BOUGHTON, Thomas (1602-?51), of Bilton, Warws.

The Boughton family had first arrived in east Warwickshire from Bedfordshire in 1441. Little Lawford manor came at that time to Thomas Boughton by the title of his wife, the last of the Craft family, which had lived there since 1166.15Dugdale, Warws. i. 99. Thomas, this Member, could therefore claim ancient ancestry as a manorial lord, albeit that the Boughton patrimony was confined to one manor. The Boughtons were long-standing tenants of the convent of Pipewell, Northamptonshire, and acquired various of its properties at the dissolution: the manors of Newbold Grange, Long Lawford and Bilton Grange.16VCH Warws. vi. 189. Edward Boughton, Thomas’s father, bought Bilton manor in 1610, and his elder son, William, added another manor in Newbold to the family’s growing estates in 1640.17VCH Warws. vi. 32; Dugdale, Warws. i. 96. The manor of Brownsover, in the same area, completed the family’s holdings before the civil war.18VCH Warws. vi. 66. The Boughtons were thus an upwardly mobile gentry family, with concentrated landed interests in the Rugby area. On his mother’s side, Thomas Boughton was related to some notable families. His mother’s family produced in Robert Catesby, Thomas Boughton’s second cousin, a Gunpowder plotter, and the Catesbys were related to the Feildings, earls of Denbigh, of Newnham Paddox.19Vis. Warws. 1619 (Harl. Soc. xii), 11, 126; Vis Warws. 1682-3 (Harl. Soc. lxii), 161, 163.

Edward Boughton was evidently materially ambitious. As an enclosing, rack-renting landlord, he allegedly exploited his lands in Brownsover so that their annual value of £50 was converted to a windfall of £1,000 when his tenants paid the entry fines on their new 21-year leases.20Warws. RO, CR 146/711. He also went far beyond the confines of east Warwickshire to make a marriage match for his elder son, having heard of the prospects of the daughters of Henry Baker of North Shoebury in Essex, who was already dead at the time the marriage agreement was formalised in December 1622. According to William Boughton, Thomas’s elder brother, it was his wooing of Abigail Baker that brought Judith Baker to the attention of Thomas.21Warws. RO, CR 840/2. A portion of Bilton manor was bestowed on Thomas Boughton when he married Judith in 1623, and the rest came to him when his father died in August 1625, giving him a minimum annual income of £500.22Warws. RO, CR 162/472; VCH Warws. vi. 32. For a younger son, Thomas was therefore set up well, but on the death of his father, it became clear in legal disputes between Thomas and William Boughton that the generosity of Edward Boughton had not been simple fatherly affection, but had arisen from dissension within the family.

Edward Boughton had been displeased with William for leaving to travel in France in defiance of his wishes, and drew up a will that favoured Thomas. On William’s return, father and son were reconciled, but there was left a legacy of distrust, and Edward Boughton apparently began to feel that he might have been deceived into developing a hostility towards his eldest son. At the same time, Edward became fiercely critical of his son-in-law, William Combe*, to the point of wishing that Katherine, his daughter, ‘had been buried when she went to be married’.23Warws. RO, CR 162/42; CR 840/2. After Edward’s death, the family was left to work out these various levels of mutual suspicion, which culminated in a chancery case around 1630 brought by Thomas against his brother. The plaintiff’s case was that Edward Boughton had intended Thomas to have even more of the patrimony than he actually inherited. The defendant’s answer emphasised that Thomas had seized rents ‘by wrong and undue means’, and took away cartloads of William’s goods, including silver given him at his christening. William admitted that Edward loved Thomas ‘above any of his other children’.24Warws. RO, CR 162/ 2; CR 840/2.

Thomas Boughton appeared in no local government commissions out of chancery before 1641, and was a reluctant taxpayer before 1640. He was presented for not paying the Forced Loan, and appeared before the privy council in February 1627. On 2 June 1627, he was again summoned before it.25APC Jan.-Aug. 1627, pp. 61, 314. In the 1630s, like his brother-in-law William Combe, he withheld payment on the second writ for Ship Money, but was more defiant, remaining on the list of defaulters in May 1638.26E179/275/14; E179/272/58. It is doubtful whether any sophisticated political motive can be read into this failure to pay. Given the irascible personalities of the Boughtons and William Combe, it was as likely to have arisen from his preoccupation with clinging on to all possible items of the family’s property as from more principled perceptions. The personal quarrels of the Boughton family probably contributed much to the differing loyalties of its members in the 1640s. William and Thomas Boughton were named to local tax commissions on the eve of the civil war conflict, proving that Thomas had expunged any lingering suspicion that might have been harboured by the government towards him. William Boughton was named in the king’s commission of array on 17 June 1642, and was the royalists’ choice of sheriff of Warwickshire in October 1643. But by February of the latter year, the paths of the brothers had divided, as Thomas was named to the parliamentarian tax commissions, and to the Warwickshire committee for sequestrations.27A. and O.

