Page:VCH Rutland 1.djvu/256

A HISTORY OF RUTLAND Viscount Campden, whose estates were sequestrated in August 1644,*°* and who, on account of complicity in Royalist plots, was obliged in 1651 to enter into a bond of ^Ti 0,000, with two sureties for ^(^5,000 each, 'to do nothing to the prejudice of the Commonwealth,'^"' compounded for £ig,S5^, which was ultimately reduced to ^(^9,000."* Sir Wingfield Bodenham, on the other hand, refused to pay the fine assessed, declared that he was always averse to Parliament and expected a change, and remained for some time a prisoner in the Tower, where he employed his enforced leisure in anti- quarian studies; and though he was released on bail in November 1647, his fine was not settled till August 1655.'" Sir Thomas Mackworth of Normanton, who pleaded that he was under age when he adhered to the king, submitted in December 1646;^°* Sir Guy Palmes^"' of Ashwell, and his son. Sir Bryan, in the same year ; "" and Sir Richard Wingfield of Tickencote, who urged that he had been forced to join the enemy, because all his estates were in their power, in December 1645.^" To these may be added Dr. Clement Brittain (or Breton) of Uppingham, whose original fine was eventually nearly doubled on the ground that he was a clerk ; "^ Richard BuUingham of Ketton ; "' Edward and John Heath, sons of Sir Robert Heath of Cottesmore ; "* and Valentine Saunders of Lyndon, who, while visiting a sister in Westmorland, had been ' partly inveigled, partly compelled,' at the age of seventeen to take up arms for the king in Skipton Castle, and whose case therefore seems particularly hard."° He urged that, though his father was a Roman Catholic, he himself had been brought up by his grandfather as a Protestant, that he could prove conformity, and that he had even taken the Covenant and the Negative Oath ; but these pleas were rejected, and he was informed that, as he had not renounced popery before taking up arms, he could not compound, and must pay a fine of X^i,2oo."' The enforcement of the decrees of sequestration, however, caused considerable friction amongst the Parliamentarians themselves. This seems to have been largely due to the attitude adopted by the Central Com- mittee for Compounding towards the Rutland Commission, which consisted of Evers Armyn and Benjamin Norton, with Captain John Clarke and '" Commons' Journ. iii, 605 ; Lords' Journ. viii, 457. "" Cal. S.P. Dom. 1651, p. 75. '"^ Ca/. of Com. for Compounding, 939. "' Ibid. 850. His father, Sir Francis Bodenham, who was also a Royalist, died in 1647. "" Ibid. 1605. '"' The late member for the county. "" Cal. of Com. for Compounding, 1 3 16. "' Ibid. 1055. "Mbid. 1386. »" Ibid. 1497. '" Ibid. 1471. '"Ibid. 1157. '" The list of persons sequestrated in Rutland by the Committee for Compounding (pp. 88, 89) includes, in addition to the above names : — Sir George Benyon (London) ; Sir Kenelm Digby ; Sir Francis Macicworth ; Edward Andrews, of Bisbrooke, Rut., and Oxton, Notts. ; Robert Brudenell, papist ; Nicholas Crisp of Seaton ; James Digby of North Luffenham ; Thomas Hasleuood of Helton, papist ; Henrj- Herendine of Morcott ; John Hunt of Barrowden ; Neale Mackworth of Empingham ; Peregrine Mackworth of Tickencote ; Edward Overton of Morcott ; Edward Palmes of Barrowden ; Thomas Rudkin of Wissendine ; John Sechell of Barrowden ; G. Sheffield of Liddington ; and Edward Wright of Ketton. Of these it may be noted that Sir Kenelm Digby of Dry Stoke, son of Sir Everard Digby, who participated in the Gunpowder Plot, was on terms of intimate friendship with Cromwell on account of their common interest in physics, and is said to have used his influence to reconcile the Roman Catholics to the Protectorate on condition of their being secured in the free exercise of their religion (see Rut. Mag. ii, 166-7). Edward Overton of Morcott in 1655 claimed a discharge as having never been really sequestrated or charged with delinquency {Cal. of Com. for Compounding, 3237). Francis Phillpots of Ryhall and John Sechell of Morcott are also elsewhere noted as compounding (ibid. 861, 1178). 196