TICHBORNE, Robert (c.1615-1682), of Noble Street, London.

The London Tichbornes could trace a direct descent from Sir Roger Tichborne of Tichborne in Hampshire, who had flourished in the reign of Henry II. Later in the middle ages the family moved to Cowden in Kent, and Robert Tichborne had many close relatives among the local gentry, some of whom derived their income from the family’s iron foundry in the Weald.53Arch. Cant. xiv. 153-4. Tichborne’s father was a member of the Skinners’ Company who married the daughter of a wealthy London merchant, Thomas Banks, whose sister was the wife of John Hampden*.54The Antiquary xv. 191; Soc. Gen. Boyd’s Inhabitants 10298. Tichborne was brought up to his father’s trade, in 1631 becoming apprenticed to another London skinner, Gilbert Ward.55Arch. Cant. xiv. 156. After obtaining his freedom in 1637 he set up in business as a linen draper ‘by the little Conduit in Cheapside’, and by the outbreak of the civil war he was among the more prosperous City merchants.56Skinners’ Co. apprenticeships and freedoms, f. 121v. He invested £200 in the Irish Adventure in April 1642.57Bottigheimer, English Money and Irish Land, 193. Like many of his fellow Londoners he joined the trained bands where ‘the aptness and proclivity of his person to the war was soon taken notice of and accordingly a command conferred on him of captain over a foot company’.58The Case and Condition of Robert Tichbourn (1661), 4. He discharged his duties ‘with valour and discretion’ and in October 1642, when the London militia committee was concerned that Prince Rupert intended to march on the City, Tichborne was one of the commanders appointed ‘for the repelling and checking of the adverse party’.59Case and Condition, 4; CLRO, Jor. 40, f. 40v. He supported the continuation of the war during the winter of 1642-3 and on 9 February headed a city deputation to the Commons protesting against the proposed peace treaty with the king.60HMC Portland i. 95; Bodl. Dep. C.159, f. 319. The king reciprocated, including Tichborne in a list of prominent City figures he wanted put on trial, and Mercurius Aulicus lumped together Tichborne, Edmund Harvey I* and Richard Browne II* as ‘three seditious subjects who had committed several outrages’ on the citizens of London when seizing horses, enforcing the assessment fines and searching for suspects.61Newsbooks: Mercurius Aulicus i. 44; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 443. When the City radicals gained permission from Parliament to raise auxiliary regiments in April, Tichborne was chosen as a lieutenant-colonel.62Nagel, ‘Militia of London’, 80, 82. In June he was involved in moves to reconcile differences between the militia committee and the committee for raising auxiliary forces, and he was added to both bodies a month later.63CLRO, Jor. 40, ff. 64, 67; A. and O.; CJ iii. 166a, 175a. He was named as one of the commissioners for courts martial in London in August 1644.64A. and O. After the death of his father (from whom he received an inheritance comprising a sixth of his property and a third of his money and goods) at the end of the same year, Tichborne became involved in City politics, succeeding him on the common council.65PROB11/192/287. In October he joined Thomas Andrewes, John Fowke, Samuel Moyer*, Francis Allein* and other radicals in support of Parliament’s choice of elders for the London churches, even though it undermined the authority of the clergy.66Juxon Jnl., 90. On 19 May 1646 Tichborne led a group of 11 members of the common council who opposed the City remonstrance, and ‘did solemnly and gravely make his protestation against every particular and the whole’.67Juxon Jnl., 123. At the end of the same month he organized a petition, allegedly ‘from the sectaries of London’, to minimize the effects of the City remonstrance and was one of those who presented it to the Commons, for which he received the thanks of the House. Such activities angered the Presbyterians, and when they gained control over the militia committee in April 1647, Tichborne was ousted from his place.68Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 136.

Tichborne’s fortunes revived when the New Model marched into London and restored the Independents to power. On 9 August, when the City congratulated Sir Thomas Fairfax* on his actions, the general responded by appointing Tichborne – ‘a gentleman of worth and fidelity, a citizen of good estate’ – as lieutenant of the Tower and colonel of the newly-raised Tower guards regiment.69Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 193; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 599; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 761; Juxon Jnl., 169; Bodl. Clarendon 30, f. 36v. Despite being Fairfax’s protégé, Tichborne invited the prominent London Presbyterian minister, Simeon Ashe, to meet with the council of officers about ‘liberty in worship’ but his efforts at conciliation proved fruitless.70Tai Lui, Puritan London (1986), 68. On 2 September Tichborne was appointed to the reconstituted City militia committee, and later in the same month he began purchasing urban properties from the confiscated estates of the bishop of London.71A. and O.; Bodl. Rawl. B.239, p. 1. On 28 October he attended the army debates at Putney and was one of the officers chosen to confer with the Leveller agitators about The Agreement of the People.72Clarke Pprs. i. 279. On 1 November he intervened in the three-way debate between Henry Ireton*, John Wildman* and Thomas Rainborowe* on the position of the king and the House of Lords in a new constitution. His starting point was ‘that all the power of making laws should be in those that the people should choose’, and he thus supported moves to allow the Commons to reconsider a bill if either the king or the Lords refused to give their assent:

if after a review the House of Commons did declare that it was for the safety of the people, though neither king nor Lords did subscribe, yet it was a standing and binding law.

