Sir William Armine (Armyne), Sidney Lee, `Armine, Sir William, first baronet (1593-1651)', rev. Sean Kelsey, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/649, accessed 24 Sept 2005] Armine, Sir William, first baronet (1593-1651), politician, was born on 11 December 1593 at Osgodby, Lincolnshire, the son of Sir William Armine (15611621), politician, and his wife, Martha, daughter of William, Lord Eure. He matriculated from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, on 13 March 1610 and as a scion of a wealthy and influential East Anglian dynasty he was created a baronet on 28 November 1619. On 14 December he married Elizabeth (d. 1625Χ8), daughter of Sir Michael Hicks. In 1620 Armine held the office of sheriff of Huntingdonshire. Armine was returned as MP for Boston in 1621 and 1624, for Grantham in 1625, and for the county of Lincoln in 1626 and 1628. In May 1626 he was one of the assistants to the managers of Buckingham's impeachment, a service rewarded with his ejection from the Lincolnshire bench. In March 1627 he entered the ranks of commissioners for the collection of the arbitrary loan in Lincolnshire who refused to lend or enter into bond for their appearance before the privy council. He was committed to prison in the Fleet on 29 April and was later placed in the custody of the sheriff of Oxfordshire, from which he was released on 2 January 1628. He was an intimate friend and supporter of Sir John Eliot, with whom he corresponded frequently until the latter's death in 1632. Many of his letters, in one of which he urged Eliot to publish the `Monarchy of man', are among the manuscripts at Port Eliot. Despite Armine's dissidence, in 1630 he became sheriff of Lincolnshire. His appointment was probably influenced by his marriage on 28 August 1628 (after the death of his first wife some time after the birth of their third son in 1625) to Mary Holcroft [see Armine, Mary, Lady Armine (1594-1676)], daughter of Henry Talbot, fourth son of George, sixth earl of Shrewsbury, and widow of Thomas Holcroft. This match reaffirmed Armine's power and standing in provincial society, and he now held estates in Derbyshire, Huntingdonshire, and Yorkshire as well as his native Lincolnshire, and was said to have had an income of £1000 a year. As sheriff of Huntingdonshire in 163940 he endeavoured to collect ship money but declared himself unable to secure one penny of it, provoking the ire of his masters at the council board. Ineligible for the parliament which met in April 1640, he was denied an opportunity to return to the political fray until the death of the Long Parliament MP for Grantham, Thomas Hussey. Immediately he became prominent in the plans of the opposition, and he was one of the four members of the House of Commons ordered to accompany Charles I to Scotland in 1641. In 1643 Armine was sent to Oxford by parliament to discuss terms with the king, and on the failure of his mission proceeded to Scotland to urge the advance of a Scottish army into the north of England. Having played a key role in the war party's strategy of alliance with the Scots, Armine was also central to that group of `Northern gentlemen' in the van of Independent efforts to repulse Scottish `interference' in English affairs, protesting against the occupation of Carlisle by the Scottish army. On 12 July 1645 he was nominated as a member of a commission to revisit Scotland to treat of `matters concerning the good of both kingdoms' (JHC, 4, 16446, 206). Two days later the House of Commons voted its thanks to Sir William for his `many and great services to parliament' (ibid.). In January 1649 Armine declined to sit in judgment on the king. On 14 February he was appointed to the council of state, having sat on all previous parliamentary executive committees. He was reappointed to the council on 12 February 1650 and 7 February 1651. He was a fairly regular attendant at the meetings of the council until the end of March 1651, and during that time served on numerous committees, especially on those that dealt with Scottish and Irish affairs, the admiralty, and finance. He died intestate on 10 April 1651. On Thursday 1 