Do Not Cite

"Gentry into Townsmen: the Problem of Honorary Burgesses in Augustan Age Britain" a paper for the MWCBS 1998 by Newton E. Key Eastern Illinois University October 29, 1998 --I--

Where were the "Nourceries of Sedition," decried by those who feared that the consensual socio-political order, which had collapsed during the English Civil Wars, was being prevented from being resurrected by caballing forces in the post-Restoration world?⁽¹⁾ Far from the watchful eye of Westminster and the London press lay the provincial corporations in which Dissent had grown during the Interregnum. Paul Halliday's careful research has recently given backbone to the argument voiced by Tim Harris and Mark Knights that partisanship originated more the localities than in Westminster. Specifically, Halliday states that partisanship arose in political infighting in dozens of English towns.⁽²⁾ Indeed, numerous seventeenth-century commentators, not to mention historians, agreed that "[a]ll the dangers from Faction arise mostly within Corporations."⁽³⁾ Certainly, before the regular Parliaments of the 1690s, even the most hardened politicos lived more in the localities than in Westminster or London. But, it is worth asking who brought partisanship to the Restoration town corporations and why.

Defining partisanship in the localities has become difficult since the revolution in Restoration historiography. The standard interpretation, J.R. Jones's The First Whigs (1961), had explained the exclusion crisis in terms of parliamentary organization maneuvered by the Earl of Shaftesbury. But, recently, Harris has argued that religion largely shaped partisan allegiances, and has called for more research into the provinces. More radically, Jonathan Scott has contended that the first parties were ideological, not organizational; that the true context of the crisis was historical, not the future development of party; and that the country as a whole shifted sentiment--the whig of 1679 became the tory of 1681. Even Knights's more balanced study points to religious and extra-parliamentary bases of partisanship--beyond exclusion--which Jones and other historians had ignored.⁽⁴⁾ In his rush to debunk the myth that the partisan actors of the 1680s operated within an eighteenth-century party structure, however, Scott ignores provincial divisions.

Historians of provincial borough politics have focused on the suppression of religious and political dissent (particularly through the Corporation Act of 1661 and the quo warranto campaign of the 1680s).⁽⁵⁾ Some claim that gentry "unity of purpose" allowed them to intervene successfully in borough politics, following the Restoration.⁽⁶⁾ But gentry unity does not fit easily with the view that the localities divided into parties. Typecasting the struggle as one between Whig towns and Tory country gentry ignores divisions within both town and gentry communities. Instead, country gentry linked town partisans with central leadership on both sides.

Evidence of gentry "descent" upon the corporations, before the 1680s, is sparse. Certainly the Corporation Act grew from a desire to prevent Restoration corporations from nuturing Dissent. But the Commons, the voice of the Restoration gentry, fought off the Lords amendments which, the lower House claimed, would have caused "the intermeddling of justices of peace of the counties in corporate towns."⁽⁷⁾ Under the resulting Act, local gentry served as commissioners to vet and, in some cases, thoroughly purge the corporations in 1662 and 1663. But the gentry soon surrendered their ad hoc commissions after this brief attempt to undo Interregnum changes. As Halliday has recently shown, local country gentry made use of similar commissions (the commissions of association) in at least twenty-one towns between 1664 and 1688 to intrude themselves as associated justices to act alongside the city JPs according to a town's charter.⁽⁸⁾ While these commissions usually served local and not Crown interests, they worked best when managed in conjunction with both town and county interests, and, in any case, their overall effect was limited to those judicial functions served by JPs. Instead, this paper focusses on country gentry interest in urban political organization. Historians have largely ignored the number of country gentry who became honorary town burgesses or freemen through "wine and thanks" rather than the customary fine. The phenomenon has been noted in Bewdley (where honorary burgesses were created in 1675-1676), Exeter (where twenty-two gentry were made freemen "by order of mayor and council" in 1676, twenty-three in 1680, and eleven more in 1681), and Norwich during the mid-1670s.⁽⁹⁾ And there were dozens of honorary freemen created in Hereford during the same period.

This paper focusses on the Herefordshire region, particularly Hereford and Leominster. Partisanship among Herefordshire gentry grew in the mid-1670s, after the local political consensus built in the 1660s collapsed largely because of religious enmities.⁽¹⁰⁾ In late 1675, a staunch Anglican squire perceived an opposition "close designing party" in Herefordshire. But naming names was difficult. Gentry associated with the local "cabal" overlapped with those considered loyal.⁽¹¹⁾ Nationally, the Earl of Danby attempted to distinguish sides in early 1676, by introducing a Test bill which would have required loyalty oaths for the most minor office holders.⁽¹²⁾ Unlike later historians who were drawn to Parliament, Shaftesbury recognized that partisan rot had begun at the borough level. In order "to make a distinct party," he noted, "the first step was made in the [Corporation] act," the oaths of which were parroted in the intended Test bill.⁽¹³⁾ Oaths were sought to make partisanship "bare-faced" in the localities, and, according to a Government apologist, "not to suffer Factions or particular Factions."⁽¹⁴⁾ In the 1680s, to oaths were added the subscription of a partisan address or charity. These miniature statements of ideology allowed organization and counter-organization, and became touchstones of proto-partisan politics at the lowest levels of borough administration. --II--

