JERMYN, Sir Thomas (1573-1645), of Rushbrooke, Suff. and Whitehall.

bap. 12 Feb. 1573, 1st s. of Sir Robert Jermyn† of Rushbrooke and Judith, da. of Sir George Blagge† of Dartford, Kent.1S.H.A. Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. (Woodbridge, 1903), 1. educ. Emmanuel, Camb. 1585;2Al. Cant. M. Temple 1590.3M. Temple Admiss. m. (1) 26 Nov. 1599, Catherine, da. of Sir William Killigrew† of Hanworth, Mdx., 4s. (2 d.v.p.) 1da. d.v.p.;4HMC 7th Rep. 528; Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 237; D. Lysons, Historical Acct. of those Pars. in the Co. of Mdx. (1800), 98. (2) 17 Mar. 1642, Mary (d. 19 Sept. 1679), da. of Edmund Barber of Bury St Edmunds, wid. of Thomas Newton of Norwich, Norf., 1s. 1da.5Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 35, 237, 239; Bury St Edmunds: St James’s Par. Reg.: Burials 1562-1800 (Suff. Green Bks. xvii), 154; S. Tymms, A Handbook of Bury St Edmunds (Bury St Edmunds, 1885), 62; Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. lxxxvi), 144. kntd. Sept. 1591;6Shaw, Knights of Eng. i. 156; ii. 89. suc. fa. 1614.7C142/345/133. bur. 7 Jan. 1645.8Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 56.

Military: vol. Normandy 1591-2;9Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 225. Islands voyage 1597.10Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 89; CSP Dom. 1595-7, pp. 458, 472; HMC Hatfield, vii. 437, 439-41, 446, 447, 450. Col. of ft. Ireland 1599.11CSP Dom. 1598-1601, pp. 151, 156; CSP Carew 1589-1600, 305, 311; HMC Hatfield, ix. 147; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 405. Gov. Jersey 1630-d.12C66/2521, mm. 1-6; Actes des Etats de L’Ile de Jersey 1606-1651 (Société Jersiaise, xiv), 70-1.

Local: commr. musters, Suff. 1598.13APC 1597-8, p. 307. Dep. lt. 1615-bef. May 1639.14HMC 13th Rep. IV, 441, 443; Add. 15084, f. 4; Add. 39245, ff. 22v, 72; Bodl. Tanner 67, ff. 48v, 112v. Capt. militia ft. Suff. 1615; col. 1625-aft. 1632.15Add. 39245, ff. 22v, 91, 116, 140v, 157v. J.p. Suff. 1617-bef. 1626; Norf. 1624-bef. 1626.16Add. 39245, ff. 36v-37; C231/4, f. 172. Collector, Palatinate benevolence, Suff. 1620.17Univ. of Chicago, Bacon coll. 3937. Commr. subsidy, Bury St Edmunds 1624, 1625, 1626.18C212/22/23; Suff. RO (Bury), D2/1/1-2. Kpr. of the game, Thetford and Swaffham Norf. 1626.19CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 578. Commr. Forced Loan, Norf. 1626-7; Suff., Bury St Edmunds 1627;20Rye, State Pprs. 48; Rymer, Foedera, viii. pt. 2, p. 144; C193/12/2, ff. 41, 50, 76v. sewers, Mdx. and Westminster 1634;21C181/4, f. 190v. Deeping and Gt. Level 1638-9 Dec. 1641;22C181/5, ff. 101, 196. River Colne, Bucks., Herts. and Mdx. Dec. 1638-aft. May 1639;23C181/5, ff. 122, 136. navigation, River Lark, Suff. 1635;24Coventry Docquets, 306. inquiry, Fleet prison 1635;25Coventry Docquets, 41; CSP Dom. 1634-5, p. 465. oyer and terminer, the Verge 1639; Surr. 12 May 1640;26C181/5, ff. 154v, 169. gaol delivery, 12 May 1640.27C181/5, f. 169. Ld. lt. (jt.) Suff. June 1640-Mar. 1642.28CSP Dom. 1640, p. 336. Commr. array (roy.), 24 June 1642.29Northants. RO, FH133, unfol.

Court: gent. of privy chamber, 1603-aft. 1625.30Harl. 6166, f. 68v; HMC 7th Rep. 526; LC2/6, f. 37v. V.-chamberlain of the household, July 1630-Jan. 1639;31LC5/132, p. 202; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 189. comptroller by Jan. 1639-Aug. 1641.32CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 389; 1641-3, pp. 73, 77. Cllr. to Henrietta Maria, ?1628-aft. Nov. 1638.33Rymer, Foedera, viii. pt. 4, pp. 75, 76, ix. pt. 2, p. 187. Commr. tendering oaths to queen’s servants, May 1634.34Coventry Docquets, 40. Master of the game to Henrietta Maria by June 1634-aft. 1641.35Rymer, Foedera, viii. pt. 4, p. 76, ix. pt. 2, p. 187; Dorset RO, D/FSI Box 267, copies of official documents, 1660-4, unfol.; NLW, Wynnstay ms 166, p. 8.

Central: PC, July 1630-d.36APC 1630-1, pp. 2, 49, 370. Commr. poor relief, 1631;37Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. app. 83; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 474. reprieve of felons, 1633;38CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 547. appointment of provost marshals, 1633.39CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 53. Member, high commn. Canterbury prov. Dec. 1633.40CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 326. Commr. wardrobe inquiry, 1635;41Coventry Docquets, 42; Rymer, Foedera, viii. pt. 4, p. 127. defective titles, 1635.42Rymer, Foedera, ix. pt. 1, p. 6.

