FANSHAWE, Sir Thomas (1596-1665), of Ware Park, Herts. and Ivy Lane, London

Fanshawe’s ancestors can be traced back to 1417 as crown tenants in Derbyshire.30Vis. Eng. and Wales, Notes, ed. Crisp, vi. 147. Henry Fanshawe† had been granted the reversion to the office of queen’s remembrancer in the exchequer in 1561 and had briefly enjoyed it before his death in 1568, whereupon it passed to his nephew, Thomas Fanshawe†. That office (whether as king’s or queen’s remembrancer) would then be held intermittently by the Fanshawes until 1716.31Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer, 46-8. On the death of this MP’s father in 1616, his brother-in-law, Sir Christopher Hatton†, succeeded because Thomas Fanshawe had not yet reached the age of majority, but on Hatton’s death three years later, Fanshawe was appointed to it for life. This position brought with it a residence in Warwick Lane in the City.32Coventry Docquets, 286. In 1635 he successfully resisted the proposal to create a separate position to handle the business of the court of exchequer in English, as this would have encroached on his own responsibilities.33CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 56; Aylmer, King’s Servants, 140. As remembrancer, he received some of the revenues from Ship Money before passing them on to the treasurer of the navy, Sir William Russell†.34CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 253, 319.

The Fanshawes had owned lands at Ware since the 1570s.35VCH Herts. iii. 387-8. Ware Park was said to have been ‘one of the best seats in England within one and twenty miles of London’ and to be ‘as well furnished with plate and other things as any person of his quality’.36Eg. 3328, f. 105. His great wealth made Sir Thomas a leading figure in the county and he had sat on its commission of the peace almost since he had come of age. His actions as a magistrate were sometimes controversial. Boys from Christ’s Hospital in London were, by tradition, sent to be educated in the country at Hoddesdon, Ware and Hertford.37E.H. Pearce, Annals of Christ’s Hosp. (1901), 163-4. During the outbreak of the plague in 1637 Fanshawe was one of the two local justices who tried to have them sent back to London. The privy council intervened to stop this.38CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 126-7.

In the early 1630s Fanshawe clashed with his local vicar, Charles Chauncy (the future president of Harvard College). One reason was that Fanshawe built a private chapel for himself at Ware Park. Chauncy would later recall his horror at having seen the bishop and Fanshawe bow towards the communion table during the chapel’s consecration service.39C. Chancy, The Retraction of Mr Charles Chancy (1641), 17. The identity of that bishop is uncertain. The surviving copy of the consecration liturgy indicates that it was the bishop of Durham, but as the exact date of the ceremony is not known, it is unclear whether that was John Howson or Thomas Morton.40Add. 29586, ff. 26-28; Eng. Orders for Consecrating Churches, ed. J.W. Legg (Henry Bradshaw Soc. xli.), 218-23. At about the same time the churchwardens of the parish church at Ware moved the communion table to the chancel and installed a rail around it.41CSP Dom. 1635-6, pp. 123-4, 494-5. This caused Chauncy to resign in protest in 1633 and to move to another living in Northamptonshire.42CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 195. In 1635 he and one of the Ware parishioners, Humphrey Packer, were prosecuted in the court of high commission for having objected to these changes.43CSP Dom. 1634-5, pp. 122, 261, 266, 270, 318, 324, 539, 543, 550; 1635, pp. 179, 181, 188, 190, 210, 212, 215, 221, 489-90; 1635-6, pp. 83, 109, 116, 123-4, 125, 152, 470, 483, 490, 494-5. Chauncy believed that Fanshawe and his successor as vicar, Isaac Craven, were the prime movers in bringing those cases against them.44Chancy, Retraction, sig. [A3], 35, 38.

