ARUNDELL, Thomas (c.1560-1639)

The Arundells of Wardour were an offshoot of a leading Cornish family, the Arundells of Lanherne, major West Country landowners since the late eleventh century. The Wardour branch was established by Arundell’s grandfather, Sir Thomas, who married a granddaughter of Thomas Howard^†, 3rd duke of Norfolk. On that basis they could claim kinship with Elizabeth I. Another notable ancestor was Elizabeth Woodville, consort to Edward IV, through whom they were also distantly related to the powerful Cecil family.15 Vivian, 2, 4, 7; B. Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, 249; HMC Hatfield, xiv. 13. Such a pedigree would have guaranteed the Arundells’ advancement in Elizabethan England but for the fact that they were staunch Catholics. Indeed, Arundell’s uncle, Sir Charles, was implicated in the 1583 Throckmorton Plot and died in exile, an episode which left the whole family under a permanent cloud of suspicion.16 M.C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern Eng., 87-8; W. Camden, Hist. of … Princess Elizabeth, late Queen of Eng. (1688), 294; Vivian, 7. Publicly, both of Arundell’s parents conformed to the Church of England. His mother was a long-serving lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth, while his father, Sir Matthew, became a mainstay of local government in Dorset. Nevertheless, the latter faced intermittent accusations of covert Catholicism, and Arundell himself struggled throughout his life to balance the demands of his faith with loyalty to the state.17 Eliz. New Year’s Gift Exchanges ed. J.A. Lawson (Recs. of Soc. and Econ. Hist. n.s. li), 61, 343; A. Hughes, List of Sheriffs (PRO L. and I. ix), 39; E163/14/8; APC, 1589-90, p. 290; HMC Hatfield, iii. 433.

Heroic exploits and early disgrace, c.1583-1603

Arundell attended neither university nor an inn of court, but rounded off his education with foreign travel in 1582-3, visiting Paris, Geneva, Milan and Venice. Although on friendly terms with the queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham^‡, whom he notified of his movements, he was persuaded while in France to offer his services secretly to Mary, queen of Scots. Inevitably, Walsingham found out, and on his return Arundell was banned from court for over a year.18 CSP For. 1581-2, p. 645; 1583, p. 189; HMC Hatfield, xviii. 377. In 1585 he allied himself in marriage with two other important Catholic families, his wife being a daughter of the 2nd earl of Southampton (Henry Wriothesley^†), and granddaughter of Anthony Browne^†, 1st Viscount Montagu.19 Geneal. Colls. 233. For the next few years he took up residence with his brother-in-law Henry Wriothesley^*, the infant 3rd (later 1st) earl of Southampton, and entered into a ‘studious, solitary life’.20 CSP Dom. 1581-90, p. 500; HMC Hatfield, iii. 365, 433; v. 88; Hatfield House, CP 36/45.

That pattern changed abruptly in 1595, when Arundell travelled to Hungary to fight the Turks, an adventure apparently prompted by his father, Sir Matthew, who hoped that military service would help to equip him for public life. Arundell embraced this opportunity with enthusiasm. Armed with letters of introduction from the queen, procured by his kinsman Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury), he was soon acting as an unofficial English envoy, and attempting to promote his country’s image and interests.21 HMC Hatfield, v. 480; Camden, 526; List and Analysis of SP For. 1595, pp. 248-9. He proved no less forward on the battlefield, capturing a Turkish standard at the siege of Gran that autumn. As a reward, Emperor Rudolf II created him in December a count of the Holy Roman Empire, an almost unprecedented honour for an Englishman.22 Collins, Peerage, vii. 45; Camden, 526-7.