Estate: sold manor of Stanton Hall, Suff. 1626;43C66/2404, m. 9. sold manor of Great Horningsheath, Suff. 1628;44Coventry Docquets, 575-6. sold manor of Whelnetham, Suff. 1629;45Coventry Docquets, 592; C66/2523, no. 42. sold lands at Claxton, Norf. 1632;46C66/2608, mm. 26-27. bought manor of Stanningfield, Suff. 1638.47Suff. RO (Bury), Acc. 326/49.

Likenesses: oils, unknown, c.1626;48Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 423-4, opp. 224. oils, unknown, inscribed 1622 but prob. c.1639.49Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 424, opp. 232.

Will: 4 Jan. 1645; pr. 24 Jan. 1645.50PROB11/192/274; Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 155-6.

Court grandee

The Jermyns had long been one of the leading Suffolk families and for three generations during the seventeenth century, beginning with Sir Thomas Jermyn, they could claim to be one of the great families of the court. By the late 1620s Sir Thomas, who had been a gentleman of the privy chamber since the accession of James I, was openly lobbying for a senior position in the royal household.51SP16/139, f. 79. That ambition was achieved in July 1630 when he became vice-chamberlain to the king and a privy councillor.52LC5/132, p. 202; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 189; C115/M31/8128; APC 1630-1, pp. 2, 49, 370. Jermyn then spent most of the 1630s at court overseeing the smooth running of the royal household above stairs. The position of vice-chamberlain required him to work closely with his immediate superior, the lord chamberlain, who throughout Jermyn’s period as vice-chamberlain was Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke; the pair seem to have got on well together. As a privy councillor, he sat on a wide variety of commissions, including both high commission and star chamber.53APC 1628-9, pp. 276, 277; 1630-1, pp. 111, 217; CSP Dom. 1629-31, pp. 474, 523; 1631-3, pp. 201, 547; 1633-4, pp. 53, 326, 431; 1634-5, pp. 166-7, 465; 1637-8, p. 4; HMC Hastings, iv. 214, 216. All this was largely routine work but it was well rewarded, especially as the king made special grants to him in 1637 amounting to £6,500.54CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 359, 552. During the 1630s he accumulated a whole series of valuable reversions for the benefit of his family.55Aylmer, King’s Servants, 339.

In 1603 Jermyn had been promised that he would be governor of Jersey in succession to the existing incumbent, Sir John Peyton†. Charles I had since confirmed that promise.56Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain 1603-1624, ed. M. Lee (New Jersey, 1972), 44; HMC Downshire, ii. 381; Coventry Docquets, 279; C66/2413, mm. 33-36. In 1628 Peyton finally retired, opening the way for Jermyn’s appointment in February 1630.57C66/2521, mm. 1-6. A separate grant specified that his successor-but-one (after Viscount Wimbledon) would be Jermyn’s eldest surviving son, Thomas*.58Eg. 2553, f. 77v; CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, pp. 355, 366. On Sir Thomas’s succession, it was made clear to the islanders that he would govern them from London, with ‘his residence in that island being for the present dispensed with by reason of his necessary attendance in England’.59CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, p. 425. Decisions to be made on the spot were taken by his lieutenant, Sir Philip Carteret. This still required him to handle any of the island’s business referred to London, although some of that was probably delegated to his sons.60S.E. Hoskins, Charles the Second in the Channel Islands (1854), i. 34; CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 271, 324; Add. 1625-49, pp. 407, 518, 535. Thomas’s younger brother, Henry*, was added in 1641 to the queue of future governors.61C66/2888, mm. 16-21; Rymer, Foedera, ix. pt. 3, p. 39.

In 1633 Jermyn, as vice-chamberlain, had accompanied the king to Scotland;62CSP Ven. 1632-6, p. 93. in early 1639, when the king travelled north in very different circumstances, he remained in London. Sir Thomas was simply too old to resume his military career and he could be of greater use in London. He was included in January 1639 on the committee which met each morning to make arrangements for the king’s absence and, when, within days of the creation of that committee, he was promoted to become comptroller of the royal household, he was also added to its sister committee which was planning the logistical arrangements for the king’s journey.63CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 340, 389. The retirement of Sir Thomas Edmondes† had caused Sir Henry Vane I* to move one place up in the hierarchy of the board of greencloth to become treasurer of the household and so allowed Jermyn to be given the comptroller’s place. This promotion meant that Jermyn was no longer vice-chamberlain but, in the absence of a successor and in a clear indication of his trust in him, Pembroke left Jermyn with the ‘power of ordering business’ in the lord chamberlain’s office for the duration of this campaign.64Finet Notebks. ed. A.J. Loomie, 259n. Jermyn seems also to have acted as Pembroke’s deputy as lord lieutenant of Kent at this time.65CSP Dom. 1639, p. 53. It was a matter of course that Jermyn was included on the commission which sat in London while the king was away vainly seeking to crush the Scottish rebellion.66CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 607; HMC Cowper, ii. 223.

Failing to manage the Short Parliament

In March 1640 the Jermyn interest in Bury St Edmunds easily ensured that Sir Thomas was elected as the town’s MP for a sixth time.67HMC 4th Rep. 24. Jermyn thereby became a key actor in this Parliament, since it was usual for any senior royal servants sitting as MPs to advise on which were the courses of action favoured by the king. Such officials were heard with respect and, even when not explicitly voicing his opinions, they carried authority as the persons best placed to know the king’s mind. Jermyn, as the comptroller and a privy councillor, ranked above every other MP, except the treasurer of the household, Sir Henry Vane I. Both the king and the Commons would have considered Jermyn negligent had he not tried to act as emissary between them. Vane, Jermyn, Sir Francis Windebank* and the solicitor-general, Edward Herbert I*, were, in effect, the king’s managers in the Commons. Their task was not an easy one.

