LONG, Walter (1592-1672), of Whaddon, Wilts. and Whitcott Keysett, Salop.

Walter Long’s name surfaced in what became the Long Parliament a full year before he joined it as a Member. A veteran of three 1620s Parliaments, he had been among MPs prosecuted for their conduct in 1628-9, and as such was a subject of debate on how far this action had infringed parliamentary privilege. Investigation was confided to a committee set up on 18 December 1640.32CJ ii. 53b. As was eventually reported (6 July 1641), Long had been arrested with William Strode I* in March 1629, but his embroilment in legal proceedings at the behest of the crown, and indeed his emergence as an opponent of crown policies, pre-dated this.33Procs. LP v. 521-2. His political activity in the 1640s was to be no less conspicuous and combative. His confrontational personality, his occasional resorts to violence and his vigorous determination to pursue political ends turned him into a controversial parliamentarian in and out of the chamber; at the apogee of Presbyterian power he was ‘a recognizable party whip’.34Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 68.

Opposition and retribution, 1625-40

Long, who came from a family of once prosperous Wiltshire clothiers, first entered Parliament in 1625 as the protégé of his step-father, the godly and equally combative Henry Sherfield†, recorder of Salisbury, and perhaps also of local grandee William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke. In the 1626 Parliament he achieved prominence as a leading critic of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham. He may have been acting as an agent for Pembroke, but the passion with which he defended Sir John Eliot† and Sir Dudley Digges† when they were committed to the Tower for claiming the favourite had connived at the death of James I, indicate that he was a willing tool. Punished for his action by omission from the Wiltshire commission of the peace, he went on to resist the Forced Loan. His appointment as sheriff in November 1627 was probably an attempt by the king to prevent him sitting in the next Parliament, but Long ignored the legal bar on sheriffs serving, and in February 1628 was returned for Bath, over the county border in Somerset. He then renewed his campaign against Buckingham and spoke for the Petition of Right. Sued in star chamber in June 1628, more for neglecting his shrieval duties than for breaching election rules, he none the less returned to prominence in the 1629 session, speaking to such grievances as unprecedented collection of tonnage and poundage, and the lenient treatment of papists and Jesuits. On 2 March he helped forestall the adjournment of Parliament.35‘Walter Long II’, HP Commons 1604-1629.

Retaliation was swift, but so was Long’s reaction. When on 3 March the nine Members considered opposition ringleaders were summoned before the privy council, it was found that Long and Strode had disappeared.36APC June 1628-Apr. 1629, p. 351; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. i. 661. A week later, presumably in hiding and doubtless in anticipation of financial penalties, Long conveyed his estates at Whaddon and Southwick to trustees, comprising two kinsman and three fellow MPs, Edward Kirton*, Edward Littleton† (d. 1645) and Robert Mason†.37E44/333. He was still at large on 27 March, when a proclamation was issued for his and Strode’s apprehension on charges of sedition, but on 2 April Long was committed to the Marshalsea prison.38SP46/131, f. 80; Eg. 2553, f. 43v; Hants RO, 44M69/L34/20; CSP Dom. 1628-9, pp. 504, 506; APC June 1628-Apr. 1629, p. 389; Procs. LP v. 521-2. In the course of star chamber proceedings against the nine Members Long, aided by counsel who included Mason and Sherfield, gave evasive answers to accusations of ‘inveterate malice’ to the king and his affairs and of confederacy with the others.39Hants RO, 44M69/L39/94; Add. 48054, ff. 92-151; 12511; 46190, ff. 175-88v; CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 540, 556; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. i. 664, 666, 669. On 23 June he, Strode and fellow-accused Sir Miles Hobart† were transferred to the Tower of London; as the king explained in a letter to the judges, this was because they had carried ‘themselves insolently and unmannerly both towards us and your Lordships’.40CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 587; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. i. 680. Long seems to have been more recalcitrant than the others, operating delaying tactics.41CSP Dom. 1629-31, pp. 72, 158-9, 164. However, in February 1630 he petitioned for clemency and began to court Lady Coventry, wife of Lord Keeper Thomas Coventry†, and Secretary of State Dudley Carleton†, 1st Viscount Dorchester, to promote his case.42Hants RO, 44M69/L34/22; CSP Dom. 1629-31, pp. 231, 237, 458. Dorchester obtained permission for Long to visit his wife on her deathbed in spring 1631, but he remained in custody until at least March 1632.43CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 29; Hants RO, 44M69/L34/24. A fine of 2,000 marks was assigned to the courtier and Sussex entrepreneur John Ashburnham*, and paid by Long and his brother Thomas before 4 May 1638.44CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 409; 1641-3, p. 230; Wilts. RO, 947/1871.

Long’s lengthy stay in the Tower had various repercussions. In 1632 the privy council looked into complaints by one Jasper Heily that, when passing through Trowbridge as a messenger on the king’s service, he had been verbally abused on the subject by Long’s uncle William Long and his wife at their inn, denied food and lodging, and dowsed with the contents of a chamber pot by their servants. William maintained that Walter had not been mentioned; indeed, he was engaged in litigation with his nephew.45CSP Dom. 1631-3, pp. 305, 345-6, 362; 1641-3, p. 234. If true, this was only one of several lawsuits arising from family settlement and debt, and there were disputes as others – even fellow prisoner Hobart – tried to exploit Long’s predicament for financial advantage. He was as dependent as he had ever been on the goodwill of his stepfather.46Hants RO, 44M69/L34/22-24. The latter had financial and legal troubles of his own, however; an iconoclastic attack on a stained-glass window brought him too before star chamber in 1633. Sherfield died in January 1634 owing £6,000; his widow Rebecca lived on to 1651, still taking nearly a third of the Long income in jointure.47‘Henry Sherfield’, HP Commons 1604-1629; ‘Henry Sherfield’, Oxford DNB; Wilts. RO, 947/958.

It was probably partly with a view to repairing his fortunes that in November 1633 Long negotiated a match with a widow, Dame Anne Fox of Whichcote, Shropshire. Perhaps he had assistance from Littleton, a local landowner, but there was also a pre-existing connection with the Foxes though Walter’s kinsmen the Longs of Wraxall. By 17 December, in the teeth of opposition from some in her family, they were married, and for the rest of the 1630s Long made Shropshire his main home.48Wilts. RO, 947/906; Hants RO, 44M69/L34/25-26; E115/239/107; E115/254/105. Although his financial difficulties may have eased somewhat – in October 1634 he acquired land in Melksham which went some way to compensate for property in the area sold seven years previously – they did not disappear, and his political disaffection continued.49Coventry Docquets, 566, 666. In January 1637 he was summoned to star chamber with other Wiltshire gentlemen for defaulting at the previous summer’s musters. Writing on 27 February to the lord lieutenant, Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, he protested that although he now lived outside the county, he often visited on business, yet had received no notice of his obligation, and had only heard of the summons from his brother.50CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 395, 413, 469. He appears to have negotiated his way through this relatively unscathed, and in 1639 he secured an order recompensing him for excessive assessment for Ship Money.51CSP Dom. 1639, p. 22, 238-9. However, although his star chamber fine had been paid off and he appears to have discharged other long-standing obligations to his siblings, he was still enmired in litigation related to estate management in Wiltshire and Shropshire.52E134/12ChasI/Trin5; E134/14ChasI/East34; Wilts. RO, 947/904/4; 947/907; 947/909; 947/1181; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 409; 1639, p. 236.

