Ridgeway’s family settled around Exeter by the late fifteenth century, but came to prominence only with his grandfather, John, a lawyer who represented Dartmouth and Exeter in Parliament between 1539 and 1554. Having acquired the Tor Mohun estate, at the northern end of Tor Bay, John entered local government, serving as a Devon feodary and magistrate. Ridgeway’s father, Thomas, also sat for Dartmouth, and held the county shrievalty in 1590-1.
Ridgeway consolidated his Court ties early in the new reign when he was appointed a member of Anne of Denmark’s Council, with particular oversight of the queen’s Devon estates.
Some of Ridgeway’s appointments clearly reflected his personal interests, or the concerns of his constituents. His status as Dartmouth and Exeter’s customer explains his nomination to the legislative committee concerning corrupt port officials (5 May), while his support for the free trade bill and his inclusion in the committee for the pilchard trade reform bill mirrored Devon’s mercantile priorities (31 May and 20 June).
Nevertheless, Ridgeway’s Court connections meant that the government had expectations of him. In late April a private bill was introduced to confirm the Crown’s grant of Berwick-upon-Tweed castle to the chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir George Home. The measure was contested, and probably occasioned an undated letter from Sir John Stanhope to Lord (Robert) Cecil†, reporting his efforts to rally support for an unspecified bill. Stanhope confirmed that Ridgeway and another kinsman, Sir John Holles*, would ‘use their best endeavours’ during the forthcoming debate; ‘and Ridgeway, who is strong with his Devonshire crew, assures me of a good party’. Certainly, when the Home bill finally passed its second reading, he was nominated to its committee (30 May).
However, Ridgeway did not automatically toe the government line on every issue. He apparently used his own judgment on the bill to settle a jointure on Queen Anne from the Crown’s estates, a measure which would have interested him as a member of the queen’s Council. Appointed to the bill’s committee on 4 July, he continued to back the legislation two days later despite reservations being voiced by the queen’s lawyers.
Ridgeway was even less co-operative over the Union. Although not known to have contributed to any of the early debates on this subject, he was nominated, perhaps on the strength of his Court connections, to attend a conference with the Lords (14 Apr.), and to serve on the commission for the Union (12 May). However, when the agenda for the next conference was considered on 16 May, Ridgeway apparently sought to confuse matters by proposing that the issue of wardship should also be raised with the Lords. On 24 May he secured a Commons’ resolution to the effect that the act of subscribing to the proposed draft treaty should not bar individual commissioners from expressing dissenting views when the document was debated in Parliament. Eight days later he was named to the select committee to consider the bishop of Bristol’s book attacking the Commons’ proceedings over the Union. He subsequently demanded a written retraction from the cleric, and offered several Elizabethan precedents to justify this firm line (11 June).
On the issue of wardship, Ridgeway’s stance is harder to discern. He was appointed to two conferences with the Lords concerning the petition to the king requesting permission to discuss this topic (26 Mar., 22 May), and may have been aware that Cecil, the master of the Wards, was inclining towards reform. Certainly, his unsuccessful motion on 16 May for wardship to be discussed in conjunction with the Union indicated a greater willingness to pursue the former issue. Ten days later it became clear that the idea of compounding for wardship no longer enjoyed the government’s backing, and the Lower House, wrong-footed by this volte-face, sought to justify its actions. On 1 June Sir Edwin Sandys reported back from the latest conference on wardship that the Lords were still blocking reform. Ridgeway responded by moving that,
since it appeared His Majesty had made such an impression of mislike of the proceedings of the House ... [and] that the grounds conceived, touching wardship ... seemed to be so weakened and impugned; it were necessary and safe for the House, and dutiful and convenient in respect of His Majesty, instantly to advise of such a form of satisfaction, either by writing, or otherwise, as might in all humility inform His Majesty in the truth and clearness of the actions and intentions of the House, from the beginning ... touching the said matter of wardship.
This motion was immediately adopted, and Ridgeway subsequently chaired the committee that drafted the well-known Form of Apology and Satisfaction of the Commons. However, when he reported the text on 20 June it provoked mixed reactions, and no further action was taken.
On the face of things Ridgeway had simply been voicing the Commons’ confusion and indignation when he proposed the Apology. Nevertheless, it has also been argued that by referring the whole matter to a drafting committee, Ridgeway sought to cool the dispute with the Crown, or perhaps defuse Sandys’s call for the House to defend itself against criticism by the Lords. If so, the tactic was successful, for while the Apology encouraged the Commons to vent its spleen on a range of issues, the three-week delay allowed time for calmer counsels to prevail - hence the decision not to adopt formally the finished declaration. At the very least, Ridgeway must have had second thoughts about the wisdom of proceeding any further with the Apology, as he did not support Sir William Strode’s attempt to revive it on 29 June. Whatever his true intentions may have been, Ridgeway cannot have incurred any lasting royal displeasure, as he was included in a small deputation sent to the king on 28 June after James was injured by a horse.
