Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 1st Baronet
Encyclopedia
Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 1st Baronet (1620–1707) was an English Whig Member of Parliament
and deputy governor of the East India Company
, defendant in some high-profile legal cases and involved in a highly contentious parliamentary election.
and Jane (née Soame) Barnardiston. He joined the London apprentices in 1640 in the rioting that took place at Westminster
on the appointment of Colonel Thomas Lunsford
as constable of the Tower of London. According to an anecdote of Paul de Rapin
, Barnardiston's prominence in the crowd of apprentices with distinctive haircuts on this occasion gave rise to the political use of the word Roundhead
, when Queen Henrietta Maria called out “See what a handsome young Roundhead is there!”
Barnardiston became a Levant merchant, and in 1649 and 1650 he was residing at Smyrna
as agent for the Levant Company
, in whose service he became rich. He took no active part in the civil wars, but passed time during the Protectorate in Suffolk
. At Brightwell
, near Ipswich
, he purchased a large estate, and built a large house known as Brightwell Hall. Barnardiston's household had a Puritan chaplain; in 1663 he engaged Robert Franklyn. He opposed the high-church party in his neighbourhood, and in June 1667 reported to the council that Captain Nathaniel Daryll, commanding a regiment stationed at Ipswich, was a suspected papist
.
In 1660 Barnardiston welcomed the Restoration
and was rewarded by a knighthood, and in 1663 by a baronet
cy. In 1661 he was on the committee of the East India Company; from 1668 to 1670 he was deputy-governor, and came prominently before the public in Skinner's Case
. Thomas Skinner, an independent English merchant, had had his ships confiscated by the company's agents for infringing its trading monopolies in India. Skinner appealed for redress to the House of Lords, which had awarded him £5,000 damages against the company. Sir Samuel, on behalf of the East India corporation, then presented a petition to the House of Commons against the action of the lords, and the lower house voted (2 May 1668) Skinner's complaint and the proceedings of the lords illegal. On 8 May Barnardiston was summoned to the bar of the upper house and invited to admit himself guilty of a scandalous libel against the house. He declined, was ordered upon his knees, and sentenced to a fine of £300, and to be imprisoned till the money was paid. Parliament was adjourned the same day. He refused to comply and was committed to the custody of the usher of the black rod, in whose hands he remained until 10 August following, when he was suddenly released without any explanation of the step being given. On 19 October 1669, at the first meeting of a new session of parliament, Barnardiston was called to the bar of the House of Commons, and there invited to describe the indignities which the lords had put upon him. The Commons voted the proceedings against him subversive of their rights and privileges. The Lords refused at first to vacate their action in the matter, and the quarrel between the Houses continued till December; but finally both houses yielded to the suggestion of the king to expunge from their journals the entries relating to the incident.
, and Barnardiston was the candidate chosen by the Whigs. The election was viewed as a trial of strength; Dissenters and the commercial classes supported Sir Samuel, and he gained seventy-eight votes more than his opponent, Lord Huntingtower
. But Sir William Soame, the sheriff of Suffolk, was well-disposed to the losing candidate, and on the ground that Sir Samuel's supporters comprised many about whose right to vote he was in doubt, he sent up to the Commons a double return announcing the names of the two candidates, and leaving the House to decide their rights to the seat. Each candidate petitioned the house to amend the return in his interest; and after both petitions had been referred to a committee, Sir Samuel was declared duly elected, and took his seat. But these proceedings did not satisfy Barnardiston. He brought an action in the King's Bench
against the sheriff, Soame, to recover damages for malicious behaviour towards him, and Soame was placed under arrest. The case was heard before Lord Chief Justice Matthew Hale
on 13 November 1674, and judgment, with £800 damages, was given in favour of the plaintiff. By a writ of error the proceedings were afterwards transferred to the Exchequer Chamber, and there, by the verdict of six judges out of eight, the result of the first trial was reversed. In 1689 Sir Samuel, after renewing his complaint in the Commons, carried the action to the House of Lords. In the interval Soame had died, and his widow was now made the defendant. The lords heard the arguments of both parties in the middle of June, but they finally resolved to affirm the judgment of the Exchequer Chamber. The final judgment gave the House of Commons an exclusive right to determine the legality of the returns to their chamber, and of the conduct of returning officers. The two most elaborate judgments delivered in the case—that of Sir Robert Atkyns, one of the two judges who supported Sir Samuel in the Exchequer Chamber, and that of Lord North on the other side in the House of Lords, who, as attorney-general Sir Francis North, had been counsel for the defendant in the lower court—were published in 1689, and were frequently reprinted. The case was popularly viewed at the time as a political trial, and is commented on with much party feeling by Roger North
, the Tory historian, in his Examen. North declares that Barnardiston throughout the proceedings sought the support of ‘the rabble,’ and pursued Soame with vindictiveness, in the first instance by making him bankrupt after the trial in the King's Bench, and in the second by sending the case to the House of Lords after his death.
