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The Baronial Context of the English Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J. S. A. Adamson
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Extract

WHEN rebellion broke out in England in 1642, the political nation had been, for over a decade, obsessed with medieval precedent and its gothic past. Practices and institutions which had seemed defunct revived, during the 1630s, into new and sometimes controversial life. Trial by combat was reintroduced in appeal of treason in 1631, and confirmed by the judges in 1637 as a legitimate legal procedure even in disputes of property; in 1636 a bishop was appointed to the Lord Treasurership for the first time since the reign of Edward IV; in 1639 England went to war without the summons of a Parliament for the first time since 1323; and the following year the Great Council of Peers met, for the first time since the reign of Henry VIII, to deal with a revolt of the Scottish nobility. At Court, the king was encouraging a gentleman of his Privy Chamber, Sir Francis Biondi, in his labours on a massive survey of the baronial struggles in England from Richard II to Henry VII—a work which, when it appeared in 1641 as The Civill Warres of England, was shortly to be endowed with a profoundly ironic topicality.

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Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 40 , December 1990 , pp. 93 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1990

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References

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8 Essex's role in the parliamentarian war effort is discussed below, 105–16.

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13 SirHayward, John, The History of the Life and Raigne of Henry the Fourth (1642)Google Scholar, one of many works republished in the 1640s with its original (1599) dedication to the 2nd earl of Essex. Merke, Thomas, bishop of Carlisle, A Pious and Learned Speech delivered in the High Court of Parliament, 1 H[enry] 4 [1642Google Scholar]—a work reprinted during the Exclusion Crisis, and again in 1689 (Wing, M 1826–7, S 4868A). For extracts from the Parliament Rolls, see, , E.G., The Bloody Parliament in the Raigne of an unhappy Prince ([9 02] 1643)Google Scholar, printing part of the Parliament Roll for 10 Ric. II. For the printing of the medieval tract of the Steward see, Certaine Observations touching the two great Offices of the Seneschalsey…and High-Conslableship of England (17 Oct. 1642). Bracton had been reprinted in 1640: de Bracton, Henricus, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae Libri Quinque (1640)Google Scholar.

14 CJ ii. 668–9; LJ v. 204–6. Cf. B.L., Add. MS33374 (Jones of Gellilyfdy papers), ff. 19V–20.

15 There had not been a regular High Steward of England (to be distinguished from the domestic office of Steward of the Household) since the death of the duke of Clarence at the battle ofBeauge in 1421: Harcourt, L. W. Vernon, His Grace the Steward and Trial of Peers (1907), 191Google Scholar. The nature of the powers the Lord Steward was intended to enjoy by the framers of the XIX Propositions is discussed below.

16 David Starkey, ‘Court history in perspective’, in idem, ed., The English Court: from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (1987), 1–24.

17 LJ v. 97–9; Gardiner, S. R., The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution 1625–1660 (3rd edn, Oxford, 1906), 250–4Google Scholar.

18 I, Charles, ‘Answer to the XIX Propositions’, printed in Rushworth, v. 728–32Google Scholar. LJ v. 97; Gardiner, , Constitutional Documents, 251Google Scholar.

19 I am grateful to Professor Wallace MacCaffrey for a discussion of the 2nd earl of Essex's claim to the Constableship. In the late 1590s (when Essex made his claim to this office and the Earl Marshalship), as in 1642, it was an office which (possessing vice-regal powers) would have been of particular importance in the event of the monarch's death.

20 These two great offices were omitted from the table of precedence in Henry VIII's Act of Proclamations: 31 Hen. VIII, c.8, §4.

21 Gardiner, , Constitutional Documents, 251Google Scholar(XIX Propositions, §2).

22 Tuck, A., Crown and Mobility 1272–1461 (1985), 191–8Google Scholar.

23 [Parket, Henry], Observations upon some of his Majesties late Answers and Expresses (1642), 24Google Scholar. Parker's Observations were written in response to the king's Answer to the XIX Propositions. For Parker's links with the circle which drafted the propositions, see Adamson, J. S. A., ‘The Vindiciae Veritatis and the political creed of Viscount Saye and Sele’, Historical Research lx (1987), 60–1Google Scholar.

24 ‘Modus Tenendi Parliamentum', §xvii; printed in Pronay, N. and Taylor, J., Parliamentary Texts of the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1980), 87Google Scholar; the text is common to both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ recensions of the Latin Modus. For the earl of Arundel's copy, College of Arms, Arundel MS XLI. A copy of the Modus is the first item listed as having been found in Saye's study when it was searched for seditious and subversive papers at the conclusion of the Short Parliament: Bodleian Lib., MS Tanner 88*, f. 115. As most legally literate members of the Long Parliament would have been aware, these twenty-five, summoned by the Steward, the Constable and the Earl Marshal, had power to deal with political crises—where ‘there is discord between the king and some magnates’, or where there was a division within the peerage (‘Modus’, ed. Pronay and Taylor, 87). Similar passages attributing particular significance to twenty-five men chosen from the Parliament appear in the medieval Treatise on the Steward, versions of which were almost as widely circulated as the Modus itself: B.L., Cotton MS Vespasian B VII, f. 100 (for other copies, bound with the Modus: Cotton MS Nero CI, ff.I–5v; Landsdowne MS 522, ff.6v–7v). Other treatises on the Steward, Marshal and Constable frequently accompanied copies of the Modus: B.L., Cotton MS Domitian A XVIII, ff. 15V-22 (Modus), ff. 23–35 (‘Officium Marescalli et Constabularii Anglie’). B.L., Add. MS 32097 (William Lambarde's copies of 15th century treatises), ff. 13–21. Harcourt, Steward, 164–7; Pronay and Taylor, Parliamentary Texts, 27n.

