CLINTON, Henry (1542-1615)

Lincoln’s earliest known ancestor was Geoffrey de Clinton, reputedly a man of humble birth, who rose to become lord chamberlain to Henry I. The family joined the ranks of the peerage in 1299, with the creation of the barony of Clinton. During the early fifteenth century the 4th Lord Clinton (William de Clinton^†) also claimed the barony of Say, to which he was coheir in the right of his grandmother. In 1448 John de Clinton^†, 5th Lord Clinton, formally relinquished this claim to James Fiennes^†, 1st Lord Saye and Sele. Nevertheless, subsequent generations adopted the surname of Clinton alias Fiennes, while in 1536 Edward Clinton^†, 9th Lord Clinton, Lincoln’s father, was summoned to the Lords as ‘Edwardo Fenys de Clinton et Say’, effectively an official endorsement of the family’s existing, informal usage.26 Collins, ii. 181, 183; CP, iii. 315-17. Edward Clinton was one of the most enduring politicians of the mid-Tudor period, serving as lord admiral to Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, and helping to suppress both Wyatt’s rising in 1554 and the rebellion of the northern earls 15 years later. Having acquired property in Lincolnshire through marriage, he consolidated his estates there, with major seats at Sempringham and Tattershall Castle, and latterly became the county’s lord lieutenant. In 1572 he was raised to the earldom of Lincoln, and appointed lord steward of the household.27 CP, iii. 690-1; G.A.J. Hodgett, Tudor Lincs. 50-1, 151.

Edward Clinton was a hard act for anyone to follow, but Lincoln, who succeeded his father as 2nd earl in 1585, was cast in a very different mould. Although his aristocratic status ensured his inclusion in major local commissions, and he was even sent on a minor embassy in 1596, he repeatedly demonstrated his unfitness for high office. Perpetually short of money, he improved his Lincolnshire estates by enclosure so ruthlessly that the crown eventually prosecuted him for depopulation.28 HMC Ancaster, 316; Hodgett, 67; L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 304. In 1600 he was imprisoned in the Fleet ‘for many misdemeanours committed against poor men’, but this did nothing to rein in his behaviour. Two years later he complained about the number of ‘clamorous, vagrant persons’ who were still petitioning the Court of Requests for redress.29 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 473; Add. 12506, f. 145. Lincoln scarcely treated his own family any better. He reneged on the marriage settlements agreed for his children, deprived his own brother of his due inheritance, and effectively imprisoned his second wife when she tried to leave him after years of abuse, threatening to abandon their children if she did so.30 HMC Hatfield, vii. 375; x. 146-7, 162, 401. From Elizabeth’s final years until well into the next reign, the earl conducted a bitter feud with a Lincolnshire rival, Sir Edward Dymoke^‡, which disrupted and polarized county society. This protracted dispute was played out not just in the courts but also on the ground, with repeated incidents of trespass and violent affray, in which Lincoln himself allegedly participated.31 Hodgett, 91; HMC Hatfield, xii. 234, 344. In these circumstances, the earl badly needed friends at court, but here too his poor judgement consistently undermined him. In 1599, no doubt hoping to curry favour with the queen’s chief minister Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury), Lincoln agreed to purchase the latter’s substantial Chelsea mansion for the inflated sum of £6,000, but then struggled to raise the money, so that the transaction actually strained relations between the two men.32 L. Stone, Fam. and Fortune, 33-4; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 70-1. He compounded his political woes in 1601 by expressing sympathy for Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex, shortly after the latter’s conviction for treason, and he also sent Essex’s portrait to James VI of Scotland, news of this secret correspondence reaching the government’s ears in the following year.33 CSP Dom. 1601-3, pp. 224-5.

James’s accession to the English throne in 1603 initially seemed to offer Lincoln a fresh start. In May, he and his stepson Francis Norris^*, 2nd Lord Norreys (later earl of Berkshire) were sent north to escort Anne of Denmark on her journey down from Scotland. However, when they reached Northallerton, Yorkshire, they discovered that the queen’s journey had been postponed due to illness. Lincoln, who was now aged 60, and feeling the effects of his ‘old griefs and diseases’, promptly wrote to Cecil begging to be excused. However, he rather undermined his plea of ill health by emphasizing his desire to return to Lincolnshire, where his enemy Dymoke was reportedly taking full advantage of his absence. The earl’s reluctance to serve was noted, and two months later his application to carry the orb at James’s coronation was summarily rejected.34 Hatfield House, CP100/10; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 24. Lincoln’s standing was further damaged when it emerged in September that he had been warned shortly before Elizabeth’s death that France and Spain were planning to oppose the Stuart succession. Although he claimed that he had communicated this information to the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Peyton^‡, he did not notify the government at the time, which raised questions about his loyalty. As Peyton refused to corroborate Lincoln’s version of events, commenting that it was the earl’s habit ‘to condemn the world, if thereby he might excuse himself’, this episode further convinced Cecil that Lincoln could not be trusted.35 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 40; SP14/4/14.I; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 70-1.

