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Conflict Resolution and Patronage in Provincial Towns, 1590–1640

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Catherine Patterson
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Extract

Historians of early modern England, just like the people they study, are preoccupied with order and disorder. Particularly for the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, attention has focused on how a government and political nation whose prescriptions demanded unanimity and stability descended into civil war and revolution, the ultimate disorder. The period saw rising populations, social mobility, economic change, and religious division, all of which placed stress on the traditional order. These agents of turmoil deserve close attention. But in focusing so intently on breakdown, we tend to miss seeing how Elizabethan and early Stuart government actually worked. For most of these years, a reasonably stable and increasingly integrated royal government ruled peacefully over the English people. By shifting our attention away from breakdown, we can begin to ask critical new questions. How, precisely, did the leaders of this society work to create order in the face of difference? How did the nature of government affect the ways that people sought stability?

Evidence from urban government—provincial borough corporations—provides critical insight into these questions. Civic leaders found that the best way to maintain order and authority in their own communities was by participating in the wider governing structures of the state. London's attempts at the “pursuit of stability” have received serious treatment in recent years. Provincial towns, however, have less often been studied as a means to understand the polity as a whole. They have in the past been characterized as quite insular, either abjectly dependent on a great lord or gentleman or else “independent” and unwilling to brook outside influences; they sought stability and control by looking inward, reinforcing their own authority.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1998

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References

1 Amussen, Susan, An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern England (New York, 1988), pp. 2, 134–35Google Scholar; Wrightson, Keith, English Society, 1580–1680 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1982), pp. 66, 149, 184, 222Google Scholar. See also many of the essays in Fletcher, A. and Stevenson, J., eds., Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, particularly the editors' introduction.

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4 This view has been suggested in some important recent work on towns. Sacks's, David Harris book, The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy, 1450–1700 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif., 1991)Google Scholar, and especially his article, “The Corporate Town and the English State: Bristol's ‘Little Businesses’, 1625–1641,” Past and Present, no. 110 (February 1986), pp. 69–105Google Scholar, discuss the connection between towns and the central government and their need for cooperation; Cust's, Richard article, “Anti-Puritanism and Urban Politics: Charles I and Great Yarmouth,” Historical Journal 35 (1992): 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, points out the overlapping interests and concerns of both townsmen and the crown. Similar themes have been traced in the period of the Reformation in McClendon, Muriel, “‘Against God's Word’: Government, Religion, and the Crisis of Authority in Early Reformation Norwich,” Sixteenth Century Journal 25 (1994): 353–369CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Robert Tittler has made numerous contributions to our understanding of early modern towns and the way they fit into English government and society. See esp. his Architecture and Power: The Town Hall and the English Urban Community, c. 1500–1640 (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar, “The Emergence of Urban Policy, 1536–1558,” in The Mid-Tudor Polity, c. 1540–1560, ed. Loach, J. and Tittler, R. (London, 1980), pp. 74–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Elizabethan Towns and the ‘Points of Contact’: Parliament,” Parliamentary History 8 (1989): 275–88Google Scholar.

5 This argument is concerned with the relations between urban governors and the rest of the political elite rather than with rural craftsmen who might wish to participate in the economic life of a town. I do not dispute the fact that borough corporations were constantly vigilant to prevent nonfreemen from taking part in the local economy and that in a real sense these artificers were thought to be “foreigners” or outsiders.

6 See, e.g., Holmes, Clive, “The County Community in Stuart Historiography,” Journal of British Studies 19 (Spring 1980): 54–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hughes, Ann, Politics, Society, and Civil War in Warwickshire, 1620–1660 (Cambridge, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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8 Chester Assembly Books, Chester City Record Office (CCRO), AB/1, fols. 343v–344, 345, 349v, 350v. See also Johnson, Anthony, “Some Aspects of the Political, Constitutional, Social, and Economic History of the City of Chester” (D.Phil, diss., Oxford University, 1970)Google Scholar, for further discussion of the city of Chester's ongoing struggle to maintain unity in the corporation.

