HERVEY alias MILDMAY, Carew (1596-1676), of Marks Hall, Dagenham, Essex.

The Mildmays of Marks Hall were a cadet branch of the Mildmays, one of the most prominent of Essex gentry families. Sir Thomas Mildmay, this MP’s grandfather, was a nephew of Sir Walter Mildmay†, Elizabeth I’s chancellor of the exchequer. Carew was therefore a second cousin once removed to Sir Henry Mildmay* and a first cousin to Henry Mildmay*. The second son of his parents’ marriage, he was born at Marks, the house of his maternal grandfather, Sir George Hervey, on 2 February 1596.33Sage, ‘Extracts’, 277. The existence of an elder brother, Thomas (later Sir Thomas), seemed to disadvantage him from the outset. Their father died while Carew was still a minor and their grandfather, Sir Thomas, was also dead by early 1613. Sir Thomas’s will made no provision for Carew.34PROB11/121/66. Relations between the two brothers in later life seem to have been strained.35Essex RO, D/DMs/C5/5.

Mildmay’s fortunes began to change in 1622 when his uncle, Sir Gawen Hervey, who had no son and whose only daughter had died childless, designated Carew as his adopted heir.36PROB11/151/333; H.A. St John Mildmay, A Brief Mem. of the Mildmay Fam. (London and New York, 1913), 144. This held out the prospect of him eventually inheriting the Hervey estates in and around Dagenham. He received a further piece of luck in 1625 when his distant relative, Sir Henry Mildmay, deploying his patronage as master of the jewel house, appointed him as yeoman, the junior position in that office. His duties probably involved assisting in the commissioning of gold and silver plate for the use of the royal household and keeping track of the pieces which had been issued to senior royal servants. His surviving papers are a rich source of information for the workings of that department over the next four decades.37Som. RO, DD/MI/19; HMC 7th Rep. 593-6. His marriage the following year to a daughter of Sir Gilbert Gerard* added to his prospects. The consolidation of his position as a county figure in his own right was completed in 1627 with the death of Sir Gawen.38Morant, Essex, i. 68; Sage, ‘Extracts’, 276; VCH Essex, v. 276, vi. 11. He then adopted the name Carew Hervey alias Mildmay to commemorate this good fortune and immediately took up residence at Marks.39Essex RO, D/DMs/F19; Sage, ‘Extracts’, 277. From this point onwards he variously signed his name as ‘Car. H. Mildmay’ or ‘Car: Her: als Mildmay’.40Add. 34195, f. 39; Essex RO, D/DMs/C5/3. Sir Gawen’s widow probably lived with Mildmay and his family at Marks until her death in 1651.41Sage, ‘Extracts’, 276.

By the 1630s Mildmay had been appointed to a number of local offices in Essex. He was already a member of the Essex magistracy when civil war broke out and over the following decade he continued to serve in that capacity, thus assisting the county’s fight against the king.42Stowe 189, ff. 24, 25; Add. 37491, ff. 10, 175v, 221v, 233. As early as July 1642 he collected horses, arms and money for Parliament on the basis of the Propositions.43LJ v. 203b. Indeed, in October 1643 he had to apologise to his cousin, Robert Mildmay of Terling, for being unable to join him in London ‘by reason of the many country businesses I am now engaged in’.44Essex RO, D/DMs/C5/6. During the early stages of the war he lent Parliament a total of £190 14s 6d.45HMC 7th Rep. 595. He also bought shares in the Irish Adventure, buying from one of the original investors, James Barnes, in August 1642.46CSP Ire. Adv. 230. By the late summer of 1643 he had become a colonel in the local militia.47SP28/129, pt. 4: expenses of Parliamentarian army in Essex, 1643-4, f. 85v. Meanwhile, the House of Lords had received complaints that he and the other verderers of Waltham Forest had dismissed some of the keepers.48LJ vi. 125a.

What little is known about Mildmay’s religious beliefs points to his being a Presbyterian. In a letter to Robert Mildmay he advised him to

Keep close unto your principles, your condition is as sure as heaven: earthly motions cannot alter heaven’s conclusions. There is truth and sweetness in the Word or ways of God. Let wretched man say what he will, our comforts are not rolled up in dust, to be blown away so easily.49Essex RO, D/DMs/C5/6.

