MYDDELTON, Sir Thomas (1586-1666), of Chirk Castle, Denb.

1640 and earlier

The Myddeltons were descended from a thirteenth century chieftain of a commote in the upper Dee valley, but a marriage with a Shropshire family a century later prompted the adoption of the English surname, which our MP rendered thus.38SP16/503, f. 12. Myddelton’s great-grandfather was the first of the family to hold the office of constable of Denbigh castle, an office which the Myddeltons held throughout the early modern period. In the Elizabethan period, the family flocked to London and took English wives. This Member’s father became father of the City, for which he was Member when Myddelton entered Parliament in 1624 for Weymouth, a seat previously occupied by his late uncle Robert Myddelton†. Another uncle was Sir Hugh Myddelton†, pioneer of the New River, which brought fresh water to London from Hertfordshire. Myddelton settled after his first marriage at Chirk Castle, which his father had purchased in 1595. He chose to sit for Denbighshire in 1625, having been returned also for the Dorset borough. In neither of his first two Parliaments did he make much of an impact.39HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Sir Thomas Myddelton I’, ‘Sir Thomas Myddelton II’, ‘Hugh Myddelton’, ‘Robert Myddelton’. He inherited much of a 30,000 acre estate in 1631, including lands chiefly in Flint, Merioneth, Montgomery and Shropshire: the Essex property went to a half-brother. His first brief marriage brought him a Yorkshire estate and no surviving issue; some of the children of his second marriage were baptized at Luton, their mother’s home. He increased his stake in Denbighshire by the purchase of Ruthin Castle in 1632, making unsuccessful bids for the lordship of Ruthin then and in 1637. Although he played the country gentleman at Chirk, his father’s multifarious entrepreneurial activities in the capital significantly influenced both his private and public lives. He invested in coal mining and ironworks on his Denbighshire and Shropshire estates, and in the Fishery venture in 1633, the year he became a member of the council in Wales and the marches, of which his brother-in-law’s father-in-law was president.40CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 510. Despite his reputation as a puritan, which derives at least in part from his enthusiasm for moral reformation, Myddelton actively conformed to Archbishop William Laud’s policies. He questioned seven conventiclers charged with irreligion and sedition on whom the council sent information to Laud in July 1639, while his own chapel at Chirk was hardly fitted out in austere style, and a critic of the 1640s even accused him of setting up there an altar where his family ‘did usually cringe and bow thereunto’.41CSP Dom. 1639, p. 417; Thomas, thesis, 451.

A petition by Myddelton before the court of wards (11 Nov. 1640) explained that he had recently been ‘employed abroad’ in the king’s service, suggesting perhaps that he had played some part in the war against the Scottish covenanting army in the north.42CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 220. Myddelton’s election seems to have been somewhat overshadowed by questions over its legitimacy. It took place after the Denbighshire county court had been adjourned, thus rendering it open to question in some quarters, but Myddelton evidently intended to sit out any controversy. His first committee appointment came on 19 November, when the House considered how to raise funds to pay off the armies in the north. A cynical observer attributed Myddelton’s offer of a loan or security of up to £3,000 (21 Nov.) to his hope for no further inquiry into his election. In December there was a suggestion that his nephew, Sir Thomas Salusbury*, might lay claim to the seat, but no more was heard of that, and by mid-month the threat seemed over.43CJ ii. 31b; Procs. LP i. 228, 231; Salusbury Corresp. 110, 111, 112-3, 114. With John Glynne* among others, Myddelton was included in the committee on petitioners making claims in cases of crown-sponsored land improvements (3 Dec.), and on the same day he joined another on the courts of high commission and star chamber.44CJ ii. 44a,b.

Ambivalent reformer, 1640-2

In the early months of the Parliament, Myddelton seems to have been actively interested in religious reform. He joined committees on the cases against the bishops of Bath and Wells and Ely (12, 22 Dec. 1640) and in the spring of 1641 on the bill to exclude the clergy from secular public office (8 Mar.). His name was first among the additions to a committee to investigate the possible existence of a popish hierarchy in England (16 Mar.), which clearly had punitive intent; as did another aimed against members of the recent Convocation (27 Apr.). More constructively, he was among those charged with producing a bill on the better propagation of the gospel (12 Apr.).45CJ ii. 50a, 56a, 99a, 105b, 119a, 129a. On secular constitutional matters, he was among those considering the bill for annual Parliaments (30 Dec.), but was quiescent through January 1641. On the 23rd of that month he wrote to Salusbury expressing ‘fear’ that the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) would fail to free himself from parliamentary attacks, and on the 29th was added to one of the committees on Strafford’s case, dealing solely with commissions given to the Catholic 5th earl of Worcester and his son, Lord Herbert of Raglan (29 Jan.). This turned on an authority given by the government in 1638 to raise soldiers, and John Bodvell* and Sir John Clotworthy* both emphasised its potential for raising specifically Catholic troops. Myddelton pointed out that the commission was restricted to four English counties and two in south Wales, an intervention that could only have served to soften the onslaught on both earls.46CJ ii. 60a, 75b; NLW, Lleweni 175; Procs. LP i. 309-10. If he was indeed sympathetic towards Strafford in January, Myddelton was not bold enough in his sympathy to be identified as a ‘Straffordian’ in May. He took the protestation on the third of that month, and was among those responsible for producing the bill for ensuring that the protestation was tendered to the country at large, though the bill was thrown out by the Lords on 29 July.47CJ ii. 133a, 136b; LJ iv. 334b.

