WENMAN, Sir Thomas (c.1596-1665), of Thame Park, Thame, Oxon. and Twyford, Bucks.

Wenman was descended from Richard Wenman, a prosperous clothier and merchant of the Staple who had settled at Caswell manor, near Witney, Oxfordshire, by the late fifteenth century. Richard’s eldest son, Thomas, had acquired an estate in Twyford, Buckinghamshire, by marriage and had represented Oxfordshire in the 1555 Parliament.23Vis. Oxon. 178-9; VCH Oxon. vii. 177; VCH Bucks. iv. 255; HP Commons 1509-1558, ‘Sir Thomas Wenman’. The family owed its steady rise through the ranks of Oxfordshire’s Tudor gentry in part to the fortunate marriages contracted by Wenman’s great-grandfather – MP for Northampton in 1547 – and his grandfather, who had sat for Buckingham in 1571. It had been Wenman’s great-grandfather who had added Thame Park to the family’s estates after marrying a coheiress of John, Lord Williams† of Thame.24HP Commons 1509-1558, ‘Richard Wenman’; HP Commons 1558-1603, ‘Thomas Wenman’; VCH Oxon. vi. 127-8; vii. 177. Although Wenman’s father, Sir Richard Wenman, had married a recusant, he was a firm Protestant and had been knighted by Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex on the Cadiz expedition in 1596. Sir Richard represented Oxfordshire in the Parliaments of 1597, 1621 and 1626.25VCH Oxon. vii. 211; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Sir Richard Wenman’. In 1606, he purchased the Tithe House in Brackley, Northamptonshire, which formed the basis for the family’s electoral interest in the borough.26Baker, Northants. i. 574.

Wenman was returned for Brackley to the Parliaments of 1621, 1624, 1625 and 1628 and for Oxfordshire in 1626, but made very little impression upon any of their proceedings.27HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Brackley’; ‘Sir Thomas Wenman’. The ‘Captain Wenman’ who served in the regiment of Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex – the future parliamentarian lord general – in the English expeditionary force fighting the Spanish in the Low Countries in the mid-1620s was possibly Thomas, but it is more likely to have been his younger brother Philip, who would continue his military career during the 1640s.28SP84/121, f. 277. In 1634, the king ordered the lord deputy of Ireland, Viscount Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†, the future 1st earl of Strafford) to appoint Wenman an Irish privy councillor, but there is no evidence that Wenman ever exercised this office or served the crown in Ireland, as one authority has claimed.29CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 75; Oxford DNB, ‘Thomas Wenman, 2nd Viscount Wenman’.

In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, Wenman was returned for Brackley again, on this occasion with his brother-in-law Sir Martin Lister. Ten days before the Short Parliament assembled, Wenman succeeded his father as Viscount Wenman of Tuam – an Irish title that did not preclude his sitting in the Commons. In the event, he received no committee appointments in this Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate. In his will of 1638, Wenman’s father had included a bequest of plate worth £5 to ‘Mr Wilkinson, lecturer at Thame’, who may well have been the outspoken puritan, Henry Wilkinson, who is known to have preached in and around Oxford before the civil war.30PROB11/182, f. 349v; VCH Bucks. ii. 268; Oxford DNB, ‘Henry Wilkinson (1610-75)’.

Wenman shifted his sights in the autumn of 1640 from Brackley to the altogether greater electoral prize of Oxfordshire. The death that summer of Wenman’s kinsman Sir Francis Wenman, who had sat for the county in the Short Parliament, had created a vacancy for the junior place as knight of the shire: the senior place being the preserve of James Fiennes, eldest son of William Fiennes, Viscount Saye and Sele. In the elections to the Long Parliament, Fiennes and Wenman ‘joined their strength together to get themselves to be chosen the knights for Oxfordshire’, fending off a half-hearted challenge from Sir William Waller* and Bulstrode Whitelocke*. Whitelocke referred to the victors as two gentlemen of ‘great fortunes, interest and dependency [i.e. followings] in the county’ and claimed that they ‘took it in scorn’ that Waller and Whitelocke should stand against them.31Supra, ‘Oxfordshire’; Add. 37343, f. 206v; Whitelocke, Diary, 122.

