WALSINGHAM, Sir Thomas (c.1589-1669), of Scadbury, Chislehurst, Kent.

Walsingham was the scion of one of the most prominent Kentish families of the early modern period. His grandfather, Thomas Walsingham†, was a first cousin to the Elizabethan secretary of state, Sir Francis Walsingham†, and his father, in addition to being a noted literary patron, was a leading member of the Kent gentry, who served as keeper of the wardrobe to Queen Anne of Denmark and had powerful court connections.37HMC Hatfield, xxiv. 232. Walsingham was probably born in 1589, and after completing his education with a European tour, emerged into public life as an active local commissioner in Kent during his father’s lifetime; it is thus not always possible to distinguish the two men before the latter’s death in 1630.38C142/467/71; Webb, Miller and Beckwith, Hist. Chislehurst, 144-5; Staffs. RO, D593/S/4/60/17; Cent. Kent. Stud. U522/O4, pp. 1-53. Nevertheless, our MP certainly represented Poole in the Addled Parliament of 1614, when his father sat as a knight of the shire, and in 1621 he controversially secured election at Rochester, which his father had earlier represented. Walsingham retained his seat for the remainder of the 1620s, without making a notable impression on parliamentary proceedings, although he appears to have been assiduous in serving the interests of his constituents, and this may have helped to fend off rival candidates proposed by William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke, and George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham.39Surr. Hist. Cent. Loseley 1331/28; SP16/138, f. 62; Gent. Mag. lxviii. 117; Soc. Antiq. MS. 199, ff. 5,7, 11, 13, 15, 17; Dorothea Scott ed. G.D. Scull (1883), 132.

Walsingham’s personal finances were decidedly shaky before he succeeded to the family estate, despite his having been in receipt of a royal pension of £200 a year from 1625.40C78/434/3; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 444. His position only worsened during the 1630s, due to the encumbered nature of the estate he inherited, and his own profligacy. Possession of an estate worth as much as £2,400 a year could not prevent him from amassing debts of £7,000 by 1641.41Webb, Miller and Beckwith, Hist. Chislehurst, 384; Add. 29599, ff. 40-1; Cent. Kent. Stud. U119/A2, unfol. Such debts probably ensured that his work as a local justice, and as vice-admiral of Kent, was hampered by an increasing amount of litigation, not least in pursuit of claims to land in Norfolk, and the protracted nature of such disputes may only have ensured that his financial troubles deepened yet further.42Cent. Kent. Stud. U522/O4, pp. 1-53; U119/A2, unfol.; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 566; 1637-8, p. 97; C2/Chas.I/W73/59; C2/Chas.1/W63/50. In 1640, it was almost certainly financial insecurity, rather than political disaffection, which led Walsingham to default on requests for a loan to support the bishops’ wars.43SP16/447, ff. 36, 37, 94.

As news emerged in December 1639 of plans for a new Parliament, Walsingham was one of those who sought to secure a seat as knight of the shire, despite being encouraged by another aspiring MP, George Sondes, to represent Rochester, where he was assured of a place. Sondes expressly sought to honour the request of the lord chamberlain (Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke) that there should be ‘no clashing amongst ourselves’.44Stowe 743, f. 136. Neither Sondes nor Walsingham made much of an impact, however, and sometime before the spring assizes the two men withdrew, out of ‘affectionate respect’ to Sir Henry Vane II*, and in order to ensure his success over Sir Edward Dering*.45Stowe 743, f. 136; Procs. Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 2, 6. Although Vane subsequently withrew from the election, Walsingham does not appear to have resumed his quest for one of the county seats, apparently content to serve for Rochester during the Short Parliament; but once again he seems to have made no impression on the proceedings.46Stowe 743, ff. 138, 140.