An income estimated at around £1,000 a year in possession in 1629 or 1630 was insufficient to sustain expenses on this scale indefinitely.53Wilts. RO, 947/958. None the less, when Long drafted a will in December 1637 he specified portions of £1,500 each for his daughters and £200 in mourning for his wife. The other people named hint at a rather eclectic circle of friends. He had remained on good terms with his first wife’s brother-in-law, Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire*, and her mother, Mary Coxe, and through the latter had perhaps forged contacts in the City. Among the executors were Dr John Mountfort, a prebendary of St Paul’s, and Long’s third cousin Lislebone Long*, a student at Lincoln’s Inn.54Wilts. RO, 947/1676/3. Lislebone proved a useful agent for collecting money due to his kinsman.55CSP Dom. 1639, p. 22.

Opposition activist, 1641-2

Probably in anticipation of imminent parliamentary elections, in September 1639 Long was elected for the second time to the corporation of Salisbury, on this occasion with entry to the inner circle of the Twenty-Four.56Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, f. 411v. If he did harbour political aspirations, then they were to be disappointed both in March and in October 1640. Conceivably it was especially galling not only to fail twice running at Salisbury but also to see William Ashbournham*, a relative newcomer to the county and brother of the recipient of his star chamber fine, returned twice with Evelyn at nearby Ludgershall. There may indeed have been the added element of resentment over this, as well as money grievances, behind the differences between ‘Mr Ashburnham’ (probably John) and Long which MPs were addressing at the end of June 1641.57CJ ii. 194a, 195b, 196a; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 230. In the meantime, even as he attended Westminster in December 1640 with a petition ‘for to be relieved concerning those sufferings and censures which I have undergone by reason of my being in the Parliament heretofore’, he informed his kinsman Isaac Appleton† of Holbrook Hall that ‘there is an expectation that I shall be chosen to serve for this Parliament’.58Bodl. Tanner 65, f. 228.

Evidently Long considered he could count on solid support inside and outside the chamber. However, it was the unforeseen disablement of William Ashbournham for his involvement in the ‘army plot’, which was revealed to MPs just as they approved the principle that Long and the sufferers of 1629 should have reparations, that provided his opportunity. A writ for electing Ashbournham’s replacement was finally issued on 10 December 1641 and, duly returned, by the 27th Long had re-entered the Commons.59C231/5, p. 493. As MPs debated the king’s evil counsellors, Long named John Digby, 1st earl of Bristol, whose son George Digby*, Lord Digby, had thus far evaded prosecution for involvement in the plot.60D’Ewes (C), 352; PJ i. 75. The same day he was nominated with Strode to the committee investigating Mountjoy Blount, 1st earl of Newport.61CJ ii. 358b.

There seems little doubt that, with political tension mounting, Long had powerful backers among opposition leaders who considered him a man for the moment. His subsequent activity suggests that these included Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, and Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, patron of Strode. Having told Appleton in 1640 that ‘there will be a command upon me, as I conceive will be upon all the Members ... that they shall not depart without leave from the House’, Long hit the ground running.62Bodl. Tanner 65, f. 228. On 31 December, following riots around Westminster and the vote to impeach 12 bishops, he was appointed to the committee set up to answer any communication from the king and to review general safety, while on 3 January he was sent to the Lords to request a conference on the indictment for treason of the ‘Five Members’ (John Hampden*, Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, Denzil Holles*, John Pym* and Strode); he was later to promote the impeachment of the offending attorney-general, Sir Edward Herbert* (22 Feb.), and later still to act as a teller with Strode for excepting him from pardon (26 Sept. 1644).63CJ ii. 365b, 366b, 367a, 450a; iii. 639a, 639b. He had up to 13 further mentions in the Journal in January and was continuously visible until July, when preparations for war temporarily took his attention elsewhere.

In the aftermath of Charles’s abortive attempt to arrest the Five Members security was a major concern. It was on Long’s motion, encouraged perhaps by the failure of Lord Digby to seize the arsenal at Kingston, that a committee was delegated to receive and verify information of caches of arms in the City. Long, Strode and Hesilrige were included on this committee (13 Jan.), which would evolve in due course into the Committee for Examinations.64PJ i. 56-7; CJ ii. 375b. Two days later, with Pym and Holles, he managed a conference with the Lords on control of the Tower; he was still alert to the need to maintain serviceable arms there three months later.65CJ ii. 381a; PJ ii. 168. One of a quintet sent to liaise with the Scots commissioners in London (15 Jan.), he subsequently delivered to the Commons a paper in which the commissioners set out the request that the king abolish episcopacy in England (17 Jan.).66CJ ii. 383a, 386a; PJ i. 91. In the meantime he was appointed both to the joint committee preparing to petition Charles to uphold parliamentary privileges and to the committee established at Grocers’ Hall with a wide power to act for the safety of the kingdom (17 Jan.).67CJ ii. 384a, 385a. Like Strode, he was prominent in ensuring deliberations were followed up by action in the Commons, for instance censure of those like James Stuart, 1st duke of Richmond, whose activities were judged subversive (27, 28 Jan).68PJ i. 187-8, 195, 212.

The remit of the Grocers’ Hall committee of safety overlapped with that of the committee on Ireland which was directed to meet in the same place and to which Long had been nominated on 5 January.69CJ ii. 369a Irish affairs were to become a major preoccupation. On 20 January he moved for the setting of an early date for the departure of Edward Conway, 2nd Viscount Conway, to take up command as field marshal and crush the rebellion there, while five days later he was named to a committee to check any influx of Irish papists to England and enforce all orders for service in Ireland, and on the 27th he was among those who discussed the king’s response to Scottish proposals to send an army to Carrickfergus.70PJ i. 118; ii. CJ 394b, 400a. By 26 March Long had undertaken to find £4,000 for service in Ireland – a sign presumably that his personal credit standing was now better than his earlier difficulties might have suggested – and between April and June he made frequent reports from the committee of Adventurers for Ireland as well as regular speeches and motions relating to the funding, equipping, manning and progress of the campaign.71CJ ii. 498b, 500a, 523a, 526b, 533a, 533b, 534a, 551a, 572b, 634b, 635a, 662a, 674a, 681b; PJ i. 383; ii. 119, 138, 143, 154, 182, 187, 213, 233, 251, 384, 385; iii. 95, 104, 202, 213, 227. Delays in the transport of soldiers across the Irish Sea saw him despatched to chivvy Conway (17 May), while back in the Commons he was on committees discussing submissions from the Irish judiciary (5 July) and deliberating on propositions for Munster (14 July).72CJ ii. 575a, 580a, 652b, 672b, 673a.

