COOPER, Thomas II (d. 1659), of Southwark, Surr. and St Martin-in-the-Fields, Mdx.

Thomas Cooper’s parentage is unknown, but he probably came from Southwark: in the later 1640s he served on the militia sub-committee for the borough and was added to the Surrey bench.18Clarke Pprs. i. 154; C231/6, p. 146. The comments of a hostile witness in 1658, describing Cooper as ‘sometime a shopkeeper, or salter, in Southwark’, may not be far from the truth.19Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 14 (E.977.3). It was during his civilian career – perhaps in the early months of the first civil war – that Cooper became involved in radical religion, attending the Independent congregation of Thomas Goodwin in London.20Second Narrative, 14. Cooper’s decision to join the parliamentarian army may have been inspired by his religious views. In the summer of 1644 he accompanied the earl of Essex into the west, as a reformado lieutenant; he signed a petition to Parliament from Essex’s officers in January 1645; and in the following spring he was captain lieutenant in the regiment of Edward Aldridge.21SP16/510, f. 242; SP28/60, f. 691; Harl. 166, f. 174v; Wanklyn, New Model Army, i. 49. On the formation of the New Model army Cooper continued to serve with the same regiment, commanded in turn by Walter Lloyd and William Herbert, although his activities in the last months of the civil war are unclear.22Wanklyn, New Model Army, i. 59. By the summer of 1647 he had returned to Southwark, where he supported the Independent faction during the Presbyterian counter-revolution, submitting names of ‘malignants’ who had replaced pro-New Model men in the ranks of the London militia.23Clarke Pprs. i. 154. In the second civil war of 1648 Cooper, now promoted to major, was paid by the Derby House Committee as commander of the horse troops assigned to guard Parliament.24CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 178-270.

The turning point in Cooper’s career was his marriage, probably in 1650, to the sister of Richard Price*, the Welsh parliamentarian and religious radical, who later became a Fifth Monarchist and MP for Wales in the Nominated Assembly. The marriage brought Cooper lands in Denbighshire, and he soon began purchasing crown lands in a number of English and Welsh counties.25PROB11/301/341. With his increasing social and religious standing, Cooper’s military fortunes also improved. In August 1650 he was made colonel of a regular foot regiment, serving in Scotland under Oliver Cromwell*.26Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 79. The regiment was part of John Lambert’s* division at the battle of Worcester in September 1651, and Cooper was put in charge of a number of important Scottish prisoners after the battle.27CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 428, 441, 469; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 460, 466. A few weeks later Cooper’s regiment marched across England to embark at Hull, ready to return to Scotland.28CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 5. It arrived at Dundee on 9 November, and remained there through the worst of the winter, before sailing to Orkney and Shetland in February 1652.29HMC Leyborne-Popham, 104; Scotland and the Commonwealth, 20, 29, 34.

Orkney was not a dangerous place for Cooper and his men: lacking the mountainous refuges of the mainland, the islanders were unable to mount any serious resistance to the occupying forces, and the garrison at Kirkwall was ‘very civilly entertained by the country’.30Scotland and the Commonwealth, 36-7; Mercurius Politicus, no. 91 (26 Feb.-4 Mar. 1652), 1446 (E.655.23). But, despite the passivity of the natives, the distance from England and the inclemency of the climate meant that Orkney and Shetland were not popular postings among the English troops: one of Cooper’s subordinates at Scalloway declared that ‘this country ... affordeth nothing wherewith an Englishman will fall in love’.31HMC Leyborne-Popham, 107. His commander seems to have agreed: by the spring of 1653 Cooper had left his troops, apparently returning to England. In June and July the commander-in-chief in Scotland, Robert Lilburne, sent repeated requests to Cromwell that Cooper and ‘other officers that have been a long time from their charges’ to return to Scotland and help in putting down a new revolt on the Isle of Lewis.32Scotland and the Commonwealth, 148, 154, 157.

