ROBARTES, Richard (c.1572-1634)

Robartes’ grandfather was reputedly steward or bailiff to a Cornish gentry family, but later settled in Truro, where he made a fortune by cornering the market in the timber required for the local tin trade. By the 1560s he and his son John had branched out into moneylending, which proved even more lucrative. In 1595 John joined a consortium bidding to manage the crown’s share of the tin industry, and was able to offer security of £20,000.14 Diary of Richard Symonds ed. C.E. Long (Cam. Soc. lxxiv), 55-6; Acton, i. 64-5; C3/72/90; J. Chynoweth, Tudor Cornw. 133; CSP Dom. 1595-7, pp. 48-9. Such wealth also allowed the Robartes family to climb socially. John built a very large house on Truro’s main street, and his marriage to Philippa Gaverigan, the daughter of a minor Cornish gentleman, brought him kinship with the Boscawen and Trefusis families, important landowners in the Truro district.15 Acton, i. 65; Vivian, 47, 397, 464; C142/662/106. Robartes himself was thus moderately well connected, though his paternal grandfather’s humble origins remained a sore point, and he later fabricated a more impressive pedigree to disguise his roots.16 Vivian, 397; Chynoweth, 51.

Nothing is known of Robartes prior to his own marriage in 1598 to a Cornish heiress, Frances Hender, who brought him an estate of nearly 1,000 acres. Evidently trained up in the family business, he was operating as a usurer by 1603, and acquired an unsavoury reputation for driving hard bargains and pursuing defaulters through the courts. Over time his operations grew to such an extent that he employed an agent in London to facilitate loans outside the West Country.17 SP46/58, f. 175; C4/160/127; C2/Chas. I/M46/4; 2/Chas. I/R27/40; C142/538/106. Following the death of his father in 1614 he inherited around 3,000 acres and an impressive supply of capital – perhaps as much as £300,000 if the rumours are correct. Now a significant Cornish landowner, he was pricked as sheriff later that year. In January 1615, during his shrieval term, he acquired a grant of arms, thereby further asserting his gentry status.18 Diary of Richard Symonds, 56; C142/352/127; Grantees of Arms (Harl. Soc. lxvi), 214.

Robartes’ knighthood in November 1616 provoked considerable comment, for less than three weeks later he loaned the crown £12,000, to be repaid without interest over ten years. The two events were clearly linked, notwithstanding the government’s subsequent ingenuous statement that the money was provided merely ‘out of zeal and dutiful respect to the king’s most excellent Majesty’. George Carew^*, 1st Lord Carew certainly believed that Robartes, ‘tickled with a desire of honour’, had offered the loan to help secure his knighthood. However, not everyone thought that Robartes had made the first move. The newsletter writer John Chamberlain claimed that the money had been extorted from him: ‘there was a privy seal sent to him for £20,000, with intimation that whereas by law the king could seize on all gotten by those usurious courses, he was of his clemency content to borrow but this sum [£12,000] without interest’.19 C66/2258/7; Carew Letters ed. J. Maclean (Cam. Soc. lxxvi), 60; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 42.

Whether or not Robartes purchased his knighthood voluntarily, he was clearly happy to embrace the role of an up-and-coming country gentleman. In 1620 he bought the Lanhydrock estate for a bargain price from a man heavily indebted to him, and began to build the largest Cornish seat of this period, a grand courtyard house not finally finished until the eve of the Civil War.20 C2/Jas. I/R15/51; 2/Chas. I/T27/63; Acton, i. 65; Gill, 70, 74-5. He also restored and extended Lanhydrock church, a project probably prompted by his wife, a committed puritan who also created private oratories at Truro and Lanhydrock. Robartes himself probably did not share her convictions, for when her funeral sermon was published in 1627, the author pointedly dedicated it not to Robartes but to his son John^*.21 H. Gamon, Praise of a Godly Woman (1627), sig. A2, pp. 27-8; N. Pevsner, Cornw. (Buildings of Eng.), 90.

