GORGES, Thomas (c.1618-70), of Batcombe and Nynehead, Som. and Heavitree, Devon

The Gorges of Wraxall had lived in Somerset since the fourteenth century. This MP’s grandfather, Robert Gorges, established a cadet line at Batcombe in the south east of the county. Under Robert’s son, Henry, they seem also to have owned property in Wells. Henry’s wife, Barbara Baynard, was a first cousin of Edward Hyde*.29Vis. Wilts. 1623 (Harl. Soc. cv-cvi), 16. The adult life of their eldest son, Thomas, started out conventionally enough. In 1638, when he was aged about 20, he was admitted as a student at Lincoln’s Inn in London.30LI Admiss. i. 235. But within two years those legal studies were interrupted by his appointment as the deputy governor of Maine. While still only in his early twenties, Thomas Gorges found himself ruling a colony in New England.

Gorges was a second cousin once removed to Sir Ferdinando Gorges†, who in 1639 was granted a royal charter as proprietor of the province of Maine. Sir Ferdinando originally intended sending Sir Thomas Josselin to establish the colony as its first deputy governor, but Josselin’s death required a last-minute substitute. In March 1640 Thomas Gorges headed the list of seven men nominated by Sir Ferdinando to govern the province on his behalf.31Province and Court Recs. of Maine, i. 36-41 He sailed for North America on board the Desire the following month. Having almost been wrecked on Cape Cod, his ship reached Boston in late June.32The Letters of Thomas Gorges, ed. R.F. Moody (Portland, Maine, 1978), p. ix, 2, 7. On his arrival in Maine, Gorges took up residence on Sir Ferdinando’s estate at Agamenticus. Sir Ferdinando subsequently gave him an estate of 5,000 acres on the Ogunquit River.33York Deeds, i. pt. II, ff. 5-6; PROB11/335/459. Thomas’s initial impressions of America were positive:

The country here is plentiful, yielding all sorts of English grains and fruits, the rivers pleasant, well stored with variety of fish, the woods well-treed with stately cedar, lofty pines, sturdy oaks and walnut trees, with raspberry and gooseberry trees and vines in abundance.34Letters of Thomas Gorges, 7.

He also made a good impression. On meeting him for the first time, John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts Bay, thought him ‘sober and well disposed’, as well as willing to listen to advice.35Jnl. of John Winthrop, 330.

Gorges defined his priorities at the outset as being ‘to exult the glory of God’ and ‘to show what is the royal duty we owe to his ever sacred majesty our sovereign lord and the service we owe to the lord proprietor of the country’.36Letters of Thomas Gorges, 9. He knew, however, that ‘these poor people groaned for want of government’, that ‘sin hath reigned uncontrolled’, that the colony was ‘the receptacle of vicious men’ and that ‘civil government is in its infancy’.37Letters of Thomas Gorges, 17. His mission was thus conceived in moral and religious terms. When he felt it was necessary, he was willing to take a firm line. Within months he had dismissed the minister of Agamenticus, George Burdett, on charges of sexual immorality.38Province and Court Recs. of Maine, i. 73-5; Letters of Thomas Gorges, 17; Winthrop Pprs. iv. 322-3; Jnl. of John Winthrop, 330-1. Yet he advised against introducing the death penalty as a punishment for adultery.39Letters of Thomas Gorges, 55. His views on church government arose from his suspicions about recent religious policies in England and an understanding of the realities of colonial life. He told Sir Ferdinando Gorges that

We are in hopes of settling the ministers in the province but if you tie men strictly to the government of the Church of England all will go to wreck. You must of necessity tolerate liberty of conscience in many particulars.40Letters of Thomas Gorges, 57.

