WYNDHAM, Edmund (c.1600-81), of Kentsford, St Decumans, and Cathanger, Som. and St Margaret’s, Westminster.

This MP’s father, Sir Thomas Wyndham, died in early 1635.39St Decumans par. reg. Three decades later, Edmund Wyndham’s sister-in-law, Anne, wife of Francis Wyndham*, described this event in print. According to her, Sir Thomas on his deathbed had called together his five surviving sons and advised them always to be loyal servants of the monarchy. This was because

he feared the beautiful garment of peace would shortly be torn in pieces through the neglect of magistrates, the general corruption of manners, and the prevalence of a puritanical faction, which (if not prevented) would undermine the very pillars of government.40A. Wyndham, Claustrum Regale Reseratum (1667), 20.

By 1667, when this was published, Sir Thomas Wyndham’s supposed dying words were already heavily loaded with hindsight. Three of the five brothers had died fighting for the king during the civil war, while the remaining two, Edmund and Francis, had been conspicuous in their loyalty, on the battlefield, in exile and at court. So, whether or not Sir Thomas had actually issued them with such prescient instructions in so dramatic a fashion, this branch of the Wyndhams could rightly feel that support for the monarchy had become their defining credo.

The single most important factor in Wyndham’s career had been his wife’s appointment as nurse to the prince of Wales (the future Charles II) at his birth in 1630.41CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 334; 1631-3, p. 277. Many contemporary references to him identify him by mentioning his wife’s position and one verse tribute published on Wyndham’s death in 1681 would even describe him as having been the ‘nursing father to a king’.42An Heroick Elegy upon the most Lamented Death of that Excellent Hero Sir Edmund Wyndham (1681). The emotional bond that developed between the young Prince Charles and his nurse did not, of course, matter politically while the prince was still an infant. But even in the 1630s the Wyndhams were well placed to benefit from this link and Edmund certainly made the most of it. He soon acquired a court office of his own in the king’s household as a gentleman of the privy chamber. He was also able to accumulate an impressive series of sinecures and concessions, all intended by him – and by the king – to enrich him and his relatives.

Almost all of these appointments were contentious. In 1632 he combined with the Company of Soapmakers to administer the soap monopoly, one of the most notorious of the economic monopolies of the 1630s.43CSP Dom. 1635, pp. 411, 450; 1635-6, pp. 192, 406; 1639-40, p. 193; 1640, p. 491. This was a real money-spinner and in 1637 he and two partners were able to sell out their interests to the Soapmakers for £43,000.44Wyndham, Fam. Hist. 179. Also controversial was his office as one of the clerks of errors in the courts of king’s bench and exchequer. He and his fellow clerks (including his brother, Francis*) were finally appointed in 1632 only after the king personally overruled the tenacious opposition from the judges of those courts.45CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 198; Add. 1625-49, pp. 425-6; Wyndham, Fam. Hist. 176-7 Most of Wyndham’s other money-making schemes involved him acting in partnership with another member of the privy chamber, Edward Savage†. In 1637 the pair were granted a second monopoly, that of licensing the use of wine casks for the next 21 years.46Coventry Docquets, 48, 232. The brewers naturally resented this and convinced the privy council that this violated the special deals they had previously negotiated with the royal household. The council sided with the brewers and the board of greencloth.47CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 564-5; 1637-8, p. 375; PC Regs. iii. 86-7, 167. This did not deter Wyndham and Savage. In 1639 they were granted powers to discover lands which had been granted to corporations without the king’s permission. Those corporations with which they then compounded included Bridgwater. They were also members of the commissions for depopulation.48 Coventry Docquets, 49, 57, 234, 277.

