KILLIGREW, Sir Peter (c.1593-1668), of Arwennack, St Budock, Cornw.

The Killigrews had held land in Cornwall since the reign of Henry III, and had been settled at Arwennack, on the Fal Estuary, since the mid-sixteenth century.13‘Pedigree of Killigrews’, 179-80, 187. As a younger son, Sir Peter Killigrew pursued a career as a courtier and courier. Between March and August 1623 he undertook numerous journeys to Spain, assisting Prince Charles’s negotiations for the hand of the Spanish Infanta.14CSP Dom. 1619-23, pp. 520-624; 1623-4, pp. 2-45. His marriage to Mary Lucas in 1625 was sponsored by King Charles, who gave the couple a pension of £200 per annum and knighted the bridegroom in December of that year. The match was also supported by William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke and his brother, Philip Herbert*, earl of Montgomery, who agreed to provide Mary’s jointure lands from their own estates in Glamorgan.15CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 111, 152; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 190; ‘Family of Killigrew’, 274. Such additional sources of income were very necessary, as the Killigrew estates (to which Sir Peter succeeded in 1633) were close to ruin, having been reduced in value by his brother’s incompetence and misfortune to £80 per annum.16‘Family of Killigrew’, 274. Financial strictures may have limited Killigrew’s activity as gentleman of the privy chamber during the 1630s, although he continued to serve as a professional messenger, for example attending the prince of Orange during the royal marriage negotiations in June 1641.17CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 11, 251.

With his strong royal connections it is surprising that on the outbreak of the first civil war Killigrew entered Parliament’s employment as a courier, and his decision may once again have been prompted by poverty. He was very active for his new masters, and his later claim to have undertaken 160 journeys on their behalf may not have been an exaggeration.18CSP Dom. 1654, p. 426. In November 1642 he went to Oxford with peace terms, and he delivered further messages to the king in the spring of 1643.19Warburton, Mems. of Rupert, ii. 68-9, 150. He attended the French ambassador on his journeys to and from Oxford on two occasions in same year, and made several trips relating to the Uxbridge treaty in the winter of 1644-5.20CJ iii. 276a-b, 284a, 294a, 351a, 352a; iv. 34a, 95a; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 255. In December 1645 he again carried letters to the king, and in January 1647 travelled to Newcastle to inform the Scots of the king’s removal to Holdenby.21CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 277, 282, 314, 499, 516; CJ v. 39b-40a, 58b, 66b. This seems to have been his last mission, but over the previous five years he had more than earned the nickname of ‘Peter the Post’.22Pepys’s Diary, i. 132n.

Although he was a servant of Parliament, Killigrew seems to have retained a degree of personal affection for the king. Some parliamentarians suspected his loyalty, and between 1643 and 1645 he was repeatedly threatened with fines by the Committee for Advance of Money.23CCAM 192. Similarly, in December 1643 the Commons discovered evidence that he had been in private contact with Henry Jermyn* at Oxford, and various ‘exceptions’ were raised to his continuing employment.24CJ iii. 352a. Attempts to discredit Killigrew did not succeed, and he was secure enough to be able to intervene to protect his brother-in-law, Lord Lucas, against imprisonment. A later family tradition, describing Killigrew’s attendance on Charles I at Hampton Court, and his efforts to persuade the king to escape to the continent, is probably a fabrication, but it may reflect his underlying partiality towards the royalist cause.25‘Family of Killigrew’, 274-5. Despite this, he seems to have had few scruples about receiving money from the lands of sequestered individuals. In December 1646 he was awarded £2,000 from the fines imposed on his wife’s kinsman, Sir John Lucas, and in 1652 he applied for custody of the estate of his relative, Sir Henry Killigrew*, claiming to be the rightful male heir.26CCC 799, 3290. Nor was he above petitioning the commonwealth authorities for rewards for his earlier service, and in the 1650s he received an annuity from Parliament, continuing the £200 a year he had received from the late king. He also secured local gains, including money from the estate of John Arundel of Trerice, who had destroyed Arwennack during the siege of Pendennis in 1646; and in January 1653 Parliament granted Killigrew the right to hold weekly markets at Smithwick – the town which his father had created in the same parish.27CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 138, 142; 1653-4, p. 123; 1654, p. 426; CJ vii. 249a. Arwennack was eventually rebuilt with the help of £1,000 granted from the protectoral council in 1655, in return for his surrendering the annuity rights.28CSP Dom. 1655, p. 231; Bodl. Rawl. A.27, p. 147.

