RIVERS, James (1603-41), of Combe in Hamsey, Suss.

The Rivers family emerged from obscurity with James Rivers’s great-grandfather, Sir John Rivers, Grocer and lord mayor of London (1573), who established the family at Chafford. Sir John’s son, Sir George Rivers† (d. 1630), served in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I, as a client of the Sackville family.15Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 225-8; Hasted, Kent, ii. 250; HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629. To Thomas Sackville, 1st earl of Dorset, he owed his appointment to the alienations office, and he later served as trustee and executor to both Robert Sackville, 2nd earl, and Richard Sackville, 3rd earl.16PROB11/157/619; CJ i. 179a; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 338; 1628-9, pp. 180, 586, 595; Suss. Arch. Coll. xx. 159-60; E. Suss. RO, AMS 6270/91; SAS/A/108, 113, 125; Preston Manor, Brighton, Thomas-Stanford MSS, ES/EN/7. Rivers, like Dorset, lived in the extremely fashionable parish of St Bartholomew the Great in London, and it was probably through his wealth and their connections that the family established itself in Sussex as well as in Kent in the early part of the seventeenth century.17Webb, Recs. of St Bartholomew’s (2 vols. 1921), ii. 266-83, 313-24, 535-6; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 228; Vis. London (Harl. Soc. xvii), 201. By the time he drafted his will in December 1627, Sir George was estranged from his ‘unkind son’, Sir John Rivers, who had obtained a baronetcy in 1621; there were conditional bequests to Sir John’s daughters, but no mention of Sir John’s sons, who included this MP.18PROB11/157/619; CB. On the other hand, this was rectified around the same time in the will of their great-uncle, Henry Rivers, a prosperous London merchant with connections to Newcastle-upon-Tyne.19PROB11/153/537.

James Rivers was probably educated at Westerham school (like his brothers George and Nizel), before entering Corpus Christi, Oxford, in 1616, alongside his elder brother, Potter (d. 1621); he stayed until at least July 1620.20Al. Cant; Al. Ox.; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 229. Over the next decade, James gradually established himself amongst the Sussex godly around the most powerful gentry magnate, Sir Thomas Pelham*. In 1624 Rivers married into the Shirley family of Isfield, Pelham’s kinsmen.21Add. 5697, f. 261; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 253-4. By the late 1620s, Rivers’s connection to the circle of men around Pelham manifested itself in extensive property transactions with Pelham’s friends, Anthony Stapley I*, Harbert Hay* and Henry Shelley*.22Suss. Manors, ii. 370; Preston Manor, ES/ET/13. Between 1627 and 1633 he sold land in Kent, inherited lands in Hampshire from his great-uncle Henry Rivers, bought Combe manor in Hamsey, Sussex, for over £1,100, and sold property in Surrey to John Evelyn*, kinsman of his nephew, Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire*, for nearly £2,000.23C54/2708/29; C54/3019/32; PROB11/153/537; E. Suss. RO, SAS/SH/579-80; Hamsey par. reg.; Add. 5698, f. 57; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 231.

Even before he obtained formal local office, Rivers worked alongside Stapley on matters of local administration.24Horsfield, Hist. Lewes, i. 196. It was probably Pelham, to whom Rivers was a regular visitor, who secured the nomination of his acolyte to the commission of the peace in June 1633.25C231/5, p. 108. That August Stapley and Rivers were accompanying Pelham to church when the latter was fired on by his neighbour Thomas Lunsford, an incident which was to have serious repercussions.26SP16/223/1; CSP Dom. 1631-3, pp. 410, 424; 1633-4, p. 423; 1634-5, pp. 308, 471; 1635, pp. 99-100, 303; 1635-6, p. 74; 1636–1637, pp. 398, 416; 1637, pp. 220, 472; 1625-49, p. 469; Fletcher, Suss., 54-7.

