Surnames beginning 'F'

The Cromwell Association Online Directory of Parliamentarian Army Officers . Originally published by British History Online, , 2017.

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'Surnames beginning 'F'', in The Cromwell Association Online Directory of Parliamentarian Army Officers , (, 2017) pp. . British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/cromwell-army-officers/surnames-f [accessed 8 May 2024]

Surnames beginning 'F'

Facon, John John Facon
Captain of foot in the Hull garrison in the regiment of John Mauleverer, from the time the regiment was established to spring 1645. Facon held a messuage in Hull on which he paid 10 guineas per annum.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 379.
Armies: Yorkshire
Fairclough, - - Fairclough
In summer 1643, captain in Sir John Wittrough’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.112.
Armies: Eastern Association
Fairfax, Charles Charles Fairfax (1615-1644)
Second son of Ferdinando Fairfax, second Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1584-1648), and his first wife Mary Sheffield (died 1619), daughter of Edmund Sheffield, first earl of Mulgrave. Charles was the younger brother of Sir Thomas Fairfax.
Charles was admitted to Grey’s Inn on 21 Mar. 1641, but previously had soldiered on the continent for several years, for a time under George Goring. He was ordered by his father to return to Yorkshire, and did so by early 1644 when he was commissioned a colonel of horse, soon serving with Hugh Bethell against royalist insurgents in County Durham. He was wounded during the battle of Marston Moor and died a week later.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 379; Vis.Yorks.,2, 188-189; Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 116.
Armies: Yorkshire; Northern Army (Fairfax)
Fairfax, Charles Charles Fairfax (1597-1673)
Of Menston, Otley parish, Yorkshire (West Riding). Brother of Ferdinando Fairfax, second Lord Fairfax of Cameron.
Charles probably began his service as lieutenant-colonel of Ferdinando’s regiment of foot and in 1644 was at the siege of York. In 1645, still a lieutenant-colonel, he was at the siege of Pontefract and acted as a negotiator for the surrender. From 1645 to 1648 Fairfax was active in civilian administrative affairs. He remained colonel of a regiment of foot to be retained in Mar. 1648 and then, apparently, of a regiment raised in the West Riding later during the second civil war (the surviving record perhaps confuses what may have been a single regiment). In Feb. 1649 Fairfax’s regiment was placed on the New Model establishment, later serving under Cromwell in Scotland and at Worcester. In the 1650s the regiment undertook garrison duties in Scotland. Fairfax was then often preoccupied with his antiquarian interests, but he remained colonel of his regiment and in 1659-60 played a part in George Monck’s manoeuvrings.
References: Oxford DNB; Jones, ‘War in the North’, 379; Firth and Davies, Regimental History, 2, 500-6; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 163.
Armies: Yorkshire; New Model Army
Fairfax, Ferdinando, second Lord Fairfax of Cameron Ferdinando Fairfax, second Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1584-1648)
Born 29 Mar. 1584, eldest son of Sir Thomas Fairfax (1559/60-1640) of Denton and Nun Appleton, Yorkshire (created Lord Fairfax of Cameron in 1627), and his wife Ellen, daughter of Robert Aske of Aughton, Yorkshire.
In Sept.1642 Fairfax was commissioned general of parliamentary forces in northern England. During winter and spring 1642-3 he worked (with his son Sir Thomas) to bolster parliament’s position in Yorkshire in the face of pressure from the earl of Newcastle’s much larger royalist army, with successes at Tadcaster and Selby but defeat at Seacroft Moor and Adwalton Moor compelling him to fall back into Hull for a time, before rebuilding his army and steadily regaining control over much of the East Riding. In spring 1644 he played a prominent part in the siege of York and then on 2 July at the battle of Marston Moor, appointed governor of York after the city surrendered shortly afterwards. He remained in command until spring 1645 when he resigned his commission under the Self-Denying Ordinance. However, he retained local office in Yorkshire until his death, from gangrene, in Mar. 1648.
References: Oxford DNB; HoP: The Commons, 1604-1629, 4.216-7; Jones, ‘War in the North’, 380 and passim; Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 115.
Armies: Yorkshire; Northern Army
Fairfax, Francis Francis Fairfax
Identification, and any relationship with Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax and Sir Thomas Fairfax, is uncertain. Francis was possibly the third son of Cuthbert Fairfax of Acaster, Yorkshire (West Riding), and his wife Mary Whitmore; but he seems older than the army officer, making him possibly the Francis buried in 1646, while the army officer lived into 1653. He may instead have been the Francis Fairfax who, with Lord Fairfax and the Council of the North, was a signatory to a letter in Nov. 1634 complaining about one Theodore Waterhouse who was troubling some people in Yorkshire with subpoenas.
On 6 July 1642 parliament authorised Francis Fairfax to raise 200 recruits in London and neighbouring counties for service in the defence of Hull under Sir John Hotham. Fairfax later claimed to have spent £200 in raising 200 men, although they appear not to have been posted to Hull. On 30 July 1642 Fairfax was commissioned major in the earl of Peterborough’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army, implying that he had some previous military experience. Following the defection of Sir Faithful Fortescue, Fairfax was lieutenant-colonel of the regiment from Nov. 1642 to June 1643. From 31 Aug. 1643 to 28 Mar. 1644 he was adjutant-general of Sir William Waller’s Army. By late Sept. 1644 Fairfax was with the Northern Army as lieutenant-colonel to Sir John Saville’s regiment of foot. In the interim he may have been absent from the regiment, for on 7 Feb. 1645 Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax ordered Francis to return to Saville’s regiment to assume his former duties as lieutenant-colonel, and for the officers and men to yield obedience to him until further notice. Whatever lay behind these orders, Fairfax was discharged from the regiment in mid Mar. Lord Fairfax’s certificate dated 13 Mar. 1645 affirmed that Francis’s military service had been creditable, and licensed him to go to any parliamentary quarters to seek better preferment. On 20 Nov. 1651 the Commons referred to the committee of the army Fairfax’s petition, in which he claimed to have been maimed in parliament’s service. In Oct. 1653, still retaining the title of lieutenant-colonel, Francis Fairfax was part of a consortium pursuing concealed lands.
References: Jones, War in the North’, 380; Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 102; Spring, Waller’s Army; Peacock, Army lists,28; CSPD, 1634-5, 378; CSPD, 1625-1649, 641, 670, 674, 675; CSPD, 1653-4,212; JHC, 7.39; Vis. Yorks., 3, 155.
Armies: Yorkshire; Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association); Northern Army (Fairfax)
Fairfax, Francis Francis Fairfax
Identification, and any relationship with Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax and Sir Thomas Fairfax, is uncertain. He is possibly the third son of Cuthbert Fairfax of Acaster, Yorkshire (West Riding) and his wife Mary Whitmore, but is probably too old (and possibly that Francis was buried in 1646, but the army officer was still alive in 1653).
On 6 July 1642 parliament authorised Fairfax to raise 200 men by beat of drum in London and neighbouring counties to serve in the defence of Hull under Sir John Hotham; Fairfax later claimed to have spent £200 in raising 20 of them, though they did not apparently go to Hull.
He was commissioned major in the earl of Peterborough’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army on 30 July 1642 (implying he already had some military experience), and, following the defection of Sir Faithful Fortescue, was lieutenant-colonel of the regiment from Nov. 1642 to June 1643. He was adjutant-general of Waller’s army from 31 Aug. 1643 to 28 Mar. 1644.
By 27 Sept. 1644 he was in the Northern Army as lieutenant-colonel to Sir John Savile’s regiment of foot: on 8 Dec. Savile thought it necessary to certify that he was now under his command. On 7 Feb. 1645 Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax ordered him to repair to Savile’s regiment and take upon him the charge of lieutenant-colonel as formerly, the officers and men to yield him obedience until further order. Whatever lay behind these orders, Francis was discharged from the regiment a few weeks later, on 16 Mar. 1645; Lord Fairfax’s certificate (13 Mar.) affirmed that he had behaved himself very well during the time he had served in his army, and licensed him to go to any parliamentary quarters to seek better preferment.
On 20 Nov. 1651 the Commons referred to the committee of the army Fairfax’s petition, claiming he had been maimed in parliament’s service.
He may perhaps be the Francis Fairfax who was summoned before the Privy Council in Dec. 1634 for troubling some people in Yorkshire with subpoenas. He is certainly the lieutenant-colonel Francis Fairfax who was part of a consortium pursuing concealed lands in Oct. 1653.
References: Jones, War in the North’; Hopper, 102; Peacock, Army lists,28; CSPD, 1634-5, 378; CSPD, 1625-1649, 641, 670, 674, 675; CSPD, 1653-4, 179-228; JHC, 7.39; Vis. Yorks., 3.155.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association);Yorkshire
Fairfax, Sir Thomas Sir Thomas Fairfax (1612-1671)
Born Denton, Yorkshire, eldest son of Ferdinando Fairfax, second Lord Fairfax of Cameron, upon whose death in 1648 he became the third Lord Fairfax of Cameron.
He fought on the continent during parts of the 1630s and in the two wars against the Scots in 1639-40, perhaps as a consequence of which he was knighted in 1641. Nonetheless, from the outbreak of the civil war he was a committed parliamentarian, campaigning with and under his father in Yorkshire during 1643-44, as second in command and general of horse in the Northern Army, in an effort to slow the royalist advance through the region. From autumn 1643 onwards the tide turned and Fairfax played a leading or prominent role in victories at Winceby, Nantwich and Marston Moor. In spring 1645 he became lord general and commander-in-chief of the New Model Army, leading it to victory at Naseby and in the campaign of the closing year of the civil war, mopping up the South West, taking the surrender of Oxford and securing a complete military victory. In 1648 he led that part of the New Model which first restored order in Kent and then, after a long siege, captured Colchester and thus ended royalist resistence in Essex. But his influence soon waned and he is often seen as less adroit in handling army politics and less happy with the military-shaped political developments of 1648-9. In summer 1650, in the face of plans for an expedition into Scotland, he resigned his command and retired to his native Yorkshire. Despite ill-health, he exerted himself in Yorkshire in 1659-60 to support Monck and thus, wittingly or unwittingly, to facilitate the Restoration – though he appears to have been at best an uncertain and qualified royalist at this stage. He spent his final decade in quiet retirement in Yorkshire.
References: A. Hopper, ‘Black Tom’: Sir Thomas Fairfax and the English Revolution (2007); Oxford DNB; Jones, ‘War in the North’, 380-1.
Armies: Yorkshire; Northern Army; New Model Army
Fairfax, William William Fairfax (died 1644)
Probably from southern Yorkshire and possibly distant kin to Lord Fairfax.
By early 1643 William Fairfax was a captain based at Rotherham. When the town fell in May 1643 he fled to the clothing districts of the West Riding. He fought at Adwalton Moor. Fairfax’s troop served in Lincolnshire and in Jan. 1644 in Cheshire at the battle of Nantwich, around the time he became major in John Lambert’s new regiment of horse. Fairfax fought at Selby in Apr. 1644 and in July was mortally wounded at Marston Moor.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 382.
Armies: Yorkshire
Fairfax, Sir William Sir William Fairfax (baptised 1610, died 1644)
Born at Bolton Percy, Yorkshire (West Riding), a younger son though eventually heir of of Sir Philip Fairfax. He was knighted by the king in 1630. Perhaps having gained some military experience on the continent before the civil war, in 1642 he took up arms for parliament and commanded a regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army during the Edgehill campaign; his regiment performed poorly in the battle. Returning north, by the end of 1642 he had jointed the Northern Army commanded by his uncle, the second Lord Fairfax. He raised a new foot regiment in the Bradford area and took part in operations around Leeds, Wakefield and Pontefract during the opening months of 1643. Although he was in London during summer 1643, in Jan. 1644 he fought with and under his cousin, Sir Thomas Fairfax, at the battle of Nantwich and then participated in the siege of York and battle of Marston Moor, where he led a brigade of foot. He was present at the siege of Liverpool in summer 1644 but was mortally wounded at Montgomery on 18 Sept.
References: Oxford DNB; Jones, ‘War in the North’, 381.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Yorkshire; Northern Army (Fairfax)
Falconer [Falkener], George George Falconer [Falkener]
Lieutenant, probably in Captain Robert Taylor’s company in Lawrence Crawford’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army by early Apr. 1644; recorded as lieutenant in Major Daniel Crawford’s company in that regiment at its disbandment on 17 Apr. 1645.
References: TNA, SP28/22/335; Spring, Eastern Association, 1.13.
Armies: Eastern Association
Fallowes, William William Fallowes (1624/25-1677)
Eldest son of John Fallowes of Fallowes Hall (died c. 1649), Alderley parish, Cheshire, and his wife Anne, daughter of Henry Bradshaw of Marple.
On 22 Aug. 1650 William was commissioned as a captain in his uncle Henry Bradshaw’s regiment of foot in the Cheshire militia. By the time the regiment fought at Worcester, on 3 Sept. 1651, he had been promoted major. Fallowes was buried on 17 Apr. 1677.
References: CSPD, 1650, 510;
Earwaker, East Cheshire, 2, 68, 619-20; Vis. Cheshire, 1663.
Armies: Cheshire
Fanshaw, Lionel Lionel Fanshaw (born after 1619)
Of Dronfield, Derbyshire, a gentleman. Eldest son of Lionel Fanshaw of the same and his wife Joan, daughter of William Armitage, alderman and mayor of Doncaster.
Fanshaw served as a captain in John Bright’s regiment of foot in the Northern Army from 2 July 1644 until 24 June 1645, when his company was reduced under the Northern Association ordinance. By 1648 he was serving on most Derbyshire committees.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 382.
