Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T22:52:39.545Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Colonel King and Lincolnshire Politics 1642–1646*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Clive Holmes
Clive Holmes
Affiliation:
Cornell University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the most fruitful developments in the recent historiography of the English Civil War has been the growing interest in its local dimension. Historians are no longer content to study the constitutional and religious struggles as though they occurred in a vacuum at Westminster, but have examined the diverse reactions to those conflicts within the patchwork of local communities, and the machinery through which central orders were executed – Or circumvented – at the grass-roots level.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , September 1973 , pp. 451 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 King has recently been the subject of a short monograph by Garner, A. A., Colonel Edward King (Grimsby, 1970). This provides a good narrative of King's career, but is less reliable on the framework of national politics, and hence of the significance of King's feuds.Google Scholar

2 Bodleian Library (hereafter B.L.), Tanner 62, fos. 208, 232; British Museum (hereafter B.M.), Egerton 2647, fo. 120; Certaine Informations, no. 30, p. 231; The Parliament Scout, no. 9, p. 69; The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (ed. Abbott, W. C., Cambridge, Mass., 1937), 1, 252–3.Google Scholar

3 In February it was suggested that an assault on Newark had failed through the treachery of commander (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Newark on Trent: the Civil War Siege-works [1964], pp. 60–1)Google Scholar, and similar accusations were made against a number of the Lincolnshire officers in the London diurnals in the spring (A perfect diurnal of the passages in Parliament, no. 46; Mercurius Civicus, no. 4, p. 31). Ultimately the rumours proved well founded: in June it was discovered that a number of Willoughby's most trusted subordinates had agreed to abandon the county to the enemy (B.M. Harleian 165, fo. 106; Vicars, John, Jehovah-Jireh [1644], pp. 372–3).Google Scholar

4 By the spring of 1643, when the county had become a no-man's-land, over which both parties skirmished with fluctuating fortunes, Willoughby was no longer able to monopolize its resources or to maintain an efficient fiscal administration (see Public Record Office, State Papers [hereafter S.P.] 28/256 unfol., letter of 5 May 1646, from Willoughby to the London Committee of Accounts). In consequence his troops lived on free-quarter and plunder, even robbing ‘Persons of great Affections to the Parliament’. (Journals of the House of Commons [hereafter C.J.], III, 138; S.P. 28/265Google Scholar fo. 176; Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, p. 994.)

5 Lilburne, John, The iust mans iustification (1646), p. 20.Google Scholar

6 Desertion had weakened Willoughby's brigade in the spring (Speciall Passages, no. 33, p. 273; The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer, no. 13, p. 104); a mutiny had enforced his surrender of Gainsborough in late July (Beckwith, I., Gainsborough in the Great Civil War [Gainsborough, 1969], pp. 11–16); mass desertion compelled him to abandon Lincoln to the enemy without resistance (B.L. Tanner 62, fos. 208, 232; B.M. Egerton 2647, fo. 120; B.M. Harleian 165, f0. I48v).Google Scholar

7 C.J., m, 67; Mercurius Aulicus, no. 17, pp. 115–16; Nalson MSS, vol. 11, no. 182; vol. xi, nos. 243, 253 (I have used the reference ‘Nalson’ as it facilitates use of the transcriptions in Historical Manuscripts Commission 13th Report, Appendix I [1891] [Portland Manuscripts], and the photographic copies in the House of Lords Record Office. The originals are now in the Bodleian Library [MS Dep. c, vols. 152–76]).

8 Nalson MSS, vol. III, no. 49; Journal of the House of Lords (hereafter L.J.), vi, 255; A true relation of the late fight … neere Horncastle (1643), passim.Google Scholar

9 A perfect diurnal of some passages in Parliament, no. 15, p. 115; The Parliament Scout, no. 19, p. 163; no. 24, p. 208; Certaine Informations, no. 42, pp. 323–4; Mercurius Anglicus, no. 1, p. 7; Mercurius Civicus, no. 28, p. 322; The Weekly Post, no. 9, p. 62; Occurences, no. 2.

10 A perfect diurnal of some passages in Parliament, no. 16, p. 127; The Parliament Scout, no. 27, p. 228; Beckwith, , op. cit. p. 17.Google Scholar

11 Rushworth, F., Historical Collections (1682–1701), pt. 111, vol.11, 305–6.Google Scholar

12 Mercurius Britanicus, no. 18, p. 143.

13 S.P. 28/161 unfoliated, the account of Edward Rossiter; S.P. 28/11, fos. 9–10; Public Record Office, Exchequer (hereafter E.) 113, box 4, pt. 2, the answer of Francis Langley.

