LEIGH, Sir John (c.1598-c.1666), of Northcourt, Shorwell, I.o.W.

Northcourt manor was acquired by this MP’s grandfather, Sir John Leigh (d. 1630) who, having been ‘born but to small fortune’, apparently received a sizeable inheritance from an uncle, Edward Leigh of Shorwell, formerly steward to the abbot of Quarr.20Oglander Memoirs, 142. He built a substantial house, quickly established himself among the local gentry, and became a justice of the peace and a long-standing deputy to the Captains of the Island; by 1624 he was assessed for the purpose of the subsidy at £20 and in 1625 was among leading Island figures who sought excusal from consideration as potential sheriff of Hampshire because of ‘our situation as also of our personal absence’.21Hants RO, 44M69/G4/1/27; I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/22, 31, 75; SP16/522, f. 15; Oglander Memoirs, 23, 142. According to his friend Sir John Oglander, he effectively discharged his duties at the apex of local administration despite living for 50 years with the after-effects of ‘palsy’ [a stroke] down his left side, although in his final years he was ‘so old as not compos mentis’.22Oglander Memoirs, 143, 145; Royalist’s Notebook, 110.

This man’s longevity overshadowed the public life of his son Barnaby Leigh and the early career of his grandson and namesake, the future MP. Barnaby was ‘none of the most dutiful sons’, according to Oglander, although he further advanced the family’s standing by ‘good husbandry’, land purchases and three advantageous marriages, and in the later 1620s replaced his father when leading islanders made representations to the government about local grievances.23Oglander Memoirs, 39, 54, 144-6; PROB11/189/280 (Barnabas Leigh). Barnaby’s eldest son John matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1616, but nothing is known of him until 1628, when he was evidently living on the Isle of Wight.24Al. Ox. By the middle of that year John was married to Elizabeth Bulkeley: their first son was nine months old when he died and was buried with his great-grandfather in January 1630.25Oglander Memoirs, 146-7; Royalist’s Notebook, 159. In September 1628 John was knighted by Charles I, at the request of the chancellor of Scotland, George Hay, Viscount Dupplin [S] (later 1st earl of Kinnoull [S]), whose son Sir George Hay had been billeted at the Leigh family home ‘and kindly treated also’.26Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 195; Oglander Memoirs, 41. Since billeting had been at the root of the island’s complaints, there seems more to this than meets the eye. Sir John appears to have spent the 1630s on the Isle of Wight, where he became a burgess at Yarmouth in 1631 and where by July 1632 he was a captain in the militia.27Add. 5669, f. 88; I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/270; Royalist’s Notebook, 71-3. The only evidence of his political views is his signature on a petition submitted in 1635 to the island’s governor, Richard Weston, 1st earl of Portland, complaining about its inability to pay its assessment for Ship Money.28I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/322.

In the 1630s Barnaby Leigh married his son’s mother-in-law, Margaret Bulkeley, further cementing the families’ ties, but also engendering litigation.29Oglander Memoirs, 145; Hants RO, 1M53/437, 440-1, 835-6, 1179, 1261. Her son John Bulkeley* represented Yarmouth in the Short Parliament, but for reasons that do not appear, in the autumn elections Sir John Leigh (significantly older than his brother-in-law) took the seat instead. Leigh made little impression on the proceedings of the Long Parliament before the outbreak of the civil war. On 23 December 1640 he obtained leave ‘to go into the country, to see his father now a-dying’, although Barnaby lived on for over a year, during which he was a signatory to local orders.30CJ ii. 57b; I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/443. On 14 April 1641 Leigh was again granted leave ‘for a convenient time’, fellow Hampshire Member Richard Whithed I* explaining that ‘his lady was dangerously sick’.31CJ ii. 120a; Procs. LP iii. 546, 548, 554. Leigh was present in the House on 18 June to take the Protestation, six weeks later than most of his colleagues.32CJ ii. 178b. If, as seems likely, Richard Lee*, MP for Rochester, was the ‘Captain Leigh’ who spoke in the Commons on 12 August 1641 and reported on 30 April 1642, rather than Sir John Leigh the militia officer, there are no further mentions of the latter’s name in the Journal until 16 June 1642, when he was recorded as being absent at the call of the House.33CJ ii. 549b, 626b; Procs. LP vi. 379. That his father finally died some time between 28 March and 23 May 1642 hardly seems sufficient explanation.34PROB11/189/280.

