CATELYN, Richard (c.1584-1662), of Lakenham and Kirby Cane, Norf.

Catelyn’s grandfather, Richard Catlyn† (d. 1556), a lawyer and the son of a Norwich citizen, first entered Parliament in 1542 and represented Norwich in three further early Tudor Parliaments. By 1601 the family-owned estates at Lakenham on the outskirts of the city and at Kirby Cane, near the Suffolk border.18‘Some notes on the fam. of Catelyn’, 361; Norwich Rate Bk. ed. W. Rye (1903), 22. During the 1630s the future MP was able to expand these holdings with further purchases, sometimes acting in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Robert Houghton.19Coventry Docquets, 600, 609, 686. Richard Catelyn’s public career before his election to the Long Parliament seems to have been slight. However, in 1630 he was among those Norfolk gentlemen, including Thomas Atkin* and John Tolye*, who joined together as a local version of the feoffees for impropriations.20SP16/531, f. 134 As with their national counterparts, the aim was to purchase ecclesiastical livings with the intention of appointing godly clergymen to them. The following year he was one of the commissioners appointed to obtain an answer from the Norwich corporation regarding the accusations that the attorney-general, Sir Robert Heath†, had made about several of the aldermen.21Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, f. 265.

Religious issues, especially while Matthew Wren was the local bishop, were a hot topic in Norwich and, as a former feoffee for impropriations, Catelyn presumably sympathised with those critical of Wren and the Laudians. Yet, how far this was a factor in his election to the Long Parliament in 1640 is not clear, especially as the same was all the more true for his main rival in that election, John Tolye. The other factor recommending Catelyn to the Norwich freemen was that his estates at Lakenham were just outside the city. It was however his credentials as a local man that were now disputed, with Tolye’s supporters using the fact that Catelyn was not a resident freeman as their pretext for submitting a second return in Tolye’s favour. The committee of privileges, meeting on 6 November, recommended that Catelyn’s return be accepted and this was agreed by the Commons the following day.22Procs. LP, i. 22, 24, 32, 37, 39, 46; CJ ii. 22a-b. Catelyn was especially lucky that this issue was resolved so quickly. He had in the mean time been attempting to obtain money from the 1st earl of Cleveland that he claimed was due to his wife and, to that end, Catelyn had arranged for one of Cleveland’s servants, Robert Dixon, to be arrested. That was a high-risk strategy as the arrest violated Cleveland’s parliamentary privilege, which was why Cleveland raised the matter in the House of Lords on 9 November.23LJ iv. 85a; HMC 4th Rep. 34. But, as an MP, Catelyn could now also claim parliamentary immunity, so Cleveland did not pursue his complaints any further.

On taking his seat Catelyn joined in the general condemnation of the king’s religious policies. On 14 December 1640 a petition from the Norwich corporation was referred to the committee on abuses in the collection of coat and conduct money.24CJ ii. 50b. The specific Norwich grievance seems to have been about a rate for the maintenance of the city’s clergymen imposed by the Norwich consistory court, so nine days later Catelyn got what was probably the same petition referred to the committee which had been appointed to investigate Bishop Wren.25Bodl. Tanner 220, ff. 130-140; CJ ii. 57a; Procs. LP, ii. 32; J.T. Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich (Oxford, 1979), 112. Two months later Catelyn was included on the committee to receive information against the current bishop, Richard Montagu (23 Feb. 1641).26CJ ii. 91a. Other committee appointments hinting at disquiet on his part about certain aspects of Laudianism included those to investigate the grievances of the parishioners of St Gregory’s by St Paul’s (4 Dec. 1640) and on the bill to prevent clergymen holding secular offices (8 Mar. 1641).27CJ ii. 44b, 99a. Meanwhile, Catelyn probably shared in the widespread wish among MPs that the armies in the north of England be paid off as speedily as possible, as he was among those MPs who each offered on 21 November 1640 to underwrite £1,000 of the loan of £100,000.28Procs. LP, i. 229, 235. His other committee appointments during the early months of 1641 included those on sorting petitions (1 Jan.), the postal service (10 Feb.), the queen’s jointure lands (17 Feb.) and the bill to abolish trial by battle (11 Mar.).29CJ ii. 61b, 82a, 87b, 101a. In late March 1641 Catelyn probably brokered the agreement that resolved a long-standing dispute between the Norwich corporation and the lords lieutenant of Norfolk, the 21st and 14th earl of Arundel and Lord Mowbray (Henry Frederick Howard*).30Norf. RO, Norwich mayor’s court bk. 1634-46, f. 308v. His reward was to be admitted as a freeman of the city, although he took care to accept this honour only on condition that he would not be expected to hold any civic office.31Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, f. 367v.

