HOYLE, Thomas (1587-1650), of St Martin-cum-Gregory, Micklegate, York, and Broad Sanctuary, St Margaret, Westminster.

Descended from West Riding clothiers of modest fortune, Hoyle successfully exploited the opportunity afforded him by his apprenticeship to a leading York cloth merchant.38Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 21, f. 484v; Pontefract Deanery Act Bk. 15, f. 555; YCA, Y/FIN/1/2/14, Chamberlains’ acct. bk. 1612, f. 53. His master, Matthew Topham, was not only a member of the city’s mercantile elite and a future alderman and mayor, he was also a man of godly piety, who would be cited for nonconformist offences by the church authorities in the 1630s.39York City Lib. Skaife mss, SKA/3, ff. 774-5; Marchant, Puritans, 78; VCH York, 202; Wilson, ‘York’, 264. After serving his apprenticeship, Hoyle took up residence in Topham’s parish of St Martin, Micklegate, and by the mid-1610s he, too, had joined the city’s leading exporters of cloth and other wares through Hull.40C3/467/40; C. Cross, ‘A man of conscience in seventeenth-century urban politics: Alderman Hoyle of York’, in Public Duty and Private Conscience in Seventeenth-Century England ed. J. Morrill, P. Slack, D. Woolf (Oxford and New York, 1993), 206-7; Wilson, ‘York’, 314-25.

Hoyle’s growing prosperity, his diligence in municipal office, and probably his links with Topham (who served as lord mayor in 1624), won him a place on the municipal bench in 1626. And he confirmed his place among the civic elite even more emphatically two years later, when he defeated Sir Thomas Savile† – son of the county grandee and courtier Sir John Savile† – to take the second place at York in the elections to the 1628 Parliament. The fact that he was still the most junior alderman at the time of his election and that his return was opposed by the mayor and several of the aldermen, including Topham, suggests that he had enjoyed outside electoral support – possibly from no less a figure than Yorkshire’s leading ‘country’ politician, and the Saviles’ bitter political rival, Sir Thomas Wentworth† (the future earl of Strafford).41HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Thomas Hoyle’; ‘York’; ‘Yorkshire’. Hoyle was well known to at least two members of Wentworth’s circle – the wealthy Yorkshire landowner, and Hoyle’s fellow York MP, Sir Arthur Ingram*, who had declared himself beholden to Hoyle in 1627 for his ‘frank and fair dealing’ with him in money matters;42W. Yorks Archives (Leeds), Temple Newsam mss, TN/C/269; C. Cross, ‘Alderman Hoyle’, 208. and Wentworth’s close friend Sir Henry Slingsby† (father of the future royalist Sir Henry Slingesby*), who described Hoyle in 1631 as ‘a person that honours Wentworth and one that Wentworth loves’.43Bodl. Firth b.2, f. 183.

Hoyle was one of the most godly of York’s leading citizens and in public life was often guided by his religious convictions.44Cross, ‘Alderman Hoyle’, 207-8, 209-11. During their term as sheriff in 1621, Hoyle and his co-sheriff John Vaux (later described by the Laudian archbishop of York, John Neile, as the leader of the city’s ‘puritan party’), set a precedent by donating £50 each to the city’s poor fund rather than feast their office-holders, as custom required.45YCA, York House Bk. 34, f. 29v; VCH York, 202; ‘Life of Master John Shaw’ ed. Jackson, 129; Cross, ‘Alderman Hoyle’, 208. Hoyle’s mayoralty in 1632 was likewise marked by efforts to set the city’s poor on work.46YCA, York House Bk. 34, ff. 241v, 257, 260, 261, 270, 277; Cross, ‘Alderman Hoyle’, 211. His commitment to civic moral reform was rivalled by a determination to provide a godly preaching ministry in his home parish of St Martin’s, Micklegate. In 1633, having purchased the parish advowson, he secured the living for John Birchall, a minister of strongly puritan views, who also served as Hoyle’s private chaplain. Hoyle then transferred the advowson, together with land he brought to augment the stipend, to several godly trustees, among them John Vaux and two men who had been closely involved with the London feoffees for impropriations, the puritan divine William Gouge and Walter Price.47Marchant, Puritans, 76-7; Cross, ‘Alderman Hoyle’, 215. With Hoyle’s support, Birchall held conventicles and prayer meetings in and around York, some of which were attended by the godly North Riding knight Sir Matthew Boynton*.48Supra, ‘Sir Matthew Boynton’; Borthwick, CP.H.2123; Marchant, Puritans, 81, 86-8; Cross, ‘Alderman Hoyle’, 213-14. In fact, Hoyle and his equally pious wife seem to have possessed a wide circle of godly friends and admirers, particularly in the West Riding.49Bodl. Add. A.119, ff. 8v-9; Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 42, ff. 215-16; ‘Life of Master John Shaw’ ed. Jackson, 146; J.A. Newton, ‘Puritanism and the Diocese of York, 1603-40’ (London Univ. PhD thesis, 1955), 200, 202-4, 207-8.