In January 1682, Herbert Aubrey, whose declining estate lay a few miles outside Hereford city, wrote to a friend at Whitehall to ask

whether you have seen or can [find] such a List as is mentioned in the printed Letter of Remarques [on the] Association, or whether you believe there was one made of [consider]able Persons in each County in England ranked in two Columns[:] the style of Worthy Men the one, the other of Men Worthy to [be hanged].⁽¹⁵⁾

The "List" refers to that which the Government seized in July 1681 along with the draft "Association" (a proposed Protestant para-militia) from Shaftesbury's study. A Tory tract, Remarques upon the New Project of Association, attacked the Association for claiming that the Duke of York had "created many and great Dependents upon him ...both in Church and State."⁽¹⁶⁾ Such an allegation signalled a new, horrific turn in political method.

From this Aversion toward a sort of people (in general) ...the next Step is the Naming of Particular Persons, the Discriminating of Parties; the Computing of Numbers & Interests, and so from Listing, to Pass on into Associations, and Levies.⁽¹⁷⁾

Both Shaftesbury's list and the Association moved towards extra-Governmental political and military organization.⁽¹⁸⁾ Yet Aubrey requested exactly this type of list. Such lists are the backbone of contemporary historiography of parliamentary organization. But Aubrey wanted a criterion to identify local partisans.⁽¹⁹⁾ Also, organization itself was ideological. Associating was a portent of civil war, whether from Shaftesbury's "men Worthy" or York's (or Danby's) "Dependents ...in Church and State." Aubrey, returned for Hereford as MP in 1681 and 1685, and other country gentry had long dominated local borough parliamentary seats.⁽²⁰⁾ But when the country gentry divided and sought borough support, Courtiers and local gentry needed inside assistance to understand borough complexities.⁽²¹⁾

Hereford might seemtoo sleepy a cathedral town to be listing partisans. The Corporation Act seems to have caused no upheaval and no commissions of association arose. But, during the mid-1670s, Presbyterian Paul Foley bought an estate near the city and began to make an interest there. Soon thereafter, several of his opponents appear to have been entered as honorary freemen. The Hereford mayor's accounts for 1676-1677, for the first time, list eight names (seven gentlemen, including Aubrey) whose guild merchants' fines are recorded simply as "wine and thanks."⁽²²⁾ For 1680-1681, there are nineteen names (seven gentry made honorary freemen), and for 1681-1682, there are ninety-four (seventeen gentry, including the lord lieutenant, Henry Marquess of Worcester as well as twelve clergy made honorary freemen) enrolled. Most identifiable gentlemen made freemen were Tories.⁽²³⁾ Several of those joined a small group of lay gentlemen who became commoners of the vicars college of Hereford Cathedral between 1662 and 1682.⁽²⁴⁾ In the 1680s, "many of the best gentry in the County" ate and drank at the college, which became a meeting-place for "Church and State" gentry in Hereford.⁽²⁵⁾

Hereford's incipient Church and State organization brought two clear partisan statements to the nation in the early 1680s. In May 1681, Aubrey delivered "The Humble Address of ...the City of Hereford" to Charles II. Besides the usual support of the King and his Declaration of 1681, the address scorned those who "slyly insinuate to the credulous People causeless Fears, and false Jealousies of Arbitrary Power."⁽²⁶⁾ In February 1682, twenty-two out of the thirty-one Hereford council members signed one of the first addresses "in abhorrence of the late association," which Aubrey had inquired after a month earlier. The council repudiated "such dangerous and horrid Societies."⁽²⁷⁾ They signed this address just four days after the mayor had announced that he would not contend the expected quo warranto against their charter.⁽²⁸⁾

Hereford was the first major city to surrender its charter during the 1680s.⁽²⁹⁾ As Halliday has found elsewhere, quo warranto began locally, not at Court. But local Tory gentry had a key role.⁽³⁰⁾ Local Tories began planning the surrender soon after the city elected both the Whig Foley and the Tory Aubrey in early 1681.⁽³¹⁾ By May, Aubrey corresponded with Secretary of State Sir Leoline Jenkins about a new charter. Jenkins (and Worcester) gave Aubrey instructions and repeatedly asked his advice, particularly "the names of the persons for the several offices to be specified in the new [charter]."⁽³²⁾ In January 1682, local Tories provided Whitehall a list of "Breaches" to their charter, which claimed that several council men recently elected had not taken the required oaths of allegiance and supremacy, against taking arms against the King, and against the Solemn League and Covenant.⁽³³⁾ This group probably included Nonconformists, though oaths had rarely been tendered to anyone in the city between 1662 and 1680.⁽³⁴⁾ In the surrendering and regranting of Hereford's charter, Aubrey worked closely with the mayor and twenty other council members who resolved to surrender their old charter and petition for a new one.⁽³⁵⁾ In April, Hereford's new charter was sealed.⁽³⁶⁾

