CHICHELEY, Thomas (1614-99), of Wimpole, Cambs.

The Chicheley family had its roots in Northamptonshire. Their fortunes had been established by Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury between 1414 and 1443 and founder of All Souls, Oxford. In 1428 the archbishop acquired an estate at Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, which he left to the grandson and heir of his elder brother William†, a London Grocer who sat as MP for the City in the second Parliament of 1397. It then became the principal residence of the senior branch of the family.44Stemmata Chicheleana, pt. i. 13; VCH Cambs. v. 265; HP Commons 1386-1421.

When he came of age in 1635, Thomas Chicheley ranked as one of the major landowners in East Anglia. His father, Sir Thomas† (who had sat for Huntingdon in 1601 and for Cambridgeshire in 1614) had died when Thomas was aged only 12, leaving extensive estates in Cambridgeshire and elsewhere, which had then been granted to Thomas’s mother for the duration of their son’s wardship.45PROB11/128/613; Cambs. RO, R.52.12.14.3; R.52.12.11.12. Chicheley’s marriage added to his fortune, since his wife, a daughter of the very wealthy treasurer of the navy, Sir William Russell†, brought with her a portion worth £3,000.46Cambs. RO, R.52.12.12.13. Four years later, Russell cemented the alliance by appointing Chicheley, John Godbold* and John Bodville*, as trustees of his estates.47Cambs. RO, R.55.7.7.5-8. The generous marriage portion helped subsidise expensive tastes. Chicheley soon set about building ‘an extraordinary neat house’ at Wimpole to replace the existing dwelling.48W.M. Palmer, John Layer (1586-1640) of Shepreth, Cambs. (Camb. Antiq. Soc. liii), 111; RCHM Cambs. i. 214. (This building work is the likely reason why Chicheley was assessed for the 1641 subsidy at Thriplow ‘where he hath lived for the last year’.49W.M. Palmer, ‘A list of the Cambs. subsidy rolls, 1250-1695’, East Anglian, n.s. ix. 139, 142.) Probably not completed until after the civil war, Wimpole began as only a medium-sized country house, but eventually became the largest house in Cambridgeshire.50RCHM Cambs. v. plan opp. 215; D. Adshead, Wimpole: architectural drawings and topographical views (2007), 10-11, 39-41. Chicheley visited London regularly and he may have been developing something of a reputation as a rowdy young man-about-town.51Harl. 454, ff. 12v, 14, 16, 18, 19, 22v, 25, 28v, 31v. In 1638 the lawyer Richard Kilvert, searching for him to complain about the insolent behaviour of his coachman, found Chicheley drinking with a group of friends in a Fleet Street tavern. Chicheley dismissed the complaint as being none of his business and, in a cheap reference to Kilvert’s questionable role in the court case against Bishop John Williams in 1634, threatened him with an action in star chamber. Chicheley’s friends then tried to beat up Kilvert. The incident ended with them all making up, calling for wine and drunkenly toasting the bishop.52Strafforde Letters, ii. 149. Chicheley’s involvement in this incident was rather embarrassing, for he was then serving as sheriff of Cambridgeshire and it was questionable whether he should have been in London at all. If his duties did not yet seem onerous, they soon became so once he began to encounter serious difficulties organising the collection of Ship Money.53List of Sheriffs, 14; Coventry Docquets, 368; CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 149; 1637-8, p. 577.

Chicheley’s election to the Long Parliament was eased by the decision of his uncle Sir John Cutts*, who had sat for Cambridgeshire in seven of the previous eight Parliaments, not to stand again. Lavish hospitality provided by Chicheley for those attending the quarter sessions at Cambridge strengthened his claim.54Bodl. Tanner 65, f. 164. The unopposed return of Chicheley and a North Sir Dudley, who had been Cutts’s partner in the Short Parliament as the two knights of the shire neatly satisfied both the major gentry families within the county. What little evidence there is for Chicheley’s activities during the two years he was sitting in the Long Parliament seems ambiguous. In November 1640 he was among MPs who offered to underwrite the loan to ease the complaints of the two armies in the north, which he may have seen as a way of assisting the king at a time of particular difficulty.55Procs. LP i. 235. He more obviously placed himself in the minority unhappy with the attack on royal policies when he sided in April 1641 with those opposed to the attainder of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†).56Verney Notes, 58; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 248-9; Procs. LP iv. 51. Against this, there is the fact that in January 1641 he presented the Cambridgeshire petition supporting one of the more radical measures under discussion at this time, the abolition of episcopacy.57Procs. LP ii. 272. However, Chicheley was probably more concerned to do his constituents a courtesy than to promote its content. It perhaps says more about him that Joseph Loveland, whom he presented to the Wimpole living in March 1642, was subsequently ejected.58IND1/17002, f. 53; Al. Cant. Chicheley and Sir Dudley North* may also have tried without success to get John Gauden, the future bishop of Exeter and Worcester, who remained committed to the principle of episcopacy, nominated to the Westminster Assembly.59[J. Gauden], Anti Baal-Berith (1661), 89 (E.1083.5). On the other hand, Chicheley was thought sufficiently anti-popish to be named as a commissioner for the disarming of recusants in August 1641.60LJ iv. 385a.

