George
Downing I (1624 – 1684)
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Research on the Internet, in books and archives
revealed that George Downing was a 17th century politician, diplomat, spy
who amassed as great fortune. He was born in Dublin in 1624, the son of Emmanuel
Downing who studied at Queen’s College, Cambridge and who went on to become a
barrister in the Inner Temple, and his second wife, Lucy Winthrop, the sister
of the Puritan John Winthrop, Governor of the British colony in Massachusetts
in North America. His grandfather, George Downing, from Beccles in Suffolk, also studied at Queens and was the headmaster of Ipswich Grammar School during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I.
When George was fourteen he sailed with his
Puritan family to America
and settled in Salem
where his father practiced law. He was 18 when the English Civil War broke out
and, as the second graduate of Harvard
College, got a job on the
educational staff. Described by his grandfather as “a very able scholar, and of a ready wit and fluent utterance” Downing saw more employment opportunities in Europe.
Unable to afford the sea
passage, in 1645 George worked as a preacher on a
ship bound for England via Newfoundland and
the West Indies.
Sympathetic to the parliamentary side, he arrived back in England in 1646
and joined Sir Thomas Fairfax’s Parliamentary forces as a chaplain to Colonel
John Okey's regiment that was fighting Charles I’s
Royalist Cavaliers. It appears that he abandoned his religious vocation in
favour of a military career, and in 1649 Oliver Cromwell sent him as a spy to Scotland. He
was appointed as Scout-Master-General (equal to Major-General) in Cromwell's
Army and as his envoy to the Duke of Savoy on a salary of £300 a year. He was
wounded at the Battle of Dunbar on September 3rd 1650. The following year,
Downing published "A True Relation of the Progress of the Parliament's
Forces in Scotland."
His parents returned to Scotland in 1656, leasing their farm in Salem and a tavern nearby
to John Proctor, property, which Downing inherited after his father’s death in
1660. Proctor was one of five men hung after the Salem witch trials featured in Arthur
Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’.
During his ventures in the North he met and in
1654 married 21-year-old Frances, daughter of Sir William Howard of Naworth,
near Carlisle, and sister of Charles, the 1st
Earl of Carlisle. She was described as “a lady greatly distinguished for beauty.”
This marriage aided his promotion, becoming Member of Parliament for the Scottish borough of Haddington, 18 miles east of Edinburgh, that year and for Carlisle
in 1656 and 1659. One of his missions was to go to France to gain information on exiled Royalists
living in Paris.
Following Charles I execution, he was one of the first MPs to urge Cromwell to take the royal title and
restore the old constitution.
In June 1657 when he was in the House of
Commons, Major-General Whalley asked him to read prayers as he was a minister
but Downing declined to act as chaplain. Needing a residence in London near the Palace
of Westminster, he acquired the Crown
interest in land and property in Axe Yard, King Street, in Whitehall,
London, known
then as Peacock Court
and Hampden House. Here he was friends with John Milton, the poet, and Arthur
Haslerig, a parliamentary leader. His first son, George, was born in 1656. In a case of blasphemy brought
against a Quaker, he is reported as saying the man should have his tongued
bored through.
Following a campaign by the French and Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy
against the Protestant Vaudois
(Waldenses), in 1657 Cromwell sent Downing as his envoy to the French Court. He
was then sent as Cromwell’s ‘Resident’ or ambassador to The
Hague in Holland,
the main European business centre, on a salary of £1,000 a year. As well as
trying to unite the Protestant European powers he acted as a mediator between Portugal and Holland
and between Sweden and Denmark. He was
also expected to defend the interests of the English traders against the Dutch
who were in competition with the East India Company over the spice trade. He
also informed parliament about the movements of exiled Royalists living in Holland. This brought him
a further £365 a year and helped him amass a large personal fortune. Downing
did not forget to look after himself. In 1659 Pepys wrote in his diary that he
“called for some papers at Whitehall
for Mr Downing, one of which was an order of the council for £1,800 to be paid
monthly, and the other two orders to the Commissioners of Customs to let his
goods go free.”