His confidence in their salvation suggests that, as a good Calvinist, he believed in predestination. Two years later, he was appointed as an elder of his local classis. All this is consistent with his friendships with a number of Essex clergymen, including Stephen Marshall.50Essex RO, D/DMs/C2. In 1654 and 1661 he would donate items of communion plate to the parish church at Romford.51VCH Essex, vii. 85.

The departure of the court from London in 1642 had led several servants of the jewel house to follow the king to Oxford, but most of the items which had been entrusted to their care had been left behind. Sir Henry and Carew Mildmay found themselves in sole charge of the king’s plate at a time when Parliament needed all the money it could find. Carew proved to be far more reluctant than Sir Henry to cooperate with the liquidation of these assets for Parliament’s benefit. In early 1645 the Revenue Committee turned its attention to the jewel house. Mildmay was asked to account for its contents ‘since his fellows deserted their employments’.52HMC 7th Rep. 594. Mildmay was able to do so to the satisfaction of the Committee, which agreed to continue him in office with a salary of £52 a year. By the autumn of 1646 they were referring to him as ‘clerk’ of the jewel house.53HMC 7th Rep. 594; Add. 34195, f. 39. Meanwhile, he was assisting Parliament in Essex as a member of the assessment and sequestration commissions and as a deputy lieutenant.54A. and O.; CJ iv. 237b; LJ vii. 532b.

By the late 1640s Mildmay’s divided loyalties between the king and Parliament were becoming irreconcilable. At the Restoration he would claim that he had been accused of having assisted in the duke of York’s escape in April 1648 (although not that he had indeed done so) and that he had discouraged ‘the devilish petition’ which Sir Henry Mildmay had tried to raise in Essex in support of the Vote of No Addresses.55HMC 7th Rep. 596. The latter claim seems to have been true, as one newsbook at the time reported that he had objected when Sir Henry had gathered some of the gentry at Romford in early 1648 to encourage them to sign. The meeting had broken up in disorder after Carew had pointed out that the draft petition failed to specify what sort of religious settlement it supported and that it encouraged Parliament to act against the king.56Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 5 (29 Feb.-7 Mar. 1648) (E.431.5). However, what he did not mention in his 1660 petition was his role in the suppression of rebel forces in Essex during the second civil war. As a militia colonel he assisted Edward Whalley* in the pursuit of the forces under the 1st earl of Norwich (Sir George Goring†) to Colchester and he then took part in the siege of the town.57CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 110, 112, 114-15, 148, 149, 201, 207, 287.

The regicide ended any pretence that Mildmay may have had about squaring his loyalties. Once the king had been disposed of, Parliament began to turn its attention to Charles I’s wealth. Four times between February and October 1649 the trustees for the sale of the king’s goods issued direct orders to Mildmay to hand over the plate in his custody which had belonged to the jewel house. Each time Mildmay refused. On 2 September, after Mildmay’s second refusal, the trustees broke into the jewel house and confiscated the regalia. Mildmay had been the last person to stand in the way of its destruction. Later that month he was imprisoned in the Fleet for refusing to co-operate. After his two further refusals, Sir Henry Mildmay intervened, personally seizing the remaining items in his hands on 13 October. Goods totalling £16,496 were found to have been in Carew Mildmay’s keeping.58HMC 7th Rep. 595; J.A. Bennett, ‘Account of pprs. relating to the royal jewel-house’, Archaeologia, xlviii. 215-16; Inventories King’s Goods, 20-5; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 26; The Late King’s Goods, ed. A. MacGregor (London and Oxford, 1989), 268. In late 1652 the trustees were still trying to persuade him to hand over the jewel house records.59HMC 7th Rep. 595. On the other hand, Mildmay informed on the dowager countess of Holland, pointing out to the trustees that her late husband, the 1st earl (Henry Rich†), had never returned some plate to the jewel house. Mildmay was rewarded with a payment of £25.60SP28/284, f. 70A. All the plate recovered from the jewel house had been melted down, except for 1,023 oz which were retained for the use of the council of state. A deal struck between Mildmay and the council in October 1653 allowed him to keep these pieces in lieu of the arrears of £1,047 4s of his pay which had accrued since 1642. He was, however, ordered to surrender ‘the late king’s great Bible with rich bosses’.61HMC 7th Rep. 595; Bennett, ‘Account’, 217; CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 47, 81, 95, 182. Oliver Cromwell* as lord protector did not feel the need to reconstitute the jewel house and Mildmay was not employed by the protectoral household.

