HOLLES, John (c.1564-1637)

John Holles is possibly the best-documented peer of the early seventeenth century never to have held significant public office.38 R. Cust, Forced Loan, 228. This is largely due to the fact that his eldest son, John^† (later 2nd earl of Clare), for reasons unknown, copied a large quantity of his papers, the originals of which are now lost.39 Most of the 2nd earl’s copies have been printed in Holles Letters. There are further copies calendared in HMC Portland, ix. 1-165 and, unprinted, in Harl. 6055, ff. 21-33. Copies of miscellaneous papers are in Nottingham UL, NeC15406. There seems little reason to doubt the reliability of these copies, which faithfully duplicate passages critical of the transcriber himself.40 See for example Holles Letters, 419. However, some of these documents – such as a letter sent in August 1631 to William Cavendish^*, earl, later 1st duke, of Newcastle, which also survives in the Cavendish papers – appear to be first drafts as they contain more differences than can be attributed simply to the errors of a copyist.41 Ibid. 429; Add. 70499, f. 149r-v. There are few differences in the texts of the letter of December 1620 to the Privy Council, although again there is a discrepancy in the dating, the copy being dated 16th, while the original is dated the day before. Holles Letters, 248-9; SP14/118/28. To complicate matters, the Holles papers often include more than one version of the same letter, but which version was actually sent is never stated. A letter of October 1625 addressed to John Williams^*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of York) blames the royal favourite, George Villiers^*, 1st duke of Buckingham, for dismissing Williams as lord keeper, but in another version of the same document the writer avoided criticizing the duke by name. Presumably the first version was never sent for fear that it would fall into the wrong hands. The survival, in copy form, of letters that Holles was ultimately reluctant to commit to the post would explain why his papers ‘contain some remarkably frank and revealing comments’.42 Holles Letters, 310, 311-12; Cust, 12, 320.

Another reason Holles is so well documented is that his cousin, the antiquarian Gervase Holles^‡, compiled a family history.43 Gervase Holles’ work has been printed as G. Holles, Mems. of the Holles Fam. ed. A.C Wood (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, lv). Gervase knew his cousin well, having lived for nearly three years in his household in the 1620s.44 Holles, 228; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/CP29, Clare to Middlesex, 1 May 1636. Unsurprisingly, Gervase was inclined to be generous to his patron, whom he described as having a ‘courteous and affable disposition’, a ‘felicity of conversation beyond all other men’ and ‘one of the best [writing] styles ever I yet met with’. He also claimed that Holles’ household was ‘a school of knowledge, virtue and temperance’. There was probably more to Gervase’s praise than simple gratitude: Holles’ worst enemy, Sir Edward Coke^‡, acknowledged that he had ‘travelled many countries, speaks many languages, hath seen many manners and customs, and knows much of foreign nations’.45 Holles, 111-13; State Trials ed. T.B. Howell, ii. 1033. Gervase was not entirely uncritical of his kinsman, whom he described as ‘nothing liberal’ when it came to spending money.46 Holles, 114. Holles’ aversion to opening his purse strings was remarked on by others and may explain why, despite owning property in the capital, he never purchased a London residence.47 SP14/164/10; C115/106/8430.

According to Gervase, Holles had a poor opinion of James I. He also tells us that Holles, who died in 1637, ‘was so true a son of the Church of England that he would most firmly have asserted the episcopal jurisdiction’ had he lived longer.48 Holles, 97, 107-8. This may have been wishful thinking, as Gervase himself was a royalist during the Civil War. However, Holles certainly admired evangelical Calvinist bishops, such as Robert Snowden^*, bishop of Carlisle, and Robert Abbot^*, bishop of Salisbury. Moreover, though he regarded George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury, as ‘a timorous weak man’, he also considered him ‘orthodox’, and thought he ‘hindered much ill’.49 HMC Portland, ix. 23-4; Holles Letters, 216-17, 452; Harl. 6055, f. 27r-v.

Holles was a Calvinist conformist who opposed both puritanism and Arminianism, but regarded the latter as the more serious threat, as the former ‘offends only in order’ whereas anti-Calvinism offended ‘in substance’. He also disliked the more formal style of worship favoured by Abbot’s successor, William Laud^*; in 1626 he passed on a joke about Laud’s ‘friar-like ducking’, and, three years later, disapprovingly described him as the ‘ceremonious head of the clergy’. Nevertheless, it was clerical support for the prerogative, not anti-Calvinism, which primarily concerned him during the first years of Charles I’s reign. Commenting in late 1628 or early 1629 on reports that Charles had appointed a ‘commission ... regulating doctrine and faith’, he stated that ‘jealous men will suspect’ that ‘improvement of the prerogative’ was the objective, not ‘reformation of error’. In August 1627 he complained of ‘new articles of religion’, in which ‘allegiance and supremacy only [were] cared for’.50 Holles Letters, 339, 323, 360, 395.

For much of the 1620s, Holles was relatively unconcerned by the Catholic threat. He dismissed the popular view, expressed in Middleton’s A Game at Chess (1624), of the existence of a Jesuitical plot to destroy Protestantism and establish a universal Spanish monarchy, describing the play as ‘more wittily penned than wisely staged’, and ‘a foul injury to Spain’.51 Ibid. 289. The real danger, he thought, lay not in popery but in the subordination of religion to secular interests. Buckingham, he observed in the late 1620s, cares not ‘what religion is professed: the pope’s, or Luther or Calvin. All is one, to serve his turn’.52 T. Cogswell, ‘“The Symptomes and Vapors of a Diseased Time”: the Earl of Clare and Early Stuart Manuscript Culture’, Rev. of English Studs., n.s. lvii. 326-7. Not until 1629 did he change his opinion. His eldest son had married the daughter of Horace Vere^*, Lord Vere of Tilbury, the leading English military champion of European Protestantism, and was then in the Netherlands with his father-in-law. Holles now worried about the threat from Catholicism and Arminians, regarding the latter, at least in the Dutch context, as ‘close[t] papists’. By 1632 he regarded the Protestant forces in the Thirty Years’ War as fighting God’s ‘own cause’. However, he remained hostile toward puritanism. In May 1637, he described William Prynne^‡, John Bastwick and Henry Burton, recently condemned by Star Chamber, as ‘hot headed Bethshemites [1 Samuel 6:19] that so presumptuously will peep into the art of our government’.53 Holles Letters, 394-5, 399, 402, 441-2, 521.

Early life, c.1564-1616

After making his fortune in the City, Holles’ paternal great-grandfather invested in land. The latter’s second son inherited property in Nottinghamshire, which county he represented in Parliament in 1553. He also acquired further land in Cornwall, through marriage. Holles’ father established links with the nobility by marrying the daughter of Edmund Sheffield^†, 1st Lord Sheffield, and granddaughter of John de Vere^†, 15th earl of Oxford. Holles himself, not surprisingly, carefully cultivated his de Vere connections.54 HP Commons, 1509-58, ii. 377-8; Holles, 40, 61, 69.

Holles continued the policy, started by his grandfather, of consolidating the family estates. He spent over £22,000 on buying property, with the result that his landed income increased from £1,263 p.a. in 1593 to £4,706 in 1626. However, a large part of this increase took place outside Nottinghamshire. He particularly benefited from the expansion of London, having inherited property in St Clement Danes and St Giles-in-the-Fields, which he augmented and developed. By 1626, his Middlesex property yielded him £1,800 a year, and by the end of his life it may have made up more than half his income. Conversely, his landholdings in his native county were significantly less than those of Sir Gervase Clifton^‡, a baronet who regularly represented Nottinghamshire in the 1620s.55 Holles Letters, pp. xviii, xx-xxiv, 473; Holles, 94-5.

Having seen extensive service in the Elizabethan wars, Holles was returned for Nottinghamshire in 1604 and 1614.56 HP Commons, 1602-29, ii. 307-8. He possessed a lifelong fascination with politics, a great belief in his own abilities (he was satirically described as ‘modest Sir John Holles’) and was ambitious to play a major role at court.57 J. Mennes, Musarum Deliciae, 69. He appeared to be on the verge of achieving his objective in 1610, when he was appointed to a senior post in Prince Henry’s household, but his hopes were dashed when the prince died two years later. Out of office, he attached himself to the Scottish favourite, Robert Carr*, earl of Somerset, but this brought him no tangible rewards.58 HP Commons, 1604-29, iv. 763-5. Not surprisingly, he became embittered by not receiving the preferment he thought he deserved.59 Nottingham UL, PwV4, p. 112; Cabala (1691), 256.

In 1615 Holles entered into negotiations to purchase the treasurership of the household from William Knollys^*, Lord Knollys (subsequently earl of Banbury), Somerset’s brother-in-law. Holles’ intermediary was Frances Seymour, countess of Hertford, the wife of his kinsman by marriage, Edward Seymour^*, 1st earl of Hertford. As a result of these negotiations, Holles came to London,60 Holles Letters, 133. where he attended the trial of Richard Weston, who had murdered Somerset’s former friend, Sir Thomas Overbury. On 25 Oct. Holles and several other Somerset adherents interrupted Weston’s execution to persuade the latter to exonerate their patron of any blame in Overbury’s murder. This was interpreted as questioning the judicial proceedings and, as a result, Holles was tried in Star Chamber the following month. Giving judgement against him, Sir Edward Coke poured scorn on Holles,61 Carew Letters ed. J. Maclean (Cam. Soc. lxxvi), 17-18; State Trials, ii. 1021-34. with whom he had clashed before. Coke’s behaviour set the seal on the animosity between the two men. On his release from the Fleet the following February, Holles wrote that the very thought of Coke was ‘noisome to my nostrils’. He now wished ‘liberty [to] hate him, and revenge myself’.62 HMC Hatfield, viii. 234; Nottingham UL, PwV4, p. 102; Holles Letters, 113, 118.

Ennoblement and political misfortunes 1616-20

Once at liberty, Holles sought to resume his negotiations for the treasurership of the household, only to find that ‘my coat smelt of prison’. He was subsequently approached by the lord treasurer, Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk, Somerset’s father-in-law, who was trying to raise money to fund the projected embassy of James Hay^*, Lord Hay (later 1st earl of Carlisle) to France. Suffolk offered to sell Holles a peerage for £10,000, which, he declared, would win the king’s gratitude and smooth the way for Holles’ appointment. Holles, who had previously condemned the selling of honours as a ‘scandal’, agreed, probably with great reluctance, and was ennobled as Lord Houghton, which title reflected his seat of Haughton, in Nottinghamshire. At his investiture on 9 July, his mantle and hood were carried by Hay’s father-in-law, Edward Denny^*, Lord Denny (later earl of Norwich), assisted by Knollys and Suffolk’s son, Theophilus Howard^*, Lord Howard de Walden (subsequently 2nd earl of Suffolk).63 Holles Letters, 137-8, 526; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 380; Harl. 5176, f. 222.

By the time he received his title, Houghton was worried that his true objective, the treasurership, would elude him. After remarking that he could ‘not retreat without shame, nor go on without irreparable ruin’, he complained on 8 July that if all that he secured was a barony, then it would appear there was ‘no use in me for the king, and the State, than my purse’. His despondency only increased when the countess of Hertford began to talk about securing for him instead the office of chamberlain of the household of Prince Charles (Stuart^*, later prince of Wales), and when Viscount Fentoun [S], the groom of the stole, remarked on ‘my incapacity of having of a white staff’, the traditional insignia of a household official. Realizing that ‘the other game’ was ‘past recovery’, he nevertheless consoled himself with the thought that the pain of parting with £10,000 would be ‘no longer than a stitch, grievous for the time, and if I pass it over, my house is settled in honour’.64 Holles Letters, 132-5; Harl. 6055, f. 27. Temporarily turning his back on the court, he turned down the opportunity offered by Suffolk in the following October to have his heir included among the knights of the Bath created at Prince Charles’s installation as prince of Wales, claiming that his son was too ill to travel. Later that month he wrote that he was ‘so far from affecting either court, or foreign employments, as let them bury me in a hole, so I may scrape my £10,000 again’.65 Holles Letters, 141, 144.

Despite his disillusionment, Houghton had not given up all hope. Somerset had been replaced in the king’s favour by George Villiers, who became earl of Buckingham in January 1617. Houghton gained the impression that ‘Buckingham seemed willing to retain me still a courtier’ and in February, on hearing that the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster was dying, he approached the favourite through his friend, the Scottish courtier, Walter Steward^‡. Houghton made it clear that he would pay for the office - he promised to ‘be thankful to whomsoever he assigns me’ – and accordingly Steward effected a meeting between Houghton and Buckingham. However, the chancellor survived, and as a result there was no vacancy to fill.66 Harl. 6055, f. 32r-v; Holles Letters, 154.

Houghton followed the fall of Coke in November 1616 with considerable interest, and befriended Coke’s estranged wife, Lady Hatton – the sister of Houghton’s friend William Cecil^*, Lord Burghley (subsequently 2nd earl of Exeter) - as early as February 1616.67 Holles Letters, 113, 144-5. Lady Hatton left Coke but became involved in a protracted struggle with her husband over control of her property and the marriage of their daughter, Frances. The latter was an heiress to a considerable estate, and Buckingham therefore wanted her as the bride for his elder brother, Sir John Villiers^* (subsequently Viscount Purbeck). Following his fall, Coke saw the match as a means of securing his return to favour. For her part, Lady Hatton would only consent to such a marriage if she, rather than her husband, reaped any political advantage.68 Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 38; S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. iii. 86-8. Houghton became her adviser and, from April 1617, drafted letters and petitions on her behalf to the king and the lord keeper, Sir Francis Bacon^* (later Viscount St Alban). He also opened negotiations with Buckingham’s mother. However, Buckingham preferred to deal with Coke and, despite Lady Hatton’s best efforts, the couple were married in September. Houghton once again found himself landed in hot water, examined before a committee for the Privy Council in July for conspiring to deny Coke access to his daughter.69 Holles Letters, 157-8, 162-3, 166, 173-5, 177-9; HMC Downshire, vi. 299.

As a result of the marriage, Coke was restored to the Privy Council. However, the principal beneficiary of the match was ultimately Lady Hatton, as only she could augment her daughter’s dowry. On 8 Nov. she entertained king and court at a grand banquet at her London home.70 Gardiner, iii. 99-100; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 110. On the face of it, Lady Hatton’s rehabilitation was welcome news to Houghton. However, his advocacy may have done more harm than good, as Houghton feared that he had now so alienated the favourite that Lady Hatton had no more use for him. In October, he expressed alarm that she was being advised by her friends to ‘leave me still in the storm, as a desperate piece not to be recovered out of the waters’. Before he had thrown in his lot with her, he had been one of the ‘principal friends’ of Buckingham and his mother, but now ‘for you [Lady Hatton] I have lost them’. Indeed, he feared ‘their malice’ was ‘implacable to me’.71 Harl. 6055, f. 26r-v. He was right to be worried. Although Lady Hatton wrote a letter to Buckingham ‘to put him in mind of some satisfactions for her friends’, and promised to send it the next day, Houghton heard subsequently that ‘it is still lodged in her pocket’.72 Ibid. ff. 30v-1. Nevertheless, in January 1618 he was reported to be a candidate to succeed Sir Thomas Edmondes^‡ as comptroller of the household. He also renewed his interest in the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster after the incumbent finally died. Houghton apparently made ‘the fairest offer’ for the post, but as James reportedly ‘hath no manner of liking to him in any sort neither sod [boiled] nor roasted’ he failed to secure any office at all.73 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 129, 133.

By November 1618 Houghton was seeking to console himself for the failure of his political ambitions. He told his son that he no longer envied the ‘office-mongers’ because of the ‘dear rate, they have purchased those diseases of their soul, body and fortune’. For his part, he intended to ‘to live of my own [with] that little which God hath given me’. However, he soon became bored, complaining that ‘the country affords no materials’ for writing letters ‘other than buying and selling cattle’.74 Holles Letters, 211, 214.

Aside from his failure to achieve office, Houghton’s withdrawal from political life probably owed something to the fall of Suffolk, who had been dismissed as lord treasurer in July for corruption. Among the correspondence copied by Houghton’s son is a letter to the king dated 20 July 1618, in which the countess of Suffolk defended her husband’s conduct and pleaded for mercy. The existence of this document in Houghton’s papers indicates that it was probably drawn up for the countess by Houghton. At the very least it suggests that Houghton was involved in Suffolk’s defence.75 Harl. 6055, f. 24r-v. Houghton was certainly sympathetic to his cause, for in December he expressed horror at Suffolk’s dismissal, arguing that ‘the punishment hath far exceeded the offence’. Houghton’s principal complaint was that Suffolk had been dismissed on suspicion of wrongdoing rather than proof. ‘By that precedent’, he observed, no officer could carry out his work comfortably, ‘seeing not what he is, but what he is understood to be, must be his good, or his bad’.76 Holles Letters, 215.

