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The Privy Council and Problems of Enforcement in the 1620s*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2014

Derek Hirst
Derek Hirst*
Affiliation:
Washington University, St. Louis
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Extract

It has become the fashion amongst historians seeking to explain the collapse of early Stuart rule to ignore the center and to consider instead the alienation of the local communities and their leaders, on whose co-operation the execution of the crown's policy depended. G. E. Aylmer has become something of a lone voice in the respect that he accords to central government, and even he deliberately and cautiously refrained from commenting in his magisterial work on the efficiency and impact of the Caroline government. Scholars attempting to analyze the crown's problems in 1640 are increasingly turning to the concept of local inertia. Conrad Russell stresses declining collaboration between the crown and the parliamentary gentry in his discussion of the fate of parliamentary supply. Others in local studies have castigated the local magistrates for their destructive fiscal role, for lightening their own burdens, and looking on complacently when their neighbors and inferiors did the same. The gentry failed to give enough in parliament, and then ensured that the sums were even smaller when collected. Anthony Fletcher's verdict on the selfishness of the Sussex gentry is even more resounding than Russell's on the obtuseness of the parliamentary gentry: “The magnate gentry must bear full responsibility for the collapse of the subsidy as an effective fiscal instrument … as the King's servants in the county [they] acquiesced when the community at large followed their example and put the protection of their own pockets before the financial needs of the central government.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Fall 1978 , pp. 46 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1978

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Anthony Fletcher, Conrad Russell, Kevin Sharpe, Richard Tuck, and John Walter for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this article.

References

1. Aylmer, G. E., The King's Servants (London, 1961), pp. 59–68Google Scholar.

2. Russell, C., “Parliament and the King's Finances,” in Russell, C. (ed.), The Origins of the English Civil War (London, 1973), pp. 91–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fletcher, A., County Community in Peace and War: Sussex 1600-1660 (London, 1975), pp. 184–85, 204–05Google Scholar; Quintrell, B. W., “The Government of the County of Essex 1603-1642,” (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1965), pp. 232, 313Google Scholar; Boynton, L., The Elizabethan Militia (London, 1967)Google Scholar, passim.

3. For an attempt at a critical examination of localism, see this author's “Court, Country and Politics Before 1629,” in Sharpe, K. (ed.), Faction and Parliament 1604-1629 (Oxford, in press)Google Scholar. But see also the classic apologia of the Norfolk Deputies in 1629: they were reluctant to report musters defaulters because they were “most vnwillinge that any of our neybours and Countrymen should endure the troble, disgrace, and punishment, which is now intended ….”; or the shameless reduction of one of the Lancashire Deputies' military burdens in 1633: “in respect there be 2 new charges of light horses in that hundred.” Rye, W. (ed.), State Papers Relating to Musters, Beacons, Shipmoney, etc. in Norfolk (Norwich, 1907), p. 164Google Scholar; Lancashire Record Office, DDN/1/64 (Hoghton Lieutenancy Book), f. 87v.

4. Dietz, F. C., English Public Finance 1558-1641 (London, 1932), p. 238Google Scholar, n. 66; Aylmer, , King's Servants, p. 450Google Scholar.

5. Boynton, , Militia, p. 238Google Scholar; Fletcher, , County Community, pp. 181–83Google Scholar; Quintrell, , “Government of Essex,” pp. 248–49Google Scholar. Defaulters were to be expected in view of the expense: Quintrell estimated the official cost of the Essex bands' arms in 1631 at only two-thirds of one levy of ship money in the later 1630s, but that still makes them expensive by pre-1635 standards. For contrast, see the Lancashire exemption of trained bandsmen from all other local services in the later 1620s. This concession is not surprising, for in the 1625 invasion scare the Essex horse did duty for four weeks, and the exceptional Cheshire training of 1626 cost £4000. Ibid., p. 235; Lancs. R.O., DDN/1/64, ff. 26, 86v, 88-88v; Boynton, , Militia, p. 250Google Scholar; Bodleian, MS Firth C4, pp. 169, 180-81.

6. Boynton, L., “Billeting: the Example of the Isle of Wight,” English Historical Review, LXXIV (1959), 23–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; British Library, Add. MS 21922, ff. 82, 120v-121, 172-172v.

7. For two surprisingly deferential mutinies in 1626-27, see Bodleian, MS Firth C4, p. 358, and B. L., Add. MS 21922, f. 70v.

