LEWIS, Sir William, 1st bt. (1598-1677), of Llangorse, Brec., and Bordean House, East Meon, Hants

Lewis’s father was the son of a Brecon mercer, who served on the commission of the peace, married a local heiress and added by purchase to his estates, but died in 1614 leaving his wife to bring up five young sons and two daughters. The request in his will that his two youngest sons should be apprenticed in Bristol and in London respectively hints that the family maintained wide mercantile links. Meanwhile, on attaining his majority in March 1619, William, the eldest, inherited land in Breconshire worth about £600 a year in possession or expectation.46Justices of the Peace ed. Phillips, 262–3; Wards 7/51/264; PROB11/124/407; T. Jones, Hist. Brec. ii. 53; iii. 65; A Particular Charge of Impeachment (1647), 23 recte 25 (E.397.17). It has been asserted that by this time he was already serving the first of two terms as the county’s sheriff.47CB; HP Commons 1660-1690. However, this seems doubtful in view of the absence of legal responsibility and lack of standing that accompanied wardship. It may be symptomatic of a tendency to confuse him with his distant kinsman William Lewis (d. 1664). The latter was the second son of Sir Edward Lewis (1560-1628) of The Van, Glamorgan, and brother of gentleman of the bedchamber Sir Edward Lewis (d. 1630), of The Van and of Edington, Wiltshire; this William was old enough to be married in 1611 and, seated at Gilfach Fargoed in Gelligaer, north Glamorgan, held land near the Breconshire border.48Clark, Limbus Patrum, 47-9, 53.

Both William Lewises may be located over many years within the networks of the earls of Pembroke across southern England and Wales, a fact which may have reinforced kinship ties between them and given them potentially wide horizons.49P. Jenkins, The Making of a Ruling Class (1983), 106; NLW, 3443, 5642. In July 1621 ‘Sir William Lewis’ of Gilfach Fargoed was involved in a land transaction with a Watkins, plausibly a connection of Lewis of Llangorse’s mother.50NLW, 56/592. It must thus have been he who, described as of Hampshire, was knighted at Whitehall in October 1619 – the sole recorded dubbing of a man of this name in the early seventeenth century; conceivably the honour had some connection with the end of a shrieval year.51Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 174. Yet Lewis of Llangorse soon also developed a base in that county. In 1621 or 1622 he married a widow with three small sons from her marriage to Sir Thomas Neale of Warnford, an auditor of the exchequer, but probably also with means of her own.52CB; Visitation of Hants (Harl. Soc. lxiv). 149; PROB11/137/201 (Sir Thomas Neale); Hants RO, 44M69/L61/100. The couple, who leased property at Bordean, five or six miles east of Warnford, from the bishop of Winchester, may have benefited from the death without male heirs some time between 1626 and 1632 of Sir Thomas’s brother Sir Francis Neale† of East Meon and St Dunstan in the West, London, another exchequer auditor.53HP Commons 1558-1603. By September 1628 Lewis, who had the previous year first attempted to avoid the Forced Loan but then paid it, had sufficient financial resources to purchase a baronetcy and in due course he acquired landed interests at East Meon and at Bere, not far from Portsmouth.54CB; Hants RO, 44M69/PW53; Keeler, Long Parl. 250.

Despite being established in the public life of his adopted county, in 1636 Lewis was appointed sheriff of Brecon, where he collected Ship Money.55C181/5, f. 58; Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 41, 73, 175; SP16/352, f. 226; SP16/356, f. 63; SP16/371, f. 238. That this was indeed Lewis the baronet and future MP is revealed when, some time during his shrieval year, he petitioned the king for permission to leave the county to conduct personal business in London, Hampshire and elsewhere; it is not known whether his accompanying undertaking that he would not neglect his duties was found acceptable.56SP16/407, f. 121. His namesake, meanwhile, was over several decades active in Glamorgan affairs.57SP16/412, f. 261; Justices of the Peace ed. Phillips, 294-300. In 1639, back in Hampshire, Lewis was among county gentry who made no reply to the king’s request for contributions towards the northern expedition, even though perhaps by this time, and certainly by July 1640, he was one of the county’s deputy lieutenants.58Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 914; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 438.

Living within a few miles of Petersfield, Lewis was returned for the borough, presumably on his own interest, to the Short Parliament alongside a kinsman of his step-sons, army treasurer Sir William Uvedale*. He made no mark on its records, but was re-elected in the autumn. This time, after a slightly slow start, he fairly soon emerged as a prominent Member, representing the interests of the army as it was then constituted for the northern campaign, and eventually as a widely-recognised leader of the Presbyterian faction.

Rise to prominence, 1640-1

In the first 12 weeks of the Parliament Lewis received only three relatively minor committee appointments – to consider the prosecution of monopolists (19 Nov.) and to review private petitions and individual disputes (30 Dec.; 4 Jan. 1641) – twice in company with Richard Whithed I*, a colleague on the Hampshire commission of the peace.59CJ ii. 31a, 60a, 62b. With fellow justices of the peace Sir Thomas Jervoise* and Robert Wallop*, he was also sworn as a witness before the Lords committee examining alleged cases of false imprisonment (15 Jan.).60LJ. iv. 132b. From the end of January, however, he began to appear with greater frequency in the Journal. What were to be his long-standing preoccupations – military security and, to a significantly lesser extent, religion – became evident. In the former he may have benefited from briefings by Uvedale. His position on the latter is difficult to categorise precisely. His commitment to religious reform of some kind was periodically plainly manifest but equally plainly subsidiary to political concerns. Judging by his record over the next few years, he brought a stance some way short of thoroughgoing Presbyterianism to committees to investigate complaints against William Piers, bishop of Bath and Wells (29 Jan.), and other bishops including Morgan Owen of Llandaff (23 Feb.); and to work on the bills to abolish superstition and introduce true worship of God (13 Feb.), to pursue dangerous recusants (26 Mar.), to restrain clergy from intervening in secular affairs (1 Apr.) and to punish those who had participated in the Convocation which had met over the previous summer in the absence of Parliament (27 Apr.).61CJ ii. 75a, 84b, 91a, 113b, 115a, 129a. A moral and social dimension to his beliefs – which hints that they were genuine and not simply the product of a desire to please useful Scottish allies – is suggested by his inclusion on committees regulating the conversion of tillage to pasture (22 Feb.) and curtailing usury (19 Mar.).62CJ ii. 92b, 108a. Nominated, in the context of the need for money to fund military campaigns, to the committee instructing subsidy commissioners to fix their assessments at a higher rate but more fairly overall (30 Apr.), he was also added to a committee to consider the dubious electoral practices of Sir Lewis Dyve†, half-brother of Portsmouth Member George Goring* (2 Mar.).63CJ ii. 93b, 95a, 130b.

Lewis took the Protestation promptly on 3 May.64CJ ii. 133a. Two days later the initial revelations by John Pym* of the ‘army plot’, in which officers were alleged to have conspired to bring the northern army south to intimidate Parliament on the king’s behalf and Goring was to have seized Portsmouth (of which he was already governor) in anticipation of the arrival of reinforcements from France, propelled Lewis to a position of greater prominence. Added on 14 May to the committee charged with security in Sussex, the next day, following a motion by Sir Henry Mildmay*, he was added to the House’s proto-executive, the so-called ‘committee of seven’, for the specific purpose of taking care of Portsmouth business.65CJ ii. 146b, 147b; Harl. 163, f. 183. On the 20th he received the first of many appointments to meet in joint committee with the Lords, on this occasion over the disbandment of armies.66CJ ii. 152a.

Then he was absent from the Journal for nearly eight weeks. Perhaps he spent some time in Hampshire. When he resurfaced on 12 July it was as a nominee to the influential committee tasked with prioritising which business should be dealt with before the anticipated recess.67CJ ii. 207b. In the time that remained, most of his own visible activity concerned the military situation. Appointed to committees to regulate musters (15, 24 July) and the import and manufacture of gunpowder (21 July), on 27 July he was among MPs added to ‘the committee for the king’s army’.68CJ ii. 212b, 219b, 223a. Payment of arrears of pay due to the soldiers was on its agenda and on 5 August – the day he was also nominated to the committee raising money to pay off the Scottish occupying army in the north east and went as a messenger to the Lords to seek another conference on disbandment of the English – Lewis put before the House the claims of the Portsmouth garrison, ‘who have not received any pay these two years and a half’, yet who were ‘of so great consequence for the safeguarding of all those southern parts of the kingdom’.69CJ ii. 239a; Procs. LP vi. 208, 215. In the first of many appearances as a teller he marshalled with Sir Henry Anderson* a minority who wished to reject a bill related to lighthouses erected further along the coast at North and South Foreland, Kent (7 Aug.), while a few days later he appeared to speak in favour of a hard line against all involved in the army plot (12 Aug.).70CJ ii. 244a; Procs. LP vi. 386. His importance in the direction of policy towards the Scots was confirmed in his inclusion in the small committee devising instructions for envoys to be sent by Parliament to Scotland (14 Aug.), while he was also named to a joint committee with the Lords regarding the securing of the port of Hull (16 Aug.).71CJ ii. 256b, 259b. Religion and politics came together when he was nominated to a committee transferring trading rights in London and Westminster from papists to protestant refugees (16 Aug.) and went to the Lords to seek the conference about recusants (17 Aug.).72CJ ii. 258a, 261a, 261b.

Lewis was appointed a commissioner in Hampshire under the order for disarming recusants issued a fortnight later (30 Aug.) and evidently spent at least part of the recess implementing it.73LJ iv. 385b. On 8 November he reported to the re-assembled House that they had sealed up the armoury of John Paulet, 5th marquess of Winchester, securing an order that the seals might be removed and the contents sold to Protestants.74D’Ewes (C), 102. While he appears to have been less vindictive than some in his pursuit of Catholics – on 11 December he was a teller against proceeding with the executions of two priests – tracking down potential subversive forces remained a priority.75CJ ii. 339b.

On 20 October, the first day of resumed proceedings, Lewis was on the committee which prepared papers for a conference with the Lords on securing the kingdom and Parliament.76CJ ii. 290a. In succeeding weeks his appearances in the Journal were regular rather than constant, but he was at the heart of the most sensitive business. Placed on the small committee which investigated complaints from the northern army (25 Oct.), Lewis went to the Lords seeking a conference over this and ‘the Incident’ or plot against Parliament’s Scottish allies, and was subsequently a reporter (26 Oct.).77CJ ii. 294b, 295a. He kept a sharp eye on the soldiery, bringing to the attention of the House on 11 December that, while an order had been issued for partial payment of arrears, ‘there was no mention of the place where it should be paid, nor of the person who should make payment of it’.78D’Ewes (C), 267. Uvedale was duly named to supply the omission. Meanwhile, Lewis was on committees for raising money (29 Oct.) and treating with the City for a loan of £50,000 (2 Nov.), and in a significant indicator of his links with the army, was one of four MPs deputed on 10 November to deliver a petition from trained bands to commanders including Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.79CJ ii. 298a, 302a, 310a. As the scale of the uprising in Ireland became clear, on 11 November Lewis was a teller in favour of resolving the House into a grand committee to debate supply for the authorities there – the essential prelude to the vote the next day to send troops without first consulting the king – and followed it up with related activity in the next few weeks.80CJ ii. 311b, 324b, 331a, 331b. While evidence of direct involvement in the militia bill and the Grand Remonstrance is lacking, Lewis was an active party to discussions with the Lords over the breach of privilege reckoned to be embodied in the king’s response (14, 15 Dec.).81CJ ii. 343b; D’Ewes (C), 288.

