FITZJAMES, Thomas (c.1622-1705), of Middle Temple and Nursling, Hants.

The middle of three surviving sons of an affluent Somerset gentleman who eventually followed their father into Parliament, Thomas was overshadowed by his brothers. Unlike them he neither held a commission in the parliamentarian army nor gained a knighthood after the Restoration. However, like them, while still young he was drawn into the Presbyterian orbit of the Gloucestershire Stephens family, and thereby into supporting the war effort in the west; later, again like his brothers, he also claimed to have made an active contribution to the Restoration.

As his father had done nearly 50 years earlier, Fitzjames gained a special admittance to the Middle Temple, being bound on 22 January 1641 with John Stephens* (cousin of John Fitzjames’ father-in-law Nathaniel Stephens*) and Robert Hunt.13MTR i. 846; ii. 917. If later assertions are correct, then as early as the following year he gained a place as a clerk in the alienations office.14CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 117. Since this was located in Holborn, it was possible to combine discharging his duties with law studies, a task made easier as the abolition of feudal tenures eroded official business.15Aylmer, King’s Servants, 40, 151, 408. Meanwhile, Fitzjames acted as his brother John Fitzjames’* agent in London. He took advantage of proximity to senior members of his inn with contacts in Parliament like Thomas Sands* and John Stephens to represent his brother’s interests as the latter precariously held on to his military commission in Somerset and adjacent counties, and suffered the financial and political consequences of a close association with the controversial commander Edward Massie*.16Alnwick Castle MS 547, ff. 8v-9v, 23-23v (BL microfilm 330). It appears that in 1647 Thomas acted as his brother’s second in a quarrel, although it is not clear whether this came to violence.17Alnwick Castle MS 547, f. 85. Lodging in Russell Street, near The George in Covent Garden, he continued to undertake family financial and estate business: in December 1648, as he sought to acquire land on his brother’s behalf, the latter instructed him that he ‘should quickly get it out of those ecclesiastical fingers’.18Alnwick Castle MS 548 ff. 37, 37v, 39v (BL microfilm 330).

Family ties were close and enduring, reinforced by professional links within a Presbyterian or politically conservative nexus. When Henry Fitzjames* was admitted to the Middle Temple in May 1647, he was bound with his brother Thomas and their brother-in-law William Coles*.19MTR ii. 951. Called to the bar in June 1649, Thomas seems to have found some occupation to keep him at the alienation office during the 1650s.20MTR ii. 979; Alnwick Castle MS 549 ff. 10v, 15v, 50, 55, 71v, 78, 65, 108v; MS 551, ff. 40v, 42, 47, 48, 74v; MS 552, f. 12 (BL microfilm 331). Business or kinship took him more than once to Woodstock and over some years he appears to have been associated, perhaps as a servant, with ‘Lady Chute’, formerly wife of Lord Dacre but now married to Chaloner Chute*, associate bencher and then treasurer of the Middle Temple.21Alnwick Castle MS 549 ff. 65, 72v; MS 551, ff. 80v, 82v, 96. Following the calling of banns in February 1657 (perhaps suggestive of a preference for older forms over the new civil marriage), Fitzjames married in the new church of St Paul’s, Covent Garden, Katharine, the only daughter of Thomas Mills of St Clement Danes and a niece of the parliamentarian commander Sir John Mills.22Regs. of St Paul, Covent Garden, 17; Alnwick Castle MS 552 ff. 28v, 43.

Ties with William Coles had evidently persisted despite the latter’s retirement to the country and the death some years earlier of Fitzjames’ sister. It is likely to have been as a natural pairing which represented the aspirations of those seeking a political settlement reflecting the traditional order and accommodating Presbyterian views that the former brothers-in-law were elected to serve in the 1659 Parliament for Coles’ home borough of Downton, bordering Hampshire and the New Forest. However, Fitzjames made little visible impact in the Commons. Although he was surprisingly high on the list of nominees to the elections committee on 28 January (unlike his brother Henry), this was his sole appearance in the Journal, and he made no recorded speech.23CJ vii. 594b.

If the subsequent claims of Fitzjames and his sponsor are to be believed, he then risked life and fortune for the king, serving under Sir Francis Vincent in the uprising by Lord Mordaunt in the summer of 1659.24CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 102. No clear corroboration has emerged. Fitzjames and Coles stood again for Downton in spring 1660, but although their election was at first confirmed, it was overturned on 8 May. Fitzjames did not sit in Parliament again. His protestation of loyalty to Charles II was insufficent to prevent his replacement in July as clerk of entries. Thereafter he lived on Mills family estates in Hampshire, holding office in the New Forest and still in contact with Coles. At least one son survived infancy, and another, George Fitzjames of Preshutt, Wiltshire, attained middle age, but Thomas, who had failed to obtain the family patrimony on the death of his brother John, outlived all three of his sons. He was succeeded in the Mills estates by his daughter, Katherine.25HP Commons 1660-1690; CJ viii.10a; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 117; Woodward et al. General Hist. Hants, iii. 41; King, Bor. and Par. Lymington, 227; Alnwick Castle MS 550, ff. 40-2, 50; Som. N and Q xvi. 221-2.