Chapter 7 - The Call of Duty: The Aristocracy as Public Servants

Summary

The landed elite in England played a vital role in local administration. Only they had the time and funds, as well as the authority, effectively to govern the county. Over the course of his life Cavendish filled virtually all of the most important and prestigious offices in Derbyshire apart from the post of deputy lieutenant. Perhaps the reason for this was his uneasy relationship with his brother-in-law, Gilbert Talbot, who succeeded his father as lord lieutenant in 1590, or was related to the fact that others wanted it more, as his neighbour Sir Francis Leake did in 1603. Maybe Cavendish had other priorities, ones that kept him in the capital. As befitted a man of his status he paid his respects to James I, riding to York when the king travelled south to claim his inheritance in 1603. He also entertained Prince Charles at Hardwick in 1619. As sheriff in 1595–6 he met the judges of the Midland assize circuit at the Derbyshire border when they conducted gaol delivery county by county at the twice-annual assizes. From there, he escorted them to their lodgings. While he seems only occasionally to have attended meetings of the quarter sessions, he regularly travelled to the assizes until the second decade of the seventeenth century. As a commissioner for the subsidy he performed the thankless task of extracting money from his peers and other tax-payers and organising the transportation of the money to London.

Treating

By the time Cavendish served his year as high sheriff the office had lost many of its medieval functions, and with them the power that its holder could wield. The county court over which he presided continued to meet, but it did little more than elect knights of the shire in parliamentary elections. The sheriff still returned writs and empanelled juries, which, as Loades points out, ‘could be politically sensitive work in a local context’, and therefore enabled him to use his influence in his own interest. But it was costly, and never more so than when the assize judges came to the county. Once settled in their lodging, the judges were well looked after.