DACRES, Sir Thomas (1587-1668), of Cheshunt, Herts.

Dacres was the great-great-grandson of Henry Dacres, a Merchant Taylor of Staffordshire origin who served briefly as a London alderman in 1526-7. The family’s connections with Cheshunt dated from the time of Henry’s son, Robert Dacres, one of Henry VIII’s masters of requests, who was granted lands there by the crown in 1538.35Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 100, 101; VCH Herts. iii. 453. In 1542 he also acquired the lands of the dissolved Chichele College at Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire.36Bridges, Northants. ii. 174, 178; VCH Northants. iii. 269, 277. Sir Thomas’s grandfather, George Dacres†, sat for Castle Rising in 1571. Dacres himself represented Hertfordshire in the second and third Parliaments of Charles I. Those elections were partly secured through the influence of the Cecils, with whom he was on friendly terms. In 1635 he lent £2,000 to the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*).37Hatfield House, CFEP Box I/4, ff. 5, 24v, 27v.

At some point before 1633, when William Laud was still bishop of London, Dacres and the future archbishop clashed over his efforts as a justice of the peace to clamp down on alehouse drinking on Sundays. When Dacres encouraged the Cheshunt churchwardens to bring cases against some Sunday drinkers, Laud objected that he was interfering in an ecclesiastical matter.38CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 549; The Works of the most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, ed. J.H. Parker (Oxford, 1847-60), iv. 171-2; HMC Lords, n.s. xi. 403-4. On being told that he did not have the right to order his chancellor, Arthur Ducke*, to prosecute the churchwardens in the church courts, Laud was alleged to have retorted, ‘ If this must be so, Sir Thomas Dacres shall be bishop of London, and I’ll be Sir Thomas Dacres’.39Laud, Works, iv. 172. The threat to summon Dacres before the court of high commission was dropped.40CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 549-50. Dacres also clashed with Laud after the latter had become archbishop of Canterbury. In 1631 the then archbishop, George Abbot, had overruled Dacres’ claim to hold the right of presentation to the vicarage of Higham Ferrers, claiming that right for himself as archbishop. Laud did likewise when the living again became vacant in 1635.41VCH Northants. iii. 278.

With Sir Richard Lucy*, in 1630 Dacres obstructed the efforts of the king’s master of the hawks to collect meat for the royal hawks at Theobalds.42CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 235. He later appears to have acquiesced in the Ship Money levies, but in 1639 he probably refused to contribute to the king’s northern journey.43Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii, 914. He was certainly summoned before the privy council in May 1639 as a defaulter in the Bedfordshire musters.44CSP Dom. 1639, pp. 141, 193. He also got into trouble when in the spring of 1640 he and the other Hertfordshire deputy lieutenants complained about the difficulties in raising men for another campaign against the Scots. All of them were summoned to London in late May 1640 to be reprimanded by the council.45CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 44-5, 186; Hatfield House, CP 131/105, 106; PC2/52, f. 246.

By the time of the 1640 elections Dacres had been eclipsed by the rise of Arthur Capell* and it was the younger man who was now paired with Dacres’ old colleague, Sir William Lytton*, as the two knights of the shire for Hertfordshire. But Capell’s elevation to the peerage in early August 1641 created a vacancy that Dacres had no difficulty in filling, winning the by-election on 26 August. However, the result was queried in the Commons just four days later and again by Oliver Cromwell* on 27 October.46Procs. LP, vi. 610; D’Ewes (C), 42. None the less, Dacres had taken his seat by 9 September, when he took the Protestation.47CJ ii. 284a. That same day he was named to the Recess Committee, which sat while Parliament was in recess over the next six weeks.48CJ ii. 288b.

Protecting his county, 1642-5

Even after the House reassembled in late October 1641, Dacres took his time to make his mark. When he did do so, it was over a matter close to home. On 25 January 1642 the Commons, on the motion of Dacres’ colleague Sir William Lytton, accepted a petition from Hertfordshire which, now that relations between the king and Parliament had visibly broken down, expressed its support for Parliament. Dacres followed this with a complaint about a rival ‘false and scandalous’ Hertfordshire petition, which had been printed and so was likely to be made public.49PJ i. 160-1. A committee, including both Lytton and Dacres, was appointed to investigate who had been behind that second petition.50CJ ii. 393a. It was quickly established that Martin Eldred, formerly of Jesus College, Cambridge, was one of those involved, although he claimed that it had been another Cambridge student, Thomas Herbert of Trinity, who had actually drafted it. Eldred was sent to the Gatehouse.51CJ ii. 396a; PJ i. 165-6. On 7 February however Dacres persuaded the Commons that Eldred should be released.52PJ i. 294; CJ ii. 415a.

At this time Dacres seems to have supported the Commons’ programme for godly reform. On 17 February 1642 he was named to the committee on the bill against innovations in religion, while the following month he was included on the committee on the bill for the better maintenance of ministers (25 Mar.).53CJ ii. 438a, 496b. The news from Ireland, where the Catholics had risen in rebellion, presented a lurid and immediate threat to Protestantism. Dacres was keen to help counter it. On 17 March he and Sir Edward Hales* informed the Commons that they would together lend a total of £500 to assist in its suppression. They each paid half that sum.54CJ ii. 484a, 498b, viii. 181a-182a. By July Dacres had topped up his investment in the Irish Adventure to £600.55CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 39; Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 180. He also sat on the Commons committee to decide how the money raised in this way should be spent.56CJ ii. 486a. Later he was named to the committee on the additional bill for the Irish Adventure (12 May).57CJ ii. 569b.

As the king and Parliament began making tentative preparations for war, Dacres’ instincts seem to have been to side with Parliament. On 5 April Dacres headed the list of MPs named to the Commons committee to consider how to prevent the king distributing his own declarations in response to the Militia Ordinance.58CJ ii. 512a. This was a sensitive issue as Parliament might thereby seem to be interfering in one of the king’s most basic prerogatives. But this committee seems never to have reported back to the Commons.

From early February onwards the Commons had been attempting to persuade the mayor of Monmouth to allow ammunition stores to be removed to Newport, away from the influence of the Catholic earl of Worcester and into the territory of the earl of Pembroke. In late April the Commons summoned the mayor and his supporters to London.59CJ ii. 415b, 503b, 545a, 546b, 548b, 564b. On 12 May Dacres sought to defuse this dispute. At his suggestion, those who had been summoned were allowed to return on the understanding that if they obeyed the former orders, the matter would be dropped.60PJ ii. 308; CJ ii. 568a-b. He was included on the joint committee created by the two Houses on 6 June to receive intelligence from York, where the king was now based.61CJ ii. 609b. On 7 June he was one of the four MPs added to the committee to seek loans from the London merchants.62CJ ii. 611b; PJ iii. 39. He himself contributed £200 and two horses on 19 June to the defence of Parliament.63PJ iii. 468.

