BULSTRODE, Sir William (c.1560/3-1645/6), of Ridlington Park Lodge and Uppingham, Rutland and Blackfriars, London; later of Coventry, Warws.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010
Available from Cambridge University Press

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1560/3,1 o.s. of Richard Bulstrode of Hedgeley Bulstrode, Bucks.2 m. (1) 8 Apr. 1602, Alice (bur. 23 July 1605), ?da. of Richard Temple of Temple Hall, Sibsden, Leics., wid. of John Dive, verderer of Ridlington Park, Rutland, s.p.;3 (2) lic. 30 Jan. 1611, Mary, da. of Henry Baskerville, alderman of London, wid. of Benjamin Gonson of Much Baddow, Essex and Charles Brooke of Templecombe, Som. s.p.;4 (3) 29 June 1629, Anne (d. 4 Jan. 1634), wid. of Henry Banister* (d.1628), Goldsmith of London and Hackney, Mdx., s.p.5 kntd. 6 Aug. 1599.6 d. bet. 26 Nov. 1645 and 11 Feb. 1646.7 sig. Will[ia]m Bulstrode.

Offices Held

Capt. of ft. 1589, 1596, 1599 [I].8

Capt. militia ft. Warws. 1597, muster-master, Leics. 1598;9 j.p. Rutland by 1604-at least 1636, Mdx. 1629-at least 1636;10 sheriff, Rutland Nov. 1604-Feb. 1606;11 dep. lt.?1607-at least 1626;12 collector (jt.) tenths, 1607, aid 1609, 1613, Privy Seal loans 1625-6;13 commr. subsidy 1608, 1621-2, 1624, 1628,14 oyer and terminer, Midland circ. 1610-d., enclosures, Oxon. Northants. and Rutland 1611, swans, E. Midlands 1619,15 Forced Loan 1626-7,16 Midland Assoc. 1643, assessment, Warws. and Coventry 1645.17

Biography

Like his great-nephew Henry Bulstrode*, Sir William was descended from the Edward Bulstrode, who held lands in Buckinghamshire and Middlesex under Henry VII. Bulstrode’s father, one of Edward’s younger sons, probably received no more than a life annuity, and although he was one of the main beneficiaries of his mother’s will, his inheritance cannot have been large.18 Bulstrode’s ancestry was so obscure that one family pedigree misplaced him among his cousins of Bradborough Park, Bedfordshire; his true descent was recorded by his friend Sir James Whitelocke*, Henry Bulstrode’s brother-in-law.19

Nothing is known about the first 30 years of Bulstrode’s life. He may have spent some time in Spain, as an inventory of his goods in 1599 listed two books in Spanish and one in Portuguese, but on the other hand these volumes could have been plunder acquired on campaign in 1589 and 1596.20 He played no recorded part in the earl of Leicester’s expedition to the Low Countries in 1585-6,21 but probably acquired a military grounding as a volunteer during the Armada campaign. He certainly commanded a company of Warwickshire militia pressed to meet the expected Spanish invasion of 1597, and in the following year he served as muster-master of the Leicestershire trained bands.22 He probably secured both of these appointments with the help of his cousin Anne Keilway, heiress to a substantial Warwickshire estate, and her husband, Sir John Harington†, whose brother-in-law Lord Francis Hastings† was the eldest son of the 4th earl of Huntingdon, lord lieutenant of Leicestershire and Rutland.23 In 1599 Bulstrode joined the 2nd earl of Essex in Ireland as captain of a company of Rutland levies. He passed the year uneventfully as part of the garrison of the Pale, and was one of the many officers knighted by the earl.24

Bulstrode presumably returned to Rutland at the end of the campaign, as he played no part in Essex’s abortive rebellion in February 1601. He was probably present at the Rutland election of October 1601, when sheriff Sir Andrew Noell†, unable to secure the election of his 19-year-old son Edward Noell† owing to the objections of the Haringtons, returned himself as one of the knights of the shire.25 Noell’s election was declared void, but as his term as sheriff had not yet expired, he put his son forward once again for the fresh election held four weeks later. Bulstrode organized Sir John Harington’s response, promoting both the latter’s brother James* and of William Bodenden of Ryhall, whose wife was a second cousin of the Haringtons, as alternatives.26 He rejected overtures for a compromise from Noell’s supporters, and may have bolstered James Harington’s flagging resolve when the latter arrived in the county on the eve of the election.27

