BOWYER, John (1623-66), of Knypersley, Biddulph, Staffs.

Bowyer, though still a teenager, may have served as a lieutenant in the king’s army in the second bishops’ war of 1640 – which perhaps explains his apparent failure to attend university or the inns of court.25CJ ii. 237b. It may also account for the burgeoning of his military career following the outbreak of civil war in 1642, when he was commissioned as a captain of foot in the parliamentarian forces of the west midlands association under Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh.26SP28/144, pt. 6, f. 27; SP28/242, f. 400. Evidently a brave and talented soldier, he was promoted to colonel by Denbigh in the spring of 1644 and made governor of the garrison at Leek in recognition of his ‘good service’ since ‘the beginning of these wars’.27J. Vicars, God in the Mount (1643), 411-12 (E.73.4); Shaw, Staffs. i. 57; Staffs. Co. Cttee. 121. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Bowyer aligned with the faction among Staffordshire’s leading parliamentarians that was keen to advance Denbigh’s authority; and in September 1644, he joined Colonel Edward Leigh* and Samuel Terricke* in a petition to the Commons, requesting that the earl be allowed to resume his command in the west midlands.28PA, Main Pprs. 1 Oct. 1644, ff. 146-8, 154-6; Staffs. Co. Cttee. 223. Bowyer was also among those men nominated by Staffordshire’s lord lieutenant, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, as his deputy lieutenants in August 1645.29LJ vii. 548a; CJ iv. 251b. Essex was the leader of the peace party in the Houses and numbered Denbigh among his allies. In the event, the Commons consented to the appointment of only one man on the list, Michael Noble*.30CJ iv. 251b.

Despite his links with the Presbyterians, Bowyer preserved a good working relationship with his uncle by marriage Sir William Brereton* – the commander of Parliament’s forces in the north-west – who was one of Denbigh’s leading opponents and a friend of the Independent grandees at Westminster.31Brereton Lttr. Bks. iii. 75-6, 102, 153. Indeed, Brereton evidently regarded Bowyer as one of his most reliable officers, commissioning him as a colonel of horse in November 1645 and entrusting him with the command of the Staffordshire cavalry ‘and divers other troops’.32SP28/144, pt. 6, f. 27; Perfect Diurnall no. 83 (24 Feb.-4 Mar. 1645), 688 (E.258.31). The Staffordshire sub-committee of accounts praised Bowyer after the war as one of the first in the county that had taken up arms for Parliament and for his ‘singular good service at Salop, Montgomery, Chester and in divers other places, and especially in this county at the taking in strongholds, being ... a great instrument for the security and quieting of this county’.33SP28/144, pt. 6, f. 27.

It is likely that Bowyer received Brereton’s backing, or at least blessing, in the ‘recruiter’ elections for Staffordshire in the summer of 1646.34Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 558. Brereton informed the Stafford MP John Swynfen in April that he had written to Bowyer and Sir Charles Egerton* in support of the candidacy of Sir Richard Skeffington*.35Brereton Lttr. Bks. iii. 176. And although there is no evidence that Brereton attempted to canvass on behalf of Bowyer also, this may simply be because Bowyer had less need of his uncle’s help than did Skeffington. Of the four men who contested the vacant seats, Bowyer was much the strongest candidate, receiving almost 300 votes more than the runner-up (Skeffington) when the election went to a poll on 13 August 1646; and he was duly returned in first place.36Supra, ‘Staffordshire’; Perfect Occurrences no. 34 (14-20 Aug. 1646), sig. Ii2v (E.513.5). Like his father before him, he probably owed his electoral success in part to his interest among the (generally pro-Parliament) ‘moorlanders’ in northern Staffordshire, where most of the Bowyer family estates were located.37Infra, ‘Sir William Bowyer’; BRL, 917/642; Scottish Dove no. 112 (3-10 Dec. 1645), 885 (E.311.19); Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 478. Moreover, his position as governor of Leek had almost certainly strengthened his influence in the area.

Bowyer’s relatively meagre haul of 20 committees between September 1646 and May 1648 suggests that he was not one of the more active recruiter MPs. Although the majority of his appointments offer little insight into his political alignment at Westminster, one or two are consistent with his seclusion from the House at Pride’s Purge. On 15 March 1647, for example, he was added to the committee on unlicensed preaching, chaired by his Staffordshire colleague Colonel Edward Leigh, for the purpose of discovering the authors and promoters of the ‘seditious’ and highly radical Petition of Many Thousand Citizens.38Infra, ‘Edward Leigh’; CJ v. 112b. Similarly, his nomination to a committee set up on 2 April to draft a new ordinance for the City militia – a measure that the Independents clearly opposed – may have reflected sympathy on his part with the Presbyterians’ political agenda.39CJ v. 132b. It is also worth noting that the Presbyterian grandee Edward Montagu†, 2nd earl of Manchester – who had been appointed lord lieutenant of Staffordshire after Essex’s death in 1646 – appointed Bowyer one of his deputy lieutenants on 27 May.40Staffs. RO, D948/1/5/1. On the other hand, Bowyer was named on 2 and 10 June to committees for receiving information against Members suspected of royalist associations – an initiative designed to strike at Presbyterian support in the House.41CJ v. 195a, 205b.