Hertfordshire was now being placed on a footing for war. In June a chest of arms was stopped at Hoddesdon. When it was established that it belonged to the 3rd of Suffolk, Dacres was asked by the Commons to ensure that it was delivered to him safely at Audley End.64CJ ii. 639a. The following month he and the other local MPs were told to attend the Hertfordshire quarter sessions to encourage their neighbours to make donations to the cause.65CJ ii. 654b, 667a, 671b; PJ iii. 213. On 15 August troops under the command of the 5th earl of Bedford (William Russell*) marched towards Hertford, which was reported to be under threat of a royalist attack. At Hoddesdon they were met by Dacres, who warned them to expect to encounter royalists in the area around Tewin, four miles to the west of Hertford. Dacres was reported to have then urged them ‘to proceed valiantly, intimating the justness of the cause, with many noble encouragements’. But it turned out that these reports of royalist activity were unfounded.66A Perfect Diurnall of the Proceedings in Hartford-shire (1641), 1-2 (E.115.7). Nevertheless, Dacres hurried to Westminster and that same day obtained an order from Parliament commanding that the ammunition stores at Hertford be moved to safety.67CJ ii. 721b; LJ v. 293b.

On 25 August he was sent to the Lords to seek their approval for business including the appointment of new Hertfordshire deputy lieutenants (among whom were Sir John Wittewronge*, Richard Jennyns* and William Leman*).68CJ ii. 736a, 738a; LJ v. 321b. On 9 September he carried to the Lords an order for payments to be made from the revenues of the Forest of Dean. It is likely that he had raised this matter on behalf of the earl of Salisbury, as the earl was thereby to be paid £3,225.69CJ ii. 759a, 759b; LJ v. 344a. That same day Dacres also complained to the Commons about two men from Waltham Abbey who had removed fences from his land.70CJ ii. 759b. It is likely that they were protesting against his enclosures. The following week he was one of the nine MPs added to the committee on prisoners after it was reported that the existing prisons in London were already full.71CJ ii. 766a.

Amid fears that, now the king had an army, he would march on the capital, on 13 October MPs from the counties around London were ordered to ensure that any money raised from the propositions was paid immediately to the treasurers at the Guildhall; Dacres was the one from Hertfordshire assigned that task.72CJ ii. 806b. On 23 October, when the two armies were converging in the midlands, Dacres was among the MPs sent to brief the corporation of London on the latest military news.73CJ ii. 817b. Isaac Puller* was meanwhile busy raising a company of volunteers at Hertford. On 12 November the Commons asked Dacres to accompany Puller to the Committee of Safety so that he could receive his instructions as to how it was to be deployed.74CJ ii. 846b. Perhaps with Hertford specifically in mind, Dacres was soon after included on the committee told to draft an order allowing towns to defend themselves (23 Nov.).75CJ ii. 863a. In early December Lytton and Dacres were informed that a suspicious waggon had been intercepted at Ware. Those accompanying it evidently claimed that they were working for the 4th earl of Lincoln, a loyal parliamentarian, so on 7 December Dacres was told to summon them to London in order that this could be confirmed.76Add. 18777, f. 84; CJ ii. 879b. A week later he raised the case of Edward Wingate*, the St Albans MP who was being held as a prisoner at Oxford.77Harl. 164, f. 284v. He was also named to the committee to consider how to raise forces against the northern army of the 1st earl of Newcastle (15 Dec.).78CJ ii. 890b.

Dacres acted as a teller for the first time on 29 December. A ship, the Clare, carrying a cargo of cochineal, had been impounded at Southampton and arrangements made for that cargo to be sold. Dacres and Denzil Holles* were tellers for the majority in the Commons who voted to halt that sale. But there was an ulterior motive involved. Samuel Vassall* and Dacres were then sent to inform the owners that this was on condition that they lend £20,000 to Parliament.79CJ ii. 905b.

Already there were concerns in Hertfordshire about levels of taxation and more especially about how much of the money raised was being spent outside the county. Dacres was named to the committee appointed to consider that problem (27 Jan. 1643).80CJ ii. 945b. A few days later (2 Feb.) he was ordered to write to the Hertfordshire deputy lieutenants to secure the estate of the steward of the borough court of Hertford and active local royalist, John Kelyng†.81CJ ii. 952a.

On 4 March William Strode I* tried to set a trap for Dacres and for Framlingham Gawdy* when he suggested that they should return to their respective counties to assist the work of the new Eastern Association. According to Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, other MPs ‘perceived an unwillingness in them to meddle therein’ when the two men declined to do so, which is presumably what Strode had hoped to expose.82Harl. 164, f. 312v. Three days later, however, Gawdy and Dacres were among several MPs instructed to return to their respective counties for that purpose.83CJ ii. 992a-b. Moreover, when the House divided on whether Sir Thomas Pelham* should likewise be ordered to return to Surrey, the Speaker, William Lenthall*, nominated Dacres as one of the tellers against the motion, which was then passed.84Harl. 164, f. 316v; CJ ii. 992b. In other words, Dacres had been identified as an MP who might have doubts about the war effort.

On 20 April he carried the order for the recruitment of a regiment of Hertfordshire volunteers to the Lords.85CJ iii. 53b; LJ vi. 12a. According to Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, he was the MP who, along with Sir William Lytton, was ordered on 18 April to find waggons for Essex troops on their way to the siege of Reading, although the Journal says that this was Sir Henry Mildmay*.86Harl. 164, f. 373; CJ iii. 51a. Dacres did return to Hertfordshire at about this time, as on 10 May he was at Hertford taking the accounts from the collectors of the weekly assessment. The next day, in reporting on this to the Speaker, William Lenthall, he argued that these collections would have been easier had not two companies of the county’s trained bands been removed to Cambridge by the committee of the Eastern Association.87CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 460.