Fanshawe represented Hertford, two miles from Ware, for the fourth time in the Short Parliament. He was named to four committees, including the committee for privileges (16 Apr.).45CJ ii. 4a, 8b, 15b, 18b. Two of those committees related directly to his exchequer work. On 21 April he was appointed to the committee to examine the records relating to Ship Money and impositions. Eight days later he informed the Commons that the copies of the records this committee required were now ready.46CJ ii. 8b; Aston’s Diary, 97. Also on 29 April he headed the list of those added to the committee on the accounts of the treasurers of the subsidies granted by the 1624 Parliament.47CJ ii. 15b.

He held his seat in the October election. On 13 November the Commons asked to see the accounts for the subsidies which had been granted by the 1628 Parliament. Fanshawe brought them in the next day.48CJ ii. 29a, 29b; Procs. LP, i. 150. The reason MPs wanted that information was that they now needed to vote new subsidies to pay for both the English and Scottish armies in the north of England. When a week later individual MPs offered a stop-gap loan until those subsidies could be collected, Fanshawe followed many of his colleagues in offering £1,000.49Procs. LP, i. 229, 232, 235. On 9 December, at the Commons’ request, he delivered to them the records relating to the most famous tax case in recent years, that against John Hampden* in 1637-8 concerning Ship Money.50CJ ii. 48a. Later that month he was named to the committees on Emmanuel College, Cambridge (17 Dec.) and on the petition from one of his relatives, Lady Hatton (30 Dec.).51CJ ii. 52a, 60a. He gave a further £1,000 to the latest loan raised by individual MPs on 6 March 1641 and was named to the committee to consider the usury bill on 19 March.52Procs. LP, ii. 654; CJ ii. 108a.

Nothing Fanshawe had done so far placed him out of line with the prevailing views in the Commons. He had supported the efforts to pay off the armies and had done his best to cooperate with the investigations into the royal finances. But his underlying instincts were still those of a loyal crown servant. This was made plain on 21 April 1641 when he voted against the attainder of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†).53Procs. LP, iv. 42, 51; Verney, Notes, 57; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 248. He nevertheless took the Protestation on 3 May.54CJ ii. 133a. On 7 May he was ordered along with two of his fellow exchequer officials, Sir Robert Pye I* and William Wheler*, to bring in the accounts of any subsidies that had raised more than £100,000.55CJ ii. 139a. He and Pye submitted that information to the committee of the whole House three days later.56Procs. LP, iv. 296, 303. Two months later, on 16 July, the Commons took steps to ensure that the subsidies previously granted for the disbandment of the armies were properly audited. Fanshawe was not only included on the committee to prepare the order to that effect but also specifically instructed to bring a list of those collectors who had submitted accounts.57CJ ii. 214a.

Fanshawe’s loyalty to the king counted for little, however, once his own conduct in office was questioned. By the spring of 1641 royal officials were investigating accusations that Fanshawe had abused his position as king’s remembrancer by admitting his own clerks as attorneys in the court of exchequer.58Aylmer, King’s Servants, 124-5. This now made it expedient for him to step aside. He did so by surrendering to his younger brother, Richard†, who agreed to pay him any profits up to a total of £8,000 accruing to him over the next seven years.59Mems. of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann, Lady Fanshawe, 113; W.H. Bryson, The Equity Side of the Exchequer (Cambridge, 1975), 70-1. This sale took effect on 5 August 1641 when the new patent in Richard’s favour was issued.60Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer, 47. (Three years later Richard was, in turn, replaced by Parliament, with Humphrey Salwey*.)