Not surprisingly, Hoyle was a prominent target in Archbishop Neile’s attack on the York puritans and during the 1630s was proceeded against in the church courts for a variety of offences, including sitting in church with his hat on and refusing to kneel for prayers, bow at the name of Jesus, or stand for the creed. But though the Laudians succeeded in censuring Birchall, and possibly even in driving him to an early grave (he died in 1640), they did not seriously trouble Hoyle.50Marchant, Puritans, 74-92; Cross, ‘Alderman Hoyle’, 212-13, 216-17. He was too prominent a figure and the evidence against him too flimsy. Nevertheless, the petty harassment he endured at their hands gave a personal edge to his involvement in the corporation’s power struggle with Neile and the Laudian dean and chapter. Hoyle and two of his fellow aldermen were snubbed by Archbishop Laud himself in 1636, when they attempted to present the city’s side of the argument to the privy council.51YCA, York House Bk. 35, ff. 302v, 336v; HMC Lords, n.s. xi. 400. Hoyle’s hostility to Laudian ‘innovations’ was probably a factor in his estrangement from Strafford by the autumn of 1640. Although the corporation had dutifully returned two of Strafford’s nominees – Sir Edward Osborne and Sir Thomas Widdrington – to the Short Parliament, in the elections to the Long Parliament, the city rejected Osborne and Widdrington (reportedly because they Strafford had recommended them) in favour of Hoyle and his fellow godly alderman Sir William Allanson.52Supra, ‘York’.

Hoyle’s disenchantment with the personal rule of Charles I is evident in a number of his early parliamentary appointments. Between November 1640 and 1641 autumn recess he was named to 18 committees, at least half of which related in one way or other to the reform of Caroline ‘abuses’.53CJ ii. 30a, 43a, 61b, 82a, 92a. 101a, 128b, 129a, 229a. His enthusiasm for the cause of further reformation in religion may well account for his appointment to committees set up on 27 April 1641 for the overhaul of the ecclesiastical courts and for punishing the members of the recent Convocation, which had promulgated the Laudian new Canons.54CJ ii. 128b, 129a. It may also explain his addition to the committee on the case of Peter Smart, canon of Durham, who had fallen foul of the church hierarchy for his opposition to the new ceremonies (29 July 1641).55CJ ii. 229a. However, he seems to have played no part in the attack on the Laudian bishops or other perceived architects of ‘Thorough’ such as Strafford. It was probably Hoyle’s trenchant Protestantism (rather than financial considerations) that prompted his investment of £450 as an Irish Adventurer in March 1642.56Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 184.

Several of Hoyle’s appointments in 1640-1 are consistent with his later involvement in Parliament’s efforts to manage and treat with the mercantile sector. Thus he was named to a committee set up on 2 December 1640 to examine the grievances of several London merchants, among them the London MP Samuel Vassall.57CJ ii. 43a. And on 7 June 1641, he was among a group of MPs chosen to meet with the Scots commissioners to discuss the regulation of trade between the two kingdoms as part of the London treaty negotiations.58LJ iv. 268b. On the other hand, he was largely inactive in the House when it came to the redress of northern grievances. His only significant contribution on this front was to pledge £500 with Allanson towards securing a City loan in March 1641 to help pay the English and Scottish armies that had been encamped in the northern counties since the end of the second bishops’ war.59Procs. LP ii. 629. Granted leave of absence on 28 August 1641, he does not appear to have returned to Westminster until mid-January 1642, when he was named to a new committee for naval affairs – a body that would evolve in August into the Committee of Navy and Customs (14 January).60CJ ii. 275b, 378b. On 17 March, he was appointed with five other merchants, including Vassall, to supervise the printing of the new book of customs rates.61CJ ii. 483a.

