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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Few Englishmen proved more consistent critics in the years before the Civil War than William Fiennes, Baron, later Viscount, Saye and Sele. In religion a Puritan, in politics committed to the defence of aristocratic privilege and parliamentary rights, he was deeply involved in all of the important opposition movements of the period. A major participant in the passage of the Petition of Right, a prominent opponent of ship-money and the Bishops' Wars with Scotland, he was a leading enemy of the court and clergy in the Long Parliament. Nor was Saye's significance limited to his individual activities alone, for both the Earl of Clarendon and Anthony Wood, writing in the seventeenth century, treated him as the acknowledged leader of the party that provoked the Civil War.
In assessing Lord Saye's role as on opposition leader, historians have paid little attention to Saye's first and, in many ways, most vigorous confrontation with the royal government in 1622. In that year Saye not only refused to contribute to a benevolence for the assistance of Frederick, the Elector — Palatine, but was also accused of attempting to hinder others from doing so. For these alleged actions and the grounds upon which he chose to defend himself, Saye was imprisoned in Fleet Prison for nearly eight months, from June 6, 1622 to February 4, 1622/3.
There are two important documents which will enable us to penetrate the nature of Saye's actions and the government's response to them. The first, hitherto neglected, is a transcript of four appearances which the Baron made before the Council between May 23 and June 6, 1622. The second, a letter from Lord Saye to the Duke of Buckingham, written sometime around February 3, 1622/3, while Saye was still in the Fleet, contains valuable information that has not yet been brought to light concerning this affair.
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Section of the Conference, Calgary, Alberta, March, 1972.
1 I am indebted to Mr. Christopher Thompson of Hertford College, Oxford, and Mr. Conrad Russell of Bedford College, University of London, for bringing to my attention several sources relevant to this subject.
2 See Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, ed. by Macray, W. D. (Oxford, 1888), Bk III, 26Google Scholar, and Wood, Anthony, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. by Bliss, P. (London, 1813-1820), III, 546.Google Scholar
3 S. R. Gardiner, for example, devotes only a sentence to this episode, History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War 1603-1642 new ed., (London, 1894-1896), IV, 295Google Scholar. In his article on Lord Saye in the Dictionary of National Biography, Professor G. R. Firth alludes to it only briefly; DNB, s. v. “Fiennes, William first Viscount Saye and Sele.”
4 Lincon's Inn, Hale MS. 12 (Selden's Collection), No. 86 [cited hereafter as Hale 12, no. 86.], fols. 481-482v.
5 Great Britain, Public Record Office [cited hereafter as PRO], SP 14/138 no. 5, fol. 375. There is a brief summary of this letter in Green, M. A. E., ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of James I, 1619-1623 (London, 1858), p. 487Google Scholar. The Calendar assigns the date “Feb. 3?” to this letter. Two contemporary reports of this incident, which have heretofore served as the basis upon which it has been assessed, are both incomplete and uninformed. They are Birch, Thomas, ed., The Court and Times of James I (London, 1832), II, 312Google Scholar, and John Chamberlain's casual comment in PRO, SP 14/131 no. 24, summarized in Green, , ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1619-1623, p. 404.Google Scholar
6 For discussion of the Parliament of 1621 see Gardiner, , History of England, IV, passimGoogle Scholar; Zaller, R., The Parliament of 1621 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971)Google Scholar, and Notestein, W., Relf, F. H., and Simpson, H., eds., Commons' Debates 1621 (New Haven, 1935).Google Scholar
7 Gardiner, , History of England, III, 340, 373, 380.Google Scholar
8 Lyle, J. V., ed., Acts of the Privy Council of England [cited hereafter as APC], 1621-1623 (London, 1932), pp. 176–177.Google Scholar
9 Gardiner estimates that despite hopes for £200,000 the Court received eventually only £88,000. History of England, IV, 295.Google Scholar
10 Lyle, , ed. APC, 1621-1623, p. 222Google Scholar. On the same day the Council issued another close warrant for a Doctor James. Saye himself before the Council referred to certain doctors from Oxford who claimed to be exempt from the benevolence, Hale 12, no. 86., fol. 481. There are, however, apparently no other references to Dr. James. It may be that he was the Oxford scholar and antiquary Richard James.