The proceedings made Sir Samuel's seat in parliament secure for many years. He was again returned for Suffolk to the parliaments of 1678, 1679, and 1680, and to William III's parliaments of 1690, 1695, 1698, and 1701. Throughout his career he steadily supported the Whigs. In 1681 he was foreman of the grand jury of Middlesex which threw out the bill of high treason against the Earl of Shaftesbury
. In 1683 he openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the proceedings that had followed the discovery of the Rye House Plot
; but on 28 February 1684 he was summoned to take his trial for libel as ‘being of a factious, seditious, and disaffected temper,’ and having ‘caused several letters to be written and published’ reflecting on the king and officers of state. Two of the four letters which formed the basis of the charge were privately addressed to a Suffolk friend, Sir Philip Skippon, and the others to a linendraper of Ipswich and to a gentleman of Brightwell, with both of whom Sir Samuel was intimate. They contained sentences favouring William Russell, Lord Russell
and Algernon Sydney
, and stating that ‘the papists and high tories are quite down in the mouth,’ and that ‘Sir George [Jeffreys] is grown very humble;’ and on these words the accusation was founded. George Jeffreys
, who had a personal concern in the matter, tried the case, and directed the jury to return a verdict of guilty on the ground that the act of sending the letters was itself seditious, and that there was no occasion to adduce evidence to prove a seditious intent. An arrest of judgment was moved for, and it was not till 19 April 1684 that Jeffreys pronounced sentence. A fine of £10,000 was imposed. Barnardiston resisted payment, and was imprisoned until June 1688, when he paid £6,000, and was released on giving a bond for the residue. The whole case was debated in the House of Lords, 16 May 1689, and Jeffreys's judgment reversed. An account of the trial was published in 1684.
Barnardiston took little in parliament as a speaker, but his financial ability was recognised. In 1690 he was nominated a member of the commission appointed to audit and control the public accounts, which discovered many frauds and embezzlements, and first effectively supervised the expenditure of the public money. In 1691 a quarrel with Sir Josiah Child, governor of the East India Company, caused him to retire from the management, and afterwards to withdraw the money he had invested in its stocks. The dispute was over party politics, Child being an adherent of the Tories, who were at the time in a majority on the board of directors. In 1697 Sir Samuel narrowly escaped imprisonment for a third time on disobeying the instructions of the House of Commons when deputed by them to attend a conference with the House of Lords for the purpose of regulating the importation of East India silk.
He retired from parliament in 1702, at the age of 82, and died, 8 November 1707, at his house in Bloomsbury Square
, London.
, son of his eldest brother Nathaniel, succeeded to his title and estate, and died on 3 January 1710. Another nephew, Pelatiah, brother of the second baronet, was third baronet for little more than two years, dying on 4 May 1712. On the death a few months later (21 September 1712) of the fourth baronet, Nathaniel, son of Pelatiah Barnardiston, the first baronet's youngest brother, the baronetcy became extinct. Sir Samuel's house, Brightwell Hall, was pulled down in 1753.
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
and deputy governor of the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, defendant in some high-profile legal cases and involved in a highly contentious parliamentary election.
