SHEFFIELD, Edmund (1565-1646)

While never a major figure, Sheffield played a significant role in politics and in the administration of northern England during the first quarter of the seventeenth century. A Catholic sympathiser in his youth, his experiences on campaign in the 1580s turned him into a committed anti-Catholic thereafter. At the Jacobean court, this distanced him from his mother’s relatives, the Howards, and made him a keen advocate of the ‘patriot’ cause in the 1620s. However, the weakness of his personal finances – he usually lived beyond his means – left him dependent on some degree of royal favour. This meant that, while one of the crown’s more outspoken critics in 1621 and 1626, he could not subsist without court patronage.

Origins and early years, 1565-1603

The Sheffields made their fortune as lawyers in the fifteenth century, securing an estate in northern Lincolnshire by marriage; cattle-rearing was the most lucrative activity on their fenland estates in the Isle of Axholme, particularly after the acquisition of the bailiwick of Hatfield, Yorkshire in the 1590s.44 C142/152/82; HMC Downshire, v. 193; C3/324/21. Sir Robert Sheffield^‡ served as recorder of London under Henry VII, and Speaker of the Commons in 1510 and 1512. His grandson, Edmund Sheffield^†, a soldier, was ennobled at the start of Edward VI’s reign, but was killed fighting Kett’s rebels in 1549. John Sheffield^†, 2nd Lord Sheffield died suddenly in December 1568, having allegedly been poisoned by his wife’s lover, Robert Dudley^†, earl of Leicester. However, there was never any suggestion that Sheffield’s heir Edmund – the subject of this biography – was illegitimate.45 CP; Mems. of the Holles Fam. ed. A.C. Wood (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. lv), 69-71; A.G. Lee, Son of Leicester, 15-33.

Following the death of her husband, the dowager Lady Sheffield contracted a form of marriage with Leicester, as a result of which Edmund was raised in Leicester’s household. However, in 1578, while Sheffield was at university in Oxford, Leicester disowned his union with the dowager lady in order to marry the widow of Walter Devereux^†, 1st earl of Essex. Shortly thereafter, Lady Sheffield married the diplomat Sir Edward Stafford^*, newly appointed ambassador to France. In her absence Sheffield, recently returned from Oxford, was boarded with his Lincolnshire neighbours, the Tyrwhitts of Kettleby. Despite being provided with a Protestant tutor, he came under the influence of Tyrwhitt’s sons (somewhat older than he), who inclined to recusancy. The tutor reported that his pupil had spurned Dean Nowell’s Protestant catechism in favour of Catholic devotional texts, attended a Catholic mass, and married Tyrwhitt’s daughter before a Catholic priest. In consequence, Sheffield and his wife were summoned to London, where they agreed to conform; his journey to France in 1582, in the entourage of the duc d’Anjou, was presumably intended to remove him from the influence of his wife’s family.46 G.M. Bell, Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives, 94-5; SP12/265/28; APC, 1580-1, pp. 71-2, 94-5, 106; L.A. Underwood, Childhood, Youth and Religious Dissent in Post-Reformation Eng. 155-8.

Sheffield’s conversion was both swift and complete: his children were raised as Protestants, and he accompanied Leicester to the Low Countries in 1585-6. His uncle, Charles Howard^*, Lord Howard of Effingham (later 1st earl of Nottingham), appointed him to command a ship during the Armada campaign, and reported ‘how earnest’ Sheffield was in religion, being ‘most vehement against papists … saying, he that was in his ship that would not be sworn against the pope, he would take him for a traitor, and so use him’.47 HMC Middleton, 553; State Pprs. Relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 66. In 1592 Sheffield received a crown grant of Mulgrave Castle, Yorkshire, long a centre of Catholicism in the North Riding, an important signal that the regime aimed to enforce conformity in the area.48 CSP Dom, 1581-90, pp. 463, 490, 534, 538; CPR, 1591-2 ed. F. Slingsby (L. and I. Soc. cclxxii), 112; VCH Yorks. N. Riding ii. 395-6; H. Aveling, Northern Catholics, 129-30.

Despite his substantial estates, Sheffield, who showed little talent for managing his finances, found himself heavily in debt early in 1598. He therefore attempted to negotiate a match between his eldest son and a daughter of Peregrine Bertie^†, 13th Lord Willoughby de Eresby. The proposed dowry of £4,000 would have cleared Sheffield’s most pressing debts, but the negotiations failed over Willoughby’s suspicion that the lands offered as a jointure were heavily encumbered; Sheffield’s heir subsequently married the daughter of another Lincolnshire neighbour, Chief Justice Sir Edmund Anderson.49 HMC Portland, ix. 58-64; Lincs. AO, Sheff/G/9; HMC Hatfield, xi. 241-2. The urgency with which Sheffield pursued these negotiations may have been prompted by his recent appointment as governor of Brill, one of two Dutch towns garrisoned by the English, which would have involved him in considerable expense, had he not swiftly relinquished the post.50 HMC Portland, ix. 64-6; HMC Hatfield, ix. 293-4; Egerton Pprs. 270-1.

In June 1599 Sheffield led a raid on Grosmont Priory, which lay near Mulgrave and was a refuge for Catholic priests newly landed from the Continent. The enterprise was planned by John Ferne^‡, the deputy secretary of the council in the North, whose wife was related to Sheffield. While the suspects escaped, Sheffield’s enthusiastic participation allowed Ferne to persuade the new lord president, Thomas Cecil^*, 2nd Lord Burghley (later 1st earl of Exeter), to recruit him to the council.51 CSP Dom. 1598-1601, pp.231-3; HMC Hatfield, ix. 241-2, 257-9; Aveling, 161, 199; M.C. Questier, ‘Practical Anti-Papistry during the reign of Elizabeth I’, JBS, xxxvi. 371-96. Thereafter, Sheffield focused his aspirations for office in the north: when Lord Willoughby died in 1601, he reminded Secretary of State Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury) that he had been promised the reversion of the latter’s posts as warden of the East March and governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed. However, the governorship of Berwick was left vacant, while the wardenship was bestowed on Sir John Carey^* (later 3rd Lord Hunsdon).52 HMC Hatfield, xi. 243; xii. 106; C.H. Hunter Blair, ‘Wardens and Deputy Wardens of the Marches’, Arch. Aeliana (4th ser. xxviii), 77. At the same time, Sheffield reinforced his Yorkshire connections by marrying one of his daughters to Philip Fairfax, lessee of the manor of Steeton, near York, albeit at a price – Sheffield became involved in a protracted dispute with the reversionary heir, Sir Thomas Fairfax^‡ of Denton, Yorkshire.53 Fairfax Corresp. ed. G.W. Johnson, i. pp. xxi-xxii; HMC Hatfield, xii. 474-5; HP Commons 1604-29, iv. 218-19.

Early years as lord president, 1603-6

In March 1603, Sheffield was one of a number of English noblemen who rode north to greet King James at Newcastle; his overture was clearly welcomed, as he was allowed permanent access to the privy chamber. Two months later, Lord President Burghley was shocked to learn that his half-brother, Secretary Cecil, had resolved to replace him as president of the North with Sheffield. Burghley’s dismay at being thrust aside was mitigated after Sheffield agreed to allow him to nominate 13 new members to the council. At the same time, however, Sheffield made several nominations of his own, including Sir Robert Swift, whose heir was married to one of his daughters, and Sir Richard Williamson^‡, a Lincolnshire lawyer who had married a niece of Chief Justice Anderson. It was presumably Sheffield rather than Burghley who recommended for membership Sir John Savile^* (later 1st Lord Savile), a man notorious for having opposed and humiliated the acting president of the council, Matthew Hutton^*, archbishop of York, at the Yorkshire election of 1597.54 HMC Hatfield, xv. 44, 128, 220, 385-7; Reid, 496-7; HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 487, 790-1.

Unlike most provincial bureaucracies, the council in the North was furnished with its own permanent secretariat and judiciary, and had some influence over policy-making. Sheffield’s earliest surviving letter to the king warned that James’s recent relaxation of the Elizabethan recusancy laws had encouraged northern Catholics to gather a petition for better treatment, ‘being encouraged by hopes they have either of the alteration or toleration of religion’. He advised James to put his trust in Protestants, ‘their religion binding them to obedience, the other [i.e. Catholics] giving liberty to disloyalty, as appeared in the late queen’s days’.55 HMC Hatfield, xv. 278-9. The council also wielded a significant amount of electoral patronage: at the general election of 1604 Sheffield circulated letters of nomination for the Yorkshire county seats in favour of Francis Clifford^* (later 4th earl of Cumberland) and Sir John Savile, commending them as ‘neither … any way affected to popery or heady courses in religion’. At the hustings, there were fears that Savile would challenge Clifford for the senior seat, but he stepped aside in accordance with the president’s wishes. Sheffield also secured borough seats for his son Sir Edmund Sheffield^‡ at Aldborough, his son-in-law Sir Edward Swift^‡ at Thirsk, and his secretary John Edmondes^‡ at Hull.56 Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. 4th ser. xii), 47-8; LPL, ms 708, f. 131; HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 467, 482, 489, 508. Further efforts by Sheffield to secure nominations at Knaresborough and Scarborough were frustrated by local interests.57 YAS, DD56/M2/21; Scarborough Recs. 1600-40 ed. M.Y. Ashcroft (NYCRO xlvii, 1993), p. 32.

Sheffield attended 60 per cent of the Lords’ sittings in 1604, and enjoyed a relatively high profile during this poorly reported session. One of those ordered to attend the conference of 26 Mar. at which the proposal to compound for wardship was discussed, he was subsequently named to attend two conferences at which the king laid out his initial plans for an Anglo-Scottish union. The first was required to scrutinize the draft Union commission, while at the second he was appointed one of the commissioners for the Union. He was also nominated to attend the conference at which MPs complained about a tract in which John Thornborough^*, bishop of Bristol, attacked them for criticizing James’s proposed change of title to ‘king of Great Britain’.58 LJ, ii. 266b, 278a, 284a, 290b, 296a, 309a. Sheffield was included among delegations which debated two of the major secular reforms discussed during the session at conferences with the Commons, these being purveyance and wardship. He was also named to the committee for the tonnage and poundage bill, and to the committee for the bill to confirm all letters patent to be granted by the crown over the next seven years.59 Ibid. 290b, 303a, 323a, 326b.