In October 1653 Lilburne decided to move Cooper and his regiment to Ayr in south west Scotland, and again wrote to Cromwell asking him to hasten his return, as ‘it will be very fitting Col. Cooper should be upon the place, lest our affairs go slowly on there’.33Scotland and the Commonwealth, 240-1, 243. It was only with his appointment as governor of Ayr that Cooper was eventually persuaded to return to Scotland. His regiment was shipped south in January 1654, and he had joined them by April.34Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke ms L, f. 4v; Scotland and the Protectorate ed. Firth, 73. The following year was uneventful for the Ayr garrison. The Highland rebellion did not extend much further south than Argyllshire, but the threat of disturbances by royalists in the lowlands and the borders kept Cooper and his men tied to their garrison. In August 1654 the new commander-in-chief, George Monck*, mindful of the links between royalists in Ulster and the Western Isles, put a naval force under Cooper’s command; but it was only at the tail-end of the revolt that Cooper became actively involved, accepting the surrender of the earl of Loudon, Lord Lorne and Colonel Alexander MacNaughton in the spring and summer of 1655.35CSP Dom. 1654, p. 337; Clarke ms L, ff. 109-113. In May 1655 Cooper was named to the Scottish council, newly formed under the presidency of Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*).36CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 108, 152; TSP iii. 423. Cooper was not the most prominent, or the most experienced, of the Scottish colonels, and he may have owed his appointment to his contacts with his former commander in England, John Lambert, who dominated the Scottish committee of the protectoral council at this time. Cooper was certainly consulted with Lambert over Scottish matters during the summer of 1655.37Scotland and the Protectorate, 300.

Cooper’s service on the Scottish council was cut short by his appointment as governor of Ulster hewsonin place of the disgraced Robert Venables* in December 1655. His redeployment had been discussed as early as August 1655, and again the initiative seems to have come from the senior officers at Whitehall. The protector later admitted that Cooper had been ‘sent over ... to spy’ on his son, Henry Cromwell*, the lieutenant-general and caretaker governor of Ireland.38Henry Cromwell Corresp. 182-3. It is telling that the absentee lord deputy of Ireland, Charles Fleetwood* (a close ally of Lambert, and no friend of Henry Cromwell) was the prime mover in Cooper’s appointment, gave him private instructions, and kept a close eye on his progress thereafter.39TSP iii. 744; CSP Dom. 1655-6 p. 68; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 87-8, 95, 97. The timing of Cooper’s promotion fits with the efforts of Irish officers allied to Lambert and Fleetwood such as John Hewson* and Jerome Sankey* who were actively engineering Henry Cromwell’s removal, and it is suspicious that, when Cooper left for Ireland on 25 December, he was chaperoned by Sankey*.40TSP iv. 343.

In spite of his religious and political sympathies with the army interest in England, Cooper did not fulfil the expectations of Henry Cromwell’s opponents. On his arrival in Dublin in early January 1656, he reported to Secretary John Thurloe* of the

unhappy prejudices by many officers entertained against others, of which my Lord Henry Cromwell hath had his share; and indeed I may say since a meeting hath been had with some persons dissatisfied, and a freedom to lay open what hath offended, it hath appeared that those prejudices have been taken up on very slender or no ground.41TSP iv. 422-3; cf. Henry Cromwell Corresp. 183.

Far from increasing the opposition to Henry Cromwell, Cooper then went on to effect a reconciliation between the governor and his critics in Dublin, and he may have been behind the 16 January petition, signed by all the senior Irish officers, asking for both Fleetwood and Henry Cromwell to be confirmed in their offices.42TSP iv. 421, 433. Cooper’s concern for a settlement between the parties is an early indication of his personal loyalty to the protector and his family, which soon began to rival his allegiance to Lambert and the army interest.