In March 1619 Houghton’s life was again thrown into crisis after Sir Edward Coke accused him of having persuaded Margaret Langford, a recusant widow from Derbyshire, to sue him in Star Chamber over Coke’s purchase of the Derbyshire manor of Langford in 1615.77 STAC 8/28/20; Fortescue Pprs. ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. n.s. i), 82-3; F. Taylor, Hand-list of the Crutchley Mss in the John Rylands Lib. 28, 30; HMC Portland, ix. 20-1; Nottingham UL, NeC15406, pp. 114-15. In fact, it was Margaret’s counsel, Michael Jenison, not Houghton, who proposed suing Coke when the latter’s fortunes began to wane in the summer of 1616. However, Houghton was certainly sympathetic and recommended the case to the solicitor general, Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, arguing that ‘a sentence in Star Chamber would blot him [Coke] out for ever’. In the event, Margaret decided not to proceed with the suit.78 STAC 8/28/20; Nottingham UL, NeC15406, pp. 117-18; Holles Letters, 148-9.

Thanks to Buckingham, Coke’s complaint was referred to a committee of privy councillors. After an initial hearing both parties were instructed not to talk to anyone else about the case. However, Houghton subsequently wrote to Jenison to inform him of Coke’s petition. When this came to light, Houghton was accused of conspiring with Jenison and Langford to deceive the committee, and of showing contempt for the Privy Council. Houghton retorted that he had never accepted the order to keep proceedings secret, arguing that to have done so would have made it impossible to prepare his defence. He further asserted that the committee was merely a committee of privy councillors, not a committee of the Council, and so did not have the authority of the Council. He denied having been enjoined, on his allegiance to the king, to obey the committee’s order, claiming that his allegiance could only invoked in matters of State, whereas the dispute with Coke was a matter between private parties.79 STAC 8/28/20; Nottingham UL, NeC15406, 118-20; Fortescue Pprs. 82-3. However, his refusal to obey the committee was a major tactical blunder which inevitably antagonized its members. The committee may also have been irritated by the suspicion that Houghton was trying to disrupt the prosecution of Suffolk, which had now begun, by bringing Coke, one of the chief prosecutors in the case, into disrepute. By 7 Apr. 1619 the committee had agreed that Houghton be brought before Star Chamber for contempt, and for conspiring against Coke.80 Nottingham UL, NeC15406, p. 126; Fortescue Pprs. 82-3. Houghton’s continued obduracy led to four spells of imprisonment in 1619-20, and he was forced to pay £30 in costs to Coke.81 APC, 1617-19, pp. 471-2; 1619-21, pp. 9-10, 214-15; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 267; Nottingham UL, PwV4, p. 74; Holles Letters, 227-8, 230-1, 233.

Houghton was out of prison by October 1620, when the Council wrote to all members of the English nobility demanding a benevolence for the defence of the Palatinate, the hereditary German lands of James I’s son-in-law, Frederick V, which had been attacked by Spanish and imperial forces.82 APC. 1619-21, p. 293. Such levies were against Houghton’s ‘commonwealth’ principals, although he had, for pragmatic reasons, been willing to comply with the general benevolence raised six years earlier.83 HMC Portland, xi. 139-40. However, by 1620 he was seriously discontented. He did not respond until mid December, claiming that he had not received the Council’s letter until the ‘latter end of November’. He argued that, having kitted out his younger son, Francis, then serving in the force under Sir Horace Vere sent to the Palatinate over the summer, he had already contributed twice over. He therefore declined to pay, but added that ‘were I as free in my fortune as heretofore, I would as readily have embraced … this action’.84 Holles Letters, 248-9; SP14/118/28.

The 1621 Parliament

The Palatinate crisis eventually induced James to summon Parliament. Houghton probably welcomed this development as it afforded him a respite from his continuing Star Chamber suit. However, he lacked the necessary parliamentary robes, which he asked his eldest son to procure for him. (It is unclear whether Houghton’s failure to provide himself with robes in the four years since his elevation to the peerage resulted from parsimony or a belief that James was unlikely to summon Parliament again.) Houghton thought that if these could not be made in time he would be able to borrow those of John Stanhope^*, 1st Lord Stanhope of Harrington, his wife’s ageing uncle, as Stanhope was unlikely to attend the meeting himself.85 Holles Letters, 242. Houghton also tried to enlist Stanhope’s help in securing a seat in the Commons for his heir. A privy councillor, Stanhope was in a position to put pressure on William Copley, the recusant owner of the manorial borough of Gatton in Surrey. On 10 Nov. Stanhope notified Gatton’s inhabitants that Copley had promised a seat to his nephew and instructed them to elect him.86 Nottingham UL, NeC15406, p. 196. (Houghton also approached the Nottinghamshire borough of East Retford, which had elected his father in the 1580s, but was rebuffed.)87 Holles Letters, 247-8. John Holles, the future 2nd earl of Clare, was accordingly elected for Gatton on 12 Dec., but was unseated on 7 Feb. 1621, there having been a double return.88 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 394.

When Parliament met, Houghton missed the first three sittings of the upper House, taking his seat on 6 Feb. 1621. In all, he attended 39 of the 44 sittings before the Easter recess. During that time he was named to 21 of the 28 committees appointed by the Lords and is recorded as having spoken 29 times. He also signed the petition of the nobility against granting precedence to Englishmen who had acquired foreign titles.89 A. Wilson, Hist. of Great Britain (1653), 187. Having paid dearly for his title, Houghton was presumably unhappy about the sale of cheaper, but higher ranking, Irish and Scottish honours. However, Houghton did not always take the side of his fellow barons, for on 16 Feb. he spoke on behalf of his friend and kinsman, Francis Norris^*, earl of Berkshire, who had been brought to the bar for shoving Emanuel Scrope^*, 11th Lord Scrope (later earl of Sunderland). However, he failed to persuade his colleagues not to order Berkshire’s commitment.90 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 8; LJ, iii. 20a; PROB 11/143, f. 9.

Houghton was not present in the chamber when the privileges committee (the first of its kind in the upper House) was established on 5 February. However, he had presumably been added to its ranks by the 14th, when Abbot reported the establishment of a subcommittee to search records, whose members included Houghton.91 LJ, iii. 17b. Houghton was included in the list of the privileges committee in the committee book. PA, HL/PO/CO/2/1, f. 20. Houghton is known to have attended the subcommittee at least twice, on 22 Feb. and, during the Easter recess, on 29 March.92 Bodl., Carte 77, f. 185; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 52-3. One of the earliest matters considered by the privileges committee was whether peers could testify on their honour rather than on oath in courts of law. It sought the advice of its legal assistants, two of whom then refused to give their opinion for fear of touching the prerogative. This led Houghton to complain to the House that the assistants had disregarded their writs of summons, which required them ‘to give advice being asked and required to do by your lordships’.93 LJ, iii. 21a; ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 22. Houghton was one of the members of the committee sent to the king about the matter. However, when report was made to the House by Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, the acting clerk, Henry Elsyng, was unable to hear him. As late as November 1626, Houghton, in his capacity as a member of the subcommittee for privileges, was still trying to help Elsyng produce a satisfactory account of the report for the Journal.94 LJ, iii. 21a, 39b-40a; HMC 3rd Rep. 19; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 16 n.1.

Houghton was appointed to attend a conference with the Commons on 14 Feb. about a petition proposed by the lower House to enforce the laws against Catholics.95 LJ, iii. 17a. The Lords subsequently approved the petition, but, two days later, the lord treasurer, Henry Montagu^*, Viscount Mandeville (later 1st earl of Manchester), queried the clause calling on the king to issue a proclamation. Houghton was irritated by this intervention, arguing that the Lords should not seek to change the petition at this stage as ‘we cannot safely nor orderly leave what we have agreed’. Moreover, he observed, ‘a petition is not command but a leaving to the king’. If James felt that a proclamation was inappropriate, he was under no obligation to issue one. Moreover, if Mandeville wanted to advise the king to proceed in a different way, he could do so without changing the petition, which the Lords had already approved.96 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 7.

Following the news that Sir Giles Mompesson^‡, the notorious monopolist, had fled, Houghton moved for a conference with the Commons to consider how to apprehend the miscreant. He was appointed to attend the meeting and also helped draft a warrant to authorize the search for Mompesson and his papers.97 Ibid. 12; LJ, iii. 34a, 35a. On 12 Mar. Houghton seconded William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke, who complained that, at a conference two days earlier, Mandeville and St Alban had spoken without the House’s permission to defend their role in granting Mompesson his patents. Both men acknowledged their fault, whereupon Houghton was appointed to attend a further conference to receive the evidence the lower House had collected concerning Mompesson.98 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 19; LJ, iii. 42a-b. At this fresh meeting, Buckingham tried to defend himself against accusations that he had sponsored Mompesson and various other monopolists, but was stopped by some of his fellow peers because they had only been authorized to receive evidence from the Commons. When the committee returned to the Lords, Houghton defended the silencing of Buckingham, but thought that the favourite’s ‘acknowledgment of his mistaking’ should be ‘taken in the mildest manner’.99 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 22. Buckingham’s error had arisen from the fact that, on being named to the conference committee, he had excused himself, thinking that he would not be able to attend, and had therefore been replaced. ‘To prevent mistaking hereafter’, Houghton moved that a list of those appointed to attend a conference should be given to the committee’s senior peer, as was the practice with other committees. However, his motion was rejected, as it was already customary for those peers who had been named to attend a conference to take their seats first at the appointed meeting place.100 I. Temple Lib. Petyt 538/7, f. 231; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 23.

Houghton was appointed on 15 Mar. to consider the monopoly of gold and silver thread, one of three patents referred to committees that day. When these committees reported seven days later, Houghton launched a wide ranging attack on the monopolists, arguing that ‘many great abuses in point of execution’ were ‘beyond all precedents’. Although he regarded Mompesson as the principal malefactor, he also drew attention to ‘divers’ other ‘delinquents’, of whom the Lords had ‘heard little’, but what they had heard was ‘foul’. He emphasized the need to satisfy public anger, particularly as Parliament had already voted subsidies, arguing that ‘the expectation [was as] great as the grief’ and that ‘the whole kingdom’ should hear ‘of punish[ment] upon the delinquents, as well as of the subsidy’.101 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 32-3.

At a conference on 19 Mar., the Commons formally accused the lord chancellor of corruption. The following day Houghton moved ‘to perfect the examinations’ of the witnesses, and on the 21st he announced that there were more witnesses to be sworn. That same day, Houghton was appointed to one of three committees established to examine those who had evidence to give. As there were so many witnesses, he proposed that only the most important should be examined, which was ordered.102 Ibid. 28, 30, 31; LJ, iii. 58b, 60a. Taken alongside the case of the monopolists, however, the prosecution of the lord chancellor created an immense workload, and, on 22 Mar., Houghton argued that the House should postpone its adjournment for Easter by a day or two ‘in respect of the great affairs now depending’. The Lords agreed, and sent a message to the Commons accordingly.103 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 34; LD 1621, p. 129; LJ, iii. 63b.

Houghton was clearly becoming a key figure in these investigations. It was on his motion that, on 22 Mar., a committee was established to search for precedents concerning the judicature of the Lords, no doubt to establish the correct procedure for passing judgement on Mompesson.104 LJ, iii. 65b. Four days later, Houghton expressed dissatisfaction with the ‘latter part’ of the House’s assessment of the gold and silver thread patent, which he thought should have been condemned more strongly.105 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 41. In the debate on sentencing Mompesson that afternoon, Houghton argued that the Lords should consult their legal assistants, because the crimes were ‘of several natures, felony in some, praemunire in some, and in some treason’, so that ‘all might have satisfaction in the sentence’. However, his motion was rejected. Houghton subsequently advocated stripping Mompesson of his knighthood and his estate, which should pass to the crown rather than to those he had injured, as dividing up his property among so many victims would yield only ‘a halfpenny in the pound’. He also argued that Mompesson, who had fled abroad, should be formally banished, making it ‘death [for him] to return’. However, this latter suggestion was not included in the sentence. Following the conclusion of the debate, Houghton advised the House to summon the Commons to hear the sentence pronounced.106 Ibid. 43-5; LD 1621, pp. 135-6.

On 27 Mar., the last sitting before Easter, Houghton was appointed to an augmented subcommittee of privileges, instructed to inspect the Journal over the recess. He seconded Henry Wriothesley^*, 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton, who moved for the proceedings against Mompesson to be entered in full. He also called upon the subcommittee to view ‘the entering book’, by which he may have meant the clerk’s scribbled book, although there is no evidence they did so until after the session resumed in April.107 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 48; LJ, iii. 48. In addition, he supported Arundel, who proposed that statues be erected of James and Prince Charles to honour their role in bringing the monopolists to account.108 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 49.; LJ, iii. 73b. When the House learnt that an anonymous letter had been pushed under the door, Houghton successfully moved that it should be burnt, arguing that complaints of injustice should be acknowledged by their authors, and if the House were to ‘receive one letter without a hand we shall be pestered with many’. He remained concerned to satisfy the general public over monopolies, moving that the king’s proclamation abolishing the patents and Mompesson’s sentence should be sent to every market town. He also persuaded the House to order those committees which had been appointed to examine the charges against St Alban to sit during the recess.109 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 50-2; LJ, iii. 74a.

When the House resumed on 17 Apr., Houghton was one of the peers recorded as having been granted leave of absence. He seems not to have sat again before the summer adjournment, although he paid £3 in fees to the gentleman usher and yeoman usher on 31 May.110 Nottingham UL, PwV4, p. 74. No reason was given for his absence, and none of his letters written between December 1620 and October 1621 survive. It is most likely that he was ill.

During the Parliament Houghton stayed at the residence of Lady Hatton. Over the summer, the king reconciled Coke and Lady Hatton, who was apparently persuaded that Houghton would now be protected from further prosecution in Star Chamber.111 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 386-7. Houghton, nevertheless, became entangled in a further attempt to discredit Coke involving John Lepton and Henry Goldsmith, two former patentees who blamed Coke, as chairman of the Commons committee for grievances, for suppressing their grants. Seeing in Houghton a potential ally, Goldsmith contacted him in June, but was initially rebuffed, as Houghton thought it ‘dishonourable for him to meddle in any such practice against Sir Edward Coke, between whom and his lordship the world knew there was a very great distaste’. However, he subsequently advised Goldsmith and Lepton to draw up a petition to the king, which he wished to see before it was delivered.112 Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 249, 254; CD 1621, v. 409. On 1 Dec. the newsletter-writer, John Chamberlain, wrote that ‘the practice seems shrewdly to reflect’ on Houghton and Lady Hatton, who had also been implicated. Twelve days later, however, George Shilleto^‡ defended Houghton in the Commons, on the grounds that Coke ‘had dealt ill’ with him.113 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 412-13; CD 1621, ii. 517.

Houghton attended the adjournment meeting on 14 Nov., but was not marked as present when the session resumed six days later. This was evidently an error, as he assisted in the introduction of his friend and kinsman, Thomas Darcy^* (later 1st earl Rivers), created Viscount Colchester during the recess.114 LJ, iii. 162b; Holles Letters, 271. Houghton was related to Colchester via the de Veres. In all, he attended 22 of the 24 sittings before the prorogation on 19 December. During this time he was appointed to eight of the 11 committees established by the upper House and made 22 speeches.

Houghton soon immersed himself again in the business of the House. On 22 Nov. the committee for checking the Journal was revived on his motion. Two days later he also moved to resuscitate various bill committees to which he had previously been appointed, and called for the privileges committee to be assigned a regular time to meet.115 LD 1621, pp. 94-5; LJ, iii. 168b-9a. One of the matters in which he took a close interest concerned letters of protection which had been ostensibly granted by peers to their servants to keep them from being arrested. This had become a particular problem in 1621 because of the decision to adjourn, rather than prorogue, Parliament in June, which meant that parliamentary privilege had remained operative while the Houses were not sitting. It was alleged that many letters of protection had been counterfeited. One of the offenders was a certain Thomas Warings, who proceeded to implicate another man, Matthew Watson, and offered to give security to find him. On 27 Nov. Houghton advised the House to take up this offer.116 LD 1621, pp. 95-6; LJ, iii. 172a. In addition, an impoverished peer, Edward Stafford^*, 4th Lord Stafford, was rumoured to have sold protections. Houghton moved on 12 Dec. for all Stafford’s protections to be made void, but his proposal was rejected.117 LD 1621, p. 118. Five days later he also suggested that the subcommittee for privileges be required to consider whether parliamentary privilege covered the property of a servant of a lord, a matter which had been raised by an attendant of Houghton’s kinsman, Henry de Vere^*, 18th earl of Oxford.118 Ibid. 125.

