BRISCO, William (1606-88), of Crofton, Thursby, Cumb.

The Briscos were one of Cumberland’s oldest gentry families. They had settled in the county by the end of the thirteenth century and had made their principal residence at Crofton – some seven miles south east of Carlisle – which they had acquired through marriage in the reign of Richard II.40Vis. Cumb. and Westmld. ed. Foster, 20, 21; Nicolson, Burn, Westmld. and Cumb. ii. 202. Brisco trained as a lawyer and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1634. He was described as of Lincoln’s Inn on his marriage to the daughter of a London citizen in 1638 and should not be confused with his uncle and namesake, who was bailiff of the royal lordship of Holme Cultram in Cumberland and held several minor positions at court.41PRO30/24/2/35; Cumb. RO (Carlisle), DHA/3/1; NLW, Wynnstay ms 165, pp. 8, 16, 18, 24, 26; Vis. Cumb. and Westmld. ed. Foster, 21; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 75; 1635-6, p. 25; 1637, pp. 124-5.

Although Thomas Craister* would testify after the civil war that he, Brisco, Thomas Cholmley* and two others had advanced £30 for the service of Parliament in 1642, the radical Cumberland pamphleteer John Musgrave alleged that Brisco had collaborated with the commissioners of array in 1642 and 1643. Brisco certainly retained his place on the county bench well after men who were adjudged lukewarm in the king’s cause, such as Sir George Dalston*, had been purged.42Infra, ‘Sir George Dalston’; SP23/171, p. 157; J. Musgrave, Yet Another Word to the Wise (1646), 5 (E.355.25); Musgrave, A Fourth Word to the Wise (1647), 2 (E.391.92); Musgrave, Musgraves Musle Broken, 7, 8-9; Musgrave, A Cry of Bloud of an Innocent Abel Against Two Bloudy Cains (1655), 26 (E.731.8). Why Brisco threw in his lot with the king at the outbreak of civil war is not clear, unless it was to protect his estate. To judge by his later career, he was a trenchant Protestant with a concern to promote a godly ministry.

In the spring of 1643, Brisco was implicated with his ‘cousin’ Richard Barwis*, Sir Wilfrid Lawson*, Cholmley and Craister in an abortive rising to seize Carlisle for Parliament and was promptly removed from the Cumberland bench by the king.43I. Tullie, Siege of Carlisle ed. S. Jefferson (Whitehaven, 1988), 1; Mercurius Aulicus no. 30 (23-9 July 1643), 405 (E.64.11); Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 34. It is not clear whether Brisco’s involvement in this insurrection stemmed primarily from parliamentarian zeal or a desire on his part to forestall the royalists’ seizure of the Cumberland properties of Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, from whom Brisco leased a considerable part of his estate.44C142/496/112; Cumb. RO (Carlisle), DHA/3/1; Cumb. RO (Whitehaven), DLEC/169/1651-2: Brisco to Hugh Potter*, 13 Oct. 1651, 16 Apr. 1652; Alnwick, X.II.3, box 10, h: Brisco to Potter, 19 Oct. 1653; C.B. Phillips, ‘County cttees. and local government in Cumb. and Westmld. 1642-60’, NH v. 38. Nevertheless, it was reported in September 1643 that Brisco and Barwis were ‘two gentlemen of worth in Cumberland that stand for the Parliament and Protestant religion against the papists, but [they] dare not shew it by reason they have no forces to join with them’.45Mercurius Britanicus no. 2 (29 Aug.-5 Sept. 1643), 13.

