ELIOT, John (1612-85), of Port Eliot, St Germans, Cornw.

John Eliot was the son of the famous Cornish critic of Charles I, Sir John Eliot. When his father was imprisoned in the Tower of London in the spring of 1629, Eliot was still at school in Tiverton, and over the next few years he studied at Oxford and made a brief journey to France. He was also brought into the company of his father’s friends, especially John Hampden*, with whom Eliot spent many holidays, and Sir Oliver Luke*.18Hulme, Eliot, 266, 270, 345-52. As Sir John’s health declined, there was a rush of activity to help to prevent the full weight of the wardship and livery laws from descending on his heir. In the codicil to his will, drawn up on 27 November 1632, Sir John requested that the master of the court of wards would grant the wardship of his son to his kinsmen Hugh Boscawen* and John Trefusis*, and also to his neighbour at St Germans, Maurice Hill.19PROB11/162/692. At the same time, urgent arrangements were being made to secure a good marriage for John before his father’s death – a move that would have prevented the crown from selling the marriage to the highest bidder. The bride selected for Eliot was the daughter of another godly gentleman, Sir Daniel Norton†, and it was agreed that she should be provided with a marriage portion of £3,000 as long as Eliot himself enjoyed lands of £1,500 p.a. (£700 of which would be assigned to his wife as a jointure). The wedding took place in Hampshire on 28 November. Sir John had, however, died a few hours before the ceremony, and the court of wards immediately began proceedings against the Nortons and the Eliots for the ‘ravishment’ of the king’s ward. The result was a hefty fine of £4,000 – twice the marriage fee to be levied from the ward.20Hulme, Eliot, 391; The Gen. n.s. i. 21-7.

The ‘release’ of Norton and Eliot, in consideration of £4,000 paid in by them to the exchequer and court of wards, was finally passed on 21 June 1633.21Coventry Docquets, 280-1. The money was effectively guaranteed by the Eliot estate, as John Eliot had signed a recognizance with Sir Daniel Norton for £6,000 for the payment of the fine. The repercussions of this were still being felt in November 1638, when a chancery case resulted in Sir Daniel Norton’s widow agreeing to cancel the recognizance if Eliot assigned jointure lands worth the reduced amount of £500 p.a. to his wife.22Cornw. RO, EL/576/1/1. This was only one of a number of legal cases that Eliot faced at this time. In August 1638 he was engaged in a fierce dispute with Maurice Hill, who had taken possession of the goods and chattels at various Eliot houses in order to pay off Sir John’s debts, but was suspected of having embezzled part of the money.23H. Hulme, ‘A Probate Inventory’, Camden Misc. xvi, pp. vi-vii. In 1635 Eliot begged for livery for the lands left to him by his grandfather, Richard Gedie (who had died in 1627) but this was refused, and it was only in July 1641 that Eliot finally received the lands, and his financial position was eased.24Cornw. RO, EL/576/1/4/4; EL/576/1/3; EL/576/1/4/3.

Eliot was elected for the family seat of St Germans to the Short Parliament of April 1640, but he did not play any recorded part in its proceedings, despite the Commons’ interest in bringing his father’s enemies to account.25Hulme, Eliot, 392. Eliot was not returned for St Germans during the elections for the Long Parliament, and his influence over the borough may have been in decline. It is perhaps telling that when John Moyle II* wrote to Sir Richard Buller* about a by-election at St Germans in December 1640, he did not mention the Eliot interest as a significant factor in the contest.26Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/60.

