THROCKMORTON, Clement (c.1630-63), of Haseley, Warws., the Middle Temple, London, and The Deanery, Wolverhampton, Staffs.

The Throckmortons of Haseley had lived on that manor since Mary I had granted it to one of the family that had for many generations lived at Coughton, some ten miles further west. While the senior branch of the family at Coughton was Roman Catholic, the Haseley Throckmortons were strong Protestants. Job Throckmorton†, ‘one of those notable zealots in Queen Elizabeth’s time’, in the phrase of William Dugdale, the anti-puritan antiquary, was the most celebrated, but service in Parliament was a feature of both branches of the family. Job’s son, Sir Clement Throckmorton†, was a family friend of Dugdale, and in his words ‘not a little eminent for his learning and eloquence, having served in sundry Parliaments as one of the knights for this shire, and undergone divers other public employments.’12Dugdale, Antiquities of Warws. ii. 654. As a leading figure among the mid-Warwickshire gentry, he was selected by Sir Simon Archer* as godfather to one of his children.13Shakespeare Birthplace Trust RO, DR 37/vol. 48, f. 30. This Sir Clement, grandfather of the subject of this biography, was succeeded in 1632 by his eldest son Clement, who played an active role in Warwickshire local government before the civil war. Because of the continuing recusancy of the Coughton family, the Haseley Throckmortons, though junior in genealogical standing, exercised jurisdiction over their senior cousins from the Warwickshire bench of magistrates, signing licences for them to travel.14Warws. RO, CR 1998, Box 62/39,40. Clement was a Ship Money refuser in 1635, but it would be unwise to infer from this any significant degree of political opposition on his part.15E179/275/14.

On the outbreak of civil war, when Clement Throckmorton the future Member was around 12 years old, the Coughton and Haseley branches took opposite sides in the conflict. Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton, resident at Weston Underwood in Buckinghamshire, responded to the king’s commission of array.16Northants RO, FH4284. Clement Throckmorton of Haseley was named in the Warwickshire commission of array, but did not serve in it.17Northants RO, FH133, unfol. While he was not a militia commissioner for Parliament, Clement was numbered by Dugdale among those who did support Parliament, and Dugdale was in a position to know.18Northants RO, FH4284. Nevertheless, this must have been a Laodicean kind of sympathy, since Throckmorton was not named to any local office in a parliamentary act or ordinance between 1642 and 1660. He returned to the Warwickshire bench in July 1646, though was not subsequently an active magistrate.19C231/6, p. 51.

The year after his father recovered a place in the commission of the peace, Clement Throckmorton junior went to Cambridge. His stay there was very short, and he evidently found study in the law more to his liking. He progressed at the Middle Temple to be called to the bar in June 1654: a distinction which may have recommended him to the electors of Warwick when they sought representatives for the first protectorate Parliament that summer.20Al. Cant.; M. Temple Admiss. i. 144. Haseley was only four miles from Warwick, and so the Throckmortons doubtless had some interest of their own there. Of likely greater importance, however, was the family’s relationship with the Brooke family at Warwick castle, which even after the sudden death of the 2nd Baron Brooke (Robert Greville†) in 1643 had tightened its grip on the town through the military authority of men like John Bridges* and Joseph Hawkesworth*. During the minority of Francis Brooke, 3rd Lord Brooke, the Warwick castle estate leased tithes in Wedgnock Park from Clement Throckmorton senior. In 1649 the estate paid 13 years’ arrears of rent to Throckmorton, suggesting that in business dealings at least, he was becoming closer to the Brooke household.21Warws. RO, CR 1886, Box 411, 16 p. 57. Until his unexpected early death in 1658, the influences on the young Lord Brooke were republican and military. Godfrey Bossevile* played an important role at the castle, as did Joseph Hawkesworth, and the stewards of the estate were the three sons of John Bridges, one of whom in 1651 bought a copy of a history of the Venetian Commonwealth for his master.22Warws. RO, CR 1886, Box 411, 14-25; 19 for book purchase. Cordial relations between the Throckmortons and the Warwick castle establishment persisted through the decade. Clement senior took a castle employee on a trip to see the Fens in May 1658, doubtless with investment in mind, and in the same year Lord Brooke bought a horse from Clement junior.23Warws. RO, CR 1886, Box 411, 24, 25. These quotidian dealings are sufficient to account for Throckmorton’s emergence as Member for Warwick at the age of 24.

Throckmorton’s election to Parliament on 12 December 1654 took place after Richard Lucy, returned for both Warwick and for the county, chose to serve as knight of the shire.24The Black Book of Warwick ed. T. Kemp (Warwick, 1898), 412. Edward Peyto*, the sheriff, had stood surety for Throckmorton at the Middle Temple, which must have helped his candidature.25MTR ii. 949. Throckmorton played no part in that assembly: his extreme youth and inexperience told against him. He was returned again in the 1656 Parliament, again under the Instrument of Government as the borough’s only Member. His name appears on a list of those denied access to the House by the government.26Bodl. Tanner 52, f. 156. It is difficult to see why, if indeed he was excluded at all. It is possible that Thomas Willughby*, returning officer at Throckmorton’s election, conveyed an unfavourable impression of him to the lord protector’s council, as Willughby was a former diehard of the county committee, and the Throckmortons were lukewarm parliamentarians.27Black Book of Warwick ed. Kemp, 413. It is possible also that Baynham Throckmorton*, son of an active royalist, was intended. The new Parliament opened on 17 September 1656, and Throckmorton was in his place in the House by the 27th, when he was named to his first committee with William Purefoy I.28CJ vii. 429b. The inevitable association with Purefoy, head of the Warwick castle political machine, may have raised doubts in the minds of some members of the council of state about Throckmorton’s outlook. Perhaps they had feared that he was a rabid republican. They need not have worried. His two committee appointments in October, on a bill to allow incumbents security of tenure in sequestered livings, and on the problem of arrears of payments from the excise, were independent from any other Warwickshire Members.29CJ vii. 434a, 440a.

Throckmorton’s reputation in the House, tabula rasa as it was, must have suffered in the last week of October, when a case involving his financial affairs and parliamentary privilege blew up, and occupied the Members in a full enquiry. On coming to London to take his seat, Throckmorton had apparently been served a writ to answer an allegation of debt. When this was reported to the House, presumably by Throckmorton himself or his agents, the House took up the issue of privilege, and summoned the bailiff. He implicated an attorney of Clifford’s Inn, who himself appeared at the bar on 29 October. The writ had apparently been served on 22 August, when he did not know Throckmorton had been returned to Parliament. On Saturday 1 November the affair was concluded, when Sir John Trevor and Sir Gilbert Pykeringe successfully led opinion for a moderate solution, against Robert Lilburne and Luke Robinson who sought imprisonment and fines for bailiff and lawyer.30CJ vii. 444a, 445a, 446b, 447b, 448a,b.

In late November, Throckmorton was named with Purefoy among additional members to a committee to liaise with the protector on bills currently before the House, and in that company it is likely that Throckmorton was not seen as a particular ally of the government.31CJ vii. 458b. On 17 December he revealed himself as a hardliner against the alleged blasphemer James Naylor. He was teller against a motion that the errant Quaker should be given a chance to speak before sentence was passed against him. Throckmorton’s side won by 22 votes; the opposing tellers were government managers Sir Charles Wolseley and Philip Jones. Ten days later, the government side called a division with the aim of delaying the second stage of Naylor’s punishment, and again Throckmorton was a teller against Philip Jones. Once more the protector’s supporters lost, this time even more decisively, by a margin of 54 votes. Another Warwickshire MP, Richard Lucy, was a teller with Throckmorton.32CJ vii. 469b, 476b. This was perhaps the most significant activity that Throckmorton undertook in the House. Many of his other committee appointments were related to individual petitions, which however time-consuming they could become (such as the one brought by Edmund Lister and his wife, which filled many pages of Thomas Burton’s* diary), had limited public significance.33CJ vii. 472a, 473a, 474b, 477a, 494b, 501a, 505b, 514b, 536a.

Throughout the rest of the session, Throckmorton was rather more helpful to the government side. He played a small part in the discussions on the Humble Petition and Advice. On 11 March 1657, he was teller in a division on the size of the quorum for the Other House. He was in favour of a small quorum of 21, against those who had sought 31 as the number.34CJ vii. 501b. On 25 March he was listed among the MPs who voted to retain the offer of the crown to Cromwell in first article of the Humble Petition, and on 27th he joined other ‘kinglings’, including Robert Beake of Coventry and Sir Thomas Rous, whose family had lived at Warwick castle during the civil war, in a large delegation to ask the protector for a suitable time to present the new constitution.35Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22 (E.935.5); CJ vii. 514a. On 9 April, after Lord Protector Oliver had suggested some amendments of his own, Throckmorton and John Bridges* were among those attending him to request a further conference, and after the title of king had been rejected and the Additional Petition and Advice framed and presented, Throckmorton and Purefoy were among those who worked to ‘methodise’ the votes taken in the House.36CJ vii. 521b, 540b. Purefoy’s presence might suggest that inclusion on these committees cannot be taken as an expression of support for the protectorate, but in Throckmorton’s case there is little doubt as to his allegiances. He played no recorded part in the short session of this Parliament, and does not appear to have stood for election to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament.

Throckmorton’s re-appearance as MP for Warwick in 1660 was by virtue of his local residence, although that year he moved to Wolverhampton. His early death, before his father’s, was mourned there as a blow for the re-established church.37Mander, Wolverhampton Antiquary, i (8), 253, 254; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Clement Throckmorton’. Viewed in that light, his hard line against James Naylor can be taken as an indication of his predilection in the mid-1650s for a state church with coercive powers. Throckmorton was buried at Haseley on 12 November 1663.38Haseley par. reg.