ST JOHN, Oliver (c.1598-1673), of Keysoe, Beds. and Lincoln’s Inn, Mdx.

Oliver St John’s father was a minor gentleman of uncertain parentage seated at Keysoe in Bedfordshire. Although the Bedfordshire St Johns were ‘supposed to be a by-blow of one of the earls of Bedford’, contemporaries made the more obvious connection with the Barons St John of Bletso (from 1624 also earls of Bolingbroke).80Mystery of the Good Old Cause, 15; Foss, Judges of England, vi. 475. According to Lady Masham, St John’s ‘father was a base son (as I have heard) of the Lord St John’s’, while Sir Edward Hyde* described him as ‘a natural son of the house of Bolingbroke’.81Barrington Family Letters ed. A. Searle (Camden Soc. ser. 4, xxviii), 119; Clarendon, Hist. i. 246. St John’s satisfaction at having secured marriages with the Wiltshire branch in 1650 suggests he, at least, believed they were his blood relatives.82Original Letters, ed. Nickolls, 48. In any case, his aristocratic connections do not seem to have made an impact on his early career. St John studied at Cambridge University, having as his tutor at Queens’ the godly future master of Emmanuel, John Preston, and from there he progressed to another puritan institution, Lincoln’s Inn, where he was admitted in April 1619.83Foss, Judges of England vi. 476; L. Inn Admiss. i. 182. He was called to the bar in June 1626.84L. Inn Black Bks. ii. 263. Later accounts, that he was ‘a gentleman of slender fortune’ at this time are undoubtedly correct.85Mystery of the Good Old Cause, 15. In 1629 it was said that ‘his estate in land’ was worth at most £300 per annum, and his income was perhaps doubled by his legal practice.86Barrington Family Letters, 116.

St John’s lack of money was offset by his growing reputation as a ‘religious, honest’ man with ‘sweetness in nature’, who was ‘probable to rise’; and these attributes made him a suitable match for Joanne or Johanna, daughter of the Essex landowner Sir James Altham, whom he married in 1629.87Barrington Family Letters, 116. The Althams were closely related to the godly Barrington family, and the bride’s uncle, Sir Thomas Barrington*, was won over by St John’s newly-acquired patron, Francis Russell, 4th earl of Bedford. Bedford, who was related to the main branch of the St John family, employed Oliver St John as his lawyer in the late 1620s.88Foss, Judges of England vi. 477; Clarendon, Hist. i. 246. In 1629 St John was said to be ‘my Lord Bedford’s only favourite’, and the earl had been a strong advocate of the Altham marriage, apparently offering to give money if that would help to seal the treaty. As Barrington told his wife, the earl ‘promises that nothing shall hinder it for jointure if his estate will make it good’.89Barrington Family Letters, 116, 125, 131, 136. In May 1630 Bedford wrote to Barrington thanking him for his favour to ‘my cousin St John’, and a year later St John was staying as a guest of the earl during the summer.90Barrington Family Letters, 149, 200. It was through the earl that St John was involved in the Bedford Level drainage scheme later in the 1630s.91Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 102.

St John’s first marriage had brought him into the circle of godly gentry centred around the Barringtons, which included John Hampden* and Oliver Cromwell*; and his second marriage (contracted shortly after the death of his first wife) established another connection with Cromwell, as his new wife was the daughter of another cousin, Henry Cromwell, and an intimate of the Mashams.92Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 96n. It was probably the second wife to whom Cromwell sent his famous letter of October 1638, outlining his conversion experience. In it he also asked her to ‘salute your husband and sister from me’, and to mention certain business matters affecting him and his extended family.93Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 96-7. By this time, St John had used his existing contacts to establish a network pregnant with political possibilities. He had been admitted as a member of the Providence Island Company in November 1630, and the next month he was named with Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick and Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland, William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, Robert Greville, 2nd Lord Brooke, Sir Gilbert Gerard*, John Pym*, John Gurdon* and others in the patent incorporating the company.94CSP Col. 1574-1660, pp. 122-3. St John was involved in the deliberations of the company’s court in February 1632, and in March 1635 he represented the company in negotiations with the government over trade licences.95CSP Col. 1574-1660, pp. 141, 199. Other business associates at this time are revealed from a series of financial transactions in East Anglia, Hampshire and Bedfordshire involving St John’s cousin (and colleague at Lincoln’s Inn), Samuel Browne*, with John Gurdon, Miles Corbett* and Lords Warwick, Saye and Brooke.96Coventry Docquets, 577, 604, 632, 646, 656, 718. It was in connection with his legal work for the Barringtons in 1636 that St John’s association with John Thurloe* is first seen: both men were witnesses of the marriage indenture of Thomas Erle* (son of Sir Walter Erle*) and Susanna, daughter of Viscount Saye, in May 1639.97Dorset RO, D/BLX/F2. In 1640 St John was also a trustee of the marriage settlement of Sir John Barrington, alongside John Pym and Lord Mandeville (Edward Montagu, later 2nd earl of Manchester).98Barrington Family Letters, 6.

The wide godly network he established in the late 1620s and 1630s drew the ambitious St John into political activism. In 1629 he was imprisoned for his involvement in circulating Sir Robert Dudley’s ‘Proposition’, which advocated rule by the royal prerogative, in an attempt to discredit Charles I. Bedford was also implicated, and it was later claimed that St John ‘never forgave the court the first assault’ on his honour which resulted from his prosecution before the court of star chamber.99Clarendon, Hist. i. 246. Worse was to follow. In 1637 St John joined Robert Holborne* as the lawyers defending John Hampden in his public opposition to Ship Money. During the trial, St John portrayed the tax as an attack on the property rights of the subject, as all such levies must have the consent of Parliament. Without restraints on the prerogative in financial matters, all property would be left ‘to the goodness and mercy of the king’.100Rushworth, Hist. Collns. ii. 508. When the judges had finally returned their decisions in the spring of 1638, they found in favour of the king, but St John’s arguments had hit home, and his reputation was made.101W. Palmer, The Political Career of Oliver St John, 1637-1649 (Newark, Delaware, 1995), 25-31.

The Short Parliament, April-May 1640

On 3 March 1640 St John was elected for the borough of Totnes on the earl of Bedford’s interest, his fellow MP being the Devon lawyer John Maynard. St John was named to the committee of privileges on 16 April and the next day he was appointed with Pym and Sir Walter Erle to the committee to review the state of the records of the Commons, which would provide important evidence for precedents.102CJ ii. 4a, 4b. He joined the debate on Ship Money on 18 April, demanding access to the records of the Hampden trial, ‘to judge whether it were not a judgement against the acts of the House and against the Petition of Right’.103Aston’s Diary, 17. Three days later he was named, alongside Pym, Erle and Hampden, to the committee to investigate Ship Money.104CJ ii. 8b. St John’s concern for reform was not confined to this issue, however. On 20 April he turned to the dissolution of Parliament in 1629, which he considered irregular, and ‘showed that the king called Parliaments by his great seal and not by bare command of word, and therefore he held it might not be adjourned with a bare command’, adding that ‘it was a question whether the great seal could adjourn it, for the court must adjourn itself’.105Procs. Short Parl. 163. The activities of the Convocation of the clergy were also a concern. On 22 April St John was named to a committee – again with Pym, Erle and Hampden – to view the commission granted to Convocation, and on the same day he seconded Pym’s attack on it, saying that ‘the acts of the Convocation could not bind the laity or make canons universal’.106CJ ii. 9b; Procs. Short Parl. 168. ‘They can but consent the Commons to treat’, he continued, ‘if otherwise, where’s our liberty if they may make canons, excommunication must follow, then hath he no property in his estate’.107Aston’s Diary, 31. On 23 April St John was named to a committee with Pym, Erle and Hampden to prepare a conference on preventing ‘innovations’ in religion.108CJ ii. 10a.

In parallel with these debates, St John was involved in moves to gather grievances from around the country. On 20 April he joined Pym on a committee to collect petitions from various counties, and on 24 April he was named with Pym, Erle, Hampden and Maynard to a committee to draw up heads for a conference on grievances and privileges.109CJ ii. 7b, 12a. The reluctance of the king to address such concerns led to the threat to withdraw subsidies until grievances were heard. On 27 April St John supplied precedents for such action, and on that day and the next he expressed concern that the Lords would interfere, and thus begin ‘trenching on the privileges’ of the Commons.110Aston’s Diary, 71-2, 79. On the same day he was named, with Pym and Hampden, to a committee to prepare a paper for a conference with the Lords ‘for righting our privileges’.111CJ ii. 14a. By this stage there are signs that the king’s opponents were taking on specialist roles, ready for another assault on the government’s policies. On 29 April, for example, three MPs were appointed to draft heads for a conference, with Pym being assigned religion, Robert Holborne looking at liberties and privileges, and St John tackling ‘propriety of goods’.112CJ ii. 16a. On 30 April the Commons ordered that St John and Holborne – as the defence lawyers concerned – were to attend the judges and demand access to the records on Ship Money and the Hampden case.113CJ ii. 17a. On the same day, when the debate returned to Ship Money, St John gave a detailed comparison of that tax with the discredited Forced Loan of 1627, and on 4 May he again attacked extra-parliamentary levies, complaining that ‘Ship Money, military charges and monopolies out of Parliament came to above 12 subsidies’ in value. He also called for Parliament to vote on the legality of Ship Money – and thus overturn the decision of the court in 1637-8.114Procs. Short Parl. 185, 194; Aston’s Diary, 104-5, 129, 134. The king brought the Parliament to a swift end the next day, but he had not won the argument, and St John remained optimistic. Hyde recalled meeting him immediately after the dissolution, and was struck by his change of mood. The usually solemn St John ‘had a most cheerful aspect’, saying ‘that all was well, and that it must be worse before it could be better, and that this Parliament would never have done what was necessary to be done’.115Clarendon, Hist. i. 183.

The Long Parliament, Nov. 1640-May 1641

During the summer and autumn of 1640 St John remained in close contact with the leading opponents of the Caroline regime, and he may have hand a hand in drafting the petition of the Twelve Peers, issued in August, which demanded the calling of a new Parliament.116CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 411. In the election that followed, St John was re-elected for Totnes, alongside John Maynard. In the early months of the Long Parliament, St John continued his campaign against a wide range of government abuses. He remained concerned by the state of the church, and especially the harsh penalties meted out by the ecclesiastical courts. On 9 November he moved that one notable victim of Archbishop William Laud, Dr Alexander Leighton, should be sent for, to give evidence further to his petition, and St John was named to the committee on the petition, with Pym, Hampden, Cromwell and Denzil Holles.117Procs. LP i. 71; CJ ii. 24a. On 25 November he was named to a committee to consider the controversial order of the privy council to demolish St Gregory’s church near St Paul’s Cathedral.118CJ ii. 36a. On 3 December he was named, with Pym, Hampden, Holles and others, to a committee on the petitions of William Prynne* and other victims of the court of high commission.119CJ ii. 44b. Six days later he was appointed to a committee to investigate the commissions granted to Convocation.120CJ ii. 48a. The activities of Convocation also concerned St John on 15 December, when he attacked the new church Canons, denying that they were in any way binding without an act of Parliament, for ‘we are now all one body and must be bound by consent in Parliament’.121Procs. LP i. 603. The next day he was named to a committee to prepare the votes on the Canons, ready for transmission to the Lords.122CJ ii. 52a. On 22 December he was added to the committee on the conduct of William Piers, bishop of Bath and Wells.123CJ ii. 56b. This concern to prune the influence of the church would continue into the new year of 1641. For example, on 5 February he was one of the MPs sent to the lord keeper to request that no clergy should be included in new lists of JPs.124CJ ii. 79a. This was a foretaste of things to come.

During the early stages of the Parliament St John was naturally drawn into investigations of abuses in secular government. On 10 November St John, Pym, Hampden, Erle and Sir Thomas Barrington were among the MPs named to a committee to draft a declaration on the state of the kingdom.125CJ ii. 25a. He was named to a committee to consider the delinquency of Sir David Watkins as a monopolist on 16 November.126CJ ii. 30a. A week later he was named to a committee to consider petitions against the courts of the high constable and earl marshal.127CJ ii. 34b. On 14 December St John moved to consider the king’s revenues, and the need to make reparations for such discredited measures as monopolies and Ship Money, and on the same day he joined Pym, Hampden and Erle on the committee to consider abuses by lords lieutenants and other crown officers over coat and conduct money during the bishops’ wars.128Procs. LP i. 589, 596; CJ ii. 50b. This was followed, on 18 December, by his inclusion on the committee to consider the breach of privilege in the 1629 Parliament committed against Pym, Holles, Erle, Hampden and William Strode I*.129CJ ii. 53b. On 6 January 1641 St John moved that the House consider a petition ‘of great moment’ concerning the damaging effect of customs levies and monopolies on the American plantations, and he was named to the subsequent committee.130D’Ewes (N), 224; CJ ii. 64a.

St John was naturally concerned to pursue the issue of Ship Money, which had remained unresolved at the dissolution of the Short Parliament. One reason for impeachment charges against Sir Francis Windebanke* on 11 November was that, in St John’s words, ‘he said that all that refused the payment of Ship Money were traitors’.131Procs. LP i. 108. On 27 November 1640 Sir Walter Erle moved that St John ‘might set us into a way for the Ship Money’, and St John responded to the invitation with a speech attacking Ship Money in principle – warning that there would be ‘no use of parliaments if Ship Money stands’ – and the actions of the judges in the Hampden case: ‘the opinions of the judges … overthrows Magna Carta and all our liberties … for this is a judgement of Parliament overthrown by the judges’.132D’Ewes (N), 74, 74n, 543-4; Procs. LP i. 336-8, 340-1, 343-4. On the same day he joined Pym, Hampden and Erle as a member of the committee to consider the exchequer court’s judgements on the Ship Money case.133CJ ii. 38a. St John reported from this committee on 7 December, again raising the right of property and condemning Forced Loan and other levies as ‘several infringements of the subjects’ rights’.134CJ ii. 46b; D’Ewes (N), 113; Procs. LP i. 490-2. The Hampden judgement was, he claimed, ‘against the law of the realm, the right of property, the liberty of the subject, and contrary to former resolutions of Parliament and the Petition of Right’.135Procs. LP i. 500. He again reported from the Ship Money committee on 19 December.136CJ ii. 55a. St John’s prominence was clear in the new year of 1641: on 13 January he and another lawyer, Bulstrode Whitelocke, were ordered to carry to the Lords the business of Ship Money and other measures concerning property and the liberty of the subject; on 14 January he was thanked by the Commons for his efforts in the Ship Money business; and on 20 January, when the earl of Warwick reported to the Lords on Ship Money, he cited evidence provided by St John.137CJ ii. 66a, 67b, 68a; LJ iv. 136a.

St John was also keen to impeach his main adversary in the Hampden case, the lord keeper, Sir John Finch†. On 19 December he reported the charges against Finch, ‘and desired to know if we would first vote that and send up this charge against him’ to the Lords.138D’Ewes (N), 172. Finch’s subsequent flight to the continent did not end St John’s campaign against him. On 14 January, when delivering the message to the Lords concerning charges against the lord keeper, St John made a speech that again focused on the threat to the property rights of the subject integral to all such extra-parliamentary taxes. He warned that ‘our birth right, our ancestral right, our condition of continuing free subjects [will] be lost’, and Englishmen would soon find themselves reduced ‘to a state of villainage’, as the king ‘may alter the property of the subject’s goods without consent in Parliament’.139The Speech or Declaration of Mr St John (1641), 2, 6-7 (E.196.1). Turning to the Hampden case, St John denounced the judges’ decision as ‘contrary to the laws’, and a betrayal of ‘the common faith and trust of the whole kingdom’, and ended with a call for the impeachment of Finch.140Speech or Declaration, 10-12, 22, 38. The speech had a great impact in both Houses and beyond. John Warner, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Simonds D’Ewes* both made detailed notes, and an unauthorised version was soon printed, leading to calls for the printer to be punished.141Harl. 6424, ff. 2v-4; D’Ewes (N), 253-4; Procs. LP ii. 192, 382.

The political tension of the first months of the Long Parliament was to slacken somewhat at the end of January, with efforts to implement the ‘bridge appointments’ scheme, championed by the earl of Bedford, which promised to place key opponents of the king in positions of authority. On 21 January 1641 it was rumoured that St John would replace Thomas Gardiner* as recorder of London, but on 27 January it was said that ‘Mr St John’s patent for solicitor general is in a readiness and this day to be passed’.142HMC de Lisle, vi. 266, 368-9. The appointment was in fact confirmed by the king two days later, on 29 January.143C66/2888; Sainty, English Law Officers, 62. There was no doubt that the prime mover in this was the earl of Bedford.144Clarendon, Hist. i. 280. St John’s appointment as one of the king’s most important legal advisers perhaps explains his involvement in more conciliatory moves in early February. He was named to the committee on the long-awaited bill for subsidies on 6 February, and on the same day he was appointed to a committee (with Pym, Hampden, Erle and Whitelocke) to ensure that his pirated speech on Ship Money would now be suppressed.145CJ ii. 80a.

Yet any hope of lasting reconciliation between the king and his opponents came to an end at the beginning of proceedings against Sir Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford. St John had advocated harsh measures against Strafford since November. When accusations of treason against Strafford were issued on 11 November, St John was named to the committee to prepare for a conference on the issue.146CJ ii. 26b. In a speech on the same day he argued that the bishops in the Lords should be excluded from any part in the proceedings, as ‘the accusation for treason being a cause for blood, the prelates have no vote in this thing’, and he also reminded MPs that the bishops ‘were generally charged with innovations of religion’ and were themselves under investigation.147D’Ewes (N), 29; Procs. LP i. 100. He also took the opportunity to outline some of the arguments that he would later deploy against Strafford, saying that ‘it was treason to levy an army to subvert the laws of this kingdom’, and he also moved for a proclamation, so that ‘all such could charge him should come and give evidence against him’.148DEwes (N), 532-3. On 12 November he was named to a committee to consider the procedures for sending members of the Irish Parliament, including Sir George Radcliffe and Sir Robert King*, as witnesses against Strafford.149CJ ii. 27b. On 18 November St John insisted that there were many precedents for the Commons’ involvement in criminal cases before the Lords; the next day he moved that MPs might have ‘free access unto the records of attainders in the king’s bench’, and was named to the consequent committee sent to conduct a search.150Procs. LP i. 170-2, 191; CJ ii. 31b. He was named to the committee appointed to peruse these precedents on 27 November.151CJ ii. 38a, 39b. On 28th he was named to a committee to prepare reasons why MPs would be present when witnesses against Strafford were examined by the Lords, and on 30th he was appointed to a committee of both Houses to consider which MPs would be called to give evidence.152CJ ii. 39a. On 6 January 1641 St John was named to a committee to consider four Irish cases, reported by Pym, considered useful in the prosecution of Strafford.153CJ ii. 64a.

From mid-February St John’s attention was devoted to the Strafford case. On 16 February he presented precedents to the Commons for demanding judgement by the Lords in impeachment cases, and that Strafford should be compelled to enter a plea.154D’Ewes (N), 363-4; Procs. LP ii. 462. He was named to a committee, with Pym, Hampden and Strode, to prepare heads for a conference on Strafford the same day.155CJ ii. 86b. On 18 February St John objected to the decision ‘allowing the earl of Strafford counsel and giving him liberty to put his answer in writing, and giving him further time’ which he said was ‘contrary to all use and against law’. He insisted that another conference with the Lords was necessary.156D’Ewes (N), 374. He was also appointed reporter, with Erle and Holles and others, of a conference on the sequestration of the offices of state held by Strafford, pending formal attainder.157CJ ii. 88b. On 25 February St John, Pym, Hampden and Maynard were appointed reporters of a conference with the Lords on the impeachment, and St John returned to the Commons with news that the earl had given his answer to the charges on the previous day.158CJ ii. 93a. The conduct of the impeachment proceedings in both Houses had given rise to suspicions of bad faith between the Lords and Commons. On 26 February St John and other lawyer-MPs ‘protested that they had kept secrecy in the business touching the earl of Strafford’.159Procs. LP ii. 565. On 6 March he was named to a committee of both Houses to arrange for a free conference on the forthcoming trial.160CJ ii. 98a. On 10 March St John again questioned the bishops’ right to sit in judgement, as ‘they were there only to consent, not to handle’ such business.161Procs. LP ii. 703. The following day St John said that sending a message to the Lords objecting to the trial taking place in the upper chamber was ‘a thing of extraordinary importance, for he conceived that if we now let it pass as the Lords would have it, we shall lose all our liberties and sit here for nothing but to give subsidies’.162D’Ewes (N), 473n-4n; Procs. LP ii. 715.

The Strafford trial, which started on 22 March, did little to resolve these problems, as the earl’s defence proved robust and sympathy for him was growing, especially in the Lords. On 14 April St John advised caution, for ‘if we should first in this House speak to the matter of law, it might be conveyed to the earl of Strafford’s counsel against us, and so prove very disadvantageous’.163Procs. LP iii. 551. On 15 April he warned the Commons to be equally careful for their privileges. They must not gather in Westminster Hall as if ‘upon a mere message of the Lords’ but insist on the ancient usage, that the counsel for the accused ‘might be heard at the bar here’.164Procs. LP iii. 566. On the same day, St John was appointed to a committee to prepare the heads of a conference on the proceedings against Strafford.165CJ ii. 120b. On 17 April St John advised that ‘a levying of war to send soldiers etc, and raising Irish army, and counsel to bring it hither’ would amount to ‘treason, if that counsel proved’.166Procs. LP iii. 607. Fearing that the legal arguments were not powerful enough, the Commons voted instead to attaint Strafford for treason on 21 April. The Lords remained unconvinced, and on 29 April St John made his famous speech, ‘to satisfy the scruples which might mar the Lords passing the Commons’ bill of attainder’, and in a three-hour harangue, demonstrated ‘how the facts proven of Strafford were high treason’.167Baillie, Letters and Jnls. i. 349; Harl. 6424, f. 57v. According to St John, Strafford’s role was ‘as an Achan, a troubler of the state, as an execrable, as an accursed thing’.168The Argument of Law Concerning the Bill of Attainder of High Treason of Thomas Earl of Strafford (1641), 2 (E.208.7). He went on to present precedents for defining treason as subverting the laws of the state, ‘to introduce a tyrannical government against the law’; for ‘it is a war against the king when intended for alteration of the laws or government in any part of them’, or when the aim of such counsel was to ‘withdraw the king’s heart from the people’.169Argument of Law, 4-8, 12, 24, 36. Parliament, as ‘the representation of the whole kingdom’, had a duty to act against Strafford, as ‘he that takes away the laws takes not away the allegiance of one subject alone, but of the whole kingdom’. Strafford must be removed to safeguard ‘the great body politic’, for ‘if one member be poisoned or gangrened it hath power to cut it off for the preservation of the rest’.170Argument of Law, 70-2. In St John’s concluding remarks, law gave way to rhetoric: ‘he that would not have had others to have law, why should he have any himself? ... It was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes or wolves on the head, as they can be found, because they be beasts of prey’.171Argument of Law, 72. This at times intemperate speech may have gone farther than Bedford thought prudent, although it is not clear that this constituted a deliberate snub to his patron.172Adamson, Noble Revolt, 270-5. It was certainly well received by the Commons, where it reportedly gave ‘satisfaction to all’, and on 11 May the House issued orders for it to be printed.173Harl. 164, f. 193; Procs. LP iv. 137; CJ ii. 142b.

