The crisis of the aristocracy, 1558-1641 9780198213147

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THE CRISIS OF THE

ARISTOCRACY | 1558-1641

Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4 GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA CAPE TOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN ACCRA KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG

THE CRISIS OF THE ARISTOCRACY 1558—1641 LAWRENCE STONE

AT THE cLARFNDON PRESS 1965

© Oxford University Press 1965 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

TO E.C.S.

‘Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man

being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that

perish.’ Psalm XLIX

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS page xvi TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS X1X

I, Subject I II, Sources 2

I. INTRODUCTION

r11. Methods 3 rv. Preconceptions 5 v. Argument 7 vi. Conclusion 15 PART ONE

THE NATURE OF THE CRISIS

Il. THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 21

1. Concepts of Society 21

11, Social Mobility 36 r11. Class Attitudes 39 tv. Class Divisions 49

v. Lhe Peerage 53 Ill, THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 65 1. Introduction 65 ur, The Gentry 66 111. The Knightage 7i tv. The Baronetage 82 v. The Peerage 97 vi. Conclusion 119g

Vill CONTENTS IV. ECONOMIC CHANGE 129 1.(1) Estimates of Income: 129 Evidence and Methods 129

(2) Estimates 138 11, The Counting of Manors: 144 (1) Evidence and Methods 144 (2) Statistics 152 111. Conclusion: The Facts of Change 156 tv. The Causes of Decay: 164 (1) Biological Factors 166

(2) Marriage Terms 175 (3) Law and Custom 178

(4) Credit 183 (5) Conspicuous Consumption 184 (6) Price Inflation 188 v. The Causes of Growth: 189 (1) Thrift 189 (2) Estate Management 189 (3) Trade (4) The Law190 IQ (5) Office and Favour 19 (6) Heiresses 192

(7) Conclusion 195 vi. Conclusion: The Causes of Change 197

| V. POWER 199 (1) Men 201 (2) Munitions 217 1. The Instruments of Violence: 199

11. The Face of Violence 223 rrr. The Growth of Order: 234 (1) Government Policy 234

(2) Litigation 240 (3) The Duel 242 Iv. The End of Rebellion 250 v. The Uses of Influence 257 vi. Conclusion 263

CONTENTS 1X PART TWO

GETTING AND SPENDING

VI. ESTATE MANAGEMENT 273 11. Administrative Records 274 111. Administrative Personnel 285 (1) Demesne Husbandry 295

1. Introduction 273 tv. The Estate: 294

(2) Leasing Policies 3.03 (3) Feudal Incidents 322 (4) Improvements 323

v. The Movement of Landed Income 324

VII. BUSINESS 335 1. Introduction: 335

(1) Attitude to Business 335

(2) Resources for Business 3,30

, 11, Exploitation of Estates: 338 (1) Mining and Industry 338 (z) Mineral Rights 338

(b) Coal 340 (¢) Lead 342 (d) Iron 344 (e) Steel 351 (f) Other Minerals 352

(2) Fen Drainage 355 (3) Urban Development 357

111. Investment: 363 (1) Shipping 363 (2) Joint-stock Companies 368

tv.(1) Conclusion: 375 Scale 375 (2) Profits 377 (3) Numbers 378 (4) Significance 381

xX CONTENTS

VIII. OFFICE AND THE COURT 385

1. The Attraction of London: 385

(1) Business 386 (2) Pleasure 387 (3) Hostility to London 392

(4) Residence in London 394

11, The Attraction of the Court: 398

(1) Office-holding 400 (2) Court Attendance 402 111, Direct Rewards: 403

(1) Land: 404 (2) Exchanges 404 (b) Leases 405 (c) Gifts 409 (2) Money: 416

, (2)(4) Cash 416 Old Debts 417 (¢) Annuities 418

|

(2) Arrears of Debt 422

Iv. Indirect Rewards: 424 (1) Introduction 424 (2) Customs Farms , 426 (3) Trade Privileges 429 (4) Monopolies 432 (5) Economic Regulations 435 (6) Revenue Farms 438 (7) Recusants and Wards 440 (8) Legal Fines and Offices 441 (9) Honour and Patronage 445

v. The Burden of Office: 449

| (1)(2)Life at Court 449 Entertainment of Royalty 451

(3) Military Service 454 (4) Diplomatic Service 459

vi. The Impact of the System: 463

(1) Court Attendance 463 (2) Office-holding. 464 (3) Gifts and Favours 470

CONTENTS xi

vii. The Consequences of the System: 476

(1) Dependence on the Crown 476

(2) Political Dangers: Aristocratic Revolt 481 (3) Financial Dangers: Parsimony or Extravagance 488

IX. CREDIT 505 1. The Causes of Borrowing: 505

(4) Conclusion: The Weakness of the Court 500

(1) Fluctuating Income and Expenditure 505

(2) Storage and Transfer of Cash 508

tr. Credit Instruments : 513 (1) Tradesmen’s Bills 513 (3) Bills and Bonds 517 (4) Statutes 521

(2) Pawns 516

(5) Mortgages §24 111. The Cost of Borrowing 528

Iv. Creditors 532 v. The Significance of Debt: 538

(1) Attitudes to Borrowing 538

(2) Scale of Borrowing 541

(3) Consequences of Borrowing 543 X. CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 547

1. Introduction 547 11, Building 549

Irr. Food 555 tv. Clothes 562

v. Transport 566 vi. Gambling 567 vir. Funerals and Tombs 572

viti. Conclusion 581 PART THREE MINDS AND MANNERS

XI. MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 589

1. The Family 589

xi CONTENTS

11. The Arrangement of Marriage: 594

(1) Daughters 594 (2) Sons 599 (3) Wardship 600 (4) Royal Interference 605 (5) Love Matches G09 (6) Conclusion G10

(1) Theory 612 (2) Practice 617

111. The Function of Marriage: 612

(3) Remarriages 619 (4) Geographical Range 623 (5) Social Range 627 Iv. The Economics of Marriage: 632 (1) Legal Provisions 632 (2) Portion and Jointure 637 (3) Causes of Change 645

v. The Psychology of Marriage: 649

(1) Courtship 649 (2) Age of Marriage and Consummation 652

(3) Stability of Marriage 660

(4) Sexual Morality 662

vi. Conclusion _ 669

XII. EDUCATION AND CULTURE 672

1. The Thirst for Learning 672

Ir. The Private Tutor and the Public School 683

111. The Universities and Inns of Court 687

Iv. Foreign Travel 692 v. The Cultural Effects of Education: 702 (1) Literature and Scholarship 703 (2) Architecture and Painting 710

(3) The Virtuoso 715 vi. The Social and Political Effects of Education 722

XIII. RELIGION 725 1. Religious Attitudes , 725 11, Catholic Patronage 729

CONTENTS xiii 111. Puritan Patronage 733

rv. Education and Religion 739 v. Religion and the Peerage 741

1. Deference 746 11. The Decline of Respect 747

XIV. CONCLUSION: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE 746

Iv. The End 752

111. The Aristocratic Reaction 750 APPENDIXES

1. Mobility Land, 1560-1639 1560-1699 754 11, Grants ofofArms, 754 111, Creations of Knights, Baronets, Irish and English Peers, 1558-1641 755

iv. Pre-1603 Peerage Creations: Increases and Decreases 756 Vv. 1603~41 Peerage Creations: Increases and Decreases 757 vi. Numbers and Composition of the Peerage, 1487-1641 758

vir. Age of Title, 1558-1641 759

vi1I, Estimates of Gross Rental, 1559, 1602, 1641 760-1 1x. Estimates of Gross Income, 1559, 1602, 1641 762 x. Frequency Distribution of Manors, 1535, 1597-1608 763

x1. Manorial Holdings, 1558-1641 764-6

1601 and 1688 767 X11. Fertility, 1540-1659 768

, x11, Estimated Distribution of Income between Peers and Gentry in

xiv. Biological Failure, 1559-1641 769 xv. Recorded Acts of Violence and Duels involving Peers, 1580-1639 770

xvi. Movement of Landed Income, 1530-1641 771-2

XVII. Peets in Business, 1560-1639 773

xviii. Net Profit from Customs Farms, ¢. 1606-12 773

xix. Offices and Rewards, 1558-1641 774-6 xx. Lists of Debts with Names of Creditors, 1575-1660 777

xx1. Heavy Debtors, c. 1601 778

xxI1. Debtors, ¢. 1641 | 779-81

xx1I11. Annual E diture, 8-16

* nee ED mn 1512-1650 AETEOST xxiv. FoodeR Consumption,

| between 782 and 783

xXvV. Funerals, 1489-1651 783-5 Note on Appendixes xxvi to xxx: Matriage Statistics 786

xxvi. Duration of First Marriages, 1558-1641 786

xxvir. Age of Accession to Title, and Death, 1558-1641 787

XIV CONTENTS xxvitr. Total Number of Marriages, 1540-1659 787 xxix. Marriages with Heiresses, 1540-1659 788

xxx. Social Status of Wives, 1540-1659 788

xxx1. Marriage Portions offered by Peers, 1475-1724 789

xxx. The Portion/Jointure Ratio, 1485-1734 790

xxxI11. Age at First Marriage, 1540-1659 791

xxxIv. Matriculations at the Universities, 1550-1639 791 xxxv. Admissions to the Inns of Court, 1550-1639 792

xxxvi. The Grand Tour, 1560-1639 792

XXxXvil. Libraries, 1556-1642 793

FIGURES IN THE TEXT

1. Mobility of Land, 1560-1699 page 37

2. Grants of Arms, 1560-1639 67

3. Creations of English Knights, 1558-1641 72 4. Creations of English Baronets, 1610-41 95 5. Creations and Promotions of English Peers, 1558-1641 98 6. Numbers and Composition of the Peerage, 1487-1641 99

7. The Peerage by Age of Title, 1558-1641 121

8. Estimated Gross Rentals, 1559, 1602 140

9. Estimated Gross Rentals, 1641 I4I

10. Purchase and Sale of Manors, 1560-1639 157

11. Fertility of First Marriages, 1540-1659 168

12. Heirs Male alive in 1636 169

1530-1639 327 14. Peers in Business, 1560-1639 379

13. Movement of Landed Income per acre on the Herbert Estates,

15. Duration of First Marriages, 1558-1641 590

16. Termination of First Marriages, 1558-1641 619

17. Social Status of Wives, 1540-1659 627

18. Marriage Portions and Prices, 1475-1724 641

19, The Portion/Jointure Ratio, 1485-1734 645

20. Age at First Marriage, 1540-1659 654

21. Education, 1560-1639 688

BLANK PAGE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Tue assembling of the evidence and the writing of this book have been spread over fourteen years, and could never have been accomplished

without help from many quarters. My first debt of gratitude is to the Warden and Fellows of Wadham College, who granted me two periods of sabbatical leave, and to Professor Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues, who provided me with seven months of peace for reflection and

writing in ideal surroundings at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. I am also indebted to the Leverhulme Trustees for a Research Gtant to cover some of the travel expenses incurred. Most of the source material upon which this book is based is drawn from private family archives, and I am deeply grateful to the following

owners and the Trustees of their Settled Estates for giving me such generous access to the contents of their muniment rooms, and for permission to use material which they have deposited on loan elsewhere: the Dukes of Beaufort, Bedford, Buccleuch, Devonshire, Norfolk, Portland, and Rutland; the Marquesses of Ailesbury, Bath, Northampton, and Salisbury; the Earls of Ancaster, Bradford, Derby, Pembroke,Scarbrough, Sefton, Suffolk and Berkshire, Swinton, Verulam, Westmorland, and Winchelsea; the Earls Fitzwilliam and Spencer; Viscount De L’Isle; Lords Brownlow, Sackville, St. John, and Savile; Sir Anthony Cope, Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, and Sir Richard Proby; the late Mr. George and Mr. Edmund Brudenell, Mr. T. Cottrell-Dormer, Mr. John Evelyn, the late Mr. G. V. Troyte-Bullock, Mr. S. Wingfield-Digby, Mr. FP. J. Manning, Major Ralph Verney, Mr. W. R. Wade-Gery, and Colonel J. W. Weld. For their kindness and attention when I was working on these archives I am very grateful to Miss Coates at Longleat and Miss Webb at Belvoir, Miss

Clare Talbot and Mr. R. L. Drage at Hatfield, the late Major Nelson Rooke at Badminton, and Mr. W.'T. S. Wrage at Chatsworth. Mrs. Menna Prestwich, Miss Gladys Scott Thomson, Miss Joan Wake, the late Lord

Cherwell, Mr. Rupert Gunnis, Dr. W. G. Hoskins, Mr. Peter King, Sir Robert Martin, and Dr. Leslie Rowse were helpful in getting me access to cettain manuscripts. Lam grateful to the librarians and custodians of archives for permission to examine manuscripts at the Charterhouse, the College of Arms, the House of Lords, the Inner Temple, Lambeth Palace, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Library, Cambridge, Chicago, and Nottingham University

Libraries, the Public Libraries of Gloucester, Kidderminster, Leeds,

821314 b

Sheffield, and Shrewsbury, Cartwright Hall, Bradford, the Huntington

xviii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Library, San Marino, and the John Rylands Library, Manchester; also at the County Record Offices of Bedfordshire, Dorset, Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, and Wiltshire. For permission to examine and quote from manuscripts in their possession | am indebted to the Governing Bodies of Christ Church, Queen’s, Trinity, and Wadham Colleges, Oxford. Mr. Robert Birley, Mr. M. F. Bond, and Sir Anthony Wagner smoothed the access to some of this material. The following have been so kind as to allow me to read and quote from

| their unpublished theses, full acknowledgements of which will be found in the relevant places: Dr. K. R. Andrewes, Dr. G. Aylmer, Mr. G. R.

Batho, Dr. J. T. Cliffe, Dr. P. Collinson, Dr. W. Emerson, Dr. J. J. Goring, Mr. P. J. Higson, Dr. Eric Hopkins, Dr. A. M. Millard, Miss Helen Miller, Lady Neale, Mr. W. R. B. Robinson, Dr. A. H. Smith, Mr. R. S. Smith, and Dr. R. T. Spence.

Two people provided me with invaluable help over section 11 of Chapter IV. Miss Helen Miller put freely at my disposal all her notes on the movement of manors between 1485 and 1547, and Mr. David Holland taught me what little I now know about statistical method. In so far as my handling of the counting of manors is technically correct, I owe it to him. A number of friends have criticized drafts of certain chapters or sections

of chapters, and have helped to eliminate at least some of the muddled

thinking and confused argument. Professor Gerald Aylmer has read Chapter VIII, Professor Bernard Barber Chapters I, II, and XI, Dr. Max

Hartwell and Mr. and Mrs. J. O. Prestwich section m of Chapter IV, Professor H. J. Habakkuk sections 1, 11, and mr of Chapter IV, Mr. C. S. L. Davies Chapter V, Sir John Summetson section 1 (3) of Chapter VII, Professor Robert Ashton Chapter [X, Mr. K. V. Thomas and Mr. Christopher Hill an early draft of parts of Chapter XI, and Mr. W. R. Prest section 11 of Chapter XII. Drafts of Chapters III, VII, and XI appeared in Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, 1957, Past and Present, no. 14, 1958, and Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. iti, 1961. lam grateful to

the editors and publishers for permission to reproduce revised and expanded versions of these articles. My gteatest intellectual obligation is to the late Professor R. H. Tawney. He was always ready with information, advice, and encouragement and I owe him more than perhaps he realized, for it was his writings which first stimulated my interest in Tudor history. Above all he taught me to

shun the temptation, to which economic and social historians are so exposed, of taking the mind out of history. I am particularly anxious to acknowledge my dependence on his inspiration and example, since I have ultimately come to differ substantially from many of his conclusions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xix As usual, I owe most of all to my wife. She has not only taken on many

of the more tedious chores of book production—typing and re-typing manuscripts, index-making, and helping to check footnotes; she has also constantly criticized the shape, the organization, the style, and the argument,

BLANK PAGE

TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS APC J. R. Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1890-. Althorp, ESP Althorp, Early Spencer Papers.

Arch Archaeologia.

Aubrey J. Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed. A. Powell, 1949. B/A, B/BSA, B/L, Belvoir Castle, Rutland MSS., Accounts, Brief Statements

&c., of Accounts, Letters, &c.

Bacon J. Spedding, Life and Letters of Sir Francis Bacon, 1857-74. BIHR Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research.

BM British Museum.

Badminton Badminton House, Beaufort MSS. Bamford F. Bamford, A Royalist’s Notebook, 1936. Birch: Charles I T. Birch, The Court and Times of Charles I, 1848. Birch: ELzabeth T. Birch, Memouzrs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1754.

Birch: James I T. Birch, [he Court and Times of James I, 1848. Blomefield F. Blomefield and C. Parkin, Topographical History of Norfolk, 1805-10.

Boughton, NC Boughton House, Buccleuch MSS., North Colonnade.

Bodl Bodleian Library.

C2 PRO Chancery Proceedings, Series I. C 3 PRO Chancery Proceedings, Series II. C 24 PRO Chancery Proceedings, Town Depositions. C 104-13 PRO Chancery, Masters’ Exhibits. C 142 PRO Chancery, Inquisitions post mortem. CCC Calendar of Committee for Compounding nith Delinquents.

Ci] Journals of the House of Commons.

CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls.

CR PRO, Close Rolls.

CSP Calendar of State Papers. CSPD Calendar of State Papers Domestic. CSPF Calendar of State Papers Foreign. CSPS Calendar of State Papers Spanish. CSP Ven. Calendar of State Papers Venetian.

CUL Cambridge University Library. Cabala Cabala sive scrinia sacra, 1663. Castle Ashby Castle Ashby, Northampton MSS.

Ch N. E. McClure, Letters of John Chamberlain, Philadelphia, 1939.

Charterhouse The Charterhouse, Founder’s Papers.

, xxii TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS Chatsworth/BA Chatsworth, Bolton Abbey MSS.

| Chatsworth/H Chatsworth, Hardwick MSS. Cholmley Memoirs of Sir Hugh Cholmley, 1787.

, Collins A. Collins, Syduey Papers, 1746. Devereux W.B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, 1540-1646, 1853.

D’ Ewes, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D’ Ewes, ed, J. O. Halliwell, 1845.

E to! PRO Exchequer K.R., Accounts, Various. E 123 PRO Exchequer K.R., Decrees and Orders, Eliz. E 150 PRO Exchequer K.R., Inquisitions post mortem. E 163, 164 PRO Exchequer K.R., Miscellanea, and Miscellaneous Books, Series I.

FE 178 PRO Exchequer K.R., Special Commissions of Enquiry.

E 179 PRO Exchequer K.R., Lay Subsidy Rolls.

EHR Enghsh Historical Review, EcHR Economic History Review. Edwards E, Edwards, Life of Sir Walter Ralegh, 1868.

Ellis Original Letters, ed. H. Ellis, 1825, 1827, 1846. Finch M. E. Finch, Fave Northamptonshire Families, 1540-1640, Northants. Rec. Soc., xix, 1956.

Fuller T. Fuller, The Worthies of England, 1662.

GPL Gloucester Public Library.

Gawdy Letters of Philip Gawdy, ed. J. H. Jeayes, Roxburghe Club, 1900.

Goodman G. Goodman, The Court of King James I, ed. J. S. Brewer, 1839.

Gtosart A. B. Grosart, Lismore Papers, 1886-8. H/A, H/B, H/Box, Hatfield House, Private and Estate MSS., Accounts, Bills,

H/D, H/G, H/L Boxes, Deeds, General, Legal.

H/S Hatfield House, Salisbury MSS.

HMC Hestorical Manuscripts Commission. HMCB HMC Buccleuch (Whitehall) MSS.

HMCD HMC De Lisle and Dudley MSS.

WD | .

HMCH HMC Hastings MSS.

' HMCR HMC Rutland MSS. HMCS HMC Salsbury MSS.

H of L House of Lords.

Hants R.O., WB, Hants Record Office, Wriothesley MSS., Books, Deeds.

Harington J. Harington, Nugae Antiquae, 1804. ,

TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS XXili Harrison G. B. Harrison, Instructions to his son by Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, 1930.

Hasted FE, Hasted, A Hrstory of Kent, 1797-1801. Hatton N. H. Nicolas, Alemoirs of Sir Christopher Hatton, 1847. Holles G. Holles, Memorials of the Holles Family, ed. A. C. Wood (Camden Soc., 31d ser., lv), 1937.

Hutchins J. Hutchins, Hestory of Dorset, 1861-70. Hutchinson Memoirs of the Life of Colonel John Hutchinson, Everyman Ed.

IPM Inquisitions post mortem.

JRL John Rylands Library, Manchester. Knowler W. Knowler, The Earle of Strafforde’s Letters and Despatches, 1739.

L/Dev Longleat, Devereux MSS. L/Dud Longleat, Dudley MSS. L/Lib Longleat, MSS. in Library. L/Sey Longleat, Seymour MSS. Ler PH VII Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.

LC 4 PRO Lord Chamberlain’s Office, Recognisances for Debt.

L] Journals of the House of Lords. LR 2 PRO Land Revenue Office, Miscellaneous Books. LR 9 PRO Land Revenue Office, Auditors’ Memoranda.

Lambeth Lambeth Palace MSS. Lodge EB. Lodge, [/ustrations of British History, 1791.

NLW National Library of Wales. NRA , National Register of Archives.

NUL/P Nottingham University Library, Portland MSS. Naunton R. Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, ed. P. W. Dodd, 1824. Newcastle Life of the Duke of Newcastle, ed. C. H. Firth, 1907.

Nichols J. Nichols, Hzstory of Leicestershire, 1795-1815.

North Roger North, Lives of the Norths, 1826. Notestein and Relf W. Notestein, F. H. Relf, and H. Simpson, Commons Debates, 1621, New Haven, 1935.

PCC Prerogative Court of Canterbury.

PR PRO Patent Rolls.

PRO Public Record Office. Peck F. Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, 1732-5. Penshurst Penshurst, De Lisle MSS.

Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys. Ralegh T. Birch, The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, 1751. SC 11, 12 PRO Special Collections, Rentals and Surveys.

SP 12 PRO State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth.

XXIV TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS SP 14 PRO State Papers Domestic, James I. SP 15 PRO State Papers Domestic, Addenda, 1547-1625. SP 16 PRO State Papers Domestic, Charles I.

SP 23 PRO Royalist Composition Papers. Savernake Savernake House, Ailesbury MSS.

Selden J. Selden, Table Talk, 1927. Sharp C. Sharp, Memorials of the Rebellion of 1369, 1840. Sheff CL/S Sheffield Central Library, Strafford MSS. Smyth J. Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, ed. J. Maclean, Gloucester, 1883.

Star Ch. 8 PRO Star Chamber proceedings, James I. Steele R. R. Steele, Proclamations of Tudor and Stuart Sovereigns, 148y—-1714, Oxford, 1910.

Stopes C. C. Stopes, Henry 3rd Earl of Southampton, Cambridge, 1922.

Strong S. A. Strong, 4 Catalogue of Documents... at Welbeck, 1903. TRHAS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.

Talbot College of Arms, Talbot MSS. VCH Victoria County History. Verney Frances Parthenope and Margaret Maria, Ladies Verney, Memoirs of the Verney Family, 1892-9.

Ward B. M. Ward, The 17th Earl of Oxford, 1928. Wards 7 PRO Court of Wards, Inquisitions post mortem. Wards 9 PRO Court of Wards, Miscellaneous Books. Weldon A. Weldon, The Court and Character of James I, 1651. Whitaker T. D. Whitaker, Te History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven, 1878.

Williamson G. C. Williamson, George, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, Cambridge, 1920.

Wilson Sit T. Wilson, The State of England in 1600 (Camden Misc. XVi), 1936.

Winwood R. Winwood, Memorials of Affairs of State, ed. E. Sawyer, 1725.

Woburn Woburn Abbey, Bedford MSS. Wynn Calendar of Wynn (of Gwydir) Papers, 1y 15-1690, 1926. N.B. Titles of honour are given in accordance with sixteenth-century rather than twentieth-century conventions, except when more precise definitions are needed to avoid ambiguity. In quoting from original sources, abbreviations and suspensions have been extended, punctuation modernized, capitalization and paragraphing altered; original spelling has been preserved except for Zh, /, uw, and v. Days of the month are old style, but the year is taken to begin on 1 January.

I

INTRODUCTION I, SUBJECT

Ir has been observed that the map of English social history is full of huge blank spaces, more often than not labelled ‘here be the tich’. This book is designed to fill the largest and most important of these areas. It is odd that it should so long have remained un-

explored, since for hundreds of years, indeed to within living memory, England was tuled by a tiny group of aristocrats who were the makers of what has traditionally been regarded as the stuff

of history—namely national politics and war. This neglect can partly be explained by the character of research into social history in the last fifty years, which for this period has concerned itself mainly with the peasantry—the exploited classes—and with the capitalist solvents of feudalism, the so-called progressive gentry and urban merchants. Nor is the situation very different on the Continent, where intensive work on the medieval noblesse has not been matched by comparable studies of the aristocracy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The terminal dates for the core of this work and for most of the statistical data are the accession of Queen Elizabeth 1n November

1558 and the winter of 1641 when civil war had become almost inevitable. In examining attitudes of mind and behaviour patterns, however, the temporal range is extended where necessary back into the early sixteenth and on into the middle or even later seventeenth century. This is only reasonable since such slow-moving factors ate relatively impervious to all but the most cataclysmic political events.

If treated with some flexibility, the eighty-odd years between 1558 and 1641 form a very satisfactory unit of time for historical purposes. It includes the period of stability after the Henrician revolution, and the period of disintegration which followed. It sees the most critical phase of fundamental changes in politics, society, thought, and religion. The number of men holding English titles during the period is neither too small to form a meaningful

821314 B

2 INTRODUCTION statistical sample, nor too large to become unmanageable by a single

historian working alone without a team of research assistants. Though these 382 noblemen are the principal subject of this book, reference will be freely made as occasion warrants to the thoughts

and actions of untitled members of the court é/#e or the greater country landlords. Both the temporal and the class definitions of the title are regarded more as signposts than blinkers. II. SOURCES

The main reason for the relative neglect.of the aristocracy is that until very recently the materials upon which such a study could be based were simply not available. They lay, unsorted, uncatalogued, unknown, and inaccessible in the muniment rooms, cellars, attics,

and stables of the great private houses of England. In the last twenty years, however, an archive revolution has taken place. Very many of these private collections are now on deposit in local Record Offices; most of the rest have been listed by the National Register of Archives, and can be examined by properly qualified researchers thanks to the enlightened generosity of their owners. It is only since the Second World War, therefore, that it has become possible to make a serious study of the aristocracy, for the evidence

in the national records can only supplement that in the family archives themselves. In any case not all national records are acces-

sible, for one of the most important collections of documents in public custody relating to the history of the upper classes, the inventories of personal effects formerly attached to wills registered in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, remain obstinately—and inexcusably—locked up.

A study such as this, which tries to ferret out the most intimate details of the lives and thoughts of a group of men and women long since dead, is only possible, if at all, for periods subsequent

to the middle of the sixteenth century. At about this time the growth of literacy among the landed classes led to an explosive increase in the number of private letters that were written, soon to be followed by autobiographical essays, advices to sons, and other revealing personal documents. Secondly, the amount of sut-

viving financial and estate records of noble families increased quite suddenly at this period; thirdly, the expanding role in society of the state machine caused financial records, evidence given in

INTRODUCTION 3 lawsuits, and correspondence with the government to accumulate in

the public archives in far larger quantities than ever before. The change in the record material is thus one both of quantity and of quality; there is vastly more of it, and it is far more personal in character. III. METHODS

Little attempt has been made to apply to this material the structure|/conjoncture type of analysis which has become the hallmark of the best current French historical writings. This method is liable

to sepatate the social from the economic, the static from the dynamic, whereas it is the prime purpose of this book to describe and explain change. Though many of the ideas behind this study are derived from the French school of historiography, the approach is made along rather different, admittedly less logically systematic, lines. It is hoped that by so doing it will be possible to avoid over-

stressing the strictly economic factors determining social and political change, and to give due weight to the imponderables of ideology and aspiration, prejudice and custom. There are mote, and often more potent, motors of individual and group behaviour than those which can be demonstrated in a statistical table.

It is statistics, however, which compose the bony skeleton of this book. Sometimes they are simple arithmetical counts of easily ascertainable data, as for marriage or numbers of peers; sometimes highly technical calculations, as for the counting of manors; some-

times the product of informed guesswork, as for estimates of income and profits of office. This statistical frame is as necessary

to the book as the bone structure to a vertebrate; without them both would be inert lumps of amorphous flesh. As John Smyth of Nibley remarked 300 years ago, “The old atcheivements and actions

of private men appeatre but now and then floating in the great culfe of time’.! If these fleeting appearances are to be given historical significance it is necessary to be sure that they are typical, a thing which only statistics will reveal. Political history is different, and easier. At any one time there is only one Prime Minister—if that—and at most no more than three foreign or economic policies. But a social group consists of a great mass of men, each an individual

human being, and as such a partial variant from the norm. Statistical measurement is the only means of extracting a coherent pattern 1 Smyth, il, p. 441.

4 INTRODUCTION from the chaos of personal behaviour and of discovering which is a typical specimen and which a sport. Failure to apply such controls has led to much wild and implausible generalizations about social phenomena, based upon a handful of striking or well-documented examples.

Thete is a second danger from which the social historian can protect himself by paying attention to his statistical controls for the group as a whole. This arises from the fact that surviving private archives are not, as one might at first imagine, a purely random sample. They are a selection, heavily weighted on the side of those families which wete rising in the world, and those which

were already so rich that total dispersion and dismemberment of their estates were unlikely. They thus favour the up-and-coming at the expense of the failures, and the magnates at the expense of the middling landlords. Studies of well-documented individual families are immensely valuable in themselves, but the temptation must be avoided of generalizing from a selection which is not metely too small to form a sample, but which also contains an inherent bias.!

| Statistics make a dry and unpalatable diet unless washed down with the wine of human personality. They have been used, therefore, merely as controls to check the significance of the tangled jetsam of

anecdote and quotation thrown up by three talkative, quarrelsome, idiosyncratic generations of noble men and women. This volume is concerned with analysis in depth, but it has not been prefaced by a seties of family histories, by which the interaction of personality and environment can be most directly illuminated. This might seem

to be putting the cart before the horse, drawing the conclusions before collecting the evidence. But the outlines of most peerage family histories have been worked out, and the more important and detailed case studies have been written up. A good deal of the evidence has therefore already been put into narrative biographical shape.

It is vital, moreover, to avoid the two great flaws in the prosopo-

graphical approach to history. Firstly, it is essentially static and descriptive in character, and is consequently ill adapted to explain-

ing change; but if history is not concerned with change, it is nothing. Secondly, it is the easy victim of the record materials. The two facts about a man’s life which most commonly survive 1 Finch. A, Simpson, The Wealth of the Gentry, 1540-1640, Chicago, 1961.

INTRODUCTION ; are his family connexions and his business interests. The tacit assumption that too often lies behind the ‘Namierite’ approach is that human beings are primarily motivated by these two factors, an assumption which is then triumphantly demonstrated by assembling the evidence under these headings. This process has its own internal logic, but has no claim to ultimate validity, since it fails to take cognizance of changes of structure, changes of environment, changes of ideology. It does not examine and explain the material and spiritual needs of humanity: it presupposes them. The life of

no man can be fully understood without reference to the framework of institutions, traditions, and ideas within which it has been enacted.

One of the basic assumptions of the methodology adopted in this book is that the political and social crisis of the seventeenth century has been largely misconceived in recent years, since it has been interpreted as a product of a changing social structure. In fact

relatively little structural change took place in English society between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries: what altered was the role of the various social classes within a fairly static frame-

work. To understand these changes of function it is not enough to look at changing means of production, changing economic relationships between one class and another, changing distribution of the national income—though God help the historian who turns up his nose at this bed-rock of history. Equally significant are changes in the nature and distribution of power, in the role of the state in society, in ethical values and in attitudes of mind: attitudes to God and Church, to King and Commonwealth, to rank and title, to town and countryside, to spending and frugality, to charity and the poor, to education and the arts, to wives and children, to sex and marriage. IV. PRECONCEPTIONS

Professor E. H. Carr has recently reminded us that the historian does not exist who is unaffected by his upbringing and background. Inevitably, and unconsciously, he digs out from the rubble of the

past just those treasures which his contemporary interests and prejudices induce him to seek there. I cannot pretend to any special immunity from this inescapable limitation of the human mind. All I can do ts to offer a personal confession, which may help to rebut

6 INTRODUCTION the charge of premeditated bias. At first I believed that the difhculties of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century aristocracy were at bottom financial. Though I am mote than ever convinced that the atistocracy passed through a grave financial crisis at the end of the sixteenth century, J no longer support the view that this was the sole, or even necessarily the prime, cause of their troubles. It has become apparent that economic change within a class structure in any case taises grave problems of interpretation and measurement. Writing of mid-twentieth-century society, Professor Richard Titmuss has recently warned that no conclusion can be relied upon ‘which takes account of an ageless individual and forgets the family, which measures “‘income’”’ and omits “wealth”, which disregards the

unit of time in command-ovet-resources, which fails to enquire into the meaning of power, which avoids investigating the interlocking connections between social and economic institutions, and which is oblivious of the key role now played by the educational system in the social distribution of “‘life-chances” ’. These words of caution are as true for the sixteenth century as they are for the twentieth. I am now persuaded that the upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century cannot be explained in terms of any single factor, but only as the product of a great variety of forces, some of which historians

have hitherto been content to leave to the sociologist and the anthropologist. This shift from an economic to a sociological inter-

pretation of historical causation is no great personal innovation: it is part of a general reappraisal of historical attitudes since the 1930°s. In those days most young historians were powerfully influenced by Marxist theory, and were in varying degrees supporters of some kind of economic determinism in human affairs, an attitude

of mind which was—and is—far from being confined to those of a politically leftward inclination. Today, somewhat belatedly, the problems of historical causation are beginning to be attacked with the powerful tools provided by Freud and Malinowski, Weber and Veblen, in addition to the useful but clumsy old Marxist bulldozer. The second preconception with which I began was that aristoctats were an antipathetic group of superfluous parasites. I still do not relish the spectacle of a tiny handful of families monopolizing huge slices of the available economic resources of an impoverished society, lording it in arrogant ease and luxury over an obsequious, cowed, undernourished, and illiterate mass upon whose labours -

INTRODUCTION 7 they depend. On the eve of the Civil War the mean gross income of the 120-odd peers was some joo times greater than that of the average unskilled labourer in full employment—J5,000 as against fio a year.! But moral indignation is not an aid to clear thinking ot a sympathetic understanding of the past. This is the class pattern

of most pre-industrial societies the world has known, and it ts unreasonable to suppose that it serves no useful function whatever.

In any case, what distinguishes the English aristocracy of this period from the é/es of other times and places is the relative moderation of its appetites for wealth and power, and the relative sense of social responsibility displayed by some of its members. It is, perhaps, merely evidence of insular complacency to regard the tranquil evolution of English affairs in the last 300 years as a singularly happy dispensation of Providence. But it is difficult to

avoid the conclusion that the cause of this tranquillity should be sought more in the reluctance of the over-privileged to fight in the last ditch, than in that of the reformers to push them over the edge. This singular adaptability to changing circumstances by the forces of the Establishment is a feature that above all others has distinguished the history of England from that of her continental

neighbours in recent centuries. In this story, one of the most decisive transformations has been that of the unenlightened factious

territorial warlords of the fifteenth century into the cultivated capitalist parliamentary oligarchs of the eighteenth. Even if recent

attempts to modify the traditional picture of the late medieval nobility ultimately prove to be well founded, the difference remains a staggering one. Despite the weaknesses which seriously reduced

their influence over events in 1640-2, the English peerage were already the best educated, most politically conscious, least casteridden, least obsequious to monarchy, most open to new talents and new ideas of any aristocracy in Europe, with the possible exception of that of Sweden.’ Vv. ARGUMENT

This book sets out to do two things: firstly to describe the total environment of an ¢é/ite, material and economic, ideological and cultural, educational and moral; and secondly to demonstrate, to ™ For peers’ income see Appendix IX; for labourers’ wages see E. H. Phelps Brown and S. V. Hopkins, ‘Seven Centuries of Building Wages’, Economica, xxii, 1955. 2 M. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus, 1958, ii, pp. 152-63.

8 INTRODUCTION explain, and to chart the course of a crisis in the affairs of this ¢dte that was to have a profound effect upon the evolution of English political institutions. It is therefore at once a static description and a dynamic analysis; it is a study in social, economic, and intellectual history, which is consciously designed to serve as the prolegomenon

to, and an explanation of, political history. It does not, however, concern itself with the latter as such, and the role of the House of Lords in the shaping of national affairs is deliberately excluded from its scope. Since successful politicians and very wealthy gentlemen were notmally rewarded by a title, the peers formed at one and the same time the major component of a social é#e, an ¢hte of wealth, and a power élite. The kind of life they led, therefore, is of particular importance to a proper understanding of the past. Every society possesses an é/ze, or rather these three é/fes, and the differences between one society and another ate in large measure to be sought in the different characteristics of their é/fes: in the relationships between the overlapping groups that compose them, the degree of unity or division among them, the system of recruitment, the ease of difficulty of entry, the religious and ethical framework of their lives.?

The secondary object of this book is to describe in as much detail as can reasonably be tolerated the way of life of this ¢ie, a way of life which in its final form lasted with only minor changes

well into the twentieth century. When the young Edward Earl of Rutland was setting out on his travels in 1571, Lord Burghley advised him what he ought to look out for: ‘how noble men do kepe ther estates, ther wyves, ther children, ther servantes, and the rest of ther expences... how they provyde for ther yonger children, how they order ther landes, by what officers and ministers, how they kepe ther howsholdes for dyett.’? The life of a nobleman was one of comfort and leisure, based on a country house, financed mainly from agricultural profits, and supported by a huge train of servants. The code by which these men lived differed radically from

that which rose up to challenge and temporarily to overthrow it in the middle of the seventeenth century. The capitalist/Protestant ethic is one of self-improvement, independence, thrift, hard work, chastity and sobriety, competition, equality of opportunity, and t R. Aron, “The Social Structure and the Ruling Class’, British Journal of Sociology, i, 1950. 2 SP 12/77/6.

INTRODUCTION , 9 the association of poverty with moral weakness; the aristocratic ethic is one of voluntary service to the State, generous hospitality, clear class distinctions, social stability, tolerant indifference to the sins of the flesh, inequality of opportunity based on the accident of inheritance, arrogant self-confidence, a paternalist and patronizing attitude towards economic dependants and inferiors, and an acceptance of the grinding poverty of the lower classes as part of the natural order of things. If in this age of confusion and turmoil many men—even Cromwell himself—seem to straddle the two ideals, this does nothing to minimize the essential contradiction between them. In a penetrating iconoclastic study Professor Hexter has suggested

that the most promising way of rethinking English histoty is to examine the changing role of the aristocracy from century to centuty.' If I do not wholly subscribe to this view, it is partly because the peerage only formed a segment—although usually the

most important segment—of the three é/tes, and partly because English society has long been too open in character to be fully illuminated by this single candle.? There was a very real difference between English and French society in the eighteenth century which is apt to be overlooked or minimized by this approach. On

the other hand the lack of any such study is one of the most important gaps in our historiography, and one which must be filled

if we are ever to undetstand the very eccentric, indeed unique, historical development of our country. The central concern of this volume is to analyse a series of changes which help to explain a crucial historical problem. During

the first half of the seventeenth century something very odd happened in England. The Commons emerged as a fat more important political assembly than the Lords, and peers wete unable to exetcise that influence over parliamentary elections which they

had wielded under Elizabeth, and were to wield again under the Hanoverians. Moreover in 1642 a body of gentlemen and townsmen supported by a handful of dissident peers had the amazing effrontery to challenge the King, the bishops, most of the peerage, and their gentry supporters; it even defeated them. A few years

later the House of Lords was abolished altogether, an act of 1 J. H. Hexter, Reappraisals in History, 1961, ch. 2. 2 See H. J. Habakkuk’s article in The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, ed. A. Good-

win, 1953. K. G. Davies, “The Mess of the Middle Class’, Past and Present, xxii, 1962.

ge) INTRODUCTION political surgery which twentieth-century radicals are not yet will-

ing ot able to accomplish. Thus the middle of the seventeenth century saw the eclipse of the monarchy, which lost its head; of the peerage, which lost its special privileges, its grasp on the executive, and its influence over the electorate; and of the Anglican

Church, which lost its monopoly of patronage and pulpit. It saw the brief emergence into the open of radical ideas about social, economic, sexual, and political equality. Admittedly all this did not last, and by the end of the seventeenth century the peers, like the Anglican clergy and the King, were firmly back in the saddle. But it should be noted that the bit and the curb, the stirrup and the whip, were now of a different design. Why did all this happen? For a long time it was customary to explain these events as a particular crisis arising from particular events, personalities, and policies: the ineptitude of James, the corruption of Buckingham, the obstinacy of Strafford, Laud, and Charles; the rise of puritanism, the growth of a sense of constitutionalism, the development of improved procedural techniques by the House of Commons. Within its terms of reference, each of those explanations is satisfactory enough, and indeed together they still provide the best guide to the issues which divided men one from another when civil war broke out in 1642. But what they leave unexplained is the decay of respect for the Establishment as a whole which opened the way to so comprehensive a challenge. One suggestion has been a growth in the economic resources, and consequently in the political influence, of a mercantile and industrial class of capitalists whose financial interests were thwarted by the obstinate stranglehold maintained by a decaying feudal aristocracy. This hypothesis, which had a considerable vogue between

the wars, has recently taken some hard knocks. The so-called industrial revolution of the period 1540-1640 has been cut down to size, and is now seen as a relatively minor development in terms of money invested or men employed. It is now evident that a large

number of the leaders of the merchant oligarchies in the towns, particularly in London, were loyal membets of the royal patronage system, beneficiaries of monopoly privilege both in economic affairs and in town government; and it is now known that in any case townsmen at no time comprised more than about ro per cent. of the membership of the Commons, and that they were not at all prominent in its proceedings.

INTRODUCTION Il The picture of the aristocracy painted in this book still further discredits the old stereotype. There was nothing particularly feudal about the peers in 1641: if they fought for the State, they were paid for their services; their seats in the House of Lords bore no relation to feudal tenure; their client gentry were bound to them by personal not feudal ties; the feudal aspect of their relationships with their tenants was confined to the intermittent enforcement of obsolete taxes like fines for wardship; their estate management was

as modern as the times and as their paternalist notions of fair treatment of tenants would allow; their zest for new industrial and , commercial ventures was keener than that of the merchants; the challenge to their authority came not from capitalists or bourgeoisie, but from solid landowners only one notch farther down the social and economic ladder, the squires and greater gentry. As for the real new men, the rich merchants, they were too concerned with scrambling aboard the old status bandwagon to have any wish to scupper it.

A more promising suggestion was that of a ‘rise of the gentry’,

conceived primarily in economic terms as the emergence of a prosperous new class with enlarged estates run on novel commetcial lines for the maximization of profits, a class which filled the benches of the House of Commons, but whose claims to political power commensurate with their economic tesources were consistently blocked by the Crown. This attractive picture was confused by the discovery that there were very many declining, as well as vety many rising gentry, so that the overall movement seemed for a time to be in doubt. What has been proved beyond question by this conflict of evidence is that this was a period of unprecedented economic mobility among the middle landowning groups, with families moving up or down in remarkable numbers. That far more land—and therefore a higher proportion of national wealth—was in ptivate non-aristocratic hands in 1640 than in 1540 can hardly be disputed any more. But a more important question is whether the movement enhanced the wealth of a limited group of great county families, or whether it increased the number of the lesser gentry, ot both. The latter phenomenon has been proved beyond doubt, the former is still no more than a probability, though the evidence

seems to be pointing in this direction also. What is not proven, however, is that the rise in wealth and territorial possessions of the

leading gentry in absolute terms was sufficiently pronounced to account for their seizure of political initiative.

2 INTRODUCTION The alternative hypothesis is that the parliamentary party in the Civil Wat was primarily composed of small, backward, declining

gentry whose loyalty to the Crown and the Church had been undermined by economic hardship. Nearly all the evidence avail-

able contradicts this ingenious theory. The impoverished backwoodsmen of the north and west, far from being parliamentarians, formed the hard core of the royalist cause, men who fought to the last for a Court and King from which they had got nothing but high taxes and contemptuous neglect. The list of leaders and active supporters of the parliamentary cause in 1642, on the other hand, reads like a roll call of the most important of the county families:

Barrington, Barnardiston, Baynton, Curzon, Dacres, Dryden, Erle, Hales, Hampden, Hungerford, Knightley, Onslow, Pelham, and Wallop. These were no impoverished or declining gentlemen driven to rebellion by financial plight. It is perfectly true that as the wart dragged on mote radical elements from lower down the gentry hierarchy came to the fore, first in local then in national government. But this was a consequence of the stresses of war, and

does nothing to explain either the initial crisis, which took the form of a generalized breakdown of confidence in government, or the outbreak of war itself. The socio-political breakdown of 1640-2 had three main causes. The first was a long-term decline in respect for and obedience to the Monarchy, caused partly by the personal ineptitude of kings, pattly by growing financial impoverishment, partly by structural defects in the Court system, and partly by the widening gap between the moral standards, aspirations, and way of life of the Court and those of the Country. This movement began in the latter years of Flizabeth, gathered impetus under James, became an avalanche

under Buckingham, and could not be arrested by Charles after 1629. The second was the failure of the Established Church to comprehend within itself all but the Roman Catholics. Elizabeth’s

wilful refusal to reform scandalous clerical abuses and her en-

couragement of Whitgift’s persecution of the Puritans was followed

first by the successful sabotage by the bishops of any chance of compromise at the Hampton Court conference, and then by the seizure of power within the Church by a strongly High Church patty. Between them, Elizabeth, Whitgift, and Laud managed to alienate from the Anglican Church an ever-increasing body of influential opinion. The policy of Laud in the 1630’s—at least as

INTRODUCTION 13 much in matters of ritual and church organization as in social and

economic affaits—was the final instrument which brought the whole edifice to the ground in 1640. These two factors could not alone have caused the prolonged upheaval of the 1640’s if it had not been for a third, the crisis in the affairs of the hereditary é/ze, the aristocracy. For a time this group lost its hold upon the nation, and thus allowed political and social initiative to fall into the hands of the squirearchy. It surrendered its powers of physical coercion to an increasingly powerful state; it permanently alienated much of its capital resources in land; for

a period, admittedly not a very long one, its purchasing power declined absolutely; its subsequent decision to jack up rents and fines did much to break down old ties of personal allegiance; it was

obliged to share more and more of the commanding heights of administrative and political authority with a confident and welleducated gentry; and, partly because of guilt by association with a corrupt, licentious, and in the end tyrannical Court, partly because so many of its members belonged to a feared and hated religious minority, partly because of the workings of the puritan conscience, it temporarily forfeited much of its influence and prestige. The rise of the gentry is to some extent—though certainly not entitrely— an optical illusion, resulting from this temporary weakness of the aristocracy.

This book is primarily concerned with the third of these seismic

shifts in English life, although it is designed to throw some incidental light upon the other two. The early Tudors had striven, not without success, to undermine the strength of the nobility, which they had regarded as a menace to quasi-absolute monatchy. In the reign of Elizabeth it was thought that the balance of society was just about right, with the aristocracy filling a useful role as ‘brave halfe paces between a throne and a people’, to use Fulke Greville’s famous phrase. By the early seventeenth century things had gone too far, and the Early Stuarts began anxiously trying to shote up the tottering edifice. “Though their dependences and powet are gone, yet we cannot be without them’, wrote the republican Henry Neville in the middle of the century. This manysided crisis in the affairs of the aristocracy did not itself cause the Civil War, but it created the conditions which made it possible. As

James Harington said at the time: ‘A monarchy devested of its nobility has no refuge under Heaven but an army. Wherefore the

14 INTRODUCTION dissolution of this Government caus’d the War, not the War the dissolution of this Government.”! It is instructive to compate this crisis with that of 250 years later when the dominant tole of the landed aristocracy in politics and society finally and irretrievably crumbled. Throughout the nineteenth century a series of forces were working to undermine their position. The growth of party organization and of public meetings reduced the significance of personal relations as a key to political influence; the substitution of merit for nepotism or money as criteria for entry into the Civil Service closed many avenues of profit and employment; the abolition of the Quarter Sessions as a kind of local parliament destroyed another powerful engine of atistocratic authority. Finally the agricultural depression, deathduties, and a progressive income-tax combined to sap the financial foundations of the peerage, just at a time when vast new fortunes were being made in trade and industry. It was not, however, till the turn of the century that they gave in. Their strong sense of public duty, reinforced by evangelical christianity, made them continue to serve in the army and in India, and to dominate the new county councils. Some, like the Cecils, continued to take the lead in national politics. Indeed at the very top their power lingered on yeats after its base in the country at large had been eroded. Aristocrats of three generations’ standing were in a majority in the Cabinet until 1895, and they still formed a third of the ‘Caretaker’ Cabinet of 1945. What finished the peerage in the end was the combination of all these forces with a collapse of morale. Education at a major public

school and Oxford or Cambridge came to be regarded as a test of status as valid as that of a landed estate and a good pedigree. This upper middle class ‘owned no land, but they felt that they were landowners in the sight of God and kept up a semi-aristocratic outlook by going into the professions and the fighting services rather than into trade’*. Faced with this challenge, the aristocracy abdicated their responsibilities. From looking after the tenantry and serving the Empire, they took to hunting and Gaiety girls. The King turned away from them, becoming the patron of the moneyed parvenus from the City; they lost the respect of the public and of 1 Works of Fulke Greville, ed. A. B. Grosartt, 1870, iv, p. 189. [H. Neville], Plato Redivivus, 1681, p. 133. J. Harrington, Oceana, 1737, p. 70.

2 G. Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (Penguin ed., 1962), p. 108. :

INTRODUCTION 15 themselves, and they then deliberately courted disaster by pitting themselves against a popularly elected government. The result was

the Parliament Act of 1911, the symbol of the end of the preeminent role of the peerage in English administration, English

politics, and English society.! | The story has a familiar ring to the historian of the aristocracy in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Though one

was temporary and the other—one assumes—permanent in its consequences, the developments of the two periods were similar in many ways. Each saw the permeation of the peerage by new and vulgar wealth, a relative decline in old aristocratic wealth, a decline in atistocratic electoral influence, a decline in the prestige of a title, a decline in aristocratic morals under the leadership of a pleasureloving king. Both ended in an attack on the powers of the House

of Lords, and a change in the social composition of Council or Cabinet. VI. CONCLUSION

Words like ‘crisis’ and ‘revolution’ should not come tripping too

lightly from the historian’s pen. History lumbers jerkily on with few teal breaks with the past. The forces of inertia ensure an amazing degree of continuity in human affairs, whatever the strength of the pressures for change that are brought to bear. A situation like that which faced the aristocracy at this period, however, may reasonably be described as a crisis, for it involved major readaptation in almost every field of thought and action in order to fit into a rapidly changing environment. Granted that change is a continuous process, that every shift has both earlier antecedents and later developments, it is nevertheless between 1560 and 1640, and more ptecisely between 1580 and 1620,

that the teal watershed between medieval and modern England must be placed. It was then that the State fully established its authority, that dozens of armed retainers were replaced by a coach,

two footmen, and a page-boy, that private castles gave way to private houses, and that aristocratic rebellion finally petered out; then that the north and west were brought within the national orbit | and abandoned their age-old habits of personal violence; then that the 1 F. M. L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century, 1963, chs. x—xii. D. Spring, “The Role of the Aristocracy in the late Nineteenth Century’, Victorian Studies, iv, 1960-1. W. L. Guttsman, ‘The changing social Structure of the British Political Elite, 18861935’, British Journal of Sociology, ii. 1951.

16 INTRODUCTION British Isles, England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, were first effectively united; then that political objectives began to be stated in terms of abstract liberty and the public interest, rather than patticular liberties and ancient customs; then that radical protestantism

elevated the individual conscience over the claims of traditional obedience in the family, in the Church, in the nation; then that nonconformity and the nonconformist conscience became established features of the English scene; then that the House of Commons emerged as the dominant partner of the two Houses, and actually seized some of the political initiative from the executive; then that the Lord Treasurer developed as the leading minister of the Crown, and the Exchequer as the most important administrative department; then that noblemen and gentry provided themselves with a bookish education to fit themselves for their new role in society, so that for the first time in history the intelligentsia became a branch

of the propertied classes; then that the cosmopolitan influence of the Grand Tour first became a common element in a young man’s

training for life; then that London and the Court first began to sing their siren songs to the rural landlords; then that the ideal of stately, public living in the country was challenged by that of opulent, private pleasures in the City; then that foreign trade developed sufficiently to begin to preoccupy the minds of statesmen, and to make a London alderman the financial equal of a baron; then that usury was first openly legislated for, that interest rates fell to modern levels, that the joint stock company began to flourish, that colonies of Englishmen were established across the seas, that England abandoned its territorial ambitions in Europe and dimly recognized its future as a naval power; then that capitalist ethics, population growth, and monetary inflation undermined old

landlord-tenant relationships and old methods of estate management; then that England first began to enjoy such modern means of communication as the private coach and the public carrier, the ptivate newsletter and the public newspaper; then that Shakespeare and Spenser, Sydney and Donne transformed our literature, that Inigo Jones introduced Palladian architecture, that Bacon pointed

the way to modern experimental science, and that Selden and Spelman demonstrated the possibilities of serious historical research.

It was to this changing, challenging world that the peers had to adapt themselves between the accession of Queen Elizabeth and

INTRODUCTION 17 the outbreak of civil war. Their failures helped to open the way to the political upheavals of the seventeenth century; their successes laid the foundation of the political stability of the eighteenth century

and the partial survival of aristocratic values, aristocratic styles of life, aristocratic influence in the country-side, and aristocratic predominance in the cabinet to within the memory of men still alive today. Using new material, deployed in a new way, this book

tries to tell the story of this adaptation, to identify and explain its successes and its failures. In doing so it offers a new explanation

of the central event of modern English history—the breakdown of monarchical and aristocratic government in 1640-1 and its reestablishment on terms in 1660 and 1688.

821314 Cc

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PART ONE

THE NATURE OF THE CRISIS

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I]

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY I. CONCEPTS OF SOCIETY

HIERARCHY and organic unity were the two predominant postulates upon which contemporaries constructed their theories about the nature of society and the functions of government. As the unt-

vetse was otdered in a great chain of being, so the nation was regulated by obedience to a hierarchy of superiors leading up to the King, so society was composed of various estates of men all settled and contented in their degree, and so the family was ordered by obedience of wife and children to the pater familias. Whether in

heaven of hell, in the universe or on earth, in the state or in the family, it was a self-evident truth that peace and order could only be preserved by the maintenance of grades and distinctions and by telentless emphasis on the overriding need for subjection of the individual will to that of superior authority. The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre Observe degree, priority and place.

Although there are signs of belief in equality of opportunity among

the urban bourgeoisie, although the rumblings of radical social egalitarianism can be heard from time to time during peasant tisings, and although, as we shall see, there was a growing movement towards individualism, the prevailing temper of the age was the antithesis of the twentieth-century western system of values. The notion that ever since the seventeenth century England has been a nation of shopkeepers inspired by the ethics of the marketplace and led by a capitalist bourgeoisie is one that dies very hard. In fact as late as 1870 England was basically aristocratic in tone, taking its moral standards, its hierarchy of social values, and its political system from the landed classes. In the sixteenth and seven-

teenth centuries it was unquestionably what Mr. F. M. L. Thompson has aptly called a ‘deference society’.2 To us such a society 1 A. O, Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, Cambridge, Mass., 1936. 2 F, M. L. Thompson, English Landed Soctety in the Nineteenth Century, 1963.

22 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY appeats profoundly authoritarian, illiberal, static, and snobbish. At its highest it conformed to the ordered vision of a Shakespeare or a Hooker, at its lowest it became no more than a device to preserve the status quo and bolster up the rule of age over youth, wealth over

povetty, pedigree over talent. Hackneyed though they are, the words that Shakespeare put into the mouth of Ulysses can still bear repetition : O when degree is shak’d Which is the ladder to all high designs, The enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenitye and due of birth, Prerogative or age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string,

And, hark, what discord follows. | Given these assumptions, it was natural that the supreme virtues should be obedience and the avoidance of change. In 1636 one of

the Goring family thought fit to remind the parishioners of their duties by covering the south wall of the church at Burton, Sussex,

with the quotation: “Obey them that have the rule over you. Hebrews 13. 17.’ In 1658 Sir Henry Slingsby warned his son that ‘Subjection to superiors is a precept of high consequence’. Strenuous

efforts were made to immunize the minds of youth against the poison of new ideas. ‘Hold all innovations and new ways suspicious’, advised Sir Edward Coke—and plunged back into the self-appointed task of making radical political notions respectable by dressing them up in garbled medieval precedents. “Above all things, then, my dear ones’, admonished Sir Henry Slingsby, “be it your especial care to beware of Novellisme.’ Sit Edward Hext went

to the length of having inscribed on the church screen at Low Ham in Somerset the edifying exhortation “My son, fear the Lord, and meddle not with them that are given to change’.! Because of this crushing burden of belief in the need for social

stability, all change had to be interpreted as the maintenance of tradition. In religion the reformation was defended as a return to the eatly church; in politics, parliamentary sovereignty was 1 D. Parsons, Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, 1836, pp. 203, 205. J. K. Lowers, Mirrors for Rebels, Berkeley, Cal., 1953. J. Hist. Ideas, xiii, p. 461. C. W. James, Chief Justice Coke, 1929, p. 323.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 23 defended as the enforcement of fourteenth-century customs; in soci-

ety the rise of new men was disguised by forged genealogies and the grant of titles of honour. One of the most striking features of the age was a pride of ancestry which now reached new heights of fantasy and elaboration. Though it soon became a fad, a craze, a quasi-intellectual hobby for the idle rich, its prime purpose was social integration, the welding of a homogeneous group of seem-

ingly respectable lineage from a crazy patchwork of the most diverse, and sometimes dubious, origins. Genuine genealogy was cultivated by the older gentry to reassure themselves of their innate superiority over the upstarts; bogus genealogy was cultivated by the new gentry in an effort to clothe their social nakedness, and by the old gentry in the internal jockeying for position in the ancestral pecking order. A lengthy pedigree was a useful weapon in the Tudor battle for status. The English family, both late medieval and modern, has been patrilinear in its structure, and it was upon the origins of the father

tather than those of the mother that attention was concentrated. Thus only in a few, usually disputed, cases, did a title descend through the female line on the extinction of all heirs male. This pride in paternal ancestry became ever more openly expressed as

the sixteenth century wore on. “Glorie of Generositie’ was the title of John Ferne’s popular book on heraldry, published in 1586. As Sit John Wynn remarked complacently, ‘a great temporall blessing it is, and a greate heart’s ease to a man to find that he is well descended’. Sir Simonds D’Ewes “ever accounted it a great outward blessing to be well descended, it being in the gift only of God and nature to bestow it’.! Those imaginative creative writers, the Tudor heralds, were kept busy contriving vast rolls tracing the ancestry of the nobility back to the Norman conquerors, to the Romans, to the Trojans. Some were not satisfied until they had got back to the kings and worthies of the Old Testament, the Popham family tree beginning with an illustration of Noah seated in a diminutive ark. Sometimes the gentleman turned antiquary himself, like Sir Thomas Shirley who in 1632 drew up his own genealogy covering an area 12x 30 ft. An outstanding example of devotion to this hobby was Lord Burghley, who passed his leisure in poring over his collection 1 J. Ferne, Blazon of Gentrie, 1586. Sit John Wynn, The History of the Gwydir Family, Oswestry,

1878, p. 57. D’ Eves, i, p. 6. For a general discussion of this question see M. Maclagan, “‘Genealogy and Heraldry in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, English Historical Scholarship, ed. L. Fox, Oxford, 1956; F. Smith Fussner, The Historical Revolution, 1962, pp. 42-44.

24 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY of genealogies of the European nobility in general and of himself in particular. He was a man who delighted to be told that he derived

his ancestry from one Owen Whyte who ‘came with Harold that was Earl Godwin’s son out of Cornall’—nonsense which only

| irritated his more realistic son, Robert. Lord Mordaunt forged medieval deeds in order to support his claims, and a Lancashire gentleman proved his Norman ancestry with the aid of a rental improbably dated “13die Julii Anno regni Willi Conquest quinto’. Others were less pedantic, and the Earl of Denbigh was content to trace his ancestry back to King Egbert and Rudolf of Habs-

burg without bothering with such scholarly apparatus. Lord Lumley removed from Durham to Chester-le-Street three medieval

effigies, probably not of his ancestors, and completed the series with eleven imitations. So loudly did he and his relatives boast of his ancestry to King James that the exasperated monarch is said to have been drivento remark ‘I did na ken Adam’s name was Lumley’.

Few Tudor families can have taken as much trouble as those

respectable Buckinghamshire gentry, the Wellesbournes. Not content with a yeoman origin in the early fifteenth century, they decided to claim descent from the Montforts earls of Leicester, and set to work to prove it. A bogus pedigree was drafted (but such were the

difficulties that it was never satisfactorily completed), medieval seals were manufactured and attached to forged medieval deeds, a plausible imitation of a thirteenth-century knightly efiigy was placed

in the church and dubbed Wellesbourne de Montfort, the hitherto unrecorded son of Earl Simon; a genuine fourteenth-century efhgy was adorned with spurious Montfort arms; and the local mason was

hired to contrive in low relief three crude figures in impossible atmour in order to plug the gap between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries. It is hoped that after all these efforts their contemporaries were duly impressed.! This was also the petiod in which heraldry moved into a baroque phase, a lush profusion of improbable quarterings supplanting the —

simple coats of a less sophisticated and pretentious age. Behind such excesses lay a growing vanity and pride, stimulated by the 1 HMC 6th Rep., App., pp. 227, 229. E. P. Shirley, Steszmata Shirleiana, 1873, p. 135. Lambeth, 312~19, 516, 629. HMCS, xiii, pp. 178, 198, 397; xiv, pp. 75-76; xvii, p. 595. Trans. Beds. Hist. Soc. xi, p. 84. Chetham Soc., lxxxii, 1871, p. 124. BM Harl. MSS. 1902. R. Surtees, History of

Durham, 1816-40, ii, pp. 139-42, 397, 159 note g. E. J. Payne, “The Montforts, the Wellesbournes and the Hughenden Effigies’, Records of Bucks., vii, 1896. E. Mercer, English Art, 1jj3-1625, Oxford, 1962, pp. 219-20.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 25 7 need to show external proof of status. So far as can be seen, the inclusion of maternal coats going back many generations was not in itself symptomatic of any increasing respect for matrilinear descent, though it may have been developed by those who wished to draw attention to their virtuous abstention from the growing habit of marrying wealth rather than birth. At all events, as early -~ as 1577 Walter Earl of Essex was boasting of his fifty-five quarterines, so England was clearly already well set on the road to the heraldic fantasy world whose finest hour came at the end of the eighteenth century with the 719 quarterings of the Grenvilles depicted on the ceiling of the Gothic Library at Stowe.' It was during the reign of Elizabeth that heraldry became all the rage in interior decoration. At Theobalds Lord Burghley adorned a hall with a huge map of England showing the estates and coats of arms of evety prominent landowner in the country. At Gilling the Fairfaxes painted the dining-room with trees for each Wapentake, bearing the arms of the gentry listed in the 1584 Heraldic Visitation. At Holdenby Sir Christopher Hatton set up in the hall three pyramids coveted with the arms of all the peers of England and all the gentry of Northamptonshire. Sir John Ferrers decorated the great parlour of Tamworth Castle with a frieze of shields tracing his ancestry back to the Conquest. Cuthbert Lord Ogle thought his pedigree in letters of red was suitable decoration for the chancel wall of the church of St. Andrew, Bothal; the Cleres at Blickling, the St. Johns at Lydiard Tregoze, the Spencers at Great Brington, the Manners at Bottestord, the Howards at Framlingham, all stuffed the parish church to bursting-point with the ostentatious memorials of themselves and their forefathers. Nothing could be more damaging than to cast aspersions on a man’s ancestry, and at the height of the feud between the Markhams and the Talbots, Robert Markham took pains to remind Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury of ‘your bastatdlie descent, the which descent for feare you should forgett it I have sent you hearwith under ye Harrolds hand, even of charitie to entreat you to know yout selfe’.? It was Thomas Earl of Arundel, who ‘thought no other part of history so considerable as what related to his own family’, but 1 L/Dev IV, f. 322. E. A. Greening Lamborne, The Armorial Glass of the Oxford Diocese, I2j0-1850, 1949, Pp. 92. 2 W.B. Rye, England as Seen by Foreigners, 1865, p. 45. J. Norden, A Delineation of Northants,

1720, p. 50. H. Norris, Tamworth Castle, Tamworth, 1899, pp. 15-27. H. A. Ogle, Ogle and Bothal, Newcastle, 1902, pp. 68, 337. Lambeth 708, f. O/45.

26 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY there is evidence that he was not alone in his opinion. Apart from

this passionate genealogical and heraldic research, men began both delving into the history of their families, and writing their autobiographies for the instruction of posterity. The explosion of historical and antiquarian research in the seventeenth century stemmed directly from this self-centred pursuit, and its most valuable work was done in this field. Local historians like Carew or Dugdale or Archer were primarily concerned with the titles and descents of landed families, a preoccupation which still distorts much local history to this day. The middle years of the seventeenth century saw a remarkable growth of serious and well-documented family histories based on careful study of private archives. In 1618 John Smyth claimed that with his Lives of the Berkeleys he was the

first to write ‘a genealogike history of any patrimoniall family’. The real significance of his work, however, was not its genealogical

precision but its emphasis on social and economic history and its reliance on the records in the muniment room at Berkeley Castle. Nor was it long before others followed in his footsteps, inspired, encoutaged, and paid for by the noble patrons themselves. Nathaniel

Johnson wrote a detailed history of the Talbots, earls of Shrewsbury, and more summary accounts of the Darcys and Bruces; Sir

William Dugdale wrote up the Hastings earls of Huntingdon; Nathaniel Wanley, the Fieldings earls of Denbigh; Timothy Banks,

the Cliffords earls of Cumberland; Robert Fenwick, the Ogles

| lords Ogle; Gervase Holles, the Holles earls of Clare; Francis Thynne, the Brookes lords Cobham.! Some noblemen, like Thomas Earl of Arundel, intended to get such a history written but never achieved it; others, like Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, turned historian and archivist themselves. The same motive of “‘acquainting my son & his descendants with the stock he and

they are derived from’ inspired men like Sir John Bramston, Sir William Wentworth, Sir John Reresby, or Theophilus Earl of Huntingdon to compose autobiographies prefaced by some account of the family ancestry. This passion for family history was not confined to the peerage, but spread right through the whole I Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, 1732, p. 19. Smyth, ii, p. 440. L/Lib 114 A (other copies in Chatsworth library and Sheff CL/Bacon Frank MSS 3). Bodl MS. Top. Yorks C 42, ff. 1-14; Carte MSS. 78, f. 177. BM Harl MSS. 3879, 3881, 4774. Williamson, pp. 22-23. J. Hodgson, History of Northumberland, u, i, p. 379. Holles, passim. BM Add. MSS. 12514, ff. 56-77. 2 M.F. 8S. Hervey, Life of Thomas Earl of Arundel, Cambridge, 1921, p. 461. Autobiography of Sir John Bramston (Carden Soc.), 1845, p. xi. Sheff CL/S 40/1. BM Add. MSS. 29442-3. Bod] Carte MSS. 78, f. 410.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 27 upper gentry class. In the seventeenth or very early eighteenth century members of the family wrote up the history of the Delavals

of Seaton Delaval, the Willoughbys of Wollaton, the Verneys of Claydon, the Wynns of Gwydir, and the Shirleys of Wiston.! One of the paradoxes of the age was that this excessive adulation of ancient lineage took place at precisely the time when political theorists were laying increasing emphasis upon virtue, education, and the capacity to serve the State as the supreme test of and justification for a leisured class living off the labours of others.” Nothing could be more unlike the current doctrines about gentility than Viscount Conway’s classic remark : “We eat and drink and rise up to play and this is to live like a gentleman; for what is a gentle-

man but his pleasure?’3 Anyone the Viscount cared to ask could have told him. None the less, the contemporary obsession with genealogy and the direct association of gentility with a private income prove that birth and wealth still ranked higher than virtue, education, or ability as indicators of status. From time to time attempts were made to put the authority of the State behind the enforcement of the ideals of hierarchy and social

stability. From the very beginning the Anglican Church was harnessed to the task of disseminating official propaganda, homilies on the need for obedience to established authority being regularly read from every pulpit. Since chutch attendance was compulsory on

Sundays, the Government was guaranteed a captive audience for its opinions at least as comprehensive as that provided by the radio and television networks of the twentieth century. The first and most far-reaching effort to mould society by legislation were the clauses in the first draft of the Statute of Uses of 1529, by which the lands

of the nobility were to be made inalienable in perpetuity, thus freezing the structure of aristocratic land-tenute at its 1529 level. The peers themselves, however, wete apprehensive of this ambiguous gift and vigorously opposed it, on the grounds that it severely limited the freedom of the current holder of the title to provide for his daughters or younger sons or to meet emergency calls upon his purse. For the next forty years men toyed with the notion of legislation to prevent merchants from buying land, thus 1 History of Northumberland, ix, p. 158. A. C. Wood, Continuation of the History of the Willoughby Family, Windsor, 1958. Claydon House MSS. Wynn, op. cit. BM Harl. MSS. 4928. 7 R. K. Kelso, The Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the Sixteenth Century, Urbana, 19209. J. E. Mason, Gentlefolk in the Making, Philadelphia, 1935. 3 Quoted by M. Ashley, England in the Seventeenth Century, 1952, p. 18.

28 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY removing one factor in social mobility. The project was mentioned

twice in memoranda by or for Thomas Cromwell in the 1530’s, reappeared in the writings of Edward VI, emerged again in a memorandum presented to the 1559 Parliament, probably by a committee appointed by the Privy Council, and finally achieved a modest success in 1576 by the insertion in an Act of Parliament of a clause prohibiting west country clothiers from buying more than 20 acres of land.!

Another line of attack upon the same problem was through sumptuary legislation, laying down the most detailed regulations governing the type of clothes and the amount of food which could lawfully be worn and consumed by different classes of persons. These laws originated in the fourteenth century, being intended partly to preserve class distinctions but also to protect home industries, to prevent immoral extravagance, and to reduce excessive imports of luxuries. The major codification of these regulations took place in 1463 and there was further legislation on the same lines in 1533. The motives of the Tudors wete the same as those of their predecessors, though there is reason to think that dislike of the prevailing confusion between social groups was now the main incentive. In 1583 Philip Stubbes complained of “such a confuse mingle mangle of apparell . . . that it is verie hard to knowe who is noble, who is worshipfull, who is a gentleman, who is not; for you shall have those .. . go daylie in silkes, velvets, satens, damasks, taffeties and suchlike, notwithstanding that they be both base by byrthe, meane by estate & setvyle by calling. This is a great confusion & a general disorder, God be metcifull unto us.’ The attitude

of the Government is revealed in the preamble to a Proclamation of 1600 about the carrying of firearms, in which attention was drawn

to the ‘indecent and disorderly confusion among all sorts and degrees of men (every meane and base person taking to himselfe that which belongeth to men of the best sort and condition) as is vety unseemely and unmeet in a well-governed state’. It was for this reason that in 1636 Charles actually forbade the buying, selling,

or wearing of imitation jewellery. There was even Tudor class legislation about sport, archery being prescribed for the lower ordets, and bowls and tennis restricted to gentlemen with an income of ovet {100 a year. 1 T.F. T. Plucknett, “Some Proposed Legislation of Henry VI’, TRHS, 4th ser., xix, 1936, pp. 122-3. Le» PH VIII, ix, no. 725 (ii); xiv, i, no. 655. J. G. Nichols, Literary Remains of Edward VI, Roxburghe Club, 1857, p. 481. HMCS, i, p. 162. S. T. Bindoff et al., Elizabethan Government and Society, 1961, pp. 80-81. 18 Eliz. cap. 16.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 29 Particularly serious efforts were made to implement these regulations in the middle years of the stxteenth century. In 1552 Nortoy King of Arms was empowered to confine the wearing of hood and tippet to esquires and above, and in 1562 the local authorities were

instructed to carry out a detailed search of women’s clothes in Surtey. Elizabeth issued no less than ten Proclamations during her reign enjoining the enforcement of the 1533 Sumptuary Act, and it

was not until 1603 that the Crown gave up the unequal struggle and Parliament repealed the Statute. Only in the universities did the regulation of dress on class lines survive into modern times. Ordered for Cambridge by Burghley in 1578, noblemen continued to wear distinctive dress heavily ornamented with gold lace until the middle of the nineteenth century.! The concept of hierarchy of status was expressly embodied in the Act of Precedence of 1539, which established the ranking of court officials. Below this level every effort was made to give precedence

at public gatherings to the man with the highest title, and in 1530 the Heralds were instructed by the King to inquire into and regulate the bearing of arms and the ranking of the gentry. Some purists even evolved the doctrine that it needed three armigerous generations to establish a claim to gentle blood.” Both government and the public saw a clear distinction between the types of punishment suitable to a gentleman and those reserved

to the vulgar. The former were held to be immune from physical penalties, an inequality before the law that was frankly admitted and defended. ‘Whipping? you find not that in the statute to whip satin’, protested Middleton’s pimp, Primero. Sir Henry Wotton was shocked that after a mutiny among the English fleet in the pay of Venice in 1618 the ringleaders were all publicly hanged without distinction between officers and men. If one seeks to explain why the punishment of Prynne struck contemporaries with such peculiar horror, it was not the barbarity of the sentence but the quality of the person upon whom it was executed. So deep went this feel- — ing of a fundamental distinction of ranks that gentlemen did not 1 Philip Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses, 1583, sig. C. 11%. H. Dyson, Proclamations, 1618, pp. 364, 376. F. E. Baldwin, ‘Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England’, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, xliv, 1926. CSPD, 1635-6, p. 371.

24 H. VII, cap. 13. CPR, ryyo-3, p. 352. HMC 7th Rep., App., p. 617. C. H. and T. Cooper, Amials of Cambridge, li, 1843, p. 360. C. E. Mallet, A History of the University of Oxford, 1924-7, li, P. 3333 ili, p. 194. 2 31 H. VIII, cap. 10. A. R. Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1956, ch. it. G. Legh, The Accedens of Armory, 1562, £. 26. F. Markham, The Booke of Honour, 1625,p. 48.

30 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY , hesitate to behave in ways which would today be considered base and

even cowardly. When Lord Herbert of Cherbury was shipwrecked at Dover in 1609 he leaped into the only rescue boat, used his drawn sword to prevent anyone but Sir Thomas Lucy from entering, and then deserted the sinking ship and its crew and made for the safety of the shore—an action which he was not ashamed to record in his autobiography.! This was not a static situation, for the trend of the age was towards a hardening of the lines of cleavage. Medieval clergy in their sermons had frequently castigated the rich and the great, and the parishioners in many a church could find comfort in wall-paintings showing bishops, knights, and even kings being dragged down to Hell by ferocious devils. This movement reached its apogee with the ‘commonwealth men’ of the middle of the sixteenth century, but by the accession of Elizabeth it had burnt itself out. Alarmed by the peasants’ revolt of 1549, and convinced of the need for state suppott to secure the protestant settlement, preachers turned to the composition of homilies on humility and obedience to superiors. The theme was set by Cranmer in his rebuke to the rebels in 1549. ‘Though the magistrates be evil and very tyrants against the commonwealth and enemies to Christ’s religion, yet the subjects must obey in all worldly things, as the Christians do under the Turks.’ ‘Will you now have the subjects to govern their king’, he asked, ‘the villains to rule the gentlemen, and the servants their masters? If men would suffer this, God will not; but will take vengeance of all them that will break his order, as he did of Dathan and Abiram.’ Passive obedience was an invention of the sixteenth, not the seventeenth century. In his suspicion of popular rule, Shakespeare was merely echoing the prevalent doctrine of the day, which regarded the poor as a delinquent, fickle, ignorant, and stupid mass not fit to be trusted with any authority. One early-seventeenth-century gentleman, Sir Richard Weston, wrote a large treatise on this theme, after ransacking both ancients and moderns to buttress his case. Virgil, Seneca, Plato, Tacitus, Ovid, Sallust, Cicero, Homer, and Thucydides; Guicciardini, Hall, Fuller, and Dallington were all sum-

moned as witnesses for the prosecution to prove what Sir Thomas Smith succinctly described as ‘the rascabilitie of the popular’.? 1 T. Middleton, Your Five Gallants, v, ii. L. P. Smith, Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, Oxford, 1907, i, p. 156. D’ Ewes, ii, p. 105. Autobiography of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, ed. Sydney

Lee, n.d., pp. 58-59. 2G. R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England, Cambridge, 1933. H. C. White,

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 31 The inevitable result of such thinking was a deliberate effort to destroy those remnants of democratic government in local affairs that had survived from the Middle Ages. Town Charters were revised and reissued, in every case in order to place electoral power in the hands of a tiny minority. Where this was not done, the con-

trol of the town was restricted by mere governmental fiat, as at Sandwich in 1604, when the Privy Council ordered the electorate for the Mayor to be reduced to the twenty-four of the Common Council.! Similarly control of the parish was confined to the ‘better sort’ by the device of the select vestry, while at religious worship

the gradations of rank were publicly defined by the erection of private pews, the placing of which was the subject of continual friction and even violence.? In the country local government was monopolized by a caucus of leading landed families, and in the national political institution of the House of Commons the same closing of ranks is visible. Not a single merchant was made a J.P. in Essex after 1564, not a single clothier was returned as M.P. in the great cloth county of Wiltshire after 1603, and indeed the proportion of merchants and urban officials in the Commons was a mere 12 pet cent. in 1584 and was still the same in 1640. Within the

landed classes the hardening of the lines of social cleavage itself teflected and was supported by a shift in the balance of economic advantage from the yeoman leaseholder to the nobility and gentry landlords. The latter began to cream off the agricultural profits in enhanced rents and fines, and as a result it became increasingly difficult for the yeomanry, or even the minor gentry, to improve their economic position. The schools and universities, those microcosms of the greater world outside, reflected with particular clarity the tendencies towards authoritarian discipline and social privilege. Already in the Social Criticism in Religious Literature of the Sixteenth Century, New York, 1944, ch. v. J. Strype, Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, Oxford, 1848-53, ii, pp. 563, 558. Kent R.O., Sackville MSS.

F, 35. tH, A. Merewether and A. J. Stephens, The History of Boroughs and Municipal Corporations, 1835, passim. HMCB, i, p. 48. HMCS, xv, p. 307. J. E. Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons, 1949, Pp. 252, 262, 268, 280. 2 W.E. Tate, The Parish Chest, Cambridge, 1946, p. 19. HMCS, xiv, p. 143. CSPD, Add. 1y80-1625, p. 502. HMC rrth Rep. vii, p. 162. CSPD, 1637-8, pp. 317, 577. J. E. C. Hill, The Economic Problems of the Church, Oxford, 1956, pp. 176-82. 3 M. G. Davies, The Enforcement of English Apprenticeship, Harvard, 1956, p. 174. G. D. Ramsay, Dhe Wiltshire Woollen Industry, Oxford, 1943, p. 47. Neale, op. cit., p. 302. M. F. Keeler, The Long Parliament, Philadelphia, 1954, p. 23. VCH Wilts, v, p. 112. T. Barnes, Somerset, r625-go, Oxford, 1961, p. 13. J. T. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry on the Ewe of the Civil War (London Ph.D. thesis, 1960), p. 138. For the rapid rise in rents and fines, see infra.

32 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY fifteenth century the grammar schools had developed the characteristics of constant supervision, organized delation by the monitors, and the free use of the cane, remnants of which still survive in the more afistoctatic sectors of our educational system today. The sixteenth century saw the extension of these features to the univetsities, where the free and turbulent life of the medieval undergraduate was transformed, thanks to close supervision within the college system

and to the extension of corporal punishment to adolescents up to the age of twenty. Aubrey recorded that ‘At Oxford (and I believe Cambridge) the rod was frequently used by tutors and deanes. And Dr. Potter of Trinity College, I knew right well, whipt his pupil with his sword by his side when he came to take leave of him to go to the Inns of Coutt.’ In the running of the university control was removed from the general body of dons and placed in the hands of the Vice-Chancellor

and Heads of Houses, in 1570 at Cambridge, in 1633 at Oxford. Within the colleges themselves the same process was at work. As the Cambridge heads reminded Burghley in 1572, ‘What poison lieth

hid in popularity cannot be unknown to your singular wisdom’. As an antidote to this venom, the authority of college heads was increased, that of the Master of St. John’s, Cambridge, being enhanced first in 1545, and then again in 1580. There were stocks in the Hall, which the Master could use to quell the unruly. In 1571 members of the university were forbidden to swim in rivers of ponds, on pain of public flogging in the College Hall if a junior, and a day in the stocks if a senior. The second feature of the universities was their increasing respect

for social status. If a privy council committee of 1559 had had its way, a third of all scholarships would have been restricted to the sons of (poor) gentlemen. If the undergraduate body did not alter very much in its social composition, this was because the growing

numbets of sons of tich gentry needed an equal supply of poor students as ‘servitors’ or “‘sizars’ to wait upon them and attend to their wants. In addition to this depression of the humble, the gentry and above were themselves sharply differentiated, partly by dress, and partly

by the granting of special favours. After 1591 Oxford allowed eldest sons of esquires and above, and the younger sons of knights

and above to take the B.A. degtee after three years’ residence instead of four, a privilege restricted by the Laudian statutes of 1633

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 33 to sons of peers and eldest sons of baronets and knights. Class distinctions were further emphasized by the introduction of the status of Fellow Commoner, a gentlemanly undergraduate who in return for high fees was allowed to feed on high table with the dons and was accotded exceptional freedom from restraint. Like University

College, Christ Church had three grades, of which the top, the Canons Commoners, dined on the dais. At Cambridge the Fellow Commoner was in existence by the middle of the sixteenth century;

at Oxford, Oriel adopted the device at the end of the century, Lincoln in 1606, Balliol in 1610, St. John’s before 1613. College statutes, for example those of Wadham drawn up in 1613, reflect the same preoccupation. Among the undergraduates, sharp distinctions were made between Scholars, Commoners, and Battellars. The Warden was given exceptional powers and perquisites and was

to be treated with exceptional deference. Bachelors were to show respect to Masters, and Scholars to Bachelors. Association between the various grades was specifically discouraged, and the degree of subjection was to be shown by baring the head.!

At the ‘third university of the Kingdom’, the Inns of Court, persistent suggestions were made by distinguished educationalists throughout the late sixteenth century to forbid entry to the lower classes, efforts which culminated in an order by King James in 1604 that ‘none be henceforth admitted into the Society of my House of Court that is not a gentleman by descent’. That these instructions wete honouted as much in the breach as the observance was due more to the inexorable process of social change than to any softening of attitudes towards class distinctions. Indeed here as elsewhere opinion hardened as time went on, and was at least successful in maintaining the distinction between the barristers, mostly gentleman-

born because of the high cost of their education, and attorneys, whose training was cheaper and whose social origins were consequently less elevated.2 At schools like King’s School, Canterbury,

at the univetsities, and at the Inns of Court efforts were made to keep out all but gentlemen. These efforts were negated by the 1 H.C. Porter, Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge, Cambridge, 1958, pp. 164-6, 211. H. Rashdall, Medieval Universities, Oxford, 1936, iii, pp. 370-1. Aubrey, p. 12. Mallet, op. cit. li, pp. 134-5, 323, 333; ili, p. 65. HMCH, i, p. 163. E. Miller, Portrait of a College, Cambridge, 1961, pp. 18, 20. The Eagle, xxviii, 1907, p. 3. VCH Oxon. iii, 1954, pp. 83, 122, 171. Nichols, Il, i, p. 161. A. Clark, Registers of Oxford University, ii, pt. 2, p. 414. T. G. Jackson, Wadham College, Oxford, Oxford, 1893, p. 58. 2 P. Lucas, ‘Blackstone and the Reform of the Legal Profession’, EHR, lxxvii, 1962, pp. 46782, HMCH, i, p. 163.