On the morning of the election Bulstrode, although not a magistrate, was permitted to sit among the county justices. Having read the writ, Noell ‘inveighed much against some of the servants of the said Sir John Harington, who (as he thought) had much laboured and practised against his said son’. James Harington then rose to defend his brother, and was followed by Bulstrode who, with Noell’s permission, produced a letter he had received from Sir John Harington earlier that morning. This exhorted the freeholders ‘to have a care in their election of the knight of the Parliament to equal and consort the said Sir John Harington with a man like unto him in years, gravity and experience’, which was generally perceived as a call for opposition to Edward Noell.28 Bulstrode, while no freeholder, was present at the resulting poll and, according to Noell, helped Harington to explain the meaning of the freeholders’ oath to those who doubted they were worth 40s. ‘above all charges’.29

Although Bulstrode urged Noell to ‘let there be no offence taken of either party, nor no revenge’, both sides quickly brought prosecutions in Star Chamber. The cases petered out after a year, but the sudden revival of Noell’s lawsuit in January 1604, when depositions were taken from three dozen local witnesses, suggests that the rivals were jockeying for position in the forthcoming election to the first Stuart Parliament.30 Sir John Harington, a distant relative of King James, had by then been elevated to the Lords and appointed governor to Princess Elizabeth, and the knighthoods of the shire went to his brother and Bulstrode, who had acquired a freehold interest in the county by marrying the widow of one of the verderers of Leighfield Forest, in the south-west of the county.31 It is not known whether Noell and his son stood against them, but they can scarcely have been pleased at the extinction of their electoral influence.

Despite his inexperience, Bulstrode played a significant part in his first Parliament. He was involved in few major political issues: he was included on the delegations sent to two of the conferences with the Lords on the Union with Scotland (14 Apr. 1604, 29 Nov. 1606) and was named to the committee which provided the Lords with evidence in support of the Commons’ bill of attainder against Sir Stephen Procter (19 July 1610).32 His main interest was in ecclesiastical reform, a grievance raised at the start of the 1604 session by Sir Edward Montagu, whose wife was a Harington. Montagu’s proposals were referred to a committee of both Houses, which was wrecked by a petition from Convocation questioning the Commons’ right to interfere in ecclesiastical matters. Several Members called to petition the king to uphold their rights over this issue, but Bulstrode, probably hoping to allow time for tempers to cool, moved ‘not to send for the Instrument [petition] till we know whether it be the fault of the Convocation House’.33 He was later named to the committee appointed to investigate a quarrel over an offensive sermon by a canon of Lincoln Cathedral (26 May 1606).34 However, he is unlikely to have supported Convocation’s claims to exclusive jurisdiction over the church, as he was regularly named to committees for bills which intruded on church affairs: restriction of the powers of ecclesiastical courts (16 June 1604, 16 May 1607), augmentation of poor livings (15 May 1607) and relaxation of the rules covering clerical subscription to the Canons of 1604 (14 Mar. 1610).35

Bulstrode missed the start of the second session in November 1605, as he was then serving out his term as sheriff of Rutland. His replacement, Basil Feilding*, was appointed on 2 Feb. 1606, whereupon Bulstrode quickly resumed his place at Westminster, as he later recalled the debate of 26 Feb. over the precedence of Oxford and Cambridge in the subsidy bill.36 He missed the flurry of recusancy legislation which followed the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, but made his concerns over this issue abundantly clear in the following session, when he was appointed to the committee to draft a petition to the king asking for better execution of laws against recusants and non-resident ministers, and for the removal of restrictions on (puritan) preachers (18 May 1607). He moved for this petition to be read in the House a month later, when Speaker Phelips quashed the proposal with a royal prohibition which offered to meet the Commons’ demands informally. Bulstrode was subsequently named to two committees investigating the precedents for such a royal prohibition (16, 19 June 1607).37

Bulstrode was only named to one committee for religious legislation in the spring session of 1610, concerning the tightening of the 1606 Recusancy Act (23 July),38 but he highlighted the activities of recusant priests in London gaols. In conjunction with Sir Francis Hastings* (another Harington relative), he raised the issue four times in May and June, and eventually produced evidence from William Uvedale, a professional informer, that pursuivants had been running an extortion racket, arresting priests and then allowing them to bribe their way out of gaol.39 This obliged the House to begin an investigation, and on 21 July Nicholas Fuller* and Anthony Dyott* were delegated to help Bulstrode draft a Star Chamber prosecution against the keeper of Newgate prison.40 There is no evidence that he took part in the sparsely recorded fifth session, which sat in the autumn of 1610. At that time he promised to invest £25 in the Virginia Company, but like many other subscribers he failed to pay.41

