PACKE, Sir Christopher (c. 1599-1682), of Bassinghall Street, London and Cotes, Leics.

The descendant of a Northamptonshire family, Packe had the good fortune to be apprenticed to John Kendrick, the draper and Merchant Adventurer, who died in 1624 leaving his protégé a legacy of £100, as well as a £300 loan to set up in business.38E. Ashmole, Antiquities of Berks. (3 vols. 1723), ii. 530, 541. Packe was made free of the Drapers’ Company in 1633 thanks to the good offices of Kendrick’s partner, Lawrence Halstead, and soon afterwards married the daughter of Kendrick’s son-in-law and factor in Delft, Thomas Newman. The Kendrick network gave Packe an easy entrée to cloth markets across England and Europe.39Farnell, ‘Politics of London’, 71-2; Her. et Gen. vii. 550-2. By diversifying, with investments in the Merchant Adventurers and East India Company, he quickly amassed a large fortune. In the assessments for tithes in 1638 and the forced loan in 1640 he was rated as one of the wealthiest men in Bassishaw Ward.40T.C. Dale, Inhabitants of London in 1638 (1931), 141; W.J. Harvey, List of Principal Inhabitants of London, 1640 (1880), 2. By this time Packe was also lending money to impoverished landowners, for example acquiring the mortgage of the manor of Prestwold in Leicestershire from the Skipwith family – a property that would later fall into his full possession.41VCH Leics. ii. 216.

It was later claimed that at the beginning of the civil war Packe was ‘very discreet and meddled little, more like a neuter or close malignant than a zealot for the cause’; but there is no contemporary evidence to substantiate this.42Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 15 (E.977.3). Indeed, Packe joined other merchants in giving guarded support for Parliament. He did not subscribe to the Irish adventure but in August 1642 he was a collector of money and plate to fund the war effort against the king.43Oxford DNB. In March 1643 he was a messenger from the Committee of Safety to the East India Company to request ordnance from their ships for the defence of the City.44Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1640-3, p. 310. In April Parliament ordered Packe and others to attend the Haberdashers’ Hall committee to consider how to raise funds to supply the army in the west.45CJ iii. 46b. During the summer, as royalist cavalry approached London, Packe advanced £100 towards defending the City, and in September he acted as an intermediary between Parliament and the City authorities in discussions about raising money to pay the Scots.46HMC Lords n.s. xi. 358; CJ iii. 258a. During his period, Packe joined Thomas Adams* and other moderates on the common council in asserting the authority of the militia committee over its radical rival at Salters’ Hall.47Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 455n. In February 1644 he was appointed to the non-parliamentary Committee of Accounts.48Supra, ‘Committee of Accounts’; CJ iii. 408b; A. and O. ‘One of the most wealthy’ citizens, Packe was part of a merchant syndicate (which also included Samuel Avery* and Charles Lloyd*), formed in April 1645 to provide advantageous loans for the navy in return for the customs farm.49A. and O.; Add. 31116, pp. 385-6. Appointments to several other financial posts followed. He was made commissioner for assessment arrears in June 1645, trustee for bishops’ lands in October 1646 (and commissioner for their sale in November) and commissioner for compounding in February 1647.50A. and O.

During the mid-1640s Packe was associated with the Presbyterian faction within the City. He sat on the common council committees which opposed the church settlement proposed by Parliament in the winter and spring of 1645-6, to suppress subversive pamphlets in June and to protect tithes in August.51Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 482n, 492-3. He was also appointed as a trier for the elders of the seventh London classis in October 1645 and September 1646.52A. and O. From December 1646 he was on the common council committee which drafted the City petition calling for the disbandment of the New Model; in March 1647 he was on the committee for securing the defence of London; and he was included in the Presbyterian-dominated militia commission appointed in May.53Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 492-3; A. and O. Yet his views were sufficiently moderate for him to be a credible mediator between the City, Parliament and the army during the early summer of 1647. In June, as the army advanced on the capital, Packe was among the commissioners sent with parliamentary approval to deliver the City’s letter to Sir Thomas Fairfax*, expressing support for the army and requesting that they remain 30 miles from London.54Juxon Jnl., 160. When the army refused, he was one of three city representatives sent to take up residence with the army until an agreement could be reached.55Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, 248-9. Although the negotiations failed, it is revealing that Packe did not become involved in the opposition to the New Model in the next few weeks. He took no part in the ‘forcing of the Houses’ in July, and after the army’s entry into London he conformed to the new political situation and was included in the new Independent militia commission appointed on 2 September.56Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 798.

