WALLER, Walter (c.1632-?1658), of Castletown, co. Limerick.

Walter Waller was the son of the prominent Old Protestant landowner, regicide and Cromwellian soldier, Sir Hardress Waller*. He was probably born in or around 1632, as his parents had married in 1630, and although he was the second son, he seems to have been very close in age to his elder brother, William. The brothers were educated together, being admitted to Cambridge in January 1648 and to Gray’s Inn in March 1649, with Walter then returning to university, where he graduated in 1651.6Al. Cant.; G. Inn Admiss. It is unlikely that he was the ‘W. Waller’ who served as a captain in Ireland under John Reynolds* in 1652, and he was probably among the children of Sir Hardress who crossed from England to Dublin aboard the Nightingale in May 1653.7CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 579. He was back in Ireland by August 1654, when he signed the indenture for the election of his father as MP for cos. Kerry, Limerick and Clare.8C219/44, unfol. In October he was appointed to the assessment commission for cos. Limerick, Clare, Cork and Tipperary.9An Assessment for Ire. In the following December he was appointed Dr William Petty’s deputy in the survey of Munster, as part of an investment by his father, who had put up a sixth of the costs in return for a sixth of the profits (and, presumably, preferential treatment for his own lands). While admitting the ‘parts and abilities of that admirable young gentleman’, Petty soon had cause to complain that Waller had not taken up his new office, ‘but went into England upon his own affairs’ shortly afterwards.10Petty, Down Survey, 33-4.

Waller’s return for the boroughs of Limerick and Kilmallock in 1656 was on his father’s interest as the most influential officer and landowner in co. Limerick; Sir Hardress and his son-in-law, Henry Ingoldsby*, sat for the county seats in the same Parliament.11Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 624. On his election, Waller was probably no older than 24, but he soon showed himself to be a useful advocate for his father’s local interests, and a remarkably confident and erudite speaker on a series of national controversies. One hostile commentator described him as ‘Sir Hardress Waller’s son, and is naturally engaged to uphold his father’s interests’, and there is much truth in this claim.12Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 18 (E.935.5). Waller was involved in the presentation of a petition to Parliament on 16 February 1657, asking for the confirmation of land grants in co. Limerick, awarded to Sir Hardress in 1652 and 1653, but now threatened by rival claims from a group of Adventurers. Parliament agreed to uphold a deal signed by Waller and John Whiteway*, which guaranteed the Adventurers would be compensated elsewhere.13CJ vii. 492a-b. On 17 March, Waller was named to the committee stage of the subsequent bill, alongside other influential Irish MPs, including Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), Sir John Reynolds and Anthony Morgan*.14CJ vii. 505b.

The fate of the Waller lands was closely linked to other issues considered in this Parliament. Waller had been a member of the committee for Irish affairs since the beginning of the session, and he went on to be named to the committee on a bill for the attainder of the Irish rebels, which would provide legal security for those taking their lands.15CJ vii. 437b, 515a On 16 February 1657 – the day the committee reported on his father’s lands – Waller was named to a committee to consider the parallel case on the arrears of Sir Theophilus Jones*, and three days later he was appointed to the committee on a bill to settle lands on the city of Gloucester.16CJ vii. 491b, 494a. On 29 April he was appointed to the committee to decide the fate of earlier grants to the ‘Irish donatives’, including not only Sir Hardress Waller but also Sir Charles Coote* and other prominent Old Protestants, and in early May he was twice named to the committee on a bill to settle the claims of a prominent Adventurer, Charles Lloyd*.17CJ vii. 526b, 529a, 532a. Waller was also a supporter of individual land grant made to Lord Broghill in June, and in the same month he dismissed the suggestion that public faith debts should be satisfied with further handouts of Irish land with heavy irony: ‘as for sending them [the claimants] amongst the wild beasts and birds in Ireland for satisfaction, it is but to add misery to affliction’.18CJ vii. 546a, Burton’s Diary, ii. 176, 243. As well as working within an Old Protestant context, Waller was on good terms with another of his father’s allies, Henry Cromwell*, sending him a letter of compliment during the parliamentary sitting, in which he gave thanks that he was still ‘under the verge and patronage of out lordship’s rule and protection’.19Lansd. 821, f. 332; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 223.

