LEVINGSTON, Thomas (d.1678), of the Inner Temple and Micheldever, Hants.

Almost certainly born in Scotland, Thomas Levingston belonged to a family of courtiers who came to England with James VI and I.30Corresp. of the Scots Commissioners ed. Meikle, 137-8. Among them were Sir John Levingston (1st bt. 1627, d.1628), originally from Kinnaird in Gowrie, Perthshire; his eldest son, Sir James Levingston (b.c.1622), a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles I, created Viscount Newburgh (1647); Colonel Thomas Levingston of Newbigging, Lanarkshire (1st bt. 1627), in the service of the States General; and their ‘cousin’ Thomas Levingston, a tailor ‘at the sign of The Crown’ in the Strand who in 1622 married Christian Marshall of Cornhill and thereby became associated with the London godly community and mid-seventeenth century financial officials like Edward Cresset and John Fenwick.31CB; CP; St Michael, Cornhill, par. reg.; Reg. of St Martin, 24, 31, 52, 178, 224, 236, 258; PROB11/153/342 (Sir John Levingston); PROB11/162/9 (James Marshall); PROB11/328/363 (Christian Levingstone); SP16/409, f. 175; SP16/412, f. 74; SP16/441, f. 34; J. Fenwick, Christ Ruling in midst of his Enemies (1643), 17 (E.74.34). Neither the identity of Thomas the MP’s father (described as ‘armiger’) nor his own precise relationship to these men is evident, but there was clearly a connection which advanced his career.32I. Temple database.

Following his graduation in 1624 from Trinity Hall, Cambridge (which he had entered at a date unknown), this Thomas received a royal recommendation for a fellowship there, conveyed in March 1625 by Secretary of State Edward Conway†.33SP14/214, f. 104. That was unsuccessful, but in June 1626 Levingston was admitted to the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar in 1630; the fact that a minority of others called the same day were only provisionally admitted until they were of ‘full eight years standing’ suggests either that Levingston had undertaken some law studies before 1626 or that he was a particularly assiduous student.34I. Temple database; CITR i. 187. Referred to later by Scotsmen as a fellow-countryman, and implied also to have useful knowledge of Scottish law, he was plausibly the Thomas Levingston naturalised on 16 November 1633.35Coventry Docquets, 530.

It seems likely that he was the man of that name, misleadingly designated ‘of the Middle Temple’, licensed in December 1635 to marry Elizabeth Collins of Corhampton.36Hants Marriage Licences, 1607-1640, 105. As revealed in the 1669 will of the then 80-year-old William Collins of Corhampton (perhaps her father), that would have given the future MP the access to the Hampshire gentry circles which included Sir William Uvedale†, Sir William Lewis* and Richard Norton*, and would explain his subsequent career and his property acquisition around Micheldever.37PROB11/331/389; VCH Hants, iii. 248. In January 1636 a recommendation from Charles I secured Levingston appointment as recorder of Southampton.38Southampton RO, SC3/1/1, f. 204. That April, Secretary of State Sir Francis Windebanke* styled Levingston his ‘very loving friend’ in correspondence about town affairs.39Bk. of Examinations and Depositions, 1642-1644 ed. Anderson, iii. 28. In the meantime Levingston had been placed on the commission of the peace for Hampshire and the first of several other local commissions; with Uvedale and Lewis, he was to be active both in civic affairs and in county administration.40C231/5, p. 192; C181/5, ff. 43v, 58v, 115v; C3/451/117; C5/412/37; C6/11/313; HMC 11th Rep. III, 55; Southampton RO, SC3/7/17; CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 139. He represented the corporation in their negotiations with the salt patentees in 1638, and from 1639 served as one of the town’s jurors and auditors.41Southampton RO, TC Box 1/74; SC3/7/17.

In the spring election of 1640 Levingston was returned to Parliament alongside Sir John Mill* as a burgess for the town. Notwithstanding earlier patronage, he does not seem to have been the court candidate, instead owing his return to the borough tradition of choosing men who were either resident or holders of civic office. The joint lords lieutenant of Hampshire – the king’s cousin James Stuart, 4th duke of Lennox, Jerome Weston†, 1st duke of Portland – and Charles Lambert†, Lord Lambert, all apparently recommended Windebanke’s nephew Robert Reade*. But as the mayor, Nicholas Pescod, explained to Lambert on 6 January, ‘their honours’ demands’ were ‘not within the compass of their powers’, for ‘the recorder and Baronet Mill have procured many friends for their election, and imagine have made too strong a party to have their desires unsatisfied’.42SP16/441, f. 130.

