DRAKE, Francis (c.1610-70), of Walton-on-Thames, Surr.

This branch of the Drake family had been associated with the area around Walton-on-Thames since the 1580s. So whereas this MP’s elder brother, William*, the beneficiary of the inheritance from their maternal grandfather, settled in Buckinghamshire, Francis Drake succeeded to those interests in Surrey. On his death in 1634, their father, Francis senior, bequeathed the rectory manor of Walton-on-Thames and the manor of Esher to his younger son.30Blackman, ‘Drake fam.’, 93. Moreover, Francis senior had been granted a lease on the royal lands at Walton-on-Thames in 1612 for the lifetime of the two sons.31CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 120; APC 1613-14, p. 394; VCH Surr. iii. 470. Those lands, the manor of Walton-on-Thames, had since been transferred into William’s name, but William chose to sell it his brother. Francis’s sale of the manor of Esher, which had been completed by 1636, may have been done in order to raise the cash needed to complete this rationalisation of the family estates between the two brothers.32Blackman, ‘Drake fam.’, 93. Other evidence confirms that Drake was at this point in his life a very wealthy man. By his first marriage to the daughter of Sir Alexander Denton*, he became closely acquainted with the Verneys of Claydon. In 1638 he was able to lend £3,250 to Sir Edmund Verney* mortgaged against the Verney lands at Middle Claydon.33Broad, Transforming Eng. Rural Soc. 22. His riches were however not to last.

Drake was elected to the Long Parliament for Amersham on his brother’s interest at a by-election in the spring of 1641 following the death of William Cheyney*. He had taken his seat by 12 May when he took the Protestation.34CJ ii. 144a; Procs. LP iv. 337, 346. Either he or his brother would have been the ‘Mr. Drake’ added to the committee on St Paul’s Covent Garden on 21 June.35CJ ii. 191b. (That his brother soon became Sir William Drake conveniently reduced the possibility of the two of them continuing to get confused in this way.) But otherwise it was not until 1642 that Francis began to become visible in Parliament.

Half-hearted Parliamentarian, 1642-6

In April 1642 Drake headed a group of investors who jointly subscribed £600 to the Irish Adventure; of that amount, Drake seems to have provided £200.36J.P. Prendergast, Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland (1875), 408; Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 180. On 10 June he also pledged £100 in plate and one horse ‘in readiness’ for the parliamentary war effort.37PJ iii.469. As a Surrey resident he was sent by the Commons with Sir Samuel Oldfield* in mid-October to expedite the delivery of money and plate raised there.38CJ ii. 806b. On 2 November he also conferred with some of the other Surrey MPs over suitable nominations for deputy lieutenants to be appointed in the eastern half of the county.39CJ ii. 831a. He had meanwhile been named to the Committee for Examinations (28 Oct.).40CJ ii. 825b; Add. 18777, f. 45v.

The king’s advance towards London in early November 1642 brought the war to Drake’s doorstep. On his retreat from Brentford on 13 November, the king regrouped at Oatlands Park, immediately adjacent to Walton. Three months later Drake would tell the Commons that ‘his mansion house in the county of Surrey had been lately plundered by the king’s army’ at that time.41Harl. 164, f. 298.

The direct experience of war made him keen to support the efforts to secure a peaceful settlement. In the debate on 21 November on whether to accept the king’s offer of peace talks, Drake argued that they should respond positively by sending their terms for a settlement because, in doing so, ‘we shall open the eyes of the world and make them see what we desire’.42Add. 18777, f. 65. On 16 February 1643, having first mentioned the damage which had been done to his house by the king’s army the previous November, Drake accused parliamentarian troops of now burning down ‘a new-built farm of his in the same county’.43Harl. 164, f. 298. The Commons instructed him to inform Sir William Waller* so that he could investigate.44CJ ii. 967b. On 31 March 1643 Drake opened the Surrey MPs’ attack on the burden of taxation in the county, by asserting that Walton

was required to pay a great sum forthwith upon a warrant from the earl of Essex than their share had come unto to pay by reason of all the subsidies and other taxations that had been laid upon them since the beginning of this Parliament.45Harl. 164, f. 349v.

