Giles was the great-grandson of a wealthy Totnes merchant, John Giles, who represented the borough in the Reformation Parliament and purchased the family’s principal estates, Bowden Barton just outside the town, and Dean Prior manor, five miles to the north-west.
Giles received a knighthood at the time of James I’s coronation, but reportedly relied on his father to pay the requisite fees. He played little further part in public life until he succeeded to his patrimony in 1606. Thereafter, he rose slowly but steadily through the ranks of local government, both civil and military, and as sheriff of Devon in 1612-13 he created a particularly favourable impression by his generous displays of largesse. At around the same time he also acquired a solid reputation as a godly gentleman: the puritan town preacher at Totnes, Barnaby Potter, who lived with Giles for many years at Bowden House before marrying his step-daughter, attested to his piety in a funeral sermon published in 1613. This combination of qualities, of piety and generosity, earned Giles the intense admiration of his contemporaries. Indeed, Thomas Westcote, in his View of Devonshire, actually omitted a character sketch of him on the grounds that, ‘by speaking the truth, [he might] be said to flatter’.
Giles was returned to the Commons in 1614 as knight of the shire for Devon. Appointed by name to 11 committees, he also made 15 speeches, and despite his relative lack of parliamentary experience, he was soon highly regarded at Westminster. On 8 Apr. he was named to help prepare the important bill for continuing or repealing expiring statutes, and the next day he was added to the prestigious committee for privileges. Firm in defence of Members’ rights, he insisted on 10 May that Sir Thomas Parry’s* electoral misdemeanours should be punished by the Commons, and not left to the king’s discretion. He also shared in the general sense of outrage on 17 May when Richard Martin* strayed from his formal brief as counsel to the Virginia Company to deliver a diatribe against Parliament.
On 17 May Giles spoke in support of the estate bill promoted by a fellow Devon magistrate, Sir Warwick Hele*, and as a Member for Devon he was entitled to sit on the committee. Conscious of his responsibilities as a knight of the shire, he also took a close interest in business that affected Devon’s economy. He backed complaints by the Plymouth Member, Sir William Strode, against the French Company’s patent (3 May), and attempted on 1 June to revive interest in this issue. On 20 May he called for a committee to consider the impact of the Cockayne project on cloth production, Devon’s principal industry. He also supported a bill to prevent weirs from damaging fish stocks (21 May), and was nominated on 25 May to the legislative committee concerned with corrupt customs officials.
Firmly opposed to impositions, Giles attempted on 20 Apr. to get debate on this subject brought forward. On 5 May he argued against granting supply before the issue of impositions had been resolved, which he proposed to do either by bill or by petitioning the king. Named on 23 May to the committee to consider whether it would be wise to provoke James further by challenging his right to create baronets, he remained to the fore as the session descended into chaos. Following Bishop Neile’s offensive attack on the Commons’ campaign against impositions, Giles supported the proposal to complain to the Lords not just verbally but in writing (27 May). He again insisted, on 3 June, that no supply should be granted until the king offered concessions over impositions. His words were apparently relayed to Court, and three days later he sought to clear his name, having heard that the government intended to question him about his comments. Nevertheless, on 7 June he once more insisted that, despite the imminent threat of dissolution, the Crown had not yet given enough ground over grievances for the Commons to vote supply.
At the next parliamentary election Giles was once more returned for Totnes. Somewhat surprisingly, he quickly emerged as one of the leading figures in the 1621 House of Commons. During the first sitting alone he was named to 24 committees, including that for privileges, and made 71 speeches. Indeed, barely a week into the session, John Chamberlain noted him as one of the six ‘chief speakers’ in the House.
Giles was appointed to committees to consider how to broach the matter of free speech with James, and to draft a petition on the same subject (5 and 12 Feb.), but progress in both was painfully slow and hesitant. Even when Giles reported firm evidence that Henry Lovell* had been threatened with punishment for having made certain controversial remarks in the House (13 Feb.), the Commons could not be stirred into action. Not surprisingly, therefore, the king’s declaration two days later that he would uphold traditional freedoms proved sufficient to bury the issue.
The second strand of Giles’s speech of 5 Feb., the attack on recusants, was much better received by Members, and two days later he returned to this theme, complaining that the penal laws were not being applied fully to wealthy Catholics in Devon. Appointed to help devise a petition against recusants, he was also nominated to attend the conference with the Lords to finalize its text (5 and 15 Feb.). Meanwhile, on 13 Feb. he affirmed that the king should be requested to ban ordnance exports to Spain, on the grounds that any artillery so exported might end up being used in the Palatinate. James’s rejection of both these petitions was a major blow, but Giles returned to the fray on 4 May, opening the debate on a new bill against recusants by again calling for full implementation of the penal laws, and also for the education of Catholic children as Protestants. He was named to the committee, but this measure too failed to meet with royal approval.