During April and May 1642, Hoyle helped to keep the House apprized of the king’s proceedings in Yorkshire before withdrawing to York himself after being granted a second leave of absence (on the motion of the city’s recorder, Sir Thomas Widdrington) on 27 May.62PJ ii. 216, 298, 375, 389; CJ ii. 558a. He evidently returned home with the Commons’ blessing, for on 30 May the House resolved that those MPs who had joined the king at York be summoned back to Westminster, with the exception of Hoyle and the members of the parliamentary committee at York (whom Hoyle may have assisted in monitoring the king’s activities).63CJ ii. 594b. By late summer, with royalist mobs threatening violence to the property and persons of any citizens they suspected of having parliamentarian sympathies, York had become a dangerous place for Hoyle.64News From Yorke (1642, 669 f.6.44); The Last True Newes from Yorke, Nottingham, Coventry and Warwicke (1642), sig. A3 (E.116.9); A Remonstrance of All the Proceedings...at Nottingham, Yorke, and New-Castle (1642), pp. 2-3 (E.116.43). He continued to attend corporate meetings until late September 1642, but was forced to leave York soon thereafter and his house was probably among those plundered by the royalists in October.65YCA, York House Bk. 36, f. 76v; Terrible Newes from York (1642), sig. A2 (E.123.14).

Back at Westminster, Hoyle declared himself willing to assist the commander of Parliament’s army, the earl of Essex, ‘with his life and fortune’, and several of his appointments that autumn place him among those Members eager for the vigorous prosecution of the war.66CJ ii. 822b, 825b, 845b; L. Glow, ‘Pym and Parliament: the methods of moderation’, JMH xxxvi. 375-8. Like many of the so-called ‘fiery spirits’ he was impatient of the Essex’s cautious generalship after the battle of Edgehill, and on 5 December he seconded Henry Marten’s criticism of the earl, declaring that ‘unless the said lord general used more care and speed, the kingdom would be ruined’.67Harl. 164, f. 243. On 31 December, he agreed to contribute £50 towards the maintenance of Essex’s army.68Add. 18777, f. 219.

Hoyle’s zeal in Parliament’s cause undoubtedly owed much to his puritan reformism. In the summer of 1642, he had joined the earl of Warwick, Viscount Saye and Sele and 37 other godly Parliament-men in a letter to John Cotton and two other puritan divines in New England, requesting they return home to attend the Westminster Assembly and assist in the great work of church reform.69J. Winthrop, Hist. of New England ed. J. Savage, ii. pp. 91-2; T. Hutchinson, Hist. of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay ed. L.S. Mayo, i. pp. 100-1. His impeccable godly credentials were acknowledged early in 1643 with his addition to the Committee for Plundered Ministers*.70CJ ii. 920a. It was probably with great satisfaction that he testified against Laud at the archbishop’s trial in March 1644, accusing the archbishop of denying the York’s municipal leaders a fair hearing at the council board in their quarrel with the dean and chapter during the 1630s. He also alleged that Laud had declared the clergy ‘fitter for government’ than the aldermen.71CJ iii. 422a; LJ vi. 378b; HMC Lords, n.s. xi. 400. As a member of the 1644 Commons committee and the 1645 committee of both Houses to oversee Westminster Abbey and school, he was part of a circle of zealously godly Parliament-men that included leading Presbyterians in both Houses.72WAM, 9362; 9398; 9763; 9856; 16477; 22974; 42201; 42209; 42693; 42704; 42723; 42828. But though he was described as a ‘deep Presbyterian’, there is little in Hoyle’s parliamentary career to suggest that he favoured the kind of clericalist church settlement demanded by the Scots and their ‘Covenant-engaged’ allies in England.73Autobiog. of Mrs Alice Thornton ed. C. Jackson (Surtees. Soc. lxii), 210. Rather, he seems to have identified with the more Erastian position of the Presbyterian divine Stephen Marshall and his ‘orthodox’ Independent colleague Joseph Caryl.74CJ v. 667a; WAM, 9362.