Cooper left Dublin on 30 January 1656 to take up his position as governor of Ulster.43TSP iv. 483. Throughout 1656 there were fears that the Ulster royalists would make common cause with their Scottish counterparts across the North Channel. Cooper thus based himself at Carrickfergus, where he established good relations with the Independent congregation in the town and improved the defences of the castle, and settled down to monitor the activities of suspected royalists, such as Audley Mervyn and Viscount Chichester.44TSP v. 65, 274, 323, 347; NLI, MS 758, f. 98. He also oversaw the removal of pockets of Gaelic Irish remaining in Cavan and Monaghan, and the transportation of priests and other potential troublemakers to the West Indies.45TSP v. 250, 323; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 602, 621, 622, 625-6. Such policies seem to have prevented further unrest in Ulster, and in July 1656 Cooper told Thurloe that ‘all things in these parts are very quiet and peaceable, a single man may ride alone with the greatest charge without the least danger’.46TSP v. 229.

With military rule firmly established, Cooper turned his attention to the more difficult task of settling the civil affairs of the province. He identified various causes for concern, including the lack of money (‘which except some order be given in the matter, both country and soldiers will be undone’), the need to choose JPs with care (‘because to keep out unfit men will not so much discontent as to put them out after they have acted’), and the settling of a militia (as the best way to keep the Old Protestant community loyal).47TSP v. 336, 366, 586-7. These concerns mirrored those identified by Henry Cromwell and Old Protestant commentators, such as George Rawdon*, and provide an indication of Cooper’s sensitivity to the problems of the province. The greatest issue in the autumn of 1656 was the need to elect MPs for the second protectorate Parliament. Despite Cooper’s claim that he had been ‘wholly passive in the business’, this did not amount to neglect.48TSP v. 343. Cooper was concerned that the elections in England had been ‘very bad’, and told Henry Cromwell the results at Belfast and Carrickfergus and cos. Down, Antrim and Armagh in great detail.49TSP v. 336. He himself sat for the counties, alongside the Scottish Presbyterian, James Traill*, while the Carrickfergus merchant (and suspected royalist), John Davies*, was elected for the boroughs. Although this line-up was controversial, it may not indicate a lack of government control over the election, as the result reflected Henry Cromwell’s broader policy of engagement with the Old Protestant community. Cooper was eager to take up his seat, assuring Henry Cromwell that his subordinate officers could keep the peace in his absence.50TSP v. 336, 343. Although the protector’s continuing concern for the security of Ulster ‘in this time of eminent danger’, meant that Cooper was named as one of the chief officers to be kept in Ireland, by late October Henry Cromwell had managed to reverse this decision, and Cooper travelled to Dublin before embarking for England on 5 November.51TSP v. 398, 558.

During the second protectorate Parliament, Cooper was confronted by a problem which had been troubling him for several years. In December 1655, as he travelled south from Scotland, he had visited his Welsh relatives. His brother-in-law, Richard Price, had recently presented the protector with Vavasor Powell’s A Word For God, which condemned the protectorate in the strongest terms. As Cooper recounted to Henry Cromwell later, ‘when I argued the inconsistencies ... they seemed exceedingly offended, and said my dependence upon the government made me plead for it, and that no sober good men in England not so engaged was of my mind’.52TSP iv. 551; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 213-4. Cooper dismissed his critics at the time, but the encounter had made him uneasy, and during the parliamentary session of 1656-7, the difficulty of reconciling the will of God with his personal loyalty to Cromwell reappeared. Cooper had consistently supported Henry Cromwell’s government since January 1656, and on leaving Dublin in November, he had been instructed by the lieutenant-general to give a favourable account of Irish reforms to Thurloe and the protector.53TSP v. 558, 586-7. He was named to the committee of Irish affairs on 29 November, and played a minor role in the debate on the fate of the Quaker, James Naylor, in December, being named to the committee to examine the accused on 18 December.54CJ vii. 461b, 470a. Cooper’s ambiguous attitude to Naylor can be seen in a speech on 10 December in which he denounced him as ‘in Satan’s hands’ but refused to class his offence as ‘blasphemy’, adding that ‘I cannot be satisfied that the House are any way led to pass such a heinous punishment’, as that would involve ‘shedding of innocent blood’. On a more pragmatic level, Cooper warned that the case might cause division (‘we should be unanimous in it’) and that Naylor might become a martyr, and that ‘instead of taking away Quakerism, you establish it’.55Burton’s Diary, i. 96-8.

