WHALLEY, Henry (d. 1665), of Kirton, Notts. and Athenry, co. Galway.

Henry Whalley was a younger brother of the regicide and major-general, Edward Whalley*, and for much of his early career he remained in his brother’s shadow; appropriately he married Edward’s first wife’s sister. Little is known of his early life. He did not attend a university or inn of court as a young man, and it is unlikely that he was the attorney of Guildhall of the same name active in the late 1620s.22‘Edward Whalley’. Nor should he be confused with the clerk (and later master) of the Stationers’ Company, Henry Whaley.23Stationers’ Co. Apprentices, 1605-40 ed. D.F. McKenzie (Virginia, 1961), 131; Recs. of Co. of Stationers ed. C.R. Rimington (1883), 47; Recs. Ct. of Stationers’ Co. ed. W.A. Jackson (1957), 221-3. It was probably the latter who accompanied Viscount Lisle (Philip Sidney*) on his ill-fated expedition to Ireland in the spring of 1647: this ‘Mr Whalie’ (as Sir Philip Percivalle* described him) was acting as an agent of the City of London, and wrote a letter to the mayor and aldermen – ‘unto whom from my youth I was servant’ – with an account of Lisle’s expedition.24HMC Egmont, i. 366, 384; Add. 46931A, ff. 160-1. Henry Whalley’s first definite appearance in public life comes only in the autumn of 1647, when he was appointed judge-advocate of the army, probably through the influence of his cousin, Oliver Cromwell*. In October 1647, Mercurius Pragmaticus commented on the growing Cromwellian connection in the New Model army, which included not only ‘[Edward] Whalley, colonel of horse’ but also ‘his brother Whalley lately made judge-advocate’.25Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 585n; SP28/54, f. 144. Henry Whalley soon became known as a moderate influence within the officer corps, and like another close associate of Cromwell, William Stane*, he became an adviser of Sir Thomas Fairfax* in 1648.26Gentles, New Model Army, 269. While Edward Whalley and Oliver Cromwell sat in the high court of justice to try the king, in 1649 Henry, as judge-advocate, was involved in proceedings against those who had assisted the 1st duke of Hamilton (James Hamilton), Lord Goring (George Goring*), Lord Capell (Arthur Capell*) and others in fomenting the second civil war.27Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 711. In January 1649 he was made joint-licenser of the press; in March he advised the commonwealth on which articles of war should be upheld, and which malefactors merited freedom from sequestration; and in September he was admitted to Gray’s Inn, in belated recognition of his role in the administration of justice.28LJ x. 646b; HMC Portland, i. 527; G. Inn Admiss. 251. When Cromwell invaded Scotland in 1650, Whalley accompanied him, and was employed as envoy to secure the surrender of the city of Glasgow in October 1650, as the victorious English army marched westwards from Dunbar.29Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 352.

