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Thomas Scott and the Growth of Urban Opposition to the Early Stuart Regime*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Peter Clark
Peter Clark
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
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Extract

While the crucial question of the contribution of the troubles of the 1620s to the eventual dissolution of the old political order in Stuart England remains clouded in debate, with historians like C. Russell questioning the whole concept of escalating parliamentary opposition to the Crown in that decade, we are at least beginning to recognize the pattern of provincial unrest and the growing interaction of national and local agitation at this time. D. Hirst in particular has shown how constituencies were increasingly volatile and vociferous, a development which owed a great deal to the expansion of their electorates. In the boroughs country gentry joined forces with anti-oligarchic groups of citizens to broaden the franchise. Here agitation was strongly influenced by the severe economic and social problems of many county towns during the early seventeenth century.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 Russell, C., ed., The origins of the English Civil War (London, 1973), pp. 4 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Parliamentary history in perspective, 1604–1629’, History, lxi (1976), 1–27.Google Scholar

2 Fletcher, A., A county community in peace and war: Sussex, 1600–1660 (London, 1975), p. 232et passimGoogle Scholar; Clark, P., English provincial society from the Reformation to the Revolution: religion, politics and society in Kent 1500–1640 (Hassocks, 1977), esp. ch. xi.Google Scholar

3 Hirst, D., The representative of the people? Voters and voting in England under the early Stuarts (Cambridge, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For more on the general problems of towns at this time see Clark, P. and Slack, P., English towns in transition, 1500–1700 (London, 1976), ch. vi–ix.Google Scholar

4 There is apparently no connexion between the Canterbury diarist and the various puritan pamphleteers of the same name.

5 Delany, P., British autobiography in the seventeenth century (London, 1963), p. 3et passimGoogle Scholar; see also Macfarlane, A., The family life of Ralph Josselin (Cambridge, 1970), esp. ch. IGoogle Scholar; Bodleian library Ballard MS 61, fo. 91–v.

6 For a general discussion of these problems see Thompson, E. P., ‘Anthropology and the discipline of historical context’, Midland History, i (1971–1972), 42Google Scholar; Mazlish, B., ‘Clio on the couch’, Encounter, xxxi (1968), 53Google Scholar; also Erikson, E. H., ‘On the nature of the psycho-historical evidence: in search of Ghandi’, Daedalus, xcvii (1968), 701 ff.Google Scholar

7 The major part of the diary survives among the Knatchbull papers in the Kent Archives Office, principally U951, Z9, 10, 16, 17 (mostly unfoliated). But the main manuscript for 1614 is now Bodleian library Ballard MS 61, while part of Scott's diary for 1626 is the property of Dr William Urry (hereafter cited as Urry MS); I am greatly indebted to Dr Urry for allowing me to examine and quote from this document. Among the miscellaneous Scott manuscripts, two form Bodleian lib. Rawlinson MS A 346, fos. 224–34v; 285–97v; these are transcribed and printed in Scull, G. D., Dorothea Scott (Oxford, 1883), pp. 131–98Google Scholar, and I have used the printed text (Canon Brade-Birks, rector of Godmersham, kindly drew my attention to Scull). Other minor items are in B. M. Harleian MS 7018, fos. 89–90; Loan 15, Wyatt MSS, Common Place Book, 4, 29; and in Bodleian lib. Rawlinson MS D 911, fos. 186–7 v.

8 Scott, J. R., Memorials of the family of Scott of Scots' Hall (London, 1876), pp. 184–5 et passimGoogle Scholar; K.A.O. U350, 03.

9 C.C.L. x. 8. 13, fos. 94, 114v; Dr Williams' library, Morrice MS L(V), p. 11.

10 The papers of George Wyatt Esq., ed. Loades, D. M. (Caniden Soc., 4th ser., v, 1968), 11Google Scholar; Scott, , Memorials, append, p. lxviiiGoogle Scholar (there is also a brief account of Egerton manor in ibid., p. 185).

11 In 1620 Scott gave his age as 53 or 54 [K.A.O. U951, Z17/2, no. 14]; J. and Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses: Part I: from the earliest times to 1731 (Cambridge, 1922–1927), iv, 32–3Google Scholar. The claim of a later opponent that he was ‘longer trained up in the school of logic’ than ever Scott was, might suggest that Scott's university days – like those of many gentlemen – were probably brief [Bodleian lib. Ballard MS 61, fo. 52]. P.R.O. PROB 11/87/36.

