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2. James II's Whig Collaborators

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. R. Jones
J. R. Jones
Affiliation:
King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

The purpose of this communication is to describe the composition, and to analyse the character and motives, of those who collaborated with James II in his attempts in 1687–8 to pack a subservient parliament by intensive canvassing and by prearranging elections. These attempts have usually been dismissed as foolish, futile, provocative and inevitably disastrous, with the result that both the techniques and the agents employed in the campaign have not been thought worthy of serious attention.

Type
Notes and Communications
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 1960 , pp. 65 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

1 P[ublic] R[ecord] Office], Baschet transcripts; Barrillon, 2 June; 20, 23 Sept. 1687.

2 The Holles group, before its eclipse by Shaftesbury and the first Whigs, had been ready to strike a bargain with the Court by which, in return for toleration and a share in office, its members promised to damp down the agitation against James (Barrillon, 9 Feb. 1679; Bodleian, Clarendon State Papers, 87, fos. 321–2; Burnet, G., History of his own Times (1897), ii, 188).Google Scholar

3 Dr Williams's Library, Morrice MSS.: P. fo. 351.

4 B[ritish] M[useum], Add[itional] MSS. 25124, fo. 33; Cal[endar of] S[tate] P[apers], Venetian, 1673–5, 324. H[istorical] M[anuscripts] C[ommission], Report 14, Pt. ii, 348; Steele, R., A Bibliography of Royal Proclamations (1910), i, 3828.Google Scholar

5 Barrillon, 28 April, 12 May 1687; B.M., Add. MSS. 34502, fo. 96, 34510, fo. 28, 34515, fos. 31–3; Sir James Mackintosh, , History of the Revolution (Paris1, 1834), i, 320, 323. The addresses were printed at the time in the London Gazette.Google Scholar

6 Sir Duckett, G. F., Penal Laws and Test Act (1882–3); two volumes of transcripts from Rawlinson MSS. A, 139 A, in the Bodleian.Google Scholar

7 The surviving copies of the returns do not cover all the counties and boroughs, but it is clear that the response was insufficient.

8 Among those reported as either suitable parliamentary candidates, or fit to be put into the commission of the peace, were 67 former Whig M.P.s.

9 E.g. Thomas Freke, the most important Dorset Whig, who had categorically rejected the circular questions, was reported as ‘moderate’ (Duckett, op. cit. 11, 37,221). Sir Courtney Pool, Sir John Davy and Sir Simon Leech were put into the lieutenancy although they too had refused (Ibid., 11, 263, 374–6).

10 This was the case in Nottingham; the Whigs who had been fined for riot—in fact an attempt to defend the charter—were now installed in the corporation after its regulation (Duckett, op. cit. 11, 120; Narcissus Luttrell, , A Brief Historical Relation. (1857), I, 247, 307).Google Scholar

11 Kenyon, J. P., Robert Spencer, Earl qof Sunderland (1958), 192.Google Scholar

12 B.M. Add. MSS. 34515, fos. 31–3.

13 Macintosh, op. cit. i, 361.

14 Cokayne, G. E., The Complete Peerage, ii (1912), Appendix G, lists the seventeen put out by James. But their successors did not personally play a very important part in the canvassing of 1688.Google Scholar

15 Brent was related to Lord Carrington. The description often used of Brent as the ‘papisr solicitor’ may have been a tribute to his ability among his co-religionists, but more probably it was because he engaged in the specialized and difficult work of conveying funds and property to support Roman Catholic establishments on the continent (Duckett, op. cit. I, 240, 242 n.; Cal. S.P., Dom[estic], 1690–1, 553).