From the summer of 1641 onwards, Chicheley may well have been absent from Westminster for much of the time.61CJ ii. 228a, 626n. By 18 August 1642 the Commons were beginning to have their doubts about him. As a test of his loyalty, they summoned him to attend on 23 August.62CJ ii. 726a. By the time that deadline was reached, the king had raised his standard at Nottingham. Chicheley failed to turn up at the appointed time, and on 16 September 1642 he was disabled from sitting in the Commons.63CJ ii. 769a. At such an early point in the war, mere absence from Parliament is insufficient to account for his expulsion: punishment for attempts to organise royalist support in Cambridgeshire looks the most likely explanation. Chicheley soon joined the king at Oxford and it is not inconceivable that (like his younger brother, Henry) he went on to fight for him in the royalist armies.64P.R. Newman, Royalist Officers in Eng. and Wales (New York, 1981), 69.

The only incident in his wartime record which is at all well recorded is his mission to London on the king’s behalf in January 1643. His assignment was to make contact with the youngest of the royal children, the duke of Gloucester and Princess Elizabeth, who were being held as hostages by Parliament at St James’s Palace. On discovering the purpose of this visit, both Houses were understandably suspicious. The Commons immediately ordered that Chicheley be arrested and brought before them. The Lords, on the other hand, decided to allow the visit to go ahead, as long as Chicheley was accompanied by their yeoman usher, left London as soon as he had seen the children and did not attempt to pass on any messages. Chicheley was held in custody for several days while the Lords and Commons resolved the resulting confusion. On 30 January the Commons voted (by 53 to 43) to release him.65CJ ii. 944a, 945a, 947b, 948a; LJ v. 571b-572a, 574b. Whether he was then permitted to see the two children is not known.

Chicheley subsequently attended the royalist Parliament at Oxford in 1644, although he was not present at the meeting on 27 January which approved its letter to Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.66CCC 1437; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 575. He was again absent from Oxford in the autumn of 1645, for he returned to Cambridgeshire to attend his wife who was seriously ill. Permission for this journey was granted by Oliver Cromwell*, who faced criticism from some in Parliament who thought Chicheley too dangerous to be accorded such special treatment. Cromwell justified this to Speaker William Lenthall as ‘an act of humility’ towards ‘a virtuous woman’, whose brother Colonel Francis Russell* was a steadfast parliamentarian, and who indeed had been promptly recruited to fill Chicheley’s seat In Parliament.67Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 382. The decision by the king in December 1645 to include Chicheley on the list he sent to Parliament of those to whom he was willing to entrust control of the militia confirms that Chicheley was now a figure of some standing within the royalist court at Oxford.68CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 279; LJ viii. 72b. Chicheley remained at Oxford until the very end, having his portrait painted by William Dobson and serving in May 1646 as one of the commissioners who opened negotiations for the surrender of the city.69Rogers, William Dobson, 46-8; Haldane, Portraits of the English Civil Wars, 42-3, 145; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 279.

In August Chicheley submitted to the Committee for Compounding* his request to compound with Parliament under the terms of the Oxford articles. By December it had been decided that his fine should be £1,985 10s 8d.70CCC 1437. An ordinance pardoning him for his delinquency was accepted by the Commons on 23 September 1647, but seems never to have made it through the Lords.71CJ v. 313b; HMC 6th Rep. 197. Initially Chicheley’s wealth absorbed the cost of compounding and the fine had been paid in full by 1650.72CCC 320. Chicheley even managed to make modest additions to his Cambridgeshire estates during this period.73VCH Cambs. viii. 136, 140; Cambs. RO, R.52.12.9.2-4; R.52.12.37.1. In 1651 he spent £1,950 buying out a lease which his father had made with the Wingfield family in 1615.74Cambs. RO, R.52.12.11.15-18; CCAM 659. He also invested in the scheme to drain the Great Level, buying lands in the Soham area from the Heath and Russell families.75S. Wells, The Hist. of the Drainage of the Great Level (1830), 303-4, 311; Jonas Moore’s Mapp ed. Willmoth and Stazicker, 47-8. But it was not long before the first signs appeared of the financial difficulties which dogged him for the rest of his life. In a series of agreements concluded in late 1654, he mortgaged much of the estate at Wimpole to several creditors (one of whom was John Cutler) to raise £10,000 in cash.76Cambs. RO, R.52.12.38.1; R.52.12.38.9-10; R.52.12.38.19; R.52.12.42.2. Some of the land leased to Cutler was sold on in 1656 to Walter Long*, who in turn sold these leases in 1659.77Cambs. RO, R.52.12.38.11; R.52.12.38.16-17; R.52.12.42.2, ff. 2-4. Chicheley raised further sums by selling other estates to Thomas Wendy† in 1655.78VCH Cambs. viii. 138, 140.