Arundell arrived home again in February 1596. Shipwrecked off the English coast, he was then denied the hero’s welcome that he was expecting. The queen, furious that he had accepted a foreign peerage without consulting her, imprisoned him in the Fleet, and demanded that he renounce his title. Elizabeth had domestic opinion on her side; an imperial count potentially took precedence over an English earl, and the peerage of England closed ranks against this upstart, who had left the country as a mere commoner.23 HMC Hatfield, vi. 43, 49, 129-30, 145; Camden, 527. A deeply shocked Arundell initially promised to comply, but gradually recovered his nerve, obtaining precedents from Garter king of arms in August 1596. Although he hinted that he would make a formal renunciation two years later, there is no evidence that he ever did. In popular parlance, he remained ‘Count Arundell’, even after acquiring a conventional English peerage.24 HMC Hatfield, vi. 78-9, 105-6, 240, 301-2, 358-9; vii. 194-5; viii. 418; CSP Dom. 1595-7, pp. 193-4; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 209.

While the queen lived, Arundell remained, in his own words, ‘a disgraced, retired prisoner’. Once more banished from court, he was also estranged from his father, who fearfully distanced himself from the scandal, and sought to disinherit him.25 HMC Hatfield, vi. 297, 549; vii. 36; xii. 409-10. In early 1597 he proposed to mount a privateering expedition, to demonstrate his loyalty to Elizabeth, but in April that year he was again arrested, this time on suspicion of treasonable foreign correspondence.26 Ibid. vi. 548-9; vii. 74, 92, 167, 194-5, 228; xiv. 13; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 273-4. Though cleared of that charge, it was apparent that he had been sheltering Catholic priests, and he was placed under virtual house arrest in the country, supervised by his father. In January 1598 he revived the privateering scheme, insisting that his studies in ‘the art of navigation and the mathematics’ made him well-qualified to undertake it. However, by November he was once again under arrest, this time for secret dealings with a Spanish agent.27 HMC Hatfield, vii. 229-30, 266-7; viii. 31-2; Chamberlain Letters, i. 52. Released in time to attend his father’s deathbed in the following month, he inherited a heavily encumbered estate. Although now possessed of around two dozen manors in Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset, he was barred from taking Sir Matthew’s place in local government. Evidently frustrated by this enforced retirement, he did at least achieve a measure of circumspection during the final years of the reign, watching his company, and endeavouring to ingratiate himself with his kinsman Cecil. Nevertheless, he once again found himself in trouble in the closing weeks of Elizabeth’s life, when he seems to have been confined briefly following reports that he was stockpiling armour.28 HMC Hatfield, viii. 508-9, 518-19; ix. 176, 337; x. 283; xii. 243-4, 409-10; Chamberlain Letters, i. 64; C142/257/79; SP14/45/86; Queen Elizabeth and Her Times ed. T. Wright, ii. 494.

An undiplomatic peer, 1603-6

In March 1603 Arundell moved quickly to proclaim James I in Dorset. He soon had reason to believe that a return to favour was imminent, for in July he heard from his newly rehabilitated brother-in-law, Southampton, that Cecil was considering arranging for him to purchase a peerage. Arundell immediately wrote to his erstwhile patron, explaining that he had stayed away from court for fear of seeming too eager to acquire a title: ‘it may be I stand upon too nice points of reputation, but yet I assure your lordship that the report of such kind of traffic was never more bruited (and I doubt never more sought for) than at this present’. Having expressed gushing thanks for Cecil’s kindness, Arundell then overreached himself:

though I know that to strive for precedency hath been ever thought a womanish ambition, yet doubting lest the ghosts of the dukes of Norfolk … and of King Edward IV’s queen … might chide me for giving place to such as can hardly prove themselves gentlemen, I thought fit so far to urge their right, as … to crave either a convenient place, or no barony.

Whatever Cecil’s actual intentions may have been, discussions proceeded no further.29 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 377; Hatfield House, CP 187/93.

