WILLOUGHBY, William (1615-73)

In 1638 the young and recently married William Willoughby, having returned from his travels abroad, replaced his uncle George Manners^†, 7th earl of Rutland, as keeper of Bestwood Park in Nottinghamshire, an office he shared jointly with his wife’s brother John Carey^‡. Through his uncle Rutland he probably further acquired the nearby manor of Warsop. Thorold, Antiquities of Notts. (1677), 258, 446; CSP Dom. 1638–9, p. 56; Add. 71599. He also lived for several years as a tenant at Stanstead Abbot in Hertfordshire before purchasing the manor and royal residence of Hunsdon in that county from his wife’s kinsman Henry Carey, earl of Dover, in 1653. CCC, 1838; VCH Herts. iii. 328. Despite the Willoughbys’ long-standing links with Lincolnshire, William was seen principally as a landowner with local influence in Hertfordshire and Nottinghamshire and served in a number of local offices and commissions in both counties (particularly Hertfordshire) – deputy lieutenant and militia officer, justice of the peace and commissioner of the poll tax, assessment and sewers – throughout the 1660s.

Apart from looking after his own interests and his rapidly expanding family, William spent the years before his succession to the title protecting the interests of both his royalist elder brother Francis Willoughby, 4th (CP 5th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, and his parliamentarian brother-in-law Bulstrode Whitelocke^‡. Whitelocke Diary, 272, 277–8, 390, 404, 427, 440–1, 451–2, 454, 462, 522. Made a trustee of Francis’s estate in 1647, William, assisted by Whitelocke, spent much time trying to preserve those lands from the committee for compounding before their restitution to the Willoughby of Parham in 1652 under the terms of the Articles of Barbados. In 1658 he was extracting promises from agents of Sir Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, that the king would keep Willoughby of Parham in his posts if there were a restoration. CCSP, iv. 20. At the same time, when Whitelocke feared persecution from the newly re-established Rump in December 1659, he was able to find sanctuary in his brother-in-law’s residence at Hunsdon House. Whitelocke Diary, 205–6, 215, 557–60; CCC, 1838–40. William knew John Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, well enough for that royalist leader in April 1660 to forward to Charles II William’s letter declaring his fervent loyalty to the monarchy. CCSP, iv. 662, 666.

William’s recently discovered royalism did not disqualify him from sitting in the Convention, where he represented Midhurst in Sussex, although the reasons for his election in this constituency are not clear. There he worked for both brother and brother-in-law again, arguing strenuously and successfully that Whitelocke should not be excluded from the general pardon that was part of the bill for indemnity and oblivion, and furthering the passage through the Commons of a bill to compensate Willoughby for his services to Parliament in the 1640s. Whitelocke Diary, 595–6, 598–600, 604–5; HP Commons, 1660–90, iii. 741. He did not stand for the Cavalier Parliament, but he continued to act as agent in London for his brother in Barbados. Judging by petitions and memoranda that he submitted, by 1665–6 he was sufficiently familiar with the court and council to consult personally with the king, James Stuart, duke of York, lord chancellor Clarendon, George Monck, duke of Albemarle, and other members of the Privy Council on West Indian and colonial matters. Bodl. Clarendon 84, ff. 140–1, 307, 358; Add. 70010, ff. 77, 88.

As late as 8–9 Nov. 1666 William was still representing his brother, by petitioning the House on his behalf in the matter of the bill to settle the debts of Thomas Wentworth, earl of Cleveland. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, p. 107; HMC 8th Rep. pt. 1 (1881), 6. By the last days of that month news had reached England which confirmed the Willoughby of Parham’s death with his fleet in a hurricane in July. Pepys Diary, vii. 389–90; Clarendon 84, ff. 307, 358. William Willoughby now assumed the title (the idea that the 3^rd Baron Willoughby of Parham was succeeded by an elder son Henry, rather than Francis, has resulted in William being identified as the 6th, rather than the 5th, Baron Willoughby; this however is based on an 18th century transcription error which is described in an appendix in volume 1 of this work. Willoughby petitioned the king to confer on him his brother’s governorship of Barbados so that he could manage his brother’s colonial plantations, for ‘there is no other estate to support the dignity [of the barony]’, the previous baron having ‘in your Majesty’s service in the West Indies spent his paternal estate to the value of £4,000 per annum’. William received his commission appointing him governor of Barbados and the Caribbee Islands on 3 Jan. 1667. Three weeks later, the lord high admiral, the duke of York, further commissioned him vice-admiral of the same territories. CSP Col. 1661–8, pp. 430, 433, 437, 442, 454. Willoughby’s writ of summons to the House was dated on that same day, 24 Jan. 1667, and he first took his seat in the House two days later, continuing to attend for all but one of the succeeding sittings of the 1666–7 session until Parliament was prorogued on 8 February. HMC 8th Rep. pt. 1 (1881), 102. On 11 Mar. he set sail for the Caribbean from Portsmouth, keeping Clarendon informed of his progress throughout, and arrived at Barbados on 23 April. Add. 70011, f. 7; Bodl. Carte 222, ff. 150–3; Clarendon 85, ff. 129–32, 264–5.

