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Politics and the Nobility in Civil-War England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. S. A. Adamson
J. S. A. Adamson
Affiliation:
Peterhouse, Cambridge
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The Historical Journal , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 231 - 255
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 Kent A[rchives] O[ffice], Sackville MS (Cranfield papers), U 269/C 248, unfol., quoting Horace, , Ars Poetica, 139Google Scholar.

2 Kishlansky, M. A., ‘Saye what?’, Historical Journal, XXXIII (1990), 917–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Adamson, J. S. A., ‘The English nobility and the projected settlement of 1647’, Historical Journal, XXX (1987), 567–602CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 ‘Saye what?’, esp. pp. 934–6.

5 (1) The ‘Wildernesse’ in which the divine, John Davenport, found himself in New England was Connecticut, not Massachusetts (‘English nobility’, p. 590, n. 163); (2) the Wharton mentioned by William Lilly was probably George Wharton rather than Philip, Lord Wharton (ibid. p. 602, n. 238); (3) it was certainly to Lord Wharton rather than to Lord Saye that Marchamont Nedham referred in a newsbook report of October 1647 (ibid. p. 592, n. 173); (4) William Pierrepont was father-in-law not to John Evelyn, but to Evelyn's daughter, Evelyn, Elizabeth (‘Saye what?’, p. 922Google Scholar; Evelyn, H., The history of the Evelyn family (1915), p. 506)Google Scholar; (5) SirDyve, Lewis was reporting Cromwell's words to Rainborowe rather than to Lilburne in his letter of 5 09 (‘English nobility’, pp. 594–5Google Scholar; ‘The Tower of London letter-book of Sir Lewis Dyve, 1646–47’, ed. Tibbutt, H. G., Publ. Bedfordshire Historical Record Soc, XXXVIII (1958), p. 84)Google Scholar. However, Kishlansky's claim that the words in question were Dyve's rather than Cromwell's cannot be sustained. The syntax in this sentence (beginning ‘Wherupon it was thought fitt by Cromwell …’) is convoluted, but Dyve is clearly reporting Cromwell's words as oratio obliqua. Cf. ‘Saye what?’, p. 935, n. III.

6 ‘Saye what?’, p. 918.

7 E.g. Adamson, J. S. A., ‘Parliamentary management, men-of-business, and the house of lords, 1640–49’, in A pillar of the constitution: the house of lords in British politics, 1640–1784, ed. Jones, Clyve (1989)Google Scholar: ‘There is no evidence that peers ever attempted to demand the adherence (or the votes) of M.P.s who were their servants and stewards’ (ibid. p. 45); relations between M.P.s were a ‘far more complex phenomenon than the patron-client nexus; and recent attempts to overstate the role of clients, or to see them as tame lackeys of the Lords, have been justly censured’ (ibid. p. 47). See also the remarks of Professor Russell, that to acknowledge the reality of patronage ‘is not to accept the caricature picture of clientage in which members of the Commons move while lords pull the strings’. Russell, Conrad, Unrevolutionary England, 1603–42 (1990), introduction, p. xiiGoogle Scholar.

8 ‘Parliamentary management’, p. 42.

9 ‘Saye what?’, p. 925.

10 Ibid. p. 925, n. 50, criticizing Adamson, , ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament’, in Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, ed. Morrill, John (1990), p. 61Google Scholar, and n. 41.

11 ‘Saye what?’, p. 925 and n. 50.

12 Unless otherwise stated the italics in quotations are my own.

13 Bute MS 196 D. 13/i (Whitelocke's diary), fo. 70r–v; cited in Adamson, , ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament’, p. 61Google Scholar. Since the publication of that article, the diary (which is in the possession of the Marquess of Bute), has been published asThe diary of Bulstrode Whitelocke 1605–1675, ed. Spalding, Ruth (British Academy Records of Social and Economic History, n.s. XIII, Oxford, 1990), pp. 160–1Google Scholar. (I am grateful to Miss Spalding for making her transcript available to me prior to publication.)

14 ‘Saye what?’, p. 925. This passage precedes Whitelocke's entry describing the debate on the Self-Denying Ordinance, and – lest there be any doubt on the matter – the relevant pages in the MS and published text are headed ‘December, 1644.’ At no point has it ever been claimed that Saye should be credited with the ‘introduction of the Self-Denying Ordinance’ (‘Saye what?’, p. 936); and it is therefore unsurprising that Professor Kishlansky should find no evidence for this claim in any of the references he chooses to cite. Professor Kishlansky seems to have confused the ordinance (which was a piece of legislation) with the resolution (which was not). The role of Saye and Northumberland in the origins of this legislation is treated at length in my The nobility and the English Revolution (Oxford, forthcoming) where it will be possible to present the evidence in greater detail than was possible in the two articles which touch on this subject, ‘Oliver Cromwell’, and‘The baronial context of the English Civil War’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, XL (1990), 93–120Google Scholar.

15 ‘Saye what?’, p. 934.

16 Ibid. p. 920.

17 ‘English nobility’, p. 574, citing H[ouse of] L[ords] R[ecord] O[ffice], M[ain] P[apers], June–July 1645, fo. 232; and see also nn. 38, 41, 44, 45, 50, 51, 52.

18 ‘Saye what?’, p. 923.

19 CJ, v, 348.

20 ‘English nobility’, p. 593 and n. 179; ‘Saye what?’, p. 923; CJ, v, 348.

21 ‘English nobility’, p. 585, nn. 130–1: CJ, v, 333.

