CAGE, William (1575-1645), of Ipswich and Burstall, Suff.

By the time he came to sit in the Short and Long Parliaments, William Cage was, in the words of Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, ‘an old Parliament man’.37PJ iii. 246. In all six preceding Parliaments he had sat for Ipswich, his home town, and his record of service to its corporation stretched even further back. One contemporary, local historian Matthias Candler, spoke of Cage as having had the reputation of being ‘a wise man’.38Soc. Antiq. MS 667, p. 108. A generation or two later Sir Richard Gipps said the same.39F. Haslewood, ‘The ancient families of Suff.’, Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. Viii. 143. Nothing certain is known of Cage’s ancestry beyond his father; he too had been a resident, freeman and bailiff of Ipswich.

Cage’s parliamentary career prior to the 1640s had been of note only because of the vigour with which he had defended the interests of his home town. That concern laid behind one of his more noteworthy speeches – in the 1626 Parliament on the weakness of the naval defences along the North Sea coast – and resurfaced when he dabbled in naval affairs during the Long Parliament. His religious views, as when he had called upon the 1625 Parliament to mark its opening with a fast day, were firmly Protestant, matching the prevailing character of his constituency.40HP Commons, 1604-1629. It is revealing that a donation he made some years earlier to the town library was used to purchase copies of the works of François du Jon and Beza’s Tractationes Theologicae and Canticum Canticorum Solomonis.41J. Blatchy, The Town Library of Ipswich (Woodbridge, 1989), 90, 108, 190, 178, 183-4. His godly views were also to be evident when he sat in the Short and Long Parliaments.

During the 1630s the Ipswich corporation continued to assign to Cage the management of their affairs in London, despite the absence of Parliaments. In 1632 he was among those given responsibility to organise the legal case opposing the quo warranto against the town and in 1634 he was sent to London to oversee its business in the exchequer. In October 1635 he was included in the delegation which petitioned against the town’s Ship Money rating.42Suff. RO (Ipswich), C6/1/5, ff. 108v, 109v, 121v, 124v, 124, 125v, 127, 131. Although warning that he was ‘unfit to intermeddle or advise any thing in it’, he wrote to the bailiffs in February 1635 suggesting that the increase in the levy for Suffolk and Essex from £5,000 to £6,615 required by the latest writ could be turned to their advantage: the town might gain from the renegotiation of the shares to be paid by each of the boroughs.43Suff. RO (Ipswich), HD36/2781/5. In November 1636, as one of the bailiffs, he was present at the meeting of representatives from the nine Suffolk boroughs at which their contributions to that year’s demand were decided.44Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE1/O2/1, f. 81.

Cage was also the most prominent of the Ipswich inhabitants brought before the court of star chamber in 1637 over demonstrations in the town against Bishop Matthew Wren of Ely the previous year. During the episcopal visitation in April 1636 the commissioners had arrived to find the doors of St Mary-le-Tower closed against them and a crowd of threatening protestors. Four months later, probably because of news that Wren intended to take action at law, a crowd had attacked the episcopal residence in the town. As one of the town’s justices of the peace, Cage was accused of failure to act with the necessary urgency to counter these problems.45Suff. RO (Ipswich), C2/18, 1636 riots bdle.; C6/1/5, f. 136. In the spring of 1637 a delegation from town, including Cage, presented the king with a petition challenging the order by the visitation commissioners that the communion tables in the Ipswich churches be moved to the east end and Wren’s attempts to alter their system for funding local ministers, which had been established by statute.46Suff. RO (Ipswich), C6/1/5, f. 141; C2/18: petition to the king, [1637]; CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 223, 529-30; 1637, pp. 144, 160. This petition may have been Cage’s idea.47Suff. RO (Ipswich), C2/18: bill of attorney-general against Ipswich rioters, 1637, rot. 26-7.

Veteran MP, 1640-2

On being elected to the Short Parliament in 1640, Cage was immediately appointed (18 Apr.) to the committee created to determine how far parliamentary privilege had been violated during the dissolution of the previous Parliament. Two days later Sir Henry Vane I*, reporting from this committee, made use of notes taken by Cage on that occasion.48CJ ii. 6b, 7a-b. These notes do not survive.49HP Commons, 1604-1629; Two Diaries of Long Parl. pp. xviii, xxin. That he was also later among those added (on the motion of Samuel Vassall*) to the committee looking into the matter of the three subsidies and three fifteenths granted in 1624 would again, in part, have been due to his first-hand knowledge of that session.50CJ ii. 15b-16a; Aston’s Diary, 85. Meanwhile, he was involved in the efforts to make attendance at communion at St Margaret’s, Westminster into a test of political trustworthiness, evidently sharing the view that there were dangerous conspirators to be guarded against, even within the ranks of MPs.51CJ ii. 9b, 12a. When he argued in debate on 29 April that the clause in the Book of Common Prayer on the positioning of communion tables was a restriction on its position, this was evidently an observation, not an expression of approval.52Aston’s Diary, 91. As well as indulging in some special pleading on behalf of ports such as his own constituency, he used his speech during the supply debate on the penultimate day of the Parliament to support efforts to gain redress for religious grievances.53Aston’s Diary, 132.