The occupation of Scotland brought Whalley into the civilian as well as military administration in the north. The position of king’s advocate was abolished, and Whalley was instead given two jobs, as judge-advocate of the army in Scotland, and as advocate-general of Scotland.30Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell’, 111, 139-40. This gave him jurisdiction over courts martial and crimes against the state (including murder), and he played a key role in the court martial of Colonel Edward Sexby in June 1651.31Clarke Pprs. v. 27. From the beginning of 1652 Whalley also became the official mouthpiece of the new regime. In February and March 1652 the parliamentary commissioners in Scotland relied on him as their representative in proclaiming government orders and administering oaths of allegiance to the newly-elected Edinburgh magistrates.32J. Nicoll, Diary of Public Transactions (Edinburgh, 1836), 79, 88; Recs. Burgh Edinburgh, 1642-55, 272. They also appointed him as one of the judges of the court of admiralty in Scotland; and in April the declaration of Union between the two countries was proclaimed by Whalley ‘by beat of drum and sound of trumpet’ at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh.33Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 67, 86; Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 41. During 1653 Whalley was repeatedly commissioned to make similar proclamations, and in May 1654 the ordinance of Union and the proclamation of Cromwell as protector was formally announced by Whalley at Edinburgh.34Scot. and Commonwealth, ed. Firth, 156; Nicoll, Diary, 124. As advocate-general as well as judge-advocate, Whalley also intervened in civilian matters, dealing with the petition of Captain Benjamin Bressie* in August 1653; taking bonds for good behaviour from Scottish noblemen; and intervening in individual cases, as in April 1654, when an assize jury acquitted one Captain Wishart, provoking Whalley (‘being offended thereat’) to hold a new inquest and convict him anyway.35Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLV, unfol.: 13 Aug. 1653, 18 Jan. 1654; Nicoll, Diary, 123. As the decade drew on, Whalley was increasingly involved in examining former Scottish royalists, collecting information about their activities, imprisoning some and freeing others on bonds for good behaviour.36Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 31 Mar. and 16 Apr. 1655; XLVII, unfol.: 8 May, 25 May 1655, 14 Mar. 1656; XLVIII, unfol.: 10 July 1656; TSP iii. 411. The most celebrated case tackled by Whalley at this time was a military one – the court martial of Major-general Robert Overton, who had plotted with other colonels to assassinate Cromwell and other leading members of the government. When the plot was first discovered, during the winter of 1654-5, Whalley was in England, prompting the commander in Scotland, George Monck*, to request ‘that there may be order given to hasten Judge-advocate Whalley, that he might be here by the 7th of February’.37Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 244. On his belated arrival in Edinburgh, on 15 February, Whalley immediately took over the preparation of the cases against the ringleaders, brought before the court martial the next day.38Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 250; Add. 4156, f. 143. The testimony of various witnesses was heard by Whalley in early March 1655, and on 8 and 10 March he wrote to Cromwell with detailed accounts of the proceedings.39Add. 4156, ff. 149-50; TSP iii. 205-6, 217-8.

Even as the court martial of Overton proceeded, Whalley’s attention was drifting away from Scotland towards Ireland. Whalley’s interest in Ireland dated from November 1651, when he had bought a share in Adventure lands from his brother and others. This promised him 6,000 acres in co. Down, but in the winter of 1654-5 the allocation was challenged by the original landowners, Lords Montgomery of the Ards and Claneboy, who had by this time compounded for their former royalism.40CSP Ire. Adv. 23; CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 419, 484, 506, 587-8. The Overton case brought Whalley back to Scotland from a period of intense lobbying for a settlement of his Irish problems in London, and when reporting the trial proceedings to Cromwell in March 1655 he added a personal request for ‘two lines from your highness for my constant stay or return, that I may at last settle myself, family and affairs for the remainder of the number of my days’ – an oblique reference to his unfinished business over Irish land.41TSP iii. 206. In June 1655 Whalley petitioned the protector for the confirmation of his land grant, or for compensation in another Irish county. This was but the first of a series of petitions which pointed out the sums he had lost through uncollected rents and the costs of pursuing his case in London.42CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 589, 614-5.

The fate of the Adventure lands undoubtedly proved a distraction to Whalley in Scotland; it also demanded his physical absence from Edinburgh. In July 1655, for example, he was given a pass to visit Ireland for one month, and it is likely that he visited London on more than one occasion to pursue his claim in person during 1655 and 1656.43Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVII, unfol.: 23 July 1655. Whalley’s relatives were also drawn into the case. His brother’s son-in-law, William Goffe*, intervened with Secretary John Thurloe* on at least two occasions in 1655-6 about Whalley’s ‘business’, adding ‘I beseech you help us’.44TSP iv. 393. The need to sort out the Irish land question may have influenced Whalley’s decision to stand as a candidate for Peebles and Selkirk Shires in the parliamentary elections of August 1656.45Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XXVIII, f. 65v; C219/45, unfol. There were other factors in his election – notably his loyalty to, and affinity with, the protector – but it is indicative that he never revisited Scotland after the summer of 1656, and that he relinquished his office as advocate-general at the same time (although he continued as judge-advocate of the army in Scotland until at least August 1658).46SP28/116, f. 243. Whalley’s departure from Scotland caused problems for George Monck, whose administration had already been weakened by the absence of councillors and judges in England, and in August 1657 the general complained that ‘his highness’s affairs here do very much suffer for want of a good advocate-general’ – a testament to Whalley’s effectiveness in the role in the years before 1656.47TSP vi. 464.

