JOHNSON, Robert (d.1622), of Buckingham parsonage, Bucks. and the Tower of London.

Johnson’s background is obscure. An attempt to identify him as a son of William Johnson of North Crawley, Buckinghamshire, born in about 1537, should probably be discounted, as this man would have been rather old to have played an active role in the Parliaments of 1604 and 1614. HP Commons, 1558-1603, ii. 380-1; WARD 7/102/43; C2/Eliz./J3/42; 2/Eliz./J6/1; 2/Eliz./A3/49; 2/Jas.I/I&J10/7; REQ 2/226/57, 2/77/51-2, 107. The Member’s connections were not with Crawley but with Buckingham: he lived at Buckingham parsonage in 1603 and also served on the town’s commission of the peace as ‘Sir’ Robert Johnson. He was certainly not the London alderman of that name who became involved in the administration of the king’s alum works. E214/1029; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 188, 256; Cent. Kent. Stud., U269/1/OE108, 394, 396, 985.

Johnson first appears as an auditor for the south Wales estates of William Somerset, 3rd earl of Worcester. He subsequently maintained an association with the 4th earl, acting as his agent in a land transaction of 1605. C66/1687; Add. 5700, ff. 24-5. It therefore seems clear that Johnson secured his election to four Parliaments for Monmouth with Worcester patronage. The earls may also have introduced Johnson into Court circles, for by 1601 he was seeking preferment at the hands of secretary of state (Sir) Robert Cecil†. HMC Hatfield, xi. 419. Johnson was subsequently appointed an Exchequer surveyor and clerk of deliveries in the Ordnance Office; he acknowledged that he would ‘sink or swim’ upon the secretary’s favour, describing himself as ‘more bound to your honour than to any one under heaven’. Hatfield House (BL, microfilm M485), mss 93/68, 89/19.

Johnson’s experience of auditing estate accounts meant he possessed a considerable knowledge of land management, which he was able to bring to bear as an Exchequer surveyor. In 1602 he composed a lengthy letter to Cecil which discussed reform of Crown lands and the maximizing of revenue. SP12/283A/80, cf. HMC Hatfield, xii. 435-6. For other copies of the treatise and discussion of its recommendations, see Estates of Eng. Crown ed. R.W. Hoyle, xv. and passim. As this was apparently not received with any enthusiasm by Elizabeth, Johnson presented his treatise (with some politic amendments) to the new king shortly after James’s accession. In this he highlighted such problems as the negligence of stewards, the smallness of rents and the concealment of Crown lands, and argued that several of these defects would be best remedied by legislation. CRES 40/18, ff. 158-79v. He also mentioned his own sponsorship of a bill in the 1597 Parliament that would have allowed tenants to enclose their own lands, suggesting that he was angling for the right to promote the measures he was proposing in any future assembly. HMC Hatfield, xviii. 56; SP14/19/27. However, Johnson was perhaps ill-qualified to draft such legislation himself, as there is no record that he had ever received a legal training. How his treatise was received by James is unknown, but the fact that he was knighted in July 1604 suggests that Johnson received some recognition for his efforts, even if his report attracted hostility from those whose interests it threatened. Estates of Eng. Crown, 299-300. Johnson later said that ‘distaste’ of his designs had robbed him of access to the sec.: HMC Hatfield, xvi. 336.