The Commons agreed that the Surrey complaints would be raised with Essex. But they also told Drake and the two knights of the shire, Sir Ambrose Browne* and Sir Richard Onslow*, to return to Surrey to ensure that the assessment and sequestration ordinances were being implemented there.46CJ iii. 25b; Harl. 164, f. 350.

Drake’s support for the war during 1643 seems to have been somewhat desultory. It was not that he was unwilling to act in support of Parliament so much that others were doing much more. One of his few committee appointments in this period, made on 3 June, was when he was added to the committee to organise the enumeration of all horses in the London area.47CJ iii. 113b. Three days later he took the oath of allegiance to the 3rd earl of Essex as lord general.48CJ iii. 118b. On 31 August he was granted leave to go to Suffolk ‘for ten or twelve days’, possibly on the occasion of his second marriage.49CJ iii. 223a. On his return he, together with two of the other local gentlemen, was put in charge of ensuring the preservation of Richmond Park.50CJ iii. 245a. Drake readily took the Covenant on 30 September, unlike his kinsman Sir Ralph Verney* who was warned by Drake that, like Denton, he was in danger of having his estates sequestrated if he continued to neglect the House.51CJ iii. 259a; Verney MSS, F. Drake to Sir R. Verney, 4 Oct. 1643 (M636/5). Another of his rare committee appointments came on 12 October when he was named to the committee to consider how the army could be supplied with money, arms and ammunition.52CJ iii. 274a. In January 1644 he was one of the 11 new deputy lieutenants appointed by Parliament for Surrey.53CJ iii. 376a; LJ vi. 390b.

If Drake’s commitment to the parliamentarian cause may have been less than wholehearted, his doubts were not as great as those of others around him. His father-in-law, Sir Alexander Denton, had been disabled for deserting the parliamentarian cause and was now a prisoner in the Tower. On 19 March 1644, along with Sir John Trevor* and another of Denton’s relatives, 2nd Viscount Wenman (Sir Thomas Wenman*), Drake was granted permission by the Commons to visit him.54CJ iii. 432a; Harl. 166, f. 35v. Meanwhile, both his brother, (Sir) William, and (Sir) Ralph Verney had separately gone abroad. Before leaving, Verney had appointed Francis as one of the trustees to manage his estates in his absence.55J.P.F. Broad, ‘The Verneys and the sequestrators in the civil wars 1642-56’, Recs. of Bucks. xxvii., 3.

On 11 March 1644 Drake presented a letter from his constituents complaining about the plundering they had suffered at the hands of the royalist forces. This was then referred to the Committee of Both Kingdoms.56Harl. 166, f. 31; CJ iii. 424a. Thereafter he was appointed to just two committees – on raising funds for the Aylesbury garrison (8 Apr.) and to consider the petitions from the Surrey gentlemen and the county committee (22 Apr.) – before taking a long leave of absence, ostensibly for health reasons on 28 May.57CJ iii. 452b, 467b, 509b. This was renewed on 1 August and 29 November.58CJ iii. 576a, 708b. During those months his sole committee appointment was on 29 October, when he was among those temporarily added to the committee on the army establishment after it was asked to consider how the latest grant of £3,000 should be apportioned.59CJ iii. 681b.

Drake returned in the new year to support the peace talks at Uxbridge. On 25 January 1645, four days before these negotiations, he carried to the Lords the order desiring that prayers be said for their success on the next day of public humiliation.60CJ iv. 30a; LJ vii. 156b. But those prayers were unsuccessful and the talks were soon abandoned. The following May he was sent by the Commons to ask Richard Byfield, the rector of Long Ditton and a member of the Westminster Assembly, to preach before them on the next fast day on 25 June.61CJ iv. 156a, 185b. Over the summer Drake joined with Denzil Holles* and other Presbyterians on the Committee for Examinations to defend the astrologer, William Lilly, against the charge of inciting attacks on the Excise Office. When Samuel Vassall* called for Lilly’s books to be burned, Drake sneered that ‘you smell more of a citizen than a scholar’.62Bodl. Ashmole 421, f. 200v. Drake may have supported Lilly partly because the two of them were neighbours at Walton. That August the Commons asked the Revenue Committee to reimburse Drake for the money he had spent repairing the bridge over the River Mole at Cobham.63CJ iv. 249b. That same day, 23 August, he was named to the committee to allocate the grant of £500 between the Scottish ex-army officers.64CJ iv. 250a. Given three weeks leave on 13 September, Drake’s name does not re-appear on committee lists until 4 December, when he was appointed to the grand committee to confer with the corporation of London over control of the militia.65CJ iv. 273b, 365a. Another period of leave in the country followed from 30 March 1646.66CJ iv. 495a.

