HUSSEY, Charles (1626-64), of Caythorpe, and Honington, Lincs.

Hussey belonged to one of Lincolnshire’s principal royalist families. His father, Sir Edward Hussey – who represented Lincolnshire in the Short Parliament – was deemed a notorious delinquent by Parliament and was fined heavily by the Committee for Compounding*.19Infra, ‘Sir Edward Hussey’. His uncle, Sir Charles Hussey, died in the royalist garrison at Newark.20Cole, Doddington, 89. And his elder brother John was killed in action against Parliament’s forces in July 1645.21Lincs. Peds. 529. The extent of Hussey’s own commitment to the king’s cause is not known. He was only in his mid-teens at the outbreak of civil war and did not assume an active role in public affairs until the late 1640s, when he emerged as a defender of the ‘commoners’ or fenlanders of south-east Lincolnshire in their dispute with the undertakers for draining the Lindsey Level. At a meeting at Donington, near Boston, in August 1649, Hussey, Thomas Hall* and several other gentlemen drafted a letter to the undertakers, claiming that although their case had been ‘fully proved’ before the committee of the fens under the chairmanship of William Ellys*, nevertheless they were prepared to compromise provided they were given a share in the venture.22Certaine Papers Concerning the Earle of Lindsey His Fennes (1649), 2-3; K. Lindley, Fenland Riots and the English Revolution, 161-2. Agreement proved impossible to reach however, and the dispute became a major issue in the Lincolnshire elections to the first protectoral Parliament in 1654.23Supra, ‘Lincolnshire’.

Nine of the ten candidates returned for Lincolnshire in 1654 – who included Thomas Hall – were returned again in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656. The only new MP in 1656 was Hussey, who came ninth on a poll, receiving 505 votes.24Supra, ‘Lincolnshire’. Hussey was to some extent the odd man out in this field. He was apparently the youngest of the MPs and came from a strongly royalist background. His only known connection with the county’s leading parliamentarians was through his marriage, in 1649, to a daughter of the godly Lincolnshire baronet Sir William Brownlow*.25Supra, ‘Sir William Brownlow’; Cole, Doddington, 97. Brownlow himself received just fives votes in the 1656 election, and it therefore seems unlikely that this connection played any part in Hussey’s election.26Supra, ‘Lincolnshire’.

Hussey may have owed his return less to his politics – although his support for the commoners in the Lindsey Level probably played well with the voters – than to the strength of his proprietorial interest in the county. He had inherited a number of properties from his father in 1648 – notably the manor of Caythorpe, about 15 miles south of Lincoln, which he made his principal residence (although he was described as of Honington, a few miles south of Caythorpe, in 1656 and again in 1658). His mother settled further properties on him in 1653.27Lincs. RO, 2 PT. 2/1, 2/3; A Perfect List of the Names of the Several Persons Returned to...this Parliament 1656 (1656), 5 (E.498.5). His estate, which was concentrated in the Kesteven division in the south of the county, was worth at least £1,800 a year, making him one of the area’s principal landowners.28C38/194, unfol. (entry for 30 June 1676); ‘Lincs. fams. temp. Charles II’, 122. Whatever the basis of his support in Lincolnshire, he was regarded as an enemy of the protectorate and was excluded from the House by the protectoral council.29CJ vii. 425b; CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 110. Perhaps he was accounted hostile to the rule of the major generals.

Hussey’s exclusion in 1656 did not prevent him being named to the 1657 assessment commission for Lincolnshire.30A. and O. ii. 1072. Nor did his family’s royalism hinder his appointment to the July 1659 militia and January 1660 assessment commissions under the restored Rump.31A. and O. ii. 1327, 1372. Nevertheless, he seems to have welcomed the Restoration, signing the loyal address of the Lincolnshire gentry in June 1660 and retaining his place on the Kesteven bench.32The Humble Congratulation of the Nobility and Gentry of the County of Lincolne (1660); C220/9/4, f. 45v. His creation as a baronet in the summer of 1661 was possibly the occasion of his appointment (which occurred at some point in the early 1660s) as a gentleman of the privy chamber, extraordinary.33CB; Lincs. Church Notes ed. Monson, 85. Returned for Lincolnshire to the Cavalier Parliament, he took an active part in the House’s proceedings and, once again, championed the interests of the commoners against the undertakers in the Lindsey Level (although according to Sir William Killigrew†, Hussey promoted at least one bill in the early 1660s for draining the Lincolnshire levels). By 1663, he had also emerged as a leading opponent at Westminster of the Clarendon administration.34W. Killigrew, To Shew the Countreys Consent for the Drayning of Lindesy Levell (1671); HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Charles Hussey’; Lindley, Fenland Riots, 223-4.

Hussey died on 11 December 1664 and was buried at Caythorpe on 16 December.35Lincs. Church Notes ed. Monson, 85. In his will, he assigned the bulk of his estate to trustees for payment of his debts and for raising portions of £2,000 for each of his three surviving daughters, after which these properties were to descend to his eldest son Charles. He bequeathed to his wife most of his personal estate and life tenure of his ‘dwelling house’ at Caythorpe. One of the signatories to his will was the Lincolnshire royalist Thomas Skipwith*.36PROB11/315, ff. 261-262v. Hussey’s second son, Edward, represented Lincoln in Parliament on five occasions between 1689 and 1702.37HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Sir Edward Hussey’.