RICH, Robert (c.1588-1658)

Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, was that rarest of noblemen, the licentious puritan. On the one hand he was witty, jovial and companionable: the nonconformist clergyman Edmund Calamy described him as ‘bountiful and prince-like in his hospitality and housekeeping’, while Edward Hyde^†, 1st earl of Clarendon, less flatteringly remarked that ‘a man of less virtue could not be found out’. On the other hand, he was, like his father before him, intensely devout, being ‘very constant in his morning and evening public service of God’ and attending weekly lectures whenever he was in London. He also protected and supported nonconformist ministers.65 Calamy, 35, 37; Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion, ii. 544.

Warwick was unusual in one other key respect, for as Kenneth Andrews has remarked, he was the only great ship-owning aristocrat of his age.66 K.R. Andrews, Ships, Money and Pols. 37. A natural seaman, he was just as willing and able to climb to the top as any common sailor.67 T. Birch, Court and Times of Chas. I, i. 261. His maritime expertise, taken alongside his puritan sympathies, City connections and hostility to unparliamentary taxation, made him the ideal choice to command the parliamentary naval forces when Parliament and the king came to blows in 1642.

Colonial ventures, personal enmities and privateering, 1617-20

Rich was the eldest son of Robert Rich, 3rd Lord Rich, the wealthiest landowner in Essex. His upbringing was conventional – a short stint at Eton, followed by Cambridge – but also traumatic: his mother, Penelope, conducted an openly adulterous affair with the 8th Lord Mountjoy (Charles Blount^*, later earl of Devonshire), and when he was 17 she initiated divorce proceedings on the grounds that at the time of her wedding she had been contracted to marry Mountjoy. Thankfully for Rich, her argument was rejected by the court. Had it been accepted, it would have had the effect of making both Rich and his brothers, including Henry^* (later 1st earl of Holland), illegitimate.

Although Penelope tried to cast doubt on the legality of her union with his father, Rich had reason to be grateful to his mother. Before initiating divorce proceedings, she secretly arranged for him to marry Frances Hatton, sole heiress to the Norfolk estates of Sir Francis Gawdy^‡, one of the justices of King’s Bench, and coheir to the lands of the late lord chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton^‡. This union, celebrated in February 1605, brought ‘the greatest estate any woman had done for many years to a family’.68 Autobiog. of Mary, Countess of Warwick, 15. On Gawdy’s death ten months later, Rich became a man of independent means, free to pursue his own interests without reference to his father. He moved to Norfolk, and lived on Gawdy’s former estate of Wallington, in north Norfolk.69 SO3/4, unfol. (4 Jan. 1610). He also began investing in promising ventures, such as the Virginia Company (1612), the Africa Company (1618) and the salt patent obtained by John More^‡.

In 1612, after completing his education and a short stint in the House of Commons, Rich travelled to northern Italy as part of an English embassy to Turin. Though his sojourn there was brief, he formed a close link with the duchy of Savoy, which was rapidly emerging as an enemy of Spain. Rich hated Catholic Spain, whose people he described in a letter to the Dutch admiral Marten Tromp in 1642 as ‘the enemies of God and the Gospel’.70 R.A. Stradling, Armada of Flanders: Spanish Maritime Policy and European War 1568-1668, p. 135. Following the outbreak of war between Spain and Savoy in 1616, he obtained letters of marque from the Savoyard ambassador in London. In association with Philip Barnardi, an Italian merchant, he subsequently fitted out two privateers, one of them his own. It seems likely that Rich had tacit royal approval for this venture, for although James I was then negotiating for a marriage treaty with Spain, he was also angry that the Spanish were refusing to honour the terms of the treaty of Asti, which had ended a previous bout of conflict between Spain and Savoy.71 S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. iii. 50.

For reasons that remain unclear, Rich’s ships sailed not to the Mediterranean, where they might have preyed on Spanish shipping, but to the Indian Ocean. There, in September 1617, they attempted to capture a 1,400 ton junk reportedly laden with 35 tons of silver belonging to the mother of the great mogul.72 Letters Received by the East India Co. ed. W. Foster, vi. 173-4, 274. However, they were thwarted by a fleet of the English East India Company, whose timely arrival prevented them from inflicting irreparable damage on English trade. England’s ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Thomas Roe^†, subsequently ordered the seizure of the two privateers and the sale of their goods. In the event, both vessels were destroyed.73 S. Purchas, Purchas His Pilgrimes, iv. 420; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 198; CSP Ven. 1617-21, p. 232.

News of the fate of Rich’s ships did not reach England until January 1619. In the meantime, Rich helped equip a third vessel, the Treasurer, which sailed for Virginia in the spring of 1618. The ostensible purpose of this voyage was to take supplies to the hard pressed English colony, controlled by the Virginia Company, in which Rich was a leading investor. Since the spring of 1617 Virginia had been governed by Rich’s friend and client, Samuel Argall, who sought to put the colony on a firm financial footing, the company then being more than £8,000 in debt.74 W.F. Craven, Dissolution of the Virg. Co. 33. However, Argall, a strict disciplinarian, had proved to be an unpopular deputy governor with the colonists, who complained that he was converting company stores to his own use. This accusation, though probably false, led the Virginia Company to dispatch, in April 1618, the colony’s governor Thomas West^*, 3rd Lord De La Warr, to investigate and assume control.75 S.V. Connor, ‘Sir Samuel Argall: A Biographical Sketch’, Virg. Mag. of Hist. and Biog. lix. 170-3; Craven, 33. Shortly thereafter the Treasurer sailed for Virginia with her store of supplies, but with the real intention, perhaps, of providing Argall with a means of escape. In the short term, however, it proved unnecessary for Argall to flee, as De La Warr died en route.

The decision to dispatch De La Warr to Virginia led to tension between Rich and the treasurer (i.e. governor) of the Virginia Company, Sir Thomas Smythe^*. Their relationship worsened in November 1618, when Smythe, under pressure from another leading member of the company, Sir Edwin Sandys^‡, agreed not only to appoint Sir George Yeardley as governor of Virginia in succession to De La Warr, but also to send Argall back to England in chains. Matters were exacerbated later that same month, when Rich’s sister Isabel married Smythe’s eldest son and heir Sir John^‡ without Smythe’s permission. Smythe was so horrified that he disowned the couple.76 HP Commons, 1604-29, vi. 361, 366. However, he subsequently bowed to pressure from various ‘great lords’, making provision for his son and his new wife, and inviting them to live with him.77 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 193-4. He also extended to Rich a short term loan of £1,500.78 LC4/41, m. 4.

The rapprochement between Rich and Smythe was short lived. In January 1619 news reached England that the East India Company, of which Smythe was also governor, had captured and destroyed Rich’s ships in the Indian Ocean. A furious Rich retaliated by seizing a ship belonging to the East India Company and filing for damages amounting to £1,600,000. However, he was forced to abandon his lawsuit by the king, who instructed him to seek an amicable settlement. He was also reprimanded by the Privy Council for having obtained foreign letters of marque.79 CSP Dom. 1619-23, pp. 8, 14; CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, p. 248. Obliged for the time being to set aside his quarrel with the East India Company, he turned his attention instead to rescuing Argall. In April 1619 a fast pinnace reached Virginia and spirited the now disgraced deputy governor away two weeks ahead of the arrival of Sir George Yeardley.80 A. Brown, First Republic in America, 287; J. Smith, Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England and the Summer Iles, ii. 37.

Before leaving Virginia, Argall dispatched the Treasurer to the Caribbean. Like the vessels Rich had previously sent to the Indian Ocean, the Treasurer carried Savoyard letters of marque. As these had been issued after the end of the war between Savoy and Spain, their purpose, at least in theory, was to ensure the friendship of French vessels (France and Savoy then being allies).81 Brown, First Republic, 284. However, they could also be used to justify acts of piracy against Spanish shipping. Whether Argall sent the Treasurer to the Caribbean on Rich’s instructions is unclear, but his decision would soon come back to haunt both Rich and the Virginia Company.

Shortly before Argall was rescued, Rich’s father died. The latter had recently purchased for £10,000 the earldom of Warwick, which title now passed to Rich, along with an extensive estate in Essex, which by 1637 was worth nearly £6,900 a year.82 Leics. RO, DG7/2/31, unfoliated. cf. the Venetian ambassador’s estimate of 1636. CSP Ven. 1632-6, p. 337. The new earl of Warwick was jubilant – there seems to have been little love lost between father and son – and celebrated without regard for the cost, in defiance of the advice of his late father, who had warned his son not to live beyond his means, ‘especially in the beginning’. Indeed, he spent so much that the newsletter-writer John Chamberlain remarked that, unless he refrained, he was likely to remain rich in name only.83 PROB 11/135, f. 412v; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 225. There seems to have been more than a grain of truth in Chamberlain’s remark, for on being reminded by the Privy Council in November 1620 to contribute to the aid for relief of the Palatinate, Warwick pleaded inability, his estate being ‘encumbered with very great debts which I cannot yet find any means to rid myself of’.84 SP14/117/105.

Once the celebrations were ended, Warwick rejoined battle with Smythe, who, as well as being head of both the Virginia and East India companies, was also governor of the Somers Island Company, of which Warwick too was a member. Warwick now had a fresh grievance, having learned that the governor of Somers Island (modern day Bermuda) had recently imprisoned one of his cousins, and had been supported by Smythe.85 W.R. Scott, Constitution and Finances of English, Scottish and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720, ii. 266. The cousin concerned had accused the governor of injustice: J.H. Lefroy, Historye of the Bermudaes, 101-2. He demanded that the governor concerned be replaced with his own client, Capt. Nathaniel Boteler. At the same time, he threw his support behind Sir Edwin Sandys, who decided to challenge Smythe for control of the Virginia Company. Sensing defeat, in late April 1619 Smythe stepped down, and shortly thereafter Warwick’s candidate, Boteler, was elected governor of the Somers Island colony by 297 votes to just three.86 Boteler’s Dialogues ed. W.G. Perrin (Navy Recs. Soc. lxv), ix.

Warwick had succeeded in inflicting serious damage on Smythe, but in the process of pulling down one enemy he had helped raise up another. Sandys owed his election to the governorship of the Virginia Company in no small part to Warwick, but the two men failed to see eye to eye over the governorship of Somers Island. Whereas Warwick had promoted Boteler, Sandys had canvassed support for his own brother, George. Warwick did not forget this, and in May 1619 he refused to help Sandys topple Smythe as governor of the Somers Island Company. This decision was perhaps unwise, as an angry Sandys retaliated by threatening to bring criminal charges of maladministration against Warwick’s client Samuel Argall. Furthermore, in June 1619 he instructed the governor of Virginia, Sir George Yeardley, to seize the Treasurer, having learned that the ship had committed acts of piracy against the Spanish. Although the Treasurer subsequently made her escape, one of her junior officers admitted the piracy charge.87 Craven, 87, 122, 130, 131. Armed with this damning evidence Sandys informed the board of the Virginia Company in February 1620. Fearing Spanish retaliation, the board duly alerted both Spain’s ambassador and the Privy Council.88 APC, 1619-21, p. 142; HMC 8th Rep. II, 36; Rich Pprs.: Letters from Bermuda 1615-46 ed. V. Ives, 152-3. This was calculated to inflict maximum damage upon Warwick, since James, who hated pirates, was unlikely to look kindly on any acts which jeopardized his pursuit of a Spanish marriage alliance. Indeed, less than two years earlier he had caused Sir Walter Ralegh^‡ to be executed for piracy against Spain.

In the event, Warwick escaped punishment for the illegal actions of the Treasurer. There were undoubtedly several reasons for this. In the first place, the Spanish did not press their case, perhaps because they wished to ensure that England remained neutral in the war that had recently erupted between the Habsburgs and James’s son-in-law, the Elector Frederick V. Secondly, James detested Sandys, who had successfully spearheaded the opposition to his plans for uniting England and Scotland 13 years earlier and whose mischief-making lay behind the accusation of piracy. By contrast, James sympathized with Warwick for the losses he had sustained in the Indian Ocean three years earlier. Indeed, in November 1619, he instructed the East India Company to compensate the earl.89 CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, pp. 323-4. Another reason Warwick escaped censure may have been his friendship with the royal favourite and lord admiral, George Villiers^*, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham, who appointed him vice admiral of Essex in January 1620. This amity must, in part, have been founded upon a similar religious outlook, for before the mid 1620s Buckingham, like Warwick, gave support to puritan ministers. However, the two men were also fellow socialites, for unlike his father, Warwick took an active part in the life of the court. A few days before his appointment as vice admiral of Essex, Warwick threw a masque for Buckingham and other leading courtiers at his house in Holborn. Two months later he participated in the accession day tilt, probably for the first time.90 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 282, 298; Beaumont Pprs. ed. W.D. Macray, xxii. In January 1621 he not only served as a sewer at the feast held in honour of the French ambassador extraordinary but also participated in the subsequent tilt.91 SP14/119/9; Autobiog. of Sir Simonds D’Ewes ed. J.O. Halliwell, i. 166.

