The Widdringtons were an ancient Northumbrian family who had long owned the township of Widdrington and other estates on the north-east coast of England. William Widdrington’s father became one of the most trusted officers of William Cavendish, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle, in the northern royalist army in the Civil War and even served as president of Newcastle’s council of war. By his marriage to Mary Thorold in 1630, Sir William Widdrington acquired the manor of Blankney in Lincolnshire, and Newcastle appointed him, as a ‘person of honour’, commander-in-chief of Lincolnshire, Rutland and Nottingham during the brief royalist occupation of those counties in 1643. When Sir William was made a baron on 10 Nov. 1643 for his services to the king, he was created Baron Widdrington of Blankney, emphasizing his family’s connection with Lincolnshire.
Widdrington accompanied his commander Newcastle into exile after the defeat at Marston Moor.
Widdrington’s activities during the Interregnum are unknown. On 4 May 1660 he was part of a group of ‘Oxford peers’ – those who had been created or elevated by Charles I in Oxford during the Civil War or, as in Widdrington’s case, their successors – who fruitlessly requested from George Monck, the future duke of Albemarle, permission to take their places in the Convention House of Lords.
Widdrington, like his father, followed a military vocation – as did three of his younger brothers.
His marriage had also increased Widdrington’s landholdings and influence in Lincolnshire. His wife’s uncle Montagu Bertie, 2nd earl of Lindsey, lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire, gave him a commission as deputy lieutenant in 1660, renewed after the passage of the Militia Act in 1662.
Apart from enhancing his Lincolnshire landholdings, Widdrington’s marriage brought him important political connections with the Berties, headed by Lindsey and then by his son Robert Bertie, the 3rd earl of Lindsey, and to Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), whose wife, Bridget, was cousin to Widdrington’s wife. After his death, Widdrington’s widow was able to exert her late husband’s electoral influence when she worked, in tandem with Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle, to have Danby’s younger son Peregrine Osborne, Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S], later 2nd duke of Leeds, elected Member for Berwick in a by-election of 1677.
Having returned with Newcastle in the king’s train, Widdrington first sat in the House on 2 June 1660, the day that saw an influx of returning royalists. After this late start he was a relatively diligent attender of the House, turning up for just over half of the sittings of the Convention until the adjournment on 13 Sept. 1660. He was not particularly active in this period and was named to only four committees on legislation, three of them in the space of two days, on 7–8 September. Having been appointed governor of Berwick-on-Tweed in August 1660, he was probably in the far north to take up his duties in the months following and did not return to the capital to attend the Convention after it resumed on 6 November.
Widdrington was back in the House for the first sitting of the Cavalier Parliament, 11 May 1661, but he went on to attend on only just under half of the days of that session. Some three-quarters of them were concentrated in the first part of the session, before the adjournment of summer 1661. It was not until 1 July that he was placed on his first committee, that to consider the petition to re-establish the Council of the North, with which he would have had a close concern. At about that time Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, understandably placed him among the opponents of the claims of Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, for the hereditary office of the great chamberlaincy against Widdrington’s kinsman Lindsey.
Widdrington did not return to the House until 17 Feb. 1662, many weeks after the House had resumed in late November 1661, and through this late start he only came to about a third of this part of the session before the prorogation on 19 May 1662. He returned with one principal purpose in mind, for on 22 Feb. he introduced in the House a bill to enable him to sell land in the Lincolnshire manor of Evedon in order to pay for the portions of his seven siblings and to provide for his own younger children. The bill was committed three days later to 19 members of the House. The proceedings in the committee took a long time, from 27 Feb. to 17 Mar., as the bill provoked the opposition of his own mother, who submitted a petition stating that Widdrington’s marriage settlement with Elizabeth Bertie had stipulated that the manor of Evedon was to be put in trust to provide for his brothers and sisters and that this attempt to void the settlement risked the welfare of her other children. Nor was Widdrington’s wife happy with this attempt to alienate what she considered to be her own inheritance. A proviso was finally agreed upon in committee that satisfied all the parties and on 20 Mar. the much-altered bill was reported by John Egerton, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, and was passed by the House five days later. It was sent down to the Commons on 3 Apr., where it was largely ignored among the great quantity of business dealt with in the last weeks of the session. It was only read for the first time on 11 Apr. and then not committed until six days later. Widdrington’s bill was lost at the prorogation on 19 May 1662 and he never reintroduced it in a subsequent session.