Between November 1640 and the outbreak of civil war in the summer of 1642, Wenman was named to 16 committees, appointed a messenger to the Lords on two occasions and served twice as a teller.32CJ ii. 167b, 197b, 199b, 200a, 244a, 646b; LJ iv. 302a; v. 170a. Several of these committees related to investigating Ship Money and other ‘abuses’ and (peripherally) to the trial of Strafford, but the majority reveal little about his political sympathies.33CJ ii. 23b, 25b, 39b, 44b, 45b, 108a, 114a, 164b, 384a, 499a, 530b, 567a, 632b; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 628. In November 1640 and again in March 1641, he joined other Commons-men in standing bond for £1,000 towards City loans for paying the royal and Scottish armies in northern England.34Procs. LP i. 228; ii. 654. On 7 May 1641, he took the Protestation.35CJ ii. 137a. His most significant appointment of 1641 came in a division on 4 June concerning the bill for excluding bishops from the House of Lords, when he served as a teller against removing exemptions in the bill that would allow noblemen in holy orders, the deans of Westminster and several other churches, and clerics in the universities to exercise secular jurisdiction. Wenman and the future royalist Giles Strangways defeated the godly pairing of Sir Thomas Barrington and Wenman’s brother-in-law Arthur Goodwin – which strongly suggests that Wenman’s support for the cause of godly reform was lukewarm at best.36CJ ii. 167b; Procs. LP iv. 718-20; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 342-3. Early in July, the House appointed him a messenger to desire the Lords to pass a bill against pluralities and to appoint a convenient time to consider the articles of impeachment that the Commons had prepared against six of the judges.37CJ ii. 220a; LJ iv. 302a.

Wenman’s name disappears from the Journal between early August 1641 and 17 January 1642, when he was named to a committee of both Houses to prepare a petition to the king concerning his perceived breach of parliamentary privilege in attempting to arrest the Five Members.38CJ ii. 384a. On 2 February, he was included on a six man bicameral delegation to attend Charles with a proposal that the kingdom’s militia and strongholds be put under the command of persons recommended by Parliament.39CJ ii. 409b-410a. In April, he pledged £1,200 on the Irish Adventurers’ Act passed in March, although his actual investment would total only £600.40Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 565; Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 194; J. R. MacCormack, ‘The Irish Adventurers and the Eng. civil war’, Irish Historical Studies, x., 57. But his enthusiasm for advancing the war against the Irish rebels seems to have outstripped his support for war against the king in England. Named to a mere three committees during April, May and June 1642, and apparently silent in debate, he was far removed from the ranks of the ‘fiery spirits’ at Westminster.41CJ ii. 530b, 567a, 632b. His last appointment before the outbreak of civil war was as a messenger to the Lords to desire a conference concerning the safety of the kingdom and the king’s dismissal of Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland as lord admiral.42CJ ii. 646b; LJ v. 170a.

Despite his lacklustre showing in the struggle against the king and the ‘malignant’ party, Wenman sided with Parliament when the battle lines were drawn in the summer and autumn of 1642. On 29 August, he declared his readiness to assist Parliament’s commander-in-chief, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, with life and estate.43CJ ii. 741b. And in September, he joined the parliamentarian force under Saye and Sele that took, and briefly held, Oxford.44Whitelocke, Diary, 136; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 182-3. The following month he was named to committees of both Houses for communicating military intelligence to the City and providing it with an account of the battle of Edgehill.45CJ ii. 817b, 825a. But when the Houses voted early in November to re-open negotiations with the king, Wenman was named to a five man delegation – which was dominated by Parliament-men who would emerge as leaders of the peace party – to attend the king with an offer of a treaty.46CJ ii. 834a, 836b, 844a; LJ v. 434a, 435b, 436a; CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 405-6. When it was moved on 31 December that all Members ‘shall presently declare themselves what they will lend or give to the maintenance of the army’, Wenman offered to bring in £50 only ‘during the treaty’.47Add. 18777, f. 110. His alignment with those in favour of a swift, negotiated end to the war is confirmed by his appointment on 2 January 1643 as a majority teller with the peace-party grandee Denzil Holles against omitting an article in Parliament’s draft peace propositions for a cessation of arms to facilitate a treaty.48CJ ii. 911a. On 27 January, he was named to a committee of both Houses – again, dominated by peace-party figures – for presenting the propositions to the king at Oxford.49CJ ii. 945a; LJ v. 575a. However, he was not a member of the parliamentary delegation that went to Oxford that spring to conduct the treaty negotiations.

