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Saye No More

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Mark A. Kishlansky
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Extract

What makes a historian master of his craft is the discipline of checking findings, to see whether he has said more than his source warrants. A historian with a turn of phrase, when released from this discipline, risks acquiring a dangerously Icarian freedom to make statements which are unscholarly because unverifiable. [C. S. R. Russell]

In December 1990 I published an essay critical of the work of Dr. John Adamson. I cited numerous examples of what I consider systematic misuse of evidence, including selective quotation and misquotation, tendentious interpretation, and the citation of sources that either have no bearing on the point being substantiated or are so tangential to it that no reasonable researcher would consider the cited material to constitute evidence within the canons of accepted scholarly practice. I came to these conclusions after a long period of checking citations. What I found was that the evidence for these questionable practices was embedded in Adamson's work and concealed from the view of his readers. Because he uniformly preferred to cite from manuscripts and disdained cross-reference to readily available printed editions, only someone whose familiarity with the materials nearly rivaled his own could be aware of the problem. Dozens of manuscript citations were offered as evidence for self-confident assertions, but time after time no quotations were provided in either text or footnote to make the assertions concrete. When sources were quoted, the quotations were largely run into Adamson's sentences rather than appearing in their own contexts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1991 , pp. 399 - 448
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1991

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References

1 Russell, C. S. R., Times Literary Supplement (TLS) (October 19–25, 1990), p. 1123Google Scholar.

2 Kishlansky, Mark A., “Saye What?” Historical Journal 33, no. 4 (1990): 917–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 While no scholar is to be reproved for consulting original materials rather than printed ones, it is the duty of every scholar to make the foundations on which his work rests accessible to others. This is the reason why primary sources are edited and printed. If Adamson prefers to use manuscripts of widely available texts, it is his obligation to cross-reference them to well-known printed versions. If he believes that the printed versions are inadequate, it is his obligation, as an expert on this material, to inform unwary readers of the specific lapses so that these versions are not relied on in the future.

4 Adamson, J. S. A., “Politics and the Nobility in Civil-War England,” Historical Journal 34, no. 1 (1991): 231CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 “[Kishlansky] makes a powerful case for the institutional influence of the peers during 1646–7, and is the first narrative account of that period to break decisively with the Gardinerian interpretation of the relationship between the Houses.” Adamson, J. S. A., “Eminent Victorians: S. R. Gardiner and the Liberal as Hero,” Historical Journal 33, no. 3 (1990): 653CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 100

6 Adamson, ,”Politics and the Nobility,” p. 236Google Scholar. In “Projected Settlement,” Adamson had quoted differently: “‘The Lord Say, Saint Jon and Vaine the younger’ were the ‘Cabbinet Counsell’ Sir Lewis Dyve informed the king in September, ‘who now steer the affaires of the wholl kingdome’” (Adamson, J. S. A., “The English Nobility and the Projected Settlement of 1647,” Historical Journal 30 [1987]: 567–602)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 I must take this opportunity to apologize to Dr. Adamson for a sloppy footnote in my essay, one from which several lines were accidentally dropped. It is in “Saye What?” p. 925, n. 50. This was not a criticism of his source. Mount Stuart, Rothesay, Isle of Bute, Bute MS 196 D 13/i fol. 70r–v. The lines that were dropped would have identified the source that was being questioned as Whitelocke's “Annals,” British Library (BL) Additional (Add.) MS 37, 344, fols. 29, 31v. This citation, as 1 claim in “Saye What?” is of meetings in December 1645 and should not have been placed in a footnote documenting meetings in December 1644. Adamson makes great play of this error, quoting liberally from the manuscript, suggesting that the only charitable interpretation of my mistake is that I had not actually seen it (in fact this story is very well known, appears in all printed versions of Whitelocke's Memorials, and is rehearsed by Gardiner), and that this meeting, rather than the meeting on Putney Heath, was the subject of my criticism. The meeting on Putney Heath was a chance encounter, and the meeting cited in Whitelocke's “Annals,” fols. 29, 31v, did take place in 1645.

8 Kishlansky, , “Saye What?” p. 937Google Scholar, quoting from Journals of the House of Lords (LJ) 6:405Google Scholar.

9 Cambridge University Library, Thirlwall Prize Essay no. 14, pp. 33–34. I cannot see that Adamson now offers any evidence for his claim that Saye introduced this bill other than Mercurius Aulicus, the source that Gardiner relied on over a century ago. This is not particularly compelling evidence. It offers no date, is ambiguous as to whether it is discussing general contrivers or actual “authors,” and is from a source that is not known for its accuracy regarding procedure in the upper house. See Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 253Google Scholar.

