CAREW, Alexander (1608-44), of Antony, Cornw.

The Carews had become established at Antony in eastern Cornwall by the end of the middle ages. Alexander Carew’s paternal grandfather, Richard Carew† the antiquary, and his father, Sir Richard Carew, were both prominent local figures, with the latter sitting as knight of the shire in 1614 and being elevated to a baronetcy in the summer of 1641.15HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Richard Carew’. On the distaff side, his Chudleigh ancestors were among the most prominent of Devonshire gentlemen. Alexander entered the Middle Temple in March 1628, and studied there at least until May 1629 when he acted as manucaptor (or surety) to his cousin, Robert Carey (or Carew) of Clovelly in Devon.16MT Admiss.; MTR ii. 730, 748. In 1631 Carew married Jane Rolle, sister of Sir Samuel Rolle*, although the details of the marriage settlement, and in particular the conveyance of jointure lands that Jane would receive in return for her £2,500 portion, were not concluded until the new year of 1634.17Cornw. RO, CS/11/16; R/5825; R/3045/1. Nothing is known of Carew’s activity during the later 1630s, but in November 1640 he was returned as knight of the shire, alongside Sir Bevill Grenvile*, presumably on his father’s interest as a major Cornish landowner.

There is no evidence that Carew attended Parliament before the middle of February 1641, and for the next two months he was only moderately active, being named to such committees as that to abolish the court of wards (16 Feb.), to prevent clergy holding temporal office (8 Mar.) and to pass the bill granting tonnage and poundage (18 Mar.), suggesting that he was a critic of the Caroline regime.18CJ ii. 87a, 99a, 107a. He was also named to the committee to hold a conference with the House of Lords on the trial of Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford.19CJ ii. 98a. Despite this, the supposed exchange between Grenvile and Carew in April 1641 – in which Grenvile argued that it would be a shame on them all if any Member from Cornwall ‘should have a hand in this ominous business’, and Carew answered, presciently, that ‘if I were sure to be the next man that should suffer upon the same scaffold with the same axe I would give my consent to the passing of it’ – is surely apocryphal. Not only is the source the unreliable post-Restoration writer James Heath, but also Grenvile does not appear to have been particularly partisan for Strafford, as his name does not appear on any of the lists of MPs who voted against attainder.20Coate, Cornw. 28; Oxford DNB.

Indeed, it was only a few weeks later, after the revelations about the army plot against Parliament, that Carew’s opposition to Charles I’s regime deepened. The risk of military actions against Parliament was his major concern throughout the summer. On 8 May 1641 Carew reported to Parliament the state of the Cornish defences, ‘what castles of importance were in Cornwall, and who had custody of them’ and full details of the militia forces and how they were placed to resist insurrection or invasion.21Procs LP iv. 273-4. On the same day he was named to committees on bills against popish recusants and the levy of mariners for the defence of the nation, and on 11 May he was involved in a conference with the Lords concerning attacks on the queen mother.22CJ ii. 139a-b, 143b. Revelations concerning the army plot conspiracy alarmed Carew. In June and July there were efforts to conclude the treaty with the Scots and thus allow the disbandment of the royal army in the north, and Carew was heavily involved in both.23CJ ii. 170a, 188b, 196a, 215a, 228a, 238b. On 7 July he was named to the committee to meet the Lords to arrange the stopping of allowances to Sir Francis Windebanke* and others involved in the plot, and on 13 July he was also named to the committee to prepare votes against the conduct of another suspect, George Lord Digby*.24CJ ii. 201a, 209b. On 2 August Carew joined a further debate on security, and requested that the ammunition taken from the Cornish forts in 1640 should now be returned.25Procs LP vi. 173. Ten days later he also spoke in the debate on the army plot, insisting that Henry Percy* should be voted guilty, even though he was the earl of Northumberland’s brother.26Procs LP vi. 376. In December, Carew was still active in bringing the plotters to justice, moving the Commons ‘that we might give a name to the offence’ of the ringleaders – in other words, to accuse them publicly of treason – and in the following February he was teller in favour of demanding the removal of Endymion Porter* as an ‘evil counsellor’ to the king.27D’Ewes (C), 258; CJ ii. 433b. The attempt by Charles I to arrest the Five Members in early January merely confirmed Carew’s suspicions, and later in the month he was involved in the investigation of the Cornish vice-admiral, Francis Bassett, who had allegedly been instructed by Sir Nicholas Slanning* to arrest any of the Five Members fleeing abroad through the local ports.28PJ i. 210; CJ ii. 401a-b.

