BEDINGFIELD, Sir Thomas (1593-1661), of Darsham, Suff. and Gray’s Inn, Mdx.

A second son, Thomas Bedingfield, like his father, pursued a career as a lawyer. Indeed, his prospects at the bar may explain why it was Thomas, rather than his elder brother, Philip*, who was elected in 1621 and 1626 at Dunwich, the Suffolk borough only four miles from their father’s estate at Darsham. Their father may have believed that, as a barrister, experience as an MP would be of greater benefit to Thomas. By 1626 he was also the town’s recorder, which made his election there all the more assured. Those matters which attracted his attention in his first two Parliaments were mostly those of obvious interest to a lawyer.

By the late 1630s Bedingfield was one of the most sought after chancery lawyers.25Prest, Rise of the Barristers, 63. It was to his advantage that several leading legal figures were his kinsmen. The late wife of Sir Thomas Richardson†, the chief justice of king’s bench and a former Speaker, had been one of Bedingfield’s aunts. For that reason Richardson appointed Bedingfield as one of his executors, although, when required to act in 1635, Bedingfield and the other three stepped aside to give sole control of the administration of the estate to Richardson’s son.26Vis. Suff. 1612, 166-7; PROB11/167/415; Diary of Sir Richard Hutton ed. W. R. Prest (Selden Soc. ix.), 104; Knyvett Lttrs. 87-8. Another relative was Lord Keeper Coventry (Sir Thomas Coventry†), for Bedingfield’s wife, Elizabeth Hoskins, was a niece of Coventry’s second wife. Together with Arthur Turnor†, Bedingfield was appointed to act as trustee for lands at Edgware given to Lady Coventry by her husband.27Suckling, Suff. ii. 227; Vis. Cheshire 1613, 5; Vis. Surr. 1530, 1572 and 1623, 58-9; PROB11/182/50; PROB11/231/358. His standing within the profession made him a credible possible candidate to become a serjeant-at-law in 1637.28Baker, Serjeants at Law, 376. Backing from the lord keeper helps explain why Bedingfield was soon after promoted to become one of the law officers, for in July 1638 he was appointed attorney-general to the duchy of Lancaster on the death of Sir Edward Mosley†.29Duchy of Lancaster Office-Holders ed. Somerville, 22. This revived a family link with the duchy, although the post his father had held, the stewardship of the estates in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, had been minor in comparison. On appointment, Bedingfield received the customary knighthood.30Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 206. Several months later, in November 1638, he took over as treasurer of Gray’s Inn. He held this position for three years, doing so jointly with John Whistler* during 1640.31PBG Inn, 332, 336, 340, 344; Dugdale, Origines Juridiales, 299. At this time he was living in Holborn.32Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 206; Inhabitants of London, 1638, i. 190.

Twice, in 1640 and 1642, Bedingfield came close to becoming involved in the proceedings launched by the Long Parliament against ministers of the king. In November 1640 he appeared on a list of proposed counsel submitted by the 1st earl of Strafford (Thomas Wentworth†) to the Lords, but his was one of three names not approved.33HMC 4th Rep. 30; LJ iv. 99b-100a. In March 1642 he and the recorder of London, Thomas Gardiner*, were assigned by the Lords the difficult task of defending the attorney-general, Sir Edward Herbert*, on his impeachment by the Commons for exhibiting the articles of high treason against the Five Members and Lord Kimbolton (Edward Montague†) . Exploiting the Commons’ objections to pleading a case against lawyers appearing on fees, Bedingfield and Gardiner refused to serve. He and Gardiner spent three days in the Tower for contempt towards the Lords.34LJ iv. 636b-637a, 639a-b, 640b, 642a; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 24-5; HMC 5th Rep. 11.

Between 1642 and 1645 the duchy of Lancaster was effectively inoperative and after September 1643 Bedingfield’s salary was not paid. His conduct suggests that he was happy to allow Parliament to assert its control over the duchy. He worked under the Speakers of both Houses, 1st Baron Grey of Warke (Sir William Grey†) and William Lenthall*, after they were appointed by Parliament in February 1645 to act as chancellor of the duchy and Bedingfield is likely to have welcomed their appointments as reanimating his own.35R. Somerville, Hist. of the Duchy of Lancaster (1953-70), ii. 39-42.

