CRISP, Sir Nicholas (c.1598-1666), of Lime Street, London and Hammersmith, Mdx.

The Crisps had moved from Leicestershire to Gloucestershire in the late sixteenth century, but sent several younger sons into trade in the City of London.52Vis. London, i. 201-2. Both this MP’s uncle Nicholas Crisp (d. 1637), a Skinner, and his father Ellis Crisp became wealthy merchants.53PROB11/175/476. Ellis married a daughter of fellow Salter John Ireland, who became master of the Company in 1607, and from whom he purchased a house called ‘the Two Black Boys’ in the parish of St Mildred, Bread Street, where the Company had its hall.54PROB11/123/716; Vis. London, i. 201. Almost certainly brought up in the parish, Nicholas Crisp was himself made free of the Company in 1619 – presumably then aged about 21 – and the same year married the daughter of yet another Salter.55St Bartholomew by the Exchange par. reg.; Watson, Salters’ Co., 145.

Ellis Crisp was sheriff of London when he died in 1625.56Vis. London, i. 201; Feret, Fulham, iii. 68; Crisp, Fam. of Crisp, i. 13-15. While in 1614 Ireland had left provision for sermons at St Mildred’s, in his will Ellis (like his brother Nicholas later) left money to his ‘cousin’ Thomas Gataker, one of the most famous godly ministers of the early seventeenth century.57PROB11/123/716; PROB11/147/257. Religious commitment persisted into the next generation. Ellis’s son Tobias (d. 1644), became a prominent and controversial antinomian preacher.58‘Tobias Crispe’, Oxford DNB; CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 583. With Tobias and their mother Hester, who married as her second husband Sir Walter Pye†, Nicholas Crisp belonged to the pious circle who heard the sermons of Gataker’s son-in-law, Francis Taylor, rector of Clapham, at St Magnus the Martyr, near London Bridge.59F. Taylor, Selfe-satisfaction occasionally taught the citizens (1633), dedication. In March 1630 he and his wife obtained a licence to eat flesh in Lent, perhaps in their case the product of scruples about liturgical seasons.60Coventry Docquets, 167. Crisp contributed £700 towards materials for the building of a chapel at Hammersmith, completed in 1631, and eight years later endowed at least four of the peal of eight bells.61Survey of London (1915), vi. 16–32; Lysons, Environs, ii. 407; Newcourt, Repertorium, 610-11. Later and his wife maintained contacts with the Independent divines John Owen*, Thomas Goodwin (a kinsman) and Philip Nye.62Add. Ch. 4891; Crisp, Fam. of Crisp, i. 36-7.

Nicholas Crisp also inherited his father’s interest in trade, particularly with the East India Company, where his substantial holdings of stock in the 1620s (worth in excess of £11,000), placed him in the front rank of London merchants.63CSP Col. E. I. 1617-21, pp. 505-6; 1622-4, p. 226, 488; 1625-9, pp. 136, 601. He pioneered the settlement of West Africa, becoming the single most important investor in the Guinea Company.64CSP Col. E. I. 1625-9, pp. 198, 201, 203, 245, 255, 337, 355, 406, 613; CSP Col. 1574-1660, pp. 75, 135; Lysons, Environs of London, ii. 409; CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 186; 1638-9, p. 69; Blake, ‘The farm of the Guinea Trade’, 86-106. With the wealth which these ventures generated Crisp acquired sizeable estate in Fulham and Hammersmith, and built a substantial riverside mansion at a reputed cost of £23,000.65Feret, Fulham, iii. 60-1; Lysons, Environs (1792-5), ii. 402. A captain in the Artillery Company from his youth, he took his duties in the militia sufficiently seriously to record the rank in his return to the heralds in their 1634 visitation, and collected other appointments to local commissions, although he did not join the commission of the peace until 1640.66Ancient Vellum Book, 32; Vis. London (Harl. Soc. xv), i. 201; CLRO, Rep. 47, f. 131v; Rep. 49, f. 206v; C231/5, p. 370.

