ROUS, Anthony (c.1605-77), of Wotton, Landrake, Cornw.

Anthony Rous was the eldest son of Robert Rous of Wotton and nephew of Francis Rous*. His branch of the family was of relatively modest wealth, but Rous was sent to the Middle Temple in November 1621, and was resident there until at least August 1622.33MTR ii. 667. Little is known of Rous’s career over the next 20 years. He sided with Parliament in 1642, and probably served in the local forces in Cornwall and Devon in the early months of the civil war. In December 1643 he was part of the funeral procession for John Pym*, whose mother had married into the Rous family.34CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 504. Shortly afterwards he became implicated in the attack on Parliament’s failed general in the west, Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford. Rous had been summoned to the Commons to give evidence against Stamford in the late spring of 1644, but his attendance was prevented by the Lords, who called him to the bar on 1 June to answer charges that he had alleged that the more moderate peers, including Stamford, were opposed to the creation of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, hinting darkly that ‘they begin to declare what their meanings of long time have been’.35LJ vi. 574a-b; Add. 31116, p. 294. Rous was sentenced to imprisonment in the Fleet on 18 June, but he defended himself vigorously, saying that ‘I do desire the liberty of a subject and a commoner of England, and do cast myself upon the House of Commons’.36LJ vi. 596a. He was defended by the Commons, perhaps at the behest of his uncle, Francis Rous. On 29 June 1644 the Commons denounced Anthony Rous’s imprisonment, which they considered ‘a great breach of privilege as to our House, and a violation of the liberty of the subject, who ought to have freedom to come and go when he was to give his testimony in any court of justice whatsoever, much more in the supreme court of Parliament’.37Add. 31116, p. 294. After a conference between the two Houses, the Commons ordered that Rous be released from prison on 5 July, and he was formally discharged.38CJ iii. 546b, 547b, 548a, 550a-b, 551b; LJ vi. 611b, 613a, 621a-b. The Commons also showed their support for Rous in other ways. In the midst of this debacle, on 1 July 1644, he was appointed to the Cornish county committee.39A. and O. In the same period, Rous, who had been promoted to colonel in command of one of the western regiments (probably in mid-June), was awarded his arrears of pay from the proceeds of any concealed royalist estates he could ‘discover’.40BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database; CCAM 39-40.

In the last years of the first civil war, Rous seems to have spent more time in London than in the west country. In June 1645 he was sent by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to instruct Colonel Nicholas Devereux to join Major General Edward Massie* in his attempt to prevent the royalists in the west from joining the main army.41CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 565. In March 1646 Rous was again a messenger from the committee, this time to Colonel Morgan, who was required to join the siege of Oxford.42CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 387. A month later, Rous’s regiment was based at Truro, as part of the force besieging the royalists at Pendennis Castle, although it was probably commanded in the field by the lieutenant colonel.43CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 416; Bodl. Walker c.10, f. 89v. After the end of the civil war, when it was decided that the regiment was to be brought up to strength and sent to Ireland, Rous began searching for a new command.44CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 514. He was briefly governor of Dartmouth in Devon, but in September 1646 the Commons made him governor of the Scilly Isles.45Add. 31116, p. 567; CJ iv. 691b. Rous’s appointment was not universally popular, and in March 1647, when the garrisons were reshuffled, ‘there was a very long debate who should be governor of the Isle of Scilly’, and Rous was displaced in favour of another Cornishman, Anthony Buller*, although he was granted £1,000 for arrears of pay in compensation.46Add. 31116, p. 608; CJ v. 110b. This was apparently the last of Rous’s regular military appointments, and from then on he became a civilian administrator and militia officer. In the spring and early summer of 1648, he was involved in putting down the royalist uprising at Penzance. On 25 May he was one of the Cornish committeemen who wrote to Francis Buller I*, Hugh Boscawen* and other MPs, with the latest news.47Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2/166. In July he was reimbursed for provisions he had bought for the forces that had helped to put down the rebellion.48Bodl. Walker c.10, f. 123v.

