Introduction

Summary

The relationship between center and localities has fascinated historians of early modern England for decades. For an era that descended into civil war and eventual revolution, understanding how subjects related to royal government and responded to its demands remains a critical subject of inquiry. Questions about alienation or connection, division or consensus, have animated lively debates about the coming of the conflict at mid-century. Increasingly, historians have looked beyond identifying seeds of discord, examining instead the ways that local people governed themselves and interacted with central authority. In doing so they seek to reveal how early modern government worked, in all its strengths and weaknesses. This book investigates these critical questions through the lens of urban governance – in particular, provincial corporate towns – to explore how early Stuart government worked and how it changed over time.

Provincial towns, until relatively recently, have garnered less attention among scholars of the early modern period than county and parish communities. Relative to other parts of Europe, England (and Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) were curiously un-urban, except for the great metropolis of London and a handful of smaller regional or national capitals. Nothing comparable to the independent city-states of Italy or the Hanse towns of Germany and the Low Countries existed in England; even the cities with ancient liberties, like London or Bristol, operated under the king's authority. London has attracted more attention, as the metropolis far outran every other urban place in terms of population, economic power, and political pull. Its economic primacy, political significance, and proximity to the royal court gave it a unique place in the early Stuart state. Yet as this book reinforces, provincial towns served a vital role; they, rather than London, are the focus of this inquiry. Provincial towns supported the crown's governance and security in many ways, and they bore a relatively heavy burden for the realm, particularly in times of trade depression, plague, and war. Their concerns linked local problems with national issues; their corporate charters linked them directly to the prerogative authority of the crown. Both the corporate nature of their governance and the urban features of their situation – commercial economy, dense population, unique political culture – shaped the experience of the towns within the early modern state.