GURDON, John (1595-1679), of Assington, Suff.

The first John Gurdon, from whom all the members of this family claimed descent, had lived at Dedham in Essex in the late fifteenth century. Subsequent generations acquired fortunes in the local cloth trade and by the 1550s had purchased Assington Hall, an estate further up the Stour valley on the Suffolk side of the river.40Vis. Suff. 1561, 1577 and 1612, 141-2; Crisp, Vis. Notes, ix. 106-8; Copinger, Manors of Suff. i. 18. Twice, in 1571 and 1621, Gurdons had been elected as MP for Sudbury, the constituency closest to Assington. The latter, Brampton Gurdon, father of this MP, was content to lead an unobtrusive life of quiet piety. John’s mother, Elizabeth Barrett, died in childbirth when he was aged seven and it was from his father’s second marriage that he gained a half-brother, Brampton*.41Winthrop Pprs. i. 79; Crisp, Vis. Notes, ix. 107, 114.

The settlement for John’s marriage to the only daughter of Sir Calthorpe Parker† (and sister of Sir Philip Parker*) was probably concluded on 22 March 1620. By a subsidiary agreement signed that day, Gurdon promised not to break an entail on lands at Coggeshall without the agreement of, among others, John Winthrop, his neighbour, the future governor of Massachusetts.42Suff. RO (Ipswich), HA54/1/9: declaration, 22 Mar. 1620. The significance of this entail probably lay in the discord which seems to have broken out in the family. In what appears to have been a deliberate snub to his eldest son, John Gurdon senior changed his will in December 1621 so that the bulk of his estates, including the lands at Assington, should skip a generation and pass to his grandson John junior.43PROB11/142/372. Although John junior claimed in 1630 that he was not liable to pay a knighthood fine because ‘he had no land liable by law for composition’ at the time of Charles I’s coronation in 1626, he had money to spare to invest in the Providence Island Company.44E178/7356. A charter member of the Company, he would have invested £1,025 between 1630 and 1633. All this had to be written off after the failure of the colony, but his involvement brought him into contact with other investors such as the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†) and 1st Viscount Saye and Sele.45Warws. RO, CR1886/box 437: deposition of William Jessop, 15 May 1644; K.O. Kupperman, Providence Island, 1630-1641 (Cambridge, 1993), 295, 358. Taken together with his father’s friendship with Winthrop, it is clear that the Gurdons had a more than passing interest in the godly hopes of colonising the New World.

One of the ‘violent spirits’, 1640-5

The Gurdons had always concentrated their electoral attentions on Sudbury, so Gurdon’s decision to stand at Ipswich in 1640 was a departure from tradition. After a a close contest for the second seat, at the poll on 20 March 1640 Gurdon only narrowly defeated one of the townsmen, Edmund Deye†.46Suff. RO (Ipswich), C5/14/3, ff. 301v-302A; C219/42, no. 25; Harl. 298, f. 148; Bacon, Annalls, 522. Once elected, Gurdon left no trace in the records of the Short Parliament, although he is the most likely source for the account of the dissolution which his father included in a letter to Winthrop.47Winthrop Pprs. iv. 243-4. In the election at Ipswich later that year Gurdon was elected unopposed.48Suff. RO (Ipswich), C5/14/3, ff. 305, 306v; C1/1/3/3; Bacon, Annalls, 525; C219/43/2, no. 172. His father was less successful at Sudbury and Gurdon’s earliest known contribution (7 Dec. 1640) to the proceedings of the Long Parliament was when he spoke in support of the election petition which his father had submitted. The Commons was unpersuaded by the Gurdons’ case.49Procs. LP i. 489-90, 497, 508-9, 511, 518; CJ ii. 47a.

Only in the summer of 1642 did Gurdon begin to make a significant impact in the Commons. Until then he was included on no more than a handful of committees.50CJ ii. 52a, 60b, 95a, 156a, 467b. However, he took the Protestation at the earliest opportunity (3 May 1641).51CJ ii. 133b. Writing in June 1642 to his wife, Abigail (Gurdon’s half-sister), Roger Hill II* assumed that Gurdon would in due course explain to Hill’s father the significance of the latest declaration which Parliament had received from the king.52PJ iii. 492. The plight of the Irish Protestants moved Gurdon to invest £2,000 in the Irish Adventure in April and July 1642 and to contribute a further £1,000 at a later date.53J.R. MacCormack, ‘The Irish Adventurers and the English Civil War’, Irish Historical Studies, x. 49; CJ ii. 713a.

It was no coincidence that Gurdon first came to prominence at the point when the country descended into civil war. From the outset he was one of the more enthusiastic supporters of the view that Parliament should pursue its stand against the king on to the battlefield. He began by offering to lend Parliament £100.54PJ iii. 475. He proposed the motion on 5 July 1642 which fixed the date on which the Militia Ordinance was to come into force in Suffolk.55PJ iii. 171; CJ ii. 654a. That he and his brother-in-law, Miles Corbett*, were added to the committee for disseminating orders by the Commons on 30 July indicates that they were keen that Parliament should act quickly to gain the advantage over the king.56CJ ii. 698a. Other committee appointments confirm this, as does Gurdon’s appointment as a deputy lieutenant for Suffolk.57CJ ii. 705a, 734b, 745b, 749b, 751a.

About this time Sir Simonds D’Ewes* began to single out Gurdon in his diary as one of the hotheads and extremists in the Commons whom he most distrusted. Close friendship with Gurdon’s father and the fact that the Gurdons were neighbours probably predisposed D’Ewes to notice Gurdon’s contributions, but some of the views expressed would have shocked him anyway.58Harl. 164, f. 386v. On 7 September, when Gurdon and Sir Henry Mildmay* (a distant Gurdon relative) got Henry Coke* expelled from the Commons, D’Ewes described him ‘a hot, violent, ignorant man’.59PJ iii. 336; CJ ii. 756a. Five days later Gurdon moved that the promise of loans made the previous June should be rigorously enforced and that steps should be taken against those who failed to make such promises. D’Ewes’s view was that Gurdon

being in himself of no learning and little experience, affected of late a violent way of moving things, being therein only Mr Henry Marten’s aye, and therefore he made this unseasonable and idle motion.60PJ iii. 351.

Marten seconded Gurdon’s motion and a committee (including them both) was accordingly appointed.61PJ iii. 351; CJ ii. 763a. This was to be a step towards the creation of the Committee for Advance of Money* the following November. D’Ewes also noted that Gurdon ‘did very hotly oppose’ the successful attempt by Sir Harbottle Grimston* on 17 September to secure the release of an Ipswich man who had criticised Parliament. On this occasion, D’Ewes thought that Gurdon’s intervention was simply ineffectual.62PJ iii. 360; CJ ii. 770b.

However, the fanaticism which shocked men like D’Ewes could also be harnessed to aid the war effort. Gurdon was firmly among those who saw clearly that the priority had to be military victory over the king. After his successful call for the promise of loans to be enforced, it is unsurprising that he was named to the committee on delinquents (16 Sept. 1642), for he was presumably keen that they be treated as unsympathetically as possible, or that he was appointed to bring up to London the Proposition money raised in East Anglia (13 Oct.). In February 1643 he was included on the precursor to the Committee for Sequestrations* and the following month sat on the committee to confiscate the goods of delinquents (25 Mar. 1643).63CJ ii. 769a, 806b, 953b, iii. 18b. This type of business seems to have been his particular forte.