9 The record of connection between these three men and the corporation is long. William, sixth earl of Derby, had been elected aldermen of Chester in 1610. On a number of occasions, the corporators asked him to resolve disputes among themselves or between themselves and others, such as the dean and chapter of Chester cathedral. The earl owned property in Chester and retired there permanently when he turned over all his duties to his son James, Lord Strange, in 1637. Sir Peter Warburton was a Cheshire native who made his name as a lawyer and judge. He assisted the corporation in a variety of ways during his life, attending the corporate assembly with some regularity; he also owned or leased property in the city. Sir Thomas Savage hailed from a prominent local gentry family with long ties to Chester. In the 1620s he became an important courtier and friend of the duke of Buckingham, yet he never forgot his Cheshire roots and provided patronage for Chester corporation on numerous occasions in the 1620s and 1630s (Derby: CCRO, AB/1, fols. 309v, 318v; Seacombe, John, Memoirs of the Ancient and Honourable House of Stanley [Manchester, 1767], p. 70Google Scholar; Chester treasurer's accounts, CCRO, TAR/2/40; CCRO, AB/2, fol. 8; Warburton: Dictionary of National Biography, q.v. “Sir Peter Warburton”; CCRO, AB/1, fols. 247v, 297v, 355; CCRO, TAR/2/23; Chester subsidy papers, CCRO, CAS/5, 6; Chester assembly files, CCRO, AF/10/96; Savage: Public Record Office (PRO), State Papers (SP) 16/53/18; CCRO, AB/1, fols. 288, 303v, 345v; AB/2, fol. 12v, 13v).

10 Chester annals, CCRO, CR60 (Thomas Hughes Collection), at anno 1618–19.

11 James VI and I, The Trew Lawe of Free Monarchies (London, 1598)Google Scholar.

12 Fletcher, Anthony, Reform in the Provinces: The Government of Stuart England (New Haven, Conn., 1986), pp. 351–52Google Scholar; Fletcher, and Stevenson, , eds., Order and Disorder, pp. 37–38Google Scholar.

13 Acts of the Privy Council (APC), June–December 1626, p. 264Google Scholar; APC, 1627–28, p. 164.

14 Quo warranto offered a serious threat, and a number of corporations did end up in King's Bench trying to prove the validity of their privileges. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that any borough corporation actually lost its charter at the end of quo warranto proceedings. For instance, in the case of Great Yarmouth discussed below, the corporate charter was questioned by quo warranto in 1629, and the matter finally concluded in a nonprosecution (non prosequendo) in King's Bench in spring of 1639/40 (King's Bench Controlment Rolls, PRO, KB29/278, fol. 27).

15 Henderson, Edith, Foundations of English Administrative Law (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), p. 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; APC, 1613–14, pp. 103–4, 49–50; APC, 1615–16, pp. 650–54; APC, 1616–17, pp. 89–90, 121, 144, 303; APC, 1618–19, p. 199, 484; and throughout the volumes of APC. For further discussion of franchise issues, see Hirst, Derek, Representative of the People? (Cambridge, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Part IV below; and Cust, “Anti-Puritanism and Urban Politics,” for more on the Privy Council's treatment of religious difficulties in a borough corporation.

16 Wrightson, , English Society, p. 154Google Scholar.

17 For more on consensus and consensual procedure, see Kishlansky, Mark, Parliamentary Selection (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Devon Record Office (DRO), Exeter City Archive, Council Act Book 5, e.g., fol. 168.

19 This incident arose as part of the dispute that was later resolved by the city's three patrons in September 1619. CCRO, AB/1, fol. 349v; Palatine of Chester records, PRO, CHES 38/48 (Robert Whitby to Edward Whitby, 1 June 1619). One wonders how many other disputes are disguised in borough records by the language of consensus.

20 In his Architecture and Power, Robert Tittler has shown how civic leaders used the built environment to display their authority and prosperity to the surrounding community and to reinforce their own importance to themselves. See esp. pp. 105–22 for a discussion of the symbolic power of civic trappings: buildings, maces and swords, chairs and benches, clothing, etc.

21 Sidney, and Webb, Beatrice, English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act, vol. 2, The Manor and the Borough (London, 1908), pt. 1, p. 338Google Scholar.

22 Muldrew, Craig, “Credit and the Courts: Debt Litigation in a Seventeenth-Century Urban Community,” Economic History Review 46 (1993): 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Muldrew has shown that in King's Lynn in the second half of the seventeenth century, the Guildhall Court heard an average of over 1,000 suits per year.

23 Ingram, Martin, Church Courts, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1987), p. 28Google Scholar; Sharpe, J. A., “‘Such Disagreement betwyx Neighbors’: Litigation and Human Relations in Early Modern England,” in Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West, ed. Bossy, J. (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 168, 170Google Scholar; Brooks, C. W., “Interpersonal Conflict and Social Tension: Civil Litigation in England, 1640–1830,” in The First Modern Society, ed. Beier, A., Cannadine, D., and Rosenheim, J. (Cambridge, 1989), p. 360Google Scholar.

24 Muldrew, , “Credit and the Courts,” p. 27Google Scholar.

25 Sharpe, , “‘Such Disagreement betwyx Neighbors,’” pp. 177–78Google Scholar.

26 Brooks, , “Interpersonal Conflict,” p. 387Google Scholar.

27 A handful of cases has been found where a disgruntled corporator, having been removed from the corporation for misbehavior, obtained a writ of restitution out of King's Bench to get his position back. In a number of these cases, the corporator in question was restored, not because of his writ, but because he “submitted” to the corporation, basically apologizing and agreeing to behave well in the future (City Council Minute Book, 1556–1640, Coventry City Record Office, BA/H/C/17/1, Ms. 222, 222v, 223, 226, 228, 234v; Chamber Order Books, Hereford and Worcester Record Office, Worcester St. Helen's Branch [HWRO], Worcester City Archive, A.14/1, bk. 2, fols. 61v, 63v, 64, 91, 99).

28 Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC), Fourteenth Report (London, 1895), app. 8, p. 85Google Scholar; Cockburn, J. S., ed., Western Circuit Assize Orders, 1629–1648: A Calendar, Camden Society, 4th ser., vol. 17 (1976), p. 9Google Scholar; CCRO, AB/2, fol. 21. See also HWRO, Worcester City Archive, A.14/1, bk. 2, fol. 99.

29 Leicester borough accounts, 1605–6, 1601–2, 1606–7, Leicestershire Record Office (LRO), BRIII/2/73/204, 74/39, 75/43; DRO, Exeter City Archive, Receivers' Account Rolls, e.g., 1604–5, 1611–12, 1627–28; Hall Books, Norfolk Record Office (NRO), King's Lynn Town Hall, KL/C7/9, fol. 159; Cooper, C. H., Annals of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1843), 2:33Google Scholar; City Account Books, HWRO, Worcester City Archive, A. 10, e.g., 1589–90, 1593–94, 1623–24, 1625–26. It does not seem that corporations followed a clear pattern in the types of problems they brought before judges as opposed to other mediators. Simple logistics may have played a role: if the Assize judges were in town, they heard the dispute.