Like most MPs, he took the Protestation on 3 May 1641.32CJ ii. 133a. Over the following weeks he was named to the committees on the impressment of sailors (8 May) and on the private bills for Sir Robert Strode (29 May) and Sir Alexander Denton* (2 June).33CJ ii. 140b, 160b, 164b. On 5 August he joined with 12 other MPs to underwrite the latest loan being borrowed by Parliament.34CJ ii. 238b. That he was named on 16 August to the committee to prevent Catholics working in London could be interpret as evidence that, as was the case with so many MPs, he was fearful of popish conspiracies.35CJ ii. 258a. Yet he could also be cynical about other efforts to act against Catholics. On 23 November, responding to the proposal from Henry Marten* that someone be appointed to search for Catholic priests, Catelyn objected that the Commons messenger already employed on that task, Henry Hughes, had during his investigations in Norfolk concentrated on taking bribes. Catelyn’s accusation was referred to a committee.36D’Ewes (C), 187-8; CJ ii. 323a. He presented another Norwich petition, this time directed specifically against Bishop Wren, on 22 February 1642.37PJ i. 439-40.

Another issue of direct interest to his constituency also occupied his time. On 30 April 1641 he was included on the committee preparing instructions for the subsidy commissioners to discourage under-assessment.38CJ ii. 130b. In fact, his immediate concern was probably not that some were being under-taxed so much that others were, as a result, being overtaxed, for a month later, on 29 May, he presented a petition from his constituents asking that the Norwich subsidy assessment be reduced.39Procs. LP, iv. 644. Getting a cut in the Norwich assessment may well have been what he considered to be his biggest and most pressing priority as an MP. Perhaps as a result of this, he and the other Norwich MP, Richard Harman*, were paid wages of £50 each by the Norwich corporation in July.40Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, f. 374. He would return to the issue the following year. During the third reading of the bill to raise £400,000 on 11 March 1642, Catelyn attempted to propose an apportionment between the counties based on doubling the Ship Money assessments. This was rejected on the grounds that this was too late in the bill’s passage for such details to be introduced.41PJ ii. 27. Four months later, on 14 July, Catelyn was among those MPs asked to draft an order to deal with any officials who refused to help implement the resulting Act.42CJ ii. 671a. Early the following year Harman would assure the Norwich corporation that he and Catelyn had done everything they could to get the city’s taxes reduced, even although they had been completely unsuccessful.43Add. 22619, f. 49.

The breakdown in relations between the king and Parliament seems to have stoked Catelyn’s anti-Catholic paranoia. On 26 April 1642 the Lords and the Commons agreed to hold a joint conference on the refusal by Sir John Hotham* to allow the king to enter Hull. On Catelyn’s suggestion, the items to be discussed included the rumour that large numbers of Catholics had assembled at York the night before the king had set out for Hull.44PJ ii. 226. With both sides stepping up their military preparations, Catelyn’s colleagues may therefore have assumed that he would support Parliament. That would explain why he was one of those Norfolk MPs who in early August were authorised to assist in the disposal of the military supplies which had been seized by the Norwich corporation.45CJ ii. 704a. But doubts about his sympathies soon emerged. On 12 September the Commons ordered him to attend.46CJ ii. 763a. Three days later Thomas Toll I* noted that he was not in London.47PJ iii. 356. On 12 November the Commons ordered his arrest and they repeated this, with the same lack of a result, on 7 January 1643.48CJ ii. 845b, 918b. He would later claim that by then, beset with ill health, he had taken refuge at Kirby Cane.49SP23/72, p. 604.

