¹ Samuel Woodford left three autobiographical fragments. The first covers the period until 1662 and is printed in Ferrell, L.A., ‘An imperfect diary of a life: the 1662 diary of Samuel Woodforde’, Yale University Library Gazette, 63 (1989), pp. 137–144Google Scholar. Woodford began to write up the remaining two (NCA 9537 and 9494) on 5 September 1678 and they cover the periods until 1690 and 1700. The latter is a copy of the second edition of his A Paraphrase upon the Psalms of David (1678). The manuscript autobiographical notes appear in unpaginated sections at the front and the back: Steer, F.W., The Archives of New College, Oxford: a catalogue compiled by Francis W. Steer (Oxford, 1974), p. 113Google Scholar.

² NCA 9494, section at front; baptismal register for Old. Woodford's grandfather, Edward Woodford (1518–1604), had married Margery Ragdale (d. 1616), and their children included the diarist's father Robert, Henry (1568–1645), who married Joan and had a son William, and Margaret (d. before 1638), whose married name was Wale.

³ PDR, Archdeaconry of Northampton wills, second series, C168 (will of the diarist's father); VCH Northamptonshire, IV (London, 1937), pp. 202–203; Woodforde, D.H. (ed.), Woodforde Papers and Diaries (London, 1932)Google Scholar, loose pedigree at the end; baptismal register for Old (PDR, 246P/1, 6 April 1606); marriage registers for Old and Draughton (PDR, 246P/1, 1603; 107P/1, 2 May 1603); Metcalfe, Visitation of Northamptonshire 1618, p. 103.

⁴ Baxter may not have been a diehard nonconformist and possibly compromised with the ecclesiastical authorities: he certainly continued in post until his death in 1607: Sheils, Puritans, p. 54; PDR, CB38, fo. 114r; Longden, Clergy.

⁵ For Chapman, see Diary, p. 123 and n. 131. The schoolmaster could have been Thomas Elborough (d. 1615) or else John or William. The family were closely connected to the William Greenhills, senior and junior, successive vicars of the parish: D.K. Shearing, ‘A study of the educational developments in the Diocese of Peterborough, 1561–1700’ (unpublished MPhil thesis, University of Nottingham, 1982), biographical appendix; Longden, Clergy; V. Larminie, ‘Skinner, Robert (1591–1670)’, in ODNB; VCH Northamptonshire, IV, p. 219.

⁶ Alexander Brome included a translation of Horace's moral ode (Book II, number 14), purportedly the work of Samuel Woodford, in his The Poems of Horace [. . .] Rendred in English Verse by Several Persons (1666). However, when Samuel reprinted the ode in his own work, Paraphrase upon the Canticles (1679), he explained the deception on p. 161, saying that it was the work of his father: Brooks, H.F., ‘Contributors to Brome's Horace’, Notes and Queries, 174 (1938), pp. 200–201Google Scholar. I am grateful to Christina Batey for this reference.

⁷ I am grateful to Bernard Capp for knowledge of Allestree: B. Capp, ‘Allestree, Richard (b. before 1582, d. c.1643)’, in ODNB; NCA 9494, front section (quotation); Diary, pp. 143, 314.

⁸ All page references in the text refer to the diary as reproduced in this volume.

⁹ For meteorological observations, see, for example, Diary, pp. 98, 153, 154, 165, 171, 217, 249, 250, 260, 276, 277, 297, 348, 349, 370; for the meteorite, see ibid., p. 351. See also Schröter, J.F.W., Spezieller Kanon der zentralen Sonnen- und Mondfinsternisse, welche innerhalb des Zeitraums von 600 bis 1800 n. Chr. in Europa sichtbar waren (Kristiania, 1923)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Brooks, C.W., Pettyfoggers and Vipers of the Commonwealth: the ‘lower branch’ of the legal profession in early modern England (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 152–156CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Diary, p. 96, n 2.

¹¹ Brooks, Pettyfoggers and Vipers, p. 233; Cockburn, J.S., A History of English Assizes 1558–1714 (Cambridge, 1972), p. 315CrossRefGoogle Scholar; TNA, STAC8/139/6; Longden, Visitation of Northamptonshire 1681, p. 135; Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, p. 570.

¹² For the Readings’ house at Blackfriars, see Diary, pp. 131, 175; London was one day's hard ride from Northampton, but Woodford generally made an overnight stop, either at Mr Walker's White Hart at Dunstable (Bedfordshire) or another Mr Walker's Red Lion at St Albans (Hertfordshire). The White Hart dated from at least the sixteenth century: VCH Bedfordshire, III (London, 1912), p. 355. Exceptionally, on 19 June 1639, he completed the trip in one day – starting at 5 a.m. and arriving at 8 p.m.

¹³ NCA 9494, front section; Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, MS 5083; R. Newcourt, Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense, 2 vols (1708–1710), I, pp. 256–257.

¹⁴ Only three – Samuel (1636–1700), John (1637–1694), and Susanna (1639–1672) – achieved parenthood and Samuel alone outlived his mother: N.H. Keeble, ‘Woodford, Samuel (1636–1700)’, in ODNB; NCA 9494, 9537.

¹⁵ NCA 9494, front section.