Back in 1601, Arundell had bought the manor and borough of Christchurch, in Hampshire.30 CPR, 1600-1 ed. S.R. Neal and C. Leighton (L. and I. Soc. cccxxxix), 235. By the time of the 1604 parliamentary elections, his authority there was sufficiently solid for him to be able to present one seat to his legal counsel, Richard Martin^‡, and possibly also to influence the other nomination. At Shaftesbury, Dorset, where he owned ‘a fair turreted house’, he probably gave his backing to a local lawyer and longstanding client, John Boden^‡.31 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 116, 148.

In March 1605, in conjunction with Southampton, Arundell funded a small expedition to the coast of Virginia, apparently in the hope of laying the foundations of a Catholic colony. In the event, the would-be settlers opted to return home, bringing with them five kidnapped natives. No further ventures of this kind were attempted, though the baron did later invest in the North West Passage Company.32 Purchas His Pilgrimes (1907), xviii. 335-57; G.P.V. Akrigg, Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampton, 159; T.K. Rabb, Enterprise and Empire, 63, 163.

Having stayed out of trouble for the first two years of James’s reign, Arundell was finally granted a barony in May 1605. His patent of creation mentioned his descent from Elizabeth Woodville and the dukes of Norfolk, diplomatically commended his faithful service to Elizabeth I, and ignored the existence of his imperial title.33 C66/1674. Within months, Arundell was designated as colonel of an English regiment being raised in Flanders by the archdukes for service against the United Provinces, and it was generally assumed that the two events were connected. Indeed, Cecil himself, recently elevated to the earldom of Salisbury, commented in August that Arundell, ‘by his late advancement to his barony carrieth the marks of his Majesty’s extraordinary favour, as may be thought to be so graced of purpose for that employment’.34 HMC Downshire, ii. 429; Winwood’s Memorials, ii. 111-12; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 394-5; Hatfield House, CP 227/81.

Arundell’s subsequent behaviour ensured that James’s favour was short-lived. Determined to sail to Flanders with two returning Spanish ambassadors, he defied the king’s order that no soldiers should travel with them, a concession made to the Dutch to guarantee safe passage for these envoys. By smuggling himself aboard ‘disguised with a false beard and raggedly clothen’, Arundell provoked a major diplomatic row between England and the United Provinces, and was promptly instructed to return home to face retribution just as soon as he had settled his regiment.35 Winwood’s Memorials, ii. 135; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 397, 411-12, 415; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, iii. 198; Chamberlain Letters, i. 209. He then contrived to make matters worse by choosing as his lieutenant Sir Griffin Markham, who had only recently been spared execution for his part in the 1603 Bye Plot against James. As his bemused kinsman, Henry Howard^*, earl of Northampton observed: ‘the Lord Arundell, … by adding one absurdity to another, hath by circles of error plunged himself into the most just indignation of the king’.36 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, iii. 217; Questier, 89. The archdukes, who initially interceded for Arundell, soon also came to regret his presence. Within months he had quarrelled with most of his captains, whom he denounced as Jesuit pawns; his soldiers mutinied over their pay and conditions; and in May 1606 the whole regiment was disbanded.37 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 488; xviii. 31, 99, 152, 183, 376. Fortunately for Arundell, the king’s anger had now abated, leaving him free to return home. Mindful of his experiences a decade earlier, he turned down a £1,000 pension offered by the archdukes as compensation, arguing that he could not accept it without James’s approval. By the autumn, he was back in England.38 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 57; HMC Hatfield, xviii. 200, 218, 232; HMC Downshire, ii. 12.

Financial difficulties, 1606-21

In consequence of his posting to the Low Countries, Arundell missed the entire 1605-6 session of Parliament, to which he did not even appoint a proxy. He finally took his seat in the Lords on 18 Nov. 1606, the opening day of the next session. From the outset he attended irregularly, his absences becoming more pronounced over time. Though never formally excused, he was present for just 50 out of 106 sittings in 1606-7, and withdrew altogether during the session’s final four weeks, no doubt on account of his wife’s death in late June, which left him distraught. Despite this poor performance, he attracted nine appointments, of which all but one were to bill committees, the issues ranging from the levying of fines in the Westminster courts, and the estates of the London livery companies, to a puritan attempt to prevent Convocation from introducing new canons without parliamentary approval. Nominated in November 1606 to a conference with the Commons about the proposed Union, he was also named in June 1607 to the committee for the bill to abolish hostile laws, but his withdrawal from the Lords at this point precluded any involvement in the latter’s discussions.39 LJ, ii. 452b-3a, 479a, 503a, 520b; HMC Hatfield, xix. 172.