Alongside Pelham and his friends, Rivers became an active magistrate.27SP16/263, f. 171; SP16/314, f. 238; SP16/426, f. 85v; E. Suss. RO, QR/E34, 36-42, 44-6. Their zeal for reform saw them petitioning Edward Sackville, 4th earl of Dorset, regarding Sackville College, and establishing a puritan lectureship at Lewes, a traditional hot-bed of godly Protestantism.28Bodl. Rawl. B.431, f. 34; Add. 33145, f. 27v. With Stapley and Hay, Rivers was named by one of Archbishop William Laud’s correspondents in January 1640 as a ‘ringleader’ of the godly faction on the Sussex bench, who were ‘steered rather by humour and faction than justice, grown so strong that such as are moderately disposed were not able to withstand it’.29SP16/442, f. 279. That Rivers opposed the government in the 1630s seems clear from his refusal to pay Ship Money in 1636 and his refusal to pay the contribution for the king’s journey to the north in 1639 to fight the first bishops’ war.30SP16/319, f. 203; Rushworth, Hist. Collns, iii. 914. Such opposition may have led to Rivers, who had also been questioned in 1638 for allowing Hamsey church to fall into ruin, being removed from the commission of the peace. There is no indication that he attended the quarter sessions after July 1639.31CSP Dom. 1638–1639, p. 53; E. Suss. RO, QR/EW46.

Before the end of January 1640 a campaign was underway by the earl of Dorset and George Goring†, Baron Goring, in ‘letters and intimations for their creatures to be Parliament men’ as burgesses for Lewes, but Stapley and Rivers had a ‘strong party in the town’. Reporting this to Lambeth Palace, Dr Edward Burton observed: ‘God forbid the greater part of a Parliament should be of their stamp; if so, Lord have mercy upon our church’.32SP16/442, f. 279v. Assisted by Harbert Hay, Stapley and Rivers were duly elected, with Pelham’s former ward Harbert Morley* replacing Stapley when he was doubly-returned.33C219/42ii/30. Rivers’s brother-in-law Robert Goodwin* defeated another of Dorset’s candidates at East Grinstead, to be joined later by a second brother-in-law and another of the alleged ringleaders of the Sussex godly, John Baker*.34CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 386.

Unlike many of his Sussex colleagues, Rivers’s interests extended beyond the borders of his county, and he seemed set to become an important political figure at Westminster. Nevertheless, he made no recorded mark in the Short Parliament. Re-elected for Lewes in the autumn, on 3 December he was named to the important committee nominated to consider the petitions of William Prynne*, Henry Burton, and John Bastwick, as well as of those men who had suffered for expressing their admiration of these puritan martyrs as they were taken to prison in 1637.35CJ ii. 44b. This committee soon broadened its scope to consider other ‘victims’ of the personal rule, complementing the work of another, even more important, committee to which Rivers was named on 19 December – the sub-committee for religion, which addressed the causes of the scarcity of ministers and the means of removing scandalous preachers.36CJ ii. 54b. On 3 May 1641 he signed the Protestation.37CJ ii. 133b. As the ‘army plot’ was revealed, he moved on 14 May that the payment of coat and conduct monies into Westminster coffers be expedited, and suggested that it be used to purchase arms and ammunition in Sussex and other counties.38Procs. LP iv. 377, 383.

‘Sick’ on 2 June when he drafted his will, Rivers died on the 8th, probably of plague, and was buried the next day at St Bartholomew the Great, ‘out of the house of Mr Freake esquire the Close side’.39PROB11/186/503; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 230; St Bartholomew, Smithfield, par. reg. According to his monument in the church, he was a ‘high soul’, who had been ‘torn from the service of the state in his prime, by a disease malignant as the time’. His life had ‘designed no other end than to serve God his country and his friend, who when ambition tyranny and pride conquered the age, conquered himself and died’.40Webb, Recs. of St Bartholomew, ii. 281, 461-2. A writ for a by-election at Lewes was issued on 9 June, and delivered to the town by Harbert Morley.41Harl. 163, f. 303v; Harl. 478, f. 46a ; CJ ii. 172a; C231/5, p. 452. Rivers’s place in Parliament was taken by his friend, Henry Shelley*.

Rivers left portions of £300 each to his younger sons John and James, and of £500 each to his six younger daughters; the eldest, Dorothy, received £1,000 including a legacy from her godmother Dorothy Shirley. His widow, Charity, had the use of Combe manor until her death, which occurred in May 1655.42PROB11/186/503; Hamsey par. reg; Add. 5698, f. 55; PROB11/248/433 (Charity Rivers). In addition to Combe, their eldest son Thomas Rivers* inherited the estate at Chafford and the baronetcy from his grandfather, Sir John Rivers, in 1651, and sat in Parliament under the protectorate. Thomas’s uncle, James’s brother Nizel Rivers†, represented Lewes in the Convention.43HP Commons 1660-1690.