Although Wenman, as an Adventurer, attended the Committee for Irish Affairs on a regular basis during the spring and summer of 1643, the failure of the Oxford treaty seems to have reduced his interest in proceedings on the floor of the House.50CJ ii. 750b; Add. 4782, ff. 92v, 102; SP16/539/127, ff. 14, 39. Between January 1643 and the spring of 1644 he was appointed a messenger to the Lords on only one occasion, served as a teller in a minor division and was named to just two committees – to examine abuses committed by Parliament’s soldiers in requisitioning horses (20 May 1643) and to raise money in the City for the war effort in Ireland (23 June).51CJ iii. 93b, 124a, 142a, 190b; LJ vi. 88b. After some hesitation he took the vow and covenant devised by John Pym and his war-party allies in June in response to the Waller plot.52CJ iii. 118b; Harl. 164, f. 399. And in July, he appears to have entered into the Stationers’ Register a pamphlet in support of the war party’s military hero Sir William Waller.53A More Full and Truer Relation of Sir William Waller his Regaining his Ammunition (1643); Regs. of the Worshipful Co. of Stationers (1913), i. 64. But an entry in Whitelocke’s diary for that summer strongly implies that Wenman was among the peace-party peers who ‘came often’ to his house ‘and had consultations together’ – and indeed Wenman would remain part of Whitelocke’s social circle and private political counsels for the rest of the decade.54Whitelocke, Diary, 147, 182, 184, 200, 203, 219, 221, 228; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 516, 537, 538, 547. The failure of the Lords’ peace initiative early in August brought Wenman to the brink of quitting the parliamentarian cause and possibly England itself. On 9 August, the Commons passed an order allowing his wife, with ‘packs, trunks and goods’, to pass over to Holland, where he presumably intended to join them in due course.55CJ iii. 198b-199a. The next day (10 August), a correspondent of Sir Ralph Verney* informed him of a rumour that Wenman and other, unnamed, MPs were preparing to defect to the king’s party.56Mems. of the Verney Fam. (1904), i. 296. Late in September, he and James Fiennes were among a group of MPs noted as desiring further time to take the Solemn League and Covenant.57CJ iii. 259b. But whereas Fiennes continued to drag his feet on this issue and would be suspended from sitting in November, Wenman took the Covenant on 3 October.58CJ iii. 262a.

If the reports of Wenman quitting the parliamentarian cause proved mistaken, it is nonetheless revealing that he made no recorded impression at Westminster between October 1643 and March 1644, during which time Parliament was preoccupied with satisfying the political and military demands of its new Scottish allies. During the spring and summer of 1644 he was named to a series of committees to raise money for the war effort in Ireland and for supplying the parliamentarian forces contesting for control of Oxfordshire and the Thames Valley.59CJ iii. 452b, 507b, 523a, 574a, 609a. And his alignment with the peace party may well have recommended him on 7 September to a bi-partisan joint committee to meet and entertain the visiting Covenanter grandee, Lord Loudoun.60CJ iii. 621a. His peace party affiliation certainly accounted for his tellership with Sir Philip Stapilton on 26 September against including a clause in what would become the Uxbridge peace propositions for excepting the prominent royalist Sir Edward Herbert* from pardon.61CJ iii. 639a. The peace party was anxious to make the propositions as palatable as possible for the king. Wenman was named to joint committees in November and December to present the peace propositions to the king at Oxford and to receive the duke of Richmond and the earl of Southampton with the king’s answer, and he was included on the bicameral commission appointed in January 1645 to treat with the king’s commissioners at Uxbridge.62CJ iii. 691a, 697a, 724b, 725b; iv. 19b, 24a; LJ vii. 68a, 159b, 166b, 168b, 176a; Harl. 166, ff. 143v-144. He signed the parliamentary delegation’s letters from Uxbridge and received the thanks of the House with his colleagues on 25 February for their ‘faithful, prudent and very great pains’ in the negotiations, but there is no evidence that he was an important participant in the treaty.63CJ iv. 62b; HMC Portland, i. 204, 205, 208, 209, 210, 211.

Wenman received no parliamentary appointments between January and mid-May 1645 and therefore contributed little, if anything, to the cause of new modelling Parliament’s armies. On 17 and 30 May, he was named to committees for raising money to sustain the siege of Oxford, and on 24 May he was a majority teller with the Presbyterian MP Sir Walter Erle against passing an ordinance for paying £300 to John Venn*, an Independent, as former governor of Windsor.64CJ iv. 147a, 153b, 157a. His eagerness to advance the taking of Oxford probably explains his inclusion on a committee set up on 5 June to expedite payments to the New Model army.65CJ iv. 164a. During the Commons investigation in July into the Savile affair – in which Holles and Whitelocke were alleged to have colluded with the royalists while presenting the Uxbridge propositions at court the previous November – it emerged that Wenman had accompanied the two men on at least one of their meetings with the royalist grandees, but he denied knowledge of any underhand dealings at Oxford.66Add. 18780, ff. 78r, 78v, 79, 81v; Whitelocke, Diary, 171, 173; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 473, 474. Granted leave on 17 July to take the waters at Bath ‘for the recovery of his health’, he was still at Westminster on 21 July, when he was a majority teller against delaying the consideration of a committee report that exonerated Holles and Whitelocke from any wrongdoing during their time at Oxford.67CJ iv. 210b, 214b.

