DOYLY, Sir William (c.1614-77), of Shotesham, Norf.

The Doyly or D’Oyly family claimed descent from Robert D’Oyly (d.1091), who had accompanied William I to England in 1066.36M. Riviere, ‘Note on the D’Oylys of Shotesham’, Norf. Arch. xxxii. 47. This branch had settled at Hadleigh in Suffolk by the middle of the fifteenth century.37Blomefield, Norf. iii. 347. The MP’s father, William senior, was a younger son who owned relatively small estates there and in the neighbouring parish of Whatfield.38PROB11/175/150.

A tradition, first recorded by Francis Blomefield in the mid-eighteenth century, was that the future MP served in the Thirty Years’ War, fighting in the Swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus in the 1630s.39Blomefield, Norf. iii. 348. Inasmuch as Doyly could expect only a modest inheritance from his father, it is plausible that he joined the marquess of Hamilton’s disastrous expedition to northern Germany in 1631, or that he was among the many British soldiers recruited directly to the Swedish army in the years that followed. If Doyly were abroad in 1637, it would explain why his father appointed his nephew, Edmund Doyly, and another kinsman, John James, as his executors.40PROB11/175/150.

In late 1638 the deaths in quick succession in late 1638 of Edmund Doyly and then Edmund’s infant daughter, Susan, transformed William’s prospects: he inherited the family’s main lands at Hadleigh and at Shotesham in Norfolk.41Copinger, Manors of Suff. iii. 160-1. The knighthood he received from the king on 9 July 1641 might have been in recognition of his military service on the continent, but it is equally likely to have reflected the fact that he was now a leading Norfolk landowner.42Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 209; Blomefield, Norf. iii. 348. His inclusion in the commission of the peace for Norfolk certainly did.43G.L. Owens, ‘Two unpublished lttrs. of Thomas Knyvett’, Norf. Arch. xxxv. 430. In that capacity, he helped spread the news in early 1641 that Parliament was keen to receive information against the bishop of Norwich, Matthew Wren.44Knyvett Lttrs. 99. He also became an officer in the local militia, an obvious use for military experience.

In July 1642, as both sides prepared for the outbreak of a civil war, the king appointed Doyly as one of his commissioners of array for Norfolk.45Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. However, on 15 September 1642 he joined with the other officers in the Norfolk militia in declaring their loyalty to the parliamentarian lord lieutenant, the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†).46Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 165. But at a meeting at Norwich called by the deputy lieutenants in early December to consider how to secure the county for Parliament, Doyly was one of several royalists who openly dissented from this purpose.47R.W. Ketton-Cremer, Norf. in the Civil War (1969), 166. On 10 December he was sent for by the Commons as a delinquent ‘for affronting the committees, when they were met upon the service of the Parliament’.48CJ ii. 884a. He took refuge at Rotterdam with a group of East Anglian royalists but on 14 June 1643, accused of ‘ill offices against the Parliament’, he was ordered home by the Commons within a month on pain of sequestration.49CJ iii. 129b.

He had certainly returned by 6 November 1643, when he appeared before the Norfolk county committee and gave his reasons for not returning sooner.50HMC Portland, i. 149. A month later he petitioned Parliament for the lifting of the sequestration order.51CJ iii. 332b. This was probably successful and he was never subsequently required to compound. The clearest evidence that Parliament did not view him as a committed royalist was his appointment as a Norfolk assessment commissioner from early 1645 onwards.52A. and O. He later continued to act as a justice of the peace under the Rump.53Norf. QSOB, 19-57. Following the death in 1652 of Robert Bacon, Doyly and Sir John Hobart*, 3rd bt. served as feoffees of the estates of the Bacons of Redgrave.54University of Chicago, Bacon coll. 2817-20, 2822-3, 4023-4, 4026-32, 4035-7.

