MASSIE, Edward (c.1605-74), of Gloucester and London.

The birth year of Edward Massie (as he signed his name) was once speculatively put at 1619, but there have been convincing suggestions that it was probably over ten years earlier.33Bodl.Tanner 60, f. 103; DNB; Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch Soc. xliii. 244. The family of Massie (or Massey) was extensive in Cheshire, and although Edward Massie was well connected through his mother, daughter of Richard Grosvenor of Eaton, his standing as a younger son made it inevitable that he would need to secure a source of income. He was evidently apprenticed in the London Leathersellers’ Company, but did not complete his apprenticeship.34Gent. Mag. 1833, ii. 304. When in 1647 he was belittled as having been an apprentice on London Bridge, a defender did not deny that he had been an apprentice, but rejoined that it was no blot on his gentility.35A Speedy Hue and Cry (1647), 1 (E.401.20); An Outcry against the Speedy Hue and Cry (1647), 2 (E.402.22) He gave up his apprenticeship to become a career soldier: first in the Low Countries, then in 1639-40, serving in the bishops’ wars in William Legge’s artillery train.36Clarendon, Hist. iii. 130. According to Edward Hyde*, Massie joined the king at York on the eve of the civil war, leaving for London only because there were prospects of better pay and promotion in the army of Parliament. The essence of this allegation was repeated by a separate, though royalist, source in 1643, which traced Massie’s alienation from the service of Charles I to his having been rejected for a military post he sought.37Clarendon, Hist. iii. 130; Mems. of Prince Rupert, ii. 278. He was commissioned on 31 July 1642 as lieutenant-colonel and captain of foot in the regiment of Henry Grey, earl of Stamford, and drew pay from 18 August.38SP28/1a/206. Massie accompanied Stamford in various forays in and around Hereford and the Welsh marches, and arrived at Gloucester in December 1642. When Stamford was ordered to Bristol later that month, the foot regiment under Massie’s command was left behind to guard Gloucester.39Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 286. He was to remain there as governor until May 1645.40Harl. 166, f. 210.

Gloucester garrison, 1643-May 1645

In the first half of 1643, Massie combined his defence of the city with forays out of it, for example to capture Tewkesbury (15 Apr.).41LJ vi. 5a. In May, he was given £10 as a mark of affection by the corporation.42Glos. RO, GBR/B3/2, p. 262. On 10 August the king himself appeared at the head of his army before Gloucester, and called upon the town to surrender. An important element in the royalists’ account of the start of what became the siege of Gloucester was their belief that Massie would easily be won over. He is said to have sent secret word to his old commander, Legge, that he would surrender the city personally to the king, but to no other, and that he was ‘the same man he had ever been ... and that he wished the king well’. But the official response to Charles from the citizens was defiant, and Massie signed it, with Thomas Pury I*, one of those few citizens Massie trusted.43Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 287; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 131, 133; Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 197. Hyde’s opinion, which he later suppressed, was that Massie’s private message was ‘craftily and maliciously written’, but he considered the puritan hostility of the citizens to the king to have sustained them during the siege.44Clarendon, Hist. iii. 144. Massie evidently controlled discipline tightly, and found ways of getting reports of their endurance out of Gloucester to Parliament. When the siege was lifted by Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex on 5 September, there was great rejoicing in London, and the Commons resolved on a reward of £1,000 for Massie, with a recommendation that he be advanced to a ‘place of honour and profit’.45CJ iii. 241b, 242a, 244b. As well as defending the western counties and preventing the king from advancing into Wales, a royalist recruiting ground, Massie had bought Parliament some time, and had engineered a propaganda victory.46Clarendon, Hist. iii. 167, 171. Celebratory verses were later published in London, which gave due acknowledgement to Massie’s determination and resistance to a ‘battery of court-honours’.47Verses on the Siege of Gloucester (1644, E.257.9).

