GORGES, John (c.1620-80), of Taunton, Som.

Gorges was still an infant at the time of the heralds’ visitation of Somerset in 1623.33Vis. Som. 1623, 41. He may therefore not yet have been of age in 1640 when his eldest brother, Thomas*, emigrated to Maine to serve as the deputy governor to their distant relative, Sir Ferdinando Gorges†. Thomas clearly hoped that Sir Ferdinando would find other positions for his brothers, but only for their younger brother, Robert, were specific plans made.34The Letters of Thomas Gorges, ed. R.F. Moody (Portland, Maine, 1978), 34, 68. John was then living in London and so, until Thomas’s return from the colonies in 1643, he was the person through whom Thomas sent his correspondence.35Letters of Thomas Gorges, 72, 97-8, 128, 135. John, in turn, sent printed news out to Thomas.36Letters of Thomas Gorges, 45.

Gorges served in the parliamentarian army from the earliest stages of the civil war. He may well have been one of the four men arrested by the vicar of Stepney and the local constable in July 1642 for recruiting volunteers. On 25 July the Commons intervened to get them released.37CJ ii. 690a. More certain is that by September he had signed up as an ensign in the infantry regiment raised by Sir William Constable*. In the spring of 1644 he transferred to the regiment commanded by Sir William Waller*.38SP28/2a. f. 155; Peacock, Army Lists, 42; BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database. During the course of the war, he saw action on at least one occasion, for he was present in November 1644 when Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* attacked the house of Sir John Strangways* at Abbotsbury in Dorset. The first stage of this engagement involved the capture of the local church. Cooper noted that, ‘Captain Gorge, a very gallant young gentleman, is hurt in the head with a freestone from the church tower and shot through the ankle, but we hope will live’.39W.D. Christie, A Life of Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury (1871), i. 63 On the creation of the New Model army in 1645, Gorges transferred to the infantry regiment commanded by James Holbourne and later by Sir Hardress Waller.40Temple, ‘Original officer list’, 56; Wanklyn, Reconstructing the New Model Army, i. 44, 55, 66; J. Sprigg, Anglia Rediviva (1647), 327. Two years later, in March 1647, the Commons proposed that he be appointed as the commander of the garrison at Exmouth, the fort which commanded the approach to Exeter from the sea.41CJ v. 111b. However, he may already have been making plans for life after the army, given that on 15 April he was admitted as a student at Lincoln’s Inn.42LI Admiss. i. 255. This was presumably partly prompted by the fact that Thomas had been called to the bar there just three months earlier. Yet this was a false start. In June the Lords finally approved his appointment as the governor of Exmouth and he then took up that posting.43LJ ix. 238a; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 563; Harington’s Diary, 34.

Gorges had probably left the army by the time he was added to Somerset commission of the peace in the summer of 1649.44C231/6, p. 160. He was now a local landowner, because, following the death of his father several months earlier, he had inherited some properties at Badgworth on a 70-year lease.45PROB11/207/434. As his appointment to the commission of the peace suggests, he was very willing to serve under the new republic. In early 1650 the council of state took advantage of that loyalty and of his military experience when it recruited him to serve as a colonel of a regiment of horse in the Somerset militia.46CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 521. The Rump also included him in the Somerset assessment commission from 1652.47A. and O. But his most significant appointment was as one of the sequestration commissioners for Somerset and Bristol. This was a source of much local in-fighting even before he was appointed. His name was first suggested in April 1650 as part of the attempt by John Pyne* and Alexander Popham* to block the nominees of John Ashe*.48CCC 194. Seven months later Gorges joined the commission as part of a compromise to satisfy both sides.49CCC 321, 345, 354-5. He was also appointed as the treasurer.50CCC 386, 561, 1428. No one regarded those jobs as secure and a year later he and his colleagues were expressing fears that their appointments might not be renewed.51CCC 501, 562. All Gorges could do was to perform his duties conscientiously. Perhaps too conscientiously. Pyne began to fear that Gorges would act against the corrupt practices of some of his other friends. He therefore had to get his attack in first.

