INGOLDSBY, Francis (1614-81), of Lenborough, Buckingham, Bucks.

Edward Hyde* would describe Francis’s younger brother, Richard*, as ‘a gentleman of a good extraction’.15Clarendon, Hist. vi. 222. This was a fair comment on the family background of all three of the Ingoldsby brothers. The family derived their name from the village of Ingoldsby in Lincolnshire. In the late fifteenth century one of their ancestors, Ralph Ingoldsby, had acquired the manor of Lenborough on the outskirts of Buckingham by marriage.16Vis. Bucks. 1634, 75-6; ‘Pedigree of Ingoldsby’, 137-8; VCH Bucks. iii. 483. Their father, Sir Richard Ingoldsby, would inherit this estate in 1635 on the death of his father, Richard senior.17VCH Bucks. iii. 484. Francis, born in 1614, was the first son produced by Elizabeth Cromwell following her marriage to Sir Richard. As a daughter of Sir Oliver Cromwell, Elizabeth was a first cousin of Oliver Cromwell* and of John Hampden*.

All the elder Ingoldsby sons signed up as soldiers on the parliamentarian side at the start of the civil war in 1642. In Francis’s case, he seems to have joined the regiment raised in Buckinghamshire by Arthur Goodwin*. One of the Ingoldsbys was already being described as a captain as early as late August 1642 when Nehemiah Wharton dined with their father, and later that year Francis as a captain was receiving payments from the sheriff, Richard Grenville*, and the Buckinghamshire deputy lieutenants.18CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 379; Bucks. Contributions for Ireland, 112. He continued as a captain in that regiment until at least the spring of 1644.19SP28/7, ff. 87, 434; SP28/8, f. 98; SP28/9, ff. 106, 213; SP28/10, f. 176; SP28/11, f. 216; SP28/12, f. 116; SP28/15, f. 106; SP28/18, f. 332; BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database. Unlike his brothers, Richard and Henry, he seems not to have served in the New Model army.

On returning to civilian life, Ingoldsby continued to serve Parliament by acting as an assessment commissioner and later as a militia commissioner in Buckinghamshire.20A. and O. He continued to hold these local offices, including membership of the commission of the peace, throughout the 1650s. As in the case of his brothers, his kinship with Cromwell might have encouraged him in his support for the protectorate. His elections as MP for Buckingham in the three protectoral Parliaments reflected the family’s position as one of the major landowners in the area. He was never a prominent figure in the Commons. His only confirmed committee appointment was in the 1654 Parliament, when he was added to the committee for privileges after the disputes over the Irish elections was referred to it, no doubt because his brother, Henry*, had been elected to sit for one of the Irish constituencies.21CJ vii. 373b. According to the surviving list of ‘kinglings’, he voted in favour of the offer of the crown to Cromwell on 25 March 1657.22Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5). He was also almost certainly the ‘Mr Ingoldsby’ appointed to the delegation which in April 1657 waited on Cromwell to hear his misgivings about the Humble Petition and Advice.23CJ vii. 521b. On 23 November 1658 he walked with other members of the family in Cromwell’s funeral procession.24Burton’s Diary, ii. 527. As three of the Ingoldsby brothers sat in the Commons in the 1659 Parliament, it is unclear which of them spoke in the debate on the war between Sweden and Denmark (21 Feb.) or who agreed that they should vote on whether to transact business with the Other House (1 Mar.).25Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, pp. 136, 158.

That this Ingoldsby was subsequently included on the list of potential recipients considered for the proposed order of the Royal Oak suggests that he was thought to have supported Charles II’s Restoration.26Burke Commoners, i. 688. His brother Richard had certainly done so and it is possible that this honour would have been as much to reward Richard’s services as those of Francis himself. The estimate of his income, £1,000 a year, given to show that he was worthy of that honour, probably gave a false impression of his wealth. He was soon to face serious financial difficulties. His father, Sir Richard, had died in late 1656, but as he had left everything to his wife, this brought Francis no immediate financial advantage.27PROB11/261/132. When he did inherit the Lenborough estates on the death of his mother in May 1666, that made little difference. In about 1673 he was forced to sell those lands to his steward, William Robinson.28Burke Dorm. and Extinct Baronetcies, 277. He ended his days in poverty as a pensioner of the Charterhouse in London.29Lipscomb, Buckingham, ii. 169; Burke Dorm. and Extinct Baronetcies, 277; VCH Bucks. iii. 484. He left several children but nothing for them to inherit.