14 Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S., Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660 (1911), 1, 291–8.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., 1, 310–11.

16 The Ordinances were passed with little discussion (C.J., III, 246; B.M. Add. 18778, fo. 48).

17 See, for example, B.L. Tanner 62, fo. 224.

18 L.f., vi, 261, 285.

19 C.J., III, 307, 313; B.M. Add. 18779, fos. 5V6; B.M. Harleian 165, fo. 210v.

20 A campaign in which Manchester enlisted the support of the London press. Throughout the autumn, The Parliament Scout, whose editor, Dillingham, was said to be the Earl's hack (The Parliament Scout, no. 52, p. 419), consistently stressed the benefits that Manchester's command had brought to Lincolnshire, and on one occasion launched a scarcely veiled attack on Willoughby's record (ibid. no. 19, p. 168; no. 21, p. 180; no. 27, pp. 228–9; no. 31 P. 262).

21 See the table printed in Hill, J. W. F., Tudor and Stuart Lincoln (Cambridge, 1956), p. 127, for his relationship through marriage with the other local Parliamentary leaders.Google Scholar

22 House of Lords Record Office, Main papers collection (hereafter H. of L.M.P.), 4 July 1642, the declaration and protestation of the knights, gentlemen and freeholders of the county of Lincoln.

23 Lilburne, J., Innocency and truth justified (1645), p. 43.Google Scholar

24 Mercurius Aulicus, no. 13, p. 155; Moore, M. P., The Carre Family of Sleaford (Sleaford, 1863), Appendix.Google Scholar

25 The exact date of his release is not known; he was still in prison in late July (L.J., vi, 556).

26 Lilburne, , The iust mans iustification, op. cit. p. 5.Google Scholar

27 Ibid. p. 20, arts. 17, 21, 22.

28 H. of L.M.P., 2 May 1644, the Remonstrance of Edward King.

29 In the Remonstrance King only accused Willoughby of responsibility for the loss of Grantham, but Willoughby learned that in canvassing for signatures King had asserted that he was equally responsible for the losses at Gainsborough and Lincoln (S.P. 16/502/39, art. 5; L.J., vi, 538, 555–6).

30 Specifically King argued that Willoughby was establishing expensive garrisons ‘in places no wayes needful either to Annoye the Enimye, or protect us’. After Winceb, Willoughby set up garrisons at Belleau, Bolingbroke, Kyme, Mablethorpe and Tattershall. Strategically it made better sense for his men to march into Kesteven to prevent the incursions of the Newarkers, but when Manchester ordered the garrison of Tattershall to do this Willoughby was incensed by the Earl's commanding his forces over his head (L.J., vi, 414).

31 There is independent evidence that Willoughby's men were still living on plunder and free quarter (Lincolnshire Archives Committee [hereafter L.A.C.], Addlethorpe 12, account of Thomas Ward; L.J., vi, 299, 383; S.P. 24/50 Shepley, Goldsborough v.; Associated Architectural Societies, Reports and Papers, viii (1865), 38).Google Scholar

32 As a junior officer with Willoughby, King had feuded with his fellow-commanders, his own companies' gallant efforts at Newark in February had been vitiated through treachery, and he regarded Willoughby as responsible for his own imprisonment in that his ineptitude had caused the loss of Grantham (King, E., A discovery of the arbitrary, tyrannicall, and illegal actions [1647], p. 14Google Scholar; Lilburne, , The iust mans justification, op. cit. pp. 19–20Google Scholar, art. 12; Garner, , op. cit. P. 7).Google Scholar

33 L.J., vi, 414, 538.

34 S.P. 16/503/39, art. 6.

35 Ibid. art. 2. See also Lilburne, , The iust mans iustification, op. cit. p. 20, art. 14.Google Scholar

36 King, E., To the Honourable the House of Commons, the humble petition of … (1646)Google Scholar; E. 113, box 4, pt. 2, the answers (separate documents) of Robert Yarburgh, of Thomas Pinchbeck, of Robert Marshall jnr.; S.P. 28/11, fos. 9–10.