10 Adamson, J. S. A., “Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament,” in Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, ed. Morrill, J. S. (London, 1990), p. 62Google Scholar (hereafter, where no place of publication is given, London is to be understood).

11 Kishlansky, , “Saye What?” p. 936Google Scholar.

12 Adamson's discussion is imbedded in a section that begins, “The political manoeuvers that gave rise to the Self-Denying Ordinance,” and the sources he cited, where they say anything relevant at all, are all about the Self-Denying Ordinance. He is correct to say that his assertion was about a resolution rather than an ordinance, but his citations substantiate neither.

13 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 233Google Scholar, n. 14.

14 I find it remarkable that Adamson would now argue that he has not had sufficient room “to present the evidence in greater detail … in the two articles that touch on this subject” (Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 233Google Scholar, n. 14). The footnote in “Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament” is a very long and detailed one, with the citation of no less than four separate sources, two of them in manuscript. Nor in making his original claim did he warn his readers that he did not have space to provide the evidence for this extremely important point. It is not general practice to make very large claims without presenting the evidence on which they are based and then to defend against an attack of the evidence that is presented with the excuse of lack of space. How complicated can it actually be to provide documentation for the direct assertion that “while Cromwell was proposing the resolution in the Lower House, Saye was moving the same resolution in the house of lords—where it was immediately thrown out”? (Adamson, , “Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament,” p. 62Google Scholar).

15 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 238Google Scholar, n. 48.

16 Adamson, , “Projected Settlement,” pp. 578–79Google Scholar, n. 82. I will not comment on the construction of this sentence that might lead to the conclusion that Ireton was dominated by someone outside of the army, as Adamson has now made clear that his argument was about “cooperation” between the peers and army leaders.

17 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 240Google Scholar, n. 66, quoting BL, Thomason Tracts (Thomason), E. 421 (19), Putney Projects, p. 13.

18 By running together two paragraphs—the break actually occurs at “But Oh the Commons of England”—it is made to seem that the disavowal that these are the army's proposals relates to “the tot[t]ering pillars of the Kingly and Lordly interest” rather than to the rest of the paragraph of which it is the first sentence and which Adamson does not quote.

19 BL, Thomason, E. 421 (19), Putney Projects, pp. 13–14. Adamson's selection is emphasized.

20 Yale University, Beinecke Library, Osborn MS Fb 155, pp. 238–39. Adamson quotes only the sentence beginning “On my knowledge” (Adamson, , “Projected Settlement,” p. 576Google Scholar).

21 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 240Google Scholar. Maynard was not the only one of the eleven members who wrote about these events. But nowhere in the accounts of Holies or Waller is there any reference to the role of the Lords in the creation of the Heads of Proposals. One must ask why it is that if knowledge of the involvement of the “Saye-Northumberland” group was sufficiently widespread to have reached Maynard, it was not recorded by anyone else.

22 Tibbutt, H. G., ed., “The Tower of London Letter-Book of Sir Lewis Dyve, 1646–47,” Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society 38 (1958): 68Google Scholar.

23 Adamson, , “Projected Settlement,” pp. 570–71Google Scholar. The reversal of the order of these two quotations dramatically changes their context. It is the vote to place the militia under Fairfax's command that is the subject of “the favor of the army to back them in their demands,” and this favor does not have anything to do with the fact that “some of the officers of the army are suspected of the same conspiracy.” Dyve's letter puts the role of the army in doubt; Adamson's interpretation puts the army squarely in the forefront of the “confederacy.”

24 It is interesting to note the subtle inversion of the order of names in Adamson's rendition of Dyve's letter. Wharton, whom Dyve names last, Adamson names first. Vane, whom Dyve names first, Adamson names last.

25 Adamson, , “Projected Settlement,” p. 571Google Scholar. Dyve's letter is the single source offered for this statement at n. 25.

26 Ibid., p. 572. Footnote 36, which refers entirely to the revised draft, gives as its sole reference BL, Thomason, E. 399 (10), The proposals delivered to the earl of Nottingham. Footnote 37, which refers entirely to the consultations over the next two to three days, gives as its reference the letter from Dyve. Footnote citations in this quote are to the author's article and are not reproduced here.

27 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 241Google Scholar.

28 Putney Projects is, of course, about other things than the Heads of Proposals; in fact, it is mostly about other things.

29 It is worth pointing out that nowhere in his extremely frank letter does Maynard so much as suggest, let alone state, that the riots had been “planned” or that members of Parliament had been instigators of them.

