BAYNTUN, Edward (1618-79), of Bromham, and later of Spye Park, Wilts.

The eldest son from perhaps the most prominent and long-established family in north Wiltshire, Edward Bayntun began his public career early, like his father. They served together in the Commons and shared certain characteristics, including self-confidence, unhappy family relationships, litigiousness, and a tendency to violence, the last of which periodically attracted the censure of fellow-MPs. However, while Sir Edward became more radical with advancing age, Edward retreated from his initial fiery stance into a conservatism which ensured their political paths diverged.

Emergence of a ‘fiery spirit’, 1640-2

Unlike his father, Edward was admitted to an inn of court as well as to Oxford, but it is not clear how far he pursued his studies.28Al. Ox.; LI Admiss. i. 235. In December 1639 he and his kinsman Henry Danvers I* of Baynton were admitted as burgesses of Devizes, where Sir Edward was already a councillor.29Wilts. RO, G20/1/17, f. 138. Relations between the Danvers and Bayntun families had been hostile in the 1620s, but in April 1640 Edward and Henry were elected together to serve as MPs for the borough, which had been represented on three previous occasions by Sir Edward. Neither had a visible presence in the Parliament.

It is plausible that Edward was the Captain Bayntun recorded as serving with the English army at York in August 1640.30Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1241; CJ ii. 619b. In the autumn he was re-elected to Parliament for Devizes, this time with Robert Nicholas*. For the first few months of the session he again made no appearance in the Journal, but in time he became a distinctive and regular presence in the Commons. On 20 February 1641, when several leading members spoke against the proposal by John Pym* that Londoners be compelled to lend money for urgent military purposes, Sir Simonds D’Ewes* noted the ‘one Mr Bayntun a young gentleman’ went so far as to demand that Pym ‘give satisfaction to the House’ for such an extreme move.31Procs. LP ii. 500. Although perhaps here seen for the first time, it seems to have been a characteristic outburst, and Bayntun’s intemperate language and provocative stance came to grate on D’Ewes.

Like his father, Bayntun was prompt in taking the Protestation on 3 May 1641.32CJ ii. 133a. On 17 June he proposed a motion that the bill on episcopacy be discussed, while on the 21st he spoke in the debate on the army plot, and 6 August he was a teller in support of keeping in custody the courtier and customs farmer Sir Thomas Dawes, but his sustained contribution to proceedings began only in 1642.33Procs. LP iv. 206, 261; CJ ii. 242a; Harl. 479, f. 130. In January that year, employed for the first of many occasions to carry messages to the Lords, he came to prominence as one of a select group, including such heavyweights as Sir Henry Vane, Sir Gilbert Gerard and Sir Thomas Barrington, delegated (on 27 January) to pursue the dissemination of the declaration of privileges arising from the king’s attempted arrest of the Five Members.34CJ ii. 388a, 388b, 398b. On 26 February, at the committee of both Houses to discuss Irish affairs, Bayntun read the charges against George Digby*, 1st Baron Digby, who during the proceedings against the earl of Strafford had defected from his earlier opposition to royal policies.35CJ ii. 458a. In March Bayntun was sent to York with James Compton*, Lord Compton, to present to the king the Commons’ disquiet at the involvement with rebels of ‘persons’ with royal licences to go to Ireland.36CJ ii. 479b, 494b. Unlike the reluctant Compton, Bayntun ‘said he was ready to obey the commands of the House’ regarding a mission which doubtless required a certain aplomb, but it is probably a measure of his self-assurance that he appeared to bargain, in exchange, for the revival of the committee for the Merchant Adventurers (16 Mar.).37PJ ii. 45. Perhaps prompted by intelligence he had gleaned on his visit north, almost immediately on his return he successfully moved that the sheriff of Wiltshire be required to send to Parliament correspondence and printed material which he had lately received ‘from any of his majesty’s secretaries’.38PJ ii. 77, 84. He was subsequently named to committees to facilitate land sales by Sir Christopher Wray*, a leading opponent of royal policies (31 Mar.), and to investigate the state of the Charterhouse and Savoy foundations (19 Apr.).39CJ ii. 505b, 519b.