Hoyle’s parliamentary assignments and activities during the period 1642-4 suggest that he was firmly aligned with the war party at Westminster. With most of northern England under royalist control by the end of 1642, he figured prominently in Parliament’s efforts to secure a military bridgehead in the region. He was appointed with the godly Commons-men Sir William Strickland and Henry Darley on 14 December to nominate commissioners for the maintenance of Parliament’s northern army under the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*); and two days later (16 Dec.), he was included on a committee for raising men and money for the ‘northern occasions’.75CJ ii. 888a, 891b. This committee probably formed the nucleus of the Northern Committee* – the Commons’ first standing committee for northern affairs.76Supra, ‘Northern Committee’. The supply and maintenance of Lord Fairfax’s forces seems to have remained a priority for Hoyle during 1643.77CJ iii. 56b, 76a, 257b, 333a.

As the tide of war began to turn against Parliament in mid-1643, Hoyle was named to two committees set up in an attempt to tap the City’s vast reservoir of manpower and other military resources.78CJ iii. 165b, 176a. Both of these committees were dominated by Commons militants, but the second was among the most partisan of any created during the civil-war era. Established on 20 July in response to a petition from a group of City militants, the committee for the ‘general rising’ was assigned the task of mobilizing and maintaining an army of citizen volunteers to supplement – or, as some London militants preferred, supplant – Essex and his dwindling forces. In flagrant violation of the Commons’ privileges, the petitioners had presumed to name the committee’s membership, and the result was a body made up almost exclusively of the ‘fiery spirits’, including (besides Hoyle) Marten, Isaac Penington, Alexander Rigby I and William Strode I.79CJ iii. 176a, 177a; Harl. 165, ff. 128r-v; Add. 18778, ff. 6r-v; To the Right Honourable the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses in Parliament Assembled (1643, 669 f.8.15); Certaine Informations, 28 (24-31 July 1643), 221 (E.62.16); K. Lindley, Popular Politics and Religion in Civil War London, 314-16. The man the committee lighted upon to command this new force was Sir William Waller – Essex’s military rival.

In the event, the idea of a general rising proved unworkable and the scheme quickly collapsed. Nevertheless, Hoyle seems to have remained committed to the idea of reducing Parliament’s reliance on Essex and his army, for in September 1643 and April 1644 he contributed £100 and £50 towards the supply of Waller’s forces.80CJ iii. 241a, 464a. In November, he sided with leading members of the war party in the Commons in urging that Essex’s turncoat cousin, Henry Rich†, earl of Holland, be committed to the Tower.81CJ iii. 308a-b; Add. 18778, f. 88v. And on 26 February 1644 he was named to a committee set up in response to a City petition for ‘the reformation of the lord general’s army’.82CJ iii. 408b; Add. 18779, f. 73. According to the parliamentary diarist Sir Simonds D’Ewes, this committee was dominated by ‘violent spirits’ and enemies of Essex’s army, ‘for now it was to be reduced to little above half the number it had formerly been, and many officers were to be discharged’.83Harl. 166, f. 18. It is likely that Hoyle also favoured the war-party – and implicitly anti-Essex – policy of channeling military resources to the Scottish army that entered England early in 1644 to secure northern England for Parliament. Thus he was named to committees on 26 February and 22 August 1644 for levying assessments on the northern counties for the maintenance of the Scottish forces.84CJ iii. 408a, 602b; Harl. 166, f. 18. Similarly, as a resident of Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, by 1644 he seems to have taken an interest in measures for the defence and internal security of the capital during the mid-1640s.85CJ iii. 165b, 177a, 192b, 200a; WCA, SMW/E/2/158, 161; Mems. St Margaret’s Church Westminster ed. Burke, 188.

Hoyle evidently appreciated that the war effort demanded the more efficient exploitation of parliamentary revenues and the promotion of trade. Early in February 1643, he was added to committees for exacting contributions from MPs and for sequestering the estates of delinquents, which was given wider powers of sequestration on the day of Hoyle’s addition; and on 28 August, he was made a committeeman for sequestering the estates of Members who neglected the service of the House.86CJ ii. 951b, 957b, 220a. Added to the Committee for Compounding* in December, he would also be named to the bicameral commission for compounding set up in February 1647, attending its meetings on a regular basis.87CJ iii. 351a; v. 78a; SP23/4, ff. 27v, 216; SP23/5, ff. 17v, 24v.

