PRICE, Sir John, 1st bt. (by 1600-57), of Newtown Hall, Mont.

The Prices were an old Montgomeryshire family who had acquired Newtown Hall in the fifteenth century. Price’s grandfather and great-uncle, John Price† and Arthur Price†, had both been borough Members, the former once sitting for the county on the Herbert interest.12DWB. In his turn Price, who had purchased a baronetcy in August 1628, aspired to the county seat in the election held in the spring of 1640.13CB; CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 250. On 27 February, however, his agent passed on bad news: ‘rumour is Mr Richard Herbert* hath a company of horse, by that you will come short of him to be knight of the shire’, and this rumour proved to be true.14Mont. Colls. xxxi. 302. Although he had been outmanoeuvred in the Short Parliament elections, Price was returned unopposed as the county Member to the Long Parliament as his rival had switched to the borough seat. Price was not a backwoodsman. He had attended the Inner Temple as a teenager, and in the 1630s became a frequent, if reluctant, visitor to London thanks to his talent for attracting litigation. He was embroiled not only with his country neighbours but also with one Edmund Bradshaw, whose suit against him in star chamber had driven him abroad for a time, and with Richard Steele, gentleman of the privy chamber, and his wife, who were alleged by Price (in a petition of 6 Feb. 1639) to have been prosecuting him maliciously for several years past.15CSP Dom. 1631-3, pp. 110, 225; 1638-9, p. 431; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 429.

In the Commons, Price soon became known for his outspoken hostility to Catholics. On 29 January 1641 he made a ‘great complaint’ to the House about the way in which the recusant son of the Lord Powis, Sir Percy Herbert, had in 1638 taken custody of the ‘public magazine’ and transferred it to a castle of the Catholic earl of Worcester.16D’Ewes (N), 301; CJ ii. 75b. Price was subsequently added to the sub-committee to review recusant activities in Wales.17CJ ii. 75b. He took the Protestation on 3 May, and was named to the committee to confer with the Lords on disbanding the army on 20 May.18CJ ii. 133a, 152a. On 14 August he was appointed to the committee for the defence of the realm and complained of the failure to instate a new keeper for the Montgomeryshire powder magazine, as the justices wished.19CJ ii. 257a; Procs. LP, vi. 421. On the same day he was named to a committee to examine the records of the commission for the peace in his county, from which the anti-recusant Sir Arthur Price had been expelled.20CJ ii. 257b; Procs. LP, vi. 419. In debate on the same topic on 16 August he complained that there had been ‘33 outlawries against some in the same commission’, and the next day he was one of four MPs sent to ask the lord keeper for an explanation of the present composition of the Montgomeryshire bench.21Procs. LP, vi. 440; CJ ii. 260b. On 21 August Price joined Simon Thelwall as the House’s messenger to the lord keeper to request the exclusion of two intruded recusants from the same commission.22CJ ii. 268a. One of the miscreants, John Blayney, was a steward of Sir Percy Herbert who had been involved in a legal case against Price the year before.23Mont. Colls. xxxi. 292, 303. Blayney was now ordered into custody by the House, and after a long delay, on 15 November he was granted bail, provided Price brought no further complaint against him.24D’Ewes (C), 142; CJ ii. 315b. Although Price did not object to this, he requested the examination of witnesses on 22 November.25D’Ewes (C), 181-2. By this time Price’s fear of Catholics had been reinforced by news of the outbreak of rebellion in Ireland, which reached the Commons at the beginning of the month. He was named to the committee for Irish affairs on 2 November and to the committee on the bill to levy soldiers for Ireland on 4 November.26CJ ii. 302a, 305b.

Price does not seem to have attended the Commons in the months preceding the civil war, and he may have returned to Wales before the conflict started. On 12 September 1642 Richard More* reported to the Commons ‘of very good services done in Montgomeryshire by Sir John Price in preserving the magazine at Newtown, and opposing the commission of array’, and he was sent a letter of thanks to ‘encourage him in the good services he does for the commonwealth’.27CJ ii. 762a. Despite this early declaration for Parliament, in 1643 Price yielded to pressure from his neighbours and changed sides.28Mont. Colls. xxxviii. 254-5. He joined the royalist Parliament at Oxford, signing the letter to the 3rd earl of Essex on 27 January 1644.29Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 574. Shortly afterwards he was captured by the parliamentarians, and on 5 February he and Sir Hugh Owen* were among those prisoners of war proposed in the Commons as ‘fit persons in exchange’, and they were not pressed to take the Covenant.30CJ iii. 389b, 390a.

