WILSON, Rowland (1613-50), of Bishopsgate St, London.

Rowland Wilson was his father’s namesake and business partner, but there the similarities end. Born in Westmorland, Wilson senior established himself in London as a merchant and member of the Vintners’ Company in the early 1600s. His principal trade was in Spanish wine, but as an East India trader and head of the Guinea Company, he extended his interests to gold, spices and other commodities, and developed close ties with the circle of the notorious monopolist, Sir Nicholas Crispe, marrying his daughter to the latter’s brother, Tobias.27Coventry Docquets, 604; Vis. London, 356; Oxford DNB, ‘Tobias Crisp’. Wilson senior fell foul of Parliament over corruption in the wine trade in the winter of 1640-1, and declined to contribute to the Vintners’ Company’s share of the loan to Parliament in June 1642, although by October 1643 he was apparently reconciled to Parliament, and was certainly lending money to its army.28D’Ewes (N), 73, 106, 262; CJ ii. 37b, 44a, 70a; GL, MS 15201/4, pp. 84-5; CCAM, 27. Wilson senior’s allegiances were never fixed, however, and it was even alleged that in 1648 he advanced loans to the exiled Charles Stuart.29Whitelocke, Diary, 220. Rowland Wilson junior was admitted as a liveryman of the Vintners’ Company in 1638, and as a freeman of the East India Company, by patrimony, in February 1641.30GL, MS 15201/4, frontispiece; Cal, Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1640-3, p. 147. He was evidently an active merchant on his own account and in partnership, and by the later 1640s was a partner of Maurice Thomson, brother of George Thomson*, in the trade to Africa.31Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 192, 424. Wilson rose quickly through the ranks of the Vintners’ Company, and in November 1641 was one of the 24 chosen to represent the livery to welcome the king on his return from Scotland.32GL, MS 15201/4, pp. 69-70. While his father shunned public office, paying fines rather than serving as sheriff and aldermen, Wilson junior was a willing participant in the City’s affairs. He distinguished himself in the City’s militia, and as colonel of the orange regiment saw active service with the 3rd earl of Essex’s army at the first battle of Newbury in September 1643 and against the royalist forces in and around Newport Pagnell in the winter of 1643-4.33Oxford DNB; Merc. Civicus (19-26 Oct. 1643), p. 170 (E.72.10); A True Relation of the Taking of Grafton House (1643), 2 (E.79.10). His friend Bulstrode Whitelocke* described the march of his ‘gallant regiment’ from London in October 1643, and lauded Wilson as a committed soldier despite the ‘persuasions of his relations and his dear and tender wife could prevail him to decline the service, holding him obliged to it in honour and conscience’.34Whitelocke, Diary, 149. By the mid-1640s Wilson had become a religious Independent, and a member of George Cokayne's congregation at St Pancras, Soper Lane – a congregation that included Whitelocke as well as leading citizens such as Robert Tichborne and John Ireton.35GL, MS 5018/1, unfol.; Marsh, Story of Harecourt, 3. In later years Cokayne and his wife lived with the Wilsons at their house on Bishopsgate, although Rowland also maintained links with the parish of St Helen’s Bishopsgate, and, in an incongruous act of patronage for a Puritan, donated to the latter church a stained glass window depicting St Alban, St Edmund and St Michael.36J.E. Cox, Annals of St. Helen’s Bishopsgate (1876), 379. In October 1645 Wilson joined six other Independent common councillors, including Tichborne, Samuel Moyer* and Francis Allein* in opposing moves to increase the control of the ministers over the choice of elders for the Presbyterian classes in London. According to Thomas Juxon*, Wilson and his friends ‘held it for the negative, alleging that it had been long and seriously debated in Parliament, that ordinance, and ‘twas not judged fit to allow them more power’.37Juxon Jnl. 90. This controversy did not reduce Wilson’s standing with the Vintners, however, and he was selected as one of the company to dine with the lord mayor on 1 January 1646.38GL, MS 15201/4, p. 199.

