BULLER, Francis I (c.1603-77), of Shillingham, St Stephen-by-Saltash, Cornw.

Francis Buller was the eldest son of the prominent Cornish landowner, Sir Richard Buller. After attending Cambridge University and the Middle Temple he entered politics, serving as MP for the family seat of Saltash in 1624 and 1625, when still in his early twenties. In 1628 he was returned for another Cornish seat, Mitchell, possibly on the interest of the Arundells of Trerice, but his election was overturned by the committee of privileges in favour of a rival candidate, John Cosworth†.26HP Commons 1604-1629. During the 1630s Buller played only a minor role in local affairs in Cornwall. He was commissioned as captain of foot in the militia regiment of Richard Edgcumbe in August 1633, and was again mentioned as being a militia captain in 1637.27Buller Pprs. 15, 17. There was a possibility in November 1639 that Buller might be chosen as sheriff of Cornwall, although his informant, Thomas Rogers, emphasised that this was only a report, and added ‘how true it is I know not’.28Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/4/66.

A month later, as rumours of a new Parliament circulated in the west country, Buller was drawn into a political intrigue with those who sought seats for themselves and their friends. His cousin and associate from the Middle Temple, Thomas Wise*, hoped that Buller might use ‘both your own power and those friends … of whom you may be confident’ to gain him election for the Devon borough of Bere Alston, and he implied that he also expected Buller to have an influence over a number of Cornish boroughs.29Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/26/18/10. In the elections in March 1640 Buller was himself returned for Saltash, a borough effectively controlled by his father.30C219/42/20. He also enjoyed his father’s electoral patronage in East Looe, and the corporation wrote to him in March saying that they had delayed the return for several days ‘at your request’, and adding that ‘we are loath to do any thing therein without your presence’. He replied by nominating two candidates, including William Coode*, for the seats.31Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/23/73/10. Buller’s only recorded involvement in proceedings during the Short Parliament came on 21 April, when he intervened to support Thomas Wise in the disputed election at Bere Alston.32Aston’s Diary, 151.

In June 1640 Buller was appointed recorder of the borough of East Looe.33Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/21/16. This reinforced his control over the borough elections in October of that year, and the corporation assured him that they ‘intend not to do anything in our election of burgesses, but in your presence’.34Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/23/73/9. Despite this assurance, on 17 October Buller was warned ‘that there is one that offereth a sum of money for one of our burgess-ships’, and he was asked to come to the town immediately, ‘on Monday next if possible… and if not [the mayor] will stay till Wednesday next and no longer, because of the time’.35Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/4/20. Buller was duly elected for East Looe, and the return of Thomas Lower as the second MP for the borough may also have been his handiwork. From the outset, Buller was determined to fulfil his duties as East Looe’s representative at Westminster, and in November-December 1640 he invited the townspeople to ‘certify’ him of their ‘grievances … for the redress of the same.36Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2, no. 57. As well as East Looe, Buller was involved in other Cornish elections, apparently working with John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes, and assisting Sir Richard Buller in his moves to gain a seat at St Germans for John Moyle I*.37Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/27; BC/24/2, no. 60.

The surviving records suggest that Buller played very little part in proceedings at Westminster in the early months of the Long Parliament, and his attendance was brought to a complete halt by the death of Thomas Wise in March 1641. Buller (as Wise’s ‘best friend’) was executor of the estate and guardian of Wise’s infant son, Edward*. He had already become trustee to the estate in the early 1630s, alongside Sir Samuel Rolle* and William Coryton*, and was now left to sort out debts amounting to at least £3,000. To make matters worse, the will was contested on behalf of Wise’s widow and children.38PROB11/185/421. On 25 March 1641 Buller was given leave to go into the west country ‘by reason Mr Wise hath interested him in his whole estate’, and he was absent for several weeks trying to sort out the mess.39CJ ii. 112b; Procs. LP iii. 129, 131, 135. Rolle, at least, was sympathetic, writing to Buller in April bemoaning ‘the burden of troubles that lie on you in this business, which I well saw at first, and can but wish them and the debts fewer’, and promising to use his influence with Francis Russell, 4th earl of Bedford, concerning the right of ‘sheaf’ (tithe dues) of Wise’s infant son.40Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2, no. 70. Clearly, a brief visit to Devon in the spring of 1641 could not sort out these complications, and when Buller was again given leave to go into the country in February 1642 (on the motion of Sir Samuel Rolle) this was probably in connection with the Wise wardship.41PJ iii. 483. (A further absence from Parliament, in regard of his sickness’, from September 1641, may also have been related to this business.)42CJ ii. 279a. The Wise inheritance was certainly a long-term commitment for Buller. As guardian of the young heir, Edward Wise, he oversaw his education, protected him from bad influences, and fought his corner against the authorities throughout the 1640s and early 1650s, and even after Edward’s majority in 1652 remained a good friend to the family, for example acting as a trustee for the marriage settlement of his daughter in 1655.43Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/26/18, passim; Cornw. RO, BU/586; CY/6829.