The wine casks monopoly was not the only scheme promoted by Wyndham and Savage that ran into trouble. In 1636 the Bedford Level Adventurers, headed by the 4th earl of Bedford (Sir Francis Russell†), claimed to have fulfilled their contract to drain the Great Level in the Isle of Ely, and, under the terms of that contract, the king was entitled to a share of the drained lands amounting to 12,000 acres. In April 1638 Charles leased those lands to Wyndham and Savage for 14 years at a rent of £14,300 a year.49Coventry Docquets, 358. This proved to be a disastrous deal for Wyndham and Savage. It quickly became apparent that these lands were still subject to regular flooding, even when the newly constructed dykes did not collapse. Recognising these risks, few tenants came forward to farm the drained lands and some of those who did later refused to pay their rents. Far from making money, Wyndham and Savage had lost £1,092 by the autumn of 1640 and that was before they had paid anything to the king. Their subordinates blamed the Adventurers, claiming that they had failed to carry out additional work they had promised.50E179/5970; E163/24/33; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 463. In the meantime, in July 1638, the king had cancelled the Adventurers’ contract and taken over direct control of the drainage operations. This had, in theory, increased his share from 12,000 acres to 57,000 acres. But, with Wyndham and Savage failing to make a profit from the previous allocation, there was no question of their existing lease being expanded.

Because of his court office, Wyndham was summoned to attend the king at York in April 1639 for the military campaign against the Scots.51CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 420-1. It is unlikely that he had much sympathy with the Covenanters. The following year he was re-elected to Parliament. In 1625 and 1628 he had sat as MP for Minehead, the constituency closest to the family’s estates. In 1640, however, he preferred to stand at Bridgwater, leaving the Minehead seat for his younger brother, Francis*. Edmund was then elected with Robert Blake* at Bridgwater on 27 March. On 16 April he made his only recorded speech in this Parliament. Speaking in the debate on the appointment of the committee of privileges, he made the rather banal point that they should bear in mind the order from the lord steward of the household, the 21st earl of Arundel, who, when he had administered the oaths to the new MPs, had advised them to admit only MPs who had been validly returned.52Procs. Short Parl. 144. Later that year, on 17 October, Wyndham was re-elected at Bridgwater, on this occasion with Sir Peter Wroth*. His time in this Parliament was brief. In January 1641 the Commons took steps to remove any MPs who had been monopolists. Wyndham, notorious for his involvement in the soap monopoly, was expelled on 21 January.53CJ ii. 70b-71a; Procs. LP ii. 236-7; Cal. Corresp. Smyth Family, 168. Unsurprisingly, Wyndham did not side with the Long Parliament a year later or, indeed, at any point thereafter.

Wyndham rallied to the king as soon as the civil war broke out. In August 1642 he joined with the 1st marquess of Hertford (Sir William Seymour†) in his attempt to take control of Somerset in the king’s name.54Clarendon, Hist. ii. 283; Som. RO, DD/HI/B/466: examination of John Preston, 25 Aug. 1642. He later claimed to have personally raised two regiments of horse, an infantry regiment and a dragoon regiment.55CSP Dom. 1667-8, p. 199. The king meanwhile included him on the commission of array and then named him as the new sheriff of Somerset.56Northants. RO, FH133, unfol.; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 79. Wyndham’s conspicuous support for Hertford also earned him a place on the list of Somerset gentlemen against whom the Commons instigated impeachment proceedings.57CJ ii. 745a-b; LJ v. 360a. When local parliamentarians, led by John Pyne*, a cousin of Wyndham’s wife, successfully resisted Hertford and took control of the county for Parliament, Wyndham was left as sheriff in name only. Forced out of Somerset, he may initially have taken refuge at Oxford; he was probably the ‘Edward’ Wyndham of Wadham to whom an MA degree was awarded by the university in January 1643 on the orders of the king.58Gardiner, Regs. of Wadham College, i. 156. But as part of the royalist counterattack in Somerset in the summer of 1643, in which Hertford and Sir Ralph Hopton* swept all before them, on 6 June Hopton took Bridgwater and Hertford now installed Wyndham as its governor.59Bellum Civile, 48. Edward Hyde*, who always had his doubts about Wyndham’s talents, later explained this choice by noting that Wyndham was ‘a gentleman of a fortune near the place, and of good personal courage and unquestionable affection to the cause’.60Clarendon, Hist. iii. 79.