For the next few months he organized the defence of the English West Indies against the French and the Dutch in the last days of the second Anglo-Dutch War, during which his second son, lieutenant-general Henry Willoughby, scored some notable victories at Nevis, Montserat and Antigua. Carte 222, ff. 162–3; Clarendon 85, ff. 254–7, 264–5. After news of the Peace of Breda finally reached Barbados late in 1667, the island returned to its usual divided and turbulent politics and in early 1669 Willoughby set out for England again in order to defend his own and Barbadian interests at Whitehall. V.T. Harlow, A History of Barbados, 183–7. He arrived early in February 1669 and, after having been robbed on the road from Portsmouth, made it back to the capital in time to attend the prorogation of the long 1667–9 session on 1 Mar. 1669. Add. 36916, f. 125. He remained in England until the summer of 1672 and assiduously participated in the parliamentary sessions of October–December 1669 and February 1670–April 1671.

Willoughby was present at all but one sitting day of the session of autumn 1669. He was placed on the committees to consider the decay of trade (25 Oct.) and to prevent frauds in exports of wool (7 Dec.) and was reappointed to these same committees when they were re-established, on 17 Feb. and 3 Mar. 1670 respectively, early in the 1670–1 session, where he was present at 93 per cent of the sitting days. He was named to 20 committees in the first part of this session before the summer adjournment on 11 Apr. 1670, including committees on bills to settle the proper jurisdiction of the Admiralty (14 Mar.), to improve tillage (22 Mar.), to prevent arson (24 Mar.), to repair bridges and highways (30 Mar.) and to set an imposition on foreign brandy (7 April). On 26 Mar. he subscribed to the protest against the passage of the conventicle bill. Two days after this, Whitelocke dined with him and commented that Willoughby ‘seemed a good friend’ to liberty of conscience. Whitelocke Diary, 753.

He was chairman for two committee meetings on 28 Mar. 1670, on bills to prevent the abduction of children and on standard measures of corn and fuel. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 321–2. He also appears to have chaired the committee, established on 30 Mar., on the bill to repair the harbour of Great Yarmouth, for he reported the bill and some amendments on 2 April. When the session resumed after its adjournment on 27 Oct. 1670 he was nominated to a further 36 committees before the prorogation on 22 Apr. 1671, including those on bills to further discourage the import of foreign brandy (19 Dec. 1670), to encourage the export of native liquors (11 Feb. 1671), to reinvest the power to grant wine licences in the king (13 Feb.), to prevent the disturbances of seamen (14 Mar.), to prevent the growth of popery (24 Mar.) and to prevent the cultivation of tobacco and to promote that of flax and hemp (both on 6 April). On 9 Mar. he dissented from the resolutions that in effect rejected the bill to limit privilege of Parliament.

From January 1671 Willoughby and a group of Barbadian merchants in London, known as the ‘Gentlemen Planters’, began to meet regularly in a tavern on Cheapside as ‘The Committee for the Public Concerns of Barbados’ to further co-ordinate their lobbying on trade matters. TNA, CO 31/2, pp. 37–39, 81–85, 103–9. By the beginning of 1671 this group was concerned by the passage through the Commons of the bill for impositions, which provided for an increased duty on West Indian sugar, both raw and refined. At the meeting of the Gentlemen Planters on 23 Mar. 1671 it was ordered that

Since we can have no relief in the imposition laid on sugars in the House of Commons, it is ordered by the Committee that Sir Peter Colleton^‡, Col. Henry Drax and Capt. Ferdinando Gorges do attend the Parliament at Westminster and consult with his Excellency the Lord Willoughby of a convenient time to petition the House of Lords against this tax. CO 31/2, p. 82.