Armies: Yorkshire; Northern Army (Fairfax)
Fanthom [Fanton, Fantom], Carlo Carlo Fanthom [Fanton, Fantom]
A Croat, who, according to John Aubrey, spoke thirteen languages. Lieutenant in Captain Richard Grenville’s troop of harquebusiers in Arthur Goodwin’s regiment of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army from its formation on 30 July 1642 to some point between 21 June and 22 July 1643. Then captain of a troop in Goodwin’s regiment of horse by late July 1643; in Oct. 1643 Fanthom was paid for £146 6s for his troop late in the regiment late commanded by (the recently deceased) Arthur Goodwin. On 6 Feb. 1644, Fanthom claimed £27 6s due to him as captain of a troop of horse.
Aubrey’s highly coloured account of ‘Captain Fantom’ claimed that Essex held him ‘in high esteem; for he was an admirable horse-officer, and taught the army the way of fighting with horse’, and that when his colonel Sir Robert Pye shot at him when he took away a horse from in front of the regiment at Bedford as they were marching to the relief of Gainsborough, the bullets penetrated his buff-coat and set his shirt on fire, but he handed them back, after which, ‘None of the soldiers would dare to fight with him; they said they would not fight with the devil’. He was reported as claiming that the keepers back home gave a certain herb to children which made them shot free, making them ‘Hardmen’ (Aubrey noted that ‘they say that a silver bullet will kill any Hardman’). He also had ‘a world of cuts about his body with swords’.
According to Aubrey, he said, ‘I care not for your Cause; I come to fight for your halfe-crown and your handsome women. My father was a Roman Catholique, and so was my grandfather I have fought for the Christians against the Turkes, and for the Turkes against the Christians.’
Aubrey also noted his dark side: ‘he was very quarrelsome and a great ravisher’. He ran a lieutenant in Rossiter’s regiment through with his sword because his spurs jangled too loudly, was twice spared hanging for rape by Essex’s intercession and encouraged his men to commit rapes whilst he looked on.
At length, Fanthom ‘left the Parliament party and went to the King, Charles the First, at Oxford, where he was hanged for ill using women’.
References: Bucks. contributions, 115-20, 129;TNA, SP28/9/99, SP28/10/139, SP28/12/84; Anecdotes and traditions illustrative of Early English history and literature, ed. W.J. Thoms, Camden Society, old ser., vol. 5 (1839), 111-2 (source of the Aubrey quotations).
Armies: Earl of Essex; Buckinghamshire
Farewell, Shemington Shemington Farewell
Captain. Cannot be placed closely, but note the (quite narrow) pedigrees of two families in heralds’ visitation of 1672, Farewell of Holbrooke and Horsington and Farewell of Norton Fitzwarren.
References: Vis. Somerset, 1672, 60-1, 108-9.
Armies: Somerset: Col. William Strode’s Regt. of Foot
Farley, Cuthbert Cuthbert Farley
In 1642, probably at and from its formation, ensign in Lord Robartes’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 37.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Farmer, - - Farmer
Captain in Sir John Norwich’s short-lived regiment of dragoons in the Eastern Association Army, listed as such in Nov. 1643 shortly before the regiment was transferred to Lord Grey of Groby and his army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.76.
Armies: Eastern Association
Farmer, - - Farmer
Captain of a troop of horse, probably in John Hutchinson’s Nottingham-based regiment of horse, who campaigned under Cromwell in Lincolnshire in summer 1643.
References: Hutchinson, Life, 129.
Armies: Nottinghamshire
Farmer, John John Farmer
Lieutenant in Sir James Ramsay’s troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army by 29 Oct. 1642. By autumn 1643 until June 1644, and so present at the battle of Cheriton, captain in Sir William Balfour’s regiment of horse. He may also have been captain-lieutenant in the colonel’s troop of Ramsey’s regiment of horse. He had a later career as a captain, later major, in the New Model dragoon regiments of John Okey and Thomas Morgan.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 20; TNA, SP28/2b/490, SP28/11/67.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association); New Model Army
Farmer, Simon Simon Farmer
During 1643 Farmer served in Northamptonshire as captain of a company of dragoons under Sir John Norwich and later the county committee. Identified by pay warrants dating from Mar., Apr., May and June, in 1644 he transferred to Sir Thomas Myddelton’s brigade as a captain of a troop of horse, probably in Myddelton's own regiment, and recruited his troop in or around London. Farmer’s quartermaster and cornet at this time were respectively George Hinkes and William Trucston. Farmer served under Myddeton from 27 Jan. until 16 July 1644. His troop was engaged in the fighting for Oswestry, Shropshire, in later June and early July.
References: TNA, SP/28/33, Part 4, f. 422; SP/28/37, Part 1, ff. 88-9; SP28/346, 57, 100, 149, 216, 281.
Armies: Northamptonshire, North Wales
Farnes, Joseph Joseph Farnes
Ensign in Viscount Saye and Sele’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 30.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Farr, Anthony Anthony Farr
At its muster in Nov. 1643, lieutenant-colonel of the earl of Warwick’s regiment of foot formed from the Essex militia, which formed part of the Eastern Association Army that contributed to the siege of Reading in spring 1643, the siege of Greenland House in summer 1644 and probably to some other actions in which the army was involved.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.31.
Armies: Eastern Association
Farr, Ralph Ralph Farr
Successively Cornet, lieutenant and by early 1645 captain in John Okey’s troop in Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s regiment of horse in Waller’s Army. He transferred to the New Model Army, staying with Okey and becoming a captain in Okey’s New Model regiment of dragoons. He left the regiment and the Army in summer 1647.
References: Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 50, 60, 71, 81.
Armies: Waller; New Model Army
Farrant, - - Farrant
By early 1645 lieutenant in Carver’s company in John Pickering’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.86.
Armies: Eastern Association
Farrant, Robert Robert Farrant
Ensign, ?later lieutenant.
References: Mayo, Dorset Standing Committee, 162.
Armies: Dorset
Farrer, Henry Henry Farrer
Of Ewood Hall, Midgley, Yorkshire (West Riding), a parliamentarian lieutenant in Yorkshire.
References: Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 110 [citing TNA, E121/3/4, no. 41].
Armies: Yorkshire
Farrer, John John Farrer
Of Ewood Hall, Midgley township, Halifax parish, Yorkshire (West Riding). Eldest son of William Farrer, and elder brother of William Farrer.
Farrer was a captain in Yorkshire, a committeeman and a prominent figure during the Interregnum.
References: Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 110; Jones, ‘War in the North’, 382.
Armies: Yorkshire
Farrer, Robert Robert Farrer
Identified by pay warrants dating from Apr. and May 1644 as an English captain in Sir Thomas Myddelton’s brigade. By Jan. 1645 he was Myddelton's quartermaster-general. He was then also in command of a troop of horse numbering 46 men, all ranks, of Myddelton’s brigade based in Montgomeryshire. In Apr. 1645 Farrer was operating in the North Wales borderlands when Welsh royalists surprised 20 of his men.
References: Dore, Brereton letter books, 1. 369; TNA, SP28/225, f. 365, SP28/346, no. 171; National Library of Wales, Chirk Castle Ms. 1/Biii, 93.
Armies: North Wales
Farrer, William William Farrer
Of Ewood Hall, Midgley township, Halifax parish, Yorkshire (West Riding). A younger son of William Farrer and his second wife Susan and a younger brother of John Farrer.
By Oct. 1642 William Farrer was an ensign and in Nov. became a captain of foot. In 1643 he served in the forlorn hope at Adwalton Moor. Escaping from the battle to Hull, he was made a captain of dragoons and went into Lincolnshire with Thomas Morgan. By spring 1644 Farrer was evidently a captain in Lord Fairfax’s regiment of horse, with which he was serving in Feb. 1645 in Cheshire. In later 1645 he transferred to Christopher Copley’s regiment of horse. He was probably the William Ferrer commissioned on 10 Apr. 1650 as a captain in a regiment of foot of the Yorkshire militia. In 1654 he was an ejector in the West Riding.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 382; Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 110, CSPD, 1650, 506.
Armies: Yorkshire
Farrier, George George Farrier
In Nov. 1644, lieutenant in Captain Fye’s company in Sir Samuel Luke’s Newport Pagnell-based regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 95.
Armies: Bedfordshire
Farrington, Francis Francis Farrington
Identified from a pay warrant dated 2 Dec. 1644 as a captain in Cheshire.
References: TNA, SP28/125, Part 2.
Armies: Cheshire
Farrington, Robert Robert Farrington
Captain in John Hampden’s (later Thomas Tyrrill’s) regiment of foot by 30 Sept. 1642 until at least 30 July 1644. Major by 21 Oct. 1644, presumably as a promotion after Tyrrill left as colonel and was replaced by Richard Ingoldsby.
Lieutenant-Colonel in the same regiment when it became part of the New Model Army. In or by 1647 – and probably as early as the end of 1645 – he had been replaced by Thomas Kelsey as lieutenant-colonel.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 46; TNA, SP28/2a/259, SP28/17/142, SP28/19/76; Temple, ‘New Model Army’, 58.
Armies: Earl of Essex; New Model Army
Farrington, Robert Robert Farrington
Lieutenant (Bringer-Up) in the Colonel’s company in the Yellow regiment, London Trained Bands (Colonel Sir John Wollaston), summer 1642.
References: Thrale 1642.
Armies: London
Farrington, Samuel Samuel Farrington
Captain of a company of foot serving in Shropshire. 1 Mar. 1645 to 31 July 1646, as revealed by his surviving accounts in TNA. Fought at High Ercall on 5 July 1646.
References: TNA, SP28/174; Perfect Passages, 9-16 July 1645.
Armies: Shropshire
Farwell, - - Farwell
Lieutenant, presumably the same as Lieutenant Humphrey Favell, seeking payment of arrears, 24 Oct. 1649. He served as lieutenant in company of foot of Captain John Allen in Weymouth garrison, 10 Feb. 1646-16 Jan. 1647. He married the daughter of John Samways of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, with a marriage portion of at least £386.
References: Mayo, Dorset Standing Committee, 556, 285-6.
Armies: Dorset
Faulthripe, William William Faulthripe
Ensign in Captain George Drury’s company in Thomas Ayloffe’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army at its disbandment in Apr. 1645.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.8.
Armies: Eastern Association
Fawcett, - - Fawcett
Lieutenant in Peter Balloon’s troop in Mazieres’s short-lived regiment of horse in the Eastern Association Army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.67.
Armies: Eastern Association
Fawconbridge, - - Fawconbridge
‘Mr. Tho. Fawconbridge elder brother of the Tally office is in this Regt’ – Westminster Liberty regiment (Colonel Sir James Harrington).
References: BL, Harl. 986, p. 55.
Armies: Westminster
Fawne, - - Fawne
Captain in the Yellow regiment, London auxiliaries (Colonel John Owen) in Oct. 1646.
References: Nagel, ‘London militia’, 317; Marshall, Essex funeral, 11.
Armies: London
Feake, William William Feake
Quartermaster. Presented by the constables of Gaolgate Ward, 1662.
References: Stafford, ‘Active Parliamentarians, 1662’, 57.
Armies: Staffordshire
Feast [Heast], - - Feast [Heast]
Captain in Colonel Richard Hardy’s Kentish regiment, possibly the Scraye Lathe regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 75.
Armies: Kent; Waller (Southern Association)
Feilding, Basil, second earl of Denbigh Basil Feilding, second earl of Denbigh (c. 1608-1675)
Son of William Fielding (c. 1587-1643) of Newnham Paddox, Warwickshire (from 1622 first earl of Denbigh), and his wife, Susan Villiers (fl. 1606-1651); through his mother he was nephew of George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, while his sister Mary married James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton. In the 1630s Basil, Lord Feilding was an ineffective ambassador-extraordinary to Venice.
With the approach of war parliament appointed him lord lieutenant of Flint. and Denbighshire. At Edgehill, he served as a cavalry officer in Essex’s Army, commanding a troop of horse with the rank of colonel under the earl of Bedford. At the same battle his father fought as a volunteer in the king’s lifeguard. In Apr. 1643 his father was killed when Prince Rupert stormed Birmingham; his mother urged the new earl to ‘leave those that murthered your dear father’ (Oxford DNB).
Denbigh was appointed commander-in-chief in the associated counties of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire in June 1643. His command was weakened before it began by commissions which the earl of Essex had issued in the interim after Brooke’s death to various local commanders in the West Midlands: to Sir John Gell, Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Sir William Brereton. William Purefoy was commissioned as commander-in-chief in Staffordshire and Worcestershire (another commission, granted to Colonel John Barker as commander of Coventry by the earl of Essex in Nov. 1643, provided a further weapon against Denbigh). Politically, Denbigh’s Association was at odds with both the localism and militancy of the Warwickshire county committee and many of the Staffordshire county committee. His approach to the conduct of the war, appointing by preference leading gentlemen as his officers rather than officers distinguished more for their militant commitment than their elevated social origins, put him at odds with the Warwickshire county committee (few of whom were more than on the fringes of the county elite) and with his colonel at Edgbaston, John Fox. Starved of resources, Denbigh’s Army won a few minor victories and captured Oswestry and Cholmondeley House in June 1644. In mid-July 1644 he returned to London to fight his political corner and to try (unsuccessfully) to re-establish his authority. He formally relinquished his command under the Self-Denying Ordinance in 1645.
By 1646-7 Denbigh had shifted his political position, and rather than an aristocratic moderate like Essex or Manchester, was an ally of the Independent peers such as Lord Saye and Sele and of the New Model Army.