In the later 1650s Killigrew was probably based in Cornwall, where he served on the commission of the peace and the assessment commission, but his retirement from national politics did not last long.29C231/6, p. 305; A. and O. In the elections for the third protectorate Parliament of 1659 he was chosen for Camelford, presumably on his own interest as a landowner in Cornwall; but he was also returned for distant Orkney, Shetland and Caithness, through the influence of his cousin, George Monck*, general of the army in Scotland. This marked the beginning of a period of close cooperation between the cousins. During the spring of 1659, for example, Killigrew was in negotiations to acquire the wardship of the countess of Buccleuch – presumably at the behest of Monck, in whose custody the young countess had been placed a few weeks before.30W. Fraser, The Scotts of Buccleuch (2 vols. Edinburgh, 1878), i. 256, 364, 381. Otherwise, Killigrew made little impact on this Parliament, and was named only to one committee – that for Scottish affairs, appointed on 1 April.31CJ vii. 623b.

After the collapse of the protectorate in May 1659, Monck’s bloodless victory against the army interest and his triumphant entry into London in the early weeks of 1660, Killigrew emerged as one of the general’s most loyal supporters. On 25 February 1660, Monck appointed Killigrew commander of Pendennis Castle.32Worcester Coll. Oxf., Clarke MS LII, unfol.: 25 Feb. 1660. On 15 March the Rump Parliament granted £20,000 to Monck as a reward for his services, but stopped short of giving him Hampton Court Palace. Killigrew was highly indignant. Coming ‘from dining with [Monck] at St James’s’, he accosted William Clarke in Westminster Hall, and relayed the general’s displeasure that he was ‘put off with a pretence of £20,000’.33HMC Leyborne-Popham, 226. The incident demonstrates Killigrew’s intimacy with Monck, and his unequivocal support of his patron’s ambitions. His potential usefulness to the general became more apparent in the next few weeks, as Monck became reconciled to the idea of restoring the monarchy.

During the 1650s, Killigrew had retained excellent contacts with the exiled court of Charles Stuart. He had maintained links with Holland through friends; his son travelled to France in 1657 and remained there until the Restoration; and he himself visited Paris on business in March 1658.34CSP Dom. 1655, p. 583; 1655-6, p. 182; 1657-8, pp. 351, 550. Sir Peter’s brother, Sir William Killigrew, had been in Dutch service throughout the 1650s, and was favoured by the princess of Orange.35‘Family of Killigrew’, 277. In October 1653 Sir Peter had joined his brother in advising the leading courtier, Lord Wilmot (Henry Wilmot*), on the wisdom of his returning to England to make his peace with the regime.36TSP i. 515. Killigrew’s cousin, Elizabeth Boyle, had been Charles Stuart’s mistress in the early 1650s and remained an influential courtier. Her husband, Francis Boyle, was one of the main agents between the exiled court and the leaders of the Irish Protestant interest, which included his brother, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle)*. Aided by such personal contacts, Killigrew easily renewed his own friendships within the Stuart court in the spring of 1660. By March royalist agents such as John Barwick were convinced that he could be classed among those ‘that are not much enamoured of that government’; and in April Sir Edward Hyde* was busy trying to scotch rumours that Killigrew had already been promised preferment by those around the king.37TSP vii. 861; CCSP iv. 650. In the event, the crucial negotiations surrounding the Declaration of Breda were conducted by other Monck associates – Sir John Grenville, Dr Thomas Clarges* and William Morice* - but Killigrew’s contacts may have improved the reception of their approaches in royalist circles. And it was no coincidence that Monck chose Killigrew to take his final letters to Charles Stuart on 7 May, assuring him of the loyalty of the fleet, and announcing that the restored monarchy had been proclaimed in London.38Pepys’s Diary, i. 132; CCSP v. 21, 31.

Killigrew’s rewards for his services were modest, and local. When writing to Charles II in May 1660, Monck had asked that Killigrew be retained as commander of Pendennis Castle, and the king was happy to oblige; and in 1661 the king confirmed the privileges of Killigrew’s town of Smithwick, renamed Falmouth.39CCSP v. 21, 31; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 63; 1668-9, pp. 645-6. In 1665 Killigrew acknowledged such royal favours by dedicating the newly-built church at Falmouth to King Charles the Martyr.40‘Pedigree of Killigrews’, 215. Despite his continuing connections with Monck and other courtiers, after 1660 Killigrew’s political activities were mostly focused on Cornwall.41HMC Leyborne-Popham, 192. His son, also Peter, was returned for Camelford in the Convention Parliament, although Killigrew’s own election, for Helston, was overturned by the committee of privileges in August 1660.42CJ viii. 115a. In the following year Killigrew at last secured Helston, as Member for the Cavalier Parliament, and he represented the borough until his death in the summer of 1668.43HP Commons 1660-90, ‘Sir Peter Killigrew’. By this time the Killigrew fortunes had begun to recover, and he left his son a viable estate and £7,000 in money.44‘Family of Killigrew’, 277.