WESTROWE, Thomas (1616-53), of London, Westminster, Mersham, Kent, and Hammersmith, Mdx.

To his enemies, Westrowe was ‘nothing [of] worth until a captain and a Parliament man’, but far from emerging from obscure origins, he was the son of a wealthy and well-connected London Grocer who was alderman of Aldersgate Ward and sheriff of the City, and who was a prominent figure within the East India Company.30Walker, Hist. of Independency, 171; Aldermen of London, ii. 58. Moreover, Thomas Westrowe senior was a leading lay member of the London puritan community. Although buried near his parents at St Peter, Cornhill, with a funeral sermon from the rector, Francis White, dean of Carlisle – both at his own request – he was described in the parish register only as a ‘sometime parishioner’.31St Peter, Cornhill, par. reg. He left £100 for the repair of its church and steeple, and a further sum for ‘a pair of silver pots for the communion table’, but Dean White was not only a notable anti-Catholic controversialist but also an up-and-coming Arminian, and Westrowe was probably more active within the other parishes which surfaced in his will – St Christopher le Stocks; St Edmund, Lombard Street; and St Antholin, Budge Row – which were to provide the personnel for the Feoffees for the Purchase of Impropriations. That Thomas Westrowe senior was profoundly godly, and in sympathy with the project to install puritan preachers in church livings, is evident from his substantial charitable bequests, which included £100 to Christ’s Hospital, £50 for ten poor ministers, and other sums for prominent ministers like Josias Shute of Lombard Street, Edward Spendlove the lecturer at St Antholin, and William Gouge and John Davenport, leading lights in the feoffees scheme.32PROB11/148/1 ‘24; Francis White (1563/4-1638)’, ‘Feoffees for Impropriations’, Oxford DNB.

Thomas Westrowe junior was baptised at St Christopher Le Stocks, the godson of his mother’s brother-in-law and the counsel to the Grocers’ Company Sir Thomas Coventry†. Another friend of Gouge, Coventry was made overseer of Westrowe senior’s will and enjoined ‘to be a husband to my wife and a father to his godson’, until he was relieved of the trouble in a codicil on being appointed lord keeper in November 1625.33St Christopher le Stocks par. reg.; PROB11/148/124; ‘Thomas Coventry, HP Commons 1604-1629. Westrowe senior’s widow soon married Sir Norton Knatchbull† of Mersham Hatch in Kent, who probably acquired the guardianship of her only son.34HP Commons 1604-1629. However, after Queen’s College, Oxford, young Westrowe went on to Coventry’s inn, the Inner Temple, although he was not called to the bar.35Al. Ox.; I. Temple database. Remaining within the kinship circle named in his father’s will, in 1639 he married his cousin Anne, a daughter of Sir Henry Capel and his wife Dorothy (née Aldersey), and step-sister of Westrowe’s cousin Edmund Hoskins*, also of the Inner Temple. At this time he was living in Mersham, with or near his sister Dorothy’s husband, and his stepfather’s nephew and heir, Sir Norton Knatchbull*, although the wedding was licensed for London, and he and his wife may have been the Thomas and Anne who the following May brought their son for baptism at St Olave, Hart Street.36London Mar. Lics. ed. Foster, 1442; Vis. Kent 1683-8 (Harl. Soc. liv), 92; St Olave, Hart Street, London, par. reg. Meanwhile, also in the summer of 1639, his mother, again a widow, married (Sir) Edward Scott† of Scot’s Hall, Smeeth, who was to be prominent in campaigning for godly reformation.37HP Commons 1604-1629.

The first evidence of Westrowe’s participation in Kent politics was as a supporter, like his brother-in-law Knatchbull, of Sir Edward Dering* in the county election for what became the Short Parliament.38J. Peacey, ‘Tactical organization in a contested election’, in Parliament, Politics and Elections, 1604-48, ed. C.R. Kyle (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xvii), 264. His Protestant zeal and personal wealth were evident from his willingness to contribute £300 towards the Irish Adventure in 1642.39Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 194. With the outbreak of civil war, Westrowe emerged as an active parliamentarian. George Wither later claimed that

He was among the first, whose knowing zeal

Flamed out, to vindicate this commonweal

From thraldom and oppression thereto moved

In conscience and by principles approved

Not stirred up by factious discontent

By rashness, want or by malevolent

Affections or designs, though not without

Some counterpleas in what he went about.40G. Wither, Westrow Revived (1653), 20-1 (E.1479.4).