The only real obstacle to Cage’s return to the second Parliament of 1640 was the legal question of whether, as one of the bailiffs for that year, he could legitimately oversee his own return as an MP. In early October, when he informed Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston* of his intention to stand again, he played down this problem, partly to discourage Sir Nathaniel from putting forward his eldest son, Thomas*, for one of the Ipswich seats.54Harl. 384, f. 64. Informed of the situation, the sheriff of Suffolk, Sir Simonds D’Ewes, warned Lord Chief Justice Littleton (Edward Littleton†) how troublesome the elections in Suffolk would be. While observing that Cage had a reputation of possessing ‘reasonable abilities for a country gown man’, D’Ewes commented that ‘he is not the only wise man in Ipswich’ and that ‘his stirring, in my opinion, against law hath occasioned two of my quarrels’.55Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D’Ewes ed. J.O. Halliwell (1845), ii. 247. But D’Ewes was unable to object to Cage’s nomination, for he himself then agreed to be elected at Sudbury, in contravention of the same rule that Cage had supposedly violated.56Harl. 158, ff. 289v-290. Aware that their two cases could be linked, D’Ewes did not forget this matter. When the disputed election result at Knaresborough came before the Commons in December 1641, he cited the precedent of Cage – ‘an old gentleman that used to sit here behind me’ – when attempting in his diary (but probably not in debate) to prove that someone could legitimately be returned for a town where they were bailiff.57D'Ewes (C), 242-3. D’Ewes, the product of the Middle Temple and son of a clerk in chancery, gives every impression of looking down on this attorney from the provinces who took himself to be an expert on the procedures of Parliament. He relished the occasion in May 1641 when Cage opposed the motion of George Peard* and D’Ewes that the House be ‘called’ to establish how many were absent, incorrectly assuming that they were unaware that MPs were usually given several days notice of this, to the amusement of all those present.58Procs. LP iv. 511; CJ ii. 153b-154a.

Cage did indeed believe he knew something of the finer points of parliamentary business. On several occasions during the early months of the Long Parliament, this led him into a number of disagreements with Speaker William Lenthall*. On 30 December 1640 he tried without success to prevent all three questions arising from the report of John Maynard* on tonnage and poundage being put to the House together.59Procs. LP ii. 67-8; CJ ii. 60a. He was, however, listened to six days later when Lenthall resumed the chair after discussion on the subsidy bill had been completed, only for Cage to interject that the grand committee had not been adjourned in the proper manner.60Procs. LP ii. 113; CJ ii. 86b. On 16 February 1641 he also forced a vote on whether the private bill on behalf of Gilbert Wells should be committed, in the face of the Speaker’s attempts to hold a vote by voices on whether it should be rejected.61Procs. LP ii. 462, 465. Lenthall had been less impressed the day before when Cage argued that, having accepted all their amendments to the triennial bill without further alterations, MPs were obliged to call a joint conference with the Lords to inform them of their decision.62Procs. LP ii. 452. On 18 February he was again on his feet, that time expressing doubts about whether Parliament had the authority to adjourn itself.63Procs. LP ii. 480. Two months later, when it was suggested that MPs should not report back to their constituencies about events in Parliament, Cage argued that, on the contrary, they had a duty to do so.64Procs. LP iv. 644.

Several measures during this period met with his disapproval on technical grounds. The suggestion by Sir Edward Dering* that every morning should be devoted to the reading of a public and a private bill did not appeal to him because, as he explained, it was better that they left their business arrangements flexible.65Procs. LP ii. 389. His own attempt to remedy the problem of the pressure of business came in May 1641 when he secured an order that the committee to reduce the number of committees should convene.66Procs. LP iv. 630; CJ ii. 160a. He told the committee of grievances on 27 January 1641 that he did not think the Commons was entitled to award legal costs, while on 6 February he countered the proposal by John Pym* that two more subsidies should be added to the existing four provided for by the subsidy bill when it returned from the Lords, on the grounds that the bill would have to go through all three readings again.67Procs. LP ii. 293, 381, 384. This challenge to Pym on questions on procedure was not an isolated example. Nine days after this he and Sir Guy Palmes*, arguing illegality, disapproved of Pym’s move to ban the mayor from participating in the new election at Bossiney and in April 1641 he claimed to be astonished at Pym’s apparent ignorance in moving that they summon back William, Lord Russell*, who had gone to the Lords with a message and had been kept waiting.68Procs. LP ii. 454; iv. 87.

Twice, on the bills for the sale of the lands of the 3rd earl of Winchelsea and to settle Wolstanton rectory, Cage objected when Sir William Strickland* and then Ralph Sneyd* tried to name committees by reading from prepared lists. In both cases, Cage was named to committee then appointed.69Procs. LP ii. 574, iv. 122, 127; CJ ii. 94a, 129b. Earlier, in December 1640, he had argued that only MPs and those parties whose cases were under consideration should be allowed to attend committees.70Northcote Note Bk. 57. In June 1641 he supported D’Ewes when he took exception to a motion by Sir John Culpeper* because it was moved while a joint conference with the Lords was in session.71Procs. LP v. 368. On the other hand, Cage was occasionally in the wrong himself. He was censured in December 1640 for proposing a motion at a point when, the sergeant-at-arms and the mace were momentarily out of the House.72Procs. LP ii. 20. A few of these interventions may have been tactical, but mostly Cage was doing nothing more than protecting what he saw as the rules of the House. His enthusiasm was rewarded with his inclusion on the committee for privileges and the committee on the privilege breaches in the last two Parliaments (18 Dec.) and by being the person second-named (after Sir John Hotham*) to the committee set up in January 1641 to consider how the business before the House could best be dealt with.73CJ ii. 21a, 53b, 65b.

While he was busily meddling in all these procedural details, Cage was also being appointed to a wide range of committees such as those on supply, the Great Marlow and Tewkesbury elections, the courts of star chamber and high commission, the misdemeanours of the lords lieutenants and the court of wards.74CJ ii. 31b, 40b, 44b, 49b, 50b, 80a, 87a; Procs. LP i. 570. When the House returned on 18 December 1640 to the subject of the 1629 dissolution, he seconded Pym’s motion that the former Speaker, Lord Finch (John Finch†), should be permitted to address Members before they proceeded with the charges against him.75Procs. LP ii. 658.