When the discussion was side-tracked by an argument between Ireton and Wildman, Tichborne intervened to remind the protagonists of their common aims and warned ‘let us not fight with shadows’.73Clarke Pprs. i. 396, 404-5; Puritanism and Liberty, ed. Woodhouse, 117, 122-3. On 3 November Tichborne was back at the Tower where he entertained his new regiment and began to organise them into companies.74Perfect Occurrences 44 (29 Oct.-5 Nov. 1647), 311 (E.520.2). He later returned to Putney and was appointed to a committee to draw up the engagement that was to be put to the regiments at the forthcoming army rendezvous.75Clarke Pprs. i. 413. On 9 November he signed the declaration that the army’s earlier letter to Parliament was not ‘against the Parliament's sending propositions to the king ... our intentions being only to assert the freedom of Parliament’.76Clarke Pprs. i. 414-6. On 22 December he joined Oliver Cromwell*, Ireton and Hugh Peter in leading prayers at the fast day organised by the general council of the army, and at the subsequent meeting it was resolved that the king should be prosecuted as a criminal.77Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 943; Clarke Pprs. i. pp. lvii-lviii; Leveller Manifestoes, ed. Wolfe, 67.

In the winter of 1647-8 Tichborne played an important part in the security of London. As lieutenant of the Tower, he called upon to deal with a royalist plot to seize the garrison in December 1647, but the guards and the London militia proved unequal to the task and the army had to quell the conspiracy. Security around the Tower was subsequently increased: Tichborne was given another 400 men and was appointed to the newly-constituted Tower Hamlets militia committee on 8 January.78I. Gentles, ‘Struggle for London in the second civil war’ H.J. xxvi. 286; LJ x. 228b; A. and O. In April 1648 the House of Lords ordered Tichborne to arrest three recalcitrant aldermen, Thomas Adams*, John Langham* and James Bunce, impeached for their part in London’s counter-revolution.79LJ x. 223a; HMC 7th Rep. 23. At the beginning of the second civil war the Tower was restored to the City’s control. Tichborne lost his position as lieutenant and his regiment was dispersed to reinforce Windsor, Wallingford and other garrisons as well as recruiting the foot regiments in Kent.80CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 81-2, 84. His dismissal perhaps reflected his growing unpopularity. One pamphlet, issued in May, argued that he was only a ‘peevish sectary’ and ‘much below the command’. As the author continued,

I will not call him colonel, his commission being illegal and he fitter for a warm bed than to command a regiment or citadel; one that not above a month before he was chosen lieutenant of the Tower held an opinion that it was not lawful to fight or kill men, thinking that fighting would be in fashion again ... And truly until the walls fall down that support this milksop, no merchant either at home or abroad will trust his bullion within the Tower walls; so that the Mint anvils grow quite rusty, trade never so decayed, as since he came into his preaching government.81The Honest Citizen (1648), 6 (E.438.5).

Although he lacked support in London, Tichborne maintained close links with the New Model and in November, as a representative of the London Independents, he was appointed to the commission which drafted The Second Agreement of the People.82Tolmie, Triumph of the Saints (Cambridge, 1977), 178; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 122-3. The support of Tichborne and the ‘gentleman Independents’ for the trial of the king and the dissolution or purge of Parliament alarmed John Lilburne, but links between them were not yet severed.83Clarke Pprs. ii. 255-8. After Pride’s Purge Tichborne took an active part in the Whitehall debates. On 14 December he proposed that the question under discussion should not be ‘whether the civil magistrate had a power given him from God’ but ‘how far the civil magistrate had power from God’.84Clarke Pprs. ii. 73, 104. Committees appointed by the army general council were ordered to meet at Tichborne’s London house in the second half of December.85Clarke Pprs. ii. 71-2, 134-5, 136.

Regicide and Rump, 1649-53

On 6 January 1649 Tichborne was appointed to the commission for the high court of justice and soon became one of the most persistent advocates of the king’s trial.86A. and O.; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1379. He attended all but three of the sessions, was present when sentence was passed and signed the death warrant.87J. Nalson, A True Copy of the Jnl. of the High Ct. of Justice (1649), passim. On the day of the regicide he was among those appointed to a committee to take account of the costs of the trial.88CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 351-2. In the City he became one of the leaders of the newly purged common council and was eager to show the London’s support for the parliamentary cause. On 13 January the Presbyterian lord mayor tried to stop the radical petition for impartial justice by withdrawing from the council with his two aldermen companions (which technically ended the meeting); but the radicals, led by Tichborne and Colonel Owen Rowe met the challenge and kept the council in session until the petition was adopted.89CLRO, Jor. 40, f. 313; J.E. Farnell, ‘The Usurpation of Honest London Householders’ EHR lxxxii. 24-6; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 180. Two days later Tichborne led a deputation to present the petition to Parliament and having explained that it came from the common council alone, declared that the common council was ‘the more resolvedly fixed to live and die in the maintaining of this public cause with this honourable house’.90The Humble Petition of the Commons in the Common Council Assembled (1649), 4 (E.538.16). The Commons thanked Tichborne and the common council for their good affection and established their right to act without the presence of the lord mayor provided 40 of their own members were present. Tichborne’s authority in the City increased thereafter. He was re-appointed to the London militia committee on 17 January and to the assessment commission in April.91A. and O. In February he was paid the arrears owed to him as lieutenant of the Tower.92Add. 34195, f. 43. In June Tichborne was elected an assistant of his livery Company. On 14 July he was elected alderman for the ward of Farringdon Within, in place of an aldermen excluded for failing to proclaim the abolition of monarchy.93CLRO, Rep. 59, f. 456v; Beaven, Aldermen of London ii. 72. Tichborne took his aldermanic duties very seriously: it was later claimed that he impressed the court with his abilities for he ‘performed the office of a good citizen to common justice, many can bear him witness of much uprightness and integrity manifested by him in private business’.94Case and Condition, 7. During this period he was also involved in prosecuting the leading royalists of the second civil war and signed the warrant ordering the execution of James, 1st duke of Hamilton, in March.95HMC 7th Rep., 71. In April he was appointed one of the trustees given custody of the deeds and charters pertaining to the lands of deans and chapters.96A. and O. In June he was made a commissioner for executing the articles of war – a matter that closely involved the honour of the army.97A. and O.

