STANLEY, James (1606-51)

Stanley’s life began with many advantages. Named after his godfather, James I, he was the eldest son of William Stanley^*, 6th earl of Derby, the leading magnate in north-west England during the early seventeenth century. On his father’s side he was descended from Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII, while his maternal grandfather was William Cecil^†, 1st Lord Burghley.31 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 54; Vis. Lancs. 282-3. Seemingly destined for a glittering career at court, he in fact emulated his somewhat reclusive father, spending most of his time on his ancestral estates. Privately educated, and thereby deprived of the social benefits of university life, he also gained little from his travels on the Continent, remaining reluctant ‘to venture in a foreign language’, and describing this period of his life as time wasted.32 Witt, 33; Desiderata Curiosa (1779) ed. F. Peck, ii. 444-5. While evidently intelligent, able and well-read, he grew up haughty and aloof. Edward Hyde^†, 1st earl of Clarendon, thought him ‘a man of great honour and clear courage’, shrewdly observing that ‘his defects … proceeded from his having lived so little time among his equals’.33 HMC 7th Rep. 682; Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion, v. 184.

By the age of 16 Stanley was using the courtesy title of Lord Strange, even though he should not strictly have done so, his father having not inherited this ancient barony.34 Preston Guild Rolls, 75; CP, iv. 214. His first serious foray into public life came when he sat for Liverpool in the 1625 Parliament.35 HP Commons, 1604-29, vi. 422. At the end of that year, he deputized for his father in confiscating the arms of the recusant peer Henry Parker^*, 14th Lord Morley, impressing the Privy Council with his ‘discreet and dutiful carriage’.36 APC, 1625-6, pp. 268, 308; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 180. Created a knight of the Bath on the eve of Charles I’s coronation, Strange remained in London during the 1626 Parliament, promoting his father’s weak claim to the vacant office of lord great chamberlain. With Derby himself absent from the Lords, Strange marshalled the earl’s legal counsel, and on 31 Mar. notified the upper House that the lawyers were unable to attend a hearing of the case.37 Birch, i. 80; Procs. 1626, i. 231, 241.

Following the failure of this endeavour, Strange travelled to the United Provinces, where he wed the equally well-connected Charlotte de Trémoille, a granddaughter of William the Silent, and the sister of a leading French Huguenot peer. The marriage, which had been under discussion since the previous year, required the consent of both Charles I and Louis XIII, while the contract was witnessed at The Hague by the king and queen of Bohemia, Charles’s brother-in-law and sister.38 APC, 1626, p. 1; Collins, Peerage, iii. 93; Stanley Pprs. ed. F.R. Raines (Chetham Soc. lxvii), pp. cccxiii-cccxiv. This union, which was solemnized in the palace of Frederick Henry, prince of Orange, was intended to bring Strange financial as well as social benefits, but the bulk of Charlotte’s £24,000 dowry was never paid due to mounting political chaos in France. Despite this setback, Strange honoured his obligation to settle a generous jointure on his wife, who was granted denizen status in September 1626 so that she could own English lands. Their subsequent relationship proved warm and affectionate.39 Stanley Pprs. (Chetham Soc. lxvi), p. xv; Stanley Pprs. (Chetham Soc. lxvii), p. cccxiv; Witt, 24, 28, 38; Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for Aliens 1603-1700 ed. W.A. Shaw (Huguenot Soc. xviii), 39.

Although Strange was still legally a minor, Charles evidently deemed him ready to take his place in public life, and in the closing months of 1626 he associated him with his father in the chamberlainship of the county palatine of Chester, and the lieutenancy of Cheshire and Lancashire. This nearly proved premature, for in January 1627 Strange became so ill that he was not expected to survive. At this critical moment, the king tactlessly forced through the marriage of a favoured maid of honour, Elizabeth Gorges, to Strange’s younger brother Robert (Stanley^‡), who stood next in line to inherit the Stanley estates. Strange recovered, but the countess of Derby, who had firmly opposed the match, then fell ill herself, and died in the following March. Inevitably, rumours spread that Robert’s marriage had brought about her demise.40 Birch, i. 184, 206; Vis. Lancs. 283.

These unfortunate events, combined with Charlotte’s failure to secure a place in the queen’s household, help to explain why Strange proved reluctant to show his face at court. In point of fact, though, his presence was now urgently needed in Lancashire. For several decades his mother had managed the family estates on behalf of her husband, but Derby now handed over control to his heir instead, reserving to himself £1,000 a year of rental income, and taking up residence permanently in Cheshire. In a matter of months, Strange thus found himself as head of his family in all but name, possessed of the Stanley ancestral seats of Lathom and Knowsley, and with significant administrative responsibilities in the region.41 HMC Skrine, 85; Birch, i. 206; Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 443; Witt, 24-5.