An immediate consequence of the lifting of the siege was an expansion of the garrison strength, under the supervision of Thomas Pury I.48CJ iii. 247a. Sir Neville Poole* took a message to Essex from the Commons to continue Massie as governor, and thereafter Massie’s role was to harass the royalists from his base at Gloucester.49CJ iii. 278a. An attempt was made by the royalists to win Gloucester by treachery. One of Massie’s officers was approached as an agent, but he informed Massie, who let the plot run until a time of his choosing in February 1644 when he made it known to a military council in Gloucester.50Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 296; A True Relation of a Wicked Plot (1644, E.45.12); Corbet, ‘Historicall relation’, 75-87. This was a further publicity opportunity for Massie, whose governorship was recorded in glowing terms by his chaplain, the Presbyterian John Corbet.51Corbet, ‘Historicall relation’, passim. His rule at Gloucester was not without conflict, however. A committee which may or may not have been the Gloucestershire county committee, sitting with particular reference to the garrison, clashed with Massie over cases of unfair rating. Some of this tension derived from conflicts between the corporation and the adjacent ‘Inshire’ parishes that had begun long before the civil war and continued long after it, but it widened into clashes between Massie and leading committeemen.52A.R. Warmington, Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration in Glos. (Woodbridge, 1997), 53-5. Massie’s relations with his former ally Thomas Pury I were affected. In May 1644 the committee structure of the region was re-organized, and the new committee for Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and south Wales became Massie’s chief tormentor.53A. and O. i. 428-31. By 31 May 1644, Pury was making pejorative remarks in the Commons about Massie’s military tactics, which were requited by the governor. In November Massie wrote to Sir Samuel Luke* that if Parliament wanted Pury, it could have him, ‘for Gloucester finds little need of him’.54Harl. 166, f. 67v; Luke Letter Bks. 382. Things had worsened between the committee and Massie so much by that time that Massie was keeping away from Gloucester altogether if possible, preferring to billet in towns that he captured in his various excursions. One such was Monmouth, where he was received warmly by the townspeople in October 1644.55Luke Letter Bks. 30, 32, 38 Luke thought Massie’s popularity in south-east Wales was owing to the lightness of the parliamentarian military burden on the populace compared with that of Prince Rupert, and the prospect that the Welsh might defend locality and ‘religion’ (which probably meant episcopacy) under Massie, an interesting view of what he stood for. The sympathetic Luke also saw Massie’s difficulties as part of a general pattern in which garrison commanders were opposed by local committees.56Luke Letter Bks. 32.

The Committee of Both Kingdoms* kept assuring Massie of its confidence in him through 1644, and nursing him through periods of tense relations with colleagues: for example with William Purefoy I*, whose Coventry troops were seconded to him in April.57CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 98, 124-5, 181. But Massie was evidently prickly; in June 1644 he fell out with Sir William Waller, whose ‘dear’ lieutenant-colonel Massie had recently been. According to Waller, Massie had become proprietorial with regard to local supplies, and had been unwilling to accept prisoners at Gloucester. There may have been sound logistical reasons for Massie’s reluctance, but he had been unable to find a way of expressing his disquiet that did not give offence.58CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 458; 1644, pp. 239, 262, 341-2. Hyde’s view was that the spat arose because Massie was ‘a creature of Essex’s’.59Clarendon, Hist. iii. 365. The royalists knew of the Massie-Waller quarrel, and the Committee of Both Kingdoms continued to try to reconcile Massie and his colleagues.60CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 263, 333, 336. In July, some of his own officers framed a petition against him, which was intimately connected with a feud which had developed among them, and so by the autumn of 1644 Massie was at loggerheads with the county committee, the MPs of Gloucester, elements of his own officers, and Waller.61CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 333, 343, 344; 396-7; Luke Letter Bks. 117; Warmington, Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration, 61-2. Little of this in-fighting seemed to affect the Commons’ view of him as ‘gallant’, as he was able to report a string of local military successes launched from Gloucester, and for his venture into Monmouthshire he was commended by Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke. Many financial expedients were devised in order to meet the chronic problems of the garrison, and a significant element of the quarrelling there must have arisen from the constant strain of maintaining Massie’s force.62Harl. 166, ff. 106v, 129v; CJ iii. 490b, 511b, 593b, 641b, 644a, 644b, 660b. A chronicler of Massie’s victories in 1644 hoped that his successes would encourage lending so that more cavalry could be recruited for Gloucester.63Ebenezer. A Full and Exact Relation (1644), 11 (E.50.17).

Massie’s own perception of the difficulties that surrounded him was tempered by his self-image as ‘a soldier, not a statesman’.64CSP Dom. 1644, p. 321. He thought the county committee denied him money but wanted to control his choice of officers, and considered himself a victim of ‘as much discouragement as any man who serves the Parliament ever had’.65CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 474-5, 511-2. His difficulties with Colonel Thomas Stephens he attributed to Stephens’s patronage by certain of the deputy lieutenants, among whom he doubtless included Nathaniel Stephens* and John Stephens*, relatives of Thomas.66CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 466-7, 524-5; HMC Portland, iii. 128, 129, 130, 136. Massie was willing to involve himself in contentious local issues. In November 1644, he publicly supported Walter Powell, a clergyman facing a series of charges against him from the county committee after having suffered confiscations of property from the royalists. Powell thanked the Committee for Plundered Ministers and Thomas Pury I for intervening on his behalf, and the case confirms that an element of Massie’s difficulties lay in localist resentment of the authority he wielded as an outsider, and in his own aloofness.67W. Powell, Newes for Newters (1648), epistle dedicatory; Bodl. Nalson XXII, ff. 82-3. When he ran the antinomian preacher, Robert Bacon, out of town in July, however, he was doing exactly what was expected of him, with the support of religious Presbyterians like Thomas Hodges I*.68A Vindication of the Magistrates and Ministers of the City of Gloucester (1646), 2-3, 6 (E.337.15); T. Edwards, Gangraena [Part One] (1646), 96 (E.325.2). In religious terms, there is no reason to call into question his sympathies with orthodox godly ministers.