Contemporaries claimed that Tichborne was a very religious man, who ‘could preach, pray and prate by the spirit’, yet there is no evidence that he was a fanatic.98An Exact Collection of the Choicest Poems and Songs (1662), ii. 72. He belonged to the prominent Independent congregation at St. Pancras, Soper Lane, led by George Cockayne and was also friendly of members of John Goodwin’s gathered congregation.99E. Calamy, The Nonconformists’ Manifesto (1802) i. 175; Farnell, ‘Usurpation’, 27. During 1649 Tichborne published two religious tracts, the first of which was dedicated to Fairfax in acknowledgment of ‘my real affections and abundant engagements to your excellency’, the second to Oliver Cromwell* in order to ‘tender respects to one from whom I have received so many’. The theme of these devotional works was the profession of a saint: the aim to ensure that ‘every soul might be as happy in a fixed state as myself ... if you would fain rest, you must live on God by faith’.100Tichborne, Cluster of Canann’s Grapes (1649), epist. ded.; Tichborne, The Rest of Faith (1649), sig. A2b, A3b. As the leaders of the Rump strove to keep London in reliable hands, Tichborne was one of the City leaders on whom they depended. Despite his earlier association with the Levellers, on 25 October he was appointed to the extraordinary commission to try John Lilburne.101H.N. Brailsford, Levellers and English Revolution (1961), 582. In May 1650 Tichborne successfully began proceedings in the Committee for Compounding to recover money due to him from Viscount Dunbar, and his other debtors at this time included 1st earl of Cleveland.102CCC 214-87, 2162. His influence in the City continued to grow. He became master of the Skinners’ Company, a position once held by his father.103Woodhead, Rulers of London, 163. He was also an active customs commissioner. In June he reported to the Navy Committee on money seized, and in July he signed a certificate concerning expenses.104CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 210-11; Bodl. Rawl. A.184, ff. 2-3. He still retained his command in the City militia and when Parliament ordered three new regiments to be raised in London in August, Tichborne was given one of the commands, alongside Charles Fleetwood* and Thomas Harrison I*.105CSP Dom. 1650, p. 319. Tichborne’s regiment took part in the muster of the trained bands before the Speaker at Hyde Park in October.106Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 252. A month later he joined the other trustees in submitting the accounts for the surveyors employed in setting out the dean and chapter lands for sale.107CSP Dom. 1650, p. 446. His prestige was further enhanced by his election as sheriff in the autumn, and from then on he worked hard to protect the City’s privileges. On 25 December 1650 he was appointed to a city committee to petition the Commons for the ancient rights of the court of aldermen which had been undermined by a recent act of Parliament.108CLRO, Rep. 61, f. 39v. When, in June 1651, it was rumoured that Parliament was about to pass an act creating free ports, Tichborne petitioned to nominate London.109CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 52. He helped to draw up a petition for a parliamentary by-election to replace the excluded London MPs and the recently deceased John Venn*. Tichborne was one of the aldermen appointed by the council of state to mediate in the dispute between the court of aldermen and the common council in October.110CLRO, Rep. 61, f. 238-9.