When Thomas Rashley was selected as Burdett’s replacement, Gorges was doubtful whether the Agamenticus congregation would have the power to ordain him.41Letters of Thomas Gorges, 35-6. In June 1642 he lamented that disputes over church discipline were confusing and disturbing the colonists.42Letters of Thomas Gorges, 108. Handled differently, the arrival in early 1643 of John Wheelwright, the minister who had been at the centre of the antinomian controversy in Massachusetts, might have heightened those tensions. Yet Wheelwright’s presence seems not to have troubled Gorges and he soon granted him 280 acres of land at Wells.43York Deeds, i. pt. I, f. 28.

Gorges’s pragmatic good sense was evident in other aspects of his rule. He thought the indigenous inhabitants ‘very ingenious men only ignorant of the true wisdom.’44Letters of Thomas Gorges, 2. But before long he had become sceptical of the assumption that they could be easily converted to Christianity.45Letters of Thomas Gorges, 51. Convinced that England could be reformed by transporting poor boys to New England, he asked Sir Ferdinando to suggest this plan to the Long Parliament, believing that this would ‘save the hangman much labour’.46Letters of Thomas Gorges, 64, 68. On the other hand, he thought that exporting slaves from Africa to Maine would probably be illegal.47Letters of Thomas Gorges, 95. Like so many colonists, Gorges quickly tempered his initial wide-eyed enthusiasm. First-hand experience of the harsh New England winters taught him that Maine was not quite the Garden of Eden.48Letters of Thomas Gorges, 92. Nor was it a source of effortless natural resources. In October 1642 he and Richard Vines travelled 90 miles up the Saco River to investigate the claim by Darby Field that there were diamond deposits in the White Mountains.49Jnl. of John Winthrop, 417-18. They found nothing.

Gorges followed events back in England with interest. His brother John sent him printed news from London about events in Parliament.50Letters of Thomas Gorges, 45. In early 1641 he welcomed the news that Henry Burton, William Prynne* and John Bastwick, the three high-profile victims of the king’s period of personal rule, had been allowed to tell Parliament of their sufferings. In passing on this news to John Winthrop, he clearly shared the ‘great hope’ of those in England who interpreted this as evidence that ‘religion will be more countenanced than it hath been.’51Winthrop Pprs. iv. 322. When Robert Trelawny* sent news of the execution of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), Gorges called on God ‘to strengthen your hand thoroughly to purge his church and commonweal, both which have long groaned under great afflictions’.52Letters of Thomas Gorges, 75. He was nevertheless aware of the dangers. On hearing of the moves by the Long Parliament against the bishops, he expressed the hope that in ‘avoiding Scylla they fall not into Charybdis.’53 Letters of Thomas Gorges, 67.

From mid-1642 Gorges talked of returning at some point during 1643.54Letters of Thomas Gorges, 97, 99, 110, 128. On 5 July 1643, his ship, the Mary Ann of Dartmouth, put to sea and within a few weeks began the long Atlantic crossing.55Letters of Thomas Gorges, 132, 134, 135; Winthrop Pprs. iv. 396. His decision to return was probably been prompted by the war in England but he may not to have taken up arms immediately, perhaps because he did not wish to offend his obvious patron, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who supported the king. Early in 1645, with his brother John, he was proposed as a captain in the New Model regiment to be commanded by James Holborne. He may also have briefly served under John Okey*.56Temple, ‘Original officer list’, 56; Wanklyn, Reconstructing the New Model Army, i. 44, 60. However, he joined the brigade of Edward Massie* as a captain in the regiment of Edward Cooke*.57SP28/144, pt. 10, ff. 6, 7. In July 1647 he was one of the 113 officers who petitioned Parliament against disbandment.58Temple, ‘Massey Brigade’, 437-45 When that disbandment went ahead, Gorges returned to civilian life. Early that year he had been called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn.59LI Black Bks. ii. 372. He probably now began practising as a lawyer in Taunton. His father died in late 1648 or early 1649. That his will made no provision for Thomas probably simply means that he had settled some of his estate on him already.60PROB11/207/434. At some point, Gorges married Mary Sanford, a daughter of Martin Sanford of Nynehead Court, which doubtless explains why by the late 1650s Gorges was living at Nynehead, about eight miles to the west of Taunton.61Som. RO, DD/SF/2/105/1; DD/SF/2/67/56: indenture, 20 Aug. 1657; declaration, 1657.

