ASHE, James (c.1622-71), of Fifield, Milton Lilbourne, Wilts.

James Ashe owed his early political career almost entirely to the influence of his father. When civil war broke out in 1642, John Ashe*, as MP for Westbury, quickly became one of Parliament’s leading supporters in Wiltshire and Somerset. His eldest son was soon also being appointed to local office by Parliament and, from 1643, when he may well still have been only in his early twenties, James was serving as an assessment and sequestration commissioner within Somerset.18A. and O. However, with the loss of Somerset to the king’s forces that summer, those appointments soon became no more than nominal. At a loose end, Ashe instead took the opportunity to continue his education. This involved a period abroad as in late 1643 he enrolled as a student at the university of Leiden in the United Provinces.19Peacock, Index to English Speaking Students, 4. On his return to England he entered the Inner Temple with the intention of becoming a barrister.20I. Temple database.

But Ashe was soon to be diverted by new political opportunities, for in 1645 Parliament regained control of Somerset and proceeded to hold recruiter by-elections for the constituencies within the county. John Ashe now sought to get his son and heir elected at Bath. That election, held on 8 December 1645, came down to a struggle between the rival supporters of the Pophams and the Ashes, reflecting the factional divisions within the Somerset county committee. In the end, however, James Ashe easily defeated Edward Popham*.21Bath and NE Som. RO, Bath council bk. 1631-49, p. 226. He had taken his seat in the Commons by 28 January 1646 when he took the Solemn League and Covenant.22CJ iv. 420b.

As his father and his uncle Edward* were already MPs, Ashe’s election adds an extra complication to the problem of differentiation, with the result that there are very few references in the Journals which can confidently be linked to James. It may simply be that he was the least active of the three. During his first 18 months as an MP there are only three committees to which he was certainly named – those on the intercepted letters of the French ambassador (11 Aug. 1646), on the petition from the London weavers (27 May 1647) and, most significantly, the committee for privileges (16 Dec. 1646).23CJ iv. 640b; v. 14b, 187a. As he was granted leave to go into the country on 1 June 1647, it is not clear whether he was in the capital during the crisis of late July and early August.24CJ v. 193a. Moreover, his only confirmed committee appointment between then and December 1648 was to the committee on the bill to grant lands to John Bastwicke (24 Oct. 1648), although, as the local MP, he may well have been the ‘Mr Ashe’ named to the committee on the bill granting a monopoly on the production of Bath stone to Dr Peter Chamberlen (22 Sept. 1648).25CJ vi. 27b, 60a.

In the aftermath of the purge of the Commons in December 1648, Ashe was probably readmitted to Parliament in early February 1649, at around the same time as his father and his uncle. With fewer MPs in the House, Ashe junior now became a bit more visible at Westminster. Within days of his return he was included on the committee to consider nominations to the new commissions of the peace (8 Feb.) and over the following months he sat on the committees on the sale of the fee-farm rents (9 Mar.) and on the taxes on coal (16 Apr.).26CJ vi. 134a, 160b, 187b. Doubtless acting as understudy for his father, he reported from the committee on delinquents on 9 April on rules concerning delinquents.27CJ vi. 182a-b. Later that year he was one of the Somerset MPs appointed to organise the distribution of funds from the composition fine imposed on Sir William Portman* to assist in the rebuilding of the war-damaged town of Taunton.28CJ vi. 291b. That October he was also named to the committees to consider the petition of the army officers (4 Oct.) and to ensure that all remaining MPs took the Engagement (12 Oct.).29CJ vi. 302b, 307b.

His service in the Rump was interrupted in late 1649, however, for on 8 November he was granted leave to travel to Flanders, where his father had extensive business interests, for three months.30CJ vi. 321a. How quickly he reappeared in the House on his return is less certain. He is known to have been in London in June 1650, for he was among the guests at a dinner party there also attended by John Harington I* and the archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher.31Harington’s Diary, 61. However, the only firm evidence that he attended Parliament at all during the whole of that year is that he was named to the committee on the 2nd earl of Downe’s estate bill two months later (15 Aug.).32CJ vi. 455b. Further evidence for his attendance in the Rump is equally patchy, although, as always, that may be due partly to the problem of separating him from his father and his uncle. One of them was included on the committee appointed in May 1651 to consider the case of Sir Basil Brook.33CJ vi. 581a. That may well have been James, as he was then attempting to recover rents on a lease in Shropshire which he had acquired from one of Brook’s tenants. His difficulty was that Brook’s lands were still under sequestration.34CCC 2231. In August that year Ashe’s attendance had to be ordered by the House, for he was sent for in connection with some (unspecified) link with the recent proclamation issued by the exiled Charles Stuart.35CJ vii. 6a. The following spring he was named to the committee on the bill for the Anglo-Scottish union (13 Apr. 1652), while in July 1652 he was appointed to two committees, those on the sale of forfeited estates (15 July) and on the queries from the compounding commissioners concerning the interpretation of the Act for a general pardon (27 July).36CJ vii. 118b, 154b, 158b. That Parliament voted to add Ashe’s name to the list of Wiltshire commissioners appointed in the assessment bill passed in December 1652 need not imply that he was then present.37CJ vii. 226b.