It was not only the privilege of peers’ servants that interested Houghton. On 30 Nov. Archbishop Abbot reported from the privileges committee that papers collected by John Selden^‡, whom the subcommittee for privileges had commissioned to research the privileges of peers, had been seized during the adjournment. He was followed by Houghton, who detailed exactly what was missing. In the ensuing debate, Houghton’s suggestion that the missing papers might be recoverable from the official who had seized them was not taken up; instead, following a further motion from Houghton, the subcommittee for privileges was authorized to instruct Selden to do his researches again to fill the gaps.119 Ibid. 99-101; LJ, iii. 176a, 178a. On 15 Dec. Selden’s completed work was presented to the House by Abbot, which Houghton was ordered to have bound up. Houghton thereupon raised the matter of the right of peers to answer on their honour in courts of law, citing ‘divers precedents’ to show that they could.120 LJ, iii. 197a; LD 1621, p. 123. Further debate was put off until the following Monday, the 17th, and subsequently deferred again to Wednesday the 19th when, on Houghton’s motion, all peers were ordered to attend at nine, ‘that then there may be a full House’. However, he never got his debate, for on the 19th the session was prorogued.121 LD 1621, pp. 125-6.

Houghton showed a lively interest in legislation during the winter sitting. When a bill to prevent the export of artillery was reported on 26 Nov., Houghton moved without success for a re-commitment of the measure, possibly in response to a question raised by Mandeville about benefit of clergy.122 Ibid. 95; LJ, iii. 170a. The next day Houghton objected to a bill sponsored by Coke to establish a 20-year time limit on personal actions to establish the ownership of lands. Houghton argued that the time allowed by the bill was insufficient as it ‘provides for the purchaser and not the inheritor’, and therefore wanted an extension to 30 years. However, he made the mistake of speaking after the bill’s third reading, at which stage no bill could be amended or re-committed. Houghton thereupon registered his protest by being the only member of the House to vote against the measure.123 LJ, iii. 172a; Add. 40086, f. 22. Houghton again tried to get a bill re-committed after its third reading, on 1 Dec., when the House debated the monopolies bill, which originated in the lower House. He argued that the measure was inequitable because it threatened heavy punishment for an offence which had not been clearly defined. On this occasion he was more successful for, although the House would not allow the bill to be reconsidered, it rejected the measure and established a committee, of which Houghton was a member, to draft fresh proposals. Two days later, the House decided to explain to the Commons why the monopolies bill had been rejected, whereupon Houghton moved for a committee to draw up a list of objections to the measure; on Arundel’s motion this task was entrusted to the former bill committee.124 LD 1621, p. 106.

Houghton presented three private petitions to the upper House during the course of the sitting.125 Add. 40086, ff. 21, 53, 56. On 3 Dec. he also moved that the newly presented petition of Sir John Bourchier^‡ against Lord Keeper Williams should be referred to the committee of petitions, which body, he thought, could best determine ‘if the petitioner hath cause to complain’. However, the House preferred to deal with the matter itself.126 LD 1621, p. 107. Houghton successfully moved, on 14 Dec., for a conference with the Commons after Lord Digby reminded the House that the king had resumed the session to provide for the defence of the Palatinate. Houghton, who stated that the issue had been ‘in long deliberation by the Commons’, was no doubt aware that the debates in the lower House had led them into dangerous waters, particularly over the question of the Spanish Match.127 Ibid. 122. The Commons’ petition opposing a Catholic marriage for the prince had resulted in a crisis in relations with the king, who had rejected their right to debate the topic, and would soon result in Parliament’s dissolution. Houghton may well have sympathized with the Commons, for among the papers copied by his son is a treatise entitled ‘A Discourse concerning the Marriage of Princes’. The tract, possibly written by Houghton himself, opposed mixed marriages, on the grounds that they would sometimes result in ‘atheism, sometimes neuterism, sometimes polytheism, and many other things’ in the children. It also argued that a king’s marriage affected ‘the subjects, the laws, the religion, the nobles of State’ just as much as the king himself, and therefore it needed to be considered ‘by his Council and for the general good’. The tract went on to argue that ‘before ambition invaded the minds of earthly men’ kings ‘sought not abroad to fetch in foreign wives, but enjoyed the best of their own bred virgins at home’. Clearly, the author thought Charles should marry an Englishwoman.128 Nottingham UL, NeC15406, pp. 4, 6, 16, 27. This treatise has been attributed to Houghton in Cogswell, 319.

Growing dissatisfaction, 1622-4

Shortly before the session resumed in November 1621, the king had instructed Lord Keeper Williams to discharge Houghton from that part of the Star Chamber suit ‘followed against him in the king’s right’, namely the accusation that he had shown contempt for a committee of the Privy Council. However, Coke lobbied Williams not to put the order into effect, and the lord keeper, after consulting James, decided to do nothing while Parliament was sitting ‘for fear of stirring up that wasp’, Coke. After the session was prorogued in December, Coke was imprisoned for his activities in the Commons, and Williams, having first checked with Buckingham, put the order into effect. However, the Star Chamber suit was not finally ended until January 1623, when Coke withdrew his accusation against Houghton. The latter felt far from triumphant, though, for the following day he complained to his son that, in allowing the suit to be quietly dropped, the king had favoured Coke and left Houghton with ‘the scandal of his [Coke’s] false suggestion’.129 Fortescue Pprs. 173-4; Harl. 6055, f. 33r-v; Holles Letters, 264-5.

In the aftermath of the 1621 Parliament a new benevolence for the Palatinate was ordered. Among those who refused to contribute was William Fiennes^*, 8th or 2nd Lord (later 1st Viscount) Saye and Sele, who, after a lengthy hearing, was imprisoned on 6 June. Saye was still in prison the following December, by which time Houghton had taken an interest in his well-being. On the 13th he told his son John to find out ‘how my Lord Saye doth, and visit him on my part’. Saye was repeatedly mentioned in Houghton’s letters to his son in that month and the next. On 28 Jan. 1623 John was reminded to ‘forget not my Lord Saye, whose freedom I much wish, such birds not being born for cages’. The peer was finally released on 4 February.130 Holles Letters, 252, 261, 263, 266; M.L. Schwarz, ‘Lord Saye and Sele’s Objections to the Palatinate Benevolence of 1622: Some New Evidence and Its Significance’, Albion, iv. 12. Houghton had planned to visit Saye himself, but remained at Haughton until the summer of 1623 because of difficulties in coming to an agreement with the countess of Hertford, now duchess of Lennox, over renting Hertford House. He also feared being prosecuted for infringing the proclamation against the nobility and gentry residing in London, which he regarded as an arbitrary abuse of the prerogative. Given his track record in Star Chamber, he was worried that he would be singled out for exemplary punishment.131 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE371, Houghton to Cranfield, 20 Aug. 1622; Holles Letters, 262-3, 265.

Houghton’s extended stay in Nottinghamshire induced him to reflect on the differences between the court and the country. His relationship with the latter was ambivalent at best. In January 1623 he remarked that ‘here is no favourite’, but complained that ‘the country affords me no discourse’, and was more honest than the court only because ‘here I am conversing with creatures that deceive me not, beasts, birds, grass, trees and such like’.132 Holles Letters, 267. By 22 Mar., however, Houghton had discovered that the country had an important virtue: economy.133 Ibid. 275. Nevertheless, Houghton was never entirely won over to country living. On returning to London in September, he lamented that in both court and country ‘men only respect themselves and all men [are] for themselves’. Rather than embrace either, he advocated instead ‘the schools of philosophy’ – a reference perhaps to philosophical learning rather than the two universities - as the source of virtue.134 Ibid. 282.

Houghton’s political dissatisfaction was illustrated by a short paper of which he was almost certainly the author. Entitled ‘Certain Queries Considerable for a Parliament’, this undated document, which survives only in copy form, was probably composed in 1623, as it refers to ‘the late call of serjeants’ and an unusually large number of serjeants were created in October that year.135 Nottingham UL, NeC15406, pp. 538-9; Cogswell, 319; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 421; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 506. The problems Houghton enumerated began with ‘an over-poor king’ and ‘an over-rich favourite’. He then proceeded to condemn the Council as consisting of ‘ignorant, heady, base-born, beggarly, mercenary men’; to deplore the fact that the nobility and gentry had been ‘chased out of their rights’; and to express resentment that ‘the law petitions the prerogative to have leave to speak’. Corruption, he complained, was all-consuming, as ‘lawyers are preferred for their purse, not for their learning’; indeed, all honours and offices were for sale. The clergy were ‘turn-servers and flatterers’, who neglected their spiritual functions to become ‘merely secular’. Houghton also attacked the proposed Spanish Match, though he was neither anti-Spanish nor pro-Dutch. (He corresponded with the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, whose jokes he repeated as late as 1636, and deplored Dutch influence, telling Viscount Colchester in February 1623 that ‘one of their servants is a secretary and councillor of state and two other of their pay councillors also’.) For Houghton, the important point was that the well-being of the Church was threatened by purely monetary considerations, since Spain’s offer of a large dowry was conditional on toleration for English Catholics. Although he conceded that ‘religion is not yet brought to open market’, he nevertheless feared that toleration would become ‘our Indies and ... fill the coffers’.136 Nottingham UL, NeC15406, pp. 538-9; Holles Letters, 250-1, 267, 271, 272-3, 281, 290-1, 489; Holles, 102. Houghton concluded his criticisms with the complaint that Parliament was ‘avoided like a plague’. Parliament had been ‘heretofore the sovereign salve for all sores and diseases in the state, the prince’s reliever for money and counsel, the subjects’ orderer and support’, but now ‘only a servile, Jesuitical obedience [was] demanded, from which hand conscience, law and liberty is distributed’. England was ‘in the present a miserable’ State, and would probably become ‘in the future [a] dying State; irregular sovereignty, and confusion being ever the forerunners of translation of government and people’.137 Nottingham UL, NeC15406, p. 539.

It seems likely that the ‘Queries’ were overtaken by events almost as soon as they were completed. On 16 Sept. Holles wrote to Somerset about the rumours that Prince Charles, who had gone to Spain with Buckingham to conclude the Spanish Match, would return unmarried. Many men were sceptical that Spain would ‘send away a young prince ... full of discontent’, as this would risk a sequence of events which would lead to the outbreak of war between England and Spain. However, Houghton put forward an alternative view, that the Spanish would be confident that they had little to fear because they were well aware of James’s commitment to peace and because they knew there was no prospect that Parliament would support the king, whatever the circumstances, all his previous parliaments having failed. For his own part, Houghton thought ‘this business hath yet much more ground to walk over’. If Charles was not on his way home by the end of the month, ‘then be the cards new shuffled, and we may expect of a new play’. The Spanish might try to delay English intervention in Germany until it was too late, and then marry the infanta to the emperor’s son. However, for all his predictions, Houghton’s principal feeling was frustration that he was not at the heart of the events. He complained that he ‘rove[d] in the dark, and speak[s] as one of the vulgar’. Anyone who ‘by place, or long experience dwell[s] in the cabinet’, would regard his speculations as ‘folly’.138 Holles Letters, 282-3.

The 1624 Parliament

Charles did indeed return to England discontented and, within a short time, became determined to take revenge on the Spanish. Consequently, a new Parliament was summoned. Houghton, who had returned to Haughton for Christmas, feared remaining on the periphery of events. Complaining that he still bore ‘the scars’ for his commitment to her cause, he told Lady Hatton on 13 Jan. 1624 that his attempt to help prevent the Purbeck marriage was ‘never to be forgotten’. Clearly he realized that the Villiers clan still regarded him with hostility.139 Ibid. 283-4.

Ahead of the Parliament, Houghton secured the return of his son, John, for both East Retford and Mitchell in Cornwall. The latter borough was near his Cornish estates, and Houghton had connections with the Cosworths, a significant local family, having employed John Cosworth^‡ as a retainer at the time of the 1621 Parliament. John plumped for East Retford, whereupon Houghton’s younger son, Denzil^† (subsequently 1st Lord Holles) was returned for Mitchell instead.140 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 67-8, 312; Holles Letters, 235; Harl. 6055, f. 28v. Houghton subsequently attended the prorogation meeting on 12 Feb., and was recorded as present at 54 of the 93 Lords’ sittings, 58 per cent of the total. However, he also spoke on four occasions when he was not recorded as being present (7 Apr., 14 May and the morning and afternoon of 28 May). His attendance was undoubtedly impaired by illness, particularly during the early stages of the meeting, when he was excused ‘by reason of his ill disposition of health’ (24 February). He did not resume his seat until 22 Mar., having missed 25 sittings.141 Holles Letters, 284; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 11. Houghton was appointed to 32 of the 105 committees established by the Lords and made 20 recorded speeches.

Houghton clashed with Charles and Buckingham at the start of the session. On 23 Feb. he tried to interrupt their moves to organize a conference with the Commons to begin the process of unravelling the Spanish Match, proposing that the Lords should instead focus on appointing a committee to inspect the Journal and review the House’s Standing Orders, drafted in 1621. However, he was opposed by James Hamilton^*, 2nd marquess of Hamilton [S] (1st earl of Cambridge in the English peerage), who argued that the House should give priority to preparing a message to the Commons. The Lords not only agreed with Hamilton but also rejected Houghton’s motion that the message should be committed to paper. After the message was sent, the committee and subcommittee for privileges were appointed. Houghton, who was named to both bodies, then moved ‘for orders for sitting’, but whether this indicates that he was concerned that some Lords were not sitting in their correct seats, or standing when they should have been sitting, is unclear.142 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 1; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 9v; LJ, iii. 215a-b; Add. 40087, f. 17v.

During Houghton’s extended absence, Parliament persuaded a reluctant James to declare that he intended to break off the marriage negotiations. Although he probably approved, Houghton may have been apprehensive about the general deterioration of relations with Spain. After Buckingham reported, on 24 Mar., that servants of the Spanish ambassadors had been ‘uncivilly used’ during the popular celebrations of the breaking of the treaties, he and Lord Keeper Williams moved to inform the Commons that ‘if any person of quality’ had been involved in the disturbances they should be ‘examined and censured’.143 Add. 40087, f. 118v.

On 3 Apr. Houghton was named to attend a conference requested by the Commons to petition the king to enforce the laws against Catholics. His proposal to appoint a subcommittee to report back to the Lords was disregarded, but his subsequent motion that no peer should leave for the conference until the lords named to the conference committee had taken their places was more successful, as those peers who had already left the chamber were recalled.144 LJ, iii. 287b; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 51. When the petition was debated two days later, Houghton moved to amend the preamble so as to omit the description of Catholics as ‘engines of Spain’. At the conclusion of the debate, he was appointed to help consider the text more thoroughly.145 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 54; LJ, iii. 289a. One week later the Lords agreed to confer with the Commons again about the petition. Prince Charles moved that the lower House should be prodded at this meeting to make further progress with the subsidy bill, whereupon Houghton suggested that the prince ‘or some other’ should ‘put them in remembrance of it’ once the main business of the conference was concluded.146 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 64.

The principal opponent of war with Spain was the lord treasurer, Lionel Cranfield^*, 1st earl of Middlesex. As a result, impeachment proceedings were orchestrated against him by Charles and Buckingham. Although Houghton had had dealings with Middlesex over Lady Hatton, there is no evidence that he was particularly friendly with the lord treasurer, whom he had termed facetiously ‘great Sir Lionel’ in 1620.147 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE371, Houghton to Cranfield, 20 Aug. 1622; Holles Letters, 245. Nevertheless, it was subsequently recorded that ‘only the stout and prudent Lord Holles [sic] adventured upon the frowns of the prince and duke, and gave his reasons why Middlesex to him appeared innocent’.148 J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), i. 190. This is not entirely borne out by the parliamentary records, which suggest that, although Houghton was sympathetic to the lord treasurer, he was not willing to oppose his impeachment directly.

Houghton claimed on 2 May that it was while he had been ill that Middlesex’s ‘misfortune’ had ‘advanced upon the stage’.149 Holles Letters, 284. In fact, formal proceedings against Middlesex in the Lords started in early April, by which time Houghton had resumed sitting. On 2 Apr. a subcommittee of the committee for munitions was instructed to examine accusations made against the lord treasurer concerning the Ordnance Office.150 LJ, iii. 286a. Middlesex subsequently tried to hasten the work of the subcommittee, and claimed that, when it was finished, he would demonstrate that there had been a conspiracy against him.151 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 57. This led Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex to accuse Middlesex of impugning the honour of both Houses. Middlesex denied that he intended to accuse Parliament of conspiring against him, and was evidently supported by Houghton, who reiterated Middlesex’s call for the subcommittee to hasten its work.152 Ibid. 61-2; Harl. 1581, f. 378r-v; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 12v.

Middlesex also faced charges in the Commons. On 12 Apr. Houghton joined those who protested that the lord treasurer should not answer these accusations without first receiving permission from the Lords. That same day the results of the subcommittee for munitions’ investigations were reported to the upper House. Middlesex was accused of starving the Ordnance Office of funds and of cheating its officials. Houghton supported Richard Neile^*, bishop of Durham (later archbishop of York), who called upon the attorney general rather than peers themselves to draw up a summary of these charges. However, the Lords instead ordered the subcommittee for munitions to draw up the heads of the charges, so keeping matters under the control of the lord treasurer’s enemies.153 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 65, 69-70.