He then disappeared from the Journal for several months, although not, or at least not continuously, from the House. On 17 June – in a possible indication that he had indeed served in the army in 1640 – Bayntun presented to the Commons a petition from the poet Captain Richard Lovelace seeking bail after imprisonment for his part in the Kentish petition, and four days later obtained Lovelace’s release.40PJ iii. 93, 112; ‘Richard Lovelace’, Oxford DNB. Licensed on 10 August to take horses and pistols to Wiltshire, Bayntun became a captain in parliamentarian forces.41CJ ii. 713b; Peacock, Army lists, 55. He probably spent the rest of the year in his home county, where his father emerged as commander in chief and he himself was a founder member of the county committee.42Waylen, ‘Falstone Day Book’, 343-91.

Maverick militant, 1642-4

Bayntun resurfaced in the Commons on 27 December with propositions relating to the unfolding quarrel between Sir Edward and his neighbour Sir Edward Hungerford*, which were referred to other Wiltshire MPs.43CJ ii. 903b. That quarrel had degenerated into a direct confrontation, resulting in the elder Bayntun’s arrest, before the younger Bayntun next appeared in the Journal on 24 January 1643 to be named to a committee investigating Sussex business.44CJ ii. 940b. The replacement of Bayntun senior as commander by Hungerford on the 31st appears to have prompted Bayntun junior – who thus far seems not to have been implicated in his father’s disgrace – to forsake his military career in favour of maintaining family honour at Westminster. In debates on 24 February over Hungerford’s sudden abandonment of the garrison at Devizes, Bayntun argued vigorously that his unjustly ousted father would have done a better job, but according to D’Ewes went too far, ‘beginning to fall into more bitter expressions’, and was reprimanded by the Speaker.45Harl. 164, f. 306v. Three days later the Commons learned that the feud between the two families had erupted into a confrontation in Westminster Hall between young Bayntun and Sir Edward Hungerford’s half-brother Giles Hungerford†, both defending the reputation of their elders.46CJ iii. 3b. Resentments were still simmering in late July, when the House forbade the Bayntuns and Sir Edward Hungerford to exchange challenges or indeed to do anything to disturb the peace, though Bayntun the younger continued to seize opportunities to defend his father.47CJ iii. 185a.

Nonetheless, he was not Sir Edward’s stooge. Over the next four years Bayntun was a conspicuous activist – readily recognisable by his red hair – on a range of issues, especially military.48Harl. 164, f. 366v; R. L’Estrange, L’Estrange his vindication from the calumnies of a malitious party in Kent (1649), n. p.; C. Walker*, Hist. of Independency (1648), 54-5 (E.463.19). Despite an ostensibly undiplomatic temperament, he was often a messenger to the Lords and to outsiders. Although sometimes found on committees with fellow Wiltshiremen, he seems to have operated generally with like-minded MPs at Westminster and was associated by D’Ewes with the ‘fiery’ or ‘violent’ spirits.49Harl. 164, f. 366v; Harl.166, f. 64. One of many Members added to those investigating army finances (22 Mar. 1643), he was one of a much smaller group, headed by Henry Marten*, authorised to seize the assets of those in arms against Parliament (25 Mar.).50CJ iii. 12a, 18b. He took the lead in the ordinance to furnish horses and cavalrymen from London and its environs (from 17 May).51CJ iii. 89a, 113a, 114a, 127a, 139b, 150b. In July he was among several MPs, including radicals Marten and Denis Bond*, deputed to confer with the militia committee over the deployment of soldiers round London; by this time he had experience of dealing with quarrels between and complaints against officers.52CJ iii. 3b, 101a, 177a. Employment of a more politically sensitive nature came in April, when he was sent to Reading to report on affairs there, and on 4 July, when he was ordered with Herbert Morley* to fetch Edmund Waller* from his prison to the House for questioning over the alleged royalist and Presbyterian plot to seize the City.53Harl. 164, f. 380v; Harl. 165, f. 115v; CJ iii. 154a. When on 20 July the Commons finally agreed action on the related petition from inhabitants of London, which sought to influence the composition of parliamentary committees, Bayntun, in company including Morley, Bond, and Marten, was to divert the petitioners’ energies into military support for Parliament.54CJ iii. 176a. He was also in the party led by Pym which met with the Lords on the 29th to discuss London affairs.55CJ iii. 187b. On 10 August he was one of a trio of MPs deputed to sent encouragement to the garrison at Gloucester to hold out against royalist forces, and he spoke out in debate about differences between parliamentarian commanders (23 Aug.).56CJ iii. 200a; Add. 18778, f. 19v.