¹⁶ Alford, B.W.E. and Barker, T.C., A History of the Carpenters’ Company (London, 1968), map opposite p. 40Google Scholar; Stow, J., A Survey of London, ed. Kingsford, C.L., 2 vols (Oxford, 1908), IIGoogle Scholar, map at back. The Two Wrestlers survived the Great Fire and was let out as tenements by 1678: NCA 9494.

¹⁷ There is a problem over the dating of Woodford's election. The entry made by the town clerk, Tobias Coldwell, in the borough records is dated 20 July 1636 but Thomas Martin's mayoralty (he is described in the entry as mayor) covered the period 29 September 1634 to the same date in 1635. The true date was probably 20 July 1635, to coincide with his term of office: Book of Orders, unpaginated entry at start of volume; Northampton Central Library, 198-10-2797, p. 44.

¹⁸ NRO, D(F) 123; Brett-James, N.G., The Growth of Stuart London (1935), pp. 230Google Scholar, 236–237, 284.

¹⁹ Book of Orders, unpaginated entry dated 20 July 1636; Northampton Central Library, 198-10-2797, p. 44 (quotation).

²⁰ Diary, pp. 97 n. 8, 160, 281, 324.

²¹ NCA 9494, front section; in his will, proved by his wife, Jane, Robert senior bequeathed to his son a ‘garner’ and chest. He described himself as a husbandman: his inventory was valued at £36 12s 6d: PDR, Archdeaconry of Northampton Wills, second series, C168.

²² Diary, pp. 141, 160, 162, 188, 192, 241, 245, 259, 293, 310.

²³ Ibid., pp. 130, 132, 198, 220, 328.

²⁴ Ibid., p. 196; Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 171–172, 196, 252. The Cricks owned a house, which may have been Woodford's, abutting the Guildhall at the junction of Wood Hill and Abington Street: Book of Orders, p. 18, and unpaginated entry after p. 611 dated 14 November 1653.

²⁵ George and Ann had lived adjacent to the Guildhall at the south-east corner of the square: Book of Orders, p. 18, and unpaginated section at the back, deed of sale dated 14 November 1653; Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, p. 172. By marrying a freeman's widow, Spicer obtained freedom of the borough: Book of Orders, 23 October 1637; TNA, PROB/11/263.

²⁶ For rent, see Diary, pp. 141, 162, 165, 245, 267. For stabling, see ibid., p. 171.

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 139, 186–187; Bridges, History of Northamptonshire, II, p. 500.

²⁸ Brooks, Pettyfoggers and Vipers, pp. 156–157, 164–172.

²⁹ Diary, p. 294, n. 670.

³⁰ Maydwell's family came from Geddington. His brother, Lawrence, owned land there and at Cranford, where in 1640 Godfrey presented the minister, John Fosbrooke, to the moiety of St Andrew: Howard, J.J. (ed.), The Visitation of London 1633–1635, Publications of the Harleian Society XV and XVII, 2 vols (London, 1880, 1883), II, p. 91Google Scholar; Longden MS, 22 May 1640.

³¹ Book of Orders, pp. 505, 577, 611; NRO, YZ 5270; Bridges, History of Northamptonshire, II, pp. 211–212. One John Woodford was listed as a Northampton Ejector in August 1654, but Woodford's second son was only seventeen years old at that time and apprenticed to his grandmother, Susanna Haunch, in London: Firth, C.H. and Rait, R.S., Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660, 3 vols (London 1911), II, p. 973Google Scholar.

³² VCH Northamptonshire, IV, p. 189; TNA, PROB/11/249: Pickering bequeathed 10s each to his master and mistress for mourning rings and 5s each to their children; NRO, Tryon (Bulwick) MSS, T(B) 259/2, 6.

³³ Venn, under Samuel Haunch; NCA 9494, front section; at St Paul's, Samuel was a contemporary of Pepys: M.McDonnell, F.J., St Paul's School (London, 1959), pp. 218Google Scholar, 247; C.W. Sutton, ‘Cromleholme, Samuel (1618–1672)’, rev. C.S. Knighton, in ODNB.

³⁴ NCA 9494, front section; J. Henry, ‘Wilkins, John (1614–1672)’ in ODNB; Keeble, ‘Woodford, Samuel’. Woodford's friends Peter Whalley, John Bullivant, and John Parker, the Northampton lawyer, sent their sons Nathaniel (1655), Jeremiah (1656), and Samuel (1656) to Wadham: Isham, Diary, p. 200, n. 24, and p. 62, n. 15; Woodforde, Woodforde Papers, p. 5; J. Parkin, ‘Parker, Samuel (1640–1688)’, in ODNB.

