HOBART, Sir John, 2nd bt. (1593-1647), of Blickling and Chapel Field, Norwich, Norf.

The Hobart family can be traced back in Suffolk to 1389. They first came to prominence with Sir James Hobart† of Hales Hall, who sat for Ipswich in three Yorkist Parliaments and became attorney-general to Henry VII. Hobart’s father, Sir Henry, another successful lawyer and MP for Great Yarmouth and Norwich, became lord chief justice of common pleas and purchased lands at Blickling, just outside Alysham, in 1616. Following Sir Henry’s death in 1625, Sir John completed the building of Blickling Hall.36Pevsner, Norf.: Norwich and North-East, 400. According to his chaplain, John Collinges, Hobart’s life was transformed by the ‘prudent monitions and passionate entreaties’ of his second wife, Frances Egerton, a pious woman of strong puritan convictions whom he had married in 1621. She taught him ‘to delight in those good ways of God, with which formerly he had no acquaintance and against which (for want of a due knowledge of them) he had formerly taken a prejudice.’37J. C[ollinges], Par Nobile (1669), 13; ‘Lady Frances Hobart (née Egerton)’, Oxford DNB. She managed his affairs, reducing his debts by £6,000, checked his natural temper and broke his habit of swearing.38Collinges, Par Nobile, 10, 13. There were however limits to her ability to reform his affairs and Hobart remained very heavily in debt. Hobart had meanwhile served as an MP, first entering Parliament in 1621, after a by-election for Cambridge, and later sitting in 1624 and 1626 for Lostwithiel and Brackley respectively. By the late 1630s he was already complaining about his ill health.39HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 203, 217.

By 1642 Hobart had long been one of the leading county figures in Norfolk. As both sides began to prepare for civil war, Parliament therefore saw in him someone who might prove to one of its key supporters in the eastern counties. Hobart was already a Norfolk deputy lieutenant and, with control of the militia now an issue of crucial political importance, he was confirmed in that position by Parliament in August 1642.40CJ ii. 699a; LJ v. 250b. Later that same month, on 24 August, the Commons was informed that Hobart planned to travel from London to Norfolk with five cases of pistols, three carabines and two brass pieces. The Commons issued him with a pass to enable him to do so.41CJ ii. 734b. On reaching Norfolk he then helped mobilise the county.42Bodl. Tanner 69, f. 200. That December the Commons again agreed to continue him in post as a deputy lieutenant.43CJ ii. 884a; LJ v. 533a. When the Eastern Association was formed the following spring, Hobart became one of the commissioners for Norfolk.44Suff. ed. Everitt, 52. The most conspicuous evidence for his support for Parliament came in the summer of 1643 when money was collected at Norwich to support the efforts to recapture Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Hobart donated £40, by far the largest sum contributed by any of the residents.45F.R. Beecheno, ‘The Norwich subscription for the regaining of Newcastle, 1643’, Norf. Arch. xviii. 157.

Yet not everyone was convinced that he was doing enough. The most zealous of the Norfolk MPs, Miles Corbett*, began to question the commitment of some of the other Norfolk parliamentarians. Part of the problem was that some in Norfolk resented paying so much for a war mostly being fought elsewhere. On 21 September 1643 the members of the Norfolk county committee, including Hobart, wrote to the Speaker, William Lenthall*, suggesting that the tax burden on the county be relieved by using any sequestrations collected within Norfolk to pay for its troop levies.46HMC Portland, i. 131. The Commons appears then to have summoned Hobart to London, although there is no record of that order in the Journals. What is known is that on 27 October the Commons received a message from Hobart’s fellow deputy lieutenants saying that Hobart was unwell and so would be unable to travel to the capital. They nevertheless assured Parliament of Hobart’s loyalty. The Commons therefore instructed John Lisle* to inform him that he would not be required to come to London but that they expected him to do what he could to continue serving them.47CJ iii. 290b.

