WHISTLER, John (c.1580-1647), of Gray’s Inn, Mdx., and Great Haseley, Oxon.

An experienced MP, Whistler came to the Long Parliament with a record of opposition to government religious and fiscal policies in the 1620s. As a reliable lawyer and an assiduous attender he was at first much in demand for parliamentary business. However, although his commitment to reform appears to have continued, when his seat of Oxford became the royalist capital late in 1642, his position at Westminster rapidly became untenable. Membership of the alternative Oxford Parliament in time earned him disablement from the Commons.

Whistler’s career had taken off after his appointment in 1623 as deputy recorder of Oxford, 11 miles north west of his home at Great Haseley. As MP for the city in the next four Parliaments he sat on the committee for privileges, spoke on subsidies, resisted measures against nonconformist clergy, and supported the Petition of Right.20HP Commons 1604-1629. Despite service at Westminster and professional duties at Gray’s Inn, he appears to have been reasonably active on the Oxford commission of the peace, and therefore possibly also on that for gaol delivery.21PBG Inn, i. 234, 246, 284, 325, 336; Oxon. RO, QS/C/A2/01; C181/3, ff. 84, 115, 156v, 225v; C181/5, ff. 29, 79, 89, 123, 155, 227. Elected recorder in 1627, he was evidently found effective in the sometimes onerous task of assisting the city negotiate with the university and its colleges.22Oxford Council Acts 1626-65, 7, 10. On 2 March 1629 he was awarded a gratuity of 20 marks, to be presented to him ‘with speed, letting him know that the city would willingly present him with a far greater sum, but that the treasure of this city in respect of many troubles and suits which they have lately had, [is] wasted and spent’.23Oxford Council Acts 1626-65, 18. The death in 1630 of his father, described as a yeoman in the inventory of an estate valued at some £56, but as ‘Mr’ in the burial register, probably left him in comfortable circumstances.24Great Haseley par. reg.; Oxon. Wills Index (inv. ?1631; executor’s acct. 1632).

In the subsequent absence of Parliaments he was involved in safeguarding Oxford interests in relation to the felling of trees for the navy in Stowood and Shotover forests.25CSP Dom. 1629-31, pp. 66, 74. His office from 1635 as dean of chapel at Gray’s Inn placed a man of apparently austere religious views in a sensitive position with regard to the arrangement of preaching and liturgy.26PBG Inn, i. 325; PROB11/200/317. In Oxford for the king’s visit in August 1636, he was present at some council meetings in the later 1630s, became a commissioner for the strategically important local barge trade and represented the city as a commissioner for Thames navigation.27Oxford Council Acts 1626-65, 79, 356; Oxon. RO, city archives, E.4.5, ff. 7v, 8, 10v, 19v; C181/5, ff. 129, 208. As executor of the will of his kinswoman Eleanor Whistler, who died in 1638, he gave her legacy of £120 and £80 of his own money towards loans to freemen who had served as constables.28VCH Oxon. iv. 463.

Again nominated as a parliamentary candidate in March 1640, this time Whistler was unsuccessful, losing to Charles Howard*, Viscount Andover, and Thomas Cooper I*, both of whom had connections to the university and (in Cooper’s case at least) sympathies with the regime of Vice-chancellor William Laud.29Oxford Council Acts 1626-65, 91. Whistler’s failure, like that of fellow nominee Alderman John Nixon*, was probably owing to his advocacy of city rights against those of the university, combined with known antipathy to royal policy. When a few months later town-gown disagreements erupted in confrontation over the powers of university proctors over the night watch, Whistler was called in by the city to put its case to the government. Laud, defending his own role in the matter later at his trial, joked bitterly that the corporation had ‘whistled up their recorder to come and complain at the council table’.30Wood, Hist. Univ. Oxford (1796), ii. 421-2.