Security and war preparations, Jan.-Sept. 1642

For nearly six weeks – marked by riots, Charles’s abortive attempt to arrest the Five Members, and struggle for control of the military – Lewis was unaccountably absent from the Journal. Barring incapacitating illness, it is unlikely that he was politically idle, and it is certain that he was not disconnected. Perhaps absence from the Commons accounts for the fact that he was not recorded as an appointee to the committee named on 17 January 1642 to sit at Grocers’ Hall to review the safety of the kingdom and take action on Irish affairs, but he was soon in its vanguard.82CJ ii. 385a. On 24 January he reported from it the draft of a letter to be sent by the House to George Goring, whose loyalty at Portsmouth was still suspect.83CJ ii. 392b. In the next three days (25-27 Jan.) he went to the Lords on business of the defence of England, and instigated, participated in and reported on the examinations of Colonel Sir Thomas Lunsford and Admiral Sir John Penington over the attempt by Lunsford and George Digby*, Lord Digby, to seize the arsenal at Kingston-upon-Thames and Digby’s subsequent flight abroad.84CJ ii. 393b, 394a, 396b; PJ i. 170-1, 176, 193; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 502. Yet, in the face of lingering suspicion, he moved successfully for Penington’s discharge (26 Jan.), delivered a contrite petition from Lunsford (2 Feb.) and brought to the Commons two gentlemen whose offer to stand bail for Lunsford was accepted (3 Feb.).85PJ i. 179, 183, 255, 266.

Meanwhile, as his visible profile grew exponentially, he was nominated to four committees related to driving policy on Ireland (24-27 Jan.).86CJ ii. 391a, 391b, 394b, 400a. He presented the draft of the declaration under whose terms the Irish garrison of Carrickfergus was to be entrusted to the Scots, was named to the committee to amend it (28 Jan.), and carried the end result to the Lords (2 Feb.).87PJ i. 239; CJ ii. 407a, 409b. On 4 February he was a teller with Sir Hugh Cholmeley for the majority who voted for expanding the maximum number of parliamentary commissioners for Ireland from ten to 16.88CJ ii. 414a; PJ i. 269.

For the next three and a half months Lewis was rarely far from the limelight. A continuing responsibility for the investigation of persons suspected of subversion or of disseminating publications undermining Parliament is revealed when on 8 March examination of the sheriff of Middlesex was referred to ‘the committee of the House whereof Sir William Lewis is the chairman’; in his absence on official business, his substitute on that occasion was the equally prominent Sir Arthur Hesilrige*.89CJ ii. 472b; PJ ii. 9. It was probably in connection with this committee that he explored the circulation in Hampshire of propaganda emanating from the king (28 Jan.); was a teller for the majority for sending Kentish MP Sir Edward Dering* to the Tower (2 Feb.) and later took a message to the Lords seeking a stop on the ports so that he should not escape the country (6 Apr.); advocated bail for Sir William Killigrew† and Sir William Fleming, detained for sealing up MPs’ trunks (9 Feb.); joined a committee investigating (again) Lord Digby and Sir Lewis Dyve (16 Feb.); relayed intelligence to the Lords (26 Feb.); and looked into the escape from the Tower of ‘army plotter’ Daniel O’Neill (6 May).90CJ ii. 402a, 411a, 436b, 457a, 458a, 514b, 560b; PJ i. 213, 326, 328. He also chaired a committee with ongoing oversight of the Portsmouth garrison (26 Feb., 23 Mar.) and was named to others dealing with recusants (2 Feb., 12 Apr.), threatening crowds (5 Feb.) and information of dangers from Ireland (22 Feb.).91CJ ii. 409a, 415a, 449b, 457a, 493b, 523b.

Throughout this period he was occasionally nominated to committees or engaged in other activity addressing religious matters (17 Feb., 22 Mar., 4 Apr.), but when on 20 April Members were about to resume an interrupted discussion on the clergy, Lewis ‘stood up and desired that the first bill touching the militia might be read’ – a plausible indication that his priorities were political rather than religious.92PJ i. 355; ii. 191; CJ ii. 437b, 491a, 510b. He was a frequent participant and reporter of conferences with, and a regular messenger to, the Lords, a periodic drafter of documents, and an occasional teller or proposer of motions, over seized correspondence (10, 14, 18 Feb.), negotiation with the king and with the Scots, and, in time, asserting and justifying parliamentary control over the port of Hull, the militia and the navy.93PJ ii. 36, 130; CJ ii. 420a, 423a, 424b, 431a, 439b, 450a, 461a, 467a, 469b, 478a, 478b, 479b, 484a, 484b, 491a, 509a, 513b, 519a, 519b, 525b, 531a, 539b, 543b, 545b, 547a, 549a, 550b, 561b, 565b, 568b, 572a, 572b, 575a. With Sir Philip Stapilton*, Nathaniel Fiennes I* and five others he joined peers on the deputation which went to Newmarket in March to present the king with Parliament’s Declaration on its Militia Ordinance, while in April he was on the committee reviewing the response to the Protestation.94CJ ii. 469b, 530a. As both sides prepared for mobilisation, he was among MPs who discussed with the Lords commissions for foot companies (13 May), carried to the Lords a draft justification for Parliament’s ordinance countering musters called by the king (17 May), and proposed and managed, with Pym, John Hampden* and John Wylde*, a conference with peers on the removal of arms from Hull and the speedy implementation of the Militia Ordinance (18 May).95CJ ii. 570b, 576b, 578a; PJ ii. 339-40.

Thereafter, Lewis again unaccountably disappeared from the Journal, this time for seven weeks. This time military preparations in Hampshire rather than illness seem the more likely explanation. When he reappeared on 5 July it was to resume for a brief period his previous activity. As before, he was a key figure in liaison with the Lords, engaged in direction of the war in the regions; although he was not included in the Committee of Safety set up for that purpose that day, he was clearly co-operating closely with those, like Nathaniel Fiennes I, who were.96CJ ii. 652a-653a, 662a, 665b, 667a, 687b. Within his own sphere of influence, he procured an order ‘to hinder the execution of the commission of array in Hampshire’ (22 July) and took to the Lords the order for the 4th earl of Pembroke (another Committee of Safety member) to replace his lukewarm son, Philip Herbert*, Lord Herbert, as lord lieutenant of Breconshire, Monmouthshire and Glamorgan (29 July).97PJ iii. 250; CJ ii. 686b, 695b, 696b; LJ v. 248b. He was also a messenger to peers seeking a conference over raising money through customs (28 July) and was among a small group of MPs named to oversee the discharge of arrears to army officers, as listed by Uvedale (30 July).98CJ ii. 695a, 697a. The same day he reported from a conference with the Lords over intercepted letters directed to the ambassador to the United Provinces and went to the upper chamber again with the result of ensuing deliberations in the Commons.99CJ ii. 697b. Yet there were signs that he was not to be numbered among the most militant Members: not only did his partnership with Fiennes involve telling against Henry Marten*, but on 19 July, with Sir Gilbert Gerard*, he marshalled the majority prepared to accept at least some modification by the king of the articles in the proposed treaty with the Scots.100CJ ii. 680b, 687b.

Lewis then repaired to Hampshire with other local Members like Sir Thomas Jervoise* and Sir William Waller* to direct the war effort there. On 12 August they informed the Speaker that ammunition promised by Parliament for delivery at Lewis’s house had not arrived.101HMC Portland i. 14-15. A fortnight later Sussex collectors were ordered to advance him £1,000.102CJ ii. 736b. By 28 August Waller, Lewis and Jervoise had gathered sufficient forces to parley with Goring for control of Portsmouth and, having despatched Lewis back to the Commons to give an interim report on 2 September, they took first Southsea Castle and then the town itself; Lewis and others sent the articles of surrender to Pym on the 7th.103A True Relation of the Passages at Portsmouth (1642, E.118.22); Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 683; CJ ii. 750a; HMC Portland i. 61.

War, peace and allegiances, 1642-4

Appointment by Parliament as the new governor of Portsmouth on 8 September for a time entailed Lewis’s absence from the House, although his need for arms and money surfaced there (2, 4 Nov.; 20 Dec.).104CJ ii. 758b, 831b, 835a; Harl. 164, f. 267v. On 11 December Lewis, Jervoise and others requested formal respite from attendance owing to their indispensability in Hampshire.105HMC Portland i. 78. But by January 1643 Lewis had obviously concluded that he served Portsmouth’s – and probably other – interests better by returning to Westminster. On 21 January Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire* (or just possibly Sir John Evelyn of Surrey*) requested licence for him to come to London ‘for some short time about urgent occasions’, and the condition that Parliament approve a deputy to discharge his duties being met three days later, this was granted.106Harl. 164, f. 280; Add. 18777, f. 131; CJ ii. 937a, 941b.

Lewis had presumably resumed his seat in the chamber by 31 January, when he was nominated to consider a proposition from the Scottish commissioners.107CJ ii. 949b. Over the next few months Portsmouth business dominated his appearances in the Journal and in diaries. He informed the House on 6 February that the garrison of 800 men had neither money nor victuals – a fact of which he had already appraised ‘the close committee’ – and he did his utmost to rectify this, whether it be in the form of his own allowance (at £3 per day ‘less by 40 shillings ... than was allowed to Sir John Hotham* in Hull’) or more generally.108Add. 18777, f. 143v; Add. 31116, p. 50; CJ ii. 964a. But despite his persistence, and orders for payment to him and other Hampshire Members for the garrison of sums of £1,000 and £1,500, he complained on 21 April – under-selling the longevity of his pleas, unless diarist Sir Simonds D’Ewes* misheard – that unless Parliament took prompt action to pay the soldiers at Portsmouth and Hurst Castle

he should not be able to give so good an account of those places as would be expected from him. That he had now attended here seven weeks to obtain money, but could yet effect nothing.109Add. 18777, f. 161v; CJ ii. 980a; iii. 37a, 50b; Harl. 164, f. 376v.

In the meantime, while he had received the minor consolation of having his privileges upheld when one Thomas Cropp served on him a subpoena to appear at the Oxford law courts (25 Feb.), he was chivvied to deliver up some of his precious ammunition and stores to ships in the harbour preparing for service on the English and Irish coasts (1, 4, 5 Apr.).110CJ ii. 980a; iii. 26a, 26b, 30b; Harl. 164, f. 354.

Disillusionment with the course of the war – the cost of which may have come home to him partly as a consequence of his second committee appointment of the year, to consider a scheme for weekly assessments (1 Feb.) – probably underlay the rest of his contribution to Commons business that spring.111CJ ii. 951a. His views on pursuing delinquents are somewhat opaque: he was a teller against John Maynard and Edmund Waller (otherwise often his allies) against re-committing the ordinance for seizing delinquents (7 Mar.) and reminded the Lords to pass it (24 Mar.), but when it came to acting against a specific individual he ‘stood up and showed that he saw the debate was like to be very long’ and sought to deflect attention to peers’ response to another message he had taken about a conference on intelligence from north-western commander Sir William Brereton* (24 Mar.).112CJ ii. 993a; iii. 16b; Harl. 164, f. 342. By 6 April he stood revealed as a member of the peace party, telling with Denzil Holles*, with whom he was to have a long partnership, against militants Marten and Sir Henry Vane II* and for the majority who wished to prolong negotiations with the king.113CJ iii. 33a. On the 17th he went to the Lords seeking a conference on the committal of an officer for ‘seizing and not restoring’ horses destined for army use.114CJ iii. 48a. It is likely that he came to this position at least partly as a member of the circle around Pembroke, whose reservations about war were evident. On 15 March Lewis was named first to a committee investigating a petition from the Isle of Wight, of which the earl was governor; on 20 April he joined Evelyn of Wiltshire in securing the deferment of discussion of disputes relating to Pembroke’s ironworks in Derbyshire until the earl’s right-hand man Michael Oldisworth* should be in the House to explain the matter fully.115CJ iii. 1a: Harl. 164, f. 375v.

