HARRISON, Sir Richard (1584-1655), of Hurst, Berks. and Seething Lane, London.

Harrison was a well-connected Berkshire gentleman who in 1640 had already sat in three Parliaments. He had been brought up by his grandfather, Thomas Harrison, until the latter’s death in 1602, and then for the three remaining years of his minority by an uncle, George Carleton. Harrison formed a close friendship with Carleton’s younger brother, the future diplomat and Viscount Dorchester, Sir Dudley Carleton†. This link was reinforced when he married Carleton’s sister-in-law, Frances Gerrard. From his great-uncle Sir Richard Ward he inherited an estate at Hurst and the house there became his principal residence.28VCH Berks. iii. 252. The secretary of state Sir Francis Windebanke* was a neighbour and a friend.

During the 1630s Harrison actively served as a Berkshire justice of peace. The privy council often used him as a trusted local agent.29CSP Dom. 1631-3, pp. 44-5, 62, 228; 1633-4, p. 23; 1635-6, p. 362; 1637-8, p. 102; 1639-40, p. 18. As early as 1635 they called on him to adjudicate on some of the local Ship Money disputes.30CSP Dom. 1635, p. 411. When he became sheriff in October 1636, he lost little time in pressing ahead with the collection of the sums demanded by the most recent Ship Money writ. By late January 1637 he had already collected £3,000 of the £4,000 required and by May had handed over £3,600 to the treasurer of the navy. The remaining £400 was paid before his year in office ended.31CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 251, 400; 1637, pp. 95, 446; Gordon, ‘Collection of ship-money’, 156.

Writing to Windebanke in December 1639, Harrison called the king’s decision to summon a Parliament ‘good news’ and hoped that it would ‘bring happiness both to the king and commonwealth’. Already there was some discussion of him standing. At that stage he tried to excuse himself, pleading reluctance to undertake any public role because his wealth was tied up by the bequests he had already made to his children.32CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 153. Several days later Sir Edmund Sawyer† told Windebank’s secretary that he intended to meet Harrison at Twyford to discuss election plans.33CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 162. Thus when Harrison eventually stood at New Windsor, it was as a pro-court candidate who was then elected with the backing of the town’s strong court interest. Never especially active in his previous Parliaments, he left no discernible trace on the Short Parliament’s proceedings. Nor did he stand for re-election later that year, thereby avoiding involvement in the convoluted New Windsor election dispute.

In the meantime, he and Sawyer had attempted to prosecute four soldiers who had deserted within Berkshire after refusing to receive press money, an action which had political overtones.34CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 489, 509. By September 1640 Harrison, convinced that it was unlikely that the quarter sessions would convict, recommended to his cousin Sir Dudley Carleton, a clerk of the privy council, that the four be released.35CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 80. In 1641 he dutifully carried out the functions of a subsidy commissioner by helping to organise the collection in the Cookham and Bray hundreds.36E179/75/356.

Once civil war broke out, Harrison sided decisively with the king against the Parliament. Perhaps this was because of his many relatives and friends who were courtiers. They included the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, whom he had probably originally got to know through Carleton.37Works of … William Laud (Oxford, 1847-60), iii. 169, 176. His support for the king proved to be steadfast. Since the Thames valley was a crucial military theatre for much of the conflict and Harrison’s estates at Hurst were close to Henley and Reading, two of the key strongholds in the area, he found himself with a real part to play, initially as a commissioner for array.38Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. Later he was accused of having fought for Charles in person, which is plausible within the county, although he seems never to have held a formal command.39CCAM 1184. His eldest son, Richard, on the other hand, led two royalist troops of horse in the regiments of Ludovic Lindsay, 16th earl of Crawford, and of his future brother-in-law, Thomas Howard*.40Ashmole, Antiquities, ii. 406. Sir Richard’s more useful role was in organising local support.

In August 1643 Harrison was included on the commission to raise £1,000 in Berkshire for the royalist army and several days later on the commission to establish – with a view to confiscation – what lands their parliamentarian opponents held there.41Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 66-7, 69. Their position strengthened once Reading fell into royalist hands, by the end of the year a similar group, again including Harrison, had been given powers to impress recruits.42Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 110. Two further commissions were created the following spring to raise money and to recruit men in the county.43Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 173, 181. But their work was undone by the king’s decision to fall back from Reading and Abingdon in May 1644, allowing Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, to secure control of the county. With the area immediately around Hurst remaining under reasonably constant parliamentarian control thereafter, Harrison’s active involvement in the war was brought to an end.

Harrison was wholly out of sympathy with the direction national politics now took. In 1650 attempts seem to have been made to sequester his estates, although it is unclear how far these ever proceeded.44CCAM 1184. Whether because of this or because of debts incurred earlier during the war itself, he sold his lands at Winkfield to John Lovelace† in 1652.45VCH Berks. iii. 86. But there is little evidence of financial hardship by the time he died in 1655. His will was mainly concerned to make provision for his younger daughter, Frances, Thomas Howard’s wife, and her daughter, Frances. He left to the first some lands at Swallowfield and the right to the profits on the money he had lent her father-in-law, the 1st earl of Berkshire (Sir Thomas Howard†), while providing £1,000 for the granddaughter’s dowry. Another Berkshire ex-royalist, Richard Aldworth†, acted as the joint overseer of the will, assisting Lady Harrison in her role as the executrix.46PROB11/245/469. In accordance with his wishes, Harrison was buried in the church at Hurst, close to the large monument he had erected to his mother-in-law, Lady Savile, widow (by her third marriage) of the late warden of Merton College, Oxford, and provost of Eton, Sir Henry Savile (1549-1622). Harrison’s eldest son, Richard, probably already had possession of most of the estates, although several years later he sold those at Finchampstead.47VCH Berks. iii. 244. Despite their political differences, Richard soon made an effort to befriend his neighbour, Bulstrode Whitelocke*.48Whitelocke, Diary, 444, 453. After the Restoration he was rewarded for his loyalty during the civil war by being appointed as a gentleman pensioner and by receiving a knighthood.49Beaufort archive, Badminton Fm H2/4/1, f. 21; Ashmole, Antiquities, ii. 406-7. Neither he nor any subsequent member of the family sat in Parliament.