The episode clearly did no harm to Whistler’s reputation. At the election on 12 October 1640 he was chosen for the senior city seat in preference to Howard, who was then resoundingly returned as the junior.31Oxford Council Acts 1626-65, 97. Named on 6 November to the committee for privileges, that day he countered a motion by Sir Francis Seymour that those whose elections had been disputed should be ineligible for inclusion by arguing that the bar should apply only in cases of double returns.32CJ ii. 20b; Procs. LP i. 21. Experience probably made him a leading member of the committee. Not only did Whistler move for the writ for a by-election at Oxford when Howard was summoned to the Lords (18 Nov.) but in debate over the disputed election at Great Marlow he spoke in favour of a wide franchise (19 Nov.).33Procs. LP i. 169, 188. On 8 December he justified the return of Sir Robert Crane at Sudbury, and clarified the distinction between the legal situation surrounding elections (a matter for the House) and the facts of each case (‘to be cleared before the committee’).34Procs. LP i. 511, 515. Later he was named to committees discussing annual Parliaments and representation for County Durham (30 Dec. 1640, 1 Jan. 1641).35CJ ii. 60a, 61b.

Whistler had already launched into a period of intense and important activity; especially during the first five weeks of the session his voice was frequently heard in the House. On the committee preparing the subsidy bill (from 19 Nov.), he chaired it and debates on the matter by the whole House; he advocated ‘the old way of subsidies’, certification by inhabitants of taxpayers’ chief place of residence, and a negotiated permanent revenue which would obviate the necessity of ad hoc impositions.36CJ ii. 31b, 57b, 58b, 62a, 63b, 64b, 65b; Procs. LP i. 188-9; Northcote, Diary, 59, 82, 102, 109. With what was probably characteristic precision, he also pointed out the complications attendant on making an overall estimate of a man’s income. ‘One man dwelling in the south shall be assessed for all his estate in the north which no man can tell how to assess’; the value of land and related goods was dependent on local conditions, ‘but debts follow a person’ (5 Dec.).37Procs. LP i. 475. His motion that ‘Sir John Harrison [John Harrison*], who had lent £50,000 and was lately knighted might now be so put in the bill of subsidy’, was accepted (4 Jan. 1641).38Procs. LP ii. 102.

Whistler was also nominated to prosecute exchequer official Sir Henry Spiller and to investigate that court’s judgements upholding illegal taxation and other contraventions of the Petition of Right (27 Nov.); this included the affair of Dr Roger Maynwaring, promoted by Charles in defiance of his permanent disablement from ecclesiastical office by Parliament in 1628.39CJ ii. 33b, 38a; ‘Roger Maynwaring’, Oxford DNB. He was on committees hearing the cases of and petitions from various sufferers during the personal rule of Charles I: Alexander Leighton, William Prynne and Henry Burton the controversialists; the parishioners of St Gregory by St Paul’s, who had seen their church demolished to make way for the restored cathedral; complainants of contravention by visitors of the statutes of the puritan Emmanuel College, Cambridge; those alleging inequitable proceedings by the high constable and in the earl marshal’s court, excessive exactions by royal customs officers and illegal levies by lords lieutenant.40CJ ii. 34b, 36a, 41a, 44b, 50b, 52a, 55a, 64a; Procs. LP ii. 491, 553, 555. He also tackled monopolists, arguing that the concession for gunpowder manufacture was ‘against the liberty of the subject’ (5 Mar.).41CJ ii. 31a; Procs. LP ii. 637.

Among grievances, those relating to religion were a high priority for him. Early in the session (9 Nov.) he revealed an objection to the use of ‘letters of grace’ urging leniency in the implementation of legislation against papists and recusants, while on the 21st he pressed for the renewal of proceedings against Dr John Cosin, dean of Durham, who had been indicted of treason by a grand jury for denying the royal supremacy over the church; once in custody, Cosin was to be denied bail (3 Dec.).42CJ ii. 39a; Procs. LP i. 63, 65, 70, 227, 230, 232, 234, 237, 443. When on 24 November 1640 Sir John Strangways voiced opposition to Ship Money, overuse of royal proclamations, and the courts of star chamber and high commission, Whistler agreed that these were weighty matters, but insisted that the controversial ecclesiastical Canons should be debated first that day.43Procs. LP i. 271. With his friend Sir Thomas Widdrington and John Selden, one of the Members for Oxford University, Whistler was several times delegated to search for documents and prepare material for debates on the Canons; in an interim report on 13 December he opined not only that Convocation (which had issued them) could impose them neither on the kingdom nor even on the clergy, but also that the king had not succeeded to all the powers once usurped by the pope. The ‘Etcetera Oath’, with its tacit implication of acceptance of such power, was ‘most wicked’ and the Canons in their entirety were ‘void’.44CJ ii. 30b, 33a, 48a, 52a; Procs. LP i. 590, 594, 596-7; Northcote, Diary, 60-1. Later he promoted debate on episcopacy (8 Feb.).45Procs. LP ii. 391.