37 E. 113, box 4, pt. 2, the answer of Francis Langley. King's major coup of this sort occurred when he managed to intercept a large quantity of wool which Willoughby's agents had already sequestered from Royalists, and which was to be shipped from Wainfleet to Colchester to be sold to the clothiers of the Stour valley to raise money to meet Willoughby's force's arrears. King sold the wool to the clothiers, but for the benefit of Manchester's Treasury (S.P. 16/503/39 art. 3; Lilburne, , The iust mans iustification, op. cit. p. 19Google Scholar, art. 11; S.P. 24/58 King v. Rawson; 81 Turner v. White; S.P. 28/14, fos. 159–60; 28, fos. 189–91; 64, fo. 650).

38 Lilburne, , Innocency and truth justified, op. cit. p. 42.Google Scholar

39 For a more detailed account of this, see my forthcoming book, The Eastern Association (to be published by Cambridge in 1974), ch. 5.

40 L.J., vi, 384.

41 Ibid. p. 414.

42 B.M. Harleian 165, fo. 280V; Mercurius Aulicus, no. 14, pp. 918–19; Mercurius Etc., no. 1, p. 6; C.J., III, 373.

43 Ibid p. 384; B.M. Add. 31116, fos. 112V-113; B.M. Add. 18779, fos. 58, 58V; L.J., vi, 405, 409, 414–15.

44 Although Willoughby submitted to the judgement of the Lords, tempers still ran high: one of Manchester's officers who had spoken against Willoughby was set upon and beaten up by three of Sir John and Sir Christopher Wray's sons in a Westminster tavern (C.J., III, 387, 389, 394; B.M. Add. 31116, fo. 114).

45 See the account in Newark on Trent: the Civil War Siegeworks, op. cit. pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

46 Whitelock, B., Memorials of the English Affairs (1722), p. 85Google Scholar; see also Lilburne, , The iust mans iustification, op. cit. p. 6.Google Scholar

47 A briefe relation of the siege of Newark, as it was delivered to the Counsell of State (1644), pp. 4–5.

48 Those of his men not killed in Rupert's charge were stripped of their horses and arms after the surrender, and after the passage of Manchester's Ordinance of 20 Jan. Willoughby had no financial resources to enable him to recruit and re-equip his shattered troops (S.P. 16/506/66; S.P. 28/33, fos. 410–11).

49 Laing, D. (ed.), The letters and journals of Robert Baillie (Edinburgh, 1841-1842), 11, 153.Google Scholar

50 A briefe relation, op. cit. passim.

51 L.J., vi, 491, 511, 518, 526.

52 Ibid. p. 528; C., III., in, 469; B.M. Harleian 166, fo. 52.

53 L.J., vi, 531, 537–8, 543, 555–6, 571, 573, 574, 575, 595; C.J., in, 469.

54 Ibid p. 374.

55 B.M. Harleian 166, fos. 52, 75; C.J., III, 378, 500.

56 B.M. Harleian 166, fo. 75.

57 The Commons had established a Committee to investigate the Lords handling of the affair, and had rejected a petition from Lincolnshire presented by Sir John Wray directed against King (B.M.Add. 31116, fo. 142).

58 C.J., III, 515, 521, 534, 550, 566; L.J., vi, 605, 607, 608, 612, 613.

59 Historical Manuscripts Commission 4th Report, Appendix 1 (1874) (Denbigh Manuscripts), p. 268.

60 See Gardiner, S. R., History of the Great Civil War, 1642–1649 (1886), 1, 342–3Google Scholar; Valerie Pearl, ‘John, Oliver and the “middle group” in the Long Parliament’, English Historical Review, LXXXI (1966), 514–5.Google Scholar

61 B.M. Add. 18779, fo. 100.

62 The Commons support for King may have been enhanced by the knowledge that Willoughby was one of the Lords who most actively opposed them in the matter of the Committee of Both Kingdoms (L.J., vi, 567).

63 Two weeks after King's release the Commons heard his accusations against Colonels Palgrave and Hobart for their military failings displayed during the siege of Newark; members of the peace party spoke on behalf of the accused, while the charges were pressed by the ‘Violent spirits’ (B.M. Harleian 166, fo. 99. See also C.J., in, 564, 566).