Massie’s complaints continued into 1645. There was a somewhat paranoid tone in some of his letters: ‘There is a mischief hatching against me, and the same promoting here also’.69HMC Portland, iii. 136. He took offence at a remark by Pury that his soldiers were supernumeraries, and at Pury’s coming to Gloucester in January to reorganize the garrison, believing Pury to be a manipulator of the lesser committeemen of Gloucester.70CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 237-8, 266, 268; HMC Portland, iii. 137. On 3 April 1645, a letter from Massie complaining once again about the obstructiveness of his local committee was read in the House. Ten days later, he wrote to recount his victory over the Catholic Sir John Winter in the Forest of Dean, which was as usual marked by self-justification: ‘If this country be wholly lost, I shall be free from any fault (God willing)’.71Add. 31116, pp. 404, 409; Harl. 166, f. 189a. A notable victory at Ledbury on 11 April (in which Massie and Rupert appeared on the battlefield unknown to each other), disarmed those resistant to his continuing complaints, but on 16 May there was a debate on an ordinance to make Massie commander-in-chief of the Western Association army.72A Copie of Collnel Massey’s Letter (1645), 1, 4 (E.281.9). The Stephens family by this time was divided on the merits of the Gloucester governor. Nathaniel Stephens presented a petition from the citizens – William Singleton* and Luke Nourse* were among the draughtsmen – requesting that Massie should be left in command of the city, despite the long history of acrimony. Indeed much of the recriminatory correspondence involving Massie had been conducted sub rosa; officially, relations were cordial, as the gift of Gloucester corporation to him in December 1644 of silver worth £20, and the display of his portrait in the Tolsey (market-place) suggest.73Glos. RO, GBR/B3/2, pp. 320, 327; F4/5, f. 358. Stephens’s cousin, Edward Stephens*, brought in a counter-petition from a smaller group with articles against Massie. There was opposition in the House even to Edward Stephens’s reading this complaint, and in the end it was put aside, ostensibly because of the haste required to process the ordinance appointing Massie to his new command. Massie’s chaplain dismissed the complainants as ‘some few persons’, but those seeking to retain Massie as governor were no more successful, and were told that he was on his way to the west, and that care would be taken for Gloucester.74Harl. 166, ff. 205, 210, 216v; Add. 31116, p. 409; Corbet, ‘Historicall relation’, 151.

The Western Association, May 1645-June 1646

There had been a report in September 1644 that Massie had been appointed commander in Wiltshire, the scene in February 1645 of a serious military miscalculation by Colonel Thomas Stephens, whom Massie disparaged punningly as the ‘Independent colonel’.75CSP Dom. 1644, p. 478; Luke Letter Bks. 448, 458. In April 1645 Massie had coolly confessed that of Oliver Cromwell* he ‘as yet I hear or understand nothing’, confirming that he had allied himself with the Presbyterians.76Bodl. Tanner 60, f. 127 The confirmation of his generalship of the Western Association underlined his high standing among the Presbyterian MPs of the south west. He was also a beneficiary of the Self-Denying Ordinance, acquiring command over elements of Waller’s and Essex’s forces as well as county regiments.77Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 20. Sir Samuel Luke thought Massie had been appointed with as much authority as Sir Thomas Fairfax* had over the New Model, but the ordinance explicitly subjected Massie to Fairfax’s command.78Luke Letter Bks. 272, 288; A. and O. Massie recruited in London, distributing handbills inviting enlistment at a Westminster inn.79All Gentlemen Souldiers that will Serve (1646, E.289.13). As Luke predicted, Massie was generally successful in operations in support of the New Model in Somerset and Devon in the summer and autumn of 1645.80Anglia Rediviva, 70, 71, 77, 92, 101, 147; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 55, 57, 63, 65. In his relations with Fairfax, Massie continued in the same vein as he had been wont to do vis-à-vis Waller, complaining that his forces, rather than those of his superior, should have been paid first, and announcing himself unable to march on Bristol in August.81Harl. 166, ff. 235v, 257v. On the other hand, his troops were evidently paid less well than those of rival forces; in September they were leaving Massie to try to enlist in the New Model, and even that army’s commissioners in the field wrote reproachfully to the Speaker on the subject.82LJ vii. 565a; HMC Portland, i. 236-7, 293. By this time, his former colleague Pury was a confirmed opponent of Massie’s, attempting to hold up the award made by the Commons to the soldier of an iron-works in the Forest of Dean, in the face of Massie’s plea for the gift to be realized.83Add. 31116, p. 600; HMC Portland, i. 242. Massie had become deeply critical of the New Model, protesting sourly to Speaker William Lenthall just after Fairfax had taken Bristol

It is my faithfulness and zeal to the Parliament that bids me be importunate, for in the same I know no end or aim but my unfeigned desire to put an end to this bloody war, which I perceive can never be so long as we suffer a marching army to act its own desires without impeachment.84HMC Portland, i. 269-70.

