POTTS, John (1592-1673), of Mannington, Norf.

Potts’ father, John Potts senior, was a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, who had sat in the 1589 Parliament as the MP for St Mawes.40HP, Commons, 1558-1603, iii. 239. Potts senior acquired a coat of arms in 1583.41Grantees of Arms, ed. W.H. Rylands (Harl. Soc. lxvi.), 203. A year later, on his marriage to Anne Dodge, he had bought the Norfolk estate of Mannington from his new father-in-law, John Dodge, who had previously acquired it from his stepson, Edmund Lumner.42S. Tomes, Mannington Hall and its Owners (1916), 13; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 138-9. On his death in 1597, John senior left these Norfolk lands, plus extensive properties in London, to his widow and then, when he reached the age of majority, to their elder son, the future MP.43PROB11/91/439; C142/256/40; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 154-63.

Almost nothing is known of Potts’s formative years, although he completed his education at Cambridge, where he was tutored by Samuel Ward.44Al. Cant.; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 192. By his mother’s re-marriage, Potts had become the ward of Sir Christopher Heydon of Baconsthorpe, who is said to have forced him into an early first marriage in 1609 for money.45T. Wotton, The English Baronets (1727), 457; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 199; Blomefield, Norf. vi. 453. From the 1620s Potts began to hold local office, serving as a justice of the peace, as a subsidy commissioner and as a captain in the county militia.46Rye, State Pprs. 77, 130, 140, 180, 215. In the election for the county seats for the 1624 Parliament, Potts resisted an attempt by Sir Robert Gawdy to persuade him to stand as a proxy for his favoured candidate, the absent Sir Roger Townshend†, and he instead supported Sir John Corbet†.47HMC Townshend, 21; HP, Commons 1604-1629, ii. 273. During the 1630s he encouraged the rector of Wolterton, Paul Amyraut, who fell victim to the attempts by Matthew Wren as bishop of Norwich to enforce conformity in the diocese.48Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 222-3. Mostly, however, Potts lived the life of a country gentleman and showed little inclination to seek advancement. By his second marriage in 1635 to Ursula, widow of Sir Clement Spelman, he acquired two stepsons, the elder of whom was John Spelman*.49Vis. Norf. 1563, 254.

Early parliamentary career, 1640-2

Encouraged by his kinsman, Sir Thomas Wodehouse*, Potts stood as a candidate in the Norfolk election for the Long Parliament in the spring of 1640, with Wodehouse assuring him that he had received ‘much conference and approbation of your just merits by a comfortable number of honest men’.50Bodl. Tanner 67, f. 176; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 227. Potts was not so sure and, on writing back to Wodehouse, he explained that

I must confess my own unfitness ever deterred any thought of Parliament, especially in this high road, so full of every toil and hazard, and more than ever had I cause to decline it, when all in me grows weaker, save my affections to the public good …51Tanner 67, f. 178; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 227-8.

He nevertheless agreed to stand. The efforts of his supporters were, however, not sufficient to secure his return: Sir Edmund Moundeford*, who had been knight of the shire in 1628, was returned in the senior seat, while the second place went to Sir John Holland*. He had more success that autumn when, with Holland standing instead at Castle Rising, he secured the senior seat, with Moundeford in second place.

Potts’s parliamentary career was punctuated by long periods of absence from Westminster. In eight years, he recorded seven periods of absence from Westminster of more than five months, three of which were of eight months and more. Some were due to poor health, others, during the civil war, to the necessity of overseeing parliamentary business in Norfolk as Parliament’s senior representative in the county. Despite these absences, Potts was occasionally prominent in national affairs. He had important political friends, and his presence and support were valued at Westminster. His friendship with William Pierrepont*, with whom he was acting closely from early 1642, should be particularly noted. Through Pierrepont, Potts was drawn into the circle around the 4th earl of Northumberland (Algernon Percy†), and he collaborated with the earl’s associates in the Commons on such issues as the Self-Denying Ordinance, the military reorganization of 1645 and the treaty of Newport. A degree of collaboration existed between Potts and Denzil Holles*, particularly over peace moves in April 1644, but Potts was never closely identified with Holles’s group. Potts’s other associates included the learned puritan, Francis Rous*, Moundeford, Wodehouse and Sir John Palgrave*. The outbreak of war forced him into close collaboration with his former rival, Sir John Holland, and with the radical Miles Corbett*. Potts also enjoyed a close personal friendship with Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, who would marry his niece. During his long absences, he relied on D’Ewes for information from Westminster and, on occasions, pressed him to use his influence on his behalf. One undated anecdote records him dining with his parliamentary colleagues, seemingly in the late 1640s. Over dinner in a public house during which Francis Russell* used a house-racing metaphor in an argument about religion, Potts is said to have teased him that this was appropriate as ‘thou hast e’en as much religion as thy horse’.52Anecdotes and Traditions, ed. W.J. Thoms (Cam. Soc. ser. 1, v. 1839), 78. Among the Lords, Potts was well regarded by the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†) and the lord lieutenant of Norfolk, the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†).