Following the defeat of the Scots in the autumn of 1651, Tichborne was appointed to a commission for a court martial to try the prisoners taken at Worcester.111CSP Dom. 1651, p. 479. On 23 October he was chosen, alongside Oliver St John*, Sir Henry Vane II*, John Lambert*, George Monck* and others, as one of eight commissioners sent to Scotland to prepare the way for a political union.112CSP Dom. 1651, p. 489-90; Ludlow, Mems. i. 298; Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 360. Although the commissioners were told to be ready to leave at the end of October, their instructions were not finalised until the beginning of December.113CSP Dom. 1651, p. 495; Eg. 1048, ff. 142-8; CJ vii. 49b, 53a. Tichborne left London on 25 December and remained in Scotland until April 1652 when the declaration of union was published.114Nicoll Diary, 73, 80; Cromwellian Union, ed. Terry, 25-6, 149; HMC Portland i. 631-2. He did not warm to the Scots, describing Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston as ‘unworthy to be suffered to live in any commonwealth’ as he refused to ‘live in peace under any authority’, and warning the Kirk ministers that if they were ‘not more quiet’ they would suffer the same fate as Christopher Love and other Presbyterian plotters in England.115Wariston’s Diary ii. 154. On 14 May the commissioners received the thanks of the House for ‘their extraordinary pains and care’ during the negotiations in Scotland.116CJ vii. 132b. Tichborne’s absence had not diminished his influence in England. He managed to secure the appointment of his brother-in-law, George Smith*, to the commission for administering justice in Scotland.117The Antiquary xv. 192. He was appointed a commissioner for relief upon articles of war on 29 September and he was active as a customs commissioner by October.118A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 442. In December he was approached by the common council to help them in their dispute with the intractable lord mayor, John Fowke, but he and Fowke were on better terms by March 1653, when they were both involved in a subscription scheme to support wounded mariners.119CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 78v; Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, ii. 344-5. Tichborne was by this time a firm adherent of Cromwell. After the dissolution of the Rump in April it was said that ‘either Tichborne or the Mayor [Fowke], who stole to him often by night’ had alerted Cromwell to a City petition demanding the recall of the Long Parliament.120Bodl. Clarendon 45, ff. 435v-6v. At the end of May a royalist newsletter reported that Tichborne called a meeting of some prominent London citizens at which it was proposed that Cromwell should assume the crown.121CCSP ii. 207-8. There is no doubt of Tichborne’s authority within the City during this period, and on 14 June, when the lord mayor was absent, he took the chair at the common council.122CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 83v. His position was further strengthened by his second marriage to the relative of his fellow alderman, Thomas Atkin*, which also gave him a connection with Norfolk.123CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 3.

Nominated Assembly, 1653

Tichborne was an obvious choice to represent London in the Nominated Assembly, as he was a citizen of substance, an alderman, and a long-standing friend of the army. But the omission of his name from the first catalogue of Members and his subsequent insertion at the head of the London Members in later lists may indicate that Tichborne had doubts about the Parliament of Saints.124Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 126. If so, his scruples were soon overcome, and he became one of the leading moderate figures in the Assembly. At the beginning of the session he supported Edward Birkhead’s claim to the office of serjeant-at-arms. He was named to the committee on the matter on 7 July, and the next day reported in Birkhead’s favour, telling with Colonel John Clarke against two Cromwellians, Sir Charles Wolseley and Col. Philip Jones.125CJ vii. 282a-b. His knowledge of Scottish affairs presumably led to his appointment to the committee on Scotland on 9 July.126CJ vii. 283b. He was also appointed to consider the best way of dealing with parliamentary business by committee on 14 July.127CJ vii. 285a. On the same day Tichborne was added to the council of state on the recommendation of a parliamentary committee.128CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 25; CJ vii. 284b. He was added to the council’s committee for Irish affairs on 14 July and on 18 July he was given lodgings in Whitehall and appointed to a committee of three councillors to consider a report from the lieutenant of the Tower.129CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 26, 33. Tichborne’s main role on the council of state was in foreign and commercial policy, and he was appointed to committees on prize goods, convoys, gunpowder contracts and customs disputes, to treat with the Swedish and Spanish ambassadors and to arrange for the replacement of the commonwealth’s agent in Constantinople.130CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 47-8, 66, 76, 85, 87, 102, 114, 122, 126, 194, 209. He was named to the council committee on foreign affairs on 27 July, and went on to become president of the council for a fortnight from 31 August.131CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 53.

In the meantime, Tichborne’s activities in the Commons became more controversial. When radical MPs tried to force an early solution to the tithes controversy on 15 July, Tichborne acted as a teller with Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper for the majority who refused to contemplate abolition until an alternative maintenance had been found.132CJ vii. 285b. Four days later he was appointed to the important committee to consider the propriety of incumbents in tithes.133CJ vii. 286a. He also showed an interest in legal reform. On 25 July he acted as a teller with Ashley Cooper against the motion to replace the third admiralty judge with a civil lawyer, supported by Thomas Blount and Praise-God Barbon.134CJ vii. 289a. He was named to committees on the bill for registering births, marriages and deaths on 13, 16 and 17 August, reporting on clauses for amendment.135CJ vii. 300a, 301a, 301b, 302a. From the beginning of September Tichborne was more involved in financial and administrative affairs. He reported from the council of state the need for a committee to call to account officers who had received money for the army (1 Sept.), and he joined Henry Cromwell as teller in favour of continuing the excise only until the end of December, in the face of opposition from Alderman John Ireton among others (6 Sept.).136CJ vii. 312a, 315a; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 307. On 9 September he reported the council of state’s opinion that all the Scottish records in the Tower of London should be sent back north, to ease the problems of administering justice.137CJ vii. 316b. He was added to the committees for raising money when it was ordered to draft rules for the commissioners compounding with delinquents (13 Sept.), and to committees on the sale of forests (20 Sept.) and for relief of creditors and poor prisoners (21 Sept.).138CJ vii. 317b, 322a. On 23 September he was named to the committee for the better preservation of the customs and reported that the best way to solve the nation’s financial problems was to accept the late customs farmers’ proposal to take up the farm again in the security of the royal forests.139CJ vii. 323a, 323b. When the House resolved into a grand committee on the quality of taxes on 12 October, Tichborne took the chair and later that day made the committee’s report.140CJ vii. 333b. When the amendments to the bill to abolish chancery came before the Commons on 27 October, Tichborne acted as teller in the minority with the moderate, Henry King, who wished to see the bill recommitted, the opposing tellers including the radical Andrew Broughton.141CJ vii. 340a; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 296.