Cooper’s balancing act became even more difficult with the introduction of a new civilian constitution, the Remonstrance, in February 1657. At first, he opposed it. On 24 February, the day after the Remonstrance was introduced in the Commons, Cooper was listed as one of three Irish MPs who did not support the new constitution.56Henry Cromwell Corresp. 205-6. He was prepared to be involved in the scrutiny of the Remonstrance in later weeks: he was named to committees to consider article relating to Scotland and Ireland (6 and 10 Mar.), the judicial role of the Other House (12 Mar.) and religious matters (19 Mar.); but when on 25 March the Commons considered whether to delay the vote on the 1st article (that concerning the title of king), Cooper sided with Sir William Strickland* as teller in favour of caution, and he did not vote for kingship subsequently.57CJ vii. 499b, 501b, 502a, 507b, 511a; Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 23 (E.935.5). Despite this, during April he was named to committees to persuade Cromwell to accept the new constitution, now re-named the Humble Petition and Advice, and in May he was appointed to committees on the Additional Petition and Advice.58CJ vii. 520b, 521a, 535a, 540b, 557a, 570b. Cooper was also anxious to reassure Henry Cromwell of his loyalty to the regime. In a letter of 31 March:

My temper and disposition is not to be violent in the prosecution of my own mind; I have always found by experience, that a patient waiting upon the Lord the issue of things, and a close dependence upon him for light and guidance of things of doubtfulness, is the most safe; and having according to what light and understanding I have received from the Lord, discharged my conscience, I can and do freely acquiesce in the will of God; and though this matter, so long as it was in debate, was against my mind, yet being now concluded by the major part, I can and shall through the assistance of God, I hope, approve myself with as much faithfulness to it, as if I had been never so much for the thing in the first promoting of it.59TSP vi. 157.

Cooper may have been responding to reports that Henry had asked for his return to Ulster, ostensibly to ensure the security of the province. The attempt to recall Cooper was unsuccessful as, according to Fleetwood, ‘his highness hath commanded his stay till this great business be fully over’.60Henry Cromwell Corresp. 265; TSP, vi. 143, 219.

In other matters facing this Parliament, Cooper’s path was more straightforward. As governor of Ulster and absentee councillor of Scotland, Cooper necessarily became involved in Irish and Scottish affairs. He was repeatedly named for committees dealing with land claims in Ireland, and he sided with Broghill in trying to limit the compensation, in the form of lands in Galway, voted to the city of Gloucester on 5 May.61CJ vii. 477a, 494a, 494b, 505b, 517a, 529a, 532a, 545a, 546a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 110. In the debate on the level of assessment to be raised in Ireland, Cooper joined a range of Irish MPs (including such contrasting political types as Lord Broghill and Jerome Sankey) in an effort to reduce the rate. On 10 June Cooper used his local knowledge to good effect: ‘I know that in Ulster, at the least, a third part is paid; and other parts pay as high. We must bear what you lay upon us; but this is the way to have us pay nothing hereafter’.62Burton’s Diary, ii. 209. In the ensuing division, Cooper and Sankey opposed the motion to keep the Irish assessment at £10,000 a month, but to no avail.63CJ vii. 554a. The vote did not end the debate. On 13 June Cooper returned to the attack, dismissing claims by the Dorset MP, Denis Bond, that Ireland was becoming increasingly prosperous: ‘if that gentleman had ever been in Ireland, he would have been of another opinion’.64Burton’s Diary, ii. 246-7. In Scottish affairs Cooper was less prominent, but he was named to committees on the settlement of Monck’s lands at Kinneil, under threat from a counter-claim by the original owner, the duchess of Hamilton, and on the issue of sorting out Scottish donatives in general.65CJ vii. 485a, 526a. These appointments reflected not only his official connections with Scotland and his personal friendship with Monck, but also his own vested interests: in 1655 Cooper had joined a consortium which had purchased Monck’s Scottish estates, an investment threatened by concessions to the creditors of former royalists, including the duchess of Hamilton.66Scotland and the Protectorate, 320.