At the 1604 parliamentary elections, the earl secured the return of his son Thomas, Lord Clinton^* (later 3rd earl of Lincoln) as the senior Lincolnshire shire knight, but is not known to have made nominations to any of the county’s boroughs.36 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 229. Lincoln attended the Lords intermittently for the first four months of the 1604 session, but missed most of the final fortnight. In total he was absent for just over half of the sittings. His only speech, on 3 Apr., was a request for several days’ leave.37 LJ, ii. 272b. Despite this desultory record, he received ten appointments. Of these, half were to conferences with the Commons, the topics under discussion being the proposed Anglo-Scottish Union, the controversial book on the same subject by John Thornborough^*, bishop of Bristol, purveyance, wardship, and the bill for repeal or continuance of expiring laws.38 Ibid. 284a, 290b, 303a, 329a, 332b. His five committee nominations encompassed bills for the tanning of leather and the relief of plague victims, and three private measures.39 Ibid. 269b, 280a, 312b, 324b, 325b.

Meanwhile, Lincoln’s personal abuses of power continued. In May 1604, he bullied a poor widow into selling him a property in Middlesex, promising her an annuity in return, but then defaulted on the payments. That summer, he attempted to rig a Lincolnshire jury in order to guarantee the conviction of some of Dymoke’s servants, but Sir Edward found out and disrupted the trial. The Dymoke faction retaliated by poaching 200 of Lincoln’s deer, and the feud continued.40 C2/Jas. I/B32/57; C. Holmes, Seventeenth-Century Lincs. 98-9; HMC Rutland, i. 395. The earl had not yet abandoned all hope of royal favour, for at about this time he agreed to sell the king a property at Royston, Hertfordshire, where James was establishing a new hunting lodge. However, the monarch himself was now at best amused by Lincoln’s unpredictable behaviour, commenting in October 1605 to the earl of Salisbury that the troublesome peer lived ‘by the influence of Dis [ie. the underworld]’, and was therefore not subject to those celestial forces which governed other men.41 HMC Cowper, i. 58; Letters of King Jas. VI and I ed. G.P.V. Akrigg, 270.

When Parliament reconvened in the following month, Lincoln missed the opening two sittings, not turning up until the afternoon of 9 November. After a brief spell of regular attendance in January 1606, he withdrew from the Lords on 22 Feb. following an outbreak of plague near his house, and stayed away until late May, handing his proxy to his friend the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley). In all, he was present for just 20 sittings, less than a quarter of the session.42 LJ, ii. 355b, 383a. Named to the committee for the bill against profane swearing, he was also nominated in his absence to consider the revised version of this measure. Curiously, he was appointed in March to the bill committee concerning the estates of Gray Brydges^*, 5th Lord Chandos, even though it must have been obvious that he would not attend it.43 Ibid. 365a, 381a, 386a.

The 1606-7 parliamentary session saw a further decline in Lincoln’s attendance. Although he was present on the opening day, he subsequently withdrew until after Christmas, during which time he again presented his proxy to Lord Ellesmere. The earl was also absent from mid-March 1607 until the end of the session, apart from three sittings at the start of June. In total he appeared just 16 times, apparently without explaining his behaviour to the House. Despite this lamentable record, he still received two nominations, for bill committees concerned with usury and the nation’s timber supplies.44 Ibid. 449b, 471b, 473a.

During the course of this session, Lincoln again fell out with Salisbury. Since at least 1604 the two men had been competing for the keepership of Hyde Park, Middlesex, then still a royal hunting ground. The current keeper, Sir Edmund Carey^‡, was willing to sell the office, and by September 1606 Lincoln believed that he had finally agreed terms. However, Carey was playing a double game, and holding out for a deal with Salisbury. The latter eventually obtained the keepership in November 1607, and an infuriated Lincoln was reduced to offering to pay him rent in order to enjoy the office himself. The dispute dragged on well into the following year, with Lincoln vainly attempting to buy out Salisbury’s interest, but the now lord treasurer held all the cards, as Lincoln bitterly acknowledged in September 1608:

it is not fit for me to enter into discourse of any differences, knowing many ways my weakness in maintaining my reasons with a nobleman of your great wisdom and power, nor being able to restrain myself from speaking what I think in those things which my knowledge or conscience assures me of’.45 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 70; xviii. 417 (endorsed 1606, but probably Mar. 1606/7); xix. 53; xx. 237; SO3/1, f. 610v; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 448; C66/1733; Hatfield House, CP 126/52.