8. The failure of barrack-room lawyers to pounce on the lapse of the various statutes which failed to be formally renewed in 1621 is remarkable: either local legalists or irresponsible property-owners might have been expected to seize on this opportunity to challenge several rates, but despite the apprehensions of Wentworth there appears only to have been one isolated and hesitant case in Buckinghamshire. Jones, W. J., Politics and the Bench (London, 1971), pp. 80–83Google Scholar; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic (hereafter, CSPD), 1619–1623, 415, 423Google Scholar; Knowler, W. (ed.), The Earl of Strafforde's Letters and Dispatches (Dublin, 1740), I, 15Google Scholar.

9. Quoted in Wedgwood, C. V., Strafford (London, 1935), p. 206Google Scholar. I am grateful to Conrad Rusell for this reference; Hampshire R.O., Jervoise MS 44M69, 40/22.

10. Fletcher, , County Community, pp. 202–03Google Scholar; for an unusual case of conciliar intervention, see the purge of the Middlesex commission for flagrant corruption in the 1621 assessments: Acts of the Privy Council 1621-1623 (hereafter, APC), 52, 59.

11. APC 1627, passim; CSPD 1627-1628, 198, 236, 278, 284; Rye, , Norfolk, p. 164Google Scholar; PRO, SP 16/71/50, 16/95/8.

12. Thus, Lord Treasurer Dorset supported his February 1606 request for supply by pointing to the lifting of military charges. Willson, D. H. (ed.), The Parliamentary Diary of Robert Bowyer (Minneapolis, 1931), p. 375Google Scholar.

13. Quoted in Russell, , Origins, p. 109Google Scholar; Rye, , Norfolk, pp. 16–18, 141Google Scholar; CSPD 1627-1628, 198; Bodl., MS Firth C4, pp. 417, 457. The Council itself, in its desperation in 1640, protested against Deputies complaining to the Board about musters defaulters, “since as is usuall in other Countys they may punish them by way of Imprisonment according to the Statute.” Privy Council Registers preserved in the Public Record Office reproduced in facsimile, Vol. XI (London, 1968), 623Google Scholar. For another instance of a Councillor (Arundel) thinking the same, see B.L., King's MS 265, f. 339.

14. Birch, T. (ed.), The Court and Times of Charles I (London, 1849), I, 177Google Scholar; Relf, F. H. (ed.), Notes of the Debates in the House of Lords (Camden Soc., 1929), p. 179Google Scholar. For the service ethos, see Wentworth's remark to SirClifton, Gervase quoted in Hirst, , “Court, Country and Politics Before 1629,”Google Scholar in Sharpe, Fiction.

15. Cooper, J. P. (ed.), Wentworth Papers 1597-1628 (Camden Soc., 1973), p. 199Google Scholar; Barnes, T. G., “County Politics and a Puritan Cause Célèbre: Somerset Churchales 1633,” Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. 5th ser., IX (1959), 103–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; CSPD 1623-1625, 268; Russell, , Origins, p. 15Google Scholar; APC 1621-1623, 171; McClure, N. E. (ed.), Letters of John Chamberlain (Philadelphia, 1939), II, 463Google Scholar.

16. Historicil Manuscripts Commission, 11th Report, App., Pt. I, H. D. Skrine MS, 110; Johnson, G. W. (ed.), The Fairfax Correspondence (London, 1848), I, 68Google Scholar; B.L., Eg. MS 2715, f. 327.

17. Boynton, , Militia, p. 223Google Scholar; APC 1627, 42; Birch, , Court and Times, I, 193–94Google Scholar.

18. CSPD 1627-1628, 15, 25; Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1626-1628, 126; APC 1627, 102; Forster, J., Sir John Eliot (London, 1865), II, 57Google Scholar; Hampshire R. O., Jervoise MS 44M69, 37/30; Wake, J. (ed.), Montagu Musters Book (Northamptonshire Record Society, 1935), 154, 181, 197Google Scholar. Anthony Fletcher has suggested to me that the local governors, despite their less elevated position, perhaps had more effective weapons in the ability to summon for jury service or to vary assessments. But this would depend on co-operation between the various arms of local government, which was not always forthcoming.

19. Boynton, , Militia, pp. 237–38Google Scholar; Quintrell, , “Government of Essex,” pp. 248–49Google Scholar; Fletcher, , County Community, pp. 178–88Google Scholar; CSPD 1619-1623, 116.