30 Bailey, John, ed., Transcription of the Minutes of the Corporation of Boston (Boston, 1981), 2:430Google Scholar; order of the earl of Huntingdon, 14 April 1590, earl of Huntingdon to the mayor of Leicester, 30 November 1590, LRO, BRIV/9/13, 17; earl of Huntingdon to the mayor of Leicester, 25 June 1590, 14 April 1590, BRII/5/21, 29; recorder of Derby to the earl of Shrewsbury, September 1603, bailiffs and burgers of Derby to the earl of Shrewsbury, 15 Spetember 1603, Lambeth Palace Library, Lambeth Palace MS 3203 (Talbot Papers), fols. 108, 115; the earl of Shrewbury to Sir John Harpur, 20 September 1603, MS 702 (Shrewsbury Papers), fol. 31; CCRO, AB/2, fols. 28, 35v–36; British Library, Harleian MS 2083, p. 597, MS 2104, p. 438.

31 HMC, Report of the Manuscripts of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle (London, 1905), 1:350–351Google Scholar; Saunders, H. W., ed., The Official Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, 1580–1620, Camden Society, 3d ser., vol. 26 (1915), pp. 16–17Google Scholar. Unfortunately, in neither of these cases is the outcome of the dispute known. In East Retford, the earl of Rutland handed the matter over to two local deputy lieutenants for their attention and resolution. John Manners, the earl's uncle, was a J.P. as well as deputy lieutenant and also was serving as sheriff that year. John Thornagh the elder was the earl's “cousin” and steward of some of his estates; townsmen had asked Thornagh to assist in civic matters in the past. The earl was at this time a young man of twenty-two, and he was apparently in London when the townsmen asked him to intervene. Rutland may have taken less interest in the matter than the townsmen had hoped, or he may have thought the two gentlemen, who had regular dealings with the townsmen through their deputy lieutenancies, were better prepared to make a fair settlement (HMC, Rutland, 1:351, 350, 339, 303Google Scholar).

32 The offenders were labeled “recusants,” not because they were Roman Catholic, but simply because they refused to take the freeman's oath of the town, thus recusing themselves from citizenship.

33 Chanter, J. R., Sketches of the Literary History of Barnstaple (Barnstaple, 1866), p. 107Google Scholar; History of Parliament Trust, London, unpublished 1604–29 constituency report for Barnstaple (with thanks to Mr. John Ferris and the History of Parliament Trust for allowing me to use this report before publication). Dodderidge's refusal to become a freeman is odd since he came from one of the most prominent families in town and went on in later life to serve as mayor and as M.P. for the borough. The reasons for his “recusancy” in 1599 remain enigmatic.

34 Chanter, , Barnstaple, p. 107Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., p. 108; APC, 1599–1600, p. 63.

36 A high steward's loyalty obviously differed from that of the regular corporators. Key court figures often offered patronage to more than one town at a time: the first earl of Salisbury served as high steward of multiple corporations, while Lord Ellesmere was high steward of both Oxford and Cambridge corporations. This seems not to have been much of a cause for concern among towns that chose them. Townsmen obviously expected that a patron would and could act in their best interests, regardless of his other responsibilities(Beaven, A. B., Bristol Lists, Municipal and Miscellaneous [Bristol, 1899], pp. 231–32Google Scholar; HMC, Fourteenth Report, pp. 160–61Google Scholar; HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Salisbury, vol. 18 [London, 1940], p. 253Google Scholar; Worth, A. N., Calendar of the Plymouth Municipal Records [Plymouth, 1893], p. 139Google Scholar; receipt for high steward's fees, DRO, MS 1579A/7/122; Tillott, P. M., ed., A History of Yorkshire: The City of York, Victoria County History [VCH] [London, 1961], p. 182Google Scholar; Cooper, C. H., Annals of Cambridge [Cambridge, 1845], 3:184Google Scholar; Salter, H. E., ed., Oxford Council Acts, 1585–1626 [Oxford, 1928], p. 205Google Scholar).

37 Cooper, , Annals of Cambridge, 3:42–43Google Scholar.

38 CRO, AB/1, fol. 355; Guilding, J. M., ed., Diary of the Corporation of Reading (Reading, 1895), 2:220, 221Google Scholar; Salter, , ed., Oxford Council Acts, p. 297Google Scholar. A similar example can be found in HWRO, Worcester Corporation Records, A.14, box I, bk. 2, fol. 141.

