BOSCAWEN, Hugh (1625-1701), of Tregothnan, Penkevil, Cornw.

The Boscawen family claimed descent from one Henry de Boscawen in the thirteenth century; they were seated at Tregothnan, in the parish of Penkevil, a century later. In the early seventeenth century the Boscawens were a well-respected part of Cornish gentry society, being friends with the Godolphins of Treveneage and counted as cousins by the Bullers of Shillingham; through marriage they were closely connected with the Rolles of Heanton Satchville in Devon.22Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/72; Vivian, Vis. Cornw., 46-7; PROB11/188/277. Hugh Boscawen was living at home with his parents in 1641, when, at the age of 16, he signed the Protestation.23Cornw. Protestation Returns, 143. By the end of that year his father was dead, and the estate had passed to the eldest son, Nicholas. During the civil wars Nicholas Boscawen became colonel of horse in the parliamentarian forces, probably serving in the south west, but according to his own later account, Hugh remained in occupied Cornwall, having been instructed by his brother ‘to use his best endeavours for the preservation of his estate in his absence’. In July 1645 Hugh succeeded in preventing the wholesale destruction of the family’s woodlands by striking a deal with Francis Godolphin I* of Godolphin, who had been instructed by the king to extract £600 from the estate for the use of the garrison on the Scilly Isles.24C10/10/17; Cornw. RO, B/35/229. These Cornish responsibilities no doubt account for Hugh’s absence from the funeral of his brother, who died in London in September 1645, and was buried with full military honours at Westminster. The chief mourner was Sir Samuel Rolle*, attended by prominent Cornish figures including Anthony Nicoll*, John Carew* and John Moyle II*.25SP16/510, f. 221.

Boscawen, who succeeded his brother, had no shortage of political contacts at Westminster. His closeness to the Rolles, in particular, can also be seen in 1646, when he acted as trustee for the marriage settlement of Robert Rolle*.26Cornw. RO, CF/2/484. It was probably through the support of the Rolles and other friends that he was elected, alongside Nicholas Trefusis*, as recruiter knight of the shire for Cornwall in December 1646.27C219/43/1/5. It is also probable that Boscawen – who had recently become recorder of Grampound and had inherited the lordship of Tregony (purchased by his father in 1626) - used his own electoral patronage to return Sir Thomas Trevor* for Tregony in January 1647.28Cornw. RO, J.2078; Maclean, Trigg Minor, iii. 72 Bearing this in mind, Boscawen’s presence in Parliament in 1647 and 1648 was surprisingly undistinguished, even given his relative youth. He was named to a committee on an ordinance allowing the sale of part of Edward Somerset, 2nd marquess of Worcester’s confiscated estates on 4 February 1647, and three days later he was named to another committee on the appointment of Samuel Austin as rector of the Cornish parish of Menheniot (with his fellow committeemen including Anthony Nicoll and Francis Buller I*).29CJ v. 74a, 84b. On 24 February he took the Covenant, and in April it appeared that he was beginning to play a significant part in Parliament’s opposition to the New Model army, as he was named to committees on the ordinance to reform the London militia and to instruct the commissioners taking answers to the king on the Newcastle Propositions; but nothing further is heard of him until 28 May, when he was given leave to go into the country.30CJ v. 97a, 132b, 142b, 191a. He was thus inactive or absent during the period of Presbyterian dominance in the Commons, the ‘forcing of the Houses’ in July and the triumph of the Independents in August, apparently returning to Parliament only in early October.

Boscawen’s record over the winter of 1647-8 was also patchy. He was named to the committee to examine the cases of absent MPs on 9 October, and was appointed to two other committees later in the month.31CJ v. 329a, 338a, 346a. On 11 November he was added to the committee for maimed soldiers, but it was then two months before his next appointment, on 15 January 1648, to the committee to consider how to spread the assessment tax fairly between the counties (which included his cousin Robert Rolle).32CJ v. 356a, 434a. In the spring of 1648 Boscawen was apparently more active at Westminster. On 23 February he was ordered to invite one Mr Hicks to preach at the forthcoming fast day, and on the same day he was named to the committee on the ordinance for the better observation of the Lords’ Day.33CJ v. 471a. On 8 March he was appointed to the important committee for petitions, but once again there is a gap of nearly two months before his next appointment, on 4 May, to the committee for settling the militia for the defence of the kingdom.34CJ v. 486a, 551a. This last committee was Presbyterian-dominated, and included Cornish friends like Francis Buller I and Nicholas Trefusis, and Boscawen’s inclusion may well indicate his political alignment at this time. During the second civil war, Boscawen remained at Westminster, and he was among the MPs contacted by John Moyle II, Antony Rous* and others with news that the royalists had seized Penzance.35Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2/166. By July, however, Boscawen had himself returned to Cornwall, where he met the burgesses of Grampound; in early September he was officially given leave to return to the country, and he was excused his absence from the call of the House on 26 September.36Cornw. RO, J.1952, unfol.; CJ vi. 19b, 34b.

