SMYTH, Thomas I (c.1609-42), of Ashton Court, Long Ashton, Som.

Thomas Smyth probably married, succeeded his father and was elected to Parliament before the age of 20. As his father’s only son and principal heir, his inheritance was substantial.17PROB11/152/126. In the mid-sixteenth century, his great-grandfather, John Smythe, a very wealthy merchant who served twice as mayor of Bristol, had acquired large land holdings around the city.18The Ledger of John Smythe, 1538-1550, ed. J. Vanes (Bristol Rec. Soc. xxviii). The most important of those estates, Ashton Court at Long Ashton, became the family seat. During the 1630s Smyth refaced one half of the south front in a fashionable classical style.19Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 190-2; Pevsner, Somerset: North and Bristol, 548, 550. However, from 1637 the Smyths probably spent much of their time living with his wife’s father, Lord Poulett, at Hinton St George in the far south of Somerset.20Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 191-2. His mother had meanwhile married her cousin, Sir Ferdinando Gorges. By the late 1630s Smyth had begun to borrow money, although possibly only on a small scale. Some of those debts would cause serious problems for his distant kinsman, Sir Robert Pye II*, long after Smyth’s death.21C7/408/95; C22/285/10.

Smyth’s election as MP for Bridgwater in 1628, which resulted from a favour to his father-in-law, marked his entry into public life. By 1631 he was already a Somerset justice of the peace, a role which, despite his youth, he seems to have taken seriously.22QS Recs. Som. Charles I, 190-285. Other responsibilities, such as the treasurerships for hospitals and for maimed soldiers or membership of the other Somerset commissions, soon followed.23QS Recs. Som. Charles I, 196, 220; C181/4, f. 172v; C181/5, ff. 6, 221v, 204v. Yet his view of the impact of the king’s policies at this local level was not unjaundiced. In January 1637 he informed the sheriff of Somerset, William Bassett*, that the inhabitants of the hundreds of Portbury and Bedminster were ‘much discontented’ about their Ship Money assessments. Smyth advised that, unless this assessment was reallocated, those inhabitants would become ‘rude and addicted unto opposition.’24Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 127-8. As a prominent local landowner and magistrate, Smyth was also acutely aware that he might be nominated at some point as sheriff himself, an appointment which the levying of Ship Money now made even less attractive. To head off that possibility, later that year he and Sir William Portman* lobbied a number of courtiers, including the clerk of the privy council, Thomas Meautys*, to ensure that Smyth was not pricked as Bassett’s successor.25Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 132-3. In 1639, when Poulett accompanied the king on the expedition against the Scottish Covenanters, he gave Smyth the temporary command of his Somerset militia regiment.26Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 136, 141. Yet there are indications that Smyth’s health was less than perfect. In 1637 he had said that he had ‘been lately at death’s door’ and by 1639 he was suffering from rheumatism.27Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 129, 147.

On 12 December 1639, with a new Parliament expected, Alexander Popham* wrote to Smyth encouraging him to stand with Sir Ralph Hopton* as a knight of the shire for Somerset. In a separate development, his cousin Edward Phelipps* suggested to Smyth that he should stand at Ilchester. By early March 1640 Smyth was intending to stand with Popham for county seats, if necessary in opposition to Hopton. However, he took the precaution of asking the mayor of Bath to delay that town’s election until after the county poll in case either he or Popham failed to get their first choice. As it turned out, Popham needed the fallback of the Bath seat. Faced with Popham and Smyth lined up against Hopton and John Coventry*, at the poll on 30 March the Somerset electorate split their decision and chose Smyth and Hopton.28Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 150, 154-6, 195-7. Nothing is known of Smyth’s activities in the Short Parliament. Later that year he took no pleasure in resumption of the ‘much dreaded war with the Scots.’29Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 158.

Smyth would not have expected to be re-elected as a knight of the shire in the second set of 1640 elections and, in any case, his place was taken by his brother-in-law Sir John Poulett*. But his attempts to find an alternative were unexpectedly unsuccessful. In early October he was keen to stand at Ilchester and Phelipps assured him that the area around the town had been ‘very well affected towards you [Smyth] before it was canvassed’.30Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 160. However, he decided to try his luck at Bridgwater, only to find himself defeated by Sir Peter Wroth* and Edmund Wyndham*. Phelipps and Viscount Andover (Charles Howard*) were among those who wrote to commiserate with him.31Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 160-1. When the dispute over the first contest then created the prospect of another election at Ilchester, Baynham Throckmorton* and Phelipps pressed Smyth to put himself forward. But he decided against standing there and seems to have discouraged Phelipps for doing so as well.32Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 162, 166, 167. Phelipps ignored that advice and succeeded in winning one of the vacant seats. Meanwhile, another vacancy appeared through the moves to unseat Wyndham at Bridgwater. In late January 1641, after Wyndham had been expelled from the Commons, Smyth probably wrote to Popham and John Pyne* suggesting himself as Wyndham’s replacement, although Pyne was at least as interested in talking up the chances of Robert Blake*.33Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 168. Smyth was elected as the new Bridgwater MP on 8 February.