Under the republic Gorges emerged for the first time as an figure in Somerset local politics. During 1649 he was added to the commission of the peace and the county assessment commission.62C231/6, p. 160; A. and O. The following year the council of state commissioned him as the lieutenant-colonel of horse in the Somerset militia.63CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 521. He also took his turn as the treasurer of hospitals for the western half of the county.64QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, 150. From 1650 his brother John was one of the Somerset sequestration commissioners and, doubtless for that reason, Thomas became the manorial steward of all the sequestered estates in Somerset.65CCC 466. However, in early 1653 he found himself caught up in the attack by John Pyne* on his brother. Pyne accused John Gorges of accepting a bribe to drop a case against one of Thomas’s clients, Richard Cheesman.66CCC 625, 629, 642, 651. As a result, Thomas Gorges was removed from the commission of the peace in March 1653.67C193/13/4, f. 85; CCC 645. Yet in December 1653 the Committee for Compounding cleared him of any dishonesty or misconduct.68CCC 663. He was reinstated as a justice of the peace the following July when the next commission of the peace for Somerset was issued.69QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, pp. xxi, 237. Not that he forgave Pyne. In 1655 Henry Hatsell* travelled to Taunton to try to end the ongoing feud between them.70CSP Dom. 1655, p. 99.

Both Thomas and John Gorges supported the protectorate and this probably underpinned their election as the MPs for Taunton for the 1654 Parliament. In Thomas’s case, he may already have been the town’s recorder (presumably in succession to Roger Hill II*). Unfortunately, the fact that both Gorges brothers sat in the 1654, 1656 and 1659 Parliaments makes disentangling their respective parliamentary careers almost impossible. During the opening weeks of the 1654 Parliament the Journal usually mentioned only ‘Mr. Gorges’.71CJ vii. 370a, 370b, 371b, 373b. The exception was the committee for privileges, to which Thomas was named on 5 September.72CJ vii. 366b. Thereafter only seven committees indisputably included him. Among them were those on reform of the court of chancery (5 Oct.), the draining of the Lincolnshire fens (31 Oct.), the abolition of the court of wards (31 Oct.) and to investigate abuses in the use of writs of certiorari and habeas corpus (3 Nov.).73CJ vii. 374a, 375b, 380a, 380b, 381a, 381b, 387a. A ninth committee, that on fraudulent debentures (22 Nov.), included both ‘Mr Gorges’ and ‘Colonel Gorges’.74CJ vii. 387b-388a. On 7 December he was given leave to go into the country for a fortnight.75CJ vii. 397b.

In March 1655 one of the Gorges brother clashed with Pyne and Wroth over military preparations at Taunton to resist the threat from Penruddock’s rising. This was probably Thomas, as William Goffe* was offended that someone ‘who hath not so fully borne testimony against the cavaliers in former times’ should dare to interfere in such matters. According to Goffe, Gorges also complained that Richard Bovett, who had been his subordinate in the county militia, was now given command of Taunton Castle.76TSP iii. 237-8. John Disbrowe* had to be despatched to Taunton to act as peacemaker.77CSP Dom. 1655, p. 99.

In the spring of 1656 the protectoral council appointed Gorges as one of its new commissioners to investigate fraudulent debentures.78CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 246; 1656-7, p. 15. The concern was that the vast official sales of confiscated lands, including those of the late king, had created extensive opportunities for deception. This was a potentially lucrative position and two years later, when the commission was discharged, Gorges was paid off with £100.79CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 3. Another commissioner, Robert Shapcote*, later described Gorges as ‘my good friend’.80TSP vii. 627. By this point, Gorges and Shapcote had been appointed to another plum government commission, that to discourage the construction of new buildings in and around London.81C231/6, p. 371; A Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 16. Like his younger brother, Robert, who was now secretary to Henry Cromwell*, Gorges was being drawn into the protectoral bureaucracy.