Westrowe served the cause as a captain in the regiment of Sir Michael Livesay*, and on local committees.41Walker, Hist. of Independency, 171. Alongside his stepfather Scott, he was active on the Kent sequestrations committee from mid-May 1643, and played a leading role in dealing with royalists and delinquents like Sir Edward Dering and Sir Thomas Peyton*.42SP28/210B, unfol.; SP28/130/3, ff. 4v, 103v; Stowe 184, ff. 78, 80; Add. 42586, ff. 17, 19; F. Hull, ‘The Tufton sequestration papers, 1644-7’, in A Seventeenth Century Misc. (Kent Arch. Soc. xvii), 40, 49. From the summer of 1643 he was also prominent on the county committee, in raising troops and organising days of thanksgiving, in mobilising support for the Solemn League and Covenant, and in ordering the removal of altars, crosses, and images at places such as the royal palace in Eltham.43SP28/210B, unfol.; SP28/235, unfol.; HMC Pepys, 204; Stowe 184, ff. 85, 96; Bodl. Tanner 62, ff. 186, 573; 60, f. 99; E. Kent RO, H1257, unfol.; Add. 33512, f. 89; FSL, G.c.13. As Wither later noted, Westrowe was ‘zealous in the pulling down of our great idol’.44Wither, Westrow Revived, 51. It was in relation to such services that an ordinance was later passed for the payment to Westrowe of £500.45CJ iv. 681b, 691b; LJ viii. 521b.

Westrowe was elected to Parliament as a recruiter MP for Hythe in the autumn of 1645, as a replacement for John Harvey*. As Wither wrote

Unfought for (as I verily believe)

He afterward the honour did receive

Of supreme trust, and without cause of blame

According to his power, discharged the same.46Wither, Westrow Revived, 21.

Although not explicitly recommended to the town by the county committee, he was probably the intended beneficiary of the letter despatched by the committee in late August, which stressed the importance of ‘well placing of your votes, upon which under God depends your own and the kingdom’s happiness or ruin’. England was at the ‘turning point’, and the freemen were enjoined to choose a God-fearing man of ‘courage’ who shunned covetousness.47E. Kent RO, H1257, unfol.

Westrowe was returned some time before he received his first committee nomination on 7 October. Since it was to the committee working on the ordinance for raising money for the proposed army of Sir Thomas Fairfax*, it seems clear he had been recruited to bolster the Independent presence in the House.48CJ iv. 299a. He then did not take the Covenant until 29 October, and further committee or other nominations were somewhat slow in coming, but they played to his metropolitan and regional experience, were of political significance, and generally demonstrated commitment to Independent priorities.49CJ iv. 326a.

Westrowe’s party credentials are revealed through his involvement in Zouche Tate’s* committee to consider Lord Digby’s correspondence (4 Nov.), and letters from the Independent army chaplain, Hugh Peter (23 Jan. 1646), as well as through his addition – as the first listed – to a committee which was designed to oversee the activities of William Prynne’s* Presbyterian Committee of Accounts (13 Dec. 1645).50CJ iv. 332a, 376a, 416b. He was also named second to the committee investigating corruption arising from Members receiving money in return for action on business in the House (1 Dec.) and added to that attempting to purge the House of those absent Members whose allegiance was under suspicion, to look into the case of Sir John Fenwick* (17 Jan. 1646).51CJ iv. 362a, 409b. Westrowe’s family connections were doubtless deployed alongside factional perspectives in negotiations with the City over the militia (4 Dec. 1645) and money (8 Dec.), while he was twice added to the committee for the Tower of London for particular purposes (7 Jan., 7 Feb. 1646).52CJ iv. 365a, 368b, 399a, 431b. Meanwhile, in the last few months before the surrender of the royalists at Oxford, he was among those named to consider settling the garrison at nearby Abingdon (22 Nov.) and compensation for the heirs of those parliamentarians killed in action (23 Feb.), while his military experience and local expertise came together in committees at Westminster and in ad hominem Commons orders to apprehend royalist agent William Murray in Kent (6 Feb.) and to negotiate with the royalist governor of Boarstall, Oxfordshire, Sir William Campion, a Kentishman of London mercantile extraction (9 May).53CJ iv. 351a, 430a, 431b, 452a, 541b.

In 1646 Westrowe was also nominated to several committees dealing with individual petitions. His addition to the committee considering representations from future Leveller John Lilburne (3 July) may have arisen from radical Independent opinions, but other appointments reflected personal and local concerns.54CJ iv. 601b. These included dealing with the affairs of his friend George Wither (18 May) and his stepfather Edward Scott (1 Sept.).55CJ iv. 550a, 658b, 681b. Meanwhile, the ordinance for repaying to Westrowe himself £500 he had expended for the cause was passed in October.56CJ iv. 681b, 691b.