Who was purged? Five former mayors (1676-1681), including Foley's electoral agent, were replaced. But both those removed and those inserted reportedly included men who had voted for the Whig Foley and had not taken the three oaths.⁽³⁷⁾ Gentlemanly status appears to have been the most consistently applied criterion. In 1682, five country squires were added to the two already on the council.⁽³⁸⁾ Country gentry became aldermen, council members, even jurymen, and (in 1683) mayor in order to insure success for the Tory revanche.⁽³⁹⁾

The new charter solidified already sizable Tory strength in the borough. To symbolize the transfer of power, the new high steward, Worcester, presented the mayor with a new sword and cap of maintenance, replacing those given by Foley in 1677.⁽⁴⁰⁾ In theory, Tories rejected appeals to anyone outside a narrow oligarchic political nation.⁽⁴¹⁾ In practice, Tory gentry worked with Tory townsmen, and led public celebration of Aubrey's return with Hereford's new charter, which included drums, bellringing, "[a]cclamations of the People," and bonfires. Evidently, they had dropped objections to "Vox Populi."

The new city council politicized the lowest echelons of local administration. In January 1683, Aubrey and other justices presided over Hereford sessions at which a jury of minor townsmen (headed by a gentleman alderman) dramatically stated public policy. City jurymen usually presented such mundane matters as the market pump in disrepair or ploughing up a public pathway. But the 1683 presentments outlined steps necessary "to secure the monarchy."

--We present that all persons who do not frequent the church according to law are Recusants--it being not possible to know the hearts of men for what cause they refuse to come to Church--and that all connivance or indulgence in that case upon any person is a ready way to bring in popery....

--We present as our opinion that popery and fanaticism are equally dangerous to the Government by law established.⁽⁴²⁾

The jurymen equated Dissent with Popery (earlier parish presentments had always distinguished Nonconformists from Recusants) and claimed that advocating union with Dissenters was treasonous. Given that local MPs Foley, Sir Edward Harley, and Col. John Birch had advocated just such a united front against popery and a "popish successor," the political implication was obvious. In 1684, even the inquest jury of the Law Days, or mayor's court, requested that "laws ...against Dissenters ...may be put in Execution."⁽⁴³⁾

The collapse of Hereford Whigs in the early 1680s did not signal an end to partisanship. On 29 May 1684, the first and perhaps only Herefordshire feast at Hereford Cathedral garlanded the local Tory triumph. The feast stewards were two country gentlemen who had been added to the city freemen lists in 1681-1682, and who fraternized at the vicars college.⁽⁴⁴⁾ The feast sermon advocated using Penal Laws against Dissenters, "so fond of their old Forty Eight Republican Principles." It satirized Whig appeals to the populace, by noting that the nation had "unanimously sent up our Petition ...to ...God ...to suppress all malevolent and disaffected Persons and Parties." And it recommended establishing a partisan charity: "a Fund for the Relief of some poor Veteran Soldiers, who had almost lost their Lives, but altogether their Fortunes, in the Service of our King and his Martyred Father."⁽⁴⁵⁾ --III--

Unlike Hereford, Leominster, the "little Amsterdam" of Dissenters, placed a similar number of "fanatics" and "loyalists" on its council.⁽⁴⁶⁾ Like Hereford, ideological statements and actions followed closely gentry descent into corporate politics. Early in 1682, Leominster subscribed a loyal address supporting "Your Majesties late Declaration," and Herefordshire squire Richard Hopton presented it to the King. The address was signed by only twelve of a council of twenty-five, and appeared among the last of the dozens supporting the King's Declaration.⁽⁴⁷⁾ Admitting there were "more timely and early Addresses," the rump council vowed to defend Church and State "against all Plots, attempts, and Conspiracies of Papists [or] Fanatics." In April, probably the same group subscribed a new address "against that ...Treasonable Association, and Fanatic Conspiracy."⁽⁴⁸⁾

Then, in late 1683 and 1684, addresses in abhorrence of the Rye House Plot appeared in print from virtually every corporate body in the region: Ludlow, Monmouth, Hereford, Newport, even tiny Weobley and Abergavenny.⁽⁴⁹⁾ As one contemporary noted, "every pitiful Borough being concerned in that piece of Courtship; and though the doing it signifies little, the omission might signify much."⁽⁵⁰⁾