At the same time, he remained popular with the citizens of London, and was elected as alderman for Cripplegate in October following a petition in his favour subscribed by the inhabitants.57Rep. 59, ff. 9v, 13v. In November, when the City was threatened with free quarter, he was named to a hastily-appointed committee to bring in all assessment arrears in the capital.58LJ ix. 544b. A month later, the Lords ordered that Packe and his fellow customs commissioners would be allowed to reimburse themselves for £70,000 advanced to the state.59LJ ix. 613a. Packe continued to perform his administrative functions during 1648, but managed to avoid being drawn into political controversy. In February he and his fellow customs commissioners begged for a time extension for the preparation of their accounts, and in May an ordinance was passed allowing them to reclaim a further £20,000 advanced to the navy.60HMC 13th Rep., 445; LJ x. 254b. At the end of August Packe was again appointed as trier of the seventh classis.61A. and O.

Packe supported the establishment of the commonwealth in 1649, continuing to work as a customs commissioner and being re-appointed to the London militia commission in the days before the regicide.62LJ x. 642b-643a; A. and O. In the spring he was appointed as a commissioner for assessment and poor relief in London.63A. and O. He attended a special court of aldermen in April of that year when, in accordance with an order of the purged House of Commons, the lord mayor was deposed for his royalist sympathies; and he was one of the 15 aldermen who attended the proclamation of the Act abolishing monarchical government on 30 May.64Oxford DNB; Walker, Hist. of Independency pt ii., 185. As president of Bridewell hospital, he sanctioned the removal of the royal coats of arms and their replacement by those of the commonwealth.65O’Donoghue, Bridewell Hosp., 106. In June he was made a commissioner for indemnity and elected sheriff of London.66A. and O.; Beaven, Aldermen of London ii. 68. Despite his undoubted support for the new government, Packe was deprived of his post as a customs commissioner at the end of 1649 and, with Avery and Lloyd, he was ordered to present his accounts for scrutiny in February 1650.67CSP Dom. 1650, p. 611. Thereafter Packe played only a minor role in public affairs, although he was named as a commissioner for relief upon articles of war in September 1652.68A. and O. During the commonwealth, Packe continued to prosper financially: he paid more than £8,000 for the manor of Bugden in Huntingdonshire, part of the bishop of Lincoln’s lands, in January 1649; and later acquired the manors of Prestwold and Cotes in Leicestershire.69Coll. Top. et Gen. i. 125; CCC 2016; VCH Leics. ii. 216; Trans. Leics. Arch. Soc. xvii. 63-4. Packe also retained his prominent position in the City of London. He had transferred his ward from Cripplegate to Cornhill in October 1649, and in September 1653 he was elected for Bassishaw Ward and removed there.70Beaven, Aldermen of London i. 125, 132; ii. 68; CLRO, Rep. 62, f. 386v.

Packe occasionally advised the council of state after the dissolution of the Rump. In August 1653 he joined Avery and Josias Berners* in investigating a commercial dispute involving the Portuguese ambassador.71CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 64-5, 117. He welcomed the setting up of the protectorate in December 1653; according to a contemporary, ‘the sunshine of the new court pleased him and brought him in full compliance’.72A Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 15. In January 1654 he joined Robert Tichborne* and the recorder (William Steele*) in presenting to the protectoral council complaints of the City against French and Dutch ‘strangers’ trading illegally in London.73CSP Dom. 1654, p. 148. In the same month he was appointed to the London oyer and terminer commission for the first time.74C181/6, p. 2. Packe was an unsuccessful candidate in the City elections for the first protectorate Parliament in July 1654.75Harl. 6810, ff. 164-5. Elected lord mayor in the following September, he worked closely with Oliver Cromwell* to remove government opponents from City offices. In February 1655 he was appointed to the new militia commission, and in the spring he and his fellow commissioners were charged with raising 3,000 men to meet the threat of royalist plots.76Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 623; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 43; CSP Ven. 1655-6, pp. 27-8, 32. After the defeat of Penruddock’s western rising in March, Packe received the thanks of the protectoral council for the commissioners’ diligence in recruiting the new regiments.77CSP Dom. 1655, p. 96; CSP Ven. 1655-6, pp. 37-8, 40. A month later Packe petitioned Cromwell concerning ‘Gypsy Jack’ and other felons and ‘dangerous persons’ recently apprehended in the City and imprisoned at Newgate.78Bodl. Rawl. A.29, p. 265. In March 1656 he was appointed as one of the commissioners for securing the peace in London, working with the deputy major-general, John Barkstead*.79CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 238.