Rous remained in Cornwall during the winter of 1648-9, and apparently had no qualms about the regicide. He had been appointed a sequestrations commissioner for Cornwall in 1648, and he continued to attend meetings at the beginning of February 1649.49Add. 5494, ff. 88, 89. In March he joined John Moyle II*, Colonel Robert Bennett* and others as one of the Cornishmen trusted by the council of state to consider local petitions.50CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 33. Later in the same year, he was again working with Moyle and Bennett to persuade Parliament to reduce the assessment levied on Cornwall and to influence the appointment of militia commissioners and justices of the peace.51FSL, X.d.483 (44). In July 1649 Rous was appointed vice-admiral of the south Cornish coast.52Vice-Admirals of the Coast ed. Sainty and Thrush, 6. He was an active vice-admiral, working over the next few years to police the coast and press men for the navy.53CSP Dom. 1650, p. 124; 1652-3, pp. 281, 522; 1655-6, pp. 164, 536; Add. 22546, f. 97; Cornw. RO, DC/LOO/125/5. In February 1650 he was appointed captain of foot in the Cornish militia, and in April he was also given command of the county horse troop.54CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 521; 1650, pp. 506, 512. Rous was also able to improve his financial position. There were fresh efforts to pay his military arrears in 1649, and he was granted a further £500 by the Committee of the West.55Bodl. Walker c.10, f. 110. In the same year he acquired the manor of Helston, and in or around 1650 he purchased the right to collect the duchy tin tolls in the manors of Helston and Tywarnhaile.56Parochial Hist. Cornw. ii. 181; Coate, Cornw. 272. In later years he also secured the fee-farm rents of the borough of Helston, and the fishing rights of the River Fowey.57SP28/330, large vol. f. 75; SP28/286/1, f. 156.

Despite the obvious benefits of working with the commonwealth regime, Rous was not entirely comfortable with its Cornish henchmen. His relationship with the most powerful Cornishman of this period, Robert Bennett, was tense. Rous was more lenient to former royalists than Bennett would allow, and the two disagreed over the case of Rous’s kinsman and neighbour Sir Christopher Wray in December 1650.58FSL, X.d.483 (79). A year later, Rous wrote to Bennett in London, protesting about ‘several contempts and incivilities offered by your officer [John] Wait, both against the state and myself, their officer’, apparently concerning the vice-admiralty. Bennett’s silence in the face of an earlier letter led Rous to think that he approved of Wait’s actions, and he warned the colonel that ‘I shall oppose you to the uttermost of my power and have justice against them’.59FSL, X.d.483 (103). Relations between Rous and Bennett were not improved by their religious differences. While Bennett was a Baptist, Rous was a staunch Presbyterian, perhaps influenced by his uncle, Francis Rous. Rous was certainly involved in promoting godly religion in Cornwall. In June 1653 John Moyle was consulting with Rous about improving the stipend of a minister.60FSL, Add. 662. In August 1653 Rous joined John Bawden* (a former captain in his regiment) and others as trustees to distribute the income from the sequestered vicarage of Breage to four godly ministers in Cornwall.61CCC 1239; Bodl. Walker c.10, f. 89v.

In the summer of 1653 Rous was suddenly thrust on to the national stage when he was selected for the Nominated Assembly as one of the Members for Cornwall. The prominence of his uncle, who was soon elected as Speaker, was a likely factor in his nomination, and it is telling that in early August Rous inherited Francis’s lodgings in Whitehall.62CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 73. In the early days of the Assembly, Rous was named to the committees for Scottish affairs, for ordering the business of committees, and for tithes.63CJ vii. 283b, 285a, 286a. His main activity was in two other areas, however. He was appointed to the committee for petitions on 20 July, and for the next four months he reported from that committee 14 times, dealing with a variety of claims from those of the purchasers of the lands of Sir John Stawell* to the request of Lieutenant Colonel Roseworm for naturalisation.64CJ vii. 287a, 296b, 300b, 305b, 306b, 309b, 319b, 320b, 321a, 325a, 328a, 332a, 335a, 342b, 350b. The other area which concerned Rous was the raising of money. On 23 August he was named to the committee for the sale of public property in London and Westminster; on 20 September he was added to the committee for the sale of forests; and on 19 November he was teller in favour of bringing forward the date at which purchasers of forests should pay the first instalment.65CJ vii. 306b, 322a, 352b. Rous’s parliamentary activity also reveals his conservatism, especially when it came to religious affairs. On 20 August he was teller against selling glebe lands, which formed an important part of the income of country ministers.66CJ vii. 305a.