Another of Myddelton’s parliamentary interests was public and private finance. He was named to the committees on bills for tonnage and poundage (18 Mar.) and against usury (19 Mar.).48CJ ii. 107a, 108a. He joined the committee to confer with anyone thought likely to lend the government money, and supported Nathaniel Fiennes I in expressing doubts about the capacity of the Merchant Adventurers to make good their promises of money in exchange for trading privileges. His own proposal was for a bill that would offer 10 per cent interest to any lender, in return for exemption from public offices, particularly the office of sheriff: a suggestion that would have appealed to the lesser gentry in the House, the class most frequently burdened with the shrievalty. He himself was prepared to offer £1,000 on that basis.49CJ ii. 143a; Procs. LP i. 628, 629, 631. He was included in the committee charged with finding new commissioners for the customs (2 June), and a month later to another on the allowances that would be allowed collectors of the poll money, a measure aimed at making the collection more palatable to local officials.50CJ ii. 165a, 197b; Procs. LP i. 477. In the list for this latter committee, the clerk mistakenly recorded him as ‘Sir Hugh’, doubtless thinking of Myddelton’s uncle, the promoter of the New River scheme that brought fresh water to the City from Hertfordshire, and it was natural that Sir Thomas should himself be interested in another proposal along similar lines, delegated for further consideration on 29 May.51CJ ii. 161a. The issue of the defence of the nation claimed his attention in two committees: on forced recruitment of mariners (8 May), and on a bill for regulating the militia (15 July).52CJ ii. 140b, 212b. Myddelton found a place on the committee asked to prioritize Commons business before the king left for Scotland on 10 August, but he pre-empted any possibility of being included in the Recess Committee by successfully requesting leave of absence (24 July).53CJ ii. 208a, 222b. Not until March 1642 did Myddelton return to the House.

His eight month disappearance from Westminster remains a mystery. When he returned it was to be named only to three committees: on the better maintenance of the clergy (25 Mar.), on a petition from a Londoner, referred to a committee on City grievances (28 Mar.), and in a joint committee with the Lords on a petition from the Dutch merchant strangers (26 Mar.).54CJ ii. 496b, 499a, 500b. Myddelton made no particular impact on the business of the House, and soon afterwards must have left Westminster once more. He was at Chirk when on 14 June John Bodvell was instructed by the House to ask him, as a deputy lieutenant of nearly 20 years’ standing, to remain there to execute the militia ordinance.55CJ ii. 623b; PJ iii. 76. He had returned to the Commons by late October, however, as he was included in the committee to receive despatches from Members in the counties on the 28th.56CJ ii. 825a; Add. 18777, f. 46. Ten days later he joined Sir Thomas Barrington*, Samuel Vassall*, Sir Henry Mildmay* and Sir Arthur Hesilrige* in readying and steadying the London apprentices before the arrival of Robert Rich†, 2nd earl of Warwick, to form them into regiments of a planned second army under Parliament to complement that of the 3rd earl of Essex.57CJ ii. 838a; Add. 18777, f. 51v. Myddelton’s inclusion doubtless owed much to the London property interests of his family, and the popularity of the family name among Londoners, who would have associated it with the public benefits of the New River scheme. Earlier in the year, the apprentices had publicly supported a Myddelton (probably Sir Thomas’s cousin, William, a City alderman) in a king’s bench case, in which their man was seen as a victim of Sir John Lenthall, marshal of the court. In the event, however, the plan for Warwick’s army was shelved.58The Copy of a Letter (1642, 669.f.4.73).

Civil war activist

Late in 1642, Myddelton seems to have contributed actively to the parliamentarian war effort in London. He was included in three delegations with the Lords to the City in November, and was among those added to the committee managing the requisitioning or confiscation of horses.59CJ ii. 842a, 863b, 866a; Add. 18777, f. 70. For the first time in this Parliament, on 3 December he was a teller in a thin House on the winning side for enforcing loyalty to the earl of Essex by sending a dissident, Sir Sidney Montagu*, to the Tower.60CJ ii. 874b. He promised on 31 December to contribute £100 to the cause, and nearly three weeks later took a bullish line on the negotiations over a loan from the customs farmers: he claimed to be confident that others would lend not only the £20,000 in question, but £10,000 more. He was included in the committee for chasing up contributions in the counties on Parliament’s Propositions (27 Jan. 1643), and with this sanguine view of resourcing, was the second named on the list of the Commons committee for sequestrations compiled on 3 February, a prototype for what would on 27 March be reconstituted as the Committee for Sequestrations, a major bicameral executive body. Myddelton was duly included in that committee also.61CJ ii. 945b, 953b, iii. 21b; Add. 18777, ff. 109v, 130, 142.

The fire of Myddelton’s enthusiasm for punitive measures against royalists must have been stoked by the fate in his absence of Chirk castle, which was taken by the royalists on 15 January 1643. His rents were subsequently collected by Sir Nicholas Byron, governor of Chester for the king.62Thomas, thesis, 34; Cal. Lttrs. relating to N. Wales, 188. On 5 April, the House sent to committee a measure to compensate him for his losses, later referring it to the committee working on the sequestrations ordinance.63CJ iii. 31a, 37b. Naturally, Myddelton was prominent among those attempting from London to recover Shropshire and north-east Wales, involved in efforts to summon those who might lend. Among these were those trading in Welsh cloth, an important business link between Shrewsbury and London, but now surely disrupted by the war.64CJ iii. 86a. On 24 May he was added to the Commons committee for the Eastern Association, and was included two days later in discussions on proposals by the City government which linked protection of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne coal trade with a campaign to win that town for Parliament.65CJ iii. 100a, 105a. More importantly that day, however (26 May), an ordinance was read for Myddelton to command an army in north Wales, with the rank of sergeant-major-general. In February, Sir William Brereton* had asked John Pym* for a force under Myddelton and Sir John Corbet* to be sent to the north midlands.66CJ iii. 105a; HMC Portland i. 94, 96. The ordinance received immediate assent in the Commons, but the Lords had to be asked twice to speed up its progress in the upper House. They sent down an amendment on 3 June, a clause exempting Members of either House from sequestration. Two days later, the peers reported the legislation passed, but it was only on the 12th, after they had surrendered over their amendment, that it was finally adopted.67CJ iii. 105ab, 108b, 113b, 115a, 121b, 124a, 127a; LJ vi. 79b, 80a, 81a, 89b. When news of Myddelton’s commission reached Oxford, the king issued a warrant for his arrest.68Cal. Lttrs. relating to N. Wales, 57.