Houghton expressed doubts on 12 Apr. that the Commons would formally present their charges against Middlesex, suggesting that he hoped they would not. However, charges from the Commons were forthcoming, which the Lords referred to a committee on 16 April. On 1 May Houghton was appointed to an augmented version of this body, which was then divided into subcommittees, each of which was assigned a different aspect of the charge. Houghton himself was appointed to help consider the accusations concerning the wardrobe.154 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 69; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 41; PA, HL/PO/CO/2/3, ff. 21, 26; LJ, iii. 329a. When the House debated this matter on 12 May, Houghton admitted that the lord treasurer’s failure to account and fulfil warrants were ‘two faults’ for which he deserved to be censured. However, he may have envisaged no more than the equivalent of a slap on the wrist.155 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 76. On the other hand, he did not dissent from any of the punishments inflicted on Middlesex by the House the following day. Instead, he merely cited a precedent in which a fine and an order to pay damages appeared in the same sentence.156 Ibid. 91. On 15 May Houghton was named to the committee for the bill to make Middlesex’s lands liable for his debts and, five days later, to a further committee to assess the damages the earl should pay. On 24 May he announced that further claimants had come forward.157 LJ, iii. 386a, 396a; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 103.

The impeachment of Middlesex evidently caused Houghton to become disillusioned with Parliament. His disenchantment is most easily seen in his attitude towards Lord Digby, now earl of Bristol, the former ambassador to Madrid. Bristol had been publicly accused by Buckingham of exceeding his instructions and deceiving the king into thinking that the Spanish were serious about a marriage. Bristol was furious, and determined to clear his name in Parliament, but Houghton, though he undoubtedly sympathized, commented privately that ‘some there be whom no example can make wise’. Had Bristol ‘looked upon my lord of Middlesex’, he would have seen that he stood little chance of success. No matter how good his case, he would inevitably be tried ‘by will, guided by prerogative’, which, he added, was ‘the modern complexion of a Parliament’.158 Holles Letters, 294.

Although the impeachment of Middlesex clearly occupied much of his attention in the 1624 Parliament, Houghton also found time for other matters. He evidently favoured the monopolies bill, for at its third reading, when some members of the upper House objected that it allowed insufficient notice to those who risked incurring penalty of praemunire for infringing its provisions, Houghton replied that the fact that any notice was to be given at all was better than the statute of praemunire itself, which afforded none.159 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 101. His name was deleted from the committee list for a private measure for Dame Grace Darcy, possibly because her sister was married to Sir Edward Coke’s son, Clement Coke^‡.160 Add. 40088, f. 124; 39th DKR, 558.

Houghton was added to the committee for petitions on 21 April.161 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 29v; PA, HL/PO/CO/2/3, f. 3v. As the session came to an end in late May, he became heavily involved in completing the work of this committee. On 27 May he returned two petitions to the Lords, with a recommendation that they be referred to the Privy Council.162 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 99; LJ, iii. 411a. The following day he presented the committee’s recommendation concerning the petition of William Matthews of Llandaff, which was approved, whereupon the House ordered one George Matthews to pay William Matthews £5,260 in compensation for the loss of a manor. When George Matthews protested that afternoon, Houghton argued that his appeal should be heard at the bar, as the House had already ruled on the dispute, but the matter was referred to committee.163 LJ, iii. 417a, 421b; Add. 40088, f. 145; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 106v; J.S. Hart, Justice upon Petition, 48-50. The same day, Houghton reported the petition of Sir John Savage.164 Add. 40088, f. 147; LJ, iii. 422a-b.

Following the prorogation in May, Houghton did not lose his appetite for political news which, in the summer of 1624, was increasingly focussed on a French marriage for Prince Charles. Houghton was initially optimistic about the match, telling Somerset in July that the French ‘stand on no conditions’.165 Holles Letters, 285. However, by the end of the month he had learned that the Spanish had informed the French of the concessions they had demanded for English Catholics during their own negotiations, a development which Houghton thought ‘foretells … the like conditions, notwithstanding parliamentary promises’. Indeed, the French ambassador ‘promiseth as much’ to his confidants.166 Ibid. 288. On 9 Sept. Houghton complained that the French were demanding more for English Catholics ‘than Spain accepted’. There was considerable truth in this, but the marriage was concluded anyway in order to secure a military alliance against Spain, as it was intended that the mercenary general, Count Mansfeld, would lead an army, funded by both England and France, ‘to fetch back the Palatinate’.167 Ibid. 293, 295.

The earldom of Clare, and a renewed quest for office, 1624-5

Houghton attended the House of Lords on 2 Nov., when he was one of the commissioners who prorogued the Parliament to the following February. He was listed in the Journal as Lord Houghton but, as Chamberlain noted, he had on that very day been created earl of Clare, and thus was ‘present in that habit …, while the wax [on the seal] of his patent was yet warm’.168 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 587; Holles, 100.

Houghton was evidently approached to buy this new title by his friend, Walter Steward, who was acting under instructions from Buckingham.169 G. Goodman, Ct. of Jas. I, ii. 361-2. He initially agreed to pay £4,000, but decided instead to increase his property in London, possibly because, as he had earlier remarked, an earldom added nothing ‘but a little precedence, and a coronet’ to his arms. However, Buckingham persisted, and in October, after some haggling, Clare agreed to pay £5,000, but only if granted precedence over other earls then in the process of being created and only if Buckingham extended his favour towards himself and his sons. He also insisted that some excuse should be given to the world at large to explain why the king was advancing him to this honour. This was a barely concealed request for office, and it explains why Clare not only went ahead with the purchase but also paid £1,000 more than he had originally offered. Williams responded by suggesting that Clare should be offered a place on the council of war, which had been established during the 1624 Parliament.170 Cabala, 278-9; Holles Letters, 209.

Clare’s interest in the work of the council of war did not spring from any great optimism about its work. In July he observed that the council’s objective – the defence of the Palatinate - was ‘a patient incurable’. Nevertheless, after complaining of the general lack of military preparation, he argued that ‘war is an art or occupation’ which required skill and knowledge, something which he probably thought he himself possessed on the basis of his experience of the Elizabethan wars. His interest in the council of war also reflected his desire to obtain inside knowledge of State affairs, which he still lacked. In September he bemoaned his failure to extract any information from Sir George Goring^* (later 1st earl of Norwich) who had recently returned from Paris. All he knew was the ‘conjecture of the time, which I confess may hit as a blind man kills a hare’.171 Holles Letters, 287-8, 295.

By 16 Oct. the deal had been concluded, for on that date a warrant was issued to prepare a patent. Eleven days later Clare paid the fees for his new title.172 Ibid. 296-7; Nottingham UL, PwV4, p. 75. The territorial suffix ‘Clare’ appears to have been a further concession extracted from Buckingham, as it had previously been denied to Robert Rich^*, 1st earl of Warwick, on the grounds that Clare was the same as Clarence, a title traditionally reserved for royal princes. Clare was delighted that he had succeeded where Warwick had failed, particularly as he knew that he got his earldom for half the sum paid by Warwick.173 Holles, 101; Holles Letters, 209. He also may have been persuaded that office, or at least a role in affairs of state, now lay just around the corner. In October he was summoned by the Privy Council to offer his advice on how to go about redeeming English captives in Algiers, and his appointment as a commissioner for proroguing Parliament also suggested that he had now been brought in from the cold. In December it was reported that he would accompany Buckingham to France to fetch Henrietta Maria, Prince Charles’s prospective bride. However, Buckingham probably never had any real intention of realizing Clare’s ambitions. (There is no evidence to support the claim made by Gervase Holles that, towards the end of his life, James intended to make Clare lord treasurer.) On 22 Mar. 1625 Lord Keeper Williams tried once again to persuade Buckingham to appoint Clare to the council of war, but, as in 1616, Clare’s hopes of preferment came to nothing.174 APC, 1623-5, pp. 336, 347; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 589; Holles, 102; Cabala, 283. By February 1625 at the latest Clare seems to have realized that he had been led up the garden path, for he complained bitterly that ‘where the court is, there shines the sun only, all we here sit in darkness’. Only ‘the fag end of the news is peradventure cast out among us’. He nevertheless attended the prorogation meeting ten days later, as well as another on 15 March.175 Holles Letters, 297.

Clare no doubt saw the fate of Mansfeld’s expedition as confirmation of his pessimism about liberating the Palatinate. The army had been shipped to the United Provinces in early 1625 where, as Clare reported on 2 Mar., it rapidly began to waste away. In dismay he wrote, ‘if this be the issue of so many subsidies, and the fruit of 13,000 English, neither weakening the enemy, recovering what he hath catched from us, nor strengthening’ England’s defences then ‘my masters of the lower House cannot much brag of their wisdoms’. The ‘orators’ of the Commons had ‘become the servers of turns and instruments of great men’, and ‘the less they meet, the better for the kingdom’.176 Ibid. 298-300.

It was not only the House of Commons and ‘fantastical’ France with which Clare was now disillusioned. He was also thoroughly disenchanted with the United Provinces. Writing to his brother Sir George, a soldier in the Netherlands, he complained that ‘the daily scorns and injuries we receive from Holland’, and their ‘pride and ingratitude’, were not to be endured. It was a ‘rotten reed of State’ to believe that England had a strategic interest in the survival of the Dutch Republic; on the contrary, ‘they will find they always needed England, and England never them’. By this date he put his faith only in his old friend, Gondomar, who was reportedly returning to England. Clare hoped he would bring with him sufficient concessions to ‘bring peace, if we will have it’.177 Ibid. 300-1.

In March the king fell terminally ill at Theobalds. Clare was among those who rushed over to visit the dying James, as he did not wish to be seen to be absent from ‘that general confluence’. He went with little expectation of gaining admittance, not least because Buckingham, ‘by whom I was more likely to have had access’, was temporarily absent, and Prince Charles was more willing ‘to clear than ... fill the chamber’. Charles’s desire to ensure some peace for his dying father is understandable, but Clare’s remarks suggest that, for all his enmity to Buckingham, Clare found it easier to deal with the favourite than the prince. It was only after Charles went to dinner that Clare managed to get access to the king’s bedchamber ‘by the favour of a screen’. He saw James ‘in his bed by a rent of cloth’, and stayed about four hours, only leaving when the king’s condition deteriorated.178 Ibid. 302. James died the following day, and Clare signed the proclamation announcing the accession of Charles I the day after.179 APC, 1625-6, p. 5.

Shortly after Charles’s accession it was rumoured that Clare would be admitted to the Privy Council. However, there was little prospect he would secure that long sought-after advancement.180 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 4. Clare himself reported, on 1 May, that ‘all things look with the same face as they did [in] the last years of King James: the same hand [i.e. Buckingham] governs still court and State’.181 Holles Letters, 304.

The 1625 Parliament

Parliament was summoned in early April, but the meeting was delayed until June while the new king awaited the arrival of his French bride. Clare doubted whether Parliament was capable of providing the scale of funding needed for the war Charles was determined to prosecute. Indeed he questioned whether the economy could bear such a burden. He also mourned the depletion of the crown lands, which, he thought, had enabled medieval monarchs to raise large armies to fight the French.182 Ibid. 303. Those lands that remained ‘fly away’ to the king’s servants, while the customs receipts were fast diminishing as a result of the outbreak of hostilities. However, Clare was not entirely despondent, as he thought that wealth was not the key to military success. England needed to rely on ‘a good cause and our own strength’, for when the war began in earnest, ‘good captains, and well-disciplined soldiers will be the chief materials of a successful war’. On the other hand, the ingredients for victory would only be found ‘in a state governed by a Council bred from understanding and experience’, which he evidently thought England lacked.183 Ibid. 306-8.

Clare’s eldest son, now known as Lord Houghton by courtesy, was re-elected for East Retford. However, Clare proved unable to satisfy Charles Thynne^‡, a client of Somerset’s, who approached him for a seat, possibly at Mitchell, in Cornwall. Clare blamed this failure on a recently appointed committee ‘for Parliament occasions’, consisting of five privy councillors, which, he said, ‘engross all, at least those where my provision lay’. This odd remark is devoid of foundation, although the seat at Mitchell was taken by one of Buckingham’s clients.184 Ibid. 304; HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 68, 314.

At the beginning of the Parliament the king appointed Clare one of the triers of petitions from England, Scotland and Ireland. He subsequently made him a commissioner to adjourn the session and then dissolve the Parliament. These appointments may have been intended to acknowledge Clare’s hard work in previous parliaments, or they may have been intended to assuage his continued disappointment at not securing office. However, none of them offered any power to Clare, who attended every sitting until the session was adjourned to Oxford on 11 July, including the prorogation meetings of 17, 31 May and 13 June. Re-introduced to the upper House as an earl on 22 June, he was assisted by William Cecil^*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, and William Compton^*, 1st earl of Northampton.185 Procs. 1625, pp. 31, 39. He was subsequently named to eight of the 25 committees appointed by the upper House and made six recorded speeches.

On 23 June Clare was named to attend the conference to consider the lower House’s proposed petition for a fast. The Lords subsequently agreed to hold the fast at Westminster Abbey, and Clare was one of the Lords appointed to take the names of those who attended.186 Ibid. 43, 68. Clare was also appointed to the committee and subcommittee for privileges. One of the items which came before the former committee was a proposal he himself made two days later. This was that unlicensed absentees should be punished, for at present only latecomers were fined. (Clare himself excused Robert Sidney*, 1st earl of Leicester, and his old friend William Cecil, by now 2nd earl of Exeter.) Two days before the adjournment, at his suggestion, the Lords empowered the lord keeper to order the release of any peer’s servant imprisoned during the recess.187 Ibid. 45, 54, 54, 59, 89, 102, 110.

On 1 July Clare moved for regulations designed to hinder the spread of plague to be observed, whereupon he was appointed to help draw up an order to the relevant authorities.188 Ibid. 79, 81. However, 12 days later the session was adjourned to Oxford due to the plague. On 5 July Clare was appointed to the committee for a bill to restrain tippling in inns and alehouses. He reported it the following day, with an addition concerning taverns, which was approved.189 Ibid. 88, 95.

During the recess the child of one of his wife’s attendants died of the plague. This caused Clare to absent himself from the Oxford sitting, from which he was formally excused by Lord Keeper Williams on 3 August.190 Holles Letters, 516; Procs. 1625, p. 130. At around the same time, Clare began to compose a paper on England’s strategic options. The surviving text, in the handwriting of his son, is entitled ‘the copy of a letter writ to an honourable friend concerning the sea journey to Cadiz 1625’, but despite being addressed to a ‘noble sir’, it reads more like a treatise than a letter. It was evidently composed over several months, for after devoting considerable space to possible targets for the fleet then being prepared, he included a digression written after he learned of the fleet’s arrival in the Bay of Cadiz.

Clare correctly surmised from the fact that a naval expedition was being prepared in the West Country that an attack on Spain was contemplated. However, he proceeded to explain why each potential target - Portugal, the Azores, Cadiz, Seville, Genoa and the West Indies - would be a mistake. He also observed that if Cadiz was not captured in an initial assault it would not be taken at all. This passage was perhaps written with the benefit of hindsight, as a further section was composed with the aid of a journal of the expedition ‘which came of late to my hands’. He concluded that any attempt to attack Spain or her colonies would be ‘chargeable and uncertain, and prove nothing’; instead, he advocated a purely maritime expedition. He was initially unwilling to reveal what he proposed ‘until I see [a] more thankful, and respective time for my services past’, but in a postscript he revealed his plan. In the spring of 1625 the Spanish had sent a vast fleet to retake Bahia in Brazil, which had recently been captured by the Dutch. He thought the English navy could have intercepted this fleet on its return home, at which time it would have been vulnerable and accompanied by ‘many other ships richly laden with sugars, and other commodities’. The value of the prizes, worth between £700,000 and £800,000, ‘would have maintained a war, until his Majesty had revenge of the injuries he declares have been offered him’. However, they would now never ‘have the like opportunity upon Spain again’.191 Nottingham UL, NeC15406, pp. 41-70. This treatise is anonymous but is characteristic of Clare, to whom it attributed in Cogswell, 316. J.I. Israel, Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World, 131-2. This was, of course, little more than wishful thinking, as the English had in fact recently attempted, without success, to intercept the Plate fleet. Ironically, Clare himself, criticizing proposals to attack the Spanish West Indies, poured scorn on projects to make the war pay for itself, arguing that these ran counter to Elizabethan experience. He failed to notice that his own proposal was another version of those same projects.192 Nottingham UL, NeC15406, pp. 63-7.

Writing to a Nottinghamshire friend in October 1625, Clare complained of the many charges being imposed by the war, which exacerbated economic problems caused by declining foreign trade, attacks from pirates and ‘many other impositions, compositions, penalties, private expenses and vanities’, including ‘excess of apparel’. Taken together, these made the country ‘too weak to bear even the necessary burdens’ of privy seal loans and the cost of training the militia.193 Holles Letters, 308-9. Later that month, Clare was aggrieved to hear of Lord Keeper Williams’ dismissal, which he described as ‘the bitterest pill since Prince Harry’s death’. He attributed it to Buckingham’s greed, believing (incorrectly) that the favourite had sold the keepership to Williams’ successor, Sir Thomas Coventry^* (later 1st Lord Coventry). He condemned Buckingham’s ingratitude to Williams, and told the latter that ‘if he [i.e. Williams] erred, it was in the idolatry of that man’. Buckingham ‘never forgives’, and his suspicions were ‘incurable’.194 Ibid. 311-12.