³⁵ Woodford was overseer of Haunch's will: he and Hannah were to receive the rents of The Two Wrestlers for the duration of their lives. Robert Haunch (1649), uncle Christopher Haunch (1647), and Susanna (1658), also made bequests to the Woodfords. Susanna bequeathed her apprentice John Woodford's services (he completed his apprenticeship in 1658), and the use of her shop, to her brother, Edmund Heighes, haberdasher. By 1678 John was married with children: he continued to reside in the parish of All Hallows, London Wall. Samuel went on to inherit the estate of his great-uncle Edmund Heighes at Binsted in Hampshire. This side of the family demonstrated their eternal gratitude by their frequent use of the name Heighes. Woodford's daughter Susanna married Daniel Gifford, who, following problems with debts, emigrated to the East Indies, whereupon Samuel Woodford brought his sister to live with him at Binsted, where he claimed she died of grief (and consumption) on 26 September 1672, her son, Samuel, being adopted by her mother and stepfather, Hannah and Robert Guy: TNA, PROB/11/209 (Robert Haunch), PROB/11/253 (Susanna Haunch); PDR, Archdeaconry of Northampton Wills, third series, B, fo. 131 (Christopher Haunch); Keeble, ‘Woodford, Samuel’; NCA 9494, front section; NCA 9537, unpaginated, under 23 December 1670.

³⁶ NCA 9494, front section (quotations); NRO, 223P/1, 17 November 1654; Ferrell, ‘Imperfect diary’, pp. 140–141.

³⁷ TNA, PROB/6/31, fo. 59. Guy was an assiduous justice of the peace during the Civil War and Interregnum periods, serving on county committees and as clerk of the peace from 1651 until 1660. His first wife had been the daughter of Francis Sawyer of Kettering: their daughter Mary married Nathaniel ‘Bunyan’ Ponder. Guy's second marriage – to Hannah – took place in London in August 1662 but his main residence was at Isham to the north of Northampton. In 1672, as part of Charles II's Declaration of Indulgence, the house at Isham was licensed as a congregational meeting house. In the same year, the couple adopted Samuel Gifford, Hannah's grandson. Guy's will was prefixed by a godly preamble: TNA, PROB/11/362. He made generous provision for Hannah, for Samuel Gifford, and for Samuel and John Woodford. He made bequests to twenty ministers, or their widows, whose names were to be supplied by Hannah, and enjoined his heir, Francis, to allow his stepmother to live with him until he married: P.R. Brindle, ‘Politics and society in Northamptonshire, 1649–1714’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 1983), pp. 134–135; Isham, Diary, p. 60, n. 6; Cokayne, G.E. and Fry, E.A. (eds), Calendar of Marriage Licences Issued by the Faculty Office 1632–1714, Index Library 33 (London, 1905), p. 21Google Scholar; B. Lynch, ‘Ponder, Nathaniel (1640–1699)’, in ODNB; NCA 9494, end section; Woodforde, Woodforde Papers, index (quotation).

³⁸ HMC, Ninth Report (London, 1883), pp. 493–499Google Scholar.

³⁹ For experimental predestinarianism and the ordo salutis (‘way of salvation’), see Kendall, R.T., Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 51–79Google Scholar; Cohen, C.L., God's Caress: the psychology of puritan religious experience (Oxford, 1986), pp. 75–110Google Scholar; Lake, P., ‘William Bradshaw, antichrist, and the community of the godly’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), pp. 570–589CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁰ He noted with disapproval that a preacher condemned supralapsarians: Diary, p. 251.

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 350; Cohen, God's Caress, pp. 47–74.

⁴² For Woodford's conversion and spiritual history, see Diary, pp. 161, 165, 258, 396.

⁴³ For other examples, see ibid., pp. 159, 248, 257, 285.

⁴⁴ Woodford's pointing hand (W.H. Sherman has named the symbol the manicule) is a basic model with a cuff, and pointing index finger with nail. Both symbols were used by Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, and, in her journal, by the Northamptonshire gentlewoman Lady Grace Mildmay (d. 1620): Sherman, W.H., Used Books: marking readers in Renaissance England (Philadelphia, 2008), pp. 25–52Google Scholar, 169.

⁴⁵ For another heavenly vision, this time inducing tears, see Diary, p. 350.

⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 338 (marked with a double trefoil).

⁴⁷ He uses the same expression to describe God's concealing Himself from the godly collectively: ibid., p. 289.

⁴⁸ For a fuller description of this, see ibid., p. 338.

⁴⁹ Ibid., pp. 180, 265. For God as refuge and rabbit warren, see ibid., pp. 184, 399.

⁵⁰ Alexandra Walsham has established that providentialist thought was widespread and far from the monopoly of puritans or even Protestants: Walsham, A., Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999)Google Scholar. Richard Cust has shown that Charles I himself thought in such terms: Cust, R.P., ‘Charles I and providence’, in Fincham, K. and Lake, P. (eds), Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England: essays in honour of Nicholas Tyacke (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 193–208Google Scholar. Woodford mentions the word 108 times.

⁵¹ Seaver, P.S., Wallington's World: a puritan artisan in seventeenth-century London (1985), p. 129Google Scholar.

⁵² For forgetfulness, see Diary, pp. 182, 250.

⁵³ Ibid., pp. 227, 230.

⁵⁴ Ibid., p. 142. See the cases of Arthur Potter (ibid., p. 265) and the man described by Mr Stancy (ibid., p. 192). See also Seaver, Wallington's World, pp. 22, 31, 60.

⁵⁵ For another example of the comparison between material and spiritual defects, see Diary, p. 309.

⁵⁶ See also Seaver, Wallington's World, p. 129.

⁵⁷ Diary, pp. 110, 164.