Life
Born 23 June 1620, he was the third son of Sir Nathaniel BarnardistonNathaniel Barnardiston
Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1628 and 1648.Barnardiston was the son of Sir Thomas Barnardiston of Witham Essex and his wife Mary Knight, daughter of Sir RIchard Knight...
and Jane (née Soame) Barnardiston. He joined the London apprentices in 1640 in the rioting that took place at Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
on the appointment of Colonel Thomas Lunsford
Thomas Lunsford
Sir Thomas Lunsford was a Royalist colonel in the English Civil War.Lunsford committed a murderous assault upon Sir Thomas Pelham in 1633 and was outlawed for failing to appear to receive judgment in 1637. He was pardoned in 1639 and joined Charles I's army. He was made lieutenant of the Tower in...
as constable of the Tower of London. According to an anecdote of Paul de Rapin
Paul de Rapin
Paul de Rapin , sieur of Thoyras , was a French historian writing under English patronage....
, Barnardiston's prominence in the crowd of apprentices with distinctive haircuts on this occasion gave rise to the political use of the word Roundhead
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
, when Queen Henrietta Maria called out “See what a handsome young Roundhead is there!”
Barnardiston became a Levant merchant, and in 1649 and 1650 he was residing at Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
as agent for the Levant Company
Levant Company
The Levant Company, or Turkey Company, was an English chartered company formed in 1581, to regulate English trade with Turkey and the Levant...
, in whose service he became rich. He took no active part in the civil wars, but passed time during the Protectorate in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
. At Brightwell
Brightwell, Suffolk
Brightwell is a village and a civil parish in the Suffolk Coastal District, in the English county of Suffolk. It has a place of worship. For transport there is the A12 road nearby. It is near the large town of Ipswich. Adjacent parishes include Foxhall, Bucklesham, Martlesham and Newbourne.John...
, near Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
, he purchased a large estate, and built a large house known as Brightwell Hall. Barnardiston's household had a Puritan chaplain; in 1663 he engaged Robert Franklyn. He opposed the high-church party in his neighbourhood, and in June 1667 reported to the council that Captain Nathaniel Daryll, commanding a regiment stationed at Ipswich, was a suspected papist
Papist
Papist is a term or an anti-Catholic slur, referring to the Roman Catholic Church, its teachings, practices, or adherents. The term was coined during the English Reformation to denote a person whose loyalties were to the Pope, rather than to the Church of England...
.
In 1660 Barnardiston welcomed the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
and was rewarded by a knighthood, and in 1663 by a baronet
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
cy. In 1661 he was on the committee of the East India Company; from 1668 to 1670 he was deputy-governor, and came prominently before the public in Skinner's Case
Skinner's Case
Skinner's Case, the name usually given to the celebrated dispute between the House of Lords and the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom over the question of the original jurisdiction of the former house in civil suits....
. Thomas Skinner, an independent English merchant, had had his ships confiscated by the company's agents for infringing its trading monopolies in India. Skinner appealed for redress to the House of Lords, which had awarded him £5,000 damages against the company. Sir Samuel, on behalf of the East India corporation, then presented a petition to the House of Commons against the action of the lords, and the lower house voted (2 May 1668) Skinner's complaint and the proceedings of the lords illegal. On 8 May Barnardiston was summoned to the bar of the upper house and invited to admit himself guilty of a scandalous libel against the house. He declined, was ordered upon his knees, and sentenced to a fine of £300, and to be imprisoned till the money was paid. Parliament was adjourned the same day. He refused to comply and was committed to the custody of the usher of the black rod, in whose hands he remained until 10 August following, when he was suddenly released without any explanation of the step being given. On 19 October 1669, at the first meeting of a new session of parliament, Barnardiston was called to the bar of the House of Commons, and there invited to describe the indignities which the lords had put upon him. The Commons voted the proceedings against him subversive of their rights and privileges. The Lords refused at first to vacate their action in the matter, and the quarrel between the Houses continued till December; but finally both houses yielded to the suggestion of the king to expunge from their journals the entries relating to the incident.