During this period Long’s personal quest for justice had unsurprisingly been sidelined. The creation on 16 February of a committee to prepare an act vindicating the Five Members and Edward Montagu, Lord Kimbolton, from treason charges (to which he was appointed) appeared to remind the House of his own case, but despite Strode’s reciprocal motion (19 Feb.) to have it considered promptly, it then disappeared from view again.73CJ ii. 436a, 436b, 441b; PJ i. 417. At the same time (16 Feb.) Long was added to the committee examining letters from Lord Digby (now in the Netherlands) with a view to his impeachment.74CJ ii. 437a At the behest of the committee for information, and probably following earlier involvement in such matters, he was also investigating a petition from Londoners complaining of the choice of militia commissioners for the City. Having found a document signed by over 200 citizens, including some of the most wealthy, he delivered to the House a copy only, retaining the original (he said) in order to return it to the woman from whom he had had it.75PJ i. 228, 229, 232, 234, 437, 451; CJ ii. 405a. His membership of the January committee of safety and links with Parliament’s allies in the City doubtless lay behind this, as also behind his continued engagement in relations between the House and London.

Despatched on 10 March with George Peard* and London Member John Venn* to the lord mayor, Richard Gurney, to argue for the necessity of settling the local militia according to Parliament’s requirements, he reported to the Commons two days later that, as anticipated, they had been informed the mayor was too ill to speak to them, still less to act.76CJ ii. 476b, 477a. Long later had the satisfaction of pressing for Gurney’s impeachment (11 July).77CJ ii. 664a. Appointed to committees to hear the grievances of the common council and receive citizens’ petitions (15, 16 Mar.), he reported (17, 22 Mar.) the resulting charges to be preferred against Sir Thomas Gardiner, recorder of London, regarding his assiduity in collecting Ship Money and loans to enable the king to fight the Scots.78CJ ii. 479a, ?481a, 492b; PJ ii. 53, 70. With Peard he was still pursuing the case against Gardiner two months later (18 May).79PJ ii. 338. As the spring worn on he was also included on delegations from Parliament seeking to borrow money in the City and muster military and political support there.80CJ ii. 558b, 580b, 598b, 611a, 617b, 623a, 632b.

On 18 March Long was recommended as an additional deputy lieutenant for Wiltshire.81CJ ii. 485b. As preparations for war gathered pace, he was nominated to prepare a declaration justifying Parliament’s removal of arms from Hull to London (where he also found places to store it: 16 Apr.; 14 July) and participated in further measures for raising money and men.82CJ ii. 531a, 534b, 570b, 672a; PJ ii. 264. He himself promised £100 and 3 horses for the defence (10 June).83PJ iii. 57. Sent to the Lords to ask them to order the execution of the Militia Ordinance (30 Apr.), he was later despatched to encourage a meeting of the militia committee (2 June).84CJ ii. 551a, 601a. On 24 May he proposed that Essex and Surrey ‘might be put to train’, with expanded authority for the deputy lieutenants in the former in the absence of its lord lieutenant, the earl of Warwick, in service at sea.85PJ ii. 368. The impression is of a man who, prompted by emerging commanders like Warwick, or on his own initiative, was constantly looking out for ways to improve and expedite the war effort. It was on his motion that the committee for propositions met promptly and with additional personnel (15 June) and that William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, was added to the panel of peers designated to appoint army officers (17 June); he also conveyed military orders to the Lords (24 June).86PJ iii. 83, 94, 95; CJ ii. 638a.

Long demonstrated an uncompromising attitude to those who had deserted Parliament. A member of the committee which conferred with the Lords on news from the king’s headquarters at York (6 June), he secured Holles a place among those preparing the impeachment of the peers who had signified their adherence to Charles there (13 June).87CJ ii. 609b; PJ iii. 70. Added with Strode to the committee to receive the answers of hitherto uncommitted Members (11 June), he proposed a vetting system for those who returned after absence and was a teller with Evelyn for declining to excuse Sir Christopher Hatton* (16 June).88CJ ii. 620b, 636b; PJ iii. 87, 201. Included on the standing committee set up on 25 July to monitor the proceedings of the commissioners of array, he declared that day in response to the king’s message seeking accommodation that he would ‘as soon come with a halter about his neck than yield to those things that are propounded’.89CJ ii. 689b; PJ iii. 265.

Parliamentarian militant, 1642-4

It was probably at some time between late July and late August, during a period of absence from the Journal, that Long raised a regiment in the army of the earl of Essex.90The list of the army raised under the command of his Excellency, Robert Earle of Essex (1642, E.117.3); Bodl. Rawl. D.942, f. 20. He acceded to the Covenant at Westminster as Captain Long on 27 August and stayed in the capital for at least ten days, during which he engaged in miscellaneous business connected with the war, but having been on a deputation to the common council and approved as a deputy lieutenant of Shropshire on 6 September he departed again on parliamentary business, probably connected to the latter appointment.91CJ ii. 740a, 741b, 743a, 749b, 752b, 754b, 755a. On 11 October he was in Worcester with his brother Robert Long*, Essex’s commissary-general Lionel Copley*, and John Rushworth*, clerk of Parliament, to witness Colonel Edwin Sandys’ vindication of his conduct from aspersions cast by royalists.92E. Sandys, The declaration of Col. Edwyn Sandys (1642, E.122.27). He was apparently with his regiment at the battle of Edgehill, so may not have returned to London when on 2 November he was among the Wiltshire deputy lieutenants excepted from the king’s pardon issued from Oxford.93By the king. A Proclamation (Oxford, 1642, 669.f.5.91); Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, iv. 382. However, he had evidently left a spokesman behind him at Westminster: on 7 November his servant ‘was apprehended wearing the colours of division in his hat’ – an early indication of the partisan behaviour with which Long was to become identified.94CJ ii. 810a.