As soon as John Pym* began causing trouble at the start of the Short Parliament, Jermyn assumed his duties as the voice of sensible moderation, advising caution lest hasty action offend the king. When the Commons got down to business on 17 April and heard the Speaker’s report on the king’s speech, Pym sprang into action, objecting that the king should not be allowed to order them to proceed. Jermyn countered that the king had no desire to treat them unreasonably.68Aston’s Diary, 7. The next day, when objections were raised as to the manner in which the previous Parliament had been dissolved, Jermyn initially defended Speaker Finch’s decision to obey the king’s orders. Discussing the events of 1629 could only further delay consideration of more pressing matters, particularly the contents of the king’s speech. Only later in this debate, when it was clear that others wanted to be awkward, did Jermyn support the calls for the records to be consulted and for a committee to investigate before any decision was taken.69Procs. Short Parl. 161; Aston’s Diary, 16-17, 20; CJ ii. 6b.

The modest success on 22 April in getting the king’s speech reported to the Commons again was not, as Jermyn wished, followed by a decision to debate it that day. Instead, complaints against the commission of Canons took priority.70Aston’s Diary, 28, 29, 33. The Commons finally moved on to discuss the king’s speech the following day. After an opening statement from Sir Ralph Hopton* of the case for pressing redress of grievances, Jermyn tried to reassure MPs by reminding them of the conciliatory tone of the king’s own remarks, implying that exclusive attention to grievances could only sour hopes of concessions.71Procs. Short Parl. 170, 200; Aston’s Diary, 38. Ineffectually, he suggested that moves by the Commons to co-ordinate their complaints with the Lords by organizing a joint conference would violate usual procedures or that they should delay a decision. Following Herbert’s lead, he also picked up on George Peard’s* use of the word ‘abomination’ to describe Ship Money to produce a brief distraction from the substance of Peard’s complaint.72Aston’s Diary, 39, 40, 44; Procs. Short Parl. 172. The decision to seek a conference with the Lords further delayed the prospect of a vote to grant supply. The managers now had to limit, as best as they could, the scope of the individual grievances drawn up for the conference. On 24 April Jermyn intervened twice, suggesting that complaints against the principle of the commission of Canons were weakened by the existence of clear precedents for a commission of that sort and that claims about the removal of godly ministers would have to be substantiated.73Procs. Short Parl. 175; Aston’s Diary, 51, 54. Neither intervention dissuaded the Commons from including the commission for Canons and the removal of godly ministers among the heads for their joint conference. As a courtesy, Jermyn and the other two senior royal officials (Vane and Windebank) were named first to those appointed to manage it, ahead of all 26 members of the committee which had drafted the heads the day before.74CJ ii. 12a. When the report of the meeting to the Commons (27 Apr.) revealed that the Lords wanted them first to vote supplies, MPs including Sir Walter Erle*, Harbottle Grimston*, Pym and John Glynne* took exception to peers’ incursion into such questions, invoking infringement of privilege. But Jermyn argued that they were missing the point, reiterating the king’s contention that the need to replace the Ship Money revenues was a matter of urgent national importance. His striking image (recorded by both diarists in the House), that supply in return for Ship Money would be a release from a Egyptian captivity, was neatly judged to remind the Commons that acceptance of the Lords’ advice was the quickest way to resolve argument. Less tactful was his use of necessity as an overriding reason to consent to the deal on offer.75Aston’s Diary, 69; Procs. Short Parl. 179. Later speakers in this debate mostly ignored these points and Jermyn’s second intervention – to point out that the Lords’ comments had been no more than advice – shows he belatedly realised that the procedural arguments had to be countered directly.76Aston’s Diary, 73.

Debates on religious grievances two days later (29 Apr.) required a change of tactics. The managers held back while speaker after speaker denounced royal innovations. Jermyn probably considered Sir Henry Mildmay’s (unseconded) proposal that the Commons prepare a bill to clarify the king’s ecclesiastical prerogatives as an undesirable limitation upon them.77Aston’s Diary, 91-2. But his main contribution was not made until the Commons had agreed to all the religious grievances and then moved on to debate whether they should be considered crimes as well. It may have been frustration over the lengthy catalogue of complaints through which he had just been forced to sit that impelled him to launch into a lecture vindicating the king’s ecclesiastical principles. He defended the ceremonial innovations on the grounds that they were matters indifferent which, in the interests of unity, the king had the right to regulate. In response to Sir Thomas Lyttelton’s implied criticisms of the queen’s Catholicism, he restated the official position, that she should be allowed to practise her faith unhindered but that no other Catholics should be able to exploit that privilege.78Aston’s Diary, 96. Jermyn showed greater self-control on 1 May. When Pym excited the Commons’ anxieties by demanding action against the master of St John’s, Cambridge, William Beale, for a 1635 sermon claiming that the king did not need a Parliament to make laws, Jermyn eschewed a defence of Beale which would only have further inflamed the debate. Instead, he indicated his willingness to go along with Pym’s proposal that Beale be summoned immediately without first conducting an investigation.79Aston’s Diary, 113.