20. 1615: APC 1615-1616, 326, 334 (Lincs.), 343-44, (Devon?); 1616: APC 1616-1617, 80 (Cornwall), 100-01, 104-05 (Kent), 111, 161 (Worcs.), 119-20 (Northants.), 190, 192 (Norfolk); 1617: APC 1618-1619, 13, 18-19 (Northants.), 40, 58 (Sussex), 101, 123 (Beds.), 110, 122-23 (Essex), 110 (Norfolk?), 104 (Kent?); 1618: ibid., 193, 200-01, 210 (Hants.), 372 (Norfolk?), 389 (Staffs.), 185, and CSPD 1611-1618, 545 (Devon); 1619: APC 1618-1619, 430, 441, 449, 454, 465 (Norfolk), 430 (Kent?), 448-49, 479 (Essex), 453-54 and PRO, SP 14/108/88 (Lincs.), APC 1618-1619, 467, 468 (Hants.), 443 and PRO, SP 14/108/45 (Leics.), APC 1618-1619, 445, and CSPD 1619-1623, 34 (Wilts.?), APC 1618-1619, 430, and PRO, SP 14/108/20 (Cheshire), APC 1618-1619, 459, and CSPD 1619-1623, 41 (Northants.), APC 1618-1619, 468 (Hants.), ibid., and CSPD 1619-1623, 33-34 (Beds.).

21. APC 1615-1616, 501-03; APC 1618-1619, 141, 429; Bodl., MS Firth C4, p. 76.

22. Russell, C., The Crisis of Parliaments (Oxford, 1971), p. 305n.Google Scholar; Barnes, T. G., Somerset 1625-1640 (Oxford, 1961), p. 166CrossRefGoogle Scholar; CSPD 1627-1628, 15, 25; CSPV 1626-1628, 101-02, 114.

23. CSPD 1627-1628, 47, 127; APC 1627, 78-80, 91-92, 105-06, 221-22. 243, 255-56, 276; Barnes, , Somerset, pp. 166–67Google Scholar; B.L., Add. MS 21922, f. 87. The Council also once used similar tactics over the 1614 benevolence in Leicestershire: APC 1615-1616, 42-43. The Earl of Manchester, the Lord Privy Seal, came close to facing up to the problem of lack of information, one of the gravest facing all early-modern governments, when he attempted to provide for the appointment of “spies … to certify or quicken proceedings” of local officials over the Book of Orders early in 1631. HMC, Buccleuch MS (Montagu House), I, 273Google Scholar.

24. Though even in this case, Contarini alleged that the Councillors were less than eager to act, going into the localities in mid-winter to oversee the Loan was not their preferred pastime. CSPV 1626-1628, 107-08.

25. APC 1626, 148; B.L., Add. MS 21922, f. 99v.

26. See, for example, the failure to send out the vital instruction books for the perfect militia because plague interrupted the posts. Ibid., f. 8.

27. APC 1625-1626, 182; Bodl., MS Firth C4, p. 180; CSPV 1625-1626, 139, 512. (I am grateful to Peter Michel for both references.)

28. APC 1621-1623, 466; APC 1627, 330; B.L., Add. MS 21922, f. 125.

29. PRO, SP 16/54/28; Bodl., MS. Firth C4, pp. 409-10, 411; PRO, SP 16/71/50; CSPV 1626-28, 5, 101, 108; APC 1623-1625, 234.

30. CSPD 1627-1628, 295, 420, 427, 535; APC 1627-1628, 235, 272; see also Sir George Blundell's plaintive cries from Portsmouth, ibid., 148-49, 154-55, 159.

31. Birch, , Court and Times, I, 172, 178Google Scholar; HMC, Buccleuch MS (Montagu House), III, 314Google Scholar.

32. B.L., King's MS 265, ff. 339, 341; Hampshire R.O., Jervoise MS 44M69, 37/41, 37/116.

33. CSPD 1625-1626, 105, 216; Quintrell, , “Government of Essex,” p. 257Google Scholar; APC 1627, 15-16, 36, 21-22, 33. For a Councillor protecting his own county, see Conway's exhortation to his Deputies to “place any thing that deserves blame upon others” over billeting in 1627: B.L., Add. MS 21922, f. 97v. For the practical importance of having a Councillor as protector, see the massive concessions (offsetting the Loan against purveyance and coat and conduct money) won for Buckinghamshire by the Duke on Jan. 31: APC 1627, 45.