30 In the earlier letter to which Dyve refers at the beginning of his missive of July 19, he wrote to the king: “There are two men of whome I was desired to give your Majestie speciall caution in case they shall come to speake with your Majesty, which are Watson the scout-master-generall and Doctor Stanes, the commissary generall of the musters, and if the character be true that is given of them there are not two more daingerous dissembling fellowes in the army.” Tibbutt, ed., pp. 65–66.

31 Adamson, , “Projected Settlement,” p. 578Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., p. 575.

33 BL, Thomason, E. 518 (8), A Perfect Diurnall, no. 206 (July 19–26, 1647), pp. 1668–69Google Scholar (hereafter Perfect Diurnall): “The Lords sent a Message to the Commons with a second Ordinance concerning Doctor Walker, Judge of the Admiralty the former being defective in some things; which Ordinance was read and upon the question past the House. Somewhat further was intimated this day from the Army that the Grand Proposals are now almost finished and will be shortly sent up, they are many and large, but these are said to be some of the Heads of them. That an express time be set longer then which this Parliament may not sit. That this Parliament ending all Parliaments here after be Biennall. That in the Intervals of Parliaments there may be a councell of State of 21. who are to have the Militia by Sea and Land in their power, and to be as a Privy Councell for affaires with forraigne Nations. That Justice be done on some of the grand Incendiaries. That Delinquents pay their compositions, yet that there may be such Moderation used that such as compound may not be ruined. That there may be a generall and full act for oblivion. That all Pennall Statutes for non comming to Church be taken off, with many others.” That this is an account of proceedings in the Commons can also be clearly ascertained by comparing the sequence of business reported in the Perfect Diurnall with that found in the Commons Journals for July 22.

34 The full account is as follows. “Tuesday July 20. The House of Lords this day received intimation of some Heads of other Proposalls to be expected from the Army. 1. That there be a Biennall Parliament instead of a Trienniall and what time this shall continue. 2. That a Counsell of State may be appointed in the intervalls of Parliament. 3. Something concerning the Navy. 4. The taking away the Penall Statutes for coming to Common Prayer and that some Oath of abjuration against the Pope's supremacy may be agreed on to be offered to Papists. 5. That the number of Persons excepted in the Propositions may be lessened. 6. That such Delinquents as do compound may not be enforced to take the Covenant. 7. Something concerning the Treaties between the two Kingdoms. 8. That there may be a speedy peace settled. 9. That there be an act of Oblivion. 10. That His majesties Rights may be considered. The Grand Declaration is expected ere long to appeare to the world” (BL, Thomason, E. 518 (9), Perfect Summary [July 19–26, 1647], p. 5Google Scholar).

35 I repeat my mistranscription. The actual text reads as.

36 Dating Widdrington's presentation at n. 60, Adamson cites the Journals of the House of Commons (CJ) 5:252Google Scholar, where the two papers are clearly delivered on July 20. This was the dating that I followed in “Saye What?”

37 While I still do not think that it is possible to answer this question with any certainty, the one point that is clear is that the Commons spent much of their session on July 20 dealing with the impeachment of the eleven members, an issue that did not have to be dealt with in the Lords.

38 Adamson calls these the Heads of Proposals, which they were not. “They were completely unrelated to the Heads of the Proposals which Wharton reported to the house of lords that day” (Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility” [n. 4 above], p. 239Google Scholar). They were a report of some of the proposals that had been presented to the parliamentary commissioners by Ireton on the night of July 18. The fact that these reports did not come in formal documents is one of the reasons why newsbook accounts of the “proposals” conflated everything.

39 The Lords Journal is silent on this though it reports the other proposals sent by the army in detail.

40 BL, Thomason, E. 399 (28), Moderate Intelligencer, no. 123 (July 15–22) (emphasis added). This report lists at least eight specific points “with many others” that are not specified.

41 Cary, Henry, ed., Memorials of the Great Civil War in England (1842), 1:307–8Google Scholar (emphasis added).

42 This letter was signed by Widdrington and dated “July 18, 1647 past 12 at night.” The letter to the Speaker of the House of Lords is printed in LJ 9:339 and is cited by Adamson, (“Politics and the Nobility,” p. 238Google Scholar, n. 46), though without quotation from those parts that describe this meeting. The two letters are identical.

43 CJ 5:250; LJ 9:339.

44 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 242Google Scholar.

45 Ibid.

46 BL, Thomason, E. 518 (15), Perfect Summary, no. 3 (August 2–9, 1647), pp. 17–18Google Scholar. I still see no reason to describe this text as a “deposition.”

47 E. 518 (13), Perfect Summary, no. 2 (July 26–August 2), p. 15. I read “a new order of summons made for the rest of the Lords” to mean those Lords who were absent on the thirtieth, as the attendance on the two days had changed considerably.