Another major grievance was the conduct of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), as lord deputy of Ireland. Members voted on their first day at Westminster to refer Irish affairs to a grand committee, which then met weekly from 12 November Whistler as its chairman.46CJ ii. 21b, 27b; ‘Committees for Irish Affairs’, supra. Visible from the outset also in connection with Irish affairs as they impinged on England, on 20 November Whistler reported – apparently at length – the remonstrance from the Commons of the Irish Parliament making sweeping complaints covering trade, the law, taxation and religion.47CJ ii. 32a; Procs. LP i. 106, 136, 205-6, 210, 212, 215, 217, 657. On the 28th he reported ‘many petitions’ from other quarters.48CJ ii. 38b, 64a; Procs. LP i. 351-2, 354, 359, 361. Meanwhile, he was among those delegated to search king’s bench records for precedents of attainder and prepare the charges for Strafford’s trial to be submitted to the Lords, and among those who insisted that representatives of the Commons must be present in the Upper House during proceedings.49CJ ii. 31b, 39a, 52a, 64a; Procs. LP i. 355, 360. According to the diarist John Northcote, on 21 December Whistler revealed that he was wary of labelling Strafford’s misdemeanour treason, for fear that it would compromise others’ liberties in future, but his comments at other times suggest he had resolved any doubts over this.50CJ ii. Northcote, Diary, 98.

Alongside all his high-profile activity, Whistler’s legal expertise was harnessed on committees considering the jurisdiction of the councils of the north and of the marches, and preparing acts for annual Parliaments and for according parliamentary representation to the county palatine of Durham, as well as sundry other business like investigating recusants and petitions from Virginia.51CJ ii. 39a, 54a, 57a, 60a, 61b. From 8 January 1641, when he chaired a debate on subsidies, to 27 January, when he was named to prepare an act declaring the common law on salt marshes, he was absent from the record.52CJ ii. 65b, 73b. It would be unsurprising if he had taken a break from the Commons. However, despite being given permission on 4 February to take a brief in a cause before the Lords, he was soon as busy in the chamber as ever.53CJ ii. 78b. He continued to bear the burden of managing both the Irish committee, with its further attendant business of Strafford’s trial, and the subsidy committee; he reported on related matters on 10 February and 18 March, and took part in conferences with the Lords (15 and 16 Apr.).54CJ ii. 79b, 80a, 82a, 88b, 92a, 98a, 106b, 107a, 120b, 122a; Procs. LP ii. 408, 410. He paid careful attention to the protocol of non-interference by the Commons in proceedings run by peers (16 Apr.) and to the detail of the subsidy legislation; he secured agreement to the exclusion of subsidy commissioners he deemed unsuitable (6 May) and once again weighed in about modes of assessment (13 May).55Procs. LP iii. 383; iv. 233, 360.

Named to committees preparing legislation removing clergy from secular office (1 Mar., 1 Apr.), abolishing pluralism (10 Mar.), curbing recusants (26 Mar.) and promoting the gospel (12 Apr.), Whistler’s strong commitment to reformation was still regularly visible.56CJ ii. 94b, 100b,113b, 115a, 119a. He expressed a high view of ministers’ spiritual responsibilities (22 Feb.) and demonstrated that the ‘vast power’ of bishops in government was an innovation: by a statute of 1487 there was to be ‘but one bishop … present in star chamber, and he ought not to have a voice’, for it was ‘anciently a council table, and matters expressed therein are all temporal’ (11 Mar.).57Procs. LP ii. 512, 555, 710, 717. On the other hand, as a Member for Oxford, he appears to have appreciated the peculiar position of the universities, arguing for a proviso reflecting this in the bill debarring those in holy orders from secular employment (22 Apr.).58Procs. LP iv. 59.