Having returned to the House by November 1645, Wenman was named to another committee for the supply of Parliament’s garrison at Abingdon, just south of Oxford, and on 6 December he was a majority teller in favour of paying the Northamptonshire county committee £4,000 to help secure the county’s safety.68CJ iv. 337a, 367b. His next tellership, on 10 March 1646, was a more partisan affair and saw him partner Sir John Evelyn (probably Sir John Evelyn of Surrey, a Presbyterian) against adding two royalists to the list of those exempted from pardon in the Newcastle peace propositions. Wenman and Evelyn defeated the Independents Sir Henry Mildmay and Sir Arthur Hesilrige.69CJ iv. 471b. On 24 July, he was granted a further leave of absence, and his name then disappears from the Journal until his tellership on 3 December with Whitelocke against an abatement in the assessment payments of five western counties. The opposing tellers were the west country Presbyterians Erle and Anthony Nicoll.70CJ iv. 629a, 736b. On 31 December, he was named to a committee to examine complaints against lay preachers – a breed particularly disliked by the Presbyterian interest.71CJ v. 35a. It was at the request of the Lords – in which the Presbyterian interest held sway by the spring of 1647 – that he was added in March to the commission established under the ordinance for reforming the university of Oxford.72CJ v. 121b.

Wenman’s involvement in the Presbyterian drive from early 1647 to disband the army seems to have been negligible. On 27 March, he was named to a committee for investigating a petition circulating in the army against service in Ireland before the redress of the soldiers’ grievances; and on 3 June – after news had reached Westminster of the army’s seizure of the king at Holdenby – he was a majority teller with Harbottle Grimston in favour of paying off the soldiers as quickly as possible, in what was clearly a desperate act of appeasement by the Presbyterians. The opposing tellers were the Independent grandees William Pierrepont and Hesilrige.73CJ v. 127b, This is his last known contribution to the House’s proceedings before the autumn of 1648. His nomination with James Fiennes that December to collect the assessment arrears for Oxfordshire was almost certainly made in absentia.74CJ v. 400b

His inactivity in, and likely absence from, the House since mid-1647 notwithstanding, Wenman was included, early in September 1648, on the parliamentary commission to hold treaty talks with the king at Newport, on the Isle of Wight.75CJ v. 697a; LJ x. 486b, 488a, 492b. His experience as a parliamentary negotiator may well have landed him this appointment, although it is also possible that he was recommended by his old acquaintance Viscount Saye and Sele, who was desperate for the treaty to succeed. Wenman was an active member of the treaty commission and received the thanks of the House on 1 December for his ‘great, good and very faithful services’ performed at Newport.76CJ vi. 92a; HMC Portland, i. 500, 501, 503, 504, 505; Desiderata Curiosa ed. F. Peck (1735), ii, lib. x, 17. As a leading promoter of the treaty, he was not only excluded from the House at Pride’s Purge on 6 December, but also among those 45 or so Members who suffered imprisonment.77Mercurius Pragmaticus 36, 37 (5-12 Dec. 1648), sig. Ccc3v (E.476.2); Whitelocke, Diary, 225. He was released on 20 December and, undaunted by his hard usage, spoke ‘very high against the army...which was no small provocation’.78Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1369; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 481. But his sense of outrage did not translate into political action, for he seems to have withdrawn from public affairs under the Rump and the protectorate. His younger brother Philip, on the other hand, who had served in the king’s forces in Ireland during the 1640s, was arrested as a royalist conspirator in 1651 and imprisoned in the Tower.79CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 171, 208; CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 183. Wenman’s household at Thame Park provided refuge during the interregnum for at least two episcopalian divines: George Ashwell and Seth Ward, the future bishop of Exeter.80Oxford DNB, ‘George Ashwell’; ‘Seth Ward’.

Wenman’s parliamentary career revived, briefly, a few days after the re-admission of the secluded Members to the Rump on 21 February 1660. On 25 February, he was added to a committee for drafting a new militia ordinance; and on 27 February to a committee on a bill for settling lands on General George Monck*.81CJ vii. 853a, 855a. It was not until April, on the very eve of the Restoration, that Wenman conveyed ‘expressions of affection’ to Charles II.82CCSP iv. 688. Wenman was returned for Oxfordshire to the 1660 Convention. But though listed by Philip, 4th Baron Wharton as a likely supporter of a Presbyterian church settlement, he made no recorded contribution to this Parliament’s proceedings.83HP Commons 1660-90, ‘Thomas 2nd Visct. Wenman’; G.F.T. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix, 340. There is no evidence that he stood for election to the Cavalier Parliament.

Wenman died on 25 January 1665 and was buried at Twyford on 27 January.84CP. In his will, he charged his estate with bequests to his daughters and grandchildren totalling over £8,500 and an annuity of £1,000 to his brother Philip, who succeeded him as the 3rd Viscount Wenman. Wenman’s grandson, to whom he bequeathed property that he had lately purchased in Wales, represented Brackley in four Parliaments between 1679 and 1689 and became the 4th Viscount Wenman.85PROB11/316, ff. 147-149v; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Richard Wenman’.