Debates over religious policy occupied a significant amount of time during the session. Sheffield was included on the committee for the recusancy bill, which reiterated and strengthened the Elizabethan anti-Catholic legislation, and the committees which drafted bills to ban the import of Catholic and other seditious books. He was also one of those instructed to confer over MPs’ plans for ecclesiastical reform.60 Ibid. 282b, 290a, 301b-2a, 314a, 324b; RICHARD BANCROFT. Although the bishops objected to the puritan reform agenda, Sheffield may not have been as hostile as them, because towards the end of the session, he was approached by the minister Thomas Bywater (his sons’ former tutor), with a draft petition for further reform. This meeting came to light in February 1605, when Bywater presented his petition to the king as part of the puritan campaign against subscription to three articles contained in the 1604 Canons. Sheffield quickly sought to distance himself from this petition, protesting that he had swiftly perceived ‘the unfittingness of that ... he [Bywater] aimed at’, and had dismissed the man with the advice that he should trust the king to deal with the question of ecclesiastical reform. James, whose own intentions had been unclear in 1604, accepted Sheffield’s explanation.61 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 35, 65, 108-9, 124.

As lord president, Sheffield handled several bills of northern interest in the 1604 session: on 30 May he was named to the committee for the bill to confirm King James’s charter for the border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. He was also named to consider bills to repair two Yorkshire harbours, Bridlington and Whitby, which were entrusted to a single committee. On 2 June he successfully moved that a fresh meeting of this committee be scheduled. He clearly attended the committee for the bill to confirm the crown’s assignment of a lease of the rectory of Godmanchester, Huntingdonshire, as on 20 June he was one of those who informed Cecil that, in view of the fact that the interested parties had now reached an agreement, the bill was to be dropped.62 LJ, ii. 281a, 286a, 309a, 311a, 314a; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 145-6. He was naturally prepared to accommodate the king’s personal interests, being named to the committee for the bill which criminalized witchcraft, and another for the naturalization of several Scottish courtiers. He also helped to negotiate a composition between one of these courtiers – Edward Bruce, Lord Kinloss [S] – and the tenants of the Yorkshire estates he had been granted.63 LJ, ii. 269a, 272a-b, 275a, 288a. However, Sheffield presumably opposed the passage of two bills intended to benefit Catholic exiles, one for the restitution in blood of Charles Paget, the other to naturalize the sons of William Copley, neither of which emerged from committee.64 Ibid. 267b, 293a. On 31 Mar. he secured a writ of habeas corpus for a servant of Robert Radcliffe^*, 5th earl of Sussex, who had been imprisoned for debt; while he was also involved in the proceedings over the claim of Edward Neville^* to the barony of Abergavenny.65 Ibid. 270b, 283a, 307a; EDWARD NEVILLE.

During the 1604 parliamentary session, Sheffield was incorrectly reported to have been appointed governor of Jersey and Guernsey, worth over £2,000 per annum. Incumbents were expected to reside in the Channel Islands for at least part of the year, which would have made it difficult for Sheffield to retain the presidency of the north; in any case, the recently appointed governor of Jersey, Sir John Peyton^‡, showed no inclination to resign.66 Hutton Corresp. ed. J. Raine (Surtees Soc. xvii), 195; HP Commons 1558-1603, iii. 217-18. Aspirations for further preferment were probably driven by Sheffield’s financial problems: returning to London in the autumn of 1604 for the meeting of the Union commission, he protested to the king that he was £10,000 in debt, and that the presidency cost him more than it yielded. In response, James offered him a pension of £1,000 per annum, which, as Sheffield retorted, would barely have covered the interest on his debts. What he actually wanted was a 20 per cent share in the profits to be derived from the mining and processing of the deposits of alum shale he and two of his Yorkshire neighbours – Sir Thomas Chaloner^‡ and Sir David Foulis – proposed to develop. This enterprise took some time to establish, as the crown, the patentees and the contractors hired to run the works argued over the levels of profit and risk each was expected to bear. The initial grant of 5 Mar. 1606 required the patentees to establish production equal to the existing imports of alum within two years; if this were achieved, they were then to enjoy a 21 year monopoly of alum sales in England.67 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 395-8; xvii. 252, 638; C66/1691; R.B. Turton, Alum Farm, 70-2.

Early in 1605 Sheffield implemented a crackdown on Catholics, a policy encouraged by Secretary Cecil (now Viscount Cranborne), who had been criticized by Archbishop Hutton in a widely circulated letter which insisted that recusancy was a more pressing problem in the north than puritanism. In early March, Sheffield explained to Cranborne that, since the 1604 session of Parliament, ‘as much has been done as could be by the law’. Many Catholics had been indicted at the summer assizes and were awaiting trial. In March 1605, no less than 900 recusants and two priests were convicted, while another Catholic was sentenced to the pillory for seditious words. These efforts met with the warm approval of the king, but Sheffield, who subsequently attended the Durham assizes in person, did not rest content but went on to issue commissions to search for priests. However, he failed to secure the removal of the Catholic Roger Widdrington from local office in Northumberland.68 Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, ii. 40; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 45 [should be dated 27 Mar. 1605]; xvii. 61-2, 78-9, 124-5, 157, 192-4, 219-20, 293-4; MATTHEW HUTTON.

The Gunpowder Plot naturally put recusancy at the top of the political agenda after November 1605. When Parliament reassembled in January 1606, Sheffield was included on the committee appointed to consider fresh anti-Catholic legislation, the conference at which both Houses discussed their proposals, and the committee established to scrutinize the resulting bills. He was also named to committees for dealing with the punishment of the plotters, and others for the revived bill to ban the import of popish and seditious books, and the bill to impose the new oath of allegiance upon those passing overseas.69 LJ, ii. 360b, 363a, 367a-b, 380b, 401a, 419b, 427a. The security of the north remained Sheffield’s chief concern for many years: when Sir Thomas Hesketh^‡ died in October 1605, the president successfully pressed the king to wait until he arrived in London before choosing a new justice for the council in the North; while in January 1606 Sheffield urged Cranborne, now earl of Salisbury, to have Justice Sir Thomas Walmesley^‡ removed from the northern circuit because of his Catholic sympathies. At the same time, Sheffield successfully backed Tobie Matthew^*, bishop of Durham, as Hutton’s successor at York, and William James^*, dean of Durham, for the bishopric, which was, as he explained, because the north was ‘over-pestered with popery and not with puritanism’.70 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 458, 572; xviii. 21-2, 36-8.

Sheffield attended most of the Lords’ sittings in 1606, except for the last month of the session, when ill health kept him not only from the House, but also from Salisbury’s installation as knight of the Garter. He played a relatively modest part in the key debates of the session: he was one of those chosen to draft an answer to MPs’ ecclesiastical grievances, but the committee failed to reach an agreement, and the House resolved to hear the details of the Commons proposals at a fresh conference. He was also included on the committee appointed to scrutinize the Commons’ controversial bill to abolish purveyance without compensation, and ordered to attend the conference at which the Lords signified their rejection of this measure.71 HMC Hatfield, xviii.139; LJ, ii. 407b, 409a, 411a, 413a; Bowyer Diary, 116-17.

Local affairs loomed somewhat larger in Sheffield’s agenda during the 1605-6 session. He presumably managed the by-election for the Yorkshire seat vacated when Francis Clifford inherited the earldom of Cumberland in October 1605, being the only man with sufficient influence to have the writ delayed until Sir Richard Gargrave^‡ had finished his term as sheriff in February 1606; the latter’s return by a cross-section of rival local interests in the following April suggests that Sheffield had managed to heal the rift created at the 1597 election. The Newcastle Hostmen’s bill, exempting the company from a 1529 statute requiring all goods shipped from the Tyne to be loaded at the town, was presumably steered through the Lords by Sheffield, who was named to the committee, and had its meeting rescheduled on 12 Feb.; the same committee also handled the bill to confirm the charter of the school at St Bees, Cumberland.72 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 302-3, 466-7; LJ, ii. 370a, 372b, 374a. Sheffield was included on committees for several other bills of interest to the north: one confirming a discount on customs duties imposed on exports of northern cloth; another repealing a 1572 Act regulating the length of Yorkshire’s main cloth, the kersey; and a third promoting the improvement of decayed towns. He was also named to the committee for a bill relating to the council in the Marches, repealing a clause in the Welsh Act of Union which allowed the crown to legislate for Wales by proclamation.73 LJ, ii. 380a, 396b, 404b, 406b. His efforts were apparently appreciated in the north, as he was granted a civic welcome on his return to York.74 YCA, House Book 33, f. 22.

Administrator and entrepreneur, 1606-10

During the first three years of his presidency, Sheffield mustered the Yorkshire militia only once. However, security became a higher priority after the Gunpowder Plot: in 1606 he made concerted efforts to modernize militia arms, and ordered the repair of Tynemouth Castle, Northumberland.75 WYAS (Bradford), 32D86, ff. 135v-42v; Add. 36293, ff. 97, 99; YCA, House Book 33, f. 32; Scarborough Recs. 1600-40, pp. 40-1; HMC Hatfield, xviii. 327-8, 333-4. For Sheffield, Catholicism remained the chief threat: he described northerners as ‘obedient for fear of authority, religious to avoid their own hurt, and every way temporizing for the best advantage’. The 1606 Recusancy Act allowed Catholics to be indicted before local magistrates as well as the assize judges, and over the summer – doubtless with Sheffield’s encouragement – hundreds were convicted at the Durham and the North Riding quarter sessions. However, Sheffield complained to Salisbury that banishing rather than executing Catholic priests made his efforts to capture them seem futile.76 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 156, 193, 225, 247; SR, iv. 771-2, 1073; Durham QS Rolls, 1471-1625 ed. C.M. Fraser (Surtees Soc. cxcix), 330-6; N. Riding QS Recs. ed. J.C. Atkinson, ii. passim.

The struggle against Catholicism required a preaching ministry. Consequently, Sheffield supported the re-foundation in 1604 of Ripon Minster, which church was situated in an area of Yorkshire notorious for Catholic sympathies. Two years later it emerged that the church’s endowments exceeded the value allowed to it in its licence of mortmain, which called the latter grant into question. Sheffield therefore alerted Salisbury, who took steps to secure a fresh licence.77 T. Fuller, Church Hist. of Eng. (1655), x. 28-9; HMC Hatfield, xviii. 225, 309, 357; xxiv. 40.

Sheffield missed most of the opening weeks of the 1606-7 parliamentary session, being troubled with an old wound in his leg. Although granted permission to take the waters at Bath, he remained on his Lincolnshire estates, awarding his proxy to Salisbury. He insisted that his absence should in no way be construed as criticism of the Union, then under debate. However, in March 1607, after resuming his seat, he was said to have ‘made a shrewd speech against the Union’, the details of which are not recorded. He was also named to the committee for the only item of Union legislation to reach the Lords, for the bill to abolish the ‘hostile laws’ against the Scots.78 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 256, 272, 309, 341, 352-3; LJ, ii. 451a; Northants. RO, Isham Corresp. 91; LJ, ii. 520a.