Cooper’s Commons career had exposed some of the contradictions of his position. In the months after the closure of the first session in June 1657, despite his continued sympathy with religious radicalism, he remained a staunch supporter of the protectorate. In the summer of 1657 he defended the record of Henry Cromwell’s government; and on his return to Ireland in September he supported attempts to bring religious settlement to Ulster. Cooper was suspicious of Presbyterianism.

I do humbly conceive, that it’s much for the peace of Ireland, in all towns of strength at least, no Scotch minister be admitted, except he be a known friend to the present government; and I hope your lordship and the council will not admit them into Derry, Coleraine, Carrickfergus and Belfast; and if it could well be done, it were advisable that no Scotchman might live in those towns, at least for some years; for your lordship knows there is more danger to be expected from that interest than from the Irish in Ulster.67TSP vi. 349, 481-2.

Yet, despite his apparently trenchant opinions, by October Cooper had fallen into line with the Dublin government’s policy of reconciling the Presbyterian interest to the protectorate, agreeing with Henry Cromwell that the Scottish ministers ‘may with more ease be led than driven; and the tenderness your lordship shows them is the likeliest way to gain them’.68TSP vi. 563. Cooper diligently attended quarter sessions with former royalists and Scotsmen, and tried to settle disputes over religion and assessment rates amicably; but his writings show a paranoid hatred of cavaliers (‘I do perceive the common enemy is at work to bring us into blood again’) and his political views were strongly influenced by his religious beliefs.69Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 670; TSP, vi. 623, 673, 699, 734. As he told Thurloe

The Lord, I hope, will direct the heart of his highness, and those concerned with him, to discharge a good conscience in it towards God and man; for the eyes of heaven as well as earth are upon you, and God doth seem to say, who is on my side? Who for securing and providing for a godly interest in these nations for posterity?70TSP vi. 623, 673.

At the end of December 1657, Cooper returned to England, to take up his seat in the Other House. Before his departure, he told Henry Cromwell that he hoped the members of the new House would act for the general benefit of ‘these poor nations, and be (as instruments) repairers of our breaches, and restorers of paths to dwell in’; and, turning to Ireland, he added, ‘I have not more at present, but to entreat the good will of him, that dwelt in the bush, to lead you and guide you in all your ways’.71TSP vi. 707. Henry Cromwell duly recommended Cooper to the protector, ‘as a person of whose judgement and integrity I have a very good esteem’; but as soon as he was out of the country, he purged his regiment, replacing the unstable Major William Lowe with the more reliable Alexander Staples*.72TSP vi. 734, 142-3. In London, Cooper attended the Other House during the brief and acrimonious second sitting, and was named to the committee of petitions on 21 January and the committee on the observation of the Lord’s Day on 29 January.73HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 506-23. Thereafter, he established himself as one of the chief advisors of the ailing protector, becoming notorious among opponents of the regime as a man ‘true to the court interest’.74Second Narrative, 15. As Thurloe told Henry Cromwell on 22 June 1658, Cooper was among nine senior politicians ‘who daily meet for considering of what is fit to be done in the next Parliament ... how we should be secured against the cavalier party ... [and] how we shall be secured against a commonwealth’.75TSP vii. 192.

