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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
James I proclaimed his first English parliament on 11 January 1603-04. He directed electors to eschew ‘any partial respects or factious combination’, and also to avoid returning ‘any persons either noted for their superstitious blindness one way, or for their turbulent humours other ways’. According to the Venetian Ambassador, it was ‘combination[s]’ of ‘Catholics’ and ‘Puritans’ that the King had particularly in mind. In the event the royal directive was imperfectly followed, At least thirteen elections were contested. Among them was the election for the shire of Worcester. As this study will show, the outcome of the Worcestershire parliamentary election was determined by the interaction of precisely such factional groupings as James had hoped to deter. As much is evident, both from the surviving correspondence of several of the leading participants, and from the records of the Star Chamber suit to which the election subsequently gave rise. The election is cited by Derek Hirst as an example of how ‘the issue of the danger to Protestantism could move people at all times’. But it was at times of extraordinary political activity, such as Parliamentary elections, that anti-Catholic feeling became particularly intense. This study will examine this proposition by reference to the Worcestershire election. It will also offer a reconsideration of Elliot Rose's interpretation of the political attitudes of English Catholics at the opening of the seventeenth century.
I wish to thank Dr Howell A. Lloyd for the substantial time and effort he gave in commenting on and criticising this paper.
2 Rymer, T., Foedera, vol. 16 (2nd edition, London, 1727), pp. 561–3;Google Scholar Journal of the House of Commons, vol. 1 (1547–1628), pt 1 (London, 1803), pp. 139–40.Google Scholar The warrant to issue writs was delayed owing to ‘a dangerous contagion of pestilence in London and elsewhere’.
3 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1603–07, p. 130: Niccolò Molin to Doge and Senate, 29 January 1604. See also Egerton's draft of the proclamation: Collier, J. P., ed., ‘The Egerton Papers’, Camden Society, Ser. I, vol. 12 (1849), pp. 384–6.Google Scholar
4 Hirst, D., The Representative of the People (Cambridge, 1975), p. 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice], London, Star Chamber 8/201/17. Sir Arnold Ligon v. William Addys, senior and Michael Staunton (1606). Sir Arnold's suit is concerned with unlawful seizure of oxen and maintenance of malicious suits before the Council in the Welsh Marches. Included in the charges against Addys are unlawful activities in the county election held February 1603–04; B[ritish] M[useum] MS. Additional. 46457, f. 111: Sir Arnold Ligon to John Talbot, April 1604; C[ollege] of A[rms], Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190: John Talbot to Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, March 1603–04, f. 192: Talbot to Shrewsbury, March 1603–04.
6 Hirst, Representative of the People, p. 146.
7 Rose, E., Cases of Conscience (Cambridge, 1975).Google Scholar
8 Neale, J. E., The Elizabethan House of Commons (London, 1963), p. 93;Google Scholar cf. also Elton, G. R., Star Chamber Stories (London, 1958), p. 17.Google Scholar
9 Acts of the Privy Council, 1601–04, p. 251; Lloyd, H. A., The Rouen Campaign, 1590–92 (Oxford, 1973), p. 101.Google Scholar Leighton married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys, first cousin by marriage to the Queen.
10 H.M.C. Salisbury, vol. 11, pp. 459–61: Lewkenor to Cecil, 31 October 1601 and 18 November 1601; vol. 15, p. 17: Zouche to Cecil, 30 March 1603; vol. 15, pp. 35–36: William Clarke to Sir Griffin Markham, 16 April 1603.