Gurdon was more often to be found on those committees which attempted to finance the war, particularly those involving forcible confiscations, than on those directly responsible for waging it. Although he and Corbett drew up the instructions for the other Suffolk deputy lieutenants in October 1642, he usually left military affairs to others.64CJ ii. 810b, 919a, 943a, 943b. He was certainly not squeamish about pursuing the war. On 8 February 1643 he broke the silence which followed the reading of the latest letter from the king to argue that Charles should be told immediately that this was an inadequate reply to their latest offer.65Harl. 164, f. 291v. When the Commons discussed the earl of Essex’s conduct on 31 March, Gurdon defended the lord general. Admittedly, D’Ewes thought that he ‘spoke so ridiculously as I could not but wonder at his folly in venturing to speak’ and Gurdon’s argument, based on information from ‘a godly minister’, allegedly amounted to the claim that Essex was an excellent commander because he managed to get out of bed early each morning.66Harl. 164, f. 350. It was a revealing intervention, for it exposed Gurdon’s ignorance about the army, while showing that enthusiasm was the principal quality he looked for in others.

He had no respect for those who lacked that enthusiasm and he was only too willing to resort to sometimes very nasty personal attacks against those major Suffolk figures who failed, as he saw it, to give their full support to Parliament. In December 1642, when the Commons discussed whether Sir Thomas Jermyn* should be declared a delinquent, it emerged that the allegations against him were entirely based on unfounded rumours started by Gurdon. This again placed Gurdon at odds with Grimston, who was acting as Jermyn’s spokesman in the Commons. Marten sided with Gurdon by acting as teller for the minority opposed to Jermyn’s release.67Harl. 164, f. 274; Add. 31116, p. 32; CJ ii. 902b. This was not the end of this matter. Gurdon arranged for the deputy to the serjeant-at-arms to appear before the Commons to claim that Jermyn had refused to pay the fees due to him and that he had called Gurdon a knave.68CJ ii. 907a; Add. 31116, p. 34. Jermyn denied this and his release went ahead.69CJ ii. 918a; Add. 31116, p. 36. In all this, Gurdon’s aim was to undermine Jermyn for the simple reason that he headed the leading royalist family in Suffolk.

In March 1643 D’Ewes believed that Gurdon was behind Corbett’s attack on another Suffolk MP, Sir William Playters*. On 16 March the pair accused Playters of having tipped off his son, Thomas Playters, after the Commons had voted to summon him to explain why he had accepted appointment by the king as sheriff of Suffolk.70CJ ii. 939a, iii. 4b; Harl. 164, f. 332. Two months later Gurdon again used this tactic of implicating a fellow Suffolk MP by association with one of their close relatives; this time his target was D’Ewes himself. On 10 May 1643 Gurdon told the Commons that D’Ewes’s brother, who had recently been killed fighting for the king, had been due to inherit a bequest from Lady Newton, the late wife of a royalist officer. Gurdon proposed that this bequest should be confiscated. Two days later D’Ewes appeared before the Committee for Sequestrations to satisfy them that there were no grounds to act against him.71Harl. 164, ff. 386v-387. He tactfully refused to name Gurdon when the 1st earl of Holland (Henry Rich†) asked ‘who it was that had so little wit to move such a thing in the House of Commons’.72Harl. 164, f. 390. However, Gurdon did not leave the matter there. When D’Ewes rose on 2 June to speak in the debate on whether Sir Thomas Fairfax* should receive payments from sequestered estates, Gurdon interrupted him with ‘a loud bawling voice and with great violence’ to demand that Lady Newton’s bequest be confiscated. D’Ewes hit back by pointing out that the Committee for Sequestrations had already examined the case, a reply so stinging that many MPs burst out laughing at Gurdon’s embarrassment. Denis Bond* tried to save Gurdon’s face by proposing that D’Ewes deliver an inventory of his brother’s estates, only for D’Ewes to point out that he had already done so. Humiliated, Gurdon and Bond let the matter drop.73Harl. 165, f. 96. Gurdon still had much to learn about basic parliamentary tactics.

These were just some of the instances of Gurdon assisting in the hounding of individuals suspected of delinquency. Gurdon had been first named on 22 April 1643 when a committee was created to confiscate money owed to a royalist prisoner at Windsor so that it could be used instead for the army.74CJ iii. 56b. Nine days later, on 1 May, Gurdon was among those appointed to examine some Norfolk and Suffolk gentlemen who had been arrested. Over the coming weeks he assisted in the examinations of Lord Wilmot (Henry Wilmot*, 26 May) and Edmund Browne (29 May), and took news to the Lords that the 2nd earl of Portland (Jerome Weston†) and 2nd Viscount Conway (Sir Edward Conway†) had been involved in royalist plotting (12 June). He was added to the Committee for Examinations* on 1 August and joined the committee to sequester those MPs absent from Westminster on 21 September.75CJ iii. 65b, 105a, 126a, 189b, 250b.

However, what more than anything else placed Gurdon in the public spotlight in 1643 was his role in the attacks on what he and his friends saw as the symbols of the popish superstitions of the Caroline monarchy. In this, Gurdon played the part of enthusiastic sidekick to Henry Marten. Their first target was the queen’s chapel at Somerset House. Sir Peter Wentworth*, Marten and Gurdon were given powers on 13 March to enforce the earlier order for the expulsion of the Capuchin friars attached to the chapel.76CJ ii. 1001b, iii. 8a. Then, on 30 March, there followed the most notorious act of vandalism of the civil war. Gurdon’s unsuccessful attempt earlier that day to persuade the Commons to halt the departure from Whitehall of a wagon taking some of the royal possessions to the king at Oxford may have been prompted by fears that the king was removing some of the hated popish images. If so, it served as the pretext for what followed. Marten, Gurdon and three other MPs were given powers by the Commons to remove all offensive images from the Somerset House chapel. Marten subsequently returned to the Commons to report that he had left Gurdon and Alexander Rigby I* at Somerset House to complete the work of destruction.77Harl. 164, ff. 347, 348v-349; Add. 31116, pp. 76, 87; A.J. Loomie, ‘The destruction of Rubens’s “Crucifixion” in the Queen’s Chapel, Somerset House’, Burlington Mag. cxl. 680-2. D’Ewes, for whom these events confirmed his view of Gurdon as ‘a man of mean parts’, singled out Marten and Gurdon as the ‘violent spirits’ responsible for this attack. D’Ewes viewed the incident cynically: Gurdon and the others were ‘pretending great zeal, though some of them had little piety’; this was a ploy to wreck the peace negotiations with the king.78Harl. 164, ff. 348v, 361v.

