KERR, Charles Lord (1624-90), of Kew, Surr.

The Kerrs of Roxburghshire were descended from two brothers who settled in Scotland in the thirteenth century, establishing two distinct families. The Kerrs of Cessford had been elevated to the peerage as earls of Roxburghe in the later sixteenth century, but the Kerrs of Ferniehurst had to wait until 1633, when Sir Robert Kerr was made earl of Ancram.14Ancram Corresp. i. p. v. The earldom was the belated reward for Ancram’s career as a courtier, and he was an intimate of James VI and I, and of Charles I until the later 1630s. He was also on good terms with Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia. Sir Robert’s eldest son, William Kerr, was prominent at court, and was created earl of Lothian in 1631, but by the end of the decade he had sided with the Covenanters and fallen out with his royal master. Charles Lord Kerr was the 1st earl of Ancram’s son from his second marriage to a daughter of the 6th earl of Derby, who was also the widow of a wealthy baronet, Sir Henry Portman of Somerset. Kerr was probably born in England, and certainly grew up there.

In May 1638 Kerr was given licence to travel abroad for three years, and, despite the parlous state of his father’s finances and the rising political temperature in Scotland, he was allowed to go to the continent.15CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 466. In January 1641 he wrote to his father from The Hague, ‘to let your lordship know that I am in good health’.16Ancram Corresp. i. 107. Little is known of Kerr’s activities in the early 1640s. His impecunious father took no part in politics, but his half-brother continued his opposition to the crown. Lothian was arrested by Charles I in 1643-4, and on his release he joined the Covenanters’ attempts to defeat James Graham, marquess of Montrose, in the highlands. In 1646 Lothian was involved in negotiations with Charles I at Newcastle, and when the Scots surrendered the king to the Long Parliament in January 1647 he travelled to London as one of the commissioners to broker a lasting peace throughout the three kingdoms.17Ancram Corresp. i. pp. lxix, lxxi; Moderate Intelligencer no. 101 (4-11 Feb. 1647), 902 (E.375.10); Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer no. 201 (16-23 Mar. 1647), 468 (E.381.9); Weekly Account no. 5 (7-14 Apr. 1647), sig. P3v (E.384.1). Lothian’s mission provides the context for Parliament’s decision to award his father £1,500 for the arrears of his pension from the crown; it may also provide the context for Charles Kerr’s election for the Cornish rotten borough of Mitchell at some time between mid-March and late April 1647.18Supra, ‘Mitchell’; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 147; Ancram Corresp. i. p. xxxviii.

Kerr was ‘received a Member into the House’ on 30 April 1647 and took the Covenant on 9 June.19CJ v. 203b; Perfect Occurrences no. 17 (23-30 Apr. 1647), 136 (E.385.16). He sided with the Presbyterian faction in the Commons, and during the ‘forcing of the Houses’ in late July and early August he was one of the most prominent MPs and was involved in some of the most controversial measures passed during that period. He was messenger to the lords with the ordinance demanding the return of the king from the army’s custody, after Cornet Joyce had seized the monarch from Holdenby; and he also took an order to remove the king’s children to London for safe-keeping.20CJ v. 262b, 264a; LJ ix. 364a, 366b. He was one of two Members chosen to accompany the royal children from St James’s on 2 August, and on the same day he was added to the Presbyterian-dominated ‘committee of safety’ appointed to organise the defence of London against the army.21CJ v. 264b, 265a. After 3 August Kerr disappears from the Journal, and presumably he withdrew from London as the New Model army advanced. Kerr returned to the Commons on 30 October 1647, but sat regularly only from March 1648 until the end of September. He seems to have taken a particular interest in Parliament’s efforts to provide maintenance for the elector palatine – perhaps mindful of his father’s links with the Bohemian royal family – and he was added to the committee on this, reported its findings and amendments to the house, and carried the subsequent ordinance to the Lords.22CJ v. 346a; vi. 25b, 28b. In September 1648, shortly after the defeat of the royalist Engagement (which his brother, the earl of Lothian, had steadfastly opposed), Kerr was messenger to the Lords with proposals to grant safe passes to certain Scots to attend the king.23CJ vi. 26a-b; LJ x. 503a. Less explicable is Kerr’s activity on behalf of the imprisoned Leveller, John Lilburne. Between 1 August and 5 September 1648 Kerr repeatedly acted as messenger to the Lords with measures to release and compensate Lilburne; he also chaired the committee to consider his plight, and was teller in favour of passing the requisite ordinance quickly.24CJ v. 657a, 658a, 675a, 679b, 686a; vi. 7b; LJ x. 407a.

