LOWE, George (1601-82), of Calne, Wilts.

George Lowe was the thrd member of his family to represent the borough of Calne in Parliament, following his father, Richard Lowe, and his uncle and namesake, George Lowe†. The Lowes were originally a Shropshire family, and their interest in Wiltshire, and in the borough of Calne specifically, was acquired through Lowe’s mother, Mary, daughter and heir of Charles Wotton, whose family had held the lease of the prebend and parsonage of Calne for the previous 100 years.16? CJ viii. 304a. In her will, proved in August 1640, Mary Lowe made substantial bequests to her two eldest sons, John and Richard Lowe, and to her grandchildren by her first marriage, on the condition that they relinquish all claims to the Calne leases, leaving George Lowe, the youngest of her surviving sons, in sole possession by the time of the Long Parliament election.17? PROB11/183/685. The interest this gave Lowe in the borough is confirmed by the 1642 lay subsidy in which he was assessed at £1 10s, by far the highest in the area, outstripping even that of the lord of the manor of Calne, John Duckett†.18? A.E.W. Marsh, History of the Town and Borough of Calne (1904), 337. In the meantime, he had pursued a mercantile career, having been apprenticed in 1621 to Rowland Backhouse, a London Draper.19Recs. of London Livery Cos. Lowe’s name does not appear on any local commissions before his entry into Parliament, but he played a role in other ways, as in 1637, when he took charge of the relief fund for plague victims in Calne.20? HMC Var. i. 103-4.

In Parliament, Lowe appears to have been entirely supine. His presence in the House was not noted until 3 May 1641, when he took the Protestation with the main body of the House.21? CJ ii. 133b. He was named to no committees either before or after this date, and is not recorded as a contributor to debates, yet there is evidence that he continued to attend the House until the end of 1642. On 28 July the Commons consented to Lowe being questioned in order to speed up the trial of the mayor of Salisbury.22? CJ ii. 694a. On 11 November Lowe promised to give £100 towards the defence of Parliament, and on 31 December he was exempted from the contribution, having already donated £20.23? Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 59v; Add. 18777, f.110. The circumstances of his subsequent departure from Westminster are unclear, but he may have been influenced by his brother, who was married to the sister of Edward Hyde*. Lowe was attending the royalist Oxford Parliament in the new year of 1644, signing the letter to the 3rd earl of Essex of 27 January.24? Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 574. Lowe was formally disabled from sitting at Westminster on 5 February 1644.25? CJ iii. 389b.

In his later petition to the Committee for Compounding, Lowe gave his own version of events. He claimed that he had left Westminster to ensure the safety of property entrusted to him for the payment of a number of legacies. He protested that he had intended to return to Parliament, but was prevented from doing so by the ‘enemy’, who had kept him captive until he agreed to attend the Oxford Parliament.26? CCC, 959; SP23/107 p. 334. His story has some credibility. As executor of his mother’s will, Lowe was entrusted with the payment of bequests to relatives who had relinquished their rights to the Calne leases – in 1645 Lowe still owed over £2,000 to various family members.27? PROB11/183/685; SP23/177 p. 346. Lowe told the committee that, anticipating the vote of the Oxford Parliament to declare those at Westminster traitors, he had left the royalist capital on the morning of 11 March 1644 and returned home to Wiltshire. A few weeks later he took the opportunity of surrendering to parliamentary forces under the command of Colonel Edward Massie*.28? SP23/177 p. 343. The officer who arrested Lowe confirmed that in May 1644 he had indeed capitulated ‘with show of much joy to return to the Parliament’. Once again, Lowe claimed that the preservation of his estate was his main concern, and it was said that he had resisted the attempt of some 500 of his neighbours to rescue him from custody, telling them that he faced ruin unless he went over to the Parliament.29? SP23/177 p. 347.

Lowe’s story did not cut much ice with the parliamentary authorities, however. Having been summoned to London by the Committee for Examinations in October 1644, he remained in the custody of the serjeant-at-arms at Ely House for a year before he was given leave to attend the Compounding Committee, having taken the negative oath and the Solemn League and Covenant on 13 November 1645. Despite his protests that he had not been a willing royalist, the Committee for Compounding fined him £750, levied at the higher rate of one third, assessed entirely on his Calne estate. Cottages in Salisbury worth £10 per annum were excluded from the assessment as he had let them rent free to the poor of the town, and his personal estate, cancelled out by the extent of his debts, was also excluded.30? SP23/177 p. 319. In December 1645 Lowe requested that his fine be reduced to one tenth, on account of a previous order of the House of Commons which discharged one William Waters of Northamptonshire from paying a debt of £500 due to him,31? CJ iii. 402a; LJ viii. 11a-b, 320b. but the re-assessment was not confirmed until 6 November 1649 when his bond was finally delivered up on payment of £336.32? SP23/98 p. 802; SP23/177 pp. 324, 352.

As he was a former royalist, it is doubtful that the ‘George Lowe’ added to the Oxfordshire commission of the peace in December 1646 and appointed to the county’s assessment commission from April 1649, was the MP.33? C231/5, p. 70; A. and O. Little is known of Lowe’s career during the later 1640s and 1650s. By the time of the restoration of the monarchy he had established himself in Oxford, where his marriage to a sister of William Wright†, sometime alderman and mayor, afforded him access to municipal office.34? Oxford Council Acts 1626-65, 329. He returned to Parliament as member for Calne in 1661, where once again the condition of his estate dominated his parliamentary activity. In July 1661, he petitioned Parliament against the treasurer of Salisbury’s refusal to renew his lease of the prebend of Calne in spite of his considerable financial outlay, and having been ‘a great sufferer for his late majesty, and also his now majesty, by imprisonment, plunder, composition, sequestration, and decimation’. A committee was appointed to mediate between the two parties, with a recommendation that Lowe’s lease be renewed according to ancient use. As there is no mention of the lease in his will, it seems unlikely that the dispute was concluded in his favour.35? CJ viii. 304a. Lowe died on 19 November 1682 and was buried at St Aldates, Oxford. In his will, drawn up a year before, Lowe had left money to the poor of Calne and of St Aldates, and small gifts to many friends in both parishes. As he had no direct heirs, his nephew, Sir Edward Lowe, inherited an estate consisting of property in Oxford and Salisbury, while his servant, Hannah Slough, was allowed the use of his recently-acquired dwelling house in Pennyfarthing Street, Oxford.36? PROB11/371/396.