16 Calendar Treasury Books, v, 9, 54, 910, 1241.

17 Commons Journals, IX, 607, 612; H.M.C., Ormonde, n.s., v, 32.

18 Akerman, J. Y., Secret Services [of Charles II and James II] (1851), 133, 141, 161, 180, 187, 196, 205. Entries in Calendar Treasury Books, VIII, show that he was employed on Treasury business in 1686–8.Google Scholar

19 Agar Ellis, G. J. W., Ellis Correspondence (1829), I, 215, 220.Google Scholar

20 Ibid.. 1, 269.

21 B.M. Add. MSS. 32523, fos. 56–8; Duckett, op. cit. II, 15, 19–24, 274, 293; Grey, A., Debates [of the House of Commons] (1769), IX, 65–70, 339–40.Google Scholar

22 B.M. Add. MSS. 32523, fo. 57; Akerman, Secret Services, 196–7, 205.

23 During the Exclusion crisis Care published the scurrilous but popular Weekly Packet of Advice from Rome. Now he was responsible for a pamphlet, Draconica, or, An Abstract of all the Penal Laws, as royal propaganda, and a newspaper, Publick Occurrences truly stated. No. 26 contains an account of his death, with an obituary (B.M. Add. MSS. 34487, fo. 19).

24 H.M.C. Report 13, VII (le Fleming), 204.

25 Foxcroft, H. C.(ed.), Life and Letters of Sir George Savile (1898), ii, 106; Barrillon, 24 June 1686.Google Scholar

26 Barrillon, 27 May 1686; 25 Dec. 1687; National Library of Wales, Plas Gwyn MSS. 84; Reigate Corporation, Somers MSS., Sir Richard Cocks to Somers, 5 Oct. 1695; Grey, Debates, IX, 146.

27 B.M. Add. MSS. 34510, fo. 113.

28 Duckett, op. cit.1, 405–6; Autobiography of Sir John Bramston (Camden Society, 1854), 304, 311; Ed. Kerr, R. J., Portledge Papers (1928), 41; Cat. S.P., Dom., October 1683-April 1684, 9. John Rotheram had formerly been employed as a Whig canvasser.Google Scholar

29 Duckett, op. cit. 1, 410; Bodleian, Carte MSS. 222, fo. 256. The reason why he collaborated was that he had lost his local interest.

30 H.M.C. Report 7, I (Sir F. Graham), 412, 421.

31 Duckett, op. cit. 1, 371; II, 270, 300; Cal S.P., Dom., 1689–90, 376.

32 Duckett, op. cit. 1, 405; 11, 236–7; Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1, 446, 450; B.M. Add. MSS. 34526, fos. 50—4; Grey, Debates, ix, 340; advertisement in London Gazette, 2316, for a printed speech by Charles Trinder, intended to encourage addresses.

33 He is the subject of Sir George Sitwell's privately printed The First Whig (Scarborough, 1894), which, as a political biography, is worthless, apart from picturesque accounts of Popeburnings. In 1690 Sacheverel was to be responsible for the clause by which all participants in the attacks on the charters were to be disqualified for seven years.

34 Luttrell, , Brief Historical Relation, 1, 307;Google Scholar Cal. S.P., Dom., 1684–5, 54; Duckett, op. cit. II, 244–5; this report was made as late as Sept. 1688, but he had been put into the commission of the peace a year earlier (Ibid., II, 120).

35 H.M.C. Report 14, IV, (Kenyon), 187–8, 212, 234–5. H.M.C. Doumshire, I part i, 261; B.M. Add. MSS. 34510, fo. 11.

36 Ibid.. fo. 135; H.M.C. Leybourne-Popham, 270; Ranke, , History of England (1875), IV, 371.Google Scholar

37 P.R.O., Baschet transcripts, Bonrepos to Seignelay, 10 Jan. 1686, 19 May, 7 Nov. 1687; Nottingham University Library, Portland MSS.; van den Bergh, 26 Jan. 1688. Devonshire was fined the crippling amount of £30,000 in April 1687 for striking Colonel Coleper within the confines of the Court; he was, of course, one of the seven who invited William of Orange (Barrillon, 10 July 1687).

38 The debt was a substantial one—£8000 (B.M. Add. MSS. 34515, fos. 35–7, 46–9; Portland MSS., Tonsen to Bentinck, 19 Jan. 1688; van den Bergh, 26 Jan. 1688; Autobiography of Sir John Brantston, 311).