Walsingham proved active in countering the perceived threat from Catholics in Kent in the summer of 1640, but it is difficult to determine whether his determination to secure re-election at Rochester in the autumn reflected his Protestant zeal, a desire to retain prestigious place within the county community, or his determination to secure protection from creditors and litigants, or all three.47CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 217, 228, 262. Legal disputes were certainly a major feature of Walsingham’s life at this time. He was engaged in at least two major legal battles which continued throughout the 1640s, and which reached the House of Lords for consideration, and his ability to claim parliamentary privilege may thus have been highly valued. The first case, which flared up three times – with the opening of the Long Parliament, again in October 1645, and once again between May 1647 and April 1648 – involved the continuation of his dispute with Robert Ramsey over Norfolk lands, and the latter’s appeal to the Lords against imprisonment at Walsingham’s behest.48HMC 4th Rep. 30, 32, 42, 43; HMC 7th Rep. 18, 22; E133/131/36; C2/Chas.1/W20/40; CJ iv. 327a; LJ x. 163b, 212a. The second involved Walsingham’s dispute with Sir John Baker* regarding the manor of East Peckham in Kent, which he claimed by descent from Sir Thomas Wyatt†, and which had been seized following the rebellion which the latter led against Mary I. This dispute resulted in a long series of petitions and counter-petitions, as well as a number of hearings before the Lords between 1641 and 1645.49C2/Chas.1/W72/4; HMC 4th Rep. 47, 84; HMC 5th Rep. 14; HMC 6th Rep. 5b, 6b, 11a, 51a, 52a, 53a, 55a, 55b, 69a, 76b, 80a; LJ iv. 674a; vi. 430b, 445a, 524b, 529a, 530a, 540b, 542a, 544a, 575a, 581a; vii. 284a, 304b, 324b, 326a, 361a, 367a, 369b, 403b, 466a, 488b, 490a, 575a, 633b, 653a.

These and other cases ensured that Walsingham was rarely free from the judicial proceedings of the upper House, let alone the courts in Westminister Hall, during the entire course of the 1640s, and this must affect our understanding of his decision to support Parliament during the civil wars, and indeed to assume a prominence within the House which he had not done before.50C2/Chas.1/W105/25; C2/Chas.1/W33/26; C2/Chas.1/W24/34. His debts remained in the region of £9,000 throughout the 1640s, not least because his rental income fell to little more than £700, and his hope for financial recovery rested in part upon his daughter-in-law’s portion, due from James Howard, 3rd earl of Suffolk (£5,000), and upon other debts owing to him. Walsingham’s accounts indicate that he found it extremely difficult to collect such money, and that he was forced to sell portions of the estate, raising £5,000.51Cent. Kent. Stud. U119/A2, unfol.; CCC1443. On at least one occasion, in January 1645, Walsingham can be shown to have claimed parliamentary privilege in order to evade a subpoena.52CJ iii. 384a, 386a ; iv. 25a, 93b; HMC Portland, i. 168.

At the opening of the Long Parliament Walsingham was named to the committee of privileges, and promptly offered £1,000 upon security for a loan from the City for the relief of the North.53CJ ii. 21a; D’Ewes (N), 52. Although not prominent in the chamber during the first session, there is evidence he had an ongoing concern with the Catholic threat, and with the readiness of the navy in case of war.54CJ ii. 74b, 133a, 271b. It was only in the wake of the attempted arrest of the Five Members in January 1642 that Walsingham began to display more enthusiasm for parliamentary business, and in the days that followed he was named to the committees to sit at Guildhall (5 Jan.) and at Grocers’ Hall (17 Jan.).55CJ ii. 326a, 369a, 385a. He was also appointed to search suspects in Kent, and in early February expressed his support for the nascent parliamentarian faction in the county by promoting their petition to Parliament regarding church reform and defence against potential enemies.56PJ i. 49, 143, 312-3. In the weeks which followed, Walsingham’s committee appointments continued to display a concern with these same issues, and in the wake of the counter-petition from the more conservative elements within the county, he also provided information regarding the ‘scandalous speeches’ made against Parliament by certain leading justices in the county.57CJ ii. 463a, 476a, 496b; LJ iv. 701a. During the summer months he was delegated to return to Kent in order to attend to the political and military security of the region, and after the outbreak of hostilities he was named to committees regarding the security of the capital as well as his native county.58CJ ii. 685a, 686b, 724a, 737b, 825b; iii. 113b, 125a; Add. 18777, f. 45v. Indeed, in Kent he emerged as one of the most prominent supporters of Parliament on the county committee, active in sequestering delinquents, and complaining about the backwardness of some of his fellow MPs and justices, including Norton Knatchbull* and Sir Francis Barnham*.59CJ ii. 957b; iii. 91a, 125b; HMC Portland, i. 708; ‘Sir Roger Twysden’s Narrative’, iii. 145; Bodl. Nalson XI, ff. 178-9, 195, 197, 198; Tanner 62, f. 175.