As a prominent member of the East India Company committee, Crisp was often employed in negotiations with the privy council and members of the court.67CSP Col. E. I. 1622-4, pp. 300, 492; 1625-9, pp. 454, 499, 502; Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1635-39, 73, 90, 114, 117, 166, 178, 185, 204, 211, 238, 269, 306. His contacts in such circles bore fruit to the extent that, by the mid-1630s, he and the crown had developed a mutually beneficial arrangement. While Crisp obtained (at a cost) monopolies and protection against piracy or other threats to his trading activities, the king obtained a rich and loyal supporter, prepared to make loans to the crown.68E214/548, 1183; W. Yorks. Archives (Leeds), WYL100/PO/8/III/53; CSP Col. 1574-1660, pp. 114, 259-60; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 542; 1629-31, pp. 45, 136, 145, 156; 1631-3, pp. 161, 237; 1633-4, p. 459; 1635, pp. 35, 329, 513-4; 1637, pp. 533-4; 1637-8, pp. 254, 478, 516-7; 1638-9, pp. 48, 102; 1625-49, p. 735; CCSP, i. 89; Add. 36448, f. 20; SO3/8, unfol.; C66/2356/27; PSO5/5, unfol.

A prime example of how this worked to the advantage of both sides was provided by the customs farm. In 1637-8 Crisp and George Goring†, 1st Baron Goring, joined the syndicate which leased the farm of the great customs, exploiting Goring’s influence with the new lord treasurer, William Juxon (also bishop of London) and Crisp’s contacts in the treasury, notably Sir Robert Pye I* (brother of Crisp’s step-father), who was auditor of the receipt.69CTB i. 132-3; AO3/297. Crisp was subsequently appointed collector of impositions in the western ports (Nov. 1638) and of the impositions of tonnage and poundage in London (Oct. 1639).70CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 132; SO3/12, f. 58; C66/2878/3. Contemporaries observed that he and his colleagues would advance ‘great sums’ to the king.71HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 121, 138. Crisp was rewarded with a knighthood in January 1640.72Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 207.

In the spring elections of 1640 Crisp secured a place at Winchelsea through the patronage of Theophilus Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk (lord warden of the Cinque Ports) and also his own property and business interests in the area.73E. Suss. RO, WIN/56/398; 58, ff. 49v-50; Sloane 206A, ff. 89-90. As soon as Parliament assembled, however, it became clear that Crisp was unpopular among many of those MPs who were intent upon securing redress of grievances. On 17 April Samuel Vassall* and others called, unsuccessfully, for all monopolists to be removed from the House.74Procs. 1640, 235. Crisp delivered one recorded speech, in a debate on the woollen industry (30 Apr.), and was named to committees for trade and for needlemakers (1 May).75Aston’s Diary, 99; CJ ii. 17a, 17b.

Following the dissolution of Parliament, as part of his activities as a customs farmer and crown financier, at the end of August 1640 he was involved with Francis Cottington†, 1st Baron Cottington, in an attempt to raise a loan of £20,000.76CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 149, 648-9; SO3/12, f. 101. This included buying £120,000 worth of peppercorns and other spices from the East India Company to be sold on at a profit for the benefit of the crown.77Procs. LP i. 224n. He also undertook trade on behalf of the king to assist the conduct of the second bishops’ war.78CSP Dom. 1640, p. 654; Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1640-43, 82.

In the autumn elections Crisp retained his seat at Winchelsea through the influence of the new lord warden (James Stuart, 1st duke of Richmond and Lennox).79E. Suss. RO, WIN/58, f. 53v. Still persona non grata with the opponents of crown policies, on 16 November he was ‘accused for a projector’, and referred with others to a committee investigating monopolies.80Procs. LP i. 159. On 21 November he was summoned to attend the committee for grievances, bringing with him his patent to trade to Guinea and Benin, and others for ‘the sole importing of the redwood’, ‘concerning copperas stones’ and ‘the sole making and venting of beads and bangles’.81Procs. LP i. 224-5. Harbottle Grimston* alleged that he had quadrupled the price of copperas (hydrated ferrous sulphate crystals used in processes like dyeing) and raised that of redwood nine-fold.82Procs. LP i. 230, 241. As the committee deliberated, the House received petitions from the Grocers’ Company that their trade had been damaged by monopolies including Crisp’s on copperas and redwood (23 Nov.), and by wire-sellers who claimed they had suffered from a patent taken out by Crisp with James Lydsey to supply the newly-incorporated pinmakers (25 Nov.).83Procs. LP i. 254, 257, 283-4; E214/548. Yet competing vested interests ensured that Crisp, who had entered a year as master of the Salters’ Company, had his champions.84Watson, Salters’ Co., 145, 243. In December a bill allowing him to exchange lands in Fulham with the bishop of London successfully navigated the Lords.85LJ iv. 103a, 108a, 108b, 111a, 112a, 120a.