One omission was Leominster. Though there exists an unsealed draft of a Leominster address which clearly refers to the Rye House Plot, it was never printed for two reasons. First, it was "from the Whigs of Leominster obtained by Esquire Colt from the Common Council men of his principles."⁽⁵¹⁾ Also the address displayed an unconvincing rhetoric of loyalty. The address disingenuously praises the "peace & plenty" enjoyed, "without the Loss or interruption of it by any Arbitrary power used by your Sacred Majesty or permitted in others," before hinting that only "designs of Rome could put us in a Condition to lose such blessings." Thus, the Rye House conspirators could not be Protestants, "but are indeed Atheistical, Antimonarchical, & Enthusiastic Villains & Traitors, though disguised under the name of Dissenting protestants."⁽⁵²⁾ Unique among Rye House Plot addresses this language hints at anti-absolutism and antipopery.

Quo warranto proceedings against Leominster lagged far behind those against Hereford. Their new charter was not sealed until January 1685.⁽⁵³⁾ One reason for the delay was that the Leominster "Whiggish" or "Fanatic party" was led by radical townsman John Dutton Colt, who represented the borough in all three Exclusion Parliaments, and by local gentry "Capt. Gorges and Mr. Coningsby of Hampton [Court]," whose estates lay just outside of Leominster.⁽⁵⁴⁾ Thomas Coningsby's Leominster supporters returned him to Parliament even in 1685, though his Whiggish sentiments were notorious, as were those of his father-in-law, Ferdinando Gorges of Eye manor (just north of Leominster).⁽⁵⁵⁾

Among Leominster's council, eleven or twelve Tories, advised by Judge Hopton, opposed thirteen or fourteen Nonconformists and Whigs, led and advised by Colt and the Coningsby family.⁽⁵⁶⁾ Each side tried to win over members of the other.⁽⁵⁷⁾ Hopton believed he had gained the upper hand against the Leominster "Fanatic party" when London's defense against quo warranto collapsed in 1683.⁽⁵⁸⁾ But the next month, Colt's faction subscribed the unsatisfactory Rye House Plot address, and refused to surrender the charter.⁽⁵⁹⁾ As late as February 1684, the new bailiff and Colt authorized a lawyer to defend their charter.⁽⁶⁰⁾ Only at the end of the bailiff's tenure (with Colt imprisoned, unable to pay £100,000 scandalum magnatum damages awarded to the Duke of York), did Hopton tactically remove eleven "loyal" council men, thus disenabling the twelve "of the fanatic party" to reach a quorum and elect a new bailiff, and automatically dissolving the corporation.⁽⁶¹⁾

The Leominster reincorporation forced a political shift. The new charter of 1685 reduced the council to fifteen, suggesting there was still no preponderance of Church and State Tories among the Leominster oligarchy. Worcester was made steward and Hopton, recorder.⁽⁶²⁾ The following four bailiffs were actively Tories or anti-Whig. Eleven of the fifteen new capital burgesses had signed the 1682 address.⁽⁶³⁾ --IV--

A small group of gentry of moderate estates opened partisan rifts in Herefordshire town corporations. About 1676, Church and State gentry increasingly participated directly in local borough politics. They advised like-minded men within Hereford and Leominster oligarchies and devised tactics to subscribe loyal addresses and to secure charter surrenders.⁽⁶⁴⁾ Their opponents included Whig squires.⁽⁶⁵⁾ Both Whig and Tory gentry meddled in local corporate affairs, politicizing town oligarchs who abandoned corporate solidarity.⁽⁶⁶⁾ Party, or at least partisan discussion in proto-party organizations, in the boroughs began before and intensified after the Exclusion Parliaments of 1679-1681.⁽⁶⁷⁾

Active Tory gentry in Herefordshire were in close contact with the powerful magnate Worcester between 1681 and 1684, and he became steward for both Leominster and Hereford.⁽⁶⁸⁾ Worcester had no traditional ties to either borough and held almost no land in the shire.⁽⁶⁹⁾ Thus, he depended on local gentry. Party ideology, not local faction or family, linked Worcester with his Herefordshire allies. And the the Hereford and Leominster council struggles reveal the ideological affiliation of many provincial gentry and borough officials.⁽⁷⁰⁾

Partisanship in provincial boroughs between 1676 and 1684 was both ideological and organizational. Country gentry, fighting over the meaning of "Church and State," provide the crucial link. Rather than being autochthonous seminaries of faction, town governments were often taught politics, especially the bitter politics of religion, by country gentlemen, who moved into positions briefly in the early 1680s in order to manipulate city grand inquests, law days, and quarter sessions and to encourage partisan statements. These new practices and ideology would be employed by townsmen in the second age of party after 1688. Finally, the Herefordshire region evidence does not suggest that gentry descent in corporate politics stemmed from a Restoration "triumph of the gentry."⁽⁷¹⁾ Rather, Aubrey, Hopton, Gregory, Dutton Colt and others most active in town politics were minor landowners. It may be that the mid-seventeenth century "fall of rents" pushed some marginal gentry into country town as opposed to county society.⁽⁷²⁾ In any case, these minor provincial figures helped create a new national political culture.

