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The Civil War Sheriff: His Person and Office

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Jean Mather
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Extract

The rise and fall of the office of sheriff is a frequent theme in English administrative history. In medieval times sheriffs were the principal representatives of the king in the local community and bore the king's authority and acted in his name. Their courts entertained a wide variety of criminal and civil proceedings. By Tudor times such powers and authority were things of the past. Edward IV had effectively ended the sheriff's power by removing all indictments before the sheriff in his tourn to the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace for trial. The sheriff's judicial powers passed to the justices of the peace and his military powers to the deputy lieutenants. What powers did remain were exercised under the supervision of the magistrates both in and out of formal sessions. When James I came to the throne in 1603, the once powerful sheriff presided at elections, distrained and sold goods for the payment of fines, summoned juries, hanged criminals, and carried out other miscellaneous tasks. For most gentlemen of England a year's tenure as sheriff was an expensive inconvenience.

By 1640, however, the sheriff was once again a public figure of some consequence. The first two Stuarts, especially Charles I, had turned to the sheriff to execute many of their financial and administrative programs. Three times James I ordered sheriffs to collect extra benevolences. It seemed to many that Charles I had used the office for inappropriate political purposes. A sheriff had to be resident in his county throughout his term of office so he could not serve in parliament. In 1625 Thomas Wentworth was appointed sheriff of Yorkshire, and the even more troublesome Edward Coke was appointed sheriff of Buckinghamshire. Two years later Walter Long, M.P. was appointed sheriff of Wiltshire, an affront to the electors of Bath who had recently returned him to the House of Commons. When the Long Parliament met in 1640, these events were remembered with considerable bitterness; and the Grand Remonstrance noted “the usual course of pricking sheriffs [was] not observed, but many times sheriffs made in an extraordinary way, sometimes as a punishment and a charge unto them, sometimes such were pricked out as would be instruments to execute whatever they would have done.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , Fall 1981 , pp. 242 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1981

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References

1 1 Edward IV c. 2.

2 4 Henry IV c. 5. The residency rule had not always been rigidly enforced in the past as Charles I's opponents were quick to point out. The king's actions regarding Coke, Long, and Wentworth were entirely legal, but politically unwise.

3 Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, ed. The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution. 1625-1640. (Oxford, 1968), p. 214.Google Scholar

4 Barnes, Thomas G., Somerset: A County's Government During the ‘Personal Rule’ (London, 1961), chaps. 5-7.Google Scholar

5 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1640 p. 538Google Scholar (hereafter cited as CSPD).

6 Ibid., p. 146.

7 Ibid., p. 559.

8 Ibid., pp. 176, 555, 126, Barnes, Somerset, p. 232.

9 CSPD, 1640, p. 640.

10 Ibid., p. 47.

11 Gardiner, , Constitutional Documents, pp. 220, 231.Google Scholar

12 Dalton, Michael, Officium Vicecomitum (London, 1623).Google Scholar

13 Barnes, Somerset (chapter 5 discusses the impact of the imposition of ship money on the prominent men who served as sheriffs of Somerset from 1634 until 1640).

14 Gleason, J.H., The Justices of the Peace in England, 1558-1640: A Latter Eiremarcha (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar, is a statistical study of local officials over an extended period of time. Since the accession of Elizabeth I the social status and educational level of the bench of magistrates and also of the sheriffs had been rising. This is partly a reflection of the expansion of educational opportunities. The inflation of honors under James I may have “artifically” increased the number of knights and baronets as well, but the Tudors had succeeded in co-opting the local elites into local government. By Stuart times, men of prestige and learning were anxious to serve as justices and, to a lesser degree, as sheriffs; they were offended if they were excluded from these offices. To serve was a recognition of one's social worth and respected position in the local community.