Like that of his brother-in-law Combe, Boughton’s political commitment to Parliament fell short of activity on the local committees to which he had been named, and although he contributed modest amounts to the funds of the Coventry committee for levying money in 1643, he seems rarely to have signed their warrants.28SP28/246, note of money and plate lent by committeemen at Coventry. He certified the good affection to Parliament of the bailiff of Tamworth in 1642-3, which perhaps signified a preference for building alliances rather than for creating enemies.29SP28/247/238. The war drew him to become a political ally of his relative, the parliamentarian moderate, Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh, and Denbigh argued in a well-publicized attack on the Warwickshire county committee in December 1643 that the committee, led by William Purefoy I*, had excluded Boughton and other Denbigh associates from its counsels.30Bodl. Tanner 62, ff. 405, 407-8, 420, 453-5. It may well have been his kinsman Denbigh’s support for him that cost Boughton the trust of the Coventry-based committee, as Denbigh was even-handed in his support of the politically-divided Boughtons. On a number of occasions, Denbigh publicly acknowledged his family link with the Boughtons, and in the 1650s was able to produce for the use of the prominent antiquary, William Dugdale, evidence about their history. In fact, the blood relationship was a distant one, the brothers being the third cousins, twice removed, to the earl.31Warws. RO, CR 2017/F101, ff. 8, 27; Vis. Warws. 1619 (Harl. Soc. xii), 11; Vis. Warws. 1682-3 (Harl. Soc. lxii), 161, 163. The basis of the relationship between Denbigh and the Boughtons may in reality have been more pecuniary than familial, as Denbigh owed money to Sir William Boughton.32Warws. RO, CR 2017/A1, pp. 9, 12, 49.

Denbigh intervened with Col. John Fox, ‘Tinker’ Fox, governor of Edgbaston garrison, to prevent the sequestration of a manor held by Sir William Boughton, arguing that Boughton was well affected to Parliament.33HMC 4th Rep. 267. More importantly, Denbigh quarrelled with the Dutch parliamentarian soldier, Hans Behr, who was garrisoned at the house of Sir William Boughton. It was a dispute about the earl’s loss of military authority over Behr, and Denbigh’s account of it to the Committee of Both Kingdoms implied that Behr’s behaviour was an abuse of the courtesy he had received in being allowed to quarter at William Boughton’s, even though the latter was a royalist.34HMC 4th Rep. 265. Whether his brother, Thomas Boughton, was an activist prevented from attending the committee by its own hostility to him, or a politically lukewarm moderate client of Denbigh’s is difficult to prove, but the bulk of circumstantial evidence would point to the latter interpretation.35Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 420; Warws. RO, CR 2017/C10/134. Boughton’s policy of making financial contributions while staying aloof from administrative activity was used against him by his enemies in 1645, who from the perspective of the Warwickshire county committee opposed the appointment of Boughton and William Combe to the sub-committee for taking accounts, another vehicle of the earl of Denbigh. It was argued that Boughton had been a committeeman; that he refused to sign warrants suggested he was disaffected to Parliament, and committee involvement and disaffection were both reasons to disqualify him from office.36SP28/247/485. Beyond the orbit of the Coventry committee, Boughton was evidently committed to the parliamentarian cause, in July 1644 helping the officers of Denbigh’s army to raise money to pay troops.37Warws. RO, CR 2017/C10/21.

The Warwickshire election to replace James Compton, Lord Compton and Richard Shuckburgh was begun at Warwick on 27 October 1645, and was concluded at Meriden on 5 November. The election was seen by the Presbyterian-inclining press and by William Dugdale, a staunch royalist, as a competition between the county committee’s nominees, Richard Lucy* and John Bridges* and the choice of the freeholders and gentlemen, Sir John Burgoyne* and Boughton.38The Scotish Dove no. 108 (7-12 Nov. 1645), 852-4 (E.309.5); Dugdale, Diary and Corresp. 82. The conflict between the soldiers, led by George Purefoy, governor of the Compton House garrison, and the freeholders was persistent and turbulent, with either side determined not to yield to the other. Over five days, meetings of an increasing number of freeholders, reaching over 200 by 31 October, met for a few hours each day to be harassed and prevented from casting a vote by the soldiers. Their determination to block the choice of the freeholders was perhaps fuelled by knowledge that servants of James Compton by this time the royalist 3rd earl of Northampton, had been active in trying to persuade some voters to support either Burgoyne or Boughton.39The Scotish Dove no. 108, 852. On 31 October, the poll was adjourned to Coleshill in the north of the country, where the committee had more supporters, but this put the whole election in jeopardy from a possible raid from one of the king’s garrisons at Lichfield, Dudley and Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Boughton went north in some trepidation: ‘We are now going in great danger to be surprised by the enemy: the God of heaven be our protection and prosper us no farther than we aim at his glory and the public good.’40The Scotish Dove no. 108, 854.

