Royalist Agents, Conspirators and Spies

by Geoffrey Smith

  The most notable example of the exclusion of a once highly trusted royal servant from any further role in the king’s affairs is not Titus, who was to re-emerge on the scene again, but Will Murray, Earl of Dysart, once a favourite companion of Charles I. Regarded as a creature of Argyll’s, and further disapproved of for his stubbornly maintained friendship with Bampfield, Dysart was no longer welcome at court.89 He was never again to see Ham House, on which he had lavished so much money and taste in the ‘halcyon days’ before the Civil War, but instead returned unobtrusively from the Netherlands to his native Scotland, dying in Edinburgh in December 1655. His talented and spirited daughter Elizabeth inherited Ham House, and eventually was recognised as succeeding to the Dysart title. Inheriting also her father’s controversial ability to maintain good relations with totally opposing forces, she for a time simultaneously maintained a personal friendship with the Protector while also encouraging the activities of the Sealed Knot, one of whose members, Sir William Compton, was her brother-in-law.90

  The royalist agents who increasingly feature in the correspondence of the king’s advisers and ministers during the first two years of the Protectorate were overwhelmingly concerned with conspiracy and intelligence gathering, with plots to overthrow the Cromwellian regime and with reports on the situation in England, and no longer with missions to European rulers. The already existing trend to replace courtier diplomats like Poley and Cochrane with agents drawn overwhelmingly from the ranks of middle-ranking officers from the king’s armies was intensified during this period. Major Nicholas Armorer, an obscure younger son from a minor gentry background with no prominent family or court connections, who yet established himself extraordinarily quickly in the good offices of Hyde and Ormond, earning on the way the regard of influential courtiers like O’Neill and Rochester, is a striking example of the kind of agent who from now on dominated the king’s service. Although never attaining Armorer’s prominence, there were many others with similar backgrounds, a crowd of colonels, majors and captains who had served in the armies of Charles I: John Stephens, the Halsall and Paulden brothers, Humphrey Boswell, Robert Walters, Thomas Carnaby, Robert Phelips and others. They were for the most part brave and resourceful, constantly risking their liberties, and even their lives, in the king’s service, but their roles were effectively restricted to the furtherance of plots within England to overthrow the Cromwellian Protectorate.

  Royalist agents with a wider perspective on their role, who had acquired an extensive familiarity with the politics and policies of the court, were becoming rare. The best example is Daniel O’Neill, whose activities ranged well beyond his occasional involvement in conspiracy in England. Henry Seymour, another groom of the bedchamber, highly regarded by Charles and his principal advisers for his ‘discretion and integrity’, was another; but in June 1655 his twelve-year career as a trusted agent and courier, employed in a wide range of dangerous and delicate missions, finally came to an end. Unlike most of his fellow agents, Seymour did not make it back across the Channel after the suppression of the March rising. Arrested in June at about the same time as Cornwallis and Progers, he was committed to the Tower by order of the Council of State, and there he remained for two years.91

  The wide-ranging arrests of known royalists in the aftermath of the March rising illustrate the increased dangers now faced by those of the king’s agents who attempted to re-animate the battered and apparently broken Stuart cause. For one of the most discouraging factors that had undermined their activities during the previous two years had been the high level of vigilance and efficiency displayed by Secretary Thurloe and his officers. As a result of the exposure of the activities of ‘Day of Dover and c.’, the one great failure of government security measures – the lax security at the Channel ports – was also being addressed. On 21 June, Manning wrote to Thurloe from Cologne that letters were now being entrusted to female couriers, in particular to the wives of Dr Earles, one of the royal chaplains, and Tom Elliot, as it was no longer safe to send men, ‘being the ports are so narrowly looked at’. Four months later Charles expressed his thanks to Thomas Ross’s wife Alice for her willingness to go into England in place of the Scottish émigré Sir William Keith, who could not safely make the journey himself.92