Westrowe combined political Independency with religious views which favoured a tolerationist church settlement. George Wither, who noted that Westrowe was accused of being a schismatic, later wrote that

The Christian liberty he did profess

without allowing of licentiousness

He laboured that the conscience might be free

From force, yea though depraved it seemed to be

Because he saw more hypocrites thereby

Than converts made and that hypocrisy

Is worse than error.57Wither, Westrow Revived, 8, 39.

In December 1645 Westrowe was named to a committee to consider the remonstrance of the ‘dissenting brethren’, and in March 1646 he and Sir Peter Wentworth* were required to ask John Owen*, who was in the process of founding a gathered congregation, to preach before the House.58CJ iv. 373a, 489a. When the civic authorities in Hythe drew Westrowe’s attention to local Anabaptists in the spring of 1646, he tried to protect them from prosecution. One of those imprisoned for his unlicensed preaching in the town, Jeremy Elfrith, had predicted that Westrowe and Sir Michael Livesay would ‘stand his friends’, and Westrowe did indeed join his fellow burgess, Sir Henry Heyman*, in telling the mayor that there was no legal basis for proceedings against Elfrith, and that

neither do we know of any such punishment inflicted by the Parliament upon any for preaching or expounding, unless it were for disturbing the peace, or publishing seditious or known heretical doctrine.59E. Kent RO, H1257, unfol.

Such evidence suggests that it was as a religious Independent that Westrowe was named to the committee to determine scandalous offences in June 1646; to committees regarding maintenance for the bishops and for ministers; and to committees to consider a printed sermon by the radical preacher, William Dell, and the literature produced by divine right Presbyterians in December 1646.60CJ iv. 562a, 712a, 719b; v. 10b, 11a.

In the mid-1640s Westrowe was considered one of the most important allies in the Commons of the reformer Samuel Hartlib’s circle, and this too is indicative of sympathy for a broadly irenic religious settlement. Westrowe’s correspondence in early 1647 with another Kentish radical, Sir Cheney Culpeper, reveals the extent to which he had lobbied for Hartlibian projects among MPs, but although he found an enthusiastic supporter in Oliver Cromwell*, he feared that many Independents were overly wedded to an Erastian ideal. That, he concluded, would ‘so rivet in that principle of the sword and outward force in spiritual matters so much the harder’. So prevalent was ‘the spirit of malignity’, that he thought it unlikely there would be ‘opportunity to think of doing any thing that way before we be utterly routed’. On the other hand, he appeared to say in a formulation that is somewhat difficult to follow, out of that extreme eventuality might come a greater hope of unity of purpose among those of diverse opinions: ‘a deliverance’ which would come

to rise out of such a persecution much sooner and fuller than we could possibly expect it from the consequence of any such foundation that could be laid by mutual forbearance of evangelical churches in matters as different as those among ourselves here.61‘The letters of Sir Cheney Culpeper’, ed. M.J. Braddick and M. Greengrass, Camden Misc. XXXIII (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. vii), 289-91.

As the focus of political activity shifted after the royalist surrender at Oxford, Westrowe’s radicalism became more apparent. In September 1646 he was involved in the reduction of the hardline Newcastle Propositions into ordinances, and in December was named to a committee to consider relations with the Scots and the ‘disposal’ of the king.62CJ iv. 673b; v. 30a. It was as one of the Independents who at that point dominated the Kent county committee that he is likely to have approached appointments to investigate the dispossession of fellow militant Sir Thomas Walsingham* from Eltham Lodge by the delinquent John White I*(23 Oct.) and the petition of more moderate grandee Sir John Sedley (8 Dec.).63CJ iv. 702b; v. 6b. Previously named (24 Apr.) to discuss assessments to be raised for campaigning in Ireland, he was an opponent of Presbyterian plans to disband regiments in England and despatch troops across the Irish Sea: on 7 December he joined Independent leader Sir Arthur Hesilrige* as a teller for the large minority against a motion to disband certain Staffordshire forces, defeated by Presbyterians marshalled by Denzil Holles* and Sir John Holland*.64CJ iv. 521a; v. 3b, 9b. In contrast, he was one of the delegation sent to the Common Council of London to encourage the raising of money for the New Model (4 Dec.), and doubtless brought an Independent perspective to the problem of the disaffected in London, to the payment of army arrears, and to controversial Presbyterian attempts to reform the militia (7, 10 Dec; 2 Apr 1647).65CJ iv. 738a; v. 4a, 132b.

