MONSON, Sir William, Visct. Monson of Castlemain [I] (1600-72), of Reigate, Surr., and Chelsea, Mdx.

Monson’s forebears had been men of note in Lincolnshire since at least the fourteenth century and his grandfather of the same name had been MP for Totnes in 1547.41Lincs. Peds. 680-3; HP Commons 1509-1553. However, while his uncle, Sir Thomas Monson†, and his father, Sir William Monson†, who bought an estate in Surrey in 1606, continued the tradition of public and royal service, commitment to Catholicism at times threatened their position. They were both advanced and compromised by their sustained association with the powerful recusant Howard family, according to the fluctuating fortunes of the latter.42HP Commons 1604-1629; Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson, i. introduction; ‘Monson, Sir William (1568?-1643), Oxford DNB.

Early career

William Monson’s own education in the Southern Netherlands in the 1610s raised well-founded suspicions that he might be ‘wholly popish’, and even Charles Howard, 1st earl of Nottingham, their chief patron and near neighbour in Surrey, informed on William’s elder brother, John, in 1623 as ‘a dangerous papist’.43HMC Downshire V. 144; SP14/145, f. 39. Attempts by the Howards early in 1618 to advance William as a prospective court favourite to rival the rapid ascent of George Villiers, eventually 1st duke of Buckingham, foundered on James I’s distaste for his ‘forwardness’, the dubious political record of his father and uncle, and his youth spent in places and company ‘not to be allowed of’.44Chamberlain Letters, ed. N.E. McClure (Philadelphia, 1939), ii. 127, 144. Unlike his brother, William was prepared to disavow Catholicism by publicly taking communion, and in February 1623 he secured a knighthood, but frustrated ambition may have prompted his application for a pass to go abroad, granted that May.45Chamberlain Letters, 147, 156, 479; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 181; PC2/31, f. 701.

Neither the destination nor the duration of Monson’s journey is known. He returned within the three years granted, and in October 1625 created something of a sensation by marrying the widowed countess of Nottingham, to whom he had once been page. After the wedding in the Howard manor of Reigate, Countess Margaret – who was a cousin of the king – was reported to be keen to show off her new husband, about 15 years younger than herself where her first husband had been 50 years older.46HMC 4th Rep. 306; Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson, i. p. xli. ‘A handsome and silly gentleman’ thereby acquired a substantial income and an interest in the parliamentary borough of Reigate, for which he was elected in 1626.47C115/108/8632; Church Notes, 126; Hooper, Reigate, 29-31; VCH Mdx. xii. 110-11, 138. His contribution to proceedings was insubstantial, but he did supply evidence towards the impeachment of Buckingham.48LJ iii. 597b; HP Commons 1604-1629.

Monson did not sit in 1628. Having been appointed in June receiver of the duchy of Lancaster for Lincolnshire, in part payment of his wife’s pension, two months later he obtained an Irish peerage, probably by purchase.49Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster Officeholders, 189; CP. Although his mother’s uncle, Sir Henry Wallop*, was a former lord chief justice of Ireland, hitherto Monson had not demonstrated any visible attachment to the country, but some time before 1640 he acquired a small estate there.50CSP Ireland, 1633-47, p. 337. Excused on 16 June 1634 from attending the Irish Parliament, he was still listed among peers in Dublin for the opening procession on 14 July.51CSP Ireland, 1633-47, pp. 55, 61. Litigation was his most visible preoccupation in the late 1620s and 1630s, stemming at least partly from acquisitiveness, disregard of obligations and reckless spending. The jibe by Henry Neville* in 1647, referring to the countess of Nottingham, that ‘the coward Monson got all her money’ may have rested on a well-established notoriety.52H. Neville, The Ladies Parliament (1647) (E.1143.1). Among Monson’s early adversaries were trustees for his step-son, Charles Howard (later 3rd earl of Nottingham) and Reigate tenants aggrieved at his attempts to enforce rights of free warren, while in 1633 he was cited before star chamber on a charge of having remained in London over Christmas contrary to royal proclamation.53C78/433/3; Kent History and Library Centre, U269/L34/2; CSP Dom. 1637, p. 559; Hooper, Reigate, 72; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. ii. 290. He defaulted on musters in 1631 and on Ship Money in 1636.54PC2/34, ff. 46, 51; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 198.