48 BL, Thomason, E. 518 (13), Perfect Summary, no. 2 (July 19–26, 1647), p. 15Google Scholar.

49 Regrettably there is no space to deal with these highly complex matters which Adamson has not clarified.

50 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 242Google Scholar. Adamson seems unaware of the complications introduced by Baker's arrival at Hatfield on the afternoon of July 30 for his attempt to reconstruct the movements of the earl of Manchester that day.

51 For the Commons session on June 3, see Stieg, M. F., The Diary of John Harington, M.P., 1646–53 (1977), p. 55Google Scholar. For July 8, see CJ 5:237; LJ 9:318–21.

52 It appears that the Commons did not choose Henry Pelham as their new speaker until roughly 2 p.m., after which he was presented to the upper house. Before the presentation, the Lords adjourned their session temporarily to robe themselves, after which the entire membership of the Commons came to their chamber to present the new speaker. Moreover, this ceremony was but prelude to the business that the two houses subsequently conducted. The Commons sent three times to the Lords asking that they continue to sit during this day (CJ 5:259–60). On this day, Edward Makyn, a Commons messenger was charged by “both Houses” with the delivery of a number of letters to Sir Thomas Fairfax and the parliamentary commissioners with the army. Since the communications came from both houses, and as both houses had their own commissioners, the fact that he was not dispatched until 10 P.M. also points to a late sitting in both houses (CJ 5:264).

53 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 244Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., p. 243, n. 78. Adamson's defense of this position is twofold: he attacks me for dismissing the report (though he provides no corroboration of it) and he defends its accuracy by claiming that Clarendon's principal informant during this period was “Sir Edward Forde, Ireton's royalist brother-in-law.” He does not claim, however, that Forde was the author of this specific letter (which he was not) or explain why a supposed connection to Ireton would be of importance in authenticating a meeting that anyone among the royalist entourage would have witnessed.

55 My first reading of this line was that it was rumored that Northumberland and Saye had defected to the king, and I still find this as plausible a reading as that they had visited him, though I can see no reason to believe that it is a substantive report, no matter what its subject. The correspondent reports this as a rumor–“it is said”–and the rumor of their defection would be more newsworthy and more necessary of qualification by the writer than the simple news of their visiting Charles. In any event, there is no date or location given for their having “gone to the king” and certainly no description of what they did when they got there. These are all Adamson's surmises, and if it is impossible for me to refute them—for to do so I would have to prove a negative—it is equally impossible for Adamson to sustain them, however often he may reassert them.

56 Adamson, , “Projected Settlement,” p. 576Google Scholar, n. 71; Kishlansky, , “Saye What?” p. 932Google Scholar.

57 Adamson, , “Projected Settlement,” p. 577Google Scholar.

58 Ibid., n. 73. He also cites Salisbury's accounts at Hatfield to demonstrate that the earl was at Syon, though the entry is unfortunately dated August 13 and will not help us determine to which of the “two” meetings it refers. Other than Salisbury, I can find no source cited that provides these specific names. Ludlow mentions Saye, Northumberland, and Wharton as being at Syon; Ashburnham, John (A Narrative by John Ashburnham of his attendance on King Charles the first, 2 vols. [1830]Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Narrative) does not mention any of these names specifically. Adamson's citation at p. 578, n. 75, is to the Declaration of August 4, which does indeed include all of those lords and commoners mentioned above but also includes the names of dozens of others not mentioned. It, also, must be the result of the August 3 meeting rather than the supposititious earlier one.

59 Firth, C. H., ed., The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1894), 1:162Google Scholar.

60 I cannot imagine why Adamson wishes to dispute the dating of the rendezvous at Hounslow Heath. He offers two sources, Perfect Summary, no. 3, which reports on August 2, “The rendezvous of the Army was this day at Hounslow Heath” (p. 19) but then corrects itself three pages later in its August 4 report: “This day news came that the Army mustered (the day before) upon Hounslow Heath” (p. 22), and Edward Makyn who on August 2 says tentatively, “I did understand that their Rendesvous was appointed to be this day at Hounslow Heath” (Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 245Google Scholar, n. 91). Adamson would thus like to draw a distinction between the rendezvous and the mustering. It is quite clear from a number of reports that headquarters were at Colnbrook on August 2, and that they did not move to Isleworth until the night following the rendezvous. August 2 was also the day that the preface to the Heads of Proposals was composed and dated from Colnbrook. A letter printed by John Rushworth locates army headquarters at Colnbrook on the second (though the writer expects that they will be removed to Hounslow), and first City delegation, early on the morning of August 3, is described as coming to Colnbrook (Rushworth, John, Historical Collections, 8 vols. [1721], 7:740, 743Google Scholar). Major Robert Huntington was sent by Charles I to army headquarters on August 2 (the day the king arrived at Stoke), and he specifically reports that he went to Colnbrook (BL, Thomason, E. 458 (3), Sundry Reasons Inducing Major Robert Huntington to lay down his Commission, p. 8). Thus the preponderance of evidence leads to the conclusion that whatever initial plans may have been made, the rendezvous did not take place until August 3.