Political career
In 1672 the death of Sir Henry North created a vacancy in the representation of SuffolkSuffolk (UK Parliament constituency)
Suffolk was a county constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1290 until 1832, when it was split into two divisions.-Boundaries and franchise:...
, and Barnardiston was the candidate chosen by the Whigs. The election was viewed as a trial of strength; Dissenters and the commercial classes supported Sir Samuel, and he gained seventy-eight votes more than his opponent, Lord Huntingtower
Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Earl of Dysart
Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Earl of Dysart , styled Lord Huntingtower from 1651 to 1698, was a British Tory Member of Parliament and nobleman....
. But Sir William Soame, the sheriff of Suffolk, was well-disposed to the losing candidate, and on the ground that Sir Samuel's supporters comprised many about whose right to vote he was in doubt, he sent up to the Commons a double return announcing the names of the two candidates, and leaving the House to decide their rights to the seat. Each candidate petitioned the house to amend the return in his interest; and after both petitions had been referred to a committee, Sir Samuel was declared duly elected, and took his seat. But these proceedings did not satisfy Barnardiston. He brought an action in the King's Bench
King's Bench
The Queen's Bench is the superior court in a number of jurisdictions within some of the Commonwealth realms...
against the sheriff, Soame, to recover damages for malicious behaviour towards him, and Soame was placed under arrest. The case was heard before Lord Chief Justice Matthew Hale
Matthew Hale (jurist)
Sir Matthew Hale SL was an influential English barrister, judge and jurist most noted for his treatise Historia Placitorum Coronæ, or The History of the Pleas of the Crown. Born to a barrister and his wife, who had both died by the time he was 5, Hale was raised by his father's relative, a strict...
on 13 November 1674, and judgment, with £800 damages, was given in favour of the plaintiff. By a writ of error the proceedings were afterwards transferred to the Exchequer Chamber, and there, by the verdict of six judges out of eight, the result of the first trial was reversed. In 1689 Sir Samuel, after renewing his complaint in the Commons, carried the action to the House of Lords. In the interval Soame had died, and his widow was now made the defendant. The lords heard the arguments of both parties in the middle of June, but they finally resolved to affirm the judgment of the Exchequer Chamber. The final judgment gave the House of Commons an exclusive right to determine the legality of the returns to their chamber, and of the conduct of returning officers. The two most elaborate judgments delivered in the case—that of Sir Robert Atkyns, one of the two judges who supported Sir Samuel in the Exchequer Chamber, and that of Lord North on the other side in the House of Lords, who, as attorney-general Sir Francis North, had been counsel for the defendant in the lower court—were published in 1689, and were frequently reprinted. The case was popularly viewed at the time as a political trial, and is commented on with much party feeling by Roger North
Roger North (17th century)
Roger North, KC , English lawyer, biographer, and amateur musician, was the sixth son of t he fourth Baron North....
, the Tory historian, in his Examen. North declares that Barnardiston throughout the proceedings sought the support of ‘the rabble,’ and pursued Soame with vindictiveness, in the first instance by making him bankrupt after the trial in the King's Bench, and in the second by sending the case to the House of Lords after his death.
The proceedings made Sir Samuel's seat in parliament secure for many years. He was again returned for Suffolk to the parliaments of 1678, 1679, and 1680, and to William III's parliaments of 1690, 1695, 1698, and 1701. Throughout his career he steadily supported the Whigs. In 1681 he was foreman of the grand jury of Middlesex which threw out the bill of high treason against the Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC , known as Anthony Ashley Cooper from 1621 to 1631, as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 2nd Baronet from 1631 to 1661, and as The Lord Ashley from 1661 to 1672, was a prominent English politician during the Interregnum and during the reign of King Charles...
. In 1683 he openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the proceedings that had followed the discovery of the Rye House Plot
Rye House Plot
The Rye House Plot of 1683 was a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother James, Duke of York. Historians vary in their assessment of the degree to which details of the conspiracy were finalized....
