POPHAM, Alexander (c.1605-69), of Hunstrete, Som.; Littlecote, Wilts. and Stoke Newington, Mdx.

By 1640 Alexander Popham was the heir to the vast Popham fortune. His elder brother, John†, the family wastrel, had died in 1638. Despite being only the second son, Alexander been well prepared for the public career expected of the head of such a powerful family. As a young man, he had been educated at Oxford and the Middle Temple.32Al. Ox.; M. Temple Admiss. i. 114. He had also visited Spain, possibly spending time with his kinsman Endymion Porter* in the embassy of Sir Francis Cottington† at Madrid.33CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 250; 1631-3, p. 11. Resident at Hunstrete, the Pophams’ secondary residence close to Bath, Alexander had become an established figure in Somerset society. With his father now in his late sixties, it was only to be expected that he would become more obviously active in local politics.

Novice MP, 1640-2

Once it became clear in late 1639 that a new Parliament would be called for 1640, Alexander Popham was heavily involved in the various intrigues preceding the Somerset county poll, both as an organiser for others and as a potential candidate. His initial instinct was to promote the candidacy of Sir Ralph Hopton* and as early as December 1639 he was recommending Hopton to his friend, Thomas Smyth I*. By March 1640, however, Smyth was warning Popham that support for Hopton would damage Popham’s own chances in the election. In fact, Popham and Smyth ended up standing against Hopton in the poll on 30 March, with Popham losing out to Hopton.34Cal. Corresp. Smyth Fam. 150, 156, 195-6. Popham had at least two other options, however. The family interests at Minehead and Bath now secured his elections for both those seats. As the Minehead return was disputed, he chose to sit for Bath.35CJ ii. 3b; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 42; Aston’s Diary, 148. In the Long Parliament elections, he stood again at Bath and was re-elected.

His activity at Westminster was, as yet, slight. All that can be said about this before the summer of 1642 is that he took the Protestation on 17 May 1641 and that he was added to the committee on the inheritance dispute involving that other major Wiltshire family, the Thynnes, on 28 July 1641.36CJ ii. 148a, 226b; Procs. LP iv. 411, 419. He presumably also worked behind the scenes to help secure the passage of the private bill being promoted by his father.

In the summer of 1642, as the country moved rapidly towards civil war, Popham emerged as one of the key Parliamentarian supporters in Somerset. Having been one of the new Somerset deputy lieutenants appointed by Parliament in March 1642, he travelled there to take control of its affairs. In mid-June both Houses heard details of the petition being organised by Sir Francis Dodington, Sir Charles Berkeley* and Hopton in support of the king, which had now been intercepted by Popham.37CJ ii. 621b; LJ v. 130b, 133a-134a; PJ ii. 66. He was back at Westminster by 18 July when he was able to persuade the Commons to release Edward Horner.38PJ iii. 228. But the next day he received permission to return to Somerset in order to implement the militia ordinance.39CJ ii. 680b. The day after that he was among those Somerset gentlemen given permission by Parliament to raise cavalry.40LJ v. 226a.

In arms against the king, 1642-6

Popham became the colonel of the regiment he recruited at Bath. He now joined with Sir John Horner* and John Ashe* to organise military resistance to the attempt by the 1st marquess of Hertford (Sir William Seymour†) to raise Somerset for the king. On 4 August Popham and the other Somerset deputy lieutenants were at Shepton Mallet.41PJ iii. 282. The next day they marched on Wells with a force of about 12,000 men, which persuaded Hertford to retreat to Dorset.42LJ v. 278b; The Marquesse of Hertfort his Letter (1642), 5-9 (E.109.24); A True and Exact Relation of all the Proceedings of Marquesse Hartford (1642, E.112.33); A Perfect Relation of All the passages and proceedings of the Marquesse Hartford (1642, E.111.5); More later and Truer Newes from Somersetshire (1642, E.112.12); A second Letter sent from John Ashe (1642, E.112.13); Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, i. 17; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 295, 298; Bellum Civile, 3, 9-10. Later that month Popham was among local gentlemen who wrote to the Wells corporation to berate them for having failed to welcome the pro-parliamentarian 5th earl of Bedford (William Russell†).43Wells Convocation Acts Bks. ii. 834. Popham and William Strode II* meanwhile wrote to Parliament assuring them that they were busy enforcing the militia ordinance.44PJ iii. 303. Working together with Ashe, they gathered arms and ammunition worth £172 4s 4d.45SP28/2a, f. 97. In early September Popham assisted Bedford in his unsuccessful attempt to take Sherborne.46A Relation of the Actions of the Parliaments Forces [1642], 3-6 (E.116.42). By November he was threatening to march on Bristol. The Bristol corporation finally relented and allowed him to enter with resistance on 8 December.47J. Wroughton, A Community at War: The Civil War in Bath and North Som. 1642-1650 (Bath, 1992), 75-7. His regiment provided the nucleus for the Bristol garrison under Nathaniel Fiennes I* for the next six months.