64 This account is based upon Lilburne's two pamphlets, Innocency and Truth justified, op. cit. pp. 25, 41–6Google Scholar, and The iust mans justification, op cit. pp. 1–9, 17–20.Google Scholar

65 See also Edwards, T., The second part of Gangraena (1646), p. 105.Google Scholar

66 Abbott, , op. cit. 1, 278.Google Scholar

67 Culminating in King's refusal to subscribe to the terms of the surrender at Newark and his order that his men should not surrender their arms but should march out with them in defiance of the treaty. The result was that Rupert's forces gleefully fell upon the regiment as being in default of the articles of surrender and plundered them. Lilburne lost £100, ‘being plundered from the crowne of my head to the sole of my foot’ King escaped unscathed. This could hardly have improved their relationship. See His Highness Prince Rupert's raising the siege of Newark (1644), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

68 Prynne, W., The lyar confounded (1645), p. 6Google Scholar; Bastwick, J., A iust defence of John Bastwick (1645), p. 32.Google Scholar

69 C.J., III, 508; B.M. Harleian 166, fo. 67; Huntingdonshire Record Office, D/DM 8A/5.

70 A perfect diurnal of some passages in Parliament, no. 54, p. 430.

71 Lilburne, , The iust mans iustification, op. cit. pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

72 Such disputes occurred in the neighbouring counties of Nottingham and Rutland, for example (The Victoria County History of Rutland, 1 [1905], 192–5; Firth, C. H.[ed.], Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson … by his Widow Lucy [1906], pp. 169–72, 425–9).Google Scholar

73 King was accused of raising and disbursing large sums without reference to the committee, of issuing protections to the malignant and imprisoning the innocent in opposition to their orders, and of quarrelling with them, slighting them and ‘publickly vilifying them and their actions ’ (Lilburne, , The iust mans iustification, op. cit. pp. 19–20).Google Scholar

74 The difficulty of accurately determining the religious position of M.P.s has become increasingly apparent to historians; that of members of the county committees, for whom less evidence survives, presents even more problems. However, at least five members of the Lincolnshire committee may be tentatively identified as Independents: Sir William Brownlow, Barnaby Bowtell and Humphrey Walcott were all to become members of Barebone's Parliament, and in 1654 the latter was appointed to investigate the persecution of a group of sectaries by an intolerant J.P. (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic series [hereafter C.S.P.D.], 1654, p. 395). Samuel Cust's son, Richard, was another member of Barebone's Parliament and corresponded with Sir Henry Vane on political and theological matters (Lady Elizabeth Cust, Records of the Cust Family … 1479–1700 [1898], pp. 217–20). Thomas Lister, elected M.P. for Lincoln in 1647, became one of the most enthusiastic members of the Rump Parliament (Underdown, D., Pride's Purge [Oxford, 1971], p. 378).Google Scholar

75 Bastwick, , op. cit. p. 5.Google Scholar

76 Irby was frequently a teller for motions furthering the Presbyterian system of church government (C.J., v, 28, 34, 574), as on one occasion was Sir Christopher Wray (C.J., iv, 48). Politically both men were supporters of the policies of Denzil Holies (C.J., iv, 95; v, 259, 265, 270; Maseres, F., Select Tracts Relating to the Civil Wars in England [1815], 1, 213).Google Scholar

77 Underdown, , op. cit. pp. 367, 372, 390; for Archer, see the article in The Dictionary of National Biography.Google Scholar

78 Lilburne, , The iust mans iustification, op. cit. pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

79 The committeemen Thomas Lister, William Saville, Francis Fiennes, Molineaux Disney and Nehemiah Rawson had all served as officers in Willoughby's force in 1643 (Garner, , op. cit. pp. 44, 45, 47,48); King had quarrelled with Saville, his immediate superior in early 1643, while Rawson was the chief victim of King's zeal in re-sequestering the goods already seized and sold by Willoughby's agents.Google Scholar

80 When Lilburne disobeyed Manchester's positive orders at Tickhill Castle the Earl furiously rebuked him; ‘the Armie was much troubled by such busie Rogues’. (Lilburne, , Innocency and Truth Justified, op. cit. pp. 23–6; S.P. 16/503/56 iv.)Google Scholar

81 Bruce, J. and Masson, D. (eds.), The Quarrel between the Earl of Manchester and Oliver Cromwell, Camden Society, new series, XII (1875), 72–4. Of the seven infantry colonels, four were ‘professed independents intire’ – Montagu, Pickering, Rainsborough and Russell; Crawford, Hobart and Palgrave were of the other faction.Google Scholar

82 See my forthcoming book, ch. 10.

83 Abbott, , op. cit. 1, 227–8. The battle, Cromwell wrote, ‘had all the evidences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged, but we routed the enemy’.Google Scholar

