WARD, Edward (1631-1701)

Edward Ward (not to be confused with his namesake, the lord chief baron of the exchequer) was descended on his father’s side from a wealthy mercantile family and on his mother’s side from the Suttons, Barons Dudley. He succeeded not only to his father’s barony but also almost 30 years later to the much older barony of Dudley which had been held by his mother in her own right since 1643. With few surviving personal papers and equally few references in the secondary literature, Ward’s political life is difficult to reconstruct with any confidence. He was described in one antiquarian study as a ‘zealous supporter of the Whig party’ but his parliamentary behaviour and political activity in Staffordshire suggest an allegiance to the court rather than to any particular political party. C. Twamley, History of Dudley Castle and Priory, 50. His father was probably something of an inactive royalist but Edward Ward’s marriage (brokered as part of a deal to release his father from sequestration) brought him links with the parliamentarians. He earned the contempt of Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, supported William Howard, Viscount Stafford, against charges of treason, vacillated over support for Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), and registered his proxy with peers who displayed a range of party political opinion. He does seem to have rallied behind court candidates in elections during the reign of Charles II but he was a clear supporter of the Revolution of 1688, appearing (unusually) in the House of Lords on time for the start of the 1689 Convention. The limited sources available suggest that he lacked any consistent political motivation but voted instead on the issues at hand. Nor is his personal wealth easy to estimate. In 1689, following the Act for a General Aid to their Majesties, Ward claimed in a self-assessment for taxation purposes that his personal estate amounted to ‘none that is chargeable by the act unless some coach horses and other horses and some provision for them worth about three hundred pounds’. Chatsworth, Halifax Collection B.83.

Ward’s parliamentary career lasted for more than 30 years but, with the exception of formal entries in the Lords Journal, little information of his political activities or his involvement in the business of the House survives. His political life in the provinces was based primarily in the midlands: Dudley itself was an island in Worcestershire but was surrounded by Staffordshire, where Ward and his extended family held the manors of Himley, Sedgley, and Willingsworth as part of the Dudley Castle estate. As a deputy lieutenant of Staffordshire throughout the reigns of Charles II and James II, he represented just one of the many gentry interests in Staffordshire. His brother William Ward was based at Sedgley Park in Staffordshire and the latter’s son William Ward^‡ became the Member for Staffordshire from 1710. Baron Ward was involved in the county election campaign for the first Exclusion Parliament but does not seem to have had any involvement in the elections at Stafford corporation which came under the influence of the Chetwynd family. HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 388–9. However, as noted below, there is evidence that he was recruited to help secure court candidates in elections in neighbouring Worcestershire.

During his parliamentary career, Ward attended all but 7 of the 27 sessions in which he was entitled to sit, 9 for fewer than half of all sittings, and only 3 for more than 70 per cent of the session (those being times of political importance: the spring of 1674, the autumn of 1680 during the Exclusion crisis, and the Convention after the 1688 Revolution). During his first session of 1670-1 he first sat on 5 Dec. 1670. He attended 54 per cent of sittings and was named to 19 select committees. On 10 Feb. 1671 he was registered as excused at a call of the House but he returned the following day and attended regularly until the prorogation on 22 April. The next session assembled on 4 Feb. 1673; on 13 Feb. at a call of the House, it was noted that Ward was travelling to London. Arriving at the House three weeks after the start of business, he attended for 64 per cent of sittings. He was named to three select committees, including the bill to prepare advice to the king. He left the House at the long adjournment of 29 Mar. and did not attend the brief autumn session of 1673.

By 7 Jan. 1674 Ward was at Westminster for the start of the next parliamentary session and thereafter attended nearly 71 per cent of sittings during the seven-week-long session. He was named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions and to three select committees, including that on English manufactures, to which he was added with Henry Sandys, 7th Baron Sandys. On 12 Jan. 1674 he was registered as excused at a call of the House, but attended the following day to take the oath of allegiance. In the session of April 1675 he arrived on 24 Apr., during the second week of business, and thereafter attended 67 per cent of sittings; he was named to only one select committee, on tithes. He attended sporadically until the prorogation on 9 June 1675.

Ward did not attend the October 1675 session and on 14 Oct. registered his proxy in favour of former royalist plotter Richard Byron, 2nd Baron Byron (vacated at the end of the session). He arrived at Westminster on 1 Mar. 1677 two weeks after the start of the February 1677 session and attended 66 per cent of its sittings. He was named to two standing committees and to 25 select committees on a range of public and private bills. In April 1677 he was appointed one of the deputy lieutenants of Staffordshire. In May he was listed by Shaftesbury as ‘doubly vile’, a label that places him outside the ‘country’ party network and allied to court loyalists. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.