The Wise inheritance distracted Buller’s attention from parliamentary matters for much of 1641-2, but there are indications that he was nevertheless playing a part in politics, supporting his father and other opponents of Charles I. On 6 May 1641, freshly arrived from the south west, he was named to the committee on the bill for security of religion, the safety of the king, and the rights of the subject, formed in response to the army plot; and on 11 May 1641 he belatedly took the Protestation.44CJ ii. 136b, 142a; Procs. LP iv. 317, 323. In the new year of 1642 Buller was named to committees to prepare charges against the attorney-general (Sir Edward Herbert I*) to suppress innovations in worship and encourage the better observation of the sabbath.45CJ ii. 382b, 438a. In March he was added to the list of deputy lieutenants for Cornwall.46CJ ii. 483b. In June 1642 he joined his father in promising three horses for the forces raised by Parliament, and in July he was appointed, with his father and a number of other MPs, to be on a committee to go to Cornwall and put the militia commission into operation.47PJ iii. 469; CJ ii. 694a.

Once in Cornwall, Buller became a key figure in the parliamentarian war effort. In early August he and the other committee members confronted the sheriff at Launceston, and tried to have the Militia Ordinance, rather than the royalist commission of array, proclaimed there.48LJ v. 275b. Their failure forced Sir Richard Buller to retreat to Saltash, and Francis may have accompanied him. With the arrival of the royalist army under Sir Ralph Hopton* in the autumn, the Bullers fled to Plymouth, where Sir Richard died in November. At this stage, the royalists were in no doubt that Francis was just as dangerous a foe as Sir Richard, and attributed the strength of parliamentarian support in 1642 to ‘the son’s craft’ as well as the father’s.49Bodl. Clarendon 26, f. 163. Francis was duly removed from the commission of the peace in July 1642, even before he had arrived in the county with the Militia Ordinance.50C231/5, p. 529. Over the next few years his lands were sequestered, and as late as 1645 he was listed as one of the five chief enemies of the king in the county.51Cornw. RO, B/35/229; CCSP i. 295. The parliamentarians, by contrast, were keen to cultivate Buller, especially after the death of his father (and his succession to the family estates and influence) in November 1642; and in the same month Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, as warden of the stannaries, appointed him under-steward of the duchy and keeper of the castle and manor of Trematon.52Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/21/3.

Royalist antipathy towards Buller was no doubt exacerbated by his prominence in Parliament’s campaigns in the south west during the winter of 1642-3.53BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database. In the late autumn he was commissioned as major-general to the commander in the west, William Ruthen, and given command of a regiment of foot. Acting with William Strode I* and John Pyne*, in January 1643 he captured New Bridge and prepared the way for forces under Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford, to advance across the Tamar.54HMC Portland, i. 88-9; CJ ii. 929b; Harl. 164, f. 276. Buller’s regiment was effectively destroyed during the parliamentarian defeat at Braddock Down on 19 January, and Buller suffered a crisis of confidence. He resigned from his commands immediately afterwards, and at the end of the month was briefly involved in attempts to agree a local cessation, meeting with Warwick Mohun, 2nd Baron Mohun, and Sir Ralph Hopton.55Cornw. RO, B/35/220; Coate, Cornw. 46. He was encouraged in this by the activities of neutralist brokers, like his cousin, Sir William Courtenay, who wrote to Buller at Plymouth early in February begging, ‘if you love God and your country, [to] use your best means to procure such propositions for an accommodation of peace that love and amity may follow’.56Buller Pprs. 91-2.

