GRANTHAM, Thomas (1612-54), of Goltho, and St Katherine’s Priory, Lincoln, Lincs.

The Granthams had made their name and fortune as wool merchants at Lincoln in the fifteenth century. Members of the family had regularly held municipal office from 1425 and had first represented the city in the Reformation Parliament of 1529.32HMC 14th Rep. viii, 11, 22; HP Commons 1509-58, ‘Vincent Grantham’. With their purchase of the manors of Goltho and St Katherine’s Priory – both near Lincoln – in the early sixteenth century, the family had joined the ranks of the county’s landed gentry. Grantham’s father, Sir Thomas Grantham, was returned for Lincoln to almost every Parliament between 1597 and 1628, and by the 1620s he was a parliamentary ally of the leading ‘country’ MP Sir John Eliot.33HP Commons 1509-58, ‘Vincent Grantham’; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Sir Thomas Grantham’; F. Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln, 114; Holmes, Lincs. 104, 140. Like Eliot, he was imprisoned in 1627 for his refusal to collect or pay the Forced Loan.34HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Sir Thomas Grantham’. At county level, he was associated with a group of prominent godly gentlemen that included his friends and fellow loan refusers Sir Edward Ayscoghe* (Sir Thomas Grantham’s second cousin) and Sir William Armyne* – both future parliamentarians.35C142/457/91; PROB11/159, f. 21; SP16/56/39, f. 58; SP16/89/2, f. 2; WARDS9/217, ff. 13-14; Lincs. RO, Dean and Chapter Recs., D & C, Bij/2/6 (Dean and chapter patents, 1609-40), ff. 147-150v. This group looked for support and patronage to the bishop of Lincoln, John Williams, who was an opponent of Archbishop Laud and generally took a lenient view of puritan nonconformity.36H. Hajzyk, ‘The Church in Lincs. c.1595-c.1640’ (Cambridge Univ. PhD thesis, 1980), 130. It was probably for nonconformist offences that Grantham’s second wife Lucy was examined before the court of high commission in 1635.37CSP Dom. 1635, pp. 178, 193, 199, 207, 215, 226.

Grantham appears to have had little or no formal education in England. Instead, as Lucy Hutchinson (the wife of the future regicide Colonel John Hutchinson*) recounts, he was ‘bred beyond seas, according to the best education of those times’.38Hutchinson Mems. ed. Sutherland, 23. In 1626, at the tender age of 13, he was granted a pass to travel on the continent for three years, ‘the better to enable himself in the gaining of languages and otherwise for to do his majesty and his country service’.39APC 1625-6, p. 348. The part of his education which seems to have appealed to him most was learning the art of war. At his father’s death in July 1630, Grantham was still a minor, and Sir Thomas’s lands (which were valued at £1,261 a year) were assigned to the guardianship of Sir Edward Ayscoghe and two others.40WARD5/24, pt. 2.

In 1631, Grantham left the care of his estate to his uncle, Sir Thomas Puckering† and embarked for the Low Countries and (or so it seems) military service against the Spanish. By September 1631, he was in the camp of the Prince of Orange’s army at Bergen-op-Zoom, although in what capacity – as an officer, gentleman ranker or simply as an interested observer – is not clear.41Harl. 7000, f. 414. If he was a soldier under the prince of Orange, his companions-in-arms would have included the future parliamentarian commanders (Sir) Thomas Fairfax*, John Hotham* and Philip Skippon*.42C.R. Markham, The Fighting Veres, 436-9.