While Bulstrode clearly gave first priority to religious issues, he was involved with a variety of legislation concerning local affairs throughout his time in Parliament. He lived sufficiently close to the East Anglian fens to be named to committees for two drainage bills (12 May 1604, 9 May 1607), a private bill resolving a dispute over the drainage of Deeping Fen in Lincolnshire (2 July 1604), and another for reform of sewer commissions (12 June 1607).42 As a former sheriff he had an interest in the bill concerning fees charged by the Exchequer for the passing of shrieval accounts (15 Mar. 1621).43 During the 1624 session he questioned the punitive sureties ordered to be taken from butchers and innkeepers by Proclamation in 1624, although he implemented this order in Rutland two years later.44 During the 1626 supply debates he moved that the final subsidy should fall due in September 1627, as ‘the husbandman then has his corn and wool come in’.45 Local connections explain his attempt to intervene in the dispute between Clement Coke* and the Leicester MP Sir Charles Morrison* (8 May 1621), and his inclusion on the committee investigating the arrest of Sir Henry Hastings* at the Leicestershire election (26 Apr. 1626).46

Bulstrode’s interest in other legislation is more difficult to reconstruct. Only a handful of the committees to which he was named concerned legislation for the ‘reformation of manners’: suppression of idleness (19 Apr. 1610), vagrancy (22 Nov. 1621) and the murdering of bastard children (29 Apr. 1624).47 His inclusion on committees for bills to restrict the manufacture of starch (26 Feb. 1607), ban the importation of logwood (29 Mar. 1610), revive a defunct duty on Newcastle coal (29 Apr. 1624) and confirm the incorporation of the Apothecaries’ Company (4 Mar. 1626) point to a connection with London interests.48 On 11 Aug. 1625 he and his Rutland partner, Sir Guy Palmes* headed the committee list for the naturalization bill for a local man, Sir Daniel Deligne of Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, but it reached the statute book in 1628 without any assistance from them.49 His Buckinghamshire connections may explain his involvement with bills for the naturalization of Sir David Foulis (18 Apr. 1606) and the debts of Sir Edward Fisher (27 Apr. 1624).50

Bulstrode’s identification with the interests of his Harington relatives within the Commons is reinforced by what little is known of his activities elsewhere. His first wife may have been the ‘Mrs. Bulstrode’ who was serving in the household of Lord Harington’s daughter Lucy, Countess of Bedford, in 1605. Bulstrode himself acted as an intermediary between Harington and the 1st earl of Salisbury (Robert Cecil†), both for the payment of Princess Elizabeth’s allowance, and over the question of a match between Harington’s son Sir John* and Salisbury’s only daughter in 1606-7. In return, when Harington became lord lieutenant of Rutland in the spring of 1607, he recommended Bulstrode to Salisbury as one of his deputies.51 It was possibly through Salisbury that Bulstrode was introduced to his second wife, as her late husband, Charles Brooke, offered to pass the bulk of his estate to the earl on his death in 1610, on condition that the latter also paid off £14,000 of his debts. His widow was thus freed of the burden, and one of her chief attractions for Bulstrode must have been the extensive estates near Maldon in Essex in which her first husband had left her a life interest.52

The sudden demise of both Lord Harington and his two younger brothers in the 18 months before the general election of 1614 left the family interest in the hands of Sir John Harington*, who succumbed to smallpox himself only weeks before the election.53 The county seats instead went to two newcomers, Sir Guy Palmes and Basil Feilding. The former was probably a Harington nominee, but Feilding, one of the executors of Sir Andrew Noell’s will, is likely to have been backed by the latter’s son (Sir) Edward Noell.54 Neither Bulstrode nor Sir Edward Noell, the only survivors from the 1601 contest, seem to have opposed Palmes and Feilding, and it seems likely that they decided to lay their electoral feud to rest by giving way to fresh candidates. Noell’s acquisition of a peerage in 1617 ruled him out of contention in subsequent elections, and Feilding may have felt himself disqualified for similar reasons when his eldest son was elevated to a viscountcy shortly before the 1621 Parliament.55 Bulstrode and Palmes were thus almost certainly returned unopposed during the 1620s, a process assisted by the 5th earl of Huntingdon, the new lord lieutenant of Rutland and a cousin of the deceased 2nd Baron Harington, who is known to have written to the freeholders in their favour in 1624.56