Buckingham had come under attack in the Commons in the latter stages of the 1625 Parliament and, in response, some of the most prominent members of the lower House were pricked as sheriffs to render them ineligible for re-election in the coming year. One of those chosen was Sir Thomas Wentworth^* (subsequently 1st earl of Strafford), who had married Clare’s daughter, Arbella, the previous February. Although the king was almost certainly behind the exclusion of Wentworth and the other Commons leaders – Buckingham was then in the Low Countries – Clare had no doubt that the duke was to blame. On 22 Nov. he wrote to console his son-in-law, claiming that Buckingham had been motivated by a guilty conscience, as he knew that his cause was bad and that he could not trust a fairly elected Parliament. He thought that the tactic would backfire because ‘the better spirits’ in the new lower House would be on their mettle to prove that they were free of Buckingham’s influence for fear that otherwise people would think they had avoided the shrievalty because they were dependants of the duke. Consequently, the coming Parliament would ‘prove a worse hobgoblin than the former’.195 Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. ser. 4. xii), 243, 324.

As was commonly the case with Clare, the action he proposed was much less radical than his analysis. He advised Wentworth not to challenge Buckingham and Charles by standing for election. Even if the legal question about his eligibility was uncertain, ‘we live under a prerogative government’, and reliance upon anything other than the letter of the law would prove ‘too weak staves for the subject to lean upon’. Moreover, were a borough to elect Wentworth it would risk losing its privileges, as its ‘charter is always in the king’s reach’. Were Wentworth or one of the other sheriffs to be elected, a privilege dispute between king and Commons would inevitably ensue. Clare admitted that this might be no bad thing, as it would ‘put the courtier out of his trick, secure the Parliament better, and the subject in general and make great ones more cautious in wrestling with that high court’. However, he thought it should be avoided, as ‘this business was of such nature’ that it was ‘much better to be a spectator than an actor’.196 Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 31.

Although he fully expected a new Parliament, Clare was still at Haughton and had apparently made no preparations to travel to London when, late on 24 Jan., he received a summons for himself and his wife to attend Charles’ coronation on 2 February. He immediately protested at the short notice and asked to be excused, claiming he might make it to Westminster in time if he travelled post on his own, but he was ‘in no condition for so hasty a journey’ as ‘at the present I have a great cold, and a stitch’. He also asked his brother, Sir George Holles, then in London, to intercede with Buckingham and Secretary Conway (Edward Conway^*, Lord, later 1st Viscount, Conway).197 Holles Letters, 319, 517.

The 1626 Parliament

On 28 Jan. Clare wrote to Arundel, who, as earl marshal, was responsible for making the arrangements for the coronation, thanking him for procuring his leave of absence. He added that he intended ‘to haste all I can to Parliament’, which had been summoned to meet on 6 Feb., and promised that ‘therein your lordship shall command me to the uttermost of my strength’, being ‘confidant in your love to your country’. There was evidently more to this pledge of allegiance than simple gratitude for permission to miss the coronation. Clare saw in the earl marshal a fellow peer unjustly marginalized; in July 1624 he had lamented Arundel’s exclusion from the council of war and the negotiations for the French match. He also saw in Arundel a focal point of opposition to Buckingham.198 Ibid. 285, 321; THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF ARUNDEL.

Writing to a different correspondent the previous day, Clare foresaw ‘a chaos of misery coming fast upon us’. The new Parliament would have a long list of grievances, including ‘perpetual subsidies, privy seals, benevolences [and] projects’, but, he himself thought it should concentrate on the cause of these troubles rather than the symptoms for, as he told Arundel, ‘our first and chief care’ should be ‘of the general’. Clare clearly thought that the coming Parliament should devote its energies to attacking Buckingham, and not allow itself to be distracted by other matters. However, he was not confident of success, telling Arundel that he ‘would not despair of remedy … had your lordship more assistance’ and ‘the current ran not so strong for private ends’.199 Holles Letters, 320-1.

Shortly before the Parliament met, Clare may have been courted by Pembroke, who, like Arundel and Clare himself, was one of Buckingham’s chief opponents. Early in January, Lord Houghton was approached by Sir Edward Leech^‡, formerly Pembroke’s secretary, who offered Clare the keepership of Rufford Park, in Nottinghamshire, which had formerly belonged to Pembroke’s father-in-law, Gilbert Talbot^*, 7th earl of Shrewsbury. Clare was certainly interested in taking up this offer, and, on the 10th, he asked his son to pursue the matter with John Thorowgood^‡, who had succeeded Leech in Pembroke’s service.200 E. Cope, ‘Groups in the House of Lords, May 1626’, PH, xii. 166, 169; Holles Letters, 318; Thoroton, Notts. ed. Throsby, iii. 337-8.

In the elections to the Commons, Clare spent £8 ensuring that Houghton was again returned for East Retford.201 Nottingham UL, PwV4, p. 22. However, he lacked the influence to determine the outcome of the county election, which probably explains his complaint, on 4 Jan., that ‘this country [is] barren of fit instruments for such work’.202 Holles Letters, 317. Clare was still at Houghton on 11 Feb., when he wrote to Wentworth that he intended to leave for London on the following Monday (the 13th) and visit Bishop Williams on his way south. (Contrary to his expectation – he had thought that Parliament would be postponed until the 10th - the session having started, as advertised, on the 6th.)203 Ibid. 321-2. His journey appears to have been delayed by poor health; when the House was called, on the 15th, it was reported that he was sick but intended to come.204 Procs. 1626, i. 49. On his arrival in London he was ‘seized’ by a ‘great cold’, from which he was still suffering at the end of March.205 Holles Letters, 325, 327. Nevertheless, he had taken his seat by 25 Feb., and subsequently attended reasonably assiduously, in total being recorded as present at 67 of the 81 sittings of the Parliament. During the course of the Parliament, Clare made 63 known speeches, was named to 26 of the 49 committees appointed by the Lords and was again appointed a trier of petitions for England, Scotland and Ireland.206 Procs. 1626, i. 22. While in Parliament, Clare frequently ate at court. On 3 Mar. he dined with Pembroke, although whether this was at court (where Pembroke was lord chamberlain) or at Pembroke’s London residence is unclear.207 Holles Letters, 324-5.

Clare played a prominent part in proceedings concerning privilege in 1626. Despite his absence, he was named to the privileges committee at the start of the session, and though not named to the subcommittee for privileges until 5 Apr., he appears to have been active on that body before that date, as the day before he reported from the subcommittee on the subject of forged protections. On 5 Apr. he also delivered two reports from the main privileges committee, from which he again reported on 16 May.208 Procs. 1626, i. 250, 257-8, 488. It was at his motion that the privileges committee was ordered to meet at a fixed time, every Monday afternoon.209 Ibid. 102.

On his arrival in the chamber on 25 Feb., Clare threw his support behind the proposed new Standing Order restricting the number of proxies that any lord could hold to two, a move opposed by Buckingham, against whom the motion was aimed. Speaking for a second time in the same debate, he seconded Arundel, who opposed deferring a decision until the precedents had been viewed.210 Ibid. 48, 72. Arundel was subsequently imprisoned in the Tower on the grounds that his eldest son had secretly married a kinswoman of the king. Clare appears to have believed that Charles had been genuinely angered by the marriage, stating that for it to have taken place ‘without his [the king’s] knowledge, nay in cross of his will, aggravates the fault’. However, he reported that ‘Buckingham blows the coals, glad of the occasion to be rid of the marshal’.211 Holles Letters, 325.

Arundel’s detention was formally brought to the Lords’ attention on 14 Mar., when Lord Keeper Coventry read a message from the king justifying the earl marshal’s imprisonment. At this the House went into committee on Clare’s motion.212 Procs. 1626, i. 151. The subcommittee for privileges was instructed to search for precedents concerning peers imprisoned while Parliament was in session, but the following day Charles announced that he had not contravened the privileges of the House. In the ensuing debate, Clare offered to ‘clear’ a medieval precedent that had been cited in support of the king and moved for the subcommittee to continue its investigations. However, the House resolved to suspend its work instead.213 Ibid. 158. The matter remained closed until 5 Apr., when William Seymour^*, 2nd earl of Hertford, reported on those peers who had given their proxies to Arundel and now found themselves disenfranchised as a result of the earl marshal’s imprisonment. Clare moved that king’s counsel should produce their evidence to support the king’s claim to be entitled to imprison a lord during Parliament, whereupon the upper House ordered the subcommittee for privileges, to which Clare was now formally added, to reopen their investigation.214 Ibid. 256-7, 260.

Arundel was subsequently released from the Tower but sent to his mother’s home with instructions to appoint a proxy. Clare thought that Arundel was ‘tossed between two contrary tides’. Were he to grant his proxy it would imply that ‘you are a freeman, to be present at Parliament in person, or by deputation’, whereas in fact he was under house arrest. Conversely, if he refused to give his proxy he ran the risk of prosecution. Rather than choose either of these alternatives, Clare advised the earl marshal to delay, a course of action which involved ‘no danger’.215 HMC Skrine, 57; Holles Letters, 328. On 18 Apr. Mandeville, now earl of Manchester, reported from the subcommittee for privileges on the precedents governing the confinement of peers in Parliament. Having heard his report, Clare moved the House to resolve whether Arundel’s confinement contravened their privileges, whereupon the Lords decided that it did.216 Procs. 1626, i. 282.

Arundel was not the only lord prevented by from taking his seat, as Bishop Williams had been denied a writ of summons. On 10 Mar. Clare, who may have visited the bishop on his journey to Westminster, wrote that Buckingham was not only preventing Williams from attending but also stirring up complaints against the former lord keeper.217 Holles Letters, 325. This was presumably a reference to the petition of Timothy Pinkney, which had been reported to the House from the committee for petitions by Manchester earlier that month. Pinkney claimed that Williams, as lord keeper, had slighted an order, issued by the upper House in 1624, to satisfy himself and other creditors of the late Sir John Kennedy.218 LJ, iii. 416b-417a; Procs. 1626, i. 85. On 16 Mar. Clare described Williams’ response to Pinckney’s petition as a ‘humble submission’ that should satisfy the House that Williams had not intended any contempt. He also supported Williams’ request to come to Westminster to answer Pinkney’s accusation. The House referred Williams’ answer to the committee for petitions, and, the following day, Williams was ordered to make an acknowledgement of his errors, which Clare presented to the House on 23 March.219 Procs. 1626, i. 93, 167, 172, 201-2.

On 30 Mar. the House officially learned that the earl of Bristol had also been denied his writ of summons. Buckingham, who was again responsible, informed the House that a writ would be sent to Bristol, whereupon the 1st earl of Mulgrave (Edmund Sheffield^*) pressed for writs to be issued to ‘the other lords’, meaning Williams. This motion was seconded by his kinsman Clare, who also sought to ensure that if Williams, like Bristol, received his writ with an order to stay away, he and Bristol would be free to entrust their proxies to whomever they chose.220 Ibid. 227.

On 21 Apr. the Lords were informed that the king intended to lay charges against Bristol concerning the earl’s conduct in Spain, whereupon Clare was appointed to assist in rendering thanks to the king. Eight days later, Clare reported from the subcommittee for privileges on how to proceed in the case.221 Ibid. 296, 319-20. Bristol subsequently brought his own charges against Buckingham, who moved that these be heard at the same time as those against him, a proposal seconded by Clare. However, Bristol’s accusations were so thin that they failed to impress the House when they were heard on 1 May. The next day the House learned that Bristol had also presented his charges against Buckingham to the Commons. The duke’s supporters were outraged that the competence of the upper House had thereby been questioned, but Clare argued that the Commons were entitled to consider Bristol’s allegations, and remembered the case of a notorious speech delivered in 1614 by Richard Neile, then bishop of Lincoln, to which the lower House had objected. Later in the debate, the attorney general argued that a special commission would be needed to try Bristol’s case because some of his alleged crimes had taken place abroad. Fearing perhaps that the Lords would thereby lose control of the case, Clare argued that such a commission was unnecessary because similar prosecutions had previously been brought in Parliament by the Commons.222 Ibid. 338, 346, 348.

On 4 May Clare proposed that the attorney general prepare a summary of the charges against Bristol. He also moved to allow Bristol the right to answer these charges before being formally indicted.223 Ibid. 353, 354. When the question of whether Bristol should be allowed counsel was raised on 8 May, Clare argued that the House should not be tied to its decision made in 1624, when Middlesex had been allowed legal advice to prepare his defence but forbidden the right to employ an advocate to answer for him at the bar of the House. On the 9th, Bristol asked whether the testimony of the king – who had witnessed first-hand his behaviour as ambassador to Madrid - could be admitted as evidence. Clare proposed that the judges be consulted and urged the House to be careful to keep within the law.224 Ibid. 381, 392. On 22 May Clare was appointed to help examine the evidence both in respect of the king’s charges against Bristol and Bristol’s against Buckingham, and, on 9 June, he signed statements of witnesses.225 Ibid. 540, 597, 599.

Following the death in May 1625 of the 18th earl of Oxford, hereditary lord great chamberlain, the succession to the earldom and the office was contested by Robert de Vere^*, the heir male, and Robert Bertie^*, 14th Lord Willoughby de Eresby (later 1st earl of Lindsey), the heir general. Clare was related to both men, but supported Robert de Vere, ‘having ever a principal love ... of that family … and especially for the justice he believed to be in his cause’. In 1626 the dispute was referred to the Lords by the king. According to Gervase Holles, Clare spoke in favour of de Vere after the judges delivered their opinion on 20 Mar., though this is not recorded in the parliamentary records.226 Holles, 103-5. However, Clare did speak on the 22nd, when he announced that one Mr Wright had custody of a deed made by John de Vere^†, 16th earl of Oxford, entailing the office of great chamberlain on his male heirs.227 Procs. 1626, i. 194. On 31 Mar. he again upheld de Vere’s right to the office, but was supported by only one other member of the House.228 Ibid. 233.

On 3 Apr., following Clare’s motion, the Lords agreed that de Vere should succeed to the earldom, and the following day Clare moved for a committee to draft the necessary certificate, to which he himself was appointed.229 Ibid. 248, 251. However, Willoughby became lord great chamberlain because, according to Gervase Holles, Buckingham ‘tampered with most of the lords beforehand’. Clare was deeply disillusioned by this decision. On coming home to dinner that day, he sat down and ‘was silent a good while, looking very red (as he used to do when he was angry)’. He then exclaimed: ‘well, this day I have parted with all my opinion of parliaments’. According to Gervase Holles, Clare blamed the bishops in particular for voting as Buckingham directed because they were ambitious for preferment. Coming across a group of four or five of them in conversation the following day, he is said to have expostulated, ‘you shall not all be [arch]bishops of Canterbury’.230 Holles, 105.

On 8 May the Commons requested a conference that afternoon to present their charges against Buckingham. Clare, who moved for the upper House to sit that afternoon, was appointed one of the reporters, a duty he discharged on 15 May, when he recounted the speech of John Pym^‡, in which Buckingham was charged with procuring honours for his relatives and misappropriating the king’s revenue. Buckingham was dissatisfied with the reporting of the charges, claiming that some things had been added while other things had been left out, and called for the reporters’ notes to be compared. However, Clare was one of those peers who opposed the motion, arguing that notes could be misconstrued. He also denied Buckingham’s claim that Sir Dudley Digges^‡, one of the Commons’ spokesmen, had impugned the king’s honour while delivering the charges (an offence for which Digges, and another spokesman, Sir John Eliot^‡, had been arrested).231 Procs. 1626, i. 380, 383, 451, 481, 477. The following day, the Commons having called for the duke to be taken into custody, Clare advised informing the lower House that it was customary not to sequester any member of the Lords until he had given his answer. However, his motion provoked widespread opposition, possibly because it implied that Buckingham would be arrested once he had responded to the charges.232 Ibid. 489.

Clare had now emerged as one of Buckingham’s leading enemies in the House, and therefore not surprisingly the duke ‘used all endearments possible’ to win him over to his side. According to Gervase Holles, Buckingham arranged two or three meetings with Clare using the wife of Lord Knollys, now Viscount Wallingford, as an intermediary, ‘but could never obtain him’. On 16 May Clare described in a letter to the earl of Exeter a conversation he had had with Buckingham ‘the other day at Salisbury House’, the residence of Exeter’s cousin, William Cecil, 2nd earl of Salisbury, Lady Wallingford’s brother-in-law. The duke, he recalled, had ‘discoursed much with me of his Parliament business’, and had defended himself against the Commons’ charges.233 Holles, 103; Holles Letters, 329. He in turn had responded by assuring Buckingham of his impartiality and his intention ‘to follow my conscience according to my understanding the proofs, without personal disaffections, inferences, or enforcements’. He had also taken the opportunity to intimate to Buckingham that his fate might be linked to that of Arundel, who remained under house arrest. After assuring Buckingham that the Lords would be inclined to be sympathetic to the duke because he was one of their own number, he referred to ‘that particular of my lord marshal’s so much concerning us’.234 Holles Letters, 317, 330-1.

