ARTHINGTON, Henry (1616-71), of Arthington, Adel, Yorks.

The Arthingtons were one of the oldest gentry families in the West Riding, having held the manor of Arthington, about eight miles north of Leeds, since at least the mid-fourteenth century.40Thoresby, Ducatis Leodiensis, 7; VCH Yorks. iii. 187. The family’s estate and influence appears to have been confined largely to the lordship of Arthington until the late sixteenth century, when Arthington’s father and uncle had purchased the manor and advowson of Adel from the crown in 1600 for £1,193.41Adel Par. Regs. ed. Lumb, 29. Arthington was still a minor when his father died, and his wardship was purchased for £400 by his kinsman, the future royalist Francis Nevile*.42WARD9/207, f. 36. Nevile’s first marriage had been to one of Arthington’s cousins, and his second marriage was to Arthington’s widowed mother, who was the daughter of a prominent Boroughbridge recusant, Thomas Tanckred.43Infra, ‘Francis Nevile’. Although Nevile appears to have assigned Arthington’s wardship and marriage to Tanckred’s heir, he may well have had a hand in securing Arthington’s marriage in 1638 to a daughter of the godly Yorkshire knight Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*, whose main residence at Denton lay about eight miles west of Arthington.44W. Yorks. Archives (Wakefield), C1358/81, 607; Notts. RO, DD/FJ/4/29/8. That said, the Tanckreds were already well known to the Fairfaxes – Sir Ferdinando having shared the parliamentary representation of Boroughbridge with members of the family since 1614. In the elections to the 1628 Parliament, the borough had returned Fairfax and Nevile.45HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Boroughbridge’.

Although added to the West Riding bench at the end of 1640, Arthington played relatively little part in the county’s affairs that year, which saw a large section of the Yorkshire gentry, led by (among others) Sir Ferdinando Fairfax (from May, 2nd Baron Fairfax), resist the king’s attempts to mobilize the county’s trained bands against the invading Scots.46Infra, ‘Sir Ferdinando Fairfax’; C231/5, p. 419. Arthington signed none of the Yorkshire gentry’s petitions to the king of July, August and September 1640, in which they complained about the cost of military charges upon the county and, in the case of the September petition, requested that Charles summon Parliament. However, he was among the signatories to the Yorkshire county indenture of 5 October 1640, returning Lord Fairfax and another leading petitioner, Henry Belasyse, to the Long Parliament.47C219/43/3/89. He spent the period between October 1641 and February 1642 as a guest of Sir Thomas Fairfax* in the Fairfaxes’ house in Bishophill, York, from where he seems to have maintained a regular correspondence with Lord Fairfax at Westminster.

Arthington can be considered part of the nascent parliamentarian interest in Yorkshire by January 1642, when he expressed a readiness to serve in Lord Fairfax’s militia regiment in the event that the county’s lord lieutenant, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, issued ‘commissions to such as he shall think fit for captains’.48Bodl. Fairfax 32, ff. 60, 70, 72; Belvoir, Original letters, Members of the Long Parliament, PZ 1, f. 10. In March, Arthington and Fairfax’s brother Charles were involved in tendering the Protestation in the Leeds area; and in May, he joined Lord Fairfax and many of the county’s future parliamentarian gentry in a petition to Charles, requesting that he put his trust in the two Houses and forbear raising any troops in the county.49Bodl. Fairfax 32, f. 77; A Letter from the...Committees of the Commons...at Yorke (1642), 9 (E.148.4). He signed another petition to the king from this group on 6 June, complaining about Charles’s abandoning Parliament and drawing together the county’s trained bands – illegally, as the petitioners conceived it.50PA, Main Pprs. 6 June 1642, ff. 84-5. Despite his intimacy with the Fairfaxes – who commanded Parliament’s northern army during the civil war – Arthington did not take up arms against the king, although he was named to numerous local parliamentary committees during the war years and helped to raise forces for the Northern Association army in 1645.51W. Yorks. Archives (Leeds), WYL230/2973.