Notes

1. 1.Roger L'Estrange, A memento (1662), p. 232.

2. Paul D. Halliday, Dismembering the Body Politic: Partisan Politics in England's Towns, 1650-1730 (Cambridge, 1998), passim, esp., xi-xii.

3. 3.Thomas Twittey, "Opinion on the Surrender of the Worcester Charter," quoted in C.A.F. Meekings, "The Chamber of Worcester--1679 to 1689," Trans. Worcestershire Archaeological Society 3rd ser., 8 (1982), 7; J.R. Western, Monarchy and Revolution: The English State in the 1680s (1972), 52; J.H. Sacret, "The Restoration Government and Municipal Corporations," EHR 45 (1930): 232-59; Robert Pickavance, "The English Boroughs and the King's Government: A Study of the Tory Reaction, 1681-85" (D.Phil. diss., Oxford, 1976); Jennifer Levin, The Charter Controversy in the City of London, 1660-1688, and its Consequences (1969). But see John Miller, "The Crown and the Borough Charters in the reign of Charles II," EHR 100 (1985): 53-84, who argues there was no clear policy at the center.

4. 4.For recent historiography of "the Restoration crisis," see Mark Knights, Politics and opinion in crisis, 1678-81 (Cambridge, 1994); Jonathan Scott, Tim Harris, and Gary S. De Krey in the special issue, "Order and authority: creating party in Restoration England," Albion 25 (1993); Lionel K.J. Glassey, "Politics, finance and government," in The reigns of Charles II and James VII & II (New York, 1997), 56-70.

5. 5.G.C.F Forster, "Government in Provincial England under the Later Stuarts," TRHS, 5th ser., 33 (1983): 29-48; Joan W. Kirby, "Restoration Leeds and the Aldermen of the Corporation, 1661-1700," Northern History 22 (1986): 123-4, 129, 151; Judith J. Hurwich, "'A Fanatick Town': The Political Influence of Dissenters in Coventry, 1660-1720," Midland History 4, no. 1 (1977): 15, 23; the many articles by Michael Mullet (cited in Miller, "The Crown and the Borough," 53-84); James M. Rosenheim, "Party Organization at the Local Level: The Norfolk Sheriff's Subscription of 1676," HJ 29, 3 (1986): 713-4; L.K.J. Glassey, "The Origins of Political Parties in Late Seventeenth-Century Lancashire," Trans. of the Historic Soc. of Lancashire and Cheshire 136 (1987): 54. Though see the hypothesis of an ideological split in the provincial boroughs made by Gary De Krey, "The London Whigs and the Exclusion Crisis reconsidered," in The First Modern Society, ed. by A.L. Beier, David Cannadine and James M. Rosenheim (Cambridge, 1989): 457-82.

6. 6.Pickavance, "The English Boroughs and the King's Government," 311; Robert M. Bliss, Revolution and Empire (Manchester, 1990), 226; Peter Clark, "From godliness to gentrification," TLS (26 June 1992): 12; Kirby, "Restoration Leeds," 123. See also, Derek Hirst, The Representatives of the People? (Cambridge, 1975), 60-4; Jonathan Barry, "Introduction," The Tudor and Stuart Town (1990), 27; Philip Jenkins, The making of a ruling class: the Glamorgan gentry, 1640-1790 (Cambridge, 1983), 94.

7. CJ, VIII, 312, reprinted in John Miller, The Restoration and the England of Charles II, 2nd ed. (London, 1997), 103. For comment, see ibid., 39-40; Paul D. Halliday, "`A Clashing of Jurisdictions': Commissions of Association in Restoration Corporations," HJ 41, 2 (1998): 434.

8. Halliday, "'A Clashing of Jurisdictions,'" 425-55.

9. 9.Philip Styles, "The Corporation of Bewdley under the Later Stuarts," in Studies in Seventeenth Century West Midlands History (Kineton, 1978), 53-5 ; Margery M. Rowe and Andrew M. Jackson, eds., Exeter Freemen 1266-1967 (Exeter, 1973) ; Peter Bearman, private correspondence; idem and Glenn Deane, "The Structure of Opportunity: Middle-Class Mobility in England 1548-1689." American Journal of Sociology 98, no. 1 (1992); 62.

10. 10.Newton E. Key, "Comprehension and the breakdown of consensus in Restoration Herefordshire," in The Politics of Religion in Restoration England, ed. by Tim Harris, Paul Seaward, and Mark Goldie (Oxford, 1990), 191-215.

11. 11.P.R.O., SP29/376/58; CSPD, 1675-1676, 460-1 (26 Dec.).

