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The King, the Parliament, and the Localities during the English Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Ann Hughes
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Extract

Debate over the nature of central-local relationships has played an important part in recent discussion of the origins and course of the English Civil War. It is an oversimplification, but not a caricature, to say that two distinct sets of views are current. The first, and in many ways the most consistent and coherent, arguments are those found in the work of the local historians who have developed the idea of the county community as the most important focus for the activities of the provincial gentry and, in more general form, in Morrill's The Revolt of the Provinces and Hutton's The Royalist War Effort. In this work a clear separation is seen between local and national issues or preoccupations. The majority of the county gentry, and still more the ranks below them, were ill informed about national developments and concerned with the activities of central government mainly as they affected the stability of their local communities. Only a small minority of activists were genuinely committed to the Royalist or the Parliamentarian side in the Civil War; the most characteristic provincial response to the divisions of 1642 was reluctance to become involved, as shown both in widespread neutralism among individuals and in collective attempts at local pacification. Gradually the whole of England was drawn, willy-nilly, into the war, but allegiance was determined largely by contingent military factors: the proximity of London or of the king's army or the relative effectiveness of the small numbers of local partisans.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 2: Politics and Religion in the Early Seventeenth Century: New Voices , April 1985 , pp. 236 - 263
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1985

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References

1 Everitt, Alan, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion (Leicester, 1966)Google Scholar; Fletcher, Anthony, A County Community in Peace and War: Sussex, 1600–1660 (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Morrill, J. S., Cheshire, 1630–1660: County Government and Society during the “English Revolution” (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar, and The Revolt of the Provinces: Conservatives and Radicals in the English Civil War, 1630–1650 (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Hutton, Ronald, The Royalist War Effort, 1642–1646 (London, 1982)Google Scholar.

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7 See Holmes; Underdown; Hughes; and also Hirst, Derek, “Court, Country and Politics before 1629,” in Faction and Parliament: Essays on Early Stuart History, ed. Sharpe, Kevin (Oxford, 1978), pp. 105–37Google Scholar.

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11 Hughes, “Militancy and Localism,” gives insufficient weight to local concerns; see Holmes, , The Eastern Association in the English Civil War, pp. 1–2Google Scholar, for the view that Parliament had to overcome localism. It could be argued that the major difference between Morrill and Hutton, on the one hand, and Holmes and Hughes, on the other, is that the former believe that the overcoming of localism—the dogged, legalistic integrity of provincial communities—was a more difficult and more transient process than do the latter with their denial that localism encompassed an extended legitimating ideology and their belief that national developments determined the outcome of events.

12 For this view of the English state, see, e.g., Williams, Penry, The Tudor Regime (reprint, Oxford, 1981)Google Scholar. It is clear that the approach of Lake, Peter, “The Collection of Ship Money in Cheshire: A Case Study of the Relations between Central and Local Government,” Northern History 17 (1981): 44–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; or Herrup, Cynthia, “The Counties and the Country: Some Thoughts on Seventeenth Century Historiography,” Social History 8 (1983): 169–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has here been preferred to that of Hirst, Derek, “The Privy Council and Problems of Enforcement in the 1620s,” Journal of British Studies 18, no. 1 (1978): 46–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See esp. Herrup's comment that ruling was “a repeated exercise in compromise, co-operation, cooptation and resistance” (pp. 170–71).

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14 For a comparable argument in an earlier context, see Lake, pp. 54–58, where it is suggested that long-running intracounty disputes over ship money facilitated the collection of the levy. This present argument is perhaps controversial, and it must be emphasized that a very different judgment of Royalist weaknesses can be found in Wanklyn, M. D. G., “Royalist Strategy in the South of England, 1642–1646,” Southern History 3 (1981): 55–79Google Scholar, where it is argued that Royalists were too divided and that local interests were given too much weight; see also Roy, p. 349, for similar views.