It is not clear whether Long, who was frequently referred to thereafter as ‘Colonel’, ever experienced action in the field. His enemies alleged that cowardice led him to leave his troop of horse to fend for themselves both at Edgehill and the battle of Brentford.95Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, iv. 382. By 9 November he was once again back in London, where he offered an assessment of the considerably increased efforts that would be needed to ‘beat the other’s army’; Parliament’s trained bands and magazines ‘are nothing ... for Prince Robert’s’.96Add. 18777, f. 53. He duly plunged into raising money and horse and acting as a liaison officer between Parliament and Lord General Essex.97CJ ii. 838a, 841a, 842b, 843b, 852a, 860a, 863b, 932b, 943a; Add. 18777, f. 109. On 23 November he was chosen to go with Strode to receive Warwick’s resignation as commander of the forces to be deployed around London, the immediate threat to the City being past, while on 14 January 1643 he moved the Lords to expedite the earl’s commission as admiral of the fleet.98CJ ii. 859b, 926b. On 20 December he was despatched with Henry Marten* to urge Essex to do all in his power to advance the war, notwithstanding peace talks then in hand.99CJ ii. 897b. As discussion of peace propositions proceeded, Long was twice a teller against compromise which would leave those who had acted for Parliament vulnerable (6, 10 Jan. 1643); as a diarist noted some weeks later, ‘Long would have us make a protestation’ objecting to the exceptions against Lord Saye and Sele and others, ‘seeing they did nothing but by order and direction of the Houses’.100CJ ii. 917a, 920b, 949b; Add. 18777, f. 173. He endeavoured to keep a sharp eye on communications with Oxford and, as the City sought to make its own representations to the king, he was prominent among those putting Parliament’s case to the City (12 Jan.).101CJ ii. 919b, 924a, 924b, 925a, 933a.

On 21 January Long replaced Sir William Brereton* on the Committee for Advance of Money; he had already contributed £1,500 to its funds, repayment of which the Commons ordered on 4 February from money at Guildhall.102CJ ii. 938a. Placed also on one of the precursors to the Committee for Sequestrations (3 Feb.), he was heavily engaged over the next 18 months in levying money.103CJ ii. 953b; 955b. He made only a handful of appearances at the former committee in February and March, but he immediately took up its work in the Commons.104SP19/1, p. 98, 101, 108, 111, 112, 114; CJ ii. 954b, 958b, 982b. The uncertainty attendant upon negotiations with the Scots and the prospect that there might be a treaty with king made raising funds especially difficult: as he explained on 10 February, divers ‘in London had undertaken to bring in £100,000, but now they would not do any thing in it before they know what will become of this business’.105Add. 18777. f. 149v. It was Long who was delegated to arrange a meeting between the Committee for Advance of Money and the common council (15 Feb.) to exert further pressure.106CJ ii. 965b.

Sent into Essex with a fund-raising commission from the lord general he ran into difficulties there also. On 14 April he informed the Committee for Advance of Money of hindrances to the payment of assessments and of untruths reaching Westminster.107CCAM 140. Three days later he wrote to Speaker William Lenthall of complaints that had been laid in London of ‘many miscarriages and abuses of mine in execution of his Excellency’s commission’. He was alleged to have taken both money and horses from the well-affected and to have allowed his ‘men to go loosely up and down to prey upon the country’, but he protested his innocence. While ‘confident that the House of Commons will not easily believe that such things could be done’ by a long-serving Member, ‘yet in regard I am now employed amongst strangers ... where it may be such slanders may receive some belief’, he sought an open airing of the accusations so that he might refute them.108Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 35; Wilts RO, 947/1827; cf. Mercurius Aulicus no. 21 (21-27 May 1643), sig. Sf2 (E.105.12); CSP Dom. 1644, p. 245. For some weeks the Commons upheld his activities and it also added him to a committee preparing ordinances authorising the same elsewhere, although it made sure that the substantial sums of money and the plate that he and others had raised were paid in promptly.109CJ ii. 56a, 57a, 65a, 70a, 79a, 98a, 100a. However, an ordinance reinforcing his and their commissions, which passed the Commons on 23 May and the Lords on the 24th, was revoked on 1 and 2 June, thanks above all, it would seem, to the efforts of Holles, now a peace party man.110CJ ii. 99a, 100a, 111a, 112b; LJ vi. 60b; Perfect Diurnall no. 50 (22-29 May 1643, E.249.10); Add. 31116, p. 108.

It was probably no coincidence that Long was back in the Commons on 23 May for the passing of the ordinance. That day he was among the delegation of MPs who went to the Lords to discuss the impeachment of Henrietta Maria, whose alleged import of arms and ammunition justified his own activity.111CJ ii. 98a. Long next appeared on 6 June, when he was among Members sent for a closed meeting with the Lords following Pym’s revelation of Edmund Waller’s* plot; he also took the Covenant.112CJ ii. 116b, 118a. He then seems to have spent the remainder of what was a disastrous summer for parliamentary forces raising more men in Essex and Kent, returning occasionally in August to forward military and security matters in the House in the face of peace-party attempts to secure an accommodation.113CJ ii. 147a, 180a, 181a, 181b, 196a, 204b, 213b. On the 15th he reported from Lord General Essex on an exchange of prisoners.114CJ iii. 205a.

The worst of the military crisis past, in early September, as its political repercussions reverberated, Long resumed habitual attendance at Westminster. Over the succeeding 16 months there are periodic signs that, like Sir Walter Erle* (another friend of Strode) and some other MPs from the west, he wavered from his primary allegiance from Essex (viewed as too pacific) towards the commander in the west Sir William Waller*, whose cause he supported with a personal advance and whose parlous state he represented to Essex.115Add. 18778, f. 43; CJ iii. 241a, 249b, 274a, 276b, 299b, 318b, 337a, 337b, 383b, 445a, 462b, 497a, 497b, 500b, 512b, 520b, 534a, 542a, 644b, 694b; CCAM 27, 267. However, he worked to forward the war effort on all fronts. Between September 1643 and May 1644 he attended the Committee for Advance of Money on 70 occasions.116SP19/2, 19/3. This work doubtless lay behind his inclusion on Commons committees raising money and arms to address specific emergencies – in the north west (27 Nov.; 15 Feb. 1644), north Wales (18 Dec. 1643), Thames valley (11 Apr. 1644), Shropshire (6 May), Oxford (6 June) – and to pay off arrears (esp. at Newport Pagnell garrison, 30 May).117CJ iii. 321a, 345b, 400a, 440a, 457a, 464a, 482a, 510b, 515b, 520b. He was involved in various expedients to exploit delinquents’ estates and customs and excise, and was several times added to the Committee of Navy and Customs for financial purposes.118CJ iii. 239b, 240a, 243b, 246a, 248a, 308a, 309b, 399b, 497a, 497b, 601a, 622a, 686a, 700a. Periodically he continued in his previous role as a link between Parliament and the City, for negotiating loans, for dealing with the militia and for maintaining good relations.119CJ iii. 249b, 253b, 274a, 323a, 360b, 505b, 521a, 527b.