12. 12.Andrew Browning, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds, 1632-1712 (Glasgow, 1951), 2:54-5. For the resumption of oaths in 1676, see, B. Cozens-Hardy, Norfolk Lieutenancy Journal, 1676-1701 (Norfolk Record Society, 30, 1961), 6-7.

13. 13.Shaftesbury, A Letter from a Person of Quality (1675), in The Works of John Locke (1823) 10:201, 213; Marvell, An Account of the Growth of Popery, and Arbitrary Government in England (1677), in Complete Prose Works, Alexander B. Grosart, ed., (1875) 4:305-7. See also Marvell's comment on the clergy's "Corporation Oath" in a letter to Sir Edward Harley of Herefordshire, 1 July 1676. The Poems & Letters of Andrew Marvell, ed. by H.M. Margoliouth, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), 2:346.

14. 14.[Marchamont Needham], A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions, Sent from London To the Men of Shaftsbury (1676), 11 (my emphasis). See also, Browning, Danby, 2:65; idem, "Parties and Party Organization in the Reign of Charles II," TRHS, 4th ser., 30 (1948): 28, 34.

15. 15.B.L., Add. MS. 28,875, f. 169 (7 Jan., to John Ellis). The letter is torn; probable missing words are placed in brackets.

16. 16.(Edinburgh, 1681) and (London, 1682); K.H.D. Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968), 656, 687.

17. 17.Remarques upon the New Project, 2.

18. 18.Remarques upon the New Project, 3.

19. 19.The actual lists seized would have disappointed Aubrey; Shaftesbury drew up lists only of Dorset gentry and of Cavalier Parliament members. Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury, 432-3.

20. 20.The proportion of country gentlemen to town residents returned for Hereford and Leominster between 1660 and 1690 was five to one. Geoffrey Edward McParlin, "The Herefordshire Gentry in County Government, 1625-1661" (Ph.D. diss., University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1981), 78; Basil Duke Henning, The History of Parliament. The House of Commons, 1660-1690 (1983), 1:263.

21. 21.Only once between 1650 and 1700 was a country squire elected bailiff of Leominster or mayor of Hereford. Thomas Harris, gent., bailiff, 1685 (possibly of Brodward, Ivington just south of Leominster); Herbert Westfaling, esq., mayor, 1683. Richard Johnson, The Ancient Customs of the City of Hereford, 2nd ed. (1882), 234-5; Geo. Fyler Townsend, The Town and Borough of Leominster (Leominster, [1863]), 294-5.

22. Hereford R.O., Hereford City Records, Mayor's Accounts, fairly complete, 1650-1690.

23. 23.Tory preponderance is clearer for 1680-81 and 1681-82, than for 1676-77. In 1676-77, freemen Aubrey, Marshall Brydges, and Herbert Herring became Tory stalwarts. James Baron Chandos became a moderate Whig. Hereford mayors added honorary freemen through the 1680s and 1690s though in much smaller numbers than 1680-2

24. 24.Hereford Cathedral Library, Vicars College Act Book, 1660-1717. Eighteen commoners are listed; 4 out of 9 who were created between Dec. 1673 and 1681 also were made freemen, 1676-1682.

25. 25.H.M.C., 13th Report, II, 292-3 (travel notes of Thomas Baskerville, compiled c. 1682-1683); B.L., Harl. MS. 5120, ff. 25a-26b; Badminton, 509.8.1 (22 Dec. 1683). In 1682, Hereford's remodelled council included four college commoners.

26. 26.Vox Angliae: Or, The Voice of the Kingdom (1682); To the King's most Excellent Majesty. The Humble Address of Your ...Subjects of ...Hereford. The cadence of the address echoes that of Aubrey's letters. Aubrey had written to Danby in 1679 of "the giddy multitude set upon by those that would jiggle us out of happy Government." H.M.C. 79. Supplementary Report on the Manuscripts of the Late Montague Bertie, Twelfth Earl of Linsey (1942), 35.

27. 27.London Gazette, no. 1695 (13-16 Feb. 1681/2); Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury, 677, 687.

28. 28.The Proceedings of the Citizens of Hereford in the Delivery up of their Charter and Renewing it (1682), 1.

29. 29.Pickavance, "The English Boroughs and the King's Government," ch. 4; CSPD, Jan.-Dec. 1682, 182-3 (27 April).

30. 30.B.L., Add. MS. 28,875, f. 169.

31. 31.Impartial Protestant Mercury, no. 114 (23-6 May 1682).

32. 32.CSPD, 1680-1681, 257, 289, 327-8, 521-2, 597-8, 648 (13 May-23 June and 18 Oct.-27 Dec. 1681); William Henry Cooke, [John Duncumb's], Collections towards the History and Antiquities of the County of Hereford (Hereford, 1804-1915), 3:42 (17 April 1682).

33. 33.It added that "the Persons are yet living that sent for it." The Proceedings of the Citizens of Hereford, 3.