Fanshawe’s next recorded appearance in Parliament did not occur until 27 December 1641, when he alerted MPs to the ‘tumult’ in Westminster Hall of ‘near upon 500 people’ during which ‘divers swords were drawn’.61D’Ewes (C), 352. Whether he was attending less often or had just become less active is impossible to say, but it is not unlikely that he had become disaffected by the actions being taken by the Commons. Even when his behaviour seemed to be in tune with those actions, he had ulterior motives. In late April 1641 the Commons detained Sir William Boteler of Barham Court, Kent, one of the leaders of the armed group that had tried to march on Westminster to present the Kent petition which had already got Sir Edward Dering* into trouble.62T.P.S. Woods, Prelude to Civil War 1642 (Salisbury, 1980), 81-3. On 19 May, at the start of business, Fanshawe moved successfully that the charges against Boteler should be heard on 24 May.63PJ ii. 343; CJ ii. 579a. But this was not a hostile act on Fanshawe’s part. Boteler was Fanshawe’s brother-in-law, so Fanshawe presumably judged that an early airing of the accusations would work to Boteler’s advantage.64Mems. of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann, Lady Fanshawe, 108; Vis. Eng. and Wales, Notes, ed. Crisp, vi. 161; P.R. Newman, Royalist Officers in Eng. and Wales, 1642-1660 (New York and London, 1981), 52; Coventry Docquets, 544.

When the time came to choose sides, Fanshawe unambiguously backed the king. He was absent at the call of the House on 16 June 1642.65CJ ii. 626n. Later that month the king included him on the commission of array for Hertfordshire.66Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. But he may already have been making preparations. Two pieces of ordnance were found at a search of his estate in late August along with several barrels of powder, muskets and pikes, although some locals assumed that he must be ‘a great deal better provided’ because he had employed two gunsmiths in his house ‘these three months’.67A Perfect Diurnall of the Proceedings in Hartford-shire (1642), 6. This was all the evidence the Commons needed. He was disabled as an MP on 7 September ‘for neglecting the service of the House’.68CJ ii. 756a. In the meantime, as a precaution against his creditors and against possible seizure, Fanshawe had handed over some of his estates to feoffees (including Boteler) to protect the future payment of portions for his daughters.69SP23/208, pp. 685, 687.

Fanshawe now joined the king and he was present at Edgehill on 23 October 1642.70Mems. of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann, Lady Fanshawe, 105; Eg. 3328, f. 105. In his absence, three prominent lawyers, Bulstrode Whitelocke*, Geoffrey Palmer* and Matthew Hale*, rented his London house in Ivy Lane, just off Paternoster Row.71Whitelocke, Diary, 138. In July 1643 he was a member of the group of wealthy royalists, headed by Lord Dunsmore (Sir Francis Leigh†) and Lord Capell (Arthur Capell*), who advanced a loan of £27,000 secured against a grant of some of the royal forests.72Add. 40631B, ff. 224-234; CTB i. 47; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 127; 1661-2, p. 321. Meanwhile, the local officials of the Committee for Sequestrations carried out further searches of Ware Park.73The Impact of the First Civil War on Herts. ed. A. Thomson (Herts. Rec. Soc. xxiv.), 166. That June Parliament ordered that the goods seized during those raids should be sold, but some months later it was suggested that some had been concealed by Sir William Lytton*, the knight of the shire.74CJ iii. 149a, 355b. The sale of Fanshawe’s silver alone raised over £200.75Impact of the First Civil War on Herts. 174. A number of books were seized from his library at Ware, not because of their content but because of their monetary value.76CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, pp. 688-9. Moreover, in July 1644 the Committee for Advance of Money issued an order for him to pay them £1,000.77CCAM 426.

Fanshawe sat in the Oxford Parliament and in January 1645 signed the letter from it to Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.78Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 573. Although he had no formal military role, he was put to use by the king. In October 1644 Fanshawe, Sir Edward Alford* and Sir Thomas Darrell were appointed to investigate the embezzlement of money and supplies in the south west, one area that the royalists still controlled.79Docquets of Letters Patent, ed. Black. 239. In March 1645 the prince of Wales was sent by his father to take the nominal command of the royalist forces in the south west, whereupon Fanshawe’s brother, Richard, accompanied the prince as the secretary of his council of war. Sir Thomas joined them and towards the end of that year he was with the royalist forces defending Barnstaple.80CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 322. By February 1646 he and his family were at Penzance.81Mems. of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann, Lady Fanshawe, 117.