Myddelton took the new oath and covenant on 6 June, and set about recruiting his army in London. The Navy Committee was instructed to supply him with gunpowder, to be shipped from Portsmouth to north-east Wales, and a commissariat was established in London to register horses brought in for the service (24 June), contributors receiving the public faith for their ‘loans’. The financial resources of the New River waterworks were diverted for his use.69CJ iii. 123b, 142b, 143a. On 29 June, John Glynne tried to form a council of war against the plotters associated with Edmund Waller* from among the Members of both Houses with army commands. Myddelton excused himself on the grounds that he needed to attend his army, and others made similar apologies. Sir Simonds D’Ewes* concluded from this that there was a widespread reluctance to participate, and his view of Myddelton as an equivocator was strengthened a few days later when it emerged that he and others had encouraged Sir John Corbet to lend money for his expeditionary force but then denied him the command he had been promised.70Harl. 165, ff. 103, 143, 143v. Myddelton set out for Wales soon afterwards, and was at Nantwich in Cheshire by 19 August.71Civil War in Cheshire, 71. His place on the Committee for Advance of Money went to John Lisle*.72CJ ii. 269a.

Myddelton had established himself at Wem, Shropshire, by mid-October, but wrote to the Commons to report that he had run out of credit and ready money.73CJ iii. 277b; Add. 31116, p. 168. The expedient hit upon at Westminster was to target the London impositions collectorship of Sir John Wolstenholme*, with the parliamentary committee for Shropshire given responsibility for discovering sums owing on that branch of the customs. Richard More*, William Ashhurst* and John Rolle* were added to the committee for the purpose, and the task was quickly widened to include the Gloucestershire committee at Westminster.74CJ iii. 278a, 285b; LJ vi. 266b. In mid-November, Myddelton confidently called upon Salusbury to surrender Denbigh, and he reported successes in other parts of north-east Wales.75Salusbury Corresp. 159-60; CJ iii. 320b. However, even as this optimistic assessment reached Westminster, the Commons became aware of his fears that auxiliaries from other counties would desert him for lack of pay, and help was sought from the House of Lords by his supporters in London, prominent among them Ashhurst, John Glynne (who was recorder of Chester) and Sir Philip Stapilton*. The earl of Warwick was lobbied for naval assistance, and Essex was asked to support Myddelton by land. Sir John Corbet, who might reasonably by this time have harboured suspicion towards him, was prominent among those required to find fresh resources in Shropshire. Essex’s response was to send forces under the earl of Denbigh and Sir Thomas Fairfax.76Add. 18779, f. 15; Harl. 165, f. 219v; CJ iii. 320b, 321a. The intervention proved inadequate and too late, however, especially when Irish ships appeared in Liverpool Bay, and the siege of Chester was abandoned.77Add. 18779, f. 18.

On 15 December, Myddelton’s presence in the House inaugurated the inquest on what had wrecked his north Wales campaign. Ashhurst drew attention to the plight of Brereton, still in Cheshire, and attributed his problems to naval failures, specifically the reluctance of ships’ commanders to engage the enemy. D’Ewes seems privately to have thought Myddelton had not exerted himself to lobby Parliament on Brereton’s behalf.78Harl. 165, f. 244v. Myddelton’s own speech (18 Dec.) highlighted the unwillingness of soldiers to move from their home counties, and sought to claim for himself for future use the money from the New River scheme and the authority to examine witnesses on oath to discover delinquents’ estates, neither of which were fresh proposals. He lambasted timid sea-captains and the cowardice of Lancashire soldiers, but reserved particular scorn for the ‘unworthy and insolent dealing’ of William Purefoy I* and the Coventry committee in their transactions with the earl of Denbigh. He directly blamed Purefoy for the failure of Warwickshire men to march to Cheshire, and was supported by a letter from Denbigh to the same effect.79Add. 31116, p. 203; Add. 18779, ff. 32v-33v; Harl. 165, ff. 245v-248v. Myddelton’s supporters, including Ashhurst, Glynne and Edmund Prideaux I, headed the committee to progress his proposals.80CJ iii. 345b.

