FOUNTAINE, Thomas (1599-1646), of Hulcott, Bucks.

There were several branches of the Fountaine family in Buckinghamshire. The MP belonged to the branch which had been living at Walton on the outskirts of Aylesbury since the reign of Henry VIII. The Fountaines of Stoke Hammond were probably distant relations. In 1571 the MP’s grandfather, John Fountaine, bought the manor of Hulcott which was located about three miles to the north east of Aylesbury. After John Fountaine died in 1596, this passed to his son, Thomas, the elder brother of the MP’s father.9VCH Bucks. ii. 343; Lipscombe, Buckingham, ii. 338; Keeler, Long. Parl. 179.

John Fountaine junior was assessed for purveyance on land close to Aylesbury in 1598.10Bodl. Willis 30, ff. 23v, 25. His eldest son, Thomas, was baptised at St Mary, Aylesbury, the following year.11St Mary, Aylesbury par. reg. Nothing is known about Thomas’s education. In 1628 he married Alice Claydon at Stone, two miles to the west of Aylesbury, and it was also at Stone that their first two children, John and Joyce, were baptised.12Stone par. reg. By then Thomas already knew that he stood to inherit the family estates at Hulcott, as his uncle, Thomas Fountaine, had left them to him on his death in 1623, subject only to a life interest for his widow.13Hulcott par. reg. The estates would therefore have passed to him in 1634 when his aunt, Joyce Andrews, died.14Hulcott par. reg.; Vis. Bucks. 1634 (Harl. Soc. lviii), 4. Thomas certainly owned substantial estates at Hulcott by 1639 and the next three of his children, another John, Edmund and Jane, were baptised there between 1635 and 1639.15Bucks. Glebe Terriers, ed. Reed, 116-19; Hulcott par. reg. pp. 21-2. He was assessed there at 17s for Ship Money.16Ship Money Pprs. ed. C.G. Bonsey and J.G. Jenkins (Bucks. Rec. Soc. xiii), 55. Either he or his late uncle is likely to have been the person whose signature carved on a sixteenth-century tomb survives in the local church.17G.H. Rusbridger, ‘Medieval graffiti in some Bucks. churches’, Recs. of Bucks. xx. 543, 545. However, in 1639 Fountaine sold the Hulcott estates to William Elmes, Thomas Elmes and Thomas Wyan.18VCH Bucks. ii. 343.

The decision by Sir John Packington* to sit in the Short Parliament for Worcestershire rather than Aylesbury necessitated the by-election which resulted in Fountaine being chosen for Aylesbury. He must have taken his seat almost immediately. On 28 April he spoke several times at the committee for elections during the discussion about the Gloucestershire election dispute. His interventions seem to have been intended to support Sir Robert Tracy* against those who wished to unseat him.19Aston’s Diary, 153-6.

That autumn Packington regained the Aylesbury seat, but Fountaine got a second chance when John Hampden* (a distant relative) vacated his Wendover seat in order to sit as knight of the shire. Fountaine made a modest start in the Long Parliament in March 1641 when he was appointed to the committee on the bill to abolish trial by battle and was added to the committee on the popish hierarchy.20CJ ii. 101a, 105b. Two months later he took the Protestation.21CJ ii. 133a. In June he spoke in favour of the release of William Tayleur alias Domville*.22Procs. LP v. 113. He saw the Irish rebellion later that year as either a threat or an opportunity and invested a total of £200 in the Irish Adventure between April and July 1642.23CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 6. In May 1642 he informed Framlingham Gawdy* of the rumour that the king planned to summon a meeting of the Yorkshire gentry.24PJ i. 346. The following month, as Parliament went ahead with its military preparations against what it saw as the threat from the king, he offered to lend a horse.25PJ iii. 423. As a local MP, it was natural that he should have been included on the committee to take control of Buckinghamshire created in June 1642.26Nugent, Hampden, ii. 458.