34. Bodl., MS Firth C4, pp. 272-74; APC 1627, 222-23.

35. PRO, SP 16/106/31; Bodl., MS Firth C4, p. 176; see also CSPD 1628-1629, 151, 154.

36. Stone, L., Causes of the English Revolution (New York, 1972), pp. 60–62Google Scholar; Russell, C., “Parliamentary History in Perspective,” History, LXI (1976), 17Google Scholar.

37. Bodl., MS Firth C4, p. 188; CSPD 1623-1625, 292; APC 1625-1626, 496-98; APC 1626, 72-74.

38. B.L., Add. MS 21922, f. 87v; HMC, 10th Report, App., Pt. VI, Lord Braye MS, 15. Thus, Contarini reported that the government abandoned its thoughts of billeting troops on Loan refusers “on reflecting that both the soldiers and the populace were disaffected and discontented and might create rather than suppress disturbances.” In view of the Portsmouth soldiers' reception of the thirteen pressed Londoners, the fear seems plausible. CSPV 1626-1628, 126; Birch, , Court and Times, I, 178Google Scholar.

39. I hope to return to this question elsewhere.

40. Fletcher, , County Community, pp. 184–85Google Scholar. There was, however, possibly some action in 1628: APC 1628-1629, 256.

41. APC 1616-1617, 307; CSPD 1611-1618, 327; APC 1618-1619, 119.

42. APC 1623-1625, 436; APC 1625-1626, 268; APC 1626, 188; APC 1627, 43-44; APC 1629-1630, 15-16.

43. See the case of a Kent man who went back into the country flaunting his light treatment by the Board (though he subsequently suffered for those “unbeseemeing speec[h]es”). CSPD 1629-1631, 275; APC 1630-1631, 14, 27.

44. In 1623-24 defaulters from five counties were punished as a result of that year's musters. APC 1623-1625, 21, 41 (Leics.), 120, 121, 135-36, and CSPD 1623-1625, 113 (Essex), 110, and APC 1623-1625, 134 (Beds.), 123-24, 135-36 (Kent), 167 (Northants.). The plague epidemic must have provided a disincentive to summoning defaulters to London in 1625-26. (I am grateful to Conrad Russell for this point.)

45. APC 1628-1629, 233, and CSPD 1628-1629, 402 (Hants.); APC 1628-1629, 256 (Sussex?); ibid., 262-63, 307, 316-18, 338 (Northants., Cambs., Dorset); ibid., 263, 322 (Leics.); APC 1629-1630, 112, and PRO, SP 16/147/82 (Herts.); APC 1629-1630, 95, 99, 106, 118 (Essex); ibid., 115 (Devon); ibid., 180, and CSPD 1629-1631, 22 (Yorks.). The heightened activity is probably also reflected in the Council's establishment of a sub-commitee for the trained bands in the spring of 1629. Boynton, , Militia, p. 254Google Scholar.

46. APC 1629-1630, 270-71, 277, 280-81 (Wilts.); ibid., 196, 210 (Hants.); ibid., 199, 220-21 (Dorset); ibid., 215 (Devon); ibid., 230, and CSPD 1629-1631, 93 (Suffolk); APC 1629-1630, 231, 240, 247 (Cambs.); ibid., 273, 277, 279, 282 (Beds.); ibid., 286-87, 288 (Herts.); ibid., 321, 331, 337 (Kent); ibid., 337, 379-80 (Cornwall).

47. Hampshire R.O., Jervoise MS 44M69, 40/32; PRO, SP 16/6/16; CSPV 1626-1628, 94. Exeter was in an unfortunate position because its High Steward, Suffolk, was in disgrace. HMC, City of Exeter, 77.

48. Boynton, , Militia, pp. 223, 228, 249Google Scholar; APC 1615-1616, 265; APC 1629-1630, 254, 379. All government action was affected by distance: for the Loan, see HMC, 11th Report, App., Pt. I, 96, 98, 99, 102; CSPV 1626-1628, 5.

49. PRO, SP 16/6/16.

50. Birch, , Court and Times, I, 170Google Scholar.

51. CSPV 1626-1628, 94; HMC, Buccleuch MS (Montagu House), III, 315Google Scholar; Birch, , Court and Times, I, 170Google Scholar. It is arguable then that G. R. Elton's distinction between administrative efficiency and political stability as criteria for judging the size of the Council is not wholly applicable to local government. Elton, G.R., “Tudor Government: the Points of Contact: II. The Council,” T.R.H.S., 5th ser., xxv (1975), 195–211Google Scholar.