References: Oxford DNB; Hughes, Warwickshire; Peacock; Pennington and Roots, Committee at Stafford; Peacock, Army Lists, 47; M.A. Kishlansky, ‘Mission impossible: Oliver Cromwell, Charles I and the regicides’, English Historical Review, vol. 125 (2010), 844-74.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Earl of Denbigh
Fell, Thomas Thomas Fell
Lieutenant-Colonel in George Dodding’s Lancashire regiment.
References: Gratton, Lancs. war effort, 287.
Armies: Lancashire
Fenton, James [Nicholas] James [Nicholas] Fenton
Originally lieutenant in Cornelius Lambe’s company in Ralph Weldon’s Kentish regiment of foot; he became its captain after Lambe’s death at Weymouth on 26 Aug. 1644. He continued to serve as captain when the regiment became part of the New Model Army, first under Weldon and then under Robert Lilburne. Fenton also stayed with the regiment when most of the officers left with Lieutenant-Colonel Kempson in June 1647, although it is not clear how long he stayed after the officers lost control and the mutinous regiment marched to Ware. By Jan. 1649, by when the regiment had passed to Sir Arthur Hesilrige, he was no longer in the regiment.
Spring, Waller’s army, 152, gives the name as Nicholas Fenton, but works on the New Model Army give the name as James, and it is assumed here that he is the same man.
References: Spring, Waller’s army,152; Firth and Davies,Regimental history, 2.447, 452, 456.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association); Kent; New Model Army
Fenton, John John Fenton
Lieutenant in the Yellow regiment, London Trained Bands (Colonel Sir John Wollaston), summer 1642.
Possibly serving in Colonel Henry Barclay’s regiment of foot (a regiment with London connections) by Dec. 1642.
The failed Independent candidate of that name in wardmote elections for common councilmen in Farringdon Within in 1645.
Captain in the same Yellow regiment, London Trained Bands (now Colonel Ralph Harrison) in Oct. 1646; evidently removed by the Presbyterian-controlled militia committee in 1647, but re-instated and promoted by Dec. to lieutenant-colonel. According to a hostile pamphlet, ‘that proud, insolent, Schismaticall, beggarly Fenton … this is he that would needs have a Committee of aldermen and Commoners to examine whether he were a cuckold or not, when himselfe, his wife, and the Schollmaster of Dullidge [Dulwich] had concluded on the Affirmative before. His father keeps a poor Countrey Ale-house, he bound him to a Tagger of Points; he married his wife from the Bell at Islington; yet this proud Foole cries Want you any Buttons? in Scarlet and Plush. This is he that was shot in the Arse at Caversham-Bridge, he had So much Armour on’s back that he could not run away fast enough, that got that little he hath by being a Committee-man under my Lord of Essex, that carried out a gallant Company of London Apprentices into Service, and used them like Doggs’ (A paire of spectacles for the Citie (1648), 10-11).
References: Thrale 1642; Nagel, ‘London militia’, 317-9; TNA, SP28/4/340;Lindley, Popular politics, 360.
Armies: London
Fenwick, - - Fenwick
In June 1643, a lieutenant-colonel serving in one of the three regiments of foot formed from the Essex militia, part of the Eastern Association Army that contributed to the siege of Reading in spring 1643, the siege of Greenland House in summer 1644 and probably to some other actions in which the army was involved.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.33.
Armies: Eastern Association
Fenwick, Charles Charles Fenwick
Of Babthorpe, Brackenholme-with-Woodhall, Hemingborough, Yorkshire (East Riding). Hopper identifies him as a sergeant-major. This is presumably the Major Fenwick identified [mis-identified?] by Jones as possibly John Fenwick, a Newcastle tradesman. According to Jones, Major Fenwick began his service as captain in Sir William Constable’s regiment of foot in the south and came up north with him in autumn 1643. Governor of Wressell Castle by Aug. 1645. Later lieutenant-colonel.
References: Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 99; [citing TNA, SP23/203/20; E121/4/1 no. 30; W. Wheater, Some Historic Mansions of Yorkshire (Leeds, 1888), 319]; Jones, ‘War in the North’, 382.
Armies: Yorkshire
Fenwick, John John Fenwick
Captain in Sir William Constable’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 41; Davies, ‘Essex’s Army’, 47.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fenwicke, Roger Roger Fenwicke (died 1650)
Captain, later major, in the earl of Denbigh’s Army (pay warrant and receipt, 16 Mar. 1644), in his regiment of foot which served in Shropshire for part of the war. Governor of Moreton Corbet garrison by Feb. 1645 and led the vanguard of Shropshire foot in the capture of Shrewsbury that month. He may then have transferred to the Shropshire horse, the capacity in which he fought and was wounded at Stokesay on 8 June 1645. Recovered and active again by Aug., when he led raids on Ludlow and skirmished with royalists around the town. Led 120 Shropshire horse at a skirmish at Bishop’s Castle on 30 Aug. By the end of the year he was commanding a troop of Shropshire horse supporting the operation against Chester.
He is probably the Colonel Roger Fenwick who in July 1646 contracted to raise a regiment for Ireland, which sailed from Liverpool about Oct. and, after being prevented from landing at Dublin by Ormonde, went instead to Ulster. In July 1647 the regiment was besieged at Trim. Joining with the army of Michael Jones it fought at Dungan’s Hill (8 Aug. 1648). Fenwick was unsuccessful in raising recruits in South Wales in 1648, but in autumn 1649 raised 1,000 men for service in Ulster. He was mortally wounded at the start of the battle of Scarriffhollis (21 June 1650) where Sir Charles Coote routed the Irish commanded by the Bishop of Clogher.
References: Warws. RO, C2017/C10/3b; TNA, E121/2/11, part 87; A More Exact and Particular Relation of the taking of Shrewsbury, than hath hithero been published. With the manner and performance thereof by Lieutenant Colonell William Reinking (1645); Colonell Mitton’s Reply to Lieutenant Colonell Reinking’s Relation of the taking of Shrewbury (1645); Dore, Brereton letter books, 2. 184-5; Kingdom’s Weekly Intelligencer, 24 June-1 July 1645, 2-9 Sept. 1645; Heads of Some Notes from the City Scout, 28 Aug. 1645; Intelligence from Shropshire of Three Great Victories obtained by the Forces of Shrewsburie (1645); TNA, SP28/131, part 12, f. 16; Firth and Davies, Regimental History, 2.637-8, 651.
Armies: Earl of Denbigh; Shropshire; Ireland
Ferguson, John John Ferguson
In spring 1645, captain in the regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army commanded successively by colonels Holborne and Davies. In the course of 1645, he became a captain in Edward Harley’s New Model Army regiment of foot.
References: Wanklyn, New Model Army, 1. 58, 148.
Armies: Earl of Essex; New Model Army
Feris, Thomas Thomas Feris
Lieutenant in Captain Abraham Woodroffe’s company in the Tower Hamlets Trained Bands regiment on 18 Apr. 1644.
References: TNA, SP28/121A, Part 3, ff. 412 r. & v.
Armies: Tower Hamlets
Ferrall, John John Ferrall
Captain in Ralph Weldon’s regiment of foot by 30 Sept. 1645, but no longer there by Apr. 1645 when the regiment became part of the New Model Army.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 153.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association); Kent
Ferrer, Constance Constance Ferrer (died 1644)
Lieutenant-Colonel. On 5 July 1642 he was one of the officers commissioned as major by the Lords for service in Ireland. He became a major in the earl of Stamford’s regiment of foot in Essex’s army. In early Dec. 1642, whilst the regiment was still stationed at Hereford, he rebuffed a royalist attempt to bribe him. The regiment fell back on Gloucester later that month, and became the professional regiment garrisoning the town. During the siege, Ferrer was also town major, where his actions were noted. After the siege was raised, he led a deputation to the Commons asking for men and money. He returned to Gloucester in Mar. 1644, by now promoted lieutenant-colonel, having lost most of the regiment with which he had left London on the march. Presumably for doubts over his conduct of the convoy, he was arrested and sent a prisoner to London where the Commons committed him to prison in May, allowing the Committee of the West to decide whether to bail him the following month. He was released. Demoted back to major, he was killed at the siege of Banbury later that year, and by 28 Oct. 1644 his widow was petitioning the Lords.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6.642-47; JHL, 5.181-5, 7.40; JHC, 3.497-8, 527-9; Bibliotheca, lxiii, lxxvii, lxxxiv, xcv, clxiv, clxxxiv, 90, 222; CSPD, 1644, 97.
Armies: Gloucestershire; Earl of Essex
Fetenhough, - - Fetenhough
Lieutenant in captain, later major, Samuel Bosa’s troop in Hans Behre’s regiment of horse.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 25; JHL, 4.427.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association)
Fetherston, Henry Henry Fetherston
Captain of a troop of harquebusiers in Sir Wilfred Lawson’s regiment of horse in Lord Fairfax’s Northern Army. Fetherston later served as a reformado in Colonel John Ponsonby’s regiment of horse.
References: TNA, E121/4/8, no. 5.
Armies: Northern Army (Fairfax); Cumberland
Fettiplace, John John Fettiplace
Of Coln St Aldwyn, Gloucestershire. Colonel. Colonel of a Gloucestershire regiment of foot. In 1642 he was an active deputy lieutenant and militia commissioner in Gloucestershire, In Feb. 1643 he was governor of Cirencester, commanding some Trained Bands and volunteers who were drawn into a regiment. The town was stormed that month, and he himself was captured. Peachey and Turton suggest that, ‘Fettiplace’s regiment was probably still in the process of formation, possibly on Lord Stamford’s orders, in Cirencester, at the time it was stormed’. He was evidently released at some point: certainly he was an active county committeeman in early 1643 and 1644-1646. He then withdrew or was dismissed, and by the early 1660s was a loyal supporter of the restored regime, in 1661 going to Gloucester to prevent a feared ‘fanatick’ plot to burn the city to the ground.
References: Warmington, Glos., 34, 38, 81, 83, 90, 92-3, 184; Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6.617.
Armies: Gloucestershire
Field, - - Field
A captain in one of the militia-based regiments of foot in Herts; he and his men served for a time in the Aylesbury garrison.
References: A. Thompson, The Impact of the First Civil War on Hertfordshire, 1642-47 (2007), xxviii.
Armies: Hertfordshire
Field, Daniel Daniel Field
In 1643 captain in Sir John Wittrough’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army; he continued to serve in the regiment, which later passed to Thomas Sadler.
References: TNA, SP28/11/143, 145, 147; Hertfordshire, 102
Armies: Eastern Association
Fielder, - - Fielder
Probably an officer in Richard Norton’s Hampshire regiment of horse. On 4 Aug. 1644 he commanded one of the four troops besieging Winchester. On 7 Dec. 1644 his troop was part of Major Francis Dowett’s force which beat up the royalist quarters of Colonel Cooke at Salisbury.
Possibly the same man as Colonel John Fielder.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 104.
Armies: Hampshire; Waller (Southern Association)
Fielder, John John Fielder
Upon the resignation of Samuel Jones in Mar. 1645, Fielder succeeded him as colonel and commander of his Surrey and Farnham Castle-based troop of horse and regiment of foot. He was probably present when his horse and foot took part in the final and successful sieges of Basing House and Donnington Castle in 1645-6. The troop and regiment were both disbanded at the end of the war, in summer 1646.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 74.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association); Surrey
Fiennes alias Clinton, Robert Robert Fiennes alias Clinton
From summer 1643 until he was killed in the operation against Newark in Mar. 1644, captain in Lord Willoughby’s regiment of horse in the Eastern Association Army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.108.
Armies: Eastern Association
Fiennes, Edward Edward Fiennes
He began the war in the Midlands troop or regiment of Simon Rugeley, before becoming captain in John Meldrum’s fairly short-lived regiment of horse in 1643-4, remaining with it when it was absorbed into James Sheffield’s regiment and later into the New Model Army. Unlike several officers in that regiment, he did not then transfer to the New Model Army.
References: Spring, Waller’s Army, 102; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 150-1.
Armies: Staffordshire; Waller (Southern Association)
Fiennes, Francis Francis Fiennes
In 1642 listed as captain of a troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army. Presumably a kinsman of Viscount Saye and Sele and thus of his sons the parliamentarian politicians and officers James, John and Nathaniel Fiennes.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 51.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fiennes, Henry Henry Fiennes
In 1642 listed as cornet in (presumably his kinsman) Francis Fiennes’s troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 51.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fiennes, John John Fiennes (died in or before 1710)
Third son of William Fiennes, first Viscount Saye and Sele (1582-1662) and his wife Elizabeth Temple (died 1648), daughter of John Temple of Burton Dasset, Warwickshire.
At the beginning of the war Fiennes commanded a troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army. He served with his brother Nathaniel Fiennes when the latter unsuccessfully attacked Worcester in Sept. 1642 and went with him to Bristol in Feb. 1643. In spring 1643 he served with Edward Massey at Gloucester but by late May 1643 was at Warminster, where he formed a regiment of foot (serving as its colonel 10 June-3 Aug. 1643). He tried to recruit in Warwickshire and Oxfordshire: on 13 June it was reported that he had recruited two Scots captains, a captain-lieutenant and inferior officers. But he went to Bristol in late July with ‘a new begun but not complete’ regiment of about 300-400 men, arriving shortly before the city fell. A defender of his brother’s actions, he assaulted a witness who criticized them.