Clare’s response to Buckingham’s advance, as recorded in this letter, should not be taken entirely at face value. Exeter was an old friend of Clare’s, but earlier in the Parliament he had given his proxy to Buckingham, though he was now attending the upper House. Indeed, Clare wrote his letter to Exeter on a day on which both men were recorded as being present in the Lords. Clare could easily have spoken to Exeter face to face, but instead he chose to commit to paper an account of his conversation with Buckingham to a known supporter of the favourite. The letter was therefore almost certainly intended as a message to the duke, in which Clare urged Buckingham to make concessions, starting with Arundel. In return he was offered the prospect of a sympathetic hearing in the impeachment proceedings. The letter also contains a remarkably frank view of the quarrel between Buckingham and Bristol. Clare pointed out that, in order to defend themselves, both men had revealed matters of State, ‘which I fear ... will turn little to the honour of either the dead, or the living king, for now comes all above board’. This may also have been intended to persuade Buckingham to make concessions so that the proceedings relating to Bristol could be brought to a halt before more damaging revelations were made.235 Ibid. 330, 366.

It was probably a sign of the divisions within the upper House over Buckingham’s impeachment that, on 12 June, Abbot reported ‘some sharpness of speech between two Lords’ at the committee for the defence of the kingdom that morning. Clare, a member of the committee, suggested that an order be made to prevent such a thing from happening again; which was referred to the subcommittee for privileges. When the proposed order was reported the following day, Clare moved ‘that the committee might receive satisfaction also in the House’, but his suggestion was evidently not taken up.236 Procs. 1626, i. 110, 610, 621.

Clare spent a considerable amount of time in 1626 on the routine business of the upper House. This included consideration of petitions, the volume of which had greatly increased in recent years. It was on Clare’s motion that the committee for petitions, of which he himself was a member, was authorized to reject some petitions without first reporting them to the House.237 Ibid. 207. However, despite being granted the right to weed out frivolous appeals, the committee proved unable to cope with the number of petitions before it. On 17 May Clare complained that ‘petitions multiply to our trouble and slander, for many rest un-dispatched’. On his motion, more members were added to the committee.238 Ibid. 498.

Clare brought a number of petitions to the attention of the House, including one relating to a privilege dispute involving the servant of Thomas Cromwell^*, 4th Lord Cromwell, and another from Ralph Starkey, a copyist connected to Clare’s friend, Sir Robert Cotton^‡.239 Ibid. 270, 368; K. Sharpe, Sir Robert Cotton, 35, 213. Clare also spoke on behalf of another petitioner, Sir Thomas Monson^‡, who had asked the Lords, in 1624, to order the earl of Middlesex to pay him damages. Clare had been a member of the committee which had recommended that Middlesex should pay Monson £2,000 but, on 13 May, he claimed that no such order had ever been made. This was incorrect, and the following day Clare acknowledged his error. On Clare’s recommendation Monson was left to secure redress from Middlesex either by petitioning the king or commencing a Chancery suit.240 Procs. 1626, i. 143, 145, 150; LJ, iii. 420a-b, 421b.

On 14 Mar. Clare ‘showed the poverty of Westminster’ and presented a petition from St Margaret’s Westminster, although his own Westminster property did not lie in that parish. The petition requested a proportion of the money raised by public collections the previous year to relieve the poor during the plague epidemic to repay money which had been borrowed by parochial officials. It was referred to the consideration of the privileges committee. He spoke again on the issue of the 1625 collections on 24 Mar., when the City of London was ordered to account, before the same committee, for the money it had disbursed. Both London’s account and Westminster’s share of the money continued to exercise Clare for the rest of the session.241 Procs. 1626, i. 149, 150-1, 209, 211, 227, 258, 261, 488.

As a Nottinghamshire commissioner for musters, Clare was naturally interested in the bill to improve the arms of the militia. On 28 Feb. he proposed that penalties be imposed on those who used borrowed weapons at musters, whereupon the bill was recommitted and Clare was added to the committee.242 Ibid. 79, 80. On 31 Mar he was named to the committee for the bill to regulate apparel, an issue he had identified as a problem before the Parliament met. On 3 Apr. he reported that the ‘body [fell] short of the intention of the bill’. At his recommendation one of the legal assistants was ordered to draft a fresh measure in accordance with the committee’s instructions and, on 13 Apr., Clare was named to consider the new bill.243 Ibid. 231, 248, 265.

On the penultimate day of the session, 14 June, the Commons sought permission to present Charles with a Remonstrance condemning Buckingham as an enemy to Church and State. That same day Clare claimed this portrayal of the duke was ‘fair’, indicating that he had abandoned his attempts to seek a compromise with the favourite. He also described Christopher Wandesford^‡, one of the managers of Buckingham’s impeachment, as ‘one of the chief, ablest, and honestest labourers’ in the Commons. Clare evidently believed that the Parliament was set to continue for a while yet, as he anticipated that Pembroke, then unwell, would ‘be found in the day of battle’.244 Holles Letters, 331. However, the following day, Lord Keeper Coventry announced that he had received a commission from the king to dissolve the Parliament. Clare was among those Lords who wished the House to move Charles to reconsider, and he was named to the committee to draw up a petition to that effect, but to no avail, as the second Caroline Parliament ended later that day.245 Procs. 1626, i. 633, 635.

The Forced Loan, 1626-8

Clare was very suspicious of the rapprochement between Buckingham and Pembroke which followed the dissolution. On 12 Sept. he told Saye that ‘this new alliance’ was ‘done to undo the better part’. He also expressed his disapproval of the king’s attempts to raise money by privy seal loans and benevolences. ‘We gallop all to the overthrow of Parliament, and consequently to that of the State’, he complained. Raising money by the prerogative was ‘so easy’, and parliaments were ‘so conditional, and uncertain’, that ‘nothing is more in thought’ than the ‘abrogation’ of parliaments, ‘a diminution of monarchical power’. However he immediately proceeded to contradict himself, arguing that the recent rout of Charles I’s ally, Christian IV of Denmark, ‘may call for a Parliament’, all other courses being ‘too feeble’, especially if the recent alliance between Pembroke and Buckingham ‘can assure an amnesia of the last’.246 Holles Letters, 334-5.

In point of fact, Christian IV’s defeat prompted Charles to travel further down the road of prerogative finance by initiating the Forced Loan. On 13 Nov. Clare reported widespread popular opposition and upheavals at court.247 Ibid. 337. However, six days later, he lamented that peers whom he had evidently thought would refuse the Loan, such as William Cavendish*, 2nd earl of Devonshire, had paid.248 Ibid. 339. Clare himself told the lord treasurer (James Ley^*, 1st earl of Marlborough) that he would not contribute. He feared he would be punished as an example to others, but the threat that soon emerged was more subtle.249 Ibid. 340-1.

Lists of lords who refused to pay the Loan became a prominent feature in the reporting of opposition to the levy. As Clare always featured in these documents, Buckingham decided that Clare must be made to appear to have paid the Loan, even if he did not do so.250 CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 485; Procs. 1626, iv. 348; Yonge Diary ed. G. Roberts (Cam. Soc. xli), 98; SP16/54/81i. At a meeting between the two men, arranged almost certainly by Lady Wallingford, now countess of Banbury (who was also present), Buckingham made vague offers of favour. Clare, who probably had little difficulty in discounting these promises, did not respond, ‘holding silence the safer, and the more mannerly way, than all the reason of the world’. However, when Lady Banbury offered to pay his share of the Loan, Clare replied that the money itself was not the issue, but ‘the manner only’, for the levy, being compulsory, was ‘of consequence to the king and kingdom’. It was probably because of this meeting that, on being obliged to return to Nottinghamshire for Christmas, Clare was followed by reports ‘that a Catholic lady [i.e. Lady Banbury] had persuaded me to lend’. Fearing that she would indeed pay the Loan on his behalf, Clare wrote to the countess requesting that she take no action until he returned to London and threatening to ‘disavow whatsoever she doth’. He thereby succeeded in heading off the threat to his reputation as a conscientious objector to the Loan.251 Holles Letters, 341-4.

On returning to London in February 1627, Clare was dismayed to learn that the 4th earl of Lincoln (Theophilus Clinton^*), a prominent Loan refuser like himself, had been ‘ordered by Buckingham and his court of Start Chamber’ to answer on oath rather than on his honour. The question of whether a peer was entitled to answer in a court of law on his honour rather than on oath had been raised in the House of Lords in 1621, and many peers, including Buckingham, had supported the right of peers to answer on their honour alone. Clare interpreted Buckingham’s behaviour as a deliberate affront to Parliament, which, ‘like dirt’, is ‘trodden under his highness’ feet’.252 Ibid. 345. Later that month he wrote that privy seals would be sent to those peers who, like him, had refused the Loan. This might ‘make the matter passable’ if there was a reasonable prospect of repayment, for as far as Clare was concerned, the ‘indefinite’ promise of repayment for the Forced Loan was ‘in plain English never’. Consequently, the Forced Loan was not a loan at all but a ‘royal subsidy’, and created ‘a precedent, the rock which we endeavour to decline’.253 Ibid. 346-7. By the end of March, Clare had ‘not faith enough to believe’ in rumours of a new Parliament, whose ‘season is past, it being an antagonist to prerogative, which is the darling of the time’.254 Ibid. 346, 348. The following month he complained that the Forced Loan had ‘drained all money out of the country’. As a result, ‘no rents are paid’, a reminder that, as a landowner, Clare had economic reasons for opposing prerogative taxation as well as ideological ones.255 Ibid. 349-50.

Over the summer, Buckingham led an expedition to take the Île de Ré, largely financed by the Forced Loan. Clare, however, told Bishops Williams in August that it was not the Loan which was needed to fund the war, but the war which was needed to justify the Loan. Buckingham, having alienated the civilian population of England, ‘endeavours to strengthen himself in the military’. The army was ‘the duke’s faction’, and therefore Buckingham needed ‘a consuming war, to set these men a-work’. Clare argued that Charles had been deceived by Buckingham into believing that he could only be free, ‘magnanimous, and truly monarchical’, if he was utterly unconstrained. Only ‘experience and blows’ can ‘cure this frenzy’ and prevent the king from being ‘abused by base parasites’. However, whether these ‘blows’ were to come from rebellion or defeat abroad was left unclear.256 Ibid. 359-60.

Later that same month, Clare was briefed by Sir William Beecher^‡, who had recently returned from Ré. Beecher managed to convince Clare that the French forces in the citadel of St Martin could not hold out much longer against the English besiegers. He also seems to have persuaded Clare to believe that, were the island captured, England would gain control of the trade of Bordeaux and the Loire, valued at between £200,000 and £300,000 a year. However, Clare realized that, for the present at least, ‘we have no money’. London had apparently refused to lend any more to the king. He also remained puzzled by Buckingham’s strategy. Not only was the duke distracting English forces from the task of assisting their allies in Germany, he was also giving the king of France ‘an undeniable cause to dig up’ the Protestant religion in his realm. His puzzlement led him to wonder whether, as was widely supposed, there was ‘a Jesuitical plot’ to establish ‘one bishop and one king throughout Europe’.257 Ibid. 362, 367-8.

Over the autumn the Council was rumoured to have considered summoning another Parliament. No writs were issued which, Clare concluded, was just as well, for a new assembly would ‘have proved a monster’. He realized that Charles was now totally averse to Parliament. For this he blamed ambitious clergymen who had preached in favour of the Forced Loan and strove to flatter the king into believing he could do as he liked. ‘Let no man dream of Parliament, of legal and regular proceedings’, he wrote, for the preference now was for new money-making projects. Even if the king found that these methods failed, he would only summon a fresh assembly ‘so we keep our distance, and be not so busy … to meddle with the favourite’.258 Ibid. 366-8.

Towards the end of November, Buckingham having been forced to withdraw from Ré in ignominy, Clare focussed his attention on what became known as the Five Knights’ Case. This concerned a number of Loan refusers who had sued out writs of habeas corpus, demanding to know the cause of their detention. Clare feared that those concerned would succeed only in producing a ruling in favour of the king, which would become a dangerous precedent.259 Ibid. 373. He himself preferred a different approach. His son-in-law, Wentworth, had also been confined for non-payment, but instead of appealing to King’s Bench, Clare helped convey a petition on Wentworth’s behalf to Buckingham’s ally on the Council, Edward Sackville*, 4th earl of Dorset. He also assisted in redrafting this petition when it became apparent that application needed to be made directly to the king.260 Wentworth Pprs. 279, 281,

Wentworth was freed in January 1628 as part of a general release ordered by the king of those imprisoned for refusing to pay the Loan. Since the law had not intervened to secure Wentworth’s freedom, Clare had mixed feelings about this outcome. ‘I cannot term you, nor myself, a freeman’, he told Wentworth, ‘when law hath no protection for us’. He blamed the legal profession, whose members were only too keen to take on cases between private persons, but shied away at the prospect of opposing the king’s wishes. (The judges in the Five Knights’ Case had declined to pass judgement, preferring instead to remand the prisoners in custody pending a further hearing.) He now feared that large privy seals loans would be demanded of non-lenders and was sceptical about reports that a Parliament was about to be summoned, or if it was, whether it ‘will do the kingdom any good’.261 Ibid. 287-8.

The 1628 session

Clare spent Christmas 1627 with Williams at Buckden, the bishop’s residence.262 Holles Letters, 375; Wentworth Pprs. 282. He returned to Westminster on 8 Feb. 1628, by which date a new Parliament had been summoned for 17 March. By 22 Feb. he had learned that ‘those that would have continued the distance between the king and the people’ had persuaded Charles to delay the Parliament until late April. In the meantime, privy seals would be demanded, set at a double rate for Loan refusers (Clare’s own assessment coming to £400). However, he had also learned that Francis Russell^*, 4th earl of Bedford, and William Cavendish, 2nd earl of Devonshire, had refused to lend, and that consequently the privy seals had been abandoned, ‘that the Parliament might boggle at nothing’. That same day Clare informed Lord Vere of the successes of Loan refusers in recent elections to the Commons, as well as the widespread discontent against the billeting of soldiers. He also notified him of recent promotions to the upper House, concluding with the remark that ‘by this addition you [see] what this Parliament will be’. By this he meant that the new lords could be counted on to support Buckingham, who was therefore safe from attack.263 Holles Letters, 375-7; Cust, 85.

Clare exercised no influence in elections to the Commons in 1628. His eldest son, Lord Houghton, was in the Netherlands, and while his younger son came in for Dorchester; this was due to the influence of Denzil’s father-in-law, Sir Francis Ashley^‡.264 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 112. Clare himself attended 90 of the 94 sittings of the 1628 session, and was again appointed trier of petitions for England, Scotland and Ireland. On 20 Mar. he assisted in the introduction of Lord Denny, who had been created earl of Norwich.265 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 62, 74. He was appointed to 60 per cent of the upper House’s committees (31 out of 52) and made 94 recorded speeches.

According to John Hacket^†, subsequently bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, Clare asked Lord Keeper Coventry at the start of the session whether Bishop Williams had been sent a writ of summons. On being told that he had, ‘the peers called for his [Williams’] assistance, and without more ado … he came to it before the end of the month’.266 Hacket, ii. 73. Williams did, indeed, miss the start of the Parliament - his first recorded attendance was on 1 Apr. - and Clare was certainly interested in the attendance of those lords who had fallen into disfavour; on 23 Mar. he wrote to Houghton that ‘my Lord of Bristol is already come to the House, Canterbury and Lincoln come both this week’. Five days later he also announced that Abbot, Williams (somewhat precipitately), Bristol ‘and all others heretofore by missive letters prohibited, are come to the House’.267 Holles Letters, 379-80.

Clare was unimpressed by the opening speeches of the king and Lord Keeper Coventry. ‘Both’, he wrote, ‘flew a high pitch, in plain English professing, that this parliamentary way was taken for conveniency, not for necessity, for this failing, the prerogative could furnish’. The Commons subsequently made it clear that they intended to uphold the rights of the subject regarding their property and liberty. Charles ‘takes no exception’ to this, wrote Clare, because the lower House also proposed to vote him such a supply ‘as never king of England … hath had the like’. Although the Commons were thereby proposing to buy ‘that which in all ages hitherto hath been our own undoubtedly’, Clare thought it ‘a better way, than that either king or people be driven to extremes’. However, he was then writing in the early stages of the Parliament (on 28 March). He did not envisage doing more than seek an assurance that men would not in future be imprisoned or sent to another county for refusing to pay unlawful demands. There is no evidence that, at this stage, he was thinking in terms of curtailing the king’s power to imprison without showing due cause, which the Commons subsequently demanded.268 Ibid. 379-80.