In September 1646, Arthington was returned as a ‘recruiter’ for Pontefract, in south Yorkshire, on the interest of Lord Fairfax, who had been appointed high steward of the honor of Pontefract in 1644.52Supra, ‘Pontefract’. The Fairfaxes had apparently been intent on securing a seat for him as early as September 1645, when Charles Fairfax had informed Lord Fairfax that he had moved his nephew to accept a ‘burgess-ship’ – apparently for Knaresborough – ‘who will well become it’.53Bodl. Fairfax 32, f. 101. In fact, Arthington – who first entered the House on 26 October 1646 – was apparently one of the least active recruiters and was often absent.54A Perfect Diurnall no. 170 (26 Oct.-2 Nov. 1646), 1360 (E.513.22). Having taken the Covenant on 9 December, his next entry in the Journal was not until 9 October 1647, when he was named to a committee for absent Members.55CJ v. 7b, 329a. This would be his only committee appointment before Pride’s Purge. On 2 December, he was granted leave of absence for six weeks, and on 23 December, he was one of six Yorkshire MPs that the House sent into the county to collect its assessment money.56CJ v. 374b, 400b. On 24 April and 26 September, he was declared absent and excused at the call of the House.57CJ v. 543b; vi. 34b.

Arthington’s less than impressive contribution to the parliamentarian cause does not seem to have weakened the regard in which the Fairfaxes appear to have held him. A few days before his death in March 1648, Lord Fairfax assigned a large part of his estate to Arthington and his other son-in-law, Sir Thomas Widdrington*, to hold in trust for his wife and grandchildren.58Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, i. pp. xc-xciii. In April 1648, at the start of the second civil war, Arthington was one of a number of Yorkshire parliamentarian gentry who proposed joining together ‘to advise concerning the mutual safety of each other upon emergencies’.59Add. 36996, f. 12. But there is no evidence that he played an active part in the fight against the northern royalists in 1648.

Although there is no contemporary evidence to support Arthington’s inclusion on several lists published in 1659-60 of the Members secluded at Pride’s Purge, it is very likely that he opposed the purge and the trial and execution of the king, and he was certainly very late in making his dissent to the 5 December 1648 vote – that the king’s answer to the Newport propositions were an acceptable basis for settlement.60[Anon.], The Curtaine Drawne: or the Parliament Exposed to View (1659), 4; [W. Prynne], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (1660), 55 (E.1013.22). Indeed, it was until 23 July 1649, following a report from the committee for absent Members, that he was re-admitted to the House – in the company of another member of the Fairfaxes’s circle, Thomas Stockdale.61CJ vi. 268a. His only appointments in the Rump came in the summer of 1652, when he was named to committees for improving public revenues and on the treatment of popish recusants who were conformable to the state.62  CJ vii. 138b, 147a.

Despite his apparent lack of sympathy with the commonwealth, Arthington attended quarter sessions meetings regularly during the late 1640s as part of a circle of magistrates that included John Stanhope*, Henry Tempest* and John Hewley*.63W. Yorks. Archives (Wakefield), QS 10/2, pp. 11, 298. He was also active under the Rump as a Yorkshire assessment and militia commissioner and on local commissions for charitable uses, alongside Stanhope, Tempest and Jeremiah Bentley*.64C93/21/29; SP28/250, ff. 4-5; Doncaster Archives, DD/CROM/11/30; W. Yorks. Archives (Calderdale), HAS/B:22/27, ff. 2, 4-6. He was on particularly close terms with Stanhope and Tempest. In February 1652, he and Stanhope were appointed to arbitrate in a dispute between Henry Tempest and his stepfather Henry Fairfax, who was an uncle of Sir Thomas Fairfax (now 3rd Baron Fairfax).65Infra, ‘Henry Tempest’; W. Yorks. Archives (Bradford), Tong/7b/2, 5. In May 1654, Arthington, Stanhope, Sir Thomas Widdrington (also, like Arthington, Lord Fairfax’s brother-in-law) and Sir Henry Cholmeley* were parties to a deed confirming Tempest’s title to his estate at Tong.66W. Yorks. Archives (Bradford), Tong/3/248. Two years later, Tempest would assign a portion of his property to the same four men to hold in trust for his children.67W. Yorks. Archives (Bradford), Tong/3/253. Arthington was also friendly with a number of Yorkshire royalists, notably his stepfather Francis Nevile and Sir George Wentworth II*, and with the scion of a royalist family, Edmund Jenings*.68C10/101/57; N. Yorks. RO, ZUH, Lawson-Tancred mss (mic. 1759).