The pattern of Bulstrode’s parliamentary activity during the 1620s followed that established a decade earlier: an occasional involvement in secular issues combined with a regular interest in religious affairs. He played no part in the prosecution of monopolists which dominated the spring sitting of 1621, but he offered the practical suggestion that four Members who were Westminster justices should be sent to arrest the alehouse patentees after the inns patentee, (Sir) Giles Mompesson*, escaped from custody.57 Later, when the House voted to confirm its decision to punish the Catholic barrister Edward Floyd on its own authority, which had been questioned by the king, it was Bulstrode who called to have the judgment entered in the clerk’s Journal as a formal precedent.58

Bulstrode was not specifically named to the committee appointed on 17 Feb. 1621 to investigate the decline in revenues from recusancy fines, but he was clearly involved in its work, as he was one of those empowered to send for any judicial records deemed necessary. Its chief target was Sir Henry Spiller*, the receiver of recusant revenues, and Bulstrode was a member of the committee belatedly appointed to investigate his activities on 29 Nov. 1621.59 One of the consequences of the policy of unofficial toleration was illustrated by a petition which Bulstrode presented in the final hours of the session on behalf of a Monmouthshire minister, who had been assaulted by two recusants ‘for preaching against the Catholic truth’.60 He was equally critical of his local diocesan administration, delivering a Northamptonshire petition against the chancellor of Peterborough, and warning that ‘the people have been ready to rise against the abuse in the ecclesiastical courts’. Popular unrest over this issue was not inconceivable in a county which had been involved in the enclosure riots of 1607.61

Bulstrode’s fears of recusants must have been heightened by the relaxation of the penal laws during negotiations for the Spanish Match in 1623, and when the Commons reassembled in 1624 he took up Sir Edward Cecil’s* proposal for a general fast on behalf of the Protestant cause. He moved that the Commons should observe the day at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, and nominated the incumbent, Dr. Bargrave, to preach. He was one of five MPs appointed to ensure that all Members took communion at this fast (23 February).62 The proposal appears to have caught his imagination, as he played a prominent part in the organization of similar events in 1626, 1628 and 1629.63 Bulstrode returned to the harrying of recusants, one of his favourite themes, on 25 Feb. 1624. The similarity of the speakers’ names in this debate caused the diarists some confusion, but it appears that Bulstrode supported Sir William Strode’s motions for a petition to the king to expel all Catholics from London during the session, and an order that Members should dismiss any Catholics in their own service. The motions were carried, though Bulstrode’s own proviso that any MP refusing to dismiss a recusant servant should himself be expelled from the House was not approved.64 Two weeks later he moved that a list of recusants in the City should be drawn up for presentation to the king; the issue was never discussed, as it was interrupted by a message from the serjeant-at-arms, who reported his inability to find the Liverpool MP Sir Thomas Gerard, a Catholic who had avoided taking the oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance.65 When the question of the latter’s punishment was discussed on 3 Apr., there were calls for a bill of praemunire against him, but these were dashed by Sir Edward Coke*, who observed that refusal of the oaths was only a contempt. He was followed by Bulstrode, who attempted to renew the attack by moving to petition the king for a Proclamation against Gerard for his failure to attend the House.66 Later the same day he produced a petition from an informer who offered ‘to discover great matters concerning the practices of recusants’.67 He moved to include the Rutland j.p. Sir Henry Mynne in the list of recusant officeholders compiled by the House on 27 Apr., and was appointed to the committee to review the case of any who protested their innocence (27 April). He quickly suggested that the list should be widened to include ‘recusants that dwell upon the sea-coasts, in dangerous places to let in the enemy’.68 Finally, on 5 May, he tabled a lengthy bill which stipulated that the children of recusants should be educated by Protestants, and sought to further conversions by requiring recusants to leave at least half their estate to Protestant heirs. The measure only received a single reading before the end of the session.69

