PERCIVAL, John (d. 1644), of King’s Lynn, Norf.

Percival’s origins are obscure but he was probably the son of Timothy Percival and Mary Gap who were married at Swaffham in 1576.15Keeler, Long Parl. 303. However, the future MP made his career in King’s Lynn. Apprenticed to a local merchant, Thomas Boston, Percival was admitted as a freeman there in 1608.16Cal. of the Freemen of Lynn, 135. He soon prospered. By 1614 he was trading with France, Spain and the Low Countries, importing goods as various as wine, salt, vinegar, rope, fish, cheese, canvas and paper, while exporting wax to Cadiz.17King’s Lynn Port Bks. 1610-1614, ed. G.A. Metters (Norf. Rec. Soc. lxxiii.), 167, 183, 184, 194, 198-9. In 1615 he was able to present a silver-gilt flagon to one of the town’s churches, St Margaret’s.18H.S. Radcliffe, ‘Church plate in Norf.’ Norf. Arch. xxiv., 20.

At first Percival shunned a civic career. He was elected a common councilman as early as March 1616 but did not take the necessary oath until two years later.19King’s Lynn Borough Archives, KL/C7/9, ff. 91v, 128. He had in the meantime married Margery Atkin, the daughter of one of the alderman and the sister of Thomas Atkin*.20Keeler, Long Parl. 303. Any initial reluctance he may have had about becoming involved in civic affairs was soon forgotten. He was promoted to become an alderman in 1623 and was elected as mayor for the first time in 1630.21Keeler, Long Parl. 303. When the town was hit by plague in 1636, he was one of the citizens who appealed to the rest of the county for assistance.22Rye, State Pprs. 211-12, 215, 220, 222. He served as mayor a second time in 1639 when the incumbent, Thomas Milner, died during his year in office and Percival was chosen to complete that term.23Keeler, Long Parl. 303.

Percival’s second marriage brought him wider political connections. In 1633 he married Judith St John at Odell in Bedfordshire.24Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 221. It can be deduced that she was the sister of Oliver St John*, who had been unmarried when their father had died several years earlier and whose sister Dorothy was married to Richard Westland of Boston, Lincolnshire.25H.F. Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in Eng. (Boston, 1901), ii. 1421, 1424; PROB11/252/409. Percival subsequently entered into a bond with St John by which he promised to give money and goods worth £600 to his new wife.26PROB11/252/409. Percival’s close kinship with St John may well have been an advantage when he stood for Parliament in 1640.

Percival was returned to the Long Parliament in the senior King’s Lynn seat with Thomas Toll*, a kinsman by his first marriage, on the popular vote of the freemen at large on 19 October 1640. Apart from taking the Protestation on 3 May 1641, Percival left no trace in the records during this Parliament’s first seven months and he was not named to any committee until 4 June, when he was included on the committee receiving complaints against the bishop of Bath and Wells, William Piers.27CJ ii. 133b, 166b. He was not named to another until January 1642, when he was appointed to the committee for the relief of captives in Algiers (25 Jan.).28CJ ii. 394a; PJ i. 169n In March 1642 he also became a member of the committee of accounts, appointed primarily to audit the accounts of the money raised by the poll tax.29CJ ii. 474a. On 11 June he and Toll each promised £50 for the defence of Parliament.30PJ iii. 475.

Faced with the likelihood of war, Percival had little hesitation in siding with Parliament. Presumably convinced that he could be of more use in Norfolk than at Westminster, on 22 August 1642 he was given leave to assist in training the volunteers who were being recruited at King’s Lynn.31CJ ii. 731a. In early November he and Toll were part of the delegation sent by the King’s Lynn corporation to the meeting organised at Norwich by the deputy lieutenants to improve the county’s defences.32HMC 11th Rep. iii. 178.

Percival was back at Westminster by 9 January 1643, when he was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers.33CJ ii. 920a. What was probably the main purpose of his return became apparent two days later when he presented a petition from King’s Lynn asking that the town be allowed to retain some of its taxes so that this money could be spent on the town’s fortification. The Commons agreed to allow them £400.34CJ ii. 922a. Percival’s report to the corporation explained what had happened.

