ROPER, Christopher (1653-89)

Little is known of the 5th Baron Teynham’s life. Even his date of birth is obscure. He was underage at a call of the House on 12 Jan. 1674, so it is possible that his writ of summons, dated 10 Feb. following, was issued on or close to his 21st birthday. A recusant, like his father, he married a Catholic, Elizabeth Browne. Their children also remained within the Catholic community: his sons, John* [1342], and Christopher, 6th and 7th Barons Teynham, were being educated by a priest in 1692, G. Anstruther, The Seminary Priests, iii. 51. two daughters became nuns and the others married into the Catholic Belasyse, Stonor and Sheldon families. Kent HLC (CKS), U498/z5. Although Teynham seems to have had little parliamentary influence of his own, his wife’s family exercised considerable electoral interest in their local borough constituency of Midhurst. HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 424.

Having taken his seat on 11 Feb. 1674, Teynham attended only twice more before entering a proxy on 16 Feb. in favour of his fellow Catholic John Belasyse, Baron Belasyse. Belasyse, like Teynham’s father, had supported the 1663 attempt to impeach Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, and was by now probably associated with the country opposition group led by Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury. The proxy was vacated by the abrupt ending of the session on 24 February. When parliamentary sittings resumed in April 1675, Teynham was present on approximately 74 per cent of sitting days, no doubt eager to express opposition to the policies of Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). On 29 Apr. he was noted missing at a call of the House without explanation, even though he had been marked present on the attendance list for the day. He resumed his place on 4 May and during the remainder of the session was named to four committees. He took his seat once more just under a fortnight into the autumn session on 26 October. Present at just over three-quarters of sittings in the brief session, he was named to ten committees and on 20 Nov. he voted with Shaftesbury’s country supporters in favour of an address to the Crown for the dissolution of Parliament, though he was not one of those to register his protest when the motion was rejected.

When Parliament met again in 1677, Teynham took his place on the opening day, 15 February. He was thereafter present on 93 per cent of all sitting days, and was regularly named to committees for both public and private bills. Prior to the adjournment in April he was named to 23 committees and he was named to a further 13 after the session resumed the following February. Unable to support the contention that Parliament had been dissolved by the prolonged prorogation, his attitude to Shaftesbury, like that of other Catholic peers, was now one of opposition rather than support. Shaftesbury consequently listed him as ‘doubly vile’. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.

Teynham returned to the House for the new session on 23 May 1678 but his level of attendance fell to just under a half of all sittings and, barring the standing committees, he was named to just two further committees in the course of the session. He took his seat once more just over a week into the subsequent session on 1 November. On 26 Nov. he was named to the committee for the bill for raising the militia. The day before, his steward had been compelled to petition the House for permission to undertake his duties at Lynsted (being a suspected Catholic). The Lords allowed him to fulfil his obligations there provided that he did not come within ten miles of London or Westminster. Treatment of Teynham’s steward underlined the difficulties affecting all Catholic peers at this point. Even so, allegations that Teynham was involved in the Popish Plot do not seem to have been taken seriously. J. Kenyon, Popish Plot, 101. Until he was disabled from sitting by the passage of the Test Act on 30 Nov., he was present on just over 70 per cent of sitting days in 1678 (though this amounted to just 39 per cent of the whole). Not surprisingly, Teynham voted against the Test Act and entered a dissent at its passing.

Teynham may have been the Lord ‘Tenant’ listed by Narcissus Luttrell^‡ as present at Fitzharris’ trial in 1681. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 95–96. The only other glimpses of him between 1678 and his return to public life shortly before the Revolution of 1688 relate to his role as one of those answering a complaint made by Francis Browne, 4th Viscount Montagu, over the administration of his father’s will and a reference to a prosecution for recusancy being stayed in November 1685. In March 1687 he was one of a number of Catholics granted permission to return to court without the need for taking the oaths of allegiance. TNA, PRO C6/244/50; CSP Dom. 1685, p. 380; CSP Dom. 1686–7, p. 67.

Teynham failed to attend James II’s Parliament, being noted missing at calls on 26 May and again on 16 November. The new regime, though, offered him the prospect of a return to influence. In January 1687 it was reported that he was to be awarded command of one of the regiments recently deprived of their Protestant colonels. Although this seems not to have transpired, towards the end of that year he was appointed lord lieutenant of Kent in place of Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, who had held the office since 1660. Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 42, f. 103; 43 ff. 21–22; Add. 34510, f. 49. Although the Kentish jps provided James II with an encouraging response to the three questions, Teynham lacked local support and faced a difficult task in translating such answers into electoral success. His electioneering must have been further hampered by the refusal of a number of local magnates, including the two sitting knights of the shire, Sir William Twysden^‡ and Sir William Knatchbull^‡, to serve as his deputy lieutenants (the former excusing himself on grounds of infirmity); the men who replaced them, such as the Catholics Philip Smythe^‡, 2nd Viscount Strangford [I], and Sir Edward Hales^‡, could not command the same level of support. Add. 34173, f. 39; CSP Dom. June 1687–Feb. 1689, pp. 302–3. In October 1688 the threat of invasion forced the king to remove the inexperienced and unpopular Catholic from the lieutenancy of so strategic a county. Teynham was put out of office and replaced by James’s close ally, the experienced military commander Louis de Duras, 2nd earl of Feversham. Add. 52924, f. 8.

At the fall of James II, Teynham was one of several Catholic gentlemen to seek sanctuary at Upnor Castle, where the sympathetic governor attempted to arrange their passage to France. The plan evidently misfired and Teynham was arrested. CSP Dom. 1689–90, p. 257; Universal Intelligencer, 18 Dec. 1688. He was subsequently released (or escaped) and fled abroad. In March 1689 passes were granted for three of his daughters, Philadelphia, Winifred and Ann, to travel to France, presumably so that they could join him in exile. CSP Dom. 1689–90, p. 32. He was reported to have died in Brussels in May 1689. Luttrell recorded on 25 July of that year that Teynham had died ‘lately’, while a letter of November detailing the activities of Sir Abraham Jacob, whom Teynham had put forward as a potential burgess for Dover, styled Teynham as the ‘late lord’. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 563; CSP Dom. 1689–90, p. 331. The barony was held in succession by his sons John, Christopher and Henry, as 6th, 7th and 8th Barons Teynham.