However, by the summer an extra dimension to Lewis’s loyalties became apparent. An ordinance for the maintenance of the garrisons at Portsmouth and Southsea out of Hampshire assessments was issued on 4 May and by the 7th, Lewis, Whithed and others were on the spot to see it implemented.116A. and O.; Hants RO, 44M69/G3/1165. He must have returned to London at least a few days before 14 June, when he was ordered to send an express messenger to Portsmouth for the purpose of making a copy of Goring’s articles of surrender the previous year, ‘to prevent inconveniencies that may happen, if the original of the articles should miscarry’ – a product, perhaps, of unease at Westminster over the military situation in the area, or even of the suspicions that some might have had of Lewis himself.117CJ iii. 129a. He took the new Covenant on 15 June, but it was not until the beginning of July that he again appeared in the Journal, leaving him more opportunity than recently for informal association outside the House in a summer when military defeats opened fissures in parliamentarian ranks.118CJ iii. 130b. When he surfaced on Saturday 1 July he was revealed as an associate of the earl of Essex, going to the Lords to seek a conference on a letter from the lord general, who had requested a visit at his headquarters from a parliamentary committee.119CJ iii. 151a, 151b. With Evelyn, Lewis was one of the four MPs appointed to the ensuing delegation, together with peers Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland, and Edward Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Escrick, but on reaching St Albans later that day they received a message that Prince Rupert’s presence across their path rendered it too dangerous to proceed, and on the 2nd retreated back to London.120CJ iii. 151b; HMC 7th Rep. 553a. Visible again in the House only on 25 July, Lewis went to tell the Lords that, in the aftermath of the rout at Roundway Down and with Bristol in danger of falling, the Commons had agreed to an ordinance to raise 6,000 horse for Essex’s army.121CJ iii. 181b. However, when on 7 August they voted by a narrow majority to reject peers’ proposals for re-opening peace negotiations with the king, Lewis, with Holland, Holles and Evelyn of Wiltshire, was among the popularly-identified leaders of the minority group who were intimidated into leaving Westminster.122Harl. 165, f. 145v.

Unlike Evelyn or his temporary host Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, Lewis was not apparently mooted as one about to defect to the royalists at Oxford, but he was among those summoned from the country to the House on 19 August.123Harl. 165, f. 152v. He had re-appeared by 7 September, sitting with Holles and D’Ewes when Sir John Hotham was brought to the Commons to receive judgement on his treachery at Hull.124Harl. 165, f.170v. The next day, however, Lewis was given leave of absence for ten days.125CJ iii. 233b. Although he was included on a committee examining charges that Sir Edward Bayntun* had slandered Pym (9 Sept.) and subscribed the Covenant on 30 September, he made little mark in the chamber before the end of the year, suggesting that he had adopted a cautious strategy of hanging back and waiting upon events.126CJ iii. 236a, 259a. On 28 October his accounts for the time he was active at Portsmouth were referred to the committee of accounts, while on 9 December he was for the first time since July a messenger to the Lords, conveying among other items an order for the west midlands commander Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh, to join Essex at his headquarters.127CJ iii. 293a, 335a.

In central southern England at least, the military tide had begun to turn when Lewis returned to a higher profile in the Commons in the early months of 1644. Almost without exception, his appointments related to protecting the interests of his associates locally and nationally, and to promoting the cause of peace. With the like-minded Stapilton and Sir John Meyrick* he was designated on 10 January 1644 to communicate to the earl of Essex measures aimed at reconciling him with Waller, who had recently had greater success in his campaigns.128CJ iii. 362a. Lewis was nominated to committees preparing the ordinances on accounts from the Committee for Advance of Money* at Haberdashers’ Hall (12 Jan.) and for raising funds for the four associated southern counties placed under Waller’s command (30 Jan.).129CJ iii. 363b, 383b. He was among MPs including Waller instructed to confer with the earl of Pembroke to devise measures for the safety of the Isle of Wight and Hurst Castle (8 Feb.), and among those of the earl’s friends named to deal with his claims to the profits of the office of custos brevium in common pleas (20 Jan.) and with plans to take control of his regional spheres of influence in Gloucestershire and south Wales (10 Apr.).130CJ iii. 371a, 393b, 455b. On 20 April Lewis was a teller with Wiltshire Member Sir Edward Hungerford for the majority who exonerated Pembroke’s Isle of Wight deputy and man-of-business, Colonel Thomas Carne, from charges of disaffection.131CJ iii. 466a. Throughout this he may have been a key figure in mediating differences between Essex and Pembroke, just as earlier he may have performed this function with Essex and Uvedale.

There was little doubt of his partisanship. On 7 February he and Holles were minority tellers in a division over the constitution of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, which thanks to their opponents, Vane II and Hesilrige, was given greater power over the conduct of the war than its predecessor, the Committee of Safety – power which Essex was sometimes to ignore.132CJ iii. 391b. Twice added to committees to examine the two Sir John Evelyns and determine whether their alleged plotting of the previous summer deserved further punishment or exoneration (7, 27 Feb.), Lewis was a teller with William Pierpont* for the majority who decided that Evelyn II should be liberated from imprisonment (2 Mar.).133CJ iii. 390b, 409a, 414a. When several victories and a renewed alliance with the Scots reinvigorated peace negotiations, Lewis was among those named to set out the terms (20 Apr.).134CJ iii. 466a. Appointed on 9 May to a committee charged with overhauling the management of Portsmouth, Hurst Castle and Southsea, Lewis seems to have concluded that the time had come to resign his governorship, long conducted by proxy.135CJ iii. 486a. That he was replaced a few days later by William Jephson*, who had significantly greater military experience but largely shared his perspectives, reinforces the likelihood that Lewis went voluntarily rather than fell victim to factional plotting.136CJ iii. 492b.

Party warfare, 1644-5

During the late spring and early summer, when both Essex and Waller encountered some success in the field, there was scant mention of Lewis in the Journal, although he may have been still about at Westminster. In the three months between 9 May and 5 August he had only one committee nomination – with a group composed mostly of his associates, delegated to receive ambassadors from the United Provinces (6 July) – before obtaining leave to go into the country on 27 July.137CJ iii. 552b, 572a. This may have arisen, at least in part, from participation in the association of Hampshire and other southern counties, of which he was appointed a commissioner on 15 June.138A. and O. He was named second to refine the ordinance replacing scandalous and ill-affected ministers in Hampshire with learned and well-affected alternatives (5 Aug.), and was clearly committed to the work, since he reported amendments on 7 September, but it was only later in August – just as Essex experienced a humiliating reversal in the south west – that he resumed his former high profile in the chamber.139CJ iii. 579b, 620b. After a long interval, he collected another nomination relating to Ireland (20 Aug.; prolonged 27 Sept.), as well as a handful of other appointments relating to the war and to Charles Louis, elector palatine, in England perhaps at the invitation of Lewis’s political opponents.140CJ iii. 599b, 606a, 613b, 614a, 615a, 618a, 619b, 640b.

Parliament did not initially censure Essex for the military disaster in Cornwall: on 7 September Lewis carried to the Lords the draft of a letter to the earl placing the blame elsewhere.141CJ iii. 621b. However, as the implications of the defeat became clearer, as the king invited Essex to join him in suppressing parliamentary radicals, as the important parliamentarian base at Basingstoke fell temporarily to the royalists, and as there were renewed allegations about Carne on the Isle of Wight, Lewis and his friends fought to contain the damage.142CJ iii. 626a, 629a, 635b. On 27 September the Commons resolved on some reinforcements and supplies for the lord general’s army, but also took the precaution of investigating unsettling information from the south west. Recording the same day the king’s overture to Essex to ‘master the violent party at Westminster’, hostile diarist Lawrence Whitaker* also noted that Stapilton had received private ‘instructions’ from Cornwall and ‘communicated them to Mr Holles, Sir William Lewis and Mr Reynolds [Robert Reynolds*]’; ‘the House much disliking’ this covert proceeding, referred investigation of it to a close committee.143CJ iii. 641a; Add. 31116, p. 325.

Such was the support that Holles and company could muster against the militants that, despite – or because of – tense and inconclusive troop movements over the next few weeks, the ‘peace party’ could still assert itself. Lewis, like Holles and Reynolds, continued to receive significant committee appointments; Lewis was named first (with Holles second) to that set up on 14 November to review offices in Parliament’s gift, with the aim – at least as far as they were concerned – of curtailing their rivals’ power .144CJ iii. 668b, 670a, 687b, 695b. On 2 December Stapilton and Lewis secured a handsome majority against Hesilrige and William Strode I* to overturn a former vote on exchange of prisoners.145CJ iii. 711b. Lewis, apparently strategically placed to assist Holles and Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester, in the quest to relieve Oliver Cromwell* of his military influence and shape what became known as the Self-Denying Ordinance (7, 19 Dec.), was also at the forefront of preparations to receive the king’s commissioners from Oxford (12, 17 Dec.).146CJ iii. 717b, 722a, 725b, 728a, 729a, 733a. On 24 December he and Stapilton defeated Strode and Cromwell to gain a stay of execution for Sir John Hotham.147CJ iii. 734b.

But at the turn of the year the political balance swung against them. When Lewis went to the Lords on 27 December to seek a conference on the treaty, he found peers had already risen.148CJ iv. 3a. He was sent again in connection with peace propositions on 6 January 1645, but by this time the message confided to him desired that they be referred to the Committee of Both Kingdoms*, where peace party influence was weak.149CJ iv. 11b. It coincided with the recommendation by the CBK for the creation of what became the New Model army and the emergence of aspects of the Self-Denying Ordinance which the peace party – by now known to some as ‘the Presbyterians’ – had insufficiently grasped. Meanwhile, Goring’s forces were rampaging through Hampshire. For more than three weeks Lewis was absent from the Journal.

His next appearance, on 29 January, coincided with the opening of treaty negotiations at Uxbridge. It was one of his rare, but noteworthy, nominations for religious business; somewhat ironically, associates of the earl of Pembroke were well represented on the committee discussing the ordinance for repressing swearing, blaspheming and other sins.150CJ iv. 35b. Lewis’s priority was unquestionably the promotion of the negotiations, in connection with which he went to the Lords on 3 February, but as these faltered he engaged in party skirmishing over the New Model.151CJ iv. 40b. When on 11 February its backers sought a conference to persuade the reluctant Upper House to pass the necessary legislation, Lewis managed proceedings for the doubters in the Commons alongside Harbottle Grimston*, with Evelyn II (a convert to the militants since his re-admission to Parliament) on the other side.152CJ iv. 46a. Two days later Lewis and Sir Christopher Wray*, attempting to maintain control over the new forces by imposing a clause excluding officers who refused to take the Solemn League and Covenant, were defeated by Evelyn and Cromwell.153CJ iv. 48a. The New Model Ordinance passed the Lords on the 17th, but such was the size of the minority who opposed it that Lewis, Stapilton and their friends were still included on the committee appointed that day to address the practical details.154CJ iv. 51a.

