COMPTON, Spencer (1601-43)

Compton was named after his maternal grandfather, the London alderman Sir John Spencer, whose vast fortune passed to Compton’s parents on his death in 1610. At the alderman’s funeral, Compton served as chief mourner, although he was aged only eight, due to his father’s temporary mental incapacity.24 LMA, Acc/1876/F/03/05/2/27. His uncle, Sir Thomas Compton, was stepfather to the young George Villiers^* (subsequently 1st duke of Buckingham), whose meteoric rise in royal favour assisted the elevation of Compton’s father to the presidency of the council in the marches of Wales in 1617, and the earldom of Northampton in 1618. Compton cemented the family’s relationship with the favourite in October 1621 by marrying one of Buckingham’s kin, Mary Beaumont. He was subsequently appointed master of the robes to Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales) followed his master to Madrid on his fruitless quest for a Spanish bride in 1623, and joined Buckingham in Paris to fetch Charles’s French consort, Henrietta Maria, in May 1625.25 HP Commons 1604-29, iii. 625; R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 10-13; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 485-6, 619; CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 30, 37.

On 1 Apr. 1626, Compton was summoned to the Lords by a writ in acceleration. His elevation reinforced the ranks of Buckingham’s supporters at a time when the duke seemed vulnerable to impeachment charges then being formulated in the Commons. Compton attended regularly, and was named to three bill committees, concerning maintenance of clerical stipends, a pair of estate bills and the manufacture of saltpetre.26 Procs. 1626, i. 239-40, 292-3, 303, 319; C. Russell, PEP, 285-6. On 1 May John Digby^*, 1st earl of Bristol, filed separate impeachment charges against the duke after being accused by the king of mishandling negotiations for the Spanish Match in 1623. Three days later, Buckingham urged the Lords to investigate the king’s charges against Bristol before hearing the earl’s counter-charges; if Bristol were found guilty, the charges against Buckingham would be dropped. At the end of a long debate, Compton moved to put the question, which served the duke’s cause, as the Lords thereupon resolved to defer hearing the charges against Bristol for another two days. However, the significance of this vote was undermined when it was subsequently resolved that the charges against Bristol and Buckingham would be heard in tandem. On 22 May Compton was included on the committee to examine witnesses in Bristol’s case, although this met only once before the dissolution three weeks later.27 Procs. 1626, i. 354-5, 540, 595-7; Russell, 303-4, 310-11, 316-21.

During the 1628 session of the 1628-9 Parliament, with no cabal plotting against Buckingham in the Lords, Compton attended more than half the sittings but was largely inactive in the House. At the start of the session, he was ordered to confer with the Commons about petitioning the king for a national fast day. Three days later, he helped introduce to the Lords Basil Feilding^* (later 2nd earl of Denbigh), another of the favourite’s kindred summoned by writ of acceleration. He was named to the committee for the bill to enfranchise the copyholders of the crown lordships of Bromfield and Yale, Denbighshire, which lay within his father’s jurisdiction as president of the council in the marches, and to another for the bill settling the estates of Richard Sackville^*, late 3rd earl of Dorset, his grandmother’s erstwhile stepson. At the end of the session he was nominated to confer with the Commons about the legal status of the Petition of Right.28 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 78, 98-9, 120, 554, 679. Unlike his father, he attended much of the 1629 session, during which he was named to a single bill committee, for the maintenance of hospitals.29 LJ, iv. 10b.

Compton succeeded his father as 2nd earl of Northampton on 24 June 1630, inheriting estates worth around £6,000 p.a. and his father’s offices as lord lieutenant of Warwickshire and Gloucestershire; he does not appear to have had any designs on the presidency of the council in the marches, which passed to John Egerton^*, 1st earl of Bridgwater.30 C142/476/144; A. Hughes, Pols., Soc. and Civil War in Warws. 1620-60, pp. 22, 59-60. The new earl’s first task was to assist in the collection of compositions for knighthood fines in Warwickshire, where receipts ultimately exceeded four subsidies, significantly more than the national average yield of three subsidies.31 E198/4/32, f. 4; Hughes, 101-2. When enclosure riots broke out in the forest of Dean in 1631, the Privy Council sent Northampton to muster the Gloucestershire militia, to overawe the troublemakers.32 APC, 1630-1, pp. 284, 294, 390-1; PC2/41, f. 75; B. Sharp, In Contempt of All Authority, 205-9. The few surviving records suggest that Northampton discharged his duties as lord lieutenant diligently, but was prepared to intercede with the sheriff of Northamptonshire on behalf of his tenants at Castle Ashby when he felt they were being overcharged for Ship Money, appearing before the Council Board in their defence in April 1637.33 PC2/47, ff. 145, 168v-9; CSP Dom. 1637, p. 21.