The government of the established church occupied relatively little of Bulstrode’s time in 1624. He was named to committees for the simony bill (12 Apr.), to investigate the misdemeanours of Dr. Anyan, President of Corpus Christi, Oxford (1 May) and the bill granting magistrates the right to remove ministers from their livings for scandalous offences (1 May).70 He apparently supported calls for an investigation of the bishop of Norwich when the latter was accused of suppressing the city’s lecturer and erecting images in one of its largest churches, and was later appointed to the committee considering specific charges against the bishop (15 May).71

Bulstrode played little recorded part in the great political events of the 1624 session, but two incidents in which he was involved had far-reaching implications. After the committee for grievances had been established on 23 Feb., he made what may have been a purely practical suggestion to set up a sub-committee to receive petitions. The motion was quashed by Sir Robert Phelips, who perhaps had an ulterior motive, as he later pressed for the task to be consigned to the committee for courts of justice, as part of the attack he planned to develop against lord keeper Williams.72 As Coke observed in opposing Phelips’s motion, this procedure was liable to abuse, as such a committee, if packed by one faction, could be used to single out individuals for attack. It is therefore interesting that Bulstrode moved for a similar investigative committee when Sir Miles Fleetwood tendered a petition against Williams’ ally lord treasurer Middlesex (Sir Lionel Cranfield*) on 5 April.73 When Middlesex failed to appear before the House to answer the charges against him on 10 Apr., Bulstrode made his hostility to the earl clear by moving ‘that the contempt might be added to his other faults’, and supported calls to refer the case to the Lords by way of impeachment.74

Bulstrode apparently missed the Westminster sitting of 1625, possibly because he was involved with the mustering of recruits for the Cadiz expedition.75 He was not involved in the preparation of the House’s shared communion in that year, and was ordered to receive it ‘with all speed’ when he arrived at Oxford on 1 August. He is only recorded to have spoken once, on 2 Aug., when he supported Sir Nathaniel Rich’s claims that the general fasts ordered by the Commons were not being observed throughout the country by reference to his own experience in Peterborough diocese.76

Although apparently present in the Commons throughout the 1626 session, Bulstrode was much less active than on previous occasions. He was named to the select committee for religion (10 Feb.), and three days later, he moved for it to have power to subpoena witnesses and evidence, and called for the compilation of a list of ‘the scandalous lives of ministers’, which was probably intended to open the way for attacks on Arminian clergy.77 He was quickly named to committees for bills against simony (14 Feb.) and scandalous ministers (15 Feb.), and on 17 Feb. he condemned what he took to be a proposal to transact business on a Sunday,78 but after this his involvement in religious affairs apparently ended, unless, as seems likely, he was once again responsible for Sir Henry Mynne’s inclusion on the list of recusant officials.79

Bulstrode made his only major speech during the supply debate of 26 Apr. 1626, which centred around the question of whether to increase the earlier grant of three subsidies and three fifteenths. He rejected a motion to raise the subsidy rate above 4s. in the pound, urging that local commissioners should be left to increase the ratings upon individuals, but softened the blow by offering an extra subsidy. He also reminded the House that there were ‘many [Catholics] that have money enough to support seminaries abroad’, and called for the collection of arrears of recusancy revenues.80 This oblique remark was the nearest he came to criticism of the government for its relaxation of the recusancy laws, a development which must have deeply troubled him. Even more remarkably, he kept completely silent on the impeachment of the duke of Buckingham, the issue which dominated the session. The abrupt suppression of his natural volubility at the end of the first week of the session, even over religious matters, suggests that he had either been bribed into silence, or had realized that the stakes were too high for him to be able to voice his opinions openly.

Unlike Palmes, Bulstrode retained his place in local government in the next two years. He acted as collector of the Privy Seal loans levied during the 1626 session, and served as a commissioner for the Forced Loan which superseded it.81 In 1628, he once again restricted himself to uncontroversial matters in Parliament, avoiding the debates on Arminianism, billeting and the Petition of Right. His interest in religious affairs was restricted to two bill committees concerning preaching (17 Apr., 12 May) and the committee compiling the list of recusant officials (24 Apr.); Mynne was not included on this list, and Bulstrode does not appear to have made any other nominations.82 His patience, like that of many Members, snapped in the days following the king’s first, unsatisfactory reply to the Petition of Right, and on 6 June, when wild fears of an impending coup gripped the House, he observed that the Irish regiments billeted in Kent were ideally placed to open the way for a landing by the Irish tercios stationed in the Spanish Netherlands.83 When the Remonstrance which summarized all these fears was reported to the House on 14 June, he volunteered evidence to support the contention that the queen’s chapel in Denmark House was a focal point for London recusants.84