84 Camden Miscellany, vol. 8 (1883), ‘A letter from the earl of Manchester to the House of Lords’, p. 2.Google Scholar

83 Abbott, , op. cit. 1, 277Google Scholar; Bruce, and Masson, , op. cit. p. 59.Google Scholar

86 Baillie, , op. cit. 11, 229.Google Scholar

87 Wenham, P., The Great and Close Siege of YorK (Kineton, 1970), pp. 57–63.Google Scholar

88 Lilburne, , Innocency and Truth Justified, op. cit. p. 24Google Scholar; Abbott, , op. cit. 1, 292Google Scholar; Baillie, , op. cit. 11, 229–30, 500–1.Google Scholar

89 Lilburne, , The iust mans Justification, op. cit. pp. 8–9Google Scholar; Innocency and Truth Justified, op. cit. p. 43.Google Scholar

90 L.A.C. Holywell 93/11.

91 The Commons do not appear to have investigated the charge, contenting themselves with backing Manchester's commission to Hatcher (Lilburne, , The iust mans iustification, op. cit. p. 19; C.J., III, 630).Google Scholar

92 Ibid. p. 688; B.M. Add. 31116, fo. 171V.; B.M. Harleian 166, fo. 153. King's allies had determined to petition Parliament in August (A perfect diurnal of some passages in Parliament, no. 54, p. 430).

93 The full title of the tract is A discovery of the arbitrary, tyrannicall and illegal actions of some of the Committee of the County of Lincoln (1646); King accuses the committee of setting ‘a heavier yoke of bondage upon the people than that of Ship money, the high Commission, or any other illegall charge which hath been taken away this Parliament as intollerable grievances.’

94 See C.S.P.D., 1645–7, p. 376.

95 Even the Wapentake of Elloe, most remote from the fighting, could later claim that it was ‘very much impoverished’; through the billeting of parliamentary troops on free-quarter (L.J., ix, 118).

96 The committee of Stafford frequently interfered in civil cases (Pennington, D. H. and Roots, I., The Committee at Stafford, 1643–1645 [Manchester, 1957], pp. 10, 70–1, 88, 135–6, 141–2, 154–5, 158, 179–80, 188, 234, 239).Google Scholar

97 For example, from 1634–40 the tenants of the Heath family's estates at North Ingleby were troubled by a Mr Atkinson who claimed that £15 a year was due to him from the lands; when war broke out and ‘Newarke was a garrison for the King, and the said Mr Atkinson liveing there, sent soldiers who tooke what they pleased and frighted the tenants’. (L.A.C. Lindsey deposit 15/6 L. 21; see also L. 87, 88, and 95.)

98 King, , A discovery …, op. cit. pp. 5–7, 9.Google Scholar

99 King was not the only parliamentary supporter in Lincolnshire to accuse the local committee of corruption: Richard Millward, the vicar of Leasingham, claimed that he was sequestered through the machinations of his parishioner, William Thompson, a member of the committee who owed him tithes (Worcester College, Oxford; Clarke MS 16, fo. 84), while it was asserted that the sequestration of John Righton of Beesby was engineered by the committeeman Drayner Massingberd, who was in dispute with Righton over the possession of some court rolls (S.P. 23/239, fo. 163). Another committeeman was accused of using his influence to stop the sequestration of an estate of which he was the tenant (S.P. 20/1, fo. 485V.).

100 On the 10 Jan. the House voted that Archer should be thanked for his services, and should return to Lincolnshire and ‘cheerfully’ maintain his efforts for the cause (C.J., iv, 16).

101 The evidence for this is anything but impartial: it rests upon statements by King himself, and one of his leading local supporters, Christopher Hudson (A discovery …, op. cit. pp. 10–11; Nalson MS, xxii, no. 71). However, the silence of the Commons' Journals and of the diarists in the House appears to verify King's second point, that no official report was ever made to the Commons.Google Scholar

102 The Lincolnshire committee appear to have realised this, and to have played upon it. On the 17 Dec. the Commons ordered the committee of the Eastern Association to expedite their investigation, and sent a letter to the local committee desiring them to continue to act in the business of the county (C.III., 725). This suggests that they were threatening, as they did in 1646 and 1647, to stop operating until they were vindicated from King's aspersions.

103 See the comment of The Parliament Scout (no. 81, p. 650) on this incident.

105 B.M. Add. 31116, fo. 171V.; C.J., III, 688.

106 Ibid. p. 725. Wray had presented the petition on the 3 June (B.M. Add. 31116, fo. 142); Whitacre makes no mention of an information being presented against King on this occasion; could the latter be the twenty-two articles against King presented in August (see above, p. 467)?

