suc. fa. 10 May 1655 as 15th Bar. MORLEY, 7th Bar. MONTEAGLE
First sat 1 May 1660; last sat 14 Apr. 1697
b. c.1636, o. s. of Henry Parker, 14th Baron Morley†, and Philippa, 2nd da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Caryll of Bentons in Shipley, Suss. m. (bef. 8 May 1657),1 Mary (1632–1700), da. of Henry Marten‡, lawyer and regicide, of Beckett, Berks. s.p. bur. 15 July 1697.
Capt. of horse 1666.
Associated with: Hornby Castle, Lancs.; Great Hallingbury, Essex.
Renowned for his violence and debts, Thomas Parker possessed neither the character nor the income to support the dignity of his peerage, even though it was one of the most ancient baronies in England. His political inheritance was a complicated one. His father had suffered the financial consequences of being a recusant and a royalist during the civil wars and seems to have spent much of the final part of his life in the prison of the king’s (upper) bench. According to the Complete Peerage his father-in-law was Sir Henry Marten‡, the admiralty judge, but a surviving deed concerning his wife’s jointure identifies her father as Sir Henry’s son and namesake, the regicide Henry Marten‡. It was perhaps these ambivalent political connections that prevented Morley from reaping the rewards of loyalty after the Restoration.
Morley’s political and religious beliefs remain tantalizingly ambiguous. Although he does not seem to have been active in support of the king during the Interregnum he is known to have been in touch with the exiled court in the summer of 1659 in order to assure the king ‘of his affection and readiness to serve him’.2 After the Restoration he was indeed to establish himself as a reliable government supporter, though the unevenness of his attendance and his continuing financial problems tend to make one wonder just how deep his political convictions were and the extent to which his was merely a vote for hire. As for his religion, his contemporaries believed him to be a Catholic, and the evidence of his land transactions, which involved representatives of prominent Catholic families (the Brudenell earls of Cardigan, Humphrey Weld‡, and John Carryll), suggests that those suspicions were correct.3 Yet he took the oaths on 2 Dec. 1678 in accordance with the 1678 Test Act and the records of the Lancashire quarter sessions include a sacramental certificate of October 1685.4
Morley’s family papers do not survive but some information about his finances can be reconstructed from information generated by a series of disputes relating to a complex series of mortgages and remortgages involving loans on the Morley lands in Hornby, Lancashire, and Great Hallingbury, Essex.5 Although a final concord suggests that Hornby was sold to the Brudenells in 1682, the sale was probably no more than a legal device to secure the mortgages, for Morley was still living there in 1692.6 The estates in and around Great Hallingbury, which had formed his wife’s jointure, were sold to Sir Edward Turnor‡ in 1666 in order to raise capital to pay off Morley’s debts.7 These must have been considerable: of the £15,000 purchase price, £12,000 was repaid to Robert Brudenell, 2nd earl of Cardigan, who thought that the remaining £3,000 was barely enough for Morley to ‘pay his engagements’.8 Additional sales of land – this time in Farlton, Lancashire – were authorized by an act of Parliament in 1677.9
Between 1660 and 1664 Morley was regularly present on about a third of possible sitting days; he was occasionally given leave to be absent for very short periods but there is no indication of the reasons for this. He was named to the committee for privileges on 7 May 1660 and to the committee for petitions two days later. He was again named to the committee for petitions on 7 June 1660. In July 1661 he was one of those expected to absent themselves from the House during the vote on the claim of Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, to the great chamberlaincy. Early in 1663 he was petitioning the crown to resolve a possible claim against Hornby in order to clear it for sale to George Monck, duke of Albemarle.10 Much of his activity in the House that year related to claims of privilege. On 12 June he informed the House of the arrest of one ‘Beaver, tailor and menial servant’. The outcome of this case is not clear but within a week, on 18 June, he had informed the House of another breach of privilege, this time the arrest of Edward Crofts, whom he claimed as a menial servant, for debt. Crofts appeared at the bar of the House and was released on 27 June. On 25 July Morley claimed privilege to ward off a possible suit by a kinsman in the prerogative court of Canterbury. On the political front, the somewhat unreliable list compiled by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, suggests that he was expected to support the attempt of George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon. During the next (1664) session Morley’s only traceable activity is yet another complaint about breach of privilege, brought to the house on 27 Apr. 1664, this time concerning the arrest of William Cage, whom he claimed to be his household chaplain.