His political war far from irrevocably lost, Lewis spent the next few months upholding the interests of the ‘peace party’ in business surrounding the continued prosecution of war. The nature, rather than the quantity, of his appearances in the Journal indicate his importance. He participated in the final drafting of the Self-Denying Ordinance (24 Mar.) and was belatedly added to a committee addressing compensation for Essex, who had to resign under its terms (7 Apr., 20 May).155CJ iv. 88a, 102b, 148b. He was occasionally visible in the struggle to keep some control over the navy (21 Feb., 17 Apr.), gained a small victory over the membership of the committee to consider the fleet (28 Apr.), and eventually gained a place on the Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports (4 Oct.).156CJ iv. 57a, 114b, 125a, 296b. With others in his party, he had a voice in remodelling the government of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (22 Mar. and pursued the following year), dominated a committee advancing the supply of forces in Ireland (14 Mar.), and he continued to work for and with his contacts in the Lords (15, 18 Mar.).157CJ iv. 78a, 80a, 83b, 87a, 666b; v. 134a. Above all, having secured some promise of settlement of the outstanding debts he himself had incurred in Hampshire (3 Apr.), he was appointed to committees reviewing debts, accounts and the excise, and on 6 June was added to the executive committee for the excise.158CJ iv. 98a, 98b, 107a, 115b, 116a, 123b, 148b. Additionally, he was involved in further measures for the defence of Hampshire (24 May) and making what probably seemed like the final push for the ‘reduction’ of the royalist capital at Oxford (27 May), which would end the war and the need for the New Model.159CJ iv. 153b, 155b. On 3 June, in common with other Members, Lewis was awarded a weekly attendance allowance.160CJ iv. 161a.

There is every reason to suppose that Lewis was fully apprised in advance of the counter-offensive against the ‘war party’ launched by Essex in the Lords on 4 June. Acting in collaboration with the Scottish commissioners to Parliament, the earl presented information which appeared to show that the fall of Leicester to the royalists at the end of May, and its subsequent pillage, was occasioned by the culpable incompetence of local parliamentarian leaders – an accusation rendered the more plausible by a contretemps between Hesilrige and Henry Grey, 1st earl of Stamford, of which the House had become aware on the 23rd.161CJ iv. 150b; M. Mahony, ‘The Savile affair’, PH vii. 212. The disastrous consequences of that reversal were underlined on 5 June, when Sir Thomas Fairfax*, commander-in-chief of the New Model, abandoned the siege of Oxford in order to march north to the rescue, but already on the 4th responsibility for the ‘surprise’ of Leicester was under investigation by a committee of which Lewis was a member.162CJ iv. 163a. On the 6th Essex fired a second round, placing before the CBK an intercepted letter from Lord Digby to the governor at Oxford which alluded opaquely to clandestine negotiations.163Mahony, ‘Savile affair’, 212. Placed the next day with twelve other MPs (including Holles and occasional associate Bulstrode Whitelocke*) on a joint committee to investigate Digby’s letter, on the 11th Lewis was the messenger to the Lords who relayed their agreement that Digby be brought up in custody for examination and that the quorum of the investigation committee might be reduced to (a manipulable) two peers and four MPs.164CJ iv. 167a, 172a, 172b. Simultaneously, all three were named to a committee looking into information proffered by their friend Stapilton about comments supposedly made by militant Peregrine Pelham* against the earls of Essex, Manchester and Warwick, and himself.165CJ iv. 172b.

However, in the interim William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, leader of the war party in the Lords, had presented accusations of his own, alleging to the CBK on 6 June that royalist defector Thomas Savile, 1st Baron Savile, had unmasked Holles as a spy. This too was referred to the 7 June committee, as were counter-claims from London Presbyterian minister James Cranford (prompted, as it transpired, by Scottish commissioner Robert Baillie), that there had been treacherous collusion between Saye’s sub-committee of the CBK and Digby.166Mahony, ‘Savile affair’, 212–3; V. Pearl, ‘London Puritans and Scotch Fifth-Columnists’, Studies in London Hist. ed. P.E. Jones (1969), 317-31. In the middle of deliberations, the New Model won a decisive victory at Naseby on the 14th, transforming the military situation and vindicating its own existence. In the process it also captured correspondence which severely compromised the king. On the 23rd Holles and Lewis – in an appointment revelatory of their circles of communication – were ordered to acquaint the Scots commissioners that the House was preoccupied with these other ‘affairs of very great importance’; both were named to committees perusing the captured letters and papers (23 June, 1 July).167CJ iv. 183b, 191b.

The battle on the floor of the House was rejoined on 2 July, when Saye’s kinsman John Gurdon* presented a further missive from Savile accusing not just Holles but also Whitelocke of treasonable negotiation when they were peace commissioners at Oxford, and containing some damning details which Holles, put on the spot, could not readily refute.168CJ iv. 194a; ‘The Savile affair’, 221; Add. 31116, p. 436. According to Whitelocke (who was not present), Lewis valiantly and effectively constituted himself their chief champion. Responding to a call to send both offenders immediately to the Tower, Lewis ‘stood up and with as much vigour as on the other side’ expressed ‘wonder at the justice of those who would commit a man to the Tower before he was heard and the other after he had fully answered that which they called a charge’. He dismissed Savile’s remarks as merely ‘a scandalous and libellous paper against two worthy Members of the House’, known to all as its faithful servants. Their accuser, ‘now clothed with a new title from the king of earl of Sussex’ was a man whose record of defections rendered him completely untrustworthy; it was he who should be taken into ‘strait custody, and examined who set him on to promote this business’. This ‘smart motion’, said Whitelocke admiringly, ‘spoken by him with great ingenuity and mettle, and seconded by ... Stapilton and others of that party, so wrought upon the House that the motion for commitment to the Tower was laid aside’.169Whitelocke, Mems. (1732), 154. Lewis failed to have the charges dismissed out of hand, but he proved a doughty defender of the pair in subsequent committee hearings, and, at the price of conceding that Cranford’s allegations were also false, with Stapilton marshalled a significant majority on 19 July for Holles’s receiving a note from Savile was no proof of his ‘holding intelligence with the enemy’.170CJ iv. 195a, 213a; Whitelocke, Mems. (1732), 157. He was still involved in the question of what to do with Savile at the end of September.171CJ iv. 294a.

Peace-making and party strife, 1645-6

After Naseby, the possibility was rekindled that Oxford would be taken and the war might soon be won. At least for the time being, this served to reconcile some of Lewis’s associates, like Whitelocke and Pembroke, to the New Model, which alone had the real power to effect a thoroughgoing victory. Less sanguine, Lewis, like Stapilton and Holles (over whom suspicion still hung), found control slipping away and experienced a change in the nature of his activity in the House.

The evolving and still delicately-poised military situation in the Marches and Wales, and in particular the counties in which he or the Pembroke circle had landed interests, led to Lewis being nominated unprecedentedly to committees responsible for affairs in that region but perhaps with limited influence (5 July, 5 Aug., 24 Oct.; 10, 17, 22 Nov.).172CJ iv. 197a, 230b, 319b, 337a, 347a, 351b. Nearer home, and possibly with greater hope of steering policy, he was a messenger to the Lords and a committee nominee in connection with Hampshire, Wiltshire and the associated counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire (6, 9, 12 Aug.; 2 Sept.).173CJ iv. 233a, 235a, 238a, 262a. To a greater extent than for some time, he appeared on religious or religious-related committees – for the regulation of Cambridge University (14 June, 4 Aug.), the continuance of a morning lecture at Westminster Abbey (7 July), the provision of a godly ministry in Yorkshire and the north east (18 July) – although, notwithstanding the potential pious impulse behind his inclusion on the committee on hospitals (17 Nov.), the possibility of underlying political calculation cannot be ruled out.174CJ iv. 174a, 198b, 211b, 229b, 345a. Since he was involved at all, it is noteworthy that Lewis was not involved more in the debates on church government in the summer and autumn.175Crawford, Denzil Holles, 123. When on 24 October Lewis and Stapilton were tellers against Hesilrige and Evelyn II for a sizeable majority who voted that those ordained under the new provisions emanating from the Westminster Assembly should be required to subscribe the ‘Covenant of the three kingdoms’, their first priority may not have been theological but a desire to please the Scots, hasten their departure from England and remove a complication in the peace-making process.176CJ iv. 319a.

For the time being, their Scottish alliance persisted – pragmatic and calibrated, rather than wholehearted. In August 1645 the commissioners wrote to Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven, then campaigning in Herefordshire, requesting that Lewis’s tenants in Breconshire (where it was anticipated that Leven’s forces might reach in due course) might have ‘all just protection’ against royalist forces then investing south Wales.177Corresp. of the Scots Commissioners in London ed. H.W. Meikle (Edinburgh, 1917), 104. During an autumn when the arrival in the Commons of ‘recruiter’ MPs eroded their position further, Lewis, Stapilton and Holles worked closely together to promote Essex’s interests and their own, and to cultivate other moderates, including Whitelocke, meeting with some success, at least as regards payment of arrears (26 Sept.).178CJ iv. 286a, 290a; Whitelocke, Mems. (1732), 174, 179. Lewis was among Members of different persuasions added to the committee of privileges (7 Oct.) and, as has been noted, to the Admiralty Committee (4 Oct.).179CJ iv. 296b, 300a. If less frequently than heretofore, he was still a messenger to the Lords and was particularly noticeable as the Commons discussed the departure from the kingdom of Princes Rupert and Maurice in the aftermath of the royalist surrender of Bristol (1, 7 Nov.).180CJ iv. 294a, 329b, 330a, 335b, 337a. Following the arrival in London of Scottish commissioners with fresh proposals for negotiating with the king, Lewis and Stapilton were included on the joint committee to review them (21 Oct.) and were thus well-placed to promote them insofar as they found them congenial.181CJ iv. 317a

Yet, despite their presence on important committees, and Holles’s return to prominence in the House in the final months of the year, Lewis and his friends exhibited signs of insecurity.182CJ iv. 348a; s.v. ‘Denzil Holles’. On 21 November Whitelocke recorded finding Holles, Stapilton, Lewis and Walter Long* in some disarray at the earl of Essex’s, trying to persuade the moderate Lord Willoughby and John Manners, 8th earl of Rutland, not to go as commissioners to the Scottish army in case the action was misinterpreted as ‘some plot to oppose the House of Commons in the Scots business’.183Whitelocke, Mems. (1732), 184. Unlike his two closest associates, Lewis was visible little in the House over the turn of the year, appearing only twice in the Journal between 22 November and 14 February 1646. The first was on a committee discussing contracts for supply to Ireland (8 Dec.), and the second was as a teller on 1 January with Holles for the minority who wished the ordinance for the execution of martial law to be open to debate by a committee of the whole House (where it was less likely to be driven by adherents of the New Model), rather than referred to a select committee.184CJ iv. 368b, 394a. Illness or disappointment may have contributed to keeping him away.