A second campaign

Myddelton took the Covenant on 22 December, and was named to a small handful of committees around the same time: on a Declaration to encourage English soldiers coming from Ireland to fight for Parliament; on a dispute in Somerset between William Strode II* and a relative of Sir John Horner, perhaps George Horner*; and to committees of both Houses on the complaints of the earl of Denbigh and the king’s summons to MPs to assemble at Oxford amid an allegation that George, Lord Digby* had denigrated the Westminster Parliament as ‘pretended’.81CJ iii. 347a, 349b, 352b, 355b, 359b. More significant for Myddelton than any of these was the merger of the Westminster committee for Gloucester with that working on his proposals for a re-launched campaign. Thomas Pury I reported from this body on 8 January 1644, with an ordinance that allowed Myddelton the proceeds of estates discovered in London, up to a total value of £3,000 and within the space of a single month. Any new delinquents Myddelton might identify were to be assessed by the Committee for Advance of Money and the Committee for Sequestrations before he could seize any assets.82CJ iii. 349b, 361b. The amended ordinance was taken to the Lords on 7 February, where it came under the sympathetic management of Denbigh, and was passed on the 13th.83CJ iii. 367a, 372b, 380b, 383a, 390a,b, 398b, 399a; LJ vi. 419a, 422b, 424a. While his ordinance went through the legislative process, Myddelton was called to the committee on the accounts of the Committee for Advance of Money (12 Jan.) and with his ally, the war party man, Ashhurst, prepared the public thanks to Brereton and Fairfax for raising the siege of Nantwich.84CJ iii. 363b, 386a.

Boosted by a committee formed on 15 February 1644 to consider all means of securing five counties of the north-west midlands, Myddelton and his allies went about their preparations for a re-launch, encouraged by the Committee of Both Kingdoms.85CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 26, 34 He himself reported discoveries of delinquents’ estates worth £1,200, and offered to equip his force on his own credit, to be secured partly on proceeds at the Committee for Advance of Money, partly from revenues of the court of wards, and partly from the estates of the Catholic peer, the 4th Baron Petre.86CJ iii. 400a, 405b, 412a. As on previous occasions, Myddelton displayed a bullish optimism about potential ‘discoveries’, whether arising from the estates of another Catholic, Lady Shelley, or the £1,000 in gold found in an alehouse near Gray’s Inn. He claimed on 7 March to be able to identify as much as £10,000, which the Commons used as a ceiling to regulate his activities; the House also imposed further scrutiny, this time by the Committee for Examinations, which in June was actively intervening in the matter.87Add. 18779, ff. 67, 68v; Add. 31116, p. 242; CJ iii. 416b, 420a, 424a; Harl. 166, f. 27; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 37; SP16/539/2, f. 162. By the end of that month, collectors in the London parishes were urged by the House to speed up bringing their receipts to the treasury established to receive them, and on 28 March, three weeks after the Committee of Both Kingdoms had urged his departure, Myddelton announced that he would set out with his new army for Wales in four days’ time.88CJ iii. 440a; CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 38, 73; Harl. 166, f. 40.

In fact, it was not until the end of April that Myddelton’s army set out, and then without its commander.89Thomas, thesis, 85. On 7 May, the Committee of Both Kingdoms urged him to join his men, and soon afterwards, after his soldiers had rendezvoused with those of Denbigh, his army was affected by mutiny; the earl reported it suppressed.90CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 146, 150, 161. Myddelton’s delay was doubtless owing to his need to remain in London to supervise the continuing fund-raising, which produced a Commons ordinance and kept alive a controversy over sequestration of Lady Shelley’s money that persisted after he had left the capital to assume his command.91CJ iii. 450b, 457a, 472b, 481a, 482a, 485b, 494a, 498b, 499a, 500a; Add. 31116, pp. 254, 270. The ordinance for Myddelton to benefit from particular sequestrations of named estates was seen through the Commons by the reliable Ashhurst, and through the Lords by Saye, both men firmly in the camp of the war party. D’Ewes, for one, was clear that the ‘violent spirits’ were behind the measure, which might have been in part a quid pro quo, since Myddelton had performed a useful service for the war party men in March, by intervening to help vindicate Philip Sidney*, Lord Lisle, from allegations of corresponding with the king.92CJ iii. 500a; LJ vi. 563a; Harl. 166, ff. 25, 62; Add. 18779, f. 71v. Another ordinance quickly followed (25 June), by which Myddelton would have received a further £1,000 from delinquents’ estates, but this was rejected by the Lords on 20 July.93CJ iii. 565b; LJ vi. 605a, 642b.

At the end of May 1644, Myddelton set out for Cheshire where a muster under Lord Denbigh against the royalists in Lancashire under Prince Rupert was taking place. Denbigh remained dissatisfied with the standards of discipline and obedience among Myddelton’s troops, and identified the Warwickshire regiment of William Purefoy I as among a number of habitually recalcitrant units, thereby blowing hard on the embers of his dispute with the Coventry committee.94CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 177, 194. Myddelton’s troops were involved in the siege of Dudley Castle in mid-June, but by the time they reached Nantwich at the end of the month, they were thought so weakened that that they were deployed to defend Wem and Oswestry.95CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 235-6, 286-7. The latter town was thereby relieved of a royalist siege (2 July), before Denbigh arrived on the scene. When his letter to the Speaker announcing this was read in the House (10 July), Myddelton was at once awarded the disposal of the estates of the family of Sir Richard Newport† and Francis Newport* for funds.96CJ iii. 555b; Harl. 166, f. 81; CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 330, 331, 337. The latter was ordered by the Commons (7 Aug.) to be brought to London.97CJ iii. 582a; Thomas, thesis, 87-8.