In truth, Arundell’s priorities lay elsewhere. Aside from the loss of his wife, he was now heavily in debt and regretting his rejection of the archduke’s pension. In early April 1607, he submitted two petitions to the king. One, which made no progress, requested a grant in reversion of a licence to export beer. In the other, Arundell proposed to search for concealed rents, money which rightfully belonged to the crown, but which had been misappropriated by other interested parties. As a reward for identifying and recovering these old debts, he would then be granted the properties concerned, up to an annual value of 1,000 marks, with a share of the overdue rents. James was initially lukewarm about this scheme, but after due consultation gave his approval several months later. By May 1608, the baron was buying up former chantry lands as part of this project.40 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 377; xix. 93, 153; SP14/28/13; Hatfield House, CP 194/43; Petitions 206; C54/1944/37. No patent has been found. A grant date of 29 Nov. 1606, given in CJ, i. 413a, is clearly inaccurate. Arundell remarried in July that year, this time taking as his wife a Catholic gentlewoman from Westmorland. The ‘baruncino di Arondon’ (‘little Lord Arundell’) who visited Venice in early 1609 was most likely his eldest son Thomas^†, who had married a daughter of Edward Somerset^*, 4th earl of Worcester, and certainly travelled there with one of his brothers-in-law in 1612.41 CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 266; M.F.S. Hervey, Life, Corresp. and Colls. of Thos. Howard, Earl of Arundel, 52; Geneal. Colls. 234; Carleton to Chamberlain ed. M. Lee, 126. Arundell himself was in London in late May 1609, ill, and still worried about money. In the following September, informing Salisbury that he had lost more than £18,000 in the king’s service, he applied unsuccessfully for the vacant captaincies of Portsmouth, Hampshire, and Brill in the Low Countries.42 SP14/45/86; 14/48/17.

When Parliament resumed in February 1610, Arundell attended quite regularly for the first three months, but his performance then tailed off dramatically. Briefly excused due to illness at the start of May, his absences thereafter became more frequent, and he missed the final six weeks of the session, apart from 12 July, when he took the oath of allegiance, one of the last peers to do so (his Catholic faith having perhaps inclined him to drag his heels.) In total, he was present for just two-fifths of the sittings.43 LJ, ii. 585a, 641b. Unsurprisingly, he was named to just four committees. Two were to consider a bill to reapply the revenues of a decayed Dorset benefice, while another concerned a measure regarding Minehead harbour, Somerset. Arundell was also nominated to a subcommittee of the whole House entrusted with the task of tackling the problem of non-resident clergy.44 Ibid. 563b, 577b, 587b, 596b. In addition, Arundell reportedly promoted a bill in the Commons relating to the estates of the late Lord Cheney (Henry Cheney^†), in order to assist one of his kinsmen. Most details of this episode are lost, and the measure failed to complete its passage.45 The Ancestor, ix. 206; CJ, i. 437a, 441a.