Hopes of a local peace soon faded, however, and soon after hostilities resumed Buller went back to London, where his recent back-sliding was apparently overlooked. He was present in the Commons on 18 March, when he was named to the committee to consider the recent peace negotiations in Devon and Cornwall.57CJ iii. 8a. On 3 July, Buller’s widowed mother wrote from Plymouth, asking him to lobby Lord Robartes and the ‘western committee [in] London’ to secure repayment of money lent to the garrison in the early months of the war.58Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/37. On 13 August Buller moved for the immediate supply of the garrison in Plymouth, and in the same month he was also named to committees to arrange for the relief of the west generally, to raise an immediate £4,000 loan from the city of London, and to persuade Essex to grant a commission to Sir William Waller* to command the forces against Hopton.59Add. 31116, p. 138; CJ iii. 192b, 204b, 208a. In September he was named to two committees to consider petitions from former comrades, William Strode I and the earl of Stamford.60CJ iii. 244b, 258b.

Francis Buller’s activities in Parliament during 1644-5 are more difficult to trace, not least because he is easily confused with his brother George (who remained an MP until his death in 1646). It is certain that Francis was named to the committee for Plymouth on 27 February 1644, and the committee to raise money for Waller’s army on the same day; and he was probably named to the committee for the Isle of Wight on 29 March and the committee to consider south Wales (as he had recently inherited an estate in Montgomeryshire from an uncle) on 10 April.61CJ iii. 409b, 440b, 455b. Buller had already been appointed to a number of local commissions, including that for the sequestration of delinquents (27 Mar. 1643), and, on 1 July 1644 he was made a member of the county committee for Cornwall.62A. and O. He was probably the ‘Mr Buller’ who was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers in November and chosen that same month to present the Committee of Both Kingdoms with a petition from the inhabitants of Devon, Somerset and Exeter. Similarly, he was probably the man named to a committee in February 1645 for recruiting the New Model army.63CJ iii. 698b, 699b; iv. 51a.

After the creation of the New Model army in April 1645, Buller became more conspicuous at Westminster. On 3 June he was one of the MPs granted £4 a week for their service, to compensate for the loss of income from their estates; and he was probably the ‘Mr Buller’ named to the committee to draw up an ordinance to sell delinquent estates a few days afterwards.64CJ iv. 161a, 176a. On 5 July he was appointed to consider ‘propositions’ from the gentlemen of Pembrokeshire, and on 10 July he may have been named to the committee to raise additional troops of horse.65CJ iv. 197a, 203a. In September 1645 Buller was named to the committees to consider another petition of the earl of Stamford and to raise money from church lands, and on 19 September he was ordered, with Sir Samuel Rolle, Anthony Nicoll* and others to ‘go down into the west’.66CJ iv. 271a, 276a, 292b.

By the middle of October 1645 Buller had joined the parliamentarian brigade under Edward Massie*, accompanying them as they marched through Dorset and Somerset into Devon, and he was present when Massie took Tiverton Castle.67HMC Portland, i. 292-3. With most of the west country in parliamentarian hands, on 14 February 1646 Buller was appointed to the committee charged with running affairs in Devon and Cornwall.68CJ iv. 440a. It was only then that he was finally allowed to return home to his much-abused estates. Indeed, it was only with the collapse of the royalist cause that Buller was able to take legal possession of his inheritance, as the indenture passing Shillingham and other lands to him was drawn up by his mother (as Sir Richard Buller’s executrix) only on 22 April 1646.69Antony House, Carew-Pole BS/14/4. Buller was back in the Commons very briefly in July and August 1646, and his new landed responsibilities may have lain behind his appointment to committees to discharge loyal landowners from paying arrears of fee-farm rents to the crown, and to receive complaints against the conduct of royalists during the war.70CJ iv. 620a, 625a. On 28 August he was again given leave to go into the country.71CJ iv. 656b.