Far from ruining Warwick, as he had hoped, Sandys soon found that his own position as governor of the Virginia Company was now under threat. Setting aside his former enmity, Warwick decided to make common cause with Sir Thomas Smythe against Sandys. In May 1620, doubtless with Warwick’s encouragement, the king ordered the Virginia Company not to re-elect Sandys as its governor. Although Sandys appealed to Buckingham for protection, the following month he was forced out. Nevertheless his replacement was not Smythe but his own ally, Henry Wriothesley^*, 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton. For the time being the hostility between Warwick and Sandys abated. Six months later Warwick and Sandys once again found themselves on opposite sides of the fence. On 3 Nov. 1620 Warwick was appointed to the newly formed council for New England, being somewhat disenchanted with the Virginia Company, whose meetings for the time being he ceased to attend. The next day, however, Sandys warned the directors of the Virginia Company that the New England patent threatened the continued existence of the Virginia colony, since it gave the patentees sole right to fish in American waters. Following an ultimately fruitless appeal to the Privy Council, the Company resolved to complain to Parliament, which was due to meet in January 1621.92 Virg. Co. Recs. ed. S.M. Kingsbury, i. 411, 428; Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine ed. J.P. Baxter (Prince Soc.), ii. 33-4.

The Parliament of 1621

The elections to the 1621 Parliament provided Warwick with his first opportunity to exercise parliamentary patronage. Like his father before him, he was determined to play an active role. However, whereas the 3rd Lord Rich had restricted his interest to the Essex county election, Warwick had wider ambitions, for in December 1620 he secured the election at Harwich of his brother-in-law and fellow puritan Sir Thomas Cheke^‡. At around the same time he sought to tighten his grip on the county election, which was held not at the usual venue, Chelmsford, but at Braintree, which lay close to Leez Priory, his principal county seat. This alteration enabled Warwick to influence the election of both knights of the shire rather than just one. The senior seat was taken by his father’s old friend Sir Francis Barrington^‡, while the junior place went to Sir John Deane^‡, who was connected to Warwick through the Winthrop family.93 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 123-4, 131. Like Warwick, both men were puritans.

Warwick attended the opening of Parliament on 30 January. Thereafter, until the Houses rose for the summer, he was rarely absent. Indeed, his longest period away from the chamber lasted just two days (16 and 17 February). However, during the winter sitting his attendance level was less impressive. Between 3 and 12 Dec. he missed nine consecutive sittings. He was granted leave of absence on 4 December.94 LJ, iii. 181a.

Shortly after the beginning of the session, Warwick signed the ‘Humble Petition of the Nobility of England’, which called upon the king to give English barons precedence on local commissions over the purchasers of Irish and Scottish titles.95 A. Wilson, Hist. of Gt. Britain (1653), 187. On the face of it this is surprising, as Warwick’s own illegitimate half-brother, Mountjoy Blount^* (later 1st earl of Newport), had been granted an Irish viscountcy in 1618. Moreover, the petition was clearly aimed at Warwick’s friend Buckingham, who was widely known to be the chief beneficiary of the sale of titles. However, Warwick’s association with this protest may have been motivated by the fact that one of his Essex neighbours, Sir William Maynard^* of Little Easton (later 1st Lord Maynard), had recently acquired an Irish barony. This might not have mattered had it not been the case that Maynard was an Arminian sympathizer, who later became the patron of John Browning, rector of Rawreth, an outspoken critic of Essex puritans.96 WILLIAM MAYNARD. Yet if Warwick’s support for the Humble Petition caused a temporary rift with Buckingham, there is now no record of the fact.

As a novice in the upper House, it is no surprise that in 1621 Warwick played only a modest role in the recorded activity of the Lords. Indeed, he is known to have spoken on only a handful of occasions. His first speech, on 15 Feb., was merely to excuse the absence of the 1st Lord Carew (George Carew^*); his second, on 27 Apr., was to impress upon the House the enormous profits obtained by the monopolist Matthias Fowles, whom, he claimed, had ‘gained four crowns upon every pound’. (Four crowns was equivalent to £1 4s.). His remaining speeches included a contribution to the debate of 2 May on whether punishment of the former attorney general, Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, should be left to the king rather than the House, which had already taken the matter into its consideration. Warwick was among those who argued that the Lords should determine the case themselves, on the grounds that ‘there is an ordinance that whatsoever is begun in the House shall be determined here’. Two days later, the Lords were informed that James would see them shortly to consider the matter, whereupon Warwick evidently produced a precedent. A procedural point also informed his intervention in debate on 15 May.97 LJ, iii. 18a; LD 1621, pp. 34, 56, 61, 85. On 28 Nov. Warwick persuaded the House to issue a writ of habeas corpus in respect of William Cowse, then languishing in Ludgate gaol after the 4th Lord Stafford (Edward Stafford^*) revoked his letters of protection.98 LD 1621, p. 98; LJ, iii. 174a.

Over the course of the 1621 assembly, Warwick was appointed to 21 committees, all but one of them prior to the summer adjournment. This figure excludes a committee established on 30 Apr. to consider a bill to punish blasphemy and another, on 9 May, to discuss the land bill of the 3rd earl of Bedford (Edward Russell^*). In both cases he was initially appointed but then removed.99 Add. 40085, ff. 82, 132. Among the legislation Warwick was asked to consider were bills to punish abuse of the Sabbath and prevent the export of bullion, a measure probably aimed at the East India Company. It seems likely that Warwick approved of both. Warwick was also a member of committees for bills to explain the 1606 Recusancy Act and outlaw monopolies. He chaired only one bill committee, concerning Wadham College, Oxford, which he reported on 18 May. However, he also acted as spokesman for a committee of four peers instructed to report on a private dispute over the Greenland fisheries between Sir James Cunningham and the Muscovy Company. Shortly before the session was prorogued, he informed the House that the Muscovy Company had still not paid Cunningham all the money it owed him. Warwick’s sole legislative appointment during the winter sitting was to consider a bill concerning women convicted of minor felony.100 LJ, iii. 26b, 39b, 101a,126b, 127b, 132a, 137a, 156a, 174b, 199a, 199b.

Warwick’s non-legislative appointments included the newly instituted committee for privileges, the subcommittee for privileges, two committees for inspecting the clerk’s Journal, and a committee to search for precedents regarding parliamentary judicature.101 Ibid. 10b, 17b, 21a, 65b, 73b. He certainly played an active role on this latter body, which had been called into existence because the Commons wished for punishment to be inflicted on both the lord chancellor, Viscount St. Alban (Francis Bacon^*) and several monopolists. Indeed, he not only participated in the ensuing search of records in the Tower, but also recorded the precedents for, unlike many of his fellow peers, he could read law French. He helped present the committee’s findings on 23 March.102 Ibid. 67b; LD 1621, p. 133. By contrast, Warwick probably took no part in a meeting held on 24 May to discuss with representatives of the Commons the Sabbath bill and a bill concerning writs of certiorari, for despite being appointed to the committee he was not present that morning. Warwick was among those peers sent to visit Sir Henry Yelverton in the Tower on 28 April.103 LJ, iii. 96b, 130b.

By the time of the 1621 Parliament, Warwick was well acquainted with the clerk of the Commons, John Wright, having recommended him for the recordership of Colchester in 1619.104 Essex RO, D/B 3/3/217/8. During this assembly, however, he also became familiar to the assistant clerk, Henry Elsyng, who succeeded as clerk of the parliaments on 15 March. On 13 Mar. he persuaded Elsyng to take full notes at a committee of the whole House, and on 26 Mar. he asked Elsyng to provide him with a copy of the speech delivered to the House by the king earlier that day. On 30 Apr. he proposed that one of Elsyng’s men read bill breviates to the House as Elsyng himself was unwell.105 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 21; LD 1621, p. 133; Add. 40085, f. 82.

It seems likely that Warwick kept a close eye on the Commons in 1621, not least because his enemy, Sir Edwin Sandys, was a leading spokesman in the lower House. His chief ally in the Commons was his second cousin and man-of-business, Sir Nathaniel Rich^‡, who, on 27 Feb., recommended that England, like the Dutch, should create its own West India Company.106 CD 1621, v. 262. See also Nicholas, Procs. 1621, i. 105. He almost certainly briefed Rich to oppose Sandys when the latter, through his allies, persuaded the Commons’ committee for grievances to condemn as a monopoly the New England patent, in which Warwick himself had an interest.107 Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine, ii. 33-4. However, the House failed to resolve the matter before the December prorogation, despite pressure from Rich, who was one of two Members to ask the Commons on 18 Dec. to instruct the committee to report its findings in respect of the patent ‘restraining fishing in Newfoundland’ [sic].108CJ, i. 668b. It seems likely that Warwick’s support for the New England patent coloured his attitude towards monopolies in general. Indeed, it may explain why, on 1 Dec., he seconded the 3rd earl of Dorset (Richard Sackville^*), who called for the monopolies bill to be recommitted after it received a third reading.109 LD 1621, p. 104.

It was perhaps because Sandys and his allies found it difficult to persuade the Commons to condemn the New England patent that a bill to allow free fishing off the American coast was laid before the lower House in April. Promoted by Sandys, it was given three readings110 CJ, i. 578a, 592a, 654a. For its promotion by Sandys, see CD 1621, v. 98, 349. but never reached the Lords, where it would probably have been opposed by Warwick. Following the dissolution, the king declined to suppress the New England patent, and instead offered words of encouragement to its originator, Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Warwick too wrote to Gorges in order to persuade him to continue with his project on behalf of those who wished to settle in New England to escape episcopacy.111 Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine, ii. 43-4, 59. His letter no longer survives, but its tenor, as recorded by Gorges, reveals a key motive behind Warwick’s enthusiasm for colonial settlement.

Virginia Company broils and the Parliament of 1624

During the course of the 1621 Parliament, the Sandys faction in the Virginia Company strengthened its hand by gaining control of the Somers Island Company from Warwick’s ally Sir Thomas Smythe, who was replaced as governor by Southampton.112 Scott, ii. 275. Thereafter, the hostility between Warwick and Sandys and their respective supporters intensified. In 1622 the two sides quarrelled over the ownership of 14 negro slaves seized by Warwick’s ally Nathaniel Boteler from Sandys’s cousin, Capt. Nicholas Kendall. Far from upholding Boteler’s decision, the board of the Somers Island Company ordered that most of the slaves be returned to Kendall.113 Lefroy, 242-3; Recs. of Virg. Co. ii. 407. That same year the two camps clashed again, this time over the large salaries payable to Sandys and his ally John Ferrar^‡ for administering, on behalf of the Virginia Company, the newly obtained contract for the right to import tobacco. Warwick accused Sandys and Ferrar of assigning all the tobacco profits to themselves, and in February 1623 he and Sir Thomas Smythe combined forces in order to strike down the salaries. However, they narrowly failed to obtain the required majority. They thereupon appealed to the king, who suspended the tobacco contract and referred the matter to the Privy Council. In the final week of March their efforts were rewarded, as the Council not only ruled in favour of the complainants but also abandoned the contract. Flush with success, they petitioned the king to order a thorough investigation of the Virginia Company’s affairs.114 Craven, 242-3, 248-9, 258-9.

Sandys was not the sort of man to take defeat lying down. In April 1623 he summoned an extraordinary meeting of the court of the Virginia Company to which Warwick and his supporters were not invited (though many of them turned up anyway). At this gathering all the old grievances against Warwick, including the conduct of Argall as governor of the Virginia colony and the piratical activities of the Treasurer, were publicly aired. As a consequence, the company decided to submit a counter-petition to the king. Shortly thereafter both sides appeared before James. For his part, Warwick complained that the Virginia Company was mismanaged, and pointed to a document drawn up by his client Nathaniel Boteler, who had recently returned to England. Boteler’s account of the state of the colony, though short, was scathing. Sandys and his supporters responded by protesting that Warwick and his allies had ‘presumed to wrong the sacred ears of your Majesty with many most gross untruths’, but James was so concerned that on 9 May t a seven-man commission of inquiry was established, headed by Sir William Jones^‡, a justice in the Court of Common Pleas. Jones was a neutral party, but the same could not be said for four of his fellow commissioners - Sir Nicholas Fortescue, Sir Francis Gofton, Sir Richard Sutton and Sir William Pitt^‡ - all of whom were colleagues of Warwick’s ally, Sir Thomas Smythe, on the Navy commission. A fifth member of the Virginia inquiry was the Exchequer official Sir Henry Spiller^‡, who had taken part in the seizure of Sandys’ papers two years earlier, when Sandys was suspected by the king of attempting to wreck the 1621 Parliament.115 Scott, ii. 283-4; Recs. of Virg. Co. iv. 111-12, 575; iv. 410.