In the final days of the session the managers had little option but to re-emphasise the urgency of the Scottish emergency in the vain hope that this might avert deadlock. Vane led for the court, with Jermyn held in reserve to intervene later when particular dangers arose. He could do no more than sneer when responding to Pym’s big speech on 2 May. Pym’s implication that the king could not be trusted to judge what sort of emergencies justified grants of supply by the Commons was an attack on the king’s honour and so had to be treated with disdain.80Procs. Short Parl. 190; Aston’s Diary, 123. In accordance with usual practice, Vane, Jermyn and Windebank were ordered at the end of the debate on 2 May to communicate to the king the Commons’ desire for more time in which to consider supply.81CJ ii. 19a. Two days later Vane told the Commons that the king was willing to surrender Ship Money in return for twelve subsidies and that they must come to an immediate decision. When Sir Hugh Cholmeley* returned to the question of the legality of Ship Money, Jermyn ineffectually appealed to MPs to avoid that controversy and instead concentrate on the bigger picture.82CJ ii. 19a-b; Procs. Short Parl. 194; Aston’s Diary, 129. After two further interventions to reassure them about the details of the settlement on offer, Jermyn again called on them to avoid the question of legality and reminded them of just how generous the king’s proposal was.83Procs. Short Parl. 208, 209; Aston’s Diary, 130, 139. Edward Hyde* (who admittedly wished to imply that his own advice would have averted the breakdown) later contended that Vane closed off the possibility of agreement by telling the Commons that the offer from the king was not open to negotiation. Jermyn must have been among the privy councillors whom Hyde claimed remained silent ‘though they were much displeased with the secretary’s averment’.84Clarendon, Hist. i. 181-2. Edmund Waller* is said to have claimed that he warned Jermyn that Vane’s tactics would backfire, but that Jermyn was reluctant to challenge Vane. According to Waller, Henry Jermyn’s verdict on this incident was that ‘his father’s cowardice ruin’d the king’.85E. Waller, Poems (1711), pp. xx-xxi. The brinkmanship by Vane and Herbert failed to convince, and Vane, Jermyn and Windebank had to return to the king with the bad news that the Commons wanted more time.86CJ ii. 19b. But this concession was not forthcoming: the dissolution was imposed the following day.

Thus ended a frustrating session for Jermyn. He had shown persistence in presenting the king’s case and the argument that there was an overriding need to grant supply was difficult to counter directly. However, with the Commons eager to consider any number of other matters first, the king’s determination to obtain an early grant of supply had been risky in the extreme. Hyde’s account, which blamed Vane and Herbert for convincing the king that no good could come from this Parliament, implies that Jermyn and the other managers might have done better.87Clarendon, Hist. i. 182.

Jermyn spent much of the interval between the two Parliaments of 1640 enthusiastically assisting preparations for the renewed campaign against the Scottish rebels. In Suffolk these were disrupted by the death on 3 June of the lord lieutenant, the 2nd earl of Suffolk (Theophilus Howard†). Jermyn pressed the king for the speedy appointment of a replacement and within days he and Suffolk’s son, the new earl, were jointly named to the position.88Add. 39245, f. 193; Add. 15084, ff. 25-26; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 336. Jermyn left London for Suffolk on 19 June. The Suffolk deputy lieutenants had encountered some resistance to their recruitment efforts but, with the assistance of Sir William Playters*, Jermyn was soon able to restore order.89CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 336, 346, 471. Thereafter preparations in Suffolk continued apace under his supervision.90CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 471-2; PC Reg. xi. p. 623; Add. 39245, f. 194; Add. 15084, ff. 27-28; Bodl. Tanner 65, f. 101. As it was never intended that he would actually participate in the campaign, it was possible for Jermyn to act as deputy to Pembroke as lord lieutenant of both Cornwall and Kent during the earl’s absence.91CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 372-3, 627-8; 1640-1, pp. 22, 69.

At the privy council meeting on 16 August Jermyn opined that the king’s imminent departure to go north in person was dangerous.92CSP Dom. 1640, p. 590; Misc. State Pprs. (1778), ii. 147, 150. Along with the other councillors who remained in London, he was appointed to the commission for the safety of the kingdom.93CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 3-4. Jermyn was among councillors who advised the king in early September to summon a Great Council at York, believing that the peers would offer more generous terms than the Scots, but he was not deluded that the summons alone would end the crisis.94Misc. State Pprs. ii. 169. His first concern was to return to Suffolk to ensure that the county remained in a state of readiness but ‘a violent fit of sickness’ delayed his departure from Hampton Court.95Add. 39245, f. 196v. His determination to make this journey was strengthened by reports from his deputy lieutenants concerning the hostile reaction in Suffolk to the prospect of continued war against the Scots. In an echo of some of his speeches to the most recent Parliament, he wrote back to the Suffolk deputy lieutenants on 22 September pointing out that the need was urgent as they were being invaded.96Add. 39245, f. 197. Jermyn was still at Hampton Court on 4 October, when he attended the privy council, but his failure to attend its meetings for the next month no doubt reflects an absence to oversee the elections in Suffolk.97PC Reg. xii. pp. 15-47. This time Jermyn saw off a challenge from Sir William Spring* to get both himself and his eldest son returned for the two Bury St Edmunds seats.