Sheffield attended the Lords regularly from 16 Feb. 1607, but was generally less active during this session. He was included on the committee for the bill for ecclesiastical Canons, whereby puritan MPs sought to overturn the deprivation of nonconforming ministers. He was also appointed to consider a bill to confirm a 1559 exchange of lands between the crown and the archbishopric of Canterbury.79 LJ, ii. 503a, 504a. Furthermore, his nominations included three bills clarifying the tenure of those whose titles to crown lands were called into question, and another for the preservation of timber.80 Ibid. 471b, 473a, 479a, 494a. He retained an interest in northern legislation, being named to the committee for the bill for woollen cloth – to which Sir John Savile, with Sheffield’s support, recommended changes which annoyed Salisbury – and the committee for the bill to settle the Lancashire and Cheshire estates of Ferdinando Stanley^†, late 4th earl of Derby. His own debts gave Sheffield an interest in the usury bill.81 Ibid. 471b, 480a, 514b; SP14/27/65.

By the end of 1606 the Yorkshire alum works was open for business, under the supervision of German specialists. In January 1607 a fourth partner, John Bourchier^‡, joined the consortium, whereupon the lease was extended to 31 years, with a yearly rent of £700 to compensate the customs farmers for loss of import duty. A month later both production and sale were farmed out to a consortium of London merchants. Sheffield, clearly anticipating large profits, quickly bought up one-third of Bourchier’s share, but his hopes were to be disappointed, for in 1608 Salisbury, newly appointed lord treasurer, refused to allow the patentees a monopoly of alum sales unless the crown secured a share of the farm. In May 1609 the patentees surrendered their rights in return for fixed annuities which compensated them for their original investment. This dashed any hopes of making a profit, but as the alum works struggled for over a decade – Sheffield’s annuity of £2,000 was rarely paid on time – Salisbury’s intervention ultimately saved Sheffield from over-exposure to a risky venture.82 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 271; xx.264; xxi. 52, 55; E214/607, 927; C66/1820/23; SP14/50/15, 55; Turton, 72-4, 84-8.

Between 1606 and 1609 the profits of the council in the North came under attack from two separate directions. The first attack came in the form of a patent for sealing writs granted to the courtier John Lepton in 1606, which appropriated the income of the secretaries at York. The resulting quarrel was referred to Sheffield, who ruled that Lepton’s grant should take effect only after the death of the current incumbents.83 SP15/38/71; HMC Hatfield, xix. 234, 239-42, 277-8, 463; SP14/36/38; Reid, 383-5 HP Commons, 1604-29, iv. 245, 350. The second dispute was a jurisdictional clash with Sir Edward Coke^‡, chief justice of Common Pleas, with whom Sheffield had locked horns in 1604 over the inheritance of his half-brother Sir Robert Dudley.84 Reportes de las Cases in Camera Stellata ed. W.P. Baildon, 169-71. In 1608, Coke issued a large number of injunctions preventing any proceedings before the councils at York and Ludlow which he considered should be heard at Westminster. Sheffield and his council petitioned the king in protest, but Coke successfully argued that the jurisdiction of the provincial councils should be clarified, and procedures established for hearing prohibitions issued by the Westminster courts. New instructions for York and Ludlow were therefore issued in June 1609, which ‘exceedingly diminished’ the profits of the courts. By 1611 Sheffield complained that his income from the profits of justice barely sufficed to cover the fees of his own officials.85 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 388-9; xxi. 59, 140-1, 145-6; SP14/65/68; 14/67/66; Reid, 311-15, 355-65.

In 1608 Sheffield took steps to resolve the dispute over the Steeton estate claimed by his son-in-law Sir Philip Fairfax, whose wardship he had secured in 1603. With the property burdened by debts and leases, Sheffield encouraged Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton – to whom the property was ultimately due to revert - to buy out Philip’s interest. He also married one of his daughters to the heir of Denton, Sir Ferdinando Fairfax^‡. The latter may have been Sheffield’s nominee for Boroughbridge at a parliamentary by-election in November 1609, but the original return was altered in favour of Salisbury’s nominee, the knight marshal, Sir Thomas Vavasour^‡. In 1612 Sheffield expressed his ‘grief for the evil course of my son’ [Sir Philip Fairfax], whose mounting debts were crippling his estates, advising Sir Thomas Fairfax to make the best deal he could for Steeton.86 HP Commons 1604-29, iv. 216, 219; Fairfax Corresp. pp. xxiv-xxvii.

Ill health kept Sheffield from the opening of the next parliamentary session in February 1610; he recuperated in Lincolnshire, assigning his proxy to Salisbury, who offered his apologies to the Lords.87 HMC Hatfield, xxi. 287; SP14/52/48; 14/53/46; LJ, ii. 550a, 582b. Arriving in London shortly after Easter, Sheffield thereafter attended regularly. Little substantive business had been transacted in the interim, as MPs were slow to appreciate the merits of Salisbury’s fiscal reform plan, the Great Contract. On 26 May Sheffield was one of the delegation which relayed the Commons’ latest financial offer about the Contract to the king; but matters had progressed no further on 26 June, when, at the behest of Ralph, 3rd Lord Eure^*, Sheffield was added to the Lords’ committee managing the negotiations, appointed during his absence at the start of the session. Agreement was eventually reached in principle, but when the Lords debated the details of the financial settlement on 19 July, there was no consensus about how the necessary revenue might be raised. On this occasion, Sheffield seconded the motion of the 1st Lord Petre (John Petre^*) to refer this question to a committee: ‘if we stand upon the manner of the levy now, I think it will break the bargain, which I confess I am so much enamoured with’.88 LJ, ii. 551a, 603a, 625a; Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, i. 113, 153.

On 30 Apr., shortly after Sheffield arrived at Westminster, the bill against pluralist and non-resident clergy was debated in the Lords. The bishops fulminated against this measure, but, towards the end of a long debate, Sheffield argued against rejecting the bill, which was then referred to a committee of the whole House. When the committee met three days later, Sheffield attempted to staunch a further torrent of episcopal complaints by asking whether pluralism was inherently evil: ‘if good, to be granted; if bad, to be taken away; if indifferent, to be tolerated’. He conceded that the bill’s provision for a minimum stipend for curates trenched upon the property rights of lay impropriators, but argued that, ‘if God be dishonoured and the Church hurt, for my part let these privileges go’. He was included on the subcommittee appointed to examine the financial implications of this bill, on 3 May. The bishops aimed to smother this measure in committee, but on 18 June Sheffield insisted on scheduling a fresh meeting. However, on 23 June, the bill’s chief opponent, Richard Bancroft^*, archbishop of Canterbury, persuaded the Lords to order further investigation of the possible options for reform, which ensured the bill failed for lack of time.89 Procs. 1610, i. 77-8, 108, 227, 233; LJ, ii. 587a, 616b; RICHARD BANCROFT.

Northern affairs continued to feature on Sheffield’s parliamentary agenda. On 21 June he was named to the committee for scrutinizing the bill to remand suspects across the Scottish border, an item of Union legislation which had failed to pass in 1607. On 30 June, he questioned the wording of the proviso exempting ‘noblemen being peers’ from its provisions, warning ‘that noblemen being no peers’ – by which he presumably meant the younger sons of peers – ‘do not gain hereby privilege of trial by peers, which belongeth not to them’; this proviso was dropped when the king undertook to provide for peers by other means. On 3 July Sheffield was ordered to attend the conference at which the Lords’ amendments to this bill were relayed to the Commons.90 LJ, ii. 619a, 634b; Procs. 1610, i. 123, 247. As in 1607, Sheffield was included on the committee for the bill to settle the estates of Ferdinando Stanley^†, the late 5th earl of Derby; and was named to another settling the lordship of the Isle of Man upon the current earl and his heirs. Other committees to which Sheffield concerned a bill to restrict moor-burning to certain seasons of the year, and a measure to confirm Salisbury’s lease of a strip of land in the Strand from the adjacent property, Durham House.91 LJ, ii. 592b, 601a, 616a-b; ROBERT CECIL. Finally, Sheffield defended the courtier Sir Stephen Proctor, who had been arrested earlier in the session at the behest of his Yorkshire neighbour Sir John Mallory^‡ for abusing his patent for the collection of fines. Proctor had allegedly compounded his offence by making death threats against Mallory. On 21 July Sheffield, who supported Proctor’s campaign against Yorkshire Catholics, and had recently quarrelled with Mallory over precedence on the council in the North, unsuccessfully attempted to halt the Commons’ bill to have Proctor exempted from the general pardon.92 LJ, ii. 647b, 655a, 657a; Procs. 1610, i. 158; SP14/49/30, 47; HP Commons, 1604-29, iv. 224.

Ambitions and frustrations, 1612-20

Poor health kept Sheffield away from Parliament once again in the autumn of 1610, when he assigned his proxy to Salisbury; he thus avoided any blame for the collapse of the negotiations over the Great Contract.93 SP14/57/103; LJ, ii. 666b. His relationship with Salisbury apparently cooled before the latter’s death in May 1612. Thereafter Sheffield joined forces with Henry Wriothesley^*, 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton and Sir Henry Neville^‡ in a scheme to procure and manage a fresh Parliament. Sheffield assured the king’s favourite, Robert Carr^*, Viscount Rochester (later earl of Somerset), of his desire for ‘continuation of your lordship’s love and favour, which I will study to deserve to the uttermost of my power’, but rumours that Southampton and Sheffield were to be appointed privy councillors came to nothing.94 Chamberlain Letters, i. 352, 258-9; SP14/70/20.

A general election was eventually called in February 1614. Although the earlier scheme for managing Parliament had by then been laid aside, Sheffield made a concerted effort to influence the returns in Yorkshire: his son-in-law Sir Ferdinando Fairfax was returned for Boroughbridge; his kinsman William Sheffield^‡ at Hedon; his secretary George Wetherid^‡ at Aldborough; and his lawyer Edward Smythe^‡ at Scarborough. He presumably also arranged for the return of Sir John Bourchier at Hull, and may have endorsed the return of Sir Richard Williamson at Richmond. He certainly made an unsuccessful overture for a seat at Knaresborough, where his influence was overshadowed by a local dispute over forest enclosure. However, he seems to have remained aloof from the county election: he is unlikely to have interceded on behalf of the senior knight, Sir John Savile, then under investigation for abuses committed as custos rotulorum of the West Riding; while he definitely stayed out of the contest for the junior seat, between Sir John Mallory and Sir Thomas Wentworth^*, 2nd bt. (later 1st earl of Strafford).95 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 467, 482, 485, 487, 489, 496, 501, 505; vi. 228; Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 2.

