OXINDEN, Henry (1614-86), of Deane, Wingham, Kent

The Oxinden family had been resident in Kent since the time of Edward III, and had owned Deane, in the parish of Wingham, seven miles east of Canterbury, since the mid-sixteenth century.37Hasted, Kent, ix. 224. In the early seventeenth century they belonged to a circle of great gentry families in the county, most of whom (like the Palmers and the Peytons) would be royalists during the civil wars. Henry Oxinden and his father were to be exceptions.

Little is known about Oxinden’s early life, other than that he travelled on the continent between 1633 and 1636. On his return he married the heiress of Robert Baker (d. 1628), a wealthy London tailor who had begun to develop Piccadilly earlier in the century, a financially astute move in the long term, although its benefits took some time to materialise.38CSP Dom. 1639, p. 349. Mary Baker was still a minor when she married and the estate was divided, giving her mother a life interest in one third of the lands.39WARD5/26; C6/143/38. When Mary died in November 1638, her mother gained a controlling interest by purchasing the wardship of the Oxindens’ infant daughter, although the latter’s death in 1646 returned the estate into Henry’s hands.40Duncan, `Kentish administrations, 1604-49', 28; WARD4/14. In the meantime, complicated property arrangements were compounded in 1639, when Oxinden and his father were hauled before the privy council, to face claims that their buildings in Piccadilly had polluted the springs which supplied the royal palace in Whitehall, and would therefore have to be demolished.41Add. 27999, f. 313; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 411; 1638-9, p. 281; 1640, p. 542; PC2/50, p. 477; PC2/51, pp. 61-2.

In the late 1630s Oxinden pursued keenly the pastimes of a country gentleman, like hunting and hare-coursing.42Add. 27999, ff. 221, 256, 322. His life revolved around family and friends among the Kentish gentry, including his neighbour, Sir Thomas Palmer of Wingham, and the dean of Canterbury, Isaac Bargrave, a former chaplain to King Charles who later suffered for his royalism.43Add. 27999, ff. 308, 311; Add. 28000, ff. 176-7. In September 1639 Oxinden went with another close friend, Sir Thomas Peyton, to Deal, to see `a great fleet of Spaniards chased into the downs by the Hollanders’.44Add. 27999, f. 320. This milieu was reflected in his second marriage, in April 1640, to a daughter of Sir William Meredith of Leeds Abbey, a wealthy Kentish gentleman, whose kinsmen included the Palmers and courtier Francis Cottington, 1st Baron Cottington.45Add. 27999, ff. 249, 250-51, 338; CB.

Oxinden expressed his support for the king in the first bishops’ war in 1639. He hoped that God might ‘please to turn the hearts of the [Scottish] rebels to submit to our gracious king’s will’, although he had heard that ‘they are more absolutely resolved to entertain an army of 30 or 40 thousand men than a cant [i.e. sanctimonious talk] of 5 or 6 bishops’; when the king dispatched a ‘gracious proclamation’ they had ‘most ungraciously ... refused it, and not suffered it to be proclaimed amongst them’.46Add. 28000, f. 38. Later in the year he wrote that ‘the Scots are as disobedient and insolent as ever’, and attacked the demands they made of the king as unreasonable, while he continued to supply members of his family with notes on pro- and anti-Scottish propaganda.47Add. 27999, f. 322; 28001, ff. 39-50. His support for the king was perhaps reinforced by the preachers he heard during this period, who included John Reading, a former chaplain to both Lord Zouch and Charles I, and a client of Oxinden’s friend Sir William Brockman.48Add. 28000, f. 36.

Although Oxinden was returned to neither of the Parliaments in 1640, he was involved in the elections, travelling to Leeds Castle with his father, Sir Thomas Palmer and Sir Thomas Peyton, ‘to help choose the knights of the shire’.49Add. 28000, f. 41. He also took an interest in the activity of Parliament whilst in London late in 1640, obtaining notes on speeches, as well as pamphlets, sending some of them to his cousin in the county.50Add. 28011, ff. 51-99; Add. 28000, ff. 32, 40, 43, 101. Again there in May 1641, he followed closely the proceedings against Strafford, whom he appears to have supported, as well as the numerous pamphlets attacking Archbishop William Laud.51Add. 28000, f. 78; Add. 28011, ff. 54-55v, 107, 113-21. Oxinden spent the summer and early autumn staying with his friends among the greater gentry of Kent, including Sir Thomas Palmer, with whom he visited the queen mother (Marie de’ Medici) at the king’s palace at Canterbury. This visit, to such a renowned and unpopular Catholic, appears to confirm that Oxinden, like his friends, neighbours, and kinsmen, was no ‘fiery spirit’ prior to 1642.52Add. 28000, ff. 45, 99, 125, 356; Add. 54332, f. 29v.