In early 1646 Sir Ralph Verney defaulted on the mortgage his father had originally taken out with Drake in 1638. Sir Ralph therefore formally transferred some of his lands into Drake’s name, albeit only as a temporary arrangement until the debt could be paid.67Broad, ‘The Verneys and the sequestrators’, 3; Broad, Transforming Eng. Rural Soc. 35. This had the further advantage for both of them that this provided partial protection against sequestration. With much black humour, Lady Verney began using the nickname of ‘Purchase’ for Drake when writing to her husband. After the remaining lands were sequestered, the Verneys’ immediate objective became their attempts to get that sequestration lifted. Their hope was that Drake would be able to use his connections in Parliament. On this point, Lady Verney seemed cautiously optimistic in early December 1646, for she reported to Sir Ralph that Drake ‘expresses much and I am told will be very cordial so far as he dares venture’. She then added the observation that ‘he never lived at such a height in his life as he doth now’.68Verney MSS, Lady Verney to Sir R. Verney, 3 Dec. 1646 (M636/7). Just a week later she was already beginning to modify her view of him, as she now found that he was ‘so fearful and timorous that he dares not look upon those he hath heretofore professed friendship to’.69Verney MSS, same to same, 10 Dec. 1646 (M636/7). Relations worsened the following spring when Drake tried to renege on his obligations as a surety for a loan which Verney was finding it difficult to repay. Lady Verney therefore concluded that ‘there is no trust to be given to anything Mr Purchase sayth for he is one day so kind and the next so churlish that there is no dealing with him’ and that ‘he hath not any kindness to for anybody but for his own ends’.70Verney MSS, same to same, 25 Mar. 1647 (M636/8). For the time being other MPs were probably of rather more use to the Verneys in their efforts to lobby the Commons.71Broad, ‘The Verneys and the sequestrators’, 5-7.

At some point in the mid-1640s Drake took control of Oatlands Park, which had been part of Queen Henrietta Maria’s jointure estate. An undated petition from him would claim that he had done so for ‘the preservation thereof with the woods belonging to the same and the deer remaining after the plunder of the soldiers’.72Bodl. Dep. C.167, f. 338. The former keeper of the palace, Thomas Jermyn* (whom Drake confused with his brother, Henry Jermyn*) was with the king and the prince of Wales, so the threat to the palace and the park was real enough. According to Drake, John Goodwyn* had persuaded the Committee for the Revenue to confirm this new arrangement.73Bodl. Dep. C.167, f. 338. Drake’s possession of Oatlands could have become significant as there was talk at several points during 1647 of moving the king there.74LJ ix. 199b, 243b, 244b.

Intermittent Presbyterian, 1646-8

Drake’s appointment to the committee appointed on 5 September 1646 to borrow £200,000 from London to pay off the Scots is a hint that he may have been glad to see the Scottish army depart from England.75CJ iv. 663a. That same month he was named to the committee to consider the various oaths taken in the universities and by sheriffs and to crack down on clandestine marriages (30 Sept.).76CJ iv. 678b. Several weeks later he was included on the committee to reform some of the minor law courts (21 Oct.).77CJ iv. 701b. That December he was named to several committees, including that to investigate the printed attack by William Dell on the Presbyterian preacher, Christopher Love (12 Dec.), as well as being added to the committee for privileges (16 Dec.).78CJ v. 6b, 10b, 14b, 21b. His sole committee appointment between late December 1646 and late March 1647 was to pursue those who had published various seditious pamphlets (3 Feb.).79CJ v. 72b. On 2 April he was among those to whom the London militia bill was committed.80CJ v. 132b. A brief period of absence followed from 7 April.81CJ v. 135b.