Long Parliament, 1640-8

Local unpopularity may explain why Monson did not contest the Reigate seat in March 1640. Instead, his trustee and cousin Robert Goodwin* was elected on a double return.55Surr. Arch. Colls. cvi. 31; Hooper, Reigate, 31; CJ ii. 7a. In the autumn, however, Goodwin was content with East Grinstead. Monson, perhaps identified as less sympathetic to the court than some alternative candidates, was returned in a three-cornered contest in which sitting Member Sir Thomas Bludder* was challenged, eventually to no avail, by Monson’s brother-in-law Sir Francis Howard†. It was 13 months before Monson’s first committee nomination, but it seems that he did attend, if primarily in pursuit of personal interests.

On 30 January 1641 Monson complained that two Reigate tenants had taken advantage of his absence at Westminster to pursue an old dispute and plough up his warren. Obligingly deeming this a breach of privilege, the Commons ordered that the offenders be sent for as delinquents.56Procs. LP ii. 319, 322. On 4 March Monson promised a perhaps surprisingly generous £1,000 for the loan and on 17 May he took the Protestation, albeit a fortnight later than the bulk of MPs.57Procs. LP ii. 628, 629; CJ ii. 148a. He then played the privilege card again in an attempt to halt proceedings in a suit over land at Reigate brought against him in the court of wards by John Mordaunt, 1st earl of Peterborough, and his wife Elizabeth, who as a granddaughter of the 1st earl of Nottingham had inherited the countess of Nottingham’s moiety of the manor.58Hooper, Reigate, 72. Speaking in the House on 9 June ‘in his own cause’, he received apparently overwhelming support, but within a month the Commons registered a change of heart, giving Peterborough liberty to examine witnesses in the case ‘unless Lord Monson shall show good cause to the contrary’.59Procs. LP v. 64, 70-1; CJ ii. 200a. This was not the end of the matter.

That on 13 November – his next appearance in the Journal – he moved for the calling in of an officer who had been sent for to answer for his engagement by the French ambassador to raise troops for French service, demonstrated that he was capable of being engaged by issues of public concern.60D’Ewes (C), 138. But the fact that his first committee nomination (7 Dec.) was to consider the bill defining and regulating the scope of parliamentary protections probably testifies to his preoccupation with the benefits of privilege.61CJ ii. 334b. As the House dealt with the implications of the king’s precipitate departure from London, Monson was one of four titled MPs with court connections selected to convey the request that the Tower of London, forts and militia be put into the hands of persons recommended by Parliament (2 Feb.), and on 5 March he was among those named to discuss measures for the suppression of the Irish rebellion, in which, as a landowner there, he had a direct interest.62CJ ii. 410a, 468b; CSP Ireland, 1633-47, p. 337. That spring he invested £600 as an Irish Adventurer.63Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 187.

However, as other MPs discussed matters of unprecedented gravity, Monson once again became visible only in relation to his lawsuit. On 17 March Peterborough and his wife lodged a petition claiming that Monson had, after all, insisted on his privilege and reiterating a request to examine witnesses.64LJ iv. 463a; HMC 5th Rep. 13a. When it surfaced in the Commons on 24 April, Monson agreed to waive his privilege, but insisted that the earl should do the same and that there was an investigation of the case by a revived committee (of the whole House) for the courts of justice.65PJ ii. 197n, 245; CJ ii. 549a. Sir Gilbert Gerard* took the decision to the Lords on 4 May at the same time as the bills curbing clerical pluralities and impeaching the bishops who had defied exclusion from the Upper House.66CJ ii. 556b; PJ ii. 272-3.