In religious debates, Waller also followed his father’s line. Sir Hardress was a member of the Samuel Winter’s Independent congregation in Dublin and a friend of the Limerick Independent, Claudius Gilbert; and although no friend to Quakers, he sympathised with Oliver Cromwell’s* efforts to allow a degree of religious toleration. The similarity of approach by father and son can be seen in the dispute over the fate of the notorious Quaker, James Naylor. On 8 December 1656 Walter Waller questioned the definition of blasphemy pushed by Naylor’s enemies, saying that ‘I am for a moderater title, that he is a great impostor and a seducer’ and added that a moderate response would prevent unrest, ‘lest you open such a vein of blood as you will scarcely close’.20Burton’s Diary, i. 78. On 16 December he protested that ‘I have an equal abhorrency to Naylor and his party, as any man here’, and went on to cite scriptural passages which supported the forgiveness of blasphemers, turning the tables on those who condemned Quakers for their emphasis on the ‘inner light’, for ‘without the spirit concurring with the light of the scriptures, we may wander into as erroneous opinions by that light, as did the heathens by the light of nature, without the scriptures’.21Burton’s Diary, i. 151-2. In his final speech on Naylor, delivered on 27 December, Waller reiterated this point, emphasising that to forgive was the best course: ‘It was Christ’s rule. He remitted the punishment, without owning the crime’.22Burton’s Diary, i. 263. In his support for toleration (within certain limits) and his emphasis on scripture, in religious issues Waller was in agreement with his father, and also with Oliver Cromwell.

In the debates on the Humble Petition and Advice, Waller joined the majority of Irish MPs in supporting the new constitution. He was among those who voted in favour of retaining the offer of the crown to Cromwell on 25 March, and on 3 April 1657 he was added to the committee sent to Cromwell to agree a time and place to meet him to discuss the Humble Petition.23Narrative of the Late Parliament, 23; CJ vii. 519b. On 9 April he was appointed to the important committee which assembled to answer the protector’s doubts about accepting the same, joining Broghill, Reynolds, Sir Theophilus Jones, William Jephson and a number of other Irish MPs who were strongly in favour of Cromwell accepting the crown.24CJ vii. 521b. In later debates, Waller showed his commitment to the new constitution. When debating the confirmation of earlier acts and ordinances in late April, he warned MPs that they might ‘unsettle the settlement yourselves had made’, and supported points made by Broghill and others in what Thomas Burton* described as ‘a pretty, witty speech’.25Burton’s Diary, ii. 93. Equally, on 25 May, Waller called for the Humble Petition to be sent for protectoral assent on its own, as a measure of its importance.26Burton’s Diary, ii. 121. In his last speech of the sitting, on 13 June, Waller rebuffed the idea of selling off crown property to satisfy public debts: ‘I wonder men should forget that there is a chief magistrate, who must have a revenue’.27Burton’s Diary, ii. 243.

In the second sitting in January 1658 Waller lived up to his reputation as a ‘kingling’. In his most ambitious speech of the Parliament, on 30 January, he challenged two veteran MPs, Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Thomas Scot I, on their opposition to the ‘Other House’ – the upper chamber established under the new constitution. Addressing fellow Members, Waller protested that ‘I thought that your Petition and Advice had put this debate to an end and determination’, and that ‘you intended a restitution of the second estate of Parliament’. He described bicameral Parliaments (and, by implication, the institution of monarchy) as ‘a constitution (save for the interposition of wicked men) that our ancestors lived very well under; our neighbour nations happy in it: a government which you have been pleased to draw, wants only your ultimatum manum to make it happy and satisfactory to the people’.28Burton’s Diary, ii. 398-9. On 3 February, when the opponents of the Other House tried to delay matters by moving for the debate to be transferred to a grand committee, the tellers against the motion were Waller and his brother-in-law, Henry Ingoldsby.29CJ vii. 591b.

Despite his importance as a supporter of the Cromwellian regime, and his growing reputation as a parliamentary orator, after the closure of the parliamentary sitting in February 1658 Walter Waller completely disappears from the historical record. In later accounts of Sir Hardress Waller’s family, only two sons (John and James) are mentioned, and this suggests that Walter did not outlive his father (who died in 1666), and that he did not leave any progeny.30Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland (1904), 628. Indeed, it seems likely that he died several years before. His performance in Parliament had more than entitled him to sit for Limerick and Kilmallock in 1659, but he was not elected, the seat going instead to another Waller associate, George Ingoldsby. Waller may therefore have died in 1658, aged no more than 26.