Holding the court line in the Long Parliament

Jermyn did not view the opening of the Long Parliament with much optimism. He was said to have warned two pages who were fooling around outside the Commons chamber during its opening week, ‘Boys, be ye temperate, this will prove a whipping Parliament’.98A Key to the Cabinet of the Parliament (1648), 1 (E.449.2); A. Brome, Rump (1662), i. 370. The events of the previous Parliament had confirmed that he was not a natural parliamentary strategist and it was now left to others to lead for the court. The only further occasion on which he avowedly acted as spokesman for the king was when he told the House in November 1640 that ‘the board’ had no official view regarding the petition from the anti-Laudian cleric, George Walker, except to recommend that a committee be appointed to investigate his accusations against the dean of the court of Arches, Sir John Lambe.99Northcote Note Bk. 15-16; CJ ii. 40a; CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 277-8. However, Jermyn’s activities during the first six months of the Long Parliament demonstrate that parliamentary management was never simply a matter of set piece speeches. Sometimes his role in proceedings was directly attributable to the status of his office. The Commons chose Sir Henry Vane I and Jermyn in March 1641 as its messengers to the king about the subsidies from Convocation or the manuscripts of Sir Edward Coke† because they were the two senior privy councillors available.100CJ ii. 108a, 112a; Add. 64807, f. 1; Procs. LP, ii. 806. Similarly, the use of Jermyn to deliver the important messages from and to the queen on 4 February and 21 July 1641 was simply the usual practice.101CJ ii. 78b, 218b; CSP Ven. 1640-2, p. 125; Procs. LP, vi. 41-2, 45. Jermyn’s attempt to obtain the consent of the Commons on 3 December 1640 to the bail imposed on William Prynne* arose from his duties as governor of Jersey (from where Prynne had just been returned from imprisonment) and it must have been because of this involvement in Prynne’s case, rather than any reforming sympathies, that Jermyn was named to the important committee on high commission and star chamber later that day. It was again as governor of the island that he took an interest in the January 1641 petition against the dean of Jersey, David Bandinell.102Procs. LP, i. 442; Northcote Note Bk. 26-7; CJ ii. 44a-b, 62a. More to the point, there was a real need for trusty courtiers prepared to sit through the debates ready to counter unforeseen trouble with a quick rebuttal. Thus, when Pym raised the controversial cases of Henry Burton and John Bastwick on the fourth day of the session (7 Nov.), Jermyn advised consultation with the king before taking any action; when Secretary Windebank was accused of approving the release of the Catholic priests, Mosse and Goodman (12 Nov.), Jermyn warned the Commons off the subject by announcing that the releases had been approved by the king; and when Pym proposed that thanks be sent to the Lords for the completion of the treaty of Ripon (18 Nov.), Jermyn made sure that a message of thanks was sent to the king first.103Procs. LP, i. 32, 118, 121, 167; HMC 12th Rep. ii. 263; CJ ii. 27b. Jermyn seems to have been reasonably competent when handling this sort of business, although, in an assembly as turbulent as the Long Parliament, mere competence was perhaps not enough.

Jermyn’s interventions in December 1640 concerning Lord Keeper Finch fit this pattern of instantaneous crisis management. When, in sending delegations to question the other Ship Money judges, there were insulting calls to ignore Lord Keeper Finch, Jermyn requested some respect.104Northcote Note Bk. 39. MPs could not be allowed to acquire the habit of snubbing their colleagues. The question about whether Lord Keeper Finch should be provided with a chair and a stool when he appeared at the bar on 21 December might seem trivial, but Jermyn was on hand to inject some common sense into the discussion.105Northcote Note Bk. 90. His speech during the day’s debate on Finch’s impeachment may have been planned as the court’s single comment on the subject. Instead of attempting a full-scale defence of Finch (who, in any case, had spoken at length when he had appeared at the bar), Jermyn limited himself to what was probably a carefully thought-out tactical intervention. His demand for clarification as to whether Finch was being impeached on the basis of statute or the Commons’ own opinion slyly implied that the impeachment might be unlawful.106Procs. LP, ii. 6; Northcote Note Bk. 97.

At first, as in the debate on 13 November, it was possible for Jermyn to repeat the by-now familiar line that a decision on subsidies could not be delayed as the Scots remained an urgent problem.107Procs. LP, i. 139. Once the treaty of Ripon was effected, Jermyn found himself dealing with the problems of maintaining both armies. When Vane reported on 31 December that the arrears in pay were threatening to cause disorder in the army in the north, Jermyn called for a resolution authorising the use of martial law to quell it. This two-headed approach backfired with most speakers then concentrating only on Jermyn’s motion, which was generally denounced as outrageous.108Procs. LP, ii. 78. A week later (7 Jan.) Vane was again partnered by Jermyn in debate. Vane delivered the immediate unfavourable reply to Sir Walter Erle’s* motion that the Irish army be disbanded on the grounds that it was a hotbed of support for the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†). The hopeless task of countering the otherwise unanimous support for Erle’s proposal was left to Jermyn. All Jermyn could do was repeat Vane’s suggestion (which was obviously the agreed ministerial line) that the Irish disbandment should not take place until the Scottish army had returned to Scotland.109Procs. LP, ii. 136-7. Jermyn managed to win a minor victory later that day. At an intervening conference with the Lords, a letter from the army officers at Ripon was read and, in the hope of reinforcing officers’ comments about the poor state of their forces, Jermyn was successful in proposing that the officer who had brought the letter be invited to provide further details.110LJ iv. 126a; Procs. LP, ii. 137-8. In the debate on 3 February Jermyn was probably the main speaker in favour of the minority view that the money to be paid to the Scots under the treaty should be limited to £200,000.111Procs. LP, ii. 354.

The anti-episcopal measures brought before the Commons in late 1640 and early 1641 presented equally difficult problems for the court managers. Their arguments had to reflect the king’s wholehearted disapproval of these measures but, at the same time, win widespread support in both Houses. The deep divisions on this issue allowed the managers to score occasional modest successes. Responding to the efforts by Lord Digby (George Digby*) and 2nd Viscount Falkland (Lucius Cary*) on 8 February 1641 to have the root and branch petition thrown out or deferred, Jermyn initially agreed with Falkland that no committee should be appointed to consider the petition for the time being.112Procs. LP, ii. 390. As this debate progressed, however, the possibility that only parts of the petition might be committed was raised by several speakers, most of whom emphasised that they did not want this to happen. Realising that this move would maximise support against the Petition’s demand that episcopacy be abolished, Jermyn altered his position and spoke again to call for partial committal.113Procs. LP, ii. 392. The hope was clearly that the Commons’ hostility would be satisfied in proceeding only with the Petition’s particular complaints against the bishops. This was basically the arrangement agreed by the Commons the following day, although this did not, as Jermyn must have hoped, halt discussion of the more radical proposal for the ending of episcopacy. That Jermyn was ‘called in again’ during the ensuing division on the secondary issue of the additions to the committee for the Remonstrance might suggest that he was trying to avoid the division, but it seems more likely that it is evidence of confusion over what it was that they were voting on.114Procs. LP, ii. 401; CJ ii. 81b. When Jermyn spoke in the Commons a month later, on 10 March, it was probably to oppose the suggestion from Edward Bagshawe* that the bishops should not be allowed to vote in the Lords, rather than to propose delay on the substantive motion concerning the pluralities bill.115Procs. LP, ii. 696.