Like many of his colleagues, however, Cage seems to have had religious issues at the forefront of his mind. Among other things, he was concerned about popish recusants, the bishop of Bath and Wells (the controversial William Piers), the affairs of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, clerical pluralism and abuses in the ecclesiastical courts.76CJ ii. 29a 50a, 52a, 100b, 113b, 128b. Moreover, he strongly supported the investigation into the demolition of St Gregory by Paul’s during the rebuilding work on St Paul’s Cathedral. On 25 November 1640 he moved that the matter should be sent back to committee so that the surveyor of St Paul’s, Inigo Jones†, could be questioned about this, while three months later he was the first person added to the committee to organise the impeachment of those responsible (11 Feb.).77Procs. LP i. 292; CJ ii. 82b. During the debate on 28 November on complaints against the vicar of Banbury, Cage advised that the petition should be referred to the grand committee on religion rather than a lesser committee because he felt that this was more likely to get something done.78Procs. LP i. 354. When the Commons debated the articles of impeachment against William Laud on 24 February 1641, Cage was concerned that the responsibility for the introduction of the new Canons might be ascribed to the archbishop alone.79Procs. LP ii. 532. In a speech on 10 March he maintained that their ordination oaths should prevent bishops interfering in secular affairs.80Two Diaries of Long Parl. 105. His fear of spreading popery was such that when on 5 March Speaker Lenthall produced letters sent into Ireland which were from Irishmen in seminaries on the continent, Cage, missing the point, jumped to the assumption that they were from English Catholics abroad.81Procs. LP ii. 636. He took the Protestation at the first opportunity, on 3 May.82CJ ii. 133a.

Already Cage had been added to the committee on the army (17 Feb. 1641) and soon after he had been third among those appointed to prepare an order on billet payments due to soldiers who had died or deserted (5 Mar.).83CJ ii. 88a, 96b. His addition to the committee on the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) in March followed on from his temporary membership of it seven weeks previously when complaints against Sir Thomas Danby were being discussed.84CJ ii. 79b, 112b. But that May he was sympathetic towards the printer who had published verses defending Strafford, if only because the printer promised to assist in the investigation into who had written them.85Procs. LP iv. 412. Cage had also been a member of the committee entrusted on 20 March with the preparation of the heads for the joint conference on the proposals from the Lords concerning the Irish army.86CJ ii. 109a.

With the uncovering of the first army plot, he became even more heavily involved in efforts to control the military and in pushing through religious legislation. First, he was among those appointed to examine the army plotters (4 May) and two months later he was named to investigate payments made to them (7 July).87CJ ii. 134a, 201a. Meanwhile, after the bill for recruiting sailors had received its first two readings on 8 May, Cage was among those to whom it was committed, as well as one of those appointed to prepare an order on the same subject.88CJ ii. 139b, 140b; Procs. LP iv. 282. Two days later it was Cage who got the House to consider a second bill on this subject brought in by John Wylde*.89Procs. LP iv. 296. As a port, Ipswich would be directly affected by any resulting legislation. On 18 May he was top of the list of those brought onto the committee on the state of the army.90CJ ii. 149a. The next day he spoke ‘most materially’ in the debate on whether to negotiate with the Scots on the money needed to clear the armies from the northern counties. His point was that, even if the Merchant Adventurers produced their promised £120,000 to add to the £40,000 which had been received from the City, there would still be £90,000 shortfall on what would be needed for a disbandment. This was followed by his inclusion on the committee for a conference with the Lords on the disbandment.91Procs. LP iv. 459; CJ ii. 150a-b, 152a. A week later, however, he was suggesting that it would be preferable to pay the Scots directly from taxation receipts rather than borrow money to do so.92Procs. LP iv. 625. When the House came to debate subsidies on the last day of May, he was one of the small group which redrafted the preamble to the proposed bill.93Procs. LP iv. 660, 661. The decision of 25 June that the amount to be paid to the Scots should amount to £220,000 was taken on a motion moved by Cage.94Procs. LP v. 346; CJ ii. 188b. On 10 June, moreover, he had been named to the disbandment committee and he was now also named to that which was to prepare the instructions on the subject for Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex. Other committee appointments connected with the disbandment followed.95CJ ii. 172b, 188b, 196a, 212b, 214a, 229a; Procs. LP vi. 141. During its passage, he objected to the drafting of the billet money bill as unsatisfactory and he was one of the committee of five to whom it was recommitted to be tidied up (17 July).96Procs. LP v. 687; CJ ii. 215a. By mid-August he had concluded that it would be better if the cavalry was disbanded first, as this would make a Scottish withdrawal the more likely.97Procs. LP vi. 492.

In the moves to safeguard religion, Cage was just as prominent. John Moore* thought he was named to the committee on the bill to repeal the first proviso in the 1606 act against recusants on 8 May 1641, although the Journal makes no mention of him.98Procs. LP iv. 279; CJ ii. 139a. Six days later, he was among those entrusted with investigating rumours that Catholics planned to burn down the Palace of Westminster.99CJ ii. 147a; Procs. LP iv. 382. It was not just the recusants he was worried about. He was a member of the committee on the bill to secure religion (6 May) and on 13 May he was pressing for Maynard to take the votes on the Canons up to the Lords.100CJ ii. 136b; Procs. LP iv. 360. On 26 May he got the Commons to order that the committee on the bill to reform the ecclesiastical courts should resume its work.101Procs. LP iv. 583; CJ ii. 158a. Not long after that, he was second named to the committee on the bill to prevent bargemen breaking the sabbath (3 June).102CJ ii. 165b.