By mid-August 1643 Bayntun was sufficiently prominent to be involved in devising continuing executive powers in case of parliamentary adjournment.57CJ iii. 206b. His position was apparently unaffected by the defection of his father and his brother-in-law Hugh Rogers* to the Isle of Wight, and the former’s reported allegations against Pym and William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele. On 24 August young Bayntun undertook to alert his relatives to the House’s summons to face charges.58CJ iii. 218a. During Sir Edward’s subsequent sojourn in the Tower, Bayntun was at the heart of proceedings against the Hothams, a father and son whose loyalty was also suspect; Sir John Hotham* was sent to join Sir Edward on 6 September.59CJ iii. 218a, 230b; Harl. 165, ff. 171v, 179v. In the meantime, Bayntun continued to be employed in provincial affairs outside Wiltshire.60CJ iii. 214b, 239a, 532b. On 21 September 1644 he joined the committee for the association of Sussex, Kent, Surrey and Hampshire.61CJ iii. 635a.

The defeats and defections of summer 1643 had apparently made Bayntun keen to pursue the war robustly under new leadership. Sent on 24 October with Sir Richard Onslowe* and Nathaniel Stephens* with promises of support to Sir William Waller*, defeated in Wiltshire but soon to be put in charge of the new southern association, three days later Bayntun was despatched to the Lords to promote the replacement force to retake the west.62CJ iii. 287a, 291a, 291b. He was on committees preparing the interrogations of Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland, imprisoned when he abandoned a temporary sojourn with the king (7 Nov.), and of Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire*, suspected of seeking to switch his allegiance (added 27 Feb. 1644).63CJ iii. 304a, 409a. Yet Bayntun’s militancy was a particular kind arising from personal and local loyalties and antipathies, which did not sit neatly with that element of the ‘war party’ that was to become Independency. D’Ewes noted that it was Bayntun who delivered to the Commons (15 Nov. 1643) the petition of Clement Walker* and William Prynne* demanding the impeachment of Nathaniel Fiennes* for his surrender of Bristol to the royalists; a month later Bayntun was ordered to attend Fiennes’ trial at St Albans as a potential witness.64Harl. 165, f. 209; CJ iii. 340b. That he shared his father’s animus against the Fiennes family is also suggested by his delivery on 25 November of a petition from soldiers against Lord Saye and Sele.65Harl. 165, f. 219; CJ iii. 320a. That it was long-lasting is indicated by the fact that on 18 March 1645 he was a minority teller against payment to James Fiennes*.66CJ iv. 82b.

Already an assessment commissioner in Wiltshire, from 28 September 1643 Bayntun was included on a succession of committees devoted to raising, managing and spending money, both in the west and generally (e.g. 30 Jan., 11 Apr., 21 Aug., 26 Nov. 1644).67CJ iii. 257b; 383b, 457a, 489a, 601a, 706a. Probably among those who sought the removal of Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, as commander-in-chief, and certainly among those who advocated his replacement by Waller in the west, he was named to committees to propose army officers (26 Feb. 1644), chivvy the militia into action (6 Apr.), forward the cause in south Wales (10 Apr.), improve the Newport Pagnell garrison (30 May), increase the power of the militia committee (13 June), raise and maintain troops in Wiltshire (17 June), and probe dissensions within the west midlands association led by Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh (21 Aug.) and within the Farnham garrison (24 Sept., 18 Oct.).68Harl. 166, f. 61v; CJ iii. 408b, 451a, 455b, 510b, 527b, 532b, 602a, 637b, 669b. On 15 July he was one of the few civilian MPs on the committee to administer martial law, being made a commissioner on 10 August and added to the quorum on 26 August, while on 3 September he was among those delegated to resolve the differences between the commanders in chief.69CJ iii. 526b, 607a, 617a; A. and O.

From time to time old animosities surfaced. There was tension between Bayntun and Sir Christopher Wray*, the former associate of the Hothams with whose land sales he had once been involved; the addition of Sir Edward Hungerford to the committee revived to deal with it (9 Feb. 1644) cannot have been entirely helpful.70CJ iii. 394b. Bayntun himself was hardly a disinterested investigator (15 Mar.) of the misdemeanours of Anthony Wither, given the confrontations between Wither and Sir Edward Bayntun in the 1630s.71CJ iii. 429a. In April Hungerford and Bayntun the younger were opposing tellers in a division over whether Colonel Thomas Carne, the deputy of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, as governor of the Isle of Wight, had betrayed the cause: it was Carne, a kinsman and associate of Hungerford’s, who had reported Sir Edward Bayntun’s combustible remarks about Pym and shipped him back to London.72CJ iii. 466a; Harl. 166, f. 50. In September Bayntun, but not Hungerford, was placed on the review committee.73CJ iii. 635b.