Even before the commission was established it was apparent to Sandys and his supporters that they were unlikely to receive a fair hearing unless they brought their grievances to the attention of a wider public. Consequently, on 7 May, two days before the commission of inquiry was set up, Sandys’s ally, the young Lord Cavendish (William Cavendish^*, later 2nd earl of Devonshire) presented to the court of the Virginia Company a written declaration in which it was stated that ‘the chief root of all these divisions ... have proceeded from some instruments about ... the earl of Warwick’. A series of complaints against Warwick were then rehearsed, including a claim that Sandys had been threatened with violence if he revealed the nature of the Treasurer’s Caribbean activities.116 Recs. of Virg. Co. ii. 400-5. Following this meeting, Cavendish’s ‘declaration’ was distributed widely in order to whip up public sympathy. Its dissemination quickly elicited from Warwick a strongly worded protest to the Privy Council. Sandys and his supporters were accused of having drawn up ‘a long and impertinent declaration consisting for the most part of bitter and unnecessary invectives and aspersions upon the person of the earl of Warwick and others whom they had styled his instruments and agents’. The Council agreed, and on 13 May Sandys, Cavendish and Ferrar were briefly confined to their houses. The following month, the commission of inquiry found that Warwick’s complaint of mismanagement was justified, whereupon the Company’s annual election of its officers was halted.117 APC, 1623-5, p. 491; T.K. Rabb, Jacobean Gentleman, 379-80.

Although it was now clear that Warwick had triumphed, Sandys and his associates continued to protest. On 16 July, at a meeting of the board of the Somers Island Company, Sandys, seconded by Cavendish, ‘fell foul’ upon the earl. This time, however, Warwick was present to defend his conduct. He openly accused Cavendish of lying, whereupon Cavendish retaliated in kind. Not surprisingly, a challenge to a duel was swiftly issued. As private combat was forbidden in England, the two men agreed to meet in the Spanish Netherlands. The following day Warwick, disguised as a merchant, crossed over to Ghent. However, the Flemish authorities, armed with a physical description (‘une taille assez haute et le poil blond’), soon located him and passed him over to the English ambassador, William Trumbull^‡. Cavendish, by contrast, got no further than the Sussex coast before being apprehended on the orders of the Council, which had quickly learned of the quarrel.118 APC, 1623-5, pp. 59-60, 64-5; Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 412; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 509, 511; HMC 8th Rep. II, 29; Add. 72366, ff. 27, 42-3.

Instead of returning to England immediately, Warwick travelled to The Hague, where he joined his first cousin, Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, then serving as a volunteer in the Dutch forces. In August the two men feasted the exiled Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of James I, at Delft. However, the following month Warwick, having been delayed by ill health, was ordered to return to England by the English ambassador Dudley Carleton^* (later 1st Viscount Dorchester).119 Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 417; Carleton to Chamberlain ed. M. Lee, 308.

Shortly after Warwick’s arrival, the Privy Council offered the Virginia Company a new charter, giving the king the right to choose the Company’s officers in the first instance. Sandys and his allies naturally refused to accept an arrangement which would almost certainly have transferred power to Warwick and his associates, and consequently, in early November, quo warranto proceedings were instituted against the Company. This legal action, which coincided with the illness and death of Warwick’s young wife, ultimately spelled the end of the Company, which was dissolved the next year. It was followed on 17 Feb. 1624 by the king’s reinstatement of Sir Thomas Smythe as governor of the Somers Island Company.120 Craven, 315; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 104; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 527; ‘Ferrar 1624’, p. 11.

The defeat of the Sandys faction was now all but complete. However, Sandys remained a powerful figure in Parliament, which was summoned to meet in February 1624. It may have been because he feared a backlash in the Commons from Sandys and his friends that Warwick sought to increase his electoral influence. Whereas in 1621 he had secured the election of just three of his supporters, he now obtained the return of five. In January the Essex borough of Maldon returned two of his clients, Sir Arthur Herrys^‡ and Sir William Masham^‡. (The former leased several properties from Warwick, while the latter was son-in-law to Warwick’s close ally, Sir Francis Barrington). Warwick also used his influence to return Barrington and Sir Thomas Cheke for the county seats, and to obtain the election of Sir Nathaniel Rich at Harwich.

Warwick failed to attend Parliament when it opened on 19 Feb., but took his seat two days later. Perhaps the icy weather delayed his journey from Essex, but in all likelihood his absence was occasioned by sickness. Over the course of the next four months he certainly attended the upper House only sporadically. His longest period of absence began on the afternoon of 7 May and lasted until the 28th, the penultimate day of the session. However, he was also barely in evidence for much of March, missing at least 13 of the morning sittings and all three afternoon sittings. In April he failed to attend 14 morning sittings and the sole afternoon sitting, held on the 24th.

Since he was often not present, it is scarcely surprising that Warwick played only a minor role in the recorded activity of the Lords in 1624. Perhaps his most significant contribution was on 27 Feb., when he leaped to the defence of Buckingham, now a duke, after the Spanish ambassadors complained to James that the favourite had cast aspersions on the honour of their king, who was accused of having deceived England for the last seven years over the Spanish Match. Buckingham had told both Houses three days earlier that Spain had spun out the negotiations in order to prevent England from supporting James’s son-in-law, the Elector Palatine Frederick V, whose lands had been overrun by Spanish and imperial forces. Warwick had little doubt that the Commons would join them in petitioning the king to exonerate Buckingham. The Spanish Match also formed the subject of a further intervention by Warwick on 1 Mar., when he prompted Buckingham to report to the House the account recently presented to a Lords committee by Sir Robert Cotton^‡, who had helped set the Spanish marriage negotiations in train.121 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 3, 16. Almost his only other recorded contribution to debate was on 13 Mar., when he returned to the chamber after attending a conference with representatives of the Commons in order to ask the House to continue sitting as an answer from the Commons in respect of supply was expected shortly.122 Add. 40087, f. 85.

As in 1621, Warwick was appointed to both the committee and the subcommittee for privileges.123 LJ, iii. 215a, 215b. However, he was named to only a handful of legislative committees. The first of these, on 12 Mar., concerned a bill to enable the Durham landowner Sir Richard Lumley sell land to pay his debts and provide for his younger children, a measure in which he had no discernible interest. The second, five days later, was to consider a bill to naturalize five Scottish courtiers, among them Sir Francis Stewart^‡, whom Warwick subsequently employed as a sea captain. Warwick presumably chaired the committee, as he reported its findings to the House. He subsequently reported two further measures. The first, on 7 Apr., was a bill to naturalize the London merchant Giles Vandeputt, which subsequently received a third reading after he reassured the House that Vandeputt would pay customs at the same rate as an Englishman. Whether Warwick was personally connected to Vandeputt is unknown, but he was certainly well acquainted with members of London’s merchant community,124 Ibid. 265b, 291b, 293a, 293b. for, as has already been mentioned, his first known privateering venture involved an Italian merchant living in London named Philip Barnardi. He also borrowed heavily from the Merchant Taylor Sir William Craven (father of William Craven^*, the future 1st Lord Craven).125 Bodl., Dep.Craven.Estates 74, account book 1618-30, unfol. (entries of 28 June and 11 Dec. 1619). The remaining bill which Warwick reported, on 14 Apr., concerned a sale of land by Edward Seymour^*, 1st earl of Hertford and the latter’s son, William Seymour^* (later 2nd earl of Hertford). There was a family interest here, as William Seymour was married to the sister of Warwick’s recently deceased wife. The only other bill Warwick was asked to consider was to establish three lectureships in divinity in accordance with the will of Thomas Whetenhall.126 LJ, iii. 302a, 304a, 342a. It is true that he was initially included on the committee for a bill concerning Toby Palavicino (son of the Elizabethan financier Sir Horatio Palavicino), but his name was removed from the committee list.127 Add. 40088, f. 19.

The outbreak of war with Spain, 1625

As a result of the 1624 Parliament, England was set on course for war with Catholic Spain. Warwick was no doubt delighted at this prospect, which accorded well with his puritan views. Conflict with Spain, and in particular a war at sea, offered the prospect of both plunder and further colonial expansion. His gratitude focussed on one of the chief architects of the new anti-Spanish policy, his friend Buckingham. Shortly after the prorogation, on 6 June, Warwick entertained the duke ‘at his house in Essex’ (probably a reference to Leez Priory, which lay close to the duke’s own newly acquired Essex seat of New Hall, rather than Rochford Hall, Warwick’s other Essex residence).128 Add. 72368, f. 92. As Buckingham was then recovering from a serious bout of illness, he also recommended that the duke consult his own physician, Dr John Remington of Great Dunmow.129 Procs. 1626, i. 578; Add. 12528, ff. 14v, 15. Over the course of the next six months, Warwick made himself useful to Buckingham, whose determination to enlist the French as allies in the forthcoming war with Spain he shared. It was he who was chosen to greet, in early July, the newly arrived extraordinary ambassador from France, the marquis d’Effiat. Over the summer he also took turns with Buckingham in entertaining with feasts and hunts their distinguished guest, who reciprocated in kind. In December Warwick feasted d’Effiat after the latter signed a marriage treaty with England.130 CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 292, 327; CSP Ven. 1623-5, pp. 393, 399; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 570, 592. So close to Buckingham did Warwick become that in early September it was rumoured that the earl would marry one of the duke’s kinsmen, Anne, daughter of Sir John Ashburnham.131 Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxv), 291. Shortly thereafter, it was also said that Buckingham intended to bestow upon Warwick the lord wardenship of the Cinque Ports. In the event this report proved to be false, as Buckingham took this office for himself. However, it was given credence by none other than the outgoing Lord Warden, the 11th Lord Zouche (Edward La Zouche^*), a fact which eloquently testifies to the warmth of the relationship between Warwick and Buckingham at this time.132 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 385. Warwick may have likened his relationship with Buckingham to that which had existed between two Old Testament heroes and friends, Jonathan and David, who had fought the Philistines together. In the mid 1620s he certainly owned a warship named Jonathan, an unusual name for a ship at that time.133 CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 5. Regrettably it is not known when she was built. Presumably Warwick saw himself as Jonathan.

By the autumn of 1624 it had been decided to send a military expedition to the Continent under the renowned mercenary commander, Count Mansfeld. Warwick, though he had no military experience himself, was initially selected as one of six colonels who were to serve under Mansfeld.134 Cal Wynn Pprs. 201; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 474. However, he evidently declined the position, possibly because it soon became apparent that the king was at loggerheads with the prince of Wales (Charles (Stuart^*) and Buckingham over the purpose of the expedition.

The impending war with Spain helps to explain why Warwick, in February 1625, renewed his claim for compensation from the East India Company, which had seized and destroyed two of his ships in September 1617. He intended to set out privateers, and the money owed him by the East India Company would undoubtedly go some way towards meeting his costs. However, another reason Warwick chose this moment to renew his quarrel with the East India Company was probably political. Over the last few years the issue had remained in abeyance, because Warwick had not wished to antagonize the governor of the East India Company, Sir Thomas Smythe, whose support he had needed in his quarrel with Sir Edwin Sandys. By the beginning of 1625, however, these considerations no longer applied, as Sandys had been defeated and Smythe had retired as governor of the East India Company (in July 1621).

Warwick threatened to take his complaint to the 1624 Parliament, which was due to reassemble for a second session on 10 Mar. 1625. Far from feeling cowed, however, the East India Company welcomed the idea of a parliamentary hearing, confident that their cause was just. It was the king who continued to prefer that the matter be settled by arbitration, and in early March he told the Company that he intended to speak to Warwick on the subject.135 CSP Col. E.I. 1625-9, pp. 31, 37, 38. However, shortly thereafter James died, thereby ending any hope of relief from the Parliament, which was automatically dissolved.

Warwick was among those peers who signed the proclamation of 27 Mar. announcing the accession of Charles I.136 Stuart Royal Proclamations II: Chas. I ed. J.F. Larkin, 2. By then he was courting Anne Halliday, the widow of a wealthy London alderman, William Halliday, who had succeeded Sir Thomas Smythe as governor of the East India Company. Anne shared Warwick’s godly outlook,137 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 605; Autobiog. of Mary, Countess of Warwick, 15. and sometime before November the two were married.