; but on 28 February 1684 he was summoned to take his trial for libel as ‘being of a factious, seditious, and disaffected temper,’ and having ‘caused several letters to be written and published’ reflecting on the king and officers of state. Two of the four letters which formed the basis of the charge were privately addressed to a Suffolk friend, Sir Philip Skippon, and the others to a linendraper of Ipswich and to a gentleman of Brightwell, with both of whom Sir Samuel was intimate. They contained sentences favouring William Russell, Lord Russell
William Russell, Lord Russell
William Russell, Lord Russell was an English politician. He was a leading member of the Country Party, forerunners of the Whigs, who opposed the succession of James II during the reign of Charles II, ultimately resulting in his execution for treason.-Early life and marriage:Russell was the third...
and Algernon Sydney
Algernon Sydney
Algernon Sidney or Sydney was an English politician, republican political theorist, colonel, and opponent of King Charles II of England, who became involved in a plot against the King and was executed for treason.-Early life:Sidney's father was Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, a direct...
, and stating that ‘the papists and high tories are quite down in the mouth,’ and that ‘Sir George [Jeffreys] is grown very humble;’ and on these words the accusation was founded. George Jeffreys
George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys
George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys of Wem, PC , also known as "The Hanging Judge", was an English judge. He became notable during the reign of King James II, rising to the position of Lord Chancellor .- Early years and education :Jeffreys was born at the family estate of Acton Hall, near Wrexham,...
, who had a personal concern in the matter, tried the case, and directed the jury to return a verdict of guilty on the ground that the act of sending the letters was itself seditious, and that there was no occasion to adduce evidence to prove a seditious intent. An arrest of judgment was moved for, and it was not till 19 April 1684 that Jeffreys pronounced sentence. A fine of £10,000 was imposed. Barnardiston resisted payment, and was imprisoned until June 1688, when he paid £6,000, and was released on giving a bond for the residue. The whole case was debated in the House of Lords, 16 May 1689, and Jeffreys's judgment reversed. An account of the trial was published in 1684.
Barnardiston took little in parliament as a speaker, but his financial ability was recognised. In 1690 he was nominated a member of the commission appointed to audit and control the public accounts, which discovered many frauds and embezzlements, and first effectively supervised the expenditure of the public money. In 1691 a quarrel with Sir Josiah Child, governor of the East India Company, caused him to retire from the management, and afterwards to withdraw the money he had invested in its stocks. The dispute was over party politics, Child being an adherent of the Tories, who were at the time in a majority on the board of directors. In 1697 Sir Samuel narrowly escaped imprisonment for a third time on disobeying the instructions of the House of Commons when deputed by them to attend a conference with the House of Lords for the purpose of regulating the importation of East India silk.
He retired from parliament in 1702, at the age of 82, and died, 8 November 1707, at his house in Bloomsbury Square
Bloomsbury Square
Bloomsbury Square is a garden square in Bloomsbury, Camden, London.- Geography :To the north of the square is Great Russell Street and Bedford Place, leading to Russell Square. To the south is Bloomsbury Way. To the west is the British Museum and Holborn tube station is the nearest underground...
, London.
Family
He was twice married, (1) to Thomasine, daughter of Joseph Brand of Edwardstone, Suffolk, and (2) to Mary, daughter of Sir Abraham Reynardson, lord mayor of London. He had no children, and his nephew, SamuelSir Samuel Barnardiston, 2nd Baronet
Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 2nd Bt. was an English MP and Barrister. He lived at Brightwell, Suffolk.Barnardiston was admitted to Gray's Inn on 10 February 1679. He was M.P...
, son of his eldest brother Nathaniel, succeeded to his title and estate, and died on 3 January 1710. Another nephew, Pelatiah, brother of the second baronet, was third baronet for little more than two years, dying on 4 May 1712. On the death a few months later (21 September 1712) of the fourth baronet, Nathaniel, son of Pelatiah Barnardiston, the first baronet's youngest brother, the baronetcy became extinct. Sir Samuel's house, Brightwell Hall, was pulled down in 1753.