12 The visitation of Kent 1619–1621, ed. Hovenden, R. (Harleian Soc., xlii, 1898), 128Google Scholar; Canterbury marriage licenses 1568–1618, ed. Cowper, J. M. (Canterbury, 1892), p. 369Google Scholar. Scull, , Dorothea Scott, p. 4.Google Scholar

13 Knatchbull-Hugessen, H., Kentish family (London, 1960), p. 1 and pedigree 11Google Scholar. The marriage settlement is K.A.O. U1118, T6.

14 Clark, , English provincial society, pp. 209, 305, 323Google Scholar; C.C.L. x. 11.16, fos. 138 ff.; x. 11. 14, fo. 15; also Clark, and Slack, , English towns in transition, pp. 54, 120–1Google Scholar; Bodleian lib. Ballard MS 61, fo. 54 et passim.

15 K.A.O. U951, Z17/3– The recurrent spiritual distress of other puritans can be found, for example, in Two Elizabethan puritan diaries, ed. Knappen, M. M. (Chicago, 1933), pp. 55, 70, 75, 98 et passimGoogle Scholar; Hill, C., God's Englishman (London, 1970), pp. 232 ff.Google Scholar; for a detailed account of puritan self-analysis and fasting see The autobiography and correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, ed. Halliwell, J. O. (London, 1845), 1, 353Google Scholar. For more on the Puritans' sense of stress see Walzer, M., ‘Puritanism as a Revolutionary Ideology’, History and Theory, iii (1963–1964), 61 ff.Google Scholar; see also the general fascination with melancholia in Babb, L., The Elizabethan malady (E. Lansing, Michigan, 1951), esp. pp. 177 ff.Google Scholar

16 Hill, C., Society and puritanism in pre-Revolutionary England (London, 1964), p. 443Google Scholar; K.A.O. U951, Z17/3.

17 Hill, , Society and puritanism, pp. 487 ff.Google Scholar; K.A.O. U951, Z17/2. no. 58, 61; Z17/y, D.N.B., s.n. ‘Palmer’.

18 Clark, P., ‘The ownership of books in England, 1560–1640: the example of some Kentish townsfolk’, in Schooling and society, ed. Stone, L. (Baltimore, 1976), pp. 98–109Google Scholar; Clark, , English provincial society, pp. 207 ff.Google Scholar

19 For recent accounts of millenarianism see Capp, B. S., The Fifth Monarchy Men (London, 1972), esp. ch. iiGoogle Scholar; Lament, W., ‘Richard Baxter, the Apocalypse and the Mad Major’, Past and Present, lv (1972), 69 ff.Google Scholar; Hill, C., Antichrist in seventeenth-century England (London, 1971), esp. ch. 1–11.Google Scholar

20 Eg., K.A.O. U951, Z16/2; Bodleian lib. Ballard MS 61, fos. 153v, 155v.

21 K.A.O. U951, Z16/a; Bodleian lib. Ballard MS 61, fo. 8v.

22 K.A.O. U951, Z17/5; Z16/a; Z17/2 passim; Scull, , Dorothea Scott, pp. 149 ffGoogle Scholar. For the growth of genealogy in Kent in this period see Clark, , English provincial society, p. 218.Google Scholar

23 K.A.O. U951, Z17/5; Bodleian lib. Rawlinson MS D 911, fo. 186v.

24 K.A.O. U951.Z17/1.

25 Bodleian lib. Ballard MS 61, fos. 61 v–63, 87v–88v.

26 Ibid. fos. 60v, 64–69V; K.A.O. U951, Z17/5.

27 Scull, , Dorothea Scott, pp. 166, 171, 174.Google Scholar

28 Clark, , English provincial society, pp. 253–4, 312Google Scholar; Clark, and Slack, , English towns in transition, pp. 103 ff.Google Scholar

29 Hirst, , Representative of the people, pp. 2, 44.Google Scholar

30 Bodleian lib. Ballard MS 61, fos. 49 ff. Clark, , English provincial society, pp. 174, 306.Google Scholar

31 Bodleian lib. Ballard MS 61, fos. 2v ff., 118.

32 Carier had become a prebendary in 1608; for his later removal abroad, conversions to Rome, and death in exile (in 1614) see D.N.B., s.n. ‘Carier’. Bodleian lib. Ballard MS 61, fos. 153V–5.

