Family and Education

b. 27 Jan. 1603,1 2nd but o. surv. s. of Sir Harbottle Grimston*, 1st bt. of Bradfield and Elizabeth, da. of Ralph Copinger of Stoke, Kent; bro. of Edward.* educ. Emmanuel, Camb. 1619; L. Inn 1621, called 1628.2 m. (1) 16 Apr. 1629, Mary (bur. 13 June 1649), da. of Sir George Croke† of Waterstock and Studley, Oxon., j.c.p. and subsequently j.k.b., 6s. (5 d.v.p.) 1da. d.v.p.;3 (2) settlement 10 Apr. 1651, Anne (bur. 20 Sept. 1680), da. and h. of Sir Nathaniel Bacon†, 1st bt. of Culford, Suff., wid. of (Sir) Thomas Meautys* of Gorhambury, Herts.4 1da.5 suc. fa. as 2nd bt. 1648. d. 2 Jan. 1685. sig. Har[bottle] Grimston.

Offices Held

J.p. Mdx. 1634-at least 1638, 1660-d., Essex 1638-48, 1660-d., Herts. 1660-d., St. Albans, Herts. (bor. and liberty) 1660-at least 1673;6 dep. lt. Essex 1642-at least 1643, 1660-at least 1662,7 Herts. 1660-?1666;8 commr. oyer and terminer, Mdx. 1636-at least 1641, 1660-at least 1671, Essex 1640, London 1660-at least 1664, Surr. and Suss. 1662, Herts. 1664, gaol delivery, Colchester, Essex 1637-at least 1641, 1661-at least 1671, Essex 1644-at least 1645, London 1670-at least 1672, sewers, Lexden and Winstree hundreds, Essex 1641,9 subsidy, Essex, Colchester and Harwich 1641,10 Essex 1661, 1663-5, 1672, 1677, 1679, Herts. 1661, 1663-5, 1672, 1677, 1679, St. Albans, 1661, 1663-5, 1677, 1679, Colchester 1672, 1677, 1679,11 poll tax, Essex, Colchester and Harwich 1641, Irish aid 1642,12 assessment, Essex 1644-at least 1648, Colchester 1644-at least 1648, Herts. 1657-at least 1660,13 levying money, Essex 1643, sequestration 1643, Colchester 1643, Eastern Assoc., Essex and Colchester 1643, New Model Ordinance, 1645;14 commr. militia, Essex 1660, Herts. 1660,15 recusancy, Essex 1675.16

Recorder, Colchester 1638-49,17 Harwich 1634-at least 1648, 1665-d.;18 bencher, L. Inn 1648-d., kpr. of Black Bk. 1653, treas. 1658;19 high steward, Colchester 1663-at least 1679, St. Albans 1664-d.20

Vestryman, parish of St. Bartholomew Exchange, London;21 elder, Essex classis 1646-8.22

Member, Derby House cttee. 1648;23 commr. treaty of Newport 1648,24 church govt. 1648, sale of bp.’s lands 1648, militia 1648;25 cllr. of state 1660;26 master of the Rolls 1660-d.; 27 commr. to execute office of lord kpr. in Chancery causes 1670-at least 1672.28

Speaker of the House of Commons 1660.29

Biography

Born at his grandfather’s Suffolk property of Rishangles, near Thorndon,30 Grimston followed his elder brother Edward to Emmanuel College, Cambridge at the age of 16. From there he entered Lincoln’s Inn to pursue a legal training, and in 1626 became involved in an affray with Arthur Pyne*,31 perhaps over the hand of the Essex heiress Grace Barlee, whom Pyne later married. It may have been shortly thereafter that Grimston abandoned his studies, for on the death of Edward in 1624 he had become the heir to his father’s Essex and Suffolk estates. However, he returned to his books after Sir George Croke, one of the justices of Common Pleas, threatened to forbid him from marrying his daughter Mary, with whom Grimston had fallen in love.32 He also joined an informal circle of young lawyers which met during vacations at Mistress Percy’s house in Fleet Street to exercise ‘their wits and learning in the imitation of Star Chamber proceedings’.33 This now-found love of the law meant that in April 1629 Grimston was permitted to marry Mary Croke at St. Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street. After the ceremony the couple were ‘accompanied by many friends’ to Bradfield Hall, where Grimston’s father provided a sumptuous feast ‘and high entertainment’.34