On 29 December the Commons – apparently aiming to curb the financial freedom of the crown as well as to register opposition to the manner in which revenue had been raised – issued an order that customs officers were not to make payments out of their receipts without the authority of Parliament, unless for the immediate use of the royal household.86Procs. LP ii. 51, 54; CJ ii. 59a. The next day the customers, with Crisp apparently at their head, presented themselves to argue that they were already committed to make certain payments, upon the successful completion of which their credit depended, occasioning (according to Simonds D’Ewes*) vigorous debate over whether the order should be withdrawn or expenditure confined to the navy. Eventually the complexity of the issue, and in particular the ‘confession’ of the customers that some of their income derived from the extra-parliamentary collection of tonnage and poundage (which exposed grievances too controversial to be open to swift resolution at this juncture), led MPs to revoke the order.87Procs. LP ii. 62, 65-7; CJ ii. 60a. But the matter was far from settled. On 12 January 1641 Crisp was summoned by name with other customers and collectors to present their accounts before a committee, although it may have helped that Sir Robert Pye was belatedly included among its members.88CJ ii. 67a.

In the meantime, Crisp had doubtless rendered himself more odious in some quarters by being sworn as a witness for the defence at the trial of the king’s chief minister Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford (8 Jan.).89LJ iv. 126b. When on 2 February 1641 George Peard reported from the monopolies committee, it appeared that the redwood Crisp had imported was actually a quarter of the price of the previous commodity from Brazil, and that the copperas patent had been bestowed at least partly on others.90Procs. LP ii. 342, 346. Nonetheless, the Commons affirmed that Crisp was ‘a monopolist in point of execution’ of the latter patent and expelled him from the House.91CJ ii. 77a; D’Ewes (N), 312; C231/5, p. 427. When Speaker William Lenthall delivered the sentence against the customers on 29 May, he assured them that the House was ‘inclined to mercy’, but they were still forced to pay a fine of £15,000 in compensation for actions deemed illegal.92Procs LP iv. 643, 648; The Diurnall Occurrences (1641), 113 (E.523.1); Nalson, Impartial Collection, ii. 258. Their subsequent plea for more time to pay was rejected, despite a royal request to this effect to the commissioners for the treasury (30 July).93Harl. 477, f. 128; Nalson, Impartial Collection, ii. 265; Rushworth, Hist. Collections, iv. 280; Diurnall Occurrences, 116; Eg. 2549, f. 103.

Although removed from the Commons and financially penalized, Crisp’s wealth, civic prominence, position in the East India Company, and his standing and connections as a pious Protestant, ensured that he could not be disregarded. Continuing to interact with leading figures in Parliament, he negotiated with Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, and William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, over trade in the Indies (Nov. 1641), and gave evidence at a Commons trade committee (Mar. 1642).94Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1640-43, 195, 206, 212, 214, 233, 242. While in mid-May the treasury commissioners decided against reimbursing the customs farmers for money advanced to the king, they recommended repayment through the sale of royal parks and forests. That this plan, apparently ratified by the king, did not come to fruition undermined the farmers’ ability to pay their fine and doubtless influenced Crisp’s subsequent trajectory.95Eg. 2549, f. 103; The Humble Petition of Sir Paul Pyndar (1649, 669.f.14.17); A Remonstrance of the Case of the Late Farmers (1653, 669.f.17.55).

