COATES, Roger (1618-61), of Kildwick Grange, Kildwick, Yorks.

Coates is one of the most obscure Yorkshire MPs of this period. His grandfather, who had settled in the Pennine parish of Kildwick by the 1580s, was probably a yeoman or clothier, at most, and the same can also be said of Coates’s father.13Kildwick-in-Craven Par. Regs. ed. Brigg (Yorks. Par. Reg. Soc. xlvii), 8; Anon., ‘Coates of Kildwick’, 239. Nothing is known about Coates’s upbringing or education, although he was probably a man of godly sympathies, or at least concerned to promote a learned ministry, for in 1646 he obtained a parliamentary order for augmenting the stipends of the livings of Skipton and Bolton Abbey out of the tithes of Elizabeth, countess of Cork.14Chatsworth, Bolton Abbey mss, box 2, II.4.

At some point after the outbreak of civil war, Coates joined Parliament’s northern army commanded by the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*), and by December 1645 he had attained the rank of captain.15Sheffield City Archives, WWM/BR P185d(i)/41. He probably spent most of his early military career in the regiment of foot commanded by the Yorkshire gentleman, Colonel John Bright*.16SP28/302, f. 706; SP28/250, f. 386. Raised in 1643, this regiment fought at the battles of Adwalton Moor (June 1643), Nantwich (January 1644), Selby (April 1644) and Marston Moor (July 1644) and subsequently became part of the Northern Brigade commanded by Major-general John Lambert*.17Supra, ‘John Bright’; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 525-6. During the second civil war, the regiment figured prominently at the battle of Preston (August 1648), was part of the force with which Oliver Cromwell* harried the defeated Scots back across the border and ended the year fighting at the third siege of Pontefract Castle. In contrast to his commanding officer, Coates supported the Northern Brigade’s declaration in favour of the army’s Remonstrance of November 1648.18York Minster Lib. BB53, p. 33. But it is not clear whether he remained in the regiment following Bright’s resignation of his commission in July 1650 and his replacement by Lambert. Under Lambert, the regiment fought at the battles of Dunbar and Worcester.19Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 525-6. If Coates served in all these campaigns, his military experience would have been extensive indeed.

During the early 1650s, Coates wrote several letters (from Kildwick and elsewhere) to Captain Adam Baynes*, the Northern Brigade’s London agent and Lambert’s right-hand-man.20Add. 21419, ff. 52, 111, 292; Add. 21420, ff. 31, 313; Add. 21421, f. 222; Add. 21422, f. 100. Although Coates was undoubtedly well known to Baynes, his correspondence with Baynes was mainly of a formal nature, usually concerning the purchase of debentures for himself and for members of his company of foot.21Add. 21417, f. 271; Add. 21420, f. 31; Add. 21427, f. 71. In a rather acerbic note to Baynes in June 1653, following Baynes’ refusal to recognise Coates’ account ‘bill’ for arrears of pay in the absence of a proper account, Coates referred to his ‘late company’, suggesting that he had given up command of his troop.22Add. 21422, f. 100. At local level, he was part of a circle of West Riding military men which included his former commanding officers John Bright and John Lambert. In 1650, Lambert, Bright and Coates were made trustees of part of the estate of Sir William Lister* and were co-defendants in a chancery suit brought by Lister’s creditors.23C10/41/61; Leeds Univ. Lib. YAS/MD234/42-3, 45, 74-5, 77-80, 216, 219; Sheffield City Archives, OD/1124-5. Similarly in 1652, Coates (along with one Henry Bright and Elizabeth Lambert) was a witness to the will of Bright’s father-in-law, Sir Richard Hawksworth, who had made Bright and Lambert his trustees.24Sheffield City Archives, WWM/D566-7. In 1658, Coates wrote to Bright concerning Hawksworth’s will invited him to Kildwick to discuss the matter.25Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Br P78/23. The following September, Bright nominated Coates as one of his mediators in a dispute with a local gentleman.26Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Br P78/10.