25 Scottish R.O., Hamilton MS, GD 406/1/1658: Saye to Hamilton, 3june 1642: the reason for Saye's omission from the drafting committee was that he was suffering from ‘a feavorish distemper’ and was not well enough to attend the House; as his letter to Hamilton indicates, the propositions clearly expressed his own aspirations for the settlement of the kingdom.

26 Christ Church Muniment Room, Oxford, Nicholas Box (Evelyn collection): earl of Pembroke to Edward Nicholas, 29 Nov. 1641. LJ iv. 355.

27 B.L., Cotton MS Titus CI; the ‘emperor system’ for the classification of the Cottonian Library was not introduced until after Cotton's death in 1631, though it appears to have been operative by 1639: Tite, C. G. C., ‘The early catalogues of the Cottonian Library’, British Library Journal vi (1980), 148Google Scholar.

28 B.L., Harl. MS 6018 (1621 catalogue of the Cotton Lib.), ff. 178, 184: the volume is listed as ‘A booke of collections of many things concerning the office of the steward, Constable, and especially the Marshall of England’ (f. 184).

29 B.L., Harl. MS 6018, f. 184.

30 B.L., Cotton MS Titus C I. These papers, presented to the Society of Antiquaries, were almost certainly the source of the copies made for the earl of Northumberland (Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MSS541–2). For Hakewill's employment in antiquarian research by the earl of Northumberland during the early 1640s, see Kent Archives Office, De L'Isle MS U 1475/A98 (Northumberland's general account for 1640; a stray from the Alnwick archives). The notes on ‘The Office and Jurisdiction of the Constable and Marshall of England’ [c. 1640s], drawn from 'Mr [Francis] Thynns Collectiofn]' (Bodleian Lib., MS Tanner 91, ff. 186–9) derive from a later copy of the treatises in Cotton MS Titus C I.

31 B.L., Cotton MS Titus CI (Antiquaries' tracts), ff. 26–32; printed as Certaine Observations touching the two great Offices of the Seneschalsey…and High Constableship of England (17 Oct. 1642). It was printed for Laurence Chapman, a stationer later associated with the publication of the Scotish Dove.

32 Certaine Observations, sig. B[r-v].

33 Certaine Observations, sig. B2.

34 Certaine Observations, sig. B2 [v].

35 Christ Church Muniment Room, Oxford, Nicholas Box (Evelyn collection): Pem-broke to Nicholas, 29 Nov. 1641. There was little doubt as to who would be the incumbents of the offices. The earl of Pembroke, whose household vied in size and splendour with the royal Court, had been nominated by the Commons to the Lord Stewardship as early as August 1641: LJ iv. 355. On the size of Pembroke's household see [George] Sedgwicke, autobiographical narrative, printed in Nicholson, J. and Burn, R., History and Antiquities of the counties of Westmorland and Cumberland (2vols, 1777), I. 296Google Scholar: ‘[Pembroke's] family [sc. household] in London was for the most part about 80, in the country double that number’. Sedgewicke was Pembroke's man-of-business at London and one-time assistant to Michael Oldisworth as secretary to the earl. Pembroke's palace at Wilton was conceived on a scale larger than any building attempted by any monarch since Henry VIII.

36 Cf. B.L., Cotton MS Vespasian C XIVB, ff. 98–101 v. The treatise published by Mandeville and Essex was possibly one of a series prepared for Essex's father in 1597, when the 2nd earl was pressing his claim to the Constable's office, by the antiquary, Francis Thynne; cf. Peck, Northampton, 24m. It is possible that Robert Bowyer's collection of notes on 'Honor and Armes', made in 1598, which examined at length the powers of the Constableship, was prepared in connexion with this claim: B.L., Add. MS 12191 (Bowyer's notes), ff. 117–125. In advancing his claim to the Constableship in 1642, Essex was aided by the common identification, advanced in official and unofficial polemic alike, between the crusade against Charles I's evil counsellors, and the attacks on Edward II's favourite, Piers Gaveston, and the parliamentary assault on the evil counsellors of Richard II in 1388. The association first gained currency during the attack on Strafford in 1641: see 'The Earle of Strafford Characterized', [March] 1641: Stratford's favour with the king was thought to 'have beene purchased and bought from the peoples affections at a higher price then all the Privadoes of Edw. the Second, or Rich[ar]d the 2[n]d, for that this onely man [Strafford] hath cost and lost the King and Kingdome more trasure and loyalty then Pierce of Gaveston, the Two Spencers, and Marques of Dublin [in 1387–8] did ever cost their masters, being put together'. Bodleian Lib., MS Rawlinson D924 (misc. papers), f. 139V. This letter seems to have been widely circulated in MS; for a contemporary copy see Kent A.O., Foulis MS U 1886/126. The Lords' committee that drafted the resolution declaring in 1642 that the king intended to make war on Parliament, accompanied their votes with extracts from the Parliament Rolls of 11 Richard II (justifying the Constable's proceedindgs against evil counsellors), and 1 Henry IV (confirming Richard's deposition): LJ v. 76–7. The committee which drafted these resolutions consisted of Northumberland, Essex, Mandeville, Saye, Brooke, Holland, Leicester and Paget. It was Northumberland who characteristically, on 16 May 1642, reported to the House that before proceeding further in answering the king's messages, precedents should be searched. LJ v. 66.