It is hardly surprising that Johnson played a prominent role in debates concerning land reform and the poor. His nomination to the committee to consider the grievances raised by Sir Edward Montagu* at the opening of the 1604 session (23 Mar.) probably reflected his interest in depopulation and enclosure, a matter closely related to the bill he had introduced in 1597. Ibid. 151a-b; CRES 40/18, ff. 176-8. On 14 Apr. 1604 he spoke in favour of a bill for the poor and against depopulation. Two months later (15 June) he opposed a measure concerning the decay of houses of husbandry and tillage, which he had helped consider in committee. CJ, i. 946b, 225b, 993a. Interests such as these were further reflected in his membership of committees for explaining an Elizabethan statute prohibiting the building of cottages without attached freehold land (17 Feb. 1606; reported by Johnson 12 Mar., 25 Apr.), providing pasture for tillage in Herefordshire (4 Mar. 1607) and reforming disorders connected with common land (19 Feb. 1610). Ibid. 269b, 283a, 300b, 347b, 396b. Johnson had been involved in litigation involving common rights: E112/70/2. After the report of a conference on the annexations bill, which concerned the entail of Crown lands, Johnson informed a thin House on 6 July 1604 that the Lords ‘were not instructed in the surveys’, a procedure he advocated consistently as a necessary preliminary to estate reform. CJ, i. 253b, 1002a. Johnson wrote a brief tract on the utility of surveys in July 1607: Lansd. 169, ff. 117-9v; Estates of Eng. Crown, 208-27, 299. His position as a surveyor was well known and in the ‘Parliament Fart’ poem he was caricatured accordingly: ‘if you’ll not laugh/I’ll Measure this fart with my Jacob’s staff’. Add. 34218, f. 20v. A Jacob’s staff was an instrument used in surveying.

In his treatise of 1602-3 Johnson had called for improved record-keeping on Crown estates to increase revenue, and the establishment of a central repository for the Crown’s manorial court rolls. Estates of Eng. Crown, 64-5, 208. On 3 Apr. 1604 he tabled a bill for the better preserving of manorial court records, which was rejected at first reading for ‘some notable mischief’ in its text. CJ, i. 162b; CD 1604-7, p. 38. On 23 Jan. 1606 he offered certain provisos at the committal of a bill for confirming leases against patentees of inheritance, but after the committee members left the chamber he admitted that he had acted on behalf of Sir Robert Wingfield*. In response to this irregular procedure, the Commons ordered that Johnson’s paper should be given to the committee for consideration, rather than read in the House. Bowyer Diary, 5; CJ, i. 258b. Johnson’s treatise had recommended legislation on the sale of copyhold lands, so when a bill on this subject was introduced in the Commons on 30 June 1607 it is unsurprising that he supported it in the face of some opposition. CRES 40/18, f. 166r-v. At its first reading he stated that it was misguided to believe that the misdemeanours of stewards (a particular bugbear of his) could not be reformed without sale of these lands, adding ‘I have written herein as much unto my gracious sovereign ... and if my project may be followed, if I do not remedy this fault, let the king take my head’. Bowyer Diary, 362. See also Lansd. 165, ff. 146-7; SP14/61/25.I. He was also nominated to the cttee. for the bill for ‘copyholders’ 31 Mar. 1610: CJ, i. 417a. His writings suggest that he would have supported the bill for prevention of overcharging by stewards in manorial courts, and he was the second man named to the committee (7 May 1604). CJ, i. 200b.

Johnson’s duties as a royal surveyor saw him involved in official inquiries into the management of forests and a wide-ranging survey of royal woods in 1608-9, and he was called upon to give advice on schemes for increasing Crown income by leasing woods. He also composed a tract on forest revenue for Charles Blount, earl of Devonshire, lord deputy of Ireland. E178/231, 7107; 101/151/29; SP14/47/89;14/48/129; Harl. 3796, ff. 41-4. This highlighted the decayed condition of many forests, and he once described the ‘lamentable ... spoils of woods ... almost everywhere’. E101/151/29, f. 8; Harl. 3796, f. 43. In 1610 Johnson received a grant of waste woods in Bucks. which he undertook to restore: SO3/4, unfol. (Mar. 1610); HMC Hatfield, xxiv. 132. On 16 Feb. 1610 he raised the matter in the Commons and preferred a bill for the better maintenance and increase of forests and underwoods, which was rejected at its second reading. CJ, i. 394a, 398a; Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, ii. 355-6. This was a matter close to the king’s heart, however, and another bill for the preservation of woods was introduced on 5 Mar., although it is unclear whether Johnson played any part in introducing this measure. CJ, i. 405b. On 30 Mar. 1610 Johnson wrote to Cecil (by then lord treasurer Salisbury) ‘in this opportune time of Parliament’ to suggest that the moribund presentments of swanimote courts should be returned annually to the Exchequer ‘and be by Act of Parliament made a little more fortified’, but there is no evidence that any legislation was prepared. SP14/53/50; P.A.J. Petit, Roy. Forests of Northants. (Northants. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 42. Johnson’s membership of the committee for supply of timber in Devon for shipping (25 June 1610) reflected his stated concern about the decay of timber in maritime counties. CJ, i. 443b; E101/151/29, f. 6.