Why Coates was selected as one of Yorkshire’s eight representatives in the Nominated Parliament is something of a mystery. As his humble origins and low military rank would suggest, Coates was far from being a prominent figure in Yorkshire. A clue may lie in the manner of his nomination. He was one of 19 men who appear to have been nominated at a later stage than the majority of MPs, which may well indicate that he and the other 18 were chosen because some of the original nominees had been considered politically unreliable, or, more likely, because they had refused to sit. Significantly, one of the men who had originally been considered for a place, but who for some reason was dropped from the final line-up, was John Bright.27Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 138, 139. Bright’s former brother-in-law, Edward Gill, who, like Coates, had been a captain in Bright’s old regiment, was also one of the 19 later nominees.28Infra, ‘Edward Gill’. It is possible that Bright refused to sit, recommending Coates and Gill as substitutes.

Perhaps daunted by his lack of political experience, Coates contributed very little to the Nominated Parliament’s proceedings. He was named to only three committees – the committee for reform of the law (20 July); the committee for trade and corporations (20 July); and the committee for public debts (5 Sept.).29CJ vii. 286b, 287a, 314a. Although Coates was flagged by an anonymous pamphleteer in 1654 as no friend to a publicly-maintained ministry, he would support the appointment of the ‘orthodox’ – and, after the Restoration, conformist – Edmund Garforth as minister of Kildwick in 1659.30Christ Church, Oxf., Cal. of estate pprs. ms 109, p. 85, no. 5; TSP iii. 133; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 420. Coates served diligently on the West Riding bench throughout the protectorate.31W. Yorks. Archives (Wakefield), QS 10/3, pp. 13, 49, 115, 149, 174, 187, 231, 257, 271, 313, 383; Depositions from York Castle ed. J. Raine (Surt. Soc. xl), 64, 78.

By 1658, Coates was firmly linked with Lambert’s interest in the West Riding, acting as the major-general’s electoral manager in the election for knights of the shire on 30 December 1658. Lambert enjoyed considerable support among the voters until it was observed that there were Quakers amongst his following, whereupon ‘acclamation’ for him subsided. When Coates then polled for Lambert, he fell short of the candidate in second place, Thomas Harrison II*, by at least 200 votes.32Supra, ‘Yorkshire’. Coates returned to active military service during Sir George Boothe’s* rebellion in August 1659, when the council of state, acting on Lambert’s advice, commissioned him to raise horse and foot to secure Skipton Castle.33CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 73. By December, Coates was helping to raise money in the northern parts for Lambert’s army, which was trying to hold the border against General George Monck*.34The Autobiog. of Capt. John Hodgson ed. J. Ritson, 49.

This is the last that is heard of Coates before his death in the spring of 1661. He was buried in the chancel of St Andrew’s church, Kildwick, on 8 March.35Kildwick-in-Craven Par. Regs. ed. Brigg (Yorks. Par. Reg. Soc. lv), 157; E.W. Brereton, Hist. of the Ancient and Historic Church of St Andrew, Kildwick-in-Craven, 134. No will is recorded. According to local tradition, Coates committed suicide in order to protect the family estate in the event the Restoration authorities tried him for treason.36T. Hodgson, D. Gulliver, Hist. of Cononley: an Airedale Village, 41. Coates was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.

Coates, pace S. R. Gardiner and several other historians, was almost certainly not the Roger Coates who was committed to the Tower with ten others in February 1654 on suspicion of treason.37Gardiner, Commonwealth and Protectorate, iii. 116; Parlty. Rep. Yorks. 53. These men were imprisoned for their part in a half-baked royalist plot to overthrow the protectorate and to restore the king. This Roger Coates turned informer on his fellow conspirators and, after interrogation, was released from the Tower.38CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 407, 418, 449. It was possibly the same man who became a captain in the English army serving in Flanders and who was reportedly an ex-cavalier and a ‘great gamester’.39Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 696. The ‘Captain Coates’ of the Gloucester garrison who declared for Lambert, against Monck, in January 1660, may have been the Yorkshire MP.40CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 298. But though the Yorkshireman was undoubtedly a supporter of Lambert, it is hard to explain how he could have ended up serving in Gloucester. Nor should the MP be confused with his son and namesake, a Skipton-based attorney.41Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 169.