11 William Watson to Privy Council, n.d., endorsed 10 August 1603, printed in Goodman, G., The Court of King James the First, ed. Brewer, J. S., 2 vols (1839), vol. 1, pp. 59–87;Google Scholar H.M.C. Salis., vol. 15, pp. 35–36: Clarke to Markham, 6 April 1603. The Elizabethan proclamation of 5 November 1602 was probably the idea of Watson, where some of the Appellants offered to take an oath to ‘be the first that shall discover traitorous intentions against us and our state, and the foremost by arms and other means to suppress it’. (Bossy, J., The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850 [London, 1975], p. 40).Google Scholar
12 Anstruther, G., The Seminary Priests: A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales, 1558–1850, vol. I, Elizabethan,Google Scholar 1556–1603 (Ware and Durham, 1968), p. 77; Dodd, A. H., ‘The Spanish Treason, the Gunpowder Plot, and the Catholic Refugees’, EHR 53 (October 1938), p. 631.Google Scholar
13 Loomie, A. J., ‘Guy Fawkes in Spain: the “Spanish Treason” in Spanish Documents’, B.I.H.R., Special Supplement no. 9 (November, 1971).Google Scholar The following paragraph on the ‘Spanish Treason’ is based on Loomie's work; Dodd, A. H., ‘Wales and the Scottish Succession, 1570–1605’, Trans. Hon. Society of Cymrodorion (1937), p. 215.Google Scholar
14 Archduke Albert to Philip III, with enclosure, 4 July 1603, quoted in Loomie, ‘Guy Fawkes’, pp. 3–4. The Spanish Ambassadors, de Tassis and the Constable of Castile, both sent sceptical reports to the Spanish Council regarding the support that would appear if ever the Spanish army embarked on an empresa. Neither of them believed that any Catholic armed bands existed (Loomie, ‘Guy Fawkes’, pp. 31–32, 59).
15 Although leading Jesuits were denouncing armed insurrection in the summer of 1603, reports still reached the English Government of their complicity in plots. In the State Papers there is a MS. entitled ‘Discourse of the providence necessary to be had for the setting up the Catholic faith when God shall call the Queen out of this life’, endorsed ‘A project of Jesuits’, c. 1602 (P.R.O. SP 12/275, f. 104–13). This MS. provides a detailed account of how England might be ‘conquested’, and ends with the recommendation that ‘The danger is little, the charges nothing, the hope to be great, the profit infinite of souls to God, service to the Apostolic See, glory to the name of his Holiness and good of the whole Christian monarchy’ (f. 112v.). Its authorship has been attributed to Garnet (Scarisbrick, J. J., ‘Robert Persons’ Plan for the “true” Reformation of England’, in Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society in honour of J. H. Plumb. [London, 1974], p. 30).Google Scholar A single folio entitled ‘Articles of intelligence concerning secret plots of Catholics’, 10 October 1603 (B.M. MS. Cotton Galba, E (1), no. 46, f. 115) gives details of men and money, and both Garnet and Gerard are mentioned. These two documents have to be placed against Garnet's own statement that he was against violent ambitions at this date.
16 Summaries of Garnet's correspondence with the Father General of the Jesuits, Claudio Aquaviva (Loomie, ‘Guy Fawkes’, pp. 24–34).
17 William, Watson, A Decacordon of Ten Quodlibeticall Questions (1602), p. 303;Google Scholar Robert Parsons to A. Rivers, 6 July 1603, C.R.S. 2 (1906), p. 217.
18 P.R.O. Stac 8/210/17, Deposition of Sir William Walsh, f. 12, Deposition of Robert Walwyn or Walweyn, f. 14.
19 H[ereford] and W[orcester] R[ecord] 0[ffice] 705: 24/849. Book of Accounts of Edmund Harewell, esq. 20 October 1599–20 October 1600; Thomas Habington, ‘A Survey of Worcestershire’, W.H.S. (1893), p. 49; H.W.R.O., 970: 5/99, Calendar of MadresfieldMuniments: Besford Deeds, B30–55. Harewell was forced first to mortgage and then finally to sell to the Sebright family his principal seat at Besford in order to satisfy his debts.
20 H.W.R.O. 970: 5/99, Calendar: B12. Harewell married Susan Colles, daughter of Edward Colles of Leigh Court, Worcs. c. 1586.