22 CJ, v, 333: yeas, 68; noes, 60.

23 Ibid. The division was on a resolution not to exempt persons from the statutes imposing penalties for non-attendance at the parish church, ‘unless they can shew reasonable cause of their absence, or that they were present elsewhere to hear the Word of God preached or expounded unto them’. This provision was also included in the Lords' proposition on religion and was the occasion of the Lords' proposal for the reallocation of tithes (discussed in ‘English nobility’, p. 585); for its incorporation into the Lords' proposition on religion, see H.L.R.O., MP 15/10/47, fo. 163. (Main Papers references indicate the date by day, month, and year.)

24 ‘Saye what?’, p. 925 and n. 48; citing B.L., Add. MS 4186 (Birch papers), fo. 14. Kishlansky consistently prefers the notoriously unreliable edition, The writings and speeches of Oliver Cromwell, ed. Abbott, W. C. (4 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1937–1947Google Scholar; rep. Oxford, 1988); for this letter see, ibid. I, 577–8. In every reference to this edition, Kishlansky misquotes the title as Letters [sic] and speeches. Cf. ‘Saye what?’, nn. 46, 47, 48.

25 ‘Saye what?’, p. 924 and n. 46. B.L., Sloane MS 1519, fo. 80 (or 160). Although Kishlansky prefers Abbott's text of this letter (Writings and speeches, I, 510) to the original, there are a number of problems with Abbott's text: he arbitrarily introduces a new paragraph halfway through the letter which materially changes its meaning, and throughout equally arbitrarily alters Cromwell's punctuation.

26 ‘Saye what?’, p. 920.

27 LJ, IX, 415. The Commons' contingent consisted of St John, Hesilrige, Vane junior, Scawen, Allen, Venn, Scott, and Edwards.

28 LJ, IX, 375, 415. In making his remarks about sub-committees, Kishlansky seems not to have checked the Journal beyond 13 August: LJ, IX, 385–6.

29 LJ, IX, 414–15; CJ, v, 289.

30 ‘Saye what?’, p. 920.

31 Ibid. p. 934.

32 Ibid. pp. 934–5, and n. 108; Kishlansky citing Beinecke Lib., Yale University, ‘Osborne [sic] MSS, Fb 155’. Kishlansky implies that without this change it is not apparent that the author of the letter, Sir John Maynard, was ‘trying to discredit both the Proposals and Ashburnham’ (ibid. n. 108); but as the letter goes on to state explicitly that Ashburnham was ‘imployed by the K[ing]s and Kingdomes greatest enemies’, the text hardly needs Kishlansky's suggested alteration in order to make this point.

33 ‘Saye what?’, p. 918.

34 Ibid. pp. 934–5: the reinterpretation of the role of the peers rests on misreadings of the evidence which are ‘at best tendentious’, or worse depend on disparities between argument and evidence which, he darkly hints, may not be the result merely ‘of haste, mistake, or misquotation’.

35 Kishlansky, M. A., The rise of the New Model Army (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar. Kishlansky, suggests (‘Saye what?’, p. 918, n. 7)Google Scholarthat Saye could scarcely be a figure of importance because ‘in the standard political histories of the period’ of the English Revolution he has relatively few index references; in his own ‘standard political history’ of the period Saye rates only four index references. (So, for that matter, does that equally obscure figure, Archbishop Laud.) Some scholars may doubt that the frequency of Professor Kishlansky's index citations tell us anything of Saye's contemporary political significance – especially in a book which treats one M.P. (Lionel Copley) as two separate individuals (a Lionel Copley and a Colonel Copley); which treats the M.P. Sir Robert Pye and his New Model Army-officer son as the same individual (thereby producing a singularly eventful joint-career); and which, most curiously of all, provides no less than fourteen index entries for the author Robert Graves although on each occasion, in index as in text, Professor Kishlansky has repeatedly confused him with the Presbyterian officer in the New Model Army, Colonel Richard Greaves. Ibid. pp. 366, 375, 368; on Pye see also, p. 162.

36 Hyde, Edward, earl of Clarendon, The history of the rebellion, ed. Macray, W. D. (6 vols., Oxford, 1888), II, 548Google Scholar.

37 ‘The Tower of London letter-book of Sir Lewis Dyve’, ed. Tibbutt, H. G., p. 84Google Scholar: Dyve to the king, 5 Sept. 1647.

38 Mercurius Pragmaticus, no. 19 (18–25 Jan. 1647/8), sig. T 2[v] (B.L., E 423/21).

39 Mercurius Elencticus, no. 2 (5–12 Nov. 1647), p. 11 (B.L., E 414/4).

40 Even in Kishlansky's own ‘standard history’ of the period, Saye is credited with the decisive intervention which averted ‘a constitutional crisis’ (Kishlansky, , Rise, p. 275)Google Scholar, and secured parliamentary approval for the officer-list which was to be the foundation of the New Model Army. In his account: ‘Hastily Viscount Say and Sele produced the proxy of the old earl of Mulgrave, Sir Thomas Fairfax's grandfather. The opposition was caught off guard and the House thrown into confusion. A tacit agreement not to use proxies when questions were called had apparently existed in the Upper House, which Say, for the sake of the officer list, had violated’. Although Saye's actions were challenged, ‘the officer list passed the Lords by one vote, but with ten Lords entering formal dissents’ (ibid. p. 46). By Kishlansky's own account, Saye appears as a decisive (indeed, a passionately committed) advocate of the military reforms which created the New Model Army.