Meanwhile, Whistler’s considerable reputation as a lawyer was reflected in such appointments as investigating chancery decisions (15 Feb.) and disorders in parliamentary elections (30 Mar.).59CJ ii. 85b, 114a. Indeed, as far as some MPs were concerned, Whistler was rapidly becoming indispensable as an authority and an arbiter on Commons proceedings; his motions were generally carried. Sir Thomas Peyton* recorded that on 14 April he proposed that no Member should speak more than once on the same issue, while on the 16th Simonds D’Ewes* noted that it was on Whistler’s motion that all the committees on public bills were ordered to sit that afternoon.60Procs. LP iii. 554, 581. That day he ‘argued … strongly’ that Strafford’s trial should proceed behind closed doors (where dissensions in committee threatened progress) rather than in public, but the pressure was beginning to tell on someone no longer young. When on 17 April there was a proposal that the ‘ancient lawyer’ be allowed leave of absence for his health, according to D’Ewes ‘divers out of their respect for him as conceiving him a necessary Member opposed it’. D’Ewes himself appreciated the ‘good esteem’ manifest in the desire to retain ‘a useful member’, but endorsed the grant of a week’s absence that ‘we might the longer enjoy his assistance’.61Procs. LP iii. 604, 605, 608; CJ ii. 122b. As has been seen, Whistler was still in the House the following week giving legal advice, and the day after his planned departure (22 Apr.) spoke on the proviso in the clergy bill.62Procs. LP iv. 59. Thereafter, however, he does seem to have taken a short break.

Named on 6 May with Widdrington and Selden to the committee on the act for the security of the true religion, Whistler was back in the Commons by the following day, when he took the Protestation.63Harl 163, f. 139; CJ ii. 136b, 138b. His level of activity declined somewhat over the next few months, but he remained influential. Added at the prompting of Sir Edmund Moundford* to the committee investigating Matthew Wren, bishop of Ely (12 May), he was still engaged by this in the summer (28 July), when he helped Dr Thomas Eden*, an erstwhile but now repentant supporter of Wren, present his case to the Lords; he was also involved in joint action with the Lords over Peter Smart’s complaints of his maltreatment for speaking out against Arminianism and ceremonialism at Durham cathedral (29 May, 7 June).64CJ ii. 143b, 161b, 169a; Procs. LP vi. 118, 127; Harl. 163, f. 416; Harl. 164, f. 211; Harl. 477, f. 59; ‘Thomas Eden’, Oxford DNB. He worked further on the exclusion of clergy from temporal affairs (3 June) and the suppression of Catholicism.65CJ ii. 165a. On 10 July he and George Peard* were sent to the judges of king’s bench to expedite a prosecution over the harbouring of a priest, while on the 19th, with Peard and Widdrington, he was among managers of a conference with the Lords on the disarming of recusants, about which he reported back to the Commons (24 July).66CJ ii. 205b, 216b; Harl. 479, f. 91. The execution of Strafford on 12 May temporarily lowered the profile of Irish affairs, but Whistler continued to chair the grand committee until it was abolished on 1 June, and thereafter brought related matters to the Commons: for instance, on 25 June he ‘spoke shortly’ to a letter from the lord chancellor of Ireland, while on 2 August he delivered ‘a long report’ about Londonderry and its plantations, and detailed 26 votes or resolutions passed in the committee of Irish affairs.67Procs. LP iv. 613; v. 343; vi. 127; Harl, 163, f. 351; Harl. 164, f. 62v; Harl. 477, f. 105; Harl. 479, ff. 105, 144; CJ ii. 250b, 272a. Refinements to the bill abolishing tonnage and poundage occupied him before its abolition on 22 June; investigation of previous abuses in revenue collection and taking fees (22 May, 1 June, 6 July) and the implementation of new money-raising legislation came his way.68CJ ii. 154b, 159b, 165a, 197b, 200a; Harl. 477, ff. 115v, 117, 119v.