Following the death of his brother-in-law Christopher Herrys in October 1628, Grimston was returned to Parliament for Harwich, presumably on his father’s interest, but played no recorded part in the 1629 session. Called to the bar in November 1628, he subsequently acquired the recorderships of both Harwich and Colchester. A parliamentarian of Presbyterian sympathies during the civil wars of the 1640s, Grimston represented Colchester during the Short and Long Parliaments, but was secluded at Pride’s Purge after urging the Commons to ratify the Treaty of Newport and Bradfield Hall was plundered. Forced into early retirement, he purchased a new seat at Gorhambury, in Hertfordshire and edited the law reports of his father-in-law, which were published in 1655. Elected to the second Protectorate Parliament for Essex in 1656, he was again barred from taking his seat, but was readmitted to the Long Parliament in February 1660. Later that year he was appointed to the council of state, by which time he may already have opened secret communications with the royalist Court in exile. As Speaker of the Convention he greeted Charles II on the latter’s arrival at Whitehall in May 1660. His part in the Restoration was rewarded with the mastership of the Rolls.35 He died from a fit of apoplexy in January 1685 and was buried at St. Michael’s church, St. Albans, having first made a place for himself in the vaults by disinterring the remains of the former lord chancellor (Sir Francis) Bacon*.36 Four portraits of him hang at Gorhambury, one by John Riley, one by Mary Beale and two by unknown artists.37

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629

Author: Andrew Thrush

Notes

• 1. Add. 19090, f. 161.
• 2. Al. Cant.; LI Admiss.; LI Black Bks. ii. 282.
• 3. Collectanea Top. et Gen. v. 217; Essex RO, microfiche D/P 173/1/1.
• 4. HALS, Verulam ms IX. A. 23-4; R. Clutterbuck, County of Hertford, i. 96.
• 5. IGI, Suff.
• 6. C231/5, ff. 128, 319; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 507; HMC 10th Rep. iv. 508-10; Essex Q. Sess. Order Bk. 1652-61 ed. D.H. Allen, xxxvi; C220/9/4, ff. 23, 36v, 53; C193/12/4, ff. 33v, 51, 72v; C181/7, pp. 52-3, 621.
• 7. B. Whitelocke, Memorials of Eng. Affairs, i. 172; HMC 7th Rep. 550; HALS, Verulam ms IX. A. 43a, 46.
• 8. SP29/11, f. 271; 29/42, f. 114v; 29/60, f. 141v.
• 9. C181/5, pp. 114, 170, 366, 373, 423, 426, 474-5, 507; 181/7, pp. 68, 99, 130, 169, 294, 303, 560, 589, 603, 630.
• 10. Harwich bor. recs. ms 97/6/2; SR, v. 62, 84.
• 11. SR, v. 331-2, 458, 460, 530, 532, 758-60, 810, 812, 905-8.
• 12. Ibid. 62, 107, 141.
• 13. A. and O. i. 91, 536-7, 638, 965-6, 1082-3; ii. 1070, 1370.
• 14. Ibid. i. 112, 147, 170, 229, 292, 621.
• 15. Ibid. ii. 1431-2.
• 16. CTB, 1672-5, p. 750.
• 17. Essex RO, D/Y 2/8, p. 69; Clutterbuck, i. 94; T.C. Glines, ‘Pols. and Govt. in Colchester, 1660-93’, (Univ. Wisconsin Ph.D. thesis, 1974), p. 66.
• 18. Harwich bor. recs. ms 98/3, f. 58; Harwich Bor. Charters (1798), p. 57; HP Commons, 1660-90, ii. 446.
• 19. LI Black Bks. ii. 379, 397, 420.
• 20. Colchester Bor. Charters comp. W.G. Benham, 116; SR, v. 906; A.E. Gibbs, Corp. Recs. of St. Albans, 7, 81, 85.
• 21. Vestry Min. Bks. of St. Bartholomew Exchange ed. E. Freshfield, p. xxii.
• 22. H. Smith, ‘Presbyterian Organisation of Essex’, Essex Review, xxviii. 16.
• 23. CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 1.
• 24. Ibid. 277.
• 25. A. and O. i. 1208, 1228, 1236.
• 26. CJ, vii. 849b.
• 27. HALS, Verulam ms IX. A. 41; HMC 1st Rep. 56.
• 28. HALS, Verulam ms IX. A. 51; XIII. A. 35.
• 29. CJ, viii. 1a.
• 30. The erroneous claim that he was born at Bradfield probably originates with E. Foss, Judges of Eng. vii. 100.
• 31. LI Black Bks. ii. 263.
• 32. Bp. Burnet’s Hist. of His Own Time (2nd edn.), ii. 68.
• 33. Ibid. 58.
• 34. Diary of Bulstrode Whitelocke ed. R. Spalding (Recs. of Social and Ec. Hist. n.s. xiii), 56.
• 35. Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion ed. W.D. Macray, vi. 214; N. King, Grimstons of Gorhambury, 11-13.
• 36. J. Aubrey, Brief Lives ed. A. Clark, i. 66; HMC 1st Rep. 56.
• 37. King, 14-15.