Wilson was elected for the Wiltshire seat of Calne, in place of the royalist George Lowe*, on 5 June 1646. He was presumably backed by the Independent interest in London, but the identity of his local patron is not certain. His first recorded appearance in the House was on 24 June, when he signed the national Covenant, and the next day he was named to a joint committee with the Lords to receive information from the Scottish agent, the marquess of Argyll (Archibald Campbell*).39CJ iv. 586a, 587a. In the summer he was involved in attempts to raise troops for service in Ireland, where the City had considerable investments through the Ulster plantation. On 30 July he was named to a committee to join with the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs to arrange for the continuation of a loan for the Irish service, and on 11 August he was one of four MPs chosen to consider future loans for Ireland.40CJ iv. 629b, 641b. An additional concern was the raising of money to pay off the Scottish army still stationed in the north of England. Wilson was made a temporary member of the Committee for Compounding on 21 August to assist their discussions on the raising of £100,000 for the Scots, and on 5 September he was named to a committee to confer with the City authorities to borrow £200,000 for the same purpose.41CJ iv. 650b, 663a. During September and October, Wilson was named to a variety of committees to consider a petition from the Levant merchants (17 Sept.), a petition of soldiers demanding indemnity for past actions (15 Oct.), and the regulation and reform of the court of chancery (21 Oct.).42CJ iv. 671a, 694b, 701a. On 22 October Wilson marched with his fellow militia colonels in the funeral procession of his old commander, the earl of Essex.43Nagel, ‘Militia’, 317.

Wilson’s attendance in the Commons became very irregular during the winter of 1646-7. His only committee appointment between the end of October and the beginning of May was on 25 December, when he was chosen to consider a petition for pay from the army.44CJ v. 28b. There is, however, evidence that he remained active in the affairs of the City. On 28 January, when the Vintners’ Company drafted a petition on the sale of wine, they entrusted its delivery to Wilson senior ‘by the assistance of Mr Rowland Wilson the younger, his son, who is a Parliament-man, to proffer the same to the Parliament’.45GL, MS 15201/4, p. 228. Wilson was also, by this stage, one of the Independent nominees vying with the Presbyterian faction for control of the militia. He lost his place on the militia committee in April and was subsequently dismissed from his regimental command.46Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 136; Nagel, ‘Militia’, 268. Despite this reverse, Wilson remained an important point of contact between Parliament and the City during the next few weeks. He was thanked by Parliament for his faithful service to the militia on 7 May, and on 14 May he was named to a committee for an ordinance to secure the money lent by London to raise cavalry in 1642.47CJ v. 166a, 171b. On 27 May he was appointed to a committee to consider a petition from the Weavers’ Company, and on 15 June he and Francis Allein were sent to the commanders of the trained bands to request a guard for Parliament.48CJ v. 187a, 212a. As tensions between London and the New Model increased in July, Wilson continued to mediate. On 10 July he was named to a small committee to bring in an ordinance against tumultuous assemblies in the capital, especially those caused by demobbed soldiers; on 21 July he was named to a committee to consider negotiations with the New Model about pay; and on 24 July he joined Thomas Atkin* and John Venn as messengers to the lord mayor, sheriff and militia committee that Parliament had denounced the City Engagement.49CJ v. 240b, 253a, 257b. Following the Presbyterian coup at Westminster of late July, Wilson joined those Members who took refuge with the army and he signed their ‘engagement’ on 4 August, returning to the capital with the victorious New Model in the days that followed.50.LJ ix. 385b; An Engagement of the Lords and Commons that went to the Army (1647 E.419.27). He was restored to his post as colonel of the orange regiment in the late summer, and on 2 September he was included in the ordinance appointing a new militia committee.51Nagel, ‘Militia’, appx 5; CJ v. 290a.

Wilson played little part in parliamentary affairs from the summer of 1647 until the winter of 1648-9. He was named to a committee on the ordinance for the sale of bishops’ lands on 19 August 1647, but was not appointed to another committee until 25 December, when he was added to the committee on arrears owed to Scots officers.52CJ v. 278b, 405b. On 4 March 1648 he was appointed to a committee to consider the accounts of the customs commissioners.53CJ v. 480a. During the spring and summer, as sporadic unrest became renewed civil war, Wilson was named to committees to draft an additional ordinance for the Southwark militia committee (12 Apr.) and to confer with the lord mayor and common council for the security of the city during any future treaty with the king (5 July).54CJ v. 527b, 624a. In the autumn, the security of Parliament was a major issue, and on 4 November Wilson was sent to the City authorities to report concerns about the quality of the guards stationed at the palace of Westminster.55CJ vi. 69b. Wilson was no longer listed as colonel of the orange regiment in November 1648, but this was a sideways move rather than a demotion, as in the same month he was appointed alderman of the City on the nomination of Sir John Wollaston, Isaac Penington* and Robert Tichborne.56Nagel, ‘Militia’, 323; Beaven, Aldermen of London i. 59. In another sign of Wilson’s continuing importance in Independent circles, on 29 November he was ordered to thank his old friend, George Cockayne, for preaching to the House on the recent fast day.57CJ vi. 91a. When the army intervened to urge the Commons on 6 December, Wilson was allowed to remain in the House.