Packe was also interested in religious issues, and took advantage of his relationship with the lord protector to further the request of the inhabitants of Prestwold for an augmentation to appoint a ‘godly and able minister’ in April 1655.80CSP Dom. 1655, p. 111. He and Alderman Thomas Vyner were appointed treasurers of the funds collected for the relief of persecuted Protestants of Piedmont on 25 May.81CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 182, 196-7. He was intolerant of sectaries. In July, on the orders of the council, he arrested the Socinian, John Biddle, and committed him for trial.82CSP Dom. 1655, p. 224. On financial and commercial matters, Packe’s opinion carried great weight and he was appointed to the committee of trade in July 1655.83CSP Dom. 1655, p. 240. In September, at the end of his mayoralty, he invited the protectoral council to dine with him; the invitation was declined on the grounds of the lord protector’s recent ill-health, but a few days later Packe was knighted ‘for the good service he did the protector and his family’, as one critic later put it.84CSP Dom. 1655, p. 324; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 223; Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 17 (E.935.5).

Packe continued to serve the government in a variety of posts: he became an admiralty commissioner at the end of October and was an important member of the new enlarged committee for trade advising the protector on the commercial problems preventing a Protestant alliance.85CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 402; 1655-6, p. 1. He was one of the merchant representatives on the committee to hear proposals for readmitting the Jews, and ‘was thought to give the strongest reasons against their coming in of any man’, presumably fearing their commercial influence.86CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 23; Burton’s Diary i. 309. In January 1656, as part of Cromwell’s plan to form a Protestant alliance against the House of Austria, Packe was proposed as an extraordinary ambassador to Sweden in order ‘to manifest the engagement of the City in this business and in it to put an honour upon them’.87Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 219-20. The original plan was that he would hold the position jointly with the former ambassador, Bulstrode Whitelocke*, but Whitelocke was unhappy with sharing the honour with a mere merchant, and in a frank exchange of views with Secretary John Thurloe* ‘plainly told him of the disparagement by sending Sir Christopher Packe with him’.88Swedish Diplomats, ed. Roberts, 242n; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 221; Whitelocke, Diary, 424. The scheme was quietly dropped. In spite of his successes the problem of the customs accounts continued to haunt Packe. He was called before the customs committee, but in June, after several hearings, the committee passed the accounts of Packe and Lloyd, but not those of Avery.89CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 172, 537; 1657-8, p. 8. By September Packe, with Lloyd’s assistance, had taken advantage of Avery’s misfortune to supplant him as governor of the Merchant Adventurers.90CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 115. In the same month Packe, Lloyd and their associates reopened negotiations with the protectoral council for the return of the customs farm, at a rent of £128,400 a year.91CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 94.

In August 1656 Packe was elected to represent the City in the second protectorate Parliament.92Clarke Pprs. iii. 70. It was said by one royalist that he was chosen by the citizens ‘for no other virtue than his valour in committing four soldiers’, and thus demonstrating that he was prepared to put the needs of the City above those of the regime.93Bodl. Clarendon 52, f. 356. This was an exaggeration. Although London was one of Packe’s priorities, and throughout the session he worked closely with Thomas Foot* (the only other London Member not excluded) and his old associate Charles Lloyd (now MP for Montgomeryshire), on issues affecting the City, later events would demonstrate that this was not incompatible with loyalty to the protector. The range of committees to which Packe was appointed early in the session shows his status in the House. He was appointed to the committee to attend the lord protector with a fast declaration on 22 September and the following day he was appointed to the committees for Irish and Scottish affairs.94CJ vii. 426a, 427a. On 26 September he was named to the committee on the bill for the security of the protector, and when the bill was eventually passed he became a commissioner for its execution.95CJ vii. 429a; A. and O. Packe was appointed to several committees on the reform of the law, including those against abuses in writs of certiorari (25 Sept.) and customary oaths (7 Oct.), and on the establishment of new law courts at York (20 Nov.).96CJ vii. 428a, 435a, 456a. Connected to this was his on-going concern for maintaining social order: he was included in the committee on a bill to enforce laws concerning wages on 7 October, and added to the committee to consider a bill against vagrants on 4 November.97CJ vii. 435a, 450a. Packe retained a connection with Leicestershire, being named to the committee on a bill for Wyggeston’s Hospital in Leicester on 9 December, and he later reported the amendments to the House and was made, by order of Parliament, a governor of the hospital.98CJ vii. 466a, 487a.