Fiennes was commissioned colonel of a regiment of horse, which he commanded from 20 June 1644 to 20 Aug. 1645. The regiment was raised and served mainly in the Oxfordshire area, most notably besieging Banbury 27 Aug.-25 Oct. 1644, until the royalists raised the siege. His accounts, amongst receipts, recorded money brought in by various officers towards the regiment in Aug. 1644. He also received monies by warrant for maintaining the siege of Banbury. Following the relief of Banbury, the regiment was billeted at Warwick. From Dec. 1644 to Feb. 1645 the regiment formed part of the Abingdon garrison. It was then ordered into the West, serving with Cromwell’s forces: in Aug. 1645 £8 was paid to fourteen of his soldiers to discharge their quarters and recruit themselves with arms, ‘being disarmed by the Clubmen in the West’ (TNA, SP28/139, Part 19, f. 209r.). Cromwell, reporting a successful skirmish near Evesham, commended Fiennes: ‘his diligence was great, and this I must testify, that I find no man more ready to all services than himself … I find him a gentleman of that fidelity to you and so conscientious, that he would all his troop were as religious and civil as any, and makes it a great part of his care to get them so’ (Abbott, Cromwell Writings and Speeches, 1.383).
In Apr. the regiment was ordered westwards to help Massey’s Brigade, then on 13 May northwards to join with the Scots. But instead it was diverted and joined the New Model Army. It fought on the right wing at Naseby. The day after the battle, ‘Colonel John Fiennes, with his regiment, was sent up to London by the General [Fairfax] with prisoners and colours taken in the fight; who had a great share in the performance of the Day, (being placed with his regiment on the right wing of horse)’ (Spring, Waller’s army, 42-3, citing Joshua Sprigge).
Given that both he and Sir Samuel Luke took a keen interest in developments in the southern Midlands during 1644-5 and that their troops often campaigned together in and around Banbury, it is no surprise that Fiennes features quite frequently in Luke’s letter books and that several letters to or by him survive there.
MP for Morpeth from 1645. A political ally of the army in 1647, but he withdrew after Pride’s Purge.
References: Oxford DNB; Peachey and Turton, 6.606-7; TNA, SP28/139, Part 19; Spring, Waller’s army, 42-3; HoP: The Commons, 1640-1660 (forthcoming); Luke Letter Books, especially nos. 53, 744, 837, 912, 1401, 1407.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Gloucestershire; Bristol
Fiennes, Nathaniel Nathaniel Fiennes (1607/8-1669)
Colonel. Second son of William Fiennes, first Viscount Saye and Sele (1582-1662) and his wife Elizabeth Temple (died 1648), daughter of John Temple of Burton Dassett, Warwickshire.
MP for Banbury in the Short and Long parliaments; MP for Oxfordshire in the 1654 and for Oxford University in 1656 parliaments.
In Aug. 1642 he, his father and brother John Fiennes failed to prevent the earl of Northampton carrying away cannon for Lord Brooke at Banbury and later in the month served at the siege of Coventry. He fought at Edgehill.
By Feb. 1643 Fiennes was in the West Country and was sent to Bristol where there were doubts about the loyalty of the governor Thomas Essex. Later in the month he arrested Essex and in Mar. arrested a group of royalist conspirators, chief among them Robert Yeamans, who were planning to deliver the city to the royalists. In May he was commissioned governor of Bristol. Following Roundway Down, Prince Rupert besieged the city and on 26 July a royalist storm failed in two places, but succeeded in creating a breach in the outer line of defences. It was later argued that the original royalist force which broke through was small and could easily have been repulsed, and that Fiennes unnecessarily ordered a fall-back from the line into the town. Short of men, who were themselves demoralized, Fiennes surrendered later that day.
Facing recriminations for having surrendered too easily, he asked to be tried, and was charged with cowardice and treason. He was acquitted on these counts, but sentenced to death for improper surrender. He was pardoned by the earl of Essex.
Fiennes was secluded at Pride’s Purge on 6 Dec. 1648.
He became an important figure during the Protectorate.
References: Oxford DNB; McGrath, Bristol, 16-32; State Trials, 4.86-298.
Armies: Bristol
Fiennes, William, first Viscount Saye and Sele William Fiennes, first Viscount Saye and Sele (1582-1662)
Born at Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire, only son and heir of Richard Fiennes, seventh Baron Saye and Sele. Father of John and Nathaniel Fiennes.
William succeeded his father to the barony in 1613 and thus sat in the Lords in James I’s later parliaments, where he became critical of some of the king’s policies. His fierce puritanism also led him to question many of Charles I’s policies and to leave court. He was one of a group of dissatisfied peers and politicians who met during the 1630s to promote various colonial and commercial ventures at home and overseas.
He was briefly imprisoned by the king on his failure to support the First Scots War and again after the Short Parliament. He was a prominent critic of royal government during the opening years of the Long Parliament.
In Aug. 1642 he was commissioned captain of a troop of horse and colonel of a regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army, which he led at Edgehill, though probably because of his age and his extensive political and parliamentary roles, his period in command was brief and sometime later in 1642 command of the regiment passed to Sir John Meldrum. He was active in the Lords, was a member of the Westminster Assembly, supported Fairfax in the formation of the New Model and tried hard to get the king to reach an acceptable settlement in 1648. When that failed and the army took a different course, he largely withdrew from politics and public life, spending the 1650s in retirement and for a time living on Lundy. He lived on to see the Restoration, which he accepted, and to retake his seat in the Lords, though he died shortly afterwards.
References: Oxford DNB.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Filkins, John John Filkins
Sergeant, and by Nov. 1644 ensign, in John Blackmore’s company in Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s/James Holborne’s regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 59.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Finch, - - Finch
A captain in the St Augustine’s Lathe regiment of volunteers in Kent, who took part in suppressing a royalist rising in Canterbury in 1647.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 77.
Armies: Kent
Finch, Francis Francis Finch
Ensign in the Red regiment, London Trained Bands (Colonel Thomas Atkin) in summer 1642. In 1647 he was approved (or appointed) captain in the same Red regiment, London Trained Bands (now Colonel Edward Hooker) by the Presbyterian militia committee.
References: Thrale 1642; Nagel, ‘London militia’, 318.
Armies: London
Finch, Simon [Syon] Simon [Syon] Finch
Finch had served in the English army in Ireland under Ormonde. He was with one of the regiments transferred to England in later 1643 that formed the foot of the royalist army defeated at Nantwich, Cheshire, on 25 Jan. 1644. Finch was taken prisoner and brought by Sir William Brereton to London where he was imprisoned for a while at Southwark. Finch then switched sides, although his younger brothers continued to serve in the royalist Anglo-Irish regiments. By Sept. 1644 he was a captain in Sir William Brereton’s Cheshire Army, and on 8 Sept. jointly commanded at the storming of Moreton Corbet Castle, Shropshire. By Apr. 1645 Finch was captain of a 70-strong company of dragoons in Sir William Brereton’s regiment of foot. He sat at Brereton’s councils of war during the siege of Chester. In Sept. 1645 he was wounded leading a party of firelocks in storming the walls of Chester. On 1 Nov. Finch fought at the battle of Denbigh Green, when he with Captain Holt, ‘stout and resolute men’, led their dragoons in support of the forlorn hope down a narrow lane to outflank bodies of royalist horse and dragoons. In Apr. 1646 Finch served at the siege of Holt Castle, Denbighshire, and in May was with Brereton’s forces besieging Lichfield Close in command of a 76-strong troop (probably of dragoons, the unit is also referred to as a company of firelocks). By 1647 he was an officer of the Chester garrison. On 22 Aug. 1650 Finch was commissioned major in Robert Duckenfeild’s militia regiment of Cheshire foot, with which the following year he fought and distinguished himself at the battle of Worcester. Then its lieutenant-colonel, when the regiment disbanded Finch was given command of five companies to be posted to Ireland to reinforce Sir Hardress Waller’s regiment of foot (the other company commanders were Captains Birtle, Massey and Stopford and Major Duckenfeild). By Dec. 1656 Finch was still serving in Ireland as lieutenant-colonel of Richard Lawrence’s regiment of foot, and remained as such after the re-organisation of the Irish army in 1659. At the Restoration he was listed among those field officers in pay to be continued in the army. He acquired (and retained after 1660) lands in counties Limerick and Tipperary. In 1651 Finch married Mary Daniell, daughter of Peter Daniell of Over Tabley and his wife Christian Grosvenor, the sister of William Daniell. In 1666 the couple were still living in Ireland.
References: Dore, Brereton letter books, 1. 27, 34, 217, 324, 328, 436-7, 2. 193-5, 384, 511, 594-5; Carr and Atherton, Brereton Staffs., 59, 111, 270, 325, 328, 330, 339, 348, 350, 353; Cheshire tracts, 142, 182; TNA, SP28/224, f. 267; CSPD,1650, 509, 1651-2, esp. 117-8; Firth and Davies, Regimental History, 1, 357-8, 2, 446; Ludlow, Memoirs, 1, 323; CSP Ireland, 1647-1660, 289; Ormerod, Cheshire, 1.ii, 475; HMC, Ormonde Mss., 339, 353.
Armies: Cheshire
Fincher, Gabriel Gabriel Fincher
Captain of a troop in Sir William Waller’s regiment of horse. By 5 July 1643 the troop had passed to Richard Fincher.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 142.
Armies: Waller
Fincher, Richard Richard Fincher
Captain in Sir John Seaton’s regiment of dragoons in the earl of Essex’s Army by 27 Dec. 1642. When he received £100 on account for his company on 24 Jan. 1643, it was recorded that they were all unhorsed. There are further warrants to him at the beginning of Feb.
By 5 July 1643 Fincher was captain in Sir William Waller’s regiment of horse in Waller’s Army, succeeding to the command of Captain Gabriel Fincher’s troop. He became major and served in the regiment until it was disbanded in Apr. 1645. By 26 Apr. 1644 he had also become quartermaster-general of horse in Waller’s Army.
With the formation of the New Model Army Fincher was selected as captain in Charles Fleetwood’s regiment of horse. He also became quartermaster-general of horse in the New Model Army. At the end of June he went with Colonel John Butler’s regiment of horse to blockade Berkeley Castle as its temporary commander as both its most senior officers were recovering from wounds. He transferred as Major into Thomas Sheffield’s regiment of horse in Oct. or Nov. 1645. Fincher was also Quartermaster-General of horse in the New Model Army. In a cavalry fight at St Columb, Cornwall, ‘That division of ours that was commanded by Quartermaster-General Fincher, who first charged them, had the pursuit and execution of the enemy for three or four miles, wherein many were wounded and slain, about 100 taken prisoners, and about 300 horse’ (Firth and Davies, Regimental history, 1.176).
In 1647 Fincher sided with Sheffield, assuring parliament that they had calmed the grievances of the regiment. On 26 Mar. an anonymous correspondent, wary of the Presbyterian officers’ intention, warned that Fincher was a spy in the Army’s counsels. Fincher, with Sheffield and other Presbyterian officers, left the regiment later that year.
In summer 1648, parliament raised a troop by subscription for its protection, commanded by Colonel Butler and Major Fincher. On 21 Aug. Fincher was sent with twenty troopers into Berkshire to raise a force there and in adjacent counties in order to suppress the regiment that Henry Marten and Colonel Eyres were trying to raise without authorization. The troop evidently no longer existed by Oct. or Nov. 1648.
Fincher was a prisoner in the Tower of London from 25 Jan. to 21 Feb. 1660 for presenting a petition (with Sir Robert Pye) demanding that the MPs secluded at Pride’s Purge be re-admitted.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 142; TNA, SP28/4/350, SP28/5/151, 271, 272; Temple, ‘New Model Army’, 64; Firth and Davies, Regimental history, 1.50, 82, 91, 141, 175-9, 198; JHL, 10.365, 393; JHC, 5.676; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 51, 61, 72, 82.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller; Waller (Southern Association); New Model Army
Finlay, John John Finlay
Cornet in Bryce Semple’s troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army, Oct.-Nov. 1644, receiving money for the troop.
References: TNA, SP28/19/78.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fisher, Hugh Hugh Fisher
Lieutenant in Captain Thomas Dancer’s company in Thomas Ayloffe’s regiment of foot by the time of its disbandment in Apr. 1645.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.10.
Armies: Eastern Association
Fisher, John John Fisher
Lieutenant in Cholmley’s probably short-lived regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642-3.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 36-7.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fisher, John John Fisher
In spring 1644 captain-lieutenant in the Colonel’s company in the Westminster auxiliaries Trained Bands foot (Colonel James Prince).
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 160.
Armies: Westminster
Fissenden, Thomas Thomas Fissenden
Captain in Colonel Herbert Morley’s regiment of foot, serving at the siege of Basing House and in the West in 1645, until the reduction of the regiment on 30 Apr. 1645.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 101.
Armies: Sussex; Waller (Southern Association)
Fitch [Fitz], Thomas Thomas Fitch [Fitz]
In 1642 Fitch was a captain in Lord Brooke’s regiment in Essex’s army. Following the destruction of that regiment at Brentford he was one of several officers who moved to Sir John Northcote’s regiment of Devon foot and became its major (the major of Brooke’s regiment, Walter Aylworth, became the lieutenant-colonel of Northcote’s regiment). Major Fitch held open Polson Bridge with 100 men at the battle of Beacon Hill on 24 Apr. 1643 and in July, 27 of his men received payment for their service at St Thomas’s parish during the siege of Exeter.
