ERLE, Christopher (1624-aft. 1678), of Toppesfield, Essex.

Christopher Erle was a nephew of Sir Walter Erle*, one of the more prominent MPs of the 1640s. The Essex Erles were however very much the cadet line to the more senior Dorset branch. Their links with the east of England dated only from the 1623 marriage of this MP’s father, Christopher Earle† senior, into the Denny family, one of the major dynasties in Hertfordshire and Essex. Erle’s new wife, Elizabeth, was a granddaughter of Sir Anthony Denny† of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, who had risen to become groom of the stool to Henry VIII. Her cousin, Lord Denny of Waltham (Sir Edward Denny†) had married a Cecil, had later matched his daughter to the 1st earl of Carlisle and in 1626 was himself created earl of Norwich. What Erle probably did not gain from his own marriage was wealth. His wife’s father, Sir Edward Denny senior, had died in 1600 after losing most of his money through investments in Irish land and had left seven sons and two other daughters. Christopher Earle senior was never anything other than a Dorset man, although he was also a Middle Temple lawyer. All three constituencies for which he sat were in Dorset and from 1631 he held office as recorder of Lyme Regis.19HP Commons 1604-1629.

It was only because Erle senior died in 1634 in his mid-forties that his son, then aged ten, came to regard Hertfordshire as home. At that point Elizabeth Erle preferred to move back to her mother’s house at Bishop’s Stortford. Some links with Dorset were retained. The MP’s sister, Anne, would marry Edmund Butler of Almer.20Vis. Dorset (Harl. Soc. cxvii), 12. In his will Christopher senior made provision to fund his son’s education and asked that his own mother, now married to Sir Walter Vaughan†, would be ‘a mother to my children also’.21PROB11/165/574. Christopher junior’s wardship was later granted to his mother and his great-uncle, Sir John Pole†.22Coventry Docquets, 476. In 1641 he was admitted to Gray’s Inn and by 1649 he was ready to be called to the bar, subject only to the payments of his outstanding fees.23PBG Inn, 374-5. There is no reason to believe that he was ever called and he does not seem to have pursued a legal career.

It took Erle’s marriage to one of the Barringtons of Hatfield Broad Oak to turn his attentions to Essex. Judging by the settlement, this took place in 1645 – possibly on 27 February at the St Andrew’s, Holborn – close to the inns – if the ‘Mary Merrington’ recorded in the register is a scribal error.24Dorset RO, D/BLX/T25; St Andrew, Holborn, par. reg. As a Barrington, related to the Cromwells, Everards, Gerards and Mashams, Mary immediately extended Erle’s network of family connections. (She was a first cousin once removed to Oliver Cromwell*.) Her uncle, Sir Thomas Barrington*, was the most powerful commoner in the county. Probably as early as 1646 Erle and his wife decided to settle at Toppesfield. In April of that year the vicar of Earls Colne, Ralph Josselin, whom they had befriended, noted in his diary that Erle had come ‘out of the west unexpectedly to us’. Eight months later, when Erle was leaving for London, he left some small gifts for Josselin and his wife.25Josselin, Diary, 58, 80. Several weeks later he sent Josselin a copy of Jus Divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici, a newly published book by some London ministers which argued that Presbyterian forms of church government had been divinely ordained.26Josselin, Diary, 82; Jus Divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici (1646, E.364.8). At about the same time he was included on the list of Toppesfield elders for the proposed Presbyterian classes in Essex.27David, Annals of Evangelical Nonconformity, 289. Erle’s eldest son, Robert, was baptised at Toppesfield in February 1648.28Barnes, Reg. of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 42.

Erle’s willingness to serve under the new republic drew him into the local administration of his adopted county. In the summer of 1649 he was added to the Essex commission of peace.29C231/6, p. 161. He took his duties as a justice of the peace very seriously, taking his place on the bench at most of the quarter sessions held over the following 11 years.30Essex QSOB ed. Allen, 1-153. At some stage over the next two years he also joined the local militia commission. Once again, he made himself useful. On 20 August 1651 his fellow commissioners decided that Erle, together with William Harlackenden and Dudley Templer*, should accompany their forces to the rendezvous at Dunstable five days later, probably with the intention that they should follow them on the campaign against the invading army of Charles Stuart.31SP28/227: order 20 Aug. 1651. It is therefore possible that Erle was present at Worcester when the royalist forces were defeated on 3 September and he was certainly among the Essex gentlemen who received honorary degrees from Oxford University on their return journey.32Al. Ox. Once they had got back to Essex, Erle approved the payments reimbursing the expenses by the regiments of Sir Thomas Honywood* during that campaign.33SP28/227: 9 Oct. 1651. In December 1652 he was added to the Essex assessment commission for the first time.34A. and O.

By 1653 Erle had gained some standing within Essex, although he was by no means among the more obvious candidates to represent the county in Parliament. His election in 1653 was probably made possible only by the peculiar selection process for the Nominated Parliament. Almost three weeks before it met, he was allocated lodgings in London by the council of state and, once the session was underway, he was appointed to its committee for receiving petitions.35CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 412; CJ vii. 287a. The only other information about his service as MP is the claim by the author of the pamphlet, A Catalogue of the Names of the Members of the last Parliament (1654), that Erle opposed public support for the maintenance of the ministry, but even this has been queried.36Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 197n, 416.

Erle seems to have accepted the protectorate and thereafter became one of its more dependable servants in Essex. He continued to serve as a justice of the peace, an assessment commissioner and a militia commissioner. In September 1655 he was one of those appointed by the council of state to investigate the factional disputes within the corporation of Colchester.37CSP Dom. 1655, p. 354. There was, however, probably no question of him being elected to any of the later Parliaments of the 1650s. He had remarried in London in June 1653 and over the next 17 years he and his second wife produced nine children.38Essex RO, T/R 143/1, unfol. Following the Restoration he was removed from all his county offices. Thereafter the only public positions he held were parochial ones at Toppesfield.39Essex RO, D/P 163/8, unfol.; D/P 163/25/27. His appointment as surveyor of the local highways in 1678 is the last known reference to him.40Essex RO, D/P 163/8, unfol. There is a gap in the recording of burials in the Toppesfield parish during the late 1670s, so it is possible that he died in either 1678 or 1679.41Essex RO, T/R 143/1, unfol. There is no evidence that members of the family remained resident in that parish.