CLARKE, John (d. 1681), of Bury St Edmunds, Suff.

It has been claimed that John Clarke’s father came originally from Bocking in Essex, but this has not been substantiated.23Burke Dorm. and Baronetcies, 117. The name is too common and the family too obscure for Clarke’s origins to be determined with any certainty. It is not even as if this Member and his father were the only men of that name in Bocking in this period.24PROB10/641, ff. 365-366. Although he may have born elsewhere, it was in Bury St Edmunds that this John Clarke lived most of his life. There he seems to have traded as an ironmonger.25CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 74. He is not to be confused with the John Clarke of Bury St Edmunds who was a Barnard’s Inn attorney.26Admiss. Regs. of Barnard’s Inn 1620-1829 ed. C.W. Brooks (Selden Soc. xii. 1995), 99; Add. 34014, ff. 1v, 14, 22v, 60v, 70v. By 1637 the future MP had married the daughter of a prominent Bury citizen, Edward Bourne, and fathered a son, Edward (who did not survive him).27Wills Archdeaconry Sudbury 1636-8 ed. Evans, 98-100, 121. His business was evidently lucrative, for he was able to invest £500 of his own money in 1642 in the Irish Adventurers’ scheme for the suppression of the Irish rebellion.28CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 74.

Clarke’s financial skills may account, in part, for his involvement in the collection of parliamentarian taxation in Suffolk during the 1640s. From 1644 at the latest, until about 1648, he helped organize the collection of the assessments for Parliament in the area around Bury.29SP28/243: certificates by John Clarke, 15 May and 16 Dec. 1644; SP28/190; CCC 23; P. Fisher, For the…Cttees. for the County of Suffolke (1648), 17, 21, 33, 37, 44-5, (E.448.13); Suff. RO (Bury), Acc. 613/681; Acc. 613/770; Acc. 613/769. From June 1647 he was also consistently named, along with Samuel Moody* and Thomas Chaplin*, as an assessment commissioner for Bury St Edmunds.30A. and O. One of his reasons for supporting the parliamentarian cause may have been a desire for religious reformation. Thus, in November 1645 he was appointed an elder in the Presbyterian classis which was to meet at Bury.31Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 428. He also seems to have had no qualms about the sale of bishops’ lands; an episcopal estate worth £300 a year is known to have been bought by him from its purchasers, the Alexanders of Dagworth.32Soc. Antiq., MS 667, p. 131.

Clarke was a leading member of the Bury corporation by 1648, when he served as the alderman, the town’s equivalent of mayor. It was in this capacity that he wrote to Sir Thomas Barnardiston* in late May 1648 to warn him that the 2nd duke of Buckingham had attended a secret royalist rendezvous at Rushbrooke, the seat of the exiled courtier, Thomas Jermyn*, just outside Bury. Barnardiston forwarded that letter to Westminster, where it was reported to both Houses on 3 June.33Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 123; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 91; LJ x. 301b-302b; CJ v. 583a. Clarke’s second term as alderman had ended by the time the corporation’s surviving minute book commenced in December 1652.34Suff. RO (Bury), D4/1/2, f. 24v. Clarke clearly remained sympathetic towards Parliament after the execution of the king, and his appointment to the high court of justice convened at Norwich in December 1650 to try the East Anglian rebels suggests that he favoured taking a hard line against royalists.35A and O. His views and experience made him an obvious choice to fill the gaps created by the unwillingness of some gentlemen to hold office under the commonwealth. He was thus appointed a militia commissioner and a justice of the peace during the early 1650s. He took these duties seriously, attending the Bury quarter sessions whenever he could.36Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/2, ff. 55, 96v, 109; B105/2/3, ff. 14, 29, 37v, 44v, 52v, 66v, 87v, 99v,105, 111v, 119, 126v, 133v; B105/2/4, ff. 8v, 32v, 49v, 56v, 62, 72v, 83, 96v, 105, 114; B105/2/5, ff. 24, 30v; SP28/243; CCSP iv. 300. Yet these appointments did not elevate him to the ranks of the county gentry, for what local standing he enjoyed was still largely confined to Bury. Within the town, however, he, Moody and Chaplin were among the dominant figures on the corporation. Throughout the 1650s, Clarke, Moody and Chaplin worked to support the prevailing regime. Their importance at a county level lay principally in the fact that their control of Bury provided the basis for the smooth administration of the whole western half of the county.