There some evidence that Jermyn’s attitude towards the proceedings against Strafford in 1640 and 1641 might have been fleetingly influenced by a dislike of the earl. In May 1639 Jermyn had sat among judges in star chamber in the case brought by Strafford against Sir Piers Crosby and Lord Mountnorris (Sir Francis Annesley†). Jermyn’s verdict seems to have had little to do with the facts of the case. He dismissed as absurd the rumour that Strafford had killed Robert Esmond in 1634 because, as Wentworth was ‘a person of great place and trust in another kingdom, where a great part of his majesty’s government is committed to his care, it behoves myself and all your lordships here present, to vindicate his honour’.116Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 895. On the main charge before the court, that Crosby and his co-defendants had spread that rumour, he decided that all but two of the accused (Fitzharris and Archer) should be found innocent as they were only reporting existing gossip. What more than anything else seems to have persuaded him to be lenient towards Crosby was that he had served under Buckingham on the Ile de Ré expedition.117Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 895. In late 1640 it is true that Jermyn had no reason to welcome an attack on Strafford by the Commons, for such moves could only be time-consuming and acrimonious. As early as the debates on 24 November 1640, when the Commons discussed the articles of impeachment, Jermyn raised objections to the second article as glossed by George Peard. The main accusation made by the second article was that Strafford had usurped the king’s powers and, innocently or otherwise, the grounds for Jermyn’s objection were probably that Peard was claiming that the exercise of royal power by a subject was necessarily tyrannical. A vote on the matter resolved that Jermyn had overreacted.118Procs. LP, i. 271; CJ ii. 35a. It soon became apparent that Jermyn himself would be called as a witness at the trial.119LJ iv. 104b; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 396; HMC 12th Rep. ii. 268. This may indicate that, when required to stand by Strafford on the details of the allegations against him, Jermyn had initially been less than fully supportive. From later events, it would seem that, on appearing before the committee of investigation, Jermyn had made statements which the committee thought supported their case. If so, he soon changed his mind. He certainly showed no sympathy with moves by Arthur Goodwin* and Henry Marten* on 18 February 1641 to retaliate against the Lords for granting Strafford more time to produce a defence. His suggestion that the Lords might have acted correctly helped block this crude attempt to hinder Strafford’s cause.120Procs. LP, ii. 479-80. Strafford evidently concluded that Jermyn could be trusted to support his case for he asked that he appear as one of his witnesses.121LJ iv. 190b-191a; Two Diaries of Long Parl. 25, 110; Procs. LP, ii. 829, 833, iii. 317, 319; CJ ii. 115b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 44. Jermyn can hardly have welcomed the task imposed on him of going to the king on the third day of the trial to ask for the confiscated manuscript of Coke’s Institutes, so that it could be used in the preparation of the case against Strafford.122CJ ii. 112a. His day in court finally came on 5 April 1641.123LJ iv. 207a; Procs. LP, iii. 378, 379, 385, 390, 392, 401. The purpose of his appearance was to testify concerning the allegations that, following the failure of the Short Parliament, the earl had advised the king to resort to more forceful methods, such as the use of the Irish army (article 23). Asked whether he had heard Strafford make these remarks, Jermyn expatiated at length on his poor memory. He then briefly repeated the evidence he had given to the committee of investigation, stating that ‘he heard my Lord of Strafford say something of the Parliament’s deserting, or forsaking the king, or something to that effect or purpose; but he did not remember then what inference my lord made upon it, nor what he did conclude thereupon’.124Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 540-1. It was easy for Strafford to point out that there was little value in such imprecise evidence. Jermyn’s statements when he returned to the witness box later that day were even less persuasive as evidence for a conviction.125Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 558, 568; Procs. LP, iii. 385, 401. It would appear, however, that Jermyn was not among those who voted against the attainder bill two weeks later.126Verney, Notes, 57-8; Procs. LP, iv. 42, 51; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 248-9. It is much more likely that he was absent than that he voted to attaint Strafford.

Retirement

It was from about this point that Jermyn began to attend the Commons only rarely. He was still around to be named to a committee (on the bill to punish members of Convocation) on 27 April, but the embarrassment of his son’s involvement in the army plot soon added to his ill-health (he suffered from gout) as a discouragement to attendance.127CJ ii. 129a; Clarendon, Hist. i. 430; CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 432. His presence in the House would have been inopportune while the Commons busied themselves in accumulating evidence of Henry’s treachery, although Sir Thomas’s absence itself could always be used against them both. On 11 June Thomas Tomkins* complained that there was an MP ‘near the chair’ who had failed to attend during the past two months and so demanded that a new writ be issued to fill his place. Recognising that Tomkins was referring to Sir Thomas, William Wheler* (husband to the king’s laundress) explained that ‘he is so troubled for his son that he is unwilling to come to the House’. John Moore* noted that, ‘it being Sir Thomas Jermyn’, Tomkins’ proposal ‘was laid aside’.128Procs. LP, v. 95, 97. On 21 July Jermyn made what was probably his final appearance in the Commons to deliver a message from Henrietta Maria announcing that she had accepted Parliament’s advice that she remain in England, prefacing this with apologises for his recent absence.129CJ ii. 218b; Procs. LP, vi. 39, 41-2, 43, 45; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 405. By early August 1641 he had sold the office of comptroller to Sir Peter Wyche, for a sum variously reported as £5,000 or £7,000.130CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 73, 77; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 536. This removed another reason to attend the House. As Lady Jermyn later put it, ‘upon the beginning of the late troubles [he] retired home and lived quietly and paid all taxes’.131SP18/95, f. 5. When he came to write his account of the outbreak of the civil war, Edward Hyde* was in no doubt that Jermyn’s resignation as comptroller had been a major blow to the king, for Jermyn was ‘very honest to him and of good abilities’. His departure confirmed the disintegration of the king’s front bench team in the Commons.132Clarendon, Hist. i. 430.