From the outbreak of civil war, Monson’s cousin Sir John Monson†, who had counselled the king in his dealings with Parliament, was an active royalist in Lincolnshire and then in Oxford, but the viscount committed himself to the opposing side like his maternal cousins Robert Goodwin, John Goodwyn*, Member for the Surrey seat of Haslemere, and Robert Wallop*.67LJ v. 537a; CCAM 745; Oxford DNB, ‘Monson, Sir John’. A few days before the battle of Edgehill, he was among MPs deputed to persuade the City fathers of the necessity of introducing an oath of fidelity to Parliament.68CJ ii. 817b. Subsequently, however, he was no more visible than previously in records of Commons proceedings. Summoned on 4 February 1643 with John Selden and others to appear peremptorily, two days later, with Selden, he duly registered his assent to the vote adhering to Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, as commander-in-chief of parliamentary forces.69CJ ii. 955a, 957a. Unlike Selden, he had only one committee nomination over the next two years. Characteristically, it related to the investigation of an alleged breach of privilege against one of the Goodwins (24 Feb. 1643).70CJ ii. 978b. The one Westminster committee that Monson attended regularly in 1643, at least during the spring of that year, was the Committee for Irish Affairs, where the Commons had ordered that ‘Adventurers of the House shall be admitted to have a voice’. He would remain active on this committee until the winter of 1645.71CJ ii. 750b; Add. 4771, f. 64; Add. 4782, ff. 80, 98v; SP16/539/127, ff. 12v-41v.

Notwithstanding his low profile at Westminster, from 1643 Monson was consistently named to a variety of parliamentary commissions in Surrey, indicating that he was considered loyal.72A. and O.; CJ iii. 376a; C181/5, ff. 238v, 239v, 263v. Active experience here as well as his years as a receiver of crown revenues thus lay behind his inclusion on the committees for the ordinance for weekly assessments in London (17 May 1645) and it was in the context of being a commissioner under the New Model ordinance and for the militia in Surrey that he was named to consider the petition of decommissioned officers (23 Aug.).73CJ iv. 146a, 249a. Otherwise, his remaining recorded contribution to proceedings that year once again related to a matter of personal interest. As may only have become public knowledge some years later, when the case was still occupying the Rump, it was as a creditor of Sir James Stonhouse that Monson was named to a committee dealing with a land purchase dispute between Stonhouse and royalist commander Sir John Byron.74CJ iv. 166a; vii. 179b. On 4 October 1645 he was given leave to go into the country for six weeks.75CJ iv. 298a.

Monson’s profile was similarly slender in 1646. This was the year in which, after an unusually long gap after the death of a first wife (six and a half years), he married his second. Discrepancy between his declaration of the extent of his estate and the properties mentioned in his marriage settlement that May hint at muddled financial affairs.76Lincs. Peds., 683; C5/388/97. His lawsuit with the countess of Peterborough re-emerged before both Houses in February and October 1646, with privilege still at issue.77CJ iv. 441a, 708b, 709a; LJ viii. 155a. In the interim – perhaps because at this juncture he sought to protect his own concerns from parliamentary interference – he was nominated to a committee charged with bringing in an ordinance limiting the proceedings of both Houses in matters of private interest (2 Sept.).78CJ iv. 660a.

In 1647, however, Monson’s political profile began to change. By this time he had developed links with the Independents or elements in the army, or both. In the absence of evidence of an interest in academic or religious matters, he probably owed his appointment on 14 May to the committee preparing the ordinance for the regulation of the University of Oxford (14 May) to those who thought him likely to oppose the Presbyterians who drove it.79CJ v. 174a. A week later he was named a member of the Independent-dominated Committee for Indemnity, set up to hear petitions from soldiers and others who had served Parliament only to face prosecution at law for debts incurred and action taken in time of war.80A. and O. Armed with his lengthy experience of litigation and of using Parliament to avoid its consequences, he attended 11 of the committee’s meetings between 14 June and 19 July, chairing all or part of proceedings on five of those days.81SP24/1.

His decision to flee to the army during the Presbyterian coup is thus unsurprising, although he may also have been influenced again by his cousins Goodwin and Wallop, and his presence immediately after Speaker Lenthall among signatories to the Declaration of the fugitive MPs on 4 August may have reflected nothing more than his rank.82LJ ix. 385b. Following the failure of the coup, the Committee for Indemnity, which had not sat since 24 July, resumed its meetings on 19 August, but Monson stayed away for three months longer.83SP24/1. Like many others, he was absent at the call of the House on 9 October, although friends ensured his excuse was accepted.84CJ v. 330a.