Drake had presumably returned to Westminster by 12 May when he was named to the committee on the bill for the loan of £200,000.82CJ v. 168b. Two days later the Commons nominated him as one of the 52 MPs included on the proposed Committee for Indemnity.83CJ v. 174a; A. and O. But he was otherwise inconspicuous until the major political crisis later that summer. When in late July the army advanced towards the capital and the Independent MPs fled to join it, Drake remained at Westminster. That is known because on 2 August he was one of those MPs appointed to investigate the riots of the London apprentices on 26 July.84CJ v. 265a. It is true that on 11 August, after the Independent MPs had returned, he was included on the committee on the bill to reverse all the votes which had been made during their absence.85CJ v. 271a. However, his real views were more apparent on 19 August when he and Richard Knightley* were the tellers against watering down the proviso to be added to this bill.86CJ v. 279a. He was then one of the 19 MPs who two days later sought permission to absent themselves.87CJ v. 281a. The apparent ascendency of the Independents, backed by the military might of the army, was not something in which Drake wanted to participate.

Yet he did not remain away for long. The uneasy attempts to pursue negotiations with the king soon tempted him back. On 30 September he was therefore included on the committee to draft new proposals to be offered to Charles.88CJ v. 321b. Six days later he was likewise appointed to the second committee for that same purpose.89CJ v. 327b. But he was absent when the House was called on 9 October and he was formally granted leave on 28 October.90CJ v. 330a, 344b. He was not however completely inactive. On 17 December he redeemed himself in the eyes of the Verneys by successfully moving the reading of Lady Verney’s petition to lift her husband’s sequestration.91Verney MSS, William Denton to Sir R. Verney, 20 Dec. 1647 (M636/8); CJ v. 390a.

Granted more leave on 27 January 1648, he was probably still absent in early April.92CJ v. 445a; Verney MSS, same to same, 10 Apr. 1648 (M636/9). He certainly made no further recorded impression in the Commons until 8 May when he acted as teller with Arthur Annesley* in a division on the bill for disarming delinquents. That brought about a delay on voting on whether to accept the Lords’ amendments, which suggests that Drake agreed with those amendments and hoped that this delay would increase the likelihood of them being accepted.93CJ v. 554a.

Trouble broke out on 16 May when, on arriving at Westminster to present their petition, a group of Surrey petitioners openly called for the king’s restoration. The soldiers guarding Parliament opened fire on them. Drake was one of the MPs appointed the following day to establish what exactly had happened.94CJ v. 562b. He was also one of the seven MPs asked on 20 May to prepare instructions for their colleagues who were to be sent to Surrey to pacify the situation there.95CJ v. 566b. The rising in the neighbouring county of Kent then created a new threat. The Derby House Committee reacted by ordering the troop of horse stationed at Windsor to work in conjunction with Drake and Sir Richard Onslow* to secure Surrey.96CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 161. On 10 June Drake was included on the Commons committee to draft a declaration which it was hoped would reassure the country.97CJ v. 593b. He also supported the moves to secure London.98CJ v. 624a, 630a, 671b. Once order had been restored, he probably backed the bill to use sequestered estates to pay for a troop of horse to be raised in Surrey (24 Aug.).99CJ v. 681b, vi. 10b.

Drake meanwhile supported re-opening negotiations with the king. On 28 July he and Sir Walter Erle* were the tellers against confining the location of those negotiations to the Isle of Wight. That motion was defeated by just one vote.100CJ v. 650a. Once the talks got under way, Drake helped ensure that the money required to fund them was found. On 13 October the Commons received a request from their commissioners at Newport that the remaining money for this purpose be sent to them immediately. Drake and eight other MPs were given the job of arranging this.101CJ vi. 51b. Similarly, on 3 November, after the expiry of the original time limit set for the negotiations, John Doddridge*, Lionel Copley* and Drake were ordered to seek a loan of £4,000 from the common council of London to allow the negotiations to continue.102CJ vi. 68b. The next day he was also a member of the larger delegation sent to ask the common council to improve Parliament’s security arrangements.103CJ vi. 69b. In an effort to secure the treaty, Drake was teller with Sir John Evelyn of Surrey* on 7 November for those who wanted an immediate vote on whether Sir Francis Doddington should be one of seven delinquents exempted from pardon.104CJ vi. 71a. That motion was passed, whereupon the Commons agreed that Doddington should indeed be exempted.