Myddelton had to be persuaded by Denbigh not to march into Wales, evidently still his primary objective, which he pursued by means of lobbying among his Cheshire supporters. He reluctantly returned to Cheshire, to shadow Prince Rupert’s movements.98CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 337-9 He finally obtained permission from the Committee of Both Kingdoms to peel off towards Shropshire and Wales (16 July), but was obliged to remain at Nantwich until he could launch a raid on Welshpool (6 Aug.) with his brother-in-law, Col. Thomas Mytton*.99CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 353, 354, 355, 392, 405. His report to the Commons, read on 12 August, prompted orders for more ammunition and funds and a letter of thanks for his services, to be drafted by Simon Thelwall*.100CJ iii. 588a, 589a. Pushing into Montgomeryshire, he took Montgomery, in his letter to the Commons, read on 11 September, insisting that had he been helped by forces from Lancashire and Cheshire he would have secured ‘a great part’ of north Wales by this time. 101Harl. 166, ff. 120, 120v. He captured royalist ammunition at Newtown and stored it in Montgomery Castle, yielded co-operatively by Lord Herbert of Chirbury on 4 September, but before he and his cavalry could obtain victuals, their garrison suffered a royalist counter-attack.102HMC 6th Rep. 27, 28; Add. 31116, p. 319; Herbert Corresp. 116; Thomas, thesis, 99-100. After a retreat to Oswestry for reinforcements, Myddelton returned with Brereton, Sir John Meldrum and Sir William Fairfax, who was killed in their recapture of Montgomery (17 Sept.). The House read Myddelton’s victorious letter of the 18th on 23 September, ten days after the supply of his forces had been referred to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, and another letter of thanks was sent him.103CJ iii. 626a, 636b, 638a. With Lord Herbert evidently willing to co-operate in return for a lifting of his sequestration, Myddelton was able later to take the peer’s second fortress, Red Castle (Powis Castle), by storm but without fatalities, and signed surrender articles on amicable terms.104CJ ii. 658b; LJ vi. 714b, Add. 31116, p. 322.

On 30 September, an ordinance awarding Myddelton £1,500 from another London source, the St. Paul’s repair fund, was passed while further possibilities for sequestrations were investigated.105CJ iii. 637 b, 638b, 640b, 641a; LJ vi. 717a, 718b; vii. 4a. He subsequently failed to take Ruthin Castle (19 Oct.), and on 30 October wrote to Speaker Lenthall to complain bitterly that the many Commons orders made in his favour had failed to deliver the resources he needed, that he was losing arms and powder to Brereton, and that he had no money to pay his men. He concluded by asking to be relieved of his post.106HMC Portland i. 191-2. Brereton evidently disagreed with him on the value or significance of Ruthin in comparison with the merits of capturing Chester, but Myddelton was at least able to use his garrison of Powis Castle to launch a force to join up with Rowland Laugharne† at Lampeter, taking the mansions of Mathafarn and Abbey Cwm Hir in Radnorshire from the royalists.107CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 133, 181. Falling back on Shrewsbury, which he besieged, and after further complaints about failure of supply from London, he failed in a bid with Mytton to recapture his own castle of Chirk. The royalists claimed he had sought to be home in time for Christmas. He spent the rest of the winter of 1644-5 in Welshpool. 108CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 182-3; Mercurius Aulicus (5-12 Jan. 1645), 1329 (E.27.7); Thomas, thesis, 118-9.

Westminster politician

While Myddelton was in the field in the summer of 1644, the rancour at Westminster between Denbigh and his critics had not been dispelled. The earl’s remonstrance of 3 August drew in part for its narrative on the deployment of Myddelton’s horse, and on the 14th Denbigh charged John Barker I* with cowardice in surrendering Coventry. Purefoy spoke in the Commons to defend Barker, evidently resentful that a joint committee of the Houses had been used to air these allegations. D’Ewes, as ever sympathetic to the peerage, reminded the House of Myddelton’s support for Denbigh.109Harl. 166, f. 107v. To add to this dispute, the relationship between Brereton and Myddelton now began to fray. They had disagreed over military priorities by November 1644 at the latest, and these differences widened during the campaigning season of 1645. Furthermore, tensions grew between the committee for Shropshire and the brothers-in-law Myddelton and Mytton, after a winter when committee-men and military men had had ample opportunity to become better acquainted. On 10 April 1645, the Shropshire committee wrote to Brereton, telling him of Mytton’s aspersions against him at Westminster, and a week later an agent of Myddelton’s wrote mischievously to a military colleague on the indiscipline of Brereton’s soldiers. William Ashhurst, whose first loyalty was to Brereton, believed that Myddelton was unaware of his subordinate’s hostile briefings.110Brereton Lttr. Bks. i. 87, 188, 189, 194, 240, 272-3; Dore, ‘Myddelton’s Attempted Conquest’, 110-11.

For his part, Myddelton remained eager to quit his command, encouraged by the passage of the Self-Denying Ordinance through Parliament. On 23 April he petitioned the House, repeating his resignation offer of October the previous year and expressing his eagerness to return to Westminster.111Add. 18780, f. 7. Ashhurst offered to initiate an ordinance to maintain him in post, however, and his officers were reluctant to see him retire, arguing that north Wales would not be easy to capture, since the common people were in thrall to malignant gentry. They claimed that only two ministers in the six counties were willing to countenance religious reformation or take the Covenant. They highlighted Myddelton’s willingness to lend out his cavalry in the interests of subduing other regions, his willingness to hazard his own fortune and his care in advancing reformation and fostering pious clergy.112Brereton Lttr. Bks. i. 240, 335-6. He himself would have concurred with their assessment of his motives. He is said to have told the Commons when lobbying for his north Wales command that his compatriots were ‘grossly ignorant, and of blind zeal, and having so much … superstition … that they had taken up arms to defend idolatrous pictures which were doomed to be pulled down’.113Quoted in L. Bowen, The Politics of the Principality (Cardiff, 2007), 232. When he laid it down he was still deploring

the general defection of the ministry and the severe power which some gentlemen have and do exercise over the common people have kept them in such ignorance and awe that it hath made them more irreducible than any part of the kingdom (except Cornwall, where the people are swayed by the like principles).114Bodl. Tanner 60, f. 41.