41 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927.

42 Ibid. p. 928.

43 Gardiner, S. R., History of the Great Civil War (4 vols., 1893), III, 330Google Scholar.

44 Kishlansky, M. A., ‘Ideology and politics in the parliamentary armies, 1645–9’, in Reactions to the English Civil War, ed. Morrill, John (1982), p. 169Google Scholar.

45 ‘Saye what?’, p. 930.

46 Ibid. p. 930, and n. 79. Kishlansky argues mistakenly that ‘The account in the Lords Journal [for 20 July] states that Wharton only delivered some letters’. Only one of the documents delivered in by Wharton was a letter (LJ, IX, 340–1); the documents tabled by him, and entered in full in the Lords' Journal, make it plain that the reason for Wharton's return to London was ‘for your [i.e. the Lords'] more perfect knowledge in any thing that may relate to our former dispatches’ – including the commissioners' dispatch sent to parliament in the early hours of 19 July, in which they had reported the existence of the army's constitucional proposals. This dispatch is printed in LJ, IX, 339, and is dated ‘Reading, the 18th of July, 1647, past 12 at Night’: i.e. in the early hours of 19 July.

47 Perfect Summary, no. 1 (19–26 July 1647), p. 5 (B.L, E 518/9). ‘Tuesday, July 20. The House of Lords this day received intimation of some Heads of other Proposalls to be expected from the Army. 1. That there be a Bienniall Parliament instead of a Trienniall; and what time this shall continue. 2. That a Counsell of state may be appointed in the intervalls of Parliament. 3. Something concerning the Navy. 4. The taking away of the Paenall statutes for comming to Common Prayer, and that some Oath of abjuration against the Popes supremacy may be agreed on to be offered to Papists. 5. That the number of Persons excepted in the Propositions may be lessened. 6. That such Delinquents as doe compound may not be inforced to take the Covenant. 7. Something concerning the Treaties between the two Kingdoms. 8. That there may be a speedy peace settled. 9. That there be an act of Oblivion. 10. That his Majesties Rights may be considered.’

48 LJ, IX, 340. Perfect Summary, no. 1 (19–26 July 1647), p. 5 (B.L., E 518/9). Kishlansky, also suggests (‘Saye what?’, p. 930)Google Scholar, that Speaker Lenthall did not expect Lord Wharton to call on him, and he purports to cite Lenthall's words ‘I did much marvel that Sir Thomas Widdrington came not’ (B.L., Sloane MS 1519, fo. 104r). First, that this refers to Widdrington is simply an inference by Kishlansky, not a transcription of the MS; this actually reads ‘Sir Tho. W:’. Second, Kishlansky ignores the passage in the MS which makes it clear that Lenthall, more than merely expecting Wharton, was actually visited by him before he sealed up this letter on 19 July. See the postscript: ‘since the wr[i]ghtinge heereof my Lord Wharto[n], Sr Tho. Whthringto[n], and Mr [Stephen] Marshall came to me. 9 of the clocke at night’; ibid. fo. 104V.

49 ‘Saye what?’, p. 930, n. 80, citing CJ, v, 252.

50 Kishlansky's approach also involves dismissing as ‘circumstantial’ any evidence that suggested consultations were taking place between the army and Westminster – in particular a letter of Sir Lewis Dyve to no less a person than the king stating on 19 July that two senior officers of the army were currently in London to consult with St John, the younger Vane, and Lord Wharton: ‘Letter-book of Sir Lewis Dyve’, ed. Tibbutt, , p. 68Google Scholar; ‘English nobility’, p. 574. Cf. ‘Saye what?’, pp. 928–9.

51 CJ, v, 252; the two papers referred to in the CJ are printed in LJ, IX, 340–1; and see also ‘English nobility’, p. 575, n. 60.

52 Perfect Summary, no. I (19–26 July 1647), p. 5. CJ, v, 253.

53 CJ, v, 253.

54 [Walker, Henry], Perfect Occurrences, no. 29 (16–2307 1647)Google Scholarsig. Ff2[l]V (B.L., E 518/7); and ‘English nobility’, p. 575.

55 ‘Saye what?’, p. 930.

56 Ibid. Kishlansky repeats this misquotation, placing even greater mistaken emphasis on its supposed implications, at pp. 933–4.

57 Ibid. p. 930.

58 Ibid. pp. 928–31.

59 LJ, IX, 341.

60 A Perfect Diurnall, no. 208 (19–26 July 1647), p. 1667, entry for 22 July (B.L., E 518/8); this is corroborated by the Perfect Occurrences, no. 29 (16–23 July 1647), last Page (B.L., E 518/7); cf. ‘Saye what?’, pp. 930–1.

61 ‘Saye what?’, p. 928.

62 Scottish R.O., Hamilton MS GD 406/1/2249: R[obert] L[eslie] to [the earl of Lanark], [28 June 1647]. Leslie (who had had an audience of the king on 25 June) stated explicitly that ‘there wants nothinge of a finall agreement betwixt the kinge and them, butt ane addicion to the trienniall parliament [clause] and granting to them [the Independents] libertie of conscience; the last noe doubt wilbe yeelded vnto’. Leslie was probably exaggerating the extent to which agreement had been reached; but his letter is clear evidence that negotiations had been in train since the end of June.

63 ‘English nobility’, pp. 571–2.