Monson returned to the Committee for Indemnity on 10 November and acted six times as chairman before the end of the year.85SP24/1, f. 73 et seq. As its volume of business increased, in the first six months of 1648 he was commonly present several times a week and on most days it sat, almost always as chair.86SP24/1, SP24/2. His four committee appointments in the Commons over the year all had some direct or indirect connection with this ancillary activity. On 29 January 1648 he was named to prepare the ordinance for indemnity of well-affected tenants from oppression by popish or delinquent landlords, while on 20 March he was a counterweight to the many lawyers discussing the ordinance for reforming the court of admiralty.87CJ v. 447b, 505b. Two nominations in May related to the management of royalist prisoners and investigation of pro-royalist petitioning in Surrey.88CJ v. 557b, 562b. As insurrection took hold, he was ordered on 4 July to supervise the demolition of earthworks about Holmsdale Castle at Reigate, but a fortnight later was reproached by the Derby House Committee for exacerbating local tensions by installing a garrison at the charge of the county.89CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 156-7, 196.

From June to November 1648 there is no sign of Monson in the Commons Journal. After 21 June, when its work appeared to be shared more evenly, he was also less noticeable in records of the Committee for Indemnity, suggesting that he was preoccupied in Surrey. However, in the last week of November, when the prospect of peace gave an added urgency to proceedings, he was a signatory to many orders.90SP24/3, esp. f. 133 et seq.

The Rump, 1648-53

Following Pride’s Purge Monson’s career blossomed dramatically. During the Rump he was named to 50 committees and acted as a teller in 19 divisions, five of them with radical republican Henry Marten*. Although he did not declare his support for the purged assembly until 1 February 1649, he was active on the Committee for Indemnity when its business resumed on 13 December 1648 and two days later, with other stalwarts there like William Purefoy I* and Miles Corbett*, was nominated to the committee to suppress criticism of the purge.91PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, p. 625; SP24/3, f. 148v et seq.; CJ vi. 97b. He was joint chairman of a committee to choose a new sheriff of Surrey (18 Dec.), appointed to two committees discussing bribery and government payments (21, 23 Dec.) and, critically, included on the committee considering the king’s trial (23 Dec.).92CJ vi. 99b, 102a, 103a. In the first two weeks of January 1649 he was named to all the major standing committees – Army, Derby House, Advance of Money and Compounding – as well as to those framing a new great seal, considering how to raise public revenue and preparing to inventory the king’s goods.93CJ vi. 107b, 110a, 112b, 113b, 116a, 118a, 120b. Nominated to the committee to set up Charles’s trial, he initially attended its proceedings, but withdrew before judgment was given and apparently went to ground for a fortnight.94CJ vi. 110b, 112b; HMC 7th Rep. Appendix, 150; LJ xi. 320b.

With the advent of the commonwealth, Monson returned smartly to the House, taking the dissent on 1 February, and entering what seems to have been the busiest few months of his life, both inside and outside the chamber itself.95Worden, Rump Parl. 100. For the first time, there is evidence of an interest in commercial and social matters. Among his committee nominations were those to deal with grievances presented by the Weavers’ Company (1 Feb.), empower justices of the peace to deliver more effective poor relief (23 Mar.), and prepare ordinances for draining the Great Level (8 May) and encouraging overseas ventures (25 July).96CJ vi. 127b, 171a, 204b, 270a.

