ASHE, Samuel (d. 1708), of Langley Burrell, nr. Chippenham, Wilts.

The youngest of the Ashe brothers, Samuel may have been the one member of the family to avoid extensive involvement in the cloth trade. But aspects of his early career remain uncertain. By 1642 he was old enough for his father to have transferred his lands at Stroud into his hands.13PROB11/196/50. It is therefore tempting to assume that his nephew, Samuel Ashe, son of John Ashe*, was the person admitted to the Inner Temple in November 1646 and called to the bar in 1653.14I. Temple database. Yet the MP was later said to have been a barrister, although he probably did not practise.15‘Samuel Ashe’, HP Commons 1660-1690. It may be that the bequest of £1,000 from his father, on his death in 1646, persuaded him to embark on a legal career.16PROB11/196/50. At the Inner Temple he would have been a contemporary of his nephew, James Ashe*, who was already an MP. Either this Samuel Ashe or his nephew probably served as a captain under William Strode II*.17BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database. Under the republic the future MP began to be included on the Wiltshire assessment commissions, probably as a reflection of his brothers’ influence.18A. and O. In 1657 he bought a county estate at Langley Burrell in Wiltshire, purchasing it from Henry White and John Wildman* for £4,000.19C6/19/2; Wilts. RO, 118/92.

Ashe’s brother Edward* had represented Heytesbury in the Long Parliament and the family still owned land there, so it was not surprising that one of the Ashes should have stood when the Heytesbury seats were revived for the elections to the 1659 Parliament. By this time Edward was dead. When the eldest Ashe brother, John, failed to regain his old seat at Westbury, John and Samuel stood at Heytesbury in tandem. The family interest in the town was sufficient to ensure that both were elected.20CCSP iv. 133.

Samuel’s participation in this Parliament was limited. His only appointment was to the committee to improve the standard of the clergy in Yorkshire, Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland and Durham (5 Feb. 1659).21CJ vii. 600b. Any desire he may have had to pay a more active role was overtaken by more personal concerns; on 17 February he and his nephew, James Ashe*, were granted leave of absence following John Ashe’s death.22CJ vii. 605b.

Ashe retained his place on the Wiltshire assessment commission after the Restoration, but having been added to the county bench in March 1660 he had been omitted from it by the autumn. He was elected as MP for Chippenham in the second Exclusion Parliament of 1679, but seems to have been as inactive in that Parliament as he had been 20 years before.23HP Commons 1660-1690. On his death in 1708, he asked to buried as a member of the Church of England.24PROB11/504/265.