By the new year of 1642, Carew also shared the general anti-Catholic hysteria that followed the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in the previous October. For Carew, as for other MPs, the rebellion in Ireland and the risk of unrest in England were intimately connected, and this can be seen in his activity within Parliament. On 4 November he was named to the committee to raise soldiers for Ireland, and on 15 November he was also appointed to a committee to draft an ordinance putting the trained bands on a state of alert.29CJ ii. 305b, 316b. In December he was messenger to the Lords concerning the trial of Catholic priests, was named to a committee to disarm recusants, and was appointed to a committee on the state of the Irish province of Munster.30CJ ii. 341a, 349b, 357b; LJ iv. 472a. On 31 December Carew was one of the MPs sent to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester, to recommend a military appointment, and on the same day he was named to a committee to consider how to raise arms and ammunition to secure England.31CJ ii. 364a-b. Carew’s activity heightened in January 1642, and he was teller in favour of establishing a committee to ensure payment of troops bound for Ireland, as well as being appointed to committees to relieve distressed Irish Protestants, to arrest Irish papists in England, and to work with the Scots in Ulster, and acting as messenger to the Lords on a vote on Irish papists.32CJ ii. 368b, 381b, 394a, 396b, 400a, 401a, 404a; LJ iv. 549a. Again, internal security was a priority. On 26 January he passed to the House ‘letters out of Cornwall, that there was great confluence of Irish papists in Cornwall, so as the country began to stand in great fear of them lest they should fire some towns, villages or houses’; he was added to the committee on Irish papists in England, and took the subsequent message to the House of Lords.33PJ i. 176-7, 179, 217-9. After January 1642 Carew was less involved in Irish affairs, but he was still named to occasional committees in February and March, and on 14 March he moved in debate that a committee might be appointed to view all letters sent to England from Ireland.34CJ ii. 423b, 447a, 486a; PJ ii. 35.

Carew was obviously interested in religious affairs, but his views appear to have been very conservative. He was appointed to committees against ‘superstition and idolatry’ in worship and to punish members of the recent Convocation in the spring of 1641, and to occasional committees on recusancy later in the year; and on 23 and 24 December he moved that the proposed fast day should be observed throughout the country, and also supported an early reading of the order to that effect.35CJ ii. 84b, 129a, 139a, 305a, 349b; D’Ewes (C), 334, 341. Such appointments should not be taken as indication that Carew favoured ‘puritanism’, however, and on 22 January 1642 he opposed a motion that only Catholics should be punished for ‘not being present at the whole liturgy’ in their parish churches, suggesting that he had little time for Protestant nonconformity.36PJ i. 141. Despite his religious orthodoxy, by the summer Carew was considered one of the more extreme Members of the Commons. On 23 July, Sir Simonds D’Ewes condemned the ‘fiery spirits’ who seemed intent on war, and was immediately attacked by William Strode I, forcing an apology. Thereafter, D’Ewes commented, ‘divers of the fiery spirits called upon me to withdraw, and one Mr Carew, my formerly seeming friend, and Mr Nathaniel Fiennes and Mr Denzil Holles … took other frivolous exceptions at what I had said’.37PJ iii. 257. The company kept by Carew suggests that this was not merely D’Ewes’s imagination. Even so, the personal nature of this debate may have coloured D’Ewes’s later recollection of Carew, that ‘he would ever aggravate the fault and increase the censure of any question before us, and he was a very eager promoter also of raising this present unnatural civil war in the kingdom’.38Harl. 165, f. 165-v.