Doyly was first returned to Parliament on 24 July 1654 when, with 2,501 votes, he easily topped the poll for the Norfolk county MPs.55R. Temple, ‘A 1654 protectorate parliamentary election return’, Cromwelliana, ser. 2, iii. 58. His victory sent a clear message that many of the Norfolk voters distrusted the new protectorate. On taking his seat at Westminster, he was almost immediately named to the committee of privileges (5 Sept.).56CJ vii. 366b. However, he was probably then among the Norfolk MPs who hesitated to take the new oath against alterations to the government.57Burton’s Diary, i. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. But, if so, he quickly relented. He was soon named to the committees on the judges for the relief of creditors and poor prisoners (15 Sept.) and to present their fast day declaration to the lord protector (18 Sept.).58CJ vii. 368a, 368b. Over the following fortnight he was also included on the committees on the bill to eject scandalous ministers (25 Sept.), to consider the size of the armed forces (26 Sept.) and on Scottish and Irish affairs (29 Sept.).59CJ vii. 370a, 370b, 371b. In early November he named to those committees on the petitions from Sir William Killigrew† concerning the draining of the Lincolnshire fens and from William Craven, 1st Baron Craven.60CJ vii. 380a, 381a. The civil lawyers meanwhile thought that he might support their petition, read on 4 November.61Bodl. Tanner 51, f. 10. He was named to the committee on public debts on 18 January 1655; the same day he acted as teller with his colleague and kinsman, Sir Ralph Hare*, for the majority in favour of putting the question to take into consideration the manner of presenting bills to the protector.62CJ vii. 419b, 420a.

He had no difficulty in re-gaining his seat in the 1656 election, coming second behind Hobart with 2,525 votes.63Norf. Arch. i. (1847), 67. One local informer told the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, that Doyly had spoken contemptuously of Presbyterians and Independents, that he had been slow in paying his taxes and that he had employed someone who ridiculed godly preachers in public.64TSP v. 371. Doyly journeyed to Westminster for the opening of Parliament but, unsurprising, found himself denied a ticket of admittance.65CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/104; HMC Var. ii. 271; CJ vii. 425a. On 18 September he expressed his anxieties to his kinsman and fellow-Member, John Buxton* (who had not made the journey):

what the event of this will be I know not, this I am most confident of, that the miseries which this nation have suffered are nothing to what we must expect, which God avert. I will stay some short time yet, and if admission be given, I will do my duty, and if not I will return to my own house and pray for a blessing on the endeavours of others.66CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/104; HMC Var. ii. 271.

Having failed to gain admission, he was included in a purported remonstrance of the secluded Members.67To all the Worthy Gentlemen [1656] (E.889.8).

In December 1657 he sought Buxton's advice about taking their seats in the second session.

I only pray that by your conduct I may be so directed that I may weather the many rocks and sands which environ me, and by your example preserve by reputation within the country who (now in the absence of Colonel [Robert] Wilton*) do call with some earnestness not to suffer them to perish through our neglect ... my judgement is that it will be fit to repair to London and there advise with the rest of our (formerly) secluded brethren and by their examples (grounded upon good reason) to guide ourselves...68CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/108; HMC Var. ii. 272.

He appears not to have taken his seat, however.

Doyly retained that seat in the 1659 Parliament when the county representation reverted to two Members. When on 8 February the Commons considered whether to recognise Richard Cromwell* as lord protector, Doyly proposed that they should do so ‘according to known laws of the nation and privileges of Parliament’.69Burton’s Diary, iii. 135. He came ‘with some prejudice’ to the debate on 23 February on the war in the Sound, basing those doubts ‘upon the principle of good husbandry’, but converted by what he heard, he advocated the dispatch of twenty frigates and the preparation of ‘further assistances’.70Burton’s Diary, iii. 441. On 7 March he was a teller with John Lambert* for those who failed by one vote to block the adjournment of the debate on transacting with the Other House.71CJ vii. 611b. Doyly was probably opposed to recognising the Other House, as when he was a teller, on 8 April, it was against the motion that any messages from the Commons to that House should be carried by MPs.72CJ vii. 632b.

During the general election Doyly had been recruited by Henry Howard, who was managing the family estates while his elder brother, the 16th and 4th earl of Arundel, was living in Italy, to try to dictate the result at Castle Rising. The two candidates they initially supported withdrew, but Howard claimed that Doyly had then supported his attempt to elect John Fielder*.73TSP vii. 643-4. On 8 April the Commons appointed a committee – including Doyly – to consider whether the earl, who was mentally incapacitated, should be allowed to inherit the Howard estates, many of which were located to Norfolk. It was also asked to investigate Howard’s role in, the Castle Rising election, which had been overturned two days earlier.74CJ vii. 632a. Doyly had already written to Buxton that he hoped to see Guybon Goddard* re-elected, while in the same letter he took a dim view of the debates on whether to hold a fast day on 18 May, thinking that those arguments smelled ‘rankly of Geneva’.75CUL, Buxton pprs. 34/12.

