SAINTHILL, Peter (1593-1648), of Bradninch, Devon.

Nineteenth-century antiquaries supposed that the Sainthills had come over with William I, but the undoubted basis of the family’s local eminence was the lease they took on Bradninch tithes in 1556 following the dissolution of the monasteries.17A.L. Radford, ‘Portraits of the Sainthill Family formerly in Bradninch House’, Trans. Devonshire Assoc. l. 409. The Sainthills were tenants of the dean and canons of Windsor, and on the strength of their windfall lease established themselves by building Bradninch House or Manor, which is said to have been begun in 1547 and completed in 1562.18Pevsner, Bldgs. of Eng. S. Devon (1952), 59; Radford, ‘Portraits’, 407. The builder was Peter Sainthill, this Member’s grandfather, who passed on the forename to his eldest son. The portrait of Peter Sainthill (d. 1618) survived into the twentieth century, and shows him as a typical late Elizabethan gentry figure of authority. The image of his wife, Elizabeth Martin, was painted separately; she was the daughter of an academic family which had enjoyed a lease of the manor of Steeple Morden from New College, Oxford since 1555.19VCH Cambs. viii. 115. Their son, Peter Sainthill MP, also had connections with the legal world. His maternal grandfather was a distinguished civil lawyer, and his own education clearly included a significant legal element, although from 1611 he read common law at the Middle Temple, the choice of a head of a gentry family rather than that of a would-be scholar or churchman. A cousin of his from Steeple Morden was bound to him at the Middle Temple in July 1615, so Sainthill’s legal education was quite extensive. There is no record of his ever being called to the bar, however.20MTR ii. 597. Sainthill married into a gentry family from west Devon and came into his inheritance at the age of 25 on the death of his father.

Sainthill was appointed recorder of the tiny borough of Bradninch in 1630 and was deputy steward there.21Croslegh, Bradninch, 130. Typical of his local influence was his appointment as master of Tiverton free school, which must have been an honorary title. He was evidently serving in the Devon commission of the peace before 1631, but may have been dropped for a short time, as a record of his appointment in 1635 survives. Sainthill received regular instructions from the assize judges to act in a variety of local cases through the 1630s.22Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 78, 99, 119, 120, 155, 158, 170, 183. He was noted in a liber pacis of that time as a master of chancery, which must allude to an appointment as a master extraordinary in his own county.23C193/13/2. Meanwhile, Peter’s younger brother, Robert, was developing a career in commerce which was later to have important implications for Sainthill himself. Made free of the East India Company in 1634, Robert Sainthill became a business partner of Thomas Jennings, who was of a Plymouth family. During the second half of the 1630s Robert Sainthill and Jennings were collaborating with Thomas Windebanke* in business transactions which were backed by Windebanke’s father, Secretary of State Francis Windebanke*.24CSP Dom. 1635-6, pp. 565, 566. It was probably through his brother that Peter Sainthill became known to the secretary of state, and Windebanke made use of his Devon acquaintance when dealing with the dean and chapter of Exeter over the living of Staverton.25Som. RO, DD/WHh/263.

Robert Sainthill is described on his brother Peter’s memorial in Bradninch church as ‘agent with the great duke of Tuscany from King Charles I’.26Troup, ‘Sainthills of Bradninch’, 394. When exactly this appointment was made is unclear, as is its exact status in diplomatic or commercial terms. But it accounts for Peter Sainthill’s involvement in the government’s soap monopoly during the later 1630s. One of the licensees of the December 1631 patent to make soft and hard soap was Thomas Jennings, Robert Sainthill’s business partner.27Rymer, Foedera, xix. 326. By 1638 Peter Sainthill had become involved in the soap scheme himself. A warrant to pay him £300 for his efforts in forwarding the king’s interests in the soap business was passed in January 1638; Sainthill was persuading the soap-makers of Devon and Exeter to pay the government what was in effect a tax on their production. It was either Sainthill’s vigour or his tactics which provoked antagonism from the farmer of the duty in the west, Sir Popham Southcote of Mohun’s Ottery, Luppitt. According to him, one Ball, an agent of Sainthill’s and doubtless a relation of Sir Peter Balle*, had obstructed Southcote’s interests and poisoned the minds of the Exeter soap-makers against him.28CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 203; 1638-9, p. 240; PC2/48 f. 203v. His involvement in monopolistic patents in 1638 proved no obstacle to his being named a commissioner on fees that same year.29C181/5, f. 109v.