821314 D

3.4 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY concurrent Puritan drive to spread the word of God to the poor, and it was only after the Restoration that the gentry seriously tried to prevent the masses they ruled from obtaining free access to higher education.

The last and most serious attempt to buttress the hierarchical concept of society was made by the King and the Privy Council in the ten years of personal rule before the collapse of royal government in 1640. Sale of titles was stopped, as an obvious threat to the system, and efforts were made to reinforce authority at every level:

at Court restrictions were placed on entty to the inner closet; at Oxford University the powers of the few were increased by the Laudian Statutes; in London and the towns support was given to the Mayor and Aldermen against the commonalty; attempts were made to tegulate industry by the encouragement of guild organiza-

tion; in society there was a frank revival of snobbery. “The priviledges of generous blood are more to be cared for than heretofore’, it was announced in 1634, a doctrine which looked forward to the revolutionary scheme for a hierarchy of ranks linked to fiscal and other privileges which was being solemnly discussed in 1639. To show that it meant business, the Privy Council did not hesitate to act in ways of dubious legality. Two draymen who ran down the coach of the Earl of Exeter in 1637 were acquitted by a jury. The Privy Council promptly used prerogative powers to have the miscreants publicly flogged and then committed to hard labour in Bridewell. The same year Thomas Bennett was fined £2,000 by the Star Chamber for telling the Earl of Marlborough that he was as good a gentleman as his lordship, for the Bennetts were as good as the Leys.? Authoritarian reaction and reinforcement of aristocratic privilege seemed to be marching hand in hand as England edged ever neater a system of government modelled upon that of Riche lieu. The fact that the attempt collapsed so ignominiously in 1640-1

suggests, however, that it was out of touch with social realities. The key symbols of Tudor and Early Stuart society were the hat and the whip. The former was for ever being doffed and donned to emphasize the complex hierarchy of ranks and authorities. Everyone, every day, many times a day, by removing his hat or by putting it on, gave visible proof of his acceptance of the great principle of

subordination universally at work at Court, in the street, in the 1 CSPD, 1637, p. 166; 1634-5, p. 186; 7637, pp. 281, 299, 472. For the 1639 scheme see infra, pp. 117-18.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 35 ereat household, in the university, and even within the family. The peculiar ferocity with which the Quakers were treated can only be explained if we realize how shattering a psychological blow to the conceptual framework of society was their quiet refusal to remove their headgear. Physical punishment was used, as it had never been used before, as the prime means of enforcing obedience. Whips and stocks were used by the Crown upon its lesser subjects, by the noble-

man upon his servants, by the village worthies upon the poor, by the dons upon the undergraduates, by the City Companies upon the apprentices. The possession of these handy instruments was a mark of dignity, a prerequisite of property. Children were flogged into absorbing their book-learning, undergraduates were flogged into compliance with College regulations, servants and apprentices were flogged by their masters, the adult poor were flogged to encourage them not to be poor and homeless, Papists were flogged to persuade

them of the superior virtues of Anglicanism, breakers of laws drawn up in thei: wisdom by the propertied classes were flogged into a recognition of the errors of their ways. Those of gentle birth wete flogged like the rest so long as they were children, and between

about 1500 and 1660 they were also flogged as adolescents. The habitual flogging of undergraduates for minor offences first appears in the Brasenose College Statutes of 1509, and had vanished again

by the end of the seventeenth century.! It was only when a young gentleman went down from the university that he left his adolescence behind him. As a man of birth and breeding he could be assured that from now on he was immune from corporal punishment, an indignity reserved for those of lower social status. During the early seventeenth century these authoritarian attitudes were having to compete with what can only be described, for lack of a better word, as the concept of individualism. The growth of population faster than food supplies or employment opportunities and the increased use of money and credit led to a more cutthroat competitive society, first in the towns and more slowly in the countryside. The ideal of a society in which every man had his place and stayed in it was breaking down under a combination of material and ideological pressures. Many no longer had a place in which to

stay, and those who had were less willing to accept their lot as eternally ordained by God. Humanist education with its cult of 1 Catholic Record Soc. iv, 1907, p. 141. T. F. Reddaway, “The London goldsmiths in 1500’, TRHS, 5th ser., xii, p. 56. Rashdall, op. cit. iii, p. 371. Aubrey, p. 12.

36 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY heroes was teaching the upper classes that each man was an empite unto himself, whose duty it was to strive for personal glory. Most important of all was the slow working of the puritan conscience, with its stress on man’s direct personal relationship with the deity,

and its hierarchy of the elect and the damned, the godly and the profane, which might bear little relation to existing social grada-

tions. At the same time a flood of new ideas in astronomy and medicine, history and law, were helping to undermine confidence in the hierarchic principle of social organization as the inevitable and necessary tule of God and Nature. One of the major themes running through this book is the consequent erosion of respect for kings, bishops, noblemen, landlords, and fathers of families. By 1641

fust was eating into the shackles of the Great Chain of Being.! Il. SOCIAL MOBILITY

Hitherto we have been discussing the official ideology of the age

and the measures taken by authority in its support. But all such ideologies are imperfect reflections of the realities of the social system. They tend to glorify the existing upper classes and conceal the benefits they derive from their position. They exaggerate the duties and minimize the privileges of the few. They also present a picture of a fully integrated society in which stratification by title, power, wealth, talent, and culture are all in absolute harmony, and in which social mobility is consequently both undesirable and unthinkable. Reality, however, is always somewhat different.? This ideological pattern and these measures designed to freeze the social structure and emphasize the cleavages between one class and another were introduced or reinforced at a time when in fact families were moving up and down in the social and economic scale at a faster rate than at any time before the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed it was just this mobility which stimulated such intensive propaganda efforts. The causes of this mobility are dis-

cussed elsewhete; here we are merely concerned to register its existence and assess its consequences. Direct evidence of this mobility is provided by the exceptionally

rapid turnover of land as recorded in the Close Rolls and Feet of Fines (Fig. 1). The former register the more important land sales, as well as trust-deeds, mortgages, and bonds. The last category tC. Hill, Puritanism and Liberty, 1958, chapters 3, 4, 8, passim, and his Ford Lectures at Ox-

ford, 1962. 2 See B. Barber, Social Stratification, New York, 1957, pp. 197-208.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 37 can easily be excluded, leaving a set of figures which are largely confined to sale and mortgage of substantial properties. Using the letter ‘S’ in the indexes of first parties as a random sample, the graph tises rapidly to a peak in 1610-20, which is rather more than double that of 1560-70. Thereafter there is a falling off, so that by 1670 the

250 250 i 200 _ 200 2 150 i MON 1502 ® wf a 3 £100 a ~ 8 Ag100°

figures are back to what they were a hundred years before. The same pattern is shown by the Feet of Fines for three sample areas, Essex for the home counties, Leicestershire for the midlands, and

—— (Letter’S’) -~-- Close Feetrolls of fines (Essex,

Leics, Yorks) \

50 100 = 1560-69 average 50 1560 80 1600 20 40 60 80 1700 Fic. 1. Mobility of Land, 1560-1699

Yorkshire for the north. These figures cover a wider range of land transactions, including transfers of quite small properties by yeo-

men, freeholders, and husbandmen. They too show a doubling between 1560 and 1620, and a subsequent but slower decline to the level of the 1580’s. It is possible that in the late sixteenth century

increased use was being made of these two methods of recording land transfers, though it has yet to be shown why this should be so. But even if we admit that some small part of the pre-1620 rise can be explained away as due to a change in fashions for registration, this still leaves a very large increase in the volume of transactions to be accounted for. Moreover, even if the fall in registrations at the very end of the seventeenth century may be partly explicable on technical grounds, it is quite certain that nothing happened in 1620 to cause a decline of popularity in these forms of registration of

land transactions. This mountainous tise and fall must represent a tremendous upheaval in the mobility of land in this country, which

38 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY is without parallel in either the later Middle Ages or the late seven-

teenth and eighteenth centuries. Other evidence fits in with this hypothesis. Professor Tawney found that about one in every three _ manots in the seven counties he examined changed hands, by purchase and sale only, once every forty years between 1560 and 1640, compared with which Professor Habakkuk has described the eighteenth century as an age of relative stability.

The result of this mobility of land was that the gentry was changing in composition with unprecedented rapidity. Exception-

| ally large numbers of new families were forcing their way to the top, exceptionally large numbers of old families were falling on evil

days and sinking into obscurity. Between 1562 and 1634 78 new names were added to thelist of armigerous gentry in Lincolnshire. In Wiltshire between 1565 and 1623 no fewer than 109 new names were added to the original total of 203. There were 641 gentry families in Yorkshire in 1603; by 1642, 180 of these had died out in the male line or left the county, while 218 had first become armigerous, had come into the county, or had set themselves up as cadet branches. This represents a disappearance and replacement of more than one family in four in a space of forty years. In county after county, particularly those in the lowland zone around London, Fuller observed

the speed of change: “The gentry in all counties . . . being 2 continuo fluxu; the gentry in Middlesex seem sojournets, rather then inhabitants therein’; in Bedfordshire ‘hungry time hath made a glutton’s meal on this catalogue of gentry’; in Berkshire ‘lands are very skittish and often cast their owners’. Only in remote Cumberland did he find that measure of family stability which contempotaries wete sO anxious to presetve.!

The fact that social mobility, upwards and downwards, was occurring at an unprecedented rate despite all efforts to halt the flux should not lead us to suppose that the whole class structure was breaking down, or even that it was being reshaped to more than

a limited extent. Neither the growth in the power of the state, nor the decline in the authority of the King himself, nor the relative rise in wealth and influence of the squirearchy did much to affect the basic system of social stratification. A class is not a finite group of 1 R. H. Tawney, ‘The Rise of the Gentry’, EcHR, xi, 1941, p. 22. H. J. Habakkuk, “The English land market in the eighteenth century’, Britain and the Netherlands, eds. J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossman, 1960, p. 156. VCH Leics. ii, p. 208. M. Campbell, The English Yeoman, New Haven, 1942, pp. 38, 72-74. VCH Wilts. v, p. 122. Information kindly supplied by Mr. J. T. Cliffe, Fuller, pt. 1, pp. 112, 120, 2233 pt. 2, pp. 55, 187, 310.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 39 families, but rather a bus or a hotel, always full, but always filled with different people. The apparent stability of class position is an illusion created by the slowness of change and the extraordinary

stability of class character, resulting from the chameleon-like adaptability of new families.‘ The social structure itself should be

regarded as a continuum with bottlenecks, or alternatively as a stepped pyramid or lozenge. Short of a major revolution and the confiscation and redistribution of land and capital, social mobility may alter the shape of the figure, may broaden or narrow some of the steps; but except over a long period of time it is unlikely either to eliminate the existing steps or to create new ones. Ill. CLASS ATTITUDES

The measure of the resilience of a class structure is its ability to absorb new families of different social origin and convert them to the values and ways of life of the social group into which they are projected. By this test the English social structure of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries emerges with considerable distinction. Despite the massive tide of wealth flowing into the hands of yeomen, lawyers, City merchants, top-ranking administrators, and successful politicians, they were all successfully absorbed, at different

levels, into the ranks of the landed gentry. That a ‘middle-class culture’ of educated artisans, small shopkeepers, and merchants grew up in Elizabethan England cannot be doubted, but the dominant value system remained that of the landed gentleman.? Except for the yeomen, none of the new men had acquired their fortunes from the profits of land, and yet as soon as the opportunity offered all hastened to turn theit wealth into a landed estate. Since there was plenty of land on the market there arose no proud dynasties of merchants, no hereditary strain of lawyers (except through younger sons), no unbroken sequence of professional politicians. Only in

the toyal bureaucracy did there develop a certain sense of professionalism, handed down from generation to generation. As a result the social prestige and the standards of value of the landed classes wete never seriously challenged except for a brief period during the Interregnum. Active personal occupation in a trade or profession was generally

thought to be humiliating. The man of business was inferior to 1 J. Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social Classes, Oxford, 1951, p. 165. 2 L. B. Wright, Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England, Chapel Hill, 1935.

40 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY the gentleman of leisure who lived off his rents, for, as Edward Chamberlayne bluntly stated in 1669 “Tradesmen in All Ages and Nations have been reputed ignoble’. Sir Frescheville Holles was furious when before a parliamentary election his backers had him elected an alderman of Grimsby, because ‘most of them were meane and meckanicke fellowes’. Retail trade was always degrading, and

overseas trade only a respectable occupation for a son and heir if pursued as a hobby rather than as a profession. As late as 1659 Edmund Verney was of the opinion that ‘a vertuous gentlewoman is by farre to bee esteemed and preferred than the richest cittizen in England’. Indeed Chamberlayne asserted, and apologists like Edmund Bolton and Richard Brathwait admitted it to be the common belief, that by apprenticeship ‘a Gentleman thereby loses his Gentility for ever, till he can otherwise recover it’, presumably by making a fortune. In fact, of course, the younger sons of lesser gentry had always been apprenticed to merchants, and after the middle of the seventeenth century the younger sons of great knights

and squites and even of a few peers began to be put out to trade. But this development only affected younger sons, who wete anyway regarded as expendable, and it can therefore hardly be regarded as more than a very trifling shift of opinion.! The tanking of the professions was only slightly higher than that

of tradesmen. Between 1560 and 1640 the Church was not the respected occupation it once had been and was to become again. In the 1570’s William Harrison commented on the ‘gene rall contempt

of the ministerie’ and half a century later John Selden explained that ‘In the beginning of the Reformacion they were glad to gett such to take Livings as they could procure by any Invitacions, things of pittifull condition; the Nobility and Gentry would not suffer their sonns or kindred to meddle withthe Church, & therefore

att this day when they see a parson they thinke him to bee such a thing still, & there they will keepe him & use him accordingly’. Even the bishops were not held in much greater respect, being men ‘of a Low condicion’ as Selden put it. Consequently they were ruthlessly robbed by nobility and gentry under Elizabeth, and it was not until the early seventeenth century that a handful of well-born and well-connected younger sons began to trickle back into the Chutch. T See infra, pp. 335-6. E. Chamberlayne, Angliae Notitia, 1669, p. 480. E. Bolton, The Cities Advocate, 1618. R. Brathwait, The Turtle’s Triumph, 1641, p. 21. Kelso, op. cit., pp. 60-61. ~ Verney, til, pp. 347, 366. Holles, p. 197.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 41 And it was not till 1666 that it could be observed, as a novelty worth recording, that “many Knights’ daughters of good fortune now marty ye Church men’! The position of doctors was hardly any better, despite the striking

financial and social success of the leading court physicians. John Ferne thought it not a very honourable profession, and as late as the middle of the seventeenth century a gentleman was refusing the offer of marriage with the daughter of a rich doctor since “the very thought of ye Blister-pipes did Nauseate his Stomacke’.? The anal preoccupations of contemporary medicine must have done much to prevent a rise in the status of the profession. Only the lawyers were not oppressed by a feeling of social inferiority, even if they were neither loved nor admired for their arrogance and rapacity. Though Laud found it necessary in 1633 to reassute Bulstrode Whitelocke that ‘to be in a profession will be no disparagement nor diminution to you, but every way an advantage’, the remark was probably intended to bolster up his own morale as much as that of Whitelocke.3

One reason for the continued social pre-eminence of land was that

it remained the primary source of political influence. No longer a reservoir of docile manpower, landownership was now the necessaty qualification for a seat in the House of Commons and a share in local government, as Justice of the Peace, Sheriff, Deputy Sheriff,

Deputy Lieutenant, or Commissioner of musters or subsidies. So long as land retained this vital role in the structure of power, so

long would it reign supreme as a status symbol; moreover, the political developments of the seventeenth century, the weakening first of the financial resources and later of the prestige and influence

of the Crown, actually increased the importance of the landed interest. Their social pre-eminence, and their exploitation of the educational facilities of the country, meant that it became virtually impossible for a man of low birth to rise to high office. For nearly 400 yeats politics was the monopoly of the gentleman, and it was not until 1906 that the first man of working-class origin obtained a seat in the Cabinet.4 1 W. Harrison, The Description of England, 1877, ed. F. J. Furnivall, ii, p. 37. Selden, pp. 17, 81. See also F. Osborne, Advice to a Son, 1656, p. 3; Trans. Devon Assoc. lxxxvii, 1955, p. 102.

2 Ferne, op. cit., pp. 44-45. Verney, iil, p. 200. 3 Kelso, op. cit., p. 51. Memoirs of Bulstrode Whitelocke, ed. R. H. Whitelocke, 1860, p. 79. 4 W. L. Guttsman, “The Changing Social Structure of the British Political Elite, 1886-1935’, British Journal of Sociology, ii, 1951.

42 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY Along with the supremacy of land went a continued respect for medieval aristocratic ideals. One of the most characteristic features

of the age was its hyper-sensitive insistence upon the overriding importance of reputation. Many of the punishments of the day, the stocks, the pillory, the apology read out in the market-place, were based upon the theory that public humiliation was a mote effective penalty than a swingeing fine. The extraordinary seventeenthcentury code of the duel, under which men felt impelled to risk their lives to avenge a casual word, was metely a cancerous growth from the same cells. Who steals my purse steals trash, ’tis something, nothing, "Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave of thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed.

Iago was doing no more than echo a sentiment that was continually on the lips—and not infrequently in the hearts—of Elizabethans. ‘My credit is more than my life’, protested Frances dowager Count-

ess of Sussex in 1588. Sit Edward Norteys reminded the Earl of Essex ‘how much the reputation and honour of a man doth master evety other affection’. Lord Hunsdon ‘ever esteemed an ounce of honour more than a pound of profit’. When Sir Henry Winston was

otdered by Star Chamber publicly to acknowledge his offence of striking a bailiff at the next assizes at Gloucester, he refused to do so, saying he preferred to remain in prison than “to receive open disgrace in my country’.! A by-product of this cult of reputation was an insistence upon the atistoctatic virtue of generosity. Though contemporaries lamented the decay of hospitality—and it undoubtedly did fall away during

this petiod—this is less remarkable than the vigorous persistence of the ideal, and in some measure the practice, in direct opposition to Calvinist ideals of frugality and thrift. The prime test of rank was liberality, the pagan virtue of open-handedness. It involved wearing

tich clothes, living in a substantial well-furnished house, keeping plenty of servants and above all maintaining a lavish table to which

| anyone of the right social standing was welcome.” This was the quality most admired by the leading squires and nobles of England, 1 HMC Beaulieu MSS., p. 18. HMCS, vi, pp. 5, 488; xii, p. 46. 2 Kelso, op. cit., p. 89.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 43 and this that they were most anxious to impress upon posterity. When Robert Morgan built Mapperton Hall in the 1540’s and 1550°s, he had inscribed in the hall: What they spent, that they lent; What they gave, that they have; What they left, that they lost.

Memorial inscriptions upon tombs ate reliable evidence of aspirations, if not of achievements, and they ate almost unanimous in their harping upon the open-handedness of the deceased, both in entertainment of equals and in charitable gifts to inferiors. ‘Frank

House, frank Hart, free of my Purse and Port’, Lionel Tollemache IT was made to boast at Helmingham, Suffolk; “Thy house in plenty ever was maintained’, Roger Manners—and posterity—was

told at Ufington, Lincs. Sir George Selby, who died in 1625, was ‘everywhere most celebrated for his splendid and ever-abounding style of living’. John Dutton of Sherborne, Glos., who sutvived the Restoration, was ‘noted for his great hospitallitye’. Sir Henry Poole of Sapperton, Glos., did not hesitate to boast that he was ‘much given to Hospitallity’, nor Eleanor Parker at Willingdon, Sussex, that ‘All her husbands life she agreed with his dispositions to spende with great plenty and bountie on hospitallitie’ 1 Thete is little or no evidence of any weakening in the attachment to this doctrine before the Civil War, despite the fact that it was directly opposed to the Puritan imperative to save rather than to consume. Some early-seventeenth-century Puritans like Sir Thomas Heseltige of Noseley, Leicestershire, were content for posterity to

know that they were of ‘greate temperance and sobriety’, but the majority of gentry and nobility—even those of a puritan cast of mind—would have scorned so tame an epitaph. In the early sixteenth century Sit John Delaval was said to have been ‘a patron of wotship and hospitalitie, most like a famous gentleman during many yeates’, and a hundred years later Sir Ralph Delaval was described by his son as one who ‘kept an open, great, and plentiful house for entertainment’ .? Contemporary advice on behaviour reflected the same preoccupation, tempered, of course, by the need to live within income and to ’ Hutchins, ii, p. 160. W. A. Copinger, The Manors of Suffolk, 1905-11, ii, p. 309. R. Welford, History of Newcastle and Gateshead, 1884-7, iii, pp. 266-7. 2 History of Northumberland, ix, pp. 154, 158.

44 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY avoid oppressing the tenantry in ordet to raise the necessary cash. Sit John Oglander, that admirable reflector of the psychology of the middling gentry, remarked fiercely, ‘I scorn base getting and unworthy, penurious saving’, and the Earl of Suffolk recommended Robert Carey for government office, principally because ‘he ever spent with the best’. This was even used by Sir John Byron as a justification for his unequal assessment of ship-money, those who lived handsomely being let off more lightly that those who pinched and saved. But perhaps the last word on the subject was said by Francis Osborne in his best-selling Advice to a son of the middle of the seventeenth century : “Covetousnesse . . . like a candle ill-made, smothers the splendor of an happy Fortune in its owne grease.”!

The motive behind this emphasis on liberality was the maintenance of status, which in turn depended more on ways of spending than on mere income. As Sir Thomas Smith remarked in the reign

of Elizabeth, ‘a Gentleman, (if he will be so accounted) must go like a Gentleman’.* This use of expenditure as the acid test of rank means that status bore a closer relation to income than it does in some modern Western communities, like England, where education, accent, and professional occupation are all of crucial importance. It also means that in the effort to maintain status many families overreached themselves, fell heavily into debt, and eventually sold their

patrimony and disappeared. At some stage along this dismal road they would be forced to violate another of the conventions of their class and oppress the tenantty in an effort to find the money to maintain expenditure. Thus families like the Treshams were not only financially ruined by their excessive hospitality to their equals, but

also socially discredited for their excessive severity towards their tenants.

An attempt has recently been made to show that the charitable ideals and aspirations of the gentry were markedly different from—

and superior to—those of the aristocracy. “The nobility’, writes Professor Jordan (meaning the peerage proper), ‘withdrew from tesponsibility which they had once assumed as a matter of class obligation, and were as a class relatively unimportant in the shaping

of the course of modern social and cultural history. . . . They left 1 Bamford, p. 230. Memoirs of the Life of Robert Carey, 1905, p. 87. CSPD, 1635-6, p. xx. Osborne, op. cit., p. 32. 2 ‘T. Smith, The Commonwealth of England, 1635, p. §7.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 45 little of their wealth for charitable uses.’ The gentry, on the other hand, are coupled with the merchants as ‘these new, these vigorous,

and these most aggressive classes which were moving with great confidence and certainty towards translating their bold aspirations into social reality by prodigal outlays of their own substance’. The

gentry are thus made to appear as ideologically allied with the merchants, and as distinct from the peerage.! That the merchants were the outstanding donors of the age is not in doubt, but there is nothing whatever to suggest that the attitude of the aristocracy differed in any significant respect from that of the

upper or the lower gentry (that is, the knights and baronets, or the squires and mere gentry). Professor Jordan’s figures provide the following data for charitable giving by the landed classes :? Peers as

Upper Lower percentage

££££

Peers gentry gentry Total of total 1480-1540 33,900 32,600 37,600 104,100 33 1541-Go 1,700 5,800 6,600 14,100 12 1561-1600 23,400 16,400 26,600 66,400 35

1601-40 55,100 88,700 75,800 219,600 25

The figures for 1541-Go ate too small to be meaningful, but those for the early and the late sixteenth-century show that the role of the

aristoctacy within the landed classes had not altered at all before 1600. Moreover, everything suggests that, relative to the gentry’s, the wealth of the peers must have been shrinking in the late sixteenth

century, and probably shrinking fast. That their share of charitable

giving was still the same under Elizabeth as it had been under the Early Tudors is therefore quite remarkable. Accurate estimates

of the distribution of wealth within the society are impossible to come by, and the only neat-contemporary attempts were made by Thomas Wilson in 1601 and Gregory King in 1688.4 If Wilson has got his proportions roughly right, the aristocracy enjoyed only about 3 per cent. of the income but was responsible for 35 per cent. of the charitable donations made by the landed classes. Even if it is argued that only men of the J.P. class could afford to give to charity, and if the 14,600 gentry below this level are therefore 1 W.K. Jordan, Philanthropy in England, 1480-1660, 1959, Pp. 322-3, 332, 339, 343.

3 See Ch. IV. 4 See App. XII. 2 Op. cit., appendix, table xi (to the nearest £100).

46 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY | excluded, the peerage still only enjoyed about 11 per cent. of the total wealth of this more restricted upper landed group. Professor Jordan has shown that in the early seventeenth century _ the peerage share in the charitable giving of the landed classes had fallen to 25 pet cent. Their numbers had doubled, but the numbers of the ‘upper gentry’ category—baronets and knights—had approximately trebled, so that there is very little change in the per capita tate of giving between the two periods.! Nor is the rate of growth of giving among the lesser gentry all that impressive, when one considers the continued increase in their numbers, and the fact that no less than £14,000 of the £75,800 recorded was contributed by a single donor, Nicholas Wadham, founder of Wadham College, Oxford.? The hypothesis that the contribution to charity of the supposedly decaying and backward-looking aristocracy was notably dif-

ferent from and inferior to that of the supposedly forward-looking and progressive gentry is not supported by the evidence. The merchants were by far the largest givers to charity at this period, and their share of the whole increased rapidly. But this does

| not necessarily mean that they had a greater sense of social responsibility than the landed classes, peers or gentry, but rather that their circumstances were very different. In the first place it is extremely probable that a higher proportion of these merchants were childless, since their families were mote exposed to disease in crowded urban conditions. There is good reason to suppose that nearly all major bequests came from the childless, and this could therefore be a factor of great significance. Secondly, if merchants were childless, they

left no title to pass on to a distant relative and therefore had no obligation to keep their property intact rather than disperse it in charitable bequests. Thirdly, their wealth was usually self-made— merchant dynasties were rare at this period—and they therefore felt unusually free to bequeath their estates as they wished (it is notice-

able that among the aristocracy some of the most generous bene-

factots were also men of the first generation). Fourthly, their wealth was mostly in the form of fluid capital which could easily be

channelled into charitable endowments. On the other hand the eteat bulk of the property of the landed classes was tied up in teal estate, much of it held only as a life-interest, while the personal 1 See Ch. III. 2 W.K. Jordan, “The Forming of the Charitable Institutions of the West of England’, Am.

Phil. Soc. Trans., 1960, p. 66, n. 141. |

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY AT estate was usually fully committed to paying off outstanding debts, funeral costs, and gratuities to old servants about to be discharged. Finally, the whole system of values of the landed classes differed

from that of the merchant. The latter spent his life in cut-throat competition, squeezing the last penny out of everyone with whom he came in contact, and then left his riches to charity. The long-term social gain of the charitable foundation must be offset by the current

social impoverishment from the dissemination throughout a wide sphere of human relations of the ethics of the market-place. The

nobleman had as keen an interest as the next man in making a quick profit, but this usually took the form of gouging an office or patent out of the Crown. He too preyed upon his neighbours, but

at a distance. Provided that he obtained in return the required marks of loyalty and obedience, he was content to be fairly lenient to his tenants, and fairly generous to the poor in his own area. This is why, although there were some striking bequests to colleges at the universities, over half of all aristocratic benefactions went to the poor. Most aristocratic charity took the form of casual gifts rather than funded capital, and therefore tends to pass unrecorded. There was a steady flow of food and alms to the needy, a matter on which the nobility and gentry continued to set great store, to judge by what they liked to have said about themselves after they were dead. “She televed the poor dealy’, records the tomb of Lady Ann Stanhope at Shelford, Notts. He was ‘Noted for... his charitable Relief of ye Poor’, says that of John Dutton at Sherborne, Glos. They have dispersed abroad, They have given to the poor: Their righteousness remaineth for ever.

These are the sentiments expressed on the tomb of Sir Edward Hext at Low Ham, Somerset, and few noblemen or gentlemen would have cared to dispute them. Nor were they mere idle boasts.

In London in the 1530’s Thomas 1st Lord Cromwell fed 200 twice a day. In the early years of Elizabeth, Edward Earl of Derby is said to have fed 60 poot every day at Knowsley, all comers three times a week, and 2,700 on Good Friday, and Henry Lord Berkeley gave the poor in the villages round Callowdon meat, bread, and beer three days a week. In 1596 Sir Thomas Egerton gave weekly alms to 62 poor persons in the City parish of St. Dunstan’s; in 1629

48 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY Lord Petre distributed alms to 105 poor people at Christmas and Faster. In times of crisis peers and gentry did what they could to mitigate disaster. In the famine yeat of 1597 Lord Buckhurst spent £155 on

buying Danzig rye at Billingsgate, which he then distributed free to the hungry villagers on his Sussex estates. In the next famine year,

1608, Robert Earl of Salisbury bought corn in London for £846 and sold it for £385 to his tenants in Hertfordshire, and Buckhurst, now Earl of Dorset, sold his own wheat in Sussex at 265. 8d. a quarter at a time when the market price stood at gos. Similarly it is recotded of Sir George Shirley of Staunton Harold that he ‘merited the glorious title of father and nourisher of the poor, relieving during the great dearth 500 a day at his gates’. In another hard year,

1630, Lord Montagu of Boughton first planned to buy corn for the poor, and in the end distributed money instead.1 Other forms of charity equally fail to get recorded in wills or foundation charters: for example, the £3,000 spent by Lord Craven

in 1630 in getting poor debtors discharged from prison; the {13 given evety year at Christmas by Robert Earl of Salisbury among the prisoners in the ten jails of London; or the {1,000-odd he put into a scheme for employing ninety poor children near Hatfield in factories for the manufacture of new draperies and pins.” This habit of casual alms-giving has been criticized as being oldfashioned and unconsttuctive, in the sense that it relieved misery rather than attacked its causes. But given the irremediable features of all pre-industrial societies—massive undet-employment, enormous inequalities of wealth, a majority who lived only just above the bare subsistence level, and occasional famines that tipped hundreds of thousands below it—the ad hoc distribution of food and money to

the indigent was as necessary a means of dealing with the crying evils of the day as the foundation of alms-houses and hospitals for

the impotent and the sick. The latter had the singular, and not unappreciated, advantage of perpetuating the names of the donots.

Furthermore, such aristocratic charity as did take institutional forms was often distributed during life, and may therefore escape Professor Jordan’s survey, which is primarily based on a study of 1 J. Stow, Survey of London (Everyman ed.), pp. 81-82. Smyth, ii, p. 368. Bodl Rawl. MSS. D 406. Essex R.O. D/DP F 163. A. Collins, The Peerage of England, 1779, ii, p. 172. H/A 160/1.

Shirley, op. cit., p. 87. HMCB, i, p. 272; iii, p. 355. 2 FIMC Beaulien MSS., p. 112. H/B 34.B; A/160/1, 161/4; Box Q/2. HMCS, xvii, p. 623. C 2 Jas. I, M 12/41.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 49 wills. During his lifetime the puritan 3rd Earl of Huntingdon founded a grammart-school at Ashby de la Zouch, reorganized the free school at Leicester, created scholarships, founded fellowships at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, helped to set up a theological library in the parish church, reorganized and revived the local hospital, and promoted schemes for providing cheap fuel for the poor and for the setting up of a local clothing industry.! There is no evidence whatever to suggest that the charitable behaviour of the peers differed significantly from that of the upper ot lower gentry, and little to suggest that it was changing for the worse. If the allocation to charity made by all sections of the landed classes, peers, knights, and squires was pitifully small relative to their wealth, there 1s no reason to suppose that it was any less than that of similar classes at other times or in other places. Indeed, none of the great landlord é/es of the twentieth century can compare with the Elizabethan aristocracy in the matter of social responsibility. IV. CLASS DIVISIONS

On the broad view this was a two-class society of those who were gentlemen and those who were not. /As a contemporary put it with disarming simplicity, ‘All sortes of people created from the

beginninge ate devided into 2: Noble and Ignoble’. Objectors to this theory, who pointed out that all were descendants of Adam, were brushed off with the argument that ‘As Adam had sonnes of honnour, soe had hee Caine destinated to dishonout’. By the end of the sixteenth century this naive view did not even begin to fit the facts. From Sir Thomas Smith in 1583 to Sit John Doderidge in 1652, acute observers of the contemporary scene took a less idealized

view of the situation. In these days he is a gentleman who is commonly taken and reputed. And whosoever studieth in the universities, who professeth the liberall sciences and to be short who can live idly and without manuall labour and

will beare the port charge and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master... . And if need be, a King of Heralds shall give him for money armes newly made and invented with the creast and all: the title

whereof shall pretend to have bin found by the said Herauld in the perusing and viewing of old registers.” 1 C. Cross, “The Third Earl of Huntingdon and Elizabethan Leicestershire’, Leics. Arch. Soc. Trans. xxxvi, 1960.

821314 E

Inner Temple MSS. 538.44, f. 13. Smith, op. cit., p. 55. Sir John Doderidge, Honors Pedigree, 1652, pp. 147-8.

50 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY By 1640 the situation was complicated by the large number of persons who were describing themselves as ‘gent.’ or ‘master’ without

reference to the Heralds, and without any pretension to a coat of arms. Small merchants, shopkeepers in provincial towns, and minor

officials in government office were so styled, although they were still below the line in public repute, and would hardly have considered themselves in a position to converse on equal terms with,

marry their children to, or to challenge to a duel, a true landed gentleman or esquire.

Despite the blurring of the line by the devaluation of the word ‘gent.’, despite the relative ease with which it could be crossed, the division between the gentleman and the rest was basic to Elizabethan society. An essential prerequisite for membership of the élite was financial independence, the capacity to live idly without the

necessity of undertaking manual, mechanic, or even professional tasks. But other equally important qualifications were birth, education, and willingness to adopt the way of life and the system of values which prevailed among the landed classes. Moreover, the soutce of wealth was just as important as the amount, as many a ereat London merchant was mortified to discover. When Francis Bacon spoke contemptuously of ‘such worms of aldermen’ and expressed his surprise at Lionel Cranfield’s tact and ability, “more indeed than I could have looked for from a man of his breeding’, he was metely giving voice to conventional wisdom. “All the people which be in our contrie be either gentlemen or of the commonalty. The common is devided into marchauntes and manuaties generally,

what partition soever is the subdivident’, wrote the great headmaster Richard Mulcaster in 1581.!

This fundamental social division was therefore not based exclusively on wealth—indeed social divisions never are—even though achievement or retention of the higher status was impossible without it. Money was the means of acquiring and retaining status, but it was not the essence of it: the acid test was the mode of life, a concept that involved many factors. Living on a private income was one, but more important was spending liberally, dressing ele-

gantly, and entertaining lavishly. Another was having sufficient education to display a reasonable knowledge of public affairs, and to be able to perform gracefully on the dance floor and on horseback, in the tennis-court and the fencing school. By the early t Bacon, iv, p. 3133 Vv, p. 187. R. Mulcaster, Positions, 1581, p. 198.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 51 seventeenth century it even included table mannets, as 1s shown by the story of how the Earl of Carlisle dropped a man because he took

a knife out of his pocket to cut his meat, ‘the cognisance of a clowne’.!

Above and below this fundamental cleavage there were a series of important subdivisions which split both the minority at the top

and the majority at the bottom. Elizabethan and Early Stuart society can best be regarded either as a two-tiered system, as hither-

to we have treated it, or as a six-tiered system, each individual being ranked within his group according to the antiquity of his attival into it, his personal talents, and his wealth. At the very bottom there was the vagrant, the cottager, the hired labourer, the household servant, and the industrial and commercial wage-earner in factory, mine, or shop—a group which probably comprised well overt half the population. One degree above was the small freeholder ot leaseholder, the self-employed artisan, the shopkeeper, and the internal trader. These two together formed the lower groups below

the level of the gentry. Next there was an indeterminate, transitional, group consisting of the hundred-odd great export merchants of London, Exeter, Bristol, and a very few other major ports. These

great merchants were far from dominating the social, much less the political, scene. Despite their wealth, they lacked confidence in their status and pride in their occupation; their chief ambition was to pull out of trade, buy an estate, and become absorbed into the landed gentry. As a result they are the most fluid and transitory of classes, if indeed they can be called a class at all. The majority younget sons of yeomen or lesser gentry, they spent their working lives in a quite different environment and occupation; and in late middle age most of them deliberately cut loose and bought their way back into the countryside at a higher social level. The upper classes, which comprised the top 2 per cent. or so of the population, divided into three broad groups roughly defined by rank. The first were the plain gentlemen, mostly small landed ptoprietors but also in part professional men, civil servants, lawyers, higher clergy, and university dons. Above them were the county é/##e—many of the esquires and nearly all the knights and baronets, titular categories which expanded enormously in numbers

in the early seventeenth century and which in purely economic terms have an awkward tendency to merge into one another. 1 BM Harl. MSS. 6395/55.

52 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY Finally at the top there were the 60 to 120 members of the titular peerage, itself subdivided into a higher and lower subsection. In this three-tiered division of the gentle classes, the upper gentry are important as forming the link between the other two. They are the men who controlled county politics under the patronage of the local

nobleman, who provided the M.P.s and Deputy Lieutenants, and who dominated the bench of Justices. In a large southern county they seem to have comprised about 20 to 25 families, the total being

perhaps about 500 in the whole country. This group has been clearly identified in recent studies of Somerset, Wiltshire, Norfolk, and Kent, being distinguished by wealth, political influence, and style of living.’ These 500 upper gentry families are in many ways similar in attitudes and way of life to the lower reaches of the peerage, and it was with them, or with the leading elements among them, that social and matrimonial ties were maintained. Within very broad limits, and admitting many individual exceptions to the rule, the hierarchy of ranks corresponded very roughly

to categories of income, though unfortunately for the historian anomalies are too numerous to allow the generalization to be applied to individuals without careful investigation of the particulat circumstances. Contemporaries certainly thought that gradations of title meant, on an average, gradations of wealth. This was accepted by Thomas Wilson at the beginning of the seventeenth century and by a much shrewder student of the social structure, Gregory King, at the end. The hypothesis is also supported by an admittedly crude and unsatisfactory calculation of the declared wealth of Royalist peers and baronets in 1642.2 Moreover, the very sutvival of these titular rankings as an important element in English society and politics well into the nineteenth century also suggests that they bore some relation to economic realities. For in the long run, if the hierarchy of titles does not coincide fairly closely with the hierarchy of wealth, the system of stratification will sooner or later be discredited and overthrown. A condition of the survival of any system is either that society is static, with no new wealth being acquired except by the privileged classes, or else that money, from 1 Barnes, op. cit., p. 11. VCH Wilts. v, p. 122. A. H. Smith, The Elizabethan Gentry of Norfolk (London Ph.D. thesis, 1959), pp. 3-5. A. M. Everett, The County Committee of Kent in the Civil War, Leicester, 1957, p. 8. 2 Wilson, pp. 22-23. C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism, Oxford,

1962, p. 280. E. C. Klotz and G. Davies, ‘The Wealth of Royalist Peers and Baronets’, EHR, Iviii, 1943.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 53 however tainted a soutce, is permitted to purchase status. Only if he is certain that his son, if not himself, will enjoy the position and respect commensurate with his wealth, will the self-made man be content to accept the built-in rigidities of the stratification system as he finds it. It has been the readiness of the landed classes to accept on equal terms wealth from any source at one generation’s remove

which has given the English social framework its remarkable stability, despite the huge turnover of pedigreed families and the growing volume of new wealth from non-landed sources. V. THE PEERAGE

The titular peerage formed the top layer or layers of this hieratchical, pyramidal structure. In the eyes of the sixteenth century they were a distinct group of the nobility, mobi/itas mator, as distinct from the nobilitas minor of knights, esquires, and armigerous gentry;

the one was the flower, the other the root, said Richard Mulcaster in 1581. The criterion of an English peer of the realm was the right to sit in the House of Lords, a right obtained either by letters patent ot by receipt of a writ of summons. The only difference between the two was that the former descended with the tail male, and the latter with the heirs general. Since in the sixteenth century most peers

wete created by patent, male succession took on an increased importance. Already in the fourteenth century writs of summons

were issued not in tespect of legal tenure, but of wealth and political influence, the tenurial barony being ancient, vague, and outdated.’ By the end of the fifteenth century it was the usual, but by no means inevitable, practice to summon all who had previously received a writ, unless they were attainted or under age or otherwise incapacitated. Those who could no longer maintain status because

of povetty wete quietly dropped from the list. George Neville, Duke of Bedford, disappeared in 1478, the Marquis of Berkeley in 1492. If and when wealth once more came their way, however, they again took their rightful place. Thus the lords Clinton dropped out from 1460 to 1514, and the earls of Kent from 1523 until summoned again by Elizabeth in 1572. But during the sixteenth century the legal definition hardened on the basis of an inalienable hereditary right. By the reign of Elizabeth ambiguities and uncertainties had been 1 §. Painter, Studies in the History of the English Feudal Barony, Baltimore, 1943, pp. 54-55Mulcaster, op. cit., p. 200.

54 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY ironed out and there was no longer much serious doubt about who was, and who was not, a peer of the realm. The legal position was now clear. With the bare title went a number of privileges, legal, financial, and political, which distinguished the aristocracy from the lesser nobility below them. They were favoured before the law in that they could not be arrested except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace, a matter of considerable importance at a time when this was a favourite weapon in the armoury of the balked creditor. They could not be outlawed, they were free of various writs designed to force men to appear in court, they were not obliged to testify under oath. In consequence they were very slippery customers to catch in the tattered net of the contemporary common-law procedure. In criminal actions they had to be tried before their peers rather than before a common jury. This last in fact had little practical value since, if the Crown brought an action for treason or felony against a peer, the result was all but a foregone conclusion whatever the social complexion of the jury. Whenever they were asked to do so, the Lords nearly always obediently convicted the royal victim (the sole notable exception being the acquittal of Lord Dacre in 1534). The only protection their rank afforded them here was that their

bodies were safe from torture in life and dismemberment after death.

They were also free from many of the burdens of local government. They did not sit on juries, could not be pricked as sheriffs, and were not obliged to turn up at county musters. Their military obligations were assessed not by the local authorities but by six fellow peers, and their liability to tax was assessed by commissionets working directly under the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Treasurer.

The countty as a whole was assessed regionally by local commissionets, but after 1523 peers were exempted from the humilia-

tion of having to conform to the decisions of mere squires and gentry. Though there was a very sharp fall in the assessment of peers in the late sixteenth century, it is not yet certain that this exceeded the general trend towards undet-assessment of the propertied classes. Here again, therefore, the difference was one of form tather than of substance. Hereditary noblemen could in fact, though not in theory, expect that most if not all high offices in the royal household, some embassies, some military commands, and most Lord-Lieutenancies should

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 55 be reserved for them to the exclusion of mete commoners. Indeed by the reign of Charles I the peerage had achieved almost a complete monopoly of this last office, twenty-nine out of the thirty-three holders being earls or their heirs male, the remainder being made up of two viscounts, one baton, and a bishop.! But they could lay no claims to any of the greater offices of state, like those of Lord Treasurer or Lord Chancellor, nor to any fixed proportion of seats on the Privy Council. Holders of high political ofice were usually given

titles to increase the respect accorded to them and to their office, and some important offices were always given to old aristocratic families to secure their support and strengthen their loyalty, but

hereditary claims as such were never recognized by either the Tudors or the Early Stuarts. Finally the peers sat apart, along with the bishops, in one of the two tepresentative assemblies of the kingdom which together, and

in conjunction with the King, made up Parliament. Owing to a concentration of modern research upon the lower house, the great power exercised by the Lords in Tudor legislation is in danger of being seriously underestimated. Within this body the importance of lay peets was greatly increased first by the disappearance of the abbots at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and then by the collapse of the prestige and social standing of the bishops. After 1560 the Upper House was dominated and controlled by the lay peers,

the bishops having already taken up their now familiar role of obsequious yes-men for the current ruling clique. Moteover, since peers, unlike commonerts, were entitled to vote by proxy, even the aged or infirm who could not stand the journey to London were able to influence decisions by entrusting their proxy to a friend of similar outlook. Looked at as a power é/i#e, they consistently filled

high political office, they occupied at least half the seats in the Privy Council Gf only thanks to concurrent elevation to a title), they formed one of the two legislative bodies in Parliament, they had a near monopoly of the Lord-Lieutenancies, and they were in a position to exercise great influence on county politics and administration by virtue of their territorial holdings and their train of clients. It was the peerage who stole the limelight in the Tudor political system, even if it was the gentry whose interests ultimately

prevailed. If the gentry were the ruling, the aristocracy were the governing class. 1 APC, 1629-30, p. 214.

56 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY The significance of these privileges and distinctions should not be over-emphasized. They conferred certain benefits, and served to mark the peerage off from the rest of the community, but they were of limited economic ot legal importance. The immunities before the law were helpful rather than decisive, and no one waxed rich merely

by being in a position to bilk creditors or evade parliamentary taxes. This is in striking contrast with the situation on the Continent,

where a title of nobility conferred favours so enormous as to cut their holders off from the rest of the community upon the fruit of whose labours they existed. English historians in the Whig tradition

have in consequence been inclined to picture this country as one with a long history as an open society. This is an ovet-simplification.

Social stratification was vety rigid indeed in seventeenth-century

England, and mobility from the lower levels into the upper gentlemanly bracket, which had been so common half a century before, was becoming increasingly difficult by 1640. Legal and fiscal

inequalities existed, privilege was king. Those who belittle these facts, who pretend that seventeenth-century England was a land of free opportunity, who profess to be unable to distinguish between

a gentleman and a baronet, a baronet and an earl, betray their insensitivity to the basic presuppositions of Stuart society. On the other hand, it is equally misleading to claim that English society was vittually indistinguishable from that which flourished

on the continent of Europe before the French Revolution. The permeation of eighteenth-century society by merchant wealth, the

otientation of late-seventeenth- and eighteenth-century foreign policy towatds the promotion of economic interests, the influence in the House of Commons of the East Indies or the West Indies interest, the heavy burden of taxation born by the landed nobility, the importance of joint stock investments and the Bank of England,

the relative freedom from personal oppression and economic misery of the peasantry, all point to the fact that there were striking differences between the two societies. The titular peerage, then, was a status group defined by special privileges of its own, and the major component of a power é/sfe.

But was it anything more than that? Was it a class in the narrow sense of the word, a body of men with similar economic interests, enjoying similar incomes detived from similar sources? There can be no doubt that landed income was a basic criterion of title.

Edward Chamberlayne explained in 1669 that “The laws and

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 57 customs of England ... expected that each of [the degrees of honour] should have a convenient estate and value of lands of inheritance, for the support of their honours and the King’s service’. As we have seen, after the middle of the sixteenth century, impoverished peers ceased to be excluded from the House of Lords. One result of the boarding up of this convenient drop-hatch for the

indigent was the development of a potential discrepancy between wealth and title. This was why in 1629 the House of Lords petitioned the King to give the Earl of Oxford an estate, so that he could support his dignity. Failing royal aid—and it usually did fail—the only solution was to trade title for money in marriage with

an heiress. On the other hand, it continued to be widely accepted that wealth was an essential qualification for the aspiring social climber. Burghley’s list of candidates for the peerage in 1588 was headed ‘Knightes of great possessions’; and the financial basis of

titular status was openly recognized by the practice of selling peerages, baronetages, and knighthoods. Buckingham was attacked in the Commons for giving peerages to poor relations, and Oliver Cromwell was similarly reproved thirty years later. “It 1s estates that make men Lords and esteemed in the country’, he was told.!

Despite these backsliders from the conventions of the day, entry into the higher status groups continued to be directly related to wealth—and landed wealth at that. The result was that, on the average and without prejudice to individual exceptions, legal status | remained a reasonably close indicator of financial means. On the other hand, 1t would be foolish to deny that there was a considerable ‘looseness’, as Talcott Parsons would call it, between the cream of the gentry—the handful of leading county families— and the lower ranks of the peerage. There were 121 peerage families

in 1641 and there were probably another 30 to 40 upper gentry families who were as tich as the middling barons and richer than the poor ones. There wete some vety wealthy families like the Pastons or the Thynnes who for one reason or another refused or were not offered a title, there were some new peets who wete never

tich, like Boteler or Mohun or Savile, and there were some old peers who had become poor, like Vaux or Stourton or Windsor. If we regard the gentry ¢/rte and the titular peerage as forming a single class, we can see that it is defined in a number of ways. In 1 Chamberlayne, op. cit., p. 451. BM Lansd. MSS. 104/23. LJ, iv, pp. 34, 39. J. Rushworth, Historical Collections, i, p. 339. J. Firth, House of Lords in the Great Civil War, 1910, p. 257.

58 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY , the first place, its members stood out because of theit wealth. As a result of this wealth, they lived in a more opulent style than their neighbours with more servants, more horses, more coaches, and

a mote open table. They occupied a larger house, built on the court-yard or E plan, rather than that of the “double-pile’ favoured

by those of lesser means. They were often educated by private tutors, they were fellow commoners at the university, and they rounded off their adolescence with the Grand Tour. They mostly matried among themselves. They or their sons controlled or filled the county seats in Parliament. They were bound by the same moral pressure to spend freely, to serve the State, and to treat their

tenants well. Whatever may be said of the earls, therefore, the baronage at any given time only represents the majority of the greater landownets of the country. Although for some purposes the lives of this non-noble gentry é/ze are freely drawn upon for illustrative material, the statistical skeleton of this book is the titular peerage. This is a defensible procedure since the peerage, embracing

as it does about two-thirds of the total families in this economic class—and all those in the really very high income bracket—may fairly be taken as a representative selection. Thete is no doubt, however, that the representative value of the peerage changes over the eighty years from 1560 to 1640. A reasonable majority grouping of the greater landowners in 1560, by 1600 it had urgent need to admit new blood to maintain the close relationship of title to landed wealth. This was achieved by James in 1603, but the massive inflation of the peerage under the Duke of Buckingham introduced new elements of uncertainty. A number of the new arrivals lacked the financial backing needed to maintain the position of a baron, while by now some members of the older aristocracy had fallen upon hard times. Moreover, there had been admitted one or two rich merchants. Although these men had conscientiously shifted their wealth from trade into broad actes and a country seat, they wete nevertheless too fresh from

} the counting-house to have had time to wash their hands. At the same time the way of life of the older aristocracy been transformed. No longer interested in manpower, they had begun to exploit mote fully the financial possibilities of their estates, they had abandoned the tigours of military service, they had migrated from the country to the Court, they had reduced their households and cut down on the excesses of rural hospitality, they had turned

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 59 eagerly to joint stock adventures, urban development, and mining

speculations. The peerage in 1640 was a landed aristocracy increasingly devoted to money-making, infiltrated partly by a capitalist bourgeoisie obsessed with aristocratic pretensions, and partly by jumped-up lesser gentry who owed their elevation to political favour but some of whom had failed to extract from the Crown the favour of a great landed estate with which to endow their successors.

Unattractive though it may be to those with romantic illusions about rank and title, it has been the successful fusion of old blood,

new wealth, and political careerism that has given the English peerage its remarkable capacity for survival over the past three centuties.

If the titular peerage was a status group and if together with a further thirty or forty families it formed a single economic class, it remains true nevertheless that there were both marked internal gradations and important differences between the numerous variables in ranking which together formed the social stratification system. Within the peerage dukes, marquises, and earls were in economic resoutces, political influence, and social prestige set some-

what apart from viscounts and barons. The significance of this division is shown by the fact that, when titles were offered for sale by James, it cost just as much to rise from a baron to an earl as from a gentleman to a baron. The wealth of earls and above was on the average much greater than that of viscounts and below, the Royalist Composition papers suggesting that in 1642 it averaged as much as double. With this far greater wealth went a distinctly superior style of living, far greater territorial influence, and a claim to offices at Court to which no mere barons could reasonably aspire simply by virtue of their titles. Here, therefore, is a rift of some importance in the ranks of the peerage, which it will be necessary to emphasize from time to time if a misleading impression of homogeneity is not to be created. Another obvious division was that of birth, between great families of several generations’ standing and those but newly risen to wealth and dignity. At all periods men of inherited position have tended to

_ forget the humble and often sordid origins of their family greatness, and have looked with distaste upon the rise of new men to their own degree of eminence. Bacon remarked complacently that ‘new nobility is but the act of power, but antient nobility is the act of time’, an observation which is more revealing of his prejudices

60 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY than of his understanding. ‘This is a normal feature of any society and must not be taken too seriously. We need not talk of vertical

divisions between old and new cutting through the horizontal layers of society. The Elizabethan peerage was fairly free from these tensions, since by 1558 the wave of immigrants to the shores of the

peerage in the hungry forties had now settled down and achieved some measure of respectability. During the previous quarter of a

century new families—Rich, Herbert, Seymour, Wriothesley, Paulet, Dudley, Paget, and others—had edged the older peers from

the seats of power and filled up the Privy Council. The Percys, Talbots, Stanleys, and Howards had fallen into the background, and they resented their neglect. But when on the eve of his execution in 1572 the Duke of Norfolk made Lord Burghley the guardian of his children, he tacitly acknowledged the end of bitterness. Awareness of the difference between the medieval military and the Henrician

administrative nobility lingered on among the poor rather than among the aristocracy itself. It found expression in popular revolts like the Pilgrimage of Grace, and cropped up again in the reign of Elizabeth. In 1601 a William Hansley of Market Rasen grumbled

publicly that ‘there was none of noble blood left in the privy council’. “What are the Cessels’, he asked contemptuously, ‘are they

any better than pen-gent.°’! He, if no one else, saw the difference between a noblesse d’épée and a noblesse de robe.

It was only in the second decade of the seventeenth century that feelings began to run high. After 1615 a mass of new creations came

flooding in, several of them of base stock, many of mean estate, others men who owed their rise to little else than a distant family connexion with the wide Villiers clan. At the same time a leap-frog process was taking place within the peerage itself as barons old and new scrambled for the earldoms which were now up for sale. The hatreds generated by this process had a marked effect upon the political attitude of the House of Lords in the 1620’s, but by 1641, after twelve years of virtual moratorium on new creations, harmony was well on the way to being restored; political alignments on the

eve of the Civil War owed little to specific questions of ancestry, though many older peers were still lukewarm in their loyalty to a king who had so abused their order. Conflict between old and new was therefore a significant factor only for a limited period of about fifteen yeats. t HMCS, xi, p. 586. F. Bacon, Essays: Of Nobility.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 61 Mote difficult to gauge is the importance of the divisions between tich and poor within the peerage. Both in 1559 and in 1641 the differences in wealth were certainly enormous. In the latter year

thete was not only a wide gap in the size and value of territorial holdings, but also a gulf between those who could and those who could not exploit mineral resources, drain fens, or develop urban property. There was also a vast, unbridgeable gap between those holding plums in the government service, and those without.The titular status of the Sheiks of Kuwait and Sharjah is identical, although their incomes differ by a factor of a 1,000 or more. In 1641 the titular rank of the earls of Bath and Strafford was identical,

although their gross incomes from all sources differed by a factor of 25. Status stratification and economic stratification are two semiautonomous processes, and this wide divergence between the two need not distress us unduly. Attitude, ideology, and aspirations were identical, even if power and income were not. Moreover, by the seventeenth century a fairly effective rheostat had been devised to prevent a nobleman dropping too far behind or forging too far ahead of the economic group that was suitable to his rank. His title had a market value, and if the going got too rough he could always cash it by martying the daughter of some low-born but rich and aspiring merchant. From that day to this the glitter of a coronet has

always proved an irresistible bait to the City trout. Conversely, stupendous wealth often led to stupendous dissipation, stupendous debts, reckless generosity to younger children, and massive land sales, and it was not till the second half of the seventeenth century that this natural safety valve was blocked off by the legal device of

the strict settlement. In the early seventeenth century, therefore, the incomes of most of the peerage tended to bunch around a mean. The enormously rich and the relatively poor were still exceptions and anomalies.

It is helpful for some purposes to look upon the class divisions among those of gentry status and above in a quite different way: to classify them as members either of a ‘court’ or a ‘country’ group. According to this method the courtiers are lumped together with the royal officials, some lawyers, the higher clergy, the customs farmers, and the monopoly merchants of the capital to form a single

eroup whose interests were diametrically opposed to those of the test of the population, the clash between the two being the basic cause of the domestic upheavals in so many countries in Europe in

62 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY the middle of the seventeenth century. It could further be argued that in England the courtiers proper formed a distinct culture group of their own, particularly in the 1620’s and 1630’s when religious beliefs, tastes in interior decoration, painting, architecture, sculptute, poetry, and music, attitudes towards sex, drink, and gambling, all differed widely from those prevalent in the country at large. There was also a geographical separation of those who lived in or about the Court and Westminster from those who resided on their country estates, to say nothing of differences in the scale and nature of spending.

This concept is petfectly valid in certain contexts, though it is wrong to treat it as a simple unitary explanation of a very complex political and social situation. It must be accepted that a courtier earl

often had mote in common with a courtier gentleman than with a countty earl. Though his epithet was more emotive than illuminatine, Sir Arthur Heselrige put his finger on a real point when he observed that ‘court lords and country lords differed: court lords wete always biassed’.! Because of this special interest the ideas and actions of gentlemen who had no particular territorial standing but wete powerful figures at Court, men like Sir Walter Ralegh or Sir Thomas Lake, have also been used in this book to illustrate certain aspects of the life of a nobleman. As we shall see, most peers were

part-time or full-time courtiers for some of theit career, whereas the same cannot be said for any important segment of the gentry, even the é/i#e. As a dynamic institution the Court cannot be studied

prosopographically over a prolonged period since not only the individuals but also the families that composed it were always changing. The nearest we can get to an analysis of the courtier in time is by taking the peerage as a whole and treating them as a representative majority sample of the group which were most regularly attendant upon the Court. It would be foolish to claim that in 1558 and in 1641 all titular peets wete men of similar wealth or even of identical interests. Some were the owners of vast territorial possessions stretching over a dozen counties or more, others were confined to a few manors in

a single county; some were regularly attendant at Court and frequent holders of high political office; others resided habitually in the country and cultivated their gardens; some, but very few, could trace their ancestry back to the twelfth or thirteenth century, 1 Diary of Thomas Burton, 1828, iv, p. 82.

THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY 63 others, but very few, were obscure products of Jacobean capitalism;

some were men of the highest cultivation, leading England back into Europe by their judicious patronage of the arts; others were country boots who could talk of nothing but hawks and hounds and the price of mutton; others again were city louts whose vision was limited to alehouses, dice, and drabs. But for all that, they still tepresented—at any rate up to about 1620—an ¢é/ze with distinct legal and political privileges, a common outlook upon their social duties, and a common motivation arising from a common soutce of income in the land. As late as 1640 most of them conformed to this pattern, even if there were increasing numbers of exceptions to the tule, the obstinate countryman, the almost landless, the ex-merchant with an eye to maximum profits. Looked at from one point of view,

in terms of economic-occupational ranking, they comprised the majority of the class of very large landowners: in the 1630’s the Earl of Kingston and Thomas Thynne were both membets of it. Looked at from another, in terms of political power, they included

the majority of the fairly homogeneous group of influential courtiers : in the 1630’s the Earl of Carlisle and Sir Thomas Jermyn were both members of it. But while the earls of Carlisle and Kingston had something in common, the same interest in preserving the

privileges of status, the same political club, the same titular rank, the same kinship connexions, Thynne and Jermyn had nothing. Looked at from a third angle, in terms of local power, the peerage

included the majority of a fairly homogeneous group whose influence on local affairs was paramount. ‘This was another variable in the stratification system, which did not operate quite like that of influence at Court. In the late sixteenth century Lord Chandos was

known as ‘King of the Cotswolds’ and the Earl of Lincoln lorded

it over parts of Lincolnshire, but at Court they were less influential and less respected than a mete favourite like Ralegh, and of negligible consequence in comparison with a powerful official like sackville or Egerton.

By the mid-sixteenth century there had been established the doctrine of the fixed hereditary title. As a result the peerage had become a geological formation, the offspring of compacted layers of new men who generation after generation, over a long period of time, had fought their way to the top. Only if a title still brought with it a common ideology, educational privileges, favoured treat-

ment in the struggle for political office, special legal and fiscal

64 THE PEERAGE IN SOCIETY privileges, and exceptional opportunities for financial gain could such a collection of individuals maintain its position at the apex of the social pyramid. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,

these criteria wete largely, but not wholly, fulfilled. To use a sociologist’s terminology, the upper ranges of society in 1558 were

not very far off a position of status equilibrium. Although disequilibrium was developing by 1641, the process had not gone so far as to pteclude substantial recovery after the Restoration.

The titular peerage should be seen, therefore, as the majority component, and the only common factor, in a whole series of overlapping ranking variables in a hierarchical social structure. Though dear to the simple-minded historian, clear and well-defined classes—

either as economic categories ot as self-conscious social phenomena—tarely exist in reality. Imperfect though the identification may be, the titular aristocracy is something more than a statistical convenience for the social historian ina hurry. It comprised the most

important element in a status group, a power ¢//e, a Court, a class of very rich landlords, an association of the well-born.

{il THE INFLATION OF HONOURS ‘It pityethe me to se all the partes of this kingdom almost in Flames of Fyrie quarelles, only for goinge before, and no man more contentious for yt then suche as wear wonte to go behynde’ (memorandum by a herald in 1604: Bodl Wood MSS. F 21, f. 22).

I, INTRODUCTION

THE most immediately distinctive feature of a society dependent upon monarchy is the existence of titles of honour. Their purpose is to define and to preserve the various gradations of society, both to act as a check upon fluidity and to set the seal of official recognit-

tion upon such fluidity as occurs. Since at all periods before the twentieth century social position has depended upon landed wealth,

and since that wealth can be rapidly acquired by persons of base extraction, usually by public office, trade, or the law, there has always been a large element of make-believe about the whole business. From earliest times newly enriched families have been hastily provided with genealogies and titles commensurate with theit new wealth. The system thus maintains a precarious balance between a rigidly unalterable hierarchy and a situation of absolute mobility. When mobility occurs, it is hastily made respectable by the fiction of gentle birth and the official stamp of rank or title by which Princes contrive ‘of vessells of contempt to make vessells of eminency’.!

So elaborate a convention will only function satisfactorily if too much strain is not placed upon it. In the first place the hierarchy

of titles cannot be left to look after itself: 1t has to be carefully watched and tended so as to prevent its gradual disappearance. The natural erosion of families by the failure of the male line demands a steady flow of new creations so as to keep up the numbers. As the preamble to the patent of creation of Lord Darcy of Chiche in 1551 observed, “the pre-excellent estate and dignity of baron, almost wiped out by various chances and by death, cannot

821314 F

? Queen’s College, Oxford, MS. 114, f. 26%.

66 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS be restored to its former splendour unless those who have been most useful to [the King] and the realm as leaders in war and counsellors in peace are advanced to it’.1 On the other hand there is the contrary danger of elevating too many persons, of too humble social origins, a process which, if accompanied by scandal, exposes

the artificiality of the contrivance, and makes it the subject of public contempt and ridicule. Between 1540 and 1640 there steadily built up an intense acquisitive pressure for outward marks of social distinction. As we have

seen, the century witnessed changes in the composition of the Enelish landed classes which were quite unprecedented in their scope. Families rose and fell with extraordinary rapidity, and those that rose, from yeomen to gentlemen, from gentlemen to squires

and beyond, urgently demanded some open recognition of their new position. Since a gentleman by his very nature pursued no profession ot occupation with an agreed system of advancement, social prestige was the sole outlet into which his competitive instincts could be channelled. The flood of aspirants to the peerage can only be understood if it is set in the context of the tidal wave that was sweeping through all the higher reaches of English society.

Il, THE GENTRY

In illiterate societies, changes in the composition of the higher ranks of society ate made respectable, and indeed ate concealed from public view, by altering the genealogies handed down by

oral tradition. The growth of written records, however, makes such a process much mote difficult, since more is required than a conveniently feeble memory; fraud, and even forgery, have now to be employed. This thankless task had in 1417 been placed in the hands of the College of Heralds, whose duty it was to smother new wealth beneath a coat of arms and a respectable pedigree. Since the heralds made their living by the issue of these certificates of gentility, and since the number of aspirants was increasing at a tremendous pace, it is hardly surprising if a large element of venality soon ctept in. Indeed the profits were such that they tempted confidence tricksters into the business, who toured the country distributing

worthless coats of arms to the gullible. One such bogus herald, operating in Cheshite in 1579, succeeded in taking money off 1 CPR, If fo-J3, Pp. 135.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 67 neatly ninety gentry before he was exposed. The only real checks

on these practices and on totally unauthorized assumptions of arms were the official Visitations, carried out by the heralds about

once a generation between 1530 and 1686.' The result of rapid changes in land ownership was an unprecedented torrent of claims for arms in the early Elizabethan period. In the thirty years between 1560 and 1589, over 2,000 grants were made, followed by at least another 1,760 from 1590 to 1639 (Fig. 2).2 In consequence there 800

700 Yy

vv

, 600 7 Yi

MI

£ 400 Yy YY "GG

7/7/77 : 300 Yo Yip

100 GY Yy YY Y; Yi

1560 80 1600 20 40 Fic. 2. Grants of Arms, 1560-1639

was a dramatic increase in the number of the gentry. In 1433 there

had been only forty-eight families of gentry status recorded in Shropshire, but in 1623 there were 470 who laid claim to it. In Staffordshire in 1583 over 200 families were summoned to prove their claims. By the Restoration numbers had risen still farther, ovet 400 in Kent and overt 7oo in Yorkshire being summoned to prove their claims.3

To do the heralds justice, they did in fact make some efforts to

preserve the use of coat armour from utter debasement. For example, they rejected the claims of 47 in Staffordshire in 1583, of

95 in Shropshire in 1623, of 51 in Kent in the 1660’s, the public 1 Talbot F, f. 325. Berkshire was visited in 1532, 1566, 1623, and 1665-6 (W. H. Rylands, The Visitations of Berkshire, i (Harl. Soc. Publ. tv1), 1907, p. v). For the Visitation methods and the surviving records see A. R. Wagner, The Records and Collections of the College of Arms, 1952, pp. 55-84, and Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1956; N. H. Nicholas, Catalogue of Heralds’ Visitations in the British Museum, 1825.

2 See Appendix I. 3 Fuller, pt. ii, p. 12. G. Grazebrook and J. P. Rylands, The Visitation of Shropshire, 1623 (Harl. Soc. Publ. xxvi11), 1889, p. xi. William Salt Soc. Collections, iii, pt. ii, 1883, p. xii. G. J. Armitage, The Visitation of Kent, 1663-68 (Harl. Soc. Publ. t1v), 1906, p. ix. W. Dugdale, The Visitation of Yorkshire, 1665-6 (Surtees Soc. xxxvi), 1859.

68 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS method by which their decisions were announced being calculated to give the greatest possible humiliation to the offending families. The procedure at Stafford in 1583 was described as follows: These names being writtne on a sheet of paper with fower great letters, was carried by the Bayliffe of the Hundred & one of the Heraulds men to the cheife towne of that Hundred; where in the cheife place thereof the

heraulds men redd the names (after crye made by the Bayliffs and the people gathered) & then pronounced by the said bayley every mans name severally contayned in the said Bill; that done, the Bayley sett the said Bill of Names on a post fast with waxe where it may stand drye...in the cheifest place of the said towne.!

But these efforts were too intermittent and haphazard to do much to stop the rot, and in any case were more concerned with ptesetving the lucrative monopoly of the heralds than with maintaining social distinctions. Indeed the ignorance, carelessness, and venality of the heralds soon became notorious. There was serious trouble in the 1560’s, followed by an attempted tightening up by the Earl Marshal, and in 1597 Garter’s authority to sell arms was called in question—much to the consternation of his clients. The telaxing of standards by the heralds was dramatized by the revelation in 1616 that Sir William Segar, Garter King of Arms, had been

tricked by the York Herald into selling arms (for 225.) to that ovetwotked man, Gregory Brandon, the common hangman of London—the arms being those of the Kingdom of Aragon with a Canton of Brabant. King James was furious and wanted personally

to pass judgement on the culprits in Star Chamber, but was persuaded to be content with putting them in the Marshalsea for a few days. A generation later, in 1639, there was another scandalous incident when Norroy King of Arms and Somerset Herald were fined and dismissed for accepting a bribe of £30 to forge the signatute of a deceased Notroy to a fraudulent coat of arms. As early as 1587 Robert Cooke, Clarenceux, had admitted that the heralds were declining in public esteem, and Bulstrode Whitelocke only reflected common opinion thirty years later when he observed that ‘if a man be rich, though unknown from where he came, the officets at arms can easily be persuaded, for a gratuity, to afford him the title and arms of a gentleman’.? The root of the trouble I BM Harl. MSS. 1173, f. 85. 2 BM Cotton MSS, Faustina C VII, f. 2; EI, f. 138; Lansd. MSS. 255, t. 219; Harl. MSS.

5176, ff. 226.227". HMC Bath MSS. i, p. 40. Ch, ii, p. 48. CSPD, 1639, p. 2. Memoirs of Bulstrode Whitelocke, ed. R. H. Whitelocke, 1860, p. 36.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 69 was that it was not at all clear where the heralds’ duty lay. It was their function to accommodate new families to the old structure of titles of honour, and yet they were despised and hated by the older families for their pains, and readily believed—too often with justification—to be acting merely from corrupt motives. In 1615 it was estimated—with great exaggeration—that 7,000 persons had assumed coats of arms since 1567. The idea of turning this social inflation to the financial advantage of the Crown rather than of the College of Arms was first mooted in the summer of 1611,

when the project of baronets had just been successfully launched. It was pointed out that in Scotland before 1603 James had taken strong measures to prevent the unauthorized assumption of arms,

a ptocess which had proceeded so far in England as to create setious confusion of rank, and to constitute a dangerous challenge

to royal authority. It was therefore proposed to hold an Earl Marshal’s Court to which would be summoned all claimants to the

title of gentleman whose right the heralds would not support under oath. The court would then either fine those convicted or sell them the right of confirmation. Four years later a more ambitious scheme was put forward of disclaiming all new gentry since

1567 on the grounds of non-compliance with a long-forgotten decree of the Marshal’s Court of 1566, unless they would pay £20 or £30 apiece for confirmation.'! But fear of the intense hostility

that would be aroused amongst so numerous and influential a group no doubt prevented these projects being taken up. The inflation of armigerous gentry was allowed to proceed unhampered until by 1682 even Sir William Dugdale was compelled to admit that ‘these marks of honour, called arms, ate now by most people erown of little esteem.” ‘The first step in eminencie before common Gentrie’ was the rank of esquire, which was theoretically confined to the younger

sons of peers and their heirs male, the heirs male of knights, esquites of the body, and officials such as judges, sheriffs, and officers 1n the royal household. Its use was supposed to be regulated by Heraldic Visitations, but in practice little could be done ™ BM Lands. MS. 152, f. 135. CA, i, p. 584. BM Cotton MSS, Faustina C VIII, ff. 2, 3; the decree had declared that no new grants of arms were to be made by the heralds without the written consent in each case of the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk. 2 W. Dugdale, The Antient Usage in Bearing ...-Arms, 1682, preface.

70 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS to check it.! In the middle years of James’s reign, when the Government was desperately looking for revenue and was turning actively

to the sale of titles, Sir Robert Knollys presented a project for an office for the regulation and sale of the title of esquire, which was very similar to the 1614 scheme for selling the right to the title of gentleman.

Knollys suggested the issue of a proclamation setting up a committee of the Privy Council to sift all claims to the title of esquire. Applicants would have their titles confirmed for life by letters patent in return for a payment of £20, while those who did not apply would be debarred from its use. With the usual gross optimism of the projector, Knollys calculated ‘that there are in England and Wales att least 40 or 50,000 who doe wrongfully take to them selves that tytle’, adding that even if there proved to be only 25,000, the device would still bring in £500,000 to the toyal coffers. As for Knollys himself, he merely asked for the office of keeping the register and drawing and engrossing the patents.? But the intense hostility that would have been aroused among the class

of influential gentry was presumably thought to outweigh the financial profits, and the scheme was not taken up. As a result the title of esquire proceeded smoothly along its course towards its

present meaningless and degraded position. By 1641 vittually evety gentleman in Yorkshire with an annual income of more than

£250 was describing himself as esquire. The precise position on the downward slope that had been reached by 1660 is revealed by Pepys. Appointed secretary to Lord Admiral Montagu, he records the receipt of his first letter addressed to ‘“S, P. Esq.”, of which God knows I was not a little proud’.3 A title once reserved for the leading county families was now thought suitable for a mere Admiral’s secretary, though it still had sufficient cachet to tickle his vanity. The two lowest ranks of honour, which were not under the direct

petsonal control of the sovereign, underwent severe inflation throughout the whole period from 1558 to 1641, and it is clear that in the end the increase in numbers was tesulting in a debasement of t J. Selden, Titles of Honour, 1614, p. 343. F. Markham, The Booke of Honour, 1625, p. 62. 2 Inner Temple MSS. 538. 44, f. 264. BM Harl. MSS. 1323, f. 278. It may be in connexion with this project that the right to the title by birth was solemnly redefined at an Earl Marshal’s Court in March 1616 (Bod! Carte MSS. 78, f- 509). 3 J. T. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry on the Eve of the Civil War (London Ph.D. thesis, 1960), p. 11. Pepys, 25 March 1660.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 71 values. It was common knowledge that arms were easy to come by, and so the socially ambitious moved on to seek higher titles so as to distinguish themselves from the now contemptible ruck of atmigerous gentry and esquires. Ill. THE KNIGHTAGE The title of knight originally involved military obligations, and

even in the sixteenth century it preserved some vestiges of its ancient function in that it was often given under royal commission by military commanders in the field. By now, however, this aspect

was falling into the background, and in 1583 Sir Thomas Smith could observe that knights were usually made ‘according to the yeetly revenue of their lands’.! In the later Middle Ages numbers had tended to decline alarmingly. In 1324 there were about 1,200 in England, but by 1434 in fourteen counties there were hardly mote than 73. In five counties in 1436 there were only 18 knights

where in 1324 there had been over 140, and it has been estimated | that in 1439 there may have been as few as 250 in the whole country.

In the Yorkist period the numbers picked up again slightly and by 1490 there were probably about 375.7 With the advent of the Tudors knighthoods were distributed more freely, particularly during the wars with France in the middle of the century. Thus there wete 374 creations from 1537-58 or about seventeen a year, so that by the accession of Elizabeth there must have been about 600 of so in the countty.3 As in everything else, Elizabeth was remarkably parsimonious in her distribution of honouts, and the numbers of English knights

failed to increase during her reign, despite the rapid growth of population and the upward thrust of many new families into the squirearchy (Fig. 3). In the first fifteen years of the reign, from 1558 to 1573, only 153 knights were made, or about 10 a year, and

of these some 4o were Irish. In the next decade, 1574-83, new creations rose to 178 (of whom 29 were made in Ireland), but even so the total number of knights in the country must have fallen by

half to about 300, ,

tT. Smith, The Commonwealth of England, 1635, p. 43. 2 $.L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, Chicago, 1948, p. 276. J.C. Wedgwood, History of Parliament, 1439-1509, 1, 1936, p. xxxv. Cf, N. Denholm-Young, ‘Feudal Society in

the Thirteenth Century: the Knights’, History, xxix, 1944. There were still only 69 in 17 counties in 1501 (BM Harl. MSS. 813, f. 62). 3 See Appendix II.

72 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS

°|

In the last twenty years of the reign, creations were ostensibly fairly large, 257 from 1584 to 1593 and 290 from 1594 to 1603. But

these gross figures conceal the fact that the numbers knighted in England actually fell from 149 in 1574-83 to 110 and 73 in the next two decades. The bulk of the new knights were made up of adven-

turers in the Irish wars and volunteers in the various military

500 . 450 | | 3250 350 | 7 200 | 150 | | . 100 : ! 700 O34) 650

600 550

» 400 S

Y 300

50 ie | "| | | =|

1558 (5701580 1590-1600 1610-1620»: 1630—«*N 31 Dec

Fic. 3. Creations of English Knights, 1558-1641

expeditions of the age, all of whom received their titles from the Lord Deputy or the Lord General. Essex was particularly generous with these favours and thereby incurred the Queen’s indignation. He began modestly during the disastrous siege of Rouen in 1591, when he made twenty-one. On the Cadiz expedition of 1596, he and Lord Howard of Effingham dubbed no fewer than sixty-eight knights, some of whom were of such humble otigin and modest fortune as to incur a good deal of public derision. Some indeed appear to have gone on the expedition merely to pick up the title and Hugh Beeston openly joked with his friends before he set off that ‘he hath ben a scabd squire a great while, and could now be

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 73 content to be a paltrie knight the rest of his time’. It was to these creations at Cadiz that the popular rhyme referred when it spoke of: A Knight of Cales, And a gentleman of Wales, And a laird of the North-Countree, A yeoman of Kent With his yearly rent Will buy them out all three.!

Worse still was Essex’s behaviour in his brief and inglorious Irish expedition of 1599 when he created as many as eighty-one knights, without even the justification of a military victory and against the express orders of the Queen. It was this act more than any other that rankled in the Queen’s breast and prevented Essex’s restoration to favour. Indeed Elizabeth actually proposed to issue a proclamation depriving the new knights of the precedence in public gatherings that was due to their rank, and was only prevented at the last moment by the arguments of Cecil. John Chamberlain summed up the current opinion at Court when he observed: Yt is much marvayled that this humor shold so possesse him, that not content with his first dosens and scores, he shold thus fall to huddle them up by halfe hundreds: and yt is noted as a straunge thing that a subject in the space of seven or eight yeares . . . shold upon so litle service and small desert make more knights then are in all the realme besides, and yt

is doubted that yf he continue this course he will shortly bring in tag and rag, cut and long tayle, and so draw the order into contempt.?

The lavish grants of knighthoods by the Earl of Essex may have

been the result of mete generosity of spirit, or, as his enemies suspected, part of a deliberate attempt to build up a formidable following of swordsmen. But whatever the motive, the consequences

of his action, coupled with the extreme parsimony of the Queen,

was to create the curious situation whereby numbers of young gentlemen were swaggering about London as knights, while their fathers in their country manor-houses wete obliged to content themselves with the humbler title of esquire. Worse still, a number of bankrupt and low-born adventurers in the Essex entourage had 1 Ch, i, p. 31. Fuller, pt. ii, p. 62. 2 Birch, Elizabeth, ti, pp. 448, 455-6. HMCD, ii, pp. 470-1. N. E. McClure, Le#ters of Sir

Chive” Philadelphia, 1930, p. 81. Steele, ii, no. 154. CSP Ireland, 1599-1600, p. 218.

74 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS also acquired the dignity. The knightage had certainly not fallen into contempt, but its very uneven distribution was causing considerable ill-feeling among the wealthy gentry. In 1600 Thomas Wilson estimated that there were about 500 knights in England, adding significantly ‘I reckon not among these my Lord of Essex’ Knights (whose father livinge or many of them hardly good gentlemen, and which for a difference of their Knighthood are scarnefully caled Cales [Cadiz], Roan [Rouen], or Irish Knights)’. If this estimate is correct, and the figures of new creations over the previous forty yeats tend to support it, the number of knights had probably fallen very slightly during the reign to about 550, over 25 per cent. of whom wete creations of the Earl of Essex. Robert Reyce accused

the Queen of letting ‘this late declining order’ run down, so that when she died there were only nineteen of them in Suffolk.! With the accession of King James on 24 Match 1603, royal patsimony was suddenly replaced by the most reckless prodigality :

in the first four months of the reign he dubbed no fewer than 906 knights. By December 1604 England could boast of 1,161 new knights, which means that the order had suddenly been increased

almost three-fold. It was rumoured in London at the time that James had deliberately set out to create a thousand ‘in imitation of King Arthur, who created that number, but among those who had followed him to battle’. An explanation less damaging to James’s reputation for good sense was offered by Sir Richard Baker,

who observed that “it was indeed fit to give a vent to the passage

of honour, which during Queen Elizabeth’s reign had been so stopped that scatce any county of England had Knights enow to make a jury’. Indeed it could not be denied that Elizabeth had been

unwisely sparing in her distribution of honours, and that a large number of substantial families deserved some public recognition of their position, style of living, and service in local administration.

But the careless distribution of knighthoods by King James— forty-six at a go before breakfast at Belvoir on his way south— could only bring the order into contempt.” In James’s favour it must be admitted that he could have had no personal knowledge of those he knighted, and that he was under t Wilson, p. 23. R. Reyce, The Breviary of Suffolk, ed. Lord Francis Harvey, 1902, pp. 70-72.

Henry Spelman undoubtedly underestimated in saying that there were scarcely 300 knights in 1603 (Reliquiae Spelmannianae, Oxford, 1698, p. 179). 2 CSPVen., 1603-7, p. 77. Sit Richard Baker, Chronicle of the Kings of England, 1665, p. 427.

See also Reyce, op. cit., pp. 69-70. Nichols, ii, pt. i, p. 48.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 75 considerable pressure. He was only too anxious to please his new

subjects, who pressed themselves and their claims upon him at evety step. His Scottish entourage promptly saw their chance and began selling a recommendation to the King to English gentry anxiously seeking a friend at Court. Thus ‘Englishe had the blowes and Scottish the crownes’, and though the King was angry when he got to hear of it, there was little he could do to put a stop to it. The price seems to have varied considerably. Sir William Woodhouse offered to get Henry Gawdy put on the list for £50, but the

latter refused; another offered to perform the same service for nothing, and Gawdy heard of the case of an attorney nicknamed ‘nimblechappes’ who was knighted for £7. 105. Francis Osborne, with his customary malice, later described how the system functioned. A\t this time the honour of Knighthood . . . was promiscuously laid on any head belonging to the yeamandry (made addle through pride and a

contempt of their ancestors pedigree) that had but a court-friend, or mony to purchase the favour of the meanest able to bring him into an outward roome, when the King, the fountaine of honour, came downe, and was uninterrupted by other businesse. In which case it was then

usuall for him to grant a commission for the Chamberlaine or some other Lord to do it.!

If James had been profuse in knighthoods on his journey south, it was his proclamation ordering all worth {40 a year to present themselves that opened the flood-gates.2 Conservatives like Sir Thomas Tresham wete appalled by the announcement. He estimated that there would be 400 applicants from Northamptonshire alone, ‘wherof some landless, many base and dosser headed clowns, and not one among forty worthy of that degree’. Philip Gawdy, who witnessed the occasion, said that among the throng was ‘a skumm of such as it wolde make a man sicke to thynke of them’, including ‘sheapreeves’ and yeomen’s sons and sons of London pedlars. A current joke told how ‘two walking espyed one a farr off; the one demanded what he scholde be, the other answered he seemed to t The Journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham (Camden Misc. x), 1902, p. 56. Gawdy, p. 128. HMC 7th Rep., App., pp. 528, 527. F. Osborne, Traditionall Memoyres on the Raigne of King James, 1658,

PP: T Rymer, Foedera, 1715, xvi, p. 530; this was, of course, a device of long standing that went back to the thirteenth century, but the value of money was then very different from what it was in 1603 (F. M. Nichols, ‘On Feudal and Obligatory Knighthood’, Arch, xxxix, 1863, pp. 182224).

76 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS be a gentleman. No, I warrant you, says the other, I think he is but a knight.’ Satirical verses were composed on the occasion: Come all you farmers out of the countrey, Carters, plowmen, hedgers and all.

... Honour invites you to delights, Come all to court and be made knights. ... Lhis is my counsell: think well upon it, Knighthood and Honour are now put to saile. Then quickly make haste and lett out your farmes, And I will hereafter emblazon your armes.

Within a couple of years Sir Petronel Flash was strutting the London stage, having acquired his title by dubious means. —T ken the man weel. He’s one of my thirty pound knights.’ —‘No, no, this is he that stole his knighthood o’ the grand day for four pound given to a page.’!

“The grand day’ was 23 July 1603, the day of the coronation, when 432 knights were dubbed at a single session. Three peers, Nottingham, Hunsdon, and Arundel, were empowered to act for the King and they ‘at leasure did in their wysdomes sett their swords on work at once to make confusion’. Since it was impossible

in the scramble to establish a clear chronological order, it was atgued that, unless the Crown took steps to issue an official list, interminable disputes over precedence would arise.”

