COMPTON, James, Lord Compton (1622-81), of Compton Wynyates, Warws. and Castle Ashby, Northants.

Compton Wynyates had been in the hands of the Compton family since the Conquest, but it had been a manor of no more than local importance until Sir William Compton raised the family to great wealth and status during the reign of Henry VIII.55I. H. Jeayes, Catalogue of the Muniments of the Compton Fam. (5 vols. 1921, TNA, National Register of Archives 21088), i. ix-xii. Compton was a confidant of the king, and profited enormously from his offices at court. From the modest but intimate office of groom of the stool, he progressed by means of skilful purchases of select manors and by higher offices, to become ‘one of the wealthiest men in early Tudor England’.56G. W. Bernard, ‘The rise of Sir William Compton, early Tudor courtier’, EHR xcvi, 754-77. Undoubtedly, it was Compton’s relationship with Henry VIII that enabled him to make such huge personal advancement, and on the proceeds of his time at court and his less than fastidious approach to what belonged to him and what belonged to the crown, he was able to rebuild and empark Compton Wynyates and acquire Castle Ashby.57Bernard, ‘Sir William Compton’, 773; Jeayes, Catalogue, xiii. His grandson was elevated to the peerage as Baron Compton in 1572, and his great-grandson was created earl of Northampton in 1618 when the title lapsed on the death of Henry Howard. For three generations, the earls of Northampton combined service at court with regional eminence in the midlands, and a number of offices held by James Compton after 1660 had earlier been held by his grandfather and father, among them the lord lieutenancy of Warwickshire, the mastership of the leash and the keepership of Whittlewood Forest.58CP ix. 677-80.

James Compton’s grandfather married the daughter of Sir John Spencer of Canonbury, a London magnate, and brought to the family an impressive range of choice properties in Middlesex. By 1631, the annual income of the family was assessed at over £6,000, but was compromised by the debts incurred by the 2nd earl, at whose death in 1630 there was owing over £10,000.59Castle Ashby ms 1085/7; Warws. RO, CR 556/274, f. 13. The 2nd earl, James Compton’s father, was a personal friend of Charles, prince of Wales, attending him abroad on his abortive trip to Spain in 1623, and at home before and after he became king, as master of the robes.60CP ix. 679-80. James Compton’s mother was the daughter of Sir Francis Beaumont of Cole Orton; Mary Beaumont, Sir Francis’s sister, was the mother of George Villiers, duke of Buckingham. This link provided another reason why the Compton family should have been such ardent courtiers.61HP Lords, 1604-29, iii. 793-4; R. Lockyer, Buckingham (1981), 5, 8, 74-5. The 2nd earl of Northampton was addressed by the king as ‘cousin’, and Lord Compton was known to the queen; letters to him from Henrietta Maria were once at Castle Ashby.62Castle Ashby mss 1044/1780, 1083/1. James Compton inherited the courtesy title of Lord Compton, reserved for the heir of the earl, at his grandfather’s death in 1630. The election for the second Parliament of 1640 marked his first entry into politics. It is clear that he was very deliberately selected for the role by his father, who had James recalled from the Netherlands, where he may have been rounding off his education, or perhaps learning something of the military life. On 29 September from York, where he was with the king, the 2nd earl sent a message to his wife to promote James’s candidature, even before Charles had summoned the Long Parliament.63SP16/468/87, quoted in A. Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warws. 1620-60 (Cambridge, 1987), 119-20.