Restored to the Cumberland bench after the region was seized for Parliament in the autumn of 1644, Brisco subsequently emerged as a leading member of the county committee.46SP23/179, p. 598; SP28/226, unfol. (order 26 Sept. 1644); Cumb. RO (Carlisle), CA/2/122a; DLONS/L/13/1/9; CCC 232; HMC Portland, i. 186; In 1645, he supported Richard Barwis and Sir Wilfrid Lawson in their power-struggle with the Scots and was rewarded by the Houses in December, when he was appointed a deputy lieutenant for Cumberland, along with Barwis, Lawson and other members of their local faction.47Infra, ‘Richard Barwis’; ‘Sir Wilfrid Lawson’; Bodl. Nalson IV, f. 35; Nalson XIX, f. 265; CJ iv. 368a; LJ viii. 135a. By late 1647, he was steward and reputedly ‘bosom friend’ of the northern Independent peer Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton – another leading opponent of the Scots – and steward of the manorial courts of Charles Howard*, the future Cromwellian grandee.48Musgrave, A Fourth Word to the Wise, 2; Naworth Estate and Household Accts. 1648-60 ed. C.R. Hudleston (Surt. Soc. clxviii), 20, 94, 160, 201. Wharton may have been instrumental in securing the Lords’ rejection of a Commons vote of early 1646 for appointing Brisco to the onerous office of sheriff of Cumberland.49CJ iv. 414a; LJ viii. 126b. Despite his links with Wharton, it was alleged that Brisco persecuted local separatists and protected papists.50J. Musgrave, A True and Exact Relation (1650), 15 (E.619.10); Musgrave, A Cry of Bloud of an Innocent Abel, 26.

Although Brisco remained active in local government after the regicide, serving as recorder of Carlisle and as a commissioner for sequestrations and for propagating the gospel in the northern counties, he seems to have spent much of his time away from the county – possibly in London pursuing his legal career.51Cumb. RO (Carlisle), CA/2/1; CA/2/126, 132; DLEC/169/1652: Brisco to Potter, 16 Apr. 1652; CCC 232, 267, 285, 304; CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 128, 259, 291; Nightingale, Ejected of Cumb. and Westmld. 147. He apparently had little difficulty accommodating himself to the protectorate, and in the elections to the first Cromwellian Parliament in July 1654 he was returned as knight of the shire for Cumberland.52Supra, ‘Cumberland’. As one of Cumberland’s second-tier gentry landowners, with an estate worth no more than £300 a year, he may well have relied on the patronage of Wharton or, more probably, Charles Howard, the senior knight of the shire for the county and commander of Cromwell’s life-guard.53Infra, ‘Charles Howard’. Brisco was named to eight committees in this Parliament, including those for Scottish affairs and for the relief of creditors and poor prisoners for debt.54CJ vii. 369b, 371b, 374a, 378b, 381a, 401a, 407b, 410a, 447a. His last committee appointment was on 30 December 1654, when he was named to a committee for preparing a bill against Quakers. More than most MPs, it seems, Brisco was alarmed by the ‘infectious’ spread of Quakerism.55Burton’s Diary, i. 124. His evident commitment to settling a godly and ‘orthodox’ ministry in the northern counties – which he demonstrated as a commissioner for propagating the gospel and as a Cromwellian ejector – and to correcting the ‘ignorance of these people [in Cumberland] in the principles of religion’ is consistent with his zeal in persecuting the region’s Quakers.56A. and O. ii. 969; Burton’s Diary, i. 170; ii. 58, 150; Nightingale, Ejected of Cumb. and Westmld. 147, 169, 204, 256, 653, 754; E. Burrough, A Declaration of the Present Sufferings of above 140...Quakers (1659), sig. C4 (E.977.7); P.H. Fox, ‘The note bk. of William Thomson of Thornflatt’, Trans. Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. ser. 2, xiv. 159-60.