For all this confusion and ridicule, the title was still eagerly sought for. Francis Bacon, anxious not to be forgotten in the rush, had taken care to advance his claims to what he described as “this divulged and almost prostituted title of knighthood’. More signi-

ficant is the fact that the price kept up, and even rose, so that in Match 1604 Sit William Stewart was asking £100 of a client for his recommendation. By now James was using the honour to tewatd anyone who took his fancy. For example, in 1605 he knighted his goldsmith, William Herrick, ‘for makinge a hole in the great diamond the King doth wear’. Wotse still was the fact that James had now forgotten his former indignation at the sale of knighthoods and was distributing the right of nomination among t HMC Var. MSS., iii, p. 126; 7th Rep., App., p. 527. Wilts. Arch. Mag. xviii, 1879, pp. 2556; for other satitical verses see All Souls College, Oxford, MSS. CLV, f. 197%. J. Marston, Eastward Ho, rv. i, 1. 185. 2 BM Cotton MSS. Vespasian F IX, ff. 55”, 56; no proclamation seems to have been issued at this time to settle the problem, but in 1623 the King ordered new knights to register their titles with the heralds to settle quarrels of precedence (Steele, i, no. 1357).

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 77 his courtiers. From them these rights passed, like stocks and shares, into general currency among London financial speculators, so that in 1606 Lionel Cranfield bought the making of six knights from his friend Arthur Ingram for £373. 1s. 8d4.!

Now that the making of a knight had become a normal method of rewarding a courtier or official, it was desirable to restrict the numbets so as to keep up the price. In the five yeats 1605-9, 371 knighthoods were created, or rather sold, an average of seventyfour a yeat. This was about as much as the market would bear if the profits to the courtiers were not to fall, for the gratuity was not the end of the cost of knighthood to the ambitious gentleman. He had also to pay the regulation fees at the ceremony, which seem to have rocketed during the Early Stuart period from about £20 to about £60. Sir William Howard’s bill in 1623 included £5 each to the heralds, the sergeants at arms, the gentlemen ushers’ daily waiters, and the gentlemen ushers of the Privy Chamber, and smaller

sums to lesser attendants at the court, ending up with ros. for the King’s jester. Archie the Fool must have made quite a handsome income out of knights.? Many were deeply distressed by the new situation and in 1604

one of the heralds wrote an essay in which he asked himself, among other things, two questions. Firstly, can a man who 1s no gentleman be made a knight? To this the answer was no, since he obtained the honour by imposing upon the ignorance of the King who did not know the facts. Secondly, ‘what is thought of such as bought or bargained for their knighthoods?’ Here the herald is still more outspoken; Without all doubt he that buyeth his knighthood looseth the honour of knighthood, and it greveth me beyond all measure that I have cause to speake my mynd of this, for it is piteous to see either the vanity or the pride or the arrogancy or the insolency of this tyme, when so many do desyre the reward of true honour and vertue, and so fewe apply themselves

to deserve it... I wish some sharp censure were used of them that made their way by silver or gold, be they of Bath or other ranke. 1 Bacon, iti, p. 80. Lodge, iii, p. 229. Winwood, ii, p. 57. HMC Sackville MSS. i, p. 123. 2 C. Aspinall-Oglander, Nunwell Symphony, 1945, p. 47. Huntington Library Quarterly, ii, 1938-9, p. 409, n. 32. J. Whitelocke, Liber Famelicus (Camden Soc.), 1858, p. 84. G. Ornsby, The Household Books of Lord William Howard of Naworth (Surtees Soc. Lxviil), 1877, p. 461. Bodl Carte MSS. 78, f. 525. College of Arms, MS. Herald VI, f. 323. CSPD, 1637, p. 324. On one occasion a knight refused to pay the fees and the royal servants had to band together to sue him for their money in the Court of Requests (College of Arms, MS. Herald VI, f. 344). By 1680 fees had risen again to £85 (H/Box T/64).

38 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS These laments at the passing of older and better traditions were entirely ineffectual, hypocritical fulminations from a venal herald

catrying little weight with either corrupt courtiers or ambitious gentry; the sale of knighthoods continued to flourish. Nevertheless the practice was undoubtedly causing increasing irritation. The

older county families were indignant at having to adopt such shabby methods to obtain what they regarded as their natural deserts, and resentful as the way opened to newer but less scrupulous families to obtain precedence over them. Though they perforce bought their wares in the market, they became mote and more

hostile to its continued existence. Not was the older gentry the only group whose feelings were wounded. In 1611 the sergeants

at law complained that the granting of knighthoods to mere barristers was tending to deprive them of their precedence in the ptofession, and James was obliged to intervene in their support.! In the end James realized the unpopularity his measures were causing, and in his placatory speech to Parliament on 21 March

1610 he apologized for his behaviour when he first arrived in England: “Ye saw I made Knights then by hundreths and Barons in great numbers; but I hope you find I doe not so now, nor mind to do so hereafter.’ But, alas for fine promises, and even fot good intentions! It was at about this time that a variety of new devices for the sale of titles were put forward by a disappointed official, Sit Thomas Shirley of Wiston, and that pliant antiquary Sir Robert

Cotton. One suggestion was for the creation of a new class of knights, provisionally called Knights of the Crown. The first scheme was for a military force, like the gens d’armes in France, consisting of ‘gentillmen only of greate qualitye and value, profess-

ing armes’. There were to be about forty-five to a county, and by

charging £25 a knight it was reckoned that the Crown would make £61,340. Thereafter the filling up of places vacated by death would bring in a steady £2,500 a year. Alternatively, the project

was put forward without the military overtones, and additional memotanda show that Shirley and Cotton were hoping to limit the Crown’s profits to a mere 50 per cent. or even 33 per cent., much

of the rest going to themselves.” - ¥ Bodl Wood. MSS. F 21. BM Cotton MSS. Vespasian F IX, ff. 59, 59%, 76. 2 The Workes of the most high and mighty Prince James, 1616, p. 542. BM Cotton MSS. Julius

C IV, ff. 131-5. See also J. G. Nichols, “The institution and early history of the dignity of Baronets’, The Herald and Genealogist, iii, 1866, p. 198.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 49 The idea of a non-military order of 500 knights was taken sufficiently seriously for a draft proclamation to be drawn up, which from its style may well have been dictated by King James

himself. The emphasis is here laid on the need to remedy the deplorable social consequences of the promiscuous promotion of unwotthy persons to the dignity of knighthood. In the preamble it was admitted that very many esquires and gentlmen and som knights alsoo, of auncient houses by longe continuance in the contreye where they dwell with repu-

tationand approved integritie, have of late in effect given over theire attendance one the bench and other publicke meetings for the better government of the shires and counties, out of a feeling approbation that

they cannot yeld the upper hand without great disgrace in the face of their contrey to many of the latter knights, aswell som of the Bath as others; by meanes whereof the course of Iustice in generall hath binn ~ greatly hindred and much weakened, these havinge by the start of advantage gained the start of precedencie.!

The point of the new order was that membership should be sevetely limited and that only those of ancient lineage, sufficient wealth, and personal merit would be admitted, all claims being carefully sifted by a special committee of the Privy Council. This new class would take precedence over all other knights bachelor, and so would settle the burning issue of prestige in a satisfactory manner.

There was another, but more fanciful, scheme put forward, allegedly by James I, at about this time. An enterprising projector, Sit Bevis Bulmer, had discovered what he believed to be a very

tich gold-mine in Scotland. James was most excited by the discovety and was anxious to exploit it. The only difficulty was how to taise the capital and James’s suggestion was to levy {£300 from

twenty-four substantial gentlemen, who in return would henceforth be known as ‘knights of the Golden Mynes’.? In the end, however, all these schemes were abandoned in favour of that for baronets. After the decision to create baronets in 1611, the flood of knighthoods fell off to half its former rate. In early 1613 it was reported that Princess Elizabeth’s followers, at the occasion of her marriage with the Elector Palatine, ‘make portsale of knighthoods and kepe 1 Queen’s College, Oxford, MS. 114, ff. 25-25%. Selden, op. cit., p. 318. 2 Stephen Atkinson, The Discoverie and Historie of Gold Mynes in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1825, P. 45.

80 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS as yt wete open market to all commers for 150 lia man’. A fortnight

later, however, these hopes were dashed, for James refused to oblige and so ‘mard the market, or rather raised the price to extraordinarie rate’. In February it was said to be impossible to get a knighthood even for £300 ot £400 and frustrated status seekers hurried off to Ireland where one could still be obtained from a less obdurate Lord Deputy for between {100 and £150. In November of the same year the King was still reported to be ‘very daintie of

that dignitie, minding to raise the market and bring yt to joo li for a knighthoode’. By 1615, however, the failure of the Addled Parliament and the consequent desperate search for new soutces of revenue led James to relax his restrictions on new creations. From an average of 31 a year for 1610-14 they tose to 120 a yeat for 1615-19, reaching a peak of 199 during the expensive Scottish journey of 1617. John Chamberlain observed that there was ‘skant left an esquite to hold up the race’, and that the dignity had sunk

yet lower with the knighting of men such as the Earl of Montgomery’s barber, the husband of the Queen’s laundress, and an ex-innkeeper from Romford. Next year, things went from bad to worse with the admission of an ex-convict, Ralph Burchinshaw, ‘but whether that honor will repaire his eares that he hath lost is a question’. So great did the pressure of numbers become that the King himself began to treat the ceremony as a joke and to make

fun of it, if two stories recorded by Archie the Fool are to be believed. One relates how James, when faced with a Scottish gentleman with a long and unpronounceable name, simply dubbed the man with his sword, and said “prethie rise up and call thyselfe

Sit what thou wilt’. As though teality were not bad enough, the wildest rumours

circulated about the King’s intentions. To pay for the fleet in 1623

there was talk in London of 1,000 knights to be made at {100 a man, the figute at which Buckingham and his dependants were selling a year or two before. But even if gross inflationary measures were avoided, a high level of new creations of about seventy a year was maintained from 1620 to 1625, and we find in Secretary Coke’s

minutes of business to transact with the King such sordid items as “Thomas Ellis, Glover, for creation of a Knight’. Surprisingly enough, the accession of Charles caused a marked reduction in 1 Ch, i, pp. 422, 432, 484; ii, pp. 79, 158. Vynn, no. 616. A. Armstrong, A Banquet of Jests and Merry Tales, Glasgow, 1889, pp. 29, 35.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 81 knighthoods, to a level of 45 a year from 1626 to 1630, falling subsequently, after the major policy decision to cease selling titles,

to a mete 22 a year from 1631 to 1640 and rising again under tenewed political and financial stress to over 100 a year in 1641-2. But even in the reform period of the 1630’s it is doubtful whether venality was altogether suppressed. For example, as one of the Lords Justice of Ireland in 1630-1 the Earl of Cork had the power to cteate knights, which he used very sparingly. In 1631 he noted that he knighted Sir Vincent Gookin ‘freely, as all the rest have been, for ought known to me since I cam to the government’. But a little later, when Sir Thomas Sherlock was knighted at the request of the Earl of Holland, Cork noted that £67 was received by his servant.!

Knighthood was the first dignity which the Crown openly allowed to be sold, not by the King himself but by deserving courtiers and servants. The causes of this development are clear enough. Fierce pressure from below from a squirearchy too long starved of titles, a financial stringency that precluded the distribution

of direct cash gifts to servants and followers, a laudable desire to please both courtiers and clients, the fact that offices, monopolies, and favours were already being granted to courtiers for resale, all

led the easy-going James to succumb to temptation and make knighthood a saleable commodity. Fluctuating according to the conflicting needs to reward followers, to keep up the price, and to preserve the dignity from falling into complete contempt, sales continued until Charles’s decision after the death of Buckingham to put a stop to all such practices. Financial necessity, however, then obliged him to turn to the socially less deleterious but politically more disastrous expedient of fining large numberts of the gentry

for their failure to take up knighthood at his coronation. James having debased the dignity till it was hardly worth having, Charles then added injury to insult by mulcting very large numbers of the gentry of £173,537 between 1630 and 1635 for having spurned it.?

In the forty-four and a half years of her reign Queen Elizabeth

and her generals and lords deputy created 878 knights, a fair 1 Ch, ii, p. 505. BM Harl. MSS. 1581, f. 441. Aspinall-Oglander, op. cit., p. 47. HMC Cowper MSS. i, p. 164. Grosart, 1st ser., iii, pp. 72, 113. 2 F.C. Dietz, English Public Finance, ry s8-1641, 1932, p. 271, n. 46. It was not the nature but the scale of the expedient that was new. Henry VIII had tried to fine overt 1,000 persons in 1533 and twenty years later Mary had raised nearly £5,000 (L¢» P H VIII, Add. IJ, p. 308; Bod! North MSS, a 2, ff. 12-15; F. M. Nichols, op. cit., Arch, xxxix).

821314 G

82 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS ptoportion of whom were adventurers in Ireland. In the thirtynine years from 1603 to 1641 the first two Stuarts created 3,281, all but a tiny fraction of whom were English. By this inflation, by the venal methods of acquisition, and by the lack of care exercised

in sifting the origins and standing of would-be purchasers, the respect for the Crown as the fount of honour was weakened, and the hierarchical structure of society was undermined. Knighthood

fell into contempt, and men began seeking some further title of distinction. As Francis Osborne put it, ‘antient Gentlemen, finding themselves preceded by baser families, only for having the impu-

dence or luck to be dub’d before them, and being despised, or spurred on through their wives ambition or their owne shame, fell into that trap gilded with the title of Baronnet’.? IV. THE BARONETAGE

One of the weaknesses in the hierarchy of dignitaries as it existed before 1611 was the wide gap that yawned between the mete knight and the peer of the realm. The only possible bridge was the knighthood of the Bath, but as there was not a single creation by Queen Elizabeth after the initial eleven in 1559, this otder was virtually extinct by 1603.2 This decline in numbers under Elizabeth was far more marked than that of the knights, since the Queen’s reluctance could not be compensated for by the reckless generosity of generals and lords deputy. The creation of knights of the Bath was exclusively controlled by the sovereign and took place only at coronations and royal marriages, christenings, and the knighting of the Prince of Wales. Elizabeth’s virginity

provided no opportunity for such occasions and so although 151 knights of the Bath were made in the first half of the stxteenth century, there were only a further 26 in the second. In 1603 there was an obvious need for a substantial number of hew creations, and the sixty-two made at the Coronation was not an unreasonable figure. But the King’s ignorance of his new king-

dom made him dependent in his choice on the advice of others who were perhaps not entirely disinterested. The last twenty or so of the 1603 list, although all reputable and substantial gentry, have no very obvious claims over their numerous rivals, and there ™ Osborne, op. cit., p. 110. 2 W, A. Shaw, The Knights of England, 1906, i, pp. 153-63.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 8 3 was commonly believed to have been corruption. Henry Gawdy thought this to be the way to promotion and offered, apparently successfully, to pay ‘somewhat roundly’ for it. A more interesting story emerges from a Chancery lawsuit some fifteen years later in which George Marshall, one of the gentlemen pensioners, sued his brother-in-law Sir William Pope for the gratuity he alleged Pope had offered for getting him on the list. He said that Pope had promised to give as much as anyone else, and it was well-known that others had paid at least £600. Pope’s reply was that he had given Marshall money for the dash to Scotland at Elizabeth’s death which had launched him on a successful court career, and that if Marshall 4ad helped to get him nominated, which he denied, it would only have been in return for this assistance. Bacon, as Lotd Chancellor, angrily dismissed the plaintiff’s case as without proof and as imputing scandalous behaviour to the highly respectable defendant, and as a result further inquiry into the workings of the patronage system was snuffed out. But another Chancery case about a year later was more revealing in openly incriminating the King. The Chancellor upheld the plaintiff’s claim to £667 from the defendant, for he was faced with a certificate that James had granted the plaintiff the making of two knights of the Bath in return

fot services, and a deposition that another aspirant had offered as much.!

It must be admitted, however, that apart from the tail end of the 1603 list, the knights of the Bath created by the Early Stuarts were both entirely respectable in themselves, as even John Chamberlain admitted, and reasonable in numbers, the total before 1640 being only 190. One of the reasons for this moderation was that demand was severely reduced by the very high cost of installation, caused by the elaborate ritual that was followed. When Sir Walter Aston claimed that in 1603 it had cost him at least {1,000, he was either

orossly exaggerating or was including a substantial gratuity. Nevertheless the cost to Lord Percy in 1616 in clothes, fees, and gifts was £341, and when Thomas Knyvett declined the honour in 1626, in the hopes of a better, he reckoned he had saved £500 ot {600.7 It is clear that there was no question of corruption in this last case, and it is probable that the granting of this dignity I R. Cotton, Cottoni Posthuma, 1651, p. 196. Gawdy, p. 134. C 2, James I, M 16/9. Chancery Decrees and Orders, 136, f. 366%. Bod] Clarendon MSS. 3/155, f. 29. 2 CA, ii, p. 31. Ellis, 1827, iii, p.268. Selden, op. cit., pp. 359-61. A. Clifford, Tixa/l] Letters, 1815, p. 77. HMC 3rd Rep., App. p. 63. B. Schofield, The Knyvett Letters, 1949, p. 69.

84 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS in fact maintained its integrity throughout a period of sliding values. But just because of this, and because so many of the recipients were

the eldest sons of peers, the knights of the Bath could not meet the need for a bridge between the knights and the barons. First advocated by Bacon in 1606, it was not till 1609 that the idea of a new order came to the fore, as the result of a report drawn up by Sir Robert Cotton on possible sources of revenue, which included the sale of titles and gave historical precedents for such sales. As we have seen, various alternatives were also put forward, among them the invention of a new class of knights of the Crown. Another idea mooted a little later was for a class of Vidoms, two to a county, the title of which would be sold for cash by the Crown. To enhance the sale value, the Vidoms were to have the peers’ right to freedom from arrest for debt, and were to be given hereditary seats in the House of Commons.! This last proposal would radically have altered the structure and composition of the House, and had not the slightest chance of acceptance by the Commons, who would bitterly have challenged the Crown’s right of interference with its membership. The proposal of Cotton and Sir Thomas Shirley was to sell 100 places in a new order at {1,000 each, as “a meanes to content those

wotthy persons in the Common-Wealth that by the confused admission of many Knights of the Bath held themselves all this time disgraced’. And so early in 1611 the Government decided to put on the market a new hereditary dignity of baronet. Salisbury is said to have opposed the scheme since he feared it would anger rather than placate the gentry, but his star was now on the wane and it was Northampton, aided by his protégé Cotton, who persuaded James and the Council to adopt it. At this early stage every effort was made to preserve the new dignity from drifting into the inflationary condition of the knightage. [he baronets wete given precedence immediately below the barons, and were guaranteed that the numbers would never be allowed to rise above 200. Moreover, James personally promised not to fill up such vacancies as might occur by the failure of the male line. Choice of candidates was restricted to those who could prove that their family had been armigerous for at least three generations, and that they owned land in possession or reversion 1 K. S. van Eerde, “The Creator of the Baronetage in England’, Huntington Library Quarterly, xxii, 1959. SP 14/63/61. The idea was revived in 1622 (CA, ti, p. 460).

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 85 wotth {1,000 a year. And finally, still further to distinguish him from a mere knight, each baronet had to swear an oath that he had not given a gtatuity to a courtier to obtain nomination. In return for the conferring of the title, the aspirant was asked to pay the cost of maintaining thirty soldiers for three years in Ireland, for the plantation of Ulster. This was the theoretical position, but in fact all that was demanded was a direct payment into the Exchequer of £1,095 and there was no guarantee what the money was to be used for. Nevertheless in these early years the money was honestly employed, if not all in Ulster, at least in Ireland. Between March 1611 and March 1614 £90,885 had been collected, and in these three yeats £129,013 had been sent over to cover the cost of the Irish army.! As soon as the announcement was made there began an intense scramble for precedence by the leading county families, during which Northampton and Salisbury in particular were eagerly lobbied by rival claimants. In view of the enormous attention paid to questions of prestige, the first baronetcy in the county was a ptize worth fighting for. “This will much raise his reputation in this place’, wrote a suitor for Sir William Essex of Lambourne, Berks. ‘Poynt of precedency’, explained Thomas Meautys some years later, was ‘noe indifferent thing’. One of the most serious political consequences of these new creations in the eyes of later commentators was that they set the countryside by the ears by exacetbating jealousies and hatreds between local families who

otherwise would have been content to share vague claims of precedence. And this feature was certainly very marked indeed in the struggle of 1611 about the arrangement of the first ninety-odd baronets. Already, however, the first hint of corruption had begun

to cteep in. The seventy-second baronet was Sit Paul Bayning, a mere rich London merchant, who obtained this favour by paying £1,500 down instead of the usual £1,095 in three instalments. ‘A worthy Baronet’, an official defensively (or sarcastically) noted against his name on an Exchequer list of receipts.? ™ Cotton, op. cit., p. 196. The original MS. is BM Cotton MSS, Cleopatra F VI, f. 59. Shirley’s son later alleged that his father ‘did find out the device for making baronets’ (D. Dalrymple, Memorials and Letters relating to the History of Great Britain ..., 1766, p. 69). [W. Sanderson], Aulicus Coquinariae, 1650, p. 54 (I owe this reference to Professor H. R. TrevorRoper). BM Lansd. MSS. 163, f. 391. The baronet had also to pay the official fees, which in Sir Roger Townshend’s case in 1617 came to £42. tos. 8d. (GPL 19382). 2 J. G. Nichols, op. cit., pp. 205-7. The Private Correspondence of Jane, Lady Cornwallis, 1842 p. 171. For statistics of the creation of baronets, see Appendix III. BM Lansd. MSS. 163, f. 400.

86 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS Hardly had the order of precedence of the baronets one to another been settled, than a tremendous tow broke out between the new order and the younger sons of barons. By the terms of their patents the baronets claimed precedence immediately after barons. But the Privy Council, which was mostly composed of peers, was led by Northampton into denying this construction of the patent, and the baronets appealed heatedly to the King. In April 1612 all other business was shelved and the Privy Council sat for three days to hear the case, on the third of which King James in person sat in judgement. An eyewitness has left a vivid account of the proceedings, which throws considerable light on James’s judicial behaviour and illustrates the passions aroused by this issue of precedence.' Proceedings were opened by the King, who summarized the arguments heard on the previous two days and defined the questions at issue as whether the baronet was the same as the medieval banneret, and, if not, whether baronets took precedence over the younger sons of barons. On the first issue James

declared that the situation was admittedly obscure, though his intention had certainly been to create a new order. On the second,

he said he would think about the problem of whether or not to allow them the same precedence as bannerets. He was willing, however, to listen to what further arguments the baronets had to offer.

Theit case was opened by the lawyer Sir Moyle Finch—who proved satisfactorily that bannerets used to take precedence over younger sons and asked that if the baronets were not deemed to have the same right, there should be a further search of the records, a tequest that James rightly regarded as mere procrastination. Then the hopeful gent Mr Heneage Fynch desireinge to be heard began in this manner with a philosophicall preamble: ‘Omne principium motus est intrinsicum.’ At which the Kinge, beinge

muche displeased, sayed: ‘Though I am a Kinge of men yett I am not Kinge of time, for I growe olde with this’, and therefore yf he had any thinge to speake to the matter let him utter it. Whereupon Mr Fynche with great boldnesse undertooke to prove much but did nothinge.

Despite interruptions from Northampton, Finch continued to ptess his points, until he begged the King, if he would not give I B/L XV, ff. 266-68.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 87 precedence to the baronets, at least not to take it away from the bannerets. Whereat his Majestie with a scornefull indignation replyed: “I marvele

what this felowe meanes that would seeme to knowe what I intende, resolving not onely against what I have said, but against what I may say.’ And thereupon was pleased to tell this tale. That there were two advocates of soe contrary factions as whatsoever the one said, the other ever contradicted, in so much that once one of them beinge asleepe and soddenly his opinion beinge demaunded his answeare was, ‘I am against’. ‘What?’ the other saide, and beinge answeared what the other had not yett spoken, he said “Why then I am against that which he shall saye’. And upon further like absurdities of Mr Pynche’s speeche his Majestie saide “why doe you not aswell entreate me not to put tayles

to all the Baronets because some of them are Kentishe men, or hornes on their heads to make them straunge monsters?’ And by this tyme Mr Fynch perceavinge his error was silent.

After this unfortunate beginning the delegation of baronets abandoned their legal advisers and began a brisk exchange with the lords, interspersed with occasional laboured jokes. For example,

Sit William Twysden said he had heard that some of the lords had boasted that the baronets had been ‘pepered’, to which Northampton teplied that perhaps it was a “‘pepering business’, and James concluded by saying that there were ‘pepering spirits’ among them,

but only one or two. This strained jocularity soon turned to anger. When Twysden interrupted Sir Henry Montagu as he was speaking

on behalf of the barons, the latter lost his temper and snapped: “You may give me leave to speake aswell as you, with out interrup-

tion unlesse you meane to have it in your patent to speake when you liste.’

When Montagu had finished, old Sir Moyle Finch rose again, and said that as the King would have heard mote of the barons’ arguments, he might suppose them the better. “Whereupon his maiestie rose and with indignation said. “I desyre you for all your opinions. Doe you thinke that I satt heere in Gods state to come preiudiced on either side?” ’ Sir William Twysden then began an historical argument based on a heraldic document of the reign of Henry VII, the original of which he said Sir Robert Cotton had told him was in the hands of the Earl of Exeter or Sir William Dethick. ‘And further said that Sit Robert Cotton was out of the way of purpose because he would

88 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS not be present to assist them at the heeringe of their case.’ This was an open challenge to the integrity of Northampton, who as Cotton’s chief patron was believed to have ordered him out of town, and he hastened to declare ‘that out of his knowledge of the gent.

he thought his absence was not of that cause nor that he would refuse them any Recorde that might advantage their cause’. Twysden

then came out in the open and said that the baronets had sent specially to Cotton to ask him to stay in London, as they heard that he was going to besent away. ‘Of which words my Lord Privy Seale tooke houlde, and kneeling besought his Majestie that hee would heere him. For now he saw his honor engaged, and that he would tight himselfe in his owne person agaynst any one that should soe traduce him.’ When Twysden disingenuously retorted that he had not accused Northampton by name, James remarked: “That’s trewe, but soe as one should say to me “‘he that betrayed Christ’’, and saye he did not name Judas.’ With these disorderly and ill-tempered exchanges James closed

the session, and after privately conferring with the Council and heralds announced that he would give his judgement later, “withoute further debate or heeringe on either side’. The day did not end without a curious and significant little scene which emphasizes the widening breach between the supporters of the Crown and the opposition groups. Lord Wotton asked the King to hear him And tould him that the zeale of his Majesties honour soe burnte within him that he could not be silent. Saying that he had bin present at the debate of many weighty causes before his Majestie and that Boorde, but never remembered that any ever carryed themselves with such audacious and unmannerlie bouldnesse as some of those Barronetts had done. And of them those that had lest cause. For nameing Sir William Twisden, he tould his majestie he knewe him, he was his cuntryman, he knewe not whether he was his kinsman or not, but he held him the unworthyest of all that company.

| When James finally gave judgement he decided on a typically unsatisfactory compromise. As the baronets had predicted, he upheld the claims for precedence of the younger sons of barons, all Privy Councillors, higher officers of state, and the Judges. But he guaranteed that the baronets should come next after these categories,

and granted them additional trifling marks of respect such as the

right to more pompous funerals, to fight in the field under the King’s standard, to be knighted at 21, and to add to their coats

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 89 the arms of Ulster. Of this last privilege, Chamberlain observed that ‘many thincke this so far from honor that yt may rather be taken for a note of disgrace to shew how they came by yt’.!

Because of the stringent conditions of ancestry and wealth, the high price, this new reduction of the privileges, and the growing hostility to the whole order among the gentry, no new baronets came forward for three years from 1612 to 1614. Northampton remarked gloomily in about 1614 that “Baronetts have made a very

longe pawse and the Lords have not hard a good while of any more to make offers’ and early in the same yeat it was reported that

the price was down to £666. One teason for this hanging back was made plain when in the Parliament of 1614 a group of members launched an attack on the

whole institution of baronets and urged their abolition. King James in his draft proclamation on the earlier scheme of knights of

the Crown, out of which grew that for baronets, had hopefully asserted that it was impossible for knights present or future to take

exception to the creation of this new superior order. He argued that men of wealth and ancestry would be admitted to the new order, and that unworthy knights should count themselves thankful for what they had got. But these arguments were of no avail. The etievance was introduced to the House of Commons by Sir Edwin

Sandys on 23 May, and an angry debate followed before it was referred to a committee. Government supporters argued, with justice, that ‘this is only a point of honour, which is freely in the King’s power, where he will dispose it’, and they tried to pacify the members with the reminder that ‘this openeth a gap to gentlemen, to question knights in the like manner’. When Sir Anthony Cope, Bart., called the motion a libel, Sir Jerome Horsey, knight bachelor, observed acidly that he ‘pardoneth Sir A. Cope, for calling

this a libel, because he speaketh for his penny’. Records of the committee have not survived, but the arguments used were probably based on a document headed ‘Motives to induce the Knights, Cittizens and Burgesses of the Commons Howse of Parliament to petition to his Majestie for the revoking and abolishing of the Degree of Baronets lately erected. . .’. Its author is unknown, but it is a clever and disingenuous piece of work by someone out to 1 J.G. Nichols, op. cit., pp. 452-8. BM Cotton MSS. Faustina C VIII, ff. 25%, 28; Vespasian F IX, f. 72. Selden, op. cit., p. 357. C4, 1, pp. 325, 329, 345. 2 BM Cotton MSS. Cleopatra F VI, f. 99. Wynn, no. 639.

go THE INFLATION OF HONOURS attack the Government at any cost. It alleged that the new order was Offensive to all classes: to the nobility because of the challenge

to the rights of younger sons; to the knightage because knighthood is ‘a personall dignity and springinge out of virtue and deserte

oughte to be ranged next and ymediatly unto Barrony’; to the gentry because ‘manie of the Barronets & their descendants beinge meanely descended have precedence before gentlemen of auntient

familyes’; to magistrates, since hitherto by virtue of their office they have had precedence immediately below the peerage; to the people as a whole, as it was an order limited in numbers, and intended not to be filled up once the 200 mark was reached. As a tesult new families in the future would have no opportunity of entering it. Nor, it was argued, was it any benefit to the Crown. Firstly, “There wilbe allwayes dislike, envye and hartburninge betweene the gentrye of the kingdome and the Barronets’. Secondly, the framers of this document had the effrontery to allege that ‘the

honour of Knighthood which was wont to encourage generous myndes unto highe exploytes wilbe nowe come into contempte’ as

inferior in status to a baronetcy. It then revived the complaint which was taised against knights, and which this order of baronets was in some measure designed to cure, not to aggravate. “Gentlemen of great livelyhood and estimation will refraine his Majesties service in publique assemblyes for the administration of Justice or

otherwise, because they scorne to geve place unto manie of the Barronets whome they account their inferiors.’ Lastly the document enumerated an argument which even its author could hardly have expected to be taken seriously. It was alleged that knighthood and ancient descent had hitherto greatly benefited the gentry when

making marriage alliances, but that now both these advantages were diminished. In conclusion, doubt was cast on the legality of creating an entirely new order, a step without precedent and opening the way to further schemes which would “alter the whole frame of Common Wealth’.! This major onslaught was stifled by the dissolution of Parliament,

but meanwhile a bitter quarrel broke out in the Council of the North, where the two baronets, Sit Henry Savile of Methley and Sit Henry Belasyse, demanded authority to take precedence over t Queen’s College, Oxford, MS. 114, f. 27. CJ, i, p. 494. HMC Verulam MSS., pp. 24-26

evi fo) in Herts, R.O., Gorhambury MSS. XII B. 18, and BM Cotton MSS. Faustina

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS gt the King’s feed counsel, and to sit next to the President. James upheld the lawyers on grounds of habit and convenience, since the Council of the North was a court of law, and stuck to his opinion throughout a prolonged tussle from 1614 to 1616. The battle was revived with an appeal to the Privy Council, and ended in a final broadside from Sir Henry Savile in early 1619, probably to Buckingham, accusing the King of breaking his promise given under the great seal, ‘not without derogation to his honour’, and threatening resignation if the King remained adamant. But Buckingham and James were unmoved and the lawyers stayed next to the President. !

With the dismissal of the Addled Parliament, Crown finances became more precarious than ever, and the Government was bombarded by ingenious projectors with a wide variety of moneymaking schemes to be handled, for a commission, by themselves. Among those most setiously canvassed in early 1615 was a mass sale of pardons of all offences and debts to the Crown, put forward by the antiquarian lawyer, William Hakewill. Others all concerned the sale of honours in some form or other. One was the scheme of selling confirmation of all grants to bear arms made since 1567; another Sir Robert Knollys’s project for selling the title of esquire; a third, which was finally adopted, was to sell peerages; and a fourth was to raise the value and increase the number of baronetcies. The

idea, put forward by Silvanus Scoty, was to raise the price to £3,000 in return for substantial advantages both financial and social.

Amongst other things, baronets were to be freed from the burden of wardship, and of service as juryman and sheriff; they were to join the peers in the privilege of personal immunity from arrest for debt, they were to become J.P.s at 21, and deputy-lieutenants of the Shire at 25, and were to be styled ‘Honorable’. Scory pressed hard for this ingenious method, whereby the King’s wants might be much relieved out of the vanitie and ambition of the Gentrie. He had often accesse to his Majestie and pleased himself much with the invention and hope that he and his heyres (for this service) shold be perpetual! chauncellors of that order. But after much discussing, the business was overthrown and he dismissed with a flowte that argentum ejus versum est in scoriam... 2 1 R.R. Reid, The King’s Council in the North, 1921, pp. 375-6. Queen’s College, Oxford, MS.

olan 567-8, 581, 584, 601. BM Lansd. MSS. 163, ff. 390, 395. K. S. van Eerde, “The Jacobean Baronets’, J]. Modern History, xxxiii, 1961, pp. 142-3. Sir Julius Caesar seems to have

been a bitter opponent of the idea, largely on the grounds of its illegality.

Q2 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS For the moment, therefore, the baronets were left alone, and royal finances wete propped up by the sale of peerages. By 1618, however, the urgent necessity of finding some commodity other than cash with which to reward deserving suitors obliged King James, no doubt under Villiers’s persuasion, to begin treating baronetcies in the same way that he had long been treating knighthoods (Fig. 4, p. 95). The original scheme of a direct cash payment

of £1,095 to the Exchequer was abandoned, and ‘the making of a baronett’ was granted to courtiers to be resold on the market to the highest bidder. From the start the King took little care either to check the suitability of the candidates or even to restrict his bounty to those of suitable social status to be entrusted with such powers. For example in 1622, when the City of Lincoln was trying to faise money to drain and deepen the Fossdyke, James ‘further to manifest his affection... did grant to the said city the making of

three baronets’.t In this case the distribution of an honour still sought by the leading gentry of the county was entrusted to the

care of a caucus of provincial aldermen.

The way such grants were handled is vividly described by the King’s Master Shipwright, Phineas Pett: The 20th day of November [1619], attending at Theobalds to deliver his Majesty a petition, his Majesty in his princely care of me, by the means of the honourable Lord High Admiral, had before my coming bestowed

on me for supply of my present relief the making of a knight baronet, which I afterwards passed under the broad seal of England for one Francis Radclyffe of Northumberland, a great recusant, for which I was to have

qoo/, but by reason that Sir Arnold Herbert (that brought him to me) played not fair play with me, I lost some jo/. of my bargain.

On occasions, however, it seems that James continued to sell directly, for in 1620 Sir Thomas Bishop promised to pay {600 to the King, although in the end {100 of it was diverted elsewhere. The ‘elsewhere’ was probably the pocket of the Duke of Bucking-

ham, who was now the grand dispenser of royal patronage, and can be found casually giving the making of a baronet to one of his own creatures.” 1 J. W.F. Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln, Cambridge, 1956, p. 132. 2W.G. Perrin, The Autobiography of Phineas Pett (Navy Record Soc. Lt), 1917, p. 121. Bodl MS. Add. D 111, f. 42. SP 14/134/6. The records of the Exchequer show a trickle of money still coming in from baronets, though by far the greater proportion was going to couttiers, tallies being struck for nominal payments of £1,095 (F. C. Dietz, ‘The Receipts and Issues of the Exchequer during the Reigns of James I and Charles TP’, Smith College Studies in History, xiii, 1928, pp. 137, 140, 123).

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 93 It was not long, of course, before this procedure landed the government with humiliating and sordid problems. In 1618 Sir Francis Crane offered to start up an English tapestry work at Mortlake, if James would find most of the capital. James was at his wits’ end for cash at this time, and so gave Crane the making of six baronets, which at current prices should have brought him in over £3,000. Crane was owed a matriage portion of {2,100 by

Samuel Tryon, a rich London merchant, but was experiencing great difficulty in extracting the money. He therefore offered to give Tryon one of his six baronetcies in return for payment of the full marriage portion and an extra {/500. Tryon agreed, paid {1,100

down, and gave his bond to pay the remaining {1,500 within twenty-eight days after the grant of a patent for a baronetcy worded

precisely like the first patent granted in 1611. The unsuspecting Crane went to the King and obtained his consent (with some difficulty, as he had already refused Tryon once). But when asked to fulfil his bond, Tryon pointed out that his patent differed from those of 1611, since it referred to baronets created by James and Prince Charles whereas those referred to James and Prince Henry! Crane appealed indignantly to the King, for he had no remedy at Common Law. The Earl Marshal’s court imprisoned Tryon in the Marshalsea for casting doubt on a royal patent and attempting to set up degrees of difference within the order of baronets. At first Tryon was truculent and demanded freedom and permission to consult his lawyers, but a few weeks’ incarceration humbled him and he submitted. Presumably Crane got his £1,500 in the end.! Another difficulty was the alarming fall in the sale price of baronetcies, from {700 in 1619 to a mere {220 in 1622.” By offering Ovet 100 in five years Buckingham and the King wete flooding the market. As the price fell, so the quality of the purchasers declined,

and the unworthy character of some of them soon became public knowledge. In 1623 the scandal became flagrant when the Earl Marshal’s court attempted to degrade a Shropshire baronet, Sir Thomas Harris, ‘for basenes and other bad qualities’. But though encoutaged by James, who declared his adherence to the original promise that none could be created who had not been armigerous for three generations, little could in fact be done. Harris, who was

a successful Shrewsbury draper of yeoman stock, fought back vigorously and the Earl Marshal discovered that he could not touch 1 SP 14/113/97; 120/85—87. 2 CA, ii, p. 443. CSPD, 1637, p. 129.

94 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS his patent under the great seal, and could merely have him “declared

and pronounced no gentleman’.! With the open recognition of a baronet who was no gentleman, another serious blow had been dealt to public respect for the hierarchical structure of English society.

Between 1618 and 1622 James was drawing heavily upon a strictly limited fund, as he had bound himself by the terms of the patents not to create more than 200 baronets, and there were already 198 by the end of 1622. Though weak, James was an honest

man, and when he granted a baronetcy to Sir Thomas Playters in 1623, he announced that it was the last he intended to make. King Charles, less easy-going but fundamentally weaker and mote dishonest than his father, began with the best of intentions. Despite lobbying from various quarters, he at first stuck to King James’s resolution to abide by the solemn promises of the patents and to make no mote baronets. But in December 1626 the needs of the French war and the ascendancy of Buckingham tempted him to break his principles and his promises and to give the Villiers clan— the Duke, his wife, and his mother—a free hand in the distribution of some eighty-five new baronetcies, all in excess of the stipulated 200. Though other influential courtiers managed to get some of the

pickings—a client of the Earls of Holland and Warwick secured a cotner in Essex baronetcies—the main sales were handled by the Duke. Sit John Oglander recorded how a hawker of baronetcies came peddling his wares around the country houses of the Isle of Wight, and, royalist though hewas, he added the ominous comment: ‘Butt a tyme may come, which may be eythor by Parliament or by

his Majestie, that... theyre honot may be buryed in the dust, as the Duke’s wase verie shortlye aftor the makinge of those upstarte Batonettes.”2

This flood of new baronets pushed the price down to £200 or less, and the usual quarrels broke out between buyer and seller over payment. In one case Charles had to intervene personally on behalf

of the seller, threatening the buyer with a summons to appear before him; in another the seller fought a successful test case in Chancery to enforce the contract. I Ch, ii, pp. 532, 590. CSPD, 1623-5, pp. 65, 77, 95, 118, 506. 2 Ch, ii, p. 460. CSPD, 1623-5, p. 523; 162-6, p. 234; 1627-8, pp. 152, 217, 443; 1628-9, p. 173. Schofield, op. cit., p. 69. BM Harl. MSS. 991, p. 61. W. H. Long, The Oglander Memoirs, 1888, pp. 130, 48. 3 Perrin, op. cit., pp. 139, 142. CSPD, 1628-9, p. 509; 1629-31, p. 513 1641-3, p. 38. W. Tothill, Transactions of the High Court of Chancery, 1649, p. 164.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 95 In the summer of 1629 Charles, now freed from the influence of Buckingham, turned his face resolutely against any further sale of titles of any kind. Absolute monarchy would manage its finances without stooping to such undignified and socially harmful practices.

Only one baronet a year was made in 1630-1 and 1639-40 and none at all between 1632 and 1638. In May 1641, however, this policy was reversed, and a new flood of creations began which in 100

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under two years added a further 128 families to the 290-odd already

elevated. The purpose of this change was probably partly to buy support against the opposition in Parliament. If so it proved a dismal failure, for of those created up to the end of 1641 rather more became active Parliamentarians than active Royalists. Even as a device to raise money and to reward courtiers it had limited — success, since sellers exceeded buyers. As early as July 1641 the ptice was down to {400 and there can be little doubt that it subsequently fell still lower. Many potential purchasers, like George Evelyn of Wotton, must have refused the offer because of the prevailing political uncertainty and for fear that the new titles might be challenged and overthrown by Parliament.! In addition to this English order of baronets, similar orders were set up for Ireland and Scotland. That for Ireland was erected in 1 The Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis, 1842, p. 256. G. E. Cokayne, Complete Baronetage, ii, p. 248, note. W. G. Hiscock, John Evelyn and his Family Circle, 1955, p. 12.

96 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 1619 with the same privileges as the English, the intention being to exploit the ambitions of administrators and settlers, prospering in this expanding colonial area. The order was strictly limited to 100, James binding himself and his heirs never to create more, even when vacancies occurred through failure of the male line. Such evidence as is available suggests that from the start the order was intended to raise money for courtiers, and indeed that it was devised and operated on behalf of Buckingham and his dependants. Between 1618 and 1622 at least eleven were sold by his agent Sir Francis Blundell, at prices varying from £500 to {250.1 The depen-

dence of the order on Buckingham’s personal interests is very striking. Instituted soon after he achieved complete political power, nominations continued, apart from a break in 1624-5, until soon after his death in 1628. Except for two in 1630-1 no more were created before the Civil War, which conformed to the general policy of ceasing to sell titles of honour during the period of royal pater-

nalist autocracy. As a result the order was not filled up, only forty-four patents having been passed before the ban in 1629. The order of Scottish baronets followed a rather different pattern.

As the English order had been instituted in 1611 to pay for the colonization of Ulster, so the Scottish was created in 1625 to advance the colonization of Nova Scotia. Each baronet was to pay 3,000 merks (£166. 135. 4d. sterling), one-third to the promoter, Sit William Alexander, and two-thirds to the Crown, and was to received some 16,000 acres of barren soil in the new colony. King Charles for his part promised to limit the order to 150. Though only 132 were in fact created, Alexander’s monopoly control of the

title was evidently regarded as a grievance, for its abolition was included in the first draft of a proclamation of 1639 repealing a long

list of unpopular patents.” |

Writing during the enforced leisure of the interregnum, the

royalist Sir Edward Walker remarked that the creation of the order

of baronets ‘hath been a greater cause of debasing nobility and undervaluing gentry, and hath generally given more offence and scandal to all degrees than any dignity that ever was devised’. The history of the order does much to support this claim. The original device of 1611, including as it did a direct cash payment 1 CSP Ireland, 1615-25, pp. 256, 258, 361-2. BM Harl. MSS. 1581, f. 411. SP 14/124/29. 2 CSPD, 1638-9 p. 619; 1639, pp. 30-31. Cokayne, op. cit. ii, p. 275 et seq.; p. 407, note. 3 Sir Edward Walker, Hestorical Discourses upon Several Occasions, 1705, p. 308.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 97 to the Crown, was in itself a blow to the prestige of monarchy, despite the social and financial safeguards. The subsequent disputes

over precedence and the opposition of the knights aroused bitter feelings, which were greatly exacerbated when baronetcies were sold by courtiers to mean persons from 1618 to 1622 and 1626 to 1629. King Charles’s breach of the solemn engagement not to make more than 200 English baronets seriously diminished faith

in the royal word, as well as arousing indignation among the existing holders of the title. Such revival of confidence as occurred between 1629 and 1641 was then shattered once more by the fresh spate of sales. The result was to heighten the competitive friction among the leading gentry, to alienate many of them from the Crown,

to undermine respect for aristocratic institutions and titles, and to drive the ambitious to seek yet further honours in the peerage itself.

V. THE PEERAGE

Under the early Tudors the size of the peerage had undergone only one major fluctuation. The deliberate refusal of Henry VII to elevate new men, coupled with natural wastage assisted by attainder,

had resulted in a contraction of the male peerage from about 57 to 44. But this policy was soon reversed under Henry VIII and by 1529 the numbers were back again in the middle fifties, a figure which remained virtually unchanged until the end of the century. But this apparent stability conceals a very substantial turnover, with new creations just keeping pace with attainders and natural extinctions. Between 1509 and 1553 some forty-seven titles had been created, restored, or resumed, the great majority representing the elevation of successful soldiers and administrators after 1529. In one case, that of a promotion in 1538, there is even fairly clear

evidence of corruption. But things were very different under Elizabeth. If she was frugal in her distribution of knighthoods, she was even more conservative in the creation of new peerages (Fig. 5). She ‘honoured her honours by bestowing them sparingly’, observed Thomas Fuller. This attitude stemmed not so much, as with

her grandfather, from a deliberate intention to reduce the powers and numbers of the peerage as from a snobbish and increasingly

unrealistic wish to maintain the peerage as a caste for men of ancient lineage. From personal observation Francis Naunton con-

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cluded that “a concurrence of old blood with fidelity [was] a mixture

98 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS which ever sorted with the queene’s nature’.! This comes out very clearly from the eighteen peerages which she did create, revive, recognize, or admit, of which six were merely restorations of former titles, two wete inherited in the female line, three were granted to younger sons of peers, two to heirs or coheits of ancient houses, and three to royal cousins. Only Lord Burghley and Lord Compton (who came of knightly stock) belonged to new families without either ancestral claims or blood relationship to the Queen.? This

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patsimony was, of course, no mote than normal Tudor practice, broken only during the revolutionary decades of the 1530’s and 1540°s, but it had now to be maintained under very different conditions. In a period of rapid changes in land ownership so conservative an attitude could only lead to an ever-widening breach between title and status on the one hand and power and wealth on the other. Moreover, owing to inexorable erosion by the failure of male heirs, to say nothing of extinction by attainder, it also caused a slight numerical decline in the size of the peerage. Thus during 1 Le PH VIL, xin, i, no. 1407. Fuller, pt. ii, p. 159. Naunton, p. 149. | 2 See Appendixes IV and V. The younger sons were Bindon, Leicester, and Howard of Walden; royal cousins included Hunsdon, Bindon, St. John of Bletsoe, Buckhurst, and Howard of Walden; Northampton was a step-uncle.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 99 Elizabeth’s reign fourteen families became extinct by failure of male heirs, and six titles lapsed—if only temporarily—by attainder. Consequently whereas there were fifty-seven male peers on the day Elizabeth came to the throne, there were only fifty-five on the day she died forty-five years later (Fig. 6).!

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Here as in other fields the Queen’s meanness became more

marked in the last years of her life, and between 1573 and 1603, apart

from admitting Lord Willoughby d’Eresby to the title inherited on

his mother’s side, and belatedly promoting to an earldom Lord Howard of Effingham, the hero of the Armada, she only cteated one new peer, himself the son of an attainted duke, the heir general

of an extinct barony, and a royal cousin. This resistance to new cteations may have been stimulated by fear of aristocratic faction as revealed in the rebellion of the Northern Earls of 1569 and the Ridolfi Plot of 1571, but it had to be maintained in the face of incteasing pressure, even from Lord Burghley, who might have t See Appendix VI. The discrepancy is accounted for by the addition of the Earl of Kent, who reassumed his title in 1572; and by the fact that the extinction of the FitzAlans, earls of Arundel, did not mean the extinction of the title, which passed by inheritance to the Howards (M. A. Tierney, The History and Antiquities of the Castle and Town of Arundel, 1834, i, pp. 129~30).

100 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS been expected to share her conservative views. In the winter of 1588-9 a real effort was made to persuade the Queen to consent to a substantial number of new creations. Lord Burghley first drafted a short list of candidates consisting of claimants to two disputed titles, one heir general to an ancient title, two leading public servants, and twelve ‘knightes of great possessions’. On the basis of this there was drawn up a scheme for six promotions to earldoms, six creations of barons, and one doubtful title to be decided; and a week later a list of five promotions, seven new barons, and one disputed title to be settled was said to have been approved by the Queen.! But if she had in fact been brought to agree, she soon repented of her decision and the scheme came to nothing. This obstructive attitude satisfied neither the great court officials

nor the leading country magnates. It must have been a source of ereat grievance that Sir Christopher Hatton died a mere knight and Lord Burghley a mere baron; and Lord Hunsdon is said to have been very bitter at failing to achieve an earldom. Those on the list of 1588-9 must have known about it, and men like Sir Robert Sydney and Sir Edward Wotton never ceased to urge their claims. Pestered by Essex in 1598 for titles for his friends, the Queen characteristically temporized and equivocated: ‘But what shall I doe with all these that pretend to titles? I cold be willing to call hym [Sydney] and one or two more, but to call many I will not. And I am importuned by many of there frends to doe yt.’ ‘Madame’, sayd the Earle, ‘let their titles be first examined by me. I will not doubt but to fynd cause to keape them backe, and lett the fault be myne.’ She replied that she wold speak with the Lord Treasorer about yt.2

Evidence of the termites eating into the splendid facade of the late Elizabethan coutt is provided by Wotton’s offer of {1,000 to a lady if she could influence Essex to influence the Queen to get him a title.

James came south in 1603 with a reputation for generosity over the granting of titles, and as soon as he arrived he was faced with a demand for new creations that had been dammed up for nearly twenty years. Eminent courtiers and officials like Sir Robert Cecil and Sir Thomas Egerton, leading county families like the Petres, Spencers, and Danvers, all had claims which could hardly be denied.

The large number of creations and promotions of the first three 1 BM Lansd. MSS. 104/23. SP 12/222/21, 33. 2 HMCD,, ii, pp. 294-488 passim.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS IO yeats of the new reign was no more than was called for in view of

the growth of population and the rise of new families, and the choice of candidates was on the whole judicious. The process by which the choice was made, however, appears to have been more open to criticism. In 1603 Sir Richard Fiennes was careful to prepate the way by the promise of a reward to Robert Cecil’s secretary,

Levinus Munck. In his efforts not merely to secure a title but to obtain the ancient precedence of Saye and Sele, Fiennes came out still further into the open with the offer of an ambling gelding to Cecil and {40 ‘in thanksgiving to one other of your servants’. A little later, he deposited a jewel worth £200 with another of Cecil’s secretaries, ‘until I bring your Lordship 1oo/’. This is only one item in the calculated campaign of this sycophantic puritan to bribe the courtiers into granting him a variety of favours, but it shows the inevitable spread of such methods into the distribution of honours.! From the beginning there were rumours that this recognized practice of accepting petty gratuities was tending to degenerate into

outright sale of titles. As early as July 1603 Sir Thomas Arundell was deliberately avoiding the Court because of ‘the fear which he had to be thought to buy a barony’, a procedure which he considered humiliating and contemptible. A year later it was said that others were being less fastidious, though the King was resisting the temptation. The first clear evidence of a breach in the royal resolution is found in the benefit conferred by James in 1605 on Arabella Stuart. According to the Earl of Worcester she was to be

given a patent for a peerage with a blank for the name ‘to be created either then, or hereafter to be named, created, & intitulated at her pleasure’. A few days later it was reported that Sir William Cavendish was lobbying Arabella for the title, but that ‘he is verye

sparing in his gratuetye ... and I think he will finde in that place an equall proportion betwixt his liberallitye and our courtesie’. A week later Cavendish got his patent passed on Arabella’s nomination and there is clear evidence that he was finally brought to pay for it. Not merely did he have to square various influential persons with substantial gifts, like the {80 paid to Mr. Walter

Wentworth ‘servant of Lady Bedford’, but he had to bottow £1,000 in a hurry from a scrivener to raise part of the purchase IL. P. Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, Oxford, 1907, i, p. 315. HMCS, xv,

Pp. 191; xvi, pp. 63, 240, 330; xvii, p. 451. }

102 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS price for Arabella. In Lotd Cavendish’s accounts the payment is left vague but unmistakable: ‘presently after my Lord’s creation paid at Sir William Bowyet’s house which he paid over, the some of two thowsand pounds.’ All in all, what with this purchase ptice, the gratuities to others, the fees for the creation, and the

clothes and food bought for the occasion, his title cost the new peer neatly £2,900.! In these first years of James’s reign there is intermittent evidence that successful efforts were being made by both clients and courtiers

to introduce an element of corruption into the distribution of honours. In 1605 Rowland White reported that Lord Burghley was ‘making great means to be an Earl’, and falsely alleged he had attanged a marriage into the Howard clan for his grandson ‘which gave way to his desires’. A year later Jane Neville wrote to the Earl

of Salisbury renewing a request for the grant of the making of a baron, ‘such an one as for his religion, conversation and ability as almoner of ways shall seem fit to you his honourable councillor.

This is to the King no charge, but honour profitable to the commons.’ Here in this letter is combined a suggestion of most of the ingredients of later arrangements: the grant by the King of the right of nomination, the cash gift to the grantee by the recipient of the title, and the douceur to the courtier who smooths the passage.

For there can be little doubt of the real meaning of the citcumlocution ‘ability as almoner of ways’. A few months later Sir John Roper wrote to Salisbury, explaining that he had been offered a title at a high price, and asking whether to accept it. Perhaps this was the outcome of Jane Neville’s petition.? In 1608-9 titles of honour took another step downward, with their use as bargaining counters in inheritance schemes. First of all

the Duke of Lennox obtained a peerage for Sir Gervase Clifton, in return for the marriage of the latter’s only daughter and heiress to Lennox’s brother, Lord D’Aubigny, and the settlement of the Clifton estates. Next Sir John Harington did his utmost to persuade the financier Thomas Sutton not to leave his accumulated riches to the foundation of the Charterhouse, but instead to make young Charles, Duke of York, his heir in return for a title. But so long as Robert Carr, Earl of Sometset, retained the King’s eat, very 1 HMCS, xv, p. 190. C, R. Mayes, ‘The Sale of Peerages in Early Stuart England’, J. Modern History, xxix, 1957, p. 22. Talbot L, f. 12. Lodge, iii, pp. 285-6. Chatsworth/H 23. 2 Lodge, iii, p. 282. HMCS, xviii, pp. 36, 228.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 103 few new titles were conferred and the granting of them was kept reasonably clear of the spoils system. If he is to be believed, Somer-

set refused an offer by Sir John Roper to surrender his office of Chief Clerk in the King’s Bench in return for a barony, ‘because I would not sett tytles to sale for my private endes’. When he made

this boast in 1612 Somerset was probably telling the truth, but a year later he is reported to have made the first great breach in his resolution. By 1613 the deaths of his only brother and only son had left Lord Darcy of Chiche without a male heir. Consequently on his death most of his estates would revert to the Crown and his title would lapse. But his son-in-law, Sir Thomas Savage, obtained from the King the inheritance of part of the estates and the teversion of the title, in return, according to John Chamberlain, for £24,000 in cash and the surrender of the reversion of half the land to the Earl of Sometset.? For all this handful of dubious transactions, the peerage in 1615 still retained its full dignity and respect. Hardly anyone had been admitted to its ranks who was unworthy of the honour by birth and wealth. The system of granting honours, though open to abuse, had not yet degenerated into plain corruption. The King himself had sold no titles for cash and, with the exception of Arabella Stuart (and possibly Jane Neville), no private person had ever been given the right of nomination. The increase of numbers by about 40 per cent. over 1603 (and 1558) was certainly substantial, but not unreasonable in view of the number of respectable gentry families newly risen to outstanding wealth and position. In 1615, however, there occutred a radical change of policy, to a system of direct cash sale of titles by the Crown, and the granting of nominations as rewards for courtiers. It is no coincidence that this change of policy coincided with the rise to favour of George Villiers, future Duke of Buckingham. The Villiers ascendancy meant the dispossession from office of the Carr dependants, and ultimately of the Howard faction. Not all could be removed, like Suffolk, by the frontal assault of a charge of corruption, and the others had to be compensated for their disappointment. With the failure of the Great Contract in 1610 and the abrupt dissolution 1 BM Add. MSS. 38170, ff. 304, 310%. Charterhouse F 3/153~4. P. Bearcroft, Thomas Sutton and his Foundation in Charterhouse, 1737, pp. 20-21. Harington, i, pp. 376-8. D’ Ewes, i, p. 81. The Egerton Papers (Camden Soc.), 1840, p. 455. Ch, i, p. 489. Somerset certainly obtained out

of 103). ro). Darcy’s estate the reversion of land worth over {1,100 a year (HMC Cowper MSS. i, p.

104 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS of the Addled Parliament in 1614, the Crown had lost hope of parliamentaty supplies and was trying to manage without them. The pressure to use the sale of titles as rewards for the hungry Villiers family, as compensation for the outgoing politicians, and as means to taise ready cash was therefore almost irresistible. The suggestion that the Crown might augment its revenues by the sale of peerage titles was not a new one. As long ago as 1609 Sit Robert Cotton had provided an historical precedent for such

a step. He had recalled that Richard I had sold the Earldom of Northumberland ‘for a great sum of money’, and added: ‘I doubt not but many of these times would set their ambition at as high a price.’ The first result of this suggestion was the sale of baronetcies, begun in 1611, but before this was adopted there were citcum-

stantial rumours of an alternative project of selling baronies. It was said that Sir Nicholas Bacon was offering {10,000 and Sir. Moyle Finch £8,000. In January 1615 these rumours revived and by June the rumours became a reality. Advised by Bacon, and no doubt encouraged by Villiers, James at last took the plunge and consented to a direct sale of peerages as the only means of raising ready cash. “‘Baronnies were wont to be given by entayle, but now

they go by bargain and sale’, observed the wits in the aisles of

Saint Paul’s.! |

In the thirteen years from 31 December 1615 to 31 December 1628 the numbers of the English peerage rose from 81 to 126, and at the same time the number of earls increased still faster, from 27 to 65. These phenomenal increases, of 56 per cent. in the geerage as a whole, and 141 per cent. among the earls, constitute one of the most radical transformations of the English titular atistocracy that has ever occurred. Nor was this all, for at the same

time the Irish peerage was being enlarged to an even gteater degree. There were 25 Irish peers in 1603, but between then and 1641 the Stuarts created 80 more. Of these some 50 were Englishmen, at least 30 of whom had no connexion with Ireland whatever.

| All but five creations took place between 1616 and 1630 and they seem almost without exception to have been the result of gift or purchase from the Villiers family, whose rapacious stranglehold on the colony was almost complete. One result of this was a quarrel overt precedence between English barons and Irish viscounts, which was to exacerbate relations between the King and the Lords 1 Cotton, op. cit., p. 196. C#, i, pp. 296, 567, 602, 604. Bacon, v, pp. 185-6.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 105 during the Parliaments of 1621 and 1629 and to cause friction in the Council of War in 1624. On this latter occasion the English barons triumphed, one of the arguments used being that ‘the waight of an English baron was 10,000 li, whereas an Irish viscount was valued and might be had for 1,500 li’. It was a quarrel which rumbled on till 1629, when King Charles attempted, somewhat ineffectually, to

decree a compromise. He upheld the legal right to precedence of the Irish and Scottish viscounts but promised to leave them off all future commissions for public duties so as to reduce the occasions on which friction could arise. Naturally enough, the records of the sordid intrigues and bargains that lay behind this inflation are neither as full nor as reliable as one could wish. Many of the participants were ashamed of their own conduct. For example, in 1624 John Holles was very anxious to conceal the fact that he was about to pay for his earldom, and asked for promotion to the Council of War as “some excuse unto

the world . . . why his Majesty should receive him unto this honout’.? But for all this secrecy there were plenty of well-informed

commentators—including John Holles himself—to report how things were arranged, and sufficient negotiations were conducted in writing to have left ample traces in private correspondence. The creations of these thirteen years fall into a variety of categories. There were those like Bacon, Conway, Coventry, or Dudley

Carleton, who achieved their dignities as the natural reward for political services and obsequiousness to Buckingham, and almost certainly paid little or nothing for them. There was an analogous group like Mohun, Weston, and Goring who were promoted to buttress Buckingham’s political position in the House of Lords in 1628 (““Mohun in a Lordlike way will best be your servant’, Sir James Bagg had observed to the Duke some months before). And then there were those who from ambition or necessity had made marriage alliances into some ramification of the wide Villiers clan,

and thereby obtained office or title as a marriage portion. As

Fuller observed: ‘Most of his neices were matched with little more portion then their uncle’s smiles, the forerunner of some good office

ot honour to follow on their husbands.’ Thus Cranfield secured

his position by marrying a Villiers cousin, Anne Brett, ‘a handsome

young waiting gentlewoman, who hath little money but good

p. 69. 2 Cabala, p. 303.

1 C. R. Mayes, “The Early Stuarts and the Irish Peerage’, FHA, lxxitt, 1958. APC, 1629-30,

106 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS friends’. Sir James Ley, aged about 70, married the daughter of Buckingham’s half-sister, aged about 17, and was later made Lord Treasurer and Earl of Marlborough. Viscount Mandeville married his son to a cousin and was later made Earl of Manchester. The Fatl of Denbigh earned his rapid promotion by the lucky chance of having married a sister many years before in 1607. Lords Boteler

and Howard of Escrick, Viscounts Wenman and Grandison, and the Earl of Newport all allied with relatives shortly before promotion. In addition, if Gervase Holles is to be believed, there were other connexions between marriage and titles that are less easily identifiable by posterity: “whilst that Duke lived scarse any man acquired any honour, but such as were either his kindred or had the fortune (or misfortune) to marry with his kindred or mistresses... .’ As a contemporary poem observed : They get the devil and all, That swive the kindred.?

The last and most important group of new peers are those who, in one way ot another, paid roundly for their honours. The rarest categoty comprises those who handed their money straight into the Exchequer. The official receipt-books only record five such

payments: of £8,000 by the Earl of Devonshire and £10,000 by the Earl of Warwick in 1618-19; of £5,000 by Lord Tufton in 1625; of £7,000 by Lord Craven in 1627, and a ‘loan’ of £15,000 by Viscount Bayning in 1628. A further possible case occurred in 1628 when {6,oo0 of Lord Brudenell’s payment is said to have gone directly to the Crown, though no payment can be traced in the Exchequer records.? This dearth of official evidence is caused by the fact that in most cases the money went to a courtier, usually

Buckingham, and that in others it was directly assigned for a specific purpose. As Chamberlain pointed out, this traffic in titles was ‘the less to be misliked yf yt came to the Kings cofets’. 1 HMC Gawdy MSS. p. 129. CSPD, 1627-8, p. 438; 1619-23, p. 49. HMCB, iii, p. 324. Birch: Charles I, i, pp. 106, 351. Fuller, pt. ii, p. 130. C&, ti, p. 381. D’ Ewes, i, p. 160. Holles, p. 99. F. W. Fairholt, Poems and Songs relating to the Duke of Buckingham (Percy Soc. xxrx), ees R Gardiner, History of England, 1603-42, 1883, iii, p. 215, n. 1. Dietz, op. cit., p. 141. The Earl of Devonshire certainly paid over the full {10,000 (Chatsworth/H 29, p. 544), so £2,000 must have gone elsewhere. J. Wake, The Brudenells of Deene, 1953, p. 112. C. R. Mayes, “The Sale of Peerages, in Early Stuart England’, J. Modern History, xxix, 1957, pp. 31-33. Craven paid

this £7,000 into the Exchequer, and £8,000 into the Court of Wards for his wardship (Wards 9/207, f. 99), which tallies well with the report that title and wardship together cost him £16,000 (Birch: Charles I, 1, p. 203).

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 107 A good example of the complexities of the method of direct assignment is provided by the first sale of all, that of a barony to Sit Robert Dormer for {10,000 in the summer of 1615. It was reported that some {8,000 of the purchase price was given to Lord Sheffield, ‘besides other driblettes ells where’. Chamberlain could

not understand the reason for this largesse, but it is possible to hazard a guess. In 1611 Lord Shefhteld had been granted a pension

of {1,000 per annum for thirteen years, probably in connexion with his rights over the alum mines in Yorkshire. Three years later, however, he commuted the last ten years of this annuity for a cash advance of £6,370. But James lacked the money for this payment,

and therefore borrowed it from Sir Arthur Ingram, another alum projector, at Io per cent. interest for two years. It seems very probable that the £8,000 from Lord Dormer was used in 1615 to clear off this capital debt and interest payments to Sir Arthur Ingram. At any rate it is significant that Lord Sheffield was not paid his £6,370 until 1615, at the time of Lord Dormet’s creation.!

In subsequent years mote baronies and earldoms were sold to meet specific pressing needs. In 1616 the large sums required to launch Lord Hay on an expensive embassy to Paris and Madrid were taised by selling two baronies to Sir John Holles and Sir John Roper for {10,000 each. The two peers were created and paid their money on 9 July, and three days later Lord Hay set out, ‘for that he could not move till this waight set his wheeles going’. When

he returned he was given the making of two barons as additional compensation for his outlay, and was made a viscount in return fot money with which to buy hangings to furnish houses along the route of the royal journey to Scotland. In 1619 Lord Digby went on an embassy to Spain and there was talk of the sale of a barony to pay part of his expenses, which were estimated at £20,000. At the same time Dudley Carleton, the ambassador in the Low Countries, was trying to get the nomination of a baron as the only way of obtaining satisfaction for the arrears of his salary and allowances.

Next year further creations took place as the means of providing ready money for a summer progress. And in 1624, when enormous sums were needed to pay for the Duke of Buckingham’s embassy 1 Ch, i, p. Gor. Letters of George, Lord Carew (Camden Soc.), 1860, p. 13. CSPD, r6rr-r8, p. 36. Leeds Central Library, Temple Newsam MSS., Family Papers 9. Dietz, op. cit., p. 169, n. 39. J. Nichols, Progresses of James I, iii, p. 77.

108 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS to Paris, a new round of sales of titles was begun in order to raise £30,000."

While the commonest of these urgent needs were for the cost of

embassies or progresses, the sale of titles was also used for the widest purposes. In 1624 the dowager Lady Burgh asked for the making of a baron as compensation for the surrender of her pension of {400 a year, granted by Queen Elizabeth at her husband’s death in 1598.7 Or again the grant of a nomination was sometimes

used as compensation for loss of office, or for failure to obtain office. In 1616, in compensation for his failure to get the Chancellor-

ship of the Duchy of Lancaster, Sir Ralph Winwood was given a nomination, which he sold to Sir Philip Stanhope for £10,000. In 1628 the Duke of Buckingham promised (but Charles refused) Colonel Sir James Scott the making of two viscounts in return for his losses during military service abroad. In the same year Sir Francis Willoughby asked the Duke for the nomination of an Irish viscount in compensation for the loss of his company in the Low Countries, and the {/500 due as arrears of pay.3 Occasionally the grant of nomination was used as compensation for other losses. In 1621 James hastily suppressed one of the most

notorious of the recent grants of monopoly, that for the manufactute of tobacco pipes. The patentee, Sir Thomas Gerrard, had obtained his grant via Buckingham, and so promptly asked his patron for some compensation for the loss of the £4,000 he had paid for it. He suggested he could be repaid out of the £10,000 he could

obtain from a vety respectable candidate, if he wete given the making of a baron. Whether or not his suit was successful we do not know, but the request shows the intimate connexion between the sale of titles and the other forms of royal grants and favours.

Another case that shows this interrelationship is that of Sir Thomas Monson, a Lincolnshire landowner and successful Jacobean courtier. In the early 1620’s Sir Thomas became involved in a very complicated transaction with the Earl of Middlesex connected with

debts to the Crown incurred by officials in the Ordnance Office. 1 CSPD, 1611-18, p. 380; 1623-f, pp. 28, 51, 58, 401. Journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham (Camden

Misc. x), 1902, p. 117. Ch, li, pp. 18, 68-69, 257, 308. Holles, p. 99. Bod! MS. Add. D 111, f. 104. Birch: James I, ii, p. 169. 2 CSPD, 1598-1601, p. §; 1625-6, p. 512. The annuity had been extinguished by 1630, so she may well have got her barony (SP 16/180/16). 3 Ch, ii, pp. 19, 25. CSPD, rér1-18, p. 404; 1629-31, p. 5593 1628-9, p. 104. 4 Bodl MS. Add. D 11x, f. 132.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 109 The Earl bought out Monson’s interest in the estates of one of the

officials in return, amongst other things, for ‘the makinge of 6 Baronetts’. But James’s refusal to exceed the stipulated total of 200

baronets made it impossible for the bargain to be fulfilled, and instead Monson was given the right to enfranchise the copyholders

on the royal manor of Wakefield. Before the grant could be implemented, however, James died and Charles refused to confirm it. Monson kept pressing for an alternative reward, and in 1628 he persuaded a committee of privy councillors to recommend that he be granted the making of a baron, to be taken in his own person. As he explained, he wanted the title in order to advance his house by increasing the affection towards it of his son’s mother-in-law. But alas, he was again just too late, for Charles had now, after the death of Buckingham, decided to stop all sales of titles. Consequently poor Monson was still petitioning irritably for some alternative reward as the clouds of Civil War were rolling up in 1641.! The exceptional thing about this prolonged suit 1s not its nature, but its lack of success at each step. Since they were now so easy to procure, titles inevitably became counters in marriage schemes other than those with the Villiers kindred. In 1620, when Edward Wray of Glentworth married Elizabeth, Lord Norris’s only daughter and heiress, it was rumoured

that Wray was to be made lord into the bargain. A little later Sir Roger Mostyn was offered—but refused—a barony for the hand of his son, the heir of £3,000 a year. Sometimes the right of nomination was given away by King James in pure charity, as when Sir James Erskine of Tullibody, younger brother of the Earl of Kellie, obtained a blank patent for the making of an Irish earl, simply to retrieve his fortunes. He sold it to Thomas Ridgeway (Earl of Londonderry) in 1622 and spent the proceeds in buying the estate of Agher.? Most of the great courtiers seem to have had a share in the sales at one time or another, presumably instead of more direct rewards. In 1619 Viscount Haddington was given the making of an Irish viscount, which he sold to Sir Richard Wingfield for over £2,000. The Earl of Middlesex’s secretary was told in 1623 of an Irish gentleman who was ready to pay {2,000 for a viscountcy and 1 Lincs. R.O., Monson MSS. 19/7/1/1-7. SP 14/175/37; SP 16/257/69. CSPD, 1623-5, pp. 263, 369, 390, 485. LJ, ili, pp. 368-70. 2 Ch, ii, pp. 334. J. Whitelocke, Liber Famelicus (Camden Soc.), 1858, p. 94. J. Riddell, Inquiry into the Law and Practise in Scottish Peerages, Edinburgh, 1842, ii, p. 870.

110 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS £2,500 for an eatldom. In the same year Sir George Calvert 1s found writing unblushingly to the Earl of Cork: ‘I pray your lordship if you knowe any fytt person that will have any kynde of earthly honors, send them to me, for I have warrant for yt out of England.’ Sir Francis Bacon is said to have obtained a nomination .

in 1618, which he offered to his brother Sir Nicholas at a to per cent. discount, for £9,000. The Earl of Oxford obtained a similar etant in 1621, and was allowed to keep it despite his opposition to royal policies in Parliament. But the dependence of these grants on the benevolence of Buckingham is well shown when Bacon again asked him for a nomination in 1620 and was tefused.!

Sometimes titles were used for the settlement of private debts and obligations. On the death of Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury in 1618 he left Sir William Cavendish as his executor and the wives of the earls of Pembroke and Arundel and the daughter-in-law of

the Earl of Kent as his heirs general. Shrewsbury had owed Cavendish {£17,000 and the heirs had an obvious interest to clear off this charge on the estate and to obtain direct control for themselves. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that the greater part of the £17,000 which it was agreed in 1620 to repay to Cavendish was

discounted by the latter’s elevation to a viscountcy at the direct request of Pembroke and Arundel.? This is a fairly straightforward case compared with the complicated distribution of the profit of ennobling the dowager Lady Finch. On the death of her husband, Sir Moyle Finch, in 1614, she had been described with justice as ‘the richest widow in present estate, both in ioynture, moveables, and inheritance of her owne, that is in England’, her husband’s estate in Kent being estimated at £6,000 a year.3 She was an ambitious woman and for six years she intrigued actively for a title. Her first attempt was in 1618 when she offered to surrender to Lord Hay Copt Hall and her Essex estates, “to become a countesse’, and early in the new year it was rumoured that she was likely to be made a viscountess. But nothing came of this manceuvre, and it was not till 1623 that she obtained her wish, and was made Viscountess of Maidstone. It 1 Birch: James I, ii, p. 137. CSPD, 1619-23, p. 608. Grosatt, 2nd set., iii, p. 75. Ch, ii, pp. 127, 211, 390; cf. HMCB, i, p. 252. Bodi MS. Add. D 111, ff. 92, 104. Bacon’s offer was to bequeath

three manors to the Duke after his death, in return for the profits of a nomination now. 2 Mayes, op. cit., pp. 26-27. NUL/P Cavendish Misc., 76. The link between the settlement and the viscountcy was reported in a contemporary newsletter (CSPD, 1619-23, p. 190). 3 Letters of George, Lord Carew (Camden Soc.), 1860, p. 2. H/S 186, ff. 80-84.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 111 was probably one of the most expensive titles ever sold. Negotiations were conducted by Sir Arthur Ingram on behalf of the Duke of Richmond and of his friend Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, the Lord Treasurer. The first step was concluded in May 1623, when her son Sit Thomas agreed to give the Duke the great house of Copt Hall and the near-by manor of Gladwyns, with the option of redemption within seven years for {13,000 and an additional £500 for every yeat’s delay. Richmond, who was hard pressed financially, promptly sold Copt Hall to Middlesex, apparently for £15,000, of which £7,000 was paid at once. But the negotiations wete conducted verbally and Richmond’s death in the spring of 1624 led to acrimonious disputes with the widow, the formidable

Duchess Frances. Though Copt Hall had been surrendered to Middlesex, Richmond had taken a fancy to a fine set of hangings, and had insisted on having them. He had sent men down to Copt

Hall to remove them, according to Middlesex without consent. As a result of this high-handed action, Middlesex withheld the further £8,000 of the purchase-price. This enraged the Duchess, who stated bluntly that ‘I think nobody doth imagine that my Lord would move the King to make a Lady a Viscountess and all her children capable of that honour for £7,000 and them hangings’. She demanded the last £8,000 as well as ‘them hangings’ before she could be satisfied. In addition to this Middlesex-Richmond deal

the Finches had also to satisfy other royal favourites.! The court lions thus cut up the carcass between them. There can be no doubt at all that the commonest method of obtaining a peerage, particularly after 1624, was payment to the Duke of Buckingham or to his telatives. The Duke frequently distributed the proceeds among his followers, making Walter Steward share with Sir Francis Stuart the proceeds of making Sit Francis Fane Earl of Westmorland, and giving Conway some of the £8,000 profits of Lord Grey of Warke’s barony. This last was a complicated transaction, since the Duke had forced the money out of the Earl of March, to whom the profits belonged by rights, on the promise of Conway to tepay the money as soon as he could fill up a nomination of his own. Conway therefore spent the next few months looking for a likely candidate. He was helped by cortespondents like John Verney, who wrote to say that he was “in great ™ Ch, ii, pp. 181, 212, 505. SP 14/160/4. Cabala, p. 309. Knole, Cranfield MSS. 8852, and letter of 13 Sept. 1624 (I am indebted to Mrs. Prestwich for transcripts of these documents).

112 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS hope of assurance of a good baron, a man of great estate & full purse; of good birth’. Some months later Sir Henry Yelverton suggested Sir Thomas Thynne of Longleat as a suitable choice for a viscountcy, for which Sir Thomas would be willing to give £8,000.

Yelverton went on to explain that he passed on this tip as a means of obtaining a festoration to the favour of Conway’s patron, the Duke. On other occasions the profits were shared by the Villiers family. In 1620 Lord Boyle paid £500 to Lady Villiers for his Irish viscountcy and {4,000 to Sit Edward Villiers for his Irish earldom.! Frequently, however, the money went direct to the Duke himself. In 1624 Sir Francis Leake paid him £8,000 for his barony and Lord Houghton £5,000 for his earldom. The cool effrontery with which Buckingham told the King of Leake’s offer and of how he was pteparing the patent provides remarkable evidence of the relationship between James and his favourite: “Here is a gentleman called Sir Francis Leake who hath likewise a philosophers stone; tis worth but eight thousand; he will give it me if you will make

him a baron. J will, if you command not the contrary, have his patent ready for you to sign when I come down; he is of good religion, well born, and hath a good estate. I pray you burn this letter.’ Letters to the Duke in 1627-8 from Sir William Cavendish, now Viscount Mansfield, show the process at work. In the first he wrote that he had opened negotiations on the Duke’s behalf with

his cousin and Nottinghamshire neighbour, Robert Pierrepoint. Pierrepoint said that in King James’s time he was told by the Duke’s

doctor that he could be a baron for £4,000, a viscount for £4,000 mote, and an earl for yet another £4,000. He added that he had been offered a viscountcy for {5,000 by a Scottish knight, and that, though scorning a barony as too common nowadays, he ‘would be a Viscount if it came somewhat easy’. A few months later he

duly became Viscount Newark, and June of next year found Cavendish telling the Duke that Pierrepoint would again part with a reasonable sum for the acquisition of a higher honour. By July he was Earl of Kingston.3 1 H/S 126, f. 107. Wake, op. cit., p. 112. Goodman, ii, p. 361. CSPD, 1623-5, p. 173. Thoroton Soc. Trans. xxvi, 1922, p. 46, n. 2. Ch, ii, pp. 10, 436, 546. HMC 4th Rep., App., p. 286. SP 14/167/43, 182/63. Grosart, Ist ser., 1, pp. 249, 266, 269; ii, p. 2. 2 Dalrymple, op. cit., p. 164. Holles, p. 100. Ch, ii, p. 587. Goodman, ii, p. 362. Cabala,

mr CSPD, 163, p. 1133 1627-8, pp. 68-69; 7628-9, p. 186. Dr. Moore seems to have been frequently employed by the Duke as an intermediary for the sale of titles (A. J. Kempe, Loseley MSS., 1836, p. 483).

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 113 Ireland during these years was virtually a colony of exploitation maintained by the Villiers family. Between 1618 and 1622 the Duke secuted {24,750 from the sale of nine peerages, eleven baronetcies,

four knighthoods, the Lord Chancellorship, and a seat on the Privy Council in this unhappy island. This corrupt tyranny continued until his murder and in 1627-8 we find Lord Barrymore paying him {1,000 for a barony and the Earl of Cork {£2,000 for two baronies for his younger sons. In the same year an Irish baron

paid {700 to the Countess of Buckingham for his earldom, Sir George Chaworth bought a viscountcy from the Duke for £1,500, and Sir Thomas Pope an earldom for £2,500.} Lastly there are the cases in which the Duke obtained benefits other than direct cash payments. For example, in 1616 Lord Roper, besides paying his {10,000 for Lord Hay’s embassy, also put the Duke’s feoffees in immediate possession of his office of Clerk of Enrolments in the King’s Bench, reserving to himself a life interest

in the profits. This enabled the Duke to consolidate his hold on this most lucrative office before Lord Ropet’s death in 1618. In 1618 Mountjoy Blount was given an Irish barony in return for the sutrender to Buckingham of his great house at Wanstead. A year later Lady Elizabeth Hatton could have been made a countess ‘yf she will geve down her milke plentifully’, in other words if she would have conveyed the island of Purbeck to her son-in-law, Sir John Villiers. But her avarice exceeded her social ambitions and she refused the offer. When in 1622 Buckingham bought Lord and Lady Wallingford’s town house neat Whitehall, part of the price

was a viscountcy for Lady Wallingford’s brother, Sir Thomas Howard, the remainder apparently taking the form of a bond of Sit Thomas and the Viscountess Wallingford to pay the Duke £3,000 within six months of the death of Viscount Wallingford.? One way of another—and the ways were many and devious— most creations between 1615 and 1628 led back to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and the Commons were well justified in 1626

when they made ‘the trade and commetce of honor’ one of the chief grounds for their impeachment of the Duke. As they said, even if he did not altogether begin the traffic, ‘he was the first that 1 C, R. Mayes, ‘The Early Stuarts and the Irish Peerage’, EHR, Ixxiii, 1958. Grosart, 1st set., li, pp. 222, 238, 243, 244, 271. Kempe, op. cit., p. 485. Misc. Philobiblion Soc., 1865-6, ix,

821314 I

PP CSPD, 1611-18, pp. 380, 407. Ch, ii, pp. 122, 239, 241, 243, 248-9, 421. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berkshire MSS. Box A/135.

II4 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS defiled this virgin of honor so publickly’. One of the charges they pressed most forcibly was that ‘this gentleman hath not onely set

honour to sale by his agents, but compelled men likewise, unwilling to take titles of honour upon them’. Specifically, they alleged that in October 1624 Buckingham had summoned Sir Richard Robartes to London and there forced him by threats to accept a barony in return for £10,000. Another case of attempted compulsion of which the Commons were unaware occurred a few months later, when an agent of the Duke told Sir George Chaworth that “yf I wold not nowe give him {£2,500 for that tytle he offered

... by God I shold never have ante tytle whylst he lived’. In the Robartes case, although an official denial was extorted from the victim, presumably under duress, by Sir James Bagg, one of Buckingham’s more nauseating sycophants, the allegation of blackmail is strongly supported by contemporaty evidence. Moreover Bagg ovetplayed his hand by forcing Robartes to swear on oath that he had no knowledge that Buckingham had ever engaged in the sale of titles. Unable to deny that the {10,000 was paid over, Robartes

was got to sweat that he had given it to the King for his special setvice. In fact Robartes, an enormously wealthy tin magnate turned money-lender, had long been considered fair game, and we are told that in 1616 he had been blackmailed, under threat of prosecution on a charge of breaches of the usury laws, into lending the Crown £12,000 repayable at {1,200 per annum and that he had been

thrown a knighthood by way of interest. In 1622 that scheming and avarticious termagant Frances Duchess of Richmond urged Middlesex to raise money for her family wants by ‘forcing this Roberts’ to accept a barony for £10,000. With this history of extor-

tion and attempted extortion in mind, it is more than likely that Buckingham would have been emboldened to try such methods again in 1624. The Commons were right in regarding the charge

| as one of the most damaging that they could level against the Duke.!

