WINGATE, Edward (1606-85), of Cannons, Shenley, Herts.

This MP belonged to a cadet branch of the Bedfordshire Wingates. His father, Edward senior, was a younger son of George Wingate of Sharpenhoe and Harlington, Bedfordshire.27Vis. Beds. 1566, 1582 and 1634, 151, 201-2; Wingate, Hist. 19-20. Edward senior and Edmond Wingate* were first cousins. Edward senior was therefore a newcomer to Hertfordshire. In 1624 he bought Lockleys at Welwyn and he subsequently acquired other lands in the area.28Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 496; VCH Herts. iii. 167; Coventry Docquets, 711. As early as 1627 he was serving as a Hertfordshire justice of the peace.29Chauncy, Herts. ii. 410. By 1630 his only son, Edward junior, had married Mary Allway, who had inherited the manor of Cannons at Shenley, four miles to the south of St Albans, from her late father.30‘Raphe Alwey’s settlement’, 232-6; Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 484; VCH Herts. ii. 271. The Long Parliament elections in the autumn of 1640 marked the younger Edward’s first significant intervention in local politics. At St Albans he stood against Thomas Coningsby*, an unpopular figure because of his former role as a Ship Money sheriff. After a particularly rough contest, Wingate succeeded in defeating Coningsby.31CJ ii. 79b-80a, 88b; Two Diaries of Long Parl. 87; Procs. LP, ii. 479, 797.

Wingate’s first committee appointment in the Long Parliament was on 12 December 1640, when he was named to the committee on petitions.32CJ ii. 49b. There may in fact have been one particular petition of interest to him and this was one that was heard by the Commons later that same day. This was from the foreman of the Hertfordshire grand jury about the attempt to bring a case at the county assizes against the re-ordering of the communion table in All Saints, Hertford. The assize judge, Sir Robert Berkeley†, had allegedly responded by tearing up the presentment and having the foreman imprisoned. Wingate backed up the foreman’s account. According to John Northcote*, Wingate advised the Commons ‘Not to make new or more laws, but to have new or better judges’.33Northcote Note Bk. 56. Wingate was then one of the four MPs added to the committee on complaints against judges after this petition was referred to it.34CJ ii. 50a; Procs. LP, i. 581. Another judge he had in his sights was Lord Keeper Finch (John Finch†). Several days later he warned that, as ‘birds upon wing fly swiftly’, there was a real risk that Finch might flee the country.35Northcote Note Bk. 87. After Finch appeared at the bar of the House on 21 December to answer the accusations against him, Wingate scoffed that, ‘Had not this siren such a sweet tongue, [he] could not have done so much mischief’.36Northcote Note Bk. 96. Finch had been the Speaker in the 1628 Parliament and had played a controversial role in its dissolution. Wingate’s misgivings about Finch may therefore explain why on 23 February 1641 he headed the list of MPs added to the committee on breaches of privilege in that Parliament.37CJ ii. 91a.

Wingate had meanwhile been added on 19 December 1640 to the sub-committee of the grand committee on religion after it had been asked to consider how to improve the quality of preaching by clergymen.38CJ ii. 54b. Other committee appointments confirm his support for religious reform. On 30 December he was added to the committee investigating one of the more notorious of the Laudian bishops, Matthew Wren of Ely.39CJ ii. 59b. The following March he also sat on the committee on the bill against pluralities (10 Mar. 1641).40CJ ii. 101a. When the Protestation was proposed on 3 May, Wingate took it immediately.41CJ ii. 133b.

On 21 June Denzil Holles* reported to the House on the evidence taken from George Goring* about the first army plot, the scheme by which some around the king and the queen had conspired to bring south the army in the north of England with the intention of threatening Parliament. Wingate was one of a number of MPs who then called for them to put themselves into ‘a posture of defence’ against this threat.42Procs. LP, v. 256, 261. One potential way of doing so would be by overhauling the county militias. Wingate was among the MPs appointed on 15 July to draft a bill for that purpose.43CJ ii. 212b. In late August he was one of the three commissioners appointed to disarm recusants within Hertfordshire.44LJ iv. 385b. On 9 September he was among those appointed to oversee business during the autumn recess.45CJ ii. 288b.