Walsingham’s prominence within parliamentarian ranks in Kent led royalist insurgents to seize him in July 1643. According to one press report, his captors ‘were so far possessed with a devilish cruelty that they were about to hang him, or cut him to pieces’.60Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 179; A Continuation of Certain Speciall and Remarkable Passages no. 51 (20-27 July 1643), 8 (E.61.25). It was also alleged that Walsingham was forced to correspond with Oxford, and that he penned the letter to the courtier Edward Progers†, dated 28 July 1643, which stated that

I can have no peace in me till I make one in the number of those loyal ones that tread all thoughts but that of their allegiance under their feet … I never did execute anything in the militia, but was put out by the Parliament, and have been always for the king, and let me have thy advice whether a journey to Oxford at this time will be more acceptable, for I can come with nothing, and if taken I am ruined. Or the waiting my time to serve His Majesty in the country. If the king send forces to Cambridgeshire I will be at Audley End, where I am confident my lord of Suffolk and I may do some service. I fear I can do little in Kent, because the London forces lie in it.61HMC 5th Rep. 97; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 473; SP16/497, f. 223.

In fact, this letter was almost certainly written by another man, a Kentish kinsman of Walsingham who shared his connection with the earl of Suffolk.

The swift defeat of the Kentish rebels ensured Walsingham’s rapid release, and his return to active service on the county committee.62HMC 5th Rep. 97; Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 186; Harl. 165, f. 130. On 28 July he also presented a relation of his imprisonment to the Commons, in which he claimed that ‘they were most of them men of very mean and base condition and chiefly aimed at enriching of themselves by the robbing and spoiling of such as were wealthy, intending to destroy the gentry, and that [he] himself was in great danger amongst them’.63Harl. 165, f. 131; CJ iii. 185a. Walsingham naturally became involved in the parliamentary investigation into the insurrection, and his own suffering prompted Parliament to grant him reparations from the estates of the rebels.64CJ iii. 184a, 195a. It may have been as part of this process that Walsingham was made steward of the royal manor and park at Eltham, although during the subsequent parliamentary investigation into MPs’ offices, he claimed that this was worth little more than £9 a year.65CSP Dom. 1644, p. 66; Gregory, Royal Eltham, 203, 206; CJ iv. 702a-b; Bodl. Nalson XV, f. 334.

In the months following his release, Walsingham proved assiduous in relation to Kentish affairs, both in the county and the Commons, and there is evidence that he remained associated with those most fervent in pursuit of the war effort, like Sir Henry Vane II* and Sir Anthony Weldon, and most intimately involved in sequestering the estates of delinquents. He certainly expressed hostility towards the doves among the parliamentarian party, by acting as a teller against a motion to bail Sir John Evelyn of Surrey*, who had been imprisoned on suspicion of planning to defect to Oxford.66SP28/210b, unfol.; SP28/234, unfol.; Harl. 165, f. 240; CJ iii. 218a, 275a, 301a; LJ vi. 430b. Walsingham was also entrusted with money for the use of the county committee, and became the chief point of contact between the latter and both the Commons and Committee of Both Kingdoms.67CJ iii. 301a, 343a, 371a, 394a, 396b, 404a, 412a, 448b, 459b, 696a; iv. 75a; CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 85, 88, 93-4, 103, 222; 1644-5, pp. 428, 472; 1645-7, p. 83; Harl. 166, ff. 49v, 148. The pressing need to address southern counties business ensured that Walsingham was only rarely named to committees on matters of broader concern. Nevertheless, he was involved in advising the London militia committee about assessments (Nov. 1643), and his interest in Eltham park resulted in his nomination to the committee to consider the ordinance regarding the felling of trees for the navy.68CJ iii. 309b, 403b, 457a. It would be alleged in 1660 that he himself felled timber worth £5,000.69Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 35 (E.1923.2). Moreover, during the second half of 1644, Walsingham was able to devote more time to committees on matters ranging from the advancement of trade to the abolition of feudal tenures, and the recruitment of the army, and in April 1645 he was involved in drafting an ordinance regarding the taking of accounts.70CJ iii. 523b, 544b, 592a, 601b, 688a, 690a; iv. 123b; LJ vi. 683b.