D’Ewes usually viewed negatively Bayntun’s forward contribution to debates, confiding to cipher words to the effect that he was a ‘silly youth’ who inveigled his betters into action ‘though most of them abhorred it’; more openly he dismissed him as ‘a youth of weak parts’.74Harl. 166, ff. 61v, 64. Bayntun’s addition to the committee of the south-eastern association was, he claimed, ‘without the consent of the great part of the county’.75Harl. 166, f. 123v. Yet, deficient in certain graces and controversial though he may have been, ‘weak’ does not seem an appropriate epithet, and Bayntun continued to be ever-present, sometimes in places of trust, where he was clearly indispensable to someone. On 11 May 1644, in company with Edmund Prideaux I* (who may have been one such) and four others, Bayntun was deputed to prepare amendments to an ordinance on the membership of the Committee of Both Kingdoms.76CJ iii. 490b. In July he carried the impeachments of four major law officers to the Lords.77CJ iii. 567b; Harl. 166, f. 99v. During a busy August he was a teller in debate on the Irish treasury (partnering Sir Arthur Hesilrige against Sir Philip Stapilton), and nominated to committees dealing with complaints, charitable benefactions, regulating printing and conferring over the projected visit of the elector palatine.78CJ iii. 599a, b, 605a, 606b, 612b. Only after another concentrated flurry of activity in November, when again he was a notable messenger, was there for the first time in two years a whole month (December) in which his name did not appear in the journal.79CJ iii. 688a, 689b, 691b, 693b, 703b. His place on the Wiltshire county committee had been reaffirmed earlier that year, but even without interpersonal tensions this small window would have been insufficient to make much impact on its proceedings.80A. and O.

Retreat from militancy, 1645-6

Bayntun was equally active at Westminster through 1645, albeit in some new directions. He had taken the Covenant at the first opportunity on 6 June 1643, and on 3 October that year was deputed to investigate the condition of imprisoned Catholic priests.81CJ iii. 118a, 262a. But there was no further sign of activity on religious matters until 3 January 1645, when he was nominated to the committee chaired by John Selden* tasked with printing the Septuagint Bible.82CJ iv. 9a. Periodically thereafter he served on committees for religion: the Independent-dominated investigation of the London ministers’ petition for a Presbyterian church order (20 Sept.); the larger and more varied group chaired by Francis Rous* and John Selden who weighed the Westminster Assembly’s complaints of the Remonstrance emanating from the ‘Dissenting Brethren’ (11 Dec.); sabbath observance (20 Jan. 1646); and the extension of Presbyterian classes and elderships in London (21 Jan.)83CJ iv. 280a, 373a, 412a, 413b.. On 3 June 1646 Bayntun was listed as a commissioner for exclusion from the sacrament.84CJ iv. 562b; A. and O. Later, he was named to work on the ordinances for repairing churches and maintaining ministers (4, 11 Nov. 1646), to investigate William Dell’s anti-Presbyterian fast sermon and the publication on divine right government of the church by certain London ministers (both 12 Dec.), to the small Presbyterian-leaning group to further the establishment of an English-style church settlement in Ireland (4 Jan. 1647), and to the larger and more varied body accelerating the sale of episcopal lands (27 Feb.).85CJ iv. 714b, 719b; v. 10b, 11a, 40b, 99b. In the absence of other evidence it is difficult to pinpoint Bayntun’s churchmanship during these years, but it seems that religious issues were becoming more important to him in the later 1640s. It is plausible that he was something of an anti-clericalist but favoured a disciplined community and a robust ecclesiastical structure imposed from above; it is also plausible that his position was attributable less to simple piety than to political and social considerations.