When Parliament reassembled, John Pym* pushed ahead with his plans for a detailed statement of Parliament’s grievances, the Grand Remonstrance. Not only did this probably have Wingate’s full support, but he was also able to make a minor contribution to its text. On 9 November Wingate was one of a number of MPs who made individual suggestions as to how the Remonstrance could be improved. His suggestion was that it should discuss ‘The proclamation set forth, forbidding people so much as to talk of a Parliament’.46CJ ii. 309a. This was a reference to the proclamation of 27 March 1629, which had condemned speculation as to when a new Parliament might be called, and to the king’s declaration justifying the dissolution of the Short Parliament.47A Proclamation for suppressing of false Rumours touching Parliament (1629); His Majesties Declaration: to all his loving subjects, Of the causes which moved him to dissolve the last Parliament (1640). The result was that the sixteenth clause of the Remonstrance included a mention of those proclamations ‘to the great dejecting of the hearts of the people, forbidding them even to speak of Parliaments’.48Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution 1625-1660 ed. S.R. Gardiner (Oxford, 1889), 134.

On 8 January 1642, following the king’s attempted arrest of the Five Members, Wingate was appointed to the emergency committee on the safety of the kingdom which met at the Guildhall.49CJ iv. 458b. Now that there appeared to be an open breach between the king and Parliament, some of the Hertfordshire gentry expressed their support for the latter by submitting a petition to the Commons. This called for the bishops and the Catholic peers to be barred from the Lords. When the petition was read in the Commons on 25 January, Wingate accused Charles Price* of saying ‘some ill words’, probably sotto voce, against it. Price eventually apologised.50PJ i. 161, 167, 171. That same day Wingate and most of the other Hertfordshire MPs were appointed to investigate who had been responsible for printing the rival petition from the county.51CJ ii. 393a. On 7 April he made ‘a long discourse’ when he raised the issue of laymen preaching and administering the sacraments. This was then referred to the committee for scandalous ministers.52PJ ii. 137; CJ ii. 515a-b. Later that same month he was one of those asked to prepare an answer to the Kent petition (30 Apr.).53CJ ii. 550b.

By June 1642, with both the king and Parliament beginning to make their own military preparation, the mood in the Commons had become more than a little jittery. The most minor matters could now seem threatening. So Wingate was appointed with Oliver Cromwell* on 3 June to inspect a consignment of calf skins which had been stopped by customs officials in London. He subsequently reported back that all was in order.54CJ ii. 603b, 637b; PJ iii. 8. On 7 June he was ordered to thank the mayor of St. Albans for detaining some horses, although as they turned out to belong to the prince of Wales, they were probably then released.55CJ ii. 611a. With the other Hertfordshire Members he was ordered to the summer assizes at Hertford on 14 July to advance the propositions for money and plate.56CJ ii. 667a, 671b. On 26 July the Commons heard proposals from some gentlemen who offered to collect the tax arrears due to Parliament. Wingate supported this suggestion, serving as the teller with Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire* for the majority that voted to accept the offer.57CJ ii. 691b.

With armed conflict now imminent, Wingate was quick to volunteer his services to Parliament. As early as mid-July he was being referred to as ‘Captain Wingate’.58CJ ii. 667a, 671b. He was given the command of a troop of horse, which he had quite possibly recruited himself.59SP28/1a, ff. 71, 72, 76, 243, 245; Peacock, Army Lists, 52. His banner as a captain indicated his reasons for siding with Parliament; it showed a robin outside a cage with the motto ‘Non verna’ (‘Not a slave’).60Prestwich’s Respublica (1787), 32; Emblematic Flag Devices of the English Civil Wars 1642-1660 ed. A.R. Young (Toronto, 1995), 143. He and his men quickly saw action as they took part in the first major engagement of the war at Powick Bridge outside Worcester on 23 September. According to Edward Hyde*, he ‘behaved himself stoutly’, but that was not enough to prevent the royalists overrunning their camp and Wingate was then taken prisoner.61Clarendon, Hist. ii. 324; A True Relation of the Late Battaile Before Worcester (1642, 669.f.6.80); A Letter Sent from the Lord Falkland (1642), sig. A3; G. Wharton, England’s Iliads in a Nutshell (1645), sig. Bv.