On 1 November Tichborne was one of the four tellers appointed to oversee the elections to the new council of state, and in the contest Tichborne came ninth in the poll, with 61 votes.142CJ vii. 343b, 344a. He also told in favour of the motion that this council should continue in existence for six months.143CJ vii. 344b. He was appointed to the council’s committee for foreign affairs on 8 November and on the same day was chosen for a new committee on the mint.144CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 237. During the autumn, Tichborne again became involved in religious affairs. He had been named to the committee to draft a declaration on religious liberty on 10 October, but he was evidently opposed to the demands of the more radical sects.145CJ vii. 332b. In the impassioned debate on the proposal to bring in a bill abolishing lay patronage on 17 November, Tichborne was apparently against abolition, and in the division over whether the question should be put he joined Ashley Cooper as teller against the motion, in opposition to Blount and Ireton.146CJ vii. 352a; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 318. The direction the Parliament was taking may have revived Tichborne’s initial reservations about the Nominated Assembly and, with friends of Cromwell such as Wolseley, Ashley Cooper and William Sydenham*, he attended the House on the morning of 12 December and supported the motion that as Parliament ‘had not answered the people’s expectations’, it should therefore abdicate its power.147Clarke Pprs. iii. 9.

The Protectorate, 1653-9

Tichborne remained in the good graces of the government during the protectorate, and although he was not appointed to the protectoral council he advised the government on matters concerning trade and foreign affairs.148CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 300; 1654, pp. 148, 156, 169. He was appointed a judge in the probate court and a commissioner for inspecting the treasuries in December 1653, and in the new year of 1654 he was active as a trustee for the sale of dean and chapter lands.149A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 317; 1654, p. 4. In January he assisted the council in its investigation of the activities of the Fifth Monarchist preachers, Vavasor Powell and Christopher Feake, and in March he was appointed as a commissioner for the approbation of ministers.150CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 353; A. and O. In June he was appointed a commissioner to judge treason under the ordinance to establish a high court of justice.151A. and O. Tichborne’s position in London was, however, uncertain. In autumn 1653 he had chaired the session of the common council that had accused the lord mayor (Fowke) of misgovernment, but it is clear that he did not dominate the corporation in the early months of the protectorate.152CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 89v. On occasion he represented the interests of the City to the council, as in May 1654, when he joined (Sir) Christopher Packe* in supporting a petition of the craft guilds, and in June he was one of those chosen to examine suspected royalists in London; but his activities as a JP – especially in shutting down alehouses – were extremely unpopular. One pamphlet satirised Tichborne as a ‘valiant Chanticleer’, whose henchmen ‘buzz around his worship with equal devotion to a sort of filthy flies that are observed to do homage to a cow turd’.153CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 148, 204; Good Ale Monopolised and the Tapsters Persecuted (1654), 3, 5 (E.745.8). The fragility of Tichborne’s position was revealed in July 1654, when he failed to secure election to the first protectorate Parliament as one of the MPs for London. No doubt angered by the failure of his own candidacy, he objected to the election of John Langham* and Thomas Adams*, both of whom had been discharged from the aldermanic bench in 1649 for failing to proclaim the abolition of monarchy, and ‘refused to set his hand to the indenture of election’.154Harl. 6810, ff. 164-5. Tichborne’s reputation as ‘a creature of Cromwell’s’ cost him not only a seat in Parliament but also the office of lord mayor: when he was nominated in the autumn of 1654 the common hall rejected his candidacy and ‘hissed at his name’.155CCSP iii. 190.

Tichborne continued to enjoy the support of the government in the mid-1650s. In August 1654 he was appointed as commissioner for London and Surrey in the ordinance for ejecting scandalous ministers.156A. and O. On 15 February 1655 he was appointed to the London militia commission.157CSP Dom. 1655, p. 43. A week later the City, seeking a rapprochement with the government, appointed him to command one of their militia regiments.158Clarke Pprs. iii. 23. Tichborne was prepared to help John Thurloe’s* elaborate security system by using his position as a customs commissioner to keep the secretary of state informed of suspicious persons entering the country in March, and he also received information and requests of help from contacts in Chichester.159Bodl. Rawl. A.24, ff. 123, 507; TSP iii. 324. But his allegiance to the protectorate did not blind him to questions of equity. In April, using ‘the utmost of his power’, he tried to persuade Cromwell to exercise mercy in the case of John Kinsey, who had been sentenced to death at Salisbury for his part in Penruddock’s rising and who, Tichborne claimed, was ‘betrayed by a friend to go with him, not knowing whither’.160TSP iii. 381. In the aftermath of the rising, Tichborne was appointed a commissioner for ejecting ministers in Surrey, and in the autumn he was involved, as JP for Surrey, in moves against the radical sectary, Theauro John Taney.161CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 144, 356. He was added to the committee for trade on 1 November.162CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 94. In March 1656 he was appointed a commissioner for securing the peace of the commonwealth, working under the deputy major general, John Barkstead*.163CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 238.