Johnson’s oft-repeated interest in the plight of the poor partly stemmed from his knowledge of estate management, but it may also have been indicative of a godly interest in social reform, a recurrent theme throughout his parliamentary career. Indeed, one of his foremost concerns was the evils of alehouse society, and he pursued reformation at every opportunity. In 1615 he wrote to lord chancellor Ellesmere (Thomas Egerton I†) with a series of proposals for suppressing superfluous alehouses, maintaining that the populace should not be allowed ‘to waste their estates in vile and excessive bibbling and drunkenness’. HEHL, EL272. Shortly after the opening of the first Jacobean Parliament, Johnson offered a bill to explain an Edwardian statute concerning alehouses (30 Mar. 1604). CJ, i. 159a. On numerous occasions thereafter his name appears in the parliamentary record in connection with bills against the abuses of alehousekeepers and for the suppression of tippling houses and drunkenness. Ibid. 196b, 222b, 225b, 292b, 294a, 327a-b, 328b, 417a, 435a, 503b. He frequently reported such measures from committee, suggesting that he often chaired their deliberations. He preferred another bill against alehouses and drunkards during the Addled Parliament, apparently forgetting in his haste to offer it first to the Speaker for consideration (20 May). Procs. 1614 (Commons), 302. In his memorandum to Ellesmere, Johnson recalled how this bill was intended to increase the proportion of fines from unlawful alehouses given to the poor, and he requested that the Council encourage justices to adopt its provisions until legislation was secured. HEHL, EL272.

Johnson’s moral reformist outlook can be seen in some of his other activities in Parliament. During the 1606-7 session, for example, he requested that the Elizabethan Statute of Labourers be reviewed ‘and stubborn and disobedient servants met withal’, and was asked by the House to bring in a bill to this effect (19 Nov. 1606). CJ, i. 616a; Bowyer Diary, 186. The theme of moral reformation may have influenced his nomination to bill committees regarding bigamy (26 Apr. 1604), the punishment of bastards’ fathers (9 Dec. 1606), idleness (19 Apr. 1610), swearing (3 May 1610) and elopement (8 May 1610). CJ, i. 185a, 328b, 419a, 434a, 426a. His concern with church affairs, as revealed by numerous committee nominations, suggests that an ardent Protestant outlook probably formed the basis for his stance on issues of moral improvement. Ibid. 241a, 247b, 294b, 294a, 347a.

Johnson’s interests as an Ordnance official also surfaced in Parliament. In the debate on grievances during the 1605-6 session, he confirmed that, since James’s accession, no saltpetre or gunpowder had been brought into the Ordnance stores, and he demanded that its export be included in their list of complaints (16 Apr. 1606). Bowyer Diary, 132. On 3 May Johnson also ‘read his own paraphrase’, presumably a hostile one, on a defence of the patentees for the manufacture of saltpetre when they failed to attend the House. CJ, i. 305a. He later explained his actions, and those of the Commons, in a letter of 31 Oct. 1606 to Salisbury. He recalled that ‘as an officer and servant to His Majesty, and as a Parliament man, I was not the second that excepted against the use of that commission, being wholly directed to private ends’. He advised Salisbury to introduce legislation on this issue, rather than have the king issue a Proclamation which might produce ‘a popular applause that carries with it a dangerous inconvenience’. HMC Hatfield, xvii. 335-6. His advice apparently prevailed, and shortly after the beginning of the third session Johnson moved ‘that some course may be taken by bill in Parliament’ against the saltpetre commission (25 Nov. 1606). CJ, i. 1004a. Despite his protestations that he was acting in the public interest, it is suspicious that a licence for the manufacture of saltpetre was granted to the 4th earl of Worcester in May 1607. CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 356.