Whatever lay behind his invisibility, from mid-February 1646 Lewis was back in the thick of factional politics in a context where party strengths appeared about equal overall. He doubtless exploited to the full membership of key committees reviewing the mechanism of submitting petitions to Parliament (14 Feb.), regulating the Committee for Advance of Money (17 Feb.) and revisiting the holding by MPs of offices in Parliament’s gift (16 Mar.), as well as the Army Committee, instructed on 11 March to bringing in an ordinance for charging £84,000 from excise to the forces’ use.185CJ iv. 440b, 445b, 472b, 477a. He reported from the Admiralty Committee (5 Mar.).186CJ iv. 463a. Meanwhile, with Stapilton and Long he was party to a conference with the Lords over the state of peace propositions in the wake of the revelation that the Scots were negotiating with Queen Henrietta Maria (26 Feb.) and he chaired a committee considering the request of French envoys Melchior de Sabran and Jean de Montreuil (Montereul) for permission to the latter to again visit the king in Oxford and then Scotland (4 Mar.).187CJ iv. 454b, 462b. Since his arrival nine months previously Montreuil had been in talks both with the Scottish commissioners in London and with certain English Presbyterians, which were as inconclusive as they were suspicious to the Independents who dominated the Committee of Both Kingdoms.188‘Jean de Montreuil’, Oxford DNB. According to Montreuil’s report to Cardinal Mazarin, Lewis – presumably no stranger to him – told him on the evening of the 4th that ‘he and his friends would find means of insisting that my passport be granted to me without delay’.189Montereul Corresp. ed. Fotheringham, i. 156, 160. Calling on him the next day at Parliament’s behest, Holles and Lewis could offer him only a passport conditional on not returning to London, but at less this was secured within a week.190CJ iv. 463b; Montereul Corresp. i. 159, 162, 164, 169.

As Montreuil departed for Oxford, Lewis and Holles were involved in Parliament’s renewed peace negotiations with the Scottish commissioners (18, 26 Mar.).191CJ iv. 478b, 491a. They were also prominent in an initiative to persuade the prince of Wales, whose position in Cornwall was now untenable, to submit to Parliament (18, 19 Mar.).192CJ iv. 478b, 479b. However, when on 23 March there was a division on a draft invitation, the pair were only able to marshal 52 votes for it as against the 84 on the other side engineered by Hesilrige and their erstwhile associate Robert Reynolds.193CJ iv. 485b. Although a fresh draft was ordered to reflect the vote, the moment passed when the prince escaped to Jersey. As a consolation, Lewis did manage to secure a recommendation that his brother Thomas, who was a prisoner of royalist forces, be proposed for an exchange of captives, but its referral to the CBK may have given only modest hope of success (3 Apr.).194CJ iv. 499b. In mid-April Scottish demands that the king should agree to Presbyterian church government cut the ground from under the feet of Lewis and friends, who remained undoctrinaire and disinclined to introduce such a stumbling-block into peace negotiations, while being widely labelled as ‘Presbyterians’ or ‘the Presbyterian party’. Lewis probably had little leverage on committees engineered by Hesilrige, such as that which on 16 April stated the breach of privilege contained in the Westminster Assembly.195CJ iv. 581b, 502a, 511a.

The surrender of the king to the Scottish army besieging Newark in early May exacerbated factionalism at Westminster, not least as the part played by Montreuil and the Scots in Charles’s departure from Oxford became clear. While Holles and Stapilton were tellers in a series of votes which salvaged the Presbyterians’ desires to involve the Scots in peace negotiations, Lewis was appointed to committees related to this and to the accusations exchanged about individuals’ involvement (8, 9, 16 May).196CJ iv. 540a, 541b, 548a, 548b. Although their faction had failed to prevent the Commons deciding that the Scottish army should be disbanded and sent home (19 May), Lewis and Holles managed to win a vote on 21 May for more time to debate issues of church government which were part of the Scots’ demands, and participated in tightening the provisions of the ordinance for exclusion from the sacrament (23 May).197CJ iv. 552a, 553b, Lewis reported on 25 and 26 May much of a conference with the Lords on communications from both the king and the Scots, giving the Presbyterians a chance to gloss the Newcastle Propositions according to their own inclinations.198CJ iv. 554b, 555a, 562b; Add. 31116, p. 541.

Party strengths in the Commons remained finely balanced. On the 29th Lewis and Sir John Holland* failed by quite some margin to prevent Evelyn and Hesilrige gathering a majority to dissent from the Lords’ vote for a letter from the king apparently offering a Presbyterian church settlement to avoid ‘the further effusion of blood’, to be delivered to the governor of Oxford.199CJ iv. 558b. On the other hand, Holles and Stapilton managed on 13 June to get proposals for a national militia committed.200CJ iv. 576a. The committees dealing with the Scots and other matters, and the conference with the Lords (20 June), to which Lewis was party at this time contained MPs of both persuasions and neither.201CJ iv. 570b, 571a, 571b, 583a, 584b. On 25 June, the day after Oxford finally surrendered, Lewis and Holles were among a spectrum of Members who went to the Lords to hear Covenanter leader Archibald Campbell, 1st marquess of Argyll, accept Parliament’s peace proposals and put the case for a Presbyterian settlement, and then on a sub-committee which retired to peruse the latest communication on the Propositions from the Scottish commissioners.202CJ iv. 586b, 587a. Yet on what might have been a day of hope, an order that the committee of accounts certify Lewis’s receipts from ‘poll money’ collectors seems – in the context of a similar attack on Holles – calculated to have unsettled him.203CJ iv. 568b, 587b; Bodl. Tanner 61, f. 507.

Reconstruction and negotiation, July 1646-Feb. 1647

On 7 July Lewis obtained leave to go into the country ‘by his occasions’.204CJ iv. 605b. He had returned by the middle of August and from the beginning of September entered what was to be the most intense period of visible activity of his parliamentary career, lasting into the following summer. Especially at first, the scope of business in which he was engaged was wider than it had been in recent years; some related to the reconstruction and re-ordering which inevitably followed the end of the war.

As early as 22 June Lewis had been appointed to a committee to bring in an ordinance regulating committee and considering instructions to judges.205CJ iv. 583a. Over several months he was a teller, messenger to the Lords and committee member as the Commons discussed the terms under which the great seal would be deployed; with Holles he attempted (8 Oct.) – ultimately unsuccessfully – to ensure that the commissioners who held it would not also be MPs.206CJ iv. 653a, 661b, 662a, 687b, 691b, 703b, 714a; v. 155b, 156b. In the face of opposition from Hesilrige and Nathaniel Fiennes I, he and Holles obtained the committal of the ordinance for the probate of wills, occasioned by the abolition of the ecclesiastical courts which had dealt with this (17 Oct.).207CJ iv. 696b. They sat on the committee reviewing compensation for those (of differing political persuasions) who had lost income because of the abolition of the court of wards (24 Nov.) and managed to exert at least some influence over who would be chosen as circuit judges (6 Feb. 1647).208CJ iv. 727a; v. 76a. Lewis was named first to the committee set up on 30 October 1646 to nominate sheriffs and vet justices of the peace, but was defeated by William Purefoy I*, a prominent Independent and Warwickshire activist, in a division in which Lewis had sought to expand the narrow base of the Warwickshire county committee to include moderates (16 Nov.).209CJ iv. 709b, 722b.

Alongside this, Lewis gained a firmer foothold in Welsh administration. The chronology and extent of this is uncertain, but has a fundamental bearing on the credibility of accusations that were to be levelled at him by the army in June 1647. It has been asserted that the Breconshire committee ‘revolved around’ Lewis, and the army articles seem to imply that this had been the case at least as early as 1645 and the royalist incursion.210Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales, 134; A Particular Charge of Impeachment, 21-4. Yet other evidence – or lack of it – appears to indicate that Lewis was a notable absentee from his native county until the spring of 1647. Only that March was he named a justice of the peace in Breconshire, becoming an assessment commissioner for the first time on 23 June; in April he secured the election of his only son, Ludovick Lewis*, as a burgess for Brecon.211Justices of the Peace ed. Phillips, 271; A. and O. In contrast, there were other magistrates who served from before 1640 until after 1650, and on successive commissions during this period.212Justices of the Peace ed. Phillips, 268-74. It was to be alleged that some of these were royalists for whom Lewis secured favourable treatment from the Committee for Compounding at Goldsmiths’ Hall, but again the situation of longstanding co-operation, indulgence or even direction from Lewis on which the case seems to rest is questionable.213A Particular Charge of Impeachment, 21-4. When, perhaps early in 1646, Edward Herbert, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, considered who in the Pembroke circle to approach to assist his application to the Committee for Compounding, he looks to have ruled out Lewis.214Herbert Corresp. 124. More generally, Lewis, who participated in the establishment of that committee, seems to have been quite prepared to raise money from papists and royalist ‘delinquents’.215CJ iv. 603a, 651a, 708a, 710b; v. 8b, 70a, 73b, 148b.

Meanwhile, Lewis appeared in the Journal on a number of occasions in connection with religion. He was named to committees working on the ordinance for the visitation of the University of Oxford, where Pembroke was restored as chancellor (1 July 1646; 10 Feb. 1647) and in due course made a commissioner of the appeals committee sitting in London (1 May 1647).216CJ iv. 595b; v. 83a; A. and O. Added to the committee for (St) Paul’s church in the City (17 Sept. 1646), he was also nominated to work on ordinances for repairing churches (4 Nov.), appointing preachers in Chichester (11 Nov.), and supplying maintenance for ministers within England (11 Nov.), as well as for excluding ‘malignant’ ministers from livings (22 Mar. 1647).217CJ iv. 671b, 714b, 719b; v. 229b. Such activity was of course not disconnected from factional politics, but it does allow for the possibility that Lewis had, after all, some genuine commitment to religious reform for its own sake. However, the November 1646 fast sermon by New Model chaplain William Dell, in which he attacked the Presbyterian preacher on that day, Christopher Love, and a printed copy of which was referred on 12 December to a committee of which Lewis was a member, had distinctly political ramifications.218CJ v. 10b. With Sir Walter Erle*, Lewis tried unsuccessfully the same day to block the examination by a Commons committee of Jus divinum regiminis ecclesiastici, a book by certain London ministers asserting divine right Presbyterianism, although he and his friends were at least named to it.219CJ v. 11a. Whether Lewis or his two closest associates Holles and Stapilton were committed to a full-blown Presbyterian church order remains doubtful: it is noteworthy that none engaged in the Commons’ official interaction with the Westminster Assembly. Lewis’s involvement in the business of selling church lands reveals differences of opinion with Independents and others over the manner and direction of it, but gives no hint that the disendowment of bishops was theologically motivated – or, for that matter, that he was acting for reasons beyond the preservation of his own interest in episcopal leases.220CJ iv. 716a, 721b; v. 26b, 99b; SP29/20, f. 54.

Both sides at Westminster acknowledged the need to raise money. When it became clear that the king would never agree to the imposition of a Presbyterian settlement in England, the Scots had changed tactic and proposed withdrawal of their army in return of payment of the debt they were owed. The English political Presbyterians, who like the Independents welcomed the proposal, but for different reasons, wished the departure to be amicable and were pushed more financially generous terms through Parliament. Holles and Stapilton took the lead, but Lewis also played his part.221CJ iv. 644b, 663a, 673b. On 24 September he was messenger to the Lords in connection with the imminent meeting of a joint committee with the Scottish commissioners over ‘the disposal of the king’, still in England but in Scottish custody.222CJ iv. 675a. He was party to the small sub-committees convened later in the year to hammer out between the parties the details of paying off the Scots (13 Nov.; 5, 14 Dec.).223CJ iv. 721a; v. 1b, 12a Following agreement between Parliament and the Scottish commissioners in December, Lewis took a leading role in refining the new plans discussed by both Houses to bring Charles to Holdenby House (26, 28 Dec.; 6 Jan. 1647) and, following the Scottish Parliament’s vote to transfer the king into English custody, in preparing the papers to be sent to Scotland to that end (25-27 Jan.).224CJ v. 30a, 32a, 44a, 63b, 65b, 66b.