During the spring of 1656 Tichborne’s relationship with the protectorate deteriorated. His colleagues in the customs commission, Edmund Harvey I and Henry Langham, were accused of large-scale fraud and although Tichborne’s part in the affair is unclear, he fell under suspicion and was forced to give up his office.164Clarke Pprs. iii. 64-5; CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 198, 238, 242-3. The council conducted an investigation, eventually declaring itself dissatisfied with the commissioners’ accounts, and the three were refused more time to put them in order. After an unsuccessful appeal to the protector, a strict timetable for repayment was drawn up and imposed by the council.165CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 286, 295, 328-9, 352-3; 1656-7, p. 59. The satirical Royall Game at Picquet, circulated later in the year, conceded that Tichborne had been harshly treated and ‘like to lose too much by another’s ill play’.166‘The Royall Game at Picquet’ (1656, E.886.4). Tichborne, bitter at his treatment, began to associate with opponents of the government at this time. In August Barkstead reported that anti-government groups, anxious to secure the return of opposition candidates at the forthcoming parliamentary elections, were considering nominating Tichborne as well as Samuel Moyer* and other critics of the regime.167TSP v. 304. City opinion too felt that Tichborne had become Cromwell’s ‘irreconcilable enemy in consequence of having been fined by him’ and, according to a royalist newsletter, he was ‘for no other reason ... now chosen mayor’ in October.168CCSP iii. 190; Bodl. Clarendon 52, f. 356; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 281; CLRO, letter bk. TT, f. 116. Tichborne took up his office ‘with much greater pomp and magnificence than any of his predecessors’ and in the ensuing speeches he was described as ‘the most welcome governor that hath for many years ruled this City; who comes in bringing in his hand the olive branch of peace, restoring to the City those ancient customs of joy and triumph which formerly gave it the title of the most fortunate, plentiful and flourishing City in the world’.169CSP Ven. 1655-6, p. 280; Londons Triumph (1656), 3-8 (E.892.7). During his term of office he took special pains to improve the spiritual welfare of the City and issued orders for the ‘better observance of the Lord’s day’ and days of public thanksgiving. He encouraged preaching not only by setting up a lectureship at the parish of St. Olave, Silver Street, but also by preaching and publishing several sermons himself on such orthodox themes as Christ’s victory over death.170Tai Lui, Puritan London, 111, 186; The Saints Victory over Death (republished 1800), p. vii, 1-3. He was a frequent visitor to London’s prisons to offer spiritual counsel. On one occasion a condemned thief was brought to repentance by visits from Tichborne, ‘whose prayers, and opening up to me God’s method of mercy and the plague of my own heart, were the means of bringing me to the knowledge of my salvation in the blood of His dear son’.171The London Apprentice: a Narrative of the Life and Death of Nathaniel Butler (republished 1802), 20. According one admirer, no lord mayor

governed the City better, nor revived more wholesome laws and reduced things methodically to their first state. The severest punisher of fraud and injustice, a most rigid exacter of all dues and rights belonging to the City and keeping a constant inquisition of all the abuses and trespasses committed or suffered on its privileges, neither favour nor affection ... making him to connive at such unlawful practices.172Case and Condition, 7.

After Tichborne’s election as lord mayor the government took steps to win him over. On 27 November he was made a commissioner for the security of the protector, and on 15 December 1656 he was knighted by the protector.173A. and O.; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 223. When the customs fraud case eventually reached the courts in February 1657, Tichborne’s involvement remained unproven.174E134/1656-7 Hil. no. 6. The protector, ‘being well satisfied of the honesty, faithfulness and integrity’ of Tichborne, later publicly pardoned him and remitted all charges placed on him for balancing the accounts.175E403/2608, pp. 139-40. On 26 June Tichborne took part in the re-inauguration of Cromwell as protector, carrying the sword of the City of London in procession and attending at the left hand of the chair of state during the ceremony.176Burton’s Diary ii. 512-3; CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 82. As his period of office in the City drew to a close there were rumours that ‘the lord mayor doth act so pleasingly to the protector as that he desires to confirm him for another year’.177HMC Var. ii. 271. Royalists in the City were alarmed by this and discussed seizing Tichborne, though nothing came of it.178CCSP iii. 373; Bodl. Clarendon 56, f. 146v. Tichborne did not secure the second mayoralty ‘at which he did leer’, but his standing within the protectoral government was now secure.179An Exact Collection of the Choicest Poems and Songs (1662), ii. 39. In November there were rumours that he would be made a member of the council of Scotland, or even replace Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) as its president.180Clarke Pprs. iii. 123. In December he was summoned to sit in Cromwell’s Other House as Lord Tichborne.181TSP vi. 668; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 314. The opponents of the regime greeted his elevation with cynicism, saying that he had ‘by degrees sadly lost his principles, and forgotten the Good Old Cause, and … is become a great favourite’. His earlier opposition to the House of Lords did not go unnoticed: ‘and what though he was so great an opponent to those things formerly? It’s no matter: then was then, and now is now’.182Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (E.977.3), 15-16. Despite such criticism, Tichborne proved a conscientious member of the Other House, attending all its meetings from 20 January 1658 until 3 February – the day before Parliament was dissolved.183HMC Lords n.s. iv. 507-23. He was named to committees for petitions (21 Jan.), and for a bill on the Lord’s Day (26 Jan.).184HMC Lords n.s. iv. 509, 516.

