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I. The Defection of Sir Edward Dering, 1640–1641*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Derek Hirst
Derek Hirst
Affiliation:
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
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Extract

Historiography of the years immediately preceding the English civil war has tended to conceive of two disparate entities in politics, Westminster and the localities. There are in practice two distinct kinds of history, reflecting diis division, which connect only on rare occasions. The latest major work on the period can, despite its title, limit itself almost entirely to the confines of Westminster and the court, while the student is faintly aware of volumes of local works which contain scarcely a hint of what passes outside the town wall or beyond the county boundary. Parliament was indeed an aggressively self-conscious and independent body, and the county or borough was frequently particularist and introverted, but this did not preclude all contact between the two. Dr Pearl has demonstrated how vulnerable parliament was to the influence of London, and vice versa, and there have recently been several local studies which illustrate the close relationship between the county and the centre. But by and large, Clarendon's assessment of the importance of the Buckinghamshire petition against the attempt on the Five Members, and the obvious prominence accorded by Commons leaders of both sides to petitioning, has not been sufficiently appreciated. Parliament was deeply concerned about what might be termed ‘public opinion’: events in the localities, and the reactions to parliament's policies.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 1972 , pp. 193 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 Zagorin, P., The Court and the Country (London, 1969).Google Scholar

2 Pearl, V., London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar; and cf. Howell, R., Newcastle upon Tyne and the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar; and Holmes, C. A., ‘The Eastern Association’ (unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1969).Google Scholar

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12 Henry Oxinden (of Barham) observed in Feb. 1642, ‘itt did ever runne in my head, that Sir Edward Deereing has so used to turne round in his Studie that hee would doe the like in the Parliament House. Pray God his much turning hath not made his head dazie, and that hee doth not turne out of his right witts.’ The Oxinden Letters 1607–1642, ed. Gardiner, D. (London, 1933), p. 296Google Scholar; see also Laslett, , op. cit. pp. 156–7.Google Scholar

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16 Ibid. fos. 106, 132.

17 Add. 47787, fo. 32V.

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19 Stowe 184, fo. 10. Yet even in this, he seems to have been trying to hedge his bets. In the attempt to apprehend the separatist leader John Fenner in 1636, Dering appears to have been reluctant to proceed. He wrote that he knew Fenner was at home, but protested somewhat implausibly, ‘Night or day I would willingly bestowe my labour with successe but I should be very sorry to make Fenner more wary by affrighting him.’ He was also allegedly in doubt as to the authority by which he could break down a door to seize the local sectary. K.C.A. U1551.

20 Everitt, , op. cit. ch. III.Google Scholar

21 Stowe 743, fo. 149; Stowe 184, fo. 15. His correspondent Robert Abbot wrote in March 1641 that at this election the ‘Brownists’ (i.e. separatists, rather than supporters of Richard Browne) had been preparing to petition against Dering for his rigorous practices towards them. Ibid. fo. 27.

22 Sir John Skeffington to Dering, at the height of the latter's activist period in Dec. 1640: ‘You have abus'd my sorrowes: I had engag'd as many for you as my dry braine could affoard. By the waters we sate downe and wept to consider what an advantage you had given Babylon.’ Skeffington went on to protest against the way in which Dering, now ‘in power and State’, was calling ‘pale Soules’ before his ‘tribunall’. Stowe 744, fo. 17.

23 Stowe, 184, fo. 27.

24 Lamont, , op. cit. p. 86. Compare the opening of Abbot's letter in Mar. 1641: ‘We are happy in our choise. All my arguments could not perswade this, till your worships and your partner in this noble service, had made yourselves knowne by your speaches.’ Stowe 184, fo. 27.Google Scholar

25 Proceedings in Kent, p. 23Google Scholar; Lamont, , op. cit. pp. 85–7.Google Scholar

26 Sir Richard Skeffington, from whom Dering had differed in late 1638 because the former was ‘so much for the Puritans’ [K.C.A. U350 c/2/59], referred to their mutual ‘deare freinde Mr. Pyme’. Stowe 184, fo. 19.

27 Persecutio Undecima, p. 17; also Nalson, , op. cit. 11, 248.Google Scholar

28 Dering, , op. cit. p. 17.Google Scholar

29 When talking of the London petition, he assured the House that ‘my heart goes cheerfully along therewith’ [ibid. p. 18]; for D'Ewes's reaction, Lamont, , op. cit. p. 88. Similarly, Sir Thomas Peyton saw it as no different from any of the other Root and Branch petitions then being presented. Bodley MS Film 39, p. 66.Google Scholar

30 The Journal of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, ed. Notestein, W. (New Haven, 1923), pp. 337, 343.Google Scholar

31 See above, pp. 198–9; and Stowe 184, fo. 27.

32 K.C.A. U350 c/2/86–88, the first of which praises Dering's ‘zeale for Gods matters’, and the last claims that Dering's activity in God's cause alone emboldened him to write; also, Proceedings in Kent, pp. 25–6, where the petitioners maintain that they ‘have cause to praise God’ for Dering's service.Google Scholar

33 Dering, , op. cit. p. 19.Google Scholar

34 Rushworth, J., Historical Collections, iv (1682), 425.Google Scholar

35 Stowe 184, fos. 27, 33.

36 Ibid. fos. 27–9. For a further instance of local hostility to activists' contacts with the centre, see Lamont, , op. cit. p. 89.Google Scholar

37 The Oxinden Letters 1607–1642, pp. 270, 298.

38 A Transcript of the Registers of the Worshipful Company of Stationers; from 1640–1708 A.D., ed. Eyre, G. E. B. (London, 1913), 1, 20, 24Google Scholar; Dering, , op. cit. pp. 49, 65, 96, 155. I am grateful to Mr M. J. Mendle for this information.Google Scholar

39 Persecutio Undccima, p. 17.

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42 Thus, Abbot asserted in Mar. 1641 that he would be glad if the Prayer Book were reformed and ceremonies ‘layed aside’, and he bracketed the papal Church and the school of Arminius together. Stowe 184, fos. 28–28V.