61 Ludlow's account is very confused, and I would not rely upon it to make any certain judgment about dates. It was written retrospectively, it may have been misedited, and it clearly lists things that can be independently dated in the wrong chronological order. Nevertheless, not only did Adamson choose to cite this questionable source, he provided a long and detailed argument for his belief that the edited version of this source, in this particular section, should be accepted as genuine.

62 I remind readers that Adamson originally cited three sources, but the third, the Hatfield Accounts, do not appear to provide any information germane to the dating of the “two” meetings. In “Politics and the Nobility,” Adamson offers a new piece of “evidence” whose use is paradigmatic of his treatment of scraps of archival materials. Buried at the bottom of a footnote he writes: “Northumberland's accounts also reveal that a member of his London household made an urgent return journey by water from London to Syon House on 31 July—further suggesting that his master was in residence at Syon on that day: ‘For a paire of Owers [oars] from London to Sion and back againe. July 31’ [1647]” (Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 244Google Scholar, n. 82). None of the three facts that Adamson reports, that (1) a member of Northumberland's London household made (2) an urgent journey and (3) that this traveller was male—his master—can be sustained from this entry. These, along with the suggestion that Northumberland was in residence on July 31, are all surmises. There are innumerable reasons why such a journey might be made, and there are a number of identical entries in this account book, the two nearest to that cited by Adamson on July 26 and August 18, 1647. As a matter of information, the countess had just given birth at Syon House on July 22 (Petworth House, Sussex, MS 333 [Stable acc.], unfol.). I am grateful to Mrs. Alison McCann of the West Sussex Record Office for her help with this source.

63 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 243Google Scholar.

64 Ibid.

65 Ibid., p. 244.

66 Ibid. We shall soon discover that army headquarters were not at Colnbrook on July 31. I will not comment on the statement that army officers had come only to consult with peers rather than peers and commoners.

67 However absurd this reasoning may seem, it is absolutely vital to Adamson's proof. In his original article he had cited Ludlow as a source for this meeting, and Ludlow specifically identifies members of Adamson's group (among others) as being at Syon House. Unfortunately, he also identifies that meeting as taking place on August 3. Abandoning Ludlow means that Adamson only has Ashburnham's evidence, and Ashburnham names no one other than Colonel Deane and, by implication, Cromwell and Ireton. Therefore, even if Ashburnham's evidence could be dated to July 31 (which it cannot), it would not place any of the secret contrivers there.

68 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 244Google Scholar. The emphasis is Adamson's.

69 BL, Thomason, E. 421 (19), Putney Projects, p. 14.

70 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 244Google Scholar, n. 82.

71 Wildman wrote: “When these Proposalls were roughly drawn, Ireton in a Private Conference with the King, Ingaged Himself to Send him a Copy …. Afterward Some conferences were appointed with the King and many messages were sent by the Kiug[sic] to the grand Officers by Sir John Berkley: At last Sir John Berkley and Mr. Ashburnham brought the King's answer to them at Colebrook on August 1 & the Proposalls bear date August 2” (BL, Thomason, E. 421, Putney Projects, p. 14). In context, the mission of Berkeley and Ashburnham may relate to an answer from messages exchanged between the king and the army leaders rather than to the proposals themselves which had already been returned with the “crosses and scratches,” and had been the subject of exchanges with Berkeley alone. But Wildman is ambiguous here, and it is important to remember that he was not a principal in these events.

72 In the “Projected Settlement,” Adamson does not approve of the version printed by Gardiner, S. R. (The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625–1660, 3d ed. [Oxford, 1906])Google Scholar. In “Politics and the Nobility,” he does not so much approve of Gardiner's text as of the fact that Gardiner dates it to August 1 (p. 244, n. 82). The copy printed by M. Simmons for George Whittington, which Thomason collected, contains Fairfax's August 2 letter as preface to the actual proposals (BL, Thomason, E. 401 (4), A Declaration from His Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax). I can find no independent evidence that the proposals were published on Sunday, August 1, only that this was the day of their approval by the council of war.