On being taken to Worcester, he was interrogated by Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice. In a letter purportedly written by him to a fellow MP, he subsequently claimed that on being asked by them why he was obeying Parliament rather than the king, he told them that

I conceived the high court of Parliament being the representative body of the whole kingdom and so the greatest council and elected of the choicest and learnedst persons in the kingdom and so the wisest, of the most aged and experienced members, and so the greatest could best judge of the affairs, and of such laws and ordinances which might most tend to the safety and tranquillity of this state and commonwealth. Therefore I conceived I ought in conscience to obey their commands.62The True Copie of a Letter written by Captaine Wingate (1642), 2 (E.121.17).

Wingate also claimed that Rupert had also made him ride naked when they entered Ludlow.63True Copie of a Letter, 3-4. Another contemporary source made the same allegation, asserting that Wingate had been treated ‘in a most barbarous manner’.64True Relation of the Late Battaile. He was later transferred to Oxford Castle, where he was said to have been kept in solitary confinement.65E. Chillenden, The Inhumanity of the Kings Prison Keeper at Oxford (1643), 11 (E.63.17); A true and most sad Relation of the hard usage and extrem cruelty used (1643), 3 (E.89.13). Wingate himself would later claim that a royalist commission of oyer and terminer held at Kenilworth Castle had sentenced him to death.66CJ v. 399a.

Within days there was already talk of him being included in a prisoner exchange.67Add. 18777, f. 18. In early October one rumour was that he would be ransomed for £500.68A Remonstance of the present estate of the Kings Armie (1642), sig. [A4v]. Another was that he might be exchanged for the son of Sir John Strangways*.69HMC Cowper, ii. 322. A third was that the king was insisting that he could only be exchanged for Major Joseph Bampfield or for £5,000.70A True Relation of the Proceedings at Hereford (1642), 5 (E.122.20). His case was raised in the Commons by Sir Thomas Dacres* on 14 December.71Harl. 164, f. 284v. As he was one of the most high-profile of the prisoners, he was one of the four officers named in Parliament’s declaration of 17 December condemning their detention.72LJ v. 497a-b. On 31 December his wife appeared before the Commons to inform them of the ‘miserable condition’ which Wingate and the other prisoners were being kept.73CJ ii. 909b. Three weeks later, on 20 January 1643 the Commons got Denzil Holles to write to the lord general, the 3rd earl of Essex, about Wingate’s ‘great arrear of pay’.74CJ ii. 935b. This had the intended effect, as just four days later Essex signed an order for the payment of Wingate’s arrears for the past 15 weeks.75SP28/5, f. 197. On 14 February John Pym* informed the Commons that the king’s general-in-chief, Lord Ruthven of Ettrick, had proposed a prisoner exchange involving the imprisoned royalist, Sir William Fleming. Pym secured the House’s agreement to his suggestion that Fleming should be exchanged for Wingate.76Harl. 164, f. 297; CJ ii. 965a. Some weeks later Richard Taverner, probably his nephew of that name, was given permission by the Commons to visit him.77CJ ii. 977a. That spring Wingate was also visited by the parliamentary commissioners, Bulstrode Whitelocke* and Sir John Holland*.78Whitelocke, Diary, 145.