In March 1643 a number of Norfolk royalists seized Lowestoft, but the town was recaptured for Parliament by Oliver Cromwell* on 14 March. One rumour was that Catelyn had been in the town hours before Cromwell had arrived and those taken prisoners certainly included one of his sons.50Harl. 169, f. 340. Nine days later Miles Corbett* attempted to use that rumour, as well as the ‘ill offices’ he claimed Catelyn had done in Norfolk, as grounds for Catelyn’s expulsion from the Commons. The Commons was unconvinced, with Thomas Erle* arguing that they ought to give Catelyn a chance to answer the accusation first, and instead a committee was appointed to consider what had happened at Lowestoft.51Harl. 169, f. 341v; CJ iii. 15b.

On 9 May 1643 the Commons offered Catelyn an ultimatum: attend within ten days or be fined £200.52CJ iii. 77b. This probably prompted him into writing to the Norwich corporation to apologise for his absence from Westminster. The corporation then wrote back encouraging him to resume his duties. They were careful not to be too censorious, making a point of framing their request with warm thanks to him for his previous attempts to reduce the city’s tax demands. They also astutely mixed an acknowledgement of the burdens of office with an appeal to a sense of public duty:

as for your place, we know it hath been and is like still to be both painful, tedious and prejudicial to your own private affairs, yet you being designed thereunto, the burden must be undergone by you with a mind carried forward and led out rather to the public affairs of the kingdom, than looking back upon your own private interests.53Add. 22619, f. 76.

This made no difference. Catelyn ignored the latest summons from the Commons and so was fined £200 on 22 June.54CJ iii. 140b. He ignored that order as well, so the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†) and Sir William Constable* were instructed by the Commons on 16 September to seize that money for them.55CJ iii. 244a-b; Harl. 165, f. 195. Moreover, the resolution for the sequestration of his estates was passed 12 days later.56CJ iii. 256a. Finally, he was one of the 52 MPs expelled from the Commons on 22 January 1644.57CJ iii. 374a.

The Committee for Advance of Money had fined him £1,500 but that may never have been collected.58CCAM 435. He took the Covenant at Kirby Cane in November 1644.59SP23/72, p. 601. A year later he petitioned to compound by proxy, being sick and unable to travel, with a wife and eight small children, anxious to ‘clear the suggestion of wilfully absenting himself from the House, it being in respect of his many infirmities and sickness’.60CCC, 942; SP23/72, p. 603. In 1646 Thomas Browne, the famous Norwich physician, certified that Catelyn had long suffered from ‘melancholia hypochondraca which of late has produced grievous symptoms, as watchings, fears and faintings and tremblings’.61SP23/72, p. 609. Catelyn’s composition papers, which listed lands with rents totalling some £453 a year, exclude the Lakenham estate which was valued at over £1,000 in 1657.62SP23/72, p. 610. He was discharged without fine in April 1647.63CJ v. 120b; CCC, 113. His major loss during the war was instead a personal one, for his eldest son, Thomas, a captain in the royalist army, had been killed at the second battle of Newbury (27 Oct. 1644).64W. Money, The First and Second Battles of Newbury (1881), 193; ‘Some notes on the fam. of Catelyn’, 363.

Catelyn lived quietly during the interregnum. There is no indication that he was ever involved in royalist plotting. He signed the petition for a free Parliament in early 1660 and was re-appointed to the commission of the peace after the Restoration.65Address from Gentry of Norf. ed. Rye, 50; C220/9/4, f. 62v. He may have lived just long enough to see his eldest surviving son, Neville†, knighted by Charles II on 11 October 1662, although it is not impossible that by then Catelyn was already dead and that this honour was prompted by his son’s new status as head of the family.66Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 237. What is known is that Catelyn, who was in his seventy-ninth year when he died, was buried at Kirby Cane less than a fortnight later.67‘Some notes on the fam. of Catelyn’, 362-3. Sir Neville, who became a tory, sat for Norfolk in 1679 and for his father’s old constituency in 1685 and 1689.