Clare followed the debates in the lower House on the liberties of the subject closely, and when, on 7 Apr., the Commons requested a conference with the Lords about ‘some ancient fundamental liberties of the kingdom’, Clare was named as one of the assistants to the four reporters appointed by the upper House. The conference was held that afternoon, and the reports, which took some time to prepare, were delivered on the morning of the 9th.269 Ibid. 381; Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 157, 167. That afternoon the reports were debated, during which time Clare seconded Saye, who proposed that king’s counsel be asked ‘if they can maintain the king’s prerogative against the liberties of the subject’. Clare wanted this done ‘presently’, perhaps hoping to make it difficult for the crown’s lawyers to challenge the case put forward by the Commons, but it was agreed that they would need time to prepare.270 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 182, 186.

On 12 Apr. Clare moved that the attorney general, Sir Robert Heath^‡, be required to put the crown’s case at a conference of both Houses rather than to the Lords alone. He probably feared that the Lords, left to themselves, would endorse Heath’s opinions, so setting them on a collision course with the Commons, whereas a conference would give the lawyers of the Commons the opportunity to refute Heath’s arguments. However, his motion was rejected. In the subsequent debate, Clare proposed that the Lords hear the judges of King’s Bench concerning the Five Knights’ Case, ‘for perhaps the judges’ sentence mistaken’. He may have wanted the Lords to reverse the judges’ decision to remand the knights in custody, which would have had no practical effect; all those concerned had now been released, but presumably would have stood as a precedent for the future. He certainly wanted Heath and the judges to submit their opinions in writing before proceeding to another conference with the Commons. By that time, of course, the lower House would have been forewarned by their friends in the Lords of the case against them, and would be able to refute Heath’s arguments.271 Ibid. 205-6, 208.

Clare was keen for the Commons to have every opportunity to put their case. On 17 Apr. he supported the desire of the lower House ‘for another conference to perfect the work begun’.272 Ibid. 257. Five days later he responded to Coventry’s defence of the prerogative by stating that he would not ‘undertake to answer this great lord in that large circle he has gone’. Instead, he moved for a further conference with the Commons ‘to satisfy those points’, presumably in the expectation that the spokesmen of the lower House would refute the lord keeper’s arguments.273 Ibid. 329. Having argued on 21 Apr. that the statutes confirming Magna Carta were in force, whether the Lords consented to the Commons’ propositions or not, on the 22nd he opposed a breach with the Commons by asking whether the Lords alone should ‘determine a question of M[agna] Carta, a great question?’274 Ibid. 312, 324. His support for the Commons was perhaps most clearly demonstrated that same day when he spoke in support of Saye, who had drawn a distinction between ordinary circumstances, when the liberties of the subject should be protected by the law, and emergencies, when the king was empowered to do whatever was necessary. Clare made the same distinction between ordinary and extraordinary circumstances and made an analogy with grammar, which followed rules, but also had irregular verbs which were outside those rules. By implication he was arguing that emergencies were also inherently irregular, and it was therefore pointless to ensure that the king had the legal powers to deal with them.275 Ibid. 3220-1; J. Flemion, ‘Saving to Satisfy All: the House of Lords and the Meaning of the Petition of Right’, PH, x. 33. Not surprisingly, on 28 Apr. a newsletter listed Clare as one of the members of the upper House who supported the liberty of the subject.276 Birch, Chas. I, i. 347.

On 5 May Clare wrote to Houghton that he feared the Parliament ‘draws now his last gasp’. It would founder, he declared, on the king’s refusal to allow the Commons to explain Magna Carta, or add any ‘new provision’ to it. The only question now, he thought, was ‘who shall bear the blame of the rupture?’ It would fall on the Lords if they refused a further conference with the Commons, and on the king if they agreed.277 Holles Letters, 382. In the event, Clare’s assessment proved to be unduly pessimistic, for, the following day, the Commons decided to proceed by Petition of Right, the text of which they presented to the Lords on 8 May. Four days later the king informed the upper House that he would not surrender his power to imprison without showing cause. This was undoubtedly alarming for Clare, who argued that any attempt to persuade the Commons to comply with the king’s demands should be ‘not conclusive, not exclusive, but only by way of persuasion’.278 Lords Procs. 1628, p. 412. Two days later he was appointed to a committee to draw up reasons to persuade the Commons to amend the Petition to bring it in line with the king’s letter.279 Ibid. 424. However, Clare argued that the Lords should not ‘conclude ourselves’, by which he meant that they should not allow themselves to become irretrievably committed to the king’s demands.280 Bodl., Rawl. A106, f. [36]. His speech was printed as ‘now to conclude ourselves’ in Lords Procs. 1628, p. 425, but the first word was correctly read as ‘nor’ in LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 156.

That afternoon, following a conference at which the Commons refused to take notice of the king’s letter, Clare called for an ‘accommodation’ that would be ‘without prejudice to either party’.281 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 428, 433. On 17 May just such a compromise was suggested by Arundel, who proposed the addition of a very general statement that there was no intention to diminish the king’s rightful powers. He was seconded by Clare, who liked this wording, probably because its vagueness meant it would make virtually no difference to the Petition.282 Ibid. 452, 456. However, the Lords endorsed instead the proposal of Richard Weston^*, Lord Weston (subsequently 1st earl of Portland), to include a specific saving for the king’s ‘entire sovereign power’. Following a further conference, at which the Commons’ spokesmen rejected Weston’s amendment, Clare pointed out that, even though the lower House had ‘objected divers statutes against the saving’, the Lords ‘never gave their answer’. He added bitterly that ‘whosoever loses honour, I am sure we get none’.283 Ibid. 480, 487.

In the wake of this setback, Clare decided that a saving clause was entirely unnecessary, as the prerogative ‘cannot be destroyed’ by anything that Parliament could do. In an emergency, ‘no law can hinder what is necessary to be done for the safety of us all’. Following another conference with the Commons on 24 May, Clare gave the Petition his clearest endorsement yet, stating that it was ‘wholly comprehended in Magna Carta’, and he asked the Lords to ‘consider the consequences if we join not with the Commons’. He then proceeded to support Arundel, who proposed that the Lords should approve the Petition and produce their own declaration stating that they had no intention to infringe the royal prerogative.284 Ibid. 524; Flemion, 41. This suggestion was adopted by the Lords on 26 May, when Clare’s only contribution was to enquire how the Petition was to be presented to the king.285 Lords Procs. 1628, p. 534.

Clare was among those who objected to the king’s initial answer to the Petition of Right of 2 June, in which Charles declared that he accepted its provisions, subject to the preservation of his prerogative. On 7 June he called for a ‘satisfactorily parliamental’ response.286 Ibid. 602. That afternoon the king pronounced the traditional form of assent to a petition of right and, when the House resumed two days later, Clare immediately moved the Lords to join the Commons in giving thanks for the new reply and to request ‘that we may sit some longer time for the ending of our business.’287 Ibid. 606-7. The significance he attached to the Petition was demonstrated on 16 June, when he spoke on the commission for establishing an excise. Arguing that the project was ‘against the privileges and liberties of the subject so declared and adjudged by the Petition’, Clare called for it to be ‘damned’ and for its author to be found.288 Ibid. 648.

Following the king’s acceptance of the Petition, Clare supported the proceedings against Roger Manwaring^† (subsequently bishop of St Davids), one of the ministers who had preached in favour of the Forced Loan. He undoubtedly saw Manwaring as one of the over-ambitious clerics who encouraged Charles I’s absolutist tendencies, against whom he had previously fulminated; indeed, he subsequently wrote that ‘Manwaring’s misdemeanour in the eye of justice cannot be exceeded’. On 10 June he was named to the committee to receive the evidence presented by the Commons to support their charges against Manwaring. The following day he argued that Manwaring’s divinity was ‘mutilated and lame’ and ‘tend[ed] to sedition’. After the Commons queried how Manwaring’s sermon had come to be published, Clare moved to send for the printer. Later that day, Clare was one of the lords sent to George Montaigne*, bishop of London (subsequently archbishop of York), to inquire into the licensing of the sermon.289 Wentworth Pprs. 309; Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 612, 621, 628, 631.

Clare was more than just a significant figure in the opposition to the court in the 1628 session. He also played an important and constructive role in the less controversial business of the upper House, dealing with issues such as privileges, petitions, legislation and the management of the Lords and their attendants. Clare was not listed as a member of the privileges committee in the Journal. However, at the committee’s establishment, on 20 Mar., the Lords agreed to reappoint the 1626 committee, which had included Clare, along with some additions, and Clare referred to himself as one of its members in a letter to Houghton three days later.290 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 73-4, 76; Holles Letters, 379. He was certainly appointed to the subcommittee for privileges on 21 Mar., and as a member of that body he checked the draft Journal on at least five occasions.291 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 78, 79 n.10. Unsurprisingly, given his interest in the earl of Lincoln’s case in 1627, Clare eagerly asserted the right of peers to testify on their honour in courts of law rather than be sworn on oath, arguing, on 6 May, that a ‘protestation [on honour] is an oath, and a trust also’.292 Ibid. 384.

Clare concerned himself with several privilege cases which came before the upper House in 1628, including those regarding servants of Henry West^*, 4th Lord De La Warr, Henry Parker^*, 14th Lord Monteagle, William Grey^*, 1st Lord Grey of Warke, and Thomas Wentworth^*, earl of Cleveland (a kinsman of Clare’s son-law Sir Thomas Wentworth).293 Ibid. 129-30, 158, 184, 356, 377-8, 395. Clare also took an interest in the case of Thomas Grey who, in 1626, had claimed privilege as a servant of Clare’s friend, Viscount Colchester (by now 1st earl Rivers). Grey subsequently admitted he was not in Rivers’ service, and had languished in the Fleet ever since.294 Procs. 1626, i. 546, 603. Grey twice petitioned the Lords in 1628, prompting Clare to move for his release. The Lords thereupon ordered Clare to draw up an order establishing the conditions of his discharge (including payment of fees), which was approved.295 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 410, 548, 579-80, 690. Clare also spoke on privilege cases concerning Henry Hastings^*, 5th earl of Huntingdon, and William Stanley*, 6th earl of Derby, reporting the latter case from committee on 19 June.296 Ibid. 525, 549, 597, 672, 674. One case in which he may have been particularly interested was that of Lady Hatton’s daughter, Viscountess Purbeck, whose marriage Clare had tried to prevent in 1617. Excommunicated for adultery, she petitioned the Lords for privilege. Clare was one of only two members of the privileges committee who voted in favour of her claim when the case was considered on 28 April. Clare explained his dissent in the upper House the following day, arguing that privilege ‘follows her person’ as the wife of a peer.297 PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/33 (31 Mar. 1628), no. 12; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 360.

Early in the Parliament, Clare observed that ‘the upper House is busied (besides some bills … read) with precedencies’.298 Holles Letters, 379. In 1628 Henry Clifford^* (subsequently 5th earl of Cumberland) was summoned to the Lords by a writ of acceleration in the mistaken belief that his father, the 4th earl, held the Clifford barony. At the call of the House on 22 Mar., Clifford was ranked as the senior baron, but Bedford moved for consideration to be given to the rights of Lady Anne Clifford, who claimed to be Baroness Clifford suo jure; two days later, Clare raised the question of the claim of Henry Neville^*, 9th or 2nd Lord Abergavenny, to be the senior baron. Both claims were referred to the privileges committee.299 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 86-7, 99-100. A further issue of precedence concerned William Knollys, who, in August 1626, had been created earl of Banbury, but granted seniority over the eight earls made at the coronation the previous February. Clare was particularly concerned about his kinsman, the earl of Mulgrave, as he specifically named him when relaying the case to Houghton on 23 Mar., and complained about the ‘work’ which Banbury’s ‘irregular precedence’ had created.300 Holles Letters, 379, 380. On 2 Apr. the privileges committee moved that it be allowed to canvass the views of the affected earls. Clare himself suggested that the committee should not attempt to resolve the question but only report back the answers they received, one of which (George Carew*, earl of Totness) he himself relayed to the House five days later.301 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 138, 158. The Lords subsequently agreed that Banbury was to be ranked above the coronation earls for his lifetime only. Clare moved that a copy of this order should be delivered to the earl marshal, Arundel, who was to pass it on to his successors.302 Ibid. 192.

As in the case of the privileges committee, Clare was erroneously omitted from the list of the committee for petitions in the Journal. However, this was also a remodelled version of the body appointed in 1626, of which Clare had been a member, and his name was included in the notes taken by the younger Henry Elsyng, who acted as assistant clerk to his father.303 Ibid. 81. He subsequently reported from the committee five times.304 Ibid. 201, 564, 572, 685, 694. On Clare’s motion, a new petition from Ralph Starkey was referred to the committee for petitions. On 7 May he spoke in favour of a petition from the inhabitants of Clerkenwell, in which parish he was staying during the Parliament, concerning the 1626 order for distributing money to the poor, a matter also referred to the committee for petitions.305 Ibid. 147, 390-1. For Clare’s residence in Clerkenwell in 1628 see Holles Letters, 381-2. On 10 Apr. Clare moved for the committee to be empowered to appoint subcommittees to consider particular petitions and, on 28 May, proposed that members be added.306 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 192, 549.

On 20 Mar. Clare moved to revive the 1621 order to prevent disorder among lords’ servants.307 Ibid. 76. Although copies were put up they were promptly torn down and, two days later, Buckingham admitted that one of his men was among those responsible. Clare thereupon moved that some ‘particular man’ be sent for to identify the others.308 Ibid. 90. Clare was also busy with the routine management of the House and, on 9 Apr., his proposal that latecomers to afternoon sittings should contribute to the poor box was adopted.309 Ibid. 182, 185. On 23 May he moved for payment of fees to the gentleman usher. Five days later, he urged that the orders concerning the fees of that officer and the clerk be recorded.310 Ibid. 509, 551.

According to the Journal, Clare was appointed on 21 Mar. to attend the conference with the Commons about the petition for a fast. However, his name is not listed in any other source. The mistake presumably arose because he was added to the committee when it was instructed to confer with the Commons about the petition on recusancy four days later.311 Ibid. 78, 105. On 24 Mar. Clare and William Spencer*, 2nd Lord Spencer, were instructed to record which members of the upper House attended the fast.312 Ibid. 97. Four days later he proposed that a collection for the poor be made at the fast, and was one of three lords named to distribute the proceeds. These considerations prompted a debate about the poor laws and vagrancy. Clare moved that the lord keeper recommend the execution of the laws to the lord chief justice, the lord mayor and the recorder of London.313 Ibid. 114-117. A general fast was ordered for 21 Apr., prompting Clare to alert the House to the fair due to be held at Evesham on that day. The Lords agreed to ask the king to permit Evesham and towns in similar circumstances to postpone their fasts.314 Ibid. 191-2.

The discussion about the fast on 24 Mar. may have prompted renewed calls for a petition against recusancy. Clare proposed that a committee be established to draft a petition, which would then be presented to the Commons at a conference, a motion that was adopted.315 Ibid. 98. When the petition was reported by Devonshire, on 26 Mar., Clare moved to put it to the vote, but the House decided to wait until after the conference so that any amendments offered by the Commons could be incorporated.316 Ibid. 106.

Clare was named to consider a new bill concerning the arms of the militia on 22 March. At his motion it was appointed to meet the following Wednesday afternoon.317 Ibid. 88, 91. In the debate on the apparel bill, on 28 Mar., Clare argued that it was ‘the wisdom of the Parliament to cut off all superfluity, to have new-fangled fashions to be taken away’. He was subsequently appointed to the bill committee; indeed, he appears to have been the first named earl.318 Ibid. 112, 116. On 7 Apr. he seconded Arundel’s motion for a declaration ‘to repress the excess of apparel and diet’, and at his suggestion the committee for the apparel bill was ordered to draw one up.319 Ibid. 158. The bill was reported and ordered to be engrossed on 24 May, but, later that day, Clare complained that it did not fulfil its intended purpose because it failed to curtail the use of silk embroidery on cloth; he moved for it to be recommitted, but there is no evidence that he was successful.320 Ibid. 527.

Clare reported three bills in 1628. Two were private measures: a naturalization bill and Lord Abergavenny’s estate bill. The third measure was for the reform of gaols, which he reported on 30 May as not fit to pass, though ‘the scope of the bill is very good’. On his motion, the legal assistants were ordered to amend it.321 Ibid. 266, 396, 565, 567-8. Clare also spoke on the subject of trade, which had fallen off dramatically as a result of the war with Spain, after Buckingham delivered various propositions to the Lords. These propositions included measures against the Dutch. Despite his previous criticisms of the United Provinces, Clare warned that it was ‘no small matter to alter a trade with a nation or friends of ours’. However, he supported commitment of the proposals, and was accordingly named to the committee. Surprisingly, given that his family’s wealth was originally mercantile, he added that he would rather have merchants continue to engage in trade than buy land.322 Ibid. 146, 148-9.