Attempts had been made in February 1644 by the Commons to persuade the Westminster Assembly to encourage ministers to preach up subscriptions to Myddelton’s army, and in July a committee of Welsh Commons-men, joined by Joseph Caryl and Stephen Marshall, the two ministers most often favoured for parliamentary fast-day sermons, had been appointed to seek out Welsh-speaking ministers to send to Myddelton.115CJ iii. 405b, 565b. There seems no doubt that Myddelton took very seriously the administering of the Covenant to those in areas he had won over for Parliament.116Whitelocke, Mems. i. 308, 309, 311.

The Lords and Commons agreed to replace Myddelton with Mytton (10 May 1645), but his last months in command, extended by 40 days as one of a small number of exceptions to the self-denying ordinance, were troubled by a challenge to his authority.117CJ iv. 140a, 151b; LJ vii. 364b; Add. 18780, f. 18v. On 22 May, Simon Thelwall reported to the House from Myddelton that Montgomery castle was now commanded by Sir John Price* in defiance of him. Price was said to be waiting to hear from the Commons, and he was given the benefit of the doubt. On 1 September, the two men were treated as deserving equal treatment, and their dispute referred to the Committee for Examinations. However, Myddelton was vindicated when among the captured royal correspondence of the king was discovered a letter of thanks to Price from the king for safeguarding Montgomery. Price was duly disabled from sitting further.118Add. 31116, p. 422; Add. 18780, f. 24; CJ iv. 260a, 316b; Harl. 166, f. 270v .

Myddelton was back in London by 5 July 1645, when he was among the MPs required to respond to the solicitations from Pembrokeshire about securing the parliamentary cause there. He was called to the committee required to introduce the Presbyterian church structure in London and the country at large (25 July). Among other subjects which Myddelton would have found of great interest were the siege of Chester (5 Aug.), the policy on maintaining or closing garrisons (12 Aug.), the settlement of an allowance for Herbert of Cherbury (19 Aug.) and the abuses among sequestrators (16 Aug.).119CJ iv. 197a, 218a, 230b, 238b, 244b, 542b. North Wales remained a region still to be subjected to parliamentary authority, and Myddelton was included in the committee to consider ways and means (4 Feb. 1646), though the names of John Glynne, Simon Thelwall and William Ashhurst appeared before his on the list. On 28 March, however, Myddelton was first named among the commissioners to go to north Wales with the support and advice of the Committee of Both Kingdoms. He was a teller in two divisions on 14 April, unsuccessfully attempting to thwart an order favourable to the Independent City grandee, Alderman John Warner, in a customs case. His opponent in one of these divisions was the radical Sir Michael Livesay, while his ally was the Presbyterian, Sir Richard Onslow.120CJ iv. 429a, 493b, 508b; Pearl, London, 325-7. Glynne, prominent among the Presbyterians, was a key figure in preparing the instructions for the commissioners to north Wales, but the military command lay with Mytton, who could not be claimed by either faction. On 25 April, Mytton’s report that Chirk castle had been surrendered to Myddelton’s eldest daughter was read in the House. Myddelton stayed for a while to be named to three further committees in May, including to the Committee for Plundered Ministers (15 May), and on 3 June he was included in the bicameral committee for determining offences by which people might be excluded from the Lord’s Supper in the new Presbyterian church arrangements. The same day, however, he was given leave to go to the country.121CJ iv. 522a, 545b, 547a, 555b, 561b, 562b; LJ vi. 285a. He was to be absent from Westminster for nearly five months.

Alienation from Parliament

Myddelton’s homecoming at Chirk was marked by the ringing of bells. He supervised the repair of the castle after civil war damage, and resumed his social life with neighbours and relations such as the Salusburys of Lleweni. An early visitor to the castle was Sir John Wittewronge*, whose first wife had been Myddelton’s daughter.122Chirk Castle Accts. 1605-66, 21-4. While he was in Denbighshire he was included among the new commissions to deputy lieutenants of that county.123LJ viii. 406a; CJ iv. 598b. He had returned to the Commons by 29 October 1646, when he was named to the first of the modest total of ten committees to mid-June 1647. Among these were efforts to regulate county committees (29 Oct.), to speed up collections of the assessment in the City (4 Dec.), on managing composition fines at the Committee for Compounding (10 Dec.), on the ordinance for putting the great seal into commission for another year (18 Mar. 1647) and on one to keep malignant clergy from their livings (22 Mar.).124CJ iv. 708a, 738a; v. 8b, 117b, 119b. He himself was the subject of a committee on 17 February 1647, when Edward Vaughan, who had been elected for Montgomeryshire 11 days earlier, brought in information against him, as a counter-charge to Myddelton’s efforts to keep Vaughan from the seat. Each man accused the other of delinquency and supporting the king while professing loyalty to Parliament. Vaughan’s accusations began with Myddelton’s compliance with Laudianism and reviewed his civil war career, highlighting his reluctance to oppose the commission of array and his oppressive conduct when major-general. The committee was revived on 6 April, no conclusions having been reached, but the career of neither man was immediately damaged or called into question, and no definite outcome was recorded.125CJ v. 90a, 134a; Thomas, thesis, Appendix v. Myddelton was later (10 June) added to a committee specifically to consider cases of Members who had fought against Parliament. He was a teller on 7 April in favour of including a Pembrokeshire sequestration agent in the commission of the peace, against a clear Presbyterian majority opposing, who had been fortified by support from major-general in south-west Wales, Rowland Laugharne†. The order to Glynne the same day to repeal the ordinances by which Myddelton and Brereton had collected money for their troops suggests that he was not regarded by the Presbyterians as an ally, as does his opposition to Denzil Holles and Sir William Lewis in a division on 21 April.126CJ v. 135a,b, 148b, 205a.