In the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656, Arthington was returned for the West Riding, apparently taking the fifth of the six places, behind Major-general John Lambert, Francis Thorpe, Tempest and Stanhope. Although a prominent West Riding landowner and magistrate, Arthington very probably owed his election to his association with the hugely influential Lord Fairfax. But while Lambert and another of the successful candidates, Edward Gill, were allowed to take their seats, Arthington, Stanhope, Tempest and Thorpe were among the 100 or so MPs who were excluded from the House by the protectoral council as opponents of the protectorate.69Supra, ‘Yorkshire’; CJ vii. 425b. Government suspicions that members of Fairfax’s circle had been approached by the cavaliers before the 1655 rebellions, or were themselves crypto-royalists, may have contributed to their exclusion.70Add. 21424, f. 65; Carroll, ‘Yorks.’, 362; C.S. Egloff, ‘The search for a Cromwellian settlement: exclusions from the second protectorate Parliament’, PH xvii. 315. Arthington had certainly been approached by the royalists in 1654 with a view to enlisting the support of Lord Fairfax and his friends, but he had refused even to receive this overture.71Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 108, 118-9. But the main reason for the exclusion of Stanhope, Arthington and Tempest in 1656 was their alignment with the Presbyterian and anti-army opponents of Lambert’s interest in the West Riding. In October, when the excluded West Riding Members arrived back in Yorkshire, Lambert’s political client Captain Adam Baynes* was informed that ‘the returnof these Members is not so much resented by the country as we expected, except by some very rigid ones, and the common body of people look upon them not with a good eye, as disobliging the present power’.72Add. 21424, f. 85v. As a further mark of government displeasure, Arthington was removed from the West Riding bench in March 1657.73C231/6, p. 361.

In January 1658, two prominent members of Leeds’s Presbyterian faction wrote to Arthington, Stanhope and Tempest, urging them to return to Westminster, where the balance of power had shifted away from the army and its supporters

It’s true, and cannot be denied, the last time you came up to serve your country, you met with discouragements. There is not any question but now you will find it contrary. Experience will tell you it every day in case you were at Westminster … the way not only to be accounted, but really to be a friend, is now to appear and take your places.74W. Yorks. Archives (Bradford), Tong/2/14.

There is no evidence that the three men followed this advice. In fact, Arthington appears to have withdrawn from public affairs during the last years of the protectorate and he likewise failed to attend the restored Rump in 1659, for which the House fined him £100.75CJ vii. 789b-90a.

