PIGOTT, Sir Richard (d.1685), of Doddershall, Quainton, Bucks.

Originally from Winslow, this branch of the Pigott family had lived at Quainton since the late fifteenth century when Thomas Pigott of Whaddon, a successful lawyer who rose to be a serjeant-at-law, had bought the manor of Doddershall. His widow, Elizabeth Iwardby, built Doddershall House in the 1520s.21VCH Bucks. iv. 93, 96; Pevsner, Bucks. 280-1. On the death of Sir Christopher Pigott† in 1613, the estate passed to his younger brother Richard, father of this MP.

Very little is known about the future MP’s earliest years. Even his date of birth is uncertain, although it is likely that he came of age at some point during the late 1620s. In 1630 he was old enough to be knighted by the king at Theobalds.22Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 198; Eland, Pprs. 58-9. By March 1633, when their eldest daughter, Margery, was born, he had married Anne Harrington.23Lipscomb, Buckingham, i. 406. His appointment that same year to the commission of the peace was his first public office and it was a measure of the family’s standing that Richard was given it even although his father was still alive.24C231/5, p. 101. Richard senior must have died some time during 1636 – he was still alive at the beginning of that year but it was Sir Richard who was assessed for Ship Money several months later.25VCH Bucks. iv. 96; Ship Money Pprs. 64. That Ship Money assessment is one indication that his inheritance had been sizeable, as he was required to pay a hefty £10 17s 8d.26Ship Money Pprs. 64. As a knight, a wealthy landowner and a local magistrate, Pigott was already a man of some substance within Buckinghamshire by the late 1630s.

Pigott was among Buckinghamshire gentry who met at Aylesbury in June 1642 to secure control of the county.27Nugent, Hampden, ii. 458. The lord lieutenant, Philip, 4th Baron Wharton, in siding with Parliament, then appointed him as a deputy lieutenant.28Eland, Pprs. 61-2. At about the same time the king appointed Pigott as a commissioner of array.29Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. Clearly both sides regarded him as an important local figure whose support was worth seeking. Faced with this choice Pigott had no hesitation in siding with Parliament. In the years that followed he would be one of its leading supporters in Buckinghamshire, serving on the county standing committee, the assessment commissions and the sequestration committee.30Luke Letter Bks. 565; A. and O. He acted for a time as chairman of the latter. To these would be added his appointment as sheriff of Buckinghamshire, which probably occurred in the autumn of 1645 when he would have succeeded Henry Beke (father of Richard Beke*). The accounts which he delivered to the Committee of Accounts on 30 January 1646 apparently showed that, as sheriff, he had succeeded in collecting the county’s full share of the poll tax.31Eland, Pprs. 63-4. Even once he had completed his turn as sheriff, he remained heavily involved in tax collection. Between June 1646 and June 1647 he and Richard Grenville* acted as the collectors for the assessments in Assendon hundred.32SP28/148, ff. 73-95. Documents relating to the collection of the assessments raised in 1648 survive among his personal papers.33Eland, Pprs. 68-79. He seems to have made a point of maintaining useful contacts at Westminster – in December 1645 he sent some venison to the MP for Great Marlow, Bulstrode Whitelocke*.34Whitelocke, Diary, 183. In the spring of 1647 he spent some time in London and it was there Mary, Lady Verney, wife of Sir Ralph Verney*, sought his help in connection with some business she had with the Committee for Sequestrations. Pigott promised that he would do what he could for her once he returned to Buckinghamshire, which caused Lady Verney to comment that Pigott ‘is chairman there, and they say hath great credit amongst them’.35Mems. of the Verney Fam. ii. 256.

Pigott continued in office under the republic. The decision by the council of state on 7 May 1650 that he and Grenville should be added to the Buckinghamshire militia commission seems not to have been acted on, as the council had to issue a similar order for Pigott’s appointment three months later. That second order is known to have been delivered to the commissioners, who then wrote to Pigott informing him of this development.36CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 145, 288; Eland, Pprs. 80. In July 1651 the local sheriff, Simon Bennett, consulted him, probably in connection with the preparations against the threatened invasion of England by Charles Stuart and the Scots.37Eland, Pprs. 81-2. There is no reason to think that he reconsidered his willingness to hold local office once Oliver Cromwell* became lord protector.