Ward attended 67 per cent of the sittings of the session of spring 1678 but only the last three sittings in the last week of December in the October session. On 21 Oct. he registered his proxy in favour of John Maitland, earl of Guilford (duke of Lauderdale [S]). The proxy was vacated with Ward’s attendance on 26 Dec. 1678. On that day, in the division on the supply bill (to disband the army), he opposed the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer and was noted by Danby among the ‘opposition lords’. On 27 Dec. he voted to commit Danby on charges of treason, a vote that he would reverse in the new year. By the spring of 1679 Danby considered Ward a supporter, his canvassing list placing Ward on the supporters’ list under the supervision of Charles Bertie^‡. Further lists of early March 1679 listed Ward as a Danby supporter and on the 12th of that month he was listed as a ‘court lord’.

The Staffordshire county election of 13 Feb. 1679 had returned a mixed political ticket: the court supporter Sir Walter Bagot^‡ and the country opponent Sir John Bowyer^‡ (both of whom were returned without opposition throughout the Exclusion crisis). HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 381–3, 583, 698–9. It is not clear whether Ward, one of the principal landowners of the county, actually supported Bagot, since the latter appeared in the Lords in 1680 to give evidence against Viscount Stafford, while Ward opposed the guilty verdict. During the election campaign Ward, whose family had been intermarried with the Wrottesleys, appears to have supported the unsuccessful candidature of Sir Walter Wrottesley over Bowyer. S. Erdeswicke and T. Harwood, A Survey of Staffs. 266. On 4 Feb. 1679 Ward had summoned the gentry to a meeting at Stafford, where it was thought initially that Bagot and Wrottesely had sufficient support for victory. Bowyer did not attend this meeting; Wrottesley, for unknown reasons, stood down and the nomination went instead to the split political ticket of Bagot and Bowyer. HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 381–3.

Ward did not attend the early March 1679 session of the first Exclusion Parliament and he missed the first two weeks of the next session, arriving at the House on 1 April. He attended 64 per cent of all sittings in the session, but was named to only one select committee, on the private bill concerning Sir Charles Houghton^‡ on 24 May 1679. On 1 Apr. he voted against early stages of Danby’s attainder bill, continuing to support Danby on the 14th when he voted to oppose the Commons’ bill. On 10 May, Ward voted against the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, and on 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during consideration of capital cases. Meanwhile, on 8 Apr. the Lords had heard a petition from Ward (on behalf of his nephew, the minor William Ward) appealing a decree in chancery on 18 Feb. 1679 regarding lands in Chester previously owned by the late Sir Thomas Brereton, Ward’s brother-in-law. Ward’s appeal was dismissed on 24 May but the dispute was revived in chancery in 1694. TNA, C 6/95/87.

Ward was in the House for the prorogation on 27 May 1679 but it is probable that he spent much of the following year at home in the midlands. He was in London by 3 Nov. 1680 when he arrived at Westminster for the second Exclusion Parliament; thereafter he attended for 72 per cent of sittings. Named to only one select committee, on the penal laws against Roman Catholics, Ward’s voting behaviour was broadly in favour of the court: on 15 Nov. 1680, he voted against the introduction of the exclusion Bill and rejected the bill on its first reading; on 23 Nov. he voted against the appointment of a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom; on 7 Dec. he voted that Stafford was not guilty of treason. He attended sporadically until the last day of the session on 10 Jan. 1681. On 17 Mar. 1681 it was forecast that he would support Danby’s application for bail. He attended the Oxford Parliament in March for half of all its sittings, was named to one select committee (to receive witness statements on the Popish Plot), and was present on 28 Mar. for the abrupt dissolution of Parliament.

In anticipation of a new Parliament in the autumn, Ward became involved in the Worcestershire election campaign after the lord lieutenant of Worcestershire, Thomas Windsor, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth), determined to oust the two sitting Members, Thomas Foley^‡ and Bridges Nanfan^‡. HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 461–2. Windsor informed George Savile, earl (later marquess) of Halifax that Ward and ‘all our chief gentry’ would be having a meeting at Stourbridge ‘to understand what interest every one of us … made for the election of our intended knights for the county’. Add. 75359, Windsor to Halifax, 10 Oct 1681. The campaign evaporated as it became obvious that there would be no Parliament. By August 1684 Ward’s interests were far more parochial: on the 24th of that month he was granted the right to hold two annual fairs in the town and manor of Dudley, following the usual royal enquiries that the grant would not prejudice the crown or neighbouring economic interests. CSP Dom. 1684–5, p. 126.