By November 1641 Oxinden anticipated a civil war: ‘if there be not a distemper and confusion in the kingdom far greater than hath yet been in the other two, verily God must work wonders and miracles again’.53Add. 28000, f. 134. Contemplating emergent religious extremes, whether godly or episcopalian, Oxinden bemoaned the way in which Kent was ‘divided into so many sects and schisms’, some of whom ‘deny St Paul and upbraid him with bragging’, while others ‘say that there is no national church, and so separate from us and the puritans as being no true church’. He distanced himself from ‘puritans’ who ‘preach against the keeping of holidays and Christmas day’, ‘in their pulpits vilify and blaspheme our saviour’s name, affirming that it ought to be of no more account than Jack or Tom’, and ‘begin to deny the sacrament to noted sinners or drunkards’. But he also chided the ‘conformists’ and the ‘priests’ who supported ‘a specious, pompous religion, all glorious without’, those for whom ‘bishops must continue their dignities and authorities lest [they be] despised and brought into contempt’. His views bear a resemblance to those of Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh, and may have been influenced by Herbert Palmer, a close kinsman and prominent divine, whom he met during this period. More importantly, he noted that the arguments of leading opposition peer William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, ‘do very much satisfy me’.54Add. 28000, ff. 78, 163. Saye’s position, as expressed in his response to Archbishop John Williams, and in his speech concerning the liturgy, attacked the prelates’ pretentions to civil as opposed to merely spiritual functions, and the imposition of rigid conformity in the use of prayer books. Oxinden, whose anti-clericalism was evident in his attack upon religious extremists, may have warmed to Saye’s belief in the need for an Erastian church settlement.55Add. 28000, f. 145.

In the wake of the attempt on the Five Members (Jan. 1642), and the king’s departure from London, Oxinden was convinced that the destruction of the kingdom was ‘almost inevitable’. By this stage his sympathies lay with the group who had been targeted by the king. As he tried to obtain a copy of a speech by John Pym* to send to his cousin in Kent, he explained that he had not yet seen it, but that according to ‘them that did see and hear him deliver it, never anything was delivered with that modest confidence and heroic courage by any common of this kingdom’. Among the Lords, Oxinden favoured the minority (including the earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Warwick, and Salisbury, as well as Viscount Saye) who aligned with the Commons in moves for reform.56Add. 28000, f. 148v. He feared the effects of the loss of trade, and the hardship inflicted on London’s poor, who ‘are daily feared to rise’; all in the capital were ‘full of fears and almost void of hopes’ and there was ‘foul language and desperate quarrellings even between old and entire friends’. The situation required God to ‘work a miracle parallel to some of his great ones in the old time’; ‘it is Mars, not Venus, that now can help’, and there were ‘drums’, ‘warlike postures and ... glittering armour up and down the town’, with ‘our poor bleeding liberties at stake’.57Add. 28000, f. 148v.

In his support for Parliament, Oxinden found a staunch ally in his cousin, Henry Oxinden of Barham.58Add. 28000, f. 157. The former, who was arranging for his family to move to Holland in the event of war, continued to send his cousin pamphlets during February. He commented to his receptive kinsman on the militia debates, the prospects in Ireland, and the expulsion from the House of his fellow Kentishman, Sir Edward Dering*, whose book of speeches he refrained from sending on the grounds of its ‘not being in my esteem worth anything’.59Add. 28000, ff. 48, 158. Shortly before he left the capital in May, Oxinden expressed his shock and dismay at the flight from London of the lord keeper, Edward Littleton†, adding ‘the king is higher than ever; the Parliament abate little, God of his mercy send union’.60Add. 28000, f. 50.

Although Oxinden returned to Kent, he continued to read with approval parliamentary declarations, including the remonstrance of 26 May.61Add. 28000, f. 190. By late July, he was troubled by rumours regarding the commission of array, vowing that he would ‘rather quit my place than obey, or serve, under any commission without consent of, much less against, the Parliament itself and our own lands and liberties’.62Add. 28000, f. 213. Once the commission of array was implemented, Oxinden endeavoured to gather information on support within Kent.63Add. 28000, f. 220. The commission included his father-in-law, Sir William Meredith, and friends like Sir Thomas Peyton and Sir Thomas Palmer, but not Oxinden and his father, who had by this time visibly split from their circle.64Northants. RO, FH133, unfol.