As a first-time MP, Potts took time to find his feet at Westminster and he was appointed to relatively few committees during the Long Parliament’s opening months. But those included the committees on the bill for annual Parliaments (30 Dec. 1640) and on the court of wards (16 Feb. 1641), suggesting that he was happy to align himself with the king’s critics.53CJ ii. 60a, 87a. Other committees to which he was named during these months included those on Emmanuel College, Cambridge (his old college), for the abbreviation of Michaelmas term, to restrict the export of wool and woollens, usury and the reform of elections.54CJ ii. 52a, 73b, 77b, 108a, 114a. He took the Protestation on 3 May 1641.55CJ ii. 133b.

A matter of particular urgency, following the recent Anglo-Scottish conflicts, was the disbandment of the army still stationed in the north of England. Potts was among the many MPs who each offered security of £1,000 on 21 November to underwrite the loan of £100,000 to expedite this.56Procs. LP, i. 229, 232, 236. Eight months later he confirmed that £500 of this loan could continue.57CJ ii. 222a. Meanwhile, in the debate on 23 December 1640, he spoke in support of the grant of four subsidies for that same purpose, but warned against under-assessment so that ‘the rich be not suffered to go so low’.58Northcote Note Bk. 107. Moreover, so long as these armies remained in the field, who controlled them remained a sensitive issue. So when the Commons debated the attainder against the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) on 20 April 1641, Potts suggested that their condemnation of Strafford’s decision to raise forces in Ireland could be interpreted as an assertion of a general rule that forces could only ever be raised with Parliament’s consent.59Add. 64807, f. 8. On 24 August 1641 he was the messenger from the Commons to ask the Lords to sit that afternoon.60CJ ii. 269b; LJ iv. 374b; Procs. LP, vi. 538. This was probably in anticipation of the conference between the two Houses about the money needed to disband the army. The local trained bands were seen as a safer alternative and Potts had been named to the committee on that subject on 24 July 1641.61CJ ii. 223a.

Of a godly disposition, Potts supported further reform of the church. His first Commons committee appointment in 1640, on 25 November, concerned the complaints from the parishioners of St. Gregory by Paul’s in London about the building work on the adjacent cathedral.62CJ ii. 36a. He was added to the committee on preaching ministers on 19 December and was later included on the committee to receive complaints against the bishop of Bath and Wells, William Piers (29 Jan.).63CJ ii. 54b, 75a. On 8 February 1641 he spoke in support of the London ‘Root and Branch’ petition against episcopacy.64Procs. LP, ii. 291. Four days later he was appointed second to the committee on Isaac Penington’s* bill to abolish superstition.65CJ ii. 84b. The following month he accompanied Francis Rous* to the Lords with the charge against the vice-chancellor of Cambridge, John Cosin, accused of superstitious and popish innovations while dean of Durham, and was appointed with Rous to manage the conference on Cosin’s impeachment.66CJ ii. 101b, 105b. He probably also supported the moves to bar clergymen from sitting on the commissions of the peace.67CJ ii. 94b. As knight of the shire, Potts moved the presentation of the Norfolk petition against Bishop Wren on 4 March 1642.68PJ i. 499, 505, 507.

Potts was prepared to accept a knighthood and pay for a baronetcy in August 1641. The king dubbed him the day before he set out for Scotland.69Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 210; CB, ii. 138; SO3/12, f. 168. That same month Potts was one of the three Norfolk MPs appointed to disarm Catholics in that county.70LJ iv. 385b. This was a task he may have relished as he had previously been a member of the committee that had drafted the necessary legislation.71CJ ii. 238b, 268a. He probably returned to Westminster in late October, after the recess, for on 2 November he was appointed to the committee created in response to the breaking news of the rebellion in Ireland.72CJ ii. 302a. That same week he was also included on the committee on the Irish impressment bill.73CJ ii. 305b. The following February he agreed that his loan of £500 could now be used to help fund the planned military campaign against the Irish rebels.74CJ ii. 440a. Perhaps because he had already lent this money, he did not become an investor in the Irish Adventure, although Robert Reynolds* did encourage him to do so and he did support the legislation for its implementation.75Bodl. Tanner 64, f. 185; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 236; CJ ii. 493b.

Preparing for war, 1642-3

At Westminster the big change came with the king’s attempt to arrest the Five Members on 4 January 1642. Potts was a member of the committee that drafted the Commons’ protest to the king.76CJ ii. 384a, 398b. The heightened security at Westminster at that time then provided the context for his next recorded intervention in the House. On 28 January Potts expressed concern that some MPs were encouraging their servants to harass the soldiers protecting Parliament. Ordered to substantiate this allegation, Potts named Samuel Sandys*.77CJ ii. 400a-b; PJ i. 207, 213-14. That the lieutenant-general of the ordnance, Sir John Heydon, who would remain loyal to the king, was his stepbrother may explain his presentation of the petition from the London gunmakers on 10 February, and his membership of the gunpowder committee (12 Mar.), from which he reported on 12 April.78PJ i. 336, 339, ii. 31, 155; CJ ii. 476a, 523a; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 237, 565-6. On 18 Februry, on Potts’s motion, Pierrepont was excused from making a report from the committee on the militia on the grounds of ill health.79PJ i. 411.