At the beginning of May 1643 Popham was operating as far south as Dorchester.48CCSP i. 239. Soon after, some of his men vandalised Wells Cathedral.49HMC Wells, ii. 427. But Hopton’s eastward advance changed everything. Popham and his colleagues would spent much of that summer in a vain attempt to prevent the royalists taking northern Somerset. In late May, with Popham’s encouragement, Sir William Waller* concentrated his forces around Bath.50CCSP i. 240. Six of Popham’s companies from the Bristol garrison were then removed to help counter the threat from Hertford.51A Relation made in the House of Commons by Col: Nathaniel Fiennes [1643], 5 (E.64.12). However, a series of minor skirmishes with Prince Maurice and Hopton in mid-June forced Popham to retreat from Somerton back towards the northern parts of the county.52Mercurius Aulicus no. 24 (11-17 June 1643), 317 (E.56.11); The Poetry of Anna Matilda (1788), 121. On 2 July Fiennes ordered him to march from Bristol to join Waller at Bath.53W. Prynne and C. Walker, A True and Full Relation (1644), pt. ii, 4 (E.255.1). Having done so, Popham and his Bath regiment were able to take part with Waller in the battle of Lansdown (5 July). Their aim to stop Hopton capturing Bath succeeded only in the short term. Eight days later Popham and his men were among the Waller’s parliamentarian forces heavily defeated by Henry Wilmot* at Roundway Down. Popham’s regiment, like the rest of Waller’s army, disintegrated. Popham had failed to keep hold of Somerset in this important campaign and the king’s proclamation of 20 June exempted him from the offer of a general pardon.54LJ vi. 110b; Harl. 164, f. 278v.

Waller’s defeat left Popham at a loose end. His powerbase in Somerset was in enemy hands. It was not much consolation that Parliament should have appointed him to the council of war on 2 August. He was back at Westminster on 30 September, when he took the Covenant.55CJ iii. 191b, 259a. The following December he testified at the court martial of Fiennes held at St Albans. Fiennes’s decision to send Popham to reinforce Waller, while allowing him to help defeat Hopton at Lansdown, was open to the charge that this was at the expense of reducing the numbers defending Bristol. Popham’s evidence was generally favourable towards Fiennes: he testified that the Bristol defences had been ‘very strong and substantial’.56Prynne and Walker, True and Full Relation, pt. ii, 4. When Popham did appear at Westminster, it was usually in connection with business associated with Waller. He was now as keen as anyone that Waller should resume the western campaign. On 8 January 1644 the Commons sent John Downes*, Hall Ravenscroft* and Popham to confer with Waller about this.57CJ iii. 360b. A week later Popham was sent to the Committee of Safety, probably to encourage them to pay Waller’s men. The following month he was included on the committee to raise money for the same purpose (27 Feb.).58CJ iii. 366b, 410a. In April 1644 he persuaded the Commons to make arrangements to pay the arrears due to one of Waller’s ex-colonels.59CJ iii. 448b; Harl. 166, f. 43v.

Popham’s wish to serve again with Waller was granted, when, on 23 May 1644, the Commons asked the general to find him a position in his army.60CJ iii. 505a. Popham, his brother Edward and Edmund Ludlowe II* were then sent into the west to organise a recruitment drive for men for Waller’s army.61Ludlow, Mems. i. 91. On 10 June Popham and the ‘other western men’ probably took part in the capture of Sudeley Castle.62Harl. 166, f. 71v. He was then sent to Wiltshire, however. Together with Ludlowe and William Strode II, he set up a county committee at Devizes.63Mercurius Aulicus no. 27 (30 June-6 July 1644), 1070-1 (E.2.30); E. Walker, Historical Discourses (1705), 39. But their hold on the county was far from secure. On 6 July Popham came off worse in the skirmish with royalist forces outside Salisbury.64Harl. 166, ff. 93v-4; Ludlow, Mems. i. 92-3. He may well have fought at the second battle of Newbury (27 Oct.); it has been suggested that the equestrian portrait of himself that he subsequently commissioned (now in the collections of the Royal Armouries) shows him at that battle.65I. Roy, ‘An English country house at war: Littlecote and the Pophams’, 31, in War, Strategy, and International Politics (Oxford, 1992) ed. L. Freedman et al.; Royal Armouries, I.315.