The execution of the earl of Strafford on 12 May coincided with the funeral of St John’s patron, the earl of Bedford, who had died a few days before. On the day of the execution St John moved that committees should finish their sitting the next afternoon, before the start of the earl’s funeral.174Procs. LP iv. 343. Bedford left an important political legacy for St John, who would in future collaborate more closely with another of earl’s friends and clients, John Pym, who was also a radical critic of the crown. The direct link with the Russell family was also maintained. In June and July 1641 St John’s support for the drainage of the fens in the Commons – calling for a committee ‘to see what were the best ways for the bringing it to be arable and pasture land – would also benefit the Russells.175Procs. LP v. 404, 466. In later months, St John advised William Russell, the 5th earl, on legal affairs, especially concerning the fens.176Bedford Estate Office, acct. bk. of 5th earl, 1641-2, ff. 54, 57, 66.

Cooperation and opposition, May-Dec. 1641

In the aftermath of the Strafford trial, St John became more involved in the administration, especially financial affairs. His interest in this area had been evident in the previous spring. On 18 March 1641 he was named to a committee to prepare a bill for the grant of tonnage and poundage for three years, and on 24 March the Commons ordered St John to expedite the bill for subsidies, which had languished since early February.177CJ ii. 107a, 112a. He returned to such concerns at the end of May, speaking in the debate on the customs on 22 May, and being added to the committee on the customers on the same day.178Procs LP iv. 609; CJ ii. 154b. On 27 May he contributed to the discussion of delays to the tonnage and poundage bill, and was named to the committee to prepare the preamble and additions.179Procs. LP iv. 617; CJ ii. 159b. The next day he reported from the committee, and in debate opposed moves to grant tonnage and poundage to commissioners on behalf of the king, arguing that ‘it was the king’s royal prerogative to defend the sea’.180Procs. LP iv. 609; CJ ii. 160b. This last remark suggests that the king’s solicitor was trying his best to serve two masters, with mixed results. St John doggedly pursued tonnage and poundage during June and July. He was named to a committee to consider propositions from new commissioners on 2 June; he was involved in the amendment of the bill on 10 June; and on 10 July he was finally able to take the bill to the House of Lords.181CJ ii. 165a, 172b, 206a.

St John’s attitude to other royal prerogatives was also equivocal. He remained opposed to Ship Money, and on 19 June he was named to the committee on a bill to declare the Ship Money proceedings illegal and void.182CJ ii. 181b. On 24 June he was added to the committee on Ship Money when it was charged with drafting a bill against the prosecution of knighthood fines.183CJ ii. 184b. But his objection to the latter was more balanced. He spoke against the ‘extreme and excessive fines’ levied on those refusing knighthood, but he resisted calls for the abolition of this right, rather wanting the abuses of it to be addressed.184Procs. LP v. 314; CJ ii. 184b. Immediately afterwards, St John played an important role in managing the Commons’ reaction to the king’s offer to negotiate over the abolition of unpopular courts. St John was named to a committee of both Houses to consider the king’s message on 25 June, and the next day he joined Pym, Holborne, Maynard, Edmund Prideaux I and other lawyers as manager of a conference on bills concerning the courts of star chamber and high commission.185CJ ii. 187b, 189b. On 7 July St John delivered a message from the king concerning the officers of star chamber.186CJ ii. 201b. While welcoming the abolition of the court, he supported compensation for its officers, as ‘it was a court founded by law at first, and the officers of it were not guilty of those irregularities’.187Procs. LP v. 531.

When it came to religious affairs, St John was far less willing to conciliate the king. Following the execution of Strafford he was again involved in attacks on the church hierarchy. On 27 May Sir Edward Dering introduced a bill to abolish episcopacy entirely – a move that some thought originated with St John.188Clarendon, Hist. i. 314-5. He certainly supported the new measure, and on the same day joined Pym, Holles, Hampden and others as reporter of a conference on the new bill ‘concerning bishops and other ecclesiastical persons’.189CJ ii. 159b. On 4 June St John was manager, with Hampden, Holles and others of a conference concerning removing bishops and other clergy from secular positions, and the following day he was named (with Maynard, Hampden, Whitelocke and Prideaux I) to a committee to expedite proceedings against Archbishop Laud.190CJ ii. 167b, 168b. In debate on 11 June he described bishops as ‘hinderers of reformation even from the time of Augustine, the monk sent hither from Gregory the Great’, and he saw the present bishops as a threat to good governance, for their power was ‘in its own nature anti-monarchical, for they claim their authority by another right and not from the king’.191Procs. LP v. 94. When it came to the deans and chapters of cathedrals, St John said on 15 June that they were ‘assistants to the bishops in his government and so did partake of it as well as the officials and commissaries who were their executioners’.192Procs. LP v. 171. Nor was St John prepared to let the judges off the hook. On 3 July, while conceding that the Lords must take the lead in the impeachment proceedings, he added that ‘it is fit that we should desire to be present to hear what the parties say that are accused, that so by hearing of their answer we may be able to know how to proceed against them’.193Procs. LP v. 481.

From the end of July 1641, news of king’s imminent departure for Scotland concentrated minds. On 28 July St John was named with Pym, Erle, Hampden, Strode and others to the committee to consider how the Commons might operate in the king’s absence.194CJ ii. 227a. On 5 August he joined Pym and others as reporter of a conference on the appointment of a suitable peer as custos regni while the king was away from London, and on 7 August he was appointed reporter and manager of a free conference on the same issue.195CJ ii. 238a, 243b. On 27 August St John and Pym were reporters of a conference on the recess, and he was duly named to the Recess Committee appointed on 9 September.196CJ ii. 274a, 288b.

During August and September St John was also involved in measures to hasten legislation in the time that remained. He was named to the committee on a bill for giving security to the Scots for the money to pay off their army (2 Aug.); he was ordered to bring in the bill for tonnage and poundage (5 Aug.); he brought a message from the king asking that the Commons would quickly pass a bill on the Scottish treaty (8 Aug.); and he took the completed bill on tonnage and poundage to the Lords, with the request that it might pass before the departure of the king (10 Aug.).197CJ ii. 232b, 238a, 245b, 247a, 250b; LJ iv. 358a. At the same time, it was vital that the pressure for reform must be maintained. On 3 August St John, Pym, Hampden, Erle, Strode and other leading critics of the crown were appointed to a committee to bring in remonstrances on the state of the kingdom and the church.198CJ ii. 234a. Religious issues were of particular importance to St John. On 11 August he was manager, with Pym and others, of a conference on the impeachment of the bishops, and he was also named to a committee to prepare the heads for the conference.199CJ ii. 251b, 252b. On 16 August he was appointed to a committee to investigate papists trading in London, and on 21 August he joined Pym, Strode and Holles as reporter of a conference on disarming recusants.200CJ ii. 258a, 267b. On 31 August he was appointed to a committee to consider how to ensure the removal of communion tables from altar-wise positions at the east end of chapels at the inns of court and the universities, and on 6 September the Commons ordered that MPs would hold their public thanksgiving at the chapel of Lincoln’s Inn, with St John overseeing security.201CJ ii. 278b, 281a. On 8 September he was appointed manager of a conference on the taking away of ‘superstitious images’.202CJ ii. 283a.

Following the recess, St John redoubled his attack on the church hierarchy, and especially the bishops. On 22 October he moved that only those who renounced their holy orders could hold secular office, and on 26 October he was named to a committee to prepare heads for a conference on removing the right to vote in the Lords from the 12 impeached bishops.203D’Ewes (C), 27; CJ ii. 295b. On 27 October St John and Pym were managers of the conference, and St John argued ‘that the rest of the bishops might be sequestered from their votes’.204D’Ewes (C), 43. On 13 November, following the formal response from the 12 bishops, St John ‘moved that we might not take notice of the said plea and demurrer but desire that we might be admitted to make our proofs’ before the Lords, and he was named to the committee to consider and give opinions on the case, alongside other lawyers like Holborne, Maynard and John Glynne.205D’Ewes (C), 139; CJ ii. 314b. The issue rumbled on during December. On 6 December St John was named to a committee to consider reasons for prosecuting the bishops; on 13 December he was manager with John Glynne of a conference on the matter; and on 31 December he was named to a committee to consider how the impeachment bill needed to be amended now the bishops in question were in the custody of the House of Lords.206CJ ii. 333a, 341a, 364b.

By this time, religious issues had been further complicated by events in Ireland. News of the outbreak of the Irish rebellion reached Westminster on 1 November. St John was included in the committee of both Houses on Irish affairs on 2 November, and on the same day joined Pym, Holles and Sir John Clotworthy as a committee to interview Owen O’Connolly, who had first revealed the plot against Dublin Castle to the authorities.207CJ ii. 302a. On 6 November St John ‘moved that an addition might be made to it to desire the Scots that the 1,000 men might instantly be sent away with all possible speed’.208D’Ewes (C), 94. Thereafter, St John played little part in Irish affairs, however, apparently being more concerned that the rising might encourage malcontents in England to plot against Parliament. Catholics were obvious suspects. St John was added to a committee to mobilise the trained bands and arrest leading papists on 15 November, and named to a committee to prepare a bill for disarming recusants on 3 December.209CJ ii. 316b, 330b. Army officers loyal to the king were also dangerous. On 17 November St John was named to the committee to examine the suspects arrested in the recent ‘army plot’.210CJ ii. 318a. His stance was uncompromising. When it was moved that the officers involved in the army plot should continue to be paid until found guilty, St John asked, rhetorically, ‘if a man take a physician to help his body, and he take pains to poison his body, whether that man in any man’s judgement were worthy of any reward or not?’211Sloane 3317, f. 29. St John was probably responsible for drafting the militia bill, introduced by Sir Arthur Hesilrige on 7 December, that promised to secure the kingdom against foreign invasion by appointing a lord general to command the militia and exercise martial law.212Palmer, St John, 72. Such a blatant infringement of the royal prerogative made a nonsense of St John’s claim to be the king’s loyal servant, but he tried his best. In debate he tried to argue that the bill would safeguard the king’s interests, as the names of the commissioners had been left blank, and the power of appointment ‘would be the king’s, and he hoped it would be so’. The king’s supporters treated such statements with understandable scorn.213Clarendon, Hist. i. 446. His enemies were non-plussed. On 28 December St John again acted as the king’s spokesman to the Commons, to explain why John Digby, 1st earl of Bristol – a man deeply unpopular with the House for his current political position – had advised the mobilisation of the army in 1639. Choosing his words carefully, St John told MPs that ‘his majesty had commanded him to declare to the House upon the first occasion that this matter should come in question, that the earl of Bristol when he advised him to put the English army into a posture, it was only spoken by him in relation to the Scottish army’.214D’Ewes (C), 357.

Towards civil war: Jan.-Dec. 1642

The political crisis of early January 1642, with the attempt to arrest the Five Members and the king’s departure from London, did nothing to calm fears of a conspiracy. St John was not one of the five MPs targeted, but according to an anonymous letter discussed in the Commons, ‘the solicitor, [Nathaniel] Fiennes and [Sir Walter] Erle must be served with the same sauce’.215CJ ii. 369b. St John shared the sense of anxiety that pervaded the Commons in this period. On 12 January he was named to a committee to draw up a declaration to warn of threats of invasion and insurrection.216CJ ii. 372a. On the same day he reassured the Commons that the troops mustered at Kingston-on-Thames under Colonel Lunsford and George Lord Digby* had now dispersed, but there were still fears of unrest, and he went on to move that the governor of the Tower, Sir John Byron, might be summoned to the House as a delinquent.217PJ i. 51-2. On 14 January St John joined Holles, Glynne and Pierrepont and others on a committee to draw up heads for putting the kingdom into a ‘posture of defence’.218CJ ii. 379b. Panic soon gave way to indignation, however. On 17 January St John was named to a committee, with Pym, Holles, Strode and Erle, to draft a petition to the king concerning the recent breach of privilege; and on 16 February he was appointed to the committee on a bill for vindicating the Five Members.219CJ ii. 384a, 436a.

By this time, St John and his allies had already restarted their campaign for root and branch reforms within the church. The bishops remained the primary target. On 17 January he delivered a speech concerning the treason charges against the twelve bishops. He singled out Archbishop John Williams of York for particular criticism. Williams had opposed Archbishop Laud’s innovations in the church, and was ‘well respected and favoured by most of the Lords’ and was generally agreed to be ‘the best affected of any in these times of that function’; but when his fellow bishops were charged he had ‘obstinately voted against their punishment [and] hath not only refused to assent to regulate the office of episcopacy, but likewise opposed the same’.220Master St John his Speech… on Monday January the 17th An. Dom. 1641 (1642), sig. A2v-A3 (E.200.24). St John admitted that the bishops might have a legitimate role in the Lords, ‘to give their advice in points of law concerning religion, as judges to give their opinion in points of law concerning judicature’, but it was unnecessary ‘to have their votes concerning religion’, nor was it desirable for them ‘to intermeddle or give advice touching temporal affairs’.221Master St John his Speech, sig. A3v. On the day of the speech, the Commons appointed St John to a committee to be present in the Lords when the bishops answered the impeachment charges against them.222CJ ii. 385b. On 14 February he was named with Maynard, Glynne, Prideaux I and other lawyers, to a committee to prepare evidence against the bishops.223CJ ii. 431a. On 19 February St John voiced his concern at the lack of progress in punishing the 12 bishops, ‘but yet he said all the labour need not be lost, for here had passed enough to satisfy us and the Lords in matter of conscience’, and he recommended proceeding with the bill of attainder forthwith.224PJ i. 419-20, 424. On 21 February he moved that the proofs against the bishops should be heard, and then the heads of the bill decided, and he was chosen to be on the committee to manage the trial.225PJ i. 433-4. The following day he was named to the committee on a separate bill for the forfeiture of the archbishop of York, and the Commons ordered that he should be one of the MPs attending the Lords when the attorney-general gave his answer to the impeachment of the bishops.226CJ ii. 448b, 449a.

There was also unfinished financial business. Tonnage and poundage had not been settled during the previous winter, despite St John’s efforts. On 12 November 1641 he had reminded the Commons that the grant was due to expire on 1 December, and urged that the committee on the book of rates would sit.227D’Ewes (C), 125-6. He had returned to the matter on 23 November, again asking for a speedy resolution, and also moved for a bill to raise eight subsidies from the clergy to be passed.228D’Ewes (C), 189-90. When the new book of rates remained unfinished on 25 November, St John called for a short bill for the temporary renewal of tonnage and poundage – a measure that was passed two days later.229D’Ewes (C), 196-7, 207. Nothing more was accomplished by 20 January 1642, when St John moved that a day should be set aside for consider the book of rates, as the temporary arrangements were due to expire at the end of the month.230PJ i. 111. Giles Grene was ordered to report from the customers committee, and on St John’s motion he eventually did so on 24 January.231PJ i. 145. Two days later, St John delivered the bill to the Commons, but with unexpected consequences.232CJ ii. 397a. As D’Ewes noted, ‘divers thereupon, who were the intimate friends of Mr St John, the king’s solicitor, spoke against the bill that it might be rejected, and against him, that he had broken the privileges of the House in bringing of it into the House without a special order’. Although St John argued his case vigorously, D’Ewes added that ‘I learned afterwards that he was commanded by his majesty to bring in this bill, and that this revealed him as a traitor to his friends’.233PJ i. 176-7.

This gloss on the activities of the ‘crafty solicitor’ may not be entirely fair. St John was apparently caught in a genuine dilemma, as a servant of the king who was also a leading critic of his policies. And despite their reservations, the Commons was unwilling to stifle the bill altogether: on 27 January St John reintroduced it with further limitations; on 29 January he offered a proviso that was rejected by the Commons; the main body of the bill was, however, read for a third time and St John took it to the Lords.234PJ i. 187, 219; CJ ii. 402b. This was not the end of tonnage and poundage, however. The issue lingered for the next few months. In April St John was chairing a grand committee on the subject, and brought in a new bill on 28 April, which he subsequently carried to the Lords.235PJ ii. 186, 205, 235; CJ ii. 534a, 538b, 543b, 546a; LJ v. 26a. In June a new sub-committee on tonnage and poundage was formed on St John’s request, and he took the chair when the matter was once again debated in the Commons.236PJ iii. 79, 101, 111, 133; CJ ii. 632b, 635a, 639b.

Irish affairs also resurfaced as an issue for St John in the spring of 1642. On 16 February he was named to a committee to put propositions for the reduction of Ireland (as reported by Sir Walter Erle) into a fit form to be presented to the Lords, and on 24 February he moved for the printing of the king’s answer to Parliament’s propositions concerning Ireland, including the forfeiting of rebels’ estates.237CJ ii. 435b; PJ i. 450. The next day he was named to the committee to draft a bill based on these propositions; on 28 February he was named to the committee of both Houses on Irish affairs; and on 5 March he was named to the committee on a bill for reducing Ireland, alongside Prideaux I and Cromwell.238CJ ii. 456a, 461a, 468b. In March St John invested £300 of his own money in the Irish adventure, and in the same month he was named to a committee to collect the money promised under the new bill.239Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 191; CJ ii. 504a.

The fate of the bishops, the tonnage and poundage bill and the response to Ireland: all were eclipsed by the deepening political divisions in England during the spring of 1642. Perhaps smarting from his rough treatment in the Commons over tonnage and poundage, St John kept a low profile during the angry debates over the militia bill in February and early March, and his support for the legislation is only known because of a passing comment by Whitelocke.240Palmer, St John, 76; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 165. In the days after the Militia Ordinance was passed, he was more in evidence. On 7 March St John, Hampden, Pym, Holles, Strode and others formed a committee to prepare a message to the king to ask him to return to Parliament, but this was not likely to elicit a positive response.241CJ ii. 469b. On 14 March he was named, with Pym, Holles, Vane II and others, to a committee to prepare a declaration justifying the Militia Ordinance; on 18 March he was chosen to consider Holles’s report from the Lords, concerning the votes on the ordinance in the lower House.242CJ ii. 478a, 485a. Events in the north of England encouraged the opposition elements in the Commons to take a hard line. St John’s involvement was behind the scenes. On 15 March, for example, Pym’s speech on the propositions concerning the king’s attempt to enter Hull drew on precedents collected by St John concerning Parliament’s role when the kingdom was in danger.243PJ ii. 41.

From early April the king’s attempts to raise his own party prompted a vigorous response from Westminster. On 5 April St John joined Holles, Whitelocke and others on a committee to consider the king’s commands to sheriffs for dispersing royal proclamations and other materials through the countryside.244CJ ii. 512a. On 13 April St John joined other key MPs (including Pym, Holles and Erle) on a committee of both Houses to consider votes on the king’s latest message, announcing his intention to go to Ireland.245CJ ii. 525b. On 19 April St John was named to a committee to consider the impeachment of Lord Digby, considered to be one of the king’s most dangerous counsellors.246CJ ii. 535a. As an expert in constitutional law, St John was prepared to advise Parliament in its tentative steps towards independent action. On 28 April he was named to a committee to peruse acts for pressing soldiers and raising money, ostensibly for the Irish wars; and on 16 May he was appointed a committee to consider precedents for how Parliament might act in the absence of the king, when the king was badly advised, when consent to bills was refused, and when forces nevertheless needed to be raised for the security of the kingdom.247CJ ii. 546a, 572b. By the end of May Parliament was seeking to raise volunteers under the adventurers’ act, and the king was beginning to issue instructions for the mustering of men under the commission of array. Both were scrutinised in committee by St John.248CJ ii. 583a, 588a. On 31 May St John was appointed to a committee to consider additional articles that might be added to the Nineteen Propositions to be sent to the king.249CJ ii. 596a.

In June and July 1642, as preparations for war intensified, St John was involved in opposing the king’s attempt to mobilise support in the localities. He was named to a committee of both Houses to prevent the issuing of the commission of array in various counties, especially Leicestershire (17 June); to a committee to receive intelligence of attempts to send men, money and supplies to the king at York (17 June); and to a committee to draw up a declaration denouncing the commissions as illegal (18 June).250CJ ii. 630a, 632a. On 21 June St John was named to a committee to consider the king’s declaration requesting support from ‘his loving subjects’, and on 28 June St John spoke during the debate on commissioners of array.251CJ ii. 639b; PJ iii. 147. During July, St John turned his attention to justifying Parliament’s own attempts to garner support. On 9 July he was named to the committee on the militia ordinance (with Strode I, Holles, Prideaux I and other leading opponents of the crown), and on the same day he was appointed to a committee to draft a declaration justifying the new legislation.252CJ ii. 663b. He also took a leading part in moves to root out royalism in London, being named to the committee to attend the Lords when the lord mayor answered impeachment proceedings on 19 July, and managing the evidence at the trial.253CJ ii. 681a, 681b. On 26 July the Commons ordered that the order giving indemnity for those who obeyed Parliament’s instructions, considered by St John and Robert Reynolds, should be sent to the Lords.254CJ ii. 691a.

St John’s support for war continued in the late summer and early autumn. On 11 August St John, Pym, Holles, Prideaux I and Strode I were named to a committee to draft an oath of adherence to Parliament’s lord general, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.255CJ ii. 715b. On 22 August St John was also involved in a committee to prepare a declaration warning towns to stand to their defence and raise the trained bands, following the attempt on Coventry.256CJ ii. 732a. On 30 August St John was appointed to another committee, to prepare impeachment proceedings against leading royalists in the south west, including William Seymour, 1st marquess of Hertford, and Lord Seymour (Sir Francis Seymour*).257CJ ii. 745b. On 17 September he was appointed to the committee that prepared Essex’s reply to the king’s latest message, and drafted instructions for the earl; on 22 September he was involved in drafting a declaration for the remaining unity in London to march to join the field army.258CJ ii. 771a, 777b. On 3 October St John joined Pym, Glynne and Vane II as reporter of a conference on a letter received from Essex.259CJ ii. 791a.