⁵⁸ For condemnations of human merit and lauding of divine mercy, see ibid., pp. 112, 216, 227, 388.

⁵⁹ For humiliation see ibid., pp. 256, 282; for divine favour being better than life, see ibid., p. 227.

⁶⁰ For other examples, see ibid., pp. 236–237, 288.

⁶¹ For living to God forever, see ibid., p. 307.The apocalyptic optimism of 1641 gave rise to a particularly mystical example of this yearning for grace derived from the Old Testament: ibid., p. 388.

⁶² Ibid., p. 100.

⁶³ Further examples of his asking for the faith to bear his predicament: ibid., pp. 142, 228, 264.

⁶⁴ Ibid., pp. 103–104 (John), 399 (Samuel), 362–365 (Thomas).

⁶⁵ Ibid., pp. 264, 267–268.

⁶⁶ Ibid., pp. 145, 165, 167, 254, 267, 339, 362.

⁶⁷ Ibid., pp. 134, 164 (trefoil symbol), 249, 264, 357, 364, 369 (trefoil), 385 (trefoil).

⁶⁸ Ibid., pp. 263–264, 267, 282.

⁶⁹ For reference to providences, see ibid., pp. 385, 387; for Woodford's relief from melancholy, see ibid., p. 275; for God as deliverer, see ibid., pp. 167, 226, 267; for Woodford's conversion and spiritual history, see ibid., pp. 161, 165, 258, 396.

⁷⁰ Ibid., pp. 262 (trefoil, a covenant), 234, 237.

⁷¹ Ibid., pp. 167, 256 (trefoil), 397.

⁷² Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 113–128Google Scholar; Carlton, C., Charles I: the personal monarch (London, 1983), p. 94Google Scholar; J. Morrill, ‘Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658)’, in ODNB; Diary, pp. 223, 247, 265, 286.

⁷³ Diary, pp. 302, 339.

⁷⁴ Ibid., p. 298.

⁷⁵ Ibid., pp. 95, 156, 400–401.

⁷⁶ Ibid., pp. 112, 120, 123, 146, 315, 324; Schücking, L.L., The Puritan Family: a social study from the literary sources (London, 1969), pp. 67–68Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ Diary, p. 152. Quotations are from NCA 9494, front section. Woodford's education of his children had apparently paid dividends. Samuel Woodford's attempts at spiritual autobiography owed much to his father's influence. For instance, two of them (that published in Ferrell, ‘Imperfect diary’, and NCA 9494) begin with similar appeals for privacy. These two also demonstrate a similar spiritual purpose to his father's volume, namely to provide the autobiographer with assurance and to proselytise his posterity.

⁷⁸ Diary, p. 271.

⁷⁹ As part of their poor relief provision, the town government attempted to enforce the employment only of Northampton residents as servants: Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 180, 326.

⁸⁰ For the Curwyns, see Diary, p. 121, n. 115.

⁸¹ Ibid., p. 309.

⁸² Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, pp. 113–128.

⁸³ Seaver, P.S., Wallington's World: a puritan artisan in seventeenth-century London (1985), p. 37Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Webster, T. and Shipps, K. (eds), The Diary of Samuel Rogers, 1634–1638, Church of England Record Society XI (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. xlii–xlviiGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁵ Diary, p. 392.

⁸⁶ Ibid., pp. 221, 262, 280, 386.

⁸⁷ Ibid., p. 313 and n. 721.

⁸⁸ Lake, P., ‘William Bradshaw, antichrist, and the community of the godly’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), pp. 582–585CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁹ Woodford held that ungodly ministers should not be allowed to give communion to the godly (Diary, p. 289), and questioned whether it was contrary to divine law to receive the sacrament in the presence of those who were overtly profane (ibid., pp. 188–189).

⁹⁰ Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 115, 304–305, 552. Martin was the nephew of Francis Foster of Whiston, a radical puritan minister deprived for nonconformity in 1605. Martin and the godly had clashed with John Lambe in 1607, and he later led the opposition to Lambe's chancellorship of the diocese, being instrumental in promoting charges against him (with the support of Sir Edward Montagu) to the 1621 parliament, which Lambe survived only by activating his influence at court through the Lord Keeper, John Williams: see Sheils, Puritans, p. 81; Longden, Clergy (Foster); TNA, STAC8/205/19; Fielding, ‘Peterborough’, pp. 84–85, 185, 188. Martin was later accused of entertaining the minister John Woods at a conventicle in his house: PDR, CB A2, under dates 29 May 1628, 15 June 1629, and 13 July 1629; NRO, Finch (Hatton) MSS, F(H) 133.

⁹¹ PDR, Archdeaconry of Northampton Wills, third series, A178.

⁹² Vestry Minutes, pp. 30–31; Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 441, 552, 568.

⁹³ Diary, pp. 212–213.

⁹⁴ Vestry Minutes, pp. 33–37; Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 17, 441, 552.