Popham’s rare appearances at Westminster continued to be associated only with military affairs. In October 1644 he was one of the trio of MPs asked to draft the order for the sale of the Hubert Le Sueur equestrian statue of Charles I. That sale (which never took place) was intended to raise money to buy weapons for Waller’s army.66CJ iii. 668b. In March Popham and Anthony Nicoll* were sent to obtain £500 from the excise commissioners as payment for money voted by the Commons to an army officer.67CJ iv. 79b. That he was appointed to the committee created in February 1645 to consider how recruitment might be undertaken under the New Model confirms that he was, naturally enough, following that particular development closely.68CJ iv. 51a.

As an MP who was also an army officer, Popham was forced by the Self-Denying Ordinance to resign his commission. He therefore ceased to command his regiment just at the point when it was embarking on the re-conquest of Somerset. In early May 1645, as part of the relief of Taunton by Sir Thomas Fairfax*, that regiment found itself defending one of Popham’s country houses at Wellington against an attack by Sir Richard Grenville†. After seizing the house, Grenville’s men torched it.69C7/394/73. On 21 May, on Popham’s initiative, the Commons agreed to exchange four of his officers whom Grenville had been taken prisoner.70CJ iv. 142b, 149b; Harl. 166, f. 211v. After Bath was recaptured on 29 July, Popham’s regiment of horse was among those sent to secure it. It was now only a matter of time before Fairfax was completely in control of the county. With that in mind, Popham was given permission by the Commons on 25 August to go into the country for a month.71CJ iv. 252a. An important factor in the collapse of royalist authority within Somerset had been influence of the local clubmen. Since these men were now willing to work with the parliamentarians, Fairfax placed them under Popham’s command.

Westminster, 1646-8

Popham probably spent much of the winter of 1645-6 in Somerset, helping to consolidate Parliament’s control of the county. Power in Somerset now rested with the county committee, dominated by John Pyne*, with Popham as one of his closest allies. It is true that the Pyne-Popham interest was unable to secure the election of Popham’s brother, Edward, in the Bath by-election in December 1645. But they had more success at Minehead, where Edward was elected to fill the seat which had been occupied by their father until his death in July 1644. This creates a complication in that in the Commons’ Journals rarely distinguished between the brothers. Often they were just described as ‘Colonel Popham’, a title they both now held. Or, less frequently, they would be called simply ‘Mr Popham’. It would be tempting to suppose that, as he was at this point the better known military figure, ‘Colonel Popham’ was Alexander. But there are a number of Journal references to ‘Mr Alexander Popham’.72CJ v. 144a, 330a. Context is rarely of much use: from 1646 until 1649 the pair are almost impossible to tell apart.

It was certainly Alexander who was given leave to go into the country on 23 April and again on 26 November 1646.73CJ iv. 520a, 729a. There is also no doubt that he was the one sent by the Committee of Both Kingdoms as a commissioner to negotiate the surrender of Newark in early May 1646.74LJ viii. 303b, 311a. He was also appointed as a commissioner for scandalous offences.75CJ iv. 563a. But was he the nominee to the committees to examine the paintings confiscated from the duke of Hamilton or to investigate the Newcastle-upon-Tyne election?76CJ iv. 571b, v. 134a. He was added on 3 October 1646 to the committee for the reduction of Edward Massie’s* brigade.77CJ iv. 681b. In April 1647 he was without question the messenger sent to the Lords to seek their agreement to the grant of money to the widow of an ex-parliamentarian soldier.78CJ v. 144a. But almost all remaining parliamentary activities throughout 1647 are obscured by the vagueness of the Journals.79CJ v. 153a, 187a, 190a, 229a, 278b; LJ ix. 210a The exemptions are significant. On 16 July 1647 Alexander was granted leave to go into the country. The next time he might be mentioned in the Journals was on 18 August. Moreover, both brothers were absent when the House was called on 9 October.80CJ v. 245b, 278b, 330a. This makes it likely that Alexander was away from the capital throughout the crisis of late July and early August 1647. The following December Alexander was among those assessment commissioners appointed to encourage the better collection of that tax in the localities. In his case, he was named for both Somerset and Wiltshire.81CJ v. 400b, 403a, 403b.