Having dealt with the most obvious Catholic target, Gurdon and his friends now turned their attentions to inappropriate images in Protestant churches. Gurdon was named second to the committee appointed on 24 April to search out and destroy all church monuments in the London area deemed by them to be superstitious. Their immediate concern was Westminster Abbey. A month later (27 May) Gurdon was one of four MPs asked to prepare a bill which would have permitted the confiscation of cathedral plate used for superstitious purposes. The appointment of Gurdon, Marten, Mildmay and Sir John Holland* on 3 June to compile an inventory of the coronation regalia in Westminster Abbey was the first step in the process that would end with the destruction of those pieces six years later.79CJ iii. 57b, 106b, 114b; The Crown Jewels, ed. C. Blair (1998), i. 344-5.

This work easily combined with Gurdon’s desire to root out suspected royalists. He was included on the committee appointed on 26 June which, as well as being authorised to purge Catholics from the households of the royal children, was given powers to destroy any popish images in the chapel at St. James’s Palace.80CJ iii. 145b. On 16 September he and John Trenchard* were appointed to oversee the search of Whitehall to uncover any goods belonging to those deemed to be malignants and on 20 September he and Cornelius Holland* were given the task of examining some of the goods seized by the Westminster sequestration commission. His earlier involvement in the arrest of the Capuchin friars explains his membership of the committee to consider the fate of these imprisoned priests (3 October).81CJ iii. 244a, 248a, 262a. Occasionally, there were indications that Gurdon’s interest in religion went beyond iconoclasm. On 19 July 1643 he and Sir Robert Harley* were deputed to inform the City of the forthcoming fast day, he was named to the committee to consider how antinomian ideas could be suppressed (10 Oct.), and, on 21 October, he headed the list of those added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers*.82CJ iii. 174a, 271b, 283b. Even so, it seems fair to say that his overriding priority remained the extirpation of popery and royalism, which to him were much the same, by the most direct methods available. He also remained as wary as ever of any moves towards a negotiated peace.83Harl. 165, ff. 138v-139.

Gurdon was emerging as a leading member of the war party’s heavy mob. He was coarse and clumsy, but was useful for those jobs when a bit of intimidation was required. Typically, having been appointed on 16 September 1643 to the committee to negotiate with the customs commissioners for a loan to alleviate the financial difficulties faced by the navy, he was employed by the Commons two days later to tackle the problem in a less subtle way: he and John Blakiston* went to the office of the tellers of the exchequer and simply took possession of the money there so that it could be paid to Vane’s deputy as treasurer of the navy.84CJ iii. 243b, 245b. When Gurdon had introduced the bill to raise a weekly assessment throughout the Eastern Association on 5 September, D’Ewes despaired that, ‘these fiery spirits, of which this Gurdon was lately grown one, cared not how the people were oppressed so as they could maintain and support the war raised or at least continued by their violence’.85Harl. 165, f. 167. Yet, it was one thing to want to see the war won as quickly as possible; what Gurdon did that few other MPs were prepared to do was to hint at a radical agenda behind the determination to win.

Gurdon’s reputation for extremism had been confirmed on 25 April 1643 when he had spoken in the debate on the Lords’ decisions regarding the 1st earl of Chesterfield. Gurdon went much further than simply objecting to what the Lords had done; he also ‘did very foolishly move against the whole house of peers, that we might now see what we were to expect from the Lords and that therefore we should proceed accordingly’. Shocked by such impudence, this suggestion was ‘distasted by the whole House’.86Harl. 164, f. 379. His attitude to the Lords somewhat softened with the departure of the seven peers in August 1643, which was why he was so unwelcoming when the earl of Holland soon after returned from Oxford. Speaking in support of the motion that Holland should be impeached, he told the Commons on 7 November that

he had rather we should pardon all the lords at Oxford than pardon this lord and that we should consider how many good ordinances had passed the Lords’ House since his going away, with some particulars full of vehemency.87Harl. 165, f. 223v.

Gurdon was then named to the committee which drew up the questions to be put to Holland.88CJ iii. 304a.

For all his tactlessness, Gurdon had allies. In late October and early November saw him added to three of the major standing committees in quick succession – the Committee for Plundered Ministers, the Committee for Scottish Affairs at Goldsmiths’ Hall (which would evolve in 1644 into the Committee for Compounding) and the Committee for Advance of Money.89CJ iii. 283b, 305a, 309a. He attended meetings of the last once or twice a week throughout 1644.90SP19/1, pp. 160-269; SP19/3, pp. 346. By early 1644 he appears to have been siding with Sir Henry Vane II* against Essex and Denzil Holles*. The two latter came close to embarrassing Vane when they accused him of conducting secret negotiations with Lord Lovelace at Oxford. When the Commons debated these claims on 24 January 1644, D’Ewes defended Essex, whereupon ‘Gurdon endeavoured ignorantly to interrupt me but proved ridiculous by it’.91Harl. 165, f. 282. On 28 March Gurdon supported Vane’s efforts to outmanoeuvre the Lords over the Dutch offer to mediate by referring the matter to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, who could be trusted to take a harder line in any peace talks. Gurdon even aired the thought that they should just ignore the Lords.92Harl. 166, f. 40. That same distrust of the peers was evident two months later, when on 20 May some MPs flippantly proposed that the bill to extend the Committee of Both Kingdoms should be passed without the Lords’ approval. Those MPs presumably included Gurdon because the Speaker, William Lenthall*, then treated the suggestion that Gurdon should carry it to the Lords as being less than serious.93Harl. 166, f. 64.

This link with Vane may explain why Gurdon was slightly more involved in military affairs in 1644 than he had been in 1643, although this was still more in funding the war effort than anything else.94CJ iii. 388a, 394a, 408a, 408b, 457a, 464a, 489b, 507b, 520b, 601a, 645b, 655b; iv. 155b; Harl. 165, f. 216v; LJ vi. 524b. In this period there are the first indications of a developing interest in naval affairs. His role in the seizure of exchequer funds to supply the navy in September 1643 has been noted. He was added to the Committee of Navy and Customs in November and again on 14 February 1644 – on the latter occasion with reference to a bill for providing timber for the navy by confiscating it from the estates of known delinquents. The following month he sat on the committee which prepared the officer lists for the summer campaigning season and his appointment to the committee of 21 August (already mentioned) was as much about the navy as the army.95CJ iii. 243b, 245b, 399b, 431b, 601a. Although his constituency was a major port, Gurdon had no existing connections with the navy or with shipping, but he had a growing friendship with Vane, who was the treasurer of the navy, and it was no doubt as Vane’s dependable ally that he began to involve himself in such arcane matters. On 18 June 1644 he was one of a number of MPs who dismissed complaints about the high levels of the assessments. Several weeks later he spoke in support of the proposed creation of a new army to be raised from the eastern and southern counties.96Harl. 166, ff. 74v, 80.