⁹⁵ Book of Orders, p. 18, also entry dated 23 October 1637; Vestry Minutes, pp. 17, 21, 25, 29, 32, 34, 36, 38; Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 171–172, 441, 552, 561–562; PDR, CB A2, under dates 29 May 1628, 15 June 1629, 13 July 1629; TNA, PROB/11/263; Ford, G., ‘Where's Whalley? The search for Sir Samuel uncovers a Whalley–Cartwright alliance in Northamptonshire’, Northamptonshire Past and Present, 62 (2009), p. 38Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, p. 115; Diary, pp. 95 (and n. 1), 155, 336–337.

⁹⁷ Diary, p. 186.

⁹⁸ Ibid., p. 239.

⁹⁹ Ibid., pp. 255, 267–268.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid., pp. 188, 370.

¹⁰¹ J. Fielding, ‘Ball, Thomas (1590–1659)’, in ODNB; Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, p. 384.

¹⁰² Diary, p. 107, n. 49.

¹⁰³ The lecture differed from those held in many market towns in that it was not held on a market day but on Thursday, which had been of civic significance as far back as the Order of 1571. From May 1630 the mayor and aldermen met fortnightly after the lecture to discuss town affairs. The lecture (which dated from 1629 and perhaps even from Jacobean times) occurs in the records in 1654. In 1656 Alderman John Gifford elicited the help of Sir Gilbert Pickering and Cromwell's son-in-law, Lord John Claypole, to support the ministers in the town, and the last reference to it is in March 1658: Markham and Cox, Northampton, I, p. 128; II, pp. 49, 400; Fielding, ‘Peterborough’, p. 159, n. 6; Sheils, Puritans, pp. 120–122.

¹⁰⁴ Diary, pp. 146, 276, 365.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid., pp. 109 n. 63, 153, 160, 187, 309, 337.

¹⁰⁶ Pentlow of Wilby (d. 1657) served assiduously on county committees and on the bench during the Civil War and Protectorate periods: his memorial inscription at Wilby proudly stated that, after serving for ten years as a justice of the peace, he had finally been made of the quorum. See P.R. Brindle, ‘Politics and society in Northamptonshire, 1649–1714’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 1983), pp. 134–135, 138–139, 143, 144, 150–151; VCH Northamptonshire, IV, p. 147; TNA, PROB/11/263; Historical Gazetteer of London before the Great Fire (London, 1987), pp. 118–125; Bridges, History of Northamptonshire, II, p. 156. For Pentlow of Broughton and Weston Favell, who was married to Isabel (née Eakins), see Venn, under William Pentlow; Metcalfe, Visitation of Northamptonshire 1618, p. 178; VCH Northamptonshire, IV, p. 109; PDR, Church Survey Book 5, fos 13r, 131; TNA, PROB/11/153.

¹⁰⁷ Longden MS, 17 March 1627; Fielding, ‘Ball, Thomas’; J. Fielding, ‘Perne, Andrew (c.1595–1654)’, in ODNB; R. Cust, ‘Sherland, Christopher (1594–1632)’, in ODNB; Longden, Clergy; PDR, CB 61, under 11 July 1630; PDR, CB A63, fos 192, 408, 417, 425; TNA, SP16/308/52; E. Allen, ‘Everard, John (1584?–1640/41)’, in ODNB; TNA, STAC8/35/3; TNA, SP16/251/25. Robert Ragdale had been excommunicated in 1626 for insulting the local conformist minister: PDR, CB 58, unfoliated, 28 July 1626; PDR, Miscellaneous Book 5b, fo. 2r.

¹⁰⁸ Diary, pp. 95–96, 150, 186–187, 323, 370.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid., pp. 197, 326, 369.

¹¹⁰ Collinson, P., ‘“A magazine of religious patterns”: an Erasmian topic transposed in English Protestantism’, in Godly People: essays on English Protestantism and puritanism (London, 1983), pp. 499–526Google Scholar.

¹¹¹ Diary, pp. 99–100.

¹¹² Ibid., pp. 170, 259.

¹¹³ However, he did draft that of his friend Thomas Martin, and perhaps had a hand in its composition. Martin asserted man's impotence (‘he cannot p[ro]mise life to himselfe for one minute’), and his gratitude to God for all worldly and spiritual blessings. He stated his assurance of elect status (Christ had ‘layd up a crowne of immortality for me’) and his expectation of physical resurrection, of being ‘cloathed with my Skinne, & with these eyes of my body shall see my Redeemer’: PDR, Archdeaconry of Northampton Wills, third series, A178.

¹¹⁴ Houlbrooke, R., ‘The puritan death-bed, c. 1560–1640’, in Durston, C. and Eales, J. (eds), The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700 (1996), pp. 122–144CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁵ Thomas Freeman's will stated that he was ‘in hope and full assurance’ of resurrection. He also bequeathed money to both ministers of Cranford, Robert Lambe and John Fosbrooke: NRO, Archdeaconry of Northampton Wills, second series, G211; TNA, SP16/266/54.

¹¹⁶ Diary, p. 110.

¹¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 283, 302, 304, 308.

¹¹⁸ Ibid., p. 392.

¹¹⁹ Lake, P., ‘“A charitable Christian hatred”: the godly and their enemies in the 1630s’, in Durston, C. and Eales, J. (eds), The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700 (1996), pp. 145–183CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹²⁰ Cohen, C.L., God's Caress: the psychology of puritan religious experience (Oxford, 1986), pp. 148–149Google Scholar.