Once Jermyn had retired from the fray, Parliament attempted to claim his remaining offices for its supporters. In February 1642 there were rumours that Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford was to replace him as the governor of Jersey.133Fairfax Corresp. iii. 7. This came to nothing and the island remained under royal control. In October 1642 Jermyn nominated George Carteret† as his lieutenant governor, and he governed for the time being without challenge.134Hoskins, Charles the Second in the Channel Islands, i. 50-6; Actes des Etats de L’Ile de Jersey 1606-1651, 50-1; HMC 2nd Rep. 159. The Militia Ordinance of March 1642 ended Sir Thomas’s service as lord lieutenant of Suffolk, leaving the earl of Suffolk to continue in that office alone. Refusing to recognise these changes, the king expected Jermyn to preside over his commission of array for Suffolk. The quorum for the commission issued in June 1642 consisted of Jermyn, the 21st earl of Arundel, and Arundel’s son, Lord Mowbray (Henry Frederick Howard†), and Jermyn was again included in the expanded quorum of the August 1642 commission.135Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. Efforts to mobilise for the king in Suffolk had relatively little success and it cannot have helped that Jermyn, potentially his leading supporter in the county, was hampered by his continuing health problems.

It took the Commons over a year to use Jermyn’s absence against him. On 12 August 1642 Jermyn and another Suffolk MP, Henry Coke*, were summoned to attend and three months later, after Sir Thomas had failed to respond, an order was issued for him to be brought to the House under guard. This order was confirmed on 1 December and he was soon placed under arrest.136CJ ii. 716b, 850b, 871b; PJ iii. 330; Add. 31116, p. 32. On 26 December Harbottle Grimston, who the previous May had spoken in the House in defence of Jermyn’s eldest son, now informed the Commons that Sir Thomas was willing to pay £66 13s 4d (100 marks) to Parliament’s war chest. To gain maximum sympathy and to excuse future absences, Grimston asserted that Jermyn was ‘72 years of age’ (a slight exaggeration) and ‘troubled with the strangury and otherwise very infirm’.137Procs. LP, iv. 231; CJ ii. 902b; Add. 31116, p. 32. Claims that Jermyn had sent money and arms to the king were dismissed as unsubstantiated slanders spread by the Ipswich MP, John Gurdon*.138Harl. 163, f. 274. What Grimston probably did not mention was that Sir Thomas had recently remarried and had, or was about to, become a father once again.139Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 35, 237, 239; Bodl. Tanner 98, ff. 16-17. The question as to whether Jermyn should be set free then split the Commons. Objections were raised to him being allowed to return to Suffolk because ‘he did no offices therein, making the people backward in their contributions’.140Add. 31116, p. 32. Another Suffolk MP, Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, countered this with an appeal to consider ‘this gentleman’s age and infirmities and that he hath suffered too much already upon groundless suspicions and false rumours’.141Harl. 163, f. 274v. The identities of the tellers in the division (Denzell Holles* and Grimston’s old friend, Bulstrode Whitelocke*, for those supporting release and Sir Thomas Cheke* and Henry Marten* for those opposed) suggest that the split was along predictable lines. The hard-liners who wanted Jermyn kept in custody lost by 65 votes to 56.142CJ ii. 902b; Harl. 163, f. 274v. His release was almost halted, however, either by Sir Thomas’s foolishness or by the designs of his enemies. Four days later, on Gurdon’s motion, the deputy to the sergeant-at-arms told the Commons that Jermyn had refused to pay him his fees, telling him, ‘Dost thou think that I have not been sufficiently charged and troubled for every lie that the knave Gurdon shall tell to the House of Commons?’.143CJ ii. 907a; Add. 31116, p. 34. Whether or not Jermyn ever said this, the allegation that Gurdon was targetting him is entirely believable. The following week a letter from Jermyn denying the story was read to the Commons and, with only the word of the deputy-sergeant to support them, the accusations were dismissed. The decision that Jermyn be released was immediately reiterated.144CJ ii. 918a; Add. 31116, p. 36.

Jermyn’s return to Rushbrooke did not terminate his dealings with the Long Parliament. On 30 March 1643 his old colleague, Sir Henry Vane I, presented a petition from him to the Commons complaining that parliamentarian soldiers had confiscated horses from his stables at Rushbrooke. The petition reminded them that Jermyn had their permission to be absent on the grounds of ill-health and adduced the loyalty manifest in his regular payment of his weekly assessment. Some of the ‘violent spirits’ opposed any order on Jermyn’s behalf, but the Commons passed his petition on to Lord Grey of Warke (Sir William Grey†) on the assumption that Grey would treat his complaints sympathetically.145Harl. 163, f. 348v; CJ iii. 25a. In November of that year the Commons decided that Jermyn should be charged £1,000 as his assessment on his real estate. As his wife would later claim, Jermyn co-operated with the Committee for Advance of Money, although only after he had asked for and obtained a reduction in this figure to £500. It can be assumed that his case for leniency was based on the fact that he no longer formally controlled the family estates. His agent, Robert Roane, had paid in the £500 by the middle of February 1644.146CJ iii. 319b, 393a; CCAM 301-2; Bodl. Tanner 98, ff. 16-17. At some stage Jermyn also took the Covenant.147Bodl. Tanner 98, f. 17. However, such co-operation won him no favours when the Commons came to consider the absent MPs and, by the time Jermyn’s assessment was delivered to Haberdashers’ Hall, he had probably been expelled from Parliament; he was among the 36 Members disabled from sitting by the Commons on 5 February 1644.148CJ iii. 389b. Jermyn’s expulsion may not have been punishment for sitting in the rival Parliament held at Oxford in January: what evidence there is suggests that he had been too ill to respond to the king’s summons.149Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 575.