It was almost certainly as a sympathiser that in the winter of 1646-7 Westrowe was named to committees regarding radical and ‘scandalous’ pamphlets, and petitioning campaigns within the army.66CJ v. 72b, 112b, 127b; Wither, Westrow Revived, 29. As he confronted the Presbyterian counter-revolution in the spring of 1647, he became anxious about the country’s future, and almost apocalyptic in his religious fervour.67CJ v. 117b, 122b, 132b, 168b. In a letter to Culpeper, he expressed his concern at Presbyterian policies towards Ireland, and at their success in the recruiter elections. He feared that they would not be content

till we have mauled the schismatics and all that have been too forward in this business that so we may tame the people for ever meddling or stirring for a Parliament again. Then shall king, kirk, and every domineering interest flourish till they fall out among themselves again that so there may be a way for the deliverance of God’s people for that must come, and every stone of Babel you know must down.68‘Letters of Sir Cheney Culpeper’, 289-91.

In March 1647 Culpeper conveyed to Hartlib Westrowe’s fears that their circle’s plans and hopes were ‘being (at the present) overborne and endeavoured (as he conceives) to be ruined’, and that they saw little hope of success in Parliament.69‘Letters of Sir Cheney Culpeper’, 292. Later in the year, he acknowledged that Westrowe was ‘faithful’, but also that he lacked power ‘to promote this business’.70‘Letters of Sir Cheney Culpeper’, 300.

Westrowe’s frustration probably led him to play a less prominent role in the House even before the Presbyterian violence which forced the Independents from Westminster in July 1647. On 28 May he was given leave to go into the country, and his only appearance in the Journal between then and 11 August was his nomination to consider a more comprehensive indemnity for those who had fought for Parliament (5 June).71CJ v. 192b, 199a. In the aftermath of the army’s march on London in early August, Westrowe reappeared to be nominated to the committee to repeal acts passed during the Presbyterian coup, although he then vanished from the record again until 6 October. 72CJ v. 272a. That on that day he was appointed to consider the proposals for a Presbyterian church settlement destined to be sent to the king, may indicate that he was prepared to concede this for the sake of other gains, on the grounds that clauses would have protected tender consciences like his own, but it may equally reveal a role as spokesman for dissenting voices.73CJ v. 327b.

Following earlier appointments connected with the sale of delinquents’ estates, on 28 October ‘Captain Westrowe’ – a reminder of a continuing military function which is somewhat difficult to reconcile with his relatively regular attendance in the House – was also named to the committee to assist the process of selling church lands.74CJ iv. 613a, 710b; v. 344b. He himself acquired the bishop of Worcester’s manor of Hartlebury and, with it, secured a place on the county bench.75Bodl. Rawl. B.239, pp. 6, 26. His enemies claimed that this proved that Westrowe had secured lucrative office under Parliament, although his friends denied it.76Walker, Hist. of Independency, 171. Wither suggested

So he was all his life, so far from craving

From wishing, from receiving and from having

Gifts, places or office, whereby he might add

An augmentation unto what he had.77Wither, Westrow Revived, 22.

Westrowe was also added on 2 November to the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs.78CJ v. 347b; LJ ix. 506a. Thereafter, although he was ordered to provide information regarding the king’s escape (12 Nov.) and nominated to a committee for poor relief (23 Nov.), he was not in evidence again that year.79CJ v. 356b, 366b.

Westrowe resurfaced on 4 January 1648 in the aftermath of the Vote of No Addresses to the king, to be named to the committee for grievances, but he played a less prominent role in the House that year.80CJ v. 417a. Two committee nominations in March included one to the committee for plantations (14 Mar.), which reveals an otherwise unsuspected interest.81CJ v. 484b, 498a, 502b. But thereafter, in the weeks surrounding the second civil war, he was preoccupied by attempts to preserve order in Kent.82CJ v. 538a, 568b, 573a; CP ii. 16, 20; Cent. Kent. Studs. U120/C5/1; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 82. As the royalist threat there receded he was named to the committee to respond to Londoners’ demands for a personal treaty with the king (1 June), but then made no impression on the House for many months, even though he was named alongside men like Dr William Stane* as a leading army Independent towards the end of the year.83CJ v. 581a; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 335. Wither claimed that:

Tired out, with vain endeavourings he withdrew,

A place for his retirement he had chose,

Near to the banks of Thame, where backward flows.84Wither, Westrow Revived, 10-11.

One additional or alternative explanation for Westrowe’s low profile, however, was that his wife’s step-brother Arthur Capell*, 1st Baron Capell, a notable critic of the personal rule of Charles I who had then become a royalist commander, played a major role in rebellion in Essex that summer, was impeached by the Commons in October, and (having escaped briefly from the Tower) was beheaded in March 1649.85See also ‘Arthur Capel, 1st Baron Capel’, Oxford DNB.