37 Giustiniani to the Doge and Senate, 18 Sept. 1642: Calendar of Slate Papers, Venetian, 1642–3 (1925), 154.

38 Johnsons, Thomas, Some speciall passages from Warwickshire ([08] 1642), 1–5Google Scholar (B.L., E 109/3).

39 Crummett, J.B., ‘The Lay Peers in Parliament, 1640–44’ (D.Phil, dissertation, Manchester, 1972)Google Scholar, appendix XIV.

40 Bodleian Lib., MS Rawlinson D 141 (‘Certaine memorable accidents’, anon.), 47.

41 A true relation (1643), relates a fight which took place on 11 Oct. 1643.

42 A letter sent from the Lord Falkland…unto the…earle of Cvmberland (York, 30 09 1642)Google Scholar, sig. A2.

43 Proclamation, 23 Oct. 1642: The Parliamentary or Constitutional History of England (24 vols, 1751–62), xi. 471, (hereafter, Old. Parl. Hist.). The proclamation was intended to be read by the Clarencieux herald before Essex's army on the day of the battle.

44 Bodleian Lib., MS Eng. hist. e. 240, 35–6; printed as ‘The Genealogie, Life and Death of the Right Honourable Robert Lord Brooke', ed. Styles, P., Miscellany I (Publications of the Dugdale Society, Oxford, 1977), 178Google Scholar. The ‘Genealogie’ was written in 1644 by Thomas Spencer, a chaplain who had served in the household of the 2nd Lord Brooke. See also the contemporary account of the incident in Englands losse and lamentation occasioned by the death of … Lord Brooke ([9 Mar.] 1642 [3]), sig. A2v.

45 Howard, Edward, Carololoiades, or, the Rebellion of Forty One (1689), 37Google Scholar. (I owe this reference to Sutton, Mr John.) A Declaration of …the Earle of Newcastle ([?] 02 1642 [1643]), p. 9Google Scholar. The challenge was, in effect, a formal accusation of treason, a process that had been employed before the king himself at the trial by battle of Lord Reay in 1631, a trial at which Lindsey presided as High Constable of England. This gave particular significance to the king's choice of Lindsey as commander-in-chief, as Lindsey's adversary at Edgehill in Oct. 1642, Essex, had claimed the Constableship only the month before. Essex was to be opposed by an earl of equal distinction who had already held, on the king's terms, the very office which Essex was seeking to claim. For Reay's trial, College of Arms, Arundel MS LIV (Procs. in the Court of Chivalry, 1631–2); Bodleian Lib., MS Additional c. 79. Cf. also, SirClark, George, War and Society in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1958)Google Scholar, chapter 2 ‘The Analogy of the Duel’.

46 Old. Pad. HIST., xi. 471.

47 Challenges to combat were not, however, confined to officer peers. For a challenge from SirBalfour's, William son to a royalist officer in Col. Lunsford's regiment: A copy of a letter from his Excellencie, Robert Earle of Essex ([09] 1642), 2–3Google Scholar (B.L., 100.b.22). John Lilburne, an officer in Essex's army who also thought of the war in profoundly historical terms, issued a challenge to the royalist court martial which condemned him in November 1642. Demanding a sword, Lilburne challenged Prince Rupert and the earls Rivers and Northampton, ‘telling them he desired to die in single opposition, man to man, with any there’. Lilburne knew the precedents well: his father, Richard Lilburne, had caused consternation to Justice Berkeley at the Durham sessions in 1638, when he arrived with a champion ‘in Array’, ‘who cast his Gantlet into the Court’, to offer trial by battle with a Durham neighbour with whom he had a long-standing property dispute, Rushworth, ii. 788–90; for the background to the case: Gregg, P., Free-born John: a biography of John Lilburne (1961; 1986 edn), 72–3Google Scholar.

48 Hyde, Edward, earl of Clarendon, , The History of the Rebellion, ed. Macray, W. D. (6 vols, Oxford, 1888), ii. 355–6Google Scholar (Bk vi, §7gn). Propaganda issued on Essex's behalf throughout the war repeatedly emphasised his chivalric behaviour: see, for example, The earle of Essex his desires to the Parliament (13 Aug. 1642), 3.

