STONE, William (1608-62), of St Edmund, Salisbury.

Stone was one of many puritan merchants for whom the civil wars facilitated an unusually high public profile. Baptised early in 1608 at Idmiston, a few miles north of Salisbury, to parents who had married in the parish the previous year, he appears to have been apprenticed to a Salisbury linen draper, and was first appointed to civic office – as an ‘assistant’ – in 1635.17Idmiston par. reg.; Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, f. 393. His political views became clear in the aftermath of the elections for the Long Parliament, when he joined other local puritans in petitioning against the return of the town’s recorder, Robert Hyde*, a notorious supporter of Ship Money and Laudian sympathiser.18Hoare, Hist. Wilts. vi (Old and New Sarum), 391.

During the civil wars, Stone almost certainly supported the parliamentarian cause, although there is no visible sign that his influence extended beyond Salisbury. Having settled after his marriage in the parish of St Edmund, where his family had probably long had links, Stone was made churchwarden in 1643, and may thus have helped secure the services of one Nathaniel Giles as curate.19Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 213-14. In the same year, Stone was also appointed to the town’s common council, or ‘forty-eight’.20Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 13. The only occasions on which he is known to have been involved in public business beyond the parish pump and council chamber, however, came after the establishment of the republic, and even these involved the town’s affairs. In June 1649 he was on a delegation sent to London in the hope of retaining the services of the absent and evidently disgruntled rector, John Strickland.21Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 221. The latter, a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines who would play a controversial role in the 1654 Wiltshire election, appears to have been a Presbyterian, but it is unclear whether Stone shared his religious views.22‘John Strickland’, Oxford DNB. In 1650 Stone was also involved in making purchases of church lands in the cathedral close, on behalf of the corporation.23Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 222-3.

The paucity of evidence relating to Stone’s activity during the 1640s and early 1650s belies his growing status within the town. Reappointed churchwarden in 1650, he was made promoted to the aldermanic bench in the same year, and in September 1653 stood unsuccessfully as mayor.24Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 384; Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 58, 79v. He was chosen as bailiff in 1654, and made a successful second attempt to secure the mayoralty in September 1655.25Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 84, 85, 88. This appointment greatly widened the sphere of Stone’s interest, and during the following year he made at least four recorded trips to London and Whitehall on corporation business, doubtless in relation to the town’s petition to Oliver Cromwell* for a new charter (granted September 1656).26Hoare, Hist. Wilts. vi (Old and New Sarum), 439; Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 89v-90, 91.

The period of Stone’s mayoralty also provides the clearest indication of his puritanism, in the form of a letter to local magistrates regarding the ‘multiplicity of needless alehouses’. Stone asked the justices to ‘take to heart the great disorders and variety of sin and wickedness committed in alehouses’, which he described as ‘dens of Satan in which most commonly God is highly dishonoured, religion abused, authority and good government trampled under foot’. Stone declared

what a mercy it is to have an opportunity to do good, but it is a double mercy to have a heart to do it. God has honoured you in calling you to a place of power and trust, and he expects that you should be faithful to that trust, you are posting to the grave every day you dwell upon the borders of eternity … What is the reward of a slothful servant is it not to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.

Stone signed himself ‘your faithful friend in the L[ord] C[hrist] J[esus]’.27Wilts. RO, A1/110/1656H/30; HMC Var. i. 132.

Such zeal did Stone little harm with the electorate, and as his mayoralty came to a close and he returned to the aldermanic bench, he was returned to the second protectorate Parliament.28Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 93. At Westminster, Stone’s religious enthusiasm was immediately apparent, and his six committee appointments during the first session related to issues such as alehouse abuse and recusants.29CJ vii. 430a, 452b. Stone’s parliamentary career was interrupted on two occasions before the end of 1656, when he was given leave of absence from the House, probably in order to attend to civic business in Salisbury.30CJ vii. 434a; Burton’s Diary, i. 288. This almost certainly related to the mastership of St Nicholas Hospital, from which Francis Rivett* was ejected in October 1656, and to which Stone was temporarily appointed, until relieved by Henry Eyre*.31Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 93v. On his return to Westminster, Stone’s most notable committee appointment related to minor details of the Humble Petition and Advice, and he was listed among those MPs who supported the offer of the crown to Cromwell on 25 March 1657.32CJ vii. 485a, 488b, 501a; Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22 (E.935.5). Stone returned to the Commons for the brief second session in January 1658, and was named to committees regarding the maintenance of ministers, and official records in the hands of Henry Scobell.33CJ vii. 581b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 404.

During the last months of the protectorate, Stone’s activity as a civic official saw him embroiled in a controversy regarding his apparent refusal to provide an arrest warrant in his capacity as a justice of the peace. Ironically, this business, which was brought to the attention of the protectoral council in June 1658, related to five local brewers, although Stone’s reticence probably sprang from opposition to the excise farmers – who brought the case – rather than a waning of his godly zeal.34CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 45, 59; Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 106v. Following the Restoration, Stone was removed from civic office during a purge of the corporations, although he may already have been in failing health, and died within a few months.35Hoare, Hist. Wilts. vi (Old and New Sarum), 449. His will, prepared in July 1662, made bequests to his children totalling a mere £360, and mentioned only a small property portfolio, concentrated in Salisbury. He named as his executors three brothers-in-law, also members of the civic elite, and including a linen draper and a clothier.36PROB11/310/151.