11 Hale 12, no. 86, fol. 481. Saye, of course, was already known to the government as an opposition spokesman through his activities in the Lords during the Parliament of 1621. In this connection, it is interesting to note that, according to the Duke of Buckingham, the King had ordered the Council to handle with particular severity those who had opposed the Court in Parliament and now failed to contribute to the benevolence. See Sackville MSS., National Registry of Archives, ON 2421. Moreover, another clue to Saye's disfavor at this time is revealed in a paper drawn up by Lord Treasurer Cranfield which lists the Baron as being one of fourteen peers “that presented not their Newyeares gifts to the Kings Majestie att Newyearstyde Last, 1620. [January 1620/21].” See Ibid., ON 7917. I gratefully acknowledge the Rt. Hon. The Lord Sackville, Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent, for permission to use these documents from the Sackville MSS.
12 It is interesting to note that, after Saye's speech against the benevolence before the Council on May 23, the Earl of Arundel informed him “that he was not chardged with any of this that he answered.“ Ibid., fol. 481.
13 Ibid., fol. 482.
14 Ibid., fol. 481.
15 Ibid., fol. 481-481v. The point was also made in the last question that the Parliament of 1621 had promised, but failed, to grant the King sufficient funds for the Palatinate.
16 Ibid., fol. 481-481v.
17 Ibid., fol. 481v.
18 Ibid., fols. 481v-482.
19 Ibid., fol. 482.
20 See Fiennes, David, “William Fiennes, First Viscount Saye and Sele (1582-1662) and George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628),” The Genealogists' Magazine, XVI (September 1970), 334–335Google Scholar. In this article Mr. Fiennes uncovers the fact that in October 1612 Lord Saye and Sele's half sister Elizabeth married George Villiers' half brother William.
21 PRO, SP 14/138 no. 5., fol. 375.
22 Hale 12, no. 86., fol. 481.
23 PRO, SP 14/138 no. 5., fol. 375.
24 Lyle, , ed., APC, 1621-1623, p. 404Google Scholar. The estate was at Norton in Gloucestershire, and Saye was restricted to four miles around it.
25 On July 23, 1623, Saye was allowed to be at either Norton or Broughton in Oxfordshire, and the restriction around each was extended to twenty miles; Lyle, J. V., ed., APC, 1623-1625 (London, 1933), p. 68Google Scholar. On September 10, Saye was given a temporary four-mile extension beyond the twenty to visit his daughter, wife of the Earl of Lincoln. Green, M. A. E., ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of James I, 1623-1625 (London, 1859), p. 77.Google Scholar
26 Ibid., p. 168. Saye, however, was at the Parliament from the outset of the session, Gardiner, S. R., ed., Notes of the Debates in the House of Lords, officially taken by Henry Elsing, clerk of the Parliaments, A. D. 1624 and 1626, Camden Society Publications, n. s., Vol. XXIV (London, 1879), p. 3.Google Scholar
27 For the Providence Company, see Newton, A. P., The Colonising Activities of the English Puritans: The Last Phase of the Elizabethan Struggle with Spain (New Haven, 1914)Google Scholar. For Saye's concern with the Dutch Republic see Bruce, John, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles I, 1633-1634 (London, 1863), p. 164.Google Scholar
28 The Earl of Southampton, for example, who had strongly attacked James's Palatinate policy gave the benevolence his support, Gardiner, , History of England, IV, 295, n. 1Google Scholar. Saye's views, however, were shared by many. On May 15, 1622, for instance, the justices of Somersetshire wrote the Council that “The county is sensible of the calamities of the King's children in Germany, and the danger to religion,…but the manner of levying the contribution is thought a dangerous precendent,” Green, , ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1619-1623, p. 393.Google Scholar
29 A detailed examination of this episode may be found in my article, “Viscount Saye and Sele, Lord Brooke and Aristocratic Protest to the First Bishops' War,” Canadian Journal of History, VII (April 1972), 17–36.Google Scholar
30 PRO, SP 14/138 no. 5., fol. 375.