But Dacres was soon back at Westminster. On 24 May an army officer, Captain Henry Andrewes, appeared before the Commons accused of being overzealous in requisitioning horses in Surrey and Hertfordshire. Dacres spoke in support of the allegations. Included on the committee appointed to investigate Andrewes’s conduct, he was asked to take particular care of the matter.88Harl. 164, f. 392; CJ iii. 101a. Along with most other MPs who were present, on 6 June Dacres took the oath of loyalty to the lord general, the 3rd earl of Essex.89CJ iii. 118a. The following month he sat on the committees on supplying arms to the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*, 19 July), on the abolition of the court of wards (24 July) and to review the powers of parliamentary committee in handling money (29 July).90CJ iii. 174b, 179b, 186a. Along with Viscount Cranborne (Charles Cecil*) and Richard Jennyns*, he issued orders to the Hertfordshire sequestrators that in sequestering the estate of Lord Capell they should leave untouched the lands to which his wife was entitled.91Add. 40630, f. 125; HMC Var. vii. 345. He was ordered with Henry Heyman* on 29 July to see that the goods seized from Sir Edward Hales, the MP for Queenborough who was suspected of supporting the Kentish rebels, should not be disposed of without further instructions.92CJ iii. 187b.

Dacres’ role as a teller in a division on 3 August clearly linked him to those who hoped that the war could be ended as early as possible by means of a negotiated settlement. The proposal that a group of peers and MPs should be sent to consult with Essex was seen by some of the ‘peace party’, particularly in the Lords, as a way of winning the lord general’s support. So when their opponents proposed that John Pym* should be part of that delegation, it was a tactic to ensure that a more belligerent voice was represented on it. As the tellers for those who unsuccessfully opposed that appointment, Dacres and Edward Wingate (who had since escaped from captivity) aligned themselves with their less warlike colleagues.93CJ iii. 193a.

On 14 August concerns were raised in the Commons about the number of inhabitants of Hertfordshire who were refusing to take the oath and covenant which had been introduced following the discovery of Edmund Waller’s* plot. Dacres and Wingate defended them by arguing that they were ‘for the most part very honest men who had liberally contributed to the Parliament’, but warned that fewer than one in ten would take this oath. This enraged Strode, who, speaking ‘very vehemently’, ‘would have laid some blame on Dacres and those who were employed in Hertfordshire’. For good measure, Strode then accused them of having been reluctant to sequester Capell's estate. Although this might have been true in Dacres’ case, he retorted that the only delays had been ones required by ‘justice and equity’.94Harl. 165, f. 180. Dacres was among the MPs appointed on 21 August to investigate the continuing complaints about the requisitioning of horses in Hertfordshire.95CJ iii. 213b. Three days later, when Speaker Lenthall informed the Commons of similar complaints from Sir Thomas Barrington* relating to the neighbouring county of Essex, Dacres took the opportunity to present a petition from Hertfordshire on the same subject.96Harl. 165. f. 155v. He seems to have given close attention to the bill to supply fuel to London by cutting down trees on the estates of delinquents in neighbouring counties, which had implications for Hertfordshire.97CJ iii. 257b, 261a.

In mid-September Dacres was among MPs who offered to lend £100 to allow the army commanded by Sir William Waller* to march from London to regain control of the south west.98CJ iii. 241a. When three months later Parliament offered to repay them, he and Sir Henry Mildmay* graciously agreed to deferment.99CJ iii. 341b. On 31 October he was one of the MPs from Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire instructed to ensure that the Aylesbury garrison was paid its arrears.100CJ iii. 297a. Dacres was also named to the committee was created on 13 November to consult with the London militia committee about the problems in collecting the assessments, with instructions that they were also to investigate grievances regarding billeting in the surrounding counties.101CJ iii. 309b. When in early December a report was received claiming that the royalists were advancing on Aylesbury, Dacres was among MPs appointed to question the messenger who had brought the news.102CJ iii. 334a. On 15 December he headed the list of MPs considering the bill to raise extra money and more men should be raised in Hertfordshire.103CJ iii. 342a. When Lytton was accused of helping to conceal goods belonging to his delinquent neighbour, Sir Thomas Fanshawe*, Dacres was named to the committee of inquiry (1 Jan. 1644).104CJ iii. 355a.

On 13 January 1644 Dacres was among the witnesses sworn at the bar of the House of Lords in anticipation of the long-delayed trial of Archbishop Laud.105LJ vi. 378b. At about same time he set down on paper what he could remember about his dispute with Laud over Sunday drinking.106CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 549-50. In the end his testimony was unnecessary, however. Only the two former churchwardens seem to have given evidence when the impeachment hearings on the subject were held on 4 May.107Laud, Works, iv. 171-2; HMC Lords, n.s. xi. 403-4.

On 7 February Dacres was among MPs added to the revived committee to examine their colleagues the two Sir John Evelyns over the allegations that they intended to defect to the king.108CJ iii. 390b. Pursuing a previous interest, he was also among those added to the Navy Committee on 14 February when the bill for supplying timber to the navy was committed to it.109CJ iii. 399b. When 22 February a group of Hertfordshire gentlemen, led by Sir Richard Lucy, arrived at Westminster with a petition complaining about how the county had suffered when Essex’s army had been quartered there, Dacres arranged for them to be allowed to present it to the Commons and was then named to the committee appointed to consider their complaints.110Harl. 166, f. 16; CJ iii. 404b, 405a. Other committee appointments included those on the bill to exclude MPs (11 Mar.), on the Middlesex county committee (21 Mar.), army pay (25 Mar.), the military situation in south Wales (10 Apr.) and raising money for the Aylesbury and Windsor garrisons (11 Apr.).111CJ iii. 423b, 434a, 437a, 455b, 457a; Harl. 166, f. 47v.

On 15 April Dacres may have been responsible for raising the case of those merchants who shipped Spanish wool via English ports. Parliament had recently banned the export of wool. Possibly at Dacres’ instigation, the Commons now heard a petition from these merchants and agreed that the ban did not apply to the re-export of this Spanish wool.112Harl. 166, f. 49; CJ iii. 459b. Later that same month he was one of the MPs to whom the sequestration bill was committed (30 Apr.).113CJ iii. 473b. On 10 May he went to the Lords to request a joint conference on their amendments to the bill to raise forces in Gloucestershire and south-west Wales.114CJ iii. 488a; LJ vi. 548a. The next day he was one of the five MPs appointed to liaise with the lord general over the transfer of the Hertfordshire regiment to Aylesbury.115CJ iii. 489b.