  Henry Manning was soon to overreach himself with the indiscreet frequency of his letters to England, and Thurloe’s secret army of spies and informers was to lose one of its most active members. Having aroused suspicion by his behaviour, in December his letters were intercepted and his treachery was discovered. Over a two-week period he was intensively interrogated and then ‘tried’ by an improvised ‘court’ presided over by Ormond and Nicholas. The evidence of his treachery, provided by the interception and examination of some of his letters to Thurloe, was overwhelming. Despite hysterical letters to Charles, which the king almost certainly never received as they remain in the Nicholas papers, but which are full of expressions of remorse and desperate pleas for mercy, he was ‘pistolled’ in a wood near Cologne by two of the more thuggish members of the court, William Armorer and Sir James Hamilton, a Scottish veteran of the Civil War.93 Although they disliked each other, they were presumably prepared to act together to dispose of a traitor.94 The ruthlessness with which Manning was treated reflects the general mood of bitterness in the faction-ridden exiled court as 1655, a year which had promised so much at the beginning, came to its disappointing end.

  1 For Thurloe, see Paul Aubrey, Mr Secretary Thurloe: Cromwell’s Secretary of State (London: The Athlone Press, 1990), esp. pp. 31, 36, 94–128.

  2 CSPD, 1651–52, p. 571; Bampfield’s Apology, pp. 165–6, 168–9.

  3 Derek Hirst, Authority and Conquest: England 1603–1658 (London: Edward Arnold, 1990), pp. 327–8.

  4 For Glencairn, see ODNB (William Cunningham, Earl of Glencairn).

  5 C. H. Firth (ed.), Scotland and the Commonwealth (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1895), xviii, 101.

  6 The reports of English officers to Thurloe contain frequent references to quarrels among the clan chieftains and Glencairn’s officers, see TSP, ii, passim.

  7 Clarendon, Rebellion, xiv, 57.

  8 Firth, Scotland and the Commonwealth, pp. 90, 94, 98, 101, 107, 246, 250, 253; CClSP, ii, 158, 171, 180, 182.

  9 Ibid., pp. 127–8.

  10 Ibid., pp. 91, 94–5, 107, 182–3.

  11 Ibid., pp. 104, 130–34.

  12 Hutton, Charles II, p. 91.

  13 Halkett and Fanshawe Memoirs, pp. xii, 6, 72.

  14 For discussions of the exact date when Bampfield changed sides, see Bampfield’s Apology, p. 168; Marshall, Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, p. 171; Aubrey, Mr Secretary Thurloe, pp. 94–5.

  15 Firth, Scotland and the Commonwealth, p. 201.

  16 TSP, i, 480, 495; NP, ii, 16–17; Bampfield’s Apology, pp. 166–8.

  17 TSP, i, 263, 267; NP, ii, 23.

  18 Ibid., 510–14.

  19 Ibid., 510–12; ClSP, iii, 59, 66, 67, 77, 111–12, 119, 128, 164, 181, 192; Hutton, Charles II, pp. 72–4.

  20 Carte, Letters and Papers, ii, 31–2.

  21 ClSP, iii, 200 (Hyde to Nicholas, 28 November 1653). See also CClSP, ii, 259.

  22 Bod.L., Clarendon MS 46, fo. 361. Clarendon’s reference in his History of the Rebellion to O’Neill’s ‘subtlety and understanding’ is an in-joke for the well-informed; Rebellion, viii, 268. See also CClSP, iv, 20, 23, 34, 38.

  23 TSP, ii, 510–14; BL Add. MS 4180, fo. 104.

  24 Ibid., fo. 104; BL Egerton MS 2550, fo. 14; Bod.L. Clarendon MS 49, fo. 153.

  25 Armorer does not seem to have had any regimental commands in the Civil War. His war was one of sieges and skirmishes in the Welsh border counties. He is not listed in Newman’s Royalist Officers in England and Wales 1642–1660, unlike his older brother William, nor is he mentioned in any of the standard military histories of the Civil War.