As he had fewer qualms than most about encroaching on the immunity of the royal palaces, he continued to keep a close eye on the inhabitants of Whitehall. In February 1644 he and three other MPs were sent to remove all the contents of the palace and on 18 June he helped compile the list of those living there as a preliminary to their eviction.97CJ iii. 389a, 526b, 533b, 567a. It was presumably his experience of such work which explains why he was included on the committee appointed to assess the paintings confiscated from the duchess of Buckingham.98CJ iv. 121a. This was not the only case in which Gurdon was at the forefront of Commons action against a suspected delinquent. When the accusations against the 21st earl of Arundel were referred to the Committee for Examinations on 8 May 1644, Gurdon was ordered to take particular care of the matter.99CJ iii. 485a. His formal addition to the Committee for Sequestrations (7 Aug. 1644) – of which he was a very active member – gave him further scope to vent his vindictive temper.100SP20/1, ff. 3, 288 and passim; CJ iii. 581b; LJ vi. 663a. When on 15 October the Commons debated whether to sell off the king’s plate, Gurdon argued that there would be no difference between doing so and seizing the king’s ships and forts, which they had already done.101Harl. 166, f. 149.

With regards to religion, his contribution was now less obviously destructive. His old concern for rooting out of popery had certainly not diminished, which was why he seems to have taken an interest in the investigation of abuses at Westminster Abbey (13 Jan. 1644), and in the bills to remove all superstitious elements from religious services (27 Apr.) and to discipline scandalous ministers in Hampshire (5 Aug.). His apparent support for the enforcement of the Covenant (22 Feb.) was an extension of his violent antipathy towards delinquents. Conversely, the committee on how to prevent existing anti-recusant statutes being used against Protestants, to which he was named on 13 December 1643, was concerned with the protection of those who could be trusted.102CJ iii. 340b, 365a, 404b, 470b, 579b. Other items of legislation in which he may have been involved were more conventional godly measures. In the case of the sabbath bill (29 Mar. 1644), he argued that it should be extended to enforce public fast days as well.103CJ iii. 440b; iv. 35b; Harl. 166, f. 40v. He was now used as a messenger when the Commons wished to send messages to clerics, as when he and John Trenchard* were sent to the Westminster Assembly on 23 October 1644 to ask them to pray for the army.104CJ iii. 672b, 673a.

It is likely that in early 1645 Gurdon fully supported the creation of the New Model army and in late March he sat on the committee which considered the bill which became the Self-Denying ordinance.105CJ iv. 88a. Otherwise, a variety of measures occupied him during the first half of 1645: bills to purge the corporation of Newcastle (22 Mar.), to raise money for the siege of Oxford (27 May), and to put Surrey into a posture of defence (24 June).106CJ iv. 87a, 155b, 183b. In April 1645 he sat on the committees appointed to overhaul the work of the Committee of Accounts.107CJ iv. 116a, 123b. That might explain why later that year members of that committee’s Norfolk sub-committee asked him to raise with it the case of Samuel Smyth.108SP28/238, f. 17. Gurdon even found time in June 1645 to attend the Suffolk standing committee at Bury St. Edmunds.109SP28/243; Suff. ed. Everitt, 71.

The Presbyterian Independent, 1645-8

For a brief period during the summer of 1645 it seemed as if Lord Savile (Sir Thomas Savile†) might destroy the reputations of two leading Presbyterian MPs, Denzil Holles and Bulstrode Whitelocke. Without corroboration, Savile’s allegation that Holles and Whitelocke had tried to betray Parliament carried little weight. It took the announcement by Gurdon on 2 July that he had received a letter from Savile providing more details to give these claims some substance.110CJ iv. 194a, 195a; Whitelocke, Diary, 168; Harl. 166, f. 232v; Add. 31116, pp. 436, 437. Appearing on 5 July before the investigating committee, Gurdon admitted that the letter had been delivered to him by Lady Temple and that he had decided to raise it in the Commons after consulting with Saye. He had also consulted beforehand with Vane and Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston* (a Suffolk neighbour who had been his ally in the 1640 elections). It would appear that Gurdon was a party to a scheme by Saye and his Independent allies which, at the very least, hoped to publicise Savile’s allegations. Whitelocke felt that, by announcing the news to the Commons, Gurdon had expended the advantage of surprise and that Gurdon’s friends were ‘troubled at his openness’.111Whitelocke, Diary, 172. Writing in 1648, Saye claimed that it was the Committee of Both Kingdoms who had advised Gurdon to inform the Commons.112[W. Fiennes], Vindiciae Veritatis (1654), 138-9 (E.811.2). Saye made a point of defending Gurdon

an honest religious gentleman, but a Presbyterian throughout, though not of this man’s [George Buchanan’s] fiery zeal, that cannot endure godly men if they differ in judgment from him, his religion is more pure and agreeable to the commands of our Saviour, loving the members of Christ where he seeth them, and image of Christ in them, though in this particular they differ from him in judgment.113Vindiciae Veritatis, 138; P. Crawford, ‘The Savile affair’, EHR xc, 83n.

This description has made Gurdon the archetype of someone who was a religious Presbyterian but a political Independent. Whether he was also one of Saye’s close associates is far less clear. They had both been members of the Providence Island Company and they both sat on the Committee for Advance of Money.114J.S.A. Adamson, ‘Parliamentary management, men-of-business and the House of Lords, 1640-49’, in A Pillar of the Constitution ed. C. Jones (1989), 35-6. It also seems reasonable to suppose that Gurdon understood Saye’s tactical purposes in wanting Savile’s letter to be publicised. However, a more substantial connection between them remains to be proved. The whole affair fizzled out over the course of the following weeks.

The incident did not interfere with Gurdon’s other political interests which, if anything, were now wider than ever. He showed a concern for the plight of women who had been widowed by the war, perhaps because the plan was to pay the arrears due to them from delinquents’ estates.115CJ iv. 197a, 295a. When a committee was appointed to investigate abuses by local sequestrators (16 Aug. 1645), he and Thomas Pury I* were asked to take care of it.116CJ iv. 244b. When the House of Lords displayed a reluctance in September 1645 to approve the proposed additions to the standing committees for the counties within the Eastern Association, Gurdon helped prepare the Commons’ case in favour of approval.117CJ iv. 271b, 292a; LJ vii. 617b-618a, 619a-b. In October 1645 he sat on the committee which considered how to fill the fellowships still vacant after the earlier purge of the fellows of the Cambridge colleges.118CJ iv. 312a. He was also now being used on a regular basis by the Commons to inform those clergymen whom they wished to have preach before them.119CJ iv. 245b, 252a, 258b, 328b. His appointment as one of the trustees for Westminster College reflected his previous interest in the affairs of the Abbey.120LJ vii. 711a.

During November 1645 a personal dispute involving Gurdon heightened tensions between the Lords and the Commons. Its origins were the complaints in May 1645 by the widow of the late royalist peer, Lord Barrett of Newburgh (Edward Barrett†), and by Lord North concerning the theft of timber. The alleged culprit was Sir Humphrey Forster, assisted by his servant, Thomas Grove, but the latter claimed that he was now in Gurdon’s service and thus entitled to parliamentary immunity. What followed was an argument over whether the Lords had the right to release Grove without consulting the Commons. Miles Corbett, who could be relied on to represent Gurdon’s personal interests, led MPs at the joint conference on the subject on 25 November. The outcome was an agreement approving Grove’s release.121LJ vii. 384a-385a, 701a, 712b; viii. 3a, 4a-b, 10b; CJ iv. 349b, 350b, 354a, 355a; HMC 6th Rep. 85. There must be a possibility that Gurdon had taken on Grove as a servant with the sole aim of blocking the proceedings in the Lords.