Dacres continued to align himself with those who were as aware of the war’s burdens as of its necessity. In early June several members of the Huntingdonshire county committee, including Abraham Burrell*, wrote to Dacres detailing their objections to the manner in which the assessments were being collected. Their particular concern was that the assessments were mostly being collected by outsiders imposed on them by the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†) and the Eastern Association committee at Cambridge. Dacres reported the contents of this letter to the Commons on 18 June. The Commons agreed to write to Manchester on the matter.116Harl. 166, f. 74v; Add. 31116, p. 290; CJ iii. 533a-b. That Dacres was the MP assigned the task on 3 July of drafting a letter to the Hertfordshire committee thanking them for the latest troops they had raised may therefore have been intended to ensure that the letter took the right tone in countering concerns that Dacres seems to have shared.117CJ iii. 549b. When on 27 July the Commons heard the Hertfordshire petition against abuses in the running of the county militia, Dacres and Lytton were sent out to inform the petitioners that it had been referred to the committee on reforming the army.118CJ iii. 572a-b; Harl. 166, ff. 101-101v.

Dacres’ role in the suspension of Jerome Alexander as treasurer of the Irish Adventure may well have had a factional undertone, as this strengthened Sir John Clotworthy* against his principal rival among the Adventurers, Sir David Watkins. Dacres and Sir Philip Stapilton* were the tellers in both the divisions on 20 August that effected Alexander’s suspension. He was then included on the committee to investigate the complaints against Alexander.119CJ iii. 599a-b. The following month he also sat on the committee to consider the petition from the Adventurers.120CJ iii. 640b.

On 21 August Dacres was appointed to the committee created to consider how public money was being spent and, more specifically, how £50,000 could be raised for the navy.121CJ iii. 601a. The following month he was among the members of the Hertfordshire sequestration committee who refused to pass the accounts of Thomas Niccolls* relating to the properties sequestered from Sir John Harrison*.122The Impact of the First Civil War on Herts. ed. A. Thomson (Herts. Rec. Soc. xxiii.), 182-4. That reflected factional differences among the local Parliamentarians, with the two knights of the shire, Dacres and Lytton, seeking to restrain some of their more enthusiastic colleagues, led by Gabriel Barbor. In October he was required by Parliament to pay £70 from the Hertfordshire assessments for pistols and armour supplied to Cromwell's regiment.123CJ iii. 661b-662a, 664a-b; A. and O.

Two developments on 21 October seemed to show Dacres adopting contradictory political stances. On the one hand, he was named to the committee on the bill to banish Edmund Waller*.124CJ iii. 671a. Waller, who was viewed by many of his colleagues as little more than a crypto-royalist, was lucky to escape so lightly and it may well be that Dacres welcomed the decision to treat him with such conspicuous leniency. Yet that same day Dacres was a teller with Sir Henry Vane II* for the majority that voted that the quartermaster-general, John Dalbier, should not be sent to join the army.125CJ iii. 672b. That vote was part of the moves by Essex’s critics – many of them were even more hostile to Edmund Waller – to undermine the earl and his allies. There may have been a local dimension to this, in that complaints about army indiscipline were certainly being used for cynical political ends but they could equally reflect simple annoyance about the indiscipline. Three months later Dacres was also named to the committee to investigate complaints from Bedfordshire (24 Jan. 1645).126CJ iv. 28b. There is no doubt that this was a tactical strike against officers associated with the earl of Manchester. But for Dacres it was probably primarily an issue about military disorder in a county adjacent to Hertfordshire. Moreover, unlike some who opposed Essex, Dacres almost certainly welcomed the attempts to reopen negotiations with the king which were being pursued during the final months of 1644, as he was one of the 30 MPs sent in mid-December to greet the 1st duke of Richmond and the 4th earl of Southampton when they arrived at Westminster with the king’s reply to those peace proposals.127CJ iii. 725b.

On 29 January 1645 Dacres was sent to thank John Wincopp, the acting vicar of St Martin’s-in-the Fields, for his sermon at the monthly fast.128CJ iv. 36b. That was presumably because Wincopp’s brother, Samuel, was the vicar of Cheshunt. On 13 February Dacres took several orders to the Lords, including the bill to pay £15,000 to the Scottish army.129LJ viii. 164b. The most pressing issue was the implementation of the New Model, which, like his fellow MPs from the Eastern Association, Dacres may have viewed with suspicion, but he was nevertheless included on the committee appointed on 17 February to make the practical arrangements for it.130CJ iv. 51a. On 4 March and again on 11 March the Commons commanded him to return to Hertfordshire to encourage the assessment collections for it to be paid.131CJ iv. 41a, 75a. He carried the petition of James Cambell* against the seizure of timber from his estates to the Lords on 4 March.132CJ iv. 68b. That same day he was added to the committee on bill to pay off John Pym’s debts.133CJ iv. 69a.

That spring Dacres took the lead in seeking extra funding for the garrisons at Newport Pagnell and elsewhere within the limits of the Eastern Association. In late March the collector of Newport Pagnell garrison, William Love, consulted with 4th Baron Wharton, Sir William Lytton and Cornelius Holland*.134Luke Letter Bks. 496. At about the same time, Love informed the governor, Sir Samuel Luke*, that he had briefed Dacres, ‘my faithful friend’, to be ready when Sir Arthur Hesilrige* reported on the matter from the Committee of Both Kingdoms. Dacres was therefore ‘fully armed with instructions’, including ‘a breviate of all due, and what paid and the abstract of the account, to answer objections if need be’. Love reported that John Bradshawe* had forwarded his draft of the proposed ordinance on to Dacres.135Luke Letter Bks. 497. This was eventually passed by both Houses on 3 September.136A. and O. i. 762-6.

When in April 1645 the justices of peace at St Albans wrote to Parliament about 12 deserters they had arrested, Dacres was ordered to prepare the reply (22 Apr.).137CJ iv. 119a. He responded quickly when three days later the Hertfordshire militia committee asked him to send printed copies of a recent ordinance, most probably that concerning deserters, so that it could be read in every parish.138Impact of the First Civil War ed. Thomson, 151-2. Several weeks later the Commons asked Wingate to write to Dacres to ensure that that ordinance was being implemented in Hertfordshire, although that was just part of similar instructions sent to all the Eastern Association counties.139CJ iv. 192b. Dacres was also one of the Eastern Association MPs sent back to their counties on 9 July to arrange for the forces to be sent to Grantham to increase the pressure on royalist-held Newark-on-Trent.140CJ iv. 202b.

The work of the Committee of Accounts was already proving controversial and relations between the Westminster-based Committee and some of the county standing committees were awkward. To pre-empt its critics, in April 1645 the Committee promoted its own bill. Dacres was named both to the committee created to investigate some of the more controversial cases which the Committee had been handling (18 Apr.) and to the committee on that bill (26 Apr.).141CJ iv. 116a, 123b. Two months later he also sat on the committee on the bill for the sale of delinquents’ estates (18 June).142CJ iv. 176a, 178b, 225a. Dacres was included on the joint committee appointed on 17 June to decide what to do with captured royalist prisoners taken to St Albans after the battle of Naseby.143CJ iv. 177b. He was a teller with Lord Wenman (Thomas Wenman*) to block the proposed temporary adjournment during the debate on 21 July on the allegations made by Lord Savile against Denzil Holles and Bulstrode Whitelocke*. In doing so, he was probably hoping to assist Holles and Whitelocke by preventing their opponents summoning their friends to the chamber. This worked as the House rejected the adjournment and moved on to reject the allegations.144CJ iv. 214b.