  26 The examination of the creation of the Sealed Knot by David Underdown in Royalist Conspiracy in E
ngland 1649–1660 is excellent and replaces all previous accounts, including S. R. Gardiner’s; see esp. pp. 73–96. But see also the essay on the Sealed Knot by Stephen K. Roberts, ‘Sealed Knot (act. 1653–1659)’, ODNB, online edn, May 2009, accessed 25 September 2009.

  27 For the membership of the Sealed Knot, see Underdown, pp. 75–88. For biographical details of the members, see also Newman, Royalist Officers, pp. 21–2, 80, 179–80, 320, 391, 415.

  28 Clarendon, Life, quoted in Underdown, pp. 87–8. It is unfair of Clarendon not to include Nicholas with himself and Ormond. The biggest collection of cipher keys employed by royalist agents is preserved in the Nicholas papers; see BL Egerton MS 2550, fos 12, 14, 15, 19, 21, 25, 31, 37, 63, 67, 68, 71, 76, 79, 83.

  29 Farrow, Civil War in Shropshire, pp. 18, 85; Underdown, p. 91. For Corbet and Scriven, see Newman, Royalist Officers, pp. 86, 335.

  30 ClSP, iii, 100, 224; CClSP, ii, 149, 323.

  31 ClSP, iii, 181, 229; Underdown, pp. 91–2. For Grey, see Newman, Royalist Officers, pp. 167–8.

  32 BL Add. MS 4180, fo. 122; CClSP, ii, 334–6, 440.

  33 ClSP, iii, 235.

  34 ClSP, iii, 234–5, 237, 238.

  35 Underdown, p. 97.

  36 Quoted in Aubrey, Mr Secretary Thurloe, p. 98.

  37 For the definitive account and analysis of the Ship Tavern and Gerard plots, see Underdown, pp. 97–105. See also Aubrey, Mr Secretary Thurloe, pp. 97–9.

  38 For Hyde’s suspicion of Davison, whom he regarded as ‘belonging’ to Rupert, Gerard and Langdale, see ClSP, iii, 234–5.

  39 CClSP, ii, 335–6.

  40 For an assessment of the effect of the Gerard plot fiasco on the reputation of the Sealed Knot, see Underdown, pp. 103–6.

  41 Bod.L., Clarendon MS 48, fo. 305; ibid., MS 49, fo. 35.

  42 Ibid., fo. 153.

  43 TSP, ii, 599; CSPD, 1655–56, p. 263. For Manning, see Clarendon, Rebellion, xiv, 18; Smith, Cavaliers in Exile, p. 147; Hutton, Charles II, p. 95.

  44 Ibid., pp. 73, 84–7.

  45 For the list of royalists to be expelled from France under the terms of the treaty, see ClSP, iii, 288. Headed by Charles and his brothers, the list includes the obvious names, councillors like Hyde, Ormond, Culpeper and Nicholas, and generals like Langdale, Wentworth and Gerard. It also includes Daniel O’Neill.

  46 Spencer, Prince Rupert, pp. 245–6.

  47 ClSP, iii, 200–1; Clarendon, Life, i, 301–2; Cregan, ‘O’Neill in Exile and Restoration’, pp. 47–9.

  48 C. H. Firth (ed.), Scotland and the Protectorate, vol. xxi (Edinburgh: Scottish Historical Society, 1899), pp. xx, xxv–1, 52, passim 53–187; Maurice Ashley, General Monck (London, 1977), pp. 110–18; ODNB (Middleton).

  49 TSP, ii, 609–10; ibid., iii, 100; Bod.L., Clarendon MS 49, fos 39–44, 67, 259, 264.

  50 BL Add. MS 4156, fo. 87; Firth, Scotland and the Protectorate, pp. 186–7.

  51 NP, ii, 107, 115–17, 128, 183, 195.

  52 ODNB (Balcarres, Glencairn, Middleton, Moray).

  53 For records of contributions from the German princes, see NA, SP Foreign (German states) 81/54/fos 91, 93, 101–4. See also Hutton, Charles II, p. 89.

