FLEETWOOD (FLETEWOOD), Sir Miles (1576-1641), of Aldwincle, Northants. and Wood Street, London.

The Fleetwood family, which could trace its ancestry to fourteenth century Lancashire, settled in Buckinghamshire before the late sixteenth century, as it rose to prominence within the legal community, at court, and in Parliament. Fleetwood’s grandfather, Thomas Fleetwood† (d. 1570), treasurer of the Mint, represented Preston in 1553 and Buckinghamshire in 1563, and three of the latter’s sons, Sir George†, Henry† and Sir William† (the last of whom was our MP’s father) followed him into the Commons. The Elizabethan antiquary and recorder of London, William Fleetwood† (1525-94), was a cousin.25HP Commons 1558-1603; ‘The family of Fleetwood of Aldwincle’, 110-11; Oxford DNB. The family was not wealthy, however, and during the early years of James I’s reign Fleetwood’s father faced financial difficulties and allegations of financial impropriety, which eventually led to his being declared bankrupt, and forced to resign from his position as receiver-general of the court of wards (Jan. 1610). The post, with its salary of 200 marks, was immediately granted to his heir, our MP, who although he had been knighted for military service in Ireland in 1602, had previously made little impression on public life.26Bell, Court of Wards, 37; WARD9/405, f. 412; HMC Salisbury, xxiv. 201; Stowe 575, f. 9.

As an officeholder, Fleetwood – who can be found signing his name Fletewood – quickly rose to prominence.27Northants. QS Recs. 37. From 1614 he sat in every Parliament until his death, often alongside family members like his younger brother Sir Gerrard†, a gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles I, and their cousin William† (1563-1630), cupbearer to both James I and Charles I.28HP Commons 1604-1629. Fleetwood also gave evidence against two lord treasurers, Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk (1619), and Lionel Cranfield†, 1st earl of Middlesex (1624), on charges of bribery.29HMC Salisbury, xxii. 98; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 198; HMC Hastings, ii. 65. Nevertheless, Fleetwood was himself a crown financier who was not above suspicion of corruption, and who became involved in a number of complex financial disputes.30CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 378; HMC Cowper, i. 351; ii. 57-8, 92; C115/106/8391.

Politically, Fleetwood was recognised as being inclined towards godly causes, and during the 1620s he emerged as an opponent of the Spanish match, and a supporter of war with Spain, which provides part of the context for his hostility towards Lord Treasurer Middlesex.31C115/106/8391. His concern to defend the Protestant church at home and abroad also made him react critically to the rise of the Arminians, and he was involved in parliamentary proceedings against the controversial divine Richard Montagu. Nevertheless, Fleetwood became neither a leading advocate of the Petition of Right, nor an opponent of the Forced Loan.32SP16/58, f. 145v.

Indeed, Fleetwood displayed little evidence of political disaffection during the 1630s. As under-steward of the honour of Grafton in Northamptonshire, he proved assiduous in raising revenue for the crown, and during the bishops’ wars he made personal loans of at least £1,000 to the king.33Strafforde Letters, i. 336; VCH Northants. v. 18-37; SP16/453, f. 115. Such service helped to ensure that he was returned to the Short Parliament on the court interest, the borough of Hindon having offered the nomination of both members to the chancellor of the exchequer, Lord Cottington (Sir Francis Cottington†).34CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 155-6. Fleetwood’s recommendation, however, probably owed as much to his personal connection to Cottington, who was master of the court of wards, as it did to his political views.

This became apparent during the brief session, in which Fleetwood sat alongside his son Sir William*, to whom he had given over his place at Woodstock. Fleetwood resumed his earlier position as a somewhat moderate opponent of court policies. As an elder statesmen and experienced parliamentarian, he was an obvious choice to sit on some of the early committees, and to attend conferences with the Lords, not least as someone who had witnessed the controversial way in which the 1629 session had ended, and who was able to contribute his own recollections to a debate on the subject (18 Apr.).35CJ ii. 4a, 4b, 9a; Procs. Short Parl. 161; Aston’s Diary, 16. His concern to defend parliamentary privileges, which he described as ‘the life of a parliament’ (20 Apr.), also became apparent as tension arose between the two Houses.36Aston’s Diary, 20. He made more than one speech attacking what he regarded as the Lords’ infringement of the privileges of the lower House (27 Apr., 4 May).37Procs. Short Parl. 180; Aston’s Diary, 73, 134-5.

Fleetwood’s prime concern, however, was the defence of the church from Laudian innovations. Having been named to the committee to consider the case of one of Archbishop William Laud’s most famous victims, the Durham cleric Peter Smart, he also attended a conference regarding Convocation, and expressed his concern regarding ‘such ceremonies enforced as are destructive to our religion’.38CJ ii. 8b, 9b; Aston’s Diary, 134-5. It was probably religious issues, therefore, which prompted Fleetwood’s involvement in preparing for and managing a conference on grievances.39CJ ii. 8b, 10a, 12a.