52. Rye, , Norfolk, p. 144Google Scholar, PRO, SP 16/122/4; Norfolk and Norwich R.O., WLX xvii/2.410x5 (I am grateful to Kevin Sharpe for lending me his transcript of this MS), no foliation, letter of 29 July 1629, Arundel to Deputies.

53. APC 1627, 131-32; Knowler, , Strafforde's Letters, II, 413Google Scholar, 250, 264.

54. Hampshire R.O., Jervoise MS 44M69, 40/34; B.L., King's MS 265, ff. 334v, 335v. There were of course reasons of friendship as well as political delicacy to explain why the local magistrates should be reluctant to punish their equals: see for example Willcox, W. B., Gloucestershire: a Study in Local Government 1590-1640 (New Haven, 1940), pp. 118–19Google Scholar.

55. Carter, D. P., “The ‘Exact Militia’ in Lancashire, 1625-1640,” Northern History, XI (1975), 91–92Google Scholar.

56. Bodl., MS Firth C4, p. 373. Loan refusers summoned before the Council were therefore able to go home and say, wrongly, that they had been freed.

57. B.L., Add. MS 21922, f. 215. Though this ostensibly foolish delay might be explained by the Council's healthy awareness of the problem of inertia in a pre-professionalist age: as it observed in 1638, most officers “upon expresse Letteres are wont to shewe greater dilligence and care in such services as are commaunded them, then in such things as are of ordinary Course incident and belonging to their office.” The Council's skepticism is borne out by the Yorkshire Deputies' reluctance to stir themselves and train the militia with any urgency in the summer of 1638, on the grounds that the Board's orders had been phrased “but in the usual Form.” There was still a need, however, for the express letters to be issued. Privy Council Registers … in facsimile. III. 1638 (London, 1967), 110Google Scholar; Knowler, , Strafforde's Letters, II, 193Google Scholar.

58. APC 1625-1626, 374-75; APC 1629-1630, 220, 361; APC 1630-1631, 26. A similar tactic was sometimes used over the Loan: see APC 1627, 232-33.

59. PRO, SP 16/72/44, 16/10/52.

60. APC 1628-1629, 318, 322, 340; APC 1629-1630, 263. There had also been an isolated case of this in 1619: APC 1619-1621, 11. In the 1630s the Council even went as far as to imprison such proxies! Privy Council Registers … in facsimile. II. 1631-1638 (London, 1967), 367Google Scholar. See also Knowler, , Sirafforde's Letters, II, 250, 413Google Scholar.

61. CSPD 1619-1623, 305.

62. Action was also at least begun against a quota of Nottinghamshire J.P.s, and the Council interrogated the Leicestershire collector, to the discomfort of his superiors, in a way it was later to systematize over the Loan. APC 1613-1614, 606, 611-12, 616, 625-26, 628-31, 632, 649-50, 655-56; APC 1615-1616, 42-43, 270; see also Gardiner, S. R., History of England (London, 1883), II, 266Google Scholar.

63. I am grateful to G. C. F. Forster for this point.

64. APC 1628-1629, 143-44; APC 1627-1628, 516-17. The Council did display a rather greater sense of urgency than usual over the 1628 subsidy, but this did not extend any further than sending exhortatory letters. APC 1628-1629, 74-75, 176, 377-78.

65. For example, PRO, Star Chamb. 8/16/6, 8/5/17; APC 1621-1623, 52; CSPD 1623-1625, 310, and APC 1623-1625, 294-95.

66. For example, see the confessions of subsidy commissioners that some of their number were assessed at less than £20. CSPD 1619-1623, 283, 284, 291, 294, 295, 305.

67. Somerset R.O., DD/PH. 219/35.

68. APC 1630-1631, 37; see also Fletcher, , County Community, p. 184Google Scholar, and Carter, , “Exact Militia,” Northern History, XI, 88Google Scholar.

69. Knowler, , Strafforde's Letters, I, 38Google Scholar; CSPD 1629-1630, 30-31; Birch, , Court and Times, I, 149Google Scholar; for Dorset, see ibid., I, 164, 194.

70. Ibid., I, 164, 208; Jones, Politics and the Bench, passim.

71. I am very grateful to Richard Tuck for discussions on this topic.

72. For a comment on Sir Robert Cecil as an administrator capable of delegation and ‘departmentalization,’ see Smith, A. G. R., “The Secretariat of the Cecils,” E.H.R., LXXXIII (1968), 500–02CrossRefGoogle Scholar.