The passage of the Militia Ordinance in February 1642 was Parliament’s most direct challenge yet to the king’s authority. Potts himself was soon directly involved in the efforts to assert Parliament’s new powers over the Norfolk trained bands. That March he was nominated as one of the new Norfolk deputy lieutenants, although whether he was one of the names recommended by the lord lieutenant, the earl of Warwick, or one of the additions made by the Commons is not clear.80PJ ii. 54; CJ ii. 483b, Once those additional names had been approved by the Commons on 22 March, Potts was sent to inform Warwick.81CJ ii. 492a. A fortnight later he carried to the Lords their request that Warwick re-organise the Norfolk and Essex militias before he went to sea.82CJ ii. 518a, 518b; LJ iv. 707a; PJ ii. 145, 147. When the king indicated that he hoped to visit Ireland, a plan which many feared was a scheme by him to raise an Irish army to be used in England, Potts was among those MPs appointed to set out their concerns (13 Apr.).83CJ ii. 525b. Just as worrying was the king’s attempt to take control of the ammunition stores at Hull. Parliament responded by ordering that these stores should be removed to London and a committee, including Potts, was created by the Commons on 16 April to justify that decision.84CJ ii. 531a. Then on 6 May, following Denzil Holles’s report of the conference on the refusal by the marquess of Hertford (William Seymour†) to give an undertaking that the prince of Wales should not travel abroad, Potts carried up to the Lords the Commons’ agreement to their request for the appointment of a committee of both Houses to consider how to reply to Hertford’s letter, of which he was a member.85CJ ii. 561b, 562b; LJ v. 49a. On meeting him in the street at Westminster, Potts broke the news to Thomas Knyvett that he would be dismissed from the Norfolk militia.86Knyvett Letters, 102. Potts was granted leave to go to the country on the motion of William Pierrepont on 17 May, quite possibly in order to make the other changes to the militia.87CJ ii. 575b; PJ ii. 331; Knyvett Letters, 106. He was kept informed of developments at Westminster in his absence by letters from Moundeford.88Bodl. Tanner 63, ff. 32, 43; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 238-41.

Potts had returned to Westminster by 13 June, when he promised to donate £100 to Parliament in support of its military preparations.89PJ iii. 476. He appears then to have shared the belief that the Parliament should negotiate with the king from a position of strength. After the division, carried by a large majority, to raise an army of 10,000 volunteers, Potts was one of four MPs appointed on 9 July to accompany Lords Kimbolton (later 2nd earl of Manchester) and Newnham (later 2nd earl of Denbigh) to present the propositions for the safety of the kingdom to the common council of London. That same day, following the first reading of Sir John Holland’s militia bill, Potts was named to the committee to prepare a declaration for the enforcement of the militia ordinance.90CJ ii. 663b; PJ iii. 192. On 11 July, two days later, Potts moved bail for Clement Spelman, a second cousin to his stepsons, who had appeared at the bar of the House six days previously for requesting that the benchers of Grays Inn read the king’s latest declaration against Parliament. Potts’s motion, and that of Richard More*, were denied, but Spelman was released two days later on the intervention of Sir Gilbert Gerard*.91CJ ii. 653b, 666a, 666b; PJ iii. 195, 198, 206. Potts was instructed on 13 July to draw up a general order with Miles Corbett and John Lisle* to prevent the garrisoning of towns.92CJ ii. 670b. On 26 July he carried up several orders to the Lords for their approval, including the order authorising King’s Lynn to raise its own troop of volunteers.93CJ ii. 692a; LJ v. 242a. Potts however wanted to balance these military preparations with mediation, for, along with Edmund Waller*, he had been one of the few to speak on 25 July in favour of accepting the king’s reply to Parliament’s petition for accommodation.94PJ iii. 264.

When the attempt to raise recruits for the king in Norwich was reported by Richard Harman* to the Commons on 1 August, Potts was quick to warn that he feared further royalist activity in the county. He also claimed that some of those whom Parliament had appointed as deputy lieutenants had been inactive.95PJ iii. 274-5. In response, six Norfolk MPs were sent by Parliament to secure control of the shire.96LJ v. 251b-253a. Of these six however, only Potts and Moundeford set out for Norfolk at once, although Sir John Holland returned home a couple of weeks later. As Moundeford was taken ill on the journey, Potts was for a while Parliament’s only representative in the county.

He was soon telling D’Ewes that his overriding concern was to ‘preserve peace and give speed for those supplies expected hence by legal rates towards the relief of Ireland and discharge of the Scots’.97Harl. 383, f. 206; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 248. In a letter dated 4 August, Holland urged him to adhere to the policy agreed by them before his departure:

I know your wisdom and no ways doubt of your prudent carriage in this business committed to your trust. I am confident you alter not that resolution you were pleased to communicate to me when last you afforded me the honour of a visit. And which still appears to me to be the sense of the eager-bent of our country men remaining here. Not to have the ordinance put in execution, but in case.98Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 121; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 244.

Some of the king’s commissioners of array in the county tried to persuade Potts against exercising control over the militia by suggesting that they and the king’s lord lieutenant, Lord Mowbray, would then not try to their own forces. However, in rejecting this offer, Potts did not see himself as the aggressor, for, as he told Holland, he ‘bade them judge of my actions, which should rather hazard the censure of slackness than my country’s quiet’.99Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 117; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 249. Not that he had entirely given up hope that the crisis might only be temporary; when writing to D’Ewes, he could make plans ‘if this storm blows over’.100Harl. 386, f. 233; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 251.