49 Cf. Bridge, William, A sermon preached unto the voluntiers of the City of Norwich (30 01 1642 [1643]), 17–18Google Scholar.

50 Essex to Speaker Lenthall, 9 July 1643: printed in Devereux, W. B., Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex (2 vols, 1853), ii. 367–9Google Scholar. Snow, V. F., Essex the Rebel (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1970), 371–2Google Scholar.

51 On Hayward and the circle of the 2nd earl of Essex, M. E. James, ‘At the crossroads of the political culture: the Essex revolt, 1601’, in idem, Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in early modern England (Cambridge, 1986), 418–23.

52 SirHayward, John, The History of the Life and Raigne of Henry the Fourth (1642 edn), 90–6Google Scholar.

53 James, , ‘At the crossroads of the political culture’, 420Google Scholar. Cecil claimed Hayward's history was intended to make ‘this time seem like that of Henry IV, to be reformed by him [Essex] as by Henry IV’ (ibid., citing Cat. State Papers, Domestic, 1598–1601, 555).

54 Roskell, J. S., ‘The office and dignity of Protector of England, with special reference to its origins’, EHR lxviii (1953), 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 P.R.O., SP81/51/2, f. 215: the elder Sir Henry Vane thought that a custos regni would be appointed before the king's departure for Scotland in the summer of 1641.

56 The two most famous of his predecessors in the office were Lord Protector Somerset (created ‘Locumtenens [Regis] ac Capitaneus Generalis pro Guerris et Bellis’ in 1548) and, in the 1580s, the earl of Leicester—with whose supposed monarchical ambitions Essex was frequently associated. Thomas, and Digges, Leonard, An Arithmetical Warlike Treatise named Stratiotikos (1590)Google Scholar, sig. Aij (ep. ded to Leicester), and chapter xxiii: ‘The Lord General’, esp. 305, 307, 315; the first edition appeared in 1579. Roskell, ‘The office and dignity of Protector’, 229.

57 An exact collection (1643), 504 (proclamation of 9 Aug. 1642); Stuart Royal Proclamations Vol. II: Royal Proclamations of King Charles I, 1625–1646, ed. Larkin, James F. (Oxford, 1983), 791Google Scholar.

58 CJ ii. 668–9; 47 v. 206, 208.

59 CJ ii. 715 for the resolution; for examples of the oath being tendered to M.P.s, CJ ii. 741, 743, 755–6, 765, 767; 774, 784, 787, 802, 810, 822, 832, 874.

60 When relations between the Lord General and Parliament became strained, Essex was quick to remind the Commons of their solemn undertaking to adhere to him as leader and protector of the parliamentary cause. The terms of the oath to Essex were frequently reiterated in parliamentarian propaganda, particularly after such crises as Waller's, plot, in June 1643: A Declaration of the Lords and Commons … setting forth the Several Plots ([5 06] 1643), 16Google Scholar (B.L., E 105/5).

61 The Resolution of …the Earle of Essex his Excellence [9 Sept.] 1642), 2–4, 5 (B.L., 100 b. 21).

62 Codrington, Robert, The Life and Death of the illustrious Robert, Earle of Essex (1646), 14Google Scholar; on the traditional royal processional route through the City, Bergeron, D. M., English Civic Pageantry 1558––1642 (1971), 118–21Google Scholar; and idem, ‘Charles I's royal entries into London’, Guildhall Miscellany iii (1970), 91–7. Corporation of London R.O., MS 86.5 (Accounts of extraordinary disbursements of the Chamber, c. 1640–60).

63 Codrington, , Life of Essex, 38Google Scholar.

64 For the king's entry in 1641, The Subjects Happinesse, and the Citizens Joy (1641), sig. A2; Ovalio Carolina (1641); Withington, Robert, English Pageantry: an historical outine (2 vols, Cambridge, Mass., 1918–1920), I. 238–9. For Essex's triumphal entries of 1642–4, the place of meeting outside the walls was either Finsbury Fields or MoorfieldsGoogle Scholar.

65 Devereux, ii. 360; LJ v. 441.

66 For the presentation of congratulatory verses as part of Charles I's formal entry in 1641: Withington, , English Pageantry, I. 238–9Google Scholar.

67 A Continuation of Certaine Speciall and Remarkable Passages (4–11 Nov. 1642), 4 (B.L., E 127/3); for the payments, B.L., Add. MS 5497 (Parliamentary papers, 1642–9), f. 56r–v. Compare the gift presented to Charles I in November 1641: Corporation of London R.O., City Cash Book 1/4, ff. 146V–8.

68 The congratulatory ode which marked Essex's and Warwick's return to London in November 1642 claimed that henceforth ‘children shall rejoyce/In their first language, and the common voyce/Shall be to chaunt soft Hymnes and pleasant layes/To Essex, Noble and brave Warwicks praise'. London's loyfull Gratulation and Thankfull Remembrance for their Safeties ([11 11.] 1642), 7Google Scholar (B.L., E127/1).