On 22 May 1685 Ward and his brother William were named deputy lieutenants of Staffordshire. He arrived at Westminster for the first Parliament of the reign of James II three weeks after the start of business; thereafter he attended 35 per cent of sittings, was named to four select committees, and was added to the committee for privileges. He attended on 19 Nov. 1685 for the ill-tempered debates on the king’s Catholic army officers.

There is no evidence of Ward’s opposition to the policies of James II but his subsequent political behaviour suggests full support for the Revolution. He attended the first day of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 and was present thereafter for nearly 88 per cent of sittings. He was not named to any select committees but was added to the Journal committee. On 31 Jan., following a thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey, he registered his dissent against the resolution not to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant, and in a committee of the whole House he voted to insert into the vote a clause that William and Mary be declared king and queen. In early February he voted to agree with the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’ and on 4 Feb. registered his dissent after the division rejecting that term. On 12 Feb. he was named as one of the managers of the conference with the Commons on the proclamation declaring William and Mary king and queen. At the end of May 1689, he voted to reverse the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates; on 30 July he voted with the minority against the Lords’ amendments to the bill and subsequently entered his protest.

Ward attended the second session of the Convention for 44 per cent of sittings; he was added to all three sessional committees but not named to select committees. By now he was listed by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) as a ‘court lord’ to be approached through James Bertie, earl of Abingdon. Add. 28091, f. 153. Ward did not attend the first session of the new Parliament of 1690. In late October he arrived at the House after the first three weeks of business of the 1690–1 session; he attended for 56 per cent of sittings and was named to six select committees. He did not attend the session the following autumn (1691) and on 5 Nov. 1691 registered his proxy in favour of the Whig Ralph Montagu, earl (later duke) of Montagu (vacated at the end of the session).

It seems likely that, as an influential figure in south Staffordshire, he continued to take part in the customary meetings of county gentry which attempted to reach a consensus and avoid the potentially divisive effects of electoral campaigns. HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 530–3; v. 803. In December 1691 he was listed by William Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, as a potential supporter of Derby’s bill (to restore to him four manors), on the grounds that he had supported an earlier attempt to secure a private bill in May 1685. If Ward did support it, he did so outside Parliament since there is no record of him attending the House in May 1685. He was absent when Derby’s bill was reintroduced and later in the month when it failed in the face of an opposing petition. Lancs. RO, DDK 1615/9. He did attend the autumn 1692 session, but for only 30 per cent of sittings, being named to just four select committees. Absent on 21 Nov. 1692 at a call of the House, he arrived five days later and was present for deliberations on the place bill. He voted against the court on 31 Dec. 1692 in favour of committing the bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 supported its passage. He also (as was forecast) supported the divorce bill for Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, voting on 2 Jan. for the bill to be read. He attended the session for the last time on 9 Jan. when he was given leave of absence. On 11 Jan. he again entered his proxy in favour of Montagu; it was vacated when Parliament was prorogued on 14 Mar. 1693.

Ward did not arrive at Westminster for the 1693–4 session until 23 Jan. 1694. He again attended some 30 per cent of sittings and was named to two select committees. On 17 Feb. he voted to reverse the chancery dismission in the case of Montagu v. Bath. He did not attend the 1694–5 session but came to the first (1695–6) session of the new Parliament for 56 per cent of sittings and was named to eight select committees. On 27 Feb. 1696 he signed the Association and he attended fairly regularly until the end of the session in April. Returning to the midlands, he was occupied with local law and order and in September 1696 was thanked by the king for his efforts in apprehending clippers and coiners in his neighbourhood. CSP Dom. 1696, p. 406. He was not active in the 1696–7 parliamentary session, arriving at the House only at the end of November after the House ordered all members to attend in preparation for the trial of Sir John Fenwick^‡. He attended only 14 per cent of sittings and was named to just one select committee, on the heads of the bill for the ease of the subject on 10 December. He attended on 23 Dec. for the third reading of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick and voted with the court for a guilty verdict. On 11 Jan. 1697 he was given leave of absence on health grounds. Two weeks later he again entered his proxy in favour of Montagu (vacated with the prorogation on 16 Apr. 1697).

In August 1697 Ward succeeded his mother in the barony of Dudley. He received a writ of summons in his new honour on 28 Jan. 1698 and took his seat as Baron Dudley the same day. He attended only 23 per cent of sittings between January and April and was named to 13 select committees, all but two on private bills. On 15 Mar. he voted to commit the bill to punish the Tory exchequer official Charles Duncombe^‡. It is likely that after his last attendance that session (in April 1698), Dudley spent the summer months in Staffordshire. He returned to London in January 1699 to attend the next parliamentary session, being present for some 30 per cent of sittings and named to 11 select committees. Having attended for one day, 23 Jan. 1699, Dudley then disappeared once more, sending the House a letter (read on 27 Jan.) in which he requested a further leave of absence. He was absent until 14 Feb., by which time the House had been acquainted with a legal dispute involving Dudley’s extended family and his Irish in-laws.