Tichborne’s role as lord mayor and member of the Other House allowed him to seek respectability in other areas of his life. Earlier in the 1650s he had become associated with the trading interest centred on Maurice Thomson, and had subscribed to his private trading venture with the East Indies that challenged the monopoly on that trade enjoyed by the East India Company.185Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 544. By the end of 1657, however, Tichborne had made his peace with the Company, advising on the oath to be taken by freemen and adjudicate disputes between the former members and new subscribers, and in December he was elected to the committee, having narrowly failed to secure the position of governor.186Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, pp. 191-3, 195, 197. By March 1658 he was trading cloth through the Company, as part of the new general stock venture.187Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, p. 235. He remained active in the City of London, and in June he joined Barkstead and Packe in investigating a duel between the earl of Chesterfield and one Captain Whalley.188CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 66. In August he again assisted Barkstead in examining a notorious highwayman.189CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 117. After the death of Oliver Cromwell, Tichborne remained an important figure in the City, and in October he presented the corporation with a silver basin and ewer.190CLRO, Rep. 66, f. 140v. He took his place as a member of the Other House in the late protector’s funeral procession on 23 November.191Burton’s Diary ii. 527. When Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament convened on 27 January 1659, Tichborne again sat in the Other House, attending most of its meetings until the dissolution on 22 April.192HMC Lords n.s. iv. 525-67. He was named to a large number of committees, including those for privileges and petitions (28 Jan.), the recognition of the protector (1 Feb.) and the disannulling of the title of Charles Stuart (13 Feb.), and he was also involved in measures to limit the powers of the Other House and to search for precedents for its role as an upper chamber (15 and 21 Mar.).193HMC Lords n.s. iv. 527, 530, 537, 548, 551. Despite his willingness to participate in the political process, by the end of this Parliament there are signs that Tichborne was becoming disillusioned with the protectorate. He re-established his links with the army, and in particular with Charles Fleetwood, and as tensions between Parliament and the army increased, on 20 April he joined his former rival, John Ireton, in drawing up

another remonstrance which they sent to the council of officers, in which they declared their resolution with the army to stick to the good old cause and that they were resolved to accompany them in whatsoever they should do for the nation’s good.194Clarendon, Hist. vi. 101-2.

Rump and Restoration, 1659-60

After the dissolution of the third protectorate Parliament, Tichborne organised meetings of the newly-elected army agitators at the Nag’s Head Tavern, and the City was ‘universally enraged’ by reports that he had emerged as the head of one of four army groups in this period.195CCSP iv. 193-4; Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 465; Woolrych, Soldiers and Statesmen, 349. It was also said that Tichborne and his congregational friends had turned against the senior officers, instead supporting moves for ‘setting up of a government in nature of an oligarchy of 70 wise men’.196Clarke Pprs. iv. 21. In May Tichborne and Ireton organised a petition to be presented to the Rump advocating a purge of the City militia to rid it of all officers loyal to the protector.197Hutton, Restoration (Oxford, 1985), 47. Royalists reported that the duo wanted to ‘preserve the City for themselves’, and in June a spoof account of a ‘Soldiers’ Public Library’ at Wallingford House, listed ‘The City compliance for gain without conscience, written by Robert Tichborne’ among its supposed titles198HMC 10th Rep. vi. 199; Bibliotecha Militum, or the Soldiers Publick Library (June 1659), 1 (E.986.4). Tichborne was named to the new militia commission for London on 7 July.199A. and O. His influence in the City and his strong connections with army radicals did not help his relationship with the restored Rump. In June he was said to be ‘mad’ at the Rump’s plan to revoke all salaries granted during the protectorate in an attempt to raise money.200TSP vii. 687. His enemies in Parliament even tried, unsuccessfully, to get him excluded from the act of Indemnity. In the aftermath of Sir George Boothe’s* rising, in August the council of state appointed Tichborne as colonel of a new regiment of London volunteers and gave him power to appoint his own officers.201CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 124.

When the army dissolved the Rump and took over the government in October, Tichborne was appointed to the committee of safety ‘with whom they pretended to entrust the administration of all civil affairs’.202Ludlow, Mems. ii. 131; Clarendon, Hist. vi. 149; Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 56 (E.1923.2). In November he was one of those nominated to represent the council of state in discussions on the form of the government and the role of the army within the three nations, although their deliberations were ‘much obstructed by Alderman Tichborne’s insisting upon their declaration for the setting up of Richard [Cromwell] again, which the rest were averse to’.203Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 368-9; Ludlow, Voyce, 93-4. Significantly, Edmund Ludlowe* saw Tichborne as Fleetwood’s protégé at this time, classing him with Walter Strickland* and Sir Gilbert Pykeringe* as former Cromwellians now associated with the Wallingford House party.204Ludlow, Mems. ii. 149, 172-3. Tichborne’s attachment to the army grandees can also be seen at the end of November, when General Monck by-passed the committee of safety and wrote directly to the mayor and City in favour of calling a free Parliament, and ‘it was motioned by Tichborne and Ireton that the bearers might be secured and the letter not read’.205CCSP iv. 457; Bodl. Clarendon 67, f. 35. On losing the vote it was said that the two aldermen ‘swelled for anger like two toads that the letter was read’.206Bodl. Clarendon 67, f. 48. Membership of the committee of safety had destroyed Tichborne’s influence in London and when the City authorities appointed a committee to represent their views in the negotiations between the various political factions at the beginning of December, it was resolved that ‘they would not permit Alderman Tichborne ... into their society’.207Rugg Diurnal, 16. Soon afterwards Tichborne and his allies were denounced for ‘secretly owning’ John Lambert* ‘and holding a correspondence with this corrupt party all the while’.208A Faithfull Searching Home Word (1659), 16 (E.774.1). During the demonstrations for a free Parliament in the winter of 1659-60, a rope was hung outside Tichborne’s house, and in the spring a series of ‘jeering’ pamphlets appeared against the ‘always pragmatical and withall very schismatical’ alderman.209Hutton, Restoration, 88; The Game is Up (1659), 7-8 (E.1005.12); The Apology of Robert Tichborne and John Ireton (1660, E.1017.3); A Conference held in the Tower of London (1660, E.1017.9). On 19 April the council of state ordered Tichborne’s imprisonment in the Tower as a person ‘justly suspected to be dangerous to the public peace’ but he was released four days later, having given an undertaking ‘to live peaceably under the present government’.210CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 574-5.