By mid-November Massie was in the heart of Devon, collaborating with a local justice of the peace, Richard Culme, who was soon to be exposed as a royalist, in uncovering a hidden cache of popish relics in Tiverton church.85A True and Strange Relation (1645), 6 (E.311.12); CCC 1161. When in Gloucester, Massie had been regarded as approachable by the royalists of that county.86HMC Portland, iii. 127.

Massie’s army included the regiments of Edward Cooke* and John Fitzjames*. There was evidently as much difficulty in funding the Western Association as there had been in supplying the Gloucester garrison. Massie himself was in north Devon in January 1646. The size of his army at that time was 8,800 men, not including the artillery train.87LJ viii. 114-5. Fitzjames wrote to him in March, complaining of his Dorset soldiers’ lack of pay: ‘they must have either your own self or money speedily or their hearts will break’.88Anglia Rediviva, 189, 194, 208; Alnwick, Northumberland 547, f. 20. At the end of the month Fitzjames wrote to one of his captains that he had been to complain at the Committee of the West, but Massie’s affairs proved ‘unhappy and obstructive’ to the committee’s other business.89Alnwick, Northumberland 547, f. 33. Fitzjames wrote again to Massie on his way from the west country to London in April, imploring him to address the Dorset soldiers in person, and in June reports reached Parliament of outrages perpetrated by elements of his army in Wiltshire. The Committee of the West and the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs were asked to organise disbandment and the option of shipment to Ireland, but the Commons resolution for disbandment was rejected by the Lords. In August, a similar story came in from Somerset, and this time Massie came to the House to admit that abuses had taken place, but that they were caused by lack of pay and had been dealt with by courts-martial.90Alnwick, Northumberland 547, ff. 34v, 40v; Add. 31116, pp. 548, 559; CJ iv. 581a; LJ viii. 380a.

Presbyterian Member, June 1646-Dec. 1648

When Massie reached London in April 1646, he joined Murrough O’Brien, Lord Inchiquin [I], and Charles Louis, Prince Rupert’s parliamentarian-sympathising brother, at a day of thanksgiving for the defeat of Lord Hopton (Sir Ralph Hopton*). Massie and other dignitaries were feasted by the Grocers’ Company – he had in January already been honoured by his former livery company, the Leathersellers’.91Juxon Jnl. 113; Gent. Mag. 1833, ii. 304.. This was the first recorded evidence of Massie’s associating with City interests and notable opponents of the Independents, but on 1 May there was a rumour in Parliament that Massie had intervened to persuade one of the royalist Grosvenors of Cheshire, his relative, not to rush to make her composition because there would shortly be a political change. Whether true or not, the rumour promoted the notion that Massie was sympathetic to those who wanted some reconciliation with the king.92Harington’s Diary, 24. On 18 June, the day after the Commons had voted to disband his army, he was returned to Parliament for the borough of Wootton Bassett.93C219/43/3/27. He took his seat on 9 July, amid displays of respect from Members and the Speaker, and took the Covenant on 26 August. On 11 July, the Commons voted to provide £20,000 for his soldiers, and the same day Massie was named to his first committee, a response to a critical petition from the City.94CJ iv. 610b, 653a; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 48. He identified himself unambiguously with the Presbyterian interest in the Commons. He saw the recruiter elections as an opportunity for his allies to gain control by securing just a few more seats: ‘We want but a small addition of more honest and diligent men in the House to set things straight’. He was lobbying on behalf of his friends, Edward Harley* and Robert Harley*, hoping they would secure seats, and denouncing his political enemies: ‘The Independents move strongly to enforce a further quarrel, but the more faithful to the kingdom hope still the contrary’. 95HMC Portland, iii. 144.

