ASTON, William (1615-71), of Ship Street, Dublin, and Richardstown, co. Louth.

The Astons were among the wealthiest and most distinguished families of Staffordshire. The senior branch was elevated to the Scottish peerage (as Barons Aston of Forfar) in 1627, converted to Catholicism, and supported the king during the civil wars.23CP. William Aston was a first cousin of the noble house, but shared none of its confessional or political affiliations; nor, as the son of a fourth son of the cadet branch, did he share its financial prosperity. After a legal education in London, he joined the forces gathered by another Staffordshire gentleman, Sir William Brereton*, who acted as parliamentarian commander over much of the north west of England. By 1645 Aston had been commissioned as a lieutenant in Shropshire.24Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 184-5, 204, 222. There he served under Brereton’s lieutenant-colonel, Chidley Coote (the younger brother of Sir Charles Coote*), who may have encouraged him to enlist in one of the regiments recruited for the Irish wars in 1646-7.25Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 204. In April 1647 Aston mustered at Dublin as major in the foot regiment of Anthony Hungerford; the lieutenant-colonel was John Fowke*.26HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 199. In the spring of 1648 Aston transferred to Chidley Coote’s regiment of horse, which formed part of the garrison at Drogheda.27HMC 8th Rep. 596; Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 196. In June 1649, when Drogheda was captured for the king by Lord Inchiquin, the remnants of Coote’s regiment fled to Dublin, where they joined Michael Jones’s desperate defence of the capital against the royalist army of the marquess of Ormond.28Carte, Life of Ormonde, iii. 454-5. In the same month, Aston was sent to London by Coote, on a mission to recruit new men, horses and arms for his shattered regiment.

Aston arrived in London just as Oliver Cromwell’s* forces were preparing to cross to Ireland. On 11 June he presented a petition on behalf of Coote’s regiment to the council of state, and in the following weeks he negotiated with the council and its committees for permission to draw 30 sets of pistols and other equipment for his own troop.29CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 179, 205. On 29-30 June Aston was granted equipment from the arsenal at Dublin, and £244 to recruit 60 new troopers, on the security of a recognizance for £500.30CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 577, 790; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 522. On 4 July his business again came before the council of state, and he seems to have left for Ireland shortly afterwards.31CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 221. After the arrival of Cromwell’s army in August, Chidley Coote’s regiment was attached to the brigade commanded by Robert Venables*, which marched into Ulster and joined forces with the Old Protestant regiments under Sir Charles Coote. The conquest of the north was nearly complete when Aston returned to London in April 1651, where he persuaded the council of state to cancel his earlier recognizance, and to compensate him for the equipment which he had not received two years earlier.32CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 122, 132, 556. He also took the opportunity to defend one of his recruits, John Redpath, against allegations of delinquency before the Committee for Advance of Money.33CCAM, 1161-2. Aston continued to serve in Coote’s regiment until its disbandment in October 1653, and in the winter of 1653-4 his men were paid off by the government.34SP28/94, f. 7; Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 226; Bodl. Rawl. A.208, pp. 377, 382, 384. Thereafter, Aston became part of the settler community. As well as land grants in western Ireland (in common with other officers who had served under the Coote brothers), he acquired an estate of over 1,000 acres centred on Richardstown in co. Louth, a few miles from Drogheda.35NLI, D.10484; Judges in Ireland, i. 346; HMC 8th Rep. 549. His neighbouring landowners included his former comrade, Colonel John Fowke, and both men were appointed to the assessment commissions for co. Louth in October 1654 and January 1655.36An Assessment for Ire. Aston’s status as a landowner, and his connections with other new arrivals, no doubt influenced his election, alongside Fowke, as MP for cos. Meath and Louth in August 1656, and his military connections with the Coote family would not have done his local reputation any harm.

