UPTON, Arthur (1613-62), of Lupton, Brixham, Devon.

The early life of Arthur Upton is difficult to trace. He went to Oxford, left without taking a degree and spent some time at the Inner Temple. His rather perfunctory higher education was probably regarded as preparation for the life he was destined to lead as heir to the Upton’s estates around Brixham, a life spent until 1641 in the shadow of his father, who became a busy and respected Member of the Long Parliament. By 1640, Arthur Upton was beginning to enter public life in his county, appearing as a subsidy commissioner in that year. His inclusion in the Devon commission of the peace in March 1642 was probably occasioned by the death of his father, and simply marked his succession to his father’s estates and status. He served as a magistrate immediately after his first appearance in the commission, and was required by the assize judges to mediate in a dispute over road repairs in Brixham.22Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 230. Upton’s local government career in this phase of it was brief, as he was out of sympathy with the royalists who controlled the bench from 1643. Given the godly Protestant outlook of his father, his family association with Francis Rous* and John Pym*, and his interest in political reform, it is unsurprising that Arthur Upton sided with Parliament during the civil war. In 1638, he had married Elizabeth Gould, whose father had been a member of the colonising Dorchester Company in the 1620s, just as John Upton I had been active in the Providence Island Company.23F. Rose-Troup, John White: The Patriarch of Dorchester (1930), 457. Arthur Upton’s brother-in-law, William Gould, served as a captain in the parliamentary army in Devon from the outbreak of civil war, rising to the rank of colonel and governor of Plymouth before his death in March 1644.24Prince, Worthies (1701), 347; S. Midhope, Deaths Advantage (1644, E.13.21); E. Andriette, Devon and Exeter in the Civil War (Newton Abbot, 1971), 123. In 1644, Upton’s sister married George Hughes, the Presbyterian minister of Plymouth since October 1643.25DWL, John Quick, ‘Icones Sacrae Anglicanae’, 537; St John, Hackney, par. reg. One of Upton’s brothers, Thomas, was an army captain in Devon before December 1646, but no member of this family can be safely identified with the Captain Upton who commanded a horse troop in Ireland before his death in 1643.26E113/6, answer of Nicholas Field; HMC 5th Rep. 108; LJ v. 347b.

Upton himself took up arms on behalf of Parliament soon after the war broke out. In 1643 he headed the list compiled by the royalist Edward Seymour* of ‘rebellious persons’ in the South Hams district of the county.27Devon RO, 1392 M/L1643/59. The following year, he was prominent in a local revolt against the regime imposed by Seymour’s Dartmouth garrison.28M. Stoyle, Loyalty and Locality (Exeter, 1994), 48. He must have escaped the area. The nearest refuge was the parliamentarian stronghold of Plymouth, home to many refugees from the royalist-controlled countryside of south Devon and where his brother-in-law was the influential minister. By 1644, Upton had been granted the privilege of collecting the town’s fee farm rents, nominally on behalf of the crown against which he had fought.29Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/132, f. 264v. But it seems probable that in fact he spent some time in London, as he came into Plymouth by ship on 17 May 1645.30Add. 35297, f. 67v. Having previously held the rank of captain, he took charge a few days after his arrival as governor of the fort and island in succession to Sir John Bampfylde*.31SP28/128 (Devon), pt. 29, accts. of Richard Burthogg, f. 2v; SP28/227 (Devon), acct. of Henry Hatsell. In September that year, Upton signed off the accounts of Thomas Gewen*, the deputy treasurer of the garrison.32SP28/153, accts. of T. Gewen. His service as governor was brief, however, as in June 1646 he ceded control of the garrison to Ralph Weldon*, continuing as Weldon’s deputy.33SP28/128 (Devon), pt. 29, accts. of Richard Burthogg, f. 2v; SP28/227 (Devon), acct. of Henry Hatsell. Thereafter, Upton’s principal role was as a prominent committeeman. He was with the Devon committee at Exeter in September 1647, in the company of his brother-in-law, Thomas Boone*, John Elford*, William Bastard*, William Fry* and Sir John Yonge*, when they were threatened by soldiers complaining of their lack of pay.34Bodl. Tanner 58, f. 507. Back in Plymouth in December, he signed off the accounts of Henry Hatsell*.35SP28/227 (Devon), acct. of Henry Hatsell. Parliament invested its trust in Upton by confirming him as the receiver of revenues in Devon and Cornwall, a position he kept under the Rump Parliament.36LJ ix. 508b; E315/139, ff. 47, 58.

