Peter Pheasant and Virginia

 Peter Pheasant and Virginia

Peter Pheasant was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, probably in November, 1584, and had a career in the law in the early to mid-seventeenth century. He was admitted to Grays Inn in London and called to the bar in 1608. Subsequently, he was a Reader at his Inn of Court in 1624, a Serjeant-at-Law in 1640, very briefly Recorder of the City of London in May, 1643 and then, from the end of September, 1645 until his death on 1st October, 1649, one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. His legal career is noted on his funerary monument in the parish church of St Peter in Upwood in Huntingdonshire (now part of Cambridgeshire) along with his family connections. 

Apart from that, there remain a handful of references to his legal cases and his role in the London parish of St Margaret’s, Lothbury.

Little, if any, of this bears on Pheasant’s role in the affairs of the Virginia Company of London or in that of its smaller associated venture, the Bermuda or Somers Island Company. He is only mentioned twice in the surviving records of the former and once in those of the latter. In each instance, it was in the company of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, the critic and leading opponent of the group running both enterprises. When the struggle for the control of the Virginia Company was coming to a head in May, 1623, Warwick and Pheasant were targeted in a stinging attack by their enemies, a group centred around the 3rd Earl of Southampton, Lord Cavendish, Sir Edwin Sandys, the Ferrar brothers, John and Nicholas, and their supporters. According to their charge sheet,

“a course was taken in the time of Sr Thomas Smiths Gouerment [i.e. before May, 1621] to finde fault wth the Lres Patents [of the Bermuda or Somers Island Company] uppon pretence of other defects and an order of Courte gotten for drawinge of a new Patent to be pcured from his Maty : uppon surrender of the former, and the care of drawinge itt was comended to one Mr Phesant a Councillor of Law belonginge to his Lop : and uppon whome he had bestowed really or titularly one of his Shares in the Somer Islands. This new Patent beinge drawne and a time appoynted for readinge itt to the Company, uppon notice of some suspicon that there was no good meaninge in itt there happened to be some present who seemed were not looked for as haveinge of a longe time forborne those Courts. The conclusion was that in this new intended Patent, the Institucon of Qu[arter]: Courtes and lymytacon of number of shares were cleane omitted wch beinge discouered the new draught was reiected and the Company well armed against the like attempt in future times.”

Warwick was then accused of having increased his support in the Bermuda Company’s Courts by disposing of some of his fifteen shares and by securing the appointment [in May, 1619] of Captain Nathaniel Butler as Governor in Bermuda in succession to Miles Kendall. If true, these claims showed Warwick a a sharp, even duplicitous operator if not always a successful one. 

Fortunately, Warwick’s estate papers do shed some light on his connections with Pheasant. Pheasant, who is described as being from Lothbury in London, was the Steward of the manor of Rochford in south-eastern Essex between 1615 and 1631. He was one of the witnesses to a settlement of the 2nd Earl’s estates in March, 1620/21 and Bailiff of the manor of Leighs le Riche in May, 1630. Pheasant can be found in Sir Nathaniel Rich’s correspondence over his purchase of Stondon Massey from Sir Thomas Wiseman in 1620 and in Sir Nathaniel’s account book for 1624-1625. It is clear from the papers of Warwick’s relatives in the 1630s like his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Cheeke, and his sister, Lady Mary Wroth’s will, that Pheasant remained in touch with the family and was valued by its members. As late as December, 1639, he was one of the parties engaged with Warwick in a licence to alienate land in Norfolk. So, there cannot be any doubt about Pheasant’s connections with the Rich family.

Nonetheless, there are problems with these claims against the two men. First of all, they lack corroboration. There is nothing in the Ferrar Papers surviving in Magdalene College, Cambridge to support them. There is nothing either in the Rich family’s archive of papers on Bermuda to lend them credence. The surviving extracts from the Bermuda Company’s archive in Ipswich contains nothing to validate them. J.H.Lefroy’s Memorials of Bermuda and Nathaniel Butler’s History of the Bermudas are equally silent. There is a further chronological issue as well: Warwick’s father, the 1st Earl, died on 24th March, 1619. If Warwick and Pheasant made this manoeuvre, did it fall into the gap between that date and the election of Butler as Governor of the colony in the following May? It is impossible to tell. 

However, in a note tentatively ascribed to June, 1623 by Susan Myra Kingsbury, Sir Nathaniel Rich did reflect upon the changes he thought necessary for the management of the Bermuda Company. He argued that the management of its affairs should be placed in the hands of a Governor, a Deputy Governor and twenty-four assistants and that there should be a prescribed number of tenants on their shares in Bermuda. Changes in the composition of these officers should require the consent not just of these officers but also of the company: in the event of a disagreement, the company should prevail. Interestingly enough, Sir Nathaniel did envisage giving each of the adventurers as many votes as they had shares but did not contemplate lifting the limit of fifteen shares a head. At a time when Warwick and his allies were in the ascendant and winning the arguments before the Commissioners charged with investigating the affairs of the Virginia and Bermuda Companies, this scheme was significantly less radical than that they had been accused of favouring some years before in their putative proposals for a revised charter for the Somers Island Company.

Legitimate doubts may, therefore, be entertained about the validity of the charges presented against Warwick and Pheasant and their allies in May, 1623. They may be valid but lack supporting evidence. There is, however, the possibility that they fit into the pattern of bogus accusations which were the stock in trade of Sir Edwin Sandys and his supporters. Either way, they need to be regarded with considerable care and a degree of scepticism.

Christopher Thompson

10th April, 2023.