During the second protectorate Parliament, Aston worked closely with other Irish MPs, especially Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle), Henry Cromwell’s* agents, Anthony Morgan and Sir John Reynolds, and his colleague John Fowke. In his 36 committee appointments between September and June, Aston was named 18 times with Broghill, 14 with Morgan, 11 with Reynolds and 9 with Fowke.37CJ vii. 424a-570b. In the early months of the session, Aston was heavily involved the programme of reform supported by Broghill and his allies. He was probably the ‘Mr Aston’ named to the committee for Irish affairs on 23 September, and on the same day he was added to the committee to consider taking away wardships and tenures in Ireland.38CJ vii. 427a, 427b. Three times in December 1656 he tried to push forward with Irish union legislation - a constitutional measure strongly supported by the other Irish MPs in the early months of the Parliament – but to no avail.39Burton’s Diary, i. 12, 95, 127. It was perhaps frustration with the slow progress of the union bill that provoked Aston’s impatient response to the case of the Quaker, James Naylor, on 17 December, when he asked the House: ‘have you not heard him already? ... I am not for hearing him any more’.40Burton’s Diary, i. 165-6. When MPs considered the protector’s intervention on Naylor’s behalf on 30 December, Aston did not argue the religious or the judicial case, instead stressing the need ‘to preserve a right understanding between his highness and us’ – a point echoed by Reynolds.41Burton’s Diary, i. 269.

At the end of December Aston supported Morgan and Broghill in their efforts to excuse absent Irish MPs, and he went on to assist their efforts to secure the land claims in Ireland of pre-1649 officers against Adventurers and other English interests.42Burton’s Diary, i. 288; ii. 67, 108-9. He was named to committees on individual land grants, including those concerning Viscount Loftus of Ely (21 Feb.), Sir Hardress Waller* (26 Mar.), Charles Lloyd* (1 May) and Viscount Moore of Drogheda (4 June).43CJ vii. 494b, 505b, 529a, 545a. On 29 April he was also appointed to the committee to consider the bill confirming the Irish ‘donatives’, including the lands granted to Sir Charles Coote.44CJ vii. 526b. On 30 March he was also included in the committee on the bill for the attainder of the Irish rebels – a matter that he pursued later in the sitting; on 26 May he joined Morgan in an impassioned plea that Irish business should be made a priority; and on 29 May he was named to the committee on the bill for postage in the three nations.45CJ vii. 515a, 542a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 124, 306. During May and June 1657 Aston and Morgan managed the passage of the Irish assessment bills through Parliament, and attempted to reduce the overall burden of the three-year assessment by making the rate proportionate with England and Scotland.46CJ vii. 551a, 554a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 162-3, 200, 207, 209-10, 213.

The constitutional crisis between February and April 1657 once again saw Aston cooperating with Broghill and his allies at Westminster. On 6 March he was named to the committee on the 4th article of the Remonstrance, dealing with qualifications for voting in Ireland and Scotland, and three days later reported its recommendations to the House.47CJ vii. 499b, 500b. On 25 March he voted for the inclusion of the offer of the crown in the first article; the next day was named to the committee to consider drafting the text of the constitution, now renamed the Humble Petition and Advice; and on 27 March he was appointed to the committee to arrange for its formal presentation to the protector.48Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 23 (E.935.5); CJ vii. 511b, 514b. After Cromwell declined to accept the Humble Petition in its monarchical form, Aston was named to committees to prepare arguments in its defence (6 Apr.), to arrange a meeting with the protector (7 Apr.) and to answer his doubts and scruples (9 Apr.).49CJ vii. 520b, 521a, 521b. The extent of Aston’s despair after Cromwell’s final rejection of the Humble Petition on 8 May can perhaps be seen in his absence from later committees for altering the constitution, although he was named to the committee to consider how to tie up the loose ends of the constitution at the very end of the session, advocating on 24 June that the oath for the protectoral council should be extended to its counterparts in Ireland and Scotland.50CJ vii. 570b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 288