As an Ordnance official Johnson doubtless had dealings with the London Armourers’ Company, who approached him to present a petition to the Commons on 30 Mar. 1607, which detailed their declining fortunes and the damaging effects of the recent repeal of the 1558 Arms Act. CJ, i. 356b-7a. It was probably Johnson who made the motion later in the session that their petition be considered, and he was named to the committee for this purpose (6 May 1607). Ibid. 369b, 380a. He was also concerned to prevent the export of ordnance, delivering his own bill on the subject to the Commons on 7 Mar. 1610 and reporting it from committee. Ibid. 407b, 412b, 429a, 434a. His membership of committees dealing with bills for the maintenance of artillery (7 June 1604 and 26 Apr. 1606) also reflected his interests as an Ordnance official. Ibid. 233b, 301a.

Johnson played a prominent role in the purveyance debates of 1604 and 1606. He later recalled that Salisbury had sought his ‘private opinion’ on purveyance during the 1604 session, which appears to have stimulated his involvement. HMC Hatfield, xviii. 55. On 7 May 1604 he was one of those considered qualified by their own experience or that of their constituents to ‘make more pregnant proof’ in support of the articles contained in the purveyance petition. CJ, i. 202a. In a letter of 17 Feb. 1606 to Salisbury, Johnson made a number of trenchant criticisms of ‘the common evil of purveyance’, which suggests that his interest in the issue was not predicated simply upon his relationship with the Secretary. He did not, however, participate in the debate on compounding for the removal of purveyance in 1604, but rather tendered his own bill on 23 May, which sought to prevent purveyors from exceeding the limits of their commissions. Ibid. 223a. The measure was designed to combat the abuse whereby purveyors procured many times the provisions required by evading their statutory obligation to account for what they had taken. HMC Salisbury, xviii. 55-6; E. Lindquist, ‘Bills Against Purveyors’, PH, iv. 42, n.19. For the possibility that this was a government bill, see SP14/19/27. The timing of this measure suggests that it was intended to provide a compromise between the more radical bill introduced by John Hare and the Commons’ petition, which had been dismissed by the officers of the Green Cloth, but it proceeded no further as discussion of purveyance was postponed until the next session. P. Croft, ‘Parl., Purveyance and the City of London’, PH, iv. 12-16. Johnson subsequently was nominated to the committee for defraying charges of the king’s Household (31 May), a matter related closely to purveyance, and contributed to the debate over the grant of subsidies in return for the abolition of purveyance on 2 June, but the report of the speech in the Journal obscures his meaning. CJ, i. 229a, 984b.

John Hare, a leading Member of the anti-purveyance lobby, raised the issue again at the beginning of the second session and obtained the leave of the House to proceed with a bill which effectively abolished purveyance. This was probably the 1604 bill penned by Lawrence Hyde I*, but will hereafter be referred to as ‘Hare’s bill’: E. Lindquist, ‘King, People and the House of Commons’, HJ, xxxi. 549, n. 2, 563, n. 81. At its second reading on 30 Jan. 1606, Johnson revived the suggestion of a composition rather than the radical reforms of Hare’s bill, the option preferred by Salisbury. CJ, i. 261b. He also secured a nomination to the cttee. to consider Hare’s bill. Two days later Johnson re-introduced his own 1604 bill: commending Hare’s ‘great bill’, ‘he doubted lest it would not pass to be a law’, and therefore requested that his own measure be read so that ‘if we cannot pass the one bill, we may pass the other’. Bowyer Diary, 16-17. His intervention was probably an attempt by Salisbury to indicate that Hare’s bill had no chance of passing the Lords, but the Commons was as yet unwilling to set aside Hare’s measure even though it also granted Johnson’s bill two readings. Johnson himself proved unwilling to press the matter too far, for on 17 Feb. he wrote to Salisbury that his bill had been committed, ‘but I forbear to call further upon it till I see an end of the other [Hare’s bill] which is so much loved and laboured in’. HMC Hatfield, xviii. 56. Indeed, it was not until 11 Mar. that he advocated his bill again, but the House was not inclined to pursue it. CJ, i. 282b. However, interest in Johnson’s scheme revived after the two Houses reached an impasse over Hare’s bill. On 16 Apr. the issue of purveyors’ commissions was mooted and the ‘bill in Sir Rob. Johnson’s hands’ was recalled for consideration. Ibid. 299a. Notestein mistakenly believed this to be a new measure designed to address the Lords’ criticisms of Hare’s bill: W. Notestein, House of Commons, 1604-10, p. 205. After the Easter recess and the Proclamation on purveyance, which failed to address a number of the Commons’ objections, Johnson’s bill was again reintroduced and given a second reading (3 May), when it was proposed that it should be considered alongside another offered by Lawrence Hyde, which revived Hare’s measure. However, objections were raised and Johnson’s measure proceeded alone. Bowyer Diary, 144; Croft, 30. Johnson reported his bill on 8 May, but nothing further was heard of it. CJ, i. 306b.