¹²¹ Diary, pp. 118, 179, 316.

¹²² J. Morrill, ‘Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658)’, in ODNB; P.R. Seddon, ‘Hutchinson, John (bap. 1615, d. 1664) in ODNB; Diary, p. 243.

¹²³ Diary, pp. 214, 218 and n. 456, 231, 232.

¹²⁴ Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 3, 116–117, 533. Woodford had been appointed by the upper chamber of the assembly, the mayor and aldermen (previous mayors).

¹²⁵ Ibid., pp. 103–106, 115–116, 130–132, 533.

¹²⁶ Diary, pp. 108–109, 163, 310.

¹²⁷ Ibid., pp. 173–174, 239, 253, 276, 319.

¹²⁸ Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 112–114, 130–132; Diary, pp. 119, 126, 160, 162, 290, 328, 371, 380.

¹²⁹ Diary, pp. 127, 323.

¹³⁰ Ibid., pp. 148, 155, 157, 172, 180, 182.

¹³¹ TNA, PROB/11/195; TNA, SP16/474/80; Diary, pp. 126, 127, 129, 150–152.

¹³² The corporation stayed put (Diary, p. 206), as did Thomas Ball (Fielding, ‘Ball, Thomas’). Francis Rushworth took a shop under the Swan Inn, Kettering (Diary, p. 243), while several of Woodford's neighbours sheltered at Wellingborough (ibid., p. 213).

¹³³ Ibid., pp. 203–204, 241, 249.

¹³⁴ Ibid., pp. 202, 210, 218–220, 230, 252.

¹³⁵ Ibid., pp. 97, 131, 219, 221, 229. Haunch had been elected to the livery in 1616 and was chosen as upper bailiff in 1636 and 1637: Plummer, A., The London Weavers’ Company 1600–1970 (London, 1972), p. 451Google Scholar.

¹³⁶ Bridges, History of Northamptonshire, II, pp. 289, 318; NRO, Tryon (Bulwick) MSS, T(B) 248, 259/6; TNA, STAC8/139/6.

¹³⁷ Diary, pp. 242, 246–248, 251.

¹³⁸ Ibid., pp. 283–284, 303; M. Dorman, ‘Curll, Walter (1575–1647)’, in ODNB.

¹³⁹ Brooks, C.W., Pettyfoggers and Vipers of the Commonwealth: the ‘lower branch’ of the legal profession in early modern England (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 197–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴⁰ Diary, p. 276 (stormy weather); Woodford mentions the flooding of the River Nene at Northampton and of the River Tove at Towcester, and flooding on land owned by Robert Pearson, perhaps at Walgrave, seven miles north of Northampton: ibid., pp. 349, 351.

¹⁴¹ Ibid., pp. 129, 198–199, 243, 299, 319–320, 323.

¹⁴² Ibid., pp. 310–312, 322–323, 325, 334, 339–341, 395, 397–398.

¹⁴³ Ibid., pp. 233–237, 249, 277–279.

¹⁴⁴ Ibid., pp. 105, 152–153, 156, 170, 179, 194–196, 242–243, 259, 274, 285–286, 302–303; TNA, PROB/11/235 (Watts), PROB/11/189 (Loe).

¹⁴⁵ Diary, pp. 155–156, 181, 238 (Hatton); 125–126, 327, 335 (Isham); 125, 161 (Bernard); 108, 158, 229 (Yelverton); 125, 203 (Nicolls); 244 (Cave); 132, 274 (Wolstenholme).

¹⁴⁶ Ibid., pp. 127, 133–134, 137, 149, 158, 175, 195, 287, 326–327, 329, 331, 402.

¹⁴⁷ Ibid., pp. 109–110, 136, 148, 170, 210, 260, 293, 343, 347–348, 371–373.

¹⁴⁸ Ibid., pp. 103, 141 (and n. 190 on Dillingham), 254, 288, 291, 368.

¹⁴⁹ Ibid., pp. 99, 299, 301, 325.

¹⁵⁰ Ibid., pp. 130–131, 175–176, 200, 274, 281, 377–378.

¹⁵¹ Lake, P., ‘William Bradshaw, antichrist, and the community of the godly’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), pp. 570–589CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Constitutional consensus and puritan opposition in the 1620s: Thomas Scott and the Spanish Match’, Historical Journal, 25 (1982), pp. 805–825.

¹⁵² Diary, pp. 106, 183, 270.

¹⁵³ Fincham, K., ‘The restoration of altars in the 1630s’, Historical Journal, 44 (2001), pp. 930–931CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fielding, ‘Peterborough’, pp. 95–118; TNA, SP16/474/80; TNA, SP16/370/51.

¹⁵⁴ PDR, CB A63, fos 430r–432v; TNA, SP16/474/80.

¹⁵⁵ Sheils, Puritans, pp. 6–7, 75–76, 87, 126–127; idem, ‘Some problems of government in a new diocese: the bishop and the puritans in the Diocese of Peterborough 1560–1630’, in O'Day, R. and Heal, F. (eds), Continuity and Change: personnel and adminstration of the Church in England, 1500–1642 (Leicester, 1976), pp. 167–187Google Scholar; idem, ‘Religion in provincial towns: innovation and tradition’, in Heal, F. and O'Day, R. (eds), Church and Society in England: Henry VIII to James I (London, 1977), pp. 156–176CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fielding, ‘Peterborough’, pp. 57–91.