64 ‘Saye what?’, p. 930. An earlier Kishlansky seemed also to have doubts: ‘The intimations that Henry Ireton had the chief hand in composing the Heads of the Proposals, suggested by Colonel Thomas Rainsborough at Putney, may well be the truth of the matter’. Idem, ‘Ideology and politics in the parliamentary armies’, p. 168.

65 ‘Saye what?’, p. 930, citing [Wildman], John, Putney proiects. Or the old serpent (1647), p. 13Google Scholar, and see also pp. 29, 32.

66 Putney proiects, p. 13. These doubts are reinforced by Wildman's testimony that in the deliberations during July on the ‘ninth Proposall’, a ‘caveat’ was introduced to provide for compensation for two officers of the now defunct Court of Wards: Saye was to receive £10,000 in compensation and £1,000 per annum; Wharton's father-in-law (the Attorney of the Court) was to receive £5,000 (Putney proiects, sig. F2[v]; cited in ‘English nobility’, p. 579). Was this highly specific provision for the financial enrichment of Viscount Saye and the Attorney of the Court of Wards really so central to the concerns of army's councils that Ireton and Cromwell should have included it unbidden? Cf. ‘Saye what?’, p. 930.

67 Beinecke Lib., MS Osborn Fb 155, fos. 238–9; quoted in ‘English nobility’, p. 576.

68 Dyve wrote on 19 July that two senior officers (Stane and Watson) had ‘lain divers dayes longer heere in towne to negotiat with Sir Henery Vane the yonger, Mr St Johns the solliciter and the Lord Warton and some of the leading men of their faction in both Howses, to advance their owne dangerous designes, wherin some of the officers of the army, not without just cause, are suspected to be of the same confederacy’ (‘Letter-book of Sir Lewis Dyve’, ed. Tibbutt, , p. 68Google Scholar: Dyve to the king, 19 July 1647). In preferring such evidence to the retrospective evidence of Rainsborowe, I am simply putting into practice the maxim which Professor Kishlansky preaches: ‘to prefer contemporary accounts to retrospective ones’: Kishlansky, , Rise, p. ixGoogle Scholar.

69 Kishlansky asserts that the evidence does not sustain the claim that the Presbyterian leadership was involved in promoting the riots of 26 July (‘Saye what?’, p. 931). Whether or not the depositions relating to the riots of 26 July are ‘conflated’ depends on whether or not one accepts Professor Kishlansky's own ingenious reconstruction of events that day in which he denies the involvement of the Presbyterian leadership. Of the suggestion that the Presbyterian leadership was not involved, the leading historian of Civil War London, Professor Pearl, has argued: ‘Nothing could be further from the truth. The mob rushed into Westminster Hall after the sheriffs had left, but their programme was the same as that of the city government. Observers were in no doubt that the municipality had a hand in the affair. Viscount Lisle remarked that the city rulers were clearly behind the mob because as soon as they had got what they wanted the organisers “dismissed the multitude and sent them away to theyr homes”. Subsequent events also confirm the complicity of some of the leading citizens’. Pearl, Valerie, ‘London's counter-revolution’, in The Interregnum: the quest for settlement 1646–1660, ed. Aylmer, G. E. (1972), p. 51Google Scholar. This is an old hobby-horse of Professor Kishlansky's; (cf. ‘Pearl's assertion … that the events of July were orchestrated by the eleven members cannot be substantiated from the available evidence’: Rise, p. 347; unfortunately he fails to cite what this ‘available evidence’ is). On questions of London politics, I find Professor Pearl to be a more reliable guide than Professor Kishlansky.

70 ‘Saye what?’, p. 932. ‘It is impossible’, he asserts, ‘to imagine that Saye spent 31 July with the lords at Hatfield, the king at Latimers, Mr Baker at Hanworth, and the army and parliamentary leaders at Syon House.’

71 Ibid. p. 933.

72 Ibid. p. 933, n. 96.

73 Ibid. p. 933 and n. 94.

74 LJ, IX, 361; ‘Saye what?’, n. 94. The order on the 30th was made because many peers had not attended ‘according to an order of the 26th of this instant: it is [therefore] ORDERED, that their Lordships shall have further notice to attend the said House’: that is, the order of 30 July was the second order for notification of attendance to the peers made since the day of the riots (LJ, IX, 361). The first order had been made on 26 July ‘that all the Lords shall have notice to attend … on Friday morning next’, i.e. 30 July (LJ, IX, 355). Neither order mentions Baker by name.

75 ‘Saye what?’, p. 933, n. 94.

76 Even if one follows Kishlansky's dating and assumes that Baker did not reach Hatfield until the morning of 31 July, there is no reason why, in mid-summer when the roads were relatively good, the peers should not have been at Syon House that same day: the distance between the two houses is only twenty miles. For comparison, we have the detailed itinerary of another parliamentary messenger, Edward Makyn, during this same period. In the period between 10 p.m. on 30 July and 5 p.m. on 31 July, Makyn went from Westminster to Hounslow in Middlesex, from Hounslow to St Albans in Hertfordshire, from St Albans to Dunstable in Bedfordshire, and thence to Woburn and Leighton Buzzard, before arriving at the army's quarters at High Wycombe ‘about four or five’ on the afternoon of 31 July (CJ, V, 264: deposition of Edward Makyn, 2 Aug. 1647) – only to find later that Fairfax's entourage had established its headquarters at Colnbrook.

