OSBORNE, Sir Edward (1596-1647), of Kiveton, Harthill, Yorks.

Osborne’s grandfather, who had represented London in the Parliament of 1586, had belonged to a minor gentry family from Kent.31Cokayne, ‘Fams. of Osborne and Buckby’, 1-3; HP Commons 1558-1603, ‘Edward Osborne’. He had acquired property in Essex and Yorkshire by marriage, and it was in Essex that Osborne’s father had established the family seat.32Hunter, Yorks. i. 141-2; VCH Essex, v. 277; HP Commons 1604-28, ‘Sir Edward Osborne’. Osborne would perhaps have settled in Essex had it not been for his father’s death on active service in Ireland in 1599 and his mother’s re-marriage to the Derbyshire gentleman Sir Peter Frescheville†. A year or so after coming of age in 1617, Osborne married a daughter of the North Riding gentleman Sir Thomas Belasyse† – father of the future royalists Henry Belasyse* and John Belasyse* – whereupon he sold his Essex property and enlarged his estate in Yorkshire.33Cokayne, ‘Fams. of Osborne and Buckby’, 5. Following the death of his first wife late in 1624, he established his main residence at Kiveton, in the West Riding parish of Harthill.34T. Comber, Mems. of Life and Death of the Right Honourable the Ld. Dep. Wandesforde (1778), 45.

In the Yorkshire elections to the 1625 Parliament, Osborne supported the candidacy of his close friend and neighbour Sir Thomas Wentworth†, the future earl of Strafford, whose antipathy towards the duke of Buckingham he shared.35Strafforde Letters, i. 19; Wentworth Pprs. ed. J. P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. ser. 4, xii), 116, 211, 303; Hunter, S. Yorks. i. 142; Cliffe, Yorks. 283; HP Commons 1604-28, ‘Sir Edward Osborne’. He probably owed his return for the Nottinghamshire constituency of East Retford in 1628 to the borough’s steward, the future royalist Sir Gervase Clifton*, who was a friend and kinsman of Osborne’s stepfather.36Supra, ‘Sir Gervase Clifton’; PROB11/165, f. 333v; HP Commons 1604-28, ‘Sir Edward Osborne’. Riding Wentworth’s coat-tails, he was appointed a West Riding magistrate and a member of the council of the north in 1629, and before Wentworth departed for Ireland in 1633 as lord deputy, he made Osborne vice-president of the council.37C231/5, p. 12; Strafforde Letters, i. 81; Reid, Council in the North, 488, 498. As Wentworth’s deputy, Osborne was efficient in implementing the laws against recusancy and apparently successful in taking much of the heat out of the council’s quarrel with his former in-laws the Belasyses.38Supra, ‘Henry Belasyse’; Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Str P18/35; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 439; Misc. Recusant Recs. ed. C. Talbot (Cath. Rec. Soc. lii), 382-3, 417; Cliffe, Yorks. 220. Wentworth praised him to the king in 1638, insisting that were none in Yorkshire ‘of better affections, better abilities, greater industry, [and] greater courage than the vice-president ... and [he] hath hitherto singularly well discharged himself therein’.39Strafforde Letters, ii. 254.