The motives and the mechanics of the wholesale distribution of titles between 1615 and 1629 ate now clear enough. An indolent king in desperate straits for money with which to finance his day-today pleasures and to reward his courtiers, a prevailing tradition of

1 J. Rushworth, Historical Collections, i, 1721, pp. 334, 337, 342. CSPD, 1625-6, p. 298. Kempe, op. cit., p. 484. C4, ii, p. 42. Knole, Cranfield MSS. 8931 (1 am indebted to Mrs. Prestwich for a transcript of this document). The elevation of Viscount Bayning in 1628 was also rumoured to have been against his will (Birch: Charles I, i, p. 329). He certainly paid far above the market rate for it.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 115 gratuities and bribes for services rendered, a long-standing custom of the sale by individuals of minor offices in the administration and the law, the accession to power of a new and unscrupulous favourite bringing with him a crowd of relatives and dependants all clamouring for the spoils, the financial success of the sale of baronetcies, all combined in 1615 to exert irresistible pressure. Occasionally the King sold titles directly, more often he either sold them and turned overt the money at once for some specific purpose like an embassy ot a progress, or gave the benefit of a nomination to a deserving courtier, creditor, or disappointed place-seeker. In all cases where the King granted the nomination to others, it should be emphasized that in theory all he was giving away was the profits. The grantee had to find a suitable candidate, but the King retained the ultimate tight to accept or reject the offer. Nevertheless the choice lay with

the grantee, and so far as we know this right of veto was in fact rately exercised. Most commonly the distribution of these favours was carried out not by the King but by Buckingham, to the profit of himself, his relatives, or his dependants. The reckless inflation of both the English and Irish peerages coincides with the rule of the Duke and it formed an important element in making him one of the best-hated men in English history. The evidence for prices 1s inevitably less reliable than that for the facts and the mechanics of sales. Nevertheless the three main sources, an incomplete list of prices jotted down by the ist Earl of Clare,! contemporary reports of well-informed commentators from London, and such scraps as have survived from the correspondence of the negotiators themselves, all agree in a very convincing manner. These intimate details were far more widely known in court circles

than one would have supposed. Naturally enough the price of peerages, like those of knighthoods and baronetcies, tended to fluctuate according to the laws of supply and demand.” In the first five or six years, from 1615 to 1621, a barony was held at about {10,000, at which price at least five were 1 Printed by R. W. Goulding in Thoroton Soc. Trans., loc. cit. (this MS. is not among the Holles MSS. from Welbeck now in the Nottingham University Library). 2 Jn addition to the purchase price, the new peer had also to pay the customary fees to heralds, clerks, and civil servants. In the reign of James these ranged from £164 for a duke and £107 for an earl down to £65 for a mere baron. Irish peers were charged in both countries and appear to have had to pay double (BM. Lansd. MSS. 255, f. 223; Grosart, 1st ser., i, p. 269; ti, p. 2513 J. Nichols, op. cit., iv, pp. 853, 1103).

L1G THE INFLATION OF HONOURS sold and probably more. But by 1622 Chamberlain reported that

| the price was dropping, and in 1624 Lords Deincourt and Grey of Warke paid only £8,000. Lord Robartes paid {10,000 for his title at this time, but then he was being blackmailed and so the price was hardly that of the free market. Sir Robert Pierrepoint alleged that before 1625 he had been offered a batony for £4,000, in 1628 Lord Brudenell certainly paid no more than £6,600, and at about

the same time the nomination of a baron was tegarded as the equivalent of that of six baronetcies. It is clear that in the middle

1620’s the price fell by about 50 per cent. |

, Evidence for viscountcies is less reliable and abundant, but it seems that they wete sold for {10,000 in 1620, about £8,000 in 1625, and had dropped to £4,000 ot £5,000 by 1627.” Until about 1620 the normal price of converting a barony into an earldom was the same as for a barony itself, namely £10,000, though there seem

to have been exceptions to the rule. It is said that Lord Compton paid £8,o00 but Viscount Brackley £20,000 for their earldoms, a difference which is no doubt explained by the varying degrees of favour the candidates received from Buckingham. But by 1624 the previous standard price of {10,000 had slumped to between £4,000 and {'5,000 and a few years later it was certainly down to £,4,000.3

Irish titles, which were freely sold throughout this period, underwent the same decline in value. In 1616 Richard Boyle paid £4,000 for his barony, but eleven years later he could buy baronial titles for two of his younger sons for a mete {1,000 a piece. For some teason,

the commonest Irish titles were viscountcies, which until 1623 stayed at between {2,000 and £2,500. Mass creations by Buckingham in 1624-5, however, soon brought the price down to £1,500, where it remained. In addition, a handful of Scottish titles were obtained by English gentry during the 1620’s, but the only evidence

about price is the £2,500 demanded by Buckingham from Sir t Letters of George, Lord Carew, p. 13. Ch, i, p. 602; ti, pp. 18, 25. Holles, p. 99. Thoroton Soc. Trans., loc, cit. HMCB, i, p. 252. Dalrymple, op. cit., p. 164. CSPD, 1627-8, pp. 68-69; 1629-31, Pp. 182; 1633-4, p. 370. 2 Thoroton Soc. Trans., loc. cit. SP 14/182/63. CSPD, 1627-8, pp. 68-69. There were, however,

two striking exceptions. In 1623 Lady Finch surrendered to the Duke of Lennox property wotth £13,000 and in 1628 Paul Bayning, perhaps under compulsion, paid £15,000 into the Exchequer (see s#pra, pp. 106, 110-11). 3 Ch, ii, p. 65. Thoroton Soc. Trans., loc. cit. Cabala, p. 303. Holles, p. roo. An exception is

Viscountess Maidstone, who is said to have been charged £5,000 in 1628 to convert her title to Countess of Winchelsea.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 117 George Chaworth fot a viscountcy in 1625 and the £1,500 paid by Sit Thomas Fairfax to Lord Colville in 1627.5

This widespread system of ‘temporall simony’, as the Earl of Clare described it, was put to an end by Felton’s knife. Free from Buckingham’s corrupting influence, within a few months Charles realized the damage being done to his conceptions of monarchy and

society, and firmly put a stop to all such practices in future. Nor can there be any doubt that this was a deliberate decision of Charles

himself.? Yet it was during this decade that another discreditable episode in the history of the peerage took place, when in 1638 the King bought the claim to the Stafford title from the impoverished heir male for {100 a year for life, in order to be free to confer it upon the heir general and her husband, William Howard, a son of

the Earl of Arundel. It is said that the wretched man was kept a semi-prisoner in Arundel House until his death in 1641, to make sute he did not marry and beget an heir. This squalid manceuvre profoundly irritated the Lords, and as soon as the House met again

in 1640 it proceeded by a unanimous vote to declare that this sutrender of a title by fine and recovery was illegal. It was not till 1638-9 that the idea of a general resumption of the sale of honours again came under discussion in official circles. This time someone, possibly one of the heralds, put forward an elaborate and revolutionary money-taising scheme. The project throws a sinister light on the ideas of some of those in authority during the period of Charles’s personal rule, for had it succeeded it would have created in England a social structure based on privilege and inequality as closely controlled and as subservient to the Crown as that which was already developing in France.4

It was suggested that all titles of honour should henceforth be strictly regulated by the King and granted only in return for certain concessions. The applicant was expected to give bonds either to pay a ceftain annual sum to the Exchequer or else to provide personal service in time of war. In addition he was to take a special 1 Grosart, 1st set., i, pp. 128, 146, 153, 159, 177, 180; ll, pp. 238, 243. Mayes, op. cit., pp. 239-46. Birch: James I, ii, p. 137. Ch, ii, pp. 211, 559. CSPD, 1679-23, p. 608. Kempe, op. cit., pp. 484-5. G. W. Johnson, The Fairfax Correspondence, 1848, i, p. 16. 2 SP 16/257/69. CSPD, 1631-33, p. 477. 3 CSPD, 1637-8, p. 1183 1639-40, p. §33 1640-41, pp. 54-55. Bodl Banks MSS. 43/101. G. J. Armitage and W. H. Rylands, Staffordshire Pedigrees, 1664-1700 (Harl. Soc. Publ. tx11), 1912, p. 213. English Reports, i, 1900, p. 8. LJ, i, p. 172. 4 BM Add. MSS. 12514, ff. 1-8.

118 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS oath of personal loyalty to the sovereign. This new feudalism, which would evidently be more concerned with scutage than with

setvice, would bind the recipients to the Crown, provide a huge annual income, and also a nucleus of military aid in time of war. The scheme was principally directed towards the gentry, esquires, and knights, partly because ‘the greatest part of the Kings strength and revenew is likely to come from the middle sort of men by reason of their nomber’, and partly because they were more prone to faction than the nobles. The author had no fear of lack of applicants. ‘Wee see it the common coutse of the world that a ssoone as men have either by theire owne endeavours or the guift of their freindes acquired to themselves estates, they presently of themselves become suitors for

an addition of HoNouR.’ This natural tendency he proposed to stimulate by offering striking legal and financial concessions, which would divide Englishmen into two distinct groups. Participants in the scheme were offered immunity from personal arrest in ordinary

legal causes; immunity from physical punishment by whipping, eat-cropping, &c.; immunity from the burden of holding parish office as constable, overseer of the poor, &c.; and immunity from all taxes save those normally due on land or trade. This last is a vaguely worded clause but presumably means freedom from all except parliamentary subsidies, and customs dues, thus excluding all forced loans and other extraordinary taxes, and also all impositions. In addition the participants were promised enhanced social status. They were to be given a cognizance or badge of rank to wear on all occasions, and were to take precedence in public places over all those who had already achieved the same status but who refused to come into the new scheme. If the existing knights and gentry wished to maintain their position and to obtain the new privileges, they would have to pay their money ot promise service like the rest. The result would be, so the author hoped, to tie the gentry to the monarchy in a striving for privilege and promotion, in the same way that the sale of offices helped to bind the bourgeoisie

to the monatchy in France. As he observed, the gentry “are many tymes most peevish and refractorie to yeald obedience to the Kings demaundes for ayde, and therefore very fitt they should bee drawne on by such baytes as these, to comply with the Kinges designes’. This bold and far-reaching scheme to establish royal authority on a systematic sale of honours had already met with devastating

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 11g criticism by Edward Walker, Chester Herald, when it was first put forward in 1638.1 Whatever might have been the prospects twenty or fifty years earlier, by now the angry gentry of England wete in no mood to be taken in by this specious trap. Nor would the peers have been easily induced to share with the gentry their privileges of immunity from arrest. Had Charles adopted it, the scheme could only have been a gigantic failure, yet further uniting opposition against him and all his works. In fact, however, it only reached the serious discussion stage by a Privy Council committee in December 1639, and was soon swept away in the tide of government bankruptcy and parliamentary indignation of 16,40. And so it was not till 1641 that Charles renewed the practice of selling honours. He began, as has been seen, with baronetcies, and

in the summer of 1641 he created a number of new peers, one of whom—Lord Capel—was reputed to have bought his title. The rumour of these creations stirred the Lords to anger, and they approached the Commons to join them in a petition to Charles “That titles of honour may not be bought and sold for money’. In May 1642 the Lords actually read and sent down to the Commons a bill to restrain future creations from sitting and voting in the House, but nothing came of it. In October Lord Newport paid £6,000 for his title, and by February 1643 the King is found promising ‘the making of an English Baron’ to a Scottish suppotter, the Earl of Forth. The price sank rapidly; a barony fetched only £1,500 in 1644, and a year later Lord Lucas ts said to have obtained his title for £500 given to a groom of the Bedchamber, and an unknown amount to the King. The last of such sales occurred as late as October 1648 when the captive Charles at Carisbrooke promised

to make Lord Brudenell an earl in return for a mere £1,000. By now it was all the monarch had to offer, and even this promise could not be honouted till the Restoration.? VI. CONCLUSION

The immediate consequences of this process of inflation of titles of honour and their distribution by open sale are obvious enough. ™ BM Lansd. MSS. 255, f. 227.

2 CSPD, 1641-3, p. 38. LJ, iv, p. 297; v, p. 64. Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, 1849, ii, p. 367. W. Notestein, The Journal of Sir Simonds D’ Emes, New Haven, 1923, p. 392. Ruthven Correspondence (Roxburghe Club), 1868, p. xxix. Cokayne, op. cit. ii, p. 248 note. Clarendon, Life, 1857, ii, pp. 62-63. HMCB, i, pp. 310, 313-14.

120 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS But what of the wider social and political effects P During the long yeats of the Interregnum a number of royalists looked back over the history of the previous half-century to try to discover how it was that the institution of monarchy had fallen into such disrepute. Without exception they allagreed in laying great emphasis upon the sale of honours. In general their conclusions agreed with those of the Commons of 1626. As article XI of the bill of impeachment against

Buckingham pointed out, ‘It extremely deflowers the flowers of the Crown; for it makes them cheap to all beholders’; it deprives the Crown of the best and cheapest way of rewarding great public servants, since it brings such rewards into contempt; it makes men pursue money rather than merit; “It introduceth a strange confusion,

mingling the meanet with the more pure and refined metal’; in short, ‘It’s a prodigious scandal to this nation’.! But the royalists of the 1650’s went deeper into the problem than

this, and arrived at even gloomier conclusions. Getvase Holles thought that ‘that way of merchandise . . . was one cause (and not the least) of [the] misfortunes . . . of our last-martered King’. Sir Edward Walker thought the same: “It may be doubted whether the dispensing of honours with so liberal (I will not say unconsiderate)

a hand, were not one of the beginnings of general discontents, especially amongst persons of great extraction.” The Marquis of Newcastle saw a direct chain of causation. First, ‘so manye begerlye

people [were] made greate Lordes and Ladies in title thatt weare

nott able to keepe upp the dignetye off itt’ that respect for the peerage declined; and then, once “‘Noble-men weare pullde doune, which is the foundation off monarkeye—monarkeye soone affter fell’.2

Thete is a good deal of evidence that respect for the titular peerage was declining in the early seventeenth century. An important cause of this development was the partial divorce of titular rank from both wealth and status, caused by the fact that titles could be bought for money; that mere merchants ot merchants’ sons like Hicks, Craven, or Bayning could acquire them; that a few of the new peers, particularly Villiers relatives and hangers-on, lacked the financial resources to maintain the position their titles demanded; and that they had become so numerous that familiarity bred contempt. As the Venetian ambassador remarked in 1628, ‘the number I Rushwotth, op. cit. i, p. 336. * Holles, p. 99. Walker, op. cit., p. 300. Strong, p. 213

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 121 of councillors and titled persons . . . [are] so constantly multiplied

that they are no longer distinguishable from common people’. Assuming a population in 1630 of about 5 million, there were about

twenty-five peers per million people, which, apart from the first decade of the nineteenth century, is the highest ratio ever reached.! An important element in the decline of respect was the change in the age composition of the peerage (Fig. 7). The wave of new

[558 1603

1628 [64] GENERATIONS

Fic. 7. The Peerage by Age of Title, 1558-1641

creations between 1529 and 1554 meant that at the accession of Elizabeth 23 per cent. of the peerage were of the first generation and another 23 pet cent. of the second. But thanks to the Queen’s ultra-conservative policy, by 1603 the proportion of first or second generations had fallen from 46 per cent. to 18 per cent. The inflation of titles by James and Buckingham resulted in a complete reversal of the situation, and by 1628 44 per cent. of the peerage wete first generation and 57 per cent. first or second. The years of austetity after 1629 were not enough to restote the 1558 pattern, which itself was unusual enough by medieval standards. The peers under Charles I were a more upstart group than at any time in the 1 C§SPVen., 1626-28, p. 607.

122 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS previous 200 years—far more so than at the present day, when the pattern more closely resembles that of 1558.1

Condemnation of this development was widespread in the early seventeenth century. Emphasis on moral revulsion is not a misplaced application of a twentieth-century standard of values but

recognition of the attitude of mind of a generation still deeply affected by renaissance ideas of nobility as the hallmark of both personal merit and ancient lineage. It saw the inflation of honours as the cause of the introduction of the dread notion of ‘parity’. No hierarchy, no King, warned Shakespeare; ‘No Bishop, no King’, atgued James; ‘No nobility, no King’, concluded Newcastle. There was truth in what they said. It 1s not without significance that this first epoch of direct sale of titles culminated in the temporary abolition of the House of Lords and the monarchy, just as another epidemic of sales from 1891 to 1921 witnessed the removal of most

of the political powers of the Lords and the final erosion of the residual authority of the Crown.? Handled discreetly, the sale of titles could have been adjusted to changing circumstances without causing too much offence, without shattering the established order, and with some profit to the Crown.

As it was, supply often tended to outrun demand since many families scorned to traffic in so squalid a market. Moreover, it is a nice point whether the embattled gentry were more infuriated by the sale of honours before 1629 or by the alternative devices of distraint of knighthood and forest fines of the 1630’s. By this lastminute change of heart the Crown failed to restore much confidence

in its integrity and merely aroused further indignation over the illegality of its measures. It got the worst of both worlds. Another drawback, which was pointed out by Sir John Bramston,

was that the creation of so large a number of hereditary titles gravely reduced the political influence of the Crown. So long as the

commonest honour of knighthood was not hereditary, generation after generation of leading county families were obliged to seek Crown favour and undertake public service, if only to maintain their social position within the knightly class. But once they had acquired a hereditary baronetcy or peerage, they and their descendants could more easily afford the luxury of political opposition.3 1 See Appendix VII. The Economist, 21 July 1956, p. 200.

2 For this later spurt of sales, see H. J. Hanham, ‘The Sale of Honours in Late Victorian England’, Victorian Studies, iii, 1959—-Go.

3 The Autobiography of Sir John Bramston ... (Camden Soc.), 1845, p. 118.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 123 It was left to Bacon to draw attention to a more fundamental problem, which was the strain this inflation was placing on both the national economy and royal finances.’ Men with titles felt themselves obliged to maintain a way of life commensurate with their degree. The result of a titular inflation was therefore to increase conspicuous consumption and this used up more and more capital in unproductive ways. For the maintenance of this style of living the nobility had to rely in large measure on lavish royal rewards and favours, which in turn endangered the stability of royal finances and created friction among the taxpayers, who were not among the beneficiaries of the system. The consequence was

the growing cleavage in thought, behaviour, pattern of life, and economic interests between ‘Court’ and ‘Country’. There is much truth in this analysis of Early Stuart politics and finances, and it is curious that it is only mentioned in passing by Bacon, and was not developed by others. The consequence to which all commentators drew attention was the incitement to faction. For a time the House of Lords itself was tent by divisions between groups of different origin. The older peerage despised the new, and their contempt found violent expression in 1621 when Arundel publicly taunted Spencer with his ancestry. There were also jealousies between new peers of longstanding gentry stock and those of base blood, which again were ventilated openly when Lord Digby called Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, ‘an insolent merchant’. Large numbers of the peers, particularly those of ancient title, wete offended by the elevation of George Villiers first to a marquisate and then to a dukedom, and in the 1620’s there developed what had not been seen since the days of Wolsey or Protector Somerset, a large group of peers actively ranged against royal policies and the royal favourites. By no

means all this opposition group came from the older peerage, and some of its membets owed both title and fortune to recent royal patronage. John Selden thought little of such ingratitude, and rematked acidly : “The Lords that fall from the King after they have got

estates by base flattery att Court and now pretend conscience, do as a vintner; that when he first setts up, you may bring your wench to his house and do yor things there; but when he grows rich, he turns consientious and will sell noe wine upon the Sabbath day.” ' F, Bacon, Essays: Of Nobility and Of the true Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates. 2 Ch, ti, p. 374. CSPD, 1619-23, pp. 1, 354. Birch: Charles I, ii, p. 300, Selden, p. 26.

124 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS It was argued by both Walker and Newcastle that an important factor in creating this opposition group in the Lords was the lack of sufficient public offices to satisfy the ambitions of so numerous

a nobility. Every peer thought himself entitled by virtue of his dignity to a share in at any rate the more decorative offices of state

or court, and when rebuffed he tended to join the country party out of pique. Newcastle went still farther and ascribed the opposition

in the Commons to encouragement from the Lords. “The House off Commons had nott been factius butt for them, for as soone as ever one is made a Lorde, hee thinkes him selfe then capaple off the gteateste place in Englande though moste unfitt, partialetye hath such forse; & iff hee bee denied, then hee groes factius & makes parties & joynes with the House off Commons to tisturbe your Majesties governmente.’ Aristocratic opposition to Charles

| may in part be ascribed to the bitterness of disappointed placeseekers, but it is far-fetched to argue that the opposition in the Commons was primarily inspited by the Lords. Newcastle in his enthusiasm went even farther, arguing that ‘the multeplisetye of Lordes . . . hath made this faction, & those factius a purpose to bee Lordes, soe thatt the fewer Lordes the less faction’. We need not agtee with the Marquis in his over-cynical analysis of political

motivation, but it remains true that the growth of a powerful opposition in the House of Lords deprived the King of his last bulwark against an indignant Commons, and that this growth was encouraged by the sale of titles. The inflation of honours not only provoked divisions within the peerage, but also inspired fierce jealousies between order and order, rank and rank. The peers fought bitterly for the defence of their and their children’s privileges, first against the baronets and later

against the English gentry who had acquired Irish and Scottish titles; the baronets quarrelled with oficials, magistrates, and lawyers

ovet issues of precedence; the knights were profoundly resentful of the baronets, with their hereditary privileges and superior rank; the squiteatchy were furious at having to give way to a mob of knights often of low birth and mean estate. The numerical increase in all ranks, the creation of a new order, and the glaring injustices

of the distribution of titles tended to set the whole governing class at loggerheads. In France, where titles carried with them substantial fiscal advantages, a not dissimilar situation actually t Strong, p. 215.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 125 increased the King’s power by splitting his enemies into jealously

watting groups incapable of collective action. By building up a hierarchy of vested interests, the monarchy effectively divided class

from class and so was able to triumph over all. Although the idea

was toyed with from time to time, the English Crown never brought itself to link titles to solid material advantages, and as a result the inflation of honours merely resulted in widespread disaffec-

tion. Hostility to the author of such a system was stronger than hatted of inferior ot jealousy of superior ranks and orders. The last aspect of this incitement to faction is the way in which the creation of new titles and ranks exacerbated and canalized personal and family rivalries. One cause of the intense competition for the first few baronetcies was the violent struggle of the leading gentry in each county to establish their family pre-eminence for all

time. The acquisition of new titles was often both a result and a cause of personal hatreds. The two leading military figures of the 1620’s, Sit Horace Vere and Sit Edward Cecil, had quarrelled bitterly in 1620. The moment Cecil heard that Vere was to be’given a barony in 1625 he promptly wrote to Buckingham asking for a similar honour for himself. And, sure enough, the Duke found it easiest to promote them both and so avoid more trouble between

the two commanders. A striking example of the part played by titles in personal feuds is to be found in the career of Thomas Wentworth. As a mete knight he had been locked in deadly rivalry with Sit John Savile for many years; on 21 July 1628 Savile acquired a barony, to be followed a day later by Wentworth. But by Decem-

ber of that year Wentworth had shown such evidence of wholehearted conversion to the side of Buckingham and Charles that he achieved the reward of a viscountcy, which at last gave him precedence overt his enemy. Again in 1640, when Wentworth was given an earldom, he insisted on taking the additional title of Lord of Raby, thus earning the lasting hatred of the owner of Raby Castle, Sir Harry Vane. It is hardly surprising that the younger Vane

should have been the key witness in Strafford’s attainder, a fact which inspired Clarendon to observe that Wentworth’s taking the title of Lord of Raby ‘I believe was the loss of his head’. As set out by the royalist commentators of the 1650’s, the folly of the inflation of honours by the Early Stuarts seems obvious enough. There were, however, a number of facts and arguments 1 Cabala, pp. 181, 186. CSPD, 1639-40, p. 436. Clarendon, op. cit. i, p. 213.

126 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS which they ignored. In the first place, the sale of titles was a signi-

: ficant source of revenue to the Crown between 1603 and 1629. Of coutse only a tiny fraction of the money ever came to the hands of

the King himself, since the early attempts at direct crown sales soon degenerated into grants to courtiers of the rights of nomination. But had titles not been available James and Charles would have been obliged to reward their courtiers and officials in other ways, possibly by direct grants of money, annuities, or lands. Knighthoods, baronetcies, and peerages are merely three items in | a tich and varied range of wares by the sale of which the Crown endeavoured to finance an extravagant and parasitic court in the teeth of opposition from Parliament and the country. Admittedly such lavish generosity was unnecessary for the maintenance of the court structure; some happy mean between the parsimony of Eliza-

beth and the extravagance of James would have been better in evety way. But given the characters and outlook of James and Buckingham, a flow of grants and favours on a huge scale was inevitable, and the profits to courtiers of the sale of honours must be regarded as part of the financial resources of the Crown, though not one that figures in the official accounts. If so, we must discover how important a part it was. No precise figure can be given, but it should be possible to arrive at the order of magnitude. The 1st Earl of Clare noted eighteen sales of titles totalling £150,000, but the list is extremely incomplete.! The total

profit from the twenty-eight known English sales amounted to overt £225,000, of which only £46,000 came to the Exchequer. In addition, there are numerous other instances in which the fact of sale is reported in contemporaty gossip or can confidently be assumed. At a consetvative estimate, therefore, the total profits from the sale of English peerages must have been well over £300,000. In addition eighteen Irish titles and one Scottish are known to have been sold for about £38,000, and there is a strong presumption of sale in the case of ten or fifteen more. Let us there-

fore say a minimum total of £45,000. Official receipts into the Exchequer for baronetcies from 1611 to 1619 totalled £101,000, to

which must be added the price of the 190-odd sold by courtiers between 1619 and 1629. If we reckon the average sale price at £250,

this makes £47,000, to which must probably be added at least a further {7,000 for Irish and Scottish baronetcies. Lastly there are 1 Thoroton Soc. Trans., loc. cit.

THE INFLATION OF HONOURS 127 the 2,900-odd knights created between 1603 and 1629. Assuming that 2,000 of them paid a gratuity of about {60 apiece to a courtier, this makes £120,000. The minimum total profits for the sale of all honours between 1603 and 1629 is therefore about £620,000.! This gain certainly did not compensate for the unpopularity and loss of prestige resulting from this traffic, but it is only fair to set it on the other side of the scales.

The inflation of honours was not the sole cause either of the decline in the prestige of the peerage or of the growth of faction in the countryside. The peerage suffered from other disadvantages, amongst them close identification with the moral turpitude popularly ascribed to the Court, and the fact that in 1640 some 20 per

cent. wete Papists, while the country gentry had been prone to faction long before the struggle for ranks and titles began. The further objection to the arguments of the royalist commentators is that they were too much obsessed with the mechanics of supply to notice the phenomenon of demand. They were correct to draw attention to the undermining of respect for rank and title by the speed of the inflation, by the system of open sale, and by the unsuitable nature of some of the purchasers.” But they were wrong to attribute the growth of a sense of ‘parity’ merely to these abuses. Though clumsy in operation, the inflation was in principle no more than recognition of an established socio-economic fact, that the class pyramid in its upper ranges had become much broader at the base and rather lower at the top than it had been at the accession of Elizabeth. The huge expansion in the numbers of men calling themselves gentleman, esquire, knight, baronet, baron, viscount, and earl is not merely the result of the greed and folly of heralds,

courtiers, and kings. Even if the heralds had been sea-green incorruptibles, Buckingham and the courtiers men of austere and

I English Peerages 6. £300,000 Irish and Scottish Peerages ¢. £45,000 English Baronetcies: to the Exchequer ¢. {101,000

to others ¢. £47,000

Irish and Scottish Baronetcies ¢. £7,000

Knighthoods ¢. £120,000 c. £620,000

These figures take no account of the substantial fees payable at each creation to heralds, clerks, and minor court officials, who otherwise would presumably have demanded alternative rewards from the Crown. 2 Despite all these lamentations during the Interregnum, the post-Restoration Court was almost as venal as that of the Early Stuarts, and the sale of titles began again, though on a far more limited scale.

128 THE INFLATION OF HONOURS blameless lives, and King James a man of iron will and an ovet-

| flowing treasuty, a substantial increase in titles must still have taken place. The insatiable demand for status and honour between 1558 and 1641 is proof of the truth of what has been called “Tawney’s

Law’: that the greater the wealth and mote even its distribution in a given society, the emptier become titles of personal distinction, but the more they multiply and are striven for.

IV

ECONOMIC CHANGE ... your faire titles Are but the shadowes of your ancestry ; And you walk in ’em, when your land is gone, Like the pale ghosts of dead nobilitie. RICHARD BROME, Ihe Damoiselle, 1. 1.

FACED with the problem of demonstrating changes in the economic position of different classes in society, the historian is tempted

to content himself with giving a series of examples to illustrate a genetal hypothesis. The hypothesis is propounded to explain a political situation, and the capacious tag-bag of social history is then rummaged for supporting evidence. But this approach 1s tendered virtually useless by the irritating variability of human nature. No matter how triumphantly a given class is rising to the top, no matter how inexorably another is being depressed, there will always be numerous individuals who perversely insist on running directly contrary to the general trend, or who contrive to remain stationary in a period of dynamic change. Any theory of social movement can therefore always be supported by an imposing

atray of individual case-histories. Thus for the century before the Civil War there have been discovered affluent peers and decaying peers, successful courtiers and ruined courtiers, rising gentry and decaying gentry. The inadequacy of the method has been effectively

demonstrated by this bewildering conflict of evidence. Since he cannot discover by any other means what examples are typical and what ate exceptional, the historian is forced back, whether he likes it or not, upon statistical analysis and quantitative measurement. I, ESTIMATES OF INCOME (1) Evidence and Methods

Full understanding of the economic position of the peerage and of changes that occurred in that position demands accurate data about the gross and net incomes of each individual at various points

821314 K

130 ECONOMIC CHANGE of time. Armed with such information it would be possible to work out the total income of the group, the mean income, and the disttribution pattern, and to compare these three at forty-year intervals. But the quests for the Golden Fleece and the Holy Grail were less fraught with all but insuperable difficulties. The path is obscured by the paucity of records, the difficulty of interpreting such records

as do sutvive, the ambiguities about the meaning of the word ‘income’, and the uncertainties about the precise significance of the different meanings. Although there has been preserved a far higher proportion of the original archives of the peerage than of any other social group, it

is still only a very small part of the whole, and its distribution is uneven. Roughly speaking, the greater the family the higher the chances of survival of its archives; the papers of wealthy earls

, have come down to us in far greater profusion than those of minor barons. This is because the larger the estate the smaller the likelihood of total disintegration and dispersal. There is a fair chance that at least the hard core of a huge sixteenth-century estate has passed on intact down to the present day, often through daughters ot close telatives, and that in consequence the family archives have been preserved in some country house or other. With smaller families, however, time and chance have taken a heavier toll, and substantial records usually survive only for the very few families whose line of descent runs unbroken from that day to this. As a result we have fragmentary information from private soutces about the financial positions in 1559 of only about a third of the total peerage, but of over two-thirds of the dukes, marquises, and eatls. Though the evidence is rather greater in 1602, the same imbalance exists between rich and poor. Consequently it is impossible from private archives alone to calculate the income of the peerage as a whole at either date. By 1641 the number of peerage families had doubled, so that although the volume of evidence is now much greater, the proportion of the whole group whose income can be discovered from private archives alone falls off sharply, and the imbalance of information between rich and poor is greater than ever.

Even when family records exist, they rarely tell the historian precisely what he wants to know. One of the commonest documents to sutvive is the rental, which lists the rents due in a given year or half-year. But the rental excludes not only profits from office and

ECONOMIC CHANGE 131 industrial profits, but also all land farmed by the lord, and all casualties such as sales of woods, fines for leases, and profits of court. It also usually omits property in Ireland. It may therefore represent as little as half the actual cash income due for the year. The survey can be equally misleading in another direction, for it calculates the value of the property if it were out of lease and were

to be rack-rented. But since in the late sixteenth century most property was let on a system of beneficial leases, this figure often bears little relation to true annual receipts.' Thirdly, there are the receiver-general’s accounts for the year, which can be misleading in a large number of ways.” Lastly there are va/ors, statements of the total amount due and the

fixed charges in a given year. These documents ate not very common, many important families dispensing with them altogether,

and there is no parallel to the regular series for the Duchy of Lancaster. Even where they exist they tell us nothing about rever-

sionary interests, while the violent fluctuations in income from fines reduce the value of a statement for any one year. Finally it must be remembered that none of these documents, not even the receiver-general’s accounts, will necessarily include the official profits of office, much less the often gigantic sums acquired from bribes, douceurs, and sales of offices. In fact very few noblemen had an accurate notion of their full income, gross or net, in a given yeat, ot even the balance on the year’s working. The historian is therefore deprived of the information he most needs, though this is not to say that the complete picture cannot sometimes be pieced together from the surviving records. These lacunas and imperfections in private records can in part be filled from the records of government taxation. Though economic historians are inevitably forced back upon such documents, it is self-evident that they must be treated with extreme caution. Thete has probably never been a period of history when most people have not cheated in some measure in their tax returns. Sometimes, in some places, the discrepancy between assessment and reality is so great as to render the material utterly valueless. At other times the relationship is reasonably close, though certain occupational groups and classes have always tended to be undetrated. In general the higher one rises in the social and economic 1 For an explanation of these terms, see Chapter VI, section iv (2). 2 See Chapter VI, section ii.

132 ECONOMIC CHANGE scale, the lower the accuracy of the assessment; it is rare indeed for the rich and influential to pay their full share. If this were a uniform pattern, it might be possible to apply to tax assessments an index errot on a standard sliding scale, but unfortunately the veracity of tax returns also varies according to the character of the individual; some will cheat more than others, being either more unscrupulous or more ready to risk the consequences if found out.

Four types of tax assessment exist for the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, of which the oldest was the survey of land made at the death of a member of the landed classes, the énguisitio post mortem. This was now a mete legal fiction as far as valuations

went, and its estimates of acreage were too much a matter of guesswork to be of any use. Surveys made by a new official, the feodary, and returned into the Court of Wards may have borne

| some relation to the truth in the early sixteenth century, but they

| increasingly parted company with reality throughout the century. In 1523 assessments for the parliamentary subsidy were put

on a new, and apparently true, footing. But subsequently, and particularly during the reign of Elizabeth, the assessments progtessively ceased to correspond with actual values. In 1597 a member of Parliament looked back indignantly to the days of Queen Mary

‘when evetie man was swotne to the uttermost of his landes and goodes’. In fact these terrible times when the estates of noblemen and gentlemen were taxed at their true value dated back to the 15 20’s

and 1530’s, rather than the 1550’s. The assessments of 1559 were probably only a half or less of the annual rentals of the aristoctacy.' Fot 1642 we have another set of tax returns, the Royalist Com-

position Particulars, drawn up after the war by the defeated in otder to compound with the victors for their estates. Thete were heavy penalties attendant on evasion, and the country swarmed with hostile informers, so that fraud should have been reduced to a minimum. Even these documents, however, contain numerous pitfalls. In the first place, they are statements of rental, not of annual value. They therefore exclude casualties such as fines for leases, and although they wete supposed to classify rents under ‘old’ and ‘improved’ so that the two categories could be assessed at different rates, the compounders often omitted to do so. Those whose estates were largely unimproved, therefore, and who were 1 H. Miller, ‘Subsidy Assessments of the Peerage in the Sixteenth Century’, BIHR, xxviii, 1955. For details of the decline in the assessments after 1559 see infra, pp. 496-7.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 133 relying on fines for a considerable part of their income, produced particulars which were far below their true annual receipts. These conditions prevailed especially in the west country, where long

beneficial leases were still the norm, and the particular of the Marquis of Hertford probably underestimated his gross annual receipts by at least 50 per cent. Equally serious is the demonstrable

fact that some people deliberately undet-assessed themselves, despite the risks involved. For example, Lord Capel’s estates were valued twice, once by one set of parliamentary commissionets, who made a teturn of the best rent in 1648, and once by the family to another set of commissioners in 1651. For those estates covered by both documents the valuations given in the first exceeds those in the second by over 50 per cent. The Earl of Northampton treturned a

particular of £5,283, but a document from the private archives put the present rental of precisely the same properties at £7,837, an increase of 49 per cent., and the improved value when out of lease was reckoned as high as £14,160. The Earl of Lindsey returned a particular of {4,245 whereas in fact his pre-war rental was £4,892, an increase of 15 per cent. Neither document includes the

Farl’s very large interests in the Lincolnshire fens, where he and his associates were said to have invested £80,000 on drainage Operations between 1636 and 1640 and to have been given 24,000 acres in return. Lord Stourton returned an estate of £861, though in 1639 he had admitted to one of £1,500. But although most royalist particulars involve some element of deceit, it looks as if these examples ate exceptional, and that in general they were not too hopelessly remote from the truth. To give but one example, Lord Chandos’s particular of £3,120 was probably accurate, for it is about the figure given by Richard Symonds, that over-optimistic

guesset of other people’s income.” On the other hand it must be repeated that these particulars only give the bare rental, which might be substantially increased by fines, sales of woods, and other casualties. 1 SP 23/191, pp. 585-95; 25/125, Pp. 54-79; 23/223, p. 293 218, pp. 1-4, 37-41. Castle Ashby 1086, SP 23/56, f. 316. Lincs. R.O. 2 Anc. 4/9; HMC 7th Rep., App., pp. 6, 72, 129, 130. SP 23/217, pp. 628-9. CSPD, 1638-9, p. 472. 2 SP 23/56, £. 193. BM Harl. MSS. 991, p. 9. For examples of the exaggerations of Richard Symonds see M. Keeler, The Long Parliament, Philadelphia, 1954, pp. 139, 164. He also alleged that Lord Robartes had paid £20,000 for his peerage instead of £10,000 (Camden Soc. xxiv, 1859, pp. 55-56) and put the Marquis of Wotcestet’s income at £24,000 when it cannot have been more than £15,000 at the very most (op. cit., p. 205; SP 25/125, p. 98; CCC, p. 85; SP 23/118, p. 971; BM Add. MSS, 5501, f. 63%; Badminton 300. 2. 6).

134 ECONOMIC CHANGE The third problem is what is meant by ‘income’, a word upon which historians have placed a wide variety of interpretations, each of which is perfectly valid for certain purposes but must not be confused or compared with any other. The smallest useful categoty is the ‘disposable income’, put forward recently as a useful

guide to the breaking-point in the finances of a great magnate.! This is the residue of the gross personal income, after the deduction

of jointures, interest payments, irredeemable annuities, rents for leases, the cost of estate management and repairs, and the upkeep of a reasonable establishment. This is not a concept used by contemporaries, who when calculating net income tended to confine their deductions to rents for leases and fee-farm tents, and sometimes to annuities as well. Another ‘income’ consists of the gross personal receipts. These gross receipts might be artificially swollen by taking on a lease whose profits were offset by the rent, or by recovering lands in jointure in return for the grant of an annuity, and therefore has only limited value unless the fixed charges are set off against it. All these types of personal income raise two further questions, of which the first is whether or not to include the profits

of office. If what is required is the total income of the individual, they must obviously be taken into account; but if it is the longterm assets of the family which are being calculated, they must be ignored. The second question is whether or not to take account of the burden of debt. It was perfectly possible for a man to enjoy a large gross revenue, half or more of which was eaten up in interest payments. Sooner or later these debts would have to be cleared off, probably by the sale of land, and to ignore them can therefore give a vety misleading impression of capital resources. If what is wanted

on loans. ,

is the net cash at the disposal of the individual for current needs, the receipts from land must always be offset by the interest charges

So far all definitions of ‘income’ that have been offered have been concerned with property in possession. For some purposes, however, it is necessaty to add in reversionaty interests. This is because the personal income of the model nobleman was not a constant, but fluctuated in a series of huge steps as various sections of the estate were temporarily withdrawn from his control. When he came into his own on his father’s death, the young lord might find that he only enjoyed a part of the total family estates, some of the 1 F, M. L. Thompson, ‘The End of a great Estate’, EcHR, 2nd set., viii, 1955.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 135 rent being set aside for a jointure for his mother, some for life interests for his younger brothers, and some allocated to trustees to faise mattiage portions for his sisters or pay his father’s debts. On his mother’s death and the payment of his sisters’ portions he would at last begin to enjoy the full income of the estate, with the

minor exception of that devoted to the support of his brothers. But when his eldest son grew up he had to give him an allowance, and when the boy married he was obliged to settle on him and his

wife an important slice of the total income. Moreover as his daughters gtew up he probably found it prudent to make part of the estate over to trustees, to use the income for raising capital for the mattiage portions.

Any study of the long-term family fortunes must clearly take account of the jointure lands held by the mother or grandmother, since they formed part of the estate handed down from heir male to

heir male. The same is true of the estates settled on the son and heir during his father’s lifetime, and estates conveyed to trustees for a period of years. One might also include estates settled on younger brothers or sons for the two lives of themselves and their wives, which in due course would automatically rejoin the central family property. Sometimes, however, small estates were settled on younger children and their heirs male, with the ultimate reversion assuted to the main family line only if there was a failure of heirs. These cannot reasonably be included in any calculation of the inheritance. A man’s revetsionary interest includes all property which he will certainly inherit after a stated period of time, but not property whose movement is dependent on biological accident, and which may well never pass to him at all. Unless this principle 1s firmly established, there is virtually no end to the potential income of an individual at any time: for in the last resort, as sons of Adam, we ate all each othet’s residuary legatees.!

Two concrete examples may serve to illustrate the resulting complexities of the problem of defining ‘income’. In December 1609 a sutvey of the 1st Earl of Salisbury’s estate gave a gross rental

of £4,743. Against this was set fee farm rents and rents of leased lands amounting to £887, leaving a net rental of £3,856. Charged on this there was £1,583 worth of annuities, which reduced the net 1 This point would not be worth labouring were it not that, in his table of “The landed wealth

of the English Peerage under Charles I, Mr. Cooper has included in his estimates of the ‘wealth’ of Lord Berkeley and the Earl of Devonshire property settled on younger sons and their heirs male (H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Gentry, 1540-1640, 1953, P. §4).

136 ECONOMIC CHANGE income to £2,273. At this time the Earl’s debts were soaring, and

in the year 1608-9 he paid out in interest no less than £1,906, which would appear to leave him with only £367 net. In fact, however, such a supposition is ludicrous, for Salisbury was one of the wealthiest men in the country. Thanks to large fines for new

leases his gross income from land alone in 1608-9 amounted to £7,584. To this must be added the legitimate and not so legitimate profits of office, which came to something like £17,000 fot the year 1608-9. The range of variations of the ‘income’

of the Earl of Salisbury for 1609 thus stretches from under £400 to over £24,000, according to the principles of calculation adopted.? In 1639 the Earl of Devonshire estimated his present gross rental

in possession at {9,072, to which was to be added a home farm worth £351, making a total of £9,423 a year. To get the net rental there needed to be deducted an annuity in lieu of jointure to the dowager grandmother of £2,600, vatious other annuities amounting to £413, and £449 rent for leasehold lands and fee farm rents. The total fixed charge on the estate was therefore £3,462, and the net tental £5,961. But in 1637-8 the Earl was paying £565 in interest on his debts, and if this is deducted also, the net rental is reduced to £5,396. We now have three ‘incomes’: £9,423 as the eross and £5,961 ot £5,396 as the net rental. If we look at the Farl’s receiver-general’s accounts, we find that the gross receipts from the estate in 1632-6 averaged £14,693. This is because they included the {4,000 worth of jointure lands of the Earl’s mother, with whom he was living in the 1630’s, besides minor casual profits.

To get the true reversionary income, however, we have to add a further {600 a year jointure of the dowager grandmother, which she enjoyed in addition to her £2,600 annuity, so making nominal gross total receipts from land in possession and reversion of about £15,300. On the other hand {2,000 a year of the mothet’s jointure was not patt of the family inheritance, since it was due to pass on

her death to the Earl’s younger brother. Strictly, therefore, the Earl’s gross income in possession and reversion was about £13,300 (although in fact the brother was killed unmarried in 1643, and the estate therefore came to the Earl after all). There are thus no fewer than six possible figures for the Earl of Devonshire’s ‘income’ in 1639, which vary from as little as £5,400 to as much as £15,300. t H/Box Q/2; H/A 160/t.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 137 Rach has significance for a particular argument; no one alone can tell the full story.? Given this bewildering multiplicity of choice, the historian must select the type of ‘income’ which is most suitable to his current purpose, and must take great care not to attempt misleading comparisons between wholly different categories. Unfortunately, however, the evidence is usually insufficient to make such a selection possible. All that can be done is to combine the various types of information available and to use them to divide the peerage up into certain very broad categories. The ‘income’ for which most evidence

is available is the gross rental of land in possession plus that of assured tevetsions in possession of wife, son, ot mother. This formed the basis of tax assessments, and can most frequently be found from records in private archives. Despite its limitations, therefore, this is the type of ‘income’ which must first be used as a basis for calculations. The most difficult methodological problem of all, and one which bedevils almost every chapter of this book, is how to deal with the inflation of prices. If comparisons from year to year are to be made at all, this inflation cannot be ignored, but the choice of an appto-

priate index by which to adjust later prices raises almost as many

problems as it solves. The most recent and authoritative index is that compiled by Professor Phelps Brown in order to measute changes in the price of goods—mostly food—consumed by the labouring classes.” But this is not necessarily a reliable guide to the

cost of living of the aristocracy since it does not take account of wages, which lagged far behind food prices, or of industrial goods such as iron and coal which were also very sluggish. There is no means of telling just how important was the labour component in atistocratic expenses, but it must have been large, and to this extent the Phelps Brown index will tend to exaggerate the fall in their purchasing power. On the other hand some very important elements

in aristocratic expenditure, marriage portions, cost of living at Coutt, cost of embassies, and other forms of royal service, all increased faster than the index. This was in any case a petiod of sharply rising living standards throughout the whole middle and upper ranges of society, so that a man in 1641 could not maintain 1 H/A 112/23; Chatsworth/H 27, 30; Hobbes MSS D 6. 2 E, H. Phelps Brown and S. V. Hopkins, ‘Seven Centuries of Prices of Consumables compated with Builders’ Wage-Rates’, Economica, xxiii, 1956.

138 ECONOMIC CHANGE , his position in society with the same level of expenditure as his father or grandfather. The cost-of-living index today has to be. altered from time to time to take account of an ever-mote luxurious

range of goods and services; a similar index for the aristocracy between 1558 and 1641 would need similar adjustment. One of the principal objects of this book is to demonstrate and measure change, and financial change is only meaningful if account is taken of changes in the level of prices. It is therefore necessary either to employ the Phelps Brown index as it stands, or to scale it down by some arbitrary amount to make allowance for labour costs in aristocratic expenditure, and then to scale it up again by another arbitrary amount to make allowance for other expenses. On balance it seemed better to leave the index unaltered, despite its imperfections. Throughout this book, whenever reference is made to adjustment to allow for rising prices, it is to be understood that the index used is that of Professor Phelps Brown. Since this is based primarily on the price of a wide range of foodstuffs, it may certainly serve as

a reasonable yardstick of agricultural profits. It must always be remembered that this does not claim to be an accurate cost-ofliving index for the peerage, whose expenses did not necessarily rise at quite the same rate. For the reasons stated, however, it is believed that the degree of error is not large. (2) Estimates

In the tables in Appendix VIII the peerage has been divided at three selected dates into eight categories, according to their zones of rental income (Fig. 8). The placing of individual families in these

categories 1s a hazardous operation, and there can be little doubt that a few have been placed one above or below their true position. Nevertheless it 1s probable that the table gives a reasonable picture of the distribution of landed wealth throughout the peerage, and a very rough approximation of the total gross rental. It is surprising to find that of the eight families in the top four

gtoups in 1559 only the Herberts were of recent origin; all the others had acquired their wealth and lands before the accession of Henry VIII. On the other hand, ten of the fifteen in the next group wete members of the new administrative and military é/ze raised up in part or in whole by Henry VIII, and endowed largely from the spoils of the monasteries: Browne, Manners, and Mordaunt;

Paget, Paulet, and Rich; Russell, Seymour, Wriothesley, and

ECONOMIC CHANGE 139 Windsor; these were some of the greatest names in Tudor England,

the families that supplied much of the political weight and the administrative talent to maintain the Elizabethan system. The financial distinction between earls and marquises on the one hand and barons and viscounts on the other comes out very clearly from the table. All but one of the lower peerage were in the bottom four groups, all but one of the upper peerage in the top six. Finally it should be noted that only six of the sixty-three peers were endowed with truly modest resources. Between 1559 and 1602 the Phelps Brown price index rises by

79 per cent. and the divisions between the groups for the latter year have been roughly adjusted accordingly. There is now no one at all in the top two groups. Only two survive of the eight families who in 1559 filled the first four groups, but they have been joined by two newcomers, the Cecils and the Sackvilles. The number in the

hext group is also down by a third, none of the survivors being new families. The number in the bottom category has scarcely altered, so that the chief differences in the distribution pattern is a reduction in the numbers of really large estates, a contention that is supported by manorial counts.’ The mean gross rental rose from £1,680 to £2,430, which after adjustment by the price index indicates a fall of about 20 per cent. in real terms. Between 1602 and 1641 prices had risen again by 23 per cent., and the same consequential rough adjustments have been made to the dividing lines between the groups (Fig. 9).? There are striking differences between the distribution patterns of the two dates. Of the surviving old peerage families, the number in the top brackets

has risen remarkably while the number in the bottom group has also increased; the gap between rich and poor was evidently widening again. The greater landowners had reorganized their administrative methods and had enormously increased their incomes per acre so that they were at last obtaining a much higher proportion of the

profits from their estates, and one family, the Howards, earls of Arundel, had made a spectacularly successful marriage with a Talbot 1 For 1602 about a fifth of all families have had to be allocated to a group by guessing from manorial counts, checked by extrapolation from other information at an earlier or later date. In all these cases, the allocation has been on the generous side. The two calculations—of gross rental and of manors—are therefore to a small extent interrelated for 1602. But manorial counts have been used as guides for only 2 out of 63 families in 1559 and only 16 out of 121 in 1641, and for these two dates the manorial counts and estimates of rentals are therefore virttually independent. 4 The average had risen from 464 in 1600-4 to 570 in 1639-43.

140 ECONOMIC CHANGE coheitess, the full fruits of which had not yet matured. As a tesult the mean tental rose by 71 per cent. to £4,540. Of the 73 newcomers to the peerage in 1641, 12 were in the 4 top

eroups, and indeed 6 of them were among the 1o richest landowners in England (the richest landowner in the British Isles in 1640—though not in 1641—was probably not an English peer at all: he was Richard Earl of Cork, the great Irish industrial entrepreneur and land speculator, whose vast income of about £20,000 a yeat disappeared overnight on the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion). On the other hand, no fewer than 29 of the 73 were in the two bottom

° 1559 1602 i. 20 Yj 20 zn : AG Uy, Y Y ;

yy

Groups Groups

ion om wove ovtovit Vill ron om iwveVv vi Vil Vil Fic. 8. Estimated Gross Rentals, 1559, 1602

rental categories, though it must be remembered that some of them,

like Goring, Hay, and Rich earl of Holland were drawing very large incomes indeed from official sources. Of the total 121 old and new peers in 1641, 22 had gross rentals of under {1,100 and another 21 had less than £2,300, which makes them financially indistinguishable from the top levels of the gentry.

At the other end of the scale 23 were far richer than all but a tiny handful of English commonets, and another 45 enjoyed incomes more than adequate to support their dignities in appropriate style. Hitherto all calculations have been confined to gross rentals of land in possession, together, so fat as they can be discovered, with those of assured reversions in possession of close relatives. To obtain true gross income, these figures must be adjusted to take

into account landed profits which did not come in the fotm of rent, profits of industry and commerce, and profits of office and crown favour. In order to obtain a picture of the income at the disposal of the family for its own purposes, this total must then be

ECONOMIC CHANGE 141 further corrected by subtracting the burden of interest on loans. To do this means embarking upon a sea of speculation with not much more navigational aid than an erratic compass and a child’s atlas. There are few pointers to the average value of casualties, and the full profits of office, including those of corruption, monopolies, and the sale of offices, can only roughly be guessed at in the fitful light of contemporary estimates, which may or may not have been well

founded. The conjectural nature of any such calculations is thus sufficiently evident, and some will regard their compilation as a 20

Ke) Y; 7 40 OY N/ Y ; £ WZex WUOaG Yj 302 164! (Old Peers) 1641 (All Peers) GY

f 1641 (New Peers) Y g

20 Vy v7)FY 20 3 Yiy 10 Z Wf a 77 10 pom iy vv vir val pomomoy vv vii vi Fic. 9. Estimated Gross Rentals, 1641

thoroughly unscholarly exercise in guesswork. But if the historian confines himself exclusively to what he can prove in a coutt of law, he soon becomes an antiquary, a chronicler, or an acidulated critic of his rasher colleagues. However hazardous and uncertain the task of quantification may be, it must be attempted if we are to obtain

a picture of the overall economic situation of the peerage. The results, for what they are worth, ate set out in Appendix IX. In 1559 the price revolution had been under way for several decades and fines for beneficial leases were of considerable impotrtance on those estates of which there are adequate records. Together with profits of courts, sales of wood, and receipts in cash and kind from estates under direct management, total casualties may perhaps

be put at rather more than 20 per cent. of the rentals. The total receipts from land were thus about £135,000 and the mean receipts

142 ECONOMIC CHANGE pet peer £2,140. More difficult to assess are the profits of office, since the evidence for this period is very scanty. At the outside, however, they cannot have been very much higher than £15,000, distributed among about a third of sixty-three peers, which gives a total of £150,000 and a mean gross. income of £2,380. The evidence for aristocratic debt in 1559 is far too sketchy for it to be possible to do more than place an approximate outside limit on the ©

| total burden. Most magnates sensibly preferred where possible to tun up debts with the Crown, which charged no interest, rather than to seek loans on the market. The surviving evidence suggests that only a handful of peers were in serious financial difficulties,

and it would therefore probably be safe to assume that the total debt was no higher than £80,000. Usury was legally forbidden at this time, but the current interest rate seems to have been around 12 to 14 pet cent. If we call it 124 per cent. the annual interest pay-

ments amounted to £10,000. On this assumption the total net income of the sixty-three peers in 1559 was therefore £140,000 and the mean £2,200. By 1602 a larger proportion of landed receipts was coming from fines for beneficial leases than had been the case forty-three years

before. Moreover a few peers wete now obtaining substantial incomes from industrial or commercial activity based on the resources of their estates. On the other hand the amount of property

under direct management had certainly not increased, and so it would be unreasonable to estimate casualties at more than about 25 per cent. of rentals. This gives a total of landed profits for 1602 of £175,000 and a mean of £3,020. When adjusted for the tise in prices, the mean is only £1,690, which is 20 per cent. less than it had been in 1559. Moreover there are two factors which further darken the picture. The number of noble office-holders in 1602 had fallen to about a quarter of the whole and the benefits accruing to all but

a handful failed to keep pace with inflation. Great courtiers and officials like Mountjoy, Nottingham, and Buckhurst could help themselves through corruption and sale of offices, but others with fewer opportunities fared badly. One cannot place a figure upon. the benefits obtained by peers in high favour with the Queen (but without office) from bribes taken from suitors. But this was a bad period for the peerage as a whole. The great Essex was dead, many important office-holders had not been elevated to the peerages they deserved, and the pension list was very small. It is therefore difficult

ECONOMIC CHANGE 143 to believe that in 1602 the fifty-eight peers derived more than £20,000 from office and court favour. If this is correct the gross income from all sources was about {£195,000 and the mean £3,360. Against this must be set the burden of interest, which by now had

reached formidable proportions. Seventeen peers owed at least £150,000, another twenty-two owed at least another {70,000 and one may reasonably assume that the remaining nineteen owed a further £20,000 or so. This gives a minimum debt load of £250,000,

interest payment on which at 10 per cent. amounted to £25,000. The net total income of the fifty-eight peers of 1602 was therefore £170,000 and the mean income was £2,930. Adjusted for the price tise, the mean is £1,630, a drop of 26 per cent. on 1559. By 1641 there had already taken place a marked shift on most estates from large fines to large rents. On the other hand allowance must be made for undet-assessment in royalist particulars, for industrial and commercial profits, for Irish estates, and for newly drained fenlands. It would therefore be unwise to assess all this at much less than a quarter of the stated rental. Official profits had fallen off considerably since the 1620’s but the total for 1640-1 must still have been at least £100,000, shared out among rather less than a fifth of the 121 families. This gives a total income of £730,000, and

a mean of £6,030. But the debt load of the peerage had continued

to soar in the easier credit conditions of the early seventeenth century, and had now reached about £14 million, interest on which at 8 per cent. comes to £120,000. If this is deducted from the gross income, we ate left with a net income of {£610,000 and a mean of

£5,040. Adjusted for the rise in prices, this is the equivalent of £2,290 in money of 1559, which is roughly the same as the mean income of the sixty-three peers eighty-two years before. In terms of net income adjusted to agricultural prices, therefore, the wheel appeats to have come full circle. It should be noted, moreover, that the figures suggest that about three-quarters of the peers of 1641 enjoyed incomes amply large enough, given prudent manage-

ment, to support their titles. In the late eighteenth century Lord Shelburne told Boswell that ‘a man of high rank, who looks into his own affairs, may have all that he ought to have, all that can be of any use or appear with any advantage, for five thousand pounds a year’.? If this is true, and if the rise in prices between 1640 and ™ See Appendix XXI. 2 Boswell’s Life of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill and L. F. Powell, Oxford, 1930-5, iii, p. 265.

144 ECONOMIC CHANGE 1780 is taken into account, most noblemen must have been quite comfortably off on the eve of the Civil War. Il. THE COUNTING OF MANORS Any conclusions that may be drawn from these rough calculations

may fail to carry conviction unless they can be supported by numerical evidence not supplemented by guesswork of any kind. The only possibility seems to be the counting of manors, a method

first used by Professor Tawney over twenty years ago. But the counting of manors itself raises formidable problems, and the serious and well-founded objections raised against Tawney’s ortginal calculations can only be met by the application of more sophisticated statistical techniques to more rigidly controlled data.! (1) Evidence and Methods

The first question to ask is whether or not the manor is a meaning-

ful unit of measurement. The counting of manors, it has been claimed, is about as useful, and has much the same psychological effect, as the counting of sheep, one reason being that a manor is not

a unit of wealth but merely a definition of rights over a semiobsolescent tenutial system. This is technically quite correct. But it is not until the second half of the seventeenth century that rentals and valuations commonly cease to bother to note whether or not a patticular piece of property is manorial. Why, then, did practical and sensible men in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries continue to talk and write about the territorial holdings of themselves and of others in terms of this allegedly meaningless formula?

The answer is that up to the Civil War most manors included not only the by now financially almost valueless rights of overlordship overt freeholdetrs, but also substantial ancient demesne lands, mills, rights over the waste, and the power to exact entry fines from copy-

holders, often at the lord’s discretion. In most villages, therefore, the lord of the manor or manors was the ownet of the most valuable property in the parish, though this was not always the case. Many a rectory was as rich a source of profit to the lay impropriator

as the manor itself; enclosed pastures sometimes brought more to 1 R, H. Tawney, “The Rise of the Gentry’, EcHR, xi, 1941. L. Stone, ‘The Elizabethan Aristocracy: A Restatement’, EcHR, 2nd ser., iv, 1952. H. R. Trevor-Roper, op. cit. R. H. Tawney, “The Rise of the Gentry: a Postscript’, EcHR, 2nd set., vii, 1954. J. P. Cooper, ‘The Counting of Manors’, ibid., viii, 1956. J. H. Hexter, Reappraisals in History, 1961, ch. 6.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 145 theit owner than did the manor to its lord. Moreover in the seventeenth centuty there was a tendency for the manor to break up, and for manorial rights to become divorced from economic resoutces. This process depended to some extent on geographical conditions, and Dr. Kerridge has contrasted the dismemberment of the manor in the cheese-and-butter area of north Wiltshire with its stability in the sheep-and-corn atea to the south.’ It is thus possible at all periods to find manors worth only a few pounds a year, and their number was increasing in the seventeenth century. Nevertheless local histories and private accounts suggest that the

process had not yet gone very far by 1641, and that the great majority of manors still embraced substantial holdings of land. Nobles in particular were reluctant to divorce theit manorial rights

from teal estate, and as a result there are very few aristocratic manors recorded in the Royalist Composition Papers which on the valuation of their owner were bringing in less than {20 a year. The

earls of Huntingdon had sold the land but retained the nominal ownership of some twenty-five manors during the financial crisis of the family in the late sixteenth century, the 4th Earl of Cumberland did the same for some twenty-five manors in Craven in the 1620’s and 1630’s; but these are notable exceptions to the rule that, as far as the nobility was concerned, manorial rights and demesne ‘lands still usually went together in 1641. Non-manorial agricultural property cannot seriously have affected

the landed fortunes of most of the nobility, at any rate before the 1620’s, Lesser men might enjoy relatively substantial incomes drawn from a wide scattering of small properties, but the sheer scale upon

which the nobility operated forced them to deal mostly in large units. Sensible noblemen increased the value of their manors by snapping up peripheral holdings when they came on the market, but in comparison with the cost of manorial purchases these nonmanorial acquisitions are usually relatively small, and the process does not invalidate the hypothesis that a major change in the number of manors held must reflect a real shift in landownership. Those who argue to the contrary are obliged to produce both logical reasons for, and concrete evidence of, a deliberate shift of 1 KR, Kerridge, “The Revolts in Wiltshire against Charles ?, Wilts. Arch. Mag. \vii, 1958, p. 71. See also S. Rudder, History of Gloucestershire, 1779, p. 639; G. Baker, History of Northamptonshire, 1822-30, i, pp. 231-2; Smyth, ili, pp. 144, 163, 190; VCH Warwickshire, vi, p. 271. After the Civil War this development becomes more marked, and may tender it unwise to attempt to use the method of counting manors for later periods.

821314 L

146 ECONOMIC CHANGE the nobility out of manorial holdings and into parks, rectories, freehold pastures, closes, &c. It is certainly possible that occasionally the odd manor was sold in order to buy a freehold or copyhold

and consolidate a central estate. But equally, when numerous manots were sold, other land was sold as well, and manors usually

provided the bulk of the property involved in both purchase and sale. During his lifetime Henry Lord Berkeley raised £41,400 by the sale of land, of which only 11 per cent. came from non-manorial property. Between 1614 and 1623 the Earl of Dorset raised £74,300

by the sale of land, of which only 20 per cent. came from nonmanorial property.' Between 1612 and 1633 the known cost of land

purchases by the 1st Earl of Kingston amounted to £66,000, of which only 12 per cent. was non-manorial. The estate of Lord Craven was almost entirely the result of purchases in the 1620's from trading and money-lending profits. It was valued in 1652 at a quartet of a million pounds, only 14 per cent. of which gigantic investment was in non-manorial property.? Rentals and valuations tell the same story, except when the picture is seriously upset by the development of mining and industry, fen drainage, or urban building in London. In 1641 non-manorial property constituted up to half the income of the earls of Bedford, Rutland, Salisbury, and Clare. But private accounts and the Royalist Composition Papers show that manors still usually made up well over two-thirds of the

value of the estate of most large landowners. | The most serious objection raised against counting manors is that the range of values they embrace is so vast and so random as to reduce all calculations to futile arithmetical exercises. The crux of

the argument is therefore concentrated upon the problem of the dispersion of values. That the manor was a variable economic unit no one in his senses would deny, and attempts to classify individual peers or gentry by the numbers of manots they held are bound to

fail for this reason. To give but one example, the Ishams owned only two manors, but enjoyed a gross landed income of no less than £1,600 a year in 1637, at a time when other families needed a dozen

manors of more to arrive at such a figure.3 The question at issue, 1 Smyth, ii, pp. 356-61. It should be pointed out, however, that Lord Henry’s son Sir Thomas sold property whose exact status is obscure for £8,450 (op. cit. i, p. 397). C. J: Phillips, History of the Sackville Family, 1930, i, pp. 268-70. This excludes £7,850 from the sale of propetty partly manorial and partly non-manorial, of which the bulk was almost certainly manorial,

3 Finch, pp. 30, 35-36.

2 BM Egerton MSS. 3532, 3536, 3660; L/Misc. VI.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 147 however, is whether the dispersion of manorial values is so wide and so different at different periods as to render useless manorial counts involving hundreds or thousands of items—a question that can only be answered by the application of statistical techniques.! Samples of manorial values have been taken for 1535 and for the yeats around 1602, the results of which are set out in Appendix X. The former is derived from the Valor Ecclestasticus, an official inquiry

into the value of all ecclesiastical estates. It does not always distinguish manors very clearly from other forms of property, and the sample only includes items clearly defined as manors in the printed records. It supplies gross annual values, including those of ancillary holdings such as mills, &c., classified under the same heading.

The second sample is taken from the Close Rolls over a period of thirteen and a half years from 39 Elizabeth to 6 James I, which give the prices at which manots were actually sold. Mortgages, sales which also included non-manorial items such as rectories, and

sales of two ot more manors together have all been excluded. As this operation involved the scanning of some six miles of Roll it is cettain that a number of items have been missed. Nevertheless

there remains a residue of 345 manors whose price is known, manors situated all over the country and bought and sold by all classes of people. Property values were rising during these thirteen yeats, but so slowly that the mean of early Jacobean sale values is

not noticeably different from that of the last years of Elizabeth. The comparisons we wish to make, however, are between the position in 1559 and that in 1641, and unfortunately there is at present available no third set of figures yielding data for mean values and the dispersion of values for 1641. It is inherently improbable that the dispersion of manor values relative to the mean changed over the years, and the application of

statistical techniques to the two sample distributots of 1535 and 1602 confirms that this is so.” It cannot be proved that the dispersion 1 In the handling of these statistical problems I am deeply indebted to Mr. D. G. Holland of the Institute of Statistics at Oxford. The argument over the next few pages relies heavily upon his cautions, suggestions, and technical skill, though of course any errors in the compilation or evaluation of the basic data are solely my responsibility. 2 A conventional measure of dispersion is the standard deviation (c), calculated from the

formula o = J a where & metely means the sum of values, x is the deviation of the value of individual manors from the mean value M, and n is the number of manors in the sample. The mean value, in turn, is found by dividing the sum of known manorial values by the number of manors in the sample. The relative dispersions of the two samples about their means can be

148 ECONOMIC CHANGE of manor values did not change between about 1602 and 1641. But since it remained so stable in the previous sixty-seven years, there is a strong prima-facie case for supposing that it did not alter very much in the next thirty-nine. The second question is whether or not there was similar stability in mean values over the same period. The annual values disclosed

in the Valor Ecclesiasticus may be converted into sale values by multiplying by 20, since twenty yeats’ purchase was the formula in cuttent use, and was in fact employed by the Crown a few years later when it began selling off this property. With this multiplier, the average sale value of the Valor Ecclesiasticus sample of manots works out at £598, ot just over one-third of that of the Close Rolls

sample of £1,730. Since the Phelps Brown price index approxtimately trebled over the period we are considering, it might seem that the mean value of manors in terms of food prices remained the same. But in fact it is known from slightly later surveys that the Valor Ecclesiasticus was an underestimate by perhaps 10 per cent.

ot at most 20 per cent.! There must therefore have been a petcep-

tible decline in mean values of manors in terms of food prices between 1535 and 1602. Any decline in the number of manots held by the peerage from 1558 to 1602 will therefore wzder-estimate the

degree to which landed income was falling behind prices; it will in consequence be a more accurate reflector of change in landed income felative to aristocratic cost of living, which, as has been seen, may have been rising rather less fast than the Phelps Brown index would suggest.

It will be argued in Chapter VI, Section v, that landlords’ receipts were moving upwards a good deal mote rapidly than food prices between 1602 and 1641. If this is correct, the mean value of

manors in real terms was also rising, and any further fall in the number of manors held by the peerage will tend to exaggerate the fall in real income. When it comes to drawing conclusions about shifts of landed income from changes in manorial ownership, cettain adjustments will therefore have to be made. compared by calculating the coefficient of variation (V) where V = A x 100. For these two samples very similar coefficients of variation emerge: 89-0 per cent. for the Valor Ecclesiasticus

sample, and 82:4 per cent. for the Close Rolls sample. It is therefore legitimate to conclude that the dispersion of manor values relative to the mean changed very little between 1535 and mun Saving, ‘English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution’, Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, i, Oxford, 1909, ch. ii.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 149 The most important question is whether the dispersion of manor values as revealed in the two samples is so wide that it prevents useful conclusions from being drawn about changes in real values from changes in manorial numbers. At first sight the range of values disclosed in the two samples appears to confirm the gloomiest forebodings of the critics. In the Valor Ecclesiasticus sample the annual

values run from under {2 to over £165, and in the Close Rolls sample the sale values run from under {100 to overt {10,000. But

an inspection of the frequency distributions shows that in both samples there was a marked concentration of manors towards the lower end of the range of values. In calculating the sampling error in the counting of manots, there are two independent variables, the size of the dispersion and the number of manors in the sample. The larger the dispersion and the smaller the number of manors in the sample, the larger the sampling error will be. Since one manor may be up to 100 times more valuable than another, the use of manorial counts as indicators of real wealth is only possible, if at all, provided that the comparisons relate to large numbers of representative manors— representative in the sense that they are statistically random samples.

It was failure to appreciate the significance of this proviso that vitiated Professor Tawney’s attempts to stratify the gentry according to the number of manots held by individual families. Estimates of the mean value of a random sample of #7 manots will

be subject to an error which can be calculated from the formula __ Co

Oy = Nn

where oy is the standard error of the mean value of the manors in the sample, o is the standard error of the population of manors, and # the number of manors in the sample. Say that a random sample of only fifty manors were taken from a population of manors with a standard deviation of {1,426—the value given by the Close

Rolls manors. The standard error of the mean of such a sample would be just over {200, ot nearly 12 per cent. of the mean value (£1,730) of the Close Rolls manors. It would be very likely (strictly, the probability would be just over 95 per cent.) that the mean value

of manors in such a sample would fall within a range of +20, of the population mean: in this case +24 per cent. of the population mean. The same percentage error would, of course, apply to estimates of the total value of manots in the sample. Sampling errors

150 ECONOMIC CHANGE of this magnitude make nonsense of inferences based on small numbers of manots. But for a larger sample, say of 400 manors, the standard error is about one-third of that for a sample of fifty manors : the mean value of such a sample would be very likely to fall within a tange of -L8 per cent. of the population mean. It is thus clear that sampling errors will be considerable when the dispersion of values

is as great as it has been found from our two samples, and that it is only by dealing in large numbers that they can be reduced to manageable proportions. Over and above errors associated with sampling are those which ate introduced by any systematic bias in the manor holdings to be compared. If precise figures could be obtained for the holdings of all peers all over the country at all periods, such bias would not occut, but unfortunately the data at our disposal is far from complete. All that can be done is to use family papers, Close Rolls, Patent Rolls, IPMs, Feet of Fines, Royalist Composition Papers, and local histories in order to make various calculations of different

degrees of reliability and comprehensiveness. There ate many reasons why holdings of particular groups of families, or holdings in particular areas, may not be representative selections of manors as a whole. Since there is no formal technique for assessing errors

introduced by biased selections, the best that can be done 1s to compare the manor holdings of differing groups of families, and in differing geographical areas. A conformity of results will, at the least, be suggestive that particular comparisons are not so biased that the results are without value. The compilation of manorial data is fraught with technical difficulties. Short-term leaseholds have been excluded from the calculations, although they sometimes made a substantial contribution to gross income. On the other hand the very few long leases of sixty yeats or mote have been included, since their purchase-andsale value was not much less than that of a freehold estate. Where manots wete split, a single half-manor has for the sake of simplicity __ been counted as one, but where several halves or thirds were owned, they have been added together. Thus three peers who sever-

ally owned one half-manor, two half-manors, and three thirds | would each be credited with one manor. Temporarily alienated properties, such as jointures of widows, life interests to younger sons, or settlements for current maintenance of a son and heir, have been treated as part of the family estate. The estates belonging

ECONOMIC CHANGE 151 to wives have been counted as part of those of their husbands as soon as they obtained possession, but not from the time of marriage if they only had a reversionary interest. Of course sometimes the husband had no control over his wife’s property, which she disposed of at her own choice and sold or bequeathed away from the heit male. Even in these cases, however, her wealth relieved her husband of the necessity of making financial provision for her, and on the whole it seemed mote sensible to include this property along

with the rest

The categories of gain and loss also need some explanation. One

major case of uncertainty is the transfer of much of the Fitzalan property to Lord Lumley. This estate was taken over by Lumley, who had married the daughter and coheiress, and sold up to pay off the enormous debts of his father-in-law. Was this inheritance or purchase? Either is arguable, but it has been treated as an inheritance. Again in most cases, as with the Manners earls of Rutland,

the heirs general of a divided inheritance took over property directly, and it thus figures as ‘passed to relatives’, but the Stanleys

earls of Derby and the Brydges lords Chandos were instead obliged to sell part of the estate to raise large cash sums with which to satisfy the heirs general. In these cases, items appear as ‘sales’ which under different legal circumstances might just as easily have figured as ‘passed to telatives’. Fortunately, however, fewer than

thirty manors are affected by this qualification. The figure for ctown grants is by itself of limited significance, since land was merely one of a wide range of royal gifts. A man might be rewarded in land which he would sell to raise money; alternatively he might

be rewatded by a monopoly, the profits of which he would use to

buy land. Even so, it should be noted that because of the high prestige value of land, and its unique tole as a reliable long-term investment, the sale still indicates a need for ready cash and the purchase is still presumptive of financial surplus. The significance of purchases and sales is therefore hardly affected by this consideration. Finally, it should be borne in mind that a younger son could

be endowed in any of three ways. A father like George Earl of Shrewsbury might leave him and his heirs male a piece of the ances-

tral estate, a bequest which would then figure under the heading of ‘passed to relatives’; another like the rst Lord Petre might use his

cash reserves to buy land which he then left to the son, in which case the item would figure under the two headings of ‘purchases’

152 ECONOMIC CHANGE and ‘passed to telatives’; a third like the 1st Lord Paget might bequeath a rent charge for years or lives which would not appear in the statistics at all.? (2) Statistics

How did the amount of the property of the peerage of 1558 compare with the amount of the greatly enlarged peerage of 1641? How much mobility was there in aristocratic landownership, and was there any significant variation in the rate of mobility? Allowing for price changes, did the amount and the real value of the property of peerage families extant in 1558 increase or decrease in the next eighty-three years, and at what speed? Some of these questions may be answered by constructing statistical tables of manorial holdings, working out the sampling errors inherent in each, and then seeing whether any useful conclusions can be drawn from the results.

To make the sample as large as possible we have selected not the 57 peets Elizabeth found on her accession in November 1558, but the 62 peers extant on 31 December 1559, together with the eatls of Kent, who resumed an old title in 1572 and whose estate had not appreciably altered since 1558. Appendix XI, Table A, provides an approximate picture of the situation for all peers all ovet the country, showing that in 1558 these 63 families held 10 per cent. mote manors than did the 121 peerage families in 1641. Owing to uncertainty about the data, each figure must be treated as containing a margin of error of +10 per cent., but even if the 1558 figure is 10 per cent. too high and the 1641 figure is 10 per cent. too low, this still leaves the 63 peers of 1558 with only 10 per cent. fewer manors than the 121 peers of 1641: 3,051 against 3,388. Between 1558 and 1641 the average manorial holding per peer had

therefore dropped by about half. The fall is due partly to the very small landed possessions of a number of Early Stuart peers, and partly to the erosion of the holdings of the older peerage, who on an average now owned only 34 manors each instead of 54. In 1559 there was only one peer, Lord Hastings, who held fewer than 10 manors (Lord Hunsdon was richly endowed by Elizabeth on his creation in that year). But in 1641 9 out of 48 surviving pre-1602

peerage families and as many as 29 out of 73 surviving Early Stuart peerage families held fewer than 10 manors. One would have 1 J. Hunter, South Yorkshire, 1, p. 80; it, pp. 276, 406. VCH Essex, iv, pp. 211-14. PCC 27 Chayre.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 153 expected a drop in the average holdings as a result of the dilution of numbers, but not on this scale. Of course the figures exaggerate the number of small proprietors, since several of these lesser mano-

rial owners like Viscount Conway or Lord Cottington enjoyed landed incomes of moderate size. Even so, by 1641 the peerage had evidently ceased to be what it was in 1558, an exclusive club for the substantial landownets.

An even mote significant feature was the decline of the really great territorial magnates. The older grandees had suffered parttcularly heavy losses and few newcomers had emerged to take their place. There were 39 peers holding more than 4o manots in 1558, of whom only 14 survived at this level in 1641, while only 9 of the later creations were manorial owners on a similar scale. The figures are, of course, a far from reliable guide to real income, one ot two men with 30 manots of so enjoying the same revenues as men with about 60, but in general large manorial holdings were still indicative of great potential wealth, and also, of course, of extensive posses-

sions and all the political influence and social prestige that went with them. In terms of landownership, though not of course of gtoss

landed income, much less total income from all sources, the top level of the English social pyramid had been substantially reduced between the accession of Elizabeth and the outbreak of the Civil War.

To discover the degree of mobility in landownership and the precise nature of the changes that occurred, it is necessary to use more accurate data. This means dealing either with that geographical area or with those families for which the information is complete. In practice, the former means the counties and hundreds already covered by the Victoria History of England. There ate cettainly mistakes and omissions in these volumes, but they are sufficiently rare to be of negligible importance. The editors sometimes fail to discern true owners concealed behind the cloud of trustees so beloved of the contemporary conveyancers, and they have a habit of treating all acquisitions from the Crown as grants, regardless whether or not any money was paid for them. But private

archives provide evidence from which the first error can in many cases be corrected, and Land Revenue Office records and know-

ledge of the precise dates at which the Crown was selling land enable the second to be controlled with some degree of confidence. In general, therefore, and subject to these modifications, the VWCH

154 ECONOMIC CHANGE can be trusted to provide an accurate record of manorial descent. Older county histories, however, vary from the fairly good to the

vety bad, and even the best of them need to be supported and

amended by other source material. |

Of the 63 families in the sample, 9 had died out by 1602 and

4 wete in abeyance for a period, leaving 50 extant from 1558 to 1602.

Appendix XI, Table B, column I, shows that in counties covered by the VCH these 50 families held 585 manors at the beginning but only 407 at the end of the period. For random samples of these sizes drawn—as we ate assuming—from a population of manors with little or no change in mean value in real terms or in dispersion, such a fall in numbers must imply a substantial fall in the real value of the manorial holdings of these families. It can be said with con-

siderable confidence that by 1602 the purchasing power derived from the manorial holdings of these families had fallen by 30-L10 per cent.’ Since a sizeable number of manors did not change hands at all and are therefore common to both counts, it is probable that this inference is even mote secute than is implied by calculations based on the assumption that both counts are random samples. The only hypothesis which might upset this conclusion is if peers were keeping their big manors and getting rid of the smaller ones, but this is effectively disproved below (see p. 158). Between 1602 and 1641 land values increased sharply, so that a further fall in manorial holdings will not imply a similar fall in real

income, but only in landownership. If the 1558 peerage is pursued

up to 1641, the number of families in the count is reduced by extinction of the male line to 42, for whom the figures are set out in Appendix XI, Table B, column III. Holdings in 1602 were 71 per cent. of those of 1558, which is reassuringly close to the original figures for the larger sample. Between 1602 and 1641 the holdings

of these 42 families fell from 361 to 295. Calculations similar to 1 The details of these calculations are as follows. The maximum likely value of the 1558 sample is the mean value of the population of manors p/us twice the standard error of the mean, and the minimum likely value of the 1558 sample is the mean value of the population of manors

minus twice the standard error of the mean. With a population standard deviation of £1,426, the standard error of the mean for a sample of 585 manors works out at £59. With a population mean value of £1,730 the maximum likely total value of the 585 manors is £585 (1730+ 118) =f1-08 million, and the minimum likely total value is £585 (1730—118) = £0.94 million. Similar computations for the 1602 sample yield a maximum likely value of {0°76 million and a minimum likely value of {0-65 million. Thus if the two samples happened to yield extreme

0°65 0°76

values the 1602 total value as a petcentage of the 1558 total value could be as little as :

08 X 100 = 60 per cent., of as great as O04 xX 100 = 80 per cent. ,

ECONOMIC CHANGE 155 those already described yield the result that for random samples of these sizes one can say with considerable confidence that the 1641 holdings of the older peerage were 82-+16 per cent. of their 1602 holdings. This means that just conceivably there was little or no fall in manorial ownership between 1602 and 1641, but that in all probability the fall continued, though at a slower pace. A further

conclusion which can be drawn from this table is that the turnover of land followed the same slackening trend. In the forty-four years from 1558 to 1602 there were accessions of up to one-third of the original holding, and losses of nearly one-half the original holdings plus the accessions. Thereafter the rate of turnover was a good deal slower. So far it has been assumed that the area covered by the /CH its

a representative sample of the country as a whole. But it cannot be denied that the “CH is very uneven in its coverage. In the first place, Wales and Ireland are entirely excluded. The latter was a colony of exploitation which in 1640 was providing considerable wealth to about a dozen English noble families. Irish property did not, however, bring the political authority or social status conferred by ownership of estates in England, and should therefore be tegatded as an extraneous source of income like profits from jointstock investments or a crown annuity, rather than as an outlying part of the family estates. Welsh estates formed part of the inheritance of the Herberts earls of Pembroke, the Sydneys earls of Leicester, the Somersets earls of Worcester, the Greys earls of Kent, and several other peers. But Wales was a backward and impoverished area governed by very old-fashioned tenurial customs,

and as a result the income derived from these estates was not commensurate with the acreage. The same is true of the extreme north of England on the Scottish border, where the Earl of Northumberland owned a large number of townships or hamlets with very low yield. Potentially more serious is the fact that the VCH hardly touches East Anglia and entirely misses the south-west and the Welsh Marches; its coverage is primarily confined to the Home Counties and the south Midlands, together with two large stretches of the north, Lancashire and the North Riding of Yorkshire. There is thus a distinct possibility that these WCH figures may exaggerate

the rate of turnover and decline because they are drawn mainly from an area close to London where social mobility was recognized by contemporaries as being particularly swift.

156 ECONOMIC CHANGE To test this hypothesis another set of figures has been constructed, based on those families for whom the records are sufficiently complete to enable a fairly accurate count to be made of

their manorial holdings all over the country. This gives us 41 families for 1558 to 1602, and 33 families for 1558 to 1641, the results for which are shown in Appendix XI, Table B, columns I and IV. It is reassuring to discover that, for those 41 families in column I, the percentages of gain and loss and the 1602 holdings as a percentage of those of 1558 are very similar to those for the geographical area in column I. Moreover owing to the much higher number in the sample, the sampling error for the 1602 per-

centage is reduced to +6 per cent. At the very most there isa margin of error of +4 per cent. in the data for these families, which gives us a safe figure for 1602 of 7i-- 10 per cent. For the 33 families in column IV who endured from 1558 to 1641 the figures

precisely confirm those of the geographical area in column III, both showing that by the end of the period manorial holdings had dropped to 58 of 59 per cent. The only discrepancy is that this column suggests a slightly less marked decline in the late sixteenth and a slightly more marked decline in the early seventeenth century. Here again the numbers are large, so that the sampling error from

random samples is reduced. We can say with confidence that by 1641 holdings as a percentage of 1558 had fallen to 59-L6 per cent.

for sampling error, and ++ another 4 per cent. for uncertainties in the data, making 59--10 per cent. in all. III. CONCLUSION: THE FACTS OF CHANGE

What conclusions can be drawn from these elaborate and tedious

calculations of manorial holdings and of ‘income’ in its various forms? The first has provided three different sets of figures: a rough estimate of the manors held by all peers all over the country in 1558 and 1641; a vety accurate calculation of the manors in a limited geographical area; and a fairly accurate calculation of the manors held by a given number of families all over the country. All three point in the same direction. There is overwhelming evidence that the holdings of the surviving peets of 1558 had fallen by about a quarter by 1602 and by a further fifth by 1641. Since the mean value of manors relative to the price index is believed to have

declined slightly in the first period, and risen considerably in the

ECONOMIC CHANGE 157 second, only the first provides convincing evidence of declining real income. Both, however, are proof of a shrinking in the landownership of the older peers and therefore in their capital resources

loited loited—and_ the! litical authority. N

was the balance redressed by the new families who had risen into the peerage, for in 1641 the number of really large manorial holders,

Id and ; d b hird, and th holdi

200 ”) 200 p)

er peer were down by a half as ompared with 558 . ees

60 160 Y Y , GY 107A 2 GY

180 sales 7 180 by pureheee ers le

40 !

e777 E 100 yayy

“VY V7 60 of | WY), |) SHG

—UYYY YY U; Yon YY Yip

i Fic, 10. Purchase and Sale of Manors, 1560-1639

A farther point which emerges from the tables is that in those families which survived the gains from marriage with heiresses were very much greater than the losses to heirs general and younger sons.

