Evers Armyne, MP

Family and Education b. 19 Dec. 1599, 3rd s. of Sir William Armyne* (d.1622) and his 1st w. Martha, da. of William Eure, 2nd Lord Eure; bro. of Sir William Armyne, 1st bt.*1 educ. Sidney Suss. Camb. 1614; G. Inn 1616, called.2 m. 1635, Cecilia (bur. 20 Nov. 1677), da. of John Tredway of Easton-on-the-Hill, Northants., 1s. d.v.p. 4da. (2 d.v.p.).3 d. by 5 July 1680.4

Offices Held

Commr. sewers, Lincs. and Notts. 1625-34, 1654-9, Lincoln, Lincs. 1642, 1660-70;5 j.p. Rutland 1638-60;6 commr. swans, Lincs. 1642,7 defence of Midlands Assoc. 1642, assessment, Rutland 1642-52, 1657, 1660, levying money 1643, sequestration 1643-50;8 dep. lt., Rutland by 1644;9 commr. New Model Ordinance, Rutland 1645, defence 1645, militia 1648, 1659, 1660, poor prisoners 1653, scandalous ministers, Leics. and Rutland 1654,10 oyer and terminer, Midlands circ. 1654-9,11 inquiry, Leighfield forest, Rutland 1657,12 gaol delivery, Rutland, Notts. and Lincs. c.1659.13

Ancient, G. Inn 1645, bencher 1648, reader 1661.14

Biography Armyne, a younger son of the prominent puritan Armyne family of Osgodby, followed his eldest brother to Cambridge, before going on to pursue a legal career at Gray’s Inn. With his brother’s support he was returned for Grantham in 1626. He took no known part in the second Caroline Parliament and never sat again. His marriage brought him a small estate in Rutland, valued at between £150 and £200 a year, where he subsequently resided and was appointed to the local magistrates’ bench and other offices.15 On 9 May 1640 the vicar of Ketton reported to Archbishop Laud that he was to be tried for refusing the sacrament to Armyne and his wife for four years, because they declined to come up into the chancel.16

During the Civil War Armyne lived in London until March 1644 when, as a deputy lieutenant of Rutland, he raised two troops of horse for Parliament and assumed responsibility for the sequestration of the extensive royalist estates in the county.17 His records were destroyed during the brief royalist incursion of August 1645; and five years later the newly appointed central committee for compounding not only complained of a substantial shortfall in rents from sequestrated property, but also threatened Armyne with distraint unless proper accounts were submitted.18 In 1650 he bought the prebendal manor of Ketton from the trustees for the sale of dean and chapter lands, doubtless on behalf of the tenant, a nephew of Francis Bullingham*, whose son later married Armyne’s daughter.19 Armyne held local office throughout the Interregnum, but his continued commitment to Presbyterianism excluded him from politics after the Restoration. On the death of his nephew, the 3rd baronet, in 1668, he inherited the Lincolnshire manors of Pickworth and Silk Willoughby, and under the Declaration of Indulgence his houses at Ketton and Osgodby were licensed for Presbyterian worship.20 He made his will on 18 Oct. 1677, bequeathing his estate to his grandson Armine Bullingham, who sold Kettlethorpe Hall in 1697. Armyne’s date of death is unknown; he continued to attend meetings at Gray’s Inn until at least July 1679, and his will was proved on 5 July 1680.21 None of his direct descendants entered Parliament.

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629 Authors: Paula Watson / Rosemary Sgroi Notes 1. Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. l), p. 41. 2. Al. Cant.; GI Admiss. 3. Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. l), p. 41. 4. PROB 11/363, f. 240. 5. C181/3, ff. 169v, 229v; 181/4, ff. 84, 155; 181/5, f. 224; 181/6, pp. 36, 393; 181/7, pp. 77, 544. 6. C231/5, p. 304; List of all JPs (1660), p. 44. 7. C181/5, f. 14v. 8. A. and O. i. 50, 93, 115, 150, 234, 547, 637, 973, 1090; ii. 41, 306, 475, 672, 1077, 1377. 9. CCC, 559. 10. A. and O. i. 623, 714, 1242; ii. 759, 972, 1331, 1441. 11. C181/6, pp. 15, 370. 12. Ibid. p. 220. 13. Ibid. p. 371. 14. PBG Inn, i. 354, 369, 437. 15. T. Blore, Rutland, 173, 175-6. 16. CSP Dom. 1640, p. 139. 17. VCH Rutland, i. 189, 192, 196-7. 18. CCC, 193, 559. 19. VCH Rutland, ii. 259-60. 20. PROB 11/328, ff. 397v-402; Lincs. N and Q, xvii. 107; CSP Dom. 1672-3, pp. 94, 261. 21. PROB 11/363, f. 240.