Over this period Long made many fewer appearances in the Journal in connection with predominantly political or religious matters. None the less, his support for the Scottish alliance and for a more vigorous prosecution of the war emerges clearly in the autumn and winter of 1643. On 18 September he was added with Sir Henry Mildmay* and Sir Walter Erle to the committee treating with the Scots in order to investigate and suppress a petition against subscription to the Scottish Covenant.120CJ iii. 245b. Delegated with John Browne I* to collect the names of MPs who subscribed on 29 September, he duly reported the numbers and conveyed the thanks of the House to the preacher on that occasion, Thomas Coleman, whose sermon had offered refutation of objections to the oath.121CJ iii. 256a, 259a. Long was later appointed to refine the ordinance for tendering the Covenant to officers in chancery (12 Jan. 1644).122CJ iii. 364b. Meanwhile, he was in charge of escorting to the House the putative traitors Sir John Hotham* and Captain John Hotham* for questioning (6 Sept.), and was placed on committees to examine (7 Nov.) Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland, who had defected to the king, and (7 Feb. 1644) Sir John Evelyn of Surrey* and Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire*, who had (allegedly) discussed doing so.123CJ iii. 304a, 390b. With fellow Wiltshire MP William Wheler*, he was a teller for the majority who opposed the sending to the Tower of Sir Edward Bayntun*, who had also flirted with joining the royalists, but this was probably because, like Bayntun, he blamed John Pym* for inadequate handling of the war in the west.124CJ iii. 236a.

Long, like Bayntun and Strode, had his own enemies inside and outside the House: there had been ‘words’ spoken against him by Edward Montagu I* or George Montagu* in February 1643.125CJ ii. 969b; iii. 355b; Add. 18777, f. 157v. It was doubtless owing to his abrasive personality as well as to manifold distractions in the Commons that compensation for his earlier sufferings was so slow in coming. An order of 14 September 1643 that there be consideration of recompense from the now sequestered estate of John Ashburnham had no immediate result.126CJ iii. 240b. In the interim, an order of 7 December appointed Long as registrar of the court of chancery, but it took six months and ‘cost some debate’ in which Sir Simonds D’Ewes* for one raised objections, before an ordinance was finally passed admitting him to the office (3 June 1644); he was vulnerable to criticism of his lack of experience for such a post and his tenure remained insecure.127CJ iii. 326b, 327b, 510a, 511a, 511b, 513a, 515b; Add. 18779, f. 50; Add. 31116, pp. 218-9, 281; Harl. 166, f. 67v; LJ ix. 162b; Fairfax Corresp. ed Johnson, iv. 382. Only in June 1645 did he obtain a resolution for restitution of the 2,000 marks star chamber fine, and even then, according to D’Ewes, it was a ‘general distaste’ at ‘William Strode, his old friend, [who] did somewhat unworthily undervalue his sufferings’ which seems eventually to have swung a majority in his favour.128CJ iv. 182a, 185b, 189b; Harl. 166, f. 222v; Add. 18780, f. 57v. He received the first three instalments between 17 November 1645 and 21 March 1646.129Wilts RO, 947/1871.

Added in June 1644 to the committee for sequestrations in Shropshire and in July to the county committee in Wiltshire, Long was absent from the Journal between late June and early August.130A. and O; CJ iii. 532b. This would have accommodated a burst of local activity. However, perhaps because he was not already established on the commission of the peace, there is no sign of sustained involvement in the affairs of either county at that level. Not only was Long otherwise largely present at Westminster, but, if evidence from 1645 to 1647 is indicative, he was only very occasionally present at the committee of the west there.131Add. 22084, f. 11. Instead, he upheld the interests of the west by other means – as on 16 August 1644 when ‘Prideaux, Long and some other western men opposed the passing’ of a vote to send military support to Ireland, ‘showing that the western parts had more need of them’ – and he continued to take a close interest in London and the adjacent counties.132Harl. 166, f. 106; CJ iii. 619b, 622b, 637b, 659a, 669b, 688a.

Peace-party convert and Presbyterian ‘whip’, 1644-6

After his summer break Long attended the Committee for Advance of Money on only three further occasions – 13 and 16 September 1644 and 10 December 1645 – a sign, probably, of another change of heart about the way the war was being conducted and a move back towards the pacifically-inclined earl of Essex.133SP19/3, pp. 237, 238; SP19/4, p. 351. After a period during which there is little evidence of his interest, Long returned to Irish affairs.134CJ iii. 236a. On 1 August he and Robert Reynolds*, apparently keen to re-establish an exclusively English rule in Ireland by offering easy terms to the king, failed to marshal enough support to block a peace proposition that would require the king to relinquish his prerogative powers there to the English and Scottish Parliaments; William Pierrepont*, who was travelling in the opposite political direction, carried the day and threw a spanner in the works.135CJ iii. 575b; Longleat, Whitelocke Pprs. ix, f. 27. Long’s objection of 16 August to the sending of troops to Ireland, recommended by Sir Arthur Hesilrige* on behalf of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, doubtless stemmed partly from parallel considerations.136Harl. 166, f. 106. He was probably among the small majority who defeated Hesilrige to secure the suspension of the treasurer of monies for Ireland on 20 August, since he was appointed to the committee which addressed complaints about the conduct of Irish business set up immediately afterwards.137CJ iii. 599a, 599b. With Strode and Samuel Browne he was also added to a committee investigating the escape of the Irish rebels MacGuire and MacMahon from the Tower (26 Aug.).138CJ iii. 607b. Although there is no visible sign of his activity on such matters thereafter, he was clearly busy: on 4 November Sir Samuel Luke* wrote to him as the chairman of the committee for Irish affairs.139Luke Letter Bks. 59. Over the autumn Long was also involved in committees considering overtures from and to the king, as well as preparing a carefully-worded disengagement from a Dutch offer of mediation (16 Sept.; 7 Nov). Although he could not contemplate a proposition pardoning the former attorney-general, he was prepared to be conciliatory in relation to royalist commander Sir William Crofts (26 Sept.), while with Strode he was also among those responsible for the ordinance discharging the plotter Edmund Waller from imprisonment (21 Oct.).140CJ iii. 629a, 639b, 671a, 689b, 690a.

A notable new feature of Long’s parliamentary service which emerged that autumn and continued into 1647 was his contribution to religious business. Signs of positive commitment had previously been lacking. In February 1642 it had been he who had gone to the Lords to persuade them to postpone the trial of the 12 bishops in order to concentrate on more important affairs, and in subsequent months his taking of the Covenant had been the only indication of his allegiance.141CJ ii. 419a, 419b; PJ i. 303, 316. The array of ministers with whom he now had connections and on whom he drew for fast day sermons on nine occasions between September 1644 and September 1646 – including Henry Scudder, Cornelius Burges, Edmund Calamy, Richard Vines (favoured by the earl of Essex) and Herbert Palmer – suggest that any Presbyterian leanings suggested by his political alliances were moderated by broader theological or ecclesiological tastes.142CJ iii. 639a, 682a; iv. 90a, 127b, 392b, 420a, 566a, 629b, 678b; relevant entries in Oxford DNB. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that on 26 November 1644 he and Sir Richard Knightley* were tellers for the majority which rejected the motion supported by Sir Robert Harley* and Sir Anthony Irby* that practices attendant on the administration of the Lord’s Supper in the Directory for Public Worship should be specified, ‘as in the Church of Scotland’.143CJ iii. 715a. Equally, the fact that Long was so often employed to recruit and thank preachers is an early pointer to his emergence as a manipulator of the opinions of other MPs, given the galvanising intent of the sermons.