Although not a native of Monmouth, Johnson, as its parliamentary representative, defended the interests of the town and its vicinity in Parliament on several occasions, most notably during the passage of a bill for the replacement of a bridge across the Wye at Chepstow. The bill provided for a general levy upon Monmouthshire for making and maintaining the bridge, and at its report stage on 11 Apr. 1606, Johnson, a member of the committee, opposed it and offered a proviso ‘for Monmouth’. Ibid. 296b, 291a. It seems highly likely that this was designed to exempt the town from the levy, and John Hoskins, Member for Hereford, countered that no-one from Monmouth should be allowed to use the bridge if they did not contribute to its upkeep. During the Addled Parliament Johnson again defended the town when another bill for repairing bridges was considered, once more offering a proviso and claiming that Monmouth already helped maintain five other bridges. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 171, 174. The Wye supported many weirs and Johnson was often involved when legislation affecting them came before the House. K. Kissack, River Wye, 4-5; C115/101/7636. One reason for this activity became apparent during the debate over the bill for restraining the erection of new weirs on 23 June 1604, which he described as a ‘fox-faced bill, only bent at the earl of Worcester’. CJ, i. 245b, 997a. This intervention, as well as strengthening the likelihood that it was Worcester who obtained his return for Monmouth, indicates that Johnson defended the earl’s interests (which generally were analogous with those of Monmouth itself) in Parliament. A proviso, in all probability defending Worcester’s interests, was offered by Johnson when the bill was reconsidered during the 1606 session. Ibid. 284a. It was opposed by John Hoskins, as earlier. In 1614 another bill for removing weirs was considered, whereupon Johnson requested that all such structures over 100 years’ old be spared; this was doubtless another attempt to protect Worcester’s interests. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 309. He may have been referring to the contentious weir at Monmouth which, although built under Mary, was erected on the foundation of a much older structure: DL4/72/26, f. 2. His earlier nomination to the committee for the better preservation of fry (14 May 1604) may have constituted an indirect attempt to protect Worcester, as a principal charge against the weirs on the Wye was their detrimental effect on the salmon population. CJ, i. 209a; DL1/175/329; 1/161/169.

Johnson was often involved in parliamentary business concerning London, his main residence, and its chartered companies. In 1605 he wrote a tract regarding London’s water supply and sewer system, apparently for Sir Julius Caesar*, advising that reforms were needed, several of which required legislation. Cott., Vespasian C.XIV, pt. 2, ff. 45-6. He subsequently was named to a number of committees on matters related to London’s water supply, including bills to amend the statute of sewers (31 Jan. 1606), to bring water to the capital from Uxbridge or the River Lea (31 Jan. 1606), to clear the Thames navigation from London to Oxford (17 Apr. 1606) and to fund a college at Chelsea from profits of a waterway to be constructed from the Lea (22 June 1610). CJ, i. 262a, 263a, 300a, 442b. A related issue was his involvement with bills regarding wherrymen and watermen on the Thames in 1604 and 1606-7. Ibid. 204a, 223a, 260b; Bowyer Diary, 25. His activity on the wherrymen’s committee became common knowledge outside the House, for in March 1607 Johnson complained of ‘a turbulent clamour and outcry’ of women against him as he walked the streets for speaking against the wherrymen’s bill. CJ, i. 348b. He also appeared frequently among those nominated to committees on matters related to a variety of London companies, and he was involved actively in considering building in and around the capital. Ibid. 160a, 187b, 189a, 205b, 224a, 251a, 262a, 287a, 291b, 292a, 304a, 329a, 340b, 365a, 368b, 389b, 419a. 429a, 504a.