15 The general aspects of the following discussion concentrate rather more on the relationship between the center and the localities on the Royalist side. This would seem to redress a balance in the existing literature, which includes many substantial works dealing with such issues for the Parliamentarians; Holmes, The Eastern Association in the English Civil War; and Underdown, Pride's Purge, are the most notable examples.

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19 Hutton, Ronald, “The Structure of the Royalist Party, 1642–1646,” Historical Journal 24 (1983): 553–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Larkin, James F., ed., Stuart Royal Proclamations, vol. 2, Charles I, 1625–1646 (Oxford, 1983), no. 339, p. 774Google Scholar; Phillips, William, ed., Sir Francis Ottley's Papers, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 2d ser., vol. 7 (Shrewsbury, 1895), p. 242Google Scholar; Rushworth, John, ed., Historical Collections (London, 1721), 5:592Google Scholar. The proclamation of September 1644 declaring Charles's desire for peace and launching the “association” movement in Somerset is a partial exception with more emphasis on the Protestant religion and the laws of the land than on the royal person and royal rights (Larkin, ed., no. 503, pp. 1047–48).

20 For one of the most famous manifestations of the Parliamentarian separation of the personal and public aspects of kingship, see the “Remonstrance of both Houses … concerning Hull, 26 May 1642,” in The Stuart Constitution, ed. Kenyon, J. P. (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 242–44Google Scholar. Parliament was drawing on much earlier ideas; see, e.g., the discussions in Axton, Marie, The Queen's Two Bodies, Royal Historical Society Studies in History (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Cust, Richard P., “The Forced Loan and English Politics, 1626–1628” (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1984), pp. 284–86Google Scholar; Russell, Conrad, “The Theory of Treason in the Trial of Strafford,” English Historical Review 80 (1965): 30–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Hughes, Ann, “Warwickshire on the Eve of the Civil War” (n. 6 above), p. 60Google Scholar; Blackwood, B. G., The Lancashire Gentry and the Great Rebellion, 1640–1660, Chetham Society, 3d ser., vol. 25 (Manchester, 1978), pp. 50–51Google Scholar; Harrison, G. A., “Royalist Organisation in Gloucestershire and Bristol, 1642–1645” (M.A. thesis, Manchester University, 1961), pp. 41, 55Google Scholar, and “Royalist Organisation in Wiltshire, 1642–1646” (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1963), pp. 88–95Google Scholar; Fletcher, , The Outbreak of the English Civil War, p. 394Google Scholar.

22 Phillips, C. B., “The Royalist North: The Cumberland and Westmoreland Gentry, 1642–1660,” Northern History 14 (1978): 170–71Google Scholar; Newman, P. R., “The Royalist Army in Northern England, 1642–1645” (D.Phil, thesis, University of York, 1978), 1:25–26, 56, 83, 178; 2:12, 144, 208, 337, 397–98Google Scholar.

23 Roy, pp. 189–91; British Library (BL), Harleian (Harl.) MS 6852, fols. 37–38, and Harl. MS 6802, fols. 88–89 (auxiliaries in Reading, Bristol, and Oxford). For the association movement, see Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort (n. 1 above), pp. 157–71Google Scholar; and for a sample of Royalist military commanders' reactions, see Bodleian Library (Bodl.), Firth MS C6, fol. 332; BL, Additional (Add.) MS 18982, fols. 16–17; Warburton, B. E. G., ed., Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers (London, 1849), 3:54Google Scholar. Wanklyn, , “The King's Armies in the West of England” (n. 13 above), pp. 183–84Google Scholar, quotes and endorses Clarendon's equally critical opinion, but Underdown, David, Somerset in the Civil War and Interregnum (Newton Abbot, 1973), pp. 79–82Google Scholar, is suggestive of the potential of such movements, as are the Shropshire declarations in Phillips, William, ed., Sir Francis Ottley's Papers, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 2d ser., vol. 8 (Shrewsbury, 1896), pp. 272, 284–85Google Scholar.