Upton was named to the Devon militia commission in June 1648, and was active in it. He signed the commission of appointment for one of the colonels, Christopher Savery, but with Sir John Bampfylde* was impatient with the terms of the local authority they had been given, and called for the passing of the ordinance for a national militia, so that it could be funded without oppressing Parliament’s friends.37Add. 44058, f. 35; Bodl. Nalson VII, f. 163. From Exeter in August, Upton joined with Robert Shapcote*, William Morice* and Sir John Bampfylde to assure Speaker Lenthall that they were doing their best to collect the assessment, and to express their hope that the New Model regiment of Sir Hardress Waller* would remain in the south west, to provide some protection against ‘intestine seditions’.38Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 173. That month, he was one of six committeemen active in the reorganisation of the Devon committee into regional bodies of equal status.39Add. 44058, f. 26v. Upton recovered his place in the commission of the peace after parliamentary rule had been imposed on the county, and attended the Midsummer quarter sessions meetings at Exeter in 1648.

It was a year before Upton attended sessions in Exeter again, but he was singled out for comment in the hostile royalist press as one who waited on the assize judges in Tiverton and Plymouth in the months after the execution of the king. Mercurius Pragmaticus rather implausibly reported ship-board drunken carousings at Plymouth by both judges and justices.40Mercurius Pragmaticus (for King Charles II) pt. 2, no. 17 (7-14 Aug. 1649), sig. R3v (E.569.7). Re-installed as governor of Plymouth, Upton was evidently loyal to the Rump Parliament, but it is unlikely that he positively welcomed the regicide.41Bodl. Tanner 56, f. 89. Rather anomalously, although the assize judges considered him a colonel, the council of state referred to him as a major and in April 1650 wrote to him to query his absenteeism. The number of disabled soldiers the council noted in his company suggests that this was barely a fighting unit.42CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 74, 431. In fact, no lack of commitment to the republic can be inferred from this letter, as Upton had quickly become one of its most reliable justices of the peace.43Devon RO, QS order bks. 1/8, 1/9. In the summer of 1650, when the citizens of Plymouth refused to pay the county rate for bridge repairs, the justices at quarter sessions referred the case to Upton as governor of the garrison.44Devon RO, QS order bk. 1/8.

Upton continued to act as a prominent member of the Devon standing committee, in tandem with his role as a justice of the peace.45SP28/227, Devon cttee. orders, f. 14. After 1649, one of the main tasks of the committee was to eject clergy suspected of encouraging opposition to the republic, which included any who might have expressed a predilection for monarchy and episcopacy. Upton signed a number of orders impacting on religious provision in the parishes.46Bodl. Walker c.4, f. 190, c.8, f. 25v. With a colleague, Upton helped eject Richard Kay from the living of Holne, the two men being described by John Walker’s informant, many years after the event, as ‘rigid Presbyterians’.47Bodl. Walker c.2, f. 395. Upton’s stance on religious matters must have been different from that of his clerical brother-in-law, George Hughes, who would ride out of town on Sundays in order to avoid having to keep the days of thanksgiving enjoined by the Rump Parliament.48Quick, ‘Icones Sacrae’, 474. Upton would have been unable to sustain this policy of occasional nonconformity while holding the offices under the state that he did. Doctrinally, however, he approved of the state church, to judge from his willingness to settle tithes on ministers, as in the case of the incumbent of Diptford, to whom the celebrated Independent minister, John Flavel, was assistant.49DWL, John Quick, ‘Icones Sacrae Anglicanae’, 922-3. Upton seems to have been typical of the lay puritan gentry of Devon in his piety, his preference for theological Protestant orthodoxy, his belief in the role of the state in church affairs, and his social conservatism.

The only year between 1649 and 1660 in which Upton failed to attend quarter sessions at all was 1654, so it is possible that this absenteeism should be read as a reluctance on his part to transfer his allegiance to the Cromwellian protectorate. On 12 July he was elected as one of the 11 knights of the shire for Devon, his name appearing second on the indenture. The following month, he was named by the lord protector’s council as a commissioner to eject ‘scandalous’ ministers from their livings, a role he had been performing conspicuously under the Rump. This vote of confidence in him by the government may have eased the transition for him from republic to Cromwellian rule, but in the first protectorate Parliament he contributed nothing to the proceedings that is recorded. Between the Parliaments of 1654 and 1656 he resumed his activities on the Devon bench, and was named to the commission of oyer and terminer in the wake of Penruddock’s rising, proof enough that the government found Upton trustworthy.50CSP Dom. 1655, p. 114; TSP iii. 296.