From the spring of 1648 Popham’s parliamentary activities begin to come into slightly sharper focus. On 23 May the Commons instructed him to go to Somerset with powers to raise a troop of horse to restore order there. But there was more to this than just an issue of public order. The problem was unrest on a number of Somerset manors whose control was disputed. Popham himself claimed that he had inherited a lease on those properties from his father, who had even attempted to obtain a private Act of Parliament in 1642 to confirmed his title to them.82CJ v. 569b; C7/458/123. One of the Pophams was a teller in the division on 17 June 1648, presumably because he supported the proposal that officers receiving commissions in the army should be required to take the Covenant.83CJ v. 604a. One of them was also asked on 28 June to thank Thomas Manton for the sermon he had preached to Parliament.84CJ v. 615a. This choice can easily be explained for Manton, a prominent London Presbyterian clergyman, had been presented to his living as rector of Stoke Newington by the Pophams in 1644.85VCH Mdx. viii. 205. In late July Sir David Watkins obtained permission from the Commons to sue both the Pophams and Sir Benjamin Rudyerd*.86CJ v. 649a. By then Alexander Popham was not in London, for he had returned to Somerset, no doubt in order to steady nerves there in the wake of royalist uprisings elsewhere.87CJ v. 656b. Several weeks later the Derby House Committee wrote to him and the Somerset county committee warning them that they should not assume that the emergency was over.88CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 259. By October he was, once again, levying his own forces within Somerset, seemingly without permission from Parliament, the Derby House Committee or Fairfax.89CJ vi. 59a.

Popham and the Rump, 1649-53

Not that Popham’s loyalties were in doubt. Despite his Presbyterian leanings, he was not ejected in the purge of the Commons on 6 December 1648. The Rump soon viewed Popham’s Somerset forces as a useful source of additional support in that particular locality.90CJ v. 104a. Popham, for his part, was willing to work with the Rump at Westminster. Although he may not have supported it, he seems to have accepted the king’s execution the following month. On 14 February 1649 he entered his dissent to the vote of the previous 5 December.91PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, p. 684. That made possible his election the same day to the new council of state.92CJ vi. 141a; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 6. This placed him at the centre of policy-making under the new republic. However, Popham cannot be said to have been especially assiduous in his work as a councillor and he seems to have been content to leave it to others to govern the country; during his first year in office he attended only 38 of the 319 council meetings.93CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. xlviii-lxxv. He also sat on only a handful of council committees and his appointment to the most important of those, the Committee of Navy and Customs, was surely due to his brother’s role as one of the generals-at-sea. The council rarely assigned him specific items of business.94CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 17, 106, 383, 399, 410.

This same pattern of inactivity was evident in Parliament. The council seems never to have used him as its parliamentary spokesman and Popham’s other contributions seem to have been minimal. It is true that he becomes easier to identify, simply because Edward can be shown to have been spending long periods away at sea. Either of them could have been named to the committee on the sale of fee farm rents (9 Mar. 1649), but it was certainly Alexander who, on 14 April, was added to the committee on disaffected preaching.95CJ vi. 160b, 187b. On 26 April 1649 Parliament voted him £4,511 7s 2d as repayment for money it owed him.96CJ vi. 196a, 199b. In September 1649 he took the lead in obtaining financial aid from Parliament for the inhabitants of Taunton after a fire had damaged much of the town.97CJ vi. 291b. Perhaps for that reason, he seems to have been away from London in early October 1649.98HMC Leyborne-Popham, 46. During 1649 he also took advantage of the sale of church lands. The Pophams held the lease on the manor of Stoke Newington which had belonged to one of the prebendaries of St Paul’s Cathedral, so Popham was now able to buy it for £1,925 4s 6¼d.99W. Robinson, Hist. and Antiquities of the Par. of Stoke Newington (1820), 34; VCH Mdx. viii. 178.