Sheffield was present in the Lords for much of the 1614 session. On 14 Apr. he was one of those ordered to confer with the Commons over the bill to confirm the rights of Princess Elizabeth’s children to the crown of England; while two days later he claimed parliamentary privilege for a servant of Robert Radcliffe^*, 5th earl of Sussex.96 LJ, ii. 692b, 694a; HMC Hastings, iv. 244. On 17 May, Southampton and Sheffield, as committee members of the Virginia Company, attended the Commons to hear Richard Martin^‡ plead for assistance for the struggling colony. Both lords were invited to sit for Martin’s ill-judged speech, but required to leave before MPs debated the issue.97 Procs. 1614 (Commons), 269-70, 275-6; Chamberlain Letters, i. 531. Four days later, the Commons requested a conference to present their objections to the crown’s claim to levy impositions. The lord chancellor, Lord Ellesmere (Thomas Egerton^*, later 1st Viscount Brackley) urged the House to consult the judges before meeting the Commons, while Richard Neile^*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of York), provocatively contended that debate of this subject was forbidden by the oath of supremacy. However, Southampton argued the case for a meeting with the Commons, and was supported by Sheffield, among others. Two days later, amid strenuous efforts to put the case for consulting the judges beforehand, Sheffield continued to press for the Commons to be heard first: ‘the matter is not about any question in learning, but only to determine whether or no we shall meet with them’. Sheffield was presumably one of the many lay peers who voted to hear the Commons’ arguments, but the motion was dashed by the bloc votes of privy councillors and the bishops. Sheffield was not seen in the Lords thereafter. Ellesmere explained his absence ‘by reason of sickness’, but he may have felt little incentive to attend a session which was clearly heading for disaster.98 HMC Hastings, iv. 249-55; LJ, ii. 708a.

Sheffield’s reluctance to support the official line in the impositions debate did not affect his standing with the king, for, shortly after the dissolution, he and Bourchier were granted another industrial patent, for the refining of copper – although this can have generated little revenue, as the £200 annual rent was only paid for two years.99 C66/2024/29. In November 1626 the annual rent of £200 was noted to be nine-and-a-half years in arrears: Univ. of London, Goldsmiths’ ms 195/2, f. 15. At the same time, reduced fee income from the council in the North, and the mounting arrears of the pension from the alum farm apparently caused Sheffield to contemplate surrendering the presidency. In April 1614 Sir Thomas Wentworth believed rumours of his decision to sell ‘very unlikely’, but three months later Sheffield was said to be discussing terms with Henry Danvers^*, 1st Lord Danvers (later earl of Danby), who presumably sold his presidency of Munster [I] in order to raise cash for this purchase.100 Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. 4th ser. xii), 73; Chamberlain Letters, i. 550; HENRY DANVERS. Negotiations were derailed in December 1614 by a personal tragedy – three of Sheffield’s sons, including his heir, were drowned in the Humber when a ferryboat capsized. As Sheffield explained to Rochester (now earl of Somerset), this left his estates entailed upon his three-year-old grandson, who was unable to join him in guaranteeing payment to his creditors. His plight persuaded the king to grant him the nomination of a barony, which he sold to the crypto-Catholic Sir Robert Dormer^* (later 1st Lord Dormer) for £10,000.101 HMC Downshire, v. 84, 193; SP14/78/82; Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxi), 70; Chamberlain Letters, i. 601-2. This relieved his most pressing financial difficulties, and so allowed him to retain the presidency.102 Holles Letters, 144 reports a brief rumour of the sale of the presidency in October 1616.

The crown’s own financial problems spurred the Privy Council to hold a wide-ranging debate about reform in the autumn of 1615, which concluded that a fresh summons of Parliament was necessary. By December the king had apparently been persuaded, whereupon Sheffield wrote to the Scarborough corporation seeking the nomination of an unnamed ‘gentleman every way fit for the employment and your country’. However, James subsequently relented.103 J.D. Alsop, ‘Privy Council Debate and Cttees. for Fiscal Reform, Sept. 1615’, HR, lxviii. 192-209; A. Thrush, ‘Personal Rule of Jas. I’, Pols., Religion and Popularity ed. T. Cogswell et al., 90-1; NYCRO, MIC 1320/268. Shortly thereafter, a restructuring of the alum farm by Sir Arthur Ingram^‡, secretary to the council in the North, offered hopes that Sheffield’s annuity of £2,000 might be paid regularly. However, as he had already assigned much of this sum to business partners and creditors, this alteration made little difference to Sheffield’s personal finances, while problems with production and labour management meant that the alum works continued to lose money.104 Univ. of London, Goldsmiths’ ms 195/2, ff. 14-16; HMC Var. viii. 15-19; Turton, 118-30.

In July 1618, the disgrace of the lord treasurer, Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk, confirmed the ascendancy of the new favourite, George Villiers^*, marquess (and later 1st duke) of Buckingham. This left Sheffield’s interests vulnerable, as the alum works were run by Ingram, a Suffolk client; while at court the Spanish ambassador, Count Gondomar, urged Sheffield’s replacement as president by someone less hostile to Catholics. The persecution of recusants had generally declined during Suffolk’s ascendancy, but Sheffield had defied this trend, having a priest executed at York in 1616, and even urging strict enforcement of the rarely collected 12d. a week recusancy fine stipulated by the 1559 Act of Uniformity.105 WYAS (Bradford), 32D86/32, ff. 163v-4; Reid, 387-8. Nevertheless, within days of Suffolk’s removal, Sheffield agreed to resign the presidency to the crypto-Catholic Emanuel Scrope^*, 11th Lord Scrope (later earl of Sunderland), on the grounds of ‘want of health and ability to do his Majesty service’. He asked Buckingham to make the necessary arrangements with the king and Lord Danvers, whose longstanding interest had been overlooked; Scrope eventually paid £5,000 for the office. Sheffield also hoped the favourite would further his suit for the hand of ‘the great rich widow’ of the recently deceased Alderman Sir William Craven. However, following her ‘absolute refusal’, he married the 16-year-old daughter of a Scottish courtier.106 Add. 34727, ff. 31v-5; HMC Downshire, vi. 458; Fortescue Pprs. ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. n.s. i), 52-4; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 220-1; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 21.

Following his formal resignation as president, in January 1619, Sheffield sought the command of the Anglo-Dutch fleet that was scheduled to attack the pirates of Algiers. However, the Dutch objected to an English commander, and when the English squadron sailed a year later it was commanded by a Welshman, Sir Robert Mansell^‡.107 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 14; HP Commons 1604-29, v. 245. Buckingham, newly appointed lord admiral, confirmed Sheffield as his vice admiral for Yorkshire, this perhaps being a condition Sheffield imposed for his surrender of the presidency. The profits of this office included flotsam washed ashore – sometimes disputed with local landowners – and the revenues from admiralty courts. The latter became a source of contention in 1620, when Buckingham vetoed a draft charter for Scarborough, which would have granted its townsmen admiralty jurisdiction in their own port in perpetuity. Sheffield persuaded the favourite to offer a lease of admiralty rights instead, but the corporation rejected this offer. Consequently, when, in September 1620, Sheffield’s deputy, Francis Gargrave, attended a court at Scarborough, he was seized by a group of irate mariners, who held a sham court in his place.108 Bodl., Eng.misc.c.855, f. 125; Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xii), 243-4; HCA14/43 (pt.3), ff. 359-60; HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 505; STAC 8/155/20; 8/273/16.

The 1621 Parliament

In November 1620 a fresh Parliament was summoned to address the military crisis in Germany and Bohemia; before it met, the Protestant cause received a crushing defeat at the battle of the White Mountain. Bereft of the presidency, Sheffield had no perceptible influence on the Yorkshire elections, although his former son-in-law Sir Ferdinando Fairfax (whose wife had recently died) enjoyed enough local influence to secure his own return for Boroughbridge throughout the 1620s. However, freedom from official responsibilities allowed Sheffield to play an active role in Parliament, as a member of a clique led by Southampton which opposed Buckingham’s stranglehold on patronage. This group of peers and MPs acquired a quasi-institutional form during the parliamentary session, meeting in Holborn (presumably at Southampton House), to coordinate their activities in Parliament.109 Cabala (1691), 2; R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 96.

At the start of the session, Sheffield was included on the committee for two bills relating to armaments, one to ban the export of iron ordnance, the other to update militia arms – the sole gesture made towards military preparedness during the session. The Commons then called for enforcement of the recusancy laws, which had been allowed to fall into disuse while the king pursued a Catholic marriage for Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales). A petition to the king was drafted by both Houses, but on 16 Feb. concerns were raised that James might take offence at the demand that he issue a proclamation on this matter. At the end of a long debate, Sheffield called for a vote which resolved to drop this request. He was later included on the committee to consider a fresh recusancy bill.110 LJ, iii. 13a, 101a; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 7; R. Zaller, Parl. of 1621, pp. 41-4. For the draft petition, see CD 1621, v. 458-60.

Although the recusancy petition threatened to disrupt James’s efforts to secure a Spanish match for Prince Charles, the king took greater offence at a petition tendered by a group of peers, drafted shortly before the session. Signed by Sheffield and most of the barons attending Parliament, this urged that the nine Englishmen recently awarded Scottish and Irish viscountcies should not be allowed to take precedence in local commissions over the holders of lesser English titles. When this matter was discussed in the Lords on 20 Feb., Prince Charles, among others, insisted it was inappropriate to debate the prerogative. Sheffield, however, disagreed, and moved to have the petition read and considered in both Houses. The lord chancellor, Francis Bacon^*, Viscount St. Alban, sought to avert this by proposing an adjournment, but the petition was referred to the Privy Council, where Richard Sackville^*, 3rd earl of Dorset, acting as spokesman for the dissident peers, tendered it to Prince Charles, who undertook to forward it to the king. James called the signatories before him a few days later, chiding several, but the award of fresh titles was temporarily halted.111 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 10-11; APC, 1619-21, pp. 352-3; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 231; A. Wilson, Hist. of Great Britain (1653), 188; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 348; PRO31/3/54 (27 Feb./9 Mar. 1620/1, Tillières to Puisieux).

