the Commons in person.42CJ vii. 632b.

The impression of loyalty to the old order is reinforced by events following the Restoration. Although he did not again sit in Parliament, Hoskins was made a serjeant-at-law in October and a knight in 1662, while his father-in-law became a baronet.43Order of Serjeants-at-Law, 193; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 236; CB. Having been placed on the commission for the peace for Surrey in April 1659, he went on to garner a succession of local appointments.44C231/5, p. 429; C181/7, ff. 7, 31, 94, 104, 127, 131, 157, 187, 203, 233, 271, 291; A. and O.; SR. In his will, drafted in December 1664, he left £3,000 (in the form of a £300 annuity) to his widow and £1,000 each to his two daughters and two eldest sons; his ‘dear friend’ Sir Thomas Twysden*, fellow bencher at the Inner Temple and one of the judges who had presided at the trials of the regicides, and his kinsman Francis Coventry were among the executors.45PROB11/316/141. His second son Job followed in his footsteps to become a barrister of the Inner Temple, but only two of his many sons survived the death of his widow and the Carshalton estate was sold to the Scawens before the end of the century.46I. Temple database; VCH Surr. iv. 182. No other member of his immediate family sat in Parliament.