That was just a staging post en route to France. Having crossed the Channel, Fanshawe visited Morlaix and probably St Malo in Brittany, as well as Granville in Normandy.82J.E. Hoskins, Charles the Second in the Channel Islands (1854), i. 287; CCSP, i. 302. But his actual objective was Jersey, where he landed on 11 March.83Hoskins, Charles the Second, i. 286; CCSP, i. 306. He arrived there as an emissary from the prince of Wales with instructions to investigate the complaints against Sir Peter Osborne†, the lieutenant-governor of Castle Cornet on Guernsey. He knew Osborne well, as his counterpart in the exchequer as the treasurer’s remembrancer. Fanshawe’s secondary objective was to consider how the rest of Guernsey might be re-taken for the king.84Hoskins, Charles the Second, i. 288-92; Eg. 3328, f. 105. While on Jersey he stayed with its lieutenant-governor, Sir George Carteret†, in Elizabeth Castle. On 2 April Fanshawe landed at Castle Cornet and he spent the next six days restoring order to the garrison. On returning to Jersey, he remained there until after the prince of Wales arrived later that same month.85Hoskins, Charles the Second, i. 288, 293-5. His destination then was France, where he re-joined his family. He spent that summer at Caen, during which time he was ‘desperate sick’.86Mems. of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann, Lady Fanshawe, 119.

In the spring of 1647 he returned to England, probably aiming to regain possession of his estates.87CCSP i. 372. But that took time. His petition requesting that he be allowed to compound was received by the Committee for Compounding on 13 November 1648.88CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 322; CCC 1864. The following February his fine was set at £910.89CCC 1864. The committee’s tardy decision meant that the Fanshawes could later bend the facts to claim that Sir Thomas had not compounded while Charles I had still been alive.90Eg. 3328, f. 105. Later that same year the fine was increased by £400 to reflect lands that he had inherited from his mother. By early 1650 he was claiming that he had paid these fines.91CCC 1864. However, confusion surrounded the tithes due to him as the hereditary patron of Ilford hospital. Those revenues had been sequestered along with the rest of Fanshawe’s estates. The Committee for Compounding only agreed to release this money in 1653 and even then the Committees for Compounding and for Plundered Ministers disagreed over the nomination of a new master.92CCC 1864-5, 3287-8; VCH Essex, ii. 187. To add to his troubles, Fanshawe was also caught up in the compounding cases of other royalists, such as that of Thomas Dennis, mayor of Oxford in 1642-3, because, together with Sir Christopher Hatton* (who was a first cousin) and Sir George Benyon, he had acted as a surety for money they had borrowed.93CCAM 1001-4.

In June 1651 Fanshawe was one of a number of royalists in financial difficulties whose cases were discussed by the Rump. Permission was then given for Fanshawe’s eldest son, Thomas†, to bring a common recovery in the law courts in order to break the entail on some lands in Essex.94CJ vi. 587a, 588a. Fanshawe was finally able to proceed with those sales in 1653, when Thomas reached his majority and when Sir Thomas transferred his estates into his son’s name. His debts then amounted to £24,000.95Eg. 3328, f. 105v; SP23/263, p. 67. The lands that were sold, worth a total of £2,000 a year, had mostly been acquired in 1648 when Thomas had married a wealthy heiress, Catherine Ferrers, his father’s former ward and the stepdaughter of Sir Thomas’s brother, Sir Simon Fanshawe.96Eg. 3328, f. 105v. Only in 1656 was Thomas junior able to transfer the remaining lands back to his father.97SP23/263, p. 67.