34. 34.P.R.O., SP29/417/188. Though Hugh Rodd claimed that he took the oaths when he became mayor in 1675. P.R.O., PC2/65, 217-8. In 1680, only 13 out of 32 named council members had sworn the required oaths. John Price, An Historical Account of the City of Hereford (Hereford, 1796), 63-4.

35. 35.CSPD, 1682, 73, 109; Miller, "The Crown and the Borough Charters," 74. While one Whig newspaper claimed that the surrender of the Hereford charter was "much against [the mayor's] own Inclination" and that of most of the council, an anonymous Hereford Tory published a detailed rebuttal. Impartial Protestant Mercury, no. 114 (23-6 May 1682); Proceedings of the Citizens of Hereford, 2-3. See also Observator, no. 146 (31 May). The Tory tract includes the formal "Instrument of Resignation" written by the Hereford council, which the author recommends as a model for a campaign against all charters, "even to the greatest," that is London.

36. 36.Proceedings of the Citizens of Hereford, 3; P.R.O., SP44/66, 44-5; E.M. Jancey, The Royal Charters of the City of Hereford (Hereford, 1973), 26.

37. 37.Proceedings of the Citizens of Hereford, 3-4.

38. 38.Seven council men were titled esquire or better in 1682 as opposed to 2 in 1680 and 3 in 1698.

39. 39.See Aubrey's answer to his worried kinsman's fears that one of the gentry might be called on to be mayor, as councilmen. Hereford R.O., A81/IV/28, Papers of Marshall Brydges, uncataloged (28 Jan. 1682/3).

40. 40.London Gazette, no. 1720 (11-5 May 1682). By 1683, Worcester had his own appointees approved as aldermen by the Crown. CSPD, Jan.-June 1683, 346 (25 June).

41. 41.Proceedings of the Citizens of Hereford, 3.

42. 42.Hereford R.O., Hereford City Records, Quarter Sessions (31 Jan. 1682/3). The JPs were Mayor Clarke, Aubrey, Gower, Harford, Thomas Holmes, and Edward King. The city jurors were minor and politically unknown figures. But 5 of the 15--Holmes, Maylard, Smith, Matthews, Aubrey--had the same surnames as new common council men in 1682. Earlier, county and city justices had taken pains to distinguish popish recusants from others not coming to Church. See, for example, Hereford R.O., Q/SO/1, 112 (July 1668). In July 1683, county justices echoed the sentiments of the city jury. Idem, Q/SO/2, 179 (July 1683).

43. 43.Hereford R.O., Hereford City Records, Law Days (21 April).

44. 44.Both Morgan and Ernle became M.P.s in 1685; their activities belie historians' claims that James II's Parliament was composed of political neophytes. P.R.O., SP44/164, 946 (5 July 1683); Henning, The History of Parliament.

45. 45.Richard Bulkeley, A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral-Church of Hereford, On May the 29th 1684 (1685), "Dedication," 5-6, 13-5, 18.

46. 46.B.L., Loan 29/140 (19 July).

47. 47.P.R.O., SP29/418/65 (1 Feb. 1681/2); printed without signatories in London Gazette, no. 1692 (2-6 Feb.). Humphrey Lawrence, John Stead (town clerk), John Tompkins, Edward Hay, Thomas Foord, William Baylis(?), John Williams, John Clarke, Vincent Edwards, Thomas Jones, Richard Hodges, Samuel Seward.

48. 48.London Gazette, no. 1713 (17-20 April). By now, even tiny Caerleon in Monmouthshire, had returned a loyal address. Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714 (Oxford, 1867, 1969), 1:175.

49. 49.London Gazette, nos. 1844 (19-23 July, Ludlow), 1849 (6-9 Aug., Monmouth and Newport), 1855 (27-30 Aug., Hereford), 1862 (20-4 Sept., Weobley), 1874 (1-5 Nov., Abergavenny).

50. 50.Fell to Hutton, 9 Aug. 1683, quoted in Doreen J. Milne, "The Results of the Rye House Plot and their Influence upon the Revolution of 1688," TRHS 5th ser., 1 (1951): 102.

51. 51.A Herefordshire gentleman distinguished "those that formerly refused to join ...in our former Address & Abhorrence" from the "loyal party, who refused to sign the new address." P.R.O., SP29/429/95 (21 July 1683, Thomas Harris).

52. 52.Hereford R.O., W15/1 (1683).

53. 53.CSPD, 1682, 219 (27 May); P.R.O., SP44/335, 394-8 (c. 19 Dec. 1685); V.C.H. Hereford (1891), 399-401.

54. 54.CSPD, 1682, 575-7 (13 Dec. 1682).