Pigott was one of the five MPs elected to represent Buckinghamshire in the 1654 Parliament. Little can be established about his activity there, although it is known that he was included on the committee for privileges and that he was added on 5 October to the committee for retrenching the expenses of the commonwealth as it deliberated the recall of warships on active service.38CJ vii. 366b, 373a, 373b.

He was re-elected as MP for Buckinghamshire in August 1656.39Whitelocke, Diary, 447. One of the first issues that the new Parliament had to consider was whether to object to the exclusion of some of its Members. Pigott was among the minority of MPs who on 22 September tried to prevent this matter being referred back to the council of state, which tends to suggest that he sympathised with some of those who had been prevented from taking their seats.40Bodl. Tanner 52, ff. 166, 170. That December he eagerly joined the clamour at Westminster against the Quaker heretic, James Naylor. Pigott was decidedly unsympathetic. In the debate on 9 December he proposed that Naylor’s tongue be bored.41Burton’s Diary, i. 91. Two days later he acted as one of the tellers for those who wanted the debate on Naylor to be adjourned until later that day. That motion was narrowly defeated and the debate was instead adjourned until the following day.42CJ vii. 467a; Burton’s Diary, i. 115. On 18 December he was added to the committee on Naylor after it was asked to consider how other Quakers could be suppressed.43CJ vii. 470a. Pigott’s other committee appointments confirm that he was uncomfortable with the idea of religious licence, for he seems to have supported improved maintenance for the clergy and tougher laws to enforce the sabbath.44CJ vii. 453b, 488a, 493b. He also took an interest in proposals to reform the laws on artificers’ wages and in the plans to crackdown on attempts to evade the financial penalties against Roman Catholics.45CJ vii. 435a, 444a. He was a teller on one other occasion, when, on 11 June 1657, he helped block the moves to reduce the assessment demand imposed on Pembrokeshire.46CJ vii. 559a-b. His only known contribution to the brief second session of this Parliament in early 1658 was to be added to the committee for privileges.47CJ vii. 580b.

In early 1660 Pigott may have had doubts about the decision to re-admit the secluded Members to the Rump.48Mems. of the Verney Fam. iii. 463. Even so, he accommodated himself to the Restoration easily enough. He began by applying for a royal pardon, which was granted to him in December 1660.49PSO5/8, unfol. He was not invariably appointed as a local commissioner under Charles II, but he did serve as a justice of the peace, as an assessment commissioner and as a sewer commissioner.50C231/7, p. 110; SR; C181/7, p. 255. He is not to be confused with the other Sir Richard Piggott, who, as one of the hearth tax farmers and the clerk of the patents in chancery, was a much more prominent public figure after the Restoration.51Le Neve’s Pedigrees, 203; C.D. Chandaman, The English Public Revenue 1660-1688 (Oxford, 1975), 92-4. In 1672 the former MP’s wife founded the local school at Quainton.

Pigott died shortly before 1 April 1685 when Lady Gardiner reported his death to the Verneys, adding that she would remember him as ‘a good man and an old-fashioned housekeeper’. Four days later, Sir Ralph Verney told his son, John Verney†, that Pigott had been buried ‘very honourably’.52Mems. of the Verney Fam. iv. 327. The funeral had taken place in the church at Quainton, where a monument to him was later erected by his heir.53Lipscomb, Buckingham, i. 431; RCHME Bucks. ii. 242. His widow died several years later.54PROB11/386/197. As their only son, Richard, had died in infancy over 50 years earlier, Pigott was succeeded by his nephew, Thomas Pigott, who seems to have been the son of Sir Richard’s younger brother Thomas.55Lipscomb, Buckingham, i. 408, 430; Eland, Pprs. 98. On the death of Thomas’s widow, Lettice, in 1735, the estates at Doddershall passed to a distant relative, John Pigott of Chetwynd, Shropshire.56VCH Bucks. iv. 96.