Massie was able to ensure that a more respectful order for disbanding the Western Association was framed, and during August, his main activity seems to have centred on the terms and conditions of disbanding his own army.96CJ iv. 617b, 629b, 630a, 638b, 640a, b. The intended destination of part of his force was Ireland, and Massie sat on a committee with some his former Gloucester adversaries, Thomas Hodges I, Nathaniel Stephens and Thomas Pury I, set up to consider ways of raising money for a new expedition there.97CJ iv. 641b. The disbanding, when it eventually took place in October 1646 at Devizes, attended by Fairfax, Massie, Edmund Ludlowe II* and Henry Ireton*, was accomplished quickly and without significant trouble.98Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 78-9; Ludlow, Mems. i. 141-2; Juxon Jnl. 138; CJ iv. 681b, 682a, 697a, 728a. After the disbandment, the Committee of Accounts began to receive accounts from the brigade, and on 3 December Massie was asked to present his own accounts. When he submitted them in March 1647, he calculated his pay as amounting to over £7,000, a computation that was probably intended to embarrass his former employers.99CJ vii. 728a, 734a, 737a; Glos. RO, D678, Barwick Papers 2. A crowd of 700 of Massie’s soldiers importuned the House in February, and they were granted £1,000 only on condition that they did not lobby the Commons in force again.100CJ v. 65b, 69b, 73a, 75a, b; Add. 31116, p. 600.

Massie’s profile in the Commons was entirely consistent with his Presbyterian allegiances. He sat on committees to suppress tumultuous petitions by soldiers (4 Feb. 1647), and with Sir William Waller (by this time evidently reconciled to Massie) opposed the automatic continuation of garrison governors, forcing each governor to be approved individually (13 Mar.).101CJ v. 75a, b; 111a. When the junior officers of the New Model presented themselves before the door of the House (1 Apr.), Waller and Massie led the opposition to letting them in to hear the House’s ‘Declaration of Dislike’ at their petitioning.102CJ v. 132a. The following day, Massie was appointed lieutenant-general of the horse in Ireland under Philip Skippon*. A few days later (7 Apr.), Massie was added to the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs, with a group of other Presbyterians: a blow against the Independents, who had until recently dominated Irish affairs.103CJ v. 135b; M. Kishlansky, Rise of the New Model Army (Cambridge, 1977), 164. On 13 April, he was selected as one of the commissioners to wait on Fairfax to try to overcome the army’s objections to service in Ireland.104Ludlow, Mems. i. 141-2; Juxon Jnl. 155. His performance in this role seems not to have been particularly adroit. At the rendezvous of the New Model at Saffron Walden, Massie asserted that a New Model detachment was already marching towards Chester, en route for Ireland; he was flatly contradicted by a junior officer, and his credibility was evidently in doubt.105Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 457; Clarke Pprs. i. 14. Modern historians have asserted that he tried to lead by example, announcing that he would recruit a regiment for Ireland himself.106Kishlansky, New Model Army, 174; Evans thesis, 225.

Massie and his colleagues returned to the Commons to report on their unsuccessful mission to the army on 27 April. He was soon named to the Committee for Indemnity, set up to meet one of the soldiers’ principal grievances, that their military activities rendered them open to malicious prosecutions. On 20 May he was a teller with the Presbyterian leader, Denzil Holles, in favour of peremptorily burning the army’s petitions on the grounds that by addressing the Commons alone, they were treasonous.107CJ v. 179b. On the 27th, Massie was given leave from the House.108CJ v. 188b. On 4 June, the king was removed from Holdenby by Cornet George Joyce, and thus captured by the army. Massie was highly popular in the City of London, seen as a commander who had saved another city from destruction. He now made the most of his reservoir of high esteem. He was reported as having driven through London in his coach on 6 June, urging the citizens to ‘defend themselves against the mad men in the army’.109Clarendon, Hist. iv. 238; Bodl. Clarendon 29, f. 236. His actions must have contributed to the clamour at the doors of the Commons by reformado officers of his own former brigade and others. Unlike the petitioning New Modellers, they were rewarded with a vote of £10,000, and an order that the soldiers intended for Ireland should march to Worcestershire.110CJ v. 201a, b; Gardiner, Great Civil War, iii. 285-6. The vote a week later to take care of the officers’ arrears, to be conveyed to them by Massie, Sir Philip Stapilton and others, came too late.111CJ v. 210b. The army now moved on London, and on 19 June its officers drew up articles of impeachment against eleven Members, among them Massie. His alleged offences were that he had with the others commissioned a new army, with the aim of re-opening the war; that he had obstructed the relief of Ireland and imprisoned some New Modellers, and had marched soldiers towards Worcestershire before turning them back towards Reading with belligerent intent against army and City.112Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 570; Fairfax Corresp. iv. 370-5.