The death on 14 September 1646 of the earl of Essex gave rise to alarm when his papers were taken by his royalist relatives (17 Oct.), but his eclipse over recent months had been such that it did not undermine the position of those who had once been his ‘party’ in the Commons.225CJ iv. 696b. They still had plenty of friends in the Lords. On 17 September Holles, Stapilton and Lewis ‘pressed’ for agreement to peers’ appointment of the earl of Northumberland as lord lieutenant of Yorkshire against Cromwell’s heated defence of the Commons’ choice of Ferdinando Fairfax, 2nd Baron Fairfax, and Lewis later joined forces with Evelyn II to secure a payment of £10,000 to Northumberland ‘towards reparation for his losses’ during the war (19 Jan. 1647).226Harington’s Diary, 37; CJ v. 57b. Lewis still had loyalties to Pembroke, who was beginning to retreat from his attachment to the New Model: he was named first to the committee appointed on 3 October 1646 to discuss the petition of the earl’s son James Herbert*, a more consistent anti-army man than his father.227CJ iv. 628b.

The Presbyterian party’s drive towards dissolving the armies or re-directing military service overseas gathered momentum, but the ability of both parties to command support when it mattered was finely balanced. On 23 September Lewis and Long were named to a committee considering the ‘speedy disbandment’ of forces around Chester, while the next day, with Holles, he failed by one vote to secure agreement to a pass for Monsieur de Harambure, recruiting for mercenary troops in the Low Countries.228CJ iv. 674b, 675b. Lewis was listed first on a committee considering the commissions and payment of senior officers (10 Oct.), but the same day failed by an equally close margin in an attempt to employ a ballot box for deciding such issues.229CJ iv. 689b, 690a. On the other hand, Lewis was added with Holles to the CBK (or the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs as it now became) on 14 October for the purpose of concluding a peace settlement with the Anglo-Irish royalist commander in Ireland, James Butler, 1st marquess of Ormond; both were among the Presbyterians whose signatures dominated the authorisation given by the Committee to commissioners to treat with Ormond (23 Oct.) and who hoped to employ English parliamentarian troops to finish quelling the Irish rebels.230CJ iv. 693b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 419-20. Among other appointments that autumn shared with opponents, Lewis was named to consider the petition of officers for indemnity for actions committed with parliamentary authority (15 Oct.), which afforded another opportunity to push the Presbyterian agenda.231CJ iv. 681b, 694b, 709a, 735a; v. 6b.

By December that agenda was receiving increasingly vociferous support from elements in the City of London. The day after Evelyn II and Hesilrige had won the latest round of divisions over the treaty with the Scots (14 Dec.), the House learned that the former had been overheard telling the Speaker that he should send for the army ‘to quell those mechanic citizens’ – an allegation repeated over several days by witnesses including the financier William Pennoyer, a kinsman through marriage of Lewis.232CJ v. 12a-16b; Jones, Hist. Brec. iii. 65. Referred to a committee of varied complexion, of which Lewis was a member (17 Dec.), the accusation then disappeared, but rumours were not scotched, and when there was a vote on 22 December over whether a petition from the City should receive consideration, Stapilton and Lewis defeated Evelyn and Hesilrige, carrying with them over 60 per cent of MPs.233CJ v. 17b, 25a.

In the aftermath of the collapse of negotiations around the Newcastle Propositions, neither faction at Westminster was powerful enough to eclipse the other completely, but into the New Year the Presbyterians remained in the ascendant. In the midst of carrying messages to the Lords relating to the king and the Scots, Lewis reported from the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs the names of privy councillors to be appointed in Ireland (4 Jan. 1647) – a reminder that he and his associates still enjoyed their places on that body (although the Lords did not confirm their appointment until 7 April) and the influence that accompanied it.234CJ v. 26b, 30a, 31b, 32a, 40b, 44a, 47a. According to an examination taken a year later, by Candlemas (2 Feb.) there was some confidence that ‘we are now about to disband Sir Thomas Fairfax’s army’ and despatch some to Ireland, as well as a boast that there were many thousands of soldiers – former New Model men, Scots and militia regulars – who would back up Holles, Stapilton, Lewis, Strode and John Glynne* in their campaign.235HMC Portland i. 447. At the core of committees and conferences with the Lords, Lewis reported on 13 February discussions over the remodelling of county committees, without whose co-operation large-scale demobilisation would be impossible.236CJ v. 82a, 85a, 85b, 89a. As the king’s secretary of state Edward Nicholas was informed by letter (18 Feb.), there was a plan by Holles, Stapilton, Lewis ‘and others of that party’ to squeeze out the Independents with the covert aim ‘as they say’ to smooth the path for reconciliation with Charles.237Nicholas Pprs. i. 74

Presbyterians versus the army, Feb.-Aug. 1647

However elliptically, the informant was referring at least in part to the vote, secured only narrowly by Holles and Stapilton on 17 February, but reportedly ‘carried ... with a large majority’ when it came to the crunch the following morning, to disband the New Model, leaving only 5,400 cavalry and 1,000 dragoons.238CJ v. 90a-b; Montereul Corresp. ii. 16, 18. This was a crucial victory and the Presyterians were riding high. Nonetheless, despite the almost constant presence of Lewis and his allies in important discussions, and dominance of most, even at this point they could not count on winning every encounter. Lewis and Long failed by quite some margin to prevent Exeter Castle garrison from being retained (25 Feb.); with Sir Walter Erle, Lewis could not block the endorsement of Sir Thomas Fairfax as commander-in-chief of remaining forces (5 Mar.).239CJ v. 98a, 107a. The latter defeat saw in a fortnight’s absence from the Journal – rare at this juncture – until Lewis re-emerged as a messenger to the Lords (20 Mar.).240CJ v. 119a. On the 23rd he was appointed a reporter of a conference with the Lords where Presbyterians held undisputed sway.241CJ v. 121a.

Through the spring and early summer Lewis was at the forefront of the Presbyterian campaign against the army, as also of its search for a congenial political settlement, albeit somewhat overshadowed by Holles and Stapilton. A member of the deputation which met with the prince elector to explore a potential role in the settlement of the kingdom (25 March), he was also among MPs who on 22 April drafted a letter to those holding the king at Holdenby House instructing them to prevent the resort of people seeking the supposedly curative royal touch for scrofula – the readiness to consider alternative sources of authority and the attempt to curb the mystique of monarchy revealed that the Presbyterians, like the army, had no intention of giving away all they had fought for.242CJ v. 125a, 151b. As he continued to promote the reconstitution of regiments to serve in Ireland through propaganda and money-raising, Lewis was among the MPs whose appointment to the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs was confirmed by the Lords on 7 April.243CJ v. 127b, 133a, 135b, 138b, 146b, 167b, 168b; LJ ix. 127b. On the 9th he carried to the Lords, among other orders, one for increasing that committee’s power.244CJ v. 138b.

Meanwhile Lewis was a manager of the conference with the Lords (30 Mar.) from which emanated the declaration that those supporting a petition about grievances circulating in the New Model were ‘enemies of the state’.245CJ v. 148b. He was a successful teller in ensuring that Presbyterian-inclined military forces would be ring-fenced, whether the militia of London (2 Apr.) or the cavalry of Rowland Laugharne† in south Wales (8 Apr.).246CJ v. 312b, 137b. As recruitment for the forces in Ireland faltered, he was nominated to the committee which investigated how documents expressing discontent reached the army (23 Apr.) and was a teller for the majority who on 27 April summoned the radical Colonel Robert Lilburne to the House to account for his activity as a spokesman for the army and supporter of the soldiers’ complaints.247CJ v. 153a, 154b. The appearance of agitators at Westminster the next day cornered the Presbyterians into conceding an indemnity bill, and Lewis was among MPs named on 14 May to discuss an ordinance protecting commissaries who had taken horses ‘in times of imminent danger’.248CJ v. 171b. But with a Presbyterian militia committee for London now ratified, this appeared only a temporary setback. In spite of the overwhelming support demonstrated on 16 May for the officers’ Representation of the Army, in alliance with the Scottish commissioners the Presbyterians felt sufficiently confident to ignore them and accept overtures for settlement from the king (18 May). The same day, with Harbottle Grimston, Lewis commanded a comfortable majority for referring to committee the production of a plan for the orderly disbandment of all forces not needed in Ireland or England.249CJ v. 176b.

Over the next few weeks he was consistently and visibly associated with the campaign against the army through tellerships and other activities. With Grimston, he secured the vote for disbanding Fairfax’s regiment at a week’s notice (25 May), he took this and other parallel decisions to the Lords, and he signed instructions from Derby House to the army.250CJ v. 182b, 183a, 184a, 187a, 188a, 190a, 190b, 196a, 197a-198a, 200a; Clarke Pprs. i. 107, 114, 115; SP16/539/4, f. 55. As news broke that the king had been removed from Holdenby and was now in army hands, Lewis participated in discussions with the Scottish commissioners (who condemned the turn of events), helped draft letters to Fairfax (5, 7 June) and, as ‘reformadoes’ (disbanded soldiers) demonstrated violently outside the House, reported instructions to be given to parliamentary commissioners to be sent to Fairfax’s headquarters (7 June).251CJ v. 198b, 200a, 201a, 202a. With Evelyn II, now once more allied with his one-time associates, Lewis just managed to defeat Hesilrige and Wentworth’s attempt to gain more time for talks (8 June).252CJ v. 202b. The Presbyterians, fighting increasingly on the back foot, were now committed to countering an army move on London by raising the militia, and on 11 June Lewis took to the Lords the ordinance authorising it and the Commons’ agreement to a new ‘committee of safety’ for mobilising against the New Model.253CJ v. 207b, 208b. By this time, remembered the 1st earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde*) with some exaggeration, MPs were ‘wholly guided by Holles and Stapilton, Lewis and Glynne, who had been very popular and notorious from the beginning’, together with former commanders Sir William Waller*, Edward Massie* and Samuel Browne*, and ‘two or three others’ who followed their lead. Hyde paid tribute to their abilities and ‘signal courage’, and credited them with not only ‘heartily [abhorring] the intentions which they discerned the army to have’ (which they thought emanated from Cromwell) but also possessing ‘declared animosities against the persons of the most active and powerful officers’.254Clarendon, Hist. iv. 238. According to Hyde – whose information came second-hand – their opposition was thus both ideological and personal.