It was clear by the beginning of January 1645 that Jermyn’s strangury would soon kill him.150A True State of the Right and Claime of the Lady Jermin to the Registers Office in Chancery [1655]. Preparations were made to put his troubled affairs into some sort of order, for Sir Thomas was now effectively bankrupt. Since the early 1620s most of his lands had been sold off and he had transferred what remained of the estate at Rushbrooke into the name of his eldest son.151University of Chicago, Bacon coll. 2783; Bacon coll. 3974; Bacon coll. 2786; C66/2404, m. 9; C66/2523, no. 42; PROB11/161/531; C66/2608, mm. 26-27; Soc. Antiq. MS 667, p. 144; Bodl. Tanner 226, p. 58; True State; F. Haslewood, ‘The ancient families of Suff.’, Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. viii. 173. The only source of income he could leave to his second wife and their two young children was the profits from one of the many offices in reversion he had obtained from the king. The reversion of the office of register in chancery had been given to Henry and Thomas in 1638 on the understanding that they were no more than his trustees and, when they had entered into office soon afterwards, it was Sir Thomas’s nominee (Roane) who had acted as their deputy. After he had married, Sir Thomas had assumed that this might support his new wife during her widowhood.152C66/2822, mm. 20-21; Northants. RO, FH2075X; Rymer, Foedera, ix. pt. 2, p. 205; SP18/95, f. 5; True State; HMC 7th Rep. 79-80; Bodl. Tanner 98, f. 16. Unfortunately, Parliament had already removed Thomas and Henry, appointing Walter Long* to the place in December 1643.153CJ iii. 326b; LJ vi. 330b. Sir Thomas proceeded as if this change had never taken place. As he lay dying his lawyers prepared a deed naming trustees to act in the names of the patentees but according to Sir Thomas’s wishes. Presumably in the realization that Parliament might well query the arrangement, Sir Harbottle Grimston* was among them.154SP18/95, f. 5; True State; Bodl. Tanner 98, f. 16. On 4 January Jermyn signed his will, which confirms that the family estates were no longer in his hands; he left to his wife, the sole beneficiary, little more than his household goods.155PROB11/192/274; Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 155-6. He also explained to the assembled relatives (who included his sister, Lady Poley, and her daughter, Katherine) his intentions regarding the trust. But it was too late: he died leaving the hurriedly-prepared deed unsigned.156Bodl. Tanner 98, ff. 16-17; CCAM, 849; True State; HMC 5th Rep. 116. The funeral took place in the church at Rushbrooke on 7 January 1645.157Hervey, Rushbrook Par. Reg. 56. The epitaph erected in his memory in the chancel assured visitors that Jermyn was ‘expecting a glorious resurrection’.158CUL, Add. 3310, pp. 118-19.

Subsequent disputes over the registership in chancery provide a lengthy postscript to this deathbed drama.159Aylmer, State’s Servants, 88-90. Walter Long forfeited the office by his flight in 1647 and Lady Jermyn took that opportunity to present her case to Parliament, indicating that she wished to appoint Robert Goodwin* as her deputy. Parliament preferred to use the office to reward Miles Corbett* (Gurdon’s cousin), but Lady Jermyn persuaded Corbett to pay her a share of the profits.160HMC 5th Rep. 116; CCAM 849; True State; HMC 7th Rep. 85. This was money that she badly needed. Sir Thomas’s debts landed her for a time in debtors’ prison and she had to sell off what little her husband had left her.161SP18/95, f. 5; True State. The reorganisation of chancery in 1654 encouraged all the parties to renew their claims but the petitions presented by Lady Jermyn in 1655 and 1656 came to nothing.162SP18/95, f. 5; True State; CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 284-5, 290; 1656-7, p. 21. She achieved partial success in 1660 when Parliament ruled that the existing officeholders should remain in place but that the profits be paid to Lady Jermyn and her children.163Whitelocke, Diary, 576-7; Bodl. Tanner 98, ff. 16-17; HMC 7th Rep. 79-80, 85; LJ xi. 9b, 32a. The Jermyns obtained final victory later that year when Charles II granted the office jointly to Henry, who was now earl of St Albans, and Baptist May†.164CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 213; 1673-5, p. 548; 1676-7, p. 16; CTB v. 88; Add. Ch. 70778.

Jermyn had lived to see his son, Henry, raised to the peerage but also to see him leave England for exile on the continent. Plausibly, Henry believed that, by staying loyal to Charles I and Charles II during the 1640s and 1650s, he was in some way remaining true to the model of service his father had embodied throughout his long career at court. The cost of that career was only too visible in the family’s straitened circumstances at the time of Sir Thomas’s death but, just as the court had drained the Jermyns of their wealth, so it would be the court which would restore the family fortune. Henry, as earl of St Albans, and Sir Thomas’s Catholic grandson, Henry, prospered at the Restoration court and the Jermyns were once again one of the great court families. As a long-serving associate of James, duke of York, the younger Henry was created Lord Dover in 1685 and became a lord of the treasury under Lord Belasyse (John Belasyse*) in 1687. He was promoted by James II to be earl of Dover in 1689, after James had lost his throne. On Dover’s death in 1708 the main line of the family died out, Dover having upheld the family’s consistent loyalty to the Stuarts to the very end.