Once the fighting started, Fountaine sided firmly with Parliament and in October 1642 he suddenly began making an impression in the House. On 11 October he reported from the lord mayor of London, Isaac Penington*, that the claims made by Richard Powell, the vicar of Pattishull who had been imprisoned earlier that year because of his ‘popish’ beliefs, had proved to be false.27CJ ii. 804a. He was then named to the committee created to decide what should be done with any captured prisoners.28CJ ii. 807a. On 22 October 1642, when the king had advanced as far as Edgecote and looked as if he would march through Buckinghamshire towards London, the Commons wanted to send Fountaine, together with Richard Winwood* and Bulstrode Whitelocke*, back to mobilise the county’s defences. On hearing of this, Fountaine persuaded them to let him stay at Westminster and instead write letters of encouragement to the Buckinghamshire deputy lieutenants.29CJ ii. 819b; Add. 18777, f. 41. The inconclusive result at Edgehill the next day removed the immediate threat, but on 28 October Fountaine was included on the Commons’ committee to consider how the troops being concentrated in and around the capital should be quartered.30CJ ii. 825b. Two weeks later he was one of the delegation sent to warn the London militia committee that those guarding the defences around London should remain on a state of alert.31CJ ii. 842b. That December he supplied Parliament with £20 for the war effort.32Add. 18777, f. 109v.

Nothing is known about him during the first five months of 1643. Perhaps he remained in Buckinghamshire, which, with the king now based at Oxford, formed the front line of the parliamentarian defences. Fountaine was certainly back at Westminster in early June 1643 as he then took the oath imposed following the discovery of the plot of Edmund Waller*.33CJ iii. 118b. The attempt in August 1643 to betray Aylesbury to the royalists certainly brought Fountaine back to prominence. The warning letter from the town’s governor, Thomas Tyrrell*, was addressed to Fountaine and it was he who broke the news to the Commons on 17 August.34Harl. 165, f. 152. One of the conspirators who were arrested was the vicar of Hulcott, William Belclerk. This was potentially embarrassing for Fountaine, who was bound to Belclerk by a bond for £100. After Fountaine raised the matter in the House, the Commons agreed that he should be repaid from any estates confiscated from Belclerk by the local sequestrations committee.35CJ iii. 217b. Fountaine and Cornelius Holland* were then asked to make recommendations for new appointments to the Buckinghamshire committees in the wake of the discovery of this plot.36CJ iii. 225a. That Fountaine was added to the committee considering which absent MPs should be sequestered (21 Sept. 1643) might be further evidence indicating that his own attendance had been irregular.37CJ iii. 250a. He had little sympathy with those MPs who betrayed Parliament. When William Smith* was captured at Newport Pagnell, Fountaine denounced his ‘villainy’ in a speech to the Commons.38Harl. 166, f. 34.

The summer campaigns of 1643, particularly the stalemate encounter at Newbury (20 Sept.), had done little to alter Buckinghamshire’s exposed position. The county was still on the front line and its major town, Aylesbury, was a essential forward position threatening Oxford. Henceforth Fountaine became a tireless advocate at Westminster for the Aylesbury garrison. He was one of the three MPs appointed in September 1643 to investigate what money had been paid to the soldiers there.39CJ iii. 252a. Later that year, when the Commons voted £200 to the Aylesbury garrison, Fountaine organised its transfer.40CJ iii. 297a, 302a; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 495. He seems to have been trusted by the lord general, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, and when, in November 1643 Parliament wanted to send a delegation to make sure that the earl arranged for the garrison at Newport Pagnell be paid, Fountaine was included.41Harl. 165, f. 199; CJ iii. 311b. Fountaine was an obvious nominee to the committee created in December 1643 to investigate the latest conspiracy to betray the town to the royalists.42CJ iii. 334a. He was also included on the committee which sat in March 1644 to decide how to raise £1,000 for the Aylesbury garrison and a fortnight later, when it was decided that the garrison actually needed £3,000, he and Cornelius Holland were instructed to handle the negotiations with the Revenue Committee.43CJ iii. 437b, 452b. He then sat on the committee which discussed how to raise money for the army, particularly the forces at Aylesbury and Windsor.44CJ iii. 457a.