Having found his voice again in June 1628, Bulstrode joined in the attack on the recusant threat during the 1629 session. He prefaced his speech to the committee of religion on 13 Feb. with the defiant assertion that ‘if we now speak not we may forever hold our peace’, and launched into a tirade against Catholic influence at Court. This secured the attention of the House, whereupon he moved to know ‘by what authority the Jesuits that were lately in Newgate were released’; it is likely that the motion was pre-arranged with the committee chairman, John Pym.85 On the following day, when Secretary Coke presented copies of the Jesuits’ papers to the House, Bulstrode pointedly asked whether the bearer of the release warrant, the 4th earl of Dorset (Sir Edward Sackville*), ‘who was so forward to release these priests, was acquainted with these papers’, which provided abundant evidence of their activities.86 The issue became bogged down when the assize judges who had granted the Jesuits bail refuted the allegations made against them, and Bulstrode began another line of attack three days later by calling for the drafting of a list of all London recusants.87 On 21 Feb. he complained about a cleric who had referred slightingly to ‘Parliament hell-hounds and puritans’,88 and his final mention in the Journal was as one of a delegation to cross-reference King’s Bench records with those of the Exchequer, to ascertain whether convicted recusants were paying the double rate of subsidy imposed on them since 1624.89

Shortly after the dissolution of 1629, Bulstrode married his third wife, the widow of a London Goldsmith, who brought him a life interest in lands in Hackney allegedly worth £400 a year, and £6,000 in goods.90 He moved to Coventry after her death, where his opinion was sought over a Ship Money rating dispute in 1635, and he appears to have disposed of his Rutland property by 1641, when he was no longer registered in the subsidy rolls.91 He played little active part in the Civil War, but remained in the parliamentarian stronghold of Coventry, and was included on the commission for the Midland Association in February 1643 and the assessment commission for Warwickshire in 1645.92 He mentioned no lands in the brief will he drew up in November 1645, bequeathing ‘my book of Gerard’s Herbal’ to a relative, a suit of clothes to his manservant, and the remainder of his goods to his kinsman Edward son of Edward Bulstrode, presumably the younger brother of the Buckinghamshire MP, who secured administration of his estate on 11 Feb. 1646.93