Whatever the validity of D’Ewes’s views, there is no doubt that Carew was active in support of Parliament in the weeks preceding the civil war. On 27 July he joined Sir Richard* and Francis Buller I*, Thomas Arundell*, Richard Erisey* and Francis Godolphin* as one of those sent to Cornwall to put the Militia Ordinance into operation, and he remained in the county during the tense weeks of late summer, and signed the letter from the commissioners of 5 August, reporting to Parliament their clash with the royalists at the Launceston assizes.39CJ ii. 694a; LJ v. 275a-b. He was identified by royalists as a leading opponent, second only to Sir Richard Buller. According to one report, Sir Bevill Grenvile denounced them as ‘two wise men, but they make the whole country fools: they pretend to fight for the king, but they would cut his throat if they could’.40Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2/118. In September Carew was at Launceston with the parliamentarian forces under Buller, and was sent to treat with the royalists who had advanced to Bodmin, but without success, and he was indicted at the Michaelmas quarter sessions, held at Lostwithiel.41Bellum Civile, 20. Immediately afterwards Carew, who had by this time become a major in the local forces, sent a letter to Parliament ‘in which he showed that about 400 cavaliers were lately assembled at Bodmin in Cornwall to put the commission of array in execution, and that unless some further assistance were sent unto him, there being so many malignants in that county, he could not oppose it’.42Add. 18777, f. 30; Harl. 163, f. 412. As this ‘further assistance’ did not materialise, the parliamentarians were forced to withdraw to Plymouth, where they began a campaign of raids across the Tamar, including one incident in which Carew, ‘with musketeers from Plymouth’ attacked the town of Millbrook and captured Mount Edgcumbe.43Bellum Civile, 23.

By the new year of 1643 Carew had been given command of the strategically important St Nicholas Island at the entrance to Plymouth harbour, as deputy to his cousin, Sir George Chudleigh, and it was probably at this time that he was promoted to the rank of colonel. When Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford, reviewed the defences at Plymouth in January, it was reported that St Nicholas Island was ‘strong and impregnable’, and under ‘the trust and care of Colonel Carew is well guarded both with musketeers and ordnance’.44HMC Portland, i. 91-2; England’s Black Tribunal (1660), 65. By early March, Carew’s position had become complicated by the death of his father and his succession to the baronetcy and the family estates in Cornwall, now firmly in royalist hands. It may have been this change in his circumstances that started to erode his support for Parliament, as in mid-March he joined a group of moderates in ‘making peace with their neighbours of Cornwall’.45Harl. 164, f. 333. Parliament swiftly intervened to disrupt this local truce, and Carew’s reputation does not seem to have suffered, as in July he led a force from Plymouth which failed to relieve the hard-pressed garrison of Exeter, and soon afterwards took the vow and covenant.46Oxford DNB; CJ iii. 190a.

The fall of Exeter, the rapid advance of Sir Ralph Hopton* from Devon to Somerset, and the eventual capture of Bristol, brought fears of the total collapse of the parliamentarian cause in the west. As a result, Carew’s loyalty again faltered, this time encouraged by informal contacts with the royalists at Mount Edgcumbe and Millbrook, including Piers Edgcumbe* and William Scawen*, and the Devon commander, Sir John Berkeley*.47Cornw. RO, ME/2925; England’s Black Tribunal, 65. Under their influence, Carew was persuaded not to oppose a large royalist force mustering ‘at Mount Edgcumbe on the other side of the river, ready with boats to have come and surprised the island’.48Certaine Informations no. 34 (4-11 Sept. 1643), 260 (E.67.3). According to Edward Hyde*, Carew was motivated by fear that his estates would be lost if the king was victorious, ‘and having originally followed no other motives than of popularity and interests, resolved now to redeem his errors’ by offering to ‘surrender that fort and island to the king, upon an assurance of his majesty’s pardon’. The key negotiator was Berkeley, who urged Carew to act quickly, but Carew, fearing a trap, ‘would not proceed till he was sufficiently assured that his pardon was passed the great seal’.49Clarendon, Hist. iii. 236. The delay was to prove fatal. By the beginning of August the mayor of Plymouth, Philip Francis, had become suspicious of Carew, but he and the council of war in the town were reluctant to act ‘there then appearing only a matter of jealousy, and no apparent proof against him … and he being a Member of the House of Commons’.50The Misdemeanours of a Traytor and Treasurer Discovered (1644), sig. A2v (E.258.10). The council wrote to Westminster for instructions, and it was only on 20 August that Carew was ordered to return to Plymouth, which he refused to do, and it was left to his own soldiers to arrest him on 26 August, allegedly after he had ordered his gunner to sink one of Parliament’s warships, rather than fire a salute to her.51Misdemeanours of a Traytor, sig. A2-A3v; Harl. 165, f. 165; Certaine Informations no. 34, 260. Parliament received news of Carew’s treachery on 4 September, and the Commons immediately disabled him from sitting as an MP.52CJ iii. 227a. It was not until early December that Carew arrived in London, and he was brought before the bar of the House on 5 December and then sent to the Tower of London.53CJ iii. 329a, 330a; Add. 18779, f. 21v.