Political and military issues continued to occupy most of Bayntun’s attention in the House. Evidently he had been an active commissioner for martial law, for on 28 January 1645 he reported from that court the recommendation that its judge-advocate, John Mylles*, be rewarded for his services.86CJ iv. 35a. On 17 February he was appointed to the committee to consider recruiting for the New Model army.87CJ iv. 51a. He retained an interest in Kentish troops and the Farnham Castle garrison, and in April was among those assigned to address the dissensions within the Nottingham garrison.88CJ iv. 64b, 91a, 100b, 112a; Harl. 166, f. 198. In June he was a participant in a conference with the Lords to determine the disposal of the prisoners taken at Naseby, while in January 1646 he was put on the committee preparing the ordinance for the execution of martial law.89CJ iv. 177b, 394b. He made some contribution to action on delinquency and sequestration, including in the north (22 March 1645), and was an active member of the committee for supplying the pension granted to the elector palatine.90CJ iv. 58a, 87a, 166a, 178b, 281a; A. and O.; CCC 28. More notably, he reported progress on the ordinance for taking the accounts of the kingdom (3/4 June), although he failed to persuade the Commons to increase the powers of that Presbyterian-dominated body; in October he was involved in seeking funding from London for both the New Model and the Scots army.91CJ iv. 123b, 162a, 298b, 299a; Harl. 166, f. 215v.

It was in his contacts with the Scots, where he was regularly employed in 1645, that Bayntun’s Presbyterian leanings are most consistently evident. One of six MPs sent on 15 April to the Scottish commissioners to encourage Leven’s army south to hold the line until the New Model was fully operational, a week later he was among those delegated to address outstanding business with the commissioners.92CJ iv. 111b, 121b. On 18 June he was despatched with Sir Henry Mildmay* to the Scottish lord chancellor to elicit progress on the proposed Treaty of Uxbridge.93CJ iv. 179a. An enthusiasm for the task is suggested by his sustained effort in preparation for the commission to reside with the Scots at Hereford, to which he was named on 11 July.94CJ iv. 202b, 203b, 204a, 205b, 207b, 208b, 210b; Harl. 166, ff. 238, 238v, 240. He reported back on their embassy on 27 September, and must have made a positive impression, since on 15 November he was selected with fellow commissioner Sir John Corbet* to go to the Scottish Parliament.95CJ iv. 291a, 343b.

With the defeat of the royalist armies in 1646, the level of Bayntun’s activity in the House remained constant, but its focus inevitably shifted. He retained a recognised interest in Scotland: he was nominated to deal with the Scots commissioners at Worcester House over the discovery of suspect letters in May; three months later he was to work on the suppression of anti-Scottish pamphlets and to assist in estimating the accounts of the Scots army remaining in England.96CJ iv. 540a, 644b, 650b. However, perhaps significantly, he did not go north in July to present the Newcastle Propositions to the king. He was doubtless a natural choice for committees considering the Lords’ proposal for a national militia (13 June), settling military affairs in Cheshire (23 Sept.), and dealing with particular cases of delinquency (6 July, 27 Oct.) and the assignment of fines (30 Oct.).97CJ iv. 576a, 674b, 603b, 707a, 710b. In November he was named with his father (now rehabilitated but only an occasional attender at the House) to the committee to recompense those who had suffered financially from the abolition of the court of wards, while on 10 December he was assigned to the committee charged with overhaul of the Committee for Compounding.98CJ iv. 727a; v. 8b. Less familiar territory was the regulation and visitation of the University of Oxford (1 July 1646; 13 Jan., 14 May 1647).99CJ iv. 595b; v. 51b, 174a. Scholarship, antiquarianism and the technicalities of the law do not appear to have been Bayntun’s preferred spheres of operation, so it may be that purely political considerations lay behind his acting as a teller against Oliver Cromwell in a division on new heralds (20 Oct. 1646) and his nomination to the committee for reform of chancery (21 Oct.).100CJ iv. 700b, 701a.

