DENTON, Sir Alexander (1596-1645), of Hillesden, Bucks.

The Dentons, as lords of the manor of Prebend End, were the most important landowners within the town of Buckingham.23VCH Bucks. iii. 483. Their seat at Hillesden just outside the town had been acquired from the crown in 1547 by this MP’s great-grandfather, a wealthy lawyer, Thomas Denton†.24Lipscombe, Buckingham, iii. 17; VCH Bucks. iv. 175. By the 1630s Sir Alexander therefore ranked as one of the senior members of the Buckinghamshire gentry. However, his baptism of fire as a local official was his year as sheriff.25Coventry Docquets, 368; List of Sheriffs, 9. Never an easy job, that position was all more testing in 1637-8. It fell to him to collect the county’s latest Ship Money contribution during precisely the period when his relative, John Hampden*, was standing trial for non-payment of one of the earlier contributions. Under the terms of the 1637 writ, Denton was expected to bring in £4,500. He failed to collect £852 6s of that, which was at least a modest improvement on his predecessor’s record.26Gordon, ‘Collection of ship-money’, 156. Denton’s sympathies were probably with Hampden and it was said of him as sheriff that he was ‘known to be hollow-hearted to the king’.27CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 337. The privy council was certainly not impressed. Towards the end of his year in office, the council had him arrested and then released him on condition that he be supervised by one of the sergeants-at-arms to ensure that he continue to collect the Ship Money arrears.28CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 137; 1639, p. 491. The council kept up this pressure on him well into 1639.29CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 392; 1639, pp. 134, 500, 502, 522. It is likely that he also disapproved of the war against the Scots. In September 1640 one of the other Buckinghamshire deputy lieutenants, Sir Edward Tyrrell, would complain that Denton was being obstructive after Tyrrell had been appointed to take the lead in organising the military preparations within the county.30CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 57.

Such was the strength of the Denton electoral interest at Buckingham that Sir Alexander or his father had taken one of the two seats in six of the seven Parliaments called between 1604 and 1628.31HP Commons 1604-1629. It was therefore no great surprise when Denton was re-elected in both elections in 1640. He seems, moreover, to have also stood for the county seats in the Short Parliament election, as some of those involved in the Northamptonshire election would claim that Denton had been rejected in Buckinghamshire on the grounds that he was a deputy lieutenant.32Bodl. Bankes 44/13, f. 27. As MP for Buckingham, Denton played no known part in the proceedings of the Short Parliament. His time in the Long Parliament would be much more eventful.

One theme which emerges from Denton’s activities during the early stages of that Parliament was his willingness to support the raising of taxes to pay the armies in the north. Despite his own financial problems, he stepped forward in November 1640 and again in March 1641 when the Commons needed individual MPs to offer security to the City of London for the loans required for that purpose.33Procs. LP i. 229, 232, 235, ii. 654, 655. The two subsidy bills included him as one of the commissioners to oversee its collection.34SR. In August 1641 he made sure that the Commons took action against a Buckinghamshire Catholic, Sir Richard Minshall, who had tried to obstruct the collection of the poll tax.35Procs. LP vi. 215, 220, 377. Perhaps for that reason, he was then appointed as a commissioner to disarm recusants.36LJ iv. 385a. When Sir John Corbet* brought complaints against John Egerton, 1st earl of Bridgewater, and the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, that same month, Denton was sent to the Lords to request the conference that the Commons wanted in order to head off concerns that they were encroaching on the peers’ privileges.37CJ ii. 257a. It was Denton who in April 1641 proposed the motion for a by-election at Amersham following the death of William Cheyne*.38Procs. LP iv. 149. He took the Protestation on 8 May 1641.39CJ ii. 133b, 140b; Procs. LP iv. 276.

His main priority was more personal, however. Denton had got himself heavily into debt. After his death it would be claimed that parts of his estates had been settled on his cousin, Sir Peter Temple*, for payment of arrears and that parts of the rest had had to be mortgaged.40CCC 2269, 2878. One indication of the extent of his difficulties was that he had received permission in 1637 to alienate the manor of Hillesden to John Kersey.41Coventry Docquets, 704. That has the appearance of a legal fiction, as Kersey, who would later publish mathematical works, was then employed as the tutor to Denton’s grandsons.42J. Kersey, The Elements of that Mathematical Art, commonly called Algebra (1673-4), i. sig. b; ‘John Kersey’, Oxford DNB. What Denton now needed was a private Act of Parliament to enable him to sell one of his properties, the manor of Barford St Michael, partly in order to provide some financial security for his numerous children. A bill to that effect was introduced in the Commons on 29 May 1641 and, although amended in committee, it was passed by them on 27 July. It then made smooth progress through the Lords to be ready for the royal assent on 7 August.43CJ ii. 160b-161a, 164b, 219b, 225b; Procs. LP iv. 642, 647, 694; vi. 44, 103, 107; LJ iv. 330b, 333a, 335b, 339a, 349b; PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1640/16C1n34; SR. What Denton could not have foreseen was that the settlement it provided for would help limit the fine imposed on these lands when his son had to compound with Parliament for them after his death.