In 1646 and 1647, during the recurring arguments about appointments to the successive commissions of the great seal, Bedingfield again became entangled in the disputes of the Long Parliament. His name surfaced whenever attempts were made to appoint commissioners of the great seal who were not peers or MPs. The Commons, on deciding against reopening the question of whether members of either House be allowed to become commissioners, voted on 8 October 1646 to appoint Bedingfield, Sir Rowland Wandesford and John Bradshawe*. The Commons added the proviso that they could not serve as assistants to the House of Lords, thereby blocking another way in which the commission could have become associated with one of the two Houses.36CJ iv. 687b-688a; Add. 31116, p. 568; Whitelocke, Diary, 190; Harington’s Diary, 42. The Lords showed a willingness to add Bedingfield, Wandesford and Bradshawe to the list of four lawyers they had already nominated (Sir John Bramston, Sir Nathaniel Brent, Arthur Turnor and Serjeant Greene), but objected to the proviso restricting their choice of assistants. Refusing this compromise and failing to persuade the Lords to agree to an extension of the existing commission, the Commons fell back on another compromise, that the two serving Speakers (the earl of Manchester and Lenthall) temporarily act as the commissioners, before securing the Lords’ consent.37CJ iv. 691a-b, 696a, 699a-702a, 703b, 708b, 710a, 711a-b; Add. 31116, pp. 570, 572-5; Whitelocke, Diary, 190-1; LJ viii. 518b, 521b, 530a-b, 532b-533b, 541b-542a, 543b, 544b, 550b-551a, 552a-553a; PA, Main Pprs. 20 Oct. 1646, ff. 42-3; 21 Oct. 1646, ff. 47-8; 23 Oct. 1646, f. 52; A. and O.

The subsequent recommendation of the joint Lords-Commons committee created to reach a more permanent solution was that Bedingfield, Wandesford and Chaloner Chute I* should become the commissioners of the great seal. When this was raised in the Lords by Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, on 24 December 1646, Bedingfield’s appointment proved to be acceptable. However, Wandesford asked to be excused while the Lords voted to reject Chute's name.38CJ iv. 715a; v. 15a; LJ viii. 558b-559a, 611b, 613a-614a, 615a, 626b-627a; Whitelocke, Diary, 191; Add. 31116, p. 585; PA, Main Pprs. 24 Dec. 1646, f. 78. Extensions to the Speakers’ commission allowed decisions to be delayed into January 1647. The Lords moved on 5 January to restrict possession of the great seal to peers or to assistants in the Lords, going on to propose their Speaker, the earl of Manchester, as sole keeper. At the same time, the Lords proposed Bramston, Turnor and Bedingfield as the commissioners to perform the judicial functions of the lord chancellor.39CJ v. 40b, 42a; PA, Main Pprs. 4 Jan. 1647, f. 45; LJ viii. 643b, 644b, 645a-b. While the Lords pushed ahead with ordinances to effect these appointments, the Commons prepared rival legislation to constitute Bedingfield, Chute and (as an alternative to Wandesford) Bramston as commissioners of the great seal for a period of one year. On 18 January, immediately before a conference arranged to settle the dispute, the Lords provocatively voted down the ordinance appointing Bedingfield, Chute and Bramston which the Commons had sent up. As before, the way out from this deadlock was to reappoint the Speakers as the commissioners for the time being.40CJ v. 44a, 52a, 53a-54a, 55b, 60a-61a; Whitelocke, Diary, 191; Add. 31116, pp. 593-4, 596; Harington’s Diary, 46; LJ viii. 675a-677a, 682b-683a, 684a; PA, Main Pprs. 22 Jan. 1647, ff. 24, 26. After agreeing to two further brief extensions, the Commons again tried to press for the appointment of Bedingfield, Bramston and Chute in March 1647. The need to make some sort of appointment before the existing extension expired (and possibly reluctance to serve on the part of Bramston) forced the Commons to agree instead to another extension.41CJ v. 79b-80a, 100a, 101a-b, 117a-b, 118b, 119a; LJ viii. 714b-715a, ix. 43a, 44a, 90a, 92b; PA, Main Pprs. 9 Feb. 1647, f. 146; 1 Mar. 1647, f. 142; Add. 31116, pp. 605, 609; Bramston Autobiog. 89. The next three extensions to Manchester’s and Lenthall’s commission, agreed between April and June 1647, went undisputed.42CJ v. 138a-b, 139b, 155b, 197b; LJ ix. 130b, 132b, 158a, 159b, 236b; Add. 31116, pp. 614, 615; PA, Main Pprs. 4 June 1647, f. 99.