No factional significance need be read into Myddelton’s appointment to the committee for an ordinance on indemnity (7 May), which would have been of great interest to any former military commander. On the basis of his record of command he was named among the members of the Committee for Indemnity itself, but attended its meetings infrequently: on five occasions only from September to the end of November 1647.127CJ v. 166a, 174a; SP24/1, ff. 34v, 35, 38v, 44, 91. He disappeared from the record during most of the summer of 1647, thus avoiding the confrontation with the army and the departure of the Eleven Members. This may tend to support the later testimony from Dr John Barwick, an Arminian clergyman engaged in clandestine activities in London on behalf of the king. According to him, around the late spring or summer of 1647 he was fed by Myddelton and by the minor figure Roger Pope*, Myddelton’s former ward, with titbits from Westminster: Barwick ‘learnt many things from them, which it was very much for his majesty's interest to know’. Barwick exaggerated both informants’ importance in describing them as ‘having been admitted into the most secret councils of the rebels’, but his assertion that Myddelton was susceptible to royalist influence chimes with Edward Vaughan’s allegations of crypto-royalism earlier in the year.128Life of Dr John Barwick ed. G. F. Barwick (1903), 23.

Myddelton was at Westminster in September 1647, but confined himself to indemnity issues, and other military topics including how best to fund the war in Ireland.129SP24/1, ff. 34v, 35, 38v; CJ v. 287a,b, 350a. He was given leave from the House on 27 January 1648, but presumably postponed his departure long enough to be present two days later, when he was included in a committee for an ordinance against delinquent landlords. He was excused at calls of the House on 24 April and 26 September, suggesting that his half-hearted interest in the business of the Commons had expired entirely.130CJ v. 444b, 447b, 543b; vi. 34b. In October 1647, he had been subjected to some sniping by Archbishop John Williams, an incorrigible conniver, who accused Myddelton of driving away ministers from north Wales, but both Houses seem to have retained confidence in him, probably because support for Parliament in north-east Wales was thin.131Cal. Wynn Pprs. 302, 307; CJ vi. 88a; LJ x. 448a. He was party to the final pacification of Anglesey (9 Oct. 1648), which indicates his continuing usefulness to the cause of Parliament.132Phillips, Civil War in Wales, ii. 401. However, his name figures on two of the lists of those secluded at the army’s purge of the House on 6 December 1648. It seems quite likely that he was at Chirk by that time, but he was no friend of the New Model army and so his seclusion is more than plausible.133A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5).

Interregnum and later

Whether or not he had been among those purged, Myddelton kept aloof from parliamentary politics in the 1650s, though he retained his place in the essential local government commissions of the peace and for the assessment. The commonwealth government was anxious about the vulnerability of Chirk castle in any sudden royalist insurrection, and on 10 August 1649, under the act for compositions by north Wales delinquents, all suspensions of sequestrations ordered by him were made void.134A. and O. ii. 212; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 53. Later that year a royalist envoy, Roger Whitley, was authorized to negotiate for Myddelton’s backing. In March 1651 he was cleared of the suspicion of negotiating with Charles Stuart in Scotland, but was obliged to pledge £10,000 for his good behaviour on 14 May. Two days later the garrison imposed on him for security reasons for two years was withdrawn. There is, however, in the state papers a letter from Charles Stuart to him of 17 August 1651, claiming his loyalty on the earl of Derby’s information, and desiring ‘speedy intelligence of the condition of north Wales’. This was shortly before the rising that cost Derby his head and from which Myddelton was at pains to dissociate himself.135HMC 6th Rep. 434; CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 134, 194, 200, 201, 204, 337; Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 26. Despite his earlier avowed interest in extending the Protestant reformation in Wales, he would have had no sympathy with the millenarian tendencies of the commissioners for propagating the gospel in Wales, named in the act of February 1650, and was by the summer of 1652 actively hostile to the scheme. He promoted a north Wales petition against the act in July which was evidently copying the south Wales petition presented to the House in March 1652 by Edward Freeman*.136Cal. Wynn Pprs. 327.

Despite rumours of his further involvement in cavalier plots, he exchanged intelligence with the protectorate government in March 1655 about royalist risings, and it was even suggested that he should raise a regiment against any insurgency.137TSP i. 749, iii. 208, 209, 298. On 25 Mar. 1656 his bond of 1651 was cancelled, as he had done nothing to alarm the government, although his county commissions for 1657 excluded Merioneth and Montgomeryshire, and in 1659 he was dropped from local government altogether. 138CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 239. With Sir George Boothe*, Myddelton was a ringleader of the ‘Cheshire rise’ of August 1659.139N. Tucker, ‘Richard Wynne and the Booth Rebellion’, Trans. Caern. Hist. Soc. xx. 46. Edmund Ludlowe II recalled

Sir Thomas Myddelton, who had made me a visit when I was going to Ireland, and had assured me of his resolution to continue steadfast in the interest of the commonwealth, did, either through dotage, being almost fourscore years of age [recte 73], or through the importunity of others, or the natural depravity of his own heart, appear at the head of the cavalier party at Wrexham, and there waving his sword about his head, caused Charles Stuart to be proclaimed king in the market-place.140Ludlow, Memoirs, ii. 108.