Oxinden’s whereabouts and views during the first year of the war are not recorded. However, his public allegiance to Parliament presumably pre-dated his participation as a lieutenant-colonel in the defence of Arundel Castle in Sussex, where he arrived in late November 1643, shortly before it was seized by the royalists.65Add. 54332, f. 17. Thereafter, like his father, he appeared on most of the Kentish commissions appointed by Parliament, including from 1644 the commission of the peace.66A. and O.; Everitt, County Cttee. of Kent.

On 12 September 1645 a writ was issued for an election of a knight of the shire to replace Sir John Culpeper*, who had been disabled from sitting further. Sir Henry Vane II* told his father that there was ‘great contestation’ for the place, with four men standing openly – Sir John Sedley, Sir Richard Hardy, Richard Beale*, and Henry Oxinden – and one, Thomas Blount*, acting ‘underhand’.67CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 138. However, the seat went to John Boys*, Oxinden’s neighbour in Wingham. Oxinden evidently withdrew from the contest in mid-September: ‘deliberation and consultation with some at Maidstone’, led him to resign his ‘interest to Captain Boys ... who hath a strong party’ and to resolve ‘to help him with all the power’ he possessed.68Add. 28001, f. 35. That ‘party’ included the local activist Sir Anthony Weldon, who sought to block the return of the more moderate Sedley. That there was some kind of tactical deal is suggested by the fact that Oxinden then set his sights on Winchelsea, across the Sussex border, where two new burgesses were required to take the places of John Finch* and William Smith*. On 2 October he was elected there with Samuel Gott*, who was to be a prominent Presbyterian.69‘Suss. deeds in private hands’, Suss. Arch. Coll. lxvi. 118.

Oxinden took his seat at Westminster by 29 October, when he took the Solemn League and Covenant.70CJ iv. 326a. He was never in the front rank of MPs, and his appearances in the Journal were patchy. In keeping with his apparent association with the Kent ‘war party’, his earliest appointments were to committees where the Independents held sway. His first, on 13 December, was to join those overseeing the work of William Prynne* and the Presbyterians on the Committee of Accounts.71CJ iv. 376a. His second, on 7 January 1646, was to join the committee of the Tower of London, alongside the republican, Henry Marten*.72CJ iv. 399a. In early February, and again in June, he accompanied Sir Henry Heyman*, a leader of Kent radicals, in apprehending and examining delinquents from their county.73CJ iv. 430a, 431b, 580b. He was also nominated to committees to investigate the Presbyterian City Remonstrance, and the author of the Presbyterian pamphlet entitled A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens (11 July).74CJ iv. 615b, 616a.

Yet this record was modest. Oxinden was absent from the Journal from March to May, and his appointment in June to the commission for exclusion from the sacrament need not have rested on his presence in the House.75CJ iv. 562b; A. and O. His own religious views seem to have matched those of the Presbyterians who promoted the commission. On 3 December he was asked to invite the prominent Presbyterian minister Jeremiah Whitaker to preach at a humiliation-day service at St Margaret’s Westminster, and afterwards encourage him to publish the sermon.76CJ iv. 737a; CJ v. 7b. Whitaker, a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, had been briefly intruded as vicar of St Stephen’s Coleman Street in London in 1645, in place of the arch-Independent, John Goodwin.77‘Jeremiah Whitaker’, ‘John Goodwin’, Oxford DNB; Al. Cant.