In the elections for the second Protectoral Parliament Gorges was re-elected at Taunton.82TSP v. 302, 303; Som. Assize Orders, ed. Cockburn, 74. His brother, as mayor, was unable to stand and so Robert Blake* was elected with him instead. But John Gorges gained a Somerset county seat, so both Gorges brothers were again sitting in the Commons. The Journal for this Parliament seems, at first sight, to be far less confusing in its identifications: usually they are described as either ‘Colonel Gorges’ or ‘Mr Gorges’. However, both brothers had been colonels in the Somerset militia, and appear as ‘Colonel John’ and ‘Colonel Thomas’, while on another occasion ‘Colonel Gorges’ is distinguished from ‘Mr Tho. Gorges’.83CJ vii. 430a, 457b, 495b. The diary of Thomas Burton* only ever mentions ‘Colonel Gorges’, but three times this man is called ‘Mr Gorges’ in the Journal.84Burton’s Diary, i. 416-17, ii. 159, 261; CJ vii. 520a, 542b, 566b-567a. Possibly when the Journal mentioned ‘Colonel Gorges’, it tended to mean John, whereas ‘Mr Gorges’ meant Thomas Gorges, but this is so uncertain as to be useless as a basis for reconstruction of parliamentary activity.

There is, however, very little doubt that Thomas was the ‘Mr Gorges’ who was first-named to the committee created to demand accounts from the trustees who had overseen the sales of royal and church lands (17 Oct. 1656).85CJ vii. 440b. This was directly connected to his work as a commissioner for fraudulent debentures. Moreover, the following May he and John Seyntaubyn* submitted a petition which was then referred to that same committee.86CJ vii. 538a. It would be equally unsurprising if it was Thomas, the commissioner for new buildings, rather than his brother, who was the ‘Colonel Gorges’ appointed to the committee on the bill to prevent new buildings in London and its suburbs (9 May 1657).87CJ vii. 531b. Thomas was certainly the MP responsible for informing the Commons on 10 June 1657 of the insulting remarks made by an inhabitant of Ilchester about four MPs – John Glynne*, Sir Thomas Wroth*, William Jephson* and Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*).88CJ vii. 553a-554a.

There were also a number of individual cases in which ‘Mr Gorges’ clearly took the lead. When in February 1657 the family and creditors of Sir William Dick petitioned Parliament for assistance, he was named to the committee to consider this.89CJ vii. 488b. Five months later he was also one of the MPs to which this case was again referred.90CJ vii. 558a. On 20 June ‘Mr Gorges’ reported the committee’s conclusion that the pensions which had been granted to them ought to be increased. Those recommendations were accepted by the Commons.91CJ vii. 566b-567a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 261. Similarly, ‘Mr Gorges’ was included on the committee appointed on 14 March 1657 to consider the petition from Margaret, countess of Worcester.92CJ vii. 504a. This resulted in the introduction of a bill to grant Worcester House in London to her during the lifetime of her Catholic husband, Edward Somerset, 6th earl (or, in royalist eyes, 2nd marquess) of Worcester. After its second reading, both Thomas and John Gorges sat on the relevant committee (2 May).93CJ vii. 529b. When that committee met in the Speaker’s chambers on 26 May, one of them took the chair.94Burton’s Diary, ii. 134. ‘Mr Gorges’ probably also chaired the committee on the petition from Susanna Bastwick, the widow of John Bastwick. On 4 April 1657 Gorges, reporting back from that committee, secured the Commons’ agreement to its suggestion that she be granted some lands.95CJ vii. 520a; Burton’s Diary, i. 416-17. The bill to effect this had probably been drafted by 2 May when he seems to have tried to introduce it in the Commons.96Burton’s Diary, ii. 103. When he managed to do so nine days later, the bill proposed that Mrs Bastwick and her children be granted lands in Co. Dublin.97CJ vii. 532b. After the bill was amended, he reported back to the Commons on 30 May. The bill was then passed.98CJ vii. 542b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 159.