On 2 Apr. 1625 the new king summoned a fresh Parliament. As in 1621 and 1624, Warwick ensured that his candidates took both the Essex county seats.138 Procs. 1625, p. 683. He also maintained his influence over the borough of Maldon, which once again returned Sir Arthur Herrys. As the latter was one of the successful candidates for the county seats, he was subsequently replaced by another of Warwick’s clients, Sir William Masham. However, at Harwich Warwick temporarily lost his footing, as neither Member owed their seats to him.

Warwick undoubtedly intended to lay before the new Parliament his quarrel with the East India Company. However, the meeting of Charles’s first Parliament coincided with a severe outbreak of plague, which meant that, from the outset, there was little likelihood that it would sit for long. Under these circumstances, Warwick seems to have had second thoughts about complaining to Parliament.

Warwick attended the opening of Parliament on 18 June. Five days later, he was reappointed to both the committee for privileges and the subcommittee for privileges. He evidently chaired the latter body, for on the 28th he reported to the House on the disorders committed by pages and coachmen in the Lords’ precincts, and on the fining of unlicensed absentees. On 1 July he was also named to a committee for drafting an order in respect of those infected with plague. He was absent from the chamber from the afternoon of 4 July until the morning of the 9th, when he resumed his seat. However, mindful of the order requiring unlicensed absentees to be fined that he himself had helped draft, he communicated his apologies to the House on the 5th. On 11 July, the final day of the brief Westminster sitting, he made a motion to the House, but on what subject and to what effect is unknown.139 Ibid. 45, 59, 64, 66, 68, 79, 88, 121.

Although Parliament reassembled at Oxford on 1 Aug., Warwick failed to appear until the 5th. Thereafter he pleaded illness, and attended only twice more, on the final two days of the session (the 11th and 12th). The first of these appearances was probably attributable to the bill to allow free fishing off the American coast, which received its second reading on the 11th. As a member of the council for New England, with an interest in preserving the latter’s exclusive fishing rights, Warwick was naturally named to the committee.140 Ibid. 152, 179. However, the dissolution the following day meant that the committee never met.

In early September 1625Warwick accompanied Buckingham to Southampton, where the duke commenced negotiations with representatives of the Dutch government for a military and naval alliance against Spain. However, he was ordered to return to Essex to put the trained bands in order and improve the local fortifications. Preparations to send a major expeditionary force to Spain were now underway, and there were credible reports that the Spanish intended to land troops on the Essex coast from Dunkirk. In order to bolster his authority, Warwick was appointed joint lord lieutenant with Robert Radcliffe^*, 5th earl of Sussex, a man 15 years his senior who had hitherto held that post alone. He arrived at Harwich on 7 Sept., having ridden 120 miles in a single day, and, despite injuring his shoulder following a fall from his horse, threw himself into his new duties immediately. However, the news that command of the army had been given to Warwick, and that he himself had been demoted to joint lord lieutenant, was greeted with dismay by Sussex, who, after helping to choose new deputy lieutenants, left Harwich in high dudgeon. Shortly thereafter Warwick applied to Buckingham to be appointed sole lord lieutenant, as ‘your grace knows well the many inconveniences which usually ensue upon joint commands, and it would grieve me that so good a work should suffer by any distraction’. However, although Sussex, who had retired to Norfolk, preferred to surrender rather than suffer the indignity of demotion, the king insisted that the two peers work together, on the grounds that two pairs of hands were better than one.141 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 49; CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 102, 104; Maynard Ltcy. Bk. 91, 93, 95-6, 106.

Whatever the king intended, Sussex’s departure meant that sole command of the military forces of Essex rested de facto with Warwick. It soon became clear that the earl’s most pressing problem was paying for the 3,100 troops at his disposal. As the Exchequer was already struggling to find the funds needed to put the fleet to sea, Warwick set about charging the local community. By mid September he had raised more than £4,000, but this sum, though substantial, was but a drop in the ocean. On 18 Sept. Warwick warned the Privy Council that, unless the crown provided additional funding soon, ‘we must either presently disband or fall into much confusion’. However, the Exchequer was dry, and although the king promised to repay whatever had been disbursed locally out of future income, Warwick and his subordinates were reduced to borrowing on their own credit. At best this was only a short term solution, as their collective resources soon began to fail, with the result that, by late September, Warwick had become the target of local criticism.142 Maynard Ltcy. Bk. 99, 109; CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 107, 108, 110, 113. Before the situation became critical, however, the king decided that the emergency had passed, and on 5 Oct., to universal relief, Warwick received orders to disband his small army.143 Maynard Ltcy. Bk. 114; Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 52-3.

Shortly thereafter, Warwick retired to Leez Priory, where he was joined by Buckingham, who had been ordered to travel to The Hague on a diplomatic mission. The two men were joined, on 23 Oct., by the head of the Navy commission, Sir John Coke^‡, who came to discuss naval matters.144 CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 126, 130, 134. Warwick subsequently accompanied Buckingham, first to Ipswich and then to Harwich, from where Buckingham intended to take ship. Before the duke sailed on 5 Nov., Warwick took him on an inspection of Landguard Point, on the southernmost tip of the Suffolk coast, where (having been given authority beyond the boundaries of his own county) he intended to erect a new fortification. He himself did not accompany Buckingham to the Low Countries, but was instead dispatched to scour the East Anglian coast for ships, it having been learned that the Dunkirk privateers had taken advantage of a storm to evade the Anglo-Dutch blockade of their port and were now at large.145 CSP Dom. Addenda, 1625-49, p. 62.

Defending local shipping quickly became a matter of urgency. In January 1626 the Dunkirkers captured an English vessel off the north Essex coast, spreading fear among the ships at Harwich, which refused to put to sea. Warwick responded by persuading Buckingham, the lord admiral, to dispatch several warships to Harwich Road for their protection. Among them was the 350-ton Hector, which he himself owned. He also made repeated attempts to obtain guns and munitions for the new fort at Landguard Point, and requested an additional supply of muskets for the local militia. He was fully aware that this frequent badgering was likely to irritate the Privy Council, but he also realized that if he failed to notify Whitehall of any defects in the local defences he risked being blamed if things went wrong.146 Maynard Ltcy. Bk. 123, 124; Add. 37816, f. 53.

The York House Conference and the 1626 Parliament

In December 1625 the king, desperate for funds to prosecute the war with Spain, summoned another Parliament. Ahead of this meeting, which assembled on 6 Feb. 1626, Warwick once again ensured that both knights of the shire for Essex were his clients. The senior seat was taken by his old friend Sir Francis Barrington, while the junior place was bestowed upon Sir Harbottle Grimston^‡, one of the most enthusiastic of the county’s deputy lieutenants. Grimston was also chosen to serve for Colchester, where Warwick had not previously enjoyed any influence. However, he was replaced not by one of Warwick’s nominees but by Sir Robert Quarles^‡, a gentleman from south-west Essex, with whom the earl had no known connection. Warwick had more luck at Harwich, which returned his cousin Sir Nathaniel Rich, and at Maldon, where for the first time both Members were his clients (Sir William Masham and Sir Thomas Cheke).

This latest Parliament met against the backdrop of growing discontent at the conduct of Warwick’s friend, Buckingham. This discontent had first manifested itself in the Commons the previous August, when the duke had come under fierce attack, among other things, for his lack of naval experience and for monopolizing the king’s ear. A further source of criticism was Buckingham’s support of Richard Montagu^*, a royal chaplain and a canon of Windsor, who had offended the Calvinist majority in the Commons by espousing Arminian doctrines in two recent books. One of the leading dissidents was Warwick’s cousin, Sir Nathaniel Rich, who complained on 6 Aug. that the war against Spain had yet to begin in earnest, and that the penal laws against Catholics had been relaxed following the king’s marriage to Louis XIII’s sister, Henrietta Maria. Rich’s public criticisms must have come as a profound shock to Buckingham, as hitherto Sir Nathaniel had been one of his closest supporters. Indeed, during the Oxford sitting of the 1625 Parliament, Rich was reportedly one of two Members of the Commons who were ‘never out of my lord duke’s chamber’. It seems highly likely that Rich attended the meeting of Buckingham supporters on Sunday 7 Aug. 1625 at which the duke was advised to repair his damaged reputation by ensuring that the fleet put to sea quickly and that the king delivered a satisfactory response to the Commons’ petition to enforce the recusancy laws. It was also proposed at this meeting that the duke should allow Montagu to be punished by the Commons.147 Procs. 1625, pp. 413, 414-15, 417-18, 550-1.

The extent to which Warwick was complicit in his cousin’s criticisms of Buckingham is never likely to be known. However, the fact that he absented himself from the upper House between 6 and 10 Aug. (pleading illness) suggests that he received advance warning at the very least. It also implies that he felt torn between sympathy for Rich and loyalty to Buckingham, whose support for Calvinism now seemed to be wavering. This was not a state of affairs that Warwick could tolerate for long. Once the 1626 Parliament assembled, the attacks on Buckingham would be renewed, and he would be faced with choosing between the duke on the one hand and his puritan friends and clients in the Commons on the other.

Sometime during early 1626, Warwick privately suggested to Buckingham that a conference be held to discuss the writings of Richard Montagu. He hoped that this meeting, which would be held shortly after Parliament opened, would reveal to Buckingham the erroneous nature of Montagu’s views and cause him to distance himself from Arminianism. If Buckingham publicly supported the Calvinist position, it would take the wind from the sails of his critics in the Commons and make for a much more harmonious Parliament. Buckingham welcomed Warwick’s proposal, and agreed to host the conference at York House, his Thames-side residence. It was decided that the conference would take place on 9 Feb., three days after Parliament opened but before either House transacted any important business. In the event, the conference was postponed for two days as neither side was ready to begin. This last-minute delay was seized upon by one of Buckingham’s former allies, Sir John Eliot^‡, who, on 10 Feb., launched a scathing attack on the duke in the Commons for mismanaging the war with Spain. However, Eliot’s demand that grievances be redressed before any grant of supply, and that crown lands be resumed, found few supporters. On the contrary, his motion was condemned by Christopher Wandesford^‡, who remarked that it had been made ‘too soon’, the House not yet being full.148 Procs. 1626, ii. 17-18.

The unenthusiastic response elicited by Eliot suggests that most Members of the Commons were waiting to see whether the York House Conference would bear fruit. This conference opened on the afternoon of 11 Feb. and, aside from Warwick and Buckingham, was attended by several leading courtiers and ecclesiastics, including the lord chamberlain, William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke, who had a large following in the Commons and had long enjoyed an uneasy relationship with the favourite. However, if Pembroke and Warwick, who remained a bystander throughout the proceedings,149 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 86. hoped to detach Buckingham from the Arminian camp they were soon disappointed, as the duke not only defended Montagu but also attacked his puritan critics. A second and final session, held on 17 Feb., also broke up without agreement after Montagu arrived to defend himself in person.

The failure of the York House Conference left Warwick with little choice but to join Buckingham’s enemies, who now sought to impeach the duke. However, he did not openly oppose Buckingham himself, probably because several of his ships were then in naval service, and the lord admiral’s goodwill would be needed to secure their release before he could pursue his privateering ambitions. (On 5 May he asked Buckingham’s secretary, Edward Nicholas^‡, to obtain just such a release for two of his ships, the Hector and the Martha). He must also have been aware that he would need the duke’s warrant in order to equip a new 50-ton pinnace, the Bark Warwick, then under construction at Ratcliffe.150 CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 329, 348, 531. Instead of criticizing Buckingham himself, Warwick left the dirty work to Sir Nathaniel Rich, who placed himself in the vanguard of the Commons’ assault.

It was probably because he needed to tread warily so far as Buckingham was concerned that Warwick played little recorded part in the 1626 Parliament. He gave only a handful of speeches, none of which were controversial. In one of the earliest, on 6 Mar., he spoke on the subject of defending the realm after the matter was raised by the 1st Lord Montagu (Edward Montagu^*). Rather than take the opportunity to berate Buckingham, Warwick merely divided the subject into three categories: naval; the provision of arms and the training of soldiers; and furnishing the coastal forts. The following day Warwick seconded Viscount Wallingford (William Knollys^*, later earl of Banbury) after the latter recommended that one fleet should attack Spain while another should defend merchant shipping – a strategy that Buckingham was already attempting to pursue. The closest Warwick came to opposing Buckingham in the Lords was on 29 Apr., when he argued (probably erroneously) that the writ of summons recently issued to the duke’s enemy, John Digby^*, 1st earl of Bristol, automatically freed the latter from his imprisonment. It is true that Warwick was also among those peers who protested on 15 May that Sir Dudley Digges^‡, in delivering the Commons’ charges of impeachment against the duke, had said nothing that could be construed as having trenched upon the king’s honour. However, it is difficult to regard this is as evidence of open opposition to Buckingham, since several of the duke’s supporters also swore the same oath.151 Procs. 1626, i. 112, 116, 123, 323, 477.