24 For Hopton, see Coate, Mary, Cornwall in the Great Civil War and Interregnum (reprint, Truro, 1963), pp. 36–38, 58–59Google Scholar; for Astley, see Bodl., Firth MS C6, fols. 44–46, 48. By 1644, however, there were problems in satisfying local demands in Cornwall (Roy, Ian, ed., The Royalist Ordnance Papers, 1642–1646, Oxfordshire Record Society, vols. 43, 49 [Oxford, 1964, 1975], p. 380)Google Scholar.

25 Fletcher, , The Outbreak of the English Civil War, p. 327Google Scholar.

26 BL, Add. MS 18981, fols. 97r–v, spring 1644. Compare Hopton's explanation to Rupert of the value of a local man as commander at Bristol, September 1643, and the Devonian John Greville's request to Maurice of the governorship of Barnstable, December 1644, where the obvious advantages have to be spelled out (Warburton, ed., 2:291; BL, Add. MS 18981, fol. 340r).

27 Warburton, ed., 2:188-90; Harrison, , “Royalist Organisation in Wiltshire,” pp. 265, 284Google Scholar. Ten of the thirty-seven nominated commissioners of array, including Hyde and Nicholas, were active only outside Wiltshire.

28 Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort, pp. 149–51, 155–56Google Scholar (the telling phrase is at p. 151); Roy, pp. 134–38; Newman, 1:381–83, 418–20, 455–62; BL, Add. MS 18981, fols. 227v, 259, 261–62 (for the Northern Horse in general); Bodl., Firth MS C6, fol. 312 (for the appeal to Rupert); cf. also Warburton, ed., 3:70–71.

29 Hutchinson, Lucy, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, ed. Sutherland, James (Oxford, 1973), pp. 83–90, 104–25, 129–58Google Scholar, gives a partisan account of these disputes, but they are more soberly documented in Baker, W. T., ed., Records of the Borough of Nottingham (Nottingham, 1900), vol. 5Google Scholar; and in the journals of the houses of Parliament and the State Papers. Quotations are from Hutchinson, pp. 122, 106, 146.

30 Journals of the House of Commons (CJ), 3:315Google Scholar. Hutchinson, pp. 104–6, 116–17, 128–30, 139–40.

31 See, e.g., Hutchinson, p. 89, for Colonel Hutchinson's comment, “It must not move them to see their houses flaming and, if need be, themselves firing them for the public advantage.”

32 Baker, ed., 5:208–9, 221–22, 226–27. Hutchinson, pp. 147–49.

33 Hughes, , “Militancy and Localism” (n. 10 above), pp. 51–64Google Scholar.

34 Hughes, Ann, “Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire, 1620–1650” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1980), pp. 380–98Google Scholar; Holmes, , “Colonel King and Lincolnshire Politics” (n. 10 above), pp. 471–75Google Scholar; Underdown, , Somerset in the Civil War and Interregnum (n. 23 above), pp. 141–42Google Scholar; Morrill, , The Revolt of the Provinces (n. 1 above), pp. 69–70Google Scholar; cf. Holmes, , The Eastern Association in the English Civil War (n. 10 above), pp. 216–23Google Scholar, for examples of criticism of the supercession of the association, again conducted through Parliamentarian committees.

35 See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic (CSPD), 1644, p. 368, and 1644–45, pp. 111–12, 276, 305, 383, for the dealings of the Committee of Both Kingdoms with Nottingham. CJ, 3:689; 4:75, 110, 118. An important role was played in these disputes by Gilbert Millington, the M.P. for Nottingham, who was seen as a mediator by Parliament but regarded as an enemy by Mrs. Hutchinson. A compromise was patched up only in April 1645. Colonel Hutchinson preferred to appeal to his military superiors, Lord Fairfax or the earl of Essex, while believing it was “ridiculous to send for satisfaction in unquestionable things.” Mrs. Hutchinson's sardonic view was that “Generals understood not so well the power of a committee as the Parliament” (pp. 117–18).