Late in May 1653, Clarke’s name was one of six which the Suffolk gathered churches submitted to Oliver Cromwell* and the council of state to represent the county in the Nominated Parliament.37Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 94-5. Clarke was the only one of these six men who had the support of the rival attempt by the Bury churches to influence the nominations. The Bury letter, which put forward the names of Moody, Chaplin and Clarke, confirms that these three were now acting in concert.38Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 126. It would seem to have been the letter from the Suffolk churches which determined who was summoned to fill the five Suffolk seats, although the Bury letter may have had some influence in confirming Clarke’s selection. While in London, he and one of the other Suffolk MPs, Edward Plumsted*, shared lodgings at Whitehall, courtesy of the council of state.39CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 455.

In the 1653, 1654, 1656 and 1659 Parliaments Clarke would be joined as an MP by his namesake, John Clerke II*. The latter was always the more prominent figure and fortunately it is usually not too difficult to distinguish between them. Thus during the early weeks of the 1653 Parliament it was unsurprising that John Clerke II, a colonel serving in Ireland, was named to both the committees on Irish affairs. But in both cases ‘Mr Clark’ was also named as well.40CJ vii. 283b, 286b. The Suffolk MP’s interest in this area probably derived from his investment in the Irish Adventure and while in London he completed various pieces of business connected with the Adventure on behalf of several of his friends (including Moody).41CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 74; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 406. The fact that John Gurdon* transferred his lands in Queen’s County to him two years later suggests that Clarke was among those investors who wanted to build up their holdings in Ireland rather than dispose of their lands there as soon as their investment had been realised.42CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 173. Clarke was probably briefly absent from Westminster during September 1653. His one other committee appointment was to the committee to draft the bill for naturalizations (28 Sept.).43CJ vii. 317a, 326a.

According to the anonymous list printed soon after, Clarke was one of those MPs who supported a ‘godly, learned ministry’ (or, in other words, the public maintenance of a parochial ministry), and can thus be numbered among the less extreme puritans in the Nominated Parliament.44Cat. of the Names of the Members of the Last Parliament (1654, 669.f.19.3). This is consistent with the fact that he was appointed one of the commissioners for scandalous ministers in Suffolk only eight months later.45A. and O. He was among those who reported to Cromwell in June 1654 on the state of the Independent congregations in Bury, after the lord protector had responded to a petition requesting financial aid for the gathered churches in Norfolk and Suffolk by asking for more information. Clarke, Moody and the other informants in Bury reported that the Congregational church in the town needed assistance with its rent and the minister’s stipend.46Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 155.

There were many 1653 MPs for whom service in the Nominated Parliament constituted the sum total of their parliamentary career. In Clarke’s case, however, his prominence in the civic affairs of Bury ensured that it was simply the first of five Parliaments in which he sat. The town was important enough to retain its two seats under the Instrument of Government and for the rest of the 1650s Clarke, Moody and Chaplin between them managed to monopolize both of them. On 8 July 1654, Moody and Clarke were elected unopposed in the first parliamentary elections to be held at Bury under the new electoral arrangements.47C219/44/2, no. 27. Later that month the King’s Lynn corporation granted 50s. to its mayor for his expenses in entertaining Clarke.48King’s Lynn Borough Archives, KL/C7/10, f. 424v. This is the first indication of any link between Clarke and the King’s Lynn corporation. His visit may well have been connected with the town’s parliamentary election. Clarke was no more active in this Parliament than he had been in the last. Again, he was named to only three committees, including those on the ships to be requisitioned for the navy (5 Oct. 1654) and on forged debentures (22 Nov.).49CJ vii. 373a, 374b, 387b.