Smyth had taken his seat at Westminster by 31 March 1641, for he then complained to one of his servants that he was ‘wearied out’ from attending the trial of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) every day. But any impatience on his part was based on more than mere boredom, for he thought that

If he [Strafford] be not more speedily dispatched the kingdom will be undone and I fear we shall have somewhat to do to rid the Scots and bring this Parliament to a successful conclusion.34Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 171.

This implied aversion towards the Scots also appears in the sketchy remains of notes made by Smyth for a speech at about this time. He told Parliament – or at least considered telling them – that ‘the Scots and the puritans’ were more dangerous than the Gunpowder plotters as the latter had been only ‘a few discontented men’.35Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 170. This is not what many in the Commons would have wanted to hear. Some of Smyth’s undated notes appear to relate to the attempts by Parliament in May 1641 to obtain a loan from the Merchant Adventurers to help pay off the two armies. Other notes made by him at about this time (certainly before William Seymour†, earl of Hertford received his marquessate in June 1641) reveals that he was concerned about the state of the Somerset militia.36Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 198, 201. A letter written to him by his wife in July 1641 implies that he had previously expressed concern at the lack of progress being made between the king and Parliament.37Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 175. His other known activities in the Commons were minimal. On 3 May 1641 he took the Protestation.38CJ ii. 133b. Of the six Smiths sitting in the House at this time, he is the more likely to have been named on 4 June to the committee to investigate his local bishop, William Piers of Bath and Wells.39CJ ii. 166b. That month Baynham Throckmorton asked for his assistance in informing MPs at Westminster of the depredations to the Forest of Dean by the Catholic Sir John Winter.40Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 172-3. That autumn Smyth was granted the freedom of Bristol in recognition of the ‘mutual love and amity’ he and ‘his ancestors and allies’ had with that city.41Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 201-2.

The decisive factor in Smyth’s decision to abandon Parliament was probably its defiance of the king over the Militia Ordinance in March 1642, an issue on which his father-in-law demonstrated resolute support for Charles I. Smyth was soon back in Somerset organising resistance. On 5 May 1642 John Pym* informed the House that a letter from Somerset had claimed that Sir Ralph Hopton* and Smyth had been collecting a petition similar to that of Sir Edward Dering* and that one of them claimed to have a commission from the king to oppose the Ordinance. The Commons therefore summoned Hopton and Smyth to explain themselves.42PJ ii. 280; CJ ii. 558b. Neither obeyed. Unsurprisingly, the king appointed Smyth to the commission of array for Somerset on 11 July.43Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 177-8. Eleven days later the Commons summoned him a second time.44CJ ii. 685b; PJ iii. 252. Back in Somerset Smyth was now playing a leading role in the attempts to secure the county for the king. On 1 August he joined Hopton and Sir Ferdinando Gorges when they marched with 100 men to disrupt the pro-parliamentarian gathering at Shepton Mallet. During their brief occupation of the town, they arrested William Strode II*, before being forced back to Wells.45Bellum Civile, 4-5. A letter reporting these events from Alexander Popham*, John Pyne* and the other Somerset deputy lieutenants was read to the Commons on 5 August. The Commons immediately expelled Smyth and Hopton.46The Marquesse of Hertfort his Letter (1642), 5-9 (E.109.24); CJ ii. 703b-704a; PJ iii. 282.

Parliament then ordered the 4th earl of Bedford (Sir Francis Russell†), advancing westwards towards Somerset, to arrest them.47CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 366. Another summons was issued by the Commons on 9 August to Smyth and others involved in proclaiming the commission of array.48CJ ii. 711b. Smyth ignored all this. He had meanwhile helped interrogate John Preston* following his capture at Marshall’s Elm and had then accompanied Hertford to Sherborne.49Som. RO, DD/HI/B/466: examination of John Preston, 25 Aug. 1642; Belvoir, letters of Long Parliament MPs, i. f. 31. Then, on 30 August, the Commons included him on its list of leading Somerset royalists declared to be guilty of high treason.50CJ ii. 745a-b. Articles for their impeachment were sent up to the Lords on 17 September.51LJ v. 360a. When two days later, Bedford’s advance prompted the marquess of Hertford to fall back, Smyth accompanied him first to Minehead and then to south Wales. But he fell ill and died at Cardiff on 2 October.52Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 202; Collinson, Som. ii. 293. He thus died an unheroic death when the civil war had barely begun. His body was later shipped back across the Bristol Channel for burial at Long Ashton.53Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 202-3.

Smyth left a widow, a son aged just ten and four young daughters. By the will which he had drafted in 1638, he left portions of £2,000 each to the daughters. His two brothers-in-law, Sir John Poulett and Sir Thomas Smithe*, and the rector of Kingsweston, Paul Godwin, were appointed as the overseers who were also to act as his executors until his son, Hugh†, came of age.54PROB11/211/716; Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 194-5. Hugh finally proved the will in 1650.55PROB11/211/716. He sat as MP for Somerset in 1660 and in the first Parliament of 1679 as a moderate whig. His mother, Smyth’s widow, Florence, remarried, becoming the wife of Thomas Piggot of Long Ashton.56C7/408/95.