During the Edgehill campaign, and the threat to London that followed, St John remained a strong advocate of the war. In October and November he argued in favour of practical measures to help recruitment of men by offering adequate care for the wounded or the families of the deceased.260Add. 18777, ff. 41v, 52v. As he told the House on 24 October, ‘I would have all encouraged for our service, and therefore would have us declare that if any be maimed or killed we will take their wife and children into our care, having special regard unto such as do best service’.261Add. 18777, f. 41v. The defence of London was a great concern after the failure of Essex to defeat the king in battle, and St John was named to committees to prepare an order to exempt all those working on the defences from the fast day (25 Oct.), and to prepare a declaration concerning the cost of provisions for the soldiers currently in the City (1 Nov.).262CJ ii. 823a, 829a. He also called for more stringent measures against Catholics in London, arguing on 4 November that they should be arrested, and he was named to a committee to draw up a proclamation to that effect.263Add. 18777, f. 50v; CJ ii. 835a. The next day he was named to a committee to consider the removal of the Capuchin friars from Somerset House, and the destruction of their chapel.264CJ ii. 835b. On 10 November he was also appointed to a committee on a declaration concerning the papists employed by the king.265CJ ii. 842a.

On 12 November there was a conference between the Houses concerning possible peace talks, and St John was one of the reporters, but the repulse of the king’s forces at Turnham Green stiffened Parliament’s resolve, and the next day St John was named to a committee to raise more troops in London.266CJ ii. 845b, 847b. St John appears to have been as hawkish as ever. On 23 November he and Holles were managers of a conference concerning a message to the earl of Essex to prosecute the war more actively; on 25 November he was named to a committee to draft orders authorising towns to defend themselves against the king; and on 2 December he was appointed a committee to prepare a manifesto ‘to set forth unto the world’ the grounds for Parliament waging war.267CJ ii. 861a, 863a, 873a. This last committee also included Pym, Holles, Vane II, Strode I and other proponents of war.268CJ ii. 873a. In mid-December, St John’s inclusion on two other committees – to raise forces against William Cavendish, 1st earl of Newcastle, in the north, and to mete out the same treatment to royalist prisoners as suffered by parliamentarians at Oxford – again suggest that he was among the most bellicose of MPs.269CJ ii. 890b, 891a. In the same period, St John was busy with measures to improve the financing of the army. He was appointed to the committee that considered introducing an assessment in London on 23 November, and by early December he was willing to support harsh measures to ensure the inhabitants of London pay this tax, including an examination on oath.270CJ ii. 860a, 875b, 878b; Add. 18777, f. 92. This was an unwelcome innovation, fraught with legal difficulties. As D’Ewes commented, ‘Mr Pym, Mr Strode and Mr St John, the king’s solicitor himself, minced the business and said in effect that a public necessity might enable us to administer a new oath’.271Harl. 164, f. 248.

D’Ewes was no friend of St John, but his comments reveal the contradictions of St John’s political position at the end of 1642. Despite his support for extreme measures, St John still felt a sense of obligation as a royal servant which was increasingly at odds with the dictates of ‘necessity’. During the previous 18 months he had just about managed to square the circle. This can be seen in his dogged loyalty to the king over tonnage and poundage and his discomfort with the militia bill. His attempts to serve the king can be seen in other areas. On 10 May, for example, he moved that the Commons join the Lords in restraining those who killed the king’s deer in Waltham Forest in Essex, and he was asked to prepare the order to effect this.272PJ ii. 302-3. On 2 June he told that the Commons ‘that he yesternight received a command from his majesty to attend him at York for matters that concern his honour and person’; as ‘his majesty’s sworn servant’, St John was obliged to ask the House for leave to go north, but the Commons immediately refused this request, and resolved that he should be ‘enjoined to stay’.273Add. 14827, f. 123; PJ iii. 3; CJ ii. 600b-601a. St John was also sympathetic to others in a similar predicament. On 27 August he defended Sir John Culpeper, saying that he had ‘a little before spoken to him as he came into the House and desired him to acquaint the House that his command was such from his majesty that he could not deliver the said message’, although MPs went on to demand his attendance.274PJ iii. 321, 323. On 24 September he joined Pym in support of the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester, whose delay in crossing the Irish Sea had hampered the war effort. St John argued that the situation was too delicate to allow the Commons to press for Leicester’s dismissal:

The Lords think him fit; he hath the king’s commission. If we oppose it at this time we know not what breaches it may make. If he be impeached and acquitted the delay will be put upon this House, and if the king says he shall go and we say not, what distraction will that be … to the service?275Add. 18777, f. 11.

The same prudence needed to be displayed when dealing with lesser officials. When on 4 October MPs were eager to prosecute an Oxfordshire justice of the peace for obeying the king’s commands, St John warned ‘that it is ordinary for this House to grant a habeas corpus, albeit they be not in the service of the House’, citing the case of Dr Bastwick.276Add. 18777, f. 20v. As the last case suggests, residual loyalty to the crown and its servants formed part of St John’s more general concern to protect the established laws and conventions. On 18 November, during a debate on treating with the Scots, St John opined that ‘when the king’s banner is displayed, and no court sit, and if the [legal] term be adjourned it is tempus belli; and if a man take away my goods I have no remedy, if one kill another he cannot be indicted’.277Add. 18777, f. 62. On 29 November he encouraged Parliament to appoint its own sheriffs, citing the irregularity of the king’s own appointments, ‘for the case is this, the king hath made sheriffs without the judges, of his own authority’.278Add. 18777, f. 77. It was perhaps this sense of propriety that had caused him to interrupt Henry Marten’s ‘bold and irreverential expressions’ against the king on 22 November.279Harl. 164, f. 106. Yet the onset of war had already made St John’s attempt to serve two masters untenable.

The Oxford Peace, Dec. 1642-Apr. 1643

In the winter of 1642-3, St John played a reluctant part in the peace negotiations with the king. From the start he wanted any talks to be tightly controlled by Parliament, and legally watertight. This explains his irritation at the petition sent by many Londoners to the king, and when the originators were arrested he and ‘other hot spirits were very earnest to have them committed’.280Harl. 164, f. 265v. He was also anxious that the king should not reap any propaganda advantages. On 26 December he warned the Commons that if the proposals were offered ‘in time of war for settling of peace, if they be not granted we continue the war, and by this means we make ourselves the offensive party’. The preamble thus had to be carefully worded, ‘to carry the state of the cause of our taking up arms in the preamble … that the preamble shall not be peremptory but matter of justice, and after would desire other things’.281Add. 18777, f. 104. D’Ewes thought that ‘those who pressed for this addition did it to hinder peace’.282Harl. 164, f. 275; CJ ii. 903a. He may have had a point. St John’s direct involvement in the peace process reveals a strong vein of scepticism. In his speech on 11 February, he argued that ‘all agree to a treaty, but whether before or after the disbanding of the armies is the question’. He warned that talks could hardly proceed while the people were being plundered, and asked ‘whether the debating of the propositions will not give animosity to both armies?’283Add. 18777, f. 151v. On 11 March, during the debate on the king’s propositions, the Commons were ready to agree with the Lords on the issue of freedom to travel to Oxford, when St John intervened. According to D’Ewes, St John

very cunningly watching his opportunity like a true Judas to his master, when the House was wearied with the length of the debate … proposed two frivolous objections which took such an impression at the instant as it turned the opinion of many shallow men, and made us wholly to differ from the Lords.284Harl. 164, f. 323.

On the same day, Parliament learned of an unauthorised local treaty between the parliamentarians of Devon and the royalists of Cornwall. St John was included in the committee to prepare instructions for Edmund Prideaux I and Anthony Nicoll, who were to be sent west to prevent a local deal; and on 18 March he was appointed to a committee to consider the local treaty, alongside Pym and other western MPs.285CJ ii. 998b; iii. 8a. As with the London petition a few months earlier, unilateral negotiations were unacceptable to St John and his allies, not least because they might succeed.

Behind the scenes, St John had been busy subverting the Oxford peace talks by pushing forward a religious reform agenda that was inimical to the king. Religious reform had been on hold since outbreak of hostilities, and even St John had concurred with this. On 1 September 1642 he had argued for a delay in the debate on the abolition of bishops, counselling that ‘it being a matter of great weight, we might argue it upon the greater premeditation’.286PJ iii. 329. On 22 November he had been named to a committee to prepare a bill for the ‘taking away’ of bishops and deans and chapters, but the time was still not right.287CJ ii. 858b. However, on 4 January 1643 the bill was reintroduced, and St John made the controversial argument that: ‘if we give away or take away the bishops’ lands, we give away that which is the king’s, and if we attaint them, though they be attainted, the lands escheat to the king’; instead he suggested holding the bishops’ lands in trust for the king, and extending this arrangement to cover impropriations, with the proceeds ‘employed for the ministry’.288Add. 18777, ff. 114v, 115. When it came to any peace settlement, St John was concerned to secure reparations for supporters of Parliament who had suffered during the wars, arguing on 31 December in favour of a declaration ‘that in case the king’s army plunder such ministers as are affected to the Parliament, that in case malignant ministers shall not give them satisfaction, that their estates shall repair their losses’.289Add. 18777, f. 108v. He was then named to the Committee for Plundered Ministers.290CJ ii. 909a.

St John was also determined to impose harsh penalties on Catholics. He denounced their religion on 3 January as ‘against the policy of this kingdom’, and advocating additional measures against suspected papists, including a new oath adjuring transubstantiation, and ‘that whosoever refuse this oath it shall be a conviction without more ado’.291Add. 18777, f. 113. He was then named with a number of allies, including Pym, Prideaux I, Pierrepont, Vane II, Holles, Maynard and Samuel Browne, to a committee to consider this oath and for a new bill for the education of Catholic children as Protestants.292CJ ii. 913a. On 5 January he drew a parallel with the Knights Templar under Edward II: ‘now the papists were intended to be rooted out of the church, their lands, manors etc were to come to the king’.293Add. 31116, p. 36. In February news from Ireland that the king had sent an agent to start talks with the Catholic Confederates was seized on by those eager to discredit the king further. On 14 February St John, Pym, Holles, Vane (II?), Prideaux I and Clotworthy were named to a committee to consider the information received, and to send a message of support for the lords justices in Dublin.294CJ ii. 965a. On 28 February St John was named to another committee to counter royalist stories that Parliament had abandoned Ireland to concentrate on defeating the king.295CJ ii. 984a. The revelations about Ireland, along with the attacks on the church and Catholics seriously undermined the peace process, and this appears to have been St John’s intention.

By the beginning of April it was clear that the peace with the king was dying. The final rites had to be carefully stage-managed, to avoid Parliament taking the blame, and St John was involved at every stage. On 7 April he was appointed reporter and manager, with Pym, Holles and Reynolds, of a conference to consider the instructions to be sent to Parliament’s committee at the royalist capital, and on 8 April he was teller with Sir Peter Wentworth against making any further alterations to those instructions – a motion narrowly passed in a thin House.296CJ iii. 34a, 36b. On 13 April St John, Pym and Vane were reporters of a conference on a message from the king and a message from Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, concerning the treaty; and on 18 April, after the return of the committee, St John was one of those chosen to peruse the papers and to state the ‘whole business’ in an attempt to vindicate Parliament.297CJ iii. 42b, 50b. Blaming the failure of the treaty on the king not only allowed Parliament to save face, it also let St John off the hook. Although he was not formally dismissed as solicitor by the king until the following October, from April St John’s actions suggest that he no longer considered himself under any obligation as a royal servant.

Scottish Negotiations, April-December 1643

After the break down of the Oxford talks, St John was eager to restart the war; but before this more belligerent policy could be implemented it was necessary to neutralise his political opponents at Westminster. The continuing danger posed by advocates of peace was highlighted at the end of May, with the discovery of the conspiracy led by Edmund Waller*, and involving pro-peace MPs and prominent figures in the City of London. On 31 May St John, Vane II, Pym, Glynne and Sir Gilbert Gerard formed a committee of safety, with power examine and commit anyone deemed a threat to the safety of the kingdom and the City.298CJ iii. 110b. On 6 June St John, Pym, Vane II and Glynne were also named to a committee to prepare an oath concerning the plot, to be taken by members of both Houses and more widely through the kingdom.299CJ iii. 117b. The resultant ‘oath and covenant’ was subscribed by St John and other MPs later the same day.300CJ iii. 118a. Over the next few days, St John was the manager, with Pym and Vane II, of conferences on aspects of the plot, and on 14 June he was named to a committee to draft a narrative of what had happened.301CJ iii. 119a, 126b, 128b. On 29 June St John demanded strong action against those who had known of the plot, including the earl of Northumberland, and ‘spoke vehemently that we might move for his commitment, saying that Mr Waller had not only accused him upon oath but had likewise upon the same oath produced other testimony that he did not only know of but did also consent to this conspiracy’.302Harl. 165, f. 103v.

St John’s support for a more aggressive approach to the war also led him to criticise the effectual lord general, the earl of Essex. At first this was indirect, through measures to support regional forces not under Essex’s immediate command. On 22 June St John, Vane II, Strode I and Prideaux I were among those named to a committee to consider how the forces in the south west and the north might be paid regularly; and on 15 July he was added to the committee for the Eastern Association.303CJ iii. 140a, 167b. In the late summer, St John supported the formation of a brigade, under Sir William Waller*, that would act independently of Essex. On 3 August St John, Pym, Strode I and John Crewe were sent to the lord general, then at Uxbridge in Middlesex, ‘to desire him to grant a commission to Sir William Waller to be commander-in-chief over the forces to be raised for the defence of the kingdom in London, Westminster and the parts adjacent under the militia of London’.304Add. 31116, p. 134; CJ iii. 193a. This initiative was interrupted by the House of Lords, which responded to news of defeats in the west by agreeing to new peace propositions that were little short of surrender. The Commons also considered the propositions, but St John and his allies quickly blocked the move, supported by the London mob, which occupied Old Palace Yard on 7 August. This intervention was blamed on St John, Pym and ‘the violent spirits’, who had incited the rioters to ‘come down to overawe the members of the House of Commons, that they might not consent to the propositions for peace’.305Harl. 165, f. 146. The propositions were duly rejected, and St John, Pym, Browne, Prideaux I and other opponents were named to a committee to prepare more respectable reasons for the Commons’ decision.306CJ iii. 197b.

There followed a period of apparent conciliation towards the earl of Essex, with St John being named to two committees to raise money and men to reinforce the earl’s army and allow it to march to the relief of Gloucester, and he was also chosen as a member of a committee to attend the earl.307CJ iii. 207b, 210a, 211b. Thereafter, St John’s position was strengthened when his appointment to Parliament’s executive, the Committee of Safety, was approved by the Lords on 24 August and his appointment to the council of war was agreed by the Commons on 25 August.308LJ vi. 195a; CJ iii. 218a. He remained a controversial figure at Westminster, however. Following the examination of the turncoats, Sir John* and John Hotham*, on 25 August, St John moved that a new president of the court martial should be appointed in the absence of the earl of Manchester, and the Commons’ concurrence with this led D’Ewes to complain that ‘nothing seemed seasonable counsel at this time but what savoured of violence and extremity’.309Harl. 165, f. 179.

It had long been apparent that the best possibility for defeating the king’s forces would come from the north. The Scots had been in contact with Parliament throughout its sitting, and St John had been occasionally involved in negotiations with them. In June 1642, for example, he was named to committees to peruse the articles of a prospective treaty with the Scots and to prepare commissions to preserve the peace between the two nations.310CJ iii. 601a, 621b. A year later the possibility of an alliance was much closer. On 26 June 1643 St John was named to a committee to consider the sending of a committee to Scotland, and the next day he and Pym, Vane II and Browne were made managers of a conference on the same issue.311CJ iii. 145a, 146b. St John was named to a committee to receive propositions from the Scots and to send instructions to Parliament’s own committee in Edinburgh on 31 July.312CJ iii. 188b. The need for a religious agreement was paramount. There had been moves to appoint an assembly of divines since the spring of 1642, and St John had been involved in the deliberations, being named to a pertinent committee in April, and taking care of the bill, sitting on its committee and carrying it to the Lords in October of that year.313CJ iii. 541b, 793a, 798b, 400b. In June 1643 St John was made a member of the Westminster Assembly when it was established by ordinance, alongside such long-term allies as Pym, Prideaux I, Whitelocke and Vane II.314A. and O.; CJ iii. 119b. The first task of the Assembly was to negotiate with the Presbyterian Scots, and St John was one of those mediating between the two. On 27 August he presented to the Commons letters from Edinburgh to the Assembly, ’touching their concurrence with us in a thorough reformation of the church’ and desiring a formal covenant between the two nations.315Add. 31116, p. 148. On 2 September he joined two other allies of Pym, Francis Rous and Anthony Nicoll, as a committee to prepare heads for a conference on divisions within the Assembly over the proposed Solemn League and Covenant with the Scots, and the three were also made managers of the conference.316CJ iii. 225b.

When the formal negotiations with the Scots started in early September, St John took the lead. On 7 September he was manager with Pym and others of a conference on Scottish affairs, and on the same day he reported from the committee to prepare reasons why some articles had to be omitted from the Covenant.317CJ iii. 231b; Harl. 165, f. 172. Two days later St John was named to a committee of both Houses to receive further propositions from the Scottish commissioners; on 10 September he spoke in favour of the agreement, arguing that religious differences must be subsumed beneath the common cause; and he joined Pym and Holles as reporter of the Scots’ propositions on 11th.318CJ iii. 235a, 236b; Palmer, St John, 81. On 12 September he moved for the printing of letters between the Scots and the Assembly concerning the ‘affectionate support’ of one for the other, and he was sent to the Assembly to invite them to send their own committee to assist in the treaty negotiations with the Scottish commissioners.319Harl. 165, f. 177v; CJ iii. 237b. The speed of the process alarmed many MPs, and caused some changes in the wording of the Covenant. On 15 September St John reported from the committee

that they had now agreed to the Scotch Covenant, and had put that into the body of it which was before in the margin of it touching the exposition of the word ‘prelacy’, and for those words ‘according to the word of God’, which did follow after the mention of the reformation of religion in the church of Scotland, were quite left out, which words had formerly bred so much debate, and so the House allowed of it.320Harl. 165, f. 193.

Thus modified, the Covenant was passed on 25 September, and St John signed it five days later.321CJ iii. 259a.

The royalist press was understandably cynical about St John’s part in the dealings with the Scots, reporting of his 10 September speech that ‘his majesty’s most excellent solicitor’ had argued

that though episcopacy were better, yet Presbytery being also good was to be preferred not in itself, but with relation to the necessities of the commonwealth, in regard the Scots would not otherwise be drawn to take their part, and that without the Scots and their present aid they were not able to subsist.322Mercurius Aulicus no. 37 (10-16 Sept. 1643), 504-5 (E.68.4).

St John had no doubt been economical with the truth to secure the passage of the Covenant, but this does not mean that he lacked principles. The problem was that his own religious views were incompatible with those of both moderate MPs and the Scots, as they included support for those calling for liberty of conscience. Cromwell, writing to St John from Lincolnshire on 11 September to ask for money for his troops, clearly expected him to sympathise with his own controversial views: ‘I have a lovely company; yea, you would respect them. They are no Anabaptists, they are honest, sober Christians; they expect to be used as men’.323Abbott, Writings and Speeches i. 258. This fits with the closing remarks in St John’s speech of 15 September, which proposed that the Assembly should supplement the Covenant with a statement to ‘give relief to those tender consciences who scruples to take it’.324Add. 18778, ff. 43v-44. This need not suggest that St John was himself a religious Independent or sectary – his surviving commonplace book suggests he was a conventional puritan – but it does demonstrate a more tolerant approach than that expected by the Scots.325Add. 25285; V. Pearl, ‘Oliver St John and the “Middle Group” in the Long Parliament: August 1643-May 1644’, EHR lxxxi (1966), 500-1, 503; Pearl, ‘The “Royal Independents” in the English Civil War’, TRHS ser. 5, xviii (1968), 79-81. St John was also willing to support friends who could not stomach the new Covenant on grounds of conscience. In November he moved the House, on behalf of William Pierrepont, ‘that because he could not yet satisfy himself to take the Covenant, he might have leave for a time to go beyond sea’, although this request was rejected by a single vote.326Add. 31116, p. 180.

The alliance with the Scots had far-reaching political consequences. Inevitably, the plan to introduce a large Scottish army into the English war was seen as another attempt to undermine Essex’s position as lord general. On 6 October, in a speech commending the Covenant to the City of London, St John justified the agreement on military grounds, as essential for a decisive victory by the parliamentarian army, which alone would guarantee a satisfactory peace settlement. This was designed to win over waverers; but it was also a veiled attack on the conduct of the war, and the role of Essex.327Foure Speeches delivered in Guildhall on Friday the Sixth of October 1643 (1646), 1-3 and passim (E.388.1); Palmer, St John, 81-2; Pearl, ‘Oliver St John’, 501-2. St John’s hostility to Essex can also be seen in his attitude towards the general’s cousin, the earl of Holland, who had returned to London in November after an unhappy sojourn at Oxford. St John’s ally, John Gurdon, spoke against Holland resuming his seat in the Lords; and his cousin, Samuel Browne, called for Holland’s impeachment.328Palmer, St John, 83; Harl. 164, ff. 223, 266r-v, 228-30. St John’s authority at Westminster was not harmed by such overt factionalism, however. On 10 November the Lords ordered that he should join Prideaux I, Browne and John Wylde as one of the new commissioners of the great seal, and he took his oath as a commissioner before the Lords on 20 November.329LJ vi. 302a, 318a. His position can also be seen in the process for appointing the earl of Warwick as lord admiral. St John and Vane II formed the committee to bring in the ordinance on 28 November, and on 5 December St John was also named to the committee appointed to scrutinise the legislation.330CJ iii. 323a, 329a.

St John’s position as a leading pro-war MP now depended on the Scots living up to expectations. This in turn depended on raising the money needed to bring the Scottish army into England, which required the cooperation of the City of London. On 28 September St John was named to a high-powered committee for liaising with the City authorities about raising money for the Scottish forces.331CJ iii. 258a. The Members named on this occasion formed the nucleus of the Committee at Goldsmiths’ Hall for Scottish Affairs, which would evolve into the Committee for Compounding. St John would be an active member of this committee until the summer of 1644.332Supra, ‘Committee for Compounding’; CCC 1. On 2 October St John was ordered to attend the common council to discuss the situation, and to offer security for any loan from the confiscated estates of royalists in the north of England, and on 6 October he made a speech arguing ‘the necessity of their coming, and speedy supplies to be raised’.333CJ iii. 261a; Foure Speeches, 2. The initial approaches did not go well. St John was concerned about disaffection in London on 12 October, when he told the House of ‘a great backwardness was bred in the City in furnishing of money by our not proceeding with those notorious delinquents, viz. Mr Waller of our own House and the two Hothams’.334Add. 31116, p. 165. St John was determined to override any opposition, however, and on 15 October he brought in an ordinance ‘for securing such moneys upon the public faith as should be lent for the bringing in of the 21,000 Scots which should assist the northern parts’.335Add. 31116, p. 167. London’s reluctance was not forgotten, and in December St John led an attempt to purge the City’s government. On 20 December he moved an ordinance to exclude from the forthcoming elections those common councillors who had not signed the Covenant, or had been accused of malignancy.336Harl. 165, f. 251. This was picked up by the royalist press on 25 December, which accused St John of manipulating the elections to the common council of London, attempting ‘to draw in none but such as are approved and tried in the cause’. When the matter was discussed in the Commons, it was alleged ‘he had their names written and (which is more) printed, before the motion was made among the Members’.337Mercurius Aulicus no. 52 (24-30 Dec. 1643), 736 (E.81.19). Such high-handedness also caused disquiet at Westminster. When St John supported moves to garrison Hampton Court on 20 December, D’Ewes lampooned ‘the trusty solicitor’, who had spoken ‘so far for the preserving of his majesty’s palace as to second that motion’.338Harl. 165, f. 251.