By late 1627 England was at war with both Spain and France. As lord lieutenant, Strange was expected to recruit a steady stream of soldiers, dispatching them around the country as required, in addition to managing the local militia. Although firm evidence is lacking, it is probable that Strange and his father agreed a geographical division of responsibilities, with Strange taking complete responsibility for Lancashire issues, an arrangement which was certainly in place by the mid 1630s.42 APC, 1627, pp. 456, 501, 229, 348; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 379; 1636-7, p. 240. Simultaneously, he took steps to improve his income, obtaining a grant of the mines on the Isle of Man, and attempting to acquire Delamere forest, in Cheshire, so that he could enclose the land, a strategy that he would pursue elsewhere in the following decade.43 Coventry Docquets, 211; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 538; 1628-9, p. 258; Coward, 59, 61.

In January 1628 Lady Strange gave birth to her first son, Charles (Stanley^†, later 8th earl of Derby), named after the king, who agreed to become his godfather.44 Stanley Pprs. (Chetham Soc. lxvi), pp. xxi-xxii. A month later, on 17 Feb., with a new Parliament imminent, Strange was summoned to the House of Lords in his own right.45 LJ, iv. 6a. Date incorrectly given as 7 Mar. 1628 in CP, iv. 214. In the event he did not attend this session, despite being recorded as present on 16 May. Three days later, he was still in Lancashire preparing to travel to London, his wife concerned that the air in the capital would not agree with him. He evidently found cause to postpone his journey, and in late June Lady Strange reported to her mother that he had been ‘advised not to go to the Parliament’, apparently on the grounds that the session had descended into ‘great confusion’. Like Derby, who also stayed away, he assigned his proxy to William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke, a distant kinsman.46 Witt, 35-6; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 26.

Despite his absence from Parliament, Strange left his mark on the Lords’ proceedings on account of the manner of his summons. The government, evidently overlooking the fact that Derby did not hold the barony of Strange of Knokin, issued a writ of acceleration addressed to ‘James Stanley of Strange’, and the new peer was assigned the precedence appropriate to that title. In reality, the barony had fallen into abeyance in 1594, when Derby’s elder brother Ferdinando Stanley^†, the 5th earl, died leaving only female heirs. The eldest of these daughters, Anne, countess of Castlehaven [I], wife to Mervyn Tuchet^*, 12th Lord Audley, was determined that her claim to the barony should not be lost by default, and duly lodged a complaint with the Lords. Accordingly, after the facts had been clarified, the upper House ruled on 7 June that ‘the said writ of summons, and the said rank and place of the said James’ should not be taken to undermine the legal rights of Anne and her sisters. With that question settled, the matter was then dropped, though in consequence of Anne’s challenge, Strange’s barony was thereafter accounted a new creation.47 CP, iv. 214; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 595.

In December 1628, one of Strange’s estate stewards, Peter Wynne^‡, was returned in a by-election at Flint Boroughs, and probably benefited from his employer’s support.48 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 570. When Parliament resumed a month later, Strange finally took his seat in the Lords, attending almost two-thirds of the 1629 sittings. He was noted as absent at a call of the House on 9 Feb., but was back again the next day. In theory he held his father’s proxy, but in fact Derby did not officially present it to him until 7 Mar., after the effective end of the session.49 LJ, iv. 6a, 25a; Lancs. RO, DDK/11/11a. Strange made no speeches, but received two appointments, being named to the committee for the bill to increase trade, and nominated to attend the king when the petition for a general fast was presented.50 LJ, iv. 8a, 14a. During this session a bill was introduced to naturalize Lady Strange, who duly attended the House on 28 Jan. to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, her husband certifying that she received the Anglican sacraments. As she was heavily pregnant, she was permitted to swear the oaths privately before the lord keeper, Thomas Coventry^*, 1st Lord Coventry, contrary to normal practice. The bill passed both Houses successfully, but failed to receive the Royal Assent, apparently because the session ended prematurely.51 Ibid. 10b, 15b, 17b; CJ, i. 925b-6a; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 331-2.

During the next few years, Strange spent more time in London, even performing in January 1631 with his brother Robert in a court masque, Ben Jonson’s ‘Love’s Triumph through Callipolis’. Later that year, at Chelsea, his wife bore him a daughter whom they named Henrietta Maria, after the queen. In April 1632, when Lady Strange travelled from the capital to the Netherlands on family business, he joined her on board ship for the initial passage down the Thames, before returning to his house in Canon Row, Westminster, and petitioning the Privy Council over a dispute with one of his neighbours.52 Stanley Pprs. ed. T. Heywood (Chetham Soc. xxix), 55; Witt, 43; HMC 10th Rep. IV, 275-6; PC2/41, ff. 269v-70v.