Long also revealed an unheralded keenness for reformation. Among committee nominations were those to prepare ordinances for the repression of a variety of sins (29 Jan. 1645) and the regulation of marriages and oaths (30 Sept. 1646) and hospitals (29 Aug. and 17 Nov. 1645).144CJ iv. 35b, 256b, 345a, 678b. Among MPs tasked with overseeing the morning exercise in Westminster Abbey (7 July 1645), he was a member of the successive committees for visitation of the universities and for promotion of preaching in Cambridge.145CJ iv. 174b, 198b, 312a; v. 83a, 174a. He was among those delegated to investigate the Remonstrance of the ‘dissenting brethren’ to the Westminster Assembly (11 Dec. 1645), and was in time added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers (15 May 1646) and those preparing a declaration on sequestered ministers (8 July 1646).146CJ iv. 373a, 545b, 608a.

Such heightened engagement with religious and moral issues came in the context of a profile in the Commons Journal that was noticeably lower in 1645 and 1646 than in previous years. Edward Hyde* (viewing from afar) counted Long among the leaders of the Presbyterians who ‘passionately opposed’ the Self-Denying Ordinance which first passed the Commons on 19 December 1644 and eventually passed both Houses on 3 April 1645, and, although there is little direct evidence of this, the attribution seems very plausible.147Clarendon, Hist. iii. 507. Long made only two appearances in the Journal that December, but one – a trip to the Lords with a message desiring expedition of the ordinance for martial law in London (5 Dec.) – suggests he was visible about Westminster.148CJ iii. 714a, 722a. That he went twice more on the same errand (25 Jan.; 18 Feb 1645) indicates that he was keen to promote the City militia.149CJ iv. 31a, 52a. He was slated to make a report with Sir Walter Erle on the popular unrest in the west (8 Jan.), twice carried to the Lords orders relating to the peace treaty in train at Uxbridge (25 Jan., 19 Feb.), and was nominated to a committee considering maintenance for Charles Louis, elector palatine, whose presence in London had become an embarrassment to those negotiations (21 Feb.).150CJ iv. 14a, 30b, 54a, 58a. Otherwise, like some others who were not necessarily thorough-going enthusiasts, he had a modest part in committees entrusted with the creation of the New Model army (5, 17 Feb.), and told with Sir John Evelyn (?of Wiltshire) for the majority who voted to leave discussion of its officers for a conference with general-designate Sir Thomas Fairfax*.151CJ iv. 42b, 51a, 64b. As the Self-Denying Ordinance took effect, he was rather more predictably appointed to the committee to set rewards for the earls of Essex, Denbigh and Manchester, now deprived of their commands.152CJ iv. 96b. Like Essex, Denzil Holles* and Sir Philip Stapilton* he also used his ‘utmost endeavours’ to secure for Sir Samuel Luke* the latter’s preferred replacement on his resignation as governor of Newport Pagnell garrison.153Luke Letter Bks. 533. In return Luke, gloomily contemplating the consequences of the disbandment of existing armies and the advent of the New Model, promised, when he arrived back at Westminster, to make Long ‘sensible of the miseries that must inevitably fall on us if God does not miraculously preserve us.’154Luke Letter Bks. 288.

In the early summer of 1645 Long was rather more visible in the Journal than in the spring, and this is when he had a breakthrough with his long-running petition. Yet there is surprisingly little, for one of his abrasive personality, to indicate involvement in debates around the new army and the scandals which afflicted some other leading MPs. Part of the explanation may be that, as his enemies claimed later, it was about this time that he adopted the practice of positioning himself ‘near the door of the House’ so that, ‘when any debate is concerning any design wherein his party is engaged’, he could the more easily with ‘much tampering and violence’ induce potential supporters to ‘continue there for their votes. If they eluded him he would ‘speedily run out of the House himself to call them and drive them in again’.155Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, iv. 383. Vigilance of this kind would preclude being a teller and doubtless much other high-profile business too. Alongside nominations to committees investigating the inflammatory utterances of Clement Walker* and the Savile affair which temporarily threatened Holles and Bulstrode Whitelocke*, Long engaged in varied miscellaneous business including money-raising from delinquents’ estates, paying off discharged officers, the relief of the west (7 June), the inspection of correspondence captured at Naseby (23 June) and the religious and charitable issues previously noted.156CJ iv. 148b, 168b, 172b, 173a, 176a, 183b, 195b, 198a, 201a, 249a, 257b. Granted leave on 31 July to go and settle his son in France or elsewhere beyond the seas, he was back by the third week in August, and in the autumn re-engaged in the familiar activities of liaising with the City to raise money, men and horse for the army and money to pay off the Scots.157CJ iv. 225a, 264b, 298b, 299a, 302a, 305b; Harl. 166, f. 249v. Tangentially named with Gerard, Stapilton and Essex in accusations against the Speaker in September, he suffered no obvious ill effect.158Add. 18780, f. 118.

That Long was in charge of the latter is in indication that his priority remained the orderly conclusion of the war. On 21 December he was at Essex House with the earl, Whitelocke, Holles, Stapilton and Sir William Lewis*, in consultation over strategy towards the Scots.159Whitelocke, Diary, 183-4. With local MPs Evelyn, Richard Whithed I* and John Dove* he was delegated to instruct the committees of Hampshire and Wiltshire to seize army deserters (23 Dec.), and he was appointed to discuss the ordinance on martial law (1 Jan. 1646).160CJ iv. 383b, 394a. However, an outburst of temper in which Long struck newly-elected Member Francis Allein*, a goldsmith and member of the common council with whom he must have been previously acquainted, meant that during January Long received only unwelcome attention as the Commons heard Allein’s complaint, with others laid by William Cawley I*.161CJ iv. 395a, 397b, 400a, 402a, 407a, 408a, 412b, 420a; Add. 31116, pp. 505, 507. He resurfaced briefly in late February and again in mid-March to garner what were probably to him important committee appointments – to discuss peace propositions in the wake of a spate of military successes (26 Feb.), to address the needs of army widows (26 Feb.) and to review the Self-Denying Ordinance (16 Mar.) – but he returned to regular appearances only from 7 May.162CJ iv. 454b, 455a, 477a, 480b, 538b.