With the growing strength of the Presbyterian interest in Parliament in the autumn of 1646 and the spring of 1647, Buller found himself a man of greater political weight. On his return to the Commons in November 1646, the Cornish committee chose to approach him with their warnings of popular unrest unless high taxation, free quarter, and the lawlessness of the soldiery in the county could be rectified.72HMC 6th Rep. 140; CJ iv. 727a, 728a. In the same month Buller played a part in managing the recruiter elections in Montgomeryshire for the Presbyterian interest, with Robert Pooley acting as his agent in the election of Edward Vaughan* as knight of the shire and Charles Lloyd* as burgess. As Pooley told Buller in a letter of 25 November, ‘I shall perform your directions in this to the full’.73Buller Pprs. 98-9. Buller was probably responsible for the return of his friend, John Moyle II, as recruiter MP for East Looe in January 1647.

In the Commons, Buller was named to the committee of both Houses that examined the earl of Pembroke and Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, and the committee to discuss fines levied on delinquents, in December 1646; in January 1647 he was appointed to the committee to discuss the navy; and in February he was named to committees to consider allegations of ‘killing persons in cold blood’, levelled against the Cornish peer, Lord Mohun, and ‘information’ (possibly to do with the recent recruiter election?) against Edward Vaughan.74CJ iv. 735b; v. 8b, 47a, 89a, 90a. On 4 March, however, Buller was again given leave to go into the country, and he was absent during the forcing of the Houses and the army’s march on London in the summer of 1647.75CJ v. 106a. Whether this absence was politically motivated or not is difficult to gauge. His failure to attend the call of the House on 9 October 1647 initially led to a £20 fine, but this was remitted, and his absence excused, on 3 November.76CJ v. 330a, 348b. Despite this apparent vote of confidence, his attendance over the winter of 1647-8 was poor, and he again left the House to go into the country on 14 January 1648.77CJ v. 431b.

During the spring of 1648 there are signs that some in Cornwall expected Buller to join the uprising in favour of the king. On 3 May, in a thinly veiled invitation, the royalist William Coryton hoped that God would give Buller ‘the courage and confidence in the performance of righteous duties for His glory and the public good and give you wisdom and moderation’.78Buller Pprs. 100-1. Yet Buller, who was at Westminster at the time, remained loyal to Parliament. On 4 May he was named to the committee to settle the militia throughout the kingdom, and during the remainder of May and June 1648 he was in close touch with John Moyle II and those commanders who moved to suppress the royalist insurgents gathered in Penzance.79CJ v. 551a; Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2, nos. 162, 164, 166, 168, 170. On 8 June Buller, with his fellow Presbyterians, Thomas Gewen* and Nicholas Trefusis*, was ordered to go to Cornwall ‘to put the ordinance for the militia in execution in that county’.80CJ v. 589b. In September and October 1648 Buller was still in Cornwall settling the county after the second civil war, and considering what action should be taken against the Scilly Isles which had fallen into royalist hands (and the governor, his brother Anthony*, who had been captured) in August.81CJ vi. 34b; CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 276-7, 295; FSL, X.d.483 (26). At the end of November he was back in Westminster. He was named to the committee to consider what ‘places of strength’ should be maintained on 25 November, and on 2 December he was appointed to the militia commissions in both Cornwall and Montgomeryshire.82CJ vi. 87a; A. and O. There was no doubt where Buller’s political allegiances lay in the autumn of 1648, and when the army moved against Parliament, they saw him as an enemy. Pride’s Purge brought Buller’s political career to a sudden end. He was arrested by the officers on 6 December, and kept in custody until 20 December.83The Parliament under the Power of the Sword (1648, 669.f.13.52); [W. Prynne], A Vindication of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1649), irreg. pag. (E.539.5); Coate, Cornw. 246. On his release, he retired to his Cornish estates.

Buller’s refusal to work with the commonwealth regime did not prevent him from retaining a close friendship with John Moyle II. Moyle not only passed news to Buller from London but also tried to persuade him to make his peace with the republic, telling him in September 1649 that ‘if the adverse party prevail, you and us shall surely sink into one common ruin’. Moyle even held out the hope that Buller might one day return to Westminster, for

You were not restrained from sitting in Parliament at that time of the king’s trial for any evil will that the army or Parliament bore unto you and others, but for that (although they took you to be an honest gentleman) yet they sufficiently knew and were assured that you had not hearts to that eminent and most high piece of justice which was to be done on the king … but I verily believe that the Parliament would most willingly receive into the house again all such as would cordially own the Parliament in that way which it now engageth in, of a free state.84Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2, no. 171.