As governor, Wyndham was one of the leading figures in the royalist occupation of Somerset over the next two years. He later told Prince Rupert that, to begin with, he had been ‘absolute master of the field’ there.61Mems. of Prince Rupert, iii. 47n. Once Taunton had been recaptured by the parliamentarians in July 1644, Wyndham’s main task was to retake it again; he was appointed him, in place of Sir John Stawell*, as its nominal royalist governor.62Clarendon, Hist. iii. 426. While Robert Blake, his former colleague from the Short Parliament, held out against him, Wyndham’s first siege between October and December 1644 achieved little. Blake offered to surrender the town, on condition that he continue occupying the castle, but Wyndham rejected this.63Lttrs. of Robert Blake, 1-2; J.R. Powell, Robert Blake (1972), 50-2. By early 1645, after Taunton had been relieved by James Holborne and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Blake was using the town as a base from which to threaten the surrounding area, including Bridgwater. Fearing that his failures would be used against him in the bitter feuding that was now rife among royalist commanders in the south west, in January 1645 Wyndham complained to Prince Rupert that Hopton was undermining his authority and that, by deliberately drawing off his forces, was preventing him renewing his siege at Taunton.64Mems. of Prince Rupert, iii. 47-8n. By March George Goring* had taken over the assault on the town, but his quest for reinforcements from Sir Richard Grenville† only added to the disputes between the rival royalist officers. On 11 April Wyndham carried the letter from the prince of Wales ordering Goring to send reinforcements from Wells to Grenville at Taunton, and reported back on Goring’s angry and frustrated response.65Clarendon, Hist. iv. 17.

Following the arrival of the prince of Wales at Bridgwater on 23 April 1645, the behaviour of Wyndham’s wife – ‘a woman of great rudeness and a country pride’, according to Hyde – created resentment among courtiers.66Clarendon, Hist. iv. 23. In public she flaunted her closeness to Prince Charles and in private she was thought to be lobbying him for favours towards her family, while denigrating the prince’s advisers.67Clarendon, Hist. iv. 21-3. Possibly Hyde, the main source for this incident, was being coy about their relationship: some modern biographers have speculated that Charles lost his virginity to her.68A. Fraser, King Charles II (1979), 37; J. Miller, Charles II (1991), 5. The prince’s father, who certainly saw Christabella Wyndham as a menace, ordered him to return to Bristol.69Clarendon, Hist. iv. 23. Many years later, after the Wyndhams were reunited with Charles in exile, Captain George Cocke told Samuel Pepys† that Charles’s fondness for Christabella Wyndham had been such that ‘while she lived’, she ‘governed him and everything else … as a minister of state’.70Pepys’s Diary, vi. 316.

On 23 July 1645 Wyndham surrendered Bridgwater to Sir Thomas Fairfax after a week-long seige. The previous day, with victory certain, Fairfax had allowed women and children through the lines, but in a gesture of defiance, Christabella Wyndham fired one of the guns before leaving.71HMC Portland, i. 235; Mr Peters Report from the Army (1645), 2 (E.261.7); III Great Victories (1645), 4-5 (E.293.32). Her husband became a prisoner of the parliamentary army.72Mr Peters Report, 5. He later claimed that he had lost a total of £73,500 in the 1640s as a result of his support for the king. A more realistic estimate would be a still substantial £10,000. Most of that had gone on loans to the king, on pay for his regiments, on repairs to the defences of Bridgwater and on the sequestration of his estates.73Wyndham, Fam. Hist. 230-1. Wyndham never compounded for his lands. The sequestration proceedings dragged on for years.74Wyndham, Fam. Hist. 222-31. At an early stage it was agreed that money (£37 13s 4d) from his estates should be used to augment the living at Buckerell, Devon.75CCC 342, 353, 442; CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 8. Progress was made in November 1650 when his wife successfully claimed her one-fifth to support herself and their seven children.76CCC 2615. Allegations of corruption by sequestration officials managing some of the remaining estates surfaced in 1651.77CCC 470. His eldest son, Sir Hugh, was finally allowed to compound for some of them and for the estates inherited from his father-in-law, Sir Francis Drake†, in 1652 and even then his title to the Wyndham lands continued to be queried.78CCC 964.