In early August the Eastern Association was placed in a state of alert as the king set out from south Wales, marching north-eastwards through the midlands. To assist in those preparations, Dacres persuaded the Commons on 14 August to give Viscount Cranborne, the lord lieutenant of Hertfordshire, the power to grant military commissions.145Harl. 166, f. 253v. Over the next few months Dacres may mostly have been absent from Westminster, although on 4 September he was named to the committee on the bill to assist Leicester on 4 September and to the committee for reformadoes on 30 September.146CJ iv. 263b, 295a. That November he was certainly back in Hertfordshire as he and Sir William Lytton* attempted to resolve a dispute over tax ratings between St Albans and some of its neighbouring towns.147Impact of the First Civil War ed. Thomson, 97-8. But he was presumably back in the Commons by 4 December when he was among those appointed to confer with the corporation of London about the London militia.148CJ iv. 365a.

Appeasing and resisting the army, 1645-8

One issue now came to the fore in Dacres’ activities at Westminster. The war had left many wives as widows. Parliament was understandably sympathetic towards the plight of those whose husbands had died fighting for it and it always recognised that it had a moral duty to assist them financially. The real problem was finding the money. Over the next three years Dacres took the lead in supporting their cause. As early as July 1645 a committee, including Dacres, had been appointed to consider whether these widows could be paid their husbands’ arrears from revenues raised from sequestered estates.149CJ iv. 197a. His appointment to the committee for reformadoes on 30 September followed from the petition from the widows of artillery officers which had been referred to it.150CJ iv. 295a. He was also included on the similar committee created on 23 February 1646 to consider the plight of the heirs to those who had been killed fighting for Parliament.151CJ iv. 452a. Three days later seven MPs, headed by Dacres, were appointed to decide how to allocate £4,000 granted to assist the war widows.152CJ iv. 455a. This became Dacres’ power base. He and Thomas Atkin* seem to have shared the chairmanship, with some of meetings evidently taking place at the Military Yard in St Martin’s Fields.153CJ v. 125b. Dacres reported back on 13 March. The Commons then agreed to split the £4,000 between the wives and widows of the officers and those who had served as waggoneers.154CJ iv. 473b-474a. This committee was revived the following June when further petitions were received.155CJ iv. 575b, 596a-b, 614a, 650a. In early September it was asked to prepare legislation to raise £10,000.156CJ iv. 662b. On 30 September he, together with Atkin and five other MPs, was sent to borrow that money from the excise commissioners.157CJ iv. 678b. When the 1st earl of Mulgrave died the following month, his weekly pension of £50 was continued to his widow, with the responsibility for paying it being taken over by the committee chaired by Dacres.158CJ iv. 686b. However, when the Commons agreed to grant a further £10,000 to the war widows on 28 October, it was specified that this was instead to be paid out by the treasurers for maimed soldiers, although it also made clear that these should be continuations of the payments already made by Dacres’ committee.159CJ iv. 707b. The final lists of those to receive this money were ready by 8 December and were then presented by Dacres to the Commons for its approval.160CJ v. 6b-7a. Two days later he likewise presented them to the Lords.161CJ v. 8b, 9a; LJ viii. 601a.

But other business had also kept him busy. On 12 February 1646 Dacres went to the Lords with the order that the assize judges go on circuit as usual and with the bill to regulate Cambridge University.162CJ iv. 437b, 438a; LJ viii. 162a. On 4 March he was the messenger to the Lords seeking a conference to discuss the allegations that the former groom of the bedchamber, William Murray†, was a royalist spy.163CJ iv. 462a. That same month he served as a member of the committee for the enforcement of the Self-Denying Ordinance (16 Mar.).164CJ iv. 477a. When the Commons passed the bill prohibiting royalists from any war zone on 5 May, Dacres carried it to the Lords.165CJ iv. 534b; LJ viii. 299a. On 15 May he and many other MPs were added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers (although Dacres had already been added to this body, in November 1644).166CJ iii. 699b; iv. 545b.

The leading Presbyterians at Westminster had meanwhile attempted to resume negotiations with the king. In this they were fully supported by Dacres. On 10 February 1646 he was the messenger to the Lords to seek a conference on the proposals to be offered to Charles.167CJ iv. 436a. The Lords received him only on 13 February, when they agreed to the request. Dacres also delivered several bills and orders, including the bill authorizing the payment of £15,000 to the Scottish army.168LJ viii. 164a; CJ iv. 439b. On 7 May he was again sent to the Lords, this time to seek a conference concerning the latest letters from the commissioners at Newark. Even more importantly, he carried with him their resolution, passed the previous day, that the Scottish commissioners were to be told that the decision as to where the king was to be held would be taken by the two Houses.169CJ iv. 538b, 539a; LJ viii. 304b. When the Lords failed to reply, he was sent again the next day to encourage them to agree to that resolution.170CJ iv. 539b. However, quite possibly before Dacres had the chance to deliver this second message, the Lords voted to reject the resolution.171LJ viii. 309a.

The war was now drawing to a close. Many therefore hoped to see the army disbanded or, alternatively, sent to fight in Ireland. When in late July the Committee for Irish Affairs wished to consult with the gentlemen of the Eastern Association as to whether the cavalry unit stationed at St Albans would be willing to serve in Ireland, they approached first were the two local MPs, Dacres and Lytton.172CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 476. Several weeks later Dacres was appointed to the committee to borrow money for a campaign in Ireland.173CJ iv. 641b. Meanwhile, on 23 July he was named to the committee to investigate the many royalists returning to London after the surrender of Oxford.174CJ iv. 625a.

At the close of business on 4 August Dacres was appointed to carry up an order requesting the appointment of Salisbury as a commissioner of the great seal.175CJ iv. 634. When he did so two days later, he also sought peers’ approval for a number of other measures, including the bill to continue the funding for the garrisons within the Eastern Association.176CJ iv. 637a, 638a; LJ viii. 453b-454a. On 3 October the House heard a petition from Dacres himself, asking for recompense of £178 for 100 loads of hay and 40 loads of corn he had supplied to feed the royal deer at Theobalds. The Commons agreed that this should be paid to him from the rents of the New River.177CJ iv. 682b.

