SPELMAN (SPILLMAN), John (1606-63), of Narborough, Norf.

Spelman’s ancestors had been resident in Norfolk since the fourteenth century and they acquired land at Narborough, ten miles east of King’s Lynn, by marriage a century later.24Vis. Norf. 1563, i. 249-53; Vis. Norf. 1563, 1589 and 1613, 264-5; F.C.W. Barbour, Spelman Gen. (New York, 1910), 29-33. His great-great-grandfather, Sir John Spelman (d. 1546), justice of king’s bench, built the family seat, Narborough Hall.25Blomefield, Norf. vi. 150-2. The first of the family to enter Parliament was the distinguished antiquary, Sir Henry Spelman† of Congham, who sat for Castle Rising in 1597. He was a first cousin of this MP’s grandfather. Sir Clement Spelman, the present MP’s father, died in 1607. His widow, Ursula, then married John Potts* of Mannington, who thus became John Spelman’s stepfather. By his own marriage to Anne Heveningham in 1632, Spelman became the brother-in-law of William Heveningham*. In the spring of 1640 Sir Thomas Wodehouse* got Spelman to encourage Potts to stand as a knight of the shire in the Short Parliament elections, although, when he allowed his name to be put forward, Potts was unsuccessful.26Bodl. Tanner 67, f. 176; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 227.

Spelman had been a Norfolk justice of the peace since 1633 and had held a number of other local offices. It was, however, only from 1642 onwards, as a strong supporter of Parliament, that he began to play a significant role in county politics. By the spring of 1642, control of the county trained bands had, as a result of the Militia Ordinance, become a major national issue. On 17 March, as the lord lieutenant for Norfolk, the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†), obtained the approval from the Commons for new deputy lieutenants. Spelman was one of eight men nominated by the earl.27PJ ii. 54. In this capacity, with Potts and Oliver Cromwell*, he was ordered to organise the defence of bridges between Cambridge and King’s Lynn in August 1642.28LJ v. 306b. Since the previous year he had been included on the various subsidy, poll tax and assessment commissions. In October, by which time war against the king had become a reality, he and Framlingham Gawdy* organised the assessment collections in the north west of the county.29Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 261. The following February he was one of the eight Norfolk gentlemen who attended the inaugural meeting of the Eastern Association.30Suff. ed. Everitt, 40, 52.

In the spring of 1643 there were fears that the local royalists, led by Sir Hamon L’Estrange†, intended to seize King’s Lynn. In late March the town’s corporation asked Spelman to accompany several of the townsmen (one of whom was Edmund Hudson*) to Cambridge to ask Cromwell to seek assistance from Parliament.31HMC 13th Rep. iii. 180. That had the intended effect and on 11 April the Commons gave powers to the mayor and six local gentlemen, including Spelmen, to investigate.32CJ iii. 39a. On 8 May Spelman was one of three gentlemen ordered to assist the mayor in arresting the plotters.33CJ iii. 76b-77a. But they were unsuccessful and three months later L’Estrange took control of the town. When by mid-September he sought to surrender it again, Spelman was among commissioners on the parliamentarian side appointed by the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†) to negotiate the terms.34A briefe and true Relation of the Seige and Surrendering of Kings Lyn [1643], 3 (E.67.28).

Spelman shared the constant Norfolk concern during the civil war that the county was paying more than its fair share towards the war effort. In November 1644 he was among members of the county standing committee who wrote to Manchester emphasizing their heavy burdens.35Suff. ed. Everitt, 81-2. At the very least they requested that the money and the forces they were raising be used directly for the defence of Norfolk, and thus they were hostile when proposals were put forward for the creation of the New Model army. On 30 January 1645 Spelman attended the meeting of the Eastern Association at Bury St Edmunds at which those present were asked to consider a motion on whether the New Model would weaken the association.

Then Mr Spelman propounded that he could not pass his vote till he knew what the New Model of the army was. To this it was said that the same is set down in books in print, but the gentleman pleading ignorance thereof Colonel Mildmay [Henry Mildmay*] recited the same as he had been informed at London and as he had read the same in printed pamphlets.36Suff. ed. Everitt, 85.