He proved to be an able diplomat learning Dutch and his “peering habits and quick, decisive, categorical mind” helped
him to master ciphers or “characters” as they were then
called. As a child his parents, fearful of the plague in London,
sent him with his brother to school in Maidstone,
Kent, where he
lived in a community which had congenital deafness. It was here that he
mastered sign language. His clerk, Samuel Pepys, the London
diarist who Downing had financed whilst he studied in Cambridge, recalled him impressing colleagues
in an inn by using sign language to send a deaf boy out on a mission which he
did successfully. It was said that he had a network of dozens of spies working
for him, many of them deaf so they could not divulge their
information under torture. He employed them as pickpockets and thieves to get
keys and important documents. He sent his coded reports
in diplomatic pouches to John Thurloe, Cromwell's spymaster. Some historians
claim that he spent more time spying on Dutch politicians, military men and
English Royalists living in Holland,
than attending to his diplomatic business. The Royalists knew him as “that
fearful gentleman.” With his contacts all over Europe
very little happened without him knowing about it.
When Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, his son Richard took over as Lord
Protector and the Commonwealth government kept Downing in his post overseas. By
April 1660 he had changed sides, making his peace with Charles I’s son,
Charles, who, after escaping to France
during the Civil War, had settled in Holland.
Rev. Stevens wrote that Downing’s excuse “for his want of taste in joining
Cromwell’s party was that he had been beguiled in the ignorance of youth while
in …Massachusetts where he was brought up and sucked in principles that since
his reason had made him see were erroneous.” James Brown, the Gamlingay historian,
considered that Downing “managed the difficult feat of serving both Cromwell
and Charles II equally successfully, enriching himself at their expense with a
laudable lack of political bias”. (Brown, J. (1989), Gamlingay,
Cassell, p.158) Claire Tomalin, in her
Whitbread prize-winning biography of Pepys, commented on Downing’s bigotry and
cruelty.
“By 1660 he may have had enough of near-anarchy in
England; he was also clear in his mind that he cared more for power and money
than for any principle, and saw that he could sell his abilities to whoever was
in a position to bid for them,”
Tomalin,C. Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, p. 94
Downing had learned of an assassination attempt against the king’s son
and, aware that Charles was going from Brussels
to The Hague to
visiting his mother, Henrietta Maria, Downing disguised himself as a beggar and
called at the inn where Charles was staying. He gave him some secret messages
from John Thurloe, Cromwell’s Secretary of State, which convinced Charles to
turn back. When Charles II was crowned king in May 1660, he rewarded Downing
with a knighthood. Even though he was elected MP for Morpeth in 1661, the King
sent him back to Holland
as his ambassador. Acting for the king, he arrested at Delft Colonel John
Barkstead, Colonel John Okey and Miles Corbet, three of the 53 MPs who had
signed Charles I’s death warrant. They had come to pick up their wives. Taken
back to England,
after their trial, they were hung, drawn and quartered on 19th April
1662. Downing continued in his embassy in Holland
and was further rewarded with the leasehold of a valuable piece of building
land in Westminster adjoining St James's Park in
London.
He was confirmed as one of the four Tellers of the Receipts of the
Exchequer, a post he largely filled using his deputy. One of Downing’s signed
receipts, circa 1665/6, was for sale on the web at $450. (http://manuscripts.co.uk/stock/5753.HTM)
It was for a further £1,250,000, for the Dutch War after the £2 million voted
by Parliament for it the previous year.