Packe’s main role in the early months of this Parliament was in the promotion of trade and the defence of the rights of the City of London – matters that went hand-in-hand. He was appointed to two committees to collect arrears in the excise and prize offices on 17 October.99CJ vii. 440a-b. On 20 October he was named to the committee for trade.100CJ vii. 442a. When Packe and Foot reported on the vagrancy bill on 5 December, they emphasised that beggars ‘should be confined to their own parishes, else the City would have no benefit by this clause; for while they do not beg, they may wander abroad loosely’, causing trouble and committing crimes.101Burton’s Diary i. 21. On 9 December he was among the MPs who called for a speedy second reading of an additional bill for the encouragement of trade and navigation.102Burton’s Diary i. 82. The next day he argued for the payment of public faith debts and was named to the resulting committee.103CJ vii. 466b. On 19 December he again joined Foot in supporting a petition requesting a bill barring anyone who did not contribute to the running of the corporation from becoming a freeman of London; and he was later named to the committee to consider the matter.104Burton’s Diary i. 176-8. He spoke frequently on London’s assessment arrears. He argued on 19 December that the merchants of the intercourse should pay their fair share; and on 23 December defended the City’s right to assess the inns of court, denying that the rates imposed were ‘unreasonable’.105Burton’s Diary i. 180, 212, 214. As governor of the Merchant Adventurers, Pack was a vociferous defender of their privileges, particularly when their monopoly of the woollen trade was challenged by free trade merchants. He was a vigorous speaker in the trade committee, where he did his best to further the rights of the Merchant Adventurers against their opponents on 11, 18 and 23 December.106Burton’s Diary i. 115-6, 175, 221. According to one contemporary, on 6 January 1657 Packe

turned in the debate like a horse and answered every man. I believe he spoke at least 30 times. Mr Lloyd helped him as much as could be, but both reason and equity, the sense of the committee being against them, they were forced at last to give up the cudgels, but with much ado. Sir Christopher Packe did cleave like a clegg and was very angry he could not be heard ad infinitum.

The Committee ‘were forced at last to come to a compact with him that he should speak no more’, but when the decision went in favour of free trade, Packe ‘said, at last, that he hoped to be heard elsewhere’.107Burton’s Diary i. 308-10. A week later, at the same committee, he and Lloyd

would have unvoted what was voted the 6 January for a free trade, and seemed to dispute the power of that committee to present a bill to the House in a matter of that consequence.

Their objections did not sway the other MPs, however, who resolved to bring in a suitable bill.108Burton’s Diary i. 345. Packe had more success in other areas. When the council reopened investigations into customs’ arrears at the end of January, Packe and Lloyd quickly revived their petition for their accounts to be considered separately from Avery’s, and the matter was referred to a committee.109CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 244, 253-4; SP18/153/64. The next day Packe was named to the committee on a bill for raising £400,000 for the Spanish, most of which would be in the form of loans from the City of London.110CJ vii. 442a.