The case had weighty implications for relations between the English and Irish Parliaments as it raised the claim of the English House of Lords to have jurisdiction over its Irish counterpart. Dudley’s involvement had come about through the disputed inheritance of lands in Rochestown, county Cork, involving Edward Brabazon, 4th earl of Meath [I], and his wife Cecilia, another daughter of Sir William Brereton (and thus Dudley’s sister-in-law). The Dudley appeal was brought to the notice of the English Lords in February 1699, when the House heard a petition on behalf of Dudley’s grandson, Edward Ward, styled Lord Ward (later 8th Baron Dudley), by the child’s widowed mother, Frances Ward (Dudley’s daughter-in-law). She appealed against an order of the Irish Lords in October 1695 reversing an order of the palatine court of chancery of Tipperary in favour of Ward. The Irish Lords had reversed this judgment and found in favour of Meath. The English House of Lords discussed Ward’s petition in conjunction with the case of the Ulster Society v bishop of Derry on 11 Feb. 1699. On 14 Feb. Thomas Grey, 2nd earl of Stamford, having chaired the Lords’ committee, reported that Ward’s petition was of the ‘same nature’ as that of the Ulster Society and could be proceeded upon following enquiries to the lord justices in Ireland. Meath, acting through his English barrister, Paul Jodrell, petitioned against a hearing in the English Lords. PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/512/1369; HL/PO/JO/10/3/188/32, 34, 35. On 29 Apr. 1699 the House was informed that Meath had not responded to Ward’s petition and overruled Meath’s plea against a hearing in the English Lords. After further deliberation the House ruled that the original appeal by Meath to the Irish Lords was coram non judice, that its proceedings were null and void and that the Tipperary court must give possession of the disputed lands to Lord Ward. If Meath and his wife objected to the order, they were at liberty to appeal to the English Lords.

For the rest of William’s reign and into the reign of Queen Anne, Meath’s case continued to occupy the Irish parliament, which considered the actions of the English Parliament an affront to its honour. In 1703 the lord lieutenant, James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormond, wrote to Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, of his great concern at the disruption of relations between the two Parliaments and the determination of the Irish Lords to ‘assert and vindicate the honour, jurisdiction and privileges of their House’. The queen’s later attempt to defuse the whole issue by offering a compensatory pension of £300 per annum to Meath was itself a matter for further concern. Ormond’s determination to expedite the whole matter ‘quietly’ was frustrated by the equal determination of some ‘busy’ Irish lords to convert the episode into the wider issue of Irish subservience to the English Parliament. CSP Dom. 1703–4, pp. 491–3, 499, 500, 531, 566.

Dudley seems to have kept a low profile throughout the case, attending only sporadically throughout the spring of 1699. According to the manuscript minutes, but not the printed Journal, he was present on 28 Mar. for the division on the verdict of manslaughter reached against Edward Rich, 6th earl of Warwick. HMC Lords, iii. 358-9. He subsequently attended for the prorogation on 4 May 1699. In the summer of 1700, back at Dudley Castle, he gave hospitality to William Lloyd, bishop of Worcester, who had preached and confirmed in Dudley while on his visitation. Diary of Francis Evans ed. D Robertson, 28. Dudley did not attend the following session and there is no evidence that he was actively involved in the parliamentary elections for Staffordshire after the dissolution in December 1700. He was, however, involved in the Worcestershire campaign when, on 15 Jan. 1701, together with the lord lieutenant, Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, he endorsed the candidature of the sitting Member and Junto supporter, William Walsh^‡. HP Commons 1690-1715, v. 785; Badminton, Coventry pprs, FMT/A3/3.

Dudley returned to Westminster for the new Parliament of spring 1701 and attended for nearly two-fifths of sittings; he was named to five select committees. He attended the House for the final time on 22 May. Having returned home, he died on 3 Aug. at Himley at the age of 70. He was buried on 8 Aug. 1701 in the family vault at Himley. His will confirmed all existing arrangements for the transfer of landed estates and he made his brother William Ward the guardian of his grandson and heir, Edward Ward. His heir and John Hodgetts were named as executors; Dudley’s surviving son, Ferdinando Dudley Ward (who died unmarried) was named as a residuary legatee only if Edward Ward refused to abide by the conditions of his guardianship. Probate was delayed until 1704, after the premature death from smallpox of the 8th Baron Dudley and the posthumous birth of the 9th Baron, also named Edward Ward.