The death of John Pym in December removed St John’s second patron from the scene. St John was involved in the obsequies. On 9 December St John and Francis Rous were ordered by the Commons to take custody of Pym’s papers.339CJ iii. 334b. On 11 December St John moved for the Commons to show its gratitude to Pym by protecting his children, as the old man had ‘wasted his own estate and person’ in the service of Parliament; and he was named to a committee to consider how to proceed on this, alongside other friends and relatives of Pym, like Rous and Nicoll.340Add. 31116, p. 198; CJ iii. 336b. On 15 December he was instructed by the Commons to thank Stephen Marshall for preaching at Pym’s funeral, and in the new year of 1644 he acted as messenger to the Lords with a resolution for satisfying Pym’s debts.341CJ iii. 341b, 399a. By that time, St John was being seen as ‘Mr Pym’s successor’, and as ‘one that hath lighted the candle of Mr Pym’s flames of zeal and piety, and now acts with so much virtue’.342Baillie, Letters and Jnls. ii. 133; Mercurius Britanicus no. 20 (4-11 Jan. 1644), 154 (E.81.20).

The Committee of Both Kingdoms, Dec. 1643-May 1644

St John’s vigorous support for the Scots continued in the winter of 1643-4. On 13 December he was chosen with Vane II as manager of a conference on a message from the parliamentary commissioners in Scotland.343CJ iii. 340b. On 22 December he joined Vane II and others in arguing that Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven, should be made commander-in-chief over the British forces in Ulster, despite strong opposition from Clotworthy, Reynolds and John Goodwyn*.344Harl. 165, f. 254. When it came to a vote, St John and Vane II were tellers in favour, defeating Clotworthy and Reynolds by 57 to 25.345CJ iii. 350a. St John’s personal identification with the Scots can also be seen on 27 December, when he was chosen to invite Samuel Rutherford to preach on the forthcoming fast day.346CJ iii. 353b.

The importance of the Scottish alliance to St John’s wider political agenda can also be seen in the new year of 1644, when the investigation of a conspiracy (whose ‘chief players’ were London citizens, led by the City’s scoutmaster, Theophilus Ryley) was used by St John to increase support for his policies. Ryley’s ‘design’ was reported to the Commons by St John and Vane II on 6 January.347CJ iii. 359a. In a speech on the same day, St John ‘made the matter seem more serious by stating that the king had intended by this means to divide the City from the Parliament, to set us at loggerheads and to divide us from the Scots’.348Harl. 483, f. 4; Add. 18779, f. 42v. The importance of the Scots in the mix is suggested by the report of the Scottish commissioner, Robert Baillie, that the night after the plot was revealed to the Commons, ‘first my Lord Wharton and thereafter Sir Harry Vane and the solicitor made us a full account of it’. It is also telling that St John and his allies attended the London authorities two days later, on 8 January.349CJ iii. 360b. Baillie was aware of the use to which such incidents might be put, and judged that the current affair ‘has made a firmer union of the whole party than ever’.350Baillie, Letters and Jnls. ii. 133-4.

For St John, the Scottish alliance, funded by London, was one of two elements essential for a successful war. The other was to prevent a premature peace being forced through by his enemies at Westminster. Among the parliamentarians, the leading proponent of peace was the earl of Essex. St John had closely monitored Essex’s affairs during December 1643. On 6 December St John and Vane (II?) had been chosen as reporters of a conference on the state of the earl’s army; on 20 December he was named with Vane II and Waller’s friend, Sir Arthur Hesilrige, to a committee of both Houses to prepare a letter to Essex; and on 22 December he and Hesilrige had also been appointed to a committee on an ordinance to allow London regiments to march under Waller’s major general, Richard Browne II*.351CJ iii. 330b, 347a, 349a. The problem of Waller’s commission returned in the new year. When it was debated in the Commons on 1 January 1644, St John

spoke with such great fervency that our enemies would now have just cause to scorn us and our friends to pity us that there were these divisions among us, and that in case of such extreme necessity as this was, the lord general should grant a commission contrary to the forms of other commissions

and he demanded to see copies of other commissions issued by Essex to senior officers.352Harl. 165, f. 266r-v. A compromise was eventually reached, and on 3 January St John was named with Holles and others to a committee to give thanks to Essex for finally agreeing to send the commission to Waller.353CJ iii. 357a.

To maintain the pressure on Essex and his allies, over the next few weeks the favourite bugbears were paraded before the House. On 3 January 1644 the trial of Archbishop Laud was resurrected, and a committee appointed to consider how the evidence against him might be managed. On this committee St John was joined by senior lawyers, including Browne, Prideaux I, Whitelocke, Wylde, Maynard and Glynne.354CJ iii. 357b. The interception of a letter from another feared royalist, Lord Digby, revealed that the king had summoned loyal MPs to attend Parliament at Oxford on 22 January. St John, Vane II and Hesilrige were named to the committee of both Houses that considered this intelligence on 6 January.355CJ iii. 359b. On 7 January St John was called to the Lords to advise about moves to impeach the queen, and he was ordered to attend the peers to discuss the matter the next day.356Add. 31116, p. 211; CJ iii. 360b. On 22 January St John and his legal friends were named to a committee to consider how to prevent the king from adjourning the law courts from Westminster to Oxford.357CJ iii. 373a. Such reminders of the duplicity of the king, and his apparent intention to undermine Parliament and the law, seem to have been designed to dissuade any MP who thought that peace was the only option. There was a measure of retaliation from Essex’s friends in the Commons, led by Holles. On 24 January, for example, an investigation of a letter sent from the royalist John Lovelace, 2nd Baron Lovelace, came close to accusing Vane II and St John of being in secret talks with the court at Oxford.358CJ iii. 376a. According to Baillie, this was Essex’s revenge for St John’s personal attacks on him in the previous autumn.359Baillie, Letters and Jnls. ii. 135.

Political tensions came to a head in February, with the creation of the Committee of Both Kingdoms. St John played an important role in the passing of the ordinance by both Houses. On 29 January he and Vane II had managed a conference on papers received from Scotland, and supported the printing of a declaration from both kingdoms concerning the taking of the Covenant across the kingdom.360CJ iii. 380b. On 30 January St John, Vane II, Prideaux I and Browne were named to the committee on an ordinance to create a committee to coordinate the war effort in both kingdoms, and St John was seen as the prime mover behind the scheme, working closely with Viscount Saye.361CJ iii. 382a; Mercurius Aulicus no. 7 (11-17 Feb. 1644), 828 (E.35.27). This appears to have been a bargaining ploy, fielding a radical scheme in the hope of securing the passage of a moderate one. If so, it worked. An alternative ordinance was proposed by the Lords, and although ‘utterly disliked’ when introduced to the Commons on 3 February, St John and Vane II supported it in debate.362Harl. 166, f. 7. On the same day both men were named to a committee of both Houses to receive further advice from the Scots commissioners, and on 7 February the Commons passed a resolution nominating 14 members of a new Committee of Both Kingdoms, including St John, Vane II, Hesilrige, Browne, Pierrepont and Cromwell.363CJ iii. 387b, 391a, 392b. St John, Vane II and Prideaux I were managers and reporters of a free conference on the powers of this committee on 13 February.364CJ iii. 398b. Allies of Essex saw the new committee’s powers over the army and the conduct of the war as an attack on the lord general’s authority, but when these aspects were discussed at the conference, ‘it was not arguments and reasons that would now prevail, for the Solicitor St John, Prideaux I and other violent spirits, knowing that they had the greater number of voices joined with them, called for the question to be put’.365Harl. 166, f. 3v. Baillie gave an account of discussions between the Scottish commissioners and key MPs behind the scenes, saying that ‘when we had agreed with Sir Henry Vane [II] and the solicitor upon the draft, it was gotten through the House of Lords with little difficulty’.366Baillie, Letters and Jnls. ii. 141. St John was confirmed as a member of the Committee of Both Kingdoms when the ordinance was confirmed on 16 February, and he began attending meetings three days later.367A. and O.; LJ vi. 430a; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 18.

With the establishment of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the business of fighting the royalists could resume. There were underlying tensions, however. On 19 February, when the urgent matter of recruiting Essex’s army was addressed in the Commons, D’Ewes noted that ‘Sir Arthur Hesilrige, Mr Solicitor and some others, who had for some months retarded it, moved new and impertinent objections’, which were duly opposed by friends of the lord general – a group that now included John Glynne.368Harl. 166, f. 14v. St John also used his position in the executive committee to increase support for the Scots: on 24 February he was appointed a sub-committee to communicate with the Scottish army; on 26 February he was named to a parliamentary committee to consider how the north would be governed once recaptured; and on 29 February he reported to the Commons the opinion of the committee on the conduct of the war, reinforced by two acts from the Scottish convention of estates.369CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 25, 31; CJ iii. 408a. Moves to elicit financial aid from the Dutch Republic could also prove party political. On 4 March St John reported the receipt of a letter from Parliament’s envoy to the Netherlands, Walter Strickland*, and took the opportunity to praise the Scots as the key to international diplomacy: ‘that foreign states since our taking the Covenant are better persuaded of our course then before’, and he moved for English residents in Holland to be required to take the Covenant themselves.370Harl. 166, f. 23. The advance of the Scots was also lauded by St John, who presented to the Commons ‘news out of Yorkshire’ on their progress towards Durham, which he linked to the possibility of the fall of Newcastle and the reopening of the coal trade to London.371Harl. 166, f. 31v.

As yet the attacks on Essex were mostly indirect. On 14 March the Commons debated the decision of the Lords to lift the sequestration of the earl of Holland’s estates. This led to a bitter debate that laid bare the factional divisions in the House, in what amounted to a proxy fight over Essex. As D’Ewes recorded: ‘then the violent spirits one after another blustering hate, Hesilrige, Vane Junior, solicitor etc, and Samuel Browne the solicitor’s ape, etc; but Holles, Mr Grimston, Sir Philip Stapilton, myself and others did persuade a concurrence with the Lords’.372Harl. 166, f. 32v. In March St John was also a strong supporter of Waller as a rival to Essex. On 8 March he was teller with Hesilrige in favour of the Commons sending its own messenger to the Lords with the ordinance for the southern associated counties under Waller’s command, and on 13 March they again acted as tellers against amendments to the ordinance.373CJ iii. 422a, 427a. Waller’s victory at Cheriton on 29 March had strengthened the position of those who sought to reinforce his brigade at the expense of Essex’s army. On 1 and 4 April St John attended the London militia committee, on behalf of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, to raise more troops to reinforce Waller.374CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 87, 94. On 5 April St John went further, presenting to the Commons, ‘a most dangerous ordinance … to give vast power to the militia of London’.375Harl. 166, f. 43v. Equally notable was the growing power of St John and his friends over the financing of the war. On 10 April he was named to the committee on an ordinance to raise money for the relief and maintenance of the besieged city of Gloucester, and the following day, when ‘a great committee [was] appointed, of which Young Vane and Solicitor chief, to sit at Grocers’ Hall’ and raise stock to support the armed forces.376CJ iii. 455b; Harl. 166, f. 48. St John intended such monies to support all the field armies, not just that under Essex. In late April and early May he was named to committees to prepare reasons why the Commons insisted on passing an ordinance to support the earl of Manchester’s army of the Eastern Association, and he went on to be reporter of a conference on the legislation.377CJ iii. 472b, 475a, 486a.

It was only at the beginning of May that Essex was targeted directly. On 1 May, in a conference with the Lords on whether to give Essex ‘supreme power’ over the militia, the ‘solicitor picked quarrels at the Lords’ reasons … because the Lords said we were obligated by our protestation to adhere to the earl of Essex and obliged by his ordinance’.378Harl. 166, f. 54. The row continued on 4 May, when St John ‘pressed it vehemently that we must take the words the sense would bear, not as the Lords meant, and the words “supreme power” cannot but imply a power over two Houses etc’.379Harl. 166, f. 55v. As other MPs objected, this was only intended to apply to the military sphere, but St John was at this stage more interested in scoring factional points. This is also suggested by his report from the Committee of Both Kingdoms on 10 May, that Waller was now ready to march out on campaign, in stark contrast to the unprepared lord general; and by his inclusion in a committee on 18 May to consider the outrageous behaviour of Essex’s ally, Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford, towards Hesilrige and others.380CJ iii. 488a, 498a.

Factional positioning became increasingly important as the expiry of the three-month commission for the Committee of Both Kingdoms approached at the end of May. The ordinance to continue the committee was introduced in the Commons on 6 May, and St John was named to a committee to consider a petition from the City in favour of the measure on 16 May.381CJ iii. 542b, 495b. The renewal of the committee with the same membership was consistently blocked by the Lords until 22 May, when it was proposed by Strode I that an earlier draft ordinance, laid aside after receiving the Lords’ assent in February, should now be passed. D’Ewes thought that Strode was merely the front man, and that the plan was ‘invented certainly not in his shifty brain but by Vane and solicitor’, and it was duly opposed by Holles and other opponents of that faction, including Maynard.382Harl. 166, f. 64v. With the Committee of Both Kingdoms confirmed, St John continued to be one of the dominant figures in the executive committee as well as the Commons’ chamber; and on 28 May his power in legal affairs was also confirmed, when he was made acting attorney-general, in addition to the offices of solicitor-general and commissioner of the great seal, which had themselves been confirmed a few months earlier.383Sainty, English Law Officers, 46; CJ iii. 390a, 507a; LJ vi. 568a, 571b, 572b.

Essex, the Scots and Uxbridge, June 1644-Feb. 1645

The summer of 1644 was dominated by military campaigning, and St John was busy with army matters in the Commons and the Committee of Both Kingdoms, and acted as a conduit between the two. In early June he was again a staunch supporter of Waller. On 7 June he reported to the Commons, on behalf of the committee, a letter from Hesilrige and details of a representation to the common council concerning Waller’s blockade of Oxford, and he was named to the parliamentary committee appointed to urge the City to provide supplies.384CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 210-1; CJ iii. 521a. Waller’s energy contrasted with the sluggishness of Essex. On 10 and 12 June St John reported the danger of the fall of Lyme Regis in Dorset if not relieved by Essex; on 14 June he made another report critical of Essex; on 24 June he told the House of the king’s departure from Oxford, the vulnerability of London, and the state of Parliament’s forces in the north; and on 25 June he focused on Lancashire, now threatened by Prince Rupert, and the possibility of sending troop from the siege of York to relief the county.385Harl. 166, ff. 70, 73v, 76v; Add. 31116, p. 292; CJ iii. 525b, 526b, 529a, 540b. On the same day, St John was named to a committee to prepare letters to Essex to demand that he march into the west, emphasising that this was the order of both Houses as well as the Committee of Both Kingdoms.386CJ iii. 542b. On 28 June St John was appointed to a committee to consider further payments to Waller’s army.387CJ iii. 544b.

The victory of the Anglo-Scottish army at Marston Moor on 2 July justified St John’s support for the close alliance between the two kingdoms, and his reliance on English forces not under Essex’s immediate command. In the aftermath, St John considered his options. For a while he was bullish, favouring an immediate attack on Oxford, reporting from the Committee of Both Kingdoms the need for an army to blockade the royalist capital on 6 July.388CJ iii. 552a-b. He also pushed for extreme penalties for royalists and their supporters. On 15 July, in a debate about penalties for those assisting the royalists, he argued for ‘an article that those who had been under the king’s quarters and contributed might have been condemned to die by the power thereof’.389Harl. 166, f. 98. Five days later St John condemned Sir Miles Hobart*, who had surrendered Lincoln too readily, and refused him time for defence witnesses to be heard.390Harl. 166, f. 99v. St John was also able to advance the interests of his allies in the weeks after Marston Moor: he was added to the Eastern Association committee on 22 July; he reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms the need to raise money for the London forces at Abingdon on 10 August; and on 14 August he told the Commons of the successful capture of Wareham in Dorset by local forces supported by Waller’s cavalry.391CJ iii. 567b, 587a; Harl. 166, f. 106v; Add. 31116, p. 309.

In the aftermath of the victory, St John set his face against further negotiations with the king. The change of tone can be seen in his attitude towards the Dutch ambassadors, who had been trying to broker a deal since the new year. On their arrival in January 1644, St John had been one of the welcoming committee, and in February and March he was an important point of contact with Parliament’s own envoy in Holland, Walter Strickland.392Harl. 165, f. 275; Harl. 166, f. 23r-v; CJ iii. 414a, 418a-b; LJ vi. 452a. In April he was named to a committee of three (with Vane II and Crewe), to consider an answer to the propositions made by the Dutch.393CJ iii. 454a. By the end of May the Committee of Both Kingdoms was concerned at the behaviour of the Dutch ambassadors, and St John was detailed to report their concerns to the Commons.394CSP Dom. 1644, p. 169. The talks had continued, however, and in late June and early July St John was named to a committee to consider how to receive the Dutch ambassadors.395CJ iii. 535a. After Marston Moor, St John and his allies rejected the initiative completely. On 12 July the Dutch ambassadors attended Parliament, to urge for the reopening of peace talks with the king. On their departure, St John and Vane II were opposed to new negotiations, and ‘began to try to render all that had been said null and void’, according to D’Ewes.396Harl. 483, f. 94. This mood of confidence would not last long, however. By mid-August it was clear that Marston Moor had not been the decisive battle; indeed, with Essex’s army trapped in Cornwall by the king’s forces, it looked likely that the gains of the previous weeks would be reversed. In response, St John reluctantly turned his attention to peace talks. On 17 August he was named to a committee to draw up propositions to be presented to the king; and on 19 August he joined Pierrepont and Crewe as manager of a conference on the propositions.397CJ iii. 594a, 597a.

Essex’s ignominious defeat at Lostwithiel on 2 September had one positive result for St John and Vane, as it allowed them to try once again to remove him from his command. On 21 September St John reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms the letter from Essex asking that his surviving cavalry might be redeployed, which was presented ‘very cunningly’ with no comment by the committee.398Harl. 166, f. 123v. On 27 September St John, Pierrepont and Crewe reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms its opinion on the defeat in the west, and St John told the House of the confession of one of Essex’s senior officers that he and others had deliberately spread dissension in the army during the Lostwithiel campaign.399CJ iii. 641a; Harl. 166, f. 125v. It was suspected that St John and Vane II now aimed for the total disbandment of Essex’s army. On 7 October St John reported a request from the Committee of Both Kingdoms that Philip Skippon* would be appointed as commander of a new City brigade, but this was seen as an attempt to weaken the lord general ‘and so to draw all power to Waller, Hesilrige, etc’, and rejected by the Commons.400CJ iii. 655a; Harl. 166, f. 128v. The deteriorating military situation did not allow such bold changes. Instead, Parliament concentrated on improving the cooperation between the existing generals under the nominal command of Essex, but with a sub-committee of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, made up of military men, overseeing their activities.401CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 39-40.

In the same period, St John was becoming disillusioned with the Scots. His change of attitude appears to have been very gradual. In the early months of 1644 there was no sign of difficulties between the allies. After the creation of the Committee of Both Kingdoms in February, St John had worked for the extension of the Covenant throughout England, and to residents abroad.402CJ iii. 409a, 415a. In April he had drafted the ordinance to raise another tranche of the money owed to the Scottish army, and he was named to a committee to ensure that the Scots must give their assent before any peace propositions could be sent to the king.403CJ iii. 448a, 466a. Yet there were already signs of tension between the allies, as the Scots insisted that any settlement with the king would ensure a ‘covenanted uniformity’ between the nations, and Scottish involvement in the government of England.404Scott, Politics and War in the Three Stuart Kingdoms, 84. This was more than St John and his friends could stomach, and it is revealing that St John does not seem to have been involved in any Scottish business conducted in the Commons during the late spring and summer. There were also tensions with the Scots over Parliament’s portrayal of Cromwell as the victor of Marston Moor in July, and the lacklustre performance of the Scottish army in the months that followed did little to enhance their military reputation. Underlying this was the fundamental disagreement between the Presbyterian Scots and men like St John and Cromwell, over religion.

Such basic differences had been carefully glossed over in September 1643, but by the autumn of 1644, St John was less tactful. On 13 September he reported to the Commons an order concerning those members of the Westminster Assembly who opposed Presbyterian church government, and in the subsequent debate he asked the House to persuade the Scottish commissioners and the Assembly to compose their differences ‘to endeavour a union’, and to ‘endeavour the finding out some way, how far tender consciences … may be borne with according to the Word’.405Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 294; CJ iii. 626a. The reaction of the Scottish commissioners was predictable. On 16 September Robert Baillie reported to Edinburgh that Cromwell and other supporters of religious Independents and sectaries, had put pressure on ‘our great friends’, St John and Vane II, to be ‘the main procurers of all this; and that without any regard to us, who have saved their nation, and brought these two persons to the height of the power they now enjoy, and use to our prejudice’.406Baillie, Letters and Jnls. ii. 230. At the end of October Baillie’s bitterness had grown, and he wrote of toleration as ‘their greatest plot … contrived by Mr Solicitor and Mr [Stephen] Marshall’, with the former guiding it through the Commons ‘before we heard of it’.407Baillie, Letters and Jnls. ii. 235. By this time the Scots had finally succeeded in capturing Newcastle, while Parliament’s armies had managed only a losing draw at Newbury, and St John could ill afford to antagonise his allies further. In a conciliatory gesture, on 23 November he presented an ordinance for £66,000 ‘for advance money for the Scots out of several counties’, which was duly passed.408Harl. 166, f. 156. The charm offensive continued at the end of the year. On 21 December St John reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms the need for a speedy reply to a paper of the Scottish commissioners, who were shortly to return to Edinburgh; on 28 December he was named to a committee to draft a letter to the Scottish Parliament asking that ‘good correspondency’ might be maintained between the two kingdoms; and on 2 January 1645 a small committee, made up of St John, Vane II, Pierrepont and Glynne, were ordered to consider which MPs would form a committee to travel to Scotland for this purpose.409CJ iii. 731a-b; iv. 3b, 7b. It is also likely that the execution of Archbishop Laud on 10 January was a sop to the Scots, and the royalists certainly blamed St John and his allies for the outrage.410Mercurius Aulicus (5-12 Jan. 1645), 1332 (E.27.7); Palmer, St John, 87-8. This was followed by the start of new negotiations with the king, with the Scots taking the lead.