Having played no part in events surrounding the trial and execution of the king, Westrowe displayed no inclination to return to the Commons after the establishment of the republic. Indeed, in late May 1649 he was granted a pass to travel to Flanders, perhaps in connection with the projects of Samuel Hartlib.86CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 534. Nevertheless, Westrowe was one of the few absent Members who avoided being excluded from the House in January 1651, probably because of the respect in which he was held by prominent Rumpers. In late August that year Oliver Cromwell* expressed his sorrow that Westrowe and the Hampshire parliamentarian Richard Norton* had ‘helped one another to stumble at the dispensations of God’.87HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 486; William Salt Lib. S.MS.454 (Swinfen family pprs.), no. 6; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 453. Perhaps at the persuasion of his old friend, Westrowe signalled his willingness to return to the House, and was readmitted, following a report by John Lisle*, on 17 October.88CJ vii. 27b, 29b.

From December 1651 through 1652 Westrowe seems to have been a fairly regular attender in the House. He resumed his activity on behalf of the borough of Hythe, and took up again matters with which he had previously been associated, including the sale of forfeited estates 89E. Kent RO, H1211, p. 47; CJ vii. 46b, 112a, 127b, 154b, 158b, 205a, 250b, 263b. He was a teller with Henry Neville* in a division on a report on the fine of royalist former lord mayor of London Sir Richard Gurney (12 Nov.), and joined Henry Marten* as a teller in support of an unsuccessful proposal to allow delinquents to compound for their estates in return for leaving the country (22 July 1652).90CJ vii. 157b, 158b, 214a. Alongside Marten, he renewed his involvement in the case of John Lilburne, attempting to protect the Leveller leader (6 Jan.).91E. Kent RO, H1211, p. 47; CJ vii. 64a, 75b, 134a. As before, he displayed a concern for the condition of the poor, but also received appointments related to reform of the law and the treasury.92CJ vii. 58b, 107b, 127b, 128b, 138b, 159a. His own investment doubtless underlay his nomination to the committee considering the satisfaction of the Irish Adventurers (6 Aug.).93CJ vii. 162a. From April 1652 he also became involved in plans for the incorporation of Scotland into England, while his engagement with petitions from the soldiers and officers led to his being added on 17 December to the Army Committee.94CJ vii. 118b, 164b, 171b, 189a, 229b, 230b.

Although it is possible that frustration with the Rump lay behind the fact that Westrowe thereafter appeared in the records of the Commons only twice before the dissolution of Parliament in April 1653, it may also have been the case that his health was already failing.95CJ ii. 250b, 263b. He died on 29 October.96MI, St Mary’s, Twickenham. His will, drafted at Twickenham on 16 September, provides a fascinating insight into his godly zeal, and the strictness of his puritanism. Regarding his ‘spiritual and heavenly estate’, Westrowe wrote

it is not for me to dispose of it, but for it to dispose of and govern me. And my desire to the Father is that he would increase that government daily in me to the decreasing of all my own strength, wisdom and righteousness and to the making of me subject to his will in all things.

He also requested that his body should be buried, without ceremony, ‘at the next burying place where it shall fall’ (which happened to be Twickenham). Westrowe not only provided his heir with land worth £1,200 a year and a cash sum of £2,200, his younger son with £2,600, and his two daughters with portions of £1,300 each, but also left £600 for the poor, which was to be administered by his cousin and brother-in-law Edmund Hoskins, and his friends Sir Cheney Culpeper and Dr William Stane, and which he justified on the grounds that ‘the poor are like to have more need’ than his children.97PROB11/239/171. Noting such bequests, Wither (another beneficiary) claimed that Westrowe was

To the widow, fatherless and poor,

A husband friend and father, them to feed,

To clothe and harbour in time of need.98Wither, Westrow Revived, 4, 23.

Westrowe also charged his executors with overseeing the education of his sons

in such a way as may teach them the fear of the Lord and make them humble and meek towards their brethren, rather than to learn those outward (counted) accomplishments which are apt to make young men to lift up their heads above their brethren.

Finally, in giving his share of the Irish Adventure to his younger son, Westrowe implored him to show ‘kindness to the parties who formerly owned that land by seeing them provided for in a comfortable way’, and to be

a servant to the good of that whole people as far as they may be capable of it considering the great wrath that has passed on them from the Lord already, and that they are flesh with us.99PROB11/239/171.

Shortly after Westrowe’s death, on 3 January 1654, Wither published his poem entitled Westrow Revived, in honour of ‘that noble single-hearted man’.100Wither, Westrow Revived, 4. Neither of Westrowe’s sons sat in Parliament.