According to the Hatley website, in early 1662 Downing acquired the
manor of East Hatley, Cambridgeshire, from the
Castell family who had held it since the 15th century. During the Civil War,
Robert Castell supported the Royalists, as did his neighbour, John St George
whose fine by Parliament forced him to sell his estate to the wealthy Cotton
family. Castell’s estate was confiscated and, following Charles II’s restoration, given to Downing. His mother, Lucy Winthrop, lived in the manor house for ten years whilst
he was working overseas. H. W. Stevens, in his history of Downing College,
described it as “not too sumptuous a mansion, seeing that it paid
hearth tax on but five hearths. She wasn’t pleased with the “meagre
starvation pittance allowed her by her preposterous son, who at the time was
adding manor to manor and lands to lands.” One of her letters described how
he was “planting his lordship with walnuts and apples.” They both
referred to East Hatley as “a dirty hole”. His employees considered him mean for giving
them at Christmas, “first beef, then porridge, then pudding, and last of all
pork.”
Over the next few years Downing acquired estates in Wrestlingworth, East Hatley, Croydon, Tadlow and Gamlingay. He also
bought estates in Bottisham, near Cambridge and
at Cowlinge and Dunwich in Suffolk.
The latter, as shall be seen, entitled him to represent the villagers as their
Member of Parliament. Exactly when he bought Shakledon
Manor from the Burgoynes of Potton (whose manor used to stand on the site of
the Club House of the John of Gaunt Golf Course) is uncertain. It was the
northern part of Gamlingay Heath close to the Woodbury and Tetworth estates on
top of the Greensand ridge.
Sir John Jacob of Bromley, Middlesex had built himself “a very pretty gentleman-like house” by
1635 on the site of old Tetworth manor. It is now known as Old Woodbury. He was
a ‘Farmer of the Customs’ in that he collected the import and export duties
from national and international traders and kept a percentage for his service
before handing it over to the King. He benefited Gamlingay by paying for the
construction of the ten almshouses on the High Street.
In those days Gamlingay Heath was considered a “no man’s land”, covered
in gorse, brambles and predominantly hawthorn thickets. People kept to the main
paths and trackways through it. Gamlingay
Park covered a triangular area west of
the village with Woodbury Park to the west and Tetworth Park
to the north. Heath Road
formed its southern boundary, Drove
Road its northwestern
boundary and Park Lane
its northeastern boundary. ,
On the 1st July 1663 Downing was created a baronet of East
Hatley. One of his first contributions to the parish was to erect
a porch on St David’s Church, now derelict, and put his coat of arms above the
door. Pepys did not think highly of him. He thought he was ‘niggardly’
and ‘a mighty talker’. Not only that he thought he was mean for
not providing the customary roast beef for a dinner for the poor of the parish.
He described Downing’s conduct as “odious” and called him a "perfidious
rogue," remarking that "all the
world took notice of him for a most ungrateful villain for his pains."
John Evelyn, the writer and diarist, had a similarly low
opinion of Downing, saying that he had been “a great traitor against his Majestie but now insinuated into his favour, & from a pedagoge
& fanatic preach(e)r, not worth a groate, becoming excessive rich.“
Part of his mission in Holland was to help Britain destroy
the Dutch naval power and break their monopoly on the shipping trade. It has been claimed that his aggressiveness towards their merchants
contributed to England’s
disastrous war against the Dutch between 1665 – 67. To
avoid assassination, he returned home and helped manage the Treasury. In 1665
he was responsible for amending the Subsidy Bill whereby Parliament granted
funds to the king that could only be used for specified purposes like a war and
not squandered on Charles II’s court pleasures. A committee was set up to
ensure it took place and Downing was chosen secretary. This important law is
still in use in England and America today.
In Rev. H.W. Stevens Downing College,
“the first Sir George Downing
was directly and indirectly a maker of British history. He inspired the
Navigation Act – the foundation of our mercantile marine, and consequently of
our navy, and consequently of our colonies and spheres of influence. He was
also the direct cause of the Appropriation Act, an Act indispensable in every
session, for government at home and one which has been appointed by all our
self-governing colonies.”
With his financial and commercial experience, in May 1667 he was made
secretary to the commissioners where he introduced new accounting procedures
that left a lasting mark on the British treasury. He abolished the method of
contracting Government loans through the Goldsmith’s Company and advised the
Treasury to constitute itself a bank. Four years later, Charles II appointed
him as a customs commissioner, further increasing his salary. He was believed to have “pocketed £80,000
from the Crown and to have been nicknamed the “Household bell to call the
courtiers to vote.”