On 26 November Drake wrote to (Sir) John Potts*, who was one of the commissioners at Newport, welcoming what he saw as encouraging progress. According to him, the opening sections of the treaty had been welcomed at Westminster. He was also able to tell Potts that the £4,000 would shortly be sent. This therefore made him ‘hopeful we shall have ease in settling things here as well as you hope where you are’. He ended by promising

I shall obey your commands furthering to my power a good reception of all that is done by you whose endeavours are fallen out in a good climate, by God’s good providence.105W. Vaughan-Lewis and M. Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court (Lavenham, 2009), 318.

However, all these efforts to promote the treaty simply ensured that Drake was arrested and imprisoned when the army purged the Commons on 6 December.106Verney MSS, W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 7 Dec. 1648 (M636/9). He appears to have been released at some point before 20 December.107Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 168n.

Enemy of the Diggers, 1649

Unlike Drake, some residents from the Walton area embraced the revolutionary implications of the king’s execution. In April 1649 Gerrard Winstanley and several other local inhabitants occupied the common lands on St George’s Hill and began planting crops. For these ‘Diggers’, this was an assertion of their belief that all land should be held communally. More immediately, however, this was a direct challenge to Drake’s rights as the lord of the manor. Drake was in no way sympathetic. But what exactly happened next is not entirely clear. According to Winstanley’s own account, which was published within weeks

there be three men (called by the people lords of manors) viz. Thomas Lord Wenman, Ralph Verney knight and Richard Winwood esquire, have arrested us for a trespass in digging upon the commons, and upon the arrest we made our appearance in Kingston court, where we understood we were arrested for meddling with other men’s’ rights.108G. Winstanly, J. Barker and T. Star, An Appeal to the House of Commons (1649), 4 (E.564.5).

But soon Winstanley was implying that Wenman, Verney and Winwood had been acting on Drake’s behalf.109G. Winstanley, A New-yeers Gift for the Parliament and Armie (1649), 21 (E.587.6); [G.] Winstanly, A Watch-Word to the City of London and the Armie (1649), 1, 8 (E.573.1). Some of this makes sense. As has been noted, Wenman and Verney were Drake’s kinsmen and Verney’s estates were still mortgaged to Drake. Richard Winwood* was another individual to whom some of Verney’s land now nominally belonged. Moreover, Drake was probably the relative to whom Verney’s brother, Henry, had become a tenant at Oatlands several years earlier.110Mems. of the Verney Family, i. 429. But none of this quite explains why Wenman, Verney and Winwood were now acting as fronts for Drake. There is also the oddity that (Sir) Ralph Verney was at this time in exile abroad. It may be significant that in 1643 Drake had been described as the ‘farmer of the manor’, implying that he did not own the freehold.111SP28/244, unfol. It may therefore be that he had transferred these lands into the nominal possession of Wenman, Verney and Winwood. What however is clear is that it was Drake who was Winstanley’s real opponent.

In his pamphlet, A Watch-Word to the City of London and the Armie, published in September 1649, Winstanley denounced Drake’s action as hypocrisy for someone who had been an MP.

Mr Drake, you are a Parliament man and was not the beginning of the quarrel between King Charles and your House? This the king pleaded to uphold prerogative and you were against it, and yet must a Parliament man be the first man to uphold prerogative, who are but servants to the nation for the peace and liberty of everyone, not conquering kings to make their will a law?112Winstanly, Watch-Word to the City of London, 26.

But Drake’s efforts to harass them had already achieved their aim. The previous month Winstanley and his fellow Diggers had been forced to relocate to the neighbouring parish of Cobham. Although Winstanley explicitly criticised Drake in print, it is not entirely clear how far this influenced the opinions of their contemporaries. It may well be fair to say that Drake’s role in these events is more notorious now in the twenty-first century than it ever was at the time.

Traditionalist supporter of the protectorate, 1653-9

In due course Drake became one of the strongest supporters of the protectorate in the Parliaments of the 1650s. Initially, however, that support found its expression in his willingness to continue holding local office after 1653. At about this time he became a Surrey justice of the peace. In that capacity he regularly conducted marriages at Walton, including that in 1654 of Lord Vaughan (Francis Vaughan†) and Lady Rachel Wriothesley, the future Rachel, Lady Russell.113Drake, ‘Some account of Richard Drake’, 212-13. In August 1654 he became one of the Surrey commissioners appointed by the council of state to act against scandalous ministers.114A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 144