In this period of the session Widdrington was named to nine committees on legislation. On 28 Apr. 1662 he was added to the already-existing committees for the bills for distributing £60,000 to the ‘loyal and indigent’ officers of the civil wars, and for regulating the northern borders – in both of which matters he clearly had both a personal interest and knowledge. His experience in the fenlands of Lincolnshire, on the other hand, was reflected in his appointment on 4 Mar. to the committee for the bill to confirm decrees made by the commissioners of sewers in the Isle of Axholme.
Widdrington appeared in the House for the second day of the session of spring 1663 but left shortly thereafter, after only a further ten sittings. On 23 Mar. he was given the House’s leave to be absent, ‘having his Majesty’s leave to give his proxy’, which he duly registered the following day with his captain-general, Albemarle. Wharton forecast that, through his proxy with Albemarle, the absent Widdrington could be considered a supporter of the attempt of George Digby, 2nd earl of Digby, to impeach Clarendon in July 1663. Widdrington was still absent when the Parliament resumed on 16 Mar. 1664 but did appear on 20 Apr., and was present for only 13 sitting days in the session of spring 1664. He was absent for all of the following session of 1664–5, for which he again registered his proxy with Albemarle on 27 Jan. 1665. He did not appear in the House again until 9 Nov. 1666 and when he did return he sat only ten times until 23 Nov., when he and a number of other military commanders, such as Charles Howard, earl of Carlisle, and John Frescheville, Baron Frescheville, were dispatched back to their posts in the north.
Widdrington was still absent for the first part of the session of 1667–8 when a bill seeking to enable trustees to make leases on the Lincolnshire lands of Sir Charles Stanley in order to pay his debts and provide for his children was read in the House on 22 Oct. 1667.
Widdrington himself first sat in the House in this session on 6 Dec. 1667 and three days later he was added to the committee considering the state of trade between England and Scotland. He only sat in the House for eleven days from the time of his re-appearance there until the adjournment on 19 December. He was present, however, when the House reconvened on 6 Feb. 1668, and attended just over three-quarters of the meetings of this part of the session, until the adjournment of 9 May. This part of the session saw his first formal dissents. On 9 Mar. he was one of five dissenters from the resolution to grant relief to the petitioners Cuthbert Morley and Bernard Grenvile‡, whose case against Jeremy Elwes had earlier been dismissed in chancery. A week later he dissented again, this time from the subsequent resolution to reverse the chancery dismissal. He was named to six committees during this time, and on 12 Mar. was placed on the committee delegated to determine the compensation due to Thomas Skinner from the East India Company in the cause Skinner vs. East India Company, an appointment which was subsequently expunged from the Journal under Widdrington’s own reluctant supervision.
Widdrington first sat in the following session of winter 1669 on 4 Nov. 1669 and missed only nine of the sitting days of this brief session. He was active in the proceedings surrounding the continuing dispute between the houses over Skinner vs. East India Company. On 11 Nov. he was prominent in the debate when the Commons’ bill to remove the Lords’ judicature in original causes was first read. Edward Montagu, earl of Sandwich, noted that ‘there was a universal indignation’ against the bill and that Widdrington was one of the many who moved to reject it, but that Widdrington also added the motion that in response the House should draft its own bill explicitly regulating and asserting the House’s rights in judicature. Just as the House was ready to reject the bill outright, George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, argued strenuously that either it should be maintained and amended to reflect the House’s rights in judicature or that Widdrington’s motion should be accepted and an entirely new bill be drafted, stating the House’s rights and privileges. It was probably this incident, where Widdrington put forward a motion approved by Buckingham himself in a perhaps pre-concerted move, that led Sandwich to place Widdrington among the four followers of Buckingham who ‘appeared’ in the House that session. Another one of Buckingham’s followers named in this list was Widdrington’s cousin Sir Thomas Osborne, one of Buckingham’s leading clients, and this may have been the connection which first brought Widdrington and Buckingham together.