Wilson was, at best, a reluctant revolutionary. He refused to sign the ‘dissent’ against the vote to continue negotiating with the king, but continued to sit in the House for much of December.58Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 166n. As before, his principal concern appears to have been the governance of the City. He was named alongside John Venn to the committee on an ordinance for electing a new lord mayor and other officers on 15 December, and on 23 December he was appointed with Francis Allein to take care of a petition received from the lord mayor and aldermen.59CJ vi. 98a, 103b. On the same day, he was appointed to a committee to consider how to proceed against the king.60CJ vi. 103a. Although he was named as a commissioner for the trial of the king on 6 January 1649, Wilson allegedly ‘being forbidden by his father forbore to sit’, although it was said that ‘his voice went in the affirmative, and his consent was to murder’.61Merc. Pragmaticus (12-19 Feb. 1650), Sig. Tt2 (E.593.15). He did not avoid the Commons chamber, however, and during the trial proceedings he was named on 13 January to the Committee of Navy and Customs (of which he was an active member) and to committees for considering petitions from the common council (15 Jan.) and from the soldiers of Portsmouth garrison (17 Jan.).62CJ vi. 117a, 118a, 120b; Bodl. Rawl. A.224, f. 2.

Wilson accepted a place on the newly constituted council of state in February 1649 but refused to sign the Engagement upholding the trial and execution of the king, although he had presumably relented by the end of the year, when he was made responsible for its subscription by all merchants resident in London.63F. Peck, Desiderata Curiosa (1779), 412-3; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 9, 451. In the spring of 1649, Wilson proved assiduous in his attendance at the council of state.64.CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. lxxiv-v. He was appointed to council committees on the admiralty (23 Feb. and 12 Mar.), on the management of the Charterhouse (8 Mar.), on cases involving ships and imports (26 Mar., 29 Mar. 3 Apr.), and on coins and the mint (14, 21, 23-4 Apr., 8 May).65.CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 14, 31, 34, 51, 58-9, 66, 72, 86, 101, 103, 106, 130. Although he was much less frequent in his attendance from the summer, Wilson continued to be useful to the council as an expert on London and its environs, and matters of trade in particular. Wilson and Sir Henry Vane II* were ordered to investigate the Dutch fishing trade in June; he was included in a committee to choose a secretary for the English merchants in Hamburg in September; he was added to the committee on coinage in December; and in the same month was involved in appointing an agent to go to Spain.66.CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 190, 297, 447, 453. Wilson was re-appointed to the council of state on 16 February 1650.67.CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 512.

In Parliament, in the months after the regicide, Wilson continued to be busy with London business. On 31 January 1649 he was named to a committee on a bill to remove obstructions on the proceedings of the common council, and on 2 February he was appointed to a committee to draft legislation for the militias of Westminster, Southwark and the Tower Hamlets.68.CJ vi. 127a, 129b. On 10 February he was appointed to two committees relevant to London, concerning provision for the poor and amendments to the oath of freemen now that monarchy had been abolished.69.CJ vi. 137a. On 23 March he was appointed to the committee on a bill to increase the number of London JPs in order to tackle vagrancy.70.CJ vi. 171a. On 7 April was appointed to investigate shady dealings with the Scots by the sheriff of London, Richard Browne II*, and two days later was sent to request a loan for £120,000 from the City.71.CJ vi. 181b, 183a. On 10 May he was appointed to a committee to consider the jurisdiction of the marshal’s court in Southwark (the marshalsea); he was named with Thomas Atkin to draft a bill for poor relief in the City on 6 June; and on 8 June he was sent to thank the City authorities for entertaining the Commons the previous day.72.CJ vi. 206b, 226b, 227b. Wilson’s diligence was rewarded in the summer. Although he had declined the chance to be master of the Vintners’ Company in June, the next month he accepted the post of sheriff of the City.73GL, MS 15201/4, pp. 283, 287; CJ vi. 259a.