Fitch was an officer in Plymouth, 1645-6, commanding the town regiment. On 28 Aug. 1644 he received 100 pikes and 20 halberds for the town regiment. On 25 Aug. 1645 the Plymouth Committee paid 5s. for a coffin for one of his soldiers, ‘slayne by the Enemye’. Fitch’s name is absent from the Protestation Returns for Devon, suggesting that he was not a local man. He was very possibly Colonel Thomas Fitch, not a New Model Army officer (although Firth and Davies thought that he probably served in the Northern forces), who in 1649-51 was governor of Carlisle. On 2 Oct. 1651 the Rump voted that his regiment of foot of ten companies be maintained. From late 1651 to 1659 the regiment garrisoned Inverness, where he built the citadel.
MP for Carlisle, 1654; Inverness-shire, 1656, 1659.
In June 1659, with a reputation as a ‘Commonwealths-man’ and a republican, Fitch was appointed lieutenant of the Tower of London. Opposed to Fleetwood and Lambert, he plotted to admit Colonel Okey and others to the Tower and declare for Parliament against the army; the plot was forestalled and Fitch arrested.
References: Peacock, Army Lists, 34; Worth, ‘Plymouth siege accounts’, 233, 237; Firth and Davies, RegimentalHistory, 1.342-5, 2.509-15.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Devon
Fitch, Thomas Thomas Fitch
By spring 1643, lieutenant in William Rainsborough’s troop in Sir William Balfour’s regiment of horse.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 20.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association)
Fitch, Thomas Thomas Fitch
Captain in Lord Brooke’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 34.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fitton, William William Fitton
Identified by Earwaker as probably the nephew of the royalist Sir Edward Fitton, baronet, of Gawsworth, Cheshire.
On 22 Aug. 1650 William Fitton was commissioned a captain in Henry Bradshaw’s regiment of foot in the Cheshire militia. On 3 Sept. 1651 he fought with his regiment at the battle of Worcester.
References: CSPD, 1650, 510; Earwaker, East Cheshire, 2, 68.
Armies: Cheshire
Fitz, Thomas Thomas Fitz
Ensign in Charles Essex’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 45.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fitzelton, - - Fitzelton
Captain in Herbert Morley’s regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 101.
Armies: Sussex, Waller (Southern Association)
Fitzhugh, Francis Francis Fitzhugh
Lieutenant in Lord Wharton’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642; a pay warrant places him as lieutenant in Lieutenant-Colonel Jeremy Horton’s company in Wharton’s late regiment, 4 Nov. 1642-24 Feb. 1643. At the latter date, he was promoted captain.
References: TNA, SP28/10/251.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fitzjames, Henry Henry Fitzjames
The only reference to him in the committee book, 18 Apr. 1647, is that a trooper had for two and a quarter years served under the command of Captain Raymond, Captain Tayler and Captain Henry Fitzjames, his arrears claim certified by Colonel John Fitzjames.
References: Mayo, Dorset Standing Committee, 240.
Armies: Dorset
Fitzjames, John John Fitzjames (1619-1670)
Of Leweston, Dorset. MP for Dorset, 1654, 1656 and 1660; Poole, Jan.-Mar. 1659, June 1661-June 1670. A committeeman in 1646 but ‘only to avoid loss of local influence, not because he approved of their doings. “If Committees continue, what do you think will become of the Country?” he asked rhetorically in Sept. 1646, with a 'hearty prayer for their dissolution’. Fitzjames went to London in summer 1647 to serve under his friend Edward Massey in the brief period when the Presbyterians in the City were trying to raise a counter-balancing force to the New Model Army. He took the Engagement only reluctantly, and later looked to Richard Cromwell as a stabilizing force.
MP for Bridport, 1645; Cornwall (1654, 1656) and Penryn (1659).
References: Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 33, 79n., 175, 310, 313, 315, 342, 344; HoP: The Commons, 1660-1690, 2.326-8;
CSPD, 1644-1645, 114; HoP: The Commons, 1640-1660 (forthcoming).
Armies: Dorset
Fleetwood, Charles Charles Fleetwood (1618-1692)
Born a younger son of Sir Miles Fleetwood of Aldwincle, Northamptonshire. Younger brother of George Fleetwood, who served and achieved high office in the Swedish army.
Charles began his military career as a trooper in the earl of Essex’s lifeguards, rising to be captain of horse in Essex’s Army and as such was with Essex when he relieved Gloucester in summer 1643 and fought at the first battle of Newbury. Colonel of a regiment of horse in the Eastern Association Army by Mar. 1644, which he continued to command when it transferred to the New Model Army in spring 1645, fighting in the campaign and battle of Naseby in summer 1645, in mopping up royalists in the South West and besieging Oxford in 1645-6.
He was elected as a Recruiter MP to the Long Parliament in 1646 but was a prominent supporter of the Army cause in 1647. He played no part in the regicide.
He may have served with and under Cromwell in South Wales and at Preston in 1648, but the evidence is inconclusive. He was appointed governor of the Isle of Wight in 1649. He did not go with Cromwell to Ireland later in 1649 but he did join Cromwell’s Scottish campaign of 1650-1 and, having been recalled to England earlier in 1651, he rejoined Cromwell later in the summer and played a prominent role at the battle of Worcester.
With the void caused by Ireton’s death still unfilled, in summer 1652 he went to Ireland as commander-in-chief and later lord deputy there. He mopped up remaining Irish Catholic resistance in the west and set about reordering and running the island. He was recalled to England in late summer 1655, becoming an absentee lord deputy and effectively replaced as chief administrator in Dublin by Oliver Cromwell’s younger son Henry, who by then was also Fleetwood’s brother-in-law – earlier in the decade Fleetwood had married Oliver Cromwell’s daughter Bridget, left a widow after the death of her first husband, Ireton. Fleetwood served as a Protectoral Councillor, in 1655-7 as major-general of a large region comprising part of the East Midlands and East Anglia, though in reality the work was done by two deputies, and as a member of the second Protectorate parliament and its Other House.
In 1658-9 he emerged as one of the leading opponents of his brother-in-law Richard Cromwell and his Protectorate, though how far Fleetwood initiated developments and how far he allowed himself to be promoted by other officers is unclear, but he certainly appeared instrumental in the removal of Richard and the Protectorate in spring 1659, the restoration of the Rump and its second removal in autumn 1659 and then the brief, failed attempt to impose more direct military rule. He was permanently barred from holding public office at the Restoration but otherwise emerged largely unscathed and spent his last three decades living quietly in Stoke Newington.
References: Oxford DNB; Holmes, Eastern Association, 171-2, 176, 189, 201, 213; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 51, 61, 72, 82, 93, 106.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Eastern Association; New Model Army
Fleming, - - Fleming
Lieutenant in Robert Kyrle’s troop of horse, raised in Gloucestershire or Herefordshire, Sept.-Oct. 1642. On 29 Oct. he was described as a Welshman at Hereford, and he led the troop in a raid on Presteigne. On 4 Feb. 1643, by when he had succeeded the defecting Kyrle in commanding the troop (if only temporarily) he received £20 16s. in cloth for the troop.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6. 654-5.
Armies: Gloucestershire
Fleming, - - Fleming
Ensign in Lord Mandeville’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 36.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fleming, Edward Edward Fleming
In 1642 listed as cornet in (presumably his kinsman) Joseph Fleming’s troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 51.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fleming, Joseph Joseph Fleming
In 1642 listed as captain of a troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 51.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Flemming [Fleming], Christopher Christopher Flemming [Fleming]
Probably cornet, later a lieutenant, in Robert Kirle’s troop of horse in Essex’s Army in 1642. Later captain in Jonas Vandruske’s regiment of horse; his troop later transferred to Colonel Hans Behre’s regiment. When the regiment mustered in the course of Essex’s campaign in the South West, he was commanding a troop of 9 officers and 68 troopers. By 2 Sept. 1644 he was adjutant of horse, and continued as both captain and adjutant until at least 21 Oct. 1644.
With the formation of the New Model Army he became captain in the regiment of horse commanded by Richard Graves and later by Adrian Scroope. He also became an adjutant-general of horse in the New Model Army. In May 1645 Flemming was with Fairfax at the blockade of Oxford: he defeated a royalist party near Nuneham, but on 24 May he ‘engaged in a single encounter, shot his enemy, yet received a wound himself, conceived then to be mortal’ (Firth and Davies, Regimental history, 1.103). However, he had sufficiently recovered to lead a party of the regiment at the storming of Bristol on 10 Sept. 1645. In 1648 he commanded a small force trying to withstand the royalist rising in South Wales, but was defeated and killed near Carmarthen in late Apr.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 13; Firth and Davies,Regimental history, 1.85, 103-4, 107; Peacock, Army lists, 56;TNA, SP28/14/361, SP28/15/210, SP28/18/1, 29, SP28/19/77, 81; Symonds, Diary, 73.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association); New Model Army
Flemming, John John Flemming
Possibly captain of a troop in Essex’s Army in 1642. Captain in Sir William Waller’s regiment of horse. He was wounded at the battle of Cheriton, for which he was awarded thirty gold pieces. He was Waller’s adjutant-general of horse.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 144; Peacock, Army lists, 53.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association)
Fletcher, - - Fletcher
Captain-Lieutenant to Colonel Barton in Sir Thomas Myddelton’s brigade, wounded, possibly mortally, during the relief of Oswestry on 2 July 1644.
References: Phillips, Wales, 2, 180.
Armies: North Wales
Fletcher, Thomas Thomas Fletcher
Lieutenant. An officer in Gloucestershire; he is recorded 21 Apr. 1643.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6. 635.
Armies: Gloucestershire
Flood, Edward Edward Flood
Ensign in Captain John Flood’s company in the Westminster auxiliaries regiment (Colonel James Prince) at muster on 13 May 1644.
References: TNA, SP28/121A, Part 5, f. 594r.
Armies: Westminster
Flood, John John Flood
Captain in the Westminster auxiliaries regiment (Colonel James Prince) on 13 May 1644 and 22 Oct. 1646.
References: TNA, SP28/121A, Part 5, f. 581r.; Nagel, ‘London militia’, 317; Marshall, Essex funeral, 11.
Armies: Westminster
Flower, Henry Henry Flower
Captain-Lieutenant in the Coventry-based troop of horse raised and commanded by John Barker, 1642-5, and took over its command with the rank of captain when Barker stood down in June 1645 under the terms of the Self-Denying Ordinance.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 21.
Armies: Warwickshire
Floyd, Edward Edward Floyd
In summer 1644, cornet in Christopher Innes’s troop in Sir Samuel Luke’s Bedfordshire-based regiment of horse.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 92.
Armies: Bedfordshire
Floyer, - - Floyer
Captain. References to his command of Trained Band Company, 31 Aug.-2 Sept. 1643. Not a captain pre-war, 5.503. Possibly of family of Floyer of Floyers.
References: Hayes, Vis. Dorset, 1677, 23-4.
Armies: Dorset
Foach, Thomas Thomas Foach
Captain of a troop of horse in the St Augustine Lathe regiment of horse (Kent), who brought his troop to the siege of Arundel Castle in late 1643.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 76.
Armies: Kent; Waller (Southern Association)
Foard, - - Foard
Chaplain to Sir Michael Livesay in his regiment of horse.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 81.
Armies: Kent; Waller (Southern Association)
Fogge, Robert Robert Fogge (1595/6-1676)
Admitted Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge 1612; grad. BA 1616; proceeded MA 1619.
Rector of Moresby, Cumberland, 1620-7 (resigned); rector of Grasmere, Westmorland, 1627-8 (deprived); after failure of institution to Eccleston, Lancashire in 1627, he became curate of Hoole, Lancashire, by 1634; Fogge failed to pay Ship Money there in 1639.
Chaplain to Sir John Seaton’s/George Melve’s regiment of dragoons, at least from late 1642 to 25 May 1643 (and Melve’s regiment evidently ceased to exist soon after). By Nov. he was back in Lancashire and the Commons ordered that Fogge (‘who hath been very vigilant in the service of Parliament’ be paid £100 for escorting the captured Colonel Hudlestone to London (JHC, 3.314). According to the later account of Edmund Calamy, he was at Bolton when it was stormed by the royalists, only luck and a quick getaway saving his life.
By Oct. or Nov. 1644 Fogge was chaplain to Sir Miles Hobart’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army, possibly until Feb. 1645.
By Jan. 1646 chaplain to Colonel Thomas Mytton, parliament’s commander in North Wales; he brought parliament news of the siege at Chester and the surrender of Hawarden and Ruthin Castles (Jan., Mar. and Apr. 1646). Although parliament failed to grant reversion of a delinquent’s estate in the right of his wife, instead it voted him £500 ‘in satisfaction of his service and sufferings’ (JHC, 5.48).
According to Calamy, his second wife was a Papist whose sons fought in the king’s army; one challenged Fogge who humbled him to a reconciliation.
Rector of Bangor-on-Dee from 1646 and also curate of Overton-on-Dee, until he gave it up to escape pluralism.
Assistant to the North Wales commission in 1654.
In 1660 presented at assizes (alongside Richard Steele and Philip Henry) for not reading the Book of Common Prayer. Ejected 1661/2.
He retired to Nantwich, Cheshire, where he was licensed as a Presbyterian in 1672: ‘He went constantly to Church at Namptwich or Acton, and preach’d after Sermon on the Lord’s Days, and also on the Week-days. He had a strong Body, and a stern Countenance’ (Calamy revised, 204, quoting Calamy’s original account).
He died between 1 Mar. and 17 Apr. 1676, attended at his deathbed by his son Orlando, dean of Chester.
References: TNA, SP28/5/206-7, TNA, SP28/7/79, SP28/19/216; Laurence, Army chaplains, 126; Calamy revised, 202-3; CCED, www.theclergydatabase.org.uk/index.html.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Lancashire; Eastern Association; North Wales
Foley, Edward Edward Foley
Presumably a kinsman of the ironmasters of Stourbridge.