Although his name appeared on a list of gentry who failed to respond to the king’s appeal for donations to fund his arm against the rebellious Scots in April 1639, there seems no doubt that Sainthill was a reliable supporter of the king’s government, as representing a family that had benefited materially from the regime.30Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 913. He was returned to the second seat for Tiverton to sit in the first Parliament of 1640 with Sir Peter Balle (later identified by Sainthill in his will as a relative) but made no impact on the proceedings of the House. He was doubtless elected on his own interest in the town. The mayor and burgesses of that borough returned Sainthill again to what became the Long Parliament. According to his nineteenth-century biographer, when Sainthill first entered Parliament ‘he inclined to the popular side’.31Troup, ‘Cavalier’s Note-book’, 403. If that is so, there is no evidence of it among the records of Parliament or from the diarists. So absent is he from the records that there has to be some doubt as to whether Sainthill ever attended the Westminster Parliament at all. On the other hand, when Parliament’s Protestation was sent to the counties for signature, the two individuals with his name recorded as affirming it in Tiverton and Exminster were probably respectively his nephew and son, as none with the suffix ‘esquire’ was residing in Devon, apparently.32Devon Protestation Returns, i. 54, 249. Perhaps the more likely characterization of Sainthill’s behaviour is that he was in fact at Westminster, but confined himself to observing events as they unfolded in a detached and disapproving manner.

In the spring of 1642, Sainthill contributed to the Irish Adventure, as did many from the west country. The suppression of the rebellion in Ireland was a cause that could unite Protestants across the political spectrum, and the possibility of a material stake in the rebuilding of good government in Ireland after the rising had been suppressed would have appealed to Sainthill’s entrepreneurial instincts. He seems to have invested his £225 in instalments in Devon, to judge from the surviving receipts.33CSP Ire. Adv. p. 336. Sainthill was certainly at home in August 1642. He was named to the king’s commission of array, and made contact with Henry Bourchier, 5th earl of Bath, who headed the commission. Sainthill tried to ensure that the commission was read in Cullompton, a town near Bradninch, and was thought by parliamentarian sympathisers to be collecting in the arms and ammunition of the district for storage at his own house. There were suggestions that John Coventry*, who had already been disabled from sitting in the Long Parliament for his activities on behalf of the king, was staying with Sainthill in Bradninch. Others thought to have made their way to Bradninch were some ‘ladies’ from Sherborne who had brought with them provisions and cattle which would have helped make Bradninch House a royalist garrison.34Certain Information from Devon and Dorset (1642), 3-5 (E.114.24). In November, Sainthill was summoned to provide arms at a muster on the outskirts of Exeter, by the authority of Parliament’s militia ordinance, but he probably ignored the call.35Som. RO, DD WO/53/3/40.

Sainthill was an active commissioner of array during the civil war on behalf of the king. He was stationed at Topsham, the port on the Exe which served Exeter, in July 1643, and complained to the Somerset gentleman, John Willoughby, that ‘the country is dull and affords no help to the king’s strength’.36Trevelyan Pprs. (Cam Soc. o.s. cv), iii. 239. While there is no doubting Sainthill’s zeal for the king’s cause, at some point probably early in 1643 he attended a meeting ‘for the public safety’ of Devon with those whose allegiances were doubtful, such as William Morice*, and others such as William Fry* whose loyalties were essentially parliamentarian. So sensitive were these discussions, associated with moves towards peace in the south west, that those attending signed a round robin to avoid the identification by the core supporters of either side in the war, of leaders of any movement aimed at settlement.37Add. 440458, ff. 20-1. By September that year, however, Sainthill was active with other royalist commissioners of array, summoning owners of arms on the Devon/Somerset border.38Som. RO, DD WO/56/6/52. Naturally he retained his place in the Devon commission of the peace during the royalist administration of the county, attending quarter sessions meetings and acting between meetings to maintain local government.39Devon RO, Devon QS order bk. 1/8; M. Wolffe, Gentry Leaders in Peace and War (Exeter, 1996), 238, 287 n. 34.

In January 1644 Sainthill attended the king’s rival Parliament at Oxford, and that month signed the letter of the assembled Members to Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, urging a peaceful conclusion of the war.40A Copy of a Letter (Oxford, 1644), 5. It was this act that provoked the Westminster Commons into disabling Sainthill from sitting further, even if in his case this was a purely symbolic act. This was the first occasion on which Sainthill’s name had been penned by the Journal clerk.41CJ iii. 374a. In March, he received a pardon from the king, possibly for having attended the Westminster Parliament, possibly for some infringement of feudal law as it applied to property, such as an alienation without licence: certainly not for any actual transgression against the royal cause.42Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 178. Both Sainthill brothers were royalists. In April 1644, the London property of Robert Sainthill, described by the parliamentary authorities as the ‘king’s agent’ at Livorno, was assessed by the Committee for Advance of Money* and made to contribute to Parliament.43CCAM 373. In 1645 Robert Sainthill was reported to have tried to send a cargo of ammunition by ship to Bristol for the king.44CCAM 374.