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629

Author: Simon Healy

Notes

  • 1. He was described as aged 50 at his 2nd marriage, but aged 66 at his 3rd.
  • 2. Liber Famelicus of Sir J. Whitelocke ed. J. Bruce (Cam. Soc. lxx), 26-7.
  • 3. Leics. RO, DE3012/1, unfol.; DE3468/1, unfol.; PROB 11/98, f. 111; Vis. Bucks. (Harl. Soc. lviii), 212; Vis. Rutland (Harl. Soc. iii), 45; Vis. Leics. (Harl. Soc. ii), 167-8.
  • 4. Bp. of London Mar. Lics. 1520-1610 ed. G.J. Armytage (Harl. Soc. xxv), 327; Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 361.
  • 5. J.P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, ii. 371; W. Robinson, Hackney, ii. 25-6; Bp. of London Mar. Lics. 1611-1828 ed. G.J. Armytage (Harl. Soc. xxvi), 196; Vis. London (Harl. Soc. xv), 44.
  • 6. Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 97.
  • 7. PROB 11/195, ff. 173v-4.
  • 8. Norris-Drake Expedition (Navy Recs. Soc. cxxvii) ed. R.B. Wernham, 345 (Bulsterell), 348 (Bolstroode); Longleat, Devereux pprs. (IHR microfilm) vol. 1, ff. 85v, 90; HMC Hatfield, ix. 146, 330.
  • 9. APC, 1597, pp. 105, 164; 1597-8, p. 504; HMC Hastings, iv. 188.
  • 10. C231/5, f. 20; SP16/405; Eg. 2986, f. 23.
  • 11. List of Sheriffs comp. A. Hughes (PRO, L. and I. ix), 113.
  • 12. HMC Hatfield, xix. 124; HEHL, HA10612-13.
  • 13. SP14/43/107; E179/283, ‘TG 10806’, ‘commrs. for the aid’; E403/2737, f. 159v; E401/2586, p. 69; APC, 1626, p. 167.
  • 14. SP14/31/1; C212/22/20-3; HMC 5th Rep. 401; E115/306/81.
  • 15. C181/2, ff. 106, 139, 341.
  • 16. T. Rymer, Foedera, viii. pt. 2, p. 145; Procs. 1628, vi. 34-5.
  • 17. LJ, v. 589; A. and O. i. 620, 641.
  • 18. Vis. Bucks. (Harl. Soc. lviii), 12-13; E150/475/10; PROB 11/28, f. 178.
  • 19. Vis. Bucks. 148-9; Liber Famelicus, 26-7.
  • 20. Eg. 2983, f. 9v; Norris-Drake Expedition, 345, 348; Longleat, Devereux pprs. vol. 1, ff. 85v, 90.
  • 21. He does not appear in R.C. Strong and J.A. van Dorsten, Leicester’s Triumph (Sir Thomas Browne Inst. spec. ser. ii).
  • 22. APC, 1597, pp. 105, 164; 1597-8, p. 504; HMC Hastings, iv. 188.
  • 23. Liber Famelicus, 26-7; Vis. Rutland, 38-9.
  • 24. C142/356/116; HMC Hatfield, ix. 20-1, 146, 330; Eg. 2983, f. 2; Shaw, ii. 97.
  • 25. C227/20B; STAC 5/H2/7; 5/H11/37; 5/H46/9; 5/H57/26; J.E. Neale ‘Rutland election of 1601’, EHR, lxi. 29-42.
  • 26. STAC 5/N6/11, deposition of Thomas Exton, answers 6-7; STAC 8/220/32, depositions of Richard Tampion and Thomas Hunte, answer 31; deposition of Henry Poole, answer 3; deposition of Thomas Mackworth, answer 6; Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 461-3.
  • 27. STAC 5/N6/11, deposition of George Butler, answer 6; STAC 8/220/32, deposition of Walter Nebon, answer 41; deposition of William Shortred, answer 9.
  • 28. STAC 5/N2/26, deposition of Sir John Harington, answer 8; 5/N6/11, deposition of (Sir) James Harington, answer 9; 5/N13/40, deposition of Sir William Bulstrode, answers 5-6. Their accounts largely agree with Noell’s in STAC 5/N1/32, f. 9.
  • 29. STAC 5/N12/25, deposition of (Sir) James Harington, answer 10; STAC 5/H46/9, deposition of Sir Andrew Noell, answer 21.
  • 30. STAC 8/220/32, depositions of Clement Smyth, William Dalby, John Jackson and Robert Smyth, answer 11.
  • 31. CP sub Harington of Exton; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 57; PROB 11/98, f. 111; VCH Rutland, i. 256-7.
  • 32. CJ, i. 172a, 326b, 452b; C.C.G. Tite, Impeachment and Parl. Judicature, 64-71.
  • 33. CJ, i. 988-9; R.C. Munden, ‘King, Commons and Reform’, Faction and Parl. ed. K. Sharpe, 66-8.
  • 34. CJ, i. 312b; Bowyer Diary, 180-3.
  • 35. CJ, i. 240b, 374a-b, 410b.
  • 36. List of Sheriffs, 114; CD 1621, vi. 312; Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 178; CD 1628, iv. 41, 47, 49.