According to Wyndham, he spent four years in prison.79CSP Dom. 1667-8, p. 199. That implies he was released only in 1649, He then travelled abroad, making his way to the court in exile, and that September was a member of the entourage that accompanied Charles Stuart to Jersey.80S.E. Hoskins, Charles the Second in the Channel Islands (1854), ii. 315. With him was one of his sons, Thomas†, already a gentleman usher, and his son-in-law Thomas Elliott, a groom of the bedchamber; Wyndham’s wife soon joined them.81A. Keay, The Magnificent Monarch (2008), 230; ‘Thomas Wyndham I’, HP Commons 1660-1690; Hoskins, Charles the Second, ii. 315, 328-9. With Charles, Christabella Wyndham was a godparent when the lieutenant-governor’s daughter was baptised that month.82Hoskins, Charles the Second, ii. 352-3. At about this time, Elliott persuaded Charles to consider appointing Wyndham as a secretary of state, replacing either Lord Digby (George Digby*) or Sir Edward Nicholas†. As rumours of this spread, other members of the court in exile, including Henrietta Maria and Hyde, considered it absurd: Wyndham lacked any obvious qualifications for such an important job.83Clarendon, Hist. v. 51-4. Charles allegedly told Hyde that Wyndham was ‘a very honest man, for whom he had never done anything, and had now nothing else to give him but this place’, but the idea was dropped.84Clarendon, Hist. v. 54.

Instead Charles appointed Wyndham as his agent in the Channel ports, to collect his share of goods seized by licensed privateers attacking English shipping in the Channel – a vital source of income. By September 1650 Wyndham was operating at Ostend and by late 1651 he was based at Boulogne.85CSP Dom. 1650, p. 341; HMC Bath, ii. 97; CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 622. His role was formalised in late 1652 or early 1653 when he appointed as the receiver of prizes along most of the northern French, Flemish, Dutch and Danish coasts.86CCSP ii. 154, 168, 174; HMC Bath, ii. 101-2. This potentially lucrative office attracted the inevitable suspicions that Wyndham was pocketing more than he should, and he found its business endlessly troublesome.87CCSP iii. 317, 323, 332, 338, 364; HMC Bath, ii. 105, 110; TSP v. 149, 262, 273, 289. More damaging was his repetition to Sir Richard Grenville in 1653 of rumours that Hyde had visited England to meet Oliver Cromwell* and that he was receiving a pension from the republican government in London. When Grenville passed this information on to the marquess of Ormond, the king heard of it and ordered an official investigation. Wyndham had to admit that the story had been no more than hearsay. The king believed him, but concluded that Wyndham had been circulating unreliable and irresponsible gossip.88CCSP ii. 259, 264, 279, 296; Nicholas Pprs. ii. 38. By the summer of 1656 Wyndham was bored, writing that he was ‘weary and ashamed to stay any longer in’ Boulogne.89TSP v. 262. Soon allowed to move away, he probably then joined the exiled court at Bruges.90TSP v. 309; Keay, Magnificent Monarch, 230. In January 1658 there were rumours that the king would grant him a peerage, although this speculation proved to be incorrect.91Letters of Sir Robert Moray to the Earl of Kincardine, 1657-73 ed. D. Stevenson (Aldershot, 2007), 121; CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 265. His wife died two months later.92CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 378. By the end of that year he was living in Paris.93CCSP iv. 113.

Wyndham returned to England at the Restoration and sat as an MP in the Cavalier Parliament (1661-78), once again representing Bridgwater. This fifth period of parliamentary service was marked by his strong support for the Church of England and for the monarchy. His main reward for his loyalty came in 1667 when he was appointed as knight marshal of the household, which was probably also when he received his knighthood. But he made it clear that he regarded this appointment as inadequate financial compensation for his losses during the 1640s.94CSP Dom. 1667-8, pp. 199-200. His son Thomas† meanwhile rose to become one of Charles II’s grooms of the bedchamber. Sir Edmund’s eldest son, Sir Hugh†, predeceased him, so on his death in 1681, his heir was Sir Hugh’s only son, Edmund, who died childless in 1698.