By this time the political landscape had changed, the king having just put himself in the hands of the Scots. As Parliament explored the possibility that there had been a secret deal between them during recent peace negotiations, Long was placed on committees investigating intelligence, including seized correspondence from London to Covenanter commander Alexander Lindsay, 1st earl of Balcarres (8 May).163CJ iv. 540a, 555b. Following revelations of the extent of the king’s subterfuge and thus of his undercutting of the English Presbyterian position, Long was on the committee preparing a declaration to the Scots representing Parliament’s sense of grievance (9 June), and later on the joint committee which heard a response delivered in person by Archibald Campbell, marquess of Argyll (25 June).164CJ iv. 570b, 587a. He was later named to investigate the scandalous pamphlets that continued to circulate (14 Aug.).165CJ iv. 644b. In the meantime, with Oxford now in parliamentarian hands, ‘Sir Walter Long’ (an example of periodic confusion with his Wiltshire kinsman from Wraxall, who was not a Member) was nominated to consider how best to treat with Charles (22 June).166CJ iv. 584b. All these appointments represented opportunities to advance the viewpoint of the Presbyterians, but they were modest in number. There were a dozen or so others over the summer and early autumn, of which several related to money, but of which none were potentially as significant as his off-the-record rallying of support.167CJ iv. 538b, 551b, 555b, 570b, 571a, 601b, 653b, 663a, 666b, 678b.

By late September Long might have concluded that this was to little avail. He may have been heartened by service on a committee to disband forces in Cheshire (23 Sept.) and he still had some influence on the ordinance for the City militia (1 Oct. 1646; 2 Apr. 1647), but in the wake of the departure from England of the Scots, whose presence had on balance been helpful to the Presbyterians, the death of Essex on the 14th was a severe blow.168CJ iv. 674b, 679b; v. 132b. He had the satisfaction of taking to the Lords an order for payment of £5,000 towards the earl’s funeral, with another for payment to Colonel Massie (1 Oct.).169CJ iv. 681a. However, on 19 October he obtained leave to go into the country and seems to have taken up to six weeks away from the end of the month.170CJ iv. 698b, 708b.

Presbyterian leader and impeachment, 1646-8

Yet as Long reappeared in the Commons Presbyterian fortunes turned. For the next six months he reaped the benefit, in terms of influence, of Holles’s dominance of the House and his own marshalling of Members. Nominated to work on the ordinance overhauling the Committee for Compounding (10 Dec.), he was added to the committee for privileges (16 Dec.) and as parliamentary commissioners arrived in Newcastle to take control of the king, he was among MPs appointed to prepare a letter to the Scottish Parliament in pursuit of a treaty (26 Jan. 1647).171CJ v. 8b, 14b, 65b. Meanwhile he was voted £5,000 in compensation for his sufferings of the 1620s (18 Jan.).172CJ v. 54b, 55b. Among other activities in February he and Sir William Lewis failed to secure sufficient votes to disgarrison Exeter Castle (25 Feb.), but he managed to marshal a majority for slighting recent works at Coventry (3 Mar.) in pursuit of the Presbyterian aim of dismantling the army.173CJ v. 83a, 84b, 89a, 90a, 98a, 104a. By 11 March Long, who had contracted with the Committee of Both Kingdoms for transporting a foot regiment to Ireland, had assembled 500 disbanded soldiers at Bridgwater for this purpose.174CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 535. He was also on committees dealing with petitioning – from discontented sections of the army and from anti-army elements in London – and to raise money to pay public debts and arrears and finance Irish expeditions.175CJ v. 112b, 127b, 148a, 153a, 168b. With Richard Knightley* he was a teller (5 May) for the majority vote that previous resolutions regarding security for loans need not be honoured, while on the 14th he was among Members added to the committee at Haberdashers’ Hall for the purpose of settling debts to those whose horses had been taken during the war.176CJ v. 163b, 171b. Since the business had the potential to be troublesome to Long on account of his record in Essex and since a year earlier he had characterised the Committee as a company of rogues who disgraced Parliament, the opportunity to argue his corner was doubtless especially welcome.177CCAM 315.

There were other encouraging developments. In February 1647, Long had been placed on the commission of the peace for Shropshire.178C231/6, p. 74. He was on committees treating with the king (14 Apr.) and the Scots (5 June).179CJ v. 142b, 200b. On 29 April, it was claimed at the behest of Holles, he was confirmed in his office of registrar of chancery, tenure of which had apparently been threatened by the Self-Denying Ordinance.180CJ v. 155b, 157b; Add. 31116, p. 615; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, iv. 382. However, as he sat on the Presbyterian-dominated ‘committee of safety’ for conferring with the London militia committee on measures to be taken should the army threaten to seize control of the City (11 June), the army was preparing articles of impeachment of 11 Presbyterian leaders.181CJ v. 205b, 207b; [T. Fairfax], The Head of a Charge (1647). Although Long was not identified as a plotter of the standing of Holles or Stapilton, he was included among those alleged to have ‘assembled and met at Lady Carlisle’s lodgings in Whitehall and other places’, ‘with an intent by secret and clandestine treaties to put conditions upon Parliament and bring in the king on his own terms’, and the claim of ‘having great power upon the treasure of the kingdom’ which might be used for subversive purposes was as plausible in his case as in that of the others. Furthermore, in the last three articles he came in for special indictment of his own: for his ‘plundering’ and ‘oppression’ in Essex, without accounting for the sums that had passed through his hands; for his presumption in procuring the chancery office – ‘where his skill was little, and whereof he was and still is, altogether incapable’ – not once but twice, ‘to the great prejudice of skilful clerks that have been bred up in the said court, to the disservice of the Commonwealth, and the dishonour of the House’; and for being the ‘Parliament driver’ who had enabled the other accused to obtain their ends at Westminster.182Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, iv. 370, 382-3.

