is a misstatement, and, since the sketch was composed in 1645, appears a deliberate one, intended to enhance his self-importance. Essex's commission, dated 31 Oct. (Shaftesbury Papers, Record Office), distinctly states that Shaftesbury is to take orders from himself, both houses of parliament, and from the major-general commanding in the west, i.e. Holborne (compare Ludlow, Memoirs, i. 135, and Vicars, Parl. Chron. iv. 77). In May 1645 he was appointed to command the forces which were to besiege Corfe Castle, but, troops not being forthcoming, he was unable to accomplish anything. It was in 1645 that he was called upon to bear witness against Denzil Holles on the charge of transactions with Charles. Locke states that Cooper declined to give evidence in a case in which he was at enmity with the person concerned, that he was in consequence threatened with a commitment, and that this conduct brought about a lasting friendship with Holles (Locke, Memoirs, p. 474). In June he went with his wife to Tunbridge to drink the waters, and in October was again with the committee of the west, of which he was usually chairman. In December he succeeded in obtaining the force necessary to subdue Corfe Castle, which surrendered in April 1646. At the end of the month he was at Oxted in Surrey. His period of military service now came to an end. Though not actually included in the self-denying ordinance, inasmuch as he was not a member of the House of Commons, his connection with the presbyterian element in the parliament, and the strong parliamentary feeling which, joined with that of religious tolerance, was through life his prevailing source of action, doubtless rendered him an object of suspicion to the framers of the model.
In the autumn of 1645 Cooper endeavoured in vain to obtain a confirmation of his election for Downton, being probably disqualified by the ordinance that no one who had been in the king's quarters might sit in either house. Whitelocke, however, records that he ‘was now in great favour and trust with the parliament.’
During the next seven years Cooper occupied himself with private and local affairs. His sympathies and political relations were with the presbyterians, not on doctrinal grounds, but as parliamentarians. In December 1646 he was high sheriff for Wiltshire for the parliament, with leave to live out of the county, and was one of the committee for Dorsetshire and Wiltshire for assessing the contributions for the support of Fairfax's army. His wealth and great position in the county are shown by his expenditure when as sheriff he attended the judges at Salisbury: ‘I had sixty men in liveries, and kept an ordinary for all gentlemen at Lawes's, four shillings and two shillings for blue men. I paid for all.’ In March he ‘raised the county twice and beat out the soldiers designed for Ireland who quartered on the county without order, and committed many robberies.’
Cooper's health was never strong. During his youth he had been subject to acute spasmodic pains in the side, and he now was liable to attacks of ague. In February 1648 he ceased to be sheriff of Wiltshire; in July he was made a commissioner in Dorsetshire for carrying out the ordinance of parliament for a rate for Ireland, and one of the commissioners of the Dorsetshire militia. In February 1649 he was appointed justice of the peace for Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, and for the western counties. On 10 July 1649 his wife suddenly died, leaving no children. He appears to have been devotedly attached to her, but on 25 April 1650 he married Lady Frances Cecil, sister of the Earl of Exeter. After the execution of Charles, Cooper was obedient to the supreme power, acted as magistrate, took the ‘engagement’ on 17 Jan. 1650, and on 29 Jan. sat at Blandford as commissioner for giving it. On 31 Jan. he went to London. At this point his own diary ceases, and we have no further account of him until 17 Jan. 1652, when he was named by the Rump parliament as a non-parliamentary member of the commission for the reform of the laws, of which Matthew Hale was the leading member. On 17 March 1653 he was by the parliament solemnly ‘pardoned of all delinquency,’ and was ‘made capable of all other privileges as any other of the people of this nation are.’ On 20 April 1653 Cromwell broke up the Rump parliament, and appointed a council of state; and in June the Barebones parliament was nominated and summoned. Cooper, one of the few gentlemen in it, was nominated for Wiltshire. Among its first proceedings was a request that Cromwell would himself serve in it, and Cooper was head of the deputation which went for that purpose. The council of state was enlarged to the number of thirty, and he was appointed upon it. Cooper was often a teller for the moderate party, and uniformly acted with Cromwell as against the violent root-and-branch section of this assembly. He was the mouthpiece of the council in recommending the house to keep John Lilburne in custody in spite of his acquittal and of the threatening attitude of the masses; and he was deputed by the house to offer Hampton Court to Cromwell, and reported Cromwell's refusal to the house. When, too, a proposal