Rous’s diligence made him a popular figure among his fellow MPs, and on 1 November he was added to the council of state with 93 votes – by far the most given to a new member.67CJ vii. 344a-b. He took his oath on 3 November, and from then on he shifted his attention from the Assembly to the council chamber. He was appointed to the council committee for examinations on 7 November, and was called upon to adjudicate petitions thereafter.68CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 230, 233, 237, 281. He was also involved in negotiations with foreign representatives, including the Spanish ambassador (7 Nov.) and the French ambassador (21 Nov.), and he was on the committee to consider the murder committed by a Portuguese national (6 Dec.).69CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 233, 262, 287. Rous was also appointed to the ordnance committee on 8 November and the committee on the mint on 7 December.70CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 237, 289.

With the dissolution of the Nominated Assembly, and the creation of the protectorate, Rous lost his position on the council of state, but he was well compensated. In December 1653 he was appointed judge for the probate of wills and commissioner for the excise.71A. and O. In March 1654 he became an admiralty commissioner, in June he was made a commissioner for the high court of justice, and in August he was allowed £300 a year as a judge of probate.72CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 67, 343, 455; A. and O. These new positions probably reflected the influence of Rous’s uncle, Francis, who was a protectoral councillor, but they were not mere sinecures. In particular, Rous’s appears to have been a fairly active admiralty commissioner: in May and August 1654 he adjudicated claims for compensation and prizes.73CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 497, 543. Rous’s term with the admiralty came to end in 1656, but this did not end his association with naval affairs. In November 1656 the protectoral council considered the arrears owing to Rous as an admiralty commissioner and probate judge, and the report, by John Disbrowe* and Philip Jones*, found that he was still £300 short. This sum was paid by the middle of December.74CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 152, 484. In September 1657, while resident in Cornwall, he asked the admiralty commissioners to appoint one of his kinsmen to a naval command, to fulfil a promise made by Admiral Robert Blake* before his death.75CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 421.

In the elections for the first protectorate Parliament, held in the autumn of 1654, Rous was returned as one of the MPs for Cornwall. He was named to the committee of privileges on 5 September.76CJ vii. 366b. In the first two months of the session, Rous played little part in parliamentary activity, although on 3 and 4 November he was named to two committees on reforming abuses in legal process.77CJ vii. 381b, 382a. From the middle of November, however, he began to collaborate with the Presbyterian interest in their attempt to pass a government bill to replace the Instrument of Government. On 14 November Rous was teller against debating whether the new measures should include oaths not to alter the government in a single person and Parliament – in opposition to two councillors, John Lambert and Sir Charles Wolseley.78CJ vii. 385a. Similarly, on 27 November Rous was teller in favour of altering the franchise.79CJ vii. 391b. At the beginning of December he was teller on three motions: in favour of increasing the quorum for the protectoral council (5 Dec.); against transferring the seat of Dunwich in Suffolk to Aldeburgh (6 Dec.); and in favour of including ‘damnable heresies’ in the wording of the clauses on religion.80CJ vii. 395b, 396b, 399a. This last motion is revealing. Rous’s partner as teller for the yeas was Joachim Matthews, a rigid Presbyterian, and they were opposed by two members of the court interest, Philip Jones and Henry Whalley.81CJ vii. 399a. The importance to Rous of tightening the religious settlement, and excluding sectarians, can also be seen on 12 December, when he was named to the committee to enumerate damnable heresies (whose members included Francis Rous).82CJ vii. 399b. Yet, like his uncle, Rous was not a zealot, and his willingness to modify the constitution was tempered by his sense of loyalty towards the protector. It is interesting that on 13 December he was teller in favour of the definition of heresy being agreed by protector and Parliament – a motion opposed by leading Presbyterians Thomas Grove and John Bulkeley.83CJ vii. 400b. Rous went on to be named to committees on the government bill in late December and early January, but he did not act as teller in the later stages, and his commitment to reform may have been replaced by a concern not to antagonise the protector.84CJ vii. 403a, 415a, 415b. Rous’s sense of unease can be seen in his later comment that the protector’s opponents had tried to hijack proceedings and had thus rendered the first protectoral Parliament a ‘dead carcase’.85Burton’s Diary, ii. 289-90.