Once again the Commons were eager to vindicate Sir John and his colleagues from the 1629 Parliament, and his treatment was central to the denunciation of Charles I in the Grand Remonstrance of December 1641.27Hulme, Eliot, 392-3. There is no doubt that John Eliot benefited from this. Although he was not an MP, the Commons made intermittent attempts to provide money for him during the first civil war. On 11 November 1643 Eliot’s petition was read in the House, and referred to the commissioners of the great seal ‘to consider of some ways and means for his present relief’.28CJ iii. 308a. A further order at the end of the same month urged the commissioners to meet to discuss Eliot’s case and asked that his father’s old associate Benjamin Valentine* should also attend their meeting.29CJ iii. 323b. Little had been achieved by January 1644, when six more MPs – including the Cornishman, John Nicoll – were added to the committee, presumably to revive it; and it was not until June of that year that an ordinance was passed authorising Eliot ‘in consideration of his losses sustained’ to discover and seize the property of delinquents to the maximum value of £1,000.30CJ iii. 361b, 515b; LJ vi. 581b, 588b. Whether this order was put into practice is difficult to judge, but in January 1647 Parliament considered a more far-reaching compensation package for Eliot. As part of a general investigation into the treatment of Sir John Eliot and his friends in 1629, the Commons resolved that ‘the sum of five thousand pounds be assigned for the damages, losses, imprisonments and sufferings sustained and undergone by Sir John Eliot’ and also that ‘the sum of two thousand pounds, part of the four thousand pounds paid into the late court of wards’ should be paid to John Eliot from the arrears due to that court.31CJ v. 54a-55b. The reimbursement of the £2,000 was duly authorised by warrant of the Committee for Revenue of 3 June 1647, and Eliot had received £1,000 of this by 16 February 1648.32E404/236, unfol.; SC6/Chas.I/1665, m. 17d.

While his case was pending in Parliament, Eliot was also given a variety of administrative jobs relating the west country. He was on the Cornwall county committee appointed on 1 July 1644 and the assessment commission of 18 October, although with the county in royalist hands, these remained only nominal positions.33A. and O. On 2 June 1645 he was appointed as vice-admiral of Devon.34CJ iv. 160b; LJ vii. 403b. With the conquest of the west in the spring of 1646, Eliot became an active member of the Cornish county committee; in March 1647 he was also appointed as a justice of the peace for Cornwall; and in June he was named to the new assessment commission.35Coate, Cornw. 224. C231/6, p. 78. Finally, in November 1647, Eliot was nominated as sheriff of Cornwall, although for some reason his appointment was delayed until a conference of both Houses agreed to ‘adhere to John Eliot to be sheriff of the county of Cornwall’ on 3 February 1648.36LJ ix. 535a; x. 16b, 20a. He held the office of sheriff of Cornwall alongside the vice-admiralty of Devon, and during the same year he was again appointed as an assessment commissioner of Cornwall (16 Feb.) and then as militia commissioner (2 Dec.).37A. and O. Thereafter, Eliot was not included in local assessment commissions, possibly because he was only lukewarm in his support of the revolution of 1648-9, but he was not entirely cold shouldered after the creation of the republic. He seems to have retained his place on the Cornish commission of the peace, served as sheriff for the year from 10 November 1653, and continued as an active vice-admiral for Devon at least until April 1655.38C193/13/3, f. 9v; C231/6, p. 205; List of Sheriffs, 23; HCA14/52; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 203; 1652-3, p. 522.

Eliot’s relations with the protectorate soured during the late summer of 1655, perhaps because of the notoriety of his brother-in-law, Richard Norton*, who was an outspoken critic of the major-generals. By early September Eliot had been replaced as vice-admiral of Devon by the governor of Plymouth, Henry Hatsell*.39HCA14/52; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 541. Some awkwardness between Eliot and the government is also suggested by a letter from John Buller* in London, who reported to Francis Buller I* in October 1656 that the nominees as sheriff of Cornwall included ‘Cousin Eliot and Cousin [Hugh] Boscawen… but our cousins the lord commissioners struck them out’.40Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/2/1/72. Eliot was not named to any of the local commissions appointed in the later years of the protectorate.41A. and O.; C231/6, p. 361. The marriage of his sister Susan to Edward Norton (brother of Richard) in September 1657 seems to confirm that Eliot was moving in circles hostile to the regime.42Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 148. Thereafter, Eliot appears to have been inactive until the early months of 1660. He was restored to his position as vice-admiral of Devon on 13 March, but he was replaced in the following October.43HCA30/820, no. 79; HCA30/586, f. 156; HCA50/3, f. 53; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 571. He was again elected for St Germans for the Convention in 1660, and the Cavalier Parliament in 1661.44HP Commons 1660-90. When he drew up his will in February 1663, Eliot appointed his brother Edward as executor, and, in a sign of his continuing attachment to his wife’s family, the overseers included Richard Norton* and his brother Edward Norton.45PROB11/382/118. Eliot died in 1685. Two of his sons, Daniel† and Richard†, sat for St Germans between 1679 and 1701.46HP Commons 1660-90.