The coming of peace left lots of military loose ends. On 10 October Dacres was named to the committee to consider the pay of the major-generals.178CJ iv. 690b. When some of the army officers petitioned the Commons for an amnesty indemnifying the soldiers for any actions taken by them during the war, Dacres was appointed to the committee to consider it (15 Oct.).179CJ iv. 694b. Meanwhile, as the process of allowing royalist veterans to compound for their estates accelerated, Dacres was named to the large committee to overhaul the work of the local sequestration committees (29 Oct.).180CJ iv. 708a. The Commons now legislated to sell off the estates of several prominent royalists not permitted to compound, including Capell. As his creditor, Dacres brought a direct interest to the committee on this bill (30 Oct.).181CJ iv. 710b. That same day he was also named to the committee to draw up a list of suitable candidates to be appointed as sheriffs.182CJ iv. 709b. Several weeks later he was named to the committee on the bill to reform the Committee for Compounding (10 Dec.).183CJ v. 8b.

Another loose end was the fate of those officers who had lost their positions now that the army was being downsized. From late 1646 Dacres’ efforts on behalf of the war widows expanded to encompass the assistance that Parliament, eager to push ahead with these military reductions, offered to those affected. On 12 December Dacres’ committee on the widows was asked to consult with the committee chaired by Sir Samuel Luke* on payments to former army officers to ensure that payments were not duplicated.184CJ v. 10b. On 25 December Dacres was among many MPs added to a separate committee chaired by John Birch* which dealt with the soldiers’ arrears.185CJ v. 28b. The committee chaired by Dacres was still busy the following month: on 16 January 1647 it was told to sit ‘constantly’.186CJ v. 54b. This was presumably because they were compiling the list of the ex-officers which Dacres submitted to the Commons on 26 February and to the Lords on 1 March.187CJ v. 99b, 101b; LJ ix. 43a.

Agreement with the Scots opened the way for them to hand over the king. On 12 January 1647, in anticipation of this, the Commons debated the arrangements for his transfer from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Holdenby. The key issue was which servants should be allowed to attend on him. But the crucial test of opinion was on the procedural question as to whether they should vote on the inclusion of Black Rod, James Maxwell, among those servants. Dacres and Sir Anthony Irby* were the tellers for those who wanted an immediate vote. They lost, but later that same day the Commons approved five servants, including Maxwell, anyway.188CJ v. 50a-b. On 16 January, Dacres asked the Lords for a conference on the great seal, which then agreed to leave it in the custody of the Speakers of both Houses.189CJ v. 53b, 54a; LJ viii. 676a.

Dacres seems to have been less interested in religious policy than some of his colleagues. But there were occasionally hints of his views. He doubtless disapproved of lay preachers and was included on the committee created on 31 December 1646 to gather information against them.190CJ v. 35a. Another of his committee appointments was on the bill to purge Oxford University (13 Jan. 1647).191CJ v. 51b. He was subsequently one of the 26 MPs nominated by the Commons to act as the commissioners to whom ejected dons could appeal against their dismissals.192CJ v. 121a; A. and O. He probably also supported the sale of the bishops’ lands.193CJ v. 99b. All this would have been consistent with understated religious Presbyterianism.

The requirement that the army officers submit their accounts to the Committee of Accounts had become highly politicized. The standard complaint was that the Committee favoured their Presbyterian friends. A committee, including Dacres, was therefore created on 25 January to review the accounts the Committee had queried.194CJ v. 62b. He was probably one of those more sympathetic to its proceedings. Partisan tensions were also exposed by the London militia bill, which was passed by the Lords and then sent to the Commons. The Independents viewed it with suspicion and on 2 April attempted to get it considered by a committee of the whole House. When it was instead referred to a conventional committee, Dacres was first in the list of those MPs appointed to it.195CJ v. 132b. He was also probably keen to see the Newcastle Proposition presented again to the king; on 14 April he was among the MPs told to prepare the instructions for the commissioners who were to be sent to seek the king’s answer.196CJ v. 142b. On 6 May he went to the Lords as the messenger with orders for payments to various individuals, including (Sir) Thomas Soame*, from the revenues of the Committee for Compounding. He also took with him the order that Samuel Vassall was to be paid £2,591 17s 6d from the excise.197CJ v. 165a; LJ ix. 180a. He was on 3 June among the six MPs added to the committee to receive information about MPs taking bribes.198CJ v. 196a.

In the growing dispute between the army and the Presbyterian majority in the Commons during the summer of 1647, Dacres sided firmly with the latter. The king’s removal from Holdenby to the army at Newmarket seemed an especially provocative development. On 7 June the Commons named four MPs as commissioners to go to the army to find out what exactly was happening, but two, William Ashhurst* and William Jephson*, asked to be excused. When the Commons voted on whether to excuse Jephson (a Presbyterian), Dacres and Sir Philip Stapilton* were the tellers for those who agreed.199CJ v. 202a. A week later the Lords asked the Commons to consider a petition from some of the army officers. Dacres, as well as Birch and Atkin, was among the MPs appointed to see what they could do for them.200CJ v. 210b. On 16 June he delivered an assortment of orders concerning army pay to the Lords for their approval.201CJ v. 214a, 214b; LJ ix. 269b-270a. On 25 June he sent some cheeses as a gift to the 4th earl of Pembroke (Philip Herbert*).202Hatfield House, CFEP Accounts 127/9, unf.

Dacres most likely viewed the charges made by the army against the Eleven Members as blatant interference in the Commons’ affairs. The reformadoes, whom the army blamed for the growing disorders in London, were the ex-officers on whose behalf he had worked so hard. If the choice was to be between the assertive army and the London rioters, Dacres was probably inclined to favour the latter. Certainly, when on 30 July the Speaker and the Independent MPs made the opposite choice, withdrawing to join the army, Dacres remained at Westminster.. On 2 August Atkin and Vassall were therefore sent to bolster Londoners fearful of the army by telling them that the MPs at Westminster now wanted the king to come to the capital and that they should continue their preparations to defend it.203CJ v. 264b. The following day a larger delegation, headed by Dacres, was sent to repeat that message.204CJ v. 266b. This made no difference and the army was soon able to march into the capital.