On occasion, Ridgeway completely misjudged the mood of the Commons. On 24 May 1604 Members debated relief measures for officers recently discharged from the army in Ireland. One of his own relatives may have been affected, and he objected violently to the proposal that money should be raised by a levy on inns and alehouses. However, his own solution, that the king, the Lords and his fellow Members should collectively provide £4,000, predictably fell on deaf ears.
Ridgeway was present for the opening of the second session, being named to committees to examine the Spanish Company’s charter and to scrutinize the bill for better execution of penal statutes (5-6 November).
As in the first session, Ridgeway attracted some business relating to West Country concerns. The subjects of the bills which he was named to consider included regulations on cloth dimensions, corrupt customs officials, impositions on merchants, and unlawful fishing (5 Feb., 15 and 19 Mar., 3 April). He was also entrusted, on 25 Jan., with chairing the committees for bills on poor relief and the Cornish estates of Sir Jonathan Trelawny*. Ridgeway reported the latter measure on 4 Feb., but failed to bring the other legislation back to the House.
Once again, the government’s finances formed one of Ridgeway’s major preoccupations. On 28 Jan. he was nominated to the committee for the Tunnage and Poundage Act amendment bill. Much more significantly, on 10 Feb. he initiated debate on supply, delivering a detailed account of the Crown’s needs, for which he had clearly been briefed. His closing motion for a committee to draft a subsidy bill was promptly seconded by Sir Maurice Berkeley, his colleague on Anne of Denmark’s Council. Sir Edward Hoby* subsequently commented that Ridgeway had been drafted into this role because of the current dearth of privy councillors in the Commons. Named to help prepare the bill, Ridgeway reminded Members on 20 Feb. that ‘that king could not be safe, that was poor’, and on 6 Mar. again stressed James’s ‘wants and necessity’. Finally, on 25 Mar. he helped to secure a vote by which an increased grant of three subsidies and six fifteenths was agreed and scheduled.
In addition to his quasi-ministerial interventions over supply, Ridgeway significantly modified his stance on purveyance, though this was not immediately apparent. On 30 Jan. he was named to help consider John Hare’s radical reform bill, which aimed to sweep away most of the current practices. As this approach was unacceptable to the government, Ridgeway may have sought membership of the committee in order to monitor the bill’s progress for Cecil, now earl of Salisbury. He was also appointed, on 22 Feb., to help draft a message to the Lords defending Hare’s conduct during a conference on purveyance. However, two days later he broke ranks with Hare, and instead backed Sir Robert Johnson’s proposal for a general composition, the option preferred by Salisbury. On 6 Mar., according to Robert Bowyer*, Ridgeway repeated his argument, ‘but not with much reason’. He was now an isolated figure on this issue, as most Members continued to back Hare’s bill. On 18 Apr., the last day of business before the Easter recess, he was granted indefinite leave of absence.
Ridgeway’s departure from the Commons was probably in response to his appointment as the next vice-treasurer and treasurer-at-wars in Ireland, since news of the government’s decision reached the Irish Privy Council on 29 April. He was most likely nominated by his predecessor, Sir George Carey†, his cousin and near neighbour in Devon, who had been supplying him with an Irish pension of £66 13s. 4d. since 1602.
The English government had already assured the Irish lord deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, that he would find Ridgeway ‘a gentleman of very good sufficiency’, but the new treasurer faced a massive challenge. In November 1606 he reported to London that, even with the bullion that he had personally delivered to Dublin, he was over £2,000 short of meeting his current obligations, and that Ireland’s ordinary revenues had been overestimated in England. He immediately drew up plans for reforming the Irish customs, encouraging local trade, and penalizing recusants more severely. Unfortunately for Ridgeway, however, the supply of funds from England did not increase significantly, nor did Irish trade greatly improve, which made it difficult to borrow money locally.
Ridgeway was a leading player in the plantation of Ulster. His involvement began in 1608, when he helped to suppress Cahir O’Dogherty’s rising there, after which he helped to carry out a preliminary survey of escheated lands.
In 1613 Ridgeway was returned to the Irish Parliament as Member for county Tyrone. As a leading government spokesman, he nominated Sir John Davies* as Speaker, and helped in the ensuing contest to install him in the chair by force. Two years later, during the Parliament’s third session, he steered through Ireland’s first ever grant of subsidies, a major revenue advance. However, recognizing that some concessions were needed in return, he also backed the lifting of restrictions on the country’s recusant lawyers, a move disliked by the king.
During the next few years Ridgeway divided his time between Ireland and Devon. In 1619 he testified for the prosecution during the earl of Suffolk’s corruption trial. The surcharge on his official accounts placed a massive burden on his already strained finances, and in 1621 he mortgaged many of his English estates to his sometime London agent, George Mynne*, and a prominent London merchant, Robert Parkhurst, who took responsibility for the bulk of his debts.