69 The Journal of Sir Samuel Luke, ed. Philip, I. G. (3 vols, Oxfordshire Rec. Soc, 1950–1953). I 76Google Scholar.

70 Evance, Daniel, Justa Honoraria: or, Funeral Rites in honour to the Great Memorial (1646), 14Google Scholar. Wild, Johnthought that if Essex had died in ancient Rome, he would have been deified: J.W[ild], An Elegie upon the Earle of Essex's Funerall ([29 10] 1642), B.L., E359/11Google Scholar.

71 Merc. Civicus, no. 18 (21–28 Sept. 1643), 141; Bodlcian Lib., MS Rawl. D. 141, ‘Certaine memorable accidents’, 150–1. On this occasion the troops were reported to have declared their undertaking to serve Essex personally ‘when soever his Excellence (their Heroick Generall) should command their service’: Codrington, , Life of Essex, 38Google Scholar; for the attendance of the Lord Mayor and aldermen at Temple Bar: ibid. See also, Raikes, G. A., The History of the Honourable Artillery Company (2 vols, 1878–1879), I. 128Google Scholar.

72 Mount Stuart, Rothesay (Isle of Bute), MS 196 D. 13 (Diary of Bulstrode White-locke), f. 63V; most of this account is also to be found in B.L., Add. MS 37343 (Whitelocke's Annals), ff. 275V-6. The capitalization of ‘Protector’ is, perhaps, revealing. The wearing of scarlet gowns by the Lord Mayor and aldermen was also the traditional form of apparel for the reception of the king: Taylor, John, Englands Comfort, and London loy (1641)Google Scholar.

73 LJ viii. 490, 507, 508, 533, 540–2.

74 P.R.O., LC 2/6 (Lord Chamberlain's dept., accounts of James I's funeral), f. IV. The total cost of James's funeral was £16,520–a total which included the cost of hanging the interiors of the principal royal houses near London with mourning cloth, and providing mourning clothes for the members of the royal household. Essex's funeral was on a par–in terms both of cost and magnificence–with the royal funerals of the early seventeenth century. On the importance of Essex's funeral, see the perceptive remarks of MissLambert, Sheila, ‘The opening of the Long Parliament’, Historical Journal, xxvii (1984), 286–7Google Scholar.

75 This was the so-called ‘ultimate decree’ of the Roman Senate: cf. Cicero, Pro Milone, xxvi. 70.

76 Parker], [Henry, The Contra-replicant, his Complaint to His Majestic [31 01 1643], 19Google Scholar. Cf. Vines, Richard, The Hearse of the Renowned …Robert, Earle of Essex ([29 10] 1646), 30–1Google Scholar: ‘You …looked out for a Dictator’, Richard Vines reminded both Houses in Essex's funeral sermon, ‘and happily pitcht your eye and choyce upon this man’ (delivered 22 Oct. 1646).

77 Descriptio rerum guestarum in expeditione, quam suscepit illustrissimus heros, Robertus Comes Essexiae, Supremus Imperator ([14 April] 1643 [rede 1644]), title page; Sir Philip Stapilton, the commander of Essex's body-guard was termed the Tribune of the Praetorian Guard, the imperial bodyguard: ibid., 5. The Lords' order for its publication is dated 1 November 1643: ibid., sig. E[I]. For the English original, see A true relation of the late expedition (1643), B.L., E 70/10.

78 Kent Archives Office, Sackville MS U 269/C 267/19: the earl of Bath to the countess of Bath, 1 Oct. 1643.

79 Text printed in Old Parl. Hist., xiii. 59–61, 73–77; for Essex's reply, addressed to the earl of Forth, 30 Jan. 1644: Devereux, ii. 390. The Copy of his Excellency the Earle of Forth's letter to the Earle of Essex (Oxford, 7 March 1644), 1–5.

80 B.L., Add. MS 37343 (Whitelocke's Annals), f. 286r–v. Whitelocke, who claimed to have been consulted by Essex for advice as to how to reply, described the document as ‘a parchement rowle’ (ibid., f. 286r).

81 Devereux, ii. 390.

82 For the test of this first bill: CJ iii. 504; printed in Gardiner, , Constitutional Documents, 273–4Google Scholar; the bill pointedly gives the earl of Northumberland precedence (as a 10th earl) over Essex, who should otherwise have outranked all other peers as Captain-General. For Essex's precedence, B.L., Add. 37343 (Whitelocke's Annals), f. 285V. The establishment of the committee is discussed in Notestein, W., ‘The establishment of the Committee of Both Kingdoms’, American Historical Review xvii (1911–1912), 477–95Google Scholar, where the authorship of the bill is ascribed to the younger Vane (ibid., 482). Notestein offers no evidence to support this assertion; and there is no reason to suppose that Saye, who introduced the bill, was not also its draftsman. LJ vi. 405; CJ iii. 384; Merc. Aulicus 7th week (11–17 Feb. 1644), 828 (B.L., E 35/27).