Osborne remained firmly subordinate to Wentworth in northern affairs – so much so that his authority to mobilise Yorkshire during military preparations in 1638-9 against the Scots was challenged and undermined by some of the county’s deputy lieutenants and militia colonels. He was particularly vexed by the conduct of his erstwhile friend – and Wentworth’s own nephew – Sir William Savile*, who resented Osborne’s elevation to a position where he ‘had liberty to discontent the best men of the country [i.e. county]’.40Supra, ‘Thomas Heblethwayte’; ‘Sir John Hotham’; infra, ‘Sir William Savile’; Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Str P10a/273-8, 18/157; Add. 64918, f. 35; Strafforde Letters, ii. 193; HMC Cowper, ii. 204; Cliffe, Yorks. 237, 310-11, 312. Osborne, too, was concerned for the county’s welfare and security as a result of the crown’s demands upon it. On 10 January 1639, following a royal order to ready the Yorkshire trained bands for service against the Scots, he signed a petition to the king from the county’s deputy lieutenants and militia colonels, expressing their readiness to march to any rendezvous, but reminding Charles that their troops were ‘never...once employed out of our county upon any remote service whatsoever’. The next day (11 Jan.), he reluctantly put his hand to a letter from this same group to Secretary Sir John Coke†, claiming that the county could not sustain the military burden it was being asked to shoulder.41Add. 64918, ff. 9, 11, 29; SP16/409/53, f. 141; SP16/409/67, f. 167; CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 305, 311, 347; HMC Cowper, ii. 189, 205, 208, 211, 227; D. Scott, ‘‘Hannibal at our gates’: loyalists and fifth-columnists during the bishops’ wars – the case of Yorkshire’, HR lxx. 272. In an effort to strengthen Osborne’s authority as well as his commitment to the king’s service, Wentworth commissioned him in February as deputy lieutenant general and colonel general of Yorkshire, with ‘absolute power’ in military matters, although how far this promotion contributed to the county’s generally creditable response to royal commands during the first bishops’ war is not clear.42Strafforde Letters, ii. 254, 282, 285; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 597; Scott, ‘Hannibal’, 273. The strain on Osborne of reconciling the interests of crown and county was undoubtedly considerable, and with the conclusion of hostilities that summer he obtained leave to attend Wentworth in Ireland (although ‘disaffections’ among the Yorkshire gentry obliged him to remain in England).43Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Str P10a/361-3; HMC Cowper, ii. 236, 237.

Following the calling of the Short Parliament late in 1639, Wentworth’s patronage secured Osborne the promise of a place at both Scarborough and York, and in March 1640 he was duly returned for the county capital, where he had resided with his family since 1633.44Supra, ‘Scarborough’; ‘York’. Before he could take his seat, however, he was commanded to resume preparations for the second bishops’ war, prompting him to complain to Secretary Sir Henry Vane I* that ‘if the affairs in these parts [Yorkshire] cannot dispense with me then York will conceive itself prejudiced’ and move for a fresh election.45CSP Dom. 1640, p. 10. Osborne’s efforts to mobilise the Yorkshire trained bands a second time against the Scots, even when backed by Wentworth (now earl of Strafford) and the king in person, were actively, and successfully, resisted by many of the county’s gentry. In August, he confided to Viscount Conway that ‘if Hannibal were at our gates, some had rather open them than keep him out’.46CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 572-3; 1640, pp. 10, 34-6, 42, 585, 595-7; Cliffe, Yorks. 319-20; Scott, ‘Hannibal’, 273-5, 281-2.

In the elections to the Long Parliament that autumn, Osborne and Sir Thomas Widdrington* stood for York as nominees of Strafford but were rejected by the corporation and freeman in favour of two civic puritans: aldermen Sir William Allanson and Thomas Hoyle.47Supra, ‘York’. With the help of both Strafford and Widdrington, Osborne was returned for Berwick-upon-Tweed after a contested election in which he defeated Hugh Potter*, a client of Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland.48Supra, ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed’. In September and October, Osborne was one of a dozen or so Yorkshire deputy lieutenants and militia officers who signed warrants for levying an additional month’s pay for the regiments of the future royalists Sir Thomas Danbie* and Sir William Pennyman*, which had been assigned, on the king’s orders, to defend the county’s northern border against incursions by the Scots.49N. Yorks. RO, ZFW, Wyvill of Constable Burton mss, Wyvill fam. pprs. to 1700 (mic. 1761); HMC 5th Rep. 331; Scott, ‘Hannibal’, 288. Almost every member of this group was to side with the king in 1642, although it was probably hostility to the Scots which served to unite them in 1640. Osborne seems to have forborne taking his seat in the Commons after Potter had petitioned the committee of privileges against his return. On 7 December, the committee reported in Potter’s favour, whereupon the House ordered that Osborne’s return was void and that a new election be held for Berwick.50CJ ii. 47a; Procs. LP i. 489, 497.