His friends had meanwhile petitioned the Hertfordshire county committee about some of the financial difficulties created by his absence. The committee passed those concerns on to the Commons, which heard this petition on 7 April. The result was that the Commons ordered that Wingate’s wife was to be paid his arrears from the Hertfordshire assessments. His tenants were also commanded to pay their rents.79CJ iii. 33a; The Impact of First Civil War on Herts. ed. A. Thomson (Herts. Rec. Soc. xxiii.), 135. That same day the Commons heard the news from Oxford that their proposal that Wingate be swapped for Fleming had been rejected.80CJ iii. 33a. On 29 April Wingate and the other prisoners at Oxford wrote to Parliament. Their letter was read in the Commons by William Pierrepont* on 11 May.81Harl. 164, f. 389. Further evidence that some of Wingate’s tenants were taking advantage of his absence soon emerged. On 20 May the Commons heard that ‘divers rude people’ had conducted a night-time raid on the crops on his lands at Shenley.82CJ iii. 94b-95a.

In the end it was not a prisoner exchange that got Wingate released but his own initiative. In early June he managed to escape.83J. Vicars, God on the Mount (1643), 344 (E.73.4). Sir Simonds D’Ewes* subsequently compiled a detailed account of the escape, most probably based on a conversation the two of them had the following January.84Harl. 164, ff. 397v-398v; Harl. 165, f. 280v. Assisted by one of the gaolers and using a pass intended for one of the other prisoners, Wingate was able to walk out of the prison in disguise. The two of them were then able to make their way to safety at Aylesbury.85Harl. 164, ff. 397v-398v. He reached the parliamentarian army at Reading on 4 June.86Intelligence from the Armie (1643), 10 (E.105.16).

On 6 June Wingate resumed his seat in the Commons.87Harl. 164, ff. 389, 397v. D’Ewes observed that he was ‘so weak in body and looked so pale and ghastly as I did not know him’. The MPs present removed their hats a mark of respect towards him.88Harl. 164, f. 397v. Two days later he was able to take the new covenant introduced in response to Waller’s plot.89CJ iii. 120a. In his absence the sequestration committee for Hertfordshire had been created. Wingate was therefore added to it later that same month.90CJ iii. 141b; LJ vi. 106a.

During his imprisonment Wingate had nominally remained captain of his troop of horse.91SP28/1a, f. 286; SP28/2a, f. 450; SP28/3b, f. 318; SP28/4, f. 245; SP28/5, f. 197. On 9 August he probably acknowledged that the sum of £138 9s, the money due to him for his arrears of pay up to the date of the Commons order of 7 April, had been paid.92SP28/7, f. 165; SP28/9, f. 317. That however marked the end of his military career. He was presumably still not in a fit physical state to resume his command. The main way in which he could support Parliament would henceforth have to be as an MP.

His immediate concern was for the fellow prisoners he had left behind at Oxford. On 12 July the Commons ordered that he was to be paid £100 by the treasurer-at-war for their assistance.93CJ iii. 164a. On 27 July he and Cornelius Holland* were instructed to prepare a letter to the earl of Essex to inquire what was being done about the latest royalist offer of a prisoner exchange.94CJ iii. 183a. But he did not see the issue as being as straightforward as some others did. On 4 August he complained to the Commons about the pamphlet by another former prisoner at Oxford, Edmund Chillenden, which attacked the conduct of their gaoler, William Smith.95Harl. 165, f. 136 Wingate’s claim that it contained serious inaccuracies carried weight as Chillenden had made much of Wingate’s mistreatment at Smith’s hands.96Chillenden, Inhumanity, 11, 22-3. The result was that Chillenden’s pamphlet was referred to the committee for printing.97Harl. 165, f. 136. He may have thought that such crude attacks on their enemies might be counter-productive.