In early September 1651 another of Sir Thomas’s brothers, Sir Richard, fought with Charles Stuart at Worcester. During his absence, his wife, Ann, stayed with Sir Thomas at Ware. Richard was later captured and that November Sir Thomas and their sister, Alice (wife of Sir Capel Bedell*), put up bail of £4,000 to get him released from the Tower.98Mems. of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann, Lady Fanshawe, 133, 135. At about the same time the Committee for Advance of Money revived its attempts to persuade Sir Thomas to pay their demand of £1,000.99CCAM 97, 426. On 12 July 1655 he was recorded as resident in Ware, in accordance with the proclamation banning royalists from London which had been issued the previous week.100Mems. of Ann Lady Fanshawe, ed. Fanshawe, 298. He paid his decimation tax demand for £133 6s 8d in full in two instalments in March and May 1656.101‘The Cromwellian decimation tax of 1655’, ed. J.T. Cliffe, Cam. Misc. XXXIII (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. vii.), 439-40. He was also still being chased for money that he had owed to the court of wards in connection with the Ferrers marriage.102CSP Dom. 1655, p. 111; 1656-7, p. 166.

It would be said after Fanshawe’s death that Oliver Cromwell*, ‘their near relation’, had offered to re-appoint him or his son to their exchequer office but that ‘their constant loyalty and faithfulness to the crown made them abhor any advantage proposed by him’.103Eg. 3328, f. 105v. In reality, their kinship connection was not especially close; Fanshawe’s mother and Cromwell had been third cousins (both were descended from an early Tudor lord mayor of London, Sir Thomas Murfyn). However, it is known that in the final weeks of his life Cromwell was willing to sell the position to an unqualified outsider.104Aylmer, State’s Servants, 81, 95.

In the summer of 1659 the leading royalist agents, John Mordaunt and Allen Brodrick†, assumed that the various Fanshawes would support the planned royalist rising.105Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 22; CCSP iv. 270. On 30 July Sir Thomas’s arrest was ordered by the council of state.106CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 56. But once the botched rebellion had been crushed, it was his eldest son who was targeted by the authorities. The younger Thomas was one of a number of royalists against whom a proclamation was issued on 3 September.107By the Parliament (1659, 669.f.21.71). He and their neighbour, Sir Thomas Leventhorpe, subsequently surrendered themselves and were sent to the Tower.108CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 191; Whitelocke, Diary, 548. Thomas junior would claim that this period of imprisonment cost him £4,000.109Eg. 3328, f. 105v.

Fanshawe regained office at the Restoration, received an Irish peerage and returned to Parliament. There then remained the issue of the 1643 loan. Fanshawe and three of the other surviving lenders, Sir Gervase Clifton*, Richard Spencer† and Sir William Walter†, joined forces in the hope of recovering their money. Treasury officials were sceptical that the king could afford to repay them.110CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 127; CTB i. 214. But eventually in June 1662 Charles II instructed the lord treasurer, the 4th earl of Southampton, that this money was to be repaid in full and with interest, except for any sums that they had since assigned to their creditors.111CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 401. The bulk of the money, £20,000, was paid two years later. A separate payment of £6,500 was also made to Walter.112CTB i. 564, 598, 616, 619, 626. Fanshawe died suddenly of apoplexy on 26 March 1665, intestate and £28,000 in debt.113HMC Heathcote, 188; Eg. 3328, f. 105v. He was buried at Ware.

Fanshawe’s widow was subsequently granted a royal pension of £600 a year.114CTB i. 686. However, neither this annuity nor the repayment of the royal loans was enough to save them from financial embarrassment. In 1668 Fanshawe’s son and heir, Thomas, 2nd Viscount Fanshawe, was forced to sell the lands at Ware to Sir Thomas Byde†.115HMC Heathcote, 258; Mems. of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann, Lady Fanshawe, 105; Eg. 3328, f. 105v; VCH Herts. iii. 388. With that also went their electoral influence and no member of this branch of the family was elected as an MP after this. It would however not be entirely true to say that Fanshawe’s loyalty to Charles I had ruined the family. The 2nd viscount succeeded as the king’s remembrancer, the position which had been the original basis for their fortune, other members of the family would hold reversions to it and one of them, Simon, 5th viscount, eventually held it again several decades later.116Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer, 47-8. But the great fortune they had previously enjoyed would never be rebuilt.