73 BL, Thomason, E. 409 (25), A Declaration of the Engagements, Remonstrances, etc., pp. 110–11. The letter is entitled “A Declaration from His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, and his Councell of War Concerning the Proposalls of the Armie for setling of a Peace, and the grounds of publishing the heads thereof.” While the announcement of the publication is dated August 2, the heads themselves are signed and dated August 1, when they were approved at the council of war (p. 120). 1 am sure that Adamson will not want to quibble about the difference between the approval of the document at the council of war (clearly on August 1) and the announcement of its publication (clearly August 2). But if he does, it is to Wildman rather than to me that he must address his remonstrations. Wildman cites August 2 as the date of publication in his text, and the copy from which he worked gives August 2 as the date of publication.

74 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility” (n. 4 above), p. 244Google Scholar. I will not comment on the observation that the leaders of the army were only to consult with the “peers” rather than with the peers and commoners supposedly present at this supposed meeting.

75 Ashburnham, , Narrative (n. 58 above), 2:91–93Google Scholar. Adamson's quoted passage is emphasized. I will not comment on the direct attribution of authorship contained in this passage: “Cromwell and Ireton … their proposalls as they were moderated by themselves.”

76 Adamson, , “Projected Settlement” (n. 6 above), pp. 573Google Scholar, n. 38, 577, n. 73.

77 The Memoirs of Sir John Berkley, printed in Ashburnham, , Narrative, 2, app. VI, pp. clvi–clviiGoogle Scholar. I quote from the Ashburnham printing to make it easier to find for those who have already pulled Ashburnham from the shelf. It is generally cited from Maseres, Frances, Select Tracts Relating to the Civil Wars in England (1815), 2:370Google Scholar.

78 Headquarters for the army were at Wycombe on July 30–31, at Colnbrook on August 1–2, and at Isleworth on August 3–4.

79 Rushworth (n. 60 above), 7:750.

80 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility” (n. 4 above), pp. 242–43Google Scholar, n. 77. In a letter from Colnbrook, dated August 2, was the observation, “The King is resolved to remove from Latimer to a House near Windsor,” and the newsbooks reported on August 2 that “the King was at Stoke-Abbey near Windsor” (Rushworth, 7:742).

81 Ashburnham, , Narrative 2:92Google Scholar (emphasis added).

82 There was more than one letter from the City of London to the Army in the days after the riots. Nevertheless, on July 31, the City was breathing defiance, listing disbanded soldiers and militiamen. They sent a letter to the army assuring the general that they now had matters under control and demanding that the army advance no closer to London. On August 2, they sent a delegation to the army to discover why they had received no reply to their earlier letters and why the army was continuing to advance. Fairfax presented them with a declaration, dated August 2, justifying the army's conduct and stating their intention to restore those members of Parliament who had sought the army's protection. Fairfax also demanded the delivery of all forts and blockhouses. It was this uncompromising response that led to the City's capitulation on August 3. This sequence of exchanges can be followed in Rushworth, 7:743–52.

83 “And according as We shall find Directions from your Excellency, they shall find all Ports and Passes open to receive you and them, as also such Guards of Two or Three Regiments as your Excellency shall think fitting …. We shall humbly submit to their [the members of the two houses being restored by the army] Direction what Forces of yours and ours to continue for their future Guard; in which Service, we humbly offer the whole Strength of this City” (ibid., 7:751).

84 Ibid., 7:753; BL, Thomason, E. 401 (23), The King's Majesties Declaration. Both Rushworth and this pamphlet (on which he probably based his account) describe the letter and another fuller “Declaration and Profession” as having been delivered to the general by Ashburnham and Sir John Bartlett. It would be reasonable to suppose, but this is only a supposition, that they meant Sir John Berkeley. The letter quoted in full above is dated “Stoak, Aug. 4, 1647.” A draft of a much different letter, presumably the one over which debate lasted an entire day, is preserved in Scrope, R., ed., State Papers Collected by Edward Earl of Clarendon, 2 vols. (1767), 2:373–74Google Scholar. It is dated August 3.

85 Readers must remember that the dating of the August 3 meeting is not in doubt. There are newsbook accounts to confirm it, and Adamson does not dispute it.

86 Berkley, , Memoirs (n. 77 above), p. cxlvGoogle Scholar. In a subsequent section, Berkeley relates that Cromwell was “complaining of his son Ireton's slowness in perfecting the proposals, and his not accommodating more to his Majesty's sense” (ibid., p. cxlviii). Moreover, Major Robert Huntington has left his own account of these events which also gives the strongest possible support to the interpretation that the proposals were coming out of the army, that Cromwell and Ireton were their prime movers, and that they were in complete control of what was or was not included in them (BL, Thomason, E. 458 (3), Sundry Reasons [n. 60 above], pp. 5–7). Huntington also dates Charles's decision to provide some answer to the proposals with great precision to the day the king came to Stoke (p. 7).