Despite his less-than-impressive record as a councillor, Popham was re-elected to the council of state for another year on 12 February 1650.100CJ vi. 362b; CSP Dom. 1650, p. 13. Over that year he was no more hard-working than before, although he was again appointed to the Navy Committee.101CSP Dom. 1650, pp. xv-xli, 3, 18. His main contribution was actually made in the localities. In February 1650 it was being reported that Popham had promised to raise four regiments in the west.102CSP Dom. 1650, p. 7. What the council subsequently asked him to do was not quite so ambitious. In May 1650 they sent him back to Somerset to raise a militia regiment of horse and to reorganise the four companies of foot garrisoning Pendennis Castle.103CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 144, 148-9; CJ vi. 411a-b. This was a task Popham probably found more congenial than sitting in the council chamber at Whitehall. However, it did not prevent him being named to the parliamentary committees on William Howett (17 May) and on the petition from John Lilburne (27 June).104CJ vi. 413b, 433a. He appears to have been completely inactive in Parliament during the second half of 1650, although he was in London for some of the time as he occasionally turned up at council meetings.105CSP Dom. 1650, p. xli.

In February 1651 he was not re-elected to the council of state. Nor was he much of a presence at Westminster. One of the Popham brothers, perhaps more probably Edward, was added to the committee of magazines and stores on 13 February after the powers of the admiralty and the navy were referred to it.106CJ vi. 534a. One of them had a brief spurt of activity in May 1651, when he was named to several committees within the space of a fortnight, but Edward is known to have been around Westminster at that time.107CJ vi. 569b, 573a, 574b. Alexander did do his bit during that summer’s invasion crisis, however. With Charles Stuart marching southwards from Scotland, Popham volunteered to finance 20 dragoons for at least a month.108CSP Dom. 1651, p. 384. The council then commissioned him to command a regiment of horse and a regiment of foot in the Somerset militia.109CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 532, 533. Once the crisis was over, he was one of Somerset gentlemen given the task of overseeing the demolition of the defences of Taunton Castle.110CSP Dom. 1651, p. 505-6.

In November 1651 Popham was (with 56 votes) elected to the council of state for a third time.111CJ vii. 42b; CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 52. There was, however, no obvious change in his level of involvement in its business.112CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xxxv-xlvii, 43, 65, 247. Nor did he become any more active in Parliament. Significantly, throughout the entire first half of 1652 he was mentioned in the Journals only in connection with a private bill he promoted for his own financial benefit. As has already been mentioned, his late father had in 1642 secured the passage of a bill to confirm his possession of a valuable lease on extensive estates in Somerset. But it had never received the royal assent. Alexander Popham now tried again with more success. This new bill was passed in a single sitting without amendments on 6 April 1652 and, as he was only named to a couple of minor committees thereafter, this constituted his major contribution to parliamentary proceedings throughout the year.113CJ vii. 112b, 114b, 188a, 205a. However, the Bath corporation did plan to consult with him, and with James Ashe*, their other MP, about a scheme to improve navigation of the River Avon in the weeks immediately before the Rump was dissolved.114Bath and NE Som. RO, Bath council bk. 1649-84, p. 74.

The termination of the Rump in April 1653 interrupted Popham’s parliamentary career for the time being. Given that his religious views seem to have been firmly Presbyterian, it is unsurprising that he was not one of the ‘saints’ summoned to attend the 1653 Nominated Assembly. He cannot have viewed its proceedings with much sympathy and by May 1653 one newsletter was describing him as ‘a popular person and discontented.’115CCSP ii. 208. Later events would suggest that he also had deep misgivings about the decision to elevate Oliver Cromwell* to the position of lord protector.

Sceptic under the protectorate, 1653-9

Popham defeated James Ashe to reclaim his place as MP for Bath on 23 July 1654.116Bath and NE Som. RO, Bath council bk. 1649-84, p. 114. By then he had already been elected to sit for Wiltshire. He chose to sit for Bath.117CJ vii. 374a. But, having taken his seat, he was conspicuous by his inactivity. His only known contributions to the proceedings of the first Protectoral Parliament were to be included on the committee for privileges (5 Oct. 1654) and the committee to consider the draining of the Lincolnshire fens (31 Oct.).118CJ vii. 373b, 380a. While Popham had never been the most energetic of MPs, such a low profile strongly suggests that he was making a point of not participating in its work. Other evidence appears to confirm that he disapproved of the new regime. The secretary of state, John Thurloe*, believed that Popham was one of the opponents of the protectorate – others included Lord Grey of Groby (Thomas Grey*), John Lilburne and Henry Marten* – who had been holding secret meetings in London. Their plans may have included a plot for Popham to lead a rising in the south west.119TSP iii. 147, 148.

