COMBE, William (1586-1667), of The College, Old Stratford and Welcombe, Stratford-upon Avon, Warws.

The Combe family seems to have originated in Astley, Worcestershire, but John Combe, great-grandfather of this Member, had acquired an interest in the borough of Stratford-upon-Avon by 1534. John Combe became an alderman of the guild of the Holy Cross that year, after marrying Katherine Quiney of the town, and served Hugh Latimer, bishop of Worcester as a commissioner in various local cases arising from the changes of the Reformation. His son, another John, was probably servant to the earl of Warwick, and was resident at the College by 1562.21Chambers, William Shakespeare, ii. 130-2. The tithes of the dissolved college had been conveyed to the Stratford corporation in 1553, and arose from Old Stratford, Welcombe and Bishopton, all within the parish of Stratford, but outside the borough. Thomas Combe, this Member’s father, had been granted a farm of the tithes by 1597.22Mins. and Accts. ed. Fox, 94. The Combes were resident gentry within the parish of Stratford, but were never admitted to the corporation as freemen of the borough.

The most distinguished member of the Combe family was William Combe of the Priory, Warwick, uncle of this Member and counsel to the Stratford corporation.23Mins. and Accts. ed. Fox, 102. As well as being a reader at the Middle Temple and sheriff of Warwickshire in 1607, this William Combe was Member for Droitwich, Warwick and Warwickshire in three Parliaments, and held a substantial estate in Old Stratford. Acting as trustee for his nephew, John Combe, in 1602, he conveyed 107 acres of this land to William Shakespeare, the playwright.24Eccles, Shakespeare in Warws. 101-2. In his will of 1 April 1610, he made his great-nephew, this Member, his co-heir, with John Combe, the leading representative of the family resident in Stratford.25PROB11/117, f. 413. John, uncle of our William and brother of Thomas Combe, was the target of uncomplimentary verses about his money-lending activities which have without foundation been ascribed to Shakespeare.26Chambers, William Shakespeare, 138-40. This reputation for meanness notwithstanding, John Combe left over £126 in bequests to the town when he died in 1614.27Dugdale, Warws. ii. 685. When William Combe was growing up in Stratford in the 1590s, therefore, his tithe-farming branch of the family was overshadowed by the more prominent standing of his neighbour uncle and his great-uncle in Warwick, and his own wealth was increased hugely by the bequest of the older William Combe.

William Combe’s first inheritance was of the sub-lease of a moiety of the Stratford tithes, from his father in 1609.28VCH Warws. iii, 279; Eccles, Shakespeare in Warws. 104. In 1610, Combe benefited from the patronage of his uncle and great-uncle in at least two ways. He inherited chambers at the Middle Temple, and acquired a share of the lands which had not been alienated to Shakespeare.29MTR ii. 503. When John Combe died in 1614, his lands at Welcombe passed to William, who had thus inherited the whole of the family’s land interests.30Eccles, Shakespeare in Warws. 102, 120; VCH Warws. iii, 264. Combe briefly held a share of the leased tithes with Shakespeare, but the lease had fallen in by 1617.31Eccles, Shakespeare in Warws. 106. As soon as Combe had acquired the Welcombe estate, he began the celebrated or notorious campaign to enclose the common lands there, in the teeth of opposition from the corporation of the town: celebrated only because the dispute drew in William Shakespeare. The dramatist was a tenant of the corporation’s tithes, which were threatened with diminution if enclosure proceeded, but was it seems willing to compromise with Combe to reach agreement.32R. Bearman, ‘William Combe’s Attempt to Enclose Open Fields at Welcombe, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1614-19’, MH xlvi. 35.

Some 400-600 acres were to be enclosed, and the digging of ditches to create ‘mounds’ for the hedges began in December 1614. Combe noted how hard the corporation had worked to build opposition to the enclosure. Its motive for consistently opposing enclosure was the twin fear that unsupportable numbers of poor people would fall upon the town poor rate, and that its tithe income would reduce dramatically.33Bearman, ‘William Combe’s Attempt’, 47-8. For his part, Combe was willing to admit that ‘he was to have some profit by the enclosure’. On 9 January 1615, a brawl took place between the enclosers and their opponents; during the skirmish, Combe ‘sat laughing on his horseback and said they were good football players’, adding that the townsmen were ‘puritan knaves and underlings’. The following day, while a compromise was being negotiated between the parties, women and children from the town and from Bishopton came out and filled in the ditches.34VCH Warws. iii, 267; Eccles, Shakespeare in Warws. 120. Subsequently, of the various parties interested in the enclosure, Combe became its only aggressive promoter. During 1615, 400 acres were enclosed, with further enclosures created in fields nearby. Appeals to assizes produced judgments in favour of the corporation and in 1619, the privy council required Combe to reverse a number of the enclosures.35VCH Warws. iii, 267-8.