The death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658 destroyed the uneasy balance which Cooper had for so long tried to maintain between his political and religious beliefs and his loyalty to the protectorate. On 5 October he wrote to Henry Cromwell bewailing the protector’s death, which ‘hath its stroke of deep and astonishing sorrow upon the hearts of all good men in these nations’, and implying his support of the new protector, Richard Cromwell*.76TSP vii. 425. But by the end of October, Henry Cromwell’s earlier doubts about Cooper’s stability had returned, with the news that Cooper’s lieutenant-colonel, John Duckinfield*, had publicly opposed the new protector, and that Cooper, John Disbrowe* and other suspected dissenters, were having ‘daily meetings’ in London.77TSP vii. 425, 450. Over the winter of 1658-9, Cooper remained in London, and took his seat in the Other House when the third protectorate Parliament opened in January. He was named to a number of committees, including those for petitions (28 Jan.), the recognition of the new protector (1 Feb.) and an indemnity bill (4 Mar.).78HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 525-67. On the dissolution of Parliament at the end of April, Cooper threw off his allegiance to the Cromwells, becoming instead an open supporter of the army interest, now centred on Fleetwood’s headquarters at Wallingford House.79Henry Cromwell Corresp. 509. On 6 May Cooper joined Fleetwood, Lambert, Sankey and other officers as signatory of a letter inviting the Rump to reconvene, and from June he became involved in the selection of reliable officers for the Irish army.80Whitelocke, Diary, 513-4; CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 375, 395. Cooper was continued as colonel of foot, but resigned his commission to take command of the regiment of horse formerly commanded by Fleetwood.81CJ vii. 696a-b; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 125. Fleetwood was also planning to appoint Cooper as one of the commissioners for Scotland, although this appointment was never confirmed.82Wariston’s Diary, iii. 126. Instead, in September Cooper returned to Ireland, where he set about investigating Irish connections with the abortive rebellion of Sir George Boothe* in England, arresting Viscount Montgomery of the Ards and other royalist suspects in Ulster.83CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 198; The Montgomery Manuscripts ed. G. Hill (Belfast, 1869), 219. He was also active in reinforcing the Irish army, liaising with the new commander-in-chief, Edmund Ludlowe II*, and working with Colonels John Clerke II* and Richard Lawrence – all under the watchful eye of his patron, Charles Fleetwood.84SP18/204, f. 55.

The true extent of Cooper’s involvement with the Wallingford House party became apparent in October 1659, when he signed the address of the Irish officers denouncing the Rump Parliament for its opposition to Lambert, Fleetwood and the officers in England.85Clarke Pprs. iv. 95. The officers also urged Ludlowe to hasten to Ireland and take control of the army. Ludlowe gave command of Ulster to Cooper, whom he described as ‘a good officer’, and prepared to cross to Irish Sea.86Ludlow, Mems. ii. 142, 147. In early December Cooper was instrumental in putting down a royalist conspiracy in eastern Ulster, amid growing concerns that the Old Protestant officers were becoming increasingly mutinous.87Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 103. At this crucial moment, however, Cooper’s health failed: having ‘fallen sick upon the late change’, he died ‘in his chair’, on 21 December.88Ludlow, Mems. ii. 189; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 126. In the days that followed, the Old Protestants in Ulster arrested Cooper’s lieutenant colonel, Brian Smith, and took control of Carrickfergus; while others seized Dublin and refused Ludlowe permission to land in late December.89Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 114-5. In January 1660 Cooper’s horse regiment was reassigned to Broghill’s ally, the staunch Presbyterian, Henry Markham*.90CJ vii. 814a.

Cooper’s career highlights the difficulties experienced by many senior officers during the protectorate. He shared the radicalism of his patrons, Lambert and Fleetwood, and of his wife’s family, the Prices of Montgomeryshire, yet retained a strong sense of allegiance to Oliver Cromwell and his family, which caused him to implement the more conservative elements of protectoral policy in Ireland and even to support (publicly, at least) the Humble Petition in 1657. The tension was only resolved with the fall of the protectorate in early 1659. Indeed, it was only in the last six months of his life that Cooper was able to square his religious views with his political beliefs. His will, drawn up on 12 July 1659 – shortly before his return to Ireland – shows that he was a relatively prosperous man, with rentals worth over £300 per annum, as well as an estate in Denbighshire and an allocation of nearly 2,000 acres in Ireland. His executors were his wife and her brother, Richard Price. Cooper left four sons and two daughters, but their fate is unknown.91PROB11/301/341.