The entry of Gurdon’s half-brother Brampton to the Commons in the autumn of 1645 makes it difficult to be sure exactly what John did at Westminster for much of the Long Parliament thereafter. However, since John was far more prominent than his brother, it can be assumed that most of the references to Mr Gurdon in the Journals are to him. Where the issues involved are characteristic, like action against delinquents, the identification of John becomes all the more probable.122CJ iv. 409b, 445b, 605b, 613a, 625a, 650b; v. 8b, 119b, 228b.

It is likely that it was John who continued to promote a religious settlement based on a national church and the maintenance of strict discipline. The committees on scandalous offences (23 May, 3 June 1646), on the bill for repairing churches and the payment of church duties (4 Nov.), to enumerate national sins (9 Dec.), to prevent malignant clergymen being admitted to livings (22 Mar. 1647), and to regulate Oxford University (24 Mar.) all included a Mr Gurdon and it was certainly John who was appointed to take care of the declaration on sequestered ministers on 7 July 1646.123CJ iv. 553b, 562b, 605b, 714b; v. 7b, 119b, 121a. One of them acted as messenger to the Lords on 23 March 1647 concerning the observation of the sabbath.124CJ v. 120a-b; LJ ix. 96b. Yet, this support for a national church seems not to have translated into support for the Scots. On 17 July 1646 Gurdon and Mildmay were appointed to investigate the Lords’ reaction to their vote that they had no further use of the Scottish army, which suggests that they wanted the Scots out of England.125CJ iv. 621a. It would appear that, unlike some, Gurdon saw no necessary connection between the need to ally with the Scots against the king – a need which no longer applied – and the promotion of a single church settlement to cover both kingdoms. In this respect, the idea of him as a religious Presbyterian but a political Independent makes some sense. Probably it was John rather than Brampton who on 31 July 1646 seems to have opposed the proposals to send six regiments of Sir Thomas Fairfax to Ireland on the grounds that this was a ploy by some ‘not of the Parliament’.126Harington’s Diary, 30.

Comments later made by Holles assume that Gurdon was a committed Independent supporter in the spring of 1647. These remarks probably relate to the letters of 28 April from the agitators in the army to Fairfax, Oliver Cromwell* and Philip Skippon*, complaining about the way Parliament had ignored the soldiers’ grievances. If Holles is to be believed, this provoked Gurdon, who ‘stood up in a rage, and said it smelt of Oxford’. For Holles, this illustrated the hypocrisy of the Independent MPs, who six weeks later supported the Declaration of the Army which demanded a purge of Parliament.127D. Holles, Memoirs of Denzil Lord Holles (1699), 112-13. Holles also cited Gurdon as the source for the remark that the Independents’ use of grants to gain the support of certain peers was ‘an excellent way to make a free Parliament, for the Members to be honest and discharge their consciences’.128Holles, Memoirs, 137-8. It can be noted that Gurdon may have been associated with moves in the Commons to promote the private interests of such peers as Saye and Mulgrave.129CJ iv. 727a; v. 170b.

Gurdon may himself have been using his political position for personal advantage. On 25 June the Commons revived their complaints against the Lords arising from the case of Grove and two weeks later they approved Grove’s release.130CJ v. 223a, 231a. That same day (2 July) a petition was presented by a delegation from Norfolk and Suffolk demanding that every commoner might bring complaints against MPs and that any MP thus accused should be suspended while they were being investigated. In other words, the army had been right to complain about the Eleven Members. It was presumably because they were sympathetic to the petitioners that Gurdon and William Heveningham* were appointed to inform them that the Commons would consider their petition.131The Humble Petition of the Peaceable and Well-Affected Inhabitants of the Counties of Norf. and Suff. (1647, E.396.22); CJ v. 231b. Gurdon’s nomination to the committee created on 21 July to remove abuses in army pay is consistent with his support for the army at this time. The following day he was also named to the committee set up to investigate the solemn engagement by which some Londoners had called for a settlement on the basis of the king’s promise for the temporary suspension of episcopacy.132CJ v. 253a, 254a. This makes it likely that Gurdon also voted in favour of the army’s proposal that the Commons’ committee should resume control of the London militia. William Wheler* and Gurdon were subsequently ordered to warn the militia to place themselves in a state of readiness in the expectation of trouble in the City following the passage of this measure.133CJ v. 256b. Gurdon was almost certainly one of those Independent MPs who fled Westminster when, in fulfilment of these fears, the mob invaded the Commons’ chamber on 26 July.

On the return of the Independents to Westminster on 6 August, Gurdon was named to the committees appointed to investigate the violence on 26 July. He was also played a leading part in the passage of the bill which reversed all the decisions taken in the Independents’ absence.134CJ v. 269a, 272a, 273a, 278a; LJ ix. 386a. He was clearly involved in the decision by some of the Independents to revive the Newcastle Propositions to satisfy the Scots, for on 27 August he was appointed to manage the conference with the Lords to discuss possible amendments to the Propositions.135CJ v. 286a. That on 1 September he was granted leave of absence from London makes it all the more difficult to be sure that any Gurdon references in the Journal from the autumn of 1647 relate to him.136CJ v. 287a, 330a. One of the Gurdons certainly seems to have been active in the House during the final months of 1647.137CJ v. 340a, 352a, 364b, 366b, 387b, 394a, 410a, 413b. Gurdon’s probable appointment to the committee on army arrears (22 Oct.) suggests that he recognised the importance of that issue, although, having said that, he probably also acted as teller on 20 December for those who blocked the use of the dean and chapter lands as security on the loan to make possible those payments.138CJ v. 340a, 394a.

By early 1648 Gurdon was evidently unhappy with the amended version of the reply to the Scottish commissioners about the Four Bills which had been presented to the king the previous December, for on 29 February he probably acted as teller for the minority opposing it.139CJ v. 474a. He may well have shared the Scots’ concerns about the suggestion that those who failed to conform to the proposed Presbyterian settlement should not be penalised. If so, this does not mean that Gurdon had changed his mind about the Scots (Presbyterianism aside), and the Engagement can only have confirmed his suspicions. Later that year he must have welcomed Cromwell’s campaign against the Engagers, given that he was first-named to the committee which drafted the congratulation sent to him following his entry into Edinburgh (17 Oct. 1648).140CJ vi. 54a.

Gurdon had no sympathy whatsoever with the various uprisings within England in the summer of 1648. His colleagues in the Commons were horrified on 15 June by his suggestion that the wives of the 1st earl of Norwich (George Goring†) and Lord Capell (Arthur Capell*) should be held as hostages to prevent atrocities by the rebels at Colchester; that Lady Capell was pregnant seemed to him all the more reason for doing so.141[C. Walker], The Hist. of Independency (1648), 101 (E.463.19). Gurdon had every reason to be worried, as the riots at Bury St Edmunds on 12 May showed that the rebellions in Kent and Essex might well spread into Suffolk. On 26 June he sent by Parliament to Suffolk to reorganise the Suffolk militia. He was back in London by 27 July, when he delivered various bills to the Lords, including that to raise more money for the troops in Suffolk.142CJ v. 592b, 593a, 597a, 597b, 599b, 611b, 612b; LJ x. 397b. Following the surrender of Colchester on 27 August – for which Mildmay and Gurdon conveyed the Commons’ thanks to Fairfax – he played his part in restoring order to the surrounding area.143CJ v. 695a, 696b; vi. 23a. There were now a whole new set of delinquents to be dealt with and, as always, he favoured the least lenient course of action towards them.144CJ v. 676a, 681b; vi. 27b, 29a, 36b, 47a, 60a, 67a; LJ x. 506b, 526b.