Widdrington was in the House on the second day of the 1670–1 session, but only sat for a further 25 sittings before he received leave of the House on 23 Mar. 1670 to go into the country, ‘about his occasions’. During this brief period he was named to nine committees. He maintained his opposition to the Commons’ claims in Skinner vs. East India Company and on 21 Feb. 1670 was one of only nine peers who voted against the motion that all record of the dispute for the past two years should be expunged from the Journal, as specifically requested by the king himself.
His former proxy recipient, Albemarle, having died at the beginning of 1670, Widdrington turned instead to a fellow military commander of the northern border, Charles Howard, earl of Carlisle, lord lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland, to receive his proxy, which was registered on 24 March. This proxy was vacated on 27 Oct. 1670, when Widdrington returned to the House after the summer adjournment. In this second, longer, part of the session he came to two-thirds of the sitting days. He was placed on 18 committees on legislation, including, on 26 Nov., the one for the bill to make navigation of the River Trent around Boston more navigable. This spoke to his Lincolnshire interests and experience, and it was Widdrington who chaired the final meeting of the committee and reported the amended bill on 14 December.
During the third Anglo-Dutch War of 1672–4, Widdrington, as governor of Berwick and, from 1672, a commissioner for the lord lieutenancy of the county palatine of Durham, was closely involved in the defence of the north-eastern coast. On 7 June 1673 he was commissioned colonel of the infantry regiment until recently commanded by James Hamilton, who had died of wounds incurred during his first naval engagement in its command.
Most notable during this period was Widdrington’s involvement, even if peripheral, in proceedings framing the anti-Catholic legislation of the period, and particularly the Test Act of 1673. In the earlier session of 1670–1 he had been appointed on 24 Mar. 1671 to the committee for the bill to prevent the growth of popery and on 13 Apr., in a meeting of the committee, he was nominated to a subcommittee assigned to draw up the test and oath for this bill, the genesis of the later Test.
Widdrington first sat in the session of early 1674 on 16 Jan. and came to 71 per cent of the session’s sitting days. He was named to only three committees on legislation, including that with which he was so associated, the bill for governing servants and apprentices (16 February). The principal outcome of this session was the Treaty of Westminster, which put an end to the unpopular third Anglo-Dutch War and freed up Widdrington from many of his military responsibilities. Thus he had more time to devote to Parliament and he attended all but five of the sittings of the session of spring 1675 (probably the most consistent attendance record of his career) and was named to 11 committees on legislation.
By this time, Widdrington’s cousin the earl of Danby, as Sir Thomas Osborne had been created in 1674, had been appointed lord treasurer and had become the manager of the court and Church interest in Parliament. One of his strategies to suppress the growing country opposition was his ‘non-resisting’ test bill, which aimed to exclude from Parliament all those who were unwilling to swear that they would never attempt to make any alterations in Church or state. Danby forecast that his cousin would support him in pushing this measure through, and in this he was probably right, as Widdrington’s name does not appear in any of the protests signed by members of the country opposition in an attempt to halt the bill. His only signed protest of the session came on 10 May 1675, when, after hearing counsel in the dispute between Dacre Barrett and Edward Loftus, 2nd Viscount Loftus [I], he joined six other peers in dissenting from the resolution to overturn the decree made by the Long Parliament on 3 May 1642 in favour of Loftus’s father, then lord chancellor of Ireland, in his dispute with Thomas Wentworth†, earl of Strafford.
Widdrington’s principal activity in the House this session was to take care of personal matters, particularly perceived breaches of his privilege. He submitted a petition to the House on 8 May 1675 against the mayor and burgesses of Berwick-on-Tweed for their failure to take proper action against those who encroached upon his right held since 1662 to control fishing in the River Tweed. Eleven days later, Widdrington complained that his servant George Burall had been arrested in November 1674, during time of Parliament, on the order of the attorney Mr Robinson and at the suit of John Heron. When Robinson and Heron begged the pardon of the House, Widdrington interceded on their behalf and they were discharged on 4 June 1675, only five days before the prorogation.
Widdrington sat for a further eight meetings from 13 Oct. to 10 Nov. 1675. He was dead by 5 Dec. and his body reached Widdrington by sea for burial at his ancestral home on 15 December.