PARSONS, Lawrence (d. 1673), of Newton Hall, Nidd, and Ulleskelf, Yorks.; and Ballinamore, co. Leitrim.

Parsons belonged to one of Ireland’s leading New English families. Of Leicestershire, or possibly Norfolk, extraction, the Parsons had settled in Ireland in Elizabethan times and were staunchly Protestant.17Lodge, The Peerage of Ireland, ii. 60-1; J. O’Hart, The Irish and Anglo-Irish Landed Gentry (Dublin, 1884), 161; Dict. Irish Biography, ‘Sir William Parsons’; Oxford DNB, ‘Sir William Parsons’. Parsons’ grand-uncle was Sir William Parsons, whose inflammatory policies as lord justice of Ireland were partly responsible for the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion in October 1641.18Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 379, 414-5; C. Brady, R. Gillespie, Natives and Newcomers, 199-200. Almost nothing is known about Parsons’ early life, which may explain a tendency to confuse him with his more prominent relation Sir Lawrence Parsons, 2nd bt.19Oxford DNB, ‘Sir Lawrence Parsons’; Bolton, ‘Yorks.’, 112. In 1632, Parsons was apprenticed to (Sir) Philip Percivalle*, clerk and register of the Irish court of wards, and presumably spent the next seven years as a junior official in the court, of which Sir William Parsons was master.20Add. 46920A, f. 26; HMC Egmont i. 69.

By the summer of 1642, Parsons was in England, and having possibly gained some military experience against the Irish rebels, he obtained a cornetcy and then, on 29 September, a lieutenancy in the parliamentary army – the latter appointment being in the troop of horse under the Lincolnshire Puritan, Captain Thomas Hatcher*.21SP28/1, f. 482; SP28/140, f. 347; SP28/253B, pt. 2, f. 83. Parsons was part of the force that Hatcher and several other Lincolnshire officers led into Yorkshire in the autumn of 1642 to assist Captain John Hotham* and the county’s parliamentarian army under the command of the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*).22Supra, ‘Thomas Hatcher’; SP28/140, ff. 347, 349. Evidently a good soldier, Parsons was made captain of Lord Fairfax’s life guard in March 1643 – an appointment he may have owed, in part, to his kinsman and Fairfax’s secretary and military adviser, Thomas Stockdale*, who had served in the Dublin administration during the 1620s and had married a daughter of Sir William Parsons.23Infra, ‘Thomas Stockdale’; SP28/140, f. 349. Lawrence Parsons was also related to Fairfax’s quarter-master, Francis Hewitt.24C6/11/261; C6/107/111; C6/115/108; PROB11/192, f. 17.

Parsons fought at the battle of Adwalton Moor and various other engagements in Yorkshire, as well as in Lancashire, and was cited for his service during the royalist siege of Hull in the autumn of 1643.25SP28/140, ff. 347-8; Jones, ‘War in north’, 397; HMC Portland, i. 139. By April 1644, he had attained the rank of colonel.26SP28/140, f. 349. As part of the streamlining of forces under the terms of Northern Association ordinance, Parsons’ regiment was reduced in June 1645, and he was ‘acquitted from the same with a fair testimony of his long, faithful and valiant service’ from Lord Fairfax. Soon afterwards, however, a large royalist force threatened Yorkshire, and on 13 August Colonel-General Poynts, the commander of the Northern Association army, appointed Parsons his quarter master general – Parsons being ‘known to be a gentleman of approved trust and abilities’.27SP28/140, f. 354. At the battle of Rownton Heath, near Chester, in September 1645, he did ‘very good service’ as commander of the reserves, and, on giving an account of the victory to the Commons, he was voted £100 to buy horses.28LJ vii. 608b; SP28/140, f. 355; A Letter from Colonel General Poyntz (1645, E303.24). Parsons remained in service with Poynts until April 1646, when he was discharged – Poynts having no further need of a quarter master general. In December 1646, Poynts wrote to Parliament concerning Parsons’ arrears of pay, adding that if Parliament thought fit to continue the Northern Association army then it would be ‘very expedient that such an officer should be allowed therein’.29SP28/140, f. 354.