107 B.M. Harleian 166, fo. 179; B.M. Add. 31116, fo. 195.

108 Nalson MS, xxii, no. 148.

109 Ibid, xiv, nos. 34–5.

110 C.S.P.D., 1644–5, pp. 229, 231, 233, 242, 245, 250, 307.

111 C.J., iv, 60.

112 King, , To the Honourable the House of Commons, op. cit.Google Scholar; see also A discovery …, op. cit., p. 10Google Scholar. Ten men were removed from the committee as previously established by the New Model Army Ordinance of the 17 Feb. 1644/5; only in two cases, those of King himself and Christopher Hudson, is it certain that this was a purge. But it may be suggested that at least three other men were removed from the committee for their adherence to King: Robert Cawdron of Hale was a relative of King's and one of his financial agents (Lilburne, , Innocency and Truth Justified, op. cit. p. 44)Google Scholar; Nathaniel Thorold and Thomas Welco-ne are later to be found working with King on the sub-committee of accounts (see below, pp. 474–5).

113 C.J., iv, 66; B.M. Harleian 166, fo. 181. The Commons voted that Manchester should be requested to recall King's commission as Governor of Holland and Boston, although in August the Earl had removed King and commissioned Thomas Hatcher to that post (see above, p. 467). This may be an error on the part of the House, or it may be that Manchester re-commissioned King in Feb. 1645, when Hatcher resigned hio appointment in accordance with the terms of the Self-Denying Ordinance; the Committee of Both Kingdoms had feared that Manchester might do this in January (C.S.P.D., 1644–5, P. 250).

114 See Underdown, , Pride's Purge, op. cit. pp. 24–44Google Scholar; D. H. Pennington, ‘The county community at war’, in Ives, E. W. (ed.), The English Revolution 1640–1660 (1968), pp. 64–75Google Scholar. In Lincolnshire, after the inclusion of the county in the Association, the old leaders were either discarded, like Willoughby, or increasingly involved themselves in their duties at Westminster and control fell to men of lesser status. For biographies of the members of the committee, see Garner, , op. cit. pp. 42–9.Google Scholar

115 King, , To the Honourable the House of Commons, op. cit.Google Scholar; Lilburne, , The iust mans iustification, op. cit. pp. 19–20Google Scholar; Lilburne, , Innocency and Truth Justified, op. cit. p. 44.Google Scholar

116 The committee claimed that King owed money to a Royalist, and that they were entitled to sequester the debt; as King secured an order from Westminster ordering the return of the distrained goods his claim that the charge was malicious is probably correct (King, , To the Honourable the House of Commons, op. cit.; E. 134, 1651–2 Hilary term, no. 6).Google Scholar

117 King, , A discovery …, op. cit. p. 7.Google Scholar

118 King, , A discovery …, op. cit. pp. 8–9Google Scholar; C.S.P.D., 1644–5, PP. 578. 592, 615. The Ordinance, which was not executed in Lincolnshire until May 1645, had been passed in July 1644 (Firth, and Rait, , op. cit. 1, 462–6).Google Scholar

119 This account of the election, and the subsequent hearing at Westminster, is based on King's petition (To the Honourable the House of Commons, op. cit.); and his later tract (A discovery …, op. cit.); on the Grimsby material quoted in Garner, , op. cit. pp. 17–18; and on the records of the Committee of Privileges (B.M. Add. 28716, fos. 30–1; B.M. Loan 29/50 [Welbeck MSS – the Harley papers], no. 75 A unfol., hearings on 26, 29 June; 7, 12, 28 Aug. I am very grateful to Mr Derek Hirst for allowing me to see his transcript of this last document).Google Scholar

120 The chronology of Wray's manipulations to secure this trump card is of interest. King's alleged defamatory remarks were reported to the Commons on 6 Aug. but were forgotten until 1 Oct. when King's appearance before the Northern Committee was ordered (C.J., iv, 233, 296); but the chairman of the Northern Committee did not issue a warrant for King's appearance until 14 Oct.

121 Prynne's attack on the election of minors (Minors no senators [1646] was almost certainly written with King's case in mind. The tract is in the form of a letter to a friend dated 12 Feb. 1645/6: King's attendance at the Committee of Privileges began the previous day.

122 See the warrants and cases from 1645 cited by King, in A discovery …, op. cit. pp. 3, 6–7, 9.Google Scholar

123 For a general account, see D. H. Pennington, ‘The accounts of the Kingdom, 1642–9’, in Fisher, F. J. (ed.), Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 182–203.Google Scholar

124 A point made forcefully by Lord Willoughby in a letter to the London Committee of Accounts dated 15 May 1646 (S.P. 28/256 unfol.).