The decline among the surviving families, therefore, is entirely to be ascribed to the disparity between crown grants and purchases on the one hand, and sales on the other (escheats were of negligible consequence for families which survived in the male line). There

was a vety high rate of turnover of property throughout these eighty years, the losses almost amounting to the total holdings of 1558. There is reason to believe, however, that these losses were

not sptead uniformly over the whole period. Fig. 10 shows all purchases and sales all over the country the dates of which are precisely known made by the forty-two families extant from 1558

6 defined f ble B, col . The fi

sa event on after the fir decd of the s 3 teenth century there

158 ECONOMIC CHANGE was a very sharp fall in sales, as families at last managed to balance their budgets. By far the worst period of sales was from about 1585

to 1606, during which time the net losses were so alarming that one may reasonably talk about a financial crisis of the aristocracy, which was atrested soon after the death of Queen Elizabeth. | The suggestion that many of these sales were merely the result of a process of prudent rationalization, by which outlying portions of the estate were got rid of and the money spent on consolidating the main ateas, is one that does not stand up to close examination. Undoubtedly such a process did occur, but only in a minority of cases. Great acquisitors like Lord Burghley did a good deal of chopping and changing before they got the sort of estate they wanted. The Brownes viscounts Montagu sold their estates in Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Kent, and bought others in the family counties of Surrey and Sussex. The 2nd Lord Howard of Effingham sold outlying estates and bought others in Surrey. The 1st Lord Howard of Bindon bought mote property in Dorset and sold his holdings in Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, and Somerset. The 3rd Lord Mordaunt built up his estates in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire, and sold off other scattered properties in seven counties. Those who wete on the downward slope naturally began with their remoter properties. The Earl of Southampton first liquidated his estate in the West Country before he started. nibbling at his Hampshire holdings; Lord Berkeley hung on to his Gloucestershite estates as much as he could, but felt less inhibited about selling up elsewhere. None of this, however, is of much general importance. The cases of consolidation are too few seriously to affect the significance of purchase and sale of manots as an indicator of mobility. Nor can it be shown

that mote than a tiny trickle of outlying manots was sold to buy non-manorial freeholds or leaseholds at the centre. Such consolidation as occurred was mostly by exchange of manors, though of course it was very unlikely for there to be a one-to-one ratio in any given case. One further possibility is that peers tended to sell off their small manors and keep their big ones. If this were so, the significance of these sales would be considerably diminished. To test this, a count has been made of all manors sold by the peerage between 1595 and 1610 for which the sale price is known, either from the Close Rolls ot from other records. These ninety-one manots have a mean value

ECONOMIC CHANGE 159 of {2,180 as compared with the mean for the Close Rolls sample of £1,730, and were therefore distinctly more valuable than the average

rather than less. This is not surprising since peers tended to own the richer manors, and the most active purchasers, lawyers like Sir Edward Coke, merchants like Sir John Spencer, were particularly anxious to lay hands on large consolidated holdings of this sort. One further doubt to be resolved is whether or not these figures for great mobility and striking over-all decline are merely the product of a violently fluctuating fringe around a basically stable core. Could it be that spectacular oscillations on the part of a handful of families was sufficient to distort the whole picture? There is firm evidence for 41 out of 50 families which lasted from 1558 to 1602. Of these 41 no fewer than 25 lost a quarter or more of their manots and 13 lost half or more. These are particularly impressive ficures if it is borne in mind that it was perfectly possible, as the Earl of Northumberland discovered, to raise capital from an estate without the necessity of sale by cutting down woods and granting long leases for large fines and low rents. If we include evidence of rising debt and uneconomic exploitation of land to raise capital, it is clear that some two-thirds of the total peerage were getting into fairly serious financial difficulties during the last fifteen years of the

reign of Elizabeth. Among the older peers the only profiteers of the reign were the two courtiers, Carey and Howard of Effingham, the Percys, who did well by marriage, and the prudent Greys earls of Kent, who improved their modest fortunes. Apart from the Dudley brothers, who produced no legitimate heirs male, two other new creations, Cecil and Sackville, made huge fortunes from Court and office, and one, Norris, did well by marriage. Only 12 of the known 41 families remained fairly stable throughout these 44 years. In the next 40 years, from 1602 to 1641, of the 37 surviving Eliza-

bethan peers about whom we have precise information the manorial holdings of 22 fell by a quarter or more and those of 14

by a half or more. The holdings of 4 (all of whom owed their success to matriage with heiresses) tose by a quarter ot mote, leaving a mere 11 mote ot less static. The situation in the early seventeenth century is thus very similar to that in the late sixteenth. In both periods reasonable stability in their manorial holdings was achieved by less than a third of the peerage. | Until similar studies have been carried out for other periods, it is

difficult to be absolutely certain whether or not this picture of

160 ECONOMIC CHANGE widespread decay in ownership of landed capital among surviving families is a phenomenon particularly confined to the late sixteenth

and early seventeenth centuries, or whether it is common to all times. There ate, however, some significant pointers. In her unpublished study of the peerage from 1485 to1547 Miss Helen Miller

has noted that rapid rise and fall was the exception to the rule. Sixty-nine per cent. of her ninety families did not on balance gain or

lose more than ten manots each from grants and purchase on the one hand, and sales and exchanges on the other; 27 per cent. gained over 10; 4 per cent. lost overt 10.1 In contrast only 35 per cent. of the Elizabethan peers created before 1602 remained fairly static between 1558 and 1641, only 10 per cent. rose, but no less than 55 per cent. fell.

, Comparative Gains and Losses Dates Years | families | 10-++ manors | Static | 10-+ manors

n= Gained Lost

1485-1547pe62 27%35% 69% 1558-1641 ae 90 74 10% 554% Yo

These figures ate not very satisfactory on a number of counts. They exclude gain and loss by marriage, division of estate among heirs male, and total extinction of title by biological failure or by attainder. Since they include 90 of the 92 families extant between 1485 and 1547 and all the 74 extant between 1558 and the death of Elizabeth, the data is not always very teliable. The net gain or loss of 10 manors by these means may be of no consequence to a man with 100 manors ot mote, but of crucial importance to a man with zo ot less. The periods coveted vary from 62 to 83 years. The figures are artificially loaded in favour of stability in the earlier period because of the large number of families which were rapidly snuffed out and so did not have time to show their capacity to rise ot fall. The greater number who rose under the Early Tudors can mainly be explained by the distribution of monastic estates after 15 36.

Nevertheless the contrast between the two periods is so dramatic,

patticularly in the figures for losses, that one may reasonably conclude that it represents a real change in the trend of aristocratic fortunes. 1 H. Miller, The Early Tudor Peerage, 1485-1547 (London M.A. thesis), 1950, p. 139.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 161 The same contrast emerges if one compares the 1558-1641 period with the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that succeeded it. Professor Habakkuk has argued that the latter period was a time of growth rather than decay in aristocratic landholding and of increasing stability in landownership.! It thus looks very much as if both rapid mobility and marked decay were temporary

phenomena peculiar to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The more speculative calculations of ‘income’ tell much the same story. They support the view that a shrinkage of manorial holdings

by about a quarter during the reign of Elizabeth meant an equivalent, or almost equivalent, shrinkage in landed income after adjustment for changes in the price index. At the same time the burden of interest rose and the profits of court and office stagnated if they

did not decline. Receipts from land rose throughout the reign, especially towards the end, and may almost have caught up with the cost of living. But they could not compensate for these other factors, much less for the decline in the amount of land held. As a result the financial position of the peerage was substantially weaker in real terms than it had been forty years before, the greater

magnates being particularly severely hit. Nor was this all. The amount of land throughout the century at the disposal of the private landlord had been substantially increased by massive sales of crown land, for which private buyers paid over £800,000 during

the reign of Elizabeth.? Since the number of manors dispersed among the tenantry by sale by landlords was still very small, the property held by the middle and lesser landlord groups, subsumed under the portmanteau heading of gentry, must necessarily have increased. Relative to those of the gentry, the financial resources of the peerage must therefore have shrunk even faster than any of these figures would suggest. The next forty years present superficially a much more encour-

agine picture. Though the burden of interest on debt continued to tise, and though the average amount of land held probably fell a little, receipts from land wete rising very rapidly in almost all 1 H. J. Habakkuk, ‘English Landownership, 1680-1740’, EcHR, x, 1940; ‘England’ in The Exropean Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, ed. A. Goodwin, 1953; ‘Marriage Settlements in the Eighteenth Century’, TRHS, 4th ser., xxxii, 1950; ‘The English Land Market in the Eighteenth

Century’ in Britain and the Netherlands, ed. J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossman, 1960. G. E.

821314 M

Mingay, English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century, 1963, ch. iil.

2 F.C. Dietz, English Public Finance, rys8-1641, New York, 1932, p. 298, n. 16,

162 ECONOMIC CHANGE areas, and those who could obtain a niche at the Court were enjoying rewards undreamed of under the parsimonious Elizabeth. Moreover, some fortunately situated magnates were now drawing large

revenues from urban tents in the booming west end of London and from their hitherto largely worthless estates in Ireland, while the benefits of draining the fens in East Anglia and Lincolnshire

| wete just beginning to show themselves. In consequence the net income of the peerage in 1641 was on an average at least as great in real terms as it had been in 15 58—and very much greater than it had been in 1602. Despite these enormous gains, however, there is little sign of active accumulation of more landed capital by the greater families, a policy which was well within their means. There was a financial plateau at between £6,000 and {10,000 a yeat which was ample for all reasonable needs (electioneering costs were still trivial) and at which most great families were content to rest. Once arrived at this level by diligent exploitation of what they possessed, they used their income to maintain status rather than to save and reinvest so as to hoist themselves up to new heights of affluence. Conspicuous consumption thus acted as an automatic self-regulating device to prevent the recapture by purchase of the really gigantic territorial agolomerations of the past. The recovery of the peerage in terms of purchasing power does not mean that their financial position relative to other classes in society was back to what it had been in 1558. At a subsistence or near-subsistence level, income has an intrinsic value of its own, for even marginal changes may mean the difference between life and death. At the level of society with which we are concerned, income is mostly devoted to ostentatious consumption in the battle for status. In consequence wealth is relative, and only has meaning in relation to the wants that it satisfies and to the competitive posture

of other members of the society. Now there is every reason to suppose that between 1558 and 1641 there had been a striking growth of population, trade, and industrial and agricultural production, and the gross national income must have greatly increased. Since the real mean income of the peers failed to show comparable

buoyancy, it follows that their share of the whole must have declined. Since their share of the total of land in private ownership had also declined, their position both among the landowning classes and in society as a whole was much inferior to what it had been.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 163 Precisely what proportion of the income of the landed classes was enjoyed by the peerage we have no means of telling. Only two contemporaries attempted estimates of income according to class, Thomas Wilson in 1601 and Gregory King in 1688. Both claimed to be basing their calculations on such statistical data as were available, and the latter is thought to have got his population figures more

ot less right. There can be no doubt whatever that Wilson exaggerates and King minimizes average income, so that ditect comparisons of income are impossible. On the other hand both supply figures which can be made to produce remarkably similar pictures of the distribution of wealth within the upper landed classes. Appendix XII shows the 60 peers of 1601 enjoying 3 per cent. and the 160 peets of 1688 7 per cent. of the landed income of peers and gentry combined. That it was the relative not the absolute position which mattered was reflected in the gloomy calculation of a peer in 1628 that the House of Commons could buy up the Lords thrice over, despite the recent doubling in the numbers of lay peers.’ Moreover wants had altered and increased over the years so that identical real incomes no longer provided identical satisfaction. Upper-class needs wete now more exclusively a matter of money tather than setvices, and the development of a taste for luxuries had raised the levels of expenditure all round. It was Plato who observed that poverty consists not so much in small property as in large desires, a truism which should be sufficiently self-evident in the age of the affluent society. A nobleman of 1641 who enjoyed the same as or even

greater purchasing power than his grandfather in 1558 was far from being as content with his lot; nor did his wealth stand out with the same pre-eminence in an increasingly opulent society of squires and merchants. In any case, to assume that the financial recovery of the aristocracy

meant the end of the crisis in their affairs is to fall into a vulgar etrot. The crisis was not purely economic, it was moral and social as well, and the methods adopted to solve the one merely exacerbated the other. The shrinkage of the territorial possessions of the atistocracy seriously constricted their zone of influence, ‘As oft as thou sellest a foot of land, thou disposeth of a furlong of thy credit’, Sir John Strode warned his son. ‘Northeren thoughtes . .. measutes honnor by the acre’, ruefully reflected the 3rd Earl of 1 Birch, Charles I, i, p. 331.

164 ECONOMIC CHANGE Cumberland as he sold off his ancestral estates.1 The jacking-up of

rents and fines on what was left undermined the old relationship of dependence and loyalty between landlord and tenants, and so continued the erosion of prestige. Some peers became active promoters of fen drainage, and in doing so aroused the fury of whole counties and classes. Wealthy the aristocracy certainly were again in 1641. But growing financial reliance upon Court favour meant association with an institution that was coming to be regarded

as an invention of the Devil, and though some noblemen laid hands on the gold beneath, all were defiled by the pitch. Moreover,

the search for office and favour drew them up to London and so further weakened the links with the countryside. In short, their financial recovery was achieved by trading respect and loyalty for cash, and the proceeds were spent—fully spent—on pleasure tather

than power. | The crisis of the aristocracy thus passed through two phases, the second being the direct outcome of the first. Under Elizabeth their

capital holdings in land and their incomes deteriorated, both telatively and absolutely, as a result of which respect for their titles and their authority was diminished. For as John Smyth of Nibley observed, as he recounted the decay of the house of Berke-

ley, ‘temporall possessions ate the life of man, and by riches is wotshipp and honor preserved in familyes, whereas by poverty they grow contemptible’.2 The cure for this financial crisis was sought in vigorous reorganization and exploitation of the estates which were left, the result of which was to contribute to this second and graver crisis, the crisis of confidence which came to a head in the reign of Charles I. IV. THE CAUSES OF DECAY

The late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries are characterized by an exceptional speed of turnover of land, as shown in the gtaph on p. 57. Now it takes two to make a sale, and the assump-

tion that a want has only to be expressed to be satisfied by the free workings of the market is far from true in an unsophisticated economy. ‘The cause of this activity in the land market cannot have

been a sudden wave of buyers unaccompanied by a sudden wave tC. Aspinall-Oglander, Nunwell Symphony, 1945, p. 53. Whitaker, p. 357. 2 Smyth, ii, p. 148.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 165 of sellers. Throughout this great upheaval in the market, land went on selling at a fairly steady 16 to 20 years’ purchase, giving a return of 6} to 5 per cent. at a time when interest rates were 10 pet cent.

ot mote. This premium was paid largely because there was no alternative form of long-term investment other than land, and because with it one bought social prestige. It also suggests that there were more potential buyers than sellers, and that the market was

controlled more by the supply than the demand. This 1s partly confirmed by the figures for the Close Rolls, recording fairly largescale transactions only, compared with the Feet of Fines, recording

a multitude of small transactions as well as large. After a famine yeat, 1562, 1586, 1594-7, 1608, 1622, 1630, many small men went to the wall and had to sell: average fines per annum shot up. The large landowner weathered the storm, and some may have profited: Close Rolls registrations remain static or even decline. Moreover, the Close Rolls figures were still falling in the late seventeenth century, just at a time when more and greater merchant fortunes were being built up than ever before, and when politics and the law were still very lucrative businesses. If these had in fact been the main causes of the ‘rise of the gentry’, one would have expected that land

would have continued to change hands at great speed. Part of the decline in the Close Rolls registrations in the 1690’s may have been

due to changes in legal habits, but it is hard not to believe that some of it represents a genuine contraction of the land market. This leads to the conclusion that the two factors causing the speed

of transfer were the booming profits of agriculture on a fising market, and the exceptional readiness of existing landowners to sell up, and that of the two the latter was if anything more important than the former. Part of the supply of land for the market came from the Crown, which at irregular intervals was raising the wind by selling off parts

of its landed capital. Between 1536 and 1554 the Crown raised at least £1,260,000 from sales of ex-monastic property, and gave away an unknown but very substantial amount as well. Thereafter there were five more periods of royal land-sales during which about the same amount was received as in the first great wave of selling. But these crown sales are not in themselves an adequate explanation of the intense activity of the land market. In the first place, the sales

ate not on a large enough scale. Professor Tawney’s figures show that between 1561 and 1640 crown holdings fell from 9.5 per cent.

166 ECONOMIC CHANGE to 2 pet cent. of all manots in his seven sample counties.' Our statistical testing of manorial counts suggests that these figures can safely be accepted as fairly accurate, so that during these eighty

yeats between 6 per cent. and 9 per cent. of all manors must have come on to the market for the first time as a result of royal disinvestment. The total number of manors sold between 1560 and

££

Sales of Crown Land*

Approximate Receipts Phelps-Brown adjusted to

Receipts price index price index

1536-54 1,260,000 200 1,260,000

1560-5 257,000 270 190,000 1589-91 207,000 400 100,000 1599-1603 400,000 470 170,000 1603-13 654,000 500 260,000 1625-35 642,000 600 215,000

* W.C. Richardson, The Court of Augmentations, Baton Rouge, 1961, p. 235 and n. 57; F. C. Dietz, English Public Finance, 1558-1641, New York, 1932, pp. 298-9.

1629 merely by the forty-two peerage families shown in Appendix XIc must have just about equalled those sold by the Crown itself

(Fig. 10). Secondly, the chronology is all wrong, the very large crown sales under Charles I coinciding with a sharp fall in land transactions. Thirdly, sales by the Crown cannot account for the exceptional turnover of landed families to which all contemporaries

drew attention, and for which Professor Tawney and others have

found statistical evidence. Internal transfer of land within the propertied classes must have been the prime stimulus to the land matket. What needs to be explained is not so much why a lot of small men were finding it hard to make both ends meet, but why so many important established families were obliged to sell their patrimony. To set the problem in perspective we must first look at certain features of human biology which are common to all times and all places. (1) Biological Factors

One of the most powerful forces working for fluidity within a society were, and are, the limitations nature has placed upon the human capacity to reproduce. In this period as in others a surprising 1 FcHR, and set., vii, 1954, p. 94.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 167 number of families died out altogether because of failure to provide a male heir. This came about despite the fact that one of the principal objects of marriage was to ensure continuity of title and of family

estates. So urgent was this need that even the most disastrous of marriages tended to hold together until it had been achieved. In 1596-7 the wife of the 9th Earl of Northumberland gave birth to two sons, but they both died in infancy. The Earl and Countess had quarrelled violently and been separated for two years when in 1601 the proud and hot-tempered Earl was forced to effect a temporary reconciliation, in order to make another attempt to beget an heir. Though they were said to have quartelled again immediately, the desired result was accomplished and a boy was duly born in October 1602.

Capacity to reproduce is affected by diet and disease, by inherited

propensities, and by age and duration of marriage. It has been calculated that in 1925 7 to 8 per cent. of all married women in England were completely non-fecund, and other studies have suggested that 12 per cent. of all marriages are likely to be infertile.! In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a male heit was even less easily come by than is the case today, for, despite an earlier marriage

age, Other factors raised the recorded figure of childlessness to a

much higher level. It is now known that the sex of the child is determined by the father, not the mother, so that the old theory that frequent marriage with heiresses led to failure of the male line cannot any longer be sustained. It is possible that heiresses brought with them a tendency towards low fertility and weak offspring with

a poor expectation of life, but a comparison of the number of children produced by heiresses and non-heiresses fails to show any sionificant difference between the two groups. The decisive factors were firstly ill-balanced diet, tight corseting,

lack of fresh air and exercise, liability to infection, all of which setiously impaired female health and encouraged miscarriages and still-births; secondly, the high adult mortality rate, which meant that only about a half of all marriages were completed (i.e. lasted throughout the whole fertile period of women); thirdly, the fact that, if M. Goubert is right, female fertility in the seventeenth 1 D. Dalrymple, The Secret Correspondence of Sir Robert Cecil with James VI of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1766, p. 32. Papers of the Royal Commission on Population, 1950, iv, pp. 35-38. T. H. Hollingsworth, ‘A demographical Study of the British Ducal Families’, Population Studies, X1, 1957, p. 21. Claude Lévy and Louis Henry, “Ducs et Pairs sous L’ Ancien Régime’, Population, Oct.—Dec. 1960, p. 820. The Family Doctor, September 1959.

168 ECONOMIC CHANGE centuty ended very early, at about 41. As a result the recorded evidence shows that 19 per cent. of all first marriages among the nobility between 1540 and 1660 were childless and no less than 29 pet cent. produced no male children (Fig. 11). These figures ate undoubtedly exaggerated by failure to record some children who

died in infancy, but since only two noble children out of three sutvived their fifteenth year at this period they are an optimistic estimate of the proportion of first marriages which produced an adult male of martiageable age to carry on the line.?

[20 Y 120 120 % YY 100 Yj > 10080 100 . Y Y : yp, Gia 7 Z 40 4H) 40 Wp Y WT Yj 40 140 Sons per first marriage |40 Children per first marriage 140

OE YYYYY 20 YY A 20 Deacd MCALMALALALA° CALALAALLLLACL on Number of sone ys an * Number of children Fic, 11. Fertility of first marriages, 1540-1659

Of course fitst marriages are far from telling the full story. Remarriages among the aristocracy amounted to 28 per cent. of the total and this is a factor which obviously affects the number of children born to each peer. But it seems that the desire for more children was operative in only a limited number of cases, for these second wives were often past child-bearing age. Even when they were young, theit husbands may have been sterile, and as a result 48 per cent. of second marriages were totally barren, and 58 per cent.

failed to produce a boy.? This emphasis on the degree of childlessness should not obscure the fact that there were a large number of very prolific marriages. If one-third of first marriages produced one child or none at all, one-third also produced more than six. In a fertile couple concep-

tions wete probably far more frequent in the upper classes than ™ See Appendixes XIIIA and XXVI. For infant mortality see Lévy and Henry, op. cit., p. 816, n. 1. Hollingsworth, op. cit., p. 19. P. Goubert, Beauvais et le Beauvaisis de 1600 @ 1730, Paris, 1960, pp. 32-33. 5. Peller, ‘Studies in Mortality since the Renaissance’, Bu//. Hist. Medicine, XXi, 1941, p. 457. Among the lower classes Goubert’s figures suggest a mortality of up to

50 per cent. below the age of 20 (op. cit., p. 39). 2 See Appendix XIIIc.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 169 in the lower owing to the almost universal practice of putting babies out to wet-nurses. Lactation, which among the poor might | last for years, is said to be quite an effective contraceptive agent. As a tesult the recorded average of children per fertile aristocratic first marriages was as high as five.! On the other hand the lethal attentions of doctors and poor nourishment from wet-nurses of dubious teliability were two hazards to which the children of the atistoctacy were particularly prone, and it is possible that infant mottality among them was also exceptionally high in consequence. The danger of the extinction of the family in the male line was agoravated by the low reproduction

tate of younger sons. Statistical 4, 7, evidence for this group is lacking U; owing to the serious imperfections U of the genealogical records, but the , 2° U; general picture seems clear. Living Ga U), OY

for the most patt on very modest = , YW Yi : annuities, they tended to marry late, OYG Yj and to be badly placed to obtain a —YYYG Y Y Yi second wife if the first died young. 0 1 2 34 «5 63 Moreover, a fair number did not Heirs male marry at all, and sought a living in Fic. 12. Heirs male alive, 1636

the army or at sea, professions with a very high wastage from disease. Large families were thus mainly

confined to that minority of eldest sons whose marriages were highly fertile.

So eccentric a fertility pattern wrought havoc upon family stability and continuity. In 1636 there was drawn up a list of the number of heirs male to 118 peerage titles (Fig. 12). No less than 14 per cent. had none at all, and a further 13 per cent. had only one. Asa result, of the 63 noble families of December 1559, 21 had failed

in the male line by December 1641, and 26 by December 1659.? There is nothing unusual in an extinction rate of 4o per cent. per century, indeed it is probably rather low in comparison with earlier petiods. English baronies in the early Middle Ages and French noble families in the Forez in the late Middle Ages both disappeared

at a rate of rather more than 50 per cent. per century. Miss Helen 1 See Appendix XIIIs. Cf. Peller, op. cit., p. 430; Lévy and Henry, op. cit., p. 820; Goubert, Op. cit., p. 37. 2 See Appendix XIV. Between 1641 and 1659 Dudley, Sussex, Cumberland, Essex, and Bath also failed.

170 ECONOMIC CHANGE | Miller has calculated that a third of the pre-1486 English peerage disappeared from natural causes in the subsequent 60 years. Nor did things improve very markedly thereafter, for by 1802 only 17 of the 52 creations of James I survived in the male line—an extinction tate of 68 per cent. in 180 yeats.? This inexorable attrition de- _ stroyed any prospect of maintaining the peerage as a self-perpetuating

closed caste. If the Crown did not bestir itself to plug the gaps, in 250 years or so there would be no one left to sport a title. A farther biological cause of economic instability was the failure,

not of the total male line, but of the direct descent from father to son ot grandson. If there were daughters of the marriage, a proportion—and possibly a high proportion—of the estate would pass to them as heirs general and thus become detached from the title, which would pass to an uncle, nephew, or cousin. There were 32 partial failures among the 63 families in our sample, 16 of which

involved heits general. Only a third of the 63 families lasted for 83 yeats without either total or partial failure of succession. Heits general did not only diminish the estate of existing peers; they also swelled the fortunes of those who were lucky enough to secure them in marriage. Since so many peers married within the atistocracy and since they so diligently pursued heiresses, a good deal of the dismembered property fell into the hands of existing noble families. In cases where the heiress married into the gentry, the result more often than not was to hoist the husband up into a higher income group and to add to his social status. Consequently

within a vety few years he is found to have acquired a title. Although there were certainly exceptions, the great bulk of peerage

property which descended via heiresses passed into the hands of noblemen or men who, largely as a result of their wives’ inheritance,

wete shortly to be ennobled. The degree to which existing peers and their sons monopolized the attentions of aristocratic heiresses is thus critical to the survival of the group and to the exclusion of newet men. Between 1559 and 1641 the 63 families of 1559 left 58 heiresses,

either as a result of collateral descent or of total failure of the male line. Four of these 58 married after the attainder of their 1 BE. Perroy, ‘Social Mobility among the French Noblesse in the later Middle Ages’, Past and Present, xxi, 1962, p. 31. Miller, thesis cit., p. 31. T. E. Bridges, Memoirs of the Peers of England during the Reign of James I, 1802, p. xxxi. It has been said that, owing primarily to failure of the

male line, in medieval Norfolk the average tenure of a landed family was slightly over 200 years (W. J. Blake, ‘Fuller’s List of Norfolk Gentry’, Norfolk Arch. xxxii, 1961, p. 266).

ECONOMIC CHANGE 171 father, and so were not heitesses at all, and 6 died before reaching martiageable age. Of the remaining 48, 23 married existing peers

or their heirs male, and only 12—and they mostly women who brought very little with them—married men who failed, either in their own person or that of their son and heir, to obtain a title.? The three coheiresses of the roth Earl of Shrewsbury married into the old peerage, the three coheiresses of the 2nd Earl of Exeter into the new, the three coheiresses of the 14th Earl of Derby into

one or the other. One of the two coheiresses of the 3rd Lord Chandos married into the peerage, as did the two coheitesses of the 3rd Earl of Dorset and the heiresses of the 3rd Earl of Cumberland,

the 2nd Lord Hunsdon, and the 2nd Lord St. John. It is the same story in cases where the title became totally extinct. The Dacre entailed estates passed to the Howards, the Fitzalan to Lord Lumley, the Howard of Bindon to the earls of Suffolk and Northampton (not by marriage), two-thirds of the Latimer to the earls of Northumberland and Exeter, the Ogle to the Earl of Newcastle, the Stanley Lord Mounteagle to Lord Morley. In the new peerage most of the Bayning property went to the Earl of Oxford, the Carr to the Earl of Bedford, two-thirds of the Cecil Viscount Wimbledon to lords Willoughby of Parham and Saye and Sele, the Clifton to the Farl of March, the Denny to the Earl of Carlisle, the Harington to the Earl of Bedford and (eventually) Lord Bruce, the Hume to the

Earl of Suffolk, the Hicks to Lord Noel, the Howard Earl of Northampton to the earls of Arundel and Suffolk, three-fifths of the Verte to the earls of Clare and Westmorland and Lord Poulett, a half of the Wotton to the Earl of Chesterfield and Viscount Campden.

Thanks to their active pursuit of heiresses, noble and otherwise, on balance the existing peerage acquired far more by their wives than they lost by their daughters. There ate, however, certain other losses which can be attributed indirectly to the lack of a son or grandson to whom to pass on the estate. Some of the most profligate peers of the day, men who most seriously teduced their family inheritance, were childless or without male children, and often on very bad terms with the relatives who

wete to succeed them. This is true of the 3rd Earl of Cumberland, the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, the 5th Earl of Sussex, the 3rd Earl ¥ See Appendix XTVc. 2 See Appendix XIs. This statement takes account of the enforced sales to raise cash for the daughters of the 14th Earl of Derby and the 3rd Lord Chandos.

172 ECONOMIC CHANGE of Dotset, and the 2nd Lord St. John. The greatest wastrel of them

all, the 17th Earl of Oxford, had already dissipated most of his inheritance before his hated first wife died and he could marty again and beget an heir male. Other economic strains imposed by the structure of the family wete the result of long-lived widows and a superfluity of children. By common law, widows were entitled to a third of the estate, and the substitution of the jointure for the dower only moderately reduced the proportion usually allocated for this purpose.’ Peers

wete in the habit of taking another wife as soon as one had died, and the natural toughness and longevity of women once they

had survived the child-bearing cycle meant that jointures were a tegularly recurrent burden rather than an occasional cross to be borne for a few yeats at infrequent intervals. If we take the forty-

! two peerage families which enduted from 1559 to 1641, there | occurred in these years 141 deaths of holders of the title or adult married heirs male. In 102 cases, or 72 per cent., widows sutvived to

enjoy their jointures. To put it another way, over these 82 years these 42 families provided 3,444 family/years, during 1,927 years, of

56 per cent., of which they wete paying out jointures. It was quite

common for families to be burdened with two jointures at the same time, and for several years the Russells earls of Bedford, the Manners earls of Rutland, and the Brydges lords Chandos were

saddled with three. Of course experiences varied very widely indeed. There were the Devereux, who paid 119 years of jointure

in these 82 yeats, and the Brydges, who paid 104. Indeed five families paid more than 82 years. At the other end of the scale are the six families who paid less than fifteen years, including the Eures who got away with a few months. A family could on an average

expect to be paying widows up to a third of its income for over

half the time.

Naturally enough, noblemen afflicted with long-lived women found it difficult to maintain customary standards of living and yet keep out of debt. Though all were recklessly extravagant, it is none the less noticeable that six of the seven aristocratic conspirators in the Essex rebellion of 1601 had suffered in varying degrees for yeats past from the burden of widows.? This was not the main T See infra, p. 643. 2 Essex’s mother was stillalive and his step-great-grandmother had died only the year before. Bedford’s step-grandmother and aunt, Southampton’s mother, Rutland’s step-grandmother and aunt, and Mounteagle’s step-grandmother were still alive; Sandys’s mother had probably

ECONOMIC CHANGE 173 cause of their difficulties, but it was a contributory factor. When widows lived on after their husband’s death for forty years or more, as happened to the Sheffields, the Stanleys, and the Touchets, a whole generation was impoverished. When they lasted for fifty-five yeats or so, as did a Devereux and a Paget widow, the loss of income must have seemed permanent. Equally harmful financially was an excess of children to be provided for. Despite the urgent need to secure the succession, an overfull quiver was by no means a cause of unmixed satisfaction. All too often the wife gave birth every two years or so with monotonous tegularity, until the cycle was ended by death. Though it records a case of exceptional fertility, the memorial inscription in Rothley Church, Leicestershire, to Anne, wife of Matthew Babington, who died at the age of 32 in 1648, may stand as an epitaph for thousands of her contemporaries: ‘They had issue four sonnes and eight daughters, at 12 single births, before the eldest was 12 years and 3 quarters old.... The 12, being a daughter not born alive, proved fatal also to her mother.’ That in these cases there was a teal wish to break the biological fetters is hardly in doubt. In 1651 Frances Clerke told her father ‘this day month, I give God hearty thanks, I was brought abed with a son, which is my tenth child, and I pray God, if it be his blessed will, it may be my last’.? Nor did husbands look upon a multitude of children with unqualified satisfaction. Some only can get riches and no children, We only can get children and no riches,

lamented Touchwood senior to his wife. In 1536 the Earl of Wiltshire complained of poverty partly because his wife “browte me

forth every yere a chyld’, and both Lord North and the Earl of Northumberland advised against ‘a multitude of unprofitable children’. Sir Patience Ward records that he was given his name because his father began to think the family increased too fast for his estate, and made a vow that if there were another son, he would

call him Patience. The rise in the size of portions made girls peculiarly expensive and unwanted, though boys were still welcome just died, having outlived her husband by over forty years. Only Cromwell had no cause to complain about the longevity of women. t Nichols, iii, p. 961. Aspinall-Oglander, op. cit., p. 115. 2 T. Middleton, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, u, i. Ellis, 3rd ser., iii, pp. 22-23. Dudley Lotd North, Observations and Advices Oceconomical, p. 23. Hartison, p. 59. Hunter, op. cit. ii, p. 143, n. 1.

174 ECONOMIC CHANGE so as to protect the direct male succession against the ravages of accident and disease. After three boys had been born, however, which was a situation which developed in at least one family in every five, there was a strong incentive to call a halt. It is therefore curious that there are few signs at this period of any practical steps being taken to prevent conception. Information about mechanical and even chemical methods of contraception were certainly available in print, but there is little evidence of their use in practice.’ Whether or not there was any knowledge of the female

fertility cycle we do not know, though in a slightly different context Juan Huarte Navarro, who was translated into English in 1594, recommended intercourse six or seven days before menstruation

in order to produce a male child, advice which anyway was inaccurate. There remains the possibility of abortion, which was

as dangerous physically as it was considered reprehensible morally. Ladies at Court wete popularly accused of practising abortion, but even there it cannot have been very common practice. It has recently been argued that voluntary abstention practised for economic reasons was a powerful and possibly deter-

minant factor in governing peasant fertility even in the Middle Ages and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Moreover, the substantial decline in average children per married man among the European nobility in the eighteenth century can only be attributed to a change from letting nature take its course to one of deliberate planning.3 Substantial though the financial incentive was becoming,

however, the large number of really huge families suggests that only a minority of the English nobility before the middle of the seventeenth century were willing or able to take practical steps to limit the burden of children. Whether this policy of lasssez-faire was

due to technical ignorance, to the inadequate urgency of the incentive, ot to moral or theological objections to interference in the biological process, we ate not at present in a position to say. tN. E. Hines, Medical History of Contraception, Baltimore, 1939, pp. 188-91. L. C. Strong and E, L. McCawley, ‘A Verification of a hitherto unknown Prescription of the Sixteenth Century’, Bull. Hist. Medicine, xxi, 1947, p. 898.

2 J. Huarte Navarro, The Examination of Men’s Wits, 1594, pp. 296, 319. Grosart, 2nd ser., iv, p. 83. Bodl Rawlinson MSS., Poet. 26, f. 1% (I owe this reference to Mr. Julian Mitchell). Chemical methods of abortion were apparently well known in London by the end of the seventeenth century (D. Defoe, The Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed, 1727, pp. 138-51). 3 R. Schlatter, The Social Ideas of the Religions Leaders, 1660-88, Oxfotd, 1940, pp. 7~8. J. T. Krause, “The Implications of recent Research into Demographic History’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, i, 1958-9. Lévy and Henry, op. cit., pp. 820-1. Pellet, op. cit., p. 430.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 175 (2) Marriage Terms

So far we have discussed biological factors which at all periods

ate working to open up the land market. We must now turn to factors specific to the period in question, in order to explain its exceptional features. An over-fertile wife and an excess of paternal

affection could result in particularly serious damage to the longterm fortunes of a family. Marriage portions given with daughters wete rising much faster than the price index (Fig. 18, p. 641), and finding the capital could either plunge a family into debt for yeats or else lead to the temporary detachment or outright sale of a portion of the estate. The 5th Earl of Bath declared an income in 1642 of about £1,000, a third of which was devoted to raising £12,000 as marriage portions for his three neices. Theophilus 2nd Earl of Suffolk died in 1640 leaving his five daughters £5,000 each,

in addition to which the estate of about £8,000 a year gross was saddled with £1,200 worth of annuities left to two younger sons and a granddaughter of the 1st earl. Though grandiose building and high living were also very important factors, this inordinate devotion to the family was a prime cause in the rapid decline in the

fortunes of the Howards earls of Suffolk, in the seventeenth century. At the same period the Comptons earls of Northampton, were burdened with £20,000 left by the 2nd Earl to four younger sons and two daughters. In 1650 the Earl of Westmorland had contracted to pay his sister £5,000 and his six daughtets {'5,000 each, making £35,000 in all charged on an estate of about £5,500 a year. Robert Earl of Lindsey declared a 1642 estate of £4,200 a year out of which £1,950 a year was allocated as jointure to the dowager countess, annuities of {100 a yeat each went to two sons, {100 a yeat to a brother, another {100 a year to the dowager countess, and £180 a year as jointure to another Bertie lady. Furthermore, there was {£8,000 owing as portions for four sisters, with 8 per cent. (£640) interest due until they were satisfied. In all, therefore, the charge on the estate for various members of the family amounted to {3,170 a year ot three-quarters of the total declared income from land. The 3rd Lord Petre was even more generous, leaving £35,000 to his two daughters and four younger sons to be raised out of the estate after his death in 1638. The most striking case of all is that of the 3rd Earl of Salisbury, who died in 1683 leaving a gross income of £12,200 burdened with

176 ECONOMIC CHANGE bequests to his three daughters and four younger sons amounting

to no less than £78,600, an act of generosity which provoked heavy land sales and the desperate expedient of marriage to a great mercantile fortune.! These, of course, were exceptional cases. The majority of fathers had fewer children and treated them less well, generosity on this scale to younger sons being particularly unusual. Moreover in the sixteenth century daughters’ portions had not yet reached these dizzy heights, while later in the seventeenth century prudent parents were adjusting the amount they gave to each girl according to the total number to be disposed of. Nevertheless all

| families in the seventeenth century were feeling the strain resulting from the growth in the size of portions which had to be offered if daughters were to be successfully married off. What made this rise so harmful to family finances was the practice

firstly of paying the portion not to the bridegroom but to his father, and secondly of using it for current expenditure and not capital investment. Of course if the son and heir married a landed heiress, her portion consisted of teal property which was sure to be legally protected from alienation, rather than of freely disposable

| cash. This meant a deliberate act of self-denial by the father of the gtoom.? Normally, however, the marttiage of a son, especially an eldest son, was a means of raising ready money, often on advantageous terms, and this was a frequent and well-recognized means of clearing off debts. It was said in the 1520’s that Lord Scrope ‘must needs have some money, and he hath nothing to make it of but only of the marriage of his said son’. When in 1596 Sir Hugh

Cholmley found himself much in debt and unable to clear it off by sale of lands owing to an entail, he dragged his eldest son away from his studies at Cambridge and married him off to a girl with

a portion of £2,000. Other parents used the portions acquired by selling their sons not to clear off old debts but to finance current conspicuous expenditure. In the 1630’s Philip Earl of Pembroke planned to rebuild Wilton out of the portion of his daughter-in-law. Men who were masters of their own fate similarly sought financial refuge in marriage. Sit Robert Cross, the distinguished privateer, explained that ‘seeinge there would be no ymployment for me after the decese of our latte Soffren Quine Elizabeth, I thought it my 1 SP 23/208, pp. 713-15; 218, pp. 37-413; 56, p. 316. Essex R.O., D/DBy A 5; D/DP L 4p. Northants. R.O., Westmorland MSS., Misc. Books 15, f. 77. H/A 137/10; 112/10; 115/13; H/L 200/5. 2 See the remarks of Lord Gerard in his will in 1617 (PCC 46 Meade).

ECONOMIC CHANGE 177 beste coutse to betake me to a wyffe, which I then did’. This financial incentive was an important reason why peers tended so swiftly and frequently to take themselves a second wife after the

death of the first.t It was the absolute freedom with which the father of the groom, or if his father were dead the groom himself, might dispose of the martiage portion which made the inflated offers of squires and merchants so very tempting. Sometimes fathers used the money for the less strictly selfish purpose of providing portions for the sisters of the groom. Occasionally matters could be arranged on the basis of a straight swap,? but normally two separate treaties had to be made with separate sets of parents. In his will of 1513 Lord Mounteagle ordered the pottion to be derived from the marriage of his son to be used for marrying his daughter. In 1629 the only hope Lord Gerard could

see of providing portions for his three sisters was by himself marrying a woman who brought a portion large enough to finance all three. In 1639 it was the portion acquited by marrying his son

to Diana Maxwell that enabled the Earl of Salisbury to give his daughter {10,000 in marriage with the Earl of Devonshire. No wonder poor Lord Vaux was distressed in 1583 when he discovered that his eldest son Henry positively refused to marry on conscientious grounds, for otherwise he could not see how he was to finance the marriage of his daughters, a consideration which led Henry to renounce his inheritance in favour of his younger brother.3

In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, therefore, the matriage portion did little to advance the long-term fortunes of the family.4 Moreover on the bride’s side the money was often found, especially in the sixteenth centuty, by breaking into family capital and selling lands. In 1584-5 Lord Berkeley had to sell land to secute £3,000 each with which to marry off his two daughters, and peers who had difficulty in breaking entails hastened to push through Acts of Parliament to allow them to sell land to raise portions for daughters.® 1 Le PH VII, iti, pt. ii, no. 3210. Cholmley, p. 16. Catholic Rec. Soc. tii, 1906, p. 330. See

also CSPD, 1637, p. 118. 2 Althorp Deeds 1801 A.

3 BM Add. MSS. 24452, ff. 16’-19. H of L MSS. 3 Ch. I, Private Act 5. H/A 157/3. HMC Various MSS. iii, p. 101. G. Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden, p. 205. See also Salop R.O., Eyton MSS. 665/2. 4 For exceptions to this generalization, see HMCS, xii, p. 61; Claydon House, Verney Letters for 1612; Grosart, 1st ser., ii, p. 25; v, p. 193; Stanley Papers, pt. 111, ii (Chetham Soc. \xvii), 1867, p. cccxvii.

821314 N

5 Hof LMSS., 35 Eliz. Private Act 5; 3 Jas. I, Private Act 4; 7 Jas ivate Act 17; 16-17 Ch. I, Private Act 4. PCC 106 Meade.

178 ECONOMIC CHANGE Botrowing was also a frequent recourse, but a dangerous one when interest rates were at 10 per cent. and mortgages liable to forfeiture for non-payment. It was not until the early seventeenth

century that it became common to convey patts of the family estates to trustees for a petiod of years to raise the money out of income.’ At its worst the system increased the ability of and temptation to the holder of the estate to raise money for current needs by selling himself or his eldest son for ready cash, and to sell land or

run up debt on very unfavourable terms in order to provide the evet-incteasing portions needed to marry off his daughters. The cost of the operation fell most heavily on the next generation, who would have to pay off the debts and live off an estate permanently truncated by land sales or temporarily reduced by jointures and trusts to raise portions. (3) Law and Custom

The peculiar conventions governing the financial arrangement of marriage were made more dangerous by the current land law. In the fourteenth century the statute De Donis of 1285, as interpreted by the judges, ensured that the will of a testator was inviolable, But

a test case of 1472, Taltarum’s Case, decided that entails could be circumvented by suffering a common recovery, and by the accession

of Elizabeth this principle had been erected into a dogma. The Statutes of Uses and Wills of the 1530’s had confused matters still further, and in the late sixteenth century there developed a running

battle between landlords and judges in a struggle to create new perpetuities. Attempts to insert provisos cutting off the heir if he alienated part of the estate, attempts to create contingent remainders

to unborn children, and attempts to make executory devises were all in the end struck down by the judges in test cases between 1595 and 1620.7 As a result an Elizabethan father experienced very great

difficulty in ensuring that his eldest son would not dissipate the entailed property in riotous living or undue generosity to daughters and younger sons. All he could do was either to make a simple entail, or to give himself and his son a life tenancy in the estate at the time of his son’s marriage, with reversion to the heirs male. But 1 E.g. by Lords Berkeley, Grey of Groby, Paget, Spencer, and Compton (PCC 11, 107 Lawe; 110 Barrington; 27 Goare. Castle Ashby 1242). 2 W.S. Holdsworth, History of English Lam, iii, pp. 114-20; vii, pp. 83, 111-35, 193-217. J. Dalrymple, A General History of Feudal Property, 1758, pp. 163-8. BM Harl. MSS. 216, ff. 55-65.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 179 the entail could usually be overthrown at any time after the father’s death by the simple legal fiction of suffering a recovery, and even when it could not, it could sometimes be got round by making the purchaser a lease for 10,000 years, a device which was used by the Earl of Derby in 1597. As for the life tenancy, it was only watertight

after the birth of a son to the marriage and before he reached his majority. Before the birth of the first son it was very easy for the father of the bridegroom to frustrate the intention of the settlement made at the time of marriage, as was demonstrated in 1614 when Sit Robert Huddleston married Bridget, daughter of Christopher, the future 2nd Lord Teynham. Even if settlement was delayed until after the birth of a son, if the child died, or if he came into his inheritance before a further settlement had been made, there was no legal obstacle to the breaking up of the estate. Yet a further possibility was that the grandson could be persuaded into agreeing with his father to give his consent to sales of land at the time of hes marttiage, in return for the granting of a jointure and a new settlement to enable him to marry. The efficacy of the life tenancy was not proof against the manceuvres of the spendthrift waster or of the heir determined to defraud his younger brothers. On the other hand it certainly made it more difficult for estates to be dispersed, and an examination of Royalist Composition Papers shows conclusively that by 1642 the great bulk of aristocratic property was now held on life tenancy.! In the early stages of its development, the life tenancy raised certain difficulties of its own. If drawn up too rigidly and without sufficient escape clauses, it severely hampered estate management by pteventing the granting of leases of a reasonable length, made it impossible for the son to provide jointures and portions for the marriage of his children, and severely restricted his powers of borrowing on the security of his estates. It was to free themselves from these crippling arrangements made by their fathers or grandfathers that noblemen so often resorted to private Acts of Parliament. Sometimes these Acts were designed to confirm the granting of jointures to wives;? sometimes they were to make possible the granting of leases up to three lives or twenty-one years, in conformity with the customs of the area, instead of being limited to ™ CR 39 Eliz., pt. 24. C 2 Jas. I, T. 12/73. An early example of a settlement of a life tenancy on father and son is in the will of Edward Lord North of 1563 (PCC 7 Mortison). 2 H of L MSS., 1 Eliz., Private Act 3; 8 Eliz., Private Acts 6, 7, 8; 27 Eliz., Private Act 18; 31 Eliz., Private Act 3; 35 Eliz., Private Act 3; 43 Eliz., Private Acts a, 3.

180 ECONOMIC CHANGE the duration of the life of the lord; sometimes they were to empower the life tenant to sell lands to pay his debts and raise portions for his daughters.1 Sixteenth-century settlements were thus either

easily broken by normal legal means, or else were so lacking in escape clauses as to be unworkable, and had to be eased by Act of Parliament. Elizabethan fathers tended to settle only a proportion of their lands on their eldest son and to reserve the remainder for the payment of debts and provision for younger sons. The importance of younger

sons in breaking up family estates should not be exaggerated. Really large land grants to younger sons, for example by Lord Burghley to Robert Cecil, occur only in cases of self-made men who felt free to divide up their estates as they wished. Many of the grants

wete of land bought or inherited very recently and therefore did not affect the long-term stability of the family property. Moreover, in almost all cases the reversion on failure of the male line of the younger sons was given to the heirs male of the head of the family, so that biological hazard tended in the long run to bring a certain amount of the property back to the centre, as in the case of the Mannets earls of Rutland. If we ignore the special case of Sit Robert Cecil, in the twelve and a half counties covered by the Victoria County History the numbet of manors which passed permanently away from the 74 Elizabethan peerage families to younger children between 1558 and 1642 was less than 50. Since they started in 1558 with about 690 manors, and in all some 1,100 passed through

| their hands during this period, it is clear that grants to younger children were a significant but not a very important factor in the break-up of the family estates. The reason for this is that the outright grant of land to younger sons was being superseded by the etant for a period of years, or more commonly for the two lives of the son and his bride. By this arrangement the property maintained the son during his life and provided a jointute for the widow, but then reverted to the senior member of the family, leaving the children of the marriage to fend for themselves.3 In the early seventeenth century increasing familiarity with professional occupations 1 Loc. cit., 5 Eliz., Private Acts 4, 5; 29 Eliz., Private Act 2; 35 Eliz., Private Act 5; 3 Jas. I, Private Act 4; 7 Jas. I, Private Act 17; 21 Jas. I, Private Act 2; 16 Ch. I, Private Acts 2, 4. * 2 Hasted, p. 196. VCH Bucks. iv, p. 424; Beds. iii, p. 376; Essex, iv, p. 211. T. D. Fosbrooke, History of Gloucestershire, 1807, ii, correction to p. 232. PCC 27, 92 Goate; 22 Tirwhite; 29 Campbell. 3 PCC 8 Loftes; 20 Peter; 66 Dixey; 46 Meade; 12 Welles; 33 Leicester; 67 Drake; 70 Seager.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 181 for younger sons made fathers prefer to give them annuities and rent-charges rather than property, even for two lives. At the same time more and more noblemen adopted an alternative to land sales as a means of paying debts or raising cash for mafriage portions: in their wills they conveyed part of their property to trustees for a period of years, to use the income for these specific purposes.? Next, they began setting up these limited trusts during their own lifetime, a form of enforced saving which suddenly became very popular indeed when the outbreak of war in 1642 forced fathers to make hasty provision for their children in case of their own death in battle or the seizute of their estates.” Finally, in the middle of the seventeenth century there was developed a legal device by which an unbreakable life interest was created at marriage in virtually the whole of the estate by settling the reversion on trustees for contingent remainders. This ‘strict settlement’, which gradually became standard practice in the late seventeenth centuty, made detailed provision for widows’ jointufes, younger sons’ annuities and daughters’ portions, so that the hands of the current holder of the estate were now very closely tied.3

The tesult of all these various developments, culminating in the

late-seventeenth-century strict settlement, was to increase the amount of property settled on the son and heir, and very severely to testrict the powers of alienation of the estate that was so settled. The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries thus forma temporary

phase during which it was exceptionally easy and exceptionally tempting to sell property or grant it away from the heir male. It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of these changes from the inflexible to the permissive to the inflexible in the legal atrangements for preserving property. They must be one of the

most important of all causes for the extraordinary activity of the land market at this period. We must not, however, fall into the ettor of supposing that the working of the law is an autonomous force acting entirely on its own. In the early sixteenth century the

propertied classes desired flexibility in the disposal of land: the lawyers provided it. By the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries * PCC 107 Lawe; 69 Scroope; 7o Seager; 51 Stafforde; 106 Meade; 136 Coventry; 29 Campbell. * SP 23/55, p. 102; 56, ff. 19, 53, 316; 66, p. 185; 70, P. 347; 119, D. 7993 197, P. 7625 199, Pp. 157; 208, pp. 186-8; 211, p. 598; 218, pp. 1-4, 37-413 223, pp. 23, 858. PCC 27 Goare.

3 Habakkuk, op. cit., TRHS 4th ser., xxxii, 1950.

182 ECONOMIC CHANGE they realized the dangers and wanted rigidity: after half a century of obstruction, the lawyers finally supplied the demand. The law, as always, was a product as much of the social environment as of ossified tradition.

The root cause of these changes in the disposal of land was a shift in attitudes of mind towards property, towards the independence of children, and towards a man’s responsibility for the longterm interests of the family. In the early sixteenth century the peers refused the offer of inalienable entails included in the first draft of the Statute of Uses; in the late seventeenth, they hastened to tie up

their estates in inalienable strict settlements. In the sixteenth, younger sons were often given properties outright; in the seventeenth, they were given life interests or annuities instead. In the sixteenth, men sold land to clear off debts and raise marriage portions; in the seventeenth, they conveyed property to trustees for a period of years instead, now often in their own lifetime rather

than that of their heirs. In the sixteenth, they reserved a large section of their estate at their own personal disposal, often giving the son and heir a reversionary interest only in what was left; in the seventeenth, the son and heir held the reversion of almost all

the property. In the sixteenth, the father of the groom used his daughter-in-law’s marriage portion on personal consumption; in the seventeenth, he was obliged to use it to buy land for settlement on the bride and groom. In the sixteenth, men raised capital from the estate by taking large fines for long leases, thus mortgaging the future; in the seventeenth, leases shortened, fines were reduced, and rents rose. In the sixteenth, men left themselves free to give what marriage portions they pleased to their daughters, what estates or

annuities they pleased to their younger sons, and to make what settlement they pleased on their son and heir; by the late seventeenth, all these matters had been decided at marriage by the strict settlement. It is wrong to regard Sir Orlando Bridgeman, the inventor of the strict settlement, as a deus ex machina who suddenly transformed the

fortunes of the landed classes. He merely provided a device which fitted in with what had for some time been current thinking. What had changed since the early sixteenth century was less the technicalities of the laws of conveyancing than the aspirations and sense of family responsibility of the landed classes. Men now wanted to preserve and increase their family patrimony, they were mote devoted to the winner-take-all doctrine of primogeniture, they were

ECONOMIC CHANGE 183 content to surrender a good deal of freedom in the management of

their estates, and they were willing to reduce, indeed almost to eliminate, the financial control they had previously exercised over the marriages of their children. The landed classes willed the end: the conveyancers and the judges at last provided the means. (4) Credit

| The fourth interlocking factor in the situation beside changing terms of marriage, changing techniques of conveyancing, and changing family aspirations was changing facilities for credit. For a long time interest on loans was in theory altogether forbidden, which meant in practice a rate of 12 per cent. or more; from 1572

there was imposed a legal maximum and practical minimum of 10 per cent. which fell to 8 per cent. in 1624 and 6 per cent. in 1651:

interest rates were halved in eighty years. Between 1570 and 1620 far greater use was made of borrowing by the landed classes than ever before, but despite the growth of fluid capital in the City the amount of money available was always less than the demand. It was not till the scriveners tapped a new range of small investors that supply exceeded demand and the interest rate fell to a more reasonable level. At the same period there was considerable theo-

retical, and some actual, danger to borrowers on mortgage that failute to pay on the stipulated day, which was tarely more than a year ahead, would involve the total loss of the security. By the early seventeenth centuty, however, the Court of Chancery was offering protection to creditors and the mortgage was no longer the

fearful thing that once it had been. But it is wrong to exaggerate the significance of this change in the attitude of Chancery towards the equity of redemption since there is little evidence of much increase in the use of the mortgage for long-term borrowing by landowners before the Civil War. On the other hand the fact that they were reducing fines for leases—themselves a form of bortowing on mortgage from tenants—suggests that they were aware that this possibility now existed.? The period between 1580 and 1620 1s therefore one at which the landowner was in a most disadvantageous position. He was borrowing on an unprecedented scale, but he was paying very high interest tates, and his security was liable to forfeiture for non-payment ’ For the development of these arguments, see Chapter IX, section ii.

,

184 ECONOMIC CHANGE on the day. After about 1620, however, rates fell and the security was protected.! It was these ideological, legal, and financial changes which turned

matriage from a destructive to a constructive agent. Firstly, the strict settlement made it impossible to raise marriage portions by the sale of land, which greatly encouraged the setting up of trust deeds well in advance; secondly, long-term borrowing became safer

and even reasonably economical; and thirdly, fathers agreed that pottions should be used not for their own private purposes but to purchase more land to be settled on the heirs. Portions were no longer either raised by sale of land or squandered by the bridegroom’s father on current consumption. From being a cause of family decay in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, by the late seventeenth century the financial arrangements of marriage had become a cause of family growth; in its perfected form the system enabled the aristocracy to hoist themselves up by their own bootstraps. (5) Conspicuous Consumption

- Conspicuous consumption satisfies three deep-seated psychological needs present in every human being: the instinct for aggression and competition, which sometimes can find no other outlet; the compulsion to work, be it only by performing in some futile, costly, and time-consuming ceremonial; and the urge to play. At this period it was a cause of family decay second only to biological failure.

This can happen to anyone at any time, but it was extraordinarily common among the nobility and greater gentry in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. As the playwrights never tited of telling their audience, this was an age of exceptionally prodigal

living, made possible by the rising tide of luxury imports and stimulated by a desire to imitate the opulent Renaissance courts of

Europe. Tastes which found favour with a Medici prince were sedulously copied by a less richly endowed English earl. The majority of the Elizabethan and Early Stuart peers and greater gentry were second- or third-generation noweaux riches, who wete

reaping the fruits of the fierce scramble for power and wealth of 1529-53. These are generations from which heedless dissipation may normally be expected, and the absence of legal obstacles to the sale of capital made irresponsibility all too easy. ™ See Chapter IX, section iii.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 185 This was a period, moreover, in which the landed classes were particularly idle. In the Middle Ages war was a time-absorbing and

honourable occupation; by the late seventeenth century some noblemen had developed a passion for reading, collecting, and antiquarianism, others busied themselves in the hunting-field or on

the benches at Quarter Sessions, while yet others were absorbed in the intrigues and ceremonies of the Court. At first, however, nobles and squires found that the end of military service left time lying heavily on their hands, for administration of the estate was no longer a very time-consuming occupation now that most of the estate was let out on long lease, and little was kept in hand. “How hard it is... for a gentleman to be usefully and constantly employed’, lamented an eighteenth-century Bertie, for ‘the first rule... in oeconomy is to avoid idleness, which is the most expensive inclination a man can have’.! Above all, conspicuous consumption serves a social function as a symbolic justification for the maintenance or acquisition of status. So long as their position is secure and unchallenged, old-established

families are usually unostentatious in their spending. It is new wealth which sets the standard of novelty, of fashion, and of opulent display, simply because wealth is not a sufficient source of honour

in itself. It needs to be advertised, and the normal medium is the putchase of obtrusively expensive capital goods, equipment, and services. In the abnormally fluid situation of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, with large numbers of relatively new families pouring into the gentry, the knightage, the baronetage, and the peerage, the struggles of the status-seekers were particularly

violent. The enormous inflation by King James in the numbers of all ranks in itself greatly increased the incentive to spend mote freely, ‘men of honour being not seldome compeld to proportion their layings out to their dignities, not their port to their ability’. A self-perpetuating cycle was thus set up. Over-consumption led to sale of land, which generated social mobility and psychological insecurity among the purchasers; in its turn insecurity caused a strugele for status, exacerbated by the inflation of honours, which found expression in competitive consumption. Such competition reaches its height at the principal bottlenecks of the social stratification system, where men strive most desperately 1 A Memoir of Peregrine Bertie, 1838, pp. 101, 103. 2 W. Scott, Secret History of the Court of King James I, 1811, i, p. 258.

186 _ ECONOMIC CHANGE for position and in consequence ate most liable to run into debt. At this period perhaps the most critical point of tension was that between squirearchy and baronage.! Rich knightly families like the Cleres and the Willoughbys competed with medium-to-low baronial

families like the Cromwells and the Zouches, and in the struggle drageed both down into financial ruin. Both Dudley Lord North and Edward Waterhouse were struck by the particular incidence of the disease at this high social and economic level. Have ye not, O nobles and gentlemen, great fortunes, and high tydes of revenue, to set you a float and bring you off these quick-sands? ... How comes it to pass, that you are wanting, and needy of money, when

others less estated and nobly living also, are in cash? ... Whence, O whence can this disparity be, but from the ones frugality and resolution to look after and live within compass of his estate, and your pleasure and inadvertency ... to live above the rate of prudence and the income of ones estate.”

When analysed, the conspicuous consumption of these years took four main forms. The first was the maintenance of pomp and circumstance in royal service, whether as President of the Council of the

North, which undid Henry Earl of Huntingdon, or as ambassador extraordinary, which plunged Edward Earl of Hertford into debt; the second was the cost of attendance at Court in the hope of office, which in the long run was likely to empty the purse of the average baron, unless the Crown came to the rescue. This was the cause of

the ruin of the Sandys, the Windsors, and the Norths. The third and largest group, which overlaps and is inextricably mixed up with

the second, were those attracted to the pleasures and vanities of London, who entered into a round of dissipation which in time inevitably undermined both health and fortune. ‘Immoderate coming to and long staying in London and the Suburbs, from greatmens’ country residence, is a ready way to decay men and families’, wrote

Edward Waterhouse. Propottionately far more peers than gentry possessed or rented a London house, and the consequences of this gravitational pull reached catastrophic dimensions between 1575 and 1625. Before, the pull was still relatively weak; after, the 1 Another was between yeomen and lesser gentry. See T’. Smith, The Commonwealth of England,

1635, p. 60; R. Reyce, The Breviary of Suffolk, 1902, p. 58; Wilson, pp. 18-19; for a modern parallel see Vance Packard, The Status Seekers, 1960, p. 137. Mr. Packard puts the critical level in contemporary American society at about 10,000 dollars a year. 2 E, Waterhouse, The Gentleman’s Monitor, 1665, pp. 391-2. Dudley Lord North, A Forest of

Varieties, 1645, pt. i, p. 91. 3 Waterhouse, op. cit., p. 292. Fuller, pt. 2, p. 310.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 187 Government drove men from London, and in any case it was becoming mote difficult to sell land so as to provide the ready money. The fourth and last group were those who stuck to the old country

ways under the new conditions: men who continued to keep open house to all comers, to dispense lavish charity, to keep hordes of domestic servants and retainers; to live, in short, as a great medieval prince. Like the Stanleys, these were often men who were also most

conservative in their estate management, which added to their difficulties. Such open-handed country ways were on the whole an

Elizabethan phenomenon, and by the early seventeenth century most noblemen had adopted a more modest manner of rural living.

To make matters worse, during the reign of Elizabeth many of the nobility were trying to live up to two or even three ideals at once. They were keeping up the rural pomp of the feudal nobleman while at the same time cultivating the urban tastes of the renaissance courtier and giving expensive and unrequited service to the Prince.

Intensive high living in town was coupled with extensive stately living in the country. As a result /uxus omnia dissipavit, as Robett Burton observed with uncharacteristic succinctness.1 After about 1620, however, the tide began to turn. The tradition of feudal living in the country was by then virtually at an end, and the number of servants in a great house was very much less than it had been sixty years before. Expenditure on the extravagant status symbols of death was also severely cut back; the tradition of the ereat funeral rapidly died away, the vast Jacobean four-poster tomb gave place to the mural slab with a small bust; the epidemic of building of huge palaces ended in about 1620; even the tremendous boom in building more modest country houses showed obvious signs of slackening; the Caroline Court was a far more sober, less tackety place than that of James.? This decline cannot be explained on financial grounds. Conspicuous consumption was rising fast in the middle and late years of Elizabeth when landlord incomes were fairly stagnant and began declining in the teign of Charles when they were particularly buoyant. If Caroline noblemen were mote economical, it was cettainly not because they were financially worse off than their fathers. The true explanation lies in changing standards of values, changing codes of behaviour, changing fashions of competition, t Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (Everyman Ed.), i, p. 108. 2 See Chapter X, passim.

188 ECONOMIC CHANGE which affected both ‘Court’ and ‘Country’ alike. The virtuoso teplaced the feudal lord; men bought books, coins, and pictures, not food, servants, and retainers. They abandoned the great funeral as a pagan and futile expression of status; they abandoned the great house since they now desired privacy; from living publicly in the hall and state-rooms, they withdrew into dining-rooms, bedchambers, andclosets. They gave up the vast impersonal family monument

in favour of the small life-like bust, since they now wanted to assett their personality rather than the sheer grandeur of their line. They were deeply affected by the rising tide of puritan propaganda against waste, extravagance, gambling, and drinking. At bottom,

the cause of the change was the rise of individualism, privacy, puritanism, and the cult of the virtuoso. (6) Price Inflation

Between the beginning of the sixteenth century and 1640 prices, particularly of foodstuffs, rose approximately sixfold. The worst was ovet by 1560, but during the next eighty years prices just about doubled. This secular movement, which was caused primarily by

a vety sharp growth of population, put an unusual premium on energy and adaptability and turned conservatism from a force making for stability into a quick way to economic disaster. Landed families which stuck to the old ways, left rents as they were, and continued to grant long leases soon found themselves trapped between

static incomes and rising prices. Inflation was automatically trans-

ferring a larger share of the profits of agriculture to the tenant. Such was the position during the Elizabethan period of many landlords, particularly the larger ones and those in the western and northern areas where three-life leases were standard. Many landlords

wished to preserve a paternalistic relation with their tenants and to continue old methods of financial administration; they failed to realize that a secular price revolution was under way which necessitated radical change, and they experienced administrative and technical difficulties of speedy adaptation, especially on very large and widely scattered estates. After 1590, however, these influences weakened, partly owing to technical changes in surveying and mapping, and partly under pressure of competition for farms from a tapidly growing population, the product of the demographic explosion of the previous twenty years. After lagging behind for fifty years, landed incomes from large estates were rising faster

ECONOMIC CHANGE 189 than food prices in the fifty years before the Civil War.! The significance of this lag should not be exaggerated. There is no evidence that the gap was ever very wide, and it did not last for more than forty years or so. The Elizabethan nobility ran into difficulties more because of mounting expenditure than because of declining landed incomes in terms of purchasing power. On the other hand the rapid rise in incomes after 1590 was of major consequence in enabling them to recover theit prosperity. V. THE CAUSES OF GROWTH

(1) Thrift

If one turns from the causes of decay to the causes of growth, it is clear that many of these factors could be made to work to precisely opposite effect. If extravagant expenditure was the cause of the undoing of many, thrift and judicious investment were a key to stability and growth. ‘Great is the rake and bottomless the mine of timely and discreet frugality’, observed Waterhouse, who was nevet at a loss for the moral aphorism. The ethics of saving, however, were ambiguous, for there was a strong traditional obligation to live well and spend freely. The miserly were universally despised. ‘Nigeardliness [is] . . the worst evil can befal noble

persons’, the Marquis of Argyle warned his son. One of the most common pieces of advice was to keep recurrent expenditure down to two-thirds or even a half of gross income, so as to save something for emergencies. Bacon—of all people—actually advised keeping down to one-third of income.3 These were counsels of

perfection, but there can be no doubt of the truth of the proposition that it was necessary to save to be able to meet exttraotdinary expenditure on such things as marriage portions, calls for government setvice, the irresistible temptation of building, or the unavoidable necessity of litigation. (2) Estate Management

Again, if failure to adjust to the price revolution caused hardship to some, those who raised rents and fines and reduced the t See Chapter VI, section v. 2 Archibald Marquis of Argyle, Instructions to a Son, 1661, pp. 79-80. See supra, pp. 42-43. 3 Bacon, Essays: Of Expense See also Althorp, Cumberland MSS. 21 May 1613. Lincs. R.O. 2 Anc, 14/16 (J. Guevara to Robert Lord Willoughby, 1601). C. W. James, Chief Justice Coke, 1929, p. 323. Lancs. Chesh. Ant. Soc. Trans. lxii, 1950-1, p. 70. Knowler, i, p. 169.

190 ECONOMIC CHANGE duration of leases found that they could comfortably weather the

storm. Others, who were in a position to exploit the growing demand for food, housing, and goods, steadily increased their fortunes. Enclosures increased yields, fattening cattle and sheep for

the insatiable London market brought substantial returns, woolgrowing was profitable before 1620, mining and metal-working could sometimes be turned to good account, urban development in London was a gold-mine, fen drainage could convert largely useless actes into highly profitable land. Many hundreds of small gentlemen did well out of farming and increased their inheritances, and thousands rose from the yeomanty into the gentry.! It is significant, however, of the limits placed on thrift by the demand for consumption to match status and the slowness with which agricultural profits can be reaped, that only two peerage families, the Spencers and the Pierrepoints, seem to owe their fortune and thus their elevation primarily to economy and astute estate management. A crucial factor in the retention or increase of an existing fortune,

these were very tarely prime causes for the acquisition of a really gteat one. (3) Trade

At this very high level, trade is equally of relatively minor signi-

ficance. The total volume of ovetseas trade in the late sixteenth century does not show any very striking growth, and the amount of metchant capital being ploughed back into land was probably not so very much greater than it had been in the late Middle Ages. Between the accession of James and 1621, however, trade boomed

and a growing number of merchant fortunes sought an outlet in land and title. But only three merchants, Hicks, Bayning, and Cranfield, and one merchant’s son, Craven, managed to secure one of the ninety-four titles conferred from 1602 to 1641, and Cranfield

owed his elevation more to his political than his commetcial activities. Only 9 of the 417 baronets created between 1611 and 1649 wete themselves merchants, though 21 were the sons of merchants.and 34 married merchants’ daughters. Of the 25 upper gentry families of Somerset before the Civil War, only one owed its tise to trade.? 1 For prospering ‘mere gentry’, see J. T. Cliffe, Yorkshire Gentry on the Eve of the Civil War (London Ph.D. thesis), 1960; for prospering yeomen, see M. Campbell, The English Yeoman, 1942; and W. G. Hoskins, “The Leicestershire Farmer in the Sixteenth Century’, in Essays in Leicestershire History, 1950. 2 T. G. Barnes, Somerset, 1625-1640, Harvard, 1961, p. 21.

ECONOMIC CHANGE I9t (4) The law

The same is largely true of the lawyers, those rapacious beneficiaries of the litigiousness of the age. Some legal profits went via marfiage to support existing families; more, almost all of it acquired

from fleecing the nobility and gentry, was spent on purchasing land from the victims. But most lawyers needed to enter politics if they hoped personally to rise as high as the peerage, and the Lord Chancellorship or Lord Keepership was almost the only semilegal office which regularly led to a title, as proved by Bacon, Coventry, Egerton, Finch, and Littleton. Others rose by political office after training in the law, like Cecil Lord Burghley, Cottington, Greville, and Weston. Others amassed sufficient wealth in the law

to justify the granting of a title a generation or more later, like Robert Brudenell, Edward Denny, Gilbert Gerard, Edward Montagu, or Sit Edward Coke. In the 65 years from 1560 to 1625, 55 lawyers reached the top of

the profession as Lord Chancellor, Master of the Rolls, or Judge of one of the two Common Law courts. By 1666, 13 of these 55 families had entered the ranks of the peerage, and 17 into the baronetage. This process was nothing new, for, as Fuller observed —with some exaggeration—‘The study of the common-law hath advanced most antient extant families in our land’.! Nevertheless there can be little doubt that both the numbers and the wealth of the profession increased dramatically at this period, and that its impact upon the lower levels of the landed classes must have been much greater than it had ever been in the past. (5) Office and Favour

When all is said and done, however, the really important causes of tise into the peerage were not thrift, the administration of land, trade, ot the law. They were precisely the same two factors as had been decisive in the Middle Ages, firstly royal favour—usually, but by no means always, a sign of intellectual capacity—and secondly

martiage.? Attendance at the Court of a penurious or unfriendly prince could, and often did, lead to disaster. On the other hand, t Fuller, p. 68. For two late-seventeenth-century lists of families raised by the law see BM Add. MSS, 28205, and H. Philipps, The Grandeur of the Law, 1684. The figures for judges and baronets have been derived from E. Foss, The Judges of England, 1870, and G. E. Cockayne, Complete Baronetage.

2 S. Painter, ‘The Family and the Feudal System’, Speculum, xxxv, 1960, pp. 6-7.

192 ECONOMIC CHANGE royal service was a factor, and often the most important factor, in

the rise of most aristocratic families. The majority of the 1559 peerage were of Tudor origin, created by virtue of royal favour. Lords Burgh, Sandys, and Vaux were enriched by service to Henry ViIland Henry VII in the early French Wars. Wentworth, Windsor, Cromwell, Seymour, Eure, Russell, Paulet, Wharton, Wriothesley, Datcy of Chiche, Paget, Rich, Sheffield, Herbert, Browne, North, and Williams were substantially, and in some cases almost entirely,

the product of the great share-out among officials, soldiers, and courtiers of the property seized from the Church between 1536 and 1553. Two-thirds of the new Jacobean peerage had made or increased theit fortunes by office-holding under the Crown, and the ancestors of others, like Arundell of Wardour or Denny or Petre, had been office-holders half a century before under Henry VIII, but had had to wait for their promotion. (6) Hezresses

If office and favour was lacking, there was always martiage. Family after family tose up in the world by the simple device of piling estate upon estate by the judicious choice of brides. It was generally appreciated that two or three gentry rolled into one, or an atistocratic coheiress and a gentleman combined, were the financial equivalent of a baron. In the circumstances of the day, such entrepreneurial activity usually resulted in the granting of a title. This acquisitive process is not always an autonomous factor, however, for it must be remembered that quite often it was royal influence which directed an heiress into the arms—or should one say the clutches P—of one aspirant rather than another. Many of the

older peets owed their position very largely to their prudence in choosing and their skill in capturing rich brides. ‘The Touchets were

a small Derbyshire family who married the heiress of the Audley estate and title. The Bourchiers were younger sons who married the Fitzwarin heiress in one generation and the Dinham in another. The Stanleys tose by successive marriages with heiresses; the Parrs

absorbed the Ros of Kendal, Fitzhugh, and Green of Greens Norton estates; the Devereux were one knightly family raised up by marriage with the heiresses of Lord Ferrers of Chartley and Viscount Bourchier; the Manners were another, who wete elevated by absorbing the Roos of Hamlake and the Lovell inheritances. The Howards, viscounts Bindon, were made by marriage with the

ECONOMIC CHANGE 193 Poynings heiress, the Hastings got an important lift by marriage with the Hungerford heiress, the Stanleys, lords Mounteagle, by marriage with the Harington heiress, the Mordaunts by marriage with the heiresses of Green, Latymer, Vere, and FitzLewis, the two latter being acquired thanks to the grant of wardships by the Crown.

Many of the Jacobean peerage were similarly the product of amalgamation by marriage. The Fanes climbed to be earls of West-

morland on the backs of the Mildmays (who had absorbed half the Sharington estate) and the Nevills; the Finches to be earls of Winchelsea on the backs of the Moyles and the Heneages. The Grevilles had risen by the acquisition of the wardship and marriage

of the heiress of Willoughby, Lord Brooke; the Greys of Warke by combining the estates of the Greys of Chillingham and the Greys

of Horton; the Herberts of Cherbury by uniting with the Herberts of St. Julians; the Herveys by marrying a coheiress of the Annesleys of Kidbrooke; the Lovelaces by swallowing the Dodsworth fortune (made in the City); the Pouletts by marriage with the Kenns; the Stanhopes by marriage with the Port coheiress (gentry) and the Cordell coheiress (lawyer); the Wentworths by catching the eye of

the Gascoigne grandmother; the Darcys by absorbing the inheritances of the Conyers of Hornby, the Darcys of Aston, and the Rokebys of Skiers. The classic case is that of the tise of the Cavendishes. The foundations of the family fortunes were laid by the redoubtable Bess of Hardwick. As Horace Walpole put it, in his vulgar way, Four times the nuptial bed she warm/’d And every time so well perform’d That when death spoil’d each husband’s billing He left the widow every shilling.!

Ruthless, aggressive, and ambitious, she spent her life working to further the interests of her children by her second husband, William Cavendish. The estates of the first, Robert Barlow, and of the third, William St. Loe, were all devoted to this purpose. On becoming

the wife of the great Earl of Shrewsbury she married two sons and a daughter to the children of this fourth and last captive, and so

hitched the Cavendish family on to the coat-tails of the Talbots. During the Earl’s lifetime she devoted her energies to transferring money from the Talbot estate to the mounting assets of herself and

821314 O

1 Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. P. Toynbee, Oxford, 1903, iv, p. 425.

194 ECONOMIC CHANGE , her children. After his death she used her ample jointure for the same acquisitive purpose. Her second son William married first a coheitess of Henry Kighley, who brought in a comfortable Yorkshire estate, and then a Warwickshire heiress; her third son Charles matried first a Kitson coheiress and then an Ogle coheiress and his son in turn married the Basset of Blore heiress. No wonder that by 1640 both Cavendish lines had acquired earldoms, and that both were

among the twenty richest families in England. The psychological cost, however, was not small. The ferocity of the quarrels of Bess of Hardwick with George Earl of Shrewsbury threatened the peace of the north and necessitated the shocked intervention of the Queen herself. The marriage of Henry Cavendish to Grace Talbot was not a success, quite apart from its sterility (he publicly spoke of her as harlot and openly took a mistress); that of Mary Cavendish to Earl

Gilbert did not go too well, while William Lord Cavendish’s determination to use his son’s marriage to improve his political prospects shattered the boy’s happiness and blighted his life.!

But not until the late seventeenth century, with the attempt to captute the Percy heiress, did nemesis finally catch up with the Cavendishes—a story related by the unsuccessful matchmaker himself, in a paper headed “The sadd and miserable case of Henry Duke of Newcastle’. With the death of Joscelin Earl of Northumberland

_ 1n 1670 his only surviving child became heiress to a vast fortune. As such she attracted the attention of the Duke, and after a good deal of hard bargaining with her grandmother a marriage was atranged in 1679 between the 13-year-old girl and the 16-year-old son and heir of the Duke. In anticipation of the great inheritance to come the Duke spent lavishly, giving Lady Elizabeth £3,000 to buy a necklace and her husband £2,000 to fit himself for the marriage. But a year later the boy suddenly died intestate, and the Duke’s ambitions lay in ruins. He reckoned that as a result of this unfortunate speculation he had spent {10,000 in cash and was obliged to pay £2,000 a yeat for the remainder of the life of a healthy 14-year-old girl. The huge Percy estate had slipped from his

gtasp and even the promised cash portion was in jeopardy thanks to skilful intrigues by the old dowager Countess of Northumberland. Rarely can so hopeful a matrimonial enterprise have turned

out so badly. . F, Bickley, The Cavendish Family, 1911, pp. 24-27. Chatsworth/H Drawer 143/14. Star Ch, 8/13/8. 2 NUL/P Cavendish Misc. 47.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 195 (7) Conclusion

Though royal favour and marriage were the most important factors in causing the tise of a family into the peerage, the two often went together, while over a period of time other factors were bound to come into play. It was unusual to rise to the peerage by

marriage alone, though that was certainly true of the Berties, to quote but one example. Even in the case of the Cavendishes maftiage was not the only factor, for the extraordinary administrative capacity of Bess of Hardwick and the rst Earl of Devonshire counted for much in increasing the value of their estates. Moreover

the property acquired by marriage might derive ultimately from a wide variety of sources. The Cavendishes absorbed the ancient peerage estate of the Ogles, the ancient gentry estates of the Bassets

of Blore and the Barlows of Barlow, the courtier estate of the St. Loes, and the merchant estate of the Kitsons. From this point of view their origins are hopelessly mixed. These multiple origins and the degree to which they vary in their significance as one moves up the social hierarchy make nonsense of attempts to attribute economic growth among the landed classes as a whole to any single cause, whether it be efficient land management, as Professor Tawney

has suggested, or Court and office, as Professor Trevor-Roper would have it. The former may be true for the yeomanry and lesser gentry, but is manifestly inadequate to explain the build-up of the massive fortunes required to maintain the dignity of a baron. The

latter may be true for many of the aristocracy, but is manifestly inadequate to explain the rise of the gentry. The very uneven distribution of royal favour among courtiers, the limited profits to be derived from the majority of lesser offices below those virtually monopolized by the peerage, the restricted number of offices avail-

able, and the relatively small proportion even now of the total gentry class which haunted the Court and was in a position to derive benefit from it, all suggest that the lower one descends the social scale, the weaker becomes the influence of office and the Court as a factor in social mobility.

Important to a majority of the aristocracy and to many of the leading squires, Court and office can have been of little consequence

to more than a tiny minority of middling and lesser gentry.' At 1G. E. Aylmer, The King’s Servants, 1961, pp. 322-36. See also Chapter VII, section vii.

| 196 ECONOMIC CHANGE these levels its significance must have been mainly that of a will-o’the-wisp luring the ambitious into the treacherous bogs of the life of a London man-about-town, more often than not with disastrous financial consequences. Again and again the sons of minor gentry

set out hopefully from the rustic seclusion of the family manor house to seek their fortune at Court, with the example of a Hatton ot a Buckingham to give substance to their dreams. Again and again

they ran through their money, their youth, and their health, and in the end returned home in embittered middle age to compose unconvincing elegies upon the virtues of country life and the superior pleasures of a contented mind, Though written in the early eighteenth century the words of Peregrine Bertie ring as true for the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as they did for

his own age: ‘if the gentry of England were to balance their accounts for the last fifty years, I am mistaken if they would not find these apples of Sodom [offices] have left their families little else but dust and emptiness.’? Even in the case of the peerage the significance of royal favour ot office must be qualified by an appreciation of the time factor. In any reign a number of families acquire great wealth from royal service. Some ate promptly attainted, some dissipate their capital in the next generation or two, some die out; others hang on to their gains, improve and increase them by shrewd management or mattiage, beget heirs male, and thus establish a great noble family. ‘Riches endure not for ever, if providence be not as well used in preserving as attaining them’, remarked Fuller,? and this is clearly brought out by examination of the subsequent fate of families which wete tipped for a title but failed to obtain one at the time. In 1547 there were proposals for ten new peers, four of whom were actually created. Of the remaining six, the Cheynes got a peerage under Elizabeth, the Arundells of Wardour were promoted in 1603, the Vernons were absorbed by marriage into an existing noble family, and three, the St. Legers, Wimbishes, and Danbys, lost theit chances for ever. In 1588 Burghley drew up a further list of seventeen, a list that was itself something of a landmark since it included men outstanding for their landed wealth alone, without recent setvice to the Crown or ancient baronial connexions. Nothing

was done at the time, but ten gained their promotion in the early t A Memoir of Peregrine Bertie, p. 103. 2 Fuller, p. 108.

ECONOMIC CHANGE 197 seventeenth century. Three families, the Cromwells of Hinchinbrook, the Cleres of Ormesby, and the Willoughbys of Wollaton, were tuined by extravagance within a generation and Sir John Perrot was attainted for treason. Three others, the Southwells, the Couttenays, and the Dymocks, lasted on as substantial but undistinguished knightly families! More was needed than the initial fortune, whatever its source. Endurance was also an important prerequisite, and this of necessity involved a wide variety of factors. VI. CONCLUSION: THE CAUSES OF CHANGE

Both the speed of social change in the late sixteenth century and the generally downward trend of aristocratic finances were governed

by a complex of deep-seated forces, economic, political, legal, social, and intellectual. For a relatively brief period maximum scope was offered for the free play of the two great agents of destruction, sterility and stupidity: sterility, which results in partial or complete failure of inheritance, and stupidity, which allows excessive expendi-

ture, improvident marriage, and incompetent estate management, and which blocks the way to appointment to the more responsible—

and more lucrative—oflices of state. The instability of landed fortunes at this period was not the product of some strange freak of genetics which caused an abnormal propottion of stupid and dissolute children, or no children at all. To the inevitable changes wrought by the eccentricities of human reproductive capacity were

added in the late sixteenth century exceptional temptations and compulsions to overspend on conspicuous consumption, royal service, Of marfiage portions, exceptional need for adaptability in estate management, novel opportunities and exceptional dangers in

large-scale borrowing. Compensations were lacking during the reion of Elizabeth, owing to exceptional stinginess in the distribution of royal favours and snobbish objections to marriage with heiresses of lower social status. To make matters worse, legal obstacles to breaking entails and selling land were exceptionally weak, and moral objections to the dismemberment of the family patrimony exceptionally feeble. A landed aristocracy has rarely had it so bad.

On the other side, a few massive fortunes were being piled up in the law, in trade, and in certain government offices, the owners 1 APC, 1y47-so, p. 16. BM Lansd. MSS. 104/23; SP 12/222/21, 33.

198 ECONOMIC CHANGE of which were all seeking security and status through the purchase of a landed estate; under James some great properties were being carved out of the royal patrimony for the benefit of favourites; and all the time there was the upward thrust of those landed families who could profit from booming farm prices and who were content

to save and reinvest their gains instead of consuming them in gracious living. After reaching a climax in 1610-20 the rate of economic change

in the landed classes declined sharply. For one thing the shock of the 1620-1 economic crisis and the temporary fall in land values may have frightened off some buyers, and the subsequent prolonged slump in wool prices must have adversely affected a large number of small-scale sheepownets. For another the prospects of the great

landlord rapidly improved. Even the most incompetent could not fail to profit from the massive tise in average rents in the early seventeenth century, and thereafter the levelling off of prices reduced

the importance of inefficient estate management. New sources of income opened for some with the draining of the fens, the growth of urban housing around London, and the demand for iron and

steel; a select few grew rich on royal bounty; a more intensive pursuit of heiresses had a snowball effect upon the greater landed

fortunes; swingeing taxes on land after 1642 affected the lesser landowner mote severely than the greater; the life interest and later the strict settlement made dispersal of land by sale more difficult, cheaper interest rates and the equity of redemption on mortgages

made it less necessary; the growing obsession with property influenced the thinking of all but the most irresponsible of wasttels, the system of social stratification hardened. By the late seventeenth century England was ripe for the Venetian oligarchy of the Hanoverian eta, presiding over a landed society which was far more stable in its composition than it had been a century earlier.