On 11 August Dacres was appointed with William Leman by both Houses to thank the Hertfordshire militia committee for calling out its militia to assist the army when it had entered London five days earlier.205CJ v. 271b; LJ ix. 383b. Leman had been among those MPs who had fled to join the army, so the pair may have been intended to balance each other. That same day the bill to repeal all the votes made between 26 July and 6 August was introduced and Dacres, doubtless without much pleasure, was among the members of the large committee to which it was then referred.206CJ v. 272a. A week later he was also included on the committee on the similar bill sent from the Lords.207CJ v. 278a. But all was not lost. On 1 September he secured the Lords’ agreement to the motions that the revived Newcastle Propositions should be presented to the king by the parliamentary commissioners already in attendance on him and that the Scottish commissioners be informed of this.208CJ v. 288b; LJ ix. 414a.

Dacres meanwhile continued to help oversee the payments to the former army officers. Keeping the army and its former members happy was as important as ever. By October 1647 the committee on the subject seems to have been chaired jointly by Dacres and Henry Marten*.209CJ v. 334a. That may have been another attempt at political balance, although it could equally mean that Dacres’ direction of its affairs was now being challenged. Earlier, Dacres had also been added to the committee on maimed soldiers (1 Sept.).210CJ v. 287b, 356a. Later, on 22 October he was named to the committee on army arrears.211CJ v. 340a.

Unlike many Presbyterians, Dacres stuck it out at Westminster. The extent of the absences by other MPs was revealed at the call on the House on 9 October. Dacres was not merely present at the call of the House on 9 October that revealed the extent of absenteeism, but was named to the committee to receive excuses from colleagues.212CJ v. 329a. On 13 November, the day after the king's escape from Hampton Court had become known and when Parliament was still unsure of the full facts, Dacres was sent to the Lords to ask them to continue sitting.213CJ v. 358a, 358b; LJ ix. 523a. But that same day he was the teller with Sir Walter Erle* against the declaration that harbouring the royal fugitive would be punished by forfeiture and death.214CJ v. 358a-b. On 8 December he carried several messages to the Lords, who as a result agreed to an extension of 20 days to the terms of the existing commissioners of the great seal.215CJ v. 377a, 377b; LJ ix. 565b. He probably supported the moves to indemnify the soldiers and to pay those who were about to be disbanded.216CJ v. 396a. When on 23 December the Commons appointed groups of MPs to go to each county to improve the assessment collections, Dacres and Lytton were the pair appointed for Hertfordshire.217CJ v. 400b.

On 26 February 1648 Dacres was teller with Sir James Harington* against reminding the Scots that a Presbyterian establishment in Holland had proved compatible with religious toleration.218CJ v. 468b. The following month he was named to the committee on the bill in favour of the surviving feoffees for impropriations (28 Mar.).219CJ v. 519a. In response to the decision by the Irish peer, the 6th Lord Inchiquin, to desert to the royalists, the House of Lords voted that Inchiquin’s son should be imprisoned in the Tower. Dacres and Sir Walter Erle* were tellers for the minority against this decision on 13 April.220CJ v. 529b. Eight days later, in one of the divisions on the bill for securing and disarming delinquents, he and Erle were the tellers for those who, by a narrow majority, insisted that this should apply only to those delinquents who had ‘actually’ adhered to the king.221CJ v. 539b.

The committee on the former army officers chaired by Dacres remained active. On 15 March 1648 it was given the power to question the auditors about the officers’ accounts.222CJ v. 500a. Ten days later this committee was told to review their lists of the former officers in order to remove the names of any who had been involved in the riots of July and August 1647.223CJ v. 514a. That may not have been a task that Dacres would have found especially congenial.

On 20 April Dacres brought in a draft order to recover the debts owed to him by Capell. In June 1641 Capell had borrowed £500 from him, while in January 1642 the pair had entered into a bond for £1,500 with Henry Pitts. The order proposed that Dacres and Pitts should be repaid with interest from Capell’s sequestered estate. This was passed first by the Commons that same day and, on being carried there by Viscount Cranborne, by the Lords the following day.224CJ v. 538a; LJ x. 213b, 217a-b; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 715.

On 28 April the Commons declared that they would not alter the government of the kingdom by king, Lords and Commons. This undoubtedly had Dacres’ wholehearted support. In debating its wording the Commons had voted on whether the motion should include the word ‘will’, a crucial detail as it thereby implied that they were declaring that they would not alter it in future. The large majority of MPs (165) who voted in favour were counted by Dacres and Arthur Annesley*.225CJ v. 547a. This was intended as a warning shot against the calls that were beginning to be made in some quarters for fundamental constitutional reform.

With armed uprisings in prospect from those who considered that Parliament had already gone too far, on 4 May Dacres was included on the committee to prepare the militia.226CJ v. 551a. When several thousand former army officers petitioned Parliament on 10 May, their demands were immediately passed on to Dacres’ committee.227CJ v. 555a-b, 556a. There was also a growing likelihood of a Scottish invasion. Dacres was one of the four MPs appointed as a reporter for the joint conference with the Lords on 19 May to discuss the worsening news from Edinburgh.228CJ v. 566a. As a teller with Cranborne, Dacres was a key figure in the vote by the Commons on 24 May to resume negotiations with the king. This was an explicit repudiation of the Vote of No Addresses of 3 January.229CJ v. 572b.

When on 31 May the Commons heard a new petition from the former army officers and from war widows, Dacres responded on behalf of his committee.230CJ v. 580b. The following day the bill to create a committee to receive the soldiers’ accounts received its first and second readings in the Commons. It was then committed to that existing committee.231CJ v. 581b. Two days later Dacres secured the House’s agreement to grants of £21,000 from the excise and £21,000 from the sequestrations to help pay the arrears owed to these former officers.232CJ v. 582b-583a. However, when the bill for that purpose was introduced from Dacres’ committee on 14 June, it was rejected.233CJ v. 599a. The committee was nevertheless kept busy in processing the various cases coming before it.234CJ v. 627b-628a, 628b, 631a, 634a; LJ x. 369a-b. Meanwhile, Dacres was named to the committees on the bills to abolish the cathedral chapters (16 June) and to appoint new prebendaries for Christ Church, Oxford (17 June).235CJ v. 602a, 603b. On 30 June he was added to the committee to take hostages in retaliation for the capture by the royalist rebels of the Essex county committee.236CJ v. 618a.