43 Persecutio Undecima, p. 17; May, Thomas, The History of the Parliament of England, 1 (1647), 115. The King himself made exactly the same point in a speech to both Houses at the end of Jan. 1641 attacking the Root and Branch agitation: ‘distractions’ were ‘occasioned through the cause of Parliament though not by the Parliament … and petitions in an illegall way given are neither dismitted, nor denyed’. Harl. 4931, fo. 106.Google Scholar

44 Stowe 184, fos. 27–9.

45 Dering, , op. cit. pp. 63–4.Google Scholar

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49 C.J., 11, 143.Google Scholar

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53 Dering, , op. cit. pp. 66–77.Google Scholar

54 Ibid. pp. 155–8; the other versions of the proposals are to be found in Master Grimstons Argument Concerning Bishops. With Mr. Seldens Answer. Also severall Orders, concerning Church Government (London, 1641), pp. 2–5Google Scholar; The Order and Forme for Church Government By Bishops and the Clergie of this Kingdome (London, 1641)Google Scholar; Sixteene Propositions in Parliament. Touching the manner and forme for Church Government, by Bishops and the Clergie of this Kingdome (London, 1642). I am indebted to Mr Mendle for these identifications, and for pointing out that John Moore transcribed the scheme into the volume of his diary which covers the summer of 1641 [Harl. 479, fos. 175–173V (reverse foliation)].Google Scholar

53 Ibid. fo. 71V.

56 Stowe 184, fo. 43V. Similar reports, that the Protestation, binding individuals to further the godly cause, was being used to foment disorder in churches, were coming to London from places as far afield as Tewkesbury and Yorkshire, and from men as sympathetic to the general aim of religious reform as John Geree and Thomas Stockdale, Fairfax’s agent and later recruiter M.P. Geree, John, Vindiciae Voti (London, 1641), sig. CGoogle Scholar; The Fairfax Correspondence, ed. Johnson, G. W. (London, 1848), 1, 381–2.Google Scholar

57 Stowe 184, fos. 47–47V. On this score, Burton seems to have been speaking directly to Abbot: if such a problem arises, and the minister's position is endangered, he should reform himself, and then he would not lose his flock [Burton, H., The Protestation Protested (1641), sig. C2V.–C3] - advice which was hardly calculated to ease social tensions. It should be noted that such concern for the fate of the Prayer Book, and alarm at the extent of the religious disorders, swayed a majority of the House by the end of August, and was strong enough to move men as zealous as William Strode, Serjeant Wilde and John Crew. Northants. Record Office MSS, FH 2881; B.M.Add. 11045, fos. 142, 143V.Google Scholar

58 Dering, , op. cit. p. 93.Google Scholar

59 Lamont, , op. cit. p. 91.Google Scholar

60 Dering, , op. cit. pp. 96–105.Google Scholar And perhaps the chief fear he manifested in his famous speech in the Grand Remonstrance debate two days later was of what effect it would have on the ‘common people’. Rushworth, , op. cit. iv, 425–8.Google Scholar

61 The Journal of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, ed. Coates, W. H. (New Haven, 1942), pp. 151–2.Google Scholar

62 Archaeologia Cantiana, 1 (1858), 187–9Google Scholar; ibid. II (1859), 179–80, 188, 214; Stowe 184, £. 47V. The grievance is also to be found in clause xii of the Kentish petition of 1642. Arch. Cant., 1, 208.Google Scholar

63 ibid. 1, 190–1.

64 Dering, , op. cit. p. 79.Google Scholar

65 Dering was clearly influenced by strident cries from the local governors that disorder was endemic; now, whether these cries were genuine, that is, whether they accurately reflected contemporary social conditions, is another matter entirely, and not wholly relevant to the argument that Dering reacted in response to certain pressures. Dering's correspondents are supported by Henry Oxinden's prognostication in Nov. 1641 that the sectarian tumults in Kent indicated ‘the latter day to bee very neare att hand’ [Oxinden Letters 7607–1642, 257]. Unfortunately, no sessions papers survive, but it is interesting that the calendar of prisoners in gaol awaiting trial shows no significant increase in the number of detainees in 1641 when compared with the two previous years, and a slight decrease from the 1636–8 level (which could, of course, reflect a decline in efficiency of law enforcement) [K.C.A. Q/SMc 1, no foliation]. It would be tempting to read from this that Abbot and others were playing a devious political game, comparable to that of Sir Thomas Aston's 1641 petitioning campaign from Cheshire, another attempt to get local pressure to work on Parliament. But in the absence of further information, the question must remain unanswered.

66 Stowe 184, fo. 29; see also Stowe 744, fo. 17; Proceedings in Kent, p. 22.Google Scholar