The reason for his disquiet was made clear when he addressed the Commons on 27 May during the debate on the bishops. Not only were the bishops, in his view, the biggest problem demanding action, MPs’ past failures to act against them were now bringing divine retribution on an unfaithful nation. Bringing them under control was for him as important as disbanding the army to restore peace to the kingdom.103Procs. LP iv. 608, 615. He may not have used this speech to call for the abolition of episcopacy, but on 13 and 28 July he was behind the moves to ensure that the House debated as soon as possible the bill to effect it.104Procs. LP v. 618, vi. 121; CJ ii. 209b, 228a. An intermediary step was to strip bishops of their temporal powers. When the Commons debated the bill to do that on 21 June, Cage proposed that this should take effect almost immediately, naming 1 August as his preferred date.105Procs. LP v. 257. However, the bill as finally passed specified 15 February 1642.106SR v. 138. From the end of July he also had a place on the committee to prepare impeachments against the bishops, although that was also the point at which he had permission to absent himself from Westminster.107Procs. LP v. 618; vi. 54; CJ ii. 220a, 230a.

All this had not exhausted Cage’s activity. He was named to the committees considering the tonnage and poundage bill, the tonnage and poundage clause in the Petition of Right, the bill to declare the illegality of Ship Money, the star chamber bill and the queen’s jointure.108CJ ii. 172b, 178b, 181b, 191a, 219a That he was the first person added to the committee on monopolies (3 July) after the bill to suppress abuses in the weaving industry had been committed to it would have been because of the local Suffolk interest in the matter.109CJ ii. 197b. On 23 August he expressed concern about low attendances, thereby securing approval for an order that all attending the committee for the king’s army when it examined the army’s accounts should be allowed to speak.110Procs. LP vi. 521; CJ ii. 268a. Only Sir John Culpeper* was named before him a day later to the committee to review the operation of the poll tax and both he and Sir Robert Pye I* were ordered to call in auditors to check the subsidy rolls to determine which MPs had not made their full contributions.111Procs. LP vi. 532; CJ ii. 270b, 271a, 271b. At the same time, he was also on the various committees under Pym to combat popery. These included that to draft the bill for disarming recusants (21 Aug.) to which he was the second-named.112CJ ii. 264b, 266a, 267b, 268a; Procs. LP vi. 514. Significantly, that bill was one of the first which was from its outset intended as an ordinance.

Opposing the king, 1642-3

Such was Cage’s usual level of activity that his absence from the Journal from the end of August 1641 until the middle of January 1642 strongly suggests that he was away from Westminster. A comment about him by D’Ewes implies that by December 1641 Cage had been absent from the Commons for some time.113D’Ewes (C), 242. He had evidently reappeared in the House by 14 January 1642, when he was named to a new committee for naval affairs, which would be reconstituted in August as the Committee of Navy and Customs (CNC).114Supra, ‘Committee of Navy and Customs’; CJ ii. 378b, 402b. On 20 January he spoke in the debate on the customs bill.115CJ ii. 376b, 378b; PJ i. 111.

Given the timing of Cage’s return to Westminster, it was most likely the crisis over the Five Members which had brought him back. On that issue, he clearly sided with his colleagues and was placed on the committee to safeguard parliamentary privilege (17 Jan.).116CJ ii. 384a. When Sir Gilbert Gerard* argued on 28 January that the lack of ammunition held by the London and Middlesex trained bands threatened to nullify the protection available to Parliament at this vital juncture, Cage was among those nominated to consider the problem.117PJ i. 207; CJ ii. 400a. He was later on the committee for the bill for the vindication of the Five Members.118CJ ii. 436a. Although the incompleteness of the Journal entry causes uncertainty, when the conciliatory royal message of 6 February about control of the militia, the impeachment of the Five Members and the departure of the queen for the Netherlands was referred to the militia and Five Members committees, it seems that Nathaniel Fiennes I*, John Maynard and Cage may have been put in charge.119CJ ii. 416b.

Cage was also active in response to the Irish rebellion. He may well have contributed to the deliberations about how Parliament should act in the face of the king’s reservations about the Carrickfergus proposition from the Scottish commissioners and he was one of the eight Members ordered to check draft commissions which had accompanied the bill to give assistance to the distressed in Ireland from the Lords.120CJ ii. 400a, 415b. On 12 February he arranged for John Brandlinge* to present to the Commons the latest petition from Ipswich which explicitly supported the contents of the Grand Remonstrance.121CJ ii. 428a; PJ i. 362; The Humble Petitions of the Bailifes, Port-men, and other the Inhabitants of Ipswich (1641, E.135.35).

Cage resumed his involvement in other matters which had previously had his attention. The bills against pluralities and innovations in worship, on the forfeiture of the estates of the archbishop of York and for the maintenance of the ministry were all referred to committees to which he was named.122CJ ii. 431b, 437b, 448b, 496b. On 8 February he was among those ordered to draw up the list of reasons why the king should agree to legislation preventing the clergy holding secular offices.123CJ ii. 419b. That he secured the rejection of the bill concerning the profits of recusants’ estates proposed by Sir John Harrison* on 28 February is unlikely to have been because of any sympathy with those whose estates were involved.124PJ i. 486; When the second Kent petition in support of episcopacy and the Prayer Book was presented in April 1642, he was no doubt only too pleased to be nominated to the committee to prepare a reply.125CJ ii. 550b.