During the first Jacobean Parliament Johnson made modest contributions to debates on the Union (26 Nov. and 3 Dec. 1606) and the Great Contract (1 May and 6 Nov. 1610). Naturally, as a Salisbury associate, he supported efforts to conclude the Contract. Bowyer Diary, 193n; CJ, i. 1006b, 423a, 438a; Parl. Debates, 1610 ed. S.R. Gardiner, 130. He also offered some practical advice on how money could be raised for the removal of wardship and purveyance (28 June 1610). ‘Paulet 1610’, f. 19. Personal circumstances also brought him to the attention of the Commons during the 1606/7 session, when he claimed privilege. In 1595 Johnson had become the farmer of ecclesiastical prebends in Buckingham, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire. VCH Bucks. iii. 482-3. Early in 1607, when Parliament was in session, Johnson complained to the Exchequer that Sir Robert Brett* had challenged his title and attempted to enter into the properties. E112/70/15. Brett had claimed the reversion of the prebends in 1601: Hatfield House (BL, microfilm M485), mss 89/13, 107/79. Also SP12/99/36 (misdated in cal.). On 10 June 1607 Johnson requested privilege and asked that the case be stayed, which was granted. CJ, i. 381b; CD 1604-7, p. 117. Two days later, however, Brett petitioned the Commons that Johnson was simply trying to delay the hearing in order to secure the next half-year’s rents. He asked that Johnson be released to answer the cause and claimed that the loss of one man, especially during an afternoon sitting, would be no great matter. However, his request was denied. CJ, i. 383a; Bowyer Diary, 327. Johnson again rose on 4 July, claiming that Brett had entered the disputed properties despite the Commons’ decree, but no order was forthcoming. CJ, i. 390b. Three days later the Exchequer ordered Brett leave the property in return for Johnson’s assurance that he would allow the cause to come to be heard next term. If he continued to invoke parliamentary privilege, the hearing would proceed anyway. E124/3, f. 342. The case dragged on until October 1608, when the earl of Worcester and other arbitrators declared that possession should be given to Brett in return for a £200 annuity for Johnson and his wife. E126/1, ff. 89v-90; SP12/276/79 (misdated in cal.); Lansd. 167, f. 260r-v; C66/1809/4.

As clerk of the deliveries Johnson possessed rooms in the Tower, and this occasionally brought him to the attention of the Commons. On 10 May 1604, during the debate about the imprisonment of the warden of the Fleet, Johnson informed the House that, on coming down for supper, he had spoken with the warden even though the Commons had ordered he remain a close prisoner. CJ, i. 205b, 969a. His lodgings also meant that Johnson was employed by the Commons to search for records in the Tower. He was one of those deputed to examine precedents during debates over the reform of the Welsh union statutes (10 Apr. 1606), and on 17 June 1610 he sent a peremptory note to a Mr. Robson to demand copies of a precedent regarding impositions for delivery to the House the next day. Ibid. 296a, 440a; HLRO, HL/PO/JO/10/1/17, f. 37. He was again selected to obtain further precedents from Tower records on 10 July 1610. CJ, i. 447b.

Johnson’s influence in government circles was undermined by Salisbury’s death in 1612, and consequently during the Addled Parliament he seems never to have acted as a spokesman for the Crown. He continued to serve as an Ordnance official, but appears to have fallen ill in early 1620, when his travel expenses were discontinued and his signature on the office’s quarter books was replaced by that of his son, Edward. E351/2651; WO54/9, unfol. See also APC, 1619-21, p. 261. Johnson died in the first half of 1622. Administration of his estate was granted to his son, who continued to occupy his father’s office and lodgings in the Tower and to petition for his father’s arrears of pay. PROB 6/10, f. 181; Cent. Kent. Stud., U269/1/OE394; APC, 1623-5, p. 186; 1625-6, pp. 435-6. It does not appear that any other members of the family served in Parliament.