The results of the attempt to raise London were disappointing, but for a while the Presbyterians tried to ignore their lack of leverage. On 8 June they lost a vote to agree with the Lords that the king should be removed to Oatlands palace.255CJ v. 203a. When on 14 June the Commons debated where Charles should be lodged, Lewis was reported to have entered the lists third (characteristically) after Stapilton and Holles to deliver ‘a long and pithy speech’ in favour of the Presbyterians’ – hypothetical – preference that Charles should come to London, so as to negotiate free of army influence.256Clarke Pprs. i. 135. But even as they spoke, the army was drawing charges of impeachment against eleven Members, including the trio of Presbyterian leaders. Notice of these reached Westminster two days later, as MPs discussed the details of transacting with the militia of London. Lewis, Holles and Stapilton all did their best to try to prevent a vote for giving the army month’s pay in hand, but an alarming show of strength by their opponents thwarted them.257Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 570; CJ v. 214a. The Eleven managed to hang on for another week, with Lewis still taking messages to the Lords on the 23rd, but that day the army requested their suspension.258CJ v. 221a. As troops marched closer to Westminster, reaching Uxbridge on the 25th, on the 26th, the accused Members were granted leave of absence.259CJ v. 225a.

The articles of impeachment, with Lewis named third as always, were formally presented by the army to the House on 6 July.260CJ v. 236a. Collectively, the charge was that the Members had conspired to restore the king, to invite the Scots to help them effect this by force and to impede a settlement in Ireland.261A Particular Charge of Impeachment; State Trials, iv. 867-81. Individually, however, whereas Holles’s previous record made him a relatively easy target, their opponents may have found it difficult to come up with sufficiently weighty accusations against Lewis, or at least to nail them. It seems significant that the charges directed at him personally centred largely on his activity with regard to distant Wales rather than in his usual sphere, Hampshire. Allegedly, Lewis and Glynne ‘with others’ had used their position on the committee for settling Wales in April 1647 to order the suspension of all sequestrations in the principality, with the result that many commissioners and disaffected ministers escaped any penalty. Furthermore, they had both ‘ingratiated themselves with the delinquents of Wales, and prepared them for their ... designs’, and Lewis had ‘within two years past countenanced and protected many of the most notorious and dangerous’, in Glamorgan, Radnorshire and Breconshire, including his brother Thomas Lewis. He had also detained the writ for eight months in order to effect the election for Brecon of his son, ‘Master Edward Lewis’, ‘though unfit for that employment’.262A Particular Charge of Impeachment, 21-4. It was noted that his estate there had escaped sequestration when (briefly) under royalist control and asserted that he had ‘solicited’ the same for Colonel Herbert Price*, the former royalist governor of Brecon. Finally, while governor of Portsmouth he had had ‘intelligence with the king’s party’ and had not been listed among traitors in Charles’s proclamation, ‘the king affirming that ... Sir William Lewis was his friend and that he was confident he would do him good service’; since leaving the governorship he had failed to present adequate accounts.263A Particular Charge of Impeachment, 23 [recte 25]; W. Prynne, A Brief Justification (1647), 7 (E.398.3).

In their response, delivered to the Commons on 19 July, the impeached Members pointed to a dangerous breach of the honour of a free Parliament, suggested nefarious practices in the assembling of evidence for the charges, and advanced what they considered a complete refutation.264State Trials, iv. 882-909. Some incidents were susceptible to divergent interpretations, and the truth may never be known, although the declaration of Holles, Lewis and Stapilton that they had ‘many times waited upon’ Lucy Hay, countess of Carlisle, at her lodgings ‘only to pay unto her ladyship that respect which is due unto her (a person of so great honour and desert)’ – and not to engage in politicking – rings rather hollow in the light of that lady’s reputation and their own practice of cultivating potential allies like Whitelocke.265State Trials, iv. 886. On the other hand, while the partisan William Prynne* was probably wrong to dismiss the charges as ‘mere calumnies’, those against Lewis certainly contained – in addition to the questionable construction on his role in Wales before 1647 already registered – mistakes and sleight of hand: his brother Thomas had been recently a prisoner of the royalists, not a promoter of royalism; his son was Ludovick, not Edward; there was plausibly confusion of other names. There is no doubt that Lewis had, on various occasions, presented accounts from Portsmouth, and the certificate of July 1643 which he produced – signed, among others by Saye and Pym – should have impressed his accusers.266State Trials, iv. 902. If there had been peculation or other dubious conduct, there or in the complicated and unique context of south Wales, then it was probably routine rather than notably damning.267Prynne, A Brief Justification, 6; A Vindication of Sir William Lewis (1647, E.397.14); T. R. A Two-inch Board for M. Prynne (1647), 16.

As the army prepared to march on London, on 20 July the Eleven Members were granted six months’ leave of absence.268CJ v. 252a. Such was the strength of sentiment in London for a negotiated peace with the king and a Presbyterian settlement, that ten days later they were recalled. Lewis’s precise part in the Presbyterian coup which followed escapes surviving record. The sole indication of his presence occurs on 1 August, when with Michael Oldisworth and Sir Philip Percivalle*, Member for Newport, he was ordered to prepare letter to the king, Fairfax and the commissioners with both informing of Parliament’s vote that Charles should be allowed to come to London.269CJ v. 263b. However, it was the army which on 6 August came to the capital and received its surrender.

Exile and return, Aug. 1647-Dec. 1648

According to Waller, who was one of their number, the Eleven Members at first lingered in hope that the crisis would pass, but this hope evidently soon died.270[W. Waller], Vindication of the Character and Conduct of Sir William Waller (1793), 200. Lewis and six of his friends were living ‘in privacy’ when on 12 August they wrote to Edward Harley* announcing that, armed with ‘passes to travel’, they intended to go to the Low Countries.271Letters of the Lady Brilliana Harley, ed. T.T. Lewis (Cam. Soc. lviii), 231. Having embarked from Essex on a ketch bound for Holland on the 16th, they were pursued and detained by a vessel sent by Parliament, but allowed by Vice-admiral William Batten to proceed to Calais, where an already ailing Stapilton promptly died. Lewis, Waller, Sir John Clotworthy* and perhaps others then went on to Flushing and Holland.272The true relation of Capt. Will. Batten (1647, E.404.38); W. Lawcey, Sir Philip Stapleton dead of the sicknesse at Callice (1647), 5 (E.404.22); A True and Short Narrative of the Departure from England (1647), 5 (E.409.3); Whitelocke, Mems. (1732), 266; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 785.

On 4 September the Commons, now dominated by Independents, ordered that the impeached Members reappear on or before 16 October to answer the charges against them.273CJ v. 291b. Lewis was among many Members absent at the call of the House on 9 October, and predictably did not observe the deadline.274CJ v. 330a. Following the Vote of No Addresses to the king, the House turned again to consider the impeachments in January 1648. One of the serjeant’s men reported on 27 January his delivery of the summons to Lewis and others in pursuance of the September order; the same day they were disabled from sitting in the House.275CJ v. 445a and n.; State Trials, iv. 914. However, two days later, while the numbers of those impeached of treason grew, Lewis ‘for some reasons extraordinary’ was specifically excepted, ‘being impeached only of high crimes and misdemeanours’.276Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 978. This concession could not have been secured without the intervention of powerful advocates. Possibly these included Pembroke, whose sons James and John escaped retribution for their part in the coup, although the earl was hardly in a position of strength; possibly they included Northumberland.277CJ v. 450a. But why Lewis was singled out does not appear.

A warrant for a by-election at Petersfield was ordered on 14 March, but no action seems to have been taken.278CJ v. 498a. Following the vote in May to re-open peace negotiations with the king, on 3 June Lewis was among those whose impeachments were discharged; on 8 June his disablement was also revoked.279CJ v. 584a, 589b. He had returned to Westminster by 27 June (in advance of some others), when he was named (last) to a committee to meet with the Lords to consider terms for a treaty.280CJ v. 614a. Considering his longstanding aspirations in this direction, it is strange that two days later he was given permission to go into the country, and gives at least some credence to a rumour current that he was on Northumberland’s ‘cabinet council’ with Clotworthy, the earl of Holland and the countess of Carlisle, in contact with the queen and ready to ‘bring in the king on their own account’.281CJ v. 616a; Westminster Projects, or the Mystery of Iniquity of Darby-House discovered (1648), 2-3. Nonetheless, he avoided implication in Holland’s rising, which then unfolded only to collapse within days.

The corollary appears to have been a rather discreet presence in the House. He did not reappear in the Journal until 16 August, when with the newly-returned Holles and others of like mind, he was named to confer with the Lords over the latest letter from the king.282CJ v. 673a. It was then several weeks before he was again involved, with Holles, in preparing a communication to Charles, this time in the – to him no doubt dispiriting – task of explaining why the Commons could not accede to the king’s request for a blank safe-conduct in advance of the negotiations on the Isle of Wight (11 Sept.).283CJ vi. 18b. Lewis was absent but excused at a call of the House on 26 September, but was evidently back some days before 12 October.284CJ vi. 34b. Writing that day with news of proceedings to Sir John Potts*, one of Parliament’s treaty commissioners at Newport, he referred to the rejection by the Commons on the 2nd of the latest compromise on religion (limited episcopacy) proposed by Charles – ‘we do not like of your church work’ – and registered that he found the negotiatiors ‘far from any accord in the business of the church’. None the less, he considered that ‘his majesty having so far justified us by his consent to our first proposition, and secured us by the militia’ (placed for 20 years under parliamentary control), there would be ‘a great judgement on these three kingdoms’ if an agreement were not reached on the remainder of the clauses, ‘so as to become liable to the miseries of a future war’. 285CJ vi. 41b; W. and M. Vaughan-Lewis, See you in Court: the Potts Fam. (2009), 320. Whether ‘us’ (particularly in the first instance) signified the Presbyterian party, rewarded for their faith in the king, or Parliament, reinforced in its preparedness to negotiate, is not clear.

Perhaps Lewis viewed the conclusion of peace as a divine or moral obligation, although this does not rule out an element of pragmatism or even ambitious calculation. Especially once the deadline for negotiating was extended on 27 October, he was once again very visible in the Commons’ proceedings, apparently making every effort both to tie up political loose ends in advance of a settlement made the more urgent by Leveller agitation.286CJ vi. 69b. His presence on committees dealing with sequestrations in north Wales (14 Oct.) and Essex (1 Nov.) could be interpreted as signs either of attempted mitigation of penalties against the summer’s rebels or willingness to pursue certain culprits before the opportunity passed.287CJ vi. 52a, 67a. His influence for the time being reasserted, he took to the Lords nominations for new serjeants-at-law (31 Oct.) and sheriffs (25 Nov.), while his committee appointments and conferences with peers involved him in the disbandment and paying off of elements of the army (16, 22 Nov.) and in deciding which castles and garrisons were to be maintained and which slighted (25 Nov.); on 22 November, plausibly at his own instigation, he was ordered with Henry Herbert* to instruct the Breconshire committee to disband supernumerary forces forthwith.288CJ vi. 66a, 68a, 78a, 83b, 87a.

Yet, notwithstanding the tenor of his remarks to Potts, Lewis apparently shared with others identifiable as Presbyterians in the religious sense, a determination that the ecclesiastical element of the treaty would be the one on which compromise would not be contemplated, whether through theological conviction or lingering desire to please the Scots. With Nathaniel Fiennes I and Evelyn II, whose motivation was even more complex, he was on a small committee appointed to prepare instructions for the Isle of Wight commissioners ‘expressing dissatisfaction’ with the king’s compromise on abolishing bishops (26 Oct.), while in the more familiar company of men from the Pembroke circle like Sir Robert Harley*, William Wheler*, Nathaniel Stephens* and Clotworthy, he was named to another to consider how to present taking the Covenant in ways which Charles would find palatable (27 Oct.).289CJ vi. 62a, 63a. Listed second after Prynne, and again with Wheler and Harley, he was appointed to the committee which discussed with the Lords the ordinance to remove obstructions in the sale of episcopal lands (21 Nov.); according to a Restoration petition, his intention, at least in part, was to protect his own lease from the bishop of Winchester at East Meon from going on the market.290CJ vi. 81b; SP29/20, f. 54.