Drake’s Amersham seat had been abolished by the Instrument of Government in 1653, but on 12 July 1654 he was one of the six county Members for Surrey returned to the first protectorate Parliament. An inactive Member, he was named to only four committees, including the privileges committee (5 Sept.), the committee on the bill for the construction of a county gaol for Surrey (9 Nov.) and the committee to consider the future of the civil lawyers (22 Dec.).115CJ vii. 366b, 381a, 407b. Drake was already involved in the plans for a new county gaol for Surrey and so was named to the committee on that subject (9 Nov.) as well.116Hart, ‘Further remarks’, 202-4; CJ vii. 383b. In November 1655, misnamed as ‘Francis Drake of Sussex’, he was among the new appointees to the council of state’s trade committee.117CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 1.

On 20 August 1656 Drake was re-elected as one of the Surrey MPs for the second protectorate Parliament. This time he took a much more active part, aligning himself with the Presbyterian interest in the Commons. On the second day (18 Sept.) he was a member of a small committee charged with preparing the declaration to appoint a general fast day.118CJ vii. 424a; Burton’s Diary, i. p. clxxix. He took charge of the committee appointed on 25 November to attend the protector to arrange the presentation of bills ready for his assent and, after they had done so on 26 November, he reported back to the Commons.119CJ vii. 459a, 459b; Burton’s Diary, i. pp. clxxix-cxc. Meanwhile, he sat on the committees concerning, among other things, alehouses (29 Sept.), sequestered ecclesiastical livings (4 Oct.), the sequestered estates of Roman Catholics (22 Oct.), the excise on beer (25 Oct.) and civil lawyers (22 Nov.).120CJ vii. 430a, 434a, 444a, 445b, 457a. His interest in the forests committee (23 Oct.) was presumably because at Oatlands, where the palace had since been demolished, the timber from the park was being cut down for use by the navy.121CJ vii. 444b. On the recommendation of John Claypoole* (a hunting friend of the Verneys), he was added to the committee on the estate bill for the 8th earl of Derby (23 Dec.).122CJ vii. 473b; Burton’s Diary, i. 215.

Like other Presbyterians, Drake was keen to see harsh action taken against James Naylor. He was thus among those MPs appointed on 31 October to investigate the accusation that Naylor had committed blasphemy.123CJ vii. 448a. The full extent of his lack of sympathy became apparent when the case came back before the whole House.124Burton’s Diary, i. 34. On 8 December he told the Commons that he thought the Quaker to be ‘worse than all the papists in the world, worse than possessed with the devil’, and so insisted he should be indicted of ‘horrid blasphemy’.125Burton’s Diary, i. 55-6. (The comment about demonic possession was an interesting one, given that when he had been a boy his mother had believed that she was in contact with Satan.)126[J. Hart], Trodden Down Strength (1647, E.1156.1). Speaking again three days later, he pressed for the death penalty, arguing that the severity of the punishment should fit the enormity of the crime.127Burton’s Diary, i. 107-8. Absent at the call of the House on 31 December, it was resolved to excuse him as he had ‘attended close’.128Burton’s Diary, i. 287.

The proposed militia bill brought him back to Westminster. Ostensibly about renewing the decimation tax, this issue was really about the future of the major-generals. On 7 January 1657 Drake spoke forcefully against the bill, not only because he believed ‘justice will be our best militia’, but also because the bill laid ‘a dangerous precedent’ which could be used against anyone, whether ‘the Presbyterians, or any other party’.129Burton’s Diary, i. 313-14. In effect, Drake was rejecting the system of military government by which Oliver Cromwell* had attempted to rule the country since late 1655. On 29 January the House considered whether to set a date on which the bill could be given a second reading. Drake and Griffith Bodurda* were then the tellers for the majority in the division on whether to proceed to a vote on that question. As Drake and his allies had presumably foreseen, this sealed the fate of the bill – and of the major-generals – because, on proceeding to that vote, the House rejected the bill.130CJ vii. 483b. Having urged a day of public humiliation for the discovery of the assassination plot by Miles Sindercombe, Drake was added to the committee to prepare a declaration to the effect (31 Jan.) and on 2 February he reported the lord protector’s consent.131Burton’s Diary, i. 357, 372; CJ vii. 484b.

