BARNHAM, Sir Francis (1576-1646), of Hollingbourne, Boughton Monchelsea and Bilsington, Kent.

Despite later claims that its members had held legal office under Richard II, fought for Richard III at Bosworth, and served within the court of Henry VIII, the Barnham family remained relatively obscure until the latter part of the sixteenth century.37The Ancestor, ix. 191-2. Barnham’s grandfather, and namesake, was a London Draper who twice served as the Company’s master, and also became one of the City’s aldermen, before establishing an estate in Kent.38The Ancestor, ix. 195; Beaven, Aldermen of London, ii. 38; Arch. Cant. xli. 34. Barnham’s father apparently benefited little from such wealth, having been overlooked in favour of younger brothers, and it was through his own efforts that he established the estate in Hollingbourne, which Barnham inherited in 1610.39The Ancestor, ix. 193, 196, 197; Harl. 6019, ff. 107-18; PROB11/117/90; REQ 2/400/35. This estate would be supplemented by land inherited from an uncle in 1613.40PROB11/121/609; Newman, West Kent and the Weald, 176; SP46/64, f. 10. Barnham was also provided with a prestigious marriage, to the daughter of Sampson Lennard† and his wife, Baroness Dacre of the South, and Barnham would later act as guardian and trustee of the Lennard estates during the minority of Francis, Lord Dacre* (1624-41), alongside Sir Thomas Pelham*.41The Ancestor, ix. 203-4; Cent. Kent. Stud. U1590/T23/22. By 1614 it was estimated that Barnham’s own estate was worth £1,000 a year.42HMC Hatfield, xxii. 14.

During the early part of James I’s reign, Barnham enjoyed the patronage of William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke, and it was to him that he owed his knighthood in 1603 and his election for the Cornish seat of Grampound in 1604.43The Ancestor, ix. 205-6. Pembroke’s influence may also have secured for Barnham the command of a company of foot at Flushing before the end of the decade, even though he remained on the continent only briefly.44E351/262, unfol.; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, iv. 139; CJ i. 397b. In 1613, Barnard succeeded his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Waller†, as chief butler of England, ostensibly during the minority of (Sir) William Waller*, although Barnham retained the post until 1641.45Add. 29623, f. 53; E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/96/15; E126/2, f. 288; E112/102/1394, 1396. It is not known why Parliament subsequently confirmed Barnham as chief butler in July 1643.46LJ vi. 130.

Barnham was re-elected for Grampound in 1614, but in 1621 and 1624 he secured a seat at Maidstone, only a few miles from his house at Boughton Monchelsea; he also held property in the borough.47Hasted, Kent, iv. 297; E179/128/637. Although a personal feud with the town’s mayor prevented Barnham from sitting in 1625, he resumed his place in 1626, when he emerged as a critic of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham.48Surr. Hist. Centre, LM corr. 4/51; APC 1625-6, pp. 418, 433, 448-9; CJ i. 854a, 860a; E401/2586, p. 459. Despite this, Barnard was far from active in the House, and although he sat again in 1628, he resumed his low-key position during the first session, and may not have participated at all during the second. Nor is there much evidence that Barnham was politically disaffected during the late 1620s and 1630s. Rather, he proved to be an active justice of the peace, sewers commissioner, and deputy lieutenant, and he was particularly zealous in relation to the trained bands, and overseeing the defensive capacities of the region.49HMC Finch, i. 42; HMC Cowper, i. 212; Soc. Ant. SAL/MS/199, ff. 33-4v, 35-6v; Cent. Kent. Stud. U951/O7/18; U951/C261/28; U47/47/01, pp. 14-15; CSP Dom. 1635, p. 419; 1638-9, p. 432. When Barnham sought to excuse Lord Dacre for attending the king at York in early 1639, he may not have been signalling anything more than a desire to protect the interests of his ward.50CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 436.