In the event, the Warwickshire election for this Parliament took place late, on 2 November 1640, and a week later a petition was sent to the House by county freeholders bringing into question Compton’s election.64CJ ii. 23a. The promoter of the petition in the House was his fellow-knight, William Combe, who asserted that that William Purefoy I* had polled more votes than Compton, by a ratio of three to one. Combe’s presentation of his own case did nothing for its credibility, and after long debate, on 2 December the elections of both Combe and Compton were declared void. 65D’Ewes (N), 95-6; CJ ii. 43b. A few days earlier, on 30 November, Compton had been named to a committee to meet with the Lords to discuss the accusations against the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†).66CJ ii. 39b. A new election was held for the county between 28 December and 1 January 1641.67Warws. RO, CR 2981/box 8/bdle. 25/9. Compton headed the poll with 1,369 votes, an impressive lead of 467 votes over his nearest rival, Richard Shuckburgh*. His showing in the poll was at least partly owing to a bungled campaign by William Combe and Sir Francis Nethersole†, who put it about that Compton was a Catholic recusant ‘or that ways inclined’, and that his standing as a minor disqualified his candidacy. The petitioners were instead persuaded that Compton was ‘a good Protestant’, and that he had demonstrated his religious position. They were evidently impressed by Compton’s bearing: ‘his grave and modest fashion and carriage at the time of election do make us confident of his capacity and judgment worthy of his election.’ William Combe had apparently promised in London, between the two Warwickshire elections for this Parliament, to support Compton and then reneged on his promise. In fact, whatever Compton’s personal religious views may have been, he certainly had a following among the recusant gentry, one of whom advised the Catholic Robert Throckmorton of Coughton, an adviser of Compton’s, that their candidate were well advised not to be ‘too prodigal of his purse and honour’.68Warws. RO, CR 1998/box 60/folder 4, no. 17. Given the very strong showing for Compton, Combe’s tactics seem like an attempt to coat-tail the man recognised as the leading candidate.69Warws. RO, CR 2981/box 8/bdle. 25/9. Nothing came of petitions questioning the outcome of the election.

Compton’s committee appointments during his time in the Commons were varied, but tended to be on topics outside the main concerns of politics. He sat on two concerned with grants of lands or titles to noble individuals, the queen (17 Feb. 1641) and John Paulet, 5th marquess of Winchester (13 Mar.), and on 12 March was named to a committee on the foundation of Newark hospital.70CJ ii. 87b, 102b, 103b. On 1 March he was a teller against sending Dr Thomas Chaffin, a clergyman, to the Tower for asking divine deliverance from lay puritans and lay Parliaments’ (the clerk of the Commons, mistakenly, recorded Compton as a teller in favour).71CJ ii. 94b; Procs. LP ii. 585-6, 589-90. On 9 April, Compton was a teller against the motion that the cessation of arms with the Scots be continued, against Denzil Holles and the parliamentary leadership. From his stance in this division, which Compton and the other ‘noes’ lost by 39 votes, it can be inferred that he was in favour of a disbanding of the armies altogether, and did not support the majority acceptance of the Scots’ presence as a guarantee of Parliament’s continued sitting.72CJ ii. 118a; Procs. LP iii. 481.

Compton played only a modest part in the passing of ‘remedial’ legislation of 1641, but on 12 April was named to a committee to loosen the constraints on preaching.73CJ ii. 119a. His commitment to reform was limited, however, as was shown on 21 April after the debate on the trial of Strafford. The Speaker called for voices to declare approval of the bill for his attainder; Sir Simonds D’Ewes* thought that in the ensuing shout, the ayes outnumbered the noes by five or six to one. The noes insisted on a division, however, and the names of noes were taken down; Compton was listed fourth.74Procs. LP iv. 41-2, 51; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 248. Between this vote and 13 August, when he received permission to go to the country, Compton was named only to four committees. He was evidently in favour of improving supply to the crown, as he was named to a committee to improve local assessment and collection methods in the subsidy.75CJ ii. 130b. On 3 May he took the Protestation, appearing seventh in the list in the Journal, his earlier support for Strafford notwithstanding, but his absence from the parliamentary record between then and early July suggests a withdrawal after the earl’s execution on 12 May.76CJ ii. 132b. He acted as a messenger between the Commons and Lords on 14 and 15 July, but after receiving permission to go to the country on 13 August, he played no further part in the House until 2 November.77CJ ii. 211b, 213a, 254a. The date of his leave of absence and the month of his return suggest that he may have gone to Scotland with the king. The subject of his next appearance in the Commons on 2 November, nomination to a joint committee with the Lords to approach the City for a loan of £50,000, is similarly suggestive. The period just before and during Charles’s return to the capital saw a temporary rapprochement between the king’s supporters and the City aldermen; Compton’s presence on the committee is an indication that he was working in the king’s interests.78CJ ii. 302a.