87 Gardiner, S. R., The Great Civil War, 4 vols. (1894), 3:341–43Google Scholar. Adamson has recently launched an assault upon the reliability of Gardiner, especially as it relates to assessing the role of the peers in the English Revolution: it should be read very carefully (Adamson, J. S. A., “Eminent Victorians” [n. 5 above], pp. 641–57Google Scholar).

88 Berkeley said that he made it his special project to cultivate the agitators and was trusted by them (Memoirs, p. cxlviii).

89 Though he had originally asserted that the king was at Latimer for a week beginning on July 26, Adamson now acknowledges that the king did not arrive there until July 31 (Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 242Google Scholar, n. 77).

90 Kishlansky, , “Saye What?” (n. 2 above), p. 932Google Scholar.

91 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 243Google Scholar. I will not comment on the construction that Saye only joined other “peers” at Syon House.

92 Makyn's account gives the impression that he rode all night long as he lists no stopovers. He was very nervous lest the Presbyterian-controlled Commons doubt that he had fulfilled his charge of bringing letters to the parliamentary commissioners with the army and to Sir Thomas Fairfax himself. He swore to the veracity of his account.

93 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 243Google Scholar, n. 78.

94 It remains possible that Baker traveled to Hatfield on July 30, but if he did, Adamson's proposition that Saye traveled from Hatfield via Latimer to Hanworth is falsified, as Saye's suppositious visit to Latimer could not take place until July 31, and Baker went directly from Hatfield to Hanworth.

95 These are Adamson's facts, all to be found in both the “Projected Settlement” and “Politics and the Nobility”; I would dispute many of them.

96 That the royal entourage did not leave Woburn until sometime on July 31 is known from the fact that the parliamentary commissioners sent a letter to the Commons that day dated from Woburn (CJ 5:262). Moreover, Edward Makyn rode to Woburn in search of army headquarters and received directions there to High Wycombe sometime on the morning of July 31. Adamson says directly that the king was at Latimer on July 31 (Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 242, n. 77)Google Scholar.

97 Edward Makyn's evidence, cited by Adamson, places Fairfax at High Wycombe around 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon on July 31 (CJ 5:264). Adamson places him at the Syon House meeting: “From here he [Saye] rode south to Hanworth Court in Middlesex—where the Lords' messenger finally caught up with him—to await the army's advance towards London, meeting Fairfax and his officers at Syon House on 31 July” (Adamson, , “Projected Settlement,” pp. 576–77Google Scholar).

98 “After the meeting at Hatfield, Saye moved on to Latimers, where he was joined by Northumberland for consultations with the king” (Adamson, , “Projected Settlement,” p. 576Google Scholar). This fact alone resolves the question of the timing of Baker's visit.

99 Baker's report on August 2 makes clear that when he came to Hanworth, Saye was there and that he spoke with him personally (Saye replying “well” to the summons). Had Saye not yet returned to Hanworth, Baker most likely would have left the summons since he still had to go to the earl of Mulgrave that day.

100 Edward Makyn arrived at High Wycombe between 4 and 5 o'clock, personally presented his letters to Fairfax, presented other letters at Windsor, and returned for an answer from the general: “And, on Saturday night, about Nine of the Clock, I attended the General for an Answer, but could not receive any” (CJ 5:264). Makyn received no answer from Fairfax until the following day when the general declined to recognize the authority of the parliament that sat in the absence of the speakers and other members.

101 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 243Google Scholar, n. 78.

102 Baker is so described by the earl of Warwick on August 2 (LJ 9:370).

103 I am advised that the distance between Woburn and Latimer is twenty-nine old English miles on seventeenth-century roads. The king would have made the journey in company with two troops of parliamentary cavalry and his own retinue. There is every reason to believe that he also would have traveled by coach. There is also every reason to believe that, with rest stops, the journey would have consumed most of the day. Even if we simply compute the distances of Northumberland, Saye, and Baker, this is not a very interesting race. According to Adamson's calculations, Hatfield to Latimer (Northumberland's trip) is sixteen miles and Latimer to Hanworth (Saye's trip) is eighteen miles. While these two traveled thirty-four miles, Baker only traveled twenty-four.

104 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 243Google Scholar, n. 77. Adamson quotes the Lords' commissioners' letter: “As we hear, some of the Army are to be tomorrow night at Uxbridge or Colebrooke.”