The meeting then passed the motion.

Opposing the New Model was a popular stance in Norfolk and so may well have worked to Spelman’s advantage when he subsequently stood in the by-election at Castle Rising. Although that election took place in late 1645, and Spelman had apparently taken his seat by 20 December, he made no mark on the records of Parliament until 22 June 1646 and then only to be granted leave to go into the country.37CJ iv. 326b, 583b; Add. 19398, f. 224. A further grant of leave followed on 5 September.38CJ iv. 663b. This set the pattern for Spelman’s parliamentary career over the next two years, which, according to the surviving records, consisted mostly of further periods of leave. But this concealed a certain amount of activity. On 30 November the Commons ordered that £1,000 should be given by the Committee for Compounding to Spelman and two other Norfolk MPs, Thomas Atkin* and Miles Corbett*, to pay the garrison at King’s Lynn.39CJ iv. 731b. Spelman also took the Covenant on 9 December.40CJ v. 7b. The Commons authorised a third leave of absence for him on 1 April 1647.41CJ v. 131b. His first committee appointment came only on 5 June, when he was appointed to the committee to receive the protest from the Scottish commissioners against the king’s removal from Holdenby.42CJ v. 200b. Five days later he was added to the committee to receive information against MPs, although he was probably not in sympathy with the Independents who dominated it.43CJ v. 205a.

Nothing is known about his whereabouts during the crisis of late July and early August. Absent without leave at the call of the House on 9 October, he was however present at Westminster a month later, as he attended a meeting of the Eastern Association committee on 9 November.44CJ v. 330a; SP28/251, unfol. He was given another six weeks’ leave on 1 December.45CJ v. 373b. He was therefore probably already in Norfolk three weeks later, when he was ordered by the Commons to assist in the collection of the county’s assessment.46CJ v. 400b. Two further periods of leave were granted to him on 8 March and 27 June 1648.47CJ v. 484b, 614b. In early October 1648 he was one of five MPs appointed by Parliament to serve with Sir William Paston as trustees to control the sequestered estates of Clement Paston of Thorpe juxta Norwich.48LJ x. 526b. On 29 October, the Eastern Association Committee at Westminster approved the payment of £200 8s in interest, which Spelmen was to pass on to the Norfolk county standing committee, although this order had to be reiterated four months later.49SP28/251, unfol.

Spelman may have been among those MPs listed as excluded from the Commons by the purge of 6 December 1648, though the slender evidence for this is a mangled version of a name (‘Selman’) that might be his.50A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 385. If he was indeed secluded, this represented an abrupt interruption to his public career. By early 1650 he had also been removed from the Norfolk commission of the peace, and although restored to the bench in March he seems not to have performed his duties as a justice for much of the next decade.51C231/6, p. 181; Norf. QSOB. Indeed, little is known about his life during the 1650s. He may have travelled abroad, as he could conceivably have been the ‘John Spilman’ who was given permission to sail from Rye with his son, a servant and two horses in July 1655.52CSP Dom. 1655, p. 593. If he did resume his seat in the Long Parliament after the readmission of the secluded MPs in late February 1660, he left no trace in the records. Only with his election to the 1660 Convention, again for Castle Rising, did he fully re-enter public life.

Spelman died on 31 January 1663 and was buried at Narborough.53Blomefield, Norf. vi. 164. In his will, which he prefaced with the hope that he would receive ‘a free pardon and forgiveness of all my sins and to have this mortality clothed with immortality’, he provided portions of £1,000 for his four daughters.54PROB11/311/189. His epitaph described him (in Latin) as ‘a man of eminent piety, benevolent to the clergy, munificent to the needy’, as well as ‘beloved of his country’ and ‘twice a senator in the assemblies of the kingdom’.55Blomefield, Norf, vi. 164. The estates at Narborough passed to his eldest son, Moundeford Spelman. They continued to be held by his descendants until the MP’s great-grandson, Henry Spelman (d. 1810).56Vis. Norf. 1563, i. 254-5.