With the ending of the first civil war, Bayntun’s political position shifted, although its evolution is not transparent. As suggested, his religious activity was not consistently indicative. He served in politically and personally sensitive or divisive areas, but in company with both Presbyterians and Independents. On 11 July 1646 he was one of several MPs of different hues delegated to investigate both the Presbyterian City Remonstrance of the previous May and the Leveller A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens.101CJ iv. 616a. He reviewed the case of John Glanville*, the Bristol MP impeached in 1644, with colleagues who included Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapilton on one side and Denis Bond and Henry Marten on the other (3 Sept. 1646).102CJ iv. 662a. In mixed but distinguished company he was on committees to review a petition from restive Kent (3 Oct.), alleged theft of documents belonging to the recently dead earl of Essex by the marquess and marchioness of Hertford (17 Oct.), and differences between Sir Robert Harley* and Colonel John Birch*, governor of Hereford (23 Oct.), between Sir John Sedley and Sir Anthony Weldon, a friend of Holles and Waller, in Kent (8 Dec.), and between Edward Vaughan* and Sir Thomas Middleton) (17 Feb. 1647).103CJ iv. 681b, 696b, 703a; v. 6b, 90a. There was potential for side-taking, but Bayntun’s stance does not readily appear. That he was potentially at the centre of power struggles at Westminster, however, can be deduced from his membership of a small but varied group who went to the Lords to explain the Commons’ objections to their vote on dealing with the king on 29 December, or the larger committee set up on the 31st to consider complaints delivered to the House.104CJ v. 33a, 35a.

Presbyterian outrider, 1647-8

From January 1647, however, Bayntun’s Presbyterian allegiance emerges unequivocally. On 8 January he was a teller with Sir Philip Stapilton against the proposition that Robert Lilburne’s erstwhile Presbyterian colonel, Edward King, should be arrested and brought before the House.105CJ v. 46a. A division in March on the same matter saw him again as a teller, this time with Francis Gerard and against Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Sir William Armyne.106CJ v. 117b. On 3 February, the day that Lord Leven’s army left England, Bayntun was deputed with Holles to prepare the letter accompanying the jewel with which the general was to be presented.107CJ v. 73b. He subsequently remained in the front line of communication with the Scots, reporting on 9 April the discussions at Derby House over communications with Scottish officers in Ulster, and on 5 June he was among MPs sent to meet the Scottish commissioners and hear their peace proposals.108CJ v. 139b, 200a. Meanwhile, in the context of the decision to demolish certain fortifications and the gathering pressure for disbandment of the army, on 25 and 26 February he was a teller with Sir William Waller against keeping the Plymouth garrison but with Sir William Brereton* in favour of keeping that at Pontefract Castle, manned by northern troops.109CJ v. 98a, 99a. In addition to committee work on Coventry and Warwickshire affairs (24 Mar.) and the imprisoned Leveller, Major Alexander Tulidah (26 Mar.), on the 27th he headed the list of those to consider the representations of army officers concerned at parliamentary plans to deploy them in Ireland.110CJ v. 122b, 125b, 127b. Two days later he revealed his attitude to the New Model when he acted, opposite Harbert Morley*, as a teller for the retention in England of three northern regiments which were not part of it.111CJ v. 128b. Inclusion on committees for the London militia (2 Apr.) and Newcastle election (6 Apr.) might simply reflect his record and prominence, but the former was probably related to support for the Presbyterian-sympathising City authorities and the latter to his interest in the north.112CJ v. 132b, 134a.

As the New Model advanced towards London in early June Bayntun was conspicuously identified with Presbyterian counter moves. On the 11th he carried to the Lords a request for powers to strengthen the City militia; he was closely involved with negotiations to fund it.113CJ v. 187a, 208a, 210b. As the Independents gained the upper hand and the Commons voted on 26 June in favour of debating army terms, Bayntun, with fellow Wiltshire MP Alexander Thistlethwayte*, was a teller for the Presbyterian minority.114CJ v. 225b. With the withdrawal from the House of the Eleven Members with whom he had lately been associated, he was uncharacteristically absent from the Journal for five weeks. When the tide turned at the end of July he was at the heart of the Presbyterian coup: securing the king’s children (30 July, 2 Aug.); seeking the Lords’ consent to the appointment of Edward Massie* as commander-in-chief of London’s forces (31 July); teller with Sir John Clotworthy* for the victorious yeas in the division over making peace overtures to the king (31 July); and preparing the ordinance to augment the powers of the Presbyterian-dominated ‘committee of safety’, which had been established in June to mobilise London against the army (1 Aug., 2 Aug.).115CJ v. 260b, 261b, 262b, 263a, 264b, 265a. On 2 August Bayntun was himself added to this newly-constituted committee of safety.116CJ v. 265a.