21 P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17. Deposition of Sir Thomas Biggs, f. 12; Deposition of Sir William Walsh, f. 12; Deposition of Richard Dickens, gent, f. 12v; Lambeth Palace Library, Carte Antique et Miscellanee, IV, 183, f. iii: Bishop Whitgift to ? (c. 1581-82). Talbot in the lineal descent of the family since the Conquest was ‘the first man who was but an Esquire’. However, it was reported in Spain in the summer of 1603 that his cousin, the Earl of Shrewsbury, had presented him to James VI as he neared London, in the hope that he would knight Talbot, but ‘since he was a Catholic he refused it’. This same journey was described by Clarke in a letter to Markham. He found Talbot's journey to London (with Lord Windsor) very suspicious, especially as they went to meet Shrewsbury, who, he believed, was involved in some plotting. (‘A holograph memorandum of six folios by Guy Fawkes’, printed in Loomie, ‘Guy Fawkes’, pp. 61–63; H.M.C. Salis., vol. 15, p. 222).
22 Barnard, G. A. B., ‘The Pakingtons of Westwood’, TWAS, 13, N.S. (1936), p. 36; D.N.B. Google Scholar
23 Sir, Robert Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia: or Observations on the late Queen Elizabeth, Her Times and Favourites, c. 1630 (Edinburgh, 1808), p. 254;Google Scholar Barnard, ‘Pakingtons’, p. 36; see L. & Webster, V. A., ‘The Pakingtons of Harvington Hall’, Recusant History, 12 (1974), pp. 203–15.Google Scholar
24 C.A., Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190: Talbot to Shrewsbury, March 1603–04; Pakington was involved in 1602 in a dispute with Lord Zouche and other Marcher gentry over the succession of his nominee to the office of Muster Master in Worcestershire. In 1607 Pakington served again as Deputy-Lieutenant for the county and in 1608 he began a second term of office as High Sheriff. In 1614 he was counted among the leaders of the dissident Marcher gentry who opposed the Council in the Marches (H.M.C. Salis., vol. 13, p. 409: Lord Zouche to Cecil, 30 September 1602; Williams, P., ‘The Attack on the Council of the Marches’, Trans. Hon. Soc. Cymrodorion (1961), pt. 2, p. 13.Google Scholar
25 P.R.O. SP 14/3/2 (ii), Ralph Sheldon to Francis Plowden, 1 August 1603; SP 14/3/2 (i), Bailiff of Ludlow to Lewkenor, 1 August 1603; SP 14/13/3, Lewkenor to Privy Council, 6 August 1603. This was the same day that Lewkenor received instructions from the Lord President of the Council for the apprehension of William Watson. In this letter Lewkenor also refers to other letters discovered by Francis Acton, which were ‘full of mischievous and detestable treason’.
26 P.R.O. SP 14/13/3 (i). The Examination and confession of Francis Plowden, 3 August 1603. James was pleased at his accession with the loyal conduct of his Catholic subjects, and as part of his Coronation festivities late in July, he allowed pardons to be given to all recusants who would sue for them (Loomie, ‘Toleration and Diplomacy’, p. 15).
27 P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17, Deposition of Sir William Walsh, f. 12; Deposition of Robert Walwyn, of Newland, f. 14VV; B.M. MS. Sloane 271, f. 23v.
28 The Ligon family could trace its Worcester connections back to the fourteenth century. Ligon was elected to Parliament in 1588, succeeded Bromley as High Sheriff in 1592 and served as a justice in 1601. By 1603 Ligon had decimated his patrimony and had alienated many of his manors (Williams, W. R., Parliamentary History of the County of Worcester [Hereford, 1897], p. 35;Google Scholar H.W.R.O., 970: 5/99 Calendar of Madresfield Muniments: The Family and the Estates, pp. 67–72).
29 Walsh purchased the Worcester manor of Upton Snodsbury in 1590. He was elected knight of the shire in 1593 and was High Sheriff in 1598. Along with his fellow-member, Bromley, he was imprisoned in 1593 for supporting Peter Wentworth over the ‘Succession Question’. (Williams, Pari. Hist., p. 36; J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, 1584–1601 (London, 1957), pp. 261–2).
30 C.A., Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190.
31 Williams, Parl. Hist., p. 35; A.P.C. (1601–04), pp. 144, 158; J. Bruce, ed. ‘Diary of John Manningham, 1602–03’, Camden Society, Ser. I, 99 (1868), p. 168; C.S.P.D., 1603–10, pp. 76, 98. In September 1604, Bromley received a further grant of lands in Essex and Suffolk worth £100 per annum (C.S.P.D., 1603–10, p. 147).