Foley raised and commanded a troop of horse in Lord Brooke’s Association army, 27 Jan.-1 June 1643. He served in the defence of Lichfield Cathedral Close, Apr. 1643. He stayed in Warwickshire service for a few months.
Foley then became a captain of harquebusiers in Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s regiment of horse in Waller’s Southern Association Army, from 17 Oct. 1643 to 2 Apr. 1645. He continued as captain in the regiment under its new colonel, John Butler, in the New Model Army. He left the regiment about June 1647, a date which implies that like his colonel he was at odds with the Army in its confrontation with parliament.
References: Hopper, ‘Fox’, 100; Firth and Davies, Regimental History, 1.82, 84-5; Temple, ‘New Model Army’, 63; Hughes, Warwickshire, 194; J. Randolph, Honour Advanced (1643), 6; Spring, Waller’s army, 55; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 51, 61, 72.
Armies: Lord Brooke; Warwickshire; Waller (Southern Association); New Model Army
Fookes, James James Fookes
In 1642, probably at and from its formation, captain in Lord Robartes’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 37.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Forbes, - - Forbes
Briefly, from spring 1643 though no longer there by Nov., major in the Surrey and Farnham Castle-based regiment of foot commanded by Colonel Samuel Jones.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 74.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association); Surrey
Forbes, Arthur Arthur Forbes
Colonel. A Scottish professional soldier. On 24 Oct. 1642 Arthur Forbes, lieutenant-colonel of horse, was allowed 2 months’ allowance who came down to Gloucestershire with James Carr and George Davidson. On 9 Jan. he and Carr with 500 horse and dragoons captured Sir Edwarde Baynton and by 31 Jan. he was governor of Sudeley castle, but withdrew after the storming of Cirencester on 2 Feb. Later that month he captured Berkeley Castle with a force from Gloucester and became its governor. There he alienated Lord Berkeley’s connection, ‘hitherto slow but amenable,’ by his high-handed behaviour, turfing out the Berkeley dependents who had held it under Berkeley’s estate manager John Smyth, breaking promises of no plunder and imprisoning Smyth until the local Captain Hugh Berrow let him escape (Warmington, Glos., 44). Forbes tolerated plunder of local royalists by his officers and profited from the spoliation of the fabric of Berkeley Castle and of its estates. He was replaced as governor following complaints, but later re-instated, only to be replaced again. By 10 March 1643 Forbes was raising a regiment of dragoons in Gloucestershire, which survived until at least 19 Sept. 1643. However, following the fall of Bristol (26 July), the remnants came from Berkeley to Gloucester, where it served during the siege, ‘a broken regiment of dragoones of about one hundred men’ (Bibliotheca, 229).
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6.633-4; Warmington, Glos., 44-5, 78-9.
Armies: Gloucestershire
Forbes, William William Forbes (died before Sept. 1647)
A Scot, he married Mary, daughter of Sir John Redman (died 1644) of Thornton in Lonsdale, the royalist governor of Pontefract.
In Nov. 1642 Captain William Forbes joined Lord Fairfax and was soon promoted major of foot. He was not attached to any particular regiment until the end of 1644. At the storming of Leeds on 23 Jan. 1643 Forbes led a mixed body of foot and clubmen. He was in command of the reserve at Adwalton Moor where he was taken POW, but he was soon released and served with distinction during the siege of Hull. Forbes was a lieutenant-colonel by July 1644, when he commanded one of three regiments in Sir William Fairfax’s division at the battle of Marston Moor. In early Oct. Forbes was captured at the siege of Helmsley Castle but was released in Nov. under the terms of surrender. He then commanded at the siege of Knaresborough, which surrendered in Dec. As full colonel of a Scottish regiment Forbes commanded at the siege of Pontefract from late Dec. 1644 until Mar. 1645, when Sir Marmaduke Langdale’s flying column of Northern horse broke the siege. Robert Overton replaced Forbes in command in May 1645. Forbes was dead by Sept. 1647.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 382.
Armies: Yorkshire
Ford, - - Ford
Captain. The royalist Mercurius Academicus (2 Mar. 1646), wrote of Dr. Ford, ‘a captain under Colonel Bingham, and though an inferior officer to Lieutenant-Colonel Barrett Lacy…and Major William Skutt…yet their superior and attended by them in his divine Rhapsodies’. It proceeds to give an account of the attempt to intrude him into the pulpit of Wimborne church against the prayer-book Anglicanism of the parishioners, and guarded by Lacy and Skutt and their troops, and with Anthony Ashley Cooper and his brother in attendance, (which from the reported presence of Cooper, Bayley puts to Dec. 1645 or earlier). ‘Dr’ may be ironic. He is possibly Thomas Ford (see Oxford DNB) who might fit, but not particularly well.
References: Bayley, Civil War in Dorset, 307-8; Oxford DNB.
Armies: Dorset
Ford, James James Ford
Lieutenant-Colonel. Various references to him as colonel of Popham’s regiment of foot in 1643, including presence at trial of Robert Yeomans at Bristol in May 1643.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 5.553-5.
Armies: Somerset:
Col. Alexander Popham’s Regt. of Foot
Forde, Edward Edward Forde
Quartermaster to Captain William Anselem’s troop of horse.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 5.546.
Armies: Wiltshire:William Anselem’s Troop of Horse
Forester, - - Forester
In Nov. 1644, ensign in the colonel’s own company in Sir Samuel Luke’s Newport Pagnell-based regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 95.
Armies: Bedfordshire
Forrester, Clement Clement Forrester
Ensign in Captain Philip Stevens’s company in Sir William Waller’s regiment of foot; Cornet of the same after the regiment converted into a regiment of dragoons in July 1644.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 150.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Forrett, James James Forrett
By spring 1645, when it was disbanded, captain in the regiment of foot by then commanded by Edward Aldridge in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Wanklyn, New Model Army, 1. 149.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Forster [Foster], - - Forster [Foster]
Possibly captain in 1643-4, though he may well be confused with Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Forster. He was vestryman in St Bartholomew Exchange, London. It is far from clear that the parish clerk was consistent in his use of ranks, so Captain Forster (at vestry of 24 Dec. 1643) or Captain Matthew Forster (at vestry of 28 Jan. 1644) are not the same man as Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Forster (especially as the latter’s son and namesake was only sixteen in 1643). The best grounds for believing there are two men is from the vestry of 6 Apr. 1644, where Lieutenant-Colonel Forster was appointed an overseer but Captain Forster was appointed a parish auditor. Nevertheless, as he disappears about the time of the lieutenant-colonel, he may be the same man.
References: Freshfield, Exchange, 2.1, 3, 5, 7, 8; Vis. London, 1633-5, 1.282.
Armies: London
Forster [Foster], Edmund Edmund Forster [Foster]
Third son of John Forster of Sutton Madock, Shropshire, and his wife Isabell Forster. He married by 1633 Elizabeth (baptised 1618), eldest daughter of Marmaduke Rawden, his former master and by 1629 business partner.
Captain in London Trained Bands in 1633 and 1639.
Wine-importer.
A defender of the minister of All Hallows Barking in the early 1640s against puritan attacks.
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Blue regiment, London Trained Bands (Colonel Thomas Adams) from Apr. to (at least) the end of Sept. 1642.
References: Barriffe, Mars, sig. ¶r.; Overton 1642; Thrale 1642; Lindley, Popular politics, 63-4, 208; The life of Marmaduke Rawdon of York ed. R. Davies, Camden Society, old series, vol. 85 (1863), xlii, 8, 22, 23, 24, 29.
Armies: London
Forster [Foster], Matthew Matthew Forster [Foster] (died 1644).
Son of Robert Forster of Nassington, Northamptonshire and his second wife Joan. He married before 1627 Elizabeth, daughter of John Beckman ‘a german & a Diuine’ (Vis. London, 1633-5, 2.282).
Parishioner of St Bartholomew Exchange, where he was a ratepayer by 1628 (probably from 1627), churchwarden (1637-8), auditor (1640-1), overseer of the poor (1641-2); last certain appearance is as vestryman 2 May 1644.
Vintner at ‘the Shippe behind the Exch:’ (BL, Harl. 986, p. 34).
Admitted to the Company of the Artillery Garden (now the Honourable Artillery Company).
One royalist-Anglican regarded him as an agent of the Puritan faction in the 1630s who brought over Philip Skippon to be captain of the Honourable Artillery Company: ‘as their designes ripened, Captain Forster, a Vintner behind the Exchange, was employed by the City Faction, to send over Sea for Skippon a confiding Brother to the Cause, to be Captaine of the London Artillery Garden’ (Presecutio Undecima, second edition, (1648), 56).
Major of the Green regiment, London Trained Bands (Colonel John Warner) in Apr. 1642; shortly after promoted lieutenant-colonel of the same Green regiment, according to a royalist spy’s report of musters on 26 Sept. 1643. However, Richard Symonds annotated his copy of this: ‘putt out Himselfe but tooke the oath of Assoc[iation] taken by the Capt[ains] of the Citty for opposing all forces reysed wthout consent agt P’ (BL, Harl. 986, p. 34).
(Just possibly, in the last comment, Symonds, writing some years after the event, has confused him with Edmund Forster).
References: Barriffe, Mars, sig. ¶r.; Overton 1642; Thrale 1642; BL, Harl. 986, p. 34; Vis. London, 1633-5, 1.282; Persecutio Undecima (1648), 56; Freshfield, Exchange, 1.90, 92, 128, 137, 141, 2.8.
Armies: London
Fortescue, - – Fortescue
A major at Plymouth captured in a boat attack on Millbrook, Nov. [?]1642.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 3.352.
Armies: Devon
Fortescue, Sir Faithful Sir Faithful Fortescue (c. 1581-1666)
Born a younger son of John Fortescue of Buckland Filleigh, Devon. He served under his uncle Sir Arthur Chichester in Ireland, where he became constable of Carrickfergus and acquired offices and property. He was several times an MP in the Irish parliament and also became commander of the troop of horse of his uncle, who by then was lord deputy of Ireland. Knighted by James 1. he acquired further property and military command in Ireland during the 1620s, but in the 1630s his relations with Sir Thomas Wentworth became strained. In 1641-2 he returned to England to appeal for military assistance in putting down the Irish Rebellion and was appointed by parliament an officer in the English and Welsh army being raised for that purpose. But in summer 1642 he and his men were instead deployed to be part of the earl of Essex’s Army; Fortescue himself was appointed both major in Waller’s regiment of horse and lieutenant-colonel of Peterborough’s regiment of horse in Essex’s Army. In the middle of the battle of Edgehill he and many of his men defected to the king, though in fact the message he had sent to the king’s army the day before had not got through and some of his men were killed by the royalists as they tried to join them.
Fortescue himself became a royalist officer and served in the king’s Oxford army for the remainder of the war. He then fled to the Isle of Man but was later captured on Anglesey and imprisoned until the early 1650s, when he joined the Scottish-royalists and fought in the campaign and battle of Worcester. He was able to escape to the continent after Worcester and remained there until the Restoration, when he returned to England and became a courtier of Charles II.
References: Oxford DNB; Peacock, Army lists, 28.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fortescue, Richard Richard Fortescue (died 1655)
Fortescue’s parentage, background and early life are obscure. He seems to have been of Heckfield, near Southampton, Hampshire, though he acquired property in Berks and for a time was attorney in and of Reading.
In winter 1642-3 he was major in the regiment of foot commanded by Henry Bulstrode and later by Adam Cunningham, in the earl of Essex’s Army. He succeeded Cunningham as the regiment’s lieutenant-colonel in autumn 1643. After Cunningham was killed in summer 1644, by Sept. 1644 he had succeeded him as colonel of the regiment and as such commanded it at the second battle of Newbury. He transferred to the New Model Army in spring 1645 and commanded as New Model regiment of foot until 1646-7; accordingly, he campaigned in the South West in 1645-6 and played a prominent role at Taunton, Bridgwater, Bristol and Dartmouth before, in 1646, being appointed by Fairfax to command the operation to mop up remaining royalist outposts in and off Cornwall, notably Pendennis Castle, St Michael’s Mount and the Isles of Scilly. As a moderate and political if not religious Presbyterian, in 1647 he tended to side with parliament and not with the bulk of the New Model Army. Perhaps as a consequence, he lost command of his regiment and was sent back to the South West to be governor of Pendennis and Plymouth. He was arrested and briefly imprisoned in the early 1650s. In 1654 he accepted a colonelcy in Cromwell’s planned Western Design and embarked at the end of 1654; he became major-general after the failed attack on Hispaniola, played a leading role in the capture of Jamaica, and he succeeded the ailing Venables as commander of the land forces there. However, before the end of 1655 he too had succumbed to illness and in his case it proved fatal – he died in Jamaica in Nov.
References: Oxford DNB; Spring, Waller’s army, 48.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association)
Fortescue, Thomas Thomas Fortescue
Son of Sir Faithful Fortescue and his wife Anne, daughter of Garret Moore, first Viscount Moore.
Cornet in his father’s troop in Lord Wharton’s Army raised for service in Ireland in 1642. Instead, he went with the troop into Sir William Waller’s regiment of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army as lieutenant by Aug. 1642. He may have been lieutenant still when his father and his troop defected in the middle of the battle of Edgehill, or that position may have passed to John Van Gerrish. But Thomas was a captain in the king’s service by 25 May 1643, when at his father’s request the king’s granted him the commands of his lately dead elder brother Chichester.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 67; TNA, SP28/1a/7, 235, 236; Oxford DNB [Sir Faithful Fortescue].