It was probably because he was so wary of being accused of antagonizing Buckingham that on 14 Apr. Warwick had a scheme to create a West India Company presented to the Commons rather than the Lords. There can be little doubt that Warwick was the moving spirit behind this proposal, although it was presented by Sir Dudley Digges, and he himself was then in Essex busily inspecting the Essex trained bands.152 Maynard Ltcy. Bk. 130. This is because the proposal was seconded by Sir Nathaniel Rich, who also presented ‘some particulars of privileges to be desired for this company’. In itself, the idea of creating a West India Company was not new. Rich had suggested it himself in February 1621, as had Sir John Coke in April 1625. However, what distinguished this latest proposal from the detailed scheme formulated by Coke was that it envisaged the creation of a largely autonomous company, free to pursue the war at sea and seize Spanish colonies and treasure without reference to Buckingham.153 J.C. Appleby, ‘An Assoc. for the W. Indies? English Plans for a W. India Co. 1621-9’, Jnl. of Imperial and Commonwealth Hist. xv. 224-6. This was an implied criticism not only of Buckingham’s management of the war against Spain but also of the strategic aims of the conflict. Whereas Buckingham wished to attack mainland Spain, Warwick, and many others, wanted to pursue a privateering war instead. Disrupting the flow of Spanish silver from the New World and depriving Spain of her colonies would not only weaken Spain militarily but also enable the war to become self-financing. This idea was superficially attractive, and as late as October 1626 a cash-strapped king canvassed views on the subject.154 CSP Ven. 1625-6, p. 596.

If Warwick seldom addressed the upper House in 1626, he also attracted few committee nominations. Aside from being reappointed to the committee of privileges (from which he was originally omitted, probably in error) and the subcommittee of privileges, which he once again chaired, he was named to only three committees. The first, on 4 Mar., was to consider a bill to increase trade and prevent the export of gold and silver. The second, two days later, was to discuss the defence of the realm. His final committee appointment, on 10 June, was to consider the case of the earl of Bristol, and saw him added to an existing committee. The only other appointment Warwick attracted was at the start of the session, on 6 Feb., when he was named by the crown one of the triers of petitions from England, Ireland and Scotland, a largely honorific post, but one which indicated that he enjoyed the king’s favour. This limited activity belies the fact that Warwick was often present in the chamber. Indeed, there was only one long period of absence. Lasting nearly three weeks (13 Mar. to 1 Apr. inclusive), it may have been occasioned by sickness, as Warwick pleaded illness to excuse his absence on 28 February.155 Procs. 1626, i. 22, 61, 48, 60, 80, 104, 110, 605. However, Warwick may also have been distracted by other business during this period, for on 22 Mar. he issued a detailed set of instructions for his county’s cavalry commanders.156 Maynard Ltcy. Bk. 130.

Although the 1626 Parliament was dominated by the attempt to impeach Buckingham, the Commons also found time to pursue other public grievances. One of these was John More’s salt patent, in which Warwick was the major investor. More, a former member of the Virginia Company then sitting in Parliament for Lymington, initially denied that the patent was a grievance or that it had ever turned a profit. However, by 5 May he sensed that the game was up, and asked the lower House to restrict its punishment to him rather than extend it to include Warwick. Sir Nathaniel Rich was horrified at the prospect that the Commons might censure his cousin, and immediately sought to distance Warwick from the patent. He declared that ‘he knew the earl of Warwick so desirous to keep his credit with this House that he would never enter into a business of this kind’. Indeed, he was so confident that Warwick would share the House’s opposition to the patent that ‘he dared in the name of the earl throw the first stone at it’.157 Procs. 1626, ii. 389; iii. 174-5.

The Forced Loan and the war at sea, 1626-7

Following the dissolution of 15 June, Warwick may have hoped that his public opposition to Buckingham had been so discreet that it would go unnoticed. However, the day after the dissolution one anti-Buckingham newsletter-writer included Warwick among those who had ‘purchased to themselves an eternal memory by their well-tempered boldness and upright behaviour’ in Parliament.158 Warws. RO, CR136/B108. Buckingham, too, clearly believed that Warwick had been secretly working against him. On 7 July one observer reported that the earl had been dismissed from the lieutenancy of Essex and that four or five of his ships, then preparing to embark on a privateering voyage, had been impressed by the Navy. Strictly speaking this report was inaccurate, as there was another invasion scare over the summer and it was not until 18 Aug. that the earl of Sussex was reinstated as sole lord lieutenant.159 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 124; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 407. He was formally replaced on 11 Sept.: Sainty, 20. For the invasion scare, see SP16/28, f. 12. Moreover, Buckingham did not prevent Warwick from sending out privateers: two of the earl’s vessels – the Bark Warwick and the Little Neptune – received letters of marque over the summer, and in October Warwick’s ships made stay in the Downs of two vessels from Hamburg carrying suspected contraband.160 CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 289; 1625-6, p. 462. However, there can be little doubt that Buckingham visited punishment on Warwick for working against him in Parliament, and that he also targeted the earl’s clients in the Commons. Among the latter was Sir Francis Barrington, who was removed from the bench, and Sir Thomas Cheke, who, in August, received a government demand for a ‘loan’ of £500.

Over the autumn of 1626 Charles and Buckingham decided to raise money for the war by means of a Forced Loan, as the Exchequer was now empty and the recent Parliament had failed to vote subsidies. In October Warwick was appointed a Loan commissioner for Essex and Norfolk, in which counties his principal estates were located. However, the earl, though personally committed to waging war against Catholic Spain, was bitterly opposed to contributing to the royal coffers without the sanction of Parliament. On receiving a demand for payment he refused. So too did six other peers, ‘led by the example of the earl of Warwick’,161 Wm Whiteway His Diary, 1618-35 (Dorset Rec. Soc. xii), 85; Yonge Diary ed. G. Roberts (Cam. Soc. xli), 98; Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 172. The other refusers were Oliver St. John^*, 1st earl of Bolingbroke, the 4th earl of Lincoln, the 3rd earl of Essex, the 1st earl of Clare and the 5th earl of Huntingdon. who took a keen interest in the case of at least one of these noblemen. When, in December, it was rumoured that John Holles^*, 1st earl of Clare, had broken ranks and submitted, Warwick wrote to him asking to know the truth.162 Holles Letters, 342. Similar opposition to the Loan was subsequently reported in Chelmsford and Rochford hundreds, where most of Warwick’s Essex estates were situated.163 R. Cust, Forced Loan, 271, 288.

Warwick’s refusal to contribute to the Loan emboldened not only his tenants and other noblemen but also his friend and client, Sir Francis Barrington, who declined to serve as a Loan commissioner, for which offence he was committed to the Marshalsea (25 October). Warwick responded to this arrest by appointing Barrington a trustee of his estates and visiting him in prison. He was accompanied by John Pym^‡, who was also made a trustee and who had played a leading role in the recent attempt to impeach Buckingham. Like Warwick, Pym was a committed Calvinist, opposed to Arminianism and the Forced Loan.164 Hunts. RO, DD/M24/4. This minor act of defiance by Warwick was followed four weeks later by a sermon delivered in London by the preacher Hugh Peter at Warwick’s request. In it Peter pointedly implored God to reveal to the king ‘those things which were necessary for the government of his kingdom’.165 Cust, Forced Loan, 230.

Warwick was clearly a key opponent of the Loan. However, he never openly incited others to resist, unlike Theophilus Clinton^*, 4th earl of Lincoln. In February 1627 Lincoln was brought before Star Chamber, ostensibly for declining to swear on oath during a court case, but in reality because he was suspected of writing and distributing a pamphlet in his native Lincolnshire denouncing the Loan as the road to ‘perpetual slavery’. Warwick, who had trodden carefully in the 1626 Parliament, was far more discreet than Lincoln, and so never gave Charles and Buckingham the ammunition needed to bring him to trial.

Another reason Warwick escaped questioning, perhaps, was that by the end of 1626 he was increasingly preoccupied with the fortunes of his privateers. In December the Jonathan captured one of 40 small Spanish patacks carrying troops to Dunkirk. According to one report, she also sank two others.166 APC, 1626, p. 394; Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 181; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 5; Yonge Diary, 99. Three months later, in March 1627, another of Warwick’s ships thwarted a Spanish landing on the Scilly Isles.167 Procs. 1626, iv. 350. However, it was the capture that same month of a heavily laden 200-ton Portuguese vessel and her escort that promised to be most lucrative for Warwick. Once the king and lord admiral had been paid their shares, it was thought that these vessels and their cargoes would net Warwick and his fellow investors £8,000 in prize money.168 HMC Cowper, i. 299, 302; HMC Skrine, 112; Diary of John Rous ed. M.A. Everett Green (Cam. Soc. lxvi), 9. Warwick subsequently refitted both ships and issued them with letters of marque: CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 297.

Successes like these were no doubt welcome, both to Warwick himself and the crown. However, Warwick’s chief preoccupation at this time was the preparation of a fleet for the West Indies. He was resolved to lead this force in person, and declared that he would not return to England until there was another Parliament.169 Procs. 1628, p. 110. By February he had acquired the services of the 500 ton Great Neptune, a recently built but privately owned warship, to which he added several of his own, smaller vessels. He was eager to encourage others to join him, ‘for the stronger we go to the West Indies, the more damage we shall do the king’s enemy’. However, Buckingham’s secretary, Edward Nicholas^‡, sought to restrict the size of his fleet, perhaps fearful that if it grew too large Warwick might outshine Buckingham, who intended to lead a royal fleet against France later that year. Warwick was so irate that he threatened to withdraw from the voyage unless he was permitted to include more ships.170 Appleby, 230; HMC Cowper, I, 296-7. However, he relented after the crown granted him the same privileges that had been enjoyed by the late Elizabethan privateering magnate George Clifford^*, 3rd earl of Cumberland. This special commission was issued despite Nicholas’ objection that Buckingham, who was distracted with preparations for the royal fleet, would thereby be deprived of his tenth share of any prize money.171 CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 98, 407; Andrews, 110-11; Coventry Docquets, 30. Buckingham subsequently gave orders that his admiralty tenths should be collected regardless: CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 284. It may have been the work of the queen, Henrietta Maria, who hated the duke as, four days before the king gave orders for drafting the commission, she dined with Warwick aboard the Great Neptune.172 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 206.

Warwick was granted formal permission to sail on 4 Apr. 1627.173 Procs. 1628, p. 110. After a series of minor mishaps – the Hector sprang her mainmast while Buckingham imposed an embargo on the sailing of all ships in order to allow the royal fleet to be manned – he reached Plymouth on the 19th.174 Naval Miscellany V ed. N.A.M. Rodger (Navy Recs. Soc. cxxv), 22; Eg. 2087, f. 47; Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 213. On the lifting of the embargo for Warwick’s ships, see APC, 1627, pp. 201-5; Add. 37817, f. 58v. As soon as he set foot ashore, he invited to his table the two ringleaders of opposition to the Forced Loan in the south-west, Sir John Eliot and Sir William Coryton^‡. News of this calculated show of defiance quickly reached the ears of Buckingham, who retaliated by ordering the captain of the Hector, Richard Harris, one of the Navy’s four masters attendant, to resume his naval duties. This minor act of revenge caused dismay among the crew of the Hector, as Harris had served as their captain for more than two years, and many of the seamen threatened to give over the voyage. It was only with some difficulty that Warwick succeeded in pacifying them.175 SP16/60/75; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 164; Naval Miscellany V, 25-6. Harris was serving as captain of the Hector in Sept. 1625: Add. 64884, ff. 118v-19v.

Warwick intended to put to sea with a fleet of ten ships, but it soon became apparent that the difficulty of preparing so many vessels at once was causing intolerable delay. On 10 May he lost all patience, and, despite being inadequately victualled, he set sail leaving behind him five vessels, which were instructed to join him in due course at the Azores.176 Naval Miscellany V, 26-7, 44; Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 227. It being now too late in the year to sail for the West Indies, Warwick shaped his course for the Spanish coast. On 18 May his slender force was depleted still further after his smallest vessel gave chase to two suspected enemy vessels and failed to return. The remaining four ships continued on their way regardless, and on 1 July they espied near the mouth of the Tagus a great fleet of around 30 ships, which, Warwick was assured by a passing north African vessel, was the Brazil fleet. Overnight Warwick, in the Great Neptune, was separated from his consorts by a blanket of fog. Undeterred, the following morning the earl stood in for the shore, in the hope that his escorts would join him once they heard his guns. Under cover of the fog, he got within half a musket shot of the enemy admiral before opening fire. In the ensuing confusion, he shot down the maintopsail of the enemy vice admiral, severely mauled a second vessel and holed a third below the waterline. However, when the fog lifted he found himself beset by no fewer than six galleons. Unsupported by his consorts, and having lost both the element of surprise and the weather gauge, he was left with little choice but to flee.177 Naval Miscellany V, 36, 40-1, 91-2; Holles Letters, 363.

Warwick escaped from his encounter with the Spanish fleet with remarkably few casualties: just three men killed and 20 injured. However, he had also failed to capture any of the enemy vessels and was now almost alone, for despite being rejoined by the Jonathan later that day he failed to locate his other ships. He initially made for the Berlingas archipelago, a few miles off the Portuguese coast, where he hoped to find his missing consorts. However, not only was he disappointed but also many of his seamen succumbed to scurvy. Before long he was forced to abandon his plan to sail to the Azores and return to England.178 Naval Miscellany, V, 93; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 248.

On his arrival at Plymouth, Warwick distributed a brief account of his action off the Tagus, which he evidently compiled on the homeward journey.179 This account exists in at least two versions: Naval Miscellany V, 91-3; Miscellany of the Abbotsford Club, i. 191-4. One contemporary referred to a ‘printed relation’, but the only accounts now known to exist are in ms form. Holles Letters, 363. Its purpose was unstated, but Warwick was undoubtedly proud of having survived apparently overwhelming odds relatively unscathed. Indeed, he later commemorated his encounter with the Spanish fleet in the background to a full length portrait of himself.180 NMM, BHC3080. However, he was presumably also anxious to counter the impression that his journey had been a failure by emphasizing the damage he had inflicted on the enemy. He may also have feared being upstaged, as he had probably already learned that Buckingham had recently defeated a French force while landing troops on the Île de Ré.

Soon after reaching England, Warwick, who gave orders to refit his ships, travelled to Windsor to see the king.181 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 261. This interview may have been rather awkward. During his absence Warwick had been removed from the commission of the peace in both Essex and Suffolk.182 Coventry Docquets, 60, 61. Moreover, weapons had been forcibly taken from one of his armouries for the king’s use on the orders of Buckingham.183 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 224. Charles nevertheless tried to persuade Warwick to employ his vessels to support Buckingham, albeit indirectly, by intercepting the French fishing fleet, which was due to return from Newfoundland. He evidently succeeded, for in September the Great Neptune captured the Lion d’Or, a French fishing vessel. Shortly thereafter the Hector and her consorts also seized a French privateer which had previously taken two English fishing vessels. However, one of Warwick’s captains, jealous of his colleague’s success, rammed and sank her in a fit of pique.184 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 359, 364; Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 276.

The 1628 parliamentary session

At the end of January 1628 Warwick was in the throes of preparing a small expedition to the West Indies when the king decided to summon another Parliament.185 A.P. Newton, Colonising Activities of the English Puritans, 52. In the ensuing election for the Essex county seats, the earl again supported Sir Francis Barrington, who had recently been released from confinement, and Sir Harbottle Grimston. He attended the hustings in person, and both of his candidates were returned unopposed.186 Procs. 1628, p. 147; Essex RO, D/B 3/3/205/43; Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 333. Warwick also retained his influence at Harwich, where the senior seat was once again conferred on his cousin Sir Nathaniel Rich, and at Maldon, where his tenant Sir Arthur Herrys was re-elected. However, in the latter borough Warwick was unable to repeat his success in 1626, when both seats had been held by his clients. He did so instead at Colchester, where the town clerk, William Towse^‡, evidently decided he was now too old to serve. Since the town’s other long-serving Member, Edward Alford^‡, had not sat in 1626, Warwick assumed that the field was wide open, putting up his son-in-law Sir Thomas Cheke in place of Towse, and Sir William Masham instead of Alford. In the ensuing election Cheke was returned without difficulty. However, the corporation, alarmed that Warwick was trying to attain a monopoly, once more returned Alford. Masham, being a Forced Loan refuser, was nevertheless popular with the freemen, and therefore a second indenture electing him was also filed with Chancery. This double return was eventually considered by the Commons, which ruled that the corporation had exceeded its authority. As a result, it was Warwick’s candidate, Masham, rather than Alford, who was seated.

Warwick attended the opening of Parliament on 17 Mar. 1628. Once again the king named him a trier of petitions from the three kingdoms, a gesture which should perhaps be interested as an olive branch. Shortly thereafter he was reappointed to the committee for privileges and the subcommittee for privileges, though he evidently did not chair this latter body, as he had in 1625 and 1626.187 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 62, 73, 79. Warwick seems to have approached this new Parliament with greater enthusiasm than he had more recent assemblies. In previous parliaments his attendance had been erratic, but in 1628 his opposition to the Forced Loan seems to have inclined him to miss as little as possible. Prior to the presentation to the king of the Petition of Right on 28 May he evidently missed only two sittings of the Lords: the morning of 22 Mar. (when he was appointed to the committee for a bill to increase trade in absentia), and the afternoon of 19 April. It is true that both the Journal and the draft journal indicate that he was absent on 30 Apr. and 1 May, but on both occasions he is known to have addressed the House. (The most likely explanation for this anomaly is that he arrived late). Even after the presentation of the Petition of Right, Warwick attended regularly. His only recorded absences were on Saturday 31 May, Monday 2 June, and the afternoons of 25 and 26 June. The first two at least were unavoidable, being occasioned by his wife, who was suffering from a contagious disease. Rather than infect his fellow peers, Warwick asked his friend the 5th earl of Huntingdon (Henry Hastings^*) to apologize for his absence.188 HEHL, HA10475. The letter is undated, but was almost certainly written on 31 May, when he was excused: Lords Procs. 1628, p. 573.

Warwick paid close attention to the debates on the right of the king to imprison without trial those who, like himself, had refused to contribute to the Forced Loan. On 12 Apr. the attorney general, Sir Robert Heath^‡, set out the king’s case. He informed the Lords that Magna Carta was not clear on whether the king was bound to show cause whenever men were imprisoned on his orders. He also claimed that six later statutes, far from clarifying the matter, actually ‘make it more obscure’. There was certainly nothing in Magna Carta or any other statute that explicitly required the king to show cause. It was true that Magna Carta required that men be imprisoned according to the law of the land, but the law of the land at that time was that men committed by the king were not bailable.189 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 199, 206-7.

Warwick was astonished by these arguments and, like several other peers, demanded that Heath put them in writing.190 Ibid. 205. Nine days later, he spoke out, after the Commons asked the Lords to join them in protesting to the king. ‘I know not how anything in the world can be more plain’, he declared. Magna Carta made it clear that imprisonment without trial was illegal. If they, in Parliament,

make any doubt of that which is so fully confirmed by Parliament, and in a case so clear, and go about by new glosses to alter the old and good laws, we shall not only forsake the steps of our foregone ancestors ... but we shall [also] yield up and betray our right in the greatest inheritance the subject of England has, and that is the laws of England.

It was astounding that ‘any man can think that this House (though no lawyers) can admit of such a gloss upon the plain text, as should overthrow the force of the law’. He poured scorn on Heath’s assertion that Magna Carta, read correctly, merely prohibited the king from committing anyone except at his own pleasure. Were they really expected to believe that ‘our ancestors were so foolish [as] to hazard their persons and estates, and labour so much to get a law, and to have it thirty times confirmed, that the king might not commit his subjects but at his own pleasure?’ Magna Carta expressly forbade the imprisonment of freemen except by lawful judgement of his peers in accordance with the laws of the land, but some were now saying that it allowed the king to commit without cause shown, ‘which is a sense not only expressly contrary to other acts of Parliament ... but against common sense’. If this interpretation were allowed to stand, then innocent men would find themselves ‘in worse case than the most grievous malefactors are’, for without the prospect of a trial such men ‘must lie and pine in prison during pleasure’.191 Ibid. 317-18.

This was an uncharacteristically passionate and well argued outburst from Warwick, and it had the effect of demolishing completely the case put forward by the attorney general. News of his speech soon carried beyond the walls of the Lords’ chamber. Edward Alford, now sitting for Steyning, obtained a copy of the text, as did the newsletter-writer Joseph Mead, who sent it to his friend Sir Martin Stuteville in Suffolk.192 Harl. 6800 (Alford papers), ff. 206-8v; Procs. 1628, p. 185. However, Warwick was far from being the only peer to oppose arbitrary imprisonment with such vigour. On 22 Apr. Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, reportedly contradicted the lord president of the Council, Henry Montagu^*, 1st earl of Manchester, after the latter tried to show how inconvenient it would be if the king was prevented from detaining men without showing cause. Arundel vowed to uphold the liberties bought at the cost of their predecessors’ blood with his own life if necessary. He was reportedly seconded by three bishops and 50 peers, one of whom was Warwick.193 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 346-7; THOMAS HOWARD, 21ST (OR 14TH) EARL OF ARUNDEL.

Arguments over the liberties of the subject dominated the 1628 session, but they were not the only matters which occupied Warwick in the Lords. On 28 Mar. the earl was appointed to help consider the bill for the better maintenance of the ministry. He evidently chaired the committee, as he reported this measure on 18 April. He chaired a second committee, on a bill to amend an act allowing Vincent Lowe to sell lands to pay his debt, the following month. Some of the measures Warwick was asked to consider seem to have interested him personally. These included the (by now perennial) bill to allow free fishing off the north American coast – he headed the committee list - and a bill to continue hospitals, almshouses and schools. He was appointed to this latter committee after he complained that a hospital founded by his grandfather, the 1st Lord Rich (Robert Rich^†), yielded him an annual income of only £17 but produced £500 p.a. for the tenants.194 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 112, 120, 123, 264, 546, 548, 550. Another measure in which Warwick was certainly interested, and which he was named to consider, aimed to suppress unlicensed alehouses, for like many puritans he regarded alehouses as dens of iniquity. Indeed, eight years earlier he had written to the magistrates of Norfolk to suppress two of the three alehouses in Hilborough, a small town five-and-a-half miles south of Swaffham, on the grounds that the proliferation of these establishments ‘occasioneth (as I am informed) much disorder and abuse in that place’. He insisted that only one alehouse was required ‘for passengers and such other persons as upon necessity ought to have recourse thither’. The one chosen, he advised, should be ‘of the best fame and report for good order and honest conversation’.195 Ibid. 678; Norf. RO, C/S 3/box 22, sessions roll, 1605-46, bdle. for 18 Jas I, 1619-20 (we are grateful to Tim Wales for this reference).

While Parliament was sitting, Jacques Rodier, captain of the Lion d’Or, the French fishing vessel captured by one of Warwick’s ships the previous September, appealed to the Privy Council for redress. Rodier claimed that he was a Huguenot, and therefore an ally rather than an enemy of the English crown. The Council ordered the judge of the Admiralty Court, Sir Henry Marten^‡, to investigate this claim and, if it proved correct, to release the ship. However, Warwick, pleading parliamentary privilege, refused to allow Marten to adjudicate, thereby threatening Rodier with the loss of his entire cargo, which was perishable. In desperation, Rodier turned, on 29 Apr., to the House of Lords, which referred the matter to the committee for petitions. As Warwick was not a member of this committee, it was left to his cousin, the 3rd earl of Essex, to protect his interests. On 30 Apr. Essex announced that Warwick would waive his parliamentary privilege if the Council agreed to rescind its order, so allowing the case to be heard in the Admiralty Court ‘according to the ordinary course of the law’. His motion was duly approved.196 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 359, 364, 372.

This episode evidently demonstrated to Warwick the desirability of having a seat on the committee for petitions, for on 1 May he was one of three peers who were added to its ranks. He seems to have taken his turn in the chair, for on 23 May he reported from the committee regarding a dispute in the Admiralty Court between Sir John Hippisley^‡, lieutenant of Dover Castle, and Augustine Nicholls, a privateer like himself.197 Ibid. 367, 508, 514. See also ibid. 541. Membership of the committee for petitions did not preclude Warwick from laying before the Lords grievances of his own, of course. On 22 May he complained to the House that he had been cheated of a valuable wardship by a puritan lawyer named Emmanuel Downing, whereupon the matter was referred to the petitions committee.198 Ibid. 503; Procs. 1628, p. 25. For Downing’s identity, see HP Commons 1660-90, ii. 224. Fifteen days later, on 4 June, he petitioned the House to resolve his longstanding dispute with the East India Company. Once again the Lords referred the matter to the petitions committee, but this time with the recommendation that the matter be given priority over other business.199 Lords Procs. 1628, p. 582.

