PRIESTLEY (PRESTLEY), William (c.1594-1664), of Wild Hill, Hatfield, Herts.

William Priestley was the son of a prominent member of the London Merchant Taylors’ Company, and was educated at Cambridge and Gray’s Inn.17Al. Cant.; G. Inn Admiss. i. 130. It is uncertain whether his family had an existing connection with Hertfordshire when he married a daughter of Sir John Gore of Gilston in that county, and in any case it was presumably his father’s contacts in the City that led to the match, as his new father-in-law was a former lord mayor. Priestley bought the manor of Bedwell Lowthes in Essendon parish in 1627, and by that time already in possession of a seat in the county, at Wild Hill (later Camfield Place) in the neighbouring parish of Hatfield.18Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 129; VCH Herts. iii. 459, 461; RCHM, Herts. Houses (1993), 54. Priestley was well established among the local gentry by the early 1630s, as he was appointed as a justice of the peace for the county in January 1630, and on 5 November 1634 pricked as sheriff.19Coventry Docquets, 64; VCH Herts. Fams. 283. Nothing is known of Priestley’s reaction to Ship Money, but it is unlikely to have been favourable, as in February 1636 – four months after the end of his term as sheriff – he could remit only £3,295 of the £4,000 levied on the county, and presumably faced the prospect of making up the shortfall from his own pocket.20CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 216.

Whatever his political attitudes during the 1630s, there is little doubt that Priestley had lost faith in the crown in the early months of the Long Parliament. He invested £146 in the Irish Adventure scheme instigated by Parliament in March 1642.21Bottigheimer, English Money and Irish Land, 180. In June of that year Parliament nominated him a deputy lieutenant for Hertfordshire, perhaps on the recommendation of the prominent local parliamentarian Sir Thomas Dacres*.22First Civil War in Herts. p. xvi; CJ ii. 602b. During the first civil war, Priestley was appointed to a number of local commissions and committees in Hertfordshire, notably those to administer the assessments and to arrange the sequestration of royalist estates.23A. and O. He was very active in the local administration, initially as a member of the county sequestrations committee, and from March 1644 he sat on the county committee.24First Civil War in Herts. 38, 44, 78, 100, 113, 184, 199; Luke Letter Bks. 378, 946, 533, 598. Although he was appointed to the Eastern Association committee on 10 August 1643, and was confirmed on 20 September of the same year, there is no evidence that he attended any of its meetings, and his focus seems to have been on Hertfordshire throughout this period.25A. and O. His faithfulness to Hertfordshire drew him close to Sir Thomas Dacres, and in March 1645 he married Dacres’s daughter.26Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 101. There were already signs that Priestley shared Dacres’s Presbyterianism, and it may be significant that the rector of his home parish of Essendon was George Stallybrasse, one of the local ministers who wrote to Parliament in support of the Covenant in 1646.27VCH Herts. iii. 462. Dacres may well have had a hand in securing Priestley’s election as a recruiter MP for the Cornish borough of St Mawes in April 1647.28Supra, ‘St Mawes’.

Priestley’s activity at Westminster confirms that he was a committed political Presbyterian. He had taken his seat by 28 May 1647, subscribed the Covenant on 9 June, and continued to sit during the ‘forcing of the Houses’ in late July and early August.29CJ v. 190b, 203b, 220b. On 31 July he was ordered to prepare a letter for the Hertfordshire committee, instructing them not to send troops to join the New Model army, and recalling any that had already departed; and on 2 August he was added to the committee on an ordinance to augment the powers of the Presbyterian-dominated ‘committee of safety’, which had been set up in June to mobilise the City against the army.30CJ v. 237a, 262a, 265b. Priestley’s stance was provocative, but he was not penalised after London had fallen to the New Model. Soon after he reappeared in the Commons in late October, he was added to the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs (2 Nov.).31CJ v. 340a, 347b; LJ ix. 506a. He was an enthusiastic member of this committee, and he was present at most of its meetings until August 1648. He was also involved in parliamentary measures concerning Ireland, such as the ordinance for relief of the Protestants there (20 Apr. 1648), and he reported the Irish Committee’s opinion on the case of the commander of the Sea Adventure, Lord Forbes (12 June 1648).32CJ v. 538b, 594a. This last case suggests that Priestley’s interest in Irish affairs may have sprung from his own involvement as an investor in the adventure scheme (although when the lands were eventually distributed in 1653-4, he immediately sold his stake to Lady Wharton).33CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 744-750;1647-60, pp. 2-25; CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 349. Priestley was also added to the committee on maimed soldiers on 11 November 1647, and this reflected his interest in issues such as indemnity, the care of the injured, and the payment of the soldiery, as seen in other committee appointments.34CJ v. 356a, 364b, 396a, 417a, 425a. Whether this indicated a genuine desire to redress injustice or an attempt to mollify the army is uncertain; on other occasions Priestley made no secret of his opposition to the New Model and their Independent allies. For example, on 29 January 1648 he was a teller against including three articles in the impeachment proceedings against the prominent Presbyterian peer, James Howard, 3rd earl of Suffolk, who had been condemned by the Independents in June 1647.35CJ v. 448a.

During the second civil war, Priestley continued to sit in Parliament, and in June he was named to committees to examine the insurrections in Kent and Surrey.36CJ v. 599b, 631b. On 20 July he was appointed to the committee to investigate who had encouraged the Scots under James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton, to invade England.37CJ v. 640b. In August he was appointed to the committee of both Houses to determine scandalous offences (and thus the grounds for exclusion of individuals from the Lord’s Supper), and this, with his involvement in other issues such as the stricter observation of the Lord’s Day or the maintenance of a preaching ministry in London suggests that his religious views were those of a conservative Presbyterian.38A. and O.; CJ v. 471a; vi. 53a. This, and his connection with men like Dacres, brought Priestley onto a collision course with the army. In October and November he was heavily involved in attempts to promote Parliament (and thus a renewed treaty with the king) and reduce the influence of the army. On 9 October he was named to the committee to raise £5,000 to maintain a horse guard for Parliament; on 21 October he joined Dacres and others on a committee to attend Sir Thomas Fairfax* with the Commons’ vote to pay off sections of the army; and on 17 November he was appointed to a Presbyterian-dominated committee on a bill justifying Parliament’s proceedings in the second war.39CJ vi. 47a, 58a, 79a. Priestley’s activities can hardly have escaped the attention of the New Model army and its allies, and at Pride’s Purge on 6 December 1648 he was among the MPs imprisoned, not being released until Christmas Day.40The Parliament under the Power of the Sword (1648, 669.f.13.52); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 167.

After his release, Priestley played no further part in public life until the early months of 1660. He was appointed as militia commissioner for Hertfordshire and Middlesex in March 1660, and reappointed to the commission of the peace for the former in September 1660.41A. and O.; C231/7, p. 40. He died in March 1664, and was buried in Essendon church, under a large monument with twisted pilasters supporting a cornice with the family arms.42VCH Herts. iii. 462. His long-winded will, written in January 1664, when he was ‘of reasonable health and good memory’, left the bulk of his property to trustees including Sir Thomas Dacres and his son, Thomas Dacres*, for the use of his widow and only surviving son, and made detailed arrangements not only for charitable bequests in London and Hertfordshire but also for the maintenance of his gardens and orchards, the fate of his favourite jewellery and the mourning clothes to be allowed various kinsfolk.43PROB11/314/36. He was succeeded by his younger son from his second marriage, Thomas Priestley, who served as sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1672.44Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 129.