On 20 June 1632 Charles I issued a proclamation ‘commanding the Gentry to keepe their Residence at their Mansions in the Countrey, and forbidding them to make their habitations in London, and places adjoyning’. The document gave voice to several concerns about the growth of London: the city was becoming difficult to govern, was increasingly vulnerable to dearth and disease and was intolerably burdened by the cost of maintaining the poor, including those who followed the rich into town. But the influx of gentry also denuded the localities, depriving them of their natural rulers, those who had customarily ‘served the King in severall places according to their Degrees and Rankes’. In consequence the poor were left unrelieved by hospitality, uncontrolled by good discipline and without adequate employment. Finally, the removal of the gentry to town was alleged to have adverse economic consequences, encouraging the consumption of luxury imports ‘from Forraigne parts, to the enriching of other Nations, and unnecessary consumption of a great part of the Treasure of this Realm’. The remedy for these ills was the return of the gentry to their native seats, and the Caroline government did not hesitate to order all those not holding office in the council or royal household back into the country. An exception was made for periods of the law-terms, for the transaction of essential business ‘so as they doe not by pretence thereof remove their families, but leave the same to continue in the Countrey, and keep their houses and Hospitality…’.