Myddelton had received a letter from Charles Stuart in May which suggests that he had returned to his allegiance. While he declared for the king, Boothe preferred a free Parliament as the rallying cry, and took the lead. Their junction at Chester, where they occupied the city but not the castle, was a signal to the government to send General John Lambert* against them (6 Aug.), and to proclaim them rebels and traitors (9 Aug.). Lambert, having refused to parley, defeated them at Winnington Bridge (19 Aug.).141CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 84, 87, 88, 94, 104, 129, 136; CSP Ven. 1659-60, pp. 56, 59, 64; Clarendon, Hist. vi. 112; CCSP iv. 208, 309, 316, 323, 328, 330-1, 335; Chirk Castle Accts. 1605-66, 82-3; CJ vii. 754a,b, 764a. Myddelton, who was to have seized Shrewsbury for the royalists, fled to Chirk, and thence into hiding in London in Alderman John Robinson’s house. His son Thomas Myddelton*, who had surrendered Chirk on 24 August, obtaining two months’ grace to obtain clemency, petitioned for both of them.

Meanwhile Parliament had ordered the demolition of the castle (27 Aug.), but Lambert was content to pull down the west front and three of the towers: even so, to restore it took 13 years. Myddelton’s personalty, ‘about three thousand pounds’, was distributed among Lambert’s soldiers. 142CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 145, 147, 154, 162, 170; Ludlow, Memoirs, ii. 119; CCSP iv. 394-5; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 163, n.2; Thomas, thesis, 192-3. The sequestration of his estates was ordered by an act of 27 August, and proceedings commenced, with a dateline of 1 May 1660, but were suspended (27 Feb. 1660), when Myddelton, who had been captured, was liberated and able to resume his seat in the House again among the restored Secluded Members, though there is no evidence he attended. A month later he and his heir, also released, became militia commissioners for north Wales.143CJ vii. 854a, 870a; CCC 3246. In November 1659 he had been urged to visit Charles Stuart in exile. Unable to undertake the voyage, his health being impaired by age and winter, he nevertheless indicated through his son that he was ready to support a restoration by assisting the royalist Scots general, John Middleton, or by himself taking the command for the royalists in north Wales: a commission for this purpose was duly sent to him in January 1660.144CCSP iv. 439, 444, 457, 471, 496, 500. 501, 509, 534. In March Myddelton, who had gone to Chirk to inspect the damage, desired the future king’s immediate pardon for his past ‘fault’, in case he died before he could claim the benefit of a general pardon. In fact he lived to proclaim Charles king a second time, on this occasion successfully.145CCSP iv. 598, 604; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 5; TSP vii. 854.

Returned for Denbighshire to the Convention, Myddelton was a spent force at Westminster. He accepted the king’s general offer of pardon under the Breda declaration.146CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 5. Had he stood for election again, a ‘strong opposition’ to him was guaranteed, and his son replaced him in the Cavalier Parliament.147Cal. Wynn Pprs. 361, 363, 364-5. Rumour had it that he was to be made a viscount, and family tradition has it that a valuable cabinet at Chirk was the king’s gift in lieu of a peerage that Myddelton declined.148CJ v. 206; Thomas, thesis, 57. He was one of those who petitioned the king against the appointment of John Glynne to legal office in June 1660, owing to Glynne’s involvement in the execution of royalists: he had himself shown an aversion to bloodshed.149Cal. Wynn Pprs. 358. The persons who promoted indictments of treason against Boothe and himself the year before were specifically excepted from the Act of Indemnity of 1660.150HMC 7th Rep. 98a. One old ambition died hard: in September 1660 he petitioned the king for the lordship of Ruthin, making an offer of £4,000, but the freeholders counter-petitioned, and the lordship eluded the Myddelton family until 1702.151CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 293, 399. His heir predeceased him 1663, and Myddelton himself lived at Cefn-y-Wern, Chirk, purchased in 1654, while his castle was under repair.

Myddelton made his will on 6 August 1666.152PROB11/323, f. 308v. The very long preamble was a deliberate spelling out of his essentially Elizabethan Protestantism, formed in the years when Bishop Morgan’s Welsh Bible was instrumental in winning over the Welsh people to Elizabeth’s church settlement. Viewed in that way, his willingness to conform to Laud’s injunctions, his readiness to portray his Welsh compatriots as worthy objects of further religious reformation and his ambivalent relationship with Presbyterianism, whether in the Long Parliament or under a covenanted king, are of one piece. His motivation in taking a military command for Parliament, probably only made feasible because of his family’s command of wealth and influence in London, seems to have been the hope of advancing the Protestant reformation, and that explicitly, if not solely, in Wales. His commitment to the detail of parliamentary business seems easily to have wavered, and he showed no interest in aligning himself unambiguously with either side in the factions of Presbyterians and Independents. His outspoken support for Denbigh, himself an ally of the earl of Essex, against the radical William Purefoy I, again suggests a social conservative, and his readiness to link up with Laugharne can be interpreted as sympathy for the western outposts of Essex’s interest. Hanging over his political career from the mid-1640s is the suggestion that his heart lay always with the cause of the king rather than of Parliament. Myddelton left cash bequests of over £1,550. He owned 45,000 acres and had an income of £5,000 a year. He died on 11 December 1666 and was buried at the cost of £1,100 at Chirk on 22 January 1667.153Cal. Wynn Pprs. 389; 132, 138; Chirk Castle Accts. 1605-66, 132, 138..