COLES, William (1617-97), of Upper Woodfalls, Downton, Wilts.

Although the gentility of William’s father Barnabas or Barnaby Coles was disclaimed at Salisbury in September 1623, it is evident that the family was both moderately prosperous and of good reputation locally.17Vis. Wilts. 1623 ed. G.W. Marshall (1882), 103. In 1580 William’s grandfather or great-grandfather, Ralph, had bought the manor of Upper Woodfalls in the large parish of Downton on the north-west edge of the New Forest. Thereafter the Coles may have been often overshadowed by other more prominent families in the area like the Eyres and the Raleighs, and potentially reliant on the good-will of the lord of the manor of Downton itself, the earl of Pembroke. However, in the first decades of the seventeenth century they built ‘a mansion of some consequence’.18VCH Wilts. xi. 29-39; Hoare, Hist. Wilts. iii (Downton), 55. Barnabas could afford to give William, the elder of his surviving sons, an education at Oxford before his entrance to the Middle Temple in October 1637; later the father left his younger son an estate in Somerset apparently worth £1,200.19Al. Ox.; PROB11/230/134.

The extent of the Coles’ enthusiasm for the parliamentary cause during the civil wars is unknown, but Barnabas was named to the commission of the peace in May 1646 and became immediately active.20C231/6, p. 45; 'Diary of Anthony Ashley Cooper', Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxviii. 24; Wilts. RO, A1/160/1, ff. 102, 128, 151, 175, 195, 217; Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 261, 285. Several times an assessment commissioner, he also participated in the Wiltshire church survey in 1650 and might also have had a role in valuation of sequestered episcopal and delinquent lands in Downton.21'Falstone Day Book', Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxvi. 389; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xl. 303, 392, 397; A. and O. As early as April 1646 Barnabas was in negotiation for William’s marriage to a sister of John Fitzjames* and Henry Fitzjames*, who were both parliamentarian army officers in the west.22Alnwick Castle MS 547, f. 37v. The marriage had taken place by mid-January 1647, by which time William was assisting his brother-in-law John in the retrospective audit of his brigade accounts.23Alnwick Castle MS 547, ff. 76v-77.

Initially William’s principal base remained Lincoln’s Inn, where he had been called to the bar in June 1645, and where his other brother-in-law, Thomas Fitzjames*, was then a student. Both were bound with Henry Fitzjames when he was admitted in May 1647.24MTR ii. 857, 951. The William Coles who had been made clerk of the peace for Wiltshire in November 1646 was the future MP’s kinsman from Salisbury cathedral close; formerly a receiver for the rents of secretary of state Edward Nicholas, he had been noted in the Commons Journal in 1643 as Coles ‘the factor’.25Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxvi. 352-3, 380, 390; CJ iii. 280a. This Coles appears in various local transactions in the mid and later 1640s, and it is at least as likely to have been the clerk as the lawyer who was named as an assessment commissioner in the county in August 1647 and on several occasions subsequently, although the fact that ‘William Coles’ was also nominated for Somerset in 1652 clouds the issue.26Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxvi. 372; xviii. 25, 26; CCC 504. On the other hand, both Coles of Sarum and Coles of Downton were nominated militia commissioners in December 1648 and the baptism of the lawyer’s sons William and Barnaby at Downton in October 1648 and January 1650 points to his spending at least some time in the county.27A. and O.; Downton par. reg.

None the less, the lawyer continued to do business for the Fitzjameses, apparently from London.28Alnwick Castle MS 549 f. 120 (BL microfilm 331). It is suggestive that ‘William Coles of Downton’ joined the commission of the peace only in September 1653, four months after his father’s death made him the owner of Upper Woodfalls.29C231/6, p. 266; PROB11/230/134. Thereafter he certainly was linked to local office, it being specifically he who was among the triers and ejectors for Wiltshire listed in August 1654 and among the assessment commissioners in 1657.30A. and O. As long as Coles of Salisbury remained clerk, the balance of probability is that the man recorded as attending quarter sessions there each January between 1655 and 1659, and only twice elsewhere during that time, was his kinsman the lawyer, but ‘Coles of Sarum’ was the man present in January 1660.31Wilts. RO, A1/160/2, pp. 41, 47, 73, 107, 135, 165.

There are other indications that Coles of Downton lived increasingly in Wiltshire. As party to a settlement of June 1656, he was given his country rather than his inn ascription, unlike one of the other trustees.32West Glamorgan Archives, NAS D 1/1/1. His son Francis was born at Downton that year, while his second wife Frances was buried there in February 1657, and two daughters with his third wife Joyce were born there in September 1658 and July 1660.33Downton par. reg. It may thus have been as a candidate acceptable to most parties, balancing a sound record in protectorate local administration with local respectability and wider links through his legal practice that Coles was elected with his erstwhile brother-in-law Thomas Fitzjames to serve as a burgess for Downton in the 1659 Parliament, although the partnership hints strongly that he shared the Fitzjames’ Presbyterianism.

Coles made little visible impact at Westminster, making only one appearance in the Journal. With fellow Wiltshire Members Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Edmund Ludlowe II* and Sir Walter St John* (the last a novice like him), he was nominated to the committee preparing a bill to give freeholders in the county palatine of Durham a parallel franchise to that pertaining elsewhere.34CJ vii. 622b. However, his demeanour clearly did nothing to alienate those who sought to uphold the protectorate regime. In October Lieutenant-general John Rede placed him first on a list of suggested new recruits to the Wiltshire sequestrations committee and a commission was duly sent for Thomas Coles (probably a mistake).35CCC 755, 760. Either he or his namesake of Salisbury had been made militia commissioners in July; both were named in March 1660.36A. and O. Ludlowe, who employed Coles of Salisbury as steward of his courts, regarded Coles of Downton at this juncture as ‘an honest gentleman’, a judgement which casts doubt on his being an overt Presbyterian.37Ludlow, Voyce, 104, 119.

Coles and Fitzjames stood for Downton again in April and were elected, according to an indenture sent to Westminster by the bailiff. But as with Ludlowe at Hindon, there was a double return, and although on 3 May the Commons accepted the privileges committee’s recommendation that the pair should sit, this was overturned six days later.38CJ viii.10a; HP Commons 1660-1690; Ludlow, Voyce, 119. Coles lived on for nearly forty years in political obscurity but apparent prosperity. In 1667 he paid £200 to Henry, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, for a lease for the lives of his sons and daughters.39Wilts. RO, 2667/1/11/8, 2667/1/11/10. He was buried in August 1697 at Downton, where his descendants continued to live, but none followed him into Parliament.40Downton par. reg.