Over the years he amassed a huge estate. One purchase of interest was
the right to half of Cambridge’s
farm rent then worth £70. He acquired it
from Queen Catherine, Charles II’s wife. To further cement his ties with the
royalty, he got William, Prince of Orange and later King of England, to be
godfather to his second son, also called William.
He was sent back to Holland after the war
in an attempt to break up the alliance between Holland,
France and Denmark and to
incite another Anglo-Dutch war. It was during this conflict that Downing warned
Charles II that the Dutch were going to take control of what is now Long Island, New
York. Reinforcements were sent and the area remained
under British control. In 1874 Downing was influential in England
persuading the Dutch to exchange New Amsterdam, their colony on Long Island,
for Surinam, a British
colony in South America. It was then renamed New York.
He was so unpopular in Holland that,
after three months, he had to flee the country to escape an angry mob and
return to England.
He also wanted to take care of his wife who was seriously ill. His unauthorised
return led to him being arrested and, on 27th February 1672, was put in the Tower of London. He was released a few weeks
later and continued to hold high financial office.
The Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed many properties in London and during the
following decades there was much reconstruction going on. Speculation was a 17th
century investment plan.
Having land near Westminster,
Downing was not able to develop it until the leaseholder died in 1682. Part of
his fortune was then spent on building a cul-de-sac of more than twenty plain
brick, three-storey terraced houses. Said to be fit for persons of honour and
quality, they all had a pleasant prospect of St. James Park. He managed to get Charles II’s permission to name his
prestigious new development “Downing Street.”
However, they weren’t completed until two year’s after his death.
Overseers’ accounts show him living in the neighbourhood of New Palace Yard.
Of the original houses only Number 10, 11 and 12 remain. For what
happened to the Downing properties in Whitehall read about it in the account of
Jacob
Garret Downing, Lady Margaret Downing and the Rotten Borough of Dunwich.
By 1732 they had become property of the Crown and King George II gave them to
the government as the official residence of the Lord of the Treasury, another
title of the Prime Minister. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer occupies number 11. As Downing
Street was built on the site of John Hampden’s former London
home The John Hampden Society regards it as “a disgrace that, for over 300
years, the official residence of the Head of Government of the United Kingdom
should be named after a man so despicable as George
Downing - a turncoat and hypocrite”.
1683 was a momentous year for him. His son, also called George, married Catherine, the daughter of James Cecil, the First
Earl of Salisbury on 12th July 1683 and Frances, his wife died the
same month. He died in East Hatley in July 1684 when he was 60 and “was
buried by the side of his wife in sheep’s wool onely”
in a vault under the chancel of Croydon Church, Cambridge The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica states that
“Downing was undoubtedly a man of great political
and diplomatic ability, but his talents were rarely employed for the advantage
of his country and his character was marked by all the mean vices, treachery,
avarice, servility and ingratitude. " A George Downing "
became a proverbial expression in New England
to denote a false man who betrayed his trust.”
http://65.1911encyclopedia.org/D/DO/DOWNING_SIR_GEORGE.htm
According
to the Downing College website Downing was
“Possessed of
extraordinary energy, ruthlessness and ambition, Downing's rise from obscurity
to wealth and power was meteoric and his unscrupulousness notorious. Most
importantly, however, Downing drew upon his republican and Dutch experience to
become by far the most important reformer of royal finances in the Restoration
period in a way which paved the way for the subsequent financial revolution
(1689-1714) which transformed England into a great power.”
http://www.dow.cam.ac.uk/dow_server/events/BiCe/LibraryExhibition.html
Another comment about him from O. G. Pickard who research the Downing’s
influence in Dunwich was that the “first
baronet was a shady but exceptionally able administrator who acquired great
wealth from holding public offices under the Crown”. For more information
on his family’s influence in Gamlingay and elsewhere follow the links.
George Downing II
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