  54 Underdown, pp. 103–6.

  55 Ibid., pp. 104–7.

  56 HMC, Ormonde MSS, 1893, i, 183, 186, 190–91, 195; ibid., 1899, ii, 99, 101–2; Carte, Letters and Papers, i, 239. See also Smith, Cavaliers in Exile, pp. 43–4.

  57 HMC, Ormonde MSS, 1902, N.S. i, 231, 251.

  58 Bod.L., Clarendon MS 48, fos 305, 326. See also Underdown, pp. 106–8.

  59 Ibid., p. 106; Hutton, Charles II, pp. 88, 482.

  60 CClSP, ii, 440; Underdown, pp. 108–13.

  61 Ibid., pp. 118, 139–40, i42. For Carnaby and Walters, see also Newman, Royalist Officers, pp. 61, 397.

  62 J. P. Vander Motten and Katrien Daemen-de Gelder, ‘A copy as immortal as its original’: Thomas Ross’ Second Punick War (London, 1661 and 1672)’, in Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen, Paul Hoftijzer, Juliette Roding and Paul Smith (eds), Living in Posterity: Essays in Honour of Bart Westerweel (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2004), pp. 185–90.

  63 TSP, iii, 591. For Halsall, see Newman, Royalist Officers, pp. 173–4.

  64 For the Knot’s letter and Ormond’s advice, see EHR, iii, 333–5. See also Cregan, ‘O’Neill in Exile and Restoration’, pp. 51–2.

  65 Bod.L., Clarendon MS 49, fos 327–9.

  66 Ibid., fo. 304; Cregan, ‘O’Neill in Exile and Restoration’, p. 52.

  67 CClSP, iii, 23.

  68 W. C. Abbott, The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937–47), 4 vols, iii, 617–24; TSP, iii, 138, 154, 161–2, 164–72, 176–7, 181–2, 191–2, 295, 397; G. R. Smith, ‘Royalist secret agents at Dover during the Commonwealth’, Historical Studies: Australia and New Zealand, vol. 12, no. 48 (April 1967), pp. 477–90; Underdown, pp. 134–6.

  69 Phelips had been active in conspiracy in the West Country since 1649, and had played an important and dangerous part in the escape of Charles II after Worcester. For Phelips, see Bampfield’s Apology, pp. 169–70; Newman, Royalist Officers, p. 295; Ollard, The Escape of Charles II, passim; Underdown, pp. 28–30, 54–5, 67–70.

  70 Clarendon, Rebellion, xiv, 127. For Wagstaffe, see C. H. Firth, ‘Wagstaffe, Sir Joseph (bap. 1611?, d. 1666/7)’, ODNB, 2004, online edn, January 2008, accessed 23 March 2010; Newman, Royalist Officers, p. 394.

  71 The evidence that Day was a royalist agent is compelling. ‘Mr Day of Dover’ is even included in one of Nicholas’s cipher keys with the suitably melodramatic pseudonym of ‘Mr Darke’; BL Egerton MS 2550, fo. 83. See Smith, ‘Royalist secret agents at Dover’, esp. pp. 485–6.

  72 The letters, despatches and reports on which the reconstruction of the movements of royalist agents is principally based emanated from both sides of the Channel, and when they are dated at all, employed both Old Style and New Style systems, often without indicating which one was being used. The exact dating of the agents’ movements is consequently often problematic.

  73 Bod.L. Clarendon MS 49, fos 367–8, 371, 387.

  74 Bod.L. Rawlinson MS 23, fos 93, 107, 165, 207. The letters are printed, not completely accurately, in TSP, iii, 137–8, 164–5. See also Smith, Cavaliers in Exile, pp. x–xiii.