Oxinden’s parliamentary activity remained slight, however, revealing no consistent pattern. Of four appointments between August and October 1646 (before a two-month gap), one was to the relatively important task of borrowing money for the prospective campaign in Ireland (11 Aug.), while two related to petitions from fellow Kentish gentry; another such followed in December.78CJ iv. 641b, 658b, 678b, 681b; v. 6b. Seeking to use his position to assist his kinsmen, he was forced to rely on the help of his fellow member for Winchelsea, Samuel Gott, who had ‘much more interest’ with the powerful committees, and much more ‘rhetoric and art’ to secure beneficial results.79Add. 28001, ff. 43, 176, 205, 213, 243; Add. 28002, f. 93. Yet Oxinden did occasionally appear in the Journal in connection with activities of significance: on 10 December, just after dealing with preaching, he and Laurence Whitaker*, leading light of the Committee for Examinations, were ordered to handle the matter of letters between the French ambassador and his secretary, seized at Dover; later in the day Oxinden went for the only time as a messenger to the Lords, with the ordinance for payment of the Dover garrison.80CJ v. 8a, 8b. Of two committee nominations in the early weeks of 1647, one (where his Presbyterian religious stance was probably the key factor) was to consider the ordinance for regulation of the University of Oxford (13 Jan.), while the other (where his position was less certain) was to investigate various scandalous pamphlets, including the Presbyterian London’s Account, John Lilburne’s Oppressed Mans Oppressions, and two works by the royalist astrologer, George Wharton (3 Feb.).81CJ v. 51b, 72b.

Radicalism in the army that spring may have accelerated Oxinden’s severing his remaining ties to Independents. Absent from the Journal from 3 February, he reappeared on 12 May, when he was added to the committee for complaints in relation to a letter from Guernsey, and had only one more appointment before 5 June, when he was named to the rather important delegation to receive the Scottish commissioners and their complaints about the army’s seizure of the king.82CJ v. 169a, 181a, 200b. He was then again invisible through the period of the impeachment of the Presbyterian leaders, only to resurface again during the Presbyterian coup. Crucially, on 3 August he was added to the Presbyterian-dominated ‘committee of safety’, which had been established in June to mobilise London against the army.83CJ v. 266a. Following the army’s march on London and the return of the Independents to Westminster, he was among MPs still in the House to be named to the committee to consider the repeal of votes passed during the coup (11 Aug.), but he then disappeared from the record.84CJ v. 272a. On 1 October, being ‘very sick’, he was granted leave to go into the country, and his absence was excused at the call of the House on the 9th.85CJ v. 321b, 330a.

Oxinden seems to have stayed aloof both from the discontent which emerged in Kent in December 1647 and from the county committee’s attempts to quell it.86Bodl. Tanner 58, ff. 645, 653, 672-4. He did not join the cavaliers who would lead the uprising in the summer of 1648, despite the presence among them of friends like Sir Thomas Peyton, Sir Thomas Palmer, Sir James Hales, and Sir William Brockman, and his own son, James Oxinden†.87The Lord General's Letter (1646), 8 (E.445.26); Newes from Bowe (1648), 1 (E.446.9); Newes from Kent (1648), 3 (E.448.5); Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 135; CJ v. 576a. By 20 April, when he reappeared in the Journal to be named with John Boys to the committee for the ordinance punishing defaulters at the Kent musters, he had evidently decided to adhere to Parliament.88CJ v. 538a. On the day following the start of the Kent rising (22 May), he was appointed with Richard Lee* and Thomas Westrow* to prepare an answer to a letter received from Rochester, one of the rebel strongholds; a few hours later the three were dispatched there ‘to employ their best endeavours to satisfy those parts, and preserve the peace’.89CJ v. 568b. According to one official account, they ‘did their best to quiet the county, but could effect nothing but a cessation’90A Declaration of the Several Proceedings (1648), 5-6 (E.446.1). On 25 May the Commons received their letter reporting the articles agreed by the county committee.91CJ v. 573a. On 14 June Oxinden was named to the committee which investigated the rising.92CJ v. 599b.

Over the summer and autumn Oxinden probably supported a settlement with the king, even if he did little towards bringing it about. On 1 June 1648, he was included on the committee to state what action had been taken on calls for a treaty with Charles, but between mid-June and early September he made no impression in the Journal.93CJ v. 581a. On 8 September he was added to the committee to consider the claims of Sussex MP Henry Peck*, who found allies amongst the Presbyterians, and who was active in the cause of peace.94CJ vi. 10a. However, Oxinden’s only remaining appearance in the Journal before the purge was on 13 October, when he was granted leave of absence.95CJ vi. 51a.

Secluded at Pride’s Purge, Oxinden returned to Kent, but by mid-February 1649 he was back in London, and was ‘invited to sit at Westminster’. However, he told his cousin that ‘I can yet find no persuasions or arguments for any to convince or prevail with me in honour or conscience’.96A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5); Add. 28002, ff. 95, 117. There is no evidence that he participated in the Rump, and at some point before July 1651 he compounded for delinquency (paying £20), although the reason for doing so is unclear; possibly it related to suspicious activities by his son James.97CCC, 461; Add. 28001, f. 211. During the early years of the commonwealth Oxinden concentrated on managing his estates.98C54/3737/10.