Armies: Earl of Essex
Foster, - - Foster
Captain in Lord Willoughby’s regiment of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army and the Eastern Association Army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.109.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Eastern Association
Foster, John John Foster
Lieutenant in Sir William Fairfax’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 44.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Foster, Matthew Matthew Foster
Ensign in James Wemyss’s regiment of foot at the time of its disbandment in Apr. 1645.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 155.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Foster, Thomas Thomas Foster
On 10 Apr. 1650 commissioned a captain in a regiment of foot of the Yorkshire militia.
References: CSPD, 1650, 506.
Armies: Yorkshire
Foster, William William Foster
Captain-Lieutenant in the colonel’s own troop in Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s regiment of horse when it formed part of Waller’s Army. By summer 1647 he was captain-lieutenant in the equivalent regiment of horse, by then commanded by Horton, in the New Model Army.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 64; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 93.
Armies: Waller; New Model Army
Fotherby, Henry Henry Fotherby
Of Beverley, Yorkshire (East Riding).
On 10 Apr. 1650 commissioned a captain in a regiment of foot of the Yorkshire militia.
References: Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 97 [citing TNA, SP28/129/6, f. 5; E121/5/5, no. 6]; CSPD 1650, 506.
Armies: Yorkshire
Fotheringay [Fothergill], John John Fotheringay [Fothergill]
By autumn 1643, but no longer there by the beginning of 1645, captain in Francis Russell’s regiment of horse in the Eastern Association Army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.97.
Armies: Eastern Association
Foulis, Sir Henry, second baronet Sir Henry Foulis, second baronet (1607/8-1643)
Of Ingleby Manor, Ingleby Greenhow parish, Yorkshire (North Riding). Eldest son of Sir David Foulis, first baronet (died 1642) and his wife Cordelia Fleetwood (died 1631), daughter of William Fleetwood of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire. In 1633 Sir David’s clashes with Thomas Wentworth brought him and Henry before the Star Chamber. The father was heavily fined and imprisoned for seven years. Father and son provided evidence against Wentworth (now earl of Strafford) in 1641. Sir Henry married Mary (died 1657), daughter of Sir Thomas Layton of Sexhowe.
In Dec. 1642 Foulis joined Lord Fairfax at his headquarters at Selby. He became Colonel, Commissary-General and Lieutenant-General of horse in the Northern Army. He fought at Leeds, Seacroft Moor (where he was wounded), Wakefield and at Adwalton Moor. On 19 Sept. 1643 he gave up his commission (which passed to Sir William Fairfax), and went to Boston, Lincolnshire, where he was buried on 11 Oct. 1643.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 383; Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 94; Vis. Yorks., 1, 149; Oxford DNB [Sir David Foulis (died 1642) and Henry Foulis (baptised 1635, died 1669), which offers a different account of Sir Henry during 1643].
Armies: Yorkshire; Northern Army (Fairfax)
Foulis, Robert Robert Foulis
Of Ingleby Manor, Ingleby Greenhow, Yorkshire (North Riding). Second son of Sir David Foulis, first baronet (died 1642) 1643), and his wife Cordelia Fleetwood (died 1631), daughter of William Fleetwood of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire.
Robert was the younger brother of Sir Henry Foulis, with whom he marched to Selby in Dec. 1642. He probably became major to his brother when the latter was made a colonel, and he signed a dispatch reporting the storming of Wakefield (May 1643). He was later a colonel.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 383; Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 94; Vis. Yorks., 1, 149.
Armies: Yorkshire; Northern Army (Fairfax)
Foulis, William William Foulis( baptised 1618, died 1684)
Of Ingleby Manor, Ingleby Greenhow parish, younger son of Sir David Foulis, first baronet, and younger brother of Sir Henry Foulis, second baronet.
He was a captain in Yorkshire.
References: Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 94 [SP28/300/1365]; Vis. Yorks., 1, 149.
Armies: Yorkshire
Fountain, - - Fountain
Captain and then major in Grey of Warke’s short-lived regiment of horse in the Eastern Association Army during the first half of 1643.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.37.
Armies: Eastern Association
Fountain, Charles Charles Fountain
In 1642 listed as lieutenant in Richard Grenville’s troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 51.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fountain, Ornall Ornall Fountain
Lieutenant in the earl of Peterborough’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 28.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fowden, John John Fowden
In 1651 ensign in Major William Fallowes’s company in Henry Bradshaw’s regiment of foot of the Cheshire militia at the battle of Worcester.
References: Earwaker, East Cheshire, 2, 64-8.
Armies: Cheshire
Fowell, Sir Edmund Sir Edmund Fowell (1593-1674)
Of Fowelscombe, Ugborough parish, Devon, third son of Arthur Fowell of Ugborough (born 1552, died in or before 1606) and his wife Mary, daughter of Robert Reynell of East Ogwell (who remarried to Sir Edmund Prideaux of Netherton, baronet in 1606. Sir Edmund was father of Edmund Prideaux, MP for Lyme Regis in the Long Parliament and a political Independent, for whom see Oxford DNB). Fowell succeeded to the family estates following the death of his eldest brother in 1612. In 1614 he married Margaret, daughter of Sir Anthony Poulett and sister of the royalist John Poulett, first Baron Poulett, for whom see Oxford DNB. Fowell was knighted in 1619. An active JP in the 1630s.
MP for Ashburton in the Long Parliament, where he was a supporter of Pym. During the war he led the Devon sequestration committee; he was ‘active both at Westminster and in the West Country’ (Roberts, Devon, 4). He was secluded at Pride’s Purge, and withdrew from the Bench in 1649. In 1660 he voted for the Restoration and was created baronet in 1661.
In early 1643 (dated references Jan.-Apr.) Fowell was a captain in Colonel Crocker’s regiment of foot at Plymouth.
Colonel in the Plymouth garrison, 1645-6. Payments made for swords and scabbards for his regiment at Plymouth, 20 Mar. 1645.
References: Vis. Devon, 369-70; Keeler, Long Parliament, 180; Roberts, Devon, 4, 20, 24, 47; Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 3.362-3; Worth, History of Plymouth, 134; Worth, ‘Plymouth siege accounts’, 227; History of Parliament, 1640-1660 (forthcoming).
Armies: Devon
Fowke, - - Fowke
By 1645 a captain in Thomas Mytton’s Oswestry-based regiment of horse. Fought at Stokesay, 8 June, and High Ercall, 5 July 1645; skirmishing with royalist horse near Bridgnorth in Aug. By Oct. 1645 he was governor of Dawley Castle and remained active in Shropshire at least until the end of the year.
References: Perfect Passages, 26 June, 9-16 July and 20-26 Aug. 1645; Dore, Brereton letter books, 2. 326; Heads of some Notes from the City Scout, 28 Aug. 1645; Intelligence from Shropshire of Three Great Victories obtained by the Forces of Shrewsburie (1645).
Armies: Shropshire
Fowke, Francis, junior Francis Fowke, junior
Lieutenant in Thomas Ballard’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 43.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fowke, Francis, senior Francis Fowke, senior
Third captain in Thomas Ballard’s regiment of foot raised for Lord Wharton’s Army for service in Ireland in 1642; instead, when Ballard’s regiment of foot became part of the earl of Essex’s Army, he remained one of its captains, possibly later promoted to major.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 88, 69, 43; TNA, SP28/2a/203.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fowke, John John Fowke
Wagon-Master of Essex’s Army in 1642. By 20 Sept. 1643 commissary of Waller’s Southern Association Army and a captain in James Wemyss’s regiment of foot.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 24; Spring, Waller’s army, 155.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association)
Fowles, William William Fowles
Ensign in Thomas Ballard’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642. He may be the same William Fowles [Foulis] who by spring 1645 was serving as a captain in the regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army commanded successively by Colonels Holborne and Davies. Unlike Davies and some other officers, he did not transfer to the New Model Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 43; Wanklyn, New Model Army, 1. 149.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fownes, John John Fownes
Captain in 1642 and later major in the Plymouth garrison.
Probably John Fownes of Whitley (1614-1644x1646), fourth son of Thomas Fownes (died 1638), mayor of Plymouth in 1619 and his wife Joan, daughter of Walter Hele. He married Catherine, fifth daughter of Arthur Champernowne of Dartington.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 3.355; Vis. Devon, 372.
Armies: Devon
Fownes, John John Fownes
Captain in the regiment of foot commanded successively by Henry Bulstrode, Adam Cunningham and Richard Fortescue. In spring 1645 he transferred at that rank into the New Model Army, becoming captain in Fortescue’s New Model regiment of foot, though he was killed at Tiverton in Nov. 1645.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 48.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association); New Model Army
Fox, Edward Edward Fox
Captain in James Wemyss’s regiment of foot by Dec. 1644, when his company served at the relief of Taunton.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 155.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Fox, John [‘Tinker Fox’] John Fox [nicknamed ‘Tinker Fox’] (baptised 1610, died 1650)
Baptised at Walsall, 1 Apr. 1610, son of Renold Fox. He married, also at Walsall, (1) Emme Tudman in 1634 and (2) at London in 1648 Angelick, lady Hasteville.
Fox was characterized in royalist propaganda as an illiterate tinker (‘the Jovial Tinker’), and as the exemplar of the social upstart thrown up by the war; he was, however, literate. His original occupation is unknown, but he may have been a manufacturer or dealer in metalware.
A captain in Lord Brooke’s Army in 1642-3, serving as captain from Feb. 1643 to Mar. 1644 in that army and after. He was evidently at Lichfield in Mar. 1643, carrying the news of Brooke’s death there to Sir John Gell at Derby.
Fox garrisoned Edgbaston House from Oct. 1643.
In Mar. 1644 the earl of Denbigh commissioned Fox colonel of a regiment of horse and dragoons, which Fox raised in the Black Country and the Forest of Arden.
Fox’s reputation as a raider and plunderer may have been forced upon him by his isolated situation. Because he was commissioned by Denbigh, the Warwickshire county committee was unwilling to support him, but little help was forthcoming from the earl, who was evidently both unable and unwilling to help. ‘Tinker Fox’ was not Denbigh’s type of gentleman officer. Although he was active in providing intelligence to Denbigh, Hopper notes how the one time that Fox attempted a military move more ambitious than mere raiding and scouting, capturing Stourton Castle in Staffordshire, Denbigh gave no help to defend it and three days later Fox’s force going to relieve it was routed. In return, when Denbigh ordered Fox to send 150 men to reinforce Thomas Archer, he only sent 60, ‘unarmed, who being altogether unserviceable were returned again’ (Hopper, ‘Fox’, 108). They clashed when Fox wanted to sequester an estate belonging to one of Denbigh’s kinsman (which the latter forbade) and when the earl wanted a royalist prisoner to be exchanged for a parliamentarian gentleman rather than for Fox’s own soldiers captured at Stourton. Fox’s place on the Worcestershire county committee in the Ordinance of 23 Sept. 1644 may have been part of an attempt to free himself from the earl’s unhelpful authority.
Fox resisted disbanding his garrison until May 1648. He commanded the guard of John Bradshaw at the trial of Charles I in 1649, and was arrested by the kirk party in 1650 when he went to Edinburgh on the Commonwealth’s business. He was released after a few months, but he died in Oct./Nov. The war had ruined him financially: he was arrested for debt in 1649 and in 1650 the Council of State described him as ‘being ready to starve’ (Oxford DNB).
Hopper concludes: ‘Fox was a minor military entrepreneur without the status, reputation, or resources to prevent his ultimate ruin’ (Oxford DNB).
References: Oxford DNB; Hopper, 'Fox'; Luke Letter Books, nos. 1180, 1354.
Armies: Lord Brooke; Earl of Denbigh; Worcestershire
Fox, John John Fox
Ensign in Captain William Tatton’s troop in James Holborne’s regiment of dragoons at the time of its disbandment in Apr. 1645.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 146.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Fox, John John Fox
On 28 Sept. 1650 commissioned major in Gilbert Ireland’s militia regiment of Lancashire foot.
References: CSPD, 1650, 511.
Armies: Lancashire
Fox, Reignold Reignold Fox
Son of Renold Fox of Tamworth and brother of Colonel John Fox. He served as quartermaster in his brother’s troop of horse, by a commission granted by the earl of Denbigh, 21 June 1643. He then became captain of a company which he partly raised in Denbigh’s regiment of foot.
When his brother John raised a regiment of horse and dragoons stationed at Edgbaston in 1644, Reignold Fox became its major, and by July was commanding one of its three troops of horse. In Mar. he had briefly held Stourton Castle, Staffordshire, but had been forced to abandon it in the face of royalist strength and lack of support from Denbigh. In May he and Captain Johnson had taken a force to 60 horse to beat up the royalist quarters at Bromsgrove.
References: Hopper, ‘Fox’, 102-3, 106-8.
Armies: Earl of Denbigh; Warwickshire
Fox, Thomas Thomas Fox (baptised 1622, died 1666)
Baptised 4 May 1622, third son of Edward Fox (died 1640), mercer, of Birmingham and his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Hugh Grasbrook of Hints., Staffordshire. He married (1) Mary, daughter of Richard Mason of Newton, Shropshire; (2) in 1654, Judith, daughter of Sir Henry Boothby, baronet, merchant of London, and sister of Sir William Boothby of Bradlow Ash, Derbyshire.
Described in the 1662/3 survey of the Staffordshire gentry as ‘captain for the rebels’, aged 42, worth £200 per annum, ‘monyed’; ‘A voyolent prisbiterian. Very able and dangerous parts being breed up to the Law’. Presented by the constables of Tamworth, Staffordshire as a former active parliamentarian in 1662 (when he is styled ‘Mr’).