Whalley arrived in Westminster shortly after the opening of the second protectorate Parliament, and was named to the committee of Scottish affairs on 23 September 1656.48CJ vii. 427a. His activity in Parliament can be divided into four categories: legal reform, religion, Scottish affairs and Irish affairs. His involvement in legal reform came with his position as judge-advocate, and can be seen in a number of committee appointments, including those dealing with foreign prisoners (26 Sept.), the abolition of customary oaths (7 Oct.), the removal of the court of wards, including wardship and tenure in Scotland and Ireland (29 Oct.), erecting courts in York and Wiltshire (20 Nov.) and the petition of doctors of civil law (1 Dec.).49CJ vii. 429a, 435a, 435b, 447a, 456a, 462b, 462b, 476b. Religious affairs were of particular interest to Whalley. On 31 October he was named to the committee to consider the charge of blasphemy against the Quaker, James Naylor.50CJ vii. 448a. In the debates on Naylor on 5 December, Whalley was eager to call him before the bar of the House – and he returned to the theme on 17 December, when he demanded that Naylor be given a chance to recant, as it would ‘answer more your ends’ than a harsh sentence.51Burton’s Diary, i. 30, 166. These comments were made in response to Presbyterian arguments that Naylor should be silenced and punished, and need not suggest that Whalley had any sympathy with the Quaker cause. Indeed, his intolerance of heterodoxy was already well-known: in 1652 he had joined John Milton and others in condemning William Dugard’s translation of the anti-Trinitarian tract, the Racovian Catechism.52D. Masson, Life of Milton (1877), iv. 423, 438. During an adjournment of the Naylor proceedings, on 8 December 1656, Whalley ‘brought in a book, which contained witchcraft and blasphemy and freewill’ – a publication which inspired little enthusiasm in the Commons, which resolved that ‘this gentleman may bring it in some other day’.53Burton’s Diary, i. 80. Whalley, undaunted, returned to the attack on 5 January 1657, when he revealed the book to be Ars Notoria, a cabalistic work translated by one Turner.54Burton’s Diary, i. 305-6. This book was discussed further in the committee for Bibles in January 1657, where Whalley took the chair, but the bulk of his work in the committee was less esoteric, including an examination of the textual errors in Hill’s edition of the Bible, the condemnation of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, and the approval of Francis Rous’s* version of the psalms.55Burton’s Diary, i. 331, 348-50. Whalley’s religious views, like those of his brother Edward (and Edward’s son-in-law, William Goffe), can probably be classed as Independent, but with strict limits to the toleration to be allowed to the more extreme sects.