Rumper, 1649-53

There is no doubt that Gurdon survived the purge on 6 December 1648 and that he sat in the Commons in its immediate aftermath. The following day he and Henry Smyth* were sent with a message to the three ministers, including Stephen Marshall, who had been appointed to preach on 8 December.145CJ vi. 94b, 95a. Gurdon seems to have viewed the purge with disquiet, however. He was one of those appointed on 14 December to meet with Cromwell to demand an explanation for it and on 20 December he acted as teller for the majority who wanted this demand to be renewed.146CJ vi. 97a, 101b. He was included on the committee which considered the bill to create the high court of justice to try the king (29 Dec.) and was named in that bill as one of the commissioners who were to sit in judgement on him.147CJ vi. 106a; A. and O. He refused to become involved, however, and played no part in the trial itself. In 1660 he told the Convention Parliament that ‘he disliked that business and would not come there, nor ever did’.148Lancs. RO, DDBa Uncat. Box 19: diary of William Banks, 1660, unfol.

Even for him, executing the king was a step too far, but he did not withdraw from Parliament in disgust. There may well have been no interruption in his attendance and by 2 February 1649 he was certainly present in the Commons, acting as a teller supporting the passage of the amended bill to adjust legal terminology to the new political circumstances.149CJ vi. 130a. Over succeeding weeks he was named to a number of committees, including that instructed to prepare a bill banning all publications which criticised Parliament or the high court of justice (3 Feb.).150CJ vi. 131b, 133a, 134a, 137a. He nevertheless waited until 21 February before indicating that he was willing to enter his dissent to the vote of 5 December 1648.151CJ vi. 148a. Over the following weeks he was prepared to sit on the committees which considered the bill to abolish the monarchy (7 Mar.) and the re-committed draft declaration justifying Parliament’s actions (16 Mar.).152CJ vi. 158a, 165b. As early as 2 February the Ipswich corporation wrote him, to their other MP, Francis Bacon*, and to their recorder, Nathaniel Bacon*, asking them to raise the issue of piracy.153Suff. ed. Everitt, 116-17. Understandably, all three seem to have felt that there were more important matters demanding their attention.

One such matter was the search for a religious settlement, on which it is likely that Gurdon and Nathaniel Bacon worked closely together. This was most evident in June 1649, when they were asked to take care of the bill for promoting the gospel in New England; Gurdon later reported amendments to the bill to the Commons.154CJ vi. 231a, 264a. Both men clearly favoured some form of national church. Earlier in June, Mercurius Pragmaticus claimed that Gurdon and Corbett, together with Thomas Atkin* and Isaac Penington*, had opposed moves against the Presbyterian ministers Christopher Love, William Jenkins and Thomas Juggard, allegedly because Gurdon and his friends had

long been employed in the city among the presbyters, to accomplish the good work of a brotherly union; and said it would be too severe a proceeding to call the brethren in question, since that the chief of them having swallowed the great bait of tithes, it would be an easy matter to catch them.155Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 9 (5-12 June 1649), 68 (E.560.19).

When Parliament got round to considering the religious settlement in July and August 1649, Gurdon was to the fore in supporting the principle of a state church. On 26 July he and Francis Rous* were asked to take care of the articles on religion, on 6 August he was a teller for those who wanted a clause explicitly supporting tithes added to the declaration on the maintenance of the ministry and on 7 August he was third-named to the committee to review the book and ordinances settling the church.156CJ vi. 270a, 275b. He had earlier backed the bill which proposed a grant of £20,000 a year to support a preaching ministry (26 Apr.).157CJ vi. 196a. He sat on the committees appointed to consider the bill forbidding ministers commenting on politics from the pulpit (28 Mar.) and which prepared the bill clarifying the position of those livings formerly in the gift of the crown (21 May).158CJ vi. 175b, 179a, 213a. Proposals to discourage cursing and swearing seem to have had his full support, as did plans to proselytize among the unbelievers of Ireland and Wales.159CJ vi. 317b, 327b, 328b, 352a. On 20 December 1649 the question of how the gospel should be preached throughout the country was specifically referred to Gurdon and Sir James Harington*.160CJ vi. 336a.

Gurdon was willing to recognise not just that the king’s execution was irreversible, but also that the practice of English government had to be adjusted accordingly. He seems to have been only too eager to entrench the existence of the new republic. There is a real possibility that Gurdon was the principal promoter of the bill giving authority for a survey of all properties belonging to the late king; he was first-named to the committee which was assigned this bill on 24 February 1649 and he seems to have taken a close interest in the great sell-off of crown assets which ensued.161CJ vi. 150b, 160b, 178b, 205b, 358b. He probably gave his support to the proposal that there should be a general subscription of the Engagement.162CJ vi. 321b, 326b.

His desire for revenge was undiminished. On 25 April 1649, he and Alexander Rigby I* were tellers for those opposed to the fixing of a date after which no legal actions were to be brought against crimes alleged to have been committed during the civil war.163CJ vi. 195b. This measure cut both ways, with its supporters wishing to protect those who had fought for Parliament, but, for Gurdon, its disadvantage was no doubt the similar protection it offered to those who had fought for the other side. His interest in the future of the Committee for Advance of Money, for he was named to the committee appointed to consider its powers (28 May), reflected the fact that he remained one of that Committee’s active members.164CJ vi. 218b; CCAM 627, 1085. In October 1649 one of the other major committees of which he remained a member, the Committee for Compounding, used him to report to the Commons on several cases before them.165CJ vi. 309b; CSP Dom. 1650, p. 5.

Gurdon’s parliamentary career took a new direction with his election to the council of state in February 1650. In the ballot on 20 February for five places on the council, his 59 votes put him second, just one vote behind Thomas Chaloner*.166CJ vi. 369a; CSP Dom. 1650, p. 5. However, before he and Sir Peter Wentworth* took their seats, they raised a technical objection to the oath tendered to them as new members. The Commons agreed with them and they took the oaths in the form they had requested.167CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 10-11; CJ vi. 371a. It was a small point, but it meant that they entered the council having demonstrated their eagerness to respect the wishes of the Commons.

During this first year on the council Gurdon attended 129 of the 295 meetings held; 18 of the other 41 members attended more.168CSP Dom. 1650, pp. xxxv-xli. He was included on the council’s committees for Irish affairs, examinations and the ordnance office, and was called upon to sit in sub-committees on a host of minor matters.169CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 18, 58, 104, 128, 133, 173, 176, 205, 468, 484; 1651, pp. 1-2. His official position makes it likely that most of the Gurdon references in the Journal refer to him rather than his half-brother: he had moved up the Commons’ pecking order. That said, he was only occasionally asked by the council to speak on its behalf in Parliament, and then it was on straightforward matters.170CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 184, 455; 1651, p. 10; CJ vi. 419a, 505b. During his ten years in Parliament he had failed to acquire any reputation as an orator and there may have been a reluctance to entrust to him complex pieces of business.