The assassination of Buckingham and the 1629 session

Parliament was prorogued on 26 June. Within a short space of time, Clare began to fear that the measures agreed in Parliament would be nullified. Writing to Lord Vere on 2 July, after the king issued a pardon to Manwaring, whom it was thought would soon be promoted, he lamented that ‘to be censured by either House is a sure way of preferment’. He also feared that the king was busily distancing himself from the Petition of Right, as Charles was preparing to ‘own his prerogative’ in Star Chamber the following day.323 Holles Letters, 383.

Clare met Buckingham, presumably for the last time, on 1 Aug., at the Chiswick house of the earl of Somerset. Buckingham had ostensibly come to take his leave of Somerset, as he intended to lead an expedition to relieve La Rochelle. Clare initially regarded the meeting as an accident, but subsequently thought it was part of a charm offensive launched by Buckingham prior to his departure. Buckingham had made conciliatory moves towards Clare’s friends, Arundel and Wentworth, the previous month, but found Clare himself a tougher nut to crack. He offered Clare ‘many professions of service and respect (wherein I never found him a niggard)’ and ‘curiously endeavoured to express his care of dispersing all clouds of mistaking, and of heretofore misbelief’. Clare took the opportunity to lobby on Vere’s behalf, and received profuse promises of action on the duke’s return, prompting Clare to suggest that Vere write to thank Buckingham, ‘thereby to engage him the more to the performance …, lest like an ill debtor his memory fail him’. For his part, Clare told Buckingham that ‘my condition was not to retribute such service as was proper for him’, which of course enabled Clare to avoid making any promises to the duke.324 Ibid. 387-8.

Buckingham was assassinated on 23 Aug. at Portsmouth. By then Clare had returned to Nottinghamshire, where the news arrived on the night of the 25th. Clare’s initial reaction was one of cautious optimism. Writing to Houghton on the 29th, he conceded that Charles would feel compelled to continue Buckingham’s policies, as any sudden deviation would suggest it had been the duke, not the king, who had been in control. Nevertheless, he wrote that ‘this great man’s death will breed a greater alteration’. Although Lord Vere would have to ‘begin his business again’, this meant that Vere would probably get ‘better success therein’, if not such fine words.325 Ibid. 388. However, on reflection, Clare doubted whether Buckingham’s assassination would ultimately make much difference. Ever since the Forced Loan, Clare had looked for a more fundamental explanation of what was wrong the regime than the activities of one evil counsellor. Even before the favourite’s death, in March 1628, he had attributed Charles’s absolutist tendencies not to the duke but to ‘ambitious divines, and lawyers [who] plant in him [the king] such a transcendency of right and power above all laws’ that Charles could hardly be blamed for abusing his power.326 Cust, 195, 330; Holles Letters, 381.

In the Netherlands, Mary, Lady Vere, hoped that, with Buckingham dead, Clare ‘may now be called (as indeed his worth deserves) to some employment in the State’. However, unlike his friends, Arundel and Wentworth, Clare failed to benefit from the political changes of late 1628, possibly because he lacked the prestige and ancient title of the former and the youth and vigour of the latter.327 Nottingham UL, NeC15404, p. 20 (separately paginated copies of letters from Lady Vere to Houghton). Nevertheless, he watched developments with his usual avid interest, in particular, the rising power of Weston, now lord treasurer. On 25 Oct. he informed Wentworth he was sorry to have heard that Weston had allied himself with Laud and Henrietta Maria’s chancellor, Thomas Savage^*, 1st Viscount Savage. He was probably reassured by Weston’s friendship with Arundel, who had been restored to the Privy Council. In mid November he opined to Wentworth that ‘both their abilities be such as they need neither fear not envy able men’. He remained wary of Pembroke, describing the lord steward and his brother, Philip Herbert^*, earl of Montgomery (later 4th earl of Pembroke) as ‘loose earth’, indicating that nothing stable could be built upon them.328 Holles Letters, 518; Wentworth Pprs. 308-9.

Wentworth became president of the council in the North and a viscount at the end of the year. Writing to Williams about his son-in-law’s preferment on 24 Dec., Clare observed that ‘I am glad he got his fish so cheap’. He estimated that the money he had spent on his own honours, had it been invested in land around London, would have yielded £1,000 a year. He nevertheless had no regrets about purchasing his peerages, ‘for I saw myself planted on the north side, where no court sun shone’, and being unwilling to ‘flatter greatness’ or ‘serve turn with base offices’ he had been unable to secure advancement by merit, ‘for without work none can show workmanship’. Honours having been put to sale, he would have ‘little love’ from his descendants had he not taken the opportunity to buy them.329 Holles Letters, 389-90.

Clare was one of the commissioners appointed to continue the prorogation of the Parliament from 20 Oct. 1628 to the following January, but did not attend the meeting.330 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 229. As the new session approached, he was filled with his normal foreboding. He wrote to Arundel, probably in early January, that he wished ‘the Parliament were as many years off as it is days’. As things stood, ‘by parliaments we always lose’. Indeed, it would be ‘better the king and people met not at all’. Referring to the hopes of preferment dangled in front of members of both Houses, he declared that ‘parliaments are snares to catch the innocent, or with fears or hopes corrupt them that know and would do better’.331 Holles Letters, 322. This letter is misdated February 1626.

Clare also had particular reasons for believing that the new session would begin ‘foul’ and ‘tempestuous’. The first concerned the continued collection of tunnage and poundage without parliamentary consent. The second was to do with religion. In December 1628 the king had issued a declaration reserving judgement in all matters of doctrine to Convocation and himself. Clare thought this declaration would ‘reinforce the storm’ it ‘creates the king, not only … supreme head of the form, that is, of ecclesiastical discipline, but of the matter, even in all tenets of faith’. A further source of concern was the duchess of Buckingham who, ‘professing herself a papist, declares what her lord was, and questionless, questions those nearest him in power’. This was almost certainly a reference to Weston, who owed his promotion to the lord treasurership to the duke and was widely thought to be secretly Catholic.332 Ibid. 322-3; Constitutional Docs. of the Puritan Rev. ed. S.R. Gardiner, 75-6. Trepidation at the forthcoming session may explain why Clare was recorded as present at only nine of the 23 sittings of the upper House in 1629. However, the official attendance record appears to underestimate his appearances in the House, as Edward Montagu^*, 1st Lord Montagu, noted that Clare preferred a petition on 14 Feb., when the earl was not marked as present.333 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 337.

Clare was first recorded as attending on 26 January. It was therefore in his absence that, six days earlier, he was reappointed to the committee and subcommittee for privileges, and the committee for petitions. He was, however, recorded as present on 3 Feb., when he was appointed to consider a new bill to regulate apparel.334 LJ, iv. 6a-b, 19a. Two days later, he and two other peers - Francis Fane^*, 1st earl of Westmorland, and Bishop Williams – were accused by Francis Leak^*, Lord Deincourt (subsequently 1st earl of Scarsdale), of recounting insulting words Deincourt is alleged to have uttered concerning his father, with whom he was in dispute. However, after Clare, Westmorland and Williams admitted having spoken as friends to Deincourt about his quarrel, the aggrieved peer was persuaded not to pursue the matter.335 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 333.

One of the chief matters before the Lords in 1629 was the precedence enjoyed by the holders of Irish and Scottish peerages over English barons. In March 1628 Clare had informed the earl of Oxford that, when Parliament had finished considering the liberties of the subject, ‘the barons purpose a fling’ against the purchasers of Irish peerages.336 Holles Letters, 380. In fact, nothing came of this before the prorogation, and it was not until 9 Feb. 1629 that a debate was initiated. Clare was appointed to help compose a declaration stating that those with English titles should rank above those who had purchased foreign ones. The following day he was instructed to help draft a petition to the king.337 LJ, iv. 25b, 27b. It may have been around this time that Clare wrote his own paper on the question of ‘foreign’ honours. After locating the sale of Scottish and Irish titles in the context of the general inflation of honours, which he traced back to the large numbers of the knights dubbed in 1603, Clare argued that, in the long term, the inflation of honours had weakened the crown’s finances because titles were now disdained and rewards for service had to be given in material form.338 Add. 6297, f. 162. This paper is undated but attributed to Clare as ‘the earl of Clare’, and consequently presumably relates to the agitation in 1629 rather than 1621. It includes arguments similar to the ones in his paper on baronets dated 1615. Holles Letters, 527.

On 14 Feb. Clare was appointed to a committee to draft a petition to the king to provide maintenance for the earl of Oxford, who had inherited no estates with his title.339 LJ, iv. 31a. He also presented a petition to collect donations on behalf of the village of Farnsfield in Nottinghamshire, which had lost its church and six houses due to fire. According to Montagu, the House disliked the fact the case had been brought to their attention, as there were more normal means of securing assistance; nevertheless, they recommended the petition to the lord keeper.340 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 337; LJ, iv. 31a. Clare was last recorded as attending on 16 February. Although named to the committee to review the defences of the kingdom on 21 Feb., he was probably appointed in his absence because of his membership of a similar body in 1626.341 LJ, iv. 37b.

Clare’s younger son, Denzil, participated in the last tumultuous sitting of the Commons on 10 Mar., and was subsequently imprisoned in the Tower. Believing that his son ‘suffers for the commonwealth, and the Parliament’, Clare attempted to secure his release, or at least to ease his conditions of confinement, by suggesting there was an outbreak of spotted fever in the Tower and by soliciting Henry Rich^*, 1st earl of Holland, to deliver a petition from Denzil’s wife to the king.342 CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 543; Holles Letters, 390, 425. However, he was strongly opposed to the idea of appealing to the king’s mercy, which would necessarily involve acknowledging that Denzil’s imprisonment was lawful, whereas in fact he considered it ‘the height of [naked] power’. For this reason, in July, he rejected an offer from Dorset to intercede with the king, and praised Selden, who had also been imprisoned, for refusing to ask Arundel to intervene on his behalf.343 Holles Letters, 392, 394. When, in October, a bond for good behaviour was demanded of Denzil in return for his release, Clare refused to have anything to do with the matter, ‘rather coveting his enlargement by his habeas corpus’. This was despite having informed Houghton the previous month that a writ of habeas corpus would probably fail, the law having been ‘laid aside’. He also rejected the assistance of Wentworth, who was rising in the king’s favour, as he thought his son-in-law ‘could not do this without much engagement’.344 Ibid. 395, 399.

In early November Clare’s life was again thrown into crisis when he was accused of participating in the circulation of a seditious manuscript. His papers were seized on the 3rd and, shortly after, he was committed to the custody of Richard Neile, now bishop of Winchester.345 CSP Dom. 1529-31, p. 87; APC, 1629-30, p. 171. The tract, entitled ‘Propositions to bridle the impertinency of Parliament’, was by Robert Dudley, the illegitimate son of Robert Dudley^†, earl of Leicester, and proposed various ways of raising revenue without recourse to Parliament. It also advocated the establishment of a system of garrisons, spread over the kingdom, which would enable the crown to overawe the electorate and ensure compliant parliaments.346 N. Millstone, ‘Evil Counsel: the Propositions to Bridle the Impertinency of Parliament and the Critique of Caroline Government in the late 1620s’, JBS, l. 817-18. On 15 Nov. Charles announced that Clare, together with the earls of Bedford and Somerset and Sir Robert Cotton, would be prosecuted in Star Chamber for trying to blacken the government’s reputation by circulating the tract. Clare was aghast, and petitioned the king for mercy.347 APC, 1629-30, p. 177; Eg. 2553, ff. 77v, 85v-6.

In his reply to the Star Chamber bill, Clare admitted receiving a copy of the tract from Somerset, but denied having read most of it, a claim which seems unlikely, given his keen interest in whatever materials relating to contemporary politics that he could lay his hands on; he was, for instance, a collector of political libels.348 Cogswell, 319-21. He confessed to having shown the tract both to Cotton, whom he met in the garden of Cotton’s Westminster house, where ‘he resorted usually to walk for his recreation and health’, and to Theophilus Field^*, bishop of St Davids, whom he encountered at morning prayers in Westminster. However, he claimed that the tract was ‘a project extracted out of the practises of some of the princes of Italy and nothing respecting the present estate of this kingdom’. He also pointed out that internal evidence clearly dated the tract to James’s reign, for as he told Houghton by letter on 7 Dec., ‘the first way propounded for raising monies, is by the prince’s marriage, which no way can be owned by King Charles, who as yet hath no son’. This being the case, there could be no question of bringing the Caroline regime into disrepute. He suspected that the real reason for his prosecution was that he had been ‘opposite in Parliament, and against the loans’. He took no comfort from the widely held belief among London’s lawyers ‘that nothing can be done against us’, as ‘power may do what it list’. In fact, he was mistaken, as the prosecution was abandoned in May 1630, ostensibly as an act of mercy to celebrate the birth of the future Charles II (Charles Stuart^†, prince of Wales), but in reality because the regime realized how badly the affair had been bungled.349 Northants. RO, FH2822; Holles Letters, 400-1; Millstone, 836.

Clare initially accepted the adaptations that his son-in-law, Wentworth, had to make on becoming a loyal servant of the king. In March 1631, he told Houghton to ‘touch not your brother Wentworth, for it is a sin and foolishness to love the commonwealth, and a Parliament a contemptible thing’. However, the death of his daughter, Arbella, in October 1631 opened up a rift between Clare and Wentworth. Clare’s wife blamed Wentworth for allowing his daughter to travel while heavily pregnant, causing her to miscarry, with fatal results.350 Holles, 109. Clare himself clearly believed that Wentworth was at fault; ‘Oh that her husband loved her more, and his conveniency less’, he lamented, ‘then might she have yet been with him and us’.351 Holles Letters, 432. However, he was mainly angry that Wentworth remarried quickly and failed to make proper provision for his children by Arbella.352 Ibid. 444-5. After Wentworth was appointed lord deputy of Ireland in 1632, Clare became deeply critical of his former son-in-law’s behaviour in office. In 1636 he even described Wentworth’s conduct as ‘tyrannical’ and mocked him as ‘so prince-like in every particular [that] he styles himself in the plural number’. Laud later alleged that Clare spread rumours of a falling out between the archbishop and the lord deputy.353 Holles Letters, 425, 435, 474, 477; Works of Abp. Laud ed. J. Bliss, vii. 399.

While on progress in 1634, the king stayed at Clare’s house in Nottingham. However, during the royal visit part of the house containing the royal wardrobe fell down, and although no one was hurt ‘some stuff [was] spoiled’. Clare explained that he had intended to rebuild the affected part of the house, and had already removed part of the roof prior to the king’s visit. He placed the blame for the collapse on the officers of the wardrobe, claiming at first that they had overburdened the floor, and then that they had caused the damage by lighting a fire in the tennis court. Unsurprisingly, the king was dissatisfied with Clare’s explanations.354 C115/106/8430; Holles Letters, 455 (letter misdated), 465.

The following year Clare was prosecuted in Star Chamber for developing his properties on the outskirts of London, and some of his buildings were demolished. Clare believed that he had been singled out for being ‘an honest man’ and that he had again become the victim of unrestrained royal power. His prosecution may have led to a souring of relations with Arundel, whom he described as ‘the officious marshal’ in October 1635, as Arundel was a leading member of the commission for new buildings. Clare refused to compound with the commission for his supposed offence, and it was only after his death that his son settled the dispute.355 T. G. Barnes, ‘Prerogative and Environmental Control of London Building in the Early Seventeenth Century’, California Law Rev. lviii. 1339; Holles Letters, 468-70, 473, 496. Clare also fell foul of the commissioners for depopulation. Once again he vigorously contested the charges against him, informing the commissioners in June 1637 that he had ‘never decayed any husbandry’ and that he had ‘been ever more for the public than for myself’, even though he would have been much better off had he put his own interests first.356 Holles Letters, 501-2.

Clare fell ill on the morning of 22 Sept. 1637 at his house in Nottingham. His doctor thought it no more than an attack of the gout and he was up and about again by the 25th. However, late the following day, he ‘fell into an ill fit, which first made his physician to suspect him’. Clare never recovered and died on the morning of 4 October. His widow subsequently produced a will dated 31 May 1599, but it was contested by Denzil Holles, who claimed that Clare had promised to leave him property over and above the land he had settled on him at his marriage. As a result, Clare’s widow received only temporary grants of administration from the prerogative courts of Canterbury and York (on 6 Feb. and 6 Apr. 1638 respectively), although these seem never to have been superseded. The dispute led to a Chancery suit, which was probably eventually settled out of court.357 SP16/407/13; CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 353-4, 455; PROB 6/16, f. 154; Borthwick, Probate Act Books, Retford, f. 256; P. Crawford, Denzil Holles, 28. Copies of the will can be found in Notts. RO, DD/4P/39/2 and DEL9/2, pp. 132-157. Clare was buried three days after his death in St Mary’s, Nottingham, his son John succeeded to his titles.358 J. T. Godfrey, Notes of the Par. Regs. of St Mary’s Nottingham 1566-1812, pp. 20-1.