It was no accident that Warwick chose this particular moment to resume his quarrel with the East India Company. The Petition of Right had by now been presented to the king, and though Charles had yet to provide a satisfactory answer, the debates over the liberty of the subject were now at an end. The matter received a hearing in committee on 17 June, at which time the Company pleaded its patent as its defence, and offered the earl £2,000 by way of compensation. This was far short of the £28,000 which Warwick demanded, and failed to impress the committee, which proposed that the Company increase its offer to £8,000 or £10,000. After some haggling, the East India Company agreed to offer £4,000, which sum Warwick accepted on 26 June. Six days later, Warwick thanked the directors of the Company, who reciprocated by making him a freeman.200 CSP Col. E.I. 1625-9, pp. 512-13, 516, 518-19, 521, 600; Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 603, 639, 705.

It seems likely that this settlement provided a welcome fillip to Warwick, whose finances were strained by his maritime activities. Far from proving profitable, as he had expected, privateering had involved him in substantial losses.201 Docs. Relating to Law and Custom of the Sea, I: 1205-1648 ed. R.G. Marsden (Navy Recs. Soc. xlix), 457. One particularly heavy item of expenditure was a new ship which he was then building, at Woodbridge in Suffolk. Like the Navy, Warwick was frustrated by the speed and manoeuverability of the Dunkirk frigates, and had decided to build a fast, shallow drafted warship of his own. The cost of this new vessel, which mirrored the ten Lion’s Whelps then being built by the Navy, was estimated by one contemporary at about £2,200, excluding ironwork.202 Diary of John Rous, 14-15. For the naval building programme, see A. Thrush, ‘In Pursuit of the Frigate’, BIHR, lxiv. 40.

Warwick spent much of his time in the Lords in 1628 engaged in complaint. His principal grievances were over arbitrary imprisonment and his own treatment by the East India Company, but there were others. On 30 Apr., the day on which the Lords negotiated a compromise between Warwick and Jacques Rodier, he complained to the upper House that his parliamentary privilege had been infringed by Sir Andrew Gray. On 16 Mar., the day before Parliament convened, the Great Neptune (now described as Warwick’s own ship) had been seized by an admiralty official at the instance of Gray. This was a flagrant breach of privilege, which extended either side of a parliamentary session, and the following day Gray and the admiralty official were brought before the House and reprimanded. Gray’s offence was particularly heinous since the 1st earl of Carlisle (James Hay^*), appointed an arbitrator in the dispute by both Warwick and Gray, had previously decided that Warwick had no case to answer. However, Warwick, with the magnanimity expected of triumphant peers, refused to allow Gray to be punished.203 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 364-5, 368-9.

Another grievance brought to the House’s attention by Warwick was that the king was demanding from each peer a feudal duty known as respite of homage. He pointed out, on 5 May, that they had done homage to the king at the coronation in February 1626, and so could not understand why Charles was now demanding payment. He returned to this complaint on 20 May, when he proposed that a rule governing respite of homage be devised. He was seconded by Arundel, who moved that the matter be referred to the committee for privileges.204 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 378, 482.

Towards the end of the session, Warwick tried to mend his fences with Charles and Buckingham. It was no doubt helpful to his case that in late March he declined to allow privilege to the adulterous wife of the duke’s elder brother, John Villiers^*, 1st Viscount Purbeck.205 PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/33 (31 Mar. 1628), no. 12. On 19 May John Digby, 1st earl of Bristol, moved that an amnesty be granted to all noblemen who had offended the king, either by refusing to contribute to the Forced Loan or (as in his case) for opposing the duke. Warwick was among those peers who seconded this motion, saying that ‘I have suffered under this cloud, and until it shall be withdrawn I shall wither’.206 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 464, 467. However, since the Petition of Right had not yet been presented to the king, Bristol’s proposal was initially set aside. It was not taken up until 28 May, the day on which the Petition was handed to Charles, when the lord treasurer, James Ley^*, 1st earl of Marlborough, moved that the dissidents be permitted to kiss the king’s hands. Shortly thereafter, Warwick and six other peers were ushered into the royal presence in order to make their peace with the king.207 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 358-9.

Colonial ventures and political discontent, 1628-38

Over the summer of 1628 Buckingham extended the hand of friendship to several of his former enemies. Whether Warwick was among them is unknown, but even if there was a rapprochement it seems unlikely that the earl shed any tears when Buckingham was assassinated that August. In the immediate aftermath of the duke’s murder it was rumoured that Warwick would be appointed lord high admiral,208 Beaumont Pprs. 61. but in the event this office was placed in commission. He nevertheless resumed his place at court, and soon returned to royal favour, obtaining reappointment as joint lord lieutenant of Essex in February 1629. He also persuaded the king, in November 1628, to grant him a commission to undertake a second privateering expedition the following year, as news that the Dutch had succeeded in capturing the Spanish Plate fleet over the summer had rekindled his thirst for Spanish booty.209 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 423; De Iure Maiestatis ed. A.B. Grosart, ii. 25 [where Warwick is referred to as ‘ the E.’]; CSP Dom. 1628-9, pp. 397, 401; Docs. Relating to Law and Custom of the Sea, I, 457; Appleby, 232.

That Christmas Warwick entertained at Leez his old ally Sir John Eliot, who was evidently under some sort of official restraint.210 De Iure Maiestatis, ii. 29, 32. Both men attended Parliament when it reconvened in January 1629. Warwick evidently hoped that this assembly would finally turn its attention to the formation of a West India Company, the creation of which had been prevented by Buckingham. Although many of the king’s advisers now wanted peace with Spain, Warwick may have hoped that a newly formed West India Company would help persuade Charles to continue prosecuting the war.211 CSP Ven. 1628-9, p. 516; J. Reeve, Chas. I and the Road to Personal Rule, 81. However, the Commons, led by Eliot, were soon preoccupied with the king’s continued levy of tunnage and poundage without parliamentary approval, and with the growing threat of Arminianism, rather than with the war.

Warwick himself played little recorded part in the 1629 session. Though he missed just three sittings he made no recorded speeches and was named to just five committees. Three of these were reappointments (the committee for privileges, the subcommittee for privileges and the committee for petitions). The remaining two were to consider precedents regarding the use of proxy votes and to help survey the crown’s stock of munitions.212 LJ, iv. 6a, 6b, 37b.

In March the Parliament was dissolved abruptly, and with it ended Warwick’s hope of creating a West India Company backed by parliamentary authority. However, the following month news reached Warwick from one of the ships he had sent to the West Indies the previous year that suggested that it might be possible to establish a permanent base for his ships in the Caribbean. This was that there was an uninhabited island, ten miles wide and 20 miles long, off the central American coast. For the time being Warwick kept news of this important discovery to himself and his closest associates, for fear of alerting his rivals at court, among them the earl of Carlisle. However, in October an expedition put together by Warwick and his partners at a cost of £2,000 sailed to take possession of the island, which came to be known as Providence but which Warwick and his brother the earl of Holland dubbed Henriette, after the queen.213 Newton, 32-4, 50, 52; Diary of John Rous, 43; Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, ii. 91. Warwick himself did not accompany this fleet, but instead restricted himself to plying home waters, where he reportedly captured many prizes.214 Diary of John Rous, 44.

In November 1630 the war between England and Spain came to an end. Warwick had both anticipated this development and dreaded it, for in the previous July he had offered to raise at his own cost 5,000 men for the Venetian republic in order to continue fighting the Spaniards.215 CSP Ven. 1629-32, p. 381. However, his despondency may have been short-lived. The treaty of Madrid only brought hostilities to an end east of the Tordesillas meridian, colloquially known as ‘the Line’. Any lands in the New World west of 46^o 37`, such as Somers Island and the newly discovered island of Providence, were not covered by its terms. Of course, the king had no intention of encouraging Warwick or his associates to continue the war west of the Line. However, when Charles incorporated Warwick and his fellow adventurers as the Providence Island Company on 4 Dec. 1630 – one day before news of the treaty of Madrid was published in London – he granted them the right of reprisal if attacked.216 Newton, 88. For the date on which news of the treaty of Madrid reached England, see K. Sharpe, Personal Rule of Chas. I, 68.

From the outset Warwick and his colleagues in the Providence Island Company were on their guard against Spanish acts of aggression. Such an attack was not long in coming, for in December 1631 one of their ships – the Seaflower - was assaulted by a Spanish man-of-war. The Spanish were alarmed at the growing intrusion of the English in the Caribbean, which they regarded as their area of influence. They were particularly dismayed by the fact that in June 1631 the king granted the Providence Island Company the right to colonize several unoccupied islands in the Caribbean, including Tortuga, which quickly became a base from which to attack Spanish ships. How far Warwick conspired in acts of aggression against Spain is unclear, but in 1632 one of his longest serving captains, Daniel Elfrith, assaulted a Spanish frigate in Jamaican waters without provocation.217 Newton, 95-6, 105, 112, 191-2.

The growing conflict between English and Spanish ships in the Caribbean was mirrored to a lesser extent by conflict at home, where Warwick found himself under attack on the council for New England. By November 1631 he was president of the council, and hosted meetings at his house in Holborn. However, in June 1632 he was ousted from the board by his colleagues, among them his former ally Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who resented the fact that he had used his authority as president to create a second puritan settlement in New England. Warwick was so angry at being deposed that for several months he declined to relinquish the company seal.218 Procs. Amer. Antiq. Soc. 1867, pp. 97, 106, 107, 109, 111, 113; Newton, 174. Moreover, he and his allies, including his brother the earl of Holland, the 1st Viscount Saye and Sele (William Fiennes^*) and the 2nd Lord Brooke (Robert Greville^*), subsequently formed their own, rival organization to govern the breakaway colony – the so-called Saybrook Company.

Throughout the early 1630s, Warwick remained on good terms with the king, even if his relations with his trading partners were sometimes fractious. In January 1632 he was chosen to accompany a new Venetian ambassador to his first audience with the king, and in February 1633 he conveyed the son of the king of Poland from Greenwich to Westminster by barge. In July 1634 he escorted the French ambassador to court.219 Ceremonies of Chas. I ed. A.J. Loomie, 120, 135, 162. However, from the autumn of 1634 Warwick once again found himself at odds with royal policy. One reason for this was the fact that the king sought to raise badly needed revenue from long forgotten forest fines. These were penalties imposed on those who had encroached on land designated as royal forest without the king’s permission. In early October Sir John Finch^† (later Lord Finch), an ambitious crown lawyer and a former Speaker of the Commons, claimed at a justice seat for Waltham Forest that the whole of Essex was royal forest. Warwick, who was present, expressed surprise, for if Finch’s claim was correct both he and his tenants would be placed under heavy financial penalties. He therefore demanded time to consult the relevant medieval records. Finch, observing that Warwick ‘fought close, like a man of war at his lock’, refused to allow his opponent any longer than the following morning, but was overruled by the chief justice in eyre, the earl of Holland (Warwick’s younger brother), who gave the county’s landowners until 20 Feb. 1635 to prepare their defence.220 CSP Dom. 1634-5, pp. 227-8, 487; Sharpe, 118.

Warwick, in consort with other leading Essex landowners, immediately undertook a thorough search of the medieval records in the Tower, at a reported cost of £2,000. By the appointed day, having marshalled enough evidence to rebut the claims made by Finch, he submitted a petition to the king, who received this document with the comment that its authors were asking for the power to smite him.221 CSP Ven. 1632-6, pp. 336-7. See also Coventry Docquets, 395. However, Charles could take comfort from the fact that Warwick and his fellow landowners were not the only ones who had been scouring the medieval records. In April 1635 the crown’s law officers produced a vast body of evidence to support their claim that the boundaries of Waltham forest encompassed the whole of Essex. At the ensuing inquiry, judgement was given for the king. Warwick and his supporters were obliged to concede that they had been given a fair hearing, whereupon the court proceeded to fine offenders. Warwick himself was ordered to pay £1,600.222 Sharpe, 119; P.A.J. Pettit, Royal Forests of Northamptonshire (Northants. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 188.