The king’s ambiguous stance on religion probably helped to stiffen Giles’s natural resolve to maintain the Protestant orthodoxy of the Commons. Appointed on 5 Feb. to monitor Members’ corporate communion, he was outraged when Thomas Sheppard, who was suspected of Catholic leanings, attacked the Sabbath observance bill on 15 February. On the following day he argued that Sheppard should be sentenced at the bar of the House without being first allowed to defend himself.
Despite his willingness to risk confrontation over religion and privilege, Giles was in fact anxious that this Parliament should achieve concrete results. On 6 Feb. he criticized the absent Sir Edwin Sandys for attending to Virginia Company business instead of taking up his seat. Moreover, with a view to facilitating business, he backed Sir William Strode’s motion on 12 Mar. for bills to receive their second readings before 8.30 am. Ten days later he supported the king’s request for a short Easter recess, asserting that Members who valued their private business above the country’s needs should not be in the Commons at all. On 24 Mar. he agreed with Strode that the committee for the continuation or repeal of expiring statutes should continue to meet during the recess, and he was subsequently nominated to the committee to organize the Commons’ agenda (26 April).
Giles was not greatly concerned with private legislation, although once again he took an interest in Sir Warwick Hele’s estate bill. Named to the committee (28 Feb.), he reassured the House on 10 Mar. that Hele’s brother, Sir Francis, had consented to the measure.
Drawing on his shrieval experience, Giles argued on 26 Feb. that the large sums spent annually in his county on foreign corn and Irish beef were a significant factor in the prevailing shortage of coin. Nevertheless, he opposed the bill to ban corn imports, insisting on 8 Mar. that it would serve merely to push up prices in Devon to unacceptable levels, and maybe even cause famine.
Giles’s attitude to the inquiry into monopolies was similarly influenced by his personal experience. On 19 Feb. he condemned outright (Sir) Giles Mompesson’s* patent for licensing inns: ‘never hath anything been ever granted under the Great Seal which did derogate so much from the authority of the justices of peace’. When the speakers at the conference with the Lords on 8 Mar. failed to mention the referees who had recommended that the patent be granted, Giles was scathing, asserting the next day that he would willingly have named even his own great-grandfather. Having supported calls for Mompesson to be imprisoned (22 Mar.), he was named to the committee to consider how to void the alehouses patent (21 April). On 11 May he proposed that the whole matter should be transmitted to the Lords for judgment there.
Giles’s approach to legal reforms was again informed to some extent by his local knowledge. On 19 Apr. he complained that the customary method of assembling juries at quarter sessions encouraged corruption, while six days later he supplied evidence from Devon to support Sir Dudley Digges’s claim that unsuitable men were being appointed as magistrates.
Giles was initially willing to let Sir John Bennet* answer the bribery charges levelled against him, but on 20 Apr. he denounced him as ‘the most dishonest man that ever he heard of’. Three days later, he asserted that Bennet’s failure to defend himself was sufficient proof of his guilt for charges to be transmitted to the Lords, and expressed surprise that he had not fled like Mompesson. On 26 May Giles preferred a bill against bribery and corruption, drafted by Thomas Crewe*.
In the first sitting’s final weeks, Giles became increasingly concerned at the Commons’ slow rate of progress. On 17 May he successfully called for a ban on additional private bills until all public legislation was completed. The next day, he moved for a special order to allow committees with unfinished business to continue meeting during the summer recess, but this radical proposal was not adopted. On 30 May he joined calls for discussions with the Lords on how to complete the maximum amount of legislation before the adjournment, but he was not optimistic: ‘we shall be worse welcome into the country with nothing than with a few bills. If there be some who have laboured to break off this Parliament, they will rejoice to see us thus discontentedly and disorderedly to break off’.
When the Parliament resumed in the autumn, Giles was once more a prominent figure, with 28 speeches to his name. With the Palatinate crisis at the top of the government’s agenda, he moved, on 20 Nov., for bills against recusants and the export of ordnance to be given priority by the Commons. However, many Members were still absent, and later that day he agreed with Sir Robert Phelips that there should be a call of the House, to assess the scale of the problem. This exercise highlighted Sandys’s continuing absence. Giles, like the rest of the House, assumed that he was still being detained, but, conscious of the urgent international situation, he counselled on 23 Nov. against addressing this apparent breach of the Commons’ privileges: ‘I desire to blow no coals. Let’s preserve our liberties but not raise a question before it be moved’.