Fears of a general royalist uprising in the early months of 1655 prompted Hezekiah Haynes*, the leading officer in the Essex militia, to write to his friends at Bury to warn them to be in a state of readiness. Clarke wrote back to Haynes on 14 March to say that the defences of Bury were in ‘a naked condition’, especially as ‘the growth of papists is great in this town’. He promised to work closely with Moody and advised that the best course would be for John Fothergill* to put the local militia regiment on alert.50TSP iii. 236. Evidently, Clarke was on friendly terms with Haynes, and that link became all the more important the following October, when Haynes became deputy major-general for East Anglia. Clarke served as one of the commissioners to assist Haynes in implementing the decimation tax.51TSP iv. 225, 272, 427-8. In June 1656, when complaints were made against one of the Suffolk justices of the peace, Robert Lane, the fact that Clarke and Sir Thomas Barnardiston* advised that the accused was ‘a desperate malignant, and [an] enemy to good men’, was enough to convince Haynes that Lane should be removed from the commission of the peace.52TSP v. 165; C231/6, p. 340. To Clarke, Haynes and the other major-generals probably seemed to offer the best hopes for ‘godly reformation’, hence his support for their work. The return of Clarke and Moody at Bury to the second protectoral Parliament on 16 August 1656 was one of the few election results from East Anglia which Haynes took pleasure in reporting to the secretary of state, John Thurloe*.53TSP v. 328.

Clarke’s activities in the opening months of the 1656 Parliament were slightly more conspicuous than in previous Parliaments, although he continued to be named to comparatively minor committees. Most of these committees concerned the excise and other commercial matters.54CJ vii. 435b, 440b, 442a, 445b, 453a, 455a, 457a, 461a. Clarke may also have spent some of his time during the first session lobbying on behalf of the King’s Lynn corporation. Late in September 1656 they asked their London solicitor to give Clarke details of their disputed parliamentary election. The senior figures on the corporation hoped that Clarke would help press their claim that the town’s parliamentary franchise was vested in them alone, and not in the freemen in general.55King’s Lynn Borough Archives, KL/C7/10, f. 518v. For some reason, the request by Clarke on 13 December to be allowed leave to go to the country was refused by the Commons.56CJ vii. 477b. However, on 31 December, when the Commons proceeded with a call of the House, it emerged that Clarke was absent after all. His excuse was provided by Thomas Hussey II*, who informed the Commons that Clarke had ignored the refusal of 13 December to grant him leave because the matter which had called him away was urgent (what this matter was remains unclear.) The Commons accepted this excuse.57Burton’s Diary, i. 287. Clarke was probably back at Westminster by the end of January 1657 and seems to have remained there for most of the rest of that session.58CJ vii. 484a, 494b, 526b, 542a. His attitudes to the case of James Naylor or to the kingship question remain unknown. A single committee appointment confirms that he attended the final session of this Parliament early in 1658.59CJ vii. 588a.`

The death of their close confederate, Samuel Moody, in 1658 gave Thomas Chaplin his chance to join Clarke as Member for Bury in the 1659 Parliament. The absence again of any contest made their election a formality and on 6 January 1659 the Bury corporation returned Clarke for the senior place (formerly taken by Moody) and Chaplin for the junior. Clarke appears to have been inactive in this Parliament, although later in 1659, when the corporation decided to pay the arrears owing to their former aldermen, he complained that he had not yet received his expenses for his parliamentary service.60Suff. RO (Bury), D4/1/2, f. 25.