There had been calls for a new peace initiative since Essex’s humiliation at Lostwithiel. St John was involved in these initiatives from 16 September, when he was one of the MPs chosen for a committee of both Houses to consider a letter received from the king, but his role over the following months was obstructive rather than constructive.411CJ iii. 629a. On 3 October the list of those to be excepted from office in any treaty was debated, and ‘St John, young Sir Henry Vane, Strode etc thought the number of persons excepted would be too great and therefore wished we might take very few or none out of the counties’.412Harl. 166, f. 127v. On 9 October the Committee of Both Kingdoms instructed St John and Gerard to arrange for a letter to be sent to Oxford.413CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 25. On 6 November the exceptions from pardon were discussed, and St John allegedly waited until their opponents went to dinner before shortening the report ‘so that the questions might be put before the return of them that went forth’.414Harl. 166, f. 160. The next day a new tactic was tried, with St John, Vane II, Prideaux I and Pierrepont being accused of speaking often ‘as if in a committee’ to force the appointment of a committee to consider exceptions.415Harl. 166, f. 153. The result was the appointment of a new committee, including all the culprits, to consider measures to be taken against those MPs who had deserted Parliament.416CJ iii. 690a. On 30 November St John was a reporter of a conference on a message sent from the king concerning peace negotiations, and on 4 December he was named to a committee to consider if the report from Holles (one the commissioners newly arrived from talks in Oxford) constituted a breach of privilege. The king’s own commissioners, Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton, and James Stuart, 1st duke of Richmond, arrived in London on 16 December, and St John was named to the committees sent to receive them and to accept the messages they carried from the king.417CJ iii. 724b, 725b. Three days later St John, Vane II, Prideaux I and others were appointed reporters and managers of a conference with the Lords on the messages brought from Oxford.418CJ iii. 728a. On 30 December St John was appointed to a sub-committee of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, to frame a message to be sent to the king concerning the negotiations due to start at Uxbridge in the new year.419CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 203.

Despite the long build-up, the negotiations at Uxbridge in the early weeks of 1645 would prove as moribund as those at Oxford two years before. On 14 January St John joined Vane II, Pierrepont and Crewe as one of the commissioners to negotiate the peace talks, and the delegates were approved by the king on 17 January.420CJ iv. 19b, 24a; LJ vii. 143a. Later in the month safe conduct passes were issued to St John and his servants, including John Thurloe.421CJ iv. 29b; LJ vii. 159b, 168b; TSP i. 59. St John signed letters by the commissioners at Uxbridge from 11 until 22 February, but Hyde was probably right to consider his role in the talks, and that of Vane II, as little more than keeping an eye on Holles and others suspected of royalist sympathies.422TSP i. 66-8; HMC Portland, i. 210-11; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 492. Holles was bitter about the experience, later describing St John as having ‘dipped as deep in all the cunning pernicious counsels, as any man alive’.423D. Holles, The Memoirs of Denzil Lord Holles (1699), 32. The talks soon broke down, as the king refused to compromise on the religious articles insisted upon by the Presbyterians Scots. St John had returned to Westminster by 25 February, when he received the thanks of the Commons for his efforts.424CJ iv. 62b.

The Self-Denying Ordinance and the New Model, Dec. 1644-July 1645

St John’s appetite for peace had perhaps been further reduced by the expectation that Parliament’s military problems were about to be solved. The defeat of the combined English armies against the king at Newbury had discredited the generals, and brought renewed calls for the armed forces to be restructured. Cromwell had had a very public quarrel with his superior officer, the earl of Manchester, in November, in an echo of the earlier spat between Waller and Essex. The first definite sign of change in the army came in December 1644, when the ‘Self-Denying Ordinance’ to strip all MPs and peers of their military commands, was first presented to the Commons. The measure had been proposed by one of St John’s associates, Zouche Tate, and even though it threatened to end the military career of Cromwell and Waller as well as Essex and Manchester, St John was a strong supporter of the reform. He was named to the committee to bring in the ordinance on 9 December, and on 11 December he argued in the Commons that self-denying was necessary to win the war.425CJ iii. 718b; Harl. 166, f. 194. Cromwell was among the MPs who seconded him, and the ordinance passed the Commons on 19 December.426Palmer, St John, 86; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 314-5. The House of Lords was less enthusiastic. On 8 January 1645 St John, with Pierrepont, Prideaux I and Vane II, was appointed to a committee to prepare reasons why the Commons had refused to answer the Upper House over changes to the ordinance, which it considered a breach of privilege and procedure.427CJ iv. 13b. Opposition from the Lords delayed matters further, and the ordinance did not receive its second reading in the Commons until 24 March 1645, when St John was named to the committee to scrutinise it.428CJ iv. 88a.

Having engineered the removal of Essex and Manchester as generals, St John became a leading figure in the establishment of the New Model army. The amalgamation of the armies under new commander had been moved by the Independents in January, and on his return from Uxbridge, St John joined the campaign with vigour. On 6 March he was named with Vane II, Crewe, Prideaux I and others to a committee to meet the common council to raise a loan of £80,000 for a new army under Sir Thomas Fairfax*, and four days he was appointed to a committee to show the City authorities the recent votes of the House on the security to be provided for this loan.429CJ iv. 71a, 73b. On 11 March St John joined Sir Thomas Widdrington and Prideaux I on a small committee to draft the ordinance for putting the troops of the three main field armies under the command of Fairfax.430CJ iv. 75a. Immediately after this ordinance passed in the Commons, ‘the solicitor moved that he might have power to raise 1,200 horse, to recruit the regiments of horse’ and this was duly passed by the House.431Harl. 166, f. 183v. On St John’s motion, on 13 March the Commons considered the list of officers sent down by the Lords, and he was named to a committee, alongside Vane II, Crewe, Pierrepont, Widdrington and Prideaux I, to prepare reasons why the Commons stood by its own list of officers.432Harl. 166, f. 183v; CJ iv. 77a. On 18 March St John, Vane II and Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, were sent by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to speak to Fairfax about the readiness of his army to take the field.433CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 353. The Lords still refused to cooperate, however, and on 28 March St John was appointed to a committee to justify the Commons’ insistence on giving Fairfax wide powers as lord general.434CJ iv. 91b.

St John was reportedly ‘angry that the Lords stuck at the ordinance for Sir Thomas Fairfax’, and when on 31 March it was decided that he should accompany Viscount Lisle (Philip Sidney*) to the upper House to demand the speedy departure of the new army, ‘upon the solicitor’s motion, contrary to all former order, the Speaker left the chair, that the whole House might accompany him with the message’.435CJ iv. 94a; Harl. 166, f. 196. On the same day the ordinance to raise £80,000 for the New Model became law, with St John included on the Committee for the Army established by this legislation.436Supra, ‘Committee for the Army’; A. and O. On 1 April St John was appointed reporter and manager of a conference with the Lords on the form of Fairfax’s commission, and he reported on its proceedings the following day.437CJ iv. 95b, 96b. Essex and Manchester promptly resigned their commissions, and, in a conciliatory gesture, a committee, including St John, was appointed to consider what rewards were to be granted to the earls for their military service.438CJ iv. 96b. One result of this was an ordinance to grant Essex £10,000 per annum from confiscated estates, and St John was named to the committee after the second reading on 20 May, in company with political rivals like Holles and Sir Philip Stapilton.439CJ iv. 148b.

Some of the Independents’ other proposals would also prove controversial. On 18 March D’Ewes noted that ‘the solicitor, Young Vane, Pierrepont and others moved to set out for all men to come in upon as good terms as was proposed in the article etc of the late treaty’, but this was postponed by the House.440Harl. 166, f. 193. There were also signs of tensions within the Committee of Both Kingdoms. In the row between Colonel John Hutchinson* and Colonel Francis Pierrepont over the governorship of Nottingham, the committee had ruled in the former’s favour, but when the matter came before the Commons on 16 April, ‘there being a secret intent to bring in Colonel Pierrepont in Governor Hutchinson’s stead, the solicitor and some others did so carry it after much debate’ that the committee’s decision would be re-examined by a committee of the Commons.441Harl. 166, f. 201v. During March and April St John was promoting the interests of Sir William Brereton* in the north west, but his efforts to secure supplies for Brereton came to little, and on 15 April he was forced to recommend that the general approach the Committee of Both Kingdoms directly, while promising his continued support.442Brereton Letter Bks. i. 66, 76, 126, 191, 226. Despite such setbacks, St John continued to support measures that would put pressure on the royalists in every military sector. On 16 April he was instructed to report to the Commons the state of the west; and on 23 April he reported to the Commons petition received from Scottish officers in the north, and was named to the committee to consider them.443CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 412; CJ iv. 121b. On 27 May he was added to the committee for the Eastern Association, in order to assist with the deliberations on the defence of the Isle of Ely.444CJ iv. 155b. On 6 June he was ordered to report to the Commons the need for additional money to be sent to the army of the Eastern Association, if its cavalry, under Cromwell, were to join Fairfax.445CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 570.

The factional jostling for control of the armed forces was matched by a propaganda war. In April and May, St John was involved in an attempt to turn to political advantage the discredited peace talks with the Dutch the previous year. On 8 April St John was appointed to a sub-committee of the Committee of Both Kingdoms to prepare a narrative concerning the Dutch talks, and he presented a declaration to the committee on 6 May.446CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 392. On 7 May St John was named to a sub-committee to consider allegations of talks between the Dutch and the royal family at Oxford, and later on the same day, he reported the declaration to the Commons, ‘containing all the proceedings of the late Dutch ambassadors during the time of their abode here’.447CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 462; Add. 31116, p. 416; Harl. 166, f. 207; CJ iv. 134a-b. In his speech, St John cast the negotiations in the worst possible light, saying that ‘there hath been a firm union between both these state’, but that the committee now ‘have just cause to suspect that they promoted the designs of the enemies’.448Add. 18780, ff. 15v, 16. He reported amendments the following day, and took the declaration to the Lords.449Harl. 166, f. 207v; CJ iv. 135b.

Revelations of the duplicity of the Dutch were soon followed by more disturbing allegations of treachery in the Commons itself. The ‘Savile plot’ (named after Thomas Savile, 2nd Baron Savile) was revealed in June 1645, just as the New Model was stalking the king’s army in the east midlands. On 7 June St John was named to a committee to consider the information revealed in a letter from Lord Digby.450CJ iv. 167a. On 11 June the Commons examined James Crawford, a Presbyterian minister accused of spreading a story that St John, Crewe, Pierrepont and Viscount Saye, as members of a sub-committee of the Committee of Both Kingdoms set up to treat with any royalist commanders who wanted to surrender, ‘had held secret correspondence with the enemy’ at Oxford.451Harl. 166, f. 218. It was also alleged that these men had angled for important positions by the king, with St John being promised the position of lord keeper.452Holles, Memoirs, 39. On 13 June St John defended his actions, and those of his colleagues, saying that all that had been done was above board, although he admitted that ‘the Lord Saye had told him that he had oftentimes discourse with the Lord Savile, and that the Lord Savile had undertaken to make some discoveries in that kind’.453Add. 31116, p. 429. This satisfied the Commons, which then resumed its investigation of St John’s enemies, Holles and Whitelocke, who were accused of holding their own clandestine negotiations with the court at Oxford.454Harl. 166, f. 219; Add. 18780, f. 37. On 4 July St John and allies like Prideaux I, Vane II, Browne, Hesilrige and Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire, were included in a committee to consider the charges levelled by Savile against Holles and Whitelocke.455CJ iv. 195a. On 7 July Whitelocke appeared before the Savile committee, ‘where Mr Browne, who was no friend to them, had the chair’, seconded by St John, Vane II, Gurdon, Wentworth ‘and many lesser terriers’.456Whitelocke, Diary, 171. On 17 July St John contributed evidence of his own, saying that ‘the Lord Saye told him there was secret intelligence given weekly to Oxford, which he conceiveth to be one of the Commons’ House’.457Add. 18780, f. 77. The charges against Holles and Whitelocke were eventually dropped, and the accuser of St John and Viscount Saye, James Cranford, was voted ‘false and scandalous’ by the Commons on 19 July, and ordered to pay compensation to St John and his friends.458Add. 31116, p. 442; CJ iv. 213a.

The turn in St John’s fortunes during the Savile affair coincided with a dramatic change in Parliament’s military position in mid-June. The decisive victory of the New Model army at Naseby on 14 June had vindicated St John and those ‘Independents’ who had backed the military reforms, and made both Fairfax and Cromwell household names. The capture of the ‘king’s cabinet’ also proved that the royalists had been in talks with Catholics and foreign powers. St John was closely involved in presenting the victory to the people. On 24 June the Committee of Both Kingdoms ordered him to procure letters between the king and the queen, for further examination; and on 26 June he was named to a committee to supervise the publication of a declaration justifying the conduct of the war and showing how the terms of the Uxbridge treaty had been breached by the king.459CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 610; CJ iv. 187a. In the next few days, St John presented to the Commons more intercepted letters, which were referred to the committee on the king’s cabinet, and he was named to the committee which viewed the Naseby letters on 1 July.460CJ iv. 189a, 191b. St John was also conspicuous in his efforts to care for another parliamentarian hero, Philip Skippon, who had been wounded at Naseby. On 30 June the Commons ordered him to meet the doctors treating the major-general, and on 12 July he was sent to Skippon himself, to thank him for his services to Parliament.461CJ iv. 190b, 206a.

After Naseby, the New Model had marched west against the royalist forces under Lord Goring (George Goring*). In a show of unity, on 26 June the Commons ordered St John and Stapilton, representing the two main factional groupings, to prepare a letter to Fairfax agreeing to his plan of campaign and recommending the relief of Taunton in Somerset.462CJ iv. 187a. Two days later, St John, Pierrepont and Stapilton were instructed to write a letter to the Scottish army, asking that it move west towards Worcester to prevent the royalists from recruiting new regiments in the Welsh marches.463CJ iv. 188b. In July, St John continued to consider the wider strategy, joining Vane II as manager of a conference on reports from Carlisle concerning the garrisons in the north of England on 3 July, and being named to a committee on the same matter.464CJ iv. 194b. Two days later he was named to a committee to prepare instructions for new commissioners to go to the Scottish Parliament to ensure military cooperation between the two nations, and on 10 July he was appointed to a committee to liaise with the London militia committee to raise more troops.465CJ iv. 198a, 203a. Fairfax’s defeat of Goring at Langport in Somerset sealed Parliament’s victory in the field, and strengthened St John’s political position still further. On 15 July he was instructed by the Commons to draft a letter thanking Fairfax for his success; on 17 July the Lords asked him to prepare a patent to make Vane II treasurer of the navy; and on 25 July he was added to the committee for the impeachment of an old enemy of Hesilrige (and friend of Essex), the earl of Stamford.466CJ iv. 208a, 218b; LJ vii. 500a. In another sign of the growing confidence of the Independents, on 29 July St John was granted leave of absence for a month.467CJ iv. 223b.

Preparing for peace, Aug. 1645-May 1646

St John may have snatched a few days leave in the middle and end of August, but it hardly amounted to a rest-cure. In the Commons he continued to be busy in managing the war effort. On 5 August St John reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms on the progress of the siege of Newark, and also moved for the reading of an ordinance to settle the pay of the garrisons of King’s Lynn, Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, ‘because they intended to draw out some from those garrisons for that work’.468Harl. 166, f. 250. The next day he joined Browne and Prideaux I as manager of a conference on a petition from Ely.469CJ iv. 233a. St John’s continuing interest in the west country is suggested by his inclusion on the committee to consider an ordinance to increase the powers of the county committees of Dorset, Devon and Wiltshire to deal with local disputes, appointed on 2 September.470CJ iv. 262a. At the beginning of October 1645 St John married for the third time, his new wife being the widow of a wealthy London merchant, and this brought a brief pause in his parliamentary activities.471CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 181; HMC 7th Rep. 454. He was back in the chamber on 15 October, however, when he and Whitelocke were ordered to prepare letters to thank Cromwell for the capture of Basing House in Hampshire.472CJ iv. 309b.

As the New Model continued its mopping up operation, the focus switched to the problem of how to deal with increasing numbers of royalists eager to make their peace with the victorious Parliament. It remained to separate the sheep from the goats. On 19 August the Commons ordered that St John was to be included as one of the commissioners named in the ordinance for the sale of estates of notorious delinquents, and on 2 September he joined Browne, Prideaux I, Hesilrige and others as manager of a conference for the speedy passing of the ordinance.473CJ iv. 246a, 261b. On 13 September St John was also named to a committee to consider which of the royalist prisoners should be allowed to compound for their estates.474CJ iv. 273b. On 29 October St John and William Ellys were ordered to bring in a declaration that any royalists allowed go abroad who returned to fight for the king would be denied a pardon, and on 6 December he was appointed to a committee to consider Browne’s proposals for composition more generally.475CJ iv. 326b, 367a. Dealing with delinquents could involve factional point-scoring. From the autumn of 1645 there had been talks between Parliament and Prince Rupert, who sought to leave the country after the fall of Bristol. St John was named to a committee of both Houses to consider the prince’s request on 1 November; he was named to a committee to consider the pass and instructions to allow the prince to yield on 7 November.476CJ iv. 330a, 335b. A message to the prince, requiring him to disband his remaining forces, was prepared on 13 January 1646 by an Independent-dominated committee comprising St John, Vane II, Hesilrige and Browne, with John Maynard as the odd man out.477CJ iv. 405b. Despite the eagerness of the Independents to claim Rupert’s scalp, there was no progress until March, when St John was named to two committees to ask Fairfax to invite the prince to submit, and to draft a letter to the prince to the same effect.478CJ iv. 478b, 479b. An alternative letter, proposed by the Lords, was voted down by the Independents in the Commons on 23 March, and St John was named to the committee to prepare a new letter on the same day.479CJ iv. 485b.

As the proceedings concerning Rupert suggest, the Independents now had considerable control over proceedings at Westminster. St John, who from the late summer was associated with such radicals as Hesilrige, was at the centre of this Independent interest.480Add. 37344, f. 21. Some former opponents were eager to make their peace with him. In September, Whitelocke ‘was courted by the Solicitor St John’ and his associates, and by the end of the year he had been persuaded to support ‘St John and his party’ in the Commons.481Whitelocke, Diary, 180, 182-3. Friends of the faction now received their rewards. When Speaker William Lenthall was made master of the rolls in October, St John prepared the bill for the great seal and drew up the patent.482CJ iv. 324b; LJ vii. 670b. On 1 December, St John was named to a committee to consider settling an estate of £5,000 per annum on Fairfax.483CJ iv. 360a. On 23 January he was named to a four-man committee to bring in an ordinance to settle £2,500 per annum from the estate of Henry Somerset, 1st marquess of Worcester, on Cromwell.484CJ iv. 416a. St John’s role in securing this reward for Cromwell is revealed in his letter to his ‘dear cousin’ announcing the grant, dated 18 February 1646. In it, St John explained some the tactics he had used to speed the process, including pushing for a partial award ‘rather than to have stayed longer to make up the whole’, and his intimacy with Cromwell is also suggested by his decision to keep the patent in his own hands for the time being. He ended the letter with a note of caution that demonstrates their shared godly attitudes: ‘All these things are ours because we are his; and who knows but that for his sake ere long you must again forsake these, and that the blessing is reserved for that time?’485TSP i. 75.

The control of the Commons exercised by St John and his allies also had a profound influence on the peace process, which had restarted in the winter of 1645-6. On 1 December St John was named to a committee to prepare a bill on peace propositions and on 9 December he was appointed to a committee to prepare a reply to letters from Oxford, and he later reported its deliberation to the Commons.486CJ iv. 359b, 369b, 371b. The articles of what would later be termed the ‘Newcastle Propositions’ were unpalatable to the king, and there was little hope that he would agree to them. In mid-December St John received intelligence reports from Paris that the queen was hoping to raise troops to invade England, but there were also rumours that the king was prepared to negotiate with the Independents to ‘engage’ them against the Presbyterians.487HMC Portland, i. 323, 327. The latter was but wishful thinking. In the face of opposition from the king, it was only at the end of January and the beginning of February that St John was again involved in the peace process; he was named to a committee to prepare a bill on propositions (30 Jan.); he was manager with Vane II, Browne and others of a conference on these propositions (31 Jan.); and he was appointed to the committee to draft the reply to the king (3 Feb.).488CJ iv. 423a, 425b, 428a. Thereafter, progress was slow and spasmodic. On 23 February St John was named to a committee to prepare reasons why the Commons refused to make additions to the 5th article, despite criticism from the Lords; after further deliberations, on 26 March he was named to a committee to draft a reply to the king.489CJ iv. 454b, 490a.

The king’s refusal to commit to any peace deal was encouraged by the break down of relations between the Independents and the Scots. There had been serious problems between the former allies since the summer of 1645, and St John had done nothing to relieve the situation. On 18 August St John and Prideaux I were managers of a conference to give the Lords the reasons why the Commons could not agree to a reference to a paper by the Scots in the nascent peace propositions.490CJ iv. 246a. On 12 September a committee of both Houses to consider matters presented by the Scottish commissioners was staffed by Independents and lawyers, including St John, Vane [II?], Evelyn of Wiltshire, Pierrepont and Whitelocke.491CJ iv. 273a. There were also measures to reduce the influence, and cost, of the Scottish army. In September, St John was ordered to prepare bills to authorise local commissioners to take the accounts of the Scottish forces in the north, and in November he was named to a committee to draft a letter to require the Scots to surrender key garrisons.492CJ iv. 294b, 340a. In December a committee was appointed to reside with the Scottish army besieging Newark, and St John was one of those ordered to draw up instructions for it.493CJ iv. 366b. On 7 January 1646 St John, Vane II, Hesilrige and Evelyn were named to a committee to prepare a letter refusing the Scots’ request to increase their cavalry forces in England.494CJ iv. 399b.

The need to curb the Scots became all the greater in later weeks, as St John received intelligence from France that the king now hoped to strike a deal with the Scots without Parliament.495HMC Portland, i. 335. On 29 January St John reported this intelligence to the Commons, and his subsequent attack on the Scots brought accusations of bad faith.496CJ iv. 421b, 422a. He remained hostile in March, when he was named to committees to consider a paper from the Scots concerning the peace propositions (18 Mar.), and complaints about behaviour of the Scottish forces in the north (20 Mar.), and reported intelligence of talks between the Scots and the French (23 Mar.).497CJ iv. 478b, 481b, 486a. A committee appointed on 26 March to treat with the Scottish commissioners on the peace proposals, was dominated by the Independents, including St John, Vane II, Browne, Prideaux I, Hesilrige, Evelyn and Nathaniel Fiennes.498CJ iv. 491a. A further irritant for the Scots was the choice of Viscount Lisle as Parliament’s lord lieutenant of Ireland – an appointment that would trump Leven’s command over the British forces in Ulster. St John was ordered to prepare Lisle’s commission on 16 March, and he presented the commission on 30 March, and carried it to the Lords once it had been passed by the Commons.499CJ iv. 476b, 494b. Finally, in passing an ordinance establishing Presbyterian church government – something the Scots had demanded – the Commons fatally undermined the legislation by making religious matters subordinate to Parliament. This ‘lame Erastian Presbytery’, as Baillie called it, received the full support of St John, who was added to a committee to prepare a declaration justifying the new arrangements in church and state on 14 April, and on 23 May was appointed to a committee to draft an ordinance to make Parliament court of appeal for all ‘scandalous’ religious offences.500Baillie, Letters and Jnls. ii. 362; CJ iv. 508a, 553b.