Giles received four legislative committee nominations during this sitting. Of these, two concerned legal issues, the abbreviation of Michaelmas term, and the punishment of sturdy rogues (20 and 22 Nov.), while the others dealt with restrictions on clerical property-ownership and the problem of scandalous clergy (23 November). During the debate on the last of these measures Giles conceded that in general High Commission had succeeded in maintaining discipline among the clergy, but he insisted that in the West Country ‘ministers live ... very disorderly’.
Giles remained vocal on economic affairs during the sitting. On 30 Nov. he dismissed claims that the bill to ban wool exports would penalize growers in north-east England, where the wool was generally coarser: ‘all the manufactures of this kingdom are made, for the most part, of the coarser wools; and ... the gain is greater on coarse wools than on fine’. Despite his recent investment in the New England Company, which promoted settlements on the North American coast, he also continued to defend the interests of Devon’s fishermen. The Company had secured a ban on fishing fleets which refused to comply with its conditions, but on 24 Nov. Giles called for this to be lifted. Seven days later he again supported the bill for freer fishing in America, firmly stating that ‘the plantation is not so beneficial as the fishing’ for the Commonwealth.
As Members’ expectation of war with Spain increased, Giles redoubled his appeals for action against the Catholic menace at home and abroad. On 26 Nov. he affirmed his belief that the battle for the Palatinate was merely one part of the inevitable struggle between Europe’s Catholic and Protestant camps, which were headed by Philip IV and James I respectively. On that basis, he was unable to grasp the logic of English foreign policy, whereby ‘we must fight with the Spaniards in the Palatinate and be friends with them everywhere else’. Citing the confession of a Jesuit recently captured in Devon that there were now at least 500 such priests in the country, he warned that England must confront Catholicism both at home and abroad. Predictably for a West Country man Giles, while recognizing that the Palatinate must also be protected, favoured a naval war against Spain. However, his immediate priority was the recusant threat: ‘God hath hitherto done much for us; but we must not look for that help from him still, if we be so careless of his Church and the true religion’.
Over the next two years, Giles continued to play an active role in local government. In 1623 he served, appropriately enough, as a sub-commissioner during the inquiry into fees for which he had himself campaigned in the Commons. He was now mainly living at Dean Prior, where he had presented his stepson-in-law Barnaby Potter to the vicarage. Having no children of his own, in April 1623 he made over his principal seat at Bowden to a cousin, Richard Giles. However, he retained his other properties in the area for life, and had no problem securing re-election at Totnes when Parliament was summoned in early 1624.
Back in the Commons, Giles remained fairly conspicuous, making 19 speeches in total, although this was far fewer than the number he had given in 1621. He also received 25 committee nominations, of which four-fifths related to legislation. Of his seven appointments to private bills he is known to have attended at least one, the committee to scrutinize the measure concerning the estates of Sir Anthony Aucher* (7 April). Named to consider the bill against wrongful imprisonment (9 Mar.), he was also appointed to select committees to examine Exchequer abuses and to view petitions about the courts of justice (26 Feb. and 19 April). His only conference nomination (7 Apr.) was to discuss the monopolies bill with the Lords.
Although not reappointed to the committee for privileges, Giles followed its business closely enough to be able to comment on the Chippenham and Cambridgeshire election disputes (25 Feb., 16 March). He also successfully requested privilege for Sir John Eliot* in relation to suits pending at the Devon assizes (27 Feb., 2 March).
As in 1621 Giles’s hostility towards Catholics was fuelled by an expectation of war with Spain. He was probably aware of the manoeuvrings by Prince Charles and the duke of Buckingham to secure this objective, as his kinsman Barnaby Potter was now a royal chaplain. Nevertheless, he contributed little to the debates about war. Apart from a suggestion on 23 Feb. concerning the reporting of the conference on the Spanish Match, he remained silent until 2 Mar., when he warned of ‘the inveterate malice of the Spaniards’ against England, which in his view rendered peace discussions completely worthless. The next day he suggested a framework for the petition inviting the king to break off negotiations, but Sir Edwin Sandys dismissed his proposal as merely replicating what the Commons had already agreed on.
In the following year, Giles had fresh opportunities as a commissioner for subsidy and impressment to judge Devon’s commitment to war. Returned for Totnes to the first Caroline Parliament, he made relatively little impact on proceedings, receiving just nine committee appointments, and making only eight speeches. The second Member named to the committee for privileges, he delivered in a petition concerning the disputed Yorkshire election on 21 June. That same day he called, predictably enough, for all Members to receive communion, and was thereupon appointed to supervise this event. Nominated to legislative committees concerning Sabbath abuses and recusancy (22-3 June), he was also instructed to attend the conference with the Lords concerning the joint petition for a general fast, and to help draft a further petition on religious grievances (23-4 June).
