Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire, 1620-1660 (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History)

Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History

POLITICS, SOCIETY AND CIVIL WAR IN WARWICKSHIRE, 162.0-1660

Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History Series editors ANTHONY FLETCHER

Professor of History, University of Durham JOHN GUY

Reader in British History, University of Bristol and JOHN MORRILL

Lecturer in History, University of Cambridge, and Fellow and Tutor of Selwyn College

This is a new series of monographs and studies covering many aspects of the history of the British Isles between the late fifteenth century and the early eighteenth century. It will include the work of established scholars and pioneering work by a new generation of scholars. It will include both reviews and revisions of major topics and books which open up new historical terrain or which reveal startling new perspectives on familiar subjects. It is envisaged that all the volumes will set detailed research into broader perspectives and the books are intended for the use of students as well as of their teachers. Titles in the series The Common Peace: Participation and the Criminal Law in Seventeenth-Century England CYNTHIA B. HERRUP

Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire, 1620—1660 ANN HUGHES

London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II: Propaganda and Politics from the Restoration to the Exclusion Crisis TIM HARRIS

Criticism and Compliment: The Politics of Literature in the Reign of Charles I KEVIN SHARPE

Central Government and the Localities: Hampshire 1649-1689 ANDREW COLEBY

POLITICS, SOCIETY AND CIVIL WAR IN WARWICKSHIRE, i620-1660

ANN HUGHES Lecturer in History, University of Manchester

The right of the University of Cambridge to print and sell all manner of books was granted by Henry VIII in 1534. The University has printed and published continuously since 1584.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS London

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The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Cambridge University Press 1987 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1987 First paperback edition 2002 A catalogue recordfor this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Hughes, Ann. Politics, society and Civil War in Warwickshire, 1620-1660. (Cambridge studies in early modern British history). Bibliography. Includes index. 1. Great Britain - History - Civil War, 1642-49. 2. Great Britain - Politics and government - 1603-1714. 3. Warwickshire - History. I. Title. II. Series. DA415.H84 1987 942.4'8062 86-34329 ISBN 0 52133252 4 hardback ISBN 0 52152015 0 paperback

For my mother and my sister and in memory of my father

CONTENTS

List of maps and plan

page viii

List of tables

ix

Preface

xi

Acknowledgements Abbreviations and notes

xiii xv

1

The social context

i

2

Peers and gentlemen before the Civil War

21

3

Public affairs 1620-1639

51

4

The coming of the Civil War 1639—1642

114

5

Military rule 1642—1649

169

6

Militancy and localism in Warwickshire politics 1643-1649

220

7

The impact of the Civil War

255

8

Politics and religion 1649-1662

291

Appendix 1 Local governors 1620-1660

344

Appendix 2 Active county committeemen 1643-1647

360

Bibliography of manuscript and printed sources

365

Index

3J7

MAPS

1 2 3 4 5

The river Avon and farming regions Towns, administrative divisions and main roads Civil War garrisons Parishes claiming contributions to royalist forces Parishes whose losses are discussed in the text

page

3 19 209 211 261

PLAN 'Wastage' in Colonel Castle's company 1643-6

201

TABLES

1 2 3 4 5 6a 6b 6c 7a 7b 8 9 10

'Open villages' by hundred The origins of the Warwickshire gentry The wealth of the Warwickshire gentry Marriage connections of 1640 heads of families The educational experience of 1640 heads of families Thomas Basnet's receipts and payments 1642-50 Receipts from proposition money Money received from sequestrations The Coventry Subcommittee of Accounts The Warwick Subcommittee of Accounts Numbers of taxpayers 1628-64 Civil War losses Orders and indictments concerning alehouses 1625-65

Page

7 29 31 39 44 185 185 186 240 241 260 262 287

PREFACE

Many different motives, intellectual and personal, can inspire research and writing on local history.1 Much work from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries has been based on an affection for a native area and its people, or on the desire to trace the impact of dramatic 'outside events' such as the Civil War on a particular locality. Since the Second World War, local history has often served as a laboratory in which general historical theories could be tested. The county has been a logical unit for assessing the various theories about the fortunes of landed elites, summed up as the 'gentry controversy'.2 Village studies have been used to assess demographic patterns or processes of social and cultural differentiation. 3 This present work is influenced, distantly it may sometimes seem, by the approach of Alan Everitt, who developed the concept of the 'county community', and who, like others of the 'Leicester school' of local historians has emphasised the importance of seeing local communities of all types as entities with their own character and integrity, not simply as arenas for 'national events' or collections of manageable sources for the testing of general theories.4 In the course of the over-long gestation of this study of Warwickshire, I have become more self-conscious or critical about the use of such phrases as the 'local' or the 'county community'. The complacent use of these 1 2 3