36 Hughes, , “Militancy and Localism,” pp. 61–68Google Scholar; see Holmes, , “Colonel King and Lincolnshire Politics,” pp. 478–79Google Scholar, for the ways rivals in the complex Lincolnshire disputes appealed to a multitude of outside bodies—the two houses of Parliament, the committees of accounts, the army, and the excise—and also used the London press.

37 This argument seems to me to hold whatever view is taken of national alignments. For a range of recent work, see Underdown, Pride's Purge (n. 10 above); Kishlansky, M. A., The Rise of the New Model Army (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar.

38 Denbigh's family had risen to preeminence through their links with the duke of Buckingham, a process with few local benefits. After the loss of his military command, Denbigh continued to play a significant political role through the House of Lords; he was one of Parliament's representatives at Uxbridge and sat on the early Commonwealth councils of state (see Hughes, , “Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire,” pp. 44–45, 355–56, 380Google Scholar). Compare the career of Lord Willoughby of Parham, who lost command in Lincolnshire after a bitter dispute with the earl of Manchester and Colonel King. He too remained active on the Parliament's side, sitting on Lords' committees and using the Lords to attack King. His ultimate defection to the Royalists in 1648 followed impeachment by the Commons and four months imprisonment in 1647 (see Holmes, , “Colonel King and Lincolnshire Politics,” pp. 454–61Google Scholar; Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Francis Willoughby, fifth Baron Willoughby of Parham”).

39 In December 1643, in Newman's account, Nottingham was “an isolated panicking town,” but in 1644 it was a force to be reckoned with, a factor in the Royalists' confused strategic considerations, which culminated in disaster at Marston Moor (Newman [n. 22 above], pp. 232, 294).

40 Hughes, , “Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire,” pp. 308, 327–35Google Scholar; Dore, R. N., ed., The Letter Books of Sir William Brereton, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vol. 123 (Gloucester, 1984), 1:18–20Google Scholar.

41 Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort (n. 1 above), esp. pp. 85–104Google Scholar, gives a general survey of Royalist organization. For the reliance on sheriffs, see, e.g., Newcastle to the sheriff of Derbyshire, January 14, 1644, Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC), Hastings MS (London, 1930), 2:115Google Scholar (from where the quotation is taken); Larkin, ed. (n. 19 above), no. 442, p. 945 (Gloucestershire); Harrison, , “Royalist Organisation in Wiltshire” (n. 21 above), pp. 213, 333–34, 342Google Scholar; Fletcher, Anthony, “The Coming of War,” in Morrill, , ed. (n. 3 above), p. 45Google Scholar; Bodl., Firth MS C6, fol. 337 (Rupert's reliance on sheriffs for the coordination of administrative reform in Wales, February 1644). Suggestive also are Charles's remark s when he knighted Francis Bassett, sheriff of Cornwall, in 1644: “Now Mr Sheriff I leave Cornwall to you safe and sound” (Coate [n. 24 above], p. 155).

42 Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort, pp. 93–94Google Scholar.

43 Harrison, , “Royalist Organisation in Wiltshire,” pp. 294–303, 320, 363–67, 376–77, 484–87Google Scholar, where the contrasts are explicitly drawn and Royalists are described as showing “total” disrespect for local susceptibilities. A quarter of the commissioners of array had abandoned the Royalist cause in Wiltshire before the Parliamentary military advance in summer 1644.

44 Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort, pp. 53–58Google Scholar; the quotation is from p. 58.

45 Ibid., pp. 117–19; Harrison, , “Royalist Organisation in Gloucestershire and Bristol” (n. 21 above), pp. 140–41, 186–214, 251Google Scholar; BL, Add. MS 18980, fols. 91, 97, 155, and Add. MS 18981, fols. 16r, 105r. The naive comment of Sir Edward Walker's suggests something of the Royalist incomprehension of the dynamics of local conflicts: “Lord Chandos, who had with very much courage and seeming fidelity the two preceding years, served his Majesty … carried away with some needless discontent, quitted his commands” (quoted in Harrison, , “Royalist Organisation in Gloucestershire and Bristol,” p. 214Google Scholar).