Wingate was in any case less belligerent than some at Westminster. The war seemed to be going badly. Some therefore concluded that a peace deal would be the lesser of two evils. Recent military failures also raised questions about the quality of the army command. The creation of a committee on 22 July, with Wingate as a member, with its remit of gathering information on the state of the army was an attempt to exploit those concerns.98CJ iii. 178b. But Wingate probably still supported Essex as lord general and may have hoped he would support possible peace overtures. In early August the two Houses agreed to send a delegation to meet with Essex. The Lords saw this as a way of winning him over to their preference for a negotiated settlement. On 3 August the Commons sought to counteract this by adding John Pym* to the delegation. In the division on the subject, Wingate and his friend Sir Thomas Dacres* were the tellers against Pym’s inclusion.99CJ iii. 193a.

The same eirenic instincts on the part of both Wingate and Dacres were again evident later that same month. On 14 August the Commons debated a proposal that those in Hertfordshire who had refused to take the new oath and covenant should be disarmed. Dacres and Wingate both defended those who had refused on the grounds that most of them had willingly paid the taxes levied by Parliament.100Harl. 165, f. 180. During a debate on 24 August John Glynne* demanded to know why the Hertfordshire sequestration commissioners had not already confiscated the estates of (Sir) John Harrison* now that he had deserted to the king. This was rather unfair anyway, as Harrison had only recently travelled to Oxford and he was still officially an MP, but Glynne went further and accused the Hertfordshire county committee of being ‘favourers of malignants’. This caused Wingate ‘to fly upon him with some sharpness’. After being ordered to withdraw to the committee chamber to calm down, Wingate grudgingly agreed to apologise to Glynne.101Harl. 165, f. 155v; Add. 31116, f. 73; CJ iii. 217b.

The adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant presented problems of conscience for Wingate.102SP29/14, f. 39. He presumably viewed the alliance with the Scots and its commitment to further religious reform as obstacles to any quick and peaceful resolution to the war. MPs began to take the Covenant on 25 September. Five days later Wingate was one of 14 MPs who asked for more time.103CJ iii. 259b. Only on 19 October did he finally get round to taking it.104CJ iii. 281b. The following February he was however one of the MPs appointed to tender it to Sir Edward Dering*.105CJ iii. 390b.

In early December 1643 the royalists were thought to be threatening Aylesbury. Wingate and Dacres were two of the seven MPs appointed to meet with the men who had brought this news to Westminster.106CJ iii. 334a. On 22 February 1644 the Commons discussed whether to exchange George Goring for the 1st earl of Lothian. When William Strode I* suggested that instead of Goring, they should hand over one of the royal children, Wingate objected in the most intemperate manner. Strode’s suggestion was then passed over.107Harl. 166, f. 16. On 25 March Wingate was included on the committee to fix pay scales for the army.108CJ iii. 437a. The following day he and Sir William Lytton* were among those ordered to prepare a letter to the major-general of the Eastern Association, the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†), for speedy redress of complaints about the reassessment of the fifth and twentieth part.109CJ iii. 438b.

Wingate may have had personal knowledge relating to one of the committees to which he was appointed in early 1644. One of the other prisoners at Oxford had been George Austin. He had however died while still in custody. His widow had since encountered difficulties in proving his will. When a committee was created on 13 January 1644 to hear her complaints, Wingate was named to it.110CJ iii. 366b. Another MP of the committee was another former prisoner at Oxford, Valentine Wauton*. Frideswide Austin subsequently became Wauton’s second wife. Moreover, by 1646 a dispute between Wauton and the Austin family had resulted in a case before the court of king’s bench. Wingate was then summoned as witness.111CJ iv. 721b. That is not the only evidence that Wingate and Wauton were friends. The two of them are known to have worked together to raise money to assist the prisoners still at Oxford. At some point they borrowed money from Adrian Scrope* for that purpose.112CJ iv. 407a.