At the Oxford sitting in August, Giles helped to weaken the king’s position by producing a pardon bestowed on a group of Devon recusants immediately after the July adjournment. In so doing he provided damning evidence that Charles’s undertakings on religion could not be trusted (1 August). Five days later he joined in the general condemnation of Buckingham’s client, Edward Clarke*, who had attempted to defend his patron during a further debate on supply.
When the king visited Plymouth in September 1625, Giles tried to convince him that the defences of this key Devon port were wholly inadequate. Little came of his lobbying, but around a year later he advised on measures to fortify Dartmouth. At about the same time he was consulted by Totnes’s corporation over problems arising from the billeting of the survivors of the failed Cadiz expedition. He is not known to have sought a place in the 1626 Parliament, and thus avoided any involvement in the Commons’ impeachment of Buckingham. His apparent willingness to co-operate with the government probably contributed to his appointment as a deputy lieutenant in mid-1627, though this role brought him face to face with the billeting crisis that gripped Devon by the end of that year.
Giles returned to the Commons in 1628, as usual representing Totnes. During this Parliament’s first session he made 25 speeches and received 11 committee nominations, but he had now lost much of his old standing in the House. Even on the subject of religion his voice lacked authority, and his nominee as the Commons’ preacher, the puritan Richard Sibbes, was rejected on 20 March. That same day he was appointed to check that Members received communion before taking their seats, but on 3 Apr. he was dropped from this, his by now customary role, apparently on health grounds. During the debate on 16 May concerning the bill to improve access to preachers, he contributed a rambling anecdote about Bishop Cotton of Exeter, but for the first time since 1614 he failed to secure a place on any religion-related committee.
Giles’s attitude towards the campaign to defend the liberties of the subject was substantially shaped by his personal experiences. On 24 Mar., clearly anxious that billeting in Devon was making the local deputy lieutenants unpopular, he hastened to explain to the House that he himself had not held the office of deputy lieutenant for long. He then falsely accused the government of sending down more soldiers than the deputy lieutenants had been told to expect. Repeating this claim on 2 Apr., he insisted that the local gentry had been overruled by the military commander, the earl of Holland (Henry Rich*), and pointedly observed that his own tenants were threatening to sell up because of the billeting problems.
It took the king’s unsatisfactory first response to the Petition to stir Giles into life once more, and on 3 June he supported Eliot’s call for a Remonstrance. Averring that the Parliament had behaved with great moderation, despite the obstacles placed in its path, he insisted that such an appeal to Charles was now essential, not least because of the growing tolerance of Arminianism. Two days later, when the king tried to force the Commons to get on with normal business, Giles supported Sir Nathaniel Rich’s motion for a joint declaration with the Lords of violations of the subjects’ liberties. On 6 June he raised the spectre of fresh taxation in the form of an excise, and the next day he urged all Members to reveal anything that they knew of such government plans.
Giles played little part in the 1629 session, being named to just five committees, including one to investigate the continuing export of ordnance to Spain (26 January). He was added on 30 Jan. to the committee appointed to check that the Petition of Right had been correctly enrolled in the Westminster courts, which suggests that he was viewed as one of the more politically radical Members. However, his personal priority remained religious reform. On 4 Feb. he called for the attorney-general, (Sir) Robert Heath*, to be questioned about the pardons recently granted to prominent Arminians such as Richard Montagu, who had been condemned by the Commons. He was also appointed on 16 Feb. to investigate the northern commission for compounding with recusants. Giles witnessed the tumultuous scenes in the House on 2 Mar., and urged Speaker Finch to let Eliot’s Remonstrance be read, but he carefully distanced himself from its contents.
Giles’s final years were relatively uneventful. When Barnaby Potter became bishop of Carlisle in March 1629, his living at Dean Prior passed to another of the patron’s kinsmen, the poet Robert Herrick. In early 1635 Giles supported a Devon protest against Ship Money, earning one last summons before the Privy Council, though he successfully excused himself by pleading illness. This episode clearly did his local standing no harm, as he was appointed colonel-general of the county’s militia a few months later, shortly before his sixty-ninth birthday.
Giles died intestate in December 1637, and Herrick composed the epitaph on his monument in Dean Prior church. Those parts of his estate that he had not already settled were shared out between four coheirs on the female side of his family. Dean Prior itself passed to a great-nephew, Edward Yarde, whose son Edward represented Dartmouth in two of the Exclusion parliaments.