In the meantime, on 7 May Parliament resolved that a further ‘adventure’ be launched to fight the Irish rebels and that any fines imposed by Parliament be devoted to this end.96CJ ii. 562b, 563b. On the 30th Parliament named forces for this purpose, to be commanded by Lord Brooke (a well-known critic of the king) but also including among its officers ‘Captain Nicholas Crisp’ (invoking his militia rank).97CJ ii. 594b. Immediately (it appears) Crisp – evidently distrusted by some but seen by others as the most appropriate and persuasive envoy available – was dispatched to the royal court at York to obtain Charles’s consent, ‘prepared to give the king satisfaction to his two demands’, that is, that he could vet the list of nominee officers and receive assurance that they would be employed only in Ireland.98LJ v. 115b. Inasmuch as Charles proved difficult to convince, the assignment proved challenging; Crisp’s conduct in it is open to different interpretations. On 4 June Crisp’s servant Robert Bradshaw informed the Commons that secretary of state Sir Edward Nicholas had conveyed the king’s reiteration of his previous conditions.99CJ ii. 607a; PJ iii. 21. Three days later the Lords ordered that Nicholas was to take care that Crisp ‘be not delayed in receiving the king’s answer’, but it was not until the 16th that he appeared in the House to report.100LJ v. 115b. According to Crisp, initially Charles had declined to ratify the commission and had written (in a paper shown to him by Nicholas) that ‘those forces would do more harm than good in Ireland’. However, once Charles Louis, elector palatine of the Rhine, was proposed as an alternative commander-in-chief – an initiative hatched, in Crisp’s narrative, during an exchange between the prince and himself in the garden of the house where the king was lodging – the king agreed to the expedition, or at least indicated an intention to do so. 101PJ iii. 89, 91; CJ ii. 628b. When the next day the Lords issued an ordinance for the sea adventure to Ireland, Crisp was named first among the merchants who, out of piety, charity and loyalty to the crown, had initiated and promoted the scheme; he was named second after Brooke among the commissioners who were to implement it and raise its forces; but there was no mention of the elector palatine.102LJ v. 144a-145a; A. and O.

Where Crisp stood at this juncture is perplexing. At the opening of proceedings on 16 June the Commons had received two intercepted letters from Amsterdam revealing that the king was covertly obtaining arms there, and had referred them for investigation. At what point it became known, and to whom, that one dated 9 June was addressed to Crisp and revealed him as party to the transactions, escapes the record.103PJ iii. 85; CJ ii. 626b; Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 49. However, what seems clear is that Crisp, feeling financially and politically insecure, was taking steps to protect his assets from both Parliament and his creditors, and was taking advantage of old alliances. On 30 July he wrote to the justice of assize for Devon on behalf of the former customs farmers in an attempt to head off a lawsuit from a disgruntled business connection.104CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 364. Before war broke out he alienated his estate to trustees including his brother-in-law, Thomas Goodwin, occasional preacher to Parliament and minister of a gathered congregation.105Add. Ch. 4891; SP23/206, p. 889b; ‘Thomas Goodwin’, Oxford DNB.

According to Edward Hyde*, Crisp had been removed as a militia officer by Parliament’s Militia Ordinance in March; he was not, as might perhaps have been expected months earlier, named among its commissioners.106Clarendon, Hist. iii. 42; A. and O. This would have been a significant slight, as Sir Nicholas’s military rank was a well-known part of his identity: a piece of anti-court propaganda published or republished in 1642 targeted among much else the customers, claiming the common people prayed that ‘the Crisp City captain might break as fast as doth his glass beads’.107D. L. The Scots Scouts Discoveries (1642), 21 (E.153.22). In the summer the king named him as a commissioner of array to raise troops in Middlesex, but initially he does not seem to have taken any visible action against Parliament. This might argue for his pre-occupation with the Irish expedition at that juncture; he duly supplied a ship, as an account by Hugh Peter attests, although he was not among the field officers.108Northants. RO, FH133; A Relation of the Sundry Occurrences in Ireland (1642, E.239.4); A List of the Field Officers (1642, 669.f.6.3); H. Peter, A True Relation of Gods Providence (1642), 4, 17 (E.242.15).

