Family and Education

b. c.1636, 1st s. of Henry Tulse of Hinton Admiral by w. Margaret. educ. Wadham, Oxf. 1653; M. Temple 1653. m. Frances (d. 19 Nov. 1680), 1s. 1da. suc. fa. 1642.1

Offices Held

Commr. for militia, Hants 1659, Mar. 1660; freeman, Lymington 1660; commr. for assessment, Hants Aug. 1660-80, 1689, j.p. 1662-80; commr. for wastes and spoils, New Forest 1672-6, recusants, Hants 1675.2

Biography

Tulse was probably the grandson of William Tulse who acquired three manors in the neighbourhood of Christchurch in 1603. His father, a younger son, who leased Christchurch rectory from the dean and chapter of Winchester, represented the borough in both the Short and Long Parliaments. He sympathized with the Opposition to Charles I, but died before the Civil War began. Tulse himself was first returned for Christchurch in 1659. He sat for the borough in the Convention with his stepfather John Hildesley, but made no speeches and was appointed to no committees. Reelected in 1661, he was made a county magistrate; but he was an inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament. He was named to the committee of elections and privileges in seven sessions, and to only 16 others, of little political importance. On 5 June he acted as teller against a naturalization bill, and later he opposed two estate bills in which he had no known personal interest. On the working lists he was assigned to the management of (Sir) Joseph Williamson, but he probably went into Opposition, for Shaftesbury marked him ‘thrice worthy’ in 1677. His cousin, Sir Henry Tulse, lord mayor of London in 1683-4, was a court supporter, and consequently the 2nd Earl of Clarendon (Henry Hyde), who now controlled both seats, may have offered no objection to his re-election in 1679. Listed by Shaftesbury as ‘worthy’, he duly voted for the exclusion bill. His only committee in the first Exclusion Parliament was for the reform of the bankruptcy law. As a result of his support for exclusion he lost his seat at the next election and was removed from the Hampshire commission of the peace. He died on 7 June 1697, aged 61, and was buried at Christchurch. His son William was returned for Lymington in 1698.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Paula Watson

Notes

• 1. The Gen. n.s. x. 224-5; Hants N. and Q. v. 123.
• 2. C. St. Barbe, Lymington Recs. 8, 189; Cal. Treas. Bks. iii. 1204; iv. 124; v. 410.
• 3. VCH Hants, v. 96, 99, 100; Keeler, Long Parl. 367; C7/175/37; CJ, ix. 341, 454.