In March 1642 Cage was among the 15 MPs appointed to examine the poll tax accounts, which was the first, hesitant attempt by the Long Parliament to institute a system of financial oversight over the tax receipts being collected on its behalf.126CJ ii. 474a, 634b. In Cage’s case, that probably reflected his existing attentiveness to the management of the poll tax.127CJ ii. 270b. But there seems to have been more to his interest in finance than that. In May 1642 he is known to have drafted this committee’s letter on contribution money, having earlier served on the committee which had had discussions with the Lords on the same subject.128CJ ii. 486a, 584a. The £400,000 bill was another measure to which he probably devoted time, as were a number of financial matters connected with events in Ireland.129CJ ii. 497b, 563a, 569b, 571b. He himself had responded to the Irish Adventurers’ appeal by subscribing, in conjunction with Anthony Bedingfield*, a total of £700. £250 of Cage’s £300 stake had, in fact, been paid by his son-in-law, Thomas Blosse.130J.P. Prendergast, The Cromwellian Settlement in Ireland (Dublin, 1875), 406; J.R. MacCormack, ‘The Irish Adventurers’, Irish Hist. Studies x. 46; Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 178; CSP Ire. Adventurers, 1642-59, pp. 241-2. Meanwhile, he had helped organise the collection at Ipswich of the subsidy which Parliament had voted to assist in the suppression of the Irish rebellion.131SP28/190: abstract of subsidy acct. [c. 1642], pp. 46-7.

The previous year Daniel O’Neill†, nephew of the rebels’ leader, Owen Roe O’Neill, had plotted to ally the Irish Catholics with the discontented soldiers in England in support of the king. When O’Neill escaped from the Tower in early May 1642, Cage informed the Commons that he had been intercepted at Ipswich.132PJ ii. 310. That report turned out to be false. On 24 May 1642 Pym proposed that various towns be asked to lend money to Parliament. Probably anxious that towns like his constituency should not be asked to take too much of the strain, Cage suggested that the request be extended to the counties as well. He was then named to the committee charged with deciding how a fighting fund could be built up.133PJ ii. 365; CJ ii. 586a.

Over the next three months, if his placings on the committee lists are anything to go by, it would appear that Cage became even more prominent in the committee work of the House; much of this work was part of the search for more money. He was named first to the standing committee on the money borrowed from the City set up on 3 June and he was included on the committees to raise money from the mercantile community, to consult with the Merchant Adventurers, on tonnage and poundage, on abuses in issues made under the £400,000 bill and on the conduct of the treasurers of the subscriptions at the Guildhall.134CJ ii. 601b, 610b, 623a, 666b, 694a, 697a, 713a. His prominent role on other committees is suggested by his being the first on the committee lists for those on Danish and Norwegian naval preparations (31 May), to prepare instruments for those MPs to be sent to Lancashire (11 June) and to decide what form the protection offered to the duc de Vendôme and his companions should take (15 Aug.), and he was also near the top of those named to consider the election for lord mayor of London following the removal of Sir Richard Gurney (21 July), on the public fasts bill and for the defence of the kingdom (4 Aug.).135CJ ii. 596a, 619a, 684b, 702b, 703a, 721a. On 6 June Cage moved that John Rushworth*, the clerk assistant who had just returned from York (and with whom he and Framlingham Gawdy* would have dinner the following month), should be allowed to report to the House.136PJ iii. 28, 265; CJ ii. 607b. He retained a liking for procedural intervention, repeating the objection he had used against Strickland and Sneyd over a year before when in July 1642 he blocked the attempt by John Wylde to make additions to the committee considering Lady Elizabeth Sedley’s petition by reading out names from a list.137PJ iii. 246. He himself had been caught out procedural grounds several months earlier (23 May 1642) when he tried to propose that Sir Philip Parker* (whose father, Sir Calthorpe Parker, had considered Cage one of his ‘trusty and assured friends’) be granted leave of absence: George Peard successfully objected that it was too late in the day for new motions to be introduced.138PJ ii. 362; PROB11/133/79.

On 6 August Cage himself was granted leave of absence and just over a week later he appears to have ceased attending.139CJ ii. 706b, 721a. Four months earlier he had been appointed one of the deputy lieutenants for Suffolk.140LJ iv. 683a. Presumably, he was helping to mobilise the county for military action. But, if so, that activity is now undocumented.

Challenging Pym’s new taxes, 1643-4

Cage was back in London by the last of week of December, resuming his involvement in parliamentary business much as before. Although he did not ignore the efforts to negotiate with the king, these were balanced by other immediate concerns which included the assessment ordinance and the Scots’ request for £40,000.141CJ ii. 900a, 901b, 911a. On 27 December he and Richard Knightley* were asked to draft the order by which the Leicestershire committees were to receive £400,000.142CJ ii. 903b. With John Glynne* and Bulstrode Whitelocke*, he was also preparing the bill for assessing monies.143CJ ii. 912b. With the creation of the Committee for Plundered Ministers (31 Dec.), Cage gained another committee appointment.144CJ ii. 909a; Add. 15669, f. 1v. During the first fortnight of January 1643 the proposed blockade of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with its potential repercussions for all the other east coast ports, took up his time. Only Oliver St John* was appointed ahead of him to the committee determining how to redeploy the ships made redundant by the blockade and with Samuel Vassall (an associate also in the matter of securing prisoners) he helped to overcome the reservations of the Lords about the plan.145CJ ii. 916a, 919a, 923a-b, 927a; iii. 104b, 113b. (Later that year, however, Cage raised the case of an Ipswich merchant whose ship had been requisitioned for the Newcastle expedition against his wishes.)146Harl. 165, f. 121v. When on the evening of 21 January it was proposed to pass the bill to abolish bishops, Cage was among those supporters of the bill who argued for a delay so that it could be accomplished when the House was not so sparsely attended.147Harl. 164, f. 280.