125 Counties, like Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, and Sussex, which had been seats of the war were the scenes of the most violent committee/sub-committee of accounts feuds (Pennington, , op. cit. pp. 195–7)Google Scholar, but these circumstances did not necessarily lead to conflict: in some counties, like Staffordshire, the two committees worked amicably (Pennington, and Roots, , op. cit. pp. xxvii–xxviii). In the Welsh counties Professor A. H. Dodd found that the relationship between the two committees could range from ‘the promotion of old feuds’ to ‘friendly log rolling’. (Studies in Stuart Wales [Cardiff, 1952], p. 115). Local personalities and politics determined whether the potential conflict would be actualised.Google Scholar

126 S.P. 16/507/56; S.P. 28/161 unfol., the account of Thomas Welby; 28/10 fo. 104; 28/253 A, London Committee of Accounts Letter Book, 1646–9, fos. 43, 53V.; 28/253 B unfol., the Depositions book.

127 C.J., iv, 98; S.P. 28/161, unfol., depositions against William Wolmer; 28/252 pt. 1, the book of entries, fos. 28-28V., 29V., 37V., 38V.; 28/265, fo. 165. The charge of ‘malignancy’ is not without some foundation. The Ordinance establishing the sub-committees of accounts excluded from membership those who had held military posts, or who had held positions in revenue raising committees or in the local fiscal administration. In a county over which the war had ranged, and which the Royalists had dominated for long periods, men who had managed to avoid service in either a civil or a military capacity for the Parliamentary party were naturally suspected by those who had participated of being of very doubtful zeal to the cause.

128 S.P. 28/253 A, London Committee of Accounts Letter Book, 1646–9, fos. 43, 53V.

129 By the Ordinance of the 17 Feb. 1645, and two enactments renewing its provisions, Lincolnshire was taxed at £2,070 a month for 20 months from Feb. 1645 to Oct. 1646. On the 3 April 1645 Parliament passed another Ordinance, renewed on the 11 Aug., whereby the county was to raise, £2,800 a month for 12 months beginning in Jan. 1645: this Ordinance was designed for the payment of auxiliary regiments to be raised for local defence (Firth, and Rait, op. cit., 1, pp. 662–4, 740–2)Google Scholar. These two sets of Ordinances, although theoretically distinct, in practice became indistinguishable. In May 1645 Rossiter was appointed Commander-in-chief of all forces in Lincolnshire, both of his own regiment, which was part of the New Model, and of the local forces, and the county treasurer was instructed to receive all the sums raised in the county upon both sets of Ordinances, and from them to pay this hotch-potch brigade of New Model and auxiliary troops (C.J., iv, 26, 137, 146, 152; VII, 121; L.J., vii, 386, 489, 496, 500). From this confusion stemmed King's charge that Rossiter's cavalry, part of the New Model, was being paid from money raised on the specious pretence that it would be employed for the upkeep of local forces.

130 King claimed that warrants were issued for the collection of taxes at these dates:

(1) The six months' tax from Jan.-June 1645 for auxiliaries was collected in September.

(2) The 10 months' tax from Feb.-Dec. 1645 for the New Model was collected in Feb. 1646.

(3) The 6 months'.tax from July-Dec. 1645 w a s collected in May 1646.

(4) The 10 months' tax from Dec. 1645 to Oct. 1646 for the New Model was collected in Sept. 1646.

Among the Heath family's estate papers (L.A.C., Lindsey Deposit 15/6 L. 87) there are some lists of the assessments levied on their lands in North Ingleby which confirm King's statement, except that the first 10 months' tax for the New Model was raised in three instalments. The difference may be explicable in that the Heath estates were more distant from the Royalist garrisons than were King's at Ashby, Rowston and Martin; probably the committee could not levy taxes very effectively in that area until the Newarkers were finally bottled up in Dec. 1645.

131 When they petitioned for the passage of the Ordinance, the committee spoke of forces ‘to be raised for the Defence of that County’ (C.J., iv, 66); it is not easy to see what forces they intended to raise. King always claimed that the Ordinance was passed on the committee's pretence that it would raise men upon the Ordinance for the Posture of Defence - which, as he knew from bitter experience, was never properly executed (see above, p. 472).