After this unpromising start, the crown made common cause with its critics in attacking the abuses of monopoly patents. One of the first patentees to come under fire was Buckingham’s kinsman Sir Giles Mompesson^‡; after some hesitation, it was resolved to widen the investigation to include the courtiers who had acted as promoters and referees of his patents. On 13 Mar. Sheffield was one of those who attended the conference at which the Lords examined the Commons’ evidence against Mompesson. Buckingham, intending to proclaim his impartiality, was prevented from speaking at this meeting; he complained to the Lords, but Sheffield and Southampton protested that his speech had no relevance to the examination of evidence. Despite their intervention, Buckingham was permitted to explain that, if his brothers proved to have been implicated in Mompesson’s crimes, he would seek their punishment himself.112 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 21-3; Zaller, 72-4; GEORGE VILLIERS. Two days later, when the Lords made arrangements for investigation of the charges against Mompesson, Southampton, Sheffield and others cothe operated to expedite the examination of the prosecution witnesses; Sheffield was one of those appointed to investigate charges relating to the patent for licensing of inns.113 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 25-6; LJ, iii. 46b. On 26 Mar., when the Lords debated another of Mompesson’s patents, for manufacture of gold and silver thread, Sheffield questioned whether the patentees’ efforts to prevent unlicensed artisans from thread-making breached the freedom of trade guaranteed by Magna Carta, while Southampton complained that the extortion of bonds under threat was unlawful. At the sentencing that afternoon, Southampton called for severe punishment. Although seconded by Sheffield, the latter also suggested that Mompesson’s licences to innkeepers should not be revoked automatically, they having paid good money for them.114 LD 1621, pp. 133-6.

Mompesson, having absconded to France, was an unsatisfactory scapegoat, but a better victim emerged in the shape of the lord chancellor, against whom two corruption charges were presented on 20 March. In reminding the Lords that it was difficult for the accused to prove a negative, Sheffield was presumably being punctilious rather than helpful to the chancellor, as he later insisted that witnesses against Bacon should not have their Chancery decrees reversed, as it was the taking, not the giving of a bribe which constituted a criminal offence – ‘honest men are forced to give bribes for a just decree’. The adoption of this ruling on 23 Mar. cleared the way for others who had given bribes to come forward, and Sheffield was included on the examining committees.115 LJ, iii. 53b-4b, 58b, 74b; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 27-9, 38; C. Russell, PEP, 113. Theophilus Field^*, bishop of Llandaff, was named as an accessory in one of the bribery cases, and on 20 Mar. Southampton called for an investigation of his role. A week later, Buckingham argued that ‘nothing is found blameworthy’ against the bishop, but Sheffield insisted ‘it was a fault in his lordship to further the giving of a bribe’. A sharp exchange followed, but Southampton eventually conceded that charges would not be brought against the bishop: ‘an information only, not proved’.116 LJ, iii. 53b-4b; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 27-8, 51-2.

Bacon’s fate was sealed over the Easter recess, when a Chancery clerk offered voluminous evidence of bribery. On 19 Apr. Sheffield moved to send details of these depositions to the Commons in preparation for a conference; he was also one of those appointed to draft charges against the lord chancellor.117 LJ, iii. 80a; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 30v. While initially defiant, on 24 Apr. Bacon changed his plea to guilty, even before specific charges had been filed against him. Sheffield secured an immediate debate, in which he and many others argued that a general admission of guilt was insufficient, and that Bacon was to be required to answer the specific charges to be brought against him. On the following morning, the chancellor agreed to cooperate, but Southampton, seconded by Sheffield and others, insisted Bacon should appear at the bar of the House to make his answer; it was eventually agreed that his personal attendance should only be required if he intended to contest any of the charges, which he chose not to do.118 LJ, iii. 84-6; LD 1621, pp. 14, 20; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 46v; FRANCIS BACON. On 30 Apr. Sheffield formed part of the delegation sent to advise Bacon of the Lords’ acceptance of his detailed answer to the charges, and to ask the king to sequester the great seal. At the sentencing on 3 May, Sheffield was the first to call for Bacon to be excluded from the Privy Council and judicial office; the disgraced lord chancellor was ultimately barred from Parliament, court and public office for life. On 12 May Southampton noted that Bacon had not yet been committed to the Tower, an omission which Buckingham ascribed to Bacon’s ‘great sickness’. He was seconded by Sheffield, who called upon the House to issue an arrest warrant, but his motion was declined, and Bacon was committed only once his health had recovered.119 LJ, iii. 101a; LD 1621, pp. 62, 79.

Bacon was not the only scalp claimed after Easter by critics of the king’s administration. Two other victims were the alehouse patentee, Sir Francis Michell, and the ecclesiastical judge Sir John Bennett^‡. Sheffield played a part in the attacks on both men. When, on 24 Apr., corruption charges were filed against Bennett, Sheffield argued that the Lords should not allow bail when the Commons had not, but was overruled.120 LD 1621, pp. 22; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 47. Moreover, on 27 Apr. Sheffield objected when Suffolk and Bishop Neile made light of Michell’s imprisonment of defaulters in his own house. He supported Southampton’s efforts to question Michell about one of his partners and, at the sentencing a week later, successfully moved to have Michell degraded from the order of knighthood.121 LD 1621, pp. 36-9, 65; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 69.

Neither the Michell nor the Bennett cases touched Buckingham directly, but on 17 Apr. the favourite, fearing such an eventuality, insisted that his own half-brother, Sir Edward Villiers, be cleared from any wrongdoing over the gold and silver thread patent. The chief prosecution witness was the former attorney general, Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, then a royal prisoner, who had allegedly been instructed by Villiers to imprison several silkmen who refused to enter into bonds promising not to infringe the patent he shared with Mompesson. It was widely recognized that Yelverton’s evidence would have to be given before the House, but Sheffield advised his colleagues to check the precedents, presumably to ascertain whether the king might countermand the issue of a summons.122 LJ, iii. 76a; LD 1621, pp. 2-3; Zaller, 63-4, 117. Sheffield also cast doubt upon the crown’s case against another of the gold and silver thread patentees, Matthias Fowles; when the latter was examined on 26 Apr., Sheffield expressed concern that the key witness stood to exonerate himself by accusing Fowles.123 LD 1621, pp. 28, 32; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 61. The case against Yelverton also included several other patents the latter had enforced as attorney general. In the case of the inns patent, he defended himself by claiming that Buckingham had pressured him into arresting those who refused to pay Mompesson for their licences. On 24 Apr. King James warned the Lords to discontinue their inquiry into this patent, but Sheffield was among those peers unwilling to be thrown off the scent, explaining that the scale of the intimidation practised – over 3,000 innkeepers had been summoned before Yelverton under writs of quo warranto – constituted a clear abuse; he was included on the delegation sent to explain this to the king four days later.124 LD 1621, pp. 39-40; LJ, iii. 96b; Zaller, 117-18; Russell, 111. By the time Yelverton appeared before the House, on 30 Apr., James had conceded the Lords’ claim to investigate the inns patent. However, tensions ran high. When Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, called for the king’s counsel to respond to Yelverton’s defence, Sheffield picked a futile quarrel over this trivial issue. Yelverton subsequently claimed that Buckingham had threatened to have him sacked over the inns patent, and compared the lord admiral to Edward II’s odious favourite, Hugh, Lord Le Despenser^†. Buckingham thereupon accused Yelverton of impeaching the king’s honour, and this in turn led Sheffield to retort that ‘the king’s honour not touched’.125 LD 1621, pp. 42, 52; Zaller, 119-20; Lockyer, 101-2.

The former attorney general’s remarks provoked the king into arresting Yelverton once again. On 2 May the lord treasurer, Henry Montagu^*, Viscount Mandeville (later 1st earl of Manchester), explained that his re-arrest had been occasioned not by the slurs against Buckingham, but by the aspersions he had cast upon James’s honour. Arundel and Prince Charles suggested that the Lords had decided to refer this matter to the king, but Southampton and Sheffield were sceptical, calling for a vote on ‘whether it were so conceived or no’. Sheffield’s outrage mounted as it became clear the king would brook no concession on this issue: ‘this trencheth deeper unto us than we all conceive. A delinquent is brought before us, and before it was determined, resumed into the king’s hands. Our privileges are touched. A committee to move the king it [Yelverton’s case] may be returned to us’. Despite strenuous efforts from Buckingham and Prince Charles, this motion was passed, and the whole House attended the king to deliver the message.126 LD 1621, pp. 54-60; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 85; Zaller, 120-1. James conceded the point on 7 May, whereupon Sheffield promptly moved to confer with the Commons about the punishment to be inflicted upon Yelverton. The latter’s enemies pressed for a straightforward vote to censure Yelverton, but Southampton and Sheffield played for time, urging that the precise words which had caused offence should be recorded. The 1st Lord Spencer (Robert Spencer^*) then moved that Yelverton be heard, only to be dismissed as the descendant of mere sheep-farmers by Arundel, who was sent to the Tower for contempt.127 LD 1621, pp. 67-8; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 103; Zaller, 121-2. Tempers had barely cooled four days later, when Sheffield and Southampton again called for Yelverton to be allowed to explain himself. They scored a minor victory when it was resolved to disregard Yelverton’s remark about Despenser, but Yelverton was judged guilty for questioning the prerogative over ministerial appointments. Sheffield and Southampton were presumably among those peers who left the House in dismay after Yelverton was sentenced. On 16 May, when Yelverton was summoned to answer for his slander against Buckingham, Sheffield, Dorset and Suffolk moved that he be allowed to summon witnesses. However, Southampton admitted that Yelverton had confessed making the Despenser remark, for which the former attorney general was unanimously condemned.128 LD 1621, pp. 77-9, 89-90; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 111; Zaller, 122-3.

The other dispute which disrupted the session in May resulted from the Commons’ claim to be entitled to punish Edward Floyd, a Catholic barrister who had insulted Princess Elizabeth. This claim bypassed the Lords’ sole right of judicature, as the Lords observed in a message Sheffield helped to draft. Sir Edward Coke^‡ attempted to maintain the Commons’ jurisdiction at a conference the same day, but Sheffield observed that many MPs had disavowed his arguments.129 Add. 40085, f. 115v; LD 1621, p. 66; Zaller, 104-12. By the time the two Houses conferred again, two days later, the judges had ruled against the Commons. However, Southampton recommended that MPs should not be required to make an explicit renunciation of their earlier claim, while Sheffield and others persuaded the Lords to agree that the matter should be handled quietly by a subcommittee of both Houses, on which he was duly included.130 LD 1621, pp. 68-71, 74-5; LJ, iii. 116b; Zaller, 112-15; Russell, 117-18. Sheffield was also included on the investigating committee once the case was remanded to the Lords, who made their disapproval of Floyd clear by handing down a stiffer sentence than the Commons had proposed.131 LJ, iii. 125b; Zaller, 115.