Scottish affairs were naturally part of Whalley’s remit, although the level of his activity is obscured by the conduct of much of the business through the committee of Scottish affairs. On 4 December 1656 he was included in the committee to suppress theft on the Scottish borders, and at the end of the same month he was appointed to the committee on the bill to confirm the grant of the barony of Kinneil to George Monck*.56CJ vii. 464a, 476b. Other measures, such as the abolition of wardship and the regulation of debts also had implications for Scotland.57CJ vii. 447a, 449a. Of greatest importance to Whalley was his own bill, to settle alternative Irish estates on him and another disappointed co. Down investor, Erasmus Smith. This was given its second reading on 3 December, when the debate concentrated on whether ‘mercy’ should be shown towards the original owners, Lords Montgomery and Claneboy – a position championed by Sir John Reynolds, Henry Markham and Anthony Morgan, as well as an unidentified Scottish MP. The ‘trust’ of the Adventurers was upheld by John Lambert and others hostile to the reconciliation of Irish royalists, but the House was inclined to make a compromise, to accommodate Whalley and Smith elsewhere in Ireland.58Burton’s Diary, i. 2-4. The matter was referred to a committee which included Edward Whalley, William Goffe, and prominent members of the Scottish administration such as Samuel Disbrowe, George Downing and Monck’s brother-in-law, Thomas Clarges.59CJ vii. 463b. The report on the bill was made by Sir William Strickland on 24 December, recommending that other lands be found to satisfy Whalley and Smith in co. Galway.60Burton’s Diary, i. 222-3. Further amendments were proposed by Downing, and the third reading was voted through on 27 December.61CJ vii. 474b, 476a. Whalley’s bill seems to have stimulated similar legislation on behalf of other claimants. On its third reading, a clause was added granting lands in Galway to Henry Cromwell*, and Whalley himself was named to later committees on the bill to grant lands in Ireland to the city of Gloucester (19 Feb. 1657), and on the petition of another Irish landowner, Viscount Loftus of Ely (21 Feb.).62CJ vii. 476a, 494a, 494b.

Whalley was less involved in the politics of this Parliament than might have been expected. His support for the protectorate was still strong, as can be seen in his comments after the discovery of Miles Sindercombe’s plot to kill Cromwell, when he drew parallels with the conspiracy of Overton two years before.63Burton’s Diary, i. 356-7. His personal loyalty to the protector led to his inclusion in the list of army officers attacked for corruption by the author of the Narrative of the Late Parliament, published a year later.64Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 13 (E.935.5). Yet, apart from brief interventions on the Naylor case, Whalley’s involvement in the major issues of the second protectorate Parliament was in fact very limited. There is no record of his participation in the militia bill, despite the prominence of his relatives, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, as major-generals; and he was named to only one committee on the proposed new constitution – that on the 8th article, on 16 March.65CJ vii. 505a. By this time Whalley’s attention had again been distracted by the need to settle his newly-confirmed estates in Ireland. He had been granted leave of absence by the Commons on 14 March, and was preparing to depart on 16th, when Philip Skippon gave him a ‘Turkish scimitar’ to take as a present to Henry Cromwell.66CJ vii. 503b; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 227.

Once in Ireland, Whalley found a useful ally in Henry Cromwell, who was acting governor as well as commander of the army. Edward Whalley wrote to Henry in April 1657, thanking him for ‘your lordship’s high favours’ to his brother, ‘in not only owning him as your poor kinsman, but vouchsafing him your very great respects’.67Henry Cromwell Corresp. 260 On his arrival in co. Galway, Henry Whalley acted as Henry Cromwell’s agent in securing the title to the Portumna lands granted by Parliament as an additional clause in his own bill; he also used his influence to discourage further favours to Erasmus Smith, especially in the area between his own town of Athenry and the city of Galway, fearing that as ‘my lands at Loughrea and Athenry fall short of my proportion’ the best adjacent land might be denied him.68Henry Cromwell Corresp. 284, 291-2, 298. Whalley had returned to Scotland by the beginning of 1658, but on 1 September he was given leave to go to England for three months.69Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLIX, f. 1. Characteristically, he first crossed to Ireland, where he signed the proclamation of Richard Cromwell* as protector at Dublin on 10 September 1658; but he had arrived in London in time to attend the old protector’s funeral on 23 November, when he was included with other Cromwellian relatives in the procession before the coffin.70TSP vii. 384; Burton’s Diary, ii. 527.

