BULLER, Sir Richard (c.1578-1642), of Shillingham, St Stephen-by-Saltash, Cornw.

The Bullers first appeared as landowners at Lillesdon in Somerset in the middle ages, but had become seated in Cornwall in the early sixteenth century, and a century later were probably the richest family in the south east of the county. Sir Richard Buller sat as MP for St Germans and Saltash in the Parliaments of the 1620s, and by 1626 had become identified with the godly group of MPs from the south west, led by William Coryton*, who were critical of the policies of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham. Buller opposed the Forced Loan in 1627, and was sacked as a justice of the peace and deputy lieutenant as a result.27HP Commons 1604-1629. Although he soon made his peace with the Caroline regime, Buller’s relations with the government remained uneasy during the 1630s. As sheriff of Cornwall in 1636-7 he was apparently conscientious in collecting Ship Money, although the rate of collection was painfully slow.28CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 435, 485, 490, 512; 1637, pp. 70, 577. In April 1639 Buller was one of those asked to contribute money for the first bishops’ war, but apparently did not even reply.29PC2/50, p. 300; PC2/51, p. 79; Antony House, Carew Pole BC/24/2/35. In June 1640 Charles Trevannion* complained to Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, that his attempts to get Buller’s help to raise 1,600 Cornish recruits for the second bishops’ war had failed. An express messenger sent to Shillingham found that Buller was not at home – and the mysterious absence of other deputy lieutenants had rendered Trevannion’s task almost impossible.30CSP Dom. 1640, p. 264.

Buller’s activity in the Short Parliament in April and May 1640, when he sat as knight of the shire for Cornwall, was unexceptional, and his few committee appointments give no indication of his political leanings at this time.31CJ ii. 4a, 8a, 10a, 18b. When the elections for the Long Parliament were held in the autumn of that year, however, Buller emerges as a committed opponent of the crown. He was a key player in the scramble for parliamentary seats in Cornwall, not least because of his family’s influence in the boroughs of Saltash and West Looe, and he had to see off challenges to his son Francis Buller I* at West Looe, and his friend John Moyle I* at St Germans.32Carew Pole BC/24/2/60; Cornw. RO, BU/1184; Buller Pprs. 30-1. Sir Richard Buller himself sat for Bossiney on the interest of his old ally, William Coryton, but this election was decidedly irregular, and on 14 November the committee of privileges forced both Buller and Coryton to withdraw from the Commons while they investigated allegations that ‘blank indentures’ had been deployed.33CJ ii. 29a. Coryton confessed that he had brought the indentures to London with him, and inserted the names only afterwards, although Buller insisted that ‘he was chosen by the town’ and that only the paperwork was at fault.34D’Ewes (N), 35, 536. The committee’s report, submitted to the House on 20 November, concluded that ‘there was no election made’, although they emphasised that there was ‘no misdemeanour’ in Buller himself.35CJ ii. 32b.

Parliament’s decision to discount the election at Fowey gave Buller a second chance, and he grabbed it with alacrity. On 27 November Richard Trevill wrote from Saltash that he was sending Buller’s servants to London ‘with a summons for a new election of a burgess for the borough of Fowey wherein I heartily wish your good success’, and Buller was duly elected, probably at the beginning of December 1640.36Cornw. RO, BU/1230. It is uncertain whether Buller was as yet an MP on 5 December, when he and Sir William Pennyman were given licence to speak to the imprisoned Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of Strafford, ‘upon their private occasions’ and ‘upon protestation to speak of nothing else’, but he was certainly sitting in Parliament by 12 December, when he was named to the committee of privileges – the committee that had recently investigated his own case.37CJ ii. 46a, 49a; Northcote Note Bk. 32.

During the early months of the Long Parliament, Buller was active as an MP, serving on various minor committees, but it was only in February 1641 that he was drawn into the attack on the government.38CJ ii. 60b, 61b, 64b, 73b, 75a. On 13 February he was named to the committee on the bill for abolishing superstition and idolatry and advancing the true worship of God; and on 24th of that month he was added to the committee to consider breaches of parliamentary privileges during the Parliament of 1628.39CJ ii. 84b, 91a. The need for further reform of the church appears to have been one of Buller’s main concerns. In March he was named to the committees to consider disabling the clergy from holding secular offices and criticising the ‘popish hierarchy’ of the bishops, and in April he was appointed to the committee considering the bill to counter abuses in ecclesiastical courts.40CJ ii. 99a, 105b, 128b. Revelations of an ‘army plot’ against Parliament brought a frenzy of activity in May 1641, with Buller being named to committees to ensure security of church and state, to levy sailors to defend the realm, and to disband the remaining units of the army.41CJ ii. 133b, 136b, 139b, 141b, 152a, 156a. On 19 June Buller was also appointed to the committee to discuss a bill declaring Ship Money illegal.42CJ ii. 181b. In July, he was named to committees on bills to compensate the inhabitants of the north of England for the billeting of the Scottish and English armies, to regulate the trained bands and weapons held across the country, to promote the supply of gunpowder, and (in early August) to secure the money promised to the Scots.43CJ ii. 196a, 212b, 219b, 238b, 239a.