33 Ibid. fos. 23v–4, 82; K.A.O. U951, Z16/1, no. 3.

34 Bodleian lib. Ballard MS 61, fo. 88v; for Sandys' role in 1604 see Rabb, T. K., ‘Free trade and the gentry in the parliament of 1604’, Past and Present, xl (1968), 165–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; K.A.O. U951, Z16/1, no. 3.

35 Ibid.; Terry, W. H., The life and times of John, Lord Finch (London, 1936), pp. 16, 53Google Scholar; Cowper, J. M., The Roll of the Freemen of the city of Canterbury (Canterbury, 1903), p. 323Google Scholar; K.A.O. U951, Z17/2, no. 14; B. M. Addit. MS 37, 818, fo. 29v; P.R.O. SP 14/115/38; C.C.L. F/A 22, fo. 448v; F/A 23, fo. 39. For a similar clash over the recordership of Chester in 1619 see Guenfelder, J. K., ‘The parliamentary election at Chester, 1621’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, cxx (1968), 36 ff.Google Scholar

36 Scull, , Dorothea Scott, pp. 147, 152, 156et passimGoogle Scholar. The dating of ‘A Discourse’ relies on internal evidence and its dedication to the earl of Arundel as a commissioner for the Earl Marshal's office (see Squibb, G. D., The High Court of Chivalry (Oxford, 1959), p. 232).Google Scholar

37 K.A.O. U951, Z17/2, no. 14, 15, 17, 18; Urry MS, fo. 3.

38 P.R.O. SP 14/147/35; B. M. Wyatt Common Place Book, 29; see also Bodleian lib. Rawlinson MS D 911, fos. 186–7 v.

39 The Dennes had a long tradition of conflict with the Canterbury oligarchy. Urry MS, fo. 32v; P.R.O. SP 14/158/67; Acts of the Privy Council (hereafter A.P.C.), 1623–1625, pp. 176, 188. A further indication of the rising religious temper among the Canterbury commonalty was an outbreak of stone-throwing by a gang of apprentice boys against a suspected catholic [C.C.L. JQ 1624].

40 The papers of George Wyatt Esq., pp. 208–22.

41 Toynbee, M., ‘The wedding journey of King Charles I’, Archaeologia Cantiamo, LXIX (1955), 77–88Google Scholar; Historical Manuscripts Commission, House of Lords MSS, new series, xi, p. 204.

42 Urry MS, fo. 4.

43 Gardiner, S. R., History of England… 1603–42 (3rd edn, London, 1883–1884), vi, 37Google Scholar; C.C.L., JQ 1623, 1625, 1626; F/A 23, fos. 247, 292; F/A 25, fos. 291 ff.; U3/39/5; Cowper, J. M., ed., The register booke of…St Dunstan's Canterbury (Canterbury, 1887), pp. 10 ff.Google Scholar

44 P.R.O. C93/10/18; see also Hirst, , The representative of the people, p. 55.Google Scholar

45 Urry MS, fos. 5, 13–v; Montgomery had been lord lieutenant since April 1624: Sainty, J. C., ‘Lieutenants of counties, 1585–1642’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Sp. Supplement, viii (1970), 25.Google Scholar

46 Urry MS, fos. 20v, 21v, 22, 77v.

47 Ibid. fos. 17, 23v, 26; Cowper, , The Roll of the Freemen, p. 71Google Scholar; C.C.L. F/A 23, fos. 210, 346; K.A.O. U1115, O15/5.

48 Urry MS, fos. 22, 24, 57v; C.C.L. x. 11. 14, fo. 264; Lambeth Palace library, Abbot's Register, 11, fo. 338; Richard Culmer and John Simpson (the latter a Christchurch prebendary) were also delivering inflammatory puritan sermons about this time which may have helped Scott [Urry MS, fos. 59–v].