In 1650 Chicheley had to seek authorisation from the council of state before spending several months at his estates in Norfolk.79CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 522, 560. The authorities’ suspicions were far from groundless. The exiled court viewed him as its leading supporter in Cambridgeshire and he was doubtless in regular contact with its agents.80CCSP ii. 359. Chicheley is known to have been a close friend of Sir Thomas Willys*, whose younger brother, Sir Richard, was a founder member of the Sealed Knot. Chicheley was later said to have had ‘an extraordinary good opinion’ of Sir Richard.81The Life of the Rev. Dr John Barwick (1724), 454. Another likely link was Thomas Blagge, who had led the assault on Kilvert in 1638 and who was now organising royalist resistance throughout East Anglia.82Strafforde Letters, ii. 149. In the wake of Penruddock’s rising in 1655, Chicheley was arrested as a probable conspirator and spent time in gaol at King’s Lynn.83CSP Dom. 1655, p. 368. However, he had some powerful friends to protect him. In January 1656 a threatened confiscation of his lands ‘the most considerable estate of any one man’s in this county’ was halted by the personal intervention of the lord protector.84TSP iv. 409; Noble, Mems. of House of Cromwell, ii. 386. It was also on direct orders from Cromwell that Chicheley later managed to escape having to pay the decimation tax.85Bodl. Rawl. A.35, p. 24.

The Chicheleys were once more benefitting from their kinship with Sir Francis Russell. In 1653 Russell’s daughter (Chicheley’s niece) married Cromwell’s younger son, Henry* and Chicheley was a party to the associated settlement. As part of the consequent adjustment to the Cromwell family finances, Chicheley (with Sir Gilbert Pykeringe* and John Disbrowe*) also agreed to serve a trustee of the jointure lands promised to the protector’s wife.86Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/731/29A-B. Further evidence of his closeness to Russell is that in December 1658 Sir Francis believed that he could persuade Chicheley to support the election of the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, as MP for Cambridgeshire, an improbable choice for Chicheley unless he had favours to repay to Russell.87TSP vii. 565. This was despite the fact that Chicheley’s second wife (from April 1656), Anne, Lady Savile, continued to back Charles II with as much enthusiasm as her late husband, Sir William Savile*, had backed Charles I during the 1640s.88Life of John Barwick, 95, 96, 100, 112, 113, 128, 184, 158. By April 1659 Chicheley headed one of the regional conspiracies associated with what became known as Sir George Boothe’s* rebellion.89CCSP iv. 169. Six months later John Barwick (who knew Lady Savile well) claimed to be in contact with a group of royalist conspirators which included Chicheley, Sir Henry Yelverton†, Lord Bruce (Robert Bruce†) and William Tyringham†.90TSP vii. 763. (Sir) Edward Hyde* welcomed this news, describing Chicheley as ‘a very worthy person, and my good friend’, but warned that he might have difficulty accepting that his friend, Sir Richard Willys, had been exposed as a double agent.91Life of John Barwick, 454. Barwick’s information had already been intercepted by Thurloe’s agents, but seems not to have been acted upon.92TSP vii. 763.

After the Restoration Chicheley was well rewarded. Had the scheme gone ahead, he would have received his knighthood as early as 1660 as one of the knights of the Royal Oak.93Burke Commoners, i. 688. As it was, he had to wait until 1670, when he was both knighted and admitted to the privy council on his appointment as master of the Ordnance. The influence of his stepson, Sir George Savile* (who, as marquess of Halifax, rose to even greater heights) subsequently obtained for him the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster. But lucrative court offices were not enough to prevent the collapse of the family finances. Chicheley lived (to quote Pepys) ‘in mighty great fashion’, and it was clearly this, rather than the events of the 1640s, which eventually bankrupted him.94Pepys’s Diary, ix. 112. Although around the time of the Restoration he was able to consolidate and even extend some of his estates, he soon had to mortgage more and more property. 95J.M. Gray, ‘Proposals for the enclosure of Coldham Common in 1666 and 1667’, Proc. Camb. Antiq. Soc. liii. 42; VCH Cambs. v. 143; Cambs. RO, R.52.12.42.2. Finally in 1686 he was forced to sell most of his estates to Cutler, who had been helping him stay solvent for over 30 years. His dismissal from office by James II further diminished him. This, combined with old age, helps explain why, having sat in every Parliament between 1661 and 1689, he ceased to be an MP nine years before his death. Remnants of the Chicheley patrimony which survived in his hands until his death in 1699 were left heavily encumbered with debts, although he had kept gloves, a dagger and a cloak that had belonged to Charles (the cloak being traditionally said to be that worn on the scaffold) which later passed to his daughter’s descendants.96PROB11/501/377; Newton, Lyme Lttrs. 7-8. In accordance with his wishes, his body was returned to Wimpole for burial.97PROB11/501/377; Wimpole par. reg. p. 91. That none of his descendants sat in Parliament is testimony to the thoroughness with which Chicheley had ruined the fortunes of a once-great family.