One more attempt was made to get Bedingfield, Bramston and Chute appointed as commissioners of the great seal. The departure of both Manchester and Lenthall from Westminster in late July 1647 to avoid the anti-army mobs provided a pretext for their dismissals as commissioners. On 31 July (the day after the Speakers’ disappearance), the Commons therefore voted to place the great seal in the hands of their Presbyterian replacements, Lord Willoughby of Parham and Henry Pelham*, for ten days. Three days later, moves began to get Bedingfield, Bramston and Chute appointed as their successors in this commission. Unlike previous attempts, these began in the Lords and, with the Commons immediately agreeing, they came near to success. What stopped the passage of this ordinance was news that Bramston and Chute were unwilling to serve, allegedly because of ill health but more probably because of prudence. Nothing was said of Bedingfield’s compliance but, as always, it was easier to reappoint the two Speakers (with Lord Hunsdon being substituted for Willoughby) rather than seek out other potential commissioners. In any case, the reinstatement of Manchester and Lenthall as the Speakers and as the commissioners of the great seal on their return ended the matter.43CJ v. 261b, 265a, 266a-b, 270b; LJ ix. 363b-364a, 367a, 369a-b, 370b, 381a-b; PA, Main Pprs. 3 Aug. 1647, f. 6; HMC 6th Rep. 191; A. and O. With the two Speakers being reappointed whenever their commissions lapsed, calls for Bedingfield and others to become the commissioners of the great seal ceased.

Control of the great seal was a matter of great importance and each of these attempts to appoint commissioners arose from factional positioning within and between the two Houses. Broadly speaking, Bedingfield’s candidacies had had the backing of the political Presbyterians. But did that make him one himself? In the case of some of the other candidates, such as Bramston, it was more that they stood apart from such divisions. They were being proposed as much for their credibility. In Bedingfield’s case, his name kept being put forward probably because his professional eminence was matched by his willingness to accept the position.

In the months before the king’s execution, Bedingfield briefly managed to attain judicial office. On 12 October 1648 he was one of those nominated by the Commons to become a justice of the court of common pleas.44CJ v. 598a, 609b; vi. 50b-51a, 64b, 65b, 75a-b, 77b; LJ x. 341a, 543b, 551a-b; C231/6, pp. 126-7; A. and O; Whitelocke, Diary, 222, 224; Baker, Serjeants at Law, 188, 189, 398, 441; Sainty, Judges, 76. Stepping down as attorney-general to take up this position, his official links with the duchy of Lancaster ended. It would, however, have been intended as a mark of respect towards its recently appointed chancellor, Sir Gilbert Gerard*, that he, along with the 3rd earl of Suffolk, acted as the fictitious parties in the case in which Bedingfield made his only (formal) appearance as a serjeant before the court of common pleas.45Baker, Serjeants at Law, 441; Whitelocke, Diary, 224.

Bedingfield did not remain a judge for long. He was one of those judges who, by 8 February 1649, informed Speaker Lenthall that they would refuse reappointment.46CJ vi. 134b. The epitaph Lady Bedingfield later placed over her husband’s tomb spoke of the king’s execution as ‘murder’, giving that as the reason for his resignation and for his retreat to Suffolk.47Suckling, Suff. ii. 226.

