FLEETWOOD, Edward (1634-1704), of Penwortham Priory, nr. Preston, Lancs.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

7 Aug. 1660

Family and Education

bap. 12 Oct. 1634, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of John Fleetwood of Penwortham by Anne, da. of William Faringdon of Worden Hall, Leyland. educ. Padua 1648; Brasenose, Oxf. 1651, BA 1654; G. Inn 1656. m. 15 May 1659, Anne, da. of George Purefoy of Wadley, Berks., s.p. suc. fa. 1657.1

Offices Held

Freeman, Preston 1642, 1662, 1682; commr. for assessment, Lancs. Jan. 1660-80, 1689-90, j.p. Mar. 1660-6, 1670-7, 1689-92, 1702-d., dep. lt. 1662-?66, 1680-6, 1689-?93, commr. for corporations 1662-3.2

Biography

Fleetwood’s ancestors were of little consequence in Lancashire until the dissolution of the monasteries, when John Fleetwood acquired Penwortham Priory, just across the Ribble from Preston, for which one of the family sat in 1553. The Penwortham branch were less conspicious than those established in Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire or Staffordshire. Fleetwood’s father, a strong churchman, was a commissioner of array at the outset of the Civil War, but gave himself up to the forces of Parliament in February 1643 and compounded in 1647 for £617. Fleetwood himself may have been brought up in the Earl of Derby’s household with his father’s ward Roger Bradshaigh I, and throughout his political career he remained a loyal adherent of the Stanleys.3

As a Cavalier’s son Fleetwood was ineligible at the general election of 1660, but was returned for Preston at a by-election after the Restoration. His only committee in the Convention was on the Lords bill for reparations to the Marquess of Winchester. Doubtless a court supporter, he was proposed for the order of the Royal Oak, with an estate of £1,000 p.a. With the re-establishment of the duchy interest at Preston he did not sit again till 1685, when he was returned as a Tory. An inactive Member of James II’s Parliament, he was appointed only to the committees on the bills to provide carriages for the royal progresses and to prohibit the import of gunpowder. He refused to serve as deputy lieutenant under the Roman Catholic Lord Molyneux in October 1688, but accepted local office after the Revolution. He was buried at Penwortham on 17 Apr. 1704. His heir was his fourth cousin Henry, a Jacobite, who sat for Preston from 1708 to 1722.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Irene Cassidy

Notes

  • 1. Vis. Lancs. (Chetham Soc. lxxxv), 110, 156; Penwortham Priory Docs. (Chetham Soc. xxx), pp. lxv-lxix.
  • 2. Preston Guild Rolls (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. ix), 111, 144, 186; Lancs. RO, QSC62-79, 103-6; SP29/61/157.
  • 3. VCH Lancs. vi. 56, 58-59; Royalist Comp. Pprs. (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. xxvi), 321-3.
  • 4. HMC Kenyon, 125, 203; CSP Dom. 1687-9, p. 323.