Returned again as knight of the shire to the second protectorate Parliament in 1656, Upton this time made more of an impression on the records of the House, although he is sometimes hard to distinguish from his brother, John Upton II, a much more significant figure in Parliament and government. It was Arthur who was named to the committee to annul the regal title of Charles Stuart (19 Sept.), but it was more likely his brother on the naturalization committee of 6 October.51CJ vii. 425a, 434b. Upton was named to the committee on workmen’s wages (7 Oct.), which concerned itself also with the sumptuary laws so far as they affected servants and labourers, a committee which drew on his experience as a magistrate with authority in his county and locality on such matters.52CJ vii. 435b. It could either have been Arthur or John Upton on the committee on managing the estates of sequestered Roman Catholics (22 Oct.), and on the estates of Richard Carter (9 Dec.).53CJ vii. 444a, 466a. On 25 October, he was added to the committee on another estate, and was named to the committee on the blasphemies of the Quaker, James Naylor, in company with fellow Devonians, Thomas Reynell, Thomas Bampfylde and Robert Shapcote.54CJ vii. 445a, 448a. His involvement in the committee for a bill on sequestered parsonages (12 Nov.), fitted well with his interest in regulating the parochial ministry.55CJ vii. 453a. No speeches of Upton’s were recorded by the diarist, Thomas Burton*, and he was named to no committees after December 1656. On 31 December, at a call of the House, Thomas Reynell* supported a grant of leave for Upton, who was said to be ‘afraid of the gout’; he had gone home ‘while he could go or stand’.56Burton’s Diary, i. 284.

Upton had recovered sufficiently by Easter 1657 to attend the Devon quarter sessions, which took place while the House was in session.57Devon RO, QS order bk. 1/9. There is no doubt that he continued to be active in local government, and in 1656 the judges had referred a civil case to him from assizes.58ASSI22/1, unfol. This pattern suggests that he saw no conflict of principle between serving the state at local level while maintaining a distance from the lord protector: the parliamentary business he seems to have missed was dominated by the offer of the crown to Oliver Cromwell*. There was a tension between the hard line the Devon magistrates took on the Quakers, and the tolerance evinced by Cromwell and the council. In November 1657, Upton was one of the magistrates named by the council in its letter to the Devon justices, asking what exactly the offences of the Quakers had been to justify their persecution of them.59Add. 44058, f. 58v; CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 157. On the other hand, the council retained enough confidence in Upton’s loyalty after 1657 to refer cases to him, including the petition of Exeter wool merchants, who complained about illegal imports, and a case local to Upton’s home, addressed to him as a commissioner for scandalous ministers.60CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 55, 100.

After the collapse of the protectorate, Upton transferred his loyalty to the revived Rump. It was his brother, Thomas Upton, who was given the lieutenancy of Plymouth fort and island in the summer of 1659, but the ‘Captain Upton’ who was to take care of Plymouth in January 1660 seems more likely to have been Arthur, as it was an important garrison worthy of the attention of a elder son with experience of the command.61CJ vii. 730a, 763a, CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 302. When the monarchy was restored soon afterwards, the Plymouth fortifications were placed in the care of William Morice*, an unlikely military figure. Upton was not an immediate victim of the Restoration. He was named as a commissioner for the poll tax in 1660, and retained his place on the commission of the peace until his death. He came to no quarter sessions meetings after Easter 1660, however, and retired from public life thereafter.62Devon RO, QS order bk. 1/9. He died in March 1662, and was buried at Brixham. His son, John Upton†, sat for Dartmouth in the three Exclusion Parliaments as a supporter of Exclusion. He was a patron of the Independent minister, John Flavel, whom Arthur Upton had known in the early 1650s. Contrary to the account given of the parliamentary career of this John Upton, it was Arthur Upton’s brother, John Upton II, who became a commissioner for customs and was a relative by marriage of John Thurloe*.63HP Commons 1660-1690.