V

POWER Nothinge plageth England but the many breaches and ever unsure, never faithfull, frendshyppe of the Nobles. L. HUMPHREY, The Nobles, 1563

THOUGHTFUL and observant contemporaries were unanimous in picking out the two most striking social phenomena of their time. The first was the extraordinary skittishness of land as it passed from hand to hand, the second the far-reaching changes in both the nature

and the degree of power exercised by the nobility. Power takes many forms: it may be composed in varying degrees of physical force, economic pre-eminence, and social or personal prestige; it may express itself in coercion, authority, or manipulation. That preponderant power was exercised by the nobility over English society in the Middle Ages is generally accepted, and few would deny the

crucial role of the Whig oligarchs in eighteenth-century local and national politics. But by then the nature of that power had fundamentally changed, for it had ceased to rely on coercion as an instru-

ment. It no longer possessed, or claimed to possess, that power of the swotd which Hobbes supposed to be the essential sanction of authority. If the course and causes of this change could be traced, and if it could be proved that there was a short-lived phase of uncertainty and weakness as the old dog learned new tricks, it might be possible to throw fresh light on the changing function of the aristocracy. This in turn might reveal something important about the political crisis of mid-seventeenth-century England. I. THE INSTRUMENTS OF VIOLENCE

Before the sixteenth century physical force had been widely dispersed among the nobility and gentry and had been readily used by them in pursuance of personal ends. The medieval system of values placed obedience to the public authority and devotion to the common good below individual loyalty—whether feudal, between the lord and his man, ort contractual, between the lord and his retainer,

200 POWER ot personal, between unequals as the lord and his private following, ot between equals as brothers-in-arms.! Under such circumstances

disruption of public order by private violence was inevitable. Always present throughout the Middle Ages, this endemic disorder

had taken political colouring in the fifteenth century and had weakened the authority of the Crown and hindered the working of

the law. The greatest triumph of the Tudors was the ultimately successful assertion of a royal monopoly of violence both public and ptivate, an achievement which profoundly altered not only the nature of politics, but also the quality of daily life. There occurred

a change in English habits that can only be compared with the further step taken in the nineteenth century, when the growth of a police force finally consolidated the monopoly and made it effective in the greatest cities and the smallest villages. In the early twentieth century even the lower classes lost the habits of violence which their betters had been obliged and persuaded to give up nearly three centuries before. The difficulties of the undertaking have commonly been undetestimated by historians, who have been too easily impressed by the spate of legislation of the early Tudors and by the imposing facade of royal administrative power. But the problem was not a simple one. In theory the raison d’éire of the privileges awarded to the nobility was their willingness to serve their prince in war. They were trained for and accustomed to a life of violence, and this was a tradition not easily broken. When in 1559 Lord Wharton inscribed

over the new gatehouse at Wharton Hall the motto ‘Pleasure in acts d’armys’ he was expressing a sentiment which his like had felt for centuries, and whose potential danger to domestic peace if not effectively sublimated was all too obvious: hence in part the Hundred Years War. The menacing appearance in the Bodleian Library of Sit Martin Frobisher, who had himself painted aiming his gun at the spectator from the hip, reflects not merely his own bellicose personality but also a warlike tradition which was still not entirely dead.

The first task of the Tudors was to tid the country of the overmighty subject whose military potential came not far short of that of the monarchy itself. This meant destruction of individuals by attainder or confiscation; tefusal to create new great families by gifts of lands and swelling titles; encouragement of a counterpoise 1M. Keen, ‘Brotherhood in Arms’, Héstory, xlvii, 1962.

POWER 201 in the more numerous families of lesser rank and pretensions; diversion of noble time, energy, and money to royal service at the

Court; and development of the monarchy as the one overriding focus of allegiance and loyalty. The result was a shift in the structure

of power from the Lords to the Crown and the Commons. English history is full of examples of bodies or classes of men who have tried to exercise a power so arbitrary and excessive that they have stimulated opposition and have then moderately (but never completely) declined. The difference between a Duke of Buckingham in the early sixteenth century, with his castles, his armouries, and his hundreds of armed retainers, and a Duke of Newcastle in the mideighteenth century, with his Palladian houses, his handful of pocket boroughs, and his spreading political connexion, is a measure of the change in English society. The Tudors tackled their problem from four angles. They tried first to control and then to reduce the size of the force of retainers magnates were in the habit of attaching to themselves; they tried first to control and then to prevent the building of castles and their stocking with excessive quantities of modern weapons; they sought to change men’s attitudes of mind, to persuade the nobility themselves that resort to violence was not merely illegal and impolitic

but also dishonourable and morally wrong; and to persuade the dependants and tenants of the nobility that loyalty to their lord should not extend to support of private quarrels by force of arms, much less to the taking up of arms against the sovereign. Far from being accomplished within a few years by mere legislative fiat of Henry VII, this was a task which could only be achieved by a hundred years of patient endeavour on a broad front using a wide diversity of weapons. It called for a social transformation of extreme

complexity, involving issues of power, technology, landholding, economic structute, education, status symbols, and concepts of honout and loyalty. The story is not one of royal intentions, which ate plain enough in the statute book, but of royal achievement, which can only be dug out of the obscure records of local and family history. (1) Men

The first target for attack was the system of maintenance. Stimulated by royal demands for military service in the Hundred Yeats War, in the fourteenth century nobles had surrounded themselves

202 — POWER with increasing numbers of armed servants. In addition they had consolidated their political and military power, both in war and in peace, by mobilizing their tenants and by exchanging oaths and making formal indentures for service and loyalty with local knights and gentry. Both the core of armed servants and the outer layer of retained gentry wore the lord’s livery and badge as a sign of their allegiance. This system had been developed to assist the King in his

wats abroad, and under favourable circumstances it could help to build up a stable political structure at home. But in the intervals of peace and in the reigns of weak monarchs like Henry VI it was easily perverted to private and disruptive ends. The servants became hired bullies ready to serve their master’s turn against his enemies, whether the poor and defenceless, a rival magnate, or at a pinch even the King himself; and the lesser landowners were sucked into a vortex of allegiance and dependence which alone could offer the psychological support and physical protection the King could no longer supply.? The evils of the system were manifest in the overaweing of juries, the defiance of courts of justice, the perversion of all organs of local government, and ultimately in armed rebellion against the sovereign.

The livery of an earl or duke inspired greater respect than the holding of a public office, and was the more sought after for this reason. The ultimate royal goal may have been to get rid of the whole practice of maintenance, but for a very long time this was entirely impractical. The first object of the Tudors was therefore not to destroy the system but to check its evils, and to turn it to their own advantage. Only when they had erected an alternative power structure dependent on office distributed by themselves could they afford to knock away this dangerous but useful prop. They had to lean on something while they were finding their feet.

And so Henry VII passed a series of Acts asserting without any possibility of doubt that the prime loyalty of every subject was to the Crown, and only secondly to his ‘good lord’. He forbade royal

officials and royal tenants to be retained by any other person, he enforced the obligation of all royal officials and annuitants to serve the King in war; finally in 1504 he made a serious attempt to t See N. B. Lewis, “The Organisation of Indentured Retinues in Fourteenth-Century England’, TRHS, 4th ser., xxvii, 1945. W. H. Dunham, ‘Lord Hastings’ Indentured Retainers’, Trans. Connecticut Acad. of Arts and Sciences, xxxix, 1955. Professor Dunham was the first to draw attention to the persistence of maintenance well into the Tudor period.

POWER 203 put teeth into Edward IV’s statute of 1468, restricting the use of livery to household servants.! Pour encourager les autres, he threatened

to fine Lord Bergavenny a nominal {70,000 for retaining 471 men in Kent.

The force of this repressive measure, which in any case was restricted to the life of Henry VII, was soon undermined by the Tudors’ need for the services of their nobles and leading gentry to

provide them with an army. Whether to launch an expedition abroad, to ward off foreign invasion, or to crush internal rebellion, it was to its loyal magnates that the Crown was obliged to turn in

an emergency. Lacking a standing army of its own, lacking paid local officials of its own, it had to rely on the armed retinues of noblemen and gentry for help in war, and on the power structure of good lordship, indenture, and livery for local political control in peace. Though in theory the King could raise a conscript army chosen from a national levy of all able-bodied men between 16 and Go, in practice the administrative difficulties of mustering, selecting,

training, and arming this force were for long almost insuperable. Moteover, the militia was primarily intended for local defence, and could not be used abroad. In the few foreign campaigns undertaken by Henry VII the armies were therefore raised in the usual way by the nobility and leading gentry from their servants and tenants. In 1489 Lord Brooke turned up for service in Brittany with a personal retinue of 4 knights, 26 hommes d’armes, and 970 atchers. In 1497 Lord Daubeney promised to produce for the assault on Scotland 158 lances, 31 demi-lances, and 869 archers; and nine years later the potential military retinue of Sir Thomas Lovell amounted to 1,365 men chosen from thirteen counties. The first Tudor king was almost completely dependent for military might upon his loyal noblemen; no wonder he so studiously avoided war. It was the same story when the great French wars of Henry VIII began. In 1513-14 the Duke of Buckingham provided 550 men and the Earl of Wiltshire 1,500; Lord Bergavenny, who seven years before had

got into trouble for retaining, turned up with 984 tenants, servants, and friends at his heels. The importance in this system of the titular aristocracy was shown in 1523, when it produced no less than a third of the total army. Internal troubles like the Pilgrimage of Grace ot Wyatt’s rebellion were suppressed by the same means, and the early stages of the great French Wars of the 1540’s were 1 8 Ed. IV, cap. 2; 3 H. VII, cap. 15; 11 H. VII, cap. 25; 19 H. VII, cap. 14.

204 POWER fought by the usual indentured retinues, raised thanks to the continued enforcement of the obligation of tenants to serve their lords in wat.

The national army was consequently still little more than an agelomeration of private bands. When the 1st Earl of Southampton died in 1542, it was said that 4,000 of the vanguard, which he had commanded, were dtawn from ‘his friends in the south and from

the Duchy of Lancaster and would most gladly go with the Lord Admiral knowing what great friends they were’. This attempt to dictate the appointment of the new army commander on grounds of the personal loyalties of the troops is as significant as is Henry’s rejection of the suggestion.! In 1557-8 an appeal went out to the nobility and leading gentry to rally to the defence of England’s last possessions in France. A standard form of summons was issued, the precise numbets of men required being filled in separately for each individual recipient. That to Sir William Cecil ordered him not onely to put your selfe in order accordingly, but also to cause your

tenauntes servauntes and others under your rules and offices to bee mustred: and of your saide servauntes tenauntes and others within your rules and offices to furnishe your selfe with ‘tenne’ horsemen and ‘fiftie’ footmen well appoincted; of the whiche fotemen one fourthe parte to be harquebutiars or awchers, one other fourthe parte pykes and the rest

billes, |

the whole force to stand by at one day’s notice. Lord Mountjoy was summoned to Calais ‘with all my menn, frindes, and all the power I was able to make for her highnes service in the warts’, and the Earl of Rutland called on his Yorkshire tenants to prepare for service as light horsemen.?

Some efforts wete already being made to find alternative, and politically safer, means of raising troops. Henry must have been acutely aware of the dangers of the existing system, exemplified by the case of Sir John Thimbleby, who in 1536 ‘assembled all his tenauntes frendes and servauntes together under the colour to do 1 Dunham, op. cit., pp. 90-99. For these paragraphs I am much indebted to the London Ph.D. thesis of Dr. J. J. Goring, The Military Obligations of the English People, ryr1-s8, 1955,

even though I have not been able to agree with its conclusions on all points. HMCR, iv, pp. 559-66. J. R. Hooker, ‘Notes on... the Tudor Military under Henry VIV, Huntington Library Quarterly, xxili, 1959-60. Le» P H VIII, i. 1176/1; iti. 3288; xi, 580; xvii. 944 (I owe this last reference to Mr. C. 8. L. Davies). 2 Cholmley, pp. 5-6. HMCR, i, p. 68. BM Loan MSS. 29/235. CSPD, 1547-80, p. 93. SP 15/13 /49(1).

POWER 205 the Kinges service’-—and marched them off to join the Pilgrimage of Grace.! In 1544 he achieved a major victory by sending militia

conscripts out of the country to serve as reinforcements for the indentured army at Boulogne—a totally illegal exercise of the prerogative which apparently passed off without question, and set a useful precedent for the future. Once the principle had been accepted that conscripts could be sent overseas, the militia organization became potentially a really useful instrument. Its exploitation

was hindered by the use of foreign mercenaries in the late 1540's and early 1550’s, but Mary’s reign saw the development of the office of Lord Lieutenant to supervise the musters, and also the passing of an act which prepared the basis for the conscript armies of the future. After 1558 Elizabeth proceeded, somewhat spasmodically, to develop the system. In 1573 she ordered that out of the general body

of the militia there should be chosen picked men, to be equipped at public expense and more regularly and professionally trained in the use of weapons.? These ‘trained bands’ were still controlled by the magnates, but now in their capacity as lords lieutenant and not in their own right. The peer and his retinue were being replaced at home by the deputy lieutenants and the trained bands, and abroad by Ancient Pistol and his forced levies. Since service in the former provided exemption from conscription, they were soon filled with men anxious to avoid the draft, while the latter were selected by Mr. Justice Shallow for their uselessness to the local community, and were actually shipped abroad only because they were too supine

to run away or too poor to bribe their captains. Miulitarily, therefore, the change was little short of disastrous, despite the obvious political advantages. And so in moments of extreme crisis Elizabeth still turned to her

magnates for assistance. They were the better able to help since they had continued to use their control of local administration to exempt their own tenants from the county muster system, so much so that on one occasion the Cheshire Sheriff and Justices had to confess themselves unable to furnish the numbers required in the cettificate of musters, since so many were servants and tenants of the Earl of Derby. The old tradition of private loyalty in time of t Goring, thesis cit., p. 281. 2 C. H. Firth, Crommell’s Army, 1921, p. 5. Musters, Beacons, Subsidies, ete., 1y86—-1623, ed.

J. Wake, Northants. Rec. Soc, iii, 1926. G. Scott Thomson, Lords Lieutenant in the Sixteenth Century, 1923.

206 POWER wat was thus preserved among the tenantry of the nobility and greater gentry, while the rest of the population was being organized

| on a territorial basis. Dr. Goring has shown how under the Early Tudors England was operating a dual military system, the one quasi-feudal and the other national. Though the relative importance of the two was shifting fast, the same duality persisted right through the reign of Elizabeth. Asa result when the rising of the North took place in 1569, made dangerous by the studied neutrality of the Earl of Cumberland and Lords Scrope and Wharton, the Queen appealed

for help to her loyal nobility as well as turning out the county militia under aristocratic leadership. At the time of the Armada the national levies were assembled, but a corps of shock troops of 1,500

foot and 1,600 horse was supplied by the tenants and servants of the nobility and leading gentry. When another invasion scare occurred in 1599 the Queen again asked her lords each to provide 100 hotse to form her personal bodyguard. The letter written to the Queen by the Earl of Pembroke from his Pembrokeshire fastness on 28 July 1588 was as reassuring in its expressions of loyalty as it was alarming in its medieval implications. ‘I will, whensoever it shall like you to commaunde, attend your service with 300 horse and 500 foote at the leaste of my followers, armed at myne oune coste and with myne oune store.”! It is a measute of Elizabeth’s caution that, even in this great crisis of the reign, this offer of a sizeable private army was not accepted. Foreign wars and internal crises were not the only needs which forced the Tudors to rely upon the system of retaining which on other grounds they were working so hard to bring under control. It was also used, particularly in the middle of the century, as a weapon to strengthen the power of the current court party. By an Act of 1504 Henry VII had acquired the statutory right to grant exemption from the laws against retaining, thus enabling the King openly to arm his officials and most reliable friends and so build up

the nucleus of a peace-time standing army. Thus in 1542 the Earl

of Southampton was granted the right to take on forty liveried retainers, in addition to his household servants and officials. During

Edward VI’s reign, Sir Thomas Wyatt and others worked out a plan for raising a military force composed of ‘the Kinges best divoted and disposed subjectes’ so as to protect him from ‘the vaine 1 Talbot A, f. 99; E, f. 1. Sharpe, p. 387. CSPD, 181-90, pp. 498-516. HMCD, ii, p. 380 CSPS, 1550-2, pp. 116, 226, 279, 396, 408, 525. SP 12/213/58.

POWER 207 & uncertaine multitude’—in other words a device for arming the protestant minority to ovetawe the catholic majority. This particular scheme fell through, but in 1550 Northumberland adopted one very like it. Needing an army to enforce his revolutionary policies, to dominate his rivals, and to crush the rebellious peasantry, he raised one by issuing generous licences for retainers to all his supporters. The force, which if all the quotas had been taken up would have numbered over 2,300 liveried footmen and

several hundred horsemen, was periodically mustered so as to ovetawe the opponents of the régime and to give the men a sense of collective discipline. Though it did not save Northumberland at Edward’s death, this development was sufficiently important to cause a menacing revival of aristocratic military power. In 1554 the Venetian ambassador reported that the English nobility were out-

standing in Europe for the numbers of their retainers, and the Imperial ambassador talked of the need to win over by bribery those magnates who wete dangerous “because of their position and

the numbers of their retainers’. Two years later, as the clouds gathered around Mary’s unhappy throne, the same tactics of whole-

sale licences to her supporters were resorted to, in an effort to defend her increasingly unpopular policies. Elizabeth seems to have been much mote cautious in granting such licences; presumably to avoid the danger of encouraging armed faction, she tended to limit their duration to the tenure of public office, and in 1572 she issued

a proclamation ordering rigid enforcement of the laws testricting the wearing of livery to household servants, instructions which were carried a stage farther in 1595 when Lord Burghley insisted— despite protests from the Earl of Essex—that in future no retainer was to sit on the Bench as Justice of the Peace.! Repression had at last replaced regulation as the main objective of royal policy. Even so, there is no doubt that well into the second half of the reign of Elizabeth the greater nobles were still able to attract both

younger sons of gentry as household servants, and their elder 1 19 H. VII, cap. 14. Hants R.O., W. D. 150. BM Loan MSS. 15 (my attention was drawn to this document by Dr. J. J. Goring). CPR, ry49-s7, pp. 312, 327, 416, 418; ryyo-3, p. 26; ISSJ-7, passim; I1j60-3, pp. 130, 239, 510, 530, 533. APC, ryyso-2, p. 225. J. G. Nichols, The Literary Remains of King Edward VI, Roxburghe Club, 1857, ii, pp. 299, 375. Diary of Henry Machyn (Camden Soc., st set., XLII), 1848, pp. 18-20. CSPS, zyso-2z, pp. 525, 579. CSPVen., 1534-54, p. 544. E. H. Harbison, Rival Ambassadors at the Court of Queen Mary, Princeton, 1940, p. 150. BM Add. MSS. 33924, f. 4. SP 12/252/42. P. Williams, The Council in the Marches of Wales under Elizabeth I, Cardiff, 1958, p. 286. The order to the same effect of 1561 seems to have been entirely without effect (SP 12/17/47).

208 POWER brothers as liveried retainers. John Skelton had described the latefifteenth-century Earl of Northumberland as having Knyghtes and squires, at every season when He called upon them, as menial household men.

The tradition died hard, and was still alive a hundred years later. In the 1570’s Henry Lord Berkeley still counted among his liveried attendants ‘gentlemen and esquiers of remarkeable families and discent’; the 2nd Earl of Southampton was attended by a hundred gentlemen with golden chains around their necks; and the 17th Earl of Oxford rode into London at the head of eighty gentlemen in livery of Reading tawny. As late as the 1590’s Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury could turn up on a special occasion like St. George’s feast attended by men as substantial as Sir George Booth and Sir Vincent Corbet, both of them worth well over a thousand pounds a year and yet still willing to wear his lordship’s livery. In the reign of Elizabeth several substantial gentlemen were proud to sport the coat of arms of their aristocratic patrons on their houses as well as on their sleeves. Carved in stone for all to see, there are the arms of the Earl of Shrewsbury at Barlborough Hall, Derbyshire, put up by Sir Francis Rodes; of the Earl of Pembroke at Ruperra Castle, Monmouthshire, by Sit Thomas Morgan; of the Duke of Somerset at Longleat, by Sir John Thynne; of Lord Buckhurst at Trevalyn Hall, Denbighshire, by John Trevor.! On the other hand there can be no doubt that the dependence of the gentry on the nobility was on the decline. It is significant that all but one of these examples come from the mote conservative highland zone, and mote significant still that no such sculptured signs of loyalty are displayed by the squirearchy of the seventeenth centuty. Fulke Greville noted that Elizabeth ‘did not suffer the

nobility to be servants one to another, neither did her gentry weate their liveries as in the ages before’, One explanation was a change in educational habits. The gentry now sent theit sons to schools to acquire book learning, rather than into the household of a nobleman to acquire a patron. As Lord North observed in the middle of the seventeenth century: ‘It is certain that families of

noblemen are clean other then they were antiently; for within 1 P, Henderson, The Complete Poems of John Skelton, 1948, p. 5. Smyth, ii, p. 286. Gervase Markham, Honour in his Perfection, 1624, p. 20. Watd, p. 49. G. Davies, Raymond and Guise Memoirs (Camden Soc., 3rd set., XXVIII), 1917, p. 112. Country Life, 12 Jaly 1962, p. 78.

POWER 209 memory of some yet alive, it was usual for persons of the inferior gentry to put their sons into such service for breeding.’ Now they began to be educated either at home with a private tutor or at Eton or Westminster instead. Lord North’s generalization is perfectly correct, for there is no doubt that the habit was still very much alive in the first half of the teign of Elizabeth, while some aristocratic households continued to act as educational establishments for the gentry right up to the end of the century. Edward Earl of Derby, who died in 1572, is

said to have ‘bredd up many youths of noblemen, knights and esquires sonns ... in his house. And the same obliged many families unto it.” John Dennis “bred himselfe up as a follower of my Lord Berckly ... which was then esteemed noe disparagement though a man of 7 or 800 / per annum estate’, and when in 1596 Sir Horatio Palavicino arranged for the education of his eldest son, he put him into the household of Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury. Here and there in the remote north and west the custom lingered on well into the first half of the seventeenth century. At Raglan in the 1630’s the Earl of Worcester is said still to have been waited on

at table by ‘many gentlemen’s sons from two to seven hundred a year bred up in the Castle’. But this is a very rare exception to the tule. By the turn of the century it was unusual for the gentry either

to be brought up in a noble household in their youth, or to dance attendance upon a nobleman on reaching manhood. Peers continued to pay fees to men not of their household, but the size of the fee and the number and quality of the recipients was now rather different. In 1561 the Earl of Derby was paying {2 a year to such useful contacts as the Attorney-General and the attorney and the auditor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but this modest offering could have created only the most tenuous of bonds.! The numerically insignificant descendants of the fee’d gentleman tetainer of the fifteenth century must be the handful of substantial men in receipt of annuities from leading Jacobean politicians like Salisbury. Below this top level of client squires, the nobleman still collected

around him a host of men on the lower fringes of the gentry who had no inhibitions about seeking livery. These suitors were impelled

by a desire to avoid taxes and county musters, to overawe their F. Greville, Life of Sir Philip Sydney, Oxford, 1907, p. 189. Dudley Lord North, Observations and Advices Oeconomical, 1669, p. 95. Peck, 1. xi, p. 27. L. Stone, An Elizabethan: Sir Horatio Palavicino, Oxford, 1956, p. 32. Lancs. R.O., DDK 6/3. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berks. MSS., Box A/156.

821314 P

210 POWER : enemies, ot to increase their standing in the locality, and it was a ptivilege which even had a cash value in an increasingly mercenary age. In 1593 Charles Chester offered the Earl of Essex’s steward Gelli Meyrick {100 ‘if you will procuer me my lordes cloth’. Joseph

Mayne asked for Robert Cecil’s ‘cloth and countenance in such honest causes’ where the latter’s influence would come in handy. Robert Milner wanted it to help him bully his debtors and overawe his creditors, John Sedon to advance ‘his credit in the country where he lives’. Sir Roger Manwood, Chief Baron of the Exchequer,

having accepted a bribe to acquit a murderer, then gave the latter his livery to protect him from the vengeful relatives of the victim. Strolling players obtained immunity from the vagrancy laws by attaching themselves to a peer and wearing his livery, an immunity threatened by the 1572 proclamation restating the old law about giving livery to other than household servants. A few even used their badges and liveries as covers for a life of crime.? During the reign of Elizabeth this local clientage was increasingly

threatened by the encroaching pretensions of the rival court factions. As the conflict at Court became more acute, and as the number of jobs and offices in the patronage of the Court expanded, so local

loyalties were replaced by the more rewarding allegiance to the great favourite. This centripetal effect is first noticed during the Burghley—Leicester conflict in the early years of Elizabeth, when it

was alleged that in every shire there were many J.P.s who openly wore the livery of my Lord of Leicester. Just what this subordination meant is revealed by the correspondence of Essex and Robert Cecil in the late 1590’s and of the Duke of Buckingham a quarter of a century later. As befitted a man of learning, Sir Henry Wotton brought logic and philosophy to support his argument when he first approached the latter in 1617. ‘I doe owe myself this much tight even by the lawe of natural discretion (if I have any) as to seeke when I neede a patron, the best.’! It was just this seeking of the ‘best’ patton, in other words the most influential courtier of the day, that prepared the way for the political connexion of the eighteenth century. This development was all the more decisive because the politicians insisted that dependence upon them should be absolute; they 1 HMCS, v, p. 3233 vi, pp. 53, 96; viii, p. 3245 ix, p. 192; xv, pp. 173, 200. Wilts. Arch. Mag.

XVili, 1879, p. 269. CSPD, ry8t-90, p. 59. BM Lansd. MSS. 104/32. E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, Oxford, 1923, ii, p. 86. 2 Leycester’s Commonwealth, 1706, p. §5. Bodl MS. Add. D 109, f. 319.

POWER 211 wete as resentful of competing loyalties as the most jealous of mistresses. The Earl of Leicester was furious when one of his liveried servants was so imprudent as also to accept the livery of his landlord, the Earl of Essex. The Earl of Derby protested when Essex engaged a former dependant of the Stanleys. Lord Burghley was angry with Sir Edward Norris ‘for nourishing a dependency upon others besides his Lordship, which will hardly be put up’, and those like Lord Grey of Wilton who tried to sit on the fence were

peremptorily told to come off it. No wonder that applicants for livery ot good lordship became very careful to emphasize that there were no competing claims upon their loyalty. Sir Edward Norris

told Cecil that “as I hope to live under your Honours protection, so I do not determine anyhow but from yourself’. Sir Richard Molyneux confessed that ‘during my life I am only yours to be disposed on’. Others ostentatiously proclaimed that ‘I rest a true Sitcilian’, or ‘I am yours. I will be yours’. In the other camp one knight asked Essex to let him be marked publicly as ‘one of yours’, another promised his lordship that he would never be ‘so base as to be a neuter’. The ancient ties of loyalty to the local magnate withered away in this fetid atmosphere of total commitment to one ot other of the Court factions.? After the client gentry, the second element in a fifteenth-century nobleman’s following was the retinue of personal servants who attended him wherever he went. This practice of enlisting a substantial private bodyguard persisted well into Elizabeth’s reign, despite the much advertised efforts of the Early Tudors to suppress it. In the 1550’s Lord Berkeley lived mostly in London with ‘his one hundred and fifty servants in livery that daily there attended him

in their tawny coats... with the badge of the white lyon rampant embroidered on the left sleeve’. As late as the 1570’s the Earl of Oxford was accompanied not only by his gentlemen followers, but also by roo tall yeomen in livery with the Blue Boar recognizance on the left shoulder. At the same period Gilbert Talbot was trying to get his father the Earl of Shrewsbury to buy Wilton from Lord

Grey, so that he ‘might be able to attend on your Lordship with 1000 tall fellows to follow your Lordshipp’s directions’. Nor had knights and squires abandoned their retinues. Until his death in 1579 Sit Richard Cholmley lived in state at Roxby surrounded by t L/Dev V, f. 24v. Talbot H, f. 609; F, f. 188. Collins, ti, p. 231. Lodge, iii, p. 21. HMCS, vi, p. 407; viii, pp. 378, 397, 419, 441; xii, p. 402; xvi, p. 444.

212 POWER dozens of retainers and servants, who when not otherwise employed

used to sneak into the kitchen and spear the meat out of the cooking-pot on the points of their daggers.' There can be little doubt, however, that the function of these bravoes in the late sixteenth century was as much one of display as of military force. Moreover by the early seventeenth century they were superfluous in either capacity. Neither Salisbury nor Buckingham felt the need

for a large bodyguard to protect him or to give him status, for the ingredients of prestige had now shifted to more showy but less warlike items. “Tall fellows’ were no longer in such high demand. Evidence of these changes is provided by the reduction both of liveried retainers and of household servants. In the mid-fifteenth century 299 men had worn the livery of George Duke of Clarence; in the early sixteenth the Earl of Northumberland kept 171 in his household alone and the great Cardinal Wolsey in his prime had a checkroll of no fewer than 422 domestic servants. In the middle of the century leading men like Sir Thomas Lovell and the earls of Rutland and Derby kept about 100 domestic servants, the Marquis

| of Northampton 154, the Duke of Sometset 167, and the Duke of Northumberland 214. Domestic staffs of this order were still to be

found in attendance on the rather old-fashioned grandees of the eatly years of Elizabeth, Oxford, Leicester, Burghley, and North having about 90, Derby and Northumberland about 120. Many still kept substantial numbers outside the household on the checkroll, but most of these were now bailiffs and lawyers rather than client gentty. All the same, Pembroke had as many as 210 men in livery in 1571, 9 liveried retainers of Essex were J.P.s in Wales in about 1587, and as late as 1612 the Earl of Rutland’s total check-roll came to about 200.

By the mid-seventeenth century the outsiders were vanishing, and most large households were down to between 30 and 50, which

was about the number needed for convenient running of the establishment. Contemporaries thought that the decline partly set in between 1590 and 1620. William Harrison could still complain that ‘No nation cherisheth such store of them [idle serving men]

as we doo here in England’, but by the second decade of the seventeenth centuty Fynes Moryson was talking of the ‘great trains and large howse keepinges of lords and gentlemen’ as things of the past. A family friend told the young Lord Willoughby d’Eresby in 1 Smyth, ii, p. 282. Ward, p. 49. Cholmley, p. 6.

POWER 213 1601, “a fewe discreet civill men will doe you more honor than scores of caterpillers of theise foggy tymes’, advice that was accepted by the hero of a play of 1607. At first he had proposed to parade after his marriage “with my fourteene men in liverie cloakes after me’, but in the end he thought better of it: ‘In thys latter age, the keeping of men being not in request, I will turne my aforesaid fourteen into two pages and two coaches.’ As a result, whereas in 1587 the Earl of Derby kept a staff of 118 at Knowsley, in 1702 his successor managed to run the place very comfortably with only 38.

As important as the decline in numbers was the change in the character and social origin of the servants. In a great medieval or Tudor household there were many younger sons of gentry, who went into aristocratic service as the most convenient way of continuing to lead a life of ease and leisure. They had formed the core of the bodyguard and the close personal attendants of the lord, and it was at just this level that the reduction of staff was most marked. In 1598 an anonymous pamphleteer wrote the epitaph of the gentleman servant, 4 Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of

Serving-men. Though his outburst was a little premature, there can be no doubt that in general he was right. In 1553 the Duke of Northumberland had 40 gentlemen and 30 yeomen ushers in his household, the Marquis of Northampton 34 gentlemen and 13 yeomen; in 1564 Henry Earl of Huntingdon had 10 gentlemen and 25 yeomen; in 1587 Henry Earl of Derby had 7 gentlemen waiters and 19 yeomen officers. The Jacobean 3rd Earl of Dorset, who lived ‘in the greatest grandeur of any nobleman of his time’, still kept 30 gentlemen about him, according to John Aubrey, while Henry Earl of Worcester was waited on by gentlemen at Raglan right up to the Civil War. But these were rare exceptions to the rule,

and by and large the gentleman waiter disappeared in the early seventeenth century. The 5th Earl of Bath had none in 1638, the 2nd Earl of Westmorland none in 1650. After the Restoration important grandees like the dukes of Richmond and Albemarle were content to be accompanied by six footmen and two or three pages. There were two reasons for this change, both stemming from the

same desire for personal liberty and privacy: firstly, the magnate no longer required a crowd of gentlemen to attend him wherever he went, preferring to move around accompanied by a footman or two; and secondly, the gentry themselves now regarded personal

214 POWER service as socially humiliating. By the mid-eighteenth century it was generally accepted that ‘a livery suit may indeed fitly be called a badge of servility’. Contemporaries were well aware of the funda-

mental significance of these changes, as the nostalgic account by Gervase Markham in 1624 of the style of the Elizabethan 2nd Earl of Southampton makes very clear. He went, recalls Markham, bravely attended and served by the best gentlemen of those countris wherein he lived; his muster role never consisted of foure lackeys and a coachman, but of a whole troupe of at least an hundred well mounted gentlemen and yeomen; he was not knowne in the streetes by guarded

liveries but by gold chaines; not by painted butterflies ever running as if som monster pursued them, but by tall goodly fellowes that kept a constant pace both to guard his person and to admit any man to their Lord which had serious business.!

Markham had witnessed the collapse of a style of living and a scale of values which had flourished from the days of Beowulf to those of Sir Philip Sydney.

After the client gentry and the servants the third element in a nobleman’s sphere of influence was his tenantry. As late as the middle of the century and after, land was prized as much for the ‘manted’, or influence over men, as for the financial gain or the social cachet it brought with it. Whitaker described the policy of the Elizabethan earls of Cumberland as one by which they allowed the land to be seriously under-rented in return for personal service

and ‘that servile homage which a mixed sense of obligation and dependence will always produce’. The payment Tudor magnates expected were marks of deference, electoral obedience, military service in time of war, and occasional support with armed force in a private quarrel. When Henry Earl of Arundel returned from a prolonged foreign tour in 1566, he was met and escorted through London to pay his respects to the Queen by as many as 2,000 t Royal Household Ordinances, Soc. of Ant., 1790, p. 105. HMC grd Rep., App., p. 262. HMCH,

i, p. 354. HMCR, iv, pp. 260, 284, 296, 487-8. L/Sey XI, f. 133; Dud. IT, ff. 1-18. LR 2/118, Pp. 35-42. PCC 22 Chayre. Lancs. R.O., DDK 6/3, 15/24. Stanley Papers, ii, Chetham Soc., 1853, p. 23. G. R. Batho, The Household Papers of the 9th Earl of Northumberland (Camden Soc., 3rd ser., XCIII), 1962, p. xxiii. BM Harl. MSS. 7186, f. 195; Stowe MSS. 774, ff. 21-23; Add.

, MSS. 21951, ff. 7-8. B/A 810, 122. Chatsworth/BA 75; H 29. Castle Ashby 1084/5, 1202. H/B 117/1. Kent R.O., Sackville MSS. E 200, A 527. Aubrey, p. 354. Althorp, Household Accts. 1634-6. NUL/P Cavendish Misc. 52. Northants. R.O., Westmorland MSS. Misc. 15, f, 80. Lincs. R.O., 2 Anc. 14/17. G. Wilkins, The Miéseries of Inforst Mariage, 1607. J. J. Hecht, The Domestic Servant Class in Eighteenth Century England, 1956, pp. 3-5, 179. G. Markham, Honour in his Perfection, 1624, p. 20.

POWER 215 horsemen, friends, retainers, servants, and tenantry. When the Earl of Derby went down to Knowsley in 1597 he was met with almost 500 Cheshire horse near Nantwich, and with 7oo Lancashire horse at Warrington, where there was provided an al-fresco banquet in the streets. John Smyth of Nibley recorded that whenever Henry Lord Berkeley visited Berkeley Castle he was met and escorted by “300, 400 and 500 horse of his kindred, freinds and tenants ere he

came to Berkeley town, . . . which confluence of trayne how it dayly doth and more is likely to degenerate, let his posteritie observe and declare to their generacions’.

Nor did the Elizabethan tenantry confine themselves to these ceremonial marks of respect, for they continued to be ready to turn out in force to fight their master’s battles. In 1554 his enemies the Rokebys, Bowes, and Wicliffes raised a force of 300 men to attack

Henry Earl of Westmorland and his followers at a horse-race on Gaterley Moor. When in 1589 Henty Earl of Lincoln assaulted Weston Manor with scaling ladders, he brought along his 16 armed followers, augmented for the occasion to go. In 1598, during the Holles-Markham quarrel, Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury sent 120 men to arrest Holles, and Edmund Lord Sheffield countered with a defence force of 60. In an earlier episode in 1593 the Earl is said to have mustered some 400-500 men to work all night long on the destruction of Stanhope’s fish-weir on the Trent at Shelford. When Thomas Hoghton was killed at Lea Hall by Sir Thomas Langton in 1589, the defender had 30 men with him and the attacker 80. Edward Lord Dudley raised first 140 then 600 to 7oo men three years later to drive Sir John Littleton’s cattle out of Prestwood. Already, however, such loyalty was becoming rare, and it is sympto-

matic of the new situation that in 1600 Henry Earl of Lincoln was trying to bribe men at 15. a day to help him in his feud with Sir Edward Dymock. It is hardly surprising that after 1620 we hear no more of these massive turnouts, either to welcome and escort the magnate on his progress through the country or to rally in arms to support him in his private quarrels.? What helped to keep the system in being till the end of the sixteenth century was those periodic calls by the Crown upon the lords for help in an emergency. As a result many peers continued to try 1 Whitaker, p. 92. Gentleman's Magazine, 103, pt. ii, 1833, p. 211. HMCS, vii, p. 327; xii, p. 414. Smyth, ii, p. 370. HMCR, i. p. 63. N. J. O’Connor, Godes Peace and the Queenes, 1934, pp. 61-63. Holles, pp. 90>-92. BM Harl. MSS. 6996/4. VCH Lancs. vi, p. 292. 8. Shaw, History of Staffordshire, 1798-1801, ii, p. 234.

216 POWER to enforce upon their tenants an obligation of military service in addition to paying the rent. Tenure by military service—tenant tight—flourished on the Bordets into the early seventeenth century. In 1591 the Earl of Essex demanded of his tenants a horseman or a footman each on threat of eviction for non-compliance, arguing that even if there were no such clause in current leases, 1t was included under the blanket agreement to ‘do all former reservations’.

Others wete mote careful to clarify the position, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Sit Thomas Tresham, and Sir John Holles all inserting into their tenants’ leases clauses about military service in time of wat.! Sometimes the obligation of service was commuted for cash, and consequently became confused with the right of the landlord to levy an aid or benevolence for his service to the Prince. When in

1549 Francis Earl of Huntingdon asked the Corporation of Leicester for help in raising 300 men for the royal army from “my frends, favoretrs, tenaunts & servaunts’, the City fathers readily complied and added a donation of {/10. Such a generous response

was unusual, and more often landlords strove with diminishing success to extract a cash contribution from reluctant tenants. Roger

Earl of Rutland levied an aid in 1599 to help pay for his Irish expedition, and Sir Francis Darcy actually dragged his tenants through the Court of Chancery to make them contribute to his military expenses.” With the accession of James in 1603 and the end of these military

demands by the Crown upon the peers and gentry, this form of pressure on the tenants ceased and the tenant—landlord relationship became more exclusively one of rent. Of coutse the service element

persisted right into the nineteenth century—peers mustered their tenants in volunteer military groups both in the Civil War in the seventeenth century and at the time of the Napoleonic invasion scare—but it was no longer an important, far less a decisive, element

in the relationship. ‘Now the landlord hath the sweat of the tenants’ brow in his coffers; then he had the best blood in his veins

at his command’, wrote David Lloyd. Contemporaries like John Selden were well aware that times and attitudes were changing in a cyclical process: as tenant loyalty declined, so landlords were tempted to raise rents; as they raised rents, so tenant loyalty declined. T Devereux, i, p. 216. Talbot N, f. 142: Lambeth 7o4 Y/25, 27; Z/23, 27; 706/25. SP 12/248/45. HMCS, vii, p. 265. See also Goring, thesis cit., pp. 93-98. 2 Nichols, 1, ii, p. 397. B/A 95. C 2 Eliz. D 7/44.

POWER 217 The military results were summed up by Sit Walter Ralegh with his usual exaggeration: ‘there were many earls could bring into

the field a thousand barbed horses, many a baton five or six hundted barbed horses, whereas now very few of them can furnish twenty to serve the King.’ (2) Munitions

Second only to the problem of manpower was that of fortification

and equipment. Although by the end of the fifteenth century the Crown had established itself as the only power in the land with a train of siege artillery, its greatest subjects still thought it worth while to spend money on fortifications. The last private castle to be built from scratch in England was Thornbury in Gloucestershire, erected by that dangerous potentate the Duke of Buckingham in the years before his execution in 1521. Although it was never finished, it was of impressive size and strength, and provides ample justification for Henry’s high-handed action. Happily for England, the effectiveness of Thornbury was never put to the test of civil war, but throughout the century there is occasional evidence of serious military defence works by the peerage. The last and most striking case is that of Kenilworth, a medieval castle which was modernized

and heavily fortified by the Earl of Leicester tn the 1570’s. Surrounded by extensive flooded ground, it was one of the strongest places in England and was fully equipped by Leicestet to stand an extensive siege.

Thereafter evidence for fortification dies away, and by the reign of King James most noble castles were becoming almost as ruinous as those of the Crown itself. Many, particularly in the north,were deserted by their owners in favour of more hospitable seats in the friendlier countryside of the south, and were stripped of their roofs fot the sake of the lead. By 1629 the castles of Hornby, Kendal, Appleby, Sirkoswald, Raby, and Brancepeth were all in full decay, and when Lady Anne Clifford went north twenty years later to view the seats of her ancestors she found them in a sorry condition indeed. Those who stayed behind in the north or west gave light and

elegance precedence over defence. They destroyed the military value of their castles by the insertion of huge mullioned windows, as did Sir John Perrot at Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire, and the t Selden, p. 67. D. Lloyd, State-Worthies, 1766, i, p. 435. Ralegh, i, p. 206.

218 POWER Earl of Worcester at Raglan Castle in Monmouthshire. Admittedly Lord William Howard of Naworth, who spent his life hunting down and hanging cattle thieves and murderers on the Scottish borders,

is said to have lived at the top of a tower at Naworth guarded by 140 soldiers, the only access to the private apartments being by a winding stair defended by a massive armoured door with heavy locks. But this was an exceptional case, and after about 1570 considerations of defence were of little importance even to the nobility of the Highland Zone. Cuthbert Lord Ogle may have continued to sulk in real fortified medieval castles at Ogle and Bothal, but by 1612 Sit Charles Cavendish was actually building himself a sham one

at Bolsover—sute evidence that the thing was functionally as dead

as the dodo. In the south, court peers were now building ostentatious, outwatd-looking palaces like Holdenby, Burghley House, ot Longleat rather than frowning fortresses turned in upon their courtyards. Moats and drawbridges, portcullises and arrow-slits became things of the past. Though the Civil War was to prove that

many a great house could by improvisation be turned into a defensive position, men were no longer building with this end in view.!

Neither men nor castles ate of much value without arms, and it was in their accumulation of weapons that Tudor noblemen most clearly revealed their military potential. Here again the attitude of the Crown was ambiguous. By 1547 it had built up an enormous

armouty of modern atms, 20,000 pikes and 6,500 handguns, a resetve which was drawn upon by Marty seven years later to arm loyal noblemen and courtiers in order to defeat the Wyatt rebellion.

This store was teplenished again by huge purchases from abroad negotiated by Sir Thomas Gresham between 1558 and 1561, thus enabling Elizabeth to preserve this overwhelming preponderance of arms in stock for an emergency. Subsequently it continued to be kept up to date, so that by 1578 it contained a stockpile of 7,000 of the new firearm, the caliver. But even so these needed to be supplemented by smaller scattered depots for immediate defence of t “A Relation of Abuses committed against the Commonwealth’, Camden Misc. iii, 1855, pp. 13-14. J. P. Gilson, Lives of Lady Anne Clifford and of her Parents, Roxburghe Club, 1916, p. 53. F. Grose, Antiquarian Repertory, iv, 1809, p. 389. G. Ornsby, Household Accounts of Lord William Howard of Naworth, Sattees Soc., LXvitI, 1877, p. lxx. There is a fortified farm-house dated 1606 on an isolated headland by the sea in north Devon, and real castles were still being

built in early-seventeenth-century Ireland and late-seventeenth-century Scotland (M. Jope, Studies in Building History, 1961, p. 214).

| POWER 219

local areas. Until the county muster and trained-band system had been set on foot in the middle of the century, and until the local authorities had been bullied into financing and equipping their own arms depots, which did not happen until quite late in Elizabeth’s reign, there was no alternative to allowing—and indeed obliging— noblemen to purchase and store in their own armouries sufficient weapons to fit out a small army in time of emergency. An Act of 1557 put this responsibility directly on the nobility, and in his will drawn up in 1554 Thomas Lord De La Warr expressly stated that the arms and armour he left to his heir male were ‘for the defense of this shire [Sussex]’.! The rise and fall of the aristocratic armoury is thus a product of changing methods of national defence, as well as of the shifting ambitions and fears of noblemen themselves. Such evidence as we have suggests that stockpiling of weapons was of modest proportions before 1550, reached a peak between 1550 and 1600, and thereafter declined. The Duke of Norfolk had equipment for 100 foot soldiers at Framlingham in 1524, and for about 70 foot and 20 hotse at Kenninghall in 1546; even the Duke of Northumberland had arms for only about 150 at Syon House in 1553, though he must have had other weapons stored elsewhere. The 1550’s and 1560’s saw not only a great expansion in the scale of aristocratic armouries but also their modernization. Bills, bows, and almain rivets were gradually replaced by pikes and handguns. A sutvey of 1544 showed that among the peerage and members of the Council only Oxford, Mountjoy, and Wriothesley admitted ownership of any of these new weapons. Protector Somerset bought Go pikes between 1548 and 1551, and by 1562 Edward Lord North had stocked his London house with enough arms for well over 250

men, including 50 pikes and 7 dags, or small pistols. The next fifteen years probably saw the apogee of the aristocratic armoury, just befote it was superseded for national purposes by the county depot and was made superfluous for personal defence by the decline in the risk of civil war. In 1570, just after the Northern Rebellion, the Earl of Shrewsbury bought from Hamburg 200 calivers, the most modern type of small-arms, and in 1583 the Earl of Hertford was using the old system of retaining to pre-empt the products of

a London gunmaker. |

1 BM Harl. MSS. 7457. SP 1/184, ff. 86%, 88, 972% 1 am very grateful to Mr. C. S. L. Davies for drawing my attention to these documents). 4 & 5 Philip & Mary, cap. 2. Arch. Lt. i, 1888, pp. 262-4. PRO Exchequer IPM 1101/3. Arch. J. Ixvii, 1910, p. 141.

220 POWER The rapidly expanding cannon industry of the Weald also made

it possible for peers to obtain artillery in some quantity without much difficulty, and this they proceeded to do. Lord Rich had an unknown number of cannon as early as 1567, the Duke of Norfolk 5 at Norwich in 1571, Lord Sandys 2 at The Vyne and the Earl of Cumberland 14 at Skipton in 1572, the Duchess of Suffolk 11 at Hellow in 1580, Lord Paget 16 at Beaudesert in 1584.1 The military equipment laid up by the Duke of Norfolk was enough to alarm the

most trustful of governments, and the inventory taken after his arrest must have played an important part in the decision to execute him. Apart from these 5 cannon, he had 14 arquebuses and 46 dags,

atms for a force of about 120 horsemen and 500 infantry, half of them pikemen, and body armour for about 280. At the time of the Rebellion of the Northern Earls two years before, it was reported that ‘my Lords council have set open Kenninghall gates to the intent that every man that would might have arms and armour there’.?

All this pales to insignificance, however, beside the armaments assembled in the heavily fortified castle of Kenilworth in the 1570’s and early 1580’s by the Earl of Leicester. There were over 100 guns,

1,500 shot for them, ample supplies of powder (which had been made on the spot by a powder-maker hired for the purpose), over 450 small-arms, and other weapons for nearly 200 horse and 500 foot. The value of all this equipment was put by the executors at no less than £2,000. Leicester in any case had a licence to keep | 100 liveried retainers in addition to his household, and his network of clients and allies held numerous important government positions and dominated North Wales and the Marches, so that he was in an extremely strong position.? The purpose of these extraordinary preparations is not certain. It may have been insurance in case of civil war at the Queen’s death; it may have been a blackmail weapon with which to browbeat Elizabeth if he began losing favour 1 CUL, Dd Il, 86/3. LR 2/115, 119, f. 42%. BM Egerton MSS. 2815. Bodl North MSS b 12, f, 26. L/Lib 114 A, pt. iv, p. 1; Sey XI, f. 131. PCC 28 Pyckering; 12 Babington. SP 12/81/ 28(1). Notts. R.O., DDSR 215/62. Whitaker, pp. 4o4—5. PRO E 1o01/521/20. Apart from the formidable battery of cannon, Cumberland’s equipment was very old-fashioned—arquebuses, almain rivets, maces, battle-axes, and spears. 2 N. Williams, ‘The Risings in Norfolk, 1569 and 1570’, Norfolk Archaeology, xxxii, 1961,

i. s FEMCD, i, p. 296. L/Dud XI, f. 36-36%; II, f. 60; Box TI/15. BM Harl. Ch. D 35/12. Leycester’s Commonwealth, pp. 65-69. The Earl of Cumberland was still making his own gunpowder at Skipton in 1572 (Whitaker, p. 405).

POWER 221 at Court; it may have been for protection against attack by his enemies, who were legion. At all events he turned Kenilworth into a fortress that could compare in strength with the royal castles of the Tower and Berwick. Not for over half a century had a subject possessed such formidable military resources. If only he could have ensured the loyalty of his men, Leicester was in a position to defy all comers, even perhaps his sovereign. He was the last of his kind in English history. Between 1590 and 1625 information about noble arms depots ts vety meagre. One may suspect that as the old Queen approached her end there was a good deal of quiet stockpiling in case of trouble over the succession. It is significant that early in 1603 Sir William Cavendish spent over £80 on buying and sending down to Chatsworth roo muskets and 100 pike-heads, and some of Lord Cobham’s 100 small-arms and 140 pikes inventoried after his arrest in 1603 were cettainly newly purchased. By 1625, when evidence is provided by a general round-up of the arms of Catholic peers, many of the inventories record very small stocks, and many note that the equipment was old, rusty, and unserviceable. A good deal of the few large stocks which were revealed were very probably purchased 30, 40, Of even 50 years before. The 6 guns, 322 small-arms, and

hand weapons and armour for about 600 men kept by the 4th | Marquis of Winchester at Wolversey House were almost certainly

in the main purchases by the rst Marquis, the Lord Treasurer in the eatly days of Elizabeth. Subsequently the Paulets had played no patt in public life, their fortunes had deteriorated, and it 1s highly improbable that any of them would have built up so huge an armoury since that time. Moreover much of the equipment— brown bills, almain rivets, bows, and arrows—had been obsolete for half a century. The same applies to the 6th Lord Windsor, who at his two houses had several cannon, nearly 300 small-arms, and equipment for about 230 men, most of which must also date back to the days of the political and financial prosperity of the Windsors.

The very substantial armoury of Francis Earl of Westmorland at Apethorpe in 1629 probably represents the combined stock of the Fanes and the Mildmays, and can be explained on these grounds. Even if this is admitted, however, many of the small-arms, the pistols, muskets, and petronels, were virtually unknown before the 1590's. [hey may be part of the rearming for the Queen’s death in 1603 or a product of the popish scare after the Gunpowder Plot,

222 POWER but they cannot belong to the 1570’s or 1580's. The five wagonloads of arms, including over 130 muskets and 150 pikes, seized from the Earl of Dorset at Knole in 1641, and the 100 small-arms and equipment for 350 pikemen kept by the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton in 1650, ate to be explained as recent purchases for the Civil War.?

Ambiguous though some of the evidence is, there can be little doubt that the general trend in the early seventeenth century was towards a reduction of these great private arsenals. Admittedly in the reign of Charles, after a quarter of a century of undisturbed civil peace and half a century of official county armouries, a few of the

great houses still held substantial stores ot arms. Admittedly also there were still more arms and armour in the hands of the nobility, gentry, yeomanry, and clergy than in the county armouries—for example, in Nottinghamshire equipment for 643 men in private ownership as against 407 in the county armoury in 1634. But instead of being concentrated in the armouries of the few, this equipment was now widely distributed throughout the houses of the propertied

classes: “Ihe Commons have all the weapons in their hand’, observed Ralegh. Moreover the decay of the military potential of the atistocracy in the early seventeenth century is proved by the obsolete type and rusty condition of so much of their equipment, the end of references in noble wills to bequests of arms to the heir

male, and the defenceless condition of so many great country houses on the eve of the Civil War. It is perhaps a sign of the times

that by about 1610 the earls of Cumberland and Rutland were having to find employment for their armourers on odd jobs around the house, like mending locks and garden shears.? In 1577 Harrison had reported that ‘as for the armories of some

of the nobilitie . . . they are so well furnished, within some one baton’s custodie I have seen three score corslets at once, beside calivers, handguns, bowes, & sheffes of arrowes, pikes, bils, polaxes, flaskes, touchboxes, targets, etc: the vertie sight wherof appalled my courage’, It must be remembered, moreover, that all the more substantial tenants would have their own weapons, so that, provided he could rely on their loyalty, the full number a lord 1 Chatsworth/H 23. BM Lansd. MSS. 168, f. 175. SP 16/11/26(1), 39(1), 56(1), 57(4); 12/3(1-2), §(1-2), 16; 23/104. Northants. R.O., Westmorland MSS. Box 6/V/1-2. Arch. Cantiana, xxxili, 1918, pp. 126-8. H/A 63/21.

2 BM Loan MSS. 29/235. HMCB, iii, p. 382. Verney, i, p. 265. C 108/187. BM Add. Ch. 13340. Ralegh, i, p. 206. Chatsworth/BA 230, f. 206. B/A 127.

POWER 223 could put in the field was greatly in excess of those he could equip

from his own armoury. The potential danger to the Tudots from aristocratic faction was therefore a very real one. A generation later

Ralegh observed that at one time ‘the noblemen had in their armofies to furnish some of them a thousand, some two thousand, some three thousand men, whereas now there ate not many that can arm fifty’. If he exaggerated the degree of the change, he was right to regard this as one of the most important transformations to have occurred during his lifetime.! Il, THE FACE OF VIOLENCE

Given that the keeping of retainers, the stocking of arms, even the fortification of castles continued into the late sixteenth century, it is hardly surprising that the true story of the Tudor struggle to monopolize violence is far more long-drawn, far more complicated, and far less triumphant than is generally supposed. The issues men fought over were prestige and property, in that order. What might

ostensibly appear as a quarrel over a piece of land or an office, in fact was at bottom a struggle for position and authority within the county society. The gentry squabbled over church-seating, striving for the best pew in the parish; the squirearchy fought for election as knights of the shire and for appointments on local commissions;

the nobility strove to maintain or acquire pre-eminence in the distribution of county patronage; the Court aristocracy fought for the ear and attention of the monarch. In a society that was even more obsessed with status than with money, intangibles of this sort aroused passions which often could only be appeased in blood. Englishmen of the educated classes today enjoy the reputation for unusual reserve and exceptional self-control under the most provoking circumstances. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

tempers were short and weapons to hand. The behaviour of the propertied classes, like that of the poor, was characterized by the ferocity, childishness, and lack of self-control of the Homeric age, and unless we can grasp these basic psychological premisses we cannot hope to understand the true dimensions of the Tudor problem. The educational and social systems of the age inculcated ideals of honour and generosity. Impulsiveness was not reproved, readiness to repay an injury real or imagined was a sign of spirit, loyalty 1 W. Harrison, Description of England, ed. F. J. Furnival, New Shakespeare Society, vi, 1877-8, p. 282. Ralegh, i, p. 206.

224 POWER to a friend in a quarrel was a moral duty, regardless of the merits of the case. This absence of restraint was all the more serious since men in the sixteenth century were so exceedingly irritable. Their nerves seem to have been perpetually on edge, possibly because

they were nearly always ill. The poor were victims of chronic malnutrition, the rich of chronic dyspepsia from over-indulgence

in an ill-balanced diet: neither condition is conducive to calm and good humour. Moreover, a gentleman carried a weapon at all times, and did not hesitate to use it. It was none other than Philip Sydney who warned his father’s secretary that if he read his letters to his

father again ‘I will thruste my dagger into you. And truste to it, for I speake it in earnest’. The Sydneys were not a particularly violent family, but it was Philip’s nephew who stabbed his schoolmaster with a knife when he threatened to whip him. The language used by men of breeding and high social standing is

often so intemperate as to be almost deranged. Henry Earl of Lincoln denounced Sir Edward Dymock as a ‘mongrill, a curre, a rebell, a pesant of the order of clownes, ale knight’. At the height

of the great feud with the Stanhopes, Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury sent Sir Thomas the following verbal message: “Tho you be mote wretched, vile and miserable then any creature living, & for your wickedness become mote ugly in shape then the vilest toade in the worlde, and one to whom none of reputation would vouchsafe to send any message, yet she hath thought good to send

thus much unto you: that she can be contented you should live, and doth no wayes wish your death, but to this end that all the plagues and miseries that may befall any man may light upon such a caitiff as you are.’ Shortly before the Danvers brothers murdered him, Henry Long informed Sir Charles Danvers that “wheresoever he mett him he would untye his pointes and whippe his etc. with a rodd, calling him asse, puppie, foole & boye’.! This petulant childishness of language was matched by childish-

ness of deed. When Henry Earl of Lincoln was quarrelling with a neighbour at Chelsea, he bought a load of London night-soil and stacked it on a wharf where the fumes would give the greatest annoyance. During the Earl’s feud with Sir Edward Dymock, the latter staged a play at South Kyme in which the Earl was carried off by the Devil, while notorious whores of London, Lincoln, and Boston sang his dirge. Meeting the Sheriff of Dorset on the ‘ Collins, i, p. 256. Talbot H, f. 103. HMCS, v, p. 516. L/Lib 114A iv, p. 76. SP 12/251/123.

POWER 225 highway, Henry Howard, future 2nd Viscount Bindon, repeatedly galloped past him at full tilt in order to splash him with mud, and

then knocked his hat into the puddles. When two local J.P.s quatrelled with the Mayor of Lostwithiel over a new town charter and some questions of tithes, they put a toad on his seat in church and bruised it so that the venom spread all over the wood. A few weeks later they laid a spiked plank on the seat in the hope that he

might sit on it before the full congregation on All Saints’ Day. Another gentleman at East Locking in Berkshire cut away the church pew of his enemy ‘in fashion of a mouse-trap so that he might fall down when he sat on it’. Speech and pranks such as these did not of themselves endanger the security of the State or undermine respect for the law. But they are symptomatic of a readiness to resort to direct action that in an age of armed retainers could easily lead to rioting and even minor warfare between rival gangs,

The situation was exacerbated by the total lack of rules within which such violence as occurred could be confined. When personal conflict between principals took place, no holds were barred. When Henry Earl of Southampton fell out with Ambrose Willoughby at cards, the latter pulled out some of the Earl’s hair. After Edward Rogers had got into a scufHle with John Harington outside Westminster Hall, he boasted that he had come away with a handful of his opponent’s beard. Even teeth were not excluded, and when Thomas Hutchinson was attacked by Sir Germaine Poole, ‘getting him downe he bit of a goode part of his nose and caried yt away in his pocket’.2 When armed retainers were employed, there were equally no conventions about fair play. Surprise ambushes, attacks

from the tear, onslaughts by overwhelming numbers were all legitimate tactics in the sixteenth century, and brought no disrepute

upon the organizer. Henry Earl of Lincoln always attacked with fifteen or sixteen bullies; ‘Sumtimes he came himselfe with them, but alwayes when he had three to on odds.’ In 1593 a group of Talbot and Cavendish men lay in wait in the Three Tuns in Fleet Street until they spotted John Stanhope passing by, accompanied by his four men. The whole gang came tumbling down the stairs with drawn swords shouting ‘yonder comes Stanhope, to it, to it’, ™ C. J. Sisson, Thomas Lodge and other Elizabethans, Harvard, 1933, p. 267. O’Connor, op. cit., p. 115. SP 12/140/11. Star Ch. 8/149/21; 193/16. 2 Collins, ii, p. 83. HMCS, iv, pp. 472-3. CA, 1, p. 432. Hutchinson, p. 30.

821314 Q

226 POWER struck down an aged Stanhope retainer, and hacked at him after he was down. Five years later the parallel feud of the Markhams and the Holles blew up in an ambush laid by Holles and his retainers. Markham was wounded in the affray and, on the grounds that he

was attacked by a group when he was down, declared himself justified in planning to pistol Holles when he was not looking. In 1573 John Fortescue was met in Fleet Street by the 14th Lord Grey of Wilton and twelve followers, who swarmed out of a crossbowmaker’s shop below Temple Bar. Lord Grey let Fortescue go past, then suddenly lashed out from behind and struck him to the ground.

He continued to rain blows with his crab-tree truncheon on

Fortescue as he lay senseless on the ground, until the latter’s servants came to the rescue. In 1578 Edward Windham was attacked in Fleet Street in broad daylight by twenty-five retainers of the and

Lord Rich, urged on by their master with bloodthirsty cries of ‘Drawe villens, drawe’, ‘Cutt off his legges’, and ‘Kyll him’, an assault that Windham met by firing a pistol at his Lordship and then

fleeing into the French ambassador’s house. In 1587 a servant of the Earl of Leicester was pinioned in a London street by two men while a third beat him up, presumably under orders of some noble enemy of the Earl. In the 1590’s Thomas Lord Burgh actually tried to murder a man in his bed, and Ralph Lord Eure first hired two servants to murder the Recorder of Berwick and then got an expert to try to poison him. Stories of this kind, which could be indefinitely repeated, prove

beyond possibility of doubt that up to the end of the sixteenth century men saw nothing dishonourable in attacking by surprise with superior forces, and nothing in hitting a man when he was down. By the second decade of the seventeenth century, however, such behaviour was becoming discreditable and is much less frequently met with. The calculated ferocity with which in 1620 Kit Villiers and Sir Robert Diall set on a follower of the 3rd Earl of Southampton and spurred him almost to death was now becoming

rare. When brutality occurred, it was more often the result of a situation getting out of hand than of a carefully planned onslaught. For example, in a quarrel over the ownership of Temple Newsam

in 1609 Gervase Lord Clifton led an attack on the park to tear down the gates and drive off the cattle. But the gang got drunk and proceeded to assault the ownet in person, crying “Kill him, kill him’,

for their lord would bear them out in whatsoever they did. The

POWER 227 owner fled on horseback, the house was taken by storm, one of the servants was badly beaten up, and a maid was run through the atm with a sword. But this was not premeditated, and it was now only notorious ruffians like the Lunsfords who were prepared in cold blood to waylay an enemy with an armed gang as he was teturning from church with his wife and friends in a coach.! Given the absence of honourable conventions in the prosecution

of a quarrel, it is hardly surprising that some of the retainers of noblemen were indistinguishable from hired bullies, men who were

teady to beat up or even occasionally to kill at a word from their master. ‘Cutters’ or ‘hacksters’, as these sixteenth-century gunmen were called, they lived perpetually in the precincts of war. There are many instances of their being killed or wounded in brawls on their masters’ behalf, and their brutality and love of danger were notorious. Men who today would be temperamentally attracted to a parachute regiment or the secret police found satisfaction in the sixteenth century in the armed retinue of a great nobleman. The atmosphere within these bodyguards is well caught by a story about

the 17th Earl of Oxford. One day the Earl asked his men whether ot not they thought hanging was a painful death. ‘“Mary”, quod one of his, “that shall your Lordship presentlye knowe, seeing the experyence.”’ He then took off his garters, made a halter, and tied it round his neck. He was hoisted up on the back of another man and then let fall until he ‘waxed very blacke in the face, stranglinge and labouringe for liefe’. On being cut down he told the Earl that he would not endure such pain for all the world. Not content with this experiment, however, another of the Earl’s men insisted on catrying out a further test, with the same result. To complete the picture it should be added that both the Earl himself and some of his followers had killed men in their time. It was with ruffans of this sort that John Killigrew of Pendennis Castle surrounded him-

self as protection against his creditors. He rode abroad with impunity, warning enterprising bailiffs in the terse colloquialism of the day, that ‘yf they did assault theym, they shold buy yt’.?

The retention of bodyguards and the ability to bring out the tenantry in case of need meant that insecurity continued to prevail in many areas of the countryside. The basic distinction between the 1 Gentleman’s Magazine, xlii, 1772, p. 163. L/Lib 114 A, iv, p. 76. HMC Portland MSS. ix, pp. 84-91. Ch, i, p. 755 ii, p. 316. SP 12/93/1; 130/4-11. Gawdy, p. 13. Edwards, ii, pp. lxxitiIxxv. Sisson, op. cit., pp. 201-3. Star Ch. 8/25/25. CSPD, 1637, p. 472. CUL Ii/5/31. BM Lansd. MSS. 59/18.

228 POWER Highland and the Lowland Zones remains valid for the sixteenth century, for the former still preferred traditional methods of settling disputes to obedience to the law. It was in early-sixteenth-century North Wales that Meredith Wynn ‘durst not goe to church on a Sunday from his house of Penanmen, but he must leave the same suatded with men and have the doores sure barred and boulted, and a watchman to stand at the Garreg big during divine service; being a rock whence he might see both the church and the house and raise the crie if the house was assaulted’. Welsh history had always been a record of ‘the rebellious attempts, the proud stomachs,

the presumptuous pride, stirre, trouble and rebellion of the fierce unquiet fickle and unconstant Welshmen’, and Elizabethan Star Chamber proceedings, Elizabethan parliamentary elections, and Elizabethan local politics suggest that the area long remained unsettled despite the heroic efforts of the Council of Wales. As late as 1607 the President of the Council reported that violence was still endemic, intimidation of juries common, and blood-money and the blood feud often preferred to the cumbersome machinery of the law. Not were things much better in the north. Even in the relatively peaceful area of Wentworth Woodhouse, south of Sheffield, in the early seventeenth century Sir William Wentworth was still advising

his son to make sure that ‘the dores att night be surely shutt up by some trustie auncyentt servantt, & your men so lodged as they maie defend your house’. Up here too the blood feud and bloodmoney remained an important element in the pattern of human relationships, operating quite outside an only partly effective legal machinery. In 1556 two sons of George Lotd Darcy of Aston murdered two sons of Sir William West, but the widow of Lewis West was persuaded to drop the prosecution against the heir in return for 500 marks blood-money. When Sir John Selby and his men ambushed Cuthbert Collingwood at Morpeth in 1586, causing the death of one man and the wounding of another, it was metely the latest episode in a long blood feud between the two families. It was of parts of Northumberland that Sir Thomas Tresham was speaking when in 1603 he observed that ‘pistols not seldom ate more in request than process’, but it was not only in ateas as remote as these that blood-money and personal vengeance were still accepted as alternatives to prosecution in the courts of law. In the Hoghton murder case of 1589 only three jurors dared appear

POWER 229 for the trial, and two and a half years later the Earl of Derby recommended dropping proceedings and leaving the issue to be patched up with blood-money. So long as the landed classes subscribed to an ethical code which demanded satisfaction for injury outside the courts of law, the ‘peace in the feud’ was a more effective instrument

for the regulation of violence than the authority of the central government. Many of Shakespeare’s plays deal with this issue of personally inflicted revenge, and it was clearly aconcept still familiar

even to London society at the turn of the century.!

It is hardly surprising that disputes among peers and greater gentry tended to tear county administration apart and reduce it temporarily to impotence. In the 1530’s Bishop Lee, who was one of the most resolute and successful administrators of an authoritarian age, could only report helplessly that “the dissension between Brereton and Dutton destroys order in Cheshire’. In Gloucestershire

at the same period things were just as bad, with the Brydges at murderous war with the Huddlestons. But what could Lee do when men summoned before the Council of Wales retorted defiantly that they would first know their master’s mind as to whether they should obey ? In the reign of Elizabeth feuds like those between the Stanhopes and the Markhams in Nottinghamshire, the Fiennes and the Dymocks in Lincolnshire, the Danvers and the Longs in Wiltshire,

the Muschampes and the Collingwoods in Northumberland, the Mansells and the Heydons in Norfolk, all threatened the peace of the county. They were dangerous since they drew in with them by family alliances not only most of the other squires of the county, but also the magnates. If those responsible for local government wete themselves the breakers of the peace, there was little hope of justice being done.’ Sometimes great lords tyrannized over a county administration and protected criminals. In Gloucestershire in the 1570's, Giles Lord Chandos used armed retainers with guns at the ready to frighten off the under-sheriff, protected servants of his who robbed 1 J. Wynne, The History of the Gwydir Family, Oswestry, 1878, p. 82. D. Powel, Historie of Cambria, 1584, dedication. T. Wright, History of Ludlow, 1842, pp. 419-25. P. Williams, “The Welsh Borderland under Queen Elizabeth’, Welsh Hist. Rev. i, 1960. Sheff CL/S 40/1. J. Hunter, South Yorkshire, 1828-31, ii, pp. 173-6. CSPD .Add., 1380-1625, pp. 193-5, 214, 249. HMC Var. MSS. tii, p. 115. WCH Lanes. vi, p. 292. 8. Gluckman, “The Peace in the Feud’, Past and Present, vili, 1955.

*LerPdH VIII, xiti. 371, 519; xiv, 977. W. T. MacCaffrey, ‘Talbot and Stanhope: an Episode in Elizabethan Politics’, BIHR, xxxiii, 1960. HMCS, v, pp. 515-17; x, pp. 69, 433; Xl, Pp. 585; Xii, pp. 225, 234, 344, 410-12; xiii, p. 556. See also P. Williams, op. cit., p. 26.

230 POWER men on the highway near Sudeley Castle, so that the inhabitants dared not arrest the thieves nor the victims prosecute their assailants,

rigged juries, and put in a high constable of the shite who used his office to levy blackmail on the peasantry. When summoned to the Council of Wales he did not deign to come, retorting loftily that ‘T had thought that a nobleman might have found more favor in your Courte, then thus hardly to be delt with (as I am) lyke a com-

mon subjecte’. Nor were things much better in Gloucestershire thirty years later. A yeoman who tefused to lend money to the 3rd Lord Stafford’s son found his cattle driven off into Thornbury Castle. When he went to protest he was seized, beaten up, robbed, and thrown into a dungeon, where he languished while the cattle were killed or sold—proceedings justified by the Staffords on the grounds that the inhabitants of the village were only villeins anyway.

In the face of such behaviour by men like Stafford or Chandos, there was little that the local J.P.s could do, even if they wished to. Many of them were attached by family ties or good lordship to an influential peer and were careful to preserve the interests of theit

patron. Whether as J.P.s, jurors, or witnesses, men naturally tempered their desire for justice with a prudent eye to their personal

safety, and were unwilling to run great risks. As Sir John Holles complained in 1600 when the Talbots and Cavendishes effectively protected a notorious poacher from prosecution by giving him livery, ‘our country is reduced to a hard condition if such maintenance be suffered that a blue coat shall face both justices and juries from their duties and that the witnesses shall be braved and terrified’.

In any case some J.P.s were as stupid and supine as Shallow and Silence, and others were none too scrupulous in furthering theit Own interests under cover of their office. Few perhaps wete prepated to go quite as far as Hugh Acland, Esq., the Devon Justice, who in order to obtain consent to the cancellation of a matriage contract in 1601 was accused of putting a girl in Pilton prison and having her repeatedly flogged with a whip with 25 thongs until the room was tunning with blood.! Attempts by the local administration to deal with feuds between nobles and squires usually ended in failure. Adequate to cope with problems like poor telief, the repression of sturdy beggars, or the 1 SP rafrr2/51. W. B. Willcox, “Lawyers and Litigants in Stuart England’, Cornell Law Quarterly, xxiv, 1939, p. 548. HMC Portland MSS. ix, p. 81. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soe. Trans.

xxxi, 1908, pp. 248-54. Star Ch. 8/103/r.

POWER 231 fixing of prices, issues upon which the landed classes were reason-

ably agreed, perfectly competent to deal with most lower-class disordets, it was quite unfitted to enforce peace upon quarrelling magnates, much less to punish the guilty. For one thing, it was the habit until the turn of the century to appear at quarter sessions and assizes with a following of armed retainers who could on occasion be used to threaten the court. ‘In those days’, recalled John Aubrey, ‘noblemen (and also great knights as the Longs) when they went to the assizes or sessions at Salisbury, etc. had a great number of re-

tainers following them; and there wete (you have heard) feudes (i.e. quarrells and animosities) between great neighbours.’ Between them the Russells and the Berkeleys brought 500 armed supporters to the sessions at Worcester; and the situation was only saved by Bishop Whitgift, who disarmed them and arranged peace. At the Lancaster assizes of 1581 there was no such peacemaker at hand when the retinues of Lords Morley and Strange came to blows, and blood was shed. Nine years later Sir James Croft appeared at the Hereford sessions with between fifty and eighty armed followers to support his quarrel with the Coningsbys. When accused of attending assizes and sessions with armed retainers, Sir Edward Dymock tevealingly replied that they were not ‘otherwise armed but with such otdinary weapons as men usually carry’. If the countryside remained liable to civil disorder up to the turn of the century, the same was true of the towns. Professor MacCaftrey has noted that violence in the streets of Exeter was only effectively curbed by about 1600. In London itself the fields about the City and even the main arterial roads were continual scenes of upper-class violence. Bloody brawls and even pitched battles occutred in Fleet Street and the Strand, and little protection could be offered by the authorities until hours or days after the affair was over. It was in Fleet Street that there took place in 1558 the armed affray between Sir John Perrot and William Phelippes, supported by their retainers; in Fleet Street that John Fortescue was beaten up by Lord Grey and his men in 1573; in Fleet Street that Edward Windham and Lord Rich carried on their repeated skirmishes in 1578; in Fleet Street that Lord Cromwell got mixed up in an armed affray in 1596; in the Strand that Lord Grey and his attendants attacked the Earl of Southampton and his boy in 1600; in the Strand 1 Aubrey, pp. 31-32. G. Paule, Life of Whitgif?, 1612, p. 23. Hornby Castle Survey, Chetham Soc. CII, 1939, p. 113. P. Williams, op. cit., pp. 24-25. HMCS, v, p. 517.

232 POWER that Edward Cecil, future Viscount Wimbledon, lay in wait with ten soldiers to catch Auditor Povey. Owing to the growing attraction to London of the nobility and squirearchy, rural quarrels tended to get transferred from the quarter sessions, the horse-races, and the hunting matches of the country to the streets of London. It was in London that Lord Eure was attacked by a gang of his Yorkshire enemies, the Woodringtons.! Even the Court itself was not entirely immune from violence, although mutilation could be inflicted upon those who broke the peace within its verges. Physical assault at Court came under the jurisdiction of the Marshal’s Court, and was always regarded as an exceptionally grave offence, since it might easily endanger the personal safety of the monarch. Thus there was great commotion in 1552 when Henry Lord Bergavenny struck John Earl of Oxford in the royal Presence Chamber and drew blood, and he was only pardoned in view of his youth. Men in the grip of the most violent passion did their best to control themselves here, and when Sit William Cornwallis insulted Charles Yelverton in the Presence Chamber in 1599, the latter could only make the lame reply: ‘Sir Knight, had I you out of this place, I would pluke that periwigge of your pockie patte.’ But the Court could not hope to remain entirely insulated from the btawling and beatings-up that were taking place near by in the Strand, in Fleet Street, and in the fields and yards around the Inns of Court. One of the most revealing letters of the late sixteenth century is that written by the Earl of Sussex to Queen Elizabeth in 1565. He explained that he was at Court on the orders of the Queen, who had instructed himself and Leicester to leave each other alone. Since which tyme I being here upon your highnes commandement & garde, unarmed utterly, there be drawen unto him great bandes of men with swordes & buckelers aswell from the Innes of Corte as from other places, wherby he and all his be in that sorte armed. And therefore, if it please your highnes to suffer him after your commandement geven so to bande and arme within your Corte while I without bandes and unarmed am held by your commandement & upon your suretie, I humbly beseche your Majestie either to commande all your owne servantes to attend onely

upon your selfe, and all his to unarme and all gathered by bandes to departe, wherby your Majestie in present force may be hable to overrule 1 W. T. MacCaffrey, Exeter, 1ygo-1640, Harvard, 1958, p. 231. BM Add. MSS. 34079, f. 5. SP 12/93/13; 130/4-11. HMCS, vi, p. 298; xi, pp. 561-2. Stopes, pp. 170-1. Sisson, op. cit., Pp. 205.

POWER 233 us bothe; or elles that your highnes will cause me upon your warantise to be suerly conveyied owt of your Corte into my barge, where I may after shifte for myselfe as I can.

A few years later Sussex also complained of the enmity of Lord

North. He threatened that if North went unchecked, he would either stay away from Court ‘or if I do come I will come in suche sort as I wyll not fere pertakers ageynst me’.! In the face of such open threats of violence so close to her person Elizabeth could only temporize and procrastinate, keeping the balance of force sufficiently even to prevent a major explosion. By blowing alternatively hot and cold upon the rival factions, by promoting members of each to positions where they could act as checks

upon the other, she managed to stave off the constant threat of serious aristocratic disorder. Since she found it prudent not to take vigorous action against the nobility except when open rebellion seemed imminent or had actually occurred, she was forced to turn a blind eye to much sporadic violence among her courtiers and their

followers, a policy of not so masterly inactivity which is best illustrated by the story of the Oxford—Knyvett feud.

In 1580 Anne Vavasour gave birth to an illegitimate son, the father being the Earl of Oxford. In consequence, the Earl quarrelled violently with Anne’s patron, Thomas Knyvett, a Gentleman of the

Privy Chamber. Both were prominent and influential courtiers, Knyvett having daily access to the Queen, and Oxford being the son-in-law of the all-powerful Burghley, and himself a former favourite of Elizabeth for whom she still had some affection. Early

in 1582 it was rumoured that Oxford was planning Knyvett’s assassination. In March there was a duel, in which both were wounded and one of Oxford’s men killed. In June several of Knyvett’s men met and wounded two of Oxford’s in Lambeth Marsh. A few days later there was an unsuccessful attempt to murder Knyvett one evening as he was disembarking at Blackfriars stairs— a favourite place for attack as the victim struggled helplessly up the

slimy steps. Next month there was a fresh battle between the two factions, in which Knyvett personally killed one of Oxford’s men. Knyvett promptly got the Queen to urge Lord Chancellor Bromley to have the case, to which he was to plead se defendendo, tried in a ptivy session during the vacation, where the affair could be hushed 1 CPR, ryyso-3, p. 322. HMC rrth Rep., App. viii, p. 158. SP 12/36/66. Lodge, ii, p. 198.

234 POWER up. When the Lord Chancellor refused, he was sharply told by Hatton, ‘My good lord, it is very necessary you take care to please the queen in this case’. Bromley’s reluctance to tamper with the processes of the law was eventually overcome, and a coronet’s verdict of se defendendo was duly returned. Next February a servant of Oxford was killed, presumably by a Knyvett supporter, and buried in St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate. In March Oxford’s men murdered Long Tom, an ex-follower of Oxford who had switched his allegiance to Knyvett.! Thanks to the studied neutrality of the Queen, two great courtiers

wete allowed to commit murder after murder with complete impunity. Both in the brutality of their tactics and in their immunity from the law, the nearest parallels to the Earl of Oxford and Sir Thomas Knyvett in the London of Queen Elizabeth are Al Capone and Dion O’Banion, Bugs Moran and Johnny Tottio in the Chicago of the 1920’s. It is against this sinister background of rival court factions with their hired killers and ‘cutters’, of sporadic murder and violence in the streets of London, and of occasional pitched battles in the countryside, that the wisdom of Elizabeth’s tactics must be judged. Ill. THE GROWTH OF ORDER (1) Government Policy

The picture hitherto has been one of irresponsible violence of wotd and deed, controlled hardly at all by the forces of order. Taken by itself this is very misleading, for throughout the sixteenth century great, and ultimately successful, efforts were being made to contain violence and bring it within tolerable limits. Above all there was the steady pressure of the central government striving

to impose its own tules and to stiffen the local authorities into enforcing the law with less obvious respect of persons. The instruments employed were the Privy Council, the Court of Star Chamber, and the two Councils of Wales and the North. These last had been specifically set up to deal with the problem of feudal disorder in the Highland Zone. The instruction to the President of the Council of the North in 1544 made one of his chief tasks the suppression of the still very common practice of retaining. As for Wales, the Statute 1H. K. Chambers, Sir Henry Lee, Oxford, 1936, pp. 156-8. A. Feuillerat, John Lyly, Cambridge, 1910, pp. 126-8. CSP Colonial, E. Indies, 1515-1676, p. 86. Hatton, pp. 256-7, 321-3.

POWER 235 of 1534 complained of the continual ‘thefts, murders, rebellions, wilful burning of houses and other scelerous deeds and abominable malefacts’, which necessitated the setting up of the Council. In ptactice it developed into an instrument operated by English border gentry to bring this turbulent area under English discipline, English law, and English local government. In the long run it achieved its object: infinitely less Welsh blood was spilt in the 1620’s than in the 1520’s, and far less than in the 1560’s.? At the centre the Privy Council worked in private, receiving com-

plaints, instituting inquiries, issuing warnings, enforcing arbitration, summoning the recalcitrant to London for weeks of boring and expensive attendance upon its good pleasure, and on some occasions committing the obstreperous to prison for a spell. The Stat Chamber was the Council working in public as a court of law, where proceedings against rioters could either be instituted by the Attorney-General or more commonly by the aggrieved party, and where the influential could be punished for their misdeeds by fines, imprisonment, and public humiliation. In fact, however, it was nevet used to tame the magnates. There is no evidence that noblemen

wete prosecuted in Star Chamber under Henry VII, and under Elizabeth the court was more useful to magnates wishing to punish

poachers on their deer-parks than it was to gentry ot lesser men seeking protection against the tyranny of their superiors.” The Star

Chamber was an invaluable instrument for diverting the gentry from armed conflict; it was the Privy Council itself, acting without due process of law, that controlled the nobility. Casual violence over personal issues, even when it involved sub-

stantial numbers, was something no Tudor monarch or Privy Council was prepared to take too seriously. Rural riot and intimidation wete dealt with by encouragement of tedious litigation in the

courts or by forced arbitration over the subject under dispute by the Council, rather than by the swift punishment of the use of force itself. Brawls in London were regarded with rather less tolerance

than those in the countryside and were often prevented from developing into full-scale gang-warfare by clapping one or both contestants into the Fleet for a few days to allow passions to cool.

Here too, however, neither the Queen nor the Council showed much determination in punishing the breach of the peace itself, and 1 G.R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution, Cambridge, 1960, pp. 205-6, 211. P. Williams, op. cit. 2S. E. Lehmberg, ‘Star Chamber, 1485-1509’, Huntington Library Quarterly, xxiv, 1960-1.

236 POWER the greater and more influential the nobleman the more warily they trod. Even when blood had actually been shed, they still acted with

extreme caution. In 1573 Lord Grey replied to a request of John Fortescue that he should cease to hunt over his property with: ‘stuffe a turde in your teethe, I will hunt it, and it shall be hunted in spite of all you can do.’ Hunt it he did, with the result that there was a pitched battle with bills and bows in which several men were badly wounded. Fortescue promptly appealed to the Council, which set itself up not as judge over the crime of violence, but as arbiter

in the dispute over the property. On the whole the Council preferred to allow even crimes of violence to be the subject of private litigation in the courts of law, and when a jury could not be rigged to bring in a favourable verdict, a pardon for the aggressor could usually be obtained—at a price—from the sovereign.