132 King, , To the Honourable the House of Commons, op. cit.Google Scholar For some of these incursions, see Wood, A. C., Nottinghamshire in the Civil War (Oxford, 1937), pp. 94–100. The Newarkers could still impose assessments on a town as distant as South Kyme (L.A.C., South Kyme 12 - the constables' accounts for 1645), and their raiding parties still threatened Grimsby (B.M., Loan 29/50 no. 76A, unfol., sub. 29 June). On one occasion King himself was captured by a raiding party, which could hardly have improved his relations with the committee (E. 134, 1651–2, Hilary, no. 6).Google Scholar

133 King, , A discovery …, op. cit. p. 23.Google Scholar

134 Nalson MS, xiv, no. 202.

135 King, , A discovery …, op. cit. pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

136 C.J., iv, 738; B.L. Tanner 59, fos. 551, 552, 588.

137 Ibid. fo. 585; Nalson MS, xiv, no. 202.

138 King, , A discovery …, op. cit. p. 24.Google Scholar

139 The county committee forwarded a summary of King's charge to the Grand Jury to the Commons (B.L. Tanner 59, fos. 586–586V.); King claimed that this copy was ‘false and imperfect’ and so published a verbatim edition of the charge (A discovery …, op cit. pp. 11–18). In fact, the committee's summary, although incomplete, does not give an unfair impression of the nature and direction of the charge.Google Scholar

140 Nalson MS, xiv, no. 202; see also B.L. Tanner 59, fo. 585.

141 Ibid. fo. 638.

142 Nalson MS, xiv, no. 202: the effect of the strike was spoiled by the fact that most of the lawyers on the committee had left Lincoln to attend the legal term in London.

143 C.J., iv, 738; B.M. Add. 31116, fo. 291V.; Nalson MS, xiv, no. 197. According to King the Committee for the Excise had begun their investigation before the issue of the Commons' order instructing them to do so (A discovery …, op. cit. unpaginated introductory petition).

144 King, , A discovery …, op. cit. pp. 26–7.Google Scholar

145 Ibid, unpaginated introductory petition.

146 They continued their inquisition into the effects of King's charge, and endeavoured to persuade the people of the legitimacy of their assessments by publishing the relevant Ordinances (Nalson MS, vi, no. 32).

147 C.J., v, 46.

148 B.L. Tanner 59, fos. 668–9. A transcript made by the committee's agents; the clerk admitted that the copy was not exactly accurate, but was substantially King's charge.

149 Nalson MS, vi, no. 32.

150 B.L. Tanner 59, fos. 667, 670.

151 Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, p. 59.

152 C.J., v, 46.

153 Ibid. p. 117.

154 Nalson MS, vi, no. 32.

155 B.L. Tanner 58, fo. 531.

156 C.J., v, 307, 312, 329, 342, 384, 393.

157 Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, p. 82; S.P. 23/247/30; BM Add. 5508, fos. 10–11.

158 C.J., vi, 58.

159 B.L. Tanner 58, fo. 478; S.P. 23/247/30.

160 Sir John Holland argued that committees might have been ‘at first an absolute necessity in the beginning of the troubles, yett I think them not soe now’. (B.L. Tanner 321, fo. 7).

161 The committees consisted of ‘factious, busy, beggerly men’ thought Holies, and his ally Clement Walker described them as ‘chosen … out of the basest of the people, for base ends’. (Maseres, , op. cit. 1, 195, 339Google Scholar. See also Underdown, , op. cit. pp. 29–39.)Google Scholar

162 C.J., iv, 435, 483, 598; L.J., viii, 287, 322, 405, 406, 432, 474.

163 Ibid. p. 684; C.J., v, 60; B.M. Add. 31116, fo. 293V.

164 L.J., viii, 718, 719; ix, 127, 128, 131, 251; C.J., v, 83–5, 138, 206, 239.

165 Maseres, , op. cit. 1, 265–6; C.J., v, 239.Google Scholar

166 Ibid. pp. 290, 584.

167 He was imprisoned at Pride's Purge (Underdown, , op. cit. p. 374).Google Scholar

168 Underdown (ibid. p. 89) describes Stapleton as ‘an outright radical’ by virtue of a speech attributed to him in which he threatened a purge against those who were not amenable to radical demands. Yet in many respects his career was not characteristically radical; he did not flee to the Army, and he refused to sit in the Rump (ibid. pp. 109, 219).

169 Nalson MS, xi, no. 220.

170 B.L. Tanner 59, fo. 586V.

171 B.L. Tanner 58, fo. 531.