On reaching Norfolk, Holland found the ‘quiet of this country so well preserved’, something which he attributed largely to Potts’s ‘temper and wisdom’.101Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 126; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 249. But, in response to national events, the pressure from Westminster to act only increased. On 19 August Potts, Moundeford and Oliver Cromwell* were among the men ordered by Parliament to secure the road between Cambridge and King’s Lynn.102CJ ii. 724a; LJ v. 306b. Quite possibly as a result, Manchester then wrote to encourage his ‘much respected friend’.

I know your interest is great in the county of Norfolk. And if you please to lay it out in this, it may have a very happy operation. Unless there be a strength speedily gotten together, we shall neither prevent the evil which we fear nor obtain the good and just end we hope and labour for.103Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 130; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 252.

But ‘scandalous tongues’ were wagging at Westminster and, as reports reached Potts that he was accused of declining the service of Parliament, he called on Sir Simonds D’Ewes in early September to defend his honour at Westminster: ‘Sir, I assure you that my conscience lends me to uphold the commonwealth to which I will prove no changeling’. As for national developments, he also told D’Ewes, that why the Scots ‘should give us law and bind our kingdom to conform to their government is beyond my understanding’.104Harl. 386, f. 234; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 254.

Protecting his county, 1643-4

Accusations of inactivity were unfair and Potts was soon busy raising money for Parliament.105Bodl. Tanner 64, ff. 8-10, 25, 84, 88, 93, 91, 94, 97; Tanner 69, f. 194; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 257-66. But already there were indications that he was unhappy that forces raised in Norfolk might be sent elsewhere. He donated £100, two horses and ten foot soldiers, but specified that the horses and the men were ‘not to be sent out’ of the county.106Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 152. In December 1642 the Commons nominated him as one of the deputy lieutenants for Norwich, with the Lords agreeing to this the following month.107CJ ii. 884a, 889a; LJ v. 533a. Meanwhile, he was one of the Norfolk gentlemen who summoned the rest of the gentry to a meeting at Norwich on 7 December to discuss the county’s defences.108Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 267. On 15 December the Commons gave permission for 100 dragoons to be sent to join him in Norfolk.109CJ ii. 889b.

D’Ewes, who had since married Potts’s niece, warned him that the proposal to create an association including Norfolk and Suffolk might prove dangerous. He also warned him to be wary of ‘that fiery spirit and African face to whom you write so often’, almost certainly a reference to Miles Corbett.110Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 269. Potts still hoped unity was possible, for in that he saw the only chance of peace, but increasingly he felt himself inadequate for the task. As he admitted to D’Ewes in late January 1643

the truth is, here is need of more and wiser men than myself to keep all quiet, for the Parliament’s friends are jealous and apprehensive and the papists’ side are indiscreet and bold, so as I fear much the different tempers will break out into some violence upon small occasion.111Harl. 384, f. 183; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 278.

His failure to preserve the peace in Norfolk meant that he was soon telling D’Ewes that he planned to return to Westminster.112Harl. 386, f. 236; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 279. William Pierrepont had already written to him encouraging him to do so.113Bodl. Tanner 60, f. 376; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 272.

Potts was back at Westminster by 22 March 1643 when he was added to the committee to investigate army finances.114CJ iii. 12a. However, the previous day, it had been Miles Corbett who had reported the news that Cromwell had captured some of the leading Norfolk and Suffolk royalists at Lowestoft, even although the main source of this information was a letter that a Norwich merchant, John Cory, had sent to Potts.115Harl. 164, ff. 337v, 340-1. On 25 March he was one of the MPs who succeeded in persuading the Commons to reverse its previous order that the traditional gun salutes from the Tower on 27 March to mark the king’s accession should be omitted.116Harl. 164, f. 342v.

Potts may well have supported the efforts at this time to make peace overtures to the king at Oxford, but, like most MPs at Westminster, he was probably unwilling to support negotiations on any terms. Charles made a number of objections to the articles of cessation offered by Parliament in early March as the preliminary to any talks. On 8 April Potts was sent to ask the Lords for a joint conference to discuss the additional instructions to be sent to Parliament’s commissioners at Oxford.117CJ iii. 36a; LJ v. 703b. The outcome of that conference was that Parliament stuck by its original articles, which the king then rejected. But at the end of the month he was instructed to return to Norfolk with the MP for Thetford, Framlingham Gawdy*, to execute the ordinances for raising money and putting the trained bands into a posture of readiness.118CJ iii. 59b. Before leaving for Norfolk, he obtained permission to take 400 arms back with him.119CJ iii. 61b.

He appears to have been absent on parliamentary business in the county until 6 June when he took the oath of loyalty to the 3rd earl of Essex.120CJ iii. 118a. On 22 June, following news of a mutiny by two of the Norfolk militia companies, he and Sir John Holland were ordered to return immediately to the county.121CJ iii. 140b. This was a matter of some sensitivity for Potts as one of the companies was his own.122Harl. 165, f. 120v. Presumably he and Holland were slow to comply with the order as it was repeated on 6 July.123CJ iii. 158a; Harl. 165, f. 119. Potts however delayed his departure for several days in order to introduce a bill for the fortification of King’s Lynn. In doing so on 8 July, he also persuaded the Commons to remove any reference to him from its orders concerning the militia mutiny.124Harl. 165, f. 120. According to D’Ewes, he assured them that

if there were any fault in any of his company, he should be as ready to see it punished as any man and further desired the House not to expect from him any military service, being no martial man and his body not being able to undergo that service.125Harl. 165, f. 120v.