32 P.R.O., Stac., 8/201/17, Deposition of Richard Dickens, f. 12v; Deposition of Thomas Dingley, f. 3; Deposition of William Channe, f. 14. Meriel Littleton married John Littleton of Frankley. He was a Catholic who became involved in the Essex Rebellion and died in prison. Meriel was in London in 1603–04, petitioning James for the restitution of her husband's forfeited estates. She was an ardent Protestant and brought up her children in the reformed religion. (Maclean, J., ed., ‘Letters from Sir Robert Cecil to Sir George Carew’, in Camden Society, vol. 88 [1864], p. 71;Google Scholar C.S.P. Dom. 1603–10, p. 17; B.M. MS., Egerton, 2714, f. 300–01: Meriel Littleton to Lady Meryll Knyvett, 16 January 1603–04; B.M. MS. Egerton, 2715, f. 114, Same to Same. 27 June 1610).
33 P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17, Deposition of Richard Dickens, f. 12v., Deposition of William Channe, f. 14, Deposition of Thomas Wade, f. 13v. Also named as Talbot's agents were Stephen and Humphrey Littleton.
34 C.A., Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190: Talbot to Shrewsbury; P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17, Deposition of Henry Cookes, f. 4–4v; Deposition of Luke Chamle or Chamber, f. 6; Deposition of George Frenche, f. 5–5v; Deposition of Thomas Brockholdinge, f. 6v.-7. There are inconsistencies in these depositions. John Riding and Francis Purser both went to Worcester as supporters of Ligon but could not gain entry and had to scale hedges.
35 C.A., Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190: Talbot to Shrewsbury; f. 192; Talbot to Shrewsbury; P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17, Deposition of Thomas Dingley of Strensham, f. 13.
36 C.A., Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190: Talbot to Shrewsbury; P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17, Deposition of Henry Cookes, f. 14v. For Zouche's Puritanism see B.M. MS., Egerton 2812, ‘Letter Book of Edward, Lord Zouche, 31 July 1600 to 20 April 1601’.
37 P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17, Deposition of Francis Dingley, f. 15–15v; Depositions of John Hall, f. 12v; Deposition of George Frenche, f. 5–5v; Deposition of Henry Cookes, 4f. v; C.A., Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190: Talbot to Shrewsbury.
38 P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17, Deposition of Sir William Walsh, f. 12, Deposition of Robert Walwyn, f. 14v-15. One of the interrogatories to be administered to witnesses on Addys’ behalf enquired whether ‘the freeholders who then and there gave their voice for Sir Wm. Ligon [were] many more in number and of better sort and quality than the freeholders who then and there gave their voices for Sir Edmund Harewell’ (P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17, f. 9). The Worcester-shire Commission of the Peace numbered 49 in July 1604 (including dignitaries), thus on Walwyn's figures the Catholics could claim that 10.2% of all the justices supported the Catholic candidate (B.M. MS., Additional, 38139, f. 162v-164).
39 B.M. MS., Additional 46457, f. 111: Sir Arnold Ligon to Talbot, April 1604. William Addys had been connected with the Ligon family since 1569, when he became a tenant of Sir William's father (H.W.R.O. 970: 5/99 Calendar of Madresfield Muniments, Deed No. 700 and Supplementary Deed No. 1609); P.R.O. Stac. 8/201/17, Bill of Complaint. 4 f.9. The complaint was also against 200 idle vagrants.
40 P.R.O. Stac, 8/201/17, Deposition of Francis Purser, f. 5; Deposition of John Pearce, f. 5v; Deposition of John Willmore, f. 7; Deposition of Edward Berrowe, f. 6; Deposition of Thomas Brooke, f. 8; Deposition of Richard Webb, f. 4v; Deposition of John Batchelor, f. 7; Deposition of Richard Man, f. 7. Man deposed that Addys said ‘he would not for twenty nobles but this deponent should come’. Deposition of Hugh Andrews, f. 6v; Deposition of Sir Thomas Biggs, f. 12; Deposition of Francis Dingley, f. 15; Deposition of John Burford and Thomas Burford, f. 13; Foster, Alumni Oxon.