There are hints too that one of the brothers had an interest in Irish affairs. ‘Colonel Gorges’ was named to the committee on Irish affairs in this Parliament’s second week.99CJ vii. 427a. Moreover, one of them spoke poignantly in the debate on the Irish assessments on 13 June 1657 of ‘the poor retired officers and soldiers’ who had been granted lands in Ireland for having ‘ventured lives and all for you’.100Burton’s Diary, ii. 239. It may be significant that John Gorges would soon join the army in Ireland. But, equally, any interest might simply reflect their brother’s closeness to Henry Cromwell.

On 8 December 1656 one brother spoke in the debates on James Naylor, according to Burton, paraphrasing Naylor’s own words to condemn him.

He said the voice, the spirit, that spoke in him, were the words of Christ. If he be infallible, then let us worship him. If fallible, what is that less than blasphemy to own such a spirit in him.101Burton’s Diary, i. 73.

This was, in Gorges’s view, ‘idolatry’ and thus ‘horrid blasphemy’.102Burton’s Diary, i. 73-4. At least one of the brothers also supported the efforts to provide financial assistance to clergymen.103CJ vii. 448a, 469a, 488a, 488b, 515b.

Thomas’s election to the 1659 Parliament was far from smooth. The mayor of Taunton, Hugh Gunston, returned Gorges and Sir William Wyndham*, only for a rival faction to submit a separate return in favour of John Palmer* and Richard Bovett. The Commons ruled on the side of ‘Colonel Thomas Gorges’ and Wyndham.104CJ vii. 624b-625a. John Gorges had meanwhile been returned for Derry, Donegal and Tyrone. Frustratingly, the Journal is even less useful than previously in distinguishing between Thomas and John, both being merely ‘Colonel’ Gorges. It is true that the dispute over the Taunton election was not resolved until 4 April.105CJ vii. 624b-625a. But this need not mean that Thomas had been prevented from sitting. In the interim he had written five letters to Henry Cromwell keeping him fully informed about events in Parliament. They strongly imply that he had been present in person.106Henry Cromwell Corresp. 460-2, 464-6, 468-9, 477-8, 486-8. (Wyndham had certainly been allowed to sit.) Those letters also go some way in helping overcome the continuing ambiguities in references to the two Gorges in the other records.

Prior to the commencement of the new Parliament, Gorges had been appointed as a commissioner to tender to MPs the oath of loyalty to the protector when they assembled at Westminster on 27 January 1659.107CJ vii. 593a. This honour underlined his status as an officeholder closely connected to the protectoral government. He was probably appointed to the committee for privileges and elections the following day.108CJ vii. 594b. The most pressing issue was whether to recognise Richard Cromwell* as the new lord protector. Gorges was firmly of the view that they should. On 9 February a number of Londoners attempted to present a petition to the Commons asserting Parliament’s pre-eminence. Thomas considered them no more than ‘commonwealths men’, Levellers and Fifth Monarchists.109Henry Cromwell Corresp. 460. At the time, ‘Colonel Gorges’ argued that he had no objection to the petition being presented, but that they should take care not to be distracted by it.110Burton’s Diary, iii. 154. With Richard Knightley* and Sir Walter Erle*, he was then sent out to reassure the petitioners that their petition would be heard.111CJ vii. 601b. Later that day he set out his own views on the constitutional settlement.112Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, p. 108. He supported a second chamber on the grounds that, ‘The more checks, the better the constitution’, while arguing that government by a single person would ensure strong leadership in wartime.113Burton’s Diary, iii. 156-8. Writing to Henry Cromwell six days later, Thomas reported the good news that Parliament had agreed to recognise Richard as lord protector. He also thought that the army would be willing to accept this.114Henry Cromwell Corresp. 460-1. But he did not want the return of the old House of Lords. On 22 February he told the Commons that ‘an honest cobbler’ was ‘better than one hundred old lords’. He had no problem with the Other House so long as it was not hereditary.115Burton’s Diary, iii. 404. To him, most of the debates on the Other House were simply irrelevant.116Henry Cromwell Corresp. 466, 468. Similarly, he considered the controversy over the status of the Scottish and Irish MPs as just a delaying tactic by the protector’s republican enemies.117Henry Cromwell Corresp. 468-9, 477-8. His hatred of those republicans was most evident in his reaction to the Commons’ decision on 26 February to release the Fifth Monarchist John Portman. Gorges then told Henry Cromwell that if his father, the late lord protector, had ‘proceeded with that sort of men as he did another generation’, he would have ‘better secured the nation from those vipers that gnaw his blessed memory with the most poisoned teeth of design and malice.’118Henry Cromwell Corresp. 466. However, he was confident that ‘England is too sensible to be betrayed or cajoled to a second slavery’ under such extremists.119Henry Cromwell Corresp. 487.