The first intimation that he might be engaged in covert royalist activity came on 9 December 1642, when the House was told of an intercepted letter to him from the king’s headquarters at Oxford, dated 26 November, which talked enigmatically of the plans of Edward Sackville†, 4th earl of Dorset, to come to Kent.109Add. 18777, f. 88a. Once again according to Hyde, Parliament regarded him as being ‘too great a stickler in a petition for peace from the City’, presented to the Houses on 22 December.110Clarendon, Hist. iii. 42; LJ v. 511b-512a. On 18 January 1643 further intercepted papers surfaced in the Commons, calling into question the wartime role of royal financial officials, notably Sir Robert Pye and Sir Nicholas Crisp. On a motion by John Pym* the customers, including Crisp and Sir John Jacob*, were summoned forthwith to the Commons to present for inspection their account books for the period 25 May 1642 to 9 January 1643. In the meantime the Commons heard a report of Crisp’s apparently unconvincing attempt to explain away a memorandum that £3,700 was ‘allowed to Sir Nicholas Crisp for secret services’ on behalf of the king: first he denied receiving any money for such a purpose; then he claimed that this was for his contribution to the bishops’ wars; finally he cast it as unprofitable trading in East India Company commodities in 1640 ‘by the king’s command’. MPs were unconvinced, suspecting that the sum was in reality customs receipts diverted to the royalist war effort, and resolved that Crisp be committed to the custody of the serjeant-at-arms ‘for prevaricating with the House, and giving shuffling and doubtful answers to the House, upon the questions demanded of him’.111CJ ii. 933b; Add. 18777, ff. 128v-130; Add. 31116, pp. 40-1. The next day (19 Jan. 1643), his books having been inspected, the committee which had investigated him was instructed to prepare a charge against him for defrauding the king and the commonwealth.112CJ ii. 934a; Certain Informations no. 1 (16-23 Jan. 1643), 7 (E.85.45).

On 20 January, however, the House learned that Crisp ‘had slipped away out of the serjeant’s custody and was not to be found’.113CJ ii. 936a; Add. 31116, p. 41. Parliament’s attempts to seize his goods instead retrieved £300 (subsequently forwarded to Sir Henry Vane II*, treasurer of the navy, as customs receipts), but searches over subsequent days by Cornelius Holland* and others failed to find all the gold rumoured to be in the Tower, and established that much of Crisp’s plate and household stuff had vanished from his houses in the City and at Hammersmith.114CJ ii. 938a, 939b, 940a, 945b, 957b; Add. 31116, p. 41; The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer no. 4 (17-24 Jan. 1643), 27 (E.86.5). In mid-February yet another letter was intercepted, directed to him at Oxford, whence he had gone, according to the newspaper report, ‘between a pair of panniers in old ragged clothes’, to be greeted by the king ‘at his approach with the title of little old faithful farmer’, and an expectation among some royalists that he would be their fund-raiser.115Speciall Passages no. 28 (14-21 Feb. 1643), 232-3 (E.90.12). It was alleged in the House on 18 February that Crisp owed the treasury £16,000, whereupon the Commons ordered the treasurer of the Africa Company to ‘bring home’ – for confiscation – that stake he had overseas.116Add. 18777, f. 158a; CJ ii. 971b.

Crisp, and his service to the king, came to the attention of Parliament several times over succeeding months. On 24 February John Glynne* reported a letter to Crisp – subsequently published by order of the House – in which the writer was perceived to hint at ‘a design upon the City’, involving a ‘massacre’ to be unleashed on 5 March; since the signature was ‘Theophilus Philobritanicus’, attempts by the messenger to explain this away as an enquiry as to whether Crisp intended to proceed with a land deal were not believed.117CJ ii. 978b; Add. 18777, f. 164; A Letter of Dangerous Consequence (1643), 4-5 (E.91.3). As Clarendon observed, Crisp ‘industriously preserved a correspondence’ with friends in London, providing the king with ‘often very useful intelligence’.118Clarendon, Hist. iii. 42. On 28 February he narrowly escaped capture at Stratford-upon-Avon, where he was commanding a troop of horse resisting an ultimately successful onslaught by Lord Brooke, but on 3 March the Commons ordered the sequestration of his estate to cover his alleged debt on the customs receipts.119Certaine Informations no. 7 (20 Feb.-6 Mar. 1643), 52 (E.92.3); CJ ii. 988b; Add. 31116, p. 59. The navy was to be the primary beneficiary (20, 24 May), while his house at Hammersmith was commandeered for the use of sick soldiers.120CJ iii. 94a, 101a, 122b. By the beginning of June Parliament had identified Crisp as one of the chief conspirators in the plot attributed to Edmund Waller*, responsible for priming royalist sympathisers in the City trained bands to rise on the tellingly-selected signal, ‘The East India ship is in the Downs’.121The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer no. 23 (30 May-6 June 1643), 177 (E.105.24); Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 322; A Brief Narrative of the Late Treacherous and Horrid Design (1643), 2, 4. Unable to lay hands on the man himself, Parliament’s council of war had to be content with proceeding against his accountant (30 June).122CJ ii. 945b; Add. 31116, p. 118.