The Commons agreed to remove his name. It also agreed to pass the King’s Lynn bill, which Potts carried to the Lords two days later.126Harl. 165, ff. 120v, 122; CJ iii. 159a; LJ vi. 126a. Before Potts left Westminster, the Norfolk royalist, Thomas Knyvett, spoke to him in the hope of alleviating the sequestration of his estates. Potts took offence on discovering that, in a letter to his wife, Knyvett had claimed that he had received ‘no great comfort’ from him.127Knyvett Letters, 116-17, 121.

For ten months Potts showed no inclination to swap the peace at Mannington for the parliamentary fray, although during that time he did attend meetings of the county standing committee.128HMC Portland, i. 131, 149. Denzil Holles wrote to him in mid-April 1644 urging him to come to London, as Parliament would soon be discussing the peace proposals that were then being prepared. Of Potts’s return, Holles assured him that, ‘your friends have long desired it and we shall shortly have more need of you than ever’.129Bodl. Tanner 61, f. 14; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 292. Potts however seems not to have travelled to London until mid-May and he was not noticed in the Journals until 18 May.130Knyvett Letters, 145, 147-8; CJ iii. 498b. He acted as teller for the first time on 5 June with William Ellys* in the minority in favour of not restricting the cloth trade with Germany and the Low Countries to the Merchant Adventurers.131CJ iii. 518a. In mid-July Potts may have been instrumental in securing consideration for the petition from Norfolk concerning the role of his nephew, Sir John Palgrave*, and Sir Miles Hobart in the surrender of Newark-on-Trent. On 17 July Potts was asked to remain at Westminster until a decision had been reached, so that he could report this to the county on his return. That decision, when it came three days later, was that Hobart should face a court martial but that Palgrave should be released.132CJ iii. 564a, 564b, 566b.

The problem of the army, 1644-5

On his return to Westminster in the autumn Potts was concerned with the provisioning of the armies after the Newbury campaign. He was added to the Army Committee chaired by Robert Scawen* on 29 October when it was asked to consider how to apportion £3,000 provided for the three armies of Essex, Sir William Waller* and Manchester.133CJ iii. 681b. Two days later, on the report of John Trenchard*, Potts undertook to supply ‘in money or credit’ the £1,200 share due to Manchester’s force.134CJ iii. 683a. The ordinance to enable him to claim reimbursement from the assessment passed the Commons the next day and was carried to the Lords by Holles on 4 November.135CJ iii. 684a, 684b, 685b; LJ vii. 46b. Later that same month he was named to the committee established by Essex’s allies to investigate which offices had been granted by Parliament (14 Nov.).136CJ iii. 695b. When on 20 November the Commons came to consider the report of the committee investigating the dispute between the earl of Denbigh and the Warwickshire county standing committee, Potts acted as teller with Robert Reynolds in the minority to exonerate Denbigh of the charge of disaffection to Parliament.137CJ iii. 700b. On 3 December he carried the names of the new sheriffs to the Lords.138CJ iii. 712b; LJ vii. 81b.

During the debate on the self-denying bill on 17 December, Potts brought in a proviso which would have obliged army officers to take the Solemn League and Covenant and submit to the government and discipline of the church as laid down by Parliament. This amendment was rejected two days later, although a similar provision subsequently passed the Lords.139Add. 31116, p. 360. Still distrustful of the Scots, Potts delayed taking the Covenant until 29 January 1645.140CJ iv. 35b. Meanwhile, he probably supported the moves to begin peace negotiations with the king. On 16 December 1644 he was one of those appointed to receive the earls of Richmond and Southampton, who had arrived with the king’s answer on that subject.141CJ iii. 725b. He was also one of four MPs who accompanied the earl of Warwick to deliver Parliament’s reply to the offer of the Dutch ambassadors to mediate between the king and Parliament on 21 January 1645. Afterwards he reported back to the Commons that they had done so.142CJ iv. 23b, 26a, 27a.

At about this time the Norwich MP, Richard Harman, feared that Potts, together with Thomas Toll I*, intended to stir up opposition in the Commons to his constituency, probably by using Norwich’s assessment arrears as an argument against the city’s complaints that it was paying an unfair share of the Norfolk tax revenues.143Add. 22619, ff. 161, 164. If Potts did raise this, it was probably on 11 March, when Harman and Miles Corbett were ordered to draft a letter to the Norwich corporation on that subject.144CJ iv. 75a. Quite apart from the interest of the other Norfolk taxpayer who whose taxes Norwich implicitly wanted to increase, Potts may well have felt that he at least was doing what he could to provide financial support to Parliament. That support had been acknowledged by the Commons on 31 January, when it had ordered that Potts and William Heveningham* (brother-in-law of Potts’s stepson, John Spelman) should have the loans of £250 which they had each made to the war effort repaid to them.145CJ iv. 37b. Four days later several of the Eastern Association MPs were asked to write to their counties to encourage them to send in the assessment revenues needed to pay the Scots. Potts was the MP instructed to write to Norfolk.146CJ iv. 41b. The following day he was sent to the Lords with the order to pay the forces under Sir William Waller’s command.147CJ iv. 42b, 43b; LJ vii. 179a. On 25 March, after the bill to raise money for the New Model army received its second reading, Potts was one of the six MPs asked to prepare the amendment concerning the Eastern Association counties.148CJ iv. 89a