46 Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort, pp. 100–104Google Scholar.

47 Phillips, William, ed., Sir Francis Ottley's Papers, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 2d ser., vol. 6 (Shrewsbury, 1894), pp. 56–57Google Scholar; vol. 7, pp. 311–12, 321–23; vol. 8, pp. 212–13, 223–25, 240–46. As in Wiltshire there is a clear contrast between Royalist problems when in an apparently strong position and Parliamentarian resilience in difficult times (see Dore, ed., pp. 19–21).

48 Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort, pp. 129–32, 142, 170–75Google Scholar.

49 Besides the political disadvantages deriving from Rupert's prominence it seems that, in practical terms, he simply had too much to do to be efficient. For some of the innumerable appeals to Rupert to sort out local problems, see BL, Add. MS 18981, fol. 222–37 (Cheshire, Wales, and the Marches, August–September 1644); Bodl., Firth MS C7, fols. 241–80 (Staffordshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire, November-December 1644). On Parliament's side, the responsibility for such problems was shared among committees.

50 BL, Add. MS 18981, fol. 8r; Warburton, ed. (n. 23 above), 2:386. Compare Byron on the corporation of Chester (BL, Add. MS 18981, fol. 53r), Sir John Mennes's famous diatribe against the “insulting” powers of the commissioners of array in Shropshire (BL, Add. MS 18981, fol. 25r), and a remarkable petition to the king in May 1644 from Paul Wymond, asking for a personal command in the town of Dover, which argued that corporate organizations were inevitably factious and rebellious (Public Record Office [PRO], PRO 30/5/6, pp. 339–40). On the Parliamentary side, in any case, Fairfax, Cromwell, or Brereton as much as Essex, Manchester, or Waller surely did not see themselves simply as military leaders, in opposition to civilian interests, although they fretted at short term obstruction by civilian bodies.

51 PRO 30/5/6, pp. 359, 361, 365, 367.

52 For appeals to Northampton, see BL, Add. MS 18980, fol. 58; Manuscripts of the Marquess of Northampton at Castle Ashby, 1083/22. For Northampton's agent, see Roy (n. 13 above), p. 68.

53 HMC, Hastings MS (n. 41 above), 2:121 (February 1644); cf. Rupert to Legge, March 1645, Warburton, ed., 3:73: “I would give anything to be but one day at Oxford.” Sir William Russell's absence from Oxford in early 1643 meant that his complaints against an unruly subordinate in Worcester went unpunished (see Silcock, Robin, “County Government in Worcestershire, 1603–1660” [Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1974], p. 254)Google Scholar; Sir Jacob Astley in December 1644 asked Rupert for leave to come to Oxford to promote his case for additional supplies for Cirencester better; while Richard Bagot complained that Rupert's decision in Leveson's favor in November 1644 was unfair; “Had I been so happy to have been present when your Highness received information concerning the contribution, I should have been able to have given your highness clearer satisfaction concerning the equity of my pretensions, than I persuade myself you have yet received” (Bodl., Firth MS C7, fols. 258r, 233r).

54 HMC, Hastings MS, 2:101Google Scholar. Compare Goring's complaint to Rupert in June 1644: “I have no manner of certainty in anything is promised me from court…. what assurances can I ever have of his Majesty's favour when it is in the power of these people to carry him point blank against his former orders” (Bodl., Firth MS C7, fol. 128r). See Roy, pp. 68–70, for the king's habit of making decisions in private.