Combe maintained a leading role in the life of Stratford, however difficult his relations with the corporation. In 1620 he was the first listed among the vestrymen detailed to view the defects in the fabric of the parish church, and was party to the decision to levy a rate to erect two galleries in the church in 1622. In 1630 he became a feoffee for a trust fund arising from lands in Bishopton, which were intended to meet the long-standing problem of repairing the church fabric.36Vestry Min. Bk. of the Parish of Stratford-on-Avon ed. G. Arbuthnot (Stratford-upon-Avon, 1859), 12-13, 19, 20, 33, 38. On a wider stage, Combe had become a county magistrate in 1615, and is known to have been active in sessions meetings by October 1625, although it is noteworthy that he never became one of the quorum. His reputation for litigiousness may well have been the decisive factor in keeping him in this somewhat second-class position.37Warwick County Records, i. p. xxviii. Evidence from his family life confirms that Combe was quarrelsome. His father-in-law apparently wished that his daughter ‘had been buried when she went to be married’ to Combe, because Combe persistently abused him with 'evil words, and indecent and irreverent terms’. Edward Boughton’s view of Combe was that his bearing was not that of a gentleman.38Warws. RO, CR 162/472.

Whatever Combe’s anti-puritan taunts towards Stratford corporation may have been in 1615, by the 1630s, as an important Warwickshire gentleman and magistrate, he was part of a puritan circle himself. The Warwick schoolmaster, William Dugard, recorded visits he made to Combe’s home.39Add. 23146, ff. 51, 56. With the ministers Thomas Wilson (vicar of Stratford), John Trapp (schoolmaster there) and a range of lay puritans with Robert Greville†, 2nd Baron Brooke at the apex, Combe has been identified as a member of a ‘parliamentary-puritan connexion’ in Warwickshire.40A. Hughes, ‘Thomas Dugard and his circle in the 1630s – a ‘parliamentary-puritan’ connection?’, HJ xxix. 771-93. Combe’s association with the turbulent figure of Thomas Wilson, who fought a long-running battle with the Stratford civic chamber, seems to have been constructed at least partly on the principle that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’.41A. Hughes, ‘Religion and Society in Stratford upon Avon, 1619-1638’, MH xix. 58-84. But by 1632, Combe’s relations with the corporation had at least become courteous. He seems not to have become directly involved in the dispute between the chamber and Wilson, and although he was not treated with the degree of deference accorded to Sir Thomas Lucy*, he was at least sent a keg of sturgeon as a New Year’s gift regularly through the 1630s.42Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, BRU 2/3 pp. 67, 83, 106, 125. In February 1635, Combe was granted permission by the corporation to erect a family pew in the guild chapel.43Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, BRU 2/3 p. 109. When in January 1637, soon after agreeing a lease with the chamber, Combe claimed an interest to the tithe barn near his house, the corporation resolved to submit the case to ‘friendly trial by course of law’, a controlled airing of the dispute which suggests a desire to maintain correct relations with the town’s leading landowner.44Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, BRU 2/3 pp. 139, 140, 141.

Combe’s profile as an active member of the bench of magistrates for Warwickshire developed though the 1630s. He attended an impressive total of 89 per cent of possible meetings from October 1630 to June 1636, and only very slightly fewer between then and 1640.45A. Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warws. 1620-60 (Cambridge, 1987), 352. He was also diligent out of sessions, but this public activity was not always appreciated by the government. Combe became something of an opposition figure during the decade, firstly resisting the demand that he should pay a fine in lieu of knighthood before eventually paying up in 1631.46E178/7154/186-8. He may have been slow to pay money he owed for lands outside Stratford on the first Ship Money writ.47E179/275/14; 259/3; 272/55. On 16 February 1640, Combe and Sir Thomas Lucy* were summoned before the privy council, and on the 24th were removed from the commission of the peace. Their offence is thought to have been that they orchestrated opposition to Ship Money in their area, though no direct evidence can be found to confirm this. While Lucy was too infirm, Combe did make the journey to London, and was placed in custody after appearing at the council board.48PC2/51 pp. 311, 318; C231/5 p. 370; SP16/448/82; Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War, 115-6. This incident did nothing to dent the local credibility of either man. Combe and Lucy were elected without opposition on 23 March 1640 to the Short Parliament.49Add 23146, f. 88. Combe’s only recorded intervention in this assembly was on the case of Dr. William Beale, vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, whose sermon of 1635 was excepted against by John Pym on the grounds that it had allegedly asserted that ‘the king might constitute laws when and where he will’. On 1 May, Pym reported on Beale’s sermon, and Combe was the first to speak after him, calling for Beale to be ‘sent for’.50Aston’s Diary, 112.