Compton was one of the committee of 12 from the Commons, headed by Sir John Culpeper*, the chancellor of the exchequer, which attended the king on 25 January 1642 with a petition requesting that the kingdom be put into a posture of defence. The aim of those who drafted the petition was to win the nomination of leading militia officers as a concession from the king. Like Culpeper himself, Compton was little more than the acceptable face of the Commons to Charles on this occasion, and indeed may have been selected with the aim of sugaring the bitter pill. The king was not swayed by the presence of his friends in the delegation, and rejected the Commons’ attempt to pick ‘the flower of his crown’, the right of nomination to military office.79CJ ii. 394a; Clarendon, Hist. i. 534-6. Compton played a similar role on 19 February. John Pym that day took a message from the Commons to the Lords in response to the king’s reply to the denunciation of George Digby*, Lord Digby. Regarded by Pym, his associates and a wide spectrum of opinion in the Commons as the instigator of the attempt on the Five Members, Digby was the target of a campaign fuelled by the interception of his letters. They contained evidence that he regarded the Commons’ leaders as treasonous, and Pym persuaded the Lords to agree to the sending of the transcripts to the king. Compton was chosen to accompany the 2nd earl of Leicester (Robert Sidney†) in delivering the letters to Charles.80CJ ii. 441b; Clarendon, Hist. i. 572; PJ i. 417. Nevertheless, Compton was well enough inclined to listen to the voices of reformers to introduce the Warwickshire petition denouncing popery and innovation in the church, ‘evil counsellors’ and popish lords on 12 February.81PJ i. 362; LJ iv. 579b.

That Compton was an opponent of the ‘fiery spirits’ was demonstrated on 7 March, when he opposed the appointment of Thomas Coleman as lecturer at St Giles-in-the-Fields. Compton and Richard Sackville, Lord Buckhurst were tellers for the noes, against Oliver Cromwell and John Blakiston.82CJ ii. 470b. The following week, Compton was again a messenger to the king, with Edward Bayntun, on the subject of the Irish rebellion. In a speech at a conference of Lords and Commons on 26 January 1642, Pym had alleged that the rebellion had taken place with the king’s connivance, in that he had allowed the rebel commanders to move freely from England to Ireland with royal passes. The speech was published, and Charles took great exception to it, communicating his displeasure to the House on 7 February.83Clarendon, Hist. i. 540-1, 560-1. A dialogue on the subject then began between the king and the Commons, with the former demanding a retraction and the latter maintaining the allegation.84Clarendon, Hist. i. 561-2; ii. 2-3. Compton and Bayntun were asked to convey a message from the Commons on the day of publication of a further list of rebel leaders whose mobility had gone unchecked. Compton requested to be relieved of his charge, but the Commons declined to accede.85PJ ii. 45. They rode to York to present Charles with the message from the Commons, arriving in the city on 19 March.86Clarendon, Hist. ii. 562; CJ ii. 494b. On 24 March, Compton reported the king’s intransigent reply in the House: his last recorded intervention there.87CJ ii. 494b; PJ ii. 77, 81.

Compton’s father was among the peers attending the king at York in June 1642, and was named in the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire commissions of array on the 17th and 18th of that month.88Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. It was a foregone conclusion that the Comptons would be loyal servants of the king: the earl certainly saw his son as a close ally, writing to his wife that Compton’s business concerned them all.89CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 340. On 6 August, the earl was given a commission to raise a foot regiment, and it is likely that James Compton immediately received a commission to serve in it.90Castle Ashby ms 1083/3, 4, 5; Compton, Hist. of the Comptons, 83. An early attempt to garrison Banbury for the Parliament was abandoned in the face of Northampton’s advancing force, which took advantage of the retreat by Nathaniel Fiennes I* to plunder houses in Warwick. It was reported on 17 August that Compton was a leader of this raiding party, which mounted two guns on the steeple of a church in the town, in order to fire on the walls of Warwick Castle. Both guns blew up when being discharged, killing seven gunners. Compton was knocked out, the shrapnel ‘taking off a piece of his cheek and beat[ing] his nose flat to his face’. The artillery of Lord Brooke (Robert Greville†) shattered the spire in return fire, and the parliamentarians counted their escape from the surrounding royalists a victory.91Joyfull Newes from Warwick (1642), 3 (BL 1508.919); CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 379. Compton had recovered enough by mid-September to have led a force quartering in west Warwickshire, around Alcester.92CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 392.