Preoccupied as he was with the politics of the session, Sheffield devoted less time to routine matters. He was included on the committee for the estate bill for his uncle, the earl of Nottingham, while on 4 June he vouched for Mr Tyrwhitt – presumably one of his first wife’s relations – who was said to have threatened the life of Lewes Bayly^*, bishop of Bangor.132 LJ, iii. 110b, 157b. On 30 Apr., when a petition was received from some Kentish fishermen against Christopher Roper^*, 2nd Lord Teynham, Buckingham advised them to apply to the law courts, but Sheffield, perhaps merely to annoy the favourite, insisted that they were too poor to bear the costs of a suit; he was included on the investigating committee.133 LD 1621, p. 41; LJ, iii. 102a; CHRISTOPHER ROPER. Named to the committee for the monopolies bill, he was among those who considered that the measure was overly restrictive of the king’s prerogative, and was included on the committee ordered to pen a fresh draft during the autumn sitting.134 LJ, iii. 137a, 177b; LD 1621, pp. 102-5. When George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury, reported the informers’ bill on 19 Apr., Sheffield (a member of the committee) moved to send a report of its shortcomings to the Commons in preparation for a conference. Five days later, he encouraged the House to agree to a second conference.135 LJ, iii. 75b, 79a-b; LD 1621, pp. 7-8, 11; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 30v; Add. 40085, f. 35.

Sheffield was named to the committee for privileges at the start of the session. One of its chief tasks, to formulate standing orders for the Lords, was delegated to a subcommittee; when the first draft was reported three days later, Sheffield asked whether this should be adopted as it stood, or await revision. He was also included on the delegation which vainly hoped to persuade the king to grant William Seymour^*, 2nd earl of Hertford precedence dating from his grandfather’s creation in 1559, which would have meant accepting the legitimacy of the 1st earl’s marriage to Lady Katharine Grey. Sheffield was one of the delegation, appointed on 2 June, which relayed the decision of both Houses to request an adjournment rather than a prorogation over the summer.136 LJ, iii. 129a, 155a; WILLIAM SEYMOUR.

Shortly after Parliament rose, Southampton was one of several parliamentarians arrested and questioned by the Privy Council about the provocative role he had played during the session. The earl was eventually released, but warned to stay away from the autumn sitting.137 Zaller, 139; Russell, 122. Sheffield, by contrast, was not questioned, but the earl’s fate was clearly intended to encourage his associates to be more circumspect when the House reconvened in November. This was not entirely successful in Sheffield’s case. On 22 Nov. he recalled that the inquiry into the privileges of peers needed to be reviewed. The significance of this procedural intervention became apparent when the study of parliamentary privilege compiled by the antiquary John Selden^‡ earlier in the year was discussed on 30 Nov., at which point Sheffield complained that Selden’s report had been seized by the Privy Council over the summer. The new lord keeper, John Williams^*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of York), explained that he had returned all of Selden’s papers, while Arundel insisted on the king’s right to seize papers concerning matters of state. However, Sheffield insisted that the Lords’ working papers could not be taken to have attacked the prerogative, and should therefore not have been seized; he vainly moved for a delegation to explain this to the king. In the final days of the session, Sheffield was anxious to exempt peers from the requirement that they take an oath to validate their testimony in a law court, but the session collapsed before a vote could be taken.138 LD 1621, pp. 94, 99-101, 123-6.

Sheffield behaved in a provocative manner over one other issue during the autumn sitting, although it is doubtful whether he intended to cause trouble. On 3 Dec. he presented a petition from Sir John Bourchier, his partner in the alum works, and (since about 1616) his son-in-law. Bourchier complained that Lord Keeper Williams had given an over-hasty judgement against him in Chancery. When Williams justified himself, Sheffield insisted the cause be heard by the Lords. Williams – who had no legal training – objected to having his competence questioned, but Sheffield, though he apologized, observed that complaints such as Bourchier’s had exposed Bacon’s misdeeds. The petition was referred to a committee, from which Sheffield, as an interested party, was excluded.139 LJ, iii. 179b-80a; LD 1621, pp. 106-9; C3/324/21.

It seems unlikely that Sheffield and Bourchier were actually plotting to unseat Williams, as the latter had held the great seal for only five months. When the investigation was reported on 11 Dec., Justice Chamberlayne, who had assisted Williams in Chancery earlier that day, explained that Bourchier’s case had already been the subject of two prior decrees, and that the judges agreed there was no point in rehearsing the details for a third time. Undeterred, Sheffield continued to insist that the evidence be heard, but his loyalty to his son-in-law achieved nothing: the House resolved that Bourchier had been wasting their time, and censured him.140 LJ, iii. 190a-b; LD 1621, pp. 114-17, 120.

Aside from these forays into matters of political importance, Sheffield took an interest in the routine business of the House. On 24 Nov. he secured a fresh timetable for the meeting of several bill committees and standing committees which had fallen into abeyance during the summer recess; three days later he urged that a servant of Edward Stafford^*, 4th Lord Stafford, who had been selling parliamentary protections, should be branded on the forehead; and on 12 Dec., when it emerged that Stafford himself had been involved in this fraud, he moved that all of Stafford’s protections should be recalled, and the peer himself rebuked by the Lord Keeper.141 LD 1621, pp. 95-6, 118. On 15 Dec., amid disagreements between king and Commons about foreign policy, Williams proposed a conference at which the diplomat John Digby^*, Lord Digby (later 1st earl of Bristol) was to lay out the urgent need for further supply to relieve the Palatinate. In an unlikely alliance, Arundel, Sheffield and Prince Charles all endorsed this initiative, with the proviso that no pressure should be applied to force MPs to offer further supply. Unhappily, the session collapsed before this conference could be arranged.142 Ibid. 124.

Financial problems and the ‘blessed revolution’, 1622-4

Sheffield played no part in court politics during 1622-3, when his hostility to both Buckingham and Spain rendered him persona non grata. Despite his second marriage and the sale of the presidency, Sheffield’s financial troubles mounted: his pension from the alum farm was persistently in arrears; while at Christmas 1621 he still owed the crown £3,000 on his final account as lord president, and £1,300 arrears on the rent of Mulgrave Castle.143 Add. 4147, f. 29v; Kent Hist. and Lib. Centre, U269/1/OE108 (Buckingham to Cranfield and Ld. Brooke 5 Oct. 1621); LR9/122 (Cranfield to Auditor Hutton, 20 Dec. 1621). His problems were compounded by lawsuits in the Exchequer and Wards, which led to the seizure of the Mulgrave estate and the sequestration of the alum pension. These developments may have been more than a coincidence, as the new lord treasurer, Lionel Cranfield^*, 1st earl of Middlesex, was thereby able to neutralize one of the more vociferous critics of the king’s pro-Spanish policy. Over the next two years Sheffield sent Cranfield an increasingly shrill series of begging letters asking for payment of some small part of his pension, ‘without the which I protest I do not know how to live till my poor rents now at Michaelmas come in’, but he was kept on very short rations for the next two years.144 Kent Hist. and Lib. Centre, U269/1/CP100 (Sheffield to Cranfield, various letters undated, c.1622); U269/1/OE1273 (Cranfield to Auditor Pye, 27 Dec. 1622); U269/1/OE1299; U269/1/CP79 (Sheffield to Cranfield, undated, c.1622-3).

Sheffield’s position changed suddenly in the autumn of 1623: when Buckingham (now a duke) and Charles returned from Madrid convinced of Spanish duplicity, he was one of the anti-Spanish ‘patriots’ with whom they sought an alliance to persuade a reluctant James to embark upon war. Despite poor health, Sheffield supported the patriot cause to the utmost, attending three-quarters of the sittings of the 1624 Parliament.

The realignment at court was manifest from the start of the session, when Buckingham and Charles set the agenda with a chronicle of the breakdown of negotiations in Madrid. With James’s views unclear, few were prepared to argue openly for war when the prospect of a breach with Spain was first discussed in the Lords on 27-8 February. Having noted the options available, ‘the sword or … treaty’, Sheffield argued that the Palatinate was best recovered ‘by way of diversion’ – in other words, by attacking Spain, as Buckingham and Charles wanted.145 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 7-9; T. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 127-65. While there was general agreement over ending the negotiations with Spain, several peers, including Sheffield, warned that it was premature to discuss a war until the Commons had given their consent. Charles and Buckingham clearly identified him as a useful ally in their quest for a breach with Spain, as on 28 Feb. he was included on a committee ordered to search for precedents for offering the king supply only on the condition that war with Spain ensued.146 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 10-12; LJ, iii. 236b; Russell, 163-4; Cogswell, 171-4.

On 1 Mar., in anticipation of a war, Buckingham moved to appoint a committee to survey stocks of munitions. Sheffield urged those lords lieutenant who were present to report the contents of their county magazines. At the same time, he was included on the committee appointed to collate information about defence preparations. On the following morning, when the Lords considered the reasons to be given to the king for breaking off the Spanish Match, Southampton dismissed the negotiations for the Spanish Match as a mere deception, to which Sheffield added that the treaty had produced neither ‘honour, nor safety of the State, nor religion’.147 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 14, 16-18; LJ, iii. 237b, 242b; Russell, 164-76; Cogswell, 174-81. This last statement was inserted in the petition to the king: R. Ruigh, Parl. of 1624, p.186. At a conference with the Commons on this subject, Southampton urged MPs to support the king ‘with our persons and fortunes’. However, the meeting resolved merely to advise the king to break off talks with Spain, Sheffield being one of those ordered to draft the resultant petition. Southampton’s belligerence backfired after the king expressed misgivings about war at a meeting which Sheffield attended on 5 March. On the following morning the Lords were too despondent to hear a report, but Sheffield was one of those who advised that they should seek another meeting with the Commons, where Southampton’s motion, now seen as presumptuous, was coming under attack from those opposed to war.148 LJ, iii. 242b, 244b, 246a; Add.40087, f. 55v; PA, HL/JO/PO/5/1/2, f. 27; Russell, 179-82; Cogswell, 184-7.

The campaign to obtain supply resumed on 11 Mar., when Lord Treasurer Middlesex detailed the crown’s recent military and diplomatic expenditure. Southampton, while (belatedly) acknowledging the Commons’ right to initiate a vote of supply, urged the Lords to help resolve the misgivings MPs had expressed about war. He was followed by Sheffield, who moved to ask the lower House for a fresh conference, which was agreed at the end of the debate. Suitably primed by an impassioned speech from Prince Charles – which Sheffield (who had been present at the conference) insisted be reported to the Lords on 12 Mar. – the Commons agreed to make another approach to the king.149 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 25-6; Add. 40087, f. 74r-v; LJ, iii. 256a, 258a-b; Cogswell, 188-91. However, James demanded the staggering sum of £750,000 in return for breaking off the treaties. After a week of negotiations it was decided to offer the king £300,000 instead. Sheffield was one of the delegation ordered to inform James.150 LJ, iii. 275a; Russell, 185-9; Cogswell, 195-226.