At a local level, Popham probably continued much as before. He was still included by Parliament on the Wiltshire and Somerset commissions for ejecting scandalous ministers in 1654.120A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 144. He also remained on those counties’ commissions of the peace and, in the case of Somerset, is known to have still been performing some of the duties of that office.121QS Recs. Som. Commonwealth, 223, 303. In 1655 he was included on the commission of oyer and terminer to deal with those in Devon and Somerset accused of involvement in Penruddock’s rebellion.122CSP Dom. 1655, p. 114. Life continued in other ways as well. During the summer of 1656 he entered into negotiations with his friend Bulstrode Whitelocke* for a marriage between one of his nieces and Whitelocke’s only son, James*. But those discussions got nowhere.123Longleat, Whitelocke pprs. XVII, f. 177; Whitelocke, Diary, 440, 444. It may also have been in this period that he redecorated the private chapel at Littlecote. The medieval chapel was refurbished in an especially austere style and the altar was replaced with a central pulpit. This remains, as it was doubtless intended, visible confirmation of Popham’s strict, sober, very Protestant taste in religious services.124VCH Wilts. xii. 29 and plate; Pevsner, Wilts. (1963), 268; T. Mowl and B. Earnshaw, Architecture without Kings (Manchester, 1995), 17; A. Ricketts, The English Country House Chapel (Reading, 2007), 111-12, 116, 273-4. James Bedford, brother of Samuel Bedford*, may at some point have served as his chaplain.125DWL, MS 24.119, pp. 11-18.

In the 1656 elections Popham decided to stand not for his old constituency of Bath but for county seats in Somerset and Wiltshire. In both elections, he was successful. In Somerset, where his reservations about the protectorate were evidently shared by a significant numbers of voters, he gained second place, with 2,362 votes, in the county poll held on 20 August.126Som. Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 77. However, those visible reservations now meant that he was among MPs who were barred from sitting in this Parliament. In fact, he was to be barred twice over. When on 19 September the deputy clerk of the commonwealth reported to Parliament those who had been excluded, Popham’s name was on the black list of the Somerset MPs. But the deputy clerk had not yet been notified of the Wiltshire result. It was made clear that Popham would be excluded there too once that return had been submitted.127CJ vii. 425a-b.

The issue of whether Popham should be allowed to sit in the Commons when this Parliament reassembled in January 1658 did not arise. The previous month he was summoned to sit in the new Other House.128HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 504. The choice of Popham for that honour may seem eccentric. Cromwell and the council cannot have had any illusions about his unwillingness to work with them. But there was always a chance that such a reward might be enough to buy him off. There could also be no dispute that Popham had the money to live in the style befitting a lord. None of this impressed him. He ignored the summons and attended none of the sessions of the Other House.129HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 503-67. Cromwell had made an overture, but Popham snubbed him.

Popham was looking elsewhere instead. Unwilling to support the Cromwells, Popham was increasingly tempted to bring back the Stuarts. His first contacts with royalist agents may have dated back as far as 1656.130CCSP iii. 220, 315. Those links now became much more substantial. By February 1658 James Butler, 1st marquess of Ormond, was telling Edward Hyde* that he thought Popham might be willing to engage in royalist plotting.131CCSP iv. 8-9, 13. Over the next few months further contacts with other royalist agents, like Daniel O’Neill† and Sir George Moore, confirmed that assessment.132CCSP iv. 15, 20, 23, 25, 28, 29, 32, 33. In March Charles II wrote to Popham welcoming his support.133Clarendon SP, iii. 391, 443. By April, however, Popham had been injured in a riding accident. Such was Popham’s potential importance in any possible uprising that O’Neill warned that such plans should be postponed until he had recovered. The following October Moore was assuring Hyde that Popham was still loyal.134CCSP iv. 36, 103.

The government in London already had its suspicions. In April 1658 Thurloe had information that Popham, ‘a great man in the west’, was ready ‘to bring some thousands into the field’ in support of Charles Stuart.135TSP vii. 80. But Thurloe was willing to wait. Some of Thurloe’s colleagues even saw a virtue in continuing to seek his support. Following Oliver Cromwell’s death, George Monck* proposed to the new lord protector, Richard Cromwell*, that the House of Lords in the new Parliament should consist of a mixture of old peers and new creations. His list of suggestions of the heads of prominent gentry families who could receive peerages under this scheme included Popham.136TSP vii. 387. For his part, Popham was also willing to wait and, until the time was ready, to give the impression of appropriate loyalty. Quite possibly as a deliberate attempt to divert suspicion, he took his place as a member of the Other House in Cromwell’s funeral procession on 23 November.137Burton’s Diary, ii. 527.

