Humphrey Mackworth was an English politician and soldier of Shropshire landed gentry origins. He was military governor of Shrewsbury, in succession to his father and namesake, for almost five years under the Protectorate, from 1655Johnstone, p. 274. until late in 1659. He represented Shrewsbury in the First, Second and Third Protectorate Parliaments.
Origins and early life Mackworth was probably born in September 1631 as he was baptised on the 10th of the month in St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, Register of St Chad's, Shrewsbury, p. 77. his local parish church. His parents were: Humphrey Mackworth of Betton Strange. At the time Mackworth senior was an ambitious young lawyer, a member of Gray's Inn, who was just making a transition from collecting reports on cases in London to working for the town of Shrewsbury. This move brought success and the position of alderman in 1633. The Mackworths originated in Mackworth, near Derby,Blakeway, p. 390. where the senior branch of the family, the Mackworth baronets, had their seat at Mackworth Castle until migrating to Normanton, Rutland in the 17th century. Humphrey's very junior branch of the family had been involved in Shrewsbury's commerce and politics for about a century and had held Betton Strange, a manor a few miles south of the town, since 1544.Blakeway, p. 391. Anne Waller, Mackworth's first wife, who had married him by May 1624. She was the daughter of Thomas Waller of Beaconsfield, and distantly related to the poet Edmund Waller.
The younger Humphrey is sometimes stated to be the second child of the marriage. He had an older brother, Thomas Mackworth (1627–96), who played a considerable part alongside him in the politics of Shropshire. However, there was another brother, William, who had died a few months before his own birth. Later came three sisters, starting with Anne, born a year after Humphrey. Register of St Chad's, Shrewsbury, p. 86. The family lived at Betton Strange, although Humphrey the elder also had official lodgings in town. The children were presumably brought up as Puritans. In autumn 1633, during a canonical visitation of St Chad's by Robert Wright, the Bishop of Lichfield, the incumbent Peter Studley included Humphrey Mackworth among the heads of twenty families who refused to bow at the name of Jesus or to kneel at the altar rail—a refusal which meant they were "wilful refusers to communicate for the gestures sake."Coulton, p. 85. His mother, Anne, died when the young Humphrey was four years old and was buried at St Chad's on 26 May 1636. Register of St Chad's, Shrewsbury, p. 109. The young Humphrey entered Shrewsbury School in 1638, the same year as his elder brother.Blakeway, p. 392. In July of the same year his father married Mary Venables, by whom he was to have two more children.Blakeway, p. 393.
The elder Humphrey continued to agitate against Laudianism and was a supporter of Parliament from the outset of its conflict with the king. At the outbreak of the English Civil War in the late summer of 1642, the royalists under Francis Ottley, a relative of the Mackworths, seized the initiative and occupied ShrewsburyCoulton, p. 91-2. and began arresting or expelling the Puritan clergy.Audley (1907), p. 249-50. Ottley invited Charles I to come to Shrewsbury and the royal army occupied the town from 20 SeptemberSherwood, p. 4-5. to 12 October.Sherwood, p. 13. Moving south, the king paused at Bridgnorth to issue a proclamation ordering the arrest of "some persons of good quality," whom he intended to put on trial for high treason. Only three were named and Mackworth senior was one of them.Phillips (ed.), 1895, Ottley Papers, p. 252. The family's home and estates were sequestered by the royalists, and apparently under Ottley's control, as it was he who later received correspondence on the matter from Dorothy Gorton, young Humphrey's paternal grandmother, and also the widow of Ottley's uncle, whose jointure properties had been confiscated.Phillips (ed), 1895, Ottley Papers, p.302-3. It is not clear exactly where and how family life continued over the succeeding two or three years, as the elder Humphrey was constantly mobile, participating in Parliamentarian county committees and their offshoots all over the West Midlands, and helping to organise the reconquest of Shropshire from an initial foothold at Wem.Johnstone, p. 269. However, he was in London for a considerable time early in 1644, in connection with the trial of Archbishop William Laud.Coulton, p. 97. Humphrey's elder brother, Thomas, was admitted to Gray's Inn, their father's Inn of Court, on 6 February 1645,Foster, Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, p. 239 so it is possible the family took refuge in the capital while the war was at its height in Shropshire. However, the published record of Thomas's admission to Gray's Inn calls him the "son and heir of Humphrey M., of the city of Coventry," which perhaps shows that city was regarded as the normal residence of the Mackworths. The supposition is strengthened by Parliament's reprimand to Mackworth senior later in the year for spending too much time in Coventry, where he was the steward, the senior record keeper and archivist of the city.
With the capture of Shrewsbury by the Parliamentarians in February 1645, Mackworth senior was acclaimed governor by his colleagues of the Shropshire committee,Coulton, p. 105. although he had to wait until June 1646 for confirmation by Parliament.Johnstone, p. 270. At some stage, as a degree of security was established, the family probably joined him at Shrewsbury, although there were still royalist uprisings. The most serious threat came in 1651 with the appearance of Charles Stuart at the head of a large Scottish army, to whom Colonel Mackworth refused to surrender.Coulton, p. 15-6. It is known that Thomas was a captain commanding a garrison troop at Shrewsbury in the days preceding the arrival of the Scots. It is likely that Humphrey too gained military experience around this time: certainly he was paid as a captain during the first year of his governorship.Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1655, 24 July 1655, p. 257.