Kerr’s last recorded appearance in the Commons in 1648 was on 23 September, but he did not withdraw from politics altogether.25CJ vi. 28b. He was added to the Surrey sequestrations committee in October, and was named as one of the militia commissioners for the county in early December.26A. and O. His name is on one of the contemporary lists of Members secluded at Pride’s Purge on 6 December. Kerr certainly seems to have been no friend of the army: on 22 December, he was reported as a participant in a tavern brawl with some troopers of Nathaniel Rich’s* regiment, and he withdrew from politics after 1648 and retired to Kew.27A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); The Moderate no. 26 (2-9 Jan. 1649), 238-9 (E.537.26); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 223, 369. In or before May 1654 he married the widow of Sir Edward Manfield, and soon afterwards he reported that ‘a great misfortune … befell me’ with the death of his father, who was hiding from his creditors in Amsterdam.28Add. 38175, ff. 31, 33. The new earl of Ancram inherited not only his father’s title, but also his debts. This forced him to sell lands, including most of the Portman estate at Kew, between 1656 and 1662. The grand mansion by the Thames was itself mortgaged in 1659, and was lost in 1664 when the mortgage was foreclosed.29Cloake, Cottages and Common Fields, 205-6, 301-2; Surr. Hearth Tax, 6. By the end of the 1650s the father’s debts threatened to divide Ancram from Lothian, as each charged the other with liability.30Ancram Corresp. ii. 421. Despite his financial problems, during the 1650s, Kerr also busied himself with the study of divinity. Among his acquaintances was the aristocratic intellectual, Sir Kenelm Digby, and in 1657 Kerr wrote to his brother in Scotland asking for a copy of Robert Baron’s Disputatio Theologica, ‘which is not to be gotten here easily’.31Add. 38175, ff. 31, 33; Ancram Corresp. ii. 406-7. Bishop Gilbert Burnet’s later comment that Ancram had ‘studied the most divinity of any man of quality I ever knew’ might have applied to the 1650s as well as to the 1670s.32G. Burnet, History of his own time (6 vols. Oxford, 1833), ii. 23.

Ancram presumably favoured the restoration of the monarchy, but he was not active in royalist circles in 1659-60. In August 1659 he was suspected of involvement in Sir George Boothe’s* abortive rising in the north west of England, possibly because of his family links with the Stanleys, but after being examined by the council of state he was released without charge.33CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 94, 96. When the secluded members were returned to the Rump in February 1660, Ancram resumed his seat, and made no secret of his royalist sympathies. He was involved in the election to the council of state held on 23 February, as one of four tellers for the votes cast, and he supported the move to make the council’s tenure indefinite.34CJ vii. 849a. 852b. He was also active in reversing harsh measures against royalists, being named to the committee to release prisoners and lift sequestration orders, and acting as teller against excluding delinquents from elections.35CJ vii. 854a, 874a. Ancram’s personal concerns can once again be detected in his inclusion in committees to decide the case of the son of the Edinburgh financier, Sir William Dick (who had included the Kerrs in his financial dealings during the 1640s), and to revive the palatinate jurisdictions of the counties of Cheshire and Lancashire (where the Stanleys held sway).36CJ vii. 860b. Ancram’s concern for the Stanleys was prudent. He was returned for Thirsk and then Wigan on the family’s interest for successive parliaments from April 1660, and he was able to use their influence to ensure his brother’s survival under Charles II.37Ancram Corresp. i. pp. ciii-civ. Ancram died in 1690. As his only son had died in 1676, the earldom was incorporated into that of his half-brother’s family, the earls (and later marquesses) of Lothian.38HP Commons 1660-90.