Monck and Thurloe recognised Whalley’s acknowledged loyalty to the protectorate by putting him forward as MP for his old seat of Peebles and Selkirk Shires in February 1659. As the original candidate, Archibald Murray*, had stood down, they were able to intrude Whalley instead, and he joined the list of carpet-baggers found seats across Scotland.71TSP vii. 616-7. Whalley’s enemies also saw him as a Cromwellian loyalist, and when he arrived at Westminster in March 1659 he was attacked personally for his role in the condemnation of Overton four years before, which was seen as an example of Oliver Cromwell’s arbitrary power. Whalley’s protests that Overton and his accomplices were cashiered and imprisoned for ‘an intent to murder the protector and Lord Lambert and six others’ could not prevent the sentence being condemned as ‘illegal and unjust’ by the Commons.72Burton’s Diary, iv. 154-6, 161. During his sojourn at Westminster, Whalley continued to correspond with Henry Cromwell, asking him to keep an eye on his son, ‘for I hear his ways are such as are not well pleasing to the Lord and good men’, and recommending that he give him ‘a sharp reproof and your grave and godly counsel’. He also informed Henry that he had arranged to exchange offices with the Irish judge-advocate, Philip Carteret, who now took over as judge-advocate in England.73Lansd. 823, f. 253; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 483. With the military coup and the forced closure of Parliament in April, Whalley returned to Dublin, where Henry Cromwell had only a few more weeks to govern.

There was no place for Whalley in the restored commonwealth. He lost his position as judge-advocate, and in June he was again criticised when the charges against one of Overton’s co-conspirators, Colonel Matthew Alured*, were overturned by Parliament.74CJ vii. 678b. When the Irish Protestant officers staged a coup in Dublin in December 1659, Whalley was quick to join them, signing their letter to George Monck announcing their support of the Rump Parliament. Thereafter he went to Nenagh, co. Tipperary, where he made contact with Sir Charles Coote* and the officers in Ulster and Connaught. In the elections for the General Convention, called to meet in Dublin in March 1660, Whalley was returned for Athenry, and during its sitting he had his land grants in co. Galway confirmed, and, in an extraordinary gesture for the brother of a regicide, on 1 May he moved that the Convention denounce the execution of Charles I as ‘the foulest murder’.75Clarke, Prelude, 113, 160, 229-30, 267, 290. This opened the floodgates. As Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) told Thurloe on 2 May, the declaration ‘was first moved by Judge-Advocate Whalley … [and] ʼtwas not to be stopped when once moved’.76TSP vii. 911. The restoration of Charles II was now the openly avowed policy of the Irish Protestants.

Whalley’s timely switch from the Cromwells to the Stuarts ensured his survival, and the retention of his Irish estates, at least in the short term. Yet his Irish lands were not as profitable as he had hoped. He had complained to Henry Cromwell that the town of Loughrea yielded only £15 in rents at May Day 1657, and in May 1660 the situation seems to have been little better, forcing him to borrow money from a Dublin merchant on a staple bond of £500.77Henry Cromwell Corresp. 298; Add. 15635, f. 58. The restoration of the monarchy, and the return of the original owner of the Athenry and Loughrea estates, the earl of Clanricarde, threatened Whalley’s position. Sir William Domville commented at length on Whalley’s case in October 1663, saying that he ought to be given lands elsewhere, but the original land grant had been of 10,000 acres, rather than the 4,000 of Connaught land expected to provide his allocated income of £2,000 a year.78CSP Ire. 1663-5, pp. 270-1. The irregularities of the original allocation, and the lack of spare land for compensation after 1660, made Whalley’s case especially difficult for the government to untangle. The outcome of this latest reshuffle of lands in unknown, although on his death in 1665 Whalley was succeeded by his eldest son, John, who managed to hold on to at least part of the estate, and his granddaughter’s husband, Richard Whalley of Newford, co. Galway, represented the borough of Athenry in the Irish Parliaments between 1692 and 1725.79E.M. Johnston-Liik, Hist. of Irish Parliament (6 vols. Belfast, 2002), vi. 532.