As the political crisis worsened during the first half of 1642, Denton stayed away from Westminster. He was present at the Easter quarter session in Buckinghamshire, for he became involved in a rating dispute between the Buckingham and Cottesloe hundreds.44Ship Money Pprs. 98, 99. Once the two sides, king and Parliament, began to mobilise, concerns about his loyalties increased. On 17 August, as a test of his allegiance, the Commons ordered him to attend.45CJ ii. 725a. Given that it was his brother-in-law, Sir Edmund Verney*, who raised the royal standard at Nottingham on 22 August and that his brother William Denton was in royal service as one of the king’s physicians, there was every possibility that Denton might side with the king. Charles I knew that, which was why he included him on the Buckinghamshire commission of array.46Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. When the parliamentarian soldier Nehemiah Wharton was marching through Buckinghamshire on 20 August, he made a point of killing a deer in the park at Hillesden because he considered Denton to be ‘a malignant fellow’.47CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 379. Whatever his own private feelings, Denton moved to reassure Parliament. On 29 August he attended the Commons in order to take the oath promising assistance to the new lord general, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.48CJ ii. 741b. Four weeks later he offered two horses to Parliament for use by its army.49CJ ii. 783b.

Not everyone on the parliamentarian side was impressed by Denton’s actions. On 22 October 1642 the Commons heard details of a letter which had been received from one of the newly-appointed Buckinghamshire deputy lieutenants, Edmund West*. This claimed that the attempt to raise forces in the county had ended in disarray when Denton had persuaded the volunteers who had come forward to disperse. He had done so by telling them that their efforts were unnecessary as the king intended to enter London in a peaceful manner.50Add. 18777, f. 41. Given that the Commons were being told of this as the two armies were converging on each other in Warwickshire, MPs inevitably saw this as evidence of Denton’s mendacity. His arrest was ordered.51CJ ii. 819b. Five days later he was released on bail.52CJ ii. 824b. However, the Commons had still to hear Denton’s side of the story. When they did so, on receipt of his petition on 19 November, they proved to be more sympathetic. It was agreed to drop proceedings against him and to allow to resume his seat.53CJ ii. 856a.

For the time being, he did continue to act as an MP. On 7 March 1643 he was one of the tellers on a division concerning the progress of the negotiations at Oxford. He and Sir Thomas Hutchinson* were the tellers for the minority who wanted to block a report from the committee on those negotiations.54CJ iii. 7a. They may have feared that in making that report John Pym* would damage the prospect of an agreement. Denton acted as a teller again on 15 May when he and Bulstrode Whitelocke* counted the votes in favour of a motion that money which had been taken from the wife of Colonel Arthur Evelyn should be repaid.55CJ iii. 84a. On 6 June Denton took the oath imposed in the aftermath of Edmund Waller’s* plot.56CJ iii. 118b.

He probably stopped attending the Commons soon after that. On 28 September 1643 the Commons was sufficiently concerned about his non-attendance to include him on its list of MPs summoned to attend the Committee for Sequestrations on 10 October.57CJ iii. 256b. Denton seems to have failed to respond to that summons, for by the middle of October it was being reported that the Commons would act against him.58Mems. of the Verney Family, ii. 167. On 15 November they did act, ordering his immediate attendance.59CJ iii. 311a. When that failed, they fined him for delinquency.60CJ iii. 319b; CCAM 435. They had one final sanction. On 22 January 1644 they resolved that he was to be discharged as an MP and debarred from sitting for the rest of the Parliament. It is one measure of his importance that when a list of those MPs who had been disabled from sitting was entered into the Journal later that day, Denton’s was the first name on it.61CJ iii. 373a, 374a; Harl. 165, f. 280; Harl. 483, f. 13.

