TULSE, Henry I (c.1590-1642), of Hinton, Christchurch, Hants.

Henry Tulse belonged to a minor gentry family from the parish of Sopley, a few miles north of Christchurch in Hampshire, and according to the age at death supplied by his son Henry Tulse II*, was born about 1590.14Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. n.s. x), 49-50. He was not mentioned in the will of William Tulse of Sopley, drafted in August 1587, but was almost certainly the Henry Tulse who received a bequest in the will of William’s widow Agnes, dated December 1607; the context suggests that this was a grandson, probably a son of the testator’s son and executor William Tulse, and a brother of ‘William Tulse the younger’.15PROB11/71/363; PROB11/113/94. The first William Tulse had been sufficiently wealthy to contribute £25 to the Armada fund, while Agnes had a farm with sheep and cattle.16J. S. Atwood, ‘The Armada fund’, Hants. N&Q, ii. 41. In 1603 their son William, who proved his mother’s will in March 1609, possessed at least the manor of Fernhills Court, and acquired three further manors in the area; that and the fact that in the seventeenth century family members appear at various locations between Christchurch and Southampton suggests some – perhaps increasing – prosperity.17VCH Hants, v. 96, 100. The youngest William Tulse matriculated as ‘gentleman’ from Hart Hall, Oxford, in November 1607, aged 18; this man’s younger brother John, who matriculated in 1615, later became a clergyman in Dorset.18Al. Ox.; PROB11/184/377. Henry, probably the middle brother, does not appear in university or inns of court records.

Possibly following an apprenticeship or training as an attorney, by 1622 Henry Tulse was a burgess of the small port of Lymington, 12 miles east of Christchurch.19Hants RO, 27M74/DBC2, f. 11. However, he is not recorded as having been assessed for the purposes of the loan in 1625, although a ‘William Tults senior’, an ‘esquire’ living in Southampton and perhaps his father, was assessed at £15.20SP16/521, f. 308. In 1630 Henry Tulse’s own status was such that he was summoned to explain his failure to compound for his knighthood; while he stated that he did not possess a freehold estate to the value of £40 at the time of the king’s coronation, in March 1631 he compounded alongside ‘William Tulse of Avon’ (in Christchurch), his father or his brother, each at the not insignificant sum of £17 10s.21Add. 21922, ff. 178v, 182v.

Evidently a man of some standing, Tulse was possibly a collector of the subsidy in 1628, and was nominated a commissioner for sewers in 1629.22Hants RO, 44/M69/G4/1/99; C181/4, f. 17v. In 1632 he was a trustee with John Button I*, a leading Hampshire gentleman and former MP for Lymington, in a land settlement made by his kinsman Roger Tulse.23VCH Hants, v. 115. Two years later, at St Martin in the Fields, Westminster, Tulse married Margaret Lambert, a granddaughter of Thomas Lambert† (c.1558-1621), MP for Southampton in 1601 and knighted in 1620.24St Martin in the Fields par. reg.; HP Commons 1558-1603. Under the terms of her father’s will of 1625, Margaret was to receive £400; this dowry and (particularly) the fashionable venue for the wedding suggests that Tulse had acquired elevated social connections.25PROB11/146/1 (Thomas Lambert). To provide her with a jointure, Tulse settled the lease of Christchurch rectory, which he held from the dean and chapter of Winchester, in trustees including his cousin Thomas Hussey of Lincoln’s Inn and John Button.26C7/175/37, 39. By 1634 he was also a burgess of the town of Christchurch, and a member of the body sometimes called the ‘sixteen’, an assembly of the corporation of the parish who managed the priory church, the buildings of which belonged to the town, rather than the ecclesiastical authorities.27Dorset RO, DC/CC:B2/2/1; Diary of John Young, 173; Christchurch Priory, Vestry Minute Book 1640-1827, p. 739. From 1636 Tulse was recorded as being a justice of the peace for Hampshire.28C231/5, p. 213; C193/13/2; C66/2858.

If Tulse was indeed a younger son, then he had a higher profile in public life than his elder brother William, who seems to have settled in Boldre near Lymington and in Southampton, and he may also have diverged in political and religious sentiment from both William and John. In his will, drawn up in December 1639, John, rector of Winterborne Tomson and minister of Corfe Mullen, revealed himself as a ceremonialist and a reader of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes and St Ambrose, and made no mention of Henry.29PROB11/184/377. It seems plausible that, like John Button and John Hildesley*, another burgess of both Lymington and Christchurch, Henry moved in more puritan circles. This would provide part of the explanation for his return to Parliament in the spring of 1640 as one of the Members for Christchurch. The most powerful electoral interest in the borough was held by a Catholic, Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore. For various reasons, Baltimore proposed a series of alternative candidates, all of whom were outsiders, thereby sowing some confusion among the voters.30Christchurch Bor. Council, Old Letters, nos. 29, 31, 22, 23. One of the latter, Edward Hanham, explained that, while he might have accepted Baltimore’s initial nominations, he would not vote for ‘strangers that I do not know’, and would instead support Sir George Hastings†, who had resided in and represented the town in the 1620s, and Tulse, because he was a local man known to the burgesses.31Christchurch Bor. Council, Old Letters, no. 24. Such reasoning probably weighed with other burgesses to ensure that Tulse was returned in the second place, after Baltimore’s candidate, courtier Sir Arnold Herbert*.32Dorset RO, DC/CC: F1/8. Neither made any visible contribution to parliamentary proceedings.

In the autumn election Tulse again benefited from confusion over rival candidates, this time being returned in first place, with support from Hildesley and John Kemp*. Baltimore’s choice, Dorset-based lawyer Matthew Davies*, could manage only second place in a contest also involving a nominee of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke.33Dorset RO, DC/CC: F2/9, F1/9. Tulse made little more impression in the chamber than in the previous Parliament. He took the Protestation on 18 June 1641, but was named to no committees, and made no surviving speeches.34CJ ii. 178b. On 13 June 1642 he offered to provide £20 to Parliament, indicating where his sympathies might have lain as the country slid into civil war.35PJ iii. 476. However, that was his last appearance in the record. He died some time before 14 September, when the administration of his estate was granted to his widow, Margaret.36PROB6/18, f. 159. His eldest son and heir, Henry Tulse II*, was still a small child, and was apparently brought up in the household of John Hildesley, who became Margaret’s second husband.