Gorges’ activity during the final weeks of this Parliament is more difficult to pinpoint with certainty. Most obvious perhaps was his role in the debate on fraudulent debentures on 9 April. He was speaking with direct authority when he pointed out that Cromwell had previously appointed a commission to investigate any abuses.120Burton’s Diary, iii. 385. He can be assumed to have been the ‘Colonel Gorge’ who then headed the list of MPs appointed to the committee on the subject.121CJ vii. 633b. He was probably first-named to the committee (13 Apr.) on the petition from Sir Andrew Dick, Sir William Dicks’s executor.122CJ vii. 637b. His possible appointment to the committee on the petition from George Cony (11 Apr.) may be another example of an interest carried over from the previous Parliament.123CJ vii. 634b. On 13 April ‘Colonel Gorges’ expressed scepticism about whether public money could be found to disband the supernumerary forces in Lancashire.124Burton’s Diary, iii. 413; CJ vii. 638a.

Gorges sat as MP for Taunton for a fourth time in the Convention Parliament of 1660. Thereafter his political career fizzled out. He was not reappointed to any county offices under the restored monarchy and in 1662 he was removed as recorder of Taunton in the purge mandated by the Corporation Act. He may then have relocated to Devon. By 1658 Gorges probably already owned an estate at Heavitree, just outside Exeter, for it was there that he married his second wife, Rose Alexander, widow of Roger Mallock.125Vivian, Vis. Devon, 547. She brought with her jointure lands at Cockington, Torbay, and it was at Cockington that Gorges was living when he made his will in 1669.126PROB11/335/459.

By then he had acquired one final office, for in August 1667 the duke of York appointed Gorges as the steward of his extensive Irish estates.127HMC 8th Rep. 279. Given Gorges’s former support for the protectorate, this might seem an odd appointment, although it may have helped that his brother was still a serving army officer in Ireland. Another possibility would be that he was recommended by his cousin, Edward Hyde, now 1st earl of Clarendon, the day before he was dismissed as lord chancellor. That Gorges now travelled to Ireland to perform these duties is doubtful.

Gorges died at Heavitree on 17 October 1670 and was buried in the parish church.128Cresswell, Exeter Churches, 38. All his children were then still under-aged, so he had appointed trustees to manage his various estates until they reached their majorities. One son, Henry, had already emigrated to Barbados. His bequests to his daughter Susanna (who had married her stepbrother, Rawlin Mallock) included his copy of the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly. Robert Shapcote received a mourning ring.129PROB11/335/459. The eldest son, Thomas junior, died young only four years later and, in the end, none of the five other siblings left children.130Gorges, Story of a Family, 198-9. Instead the MP’s brother Robert continued the family line. He and several of his descendants sat in the Irish Parliament down to the Union and his great-grandson, Hamilton Gorges†, represented Co. Meath in the 1801 United Kingdom Parliament.131E.M. Johnston-Liik, Hist. of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800 (Belfast, 2002), iv. 292-9.