WARD, Humble (1613-70)

The son and heir of a wealthy London goldsmith and court jeweller, Humble Ward’s match with Frances Sutton, granddaughter of the bankrupt playboy Edward Sutton^†, 5th Baron Dudley, was secured by Ward’s father’s payment of £10,000 to redeem the mortgaged Dudley estates. CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 443; 1635, pp. 78, 181; 1638-9, p. 511; Colls. for a Hist. of Staffs. ix. pt. 2, p. 118. Frances (whose father predeceased the 5th Baron) was granted the style and precedence of the daughter of a baron in 1635 and inherited the barony in 1643 on the death of her grandfather. CSP Dom. 1635, p. 141. Although both of Ward’s parents were descended from armigerous families, it is clear that despite his active royalism, his elevation to the peerage was due principally to his wife’s superior status. Colls. for a Hist. of Staffs. ix. pt. 2, pp. 116-17. Ward was knighted in June 1643 on the day after his wife succeeded to the barony of Dudley; he was granted his own barony the following spring. Ward later claimed that he took no active part in the Civil War and protested that Dudley Castle had been garrisoned by the royalists against his will. His professions are at odds with his presence in Oxford in 1644, his receipt of the barony and presence at Dudley Castle during its second siege of 1646. In 1648, though, he was pardoned for delinquency on condition that he relinquish the castle. His sequestration was finally discharged in 1656 by which time he had taken steps to keep Dudley Castle in the family. CCC, 2779-80; VCH Worcs. iii. 94; PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/256, Draft ordinances, 22 Mar. 1648; LJ, x. 132; CJ, v. 501. Within two years of the castle’s surrender to Parliament, Ward’s eldest son and heir (Edward, the future 7th Baron Dudley and 2nd Baron Ward) was married to Frances Brereton, daughter of Sir William Brereton^‡, the parliamentary general who had commanded the siege of Dudley and to whom the castle was surrendered. Colls. for a Hist. of Staffs. ix. pt. 2, p. 121; VCH Worcs. iii. 94. By the time of his death, Ward was in possession of numerous properties in Worcestershire and Staffordshire and was in a position to make money bequests of over £2,500. PROB 11/334.

Ward took his seat in the Convention on 22 June 1660 and attended the session for some 47 per cent of sittings. He was named to only one committee: the Covent Garden bill on 22 December. Four days after taking his seat, Ward’s wife’s claims on the barony of Dudley were challenged by a petition submitted by her cousin, Edward Gibson, grandson of the 9th baron’s younger son, John. The petition was referred to the committee for privileges but no further progress was made in the claim. HMC 7th Rep. 109. The dispute rumbled on to 1667 when the baroness petitioned the king for the ‘title, style and precedence’ of the barons of Dudley as her ‘birthright … in discharge of her duty to God and her posterity’. The petition was referred to the lords commissioners for the earl marshal; they confirmed the grant made to the baroness by Charles I. CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 477.

Ward returned to the House for the opening of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament. He attended frequently (for just over 85 per cent of sittings) but was named to only five committees: for mending streets and highways, for preserving deer and for the private bills for Sir Aston Cockayne and Charles and Gilbert Barnsley. On 1 Feb. 1662 he was added to the committee for petitions and on 24 Apr. (along with Christopher Roper, 4th Baron Teynham) to the glass bottles bill.

Ward took his place once more at the opening of the new session on 18 Feb. 1663 and attended nearly 80 per cent of sittings. On 19 Mar. he was again added to the committee for the glass bottles bill. During the session he was named to only six more committees, for bills on: John Guest’s charity; the estate of John Robinson^‡; the Killigrew’s naturalization bill; the port of Wells; the observation of the Sabbath; and the assignment to James, duke of York, of the profits of the post office and wine licences. In July he was noted by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, as likely to oppose the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon.