At Michaelmas 1630 Northampton surrendered his main court office as master of the robes, worth £500 a year plus perquisites. Having consistently overspent his budget, he had offered to relinquish the post in 1628, and his final account recorded almost £8,500 owed to suppliers: it was not until December 1634 – shortly after a royal visit to Castle Ashby – that he secured an Exchequer warrant to pay these debts.34 E351/2809-10; CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 185; 1634-5, p. 337; 1635, p. 562. He retained his position as master of the leash, which his father had surrendered to him in 1628, and spent a significant amount of time at court, where he occasionally served in a diplomatic role: he entertained the king, the queen and the Tuscan ambassador at Castle Ashby in 1634, accompanied the French ambassador at his ceremonial entry into London in 1637 and escorted the young Elector Palatine to The Hague the same year.35 CSP Dom, 1628-9, p. 142; Ceremonies of Chas. I ed. A.J. Loomie, 166, 219, 235-6; C115/109/8806. It was doubtless at court that he met the gambler and poet Sir John Suckling^‡, whose suit for the daughter of Sir Henry Willoughby he supported; this led Willoughby to pen an angry tirade against Northampton and other courtiers.36 C115/106/8439; HMC Var. vii. 407. In 1639 Northampton, presumably at the instigation of his wife’s Catholic relations, contracted to pay £10,000 for the wardship of the Catholic William Petre^†, 4th Lord Petre; the money was almost certainly raised by Petre’s family, two of whom, William Petre and Edward Somerset^*, Lord Herbert of Raglan (later 1st earl of Glamorgan), stood surety for the purchase price.37 WARD 9/163, f. 93v.

The outbreak of war with Scotland saw a major effort to mobilize the militia for service on the northern borders: Gloucestershire raised 1,000 foot in 1639, and Warwickshire 300, while in the following year, the numbers rose to 1,500 and 500. As Northampton of necessity supervised these efforts from London, Northamptonshire or York, much of the credit should probably go to his deputies.38 HMC 12th Rep. ix. 490-1, 495; Add. 28082, ff. 9-10; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 553; 1639, pp. 19, 28; 1640, p. 473; PC2/52, ff. 310v, 324v; Hughes, 60, 114-15. The earl strongly supported the king against his critics throughout 1640, which probably gave rise to an unsubstantiated rumour at the end of the year that he was to replace Bridgwater as president of the marches.39 Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley ed. T.T. Lewis (Cam. Soc. lviii), 102. In the following year he offered no assistance to the radical parliamentarian Junto as they dismantled Caroline absolutism, and after Charles’s departure from Westminster in January 1642, he emerged as a prominent member of the royalist faction in the Lords. He left Westminster at the end of March, shortly after the militia ordinance allowed his enemies to remove him from his lieutenancies.40 LJ, iv. 622b, 625b, 631b, 637a, 693b; Russell, Fall, 441-2, 470-1. He was impeached and expelled from the House over the summer.41 LJ, v. 92b, 115a, 219b, 222b-3b; CJ, ii. 619b-20a; Pvte. Jnls. June-Sept. 1642, pp. 64, 491; Clarendon, ii. 185-6.

In June 1642, Northampton botched an early attempt to raise the Warwickshire militia for the king, but he later recruited a regiment from his own tenants and neighbours; armed clashes in the area began in early August.42 LJ, v. 163b-6a, 194a; Pvte. Jnls. June-Sept. 1642, pp. 137, 141, 179, 324; CJ, ii. 641a; Castle Ashby 1083/3-4; 1087; HMC Hastings, ii. 86; Clarendon, ii. 274n; HMC Cowper, ii. 320; Hughes, 139-40, 144-6. At the earl’s behest, the king appeared before the garrison at Coventry on 20 Aug., but with the main Parliamentarian field army, commanded by Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, fast approaching, the city declared for Parliament. He retired to his Northamptonshire estates, but Essex ultimately forced him to retreat as far as Worcestershire.43 Castle Ashby 1083/1; Clarendon, ii. 288-9; True Relation of the Manner of Taking of the Earl of Northampton (1642), pp. 2-3; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 384; LR9/131, letter of 5 Sept. 1642; CJ, ii. 789a; Hughes, 141-8; P. Young, Edgehill 1642, pp. 222-3, 254. Returning to his patrimony in the aftermath of Edgehill (23 Oct. 1642), Northampton was appointed governor of Banbury Castle in northern Oxfordshire,44 Young, 222; Clarendon, ii. 374-5; Royalist Ordnance Pprs. 160, 165, 172, 179-80, 184-5; Add. 18980, f. 20; Castle Ashby 1083/8-14. but in the following spring he followed his local rival, Robert Greville^*, 2nd Lord Brooke, into Staffordshire, where he had his horse shot from under him at the battle of Hopton Heath on 19 March; surrounded by his enemies, he was offered quarter, but chose to fight to the death. Although the battle ended in a stalemate, the parliamentarians retreated overnight, taking the earl’s body with them; his remains were eventually buried in the countess of Shrewsbury’s tomb at Derby.45 Add. 18980, ff. 23, 28; HMC Ormonde, ii. 17; Clarendon, ii. 475-6; The Battaile of Hopton Heath, 2-7; Bridges, i. 344.

Northampton does not appear to have made a will, but his widow and son subsequently made arrangements for the settlement of his debts of £30,000. However, Parliament’s sequestration of his lands meant that his creditors had little chance of securing repayment. In recognition of his service, the king ruled that his heir, still several months underage, would be exempt from wardship.46 Castle Ashby 941; CCC, 1246-51; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 455; LJ, v. 583b; HMC Hastings, ii. 96.