Whether Popham was the man of that name elected as one of the MPs for Minehead in the 1659 Parliament is unclear.138A Perfect List of the Lords of the Other House, and of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses (1659). That he was nominally already a member of the Other House was not an insurmountable obstacle – Sir Arthur Hesilrige* (motivated by very different reasons) had shown that this could be done. But Popham played no part at all in the proceedings of either House and may not even have taken either seat. Initially that may have been because he was suffering from ill-health. However, by early March 1659 he had recovered and, as a consequence, was resuming his contacts with the exiled court.

Towards a Restoration, 1659-60

He did so, in the first instance, via Edward Massie*. By early April Massie was reporting to Sir Edward Nicholas† that Popham was ‘very hearty and full of zeal for the king’, but that he was a bit vague about exactly what he was willing to do. Popham also been in touch with Sir William Waller*.139Nicholas Pprs. iv. 75, 98, 115. He would soon be linked to Colonel John Russell of the Sealed Knot.140CCSP iv. 176. Like Massie and Waller, Popham was an ex-soldier whose experience might be invaluable in any uprising. More than the others, he was also a substantial regional figure whose local reputation might well attract large numbers of supporters once a rising was under way. Already some of Charles II’s advisers, such as Hyde, were hoping that the first step towards a restoration would be the seizure of Bristol and Gloucester by Popham, probably with the assistance of John Grobham Howe*.141CCSP iv. 166, 169, 201; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 13. This fantasy dominated royalist strategy for much of 1659. It ran in parallel with the related idea that Sir Horatio Townshend* and the Norfolk royalists would capture King’s Lynn. That way they would have control of major ports in both the west and the east. A pincer movement could then be made on London. Of the two halves of the plan, capturing the Bristol Channel ports was always seen as being the more important. A landing in the west had worked for Henry Tudor in 1485 and would work again for William of Orange in 1688 (although not for the duke of Monmouth in 1685). The same strategy now held out the prospect of Charles Stuart being restored at the head of an army raised by Popham.

The question was whether Popham could be trusted. Royalist agents in contact with him, like O’Neill, Moore and William Rumbold, thought that he could.142CCSP iv. 200, 203, 209, 215. Massie was not so sure.143Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 9, 13; Nicholas Pprs. iv. 158-9. By early June Hyde was worrying that the Presbyterians were a bad influence on Popham.144CCSP iv. 219. One person with whom he seems to have been in contact was Richard Cromwell. One of O’Neill’s sources, probably Philip Frewd, claimed that the ex-lord protector had told Popham that Charles Fleetwood* and John Disbrowe* now wanted to restore Richard Cromwell to power.145CCSP iv. 222. Whether or not this was true, Popham may have been playing a double game.

Later that month, when the exiled court wanted him to take Bristol and Gloucester, Popham attempted to reduce their expectation, telling Silius Titus† that, if the king landed, he would help take the less ambitious targets of Bridgwater and Taunton.146CCSP iv. 244. A paper which he probably sent to the court at about the same time promised that he would raise an army of 20,000 men, but that he would do so only if the king had landed and that he would rise only if Bristol was captured first.147Clarendon SP, iii. 505. Whether this was a failure of nerve or an outbreak of realism, or whether Popham’s intentions had always been misread, his reluctance to act before anyone else wrecked any chance that there would be a rising in the south west that summer. It was Popham’s refusal to make a move without him that played a big part in Charles Stuart’s plan to travel to England in person.148CCSP iv. 303; Nicholas Pprs. iv. 175-6. By then it was too late.

By late July all aspects of the planned uprising were unravelling. The government was on to Popham. On 29 July Whitelocke wrote to John Okey* ordering that Popham’s house at Hunstrete be searched for arms.149CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 50, 68. A subsequent report suggests that numerous arms were discovered there.150Nicholas Pprs. iv. 179. Since May, when the Rump had been recalled, Popham could have been sitting as an MP. Suspicious of his intentions and eager to force the uncertainty over his loyalties, the Rump voted on 30 July to summon him to attend.151CJ vii. 740a. The council of state did likewise.152CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 53. There had been expectations that Popham might turn up at the planned royalist rendezvous at Lansdown. But on the day he failed to appear. In fact, Popham was then in London, quite possibly because he was actually obeying the summons from Parliament and the council. By 12 August a rumour was circulating that he had been arrested. This turned out to be untrue and Sir John Grenville assured Hyde that Popham and Massie still intended to organise a rising.153CCSP iv. 310, 312, 330. News of the defeat of Sir George Boothe* ruled out even that possibility.