Although Aston was a key figure in the management of both Irish business and constitutional reform, in debate he could be something of a liability. On 30 May Aston rejected calls for the Irish assessment bill to include the rates for each county (as had been set in previous ordinances), making the extraordinary claim that the situation was still too chaotic: ‘that county which we left half planted may now be waste, and that county that was half wasted may now be all planted; we could not possibly distribute it’.51Burton’s Diary, ii. 163. On 10 June Aston’s warning of the effect of taxation on co. Louth - ‘if you lay such an excessive burden upon us, I am confident you will never have a Member come over again to serve you here’ – deserved the sardonic gloss it received from William Sydenham: ‘I presume that gentleman intended to persuade, not to threaten you to an abatement’.52Burton’s Diary, ii. 209-210. Sydenham was not the only senior figure who had to intervene to curb Aston. On 20 June, when Aston asked that the Member for Belfast and Carrickfergus, John Davies*, would be protected from legal proceedings, Secretary John Thurloe* reminded him that, as an excluded MP, ‘[Davies] is not a person that deserves privilege’. The put-down resulted in a grovelling apology from Aston, who admitted ‘he knew nothing of him’.53Burton’s Diary, ii. 269.

Aston could also be a liability for his political allies at Westminster. Apparently unaware of the efforts by Lord Broghill and others to keep the Scottish MPs on side, in the debates on proportioning the assessments in June 1657 Aston urged the Commons to increase the Scottish assessments to exorbitant sum of £20,000 a month, ‘for they are a richer nation, in respect of the majority of the inhabitants, than Ireland’.54CJ vii. 427a; Burton’s Diary, i. 12; ii. 213. Also in June, when a proviso to the bill granting Broghill further estates in Ireland was debated in the House, Aston objected to the proposal, saying ‘I am sorry that I must move against this ... those lands are already settled by act of Parliament upon some poor widows and orphans, unless some other provision be made for them’, and insisting that the matter should be reconsidered in committee.55Burton’s Diary, ii. 178. Despite his concern that such land grants were unfair, three days later Aston joined Morgan in moving the grant an estate in Ireland to Charles Fleetwood*.56Burton’s Diary, ii. 197. This was probably a move designed to mollify the lord deputy, but the contrast between Aston’s opposition to Broghill’s grant and his support for Fleetwood’s was unfortunate.57Little and Smith, Cromwellian Protectorate, 285. Thankfully, any frostiness between Aston and Broghill does not seem to have affected Henry Cromwell. Aston’s continuing good standing with Henry is suggested by the decision of John Fowke to make Aston and Henry joint-executors of his will (written in August 1657), and their active collaboration over the management of the affairs of Fowke’s son and heir later in the year.58PROB11/272/371; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 348.

In the elections for the third protectorate Parliament of 1659 Aston was again returned for cos. Meath and Louth, and in the chamber became an outspoken as a defender of the Cromwellian union. On 17 March, during the debate on the right of Scottish MPs to sit at Westminster, he opposed the spoiling tactics of those who insisted on examining the writs of election, and was supported in this by Anthony Morgan; the next day he opposed calls for the Scots to withdraw while their rights were considered.59Burton’s Diary, iv. 171, 191. When the House turned to the Irish MPs on 22 March, Aston supported John Trevor when he was criticised by Major Burton for speaking too often.60Burton’s Diary, iv. 232. Aston’s speech of 23 March reflected the logical and legal convolutions of the earlier discussions, but introduced an element of bitter irony to the debate.61Burton’s Diary, iv. 237-9. He started conventionally enough, emphasising the unionist position that

the gentlemen that serve for Ireland ... are not Irish ... [and] serve no more for Ireland than for England: the interest is twisted and complicated, as Lord Coke says. If we should withdraw, what representatives should we leave here, what would our country say, that we were complimented out of their right?

Aston then delivered a startling riposte to claims by the commonwealthsmen that the Irish MPs were creatures of the protectorate, by caricaturing their argument: ‘I shall disappoint many in my motion. I think it best that they should have Parliaments of their own for that very reason, that votes may not be imposed on you here’. Aston went on to encourage the Commons to see things from the Irish point of view. If the union was to survive, Irish MPs must sit at Westminster; the alternative was unjust: ‘Will you lay a tax upon us, and we have no representatives? If the Petition and Advice be a law to impose new taxes on us, surely it is, as to our right of sitting here?’ He ended with an ultimatum: ‘You will either refund our money to us and give us a Parliament of our own, or else allow us our possessory right. We are not here as trespassers, but in obedience to your service’.62Burton’s Diary, iv. 239.