The Restoration broke Clarke’s power in Bury. He was removed from the commission of the peace in March 1660 even before the king had returned, although his standing in Bury ensured that he was named to the militia commission issued that same month.61A Perfect List (1660), 50-2; A. and O. In the elections to the Convention in April 1660, Clarke and Chaplin faced opposition from two local royalists, Sir Henry Crofts† and Sir John Duncombe†. Divisions within the corporation led to a double return, and eleven days after Clarke and Chaplin had been allowed to take their seats, their election was overturned. During the brief period in which they sat in the Convention, Lord Wharton included both men in his list of those likely to support a Presbyterian church settlement.62HP Commons 1660-1690, i. 397; G.F.T. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix. 340.

Clarke stopped attending meetings of the Bury corporation in about March 1661 and had ceased to be one of the chief burgesses by the time the commissioners to implement the Corporation Act arrived at Bury in October 1662.63Suff. RO (Bury), D4/1/2, ff. 29, 44; D14/1. However, as a result of Bury’s peculiar corporate history, this did not end his involvement in its civic affairs. During the height of his influence in the 1650s, he had been appointed to the two bodies which administered the town in parallel with the corporation: the Guildhall feoffment trust, which managed the town’s charities, and the Almoners’ Barns trust, which managed the corporation’s estates. Clarke was allowed to remain as one of the Guildhall feoffees after the Restoration, but, after a lengthy legal case, the corporation eventually wrested control of its lands from Clarke and the other trustees of the Almoners’ Barns.64Suff. RO (Bury), H2/6/2/1, pp. 73-157; D10/3; D7/1/4: release, 17 Sept. 1669. Clarke was, by sympathy and probably in practice, a nonconformist, which makes his appointment as sheriff of Suffolk in November 1670 all the more striking.65Suff. RO (Bury), Acc. 613/691; List of Sheriffs, 132. His service as sheriff did not however foreshadow a return to the commission of the peace or any other county offices. He may have had hopes that the 1672 Declaration of Indulgence would lead to his reappointment to public life, but its only benefit, and that short-lived, was to allow the Presbyterian preacher, William Folkes, to use Clarke’s house at Bury as a meeting house.66CSP Dom. 1671-2, pp. 410, 435, 446; Calamy Revised, 204.

Some indication of Clarke’s wealth can be gained from the arrangements he made in 1675 to marry off two of his children. His daughter, Elizabeth, was married to Thomas Barnardiston, nephew of the late Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston*. In return for the privilege of securing an alliance with one of the great gentry families of the county, Clarke was able to settle a portion of £3,000 upon his new son-in-law.67Suff. RO (Bury), EXY4/W5/77. The provision for his son, Samuel, who married Mary Thomson later that year, was equally generous. Clarke promised Samuel an allowance of £200 per annum during his lifetime, plus a lump sum of £8,000 when he (Clarke senior) died.68Suff. RO (Bury), Acc. 613/196.

Clarke prepared a will in May 1679, over two years before his death.69PROB11/368/474. By the autumn of 1681 his thoughts again seem to have turned to his own mortality. On 6 September 1681 he endowed a trust with the rents from the Three Cranes inn at Bury to provide for an annual dinner and payments of 10s each to ‘20 ancient and poor widows of good report and free from scandal’. This bequest became the principal means by which his name was remembered in the town.70Suff. RO (Bury), H2/5/29/5; S. Tymms, An Architectural and Historical Acct. of the Church of St Mary, Bury St Edmunds (Bury St Edmunds, 1854), 139; Abstracts of the Returns of Charitable Donations (1816), ii. 1220-1. The first of the dinners was held on 5 November 1681, shortly before he died.71Suff. RO (Bury), H2/5/29/5, unfol. Clarke was buried at Bury one month to the day after the dinner.72St James, Bury St Edmunds par. reg. The will he left confirms the impression that he had amassed a sizeable fortune for someone of his relatively humble social position. He bequeathed to his son his lands at Chippenham and Freckenham, while leaving his lands at Cavenham and Icklingham to his only grandson, Thomas Barnardiston. He left his four granddaughters legacies of £1,000 each.73PROB11/368/474. None of his descendants sat in Parliament.