In the following year the earl quarrelled with his own younger son Henry, who had married against his wishes, while the interminable feud with Dymoke dragged on through the courts. In the spring of 1609, Lincoln delayed paying the feudal aid requested in connection with Prince Henry’s knighthood, alleging that he had been wrongly assessed. Remarkably, at around the same time, he became a director of the newly formed Virginia Company, though he relinquished this role within three years.46 CSP Dom. 1603-10, pp. 405, 516; HMC Hatfield, xx. 257-8; 279.

Lincoln barely attended the first parliamentary session of 1610, turning up only for the state opening, Prince Henry’s installation as prince of Wales on 4 June, and one final sitting on 8 June, when he took the oath of allegiance. As usual, he handed his proxy to Lord Ellesmere.47 LJ, ii. 548b, 609b. His effective withdrawal from the Lords may help to explain the crown’s decision to summon his son, Lord Clinton, for this session, a development in which Lincoln took great interest. According to the clerk of the parliaments, Henry Elsyng, ‘the old earl … was very careful, both for the right place of his son and the ancient ceremonies to be used at his first appearance’ in the Lords on 2 June. Even so, Lincoln was recorded as absent on the day of Clinton’s introduction.48 H. Elsyng, Manner of Holding Parls. in Eng. (1768), 97. In Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, i. 95, Elsyng is misquoted in a way that suggests Lincoln did attend his son’s introduction.

In marked contrast to most of his relationships, Lincoln enjoyed an enduring friendship with Ellesmere. In 1607, he offered some of the latter’s relatives the use of his Chelsea house during another plague outbreak, while in August 1610 the earl became godfather to the lord chancellor’s granddaughter Penelope Egerton.49 HEHL, EL177, 1001. However, Lincoln was now essentially a figure of derision at court. In October, Philip Herbert^*, 1st earl of Montgomery (and later 4th earl of Pembroke), notified Salisbury of a ‘very strange accident’, namely an unexpected burst of generosity by Lincoln, who had just bestowed six horses on Henry Danvers^*, Lord Danvers (later earl of Danby), five more on James Hay^*, Lord Hay (later 1st earl of Carlisle), and a deer on Montgomery himself. Far from welcoming this behaviour, the ungrateful courtier dismissed it as deeply suspicious.50 HMC Hatfield, xxi. 254. Whatever circumstances lay behind that incident, Lincoln enjoyed one major success that summer: Dymoke was fined £1,000 and imprisoned in the Fleet for staging a play in Lincolnshire which slandered him.51 HMC 3rd Rep. 57; HMC 11th Rep. VII, 161.

When Parliament met again in late 1610, Lincoln missed the entire session, excusing himself on the grounds of his own poor health, and fresh outbreaks of the plague near his homes in Chelsea and Lincolnshire. Once again he presented his proxy to Lord Ellesmere.52 LJ, ii. 666b, 668b. Now approaching his eighth decade, the earl remained as obstreperous as ever, spending time in gaol in 1611 over his feud with Dymoke. That same year his countess died, and it was rumoured, improbably, that he was in search of a third wife. In 1613 he was reprimanded by the Privy Council for failing to contribute to the aid collected for Princess Elizabeth’s marriage.53 Holmes, 103; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 54; Chamberlain Letters, i. 326; APC, 1613-14, pp. 61, 78. The Council might have added that he also owed the crown £120 in subsidy payments.54 Lansd. 169, f. 135v.

Lincoln never attended the 1614 Parliament. The Lords’ records shed no light on the reason, and, in a break with his normal practice, he handed his proxy to Lord Clinton’s brother-in-law, the lord chamberlain, Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk. His reputation was such that when Richard Neile^*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of York), caused a furore by attacking the Commons over impositions, Members were initially confused about the identity of their critic: ‘it was demanded which of the Lincolns it might be, the spiritual or temporal lord, for they were so equal in ignorance, impudence and other such honourable qualities, that it were hard to distinguish them’.55 LJ, ii. 686a; Wilts. N and Q, viii. 449-50; Chamberlain Letters, i. 534.

Lincoln died in September 1615, and was buried at Tattershall. (His inquisition post mortem, not drawn up until 1620, incorrectly records the year date as 1616). The contents of his will are not known, but fittingly they prompted a fierce dispute between his children. Probate was finally granted in October 1616 to his eldest son Thomas, who had succeeded him as 3rd earl of Lincoln, but the battle over his estate dragged on for at least another seven years.56 N and Q, 8th ser. iv. 168; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 315; PROB 11/128, ff. 227v-8; C2/Jas. I/B32/57.