Aston’s speech had exposed the impracticality and the injustice of the anti-union arguments; but he could not control the reaction of the Commons. Instead of backing down, the English MPs chose to take his words at face value, encouraged by a powerful speech by the renegade MP for Dublin, Arthur Annesley*, who strongly endorsed the re-establishment of an independent Irish Parliament.63Supra, ‘Arthur Annesley’; P. Little, ‘The First Unionists? Irish Protestant attitudes to Union with England, 1653-9’, Irish Hist. Studies xxxii. 54-6. Later on the same day the House voted by a majority of 50 to retain the Irish MPs, but this was in spite of, not because of, Aston’s ill-judged intervention. Aston continued to play a minor role in parliamentary activity, being named to the committee for Irish affairs on 1 April and the committee to consider how the Commons might ‘transact’ with the Other House on 8 April.64CJ vii. 623a, 627a. He did not stay on in London after the dissolution of Parliament, instead returning to Ireland in early May, in company with Sir Henry Peirce* and William Petty*.65Henry Cromwell Corresp. 511.

The collapse of the protectorate, and the assumption of power by the army and their republican allies in England made the prospect of closer union repellent to the Old Protestants, and prompted the Dublin coup of December 1659 and the establishment of the General Convention early the next year. Aston readily joined the Old Protestant cause. He was elected to represent co. Louth in the Convention, and in early March 1660 he and Sir John Clotworthy* were chosen as agents to attend the Westminster Parliament. They travelled to England at the beginning of April and soon made contact with the Irish Protestants already resident in London.66Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 195, 270, 3ß8, 310; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 719; Add. 32471, ff. 82v-6. As the Restoration became imminent, the agents’ task changed. On 4 May Aston and Clotworthy drafted a letter to the marquess of Ormond in the Netherlands, warning him that the Old Protestants expected to retain their share of forfeited estates in Ireland even after the return of Charles II.67CCSP v. 12. The tone of the letter - and the fact that its ultimate destination was the desk of the king - was concealed from some of the signatories (notably Broghill’s brother, the 2nd earl of Cork (Sir Richard Boyle*)), who angrily retracted their support once the truth was known, accusing Aston and the others of having deliberately misled them.68Chatsworth, Burlington’s Diary, 1659-66, unfol.: 5 and 7 May 1660; CCSP v. 22.

Any residual ill-feeling towards Aston from the Boyle family did not affect his fortunes after the Restoration. By the summer of 1660 he had resumed his legal career; he was knighted on 28 September; and appointed as second justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland on 3 November.69CSP Ire. 1660-2, pp. 36, 37, 46-7, 59, 74; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 231. Although he lost some of his Irish lands in 1663, Aston was confirmed in his Richardstown estate in 1667, and his finances seem generally to have been in good order.70NLI, D.10484. In 1662 he took as his second wife the daughter of his fellow justice, Thomas Stockton, and his salary as justice amounted to at least £300 a year by 1666.71HMC 8th Rep. 549; HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 376-8; CSP Ire. 1666-9, p. 74; CCSP v. 219; Stowe 152, f. 98v. His existing legal connections were enhanced by his continuing contacts with the Cootes: his pardon had been secured through the intervention of Sir Charles Coote (now earl of Mountrath) in 1661, and in 1663 he joined Lord Coloony (Richard Coote) in a legal action against the earl of Carlingford.72CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 188; CCSP v. 299. By the late 1660s Aston had been appointed assize judge of the north west circuit in Ulster, and he served as treasurer of King’s Inns in Dublin from 1665-9.73CSP Ire. 1666-9, p. 709; 1670, p. 591; Judges in Ireland, i. 346. Aston died in 1671.74Eustace, ‘Index of Will Abstracts’, 162. His young widow remarried (in 1674) Sir Charles Feilding, 3rd son of the earl of Desmond.75Lodge, Peerage, i. 172. By his second marriage Aston had at least one son, Thomas Aston, who married into the Sandys family of co. Roscommon, and from whom the Astons of Beaulieu, co. Louth, are descended. On the failure of the senior line in 1751, the title of Lord Aston of Forfar was assumed by the Irish Astons, although their claim was never officially recognised.76CP.