Combe was again elected, for the Long Parliament, on 2 November 1640, only a day before the Members assembled: the first meeting appointed for the purpose, on 5 October, had been abandoned.51C219/43/3/55; Add. 23146, ff. 90v, 91. His stay in London was to be a short one. On 9 November a petition of Warwickshire freeholders alleging irregularities at the poll by the returning officer was supported by Combe, and the House ordered the arrest of the sheriff, George Warner.52CJ ii. 23a. On 2 December the petition was debated, and Combe spoke to it. Its effect was to question the validity of the election of James Compton*, Lord Compton. Combe recalled that votes for William Purefoy I* had outnumbered those for Compton by three to one, and that he had advised the sheriff not to exclude Purefoy’s interest on the grounds that he had been returned already for Warwick. Debate then focussed on the misdemeanours of the sheriff, who was sent to the Tower, and it seemed at one stage likely that Combe’s election was to be confirmed ‘after much ado’. Certainly that was the view of Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, who gave his opinion that no new election was necessary: Combe should be confirmed in his seat, Compton disqualified and Purefoy returned instead. But during the course of what D’Ewes considered ‘a long and unnecessary dispute’, opinion swung against Combe. Two separate questions were put on the validity of first the election of Combe and then that of Compton. Both were declared void.53Procs. LP, i. 420-1, 423, 426; CJ ii. 43b.

Polling in the new election took place between 28 December and 1 January 1641.54Warws. RO, CR 2981/box 8/bdle 25/9. There were on this occasion four candidates, and Combe trailed third behind Lord Compton and Richard Shuckburgh. William Purefoy I delivered in a petition complaining about the conduct of the poll on 19 January, and on the 23rd, Thomas Dugard wrote out another petition, which was probably in favour of William Combe’s election, or less plausibly, one against episcopacy. This last-named petition was presented to the House on 25 January apparently by the knights of the shire, but the victors of the county election are unlikely to have been enthusiasts for it.55Procs. LP, ii. 223, 272; Add. 23146, f. 92. On 30 January there was a discussion in the House on one or perhaps both the petitions against the conduct of the election. The same sheriff that had organised the first contest arranged the second, and alleged malpractices identified the first time around were repeated. Debate in the House focussed on which committee should examine the complaints. It was resolved that the privileges committee should receive it, and on 1 February, Combe’s petition, on Purefoy’s motion, was referred to the same body.56Procs. LP, ii. 320-1, 331; CJ ii. 76b. The case seems never to have emerged from the committee, despite the recommendation of the House that the examination should be speedy, and Combe never again sat in Parliament. In or out of the Commons, however, he was regarded as sympathetic to the parliamentary reform programme of 1641, and was named a commissioner for disarming recusants in August 1641.57LJ iv. 385b.

On the eve of the civil war, Combe and William Purefoy I were identified as remarkable among Warwickshire magistrates in that they were not named to the king’s commission of array on 17 June 1642, and on 5 July Combe was appointed a militia commissioner for Parliament.58SP16/491/21; LJ v. 195b. He was out of the commission of peace for just under a year, and when restored in January 1641 kept up for a few months a conscientious level of attendance at quarter sessions.59Warwick County Records, ii. p. xxi. His interest faltered after July 1641, however, and his response to the coming of the war seems to have been a withdrawal from public life. The diarist Richard Symonds noted in 1645 that Combe ‘stayed at home’, and in 1644 Combe was accused of trying at the outbreak of war to stop Lord Brooke from defending Warwick Castle. He was alleged to have argued that by this action the king would take to be enemies those who were really his friends, but his critics were unconvinced.60Symonds, Diary, 192; SP28/246; SP28/247/585-6.

Despite his inactivity during the height of the first civil war in England, Combe veered much more towards the parliamentarian cause than the royalist one, was considered reliable enough to be kept in the commission of the peace and in 1645 was named to the Warwick sub-committee of accounts. He was an active member of it in the last four months of 1645, but by March 1646 had stopped attending its meetings, a pattern repeating his earlier forays into public life.61SP28/246-8, 354-5, 257; Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War, 241. He also kept away from quarter sessions until October 1650, when he began attending sessions meetings regularly. This is evidence of at least a reconciliation of some sort to the commonwealth, but it was a short-lived rehabilitation, and Combe attended no meetings after July 1653, even though he kept his place in the commission of the peace, except perhaps for a few months in 1660, until he died.62Warwick County Records, ii. p. xxi; iii. p. xxi; iv. pp. xx, xxv.

In his later years, Combe’s once turbulent relations with the Stratford corporation seem to have mellowed. He farmed some of the town’s tithes, until they were taken back in 1655.63Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, BRU 2/3 pp. 305, 413. He was embroiled in financial problems and family disputes, which probably lay behind his petition to Stratford corporation for a rent rebate on the tithes he leased.64Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, BRU 2/3, p. 269. These difficulties did not prevent him in 1648 from purchasing episcopal lands in Worcestershire, properties of which he had been a tenant.65Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, ER3/657; Stratford-upon-Avon Wills ii. ed. Appleton and Macdonald (Dugdale Soc. liii), 48. He forfeited ownership of these after 1660, and his money troubles were still unresolved when he died, intestate, in 1667.66Bearman, ‘William Combe’s Attempt’, 46. He was buried in Holy Trinity church, Stratford-upon-Avon. None of his descendants are known to have sat in Parliament.