As relations between the two nations fell apart, the king saw an opportunity to play one against the other to his own advantage. Escaping from Oxford, he took refuge with the Scots before Newark on 5 May. The violence of the reaction at Westminster can be seen on 8 May, when intercepted letters were read in the Commons, including one from the secretary to the Scottish commissioners, Sir John Cheisley (or Cheislie). In the debate that followed, Cheisley was ‘shamefully traduced’ by a number of prominent Independent MPs, including St John, Vane II and Browne.501Harington’s Diary, 26. Nor were St John and his allies were in any mood for compromise over custody of the king. They were very much in evidence in the committee appointed the next day, to prepare reasons why the Commons ‘adhered’ to their vote on the disposal of the king, which had been challenged by the Lords.502CJ iv. 541b. On 16 May St John was named to two committees, to prepare heads for a conference with the Lords in defence of Evelyn of Wiltshire, whose comments on the disposal of the king had caused offence, and to prepare a declaration to vindicate Parliament’s attitude to the future custody of the king, to be sent to the Scots.503CJ iv. 548a-b.

The Scots and the king, June 1646-Feb. 1647

With the king in the hands of the Scottish army, the Independents were faced with the problem of making a peace settlement with the king without giving the Scots and their Presbyterian allies at Westminster a controlling interest in that treaty. The Scots had removed the king to Newcastle, out of the reach of the New Model, by the end of May, and began their own negotiations with him, although it soon became apparent that Charles would not concede to the central demand, and take the Covenant. In the meantime, the English Parliament renewed its own peace terms, centred on the old Newcastle Propositions. On 22 June St John and a number of leading Independents (including Vane II, Browne, Hesilrige, Evelyn and Cromwell) were named to a committee to consider how to send propositions to the king.504CJ iv. 584b. The Scots could not be ignored, however, and dealing with them appears to have been St John’s main sphere of activity. On 27 June he was named in the articles of the treaty with the Scots, as one of the ‘conservators’ of the agreement between the two nations, and this was confirmed by the Lords on 3 July.505CJ iv. 589b; LJ viii. 411a. Amendments suggested by the Scots were considered by a committee, including St John, appointed on 6 July; and the next day, he was made manager, with Vane II, Widdrington and Pierrepont, of a conference on the peace propositions and the instructions to be given to commissioners to attend the king at Newcastle.506CJ iv. 604a, 606b. On 10 July he joined Vane I, Vane II, Pierrepont, Evelyn of Wiltshire, Fiennes and Widdrington as reporter and manager of a conference on how this conservation of peace between England and Scotland was to be incorporated within the peace propositions.507CJ iv. 613b. On 11 July St John was also named to a committee to attend the lord mayor to warn that London must not make its own approaches to the king, but would be provided for in the general treaty.508CJ iv. 615b. By this time, St John was feeling the strain of his constant political activity. On 9 July the Commons had allowed him absence to visit Bath ‘for the recovery of his health’, and he appears to have left the House after 11 July, and did not return until the end of August; his activities were much reduced in the following weeks.509CJ iv. 610a, 615b, 653a, 658b, 673b.

St John was absent from Westminster when the king refused the Newcastle Propositions at the end of July, but he had returned in time to join the concerted effort to remove the Scots from English soil (and politics), which needed money to be raised to pay off their army. On 22 September he was added to a committee to attend the common council of London to negotiate a loan of £200,000 to pay off the Scottish army.510CJ iv. 673b. Later on the same day he was named to a committee to reduce the Newcastle Propositions into an ordinance, as part of moves to encourage London to lend the money, and he was also instructed to ‘take care’ of the business.511CJ iv. 673b. On 12 October St John reported the ordinance that would make the Newcastle Propositions law, and also ordinances to settle the militia and to conclude a treaty between England and Scotland. He took these measures to the Lords the following day.512CJ iv. 690b, 691a-b, 692a; LJ viii. 518a. The hand-over of the king that would coincide with the departure of the Scottish army also needed careful consideration, and on 24 September St John was named to a committee of both Houses to confer with the Scottish commissioners on this issue.513CJ iv. 675a. In a brief interlude, on 12 October St John met the agents of James Butler, 1st marquess of Ormond, who had come to London to seek a deal with Parliament, and the sub-committee of the Derby House Committee that subsequently interviewed them.514Bodl. Carte 19, ff. 158, 159. The Ormond peace proved abortive, but the negotiations with the Scots continued smoothly. On 13 November St John was named to a committee to peruse the votes passed dividing the sum owed the Scots into a lump sum and three monthly payments.515CJ iv. 721a. A month later, he was also named to a committee to consider the Scots’ demands for security for the £200,000, and to prepare reasons why Parliament did not consider this necessary.516CJ v. 12a. By the end of December, everything was settled. On 26 December St John was appointed to a committee to consider an additional clause on the vote for the disposal of the king, stipulating that both kingdoms would persuade the monarch to live at Holdenby House in Northamptonshire, with St John taking care of it.517CJ v. 30a-b. The Scots signed the articles of agreement at Derby House on 1 January, with St John as one of the signatories.518CJ v. 38a. Having brought the Scots into the war in the new year of 1644, St John had played an important role in their departure, on reasonably amicable terms, three years later.

From the autumn of 1646, St John found time to push for reforms in two areas that had long been a preoccupation. Although the fag end of the civil war had not been an appropriate time to reintroduce measures to strip the church authorities of their lands, on 16 September 1645 St John had been named to a committee to prepare an ordinance for the confiscation of the estates of the bishops and the deans and chapters of cathedrals.519CJ iv. 275b. It was over a year later, on 29 September 1646, that St John was appointed to a committee to bring in an ordinance for the sale of the dean and chapter lands.520CJ iv. 678a. On 2 November he was included in a committee to examine the ordinance for the sale of bishops’ lands before it was sent to the Lords, and on the same day he was included in a committee to consider what allowances should be provided to bishops who had not been active royalists.521CJ iv. 712a. In the same period, St John was also involved in the measures that would establish an alternative religious system to episcopacy. On 3 June he had been named to a committee of both Houses to adjudge and determine what ‘scandalous offences’ would lead to excommunication.522CJ iv. 562b. On 17 September it was noted that St John had been behind an order ‘to send to the synod for the confession of faith, or so much of it as they had finished’.523Harington’s Diary, 37. On 11 November he was appointed to the committee on an ordinance for the maintenance of ministers.524CJ iv. 719b.

Reform of the law was also a priority for St John. In mid-October he was named to three important committees: on an ordinance for reconstituting the probate courts, in the absence of archbishops (17 Oct.); to consider how to regulate the chancery (21 Oct.); and to discuss regulating the court of exchequer (21 Oct.).525CJ iv. 696b, 701a. On 30 October he was appointed to two more legal committees, to vet the choice of sheriffs and justices of the peace, and to consider how proceedings at the court of wards might be brought to an end, now that the court itself had been abolished.526CJ iv. 709b, 710a. The fate of the former officers of the court of wards was of particular interest to St John, as his political ally, Viscount Saye, was its master, and this, as well as his legal position, explains his inclusion in a committee to seek compensation for those officers on 24 November.527CJ iv. 727a. The importance of factional networks within legal institutions was also apparent on 26 November 1646, when St John relinquished the treasurership of Lincoln’s Inn, only to be replaced by his cousin, Samuel Browne.528L. Inn Black Bks. ii. 371. This legal and family connection also permeated the Commons. On 7 January 1647, for example, St John and Browne were two of three MPs selected to prepare the ordinance for settling lands of the marquess of Worcester on another relative, Oliver Cromwell.529CJ v. 44b. The Independent clique was also holding its own in other areas. The role of the Committee for Compounding was considered by a committee, including St John and Browne, on 2 February, and St John was appointed as one of the new commissioners for compounding in an ordinance passed on 8 February 1647.530A. and O.: CJ v. 70a, 78a.

The Presbyterians and the army, Feb.-July 1647

By the beginning of February 1647 it was clear that the factional balance of power was shifting in favour of the Presbyterian interest. With the Scottish army gone, there was no justification for retaining the New Model; and the recruiter elections had brought many more pro-Presbyterian (or anti-army) MPs into the Commons. St John’s critics saw him as an important friend of the New Model during the spring of 1647. John Lilburne, writing a letter – subsequently published – to Cromwell on 25 March, accused him of being ‘led by the nose by two unworthy covetous earthworms, Vane and St John’.531Jonah’s Cry out of the Whale’s Belly (1647), 3 (E.400.5). Holles’s Memoirs portrayed St John as an important opponent of those who wished to disband the New Model and come to terms with the king. Holles drew a parallel with Cromwell, saying that both men had chosen not to attend the Derby House Committee during this period, choosing to work behind the scenes instead.532Holles, Memoirs, 82. At first sight, it seems that Holles may have had a point. The order books show that St John attended the powerful Derby House Committee only fitfully throughout this period, being recorded as present only on 20 February, 13 April and 9 July.533CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 729; SP21/26, pp. 44, 96. Yet his performance in the Commons was also patchy. Most of his recorded involvement in proceedings was on fairly routine business: he was ordered to bring in an ordinance for tonnage and poundage on 2 March; he was named to a committee on malignant ministers on 22 March; on 5 May he was appointed to the committee on an ordinance to settle further lands on Cromwell; and on 14 May he was named to the committee in the indemnity ordinance – an appointment confirmed on 21 May.534CJ v. 103b, 119b, 162b, 174a; A. and O.

Only very occasionally did St John involve himself in political matters, but these were neither very successful, nor directly supportive of the army. April was a frustrating time. On 2 April the Presbyterians prevented an Independent motion to allow a committee of the whole House to consider the controversial London militia ordinance, and St John, with Vane II, Prideaux I and Hesilrige was appointed to the committee then appointed.535CJ v. 132b. On 14 April St John, Hesilrige and Cromwell were included in a Presbyterian-dominated committee to prepare instructions for commissioners to attend the king with the ordinances on the Newcastle Propositions and for the sale of bishops’ lands.536CJ v. 142b. June was no more promising. On 14 June St John was named to small committee, chaired by John Birch, to prepare a declaration justifying Parliament’s decision to disperse rioting reformado officers by paying them.537CJ v. 209b. These officers, it was hoped by some Presbyterians, might form the nucleus of an army to oppose the New Model, and St John’s presence on the committee list did not indicate his agreement. On the same day, he was also named to a committee of both Houses to prepare another declaration, concerning Parliament’s intention to satisfy the army and bring peace and safety to the kingdom. The committee was dominated by Presbyterians, but also included Hesilrige, Browne and Evelyn of Wiltshire.538CJ v. 210a. The overall impression is that St John, like other Independents, was unable to exercise much influence over affairs either at Westminster or in the Committee of Both Kingdoms. Instead, they relied on the army to bring pressure to bear on the Presbyterian faction.

The search for settlement, July 1647-Jan. 1648

Holles blamed the army’s march on London in August on ‘a conspiracy with the army, designed and laid principally by Mr St John, the solicitor’.539Holles, Memoirs, 147. There is no doubt that St John favoured the move against his Presbyterian enemies, but evidence that he was the ringleader is lacking. Even after the flight of the Eleven Members at the end of June had effectively broken the Presbyterian hegemony at the end of June, St John was not much in evidence in the Commons. Over the next few weeks the only record of his attendance in the House was on 23 July, when he was named as a member of a committee to prepare a declaration against the London militia’s boast that they would bring the king to London.540CJ v. 255b. A few days later, when the king rejected the Heads of Proposals, backed by the army and the leading Independents, St John was not included in the ‘cabinet council of the grandees’ that discussed the next move.541J. Wildman, Putney Projects (1647), sig. F3 (E.421.19). The depth of his involvement in the opposition to the ‘forcing of the Houses’ from 26 July is also unclear, although he signed the declaration of the Members who took refuge with the army, pledging their support for Fairfax and his men.542Palmer, St John, 107. Holles alleged that St John was the link between the army and Speaker Lenthall, with the latter being advised ‘to take counsel of Mr Solicitor, who would tell him what was fit to be done’, but this cannot be substantiated.543Holles, Memoirs, 147; LJ ix. 385. In fact, it seems that St John re-emerged as a key political player only after the army’s occupation of London. On 6 August he was one of the first Independent MPs to resume his seat, and supported the votes to give rewards to the army and thanks to Fairfax.544Harington’s Diary, 56. On the same day he was named, alongside Vane II, Hesilrige and Prideaux I, to a committee of both Houses to examine the forcing of the Houses.545CJ v. 269a. On 11, 18 and 20 August he was named to committees concerning an ordinance to repeal all votes, orders and ordinances passed during the forcing, and was joined in this by old allies like Vane II, Pierrepont, Hesilrige, Evelyn of Wiltshire and Prideaux I.546CJ v. 271b, 278a, 279b.

By the end of August the Independents had thus re-asserted their control of Westminster politics, and St John had re-established himself at the heart of the faction. The consolidation of his position would continue over the next few weeks. St John attended the Derby House Committee on 27 August, and he signed a letter from the committee on 15 September.547SP21/26, pp. 101, 104. On 3 September he was appointed to the committee on an ordinance to make Cromwell’s friend, Colonel Robert Hammond*, governor of the Isle of Wight.548CJ v. 291a. On 9 September Whitelocke recorded his own return to Westminster, where he was ‘courted by St John and his party’.549Whitelocke, Diary, 199. On 23 September he was made a member of the committee of both Houses for the army, charged with organising the distribution of the assessment tax.550A. and O. The importance of St John in the counsels between Parliament and the army at this time is well-attested. According to one contemporary, at the end of September Cromwell and Henry Ireton* ‘have spoken much in the king’s behalf, seconded by young Harry Vane, Mr Solicitor and Mr Fiennes’.551Clarke Pprs. i. 231. This is supported by other evidence. It was said, by one hostile witness, that St John, Vane II, Saye, Cromwell and Ireton, ‘now steer the affairs of the whole kingdom’.552Dyve Letter Bk. 57, 89. Lilburne attacked St John, Vane II, Viscount Saye and Lord Wharton as ‘those four sons of Machiavell’, who sought their own promotion rather than the ‘just liberty of the commons of England’.553Palmer, St John, 107.

Lilburne and his friends were especially suspicious of St John’s role in reopening peace negotiations with the king, based on the Heads of Proposals rejected in the summer. The parliamentary record suggests that St John’s involvement was at its height in late September and until the last days of October. On 30 September he was named to a committee to consider a proposition on religion to be presented to the king.554CJ v. 321b. On 6 October he was appointed to a similar committee, to consider a proposition concerning the establishment of a Presbyterian church settlement, but with exceptions for those with ‘tender consciences’. The committee list included Hesilrige, Vane II, Browne, Evelyn of Wiltshire and Cromwell.555CJ v. 327b. St John was named to committees to consider a proposition to provide security for soldiers’ arrears (21 Oct.), and to reduce the propositions into a suitable form to be presented to the king (30 Oct.).556CJ v. 339a, 346b. This latest peace initiative would, however, founder in the next few days, as the Putney debates hardened the attitude of Cromwell and Ireton towards the king, and Charles, fearing for his safety, fled from Hampton Court.

Compared with the brisk pace of August, September and October, the last months of 1647 were a desultory time for St John. From the end of October he had once again been involved in talks with the Scots, in an attempt to conserve the fragile peace between the two nations, and he was named to committees to consider papers from the Scottish commissioners on 23 November and 15 December.557LJ ix. 500a; CJ v. 367a, 385a. St John also busied himself with religious affairs. He was ordered to prepare an ordinance to allow the certification of conforming papists, to replace the system previously administered by the bishops (23 Nov.); he and Browne were also instructed to bring in an ordinance to allow the Calvinist archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher, to preach at Lincoln’s Inn (20 Dec.); and he was appointed to a committee to consider how to overcome obstructions to the sale of bishops’ lands (23 Dec.).558CJ v. 366b, 393b, 400a. St John played a minor role in continuing peace efforts, and was named to a committee to reduce the existing propositions into ‘Four Bills’, ready for the king’s assent, on 29 November.559CJ v. 371a. Again, this was to come to nothing. The king’s rejection of the Four Bills in December was followed by his signing of the engagement with the Scots on 27 December. Parliament retaliated with a vote of no addresses, suspending further talks with the king, in January 1648.

In the new year of 1648, St John seems to have restricted himself to legal matters. On 14 January he was ordered to prosecute Sir Lewis Dyve, Sir John Stawell* and other notorious royalists before the king’s bench, leading one newsbook to describe St John as ‘the solicitor of Independency’.560CJ v. 432a; Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 18 (11-18 Jan. 1648), sig. Ssv (E.467.38). On 19 January the Commons instructed him to speed the proceedings in such trials, and arranged that he would be assisted by other lawyer-MPs, including his old friends Browne and Prideaux I.561CJ v. 437b. Ten days later he was named to a committee on an ordinance to guarantee the indemnity of tenants threatened by royalist landlords.562CJ v. 447b. St John was prepared to perform his legal function, but with the breakdown of talks with the king he appears to have distanced himself from politics, and from former allies, including Cromwell. He continued to attend the Derby House Committee during January, but was absent for the next two months.563SP21/26, pp. 124, 130. He also withdrew from the Commons during this period.564CJ v. 447b, 493a.

‘Royal Independent’, February-December 1648

Although St John played no part in public life during the next few weeks, privately he appears to have favoured the mission of four MPs, sent at the end of January to try to persuade the Scots to abandon their support for the king; and, with Saye and Pierrepont, he was said to be in close correspondence with the commissioners.565Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 89. On his return to the Commons, St John was involved in building support through rewards and appointments. On 13 March he took to the Lords an ordinance making Sir Gilbert Gerard chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and on the same day he was ordered to prepare a bill to grant the lucrative wardenship of St Cross hospital, Winchester, to the local MP and stalwart Independent, John Lisle.566CJ v. 493a, 494a. In private, St John continued to be involved in negotiations for peace. He had left London to meet Viscount Saye and his allies at Wallingford in the middle of March.567Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 95-6. On 31 March Whitelocke recorded that ‘Mr Pierrepont, Mr Solicitor St John and Sir John Evelyn [of Wiltshire] came from Wallingford, with the governor [Arthur Evelyn], gave me a visit and dined with me at [Phyllis] Court’.568Add. 37344, f. 142v. According to one royalist source, the meeting at Phyllis Court ‘concluded it necessary to entertain a treaty with his majesty, thereby (if possible) to disengage him from the Scottish interest’.569Hamilton Pprs. ed. Gardiner, 174. St John and his friends arrived at Westminster in mid-April, and began to build support for new negotiations with the king. A hint of this can be seen in his parliamentary activities over the next few days. On 19 April he was named to a committee to bring in an ordinance granting Skippon lands worth £1,000 a year.570CJ v. 537a. The possibility that the king might be deposed in favour of his son, the duke of York, also needed careful handling. While there is no evidence to connect St John with York’s flight from parliamentary custody on 21 April, it is interesting that on 22 April St John joined Pierrepont, Reynolds and Harbottle Grimston as reporter of a conference on the escape.571CJ v. 543b.

News of the mobilisation of the Scottish army in support of the king, which was common knowledge at Westminster by the end of April, destroyed the peace initiative favoured by St John. His activity in the Commons suddenly stopped, and he appears to have stayed away from the House completely until 20 July, when he was named to the committee on an ordinance for the regulating of sequestered estates.572CJ v. 641b. The next day he reported a letter from Colonel Thomas Mytton* from Denbigh, concerning prisoners of war.573CJ v. 642a. On 22 July he was appointed to a committee to prepare a declaration to assert Parliament’s integrity in its dealings with the Scots, to counter propaganda from Edinburgh. This committee included not only Independent allies of St John, like Browne, Evelyn of Wiltshire and Pierrepont, but also former friends who had sided with the Presbyterians, like Sir Walter Erle and John Maynard.574CJ v. 643b. On 24 July St John reported to the Commons from the Derby House Committee, a letter concerning the interception of troops being shipped from Ireland to assist the rebels in England.575CJ v. 645b. St John’s involvement with politics in the late summer and early autumn was hampered by his ill health. He was given a month’s leave of absence ‘for recovery of his health’ on 21 August.576CJ v. 677a. This was a severe blow to the ‘royal Independents’. In early August, St John was seen as especially close to Evelyn of Wiltshire, who was described variously as ‘Mr Solicitor’s shadow’, and as a man who had ‘given over his brains in wageship to Master St John’.577C. Walker, History of Independency (1660), 124; Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 20 (8-15 Aug. 1648, E.424.7). St John was also an important link with the army, and especially Oliver Cromwell. This can be seen in a letter from Cromwell (at Knaresborough) to St John, dated 1 September. Cromwell used his cousin as an intermediary with Vane II, saying ‘remember my love to my dear brother H. Vane. I pray he make not too little, nor too much, of outward dispensations’. He also asked St John to give his warmest wishes to Pierrepont, Evelyn ‘and the rest of our good friends’, including Francis Russell* and Sir Gilbert Pykeringe*.578Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 644-5.

St John’s illness may have hastened the breakdown of relations that followed, as Presbyterian and ‘royal Independents’ supported the Newport Treaty with the king, while the army and their radical allies at Westminster increasingly saw the removal of the king as the only option. He did not return to the Commons until 4 October, when he was named to a committee to attend Fairfax to thank him for his services over the summer.579CJ vi. 43a. Thereafter, he was rewarded – and effectively neutralised – by promotion to high legal office. On 12 October the Commons resolved that St John should join other prominent lawyers, including Browne, John Glynne and Thomas Erle, in being promoted to the rank of serjeant-at-law; and on the same day St John was also nominated as lord chief justice of the common pleas.580CJ vi. 50b. The House of Lords gave the appointments its blessing on 18 October.581LJ x. 551a-b. The writ making St John serjeant was issued on 24 October.582Baker, Serjeants at Law, 188. The ordinance appointing him as lord chief justice was passed on 30 October, and the patent formally dated 22 November.583LJ x. 570a; Sainty, Judges of England, 49. St John then followed the usual practice of new judges by withdrawing from the House of Commons. He thus played no part in the Newport negotiations, although it was said that he met Viscount Saye and other proponents of peace at a ‘private junto’ in November.584Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 113; The True Informer or Monthly Mercury no. 1 (7 Oct.-8 Nov. 1648), 16 (E.526.28).