By 1640, however, there are signs that Barnham had become embroiled in the fractious political and personal disputes to which the county had succumbed. He was returned unopposed at Maidstone in the Short Parliament, making no recorded contribution to the brief session that followed, but in the autumn he gained notoriety for his support for Sir Henry Vane II* against Sir Edward Dering* in the county election.51Bodl. Rawl. D.141, p. 4. Barnham also became a controversial figure in Maidstone. Shortly before the borough election Sir John Sedley complained of the ‘unmannerly affront’ he had suffered when his nomination as freeman of the town, and thus his candidacy in the election, was blocked by Barnham. Sedley alleged that Barnham had ‘seduced and persuaded’ the townsmen, and that the latter’s ‘malice’ had been manifest in ‘hourly machination’ against anyone who might stand against Vane, and in order to exact ‘revenge’ for those who had supported Dering in the Spring.52Procs. in Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 12-14. Subsequently, when it transpired that Vane did not require a seat at Maidstone, Barnham sought the place for himself. Having defeated Richard Beale*, Barnham became involved in a dispute with Sir Humphrey Tufton* over who should take the senior place, and although it is unclear whether this reflected political divisions rather than merely personal status, the matter caused ‘much strife’, and one observer noted that ‘they two gave one another the lie’, and resorted to physical violence during a row in the town’s schoolhouse.53Bodl. Rawl. D.141, p. 7.

Barnham made only a slight impression on the Commons in the early months of the Long Parliament, and those committee nominations which he received on matters other than procedure and private business, such as monopolies and complaints against the Bishop of Ely (Matthew Wren), probably reflected his parliamentary experience rather than his eagerness for reform.54CJ ii. 20b, 30a, 42a, 56a, 65b, 85b. Moreover, between February 1641 and June 1642 his name was more often recorded in relation to his absence from the House than in association with parliamentary business, although he took the Protestation (3 May 1641), and was named to committees regarding the creation of the parish of St Paul, Covent Garden (25 May), and to attend a conference with the Lords over the king’s breach of parliamentary privilege (14 Dec.).55CJ ii. 133b, 137b, 156a, 209b, 343b, 490a, 631a; Harl. 163, f. 142.

As political tensions rose in the summer of 1642, Barnham was considered an opponent of the king, and was named by the Commons to a committee to consider military stores.56CJ ii. 686b. He was also confirmed as a deputy lieutenant, took the covenant to support the Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, as Parliament’s lord general, and promised to lend £100 to the parliamentarian cause (20 Sept.), but when hostilities broke out he pleaded ill-health in order to avoid becoming involved in military preparations in the county.57CJ ii. 724a, 755b, 765b, 769a, 774b, 825b; Add. 18777, f. 5. Furthermore, while he sought to persuade his friend Sir Roger Twysden* (who described him as ‘a right honest gentleman’) to contribute to the parliamentary war effort, he admitted that he did so merely on the grounds that ‘the House of Commons would go very high against such as did not join with them’. Barnham also expressed his concern that enemies like Sir John Sedley and Sir Anthony Weldon ‘now ruled all Kent’, and Twysden considered that he had been ‘led away by the protestations, promises, and pretences’ of leading parliamentarians.58‘Sir Roger Twysden’s Narrative’, ii. 195-6, 197.

As it turned out, Barnham’s support for Parliament during the first civil war was never more than lukewarm. Although he was added to the local sequestration committee in May 1643, and took the national covenant in the following June, he was amongst those whose absence from active service in the region provoked a complaint from the county committee (24 June 1643).59CJ iii. 91a, 146a; Add. 31116, p 100; Bodl. Nalson XI, f. 198. Such complaints provoked the Commons to investigate his service in July 1643, and after Weldon reiterated his concern that Barnham appeared ‘neither in his purse nor his person’, the Commons threatened Barnham with sequestration and removal from the House (28 Sept.).60CJ iii. 162a, 185a, 256b. Barnham responded by subscribing the Solemn League and Covenant, and although complaints regarding his ‘backwardness and disaffection’ resurfaced in the following December, he professed his willingness to serve Parliament, and protested that he had paid his taxes in full, and that he was willing to contribute a further 100 marks. This, together with suspicion on the part of some MPs that the complaints against Barnham reflected the personal animosity of ‘violent spirits’, and a failure to recognise that he was ‘an infirm old man’, led the House to treat him with leniency.61CJ iii. 259a, 338a, 339a, 343a; Harl. 165, f. 240. Thereafter, Barnham was able to retain his seat until his death, without making any appreciable impact on proceedings, other than being instructed to send copies of Parliament’s ordinances into Kent.62CJ iii. 563b, 549b.

Barnham died at Boughton Monchelsea in September 1646, and a writ was ordered for the election of his replacement on 11 November.63CJ iv. 719a; C231/6, p. 68. A monument costing £95 was erected, according to his own specifications.64Notebk. and Acct. Bk. of Nicholas Stone ed. W.L. Spiers (Walpole Soc. vii), 94-5; PROB11/197/437. His heir, Robert†, who was involved with Kentish royalists in the rising of 1648, went on to represent Maidstone after the Restoration.65HP Commons, 1660-90.