Fox’s military career is obscure: it is not even certain he served in Staffordshire. After the war he was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1648 and was called to the bar in 1656. He settled first in Shrewsbury (he was a sequestrator in Shropshire in the early 1650s) and then moved to Tamworth, Staffordshire, where he was town clerk until his expulsion under the Corporation Act in 1663. (His role in Tamworth suggests family connections with John ‘Tinker’ Fox and his brother Reignold Fox who came from there). Amongst other local appointments, he was an ejector in Staffordshire in 1654; an assessment commissioner for Warwickshire in 1657, and for Warwickshire and Staffordshire in 1660-1, and briefly a JP in Staffordshire in 1660.
Fox settled at Whitefriars, London, and died in Dublin in 1666.
References: HoP: The Commons, 1640-1660 (forthcoming); HoP: The Commons, 1660-1690, 2.359-60; ‘Staffs. Gentry’, 16; ‘Active Parliamentarians, 1662’, 61.
Armies: Staffordshire
Fox, William William Fox
Of Fulwood Hall, Bradfield township, Ecclesfield parish, Yorkshire (West Riding).
A major in Yorkshire.
References: Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 108 [citing Memoirs of Master John Shawe, ed. J.R. Boyle (1882), p. 130].
Armies: Yorkshire
Foxall, William William Foxall
A timber merchant and administrator in Stafford who raised a company of foot in Stafford in the civil war in 1643 and served as its captain. However, more notable for the administration of Stafford and Staffordshire during and after the civil war than for his military leadership.
References: Dore, Brereton letter books, I. 62; Pennington and Roots, Committee at Stafford, passim, but see especially his account from Dec. 1643 to May 1647 at 327-8.
Armies: Staffordshire
Frampton, William William Frampton
Until 1644-5, captain-lieutenant in the Colonel’s own troop in John Dalbier’s regiment of horse, serving under him and in his troop from the raising of the troop for the earl of Essex’s Army in summer 1642.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 49.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Waller (Southern Association)
France, William William France
Lieutenant in Sir William Fairfax’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 44.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Francis, John John Francis
In summer 1642 he became a captain in Holles’s short-lived regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army which was disbanded shortly after it was mauled at Brentford in Nov. 1642. Possibly the same John Francis then became major, later lieutenant-colonel, in Skippon’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army. He was still there in spring 1645, when he transferred at that rank into Skippon’s New Model Army regiment of foot. A few weeks later he was killed at Naseby.
References: Wanklyn, New Model Army, 1. 44, 55, 148.
Armies: Earl of Essex; New Model Army
Francklin, John John Francklin (died 1645/6)
Captain in Ralph Weldon’s regiment of foot by 5 Oct. 1644. He was killed at the siege of Exeter.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 153; Firth and Davies, Regimental history, 2.452-3.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association); New Model Army
Frank, - - Frank
He was possibly Robert Frank, son of Robert Frank of Alwoodley, Yorkshire (West Riding), esquire, and his wife Susan, daughter of Nicholas Moore of Austrop.
Frank served at Leeds as a captain under Major William Forbes. His later service remains obscure.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 383.
Armies: Yorkshire
Frank, Tristram Tristram Frank
In Apr. 1645, on the eve of its disbandment, ensign in Francis Barnes’s company in the regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army commanded first by Sir John Palgrave and then by Sir Thomas Hoogan.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.81.
Armies: Eastern Association
Franklin, - - Franklin
By spring 1644 major in Valentine Walton’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.104.
Armies: Eastern Association
Franklin, - - Franklin
Captain in the earl of Manchester’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army by 31 Sept 1644. Possibly also the Richard Franklin who in 1647 was a captain-lieutenant in Twistleton’s New Model Army horse regiment.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.63; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 94, 107.
Armies: Eastern Association; New Model Army?
Franklin, - Franklin
Captain. Described as the only good officer in Hungerford’s regiment of foot on 6 June 1643. He transferred to Nathaniel Fiennes’s regiment of foot, which served in the Bristol garrison and at Roundway Down.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6.541, 608-9.
Armies: Bristol; Wiltshire; Sir Edward Hungerford's Regiment of Foot
Fraser, Thomas Thomas Fraser
Major in the earl of Denbigh’s regiment of horse in summer 1644. In June, recounting his withdrawal from besieging Dudley Castle to join with Waller’s Army, an account described Fraser’s successful tactics in driving off the royalist cavalry in a fight at Tipton, trapping them and then charging them. By late July/early Aug., he was second-in-command in Colonel Thomas Archer’s force, skirmishing with the royalists around Alcester and ordered to take and hold Evesham.
References: CSPD 1644, 236; HMC 4th Rep., 269-70.
Armies: Earl of Denbigh
Frebon, - - Frebon
At its muster in Nov. 1643, captain in the earl of Warwick’s regiment of foot formed from the Essex militia, part of the Eastern Association Army that contributed to the siege of Reading in spring 1643, the siege of Greenland House in summer 1644 and probably to some other actions in which the army was involved.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.31.
Armies: Eastern Association
Frederick, William William Frederick
Captain in Charles Essex’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 45.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Freeheele, Andrew Andrew Freeheele
Lieutenant in Captain Thomas Salmon’s company in the Tower Hamlets Trained Bands regiment.
References: TNA, SP28/121A, Part 4, f. 559r.
Armies: Tower Hamlets
Freeman, Edward Edward Freeman
Captain. Captain of dragoons at Gloucester Feb.-May 1643.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6. 632.
Armies: Gloucestershire
French, Edward Edward French (died 1661)
Of Preston, Lancashire. Second son and heir of Matthew French, rector of North Meols. Edward married (1) Margaret, daughter of Giles Edge of Manchester, coheir to her mother, Isabel Widdowes of Swinton, Eccles parish and (2) Anne, sole daughter and heir of James Walton of Preston.
French was lieutenant or captain-lieutenant in Colonel Richard Shuttleworth senior’s troop of horse. He later became captain of the same troop in the regiment of Richard Shuttleworth junior, later under Colonel Nicholas Shuttleworth. He claimed arrears of £729 12s 2d in Oct. 1650 and for £389 10s in Dec. 1652. On 22 Mar. 1650 French was commissioned captain of a militia troop of horse. He became an alderman of Preston, and in 1651 was charged with conveying an important royalist prisoner to York. During the Interregnum French bought the manor of Chertsey and leased forfeited royalist lands. He had to relinquish Chertsey in 1660.
References: Vis. Lancs., 1664, 112; TNA, E121/4/8; E121/3/1;Blackwood, Lancashire gentry, 73, 96, 98, 107-8; Warr in Lancashire, 72; CSPD, 1650, 505.
Armies: Lancashire
French, Francis Francis French
By autumn 1643, captain in Valentine Walton’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army; he continued to serve in that capacity after John Hobart had taken command of the regiment in spring 1645.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.105.
Armies: Eastern Association
French, Nathaniel Nathaniel French
A lieutenant in Cheshire. In Feb. 1645 he was the conductor of a body of foot recruited in Bucklow Hundred. One of his sergeants was also named French.
References: TNA, SP28/225, f. 39r.
Armies: Cheshire
French, Robert Robert French
Lieutenant in Captain John Wade’s company in James Holborne’s regiment of foot on 19 Nov. 1644.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 124.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
French, Thomas Thomas French
Successively quartermaster, cornet and lieutenant in Captain Babbington’s troop in Lord Grey’s regiment of horse. He then became captain under Colonel John Birch (according to his account of his career at TNA, E121/2/7: as John Birch’s regiment in other sources is given as of foot, this is either a clerical error or an otherwise unknown regiment).
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 14; TNA, E121/2/7.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Frichley, Richard Richard Frichley
Ensign of the colonel’s company of the Red regiment, London auxiliaries (Colonel Samuel Harsnett), when it mustered on 27 Apr. 1644.
References: TNA, SP28/121A, ff. 691r.-692v.
Armies: London
Frith, Robert Robert Frith
Lieutenant in Major William Hobson’s company in the Southwark auxiliaries regiment (Colonel James Houblon), when it mustered on 16 Apr. 1644. A Samuel Frith was the company’s drummer.
References: TNA, SP28/121A, ff. 656r.-666r.
Armies: Southwark
Frith, William William Frith
A captain in Sir John Gell’s Derbyshire regiment of horse, serving in Sir William Brereton’s Army before Chester in early 1645. He seems to have been more obedient and inclined to his colonel than most of the other captains in the regiment Dore notes: ‘Nothing is known of Wm. Frith, who does not seem to have been a Derbyshire man, except that he was still recruiting for his troop in July 1645’.
References: Dore, Brereton letter books, I, 96, 527 (for quotation).
Armies: Derbsyhire
Froame, Mathias Mathias Froame
In spring and summer 1643 captain in Lord Willoughby’s regiment of horse in the Eastern Association Army, reportedly wounded by one of his colleagues with whom he had fallen out.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.109.
Armies: Eastern Association
Frodsham, Edward Edward Frodsham
Captain of pioneers in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 25.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Frodsham, Henry Henry Frodsham
A Cheshire man. In Apr. 1628 lieutenant to Major Fowler, involved in disputes in Northamptonshire over the billeting of troops. The following Mar., by now captain, he appealed to the Council of War for pay, and for money laid out for supplies for his men when they were driven into Ireland.
Major in Sir William Constable’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642 from or by 1 Sept. 1642, and was still its major in Dec. 1643 up to 16 Apr. 1644, claiming for the regiment, implying he was its effective commander; it was then described as late Sir William Constable’s regiment. The regiment disbanded about that time, and may well have been only two companies by that stage, though some of the men were absent from muster because in a party with Colonel Adam Cunningham, and the same day he collected money for men of Francis Thompson’s regiment in the same party. A pay warrant refers to his service as major of the regiment and captain of a company, 5 May 1643 to 20 Mar. 1644.
By July 1644 he was a reformado officer of foot, and paid as such again in Sept. On 4 Sept. 1645 his name headed a list of reformadoes whom the Commons authorised to share £400.
On 13 June 1646 Frodsham wrote to Peter Warburton, urging his needs, entreating the merchants (i.e. the committee of accounts) to examine his accounts and grant him his certificate, so he could try and procure some money to relieve his wife and children. He had served truly and faithfully at the hazard of his life, he claimed, and many times lost in his estate by the enemy, for proof of which he had a certificate from the committee of Plymouth. It would be a very hard measure if they cut off his pay, he went on, for they have allowed his lieutenant-colonel the whole, and he has suffered ten times more than any other in his regment. If they cut off his right, let them cut off my head, he added, so that he may not see the misery of his wife and children. Warburton passed on the note, recommending the case of this deserving gentleman, his countryman.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 41,TNA, SP28/2a/204, SP28/11/300, 314, 418, SP28/12/322, SP28/13/50, SP28/14/322, 330, SP28/17/255, 245, SP28/18/76; JHC, 4.266; CSPD, 1628-9. 59-72, 485-95,CSPD, 1625-49, 695.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fugill, William William Fugill
A bookseller in Hull, Yorkshire (East Riding) and a parliamentarian captain there. Possibly the Willial Fug[g]ill who towards the end of the 1640s became a captain in Charles Fairfax’s newly-raised northern regiment of foot on the New Model Army payroll.
References: Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 90 [citing TNA, E121/5/5, no. 28]; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 163.
Armies: Yorkshire; New Model Army
Fulcher, - - Fulcher
Lieutenant in Captain Harold Skirmager’s company in Sir William Waller’s regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 155.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Fuller, Cheyney Cheyney Fuller
In 1642 listed as lieutenant in John Hale’s troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army. He seems to have been captured by the royalists but had been released by 18 Aug. 1643, when he was described on a pay warrant for £25 4s as a late prisoner in Oxford and previously lieutenant in Hale’s troop.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 54; TNA, SP28/9/54.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fuller, John John Fuller
Captain in the Sussex Trained Bands by 8 Dec. 1643 until at least June 1648.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 126.
Armies: Sussex
Fuller, John John Fuller
Originally a trooper in Waller’s regiment of horse. In 1645 he was a cornet in the Surrey troop of horse of Colonel Samuel Jones/John Fielder.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 63.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association); Surrey
Fulwood, George George Fulwood
Lieutenant in Cholmley’s probably short-lived regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642-3.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 36-7.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Fye [Fish], Richard Richard Fye [Fish]
By autumn 1644, captain in Sir Samuel Luke’s Newport Pagnell-based regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 95; Luke Letter Books, nos. 148, 169, 1019, 1101, 1156.
Armies: Bedfordshire
Fye, William William Fye
In Nov. 1644, ensign in (presumably his kinsman) Captain Fye’s company in Sir Samuel Luke’s Newport Pagnell-based regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 95; Luke Letter Books, nos. 735, 1421.
Armies: Bedfordshire
Fyfe, John John Fyfe (died 1644)
Of Wedacre, Lancashire. Eldest son of Thomas Fyfe (died 1627) of Spoonley and Wedacre and his wife Isabell, daughter of John Sampson of Adderley, Shropshire. He married Anne, daughter of John Butler of Kirkland, Lancashire.
Fyfe was one of the captains from Amounderness Hundred, Lancashire, of the regiment of Alexander Rigby senior killed, with many of his men, when Bolton was stormed in May 1644. Fyfe’s widowed mother later stated that she had lost two sons and a son-in-law at Bolton: the other son must have been John’s younger brother Thomas.
References: Warr in Lancashire, 50; Vis. Lancs., 1664, 114; Gratton, Lancs. war effort, 294; CCC, 1, 165.
Armies: Lancashire
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