49 Ibid. fo. 13; Scull, , Dorothea Scott, pp. 132–42.Google Scholar

50 Urry MS, fos. 15v, 16v–17;, 26v, 27; C.C.L. JQ 1630.

51 Urry MS, fos. 5–8, 15–v, 33, 77v.

52 Ibid. fos. 7v–8.

53 Ibid. fos. 53–6, 66.

54 Ibid. fos. 61v, 63v, 67v–68. A number of bills in the Jacobean parliaments may have proposed reapportionment – one of the earliest, in 1614, called ‘for the suppressing and supply of boroughs of parliament according to the present state of the towns of this realm’ – but no details survive (Moir, T. L., The Addled Parliament of 1614 (Oxford, 1958), p. 69Google Scholar). For the later history of radical reapportionment schemes see Snow, V. F., ‘Parliamentary reapportionment proposals in the Puritan Revolution’, English Historical Review, lxxiv (1959), 409–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Scott's scheme more or less anticipated the Instrument of Government: in 1653 Queenborough and Rochester both lost one of their burgesses; New Romney lost two; and county representation was increased to eleven seats.

55 Urry MS, fos. 79v, 82v–87v, 115, 117v.

56 Ibid. fos. 117v, 120v; K.A.O. U951, Z17/1.

57 Bargrave, I., A sermon preached before King Charles, March 27. 1627… (London, 1627), pp. 18–19et passimGoogle Scholar. One newsletter referred to the sermon at length, noting: ‘he imputes rebellion to those who refuse this loan and much urged obedience’ (The court and times of Charles the First, ed. Birch, T. (2 vols., London, 1848), 1, 214–15Google Scholar). K.A.O. U951, Z10.

58 Ibid.

59 Gardiner, , History of England, vi, 226Google Scholar; K.A.O. U951, Z17/2, no. 21.

60 K.A.O. U951, Z17/2, no. 45, 50, 52, 58, 61; C.C.L. x. 5. 10, fo. 120v. At his death in 1630 Drought had personal property worth £30: his bible and Other old books ' were valued at 15s. [K.A.O. PRC 28/15/219.]

61 C.C.L. F/A 23, fo. 389; K.A.O. U951, Z17/2, nos. 34, 52, 58, 62, 64–6.

62 Urry MS, fos. 66v–67.

63 K.A.O. U951, Z17/4, no. 9. Prof. J. H. Hexter kindly confirmed that Scott does not appear in any of the parliamentary diaries for the period now being edited at Yale.

64 K.A.O. U951, Z9, no. 1. ‘Ruttires’ have proved difficult to identify; possibly an allusion to the dashing cavaliers at Court.

65 K.A.O. V951, Z9, no. 1; P.R.O. SP 16/101/28, 29, 67; 104/32 and 32 (i–ii); 106/8.

66 B.M. Harleian MS 7018, fos. 89–v; K.A.O. U951, Z9, no. 2–3. Petitioning against billeting had been discredited by parliament's tendency to refer county grievances back to the deputy-lieutenants, often the cause of complaint in the first place (e.g. Willcox, W. B., Gloucestershire: a study in local government, 1590–1640 (New Haven, 1940), p. 101).Google Scholar

67 Gardiner, , History of England, vi, 320–5Google Scholar; P.R.O. SP/16/108/60; K.A.O. U951, Z9, no. 3a–5, 7, 8; A.P.C., 1628–1629, pp. 1, 10; K.A.O. U951, Z17/4, no. 9, 11–12.

68 P.R.O. SP 16/114/62 (1); 110/18; K.A.O. U951, Z17/4, no. 9, 12; Z9, no. 8.

69 K.A.O. U951, Z17/4, no. 14; Urry MS, fos. 66v–67.

70 K.A.O. V951, Z17/6; Bodleian lib. Rawlinson MS D 924, fo. 98; D.N.B., s.n. ‘Palmer’.

71 K.A.O. U951, Z17/6.

72 K.A.O U951, Z17/7; Lambeth Palace library, VC 111/1/13, fo. 98 K.A.O. V951, Z17/3.

73 K.A.O. U951, Z17/7; P.R.O. PC2/43, pp. 631, 657; K.A.O. U951, Z17/3. For anxiety among other Kentish gentry over Gustavus' fortunes in Germany see B. M. Stowe MS 743, fo. 83. Gardiner, , History of England, vii, 206–7.Google Scholar

74 The Visitation of Kent 1619–1621, p. 128. K.A.O. U951, Z17/4, no. 9; Z17/5; U1118, T8.

75 K.A.O. U1274, T11/1–2; PRC 32/51/217; U1118, T3/5; Scull, , Dorothea Scott, pp. 5 ff., 15. 77 ff.Google Scholar