Cage may have been unimpressed by attempts to negotiate peace. He seems to have been one of the few MPs who supported the efforts by Henry Marten* on 27 February, although as Cage’s speech was difficult to hear, its meaning may have been unclear.148Harl. 164, f. 308v. In the preparations for the first full summer campaign, he was involved in the acquisition of horses for the parliamentarian armies. In January 1643 he was a reporter of the conference concerning the ordinance to ensure the supply matched the military requirements and four months later he was included on two related committees.149CJ ii. 938b; iii. 89a, 93b. On Suffolk business he twice he acted with groups asked to contact the parliamentarian major-general Lord Grey of Warke (Sir William Grey†), first about prisoners held at Ipswich and then about the petition from Sir Thomas Jermyn*.150CJ ii. 1003a; iii. 25a, 138b; Harl. 164, f. 328. But Cage recognised that tensions would arise between the interests of the locality and those of the wider war effort. On 6 April Miles Corbett* and Sir Thomas Barrington* pressed for Norfolk and Essex to be allowed to use their assessment revenues to pay the troops they were sending to join the army of the Eastern Association. Cage made the same request for Suffolk, but pointed out that if this was made a general policy, the national armies would be left without sufficient funds.151Harl. 164, f. 357v. On 21 June he was ordered to forward to Lord Grey letters about the queen’s landing in Yorkshire which the Suffolk county committee had intercepted.152CJ iii. 138b; Harl. 165, f. 114v.

In the main, however, his contributions were focused, as before, on finance. He sat on the committees concerned with the money received from the counties (27 Jan.), the weekly assessments (1 Feb.), MPs yet to pay their share of the money for the Irish Adventurers (20 Feb.), the examination of warrants issued by the treasurers-at-war (8 Mar.), the examination of all accounts (20 Mar.), the raising of more money from the City (12 Apr.), and the delayed payments of the Shropshire subscriptions (15 May). He was often among the first few to be nominated to these committees.153CJ ii. 945b, 951a, 973b, 994b; iii. 9b, 41a, 86a When on 12 May the list of commissioners in the ordinance for the twentieth part required alterations, the Members instructed to do the redrafting were Cage, William Wheler*, Roger Hill II* and Denis Bond*, in that order.154CJ iii. 81a. When the House sat as a grand committee on 27 January to debate the assessment bill, only Cage and Cornelius Holland* said anything at all.155Harl. 164, f. 283. Five days later Cage was evidently unimpressed by the request from the treasurer-at-war, Sir Gilbert Gerard*, for more money, as he pointed out that this assessment bill was already under consideration.156Harl. 164, f. 287. Underlying all this may have been disquiet about the unprecedented fiscal burdens that the assessment represented.

Cage was certainly opposed to the centrepiece of Pym’s financial reforms, the new excise tax. Enraged by the warm response that Pym’s proposals received from some MPs on 28 March, he reminded them that the Commons had considered similar proposals in 1628, only to conclude then that they would be illegal. After other MPs concurred, Pym attempted to mollify them by saying that it would apply only to ‘superfluous commodities’. Cage was unimpressed. He countered that exactly the same argument had been used to justify the introduction of impositions in 1614.157Harl. 164, f. 346v. Meanwhile, Cage sat on the February 1643 committee about sequestration, was second-named to the committee to send out the resulting ordinances (30 Mar.) and was a member of the committee to which the bill against the concealment of the estates of malignants was committed (24 May).158CJ ii. 953b; iii. 24b, 100a. As with the bill against bishops, he thought the sequestration bill was of too ‘great weight and consequence’ to be passed by a thin House.159Harl. 164, f. 315. That June he was among those MPs who opposed a grant of money to the king’s sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia, on the grounds that her son, Prince Rupert, was fighting for the king.160Harl. 165, f. 115.

Having sat on the committee which prepared it, Cage was quick to take the oath introduced in June 1643 in the aftermath of Edmund Waller’s* plot.161CJ iii. 37b, 118a. He was subsequently one of those appointed to investigate which MPs had failed to do likewise (23 Aug.).162CJ iii. 216b. Meanwhile, he supported the alliance with the Scots. On 31 July he was among those MPs appointed to receive the latest proposals from the Scottish Parliament.163CJ iii. 188b. This led to the Solemn League and Covenant, which Cage subscribed on 2 November.164CJ iii. 299a. Two months later he was third-named to the committee on the bill to require all chancery officials and barristers to take it (12 Jan. 1644).165CJ iii. 364b.

During the latter half of 1643 there were other ways in which he supported the enforcement of the viewpoint of the godly. He helped investigate the complaints of the Westminster Assembly against certain printed works (10 Aug.) and in December 1643, when the bill to discipline ‘scandalous’ clergymen within the associated counties was introduced, Cage was the third person on the list of those named to consider it (12 Dec.).166CJ iii. 201a, 338b; Harl. 165, f. 241. The bill to preserve the right of patrons to make presentations to livings (6 Nov.) probably also had his support.167CJ iii. 302b. In his case, a concern for enforcement of the laws against genuine recusants was tempered by a fear that these laws could be used against Protestants unwilling to conform to the established church.168CJ iii. 340b, 405a. In August 1643 he opposed the appointment of a prominent Presbyterian clergyman, Richard Heyrick, as a fast day preacher, but that was probably because he shared the concerns of William Wheler about Heyrick’s audibility.169Harl. 165, f. 160.