Aside from London and its commercial interests, Packe became increasingly involved in the religious business of the House, taking a consistently conservative line. He was named to committees on the maintenance of ministers on 31 October, 17 and 26 December, added to a committee to consider a bill for reviving the penal laws against recusants on 3 December.111CJ vii. 448b, 463b, 469a, 475b. On 5 December he spoke in the debate on the settlement of Gloucester Cathedral on the corporation of that city, and a few days later he supported John Claypoole’s* motion for the second reading of a bill for ministers of Northampton.112Burton’s Diary i. 20, 81. On 8 December, in a debate on the punishment of the notorious Quaker, James Naylor, Packe supported a motion for a merciful sentence and proposed that Dr Edward Reynolds, a moderate Presbyterian, should attempt his conversion.113Burton’s Diary i. 80. On 16 December, however, he was in favour of a more severe punishment and acted with Foot as teller for the unsuccessful motion that the House should vote on putting Naylor to death.114CJ vii. 468b. Two days later, when the House debated the large number of petitions against Quakers, Packe explained the absence of a London petition by asserting that the capital was ‘no less infested with them than other parts of the nation’, but the citizens trusted Parliament to bring in a law to deal with the problem.115Burton’s Diary i. 171. His suggestion that a committee should be appointed to consider the problem was approved and Packe was one of its members.116CJ vii. 470a. On 26 December, when the House received a letter from the protector protesting that Naylor had been whipped without his permission, Packe, as governor of Bridewell, reported that the gaoler had told him that the injuries inflicted were minimal.117Burton’s Diary i. 247. In February he was named to the committee to receive the report from the governors of Bridewell on Naylor’s state of health, and three months later he told the House that the protector desired a minister be sent to Naylor in prison.118CJ vii. 497b; Burton’s Diary ii. 131. The Naylor debate was only one aspect of Packe’s involvement in religious questions. In a thinly-attended House on Christmas Day, Packe supported a bill to end the observation of festivals and holy days, but stressed he ‘would not have us, under the notion of taking away festivals, take away the Lord’s Day’, and urged that the matter be referred to a committee for clarification.119Burton’s Diary i. 230. The strength of his support for the preaching ministry can be seen in his speech on 26 December in favour of ‘a good bill’ to provide maintenance for a minister in the Isle of Wight, when he expressed his ‘wish there were more of them’.120Burton’s Diary i. 246. On 12 January 1657 Packe was sent to ask Reynolds to preach and he later returned with the thanks of the House.121CJ vii. 477b, 480b. In February he was named to committees on bills for propagating the gospel in Exeter (9 Feb.) and for better observance of the Lord’s Day (18 Feb.).122CJ vii. 488a, 493b. Thereafter he was named to other committees on the division of parishes and the maintenance of ministers, suggesting a deep-seated interest in the settlement of a regular, parochial ministry.123CJ vii. 498a, 515b. Revealingly, in a subsequent division on whether to exempt members of congregational churches from attending catechism by their parish ministers, Packe was teller against reading this proviso for a second time.124CJ vii. 536a.

Before the end of February 1657 Packe’s involvement in factional politics was minimal. He had given qualified supported the militia bill when it was introduced on 25 December, but only if the decimation tax were imposed on confirmed royalists and ‘not upon others’.125Burton’s Diary i. 243. When the Sindercombe plot against the protector was revealed to the House on 19 January, Packe did not take part in the contentious debate on hereditary succession; instead he limited himself to asking that the day of thanksgiving might not be on a Thursday or Friday as those ‘are the days when carriers come in’ to the City.126Burton’s Diary i. 358. It was thus something of a surprise when, on 23 February, Packe presented to the Commons the Remonstrance, a new constitution that offered the crown to Cromwell and restored the upper chamber.127TSP vi. 74; Clarke Pprs. iii. 91; Henry Cromwell Corresp., 203. What followed had the makings of a farce, as Packe ‘gave some advantage against himself by privately confessing to one sat by him that he had never read it, who charged him publicly with it in the House’. Adam Baynes* then moved that Packe should be called to the bar of the House as a delinquent, and ‘many arraigned him’.128Henry Cromwell Corresp. p. 205. According to Edmund Ludlowe II* (who was not present in the chamber), the reaction of Packe’s opponents was violent as well as vocal: ‘those who still retained some affection to the commonwealth ... fell so furiously upon Packe for his great presumption in bringing in a business of this nature into the House, in such an unparliamentary way, that they bore him down from the Speaker’s chair to the bar of the House’.129Ludlow, Mems. ii. 21-2. Baynes, speaking later, also recalled this rough handling: ‘the poor gentleman was tossed from place to place, down almost as far as the bar, and then he was brought up again’.130Burton’s Diary iii. 160-1. Most other sources do not refer to this incident, however. One newsletter said of Packe’s opponents that ‘some talked of turning the mover out of the House, others of bringing him to the bar and sending him to the Tower, as one that went about to alter fundamentals’.131Bodl. Tanner 52, f. 197v. Even the gossipy Venetian resident merely reported that Members ‘rose and protested loudly’.132CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 22. Yet the majority of MPs were supportive of the Packe’s proposal. Anthony Morgan* pointed out that he was ‘well backed’; and the Venetian resident commented that ‘one of his highness’s party retorted that as Packe was a Member of credit and repute they could be certain that he would propose nothing that was not for the general good’.133Henry Cromwell Corresp., 205; CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 22. The division whether to read the Remonstrance was passed on 24 February by 100 votes to 44.134CJ vii. 496b.