On 26 June, Massie and the other impeached Members were given leave, their position having become intolerable. Massie stayed in London throughout this part of the crisis. On 6 July, he was on the list brought to the House by Adrian Scrope* of those the army intended to impeach, and on 9 July presented a petition, not in his own defence against his detractors in the army, but for his arrears. By this time the impeached Members had an outraged and vocal advocate in William Prynne*. The army dismissed their messages, claiming to be too busy to deal with them, and suggesting they should go abroad for six months.113CJ v. 225a, 236a, 238a, 239b; W. Prynne, A Full Vindication and Answer of the XI Accused Members (1647), 19 (E.398.17); Desires propounded to the Honourable House of Commons (1647), 1-5 (E.379.11). In the face of this contempt, the Presbyterians counter-organised in the City. It is unclear whether Massie played any active role in fomenting further the forcing of the Houses on 26 July, but he was included in the reconstituted ‘committee of safety’ – set up to mobilise London against the army – and chosen as commander-in-chief of the new City militia when Skippon prevaricated.114Add. 34253, f. 83; Juxon Jnl. 163-4; CJ v. 260b, 261a, 261b; LJ ix. 358b, 361a, 362a, 363a. With Sednam Poynts and Waller, Massie immediately attempted to enlist men for the London force, but on 2 August was forced to admit to the common council that his 700 horse would be no match for the advancing New Model.115Ludlow, Mems. i. 162-3. When the citizens went to the Guildhall to dissuade the City fathers from re-opening a war, the reformadoes, evidently still discontented, broke the lord mayor’s sword in a scuffle. Poynts and Massie, on hearing of this at their muster on New Artillery Ground, rushed to disperse the crowd, killing two. Poynts’s reformadoes called the citizens ‘Independent dogs’; the crowd may then have begun to cry up the king.116Juxon Jnl. 166; LJ ix. 401b, 402a; The Disconsolate Reformado (1647), 1, 3 (E.401.27).

The army entered London on 6 August, and there followed a spate of pamphleteering in the London press on Massie’s role in the crisis. He and Poynts issued their own declaration, bitterly protesting how they had been undercut by the Independents. Their intention above all was to defend the Covenant. In the narrative of victories in the west country and the efforts he had made to recruit for Ireland and their destruction by opponents in the army, it was classic Massie.117Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 765-6. His enemies castigated him for having pocketed money intended for Ireland, and for using the raising of an army for Ireland as merely a cover for his real intention of imposing it on England. He was credited with having poisoned the minds of the lord mayor and aldermen against the New Model, and with having ambitions to become a London alderman himself.118A Speedy Hue and Crie, 1; The Arraignment and Impeachment of Major Generall Massie (1647), 1-4 (E.404.6); Generall Masseys Bartholomew-Fairings (1647), 4 (E.404.15). Towards the end of August there came reports of Massie’s having gone to Scotland to negotiate with the Scottish Covenanters, although their secretary, John Chieslie, denied having met him.119A Letter from an Honourable Gentleman in the Court (1647), 1 (E.404.8). This was perfectly plausible, however, since his defiant declaration of 6 August committed him to settle a peace and the Covenant; restore the king to his just rights and authority; maintain the privileges of Parliament and the liberties of the people, and relieve the Protestants of Ireland. On 13 August, the Parliament of Scotland called for Skippon and Massie to take command in Ireland.120Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 771. In fact, Massie escaped with Poynts to Holland.121Gardiner, Great Civil War, iii. 349.

Massie did not return to England until the summer of 1648. In his absence, on 27 January, the Commons disabled him from sitting. In March of that year he was in Scotland; in May, he was at Dort in the Netherlands.122CCSP i. 414, 421; CJ v. 558b. He was evidently now completely associated with covert attempts to restore the king, and his return was motivated by his intriguing with City Presbyterian interests to resurrect the plan of July 1647 for a new London army.123Gardiner, Great Civil War, iv. 196-7. Ostensibly, he had returned as the stock of the Presbyterians had seemed to rise with the Newport Treaty. On 8 June 1648, the vote to disable him sitting was overturned, and on 20 July he was named to a committee to investigate the Scottish involvement in the second civil war, and with some former friends and associates including Waller, Luke and Nicholas Lechmere*, was involved in considering a petition from former army officers (8 Aug.).124CJ v. 584a, 589b, 640b, 664b. On 9 October, he sat on a committee to raise money for a regiment to guard London, and took an ordinance rewarding Sir Robert Harley* with the profits of the mint, both typically Presbyterian concerns.125CJ vi. 47a, 48a, b; 49a. Ordinances against Essex delinquents in the aftermath of the Colchester siege, to consider sick and maimed soldiers and to bring in assessments for the army were the sum of his appointments in November, before the deluge of Thomas Pride’s* purge of Parliament swept away the Presbyterians.126CJ vi. 67a, 72a, 83b.