The Commons turned to Hoyle frequently during 1643-4 on matters concerning domestic and maritime commerce, and particularly when it came to improving the yield from customs duties – an issue that he would have been all too familiar with as a prominent York merchant. In mid-January, he was added to a committee chaired by Sir Henry Vane I ‘for the cloths of the kingdom’ – otherwise known as the ‘the committee for trade’. In April, he was made chairman of a committee for collecting the money due upon the accounts of the old customs commissioners. He was also employed in negotiations with the new customers for advancing money for the supply of the navy.88CJ ii. 919b, 923b, 928b; iii. 16b, 29b, 44a, 79a, 90a, 109b, 159b, 166b, 186a, 196b, 208b, 214b, 222a, 239b, 243b, 335a, 356a, 379a, 390a, 465b, 501a. When Vane I was absent from the House in mid-September, it appointed Hoyle to replace him as chairman of ‘the committee for the navy’ – that is, for treating with the customs commissioners as to ‘how the present necessities of the navy may be supplied and the occasions of the navy upheld for the future’.89CJ iii. 254a. In October 1645, he was added to the Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports*.90CJ iv. 297a.

In addition to his work with the customers, Hoyle was involved in the collection of another major source of parliamentary income – the excise. He was named to committees on in November 1643 and March 1644 for auditing the excise and to the standing committee set up in November 1645 for regulating the tax.91CJ iii. 310a, 442a. On 1 January 1644, he supported Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Denis Bond (both war-party men) in demanding the extension of the excise to poultry – a proposal opposed by more peace-minded MPs such as Sir Simonds D’Ewes.92Harl. 165, f. 267. Hoyle’s mercantile know-how may also have been utilized by the Committee for Irish Affairs* – of which he was an active member – the body primarily responsible for shipping supplies to the British forces in Ireland.93CJ iii. 173a, 574a; SP16/539/127, ff. 14v, 18v, 32, 35; SP28/350/3, unfol.

Hoyle’s expertise in financial administration was acknowledged in November 1643 with his addition to what would quickly emerge as one of Parliament’s most powerful executive bodies, the newly-established Committee for the Revenue* (he had also been a member of its precursor, set up in April, ‘to consider how the king’s revenue may be received and improved to the advantage of the kingdom’).94Supra, ‘Committee for the Revenue’; CJ iii. 307b; SP28/269, f. 98. Chaired by Vane I, this committee had been established to receive the fees normally paid into the exchequer and was dominated by Parliament-men who advocated the vigorous prosecution of the war – Hoyle being no exception. He signed numerous warrants from the committee – usually in a group that included Vane, Bond, Cornelius Holland, Francis Rous and William Ashhurst – and was apparently one of its more diligent members.95Supra, ‘Committee for the Revenue’. It was almost certainly through his membership of this committee that he was granted, in August 1644, the exchequer office of king’s treasurer’s remembrancer – a position worth between £1,000 and £1,200 a year.96CJ iii. 577a, 578a, 580b; LJ vi. 658a; Add. 27990, f. 39; A List of the Names of the Members of the House of Commons...with Such Summes of Money, Offices and Lands as They have Given Themselves (1648, 669 f.12.103); Aylmer, King’s Servants, 222. Denzil Holles*, Clement Walker* and Marchamont Nedham would all allege that he had landed this lucrative employment for his services to the ‘engaged party’ – that is, the war party.97Holles Mems. (1699), 134; [C. Walker], Hist. of Independency (1648), 142 (E.463.19); Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 23 (29 Aug.-5 Sept. 1648), sig. Ff (E.462.8). And certainly the office was to acquire a degree of political significance with the revival in 1645-6 of business in the exchequer of receipt and concerted efforts by the Independent grandees to tighten their grip on Parliament’s financial executive.98Supra, ‘Committee for the Revenue’. Hoyle’s work as remembrancer included ‘making and writing commissions...for the inquiring and seizure of recusants’ goods and two parts of their lands’.99E407/8/167; SC6/CHASI/1665, m. 20d.

But before Hoyle had had much time to take stock of his new office and its attendant duties, political as well as financial, he was caught up in the events surrounding Parliament’s victory at Marston Moor in July 1644. On 19 August, the House was presented with a petition from a group of godly York citizens, requesting (among other things) that Hoyle be appointed mayor in place of the royalist incumbent.100CJ iii. 597a. An ordinance was quickly passed to this effect and was carried to York by Hoyle and was ‘cheerfully and readily submitted’ to by the corporation on 20 September.101CJ iii. 613, 617a; YCA, York House Bk. 36, f. 106. Soon afterwards, possibly at Hoyle’s prompting, the corporation ordered all municipal office-holders and the ‘best’ citizens to take the Solemn League and Covenant.102YCA, York House Bk. 36, f. 110. Although Hoyle had been a firm defender of municipal autonomy before the civil war, his first loyalty by 1644 was to the national parliamentary cause, and in December he joined Lord Fairfax and the committee for Yorkshire in petitioning Parliament for the removal and disfranchisement of several ‘disaffected’ York aldermen.103LJ vii. 120a; YCA, York House Bk. 36, f. 118.