83 B.L., Add. MS 37343 (Whitelocke's Annals), f. 287V: the English contingent was to consist of 7 lords and 14 members of the Commons, to be ‘a joint Councell’. The question of the committee's size was controversial; ‘the fewnes of the number’, Whitelocke observed, ‘distasted many who were left out’. The nobility was disproportionately well represented on the committee, for although the English contingent was composed according to the usual ratio for parliamentary committees (two Commons to one peer), peers predominated amongst the Scottish Commissioners; the effect at meetings was to make the overall ratio of peers to Commons much closer to one-to-one than one-to-two. The proposal for such a joint committee first emerged in Saye's circle in a positional paper drafted by Saye's nephew, Henry Parker, in the summer of 1642. Its publication, in a limited edition of 50 copies, was paid for by Sir John Danvers; and the proposal was presented to the marquess of Hamilton in June 1642. See P[arker], H[enry], The Generall Junto, or the Councell of Union (1642)Google Scholar, and Thomason's MS note to his copy, B.L., 669 f. 18/1; and Sir John Danvers to Hamilton, 1 July 1642: Scottish R.O., Hamilton MS GD406/1/1700.

84 CJ iii. 504. B.L., Harl. MS166 (D'Ewes's diary), f. 7.

85 The Committee of Both Kingdoms supplanted the authority of the (exclusively English) Committee of Safety, a Committee which was staffed by Essex's household men, and which acted as an extension of his commissariat. SP 28/261–262 (Cttee of Safety papers); many of these papers are in the hand of Henry Parker, who doubled as secretary to the Committee of Safety and secretary to the earl of Essex. Denzell Holies and Sir John Meyrick, two of Essex's staunchest supporters in the Commons, were conspicuously absent from the ranks of the new Committee of Both Kingdoms, even though they had formerly served on the Committee of Safety. For the lame duck existence of the Committee of Safety after February 1644, see P.R.O.(Kew), WO 47/1 (Ordnance Office, entry bk of orders 1644–5), 8, 14, 26, 35; Holles continued to attend the Committee of Safety's meetings throughout 1644: e.g., ibid., 35, 40, 57.

86 B.L., Add. MS 18980 (Prince Rupert corr., 1642–3), f. 60: Sir Edward Nicholas to Prince Rupert, 11 May 1643. William Salt Library, Stafford, Salt MS 509: Essex to Prince Rupert, 22 June 1643. (I owe this last reference to Dr David Smith, of Selwyn College, Cambridge.)

87 Cf. the peace initiative proposed by Essex after his triumphant return from the Gloucester campaign in September 1643, when his political stock was at its highest. Through his secretary, Henry Parker, Essex advocated the disbandment of both armies, and a readmission of moderate royalist councillors (such as his brother-in-law, Hertford), to the parliamentary deliberations on the settlement of the kingdom: Parker], [Henry, The Oath of Pacification: or a forme of Religious Accommodation (1643), 22, 29–30Google Scholar.

88 Leeds Castle, Kent, Fairfax MS, unfol.: duke of Richmond and Lennox to Rupert, 12 Nov. [1643].

89 B.L., Add. MS 27402 (Misc. historical papers), f. 79: Charles to Essex, from Liskeard, 6 Aug. 1644.

90 Ibid; cf. Prince Maurice and others to Essex, 8 Aug. 1644: Devon R.O., Seymour MS 1392 M/L 16/1644/54.

91 CJ iii.504.

92 B.L., Add. MS 27402 (Misc. historical papers), f. 80. The bearer of the king's letter, John Richard, explained to Essex that the offer was made for ‘[the] common end of preseruing this Kingdom from a Conquest by the Scotts, and from vtter ruine and desolation’. John Richard would have been familiar to Essex as he was in the household of the earl's brother-in-law, the marquess of Hertford, and seems to have acted as Hertford's man-of-business at London: Longleat, Seymour Papers, Box V, f. 30.

93 [Saye, Viscount and Sele, ], Vindiciae Veritatis (1654), 52Google Scholar.

94 B.L., Add. MS 27402 (Misc. historical papers), f. 80: summary by John Richard of what was said at the presentation of the king's offer to Essex, 7 Aug. 1644.

95 Essex, , A Paper Delivered into the Lords House … at the offering up of his Commission (1645), 3Google Scholar [recte 5].

96 Vicars, John, Magnolia Dei Anglicana. Or Englands Parliamentary-Chronicle (1646), 74–5Google Scholar; for Saye's involvement in the management of the legislation, ibid., 130, and [Saye, ], Vindiciae Verilatis, 53Google Scholar. CT iii. 718.

97 Bodleian Lib., MS Clarendon 28, f.40V: newsletter, 21 May 1646.

98 Vicars, , Magnalia Dei Anglicana, 127–30Google Scholar. The conference on Fairfax's officer-list, approval of which made the creation of the New Model almost inevitable, was on 18 March 1645; Northumberland's appointment was approved by the Lords on the same day. Bodleian Lib., MS Tanner 60, f. 86 (report on the custody of the king's children); P.R.O., SP 16/511/62. lJvii. 277, 317.