Monson also espoused the cause of law reform. Placed on the committee to consider representations regarding courts in the north (5 July), he was then appointed (17 July) to the much smaller committee chaired by Marten discussing the bill for the release of prisoners for debt, whose misfortune Monson (like Marten) might already have contemplated sharing, were it not for his parliamentary immunity.97CJ vi. 251b, 262a. For reasons that are unclear, he had been a teller with Marten (14 Feb.) in a fruitless attempt to prevent the election to the council of state of William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury; on 4 August the pair joined forces, again unsuccessfully, to object to the second reading of the bill settling courts for probate and for marital dissension, presumably because they wished to amend it further.98CJ vi. 141a, 275a. Within a fortnight Monson was ordered to report as chairman of the committee for regulating the law (16 Aug.) and he was still holding this position, albeit in tandem with Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, when the committee was revived that December.99CJ vi. 280a, 328b. He re-emerged as a teller in divisions on legal matters in April and May 1652, but evidence of the rest of his activity in this area sank alongside the reform itself.100CJ vii. 123a, 130b.

In an assembly of conservative lawyers and religious enthusiasts, Monson and Marten may have been thrown together by their similarly dissolute lifestyles, but Marten’s alliances tended to shift according to the issue in question, and that with Monson was probably no exception. It is doubtful that the latter was an intellectually principled radical, or even a consistent friend. Moreover, although (23 June 1649) he was placed on the committee considering Marten’s petition to the House for arrears due from the state, there is no certainty that Monson gave it a sympathetic hearing.101CJ vi. 241b. On 19 July Marten and fellow radical Thomas Scot I* were tellers for small majority which rejected Monson’s own petition for payment out of the sale of the king’s goods of £4,500 of arrears due on his first wife’s royal pension.102CJ vi. 264b. One of Monson’s supporters in that division was Sir John Danvers*, a Chelsea neighbour and another maverick Rumper who had submitted a petition for redress, but it is not clear whether this was reciprocation: the viscount’s role as teller in the division on that on 14 June did not immediately appear to advance Danvers’s cause.103CJ vi. 232a.

Certain things are clear, however. As indicated, Monson’s finances were tangled. He may have misrepresented his position in his petition of 6 July in claiming that he had neglected his private affairs for nine years in order to serve the House ‘laboriously’ – at least until the recent past – but he was probably accurate in saying that he had contracted many debts.104SP46/95, f. 134; C73/482/19. He was also a creditor of those unlikely to meet their obligations: as records of the Committees for Compounding and Advance of Money reveal, he had claims on the estates of several former royalists and held at least one mortgage (that of James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton, at Chelsea).105CCAM 948, 1008; CCC 2132, 2249, 2426, 2512; C78/482/19; C78/499/9. Furthermore, he made risky investments, as in August 1649, when he bought soldiers’ debentures and lost heavily on the transaction.106C5/12/45. All this gave him a taste for, and vested interest in, the cases before those same committees as well as in the wider issues of dealing with delinquents and petitioners, and of raising money.

In March and April 1649 Monson dominated the proceedings of the Committee for Indemnity, signing almost all of its orders.107SP24/4, ff. 22v-58v. Although his pre-eminence was short-lived, he remained a key member for the rest of the year, especially from October to December, before his attendances apparently tailed off after January 1650.108SP24/4, f. 58v et seq.; SP24/5; SP24/6, esp. ff. 34-37v. Roughly the same period saw him at his most visible in the Journal. Committee nominations included those relating to: petitions and complaints and in particular to the petition of the army council of officers (2, 26 Feb., 4 Oct. 1649); revenues from confiscated lands (5, 24 Feb.); empowerment of the committee of Kent to deal with delinquents (19 Feb.); constituting the committee of accounts and preparing accounts (2 Mar., 25 July); and treating with the Common Council of London for excise for Ireland (4 July).109CJ vi. 130a, 132a, 146b, 150b, 151a, 249b, 270a, 302b. He headed the list of those added to the committee for the state’s creditors (4 July) and was a teller with Sir Henry Mildmay* in favour of expanding the committee for excise (14 Aug.).110CJ vi. 250a, 278b. Among those deputed to review the powers of the Committee for Advance of Money (28 May), he was ordered to report a case from Haberdashers’ Hall in June.111CJ vi. 218b, 226b, 228a. Qualified by his indemnity experience to participate in preparation of a general act of oblivion for parliamentarians (5 July), he had shown himself capable of harsh action towards royalist delinquents: on 14 March he and Sir William Allanson* told for the majority who agreed that Browne Bushnell should be among those tried for his life.112CJ vi. 250b.