Arundell’s main focus during this session, however, was a bill promoted by the London companies of Salters and Brewers, which asserted their rightful ownership of certain properties purchased two years earlier by Arundell in connection with his project to recover concealed crown rents. The facts of the case are obscure, the baron himself confusing the issue by claiming both that the companies were indeed defrauding the king, and that he himself had not realized this prior to acquiring the disputed houses and lands. After protracted hearings with learned counsel on both sides, the bill was finally passed by both Houses, and became law at the end of the session.46 CJ, i. 396a, 397b, 403b, 404b, 409a, 411b, 413a, 418a, 421a; LJ, ii. 586b, 600a, 604a; Bodl. Tanner 342, f. 16; PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1609/7J1n49. By way of compensation, Arundel was awarded 20 marks p.a.in former chantry lands, in lieu of those which he had just lost, though he was unable to realize this grant until February 1612, when he was instead given fee farm rents worth £36 6s. 8d. a year.47 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 639; 1611-18, p. 39; Hatfield House, CP 129/29.

During the second parliamentary session of 1610, Arundell attended just over half of the sittings. He was named to the committee for the bill to conserve timber supplies, and was appointed to confer with the Commons about the Great Contract.48 LJ, ii. 669a, 671a.

Arundell briefly returned to the Continent in the summer of 1612, to take the waters at Spa, in the prince-bishopric of Liège. He was back in London by December that year, when he participated in Prince Henry’s funeral. In 1613 he was issued with a privy seal requiring him to lend £200 loan to the crown, but he evidently appealed, and got the sum reduced by half.49 HMC Downshire, iii. 340; Harl. 5176, f. 208; APC, 1613-14, pp. 76-7. When the 1614 Parliament was summoned, Arundell secured both seats at Christchurch, his nominees being two Catholics, Sir Thomas Norton^‡ and Henry Britton^‡.50 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 149; v. 527-8. He again attended roughly two-fifths of the sittings in the Lords. His only appointment was to the committee for another bill to conserve timber. He took his seat for the last time on 23 May; three days later his absence was excused on the grounds of illness.51 LJ, ii. 697b, 708a.

Arundell was again licensed to travel abroad in March 1617, but his intended destination was not recorded.52 SO3/6, unfol. By now he was embroiled in a protracted dispute with his kinsman William Cecil^*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, over the precise bounds of Cranborne Chase, in Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire, a saga which dragged on until at least 1623.53 HMC Hatfield, xxii. 46, 59, 76; SO3/6, unfol. (Nov. 1618); SO3/7, unfol. (15 June 1623). More seriously, he had also fallen out with his son, Thomas. Their relationship had been strained since 1606, when Thomas married without his permission, but they were now at loggerheads over the family estates. With his debt problems showing no sign of improvement, Arundell wished to sell land to pay off his creditors and provide portions for the children of his second marriage. However, the crown held the reversions to a number of his properties, which prevented him from disposing of them. This difficulty had been partially resolved in 1608, when Arundell was regranted many of his core estates along with their reversions. Nevertheless, by 1617 he was seeking to buy out the crown’s interest in some of his other properties, and Thomas became convinced that his inheritance was under threat. Accordingly, in March that year the latter secured an undertaking from James that the crown would not sell any more of the reversions, a move which effectively tied his father’s hands, and perpetuated the debt crisis.54 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 201, 446; CSP Dom. 1619-23; C66/1730.

In 1620 Arundell responded at a leisurely pace to the Privy Council’s request for a contribution towards the anti-Catholic war effort in the Palatinate. After two months, and a stern reminder, he merely explained that he planned to be in London before the forthcoming Parliament, and would discuss the matter then.55 APC, 1619-21, p. 293; SP14/117/97; 14/118/58. In fact, he was still in Wiltshire when the elections were held. He presumably backed the return at Shaftesbury of the ‘base, jesuited papist’ Thomas Sheppard^‡, who was subsequently expelled from the Commons for ridiculing a Sabbath observance bill. At Christchurch, by contrast, he nominated the strongly Protestant Sir Robert Phelips^‡, and when the latter withdrew to sit elsewhere, Arundell instead promoted one of Phelips’ friends, Nathaniel Tomkins^‡. The borough’s other seat went to his kinsman Sir George Hastings^‡, who was also a Christchurch resident.56 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 117, 149. When the Parliament met, Arundell stayed away, obtaining a formal licence of absence on 16 Feb. 1621. He awarded his proxy to his crypto-Catholic kinsman Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel.57 SO3/7, unfol. (16 Feb. 1621); LJ, iii. 4a.