In January 1653 Pyne accused Gorges, ‘a professed enemy to the godly and well-affected’, of being ‘a very corrupt hypocrite’.52CCC 625. It is true that Gorges may not have been blameless. In at least one case, he had been able to use this position to acquire lands for himself, for he had bought the manors of Babcary and Pury and a half-share of the manor of Stawell, all of which had been sequestered from Sir John Stawell*.53CCC 1429, 1430. But this was not the argument that Pyne used. The specific allegation was instead that Gorges had sought to suppress evidence against a suspected delinquent, Richard Cheesman, in return for a £500 bribe.54CCC 625, 629. Gorges had to spent most of 1653 battling to clear his name.55CCC 631, 639, 642, 645-6, 651, 652, 654, 659, 661, 662. Even more frustratingly for him, the verdict, when it was finally delivered by the Committee for Compounding on 14 December 1653, was no more than a partial vindication. The Committee ruled that the actual bribery allegation made by Pyne was unfounded, but that Gorges had nevertheless disobeyed their instructions. His punishment was dismissal from the commission.56CCC 663, 664.

Gorges however soon had the last laugh. He and his brothers strongly supported the Cromwellian protectorate, all to their personal advantages. John’s reward came almost immediately. In early 1654 the new government reorganised the sequestration system. The old county commissions were abolished and only one or two new commissioners were appointed for each county. Gorges was initially the sole commissioner appointed for Somerset.57CCC 672-3, 678. When, later that year he was asked to suggest someone to serve as a second commissioner, he seems to have struggled to find a willing candidate.58CCC 690. The feud between Gorges and Pyne also continued. In early 1655 the former rector of Exford, Bernard Waite, complained he had been dismissed from his living by Pyne, but Waite was said to be ‘much favoured by Colonel John Gorges’ and he hoped to get reinstated through the influence of the government in London.59TSP iii. 280.

John Gorges was elected with his brother, Thomas, as MP for Taunton on 8 July 1654. A full account of their parliamentary careers is thwarted by confusion in the records. The Journals only haphazardly and inconsistently distinguish between them. In this Parliament the only indisputable references all relate to John’s elder brother. The four committees with which John can reasonably be associated are ones to which both were named: the committees on the bill to regulate chancery (5 Oct. 1654); on the petition from William Craven, 1st Baron Craven (3 Nov.); on the writs of certiorari and habeas corpus (3 Nov.); and on fraudulent debentures (22 Nov.).60CJ vii. 374a, 381a, 381b, 387b-388a. Five other committees included an unspecified ‘Mr Gorges’.61CJ vii. 370a, 370b, 371b, 373b. One possibility might be that John was initially less active than his brother and that the clerks only began to attempt to distinguish between them once John became more involved, although this was by being nominated to the same committees as Thomas. What is known is that his absences in London during this Parliament were sufficiently prolonged for him to neglect his work as the sequestration commissioner in Somerset. Following complaints from one petitioner in January 1655 that he had been away from the county for three months, the Committee for Sequestrations in London appointed two assistants to take over his duties.62CCC 717, 2344. Two months later, at the time of Pendruddock’s rising, John Disbrowe* sent him to secure the defences of Somerset.63TSP iii. 309.

By the mid-1650s Gorges had joined the Taunton corporation. Whether he did so before or after his brother Thomas had been appointed as the town’s recorder is not known, but by February 1656 John was serving as the mayor.64QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, 298 He had probably been appointed the previous autumn and would then have held that office for the next twelve months. One consequence of this was that he was unable, as the town’s returning officer, to stand at Taunton in the elections for the second Protectoral Parliament in August 1656. This was not much of a problem, as there was a high-profile alternative candidate (Robert Blake*) while, by coming fourth in the county poll, Gorges easily secured one of the Somerset seats.65Som. Assize Orders, ed. Cockburn, 77.