As the vote suggests, Packe was not going out on a limb; rather he was the front man for a ‘cabal’ of important councillors and courtiers (identified by Robert Beake* as including Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), John Thurloe*, Philip Jones* and Edward Montague*).135Coventry City Archives, BA/H/Q/A79/302. Thomas Povey* said that the new constitution, although presented by Packe, was ‘thoroughly consulted by able heads beforehand’.136Add. 11411, f. 15v. One of these was Whitelocke, who wrote that ‘Sir Christopher Packe, to gain honour, presented it first to the House, and that Whitelocke and the Lord Broghill and Glynne and others of their friends put it forward’.137Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 289; Whitelocke, Diary, 464. Packe may well have been motivated by a desire to impress the protector with his loyalty; but others took a more cynical line, circulating rumours that on the day after he was discharged ‘from an account of £16,000 which he and the rest of the commissioners of customs were liable to make good’.138Narrative of the Late Parliament, 17-18; Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 44-5 (E.1923.2). There seems to be some basis for the latter allegation, as on 24 February the report on the late customs commissioners was submitted to the council, recommending that Packe’s account would be dealt with individually – a decision approved on 12 March.139CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 292.

Although he was acting as the agent of others in introducing the Remonstrance, there is no doubt that Packe was an ardent supporter of constitutional change. He was appointed to a committee to consider the judicial powers to be allowed the Other House on 12 March.140CJ vii. 502a. He was listed among those who voted in favour of asking Cromwell to accept the crown on 25 March.141Narrative of the Late Parliament, 22. He was also a member of the committee appointed to attend the lord protector to request a meeting for presenting the new constitution, renamed the Humble Petition and Advice, on 27 March; and after Cromwell had signalled his unwillingness to accept the title of king, Packe was named to the committee to renew Parliament’s request on 7 April.142CJ vii. 514a, 521a. Two days later he was appointed to the committee to answer the protector’s doubts.143CJ vii. 521b. On 23 May he was appointed to the committee to ask the protector for a meeting to present the amended Humble Petition and Advice and on 27 May he was named to a committee to consider the Additional Petition and Advice.144CJ vii. 538b, 540b. On 4 June Packe argued that the House should consider the Additional Petition before any money bills were debated, because ‘though monies be necessary, yet this is of more consequence’.145Burton’s Diary ii. 171. On 15 June he seconded motions for engrossing the Additional Petition, argued against allowing Scottish royalists ‘greater latitude’ than those in England when it came to qualifications for voting, and in favour of including a clause specifying that the next Parliament must be called within three years of the dissolution of the current one.146Burton’s Diary ii. 248, 251, 252. His close involvement with the passage of the new constitution suggests that he was far from being repentant for having introduced it in February.

Alongside the constitutional debates, Packe was actively involved in London affairs. On 1 April he was named to a committee to consider a petition from the lord mayor, aldermen and common council.147CJ vii. 516b. At the end of April he spoke about money owed to the City since the 1640s and reminded the House that

There are but few that serve for the City; but I hope you will take care that they may have more justice in the satisfaction of their debts.148Burton’s Diary ii. 84.