Rous’s role in central government and his attendance in Parliament had curtailed his Cornish activities in the early years of the protectorate. He was not chosen to be one of the commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth in 1655-6, but as a justice of the peace and militia commander he worked closely with them, and the local major-general, John Disbrowe, counted Rous among ‘the gentlemen of this county [that] are very cordial’, recommending that he should be added to the Devon commission of the peace in February 1656.86TSP iv. 462, 520. In May and June 1656, possibly in his capacity as a militia officer, Rous gave passes to the royalist peer, John 2nd Baron Mohun, allowing him to travel to London and Essex.87Add. 34014, ff. 75v, 78v, 83v. Rous’s influence over Cornwall ensured he was again elected for the county for the second protectorate Parliament, which sat in September 1656. In Parliament he remained in close contact with the Cornish gentry. In October 1656 Francis Buller I was reassured that he was unlikely to be chosen as sheriff as Rous, Anthony Nicoll and Disbrowe were ‘to be your friends in this’, and Rous was also among those at Westminster keen to see moderate Presbyterians, like Buller, returned to the commission of the peace and other local positions.88Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/1/72. On 3 December he intervened in the Commons on behalf of another Cornishman, Richard Carter*, who hoped for a bill to allow him to sell lands to pay his father’s debts, saying that ‘he is sued; judgements, executions and ousters against him; and in daily danger to be laid in prison’.89Burton’s Diary, i. 2. On 9 December, when the bill was read for the second time, Rous praised it as ‘a just bill’, and he was named to the committee stage along with a number of Cornish MPs, like Nicoll and John Seyntaubyn.90Burton’s Diary, i. 81.

Local affairs formed only a small part of Rous’s activity during the first three months of the Parliament, however. In September 1656 he was named to the committee of privileges, and to five other committees, including those on bills to renounce the title of Charles Stuart, to ensure the security of the protector, and to confirm or revise non-parliamentary ordinances.91CJ vii. 424a, 425a, 426a, 428a, 429a-b. In October he was appointed to 15 committees on a wide range of subjects, including legal reform, the excise, and the probate of wills.92CJ vii. 433a, 434a, 435a, 438a, 439b, 441b, 442b, 444a, 445a, 445b, 446a, 446a, 447a, 448a. On 20 October he was appointed to the committee of trade, alongside a number of Cornish MPs including Seyntaubyn, Carter and Thomas Ceely.93CJ vii. 442a. Rous’s level of activity slackened somewhat in November, but he was still named to committees on purveyance, maintaining ministers and confirming the privileges of the Isle of Ely.94CJ vii. 449b, 450a, 460b. In December Rous was busier as ever. He was named to 15 committees, including several to settle lands or allow the sale of lands, and for the maintenance of ministers.95CJ vii. 462b, 463b, 464a, 464b, 465a, 466a, 467b, 469a, 470b, 472a, 475a, 477a. In the same month he also contributed to the debates on the fate of the notorious Quaker, James Naylor. For Rous, the Naylor case depended upon whether he was deemed to have committed ‘horrible blasphemy’, he opposed imprisonment as a punishment, as ‘many of them live better in prison than otherwise’, and he presented the Cornish petition against Naylor to the Commons on 18 December.96Burton’s Diary, i. 66, 156, 169. Rous’s stance on Naylor reflected his deeply entrenched conservatism in religious affairs, and this can be seen in his committee appointments in and around that time. He was involved in moves to promote the better observance of the sabbath, and on 2 January 1657 he joined Joachim Matthews in seconding Thomas Bampfylde’s motion that a Lord’s Day bill be read; five days later Rous pressed for a second reading.97Burton’s Diary, i. 295, 310.

Rous’s parliamentary activity continued in the first two months of 1657, and in this period there are surer signs of his loyalty to the protector. On 7 January Thomas Burton* recorded that John Fitzjames had made fun of Rous, telling his friends that ‘he had made Colonel Rous believe that William Hampden, Mr [Baynham] Throckmorton and himself, being at dinner at Whitehall, were sent in for to his highness and knighted’.98Burton’s Diary, i. 321. Such a trick would only work if Rous accepted Cromwell’s quasi-regal role as a matter of course, and perhaps coveted a knighthood himself. On 31 January Rous was added to the committee to prepare a declaration for the day of thanksgiving for Cromwell’s survival of the Sindercombe plot, and on 10 February he was teller against a motion allowing MPs to speak for a second time in the debate on the bill to ensure no money was raised without the people’s consent.99CJ vii. 484b, 489a. On 21 February Rous was given leave to go into the country, and he seems to have left the Commons very soon afterwards.100CJ vii. 494b. His sudden disappearance is curious, and may have been connected with the introduction of the Remonstrance, with the offer of the crown to Cromwell, two days later. Perhaps it was felt that Rous’s presence in the west country would help to prevent unrest; or maybe he thought it prudent to retire, rather than compromise his uncle’s position as a councillor. Whether by accident or design, Rous was absent from the Commons throughout the kingship debates. He had returned by 23 April, when he intervened in the debate on changes to the religious clauses of the Humble Petition, and he was present in the Commons on 24 June, when he opposed the oaths proposed in the Additional Petition as ‘tying us to perform such directions as the Parliament should hereafter give, which was more than a Jew or Turk would impose’.101Burton’s Diary, ii. 13, 290.