Grantham had returned to England by October 1632, when he married a daughter of Sir William Alford†, who was a factional opponent of Sir William Constable* and other East Riding puritan gentlemen.43Swine, Yorks. bishop’s transcript; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Sir William Alford’. Appointed sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1638, Grantham seems to have used his utmost endeavour to collect the county’s full assessment for Ship Money.44Lincs. RO, ASWARBY/9/1/20, unfol.: Thomas Crues to the petty constables of Holland, Lincs., 22 June 1639; CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 430, 603; 1639, pp. 28, 235. He was assisted in this task by the previous sheriff, the godly future parliamentarian Sir Anthony Irby*.45CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 188. In the event, Grantham succeeded in collecting over £2,100 of the £2,900 for which the county had been assessed, a figure which compares favourably with that achieved by Irby.46M.D. Gordon, ‘The collection of ship money in the reign of Charles I’, TRHS ser. 3, iv. 159. His main difficulties, as he repeatedly informed the clerk of the privy council, Edward Nicholas†, were the ‘averseness of some ill affected to the service’, the negligence or obstructiveness of some constables and the fact that many of the constables and assessors were employed in military preparations for the first bishops’ war.47CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 430, 603; 1639, pp. 28, 235. The privy council seems to have accepted his arguments, for it took no punitive action against him for the shortfall in the county’s Ship Money returns.

In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, Grantham was returned for Lincoln, taking second place to the diocesan chancellor Dr John Farmerie.48Supra, ‘Lincoln’. Grantham’s strong proprietorial interest as the city’s foremost gentleman property-owner had apparently not been affected by a recent altercation with the corporation over his alleged breach of a leasing agreement on Lincoln’s south commons.49Lincs. RO, L1/1/1/4 (Lincoln council min. bk. 1599-1638), f. 280v. He received no appointments in this Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate.

In the elections to the Long Parliament that autumn, Grantham retained his seat at the expense of Farmerie, with the junior place being taken by the godly local squire John Broxolme.50Supra, ‘Lincoln’. Grantham was named to only three committees during the opening session of the Long Parliament and, once again, said little, if anything, on the floor of the House.51CJ ii. 20b, 50a, 73b. The only occasion on which he is known to have attended the House between late January 1641 and March 1642 was when he took the Protestation on 7 May.52CJ ii. 137b. His nomination on 1 March 1642 to a committee of both Houses for presenting Parliament’s answer to the king’s refusal to give his assent to the militia ordinance was his only such appointment in 1642.53CJ ii. 462a. Nevertheless, his fidelity to the cause of upholding the authority of Parliament was apparently not in doubt, for on 31 March, at the motion of William Strode I – an ally of John Pym – the House resolved that Grantham be recommended to the parliamentary lord lieutenant of Lindsey, Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, as one of his deputy lieutenants.54PJ ii. 113; CJ ii. 506b. This recommendation was carried to Willoughby of Parham by Grantham’s kinsman Sir Edward Ayscoghe, who reported on 6 April that it had met with the lord lieutenant’s approval.55CJ ii. 513a.

In mid-June 1642, Grantham offered to provide two horses for the defence of Parliament, and by 6 August he had raised a regiment of foot for service in the main parliamentary field army under the earl of Essex.56PJ iii. 471; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 366; SP28/143, pt. 6, ff. 8v, 19v. At the age of 30, Grantham was one of Essex’s youngest colonels – a distinction he may have merited as a result of military experience in the Low Countries. What moved him to take up arms for Parliament is not known. He was thought by the puritan divine Richard Baxter to be among the ‘moderate episcopal conformists’ in the Long Parliament – a group in which Baxter also placed Sir William Constable, whose godly distaste for Laudian episcopacy was such that he emigrated to the Netherlands in the late 1630s.57Supra, ‘Sir William Constable’; Anon., Richard Baxter’s Penitent Confession (1691), 30. It may be significant that Grantham appointed as his regimental chaplain the godly minister and future Presbyterian, James Nalton.58SP28/143, pt. 6, f. 23v; Calamy Revised, 360-1.

By early September 1643, when Grantham publicly pledged his willingness to ‘live and die’ with Essex in defence of Parliament, he had raised a regiment of 800 men in ten companies.59CJ ii. 755b; SP28/261, ff. 185, 187. At the battle of Edgehill, in October, his regiment and that of John Hampden* were positioned to the rear of Essex’s army, guarding the ammunition and the artillery train. They arrived on the field only after nightfall, although their appearance may have helped to persuade the king against a renewed assault, for according to Sir Edward Hyde*, Grantham’s and Hampden’s regiments ‘were reckoned among the best’ in Essex’s army.60Clarendon, Hist. ii. 364.