Despite the Convention’s order, issued in May 1660, that Tichborne should ‘suffer without mercy or pardon’ for his part in the king’s trial, he surrendered, hoping to take advantage of Charles II’s promise of clemency in the Declaration from Breda.211HMC 5th Rep., 204-5; LJ xi. 32a-b; Ludlow, Voyce, 86. The king’s proclamation of 6 June, however, excepted Tichborne from pardon, and he was imprisoned in the Tower, the fortress he had once commanded.212Howell, State Trials v. 959; W. Kennt, Register and Chronicle (1728), 181. Over the next few months his recently acquired property in Greenwich was returned to the queen mother and a warrant was issued to search his house for the late king’s plate and jewels.213LJ xi. 78a-b; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 78. His shares in the East India Company were given to Sir Henry Littleton†, and his estates in Kent, Sussex, Carmarthenshire and Ireland were the subject of a treasury investigation.214Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1660-3, pp. 26-7, 104; Eg. 2551, f. 13v; CTB i. 92; vii. 1529, 1541; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 558; CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 491. Tichborne was also disabled from holding any public office and was removed from the aldermanic bench.215CLRO, Rep. 67, f. 136.

Trial and imprisonment, 1660-84

On 10 October Tichborne made his first appearance at the Old Bailey but refused to enter a plea until he had received legal counsel. He eventually declared himself not guilty, but changed his plea at the trial and ‘whether out of fear of death, love of life, hopes of favour, or being under a temptation by reason of old age ... pleaded ignorance and acknowledged the guilt, but denied the malice’. Speaking at length in his own defence, he claimed

it was my unhappiness to be called to so sad a work when I had so few years over my head; a person neither brought up in the laws nor parliaments where laws are made. I can say with a clear conscience, I had no more enmity in my heart to his majesty than I had to my wife that lay in my bosom.

He admitted his part in the trial and that he had signed the death warrant but insisted ‘I did not maliciously and knowingly do it’, and therefore asked for mercy. Even the prosecution counsel believed that Tichborne was ‘a penitent’, but he was still found guilty of high treason.216Howell, State Trials v. 1002-3, 1195, 1203-4, 1208-9, 1221. On 16 October he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.217Kennett, Register and Chronicle, 282-3. But, on the intervention of the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Robinson†, and a London vintner, Richard Kinsey, both of whom claimed that Tichborne had saved them from the gallows and had also tried, unsuccessfully, to save Kinsey’s brother, he was reprieved. The news caused some consternation and Queen Henrietta Maria was among those who demanded that the execution should be carried out.218HMC 5th Rep., 169. A bill for the trial of the remaining regicides passed the Commons in January 1662 but the case against Tichborne was dropped in the Lords after his defence had been heard.219HMC 7th Rep., 155. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Tichborne was sent first to the Tower where he behaved ‘with all humility and fair carriage’ and led ‘a most strict, austere and mortified life without any grudgings or repinings at these his sad dispensations’.220Case and Condition, 11. In August he was sent to the prison on Holy Island. His wife continually petitioned the king on his behalf and on account of ‘a lameness and other bodily infirmities’, she managed, with the help of the secretary of state, Sir Henry Bennet†, to get him transferred to Dover Castle in 1664, where she and her children were permitted to live with him.221Eg. 3349, ff. 125, 137; CSP Dom. 1663-4, pp. 21, 289, 505, 510, 592. In 1671 there were rumours that several people ‘had engaged to pay for Tichborne’s liberty’ but he remained at Dover until 1674 when he returned to the Tower, perhaps to assist in the new treasury investigation into his estate.222CSP Dom. 1671-2, p. 9; E407/56/131-4. In the Tower he was treated with kindness by ‘the noble Sir John Robinson’ and he lived there in relative comfort until his death on 6 July 1682. 223Case and Condition, 11-12; Luttrell, Brief Hist. Rel. of State Affairs i. 204. Two days later Kinsey petitioned the king on behalf of Tichborne’s widow for leave to bury him ‘in the Mercers’ chapel by his relations, your petitioner engaging that he shall be buried privately in the night’.224CSP Dom. 1682, p. 285; SP20/419/140. In September the administration of the remainder of his estate was granted to Tichborne’s son.225PROB8/75, f. 123v.