  75 CClSP, iii, 19, 22, 23; TSP, iii, 138. Boswell, who seems to have spent much of his time escaping from various places of confinement in his adventurous career, on this occasion once again remains irritatingly elusive. Nearly all royalist agents can be fitted in to clientage networks, either of organisations or factions like the Sealed Knot or the ‘royal Presbyterians’ or of individual patrons, Hyde, Ormond, Langdale, Jermyn, Balcarres and so on. Boswell, despite Ormond’s complimentary reference, does not seem to fit in to any of these networks, and his role in the conspiracies of 1654 and 1655 remains obscure. David Underdown, in his detailed and exhaustive study of royalist conspiracy, never mentions him.

  76 O’Neill’s long intelligence report to Charles and Hyde is printed in NP, ii, 217–23. Clearly, it was easier and faster to compose in the guise of the friend of an exiled bankrupt businessman than in a numerical cipher.

  77 Ibid., pp. 222–3; Underdown, p. 137.

  78 O’Neill himself had doubts about the suitability of Rochester to command the rising. See NP, ii, p. 219. For Penruddock’s rising, see Underdown, pp. 127–58; A. H. Woolrych, Penruddock’s Rising 1655 (London: Historical Association, 1955).

  79 NA, SP Domestic Interregnum, 1655, 18/98/fo. 26 (Order of arrest of Sir Frederick Cornwallis, Mr Edward Progers, Mr Thomas Peyton and Major General Ayres). See also Underdown, pp. 161–5.

  80 NP, ii, 219; Wilcher, The Writing of Royalism, pp. 340–41; Alexander Lindsay, ‘Cowley, Abraham (1618–1667)’, ODNB, 2004, accessed 23 March 2010. Cowley’s allegiance to Jermyn and the ‘Louvre’ faction may explain O’Neill’s attempt to blacken his reputation.

  81 Woolrych, Penruddock’s Rising, pp. 20–22; Newman, Royalist Officers, pp. 292
–3.

  82 NP, ii, 327 (Mews to Nicholas, The Hague, 4 June 1655). For the escapes of royalist agents and conspirators, see Smith, Cavaliers in Exile, pp. 142–3; Underdown, pp. 161, 207.

  83 TSP, iii, 339, 355–6, 358.

  84 CSPD, 1660–61, p. 157; CSPD, 1663–64, pp. 165, 244; CSPD, 1664–65, p. 128; CSPD, 1666–67, p. 25.

  85 HMC, Ormonde MSS, i, 318; TSP, iii, 138, 164, 190, 428–9, 659; TSP, iv, 10; CSPD, 1654–55, pp. 192–3.

  86 NA, SP Domestic Interregnum, 1655, 18/98/fo. 52.

  87 TSP, iv, 101. For Bellings, see ODNB.

  88 NP, ii, 218.

  89 CClSP, ii, 142, 157, 188.

  90 Ham House, pp. 61ff. The picture collection at Ham House contains portraits by Peter Lely and John Michael Wright of two members of the Sealed Knot, Sir William Compton and Colonel John Russell, both painted in the late 1650s.

  91 NP, iii, 5; CSPD, 1655, pp. 204, 588.

  92 NA, SP Domestic Interregnum, 1655, 18/98/fo. 45; CClSP, iii, 62.

  93 BL Egerton MS 2542, fos 129–38, 176–7, 210, 216, 221; TSP, iv, 290, 313, 718; CClSP, iii, 77; Clarendon, Rebellion, xiv, 140–45.

  94 For Armorer and Hamilton’s general thuggishness and enmity towards each other, see Smith, Cavaliers in Exile, pp. 122–3, 147–8.

  Chapter 8

  New Disturbances 1656–1658

  The old Delinquent party have not only the same intentions that they had when they were in open arms … but they do retain their old principles and still adhere to their former interest, and what that is … [has] been all along, hatching new disturbances to trouble the peace of the State.