15 The names of the sheriffs are found in Lists and Indexes, Number IX. List of Sheriffs for England and Wales, From the Earliest Times to 1831 (New York, 1963)Google Scholar. This official list also indicates the sheriffs status—baronet, knight, esquire, gentleman, or, when appropriate, academic rank. A further source of information regarding status for those sheriffs who were also justices of the peace comes from the official lists of justices. The magistrates were grouped by rank. There are several central and local sources for the names of justices of the peace. The most important are the Crown Office Docquet Books in the Public Record Office (C231/5, C231/6, C231/7, and C231/3). The last is a royalist list compiled by Sir Edward Littleton, Keeper of the King's Great Seal, who followed Charles I to Oxford and played a substantial part in the royal administration there. There are also five Libri Pacis which contain very complete and frequently updated lists of justices in the 1650s; these too are in the Public Record Office (C193/13/3, C193/13/4, C193/13/6, C193/13/5, and C220/9/4). There are also two lists of justices for this period in the British Library, B. Stowe MSS. 577, and B. Egerton MSS. 2557. For 1653 there is a list in the Cambridge University Library, Cambridge University MSS. Dd. 8.1. There are also lists of justices in the county record offices among the assize rolls, except for Middlesex which was not part of the assize system. Occasionally there is a list among the personal papers of an individual justice. These lists sometimes indicated when a justice had become inactive due to his being named sheriff.

Information on the sheriffs' education comes from the alumni lists of the universities and the admissions registers of the inns of court. These sources are not complete for many students never matriculated to avoid paying the required fees. Venn, J.R., Alumni Cantabrigiensis from the Earliest Times to 1700 (Cambridge, 1927)Google Scholar; Foster, Joseph, Alumni Oxoniensis: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714 (Oxford, 1891)Google Scholar, The Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn: Admissions from 1420 to 1893 (London, 1893)Google Scholar, Students Admitted to the Inner Temple (London, 1877)Google Scholar, Sturges, H.A.C., Records of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple (London, 1949)Google Scholar, Foster, Joseph, Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, 1521-1899 (London, 1899)Google Scholar. Lawrence Stone discusses the accuracy of these records in “The Educational Revolution in England, 1560-1640, ” Past and Present 28 (July 1964): 41–80Google Scholar. I have a list of the 118 sheriffs in this study which includes their names, rank, educational achievement, and involvement in local government during the 1640s and 1650s. I shall be happy to provide anyone with a copy; space limitations prevent its being included with the article.

Finally, many of the Middlesex sheriffs were aldermen of the City of London. Woodhead, J.R., The Rulers of London: A Biographical Record of the Aldermen and Common Councilmen of the City of London (London, 1965)Google Scholar is useful for identifying officeholders in the capital. Names of the members of parliament can be found in the Official Return: Parliaments of England.

16 Underdown, David, Pride's Purge: Politics in the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar, and Everitt, Alan Milner, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion, 1640-1660 (Leicester, 1967)Google Scholar, come to similar conclusions that the wealthiest and best-established men and families did tend to withdraw from public service at the national and local levels after the execution of the king. Royalist and parliament men may have been alike in the early days of the conflict, but as the revolution became more radical, the more secure and respected men, who of course had the most to lose, returned to private life.

17 Karraker, C.H., The Seventeenth Century Sheriff: A Comparative Study of the Sheriff in England and Chesapeake Colonies, 1607-1689 (Chapel Hill, 1930), p. 7.Google Scholar

18 SirFirth, Charles Harding and Raith, A.O., eds., The Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 3 vols. (London, 1911), 1:373–74.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 503, September 13, 1644.

