TAYLOR, Nathaniel (1617-83), of Cardington, Beds.

The Taylor family is said to have originated from Whitchurch in Shropshire, but this MP was born and bred as a Londoner.13Burke Commoners, iii. 108. Born in 1617, he was educated at Cambridge and then at Gray’s Inn, probably with a view to becoming a lawyer.14St Leonard Eastcheap, London par. reg. f. 18; G. Inn Admiss. 222. He probably pursued some sort of legal vocation, as his careers as an MP and as a government official in the 1650s strongly suggest that he was experienced in such matters, although there is no evidence that he was ever called to the bar.

Taylor was probably a newcomer to Bedfordshire when he represented the county in the 1653 Parliament. He had been added to the local commission of the peace as recently as the summer of 1651, and he was included for the first time on the Bedfordshire assessment commission in late 1652.15C231/6, p. 218; CJ vii. 227a; A. and O. He was probably living at Cardington, where his daughter Elizabeth was baptised in March 1653.16Beds. RO, WB/WF2/15/3; Beds. Par. Regs. ed. Emmison, viii. 16. By then he was sufficiently well-known in the county that one resident, Thomas Sibthorpe of Marston Moretaine, was indicted at the Bedfordshire quarter sessions for making seditious remarks about him.17Notes and Extracts from the Co. Recs. being a Cal. of Vol. I of the Sessions Minute Bks. 1651 to 1660 (Beds. Co. Recs. ii), 22. That Taylor had only recently been appointed as a justice of the peace was mentioned by the godly inhabitants of Bedfordshire when they wrote to the council of the army in May that year recommending him for nomination as their MP. In their view, Taylor and John Croke, a Quaker, were just the sort of men who should sit in the next Parliament.18Original Letters, ed. Nickolls, 92-3. It was on that basis that he (but not Croke) was summoned to attend the Nominated Parliament.

One common theme of Taylor’s activity in the 1653 Parliament was his interest in legal affairs: he sat on most of the committees which considered the vexed question of law reform.19CJ vii. 285a, 286b, 304b. In 1660 Bulstrode Whitelocke*, seeking to defend his conduct under the republic, called on Taylor to support his claim that this Parliament had delayed its consideration of the question of law reform as Whitelocke had been out of the country.20Whitelocke, Diary, 594. Thus, Whitelocke knew that Taylor had followed those discussions with interest. Other matters which seem to have attracted his attention were Scotland, taxation and the appointment of the admiralty judges.21CJ vii. 283b, 286b, 289a, 300a. He was said to have opposed the maintenance of a preaching ministry.22Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 430. This fits with his known sympathies. In 1654 the master of Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, William Dell, told two of the Bedfordshire voters that they should support Taylor, John Okey* and Edward Cater* in the new parliamentary elections because they were ‘good men, and against the paying of tithes and taxes’.23CSP Dom. 1654, p. 334. Taylor is also known to have been a friend of the Congregationalist preacher George Cockaine.24PROB11/378/206. Despite Dell’s enthusiasm, Taylor did not stand for re-election in 1654.

The major development in Taylor’s career came in 1655 when he was appointed the clerk of the commonwealth in chancery (the 1650s’ equivalent of the clerk of the crown in chancery).25Aylmer, ‘Check-list’; Aylmer, State’s Servants, 88. This placed him at the heart of the legal bureaucracy of the protectorate. It also meant that he was ineligible to stand for Parliament in 1656, as it was he who was responsible for receiving the incoming election indentures.26Whitelocke, Diary, 449. He would later serve on the sub-committee appointed by the council of state to reorganize the Scottish public records which had been brought south following Oliver Cromwell’s* conquest of the northern kingdom.27CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 62. Attempts by Taylor in 1658 to claim arrears supposedly amounting to £1,000, which he argued were owed for the fees which ought to have been paid to him for every justice appointed to the commissions of the peace, were unsuccessful. His claim was rejected by the council the day before Cromwell died.28CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 127.

Taylor’s position as a trusted servant of the protectorate helped secure him appointment as recorder of Colchester. The factional intrigue within the Colchester corporation had resulted in John Shaw* securing the position of recorder, only for his appointment to be challenged in the courts. In the end, the council of state had ruled that elections should be held to choose a recorder, no doubt hoping to block the re-appointment of Shaw, who was thought to be unsympathetic to the protectorate. The local deputy major-general, Hezekiah Haynes*, was sent to oversee the contest in December 1655. The result was a very narrow victory for Taylor as, in effect, the official government candidate. Haynes then wrote to Charles Fleetwood* to ask him to encourage Taylor to accept this job, as it is clear that he had some reservations. The problem seems to have been that Taylor knew that he would be unable to perform the duties in person and that Shaw and his allies would be a constant source of trouble.29TSP iv. 330. In the end, Taylor accepted. The council of state confirmed his appointment when it issued a new charter to the corporation the following year.30CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 79.

The re-establishment of the republic in 1659 was something of a mixed blessing for Taylor. He may have lost his position as recorder of Colchester as early as July 1659, being replaced by Shaw, when a further remodelling of the corporation unseated those who had been most supportive of the protectorate.31J.H. Round, ‘Colchester during the Commonwealth’, EHR xv. 659-60. On the other hand, he gained a new government job as one of the probate commissioners.32Whitelocke, Diary, 547. Meanwhile, his chancery position was threatened by a rival claimant. Almost as soon as he had been appointed in 1655, Taylor had faced complaints from Valentine Willis, who asserted a reversionary claim to the office. A legal action brought by Willis in 1659 upheld those claims and that summer both sides appealed to the council of state.33CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 373; 1659-60, pp. 29, 33. Taylor’s superior political connections worked to his advantage as the council either overruled the legal judgment or ignored it, with the result that Taylor remained in office for the time being. It was only after the return of the king in 1660 that he was deprived of this position.34Aylmer, State’s Servant, 88.

By the early 1680s Taylor was living in London in the parish of St Giles Cripplegate and it was there that he was buried when he died of a fever in January 1683.35St Giles Cripplegate, London par. reg. His estates then passed, in the first instance, to his widow and then to his eldest son, John.36PROB11/378/206. Some years later John would purchase an estate at Bifrons, just outside Canterbury, in Kent and this became the principal seat of their descendants.37Burke Commoners, iii. 108. This MP’s great-great-grandson, Edward Taylor†, sat for Canterbury between 1807 and 1812.38HP Commons 1790-1820.