In the early months of the civil war Leigh’s profile at Westminster was similarly low and his activities equally obscure. In the summer of 1642 Leigh was named by the king as a commissioner of array.35Northants RO, FH133. In August Leigh and his brothers Hugh and Barnaby joined Sir John Oglander in signing a letter to Parliament which, while protesting its loyalty to the ‘true Protestant religion established in the Church of England against all papist or other ill-affected persons’, was in effect a declaration of non-cooperation and latent royalism.36I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, pp. 425-6. None the less, Leigh was among deputy lieutenants appointed by Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, Parliament’s governor of the Isle of Wight, and was named a sequestration and assessment commissioner in the spring and summer of 1643.37Royalist’s Notebook, 110; A. and O. Questioned that June by the Commons about several island MPs who had absented themselves, Pembroke’s deputy, Colonel Thomas Carne, could give ‘no great commendation’ of Leigh’s service, but answered ‘negatively’ to the suggestion Leigh had been with the king at Oxford.38CJ iii. 123b; Harl. 165, f. 109a. By 3 July Leigh had evidently rendered a satisfactory account of himself, since the committee for absent members recommended that he be readmitted to the House.39CJ iii. 123b, 152b.

However, rather than appearing at Westminster Leigh seems to have remained on the Isle of Wight. On 15 August and 20 September he was there with Carne and others to sign an order imposing an assessment on Oglander and raising muster.40A. and O.; I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/478a, 481. A second summons from the Commons on 28 September may well not have been answered immediately.41I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/478a, 480; CJ iii. 256b. The first sighting of him in the chamber is on 2 November, when he took the Solemn League and Covenant.42CJ iii. 299a. Only on 11 November, when the Commons ordered the reimbursement of Leigh and Lisle for their expenditure in recruiting troops to secure the island, does there emerge more than fleeting evidence that he had been doing valuable work for Parliament.43CJ iii. 308a. Perhaps he had been active locally all along; perhaps he had shared the wavering loyalties of Pembroke himself.

By 1644 it seems to have been accepted at Westminster that Leigh’s work lay principally in the Isle of Wight. He surfaced in the Journal to have his absence respited on 5 February and to receive leave of absence on 17 July; in between he was appointed to the Isle of Wight committee (20 June).44CJ iii. 389b, 537a, 564a; I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/484-6. That year the king also excluded him from the Hampshire commission of the peace – a clear, if impotent, signal that hope of royalist allegiance was gone.45Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 243. Yet Leigh’s profile in Parliament did not increase after the end of the first civil war: next mentioned in the Journal on 29 June 1646 in connection with leave of absence to go into the country, he received his sole committee appointment – to the committee for privileges – on 16 December, and then left no trace of attendance before he was absent and excused at the call of the House on 9 October 1647.46CJ iv. 590b; CJ v. 14b, 330a. His final appearance in the records of the House was when was given leave of absence on 29 November.47CJ v. 370a.

Leigh’s name appears in one of the published contemporary lists of members secluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648, though not in the more accurate list compiled by William Prynne*.48A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649, E.539.5). Under the commonwealth and protectorate he continued to be named periodically to local commissions, but does not seem to have sought election to Parliament.49A. and O.; The Names of the Justices (1650), 50.

Leigh was returned for Yarmouth to the Convention, but once again made little impression on proceedings. He was marked as a ‘friend’ by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, albeit under the wrong first name.50HP Commons 1660-1690. He probably welcomed the Restoration, and in 1661 contributed £10 to a collection for the king in the Isle of Wight.51E179/176/559. He did not sit in the Cavalier Parliament, but was regularly appointed to local commissions, his last nominations coming in 1664.52SR. According to the heralds’ visitation of 1686, he died about 1666 aged 70.53Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. n.s. x), 104. He was succeeded by his only surviving son, John Leigh†, who represented another local constituency, Newport, in 1679 and 1681, and then by his grandson John Leigh†, who sat for Newtown between 1702 and 1705.54HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1690-1715.