page_title: Richard Ottley
section_title: Restoration and repression
hierarchical_section_title: Richard Ottley / Restoration and repression
caption_attribution_description: Francis Newport, 1st Earl of Bradford (1620-1708)
context_page_description: Sir Richard Ottley was an English Royalist politician and soldier who served as a youth in the English Civil War in Shropshire. After the Restoration he played a prominent part in the repression of Parliamentarians and Nonconformists and was MP for Shropshire in the Cavalier Parliament.
context_section_description: After General Monck's intervention against the remaining Commonwealth forces, at the beginning of 1660, Richard Ottley came back into public life and began to take part in local government. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Shropshire in March 1660. There are no records for 1660 but he and Adam, his brother, are recorded as sitting on the bench at the January quarter sessions of 1660/61. Thereafter he does not appear in the record again until July 1662 and his attendance thereafter seems to have been sporadic.
  Ottley contacted Charles II and on 5 March Charles issued a commission from Brussels, appointing Ottley, his friend Richard Scriven and others as commissioners for Shropshire. They were authorised to raise a large militia force for the king's cause, to set up a command structure and to levy contributions for its support. Shrewsbury was still held by the stalwart Parliamentarian Colonel Thomas Hunt, who carried out a review of military resources and preparedness during April and arranged a muster of his forces for 1 May. However events were moving too quickly for Hunt's measures to take effect. The Convention Parliament accepted Charles II as king on 8 May. Ottley set off for Dover to welcome Charles to England in May. Charles entered London on 29 May and Ottley wrote from there to his mother:
  "My most deare and evere honored Mother,
  "I prayse God we are safe come to towne, and his Maᵗⁱᵉ, with his two brotheres, the duke of Yorke and duke of Glouster, are now at Whitehall. I met them at Canterbury, and had the happinesse to be of the life guard since Fryday last; wherein my content over ballanced the paynes I underwent. I most, humbly thanke yoʳ Laᵖ for your py which I shiall enquire after. I beg pardon that I am soe short in wrighting, being weary at p'sent: I humbly crave yoʳ blessing: wᵗʰ my duty and thanks for yoʳ goodnesse to mine, for whom my hearty prayers to God are : I rest 
  "Yoʳ Laᵖˢ most dutiful sonne and servant, 
  "May 29, Ric. Ottley."
  Shortly after the king's return, Ottley was knighted. On 19 June Ottley and Scriven issued a document at Shrewsbury that effectively annexed the resources promised to Hunt's militia to their own force, ending the dual military authority that had existed formally to that point. On 16 July a letter was issued by command of Charles II urging the Mayor of Shrewsbury to appoint Adam Ottley as town clerk. However, then position was not, as the king had been informed, vacant: the post had been filled during the Commonwealth by Thomas Jones, who was to prove a resourceful opponent to the new dispensation.
  On 26 July Francis Lord Newport of High Ercall was commissioned Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire with wide-ranging powers. Ottley was made his Deputy Lieutenant on 3 September. The following month Newport appointed him captain of a cavalry troop in the county.
  Repression of the old Parliamentarians began with claims that some had taken property from High Ercall and other places. Their houses were ransacked of their houses, resulting in a petition of protest from Thomas Hunt, an alderman of Shrewsbury, to the House of Commons, alleging he had lost goods to the value of £1377 18s. 9d. Edmund Waring, a former Parliamentarian governor of Shrewsbury, and Vavasor Powell, a Welsh Independent preacher and theologian, were arrested and imprisoned. Ottley released Waring after a short time, as he was not persuaded there were good grounds or valid warrant for his detention. A Fifth Monarchist rising in London on 6 January 1661 panicked the Privy Council. On 8 January Newport was ordered to disarm any disaffected people in the county and to administer to them the Oath of Supremacy. On 22 January a further letter stepped up the pressure greatly with a demand that the county authorities arrest "dangerous persons." Forwarding the Privy Council's letter to Ottley on 24 January, Newport rebuked him for being too lenient:
  "I send you enclosed a letter from the Councell, and a proclamation for the moderating of your proceedings. Though it may bee conceived a very ineffectual way for the sec
caption: Francis Lord Newport, the Lord Lieutenant, was responsible for purging Calvinists from public office after the Restoration. He later suffered a similar fate himself for his opposition to the succession of James II.
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