Self-delusion and decline, 1622-39

As the diplomatic balance once more shifted towards Anglo-Spanish friendship, Arundell proved keen to promote the rights of his fellow English Catholics. In December 1622, he was recommended to the Spanish envoy Gondomar as a suitable candidate, should it prove possible to get openly Catholic peers appointed to the Privy Council.58 Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Politics 1621-5 ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xxxiv), 155. In the following summer, in defiance of a recent proclamation for ‘persons of quality’ to withdraw to their country seats, Arundell hung around London as the Spanish Match negotiations reached their climax, and toleration of Catholics became a serious prospect. Indeed, around this time a story circulated that he had volunteered himself as a spokesman at court for his co-religionists.59 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 43; Stuart Royal Proclamations 1603-25 ed. J.F. Larkin and P.L. Hughes, 572-4; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 535. In mid-August, the Spanish ambassadors proved unable to identify a London lawyer whom they could consult about the terms of a pardon for recusants, a highly sensitive issue, and turned to Arundell for help. Before he could respond, the king found out and prohibited him from getting involved. A mortified Arundell immediately backtracked, but two weeks later it was reported that he had been ‘committed to his house for busying himself and intermeddling too much’ in these discussions.60 CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 53, 56, 58; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 513.

Once more under a cloud, Arundell stayed away from both the 1624 and 1625 parliaments, awarding his proxy each time to his kinsman Arundel.61 LJ, iii. 205b, 214b; SO3/7, unfol. (20 Feb. 1624); Procs. 1625, pp. 45, 590; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p.541. He continued to make nominations at Christchurch, providing a seat on both occasions for Nathaniel Tomkins. In 1624 he attempted to secure the other seat for a Middle Temple lawyer, John Eltonhed, who lost out to Sir George Hastings. However, in 1625 he successfully arranged the election of Sir Thomas Wilsford^‡, son-in-law to Sir Edwin Sandys^‡, a kinsman of Arundell’s second wife.62 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 149; Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. xlii), 104-5; C54/1943/1; Vivian, 7.

In October 1625, with England now at war with Spain, the Privy Council ordered the confiscation of the arms kept by Arundell at Wardour Castle, which included around 60 suits of cavalry armour.63 APC, 1625-6, p. 229; CSP Dom. 1637, p. 392. Understandably, he opted to stay away from Charles I’s coronation, and also obtained a dispensation to miss the 1626 Parliament, ostensibly on health grounds. As usual, he gave his proxy to the earl of Arundel. He once again had Nathaniel Tomkins returned at Christchurch, but apparently moved too slowly to secure the second seat as well.64 Procs. 1626, i. 49; iv. 10; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 560; HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 149; Dorset History Centre, DC/CC, acc. 7998, unfol. (Arundell to mayor of Christchurch, 3 Feb. 1628).

In the spring of 1626, Arundell revived his proposal to buy out the crown’s reversions of his property in order to clear his debts and provide for his children. By way of an incentive, he hinted at two projects which he had devised to raise funds for the crown. Inevitably, his son Thomas resisted this move, and obtained a fresh declaration from the king that the reversions would not be granted away. The government did, however, explore the fundraising projects, concluding in September 1627 that Arundel’s proposals tended more to his own profit than that of the crown. According to the secretary of state, Sir John Coke^‡, Arundell was not behaving ‘according to the honour of his degree, but will bargain like a merchant for this his secret’.65 CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 324, 364, 466, 582; HMC Cowper, i. 320-1. Despite his pleas of poverty, Arundell was able to contribute £300 towards the Forced Loan in January 1627. The government also intervened several times during that year to prevent him from being indicted locally for recusancy, in the vain hope that he could be persuaded to conform.66 E401/1913; HMC Var. i. 96-7; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 487.