Hoyle’s term as mayor of York ended in January 1645, but there is no evidence that he resumed his parliamentary seat before the end of May.104CJ iv. 153b. He was therefore probably absent from the House during the debates over the Self-Denying Ordinance and the establishment of the New Model army. Following his return to Westminster, he was apparently not as active in the House as he had been during the period 1642-4, receiving only 25 committee appointments between late May 1645 and 19 July 1647, when he took leave of absence. However, he attended the Committee for the Revenue regularly during this period, which, with the addition of the earls of Northumberland, Pembroke and Salisbury, Viscount Saye and Sele and Lord Howard of Escrick in March 1646, became an important powerbase for the Independent interest.105Supra, ‘Committee for the Revenue’.

A number of Hoyle’s appointments during 1645-7 point to his alignment with the Independents at Westminster. He was a leading figure in the House committee for the Northern Association* (established in June 1645) – a body open to all north country MPs, but which, in practice, was dominated by the Fairfax interest and the Independents.106CJ iv. 294a; v. 53b; vi. 421b; LJ ix. 314b. On the vexed question of church government, Hoyle also seems to have sided with the Erastian and Independent elements in the House. When London’s Covenant-engaged ministers presented a petition to the Commons in mid-November 1645, criticising its lack of Presbyterian rigour in settling church government, it was ‘very ill resented’ by the House, which appointed Hoyle and the City alderman Thomas Atkin to inform the petitioners that they should ‘not trouble themselves any more with attendance’ upon Parliament.107CJ iv. 348b; Juxon Jnl. 95. The first tellership of Hoyle’s parliamentary career is even more revealing of his political sympathies, for on 5 January 1647 he partnered the Independent grandee Sir Arthur Hesilrige in favour of the Scots handing over the king to Major-general Philip Skippon* – the commander of the New Model foot. Anxious to prevent the army gaining custody of the king, the tellers for the noes, the Presbyterian grandees Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapilton, succeeded in winning this division, and the House resolved that Charles be received by a committee of both Houses.108CJ v. 42b.

But the majority of Hoyle’s parliamentary appointments during the period 1645-7 were less partisan in character and included a series of committees for settling a godly ministry in London and the northern counties.109CJ iv. 198b, 211b, 632a, 719b. He continued to attend the House during the Presbyterian ascendency of early 1647 – although he received no mention in the Journals between 5 May and 8 July.110CJ v. 63a, 72b, 138a, 162b, 236b; SP23/4, ff. 27, 117; SP46/106, f. 125. On 19 July, he was granted leave of absence, but continued to attend the Committee for Compounding and the Committee for the Revenue during the Presbyterian counter-revolution of late July and early August.111CJ v. 249b; LJ ix. 369b; SP23/4, f. 117. Declared absent at the call of the House on 9 October 1647 and excused on 3 November, he does not appear to have resumed his seat until mid-November.112CJ v. 330a, 348b, 363b.

Hoyle was denounced late in 1647 as a member of the radical, ‘anti-monarchical’ wing of the Independent interest, and he would certainly make common cause with this group during the second half of 1648.113An Answer of a Letter from an Agitator in the City to an Agitator in the Army (1647), 7. Nevertheless, his most notable appointments during the first half of that year were his two tellerships on 26 February in favour of toning down a clause endorsing toleration in a parliamentary declaration to the Scots, vindicating the House’s proceedings. He and his fellow teller Sir William Masham – a political Independent who favoured a strong Presbyterian church settlement – lost both divisions to the more Erastian Independents Sir William Armyne, Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Miles Corbett.114CJ v. 473a; A Declaration of the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament Concerning the Papers of the Scots Commissioners (1648), 54 (E.432.1); ‘Boys Diary’, 162-3. Hoyle’s next appointment was not until 13 July, when he was a minority teller with the Independent MP Godfrey Bossevile in favour of deferring a debate on the opening of unconditional peace talks with the king.115CJ v. 635b. During a debate on 1 September concerning the appointment of commissioners to negotiate with the king at Newport, Hoyle allegedly spoke against the treaty.