On 1 May 1644 the Commons asked Fountaine, Whitelocke and Sir Philip Stapilton* to write to the earl of Essex to instruct him to ensure that Aylesbury remained safe.45CJ iii. 474b. It was feared that with Essex and Sir William Waller* advancing up the Thames valley, the king might try to outflank them to the north. This threat appeared to materialise almost immediately. In a letter which probably crossed with that from Fountaine, Whitelocke and Stapilton, and which was reported to the Commons by Fountaine on 2 May, Essex warned that an enemy force of up to 10,000 was approaching Aylesbury. Separate information indicated that many of the soldiers there had deserted. Sir Walter Erle* and Fountaine were given the task of passing that on to Essex. It later emerged that the general had vastly overestimated the numbers advancing.46Harl. 166, f. 54v; CJ iii. 477a. Fountaine helped investigate whether a consignment of oats could be sent to the men at Aylesbury.47CJ iii. 478b. He again acted as the Commons’ contact with Essex on matters concerning the Aylesbury garrison on 22 May when he and Thomas Lane* wrote to tell him that Colonel Francis Martin should be appointed as the new governor.48CJ iii. 503b. On the basis of information from Fountaine, the Committee of Both Kingdoms also warned Essex that Martin’s men needed to be paid as a matter of urgency.49CSP Dom. 1644, p. 170. Fountaine had an equal concern for the garrison at Windsor as it provided some protection for the southern part of Buckinghamshire.50CJ iii. 507b.

Fountaine probably spent much of the rest of 1644 at Aylesbury.51SP28/151: acct. of Thomas Scot, 1644-6, pp. 89, 118, 129, 315, 324. That October the Committee of Both Kingdoms ordered a tun of match to be delivered to him there.52CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 7. His activities at Westminster did not resume until early the following year. As an MP from an adjacent county, he was included on the committee set up in January 1645 to investigate complaints against the army made by the inhabitants of Bedfordshire.53CJ iv. 28b. When Anthony Carpenter wanted to find out in February 1645 the precise effect that the new assessment for the army would have on the midland association, he consulted Fountaine and then relayed the information to Sir Samuel Luke*.54Luke Letter Bks. 432, 433. At about the same time, Fountaine told Parliament that a petition was being collected at High Wycombe for delivery to the commissioners negotiating with the king’s representatives at Uxbridge; this would probably cause trouble throughout Buckinghamshire.55CJ iv. 46b; TSP i. 67; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 302. When the Committee of Both Kingdoms ordered that military supplies be sent to the Aylesbury garrison the following month, they gave the warrants to Fountaine in the knowledge that he would act on them swiftly.56CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 348. During that year Fountaine was repeatedly employed by the Commons to persuade the excise commissioners to provide money for the forces at Abingdon, a town which had been recaptured by Parliament earlier that year and which was another stronghold protecting the vicinity of Buckinghamshire.57CJ iv. 101b, 297b, 335a, 337a. That summer the fear that the royalists would advance into Buckinghamshire eventually materialised, with the result that Fountaine’s estates briefly fell under their control. Parliament responded in June 1645 by granting him compensation of £4 a week.58CJ iv. 161a. He was probably responsible for moving the writ for the Wendover by-election in the Commons on 25 September. The winner of that election, Edmund West*, then suggested that Fountaine should consult with ‘Sir Henry Vane and the rest of our friends’ before moving the Buckinghamshire writ.59HCA30/864: E. West to T. Wyan, 4 Oct. 1645.

Fountaine’s contributions to the Commons’ proceedings dwindled to almost nothing after November 1645, although he was included on the committee appointed in July 1646 to bring in a bill for the maintenance of a cavalry unit to be based in Buckinghamshire.60CJ iv. 625b. Between March and 2 July 1646 he several times signed warrants in Buckinghamshire authorising the treasurers of the county to make payments for quartering.61SP28/126, ff. 171-188v. Within weeks Fountaine was dead: the writ for the by-election to replace him was moved on 15 September.62CJ iv. 668a. He left a son, Thomas, then aged only about 16, who attended Oxford and the Inner Temple the following year.63Al. Ox.; I. Temple database. In 1653 he and his mother assigned Fountaine’s share in the Irish Adventure to a London skinner, James Perry.64CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 6. Thomas junior died in 1656.