Commissioned in July to raise a regiment of horse for the king, Crisp and his threatening intentions were reported around Westminster to an extent disproportionate to his own military achievements.123SP29/159, f. 76; Symonds, Diary, 102; C231/3, p. 25; Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 54; Harl. 6852, f. 204; Add. 70499, f. 255; HMC Portland, ii. 134. In a summer of defeats at royalist hands and a temporary fear of being overwhelmed, MPs heard that Crisp had warned ‘all friends in London speedily to move out of London’ (9 Aug.). 124Add. 18778, f. 13. The relation to the House on 28 September of a welcome victory at Cirencester given by the lord general, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, revealed the capture of a flag from Crisp’s troops which displayed a particular animosity toward ‘the Parliament House’ and corroborated persistent rumours that Crisp’s forces were planning a foray into Kent.125LJ vi. 233a; CJ iii. 245b, 258a; HMC 7th Rep. 445, 564; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 213; Add. 18778, ff. 38v, 68v, 74; Add. 31116, p. 160. In expectation of his arrival, local inhabitants ‘will not pay their weekly assessments’ to Parliament ‘without distress’.126Add. 18778, f. 48.

While Parliament continued its efforts to confiscate Crisp’s trading assets (25 Nov.; 2, 3 Dec.), a grateful king ordered repayment of the money which he owed to Crisp, although it is unlikely that this was ever implemented.127Add. 31116, p. 190; Add. 18779, f. 19v; CJ iii. 326b; LJ vi. 320b, 321b-322a; SO3/12, ff. 235, 237, 240, 244; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 491. That autumn Crisp was court-martialled for killing a fellow royalist in a duel, but was pardoned in consideration of his service in Waller’s plot (28 Nov. 1643) and retained an important administrative and strategic role in the war effort.128Mems. of Prince Rupert, ii. 349; C231/3, p. 53; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 220; Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 105. In January 1644 captured correspondence once again alerted the House to his involvement – with his brother Samuel and his kinsman Sir George Strode – in a covert ‘design’, this time the plot hatched by Sergeant-major Sir Thomas Ogle to gain Independent support for a peace settlement for the king in return for religious toleration.129Add. 18779, ff. 53-v; Add. 31116, pp. 221-2; B.M. Gardiner, ‘A secret negotiation with Charles the first, 1643-4’, Cam. Misc. viii. 1, 14-16, 18. The goals, and the connections required to achieve it, all too plausibly attached to Crisp, but his clerical friends declined to participate.

Crisp spent much of the next two and half years in the west country. Named by the king in April 1644 to the commission of the peace for Cornwall, he also organized royalist supplies, provided warships (or as Parliament saw it, privateers), oversaw prisoner exchanges and supplied money for the queen’s use.130Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 194-5; C231/3, pp. 110, 113, 130; A Copie of the King’s Commission (1645, E.294.28); CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 429, 448, 617; CCSP i. 250, 258, 264, 271, 276, 288, 293-4; The Lord George Digby’s Cabinet (1646), 21, 25, 39, 48-9 (E.329.15); Bodl. Tanner 61, ff. 158, 188; Perfect Occurrences no. 12 (14-21 Mar. 1645), sig. M2 (E.260.1); HMC 6th Rep. 13. By the mid-1640s he was apparently aligned with the more extreme royalist faction which had coalesced around the queen, and which included men like Lord Jermyn (Henry Jermyn*).131CSP Dom. 1644, p. 6. Crisp remained in Devon after Henrietta Maria’s departure, and drew up proposals that help should be sought from Holland, on the basis of both the benefits of trade, and a marriage between the prince of Wales and the daughter of the prince of Orange.132CCSP i. 293. Crisp’s service did not go un-rewarded, and in May 1645 the Queen recommended that he be appointed collector of the customs in the west.133CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 469-70, 502; A Collection of all the Publicke Orders (1646), 842, 846; CCSP i. 275, 287; George Digby’s Cabinet, 32. By spring 1646, however, when the Commons heard of the taking of one of his ships near Pendennis Castle, the king’s cause was in a parlous state, and Crisp, like many other royalists, fled to the continent.134Add. 31116, p. 521. He arrived in France on 6 April 1646, and settled amongst other exiles in Rouen, from where he and Lord Digby planned an attempted relief of Pendennis.135Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 6; Middle Claydon House, Verney Papers, Reel 7 (27 Nov. 1646); Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer no. 157 (14-21 July 1646), 172 (E.345.10). He continued to help organize the royalist fleet.136Bodl. Tanner 59, ff. 634-5, 641, 672. As late as May 1648, reports circulated about a fleet sailing from Flanders under Crisp’s command, the threat of which clearly alarmed Parliament.137LJ x. 246b; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 61.