Gurdon’s performance in the council ballot on 7 February 1651 was not quite as impressive as the previous year. He came eighteenth out of 21.171CJ vi. 532a; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 44. The pattern of his participation in council affairs was much the same as before – he continued to attend its meetings infrequently and only occasionally acted as its spokesman in Parliament.172CSP Dom. 1651, pp. xxv-xxxv, 128, 134, 169; 1651-2, p. 29; CJ vi. 556a, vii. 47b-48a. When in late March councillors wanted to draw attention to the problem of Catholics illegally attending the services in the embassy chapels, they turned to him to raise the matter in the Commons.173CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 119-20. Whether he actually did so is unclear. He was regularly named by the Commons to its committees throughout 1651, although none were of any particular importance.174CJ vi. 567a, 598b, 611b; vii. 27b, 37b. One bill in which Gurdon took a special interest was that for the sale of delinquents’ estates in order to raise money to pay off some of the army arrears. He may well have acted as chairman of the relevant Commons’ committee: when the council took steps three months later to encourage the passage of the bill, it implied that his inactivity had impeded its progress.175CJ vi. 528a, 569b; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 172.

In the council elections on 24 and 25 November 1651 achieved fifth place (with 103 votes), implying that by then he was among the most popular men in the House.176CJ vii. 42a. Buoyed up by this success, he threw himself into the business of government as never before. In the three months to February 1652 Gurdon was named to nine council sub-committees, including those on the Irish and Scottish assessments (10 Dec.) and on the disputes within the corporation of London (26 Jan.).177CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 43, 46, 54, 99, 111, 119, 132, 150. During the same period he was named to six Commons’ committees, reported to the Commons from the recently-abolished Committee for Advance of Money on the case of the 2nd earl of Clare (John Holles†) (30 Dec.) and was appointed by the Commons to organise the payments to the refugees from Jersey (2 Jan.).178CJ vii. 46b, 49a, 59b, 62a, 63a, 79b, 86b, 93a.

This burst of activity came to an abrupt end in early March 1652. Apart from a single council meeting in mid-June, Gurdon appears to have been absent from Westminster until early July 1652.179CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xxxviii-xlii. At least some of this time was spent in Suffolk, for on 24 May the Essex minister Ralph Josselin visited Gurdon at Assington, where he was ‘kindly entertained by him’.180Josselin, Diary, 279. This prolonged absence explains why it was during this year that Gurdon’s attendance at council meetings slumped to its lowest point, with his being present at no more than 92 out of the 330 meetings.181CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xxxv-xlvii. His immediate concern on his return seems to have been the state of the public finances. He was named to the committee to consider how the sale of the confiscated estates could best be used to raise money (15 July), he informed the Commons of the letters from the navy commissioners asking for more money (20 July), and he sat on the committee to examine the revived proposals for a unified treasury department (27 July).182CJ vii. 154b, 156a, 159a; CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 337.

The result of the ballots for the council of state on 24 and 25 November 1652 suggest that Gurdon’s standing at Westminster remained fairly high. Twelfth place (with 83 votes) out of 41 places was still a good showing and it gave rise to the period of Gurdon’s greatest prominence on the council.183CJ vii. 220a; CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 505. Of 121 council meetings between then and April 1653, Gurdon was present at 96, a figure exceeded only by John Bradshawe*.184CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. xxviii-xxxiii. His willingness to apply himself to its business was reflected in his appointments to its committees for trade, plantations and foreign affairs, for examinations, for released prisoners and for the mint.185CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 2, 16, 25, 48.

It appears that Gurdon still favoured some form of national church settlement. He sat on the Commons committee which in March 1650 considered the additional bill for the maintenance of a preaching ministry, as well as on that created three months later to decide how the principle of religious liberty was to be circumscribed to prevent obscene, licentious and impious acts.186CJ vi. 382b, 423b. In July 1651 he seems to have taken the view that Christopher Love, the Presbyterian minister whom he was said to have favoured in July 1649 and who had been found guilty of treason, should be treated leniently.187CJ vi. 603a. However, it is possible that he had links with John Owen*, preacher to the council of State and a leading Independent minister. In May 1650 Gurdon was delegated to inform Owen that he was to preach at the next fast day. Moreover, he was first-named to the committee appointed in February 1652 to confer with a delegation of ministers, headed by Owen, who had presented proposals for the propagation of the gospel.188CJ vi. 413a, 423b; vii. 86b. Friendship with Owen may well also be why on 22 February 1650 Gurdon had headed the list of those added to the committee for propagating the gospel in Wales and why later that year (7 June) he had been included on the parallel committee for Yorkshire.189CJ vi. 370a, 420b. Owen’s former living had been at Coggeshall, where, as has been mentioned, Gurdon owned land.190PROB11/361/33.

Gurdon’s desire to root out popery had not diminished. On 18 March 1650 he and Sir Thomas Wroth* were tellers for those who succeeded in blocking the move to amend the provisions of the Act for banishing Catholics from the London area which had been passed the previous month.191CJ vi. 383b. That in March 1651 Gurdon was assigned the task of reporting to Parliament on the loophole created by the privileged rights accorded to ambassadors’ chapels in this Act probably indicates that he had been the one to raise this problem with the council of state.192CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 119-20. This concern eventually resulted in the bill against popish recusants in January 1653, which the council seems to have assigned to Gurdon as his own special responsibility. The bill’s purpose was to clarify the act passed in 1650 banishing Catholics from London and the exemption of Catholic priests from the general pardon of 1652. The council asked Gurdon on 4 January to introduce this measure to Parliament, which he did the following day. On 6 January, when a committee was appointed to consider this bill, Gurdon and Mildmay (another councillor) were asked to take care of the measure.193CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 79; CJ vii. 243b-244b. The bill did not progress beyond committee stage.

Gurdon had also retained an interest in the fate of the royal palaces. As determined as anyone to sweep away all evidence of the monarchy, he sat on the several committees which organised the sale of the late king’s art collection and other possessions.194CJ vi. 382a, 556a, 563b. He was just as enthusiastic about the 1652 bill to sell off most of the royal palaces, acting as teller along with Henry Marten on 29 December for the minority who opposed the removal of Hampton Court from the list.195CJ vii. 222b, 237a.

A quieter life, 1653-79

Cromwell’s dissolution of the Rump and of the council of state on 20 April 1653 abruptly removed Gurdon from his ringside seat at Westminster. He was not included on the new council constituted on 27 April and his lodgings at Whitehall were reassigned.196CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 445. Neither was he among those summoned to attend the Nominated Parliament, although he cannot have been entirely at odds with the new regime, as he was included on the commission to hear complaints against the adventurers draining the Great Level, which was appointed in the week before the new Parliament assembled.197CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 447. The Nominated Parliament went on to appoint Gurdon as a commissioner for scandalous ministers in Suffolk.198A. and O. There is some evidence that he compensated for the loss of his national role by becoming involved in local Suffolk affairs. He had been appointed to the Suffolk commission of the peace by early 1650, but only after he had ceased to serve on the council of state did he make a significant contribution to its work. Between 1652 and 1655 he was regular attender at the quarter sessions at Bury St. Edmunds, as well as an occasional attender of those at Ipswich.199C193/13/3, f. 60v; Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/3, ff. 14-133v.