Cage’s support for the war appears to have been unflagging. In the ten months from June 1643 he played a part in many committees related to different aspects of the military campaigns.170CJ iii. 125a, 132a, 139b, 178b, 203b, 210a, 298b, 333a, 342a. Most strikingly, it was he who on 28 July 1643 reported to the House the proposal that there should be a governor for the Isle of Ely, which resulted in the appointment of Oliver Cromwell*.171CJ iii. 186a. Two weeks earlier wrote to the Ipswich bailiffs reporting on improvements to the defences of London and encouraging them to make similar preparations.172Suff. RO (Ipswich), HD36/2781/28. Cage’s previous interest in matters connected with billeting resurfaced in his wish to see that money thus spent was accounted for (12 Sept.).173CJ iii. 238a. In late August he was among MPs asked to draft a bill for the seizure of any ships transporting Irish reinforcements for the king’s armies.174CJ iii. 223a. Several of the committees he served on were on supplies for the army, while his interest in the bill to pay the debts of cloth suppliers to the army in Ireland was a reflection of the importance of the cloth trade to his constituents.175CJ iii. 165a, 174b, 236a. In January 1644 he was named to the committee on the state of the army.176CJ iii. 375b. With his fellow member Robert Scawen*, Cage was appointed on 7 March 1644 with Wheler and Sir Arthur Hesilrige* to the four-man committee to draw up an establishment for the army.177CJ iii. 419b. When eighteen days later a second, larger committee was created, Scawen, Cage and Wheler were again named.178CJ iii. 437a.

By this time Cage had acquired experience in financial business. In early June 1643 he had been named to the six-man committee for accounts (5 June), which was intended to improve methods of revenue collection but which soon disappeared. He had also sat on the subsequent committee to review how well the unplanned financial system centred on the numerous parliamentary committees was operating.179CJ iii. 115b, 186a. Prior to his appointment to the committee on the state of the army, he had been involved in the passage of the ordinance on the accounts of the Committee for Advance of Money through the Commons in January 1644 and subsequently he was prominent among those MPs named to formulate reasons to reject the Lords’ proposed amendments. Five days later, with Denzil Holles* and John Crewe*, he was a manager of the joint conference over whether William Prynne* should be included on the Committee.180CJ iii. 363b, 402a, 404a.

Meanwhile, Cage kept up his opposition to the excise. On 7 November 1643 he blocked a move to amend the bill for the enforcement of the excise on wine to include an excise on salt.181Harl. 165, f. 223v. He was then named to a small committee to discuss how to prevent alehouse keepers using the excise as an excuse to increase their prices.182CJ iii. 304a. On 23 December he spoke against the proposed increase in the excise on soap.183Harl. 165, f. 255v; CJ iii. 350b. On 8 February 1644 Cage headed the list of those added to the committee for the excise itself.184CJ iii. 211a, 310a, 393a.

In November 1643, when a problem arose with the weekly assessments in London, Cage and John Goodwyn* had been singled out to take particular care of it.185CJ iii. 309b-310a; Harl. 165, f. 208. On 9 December Cage replaced the deceased John Pym* on the committee on the subscription.186CJ iii. 335a. His varied experience of fiscal policy was deployed on the committee considering how parliamentary taxes should be extended to the north of England (26 Feb. 1644).187CJ iii. 408a. But, convinced that his own county was already paying enough, on 22 January 1644 he joined D’Ewes in a vain attempt to block an increase in the weekly assessments to be paid within the Eastern Association.188Harl. 165, f. 280v.

Cage played a central role in one attempt by Parliament to raise money for the war effort. On 23 August 1643 the Commons gave to him and Miles Corbett (MP for Great Yarmouth) the power to begin negotiations with Great Yarmouth, Ipswich and the other East Anglian ports to raise money to pay for protection for shipping over the winter.189CJ iii. 216b. Then on 13 September both Houses agreed to an ordinance allowing Cage to raise such a loan from the citizens of Ipswich to be paid to either the Committee of Navy and Customs or Sir Henry Vane II* as treasurer of the navy. That day the CNC asked him to pay to Vane the £175 which he and his son-in-law, Blosse, had themselves offered to lend.190CJ iii. 238b; Bodl. Rawl. A.221, f. 125; LJ vi. 215b-216a; A. and O. Cage reported to the Commons and the CNC on 2 November that he could raise loans amounting to £1,135 13s 4d at Ipswich, enabling two escort ships to be put to sea.191CJ iii. 299a; Bodl. Rawl. A.221, ff. 146-147. As before, naval affairs in general continued to involve him in committee work.192CJ iii. 310b, 399b, 431b.

Such activity did not preclude engagement in a wide variety of other parliamentary matters. These included the creation of an adjournment committee, the adoption by Parliament of its own great seal and the legal proceedings by royalist judges against some MPs, which would all drawn on his perceived expertise on parliamentary precedents.193CJ iii. 206b, 308a, 344b. Where mercantile interests were in play, he did not confine himself to larger issues such as trade with royalist towns or restrictions on the movement of corn, but also took an interest in more minor concerns from saltpetre to currants and from alum mines to lighthouses.194CJ iii. 214b, 221a, 308a, 356a, 357a, 359b, 366b, 390a, 391a, 395b, 428b.

Keeping up the fight, 1644-5

On 28 March 1644 Cage was granted leave to go into the country for five or six weeks, but it was exactly eight weeks before he is known to have been back in London.195CJ iii. 439b, 504b. Probably while he was away, he paid £400 to Louis Dick, captain of the naval ship, the Golden Lion. His submission of his claim for this to the CNC marked his reappearance in the Journal.196Bodl. Rawl. A.222, ff. 49, 57.