20 Ibid., p. 1009, September 9, 1647.

21 Ibid., pp. 876-877, October 1, 1646.

22 Ibid., 2:5, February 17, 1649.

23 Ibid., p. 241, September 5, 1649.

24 Ibid., pp. 630-31, October 8, 1652.

25 Ibid., pp. 1270-71, May 11, 1659.

26 CSPD, 1650, p. 176.

27 Dalton, Officium Vicecomitum.

28 Firth and Rait, 2:396-97, July 11, 1650.

29 CSPD, 1655-1656, pp. 168, 175.

30 Ibid., 1651, pp. 5-6.

31 Ibid., 1654, p. 201.

32 Firth and Rait, 2:328, January 2, 1650; pp. 349-54, February 28, 1650.

33 Ibid., pp. 917-18, June 13, 1654; p. 367, March 26, 1650; pp. 492-93, December 10, 1650.

34 Ibid., 1:609, January 9, 1645.

35 Many of the records of the sheriffs' work are preserved in local record offices, often filed with the records of the quarter sessions. The records of a “typical” meeting of the sessions consist of a list of those officials present, the recognizances which were general bonds to keep the peace and/or to appear, and sometimes a record of the judgments rendered. Of particular interest are the jury lists and the indictments. Lists of both grand and petty jurors frequently survive in the files, and sometimes these lists note who actually was empanelled and served. After the grand jury took action on an indictment billa vera or ignoramus was written on the back of the indictment. For the semi-annual assizes the jury lists and indictments are filed with the assize rolls at the Public Record Office. The records are much more complete and in better order for the peaceful 1650s than for the bellicose 1640s. There are also variations among the counties; the records for Middlesex, Staffordshire, and Sussex are in very good order. Throughout these years it is evident that the sheriffs did their work conscientiously. Even during the war juries were empanelled, indictments were returned, and trials were held. Of the cases brought before the grand jury many apparently were weak; approximately half of the possible indictments were returned ignoramus, a striking contrast with the present. As well as the local archives see Underdown, David, Somerset During the Civil War and Interregnum (Newton Abbott, 1973)Google Scholar, and Cockburn, J.S., ed., “The Memorandum Book of Robert Hunt, Sheriff of Somerset 1654-1656, ” Somerset Assize Orders (Somerset Record Society 71, 1971).Google Scholar

36 Firth and Rait, 1:918-20, March 5, 1647, p. 1005, August 28, 1647.

37 CSPD, 1651, p. 243.

38 Ibid., 1651-1652, p. 17.

39 Firth and Rait, 2:364, March 12, 1650, pp. 945-46, August 11, 1650, p. 790, November 12, 1650.

40 CSPD, 1649-1650, p. 137.

41 Firth and Rait, 2:1460, March 14, 1660.

42 Ibid., p. 861, March 31, 1654, pp. 941-942, July 4, 1654.

43 Ibid., 1:985-86, June 28, 1647.

44 Ibid., 2:853, March 17, 1654; pp. 74-78, April 17, 1649; p. 86, April 30, 1649; p. 172, July 18, 1649; p. 527, July 16, 1651.

45 Ibid., 1:1003, August 28, 1647; pp. 999-1000, August 23, 1647.

46 The most complete accounts of the money collected by the sheriffs are included in the Exchequer Papers in the Public Record Office. The papers are vast and cumbersome, but even a cursory survey indicates that the concern for honesty and efficiency in financial dealings was well-founded. Even if everyone was honest and conscientious, collection was difficult, even in peacetime. Many officials mixed their personal papers with their official ones, and it might be several centuries before they were discovered by chance in a family muniment room. On the whole the records for the 1640s are in the greatest state of disarray; in the 1650s the records indicate that collection was as efficient as it had been in the 1630s. See also Aylmer, G.E., The State's Servants: The Civil Service of the English Republic, 1649-1660 (London, 1973)Google Scholar for an account of general administration during these years. The most useful classes of exchequer records are E101 Accounts, Various, E199 Sheriffs' Accounts, E371 Originalia Rolls, and E372 Pipe Rolls. Some accounts also occasionally appear in S.P. 28 Commonwealth Exchequer Papers.

47 Firth and Rait, 1:473-74, July 15, 1644; pp. 507-11, September 23, 1644.

48 Ibid., pp. 675-77, April 24, 1645; pp. 486-88, August 16, 1644; pp. 842-44, April 3, 1646; pp. 857-60, June 27, 1646; pp. 660-62, April 1, 1645; p. 16, July 15, 1642.

49 CSPD, 1653-1654, p. 104.

50 Ibid., 1652-1653, p. 355.

51 Ibid., 1641-1643, p. 402; 1652-1653, p. 36.

52 Ibid., 1660-1661, p. 509.

53 Ibid., 1660-1661, p. 408.

54 The State Papers of John Thurloe, Secretary of State, 7 vols. (London, 1742), 3–5passim.Google Scholar