55 Examples of the bewilderment that Charles's decisions caused include Jermyn's comment to Rupert that “the King was ashamed today of two particulars of the commission for pressing in Worcestershire and the compounding by his officers with the delinquents” (BL, Add. MS 18981, fol. 86r, March 1644; my emphasis); Byron on the proposal to make Sir Francis Gamull governor of Chester: “Certainly [the king] is persuaded much against his own judgment” (BL, Add. MS 18981, fol. 53r, February 1644); and Edmund Wyndham's complaint at being subordinate to Hopton in Somerset: “It seems strange to me that his Majesty, unless he had a mind to disturb his own business, should thrust his Lordship upon me…. No usage whatsoever shall make me less humbly and faithfully to serve him, but I cannot serve him against my own reason, nor place the affection of all my friends where he will dispose them” (Warburton, ed., 3:48, January 1645). The Worcestershire and Cheshire examples refer to opportunistic concessions made by Charles to the Oxford Assembly (see the quotation of Goring in n. 54 above).

56 For a general assessment of the council, see Roy, Ian, “The Royalist Council of War, 1642–1646,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 35 (1962): 150–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For examples of its dealings with local civilian grievances against military figures, see BL, Harl. MS 6802, no. 55 (Warwickshire, April 1644) and fol. 40r (Berkshire, March 1643). For more general supervision of local affairs, see Harl. MS 6851, fols. 79–94 (Worcestershire, January 1643), 133–34 (Gloucestershire, March 1643); Harl. MS 6802, fol. 86r (Gloucestershire, April 1644); Harrison, , “Royalist Organisation in Wiltshire” (n. 21 above), pp. 221–29Google Scholar (August 1643–January 1644); and the provisions laid down in royal proclamations (Larkin, ed. [n. 19 above], nos. 445, 471 [Oxfordshire, September 1643, February 1644], 453 [Berkshire, October 1643], 463 [Wiltshire, December 1643], 466 [Berkeley division of Gloucestershire, December 1643]). As with informal channels, areas nearest to Oxford found appeals easiest.

57 Roy, , “The Royalist Army in the First Civil War,” p. 51Google Scholar: “Latterly, individuals—from the king downwards—rather than councils made the important decisions.”

58 One focus for serious criticism was Henry Percy as general of artillery (see Roy, ed. [n. 24 above], pp. 30–31, 51; BL, Add. MS 18981, fols. 57r, 73r). For general attempts at military and administrative reform, see BL, Add. MS 18981, fols. 55r, 57v–58r, 72r, and Harl. MS 6804, fols. 156r–v; Bodl., Firth MS C6, fol. 155; Carte, T., ed., The Life of James, Duke of Ormonde (Oxford, 1851), 6:15–16Google Scholar; Roy, , “The Royalist Army in the First Civil War,” pp. 238–39Google Scholar; and the references to local auxiliaries in n. 23 above. For disputes in Wiltshire, see Harrison, , “Royalist Organisations in Wiltshire,” p. 229Google Scholar; BL, Harl. MS 6802, fols. 46r–v; in Staffordshire, see HMC, Hastings MS, 2:121–24Google Scholar; in Chester, see BL, Add. MS 18981, fol. 53r; Warburton, ed., 2:276; Bodl., Firth MS C6, fols. 81–82; BL, Harl. MS 2135, fol. 46r (Gamull's letter).

59 The first session ran from January 22–April 16, 1644. A record of its public declarations is found in Rushworth, ed. (n. 19 above), 5:559–600. The second session, from November 1644–March 10, 1645, was overshadowed by the Uxbridge negotiations and the peace intrigues of Percy, Andover, and Sussex (see Hutton, , “The Structure of the Royalist Party” [n. 19 above], p. 563Google Scholar). There is little mention of this session in Royalist sources, contemporary or retrospective; see, for instance, Hyde, Edward, earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, ed. Macray, W. D. (Oxford, 1888), 3:460Google Scholar. There were also brief meetings in 1646, and on May 15, 1646, the Lords at Oxford burned all records of its proceedings before the surrender of the city (see Larkin, ed., p. 1045n.).