What had happened was that he had gone to Oxford to attend the alternative Parliament of royalist MPs assembled there by the king. While there he signed the letter those MPs sent to the earl of Essex on 27 January 1644.62Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 573. But he did not remain there for long. His house at Hillesden, located halfway between Oxford and the major parliamentarian garrison at Newport Pagnell, was in the middle of a war zone. In January 1644, quite possibly while Denton was absent at Oxford, his parliamentarian brother-in-law, Captain Jecamiah Abercromby, seized Hillesden and garrisoned a force of troops in the house. The following month, however, royalist soldiers headed by William Smyth* arrived and gained control of the house.63Mems. of the Verney Family, ii. 191-2; VCH Bucks. iv. 173. Worried by this development, the governor of Newport Pagnell, Sir Samuel Luke*, assisted by Oliver Cromwell*, prepared to besiege it. By 4 March 1644 Luke was ready. Despite his initial instinct to resist, the parliamentarian attack forced Smyth to reconsider and by the end of the day he had agreed to surrender. Denton, who had only arrived on 2 March in order to retrieve his family and who had then been caught up in the siege, was among those taken prisoner.64HMC 7th Rep. 446; H. Roundell, ‘Hillesden House in 1644’, Recs. of Bucks. ii. 95-6; Mems. of the Verney Family, ii. 192-3; VCH Bucks. iv. 173-4. When the following day, Luke was forced to withdraw, his men torched the house. They were said to have forced Denton to watch its destruction.65Luke Letter Bks. 19; Mems. of the Verney Family, ii. 194-6; Mercurius Aulicus no. 10 (3-9 Mar. 1644), 867 (E.39.3). Later that week, when he wrote to his steward to ask what remained of it, Denton was able to take reassurance from the fact that, ‘I am yet in health notwithstanding these many misfortunes [which] are fallen upon me, and my comfort is I know myself not guilty of any fault’.66Mems. of the Verney Family, ii. 194.

Denton was transferred to London and forced to appear as a prisoner before the Commons. That he had broken the oath to assist the earl of Essex which he had taken in August 1642 while still an MP was now used against him. The Commons ordered that he be sent to the Tower.67CJ iii. 425a, 430a; Harl. 166, f. 34. Sir John Trevor*, Lord Wenman* and his son-in-law, Francis Drake*, were subsequently given permission to visit him.68CJ iii. 432a; Harl. 166, f. 35v. One way in which he passed the time while in prison was to write to his nephew, Sir Ralph Verney*, reporting the latest political news from London.69HMC 7th Rep. 447-9. On 3 June it was agreed that Denton could be moved to Petre House in the City, which represented a rather more comfortable place of confinement than the Tower.70CJ iii. 515a-b. Denton’s best hope now lay in the possibility that he would be exchanged for a prisoner held by the royalists. On 1 August John Crewe* suggested to the Commons that Denton should be swapped for his distant relative, Sir John Temple*, but after ‘long debate’ this idea was abandoned.71Harl. 166, f. 104. More progress was made on 16 October when the Commons agreed in principle to exchange Denton for Sir John Northcote*.72Harl. 166, f. 149; CJ iii. 666a. In order to finalise the deal, Denton was permitted to travel to Oxford. However, he failed to persuade the royalist authorities to cooperate – did they think that he was insufficiently important? – and he had to return to imprisonment in London.73HMC 7th Rep. 449. By early December he was telling Verney that he did not expect to be exchanged.74HMC 7th Rep. 449. This probably sealed his fate, for several weeks later he developed a fever and he died on 1 January 1645.75Mems. of the Verney Family, ii. 204. After permission was obtained from Parliament, the body was moved on 3 January to Hillesden, where the funeral took place on 5 January.76CJ iv. 6b; Mems. of the Verney Family, ii. 204; Lipscombe, Buckingham, iii. 17; Roundell, ‘Hillesden House’, 97; Hillesden par. reg.

Denton’s eldest son, John, had been killed at Abingdon on 9 August 1644 while fighting for the king.77Vis. Bucks. 1634 (Harl. Soc. lviii), 38; Lipscombe, Buckingham, iii. 17; P.R. Newman, Royalist Officers in Eng. and Wales (New York and London, 1981), 108. The much-depleted inheritance therefore passed to Denton’s second son, Edmund. Although regaining control of the estates from Parliament proved to be a laborious process, he did what he could to rebuilt the family’s fortunes. In the case of the house at Hillesden, that required a literal rebuilding. He also pushed ahead with the enclosure of the lands there.78CCC 67, 2269, 2878; CCAM 1096; VCH Bucks. iv. 175; J. Curthoys, ‘Enclosure and the changing landscape of Hillesden’, Recs. of Bucks. liii. 181-200. Edmund’s son, Alexander†, who succeeded him in 1657, sat as MP for Buckingham in three of William III’s Parliaments. The male line of the family died out in 1740.79Lipscombe, Buckingham, iii. 18; VCH Bucks. iv. 175.