The commonwealth, 1649-53

In later years, St John would claim that he played no part in the regicide or the establishment of the commonwealth in the winter of 1648-9. After denying rumours that he and Cromwell had lodged together at the time of the trial, and that he had ‘advised the king’s death’, St John protested that he ‘never knew of any intention to try him for his life’ and voiced his ‘dislike and dissatisfaction’ with the trial itself.585The Case of Oliver St John Esq (1660), 1-2 (E.1035.5). He also claimed that he had little involvement in the new regime. As lord chief justice, he did not sit in Parliament from October 1648 until June 1651; and ‘many can witness my declared judgement, both before and after, to be for king, Lords and Commons’. When the Commons asked for his views on constitutional affairs, he said he ‘refused to give advice, always manifested my dislike of taking away the House of peers and of secluding the members in 1648, nor was then in the House of Commons’.586Case of Oliver St John, 2-3. Contemporaries broadly agreed with this account. They noted St John’s initial reluctance to throw in his lot with the new regime, but thought he shared Vane II’s pragmatic attitude when joining the council of state: ‘that with protestation they approved not of what was done, but seeing it was done they were willing to concur to maintain the commonwealth’.587Wariston Diary, iii. 56-7.

This reluctance to concur with the new regime is supported by the official records of the council of state. St John was named to successive councils of state from February 1649, but he did not attend any of the meetings until the second half of August, and thereafter his attendance was at best sporadic until the end of 1650.588CJ vi. 140b; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. xlviii-lxxiii, 6, 512; 1650, pp. xv-xxxix. It is also revealing that his involvement in council affairs during this period was mostly confined to legal matters. In May 1649 St John was appointed to the committee that considered legal proceedings against John Lilburne, and in October he was ordered to assist the judges in the subsequent trial.589CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 154, 341. In November and December of the same year he was called upon to prepare or scrutinise draft legislation.590CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 413, 417, 430. In March 1650 he was named to a committee (which also included his fellow lawyers, Wylde and Whitelocke) to consider how legal affairs should be conducted; and in October and December he was involved in ensuring that the public records were kept appropriately.591CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 18, 391, 455.

St John’s reticence towards the council of state and his distance from Parliament in the early years of the commonwealth did not affect his legal career. He remained as lord chief justice, receiving £1,000 per annum as salary, and considerably more in fees and other perquisites.592E404/238, unfol. He was travelling on his assize circuit by August 1649.593Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 17 (7-14 Aug. 1649), sig. R3 (E.569.7). He also took part in a number of schemes to improve the commonwealth and increase his own prosperity. In February 1649 he joined John Trenchard*, John Sadler* and others in supporting Samuel Hartlib’s ‘Office of Address’ to encourage new inventions and projects.594T. Webster, The Great Instauration (1975), 74. He remained an enthusiastic supporter for the Bedford Level adventure. From June 1649 he was a regular in his attendance at the adventurers’ meetings in London, and he worked closely with Thurloe in ensuring the improvement of the works in the fens.595Cambs. RO, R.59.31.9.1-4, passim; TSP i. 205. In the winter of 1649-50 St John had increased his family’s status – and righted an ancient wrong – by marrying two of his daughters ‘to two brothers of my own name, sons to Sir John St John of Wiltshire’ (Sir Walter St John* and Henry St John*), and men he thought ‘such as fear God, and such as myself, and their wives, I hope, shall find a blessing in’.596Nickolls, Original Letters, 48. Something of St John’s attitude can perhaps be seen in a later letter to Thurloe (of 13 Apr. 1652), in which he encourages him to seek preferment within the administration

God forbid I should in the least repine at any his works of providence, much more at those relating to your own good … no, go on and prosper; let not your hands, saint, wait upon him in his ways, and he that hath called you will cause his presence and blessing to go along with you. And if I were otherwise minded, might I not fear a curse upon what concerns myself in seeking my own good above the good of many?597TSP i. 205.

By the summer of 1650, St John was becoming a more influential figure in the new commonwealth. In June of that year, when Fairfax made it known that he was uncomfortable with leading a campaign against the Scots, St John joined John Lambert*, Thomas Harrison I* and Whitelocke in the delegation sent to discuss the matter with him. According to Whitelocke, St John tried to persuade Fairfax that such an expedition would not be a breach of faith, for ‘that League and Covenant was first broken by themselves, and so dissolved as to us, and the disowning of Duke Hamilton’s action by their latter Parliament cannot acquit the injury done to us before’.598Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 207-9. Such legal justifications could not satisfy Fairfax, however, and the command of the Scottish campaign, along with the lord generalship, soon passed to St John’s cousin, Oliver Cromwell.

Despite their political differences in 1648-9, St John and Cromwell were on excellent terms during 1650 and 1651. In January 1650, while staying at Forty Hall in Middlesex, St John wrote to Cromwell in Ireland with family news, adding: ‘If witchery were lawful we would wish you away for Forty, and back again to Cork in 24 hours; there are some here, I am sure, would bid you welcome. I hope the Lord will one day give opportunity of meeting and taking of sweet counsel together’.599Nickolls, Original Letters, 48. On 26 September 1650, once the news of Cromwell’s great victory at Dunbar had reached him, St John wrote to his cousin in a letter replete with providential language: ‘How bare hath the arm of the Lord been made in these our days … I believe there was never any battle fought wherein the honour both of God and man were more concerned, than in this’. Beneath the providentialism lay a plea for Cromwell to use his influence to promote a settlement with the Scots

if we improve the mercy received, we shall yet praise him more and more. Somewhat likewise it calls for from us, in relation to those against whom he hath thus turned his hand; we ought to seek God for them, that they may see the rod, and who hath sent it, and for what. We must not insult over them, but still endeavour to heap coals of fire upon their heads, and so carry it with as much moderation and mercy towards them, as may consist with safety.600Nickolls, Original Letters, 24-6.

St John’s relationship with Cromwell remained strong during the following winter. On 27 December Elizabeth Cromwell told her husband that she had consulted with St John over the family’s financial affairs, and urged him to ‘write sometimes to your dear friend the lord chief justice’.601Nickolls, Original Letters, 40. It was perhaps the need to protect Cromwell’s interests during his absence in Scotland that encouraged St John to attend the council of state more assiduously during December 1650, January and February 1651. He was certainly handling more political issues during this period, including liberty of conscience, actions against royalist ‘delinquents’ and the government of Barbados, and he was duly reappointed to the council of state on 13 February.602CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 14, 16, 24, 44.

St John’s increased political standing, and his connection with Cromwell, presumably influenced his appointment as one of the ambassadors to the Low Countries, proposed by the council of state and confirmed by Parliament in January 1651.603CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 19, 26. He and his fellow ambassador, Walter Strickland*, had arrived in the Netherlands by the end of March.604CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 72, 117. Whitelocke thought St John had been chosen because he was ‘Cromwell’s creature’; and even though Strickland was more experienced, ‘St John was looked upon as the principal man’.605Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 287. The embassy was designed to cut a dash. The council of state provided £3,000 for expenses.606CSP Dom. 1651, p. 541. The ambassadors dressed sumptuously, their ‘habit glittered like the glorious sun, the like hath not been seen these many years, and the Dutch stood amazed (lifting up their hands) to see so much gallantry’. St John’s speech to the States General was equally coruscating, promising ‘firm Union and constant intercourse of friendship and real affections between England and this state’, and ‘a more intimate alliance and nearer union with them than formerly hath been’.607Joyful Newes from Holland (1651), 2-3 (E.626.18); S. Kelsey, Inventing a Republic (Manchester, 1997), 66.

There were, however, strong connections between the Dutch and the House of Stuart, and many English royalists had sought sanctuary in the Low Countries. These men led a demonstration in the streets, when ‘as we came along in our coaches they called us traitors, rebels and St John’s bastards all the way we came’, while others threatened St John with assassination.608Mercurius Politicus no. 43 (27 Mar.-3 Apr. 1651, E.626.17). The embarrassment of such incidents unnerved St John and Strickland, who sent a long report to the council of state in early June.609TSP i. 188-93. Whitelocke saw the failure of the talks as the fault of St John, who ‘had little hopes of dispatching the treaty with them, according to his mind, especially as to his proposal of coalition, [and] … therefore sent his judgement to his private friends in Parliament, who swayed the House’ to vote for the withdrawal of the mission.610Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 301. The ambassadors were brought back to England by the end of June, and reported to the council of state on 28 June, and to Parliament on 2 July, when St John formally resumed his seat in the Commons.611CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 251, 273; Clarke Pprs. v. 43-4; CJ vi. 595a. Edmund Ludlowe II* may be accurate in recording that ‘this disappointment sat so heavy upon the haughty spirit of the Lord Chief Justice St John, that he reported these transactions with the highest aggravations against the States’.612Ludlow, Mems. i. 267. St John’s inclusion, on 7 August, on the committee on a bill to prevent ambassadors and other public ministers from receiving gifts or pensions from foreign powers, may indicate his disillusion with the ways of diplomacy.613CJ vi. 618b. Whether St John was as a result the ‘principal instrument’ behind the Navigation Act of the following October, which provoked the first Dutch War, is, however, uncertain.614Worden, Rump Parl. 299; Ludlow, Mems. i. 267.

The invasion of England by Charles Stuart and his Scottish army soon distracted attention from the Dutch fiasco. On 11 August St John was appointed to a council committee to attend the London authorities with news of the attack, and to raise men and money to oppose it.615CSP Dom. 1651, p. 315. From then until the beginning of September, he attended the council of state almost daily.616CSP Dom. 1651, pp. xxxi-ii. He also became more active in Parliament. On 12 August he was named to a committee to continue the existing legislation for the militia in Westminster and the London suburbs, and, with Whitelocke and Lisle, he was ordered to take care of a bill to prevent English royalists from joining the Scots.617CJ vi. 619a, 621b. The victory at Worcester on 3 September reinforced the political ascendancy of Cromwell. On 6 September Parliament ordered that St John, John Lisle, Pykeringe and Whitelocke would meet the lord general on his journey to London, and they were given detailed instructions on 9 September.618CJ vii. 13a, 13b. When the general was duly feted at Aylesbury, St John had ‘much discourse’ with his cousin, and they dined together.619HMC Portland, i. 616; Whitelocke, Diary, 270; Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 351.

St John played a pivotal role in the political manoeuvrings that followed. From September until December he was again a regular at council meetings, and he sat frequently at Westminster.620CSP Dom. 1651, pp. xxxiii-iv; 1651-2, p. xxxv. On 9 September he was named, alongside old allies such as Whitelocke, Lisle and Prideaux I, to a committee to bring in a bill to incorporate Scotland into one commonwealth with England.621CJ vii. 14a. Following this, on 23 October, on the recommendation of the council of state, St John, Vane II, Richard Salwey*, John Lambert and George Monck* were appointed as commissioners to treat with the Scots for a formal union between the two countries.622CSP Dom. 1651, p. 489; Clarke Pprs. v. 49n; CJ vii. 30a-b. Another pressing issue was the need to bring the Long Parliament to an end, and to hold new elections. On 25 September St John, Whitelocke, Lisle, Prideaux I and others were named to a committee to bring in a bill to this effect; and on 14 November, when the Commons voted on whether it was the right time to declare a definite time limit for the sitting of the Rump, St John and Cromwell were tellers in favour.623CJ vii. 20b, 36b. St John’s personal standing increased commensurately. In November he was made chancellor of the university of Cambridge, in place of the earl of Manchester.624Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 386n. He was third in the ballot for the new council of state, behind Cromwell and Whitelocke.625CJ vii. 42a. In December he was appointed to the council committee on trade and foreign affairs.626CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 67. In a further sign of his closeness to Cromwell, on 9 December St John was named to the committee on a bill to settle lands on the lord general’s widowed daughter, Bridget Ireton.627CJ vii. 49a. In the same month, when Cromwell called a meeting of selected MPs and senior officers to discuss future plans, St John advised his friend that ‘it will be found that the government of this nation, without something of monarchical power, will be very difficult to be so settled as not to shake the foundation of our laws and the liberties of the people’.628Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 372-3. The alternative, government by a ‘single person’, raised the question of who should perform that executive role; and in the autumn of 1651 the answer did not need to be spelled out.

St John had received his commission and instructions for his Scottish visit on 18 December, and he and the other commissioners convened at Dalkeith, south of Edinburgh, on 15 January 1652.629CJ vii. 53a. On 16 and 17 January St John was ill and unable to receive visitors.630Clarke Pprs. v. 53. On 17 January he was well enough to sign a letter from the commissioners, and he continued to sign declarations and letters until April, becoming involved in the negotiations for the compliance of the marquess of Argyll (Archibald Campbell*) in the early spring.631CCC 535; Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 32, 40, 42; Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 25. This was part of a wider scheme to secure the ‘assent’ of the Scottish shires and burghs to the ‘tender’ of Union by the English. St John also had a subsidiary task: to set up law courts in Scotland, to ensure the administration of justice following the collapse of government north of the border.632CJ vii. 112a. St John had been ordered to return to Westminster on 30 March, but he did not arrive until the beginning of May, when he reported on the progress of his legal reforms.633Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 149; CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xl, 238; CJ vii. 132a-b. The political situation had changed markedly in his absence, and hopes for a constructive partnership between the army and the Rump had faded. St John was taken ill soon after his return from Scotland – on 26 May he was allowed to absent himself from his legal duties to take the waters at Tunbridge ‘for recovery of his health’.634CJ vii. 136a. He rarely attended the council of state during that time, and his appointments were limited to committees to treat with ambassadors from Sweden (11 May), Denmark (10 June) and Portugal (12 Oct., 4 and 7 Dec.).635CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xl-xlvi, 238, 284, 436; 1652-3, pp. 9, 14. He was absent from Parliament until October, and then concerned himself only with Scottish business: he was named to a committee on a declaration of union (7 Oct.); to a committee to meet a delegation from Scotland to negotiate the same (8 Oct.); and he was specifically asked to attend when the committee discussed a bill to continue the powers of the commissioners for Scottish affairs (22 Oct.).636CJ vii. 189a, 189b, 194a. He was still held in high regard at Westminster and Whitehall, however. He was elected as president of the council of state for a month on 6 September, and re-elected to the council of state on 24 November, once again receiving more votes than any other MP except Cromwell and Whitelocke.637CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 392, 505; CJ vii. 220a.

The new year of 1653 saw little improvement. St John made occasional appearances at Whitehall, and was appointed to committees on who should be excepted from the Scottish Act of Oblivion (9 Feb.), the trial of a murderer under the jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports (17 Mar.), and to consider a paper sent to Cromwell from Scotland (11 Apr.).638CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. xxix-xxxii, 156, 218, 273. His activity in Parliament also declined, and he was named to only one committee in this period: on a bill to introduce county registers on 2 February.639CJ vii. 253b. Cromwell’s sudden dissolution of the Rump on 20 April 1653 undoubtedly came as a blow to St John. According to his own account, over the previous years he had ‘endeavoured the bringing in of a free Parliament, as a thing due to the nation, and as the distractions then were, I thought it the best and justest way of healing them’, but all his plans were brought to an abrupt end by the intervention of ‘Cromwell and the army’.640Case of Oliver St John, 7. Whitelocke recorded a last minute meeting with the army concerning a dissolution, held on 19 April, at which St John ‘was the chief of the other opinion’.641Whitelocke, Diary, 285. One royalist newsletter saw St John, as much as Vane II, Henry Marten or Hesilrige, as the target of Cromwell’s ‘contumelious speech’ when dissolving the House on 20 April.642CCSP ii. 200. Others saw the rift between the two men as little more than a hairline crack. Edmund Ludlowe II claimed that, having dissolved the Rump, Cromwell went ‘immediately to the Chief Justice St John, Mr [John] Selden* and others, and endeavoured to persuade them to draw up some instrument of government that might put the power out of his hands’.643Ludlow, Mems. i. 358.

The protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, 1653-8

In his later apology, St John strongly denied that he had played any role in the creation of the protectorate in December 1653. He countered stories that ‘he was the dark lantern, and privy councillor, in setting up and managing affairs of the late Oliver Protector’s time’ by insisting that he was ‘dangerously’ sick from October 1653 until May 1654, and when Cromwell was inaugurated ‘I was at the worst’.644Case of Oliver St John, 3; cf. TSP vii. 914. Thurloe corroborated this, telling Whitelocke in February 1654 that ‘my Lord St John is yet very ill’, and had retired to the country.645TSP ii. 113. But even during his illness, St John could not avoid being drawn into both public and private affairs. Between 9 January and 9 February he was appointed to the oyer and terminer commissions in London, Middlesex and all the eastern counties of England from Kent to Yorkshire.646C181/6, ff. 1-17. On 23 January he was confirmed in his post as lord chief justice.647Sainty, Judges of England, 49. In February articles of agreement were drawn up between St John and the masons who were to supply windows for his new mansion at Thorpe, near Peterborough, on the advice of the surveyor, Peter Mills.648Add. 25302, f. 153.

The reconciliation of St John to the protectoral regime would only come to fruition in the summer of 1654. On 2 August the council approved Cromwell’s nomination of St John and others as treasury commissioners, and on 28 August its president, Henry Lawrence I*, requested that St John, Whitelocke and Lisle might meet protector and council to advise them on the forthcoming Parliament.649CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 284, 337. St John’s role in the parliamentary elections is uncertain. As chancellor of Cambridge he may have influenced the election of the protector’s younger son, Henry Cromwell*, for the university seat, but there is no direct evidence that he did so. Nor did St John himself seek election. On 27 July the protector’s son-in-law Charles Fleetwood* wrote to Thurloe giving his support ‘if my Lord St John would accept to serve for Woodstock’, adding that ‘such men will be more wanted than ever in Parliament’.650TSP ii. 493. St John was also put up as a candidate for the Irish constituency of Kildare and Wicklow by a group of prominent Dublin aldermen, perhaps encouraged by Fleetwood as lord deputy – but he lost this contest by a considerable margin.651HMC Egmont, i. 553. St John’s role in the first protectorate Parliament was thus very limited. On 24 October 1654 the Commons passed a resolution approving of his appointment as treasury commissioner and lord chief justice, on the request of the protector.652CJ vii. 378a. On 19 December the Commons asked St John to assist the commissioners of the great seal in their review of the petition of one Marmaduke Gresham.653CJ vii. 404a.

In early March 1655 St John was on circuit in Suffolk when news of the Penruddock’s rising was sent to him by Thurloe, who was concerned for his safety. On 13 March he replied, stoically, that he would continue his judicial duties, as he was sure he was doing God’s will: ‘I am, I believe, in his way; and therefore I think I should go out of it if I should neglect the performance of the present service; and therefore, relying on his protection, I am resolved, God willing, to go on the circuit’.654TSP iii. 227. A day later, soldiers arrived to guard the judges, and St John was hopeful that the circuit might proceed, and that he might have time to visit the fens to view the draining works there.655TSP iii. 246. On 22 March, however, the protector intervened personally, and St John was required to return to Whitehall to give legal advice.656CSP Dom. 1655, p. 89. This incident not only shows St John’s importance to the protector, but also disproves his own claim that he was a stranger to the protector: ‘as soon as term was ended, I ever went down into the country, and came not up until the beginning of the term following; seldom saw him, save before or after the term to take leave; but followed my calling’.657Case of Oliver St John, 3. It also suggests that in saying that he played no part in the ‘managing of private advice by Mr Thurloe’, St John was being somewhat disingenuous.658Case of Oliver St John, 3; cf. TSP vii. 914. Clearly Thurloe was a vital link between St John and Cromwell, especially when the former was in the country. During the summer of 1655, for example, St John wrote regularly to Thurloe with legal queries and advice about cases before the law courts.659TSP iii. 640, 693. Later in the year, St John asked Thurloe to use his intelligence network in London to locate his errant son, William St John*, threatening to issue a warrant for his arrest, to be brought before the secretary.660TSP iv. 250. St John’s involvement in a social circle based around the protectoral court can also be seen in a letter from his old friend William Pierrepont in the new year of 1656, asking him to arrange for his brother Francis to be spared the office of sheriff of Nottinghamshire. Pierrepont told St John he had also asked Thurloe and Henry Lawrence I for their help in the matter.661TSP iv. 469. This grouping of St John, Thurloe, Pierrepont and Lawrence was to recur during the next few years.

In the mid-1650s, St John was a man with access to the protector and his inner circle, but his role in politics was muted. Beyond the law, St John played a minor role in the formal administration of the protectorate. He was not a protectoral councillor, and he only occasionally acted as a treasury commissioner: in December 1654 he was ordered to issue a warrant for the relief of sick and wounded mariners, and in May 1655 he was instructed to arrange payment of household fees, wages and other costs, but these were isolated cases.662CSP Dom. 1654, p. 411; 1655, p. 173. Other appointments came with time. For example, on 12 July 1655 St John was appointed to the Committee for Trade, and on 1 November he was made one of the new trade and navigation committee.663CSP Dom. 1655, p. 240; 1655-6, pp. 1-2. On 15 November he was included in the committee to consider the proposals of Menasseh Ben Israel for the re-admittance of the Jews, and on 4 January 1656 he was added to the committee for collections for the distressed Protestants of Savoy.664CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 23, 100. These were both matters close to Cromwell’s heart, which required the counsel of his closest advisers. Direct evidence of St John’s influence with the protector is lacking, but royalist commentators suspected that this influence was very great indeed. In September 1655 it was said that St John was a key opponent of the army, and hoped to increase Parliament’s authority through the enforcement of triennial Parliaments.665CSP Dom. 1655, p. 341. In October the royalist Joseph Jane* repeated the allegation, saying that the army and the civilian interest were now in ‘flat opposition’ and that ‘I shall not wonder if St John be tampering in any such design’.666Nicholas Pprs. iii. 65. By the end of December it was rumoured that St John’s influence was growing, as one of Secretary Sir Edward Nicholas’s† informants reported

When I was in England, St John and Thurloe, who had been St John’s clerk, with [Henry] Lawrence, president of the council, and Nathaniel Fiennes, brought in by Lawrence, were of his [Cromwell’s] cabinet; and sometimes one of the Pierreponts … is admitted when advice is wanting.667CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 80.

The listing of known associates of St John – Thurloe, Lawrence, the Pierreponts – suggests that there was an element of truth behind this story. The timing is also interesting, as during the winter of 1655-6 the major-generals were becoming increasingly suspicious that those around the protector were subverting the policy of decimation. A surviving letter from St John to Thurloe, of 3 December, in which he asked for exemption from decimation for Sir Thomas Hanmer, shows that he favoured making exceptions, at least in some cases; and this fits with St John’s own claim that, as a judge, ‘I always discharged such as had been committed by the major-generals’.668Supra, ‘John Disbrowe’; TSP iv. 277; Case of Oliver St John, 7.