D’Ewes felt let down by Wingate on 29 April 1644, when, despite his previous assurances, he failed to second D’Ewes when he moved that thanks be sent to the Dutch ambassadors.113Harl. 166, f. 53. Several weeks later, on 18 May, Wingate was named to the committee to investigate the conduct of the 1st earl of Stamford, who had been defeated in the south west a year earlier.114CJ iii. 498a. That July he passed on information about the casualty numbers at Marston Moor to Sir Roger Burgoyne*.115HMC 7th Rep. i. 448. That same month he sat on the committee on the petitions from several army widows and from wives whose husbands had been taken prisoner (24 July).116CJ iii. 569a. His handful of other committee appointments in the months that followed concerned the navy (21 Aug.), the Leicestershire county standing committee (21 Nov.) and MPs’ allowances (19 Dec.).117CJ iii. 601a, 701a, 728b.

Until now the counties comprising the Eastern Association, which included Hertfordshire, had enjoyed a measure of control over their own army. That was now threatened by the creation of the New Model. Wingate may actually have supported the principle of the New Model, as on 17 February 1645 he was included on the Commons committee to organise its implementation.118CJ iv. 51a. But he was aware of the local sensitivities. In late April the collector for the Newport Pagnell garrison, William Love, sought support at Westminster for more money for the major garrisons within the association. The advantage of this was as a sop to those within the association who resented their loss of local control. On the advice of 4th Lord Wharton, Love approached Wingate, who was apparently his ‘cousin’, and asked him to raise the matter in the Commons. Although Sir Thomas Dacres may then have done more of the lobbying for this, an ordinance granting that additional funding was passed in early September.119Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 496-7; A. and O. i. 762-6.

The military tide was turning, especially after Naseby. One problem created by success was the number of royalist prisoners in parliamentarian custody. On 18 June Wingate had been named to the committee asked to consider what should be done with them.120CJ iv. 177b. Another such problem was the growing number of royalists who wanted to compound for their estates. That same day he was also named to the committee on the bill to overhaul that process.121CJ iv. 178b. On 1 July several MPs were asked to write to their counties telling them that care be taken to find the best recruits for the army. Wingate was the one asked to write to Dacres in Hertfordshire.122CJ iv. 192b. Three days later a committee, of which Wingate was a member, was appointed to consider the allegations by 2nd Lord Savile (Sir Thomas Savile†) against Holles and Whitelocke.123CJ iv. 195b. That same month, on 16 July, the Commons granted him £200, which was to be paid to him as a weekly allowance of £10.124CJ iv. 210a. A clue as to the reason for this grant is that on 5 August Whitelocke obtained leave of absence for him ‘for recovery of his health’.125Harl. 166, f. 250; CJ iv. 230a. It may well be that he was still suffering from the after-effects of his time as a prisoner.

Although there is otherwise nothing to suggest that Wingate had since returned to Westminster, the Commons agreed on 24 March to grant him another weekly allowance of £4.126CJ iv. 487a. He was more certainly attending the House in late April, when he was named to the committee on the latest assessment bill (24 Apr.).127CJ iv. 521a. On 10 June the Commons gave him permission to appear as a witness in a case before the court of common pleas.128CJ iv. 571a. (That may have related to Wauton’s dispute with the Austin family.) In early July he was named to the committees on the bill to regulate Oxford University (1 July) and on those parliamentarians owed money by royalist delinquents (6 July).129CJ iv. 595b, 603a. Later in the year he sat on the committees about the Newcastle-upon-Tyne by-election (11 Sept.), the pay and conditions of major-generals (10 Oct) and the bill for the maintenance of ministers (11 Nov.).130CJ iv. 666b, 690a, 719b. The work of the Committee of Accounts had long been controversial and since 1645 a rival committee under the chairmanship of Samuel Browne* had existed to oversee its work. Wingate was among the many MPs added to Browne’s committee on 25 January 1647.131CJ v. 63a. It was probably not a coincidence that the Committee of Accounts was then considering Wingate’s own army accounts, which they finally approved four months later.132CJ v. 399a. On 9 April he was also one of seven MPs temporarily added to the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs when it was asked to consider the army establishments in both England and Ireland.133CJ v. 138a. He was present in the House on 27 May when a division was called on whether Francis Rivett* should be appointed as the governor of St Nicholas’s Hospital in Salisbury. He was however one of four MPs accused of trying to sneak out of the chamber without voting. On being compelled to vote, Wingate supported Rivett’s appointment.134CJ v. 187b.