There is no firm evidence that Bowyer remained at Westminster after the Presbyterian ‘riots’ of 26 July – he certainly received no appointments during the brief speakership of Henry Pelham. Yet equally, he was not among those Members who fled to the army after the forcing of the Houses. By far his most partisan appointment in the House came on 17 August, when he was a teller with Richard Roze against a motion that both Houses had been ‘under a force’ during the absence of Speaker William Lenthall.42CJ v. 275b. Here, at least, is unambiguous evidence that Bowyer aligned with the Presbyterian interest at Westminster over the summer of 1647. During the autumn, he was named to committees for redressing the army’s grievances and addressing the problems posed by the king’s flight from Hampton Court in mid-November.43CJ v. 340a, 357a, 359a, 376b. On 20 December, he was granted leave of absence for six weeks, but he seems to have remained at Westminster until 4 January 1648.44CJ v. 392b, 417a. However, he had returned to Staffordshire by 6 January, when he and Swynfen wrote to the Speaker about problems with the collection of assessment arrears in the county.45Bodl. Tanner 58, f. 655.

Bowyer’s attendance apparently became even more erratic during 1648. He was declared absent and excused at the call of the House on 24 April; on 4 May, he was named to a committee for settling the kingdom’s militia (in preparation for the anticipated outbreak of the second civil war); and on 25 August, he was given leave in order to put Staffordshire ‘into a posture of defence’.46CJ v. 543b, 551a, 670b, 682a. On 26 September, he was again declared absent and excused at the call of the House; and he was presumably in Staffordshire on 25 November, when the Commons appointed him and Colonel Thomas Crompton* to collect the county’s assessment arrears.47CJ vi. 34a, 88a. It therefore seems unlikely that he attended his seat after late August. Nevertheless, the army and its supporters had long memories, and he was among those Members secluded at Pride’s Purge in December – presumably for his services to the Presbyterian cause the previous year.48A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62). The royalist press showed him no sympathy, alleging that he had been ‘not long since found in the House of Commons, before the Members were come to the House, with a common whore’.49Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 40 (26 Dec. 1648-9 Jan. 1649), sig. Fff5v (Burney Colln.).

Bowyer was removed from all offices under the Rump. In March 1651, the council of state branded him ‘dangerous and disaffected’ and ordered his arrest on suspicion of involvement in Presbyterian or royalist plotting.50CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 86, 99. The Staffordshire ‘well-affected’ continued to regard him with suspicion well into the 1650s. In November 1655, Major-general Charles Worsley* and his commissioners strongly urged Secretary John Thurloe* not to appoint Bowyer sheriff of Staffordshire.51TSP iv. 224. Nevertheless, he remained an influential figure in the northern part of the county, and in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament, in the summer of 1656, he was returned for Newcastle-under-Lyme, which his grandfather had represented in 1597 and 1604 and where the family owned property.52C142/702/36; Pape, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 328; HP Commons 1558-1603, ‘John Bowyer’. Predictably, he was among those excluded by the protectoral council for disaffection to the government.

There is no evidence that Bowyer attended the Long Parliament after the restoration of the secluded Members in February 1660 – a report that he was among those Members sitting in the House in mid-March when the Long Parliament finally dissolved is probably unfounded.53Grand Memorandum or a True and Perfect Catalogue of the Secluded Members of the House of Commons (1660, 669 f.24.37). In the elections to the 1660 Convention, he was again returned for Newcastle-under-Lyme and was listed by Philip, 4th Baron Wharton, as a likely supporter of a Presbyterian church settlement – although he did nothing in the House to justify Wharton’s expectations on that score.54G. F. T. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix. 342; HP Commons 1660-90, ‘John Bowyer’. According to one royalist commentator, Bowyer pretended ‘reformation and to be orthodox’, adding that he was ‘a great drinker’.55Fawkes, ‘Gentry of Staffs.’, 60. Bowyer’s award of a knighthood and baronetcy in 1660 was probably part of the crown’s attempt to woo the Presbyterian interest rather than a reward (as has been supposed) for supporting the restoration of monarchy.56Wedgwood, ‘Staffs. parlty. hist.’, 74. He does not appear to have stood for re-election at Newcastle-under-Lyme to the Cavalier Parliament.

Bowyer died in the summer of 1666 and was buried at Biddulph on 18 July.57Biddulph Par. Reg. ed. Tildesley, 64. In his will, he charged his estate with an annuity of £150 and made bequests of about £450, including one of £2 to Maurice Harrison, the man he had presented to the vicarage of Biddulph in 1665 and who was living in his house (suggesting that he also served as Bowyer’s household chaplain). He requested that his friend and local minister Richard Bourne – who had signed the Testimony of the Staffordshire Presbyterian ministry against the sects, but who had conformed at the Restoration – deliver his funeral sermon.58A Testimony of the Ministers of Staffs. (1648), 7 (E.453.16); Pape, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 149; Walker Revised, 322. Bowyer’s son and heir Sir John Bowyer†, 2nd bt., was elected for Warwick in the last year of the Cavalier Parliament and represented Staffordshire in the Exclusion Parliaments of 1679 and 1681.59HP Commons 1660-90, ‘Sir John Bowyer’.