¹⁵⁶ TNA, SP16/381/88; TNA, SP16/370/57; TNA, SP16/378/74; TNA, SP16/474/80; HLRO, main papers, petition of Farren and Rushworth, 6 February 1641; Hart, J.S., Justice upon Petition: the House of Lords and the reformation of justice 1621–1675 (London, 1991), p. 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵⁷ Diary, pp. 111, 307, 349, 351.

¹⁵⁸ The 1578 incidence had coincided with the suppression of puritan activity at All Saints’ and with unpopular foreign policy: marriage negotiations with the papist duc d'Anjou. In 1606, the issue had been local policy: Mayor (and physician) George Coldwell's suppression of alehouses had brought the plague's ravages to an end. See Sheils, Puritans, pp. 123–124; Walsham, A., Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999), p. 140Google Scholar; Raach, J.H., A Directory of English Country Physicians, 1603–1643 (London, 1962), p. 111Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁹ Diary, p. 253.

¹⁶⁰ The rail was demolished between 9 April and 16 June but probably nearer to the latter date: ibid., p. 197; TNA, SP16/393/15.

¹⁶¹ TNA, SP16/393/75; Diary, pp. 205–206; PDR, CB A57, unpaginated, dated 11 February 1634; PDR, CB 67, unpaginated, 3 August 1637.

¹⁶² Woodford tended to identify his own parish with the town as a whole. Whereas All Saints’ had repented, the three adjacent urban parishes had not and were still occupied by Laudians – two of them the appointees of Sir John Lambe – and possessed railed altars. Nevertheless, the pestilence had ceased in all four: PDR, Church Survey Book 5, fos 69, 78v, 80v, 83. The living of St Peter's was held by Dr Samuel Clarke, St Sepulchre's by Richard Crompton, and St Giles's by Richard Holbrooke. The latter two were clients of Lambe: Diary, p. 154, n. 237.

¹⁶³ Woodford had lodged at Beale's house on 10 September 1638.

¹⁶⁴ TNA, SP16/393/15. Bishop Matthew Wren of Norwich had persuaded Bishop William Juxon of London to use the tactic of suspension owing to plague against the Dedham lecturer, John Rogers, in 1636. Juxon failed to reinstate Rogers when the disease subsided: Webster, T. and Shipps, K. (eds), The Diary of Samuel Rogers, 1634–1638, Church of England Record Society XI (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. lxxii–lxxiiiGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶⁵ Webster, Godly Clergy, pp. 206–207.

¹⁶⁶ Lake, P., ‘Constitutional consensus and puritan opposition in the 1620s: Thomas Scott and the Spanish Match’, Historical Journal, 25 (1982), p. 808CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶⁷ Diary, pp. 242 (and n. 528 on Sawyer and n. 529 on Walker), 240 (and n. 524 on Freeman).

¹⁶⁸ Ibid., pp. 164, 272–273, 381.

¹⁶⁹ Pettit, Royal Forests, pp. 83–95.

¹⁷⁰ Cope, E.S., The Life of a Public Man: Edward, first Baron Montagu of Boughton, 1562–1644 (Philadelphia, 1981), p. 148Google Scholar.

¹⁷¹ Webster and Shipps, Diary of Samuel Rogers, p. lxxiii.

¹⁷² Diary, p. 264 (and n. 587 on Pidgeon).

¹⁷³ For other examples see ibid., pp. 173, 297.

¹⁷⁴ Webster and Shipps, Diary of Samuel Rogers, p. lxxv.

¹⁷⁵ Diary, pp. 246, 358.

¹⁷⁶ Fincham, K. and Tyacke, N., Altars Restored: the changing face of English religious worship, 1547–c.1700 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 177CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 227–228.

¹⁷⁷ Diary, pp. 144–145.

¹⁷⁸ Ibid., p. 271.

¹⁷⁹ Ibid., p. 325.

¹⁸⁰ For Dexter, see ibid., p. 367, n. 867.

¹⁸¹ Ibid., pp. 100, 154, 182, 219.

¹⁸² TNA, SP16/474/80.

¹⁸³ Webster and Shipps, Diary of Samuel Rogers, pp. xx, 97, 99.

¹⁸⁴ Diary, pp. 121 (and n. 115 on Curwyns), 176, 194; R.L. Greaves, ‘Lothropp, John (bap. 1584, d. 1653)’, in ODNB; G.A. Moriarty, ‘Genealogical research in England: Gifford: Sargent’, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 74 (1920, 1921), pp. 231–237, 267–283.

¹⁸⁵ Vestry Minutes, pp. 36–37.

¹⁸⁶ HLRO, main papers, petition of Farren and Rushworth, 6 February 1641.

¹⁸⁷ After a conference with Daniel Rogers at Ball's house, Woodford noted with approval that the schoolmaster ‘seemes to loath vayne Ceremonies’ (p. 164). Ramsden confirmed Rogers's nonconformity, accusing him of administering the communion without a surplice to sitters and himself receiving the sacrament ‘wth thone hand on his heade, & kneeling on thone knee’: TNA, SP16/474/80.

