TUFTON, Nicholas (1578-1631)

Settled in Kent since the early thirteenth century, and with extensive holdings in neighbouring Sussex, the Tuftons rose in wealth and status during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. By the time of the Civil War, John Tufton^*, 2nd earl of Thanet, was said by Parliament to enjoy an annual income of £10,000.24 CCC, 839-40. In 1601 the head of the family, John Tufton, was a notorious crypto-Catholic. He nonetheless succeeded in matching his eldest son Nicholas to the daughter of Thomas Cecil^*, 2nd Lord Burghley (later 1st earl of Exeter), and his daughter Cecily to Francis Manners^*, heir to the earldom of Rutland. Another daughter was married to Henry Constable of Burton Constable, ennobled in 1620 as Viscount Dunbar [S] and one of the richest men in Yorkshire. John himself acquired a knighthood in 1604 and bought a baronetcy in 1611, but although peerages were being sold after 1615 he never purchased a title of nobility, even though he survived until 1624 and was easily able to afford one.

No such reluctance characterized his son and heir Nicholas who, like his father, was thought to harbor Catholic sympathies. In the autumn of 1626, aged 46, he asked his brother-in-law Edward Cecil^*, 1st Viscount Wimbledon, to intercede on his behalf with the king’s chief minister and favourite George Villiers^*, 1st duke of Buckingham in order to purchase a barony.25 C. Dalton, Life and Times of Sir Edward Cecil, ii. 264-5. On the face of it, this approach was well timed, as the crown desperately needed funds to pay for the war with Spain, the 1626 Parliament having been dissolved without voting supply and the most recent expedition to Spain under Robert Bertie^*, 14th Lord Willoughby de Eresby (later 1st earl of Lindsey), having ended in failure. However, if Tufton hoped to be offered a knock-down price – the going rate for a barony was about £10,000, but Francis Leak^*, Lord Deincourt had bought his for only about £8,000 in 1624 - he was to be disappointed, for in mid September 1626 the king decided to raise a Forced Loan to pay for next year’s campaign. Tufton eventually paid £15,000 into the Exchequer. (C.R. Mayes’s claim that Tufton paid only £5,000 for his barony, and that he probably borrowed this money from the royal financier Philip Burlamachi, is unsound.).26 E403/2981, pp. 266, 267; C.R. Mayes, ‘Sale of Peerages’, JMH, xxix. 31. Whether Tufton also gave Buckingham a douceur is unknown but, perhaps significantly, it was the duke’s secretary Edward Nicholas^‡ who drafted the warrant for his ennoblement.27 Eg. 2552, f. 15. The patent of the newly created Baron Tufton of Tufton was dated 1 Nov. 1626, but its holder was not issued with an accompanying grant of arms until 30 Nov. 1627.28 Kent. Hist. and Lib. Cent., U991/F1.

Tufton was chosen as one of the commissioners for the Forced Loan in Kent. In December 1626 he crossed swords with Sir Dudley Digges^‡ of Chilham Castle, whom he apparently accused of refusing to pay the Loan. On appearing before the Privy Council in early January 1627 to explain his conduct, Digges angrily accused Tufton of spreading malicious falsehoods about him. The board was so shocked at this outburst that Digges was committed to the Fleet prison, where he spent the next seven weeks.29 R. Cust, Forced Loan, 248; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 503; APC, 1627, p. 83. Tufton did not forget Digges’ accusations, and when, in January 1628, Sir Dudley announced that he would be standing for election as knight of the shire for Kent, he sought to cross him. On the same day that writs were issued, he urged his former son-in-law Sir Edward Dering^‡ to stand as well, as he had heard to his dismay that there was ‘no speech but of Sir Dudley Digges’.30 Procs. 1628, p. 152. However, Tufton may not have been motivated purely by considerations of revenge. Dering, if successful, would doubtless prove a useful ally in the Commons if his enthusiasm for the widely resented Forced Loan was questioned by the lower House. The need to provide himself with allies in the Commons would certainly explain why Tufton obtained a seat at Rye for his younger brother John, who had not sat at Westminster since 1614.31 E. Suss. RO, RYE/47/109/31. However, Tufton need not have worried, since the Commons, though they certainly attacked the Loan, did not single out its collectors for criticism. Consequently, Dering’s defeat at the hands of Digges, though disappointing, was far from being disastrous.

