Henry Scobell

For the governor of Cape Cod, see Henry Jenner Scobell.

Henry Scobell (baptised 1610; died 1660[1]) was an English Parliamentary official, and editor of official publications. He was clerk to the Long Parliament, and wrote on parliamentary procedure and precedents.

Life

He was initially under-clerk of the parliaments. He became Clerk of the House of Commons from January 5, 1649, his predecessor Henry Elsyng having resigned, and also held a position as censor of publications, and then was Clerk of the Parliament for life, on May 14, 1649.[2] He was the first editor, from 9 October 1649, of Severall Proceedings in Parliament, an early official newspaper, and the second of Parliament's publications.[3][4]

In the Rump Parliament, Scobell found himself in the middle of the clashes leading to its dissolution in 1653.[5] He remained Clerk to Barebone's Parliament.[6]

From 1655 he became Clerk to the Council of State, a large jump in status, in succession to John Thurloe and sharing the position with William Jessop.[7] Up to then he had been for a period an assistant secretary to the Council.[8]

In 1658, as a preliminary to the Savoy Assembly, he called together elders of Independent churches from the London area, in the house of George Griffith.[9] He himself was an elder of the Congregational church of John Rowe, meeting in Westminster Abbey.[10][11]

In October 1659 he was one of those calling on George Monck to intervene, in the vacuum of power after the death of Oliver Cromwell.[12]

Works

Notes

  1. ↑ Sean Kelsey, ‘Scobell, Henry (bap. 1610, d. 1660)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 , accessed 10 Oct 2008
  2. ↑ http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56673
  3. ↑ Joad Raymond , The Invention of the Newspaper: English Newsbooks, 1641-1649 (1996), p. 75.
  4. ↑ http://www.bartleby.com/217/1504.html
  5. ↑ http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20070222120000/http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/G16.pdf p. 4
  6. ↑ Austin Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate (1982), p. 152.
  7. ↑ Robert Thomas Fallon, Milton in Government (1989), p. 130.
  8. ↑ Philip Aubrey, Mr Secretary Thurloe: Cromwell's Secretary of State, 1652-1660 (1990), p. 38.
  9. ↑ Richard L. Greaves, Saints and Rebels: Seven Nonconformists in Stuart England (1985), p. 86.
  10. ↑ http://www.anglicanbooksrevitalized.us/Peter_Toons_Books_Online/History/puritanscalvinism.htm
  11. ↑ Francis J. Bremer, Tom Webster, Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (2006), p. 533.
  12. ↑ Tai Liu, Discord in Zion: The Puritan Divines and the Puritan Revolution 1640-1660 (1973), p. 165.

External links