Following the army’s entry into London and the collapse of the coup, Bayntun was still around to marshal a majority against returned Independents Hesilrige and Evelyn of Wiltshire (10 Aug.), and had a voice on the committee set up on the 18th to consider nullification of all business between 26 July and 6 August.117CJ v. 271a, 278a. But following the Independent victory on this point on the 20th his record caught up with him. When the radical Miles Corbett* reported on 3 September on the activities of the committee of safety he singled out ‘a gentleman with a red head’ who ‘had signed many warrants’ for forces opposing the New Model. Although there were objections that there was ‘no testimony against this gentleman by name, but only a character of his hair’, Bayntun admitted that a signature shown to him was his. Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire was among the majority who voted the same day for Bayntun’s suspension from the House.118CJ v. 290b, 291a; Walker, Hist. of Independency, 54-5.

There is little evidence for the nine months before his readmission on 3 June 1648, beyond his inclusion among Wiltshire assessment commissioners that February.119CJ v. 584a; A. and O. A letter of apparent endorsement dated from Newport, Isle of Wight, on 17 November 1647 and signed ‘Edward Baynton’(more likely the son than the father) accompanied an update on the king’s peace proposals to Parliament published five days later.120The Kings Majesties Remonstrance to his Subjects of England (1647, E.416.24). The offer of indemnity which featured among its eight clauses certainly addressed one of Bayntun’s long-standing concerns, even if some other clauses did not. In October 1645 he had raised in the Commons the case of his father and Robert Nicholas*, indicted of high treason for the actions in the name of Parliament, and had obtained the punishment of their chief local accuser.121CJ iv. 323a. In May 1647 he had prepared the indemnity ordinance and been included on the executive body established by it, the Committee for Indemnity.122CJ v. 166a; A. and O. But neither the publication itself (which misdated Charles’s presence on the Island) nor Bayntun’s part in it can be accepted without question.

Bayntun apparently returned to the House uncowed. Sir Roger L’Estrange, an alleged insurgent in May 1648, related that, when he invited the committee which condemned him for treason to read the summary of his defence, ‘Wiltshire Baynton (a young red-headed fellow) burnt it’.123L’Estrange his Vindication. Nonetheless, he is absent from the Journal. Following the readmission of the Eleven Members in mid-August, on the 28th he was made a commissioner for church government, but the contrast between the frequency of his previous employment and infrequency of it from this point suggests that, like some other Wiltshire MPs of Presbyterian persuasion, he often stayed away from the House.124A. and O. He was named as a Wiltshire militia commissioner on 2 December but the balance of probability is that he fell victim to the purge a few days later.125A. and O. He was not among those detained at Westminster by Pride’s soldiers, but William Prynne*, who had reason to know him, counted him among those forcibly secluded by the army.126A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); W. Prynne, The Curtaine Drawne (1659), 4.

Survivor

For Sir Edward Bayntun, a somewhat more radical figure, the purge marked a return to political activity, and it was perhaps as a result of sheltering under his father’s wing that the younger Bayntun in time also bounced back. He was included as an assessment commissioner in April 1649, and joined the Wiltshire commission of the peace in 1650, serving in both capacities until at least 1652, although he was omitted from the bench in 1653.127A. and O.; C193/13/3, f. 69; The Names of the Justices (1650, E.1238.4); Stowe 577, f. 57v; C193/13/4, f. 108v.

An overwhelming family interest may be sufficient to account for Bayntun’s election in 1654 to the first Protectorate Parliament as MP for his old seat of Devizes. Here two short periods of apparently intense activity were separated by absence in the country granted on 9 October for three weeks, but probably lasting much longer.128CJ vii. 375a. In the autumn he was named to important committees: for privileges (5 Sept., 5 Oct.), investigating the powers of the judges at Salters Hall (15 Sept.), preparing the new ordinance for ejecting scandalous ministers (25 Sept.), and encouraging trade in essential foodstuffs (6 Oct.).129CJ vii. 366b, 370a, 373b, 374a, 374b. On his return, Bayntun joined in the Presbyterian attempt to replace the Instrument of Government. In mid-January 1655 he was nominated to two committees finalising key financial aspects of the proposed new constitution – the regular revenue (13 Jan.) and payment for the armed forces until disbandment (18 Jan.) – and to that debating a key clause – whether the Act of Settlement could be altered with the consent of the protector and Parliament (12 Jan.).130CJ vii. 415a, 415b, 419b. In a critical division on the 16th he told for the majority who denied Oliver Cromwell* the option to negotiate before the bill was finalised, and thus played a part in hastening the dissolution of the Parliament.131CJ vii. 418b.