As soon as personal feuding looked like turning into treason, however, the Council acted promptly enough. The quarrel over the Dacre inheritance was allowed to rumble on unchecked, but when the north erupted into open rebellion, it was suppressed with ruthless savagery. The peace of Nottinghamshire had been broken for yeats by the open clash of armed bands of Talbots and Stanhopes without goading the Privy Council into more than verbal rebukes, and without any serious punishment of any but minor participants in Star Chamber. But once Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury’s religious loyalty was called in question, he was very soon laid by the heels.? Moteover, at any tate in the middle years of the century, there were

certain limits beyond which personal violence was not allowed to go. When in 1541 Lord Dacre of the south murdered a witness to a poaching expedition against the Pelhams, Henry VIII had no compunction in seeing him hanged. Again in 1556 when Charles Lord Stourton arrested two personal enemies, allegedly on suspicion of felony, kept them in his house for afew days, and then murdered them, he was sent to the gallows at Salisbury and his servants hung in chains about the country as a warning to all over-mighty subjects.

But these were exceptional cases, and Elizabeth certainly turned a blind eye to aristocratic crimes vety nearly as outrageous as those of Lord Dacre. When Sir Henry and Charles Danvers killed Henry Long, they had to flee the country, but they obtained a pardon four years later on payment of {1,500 blood-money. We have seen how I SP 12192/34-6. Holles, p. 217. BM Add. MSS. 34079, f. 5. MacCaffrey, op. cit., BIHR,

XXxili, 1960.

POWER 237 the Queen sheltered Knyvett froma manslaughter charge in 1582, and two yeats later she performed the same service for Oliver St. John.!

The extreme caution, even timidity, displayed by Elizabeth and Burghley in the face of aristocratic violence is striking evidence of

the insecurity of their position. They relied on the slow shift of habits and customs during a prolonged period of peace, and on the steady growth of independence among the squirearchy, rather than on ruthless intervention from the centre to enforce the law. By degrees, over a period of time, they hoped to tip the balance in favour of good order and to reduce the irresponsible authority of the magnates. As Lord Buckhurst explained to Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury in 1592: Your Lordshipp must remember that in the policy of this Common Wealth, we are not over ready to add encrease of power & countenance to such great personages as you are. And when in the country you dwell in you will needes enter in a warr with the inferiors therein, we thinke it both justice equity & wisdom to take care that the weaker part be not put doun by the mightier.?

The victim of assault was encouraged to complain to the Council ot launch a suit in Star Chamber, and if he rarely obtained redress and punishment of the main offender, he at least was protected from further attack and had the satisfaction of seeing his enemy offcially rebuked. Although there is no evidence that severe penalties were ever inflicted upon a great nobleman after 1556, the punish-

ment of inferior agents was a telling blow to the prestige of their patrons. The lengthy process of sixteenth-century lawsuits allowed tempers to cool, acted as a lightning-conductor for local violence, and transferred the field of battle from the countryside to Westminster. Slowly the Tudots taught the lesson that there was a higher

authority whose will could in the last resort override that of even the greatest magnates in the realm. The curious thing is that this flabby policy was a success. In 1626 Lord Keeper Williams complacently remarked that “in ancient time

the records of the Court of Star Chamber are filled with battayles and ryottes soe outrageous, whereas now wee here not one in our

age’. This was an overstatement, but it is true that by the third 1 APC, rys6é-8, pp. 43, 49, $7, 58, 66. D.K.R., 3rd Rep., app. li, p. 259. E. Hall, Chronicle, 1550, f. 213%. SP 12/251/123. J. Hawarde, Les Reportes del cases in camera stellata, 1894, p. 391.

HMCS, vi, pp. 267-8; viii, p. 244. CSPD, 198-1607, p. 67. Hatton, p. 366, 2 L/Lib 114 A, iv, p. 66.

238 POWER decade of the seventeenth century cases of violence were declining,

as men increasingly turned to the more sophisticated weapons of fraud, forgery, and perjury. In the reign of Henry VII 63 per cent.

of the cases before the Court were ostensibly concerned with violence; as late as 1602 the proportion was still as high as 45 per cent., but by the 1630’s it had fallen to 23 per cent. Though Henry

Viscount Newark and Henry Lord Morley still enjoyed lenient treatment, in general the Privy Council and Star Chamber now felt able to deal more severely with such cases as came before them, as Getvase Lord Clifton, Thomas Viscount Savile, Knyvett Fiennes, and Sir Germaine Poole discovered to theit cost.! This stiffening of discipline at the centre was reflected in the increas-

ing effectiveness of local authorities, who had made little attempt to suppress aristocratic violence in the sixteenth century. When in 1596 Edward Lord Cromwell got mixed up in a brawl in the City, an alderman had no hesitation in arresting him on his own authority. Similarly in the countryside sheriffs were emboldened to enforce the law against the influential by the use of extreme measures from which hitherto they had shrunk. When George Muschampe, High Sheriff of Northumberland, fought the Collingwoods in 1601, it was not clear whether he was acting on his own or in the interests

of justice, and in any case he had to flee to London to escape retaliation. But by the early seventeenth century the establishment

of county arms depots and the organization and training of the militia had given the local authorities overwhelming power, if only

they could be prodded into using it. In 1612, when John Gerard refused to obey a court order to surrender Kingsbury Manor, the Council ordered the Sheriff of Somerset to attack the house with attillery, and if necessary to destroy it, in order to enforce obedience.

In the 1620’s and early 1630’s the trained bands and artillery had to be called out to enforce court orders about property on recalcittant gentry in Huntingdonshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Yorkshire, the last against Lord Eure’s house at Malton, which was defended to the bitter end by one of his lordship’s sons and had to be breached with cannon.” With this one exception these t Lehmberg, op. cit., p.195. H. E. I, Phillips, ‘The Last Years of the Court of Star Chamber’, TRHS, 4th ser., xxi, 1939. Star Ch. 8/25/5. Diary of John Rous (Camden Soc. txvi1), 1856, pp. 22-23. HMC rrth Rep., app. vii, p. 163. CSPD, 1638-9, p. 4133 I63J, Pp. §77; 1637, p. 260. J. Rushworth, Historical Collections, 1680, ii, App., p. 16. 2 HMCS, vi, p. 298. CSPD, rérr—-18, p. 1483; 1623-J, pp. 151, 256; 7627-8, p. 292; 1629-31, Pp. 172-87; 1631-3, pp. 168, 425, 441. T. G. Barnes, Somerset, 1625-40, Harvard, 1961, p. 105.

POWER 239 episodes are all concerned with the squirearchy, not the nobility, who by now had learned their lesson. ‘They are the dying spasms of a pfimitive society as it was slowly swallowed up by the voracious authority of the central government.

As well as wielding the stick, the Crown could also dangle the carrot. By its extensive disposal of patronage, it had great powers of leverage over the nobility, which it did not hesitate to use. It was not only that families whose loyalty was suspect could be frozen

out of public office. Equally significant was the fact that men with a teputation for violence often found it hard to obtain favour at court. Edward Earl of Oxford, Henry Earl of Lincoln, Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury tended to find themselves not only passed over for high office at the Court, but also left off local commissions and denied key local offices such as the Lord Lieutenancy. An excep-

tion to this rule is the appointment of Ralph Lord Eure as Lord President of the Council of Wales—unless it was thought that only a man accustomed to murder and violence was capable of handling the Welsh. But this pressure by the central government would by itself have been incapable of mastering violence if there had not also occurred changes in occupational habits and in the mental and moral climate of opinion. During the long period of peace from 1562 to 1588 the nobility lost the habit of military service, and even during the war yeats of the 1590’s only a minority took an active part in military campaigns. Another twenty years of peace after 1604 meant that

they were now almost entitely absorbed in private and civilian pursuits, and no longer looked to war as a natural outlet for their energies. The movement of the aristocracy out of the countryside into London and about the Court greatly accelerated this shift by providing alternative fields of competition, intrigue, and pleasure. By 1640 the bellicose instincts of the class had been sublimated in the pursuit of wealth and the cultivation of the arts. It was to take a bishop—Bishop Wren of Ely—to complain that this development was sapping the moral fibre of the nation.' The change in occupational habits was accompanied by a change

in concepts of duty, by which the ancient obligation to serve the Prince in wat gave way to one of service in government and at Court. At the same time education was changing in content, with greater emphasis on book-learning and less on the medieval code 1 J. Gutch, Collectanea Curiosa, Oxford, 1781, 1, pp. 233-4.

240 POWER of honour. The striking increase in the number of nobility and gentry who acquired a smattering of training in the law at the Inns

of Court inevitably increased respect for this venerable weapon for bringing down an adversary. The spread of the puritan ethic throughout the landed classes led to the superimposition of a training in deferred gratification—deferred, that is, until the next world

—upon the tradition of immediate satisfaction of impulse. The development of vital religious, ideological, and constitutional issues

reduced the purely personal element in local and national politics and therefore the incentive to resort to private violence to achieve _ victory. Finally, the tenantry became increasingly reluctant to give active support to their lord in his private quarrels, as the old-style nobleman keeping open house to all comers in his country seat changed into a largely absentee rentier concerned more with raising rents than preserving loyalties.!

, 2. Litigation

A consequence of the decline of violence was an astonishing growth in litigation. John Smyth of Nibley called Westminster Hall ‘our cockpitt of revenge’, ‘the civill warres of my dayes there tageinge, wasting more treasure and time then the disunion of the

houses of York and Lancaster ever did the unitinge’.? Societies being weaned from habits of private revenge always turn to the law with intemperate enthusiasm, but by any standards the growth of litigation between 1550 and 1625 was something rather exceptional. In the common-law courts the number of plea rolls per annum—adriittedly a very crude and suspect criterion—suggests a sixfold increase for the Common Pleas and a doubling for the King’s Bench. Cases brought before the Courts of Requests and Star Chamber appear to have multiplied at least tenfold over the same period, while by 1621 Chancery was issuing about 20,000 subpoenas a year.3

The decline of violence was only one cause of this legal explosion, though the fact that no less than 15 per cent. of Star Chamber suits in the reign of Elizabeth came out of Wales is not without significance. Another important factor was the massive transfer of

i See Ch. VI. 2 Smyth, i, p. 242.

3 PRO Lists and Indices, iv, 1910, pp. 12, 14, 42, 48. J. E. Neale, Elizabethan House of Commons, 1949, p. 24. EB. Skelton, The Court of Star Chamber in the Reign of Elizabeth (London M.A. thesis),

1930, i, p. 71. W. S. Holdsworth, History of English Law, i, pp. 423-4.

POWER 241 property taking place at a time when the land law was in some confusion, when no central land registry existed, and when it was extremely easy to make secret encumbrances of title. The result

was a lawyer’s paradise, and the misplaced ingenuity of convey- | ancers soon added more complexities to an already complex subject. As John Norden remarked at the beginning of the seventeenth century, ‘in these daies there goe more words to a bargaine of ten pound land a yeare then in former times were used in the grant of an Earledome’. Matters were made worse by the setting up of the prerogative courts in the early sixteenth century, which resulted in a host of overlapping jurisdictions. A single quarrel might well spawn a shoal of lawsuits in different

courts. When Lord Berkeley was fighting Thomas Throckmorton over the tithes of Oldminster, the dispute gave rise to thirteen bills

in Star Chamber, twelve in King’s Bench and Common Pleas, others in Chancery, and suits “almost numberles’ at the County Assizes and Quarter Sessions. For the man seeking revenge the law became as lethal a weapon as direct violence, though a good deal slower in operation. When Overreach planned to destroy Frugal, he proposed deliberately to trespass on his property: ‘These trespasses draw on suits, and suits expenses which I can spare but will soon beggar him.’ William Powell, a pluralist Welsh vicar, sought his revenge on a parishioner by launching against him no fewer than 26 suits in 6 years, 4 in the local Consistory Court, 3 in the Court

of Arches, 7 in the Council of Wales, 2 in Star Chamber, 1 in Chancery, 4 in Common Pleas, and 5 in King’s Bench.!

All the pride, obstinacy, and passion that hitherto had found exptession in direct physical action was now transferred to the dusty processes of the law. In 1654 Peter Temple declared that it was ‘the maxim of the house [of Temple] to spend twice the money in contention [as] would discharge a real incumbrance’, From the

point of view of the state the manifold inadequacies of the legal system had their advantages. So long as there was a remote prospect

of ultimate victory, men would turn hopefully to the law as a weapon against their enemies. Once launched, the suit would with its complexity and prolixity consume their time, their energies, and their substance for years and years on end. The very deficiencies IT. A. O. Edwards, Star Chamber Proceedings relating to Wales, Cardiff, 1929, p. v. ]. Norden, The Surveiors Dialogue, 1618, p. 255. Smyth, ii, pp. 309-10. J. Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, u, i. CSPD, 1635-6, p. 77.

821314 R

242 POWER in the machinery of the law, its great cost, its appalling slowness,

its obsession with irrelevant technical details, made it an admitable insttument for the sublimation of the bellicose instincts of a leisured class. Sixteenth-century litigation combined the qualities of tedium, hardship, brutality, and injustice that tested character

and endurance, with the element of pure chance that appealed to the gambler, the fear of defeat and ruin, and the hope of victory and the humiliation of the enemy. It had everything that war can offer save the delights of shedding blood. It gave shape and purpose to many otherwise empty lives. Litigation, therefore, remained the most popular of indoor sports, despite unanimous agreement upon the folly of such behaviour and

the rapacity of lawyers. No nobleman of the day was without his

string of suits against tenants or rivals, mostly about property. William Earl of Salisbury, who was not an unduly litigious person,

had 29 in train in 1621, 20 in 1634, 13 in 1637. As the Earl of

| Huntingdon told his son, ‘suits in law ate grown so common that he that hath not some is out of fashion’.t Riotous attacks on an enemy’s pefson or property were going out, litigation was coming in. The two phenomena ate not unconnected. (3) The Duel

At the very time when increasing pressure was being brought to

bear on private violence by the central government and when important modifications were taking place in men’s way of life and ideas about their social responsibilities, there also occurred a tech_ nological change which made personal assault a very much mote dangerous business. In spite of the substantial numbers involved and the fact that all combatants wete armed, there was relatively little actual killing in the sixteenth century. If many of these great feuds turn out on close inspection to resemble the battles of Tweedledum and ‘T'weedledee, the main reason was that the standard weapons

used were the heavy swotd with a single cutting edge and the buckler or shield. These weapons allowed the maximum muscular effort and the most spectacular show of violence with the minimum threat to life and limb.* Fighting with them was not much more dangerous than all-in wrestling. * Huntington Library Quarterly, ti, 1938-9, p. 412, n. 44. H/S 186, f. 139. HMCS, vii, p. 5333 ix, p. 22. C. J. Phillips, History of the Sackville Family, i, p. 278. H/L 55/12; 73/1; 78/6. HMC

Hastings MSS. iv, p. 335. 2 Cholmley, p. 6.

POWER 2.43 After about 1560 the broadsword began to give way to the needle-

sharp rapier, with which it was only too easy to kill a man by tunning him through the body. The introduction of this new weapon

thus had consequences exactly the reverse of that of the contraceptive: the one increases, the other decreases, the risks attendant upon two instinctive and pleasurable acts, fighting and making love.

It was with a rapier that Edward Earl of Oxford accidentally killed his man while still in his teens in Lord Burghley’s house in

1567, that John Lord Latimer ran a man through in 1563, that Robert Earl of Sussex seriously wounded one of his own men in 1598 when trying to break up a quarrel.' The rapier was as dangerous a weapon as a sports car in the hands of a high-spirited young man with little sense of self-control and no rules of conduct to regulate his behaviour. Wotse still was the spread of small-arms. With these handy little tools a cowardly and weakling churl was a match for the bravest, strongest, and most skilful of noblemen.

Unless something was done to limit the use of these weapons, the whole social order was in danger of subversion. Gun-power, it was discovered, is potentially a great leveller, and Ariosto and Blaise de Montluc were echoed by Don Quixote in protesting against this subversion of the natural order of things.” Such a situation was clearly intolerable, and no sooner had the

tapier come into fashion and pistols become common than the carrying of the latter was forbidden to the lower classes and the use of the former severely restricted by a set of rules and conventions of theological rigidity. A powerful cause of the decline of casual and unregulated violence involving the clash of groups of retainers,

setvanits, and tenants, was the development in the minds of the landed classes of a new ethical code—the code of the duel. From out point of view, the two important features of the duel are that it normally involved the principals alone and not their friends and servants—for in England the group duel never caught on in the way it did in France—and secondly that it was strictly controlled by

tules which assured fair play. The murderous assault by superior numbers, the surprise ambush, and the blow from behind were no longer tolerated in polite society. When explaining his conduct in a bloody affray with Gervase Markham and his men in 1598, t W. Murdin, Burghley Papers, 1759, p. 764. Sharpe, p. 352. Collins, ii, p. 83. 2 See J. R. Hale, ‘War and Public Opinion in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, Past and Present, xxii, 1962, p. 29.

244 POWER Sit John Holles sought to exculpate himself by alleging that at the beginning ‘I strake him not but summoned him to gentlemanlike adventure’. Though things worked out badly in this particular case, it was in fact unusual for a challenge to lead to a chain reaction of killing and counter-killing, attack and counter-attack, which could only be ended by the payment of blood-money. It was an isolated episode whose consequences, even if fatal, offered little moral justification for subsequent vengeance by indignant friends and relatives.

Moreover, the challenge itself acted as a safety valve for that ferocity of language which contemporaries seemed quite unable to

control. Edmund Morgan must have felt very much better after he had written to Edward Egerton: ‘I challenge thee and defye thee for a runnegate rouge and for a damnde author and instrument of all detestable wickednes and this I will maintaine like a gentelman where when and with what weapons thou dartest.’ Violence in word or deed was thus regulated, codified, restricted, sterilized. The traditional ambition of the propertied classes to demonstrate their personal courage and to avenge any dispatagement of their virtue or their honour was given an outlet which at last affected no one but themselves. As Bodin and others argued for France, the first consequence of the triumph of the code of honour of the duel was to diminish faction quarrels and to lessen the danger of aristocratic civil war.! Whereas the duel with rapier and dagger had taken hold in Italy and France by the middle of the sixteenth century, it was not till the

1580's that it became generally accepted on the other side of the Channel. As late as the early 1580’s masters of defence were still graduating in the use of sword and buckler as well as rapier and dagger, and it was not till 1576 that the first fashionable fencing school was

set up in Blackfriars by the Italian, Rocco Bonetti, who advertised his social success by hanging the coats of arms of his patrons round the walls. By the 1590’s Englishmen were at last taking to the rapier,

and another fashionable fencing school was opened in London by Jeronimo and Vicentio Saviola. Though Jeronimo was later killed by an Englishman named Cheese, fencing with the rapier had come

to stay and in 1605 the London Masters of Defence received a watrant for incorporation. t 25 H. VII, cap. 17; 33 H. VU, cap.6; HMC Portland MSS. ix, p. 86. Huntington Library, Ellesmere MSS. 200. J. Bodin, Les Six Livres de la République, Paris, 1589, p. 644. F. de La Noue, Discours politiques et militaires, Basle, 1587, p. 243. 2 J. D. Aylward, The English Master of Arms, 1956, pp. 18-54. BM Sloane MSS. 2530. There

POWER 245 The 1590’s saw the publication not only of three handbooks in English on the art of defence, but also of two treatises on the code of duelling.! At the same time the reopening of the Continent for foreign travel with the Peace of Vervins stimulated interest in the duel, since Paris was its main centre, and knowledge of the art of fencing and the duelling code were standard educational benefits of the Grand Tour. In 1605 Lord North bought Le Livre de duels at

Rouen, and in 1640 at Paris it was reported that ‘the fencing masters have their schools full of [English] gentlemen of quality’.? It would be rash to place too much weight upon figures which can only represent an unknown proportion of the duels which occurred throughout the country. But it is worth recording that the number of duels and challenges mentioned in newsletters and correspon-

dence jumps suddenly from 5 in the 1580’s to nearly 20 in the next decade, to rise thereafter to a peak of 33 in the ten years 1610-19.

At first the code of the duel was socially beneficial in reducing faction fights and local blood-feuds, and in minimizing the consequences of the adoption of the rapier as the standard personal weapon of the gentleman. It also had an indirect, indeed largely accidental, consequence of blurring the distinction between gentry and nobility. Before the acceptance of the duel, an Elizabethan nobleman with his gang of liveried retainers at his heels could be as

offensively contemptuous of the rights and dignity of his fellow citizens as a gangster in the streets and speakeasies of Chicago in the 1920’s. He could insult a mere gentleman with impunity. Now,

however, the code put gentleman and nobleman on terms of equality. When Patrick Ruthven sent a challenge to Algernon Earl of Northumberland for linking his name with a woman, he pointed out that ‘though Nobility makes a difference of persons, yet injury acknowledgeth none’. The personal challenge deprived the rich

nobleman of the advantage of his retainers, and enabled a mete gentleman to demand redress on equal terms. It was a useful check upon the insolence of the nobility.3

It must be admitted that contemporaries took a less optimistic had, of course, been Masters of the Science of Defence in the early sixteenth century, but presumably training men in the use of the broadsword, not the rapier (L e> P H VIII, xv, an Oe di Grassi, his true Arte of Defence, 1594. Vicentio Saviolo, his Practice, 1595. George Silver, Paradoxes of Defence, 1599. W. Segar, The Booke of Honor and Armes, 1589.

2 Bodl North MSS. b 12, f. 120. CSPD, 1640, p. 253. 3 Cabala, p. 357. Selden, p. 42.

246 | POWER view of the social consequences of the duelling code. This was because a rigid stereotyping of the conventions led to an absurd elaboration of punctilio, so that a gentleman of quality found himself under obligation to challenge an opponent for the most trivial of verbal slips. A touch of bad temper, a loose word spoken to an acquaintance ot even to a friend demanded instant redress, and

might well result in bloodshed or death in the fields the next morning. In particular, the giving of the lie was elevated into an injury so deep that it could be expiated only in mortal combat. Refusal of a challenge was morally just possible for a younger son turned merchant like Peter Delaval, who frankly objected that he had a wife and six children to think of; but any true gentleman who tried to wriggle out of the obligation was liable to public humiliation, like poor Pistol at the hands of Fluellen. Sir William _ Wentworth, who refused a challenge from the irascible Sir Thomas

Retesby, had to submit while sitting on the bench at Quarter Sessions at Rotherham to being publicly denounced as a coward, and having his ears pulled until they bled. It was small consolation that his assailant was fined {1,000 in Star Chamber, since King James pardoned the fine before it was paid. A few years earlier the

Karl Marshal’s Court had done its best to free Anthony Felton from the disgrace of refusing to avenge a beating, but it was evidently quite unable to alter public opinion. Young men being naturally headstrong and hot-tempeted, such a code took a heavy toll of lives, and it was the appalling wastage of gentle blood which so horrified contemporaries. De La Noue claimed that in France more noblemen died annually from duelling than soldiers were killed in several battles in the civil wars. It was said that in the first ten years of the seventeenth century the French

king granted over 6,000 pardons for the killing of gentlemen in duels and that it was as common to see a duel with rapier and dagger in the fields by St. Germain as it had been thirty years before to see an affray with sword and buckler in Fleet Street or Smithfield. When

catried to these lengths, the duel became a major moral and social scourge, although one that did not directly threaten the stability of the monarchy or the security of the state.? Intellectual opinion in England ranging from Sir Walter Ralegh

to Sir Francis Bacon was equally critical of the duelling code, 1 History of Northumberland, viii, p. 171. Choluley, p. 13. BM Harl. MSS. 6072/94; Add. MSS. 29442, ff. 47, 47%. La Noue, op. cit., p. 244. BM Cotton MSS. Titus C IV/o9.

POWER 247 puritan moralists were unanimous in their condemnation of this system of licensed manslaughter, and between 1610 and 1618 King James made strenuous efforts to curb its development in England. Inquiry revealed that the Spanish king had succeeded in suppressing

it in Spain by ruthless punishment of challengers, seconds, and carriers of challenges, coupled with instant royal displeasure and dismissal from the Court. Social ostracism and legal punishment were both brought into play with considerable success.! James’s intervention was directly provoked by the rising toll of deaths among his personal acquaintances, who to avoid the penalties of English law often took to going overseas to fight it out on the sands of Calais or Ostend. In 1609 the son and heir of Philip Lord Wharton and Sir James Stuart killed each other after a quarrel overt catds; in 1610 Sit Hatton Cheke was killed by Sir Thomas Dutton, and James Egerton by one Morgan. It was the events of 1613, however, which really alarmed the King and galvanized the Government into serious action. In that year Sir Edward Sackville, future 4th Earl of Dorset, fought and killed Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss; Francis Lord Norris challenged Sir Peregrine Bertie for the second time; Grey Lord Chandos challenged Lord Hay; Robert Earl of Essex challenged Henry Howard; Francis Earl of Rutland challenged both Philip Earl of Montgomery, and Henry Lord Danvers. It looked as if the English nobility, like fighting cocks ina ting, were about to indulge in wholesale mutual slaughter. The situation horrified a man as genuinely pacific as James, and

he decided that something more positive was needed than mere petsonal intervention to patch up quarrels among his friends. And so in 1613 he joined in the fray with a lengthy proclamation against ‘the bloodie exercise of the duelloe’. He pointed out that the duel

did not conform to the new thinking according to which ‘the quallities of gentlemen . . . are borne for societie and not for batterie’. He denied that the common law was incapable of offering teparation for assault, slander, or the casual blow, but undermined

confidence in the assertion by promising to plug such legal gaps as still existed by legislation in the next Parliament. He proposed a scale of degrees of satisfaction for insults from the first rude word

to the giving of the lie, so as to break the chain reaction that led inescapably to the duel, and claimed that the prerogative possessed 1 W. Ralegh, History of the World, bk. v, cap. iti, sect. xvii, subject 2. Bacon, iv, pp. 399-409.

248 POWER ample powets to punish challengers. The assize judges were to consult with J.P.s to prevent ‘offers made with juries in the countrie by powerfull persones for the turninge of murder into manslaughter and turninge heinouse offences from the penalties inflicted

by the lawe’. He formally deprived himself of powers to pardon offenders, instructed the Earl Marshal’s Court to intervene to settle quarrels, and told Attorney-General Bacon to make an example of an offender in Star Chamber. As usual, however, James’s bark was worse than his bite and, despite Bacon’s proud boast ‘I hope IJ shall not know a coronet from a hatband’, he was in fact as careful to avoid offending the rich and influential as was his master. It was two lowly gentlemen who were

picked on as victims for exemplary punishment in Star Chamber, while the peers and courtiers who had set the example continued to be allowed to go free. England remained a country ‘wherein a poor man was hanged for stealing food for his necessities and a luxurious courtier... could be pardoned after killing the second ot third man’.! Feeble though this policy was, it nevertheless produced results,

if only because it was buttressed by the moral force of puritan

| thinking. The earnest endeavours of the Privy Council and the King to prevent aristocratic duels and to arbitrate over quarrels now offered an avenue of escape from the tyranny of the code of honour. Challenges continued to be sent and accepted, but were how accompanied by sufficient publicity to allow the Government time to intervene and stop proceedings. When the Earl of Cumber-

land noisily sent a challenge to the Earl of Dorset during their quarrel over the Clifford estates, the Privy Council curtly instructed

the two noblemen to ‘try out theyre controversies by warres in Westminster Hall’. By this simple but effective convention both the honour and the lives of the aristocracy were preserved, and such killings as continued to occur wete mostly confined to the more expendable gentry. Efforts were even made to restore the distinction between peers and gentry which the duelling code had blurred. In 1608 one William Palmes, who had the temerity to challenge a knight of the Garter,

Robert Earl of Sussex, was put in the Tower for a year until he 1 BM Cotton MSS, Titus C IV passim. HMCR, i, pp. 419, 426. Ch, i, pp. 298, 474. Bacon, iv, pp. 409-16; vi, p. 114. Grosart, 2nd set., ii, p. 71. Quotation from a pamphlet of 1642 in H. N. Brailsford, The Levellers and the English Revolution, 1961, p. 539.

POWER 249 apologized for this infringement of the hierarchy of ranks. A little

later Ralph Lord Eure appealed to the Earl Marshal’s Court to | prevent noblemen from having to fight base fellows to defend their

honour. When Gervase Markham gave Thomas Lord Darcy the lie, he was sued in Star Chamber, and Bacon in his speech for

the prosecution argued that the discrepancy of rank aggravated the | offence. In the high days of Thorough the Government was even |

more sensitive to infringements of order and degree, and Peter | Apsley, who was tash enough to send a challenge to Algernon Earl of Northumberland, was severely punished in Star Chamber in 1634 for his ‘high insolency’.!

Apart from direct intervention by King and Privy Council, and from punishment by Star Chamber, a third force was intermittently brought to bear upon the problem of the duel. Many felt that that antiquated and moribund institution the Earl Marshal’s Court might,

if suitably revamped, fulfil a useful function. One of the causes of the spread of duelling was by general consent the absence of adequate legal remedies for slander. If the Earl Marshal’s Court could establish itself as an adjudicating body over the giving of the lie and other insults, it could provide an honourable alternative to the duel.

This course was vigorously advocated by some, like Ralegh, but met with little support from the lawyers. In favour was the feeling that the code of honour could only be effectively civilized by a court

of honour, and not by the ordinary machinery of the Common or Prerogative Law. Against was the argument that this would involve the open recognition of a double standard, one of honour and the other of law, with attendant confusion and subversion of the

common and statute law. Because of this controversy no very coherent policy was adopted, as James’s muddled proclamation showed, but the efforts of the Privy Council and Star Chamber to prevent and punish duels were certainly accompanied by intermittent attempts by the Earl Marshal’s Court to arbitrate over questions of slander and the giving of the lie.?

As a tesult of this many-sided pressure, the worst evils of the duel wete effectively contained in England, and never reached the proportions they achieved in France. The number of duels reported

by contemporaries reached a peak in the second decade of the 1 Birch, James I, i, p. 96. BM Add. MSS. 6297, p. 57; 12514, f. 152. C&, ii, p. 35. CSPD, 1633-4, DP. 442.

2 Ralegh, loc. cit. Bacon, iv, p. 402. CSPD, 1679-23, p. 436. I. H. Jeayes, Catalogue of the Muniments in Berkeley Castle, Bristol, 1892, p. 340. Blomefield, ix, p. 125.

250 POWER century and thereafter declined—at any rate until the Civil War. In the early seventeenth century the duel thus succeeded in diverting the nobility from faction warfare with armed gangs without leading

to a dislocation of social intercourse by incessant fighting over trivial slights, real or imagined. IV. THE END OF REBELLION

The success of the Tudors in weaning the landed classes from their ancient habits of violence and subjecting them to the discipline of the law involved a social revolution of far-reaching consequences.

From their point of view, the acid test of their policies was their success in bringing the whole country under central administtative control and in defeating aristocratic rebellion. Until the late sixteenth century, however, they could not hope to achieve this, and they had to be content to rule the country on the old system of reliance on loyal local magnates. The way Lord Admiral Seymour set about his conspiracy against his brother in 1548 provides a striking example of the persistence of maintenance well into the middle of the sixteenth century. He urged the Marquis of Northampton to ‘go and sett up howse in the North Contre wher as my lands laye’, so as to build up his following. He boasted to the Earl of Rutland of ‘a great numbre of hys frendes and allso howe he was banded in the conttys’ and urged the young man to woo the gentry, and more particularly the yeomanry. He told Sir William Sharington ‘how strong he was and how far his lands and domynions did stretche’ and that ‘he could make or bryng of those that be within his rules and of his own tenants and servants (if he should be commanded to setve) ten thowsand men’, No wonder the Council questioned him closely after his arrest as to how many gentlemen and others he had retained since the death of Henry VII, where, and why; and whether he had advised other noblemen to build up a similar body of retainers.! Under these conditions the only hope of controlling the Highland Zone lay in destroying, weakening, or removing the great magnates of the area. In the north Henry VII had been content to let sleeping dogs lie, and it was not till the 1530’s that a strong Council of the

North was set up at York to bring the area under proper control. To make this policy work, Henry VII had to destroy the Percys, tS. Haynes, Burghley Papers, 1740, pp. 79-82, 85, 105-6.

POWER 251 earls of Northumberland, the greatest of the northern aristocrats. He attainted the 6th Earl’s brother and heir, then bullied the Earl himself into bequeathing his estates to the Crown. But this position could not be maintained, and the property was restored by Mary. When the need to defend the North against the Scots arose in 1557, responsibility rested entirely in the hands of the northern magnates, the Earls of Shrewsbury, Northumberland, Westmorland, and Derby, Lords Wharton, Eure, and Dacre of the North. Lord Scrope, who was ignored in the crisis, complained bitterly of his exclusion.

Elizabeth, however, was distrustful of these independent magnates, the more so since their loyalty to the Anglican settlement was highly suspect. In 1565 Mary Queen of Scots was openly expressing her hope of winning over all the great magnates north of the Trent —the earls of Derby, Shrewsbury, Northumberland, Westmorland,

and Cumberland—since she believed that they were all ‘of the owlde telygyon’. Faced with this potential threat to her throne, Elizabeth had no alternative other than to undermine their position.

She deprived the Earl of Northumberland of the Wardenship of the Middle March, deliberately built up a rival gentry clientele under his enemy Sit John Forster, and put a southerner of proved loyalty, Lord Hunsdon, in charge of Berwick and the East Marches. Many of the northern gentry began to acquire the habit of looking

south to London for favour and advancement, and to see positive advantages in defying the Percys. Exasperated by such studied neglect the Earl and his friends exploded into rebellion in 1569, the last episode in 500 years of protest by the Highland Zone against the interference of London. It was compacted of rivalries among the nobility of the north, the ‘olde good-wyll of the people, deepe-graftyd in their harts, to their nobles and gentlemen’, fidelity to the Catholic religion, the misery of a decaying pastoral area harried and made desolate by border raiding, and temporaty unemployment in the clothing industry of the West Riding due to a stoppage of trade with the Low Countries. In consequence it is almost impossible to isolate maintenance and tenant loyalty to the landlord from these other elements in causing many thousands in Durham, Notthumberland, and Richmondshire

to throw in their lot with the rebel lords. Lord Hunsdon reported at the time that at any rate in Northumberland men still ‘knew no other Prince but a Percy’, and the rallying of the yeomanry and

252 POWER

gentry was probably inspired more by traditional loyalty than by traditional faith.' But after some hesitation the rebels decided to make religion the chief plank of their programme, resentment at

the upstart councillors in London being pushed into the background, and those on the spot certainly thought that Catholicism was the prime motive for the massive if ephemeral support of the lower classes.

Even this combination of motives, however, could not prevent the speedy disintegration of the army at the first sign of opposition, while down in Norfolk hardly a tenant stirred to help their lord, the Duke of Norfolk. It is nevertheless a measure of Elizabeth’s sense of insecurity that she ordered the summary execution by hanging of over 700 of the rank and file of the rebels, instructions which were happily frustrated by the commanders on the spot.? Compared with the savage reactions of Elizabeth and Burghley, James II and Judge Jeffreys acted with compassion and restraint in their handling of the Monmouth Rebellion. The North was taught

a lesson which it did not forget. Never again would the cry ‘A Percy, A Percy’, ‘A Dacre, A Dacte’ evoke a Pavlovian response of unthinking loyalty among the gentry and peasantry of the North.

To ensure that the victory was final, energetic measures were taken to weaken the influence of the local aristocracy. The earls of Northumberland were henceforth confined to Sussex, and as a result the Percy clientage withered onthe vine. Such ties of loyalty as might

have persisted among their tenants were finally snapped by the ruthless raising of tents and fines carried out by the oth Earl from his prison in the Tower in the early seventeenth century. The Nevilles, earls of Westmorland, who had already been excluded from centtal and local offices, wete now exiled and lost all their estates, never to be restored. The Cliffords, earls of Cumberland, were tamed by bringing the 3rd Earl south to be brought up as a ward of the puritan Francis Earl of Bedford. He was thus convetted to protestantism, and his aggressive instincts were channelled

into harmless jousts in the tiltyard and privateering adventures at sea. By 1600 the Earl was no more to his tenants than an absentee landlord whose rare appearances in their midst meant nothing but a fresh rise in rents and fines. The last Lord Lumley moved south I Op. cit., p. 446. Talbot D passim. R. R. Reid, ‘The Rebellion of the Earls’, TRHS, 2nd ser., xx, 1906, p. 176. 7 N. Williams, op. cit., pp. 74-75. H. B. McCall, “The Rising in the North’, Yorks. Arch. J. Xvili, 1904-5.

POWER 253 of his own accord, the better to savour the fantastic splendours of

Nonesuch Palace, and to pursue the humane pursuits of book collecting and connoisseutship. The Dacre estates, which had been

swallowed up by the Howards, were sequestered by Elizabeth after the attainder of Francis Dacre in 1569 and the Duke of Norfolk

in 1572. This successfully disposed of all but two of the old leading families, and Elizabeth took care that no new families were given large land grants in the north, and that none of the greater squires was elevated to the peerage. Personal extravagance and biological accident dealt effectively with the last two northern magnates, the Stanleys, earls of Derby, and the Talbots, earls of Shrewsbury, of whom the former was uncrowned king of Lancashire, and the latter dominated a wide swathe of territory from Yorkshire across Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Staffordshire, down into Shropshire and Herefordshire. ! Both families failed in the direct male line, leaving heavy debts and three heiresses behind them; the Stanley estates were either sold or pattitioned soon after 1594 and the Talbot estates soon after 1618.

It is noticeable that in both cases the Crown did all it could to

facilitate dismemberment. This only left the lesser peers, the Scropes,

the Darcys, the Whartons, the Eures, and the Ogles, who were comfortably and harmlessly occupied in the administrative routines

of the Council of the North. Up to 1572 the Council had been headed by loyal local magnates or their friends and allies like Thomas Earl of Sussex, but the latter’s replacement by Henry Earl

of Huntingdon in that year marked the triumph of London. Huntingdon was an outsider with no local ties, no local influence, no local property holdings, no local friends, a man who depended for his authority upon the dignity of his office and the support of the Queen and Privy Council. By the time of the accession of James,

the North was in the safe hands of carpet-baggers, bureaucrats, lawyets, and loyal local landowners of medium rank. The story is the same for Wales and the Welsh borders, from which the most serious threats to royal authority had sprung throughout the Middle Ages. The power of the last great border magnate had been broken by the execution of Edward Duke of Buckingham in 1521, an act of decisive importance in English history since Buckingham was a man of towering strength, the like of which was never to be seen again. With his strategically 1 Talbot G, H, M passim.

254 POWER located castles, his masses of retainers, his widespread territorial possessions, his carefully cultivated patronage of the local gentry (ovet 130 of whom were entertained to dinner at Thornbury on feast days), his huge rent-roll, his powerful connexions by marriage, and his royal lineage, he was too formidable to be allowed to live. His proposal in 1517 for a double marriage of his children with those of the Earl of Shrewsbury would have sealed an alliance of two of

the greatest noblemen of the realm before whom even Henry VII himself might have trembled.! But Shrewsbury was too cautious to embark upon so tash a scheme, and four yeats later the Duke’s head was seveted from his body on Tower Hill. The elimination of Buckingham was no more than an essential preliminary to the task of taming Wales and the Marches. A few

years later the gross tyranny and corruption of the and Earl of Worcester and his Herbert henchmen in South Wales and the borders forced the government to undertake a major administrative

reform. The marcher franchises were destroyed and the Council of Wales set up in the 1530’s as an instrument dominated by English

matcher gentry to bring the Welsh up to English standards of civilization and good order. After these revolutionary steps there was little trouble from the Welsh border magnates. Of the great landowners of Tudor Wales, the Herberts were always in Court and loyal servants of the Crown, and anyway were now absentee landlords with their home base at Wilton, near Salisbury. A great landowner in Glamorgan in his own right, the 1st Earl of Pembroke

had his authority considerably augmented by the benevolent pattonage of the Tudors. Constable of the castles of Brecknock, Dinas,

Aberystwyth, and Montgomery, Steward of extensive lands in Monmouthshire, Denbighshire, and Montgomety, the 1st Earl was

a power to be teckoned with in early Elizabethan Wales, but a power which was largely dependent on royal favour and which was exercised 2” absentia.”

As for the Somersets, earls of Worcester, who had dominated South Wales in the early sixteenth century, they still lived in medieval state behind moats and portcullises at Raglan Castle. But the 4th Earl was a devoted couttier, and the 3rd and 5th earls were indolent, unambitious men who caused no trouble to anyone. The Earl of Leicester’s hold on North Wales in the 1570’s and 1580's

2 H/S 98, f. 169. | t Arch, xxv, 1834, p. 321. Talbot P, ff, 11-13.

POWER 255 was short-lived, and anyway was used mote to raise money than to make friends and influence people. _ There can be little doubt, however, that for a time in the 1590’s the 2nd Earl of Essex lorded it over a large area of Wales and the Marches. The Essex Revolt of 1601 was essentially a metropolitan affair, an episode in a faction fight between two groups of courtiers for control of the Queen’s purse and person. Friendship, affinity, loyalty in arms in military campaigns, all played their part in attracting support for so rash and hopeless a venture. In the Devereux stronghold of Wales the revolt was intimately linked to local clientage controlled and directed for the Earl by his steward, the able and scheming Sir Gelli Meyrick. Had the revolt in London achieved even momentary success, it might have lit the fuse for

a violent explosion in South Wales and Denbighshire, as the Vaughans and the Salusburys of Rug took bloody revenge upon their rivals in local government.! As it was, however, the London

end of the conspiracy collapsed in a matter of hours and this possibility was never put to the test.

The Essex Revolt and the Main Plot two years later were the last occasions on which a disgruntled nobleman took up arms for no higher purpose than to secure what he judged to be his due. As a method of conducting party politics, armed rebellion was by now

a thing of the past. Twenty-five years later Buckingham aroused hatreds far deeper and more widespread than those inspired by Cecil in 1600-3, but the mere idea of armed revolt against the favourite was now unthinkable. Impeachment had become the orthodox weapon of revenge, and Buckingham’s assassination owed

nothing to aristocratic conspiracy. If some dissatisfied noblemen worked off personal spleen against the Crown in the crisis of 1640-2

by supporting Pym and the Commons, they were given their opportunity by, and took refuge behind, deep-seated political and religious grievances.

These last, hopeless, gestures of aristocratic rebellion were at bottom no more than dramatic episodes in the struggle by the Crown to establish its unimpeded control over local administration. Understanding of Tudor problems and Tudor policies is impossible unless it is realized that the traditional view of their reliance upon I P, Williams, op. cit., p. 119. D. Mathew, The Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe, 1933, chs. xviii, xx, xxi. A. H. Dodd, ‘North Wales in the Essex Revolt’, EHR, lix, 1944. BM Harl. MSS. 6996/67; 6997/38; 6998/104.

256 POWER the lesser landowning classes is partly misconceived. Up to about 1570 the Tudors were obliged to govern as had medieval kings before them, mainly with the co-operation of the aristocracy. Only in the later years of Elizabeth did there occur a decisive shift to dependence on the squirearchy and gentry. Edward IV had played off the Percys and Nevilles in the north and the Bourchiers and de Vertes in Essex. He had depended on Lord Stanley to secure the north-west, Lord Hastings the Midlands, and Sir William Herbert South Wales.?

When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, nearly a hundred yeats later, things were not very different, for the achievements of Henry VIII had been largely undone since 1547. Bedford ruled in the south-west, Pembroke in Wales and Wiltshire, Arundel in Sussex, Norfolk in East Anglia, Huntingdon in the north Midlands, Clinton in Lincolnshire, Derby in the north-west, Shrewsbury and Northumberland in the north-east. The régime depended on the loyalty of this handful of peers, and where no such magnate was in residence there was cause fot anxiety. The Bishop of Durham warned Sir William Cecil: “The Earl of Westmerland lies not here, the Lord Eute is of no great power, the bishop is not able as he is wont, who is there then to be afraid of? I am afraid to think what may follow if it be not foreseen.’ As soon as the strong hand of the Duke was removed by execution in 1572, the gentry of Norfolk dissolved into warring factions, to the grave prejudice of good otder and efficient government. For the first twenty years of her reign Elizabeth was obliged to rely on the loyalty of these potentates

and their influence over the gentry to hold the country together, and it was of this early Elizabethan period that the Marquis of Newcastle should have been thinking when two generations later he

spoke nostalgically of a time, allegedly within his memory, when ‘whatt soever business his Majestie had inanye Countie in Englande, or in all Englande, itt was but speakinge to Shrewsburye or Darbye & such greate men & itt was done with ease and fasiletye’.

Whether conscious or not, the ultimate objective of Elizabethan policy was the substitution of royal power in alliance with lesser

landowners for this dependence on the over-mighty subject. At Court and throughout the central administration, Elizabeth spent her reign walking the tight-rope, balancing one noble faction off 1 J. R. Lander, “Council, Administration, and Councillors, 1461-1485’, BLHR, xxxii, 1959, P. 154.

POWER 257 against another, and the Essex Revolt was the only occasion in forty years when the royal acrobat slipped. “The principall note of her raigne’, remarked Naunton, ‘will be that she ruled much by faction and parties, which she her selfe both made, upheld, and weakned as her owne great judgement advised.’ This balancing of forces gave the Queen the whip hand at Court and in the Privy Council; locally, her tactics on the death of every magnate were to distribute his offices among lesser men. Neither the 2nd Earl of Pembroke nor the roth Earl of Shrewsbury found it possible to inherit the power and influence of his father. Two foreigners, Sussex and Huntingdon, became Lords President of the North in 1568 and 1572, and a foreigner, Eure, replaced the Herberts and Sydneys as Lord President of Wales in 1607. By 1600 the great territorial empires of the mid-sixteenth century were things of the past: increasing royal interference, discriminatory

use of royal patronage, and the growing ambition of the squireatchy had combined to undermine their foundations. Sheriffs, ].P.s, and commissioners wete all appointed in London, and slowly came to look as much to the Crown as to the local magnates for their advancement. The authority of the magnate over the local gentry was now coming to depend less upon his territorial power than upon his influence in London. The gentry were still content to look after an earl’s interests in the countryside, but only if in return he could get them offices and favours at Court and if he could put effective pressure on the judges. As Newcastle pointed out, if substantial knights were willing to wear Gilbert Earl of Shtewsbury’s livery, it was only because of ‘his power to setve them both in Courte & Westminster Hall, to bee their solisiter’.! These conditions mark the opening of a new era in the history of English politics, an era whose beginnings must be dated to some time in the reign of Elizabeth. V. THE USES OF INFLUENCE

In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the great nobles dominated politics and local government by their command over their tenants, by their nucleus of armed followers, and by their command over the retained gentry who were drawn into their orbit by

the need for protection and patronage in dangerous times. In the

821314 5

1 The Eagle, xxix, 1908, p. 4. A. H. Smith, The Elizabethan Gentry of Norfolk (London, Ph.D. thesis), 1959. Strong, p. 212, Naunton, p. 8. Barnes, op. cit., p. 42.

258 POWER eighteenth century these great nobles were still very influential in politics and local government thanks to the patronage that went

with a substantial holding of land, to the power of the purse to buy electoral votes, and to mobilization of the resources of public office effectively monopolized by the Whig oligarchy. The reign of

Elizabeth saw a transitional stage in this process, during which political contests, when they occurred, still tended to take on overtones of medieval violence in the remoter areas of the country. It is from Wales in 1585 that there comes the most explicit statement of the connexion between landholding, personal service, and political obedience. A lease made by John Edwards of Chirk, a Welsh _ tecusant, forbade the tenant to wear the badge or livery of any other nobleman or gentleman without his landlord’s permission, and imposed upon him the obligation to vote in elections for his landlord or his landlord’s nominee. A hundred years later such conditions had disappeared, and the eighteenth-century ‘connexion’ was more personal, more reliant on crown support, mote dependent on the subtle arts of management and the simple techniques of corruption, more liable to sudden—

if tempotrary—collapse in gusts of public indignation over teal issues like Wilkes or the American War. It was none the less one of the most important features of English political life before the nineteenth century. When in 1695 Lord Chandos told Robert Harley that he ‘was for neighbourhood, friendship, and relation’ he perfectly expressed those elements upon which aristocratic influence depended and which were only destroyed by the tise of the party political machines and the extension of the franchise in the nineteenth centutry.! The manner in which the nobles were induced and obliged to abandon the threat and actuality of violence as a means of control has now been described, and it remains briefly to examine how successful they were in creating a new network of influence upon the ruins of the old mixed system of force, authority, and persuasion.

At the same time as they were being weaned from violence, the

influence of noblemen over county elections was being automatically reduced by the shrinking of their territorial holdings. To

the extent that land was passing out of their hands into those of lesser landowning groups, their influence over county elections was

propottionately reduced. Fewer manors meant fewer freeholders | BAR, lxv, 1950, p. 222. Huntington Library Quarterly, xxiii, 1959-Go, p. 142.

POWER 259 whose opinions could be influenced, and therefore fewer votes when it came to the push. Sir Robert Sydney, future Earl of Leicester, was

strongly advised to hold on to his property ‘for by it you shalbe evet able to have many freeholders at your command, which in a mans own cowntrey is specially to be regarded’. The manner in which such freeholders could be manipulated even as late as the 1620’s is well illustrated by the peremptory marching orders issued by the 2nd Earl of Salisbury’s secretary to his Hertfordshire agent in 1624. ‘Storie, it is my lord’s pleasure that you speake with all the freeholders within the mannors of Hoddesdon, Baas, and Geddings

and the Hundred of Broughin and Hertford: and lett them knowe that he would have them nowe at the election of the Knights of the Shire to be sure to be at it and to give their voyces furst for Sir

Charles Morisone and next for Mr William Litton, whome his Lordshipp intendes to be Knights of the Shire.”! It was the inexorable shift to economic rents in the early seventeenth century which was probably the most fatal blow of all, for it undermined the loyalty of tenants on the property which was retained. Landlord-tenant relationships never became wholly dominated by the ethos of the market-place, and ties of sentiment lasted well into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the initial bitterness of swallowing the pill of economic rents had worn off, there were still heart-strings as well as purse-strings upon which a

ereat nobleman could pull in time of need. But there can be no doubt that the influence of a nobleman over his tenants was declining, especially in the first years of the new economic relationship; his influence over his freeholders was weakening as they became alive to political issues and increasingly haunted by problems of teligion; his influence in the country was weakening as his

territorial possessions conttacted and as he spent mote time in London; and his leadership of the greater gentry was crumbling as they acquired more education, more administrative experience, and mote grievances. The only compensating factot was the creation of the office of

Lord Lieutenant, which gave the local nobleman control of the militia, and enabled him to manipulate musters and war-taxation to help his friends and penalize his enemies. But appointment to this office depended as much on court favour as on local influence, 1 Collins, ii, p. 157. L. Stone, “The Electoral Influence of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury, 1614-68’, EHR, lxxi, 1956, p. 386.

260 POWER few if any peers could reckon on it as of right, and in any case executive authority rested with the gentry in their capacity as deputy lieutenants. Thanks to extensive territorial possessions, a spreading connexion of influential relatives, and the acquisition of a host of local offices at the disposal of the Crown (including the Lord Lieutenancy), it was possible for the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon

in the late sixteenth century to run the borough and the county vittually as a private bailtwick. As long as he lived his will was unchallenged by any save the Crown itself, but as soon as he was dead, the power of the Hastings began to crumble. He was an Flizabethan, not an Early Stuart phenomenon, and even he relied on royal support to maintain his position.! If aristocratic control of county elections was weakening between 1540 and 1640, the same petiod saw two developments which were to lay the foundations of the eighteenth-century patronage system.

In the first place the distribution of monastic estates meant the acquisition by the nobility of a very large number of advowsons and lay rectories. Naturally enough it was the leading beneficiaries

of this share-out of the 1540’s who came off best, the Earl of Pembroke controlling as many as 38 livings in 1575, the Earl of Dorset 39 in about 1625, and the Earl of Warwick at least 24 in 1632. In the 1630’s, 44 livings in Northamptonshire were in the gift of the aristocracy, and 71 out of 1,121 in the diocese of Norwich,

of which 30 were held by the Howard family alone. Of course the bulk of the lay patrons were gentry, and the most important single patrons were the Crown, the bishops, and Oxford and Cambridge colleges.? Nevertheless, in 1640 the aristocracy could appoint the patson in between 5 and 10 per cent. of all parishes, and when after

the Restoration the Church enhanced its social standing and its political influence, this was to be a most useful source of patronage. Secondly, the sixteenth century saw a flood of seats in the House

of Commons put at the disposal of the nobility by a complaisant Crown. Between 1547 and 1584 the House was enlarged by the creation of no fewer than 119 new borough seats. Some, such as the Cornish seats, were presumably intended to strengthen royal control over parliament, but the great majority were merely an easy and ostensibly harmless way of gratifying an influential suitor seeking

Soc. Trans. xxxvi, 1960. |

1 C. Cross, “The Third Earl of Huntingdon and Elizabethan Leicestershire,’ Leics. Arch.

2 BM Harl. MSS. 7186, f. 3; 3959, f. 1. C. J. Phillips, op. cit. i, pp. 375-6. Bodl MSS, Top. Northants. C 37, pp. 157-67; Tanner MSS. 178.

POWER 261 an extension of his private patronage. If the Tudors ever stopped to consider the political consequences of their action, they presumably calculated that a courtier could be relied on to nominate supporters of official policies, and that mere tradesmen would not dare to challenge the royal will. But there was no guarantee that the son and heir of the courtier would take the same view, nor that the electorate would continue meekly to accept these high-handed directives. The full extent of the political patronage exercised by the peerage is still not clear, but the work of Sir John Neale has revealed enough

to show how pervasive it was in Elizabethan England. The Earl of Rutland had influence over the county elections of Nottinghamshire and more or less undisputed control of both seats at East Retford and one each at Lincoln, Nottingham, and Grantham. The Earl of Huntingdon had the nomination of one seat at Christchurch, Hants, and strove for a second, while his influence pressed heavily on the corporation of Leicester. At various times the Earl of Pembroke seems to have controlled both seats at Wilton and Old Sarum, and one each at Salisbury, Melcombe Regis, Chippenham, and possibly Calne and Devizes. Before his fall in 1571 the Duke of Norfolk had the nomination of eleven or twelve seats; the Earl of Bedford had about the same number. The degree of control exercised by these magnates over the boroughs varied from the

absolute and arrogant mastery of Pembroke over the village

wortthies of Wilton to the delicate exercise of tact and influence that was needed to handle substantial corporations like those of Lincoln

ot Salisbury. The number of Commons seats more or less at the disposal of the peerage in their private capacities in the midElizabethan period is not precisely known, but it may have been as much as a fifth of the total. In addition, court peers who were Wardens of the Cinque Ports, Captains of the Isle of Wight, and Chancellors of the Duchies of Lancaster or Cornwall exercised wide influence by virtue of their office—five seats for the Cinque Ports,

thtee or more for the Isle of Wight, and thirteen for Lancaster! Finally there was the patronage both offered to and sought by the great court favourites like Leicester, the Cecils, and Essex. As the struggle for power at Court intensified in the 1590’s, both Cecil and Essex began spreading their net wider and wider, sucking into the battle all with hopes and ambitions at Court, overriding many t Neale, op. cit., passim.

262 POWER local loyalties and smashing many petty tyrannies in the process. Individuals found themselves forced to chose between two mutually suspicious and intolerant patrons. This polarization continued throughout the first decade of the reign of James, and probably teached its peak in the 1614 Parliament. Such little evidence as is available suggests that thereafter the influence of the Court magnates steadily weakened. The rise of vital political issues, constitutional, economic, and religious, aroused the

urban electorate and emboldened them to throw off their chains. By the middle 1620’s it was becoming hard for a courtier to get a nomination, and hard for a magnate, whether in or out of Court,

to maintain his old pre-eminence in local elections. Authority tended

to pass either to the urban oligarchies themselves, or mote commonly to local gentry, and particularly to those with a reputation for radical opinions. Thus the influence of first Bacon and then the 2nd Earl of Salisbury at St. Albans shrank from both seats in 1621 to one in 1625 to none at all in 1640. At Lincoln the half-century

control of the earls of Rutland over one of the two seats was broken in 1628: official patronage, like that of the Captain of the Isle of Wight over Yarmouth, Newtown, and Newport, or that of

the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster over Hertford, also crumbled in the 1620’s. But the final débacle came in 1640 when the high tide of political passion broke the dykes of clientage and temporarily engulfed the ancient traditions of aristocratic contcol and influence. The Earl of Holland was as powerless at Reading as was Lord Finch at Cambridge; Salisbury was ignored at St. Albans, Suffolk was rebuffed at Dorchester, Paget failed at Great Marlow. The Court was ruined and discredited, and by too close association with it the aristocracy was politically disctedited too. Though their numbers had doubled in the previous decades, it is doubtful whether on this occasion they effectively influenced more than 10 per cent.

of elections. A year later salt was ostentatiously rubbed into the wounds when the Commons ordeted boroughs to ignore the contents of all letters from peers, and to report them to the House for investigation.! At this, the lowest point in aristocratic influence over elections, there were visible the first hints of the secret weapon which was to 1 J. W. F. Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln, Cambridge, 1956, pp. 51-73, 120. VCH Wilss. v, p. 116. Bamford, p. 144. Stone, op. cit. M. F. Keeler, The Long Parliament, Philadelphia, 1954,

PP. oe ot Putchins, ii, p. 357. W. H. Coates, Diary of Sir Simonds D’ Ewes, New Haven, 1942,

POWER 263 prove so effective in quelling these disturbing signs of electoral independence. In the 1640 election for the first time candidates resorted to really lavish entertainment as an inducement to the electorate. Candidates for shire elections spent in hundreds of pounds, candidates for boroughs in tens, and if such sums were still within the means of the gentry, there were already signs that the longer purses of the nobility would eventually prevail. This could

not happen, however, till costs rose from hundreds to thousands of pounds, as they did in the late seventeenth century when votes were sold for cash. In 1640 inducements were limited to food and drink. At Abingdon Sir George Stonehouse of Radley ‘prevayled by his beefe, bacon & bag pudding, & by permitting as many of

them as would, to be drunke at his charge’. So long as these telatively unsophisticated conditions persisted, the greater gentry

of the locality were more than a match for either the county magnate or the politician from the Court. VI. CONCLUSION

Many forces converged to remove at last the centuries-old danger

of aristocratic violence, but the most important single factor was

the shrinkage both in numbers and in scale of the over-mighty subjects of the Crown. This decline in its turn had many causes, partly economic, partly legal, partly psychological, which have already been set out at length, but there can be little doubt that the action of the Crown was of vital significance. By occasional executions and irreversible attainders and by refraining from building up new landed families to replace those which died out, the Tudors succeeded in reducing the numbers of great territorial landlords.

By 1620 there was left only one of the handful of families who dominated late-fifteenth-century society and politics. The Beauforts, the Nevills earls of Warwick, and the Hollands were destroyed by

the Wars of the Roses, the de la Poles, Plantagenets, Courtenays, and Staffords were eliminated by relentless persecution by the Early

Tudors; the Beauchamps, Mowbrays, and Fitzalans died out. By the accession of Elizabeth the surviving branches of the Nevilles were only a shadow of their former selves, and the most dangerous of them, Westmorland, was exiled after the rebellion of 1569. The Stanleys’ hold on Lancashire was broken by sales to pay debts and 1 Stone, op. cit. HMC Portland MSS. iii, p. 66. HMC Cowper MSS, iii, pp. 138-41. Keeler, Op. cit., p. 352.

264 POWER by division among heirs general after 1594, and the Talbots’ grip on Nottinghamshire and the West Riding was loosened by the same means after 1616. The gteat Vere estate in Essex was sold up by the

extravagant 17th Earl, the power of the Percys in the north was sapped by their confinement to the home counties and conversion into grasping absentee landlords. Only the Howards survived, and they were tame enough. After 1572 there was not a duke in the country until the revival of the title for Richmond and Buckingham by James I.

Those great families which survived found that their habits of spending were causing a contraction of their territorial possessions, which in time had far-reaching affects on their authority. As late as 1845 the 3rd Earl Fitzwilliam was reminding the 6th Duke of Devonshire that ‘the alienation of one of the great masses of your landed property . . . cannot fail to make a sensible inroad upon your influence and upon the position you hold in the great national community’.t The decline in the number of families holding some 7o manors or more from 18 out of 62 in 1559 to 6 out of 121 in 1641 is not very significant in terms of real income; in terms of influence,

however, it would be difficult to deny its importance.

Secondly, there was a change in men’s ideas of loyalty. The influence of the nobles over client gentry and tenantry was being weakened by their increasing absenteeism due to attendance at Court, and by the shift to economic rents which severely reduced the service element in landlord—tenant relationships. Tudor monatchy and the Price Revolution were both working to the same end. The key to early- and mid-sixteenth century society is to be found

in the word ‘manred’, meaning control over persons for military setvice, a word which, significantly enough, had disappeared from the English language by the middle of the seventeenth century. Its place in the scale of aristocratic values was taken by rent, even rack-

rent. Semi-feudal potentates from the highland zone, an earl of Northumberland or Westmorland, were as anachronistic in the England of Elizabeth I as was El Glaoui of Marrakesh in the Magrteb of the mid-twentieth century. The all-pervading influence

of the central government was seeping steadily into the remoter areas, subsuming local loyalties under allegiance to itself, wearing down the recalcitrant by administrative and legal pressure, and cowing the rebellious by the sheer scale of its resources. The growth 1 Quoted in J. Ee. Hist. xi, 1951, p. 17.

POWER 265 of religious enthusiasm was leading men to wonder if God was not a better master than an earl. In the midst of a fierce quarrel with the Earl of Huntingdon in 1628, Sir Henry Shirley gave voice to this

feeling by asserting that ‘he cared not for any lord in England, except the Lord of Hosts’. In time such an attitude undermined the

position of the King himself, and by 1664 a tutor in a noble household was teaching that a gentleman’s ‘highest ambition is to be a favourite in the Court of Heaven’.! To begin with, however,

putitanism was a powerful solvent of subordinate loyalties and thus temporarily strengthened the hand of the Crown. Thirdly, the nobility themselves were losing the military capacity to challenge their sovereign, and the technical capacity for leader-

ship in war. As armies grew in size with the domination of the field by the infantry pikemen and as the technical services like pioneers and ordnance increased in importance, war ceased to be an exciting chevauchée led by high-spirited young men out for a lark.

Now that small-arms had been invented, strength, courage, and skill on horseback were no longer any protection against sudden and ignominious death. War was no fun any mote, and the tiltyard at Westminster Palace had to serve as a substitute for the fields of Crécy and Agincourt. A military commander had now to be an expert in logistics, in transport and victualling, in engineering and administration. The nobility were ill-adapted to such a change, which in any case deprived war of most of its aristocratic glamour.

Some European noblemen, an Alva or a Parma, learned the new trade and turned themselves into highly skilled professionals. But in England it was knights and younger sons like Sir Roger Williams, Sit Horace Vere, or Sir Edward Cecil who underwent the laborious training necessary for military command under the new conditions

of warfare. The nobility now cultivated their gardens or hung

about the Coutt.

From this point of view, as from so many others, the period from 1560 to 1640 is one of transition. In the Middle Ages and the early sixteenth century the nobles had been the natural officers of any army. Wolsey had been told in 15 21 that the King ‘cannot with his honor send an army out of his realm under any captain lower than an earl’, and this notion persisted into the seventeenth century I Nichols, iii, p. 777, n. 2. Clement Ellis, Gentile Sinner, 1664, p. 106. See W. L. Ustick, ‘Changing Ideals of Aristocratic Character and Conduct in seventeenth century England’, Modern Philology, xxx, 1932-3.

266 POWER and beyond. It was Lord Howard of Effingham, not Drake, who commanded the English fleet against the Armada, the Earl of Leicester who led the expedition to the Low Countries, the Earl of Essex the siege of Rouen and the attack on Cadiz, the Duke of Buckingham the expedition against the Ile de Ré. Impoverished peers like Henry Earl of Oxford and Edward Lord Cromwell took to military service as a professional career, younger sons like Lord Vere of Tilbury and Viscount Wimbledon earned their peetages by service in the field; idle bachelors like Lord Craven served in foreign armies to beguile the time, and every outbreak of war saw a tush of nobles for posts as colonels and generals in the army. Already, however, these were exceptions to the rule. Between 1552 and 1642 England enjoyed several prolonged periods of peace, and the opportunities for military service were consequently sharply

reduced. About three-quarters of the peerage—which means vittually every able-bodied adult peer—had seen service in the wars of the 1540's, but by 1576 only one peer in four had had any military experience.! In the early seventeenth century only about one peer in five had seen action, and the proportion both fit and experienced in 1642 was even smaller. One of the reasons why king Charles lost the Civil War is that the English aristocracy no longer knew how to fight. If the Earl of Newcastle had had the professional expertise of Sir Ralph Hopton, it might have been a very

different story.

Fourthly, the nobility were losing their nerve. As their utility in war declined, they tried to protect their position by a romantic and artificial revival of the chivalric ideal, expressed in literature by Malory’s Arthurian legends, by Lord Bernets’s translation of Froissart, and by Stephen Hawes’s Ihe Pastime of Pleasure. ‘These calls for a spiritual regeneration in military prowess to justify social and economic privilege were doomed to failure in the face of technical

changes in wat and the revolution in concepts of duty. Reformers like Roger Ascham bitterly attacked Maloty for exalting adultery in bed and murder in the battlefield.2 The advent of the county muster and the trained band destroyed the concept of a military élite, and the nobility and gentry turned instead to royal administra-

tion in the shires. As their military power ebbed they began to 1Le@PH VI, 1m, ii, 1454. H. Miller, The Early Tudor Peerage (London M.A. thesis), 1950, p. 181. CSPD, 1679-23, p. 1593 162j-J, pp. 281, 381-2. BM Lansd. MSS. 683. 2 A. B. Ferguson, The Indian Summer of English Chivalry, Durham, N.C., 1960, passim.

POWER 267 doubt their capacity and duty to act as self-appointed watchdogs over royal policies. They were slowly discouraged from keeping either armed body-

guards or numerous liveried retainers, their castles fell into ruins, their military equipment rusted in their armouries. Like the rest of the population, they were deeply affected by the heavy barrage of propaganda from pulpit and printing-press on the subject of the necessity of loyalty to the sovereign. The Homily on Obedience of 1547 was otdered to be read frequently in all the churches of the land—and no doubt was—and the rebellion of 1569 was the signal for a mote intensive effort to inculcate the doctrine of absolute obedience to the Magistrate. Elizabeth was extolled as God’s Lieutenant on earth, and rebellion castigated as a grievous sin, as contrary to the natural law of subjection to superior authority, as a grave threat to human happiness and prosperity, and as doomed to failure anyway, since contrary to God’s will. On the periphery of these arguments there lurked a crude nationalism: If that you sticke together as you ought, This little yle may set the world at nought,

urged one of the propaganda pieces put out on the occasion of the

1569 tebellion. The divine right of kings, passive obedience, national feeling, were all devices used by the Elizabethans to secure

loyalty to the throne. By the end of the century rebellion was becoming not merely very chancy, but also very disreputable, and

it is not surprising to find that in 1601 Southampton had to be fortified by readings from Aristotle’s Pofties to nerve him for revolt.}

These doctrines wete particularly effective when allied with the widespread Calvinist theories of predestination and of the direct intervention of the Almighty in human affairs. The object of trebellion was to free the King from evil advisers. If it succeeded, it ptoved the justice of the cause; if it failed, this was clear evidence that the enterprise was contrary to the will of God. And so although

there were several aristocratic rebellions against the sovereign throughout the sixteenth century, not a single one of the defeated conspirators maintained the justice of his cause on the scaffold. Without exception they acknowledged themselves justly condemned to death for an offence against God and the King, and ¢- 1100. J. K. Lowers, Mirrors for Rebels, Berkeley, Cal., 1953, p. 78. Bodl Ashmole MSS. 1729,

268 POWER professed themselves the King’s good and loyal servants. These public expressions of devotion to the Moloch of the State—confessions curiously reminiscent of those pronounced in Stalinist treason trials—were not the result of torture, for a nobleman’s rank effectively protected him from racks and pincers. It is certainly pos-

sible that promises and threats about the disposal of the property and the treatment of the heirs may have played their part, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the main explanation of these abject confessions was a profound belief in the inviolable sanctity

of the state, to the preservation of which it was the moral and teligious duty of the defeated rebel to devote his last moments on eatth.! There was thus a failure of confidence as well as a failure of powet. Fifthly, and lastly, the nobility found themselves increasingly bound to the Crown by ties of fear and hope. The numerous acts of attainder of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were intended as much for threats of retribution in case of further disobedience as for punishments for past rebellion. Most families regained part or all of their land, now held on sufferance from the Crown.” Obligations

and recognizances for huge sums were freely used by Henry VII as blackmail weapons for good behaviour. The late Tudors allowed atrears of debt to pile up until the debtor became hopelessly entangled and dependent on the good pleasure of the sovereign for tespite or temission. Moreover, as the Court machine swelled in importance, so did the amount of gifts, offices, and honouts at its disposal, and those who wished to have a share in these benefits were well advised to display their loyalty and obedience to the Crown. Those families who were suspect, like the Howards or the Percys under Elizabeth, were frozen out of public life and denied access to the cornucopia of royal favours. “That wyche greves me ys

that . . . here Hyenes hardlye thynkes enye thynge well bestowyd apon me, be yt never so small’, grumbled the Duke of Norfolk in 1565.3 Loyal families, on the other hand, expected to be rewarded

for their devotion, and not infrequently were. As will be seen, between 1603 and 1641 James and Charles distributed among the peerage gifts and favours of every description which were worth at least £3 million in Jacobean money. tL. B. Smith, ‘English Treason T'rials in the Sixteenth Century’, J. Hist. Ideas, xv, 1954. 2 J. R. Lander, ‘Attainder and Forfeiture, 1453-1509’, Hist. J. iv, 1961. 3 Haynes, op. cit., p. 442.

POWER 269 The crucial victories of the Crown over the nobility were won between about 1570 and 1620. It was then that the great territorial empires were at last broken up, then that the massive bands of armed tfetainers were cut down to size, then that the nobility abandoned their age-old habits of casual violence, which now became the mark of dangerous eccentricity. It is noticeable that the more ferocious of the late Elizabethan and Jacobean peers, men like Oxford, Lincoln, Southampton, Grey of Wilton, or Cromwell, were usually at least third generation. Their aggressive and impulsive habits were inherited from the days of the Early Tudors or before, while the newly elevated peers of the Early Stuarts were in the main men of sobriety and restraint. The new sense of responsibility was affecting both old and new by the early years of the seventeenth century, and recorded acts of violence by the nobility declined sharply after 1600. If the doubling of the numbers of the peerage is taken into account, under Charles I such acts per peer per decade averaged only one-fifth of what they had been in the latter days of Elizabeth. The combined tally of violence and duels suggests that the chances of a peet’s being involved in some form of physical assault during an adult life-span of twenty years fell from about two

in three to two in ten.’ Private warfare and the blood feud were rapidly declining, and if baronial revolts continued to splutter into brief and increasingly ineffective life, by 1603 their day was done. Upper-class violence was far from dead in 1640, but it had at last been brought within manageable proportions, and was now largely canalized within the rigid formalities of the personal, private duel. As Sit Walter Ralegh put it, with only minor exaggeration: “The

Justices of Peace in England have opposed the injustices of war in England; the King’s writ runs over all; and the Great Seal of England with that of the next constables will serve the turn to affront the greatest lords in England that shall move against the King.’? A decisive step forward had been taken in bringing order and civility to English society. As a tesult, the outbreak of civil war in 1642 differed markedly from all previous uprisings. Before, earls had stocked their castles, summoned their retainers and tenants, and sallied forth at the head of their private armies, confident in their technical ability and matetial resources to conduct a campaign. In 1642 the war began with attempts to capture the county magazines and to assume T See Appendix XV. 2 Ralegh, i, p. 206,

270 POWER control of the trained bands, issues which were usually decided less by the whim of a great magnate than by the interests and affections of the majority of the leading county families. Although

noblemen still filled the highest posts in the armies, there was a desperate search for professional soldiers to stiffen the headquarters

staff, for the nobility in general no longer possessed the requisite experience. Although both sides had recourse to the issue of commissions to prominent supporters to raise their own troops—Newcastle’s Whitecoats, for example—the extensive use of the trained bands of the counties and the emergence of the New Model Army in 1644 showed the bankruptcy of the old military system. Henceforward the only hope of challenging the authority of the State was to lie in seizing some of its military stores and subotning part of its armed forces. Private enterprise was no longer adequate for the purpose.

PART TWO

GETTING AND SPENDING

BLANK PAGE

Vi

ESTATE MANAGEMENT You have the lease of two mannors come out next Christmasse; you may lay your tenants on the greater rack for it. J. MARSTON, The Malcontent, 111. 1.

I. INTRODUCTION

WHEN all is said and done, the foundation of aristocratic wealth,

power, and honour rested on the land. There have been many periods of English history in which little more was needed to look after this inheritance than the maintenance of an efhicient routine of checks and audits for the prevention of fraud. Any fool with minimal application to business could do the job reasonably well. ‘It requires no great sense, no parts, little or no sagacity or penetration, nothing but a very moderate degree of steadiness and clearness of

head’, remarked Lord Shelburne in the late eighteenth century. Such, however, was not the case between 1560 and 1640, for the times demanded ceaseless rethinking and initiative. Landlords now had to run, simply in order to stand still. Prices, and especially food prices, were rising fairly continuously, the Phelps-Brown index of consumables rather more than doubling over this etghty-year span.? Income from land had to be adjusted to keep pace, and this meant the introduction of radical changes in every aspect of estate manage-

ment. Secondly, this was a period of rapid growth of population and of economic output. More and more land was being brought under cultivation, towns, and particularly London, wete growing fast, mining and industrial activity were expanding. If landlords were to take advantage of these new oppottunities, they had to be alive to the possibilities and ready to risk money on their exploitation. The handling of these mote speculative enterprises is of a different order from straightforward administration of agricultural property, and discussion of them is postponed to the next chapter. t Lord Fitzmaurice, Life of William Earl of Shelburne, 1912, ii, p. 341. E. H. Phelps Brown and S. Hopkins, ‘Seven Centuries of Prices of Consumables, compared with Builders’ Wage-

821314 T

Rates’, Economica, N.S., xXili, 1956, p. 312-13.

274 ESTATE MANAGEMENT A third factor upsetting traditional patterns was the increasing tendency of peers to hang about in London instead of residing on — their estates. Many of them were becoming semi-absentee landlords,

and the shift of interest from manpower to income is in part a reflection of this change, coupled with the disappearance in the new

nation-state of the need and the desite for personal dependence. Finally, many peers found themselves in serious financial difficulties and thus had a powerful incentive to overhaul their estate adminis-

tration in order to increase their income. Change was not merely desirable; it was obligatory. II. ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS

Anyone who has read the hundreds of catalogues compiled by the National Register of Archives, who has examined some of the great body of material now collected in the County Record Offices, who has worked through the accumulated deposits of time of oldestablished families in their original settings in the muniment rooms

of country houses, cannot help being struck by the change that occurred between the early sixteenth and early seventeenth century. For the former period the records are few, scattered, imperfect, and

largely confined to muniments of title; for the latter they exist in almost embarrassing profusion, and are of many different kinds, even including that greatest rarety, private correspondence. - Why men suddenly began to preserve these records is not at all - clear. Many of the documents, particularly accounts of expenditure, can have had little or no practical value once they had served their immediate purpose of discharging the accountant of his respon-

sibility. This accumulation is the product of a literate, recordconscious society, increasingly obsessed with its own past, and turning more and mote to old parchment for illumination. Family histories, like those compiled by John Smyth of Nibley for the Berkeleys or Sir William Dugdale for the Hastings, were constructed

out of the mass of records stowed away in the muniment rooms of Berkeley Castle and Ashby de la Zouch. Muniments of title and records of leases and surveys wete now carefully looked after, since they were documents in regular use. Landlords came to realize that, in an age of confused land tenures and dubious copyhold rights, an

essential element in efficient estate management was the keeping of full records of title and tenure. The growth of litigation, and the

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 275 importance of written evidence in conducting suits in the conciliar courts, made men hang on to such ephemeral records as accounts. Who knew what might not one day come in useful? In any case there was little incentive to destroy, since there was no shortage of storage space in the great country houses in which these records wete kept. The inertia of subsequent generations meant that it was easier to let them lie than to destroy them, which explains the truly gigantic accumulations of families like the Percys, the Manners,

or the Cecils. Most of these collections of household and estate accounts were not sorted and catalogued until this century, which suggests that contemporaries were themselves very hazy as to just why they kept them. But it is not merely a case of more records being preserved; far morte were being compiled, partly to deal with necessary changes in estate management, partly to help line the pockets of lawyers, auditors, and their clerks, partly as a by-product of absentee landlordism, partly because the paper industry was making the raw material cheap and easy to come by. One of the most up-to-date and capable administrative organizations of the early seventeenth century was that of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury, a striking feature of which was a scrupulous attention

— to tecotd-keeping. In 1621-3 there was being compiled ‘a book of tenures for his lordshipp’ and ‘a book of the most parte of his Lordshippes estates’. In 1635 the auditor William Collins was transcribing an old survey of Cranborne on to parchment for its better preservation. Money was even spent on transcribing useful documents from the archives of the State. Between 1629 and 1632 Collins made tepeated searches in the records in the Tower and those of the Exchequer and the Augmentations Office in order to lay the foundations for fresh demands upon the tenantry. Nor were all these documents allowed to accumulate haphazardly in the muniment toom at Salisbury House. Collins spent the whole of the two long vacations

of 1633 and 1634 in sorting them out and arranging them; in 1636

mote papers were extracted from the Earl’s solicitor in London and in that year a handlist was drawn up as a guide to the whole collection.?

Once assembled and arranged, muniments of title had to be catefully preserved from theft by an enemy. John Smyth of Nibley has a circumstantial story of how the Earl of Leicester was enabled 1 H/A 160/9; Box S/7.

276 ESTATE MANAGEMENT to launch his attack upon part of Lord Berkeley’s inheritance in 1570 by getting a herald admitted on false pretences to the muniment room of Berkeley Castle, whence he stole some vital documents in the case. Again in the great battle between the heirs male

and the heits general of the Dacre inheritance, Lord William Howard of Naworth asserted that the Lowthers did not hesitate to steal important documents out of the Howard muniment room at

the Charterhouse. It is hardly surprising that, when auditors or agents proved untrustworthy, their masters did everything they could to lay hands on all documents still in their possession.? The records necessaty to the administration of a great estate in the early seventeenth century are at first sight bewildering in their complexity. First and foremost there were the muniments of title which gave legal proof of ownership. Owing to the failure to set up a central land registry and to the very confused nature of the land law after the Statutes of Uses and Wills of the 15 30’s, a drawerful of deeds and documents was necessary to ensure unencumbered possession of a single purchase. When in 1567 the Earl of Leicester

bought the manor of Wanstead from Lord Rich, seven substantial pieces of parchment were needed to secure his title: a licence of alienation; a lease and a release; a fine and a recovery; an indenture of bargain and sale; and a bond for performance of covenants. New men like Robert Earl of Leicester, Robert Earl of Salisbury, Robert Earl of Kingston, Sir Christopher Hatton, and Sir Edward Coke found it prudent to register the title deeds of their acquisitions in ptivate cartularies or catalogues for the information of posterity; old-established families merely filed away the documents themselves.? Secondly, there were the settlements, wills, trust deeds, and inventories of personal effects which governed the disposal of this property among children and relatives. The essential documents for the estate itself were the surveys, which measured and valued the property with a view to reletting,

and the counterparts of leases showing the terms of the current letting, which might be transcribed or abstracted into leasebooks. Court Rolls, which recorded details of copyhold tenure, were still I Smyth, ii, pp. 292-3. G. Ornsby, The Household Books of Lord William Howard of Naworth (Surtees Soc., LxvilI), 1878, pp. 380, 384. C 3/57/40. BM Loan MSS. 29/240 f. 69. HMC 6th Rep., App., p. 139. 2 L/Dudley XX. H/Box S/7. BM Eg. MSS. 3660 A and B (referring to a book of title deeds). W. O. Hassall, “The Books of Sir Christopher Hatton at Holkham’, The Library, June, 1950, p. 11. C. W. James, Chief Justice Coke, 1929, App. TI.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 277 carefully preserved, though they were by now of diminishing economic importance. Rentals showed how much was due from tenants each year and bailiff’s accounts of individual manors how much was actually collected. Declared accounts of particular receivers in the various geographical areas and of the receiver-general more or less complete the documentation concerning income from

land. Another great series of accounts dealt with expenditure. Some spending was shown on the discharge side of the various receivers’ accounts, more detailed itemization appearing in the accounts of the steward of the household, the gentleman of the horse, the groom of the chamber, the clerk of the kitchen, and the London agent. In addition there were liable to be lists of debts,

tradesmen’s bills, and various preliminary day books and final summaries which related to any or all of these accounts. Finally there were breving books of food consumed in the household from day to day, and accounts of the running of the home farm and other property under direct management.!

The documentary basis of estate management was not only increasing alarmingly in both the quantity compiled and the quantity preserved, it was also changing in its technical character.

It was written on paper tather than parchment, in books rather than in rolls, in English rather than in Latin, in arabic rather than in roman numetals. Deeds and most bailiffs’ accounts continued to be written on parchment for centuries, but paper was increasingly being used for the main accounts. By the early seventeenth century the most up-to-date estates, such as that of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury, wete being accounted for almost exclusively in paper books, parch-

ment tolls being altogether abandoned. The earls of Rutland adopted a compromise by which the declared accounts were in paper books, but were also transcribed on to parchment rolls for the record. These latter are evidently no more than vestigial relics of an out-dated system, for although they are signed by the auditor they are full of uncorrected errors of transcription. The teal audit was clearly done on the paper books, which were signed by the accountant. Rather more old-fashioned still were the accounts of 1 Examples of many of these accounts ate printed in G. R. Batho, The Household Papers of Henry Percy ninth Earl of Northumberland (Camden Soc., 31d set., xct11), 1962; and M. E. James,

Estate Accounts of the Earls of Northumberland, 1562-1637 (Surtees Soc., CLx1I1), 1955. For examples of muniments of title see W. West, Stboleography, 1615, and for an explanation of them R. B. Pugh, Antrobus Deeds before 1625 (Wilts. Arch. Soc., Record Branch, IID), 1947, pp. xxxiv-liii.

278 ESTATE MANAGEMENT the 9th Earl of Northumberland, which were engrossed not into books but into paper rolls. To Northumberland, as to Rutland, tolls were the traditional way of recording information, and one which should not lightly be discarded, whatever the inconvenience. In general, however, the latter half of the sixteenth centuty saw the effective shift from the roll to the book and from parchment to paper. The movement from Latin to English and from roman to arabic numerals took place rather later and was not complete by the middle

of the seventeenth century. Here again the only reason for conservatism must have been a mystical veneration for ancient forms which outweighed the dictates of efficiency. In the reign of Elizabeth, surveys and bailiffs’ accounts were almost always in Latin, and in some families on the eve of the Civil War Latin was the language even of the main receivet’s accounts. Both the Earl of Pembroke’s and the Earl of Suffolk’s accounts were still written in Latin in 1632-5, although the earls of Rutland, Northumberland, and Salisbury had long ago changed to English for all household and most estate accounts. Generally speaking, the more formal the account, the more likely it was to be in Latin; consequently it was rentals and other records concerning land which showed the greatest conservatism; accounts of expenditure, which were of little longterm significance, were the swiftest to move into the vernacular.! The parallel change from roman letters to arabic numerals was delayed by the ignorance of the new system displayed even by very

well-educated early Elizabethans. Lord Burghley, who as Lord Treasurer spent his days poring over figures, was never at home with arabic numerals. His economic papers are full of instances in which figures in memoranda supplied by his clerks are translated back into letters scribbled in the margin in his spidery hand. In general, the principle holds that the more formal the document, the

more likely is the preservation of the old system. ‘Make all the summes in lettres not in figures’ ordered Sir Thomas Brudenell in 1608 when commissioning a fait copy of his rental, the rough draft

of which may well have been in figures. For a long time arabic numerals were adopted only for date headings, all the rest of the account being in roman letters. Gradually, more and mote officials began to see the advantages of figures, an advantage that becomes 1 Wilton House, Pembroke MSS. Dorset R. O., Weld MSS. Box H/General 42. HMCR, iv. Batho, op. cit., p. xli. H/A passim. B/A passim.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 279 obvious when one discovers the very high proportion of contemporary accounts which ate incorrectly added up. Very occasionally, it is possible to trace the change in a single volume, such as the building accounts of Wadham College, Oxford, of 1610-13. The clerk began by confining arabic figures to the year and the days of

the month, then he used them for individual items, leaving the totals in roman letters, and finally he moved over altogether to arabic. Sometimes officials got into a fearful tangle attempting to erapple with the new system. Lord Spencer’s personal account book for 1612 contains such monstrous hybrids as “M 8° 4* xi! xviirs 39 ob’ (£1,892. 185. 34d.), and even as late as 1649 Lord Morley’s declaration of income reveals figures like pxv!! 108 84.