It must be assumed that Wingate remained at Westminster in late July when the Speakers and the Independents withdrew to join the army. The evidence for this is however only indirect. On 3 August the Commons issued an order that horses which had been seized from Wingate and Sir William Lytton should be released.135CJ v. 267a. The MPs most likely to have raised that matter were surely Wingate and Lytton themselves. However, Wingate was included on the committee appointed on 18 August on the bill to reverse all the decisions made between 26 July and 6 August.136CJ v. 278a.

One of the army’s immediate grievances was its arrears. On 22 October Wingate was named to the committee appointed to consider how those arrears might be paid.137CJ v. 340a. But this was a grievance which Wingate shared. On 23 December the Commons heard a petition from him in which he explained how the Committee of Accounts had accepted that he was owed £933 12s in arrears, plus £730 for other expenses. The Commons therefore ordered that the committee for the Eastern Association should issue orders for this money to be paid to him.138CJ v. 399a. It may well have been with this in mind that he attended a meeting of that committee on 18 January.139SP28/251, unfol. Wingate’s petition had also highlighted the death sentence passed against him while a prisoner of the royalists. That was referred to the committee of complaints.140CJ v. 399a.

Wingate was appointed to the large committee of grievances created on 4 January 1648, the day after the Vote of No Addresses.141CJ v. 417a. But by now he was probably only an infrequent attender. He was certainly absent during the call of the House on 24 April, although it was noted that he had previously been granted leave of absence.142CJ v. 543b. On 4 August he was added to Browne’s committee on the Committee of Accounts (a committee of which he was already a member) when it was asked to consider the case of Lionell Copley*.143CJ v. 661b. Faced with the problem of funding the army, the Commons sent Wingate and seven other MPs (including three others from Hertfordshire) on 21 October to meet with the lord general, Sir Thomas Fairfax*, to discuss possible reductions in the size of the army.144CJ vi. 58a. Bringing in the assessments quicker was another way in which Parliament hoped to address this problem, so on 25 November the Commons sent some MPs back to their counties to encourage this. Wingate and Dacres were the two sent to Hertfordshire.145CJ vi. 87b.

Wingate was among the MPs excluded from the Commons by the army on 6 December 1648.146A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5). At the Restoration he would claim that he had been purged from Parliament and imprisoned because he had been ‘of a different judgment concerning the Covenant, church government, propositions of peace and their proceedings with his late majesty’. He also claimed that he had opposed the Engagement.147SP29/14, f. 39. Some of those statements are however open to question. There is some doubt as to whether he was imprisoned following the purge. His name does appear on one of the lists of imprisoned MPs but not on the others.148A Perfect List of Forty Eight Members of Parliament [1648], sig. A4v; The Parliament under the Power of the Sword (1648, 669.f.13.52); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 389. Moreover, at the time he was said to have taken the Engagement, as it was on that basis that he was appointed in November 1649 to the pension of Gray’s Inn, that inn’s governing body.149PBG Inn, i. 374. He then attended its meetings regularly until 1656.150PBG Inn, i. 375-88, 401-17.

In 1660 Wingate would also claim that his exclusion from political power under the republic had meant that he ‘suffered the loss of [a] great part of his estate, the loss of his two most hopeful sons and [the] hazard of his own life’.151SP29/14, f. 39. His financial position may in fact have improved, as in 1654, on the death of his father, he inherited Lockleys. He then devoted much of his energy to improving that estate.152Chauncy, Herts. ii. 30. The rector of Welwyn would later complain that Wingate’s enclosure of land to create a rabbit warren had reduced the value of his living by £30 a year.153Herts. County Recs. i. 161-2. It is however true that he sold off the lands at Shenley in 1656 for £3,200.154Herts. RO, 27442-3; Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 484; VCH Herts. ii. 271. What is not clear is how far he was forced to do so or had simply decided to concentrate on his lands at Lockleys.