On 3 July the Commons imposed three preconditions which they required should be met before commencing formal talks with the king, including agreement to an imposition of Presbyterianism for three years and to the militia remaining under the control of Parliament for ten years. The Presbyterian peers in the Lords however refused to accept this and on 28 July Dacres was among their friends in the Commons who got them dropped. In the most important of the divisions Dacres was a teller for those who successfully opposed the motion endorsing the earlier resolution.237CJ v. 650a. This soon made it possible for the 2nd earl of Middlesex (James Cranfield*), Sir John Hippisley* and John Bulkeley* to travel to Carisbrooke to inform the king that Parliament was now willing to resume unconditional negotiations. Within days a letter purporting to be from Dacres at Carisbrooke on 12 August was printed, making public the king’s apparent willingness to proceed with talks.238His Majesties Gracious Declaration to the Right Honourable the Earl of Middlesex (1648), 1-2 (E.458.13). The letter was probably a forgery. That said, Dacres’ whereabouts are difficult to pin down. He had presumably still been at Westminster on 4 August, as he had then been temporarily added to the Committee of Accounts when it was revived to hear the case of Lionel Copley* (previously the source of much acrimony).239CJ v. 661b. Indeed, he had in all probability never left Westminster. However, if the letter was a fake, it evidently used Dacres’ name because his support for the proposed negotiations was obvious.

Dacres certainly supported the practical preparations for those negotiations. As tellers on 17 August, Dacres and Irby seem to have supported the imposition of the condition that the king should not be allowed to name as his attendants there any royalists who had already been proscribed by Parliament.240CJ v. 674a. They presumably did so for tactical reasons, hoping that this would not be used by other, more sceptical MPs as a reason for delay. Moreover, on 1 September Dacres was part of the delegation that waited on the common council of London to seek a loan of £10,000 to help fund the negotiations.241CJ v. 697b.

As a teller earlier that same day, he opposed the passing of the bill for the sale of episcopal impropriations without a committee stage.242CJ v. 696b. When on 23 September the Commons decided to send MPs back to their counties to promote the speedy collection of the assessments, Dacres and Lytton were sent to Hertfordshire.243CJ vi. 30b. Dacres had probably returned by 9 October when he was among the MPs named to the committee on the bill to raise money for the guards protecting Parliament.244CJ vi. 47a. A week later he sat on the committee to hear the petition from the corporation of London about financial support for a preaching ministry.245CJ vi. 53a. On 17 October he informed the Lords that the Commons intended to adjourn until 23 October, although later that same day the Commons, under pressure from the Lords, agreed to reverse this.246CJ vi. 53b, 54b; LJ x. 546b.

On 21 October the Commons agreed that a delegation should be sent to meet with the lord general, Sir Thomas Fairfax*, to discuss the possible reductions in the size of the army.247CJ vi. 58a. Of the eight MPs appointed, four – Dacres, Robert Scawen*, Sir Richard Onslow* and William Leman* – travelled to St Albans three days later. They discovered that the soldiers wanted proper funding for the garrisons to be stationed in towns and for their arrears to the previous January to be paid.248Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1309. Dacres was back at Westminster by 31 October, when he was the teller with Sir William Waller in two of the divisions on possible pardons to be agreed with the king. Dispute arose over whether the composition fines to be paid by such individuals in order to recover their sequestered lands should be set at two-thirds of the value of their estates. Dacres and Waller favoured leniency and got that motion blocked. It was then agreed that the fines should instead be set at half the value.249CJ vi. 66a. Dacres was added to the Army Committee on 22 November, when it was asked to consider the bill to ensure that the army was paid.250CJ vi. 83b. That same week he was also included on the committee to decide which castles and fortifications could now be demolished (25 Nov.).251CJ vi. 87a. Dacres and Wingate were then sent home to assist with the assessment collections in Hertfordshire.252CJ vi. 87b.

On their arrival at Westminster on 7 December, the second morning of the army’s purge of the Commons, Dacres and his future son-in-law, John Doddridge*, were turned back by the soldiers. Unable to take their seats, they wrote immediately to Speaker Lenthall protesting that they had ‘pressed to do our duties, but were kept back by force’.253Mems. of the Great Civil War ed. Cary, ii. 74-5. This was read to the Commons later that same day.254CJ vi. 94b. It made no difference. It would be more than a decade before Dacres again sat in Parliament.

After 1648

That decade was, for Dacres, mostly uneventful. Lord Capell was executed on 9 March 1649, and in the years that followed, Dacres and Sir Edward Capell, acted as the trustees to pay off his creditors.255CCC, 1933. In August 1654 Dacres headed the list of the commissioners appointed by the lord protector and the council of state to adjudicate in disputes between the Irish Adventurers over the allocation of land.256A. and O. In that draw Dacres himself was assigned lands in the barony of Kilkenny, but he quickly sold them to Robert Goodwin*.257CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, pp. 40, 100, 349. He was restored to the commission of the peace in 1656.

Following the readmission of the secluded Members, Dacres quickly resumed his seat in Parliament. He had done so as early as 24 February 1660,when he was among those ordered to consider the bill constituting George Monck* as captain-general of the forces, while the following day he was added to the committee on the militia.258CJ vii. 850b, 853a. He was also named to the committees on the release of prisoners (27 Feb.), on the payments owed to Henry Peck (29 Feb.), on settling ministers (29 Feb.), on the bill to borrow money from London (29 Feb.) and on the bill to settle the London militia (29 Feb.).259CJ vii. 854a, 855b, 856a.

The property that Dacres still owned at Higham Ferrers enabled him to get elected as that town’s MP in the spring of 1660. His main achievement as a Member of the Convention was to persuade it to repay the £250 he had lent in March 1642 for the re-conquest of Ireland.260CJ viii. 181a-182a, 243b; LJ xi. 194b, 204b, 206b. In 1661-3, when he was the local curate, John Tillotson, the future archbishop of Canterbury, boarded with him at Cheshunt.261F. H[utchinson], The Life of the Most Reverand Father in God John Tillotson (1717), 19-20. Dacres died in late 1668. Over a quarter of a century earlier, in 1641, he had repaired his great-grandfather’s monument in the local church at Cheshunt. The epitaph he had added to it then declared that he wished to be buried there himself in due course.262Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 113; RCHME Herts. 77; Pevsner, Herts. 124. That wish was fulfilled on 26 December 1668 when he was buried ‘without funeral or solemnity or other expenses, according as these times of humiliation require’.263Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 101; PROB11/329/361. His son (Sir) Thomas*, who had sat in the Long Parliament as a recruiter MP for Callington, had predeceased him by only about six months.264PROB11/328/48. The elder Sir Thomas had also suffered significant losses in the Great Fire. Robert, the younger Sir Thomas’s eldest son, therefore inherited what had become a much impaired estate.265PROB11/329/361. In 1675 he sold the lands at Cheshunt to the 3rd earl of Salisbury (James Cecil†).266Chauncy, Herts. i. 586; Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 100; VCH Herts. iii. 453. No later member of the family sat in Parliament.