  • 37. CJ, i. 375a, 384a-b, 386a, 1053a; Bowyer Diary, 330, 333.
  • 38. CJ, i. 453b.
  • 39. Ibid. 429b, 432-3, 436b, 446a-b; ‘Paulet 1610’, f. 22; P.R. Harris, ‘Reports of William Udall, informer’, Recusant Hist. viii. 238-9, 265-71 (ex inf. Michael Questier).
  • 40. CJ, i. 446b, 453a-b; Procs. 1610 ed. Foster, ii. 376.
  • 41. C2/Jas.I/U4/17.
  • 42. CJ, i. 207b, 251a, 371-2, 382b; HLRO, O.A. Jas.1, c. 67.
  • 43. CJ, i. 555a; Kyle thesis, 192-6.
  • 44. ‘Hawarde 1624’, p. 287; ‘Holland 1624’, ii. 87; Stuart Royal Procs. ed. J.F. Larkin and P.L. Hughes, i. 450-4; HMC 5th Rep. 401b.
  • 45. Procs. 1626, iii. 147.
  • 46. CJ, i. 613a, 849b; CD 1621, iii. 202; Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 42-3; LEICESTERSHIRE.
  • 47. CJ, i. 419a, 641b, 779a.
  • 48. Ibid. 342b, 416b, 778b, 830a; Kyle thesis, 427-9.
  • 49. Procs. 1625, pp. 442, 457; Lords Procs. 1628, v. 531; HLRO, O.A. 3 Chas.I, c. 23.
  • 50. CJ, i. 300a, 691b.
  • 51. HMC Hatfield, xvii. 114-15; xviii. 405-6; xix. 45, 124; SIR JOHN HARINGTON.
  • 52. PROB 11/96, ff. 24-7; 11/115, ff. 276-7; C2/Chas.I/F27/36.
  • 53. C142/342/105; 142/356/116-17; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 516.
  • 54. PROB 11/111, f. 356; SIR GUY PALMES.
  • 55. CP sub Baron Noel of Exton, Visct. Feilding of Newnham, earl of Denbigh.
  • 56. HMC Hastings, iv. 201; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 242; HEHL, HA5480.
  • 57. CJ, i. 536a.
  • 58. CD 1621, iii. 168.
  • 59. CJ, i. 525a, 652a; CD 1621, vi. 452; Kyle thesis, 315-19; C. Russell, PEP, 133.
  • 60. CJ, i. 669a; CD 1621, ii. 544; v. 245; Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 363-4.
  • 61. CD 1621, ii. 370; iii. 264. See also ibid. iv. 348.
  • 62. CJ, i. 671; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 4; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 7; Rich 1624, p. 2; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 2v; ‘Hawarde 1624’, p. 145.
  • 63. CJ, i. 817a, 873b, 931a; Procs. 1626, ii. 10; CD 1628, ii. 33-6, 79, 94, 479, 487; iii. 463, 471-2; CD 1629, 129.
  • 64. CJ, i. 673-4; ‘Holland 1624’, i. ff. 1v-2; Holles 1624, p. 5.
  • 65. ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 40v; this motion is not recorded in CJ, i. 681a, 732a.
  • 66. Holles 1624, p. 60; CJ, i. 753b; R. Ruigh, Parl. of 1624, p. 260 and note.
  • 67. CJ, i. 754a; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 47v.
  • 68. CJ, i. 692a, 694a, 776b; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 83.
  • 69. CJ, i. 698a; HLRO, main pprs. (suppl.), 5 May 1624; Kyle thesis, 325-6.
  • 70. CJ, i. 762b, 781a.
  • 71. ‘Holland 1624’, ii. f. 74v; CJ, i. 705a.
  • 72. CJ, i. 671-2; Russell, 160.
  • 73. CJ, i. 755; ‘Lowther 1624’, f. 50v; Holles 1624, p. 61.
  • 74. ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 59v; ‘Holland 1624’, ii. f. 3; Holles 1624, p. 75; Russell, 199-200.
  • 75. HMC 5th Rep. 401b.
  • 76. Procs. 1625, pp. 375, 380-1.
  • 77. CJ, i. 817b; Procs. 1626, ii. 27-9.
  • 78. CJ, i. 819a; Procs. 1626, ii. 33, 39.
  • 79. Procs. 1626, iv. 213.
  • 80. Ibid. iii. 61, 65, 74-8; Russell, 291, 301-2.
  • 81. E401/2586, p. 69; APC, 1626, p. 167; SP16/52/39.
  • 82. CJ, i. 885b, 888b, 895b; CD 1628, iv. 318-24.
  • 83. CD 1628, iv. 147, 159; Russell, 378-82.
  • 84. CD 1628, iv. 325.
  • 85. CD 1629, pp. 64, 144-5, 204.
  • 86. Ibid. 148, 209.
  • 87. Ibid. 218-20.
  • 88. CJ, i. 932a; Russell, 414.
  • 89. CJ, i. 932b.
  • 90. PROB 11/154, ff. 153-4; C2/Chas.I/Z1/11.
  • 91. CSP Dom. 1635, p. 437; Eg. 2986, ff. 100-28.
  • 92. LJ, v. 589; A. and O. i. 620, 641.
  • 93. PROB 11/195, ff. 173-4; Vis. Bucks. 13.