By this time Bedingfield had accumulated several estates scattered around Suffolk. On the death of his father in 1636 he had inherited the manor of Netherhall and other lands at Eye, close to the family seat at Bedingfield, as well as land further east at Yaxley and Framlingham. He may have disposed of all these during the course of his life.48PROB11/172/257. His attentions were instead, at first, directed to that part of Suffolk to the south of Ipswich. As early as 1624 he held some land at Stutton, which he leased to Thomas Clench†.49Frag. Gen. xii (1906), 126. He bought the manor of Amer Hall at Great Belstead, only three miles outside Ipswich, from Sir Henry Harte in 1636.50Norf. RO, WLS VIII/7/1-9. Twelve years later, his son, Thomas, together with John Sicklemor* (whose wife was Bedingfield’s neice and who was to be elected, with Sir Thomas, as a Suffolk MP in 1654) added to the family’s land holdings in that area by purchasing some land from a recusant, Henry Foster, in the adjacent parish of Copdock. That is likely to have been the same piece of land in that parish which was in Sir Thomas’s possession by 1659.51Norf. RO, WLS XXXII/13-14; Copinger, Manors of Suff. vi. 4, 35; CCC, 1867; PROB11/304/369. His major acquisition, however, was the manor of Darsham, which his elder brother, Philip, had inherited and which was sold by him to Sir Thomas in 1655.52Copinger, Manors of Suff. ii. 56, 58; Suckling, Suff. ii. 222. This then became Bedingfield’s main Suffolk residence. One other purchase he is known to have made during these years was outside of the county, being some marshland on the Yare estuary, just over the border in Norfolk, which he bought from Sir William Paston.53PROB11/304/369. It is suggestive of the degree to which his retreat to Suffolk was intended as a permanent move that his 1659 will makes no mention of any London properties.54PROB11/304/369.

As someone who had conspicuously refused to serve the new republic in 1649, Bedingfield’s election to Parliament in July 1654 is likely to have been intended by the Suffolk electorate as a signal of dissatisfaction. The margin of his success was comfortable: he gained 1,098 votes to his name and third place in a field of 18 candidates standing for ten seats.55Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v. His elder brother, Philip Bedingfield, was elected for Norfolk. No record survives of anything Bedingfield may have done in this Parliament. At the following parliamentary election in August 1656 it was his son, Thomas, rather than Sir Thomas, who put himself forward. The son, standing in his only election, failed narrowly to gain a seat.56Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v. The family’s electoral interests met with greater success once Dunwich had its parliamentary seats restored to it in 1659. Sir Thomas’s nephew, Henry†, secured election there in 1660.

There was the possibility that the Restoration would enable Sir Thomas to resume his legal career but it may be that he felt it was now too late. In June 1660 he was one of those called to become a serjeant-at-law (the 1648 call being considered invalid) but his creation did not go forward.57Baker, Serjeants at Law, 192, 404. He died at Darsham Hall on 24 March 1661 and was buried in the local church three days later.58Suckling, Suff. ii. 226; The Gen. ii. (1878), 29. His widow (who lived on until 1699) erected a monument ‘for the preservation of the memory of this worthy, pious, learned and good man’.59Suckling, Suff. ii. 226-7; Le Neve, Mon. Angl. ii. 79-80; Pevsner, Suff. 184. His only son having predeceased him, his principal heir was his grandson, Thomas. Under the terms of his will, a trust was created to manage his estates until the young Thomas came of age.60PROB11/304/369. Neither of Sir Thomas’s grandsons survived and most of his lands eventually passed, via one of the granddaughters, to the Rous family.61Copinger, Manors of Suff. ii. 57. One of the sons-in-law, Sir Neville Catelyn†, sat for Norfolk and later Norwich between 1679 and 1690. Bedingfield’s nephew, Henry, who had sat for Dunwich in 1660, later sat for Aldeburgh under James II. Another nephew, Sir Robert†, was MP for the Yorkshire constituency of Hedon as late as 1701.