Despite his less than impressive performance at Westminster, there is no doubt that Boscawen was highly regarded in Presbyterian circles. As a sign of this, by the end of 1648 he married Margaret Clinton, daughter of the Presbyterian grandee, the 4th earl of Lincoln, and the sister of Edward Lord Clinton*, recruiter MP for Callington. This marriage may have been arranged by the Rolles, as Robert Rolle was married to another of Lincoln’s daughters, and it also brought Boscawen into close contact with another prominent Presbyterian, Sir George Boothe*, who had also married into the family.37Austin, Clinton Barony, genealogical table; Devon RO, 1262M/E/30/13. These family connections, added to his existing local friendships, presumably encouraged Boscawen to withdraw from Parliament after Pride’s Purge, although he was not formally excluded from the House.38Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 368. His ties with the Clintons continued into the 1650s, as in 1652 he became trustee to the estates of the earl and countess of Lincoln, with especial responsibility for their lands in Cornwall.39Devon RO, 1262 M/TLI/12-13.

Although he no longer sat in Parliament, and was at best lukewarm towards the interregnum regimes, Boscawen did not cease to be appointed to posts in the local administration after January 1649. He was included in the assessment commissions in April and December 1649, November 1650 and December 1652, and in February 1650 he was appointed as captain in the Cornish militia.40A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 521. Whether or not he took up any of these county appointments is not clear, but in 1652 he was continuing to give advice to the burgesses of Grampound.41Cornw. RO, J.1953, unfol. During the protectorate he was appointed to assessment commissions in 1654 and 1657 and to the August 1654 commission for ejecting scandalous ministers.42An Ordinance for an Assessment (1654); A. and O. In October 1656 it was even said that he was one of the local gentlemen discussed as a possible sheriff of Cornwall, although ‘the lords commissioners struck them out’.43Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/72. It was only in January 1659 that Boscawen returned to politics, when he was again elected as knight of the shire for Cornwall in the elections for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament. He probably influenced the return of his brother, Edward Boscawen*, for Tregony, and he may also have had a hand in the elections for Grampound, where Thomas Herle* and Robert Scawen* were returned. A third brother, Charles Boscawen*, who had served as one of the county MPs in 1654, was elected for Truro in 1659.

Boscawen’s involvement in the 1659 Parliament began slowly. He was named to the committee on elections on 28 January, and he was probably involved in its work for many weeks thereafter, reporting the difficult case of the Poole election on 22 March and being named to the committee on Durham representation on 31 March.44CJ vii. 595a, 616b, 622b; Burton’s Diary, iv. 223. From the beginning of March, however, he was drawn into the big political debates, especially that concerning the status of the Other House. On 8 March Boscawen followed John Lambert* by rejecting the notion of including the ‘old peers’ among the new Lords, saying ‘it is the greatest affront you can put upon the old lords: this is but making them the horse for the new lords to get into the saddle’, adding that ‘they call themselves lords; much good may it do them. Let us not call them lords’.45Burton’s Diary, iv. 84. It was no doubt this intervention that led Jerome Sankey*, writing on the same day, to list Boscawen among the commonwealthsmen ‘who have notably bestirred themselves against the Petition and Advice’, even though it is clear that Boscawen was only a fellow traveller with the republicans - his primary concern was to defend the rights of ‘old peers’ like his father-in-law and to uphold the ‘ancient constitution’ on behalf of the Presbyterian interest.46Henry Cromwell Corresp. 472. Indeed, on 21 March, during the debate on whether the Scottish MPs should sit in Parliament, Boscawen publicly rebuffed the republicans by upholding the Covenant and denouncing the commonwealth and all its works.

I look upon the Act of Union as a national sin, if any ought to be. The Covenant, every honest man ought to hold to that. That was the Union indeed. Therefore I cannot consent to the Act of Union now pleaded. That war [1650-1] was not lawful if it did not protect the ends of the Covenant. We were, by covenant, equally obliged to maintain the privileges of their Parliament and of our own. If the conquest be not lawfully got, it cannot be lawfully kept. Restitution ought to be made. That Union was made but by the fag-end of the Long Parliament, so had no legal foot. Those gentlemen made it for a commonwealth. That makes me like it the worse … and to build upon the Union made by those commonwealth-men, I cannot consent.47Burton’s Diary, iv. 208-10; Schilling thesis, 256.

Boscawen’s strident defence of the Covenant and his attack on ‘those commonwealth-men’ leave no doubt of his position as an old-school Presbyterian, and unlike his more malleable colleagues later in the same month he continued to refuse to work with the protectorate, even under the civilian, and broadly pro-Presbyterian, Richard Cromwell*. On 25 March Boscawen was more than ready to join the attack on Secretary John Thurloe*, accused of making English royalists slaves in the West Indies. ‘I am as much against the cavalier party as any man in these walls’, he protested, but ‘we are miserable slaves if we may not have this liberty secured to us’. To let the matter pass would make ‘our lives … as cheap as those negroes. They [the owners] look upon them as their goods, horses, etc, and rack them only to make their time out of them, and cherish them to perform their work’.48Burton’s Diary, iv. 268. Boscawen returned to his attack on the Other House on 28 March, saying that he considered them but creatures of the government, who needed to be brought under the control of the Commons.