41 C.A., Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190: Talbot to Shrewsbury; Return of the Members of Parliament, pt. 1 (1898).
42 Neale, House of Commons, p. 91.
43 Ibid., pp. 75–76. There is an undated letter among the Berington MSS. deposited at St Helen's Record Office, Worcester (H.W.R.O. 705: 24/576 (3), c. January 1603–04) which probably refers to this incident. Humphrey Pakington wrote to Henry Russell ‘This sudden alarm of choosing Knights is as suddenly stayed. I fear there is some mystery therein from higher wits than our Sheriffs’, which haply the sequel will manifest, the Catholics’ intentions being discovered’.
44 Neale, House of Commons, pp. 96–97.
45 C.A., Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190: Talbot to Shrewsbury. Electoral law appears to havebeen particularly vague at this time. There was no precise statutory authority for Talbot'sassertion. See Hirst, Representative of the People, pp. 13–15, 21.
46 Neale, House of Commons, pp. 90–99.
47 P.R.O. C.219: 35/2, pt. 6, no. 140. This MS. is in a very poor condition. Of the names that can definitely be identified, the five on Walwyn's list are John Washbourne, Francis Dingley, William Horton, Sir Richard Walsh and Sir Philip Kighley.
48 B.M. MS., Additional 46457, f. 111: Sir Arnold Ligon to John Talbot, April 1604.
49 Another option may be added: one that would include those Catholics who became informants or double agents.
50 Catholics such as Lord Vaux, Sir Thomas Tresham and John Talbot fit into this category. Talbot provides an excellent case in point—in 1580 he wrote to the Earl of Leicester pleading his loyalty to Elizabeth. In 1591, John Snowden wrote to Cecil that Lord Vaux, Tresham and Talbot ‘are accounted very good subjects and great adversaries of Spanish practises’. Francis Plowden was convinced that his uncles’ ‘wisdom and credit’ would prevail with Talbot and persuade him to support their suit to James, but Sheldon, as the intercepted letter witnesses, was less assured. In 1594, he had been implicated by his nephew, Richard Williams in apurported plot to kill the Queen and offer the Crown to the Earl of Derby. Talbot's stance over militant Catholicism was made explicit in 1605 when he turned away his own son-in-lawafter the discovery of the Powder Treason (P.R.O. S.P., 12/141/29, f. 73: John Talbot to Earlof Leicester, 17 August 1580; S.P. 12/239/26, f. 478: John Snowden to Cecil, 12 June 1591;(Sheldon's Plot) S.P. 12/249/42, f. 103–04: Confession of Henry Young, 30 July 1594, S.P.12/249/72, f. 163: Examination of Richard Williams, 13 August 1594).
51 See Manning, R. B., ‘Catholics and Local Office Holding in Elizabethan Sussex’, BIHR, vol. 35, no. 91 (1962), pp. 147–61.Google Scholar Notice also those Catholic J.P.S identified in the StarChamber suit.
52 Rose, Cases of Conscience, pp. 231–2.
53 Ibid., p. 232.
54 H.W.R.O. Berington MSS., 705: 24/576(12), Humphrey Pakington to Elizabeth Russell, 10 October n. year [1597].
55 Loomie, A. J., ‘Spain and Jacobean Catholics, vol. 1, 1603–12’, in CRS, vol. 64 (1973), p. xx;Google Scholar Loomie, ‘Toleration and Diplomacy’, p. 48.
56 HMC. Sails., vol. 15, pp. 282–3: Ralph Fetherstonhalgh to Henry Sanderson from Branspeth, County Durham, 12 November 1603.
57 Talbot's letters to Shrewsbury may have been written in the hope that the Earl might present a favourable account of the Catholics’ grievances in the Privy Council: ‘An accident happened in the election of the Knights of our shire that the rather hath moved me at this present, and the instance of my good friend Sir Edmund Harewell, who esteemeth himself greatly injured therein, to write craving your honourable favour as far as the equity of his cause will ‘permit’ (C.A., Talbot MSS., vol. M, f. 190. Talbot to Shrewsbury, March 1603–04).