Grantham seems to have quit Essex’s army, and active military service, at some point during the winter of 1642-3 – possibly in consequence of a Commons’ order of early December that he and Ayscoghe repair to Lincolnshire to raise money and arms for the parliamentarian cause.61CJ ii. 872b, 873b; LJ v. 473b. On 17 December, the two men wrote to the Commons, asking for officers, arms and ammunition and that Parliament send down Willoughby of Parham and the Lincolnshire MPs Sir Christopher Wray, Sir Anthony Irby and Thomas Hatcher with their troops.62CJ ii. 893b; HMC Portland, i. 79-80; Add. 18777, f. 98. The activities of this group of Parliament-men in the county prompted the king to issue a proclamation in mid-January 1643, declaring them ‘traitors and stirrers of sedition’ and warning that any who obeyed their warrants ‘concerning any musters, levies, or contributions for levies whatsoever ... shall be esteemed by us as an enemy to the public peace, a person disaffected to us and to the religion and laws of the kingdom and shall accordingly receive condign punishment’.63A Proclamation of His Majesties Grace, Favour, and Pardon to the Inhabitants of His County of Lincolne (1643). Their situation apparently desperate by 24 March, Grantham and his colleagues begged the House either to send them money and arms or to recall them to Westminster, ‘and not make your commands a punishment to us who, by God’s mercy, have hitherto helped to preserve this county from evident ruin and shall still continue our endeavours if we may receive encouragement from you in this particular’.64HMC Portland, i. 106.

Grantham was back at Westminster by 12 June 1643, when he took the vow and covenant devised by Pym and his war-party allies in response to the Waller plot.65CJ iii. 125b. He was also present in the House on 29 September to take the Solemn League and Covenant, although whether he welcomed Scottish military intervention, or regarded it more as a necessary evil, is not clear.66CJ iii. 259a. Between taking the Covenant and Pride’s Purge in December 1648, he seems to have attended the House only intermittently. He was named to a mere eight committees during this period, none of which provide any significant clue as to his political orientation.67CJ iii. 300b, 440b, 482a, 498b, 601b; iv. 196b, 735b; v. 9b. Several of these appointments were to committees concerned with the management of the war – most notably, his addition on 5 July 1646 to the Northern Association Committee (notwithstanding his inclusion on East Riding commission in the original ordinance).68CJ iv. 196b; LJ vii. 479a. His last Commons’ appointment – which he probably received in absentia – was on 23 December 1647, when he, Sir Edward Ayscoghe, Sir John Wray and Sir Anthony Irby were ordered to bring in Lincolnshire’s share of one of the monthly assessments for the army.69CJ v. 9b. In fact, Grantham probably spent most of the mid-to-late 1640s in Lincolnshire. He was granted leave of absence on 22 May and 6 September 1644, 30 June 1646 and on 13 March and 15 September 1647, and he was declared absent at the call of the House on 9 October 1647 and again on 24 April 1648.70CJ iii. 503b, 618a; iv. 592a; v. 110b, 301b, 330a, 543b.

Although Grantham was neither secluded nor imprisoned at Pride’s Purge, his failure to take his seat in the Rump suggests that he disapproved of the army’s proceedings over the winter of 1648-9. In July 1650, he was removed from the Lindsey and Kesteven commissions of the peace, almost certainly for disaffection to the commonwealth.71C231/6, pp. 190, 191. Nevertheless, he continued to be named as an assessment commissioner for Lincolnshire and Lincoln throughout the period 1649-53. He died on 22 November 1654 and was buried at Goltho.72C38/167/25 Jan. 1670; Lincs. Peds. 423. No will is recorded. It was claimed after the Restoration that he had left debts of £5,000 – £1,500 of which he owed to the Nottinghamshire parliamentarian William Pierrepont* – and certainly by the early 1650s he was borrowing large sums by statute staple and looking to sell parts of his estate.73C6/129/222; C38/167/12 July 1669; LC4/203, ff. 203v, 212, 228; Eg. ch. 7305. None of Grantham’s immediate descendants sat in Parliament.