55. 55.According one informant, Coningsby wrote from Oxford "that, the King's Guards were the greatest grievances of the nation, to all which Colt seemed to the deponent to consent." This suggests that Coningsby thought that the Guards were a greater threat than popery itself. P.R.O., SP29/419/150 (13 July 1682); CSPD, 1682, 290. An informant's lengthy report of Gorges's anti-Stuart, anti-episcopal, pro-Owen and Baxter, and pro-Parliament views is in ibid., 504-7 (27 Oct.). At least through 1682, Gorges "commonly associated with Col. Birch, Sir Edward Harley, Mr. Colt, Mr. Foley." Judge Richard Hopton thought he had recently become "satisfied with the government both in Church and State." CSPD, Jan.-June 1683, 93-4 (3 March 1682/3, to Beaufort). Hopton was often over-optimistic about turning radicals. But if there was a change, Gorges's view of his son-in-law, who ran off with Lady Scudamore in 1682 and then returned shame-faced, might have been a factor.

56. 56.F. Gainsford Blacklock, The Suppressed Benedictine Minsters, and other Ancient & Modern Institutions of the Borough of Leominster (Leominster, 1898), 263.

57. 57.See, for example, Hopton discussing bailiff John Williams. Badminton, 509.8.1 (n.d., c. 1682-1683).

58. 58.CSPD, Jan.-June 1683, 323 (18 June?). Judgement against London had been given on 12 June. For London, see Levin, The Charter Controversy in the City of London, passim.

59. 59.CSPD, July-Sept. 1683, 179-80 (21 July 1683, Harris to Chiffinch).

60. 60.CSPD, 1683-1684, 280 (19 Feb.), 396 (26 April).

61. 61.CSPD, 1683-1684, 89 (14 Nov. 1684, Hopton to Beaufort); CSPD, 1684-1685, 168-70 (8 Oct. 1684, Hopton to Beaufort).

62. 62.P.R.O., SP44/335, 394-8 (c. 19 Dec.); V.C.H. Hereford, 399-401. Under the new charter, the corporation elected the steward and the recorder; the latter formerly had been appointed by the Crown. Presumably the Crown reserved the right of approbation. Blacklock, The Suppressed ...Minsters ...of Leominster, 214-5.

63. 63.P.R.O., SP44/335, 394-8 (c. 19 Dec. 1684).

64. 64.For offices held by Aubrey, Geers, Price, and Hopton, see Henning, History of Parliament; W.R. Williams, The History of the Great Sessions in Wales, 1542-1830 (Brecknock, 1899), 106-7, 141-3; [Edmund Curll], The Life of the Late Honourable Robert Price, Esq (1734), 11-2. Other Tory gentry active in regional town politics include Thomas Prise and Sir John Morgan.

65. 65.The Harleys even collected legal advice about borough charters. B.L., Loan 29/390 (15 Sept.). See also Thomas Geers's evasive report to Foley about Hereford's charter. Hereford R.O., Foley Collection, E12/F/IV/box 2 (11 March 1681/2).

66. 66.See B.L., Loan 29/145 (19 June 1683); Hereford City Library, Harley MS., no. 60. Rarely did townsmen voice resentment of gentry intrusion into borough politics. Once, in 1684, Beaufort (formerly Worcester) feared that outside influence in Leominster had "tickled the fanatic party there and caused them to jeer at the loyal party." CSPD, 1684-1685, 173-4 (15 Oct.), 186 (28 Oct. 1684). But this referred to one squire's attempt to profit from uncollected tolls. For the argument that Whigs capitalized on resentment of country influence, in Jones, The Revolution of 1688 in England, 44.

67. 67.See Andrew M. Coleby, Central Government and the Localities: Hampshire 1649-1689 (Cambridge, 1987), 212-3.

68. 68.Several of their letters are in Badminton, 509.8.1.

69. 69.Hopton hoped that Beaufort would purchase the manor and fee farm rents of Leominster held by Major Wildman, but he did not. CSPD, 1683-1684, 89 (14 Nov. 1684).

70. 70.Colt, leader of the Leominster "fanatic" party, had attacked the religious test in the Corporation Act, by introducing a bill in 1680 to repeal the oath renouncing the Covenant for borough officers. H.M.C., 12th Report, Appendix, Part IX (1898), 104 (24 Dec.). The situation in Hereford city was less clear, in part because the Presbyterian Foley openly proclaimed his patronage of Anglican livings in the city. Nehemiah Lyde, A Narrative of the Life of Mr. Richard Lyde of Hereford (1731), 37-8; Hereford R.O., Foley Collection, E12/F/IV/box 2 (10 Dec. 1677, Richard Reed).

71. As has been argued by Anthony Fletcher, Reform in the Provinces (New Haven, 1986), 351-73; Halliday, "'A Clashing of Jurisdictions'," 442. Felicity Heal and Clive Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500-1700 (Stanford, 1994), 226-42, questions that triumph.

72. See James M. Rosenheim, the Emergence of a Ruling Order: English Landed Soceity, 1650-1750 (London, 1998), 253-5.