I took occasion to tell them what I had received in plate and money at Lynn upon the Propositions, and what plate was sent up, and what money was ready to be sent up, and what we had begun to do according to their command touching the fortifying the town, and what a great deal of money that has already cost, and would cost to finish it. And [I] delivered in your petition, and it was presently ordered we should have £400 out of the said money towards our fortification, and I believe I had got £500 had not a Member of the House, that Mr Robinson and Mr Kirby [two of the aldermen] spoke with, stood up and said that they said £400 would content them, or words to that effect.35HMC 11th Rep. iii. 180.

On 2 February Percival was added to the committee of accounts, the same committee to which he had already been appointed a year earlier.36CJ ii. 951b. The following month he was also named to the committee on the petition from the inhabitants of New Somerset in New England (30 Mar.).37CJ iii. 24a. Meanwhile, Percival’s son-in-law, John Arrowsmith, vicar of St Nicholas, King’s Lynn, preached one of the fast day sermons to the Commons on 25 January; St John was sent afterwards to thank him.38CJ ii. 904b, 942b; J. Arrowsmith, The Covenant-Avenging Sword Brandished [1643].

By mid-March 1643 the activities of the king’s supporters in King’s Lynn, led by Sir Hamon L’Estrange†, had become a cause for concern. Oliver Cromwell* arrived there with soldiers on 20 March to restore order. Two days later Percival was among local men named by Parliament to assist the mayor in overseeing the town’s trained bands.39LJ v. 659a. This was not enough and on 11 April Percival, Toll, the mayor and four others were empowered by the Commons to take all necessary action to preserve the peace.40CJ iii. 39a. On 13 August, however, L’Estrange seized control of the town. Percival and Toll were put under house arrest. It is unclear whether, like Toll, he then managed to escape.41A briefe and true Relation of the Seige and Surrendering of Kings Lyn [1643], 4, 7, (E.67.28). Parliamentarian troops re-entered the town on 16 September.

On 10 October the Commons summoned the new mayor, Edmund Hudson*, to London for questioning and so instructed Percival to act as deputy mayor in his absence.42CJ iii. 271b. This appointment was confirmed a fortnight later, when Percival was also named as one of the new Norfolk deputy lieutenants.43CJ iii. 287a. In early December he and Toll, together with the town’s governor, Valentine Wauton*, were appointed by Parliament to assess the damages suffered by local inhabitants during the siege, so that those affected could be compensated.44CJ iii. 331a. As Percival and Toll could not assess their own damages, the Commons later asked the committee at King’s Lynn to do so.45CJ iii. 550a. When it was then pointed out that this committee comprised only Percival, Toll and Wauton, the Commons agreed to co-opt two of the alderman to assist Wauton in making this assessment. Earlier that same day, 24 July 1644, Percival had been granted permission to go into the country.46CJ iii. 568a. The Percivals and their kinsman Wauton were evidently close, as earlier that month, in writing to Wauton to inform him of the death of his son at Marston Moor, Cromwell had sent his regards to ‘my Cousin Percevall’, more probably Percival’s wife than Percival himself.47Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 288.

Percival attended a meeting of the corporation at King’s Lynn on 1 August, but within weeks he was dead.48Keeler, Long Parl. 303n. Before leaving London he had made a will reflecting his deep piety. Commending his soul into the hands ‘of my reconciled God in Christ believing that he will not cast away that which he hath sought with the precious blood of his dear son’, he declared himself ready to ‘lay down this earthly tabernacle’ when called. His family bequests included portions totalling £780 to his children and £5 to the poor of Great Yarmouth. He also left strict instructions for the conduct of his funeral, forbidding feasting of any kind. His wife and her brother-in-law, Richard Westland, were named as the executors, while Arrowsmith, his son-in-law, was named as one of the supervisors. Probate was delayed until February 1656, possibly because Westland died the following year.49PROB11/252/409.

On 21 September 1644, when they added Miles Corbett* to the committee at King’s Lynn to assess the compensation to be paid to the inhabitants, the Commons ordered that priority should be given to the payments due to Percival’s executors for the losses he had suffered during the siege.50CJ iii. 636a. Three years later Lady L’Estrange, wife of Sir Hamon, paid £86 as compensation for what she considered to have been Percival’s ‘pretended imprisonment’.51A. Kingston, East Anglia and the Great Civil War (1897), 296. John Arrowsmith went on to become master of St John’s, Cambridge, in which capacity he served as the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. Later he became the regius professor of divinity and the master of Trinity College.