In 1650 Monson was much less visible. Nevertheless, his handful of appointments was significant. Nominated (7 Feb.) to prepare the all-important bill for the removal of obstructions in the sale of royal lands, he was also a commissioner under the subsequent act.113CJ vi. 358b; A. and O. He was included on committees to consider additional elections to the council of state and powers for commissioners to compound for all fines due to the exchequer (12, 21 Feb.).114CJ vi. 363b, 369b. One of five MPs entrusted with the expenditure of £2,000 from the treasurers for the Advance of Money for transportation of suitable settlers to Ireland (4 June), that month he was also at last added, with the Goodwins, to the committee for excise (20 June).115CJ vi. 418b, 427a.

Thereafter, on the evidence of the Commons Journal, Monson’s parliamentary service was intermittent. He did not appear at all in the latter half of 1650, or between October 1651 and March 1652. Chosen presumably for his rank and his experience of the royal court, he received three appointments to attend foreign ambassadors, drawing on his court experience to greet the agents of Spain (22 Jan. 1651), Tuscany (21 May) and Denmark (29 June 1652).116CJ vi. 526a, 576b; vii. 146a. By this time a justice of the peace in a whole swathe of counties – time-consuming enough in itself if undertaken conscientiously – as well as custos rotulorum in Surrey, he was named to a small committee to establish a new gaol in there (12 Mar. 1651) and was narrowly defeated in an attempt to make Kingston-upon-Thames a parliamentary borough (23 Mar. 1653).117CJ vi. 548b; vii. 270b. Otherwise, his involvement in Commons business largely ran along familiar lines. He was nominated to committees on public revenue (2 June 1652) and dealing with private petitions (21, 30 Aug. 1651), and continued to take a close interest both in individual claims and in the treatment of delinquents and the sale of forfeited estates, appearing with a variety of partners as a teller in divisions on related issues several times in each of the summers of 1651 and 1652.118CJ vi. 585a, 596b, 605a, 606b; vii. 5a, 9b, 123a, 130b, 138a, 147a, 149b, 151a, 187b. On 29 December 1652 he and Sir Gilbert Pykeringe* carried by one vote a division on whether Wallingford House should be included in the sale of crown property, while on 25 January 1653 he was nominated to the committee reviewing the proceedings of commissioners involved in such sales.119CJ vii. 238a, 250b.

Among the many delinquent cases coming before the House was that of Monson’s cousin, Sir John Monson, who, as one of the king’s commissioners for the surrender of Oxford, had made an individual composition with the parliamentarian delegation. Benefiting from a positive testimonial from the New Model, he was given a sympathetic hearing (25 July 1651).120CJ vi. 610-11. This occurred during a period when Lord Monson was noticeably active in the House, but his role in it is unknown. In the last days of the Parliament he presented a petition on his own account, discussed on 14 April 1653.121CJ vii. 277b, 278a. Referred to committee, it was a casualty of the dissolution.

Rump to retribution, 1653-72

For reasons unknown, under the protectorate Monson lost his local offices in the south east, although he was nominated to commissions in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.122A. and O. Without the protection of Parliament, where he was seen to have ‘power to prevail with his brother Members and the governors of that time for his friends’, his debts became a more pressing problem.123The Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, ed. J.J. Cartwright (1875), 41. In May 1654 he petitioned Oliver Cromwell for permission to break the terms of his marriage settlement with his second wife in order to modify provision for their son, now seven years old, and allow him to meet other obligations.124SP18/71, f. 34. The following year the breakdown of his third marriage, contracted in February 1651, entailed further humiliation and financial loss. Acknowledged by her nephew, Sir John Reresby, to be ‘a little too masculine’ and able ‘to do what she pleased with her husband’, Elizabeth Monson was later rumoured to have tied Monson to the bedpost and whipped or beaten him.125Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 41; The proceedings of the late half-quarter Parliament (1660), 6 (E.1074.33); S. Butler, Hudibras (1678), 127. He certainly alleged in a chancery suit that she had made off with plate and other personal effects – a claim corroborated by her nephew – although she defended this as an attempt to prevent his goods being seized by creditors, and to complicate matters both parties were engaged in pursuing through the courts rights arising from their previous marriages.126C5/20/76; C5/24/26; C5/24/28; C5/26/115; Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 41. Finally, in July 1658 judgement was given against him in a long-running dispute with his kinswoman Anne Savile over tithes at Thorp Arch in Yorkshire.127Nottingham Univ. Lib. Ga 12,604. By March 1658 Monson was a prisoner in king’s bench, having, according to Reresby, committed himself voluntarily.128Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 41; C5/411/154.