99 P.R.O. (Kew), AO 1/2429/79 (Surveyor of the Works, decl. ace, 1647–8). Northumberland chose to reside in StJames's Palace; his appartments were at the west end of the queen's chapel. CJ iv. 270.

100 Bodleian Lib., MS Tanner 60, f.86. House of Lords R.O., M[ain] Pfapers] 14/4/45, f 80; CJ iv. 270.

101 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MSO. I. 2(f): Northumberland to Hugh Potter, 23 Dec. 1646; Northumberland MSO. I.2(g): the earl to Potter, 22 Dec. 1646. P.R.O., SP 16/513, f.64 (notes made by Northumberland, c. 7 Feb. 1646).

102 The History of the King's Works, ed. Colvin, H. M., iv (1982), 241–252; V (1976), fig. 21 (facing 247), for a plan of the palace. The palace had been extensively ornamented by Charles I: the king's collection of antique sculpture was housed there, and Van Dyck's 1633 equestrian portrait of Charles I hung at the end of the galleryGoogle Scholar.

103 P.R.O., SP 16/539/300 (investigation into the accounts of Cornelius Holland, Clerk of the Green Cloth to the Prince, 2 Aug. 1645); SP 16/515/84.

104 Petworth House, Sussex, MS629; P.R.O., SP28/251/1, f. 343V. lJ viii. 663, 680.

105 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MSU. 1.6, Gen. ace. 1646–7: ‘for a rich Coach and sett of Coachhorses’. A royalist writer who saw the coach in April 1647 described it as a costly ‘French Embrodered Coach [with] 6 excellent Coach horses’; it was also used by the royal children for drives in Hyde Park: Bodleian Lib., MS Clarendon 29, f. 165.

106 P.R.O. (Kew), WO 47/1 (Ordnance Office, entry bk of orders 1644–5), 245 (order signed by Scawen); for Scawen's activities in general see, ibid., 211–345. Claydon House, Bucks., Verney MS: Henry Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 17 April 1645. For Essex's reconciliation with the Scots–perhaps the most remarkable volte face associated with the coup–see, H.L.R.O., Willcocks MS 1: Essex to Manchester, 23 March 1645; and Dr Williams's Lib., MS 24.50 (Juxon diary), f. 37V.

107 P.R.O. (Kew), WO47/1 (Ordnance Office), 211–345. The committee was occasionally referred to as the Committee for the Army and Contracts (WO 47/1, 291). Scawen gradually supplanted Zouche Tate (chairman of the other army committee in January 1645), who was in ailing health: CJ iv. 26. As usual in the parliamentarian bureaucracy, the most effective members of the administrative committees were the nobility's men-of-business. Thomas Pury senior, who occasionally deputised for Scawen as chairman of the committee, was a client of (and later executor to) the earl of Pembroke, and intimately connected with the Saye-Northumberland interest which had pushed through these political and military reforms. For Pury, see also SP 28/257 (Army Cttee papers), unfol.; SP 28/28/4, f. 309; SP 16/514, f. 15; for his connection with Pembroke: Sheffield Central Lib., Elmhirst MS 1352/11; Elmhirst MS 1360, f. 6; with Salisbury: Hatfield, A. 44/8; he gave evidence on behalf of Nathaniel Fiennes at his trial in 1644: Prynne, W. and Walker, C., A true and ful l relation of the prosecution…of Nathaniel Fiennes (1644)Google Scholar, sig. Aa2v. Pury also served on the vestry of the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, a body that was stacked with the clients of the parish's chief inhabitants, Northumberland, Pembroke and Salisbury: Westminster Public Lib., MS F2517, f. 22.

108 P.R.O. (Kew), AO 1/2429/79 (Surveyor of the Works, decl. ace, 1647–8).

109 Bodleian Lib., MS Tanner 60, f. 214: Scawen to Sir John Potts, from Suffolk House (later renamed Northumberland House), 17 July 1645. For Scawen's powers of patronage as chairman of the committee: Silvanus Taylor to Scawen, 12 June 1645: SP 28/30/4, f. 389.

110 CJ v. 298; Pury served as his second in the Commons: CJ v. 308. See also Scawen's accounts for the parliamentary commissioners to the army, 8 June–29 Sept. 1647: P.R.O., E 351/1275 (Pipe Office, decl. ace).

111 Starkey, , ‘Court history in perspective’, 1–24Google Scholar.

112 Cf. Kishlansky, M.A., The Rise of the New Model Army (Cambridge, 1979), 26–51Google Scholar.

113 P.R.O., SP 16/503, ff. 140–182: depositions relating to Cromwell's accusations against the earl of Manchester; Dr Williams's Library, MS 24.50 (Juxon diary), ff. 24V, 27V-28, 31, 33. Mercurius Britanicus, no. 52 (30 Sept.–7 Oct. 1644); ibid., no. 60 (2–9 Dec. 1644); CJ III. 703–4.