Instead of returning to Oxford, Price took advantage of this moratorium to change sides once again, joining Sir Thomas Myddelton* at Montgomery Castle.31LJ vi. 714b; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 534. Bulstrode Whitelocke* thought Myddelton had been instrumental in persuading Price to defect, and relations between the two men were evidently close in the months that followed.32Whitelocke, Mems. i. 310. Price was made governor of Montgomery Castle in September 1644 on the strength of assistance rendered to Myddelton in the district.33Phillips, Civil War in Wales, i. 264; ii. 215. Price also had the support of Simon Thelwall, who assured him in October, ‘I was always confident of your constant and real inclinations to the Parliament, which to my ... great comfort and satisfaction, is now manifested to all that know you. The House hath a very honourable esteem to you’.34Mont. Colls. xxxi. 108. Such support helped to offset Price’s lack of success in the field. Parliament, on the advice of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, ordered arms and ammunition to be sent to Price in Montgomeryshire in January 1645, but on 21 March his own troop was routed by the royalist Colonel Gerard at Llanidloes.35CJ iv. 19a, 27b, 28a; LJ vii. 153a; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 240; Phillips, Civil War in Wales, i. 291. Confidence in Price remained high, however, and on 12 May he was one of three Welsh commanders ordered to retain his post for 40 days regardless of the Self-Denying Ordinance.36Whitelocke, Mems. i. 433; CJ iv. 139b; LJ vii. 367b. A clerical error, omitting the limitation of 40 days, was only spotted when the Commons’ order reached the Lords, and had to be rectified.37LJ vii. 368a; CJ iv. 140a. Trust in Price’s abilities rapidly declined in the next few days. On 16 May he was again defeated by the royalists at Montgomery, and on the 19th his replacement by Colonel William Herbert as governor of Montgomery was announced.38CJ iv. 147b. Three days later the Committee of Both Kingdoms was asked by the House to decide whether both Price and Myddelton should be recalled from their command before the 40 days expired.39CJ iv. 151b.

Price had returned to Westminster by 12 July 1645, when he was thanked by the House for his ‘faithfulness’ to Parliament.40CJ iv. 205a. He was named to the committee to consider how to reduce Chester on 5 August, and he was added to the committee for the associated counties, to consider problems of garrisoning and billeting, on 12 August.41CJ iv. 230b, 238b; Add. 18780, f. 90v. On 23 August Price was added to the Pembrokeshire committee, to consider reinforcements for the victorious parliamentary troops under Rowland Laugharne†.42CJ iv. 252a. By this time tensions were growing between Price and Myddelton, however, and on 1 September they were required to submit their differences to the Committee for Examinations.43CJ iv. 260a. On 25 September Price was ordered to bring in an ordinance to regulate the forces and counties of north Wales, and the same day he was named to the committee on the earl of Denbigh’s accounts.44CJ iv. 284b, 286a. Despite his continuing activity in the House, Price’s position at Westminster was becoming increasingly vulnerable. On 1 September, the day when the dispute between Price and Myddelton came to the attention of the Commons, the House ruled that no Member who had sat in the Oxford Parliament could sit at Westminster, but specifically exempted Price.45Add. 18780, f. 110v. With the defeat of George Lord Digby* at Sherburn, and the capture of his correspondence, Parliament’s indulgence came to an end. For among the king’s letters was one to Price, written the previous year, ‘wherein the king did acknowledge his great service and for the keeping of Montgomery Castle in Wales to his use, and assured him that whatever had been promised him should be made good’.46Harl. 166, f. 270v; Add. 18780, f. 150v; Add. 31116, p. 476. Despite his protestations that he had never received such a letter, on 20 October the House reacted angrily to Price’s perfidy, resolving that ‘his case is within the ordinance for disabling ... Members, during this Parliament, that have deserted the Parliament, and adhered to the enemy's party’.47CJ iv. 316b; Harl. 166, f. 270v; Add. 18780, f. 147. The fact of Price’s disgrace, if not the precise details of the case, spread quickly. Sir Henry Vane I* was informed the next day that ‘Sir John Price was last night expelled the House for holding intelligence with Lord Digby’, and similar rumours were soon circulating in royalist circles.48CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 202; HMC 7th Rep. 452. A new writ for Price’s constituency was ordered a year later, on 11 November 1646.49CJ iv. 719a.

As a suspected royalist, Price could expect financial penalties. He was fined £2,000 by the Committee for Advance of Money in December 1645, but this was rescinded in January 1646, as he was owed arrears for his military service.50CCAM 664. The sequestration of his estate was also put on hold after the intervention of Sir Thomas Myddelton in February 1646, and remained in abeyance until August 1650, when its valuation was a very modest £250.51Mont. Colls. xxxi. 315. In the autumn of 1650 Price was again under pressure, this time from the local county committee, which was determined to seize his estate. Price petitioned the Committee for Compounding in September and December and the sequestration of his lands was suspended by order of 2 January 1651. In April of that year the county committee tried again, repeating allegations that Price had been plotting to betray Montgomery Castle to the royalists during the first civil war.52CCC 2552. Price later claimed that he had served the commonwealth loyally in Scotland and at the battle of Worcester, and although this cannot be verified, the Rump was sufficiently reassured to order that he be pardoned, and the sequestration of his estate lifted, on 31 March 1652.53CJ vii. 112b; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 399. Price was not free from further suspicion, however. Although he secured the county seat in the elections to the first protectorate Parliament in 1654, his return was immediately challenged. The case against Price, as laid out in a document presented to the protector on 31 August 1654, provided a detailed narrative of his changes of side and his duplicitous behaviour in Wales, and questioned whether he was a man of integrity suitable to sit as an MP.54CSP Dom. 1654, p. 346; P. Gaunt, ‘Cromwell’s Purge? Exclusions and the First Protectorate Parliament’ PH, vi. 13. In response, in a petition of 23 November, Price begged the protector and council to admit him to the House, in view of his more recent service to the state, as acknowledged in the pardon granted to him in 1652; and he also protested that he had signed the recognition of the protector at the beginning of the current session.55CSP Dom. 1654, p. 399. It does not appear that Price obtained admission to the House as there is no record of his activity, and he was not chosen again in 1656. He died intestate on 18 June 1657, and as his eldest son, Edward, had been killed in November 1645, he was succeeded by a younger son who became Sir Matthew Price.56CB; Mont. Colls. xxxi. 318.