He was appointed to a committee to settle Irish lands on his friend Charles Lloyd on 1 May.149CJ vii. 529a. On the same day he moved against receiving a petition of the Levant Company until the committee on the business had had a chance to report.150Burton’s Diary ii. 98, 100. On 5 May Packe spoke in favour of a bill against Quakers because ‘if there is not a speedy course taken with them, they will grow to a great height’.151Burton’s Diary ii. 113. Packe remained an authority on financial affairs. On 29 May he spoke enthusiastically about the bill for settling the postage as ‘very good for trading and commerce’ and was subsequently appointed to the committee to consider the bill; he advised that the bills on satisfying the Irish adventurers and army officers should read together ‘for the honour of your proceedings’; and the following day he was named to the committee to inspect the treasuries of England, Ireland and Scotland.152Burton’s Diary ii. 156-8; CJ vii. 542a, 543a. He had been named to a committee on a bill to curtail building in London at the beginning of the month, and in debate on 30 May suggested that commissioners should be appointed by the protector because he and several other MPs had been ‘greatly solicited, and it will be hard for the committee to agree of names’.153CJ vii. 531b; Burton’s Diary ii. 160. On 5 June he argued for the fine on William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, for his development at Covent Garden to be reduced proportionately to take into account the church built there.154Burton’s Diary ii. 180-1. When it came to divisions on provisos to this bill on 19 June, Packe and Foot voted together on two occasions, against the compensation of those who had invested in lands adjoining harbours and moles and in favour of including the suburbs of London within its scope.155CJ vii. 5643b-4a.

Packe naturally took a keen interest in the details of the new customs bill. On 30 May he argued that it should be sent to a grand committee, and expressed concern at some clauses in the bill, particularly ‘the largeness of the powers to impose fines and imprison or otherwise upon misdemeanours’.156Burton’s Diary ii. 164. He introduced a proviso to the bill on 6 June, imposing duties on foreign merchants; and when some MPs objected, warned ‘it will lose us £40,000 per annum in customs’. In the subsequent division he was appointed a teller but ‘stood up and said nobody knew whether he should go out or no and so Mr Lloyd was appointed in his stead’, as partner to Foot. When his proviso was rejected Packe insisted on a clause ‘to preserve the rights and duties payable to the City’ for ‘though you give away your own customs, you will not give away the City’s. They have not deserved so ill from you’.157Burton’s Diary ii. 193. On 23 June he recommended that the customs should be put out to farm because they

were never so well paid, nor with so much quiet as when they were let out to farm. It was both more satisfactory to the merchants and did advance the revenue.158Burton’s Diary ii. 272.

When the new act for improving the customs and excise was passed on 26 June, Packe was included as one of the commissioners.159A. and O. The assessment tax was another important issue for Packe. On 27 May he queried whether the new bill would cover three months or a year.160Burton’s Diary ii. 139. He was appointed to the committee to request a meeting with the protector about the assessment bill on 4 June.161CJ vii. 545b. During the debates on the bill Packe represented the City’s interests. On 10 June he said he wanted special consideration to be given ‘to the City of London who have a long time laid under the burden of an excessive charge’, and on 12 June he argued that plans to base assessments on estates ‘however practicable soever it may be in the country, it is impracticable in the City’.162Burton’s Diary ii. 208, 232. In the second half of June, Packe was also named to committees to consider the choice of persons for positions of trust (15 June), the debts on the public faith (19 June) and the best way of improving the revenue (25 June).163CJ vii. 557b, 563a, 575a.

During the adjournment of Parliament, Packe continued to support the protectoral regime. On 22 September the council ordered, on the basis of a committee report, that Packe and Lloyd would have a warrant to release them from the old customs arrears.164CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 106-7. Packe remained an important source of funding for the increasingly cash-strapped protectorate, and in December lent £4,000 for the setting out of the fleet.165Add. 32471, f. 16; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 290. Also in December Packe was elected to the committee of the East India Company.166Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, p. 197. It was perhaps with financial affairs in mind that the protector issued a writ for Packe to sit in the Other House in the same month.167TSP vi. 668. A satirical writer thought ‘the new Lord Packe deserves well at his [Cromwell’s] hand for the good service, who being a true kingling, and of right principles to the court interest, having also been a lord (to wit, mayor) once before, may upon the whole be counted very worthy to be again so called, and to have a negative voice in the Other House over London and all the people of these lands besides’.168Second Narrative, 15. Packe took his oath on the first day of the new sitting, and was a constant presence in the chamber in the following days, being named to the committee of petitions on 21 January.169HMC Lords n.s. iv. 506-23. After the dissolution of Parliament in February 1658, Packe continued in his role as elder statesman. In March, he and Vyner were appointed treasurer of the new collection for the Protestants driven out of Bohemia and Poland.170CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 344. In May he was one of a syndicate of merchants who agreed to accept half of the money they were owed by the state from the proceeds of the fines on new buildings in London.171CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 17. He was re-elected for the East India committee in July; and in August petitioned the council on behalf of the Merchant Adventurers.172Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, p. 268; CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 115. Packe was less prominent during the protectorate of Richard Cromwell*, although he took his seat in the Other House in January 1659 and was assiduous in his attendance thereafter.173HMC Lords n.s. iv. 525-67. He was a popular choice for committees, being appointed to those for petitions (28 Jan.), enforcing the laws against the Book of Common Prayer (8 Feb.), annulling the title of Charles Stuart (15 Feb.), indemnity (3 Mar.), defining the remit of the Other House (15 Mar.) and confirming the sale of royal and episcopal lands (29 Mar.).174HMC Lords n.s. iv. 527, 534, 536, 544, 548, 554.