Most of Brisco’s estate lay within a few miles of Carlisle, and during the mid-1650s he sided with the city’s ‘well-affected’, pro-Cromwellian faction, which enjoyed the support of Howard – the borough’s principal electoral patron by 1656.57Supra, ‘Carlisle’; SP18/126, ff. 12, 13. Howard and Brisco were returned for Cumberland again in elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656, while Howard’s brother-in-law, George Downing, was returned for Carlisle.58Supra, ‘Cumberland’. Brisco was named to 36 committees in this Parliament, one of which – a committee to receive petitions – he reported from twice and may on occasion have chaired.59CJ vii. 438a, 439b, 445b, 446a, 447a, 448a, 448b, 449a, 464a, 469a, 479b, 484a, 488a, 490b, 493b, 494b, 495b, 497b, 499a, 504a, 505a, 507b, 515a, 520b, 528a, 534a, 538a, 543b, 545a, 559b, 580b, 591a. He also served as a teller in three divisions and was closely involved with Howard in the drafting of a bill for the suppression of theft upon the borders of England and Scotland.60CJ vii. 464a, 516a, 534b, 567b; Burton’s Diary, i. 175, 227. Several of his appointments reinforce the impression that he was a man of godly convictions. Thus he was named to committees for the maintenance of the ministry, the better observance of the sabbath and for suppressing papists.61CJ vii. 448b, 469a, 488a, 493b, 543b. However, he was opposed to making the laws enforcing the sabbath too rigid, and he was a majority teller on 20 June 1657 with either Henry or Robert Williams against inserting a clause in a bill for the better observance of the sabbath proscribing ‘all profane and idle sitting openly at gates or doors’.62CJ vii. 567b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 265. He was also against the imposition of an oath for discovering Catholics, arguing that it smacked of the ex officio oaths employed by the defunct ecclesiastical courts.63Burton’s Diary, ii. 150-2.

When it came to the punishment of the Quaker leader, James Naylor, however, Brisco took a determinedly hard line, and he was named third on 31 October 1656 to a committee to consider Naylor’s ‘great misdemeanours’ and to prepare a bill for strengthening the laws against blasphemy.64CJ vii. 448a. During the debates on Naylor in December 1656, Brisco argued that the spread of Quakerism in England and Ireland ‘appears to me to proceed from some encouragement it hath’ – a swipe at Friends’ sympathisers in the army – and that Parliament’s failure to suppress the sect was to invite God’s judgement upon the nation. Naylor himself, insisted Brisco, was guilty of ‘horrid blasphemy’, his principles – and, indeed, Quakerism in general – were ‘destructive to human society’, and that he deserved to receive a capital sentence.65Burton’s Diary, i. 45, 50, 69-71, 123-5, 170-1.

I am as much for mercy as any man, but in this case, I cannot go less than death, but with this caution – that I would have him reprieved for a month or six weeks, or longer, and send some divines and others to him, that, if possible, he may be recalled and restored.66Burton’s Diary, i. 125.

When Cromwell questioned the House’s right to proceed against Naylor, Brisco urged MPs to defend their authority in this case: ‘Surely your jurisdiction must be asserted, else you overthrow your being and essence, the very life of a Parliament. A Parliament cannot subsist without a judicatory power, as well as legislative’.67Burton’s Diary, i. 255. In general, he seems to have upheld the Cromwellian religious compromise of maintaining a godly national ministry while allowing liberty for tender consciences. Nevertheless, he apparently favoured greater protection and encouragement for ‘public worship’ against the sectaries, and during the debate on imposing an oath against the Catholics he asked the House to consider ‘what an indulgence and favour you hold to one sort of unsound persons [sectaries] and so severe against others [Catholics], though the one may be as unsound as the other’.68Burton’s Diary, ii. 150-2. On 19 March 1657, he was named to a committee for inserting a clause in the Humble Petition and Advice against extending freedom of worship to those who were thought to deny the basic tenets of Christian faith.69CJ vii. 507b. And on 9 June, he and John Vincent pleaded against laying aside a bill for catechising as some of the more radical Members desired.70Burton’s Diary, ii. 202-3.

Although Brisco took little part in the debates on the Humble Petition and Advice, several of his committee appointments suggest that he backed Charles Howard and other members of the court interest in their offer of the crown to Cromwell.71Burton’s Diary, ii. 27. He was named to committees for preparing several of the clauses in the new constitution, including that concerning religion, and on 6 April 1657, three days after Cromwell’s first refusal of the kingship, he was named to a committee to prepare reasons for the House’s adherence to the Humble Petition.72CJ vii. 505a, 507b, 520b. Three days later (9 Apr.), he was named to a committee for satisfying Cromwell’s doubts and scruples about accepting the crown.73CJ vii. 521b. The author of the Narrative of the Late Parliament was almost certainly justified in listing Brisco among the ‘kinglings’ in the House, along with Howard and Downing.74A Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22 (E.935.5). But though Brisco seems to have favoured a more monarchical form of government, he was keen to affirm Parliament’s legislative supremacy. When the House received a report on 28 April for confirming – in relation to the Humble Petition – the various statutes passed by Cromwell and the protectoral council in 1653-4, Brisco was among those Members who successfully demanded that each piece of legislation be assessed individually rather than passed as a job lot. ‘I had rather have pains to make new laws’, he declared, ‘than lay such a dangerous precedent ...The chief magistrate, hereafter, may be apt to think he has power of making laws – and what prejudice that will be to the rights of the people or the rights of the Parliament, I leave it [to the House to decide]’.75Burton’s Diary, ii. 49-50.