Osborne was summoned to Westminster in the spring of 1641 as a witness for the defence at Strafford’s trial and to testify in particular to the 27th charge – that the earl had levied an illegal tax on Yorkshire by threat of force (a reference to the September and October 1640 levies). When questioned by the court on 7 April, Osborne supported Strafford’s contention that the ‘major part’ of the Yorkshire gentry had agreed to maintain the trained bands for a month. He also insisted that the levy had been ‘freely paid’ and that the plan to keep only two regiments, Danbie’s and Pennyman’s, in the field represented value for money and was of ‘marvellous ease’ to the county as a whole.51Procs. LP iii. 425-6, 433, 434, 435, 438, 442-3, 450, 451; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 600-1, 616-18, 621, 625. The king renewed Osborne’s commission as deputy lieutenant general in July, but it was an office devoid of any authority.52Add. 28088, f. 88v.

Writing to his ‘cousin’ and friend Lord Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*) – who was a kinsman of the Belasyses – from Kiveton in December 1641, Osborne referred to his ‘retired condition’, for which he thanked his friends, though he lamented the fact that it rendered him ‘useless to those I owe most service ... as I begin to blush at favours received’.53Bodl. Fairfax 32, f. 13. In a letter to Fairfax a week later, he expressed concern at events in Ireland and acknowledged the existence of a ‘popish party’ in England, but added

in my weak opinion it can not be very seasonable ... to stand too strictly with the king and Lords upon all points, since without their concurrence nothing can be brought to a firm and unalterable conclusion. And it troubles some wise and well-affected men to find in the late declaration [the Grand Remonstrance] that unless the king will commit the charge of affairs to such counsellors and other ministers as the Parliament may confide in, they cannot yield supply either to his own private estate or the affairs abroad, without which I am sure neither can subsist long, and then judge into what awful condition this kingdom will soon be brought ...54Bodl. Fairfax 32, f. 17.

Continuing in this vein late in January 1642, he suggested that a ‘national free synod’ was the best way to compose ‘all distractions in the church, but if the multitudes be not suppressed that frequent Westminster now upon all occasions, a free synod can never be hoped for, since they have learnt the way so far already, as by threats of violence, to get what they please...’. Commenting on the king’s attempted arrest of the Five Members, he remarked that ‘without all question...no privilege of Parliament dost extend to treason, felony or breach of peace, so as there is no doubt some legal course or other [should] be taken against them as well as any others, or else it were hard both for the king and commonwealth’.55Bodl. Fairfax 32, ff. 68-9. In February, Fairfax sent Osborne a copy of a petition from the Yorkshire gentry to the Commons, requesting, among other things, that the votes of the papist peers be abolished and that ‘ceremonial burdens’ in religion be removed.56Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 367-73. In reply, Osborne admitted that it contained ‘some passages ... which I should by no means have assented unto. But it is not their pleasure [the county’s leading gentry] to call me to any of their meetings’. He referred to his retired condition and added, somewhat caustically, that ‘by the time others have undergone the like burden, trouble and charge I have done in public service, I think they will be best contented to rest quietly at home, unless their pains and endeavours were better accepted than mine have been’.57Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 372-3.