Wingate resumed his seat in the Commons when the secluded Members were re-admitted in late February 1660.155SP29/14, f. 39. He had presumably done so as early as 24 February, just three days after they had been allowed to do so, as he was then named to the committee on the bill for holding the Lancashire assizes.156CJ vii. 851b. Five days later he was also named to committees on the appointment of clergymen, the loan from the corporation of London and the bill to settle the London militia.157CJ vii. 856a. The next day he was added to the revived committee for the poor knights of Windsor as it was asked to consider how to assist the wounded veterans housed at Ely House and the Savoy.158CJ vii. 857a. On 2 May he was among the MPs added to the committee on the bill for the vetting of clergymen being appointed to ecclesiastical livings.159CJ vii. 858a. Meanwhile, Parliament had wanted to appoint William Love†, one of the members of the council of state, as one of the new customs commissioners, but Love declined to serve. Wingate was therefore appointed on 25 February as his replacement. That appointment was however overtaken by the Restoration several months later.160CJ vii. 853a; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 416; 1660-1, p. 253; CTB i. 307; vii. 1630.

Wingate was keen to seek a job under the new king. He petitioned without success for the reversion to the position of knight harbinger.161SP29/2, f. 53. He also saw potential in the new wine impost and so asked Charles II for a position in its administration.162SP29/14, f. 39. This approach was more successful, as that autumn he was appointed as one of the excise commissioners.163CTB i. 79. Initially their task was confined to collecting the arrears still due from the interregnum excises. But in December 1660 the Convention Parliament granted new excises and Wingate was among the commissioners kept on to administer them.164SR. That task was a difficult one and the sums they were able to collect were disappointing. So from 1662 the government decided to farm the excise. But even so the commissioners’ duties remained time-consuming ones.165C.D. Chandaman, The English Public Revenue 1660-1688 (Oxford, 1975), 51-5. From March 1665 there were just four commissioners – Sir Denny Ashburnham†, Sir George Benyon, Francis Finch† and Wingate.166CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 285; CTB, i. 663; iv. 534-5; v. 646. They however faced competition from the farmers of the London excises and in 1668 those London farmers succeeded in taking over from them the oversight of the other farms.167Chandaman, English Public Revenue, 57-8. Wingate and his colleagues were paid off with annuities of £250.168CTB ii. 579, 627; iii. 184, 190, 194, 206, 243, 284, 513, 669, 757, 809, 874. He soon found another government job when in 1670 Parliament granted additional wine duties. He served along with John Birch* and Edmund Waring† as the joint commissioners to administer them.169CTB iii. 407, 414, 561; CSP Dom. 1670, p. 217.

The continuing struggle to improve the efficiency of the excise administration eventually opened the way for Wingate’s re-appointment as an excise commissioner. In 1674 the excise was farmed to a single group of farmers. A new commission was then appointed to oversee them.170Chandaman, English Public Revenue, 62-4. Wingate was one of those new commissioners.171CTB, iv. 579, 587. However, in the final years of the reign, in the aftermath of the Exclusion crisis, he was clearly viewed with suspicion by the government, suggesting that they assumed he was a whig sympathiser. In the spring of 1682 he was among those purged from the Hertfordshire commission of the peace.172CSP Dom. 1682, p. 218. The decision a year later to resume direct excise collection then provided an opportunity to have him removed as an excise commissioner. Of the five existing commissioners, he was the only one not included on the new commission in May 1683.173CSP Dom. 1683 Jan.-June, p. 155. Wingate died on 8 August 1685 and was buried at St Mary’s, Welwyn.174Chauncy, Herts. ii. 31. No later member of the family sat in Parliament and his only surviving son, Ralph, sold Lockleys in 1715.175VCH Herts. iii. 167.