Despite his residence in the capital, Strange never established a regular presence at court. A supporter of the old Jacobean religious consensus, and the patron of solidly Protestant clergy, at least one of whom was a former French Calvinist, he found himself out of sympathy with the Arminian tendencies of the Caroline regime. This attitude only hardened after the archbishop-elect of Canterbury, William Laud^*, attempted in 1633 to interfere in the appointment of the next bishop of Sodor and Man, a matter which Strange and his father regarded as their personal preserve. The change in direction of English foreign policy after 1630 formed another grievance, Strange and his wife maintaining an unfashionable attachment to the Huguenot cause and the queen of Bohemia.53 Coward, 168; CSP Dom. 1629-31, pp. 497-8; 1636-7, p. 440; HMC Cowper, ii. 31-2; Stanley Pprs. (Chetham Soc. lxvi), 1. At a more private level, the death of Strange’s brother Robert in 1632 precipitated a long-running legal battle with the latter’s widow, over the scale of financial support to which she considered herself entitled. This can only have revived memories of the circumstances behind Robert’s marriage, and the part played by the king in foisting Elizabeth Gorges on the family.54 Collins, Peerage, iii. 83; CSP Dom. 1634-5, p. 567; 1635, pp. 36-7; SO3/11, unfol. (July 1635).

Disappointed in King Charles, but still fundamentally loyal to the crown, Strange increasingly withdrew to his own estates, drawing comfort from his substantial library at Knowsley, and immersing himself in administrative business. From choice, he operated remotely, meeting the Lancashire magistrates so rarely that in June 1636 he was formally summoned to attend the next assizes, having failed to take the requisite oaths.55 Stanley Pprs. (Chetham Soc. lxvi), pp. xxii, xxiv-xxv; HMC Cowper, ii. 97; CSP Dom. 1635, p. 517; PC2/46, f. 59; Farington Pprs. 8-9; Procs. of the Lancs. JPs 1578-1694 ed. B.W. Quintrell (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. cxxi), 37. Nevertheless, he remained significantly more efficient than his increasingly infirm father, whom he replaced as vice admiral of Cheshire and Lancashire in 1638. A year later, an external report on the militia of the two counties found that Strange, now in effect sole lord lieutenant, had taken great pains to raise standards, and enjoyed the loyalty of the officers.56 CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 387-8, 419. This claim was put to the test when Strange was summoned to attend the king at York in the spring of 1639, ahead of the First Bishops’ War. He responded vigorously, mobilizing the local gentry to supply him with armed horsemen, and arriving in York with a company of around one hundred, apparently one of only 15 peers to attend in person. Even so, the campaigns against the Scots were unpopular in Lancashire, and Strange reportedly lost some support there by sacking obstructive Protestant militia officers, and replacing them with Catholics.57 SO1/3, ff. 114v-15; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 442; Farington Pprs. 57-8; M.C. Fissel, Bishops’ Wars, 157; R. Cust, Chas. I and the Aristocracy, 185; HMC Rutland, i. 505; Coward, 169-70.

During 1640 Strange attended both the Short and Long parliaments, as well as the Great Council of Peers. Alarmed by the Irish Rebellion of 1641, which he believed was not taken seriously enough in London, he deeply regretted the drift towards civil war in England, recognizing that this prevented an effective response to the crisis in Ireland. Accordingly, he attempted to preserve political unity within his lieutenancy, and did not finally commit to the royalist cause until the summer of 1642, just months before he succeeded his father as 7th earl of Derby.58 Devon RO, 1700M/C/P/17; Coward, 170, 172; HMC Portland, iii. 87. According to Clarendon, he proved an ineffectual commander, ‘so unactive [sic], and through greatness of mind so uncomplying with those who were fuller of alacrity’ that he allowed parliamentarian forces to gain the upper hand in Lancashire. Lathom itself was twice besieged, and by the time it finally fell in 1645 Derby had retreated with his family to the Isle of Man, which he continued to hold for the crown after Charles I’s execution.59 Clarendon, ii. 471; iii. 339; v. 174; Espinasse, 145. He finally ventured back to the mainland in 1651, in support of Charles II’s abortive invasion of England, but was captured after the battle of Worcester, court-martialled, and executed at Bolton, Lancashire, his grisly end somewhat redeeming his reputation in royalist circles. His honours descended to his son Charles.60 Clarendon, v. 178-9; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 606, 608; HMC 7th Rep. 95.