Potts’s involvement with military reorganisation during the early months of 1645 reflects his importance as an Eastern Association MP. When the bill to empower Sir Thomas Fairfax* to choose inferior officers (almost all of whom were Eastern Association men) passed the Commons on 11 March, Potts carried it to the Lords and reported their concurrence.149CJ iv. 75b; LJ vii. 269b. On 19 April he was added to the committee on the bill to punish deserters.150CJ iv. 117a. When the Committee of Both Kingdoms wanted to send orders to the Norfolk county committee or the deputy lieutenants, they did so via Potts.151CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 381, 491. Paying the army remained a challenge. When in early April the MPs for the Eastern Association were asked to meet to discuss the arrears still owed to the army from those counties, Potts was asked to arrange the meeting of the Norfolk MPs.152Harl. 166, f. 197v. The resulting order of 5 April that this money was to be paid to the treasurers of the association was passed on Pott’s initiative.153Harl. 166, f. 198; CJ iv. 101b. He was also part of the delegation sent on 8 May to ask the corporation of London for a loan for that purpose.154CJ iv. 135a. His Eastern Association connections also account for his appointment as one of those desired to use their personal credit to secure £1,000 for the payment of the arrears of the soldiers in the Isle of Ely. With Miles Corbett and Thomas Toll I*, he was ordered to take special care of the matter on 26 May.155CJ iv. 120a, 155a.

Part-time MP, 1645-8

Potts was given leave to go to Norfolk on 31 May.156CJ iv. 158a; Harl. 166, f. 214v. During the summer he was active in the county on parliamentary business.157HMC Laing, i. 218. In early July Corbett was told by the Commons to write to him with a reminder that the Norfolk deputy lieutenants ought to be raising troops for Fairfax’s army.158CJ iv. 192b. Later, when he was sent back to Norfolk, Framlingham Gawdy was ordered to tell Potts that he was to dispatch some cavalry from there to Lincolnshire without delay.159CJ iv. 202a. Scawen wrote to him later that same month to remind him that the need for money due from Norfolk was as urgent as ever.160Bodl. Tanner 60, f. 214; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 302. But Pierrepont, writing to Potts on 8 October 1645, expressed surprise at his continued absence, because ‘I did hope to see you here before this, only because I would ever gladly attend you and that I conceived your business in the parts you are in would not cause your stay’.161Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 348; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 304. It is just possible that Potts did make the journey to London, as D’Ewes claimed that Sir John was appointed on 1 November to the committee to decide the form of the pass to be issued to Prince Rupert, but the Journals contradict this.162Harl. 166, f. 273v; CJ iv. 330a. The next committee to which he was certainly named was that on the martial law bill on 1 January 1646.163CJ iv. 394b. He was appointed to two further committees on 17 February and 16 March, namely those on the powers of the Committee for Advance of Money and to investigate which MPs held public offices.164CJ iv. 445b, 477a. But he had been granted permission to go into the country on 15 March and was then probably mostly absent from Westminster for over a year.165CJ iv. 475a.

In early August 1646 D’Ewes wrote to him regretting his continued absence. On 31 July the Presbyterians in the Commons, who now saw the army as a threat, had tried to force a division on the motion that six regiments should be sent to Ireland. This was lost by just one vote. D’Ewes pointed out to Potts that the outcome would have been different if he had been there.166Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 453; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 306. Potts probably did then travel to Westminster, but he was granted a further period of leave for the recovery of his health on 17 September 1646.167CJ iv. 671b. He appears thereafter to have been absent for a further eight months. In the spring of 1647 he and Sir John Hobart*, 2nd bt., recommended that William Newman, a tanner accused of blasphemy for allegedly saying that Jesus had been a bastard, should be bailed pending the assizes or that the case be referred to Parliament.168Bodl. Tanner 58, f. 8; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 307-9. The House of Lords heard the case in April 1647 and agreed that Newman should be bailed.169LJ ix. 146a.

Potts was back at Westminster by 27 May 1647.170CJ v. 187a. He may well have returned specifically in ordered to support the proposed disbandment of the army. Although not otherwise involved in formulating that policy, no sooner had he arrived at Westminster, just after the king’s acceptance of the February terms, than he was appointed, along with the earl of Warwick, 4th Lord De La Warr, Harbottle Grimston* and Richard Knightley*, as a commissioner to disband Fairfax’s foot regiment at Chelmsford.171CJ v. 192b; Add. 31116, p. 621; Bodl. Tanner 58, f. 116; Clarke Pprs. i. 105. The six departed on 31 May but were recalled to London two days later when it became clear that the regiment would not comply. Potts remained at Westminster long enough to be appointed on 5 June to the committee to receive the Scottish commissioners’ protest at the king’s seizure by the army and, nine days later, to the committee to prepare a declaration to give an account of the state of the kingdom.172CJ v. 200b, 210a. His appointment, on 15 June, on news of the army’s advance, as one of the four MPs to prepare a letter to the commissioners with the army at St. Albans to assure Fairfax that Parliament would not raise new forces, but to repeat the demand that the army would not come within forty miles of London, suggests that Potts was seen as pro-army at Westminster.173CJ v. 210b.