Joy at the king’s agreement to end negotiations with Spain quickly turned to doubt, however, as it was unclear whether the recusancy laws, which had been suspended during the marriage negotiations, were now to be enforced. After Easter the Commons drafted a petition calling for them to be implemented. When this was reported to the Lords on 10 Apr., Sheffield supported Prince Charles, who asked that the king should not be required to issue a proclamation, as James had privately objected to being coerced on this point. However, Sheffield did not second Charles after the prince requested that the Commons be pressed to expedite the subsidy bill, as he considered his proposal was ‘not fit at this time’.151 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 64; Cogswell, 232. The Commons subsequently sent up another petition for removal of officeholders who were Catholics, or had recusant wives. On 21 May Sheffield asked that the draft be reported to the Lords, but when Southampton moved for a full investigation of the individual charges, Sheffield was one of those who observed that there was no time to do this in the final week of the session. It was ultimately delivered to James unaltered.152 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 99-100.

James’s agreement to a breach with Spain formed one half of the agenda set by Charles and Buckingham at the start of the session, the other being the destruction or neutralization of the pro-Spanish party at court. Sheffield played a less active role in these proceedings. Despite his clash with Bishop Williams in the previous Parliament, Sheffield defended the lord keeper against a libel discussed between 20 and 22 March.153 Ibid. 42. On 28 May, when a petition accusing Williams of handing down a false judgement in Chancery was reported, Sheffield, who had arbitrated the case, merely recommended that the petitioner have his compensation increased.154 Add. 40088, f. 140v. See also Procs. 1626, i. 167-8. On 19 May, Sheffield was similarly reluctant to make a scapegoat of Arundel’s client Samuel Harsnett^*, bishop of Norwich (later archbishop of York): when the latter complained about a petitioner who had accused him of corruption and pro-Spanish sympathies, he sided with those who believed the case was best referred to the court of High Commission.155 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 96-7; SAMUEL HARSNETT.

Given their uneasy relations, it is no surprise that Sheffield took a more prominent role in the impeachment of the lord treasurer, in the first instance as a member of the munitions committee, which uncovered evidence that Middlesex had personally gained from clearing the arrears on Sir Roger Dallison’s^‡ account as lieutenant of the Ordnance. When this was reported to the Lords on 12 Apr., Sheffield was one of several peers who urged this charge be sent to Middlesex in writing.156 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 69; LIONEL CRANFIELD. Sheffield was later added to committees investigating three further petitions about the treasurer’s misconduct, and another to scrutinize Middlesex’s answer to the charges against him, which also handled the examination of witnesses for the defence. The treasurer played for time, hoping the king would intervene on his behalf. On 11 May, in the middle of his own defence, he announced he was sick and failed to appear, whereupon a delegation was sent to visit him. While not among their number, Sheffield suspected the treasurer was shamming, and claimed that his defence had been coached by his secretary. Not surprisingly, therefore, Middlesex was required to attend the House and continue presenting his defence.157 LJ, iii. 317b, 320b, 327b, 329a, 358b-61a; LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 72-3.

On 12 May, after the treasurer finished defending himself, the Lords debated Middlesex’s case at length. Despite the fact that Middlesex’s patent as master of the great wardrobe exonerated him from the need to render annual accounts, Sheffield was one of the majority who convicted him on the grounds of this irregularity. Sheffield also considered him guilty of all the charges relating to his stewardship of the court of Wards, and thought he should be barred from court, Parliament and public office. However, unlike some others, he did not think he should be stripped of his patents of nobility. He also agreed that the treasurer should be required to make restitution to those whom he had defrauded.158 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 76, 84, 90-1; LIONEL CRANFIELD. Sheffield was included on the committee ordered to investigate some of these compensation claims, and moved to have the bonds of those who had promised to pay the former treasurer’s 40s. per tun wine imposition cancelled. He also reported the compensation due to one of the accused’s victims on 28 May.159 LJ, iii. 396a; Add. 40088, ff. 135v, 143.

As usual, Sheffield played some part in the legislative activities of the House. He was named to the committee for the revived monopolies bill, and when it was reported on 20 May, he echoed widespread fears that it placed excessive reliance on the threat of a praemunire to deter offenders.160 LJ, iii. 267b; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 96. On 22 May, when objections were raised to a clause of the bill for the repeal or continuance of expiring statutes which struck down the earl of Nottingham’s patent for licences to sell wine in taverns, Sheffield, recalling the king’s promise (in 1610) to deal with this matter after the earl’s death, suggested that James be reminded of his earlier undertaking. He also raised minor points concerning the bill for the levying of fines in other men’s names, and the alienations bill.161 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 102-4; Add. 40088, f. 145. Having been included on the committee for the subsidy bill, he urged, on the final day of the session, that MPs be consulted about minor alterations to the list of subsidy commissioners. However, the ensuing message from the Lords arrived only after the Commons had risen.162 LJ, iii. 406b; Add. 40088, f. 148.

The breach with Buckingham, 1625-6

Sheffield was presumably judged too old to command one of the new regiments raised for service in the Low Countries in the summer of 1624, unlike his friend Southampton, who died there in the autumn. The same reason perhaps explains why he was not chosen to command the Cadiz expedition in the autumn of 1625, though he was apparently considered for the post.163 NLW, 9060E/1358. The quarrel over admiralty jurisdiction at Scarborough flared up again in 1624, but by the end of the year the corporation had capitulated, and offered Buckingham the choice of a burgess at the next election. Sheffield attempted to exercise this right the following year, but his nomination of the local gentleman Sir Edward Waterhouse failed to arrive in time for the hustings, and despite the best efforts of Francis Gargrave, two of the seven other candidates were returned.164 HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 505-6.

While many of the so-called patriots of 1624 fell foul of Buckingham in the 1625 Parliament, Sheffield, who attended almost every day of the Westminster sitting, managed to avoid causing offence to the favourite. On 22 June, shortly after the session opened, he seconded Lord Keeper Williams’ motion to delay the roll-call, as many were absent on crown business. He also moved to consult the Standing Orders in order to ascertain whether latecomers were required to pay a fine. He later urged that absentees who held the proxies of other peers might be called to account for their negligence.165 Procs. 1625, pp. 40, 54. Ordered to attend both the committee and the ensuing conference about the Commons’ petition for enforcement of the recusancy laws – which had been relaxed once again as a condition of the marriage treaty with France – he was nevertheless replaced on the delegation which presented the petition to King Charles.166 Ibid. 84, 97, 104. Sheffield missed the Oxford sitting in August, having presumably retired to his northern estates to escape the plague, and granted his proxy to William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke. However, having been included on the committee for one privilege case on 23 June, he was named to a subcommittee for another in absentia on 10 August.167 Ibid. 45, 177, 591.

Having found Sheffield useful in 1624, Charles and Buckingham presumably hoped to retain his allegiance during the 1626 Parliament. However, the favourite probably upset Sheffield by mishandling the Scarborough election in November 1625, when he nominated two candidates (both investors in the alum farm) after the corporation offered him only one seat.168 HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 506-7. Nevertheless, Buckingham doubtless endorsed Sheffield’s creation as earl of Mulgrave five days after the coronation, in February 1626.169 C231/4, f. 195. The date of creation given in CP is incorrect. Perennially short of cash, the new earl may have paid for this honour by waiving some of the arrears due to him from the pension charged against the alum farm, an enterprise still beset with problems.170 Turton, 131-56.

Shortly after the beginning of the session, Mulgrave attended the second day of the York House Conference, at which Calvinists and Arminians contended over their theological differences, but he is not recorded as having joined in the disputation.171 Bodl., Tanner 303, f. 32v; N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 170, 177. Ill health probably kept Mulgrave from attending more than 60 per cent of the sittings of the 1626 Parliament. Formally excused on six occasions, he was absent for up to a week at a time. However, it is noticeable that he missed only a handful of days in May and June, during the attempt to impeach Buckingham, in which, despite his recent elevation, he played a prominent role in support of the duke’s enemies.172 Procs. 1626, i. 38, 137, 193, 231-2, 561, 564.

At the start of the session, Mulgrave was named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions. Five days later he called on absentees who had failed to send their proxies to explain themselves, possibly so that Buckingham’s most ardent critics, Bishop Williams and John Digby^*, 1st earl of Bristol, could report that they had been denied their writs of summons. On 23 Feb. Mulgrave successfully moved for a meeting of the privileges’ committee, which agreed major alterations to the rules on proxies when it met two days later: bishops and peers were not to hold each others’ proxies; while from the end of the session, no-one was to be allowed more than two proxies. Mulgrave supported these changes, which were intended as an attack on Buckingham, but in the short term these made little difference to the strength of the duke’s support in the Lords, as Buckingham responded by redistributing his proxies among his supporters.173 Ibid. 48, 50, 62, 66, 71-2; Russell, 285-6; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 630; GEORGE VILLIERS.

The next issue over which Buckingham and his critics joined battle was the exclusion of Bristol from the Lords. The earl, though advised he would face prosecution for his conduct during the Spanish Match, petitioned for a writ of summons. When this request was reported to the Lords on 30 Mar., Mulgrave moved to hear a report on other excluded Members: Williams, denied a writ; and Arundel, arrested on 5 March.174 Procs. 1626, i. 227; Cabala (1691), 378; Russell, 285. The king’s charges against Bristol were read on 1 May, when Mulgrave moved that the earl be present. Bristol was subsequently brought to the bar of the House as a prisoner, and a debate ensued over whether he should be incarcerated, pending trial. The judges, consulted at Mulgrave’s suggestion, concluded that there were no relevant precedents, and therefore advised the Lords to make their own decision. Bristol had filed his own complaint against Buckingham with the Commons, but on 2 May the favourite’s allies complained that this implicitly questioned the Lords’ competence to deal with the matter. Mulgrave retorted that the Lords could not take cognizance of the Commons’ debates without formal notification. He then raised another issue: whether Buckingham should be placed under restraint, like Bristol. The House returned to the question of Bristol’s charges, whereupon Mulgrave attempted another distraction, asking whether a peer could be censured for responding to inquiries from the Commons. After the House resolved to charge Bristol with treason, Mulgrave raised another important question: whether the indictment would affect the credibility of the earl’s prosecution of Buckingham; it was swiftly agreed that the charges would be dismissed if he were convicted.175 Procs. 1626, i. 335, 340-1, 346-8.