Through the late spring and summer Whistler appears at the same time an important actor in key aspects of Commons’ business and a guardian of law and precedent. According to John Moore*, when on 8 July there was a proposal to ‘entreat’ Edward Hyde* to postpone his reading at the Middle Temple the next month (presumably to permit him better to fulfil parliamentary obligations), ‘Mr Whistler spoke much against it, and said he hoped this house would not meddle with such things’.69Procs. LP v. 563. Later that month he argued for the right of Henry Wilmot*, William Ashbournham* and Hugh Pollarde* to put their case personally to fellow MPs when they were accused of complicity in the ‘army plot’ to seize control of Parliament.70Procs. LP vi. 96. Whistler’s professional expertise was called on in relatively minor matters, including the resolution of differences between Sir James Thynne* and his brother on which he reported on 17 August, but also on weightier issues.71CJ ii. 240b, 261a; Harl. 164, f. 37; Bodl. Rawl. D.1099, f. 42b. On 3 July, as well as being nominated to the committee working on the act to safeguard free speech in the House, he was among four MPs added to the committee for the marches of Wales; his involvement in the principality’s affairs continued beyond the abolition of the council of the marches two days later.72CJ ii. 198b, 257b; Harl. 479, f. 156. As the king prepared to go north to settle the conflict in Scotland, Whistler, who had already been working on the bill for levying sailors (8 May), was drawn in to military affairs.73CJ ii. 139b. Notably, he made the final report from a committee on paying billet money in the northern counties (17 July) and was added to the committee organising a general disbandment of the army attendant on the expected treaty (27 July).74CJ ii. 219b, 226a; Harl. 163, f. 405v. What Moore described as his ‘clear opinion’, delivered on 16 July, that Parliament could not use the great seal in Charles’s absence was no hindrance to his nomination on the 28th to the committee of leading Members to establish what business Parliament would address in the meantime.75CJ ii. 227a; Procs. LP vi. 438, 441. His role as an acknowledged arbiter of legality was confirmed a month later he was sent with two fellow lawyers to view the commission which had appointed Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, as captain general of the forces left south of the Trent.76Harl. 479, f. 165.

Whistler’s dominant role on the Irish committee had meanwhile continued. When the House reassembled on 20 October 1641 after a six-week recess, his absence was reported to have caused temporary paralysis in its business. Because he was ‘out of town, and had most of [the Irish] petitions with him, so we could do nothing’.77CJ ii. 289b. Whistler’s attendance record over the next six months proved less regular than previously, but he was involved in this and other vital business throughout. In the aftermath of the Irish rebellion, preoccupations widened from Londonderry (25 Oct.) to the provision of a military expedition (29 Nov.), raising funds for the relief of victims (7 Feb. 1642), establishing Major-general Robert Monro’s garrison at Carrickfergus (24 Feb.) and selecting news from Ireland for publication (14 Mar.).78CJ ii. 294b, 326b, 415b, 451b, 477b. In addition to committee work as varied as dealing with money, settling land and relief for captives in Algiers, he continued to be active on religion, addressing the suppression of innovations, pluralities, recusants and seminary priests, and the promotion of lectureships.79CJ ii. 314a, 325a, 333a, 387a, 423b, 427a, 431b, 456b, 476b. Involved at various stages of Parliament’s proceedings against bishops, he voluntarily confessed and sought pardon from the Commons on 16 February 1642 for his error the previous day in standing bail for Robert Skinner, bishop of Oxford and a close associate of Laud, an error ‘out of ignorance’; the admission which may have startled his hearers becomes less inexplicable in the light of what is now known of Skinner’s subsequent attempts to accommodate himself to the new times, but it may also be an indication of Whistler’s instincts towards moderation and mediation.80CJ ii. 295a, 385b, 431a, 436a; PJ i. 398, 399. According to one diarist, the House accepted his apology because it had a ‘good estimation otherwise of his learning and integrity’.81PJ i. 401.