He took little part in parliamentary business after the withdrawal of the Eleven Members. Although he was appointed on 6 July to go up to the Lords to request passage of the ordinance to empower treasurers of war to bring in arrears (another pro-army matter), he is not recorded as doing so.174CJ v. 234a. He did attend a meeting of the standing committee of the Eastern Association on 9 July.175SP28/251, unf. But, once more on the grounds of ill health, he was given leave to go to the country on 17 July.176CJ v. 248a.

This poor health prevented his return to Westminster for ten months.177CJ v. 330a. That September, his second wife, Ursula, died. He then wrote in self-pitying mode to D’Ewes

I need not write that my unhappiness, one known evil comprehending many others. It hath pleased God since the loss of my dear wife to give me other troubles amongst which one is lameness in my left arm by a strain too long neglected which at last hath put me under surgery to prevent more pain. I cannot dress myself without help and can but make an untoward shift to write with my other hand ...178Harl. 383, f. 216; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 310-11.

His immediate reason for writing to D’Ewes was however to ask him to ensure that his nephew, Sir John Palgrave, was not appointed as the sheriff of Norfolk so that he could stand in the forthcoming Norfolk by-election.

Final negotiations with the king, 1648

Potts was still absent at the call of the House on 24 April 1648.179CJ v. 543b. However, the shift in political alliances brought about by the threat of Scottish invasion under the 1st duke of Hamilton, and the renewed desire to secure conditions from the king to check army radicalism, brought men such as Potts back to Westminster. From his arrival in the second week of May until his return from Newport on 9 November, the most assiduous period of parliamentary attendance in his career, Potts worked tirelessly to lay the ground for the renewal of negotiations. He was also closely involved in parliamentary business concerned with maintaining control of London in the wake of the second civil war. On 9 May, with John Crewe I*, he was considered a suitable messenger to Fairfax to inform him that the Commons had conceded demands made by the common council of London: to expel New Model soldiers from the Tower and appoint its own nominee as lieutenant, and the right to choose its own militia committee.180CJ v. 555a. Once the New Model regiments had withdrawn from London and the defence of the capital was in the hands of its own militia, Potts was appointed to the series of committees to ensure that it would provide military protection to Parliament.181CJ v. 565a, 574a, 575b, 630b. When the disagreement between the Lords and Commons over the powers of Philip Skippon* to raise forces within London came to a head in late July, Potts was appointed to manage the conference on the willingness of the peers to accede to the City’s request to cancel his authority to enlist (29 July).182CJ v. 651b.

Potts was a member of the nine-man committee under the care of John Doddridge* established on 29 May to prepare propositions on religion and the militia as a preliminary to a treaty with the king.183CJ v. 577b. A month later he was named first to the joint committee, whose members included Northumberland, Pierrepont, Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire* and Crewe, to consider possible terms.184CJ v. 614a. On 30 June he reported to the Commons (as Northumberland did to the Lords) that the committee proposed the repeal of the Vote of No Addresses and the dropping of preconditions.185CJ v. 617b. He was also the teller with John Bulkeley* on 22 July in favour of putting the question to debate the groundwork for the treaty on the following Monday.186CJ v. 644a. Following a conference with the Lords on 16 August, he reported the votes passed by the peers on receiving news of the king’s willingness to treat.187CJ v. 673a, 673b-674a.

Potts now took the lead in finalising the practical arrangements for these talks. On 22 August he secured the approval of the Commons to a series of resolutions on that subject, including, most importantly, their agreement that the location for the meetings should be Newport on the Isle of Wight.188CJ v. 678b-679a. The following day he got them to agree that the negotiations should last for forty days.189CJ v. 681a. On 24 August he was appointed manager and reporter of the conference with the Lords to discuss the Commons’ objections to the proposed presence of the Scots. Having made his report the next day, he carried up to the Lords the Commons’ assent to the draft letters to the king and the governor of the Isle of Wight, Robert Hammond*.190CJ v. 681b, 682b-683a; LJ x. 455a. His next task was to present the Commons with the draft instructions for the commissioners who would represent Parliament and with the list of proposed commissioners. This he did on 1 September. The Commons then voted to approve them. The ten commissioners from the Commons included Potts himself.191CJ v. 697a-b. The following day he carried this list to the Lords. After the peers had given their consent, Potts and Nathaniel Fiennes I* drafted the letter to the king informing him of those names.192CJ vi. 1a-2a, 2b, 3a; LJ x. 482b-483a. In parallel to all this, Potts was also one of those MPs lobbying the corporation of London for loans to help avoid any financial difficulties while the negotiations were in progress.193CJ v. 697b, vi. 9b. Before Potts set out for the Isle of Wight, William Heveningham recommended the poet, Edward Calver, to him, because Calver wanted him to present one of his poems, presumably his Royall Vision, to the king.194Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 273; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 317; E. Calver, Calvers Royall Vision ([1648], E.467.9).