If they are unwilling to do this, they take themselves to be your betters. The greatest part of them are of the council and officers, so that will make your work easy. There will be but a few for you to approve of them. I hope it will never be admitted that his highness may bring in a whole House at a time.49Burton’s Diary, iv. 283-4.

Once the main constitutional debates had finished, Boscawen became involved in the more workaday aspects of business. On 31 March he joined veteran Presbyterians like John Bulkeley* in attacking the excise bill, the passing of which, in its imperfect form, he described as trying to ‘help a lame dog over a stile’.50Burton’s Diary, iv. 316. As a Cornishman, he was particularly concerned about the affect of higher taxes on the tin and fish trades.51Derbs. RO, D258/10/9/2, f. 11. On 1 April he was named to both the Irish and Scottish committees; on 5 April he joined the debate on how to ‘transact’ with the Other House, and was appointed to the committee on the same on 6th; and a day later he was named to a committee on the fate of sick soldiers at the Savoy Hospital.52CJ vii. 623a-b, 627a-b; Burton’s Diary, iv. 340; Derbs. RO, D258/10/9/2, f. 22v. On 8 April he was named to a committee to investigate the case of the lunatic Thomas Howard, 23rd earl of Arundel, and was teller against putting the question that only Members of the Commons could take messages to the Other House, a motion that was narrowly defeated.53CJ vii. 632a-b.

Boscawen’s antipathy towards to protectorate regime was trumped by his hostility to the army and religious radicalism, and when Parliament squared up the army in mid-April, he joined those Presbyterians who defended the regime. On 12 April he was appointed to a committee to draft the impeachment of Major-general William Boteler*, and in debate commented darkly that the House should wait until it had been ‘informed of the higher charges against him’, suggesting that a greater punishment might be called for.54CJ vii. 637a; Burton’s Diary, iv. 411. In another provocative move, on 16 April the Presbyterians pushed for a declaration against Quakers, and Boscawen sympathised while urging caution: ‘you will give them too great a reputation abroad to say they are numerous. They will be thought 20,000’.55Burton’s Diary, iv. 445. On 18 April Boscawen was teller in favour of a crucial vote on whether the army councils should be banned while Parliament was sitting. In this vote, it is interesting that Boscawen’s fellow teller in favour of the motion was another staunch Presbyterian, Edward Rosseter, while his opponents were the leading commonwealthsmen, Thomas Chaloner and Henry Neville.56CJ vii. 641b. It was this vote that provoked the army to intervene in politics once again, and to force the closure of the parliament on 22 April.

After the collapse of the protectorate, Boscawen kept a low profile. The royalists remained hopeful that he would work for the return of the king. John Mordaunt reported in June 1659 that he expected support for a rising in the west country from Rolle and Boscawen, adding that ‘these are Presbyterians and [are] treated with by Sir George Boothe and Sir William Waller*.57Mordaunt Letterbk. 22; Clarendon SP, iii. 489-90. Boothe, as Boscawen’s brother-in-law, may also have hoped to influence him, but there is no sign that any of the Cornish gentry were prepared to risk rebellion at this point. In the winter of 1659-60, moreover, Boscawen and other Cornish gentlemen were prepared to support the restored Rump, as the only realistic bulwark against anarchy, and they joined Captain John Fox* in securing Pendennis Castle against any attempt by the army and its allies.58Coate, Cornw. 307. On 27 December Boscawen was among those gentlemen who met at Truro to declare for a ‘free Parliament’.59Publick Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660), p. 998 (E.773.41). The royalists were still expectant that the involvement of Boscawen ‘would prove well for the king’, but the real influence at work was probably George Monck*, whose agent, John Clobery*, ‘had promised them that if they would rise in the west and declare for a free Parliament, Monck would like it very well’.60Clarendon SP, iii. 658. Boscawen was appointed to the militia commission of March 1660, and in the elections of April 1660 he was returned as MP for Cornwall and Grampound. In 1661 he sat for Tregony, becoming known as one of the leading Presbyterians in the Commons in the late 1660s and 1670s. During the Exclusion Crisis he was a prominent opponent of the government, and in 1689 he emerged as a loyal supporter of William III.61HP Commons 1660-1690. Boscawen died in mid-1701 and was buried at St Michael, Penkevil, on 10 June.62Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 47. His sons, Hugh† and William†, both sat in Parliament, but predeceased him. His daughter Bridget married Hugh Fortescue of Filleigh in Devon, and by descent through the female line from the earls of Lincoln their son became 14th Baron Clinton.63Austin, Clinton Barony, genealogical table.