Since the House initially refused to consider the charges without proof, it took more than two weeks and the impetus of threatening letters from the army, which had advanced to menacing proximity at Uxbridge, to persuade Long and the others to request leave to withdraw from Parliament (26 June), granted the same day.183The Votes of the House of Commons (1647, 669.f.11.53); CJ v. 225a. Even following the formal impeachment on 6 July, the rallying of supporters expressing solidarity with the Eleven Members and criticism of the army gave cause for optimism.184Desires propounded to the Honourable House of Commons (1647, E.399.11); CJ v. 236a; W. Prynne, A declaration of the officers and armies, illegall, injurious, proceedings (1647), 5 (E.397.8) The further leave for six months and liberty to go abroad they obtained on 19 and 20 July may have seemed simply an insurance policy against the failure of the Presbyterian ‘coup’ in the City and Parliament which unfolded from the 26th.185CJ v. 252a. Indeed, Waller claimed that when the coup failed and the City surrendered to the army on 6 August, ‘the impeached gentlemen were so far from running away’ that ‘they stayed divers days in expectation of the worst that could be charged upon them’, perhaps hoping against hope that the worst could yet be averted.186[W. Waller], Vindication of the Character and Conduct of Sir William Waller (1793), 200. By the 12th that hope had receded: as seven of them, including Long, announced in a letter that day to Sir Edward Harley from the ‘privacy’ of their lodging, they had collected their passes and intended ‘to go away speedily, and the most of us into the Low Countries’.187Brilliana Harley Letters, 231. A statement two days later asserted that they had vindicated ‘the uprightness of our intentions and the reality of our proceedings’ but blamed the fact that they were still ‘persecuted by the black tongues of secret revilers and the daily pens of unruly pamphlets’ for their decision to seek severally ‘sad retirement’ or ‘a willing banishment’.188A New Remonstrance of the Eleven Impeached Members (1647), 1 (E.402.3). Long was one of a party who embarked on a ketch for Holland on the 16th, only to be detained, questioned by Vice-admiral William Batten, and, because of the alarming illness of Stapilton, re-directed to Calais. There Stapilton promptly died; it is not clear if Long was among those who went on with Waller, Lewis and Clotworthy to Flushing and Holland.189The true relation of Capt: Will: Batten (1647) (E.404.38); W. Lawcey, Sir Philip Stapleton dead of the sicknesse at Callice (1647), 5 (E.404.22)

Summoned on 4 September 1647 with the other exiles to appear before Parliament at or before 16 October, Long, like them, did not comply.190CJ v. 291b, 330b, 445a. It is not clear what lay behind letters patent dated 8 November 1647 which created him sheriff of Wiltshire.191Wilts. RO, 947/1860/4. If it was some attempt at political bargaining, it had no evident effect and was rapidly abandoned: Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* filled the office. On 27 January 1648 the Commons disabled him from sitting and, following an order to the Speaker on 23 March, a writ for an election for Long’s replacement at Ludgershall was issued on 14 April.192CJ v. 445a, 512a; C231/6, p. 112. Although no evidence has emerged that the writ was fully acted upon, it complicated his return to the Commons once the impeachment was discharged and his disablement revoked during the Presbyterian resurgence that summer (3, 8 June).193CJ v. 584a, 589b-590a, 593b, 599b, 605b. He did return to England at some point, but it is possible that he did not come to Westminster: the ‘Mr Long’ nominated to a committee addressing a lease of former episcopal land (20 June) may have been his kinsman Lislebone Long*.194CJ v. 608a. While he was confirmed as a commissioner for exclusion from the sacrament on 29 August, Walter was among the absent but not excused at a call of the House on 26 September; there are no other references in the Journal before the purge of 6 December.195CJ vi. 34a; A. and O. On 12 December the Commons annulled the order of 8 June and the Eleven Members were once again disabled.196PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, pp. 440-2; The Humble Proposals and Desires of His Excellency the Lord Fairfax (1648), 3-4; Several Votes, Orders and Ordinances of the Lords and Commons (1648), 3 (E.477.12).

From exile to rehabilitation, 1649-72

Long obtained a pass to go beyond the seas again on 13 November 1650 and may have joined royalist exiles for a time.197CSP Dom. 1650, p. 565. He had returned by 1656 and was associated with Lislebone Long, who had survived the purge to sit in 1650s parliaments, in a land transaction of early 1658.198Wilts RO, 947/1643; LMA, O/218/001. That June he acquired from Sir William Waller over 1,600 acres of land in Ireland, another indication that his money troubles were over.199Wilts. RO, 947/1132. A namesake, Walter Long of Lineham, confessed before Wiltshire magistrates on 7 August 1659 that he had ridden to Wraxall in the hope of joining an insurrection to be led by the former Presbyterian commander Colonel Edward Massie*: if Long of Whaddon schemed for the return of the king, as is possible, the evidence does not survive.200CCSP iv. 315-6. On 19 October the commissioners of the great seal heard his complaint against deputies in the court of chancery who had denied him access to the office of registrar and, having noted that the office ‘hath been for some time of late and yet is unsettled’, ruled that he should be admitted ‘for the present’.201Orders of the High Ct. of Chancery i. 288-9.

He reappeared promptly when the Long Parliament re-assembled in February 1660 and was named to four committees, including two connected to the calling of a new Parliament on 25 April.202CJ vii. 855b, 859b, 868b, 875b. Before the end of the session the Commons, giving the case pride of place next after settling lands on General George Monck*, turned to considering Long’s claim to the registrarship in chancery (15 March), this time contested by the widow of Sir Thomas Jermyn*, who had held it in 1643. Ostensibly with the consent of both parties MPs referred it to the arbitration of Holles and Harbottle Grimston*.203CJ vii. 877b; Aylmer, State’s Servants, 88-9; Hardy, Principal Officers in Chancery, 120. Doubtless distracted by electioneering, neither appear to have taken action. When Lady Jermyn appealed again in May the commissioners of the great seal drafted a judgement awarding all the books and the execution of the office to the deputies and its fees to Lady Jermyn. It is not clear to what extent this ruling was implemented.204Orders of the High Ct. of Chancery i. 289-90; HMC 7th Rep. appendix, 79-80, 85.

Long at last joined the commission of the peace for Wiltshire in 1660 and on 26 March 1661 was created a baronet, presumably in recognition of services rendered to the crown, but did not again sit in Parliament.205A Perfect List (1660), 59; Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies. Called on for a third time to act as sheriff of Wiltshire in 1671, he was unable to travel without a litter and was permitted to send a deputy to the assizes.206CSP Dom. 1671-2, p. 145. Long’s critics of the 1640s had alleged that he had taken financial advantage of his money-raising activity and his will, made in September 1672, suggests that by this time he was in very comfortable circumstances, despite being £650 short of his third wife’s dowry. However, apart from his Irish acquisition, which was left to his younger son Robert, his lands were largely those that he had inherited from his father, and it may be that the death of his mother in 1651, and an absence of litigation and fines on the scale of the 1620s and 1630s, had made a substantial improvement to his position beyond any profiteering – although it remains possible that he used hidden gains to pay off debts. As it was, in addition to the estates he had settled on his two surviving sons, he left his widow a jointure of £250 a year and made a host of small bequests to descendents, godchildren, two ministers and assorted kin.207PROB11/340/517; Wilts RO, 947/914; 947/1006; 947/1132; The cities loyalite to their king (1647, 669.f.11.62); cf. W. Prynne, A Gospel Plea (1653), 52 (E.713.12). He was buried at Whaddon on 15 December 1672 and was succeeded as second baronet by his elder son Walter Long†, who was elected to Parliament for Bath in 1679.208Whaddon par. reg.; HP Commons 1660-1690.