The major upshot of the revelations about Sindercombe’s assassination plot was to encourage talk that Oliver Cromwell* should be elevated from lord protector into a king. A Remonstrance to that effect was soon devised. Drake apparently supported the idea that Cromwell should become king.132A Narrative of the late Parliament (so called) (1657), 22 (E.935.5). This is certainly consistent with his known activities in Parliament at this time. On 12 March he was named to the committee on the clause in the Remonstrance on the judicial powers of the proposed second chamber, while a week later he was named to the committee on the clause to protect the rights of dissenting Protestant clergymen.133CJ vii. 502a, 507b. Once the Remonstrance, now called the Humble Petition and Advice, had been completed, Drake was part of the delegation sent to seek an audience with Cromwell to arrange for its presentation.134CJ vii. 514a. After Cromwell refused the offer of the crown on 3 April, he was included on the committees that drafted their replies reiterating the offer.135CJ vii. 520b, 521b, 524a. Moreover, on 17 April, after Bulstrode Whitelocke* had briefed the House on their latest discussions with Cromwell, Drake proposed that they adjourn, presumably to give everyone a chance to consider their options.136Burton’s Diary, ii. 5. When on 19 May the Commons finally conceded that Cromwell’s title would remain that of lord protector, Drake was among those MPs appointed to consider how that title should be circumscribed.137CJ vii. 535a. Subsequently, during the debates the following June on the Additional Petition and Advice, Drake spoke in support of the proposed oaths for the lord protector, for the council and for MPs. In the case of the latter, that was because he thought it would be ‘strange’ if ‘the great legislature’, Parliament, did not bind itself like the other two.138Burton’s Diary, ii. 275, 291.

On 28 April Drake favoured the proposed bill to confirm existing statutes.139Burton’s Diary, ii. 52. When the next day the House tied in the vote on the bill for registration of marriages, Drake intervened to say that a Member, presumably Edward Carey* who then admitted as much, had been confused as to which way he was voting. This provoked a long discussion as to whether the vote could be retaken.140Burton’s Diary, ii. 70. On 29 May he was named as a member of the committee appointed to consider which bills needed to be passed before the adjournment, which followed on 26 June.141CJ vii. 542a. Later that year he wrote to Whitelocke about ‘a design to be presented to the protector for advancement of trade’.142Whitelocke, Diary, 481. What that might have involved and whether it was ever put to Cromwell is not known. That was not his only contact with Whitelocke. Several months later he was trying, without success, to promote a marriage between William Whitelocke* and one of his sisters-in-law.143Whitelocke, Diary, 487, 494, 496.

Drake was one of those who administered to MPs the oath of loyalty at the beginning of the second session on 20 January 1658.144CJ vii. 578a. When the Commons debated the proposal to settle religion the next day, he claimed that although he was ‘in love with the question’, he considered it ‘not well-timed’, because they should first settle the civil government.145Burton’s Diary, ii. 336. Not that he was especially keen on revisiting old constitutional disputes. When the issue of transacting with the Other House first arose a week later, he moved to delay the debate and accused those against a second chamber of wanting to ‘shake off parliamentary government and bring us under arbitrary power’.146Burton’s Diary, ii. 377-8. This was a charge he made personal the next day when he replied to the speech by the republican leader Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, for he insinuated that Hesilrige was not ultimately committed to the principle of democratic rule.147Burton’s Diary, ii. 380. Drake again defended the Other House on 2 February.

It is a dangerous thing to question our constitution; for enter upon one part and you invade all. To quarrel at foundations and principles is dangerous.148Burton’s Diary, ii. 410.

The following day he opposed the proposal that a committee of the whole House consider what the Other House should be called.149Burton’s Diary, ii. 435. He had already made it clear that he would be happy to call it the ‘House of Lords’.150Burton’s Diary, ii. 410.

Returned for both Amersham and Surrey in 1659, Drake chose on 31 January to sit for the county.151CJ vii. 595b. He had again helped administer the oaths when Parliament assembled.152CJ vii. 593a. Although Drake was appointed to only two committees, he spoke at length in debate in support of the protectorate and as a fierce defender of a ‘settled constitution’ (government by a single person and two Houses of Parliament) under the Humble Petition and Advice. He thus opposed Hesilrige’s attempt on 1 February to delay discussion of the bill to recognising Richard Cromwell* as the new lord protector.153Burton’s Diary, iii. 28. A week later he again spoke in support of the recognition bill, even although he thought that it was already the case that ‘the present lord protector is the undoubted chief magistrate’. A republic would be ‘twenty kings in a committee’, which would be even less stable than the Heptarchy.154Burton’s Diary, iii. 121-2. Drake’s support for the Humble Petition was not unqualified. He accepted the Other House, but joined other Presbyterians in pushing for including within it the hereditary peers. As he told the Commons on 19 February,

The old lords have still a right. It doth but sleep, and will at one time or another awake upon us. If we take away the rights of the peers, we may have a barons’ war again.155Burton’s Diary, iii. 349.

His willingness to accept old forms was also evident on 5 March when, naturally enough, he argued that they should transact business with the Other House. Citing the example of St Paul, he suggested that if the ship of state was to be wrecked, they should at least cling to as much of the wreckage as they could. In this same speech he also expressed scepticism as to whether there had been ‘any Parliament since 48, nay, since 42’ that had ‘not been under force’.156Burton’s Diary, iv.25-6; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, p. 163. He considered the motion by commonwealthsman Thomas Scot I* on 9 March calling on the Scots and Irish MPs to withdraw to be ‘disorderly, incongruous and disingenuous’.157Burton’s Diary, iv. 95. He spoke again on the question on 18 March, but three days later was censured by the acting Speaker, Thomas Bampfylde*, for trying to speak to the question a second time.158Burton’s Diary, iv. 184-5, 208. One of his two committee appointments was on how they should transact business with the Other House (6 Apr.).159CJ vii. 627a.

Drake spoke on other subjects as well. When William King took his seat in the chamber in the mistaken belief that he had been elected as an MP, Drake was one of those who wanted him imprisoned in the Gatehouse.160Burton’s Diary, iii. 80. On 31 March he was against rejecting the bill to abolish the excise, although he thought ‘the greatest grievance is free quarter’ and that if levying of taxes was unlawful, ‘free quarter must follow’.161Burton’s Diary, iv. 315. In the penultimate day’s debate, on the control of the militia, he alleged that prior to this Parliament, attempts had been made to remove the militia from the lord protector’s control. Drake therefore wanted a declaration that these forces were still under the authority of the lord protector and the two Houses.162Burton’s Diary, iv. 478. His one other committee appointment was to the committee on Scottish affairs (1 Apr.).163CJ vii. 623b.

Debtor, 1656-70

Drake left no mark on the records of the Long Parliament after the secluded Members were re-admitted in February 1660. The remaining years of his life were dominated by his serious financial difficulties. In 1656 Verney (by borrowing money from a third party) had reacquired his estates from Drake.164Broad, Transforming Eng. Rural Soc. 44. This was cash that Drake now needed himself. That same year he borrowed £1,000 from John Fountaine (soon to be appointed as a serjeant-at-law), with his wife’s former brother-in-law, (Sir) John Potts, acting as security. Two years later he borrowed a further £1,200, secured against his lands at Walton-on-Thames and a bond with Potts and Sir Thomas Trevor*. By late 1660 however Drake had defaulted, with the result that he was imprisoned in the Fleet prison. Fountaine had meanwhile begun legal actions against Potts. Some of Drake’s land, together with £5,000 which his wife had inherited from her father, were then used to pay off some of Drake’s debts. In 1664 Potts was likewise sued by the administrators of the estate of Nicholas Nicholls, from whom Drake had borrowed other sums.165C5/410/68; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 340-4, 353-4, 355. Some of the lands at Walton were now in the possession of others, such as Elizabeth, Lady Bedingfield, widow of Sir Thomas Bedingfield*, and Frances, dowager duchess of Somerset.166Blackman, ‘Drake fam.’, 95.

Drake died on Christmas Day 1670.167Blackman, ‘Drake fam.’, 95. He was buried in St Margaret’s Westminster two days later.168Regs. of St Margaret’s Westminster (Harl. Soc. lxxxix), 39. There was little remaining of his former wealth to benefit his children. But his eldest son was lucky. The previous year Sir William† had succeeded under age to the Buckinghamshire estates and Amersham seat of Francis’s elder brother, (Sir) William.169PROB11/330/521. That ensured that this line of descendants, who survived as the Tyrwhitt-Drakes, continued to prosper.