Brisco’s career at Westminster seems to have tapered off after Cromwell’s final refusal of the crown in May 1657. After June, he was named to only two committees, and he was obliged to withdraw from the House on 1 February 1658 following a resolution that no Member elected on a double return should continue to sit until the committee of privileges had determined their case.76Burton’s Diary, 405-6. This is the only evidence we have that the 1656 shire elections for Cumberland were contested. The identity of Brisco’s rival remains a mystery. Despite this order, Brisco made a lengthy, if somewhat lacklustre, speech on 2 February in support of the Cromwellian Other House.77Burton’s Diary, ii. 410-11.

In the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659, Brisco was returned for Cumberland a third time, on this occasion with his old civil-war ally Sir Wilfrid Lawson.78Supra, ‘Cumberland’. He received no committee appointments in this Parliament, but in the protracted debates on the Bill of Recognition (the bill confirming Richard Cromwell as protector), which took up most of February 1659, he aligned with the court interest in defending the Humble Petition. On 14 February, he declared that ‘government of a single person is fitter for us ... [and] most suitable to the ancient government. If we now go to lay a new foundation, what a labyrinth shall we run into’.79Burton’s Diary, iii. 260. At the same time, he conceded that efforts must be made to limit the protector’s authority, proposing that two bills be prepared, one for the liberties of the people and the other defining the powers of the chief magistrate.80Burton’s Diary, iii. 260-1. Similarly, he spoke in favour of transacting business with the Other House but in accordance with the Humble Petition and with its powers suitably limited (1 Mar.).81Burton’s Diary, iii. 559-60; iv. 77. On 21 March, he defended another prominent component of the Cromwellian constitution, urging that a bill be brought in confirming the right of the Scottish Members to sit in Parliament.82Burton’s Diary, iv. 203-4. However, he committed what the parliamentary diarist Thomas Burton considered was a ‘gross mistake’ on 5 April 1659, when he questioned whether the wording of a declaration for a day of humiliation would prevent the House imposing limitations upon the protector and the Other House.83Burton’s Diary, iv. 342. Brisco offered a proviso to the declaration: ‘that nothing was hereby intended to hinder this House from bounding the single person and the Other House’.84Burton’s Diary, iv. 341. Whatever his motive in suggesting this proviso, it was eagerly seized upon by the Protectorate’s republican opponents.85Burton’s Diary, iv. 341-2. Although ‘honest Colonel Briscoe’, as Burton referred to him, was at odds with the republicans on most issues, his desire to limit the powers of the protector and the Other House seems to have exceeded that of most members of the Cromwellian court interest.86Burton’s Diary, iv. 342.

Returned for Carlisle in the elections to the 1660 Convention, Brisco was listed by Lord Wharton as a likely supporter of a Presbyterian church settlement.87G.F.T. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix. 335. At the Restoration, he seems to have retired from public life, a process hastened by his removal from the Cumberland bench and from his recordership of Carlisle by the corporation commissioners in October 1662 for refusing to take the oath renouncing the Solemn League and Covenant.88Cumb. RO (Carlisle), CA/2/385. He died on 25 February 1688 and was buried at Thursby three days later.89Thursby par. reg.; Fams. in Cumb. ed. Ferguson, 86. In his will, in which he asked to be buried ‘without pomp or excess’, he charged his estate with bequests of less than £300. His personal estate was valued at £562.90Cumb. RO (Carlisle), PROB/1687/WINVX14. None of his immediate family sat in Parliament.