On 17 Dec. 1664, barely a month into the new (1664–5) session, Morley was given leave ‘to go into the country for some time’; again no reason was given. He was then absent until 17 Feb. 1665; he attended just one more day (18 Feb.) before absenting himself for the rest of the session, which did not end until 2 March. Events during the adjournment tested his claim to privilege still further. On 21 Apr. 1665 Morley, after an evening of hard drinking and gaming at a Covent Garden tavern, became involved in a quarrel over the reckoning with Henry Hastings, a young relative of Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon. Their first fight was broken up by onlookers but was resumed in Lincolns Inn Fields. According to the account sent to Huntingdon, Morley had attacked Hastings there without warning; Hastings died of a wound to the head inflicted by Morley’s sword. A coroner’s jury returned a verdict of wilful murder. There had been a long-standing quarrel between the two men, generating suspicion that Morley had deliberately provoked the fight in order to provide an excuse for killing his opponent. Morley fled, thus laying his estates open to confiscation, but was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower a month later ‘for fighting contrary to law’.11 He had killed others and the king was apparently determined that he would ‘suffer for it’. The outbreak of plague in London meant that arrangements for his trial were delayed and he remained in the Tower until he was bailed, probably in October when he was granted permission to go to his house in the country under guard and with sufficient security (£2,000 plus two sureties of £1,000 each) to ensure his appearance when summoned to answer for his crime.12 In the meantime he was deeply involved in negotiations for the sale of Great Hallingbury.
The court of the lord high steward was convened in Westminster Hall on 30 Apr. 1666, shortly after the end of the parliamentary session, with Clarendon presiding. Of the 28 lords triers summoned to hear the case, one – William Grey, Baron Grey of Warke – did not appear.13 The 12 judges also attended to offer assistance and legal advice. The most widely available account of Morley’s trial, published in State Trials, is based on notes taken by Lord Chief Sir Justice Kelyng.‡ Fuller details, including copies of depositions of witnesses, are preserved among the state papers, but are mentioned only briefly in the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic. A third account, concentrating on details of ceremony and procedure but also including copies of the introductory speeches made by Clarendon, is in the British Library. The British Library holds another copy of Clarendon’s speech and there is also an account in the Huntington Library.14 All indicate that for this, the first trial of a peer for nearly 40 years, great care was taken to ensure that due ceremony and solemnity be observed. They also show that both the judges and the peers were already familiar with aspects of Morley’s defence, particularly the question of whether depositions sworn at the coroner’s inquest by persons since deceased could be used as evidence against him. The judges, summoned by Clarendon to a pre-trial meeting, agreed that such evidence was admissible. Their decision was questioned by several peers who also went to consult with Clarendon and in the event the judges’ advice was ignored by the lords triers. Morley himself feared that his enemies would take advantage of the situation in order to secure his conviction. The precise details are unclear but it seems that Morley either owed money to his Essex neighbour, Sir John Barrington‡, or had led Barrington to believe that he rather than Turnor might buy Great Hallingbury. The net result was that Barrington was ‘enraged’ and Morley feared that he intended to lobby the presbyterian peers against him.15
The trial became one of the sensations of the day. Extra seating was provided for those peers who wished to attend and four private rooms were allowed for the king and queen to attend incognito, for James Stuart, the duke of York and his duchess, for the Spanish and Swedish ambassadors, and for ‘divers ladies and persons of honour’.16 Notwithstanding strong prosecution evidence confirming his malicious intent, Morley was acquitted of murder and, despite his fears, only two of the Presbyterian peers – Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), and Wharton, voted to convict him. Morley’s accomplice, Francis Bromwich, fared less well. He was sentenced to 11 months’ imprisonment and to give sureties for good behaviour for life.17 In October Hastings’ two brothers, who were appalled by the verdict, were imprisoned by the House for assaulting Morley and giving him ‘very base and reviling language’. Corroborating evidence of the attack was given on 1 Oct. by a Thomas Osborne but as he was not described as a baronet it is unlikely that this was the future earl of Danby. The two men were forced to beg Morley’s pardon and to provide securities of £500 apiece before being released on 12 Jan. 1666.
Morley resumed his attendance in the House shortly after sittings began again in September 1666 and was present for over half the possible sitting days that year, but he hardly attended in 1667 or 1668 and did not attend at all between 1669 and 1672. His responses to calls of the House during this period are uninformative but in November 1670 he was excused on grounds of sickness. Perhaps his health was poor: he had been described as ‘lame’ during his trial in 1666 and was permitted to sit rather than stand at the bar. His involvement in a scuffle in Lancaster in August 1668 arouses suspicion that health may not have been the real issue, although in this case it is entirely possible that for once Morley was the victim rather than the aggressor.18 He was involved in a dispute over Hornby manor in February 1673.19 He attended Parliament briefly in March 1673 and in the spring of 1674; he was present for just nine days in November 1675, probably in connection with proposals for the 20 Nov. address to the crown requesting a dissolution of Parliament, which he supported.
As the political crisis deepened, Morley began to attend Parliament more frequently and was identified as a supporter of his northern neighbour Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). Between February and May 1677, when Shaftesbury marked him both as triply vile and as a papist, he was present on 61 per cent of sitting days, but he attended for only six days in January and February 1678, probably in order to facilitate the passage of the bill to enable him to sell Farleton manor, in which he was assisted by Sir Ralph Assheton‡, the Member for Liverpool.20 The bill was returned from the Commons without alteration on 19 February. Morley was not present that day; nor was he present when it received the royal assent on 20 March. He attended the House on 21 and 25 Feb. but was given leave to be absent on 27 Feb. and then absented himself for the rest of the session. He was thus not present for some of the most contentious debates over supply.
Morley returned to Parliament for the first session of 1678 and was present on 51 per cent of sitting days. He was absent for the first month of the second 1678 session, not arriving until 26 November. For the short remaining period of the session he attended on nearly 60 per cent of sitting days and, as noted above, despite his reputed Catholicism took the new oaths on 2 Dec. 1678. In 1679 he arrived in time to attend the opening of the abortive first session of the first Exclusion Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679. He was then present for the opening of the second session on 15 Mar. and attended on 69 per cent of sitting days. Consistently listed as a supporter of Danby, it seems certain that it was Danby’s plight that attracted him to the House and somewhat unlikely that he attended without some promise of reward. In May 1679 he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.
Morley’s attendance for the 1680–1 session dropped to just over 41 per cent. In November 1680 he voted against Exclusion and in December he found William Howard, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason. His enthusiasm for Danby was now firmly on the wane. In a forecast for the division to be held on 17 Mar. 1681 he was listed as a supporter of Danby’s application for bail but on 23 Mar. Danby’s son, Viscount Latimer, noted that Morley had not yet arrived; he never did.21
One might have expected that Morley’s general allegiance to the court and his suspected Catholicism would have ensured a favourable reaction to the accession of James II and the introduction of more liberal religious policies. He attended the 1685 Parliament every day until 2 July but was then absent, apart from the prorogation day on 10 May 1686. Not surprisingly, in May 1687 he was noted simply as ‘RC’ on a list of peers’ attitudes to the king’s policies but by November it had become clear that things were not quite as straightforward as expected. When the new Catholic lord lieutenant of Lancashire, Caryll Molyneux, Viscount Molyneux [I], toured the county seeking answers to the three questions, ‘Lord Morley was asked privately, his answer is not known, but he seemed very much troubled and went to bed in the afternoon.’22 Another list of the same month describes him as undeclared.
