DILLINGTON, Robert (c.1634-87), of Mottistone and Knighton, I.o.W.

From a significant landed base in the east of the Isle of Wight, Dillington’s grandfather Sir Robert Dillington* and his father Robert Dillington both played prominent parts in Island administration. In the 1640s and 1650s, however, the former, in particular, was a controversial figure whose loyalty to Parliament was regularly suspect.19Misc. Gen. et Her. 2nd ser. i. 381-2; A. and O.; C193/13/3, f. 56v. The youngest Robert Dillington, this Member, matriculated in December 1653 from the covertly royalist Queen’s College, Oxford, where he developed lasting ties.20Al. Ox.; CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 246, 263; 1655-6, p. 46. By the time he was admitted to Gray’s Inn in November 1654, his father – who was in his early 40s – had died and his grandfather, to whom he was now heir, was sitting for the first time in Parliament.21GI Admiss. 268; PROB11/234/25.

Dillington’s relationship with his elderly grandfather may have been somewhat strained, owing perhaps to the latter’s personality and the existence of his infant son from his second marriage, Edward Dillington.† The playful tone of Robert’s letters to his ‘captain’ and Queen’s College friend Joseph Williamson†, the future secretary of state, makes comment on the subject difficult to interpret, however: a voyage to Jamaica to which he alluded in a missive of October 1655 was clearly figurative, since the correspondence was addressed from Mottistone, but the spectacles without which Sir Robert was unable to read his grandson’s correspondence were probably real enough.22CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 137, 162, 233, 292, 310, 383. By September 1658, despite a certain thriftiness as he saw it, Robert had exceeded his allowance and was in need of £100 to pay his debts and, as he explained to his kinsman William Oglander, to whom he applied for funds, ‘my grandfather’s frowns having ever been more frequent to me than his smiles’, he was disinclined to hope for support there: ‘as it is my duty and have ever been my chiefest endeavour to please him lest I would very unwillingly administer fuel to foment his displeasure.’ He preferred not to travel to London – ‘the rendezvous for expenses’ – to avoid his creditors.23I.o.W. RO, OG/CC/127.

Whatever the family dynamic, it must have been with the blessing of his grandfather that in 1659 Dillington was returned to the Parliament of Richard Cromwell, as one of the burgesses for Newport. He made little visible impression on the assembly. His only recorded appearance in the House, on 5 April 1659, was as a majority teller against reading a proviso by which the Commons sought the right to set limitations to the power of the protector and Other House.24CJ vii. 626a. However, not only does this suggest that Dillington probably shared the conservative political outlook of his grandfather and his university friends, but it also reveals an ability to marshal supporters which can only have rested on successful networking behind the scenes at Westminster.

Named a militia commissioner in July 1659, Dillington received other local administrative appointments after the Restoration, and was a collector of, and subscriber to, Hampshire’s gift to Charles II in October 1661.25A. and O.; I.o.Ww RO, NBC 45/16b, p. 19; E179/176/559; SR. He was returned to Parliament again in a by-election in 1670, by which time he had succeeded his grandfather as second baronet, and he remained the Member for Newport for the rest of his life, a ‘friend’ of Lord Wharton, and considered ‘doubly worthy’ by Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper*) because of his support for the Exclusion of James, duke of York, from the succession.26CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 419; 1665-6, pp. 350, 533, 548, 589; 1666-7, p. 424; HP Commons 1660-1690.

Dillington died on 25 April 1687, aged 53, and was buried near to his first wife, Jane, at Newchurch. His estate, which included property in London, was sufficient to enable him to make bequests to three of his children amounting to £5,000, and an inventory valued his personal estate at £933.27PROB11/387/341; PROB4/8326. Both his much younger uncle Edward Dillington, and his sons, Sir Robert Dillington, 3rd bt.†, and Sir Tristram Dillington, 4th bt.†, sat for Newport, the last continuing the family representation in Parliament into the 1720s.28HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1690-1715; HP Commons 1715-1754.