77 From Hatfield to Syon House was a distance of only twenty miles; the distance from Latimer House (where the king was on 31 July) to Saye's house at Hanworth Court is eighteen miles; from Fairfax's house at Colnbrook to Syon House was a distance of nine miles; from Colnbrook to Saye's house at Stanwell was a mere two miles. Other relevant distances are: from Colnbrook bridge to Saye's house at Hanworth, 6 miles; from Syon House to Hanworth Park, 4.5 miles; from Syon House to Hounslow Heath, 3.5 miles; from Stanwell Place to Hounslow Heath, 4.2 miles; from Hatfield House to Latimer House, 16 miles (Ordnance survey, sheets 166 and 176, scale 1:50,000). Saye's movements also correspond to the general movements of Fairfax's army: this was at Bedford on 29 July and marched south via High Wycombe, to Colnbrook (six miles from Saye's house at Hanworth, and nine from Syon House), in the vicinity of which Nottingham and Wharton expected the army to be by the evening of 30 July. LJ, IX, 359: Nottingham and Wharton to the Speaker of the Lords, 29 July 1647:’ …as we hear, some of the Army are to be tomorrow night at Uxbridge or Colebrooke’. Amongst the M.P.s whose whereabouts can be definitely established at this time, Scawen, Widdrington, and Blakiston were all seen at Colnbrook shortly after 9 p.m. on Sunday 1 August, and Sir Henry Vane junior was seen by Makyn at High Wycombe at around 4 p.m. on Saturday, 31 July: CJ, v, 264. Wharton was also still resident with the army throughout this time; (the house of lords ordered his return to Westminster on 2 August: LJ, IX, 367). This further suggests that the exodus to the army took place well before the rendezvous on Hounslow Heath on 3 August.

78 Kishlansky makes great play of the claim that ‘Saye spent 31 July with the Lords at Hatfield’, though no such ‘statement appears in my article. Although the evidence does not exist to give an exact chronology of Saye's movements between the riots of 26 July- and the meeting at Syon on the 31st, their sequence is clear. Saye was among the Lords who met at Hatfield after the riots, but left before the arrival of the Lords’ messenger, Baker (that is, before 30 July). He then made the journey from Hatfield to the house he occupied at Hanworth Court, visiting the kingmade the journey from Hatfield to the house he occupied at Hanworth Court, visiting the king en route at Latimer House (eighteen miles to the north-west of Hanworth). ‘Saye what?’, pp. 931–2. The fact that Saye had left Hatfield by the time Baker arrived is scarcely evidence that Saye had not met with the other peers. At no point in my article is it stated that Saye ‘co-ordinated’ this ‘meeting at Hatfield’; merely that Saye was one of a number of peers whom Baker discovered to have been present at it: ‘English nobility’, p. 576. Kishlansky dismisses the report in the Clarendon newsletter of 2 Aug. 1647 (Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo. 24) that the king had been visited by Northumberland and Saye as merely ‘gossip and newsbook reports’. In fact, Clarendon's principal source of information during this period was Sir Edward Forde, Ireton's royalist brother-in-law, and the figure who was reported to have represented the king at Fairfax's Council of War. For Forde's position, see Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 29, fo. 263: lett. of intelligence, 5 July 1647; [Wildman], , Putney proiects, p. 12Google Scholar. Cf. ‘Saye what?’, pp. 931–2.

79 ‘Saye what?’, p. 932.

80 A narrative by John Ashburnham of his attendance on King Charles the first (2 vols., 1830), II, 92Google Scholar; cited in ‘English nobility’, p. 577, II. 73. Deane seems to have expected that the parliamentarians who had joined ‘their Councills’ would insist on a harder bargain with the king than was allowed for in the Heads – a natural expectation in the light of parliament's current peace terms (the Newcastle Propositions). I infer from this passage that Cromwell and Ireton were at Syon; otherwise Ashburnham's statement that they had refused to speak with him is meaningless.

81 ‘Saye what?’, p. 932.

82 [Wildman], , Putney proiects, p. 14Google Scholar. His text states, ‘At last SIR JOHN BERKLEY and Mr. ASHBURNHAM brought the Kings answer to them at Colebrook on August I and the Proposalls bear date August 2.’ While this information is almost certainly accurate as to the sequence of events, he is out by one day, as the Heads of the Proposals bear the date I August (Gardiner, S. R., The constitutional documents of the Puritan revolution, 1625–60 [3rd edn, Oxford, 1906], p. 316)Google Scholar; thus fixing the date of the delivery of the king's answer as the previous day, 31 July. As to the place of delivery, Ashburnham may have visited Colnbrook as well as Syon; but his own testimony leaves no doubt that the answer was delivered to Deane, Cromwell and Ireton, at Syon. Northumberland's accounts also reveal that a member of his London household made an urgent return journey by water from London to Syon House on 31 July – further suggesting that his master was in residence at Syon on that day: ‘For a paire of Owers [oars] from London to Sion and back againe. July 31 [1647]’. Petworth House, Sussex, MS 333 (Stable acc.), unfol.

83 SirWaller, William, Vindication (1793), pp. 191–2Google Scholar. Waller, who was not present and was relying on second-hand reports, is vague as to the chronology, but states that those at Syon had come from Hatfield.

84 Kishlansky has also argued that these Heads were ‘allowed to be published on August I’: Rise, p. 272. See also Vane's relation to the house of commons on 6 August where he specifies ‘that at Colbrooke, the commissioners of the army delivered unto the commissioners of parliament Heads of Proposals’ (CJ, v, 268).

85 ‘English nobility’, pp. 577–8.

86 ‘Saye what?’, p. 933, II. 96.