In the late summer of 1656 St John was involved in the elections for the second protectorate Parliament. He probably supported Richard Cromwell*, who was elected for Cambridge University on 1 August, and presumably backed his own son, Francis, as MP for Peterborough. He was resident at Thorpe in the month of these elections, and even though nominally enjoying a period of ‘vacancy and retirement’, he was evidently keeping abreast of affairs at Cambridge.669Add. 4157, f. 82. On 26 August St John wrote to Thurloe to tell him of a recent visit to Wisbech, where he viewed the secretary’s building works, and passed on news of other elections: ‘Will Fisher tells me that he intends on Thursday to stand for one of the knights of the Isle of Ely, you have I believe heard how our elections stand for these parts’. Furthermore, St John had just received a visit from the protector’s son-in-law John Claypoole*, and this suggests that his ‘retirement’ was geographical rather than political.670Add. 4157, f. 86. Once again, St John declined to take a seat in the Commons for himself, preferring to remain in background. The satirical paper entitled ‘The Royal Game at Piquet’, which circulated in early September, was perhaps correct to portray him as a reticent loyalist: ‘My lord, I shall not play neither, but I’ll go your half if you’ll keep my counsel’.671‘The Royal Game at Piquet’ (1656, E.886.4).

St John remained at Thorpe during September and early October 1656, reporting to Thurloe the business of the Bedford Level after ‘the late reforming of the companies’ and complaining that in the Middle Level ‘our works must stay because the old taxes are not paid’.672Add. 4157, ff. 98, 100. He remained in close contact with Westminster, however. On 4 October he told Thurloe of his pleasure at the naval victory against the Spanish, which he saw as cancelling out the defeat at Hispaniola the year before: ‘the West Indies begin to be a stage of miracles, in our miscarriage on man’s part, and in the other against Spain from heaven’.673TSP v. 475. St John had returned to London by November. He was probably one of the ‘five great persons’ identified as being the leaders of the civilian interest in November – alongside Sir Charles Wolseley*, Edward Montagu, Philip Jones* and Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*).674Little and Smith, Parliaments and Politics, 107. In early February, Vincent Gookin* reported that he suspected a move in government circles to ‘occasion a reducing of the government etc to kingship’ and that ‘Pierrepont and St John have been often, but secretly, at Whitehall, I know, to advise thereof’.675TSP vi. 37.

Cromwell’s refusal of the crown in early May was a major reverse for St John and his friends, and over the summer the royalists had high hopes that the disappointed St John and his close ally William Pierrepont might be separated from the protector’s interest. In July 1657 Hyde repeatedly asked his London agents whether the two men were still unsatisfied, and whether there was any chance of a rift between St John and Cromwell.676CCSP iii. 326, 339. Henry Cromwell was probably closer to reality when he told Thurloe on 16 July that ‘I would gladly hear whether there be any thoughts of my Lord St John’s and Mr Pierrepont’s coming into the council’, but neither prediction would come true.677TSP vi. 404. St John was not offered (or did not accept) such a position, but he remained loyal to the protector, and was included in the list of members of the Other House, chosen by Cromwell in December.678TSP vi. 668. Yet he did not take his seat in the brief parliamentary sitting in January and early February 1658. Once again, this was a deliberate choice. When the judges were called to attend, ‘St John was caught napping, and went up but would not take his place but amongst the judges on the woolpacks’.679Bodl. Tanner 52, f. 229. The spring of 1658 was a frustrating time, as Cromwell brought the army back into his counsels in an attempt to prevent mutiny. On 1 March it was said that the civilian interest was excluded from important discussions, and ‘St John, Pierrepont and that faction are strangers to the present affairs’.680Bodl. Clarendon 57, f. 175v.

There were compensations, however. St John grew immensely rich during the last years of the protectorate. His house at Thorpe had a façade based on Inigo Jones’s designs, and lavish interior decoration.681P. Hunneyball, ‘Cromwellian Style: the Architectural Trappings of the Protectorate Regime’, in The Cromwellian Protectorate ed. P. Little (Woodbridge, 2007), 79-80. In July 1657 it was said that St John had employed many clerks, ‘and his getting lately great sums for their entries, as £8,000 for one place within the 12 months’, and there is some evidence to support such allegations.682Wariston Diary, iii. 91; Aylmer, State’s Servants, 80-1, 368. Certainly St John found his legal offices exceptionally lucrative: ‘he had also many years together the passing of all fines and compositions, said to be worth £2,000 per annum’ and this was independent of his position as lord chief justice which was ‘a place of vast profit’.683Mystery of the Good Old Cause, 15-16. In March 1658 it was reported from France that there had been a royalist plot to kidnap his eldest son, then resident in Paris, either for ransom or as a hostage in case of the arrest and torture of the marquess of Ormond by the Cromwellian authorities. Even if baseless, such a rumour attests to St John’s continuing influence, and to his wealth – estimated by the Venetian resident as providing an income of £20,000 a year.684CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 180.

Richard Cromwell, 1658-9

In his later account of his career, St John sought to distance himself from the brief protectorate of Richard Cromwell. He denied vigorously ‘that I had a hand in the setting up of Richard’, claiming that ‘I never knew of his father’s intent to appoint him as successor’; he said he was at his country house when Oliver died, and ‘Richard was proclaimed and set up before my return to London’.685Case of Oliver St John, 3-4; cf. TSP vii. 914. Yet St John’s letter to Thurloe of 3 September 1658, in reply to his ‘sad letter’ announcing the death of Oliver Cromwell, demonstrates his commitment not only to the protector and his family but also to the protectorate.

If my coming up may be but in the least serviceable to any of his highness’s family, I shall account it a great happiness, and shall make no delay … My own thoughts are, that if upon any debate concerning affairs, the advice of persons conceived faithful to the public interest be desired, and if I shall be named amongst them, I am ready to join; but to come otherwise, I am afraid that it may have a contrary effect.

In a postscript he told Thurloe that Pierrepont was no longer staying with him, but had gone to Tong Castle in Shropshire.686TSP vii. 370. On hearing of Richard’s accession, George Monck in Scotland immediately advised him to appoint to his council St John, Broghill, Pierrepont, Thurloe and other reliable supporters.687TSP vii. 388. The royalists in exile remained hopeful that St John might be weaned from the protectorate, and Hyde asked for information on his ‘views’ in September and October 1658.688CCSP iv. 89, 101. The replies were not what Hyde wanted to hear. In December it was reported by different royalist sources that St John, Pierrepont and Thurloe had the effective management of the government.689CCSP iv. 116, 118. Something of St John’s standing can also be seen in the elaborate provisions made for the return of his eldest son from France in December. The order, requested by Thurloe and Montagu, was issued by the admiralty commissioners to Rear-Admiral John Bourne, who arranged a warship to be sent to Dieppe to collect the young man.690CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 492.

St John’s support for Richard can be seen in the election for the third protectorate Parliament in the winter of 1658-9. At the end of November he worked with Thurloe to remove Samuel Gott* as sheriff of Sussex, to allow him to sit as an MP.691TSP vii. 531. In December he made it known that he favoured Thurloe for one of the Cambridge University seats, and he received assistance in this from Benjamin Whichcot, provost of King’s College, who warned that Henry Cromwell and his father-in-law, Sir Francis Russell, were busy lobbying for Sir Anthony Morgan*.692TSP vii. 559, 574. Morgan was provided with an Irish seat, and Thurloe was elected unopposed for the senior place on 31 December. A few days earlier, St John told Thurloe of news of the election at Peterborough, where Francis St John was in due course re-elected.693TSP vii. 582. In the same letter St John made it clear that he had already sent his opinions on how to manage the session, but ‘in my last I forgot one thing material to be well advised on for the Parliament: that is, the navy and shipping of England’, especially his concern at the increasing trade by English merchants in Dutch ships; and he asked the secretary ‘to consider likewise the mint, and how bullion may be brought hither, and the exchange’. He added that he intended to travel to London by mid-January for the opening of Parliament.694TSP vii. 582.

Throughout February, March and April 1659 the royalists kept a close eye on St John, speculating on his influence over Richard Cromwell, his relationship with Pierrepont, and whether he would be an obstacle to some sort of accommodation in the future.695CCSP iv. 154, 159, 163-4, 166, 176-7. It was a forlorn hope. A report of 10 February had already emphasised the closeness of the clique that advised Richard, for ‘Thurloe governs Cromwell, and St John and Pierrepont govern Thurloe’.696Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 98. On 18 March it was said that Richard was

ready to embrace and fit to execute the counsels of his father’s old friends, the two best of whom, Mr Pierrepont and the Chief Justice St John, sit in neither House yet use their utmost care in his service, and really are … more affectionate to the present than the late protector, whose temper so differed from theirs that it was usually averse to the deliberate caution they advised.697Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 224.

It was also said that St John and Pierrepont had ‘already proposed a medium to reconcile many disputes, and especially the great contest likely to arise on the raising of money to defray the general debts and future expense of their land and sea forces’.698Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 224v. And by mid-April it was reported that, in response to unrest within the army, ‘private counsels are very frequent: Lord Broghill every day with Pierrepont or St John’.699Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 322v.

Restored Rump and Restoration, 1659-73

The dissolution of the third protectorate Parliament, under pressure from the army, on 22 April 1659 was followed by the forced resignation of Richard as protector in May. On the surface, these seismic events seem to have had little impact on St John, who had resumed his seat in the Rump Parliament by 10 May and his legal duties by the middle of the month.700CJ vii. 648a, 657b. By act of Parliament, he was appointed to the new council of state on 19 May 1659.701CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 349. Yet St John’s smooth transition from Cromwellian to republican was more apparent than real. Royalists reported that Richard Cromwell thought himself betrayed by St John and Thurloe; but a more equivocal relationship between the two men is suggested by St John’s role in sorting out the late protector’s financial liabilities and his appointment to a committee to consider how to settle ‘a comfortable and honourable subsistence’ on him on 25 May.702CCSP iv. 213; CJ vii. 664b, 665a. Indeed, there may be some truth in St John’s later account of this period, which said that he joined the Rump only reluctantly, in order to ensure ‘the maintenance of the law and the ministry’ (although his claim that he treated the new regime ‘only as a bridge to let in a free Parliament’ was presumably made with the benefit of hindsight).703Case of Oliver St John, 7. The initial hostility to St John among the commonwealthsmen is also revealing. In May it was reported that many MPs objected to the continuing involvement of St John, Glynne, Maynard, Thurloe and others associated with the Cromwellian government, and that Richard Salwey* ‘made a large harangue against St John at present an enemy to the republic and a builder of protectordom and contriver of the Instrument of Government and unfit for public trust’.704Nicholas Pprs. iv. 139.

The frosty relations between St John and the new regime rekindled royalist hopes of being able to ‘turn’ him. There were hints of contact between St John and royalist agents in June; and by August Hyde was interpreting the fact that he was sending money abroad for safe-keeping, as the action of a man who knew his position to be precarious.705CCSP iv. 218, 274, 282, 303-4. Yet by this stage St John seems to have reconciled himself to the new arrangements. In June he was active in Parliament, being named to committees on the new Irish commissioners (9 June), the assessment bill (14 June) and to consider a petition from a number of fenland parishes in Lincolnshire (30 June).706CJ vii. 678a, 684b, 697b. On 4 July it was reported that the Commons intended to reappoint all offices disposed since 1653 ‘except my Lord St John’s, and the places and grants made by him’.707Wariston Diary, iii. 123. During July his involvement in Parliament increased considerably, and he was named to nine committees, including those to reorganise the militia (9, 21, 23 July) and to give powers to the treasury commissioners (20 July).708CJ vii. 705a, 706b, 709a, 714b, 726a, 727a, 729a, 736a, 742a. On 14 July St John was granted lodgings at Whitehall by the council of state, and on 28 July he was ordered to prepare a proclamation for the surrender of the leading royalist agent, John Mordaunt.709CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 28, 47; CJ vii. 736a.

In early August St John continued to be active in Parliament. On 1 August he was added to committees to consider local courts in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire; on 8 August he was named to the committee on a bill to settle lands of royalists involved in the recent rising in the north of England on their tenants; and on 9 August he was appointed to a committee to prepare a declaration denouncing Sir George Boothe* and other leading rebels as traitors.710CJ vii. 744a, 751b, 754a. On 10 and 11 August St John was in lengthy discussions with Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston concerning the proposed act of Union with Scotland.711Wariston Diary, iii. 131. Yet by the end of August there are signs that St John’s enthusiasm was waning. On 26 August he and Widdrington were granted leave of absence for a month.712CJ vii. 769a. In early September it was proposed to make St John president of the council of state, but this was delayed a month because of his absence in the country.713CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 198. St John’s eagerness to leave Westminster may have reflected his disillusion with the inability of the Rump and the army to settle their differences. He was in Westminster on 8 September, when he was named to a committee to consider the current debate on the settlement of the government, and how it might be reconciled with the votes passed in 1648.714CJ vii. 775b. Immediately afterwards St John left London, and on 30 September he was fined for being absent at the call of the House.715CJ vii. 790a.

St John kept his head down during the autumn of 1659. According to Mordaunt, at the beginning of November St John and other moderates were in correspondence with Monck in Scotland, in the hope of forming an alliance against the senior officers in England. ‘This project’, explained Mordaunt, ‘is managed by Mr Pierrepont and St John, but those who appear in it are the earls of Northumberland, Bedford, Clare, Manchester’, with the hope of support from certain royalists.716Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 95-6. The failure of the officers to control the situation led to the recall of the Rump at the end of December, and on 31 December the Commons resolved to appoint a new council of state, with St John nominated as one of its members.717CJ vii. 800b. In the early weeks of 1660 St John played an important part in resolving the political crisis. On 16 January he was named to a committee on a bill to settle £1,000 on Monck, and on the same day the Commons ordered St John, Reynolds and Nicholas Lechmere* to write to Monck, inviting him to enter London and promising pay for his troops.718CJ vii. 813a. In a personal reply, dated 21 January, Monck thanked him for the ‘assurances of your resolution to endeavour the just settlement of these nations in a commonwealth way’, and thanked him for his ‘personal kindness to my self’.719Clarke Pprs. iv. 249-50.

St John’s importance in Parliament was also increasing. On 18 January, the Commons had resolved that St John would be continued as lord chief justice, on the recommendation of William Lenthall.720CJ vii. 814a-b. On 21 January St John was named to a committee to draft a declaration stating that Parliament intended to settle the state, without a single person (or king) and House of Lords, to uphold the law and the ministry, but with provision for tender consciences. This committee included old allies of St John, like Prideaux I and Reynolds, and significantly, St John and Hesilrige were ordered to take care of its deliberations.721CJ vii. 818a. St John reported from the committee on 23 January, and on 31 January he was named to the committee on a bill to approve the late actions of General Monck.722CJ vii. 819a, 827a.

St John’s close relationship with Monck appeared to be based on their political sympathy. On 7 February, shortly after general’s arrival in London, Samuel Pepys was told ‘that my Lord St John is for a free Parliament, and that he is great with Monck’.723Pepys’s Diary, i. 44. On 21 February the bill for the new council of state went to the committee stage, the resolution was passed on 23 February, and two days later St John was re-appointed to the executive alongside such old allies as Pierrepont, Widdrington, Maynard and Evelyn of Wiltshire.724CJ vii. 847b, 849b; A. and O. On 24 February St John had been named to a committee on a bill to make Monck captain general and commander-in-chief of the three nations.725CJ vii. 850b. St John was also involved in effecting the conservative political changes that Monck demanded. On 27 February he was added to a committee to bring in a bill to dissolve the Rump and issue writs for a general election; on 29 February he was appointed to a committee to consider the settlement of religion, including a confession of faith; and in early March he was appointed to committees on the approval of ministers and to enforce laws against papists.726CJ vii. 855a, 856a, 858a, 866a, 867a. By this time, St John was accounted ‘one of those on whom Monck much depends for counsel’.727Nicholas Pprs. iv. 193-4. Royalist agents were even reporting that St John and Thurloe were willing to make their peace with the Stuarts.728CCSP iv. 584, 586. St John would later claim that he had this in mind all along, as ‘the issue of a free Parliament would be the happy restoring of his majesty to his subjects’.729Case of Oliver St John, 8. Edmund Ludlowe II thought this was the reason St John opposed calls for a renewal of the Newport Treaty, instead ‘declaring it as his judgement to be better to leave it to a free Parliament to do’, although he attributed this to the desire for self-preservation rather than principle, ‘finding the current to be for the bringing in of the king, he would help to do it for the saving of his own stake, with as much advantage to him as might be’.730Ludlow, Voyce, 96.

Others were also suspicious of St John’s motives. In particular, it was feared that he had never lost his basic loyalty to the House of Cromwell. On 2 March, when Pepys noted discussions on a ‘single person, and that it would be Charles, George, or Richard again’, he added that St John ‘is said to speak high’ for the return of Richard Cromwell.731Pepys’s Diary, i. 74. In royalist circles there were rumours of ‘great caballing to bring in Dick Cromwell by Thurloe, St John, Montagu and others’ in early March: by the middle of the month the same gang was reported to be meeting, although Montague was no longer having anything to do with it.732CCSP iv. 595-6, 602. Ludlowe also thought that St John’s public support for a free Parliament might be a ruse, ‘hoping that in the interim a party would strengthen themselves to set up Richard again’.733Ludlow, Voyce, 96. It was perhaps concerns that St John was too close to the old Cromwellian regime that encouraged Monck to distance himself from the lord chief justice once the Rump dissolved itself on 16 March. At the end of March St John withdrew from the council of state, denouncing Monck as a ‘rigid cavalier’.734CCSP iv. 629. He travelled to Northamptonshire, where he was said to be involved in the elections for Peterborough.735CCSP iv. 631. He stood as a candidate for Cambridge University, but was rejected at the election on 3 April.736CCSP iv. 631. In mid-April Mordaunt reported witnessing St John, Pierrepont and the earl of Manchester in a ‘private conventicle’ with the rest of the ‘cabal’.737CCSP iv. 674. By this stage the dominance of Monck made an alternative to the return of the Stuarts a dead letter.

At the Restoration, St John and other officers of the court of common pleas petitioned to be continued in their posts, but this was soon countered by former officers, clamouring for reinstatement.738CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 7, 244. Others were looking for revenge. In the same month St John was attainted by the Convention, although the penalty – disablement from office holding for life – was relatively light. In June 1660, when Vane II, Hesilrige and others were excepted from the Act of Indemnity, St John ‘narrowly escaped being put into the same condition with the four, which Charles Stuart expressed he desired to have had done also’.739Ludlow, Voyce, 179. In the weeks that followed, there was a concerted attempt to salvage St John’s reputation. In June John Thurloe sent the Speaker, Harbottle Grimston, a short defence of St John against accusations that he had advised the execution of Charles I, the creation of the protectorate and the succession of Richard Cromwell.740TSP vii. 914-5. St John published his own apologia, The Case of Oliver St John Esq., at the end of July 1660, concluding his argument with a direct plea for clemency from the king, as ‘I have done nothing from a depraved or ill intention’.741Case of Oliver St John, 8. Despite this, any hope that the situation in England might improve soon evaporated, and St John went abroad in November 1662.742CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 567. He was resident in Basel by October 1667, when Ludlowe, also in exile in Switzerland, heard that the city authorities were treating St John and his lady harshly, ‘upon supposition that he had been one in the disfavour of that king’.743Ludlow, Mems. ii. 493. By 1669 St John had settled in Augsburg in Germany, and he remained there until his death on 31 December 1673.744Bodl. Eng hist. c.487, p. 1222; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 419. St John had three sons and three daughters by his first two marriages. His eldest son was Francis St John. His daughter, Johanna, who married Sir Walter St John* of Lydiard Tregoze in Wiltshire, was the mother of Viscount St John of Battersea and grandmother of Henry, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke.745Foss, Judges of England, vi. 489; CB, i. 24-5.

Conclusion

Denzil Holles, writing in 1648, saw St John as a devious man, who favoured only those ‘whose eyes and hands have been with you in your secret counsels, who has seen you at your meetings, your Sabbaths’, and consorted only with his ‘fellow witches’.746Holles, Memoirs, p. xiii-xiv. In the 1650s it was said that St John was ‘the dark lantern, and privy councillor, in setting up and managing affairs of the late Oliver Protector’s time’.747Case of Oliver St John, 3. After the Restoration, Edward Hyde, now 1st earl of Clarendon, considered St John’s character, and came to the more measured conclusion that he was ‘a man reserved, of a dark and clouded countenance, very proud and conversant with few but those of his own humour and inclinations.’748Clarendon, Hist. i. 246; cf. Add. 27990, f. 46. All three sources agree that St John as a secretive character, trusting few men, and preferring to work behind the scenes. Such clandestine activities are necessarily hard to identify, but the contemporary portrayal of St John as a shrewd, and sometimes underhand, political operator, is true for significant parts of his career. In 1641-2 he tried to accommodate the righteous demands of Parliament and the prerogative claims of the king, with only limited success. His complicated relationship with the Scots, first wooed under false pretences in 1643, sidelined in 1644-5, and finally eased out of English affairs in 1646-7, shows his consummate political skill. His covert attacks on the earl of Essex between 1643 and the beginning of 1645, using the weaknesses and mistakes of his opponents to great advantage, demonstrate his ability as a faction-fighter. The difficulty of how to use both the Scots and Essex to wage war without allowing them a say in the peace was apparently solved by the creation of the New Model army in 1645, and St John was an essential in this process; but in doing so, he released a political force that he could not control.

The days of St John’s political ascendancy were in fact fairly limited in duration, from the autumn of 1643 until the end of 1646. Thereafter he experienced a series of reverses – against the Presbyterians in 1647, the army and their allies in 1648, and the new commonwealth regime in 1649-50 – and at each stage he chose to withdraw from the conflict, rather than continue the struggle from within. During the later 1650s St John tried a different tack, attempting to influence both Oliver and Richard Cromwell, but refusing to sit in the Commons or the Other House. It was in this period that his reputation as an éminence grise appears fully justified. The restored Rump was no place for subtlety, however, and after an unhappy few months St John again withdrew his services in September 1659. Although not a prime target for the Stuarts, St John’s close connection with the Cromwell family ultimately brought his ruin in May 1660.

St John’s political career was long and fluctuating, and his activities at times obscure or obscured, but there are certain consistencies that can be identified across the whole period. The first is his concern for legality, whether opposing the irregular Ship Money tax in 1637 or continuing to advise the protector in the 1650s. Secondly, he held consistent, and apparently sincere, religious beliefs, including a trenchant opposition to bishops, and always upheld liberty of conscience. Finally, St John operated within a tightly-knit network that was social as well as political. His alliance with political associates like Vane II or Hesilrige was temporary and fragile in comparison with his relationship with close friends like Browne, Evelyn of Wiltshire and Pierrepont. The paramount example was his relationship with Oliver Cromwell, which survived a series of political disagreements to flourish in the mid-1650s, when the ‘dark lantern’ was once again able to influence events at the highest level.