On his return military and money issues continued to dominate his activities. Over the summer of 1644 he was on eight committees directly relating to the military campaigns.197CJ iii. 507b, 510b, 527b, 532b, 544b, 552b, 579b, 592b; Harl. 166, f. 104v. His presence on that for the recruiting of Sir William Waller’s* army (28 June) is explained by a letter from the Committee of Both Kingdoms four days later acknowledging the loyalties of Suffolk and reassuring him that recruits from Suffolk would be allowed to return home as soon as possible.198CJ iii. 544b; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 300. Other committees on which he sat dealt with issues arising from the campaigns, such as the claims of war widows, while some, like that to raise money for troops of horses to be sent to Oxfordshire, combined military and financial business (6 June).199CJ iii. 515b, 520b, 569a, 574a. That day Cage was also named to the committee for the bill to explain the previous ordinance for taking and receiving accounts.200CJ iii. 519b. Five days later he was second on the list of those appointed to the committee on money advanced by MPs themselves.201CJ iii. 526a. He meanwhile continued to keep a suspicious eye on anything related to the excise.202CJ iii. 531b, 551b.

Over the summer of 1644 miscellaneous other committee appointments reflected the range of his interests. Both trade (Dover harbour, wool exports, soap) and legal issues (including the great seal again) featured.203CJ iii. 504b, 510a, 523b, 544a, 550b, 568a, 593a. Subjects such as the payment of tithes (22 July) and the removal of scandalous ministers in Hampshire (5 Aug.) show his continuing support for reformation in the church.204CJ iii. 566b, 579b. However, when on 10 August Sir Henry Mildmay* suggested that only peers who had taken the Covenant should be allowed to sit the Lords, Cage was among the minority of MPs who objected.205Harl. 166, f. 106. Cage was also named to the committee to prepare bills for propositions to be presented to the king.206CJ iii. 594a.

On 20 August Cage again obtained permission from the Commons to leave London, but he was probably still attending the House a week later.207CJ iii. 599b, 609a. In mid-November he mentioned that he had recently spent ‘some good time’ in Ipswich.208Suff. RO (Ipswich), HD36/2781/37. But he had resumed his seat by 6 November when he was named to the committees for the bill appointing Michael Oldisworth* (right-hand man of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke) as register of the prerogative court of Canterbury and to coordinate the Kent committees.209CJ iii. 688a. It is possible that Cage had returned specially in order to support measures seen as favouring the Pembroke against the earl of Essex. Two days later he chaired a committee drafting the order to compensate Sir Henry Vane I for the damage done to his estates from the sequestered properties of royalist officers.210CJ iii. 690a. On 14 November he was also appointed to the committee named to investigate the value of offices bestowed by Parliament, a foreshadow of the Self-Denying Ordinance.211CJ iii. 695b. This burst of activity by Cage then gave way to a period of silence. On 4 December 1644 he requested a further leave of absence.212CJ iii. 713a; iv. 28b.

In late January 1645 Cage reappeared in the Journal. On the 28th he was a manager of the conference with the Lords on 28 January 1645 on the instructions for the commissioners at the negotiations to be held at Uxbridge.213CJ iv. 34a. Just over a week later he was included on the committee to examine the amendments to the New Model ordinance sent down from the Lords.214CJ iv. 42b. Clearly a supporter of the Self-Denying ordinance, not only was he a member of the committee which oversaw its second passage through the Commons (24 Mar.), but he insisted on stepping down from the captaincy of the Ipswich militia, despite the corporation’s displeasure.215CJ iv. 88a; Bacon, Annalls, 540. He was included on several committees in February and March 1645 involved with the army, the navy and taxation, and he was asked by the Commons to write to the bailiffs of Ipswich to get them to send some prisoners to London.216CJ iv. 57a, 70b, 75a, 89a. He was also nominated to the committee on the bill to use sequestrated lands to reward Oliver St John* and Sir Benjamin Rudyerd* and to pay the debts of the late John Pym.217CJ iv. 59b. On 24 March he got permission to go into the country, although he may not have left immediately. On 26 March the Commons asked him to thank John Ward (rector of St Clement’s, Ipswich) for his fast sermon to them.218CJ iv. 88a, 90a. It was possibly during this absence that he collected a total of £7 lent on the Propositions from two of the inhabitants of Yaxley.219J.J. Raven, ‘Some Long Parliament notes of expenditure’, E. Anglian, 3rd ser. ix. 218. He was probably still absent on 17 May when the Committee of Both Kingdoms decided to send information to him and Squier Bence* on the subject of Landguard Fort, which protected the entrance to the Orwell estuary and the approaches to Ipswich from the sea.220CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 496. Cage’s final recorded involvement in parliamentary business came on 31 May and 8 July when he was named to committees on the excise of flesh and the wardship of the heir of Sir William Savile*.221CJ iv. 158b, 201a.

On 15 September 1645 Cage drew up a will. His only child, Mary, having died, the main beneficiaries were her husband, Thomas Blosse, and their children. Believing that his wife, Alice, would be provided for by her jointure lands, his bequests to her were limited to items like his town house and his coach and three horses. Sixteen days later, having realised that she might have no income between his death and Lady Day 1646, he added a codicil to make temporary provision for that period.222PROB11/195/320. He died on 4 November, and was buried in the family grave in the church at Burstall.223Bacon, Annalls, 443n; Birch, ‘Some Suff. church notes’, 68. Blosse (who was a cousin of John Sicklemor*) became sheriff of Suffolk the following year but neither he nor any other member of the family became an MP.224Vis. Suff. 1561, 1577 and 1612 ed. W.C. Metcalfe (Exeter, 1882), 114; Haslewood, ‘Ancient families of Suff.’, 135.