In December 1649 Moyle admitted to Buller that Parliament would not accept the return of secluded MPs at this late stage, but he still tried to persuade him to serve as a justice of the peace, if he could bring himself to sign the Engagement.85Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2, no. 173. Buller clearly refused Moyle’s offers, and spent his time in 1649 and 1650 pursuing legal claims, especially against royalists who had (as he perceived) taken advantage of him during the first civil war.86C10/1/44; C10/16/106; Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/5/2-3. Despite his retirement, Buller remained on reasonable terms with Colonel Robert Bennett* and others in the local administration between 1649 and 1653.87Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/16. He assured Bennett of the warmth of their relationship, saying that it was based on ‘our ancient acquaintance, friendship and alliance’.88FSL, X.d.483 (43, 84). Despite this, he seems to have drawn the line at cultivating Bennett’s henchman, Hunt Greenwood*, who demanded unfair payments from Buller’s duchy holdings in 1652.89Cornw. RO, BU/23, unfol.

This fairly amicable relationship with the regime continued into the protectorate, and it led, once again, to unwelcome invitations. In October 1656, Buller received news ‘which will be unacceptable to you, that you are one of the three in nomination to be sheriff for Cornwall’, although the lord chief justice (John Glynne*), the local major-general (John Disbrowe*), and Cornish MPs Anthony Nicoll and Francis Rous* ‘promise to be your friends’ in preventing it. Nicoll and Rous were at the same time eager ‘to have your name in the commission of the peace and the other county employments’, despite Buller’s repeated insistence in the past that his ‘grave wisdom and retired disposition’ must ‘excuse’ him.90Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/72. The cosiness of Buller’s relationship with the Cromwellian state should not be exaggerated, as he also remained on good terms with Cornish royalists. In October 1650 he agreed to stand as a surety for the good behaviour of William Coryton; and in July 1656 the two families were again close friends, with John Coryton promising dogs and a hawk for Francis Buller’s brother, John, and protesting that ‘I shall for the future be no stranger to Shillingham’.91Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/21/24; Cornw. RO, BU/602. Throughout this period Buller seems to have taken a neutral line, although he did take some part in parliamentary elections. In 1654 Francis Buller II* told his father of the jockeying for position that preceded the elections in Montgomeryshire, with men like Charles Lloyd and Sir John Price* opposing the ‘saints’.92Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/26/14/6. In the summer of 1656, Buller was consulted about elections in East and West Looe; and his brother Anthony, who seems to have coveted a seat, asked for his ‘good advice upon the election for me’.93Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/26/14/13-14. The return of his second son John Buller for East and West Looe in 1656 probably owed something to paternal importance in the boroughs; and in January 1659, John Buller’s election for East Looe, and William Whitelocke’s* for West Looe, may have been on Buller’s interest, although it is likely that the driving force was his eldest son, Francis Buller II.94Whitelocke, Diary, 504.

During the chaos of the winter of 1659-60, Buller re-emerged, fleetingly, as a leading figure among the Cornish Presbyterians. He attended the meeting at Truro in the last days of December, which proclaimed Cornish support for a free Parliament and for George Monck’s* resistance to the English army officers.95Publick Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660), 998 (E.773.41); Coate, Cornw. 308. In January 1660 he was named as an assessment commissioner for Montgomeryshire.96A. and O. Despite this sudden quickening of activity, after the Restoration Buller took no further part in national or local politics. He may have suffered bouts of illness, or at least periods of melancholy, at this time, as he wrote at least three different ‘directions for my funeral’ between 1661 and 1676.97Antony House, Carew-Pole BW/15/8; BW/15/12. This was not helped by the troubles that beset Francis Buller II, who was found guilty of misprision of treason in 1666, and fined £30,000. After this, the settlement (and preservation) of the patrimonial estate became a priority. Buller gave his lands at Morval to his younger son, John, in April 1668.98Cornw. RO, BU/865. An indenture of February 1674 settled all his remaining estates on his grandson, Francis, son of Francis II.99Antony House, Carew-Pole BS/14/11. By the time he made his will (which was drawn up in 1672), Buller had moved from Cornwall to Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey, and the amended version (of 1677) saw him as a resident at Ospringe in Kent.100PROB11/355/279. He died in the same year and was survived by two sons, Francis II and John.