87 Perfect Summary, no. 3 (2–9 Aug. 1647), p. 18 (B.L., E 518/15); ‘Saye what?’, p. 933.

88 ‘Saye what?’, p. 932.

89 He ‘was with, the earl of Warwick at Lees, and he was certainly there until at least 2 August’ because of a newsbook report that day: ‘August 2. The Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Manchester sent to the General intimating that they had quit the Houses’: Perfect Diurnall, no. 210 (2–9 Aug. 1647), p. 1686 (B.L., E 518/16). Cf. ‘Saye what?’, p. 933, II. 96.

90 Chequers Court, Bucks., MS 782 (Clarke's ace), fo. 53V. The same sentence in the Perfect Diurnall's report goes on to state that ‘the Lord Say and Seale, Lord Mograve [the earl of Mulgrave] and divers other Lords and many of the House of Commons came to the head Quarters desiring to be protected by the Gen’. If the information contained in the second part of this sentence was contemporaneous with that contained in the first part, then it is likely that this too refers to events which had taken place around 30–31 July. 2 August was the date of the report, not of the events described: Perfect Diurnall, no. 210 (2–9 Aug. 1647), p. 1686 (B.L., E 518/16).

91 Cf. ‘Saye what?’, p. 932: ‘But the Army's rendezvous at Hounslow Heath took place on 3 August’. Cf. Perfect Summary, no. 3 (2–9 Aug. 1647), p. 19 (sig. C2) (B.L., E 518/15), for 2 Aug.: ‘The Rendezvouz of the Army was this day at Hounsloe-heath’; and Edward Makyn's relation of 2 Aug. ‘I did understand that their Rendesvous was appointed to be this day at Hounslow Heath’. CJ, V, 264.

92 Gardiner, , Civil War, III, 344Google Scholar. After the rendezvous, there followed (as I argued in the ‘English nobility’) a second series of meetings – at Syon and reportedly at Saye's house at Stanwell – where ‘the result was the members' Declaration of 4 August’, supporting Fairfax's decision to march on London to restore order. ‘English nobility’ p. 578. See also the account in the Perfect Diurnall, no. 210 (2–9 Aug. 1647), p. 1688 (B.L., E 518/16).

93 ‘Saye what?’, p. 933: ‘There can be no question but that the meeting at Syon House was on 3 August’, declares Kishlansky, and this was ‘what it was always supposed to have been, a meeting of those who had fled to the army, where the Declaration of the Members dated 4 August was drawn up, and where the decision to march into London on the 6th was taken’. But what Kishlansky presents as a startling conclusion of his own on this point, radically at variance with the argument presented in the ‘English nobility’, in fact merely restates the case presented there: that after the ‘general rendezvous at Hounslow Heath, Saye and Northumberland convened meetings of their parliamentary colleagues, at Syon and “Lord Sayes house at Stantwell”… The result was the members' Declaration of 4 August’ (‘English nobility’, p. 578).

94 The ‘hostility’ between the Lords and the army was underscored by the fact that the Speaker of the Lords, Manchester, ‘had most likely not attended either the rendezvous or the meeting’ at Syon House. The fact that the newsbooks are silent on Manchester's presence is sinister and ‘significant’ (‘Saye what?’, p. 933, II. 96). But the newsbooks are not silent about Manchester: the Perfect Summary records that ‘the Speakers were there viewing the severall Regiments’ at Heath, Hounslow (Perfect Summary, no. 3 [2–9 08 1647], p. 22Google Scholar, B.L., E 518/15); and the Council of War's own declaration of 3 August refers to both ‘Speakers, with many of the Members of both Houses’ being driven away from parliament (LJ, IX, 377); the same point is made twice in the army's Remonstrance of 18 August (LJ, IX, 393, 397). There can be no doubt that Manchester joined the peers who had sought the protection of the army.

95 ‘Saye what?’, pp. 926–8, 935.

96 LJ, IX, 396. The Council of War protested in its Remonstrance of 18 August, that there were still M.P.s present who had been complicit in the events of July – yet nothing was being done to bring them to justice because of the ‘power and prevalence of those members in parliament who are (many of them, as we can make appear) equally guilty…’.

97 ‘Saye what?’, p. 926.

98 Ibid.

99 LJ, IX, 379; read in the Commons on 9 Aug. and deferred to the following day – when nothing was done. CJ, v, 270–1.

100 CJ, v, 271 (the first column is headed ‘Die Martis, II Augusti’ but this is a misprint for 10 August). For the army's declaration, LJ, IX, 375–8. When, over a week later, the Commons had done nothing to declare publicly their approval of the army's actions the Lords intervened again, desiring a conference, at which the reasons presented to the Commons were drawn up by Denbigh, Mulgrave, Howard of Escrick, and Saye. LJ, IX, 386.

101 LJ, IX, 395.

102 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927.

103 Ibid.

104 CJ, v, 268: on 6 August, the first day the Houses sat after the return of the Speakers, the younger Vane reported that the parliamentary commissioners to the army had been delivered ‘Heads of Proposals to be treated upon by the commissioners’: thus the version published on I August did not represent demands by the army engraved on tablets of stone, but merely an agenda for discussion between the army's and the parliament's commissioners.