The aftermath of the Revolution of 1688 turned Morley once again into a high attender at Parliament, although he did not arrive at the Convention until 4 Feb. 1689, just in time to participate in the debates over the use of the word ‘abdicated’ and to vote in favour of agreeing with the Commons. For the remainder of the session he was present on some 83 per cent of sitting days; even if his initial absence is taken into account his attendance was still high, at 76 per cent. On 5 Mar. he was named as one of the managers of the conference on assisting the king and the following day he signed the protest against the third reading of the bill for better regulating trials of peers. On 16 Apr. he secured the assistance of the House in preventing some of his Lancashire neighbours from spreading ‘scandalous’ rumours about his alleged papism.23 Morley’s sudden devotion to his duties as a peer may have been related to the award of a pension of £400.24 This in turn was probably related to his petition to the crown in June 1689, backed by his distant kinsman Charles Talbot, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, stressing the ‘great sufferings’ of himself and his father for their loyalty ‘whereby his estate was so impaired that there was not sufficient to support the dignity and honour of his coming up to the coronation’ and reminding the new king that he had been promised a royal pension.25 On 30 July 1689 yet another of his enemies was attached by the House for offending him with ‘scandalous words’.
By the second, 1689–90 session, Morley’s enthusiasm for parliamentary attendance had somewhat waned. Classed among the supporters of the court by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) in a list prepared between October 1689 and February 1690, he did not arrive until 9 Dec. 1689, more than a month after the session began in October, and thereafter was present on just under 70 per cent of the remaining sitting days. During the first session of 1690 he attended on nearly 74 per cent of sitting days, perhaps because, as he pointed out in June 1690, payment of his £400 pension was in arrears.26 The 1690–1 session saw something of a return to his old habits. He did not arrive until 17 Nov., a month after the opening of the session, but thereafter he missed only nine days. In January 1691 he received his reward: a £100 gift from the king as royal bounty.
Morley again missed the first part of the next (1691–2) session, this time not arriving until 11 December. On 15 Dec. 1691 he once more sought the assistance of the House to prevent an infringement of his privilege in the matter of the arrest of a man whom he claimed to be his servant. By this time the House had tightened its rules on the issue of protections. An investigation revealed that Morley had deliberately issued a letter of protection to a person who only pretended to be his gardener. He was committed to the Tower on 4 Jan. 1692, while his perjured witness was sent to the Gatehouse prison. The House was so incensed at Morley’s behaviour that when he was discharged on 22 Jan. it issued a recommendation that all the fees arising from the case be deducted directly from his pension by the treasury. He returned to the House on 28 Jan. but revelations that he had used his privilege of peerage to turn Hornby into what was effectively a debtor’s sanctuary led to a further order on 1 Feb. indemnifying the sheriff’s officers for discharging persons under Morley’s protection.27
Morley was again absent at the beginning of the next session when it opened in November 1692; he did not arrive until 16 Jan. 1693, the day of the second reading of the triennial bill. He was then present for almost every day until 4 Feb. when he found Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. Thereafter his attendance slackened and he was in the House for a little under 50 per cent of the remaining days of the session. On 1 and 3 March he was named as a manager of the conferences on the bill to prevent malicious prosecutions. Although nothing is known of his voting intentions his attendance was presumably a welcome addition of support for the beleaguered court, which rewarded him with a payment of £100 in April.28 A further attempt by Morley to extract money from the exchequer in August failed, the monies in question being already appropriated.29
Morley again arrived late for the 1693–4 session, on 11 December 1693. As had been the pattern in recent sessions his attendance then remained at some 74 per cent. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted to reverse chancery’s dismission of the Albemarle inheritance case (Montagu v Bath). His habitual abuse of privilege continued: in his absence, on 13 Mar. 1694 he was one of eight peers ordered to appear before the House to explain protections that he had issued. The next day the House vacated several of the protections and ordered that ‘no lord shall enter any written protection in the book of protections, until after he shall have personally attended this House, in the same session of Parliament’.