39 Cooper, , Annals of Cambridge, 3:218Google Scholar.

40 The depositions are in the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif., Ellesmere Collection (EL) 1946 (“The behavior and carriage of Thomas Harris late Alderman of the city of Oxford in his late Mayoralty and since for which he was displaced”) and EL 1945 (“The answer of Thomas Harris unto the Articles objected against him”).

41 VCH Oxford, vol. 4, The City of Oxford (London, 1979), pp. 74, 122Google Scholar.

42 Salter, , ed., Oxford Council Acts, pp. 205, 206–7Google Scholar. Knollys was Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire and served on the Privy Council for three monarchs—Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I(Cockayne, G. E., The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom [London, 1910]Google Scholar, q.v. “Banbury earldom”; Dictionary of National Biography, q.v. “Knollys, William”).

43 Salter, , ed., Oxford Council Acts, p. 207Google Scholar.

44 Huntington Library, EL 1946, fol. 68d. Harris claimed that he did this only out of respect for the lord chancellor, as the letter was going to be carried to London by a common carrier, a “sheepskin dresser”—a singularly unconvincing explanation (EL 1945, fol. 66d).

45 Huntington Library, EL 1946, fols. 68v, 69d.

46 Corporations that acted contrary to the precise specifications of their charters might have those charters revoked for noncompliance.

47 Salter, , ed., Oxford Council Acts, p. 208Google Scholar.

48 Ibid., pp. 209–11.

49 Huntington Library, EL 1946, fol. 69d.

50 Ibid.; VCH Oxford, 4:147.

51 See Salter, , ed., Oxford Council Acts, p. 69Google Scholar; Hobson, M. G. and Salter, H. E., eds., Oxford Council Acts, 1626–1665 (Oxford, 1933), p. 4Google Scholar. Harris's behavior was erratic, and it is unclear whether he had any supporters. No evidence appears in the Council Acts to suggest that Harris had a following in his attitude toward Lord Knollys or his fellow corporators. That does not preclude the possibility, given the nature of the source, but all available evidence suggests that the great majority of the corporation condemned Harris's behavior. One recent work states that a “powerful section” of the city council already disliked Thomas Harris for his “overbearing manner” and his “attempt to maintain good relations with the university” (VCH Oxford, 4:147).

52 Salter, , ed., Oxford Council Acts, pp. 212–13Google Scholar.

53 Huntington Library, EL 1946, fol. 69v; Salter, , ed., Oxford Council Acts, p. 213Google Scholar. There is no way of knowing whether the council reached a unanimous decision or not.

54 Huntington Library, EL 1945.

55 Huntington Library, EL 1946, fol. 69v.

56 Salter, , ed., Oxford Council Acts, pp. 221–22Google Scholar.

57 In April 1616, Harris, having apologized to Lord Knollys, asked the high steward to request the corporation to reinstate him: “His Lordship in his letter declared his free forgetting and forgiving the said Mr. Harris any error or injury by him heretofore offered towards his Lordship, but yet left a free will and power unto this house to accept and restore him again so as some submission and promise of future conformity by the said Harris were made.” The city council, taking into consideration Lord Knollys's magnanimous example, agreed to forgive Harris his past sins and “lovingly received and restored” him into the corporation (ibid., p. 255). Proper order thus returned to Oxford, at least for the time being. Harris was ejected from the corporation again in November 1626 for having abused the mayor in words and for showing contempt toward his fellow city councilors (Hobson, and Salter, , eds., Oxford Council Acts, 1626–1665, p. 4Google Scholar).

58 Hill, J. W., Tudor and Stuart Lincoln (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 111–12Google Scholar; HMC, Thirteenth Report (London, 1892), app. 4, pp. 162, 170Google Scholar; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1623–1625, pp. 118, 147, 185, 358Google Scholar; Rev. John Reading to Lord Zouche, 4 March 1622, Sir James Hussey to the archbishop of Canterbury, British Library, Egerton MS 2584, fols. 305–7.