105 LJ, IX, 460, 462.

106 LJ, IX, 395. Cf. ‘Saye what?’, p. 928. The parliamentary commissioners resumed their discussions on the proposals with the army on 10 September, and the army's commissioners undertook to deliver the revised proposals ‘in such manner as they desire them to be presented to the Houses’ (CJ, v, 302). Unaware of Kishlansky's judgement on the proposals’ irrelevancy, Vane reported to the Commons on 15 September on behalf of the commissioners to the army ‘that since Friday last [i.e. since 10 September] they had treated with the commissioners of the army, upon their Proposals [ibid.]; and had shewed them where any thing in those Proposals were against the votes or declarations of the Houses’. This revised version of the Proposals was ready on 21 September (LJ, IX, 441; CJ, v, 311. H.L.R.O., MP 21/9/47, fos. 40–3); and, as the Remonstrance of 18 August had made clear, they were presented with the intention that they be ‘framed into bills’ when the Houses came to revise the peace terms to be offered to the king.

107 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927; and cf. p. 926: ‘Even when things happen simultaneously it is the event in the Lords that is recorded’.

108 CJ, v, 311. The entry for 21 September states precisely that ‘Mr Povey delivered in the Heads of Proposals, agreed on by the General and the Council of the Army’: that is, he tabled the document. Had it been read to the Commons, the normal practice would have been for the clerk to have recorded the fact; he did not.

109 LJ, IX, 441.

110 LJ, IX, 460, 462.

111 LJ, IX, 460: on I October the Lords ordered that the parliamentary propositions be considered jointly with ‘the propositions and proposals from the army … and to proceed de die in diem’. On the 13th, the Lords' committee on the propositions was ordered ‘to draw up into form' the propositions agreed upon by both Houses, and to submit additional propositions on a number of subjects taken from the Heads of the Proposals: ‘justices of the peace and grand jury men’, and on the crucial matters of royalist delinquents and the date for the dissolution of the present parliament: LJ, IX, 481. On the question of the treatment of delinquents, the relation between the Lords' resolution and the Heads was made explicit: on 13 October the committee was ordered to ‘draw up into propositions those votes which are passed this House, mentioned in the Proposals from the Army, concerning the proportions which delinquents shall be set at, for compounding for their delinquency, and to report the same to this House’. LJ, IX, 481. See Heads, XV: printed in Gardiner, , Constitutional documents, pp. 322–3Google Scholar; discussed in ‘English nobility’, p. 584.

112 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927.

113 Ibid.

114 Ibid.

115 Ibid. p. 928.

116 ‘English nobility’, pp. 584–91; cf. ‘Saye what?’, pp. 927–8.

117 CJ, v, 301; LJ, IX, 432–5.

118 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927.

119 Ibid.

120 CJ, v, 314.

121 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927 and n. 60. Moreover, the ‘matter’ resolved to be included extended to the abolition of bishops and the sale of their lands – the issues which had proved most divisive in each of the previous peace negotiations with the king: at Oxford in 1643, at Uxbridge in 1645, at Newcastle in 1646. Yet Professor Kishlansky curiously describes these ‘bills’ as part of ‘a number of less-contentious issues’.

122 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927.

123 LJ, IX, 460.

124 Ibid. (for Evelyn's message to the Lords); MP [151/10/47, fos. 160r–161v; printed in LJ, IX, 467–8 (4 Oct. 1647).

125 LJ, IX, 483. ‘Saye what?’, pp. 927–8.

126 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927.

127 LJ, IX, 483, 481.

128 Kishlansky seems to have confused this imaginary ‘conference’ on the propositions with the actual conference on 8 October ‘concerning the list of the commanders for this winterf'[s] [naval] guard’; but this conference was reported by the earl of Manchester that same day (LJ, IX, 475–6). There had been no conference since. The Lords' committee from which Saye reported had been ordered ‘to draw up into Propositions' (LJ, IX, 481) not only the rough Commons’ resolutions (at this point merely brief statements as to the subject-matter to be included), but also a series of additional propositions. Saye made his report ‘ from the [Lords'] committee’ not from Professor Kishlansky's non-existent conference – on 15 October, and a total of sixteen propositions were eventually passed. LJ, IX, 483–4.

129 Cf. ‘Saye what?’, pp. 927–8: on 15 October ‘the Lords simply passed the nine propositions sent up to them by the Commons on I October’. Professor Kishlansky's account is doubly misleading: not only were the papers sent up by the Commons not propositions but resolutions, but in addition to redrafting the Commons’ resolutions as propositions, that same day the Lords sent down a further seven propositions to the Commons: on religion, on delinquents (in accordance with the ‘Votes which are passed this House mentioned in the Proposals from the Army’: LJ, IX, 481), justices and grand juries, the ending of current parliament, treaties, an Act of Oblivion, and for the restoration of the royal family's rights and revenues. LJ, IX, 483–4.

130 LJ, IX, 484; CJ, V, 335.

131 CJ, V, 335. Cf. Kishlansky's claim that Saye and Wharton introduced nothing new on 15 October, ‘for on that day the Lords simply passed the nine propositions sent up to them by the Commons on I October’ (‘Saye what?’, pp. 927–8 and n. 66). As we have seen, the Commons' resolutions concerning the abolition of bishops and the sale of their lands sent up to the Lords on I October were not even drafted as propositions, much less as bills. The full text of Professor Kishlansky's ‘bill' on bishops’ lands sent from the Commons reads as follows: ‘Resolved, that the matter of the proposition concerning the sale of bishops' lands shall be prepared to be sent to the king for his consent’ (LJ, IX, 467; the original MS sent from the Commons is H.L.R.O., MP [15]/10/47, fo. 160). The Houses had agreed on ‘the matter’ to be included in the propositions; what they had not yet done – as every one of the Commons’ resolutions makes clear – was to prepare them ‘into form’: that is, to spell out the ‘matter’ of the propositions in detail in a form they could be presented to the king. It was this task which the Lords unilaterally committed to a committee of eleven peers on 13 October (LJ, IX, 481).