In early 1621 Robartes again entered into financial discussions with the government. Predictably, the crown had failed to honour the terms of the 1616 loan, and after more than four years had repaid only £2,850. As these payments were officially secured against the profits from the royal ironworks in the forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, Robartes settled on a more direct solution, and requested a seven-year lease of the ironworks so that he could access these revenues himself. In return, he offered to pay back the £2,850 that he had already received, restoring the original loan to £12,000, and effectively relieving the crown of any further responsibility for repayment. This deal was accepted in February 1621, and then adjusted two months later, when Robartes nominated agents to manage the ironworks on his behalf. However, it is unclear how successful this strategy eventually proved. His agents were sued by the crown in 1623 for breaching their terms, and they eventually surrendered the lease in late 1627.22 C66/2258/7; SO3/7, unfol. (Feb. 1621); B. Sharp, In Contempt of All Authority, 198.

The ironworks lease proposal was allegedly not Robartes’ only attempt to resolve the issue of the outstanding government debt. According to the Devon gentleman Sir William Strode^‡, Robartes offered, at around this time, to cancel the £12,000 debt and pay a further £8,000 in return for a barony. However, this approach, allegedly communicated by Strode himself, was rejected by the royal favourite, George Villiers^*, 1st duke of Buckingham, who insisted ‘that it could not be done’. Strode’s story should be treated with caution, as it was revealed only in 1626, when an attempt was made to counter the claim that Buckingham had forced Robartes to buy a peerage. Moreover, in late 1622 Ludovic Stuart^*, earl (later duke) of Richmond, actually tried to sell Robartes a barony that had been given to him by James I, but was turned down. Nevertheless, Robartes did purchase a baronetcy in mid 1621, which confirms that he remained interested in securing further honours.23 SP16/67/40.I; Procs. 1626, iii. 182, 185; M. Prestwich, Cranfield, 413.

In March 1623 Robartes married his daughter Jane to Charles Lambart^‡, 2nd Lord Lambart, an impoverished Irish peer. The match was Lambart’s idea, and the infatuated youth tied the knot before a formal marriage settlement was agreed. His family had demanded a dowry of £7,000, but Robartes paid them only £2,000, which sum had been left to Jane by her grandfather for this purpose. Although Lambart initially accepted this arrangement in return for board and lodging at Lanhydrock, his outraged mother sued Robartes in 1624 for the remaining £5,000, the opening salvo in a protracted legal battle.24 C2/Chas. I/R40/40; 2/Chas. I/L6/64.

The Lambart marriage served to highlight an anomaly in Robartes’ local standing, for while Lord Lambart was swiftly appointed to the Cornish bench, his father-in-law never became a magistrate, despite his wealth and titles. Given that Robartes accepted other lesser offices, it must be presumed that this standard mark of elite status was deliberately withheld, either because he continued to lend money at interest, or out of sheer snobbery over his rapid advancement.25 C231/4, f. 158.

Whatever his personal reputation may have been, Robartes’ steady rise was due entirely to his enormous wealth, which the government continued to find attractive. In January 1625 he finally purchased a peerage, becoming Baron Robartes of Truro. At around the same time John Chamberlain heard that Robartes’ son John would marry a certain Mistress Hill, one of Buckingham’s relatives. However, in the event nothing came of this, and not until 1626 did the peerage grant attract comment.26 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 595.

With a seat in the House of Lords now beckoning, Robartes finally began to exercise political muscle in Cornwall. In the elections to the 1625 Parliament, he secured one seat at Truro for his other son-in-law, William Rous^‡, and conceivably also backed the return of the courtier Sir Francis Cottington^† (later 1st Lord Cottington) at Bossiney, where he enjoyed influence through his wife.27 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 50-1, 81. Robartes was present at all three of the Parliament’s initial prorogation meetings, and then attended the Lords for just under half of the Westminster sitting. Despite witnessing all the opening formalities, he did not officially take his seat until 22 June, when he was supported by William Paget^*, 5th Lord Paget and Francis Russell^*, 2nd Lord Russell (later 4th earl of Bedford). He took the oath of allegiance later that day, and was appointed on 23 June to the prestigious committee for privileges.28 Procs. 1625, pp. 39-40, 45. However, he was excused attendance four days later, and did not reappear in the House until 5 July. No explanation was recorded, and the timing is curious, for on the same day that he was granted leave (27 June) Lord Lambart was arrested in London at the suit of several creditors. Robartes demanded his release, claiming that his son-in-law was one of his personal attendants and therefore enjoyed parliamentary privilege. However, on 1 July, after receiving petitions from both Lambart and the sheriffs of London, the committee for privileges ruled that Lambart was not entitled to protection. Their reasoning was not recorded, but the decision was a major snub to Robartes.29 Ibid. 60, 71, 81; HMC 3rd Rep. 28. He was again allowed leave of absence on 6 July, but was back in the House on 9 July, when he was added to a committee to consider the petition requesting the release of the Fleet prison’s inmates on account of the current plague epidemic.30 Procs. 1625, pp. 98, 112. He attended the whole of the Oxford sitting, where he was nominated to bill committees relating to the suppression of recusancy and the regulation of fishing off the North American coast.31 Ibid. 174, 179.