At least one of the Gorges brothers played a very active role in this Parliament. Unfortunately, distinguishing between the numerous references to ‘Colonel Gorges’ and ‘Mr Gorges’ is almost impossible. Only once does the Journal unambiguously identify John – when he was named to the committee to investigate abuses relating to alehouses, inns and taverns (29 Sept. 1656).66CJ vii. 430a. A few other committees, such as that on the bill to settle Worcester House on Margaret, countess of Worcester (2 May 1657), included both brothers.67CJ vii. 429a, 435b, 457b, 529b. In compiling his diary, Thomas Burton* merely refers to ‘Colonel Gorges’. The ambiguous references are discussed in greater detail under the entry for Thomas Gorges, but one point that can be made about John’s role in this Parliament is that, unlike his brother, he was included in the list of those MPs who allegedly supported the moves to offer the crown to Oliver Cromwell*.68A Narrative of the late Parliament (1657), 22.

In a letter from Taunton in October 1657 to Henry Cromwell*, major-general of the army in Ireland and soon to become lord deputy, Gorges indicated that he planned to join him in Dublin.69Henry Cromwell Corresp. 339-40. His younger brother Dr Robert Gorges was already serving as a secretary to Henry Cromwell.70Henry Cromwell Corresp. 73, 121, 146. John had been designated governor of Londonderry: Henry Cromwell described him as such when he wrote at this time to the Goldsmiths’ Company in London recommending that Gorges be appointed as the tenant of the company’s lands in Londonderry.71Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths’ Co. ii. 121. Before leaving, Gorges encouraged the Somerset clergy to send one of their number to help in the Protestant evangelisation of Ireland. Perhaps optimistically, Gorges told Henry Cromwell that the (unnamed) clergyman who had been chosen had been ‘the main instrument in a very prudent manner to join the ministry of this county in such a firm bond of union that the name of Presbyterian or Independent are not mentioned here’.72Henry Cromwell Corresp. 339. Some time after he got to Ireland he was appointed as the lieutenant-colonel of Henry Cromwell’s foot regiment.73Wanklyn, Reconstructing the New Model Army, ii. 240.

Gorges’s posting in Ireland led him to settle permanently at Londonderry. As a leading army officer in the area and as an experienced MP, he was an obvious choice to become the MP for Counties Londonderry, Donegal and Tyrone in the 1659 Parliament. But it is, once again, very difficult to distinguish between the two Gorges brothers. The Journal almost always refers to them only as ‘Colonel’ Gorges; once Thomas is referred to as such.74CJ vii. 624b. However, none of the references can be firmly linked to John and it is not even clear that he ever left Ireland to take his seat. In July 1659, with the fall of Richard Cromwell* and in the wake of Henry Cromwell’s resignation as lord lieutenant, Gorges lost his commission in the Irish army.75CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 12; Firth and Davis, Regimental Hist. ii. 627. On 13 December 1659 a group of moderate army officers, led by John Bridges* and Theophilus Jones*, seized power in Dublin and removed their more radical colleagues. Gorges supported this coup by securing Londonderry several days later.76A Perfect Narrative of the Grounds & Reasons moving Some Officers of the Army in Ireland (1660), 11. His reward was to be appointed as the governor of Ulster.77Clarke, Prelude to Restoration Ireland, 147, 263. In March 1660 he and Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) wrote to Robert Douglas, the leader of the Resolutioner clergy in Edinburgh, suggesting that they work together with George Monck* to secure a coordinated religious settlement along Presbyterian lines in all three kingdoms.78R. Wodrow, The Hist. of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland (Glasgow, 1828-30), i. 12; Consultations, ed. Stephen, ii. 200.