105 CJ 5:262. It is probably necessary to say that the army was a large organization and that elements of it were scattered throughout a three-county area. Surely, since we are concerned with the whereabouts and movements of Sir Thomas Fairfax, who has to get to the supposed meeting of July 31, it is the location of the general's headquarters that is at issue.

106 Rushworth (n. 60 above), 6:647.

107 BL, Thomason, E. 518 (12), Perfect Diurnall, no. 209 (July 26– August 2). Thus the army's headquarters were at Bedford on July 29; on July 30, the army marched all day, passed through Leighton Buzzard, and arrived that night at High Wycombe; on July 31, they were all day and night at High Wycombe; on August 1, they moved to Colnbrook where they were until the rendezvous at Hounslow on the third.

108 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 242Google Scholar, n.76.

109 CJ 5:264.

110 While it is possible to read this line to suggest that Makyn did not actually see Fairfax (and therefore that Fairfax was not actually there), the entire tenor of the deposition weighs against this reading. In the first place, Makyn “delivered the letter to the General” in the late afternoon and returned for an answer several hours later. Had Fairfax not been at headquarters, Makyn would presumably have stated this clearly and, given the number of places he had already been, continued his quest. Having Makyn appear twice at Fairfax's tent when the general was not in town would have involved Fairfax's staff officers in a complicated deception. Moreover, Makyn again returned for an answer the following morning when he was commanded to travel with the general to Colnbrook where Fairfax told him that there would be no response to the letter.

111 Adamson has not computed this distance. I am advised that it is thirty-one old English miles on seventeenth-century roads.

112 Kishlansky, , “Saye What?” (n. 2 above), p. 933Google Scholar, n. 96.

113 BL, Thomason, E. 518 (16), Perfect Diurnall, no. 210 (August 2–9, 1647), p. 1686Google Scholar.

114 Adamson, , “Politics and the Nobility,” p. 245Google Scholar. There are two remarkable claims made about this account. Since Adamson believes the payment to a messenger out of Essex redates this letter to the thirtieth, he speculates that this would also redate the following line, “the Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Mograve, and divers other Lords and many of the House of Commons came to the head Quarters desiring to be protected by the Gen.” He writes, “If the information contained in the second part of this sentence is contemporaneous with that contained in the first part, then it is likely that this too refers to events which had taken place around 30–31 July. 2 August was the date of the report, not of the events described.” Since army headquarters were at Wycombe on the thirtieth and thirty-first, this would place Lord Saye in Wycombe on July 31, adding to his already remarkable travels on that day. But while Adamson is eager to read the next line in the newsbook report to favor his construction of these events, he is silent on the previous line, “Letters from the Army certifying that the General's headquarters were at Colebrook at one Mr. Wilson's near the bridge, wither he came Sunday night and that the King was at Stoke Abbey.” Sunday was August 1; the king came to Stoke on August 2. BL, Thomason, E. 518 (16), Perfect Diurnall, no. 210 (August 2–9, 1647), p. 1686Google Scholar.

115 Firth, C. H., ed., Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, 4 vols. (1891–1901), 1:222–23Google Scholar. Warwick was not willing to gamble his future on the still uncertain outcome of a war between the army and the City. He did not respond to Fairfax's letter of the second until the fifth (after it was clear that the City had capitulated). Then he excused the ill carrying of his orders to the deputy lieutenants of Essex and claimed that local matters kept him from joining the army on its march into London. Conversely, Warwick did not reply to the personal summons to attend the House of Lords, as had so many others, that he could not by reason of the tumults. Rather, he pleaded personal business. Thus his statement on the fifth, that he only received Fairfax's letter of the second that day, need not be taken at face value. I discount the possibility that Fairfax's letter was not delivered until the fifth on the grounds that communications were just too important on these days when a new war was anticipated for messengers to have been unnaturally slow in deliveries. But I freely admit that this is an inference.

116 There is genuine room for confusion concerning Manchester's whereabouts, and the only thing that is known for certain is that Baker found him at Hatfield. Another newsbook reported that he had written to the House of Lords on July 30, begging to be excused for several days, and that he had gone to Leighs. This letter is specifically identified as having been written to the House of Lords (BL, Thomason, E. 518 (13), Perfect Summary, no. 2 [July 16–August 2, 1647]). The letter reported in the Perfect Occurances is specifically identified as being addressed to the army (BL, Thomason, E. 518 (14), Perfect Occurances, no. 31 [July 30–August 6]).

117 BL, Thomason, E. 518 (14), Perfect Occurances, no. 31 (July 30–August 6).

118 BL, Thomason, E. 518 (16), Perfect Diurnall, no. 210 (July 30–August 6), p. 1688.