Regarded as a leading royalist, Crisp was consistently excluded from indemnity in Parliament’s peace proposals.138TSP i. 81. His careful preparations to protect his possessions ensured that, despite sequestration proceedings, Parliament was only able to liquidate his tradeable assets, although his Hammersmith home, first used by injured soldiers, eventually became a base for the parliamentarian commander Sir Thomas Fairfax*.139Add. 5497, f. 81; SP20/1, pp. 45, 48, 345, 367; CJ iv. 112b; v. 507a; CCAM, 146, 511-13; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 423, 430; Perfect Diurnall no. 90 (14-21 Apr. 1645), 715 (E.260.18); no. 93 (5-12 May 1645), 737; no. 210 (2-9 Aug. 1647), sig. 10 C4 (E.518.16). Negotiations for the relief of the customs farmers had continued throughout the war, but nothing appears to have been resolved.140Humble Petition of Sir Paul Pyndar. In January 1647 Crisp’s son, who had also fled, sought protection to return to England to compound for his delinquency.141CCC 1651. The death in April 1648 of Crisp’s brother in a freak accident in the family’s house in Bread Street appears to have precipitated his own petition to return, and by early September he had sought to compound on the Exeter articles.142Perfect Occurrences no. 65 (31 Mar.-7 Apr. 1648), 545 (E.522.13); CCC 1651. There were clearly those in Parliament who opposed such an idea, however, and the Lords excluded him from pardon in the proposals for the treaty with the king at Newport (17 Oct. 1648).143LJ x. 549b. Nevertheless, Crisp took the Covenant before his brother-in-law Thomas Goodwin and drew up a list of his financial losses, which he estimated to be as much as £300,000, a figure which was accepted by the commissioners for compounding.144SP23/206, pp. 900, 913, 915-6; Feret, Fulham, iii. 62-3; CCC 1651. His fine was set at one tenth (£1,000), although it was subsequently reduced to £346 in January 1649, on payment of which the sequestration of the family estate was taken off (June 1649).145CCC 1651; CCAM 146.

During the commonwealth Crisp engaged in royalist conspiracy. In April 1650 he met an agent from Charles Stuart to discuss a potential invasion. Crisp was confident that the City would rise for the king if Parliament’s forces were busy in Scotland, and reported a conversation he had had recently with John Bradshawe*, who had expressed surprise that the new government had achieved so little in gaining support from former royalists.146CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 152-3, 156. Crisp apparently supported the royalist faction led by James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose, and was reported to be both wary about some of the king’s other ministers (notably John Ashburnham*) and eager for the king to promise liberty of conscience for Catholics.147CSP Dom. 1650, p. 47.