In the aftermath of Penruddock’s rising, elections to the 1656 Parliament were managed by the government, and Bayntun’s failure to gain a seat is unsurprising. He could hardly be ignored, however, and in June 1657 was listed as an assessment commissioner.132A. and O. Aged 39 and still unmarried, he succeeded his father that December, inheriting the house at Spye Park newly-built to replace two family residences burned down by royalist troops in 1644 and 1645. He promptly set about challenging the provision made for his half-brother Robert and stepmother Dame Mary, Sir Edward’s executors, and it seems that he also questioned the legality of Dame Mary’s marriage.133C9/403/262; C10/465/187; Reg. of St Bene’t and St Peter, Paul’s Wharf, London, iii. (Harl. Soc. xl), 283. A commonplace book with entries dating from 1658 testifies to a close interest in his estates; his parents and siblings appear only in notes of land and other transactions.134Commonplace Bk. of Sir Edward Bayntun. Returned to the 1659 Parliament as MP for Calne, a seat formerly occupied by his late brother-in-law Hugh Rogers*, he made no recorded contribution to proceedings, but in the restored Long Parliament he was named with familiar faces like William Prynne and John Glynne to the committee to consider the House of Lords (13 March 1660).135CJ vii. 872b. By the beginning of October 1659 he had also been restored to the commission of the peace.136Wilts. RO, A1/160/2.

In the build-up to the elections to the Convention Edmund Ludlowe II* thought Bayntun sufficiently committed to the old cause to lend him support for his candidature for a county seat, but having consulted other gentlemen in north Wiltshire the latter decided against standing. According to Ludlowe, Bayntun gave his voice to Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, ‘judging it advisable, seeing the torrent was so violent, rather to swim with the stream than to be borne down by it, supposing this course the most profitable for him to be serviceable to the honest interest’.137Ludlow, Voyce, 104-5. Instead Bayntun sat again for Calne, playing a limited role in mitigating the effects of the Restoration.138HP Commons 1660-1690.

Following the Restoration Bayntun retained his place on the commission of the peace, was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles II (an honour he clearly valued greatly), and served as sheriff in 1664-5.139HP Commons 1660-1690; Commonplace Bk. of Sir Edward Bayntun, 9-10. He did not sit comfortably within the new establishment, however. While his former royalist brother Nicholas† sat for their father’s old seat at Chippenham, Edward failed to be re-elected in 1661. When he eventually returned to the House after a by-election 14 years later he followed a rather idiosyncratic course, advocating care and moderation in keeping to traditional procedures but still prone to tactless outbursts. A critic of the episcopate and keen to curb popery, as a justice of the peace he was indulgent to nonconformity.140HP Commons 1660-1690; CSP Dom. 1666-7, p.466.

In an echo of his father many years earlier, in 1674 Bayntun received a pardon for killing one Nicholas Woodward.141CSP Dom. 1673-5, p.133. His belated marriage in May 1661 to 18-year-old Stuarta Thynne, daughter of a leading Wiltshire royalist and granddaughter of Walter Balcanquhall, Laudian dean of Durham, may have been intended to repair bridges.142St Bride’s, Fleet Street, par. reg.; The Bap. Marr. and Burial Regs. of the Cathedral…of Durham, 1609-1896. If so, it was a failure, in the family tradition. The couple had seven children, but were separated by 1670.143Wilts. RO, 518/3, 1154/2; Commonplace Bk. of Sir Edward Bayntun, p. xii. In a moderately pious will dated January 1671, Bayntun mentioned his brother Henry and committed the guardianship of his four surviving children to his George Jackson of Bowdens Hill or Dr Thomas Wyatt, rector of Bromham, but made no reference to his wife.144PROB11/361/323. He died, after two more elections to Parliament, on either on 26 July or on 2 September 1679, when he was buried at Bromham church.145Commonplace Bk. of Sir Edward Bayntun, p. xiii; MIs Wilts. 1822, 231 His elder son, Henry Bayntun II†, not only served as a justice of the peace, deputy lieutenant, militia colonel and MP for Chippenham and Calne, but also bought Farley Castle from the impecunious heir and namesake of his father and grandfather’s old antagonist, Sir Edward Hungerford, and made it his principal seat.146HP Commons 1660-1690.