59 NRO, Great Yarmouth Assembly Books, Y/C19/6, fols. 122v–23, 126, 127; Swinden, Henry, The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Burgh of Great Yarmouth (Norwich, 1772), pp. 501, 502n, 503–4, 505nGoogle Scholar; Cust, , “Anti-Puritanism and Urban Politics,” pp. 12–13Google Scholar. Cust's article admirably dissects the religious issues involved in this episode. A new monograph on Great Yarmouth—Gauci, Perry, Politics and Society in Great Yarmouth, 1660–1772 (Oxford, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar—indicates that after the Restoration, this corporation continued to establish links with important figures beyond city boundaries. “The corporation recognized that the maintenance of its legal and natural advantages relied heavily on the preservation of a dialogue between itself and outsiders, and thus it attempted to formalize the channels of influence which led to the authorities most regularly involved in Yarmouth's affairs” (pp. 48–49).

60 NRO, Y/C19/6, fol. 155. The king's referees consisted of the lord keeper, the lord treasurer, the earl of Dorset, Viscount Dorchester, and the bishop of London.

61 The earl of Dorset to the bailiffs of Great Yarmouth, August [1630], Great Yarmouth Memorandum Book, NRO, Y/C18/6, fol. 256; Swinden, , Great Yarmouth, pp. 502–3, 505n, 506nGoogle Scholar.

62 Richard Cust identifies Alderman Cooper's friends at Court as Attorney General Robert Heath and Viscount Dorchester(Cust, , “Anti-Puritanism and Urban Politics,” p. 13Google Scholar). The archbishop of York also favored the new scheme. Archbishop Samuel Harsnett had previously been bishop of Norwich; his stringent enforcement of conformity during his episcopacy there at times put him at odds with the corporators of Yarmouth (NRO, Y/C19/6, fol. 155; the bishop of Norwich to the bailiff and burgesses of Great Yarmouth, 15 July 1624, the bailiffs of Great Yarmouth to the bishop of Norwich, 31 January 1625, the bishop of Norwich to the bailiffs of Great Yarmouth, 23 January 1627, Y/C18/6, fols. 212, 215, 238; Swinden, , Great Yarmouth, p. 504Google Scholar).

63 NRO, Y/C18/6, fol. 256; Swinden, , Great Yarmouth, p. 505nGoogle Scholar.

64 The earl of Dorset to the bailiffs of Great Yarmouth, 18 December 1629, NRO, Y/C18/6, fol. 254v.

65 Ibid., fol. 256.

66 The bailiffs of Great Yarmouth to the earl of Dorset, 6 October 1630, ibid., fol. 257v; Swinden, , Great Yarmouth, pp. 509n–13n, 514nGoogle Scholar; APC, 1630–31, p. 384.

67 NRO, Y/C19/6, fol. 199v; Swinden, , Great Yarmouth, p. 515nGoogle Scholar. Buttolphe returned to the corporation in April 1633, when the next seat on the aldermanic bench opened. According to the official record of Buttolphe's restoration on 12 April 1633, not only Buttolphe but another alderman, Mr. Edward Owner, had volunteered to give up his aidermanic seat in order to preserve the charter and obey the Lords in 1631 (NRO, Y/C19/6, fol. 263v).

68 “An Act for the Well Governing and Regulating of Corporations” (the Corporation Act), 1661. Halliday's, Paul monograph, Dismembering the Body Politic: Partisan Politics in England's Towns, 1650–1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in press), will provide a systematic analysis of partisan conflict in towns and its consequences for politics and governance in England as a whole in the later Stuart period. Halliday shows that the principle of exclusion, rather than composition, became a basic feature of corporate life after 1660, even as townsmen continued to use the rhetoric of bodily wholeness.