Two of the sons of the earl of Northampton were at the battle of Edgehill in October 1642 , but there is no evidence that James Compton was knighted with them there, despite an assertion that he was.93Compton, Hist. of the Comptons, 84. The earl’s grip on the country around Banbury tightened, and he was given more commissions to raise troops, culminating in an appointment as commander of all forces in Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and their associated cities.94Castle Ashby ms 1083/6,7; Harl. 6804, f. 177; Compton, Hist. of the Comptons, 85, 86. Northampton attended the king’s military council in Oxford, and argued that peace was only acceptable if the king’s servants were given security; otherwise, death was preferable to dishonour.95Two Speeches (1643), n.p. (E.83.47). As a response to the commitment of Northampton and Compton to military action against Parliament, on 16 February 1643 Compton was disabled from sitting further in the Commons.96CJ ii. 967b. In the debate preceding the order to expel him, it was reported from the Committee for Informations that Compton had told his prisoner, Richard Crosse, lieutenant to Lord Brooke, ‘that he was a roundhead and that he would make him curse the earl of Essex and committed him to Banbury and pinioned his head’. It was William Purefoy I, whose kinsman was later to garrison Compton Wynyates for Parliament, who moved that Compton be expelled.97Add 18777, f. 156; Harl. 164, f. 298; Peacock, Army Lists, 48. It is likely that Compton accompanied his father in the campaign of March 1643, and he was at Hopton Heath on 19 March, when Northampton was killed after refusing ‘to take quarter from such base rogues and rebels as [the Parliamentarians] were’. Compton broke the news to his mother in a letter full of brave acceptance of his loss: ‘But madam, casualties in the world will happen, and in such a cause who would not have ventured both life and fortune?’ He himself was shot in the leg; royalist commentators were confident that he had ‘so much of the father in him, that he only wants time and opportunity to make him more like him’.98The Battaile on Hopton Heath (1643), 4-7 (E.99.18).

In the immediate aftermath of his father’s death, the new earl of Northampton requested Prince Rupert to bestow on him the military commissions that had been held by the second earl. The king, who was genuinely ‘much afflicted’ at the loss of a senior commander and personal friend, was perfectly willing to agree to the request. Among these commissions came the governorship of Banbury, but this was nominal: town and castle were defended by the new earl’s brother, William Compton.99Add. 18980, f. 28; HMC Hastings, ii. 96. In April, Northampton thanked Sir Christopher Hatton for his condolences on the death of his father, and added that it had ‘always been the mark I aimed at to be in the good opinion of worthy men’.100Add. 29570, f. 3. This may have been more than a rhetorical flourish, since Northampton’s military career, despite some early successes, did not persist in the way that might have been predicted from the circumstances of his father’s death. At the battle of Middleton Cheney, Oxfordshire, in May 1643, he was successful in routing a parliamentary force, and his victory was regarded by the royalists as some kind of dedication to the memory of his father.101HMC Hastings, ii. 96; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 35. He took part in the first battle of Newbury on 20 September. He was, however, unable to restrain the plundering activities in south Warwickshire of Col. Gerard Croker, suggesting that his status did not outweigh his youth and inexperience.102Add. 18980, f. 58; P. Tennant, Edgehill and Beyond (Stroud, 1992), 100-2. Furthermore, there developed at Banbury serious differences of opinion between the Compton brothers, who evidently had difficulties in accepting the new earl’s seniority.103Add 29570; Tennant, Edgehill and Beyond, 104-5. Northampton complained later in the war that he ‘never yet received either civil or military preferment’.104Add. 29570, f. 7.

In December, Northampton signed the letter addressed by the peers to the lords of the privy council of Scotland, appealing against the entry into England of the Scots army.105Clarendon, Hist. iii. 287-8. This was not the start of a major role in politics for him, however; instead, he continued to provide front-line military service for the king in the midlands, until Compton Wynyates fell to William Purefoy I on 9 June 1644.106Dugdale, Diary and Corresp. 68-9. Northampton blamed his brother for this disaster.107Tennant, Edgehill and Beyond, 164. In November, an attempt by his younger brothers to recover the house from the parliamentarians failed, and Northampton’s goods were reported to be in transit for sale in London for Parliament’s war-chest.108Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 48-9, 56; Tennant, Edgehill and Beyond, 205-6. After he had divested himself of some of his colonelcies, and following months of manoeuvrings around the midlands, Northampton was defeated decisively by Oliver Cromwell* at Islip on 28 April 1645, and 800 men of his and another commander’s regiments were reported captured in May.109Bodl. Dugdale 19, f. 115; Sprigg, Anglia Rediviva (1854), 12; Lttr. Bks. of Sir Samuel Luke, 115, 116, 201, 202, 203-4, 205, 225, 229, 255, 257-8; Brereton Lttr. Bks. i. 58, 343, 344. After this setback and just before the even greater disaster of Naseby, Northampton’s servant, Philip Willoughby, recited to the earl’s mother how much he had done to wean her son from ‘ill company’ and to procure a transfer of military appointments and crown favours for him.110Add. 29570, f. 17.