Wilson’s concern for London necessarily dovetailed with his involvement in the public finances. He was added to the excise committee on 10 February and to a committee on the bill for public accounts, responding to demands for pay from the army, on 2 March.74.CJ vi. 137b, 154a. He was named to committees to consider how to deal with appeals against sequestration (19 Mar.) and to nominate trustees for fee farm rents (3 Apr.) 75.CJ vi. 167b, 178b. On 5 April Wilson made his first report to the Commons from the council of state, concerning money seized in a Spanish ship.76.CJ vi. 179b. He later reported on coinage (25 Apr., 10 May) and the mint (16 May).77.CJ vi. 195a, 206b, 210b. On 30 April Wilson was made a trustee for the sale of the dean and chapter lands.78A. and O. On 12 June he was added to the committee to draft a new excise bill, and on 6 July he was named to the committee on the coinage bill.79.CJ vi. 229b, 251b. On 28 July he joined two prominent Londoners, Isaac Penington and Edmund Harvey I, in thanking Alderman Samuel Avery for his services as a customs commissioner, and on 1 August he joined Henry Marten as teller in favour of committing the new assessment bill – a vote lost by 36 votes to 12.80.CJ vi. 271b, 273a. On 3 August Wilson was named to the committee on a bill to take the accounts of the customs commissioners, navy victuallers and the prize office, and thereafter he seems to have narrowed his focus, dealing only with routine commercial matters such as the importing of spices (7 Aug.), the excise on beer (5 Sept.) and the butlerage and prisage levies on wine (20 Dec.).81.CJ vi. 274a, 275a, 290b, 335a.

Although Wilson’s activity in the council of state and Parliament generally declined from the summer of 1649, his involvement in religious affairs, and in particular those affecting liberty of conscience, appears to have increased. He was named to committees on bills for the propagation of the gospel (13 June) and for the abolition of Elizabethan and Jacobean oaths of supremacy and allegiance (29 June).82.CJ vi. 231a, 245b. He was appointed to a committee to consider the ‘articles of the Christian religion’ on 26 July; he was named to take special care of a committee to consider those fit for the ministry who opposed the established form of ordination on 21 August; and he was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers on 5 September.83.CJ vi. 270a, 282b, 290a-b.

Wilson died on 19 February 1650, only a few days after the first anniversary of Charles I’s execution, a coincidence not lost on royalist commentators. Mercurius Pragmaticus alleged that in the months before his death, Wilson was ‘distracted and hath attempted several times to be his own executioner, but prevented by those that look to him and keep him from such instruments as may put a period to his wretched life’.84Merc. Pragmaticus (19-26 Feb. 1650), Sig. Tt2 (E.594.7). Royalist agents reported that Wilson was not mad but ‘in a deep melancholy’, although the charge was vigorously denied by Obadiah Sedgwick, who asserted that ‘he was of a composed mind to the very last gasp’.85CCSP ii 44; O. Sedgewick, Christ the Life and Death the Gain of Every True Believer (1650), 32 (E.599.6). Whitelocke admitted that Wilson had been in continuous ill health since his days on active service with the militia, and that ‘his services and hardships with them in the field was thought to shorten his days’, but he did not specify whether the breakdown was physical or mental.86.Whitelocke, Diary, 253.

Wilson was buried at St Martin Outwich on 5 March 1650, and his funeral procession was attended by councillors of state, MPs and army officers as well as the lord mayor and other civic dignitaries, but soon descended into chaos as the large crowd of spectators began to jeer at John Bradshawe*, forcing him and Whitelocke to escape down a lane and depart for home another way.87Add. 37345, f. 54; Marsh, Story of Harecourt, 33; Smyth Obituary (Camden Soc. xliv), 28. Obadiah Sedgwick’s funeral sermon was later published with a preface by Cokayne. In it, Sedgwick portrayed Wilson as a man of integrity, humility and faith, while Cokayne proclaimed him to be a saint who had shown ‘unparalleled contentedness in the want of children’ from his marriage, and for whom, ‘It was but a trouble to think of living to enjoy that which he was heir to, he still rather desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ which he accounted best of all for him’.88Sedgewick, Christ the Life, preface and p. 30.

In his will, written three days before his death, Wilson remembered Cokayne and his wife, and donated £150 towards poor relief in the City and a further £200 to Christ’s Hospital. In the absence of any children, the chief beneficiaries were his wife Mary and his father. To his widow he bequeathed almost his entire estate, including her £3,500 dowry, household goods and jewellery. His father was to receive the residue of his estate not already tied up in their joint interests on condition that he met his son’s outstanding debts and funeral expenses. Wilson senior resisted payment of Mary’s bequest, and the details of the ensuing conflict are noted in the diary of Bulstrode Whitelocke, who married Wilson’s widow later in the year.89PROB11/212/8; Whitelocke, Diary, 256-8.