Once the dust had settled on the abortive 1659 rebellion, it seemed that not much had changed. The hope that Popham might take Bristol as the opening declaration of a general uprising lingered on at the exiled court. Popham continued to assure the royalist agents that he would support a restoration and they tended to believe him.154CCSP iv. 367, 378, 392, 393; Mordaunt Letter-bk. 63. The government still had its suspicions, but no hard evidence. The most that Parliament could do was to fine Popham £100 for being absent when the House was called on 30 September.155CJ vii. 790a.

Popham was more inclined to cooperate with the Rump once it had been recalled the following December. Immediately beforehand, he had been working closely with a number of prominent Presbyterians, including the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†), allegedly with a view to persuading Fleetwood to support a restoration.156CCSP iv. 495. When the Rump met on 26 December, it immediately appointed a number of men, including Popham, to take over temporary control of the army.157CJ vii. 797a; Whitelocke, Diary, 554. The rationale was probably that he had a distinguished military record and yet, at the same time, was not implicated in the army’s recent political manoeuvrings. He was nevertheless careful to give private reassurances to the royalists.158Mordaunt Letter-bk. 169. On 6 January 1660 Sir William Compton† and John Russell wrote to Charles informing him that Popham had offered them ‘his life, fortune and interest’.159CCSP iv. 520. Later that month Massie reported that Popham was supporting the moves to get the secluded Members re-admitted to the Rump.160CCSP iv. 534, 564. By then, he had already resumed his own seat there. On 21 January he was named to the committee on the bill to appoint a council of state. A month later, on 23 February, following the re-admission of the secluded Members, he was elected to that new council.161CJ vii. 847b, 849a-b. Massie assumed that Popham would be appointed to command the army at Bristol.162CCSP iv. 583. On 13 March, just days before the Rump dissolved itself, he headed the parliamentary committee appointed to investigate some skulduggery over the appointment of the new Bristol militia commissioners.163CJ vii. 873a.

Once the elections for the Convention were underway, the issue was no longer whether the king would be restored but on what terms that restoration would take place. Popham had probably never envisaged an unconditional restoration and had probably viewed participation in a successful royalist uprising as a means to become one of those dictating terms. It is therefore unsurprising that by late March he had joined with Manchester, the earl of Bedford, Waller, Oliver St John* and a number of other leading Presbyterians who hoped to negotiate with Charles before the Convention had met.164CCSP iv. 614.

The Restoration was therefore a bittersweet moment for Popham. He was reported to have welcomed Grenville’s delivery of the Declaration of Breda to Parliament on 1 May, even though that represented the defeat of any attempt to impose real conditions on the king’s return. He had also buried his second wife just four days earlier.165CCSP v. 2, 5. In public at least he showed every sign of welcoming the new regime. On 2 June 1660 he led a delegation of 100 gentlemen from the south west who paid their respects to Charles II in London.166Whitelocke, Diary, 592. One later account, citing Grenville as its source, even claimed that Popham, ‘a man of intrigue and great capacity’, had offered to use his influence to persuade Parliament to grant the king an ordinary revenue of £2.2 million (£1 million more than what was granted), only for Charles, on Hyde’s advice, to decline the offer.167P.J. d’Orléans, The History of the Revolutions in England (1711), 226. To some extent, the king reciprocated. Popham’s eldest son, Francis†, was made a knight of the Bath in the coronation celebrations in 1661 and in 1663 Charles honoured them by visiting Littlecote. But, unlike Boothe or Townshend, Popham was not raised to the peerage. It could have been so very different.

Popham died in 1669 and was buried at Chilton Foliat. The family estates passed to Sir Francis. The witnesses to Popham’s will included his old friend, Bulstrode Whitelocke.168PROB11/334/554. Since 1985 the celebrated collection of civil armour and weapons from Littlecote, much of which was probably assembled by Popham, has belonged to the Royal Armouries. It includes what are traditionally said to have been his cuirass, buff coat, leather gauntlets and boots.169Richardson and Rimer, Littlecote.