On 4 May, amid calls for the charges against Bristol to be read out, Mulgrave punctiliously observed that the House had merely agreed to consider the charges before deciding whether to file an indictment: this modest victory for the duke’s enemies delayed proceedings by a mere two days. A long debate about the charges ensued, during which it was queried whether Bristol should be allowed the advice of counsel – not normally permitted in treason trials, but permitted in cases of impeachment by an order of 28 May 1624.176 Ibid. 352-4; LJ, iii. 418a. The king made the same point when he received Bristol’s request for counsel. When his refusal was relayed to the Lords on 8 May, Mulgrave moved to hear Bristol’s petition, which was then pending, while Pembroke observed that the question of counsel could be resolved once it had been decided whether the crown’s charges against Bristol amounted to treason. This provoked a lengthy debate, during the course of which Buckingham called for the 1624 order to be rescinded, while his ally the lord treasurer, James Ley^*, 1st earl of Marlborough, advised that Bristol be allowed legal advice only on points of law. Mulgrave retorted that Marlborough’s proposal was unacceptable, as the 1624 order allowed the defendant ‘counsel at all times’. The day ended with the issue remaining unresolved. On the following morning, the debate revolved around Bristol’s demand that the king should not be allowed to give testimony against him concerning private conversations which took place during the negotiations in Madrid. Archbishop Abbot moved to send for Attorney General Sir Robert Heath^‡, who had stated the previous day that Charles’s testimony added little to that of other witnesses. However, Mulgrave feared that Heath’s role as prosecutor meant that his opinion on this point might be untrustworthy, and seconded the motion of Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, to ask the opinion of the judges, which was duly done.177 Procs. 1626, i. 380-3, 392-3; GEORGE ABBOT.

After two leading Members of the Commons, Sir Dudley Digges^‡ and Sir John Eliot^‡, were arrested for suggesting at a conference with the Lords that Buckingham had hastened the death of King James by medical malpractice, Bishop Harsnett proved reluctant to report their words to the upper House, in case he himself was accused of treason. However, Mulgrave advised him to take heart, as Bacon had reported the initial corruption charges against himself in 1621. Harsnett duly reported the charge four days later, whereupon Buckingham asked peers to consult their notes to discover precisely what Digges had said. Mulgrave objected that there was no precedent for this, and it was ultimately decided that each peer who had heard the charge should report whether he believed it had cast aspersions on the king’s honour. Mulgrave was among those who claimed that Digges had spoken nothing amiss, and insisted he would have been called to order if he had. This, and a similar initiative in the Commons, secured the release of the two MPs shortly thereafter.178 Procs. 1626, i. 402, 477, 481; Russell, 318-19.

The resolution of this dispute allowed the Lords to consider the Commons’ charges against Buckingham on 17 May. It was quickly resolved that the duke did not have to respond to Eliot’s provocative ‘aggravation’ of the charges, but he insisted that he welcomed the opportunity to do so. Mulgrave was also happy that Buckingham should respond, ‘and when the duke is cleared (as he doubted not) then they [the charges] may be taken out of the [Journal] book again’. However, when it was moved that no copies of the charges be made, Mulgrave entered an important proviso: ‘except to ourselves’. It was duly agreed that the ‘aggravation’ should be held by the clerk, and only peers be allowed to take copies.179 Procs. 1626 i. 496-7; Russell, 319.

The parliamentary duel between the duke and Bristol was still very much ongoing, and on 22 May Mulgrave was one of the committee appointed to examine witnesses on both sets of charges. However, nothing was done until after Charles released Arundel on 8 June; the Lords’ examinations commenced on the following day.180 Procs. 1626. i. 540, 597, 631. It was, however, obvious that many peers were reluctant to convict either of the accused, for fear of the resulting animosity: indeed, tempers frayed at the munitions committee on 12 June, when Mulgrave and several others successfully called for an order against mutual insults at committees.181 Ibid. 610. The king’s patience finally ran out on 15 June, but when the order for the dissolution reached the Lords, Mulgrave was one of several peers who urged the king to reflect on the consequences before breaking the Parliament. He was one of those ordered to draft a petition which the House could take to the king, but he correctly assessed its chances of success as negligible, as he quickly moved for parliamentary privilege for some servants of Theophilus Clinton^*, 4th earl of Lincoln. However, his motion to peruse the Journal one final time was denied, as the dissolution terminated the remit of all committees.182 Ibid. 635-6; Russell, 321.

The political strife which dominated the 1626 Parliament left little room for legislation, but Mulgrave was involved in a few items of routine business during the session. His committee nominations included one for the bill to modernize militia arms, while on 6 Mar. he was named to another to discuss matters of defence, including a levy on east coast shipping to pay for a convoy squadron, a scheme carried into effect in 1627.183 Procs. 1626. i. 53, 110, 536. On 16 Mar., when a man who had accused Bishop Williams of malpractice in Chancery in 1624 petitioned for relief, Mulgrave was one of several peers who argued that the Lords’ earlier decision had been correct, but the case deserved compensation. Similarly, on 18 Mar., he helped one of those petitioning for compensation from the earl of Middlesex to have his case referred to Lord Keeper Coventry.184 Ibid. 150, 167-8, 180. Finally, on 22 May he introduced a petition from a man who wished to plead his case for a Northamptonshire rectory at common law, overturning a Chancery decree.185 Ibid. 346, 350-1.

Withdrawal from public life, 1627-39

Mulgrave suffered relatively little for his opposition to Buckingham during the impeachment proceedings, perhaps because he had relatively little left to lose. While removed as a magistrate in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in 1627, he remained a member of the council in the North and vice admiral of Yorkshire, fighting off a challenge to his jurisdiction over the Cleveland coast from Sir William Pennyman^‡, 1st bt.186 HCA30/855, ff. 374-5. In the autumn of 1626, when he applied to the crown revenue commission for payment of outstanding arrears of the alum pension, Buckingham scorned his claim as ‘some desperate and cast debt, put upon the king without any just ground’. An Exchequer auditor calculated that it was actually Sheffield who owed the crown money, £7,332 in total, including arrears for Mulgrave Castle and his copper patent. He also claimed that Sheffield owed £13,370 to those who claimed shares of his pension from the alum farm.187 Univ. of London, Goldsmiths’ ms 195/1, ff. 30v, 37r-v, 46; ms 195/2, ff. 11v-12, 14-16, 18, 23. Presumably in order to win some favour with the king, Sheffield paid his Forced Loan contribution of £50 promptly, on 14 Nov. 1626, but six months later his circumstances were sufficiently desperate that he begged the favourite for an order to strike a tally on revenues due at Christmas 1628, which he could then sell (at a discount) to raise cash; this request was ignored.188 E401/1913, unfol.; Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxv), 339; SP16/65/56. However, in 1628 Buckingham overlooked the fact that Mulgrave had used his authority as vice admiral to secure the return of the Forced Loan refuser Sir William Constable^‡, 1st bt., as one of the Members for Scarborough.189 Procs. 1628, p. 165; HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 507.

It was reportedly poor health that kept Mulgrave (who neglected to send a proxy) from attending the 1628 parliamentary session. He was mentioned once in debate, on 31 Mar., during a dispute over a grant which gave William Knollys^*, 1st earl of Banbury, precedence over the other earls created at the coronation.190 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 26, 128. Given his age and declining health, Mulgrave’s absence was not necessarily suspicious. However, he may have been encouraged to stay away, even after he recovered. It is certainly suggestive that, on the day after the prorogation, a warrant was issued for payment of his annuity of £2,000, not from the uncertain profits of the alum works, but from the well-funded revenues of two of the customs farms.191 HMC Var. viii. 30; SP16/108/40.

Mulgrave’s health had recovered by early 1629, when he attended almost every day of the brief parliamentary session. At the start of the session he was appointed to the privileges’ committee, and the associated subcommittee to supervise entries in the Journal, and he was later included on two committees for drafting a petition which urged the king to discontinue the practice of awarding Irish and Scottish peerages to Englishmen.192 LJ, iv. 6a-b, 9b, 25b, 27b. Mulgrave was also named to the committee ordered to make a survey of arms and ships which could be used for defence of the realm, and was ordered to attend the king to petition for relief of the impoverished peer Robert de Vere^*, 19th earl of Oxford.193 Ibid. 34b, 37b.

After 1629, Mulgrave increasingly devoted himself to family affairs. He interceded on behalf of his niece, Lady Preston, when she preferred to marry Lord Thurles (heir to the earldom of Ormonde [I]) in preference to Basil Feilding^* (later 2nd earl of Denbigh), whose mother was her guardian.194 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 444; SP16/139/33. At the same time, using Sir Arthur Ingram as an intermediary, Sheffield began lengthy negotiations for a match between his grandson Edmund Sheffield^† (later 2nd earl of Mulgrave) and Elizabeth Cranfield, daughter of the earl of Middlesex. The dowry was set at £5,000, only £1,500 of which had been paid over in April 1631, when the wedding took place. As a settlement, the couple received an annuity of £1,400 and present possession of Normanby; the bride was also assigned a generous jointure of £1,000 in the event of her widowhood. Middlesex delayed payment of the outstanding dowry, to which Mulgrave responded by withholding payment of his granchildren’s annuity; this left them £4,000 in debt by 1637. The two earls were still quarreling over their respective obligations at Middlesex’s death in 1645.195 M. Prestwich, Cranfield, 512-16.

Final years, 1640-6

In August 1640 Mulgrave was one of the junto which petitioned King Charles to call a fresh Parliament, but he was too old to play a significant part in the political manoeuvrings which led to civil war. He and his grandson supported Parliament, remaining in London throughout the Civil War. This cost them their landed revenues, and in 1644 Mulgrave appealed to Sir Ferdinando Fairfax (then commanding one of the parliamentarian armies in Yorkshire) to look after his interests in the alum works. On 29 June 1643 the Commons granted a weekly allowance of £50 to the earl, and £10 a week to his grandson, although payment was somewhat erratic, as pensions took second place to military emergencies.196 Add. 5947, ff. 101, 108-10, 125; HMC 9th Rep. ii. 429b, 436b.

In his will of 10 Apr. 1646, Mulgrave granted his goods, and an old debt of £900 he was owed by the earl of Ormonde, to his wife, confirmed the assignment of £400 a year from the alum farm annuity to his two surviving sons, and ordered any of the ‘very great’ wartime losses which might be recovered from the alum farm to be divided among all his surviving children. He died in October 1646, and was buried ‘without any pomp or charge beyond decency’ in the chapel he had built for his house in Hammersmith. His wife proved the will on 29 Oct. 1646.197 PROB 11/197, ff. 311-12; Oxford DNB, l. 164.