LUCKYN, Capel (1622-80), of Hutton, and later of Messing Hall, Messing, Essex.

The Luckyns had been yeomen at Good Easter in Essex for many generations and by the seventeenth century several branches had risen to join the ranks of the local gentry.20Morant, Essex, ii. 91. This MP’s branch, settled at Great Baddow, did so only during the lifetime of his grandfather, William Luckyn. The marriage of this MP’s father, also William, to a daughter of Sir Gameliel Capel helped consolidate their position, as did the grant to him of a baronetcy in 1629.21Herts. RO, IX.B.1. The naming of the eldest son of this union, the future MP, after his late maternal grandfather helped stress his kinship with the older and more established family. In 1634 Sir William married for a second time, to Elizabeth Pynchon, niece of the lord treasurer, the 1st earl of Portland (Sir Richard Weston†).22London Mar. Lics. ed. Foster, 867. He was also able to extend his estates, buying the manor of Little Waltham from the Mildmays, as well as land at Hempnall in Norfolk.23Morant, Essex, ii. 91; Blomefield, Norf. v. 184. His enhanced status qualified him for appointment as sheriff of Essex, a post he held in 1637 when its main burden was the collection of Ship Money.24List of Sheriffs (List and Index ix), 46; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 185; 1638-9, p. 231. The young Capel’s time at school at Bishop’s Stortford overlapped briefly with that of Ralph Josselin, whom he recognised when they next met quarter of a century later.25Josselin, Diary, 372. The family probably played no part in the civil war. Sir William was regarded with enough suspicion by the Committee for Advance of Money in 1644 to be assessed £700, although there is no evidence that any further action was taken against him.26CCAM 405. Capel seems to have spent the duration of the war reading law as a student at Lincoln’s Inn.27LI Admiss. i. 243; LI Black Bks. ii. 375.

Luckyn’s election as MP for Harwich in the spring of 1648 is to be explained by his marriage to the eldest daughter of the MP for Colchester, Harbottle Grimston*. The two families had reached agreement for this match by 18 December 1647, allowing Luckyn to marry Mary Grimston at Hackney parish church on 20 January 1648.28Herts. RO, IX.B.45a, unfol.; IX.B.4/1; IX.B.5-5a; D. Lysons, The Environs of London (1792-4), ii. 492. Problems with the marriage settlement only came to light later. In the meantime Luckyn and his wife took up residence on the estate at Hutton which his father presented to him.29Essex RO, VI.D.38; Round, ‘Some Essex fam. corresp.’, 210-11. It was the death of the bride’s grandfather, Sir Harbottle Grimston*, just weeks after this wedding which created the vacancy for the Harwich seat. The Grimstons’ influence in the port was strong – not only had Sir Harbottle been the town’s MP, but his son (who now inherited his baronetcy) had been its recorder since 1634. This provided the perfect opportunity for Grimston to secure the election of his new son-in-law without much fuss. The corporation probably simply accepted his recommendation.

Luckyn’s time in the Long Parliament was too brief for him to make much impact. His only committee appointment arose on 8 September when he was among those added to the committee examining the accounts of Henry Peck* as commissary-general of Sussex, a task which proved to be uncontroversial.30CJ vi. 10a. It is not certain whether Luckyn was at Westminster when the Commons was purged on 6 December. A letter he wrote to his wife from his father’s house at Little Waltham on 15 December has been interpreted as showing that he had arrived there from London the day after the purge. An alternative reading of the letter however suggests the less interesting possibility that he had stopped at Little Waltham on 14 December, interrupting a journey to London.31Round, ‘Some Essex fam. corresp.’, 210; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 153n. What is not in doubt is that Luckyn had been secluded from the House and that he made no attempt to regain his seat there subsequently.32A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5).

Before 1649 Luckyn had yet to serve on any local commission – his appointment as a militia commissioner in December 1648 had been a formality – and so his non-involvement in local administration throughout the 1650s was nothing new. Even so, it seems reasonable to suppose that he disapproved of the king’s execution and that no attempt was made to include him on any local commissions because he was known to be unwilling to serve. In June 1650 he told his father-in-law, ‘All things are in these parts calm, I pray God continue them so and keep you and all my friends from those tempestuous waves which have disquieted our ship’.33Herts. RO, IX.B.4/4. These do not seem like the words of someone who had accepted the rule of the Rump.

By the summer of 1650 problems had arisen over Luckyn’s wife’s jointure. Under the terms of the settlement agreed in 1647 Sir William Luckyn had promised to provide for his daughter-in-law by assigning to her the land at Hutton, but he had held that only since 1642, when the original owner, Richard White, had defaulted on a mortgage agreed with him. The Essex sequestration committee, assuming that they still belonged to White, had seized them after he had been convicted as a Catholic recusant.34Herts. RO, IX.B.4/1-19. Under a deal brokered by Grimston, the Hutton estate was sold to Thomas Cory in return for £6,500 paid to Luckyn.35Essex RO, VI.D.38; Round, ‘Some Essex fam. corresp.’, 213. To provide him with a replacement, Sir William then bought his son the manor of Messing from Richard Chiborne for £9,000.36Essex RO, V.A.36; V.A.38; V.A.40-9; VI.D.38-9. Luckyn seems to have been satisfied with this deal, especially as he preferred the house at Messing because it was ‘an ancient house fitter for a gentleman to live in’.37Round, ‘Some Essex fam. corresp.’, 214. It was probably understood from the outset that Luckyn would receive no more land from his father and, when Sir William came to settle his estates in 1658, he gave all his other lands to his younger son, William.38Herts. RO, IX.B.8; IX.B.6. Although Luckyn and his father seem to have been on good terms at the time of the 1650 settlement, perhaps they later quarrelled and Sir William came to see his younger son as his true heir. The grant of a baronetcy to William following their father’s death in 1661 would confirm him as Capel’s equal.

Like his father-in-law, from whom he probably took his political lead, Luckyn played no public role during the 1650s. It is not known whether he resumed his seat in the Long Parliament from 21 February 1660. After its dissolution he was returned again for his old seat during the elections for the Convention. At that point Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, saw him as a possible ally for the Presbyterians.39G.F. Trevallyn Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix. 336. Luckyn almost certainly welcomed the Restoration and his knighthood in June 1660 was presumably a favour to Grimston for assisting the king’s return in his capacity as Speaker.40Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 227. Elected again for Harwich in a by-election in 1664, Luckyn saw out the Cavalier Parliament and, like many of his fellow MPs, he seems to have drifted away from support of the court as the 1670s progressed.41HP Commons 1660-1690.

By the time he died in 1680, Luckyn had already handed over control of his estates. The lands at Hempnall were left to trustees – his wife, Sir Harbottle and Lady Grimston, and his brother-in-law, Sir George Grobham Howe† – to provide for his seven surviving children.42PROB11/362/264; Herts. RO, IX.B.10. His widow was to live to a great age, surviving to see her grandson, William, the fourth baronet, inherit the Grimston lands in Hertfordshire in 1700, and take her maiden name to do so. It was this Grimston inheritance, rather any Luckyn legacy, which finally established the family in a position of real prominence. Two months after Lady Luckyn died in 1719, Sir William was raised to the Irish peerage as Viscount Grimston. This did not interrupt his career as an MP, during which he sat as a whig for St Albans in four Parliaments between 1710 and 1734. The family received the earldom of Verulam in the English peerage in 1815.43CP; HP Commons 1690-1715; HP Commons 1715-1754.