Following the summons of the 1626 Parliament, Robartes arranged for the return of Lord Lambart at Bossiney, and William Rous’s uncle, Francis Rous^‡ at Truro.32 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 50, 81. However, Robartes himself stayed away from the Lords without explanation, awarding his proxy first to Buckingham, and subsequently to the duke’s ally, Edward Sackville^*, 4th earl of Dorset, presumably following the vote on 25 Feb. to limit the number of proxies held by an individual peer.33 Procs. 1626, i. 49; iv. 12. Robartes is erroneously listed as present on 23 Feb. in LJ, iii. 505b; the ms LJ does not concur: Procs. 1626, iv. 17. Shortly after the Parliament opened, judgement was finally reached in the Chancery lawsuit that had been brought by Lambart’s mother over the disputed dowry. Robartes was ordered to stump up a further £2,000. However, he ignored the May deadline for the payment of the first instalment, and subsequently argued that he could not be held in contempt of court because he was then protected by parliamentary privilege. This claim was not tested in the Lords, and the tactic apparently worked.34 C2/Chas. I/R40/40; 2/Chas. I/R53/35.

Whether Robartes was actively expecting trouble during the Parliament is unclear, but in the event he was well advised to keep his distance. On 22 Mar. one of the Cornish shire knights, William Coryton^‡, informed the committee preparing impeachment charges against Buckingham that the duke had forced Robartes to purchase his peerage, albeit at the normal going rate of £10,000. Coryton’s account was surprisingly detailed. The subsequent committee report stated that Robartes had initially been approached by Fulke Greville^*, 1st Lord Brooke; that two payments of £3,000 had been made, to Buckingham’s agent, Mr ‘Grimes’ [Richard Graham^‡], and to his steward, Thomas Fotherley^‡; and that the balance of £4,000 had been suspended in case the proposed marriage between John Robartes and the duke’s kinswoman went ahead. Only when that plan fell through was the final payment made, again to Fotherley, on 13 Feb. 1626. The precision of this information, and the clear involvement of Buckingham’s servants, convinced the Commons that the duke had indeed engaged in the sale of honours, and Robartes’ case was duly approved on 24 Apr. as one of the articles of impeachment.35 Procs. 1626, ii. 345, 359-60; iii. 54.

Thus far most of the focus had been on Buckingham’s actions, but on 6 May the spotlight fell on Robartes himself. With the impeachment hearing now imminent, the Devon lawyer John Glanville^‡ moved for Robartes to be cleared by the Commons ‘from any imputation of buying his honour’, on the grounds that he had acted under compulsion. However, this prompted a counter-attack by Sir William Strode and one of Buckingham’s chief financial officers, Sir Robert Pye^‡, who insisted that Robartes had previously offered £20,000 for a barony, only to be turned down by the duke.36 Ibid. iii. 182, 185. When the impeachment article was delivered to the Lords on 10 May, with the additional detail that the peerage purchase had been negotiated around October 1624, there was, as Glanville had proposed, a supplementary saving clause for Robartes, though it was somewhat unfortunately phrased: ‘we … think there well may be made the same distinction between him and the great man [Buckingham] which divines make between the active and passive usurer’.37 Ibid. i. 448, 469-70; iii. 219. Nevertheless, Robartes’ position had been compromised by the evidence presented by Strode and Pye, and the duke felt able to brush the corruption charge aside. On 15 May he assured the Lords that the money had been collected in his name but employed by the crown, while on 8 June he insisted that Robartes had obtained his peerage ‘by solicitation of his own agents’, and had previously offered a larger sum.38 Ibid. i. 480, 576. The Parliament ended with the matter still unresolved.