The meeting at Coleshill on 5 November lasted only an hour before the nervous sheriff adjourned it to Meriden, about six miles away, where Burgoyne and Boughton were at last declared elected. Few freeholders attended, and the committeemen were anxious, but even so the result favoured the freeholders’ candidates. Only the military presence was removed from the poll by the two changes of venue.41Dugdale, Diary and Corresp. 82. The return for the election was dated 27 October, the first day of the poll, and William Purefoy I*, leader of the county committee, was among the electors who signed it. The difficulties at the election may thus have owed more to rank-and-file protest by soldiers than to the conflict between the committee and its opponents.42C219/43/3/58.

Boughton made no immediate mark on Parliament. He used his place to pursue his own interest against the Coventry committee, however, which was detaining from him a lease of a sequestered house in that city, and he attended the Committee for Sequestrations with his complaints against his former colleagues.43SP20/1/3, p. 818. It was 17 April 1646 before he was named to a committee, and then to one on reform of local government in Cheshire, in which geographical proximity of his west midlands seat counted as much as anything.44CJ iv. 512a. In June he was named to a committee to investigate the complaint by the disgraced royalist, James Hamilton, 2nd earl of Cambridge and 1st duke of Hamilton [S] that Denbigh had seized his goods unlawfully; Boughton must have been included as a client of the latter.45CJ iv. 571b. In August he was one of an ad hoc committee of 18 charged with reviewing payments to the Scots army, and preparing accounts of that army’s expenses. He was named with William Purefoy I and Humphrey Salwey, which could suggest that he was able to collaborate with these midlands MPs sympathetic to the army, or that his presence was something of a counterweight: either way, Boughton was certainly of much less consequence than they.46CJ iv. 650b. He apparently had no difficulty in taking the Covenant, on 9 December.47CJ v. 7b. He was involved in an episode in January 1647 that revisited his appointment as a member of the Warwickshire sub-committee of accounts, a vehicle for critics of the Coventry-based committee of the county. The Committee for Taking the Accounts of the Kingdom brought into the House cases of obstructions by local committees in preparing their accounts. Among these was an order signed by the leaders of the Warwickshire county committee forbidding those to whom it was sent from making accounts to the sub-committees. This case was referred to an augmented committee of the House, to which Boughton was an addition. This re-formed parliamentary committee, led by Presbyterians like Sir Robert Harley, was naturally seen as critical of the army and the county committees.48CJ v. 62b, 63a; Add. 31116, p. 597.

The opportunity to strike back at his Warwickshire opponents that membership of the House of Commons had bestowed on Boughton was further exploited in March. He was named to a committee charged with reducing the garrison at Coventry. While the complement of soldiers there was to be maintained for a further two months, the artillery and hand weapons were to be dispersed, the new fortifications dismantled, and examinations and informations regarding the activities of the Coventry committee were to be scrutinised by the parliamentary body. Boughton made a long speech in the Commons (24 Mar.) against the Coventry committee. It was a measure of where power lay at this point that the name of William Purefoy I was last on the list of the committee’s members.49CJ v. 122b; Add. 31116, p. 610. But this was not the start of a period of anti-military parliamentary activity by Boughton: in fact, beyond his nomination to a committee the same month to consider a renewal of the commission of the great seal, it marked his last mention in the Journal until December 1647, and he played no part at all in the events of summer 1647, the Presbyterian-inspired disorder and the recovery of the Independents after the arrival of the New Model army in London.50CJ v. 117b, 379b; Add. 31116, p. 609.

Boughton’s political confidence, never very strong, virtually collapsed with the ascendancy of the army, and his public activities became even more modest than they had been when Denbigh was actively supporting him. He had been named to the Warwickshire bench of magistrates in July 1646, but never acted, and the permission he was granted in December 1647 to go the country was more likely to have been given on health grounds than for reasons of public service.51CJ v. 379b. A few weeks later he was ordered to Warwickshire; by this time he was already marked, because of his speech and activities against the Coventry committee, as an enemy of the army, and a year later, when he was ordered to bring in assessments in Warwickshire, it was probably not expected that he would act.52CJ v. 400b; vi, 88a. At Pride’s Purge, he was almost doomed to be a victim; that he was one of those imprisoned on the night of 6 December in the eating-house known as ‘Hell’ was a comment on his stance of March 1647. He was released with 15 others after giving an assurance to Sir Thomas Fairfax* that he would not act against the army, but his political career was over.53The Parliament under the Sword (1648), 4 (E.476.1); Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 36 (5-12 Dec. 1648), sig. ccc2 (E.476.2), no. 39 (19-26 Dec. 1648), sig. Ecc2 (E.477.30); A Declaration (1648), 11 (E.476.17). Denbigh, his mentor, by contrast, survived to play a part in the republican government.54Oxford DNB. Boughton must have returned immediately to Warwickshire, but played no further part in public life. He probably died at Bilton in 1651. The family link with Denbigh persisted: Boughton’s son, Thomas, was in 1656 sent money by Denbigh for the midwife and nurses at the birth of a child.55Warws. RO, CR 2017/A1, p. 75. Although Thomas Boughton junior was named to tax commissions and to the Warwickshire bench of magistrates at the Restoration, he never became one of the quorum.56SR; Eg. 2557; Warwick County Records, iv. None of Thomas Boughton’s descendants sat in Parliament.