Ward arrived two weeks into the parliamentary session that opened on 16 Mar. 1664 and attended for nearly 70 per cent of sittings. He was in the House throughout the passage of the conventicles bill but was named to no committees. He joined the autumn 1664 session on 9 Dec. and attended 63 per cent of sittings; on 7 Dec., at a call of the House, he had been noted as being sick. On 13 Dec. he was named to the committee for the bill to enable Henry Hastings, Baron Loughborough, to make the river and shore navigable from near Bristow (Brixton) Causeway in Surrey to the Thames. The following day he was named to the committee for the bill settling the estate of Samuel Sandys^‡ (a Worcestershire man and former royalist lieutenant colonel). HP Commons, 1660-90, iii. 387. In February 1665 further committee nominations followed. On 18 Feb. he was added to the committee for the pinmakers’ bill, on 22 Feb. he was nominated to the committee for the bill for Sir Robert Carr^‡ and on 28 Feb. to the committee considering legislation to prevent arrests of judgments.

Ward did not attend the Oxford Parliament in autumn 1665. On 16 Oct. he was excused attendance having previously registered his proxy in favour of James Fiennes, 2nd Viscount Saye and Sele, a choice which may suggest Ward’s opposition to Clarendon. Jones, Party and Management, 6. Ward took his seat once more one week into the autumn 1666 session; he was named to the sessional committees. His pattern of frequent attendance and infrequent committee involvement continued. He attended nearly 90 per cent of the sittings yet was named to only six committees, for bills on: preventing the spread of plague; the jointure of Lady Elizabeth Noel; the price of provisions; the estate of Henry Mildmay; the estate of Sir Seymour Shirley; and the relief of French merchants.

The same pattern was repeated in the following session in autumn 1667. He attended 76 per cent of sittings in the eighteen-month long session but was named to only ten committees on a range of measures, including the estate bill of Sir Kingsmill Lucy^‡, and the bill for Clarendon’s banishment (whose impeachment he had supported in the vote of 20 November). On 17 Feb. 1668 he was excused at a call of the House. He returned to his place on 22 February. Thereafter he attended regularly until early May.

Ward returned to his place six days into the start of the session that began in October 1669 and attended 86 per cent of sittings. On 9 Nov. he was named to the committee to consider the commissioners’ accounts. On 3 Dec. the House was informed that Richard Gough (a prisoner for debt in Shrewsbury jail) had been released by virtue of one of Ward’s protections. Ward now claimed that he had been ‘misinformed concerning the person of the man’ and undertook to ensure that the creditor, William Dorsett, was reimbursed all the expenses and debts incurred as a consequence of Gough’s release.

Ward returned to the House on 14 Feb. 1670 for the start of the new session and was named to the sessional committees. Although his final illness meant that he attended for only ten per cent of sittings, Ward was named to 16 committees, including that for the bill to allow the remarriage of John Manners, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) – a measure that Ward appears to have supported. On 29 Mar. he was named to a subcommittee of the privileges committee tasked with ensuring that the record of the attainder of Thomas Wentworth^†, earl of Strafford, was razed from the Journal. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/2, p. 69. He attended the House for the last time on 11 April.

In a parliamentary career that had spanned ten years and involved well over 600 sittings, Ward seems not to have been an active parliamentarian. It is unclear whether his relative lack of activity was due to prolonged absences from the chamber or if it reflected a more deliberate process of selection (either by Ward himself or by his colleagues). Ward seems to have been no more active at a local level. Given the lack of significant territorial interest by any one landholder in Staffordshire at this point, the period saw a marked desire for unanimity and county elections were not contested. HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 381. Ward’s second son, on the other hand, seems to have been more politically active; William Ward (to whom Ward had bequeathed four estates and £1,000) was involved in county affairs under both Charles II and James II, opposing the policies of James II. Ward was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest son, Edward Ward, 2nd Baron Ward (and later 9th Baron Dudley), and was buried on 19 Oct. 1670 in Himley church.