Thus, when the restored Rump sought to boost its attendance on 7 May 1659 it sent to the prison for Monson and also recalled Marten, the inclusion of ‘those two chaste cock sparrows’ contributing, for some observers, to its lack of credibility.129[A. Annesley*], England’s Confusion (1659), 10 (E.985.1); Nicholas Pprs. iv. 135. It was ‘ordered that the walls of Sion shall be let alone, but that the Cities of Sodom and [Gomorrah] shall be rebuilt, and ... Lord Mounson and Mr Martin do see it performed accordingly’.130The procs. of the late half-quarter Parliament, 6. Despite the ignominy attendant on his arrival, Monson received seven committee nominations over the summer and autumn, all in familiar areas. He still had sufficient countenance, at least in regard to foreigners, to be appointed to attend agents from Hamburg (14 June) and Tuscany (7 Oct.).131CJ vii. 685a, 793b. He was named to discuss bills for collecting arrears in excise and new taxes (8 June) and for a new assessment (1 Sept.) and to deal with individual cases, notably the settlement on Richard Cromwell (25 May).132CJ vii. 665a, 676b, 752b, 772a. A final nomination on 11 January 1660 was to frame the eligibility criteria for MPs and the nature of Parliaments to come.133CJ vii. 807a,

On the dissolution of the Long Parliament Monson returned to prison, with the double punishment of mockery and retribution from royalists. Monson, depicted as insubstantial (‘in a foam’) and weak (‘drivelling’), was made to comment that during the interregnum he had ‘said little, but signed as much as any, yet I expect the favour of a king if he do come’ and to appeal to indemnity for his salvation.134A Free-Parliament Letany (669.f.24.19); Saint George and the Dragon, Anglice, Mercurius Poeticus (1660, 669.f.23.66); The Black Book Opened (1660, 669.f.24.12). On 9 June 1660 William Prynne* reported to the Convention a list of those, including Monson, who had sat in judgement on Charles I before 27 January 1649.135CJ viii. 59b, 60a. In accordance with the resulting royal proclamation, he came on 20 June with a keeper to render himself to the Speaker, who remanded him back to the Fleet prison.136CJ viii. 70b. It was to be his permanent home. He petitioned Parliament for mercy, explaining that he had been made a commissioner for the trial ‘unfortunately and contrary to his inclinations’ and was ‘mortally sorrowful’ for a crime which ‘proceeded rather from an error in judgement than disaffection’, but suffered the penalties of forfeiting both his title and his property, the latter being conveyed on 4 December 1661 to James, duke of York.137CJ viii. 285b, 286b; LJ xi. 320a, 320b; HMC 7th Rep. Appendix, 150; Hooper, Reigate, 31. Additionally, this ‘sordid fellow, of destructive principles’ was with Sir Henry Mildmay and Robert Wallop sentenced to the annual torture of being ‘drawn from the Tower through the City of London upon sledges, with halters about their necks’.138W. Winstanley, The Loyall Martyrology (1665).

Monson survived until February 1672.139Suss. N. and Q. x. 18. In April 1663 his widow, at her own request and through the intercession of her nephew Reresby, was restored to the dignity of Viscountess Castlemain.140SP44/40, f. 29; Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 87. But the title died with her. Monson’s son Alston, from his second marriage, outlived him by only three years.141Lincs. Peds. 683. On the other hand, Sir John Monson founded a lasting dynasty. His son John and grandson Henry sat in several Restoration Parliaments.142HP Commons 1660–1690.