By the autumn of 1659, Arthington was residing at Lord Fairfax’s seat at Nun Appleton, about seven miles south-west of York, and was deeply involved in the planning and execution of his brother-in-law’s Yorkshire rising in support of General George Monck* in January 1660.76Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, ii. 152, 164-5; A.H. Woolrych, ‘Yorks. and the Restoration’, YAJ, xxxix. 488, 490. The Nun Appleton conspirators first established contact with Monck in November 1659, when the general received a letter from Fairfax’s chaplain, the Presbyterian divine Edward Bowles, stating that whilst Fairfax and his supporters were disposed to join with Monck, they disapproved of his declaration in support of the Rump, especially as it committed him to uphold no government but a commonwealth.77Baker, Chronicle, 668, 669, 677. Arthington, who almost certainly subscribed to the views contained in Bowles’s letter, probably favoured the re-admission of the secluded Members and its likely consequence, the restoration of the Stuart monarchy. To ensure that Monck was fully informed of his intentions, Lord Fairfax sent his young cousin Brian Fairfax with a letter to the general in mid-December.78Woolrych, ‘Yorks. and the Restoration’, 490. It was Arthington who mapped out young Fairfax’s journey for him, advising him to stop en route at the Yorkshire residence of the civil-war royalist Sir Robert Stryckland* and writing him a letter of recommendation to give to his host.79Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, ii. 155. By 1 January 1660, Fairfax and his followers (who included Sir Henry Cholmeley and Colonel Hugh Bethell*) had drawn up their forces in preparation for marching on York, which was held for Lambert by Colonel Robert Lilburne*. However, this final rendezvous threatened to bring about a rift in Fairfax’s forces when a declaration of fidelity to the recently re-restored Rump was offered to all present to subscribe.80[J. Strangways], A Letter from a Captain of the Army to an Honourable Member of the Parliament (1660), 6 (E.1013.9). Colonel Bethell and some of the other gentlemen signed it, but Fairfax, Arthington and Cholmeley declined, professing that they ‘owned the same thing’, but would give Parliament their own account of their proceedings.81[Strangways], A Letter from a Captain, 6. In fact, the three men had refused to sign the declaration because, in all likelihood, they favoured the re-admission of the secluded Members, not the re-affirmation of the Rump’s authority. This impression is re-inforced by an incident which occurred later the same day (1 January), after Lilburne had declared that he would only admit those of Fairfax’s forces who would subscribe to a declaration adhering to the Rump and ‘against a king or any single person whatsoever’. Colonel George Smithson* and about 19 other officers signed this declaration, but it was opposed by Lord Fairfax and most of the gentry.82Public Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660), 1003 (E.773.41); Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, ii. 166-7. A compromise was reached, however, and those units which had subscribed the declaration occupied York, while Fairfax and his followers quartered their men in the surrounding villages.83[Strangways], A Letter From a Captain, 6. It was probably some time that evening that Fairfax, Arthington and Cholmeley wrote to the Speaker, giving an account of their proceedings and claiming, somewhat hypocritically, that ‘what hath been done was only in order to your service’.84A Letter Sent from the Lord Fairfax (1660, E.1013.5). This letter was read on 6 January, and the House ordered that a letter of thanks be sent to Fairfax and his followers.85CJ vii. 804a. Unaccountably, Arthington was not among the signatories to a declaration to Monck that Fairfax and his friends drew up on 10 February, demanding the re-admission of the secluded Members or a free Parliament. Perhaps he had left York by this time, or, like Fairfax’s uncle, Colonel Charles Fairfax, was worried that this declaration would lead to bloodshed and unrest.86Woolrych, ‘Yorks. and the Restoration’, 501-2. Arthington certainly remained on close terms with Lord Fairfax, for on 27 March, Fairfax appointed him a colonel in the West Riding militia.87Notts. RO, DD/SR/216/1.

Arthington was returned for Ripon to the 1660 Convention, along with Edmund Jenings. Although Arthington owned some property in the Ripon area and was a governor of the town’s grammar school, he almost certainly owed his return to Lord Fairfax. Arthington’s and Jenings’s election was disputed by Lambert, but the House upheld their return.88HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Ripon’. Arthington was included by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton among those Members deemed likely to support a Presbyterian church settlement, but was noted as being ‘abroad’ (it is possible that he had gone over to Holland to attend Charles II).89G.T.F. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix. 345. Arthington did not stand for Parliament again, it seems, although he remained active on the West Riding bench after the Restoration.90W. Yorks. Archives (Wakefield), QS 10/4, ff. 13, 29, 45, 53, 80, 163; Doncaster Archives, DD/CROM/11/71. In 1667, he was named as an executor in Lord Fairfax’s will.91C.R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, 441.

Arthington probably spent his final years living quietly on his estates in Yorkshire, until his death in mid-1671. He was buried at Adel on 19 June.92Adel Par. Regs. ed. Lumb, 64. He died intestate, the administration of his estate being granted to his widow. The inventory of his personal estate exceeded £1,000.93Borthwick, Prob. Act Bk., Ainsty deanery, 1668-86, f. 127. His eldest son and namesake sat for the Yorkshire constituency of Aldborough in the first Exclusion Parliament of 1679.94HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Henry Arthington II’.