132 ‘English nobility’, pp. 584–5.

133 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927.

134 CJ, v, 327. On 6 October, the Commons appointed ‘a committee to consider of and prepare a proposition’ concerning the church government and ‘the exemption of such tender consciences as cannot conform to that [i.e. the Presbyterian] government’; and although this committee reported to the Commons on 13 October, debate on the resolutions arising from this committee's report was still in progress (and continued into the following afternoon), when the Lords' far more radical proposition was introduced in the upper House on 13 October (LJ, IX, 481). The manuscript of this proposition for a bill is H.L.R.O., MP 15/10/47, fos. 162–3;it may be compared with the Commons' resolutions of 13 and 14 October printed in CJ, v, 332–3. It was this proposition which was recommitted in the Lords and passed on the 15th, where the Journal reports: ‘The Lord Viscount Say & Seale reported the proposition concerning settling of Church Government, with the additions, which was read and approved of’ (LJ, IX, 484).

135 CJ, v, 335 (16 Oct. 1647). The proposition on religion was one of the ‘sixteen papers’ sent down that day. These completed propositions were introduced into the Lords on 15 October by Saye and Wharton respectively. LJ, IX, 483–4.

136 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927.

137 Ibid.; H.L.R.O., MP [15]/10/47, fos. 160–IV (printed in LJ, IX, 467–8).

138 ‘Saye what?’, p. 927; LJ, IX, 483.

139 ‘Saye what?’, p. 928; LJ, IX, 483–4.

140 ‘Saye what?’, p. 937.

141 Ibid. p. 918.

142 Ibid. p. 937, quoting LJ, VI, 405.

143 Gardiner, , Civil War, I, 304Google Scholar.

144 Gardiner, , Constitutional documents, pp. 273–4Google Scholar. This ordinance of I February was eventually passed by the Commons on 22 May; for Saye's introduction of the original bill see Mercurius Aulicus, 7th week (11–17 Feb. 1644), p. 828 (mispaginated as 825); B.L., E 35/27.

145 Kishlansky, , Rise, p. 249Google Scholar: he refers to Essex as having been one of the ‘undoubted allies’ of the impeached members.

146 B.L., Add. MS 18779 (Yonge's diary), fo. 6Ir–v (I am grateful to Mr Christopher Thompson for kindly making available to me his transcript of this diary). Gardiner, , Civil War, I, 304–6Google Scholar.

147 ‘Saye what?’, p. 937.

148 B.L., Add. MS 46189 (Jessop papers), fo. 151: he received a pair of silver spurs and a silver sword hilt.

149 B.L., Add. MS 18779 (Yonge's diary), fo. 61.

150 Mercurius Aulicus, 7th week (11–17 Feb. 1644), p. 828 (mispaginated as 825); B.L., E 35/27. Saye is referred to as ‘late’ because he had been declared a traitor (and his peerage thus assumed to be forfeit) by the king; Reynolds had moved in the debate on the ordinance on 3 February that ‘hee [did] thinck there is some designe in it, and therefore woulde haue a Comittee to consider ofdesigne’: B.L., Add. MS 18779 (Yonge's diary), fo. 61. Even Gardiner came reluctantly to the same conclusion: Gardiner, , Civil War, I, 305Google Scholar: ‘Either Say took a favourable opportunity when his own friends Were in a majority or the Lords were in an inattentive mood. They at once accepted the ordinance…’

151 Kishlansky, , Rise, p. 164Google Scholar.

152 Ibid. p. 162.

153 Ibid. p. 161.

154 ‘Saye what?’, p. 928.

155 Kishlansky, , Rise, p. 165Google Scholar.

156 P.R.O., SP 21/26 (Derby House Cttee, mins.), 20 Feb. (p.m.), 25 Feb., 3 and 26 Mar. 1647. This is even counting such figures as Goodwyn (one of those whose addition in October 1646 was supposed to have ‘tipped the scales’), whose name Kishlansky consistently mis-spells, and whose scale-tipping presence is recorded at only three meetings throughout the entire five month period. Cf. Kishlansky, , Rise, pp. 164–7Google Scholar. The most expansive view of Holles's ‘majority’ during this period would include only Sir William Waller, Goodwyn, Gerard, Crewe, Stapilton, Glynne, Reynolds, Clotworthy, and Lewes (of those who actually attended the committee).

157 The position changed after the membership of the committee was effectively restructured in April 1647; but Kishlansky is insistent that this restructuring merely enhanced Holles's already-existing power on the committee. Indeed, all of the major initiatives adopted by the Derby House Committee even before that date are attributed unhesitatingly to Denzell Holies: Kishlansky, , Rise, esp. pp. 162–5Google Scholar.

158 Kishlansky, , Rise, pp. 164–7, 324–5Google Scholar. (SP 21/26 (Derby House Cttee, mins.) attendances for the period between 17 Nov. 1646 and 31 March 1647: Wharton 14 meetings; Northumberland 13); from the Commons, Sir William Armyne (31 meetings out of 34), and William Pierrepont (30). This makes nonsense of Kishlansky's suggestion that Armyne and Pierrepont stopped after April 1647 attending the meetings of the committee simply because they were ‘overwhelmed’ by administration.

159 ‘Saye what?’, p. 935.