William Eyre

William Eyre (fl. 1634–1675) was an English Parliamentary army officer in the English Civil War and a Leveller.

Early life Eyre's origins are unknown, but Paul Hardacre writing in the ODNB suggests that as he held a captain's rank in the Parliamentary cavalry in the First English Civil War, but started as a sergeant, he may have come from a rural middling sort–one of Cromwell's "plain, russet-coated captain ...". In The Serious Representation (which he wrote in 1649 while a prisoner in Oxford), he states that in the middle of the 1630s he was forced to leave England for New-England because he opposed the Service Book.

First Civil War In 1642 Eyre was a sergeant in Denzil Holles's regiment, and fought at Battle of Edgehill. Just over three weeks later he was with the regiment when it was destroyed by a detachment of the Royalist army under the command of Prince Rupert at Battle of Brentford. Eyre joined the Eastern Association and was commissioned by Oliver Cromwell a quartermaster in his own troop. Shortly afterwards he was promoted to captain of the sixth troop in Cromwell's regiment of horse. He fought under Cromwell in the Lincolnshire campaign of 1643. When the Parliamentary army left Sleaford on 13 January 1644, Eyre's troop along with two others were left to secure the country around the town. But later that month his troop and two others were captured after a being surprised by Royalists while they slept. His relationship with Cromwell deteriorated as their political views diverged and Eyre resigned his commission that summer.

Marriage and property in Ireland, 1647 In 1647 Eyre married Mary, née Leycester, who had outlived two previous husbands, Calcott Chambre (or Culvert Chambers) and of Job Ward. Chambre's father had bought the half-barony of Shillelagh and Carnew Castle in County Wicklow, Ireland, so through his marriage to Chambre's widow, Eyre now acquired a right to this property. He now had an interest in property in Ireland, and Sir Thomas Fairfax nominated Eyre to be a colonel of a regiment of foot in the Parliamentary expeditionary force to be sent to Ireland.

Henry Marten's Regiment in Berkshire, 1648 After the disbanding of his regiment, Eyre moved to Berkshire and aided Henry Marten (Eyre's farm was adjacent to Marten's estate), a member of the Berkshire county committee to raise a regiment of cavalry. The regiment was unauthorised by Parliament, but as the country was in the midst of the Second Civil War, Marten and Eyre ignored summons from Parliament and refused to appear in Westminster in person to explain themselves. The regiment was reported in the Mercurius Pragmaticus (a knowledgeable contemporary newspaper) said that the regiment claimed to be "for the people's freedom against all tyrants whatsoever" and were 1,500 strong, made up of serving Leveller troopers encouraged to leave (desert) their regiments for this unofficial one, and local yeomen farmers. They equipped themselves in various ways including they said requisitioning arms, ammunition and mounts from known delinquents such as Lord Craven. One of the victims of this unauthorised requisitioning was Sir Humphrey Foster. He named Eyre as one of the Offices involved in the requisitioning of this property, for which he had three men arrayed before the Assizes in Wiltshire. This move came to nothing when the men brandishing their swords refused to recognise the legitimacy of the arrayment.

Over the next few months the regiment was active in supporting the New Model Army and with his Presbetryan enemies purged by Pride the members of the Rump Parliament commissioned Marten's regiment into the New Model Army. Three days later Eyre was taken to Oxford and placed in its prison. After several months when it became clear that the authorities were going to hold him indefinitely without trial he applied to join Robert Venables's expedition, then at Hispaniola. But his application was turned down and he remain in incarcerated until the end of the protectorate. While he was in prison a number of civil suits were entered against his claim to the Shillelagh and Carnew Castle estates.