BULLER, John (c.1632-1715), of the Middle Temple, London, and Morval, Cornwall.

The Buller family originated in Somerset, but moved to Cornwall in the sixteenth century, when they bought up chantry lands around the boroughs of Looe and Saltash. John Buller’s father, Francis Buller*, had been MP for Saltash in the 1620s and in the Short Parliament, and then served for East Looe (where he was recorder) until he was secluded in December 1648. John grew up in his father’s shadow. He was admitted to his father’s inn of court, the Middle Temple, on 29 January 1646, the same day as his elder brother; both were bound with their father.15MTR ii. 937. Francis proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, in Michaelmas of the same year, but John appears to have received a more thorough legal grounding before he left for the same college, from where he matriculated in July 1647.16Al. Cant.

As a second son, Buller was destined for a career in the law. He was a barrister by October 1651, when he was bound for the admission of a Devon student, Edward Wise of Sydenham, and on 3 July 1652 he was admitted to a chamber in the Utter Bar. In December 1654 and February 1655 he changed chambers again, in the summer of 1656 he was resident in London, and in November 1658 he stood surety for a Cornishman, Bernard Tanner of Court, when he was admitted to the inn.17MTR iii. 1029, 1039, 1071-2, 1082, 1128; Cornw. RO, BU/602. During the early and mid-1650s Buller also acted as his family’s agent in London. In October 1651 he sent his father news of ‘the business of the new representative’ discussed by the Rump Parliament, and sounded out Colonel Thomas Westrowe* as to the likely status of MPs secluded at Pride’s Purge; in August 1654, as he travelled to London from the west country, he wrote to his brother concerning the West Looe elections; and in May 1656 he consulted with Serjeant John Maynard* about a legal case pursued by his father.18Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/58-9; BC/26/14/2, 5, 12.

Although he was no more than 25 years of age in the summer of 1656, Buller’s family status and legal expertise encouraged his candidacy for the combined constituency of East and West Looe. Others had their eyes on the seat, however. On 22 July Buller wrote to his father ‘to be wary of your writing [as] letters are intercepted before elections’, and the warning was timely.19Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/26/14/13. On 25 July the Baptist officer, Colonel Robert Bennett* ‘and his whole company’ arrived in East and West Looe ready for the election, and ‘thought to have one of their own’ returned. Bennett’s gang were disappointed, as the inhabitants had already ‘resolved for Mr Buller of the Middle Temple’, who was elected the next day.20The Publick Intelligencer no. 44 (4-11 Aug. 1656), 754 (E.497.4). The political significance of this dispute should not be exaggerated, however. John Disbrowe*, in his report to Oliver Cromwell* of 12 August 1656, included Buller among those borough MPs who did not present a ‘danger’ to the regime, and he was not subsequently excluded from Parliament by the protectoral council.21TSP v. 302.

Nor does Buller’s recorded activity in this Parliament suggest that he was disaffected to the protectorate. He was named to 11 committees during the first sitting of Parliament, in 1656-7. Most of these were on minor matters, including that to consider the petition of Warwick Mohun, 2nd Baron Mohun, John Seyntaubyn* and other Cornish royalists (31 Mar.), but Buller was also named to committees on religion, including those to consider such puritan preoccupations as bills for the maintenance of ministers in boroughs (4 Nov.), for the better observation of the Lord’s day (13 Feb.), and for allowing trustees to buy impropriations to maintain lecturers (31 Mar.).22CJ vii. 450a, 493b, 515b. On 1 June 1657 he was added to the committee to draft a bill on recusants.23CJ vii. 543b. These appointments suggest that Buller sided with the conservative Presbyterian interest in this Parliament, and this is confirmed by his inclusion in the list of ‘kinglings’ who voted in favour of offering the crown to Oliver Cromwell on 25 March 1657.24Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5). As in earlier years, during this Parliament Buller was his family’s eyes and ears in London. In a letter, probably written in October 1656, he reported news of measures to erect law courts in the north of England and the new Scottish Union bill, and also described his efforts to prevent his father from being pricked as sheriff, including securing the support of John Disbrowe, Anthony Nicoll* and Francis Rous*, who ‘promise to be your friends in this’.25Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/72. Buller’s work for his constituency went unrecorded, but it is perhaps significant that in December 1657 he was elected recorder of West Looe.26Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/21/17.

On 17 January 1659 Buller was returned as MP for both East Looe and Saltash, choosing, on 24 February, to serve for the former.27CJ vii. 607a; T. Bond, Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West Looe (1823), 254-5. Two days before, he had been ‘laughed down’ when he tried to defend the Other House, saying that as the upper chamber had been created by the Commons, the new peers must now be ‘judges of their own Members and privileges’. Sir Henry Vane II*, perhaps calculating that ineffectual speeches would discredit his opponents, moved that ‘the worthy gentleman be not interrupted, seeing he is pleased to bestow his pains among us’; but, despite a second chance, Buller made little headway, and the diarist Thomas Burton* commented that ‘I know not, nor anybody else, what he would be at’.28Burton’s Diary, iii. 406. Sir John Gell* was also dismissive, summarising Buller’s speech in just six words: ‘Can one House limit the other?’29Schilling thesis, 100. Buller may have been more successful as a constituency MP, and he seems to have represented the interests of West as well as East Looe, as the mayor’s accounts for March 1659 include money paid for ‘a letter that came from Mr Buller’.30Cornw. RO, B/WLO/35.

Buller was re-elected for West Looe in the Convention of 1660, and his hostility to the pro-royalist mood prevalent in the Commons was recorded by Edmund Ludlowe II*, who said that Buller, ‘sitting by me in the gallery bewailed the temper of the House, wishing for Sir Henry Vane and some others to be amongst them for the moderating of them’.31Ludlow, Voyce, 121-2. After the Restoration, Buller resigned the recorderships of West Looe and Saltash, and seemed intent on retiring from public life.32Antony House, BO/21/18; Cornw. RO, B/WLO/60. Despite this, he remained politically active, siding with the Presbyterian interest in the Commons in the 1660s and 1670s, supporting exclusion in 1679-81, and welcoming the accession of William III. Buller died in November 1715.33Cornw. RO, Morval par. regs. His son, who predeceased him, and his grandson, who succeeded to the estate, were both Cornish MPs in the early eighteenth century.34HP Commons 1660-1690.