This eclipse in his political fortunes at a national level could easily have been temporary. The elections to the 1654 Parliament soon provided him with a easy route back to Westminster. The two Bacon brothers, Nathaniel and Francis, had stronger claims to his old seat at Ipswich, while at Sudbury the corporation chose one of their own number, John Fothergill*. There were now ten county seats available in Suffolk, however, and as a national figure Gurdon secured fifth place in the resulting poll.200C219/44/2, no. 25; Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v. Yet once elected, Gurdon played no known part in parliamentary proceedings. The contrast with his prominence in the Rump is especially striking. This is the first firm indication of a withdrawal from public life which became more marked as the decade progressed.

One consequence of his concentration on local affairs was that he soon gained the reputation as one of the most fearsome persecutors of Quakers on the Suffolk bench. Several cases are known, all dating from the autumn of 1655, in which Quakers were imprisoned or punished on his authority. It was for this reason that, as he was leaving the Bury quarter sessions on 9 October 1655, George Fox junior denounced Gurdon, challenging him to ‘repent of thy unjust actings this day, for otherwise thou canst not escape the just judgments of God’. Gurdon had him imprisoned on the spot.201G. Whitehead, The Christian Progress (1725), 68-70; Besse, Collection of Sufferings, i. 659-62. Later, in April 1657, George Whitehead was arrested while preaching at a Quaker meeting at Nayland and was taken to be interrogated by Gurdon. In answer to a direct question, Gurdon told Whitehead, ‘yes, I do despise quaking’, and ordered that he be whipped at Nayland the following day. Further discussion between the two got nowhere. Whitehead observed, ‘thou art an old man, and going to thy grave; thou dost not know how soon the Lord may put an end to thy day’. When Gurdon naturally agreed, Whitehead replied, ‘Aye, thou art old in iniquity; it’s high time for thee to repent’.202Whitehead, Christian Progress, 101-5; Besse, Collection of Sufferings, i. 663-4.

Throughout the late 1650s Gurdon continued to be named to all the major local commissions covering Suffolk.203A. and O. However, he was beginning to play a far less active role even in local politics (the occasional persecution of passing Quakers notwithstanding). In particular, from 1656 he failed to attend any quarter sessions meetings.204Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/3-4. This, together with the low profile he adopted in the 1654 Parliament and his absence from election contests in 1656, points towards a deliberate retreat from public life. It may be that he was dissatisfied with the lord protector’s rule, although there is a simpler explanation. On 13 May 1659 Gurdon responded to the letter of summons which the Rump had sent out to all MPs who failed to turn up at Westminster when they had reassembled on 7 May, attributing his non-attendance to the fact that, ‘it hath pleased divine providence to lay many infirmities upon my body, by reason of some great sicknesses that I have of late years had, so that my eye sight is almost totally perished’.205Bodl. Tanner 51, f. 55.

In the event, Gurdon managed to travel to London to attend the Rump later in the session. Either he or his half-brother had resumed their seat by 1 June and John had certainly done so by 1 July. The council of state granted him some lodgings in Whitehall on 9 July.206CJ vii. 670b; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 15. Only three committees definitely included him, of which those to consider legislation against the disruption of religious services (1 July) and on the bill concerning the powers of the Treasury commissioners (20 July) were the more significant.207CJ vii. 700b, 710b, 726a. Even if it was he, rather than Brampton, who was included on all the other seven committees to which a Gurdon was named, he still did not play a major part in the Rump’s proceedings between May and October 1659.208CJ vii. 670b, 673b, 684b, 693b, 694b, 698b, 733b, 751a, 755b. The gift of venison to him from the council of state in August 1659 may have been intended as recognition for the effort he had made to be there at all.209CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 563. One or both of the Gurdon brothers sat in the Rump in January and February, but again it is impossible to distinguish between them.210CJ vii. 818a, 821a, 822a, 843b.

Gurdon had good reason to fear the return of the king. Only his discretion in 1649 had saved him from being directly implicated in the regicide and he had then gone on to serve the republic at its highest levels. Perhaps apprehension of possible punishment prompted him to stand for election to the Convention at Sudbury in early April. At that time a conditional restoration seemed within reach. The family influence at Sudbury was now sufficient to ensure success, although a dispute over a double return delayed his entry to the Commons.211HP Commons 1660-1690. Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, judged that Gurdon was favourable to the Presbyterian interest and assigned him to Thomas Bacon* to be managed.212G.F.T. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix. 341. Edmund Ludlowe II* later wrote of Gurdon, Harbert Morley and the other veterans of the Long Parliament who sat in the Convention that, ‘though they durst not speak, [they] expressed their dislike of things by the shaking of their heads’.213Ludlow, Voyce, 121.

Profound disillusionment doubtless explains why Gurdon did not stand for re-election to Parliament in 1661, or at any time thereafter. He retreated into a life of quiescent godliness at Assington, the one place where he still counted for something. The false dawn of 1672, when the king issued his second Declaration of Indulgence, allowed Gurdon to apply for a licence to hold Presbyterian meetings in his house at Assington, but before long the former restrictions were re-imposed.214CSP Dom. 1671-2, pp. 410, 414. He died in 1679, being buried at Assington on 9 September. Under arrangements which predated his will, his principal heir was his eldest son, Robert, who had married a daughter of John Lisle*.

Gurdon had been one of the characters of the Long Parliament. Always a bit of a thug and never much of an intellect, he lacked the qualities required to be one of the leading players in its deliberations and, for all his willingness to act as a lackey for men like Marten, Vane or Saye, his obvious extremism limited his usefulness behind the scenes. However, in the crisis years of the 1640s, extremism was often mistaken for bluntly-expressed integrity and, as its composition altered, the Long Parliament became increasingly prepared to respect Gurdon for his plain-spoken honesty. It was probably because they considered him an incorruptible backbencher, that his colleagues in the Rump were so keen to elect him to the councils of state of the early 1650s. He failed to adapt to this new role. His contribution to the proceedings of the Long Parliament, from early days of the civil war right through to its dissolution in 1653, was hardly negligible, but it could fairly be argued that what he achieved as an MP was almost entirely destructive.

It took the peculiar circumstances of the 1640s to bring Gurdon to prominence and, although his descendants retained some local importance, with the estates at Assington passing down through an unbroken male line into the twentieth century, his career did not permanently alter the status of the family. One of his sons, Philip†, sat for Sudbury as a whig in 1689 and 1690, and a grandson, John Gurdon†, sat for that same constituency as a tory in 1699.215Crisp, Vis. Notes, ix. 108-13; J.J. Howard and F.A. Crisp, Vis. Eng. and Wales (1893-1921), xvii. 121-3; Copinger, Manors of Suff. i. 18-19.