The king’s arrival at York in the spring of 1642 drew Osborne out of political retirement, and late in April he either signed or otherwise endorsed a petition to Charles from a group of Yorkshire royalists, requesting that the magazine at Hull remain there for the defence of the northern parts – a deliberate challenge to Parliament’s order that it be transported to London. On 26 April, the Commons voted that Osborne and others associated with this petition be sent for as delinquents.58CJ ii. 540a, 543b; LJ v. 15a, 21b; PJ ii. 226. Appointed to the Yorkshire commission of array in June, he signed orders to the county’s constables that summer, requiring them to muster all able-bodied men for the defence of the king and for resisting the Scots.59Northants. RO, FH133; E. Peacock, ‘On some civil war docs. relating to Yorks.’, YAJ i (1869-70), 95. He and other Yorkshire royalists petitioned Parliament in August, protesting at the proceedings of Sir John Hotham* as parliamentary governor of Hull.60LJ v. 273b-274a. When Osborne, his friend Sir John Ramsden*, Sir Henry Slingesby* and other royalist gentlemen attempted later that month to secure York for the king and, more specifically, against the Hothams, they were successfully resisted by the corporation.61York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 74v. Osborne’s alarm at the Hothams’ belligerency may help to explain his presence on 29 September among the signatories to the Yorkshire ‘treaty of pacification’ – an abortive attempt by the Fairfaxes and other West Riding gentry to keep the county neutral. The royalist signatories to this treaty also included Henry Belasyse, Sir William Savile, Francis Nevile* and Ramsden.62A. Woolrych, ‘Yorkshire’s treaty of neutrality’, HT vi. 696-704. The treaty was immediately condemned by Parliament, and on 8 October, Captain John Hotham secured a Commons vote that Osborne be summoned to the House as a delinquent.63CJ ii. 794a, 800a; Add. 18777, f. 24v.

At some point in October 1642, Osborne, Richard Aldburghe* and two other gentlemen carried a letter from a group of prominent Yorkshire royalists to the king’s commander in the north, the earl of Newcastle, requesting his assistance in the defence of the county.64Newcastle Mems. ed. Firth, 189, 191; HMC Portland, i. 70-1. And he was on hand to welcome Newcastle when the earl and his army arrived at York on 30 November – a week after Osborne had again been summoned by the Commons as a delinquent.65CJ ii. 860b; F. Drake, Eboracum (1736), 161. In February 1643, he was party to the so-called Yorkshire engagement, by which the signatories pledged their estates as security on loans for the supply of the earl’s troops. He himself lent £300 and signed bonds on the engagement amounting to £5,968.66Bodl. Tanner 62, ff. 655-6; CCAM 908, 928. With royalist control of Yorkshire threatened by the Fairfaxes and the Scots in the spring of 1644, Osborne, Slingesby, Sir Brian Palmes*, Sir Paul Neile*, Sir Robert Stryckland* and other gentlemen wrote to Prince Rupert late in March, imploring him to come to the county’s defence.67Bodl. Firth c.7, f. 8; Add. 18981, ff. 121r-v. This same group sent Osborne and Aldburghe to Oxford in April to seek assistance from the king.68William Salt Lib., S.MS.550/18; HMC Hastings, ii. 125-6. Osborne seems to have accompanied Rupert on campaign during the spring and summer.69Derbys. RO, D803 M/Z9, f. 87; Warwick, Mems. Charles I (1701), 305.

By late 1644, Osborne was living quietly at Kiveton under the protection of Lord Fairfax, but after a local royalist gentleman was seized by the parliamentarians he fled to safety – probably to the royalist garrison at Newark – and his personal estate was sequestrated.70C10/463/125; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, i. 199-200; CCC 1027. He petitioned to compound in November 1645, claiming that he had never borne arms against Parliament (although the Lords found to the contrary); his fine was set at a tenth of his estate – that is, £1,649.71LJ vii. 24v; CCC 1027.

Osborne died intestate ‘and much in debt’ on 9 September 1647 apparently after over-indulging on cold melons.72CCAM 285; Autobiog. of Alice Thornton ed. C. Jackson (Surt. Soc. lxii), 54; Cokayne, ‘Fams. of Osborne and Buckby’, 5. He was buried on 11 September in Harthill church, where a memorial was later erected to him, extolling his loyalty and piety.73Harthill par. reg.; Hunter, S. Yorks. i. 146. His niece, Alice Thornton, described him as ‘a most excellent good Christian, true and orthodox to the Church of England’.74Autobiog. of Alice Thornton ed. Jackson, 54-5. His estate at Kiveton passed to his eldest son Thomas Osborne†, the future earl of Danby and 1st duke of Leeds.75HP Commons, 1660-90, ‘Sir Thomas Osborne’.