No lack of commitment to the reform programme was otherwise visible. Whistler was regularly a member of select groups addressing sensitive issues. On 15 November 1641 he, Widdrington and John Glynne* joined three northern MPs to prepare an order about the court at York, while two days later he was deputed with seven other lawyers to hear the examinations taken in the wake of the ‘army plot’.82CJ ii. 315, 318a. In December he was still working on the bill to safeguard MPs’ liberty.83CJ ii. 334b. In the aftermath of the king’s abortive attempt to arrest the Five Members on 4 January 1642, Whistler was named to committees considering the adjournment of Parliament (11 Jan.), publicising the dangers posed to it and the kingdom over the previous three months (12 Jan.), and preparing the arguments for the breach of privilege represented in the impeachment of the Members (13 Jan.).84CJ ii. 370a, 372a, 376b. In the tense atmosphere surrounding accusations against George Digby* on 15 January, he and three other lawyers were sent to search out secret warrants for raising men to threaten the House; a month later he was among those nominated to prepare his impeachment.85CJ ii. 382b, 433a. He was also a representative of the Commons at the impeachment of the attorney-general.86CJ ii. 449a. Having contributed to the debate on the declaration for putting the kingdom in a posture of defence (8 Feb.), in March he was involved in the promotion and justification of Parliament’s Militia Ordinance, and then in preparing articles of impeachment against Sir Thomas Gardiner*, recorder of London, who (in culmination of a series of moves in support of the court) had opposed it.87PJ i. 310; CJ ii. 478b, 485b, 492b.

Whistler was absent from the Journal between 22 March and 7 May for reasons that are unexplained. He reappeared to join committees discussing the employment of fines on those impeached for public purposes and, following the king’s calling of the Yorkshire gentry to arms, the legality of Parliament’s taking its own action for security and against royal servants (16 May).88CJ ii. 563a, 572b. After another gap he was apparently back on 15 June to draw an ordinance preventing the publication of scandalous or libellous pamphlets, but this was his last appointment in the House.89CJ ii. 624b. When on 23 June the Commons debated the king’s answer to the Nineteen Propositions, Whistler expressed some dissatisfaction, but the nature of his reservation is not clear.90PJ iii. 124-5. Two days later, as the bill of tonnage and poundage was discussed, he exhibited his old opposition to monopolies when he produced a proviso allowing freedom to import undressed white cloths, apparently provoking ‘a long and vehement dispute’.91PJ iii. 133. A final action – on 30 June or 2 July – was to move once more for Sir James Thynne to have leave of absence.92PJ iii. 154.

On 27 June 1642 Whistler was present for the last time for nearly three and a half years at a meeting of the bench at Gray’s Inn, where despite his parliamentary duties he had hitherto kept up a fairly constant attendance.93PBG Inn, i. 349. According to his later composition papers, he then went to Oxfordshire in his capacity as a forest commissioner to discharge business which lasted many months and which, by implication, entailed almost continuous residence, but this may hide a more complex reality.94CCC 945. By 10 August he was certainly in Oxford, where his legal advice was particularly critical to the corporation at a time when tensions between university and city became entangled with competing national loyalties. As recounted in their later letter to Speaker William Lenthall*, on that day and the next both he and John Smith were summoned with the mayor and other councillors to hear Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Berkshire, and the vice-chancellor announce the arrangements for the defence of Oxford in accordance with letters from the king. Having expressed their doubts that these were even practicable, the MPs ‘told them plainly we did not like the business, and thought it would draw enemies upon us, and make it a seat of war’. Nothing was concluded, but ‘that night Mr Whistler’s windows were broken, and it was generally given out that he should be mischiefed for speaking against that fortification’. There followed further intimidation, which was only exacerbated after the arrival on the 28th of Sir John Byron with a party of disorderly soldiers. By 3 September, the date of their message, they had joined an exodus of ‘sober and religious gospellers’ from the university and ‘most of the gravest citizens’, taking refuge in Abingdon.95HMC Portland, i. 56-8. From here they wrote again two days later to report the cowardice of the mayor in acceding to the royalists’ demands.96HMC Portland, i. 59-60.

Notwithstanding their declaration that they could do better service by staying locally than in the House of Commons, Whistler seems to have returned to London, perhaps in response to a summons arising from the reading of their report in Parliament on the 6th.97CJ ii. 754a. It was there that, according to a petition of 17 September directed to the Lords by George Heron, previously commended by Whistler and Smith as a bailiff faithful to Parliament, Whistler confirmed to Heron that Byron’s attempt on 3 September to publish a royal proclamation in Oxford was unlawful.98HMC Lords, n.s. xi. 322. The brief occupation of the city in mid-September by William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, may have appeared to remove some of the danger, and it is possible that Whistler had resumed his forest work.