60 Carte, ed., 6:47; Clarendon, 3:293n.; BL, Add. MS 18981, fol. 74. Compare Sir Francis Gamull to the Mayor of Chester, February 13, 1644, BL, Harl. MS 2135, fol. 46r: “I cannot send you any news but what is the joy of many. The Lords and Commons at Oxford are very unanimous.”

61 Mercurius Aulicus (January 28–April 27, 1644). On an admittedly brief survey of the Royalist press it seems that Royalist divisions in general were rarely aired.

62 Kishlansky, M. A., “The Emergence of Adversary Politics in the Long Parliament,” Journal of Modern History 49 (1977): 617–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the use of the press, see Hughes, , “Militancy and Localism” (n. 10 above), p. 67Google Scholar; Holmes, , “Colonel King and Lincolnshire Politics” (n. 10 above), pp. 455, n. 20Google Scholar; 457.

63 BL, Harl. MS 2135, fol. 52r; Warburton, ed., 2:376.

64 Gardiner, S. R., History of the Great Civil War, 1642–49 (New York, 1965), 2:181Google Scholar.

65 Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort (n. 1 above), p. 105Google Scholar.

66 For Wilmot and Percy, see Hutton, , “The Structure of the Royalist Party,” pp. 562–63Google Scholar; Carte, ed., 6:190.

67 Connections between political language and political activity are obviously extremely complex; here I want only to suggest that the range of rhetoric and polemic open to Royalists and to Parliamentarians was different and helped to construct different modes of political action. I have found Pocock, J. G. A., Politics, Language and Time (London, 1971), chap. 1, helpfulGoogle Scholar; see p. 38 for the comment, “The paradigms which order reality are part of the reality they order.” For discussion of similar issues in another context, see Hunt, Lynn, “The Rhetoric of Revolution in France,” History Workshop Journal 15 (Spring 1983): 78–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Larkin, ed., nos. 351, 384–85, 387, 401, 407, 410–11, 430, 435, etc. See also the discussion above and n. 19 above.

69 Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S., ed., Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum (Abingdon, 1982), 1:241, 85–99, 192Google Scholar.

70 One noticeable way in which Parliamentarian rhetoric and practice served to draw individuals into a general cause was through the use of oaths. The National Covenant of June 1643, e.g., holding that “many ways of force and treachery are continually attempted, to bring to utter ruin and destruction the Parliament and Kingdom, and which is dearest, the true Protestant religion,” was not an oath of loyalty to Parliament but a means by which “all who are true-hearted and lovers of their country should bind themselves each to other in a sacred vow and covenant.” The first step was for each individual to “declare my hearty sorrow for my own sins, and the sins of this nation,” and then “to endeavour the amendment of my own ways” (Firth and Rait, eds., 1:175). The contrast between such inclusive oaths and the oaths of obedience, loyalty, and allegiance to the king is important.

71 Bodl., Firth MS C7, fol. 232v (November 1644); Warburton, ed., 3:57 (January 1645). Royalist starvation rhetoric may be a topic in itself; for other examples, see Astley and Charles Lloyd to Rupert, November and December 1644, Bodl., Firth MS C7, fols. 243, 270. Other good examples of piqued Royalist honor include John Byron to Rupert, October 1644, BL, Add. MS 18981, fols. 287–88; Belasyse to Rupert, March 1644, Bodl., Firth MS C7, fol. 7. See Marston, Jerrilyn Greene, “Gentry Honor and Royalism in Early Stuart England,” Journal of British Studies 13, no. 1 (1973): 21–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a preliminary study of a neglected topic.

72 Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort, p. 199Google Scholar, for the quotation. See, e.g., the defiant response of the governor of Pontefract to his Parliamentarian besiegers, January 1645: “According to my allegiance to which I am sworn and in pursuance of the trust reposed in me by his Majesty, I will defend this castle to the uttermost of my power, and I doubt not by God's assistance, the justness of his Majesty's cause, and the virtue of my comrades to quell all those that shall oppose me in the defence thereof for his Majesty's service” (quoted in Newman [n. 22 above], 1:452). For the defeatism of Newcastle and Rupert, see Newman, pp. 373–77; Warburton, ed., 3:185–88, 200–207.

