Thomas Burton of Brampton Hall, Westmorland

Westmorland

Westmorland is an area of North West England and one of the 39 historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974, after which the entirety of the county was absorbed into the new county of Cumbria.-Early history:...

, was MP for Westmorland from 1656 to 1659, and a parliamentary diarist.

Life

He was a justice of the peace for Westmorland. He was returned to parliament as member for the county on 20 August 1656. On 16 October 1656 he was called upon by the parliament to answer a charge of disaffection towards the existing government, which he did to the satisfaction of the house. Burton was re-elected for Westmoreland to Richard Cromwell

Richard Cromwell

At the same time, the officers of the New Model Army became increasingly wary about the government's commitment to the military cause. The fact that Richard Cromwell lacked military credentials grated with men who had fought on the battlefields of the English Civil War to secure their nation's...

's parliament, which met on 27 January 1659 and was dissolved on 22 April 1659. He did not sit in parliament after the Restoration

English Restoration

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...

 of 1660. Although he spoke seldom, he is assumed to have been a regular attendant in the house.

Diary

Burton has been identified as the author of a diary of parliamentary proceedings from 1656 to 1659. The authorship was in dispute during the nineteenth century, as reported by Sidney Lee

Sidney Lee

Sir Sidney Lee was an English biographer and critic.He was born Solomon Lazarus Lee at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the...

 in the Dictionary of National Biography

Dictionary of National Biography

The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...

, Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...

 having suggested Nathaniel Bacon

Nathaniel Bacon (politician)

-Life:Nathaniel Bacon was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge.In 1617 he was called to the bar. A Parliamentarian, active in support of the New Model Army from 1644, Bacon became M.P. for Cambridge University in 1645, during the Long Parliament...

; later research has confirmed it, according to Ivan Roots in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. It was edited and published in four volumes in 1828 by John Towill Rutt

John Towill Rutt

-Life:Born in London on 4 April 1760, was only son of George Rutt, at first a druggist in Friday Street, Cheapside, and afterwards a wholesale merchant in drugs in Upper Thames Street, who married Elizabeth Towill. In early boyhood he was placed for some time under the care of Joshua Toulmin at...

, a key record of proceedings in the Parliaments of 1656-9.

In the record the speeches are given in direct speech

Direct speech

Direct or quoted speech is a sentence that reports speech or thought in its original form, as phrased by the first speaker. It is usually enclosed in quotation marks...

. The Diary, in the form in which it is now known, opens abruptly on Wednesday, 3 December 1656. It continues uninterruptedly till 26 June 1657. A second section deals with the period between 20 January 1658 and 4 February 1658, and a third with that between 27 January 1659 and 22 April 1659.

The Diary was first printed in 1828, by Rutt, from the author's notebooks, which had come into the possession of William Upcott

William Upcott

-Life:Born in Oxfordshire, he was the illegitimate son of Ozias Humphry by Delly Wickens, daughter of an Oxford shopkeeper, called Upcott from the maiden name of Humphry's mother. His father bequeathed to him his miniatures, pictures, drawings, and engravings, as well as correspondence with many...

, librarian of the London Institution

London Institution

The London Institution was an educational institution founded in London in 1806...

. The manuscripts, which form six oblong 12mo volumes, are now in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 (Addit. MSS. 15859–64), and bear no author's name. The editor prefixed extracts from the Journal of Guibon Goddard, M.P., dealing with the parliament of 1654.

External links

• Thomas Burton's Diary: full text of the Rutt edition, part of British History Online.