Alderman Hoyle of York, being much troubled in his mind, would by all means declare his sense (or nonsense) upon this business of the treaty; for though the rest [other MPs] were [sat] down, yet he stood up presently and shaking his head with godly hypocritical palsy and turning his nose after the northern bag-pipe, at length he opened his mouth and said, Mr Speaker, truly, Mr Speaker, I cannot choose but tremble to think what may be the success of this treaty, which many gentlemen here are so willing to forward. For my part, I conceive it may be means to destroy us all, it being utterly unsafe and dangerous for us to make any peace with this king at all.

According to this same source – the royalist newsbook editor Marchamont Nedham – Hoyle’s distrust of the king was rooted in his fears for the state of his pocket rather than the safety of the kingdom

But if you would know the principal reason why Mr Alderman trembles at this treaty, you are to understand that his good masters have given him Sir Harry Fanshaw’s office in the exchequer [the king’s remembrancer], which he fears will not bring any further sums into his private exchequer if a settlement should ensue upon the treaty.116Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 23 (29 Aug.-5 Sept. 1648), sigs. Ff-Ffv (E.462.8).

In mid-September, Hoyle was identified in the House with a group of radical Independents that sought, with the army’s help, ‘to depose not only the king, but the throne it self in the succession of the royal line’.117A Letter From an Elected Member of the House of Commons to Sir John Evelyn (1648, E.463.18). At the very least, it seems, Hoyle favoured bringing the king to account for his perceived crimes, for on 10 October he presented a petition from the ‘well-affected’ of Yorkshire, demanding justice against ‘such as had polluted the land with blood [during the second civil war] – his Majesty having confessed himself and his party guilty thereof’.118CJ vi. 49a; Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 29 (10-17 Oct. 1648), sigs. Rr2, Rr2v (E.467.38); OPH xviii. 31. Hoyle reportedly ‘had a great stroke in promoting the petitions set afoot in the north for bringing the king to trial’.119Mercurius Pragmaticus (For King Charls II) no. 14 (17-24 July 1649), sig. O4 (E.565.21). Although granted leave of absence on 1 November, Hoyle seems to have remained at Westminster and on 4 December, during the protracted debate on whether the king’s answers to the Newport propositions were sufficient grounds for settlement, reportedly sided with Edmund Prideaux I, Sir Henry Vane I and II and other Independents in opposition to the question.120CJ vi. 67a; Mercurius Pragmaticus nos. 36&37 (5-12 Dec. 1648), sig. Ccc3 (E.476.2). These Members, alleged Nedham

founded their arguments wholly upon the resolutions of the army, that without complying with them there could be no hope of a settlement, and they must look some other way than toward the king for it.121Mercurius Pragmaticus nos. 36&37 (5-12 Dec. 1648), sig. Ccc3.

Although Hoyle was not among those secluded at Pride’s Purge on 6 December 1648, a report that he remained at Westminster and acted with the army’s friends that winter was apparently groundless.122[W. Prynne*], A Brief Apologie for All Non-Subscribers (1650), 12-13 (E.593.12). In fact, there is no evidence that he attended the House between 4 December 1648 and the autumn of 1649 or that he played any part in the king’s trial and execution. On 28 February 1649, the Rump ordered that no ‘advantage’ be taken against him for having failed to enter his dissent to the 5 December 1649 vote – that the king’s answers at Newport were sufficient grounds for a settlement – before 1 March.123CJ vi. 153a. Evidently, Hoyle was having difficulty in reconciling himself to the regicide and the establishment of a republic, although why this should have been the case, given that he had opposed the treaty of Newport, supported the demands for justice against the king, and backed the army in the debate of 4-5 December 1648, is not clear. He was certainly willing to serve on the West Riding bench in the aftermath of the regicide.124W. Yorks Archives (Wakefield), QS 10/2. p. 247. Nevertheless, his lateness in registering his dissent (exactly when he did so is not clear) and the fact that he does not seem to have begun attending the Rump until the autumn of 1649, suggests that he was not among the new regime’s most enthusiastic supporters. Indeed, Nedham alleged in July of that year that he had received reports that Hoyle had ‘cut his own throat – which, without doubt, proceeded from the inward distemper of his soul occasioned by the murder of the king’.125Mercurius Pragmaticus (For King Charls II) no. 14 (17-24 July 1649), sig. O4. Furthermore, the Presbyterian polemicist and secluded MP William Prynne claimed that though Hoyle took the Engagement, abjuring monarchy and the House of Lords, he did so ‘against the dictate of his conscience, as he had often professed to divers ... being (as it too apparently was manifested in him) greatly troubled in conscience about it’.126[Prynne], Brief Apologie for All Non-Subscribers, 13.

Hoyle’s first appointment in the Rump was not until 24 October 1649, when he was named to a committee to consider all former political oaths and to remove any misconceptions surrounding them.127CJ vi. 313a. In all, he was named to eight committees in the Rump, including those for the punishment and suppression of swearing and cursing, for tendering the Engagement to the people and for the propagation of the gospel in England, Ireland and Wales.128CJ 313a, 317b, 321b, 325a, 327a, 327b, 336a, 352a. His last appointment was on 29 January 1650; the next day (30 Jan.) – the first anniversary of the king’s execution – he hanged himself at his Westminster lodgings.129‘Life of Master John Shaw’ ed. Jackson, 146. He was buried on 1 February at St Margaret’s, Westminster.130Mems. St Margaret’s Church Westminster ed. Burke, 624.

The timing of Hoyle’s suicide inevitably led to rumours that he died of a guilty conscience over his acquiescence in the king’s execution.131Autobiog. of Mrs Alice Thornton ed. Jackson, 212. At York, his death was said to have been ‘much lamented by honest men, but mocked at and divers interpretations of it by enemies’.132Add. 21418, f. 312. Hoyle had certainly grown ‘excessive melancholy’ in the last months of his life, and one hostile commentator claimed that the Rump had sent the radical Independent ministers William Dell and Hugh Peters to try to rouse him from his depression.133‘Life of Master John Shaw’ ed. Jackson, 146; The Rebells Warning-Piece (1650), 4 (E.593.13). That he chose to take his life on the anniversary of the king’s death suggests that the regicide had troubled him deeply, despite the fact that he had not been a member of the trial commission and that – according to Presbyterian divine John Shaw, who knew Hoyle well – he had been out of London when the king had gone to the block.134‘Life of Master John Shaw’ ed. Jackson, 146. But doubtless even more distressing for him had been the untimely demise of all but one of his 15 children.135J. Birchall, The Non-Pareil (1644), 14, 18, 23, 31. The death, childless, in August 1648 of his only surviving daughter, Elizabeth, the wife of Alderman Thomas Dickinson* of York, must have been particularly painful for him.136St Martin-cum-Gregory Par. Regs. ed. Bulmer, 73; Cross, ‘Alderman Hoyle’, 222.

At Hoyle’s inquest, the London coroner charitably declared him non compos mentis and thus his estate, instead of being forfeit to the authorities as was the case with suicides, passed to his wife.137PROB6/25, f. 23; Davies, ‘An episode in the municipal history of York’, 61. Whether she profited much from the coroner’s kindness is impossible to determine, Hoyle having died intestate. There is no record that he made any major land purchases during the 1640s besides the £450 he ventured in Ireland. He did own and lease property in York and, in 1647, sued one Nicholas Tower, a ‘grand delinquent’, for carrying off goods from his house worth £200 during the war.138HMC 6th Rep. 205. He appears to have inherited some land in Wakefield from his father, and in about 1635 he acquired a house at Colton, a few miles south of York.139Borthwick, CP.H.2123; Yorks. Genealogist, ii. 251; Marchant, Puritans, 86. In contrast to Hoyle, his only surviving son John Hoyle was an ardent republican, a notorious libertine and a frequenter of playhouses and taverns.140A. Goreau, Reconstructing Aphra: A Social Biography of Aphra Benn, 191, 192, 203; M. Duffy, The Passionate Shepherdess, Aphra Benn 1640-89, 132-9, 254-5, 286, 289. He was killed in a drunken brawl in 1692, and the whig lawyer and polemicist Whitelocke Bulstrode, in memoriam, declared him an ‘atheist, a sodomite professed, a corrupter of youth and a blasphemer of Christ’.141The Works of Aphra Benn ed. M. Summers, i. pp. xxxv-xxxvi.