Whistler seems to have been at Great Haseley at the time of the battle of Edgehill on 23 October. On his own telling, he was cut off from London as royalist forces converged on Oxford. Soon after it became the king’s headquarters he was taken as a prisoner to the city, leaving ‘the place of his habitation, and almost all his goods, to the spoil’.99Whistler, ‘Annals’, 66-7. According to Anthony Wood, it was not until 14 December that Whistler was ‘brought in prisoner at the south gate’ and committed to the custody of Samuel Fell, dean of Christ Church, for ‘his adhering to the Parliament, and ever and anon by letters advising citizens not to take up arms, or be helping or contributing towards the fortifying of their city for the king’.100Wood, Hist. Univ. Oxford, ii. 457. By the end of January 1643 Whistler should have been freed, but he later recounted a series of re-arrests in expectation of appearing at the assizes in Hungerford, despite making at least two substantial bail payments of £2,000 and suffering further affronts to his property and personal dignity; freedom from restraint and escape from Oxford came only about 1 June 1644.101Whistler, ‘Annals’, 66-7.

Whistler’s precise circumstances and allegiances in this period are obscure. There is no doubt that he was regarded as an enemy by some in Oxford. Abraham Cowley’s poem The Puritan and the Papist, published in the city in 1643, which anathematized the religious views of leading MPs, bracketed him for his volubility with Oliver Cromwell*, Thomas Pury I* and Sir John Wray*.102A. Cowley, The Puritan and the Papist by a Scholler in Oxford (Oxford, 1643), 6. On the other hand, the king reappointed Whistler as a forest commissioner in May 1643 and during the plague epidemic of 1644 he was apparently named as an overseer of the poor in the parish of St Peter in the East.103Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, i. 38, 42; An Order of the Lords for the better direction of the overseers appointed in the severall parishes of the city of Oxford (Oxford, 1644). Like Smith, and with similarly unfathomable motives, he sat in the Oxford Parliament and signed the letter of 27 January 1644 from the assembled Members to the earl of Essex seeking a peace treaty.104Names of the Lords and Commons assembled in the Pretended Parliament assembled at Oxford (1646), A3; A Copy of a Letter from the Members of Both Houses assembled at Oxford (1643), 7-8 (E.32.3).

On leaving the city in June 1644 Whistler said that he presented himself to Sir William Waller*, who received him amicably. Thereafter he stayed first at Combe, Hampshire, with his brother Ralph, a parliamentarian officer, until he too was captured, and then with his brother Henry, rector of Whitchurch, near Reading. Only after a period of illness did he then submit to Speaker William Lenthall, who referred him to the Committee for Compounding.105Whistler, ‘Annals’, 67; BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database; Al. Ox. He petitioned the Committee as a sometime Member of Parliament on 1 November 1645 and appeared in the Commons as disabled on the 29th with William Allestrye* and Sir William Dalston*, in the meantime attending his final meeting of the Gray’s Inn bench (7 Nov.).106CCC 945; CJ iv. 358a; PBG Inn, i. 355. A motion on the 29th that ‘no man that hath been against us or assisted against the Parliament be admitted into any house of the innes of court’ apparently got nowhere, but Whistler and the others were discharged on 4 December from further attendance at Westminster and directed to continue with their composition.107CJ iv. 365a; Add. 18780, f. 173v. Whistler’s argument that his lands, valued at £143 a year but included property ‘lately burnt’, had yielded no profit over the past three years owing to double taxation may have weighed in his favour at Goldsmiths’ Hall, as may his record up to 1642 and his personal connections; there is no record of a fine.108CCC 945.

Whistler described himself as of Gray’s Inn when on 11 September 1646 he made his will. Although he acknowledged the frailty of the flesh, ‘especially of mine that am aged’, he was ‘of convenient health … the Lord be therefore praised’. Dividing his lands among his three brothers and their male heirs according to strict rules of seniority, he made also large number of modest bequests to nieces and to his friends, Lady Mary Clarke of Pusey, Mistress Elizabeth Isham, Master Samuel Dunch*, and especially, ‘in token of my love and respect’, Sir Thomas Bedingfield* and Sir Thomas Widdrington*.109PROB11/200/317. He was buried at Great Milton on 2 April 1647. His brother Ralph became a major landowner in County Londonderry, but none of his immediate family sat in later Parliaments.110Great Milton par. reg.