The apogee of Peter Sainthill’s career was reached on 27 July when he entertained the king in an overnight stay at his house in Bradninch.45Symonds, Diary, 39. Despite this conspicuous demonstration of loyalty to Charles, he remained committed to local attempts to heal the rift between the warring sides in Devon. In November he was one of 42 royalists, in a group that included his kinsman Balle and Dr George Parry*, to write to the parliamentarian committee and its supporters to invite them to consider a peace treaty. In a notably soft rhetorical line, Sainthill and his colleagues assured their adversaries that the consequence of their refusal would be merely a spur to them to do their uttermost to seek peace regardless.46Bodl. Nalson III, ff. 290-1. Towards the end of the civil war Sainthill remained active in royalist administration, as an excise commissioner, and as an administrator of the king’s assessment levies.47E112/567/904, answer of John Davy. In June 1645 he added significantly to his responsibilities in the king’s interest, taking with his cousin George Potter* from the commissioners of the duchy of Cornwall a farm of the tin produced in Devon and Cornwall.48CCSP i. 273.

On 23 April 1645, again with Balle and Parry and commissioners from other western counties, Sainthill visited Prince Charles at Bridgwater to offer advice on the conduct of the military campaign in the south west. Sainthill was of the prevailing view that an army of 6,000 foot should be raised in preparation for a future revival of the king’s cause, but these plans were overtaken in June by the disaster of Naseby.49Clarendon, Hist. iv. 20. When Exeter surrendered to Parliament in April 1646, he received a pass from Lord General Sir Thomas Fairfax* to leave Exeter on the articles agreed for the surrender, having qualified for this privilege by being in the city within seven months before the royalists capitulated.50Troup, ‘Sainthills of Bradninch’, 389. Although Fairfax’s pass is dated April 1646, Sainthill’s friends swore on oath that he had in fact left Exeter months earlier, towards the end of September 1645. On leaving Exeter, he probably sailed immediately for Livorno, and in any event had arrived there in May 1646.51Troup, ‘Sainthills of Bradninch’, 390; Troup, ‘Cavalier’s Note-book’, 417. The reason given by Sainthill’s agent for his sudden departure was urgent business with his brother, but it was probably fear of arrest that drove him away. The propositions sent by Parliament to the king at Newcastle on 13 July excepted Sainthill from pardon, insisted on a confiscation of one third of his estates and loss of office and spoke ominously of his suspected high treason as a leader of the royalists in the south west. Sainthill’s pass from Exeter was time-limited, and he probably thought to avail himself of a ready refuge in Livorno rather than to take his chances with the remaining royalists as they were pushed further down the south west peninsula.52Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 313; Troup, ‘Sainthills of Bradninch’, 389. By mid-June, he had acquired from the English consul at Livorno a certificate to Parliament that he was too sick to travel home, and Sainthill cited illness in his request of July 1646 to Parliament to be allowed to compound on Exeter articles. This was granted on condition that he returned to take the Covenant within six months.53Troup, ‘Sainthills of Bradninch’, 390-1; CCC 1391.

In March 1647, still in Livorno, Sainthill drew up his will, describing himself paradoxically as ‘in perfect health’ while noting the advance upon him of old age and sickness. He was frank about the reasons for his absence from England, describing himself as ‘enforced to be absent by reason of the great troubles on the land’. In a lengthy preamble, he spoke of the ‘active and passive obedience’ of Christ, which probably would have been a summary of his own politics vis-à-vis the king. He declared himself dependent on his brother Robert to see that his children in England were cared for and the sons helped into professions so that ‘they may live out of misery and want which the troubles of England may soon bring them unto’. He invoked a blessing on his family, his Anglicanism evident in his plea for God’s direction ‘in his church militant that we may lie eternally in the church triumphant together’. He had retained his interest in the Irish Adventure, bequeathing it to his son Peter. Among those from outside his immediate family each to be recognised with the token of a mourning ring were his kinsman and fellow MP from 1640, Balle, his cousin George Potter, his brother’s long-standing business partner Thomas Jennings and Sir Francis Doddington, all of them royalists.54PROB11/231/288; CCC 2557.

Sainthill died in Livorno on 12 August 1648 and was buried there. His estate in England was still under the eagle eye of the commissioners for compounding in June 1651, when his eldest son, Samuel was allowed to compound for the lease of Bradninch rectory. The fine of £749 was reduced in December to £548, and was paid off by March 1652.55CCC 1392. Samuel Sainthill was said to have left England because of the debts encumbering his father’s estate, and re-assigned Peter Sainthill’s interest in the Irish Adventure. 56CSP Ire. Adv. p. 336. Not until 1655 did Sainthill’s property escape the attentions of the committees for penal taxation.57CCC 1393. Samuel Sainthill returned to Devon to become a stalwart of the Devon bench of magistrates after 1663, but never sat in Parliament. An eponymous descendant of Peter Sainthill was the grandfather of Hew Dalrymple, who came in for Haddingtonshire in 1780.58HP Commons 1754-1790.