It is possible that more was going on in the Pembroke circle than meets the eye, and that some of its members at least were looking beyond the immediate prospect of peace. On 3 November Lewis was chosen with Wheler to prepare a letter to the commissioners conveying the latest round of votes by both Houses on peace propositions, a letter which he later reported and which was accepted, and which he then took to the Lords along with other related matters.291CJ vi. 68a, 68b. Wheler, who owned property both in Westminster and Hampshire, had a wife serving the king as a laundress at Carisbrooke Castle, and the couple were almost certainly already involved in royalist intrigue; he was as well-placed as anyone to suspect the negotiations would fail and to be party to plans for that eventuality.292s.v. ‘William Wheler’. Lewis, who was selected again the next day as a messenger to the Lords on similar business, may not have been the recipient of Wheler’s confidences, but plausibly shared some of his outlook.293CJ vi. 69b. Be that as it may, on 13 November he shared with Sir Henry Vane II* the chairmanship of a committee framing answers to the king’s request to come to London ‘in a condition of honour and safety’ on the conclusion of the treaty, which resulted in a vote two days later to grant it.294CJ vi. 75b. Lewis made his final appearance in the Journal on 25 November, before being forcibly excluded at Pride’s Purge.295CJ vi. 87a.

Imprisonment, rehabilitation and Restoration, 1648-1660

A prime target as a widely-recognised Presbyterian leader, Lewis was detained by the army on 6 December and, having remained in custody, was taken on 26 January 1649 with Waller, Clotworthy, Browne and Lionel Copley* as a prisoner to Windsor Castle.296The Parliament under the Power of the Sword (1648, 669.f.13.52); Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1355; HMC Portland iii. 168; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 168n. In the meantime, on 12 December 1648 the Commons annulled the orders of 8 June, once again disabling the Eleven Members.297PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, pp. 440-2; The Humble Proposals and Desires of His Excellency the Lord Fairfax (1648), 3-4; Several Votes, Orders and Ordinances of the Lords and Commons (1648), 3 (E.477.12). The development of William Drake's and Christopher Love’s conspiracy with the Scots and with Presbyterians at the exiled royal court to restore Charles II prompted on 11 March 1651 an order for the dispersal of the prisoners from the purge, in which Lewis was to be transferred to Nottingham Castle, but it was not acted upon, and in late August he was removed to Arundel instead.298CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 81, 353, 353, 362. By early October, Lewis had drafted a petition to the council of state asking to be set at liberty, which he sent to his kinsman Edward Harley seeking his opinion and news of similar applications from his fellow detainees housed elsewhere.299HMC Portland iii. 196-7. In early November he was granted a hearing, but it took some weeks for his and Copley’s written examinations to be considered by the Committee for Examinations.300CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 6, 11, 28, 30, 54. On 16 December the council of state ordered that both documents should be reported to the House at the same time as another on Clotworthy, who had already been freed.301CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 2, 66. According to his own later account, Lewis himself was released that month.302SP29/20, f. 54.

Thereafter Lewis lived quietly. In June 1657 he was made an assessment commissioner for Radnorshire, perhaps considered safely remote from any temptation to political meddling.303A. and O. His chance came with the arrival of General George Monck* in London in February 1660. Lewis was among secluded Members of the Long Parliament who, around the 18th to the 21st, attended meetings with Members of the returned Rump at Monck’s ‘quarters at Alderman Wales’ near Drapers’ Hall’ to hammer out plans for the future.304Diurnal of Thomas Rugg (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. xci), 43. He also participated in a conference at the earl of Northumberland’s residence with Monck, the earl of Manchester, Holles, Waller ‘and other eminent persons, who had a trust and confidence in each other’ and who, according to Hyde

were looked upon as the leaders and governors of the moderate Presbyterian party, though most of them would have been very glad, their own security being provided for, that the king should be restored to his full rights and the church to its possessions.

On this occasion, asserted Hyde with the knowledge of what had eventually occurred, ‘the king’s restoration was proposed ... as absolutely necessary to the peace of the kingdom and for the satisfaction of the people’.305Clarendon, Hist. vi. 191. But exactly who subscribed to it at this juncture is unknown, and whether ‘most’ of those concerned were really in favour of a thoroughgoing restoration in church and state is highly questionable.

Alongside others who had been purged in 1648, Lewis returned to Parliament on 21 February 1660, and was immediately placed on the committee preparing a bill for a new council of state.306CJ vii. 847b. Like Waller, Potts and Holles he was elected as a councillor two days later.307CJ vii. 849b; Diurnal of Thomas Rugg, 44. In the next three weeks his visible activity in the House centred on three issues – raising money, religion and the militia – although he was also added to the committee drawing up the settlement of Hampton Court as a reward to General George Monck* (27 Feb.).308CJ vii. 855a.

Appointed to work on the bill for continuance of the customs and excise, the same day he was one of the committee sent to confer with City fathers over assessments for the supply of the army and navy (22 Feb.).309CJ vii. 848a, 848b. The payment of forces being urgent, he was on a smaller party sent on the same errand a week later (1 Mar.), and subsequently reported ‘that with much readiness they do cheerfully comply with’ Parliament’s request for an immediate advance.310CJ vii. 858a, 859b-860a. Building on the Presbyterian party’s long-standing alliances to bolster their position, he was on the committee for the bill settling the militia of London (29 Feb.), and was a majority teller against a proposed amendment (2 Feb.).311CJ vii. 856a, 860a. He was again named to the committee six days later when it was instructed to separate clauses relating to London from the general militia bill, and was joint-chairman on the committee for the latter (10 Feb.) as it considered a proviso that all militia commissioners should subscribe a declaration that the war undertaken by Parliament against royalist forces had been ‘just and lawful’.312CJ vii. 867b, 871a. Subsequently he was himself made a commissioner in both Hampshire and Brecon.313A. and O. Nominated to a committee with the formidable remit not just of discussing ministers and their livings but also ‘all matters concerning religion and the confession of faith’ (29 Feb.), he was added two days later specifically to consider a bill for approving clergy before they were admitted to benefices.314CJ vii. 856a, 858a Following the decision to permit existing ministers to keep their livings despite the revival of Presbyterian classes as envisaged in August 1648, on the penultimate day of the Parliament Lewis was named with Edward Harley to the committee preparing a bill to confirm their places and to consider a separate bill relating to Wales (15 Mar.).315CJ vii. 877a. There is no reason to suppose he contemplated an imminent abandonment of the entire religious Presbyterian agenda, any more than there is evidence to suggest he had become a rigid theological Presbyterian.

Lewis had been on a committee discussing detail of the bill for calling a new Parliament (14 Mar.).316CJ vii. 875a. That he was elected to serve in it for Breconshire rather than for a Hampshire seat adds to the impression that he had spent much of the previous eight years in Wales. In the interval before the Convention met, the failure of former Major-general John Lambert* to raise an army to perpetuate a radical commonwealth seemed to bolster the Presbyterians’ chances of effecting a conditional political settlement congenial to themselves; briefly, for example, Lewis and Holles were said to desire to include only the older peers who had sat before Pride’s Purge in the re-assembled House of Lords.317CCSP iv. 666; Crawford, Denzil Holles, 187-90. But once proceedings began on 25 April Lewis was among those who worked hard to prepare for a restoration of the monarchy, including by drafting a letter to congratulate Charles II on his safe arrival in England.318CCSP iv. 675, 683, 686; v. 8, 12; ‘Sir William Lewis’, HP Commons 1660-1690.

Later career and assessment

From August 1660 Lewis resumed or extended his pre-1648 role in the public life of Hampshire and Brecon.319Justices of the Peace ed. Phillips, 271-80, 304-6; HP Commons 1660-1690. Elected to serve for Lymington in the Cavalier Parliament, he proved a regular committee member and speaker until 1675. Although listed by Lord Wharton as a friend, for some years he did not exhibit a specifically Presbyterian or pro-nonconformist agenda, but he was active against popery and in the final year or so of his life seems to have been associated with the opposition.320HP Commons 1660-1690.

Lewis soon succeeded in retrieving lease-hold property in East Meon sold to Francis Allein* as episcopal land and then forfeit to the crown at the Restoration, and once again became keeper of the East Meon Park.321SP29/20, f. 54; Hants RO, 11M59/D1/2, pp. 13, 53, 55; PROB11/355/313. In 1660 he presented a minister to the living of Catherington.322VCH Hants, iii. 101. With James Herbert, he was a trustee for Philip Herbert*, the former Lord Herbert and now 5th earl of Pembroke.323NLW, 3443, 5642. By the time he drafted the first portion of his will on 4 March 1675, his son Ludovick had died, leaving three daughters – Mary, Elizabeth and Katherine Lewis, all at that date under 17 – as Sir William’s heirs; he described his estate as ‘poor’, but this may have been figurative, since he left modest sums to his seven other grandchildren and sundry other relatives, as well as small benefactions to the poor of Llangorse and the Hampshire parishes of East Meon, Foxfield, Catherington and Petersfield. Drafting the will was concluded on 20 December 1676, but a final codicil was inserted on 19 October 1677, when Lewis was probably near death. The executors were his sons-in-law Leonard Bilson† of Petersfield, and Christopher Buckle, who proved the will six weeks later on 28 November.324PROB11/355/313; ‘Leonard Bilson’, HP Commons 1660-1690. Lewis’s granddaughter Elizabeth, who inherited Llangorse, married John Lewis† of Coedmor, Cardiganshire, who was grandson of James Lewis* and who became a long-serving Member for Cardiganshire seats.325‘John Lewis’, HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1690-1715.

For most of his parliamentary career Lewis was associated closely by reputation and, as far as can be judged, in reality with his friends Holles and Stapilton. Together they formed a formidable trio at the forefront of an identifiable ‘Presbyterian’ party, small in number but consisting of men of sufficient stature to marshal a majority in the Commons at critical moments.326M. Mahony, ‘The Presbyterian Party in the Long Parliament’, (Oxf. DPhil. thesis, 1973). Slightly less prominent than his two partners, Lewis may perhaps have had a less forceful personality, although he was perfectly capable of impressing with his skills in debate.327Whitelocke, Mems. (1732), 154. While his piety seems genuine, it is difficult, and perhaps ultimately impossible, to judge with just how much theological conviction he, any more than Holles and Stapilton, subscribed to a Presbyterian settlement of the church – or at least an exclusive one: their desire for an alliance with the Scots in the 1640s to keep first the king and then the army in check, and then to control the conditions for a restoration of the king in 1660 seem powerful motivators. There is little doubt of Lewis’s consistent opposition to the novel and sometimes radical power that emanated first from the war party in Parliament and then from the New Model and its officers.

Lewis also had distinct dimensions which doubtless made him the more valuable to his colleagues. His Hampshire base placed him closer to the earl of Northumberland. His membership of the earl of Pembroke’s circle linked him not just to other leading Presbyterians like Glynne but also to notable moderates and waverers; possibly it also sometimes kept him safe from his opponents. His Welsh ancestry, estate and public office took him into a world of complex political allegiances, subtly different religious outlook and (sometimes) confused identities which complicate assessment of his career and motivation.