The revival of forest fines was not the only reason Warwick once again found himself at variance with the king. In October 1634 writs were issued demanding Ship Money from all coastal counties. Warwick regarded this as outrageous, since Ship Money, like the Forced Loan of 1626-7, was to all intents and purposes a form of taxation not sanctioned by Parliament. However, as in the case of the Forced Loan, he was unwilling to oppose this levy openly. One reason for this, perhaps, was that he did not wish to suffer the indignity of being dismissed from the lieutenancy again. However, it was also the case that his colonial interests were such that he could not afford to alienate the king. In January 1635 the Spanish wiped out the English colony on Tortuga, and in July they attacked Providence Island. As a result of these acts of aggression, Warwick and his fellow governors of the Providence Island Company protested to the king, who, in January 1636, granted them the right to carry out acts of reprisal.223 Newton, 192-3, 207-8.It must also have been the spur which prompted Warwick in about March 1636 to write secretly to Cardinal Richelieu offering his private fleet to Louis XIII for service in a naval war against Spain.224 J. Adamson, Noble Revolt, 33, 543.

Instead of opposing Ship Money openly, Warwick led a clandestine campaign to thwart the levy in Essex. In July 1636 the county’s sheriff, Sir Humphrey Mildmay, complained that trying to collect Ship Money was like trying to get blood out of a stone, and by the time his year-long shrievalty ended he had managed to raise only half of what was due. In August 1636 the Privy Council complained that Ship Money arrears in Essex were ‘much exceeding any other whatsoever’. Mildmay had little doubt about who was responsible, as Warwick refused to pay and prevented him from distraining his goods. He also accused Warwick’s deputy vice admiral, Richard Pulley, of deliberate obstruction.225 V. Rowe, ‘Robert, Second Earl of Warwick and the Payment of Ship Money in Essex’, TEAS, 3rd ser. i. 161; B.W. Quintrell, ‘Govt. of the County of Essex 1603-42’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1965), 340-2.

The king appears to have been well aware that Warwick was working against him behind his back. In the first place, he no longer employed the earl to convey important foreign dignitaries to court, a telling omission. (There is no evidence to support Cust’s view that Warwick regularly waited on the king when he was out of favour or disaffected).226 R. Cust, Chas. I and the Aristocracy, 1625-42, p. 78. Secondly, he had already taken action to clip his wings. In March 1635, on the death of Richard Weston^*, 1st earl of Portland, Warwick had become, de facto, sole lord lieutenant of Essex. However, the following August Charles appointed to the vacancy Warwick’s local rival, the Arminian sympathizer Lord Maynard, who had supported the Forced Loan. For Warwick, this was a double blow. Not only was he prevented from continuing to serve as sole lord lieutenant, but he was also shackled to a man whose religious views were entirely contrary to his own. No wonder that he and his brother Holland were reportedly ‘somewhat troubled’ at Maynard’s appointment.227 Strafforde Letters ed. W. Knowler (1739), i. 462.

It was not the appointment of Maynard that brought Warwick’s opposition to the king into the open, though, but Mildmay’s thinly veiled accusations. Sometime before mid December 1636, Warwick complained that Mildmay had unjustly listed him as a Ship Money defaulter. Mildmay responded by sweeping aside the earl’s feeble excuses, which included a lawsuit, then pending, that had nothing to do with Ship Money.228 CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 231. Shorn of his pretexts for non-payment, Warwick was left with little choice but to come clean. Over the Christmas period he berated the king, telling him that his subjects, used to the mild rule of Elizabeth and James, could not go to their graves having signed away the liberties of the realm. He was willing, he said, to shed his own blood for the king, but how could he be expected to use force against those whose demands he regarded as entirely just? If only Charles proceeded to act through the proper channels – meaning Parliament - he would find his subjects willing to make great sacrifices for him. He would stake his life that a Parliament would be willing to supply him if only Charles resolved to make war on the House of Austria and ally with France for the recovery of the Palatinate.229 CSP Ven. 1636-9, pp. 124-5.

Throughout this harangue, Charles remained smiling and composed. He might have reminded Warwick that he had heard all of this in 1624, when a Parliament had encouraged his father to make war on Spain only for its members, in succeeding assemblies, to renege on its promises. However, he did not do so, perhaps because Warwick had carefully chosen the moment for his outburst. Charles had recently dispatched the earl of Arundel to Austria in an attempt to persuade the Holy Roman emperor to restore the Elector Palatine to his former territories, but his mission had ended in failure, and Arundel had recently returned to Whitehall, brimming over with anger and demanding war. Under these circumstances, Charles could not afford to fall out with Warwick, whose services might soon prove useful, both in Parliament and on the high seas. Yet, by the same token, he could also not allow his authority in Essex to be widely flouted. In February 1637, after receiving an assurance from the judges that Ship Money was legal, the Exchequer Court formally instructed Sir Humphrey Mildmay to return the names of around 60 Ship Money refusers in Essex. Shortly thereafter, all but one of those identified by Mildmay were judged guilty by the Exchequer.230 CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 416-17; Sharpe, 529-30; Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, ii. 275, 282.

Following his interview with the king in January 1637, Warwick seems to have held a number of secret meetings with members of his inner circle with the aim of petitioning Charles to summon a Parliament. (Among them, perhaps, were his cousin the earl of Essex, his son-in-law Viscount Mandeville (Edward Montagu^*, later 2nd earl of Manchester), and his fellow colonial adventurers, Viscount Saye and Sele and Lord Brooke).231 Adamson, 34. However, in the wake of the Exchequer Court ruling of February 1637, Warwick decided to moderate his stance. Two months later, ‘accompanied by sundry persons of quality’ from the county community, he explained to the Privy Council that widespread non-payment in Essex arose from the fact that many of the gentry were rated too highly rather than opposition to the levy per se. However, this tactic also failed to yield results as, following an investigation, it transpired that the sheriff of Essex had adjusted the ratings from previous years to avoid an unfair burden falling on the poor. Far from condemning the sheriff, as Warwick hoped, the king commended Mildmay for his ‘discreet proceedings’ and for ensuring that all but two of the county’s parishes were included in the levy.232 PC2/47, ff. 160v, 211v; Quintrell, 343. The result of this royal intervention was swift and dramatic. All resistance in Essex to Ship Money now collapsed. Indeed, the whole sum due on the 1636 writ was paid by March 1638.233 A.A.M. Gill, ‘Ship Money during the Personal Rule of Chas. I’ (Univ. of Sheffield Ph.D. thesis, 1990), 364.

It has generally been supposed that the collapse of resistance to Ship Money in Essex came about because Charles threatened to remove Warwick’s clients from their local offices.234 Ibid. 133; Rowe, 162-3. However, it is more likely that Warwick abandoned his clandestine opposition to Ship Money, and took to quibbling instead over rating levels, because he did not wish to jeopardize his chances of playing a leading role in the coming conflict with Spain. He was certainly keen to emphasize his enthusiasm for war and his military credentials. In March 1637, when the king contemplated sending the Elector Palatine to sea with a fleet of 14 ships, Warwick was among those peers who offered to serve as one of the Elector’s commanders.235 Strafforde Letters, ii. 56. The following month, with the help of his brother Holland and his friends the 7th earl of Morton [S], the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil^*) and the 4th earl of Pembroke (Philip Herbert^*), he sought entry, without success, to England’s elite order of knighthood, the order of the Garter, which was increasingly reserved for those of martial standing.236 Bodl., Ashmole 1108, f. 101r-v; Cust, Chas. I and the Aristocracy, 126-32. Of course, the decision to abandon his resistance to Ship Money did not imply that Warwick had become reconciled to the levy. On the contrary, it meant that he was content to leave it to two of his colleagues in the Providence Island and Saybrook companies to carry on the fight, Viscount Saye and Sele and John Hampden^‡.

Over the summer of 1637, the pressure on Charles to go to war with Spain continued to mount. In June Warwick accompanied the Elector Palatine, Charles Lewis, and his younger brother Rupert^* to Chatham to view the Navy’s arsenal before bidding farewell to the two princes at Greenwich. At around the same time, Holland and Arundel, doubtless acting on Warwick’s behalf, asked the king for permission to set out privateers to attack the Spanish in the West Indies.237 CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 251, 252; Ceremonies of Chas. I, 219. Charles did not immediately agree to this request, as he had already allowed letters of marque to be issued to ships operating on behalf of the Providence Island Company. In December one such vessel, owned by Warwick, captured beyond the Line a Spanish vessel carrying cargo reportedly worth more than £100,000. The Spanish ambassador was incensed, but was powerless to obtain restitution.238 C115/108/8620. Another report put the value of the captured cargo at a more modest £15,000. Strafforde Letters, ii. 141.

In July 1637, in order to improve his military experience and gain further favour with the Elector Palatine (whose role in any war with Spain might be crucial), Warwick travelled to the Low Countries, where the Elector and his mother, Elizabeth of Bohemia, were living in exile. Although the journey led to personal tragedy - one of Warwick’s sons was drowned at Rammekins - the earl did not allow private grief to interfere with his purpose of serving alongside Charles Lewis in the Dutch siege of Breda. He certainly impressed the young prince, for in August Charles Lewis informed his mother that while many of the newly arrived English volunteers ‘have got very hollow eyes from watching’, Warwick and his (unnamed) nephew ‘hold out very well’.239 Corresp. of Eliz. Stuart, Q. of Bohemia, ii. 621, 637. In early October Warwick returned to England bearing the welcome news that Breda had fallen. At around the same time, the earls of Holland and Pembroke renewed their application for him to be admitted to the order of the Garter.240 HMC Cowper, ii. 168; Strafforde Letters, ii. 115; Bodl., Ashmole 1108, f. 108.

In early February 1638 Warwick finally obtained permission to set out ships from England to attack the Spanish beyond the Line.241 HMC Cowper, ii. 174; Coventry Docquets, 48. However, by now it was clear that Charles had no intention of declaring war on Spain. On the contrary, the Navy’s captains were being encouraged to assist the Spanish by convoying ships carrying silver to Dunkirk.242 A.D. Thrush, ‘Navy under Chas. I, 1625-42’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1990), 166-7. For Warwick, this realization must have been the final straw. The Church of England was now almost wholly under the control of the Arminians, led by William Laud^*, archbishop of Canterbury. Those who accused the bishops of reintroducing popery by the back door, such as the puritan writers Prynne, Burton and Bastwick, were severely punished. Moreover, no Parliament had sat since 1629 and Ship Money continued to be levied. In mid February 1638, Warwick and the 2nd Lord Brooke announced to their colleagues on the board of the Providence Island Company that they intended to emigrate. Accordingly, the following month, Holland petitioned the king to allow both men to travel to Providence Island, along with Saye and Sele (who had also announced his intention to leave England), ostensibly to settle the Company’s affairs.243 Newton, 265; J.T. Cliffe, Puritan Gentry, 266.

Later life, 1638-58

In the event, Warwick and his two fellow peers changed their minds. Growing resistance in Scotland to the introduction of the English Prayer Book resulted in the signing of the National Covenant on 27 Feb. 1638. Warwick shared the Covenanters’ hostility to Laudianism, as he protected from persecution several nonconformist clergymen, among them Edmund Calamy and Jeremiah Burroughes, either by taking them into his own household or finding them parishes within his gift. In August 1638, Burroughes, then Warwick’s household chaplain, defended the Covenanters in conversation with a local minister. He also conducted a service at Leez Priory which was remarkable for the fact that it omitted any prayers for the king or the local bishop. It is hard to believe that Warwick did not approve of Burroughes’ views.244 Adamson, 28, 29, 540.

As the crisis in Scotland unfolded, it became apparent to Warwick and other leading English puritans that the Scots might prove useful allies in wringing important religious concessions from Charles. Over the course of the next few years, Warwick emerged as a key figure in the English opposition to Charles. When civil war erupted in the summer of 1642, the Long Parliament, mindful of his long maritime experience, appointed him admiral of the fleet. He subsequently served as Parliament’s lord high admiral, but was forced from office in 1645 by the Self-Denying Ordinance. A leading member of the presbyterian wing of the parliamentary cause, he was briefly reinstated after part of the fleet mutinied in 1648, but was dismissed without thanks after the revolt was put down.245 B. Capp, Cromwell’s Navy, 21, 44. In the years which followed the execution of the king, Warwick was regarded with suspicion by the republican regime, which in 1653 purged him from the Essex bench. He died suddenly ‘in a fit of colic’ in April 1658246 Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ed. R. Vaughan, ii. 458. and was buried near Leez Priory at Holy Cross, Felsted. He was succeeded by his feckless eldest son Robert (Rich^*, 3rd earl of Warwick), whose inability to control his spending exceeded even his own.