BELASYSE, Thomas (1576/7-1653)

Seated in north Yorkshire, Belasyse, a man of ‘hot spirit’,14 Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. 4th ser. xii), 307. inherited in 1624 an estate worth £4,000 a year and represented the borough of Thirsk four times before his ennoblement in 1627. Although of popish persuasion, having been married by a Catholic priest in 1601, self-interest inclined him towards equivocation in matters of faith.15 H. Aveling, Northern Catholics, 228. His ennoblement in May 1627 was probably arranged, not by the ineffectual lord president of the council in the North, Emanuel Scrope^*, earl of Sunderland, but by Sir John Savile^* (later 1st Lord Savile), a close ally of the royal favourite, George Villiers^*, 1st duke of Buckingham. However, Belasyse probably paid for his barony: Buckingham was then equipping an expedition to the Île de Ré, and the cash generated by the sale of a peerage would have helped refill his depleted coffers.16 For a more hesitant view, based on the ill-founded assumption that Belasyse was a partisan of the duke’s, see C.R. Mayes, ‘Sale of Peerages in Early Stuart Eng.’, JMH, xxix. 31. Belasyse’s choice of title lent its holder a spurious sense of antiquity. The barony of Fauconberg had first been created for a Yorkshire gentleman named Sir Walter Fauconberg in 1295, and although Belasyse’s own family had long been established in county Durham and Yorkshire, it had not amounted to much until the Reformation.

In February 1628 the Privy Council instructed Fauconberg and Lord President Sunderland to take charge of the collection of Ship Money in county Durham.17 APC, 1627-8, p. 284. In the event, however, their services were not needed, as this levy was swiftly abandoned by the crown in favour of a Parliament, which assembled in March. At the Yorkshire election, Fauconberg’s son, Henry Belasyse was returned as junior knight of the shire after joining forces with Savile’s enemy Sir Thomas Wentworth^* (later 1st earl of Strafford), who took the senior seat. Fauconberg undoubtedly approved of this arrangement, and indeed must have facilitated it, as he allowed Wentworth’s ally Christopher Wandesford^‡ to be elected for Thirsk in return.

Fauconberg attended the opening of Parliament on 17 Mar., but was absent thereafter until the 26th, when he was formally introduced to the upper House. Before mid June his attendance was impressive, as he missed just four sittings in April and four more in May, though he excused himself only twice.18 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 87, 103, 360, 539. However, he was entirely absent for the final two weeks of the session, having also missed two sittings in the first week of June. This perhaps suggests that Fauconberg lost interest in parliamentary affairs following the king’s second answer to the Petition of Right.

Fauconberg played little recorded part in the Lords’ proceedings. However, he was appointed to ten legislative committees during the session. These included a measure concerned with the financial affairs of fellow northern peer Dutton Gerard^†, 3rd Lord Gerard, a bill regarding the better discovery of popish recusants (with which he is unlikely to have had much sympathy), and a bill to modernize the militia’s firearms. This last subject was one on which Fauconberg held strong views, for on 7 Apr. he declared that the cost was ‘grievous to the country’ and warned that Yorkshire was unable to bear the charge. Indeed, he feared ‘a mutiny’ if the bill was enacted, and called for a proviso to be added to the measure exempting Yorkshire from its provisions.19 Ibid. 160, 189, 367, 627. This was not the only complaint Fauconberg brought before the House. On 26 Apr. he protested that the king had granted Lord Mountjoy (Mountjoy Blount^*, later 1st earl of Newport) precedence over both himself and the 1st Lord Lovelace (Richard Lovelace^*), even though their patents of creation pre-dated Mountjoy’s. The Lords proved sympathetic, and three days later, on the recommendation of the privileges committee, they ruled that the offending clause in Mountjoy’s patent was to be disregarded. Fauconberg made only two further recorded speeches in the House. The first, on 2 Apr., was in respect of the recent burning of the Oxfordshire town of Banbury, allegedly by soldiers billeted on the local population. Fauconberg praised one of the local magistrates, William Knight, who alleged that the soldiers, far from starting the fire, had tried to put it out. He preferred to draw a veil over the incident, and advised that the soldiers involved be dismissed. Fauconberg’s remaining speech, on 21 Apr., was made during a debate on the crown’s right to imprison without showing cause. This issue formed a central part of the ensuing Petition of Right, but unfortunately the sense of Fauconberg’s contribution is now unclear.20 Ibid. 314, 359-51, 358, 361.

Following the June prorogation, Fauconberg fell out with Christopher Wandesford, whom he had helped to a parliamentary seat at Thirsk. Fauconberg wanted one of his daughters to marry Wandesford’s young ward, Thomas Danby, and persuaded the young man to ride over to his seat at Newburgh Priory to discuss the matter. However, Wandesford eventually had Danby marry one of his own daughters instead. Fauconberg was furious, and not only with Wandesford, as Wentworth (Danby’s cousin) also became involved.21 J.T. Cliffe, Yorks. Gentry, 29; Wentworth Pprs. 307. In January 1629 he was also angered to learn that one of Wentworth’s allies, his neighbour Sir Thomas Fairfax^‡ of Gilling Castle, had purchased an Irish viscountcy, enabling him to claim precedence on local commissions over Fauconberg himself.