Parsons retained the honorary rank of colonel after the civil war, but there is no evidence that he sought to revive his military career thereafter.30SC6/CHAS1/1190, p. 29; Add. 36996, f. 73; Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Br P188/7. Having married the widow of a Yorkshire gentleman, he had acquired an estate in the parishes of Nidd and Ripley, near Knaresborough, and it was partly on that basis that he was added to the West Riding bench in July 1650.31C231/6, p. 194; Yorks. Royalist Composition Pprs. ed. Clay, 31. That same month he was nominated as a captain in the Yorkshire militia, but his name was then erased – suggesting either that he had declined this office or the council of state had not deemed him reliable.32CSP Dom. 1650, p. 508. Nevertheless, he does appear to have been active as a Yorkshire militia commissioner that summer.33Doncaster Archives, DD/CROM/11/30. By the mid-1650s, he had also acquired an estate at Ulleskelf – very close to Bolton Percy (where Ferdinando Lord Fairfax had been buried) and the residence of the 3rd Baron Fairfax (Sir Thomas Fairfax*) at Nun Appleton. Parsons may have spent some time in Ireland during the mid-1650s, having purchased his siblings’ inheritance in the manor of Ballinamore, in County Leitrim, in 1653.34Lodge, The Peerage of Ireland, ii. 61.

In the elections to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament of 1659, Parsons was returned for the West Riding constituency of Boroughbridge. It is possible that he had been recommended to the town’s voters by Lord Fairfax, whose family had enjoyed a strong interest at Boroughbridge since the 1610s.35Supra, ‘Boroughbridge’; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Boroughbridge’. However, Parsons was by no means an outsider in the area, for his estate at Newton Hall lay less than eight miles west of Boroughbridge, and his kinsmen, the Stockdales, owned considerable property a few miles to the south of the town.36Infra, ‘Thomas Stockdale’. He was evidently not among the most active or prominent Members, receiving only six committee appointments in this Parliament, the majority relating to northern affairs.37CJ vii. 600a, 610a, 622b, 623a, 638a. Moreover, his handful of speeches on the floor of the House suggests that he avoided consistent alignment with any particular faction. On 24 February, during a debate on foreign policy, he seconded a motion of Richard Knightley that was apparently intended to steer the debate towards providing practical advice to the protector on this issue and away from the vexed question of whether he or Parliament exercised ultimate authority over the nation’s armed forces. Nevertheless, both Parsons and Knightley insisted that, when sitting, ‘the disposing of the forces...is in the Parliament’.38Burton’s Diary, iii. 454. During a debate on the Other House four days later (28 February), Parsons moved that the Commons should first consider the composition of the Cromwellian Upper House before tackling the question of bounding (limiting its powers). Until they knew who comprised the Other House, he argued – the Cromwellian peers or the old lords – it was impossible to determine what bounds should be set on them.39Burton’s Diary, iii. 541-2. On 1 March, he supported a motion made by Fairfax’s close associate William White and seconded by Henry Neville, Thomas Tyrrell and others that the question be put whether the ‘Other House’ referred to in the vote on the settlement of government was the Upper House specified in the Humble Petition and Advice or the old House of Lords. The wording of this question was apparently regarded as tendentious by members of the court interest.40Burton’s Diary, iii. 560-4. In contrast to the commonwealthsmen, however, Parsons defended the right of Irish Members to sit, arguing on 22 March that they, like the MPs for Scotland, were ‘all English’ and deserved to be treated accordingly. He was supported by another scion of a New English family, Arthur Annesley.41Burton’s Diary, iv. 225. On 24 March, Parsons supported a non-partisan motion in favour of re-assessing a report from the committee of privileges for overturning the election of Major-general William Packer*.42CJ vii. 619b; Burton’s Diary, iv. 253. Parsons’ New English background probably accounts, in part, for his appointment to a committee for Irish affairs, set up on 1 April, which was headed by Annesley and Sir Arthur Hesilrige.43CJ vii. 623a. That same day (1 Apr.), he spoke in the debate on a bill concerning the excise and tonnage and poundage, and he endorsed a proposal for appointing a committee to amend this legislation in order to ‘preserve the people’s liberties as [well as] his Highness’s [the protector’s] just right’. The commonwealthsmen, on the other hand, favoured rejecting the bill and urged the House to ‘consider your constitution before you settle your revenue’.44Burton’s Diary, iv. 319, 321, 322. His last committee appointment was on 13 April, when he was named to a committee to consider petitions from reduced soldiers, including some of Ferdinando Lord Fairfax’s old officers.45CJ vii. 638b.

Very little is known about Parsons after the dissolution of Richard Cromwell’s Parliament in April 1659. He appears to have welcomed the Restoration, joining Lord Fairfax and the Yorkshire Presbyterian gentry in their declaration to General George Monck* of 10 February 1660, calling for the return of the secluded Members or a free Parliament – either of which would almost certainly have led to the restoration of monarchy.46SP18/219/49, f. 75. Parsons died late in 1673 – perhaps while visiting relations in Lancashire, who included the Standishes of Duxbury – and was buried at Manchester Collegiate Church on 8 November 1673.47Infra, ‘Richard Standish’; Manchester Collegiate Church reg. He died intestate.48Anon., Fams. and Individuals of the name of “Parsons”, i. 64. No immediate member of his family sat in Parliament.