Agent of Charles Stuart’s interest, Jan. 1649-1660

As one of the army’s most egregious enemies, Massie could expect little sympathy at the hands of the soldiers, and he was imprisoned at St James’s Palace. On 19 January 1649, he escaped, switching clothes with his servant who had come to visit him dressed as a woman, and made his way to Holland. 127CCSP i. 465; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 162-3, 195. On the day of his escape, apparently, he published a new declaration. It was certainly written around that time, as references to the trial of the king make clear, but as it contained a caveat that he had not seen proofs, it was probably printed later. George Thomason picked up his copy on 2 February, so the book may have appeared as rather stale news after the king’s execution. A Short Declaration recounted his civil war career and his adherence to the limited war aims of 1642-3, complained of his arrears of pay and the apostacy of his enemies. He vowed revenge on the perpetrators of any future violence against Charles I.128A Short Declaration by Colonel Edward Massie (1649), 3-8 (E.541.7). He presented himself immediately to the prince of Wales as a royalist sufferer, Hyde noted sarcastically, ‘as if he had defended Colchester’.129Clarendon, Hist. iv. 467; v. 177. His previous published self-justificatory writings, which had stressed his achievements for Parliament, naturally told against him. Even before he had escaped, however, his self-belief was such that he had written to the prince urging him to throw in his lot wholly with the Scots.130CCSP i. 464; ii. 49. From then onwards, he was firmly identified as belonging to the Presbyterian interest at the exiled court, a ‘martyr’ for that interest in Hyde’s jaundiced view.131Clarendon, Hist. v. 177. Hyde took against Massie still further when the latter encouraged Charles to negotiate with the Scots at Breda in March 1650. An apparent commission from the Presbyterian ‘party’ of England to Massie and others was later exposed, but those who acted with Massie, including Francis, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham and other committed conspirators of the 1650s, were their own agents. The result of their mediation between Charles and the Scots commissioners was ‘an agreement based upon false expectations and mutual bad faith’.132Eg. 1533, f. 47; Mr Love’s Case (1651), 7-8; R. Hutton, Charles II (Oxford, 1989), 45.

Massie was actively involved in Charles Stuart’s invasion of England in 1651. His personal knowledge of Lancashire and Worcestershire played a part in the prince’s military planning. Massie was supposed to bring in the Lancashire Presbyterians, known to have been anti-Scots and sceptical of the royalists. The plan misfired, however, because of the Scottish ministers’ insistence that Massie should publish Charles’s intention to impose the Covenant. Despite attempts to suppress it, word got out in north-west England that the Covenant was to be insisted upon.133Clarendon, Hist. v. 177, 178; A Letter from the King of Scots to Major-generall Massey (1651, E.640.19); Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 50. It was Massie’s high standing in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire that led to Worcester being fixed upon as a destination for the invading army. Massie’s credit in Gloucester had certainly outlived his departure from there in 1644. Not until 1649 had the corporation removed from the Tolsey the table with his portrait adorning it.134Ludlow, Mems. i. 279; Glos. RO, GBR/F4/54, ff. 421v, 447. On the eve of the battle of Worcester, Massie requisitioned the house of Nicholas Lechmere, for whose child Massie had once stood godfather, but who was now his bitter enemy.135Hanley Castle, Lechmere’s MS account of his life. Before the battle itself, Massie was wounded in a skirmish that Hyde thought unnecessary. He made his escape to Bradgate, home of the widow of his former commander, the earl of Stamford, but she ‘had only charity to cure his wounds, not courage to conceal his person’.136Clarendon, Hist. v. 188-9, 238. He was taken to the Tower, but escaped abroad through the good offices of Presbyterian friends.137The Queen of Denmark’s Letter (1651), 6 (E.649.1); CJ vi. 462a, b; vii. 15a.

Hyde, still no more reconciled to Massie than he had been in the 1640s, considered him ‘wonderfully vain and weak’.138CCSP ii. 177. He spent much time between Brussels and Antwerp. He had been helped out financially by the English Presbyterians in 1650, but still had no substantial income, and was forced to take himself (unsuccessfully) to the king of Denmark to solicit a military commission. He had to ask for Charles Stuart’s permission to devote some of his time to job-hunting. There was no doubting his commitment to the Stuart cause, however, and he continued to promote the idea that Charles’s prospects would improve if he abandoned episcopacy.139Mr Love’s Case, 10-11; TSP i. 306, 695, 752; CCSP ii. 169, 181, 184, 187, 193, 199, 279, 295. For much of its exile during the 1650s, the court devoted itself to wishful thinking and internal squabbling. There were rumours of Massie’s return to the Bristol area, which were believed by the radical army officers of Bristol, taken seriously by the protectoral government in 1655, but dismissed by Major-general William Boteler*. Massie probably was working on a plot to murder Oliver Cromwell, but nothing came of it.140TSP iii. 153, 165, 172, 177-8, 383, 591, 659; CCSP iii. 35, 237; Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 172.