Levingston left no mark on the records of the Short Parliament, and was not re-elected that November to what became the Long Parliament, the seats being taken by merchants, Edward Exton* and George Gollop*, who were apparently returned unopposed. In 1641 Levingston was appointed king’s counsel, and probably also deputy steward of the manor of Hampton Court.43C66/2890; LMA, ACC/1186/001. No reliable evidence has surfaced of his whereabouts or activity during the early years of civil war, but if he maintained an earlier connection with Uvedale or Lewis, in contrast to other Levingstons, who espoused royalism, he probably inclined to moderate parliamentarianism or Presbyterianism.

In November 1645 Levingston was proposed by the Scottish commissioners as a potential Member for Carlisle, replacing Sir William Dalston*, who had been disabled as a royalist the previous year. Their object was to prevent the return of Thomas Cholmley*, a local man regarded as being hostile to the Scots’ interest. As they informed Cholmley’s proposer, the Scottish military commander Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven, Levingston was

our countryman, well affected and of good respect here, formerly a Member of the House, and so intelligent in the laws of this kingdom that his endeavours may be very steadable [necessary or serviceable] in clearing of all differences and preserving a good correspondence between the kingdoms, and particularly in representing rightly the affairs of the kingdom of Scotland and their army, which may be of no small advantage as matters now stand.44Corresp. of the Scots Commissioners, ed. Meikle, 137-8.

The arrival of the writ was delayed, and a letter written to enlist the assistance of the pro-Scottish parliamentarian, Sir Philip Stapilton*, was intercepted, possibly by those opposed to the Scots. When the poll was eventually held, perhaps as late as January 1647, Cholmley was elected.45Corresp. of the Scots Commissioners, ed. Meikle, 138, 140-1, 148.

In September 1644, when he was assessed at £400, Levingston was living in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. He paid £5 almost immediately, but claimed to be unable to pay the remainder because his Oxfordshire estate, of unknown provenance and worth £600-£700 a year, was under royalist control, and because he had debts of £1,600.46CCAM 467. In January 1646 his assessment was reduced to £300, although by the end of 1647 the commissioners for the advance of money resolved to accept only £50 if he paid within a fortnight.47CCAM 468.

Meanwhile, before 1645 Levingston married Anne, daughter of the eminent lawyer Sir Charles Caesar† (d. 1642), master of requests and master of the rolls, and his first wife Anne Vanlore.48VCH Berks. iv. 101; Vis. of Berks. (Harl. Soc. lvi), 137. This may have arisen from an association between Levingstons and Caesars going back at least to 1632.49Som. RO, DD/S/BT/16/1/2; DD/S/BT/18/1/2. As a result of the marriage Thomas eventually became embroiled in one of the complicated and bitter long-running family disputes which periodically surfaced in Parliament. This – alongside confusion with namesakes in the Levingston clan – may provide a context for accusations levelled against him in February 1650 that he had been a commissioner for Charles I, and had sent a horse and arms to serve under Ralph Hopton*, 1st Baron Hopton.50CCAM 1198. In June 1651 Levingston was summoned for interrogation. In January 1652 one Joseph Collet claimed that Levingston had been a commissioner for array and contributed to the royalist cause, that he had been at Basing House and Winchester, that he had signed warrants for sequestering and plundering the well-affected during the first civil war, and that he served in the royalist Parliament at Oxford. Levingston complained that such information was vexatious, and indeed there is no evidence that he was a commissioner for array; nor was he eligible to sit in the Oxford Parliament, since he was not then a Member at Westminster. It seems likely that his request in June 1652 for the matter to be discharged was successful, given that the commissioners for compounding recorded that he had never been sequestered, or proceeded against for delinquency, and had not compounded.51CCAM 1198; CCC 3259.

However, perhaps partly because of his connections with the Scots commissioners and (by association at least) with the Presbyterians, Levingston did face difficulties under the Rump – even though it was probably he who was re-appointed by Sir Thomas Fairfax*, 3rd Baron Fairfax, as deputy-steward at Hampton Court.52Berks RO, D/ED/O10. On 5 December 1651 the corporation of Southampton accepted the recommendation by John Hildesley* of a new recorder, and wrote to Levingston, so that ‘he might the freelier resign’. A fortnight later he was replaced by Lord Commissioner John Lisle*.53Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, ff. 77v-78.