73 Bodl., Tanner MS 62, fol. 402.

74 Baker, ed. (n. 29 above), 5:228–29. For other illustrations of local conflicts seen in terms of disgrace to Parliament rather than personal dishonor, see PRO, State Papers (SP) 28/254/5, fol. 130r (the Coventry subcommittee for accounts on the county committee, May 1647); Everitt, Alan, ed., Suffolk and the Great Rebellion, Suffolk Record Society, vol. 3 (Ipswich, 1960), pp. 87–88Google Scholar (the Eastern Association's objections to the New Model Army, discussed by the Bury Conference, January 1645). A final contrast can be seen in Royalist and Parliamentarian resignations and dismissals (or the threats thereof). When Richard Byron lost the governorship of Newark, his protest to the king concentrated on the necessity for personal vindication, “concerning myself much blemished in my reputation” (Bodl., Firth MS C7, fol. 287r). The earl of Warwick's resignation after the Self-denying Ordinance could surely not have been written by any Royalist: “I do with all humility and cheerfulness, resign and surrender into their hands the office of Lord Admiral, wherewith they were pleased formerly to entrust me. And shall value it as my highest honour and contentment, next to my God, to be serviceable to them and my country in any other condition wherewith his Providence shall cast me; not counting my person, nor dearest interests, too precious to be laid out in maintenace of that great cause of religion and liberty wherein they are so justly engaged” (CJ, 4:107–8 [April 1645]).

75 This is perhaps assimilable to a view of Parliamentarian discourse as a consensus politics if this is taken to mean a multifaceted, ambiguous rhetoric focusing on the commonwealth, the country, and the public service, a discourse that permitted significant differences of approach and ideas within a shared emphasis on unity; cf. Kishlansky, “The Emergence of Adversary Politics in the Long Parliament” (n. 62 above); Lake, Peter, “Constitutional Consensus and Puritan Opposition in the 1620s: Thomas Scott and the Spanish Match,” Historical Journal 25 (1982): 805–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The latter article lays more stress on the opportunity for conflict within a supposed consensus.

76 Hutton, , The Royalist War Effort, pp. 178–200Google Scholar, and “The Structure of the Royalist Party” (n. 19 above), pp. 563–67.

77 See references in nn. 34 and 37 above; Underdown, , Somerset in the Civil War and Interregnum (n. 23 above), pp. 129–33Google Scholar; and Morrill, , Cheshire (n. 1 above), p. 182Google Scholar: “The moderates under Sir George Booth enjoyed in the years 1646–8 a greater degree of power than at any other time between 1642 and 1659.” Gentles, Ian, “The Struggle for London in the Second Civil War,” Historical Journal 26 (1983): 277–305CrossRefGoogle Scholar, emphasizes Parliament's military coercion as a reason for London's acquiescence in 1648 but also points to the importance of the existence of allies for the moderate city authorities in the House of Lords and the recovering “Presbyterian” interest in the Commons. Ultimately Parliament was able to withdraw much of its military strength from London to meet the threat from Kent without serious consequences.

78 Hutton, , “The Structure of the Royalist Party,” p. 569Google Scholar.

79 For various aspects of earlier development, see Russell, “The Theory of Treason in the Trial of Strafford” (n. 20 above); Cust and Lake (n. 16 above); Lake, “Constitutional Consensus and Puritan Opposition in the 1620s”; Collinson, Patrick, The Religion of Protestants (Oxford, 1982), chap. 4Google Scholar.

80 For a recent analysis that argues that an essential characteristic of a “bourgeois state” is the separation of the “public” and “private,” see Therborn, Göran, What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules? (London, 1980), pp. 62–66Google Scholar.