May it was resolved by parliament, to show its high sense of Armine's services, that the council of state and the parliamentary committees should `forbear to sit' on the following Monday afternoon, when Sir William's body was to be `carried out of town' (CSP dom., 1651, 173). On 3 May the council of state ordered every one of its members to attend the funeral later that month, and on 5 May an order was issued that while the body was being carried for interment from Westminster to Lenton (Lavington), Lincolnshire, it should be treated `according to the civilities due to a person of his condition' (CSP dom., 1651, 179). Armine was survived by his wife and was succeeded by his eldest son, William. He was born on 14 July 1622, entered Gray's Inn on 18 November 1639, and died on 2 January 1658. He has been identified with the William Ermyn who was returned to the Long Parliament in 1646 as MP for Cumberland. His wife, Anne, and two daughters, Anne and Susan, survived him. His widow's second husband was John, Baron Belasyse. Susan, the younger daughter, married Sir Henry Belasyse, Baron Belasyse's son and heir. She ultimately shared with her sister Anne all her father's estates at Osgodby and, in 1674, after the death of her husband, who died in the lifetime of his father, was created Baroness Belasyse of Osgodby; she died on 6 March 1713. Her only son, Henry, succeeded his grandfather as second Baron Belasyse in 1689, and on his death in 1694 that title became extinct. The first husband of Anne Armine, the elder daughter of the second baronet, was Thomas, eldest son of Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston. Armine's second son, Theophilus, was born on 25 June 1623, entered Gray's Inn on 18 November 1639, became a parliamentarian colonel in the civil wars, and was killed at Pontefract in 1644. Michael, the third son, born on 21 September 1625, succeeded his eldest brother in the baronetcy; he died in 1668, when the baronetcy became extinct. Sidney Lee, rev. Sean Kelsey Sources GEC, Baronetage, 1. 130 ¨ A. R. Maddison, ed., Lincolnshire pedigrees, 1, Harleian Society, 50 (1902), 4041 ¨ Venn, Alum. Cant., 1/1.31 ¨ Members of parliament: return to two orders of the honorable the House of Commons, House of Commons, 1 (1878), 452, 458, 464, 470, 476, 490 ¨ W. B. Bidwell and M. Jansson, eds., Proceedings in parliament, 1626, 3: House of Commons (1992), 186, 216, 246, 306, 348; 4: Appendixes and indexes (1996), 140, 146, 301, 304, 308, 332 ¨ R. C. Johnson and others, eds., Proceedings in parliament, 1628, 6 vols. (197783), vol. 1, pp. 63, 122; vol. 3, pp. 29, 42, 168; vol. 4, pp. 3, 22, 61; vol. 5, pp. 59, 290, 390 ¨ CSP dom., 16413, pp. 468, 475, 497; 1644, pp. 31, 255, 257, 399400, 546; 16445, pp. 74, 328, 60001, 606, 614, 61819; 16457, pp. 92, 264; 16489, p. 1 ¨ C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, eds., Acts and ordinances of the interregnum, 16421660, 3 vols. (1911), 382, 437 ¨ R. P. Cust, The forced loan and English politics, 16261628 (1987), 189, 237n. ¨ C. Holmes, Seventeenth-century Lincolnshire, History of Lincolnshire, 7 (1980), 1034, 106, 107, 109, 140, 143, 167, 178, 204 ¨ Keeler, Long Parliament, 55, 87 ¨ D. Scott, `The northern gentlemen, the parliamentary Independents, and Anglo-Scottish relations in the Long Parliament', HJ, 42 (1999), 34775 ¨ The life and death of that holy and reverend man of God Mr Thomas Cawton (1662) ¨ BL, Eg. 3517, fols. 3242 ¨ inventory, BL, Eg. Roll 8799 ¨ administration, PRO, PROB 6/26, fol. 186r Likenesses wash drawing (in armour), AM Oxf., Sutherland collection Wealth at death £4645 in personal estate; debts and expenses of £3669 10s. 10d.: BL, Eg. 3517, fols. 3242; inventory, BL, Eg. Roll 8799; administration, PRO, PROB 6/26, fol. 186r Γ Oxford University Press 20045 All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press Sidney Lee, `Armine, Sir William, first baronet (1593-1651)', rev. Sean Kelsey, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/649, accessed 24 Sept 2005] Sir William Armine (1593-1651): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/649
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