Arundell missed the whole of the third Caroline Parliament, obtaining leave of absence on 13 Mar. 1628. For the first session he handed his proxy to William Cavendish^*, 1st earl of Newcastle, for the second to Edward Sackville^*, 4th earl of Dorset. Nathaniel Tomkins once again found a seat at Christchurch, where Arundell also successfully nominated Sir Henry Croke^‡. The latter’s brother, Sir John Croke^‡, was returned at Shaftesbury, so it is probable that he too enjoyed Arundell’s backing.67 CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 115; Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 25, 87; LJ, iv. 3b, 25a.

By 1629 Arundell was attempting to resolve his debt problems by mortgaging estates or offering long leases, though in November 1632 he raised nearly £1,500 by selling property in London, including his main townhouse in Holborn.68 C54/2804/30; 2868/26-7; 2940/29; 2947/16. During the same period, he became deeply embroiled in the financial difficulties of another Catholic peer, William Eure^*, 4th Lord Eure, whose son Ralph had married one of his daughters. Some of Eure’s lands had been put into trust in 1627, to generate revenues to clear his debts, but around 1630 Arundell went to court, alleging that the money raised was being misappropriated. Having won his case, he then helped to raise £16,500 towards the settlement of Eure’s debts, on the understanding that a significantly larger quantity of land would be put into trust as security. Despite conciliar intervention, Eure again failed to honour the agreement, and as late as 1635 petitioned the king, accusing Arundell of deliberately depriving him of his estates.69 C54/2927/7; SP16/294/15; PC2/42, ff. 134-5v.

In the autumn of 1636 Arundell was himself reported to the Privy Council by the vice admiral of Hampshire, Jerome Weston^*, 2nd earl of Portland, who complained that, on the strength of a 1616 grant of the royalties of Christchurch hundred, Arundell was interfering with shipping.70 CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 146; C66/2110/15. The outcome of this case is unclear, but when Arundell himself petitioned the Council in 1637, alleging that the new portreeve of Christchurch had been improperly elected, the councillors declined to displace this official.71 CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 560-1; PC2/48, ff. 6v-7. Reportedly a ‘great friend’ of the chancellor of the Exchequer, Francis Cottington^†, 1st Lord Cottington, Arundell certainly enjoyed government protection against the customary penalties for recusancy, repeatedly being spared from prosecution in the later 1630s. However, he could no longer claim any sort of leadership within the Catholic community, having put himself out on a limb by his solid support for Richard Smith, the unpopular titular bishop of Chalcedon, whose authority in England had been repudiated by most Catholic peers in 1631.72 CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 230, 392; 1638-9, p. 222; 1639, p. 543; Newletters from the Caroline Ct. 1631-8 ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xxvi), 1-2, 6, 114.

Arundell’s final years were dominated by his debt problems. In 1637, rather than pay for the maintenance of the arms confiscated 12 years earlier, he donated them to the king. Around the same time, he offered to sell Wardour Castle to Charles, in return for a pension or office. By early 1639 he was £23,000 in debt, despite having pawned what little of his plate remained unsold, and his efforts to sell land were still being sabotaged by his son Thomas, with whom he remained at odds. His health was also giving way, as Arundell was now suffering weakness in his limbs, vertigo, ‘the strangury’, and a great pain in his back.73 CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 392, 439; 1637-8, p. 55; 1638-9, pp. 268, 475-7. Pleading illness and old age, he declined that February to attend the king in the north, instead offering to pay £500, though it seems unlikely that he could find that much money. He made his will on 5 Nov. 1639, merely discussing his burial arrangements and appointing executors, and died two days later at Wardour.74 CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 475-6; PROB 11/181, f. 492; C142/605/17. Arundell’s funeral inscription described him as both baron of Wardour and an imperial count. He was succeeded in the former title by his son Thomas.75 Geneal. Colls. 173.