Despite his links with the Cromwells, Gorges remained an officer in the Irish army after the Restoration and for some years he even prospered in it. In 1660 he was serving as a captain of a company of foot and he may initially have been posted to Carrickfergus. He later served as a lieutenant colonel under Viscount Massereene (Sir John Clotworthy*).79CSP Ire. 1669-70, p. 388; Irish Census, 1659, 20; Wanklyn, Reconstructing the New Model Army, ii. 269. But this was the point at which his connections with Londonderry became permanent. As early as April 1660 he was named to the poll money commission for Londonderry.80Irish Census, 1659, 626. His company of foot was based in the city by 1662.81HMC Ormonde, i. 245, 350, ii. 179. Then, in March 1663 he became the city’s governor for a second time.82HMC Ormonde, i. 266. His troop remained stationed there throughout the 1660s.83HMC Ormonde, i. 267, 269, 276, 288, 324, 342, ii. 185, 188, 192, 196, n.s. iii. 300. He probably joined the Londonderry corporation as an alderman under the new royal charter of April 1662, then in January 1664 he accepted the mayoralty.84HMC Ormonde, i. 294-5. A second term as mayor followed three years later.85HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 256. Moreover, he served again as their MP, this time in the Irish Parliament. Following a by-election, he took his seat in Dublin on 19 February 1666, although he seems to have been largely inactive.86Jnls. of the House of Commons of the Kingdom of Ireland, i. 381, 707, 714. Meanwhile, the Irish Society, the London-based body that oversaw the Londonderry plantation, employed him as their agent in the city. He continued as the tenant of the lands owned there by the Goldsmiths’ Company and he subsequently leased lands from the Merchant Taylors.87Curl, Londonderry Plantation, 97, 283, 313, 466. A further acquisition was Summer Seat (now Somerset House), a few miles to the south of Coleraine, which became his country seat.88Curl, Londonderry Plantation, 97; A. Rowan, North West Ulster (Buildings of Ireland, 1979), 213.

As a former Cromwellian, Gorges’s position in Charles II’s Irish army was never secure. In 1669 Thomas Butler, earl of Ossory, became lord deputy. He had Gorges court-martialled and removed as governor of Londonderry. But within a year Lord Berkeley (Sir John Berkeley*) had become lord lieutenant, whereupon he reinstated Gorges. It may well have counted in Gorges’s favour that his family and the Berkeleys of Bruton were near-neighbours in Somerset. Berkeley’s successor, Arthur Capel, 1st earl of Essex, was more cynical; he claimed that Gorges had bribed Berkeley with £400.89CSP Dom. 1672, p. 614. When Essex in 1672 set about reducing the size of the Irish army, he had no hesitation in removing Gorges. His company was disbanded and he was again removed as governor.90CSP Dom. 1672, p. 528; HMC Ormonde, ii. 200, 205. But in 1663 he had also been appointed governor of the nearby Culmore Fort on the River Foyle.91HMC Ormonde, i. 282. In December 1670, when he was probably reappointed to the latter office by Berkeley, Gorges obtained a new grant by patent of the Culmore governorship for the benefit of his son, John junior, who was then aged only 17.92CSP Ire. 1669-70, p. 319; Al. Ox.; CSP Dom. 1672, p. 528. When John senior was dismissed as governor of Londonderry in 1672, there was uncertainty over who held Culmore until the king revoked the 1670 patent.93CSP Dom. 1672, pp. 528, 614, 268-9; 1672-3, pp. 98, 103. Yet, in another twist, eight years later Gorges obtained a pardon and by August 1680, when his successor as governor of Londonderry, William Cecil, was granted the reversion to the Culmore governorship, Gorges held the position.94HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 332; CSP Dom. 1679-80, p. 621. However, within months Gorges was dead. John junior and Henry, his other son by his first marriage, predeceased him.95Gorges, Story of a Family, 210, 213; CSP Dom. 1673-4, p. 457; ‘John Gorges’, Al. Ox. His remaining son and heir, Henry (d. 1696), served as a colonel in the Inniskilling Dragoons under William III.