4

For a cogent recent discussion: Stephen K. Roberts, Recovery and Restoration in an English County. Devon Local Administration 1646-16JO (Exeter, 1985), Introduction. J.T. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry From the Reformation to the Civil War (1969); B.G. Blackwood, The Lancashire Gentry and the Great Rebellion 1640-1660 (Chetham Society, 3rd series, 25,1978). Margaret Spufford, Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1974); Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Piety in an English Village: Terling, 1525-iyoo (New York, 1979). See especially Alan Everitt, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion (Leicester, 1966); Alan Everitt, The Local Community and the Great Rebellion (Historical Association Pamphlet, 1969). Two wide-ranging studies which broadly, although not uncritically, follow Everitt are J.S. Morrill, Cheshire 1630-1660: County Government and Society during the 'English Revolution' (Oxford, 1974) and Anthony Fletcher, A County Community in Peace and War: Sussex 1600-1660 (London, 1975)-

xii

Preface

terms has too often meant the existence of a community is assumed rather than demonstrated or analysed.5 I have tried, therefore, to isolate the various elements - economic, social, religious, administrative and political - which created a variety of overlapping local communities in Warwickshire, involving both the county gentry's relationships with each other, and their relationships with different social groups. 'Communities' are seen not as naturally existing, but as created and developing in specific and concrete ways. Two further considerations have been important in this work. Firstly, I have examined the links between the county and the national polity from the 1620s to the early 1660s, and in the process I have become sceptical about notions of a sharp contradiction between local and general concerns. In the second place I have, immodestly, undertaken this study in the belief that particular analyses can illuminate general problems. Although I hope something of the specific character of Warwickshire in the first half of the seventeenth century is here revealed, I would not wish to justify another county study on the basis of the unique nature of this particular county. In part, and sometimes over-polemically, I have attempted in my work on Warwickshire to demonstrate how certain ideas about the 'county community' and about relationships between the centre and the localities have been closely linked with a particular interpretation or approach to the origins and nature of the Civil War. 6 More discursively, and perhaps more subtly I have tried to unravel the complex interactions of social, religious and political developments in the coming, impact and aftermath of the Civil War in Warwickshire. I hope the discussion that follows will contribute in some measure to the general understanding of the political and religious history of England in its social context from the 1620s to the 1660s. 5

6

Cf. Clive Holmes, 'The County Community in Stuart Historiography', J.B.S., vol. 19 (1980); Ann Hughes, 'Warwickshire on the Eve of the Civil War: A "County Community"?', Midland History, vol. 7 (1982). Hughes, 'County Community'.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book began life more years ago than I care to admit as a doctoral thesis. I owe a great debt to my supervisor Dr Brian Quintrell for his meticulous criticism, extensive knowledge of the sources and, above all, for never seeming to doubt that I would finish. During my years of research in London I enjoyed the friendship of many others working on early modern England; I would like to thank in particular Teri Moores, Patricia Croot, Trish Crawford, Stephen Roberts, David Hebb, Rod Martin, Terry Smith and Jacky Levy. I am grateful to Gerald Aylmer, Anthony Fletcher, Clive Holmes, Mark Kishlansky, Peter Lake, John Morrill, Ian Roy and Conrad Russell for comments on all or part of my thesis, and to Christopher Hill for much encouragement and advice. My Special Subject students at Manchester, 1981-5, helped me to clarify and develop my ideas. I would like to thank the owners of all the private manuscript collections I have consulted and the staff of all the record offices and libraries I have used. I am especially grateful to the archivists at Coventry, Stratford and Warwick for their help over many years. Barbara Medley, with the help of other members of the History Department Office, typed the book with skill, speed and enthusiasm; I thank them very much. The care and support of many friends who are not seventeenth-century historians has been crucial in enabling me to finish this book. I thank them all, singling out only Les Garner who was there at the beginning, and Karen Hunt who has seen the book completed. During most of the time I was writing this work I lived with John Booker, and Angela, David and Michael Trikic, and I am very grateful for the happy environment they provided. The dedication records my earliest debts, and my greatest debt is to Richard Cust. Many years ago he revived my flagging interest in seventeenth-century England; ever since he has provided vital encouragement, and a steady stream of useful suggestions and important references.

xiv

Acknowledgements

Our daughter Alice has been a delightful distraction in the later stages of my work on this book. Ladybarn, July 1986

ANN HUGHES

ABBREVIATIONS AND NOTES

A. and O.: A.P.C.: B.A.S.T.: B.I.H.R.: B.L.: B.Ref.Lib. C.C.A.M.: C.C.C.:

C.J.:

Cov. C.R.O.: C.R.O.: C.S.P.D.: C.S.P.V.: D.N.B.: Dugdale: Dugdale (Hamper): Dugdale (Thomas): Ec.H.R.: E.H.R.: F. and D.\

H.J.:

Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, C.H. Firth and R.S. Rait, eds., 3 volumes (1911) Acts of the Privy Council of England Birmingham Archaeological Society, Transactions Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research British Library Birmingham Reference Library Calendar of the Committee for Advance of Money Calendar of the Committee for Compounding journals of the House of Commons Coventry City Record Office County Record Office Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Calendar of State Papers, Venetian Dictionary of National Biography William Dugdale, The Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656) The Life, Diary and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale, William Hamper, ed. (1827) William Dugdale, The Antiquities of Warwickshire . . . revised and continued by William Thomas, 2 volumes (1730) Economic History Review English Historical Review C.H. Firth, assisted by Godfrey Davies, The Regimental History of Cromwell's Army, 2 volumes (1940) Historical Journal

xvi

Abbreviations and notes

H.M.C.:

Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Reports Journal of British Studies Journal of Modern History Lichfield Joint Record Office Journals of the House of Lords Public Record Office Warwick County Records volumes I-IV: Quarter Sessions Order Books 1625-1665, S.C. Ratcliff and H.C. Johnson, eds. (Warwick, 1935-8) Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-onAvon, Records Department Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Victoria County History (for Warwickshire, unless otherwise stated) Warwick County Record Office

J.B.S.: J.M.H.: Lich.J.R.O.: L.J.: P.R.O.: Q.S.O.B.:

S.B.T.: T.R.H.S.: V.C.H.: W.C.R.O.:

All dates are given 'old style' except that the year is taken to begin on 1 January. The place of publication for all printed works cited is London unless stated.

i&

\



Public affairs 1620-1639

101

for an analysis of the relations between the county and the central government. The first major attempt to raise money was the distraint for knighthood launched after much discussion in January 1630. All those who had held lands worth more than £40 p.a. for three years before the coronation and had not then been knighted, were required to pay a fine equal to two and a half times their subsidy assessment. In 1631 this rate was raised to three and a half times the assessment with a minimum of £25 for J.P.s and £10 for others. Thus this levy had a more limited range than the forced loan, paid by all subsidy men, but the individual payments, especially for poorer gentry were much higher. Initially those liable were to compound in London but under this procedure it was mainly men from the home counties who paid up. No fines were paid by Warwickshire men until 28 April 1630, and only five had paid by the end of May.170 Consequently in June 1630, the government decided that local commissioners should supervise compositions and collect the fines. Four commissions were issued for Warwickshire: on 16 June 1630, 12 February and 29 June 1631, and 13 February 1632. For the first three writs at least, the service was led by the second Earl of Northampton, 'on his first entrance into business', and involved a senior gentleman from each hundred of the county. Sir Richard Verney, who died in August 1630 and was succeeded by his son Sir Greville, was the commissioner for Kineton Hundred; Sir Thomas Holte for Hemlingford; Basil Feilding for Knightlow; and Sir Robert Lee, who also acted as collector, for Barlichway.171 Initial lists of those liable had been compiled by the sheriffs from November 1627, but the instructions issued to local commissioners in June 1630 gave powers to consult a wide range of local officials and sources. In fact, in Warwickshire, the commissioners seem to have relied mainly on lay subsidy rolls: some fines were paid jointly by two men, who were not always related, as joint lessees of important estates were charged in the subsidy. There was much inconsistency, however, and the arbitrary allocation of many fines increased the resentment of those affected. The unfairness affected the poorest and richest of the gentry in particular. The £10 minimum meant that men whose subsidy assessments were below £3 paid more than the three and a half times rate. In Warwickshire this 170

171

H.H. Leonard, 'Distraint of Knighthood: The Last Phase 1625-1641', History, vol. 63 (1978), 2337 is the most recent general study, and the source for general procedures in the succeeding paragraphs. For Warwickshire town fines before June 1630: E401/1916-17; E401/2448. Details of the activities of the first commission are in P.R.O. E178/7154/186-8; under the second and third E178/5687. All that is known of the proceedings under the fourth is the amount paid: Lee's accounts E101/634/2; and E401/2452: £36 paid in June 1632; E401/1920, £20 paid in June 1633. For the death of Sir Richard Verney and the activities of Northampton: SP16/172/92: Lee to Conway, 24 August 1630.

102

Politics, society and Civil War

involved almost half of the men paying fines: 101 out of 231.172 Why some men whose subsidy assessments were 40s or 20s were singled out for distraint when many others were left alone is impossible to decide; it may be that the commissioners had more up-to-date information. The resulting bitterness of men who had to pay five or even ten times their subsidy assessment is easy to imagine, especially as their fines were often the same as those of men with much higher subsidy assessments. Thomas Corbin of Hall End, for example, paid the £10 minimum although he was rated at £6 for the subsidy. At the highest level it is clear that J.P.s were treated very leniently compared with other gentry of comparable wealth. Seven J.P.s had to compound for knighthood: four paid the £25 minimum despite subsidy assessments of at least £20 in each case. 173 Two of the three paying more than £25 opposed the first county commission, and the other paid very late in the town yet none of their fines was more than £3