Forced with the rest of the courtiers to leave France, between 1655 and 1659 Massie continued to move around Europe, staying in Elsinore, Hamburg, Antwerp and Amsterdam. He probably did make a brief visit to England in 1656, much to the annoyance of the group of courtiers centred on Hyde, and his activities were monitored closely by the English government.141Burton’s Diary, i. p. cxxxviii; TSP iv. 10, 101, 103, 106, 122, 169; v. 449, 572, 578; vi. 90, 832; CCSP iii. 67, 207, 245, 362, 382, 388, 397, 399. The death of Protector Oliver stimulated the conspiring royalists to intensify their activities. Some evidence of a thaw in Hyde’s attitude towards Massie was detectable from September 1657, probably under the influence of Charles himself, who took a more sanguine view of Massie’s abilities.142CCSP iii. 362; iv. 12, 43, 137, 156. Massie intrigued with John Grobham Howe* in a plot to bring Gloucester and Bristol to a rising in favour of Charles Stuart, but in the spring of 1659 disagreements over tactics delayed matters.143CCSP iv. 189, 191, 210, 218; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 7-9, 12, 13. By mid-July Massie was in England, but characteristically was unable to agree with Howe over issues of seniority.144CCSP iv. 166, 202-3, 259, 291, 296 Hyde now supported Massie against the suspicious Gloucestershire gentry, who unlike Massie were not self-confessed royalists. Plans for a rising were advanced when parliamentarian troops under Thomas Pury I flushed out Massie and his allies from hiding near Gloucester. Massie was captured, but managed to elude his guard, John Croft*, during a night-time journey. Once again, he was able to escape to the continent.145CCSP iv. 243, 252, 275, 277, 285, 297, 314, 323, 330, 364, 374; Clarendon, Hist. vi. 112, 115, 118; Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 261-3.

Massie returned to London in January 1660.146CCSP iv. 533. After the royalists had recovered from the setback of the previous summer, he was commissioned by the king and promoted by Hyde as leader of a new rising planned for Bristol and Gloucestershire, but again he was not trusted by other leaders active in the king’s interest.147CCSP iv. 525, 533, 543-4, 555, 570, 605; Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 302. It also became apparent that he was distrusted by General George Monck*, and the distance between them was not bridged before the return of Charles II.148CCSP iv. 543-4, 573, 583, 603, 621, 661; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 167. In February, a letter purporting to be in the name of ‘William’ Massie, but which must have been published by Edward, enshrined another apologia. He claimed that towards the end of his governorship of Gloucester, he had seen the citizens’ animosity towards Charles I ‘slaked’

in which scrutiny I saw the raked sparks of loyalty necessarily flying upward, and surmounting the clouds of malcontent and envious exhalation.149Letter from Major-General Massey to an Honourable Person in London (1660), 3.

During his period in the Commons in 1646-7 Massie had come to the conclusion that only the settlement of the ancient constitution would provide peace, and now urged a speedy pushing aside of what he considered a mere handful of fanatics.150Letter from Major-General Massey, 4. The self-justification and sanguine belief that political affairs were simple were what made Massie so rebarbative to the cautious Monck. Massie was active in engineering a change of control of the London militia in January, and helped trigger a military revolt there the following month, but was confined to London and not allowed to involve himself in affairs in the west country until April. Although he was busy helping others recover their parliamentary seats as secluded Members of the Long Parliament, it is not clear whether he himself resumed his place. 151Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 155; CCSP iv. 564, 569, 573, 583, 603, 614. He went down to Gloucester to oust Thomas Pury I from control of the city, and was elected to the Convention, but was then examined by the council of state for fomenting a dangerous level of popular disturbance there.152CCSP iv. 620, 643, 653, 656; Glos. RO, GBR/G3/SO2, ff. 85v, 87; B3/3, p. 131; A Letter from an Eminent Person in Gloucester (1660, E.1019.20).

Massie’s rewards by Charles II were commensurate with those bestowed on other Presbyterians. He was knighted and given an estate in Ireland, which settled at last the problem of income which had dogged his public career from Gloucester to the period of intense plotting in 1659.153Eg. 2551, f. 84; Eg. 2542, f. 447; CCSP iv. 137-8. This award took him away from mainstream English politics to an extent, although he played a significant part in the Cavalier Parliament. He improved his estate at Abbeyleix in Queen’s County, and died on 23 May 1674. Massie was buried at Abbeyleix. His Irish obituarist described him as ‘the Cato of the commonwealth/and the restorer of this country’s health’, proposing as his epitaph, ‘His fame the world, his virtues fill’d the skies/What need more pomp, or praise, here Massie lies’.154Starkey, Upon the death of ... Sir Edward Massie. He never married.