39 Wade, Dr Cox, John Jones and Richard Adams (who had once been put out of the commission of the peace for distributing libels) had all been Whig partisans. An even shadier character; Whitaker, the Whig attorney who had organized the witnesses at the time of the Popish plot and had then turned Court spy, was also employed. James later admitted his mistake in using people of this sort (Clarke, J. S., Life of James II (1816), II, 139).Google Scholar There is no satisfactory account of radicalism after the 1660's and it is doubtful whether there is enough material for one to be attempted. Morley, I., A Thousand Lives (1954), is uncritically partisan in depicting the radicals as heroic freedom fighters, and as the only honest and consistent group in politics at this time.Google Scholar

40 Addresses had first been organized on a large scale during Richard Cromwell's brief Protectorate, when they had proved to be quite ineffective, but when organized by Shaftesbury they had been intended to demonstrate to Charles the strength of Whig support.

41 The addresses were fully listed by Luttrell; those of 1688 (1, 436–60) were coupled with joy at the birth of the Prince, and with promises to elect right men.

42 Bodleian, Carte MSS. 22, fos. 248, 256.

43 E.g. the election of Sir Thomas Armstrong for Stafford in the second elections of 1679 (Carte MSS. 243, fo. 383).

44 P.R.O., Shaftesbury Papers, VI, B, 399. These addresses had been fully reported at the time in the Whig Press (see Protestant Domestic Intelligence, 97, 98, 100, 102; True Protestant Mercury, 22, 23, 26; Smith's Protestant Intelligence, 10, 12).

45 Many moderates who had earlier been reported as actual or potential collaborators by the royal agents do not appear in the lists compiled after June 1688, or in the autumn catalogue of approved parliamentary candidates (P.R.O., S.P. 44, Entry Book 56, 430–40). Examples are: Edward Partridge (Duckett, op. cit. 1, 322), Sir John Darrell (Ibid.. 1, 361–2), Colonel Mildmay (Ibid.. I, 407–9), Sir Philip Skippon (Ibid., II, 226–7, 246).

46 P.R.O., S.P. 44, Entry Book 56, 430–40; sixteen of the candidates were army officers with little or no local interest of their own. B.M. Add. MSS. 34510, fo. 122; H.M.C. Report 13, VII (le Fleming), 207.

47 Purges of justices and members of corporations continued throughout the summer months of 1688, and at the same time James also reverted to the earlier policy, on which all canvassing had been based, of issuing writs of Quo Warrantoagainst charters (B.M. Add. MSS. 34487, fo. 29; 34515, fos. 49–50, 51–4; H.M.C. Report 12, VI (House of Lords), 300; P.R.O., PC 2, No. 72 (James II), 661–734; Grey, Debates, ix, 312; R. H. George, ‘The Charters granted to English Parliamentary Corporations in 1688’, English Historical Review, LV (1940)).

48 Portland MSS. (?Sidney) to Bentinck, 8 Dec. 1687. I owe this reference, and others from the same source, to the kindness of Dr J. P. Kenyon.

49 B.M. Add. MSS. 34512, fo. 77; the experiment was made at Queenborough.

50 The names of the agents (e.g. Rev. Samuel Bold, a low-church cleric formerly persecuted for advocating toleration), are listed by Duckett, op. cit. II, 228, 232, 242. P. C. Vellacott, ‘Diary of a Country Gentleman in 1688’, C[ambridge] H[istorical] J[oumal], II, 52, 54.

51 B.M. Add. MSS. 32523, fos. 56–7. The lists of paid correspondents, informants and local agents appointed by Brent, Wade and Cox all over the country do not appear to have survived, so that we can only speculate who they were—dissenting ministers? survivors or descendants of the committeemen of Cromwellian times ? village Hampdens ? venal informers ?

52 This issuing of instructions naming candidates who were to be elected in specific constituencies represented a revival of the practice which had been effectively employed in the sixteenth century, but not after the accession of James I; in 1685, as during Charles II's reign, the king had largely confined himself to issuing general recommendatory letters; For an evaluation of these last electoral preparations see J. H. Plumb, ‘The Elections to the Convention Parliament of 1689’, C.H.J. v, 3 (1937), 235–54.