During the 1694–5 session Morley failed to attend Parliament at all. On 2 Feb. 1695 he gave his proxy for the remainder of the session to the court Whig Ralph Montagu, earl (later duke) of Montagu. Presumably his support was still thought to be worth canvassing because, towards the end of the session in May 1695, Thomas Osborne, now duke of Leeds and under a second threat of impeachment, was said to have ‘kept open house at Hell [a Westminster tavern] with roast beef and pot ale to debauch Lord Morley, Hunsdon [Robert Carey, 7th Baron Hunsdon], Culpepper [John Colepeper,3rd Baron Colepeper] and the rest of the mumpers’.30 A ‘mumper’ was contemporary slang for a genteel beggar – which, it would seem, was precisely what Morley was.
The 1695–6 session opened on 22 Nov. 1695. Morley arrived on 14 Jan. 1696 and was then present for just under 50 per cent of sitting days. The 1696–7 session saw him arrive only a month late, on 19 Nov. 1696. As part of the preliminaries to the trial of Sir John Fenwick‡, on 14 Nov. the House had ordered that Morley and other absent peers attend on pain of imprisonment. Once he had arrived he attended assiduously until the Fenwick attainder, which he supported, passed its third reading on 23 Dec., although he had been given leave to withdraw because of ill health on 15 December. His attendance remained high when sittings were resumed in January, probably because he was again in trouble with the House for issuing unjustified protections; on 27 Jan. 1697, as a result of its investigations, the House ordered that all written protections be vacated and none be granted thereafter. Morley’s attendance began to falter towards the end of January 1697, revived in February, and became increasingly erratic in March, when he was involved in litigation over the mortgages on Hornby and was accused of oppressive practices towards his tenantry.31 His peerages fell into abeyance at his death shortly afterwards. He was buried in July at Great Hallingbury.
R.P.- 1 Essex RO, D/DB/T15/27.
- 2 CCSP, iv. 252.
- 3 Essex RO, D/DB/T15/27, 32.
- 4 Lancs. RO, QSJ/8/20/3.
- 5 CSP Dom. 1663–4, p. 49; TNA, C 6/92/47; Essex RO, D/DB/T15/35.
- 6 VCH Lancs. viii. 196.
- 7 C 6/92/47; West Suss. RO, Shillinglee mss 127, 132, 133; Essex RO, D/DKw/E1/4.
- 8 West Suss. RO, Shillinglee ms 126.
- 9 PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1677/29&30C2n5.
- 10 CSP Dom. 1663–4, p. 49.
- 11 CSP Dom. 1664–5, pp. 325, 359; HMC Hastings, ii. 150.
- 12 CSP Dom. 1665–6, pp. 37, 46.
- 13 HEHL, EL 8398.
- 14 TNA, SP 29/154; Stowe 396, ff. 178–90; Add. 34195, ff. 193–4; HEHL, EL 8398.
- 15 West Suss. RO, Shillinglee ms 129.
- 16 Stowe 396, ff. 178–90.
- 17 CSP Dom. 1665–6, p. 575.
- 18 CSP Dom. 1667, p. 546; Lancs. RO, QSP/329/9.
- 19 TNA, DL 4/115/4.
- 20 HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 563.
- 21 HMC 14th Rep. IX, 425.
- 22 HMC Le Fleming, 206–7.
- 23 Ibid. 211.
- 24 Bodl. Carte 130, ff. 331, 341–2.
- 25 CTP, 1556–96, p. 45.
- 26 Ibid. p. 119.
- 27 HMC Lords, iv. 7, 8.
- 28 CTB, x. 163.
- 29 CTP, 1556-1696, p. 312.
- 30 HMC Portland, ii. 173.
- 31 C 6/92/47.