The bill was first read in the House five days after this decision and committed the following day to a committee of 49 peers, including Willoughby. From 29 Mar. to 8 Apr. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), chaired the committee, attendance at which ranged from 16 members to 32. Willoughby appears to have been a constant and active member of the committee and on 30 Mar. Sir Peter Colleton, his colleague in the Gentlemen Planters, argued before the committee against the Commons’ proposed impositions on white and brown sugar. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 438–48. On 8 Apr. the House accepted the amendments of this committee to lower the imposition on white sugar in favour of the West Indian planters and two days later chose Willoughby as one of the ten peers assigned to manage the conference at which both these amendments and a proposed address encouraging the king to desist from wearing clothes of foreign manufacture were to be discussed. The Commons agreed to discuss the amendments in conference, but not the address, a response which the Lords considered ‘unparliamentary’. The House refused to continue before this matter of procedure was settled and Willoughby was also appointed a manager for the conference held on the afternoon of 11 Apr. on this matter.

The first conference on the content of the amendments was held the following day, after Edward Montagu, earl of Sandwich, had presented to the House a long and detailed rationale for lowering the imposition on sugar. The debate between the houses quickly centred on the Commons’ objections to the Lords’ attempts to amend what they saw as an unalterable supply bill. These points were discussed in another four conferences held during the week from 15 Apr., for all of which Willoughby was a manager. Eventually Charles II, realizing that there was to be no agreement between the two houses, prorogued Parliament on 22 Apr. 1671.

The Gentlemen Planters in England emphasized Willoughby’s important role in these proceedings in their account of them to the Assembly of Barbados:

And we undoubtedly had had the same success here [the House of Lords], that we had with the Commons had not the Lord Willoughby, who was one of the Committee and infinitely concerned for you, with great efficacy convinced the Lords of the mistake the merchants were running them upon … with which their Lordships being satisfied reduced white sugars to two farthings and a half … We think it our duty also to let you know that my Lord Willoughby hath showed himself wonderful affectionate and zealous in your concerns, and very instrumental with the Lords in the ease you have.

They further pointed out that Willoughby had also been important in convincing the House to delete clauses prohibiting trade between the West Indies and Ireland in the bill for preventing the planting of tobacco in England. CO 31/2, pp. 44–45, 48–49, 98–101.

Willoughby departed for the West Indies again in late July 1672 to prepare for the renewed war against the Dutch. Add. 70081, newsletter, 20 July 1672. For the parliamentary session beginning on 4 Feb. 1673 he registered his proxy with Horatio Townshend, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend, his brother’s old colleague in the royalist attempt on King’s Lynn in the summer of 1659. In the first days of April Willoughby scored some notable successes against the Dutch in Tobago but he died suddenly on 10 Apr. 1673, in the middle of campaigning. Add. 25117, f. 97; CCSP, iv. 194, 205. At his death he was in possession of several manors in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, but he left many of them in the care of trustees to raise money to pay his debts of £8,859 and to provide marriage portions for his two daughters totalling £5,000. To his three younger surviving sons he was only able to bequeath household goods at Bestwood Park, and to his eldest son and heir, George Willoughby, 6th (CP 7th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, he left a portion of his estates, with the further instructions that he was to sell Thorpe in Lincolnshire towards payment of the debts he had incurred by providing for the government of Barbados out of his own pocket. PROB 11/343; Eg. 2395, ff. 485–6.

Just before his departure for Barbados in March 1667 Willoughby had written to the king asking him to protect ‘the good breeder (my good wife) I leave behind, who hath brought your Majesty seven he subjects such as I dare own’. CSP Col. 1661–8, p. 454. Willoughby and his wife had had fourteen children, including eight sons. All the hopes he placed in this large brood were dashed in a little over ten years from the time of this letter. He apparently had seven surviving sons in 1667, but three of these died in the intervening years; only four outlived him and three of these were to die within five years of their father’s death. Charles Willoughby, the future 9th (CP 10th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, was the youngest of the 5th Baron’s eight sons. He came to the title in September 1678 after his whole cohort of male siblings (and one nephew) had expired as young adults. Charles himself died within a year of succeeding to the title, at which point the Lincolnshire branch of the Willoughbys of Parham was left without male heirs and the title passed to an obscure Lancashire branch of the family.