Rous attended the second sitting of Parliament in January 1658. He had little patience with the commonwealthsmen who were intent on attacking the protectorate, and on 22 January he tried to defuse tensions over the Other House by arguing ‘that you will consider not of returning a message at all, but that you will consider of the message to you’.102Burton’s Diary, ii. 342. He was added to the committee for the purchase of impropriated church property on 26 January and named to the committee to attend the protector to request that his speech be printed on 28th.103CJ vii. 588a, 589a. With the dissolution of Parliament in February, Rous returned to Cornwall. His relations with Bennett (who had refused to serve Cromwell) seem to have improved, and Bennett asked him to pass on his excuses to the quarter sessions in July, as he had not yet refurbished the assize hall at Launceston.104FSL, X.d.483 (183). By this time, Rous became known as one of the chief opponents of the Quakers in Cornwall. When George Fox encountered him in 1656 he thought him ‘as full of words and talk as ever I heard a man in all my life’, but when he managed to ‘speak the word of life to him’, Rous was silenced: ‘he could not open his mouth, and his face swelled like a turkey and his lips rent and he mumbled, and people thought he would have fallen down … and forever after the man was loving to Friends and never so full of airy words after to us’.105Jnl. of George Fox, i. 226. This was wishful thinking on Fox’s part. In 1657-9 Rous, as a justice of the peace, was involved in seven cases against Quakers, including two incidents where ministers were interrupted during services at Stoke Climsland and Southhill.106Recs. Quakers Cornw. 6, 8-9, 13, 15, 20, 22. Occasionally he could be magnanimous. In 1659, when Thomas Lower and others were presented for non-attendance at church, they were lambasted by Thomas Gewen* but then released by Rous, on Lower’s word that they would attend the quarter sessions voluntarily.107Recs. Quakers Cornw. 20. After the Restoration, when Fox again visited Cornwall, Rous was among those who argued with him about the Bible, but without any apparent personal animosity.108Jnl. of George Fox, ii. 28.

Rous did not sit in Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament, perhaps because of the death in the new year of his uncle, Francis, to whom he was executor as well as heir.109PROB11/287/260. With the fall of the protectorate in May 1659, Rous was prepared to work with the restored Rump, and he was appointed to the new militia commission on 26 July.110A. and O. He was a man whom Bennett and his friends were careful to cultivate. On 29 August, Richard Lobb* told Bennett that Rous and Seyntaubyn should be made captains of the militia troops in Cornwall, as ‘I believe that will please them both’.111FSL, X.d.483 (127). Parliament duly resolved that Rous should join Bennett and others as a militia officer on 1 September.112CJ vii. 772a. Rous was an opponent of the officers’ coup in the final months of 1659, but he was still willing to act under the authority of the Rump, as in early December, when he and Bennett were commissioned to settle the militia in Cornwall.113C231/6, p. 448. A few weeks later he was one of the Cornish gentlemen who signed a declaration, calling for a ‘free Parliament’ on 27 December.114Publick Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660), pp. 998-9 (E.773.41). Rous’s hopes of regaining some of his former influence were soon dashed. He replaced Captain John Fox* as governor of Pendennis by order of Parliament on 13 February 1660, but in March he was himself removed in favour of George Monck’s* kinsman, Sir Peter Killigrew*.115CJ vii. 842b; Coate, Cornw. 311. On 13 March Rous also lost his position as vice-admiral to Seyntaubyn.116Vice-Admirals of the Coast, 6. Rous went on to sit for Helston in the Convention, but played little part in its proceedings, and the Restoration marked the effective end of his political career.117HP Commons 1660-1690. In 1662 he was investigated by the exchequer as one of those who had received public money during the interregnum, and in 1663 he was also scrutinised by the excise commissioners.118FSL, X.d.483 (144); CTB i. 478. He died in 1677, and was succeeded by his son, Robert.