For much of 1645, Walsingham’s apparent political inactivity probably reflected his preoccupation with the many petitions and judicial hearings related to his litigation, rather than disillusionment with the parliamentarian cause.71CJ iv. 25a, 93b, 327a; LJ vii. 284a, 304b, 324b, 326a, 361a, 367a, 369b, 403b, 466a, 488b, 490a, 575a, 633b, 653a. Although there appears to have been a degree of suspicion regarding his loyalty during this period, it seems to have arisen from mistaken identity. He was not the owner of ironworks which were suspected of supplying the royal gunfounder, and he was not the Walsingham who provided intelligence for George Lord Digby*.72CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 483, 494, 607-8, 615, 619; 1645-7, p. 47. However, while he remained in the Commons, Walsingham may frequently have been absent. He received only occasional committee nominations in 1646, on matters such as the drainage of the fens, and the maintenance of ministers, and acted as a teller on only one further occasion, in August 1646, when he joined Henry Marten* in support of a motion to adjourn the House.73CJ iv. 525a, 578a, 583b, 658a, 719b; v. 6b. Ironically, the only evidence of Walsingham’s attendance during 1647 is his nomination to the committee regarding absent Members (9 Oct.).74CJ v. 329a. Nevertheless, evidence of growing political unrest in the spring and early summer of 1648 prompted a brief increase in his activity, and his involvement with committees on matters relating to defence, crypto-royalist petitions, and tumults at Westminster.75CJ v. 538a, 574a, 581a. Given the potency of the royalist threat in Kent, he also returned to prominence within the county committee.76SP28/234, unfol.

Walsingham’s inactivity in the months before Pride’s Purge did not result in his seclusion, and he returned to Westminster in the aftermath of the king’s execution, taking the dissent from the vote of 5 December on 19 February 1649. However, Walsingham’s record suggests he had little enthusiasm for the republic. Although he remained active in Kent, notably as vice-admiral, he received nominations to just four committees during the Rump Parliament, none of which occurred after July 1650, when he was appointed to consider the charges against Edward, Lord Howard of Escrick*.77CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 342; 1650, p. 483; 1651, p. 174; 1651-2, pp. 190, 216; CJ vi. 187b, 206b, 430b, 448b. Moreover, there is evidence that Walsingham proved reluctant to submit his accounts to the authorities, and that he sought to obstruct the enquiries into his management of public money.78CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 203, 409; SP28/253a (Order Bk. 1651-8), ff. 65, 80. As long as he remained a Member of Parliament, of course, he was protected from prosecution regarding his personal debts, and his ability to claim privilege once again enabled him to evade arrest in the spring of 1653.79CJ vii. 261b, 273b-74a. The dissolution of the Rump in the following April ensured, therefore, that Walsingham not only lost his chambers in Whitehall, but also his immunity, and he appears to have faced arrest within a matter of weeks.80CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 328, 345, 475-6; 1653-4, p. 23.

Stripped of his parliamentary privilege, Walsingham risked financial ruin at the hands of his creditors in the 1650s, and in preparing his will in 1656 he made clear to his executor, Sir Henry Heyman*, that the estates would have to be sold; this was probably undertaken shortly thereafter.81Webb, Miller and Beckwith, Hist. Chislehurst, 146-8, 385. Walsingham also continued to faced pressure regarding his handling of public money, and in the spring of 1658 the government’s auditors renewed their call for his accounts.82SP28/253a (Order Bk. 1651-8), f. 259v. He claimed to have already delivered ‘a full and perfect account of all moneys and goods wherewith he was chargeable’, but the committee responded that they could find ‘no such account as he pretends to have been formerly delivered’, adding that ‘his oath (which he saith he is ready to make) that he hath no money or goods of the state in his hands’, was ‘no sufficient voucher in this case to give satisfaction’.83SP28/253a (Order Bk. 1651-8), ff. 262v, 263v, 264v. Having ignored a series of deadlines for producing his accounts, Walsingham sent a servant to London with papers regarding Eltham, but these were regarded as ‘nothing pertinent to the account required of him’, and he then pleaded illness, and that he was ‘not able to come to London without danger of his life’.84SP28/253a (Order Bk. 1651-8), ff. 274v, 277. Having fallen from political favour during the mid-1650s, when he was removed from the commission of the peace, Walsingham may thus have been as pleased as anyone by the recall of the Rump Parliament in May 1659, and although he played no active part in its proceedings – his only mention in the Journal records his absence – he certainly took chambers in Whitehall.85CJ vii. 751a; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 34, 66.

There is little evidence regarding Walsingham’s plight after the dissolution of the Rump and the restoration of the monarchy. Although he lived until shortly before 10 April 1669, when he was buried in the chancel of Chislehurst church, he made no further impression on public life.86Webb, Miller and Beckwith, Hist. Chislehurst, 152. No further member of his immediate family sat in Parliament.