In the debate on 9 April on fraudulent debentures, Doyly pointed out that a previous investigation had uncovered abuses amounting to £1,200,000 and so called on the lord protector to renew those investigations. He was second named to the committee set up to pursue this.76Burton’s Diary, iv. 385; CJ vii. 633b. He spoke twice in the debates on the excise and was appointed to the committee to bring in a declaration on that subject (13 Apr.).77Burton’s Diary, iv. 400, 420; CJ vii. 639a. On 14 April he was one of five MPs sent to ask the lord protector to pay compensation to the countess of Worcester for the use of Worcester House.78CJ vii. 639a. Following the presentation of the paper from the Quakers on 16 April, he declared that proceedings should not be taken against them as vagrants, instead moving that the paper be referred to a committee. His colleagues ignored him and formally condemned it.79Burton’s Diary, iv. 441; CJ vii. 640a-b.

During this Parliament, Doyly seems to have promoted a bill to confirm the appointments of those Norfolk and Suffolk clergymen who had been instituted to their livings during the period when Clement Corbet had been vicar-general to Bishop Matthew Wren. Doyly claimed that he had reported to the Commons on the subject on 4 April and assured Buxton that he intended to ‘prosecute it to the utmost’.80CUL, Buxton pprs. 34/12. However, the dissolution ensured that the bill was never passed.

The attempts by the army to overthrow the protectorate struck Doyly as deeply dangerous. On 7 April, writing to Buxton, he declared

I never had cause to alter my judgment that of all governments that of a single person to be most fit for this people and such laws as are adapted to so long and prosperous a settlement as that was, till our sins brought on those judgments which we have most justly suffered...81CUL, Buxton pprs. 34/12.

Perhaps coincidentally, Doyly was given permission on 18 April to leave the chamber during the debate to forbid meetings of the general council of officers without the authority of the protector and Parliament.82CJ vii. 641b. Moreover, three days later he was given leave to go to the country.83CJ vii. 643b. By then this hardly mattered, as this Parliament sat for the last time the following day. Later that year, on 5 August 1659, the Rump agreed to include him on the new Norfolk militia commission.84CJ vii. 748a.

As early as 1654 it had been reported in royalist circles that Doyly had been in touch with the royalist agent, Joseph Bampfield, for some time.85CCSP, ii. 412. By early 1660 Doyly was taking care to renew his links with the royalist underground for, on 23 January, he wrote to Sir Horatio Townshend* undertaking to do anything in his power for the ‘country’s peace, ease of grievances and settlement of the nation’.86HMC Townshend, 23. Soon afterwards he signed the county’s address for a free Parliament.87Address from Gentry of Norf. ed. Rye, 29. Doyly was unsuccessful in his attempts to secure one of the county seats in the Convention, but was more successful at Great Yarmouth.88CCSP iv. 640; CJ viii. 35b. He was evidently present in London on 29 May 1660 for the king’s arrival, as he later declared that this was the only thing he had seen that was more impressive than the entry of Viscount Yarmouth (Robert Paston†) into Norwich in 1676.89Whirlpool of Misadventurers, ed. J. Agnew (Norf. Rec. Soc. lxxvi), 202.

He was re-elected to the Cavalier Parliament for Great Yarmouth in March 1661. Two years later he was created a baronet.90CB iii. 281-2. By the 1670s he was usually considered a court supporter, although one of Viscount Yarmouth’s correspondents, William Thursby, in 1676 described him as someone ‘by whose good will the church’s friends shall neither have favour or command’ and as ‘a man who favours not the church’.91Agnew, Whirlpool of Misadventurers, 249. Following his death in November 1677, Doyly was buried at Hadleigh. He reportedly left the family heavily in debt.92Bayley, House of D’Oyly, 119, 120. His eldest son, Sir William, one of the tellers of the exchequer, succeeded as the second baronet. The next member of the family to sit in Parliament was Doyly’s great-great-grandson, Sir John Hadley D’Oyly†, 6th bt., MP for Ipswich in 1790.