¹⁸⁸ Jackson, ‘Ship money’, pp. 134–135, 195–196; TNA, SP16/461/53.

¹⁸⁹ Diary, p. 118.

¹⁹⁰ I rely heavily on Stater, V.L., ‘The lord lieutenancy on the eve of the Civil Wars: the impressment of George Plowright’, Historical Journal, 2 (1986), pp. 279–296CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jackson, ‘Ship money’, pp. 32–45.

¹⁹¹ NRO, 55P/57, pp. 63–71, entry under date 19 July 1633; TNA, SP16/261/fos 85v, 91v, 101v, 109v, 117v, 125v, 174v, 214v, 230; NRO, 55P/68, under year 1637.

¹⁹² Temple of Stowe MSS, STT 1885, 16 May 1639; Diary, pp. 193, 195–198, 206, 230–232, 294.

¹⁹³ Temple of Stowe MSS, STT 1890, 3 June 1639.

¹⁹⁴ Diary, p. 101 and n. 22.

¹⁹⁵ TNA, SP16/414/163.

¹⁹⁶ TNA, SP16/474/80. Ramsden said that Charles Newton had criticized him for bowing at the name of Jesus, for standing up at the gloria patri and gospel, and for bowing when entering and leaving church. He had further condemned as idolatry Ramsden's worshipping the altar ‘before anything’. Francis Rushworth, the churchwarden, said that if he had offended Ramsden ‘he served mee right for that I bring new customes into their ch[urch] wch he neither found in the Canons rubricke nor was enjoyned by act of parliament’. Another group of townsmen had sent him the message (via the parish clerk, Fery) that ‘there is noe more holinesse in it [the church] than in his owne house’.

¹⁹⁷ Ramsden gave the following summary of the parish's attitude towards him: ‘I am smiled at by the ministers & better sort and laught out of the ch[urch] by the vulgar the men are a little more sparinge herein then heretofore but women and boyes were never so forward [. . .] I am counted a papist they say throughout the towne there cannot be a more scornfull parishe & censorious people in England’: TNA, SP16/474/80.

¹⁹⁸ TNA, SP16/414/163.

¹⁹⁹ Diary, p. 163 (n. 269 on Mottershed).

²⁰⁰ TNA, SP16/75/27, 271. I thank Richard Cust for these references; see also Cust, R.P., The Forced Loan and English Politics, 1626–1628 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 233Google Scholar, 297–298, 301, 309.

²⁰¹ Martin was active in securing Woodford's appointment. Woodford reimbursed him for his expenses in travelling to London about the dispute with Pilkington: Diary, p. 160.

²⁰² PDR, Archdeaconry of Northampton Wills, second series, L120.

²⁰³ Diary, pp. 324, 330; Jackson, ‘Ship money’, pp. 134–135; Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 436–437.

²⁰⁴ Diary, p. 293.

²⁰⁵ Ibid., pp. 342, 344–346, and notes.

²⁰⁶ Ibid., p. 373, and n. 887.

²⁰⁷ Ibid., pp. 349, 352–355, and notes.

²⁰⁸ The meeting was held at the Swan Inn, whose host, John Baxter, Woodford had upbraided for swearing on 29 September 1638, and who now provided much of the information used by Lambe in his prosecution of the clergy meeting at Kettering in the Court of Arches: Fielding, ‘Peterborough’, pp. 18, 161 n. 24, 220, 226 n. 24, 248–249; Webster, Godly Clergy, pp. 231–232.

²⁰⁹ Diary, p. 358.

²¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 368–369.

²¹¹ Ibid., pp. 375, 380.

²¹² Ibid., pp. 378–379, 382, 387.

²¹³ Ibid., pp. 378, 387.

²¹⁴ Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, pp. 438–442; NRO, Finch (Hatton) MSS, F(H) 133; P.R. Brindle, ‘Politics and society in Northamptonshire, 1649–1714’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 1983), pp. 134–135, 143, 144.

²¹⁵ See The Testimony of our reverend Brethren Ministers of the Province of London to the Truth of Jesus Christ And Our Solemn League and Covenant etc. Attested by Other Ministers of Christ in the County of Northampton (London, 1648); Liu, Tai, Puritan London: a study of religion and society in the City parishes (London, 1986), pp. 134Google Scholar, 226.

²¹⁶ Markham and Cox, Northampton, II, p. 454; Book of Orders, p. 69.

²¹⁷ John Clynte of Wichenford, clergyman, was disputing the rights to the tithes of Cransley with Francis Downes of Pytchley: Diary, p. 236.

²¹⁸ Churchwarden of Thorpe Malsor in 1637: PDR, Church Survey Book 5, fo. 130r.

²¹⁹ Steer, F.W., The Archives of New College, Oxford: a catalogue compiled by Francis W. Steer (Oxford, 1974), pp. 112–113Google Scholar; Woodforde, D.H. (ed.), Woodforde Papers and Diaries (London, 1932), p. xiiGoogle Scholar; HMC, Ninth Report (London, 1883), pp. 493–499Google Scholar.