Family and Education

bap. 20 Mar. 1620, 1st s. of Richard Taylor^†, counsellor at law, of Grymsbury, Bolnhurst, Beds. and Lincoln’s Inn by Elizabeth, da. of William Boteler of Biddenham, Beds. educ. Magdalen Coll. Oxf. 1636; L. Inn 1637. m. lic. 17 May 1648, Catherine, da. of Edward Bosdon of the Middle Temple, 5s. (2 d.v.p.) 3da. suc. fa. 1641.1

Offices Held

J.p. Beds. July 1660-d., Bedford Sept. 1660, 1661, 1662; dep. lt. Beds. c. Aug. 1660-d.; commr. for assessment, Beds. Aug. 1660-d., Bedford 1661-d., loyal and indigent officers, Beds. 1662.

Biography

Taylor’s great-grandfather, a Bedfordshire yeoman, bought Grymsbury in 1579. His father, a lawyer, was granted arms and purchased Clapham in 1627. As deputy recorder of Bedford and Member for the borough in five Parliaments, he was a zealous supporter of the prerogative. Taylor served under Sir Ralph Hopton during the Civil War, but seems to have held no military rank. He was fined £450 for delinquency in 1647 and assessed at £90 for decimation in 1655. At the Restoration the Earl of Cleveland wrote that he had ‘continued faithful in the late war to the surrender of Oxford, and hath been several times since imprisoned for his fidelity to your Majesty’. He was proposed as a knight of the Royal Oak with an estate of £1,000 p.a.2

At the general election of 1661 there was a double return for Bedford, but Taylor’s election was not in dispute. A moderately active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was appointed to 65 committees, including in the first session those for confirming Lord Cleveland’s Estate Act, the uniformity bill, and the bills of pains and penalties, and for reducing interest paid by loyalists to 3 per cent. Most of his activity was non-political, but he was also named to the committees for improving the revenue (18 June 1663), considering a petition about the naval debt (14 Jan. 1665), and estimating the yield of the hearth-tax (18 Oct. 1666). He was added to his last committee on 15 Nov. 1667. He died on 30 Nov. and was buried at Clapham, the last of his family to sit in Parliament.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: Leonard Naylor / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

• 1. Beds. N. and Q. i. 53; F. A. Blaydes, Gen. Bed. 363, 364; Vis. Beds. (Harl. Soc. xix), 144-5; Beds. Par. Regs. xvi (Clapham), 2, 3, 18.
• 2. Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. xxv. 104-5, 107-8; Vis. Beds. 144; VCH Beds. iii. 130; SP23/203/407, 423; Cal. Comm. Comp. 1275; Cal. Comm. Adv. Money, 958; Thurloe, iv. 513.
• 3. CJ, viii. 250; Blaydes, 349; Beds. RO, TW 1083; Beds. Par. Regs. xvi. 18.