The dismissal of the Rump by Oliver Cromwell* on 20 April 1653 did not end Ashe’s links with his constituency. The previous September the city’s corporation had engaged Ashe as their recorder in place of William Prynne*, who by then was in prison as a suspected enemy of the republic.38Bath and NE Som. RO, Bath council bk. 1649-84, p. 67. This was a bold appointment, as Ashe had been called to the bar by the Inner Temple a mere two months before.39CITR ii. 302. His duties as recorder including addressing the feast hosted by the new mayor in October 1653.40Harington’s Diary, 84. Ashe may therefore have expected to be re-elected as their MP without too much trouble in 1654. The complication was that the redistribution of seats under the 1653 Instrument of Government reduced Bath’s representation to just one seat, so in July 1654 Ashe and Alexander Popham* were forced to compete for it, with Popham prevailing on the day.41Bath and NE Som. RO, Bath council bk. 1649-84, p. 114. Ashe’s fall-back position was therefore to get elected as one of the MPs for Wiltshire.

As before, there is some difficulty in distinguishing between Ashe and his father, who sat in the 1654 Parliament as one of the Somerset MPs. Either could have been named to the committees on the bill for the relief of creditors and poor prisoners (25 Oct.) or on the petition from William Craven, 1st Baron Craven (3 Nov.), while John Ashe can be assumed to have been named to the committee for privileges on 5 September only because James was added to that committee a month later when it was asked to consider the Irish elections.42CJ vii. 366b, 373b, 378b, 381a. It is clear, however, that James’s main concern during this Parliament was to secure the passage of the bill to eject scandalous ministers. Having been named to the committee appointed on 25 September, he reported back to the House on 23 October their wish to suspend the existing ordinance, passed by the council the previous August, while they drafted a new one. A fortnight later he returned with that bill, which then received its first reading, but he failed to convince MPs when he repeated the request that the existing statute be suspended.43CJ vii. 370a, 377b, 382b. The new bill, like all the others, failed to complete its passage before the dissolution on 22 January 1655. Unsurprisingly, Ashe was also named to the committee to enumerate damnable heresies on 12 December.44CJ vii. 399b.

Unlike in 1654, Alexander Popham chose not to contest Bath in the elections for the second protectoral Parliament, so Ashe won an easy victory there on 4 August 1656.45Bath and NE Som. RO, Bath council bk. 1649-84, p. 157; TSP v. 302, 303; Som. Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 74. Much about Ashe’s role in the 1656 Parliament is obscure, because, once again, the Journal rarely distinguishes between James Ashe and his father. At least one of them seems to have been reasonably active, and both sided with the Presbyterian interest. James apparently performed an important role on one crucial matter in that he seems to have been the ‘Mr Ashe’ who was teller for the noes in the crucial division on 22 September on whether the case of the excluded Members should be referred to the council of state.46CJ vii. 426b; Bodl. Tanner 52, ff. 166, 170. The importance of this vote lay in the fact that, by referring the matter to the council, Parliament agreed to drop any further discussion of those controversial exclusions. Committees to which James Ashe was certainly named include those on encumbrances (18 Oct.), the petition of Anthony Morgan* (10 Nov.) and on the location for meetings of the Wiltshire county court (25 Dec.).47CJ vii. 441b, 452a, 475a. He and his father presumably had a specific reason for wanting to be included on the committee on the Exeter ministers, as they were the only MPs added to it on 16 March 1657.48CJ vii. 504b. James, as a teller with (Sir) Lislebone Long* on 10 March, evidently wanted to block Lord Abergavenny’s estate bill.49CJ vii. 501a.

One other committee to which Ashe was named was that on James Naylor (31 Oct.).50CJ vii. 448a. Ashe’s views on the Naylor case could not have been clearer – he thought the Quaker a heretic who deserved to die. He said so explicitly on 12 December 1656, when he argued that, as MPs had already agreed that he was a ‘horrid blasphemer’, the only possible sentence under English common law was the death penalty.51Burton’s Diary, i. 118. When on 23 December they debated whether to adjourn the discussion on the London petition calling for Naylor’s punishments to be suspended, Ashe instead favoured an immediate vote on the petition, doubtless on the calculation that a delay would only increase the chances of the House agreeing to that appeal.52Burton’s Diary, i. 220. He was also unsympathetic when three days later debate turned to Cromwell’s request for an explanation for the sentence against Naylor. Ashe thought that they should simply say, ‘that the Parliament have discharged their consciences, by what sentences they have passed upon James Naylor’, and leave the matter at that.53Burton’s Diary, i. 254.

He was just as vocal in his opposition to the major-generals. This was most obvious during the debate on 22 January 1657 on the militia bill, which proposed the continuation of the decimation tax. Ashe made some personal remarks, possibly against John Disbrowe*, to which one MP objected.54CJ vii. 482a; Burton’s Diary, i. 369. Rather than become bogged down on this particular point, the House delayed a decision until 30 January, by which time the militia bill had already been defeated. Ashe denied saying what he was alleged to have said, asserting different words. The MP who had complained accepted this, so the matter was dropped.55CJ vii. 483b; Burton’s Diary, i. 371. He was listed (‘John Ash junior’) among those who voted for kingship on 25 March.56Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5).

This Parliament reassembled on 20 January 1658. The only apparently unambiguous reference to Ashe’s presence during this second session involves a minor puzzle. Thomas Burton* noted that, on taking his seat on 25 January, Sir Arthur Hesilrige* sat close to the Speaker’s chair, next to Thomas Scot I* and James Ashe.57Burton’s Diary, ii. 347. For Ashe to be associating with Hesilrige, the arch-republican critic of the protectorate, does not seem very likely, so it seems either that Burton had misidentified him or that nothing of any significance should be read into that particular detail. It seems more likely that it was his father who spoke in the debate on 30 January in favour of recognising the Other House.58Burton’s Diary, ii. 347.

Ashe’s re-election to the Parliament summoned by Richard Cromwell* could not have been smoother, with the Bath corporation voting for him unanimously (minus only himself).59Bath and NE Som. RO, Bath council bk. 1649-84, pp. 205-6. He probably took his seat when Parliament assembled on 27 January 1659 and the following day he was named to the committee for elections.60CJ vii. 594b. His attendance was interrupted by the death of his father, however; the permission granted to him on 18 February allowing him to go into the country for ten days was doubtless to enable him to arrange the funeral.61CJ vii. 605b. His father’s death did not bring any immediate change in James’s financial position, for, although he was bequeathed his father’s lands at Freshford and Buckland Denham, those were left first as a life interest to his mother.62PROB11/293/280. However, his elder brother, John, who was then living abroad and who feared that he might be sequestered, transferred his share of the inheritance, the lands at Teffont Evias in Wiltshire, into James’s name, retaining only a life interest.63C9/74/25. On his return to London Ashe seems to have kept a low profile and nothing more is known of his role in this Parliament.

Nor is it clear whether Ashe attended once the Rump had been recalled in early May 1659. Only in late September is his presence in the Rump once again recorded. On 20 September he was included on the committee to consider the maintenance of the poor knights of Windsor (always a hot topic for the west country MPs) and three days later his colleagues gave their permission for him to ‘go out’ of the House.64CJ vii. 781b, 785a. It is not clear, however, whether that resolution on 23 September was to allow him to absent himself from that particular debate or amounted to a more general leave of absence. Ashe may have interpreted it in the latter sense, as he was absent during the call of the House a week later, although those present then voted narrowly against fining him £5.65CJ vii. 790a. If he was not present in the weeks immediately prior to the Rump’s second dismissal in mid-October, he may not have been in any hurry to resume his place in it when it was revived yet again in late December. But he was back by 13 January 1660, when he was included on the committee on the bill to appoint a new Army Committee, and the following week he was named to the committee on the office of custos brevium.66CJ vii. 811a, 818a. On 29 February, eight days after the readmission of the secluded Members, he sat on the committee on the bill to reform the London militia.67CJ vii. 856a. His final committee appointment was on the bill to confirm clergymen in their benefices, appointed the day before the Long Parliament finally dissolved itself.68CJ vii. 877a.

Ashe accepted the Restoration, but his political fortunes in its immediate aftermath were decidedly mixed. He was removed from the Somerset commission of the peace, while, at the same time, being continued on the Wiltshire commission, as well as being included for the first time on that county’s assessment commissions.69SR. Meanwhile, in June 1660, he was dismissed as the recorder of Bath to make way for Prynne’s predecessor, Robert Hyde*.70Bath and NE Som. RO, Bath council bk. 1649-84, p. 242. In 1670 and 1671, just before his death, he was first dismissed as a Wiltshire justice of the peace, then reinstated and then almost immediately dismissed for a second time.71C231/7, pp. 370, 388, 399. On his death, his lands at Melksham and Fifield were left to his eldest son, John†, then still not quite of age, although those came with the obligation that he pay Ashe’s debts.72PROB11/341/228. John sat for Westbury as a whig in 1681.73HP Commons 1660-1690.