Fleetwood was returned again as one of the Members for Hindon in the Long Parliament, where his opposition to Caroline religious and political policies became even more obvious. At the outset, he was the proposer, and an organiser, of the fast to prepare Members for the business in hand (6, 9 Nov.), and he was named to the committee to draft a declaration on the state of the kingdom.40Procs. LP i. 17, 20; CJ ii. 20a, 20b, 23b, 25a. That he was no radical is indicated by his resistance, in the context of resolving disputed elections, to a broadening of the franchise: he ‘moved that the poor should not have voices’ (19 Nov.).41Procs. LP i. 187; CJ ii. 21a, 39a, 49b. Nevertheless, he was determined to seek redress for other grievances. He was added to the committee investigating monopolies (19 Nov.) and the management of forests (4 Dec., in the manuscript Journal); he was sufficiently suspicious of activities in the Tower of London to respond to City fears by calling for investigation of its armaments (11 Nov.); and he spoke against subsidies as a way of paying for the campaign in the north (13, 19 Nov.), being among those who offered £1,000 as security for the alternative loan (21 Nov.).42CJ ii. 31a, 45a; Procs. LP i. 100, 110, 131, 135, 188, 198, 228, 232, 235. As a member of the committee deputed to interview the judges involved in the legal decision against John Hampden* in the Ship Money case, he reported at length on 8 December his encounter with Sir George Croke†, recounting the relentless pressure placed on the latter by Lord Chief Justice (later Lord Keeper) John Finch† to support the prosecution.43CJ ii. 46b; Procs. LP i. 512, 516, 519, 520.

Fleetwood sat on committees dealing with petitions from high-profile sufferers at the hands of high commission and other prerogative courts (30 Nov., 3 Dec., 17 Dec.), and once again his overwhelming preoccupation was the far-reaching shortcomings of the church and its hierarchy.44CJ ii. 40a, 44b, 52b. When he spoke of the ‘miseries of the kingdom’ in relation to the Scottish occupation in the north and the unpaid armies there (13 Nov.), he noted that ‘the ground of these distempers’ lay in the imposition of the Prayer Book and had ‘their beginnings from the clergy’, although he also attributed responsibility to the king’s lord deputy in Ireland, the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†).45Procs. LP 132, 135, 138, 141. A fortnight later, he cited precedents to demonstrate the illegality of Convocation having sat after the dissolution of the Short Parliament; the Canons it had issued were void as contrary to the prerogative and laws of the kingdom; the action of the clergy concerned amounted to a praemunire (that is, they were equivalent to the assertion of a papal jurisdiction).46Procs. LP i. 306, 309, 317, 321, 326. Added on 4 December to the committee investigating ‘innovations’ at St Gregory by St Paul’s in London, on 16 Secember Fleetwood was appointed to the committee to prepare the votes against the Canons (16 Dec.).47CJ ii. 44b, 52a. His priorities were apparent in the debate on the ‘root and branch petition against episcopacy on 11 December. Fleetwood told the House that ‘we ought in the first place to consider of religion as the chiefest pillar of happiness, and to desire the maintenance of it’, and that ‘if we did not now look to it we were for ever ruined and undone’.48Procs. LP i. 567. The petition should be addressed because ‘many parts of it are worthy of consideration’.49Northcote Note Bk. 51.

Such comments do not necessarily amount to advocacy of a wholesale dismantling of episcopacy, but Fleetwood was evidently among those keen to undo Laudian ‘innovations’. On 19 December he was appointed to the standing Committee for Scandalous Ministers*, while on the 22nd he was placed on the committee receiving petitions against Matthew Wren, bishop of Ely.50CJ ii. 54b, 56a; Procs. LP ii. 17. But these were his last nominations, as illness seems to have taken hold. He may not have been in the House on 24 February 1641 when it summoned a litigant who had issued a subpoena against him, to answer for breach of parliamentary privilege, and he died intestate less than a fortnight later, on 8 March.51CJ ii. 91b; Procs. LP ii. 529, 530, 534; Smyth’s Obit. (Cam. Soc. xliv), 18. John Moore recorded the news of his death ‘this day’ in his diary for 9 March; a writ for a by-election was ordered on 8 April.52Procs. LP ii. 684; CJ ii. 117a.

Fleetwood was succeeded by his son, Sir William*, who already held the reversion of the position as receiver-general of the court of wards, although when Sir William joined the king at Oxford in 1644 the post was granted to another son, Charles*, the parliamentarian general.53WARD9/431, f. 240v; HP Commons 1660-1690; CJ ii. 336a; Add. 31116, p. 197. Charles Fleetwood was returned as a recruiter MP in 1646, and later became lord deputy of Ireland, son-in-law to Oliver Cromwell*, and a member of the Cromwellian peerage. A third son, George, was a professional soldier who eventually became a member of the Swedish nobility, and diplomatic agent to the Cromwellian regime.54Oxford DNB.