In June 1627 Robartes was examined as part of the Star Chamber hearings into the impeachment charges. Predictably he denied negotiating his peerage with Buckingham, or making any payments to him for the duke’s own benefit. Rather, he had been assured by the king that his money ‘was to be employed in an especial service for his Majesty’. As for how the deal had been broached, he stayed silent. On balance, the Commons’ central allegation that Buckingham used duress in order to line his own pockets is unsustainable, even though the proposed Robartes-Hill marriage confirms that he was involved. Either the government initiated discussions in pursuit of funds for the forthcoming war, or Robartes realized that the time was now ripe for an offer.39 SP16/67/40.I.

Robartes actively supported the 1627 Forced Loan. Not only was he singled out by the government to help coordinate the collection in Cornwall, but he also contributed the unusually large sum of £450.40 APC, 1627-8, p. 284; E401/1913, unfol. (8 Feb. 1627). However, when this controversial policy came to be discussed in Parliament in 1628, Robartes was again absent, for despite having once more arranged the election of Lord Lambart at Bossiney, he himself obtained leave to stay at home, on the grounds that he was incapacitated with the stone.41 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 50; CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 587, 590. On 22 Mar. it was claimed that he was now coming up to London, but this report proved incorrect, and two days later his proxy was awarded, surprisingly, to one of Buckingham’s critics, William Fiennes^*, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele. Robartes also missed the 1629 parliamentary session, and this time apparently failed to appoint a proxy.42 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 26, 87.

Around this time, Robartes fell out with Lambart and refused him further maintenance. The younger man petitioned the king for relief, and in March 1629 the government ordered Robartes to make an addition to Lambart’s dowry. However, the latter, who had by this stage apparently complied with the 1626 Chancery decree requiring him to hand over another £2,000, refused to do more.43 Letter Bk. of Sir John Eliot ed. A.B. Grosart, 13; SO3/9, unfol. (Mar. 1629); C2/Chas. I/L37/71. When mediation by the lord keeper, Thomas Coventry^*, 1st Lord Coventry failed in January 1630, the king himself intervened, but to little effect.44 SP16/159/8; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 192. Robartes was actually summoned before the Privy Council in October 1631, but this was for obstructing the collection of purveyance in Cornwall, and he apparently failed to comply on this occasion too.45 PC2/41, f. 95r-v; 2/42, ff. 3v-4. Meanwhile, in April 1630 his son John had married a daughter of Robert Rich^*, 2nd earl of Warwick. Robartes sought to turn this impressive alliance to his own advantage, and by 1632 was using Warwick’s courtier brother, Henry Rich^*, 1st earl of Holland, to lobby on his behalf at Whitehall over the Lambart dispute. This strategy proved reasonably effective. Although the case was taken up in Star Chamber in 1633, judgement was still pending when Robartes’ death in April 1634 brought proceedings to a halt.46 CP, x. 713; HMC Cowper, i. 469-70; ii. 10, 27, 57-8.

Robartes left virtually all his property and belongings to his son John, now 2nd Lord Robartes. His daughter Jane, Lady Lambart, who was bequeathed just £10, furiously contested the will, insisting that it was a forgery, and demanding a bigger share of his estate, which she claimed ran to £200,000 or £300,000 and about 30 manors. Her estimate was reasonably accurate. Even John conceded that Robartes’ study had been found to contain £80,000 in gold, £2,000 ‘white money’, £40,000 in plate and jewels, and £200,000 in bills, bonds, mortgages and other debts. However, John, who enjoyed interim possession, was as adept as his father at delaying tactics. The case went through the Court of Arches, the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and the Court of Delegates, and was still unresolved in 1640. There is no evidence that Robartes’ will was ever proved.47 SP16/280/60; 16/285/98; C142/510/46; CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 273; 1640-1, pp. 207-8.