Soon Hobart and some of the other Norfolk deputy lieutenants faced criticism over their dismissal of one of the captains in the county militia. That December Hobart wrote to Lisle maintaining that these accusations were unfair. With more than a hint of wounded pride, he asserted, ‘I had not the least ambition or self ends in anything I have done, only serving the Lord Jesus and his cause, whose preferment and blessings no man is able to take from me.’ He went on to declare his loyalty to Parliament, pointing out, ‘I have laid my self aside, and my fortunes, my quiet, rest and peace in obedience to the commands of that great and honourable assembly’.48Bodl. Tanner 286, f. 1. He advised Lisle to seek support at Westminster from ‘my very good friends’, Sir Benjamin Rudyerd*, Sir Thomas Barrington*, Sir William Lytton* and Robert Wallop*.49Tanner 286, f. 1.

Hobart continued to do what he could to support the parliamentarian war effort in Norfolk. In June 1644 he passed on letters from the Eastern Association committee at Cambridge and Sir Samuel Luke to the other Norfolk deputy lieutenants ordering them to prepare forces against a possible royalist incursion into East Anglia.50HMC 11th Rep. VII, 100. That November he and the other members of the Norfolk standing committee wrote to the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†) encouraging him to retake Crowland, the important strategic stronghold in southern Lincolnshire.51Suff. ed. Everitt, 82. His indebtedness also proved useful to Parliament, for on 30 December 1645 the Commons ordered that money he owed an unnamed delinquent be instead paid to the treasurer of the navy.52CJ iv. 390b. It may not be a coincidence that Hobart had just gained immunity from his creditors, for only the day before he had been re-elected as an MP. He had been chosen by the Norfolk electors as their replacement for Sir Edmund Moundeford*.

Hobart’s decision to stand again is somewhat surprising. Although still only in his early fifties, he was not in the best of health and this clearly limited his involvement in parliamentary business. He may well have taken his time in making his way to Westminster, as his first committee appointments were not until 18 May 1646, when he was named to the committees on the petition from George Wither and on the bill to grant lands to John Stephens*.53CJ iv. 550a-b. Over the next three months he was named to a number of other committees, including those on the bill concerning the Lancashire assizes (12 June), on the bill for the sale of delinquents’ estates (10 July) and to consider how to raise money for Ireland (11 Aug.).54CJ iv. 574b, 613a, 641b, 653a. Like most of his colleagues, his immediate concern was probably the possibility of a negotiated settlement with the king. On 13 June he was included on the committee appointed to consider the proposals concerning the militia which the Lords wanted to be part of the Newcastle Propositions.55CJ iv. 576b. Eleven days later he was part of the delegation sent to hear the speech from the marquess of Argyll (Archibald Campbell*) about the Scots’ views on the proposed peace settlement.56CJ iv. 587a. He was also one of those MPs sent on 5 September to ask the corporation of London for a loan of £200,000 to pay the Scots.57CJ iv. 663a. But all this activity soon came to an end. Granted leave on 18 September, Hobart never returned to Westminster.58CJ iv. 672b. From this time, according to Collinges, he was in a ‘dying condition’ and not always in full command of his mental faculties.59Collinges, Par Nobile, 19. Hobart died on 20 April 1647 and was buried at Blickling nine days later.60CB.

Hobart died owing over £10,000 to his many creditors. However, as he had assets worth over £26,000, he had never been in any real danger of becoming insolvent.61Bodl. Tanner 97, f. 83. This considerable wealth was reflected in his will. He left £300 for his funeral, £500 for a monument for himself, his two wives and his parents, and £100 for the poor of Norfolk and Norwich. He bequeathed £2,500 worth of plate, apparel and household effects to his wife. His kinsman, John Hobart*, was appointed executor.62PROB11/202/65; Bodl. Tanner 97, f. 97. His house at Norwich, Chapel Field, was part of his wife’s jointure estate and was where she then lived out her widowhood.63B. Cozens-Hardy, ‘The Norwich Chapelfield House estate’, Norf. Arch. xxvii (1941), 360. All of Hobart’s sons had predeceased him, so this threatened to separate his estates from the male line and his title as baronet. Hobart had however only recently taken steps to prevent this by marrying his eldest daughter, Philippa, to his heir in the male line, his nephew, John*. The latter therefore inherited both the Blickling estates and the baronetcy. Collinges would remember Hobart as ‘one who might err through prejudice or misapprehension, but of that nobleness of temper, height of courage and spirit, that he never valued cost, nor wanted an heart to go through with anything of the goodness and justice of which he was once convinced’.64Collinges, Par Nobile, 14. The third baronet entered Parliament in 1654.