Buller did not entirely neglect the concerns of the south west in his desire to bring the government to account and to increase the authority of Parliament. On 20 May 1641 he was among the Devon and Cornwall MPs involved with a bill on the church at Plymouth; on 21 June he was one of those chosen to settle lands in Devon on Richard Rod and Richard Escourt; and on 17 July he was named to the committee to allow the settlement of the estates of the recently deceased Francis Russell, 4th earl of Bedford.44CJ ii. 151a, 182a, 215a. It was Buller’s importance in the south west that recommended him to the Lords at the end of August, when he was appointed, alongside Sir Richard Carew and Alexander Carew*, as one of those responsible for disarming recusants in Cornwall.45LJ iv. 385a. Buller did not return to Parliament until 16 December 1641, and his committee appointments were only occasional until June 1642, when he was named to the standing committee to examine the activities of the king’s commissioners of array in the localities.46CJ ii. 346b, 689b. In June and July Buller was growing concerned that the king was winning the propaganda war, and he complained in the House ‘of false news printed’ which talked up the numbers supporting the king; he also criticised attacks on parliament’s reputation made by those at court.47PJ iii. 37, 169. He was forward in his support of Parliament’s own mobilisation, offering three horses (and, by implication, the service of himself and his son) in military service in June.48PJ iii. 469. On 27 July Buller was one of the committee sent to Cornwall to put the rival militia ordinance into effect, and to raise troops for Parliament.49CJ ii. 694a.

On his arrival in Cornwall, Buller and came into direct confrontation with the king’s supporters. On 5 August, as he reported to the House of Lords, the parliamentary committee had attempted to prevent the commission of array from being declared at the Launceston assizes, but the pro-royalist sheriff had instead attacked the militia ordinance, forcing the committee to withdraw.50LJ v. 275b; Coate, Cornw. 34. In mid-August the committee assured the Commons that ‘the Parliament hath a strong interest in this country’, and they proceeded to raise troops, but by the end of September, their tone had grown less bullish, and Buller wrote to John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes of the growing threat from Warwick, 2nd Baron Mohun, Sir Nicholas Slanning* and other local royalists.51CJ ii. 315a; Add. 18777, f. 14b. On 22 September, the Devon MP Sir Samuel Rolle* had already warned Buller that the royalists from Somerset were heading west, and within a few days it was confirmed that Sir Ralph Hopton* had entered Cornwall at the head of a force of cavalry.52Antony House, Carew Pole BC/24/2/108-9; Buller Pprs. 59-60. What had been a struggle of parties now became a personal matter, with Buller identified as one of the main royalist hate-figures. Sir Bevill Grenvile* reputedly denounced Buller and Alexander Carew as ‘two wise men, but they make the whole country fools. They pretend that they fight for the king, but they would cut his throat if they could’.53Antony House, Carew Pole BC/24/2/118. Another royalist, Joseph Janes*, later accused Buller, with Lord Robartes and the Carews, of being the ringleaders, while others ‘followed tamely the knot of alliance’ they had created.54Bodl. Clarendon 26, ff. 163-6. Such personal slights were the preliminary to the issuing of the posse comitatus against Buller and his men, who now occupied Launceston, accusing them of ‘a rout and unlawful assembly … and … riots and misdemeanours’.55Clarendon, Hist. ii. 448, 450-1; New News from Cornwall (1642), 3-6 (E.124.20). Hopton mustered the county forces on 4 October and marched on Launceston. According to Sir Edward Hyde*, ‘Sir Richard Buller and his confederates, not daring to abide the storm, in great disorder quitted the town that night, and drew into Devonshire, and so towards Plymouth’.56Clarendon, Hist. ii. 451; Coate, Cornw. 37; Bellum Civile, 19-22.

Even while holed up in Plymouth, Buller was considered a person of great influence in Cornwall. Sir William Courtenay wrote to him twice in October and November 1642 asking him to do his best to bring peace between the rival factions, and to ‘end these troubles by a treaty and not by force, for by a treaty you may preserve the commons from ruin’.57Buller Pprs. 84-5. Such appeals had little time to take effect, however, as Buller died at the end of November, and was buried at St Andrew’s church in Plymouth on 1 December. His will, drawn up in March 1640, left his patrimonial estate to his son and heir, Francis Buller I*, and most of those lands he had purchased subsequently were bequeathed to his second son, George Buller*, while his other children also received generous bequests, as befitted the offspring of a wealthy gentleman.58PROB11/199/594. For several years after 1642 the exile of the family from Cornwall, and the loss of their estate to the royalists, made the wealth of the Bullers purely notional. Lady Buller was still able to give £140 to the committee in Plymouth in May 1644, but her generosity could not be sustained. It is telling that in November 1645 she was granted an allowance of £4 a week by the Commons to compensate for the loss of her husband and a ‘great estate’ in Parliament’s service; and that Sir Richard’s will was not proved until March 1647.59Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/168; CJ iv. 356a; PROB11/199/594.