Potts was present during the talks at Newport from 18 September, when they opened, until 6 November, when he and a number of the commissioners departed for London.195Herts. RO, XIII.50; E. Walker, Historical Discourses (1705), pt. ii, 11, 12, 14, 23, 36, 48, 50, 52-6, 60, 62, 71, 74-6; HMC Portland, i. 500-1, 503-4. Throughout Potts provided his allies at Westminster, such as William Lenthall*, Francis Drake*, Sir William Lewis*, Sir Dudley North*, Evelyn of Wiltshire and Sir Henry Vane I* with intelligence of proceedings and exhorted them to work on mutual friends in both Houses in an attempt to smooth the reception of the treaty.196Bodl. Tanner 57, ff. 313, 315, 359, 369, 371, 385, 395; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 318-24; Mems. of the Great Civil War, ed. Cary, ii. 34-5, 36-8, 48-9. Drake was initially hopeful that ‘we shall have ease in settling things here as well as you hope where you are’, but both Evelyn and Vane warned Potts that proposed ecclesiastical settlement was likely to prove a serious obstacle with the Presbyterians.197Bodl. Tanner 57, ff. 313, 369, 371; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 318, 321, 322; Mems. of the Great Civil War, ed. Cary, ii. 36-7. Potts, together with Sir Henry Vane II, John Glynne, Samuel Browne and Bulkeley, reappeared at Westminster on 9 November, when they received the thanks of the House.198CJ vi. 72a. He had not given up hope of an agreement with the king and on 13 November he was included on the committee to prepare a reply to the first of Charles’s latest propositions.199CJ vi. 75b. On 25 November he was ordered to return to Norfolk to oversee collection of the assessment with Miles Corbett and Sir John Palgrave.200CJ vi. 88a.

Later Life, 1649-73

Potts was among those secluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648 and thereafter withdrew from political life, and was not re-admitted to the Rump Parliament. It is curious, therefore, that he sought and received permission from the Rump to go abroad for health reasons for six months in March 1649.201CJ vi. 163a; A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 383. On 11 May banns were published at St Dunstan’s in the West for a marriage between Potts and Mary Hanger of Enfield, Essex, but the marriage does not seem to have taken place.202Soc. Gen., St. Dunstan’s in the West par. reg. transcript. A widow who had previously been married to a merchant, George Hanger, she had probably been the mother-in-law of George Buller*.203Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 330. Three years later Pott’s younger brother, Charles, a Middle Temple barrister, died, leaving him various properties in St. Andrew’s, Holborn and at Enfield, Middlesex. Some of those were properties Potts had sold to him many years before.204Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 329-30, 339-40, 345-6, 348-50. Sir John seems then to have settled at Enfield.205Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 329-30. A share in some of those properties was however left to Charles’s widow, Susanna, as a life interest, so, after she had married Francis Drake*, Potts found himself drawn into Drake’s intractable financial difficulties.206Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 340-4. By 1653 Potts had invested in the revived scheme to drain the Bedford Level.207Wells, Hist. of the Drainage of the Great Level, i. 251. This explains why he was included on the sewers commissions for Lincolnshire from 1654 and for Norfolk in 1658.208C181/6, pp. 26-338.

When the secluded Members were re-admitted to the Long Parliament on 21 February 1660, Potts immediately resumed his seat in the Commons. The next day he was named to the committee to consider what qualifications should be imposed on those to sit in the Parliament to be elected to replace the Long Parliament.209CJ vii. 848b. On 23 February he was elected to the new council of state.210CJ vii. 849b. Over the next three months he attended just over half of the council.211CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. xxvi-xxvii. The priority now was the need for a new Parliament. Potts was named to the committee on the bill to summon it (9 Mar.) and, when the Commons returned to the subject of MPs’ qualifications on 13 March, he was the teller for those opposed to prolonging the debate by calling for candles.212CJ vii. 868b, 874a. At the general election of April 1660 Potts sought election at Great Yarmouth with his nephew Palgrave, Miles Corbett and Sir William Doyly*. The corporation made a double return which was resolved in favour of Potts and Doyly on 18 May.

Potts lived on until 1673. He drew up his will on 6 January of that year, but by 27 June his elder surviving son, John, had succeeded to the baronetcy.213Norf. RO, NCC will 1673, 504 Alden; Norf. Lieut. Jnl. 132, 144. He was buried in the church at Mannington. His will shows that his personal estate was impoverished. Having already settled his lands on his son, John, and his grandson, Roger, ‘with equal regard to my family that the estate may be continued’, he bequeathed £100 to his second son if monies due to him should exceed his debts. He requested a private burial according to the rites of the established church ‘without the least funeral cost or pomp, it being unsuitable to my condition and mind’. Probate was granted on 16 October 1673 to his executor, Thomas Newman, the ejected rector of Heydon, Norfolk, to whom he evidently owed money.214Norf. RO, NCC will 1673, 504 Alden.

Potts’s life is especially well documented as many of his papers survive among the Tanner manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. These suggest that to his contemporaries Potts was a man of judgement and integrity, with a strong sense of public duty. Something of his special qualities is captured in a letter from Wodehouse in 1641:

The frequency of your letters confirms my confidence of your kind affection, and makes me understand how much you differ in disposition from these present times, wherein there be so few which will descend to love their lame and decrepit friends; the skill being only now to comply with greatness, and to be still on fortune’s side, which form I see is not observed by your more pious amity.215Bodl. Tanner 66, f. 65.

No other member of the family entered Parliament but his grandson, Sir Roger, stood unsuccessfully as a whig for one of the county seats in 1689. The baronetcy became extinct in 1732 on the death of Sir John’s great-grandson, Sir Charles, 5th bt.216CB, ii. 138.