On 30 April 1646, before the fall of Oxford, Northampton submitted to the authority of Parliament, and sought to compound for his royalism. The interests of his creditors and of his younger siblings, who sought to protect their portions and jointures, were taken into account, and his own petition for clemency stressed his youthfulness when first in arms, his dependence on his father’s commands, and his early expression of contrition.111Add. 34253, ff. 42, 44; CCC 1246-7. His case was before the Committee for Compounding for some years. He had no qualms in taking the Engagement of the commonwealth in 1650, and despite the enthusiastic membership of the Sealed Knot from November 1653 of his brother, Sir William Compton*, was never himself a participant. Even so, he was arrested in 1653, 1655 and 1656, including by Major-general William Boteler* for his indignant resistance to the system of bonds and certificates. The arrest was, as the major-general himself seemed to recognize, more a gesture than a confrontation with a subversive.112CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 385-6, 1655, p. 591; Nicholas Pprs. iii. 252; TSP iv. 189. Despite enjoying the protection of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell*, Northampton never truly accepted the defeat of the Stuarts, daring to approach Richard Ingoldsby*, a Cromwellian establishment figure, with a proposal that he joined the royalists.113Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 34; Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 255.

In July 1659, Northampton was admitted to the ‘Great Trust’ led by John Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, and although he missed the crucial part of the meeting of its members when a date for the rising by Sir George Boothe* was agreed, was in full sympathy both with the plan and with the date.114CCSP iv. 235, 222, 270; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 26. At the last minute, however, Northampton changed his mind, having been persuaded by his brother, Sir William, that no rising should take place before complete unity between the Trust and the Sealed Knot was achieved. Relationships within his family were once again responsible for a military outcome that damaged his reputation: Mordaunt blamed Northampton for the collapse of the rising.115CCSP iv. 275, 342; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 29; Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 259-60. In the aftermath of the failed insurrection, Northampton lost much credibility among the royalists, not restored by a period of imprisonment in the Tower in September, and it took him until the spring of 1660 to recover it enough to be included in the inner circle working for the restoration of the king.116CCSP iv. 359, 364, 369, 405, 432, 441, 513, 527, 530, 532, 547, 596; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 66, 70, 73; Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 288. It seems to have been Charles Stuart himself who requested that Northampton be admitted back into the planning group, but Mordaunt found it difficult to trust him: in his view, it was Lady Northampton who was behind the problems they were encountering with the earl.117Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 157, 169; CCSP iv. 636, 663, 665, 669, 674, 682.

After the restoration of the monarchy, Northampton was rewarded for his loyalty and willingness to undertake secret missions on behalf of the king with a range of honours and titles, mainly local to the midlands. He was a loyal local agent of the crown, and acted as a commissioner for corporations at Coventry, having demolished the city walls in order to make it impossible to defend against siege.118CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 423, CTB i. 412, 410; CCSP v. 255. He was able to avenge himself against one of his critics of 1659 when in December 1667 he introduced the bill for the banishment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.119Pepys’s Diary, viii. 565. In April 1668, he was named as a commissioner for settling trade with Scotland.120CSP Dom. 1667-8, p. 156. He retained an electoral interest in Northampton which was mobilised successfully in the February 1679 general election. He died on 15 December 1681 at Castle Ashby, and was buried at Compton Wynyates on the 29th.121CP ix. 682. His brothers Sir Charles, Sir Francis and Sir William Compton sat in the Cavalier Parliament; his son Spencer Compton became Speaker of the House of Commons from 1715 to 1727.122HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1715-1754.