In public, however, Crisp appeared willing to collude with the new government, and sought to obtain the king’s permission for royalists to take the oath of Engagement.148CSP Dom. 1650, p. 47. An accommodation with the republic was necessary to the revival of his business interests, the resolution of the debt owed by the customs farmers and the avoidance of bankruptcy proceedings which the East India Company continually threatened.149Sloane 206A, ff. 89-90; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 198, 201, 551; CSP Col. 1574-1660, pp. 331, 339-40. In the early 1650s a plan emerged to enable the old customs farmers to repay their debt out of the sale of the royal forests.150Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1650-54, 164-5, 187-8, 211-2, 232, 234-5, 238-9, 252, 265, 280. By the terms of the act for disafforestation, sale and improvement of the royal forests (Nov. 1653), the customers’ debt of £276,000 was to be allowed as a public faith debt, on condition of their advancing the like sum. Negotiations that year with both creditors and the government failed to secure for Crisp and his colleagues the funds to finance such a deal, and they faced financial difficulties for the rest of the decade.151Stowe 185, ff. 3, 11, 17, 19, 21, 24, 37, 46, 63, 65, 66; CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 265, 301, 319, 353, 357-8; 1654, p. 264; CJ vii. 321-3.. As a result, Crisp kept a low profile, but he still he developed plans for a dockyard at Deptford, and remained in contact with royalist prisoners, in particular Sir Thomas Peyton.152Diary of John Evelyn ed. De Beer, iii. 75, 161, 162; Add. 44846, f. 70.

Crisp signed the declaration of the London royalists in support of General George Monck* (24 Apr. 1660).153Kennet, Register, 121. As one of the king’s most loyal servants in the City, he was on the committee sent to greet Charles II at Breda and was among the delegation which met the king at Blackheath (29 May).154Kennet, Register, 133; The Diurnal of Thomas Rugg, 1659-1661 ed. Sachse (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. xci), 81, 89. Once the king was established on the throne, the customs farmers, including Crisp – whose debts led to his imprisonment in July – sought relief for their losses.155Eg. 2549, f. 103; Somers Tracts, vii. 513; CSPD 1660-1, 122. Although their claims were not resolved immediately, they were granted posts as customs commissioners (20 Sept.).156CCSP v. 54; Bodl. Clarendon 73, ff. 228-31; HMC 5th Rep. 168. In November Crisp was appointed to the council for trade.157Rugg Diurnal, 129.

In 1661 Crisp was again elected to Parliament for Winchelsea. Among his committee nominations were several relating to revenue and customs, while he was listed by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, perhaps somewhat optimistically, as someone likely to support a Presbyterian church settlement.158CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 538-9; HP Commons 1660-1690. Meanwhile he gained privileged trading rights in Africa, a number of positions as a customs farmer, a place as a gentleman of the privy chamber, and awards of money from the king.159PC2/55, ff. 231, 247v, 256v; Eg. 2551, f. 117; SO3/14, unfol.; SO3/15, p. 132; Carlisle, Privy Chamber, 174; CTB i. 132-3, 226, 235, 431, 446; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 605; 1661-2, pp. 14, 25, 320, 331, 608; SO3/15, p. 19. A substantial if grudging grant by the king to the customs farmers does not appear to have been paid very promptly.160CSP Dom. 1663-4, pp. 50, 639; CTB i. 553, 628, 659. Having achieved some degree of success in restoring the fortunes of his family, but failed to gain approval for his plans for Deptford dock, Crisp appears to have been content to drift into retirement.161Diary of John Evelyn ed. De Beer, iii. 313, 318; Pepys’s Diary, iii. 18, 29, 30, 32-3, 188; Magdalene Coll. Camb. PL2871, pp. 657-9; Lysons, Environs of London, iv. 392-3. In 1663 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1665 was awarded a baronetcy.162Hunter, Royal Society, 182; CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 188.

Crisp died in February 1666, shortly after surrendering his customs position to his sons, and was buried at St Mildred Bread Street.163CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 422; SO3/15, p. 374. According to the dictates of his will, his heart was embalmed and placed in a small urn on a marble pillar below the bronze bust of Charles I which Crisp had erected at Hammersmith.164Crisp, Fam. of Crisp, i. 32-4; Lysons, Environs of London, ii. 409. His fortunes had revived: having already settled his estate, Crisp left cash bequests worth £18,000 and annuities worth a further £2,000.165PROB11/319/561. Nevertheless, the family’s financial problems had not been resolved entirely, and his children were involved in long-running litigation.166C6/32/67; HMC 9th Rep. pt. ii. 43-4, 53-4. Crisp’s grandson Charles sat in Parliament for Woodstock in 1721-2.167HP Commons 1715-1754.