114 LJ vii. 276–7; 297. I am grateful to Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper fora discussion on this point. Adamson, J. S. A., ‘The English nobility and the projected settlement of 1647’, Historical Journal xxx (1987), 567–602CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

115 Leeds Castle, Kent, Fairfax MS, unfol.: Northumberland to Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax, 9 Dec. 1644 (from York House). ‘I am informed by my officers in the North’, Northumberland wrote, ‘[that] your Lo[rdshi]p is pleased to afford them your countenance and protection vpon all occations in my businesses.’ For the strength of Northumberland's ties with the Fairfaxes, see also: Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MSO. I. 2(f): Northumberland to Hugh Potter, 14 Jan. 1645; for their long standing: Christ Church, Oxford, Muniment Room, Nobility Letters (Evelyn coil.) I, f. 99: 1st Lord Fairfax to Northumberland, 26 Jan. [no year, but 1630s]. For Sir Thomas Fairfax's consultations at Syon House, on 31 July 1647, before the army's march on London: A narrative by John Ashbumham of his attendance on King Charles the First (2vols., 1830), ii. 92Google Scholar; The memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, ed. Firth, C.H. (2 vols, Oxford, 1894), i. 162Google Scholar; Hatfield, Accounts, BoxL/I.

116 Even after Essex's disastrous western campaign of 1644, his return to London was attended by considerable ceremonial. He made a formal entry on 27 Sept. accompanied by two regiments, and was met by the sheriffs of the City and a delegation of chief citizens: Nagel, L. C., ‘The Militia of London, 1640–9’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1982), 206Google Scholar.

117 Bodleian Lib., MS Clarendon 30, f. 32: Forde, Sir Edward to [Hopton, Lord], 9 Aug. 1647; Perfect Occurrences of Every Dale hurnall, no. 52 (6–13 07 1647), 210–11Google Scholar (B.L., E518/17). Almost to a man, the peers who comprised that procession were the same group that had effected the deposition of Essex and the military reforms of 1645.

118 , G. S. [Giles Strangeways?], A Letter from an Ejected Member of the House of Commons to Sir Jo: Evelyn (16 07 1648), 11Google Scholar.

119 H.L.R.O., MP 10/11/45, f. 38; CJ iv. 477, 599, 634. P.R.O. (Kew), AO 1/361/15. See also the draft in Northumberland's hand of a proposed list of Commissioners of the Great Seal: H.L.R.O., MP 24/12/46, f. 78; LJ viii. 626. For the earl of Kent's activities as Commissioner of the Great Seal, see Bedfordshire R.O., Lucas MS 129/27/1. After the death of the earl of Bolingbroke in 1646, the earl of Salisbury joined Kent as the other peer in commission, further strengthening the influence of the Saye-Northumberland group: H.L.R.O., MP 3/7/46; LJ viii, 410.

120 Bodleian Lib., MS Dep. c. 170 (Nalson papers xvi), ff. I8IV, 193. Kent Archives Office, De L'Isle MS, U 1475/C 114/21: Sir John Temple to the earl of Leicester, 22 July 1641.

121 LJ vii. 277; Kishlansky, , New Model Army, 47Google Scholar.

122 Scottish R.O., Hamilton MS GD406/1/10492: Charles I to Hamilton, 25 June 1638. Bodleian Lib., MS Clarendon 34, f. 17.

123 Brooke, Lord, Two Speeches made in the House of Peers (1642/1643), 6Google Scholar (B.L., E 84/35).

124 Sampsons Foxes Agreed to Fire a Kingdom (Oxford, [22 06] 1644), 7Google Scholar (B.L., E52/6).

125 See especially the Lords' divisions of 4 March 1647 and 27 May 1647: LJ ix. 56–7, 207; Worcester College, Oxford, Clarke MS XLI, f. 137: [Gilbert Mabbot?] to Fairfax, [27 May 1647, or shortly thereafter].

126 Thompson, M.W., The Decline of the Castle (Cambridge, 1987), 138–57Google Scholar, and appendix 3, ‘Parliamentary demolition, proposed or executed, 1642–60’, 179–85.

127 Their destruction is recorded in detail in P.R.O., E 317 (Commonwealth, surveys).

128 Childs, John, The Army of Charles II (1976), 19, 23, 28–46, 115–51Google Scholar.

129 During the 1620s and '30s, it was claimed, a generation of the peerage had sought service in foreign wars–against Spain in the Low Countries, and in the campaigns of the Thirty Years War–seeking the martial glory which was seen as the proper complement of the noble estate. 'At that time', Essex's biographer, Robert Codrington, wrote in 1646, ‘the Netherland … was the Schoole of honour for the Nobility of England in the service of Armes.’ Codrington, Life of Essex, 8–9.

130 Collins, Arthur, Historical Collections of the Noble Families (1752), 276–82Google Scholar. His cousin, the 18th earl, had been Essex's companion-in-arms against Spinola in the 1620s. Cambridge University Lib., Add. MS 33 (Arthur Wilson's ‘Observations’), ff. 9v–10.

131 Collins, , Historical Collections, 276–7Google Scholar.