Mildmay probably benefited from the increase in the total number of parliamentary seats allocated to Essex under the 1653 Instrument of Government. He sat in the two Parliaments elected on the basis of that allocation. His conduct is difficult to quantify with any certainty, however, as the Journal does not clearly distinguish between him and his cousin, Henry Mildmay. The two men were close friends, with Carew Hervey alias Mildmay presiding as the officiating justice of the peace at Henry Mildmay’s wedding in 1657.62Sage, ‘Extracts’, 277. Either could have been the MPs named in the 1654 Parliament to the committees on the relief of creditors (25 Oct.) and Lord Craven’s petition (3 Nov.).63CJ vii. 378b, 381a. Carew rather than Henry was included by the civil lawyers in October 1654 on their list of potential supporters of their petition for the encouragement of civil law.64Bodl. Tanner 51, f. 10.

A better understanding of Mildmay’s activities is possible for the first session of the next Parliament, because Henry Mildmay is known to have been excluded from it. Carew Hervey alias Mildmay was named to a number of committees, including those on the public revenues, to consider the abuses of manorial stewards and bailiffs and on the bill confirming the improvements to the estates at Nazing of James Hay, 2nd earl of Carlisle (a matter which would have been of local interest to Mildmay).65CJ vii. 438a, 468a, 543b, 576a. He seems to have been a relatively inactive Member. The same seems to have been true of his activities in this Parliament’s second session. His cousin is more likely to have been the ‘Colonel Mildmay’ who spoke in debate and acted as a teller in late January 1658. In the meantime Carew had continued to serve in local office in Essex under the protectorate and in early 1657 he had helped implement the decimation tax.66SP28/227: warrant, 30 Jan. 1657.

Mildmay’s reappointment to his jewel office position in 1660 could therefore not be taken for granted. His case – difficult to make – was that he had remained loyal to Charles I, or at least had never been disloyal to him, and therefore was entitled to his old place.67CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 26. The pardon granted to him in June 1660 enabled his re-appointment that month, but later that year he stepped to down to allow his son, Francis, to succeed him. Within weeks Francis had also resigned in favour of Thomas Tindall.68HMC 7th Rep. 595-6; Sainty and Bucholz, Royal Household, i. 37. Mildmay’s remaining embarrassment was the deal he had reached with the council of state in 1653. The commissioners for the recovery of the king’s goods fined him for the value of the plate he had received in lieu of his arrears, but in November 1661 Mildmay persuaded the privy council that, under the terms of the Act of Indemnity, he was entitled to retain those items and so was refunded.69PC2/55, ff. 100v-101v, 199v-200, 205, 231; Som. RO, DD/MI/19/122-136; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 460; A. Barclay, ‘Recovering Charles I’s art collection’, HR lxxxviii. 633-4. In June 1663 the master of the jewel house was authorised to seize records still in his possession.70CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 163. A court case in king’s bench before 1667 also attempted to revive the issue of the plate he had retained, but that was suspended by the attorney-general.71Essex RO, D/DMs/O1; Som. RO, DD/MI/19/137-140; Barclay, ‘Recovering Charles I’s art collection’, 642-3. In the meantime, Mildmay had continued to serve as a justice of the peace and in that capacity, on 11 September 1666 at Romford, he took the confession of Robert Hubert, the French watchmaker who claimed to have started the Great Fire of London.72London’s Flames (1679), 8-9.

Mildmay lived on until 1676. When he died, the estates passed to his son, Francis, who did not sit in Parliament.73VCH Essex, v. 276. The whole male line of the Mildmay family probably became extinct in 1784 on the death of Mildmay’s great-grandson and namesake, Carew Hervey Mildmay.74J.H. Round, ‘The Mildmays and their Chelmsford estates’, Trans. of the Essex Arch. Soc. n.s. xv. 2.