POLITICAL HISTORY 



reputation, and his death, 9 May 1641, was regarded by both parties as a 

 calamity. Clarendon describes him as one who ' rather desired to bind up 

 those wounds which were made than to make them wider by entertaining 

 new jealousies between king and people,' '" as ' a wise man, and of too great 

 and plentiful a portion to wish a subversion of the government,* "^ and ' the 

 greatest person of interest in the popular party.' ^** On the outbreak of 

 hostilities, his son William, who had sat in the Long Parliament and had 

 succeeded to his father's seat in the Lords as fifth earl, took service for the 

 Parliament, and, commanding the reserve of horse at Edgehill, helped to turn 

 a defeat into a drawn battle.*" In 1 643 he went with the Earl of Holland 

 to Oxford, where he was graciously received and pardoned by the king, but 

 got cold welcome from the Royalists."" He fought on the king's side at the 

 first battle of Newbury,*" but returned to London by the end of the year,*'* 

 and after that took no active part in the conflict. His property was sequestered, 

 but the sequestration was taken off in 1644.*" A more active supporter of 

 the king was the Earl of Cleveland, to whom the success of Croprcdy Bridge 

 in 1644 was mainly due ; *" but he was taken prisoner at the second battle of 

 Newbury in the same year,'" and passed most of his time in prison, with 

 intervals of parole, till the end of 1648.*" His son. Lord Wentworth, also 

 fought gallantly as a Royalist.'" Henry, Earl of Peterborough, after some 

 hesitation took the same side, raised a troop, and was wounded at the first 

 battle of Newbury,*'^ and he and his brother John took part in the Earl of 

 Holland's rising in 1648.*" Finally, Lord Capel of Warden Abbey, who 

 had sat in the Long Parliament as member for Hertfordshire, but had been 

 made a peer in August 1641,**° raised a troop of horse at his own cost. Of 

 his fate something will be said later. 



Besides these noblemen, a considerable number of the gentry of Bedford- 

 shire supported the king. William Gery of Bushmead raised a troop of 

 horse, and his brother George was captured at Naseby.*" The former was one 

 of the delinquents whose estates were decimated in 1655,*** and in July 1660 

 his son William petitioned for a commissionership of excise, one claim 

 being that his 'father lost his whole estate by adhering to the late king.'*^* 

 Others who fought for the king or actively supported him were Sir Lewis 

 Dyve,*" William and Richard Taylor of Clapham, who were both taken 

 prisoners, Spencer Potts of Chalgrave, Thomas Joyce, vicar of Haynes, 

 Sir Francis Crawley of Luton, one of the judges who had decided against 

 Hampden on ship-money ; Edward and John Russell, brothers of the Earl of 

 Bedford, Sir William Palmer of Hill (in Warden), the widow and son of 

 John Wingate of Harlington, Sir Peter Osborn of Chicksands, Richard 

 Conquest of Houghton, Robert Spencer of Eaton Socon, young Robert 

 Audley of Northill, and Michael Grigg of Dunstable ; while among those 

 who did not take up arms, but declared their sympathies, were Sir George 

 Bynnion of Eaton Socon, Sir Edward Ashton of Wymington, Sir Thomas 



*<= Hist. Rebellion, bk. iii, 178. "' Ibid. 28. '^ Ibid. 191. 



2^' Ibid. vi. 79, 81. ''" Ibid, vii, 189. "' Ibid. 241. 



852 Ibid 248. '" Lords' Journ. vi, 529, 634. '" Clarendon, op. cit. viii, 64-6, 



" Ibid! 157. '" Diet. Nat. Biog. '" Ibid. 



'^^ Ibid. "' See below, p. 53. ™ Collins, Peerage, ii, 309. 



=^' Brown, op. cit. 43. *^ Thurloe, State Papers, iv, 513. '^ Cal. S.P. Dom. 1660-1, p. 151 



^^' The name also appears as Dyves, Dive, and Dives, but Dyve is the best-accredited form. 



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