In contrast, like many others Oxinden was prepared to reach an accommodation with the protectorate. In 1654 he was elected to Parliament as one of the county members for Kent. He was named to only three committees, including those considering the abuses of habeas corpus (3 Nov.) and the settlement of the government (18 Dec.).99CJ vii. 381a, 381b, 403a. He was again returned in 1656 and, since he was not then excluded, was not objectionable to the council. This time he made no impact on proceedings, although in part this may have been the result of the illness which forced his absence from the house that December.100Burton’s Diary, i. 285. Oxinden was au fait with members of the Cromwellian ‘court party’, advising his cousin, Henry Oxinden of Barham, to employ the services of ‘men in power and credit’ such as his friend, the government journalist Marchamont Nedham. On the other hand, he also built bridges with some old royalist friends, including Sir Thomas Peyton, whom he visited in the Tower.101Add. 28003, f. 407.

The later 1650s were years of personal upheaval rather than political activity, with the death of his father in September 1657, and of his wife Elizabeth in August 1659.102Arch. Cant. vi. 278. Oxinden failed to obtain a seat in the 1659 Parliament, being defeated on 11 January at Hythe by Robert Hales* and William Kenwricke*.103Add. 28004, f. 37. As a secluded Member of the Long Parliament, however, he returned to Westminster in February 1660, and before the dissolution was named to committees concerning assizes in Lancashire (24 Feb.), and a clause in the bill for calling a new Parliament relating to elections in the Cinque Ports (13-14 Mar.).104CJ vii. 851b, 873b, 876b; A True and Perfect Catalogue (1660).

On one of the writs he had helped prepare, Oxinden was returned to the Convention as the senior member for Sandwich, but he made very little impression on the assembly and appears not to have sought re-election in 1661.105Add. 28004, f. 128; HP Commons 1660-1690. He was knighted in June 1660 and obtained a pardon from the crown (Jan. 1661), but the following year was removed from the commission of peace.106Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 228; SO3/14, unfol; C231/7, p. 71; Add. 28004, f. 252; Add. Ch. 66162; Add. Ch. 66130. Still involved in local elections from the sidelines, in 1681 he supported exclusionist candidate Edward Dering†.107Add. Ch. 66234; Stowe 746, ff. 48-9.

Meanwhile, there was a revival of legal disputes over the Baker family estates in Piccadilly, which had been in abeyance owing to the chaotic state of the chancery court during the civil wars. They developed into a costly and prolonged confrontation with one Colonel Panton. Despite marshalling support from powerful friends including Sir George Palmer* (the attorney-general), Edward Montagu†, 2nd earl of Manchester (the lord chamberlain), and Sir Orlando Bridgman* (the lord keeper), eventually a hitherto dogged Oxinden grew weary and backed out.108C8/285/13; C33/223, ff. 519, 721, 760; C41/17 Trin. 1666, nos. 569-70; Add. 40700, f. 241; Add. 40713, ff. 24-6, 42v-45v; Add. 40712, ff. 5v, 7; Add. 40700, f. 214; C33/225, f. 424. In April 1668 he finally agreed a division of the estate with Panton, and both developed their lands, now respectively Oxinden Street and Panton Street. By 1673, Oxinden had released his property in Piccadilly to his son James.109Add. Ch. 66193.

Oxinden, who was granted a baronetcy in 1678, drew up his will shortly before his death in 1686.110CB; Add. Ch. 66191; Arch. Cant. vi. 281; PROB11/384/366. He was survived by his brother, Sir George Oxinden, governor of Bombay, and succeeded by his eldest son, Sir James Oxinden.111‘Sir George Oxinden’, Oxford DNB. The family continued to be represented at Westminster until the mid-eighteenth century.

Despite his earlier support for royal policies and royal ministers, as religious debate became more heated and Charles I left London, Oxinden diverged from most of his friends, if not his immediate family, in adhering to the parliamentary cause in summer 1642. During the first civil war he co-operated with the ‘fiery spirits’ in the county, and on his election to Parliament initially worked with the nascent Independent faction. Later he probably favoured a settlement with the king, and in summer 1647 supported the political Presbyterians, albeit not very actively. Having been removed from Westminster in 1648, Oxinden spent the 1650s as a compliant, rather than active supporter of Oliver Cromwell* and the protectorate, and it seems likely that he welcomed the return of Charles II.