When Parliament reassembled later that same month, Fauconberg was once again late in taking his seat. He was therefore appointed to the committees for privileges and petitions in absentia.22 LJ, iv. 6a, 6b. However, after resuming his place on the 24th, he was absent only once (on 27 Jan.), so allowing him to be appointed to three further committees. Almost his only other recorded contribution to proceedings was to denounce, on 9 Feb., the precedence accorded to Irish viscounts over English barons. This speech, described as ‘temperate and discreet’ by the 1st Lord Montagu (Edward Montagu^*), provoked furious condemnation from many peers, who feared royal disapproval. However, Montagu and an unnamed earl came to Fauconberg’s aid, whereupon the House sent for a copy of the patent recently issued to Viscount Fairfax. On viewing this document the House quickly changed its mind, and decided that a committee, to which Fauconberg was named, should draft a petition to the king, Charles I. The ensuing appeal, which was reported on the 12th, subsequently passed the House with only one dissenting voice.23 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 334-5, 339; LJ, iv. 25b, 27b. Fauconberg was doubtless delighted at this result but, anxious to avoid any suspicion that he was engaged in a personal vendetta, he publicly praised both Viscount Fairfax and his family. Not surprisingly, this transparent piece of hypocrisy led Sir Ferdinando Fairfax^‡, sitting for Boroughbridge, to remark that Fauconberg had thereby ‘done himself small honour’.24 Fairfax Corresp. ed. G.W. Johnson, i. 158.

It seems likely that Fauconberg’s attack on the precedence granted to ‘foreign’ viscounts over English barons was in part motivated by his growing enmity towards his former ally Sir Thomas Wentworth, now Viscount Wentworth and lord president of the council in the North. The hostility between the two men doubtless increased early in 1630, after Fauconberg’s brother-in-law, Sir Conyers Darcy, was reprimanded and fined by the council in the North for abusing his authority as a magistrate.25 Cliffe, 297. A further bone of contention may have been the fact that in June 1630 Wentworth became bailiff of Richmond, chief forester, and keeper of the castles of Richmond and Middleham. These offices had been held by members of the Scrope family for nearly a century, most recently by the newly deceased former lord president, Sunderland, but as Fauconberg was loosely related to Sunderland, who died without producing a legitimate heir, he may have hoped to obtain these places for his son Henry.26 R.R. Reid, King’s Council in the North, 414. For the relationship, see G. Young, A Hist. of Whitby, 830. Perhaps the main reason Fauconberg hated Wentworth was that the lord president sought to increase the income from recusants’ estates. Although Fauconberg himself conformed to the Anglican Church, he headed a faction in the north which included many Catholic gentry.27 Aveling, 228.

Sometime before 26 Nov. 1630, Fauconberg petitioned the king, accusing Wentworth of acting unjustly in a cause before the council in the North.28 HMC Cowper, i. 417-18, 420. However, at a hearing before the Privy Council in February 1631, it was discovered that there was not a grain of truth in this complaint. According to one report, the Council treated Fauconberg with courtesy, and failed to admonish him on discovering that his claims were false.29 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP12/198. In point of fact, Fauconberg was committed to the Fleet prison, where he remained until mid June.30 PC2/41, ff. 2v-3. Incarceration was the punishment also imposed upon Fauconberg’s son Henry, who was arraigned before the Council two months later for publicly snubbing Wentworth by failing to remove his hat in his presence.31 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP21, f. 67. Father and son were only freed after signing a written submission.32 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, ii. 124-5.

Complaining that his troubles ‘have gathered, like a snowball, from nothing’, Fauconberg remained in bad odour with Wentworth following his release.33 Fairfax Corresp. i. 164. Over the summer of 1632, the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, Thomas Morton^*, attempted, without success, to reconcile him to the lord president. Fauconberg subsequently promised to answer fresh charges against him which, according to Wentworth, were ‘most foul’. Instead of doing so, however, he travelled to Holborn, in London, perhaps hoping that, in his absence, Wentworth, who had recently been appointed lord deputy of Ireland, would sail for Dublin. In the event, Wentworth did not depart for Ireland until May 1633. In February, after protesting at Fauconberg’s outrageous behaviour, he was granted permission to fetch back the malcontented peer in the custody of a serjeant-at-arms.34 Bodl., Bankes ms 62, f. 55; Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 76. Unable to face being thus humiliated, Fauconberg promptly submitted, promising to return to York under his own steam without delay.35 PC2/42, ff. 223, 240v-1. As nothing more was heard of this matter, it seems likely that his wish was granted. However, Fauconberg could not avoid public humiliation entirely, for in March he was removed from the North Riding commission of the peace.

In the aftermath of this sorry affair, Fauconberg wisely maintained a low profile, and did not re-emerge until the First Bishops’ War, when he promised to attend the king in person at York with 30 armed men.36 CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 461. On the outbreak of civil war, he sided with the king, demonstrating such loyalty that in 1643 Charles elevated him to the rank of viscount. However, following the defeat of the royalist northern armies at Marston Moor in 1644, he fled to France, and did not return until after the king’s execution, when he compounded for his estate. He died in April 1653, when he was succeeded in his titles by his grandson Thomas^†.37 CCC, 966-8.