Political emergence However Mackworth junior's most important early appointments were legal, not military. He seems to have been appointed town clerk of Shrewsbury in 1652 and was certainly active in the post during the following year.Owen and Blakeway, p. 543. Unlike Thomas, he had no previous legal training and so was admitted to Gray's Inn on 19 November 1652.Foster, Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, p. 262 It is possible that he was at least offered the post of recorder,Owen and Blakeway, p. 538. a post previously held by his father. However, it was Thomas Jones who was to serve as recorder through the younger Humphrey's governorship.
Colonel Mackworth was appointed to the Protector's Council in February 1654Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1653–1654, 2 Feb 1654, p. 382. and he and his wife were given a government mews house in London.Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1654, 9 March 1654, p. 17. His commitments in London were heavy and must have necessitated a trustworthy deputy in Shrewsbury.
Oliver Cromwell decided on a parliamentary experiment later in the year, and elections were held under the Instrument of Government for a single-chamber legislature with a new distribution of seats and a £200 property qualification.Roots, p. 201. Mackworth senior was returned as one of the four MPs for Shropshire while the younger Humphrey was one of the two representatives for Shrewsbury. According to Hilda Johnstone, he "apparently played no great part," as with his other stints in parliamentary. However, on 26 September "Mr Mackworth" was appointed to a very important committee, reviewing the future of the army and navyHouse of Commons Journal Volume 7: 26 September 1654 and on 5 October to a committee on elections in Ireland.House of Commons Journal Volume 7: 5 October 1654 Johnstone credits both of these to Mackworth senior,Johnstone, p. 273. but he was elsewhere given his rank of Colonel, so they seem more likely to have figured the younger Humphrey. A deadlock between the mainly Presbyterian parliament and the Protector meant that no legislation was passed.Roots, p. 208. After subjecting its members to a hectoring closing speech, Cromwell prorogued the parliament in January 1655.
Governor of Shrewsbury
Colonel Mackworth died intestate in London some time in late December 1654, while the parliament was not yet dissolved, and was buried on 26 December in Westminster Abbey. The younger Humphrey seems to have succeeded smoothly as effective governor of Shrewsbury. He describes himself in action, confidently making decisions and issuing orders, in a letter to John Thurloe, Secretary to the Protector's Council and Cromwell's spy chief, on 8 March 1655.Thurloe Papers, Volume 3, p. 208
The royalist rising of 1655 The occasion for Mackworth's copious correspondence with Thurloe was an attempted royalist uprising in Shropshire. The royalist strategy was to draw out Protectorate forces from the capital before launching more serious uprisings in Kent, Surrey and London itself.Auden (1910), p. 138-9 However, the overall plan was betrayed to Cromwell by Sir Richard Willis, 1st Baronet, a double agent and the local garrisons warned. The tactics for Shropshire and the Welsh Marches were revealed to a local Parliamentarian in a note from an informer received on 7 March, the day before the planned rising, and passed on to the authorities.Thurloe Papers, Volume 3, p. 207 A "troope or smalle army of cavalleers," under Sir Arthur Blaney, was to eliminate Parliamentarian gentry in the Oswestry area before seizing Chirk Castle. Larger parties, under Sir Thomas Harris of Boreatton and Ralph Kynaston of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, were to surprise and take Shrewsbury. Cromwell had written to William Crowne, the husband of Mackworth's aunt, on 5 March, "it being justly apprehended that the Cavalier party intends speedy execution of a very evil design in the parts about Shrewsbury, which they specially intend because of the weakness of the garrison, and the multitude of Malignants thereabouts,"Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1655, 26 July 1655, p. 259-60. that reinforcements were on the way, together with commissions to raise more troops, and that he was to join Mackworth at Shrewsbury. This letter too arrived the night before the rising.
Mackworth wrote to warn Sir Thomas Middleton at Chirk Castle and summoned reinforcements from Hereford but, as the matter was becoming too urgent to wait, he and Crowne were thrown back on their own resources to disrupt the royalist arrays. Mackworth called in all the Castle garrison, placed checkpoints on all the town gates and sited artillery in commanding positions.Auden (1910), p. 141. Crowne mobilised, at his own expense, a force of 50 infantry and cavalry, made up friends from Shrewsbury and the immediate area, which served until the main cavalry reinforcements arrived a full ten days later: the total cost was £37, which Crowne reclaimed from State coffers the following July. Mackworth requisitioned twenty horse for a raid on Boreatton, hoping to seize the ringleaders before the royalists could assemble their forces. A short first-hand account of the affair was given some years later in a petition of John Evanson of Shrewsbury to Richard Cromwell: