Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Part one Corporate ideal and partisan reality
- Part two The King and his corporations, 1660–1688
- Part three Partisan conflict and the law in a dynamic society
- 8 The legacy of the 1680s
- 9 Partisan conflict and political stability, 1702–1727
- 10 1660, 1688, 1727, and beyond
- Appendix A Royal charters of incorporation, 1660–1727
- Appendix B Enforcement of the Corporation Act, 1662–1663
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Titles in the series
8 - The legacy of the 1680s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Part one Corporate ideal and partisan reality
- Part two The King and his corporations, 1660–1688
- Part three Partisan conflict and the law in a dynamic society
- 8 The legacy of the 1680s
- 9 Partisan conflict and political stability, 1702–1727
- 10 1660, 1688, 1727, and beyond
- Appendix A Royal charters of incorporation, 1660–1727
- Appendix B Enforcement of the Corporation Act, 1662–1663
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Titles in the series
Summary
Dunwich had been falling into the North Sea for centuries. By the 1690s, the once bustling borough was a quiet backwater. But Dunwich had a long, proud history of incorporation, and controlling the corporation meant controlling the choice of two members of the House of Commons. For a handful of residents and Suffolk gentlemen, Dunwich politics proved worthy of the most strenuous efforts.
Like the ocean eating away at the sandy bluffs on Dunwich's shore, events of the 1680s crashed again and again on the corporation, leaving nothing but wreckage behind by late 1688. Though the corporation decided to fight the quo warranto brought against them in 1684, they soon thought better of it and surrendered their charter to Charles II and gained a new one not long after he died. According to the power given him by that charter, James II purged most of the new body in 1688. Then, because Dunwich's was one of the few surrenders enrolled in Chancery, it did not benefit from James's proclamation of October 17, 1688, which restored most of England's corporations to their earlier condition. Instead, in one of his last acts as King, James made a special order for Dunwich, dismissing those he had appointed there earlier in the year, and commanding the pre-surrender corporation to reconstitute itself. This they did, and by year's end, it looked as if Dunwich had recovered its fragile status quo ante.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Dismembering the Body PoliticPartisan Politics in England's Towns, 1650–1730, pp. 265 - 303Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998