In mid February 1628, five weeks before Parliament assembled, Tufton and his Kent neighbour, Robert Sidney^*, 2nd earl of Leicester, were ordered to supervise the collection of Ship Money in Kent, which levy was intended to be repaid out of the subsidies expected to be voted by the Commons.32 APC, 1627-8, p. 285. However, shortly thereafter the crown abandoned the Ship Money scheme for fear of antagonizing Parliament. Tufton subsequently attended the opening of the new assembly on 17 Mar. 1628, and thereafter sat on roughly three out of every four business days. His longest recorded absence lasted 11 days (27 May-7 June inclusive), but he excused himself only on the first two days. By being absent at this time he ignored the royal instruction that Members of both Houses continue sitting over Whitsun.33 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 40-5, 539, 550. He also missed the final stages of the Petition of Right. On the third day of the session Tufton was formally led into the chamber by Charles Stanhope^*, 2nd Lord Stanhope of Harrington and Edward Noel^*, 1st Lord Noel (later 2nd Viscount Campden).34 Ibid. 74. However, the clerk’s ms minutes suggest that it was Lord Grey of Warke rather than Lord Noel who escorted him into the chamber: ibid. 76. He made no recorded speeches and was named to just seven of the session’s 52 committees. These included a committee for a bill to make the Medway navigable between Maidstone and Penshurst, a measure in which he was presumably interested as a Kent landowner. Personal considerations must also have informed his membership of the committee for the fen drainage bill, since he was then heavily involved in draining marshland in the Rother valley. His remaining legislative appointments concerned making the kingdom’s weapons more serviceable; preserving the king’s revenues; apparel; the lands of Dutton Gerard^*, 3rd Lord Gerard; and the discovery and suppression of popish recusants. His interest in the first of these five bills probably reflected the fact that he was a deputy lieutenant, or had been until recently.35 Ibid. 88, 103, 112, 189, 264; 371, 627; N. Powell, A Remonstrance of some decrees and other proceedings of the commissioners for sewers ... in Kent and Sussex (1659), 22, 26-30.

During the interval between the 1628 and 1629 sessions Tufton upgraded his barony to an earldom. He took the title of earl of Thanet, and the grant, authorized on 21 July, passed the great seal on 5 August.36 CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 223; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent., U991/F2. In seeking this advancement Tufton may have been motivated by a desire not to be outdone by his neighbour Elizabeth Finch, Viscountess Maidstone, who shared his interests in the marshland drainage and who, on 12 July, had been created countess of Winchilsea.37 CP; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent., U951/C261/18. He may also have received encouragement from the crown, as Charles and Buckingham were then in the midst of preparing a further costly expedition to relieve La Rochelle. However, the purchase price must have been swallowed up in its entirety by Buckingham, who had recently been obliged to dig deeply into his own pockets to help finance the crown’s military expeditions, as none of it found its way into the Exchequer.

Thanet took little recorded part in the 1629 session aside from being formally introduced to the House as an earl. He made no recorded speeches, was named to no committees and missed seven of the 23 days of the session, obtaining leave of absence on the very first day of the meeting. Following the chaotic scenes in the Commons on 2 Mar., when the Speaker was held down in his chair, he returned to Kent, attending the Maidstone assizes two days later. He was consequently not present on the final day of the session (10 March).38 LJ, iv. 6a, 12a; Cal. Assize Recs., Kent Indictments, Chas. I ed. J.S. Cockburn, 72.

Following the end of the Parliament, Thanet set about improving his already extensive holdings in Kent, purchasing 50 acres in Ewhurst for £300 in May 1629 and the manor of Westwell - which he was already leasing from the crown - for £1,500 in June.39 C54/2799/27; LMA, COL/DD/01/52/003. That same year he became involved in a now obscure financial transaction with the London-based property speculator Thomas Coteel^‡. In December a member of his syndicate fell by the wayside, whereupon Thanet was forced to find a replacement and write to Coteel asking for more time in which to complete the transaction.40 Cornw. RO, ME2995.

In February 1630 Thanet lent an unspecified sum of money to a Suffolk gentleman, who gave him a bond worth £1,200 in promise of repayment.41 LC4/60, m. 10, no. 359. Six months later he wrote to the father of the vice admiral of Kent after hearing that his old enemy Digges was hoping to become vice admiral of Faversham hundred.42 CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 322. The rumour that part of Kent might be taken out of the hands of the county’s vice admiral was not inherently implausible, as a vice admiralty in nearby Milton hundred had been created specifically for Sir Edward Hoby^‡ in 1585.

Though still only in his early fifties, Thanet was ill by August 1630, when he drew up his will. He nevertheless remained involved in local administration, writing to Dering from his Sussex house on 2 June 1631 on the drainage of the Wittersham Levels.43 Stowe 743, f. 81. He died on 30 June following and the next day was buried, as requested, in the family’s vault at St Margaret’s, Rainham, in north Kent rather than at Hothfield, near Ashford, where his father lay interred.44 Pocock, p. ix. CP claims, incorrectly, that he died at Sapcote in Leicestershire. In his will he set aside £3,000 as a dowry for his 14-year old daughter Cecily, and gave £500 to his wife, together with her jewellery and the plate ‘which was sometimes the earl of Exeter’s her father’. He also left £40 for the repair of the family vault and a further £20 to mend Hothfield’s highways. His charitable bequests, amounting to more than £300, included £160 for the poor of Hothfield. Responsibility for executing the will was divided between his eldest son, John Tufton^†, Lord Tufton, who succeeded him in the earldom, and a cousin who was left £200 plus expenses for his pains. Oversight of the will was entrusted to his brother-in-law, Francis Manners, 6th earl of Rutland.45 PROB 11/160, ff. 393-4. Despite his great wealth, Thanet died owing the king £6 for subsidies voted in 1625.46 E389/202 (formerly E370/8/3).