After the fall of the protectorate, Packe’s charmed life came to a sudden end. On 8 July 1659 the restored Rump considered a proposal to exclude him from the act of indemnity ‘for anything done by him towards the setting up of a single person’; it also began a new inquiry into ‘any public monies in his hands ... not yet accounted for’, in particular sums accrued during his time as a customs commissioner.175CJ vii. 707b, 708a, 714b, 756a. Three days later Packe was also ordered to repay all the money which he received as treasurer of the collection for the Piedmont Protestants.176CJ vii. 711b, 712a, 739a-b. He returned nearly £10,000 to the exchequer but denied allegations of corruption and appealed for a discharge on the grounds that he had acted on the protector’s orders.177CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 161. In September the pardon that he and Lloyd had received under the protectorate for their role in the customs commission was declared invalid and they were ordered to repay the outstanding £22,000.178CJ vii. 782a-b. Packe’s appeal against this decision was rejected on 28 January 1660.179 CJ vii. 826a. Packe and Vyner did their best to improve relations with the new council of state by paying into the exchequer £2,000 of the Piedmont money in April.180CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 321; Eg. 2542, f. 377. After the restoration Packe, as an alderman, attended the proclamation of the king in London and signed a City declaration accepting the king’s pardon and ‘engaging by God’s assistance to continue his majesty’s loyal and obedient subjects’. According to one royalist, Packe and his associates – ‘persons guilty enough to bring them within the exceptions’ – were fortunate in ‘finding friends enough to excuse them’.181HMC 5th Rep., 154. As a result, under the act of indemnity Packe was disabled from holding public office rather than sentenced to imprisonment or execution.182CJ viii. 65b; LJ xi. 115a; Parliamentary Intelligencer no. 25 (11-18 June 1660), 399 (E.186.5). In the following years he kept discreetly in the background but continued to prosper and became one of a group of financiers providing money for the government of Charles II.183GL, ‘acct. of loan’, ff. 79-80, 95-7. In 1665 his eldest son, Christopher, married the daughter of Sir Gervase Clifton, but a subsequent attempt to secure him a baronetcy failed: the grant was issued but the title was never conferred.184London Mar. Lics., 1005; CB; CSP Dom. 1665-6, p. 322; CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 467. In 1669, at the age of 70, he remarried and retired to his manor at Cotes.185London Mar. Lics., 1005.

Packe died on 27 May 1682 and was buried in the parish church at Prestwold, where his heir erected a monument portraying him in his civic robes.186Nichols, Hist. and Antiquities of Leics. iii. 360. Having already disposed of most of his estate to his eldest son, in his will Packe was primarily concerned with charitable bequests. He left money to the poor of several London, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire parishes, to the hospitals of Bridewell and Bedlam in London, to the capital’s prisons and to poor, godly ministers ejected from their livings. He left money to the Presbyterian minister, Dr Thomas Jacombe, and the Drapers’ Company received £50 to buy plate. His remaining lands in Leicestershire, houses in London and Plymouth, and the lease of the lands in Huntingdon, were divided between his children.187PROB11/370/248. In July 1683 his two surviving sons received confirmation of the arms granted to their father by Charles II.188Grantees of Arms (Harl. Soc. lxvi.), 188. Several of Packe’s descendants sat for Leicestershire and Lincolnshire constituencies in the nineteenth century.