Carew remained in the Tower for another year, partly because of illness. On 10 February 1644 the Commons instructed the lieutenant of the Tower to assist Carew, and allowed him £5 per week from his estate.54CJ iii. 395a. It was only at the end of August that proceedings were begun in earnest, with the papers for his court martial being sent to the judge-advocate, and even then there was a long delay.55CJ iii. 610a. Carew’s trial eventually took place on 19 November 1644, and he was found guilty of contravening articles two and seven of the ordinance for martial law, and sentenced to death by beheading.56England’s Black Tribunal, 65-7. The petition from Carew’s wife, begging that the sentence might be commuted, was delivered by her brother, Sir Samuel Rolle*, a few days later, and it was said that the prisoner was by now ‘distracted’ from illness.57Harl. 166, f. 156; CJ iii. 703a. On 25 November the Commons ordered that the execution should be put off for another month, as ‘he is not of sane memory’, and this gave time for another petition from Lady Carew, which was rejected on 21 December.58CJ iii. 704a, 731b. On 23 December Carew was brought to Tower Hill, and made his final speech from the scaffold, in which he did not try to justify his actions but asked forgiveness from God, and recalled ‘the last words and writing of my grandfather, and here of my father, the assurance of their eternal peace and happiness after the dissolution of this body of theirs, in which they lived here on earth: it is mine likewise’.59The Speech or Confession of Sir Alexander Carew (1644), 5-7 (E.22.6); England’s Black Tribunal, 67-8. According to one contemporary, Carew ‘died very resolutely’.60Juxon Jnl. 71.

Carew was buried on the day of his execution at St Augustine’s church, Hackney.61W. Robinson, History and Antiquities of the par. of Hackney (2 vols. 1842-3), ii. 68. There was a certain degree of embarrassment at Westminster that such a prominent MP had turned traitor and suffered the ultimate penalty. D’Ewes, recording Carew’s arrest in September 1643, commented that he was ‘sorry for the misfortunes of this gentleman, being my ally and descended of a most ancient family’, and he put his treachery down to ‘covetousness’ and hot-headedness.62Harl. 165, f. 165-v. Others appear to have agreed that Carew was weak rather than evil. When he was first committed to the Tower, relatives like the Rolles and Richard Erisey visited him there, apparently without embarrassment.63CJ iii. 341b. The official account of his execution was sympathetic, even reverential, and contained no hint of triumphalism.64Speech or Confession, passim. An assessment of £2,000 on his estates, imposed in July 1644, was not levied, and, after a decent interval, his lands were freed from sequestration in November 1645.65CCAM 435; CB. There had never been any question of Carew’s children being disinherited for their father’s crimes. On 25 November 1644 the Commons resolved that the execution should be delayed for a month ‘in respect to his wife and children that he may in the meantime settle his estate’.66CJ iii. 704a. Carew made his will on 20 December 1644, which he amended the day before his execution, and in it he specified that his daughters should receive portions of £500 each from the lands ‘which lie in my power’, even if the profits of the estates were reduced by ‘the violence of the present war’. The will was approved by the prerogative court a mere five days after his execution.67PROB11/192/180. Carew was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir John Carew†, who sat as knight of the shire of Cornwall in 1660 and represented a variety of Cornish boroughs between 1661 and his death in 1692.