On 22 August 1653 the Nominated Parliament’s Committee for Petitions reported its investigations of a complaint by Mary, countess of Stirling, and several other co-heirs of Sir Peter Vanlore, against Levingston, his wife Anne and William Powell† or Hinson, that in 1651 the latter had plotted to secure the estate of Anne’s aunt Mary, wife of Sir Edward Powell and another co-heir, as she lay on her deathbed. Levingston and William Powell (Sir Edward’s nephew and heir) had been invited to present evidence to the committee on 9 August, but had failed to provide it.54CJ vii. 306a-b. The reading of a petition from the same persons to similar effect was announced in the first protectorate Parliament on 17 November 1654, while a counter-petition from the Levingtons was committed on 21 November.55CJ vii. 386b, 387a. Both sides resorted to publication. The countess of Stirling and friends cast aspersions involving kidnap, subversion of medical attendants, consort with recusants and sequestered ministers, and witchcraft, directed especially at the childless Anne Levingston; the Levingstons and Powell denied these and questioned the legality of their adversaries’ proceedings.56[Countess of Stirling], To the Right Honourable, the Parliament (1654; 669.f.19.31); [Levingston], Some Considerations Humbly Proposed. The dissolution of the Parliament, and the renewal of proceedings in the law courts in Michaelmas 1655 prompted a more ample statement of the Levington case, its narrative going back to 1636 and centring on the machinations of a steward called Thomas Crompton but also introducing an array of subsidiary characters including Sir John Danvers*, William Lenthall*, Edmund Ludlowe II* and sundry named royal servants, legal officials, justices of the peace and servants. Anne Levingston, it appeared, had been acquitted in 1652 of poisoning (on the testimony of leading physicians including Jonathan Goddard*) and then of deploying ‘sorcery, witchcraft and love powder’, only to be pursued on other counts of fraud.57C6/128/12; [Levingston], A True Narrative.

For the rest of the 1650s the Levingstons were engaged in multiple lawsuits and legal transactions involving land claims in numerous counties, while yet another petition from the Vanlore descendents came before the second protectorate Parliament in 1657.58C6/142/26; C7/145/161; C7/427/146; C7/429/45; C7/451/48; C10/25/13; C10/55/111; C10/62/61; C10/465/205; BL, IOR/L/L/2/320, 322; CJ vii. 505b. Notwithstanding the probable damage to his reputation from such preoccupations, on 9 December 1658 Levingston delivered from the court of upper bench to the corporation of Southampton a writ of restitution to the office of recorder, which stated that he had been unjustly removed ‘to the manifest injuring of his credit and estate’. Seeking an amicable settlement, the mayor and aldermen consulted with Lisle, who wrote a letter of resignation on 17 March 1659, citing pressure of business and distance from the town. Levingston was officially re-appointed on 6 April.59Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, ff. 142, 145.

Following the Restoration, Levingston received a new grant as one of the king’s counsel at law, and sought to secure £500 from the estate of the regicide Nicholas Love*, who had been found guilty of high treason, but he was replaced as recorder of Southampton by Roger Gollop* on 29 September 1662 and does not seem to have held any further public office.60CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 72, 343; SP29/20.90; Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, f. 185. The Vanlore inheritance case surfaced again in the Convention, in which William Powell sat for Herefordshire, and beyond it.61HP Commons 1660-1690; HMC 7th Rep. 110-11, 134-6, 145-6; LJ xi. 81a, 84a, 96b, 107b, 192b. Litigation continued into the 1670s.62C5/47/29; C5/460/6; C6/178/73; C6/183/7; C6/190/71; C10/122/66; C22/828/11; Berks RO, D/EX 762/1. Long-established on Vanlore land at Tidmarsh in Berkshire, on 18 September 1678 a sick Levingston, evidently by now a widower, left £10 to Mistress Eleanor Lewis and divided the rest of his estate between Elizabeth, Frances and Sarah, the three daughters of his friend Joyce Fortescue, widow. His executor Roger Higgs of Westminster proved the will eight days later, but annotations on the probate copy suggest that – predictably – the disposition did not go uncontested.63PROB11/357/503.