The degree and timing of the change-over evidently depended primarily upon the personal preference of the accountant concerned,

limited only by the conservatism of his master or his auditor, and the weight and solemnity of the information to be recorded. The household accounts of the 9th Earl of Northumberland continued to be mostly in letters, and although most of their working books were in figures, nearly all the declared accounts of the officers of the

eatls of Suffolk, Rutland, and Salisbury were kept in letters up to the Civil War. It was in the 1650’s that the final shift to figures took place, and by the Restoration only a few families like the Seymours still clung to the Latin tongue and roman letters for the final versions of their declared accounts.”

Despite these changes in form, the contents and purpose of accounts remained unaltered from the Middle Ages. The spread of double-entry book-keeping had not the slightest effect upon the landed classes, all of whose accounts continued to be arranged on the thirteenth-century charge-and-discharge system, designed not to strike a true balance of income and expenditure, but to calculate what was nominally due by the accountant.3 The object was the prevention of fraud, not the calculation of profit and loss. The

‘charge’ side of a receiver’s accounts included arrears from the 1 BM Lansd. MSS. passim. Northants. R.O., Brudenell MSS., O. XXII. 5. Wadham College MSS. 8/1A. Althorp ESP 13. SP 23/37, p. 6r. 2 Batho, op. cit., p. xli. Essex R.O., D/DBy M 162, 163. B/A 134-41, 316, 382. H/Box N/5-10; A 160/5—6, 157/3, 161/3, 48/1, 163/1, 140/1-6. Wilts. R.O., Swinton MSS. 38. 3 A, E. Levett, ‘The Financial Organisation of the Manor’, EcHR, i, 1927. A. Simpson, The Wealth of the Gentry, 1540-1640, Cambridge, 1961, ch. i.

280 ESTATE MANAGEMENT previous year’s account, composed of actual cash balances left on

his hands and money still due from bailiffs and tenants for the previous yeat or years. The main body of the ‘charge’ might be composed of the sums the accountant should have received during the year (which is certainly not what he did receive), the balance being accounted for at the foot of the ‘discharge’ side. Alternatively, it might be what the accountant actually received, the unpaid arrears

for the year being listed separately. In addition, the receiver accounted for a miscellaneous collection of ‘foreyn’ receipts, which

might include money from the sale of land and borrowing at interest from creditors. However it was arranged, therefore, the total ‘charge’ bore little relation to the full annual receipts from the estate.

On the ‘discharge’ side appeared the cash spent or imprested to other officers, and the money still owing by bailiffs, tenants, and

others for the current or the previous years. The result was a largely fictitious net balance to be carried overt into the next year, a figure which might be affected by a decision to write off some of the old arrears. The declared account is thus meaningful only in terms of its immediate purpose of calculating the obligation of the

accountant to his lord at the year’s end. To ascertain the actual cash teceived or the true balance on the year’s working often demands more information than the account can be made to disclose.

Further difficulty is caused by the fact that a single account never, ot hardly ever, embraced the full range of a lord’s receipts and expenditute. Each accountant—indeed each manorial bailiff—

was a wotld unto himself, getting and spending within his own sphere, and knowing and caring little for the responsibilities of his colleagues or for the over-all picture of his lord’s finances. The accounts of the earls of Rutland provide an excellent example of this confusion. Between 1599 and 1601 there were bailiffs of the three principal demesne holdings, at Belvoir, Helmsley, and Garen-

don, and there was a clerk of the ironworks at Rievaulx. The receiver-general lived at Belvoir and handled all receipts from Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire; there was a northern receiver for Yorkshire rents at Helmsley; and there was an agent in London. The interlocking of these separate accounts was bewildering in its complexity. The northern receiver collected Yorkshire rents and profits, the net profits of the Helmsley bailiff,

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 281 and some of the profits from the Rievaulx ironworks; after paying local overheads, including when necessary money for the running of the Rievaulx works and the Helmsley demesnes, he sent the rest in fluctuating proportions to the receiver-general at Belvoir and to the London agent. The receiver-general at Belvoir collected the

midlands rents and profits, the profits paid over by the Belvoir bailiff, and the sums sent down by the northern receiver. After paying necessary advances to the Belvoir bailiff and covering the cost of the household and establishment at Belvoir, he sent the remainder down to London. The London agent thus drew money from both the northern teceiver and the receiver-general, part of the money from the latter coming originally from the former. He received the profits of all Rievaulx iron sold to Londoners, of the Kentish lands of the Countess, and of the Garendon demesnes and farms, and on one occasion he directly intercepted the profits from the Belvoir bailiff. He also received extraordinary income from loans, sales of land, or payments by the Crown. With this money collected from so many different

sources he paid for the various expenses of the Earl in London. _ Gross teceipts can only be arrived at by adding together the charge of the northern receiver, less the arrears from the previous year; the charge of the southern receiver, less the arrears from the previous

year and the sums paid in by the northern receiver; the charge

of the London agent, less the sums paid in by the northern

and southern receivers and the attears on his own account for the previous year; and the difference between the gross and the net receipt of the various demesne bailiffs. Gross expenditure is equally complicated to work out. Thirty years later, in 1627-30, the system was virtually unchanged. There was still a Yorkshire receiver, a receiver-general at Belvoir,

and a London agent, with the same interlocking sets of accounts. There was still a clerk of the ironworks at Rievaulx whose profits wete paid either to the Yorkshire or the Belvoir receiver, although the bulk of the production was sent to London and appeared in the London agent’s accounts. There was now a western teceiver for the lands of the Countess, and bailiffs for demesnes at Helmsley, Garendon, and Bestwood Park. There was still no central accounting system and no indication that calculations of annual profit and loss were ever made.! 1 B/A 378, 309, 310, 312, 315, 316, 382.

282 ESTATE MANAGEMENT The accounting system of the Earl of Cumberland in the early seventeenth century was very similar. There was a receiver for Cumberland and Westmorland at Appleby, who took the rents from

this area and paid the net profits, after deducting expenses, to the receiver at Londesborough or the receiver-general at Skipton. The latter accounted for the Craven estates and some receipts from Londesborough, paid for expenses on the spot, and sent most of the test to Londesborough or London. The receiver at Londesborough accounted for the profit of the demesne there and for the sums paid by the Appleby receiver, the receiver-genetal, or the London agent; the London agent accounted for other non-landed revenues and for the sums paid over by the receiver-general. Another, less complicated, example of the same phenomenon is provided by Lord Lumley’s later Elizabethan accounts. He had four

separate receivers at Stanstead, Nonsuch, Towerhill, and Lumley Castle, collecting rents and fines, deducting local fees, repairs, annuities, parliamentary fifteenths, &c., and paying over the remainder to the receiver at Stanstead, who was also the feceivergeneral. In this case, however, it is not very difficult to do a few sums and discover the approximate general position. !

The Cavendishes earls of Devonshite had evolved rather more centralized arrangements. The northern receiver at Chatsworth accounted for rents and demesne profits of the north and, after meeting heavy household and other costs, paid his surplus over to the London agent. The latter, who was also the southern receiver, accounted for this surplus, the rents and demesne profits of the southern estates, and miscellaneous profits paid in London. Even so, however, full income and expenditure can only be deduced after considerable labour and the final balance sheet undoubtedly omits deductions made by particular receivers.” The most efficient accounting machine of all was that set up for the 2nd Earl of Salisbuty by an outstandingly able administrator, his receiver-general Christopher Keighley. Here centralization was made possible by the geographical situation of the Earl’s estates, and by the fact that this was a new estate not bound by traditional

Tudor practices. Since most of the property was in the home counties, there was no necessity for a separate London agent, as was the case with northern magnates like Rutland, Cumberland, or 1 Chatsworth/BA 94-140. Sandbeck, Scarbrough MSS. EMA 1/6-19. 2 Chatsworth/H 29, 27.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 283 Devonshire. Of the Earl’s four houses, three of them, Salisbury House in the Strand and Hatfield and Quixwood in Hertfordshire were sufficiently close together and to London for their households to be administered as one. The fourth, at Cranborne, was rarely visited and it was therefore possible to do without a local receiver and to insist that, with the exception of {100 or £200 for working expenses, all the western rents and profits were sent up to London. As a result there was achieved a degtee of central control by a single

accountant which, so far as [ am aware, was unique among great estates of this period.

To exploit the possibilities of this centralization, an equally remarkable system of book-keeping was set up. The receivergeneral’s annual accounts were copied into stout volumes covering several yeats at a time. Occasional general reports on the financial situation were compiled, yearly summaries were made of the debt position, and there is even the unique feature of budgets forecasting income and expenditure overt the next six months. This remarkable organization must be regarded as exceptional, however, and quite out of the ordinary run of aristocratic estate administration. ! A picture of the gross income or gross expenditure of a magnate in a particular year can normally be constructed only if the accounts

of all the receivers and the receiver-general have survived for a period of several years. It is then usually possible, though not easy, to combine and collate them so as to arrive at some rough total, bearing in mind the ever-prevalent possibility that very important items, the fruits of office or large fines for new leases, may have gone

straight into the lord’s iron chest without passing through any account whatsoever. Moreover this figure, even if complete, will not necessarily be a reliable guide to average income, owing to the violent fluctuation caused by the system of beneficial leases at low rents for large fines. The concurrent expiry of a group of important

leases could double normal receipts for a year or two. Between 1597 and 1601 Roger Earl of Rutland raised £14,600 in fines out of an estate rented at only about £3,500, and on which the fines in the previous years had averaged only about {200 a year. Between

1629 and 1639 the annual receipts of William Earl of Salisbury from fines and wood sales varied from as little as £677 to as much as £6,891, at a time when rents were rising steadily from £7,335 to £9,159. Total annual receipts from land fluctuated between £8,001 1 H/A passim.

284 ESTATE MANAGEMENT and £15,837. Between 1625 and 1635 fines on the northern estates of the earls of Devonshire varied between £55 and £4,183 and on the southern estates between nothing and £3,340 a year.!

Finally it must be remembered that it was very common for lessees of property close to the main seat to pay part of their rent in kind. This supply of food was not normally valued, certainly not in the receiver’s accounts, and can only be discovered, if at all, by examination of the clauses in the individual leases, and some-

times from the bailiff’s accounts and the stock accounts of the clerk of the kitchen and the gentleman of the horse. In addition there were rectory tithes which were taken in kind and there was the produce of the home farm, all of which might pass directly into the kitchen without appearing in the accounts. Even when it is possible to work out full cash receipts for a given year, there is often an extta 10 per cent. or so to be added on for the value of these provisions.” Given a multiplicity of independent accounts, a charge-and-discharge system, a wildly fluctuating income from fines, imperfectly

recorded payments in kind, and totally haphazard accounting of such ‘foreyn’ receipts as New Yeat’s gifts, bribes, or the profits of office, it is hardly surprising that many great noblemen had the greatest difficulty in discovering just what their financial position teally was, and even mote so in assessing the comparative profitability of alternative courses of action. The only warning indicator was a mounting load of debt, but its causes could not be discovered without very detailed investigation, and sometimes not even then. In 1600 Henry Lord Cobham called in an expert to put him straight,

only to be told that it was his wife’s extravagance that was the chief cause of his troubles. Robert Earl of Salisbury got Sir John Daccombe to come in and sort out his chaotic affairs in the last years of his life.

As for the finances of George Duke of Buckingham, they were almost past praying for. It was not till 1622 that they were taken in hand by Sir Robert Pye, and not till 1627 that order began to be created, the Duke’s finances disentangled from those of the Crown, an auditing system established, and a rough balance sheet of net

income and expenditure drawn up. It is clear that for most of his life the great favourite lived from hand to mouth, without the 1 B/A 378, 90, 309, 310, 95. H/A 157/3. Chatsworth H/27. 2 See infra, pp. 300-2.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 285 faintest idea of the state of his affairs, or any arrangements for proper

records to be kept or audited. Only small men with a single compact estate accounted for by a single receiver were able to discover without too much difficulty the general balance of their finances. Of the great magnates only the 2nd Earl of Salisbury could really

be said to have had a proper grip on the situation. For the vast majority of the great estates, Lord Berkeley’s servant John Smyth of Nibley must be allowed the last word: “The irregularityes and

disorders of our days may not appeare in accounts to posterity; wee will spend all and more at the years end, and not be able to say howe or wherein.’! III. ADMINISTRATIVE PERSONNEL

The administrative organization which produced these records varied considerably from family to family and from generation to generation. The smaller the estates the more flexible and primitive the methods employed and what concerns us here is how the really great properties were run. Certain general principles governed all attangements: if the estate consisted of compact groups of prop-

etties widely separated one from another, particular receivers would necessarily have to be appointed for each geographical area. Thus the Essex and the Devon estates of the Petres, the Essex and

Dorset estates of the Howards earls of Suffolk, the northern and southern properties of the Percys and the Lumleys, the home counties and the Dotset properties of the Cecils earls of Salisbury, were each separately administered. Sometimes the divisions were smaller still, the Cliffords having separate accountants for Craven, the East

Riding, and Westmorland, based respectively on Skipton Castle, Londesborough House, and Appleby Castle, and the Egertons six particular receivers for properties in Shropshire, Cheshire, Lancashite, and North Wales. The second factor was the degree to which the lord habitually tesided and spent his money in London. If he did so to any considerable extent, a London agent was necessary to collect the cash from the receiver-general and/or the particular receivers of the rural

estates, and to supervise the expenditure in the capital. The London agents of families like the Manners or the Cliffords in the eatly seventeenth century effectively replaced the receiver-general 1 CSPD, 1598-1601, pp. 431-3, 511, 515. HMCS, xv, p. 161. BM Harl. MSS. 1581, ff. 118-25. Bodl Eng. Misc. C 208, ff. 171-2. Smyth, i, p. 307.

286 ESTATE MANAGEMENT as the most important of the financial officials. This was a very similar development to that in the Early Tudor royal administration by which the Chamber squeezed out the Exchequer. It could only be avoided if the lord normally lived in the country, or if the main

estates wete sufficiently close to London to allow the receivergeneral to fulfil both functions.! On the income side, the lowest in the hierarchy was the bailiff, whose responsibility it was to collect the rents, perquisites of coutt, heriots, and profits of wood-sales on his manor, and to pay them

ovet to the particular receiver, after deducting his expenses. The latter in turn was responsible for all the income from the area under his supervision, except perhaps the fines for new leases which might

be paid directly to the centre. He might deduct quite substantial sums fot payments of fee-farm rents, annuities, and the building, repairs, household, and husbandty expenses of the local residence. At the apex of the administration was the receiver-general, who lived at the main seat, or occasionally in London. This official received money from three quarters: the net surpluses paid over by the local receivers, the money due by the bailiffs in his own area, for which he acted as particular receiver, and the ‘foreyn’ receipts from other miscellaneous sources. This money he then paid out, partly in lump sums or ‘imprests’ to the officials responsible for tunning the household, and partly in specific amounts to meet other bills and expenses of various kinds. Both the receiver-general and the particular receivers were super-

vised by an auditor who checked the accounts, usually annually, but sometimes, as with the Percys, at irregular intervals. Accounts normally ran from Michaelmas to Michaelmas, though there are plenty of examples whose accounting period began at Christmas,

Kaster, ot Midsummer. The Earl of Rutland’s accounts ran to December until 1600, then switched to August, and later shifted to July. Some time after the end of the accounting period, when the accountant had had time to set his affairs in order, the auditor came

down to check them. For example, in 1619 the Earl of Exetet’s auditor left London on 10 December, arrived at Burghley House on the 12th, worked there until the 19th checking the Michaelmas 1 These generalizations are drawn mainly from the following sets of accounts. Pefre: Essex R.O., D/DP. Howard (Suffolk): Essex R.O., D/DBy and Dorset R.O., Weld MSS. Lumley: Sandbeck, Scarbrough MSS. EMA 1/6—19. Percy: Batho, op. cit., and Penshurst 113. Egerton:

Herts. R.O., A. H., and Salop R.O., Bridgwater MSS. Cecil (Salisbury): H/A. Clifford: Chatsworth/BA. Manners: B/A.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 287 accounts, and got back to London on the 22nd. This was unusually quick work, however, and it normally took three or four weeks to

audit a set of accounts for a great nobleman.! Finally there was sometimes a steward of courts responsible for keeping manorial coutts, entering up court rolls, and assessing copyhold fines, and there was always a solicitor who had charge of the coils of litigation with tenants and others in which every landowner was continually enmeshed. The spending side was theoretically distinct from the receiving, but in practice the two always overlapped to a considerable extent.

According to the ideal model, the receiver-general would pay out imprests to a whole series of spending officers, who would in turn be separately accountable for the money. The most important of these was the steward of the household, who in some cases might make imprests to the clerk of the kitchen. Otherwise the clerk drew his money from the recetver-general and accounted directly to him. The other two main spending agents were the gentleman of the chamber, responsible for clothes, gambling, and other personal needs of the lord and his family, and the gentleman of the horse, who handled transport. More often than not this simple picture of a well-oiled hierarchy of clearly defined responsibilities was shattered by anomalies, some of them very serious. Sometimes a single officer combined a multiplicity of jobs, such as steward and clerk

of the kitchen; often the receiver-general himself made a very large number of miscellaneous payments for the redemption of debt, interest payments, land purchases, New Year’s gifts, and so on; sometimes the London agent by force of circumstances became the main paymaster for a very wide tange of goods and services,

cutting right across normal departmental boundaries; sometimes a sectetary was employed whose close and daily contact with his master allowed him to establish independent control over many sectors of income and expenditure in addition to his normal secretarial duties.” In the Middle Ages it was customary to put the over-all direction of affairs in the hands of a council consisting of the chief officers,

sometimes supported by a few of the leading gentry retainers. In the 1530’s Lord Berkeley’s affairs were run by a council consisting ' Bradford, Cartwright Hall, Swinton MSS. 2 For printed information about the administrative organization of a great household, see the bibliography published by Batho, op. cit., pp. xii-xv, sub Brathwait, Breviate, James, Markland, Montague, Northumberland Household Book, and Wotcestet.

288 ESTATE MANAGEMENT of the stewatd of lands, auditor, receiver, and solicitor, who annually visited each manor to collect the rents; in 1554 the 2nd Earl of Rutland was advised to rely for advice about his affairs on his “witty lovyng consell’; in 1561 the 13th Earl of Derby’s council

drew up instructions for household management; and in 1595 Viscount Montagu had a council of his steward of the household,

comptroller, steward of courts, auditor, receiver-general, and solicitor. Though it is always dangerous to argue ex silentio, references to a formal council become mote rare after the middle of the

sixteenth century, except for ad hoc bodies set up for particular purposes, such as that created by the Duke of Buckingham in 1622 to disentangle his finances. A seventeenth-century atistocratic estate was normally handled by departmental officials supervised by the auditor under the direc-

tion of the lord himself. Though officers must necessarily have consulted one another in the run of business, it looks as if they no longer sat with local gentry as an executive committee with overriding power. In so far as such bodies continued to exist, they were

confined to properties whose lord was prevented from taking a petsonal interest in his affairs by the pressure of government business. It was because of Viscount Wentworth’s absence in Ireland as Lord Deputy that his estates were managed by a council of two gentlemen followers, the Rev. Charles Greenwood and Sir George Radcliffe, and two officers, the steward and the solicitor, who met every term to discuss business.! Atistocratic service attracted a considerable number of ambitious and talented men who filled the higher posts in the administration of the estate and household. They were usually drawn from minor gentry families, although as late as the reign of Elizabeth even the gteater gentry did not scorn such service. On his accession to the

title in 1572 Henry Earl of Derby appointed Sir Richard Shireburne of Stonyhurst as treasurer of his household and Edward Scatisbrick of Scarisbrick as receiver-general, both of them heads of very prominent county families. Men such as these naturally had

their own rooms, and now that the family had migrated to the great chamber or the dining-room, they replaced them on the high table in the hall while the lesser servants ate below.? t Smyth, ii, p. 227. Sussex Arch. Coll. vii, 1854, p. 183. BM Harl. MSS. 1581, f. 121. B/Charters 7569. Lancs. R.O., DDK 6/3. SP 14/149/91. Knowler, ii, p. 433. 2 Stanley Papers, ii (Chetham Soc., xxx1), 1853, pp. 104-7. HMC Beaufort MSS., pp. 3-5.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 289 The service made an attractive opening for an able young man with a career to make in the world, for the prospects of promotion wete quite good. Within the aristocratic household the hierarchy of officers allowed for advancement over the years, and there was always the chance of moving sideways into another great household

or onwards into royal administration. In the service of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury John Southworth began as gentleman of the chamber in 1612, and after thirteen years was promoted to receiver-

general; Robert Forrest began as gentleman of the horse in 1617 and became steward of the household in 1624; Samuel Percival began

as gentleman of the chamber in 1644, was promoted to steward in 1650, and finally rose to receiver-general in 1663. In this private

administration, as in the royal service, there are some signs of a growth of hereditary tenure in the seventeenth century, though in general the paths were kept open to outside talent. The only striking case of hereditary office-holding was that of the Stillingfleet family. In 1612 Samuel Stillingfleet entered the Earl’s service as clerk of the kitchen. By 1620 he was housekeeper at Cranborne, eventually rising to the post of steward of the west-country estates, which he held until his death in 1661. The father of Edward Stillingfleet, the distinguished Bishop of Worcester, Samuel was the first of a long line of the same name who continued to fill offices in the service of the earls of Salisbury in the administration of their westcountry estates right down to the nineteenth century.!

The servants of the 9th Earl of Northumberland were drawn from gentty families living on or near the family estates, and here again there is evidence of steady promotion up the hierarchy. Peter Dodsworth began as a servant of Lord Percy in 1616 and became steward of the household in 1632. Thomas Fotherley graduated from

groom of the chamber to receivet-general for the north parts. Allan King rose from a mere bailiff of a manor in 1581 to steward

of the household in 1592; Hugh Potter moved from payer of foreyn payments to secretary to receiver in the north; Henry Taylor from payer of foreyn payments to clerk of the kitchen to steward

of the household. Family connexions tended to build up, with marriage alliances between Burbages and Powtons and Wycliffes, and with two Powtons, two Stockdales, and three Wycliffes in the Farl’s service. In the household of the Earl of Cumberland in the second decade of the seventeenth century William Taylor succeeded

821314 U

1 HJA passim.

290 ESTATE MANAGEMENT Stephen Taylor as receiver-general, John Taylor was the London agent, and Christopher Taylor the auditor.! Naturally enough, it was to service with close relatives or friends that many officers looked for alternative promotion. William Earl

of Salisbury’s future receiver-general, John Southworth, first appears in the service of Charles Brooke, who had probably inherited him from Lord Cobham; when his old friend Philip Earl of Pembroke died in 1650, Salisbury took on in the same capacity his gentleman of the chamber, Edward Jolly. William Lucas passed

from the service of Sir John Perrot via that of the 2nd Earl of Essex to end up as disburser of apparel for the 9th Earl of Northumbetland. Some families seem to have specialized in aristocratic service; Arnold Oldisworth was steward of the Countess of War-

wick in 1600, Michael Oldisworth was secretary of the Earl of Pembroke a generation later. Laurence Squibb was Lord Cottington’s receiver in 1635, Arthur Squibb the Earl of Salisbury’s receiver-general in 1647.”

Mote striking still are the close links with the royal administration forged by some of these aristocratic officials. At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth the Duke of Norfolk’s agent and trustee William Dix was also an auditor of the Queen’s Prests. James Clerk began life as a servant of the Auditor-General of the Mint before

becoming auditor to Francis Earl of Shrewsbury. Auditors, of course, could serve several masters, since their responsibility to each was limited to a few weeks a year. In the 1630’s William Collins

was auditor for the Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Northampton, and the Duchy of Lancaster, and by the mid-1640’s he was also wotking for the Earl of Suffolk and for Parliament. Other servants moved directly from aristocratic to royal service. Sit John Trevor and Sir Thomas Aylesbury passed from the house-

hold of the 1st Earl of Nottingham to become solicitor to Prince Charles and master of requests respectively; Thomas Meautys from confidential servant of Bacon to clerk of the Council; Sir John Daccombe from financial adviser of the 1st Earl of Salisbury to chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; Sir Robert Pye from financial

adviser of the Duke of Buckingham to auditor of receipts in the Exchequer; Sir John Melton from disburser of the privy purse of ™ Batho, op. cit., App. iii. Chatsworth/BA/104, 127, 228. 2 H/A 134/5; 168/2. Batho, op. cit., pp. 155, 157. CR 42 El. pt. 7. M. F. Keeler, The Long Parliament, Philadelphia, 1954, p. 290. SP 16/364/15. H/A 161/5, 139/5.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 291 the 9th Earl of Northumberland to secretary of the Council of the North; Sir Edward Francis from steward of the household of the Earl to paymaster of the gentlemen pensioners; Laurence Squibb from receiver of Lord Cottington to teller in the Exchequer. There can be no doubt that a quick way to an office under the Crown was through service with a leading political figure who could command the ear of the King and the leading ministers in the disposal of royal patronage.’

A number of these gentlemen servants became members of Parliament thanks to the patronage of their master, some of them while still in service and some of them after promotion to higher

spheres. In 1628 the Earl of Salisbury’s secretary, Christopher Keighley, was drafted—against his will—as M.P. for his lordship’s

pocket borough of Old Sarum. In 1604 the Earl of Northumberland’s comptroller was M.P. for St. Mawes, his son’s tutor M.P. for Cricklade in 1625, his ex-receiver-general M.P. for Rye in the same year, and his receiver in the north M.P. for Berwick in 1640; the Duke of Buckingham’s gentleman of the horse sat regularly in Parliament throughout the 1620’s. Mrs. Keeler has estimated that there were thirteen officials in the service of peers and courtiers in

the Parliament of 1640 and no doubt further research would substantially enlarge this figure.’ The satisfactions of aristocratic service wete to be found less in the immediate financial rewards than in social status, the pleasure derived from the job itself, high living with all expenses covered, and hopes of a modest competence. It was a full and rewarding life

but not the path to riches, except for the dishonest servants of a lazy and dissolute lord. The case of Mr. Cruttinden, steward of Robert Sydney, 1st Earl of Leicester, may be taken as typical of many. He had been in the service of the Sydneys for twenty-four yeats, having first joined as wardrobe keeper in the early 1590's. When Sir Robert was in the Netherlands, Cruttinden indulged in some trading on his own account, exchanging English kerseys and fustian for Dutch tobacco, flax, and woad. By 1603 he had by these means built up a modest capital of £300, most of which he put out

at interest. The next year Sir Robert gave him a grant of three 3 CSPD, 1547-80, p. 469. CPR, 149-1, p. 346. Talbot B, f. 159. CUL Dd IX 48. C2 Jas. I, N 5/40. Batho, op. cit., pp. 158, 153. G. Aylmer, The King’s Servants, 1961, pp. 77-80. SP 16/364/15. CSPD, 1640-1, p. 195. 2 L. Stone, “The Electoral Influence of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury’, EHR, Ixxi, 1956, p. 399, Batho, op. cit., pp. 150, 152, 153, 155, 160. Keeler, op. cit., p. 23.

292 ESTATE MANAGEMENT watermen’s places, which he sold for £40, and as long as his lord was Governor of Flushing he was kept on the government payroll at 8d. a day. But he claimed that after a lifetime of service his net estate did not exceed £1,000, a fifth of it from his wife’s dowry;

most of the test had been acquired through private trading, and some of it from douceurs given him by suitors to his lord.! Thete is a cettain amount of evidence of the accumulation of land by some of these aristocratic officials. For example, Owen Shepherd, the receiver-general of Henry Earl of Northampton,

built up a comfortable estate in Norfolk; the steward first of Viscount Mansfield and then of the Duke of Richmond acquired another in Kent; two receivers of the Talbot estates rose in the wotld and bought land in Yorkshire.2 On the whole, however, these strikingly acquisitive officials are exception to the rule. Apart from indulgence in direct dishonesty, there were four sources of income open to an officer in aristocratic service. If his master was an influential court figute, the gentleman of the chamber could expect to pick up gratuities for bringing clients and suitors to his attention. Secondly, the more important financial officers could use the often substantial cash balances on their accounts for lending out

at interest. This was common ptactice in royal service and it would be unreasonable to suppose it was not done elsewhere. In 1602 the Earl of Northumberland was informed that “all the money that your Lordship’s officers receive betwene the times of sending up your rentes, they lett out to interest at 20 li to the hundred, and by this means make greate profitt to their owne purses’. Thirdly, all officers received free lodging, at any rate if they wete bachelors, free board and an allowance for livery, and expenses when travelling on his lordship’s affairs. In the late sixteenth century the cash salary which even important officers could hope to draw was very small. The clerk of the kitchen

of the Earl of Huntingdon was paid only £5 a year in 1610; the Earl of Northumberland’s receiver-general only £10 in the last years of Elizabeth, the steward and clerk of the kitchen only £5. In the seventeenth century, however, the wages of the higher servants tose substantially. By the second and third decades the Earl of Northumberland was paying his steward of the household {£50 and 1 F. Grose, Antiquarian Repertory, 1807, 1, pp. 291-5. 2 Blomefield, v, pp. 456, 477. Hasted, ii, p. 505. J. Hunter, Hallamshire, p. 418. J. Hunter, South Yorkshire, ii, p. 282.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 293 his clerk of the kitchen {20. The Earl of Salisbury’s invaluable teceivet-general Christopher Keighley was paid first {60 then {100

a year, and by 1650 his auditor and receiver-general were both getting {60, his steward of the household £40, and his other officers £20 each. In the same year the Earl of Westmorland’s steward was paid £30, his gentleman of the horse {20, and his clerk of the kitchen {10.! This rise in cash wages was noted by Lord North, who remarked

in the middle of the seventeenth century that in the old days servants had been paid low wages during their working lives, and were given farms at low rents to see them through their old age; now, he said, they insisted on being paid high wages on conttact. Since at the same time the lesser servants were rebelling against

the old use of the whip and the stocks to enforce discipline, the result, according to Lord North, was a general decline in dependence and obedience from top to bottom of the servant class. Lamentations at the growing insubordination of servants is part of the convetsational stock-in-trade of the propertied classes of all ages and countries, but Lord North was certainly right to think that wages wete fising.

Until many more aristocratic archives have been scoured for evidence of leases to servants, little can be done to prove or disprove his first point. The znd Lord Chandos looked after his upper servants by leases in the reign of Elizabeth, and the 1st and 2nd Earl of Salisbury did the same in the early seventeenth century, at any tate for their more valued officers. The 1st Earl’s financial adviser Sit John Daccombe was given Pyms farm in Edmonton on a lease for three lives at 1s. a year rent. Of the three receiversgeneral between 1621 and 1640, Keighley held South Mimms rectory and a farm in Broxbourn, John Southworth Royden Hall manor house, and Roger Kirkham an estate in Bermondsey. Samuel

Stillingfleet, the Cranborne bailiff, was granted first the Priory house and later the Market house there, and ended by farming the Cranborne and Holwell tithes as well. But the increasing mention of cash bequests or annuities in early-seventeenth-century wills and their absence in those of Elizabeth’s reign suggest that leases were 1M. E. James, op. cit., p. xxxvi. HMCH, i, p. 373. Batho, op. cit., App. iii, passim. H/A 160/5, 6; 157/3; 127/11. Northants. R.O., Westmorland MSS. misc. vols. 15, f. 80. See also Toe nae 1202 and J. J. Hecht, The Domestic Servant Class in Eighteenth Century England,

294 ESTATE MANAGEMENT now giving way to monetary benefits.1 The drive to maximize rents made it desirable to provide alternative forms of reward for faithful officers other than leases at nominal rents. IV. THE ESTATE

The landed property administered by the officials working on the

estate side of management was expected to provide four things: an obsequious and obedient source of manpower; supplies of food and fuel for consumption in the household; a regular annual income to meet normal running expenditure; and occasional large sums to pay for emergencies such as service on an embassy or the marriage

of a daughter. The main problem was to strike the right balance between these four conflicting needs, a search complicated by the traditional insistence on the reduction of overheads and the elimination of capital investment in the estates. The profits of a great estate were derived from a wide variety of

soutces. There were free rents, paid in respect of their duty to the manorial lord by the freeholders. These had never been large sums, they were fixed in amount, and were now of negligible consequence owing to the declining value of money. There were rents of assize paid by copyholders according to the custom of the manor. These also were small fixed sums, which by the early seventeenth century

had shrunk in value, but copyholders were also obliged to pay a fine on each change of ownership by surrender or succession. If the fine too was fixed by custom it was not worth much, but if it was ‘arbitrable’ it could be stepped up to keep pace with the rising monetary value of the land. These fines wete levied in the manorial court, which was also responsible for collecting the heriots or best beasts from the estates of dead copyholders and for other minor penalties. All these sums wete overshadowed by the rents paid by tenants farming demesne rectories or mills held on lease. At each new letting the lessees also paid fines, which often amounted to very

large sums indeed. Finally there were the profits of the demesnes kept in hand. These might consist of industrial or mining profits, ptofits from the sale of woods, or ptofits of sheep and cattle ranching or arable husbandry, part of which would be taken in the form of provisions for the household. 1 Dudley Lord North, Observations and Advices Occonomical, 1669, p. 42. HMCD, iii, p. 189. Hecht, op. cit., pp. 78-80. PCC 20 Peter. H/A 162/1, 2; 133/13; 135/4; Box S/8. PCC 127 Lee; 23, 93 Swann; 40 Rudd; 13 Skynner; 115 Parker; 69 Dixey; 48 Scroope.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 295 (1) Demesne husbandry

Apart from a shrinking home farm, the only demesnes which a nobleman consistently kept in hand were his woods—though if the opportunity offered itself, he was usually ready enough to lease them out to an enterprising 1ron-manufacturer. Otherwise he hung on to his trees, treating them less as a crop to be culled annually on reaching their sixteen-year maturity, than as a piggy-bank in which

he could store up capital over long periods. Come a rainy day, he could chop down the trees and lay hands on his capital. The Elizabethans in particular drew heavily upon this reserve in times of trouble. After he had run up enormous debts in the 1580's by riotous living, the 9th Earl of Northumberland sold woods to ‘the value of £20,000, well worth £50,000, jewellers and silkmen making

theit nests in the branches’. To mention only a few examples, the same tale of destruction is recorded of the 3rd Earl of Cumberland, the 3rd Earl of Sussex, the 17th Earl of Oxford, the trustees of the 2nd Marquis of Winchester, the 14th Lord Grey of Wilton, and the 11th Lord Willoughby d’Eresby. Well might Pepys define woods as

‘an exctescence of the earth created by God for the payment of debts’. Setting aside woodlands, which constitute a special case, the first

question a nobleman and his officials had to decide was whether or not to go in for large-scale demesne farming. This had been standard practice in the boom period of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, but had tended to fall out of favour as prices and consumer demands levelled off. Now that demographic growth and inflation were again in full swing with agricultural prices well in the lead, one would have expected a major switch back to demesne

husbandry. This was indeed the policy adopted with strikingly successful results by many European aristocrats, particularly in the

East, but the English nobility were very reluctant to follow their example.

The reason for this failure to move with the times was a pathological fear of being cheated by dishonest officials, a theme which recuts again and again with monotonous regularity in all memoirs 1 Harrison, p. 82. R. T. Spence, The Cliffords Earls of Cumberland, 1579-1646, London Ph.D.

thesis, 1959, p. 143. Lodge, ii, p. 38. HMCS, xiii, p. 112. H/S 137, f. 252. SP 12/110/30. Huntington Library Quarterly, i, 1938, p. 384. CR 44 Eliz., pt. 25. G. Bertie, Five Generations of a Loyal House, 1845, p. §27. Quotation by R. H. Tawney, Business and Politics under James I, Cambridge, 1958, p. 26.

296 ESTATE MANAGEMENT and ‘advices’ of the period, and which dictated the archaic form of account-keeping. The 9th Earl of Northumberland attributed his early difficulties to the recruitment of servants who were ‘young, handsome, brave, swaggering, debauched, wild, abetting all my young desites’; he had to sack the lot in order to settle his affairs. Even so, things did not improve overnight and in 1603 he complained of having spent four days “beholding an unpleasing and weatisome spectacle here, I mean cozenage of receivers, auditots, bailiffs, stewards, and almost all officers about me’. Northumberland

was not an easy man to work for, but some justification for his complaints may be found in the Gunpowder conspirator, Thomas Percy, the constable of Alnwick, who defrauded his lordship of considerable sums, and also put him in the Tower for eighteen yeats on a charge of guilt by association with a traitor. That disagteeable cynic Sir William Wentworth warned his son, the future Earl of Strafford, that ‘allmost all treacheries have bene wrought by servantes, and the finale end of their service is gaine and advance-

ment’. James Earl of Derby reflected that ‘I know many great families of England ruin’d, that when I have asked the reason, usually the answer was, “In good fayth it is a great pitty—he 1s well borne—hath many gallant gentlemen of his owne name—he himself is an honest gentleman—very kind-natur’d & very liberall | —but hath ill servants.” He might as well have said in short, his Lordship is a very foole, & his men be knaves.’ “Thes hireling officers will undo us all’, remarked Ralegh to Lord Cobham, report-

ing fraud in selling his lordship’s woods. ‘My own estate fainteth by the negligence of them I trust’, lamented the absentee Edward Lord Zouche, Lord President of the Council of Wales.! Since the Court of Wards normally took care that a nobleman’s estate was kept in the custody of the family ot family friends and trustees, peers had far less cause for the fears which beset lesser men lest rapacious guardians during a minority should run down the stock and cut all the woods. If noblemen avoided large-scale demesne husbandry it was because they thought the losses from dishonest servants would outweigh the profits from farming on a tising market. Nor was this merely the prejudice of the lazy. A London goldsmith turned landed gentleman, James Bankes, used this argument in 1610; that shrewd and knowledgeable man John 1 Harrison, pp. 78-84. HMCS, xv, p. 382. Sheff CL/S 40/1. Stanley Papers, 111, iit (Chetham Soc. Ixx, pt. 2), 1867, p. 12. Edwards, ii, p. 203. HMCS, xii, p. 620.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 297 Smyth of Nibley recommended in about 1620 that Lord Berkeley should lease out all his demesnes for the same reason; Lord North and Sir Christopher Wandesford took the same line in the middle of the seventeenth century.! _ From a distance of 300 years it is very difficult to judge how far these arguments were sound. Certainly at other periods and in other places, landlords have managed to run large demesnes without being ruined by the malpractices of their servants, and without straining themselves with excessive attention to business. On the other hand, there may be some validity in these fears. Since similar conditions tend to produce similar psychological reactions, it is probable that the labouring classes in Elizabethan England were as feckless, lazy, and incompetent as those of pre-industrial societies

with a surplus underemployed labour force today. In any case, given the methods of accounting for demesnes and for leaseholds and given the system of beneficial leases, the relative merits of the

two systems could not easily have been worked out. If English noblemen at this period did not develop great farms like the Prussian junkers, the explanation lies in current prejudice and custom tather than in a rational calculation of optimum economic advantage. It must be admitted, however, that some of the most enterprising

and active of the Elizabethans went in for demesne farming on a moderate but substantial scale. The difference between the Elizabethan rentier and entrepreneur does not fit the Marxist stereotype of the contrast between the old and feudal and the new and capitalist; it is rather a product of a different use of time and energy.

Those who were wholly occupied in politics and at Court were content to lease out their estates; those who lived in the country wete mote ready to undertake the hazards and labour of direct management, although owing to the difficulties of control nearly all were frightened off the labour-intensive activity of arable farming. Great demesne farmers were primarily concerned with sheep and cattle ranching on extensive enclosed pastures, either carved

out of the old demesne, or in former deer-parks, or in freehold closes.

It has been argued that throughout the whole of the first half of the sixteenth century there was a premium on sheep-rearing thanks t Lanes. and Chesh. Hist. Soc. Trans. xciv, 1943, p. 75. Smyth, ii, p. 6. North, op. cit., p. 105. Sir Christopher Wandesford, Book of Instructions, 1777, p. 83.

298 ESTATE MANAGEMENT to the soaring price of wool. After the collapse of the export boom in 1551, however, this margin tended to disappear, and greater emphasis was placed on the production of meat to feed the rising population, particularly in the great city of London. Discussion of sheep-farming in the sixteenth century has for too long been conducted on the erroneous assumption that sheep are perambulating empty woolly bags. In fact by the late sixteenth century all flocks of which we have record were being managed as much with an eye to mutton as to wool. The Bacons’ flock at Culford in Suffolk was producing twice as much money from sale of stock as from sale of wool, Lord Dotrmer’s flock at Wing in Buckinghamshire was being fattened for sale to London butchers rather than bred for its wool clip; the Spencers at Wormleighton in Warwickshire between 1570

and 1620, the Earl of Middlesex at Sezincote and Milcote in the same county in the 1630’s, were as much concerned with breeding and fattening to sell for mutton as with keeping for the wool clip. Moteover both Dormer and Middlesex were feeding substantial numbers of beef cattle on their pastures as well as sheep. The High-

land Zone of the north and west was the great pasture area, and here the emphasis was often more on cattle than sheep. In the first decades of the seventeenth century Katherine Lady Ogle owned £600 worth of cattle and £228 worth of sheep, the Earl of Dunbar 1,200 cattle and 3,700 sheep, Lord William Howard of Naworth 1,110 cattle and 3,000 sheep.? The demands of a great household for meat were very heavy, at least 50 beeves and 400 to 500 muttons a year, so that the smaller of the demesne ranches can reasonably be regarded as no more than

home farms. In the sixteenth century, however, there were a considerable number which were unquestionably being operated for profit. The greatest sheepmaster of the Elizabethan age was not

some thrusting member of the rising capitalist gentry, but the senior nobleman of England, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who in 1571 owned as many as 16,800 animals in East Anglia alone. Since this is an autumn count, it must represent the basic stock carried over from year to year, after the surplus lambs had been sold off. It is instructive to compare this with the flock of the 1 P, J. Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, 1962, pp. 5-12. Simpson, op. cit.,

p. 192. Rousham, Cottrell-Dormer MSS, Althorp, ESP, 11, 13. Kent R.O., Sackville MSS. E 225; A 423. 2 "i A. Ogle, Ogle and Bothal, Newcastle, 1902, app. no. 436. SP 14/61/73. Ornsby, op. cit., p. 416.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 299 Spencers of Althorp, the only family to rise into the peerage primarily by the profits of sheep-farming. At no time was their permanent flock larger than about 13,200, with an addition of 4,300 to 5,000 lambs each spring. Except, perhaps, for that great ‘feudal’ nobleman, George Earl of Shrewsbury, most Elizabethan peers admittedly operated on a smaller scale. Earl George’s wife Bess of Hardwick claimed that she

owned some 8,000 sheep, Viscount Bindon had about the same number, Lord Dacte of the North was said in 1563 to own sheep, cattle, and horses valued at about £3,000, which if true suggests a vety considerable flock. As for Earl George himself, he had many

demesnes scattered over his vast estate, and his profits from the sale of corn, cattle, sheep, wool, and hides must have amounted to many thousands of pounds. In 1591 sales from one demesne alone brought in over £3,000. In 1564-8 the gross profits of Henry future Lord Compton’s demesne farm amounted to £265 out of an average

total income from land of {£1,260 a year. In the 1620’s that busy

entrepreneur the 1st Earl of Devonshire was getting {1,000 to £1,500 a year from the sale of cattle and sheep, mostly to London butchers.! It should be noted that Shrewsbury, Spencer, and Devon-

shire were all men who lived mainly in the country and devoted a great deal of personal attention to the problems of estate management.

If there were a number of fairly large-scale demesne farmers in the teign of Elizabeth, they were rare by the 1620’s, and almost extinct by the outbreak of the Civil War. One reason for this decline was the levelling off of prices after the slump of 1620-1, which led

to a contraction of profit margins; another was the secular trend which was redressing the balance between meat and wool prices on the one hand and those of corn on the other. Unless noblemen were ptepared to go in for arable cultitvation—which they were not—the incentive to keep their pastures in hand rather than lease

them out was substantially reduced. And so we find that the Farl of Devonshire’s demesne profits shrank from between {1,000 and {1,500 before 1626 to a mete {200 or £300 after 1628, while there ate signs that on this estate the shift to leasing had in places begun as early as 1606. Sir William Petre had 2,300 acres under 1 SP 12/81/28(1). Althorp, ESP, 11. HMCS, iii, p. 162. PCC 13 Rowe. C 3/50/36. L/Lib 114 A, v, p. 7o. BM Harl. MSS. 7186, ff. 39-42, 165; Add. MSS. 27532f. 137. Lambeth 699/43, 700/47. Castle Ashby 996. Chatsworth/H 27.

300 ESTATE MANAGEMENT demesne husbandry tn 1536 and was drawing {610 a year from sale of cattle against a gross rental of £1,676; a hundred years later the

3rd Lord Petre had only about 1,000 acres left in hand. The Earl of Rutland began leasing parts of Helmsley Park in 1598, continued the process still further in the next few years, and in 1635 ordered the whole of this huge demesne to be let to tenants. Before 1600 the Earl’s gross receipts from demesne farming came to 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. of his total landed income, but after 1613 they did not

amount to more than 5 per cent. to 7 per cent. The Earl of Northumberland had begun to reduce his demesnes and turn them over

to leasehold some time before 1612. The Earl of Bedford was advised to lease out his demesnes in 1585, the Brudenells slowly turned over to leasing soon afterwards, and the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century saw a general shift to leasing by

the great pasture farmers of the Midlands: the Spencers and the Cranfields among the peetage, the Fitzwilliams, the Temples, and Heneages among the squirearchy. By 1640 all the prominent land-

ownets of whom we have record had reduced their demesne

husbandry, many of them to the nartow limits of a home farm to supply some of the needs of the household. As early as 1615 an

analysis of the social composition of woolgrowers was able to begin: ‘1. First those that are men of great estate, having both grounds and stocke of their own and are beforehand in welth.... | The number of theis is small. 2. Those that doe rent the King’s, noblemen’s and gent’s grounds. . . . Theis are many and breed great store of wooll.’! Even the home farm itself was normally on a far smaller scale than the size of the aristocratic household would seem to warrant.

Few noblemen doubted that it was wasteful to purchase basic supplies on the open market, but many sought less cumbersome ways than arable farming for obtaining their needs in wheat, barley,

tye, malt, and pease. The rectory in the village where the great house lay was usually owned by the lord, who was therefore entitled to the great tithes. If he took them in kind instead of leasing them out he found himself supplied with large, and indeed ? Chatsworth/H 27, 23. F. G. Emmison, Tudor Secretary, 1961, p. 271. Essex R.O., D/DP © 230/22; E224. W. R. Emerson, The Economic Development of the Estates of the Petre Family in

Essex in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Oxford Ph.D. thesis, 1951, pp. 89, 329. B/A : passim. M. B. James, op. cit., pp. xli-xlii. Woburn MSS. Finch, pp. 46, 130, 147-8. Bowden, . op. cit., p. 7. Kent R.O., Sackville MSS. E 225, A 421. HMCB, iii, p. 362. G. Unwin, Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Oxford, 1904, p. 234.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 301 sometimes superfluous, quantities of corn. The earls of Salisbury took

the great tithes of Hatfield, the earls of Suffolk the great tithes of

Walden, the lords Spencer the great tithes of Great Brington. Others who are known to have used tithes for their supplies of wheat and malt include the earls of Arundel (Fitzalan), Rutland, Bedford, and Worcester, and there can be little doubt that this was normal practice. !

The second alternative was to take part of the rent from the more

substantial tenant farmers near the great house in the form of a fixed quantity of foodstuffs, a device which both supplied the household and offered some protection against inflation. This was how most peers contrived to get a high proportion of the corn, malt, rabbits, and chickens they needed. An example of this type of lease is that made in 1595 by the 3rd Earl of Southampton with a big farmer at Micheldever, by which the latter contracted to pay an annual rent of {10, 30 quarters of wheat, 30 quarters of barley malt, 20 quarters of oats, Go wethers, 12 capons, 12 geese, and 2 boars. The znd Earl of Pembroke in 1575 was getting in provision rents no less than 1,396 quarters of wheat, besides oxen, capons, geese, and pigeons; Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury in 1607 was gettine 168 sheep, 123 quarters of wheat and malt, and 386 couple of rabbits; Lord Cobham received 342 quarters of corn in 1596 and corn, sheep, and chickens valued at {449 in 1597. In 1615 Lord Arundell of Wardour was tecetving 313 quarters of corn valued

at £231. Whether or not this practice of provision rents was increasing or

decreasing is not at all clear, but the frequency with which it is met suggests that very few lords were obliged to go in for arable husbandry if they did not want to. They could, and often did, confine themselves to cutting their woods and raising sufficient sheep and cattle to supply their needs in the parks and closes around the house, other provisions being drawn from tithes and provision rents. Thus in 1611 the Earl of Rutland got all his oats and most of his wheat and pease in rent corn, his malt partly from 1 H/A 477/18. Essex R.O., D/DBy M 158. Althorp ESP 10, Sandbeck, Scarbrough MSS. EMA 1/5. HMCR, iv, p. 484. SP 14/26/36. W. R. B. Robinson, The Earls of Worcester and their Estates, 1526-1642, Oxford B.Litt. thesis, 1959.

2 Hants R.O., WD. 416. BM Harl. MSS, 7186, f. 19. Lambeth 700/47. H/S 145, f. 186. SP 12/265/123. BM Add. MSS. 38170, ff. 121-2. See also Lord Leconfield, Sutton and Duncton

Manors, 1956, pp. 17-18. Robinson, thesis cit., pp. zoj—10o. G. C, Williamson, Lady Anne Clifford, Kendal, 1922, p.55. H/S 143, f. 106. Sandbeck, Scarbrough MSS. EMA 1/5. Northants. R.O., Brudenell MSS. K. XI. 5.

302 ESTATE MANAGEMENT rent corn and partly from tithe corn, and only his rye and barley from the home farm at Woolsthorpe near Belvoir Castle. His beef and mutton came from cattle and sheep fattened in his parks, his lambs from his own flock and from tithes, his rabbits from his own watten.' From these three sources, demesnes, tithes, and provision rents, most peets of whom we have record were receiving foodstuffs to the value of between 5 and 10 per cent. of their gross cash income from land, to which must be added something for free carriage. As wood fuel became scatcer, mote and more noblemen began going over to coal for at least part of their heating requirements. Now coal is heavy and dirty and often has to be transported long distances. Rather than use their own carts or hire them for the occasion, many peers in the late Elizabethan and early Stuart period preferred

to put this disagreeable obligation upon some of their tenants as a condition of their leases. One example of this revival of medieval carriage works is provided by the Earl of Kent, who in 1616 gave fifteen-year leases to twelve tenants at Blunham, Bedfordshire. Each

was obliged to carry salt fish and other dty goods from the fair at Stoutbtidge to any of his lordship’s houses in Bedfordshire, and also coal from St. Ives to Blunham Parsonage. At about the same

time Lord St. John was imposing between two and ten days’ catriage wotk a year on his tenants at Bletsoe. Similar duties for carrying coal were extracted by the Earl of Northumberland at Tynemouth, the Earl of Cumberland in Yorkshire, Lord Brudenell

in the Midlands, and the Earl of Worcester in Glamorgan. The practice thus covered the whole country and presumably must have been very common indeed. The alternative was to pay the tenants for their obligatory services: in 1611 slates from Colly Weston and

dried fish from Stourbridge were carried to Belvoir for the Earl of Rutland by the tenants at an agreed price per load. After the Restoration the Earl of Northampton was getting his coal carried from St. Neots to Castle Ashby by the Yardley Hastings tenants, the cost being deducted from their rents.” Even the deet parks tended to go the same way as the rest of the demesne as the quest for profit grew more intense in the early seventeenth century. After all, the most fanatical of Nimrods could I HMCR, iv, pp. 480-6. 2 Beds. R.O., Dd/DL 1/15-27; Dd/DY 2/15. History of Northumberland, viii, p. 230 n. § (cf. op. cit. x, p. 275). Spence ,thesis cit., p. 192. Northants. R.O., Brudenell MSS. K. XI. 5. Robinson, thesis cit., pp. 213-4. HMCR, iv, pp. 481-5. Castle Ashby, 1001/13.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 303 hardly exhaust the possibilities of all the eighteen deer-parks owned by the 1st Earl of Pembroke in the early years of Elizabeth. And so park after park, even that around the great house, was let as pasture

for cattle and sheep, or on occasion cleared of trees and ploughed up. “Men of late’, wrote Norden in 1607, ‘have disparked much of this kinde of ground and converted it to better uses.’ The records of the aristocracy bear him out. Before Norden wrote, the Earl of Northumberland had disparked Alnwick Park and filled Petworth Great Park with cattle, sheep, and ironworks; Lord Lumley had disparked Nonsuch Great Park, the Earl of Salisbury Brigstock Great Park, and Lord Chandos Sudeley Park. By 1640 Loughborough Old Park had been disparked by the Earl of Huntingdon, Harrold

Park by the Earl of Kent, Harringworth Park by Lord Vaux. In 1646 Lord Berkeley was advised to dispark in Gloucestershire, and

by 1677 the Earl of Northampton was ploughing up his park at Compton Wynyates.! Never agricultural entrepreneurs on a very large scale, noblemen contracted their activities in the early seventeenth century so that by 1640 the great majority were little more than rentiers, and often

absentee tentiers at that. Given the prevailing economic conditions this change may well have produced the optimum financial return, but it certainly had important social consequences. It focused attention upon the evet-sensitive problem of rent and made this the flash-point of conflict in rural society; it detached the nobility and squirearchy from direct contact with the soil; and it plunged an already leisured class into even greater idleness. (2) Leasing policies

It is platitudinous to observe that men’s deeds are as often as not considerably at variance with their words, and that this discrepancy causes scant concern to all but the most squeamish. On the other hand dismissal of stated social aspirations simply because they are mote honoured in the breach than the observance is as foolish as

acceptance at their face value. Neither absolute cynicism nor absolute naiveté are much use in assessing the relative weight of idealism and self-interest in influencing the behaviour of so erratic 1 BM Harl. MSS. 7186, f. 9. J. Norden, The Surveyor’s Dialogue, 1738, p. 180. M. E. James, op. cit., p. xli. Lord Leconfield, Petworth Manor in the Seventeenth Century, 1954, p. 65. Collins,

li, p. 307. HMCS, xv, p. 361. H/S 146, f. 104. Nichols, iti, p. 712. Beds. R.O., Dd/DL 7/71. Althorp, Survey of Northants., 1635. GPL/SF 2/11. Castle Ashby 1004.

304 ESTATE MANAGEMENT and unpredictable an animal as man. It is therefore not entirely superfluous to examine the moral obligations which wete supposed

to govetn landlord-tenant relations. This was not one of those petiods in which it has been regarded as right and reasonable for a man to do as he likes with his own, regardless of the assumed laws of God and the alleged interests of society. A landlord was expected to cherish old tenants and to moderate his demands upon all, whether old or new. ‘All good landlords’, thought a tenant during the Interregnum, “would continue their old tenants, although they

wete great loosers by them’, and ‘advices’ to sons were all but unanimous in recommending lenient treatment rather than maximization of profits. The typical profiteering careerist of the reign of

Henry VIII, Sir John Gostwick, Treasurer of the Court of First Fruits and Tenths, told his son to deal fairly with his tenants and not to attempt to squeeze out of them a greater share of the agricultural profits. Ralegh’s famous and much-admired advice to his son counselled a landlord to “use thy poor neighbours and tenants well, pine them not and their children to add superfluity and needless expences to thy self’. “Be moderate in taking fines and sparing in raysing of rentes that [the tenants] may have cause both to pray and prayse God for you’, advised noblemen like the 1st Lord Montagu; “Be favourable, my son, to thy tenants’, admonished knights

like Sir John Strode; ‘Burden them not wythe mote fines, tents ot setv[icjes then they be well abell to paye you’, recommended minor gentry like Robert Futse; ‘Be very kind and loving unto your tenantes’, ordered James Bankes, the former London goldsmith, who was quick to pick up the unfamiliar notions suitable to his new station in life. The prevalent doctrine of social responsibility was buttressed by

the teachings of the clergy. “Divines will also have it’, reported Dudley Lord North, perhaps a little doubtfully, ‘that Gods blessing doth not accompany such persons as ate too hard on their tenants.’ These restraints pressed particularly upon the aristocracy, who were expected to set an example in moral rectitude. In his indictment of

Henry Earl of Lincoln for depopulation, the Attorney-General pointed out that his lordship was ‘a greate peere of yor Majesties realme and therfore one that in honor of his degree and callinge ought rather to bee a defence than an opptessor of your majesties inferior subjectes’. Almost the only sceptic was a mere knight, Sir William Wentworth, who believed that ‘notwithstanding all their

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 305 fawninge and flattrye, [tenants] seldom love their landlord in their harts’. But even he would go no farther than advising a substitution of yearly tenancies at will for leases, in order to increase the absolute

power of the landlord.!

This body of doctrine was part of the wider concept of the superior virtues of the country over the court, the notion that in some tecent golden age landlords—and particularly aristocratic landlords—had lived quietly in the countryside, dispensing charity and good cheer and acting as kindly protectors of a loyal and contented peasantry. The serpent in this Garden of Eden was the Court, which lured landlords away from their tenants and involved them in wasteful extravagance, thus making it psychologically possible and financially necessary for them to squeeze the uttermost farthing out of their estates. There is no need to point out that this

theory involves an ovet-sanguine interpretation of late medieval rural society—the Peasants’ Revolt and Jack Cade’s rebellion are sufficient indicators of a different reality—but there was some truth

in the idea that the Early Tudor nobleman had been paternalistic in his attitude towards his tenants, in return for obedience, loyalty, and service. Consider, for example, the assumptions that lie behind the popular

eulogies of two old-fashioned Elizabethan noblemen. It was said of Henry 3rd Earl of Huntingdon that His tenants that dailye repaired to his house Was fed with his bacon, his beefe, & his souse. Their rents were not raised, their fines were but small, And many poore tenants paid nothing at all. No groves he enclosed, nor felled no wood, No pastures he paled to do himself good. To commons and country he lived a good friend, And gave to the needie what God did him send.

Richard Robinson’s description of Ferdinando Lord Strange, later 14th Earl of Derby, is an apotheosis of the perfect country nobleman : Not markes and pounds but hawkes and hounds, Is ever his desire. He layes not gether poores mens grounds, He is no counttrey stroyer. 1 VCH Staffs. iv, p. 80. Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. xxvi, 1956, pp. 44-45. Ralegh, ii, p. 354. Boughton House, N.C. 13/2. C, Aspinall-Oglander, Nanwell Symphony, 1945, p. 54. Trans. Devon, Assoc. xxvi, 1894, p. 172. Lancs. and Chesh. Hist. Soc. Trans. xciv, 1943, p. 68. North, op. cit., p. 106. Star Ch. 8/17/17. Sheff CL/S 40/1.

821314 x

| 306 ESTATE MANAGEMENT He lives in love of rich and poore, Sufficient doth he call his store. Full well knowes he that men must dye And therefore will not chaunge; But lives content with auncient rent, Which argues to be Straunge.!

It would be surprising if these widely held views did not act to some extent as a brake upon the forces of change. No doubt the failure of the Elizabethan nobility to adjust the receipts from land to the changing value of money was due in large part to innate conservatism, laziness, inertia, and a failure to grasp the long-term significance of inflation. But some of it must surely be put down to the workings of this moral code which made men feel that they had an obligation not to rock the boat. How otherwise, indeed, ate we to explain why the long series of anti-depopulation Acts passed through a parliament of landlords with such little difficulty, if such practices, though profitable, were not also thought to be wicked? It is not surprising to find that Henry Lord Berkeley died in an atmosphere of virtue and debt, with a reputation as ‘the best landlord that England had’. It was not only conservative old muddlers like Lord Henry who

were affected by this doctrine, as a story about the 2nd Earl of Salisbury shows. In 1617 he appointed a prominent Salisbury lawyer, Henry Sherfield, as steward and surveyor to his westcountry lands. Henry made his brother Richard deputy-steward with responsibility for the day-to-day running of the estates, and the two no doubt looked forward confidently to a long and profitable tenure of office. But in 1624 an influential local squire, Thomas

Hooper of Boveridge, wrote to the Earl accusing Sherfield of oppression of copyholders and tenants by unjust and corrupt manipulation of the manorial court. Faced with these accusations against an apparently efficient servant, Salisbury appointed a commission of three local squires to investigate the business. Although they could not find that his activities were against the financial interests of the Earl, they were nevertheless unanimous in their condemnation. ‘We find Mr Richard Sherfield his courses and carriage so directly opposite to your truly noble disposition by enforcing such strict penalties and law quirks that he hath justly drawn on him the hate and ill opinion of that part of the country IM. M. Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, Chicago, 1939, p. 411. Chetham Soc, xxiii, 1851, p. 18.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 307 and will not be a fit man for you to continue as understeward, as we conceive.’ The Earl accepted the recommendation and dismissed Sherfield.

Other peers, like Margaret Countess of Cumberland in 1616 and the 2nd Earl of Devonshire in 1628, made provision in their wills to

protect their tenants from possible extortion by a grasping heir. Instructions to land agents tell the same story of reluctance to resott to extreme measures: Philip Earl of Arundel intervened with his agent to protect a tenant from eviction in 1577; nearly a century later Roger Palmer Earl of Castlemaine was ordering his agent never to take out an execution against a tenant until his rent was eighteen months in arrears, and to give specially favourable treatment to old tenants. Evidence of noblemen and squires managing their estates on these easy-going paternalist lines runs through to the eighteenth century and beyond, and is a factor in slackening social tensions which economic historians ignore at their peril? The question of landlord—tenant relations has been exhaustively

discussed by Professor Tawney and others, but there is still room for a re-examination of the problem from the point of view of the landlord rather than that of the tenant.? The most numerous class of tenants, though not necessarily the most important financially, was of those who held their estates by copy of court roll. This simple

category in fact embraced four distinct types with widely different Capacities to weather the storms of the sixteenth century. The first

possessed an estate of inheritance, meaning that his heir had an automatic right to admission, and that his entry fine was a fixed monetary sum; the second possessed an estate of inheritance with atbitrable fines, meaning that the fine was subject to negotiation at each change of tenant; the third held for term of life or lives with fixed fines; and the fourth for life or lives with arbitrable fines.

In the early seventeenth century the surveyor John Norden thought that most copyholdetrs must originally have enjoyed fixed fines, but that as prices doubled and trebled in the early sixteenth century they were forced by landlords to agree to arbitrable fines. The second group could easily be bullied by the threat of imposing an impossible fine, and the third by the threat of putting in a new t Smyth, ii, p. 408. H/G 71/29, 32; 81/5; 82/15; 83/6, 10, 13, 27; L. 62/11; Box S/y, f. 8. PCC 82 Cope and 68 Barrington. Williamson, op. cit., p. 39. HMC Var. MSS. ii, p. 234. BM Add. MSS. 12516, f. 10. G. E. Mingay, ‘Thrumpton’, Thoroton Soc. Trans. \xi, 1958. 2 R. H. Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century, 1912, pt. il, ch. iii.

308 ESTATE MANAGEMENT tenant, while the fourth had no legal protection anyway. The issue of entry fines was one of the two main causes of landlord—tenant friction in the sixteenth century, as landlords strove to obtain their fair share of the rising agricultural profits and tenants tried to take full advantage of their rights. The Court of Chancery became the

arbiter in these disputes, and was always ready to support the tenants if they could prove their legal position. If they won their case, it meant that they were established in a position not very different from that of a freeholder, and that the lord was deprived of all but a tiny and diminishing fraction of the true value of his property. Even if they lost, however, things were still inconvenient for the lord, since he had to take his profit almost entirely in the form of entry fines. Let us look at the Hampshire estates of the Earl of Southampton as surveyed in 1624. Only on one manor, Dogmersfield, were the fines of a fixed amount, an attempt by the Earl’s officets to overthrow the tradition having been defeated seven yeats before. In a Chancery suit against the earl, the tenants alleged that the fines were fixed at 115. 6d. and heriots at 5s. The Earl admitted that the custom was of long standing, but said he thought it must be an encroachment, and that anyway it was against law and reason that copyholders should enjoy the equivalent of estates of inheritance. He was persuaded that he had not a leg to stand on, however, and was content to have the tenants’ rights confirmed and registered in Chancery. Copyholders on all the other manors were subject to atbitrable fines, and as a result the survey revealed the following situation :! Potential value

Present rent to the lord

Freeholders £14 £14 Copyholders £272 £2,372

Leaseholders £1,582 £2,815

Total £1,868 £5,201

The Earl could hardly hope to obtain eight-ninths of the value of the copyhold estate from irregular fines, if only because the tenants would lack the foresight to accumulate capital over the yeats for such huge payments. It was therefore in the interest of the lord to 1 Norden, op. cit., p. 157. C 2 Jas. I, G 5/63. Hants R.O., WB 128.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 309 turn copyholds into leaseholds, and so to bring the annual rent more nearly into line with true values and reduce the size of these occasional fines.

By brandishing the stick of arbitrable fines, the lord could often force copyholdets to surrender their copies and take leases at higher rents and lower fines. By 1624 the Earl of Southampton had already converted five copyholds at Beaulieu, and all over the country the same process was at work. The Brudenells had eliminated most customaty tenants from their Northamptonshire manors by the end of the sixteenth century; the 2nd Earl of Salisbury began converting copyholds to leaseholds on his Wiltshire estates in the early

1630's, and the 9th Earl of Northumberland launched a major attack on copyholders in Northumberland in the early years of the century. At Lesbury, High Burston, and Tynemouth the conversion involved doubling the rent, and at Long Houghton and Brotherwick it was trebled; at Alnmouth the agent advised offering easy terms at first ‘for I assure your Lordship the contry is much troobled with this overthrowe of coppy houlde estate’. Along the Scottish borders this conversion to leasehold led to a prolonged battle between the tenants and the great aristocratic landowners of the district. Until 1603 the former had held the land under ‘tenant right’ by which they possessed an estate of inheritance

in return for little other than military service against the Scots. King James believed, rightly, that the tenure was a direct incitement to cattle-raiding and marauding against the Scots, and declared that it was abolished with the merger of the two crowns. This gave

the landlords of the northern border an opportunity to increase the monetary returns from estates which hitherto had yielded little but bands of rufians to help out in an emergency. There followed a forty-year tussle in the courts and on the ground, involving armed rioting and a whole series of lawsuits in Chancery and Star Chamber before the issue was finally settled.?

If conversion to leasehold was impossible, landlords were tempted to get rid of their copyholds altogether by selling the franchise. Alternatively they could sell the copyholders the right to fixed fines, thus raising ready cash and avoiding future quarrels, though at the cost of leaving themselves unprotected against future 1 Hants R.O., WB 128. Finch, p. 149. H/A 162/1-4; Box $/8. History of Northumberland, v, Ppp. 211, 260; ii, pp. 385-7, 427-8, 455, 482-3; villi, p. 238; xii, p. 109.

2 T. B. H. Graham, The Barony of Gisland (Cumberland and Westmorland Ant. Soc., Extra Series, XVI), 1934, pp. ix-xii. CSPD, 1640, pp. 27, 85.

310 ESTATE MANAGEMENT inflation. Both the Crown and the Earl of Arundel played with this idea in the 1620’s and 1630’s.!

The tights and wrongs of the process of converting copyhold into leasehold are far from clear. Copyholders of inheritance with

fixed fines were the fortunate beneficiaries of a legal accident, which thanks to price inflation transferred all but a fraction of the profits of their estate from the lord to themselves. It was natural for landlords to attack this new distribution of profits, natural for copyholders to take maximum advantage of their good fortune. Copyholders with arbitrable fines found themselves faced with demands for larger and larger capital sums to be raised at irregular

intervals, and unless they held a copy of inheritance they were liable to be turned out unless they could pay. On the other hand the lord was certainly not getting his full due from the trivial rents and

the erratic fines, and it was very much in his interests to shift to a leasehold system at higher rents. Since demesne husbandry and copyholding were both shrinking, the major emphasis on any gteat estate was incteasingly placed on the administration of leaseholds, a subject of some complexity. Every time a lord made a lease, he had to decide three things : what

the estate was worth, how long a lease he was prepared to grant, and in what proportion he was going to divide the profit between

the entry fine and the rent. |

So long as prices were virtually static there was little demand for efficient surveys, since new lettings were mere slavish copies of the old. But in the sixteenth century two factors emerged to upset this stable pattern. The upheaval in landownership meant that there sprang up a host of new landlords anxious to discover just what it was they had acquired, and the rise in prices made it imperative to sutvey and value the property before each new letting in order to know what to charge. Consequently the surveyor changed from being primarily an antiquarian lawyer skilled in seeking out and describing complicated medieval tenures, and became in addition a geographical and geometrical technician as conversant with the plane table and trigonometry as with Coke upon Littleton. The new world of mathematics and instrument-making was called in to redress the balance for the old landlord. The late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries saw the making 1 H/G 19/6 (Earl of Salisbury in 1612). SP 14/175/39. CSPD, 1639-40, p. 197. M.F. S. Hervey, Life of Thomas Howard Earl of Arundel, Cambridge, 1921, p: 259.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 311 of a very large number of more or less accurate surveys, now measured by the latest techniques, and often accompanied by a ‘plot’ or detailed ground plan of the estate. The plot was a cherished document which would be of practical value for decades to come.

In 1607 John Norden explained that “a plot rightly drawn by true information describeth so the lively image of a mannor and every branch and member of the same as the Lord sitting in his chayre

may see what he hath, where and how it lyeth, and in whose occupation every particular is, upon the suddaine view’.! The construction of accurate estate maps was made possible by the appli-

cation of new mathematical expertise to data provided by new instruments. The pocket compass gave the cardinal points, the four-petch line, soon to be replaced by the iron link-chain, gave accurate linear measurement. By considerable labour it was possible by these means to make reasonably approximate assessments of area.

In the early seventeenth century this improved but still clumsy method was superseded by triangulation, introduced as a result of geometrical theory, made practicable by the invention of the plane table and the theodolite, and made easy by the publication of John Napier’s logarithm tables. Besides providing an accurate measurement of acreage, the sut-

veyor’s plot also put a stop to the ‘infinite concealements and losses of many mens land, and many intrusions and incrochments [which] have been made and so long continued that now neither memory or recotd can teforme them, besides infinite other abuses,

which ate daily done to the prejudice of lords, for want of such a monument to be alwaies at hand for their instruction’. No wonder the tenants complained about this new-fangled technique. “By your

meanes’, complained the farmer to the surveyor in Norden’s Dialogue, ‘rents ate raysed and lands knowne to the uttermost acre, fines inhaunced farre higher then ever before the measuring of land and surveying came in.”! This intellectual and technological revolution—for it was no less —meant that by the beginning of the seventeenth century it was at last possible for the lord of many manors to keep a close check upon

his agents and his agents upon the tenants. It was of even greater benefit to the noble owner of many properties than to the small t Norden, op. cit., p. 27. 2 Norden, op. cit., pp. 29, 6. See E. R. G. Taylor, “The Surveyor’, EcHR, xvii, 1947. D. Chilton, ‘Land Measurement in the Sixteenth Century’, Newcomen Soc. xxxi, 1958-9. F. G. Emmison, Catalogue of Maps in the Essex Record Office, 1947.

312 ESTATE MANAGEMENT gentleman who could ride over his estates in an afternoon. And so in the 1590's the nobility took a leading part in exploiting this new

administrative weapon in their armoury. They may have been a little slow to appreciate its advantages, but once it had been perfected they used it to the full. Both Lord Burghley and the 1st Earl of Salisbury employed Israel Amyce, former servant of the 17th Earl of Oxford, to survey and plot some of their property in the 1590’s and 1600’s. Both the rst and 2nd Earls of Salisbury employed

the great John Norden, and right up to the Civil War a variety of surveyors were kept busy surveying and plotting the Cecil propetties. General surveys and valuations of the whole estate were cattied out and entered in registers in 1609, 1615, 1642, and 1674, and by 1636 the muniment room at Salisbury House contained thirteen plots and innumerable particular surveys. In 1625 the Earl’s servant Christopher Keighley surveyed Hatfield woods and Redrith; in 1626 he was measuring Bermondsey with a chain, and inspecting the Dorset and Cornwall estates; those in Suffolk were | sutveyed in 1627, and in 1638 two months were spent in going over the Cornish property. Bermondsey, Redrith, Ruislip, and Brigstock

wete sutveyed in 1632-4, Hadham in 1638, and Ruislip again in 1642.

Keighley was the Earl’s servant and therefore was not paid extra,

but the services of the professional surveyor in the seventeenth century were not cheap. For a small property he would charge {2 ot so, but any large-scale operation involved much higher sums. When Brigstock Park was surveyed tn 1632-3, the chief surveyor was paid {23. 10s. and his assistant £5. Norden was paid £5 for sutveying Edmonton in 1614 and a gratuity of {20 from the Earl for this and other services. It is noticeable that it was the more efficient landlords who were ptepared to put money into this relatively expensive technical service. Those two first-class men of business and heavy land purchasers, Alderman Sir John Spencer

and Lionel Cranfield Earl of Middlesex, both employed John Norden in the first decades of the seventeenth century.! With the aid of accurate measurements of acreage and up-to-date valuations, it was possible to plan a leasing policy. Late-sixteenthcentury leases usually ran either for 21 years or 3 lives (the latter for technical reasons usually stated as 99 years or 3 consecutive 1 HMC sth Rep., App. p. 322. H/Box Q/2; Box S/7; A 160/1; 128/13; 133/1, 53 135/4; 160/5, 6, 93 157/3. Castle Ashby 1307. Kent R.O., Sackville MSS. E 290.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 313 lives, whichever was the shorter). In the south-west as far east as parts of Berkshire leases were for lives, usually 3 if the Brooke, Cavendish, Cecil (Salisbury), Howard (Berkshire), Russell, Herbert, and Craven estates are any guide. Leases for lives seem generally to

have been very common in the north, especially in Lancashire, although on the Craven estate of the earls of Cumberland both lives and years occur. In Shropshire the custom varied from area to atea, with 3 lives on the Ellesmete section and 21 years on the Whitchurch section of the Earl of Bridgwater’s estate, and with similar vatiations on the Talbot estates. In Staffordshire, Kent, and Rutland

the custom was also mixed on the Devereux, Brooke, and Cecil estates. All over the Midlands, in Hertfordshite, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, Huntingdonshire, and Northamptonshire the 21-year lease seems to have been almost universal. It should be noted that this pattern is very similar to that disclosed by a survey of episcopal estates of 1837.1 The causes of these customs ate unknown, but their origins go back to the late Middle Ages and therefore do not concern us here. What is important for our purposes is the extreme frequency of the lease for lives in the southwest, in contrast with the more flexible lease for years which prevailed over much of the Lowland Zone. It was a difference which by the mid-seventeenth century was to have important consequences upon the trend of landlord incomes in that area.

If the duration of the lease was governed to a considerable extent by custom, so also was its character. Over the greater part of England in the late sixteenth century tenants held their farms under beneficial leases, and it is therefore vital to grasp the signi-

ficance of this system. Under it a tenant paid a large cash fine, usually over a petiod of two yeats, and a low annual rental. In teturn he received a long lease, usually 21 years or 3 lives, which gave him fair security of tenure. In almost all cases the tenant was made responsible for upkeep, repairs, and hedging and ditching,

though he might be allowed the use of timber from the hedgetows. There was usually a heavy penalty clause preventing him from ploughing up established pasture, and the more efficient 1 R. Carew, The Survey of Cornwall, 1602, pp. 37-38. H/A 159/1; 161/4; 162/1; 163/13 135/45

Box $/8. SP 13/Case G/z2. Savernake House, Ailesbury MSS. 3204. H of L, 3 Ch. I, Private Act 3. L/Misc. VI; L/Dev IV. Chatsworth/H 13 A. Bod] Selden Supra MSS. 113, f. 10. Hants R.O., WB 128. Rousham, Cottrell-Dormer MSS. Beds. R.O., D/DL 1; Dd/DY 2/15. Essex R.O., D/DBy E 1. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berkshire MSS., Moore’s Boxes 1/1. Finch, pp. 49, 150. CCC, pp. 279, 332, 362. Report from the Select Committee on Church Leases, PP England 1837-8, ix (692), p. 512.

314 ESTATE MANAGEMENT landlords like the 2nd Earl of Salisbury demanded a guarantee that all the manure produced on the farm should be ploughed back into it, and that the fertility of the arable be preserved by allowing one yeat fallow in three.! Thete is some teason to suppose that fines did not begin to play an important part in most landlords’ income until the early sixteenth

centuty. The duration of leases seems to have increased at this petiod and fines were imposed to compensate landlords for the tise in the level of prices. Such at any rate is the story on the estates

of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Corporation of Exeter. Under an Act of 1529 lessees for terms of yeats wete given protection against the breaking of their leases by a lord suffering a recovery, and this may have acted as a stimulus towatds the granting of longer terms.” There was clearly a strong sense of obligation not to tamper with ancient rents, just as there was on copyhold estates, and this obliged landlords to take their share of the growing profits of agriculture in the form of entry fines. As prices rose to ever greater heights, so did the importance of the fine relative to the rent. By the beneficial lease, ‘the estate . . . is in fact mortgaged in parcels to an immense number of creditors; for what else in arithmetical science is a fine but a loan on mortgage ?’3 From the point of view of the landlord the principal advantage of the system was that it might enable him to raise large capital sums at short notice. So long as interest tates wete high and mortgages dangerous, this was a vital necessity for men often in desperate need to clear off debts, marry a daughter, or pay for an embassy ot a new mansion. The two methods by which a landlord could raise capital at short notice were by cutting down and selling his standing timber, and by demanding large entry fines for re-leasing his lands, if necessary

in teversion, if necessary for a long time to come, if necessary at a reduced annual rent. A landlord could thus raise immediate cash,

the cost of the operation being paid for in the form of loss of potential income in the yeats to come. Many peers cheerfully burdened their estates with long leases at

; low tents. In the 1580’s the 2nd Earl of Essex raised some £5,000 in fines, the 9th Earl of Northumberland £1,700 (at a cost of nearly tT SP 15/39/140. H/A 161/4; 162/1, 3; 135/4; Box S/8. 2 R. Somerville, The Duchy of Lancaster, i, 1953, pp. 306, 341. W. T. MacCaffrey, Exever, 1j40-1640, Harvard, 1958, pp. 64-65. 21 H. VIII, cap. 15. 3 Report... on Church Leases, p. 496.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 315 £3,000 a year in lost rent for twenty-one years, if he is to be believed), the Earl of Southampton was hoping to get £2,000, the 17th Earl of Oxford was raising the wind by leasing his estate in tevetsion at old rents. In the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign, the Earls of Cumberland, Derby, and Bedford and Lord Berkeley were all resorting to the same device to help them out of their difficulties. As for the Earl of Rutland, he raised no less than {£14,600 in four yeats from re-leasing his estates for twenty-one years. If carried to the extreme lengths of granting long leases in reversion at ancient

rent, this policy could effectively mortgage the estate for decades to come. In 1642 the Devonshire estates of the 5th Earl of Bath were ‘clog’d with long estates, some estates for 6 lives, some for 99 years after life in being, some for 40 years after the compounders death, and other for 21 years after 3 lives in being’.!

The second advantage to the landlord was that by paying his fine the lessee had given a pledge in advance that he would fulfil the terms of the lease, so that at any rate in theory it should have been easy to ensure the prompt payment of rent. Thirdly, there was the fact that to break the system of fines for beneficial leases once it had been established demanded a personal sacrifice, since every

lord for the time being had a direct interest in its continuance. Because the system was in effect a form of mortgage on the future, part of the costs of the cash raised by a lord in fines was passed on to his successors as a loss of tent. Each landlord was thus strongly tempted to take his profit and let the heirs go hang, as his father had

done before him. If he shifted to rack-renting he would almost certainly receive less in his own lifetime than he would have done if he had stuck to large fines and small rents, even though in the long run the financial advantage was enormous. Like flogging in public schools, the beneficial lease was an institution in the perpetuation of which its former victims always ended by acquiring a vested interest.

The tenant was even mote strongly in favour of the beneficial lease than the landlord. In so far as he was able to make the complicated calculations necessary, he would have realized that in the long run he paid less in rents, fines, and hypothetical interest on the fines, than he would have done if he had paid an annual rack-rent.? 1 H/A 4/21; H/S 137, f. 252. Harrison, p. 83. HMCS, xii, pp. 227, 321, 5743 vili, p. 275; xvi, p. 283. SP 14/26/34, 36. GPL/Smith MSS. 1/29; 2/45-6. B/A 378, 90, 309, 310, 95, 97, 100, 312. SP 23/208, p. 713. 2 A rack-rent does not mean an extortionate rent, but merely one at the full economic value.

316 ESTATE MANAGEMENT If he had managed to save up the money for the fine, the system was absurdly advantageous to him. Although at this period leases for years were still commonly allowed to run out before renewal, leases for lives were very frequently granted in reversion, thus giving the tenant very nearly absolute security of tenure, which 1s always a most sensitive issue in landlord—tenant relations. On any rational view, however, the defects of the system for both sides outweighed the advantages. The tenant found his capital tied up in what was the equivalent of a loan on mortgage to his landlord,

and the land was thus starved of the capital needed for improvement and stocking. If the estate was held on lease for a life or lives it was pute chance when it would expire, an uncertainty which acted as a disincentive to long-term saving. This was a particularly serious matter since it was not yet possible to take out a lifeinsurance policy. Even when the duration of the lease was a fixed term of years there was no means of knowing what the lord would demand for a fine, and therefore how much would have to be saved. On the other hand it is not difficult to understand why the average

tenant clung so tenaciously to the beneficial lease. Not only did he pay less in aggregate, but the uncertainty of timing and duration of the fines fitted in with his vision of life on earth. When man is at the mercy of disease and the weather, in health today, crippled or dead

tomorrow, gorged today and starved tomorrow, with money to burn today from the sale of a bumper crop, plunged into debt tomorrow because of harvest failure, the human condition is one of perpetual flux. The beneficial lease was just one more card in a large pack of jokers, and leaseholders and the customary tenants positively

preferred a few yeats of misery and hardship while the fine was being paid, followed by a long period at a low rent, to the regular payment of a reasonable annual sum. In 1608 the Earl of Shrewsbury tried to get his Staffordshire tenants to offer larger rents now in return for a reduction of fines in futute, but the majority refused outright. The surveyor pointed out to them that they held their land on lease with fines running up to £80 ‘the which fines perhapps would undoe or gteatlie hinder many of them, & especiallie of the poorer sort’, but they replied that they ‘had rather smart one yeare then every yeare’. When the 9th Earl of Northumberland was trying to get some copyholders in Northumberland to accept leases at higher annual rents, his

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 317 agent reported that “they will rather willinglye paye a fyne that maye happalye make them beggers all ther lifes, then geve treble rent for

a lease’! The possibility that the sole beneficiary of the system would be the village usurer was one tenants preferred to ignore. The disadvantages of the beneficial lease to the landlord were far

more glaring. Irregular fluctuations of income made budgeting very difficult, and as normal credit machinery improved, it became less necessary to reserve the power to raise capital from the tenants. Loans from city financiers replaced fines for new leases. Moreover during the sixteenth century the tatio between fines and rents had

been progressively getting out of hand. As prices rose, landlords

who stuck to the convention of charging ancient rents found themselves having to take a larger and larger proportion of their income in irregular fines. In the west, where the tradition of maintaining old rent was hardest to break, on the eve of the Civil War landlords like the earls of Bath and Berkshire and lords Petre and St. John were getting a third or mote of their income in the form of fines.?

Even if the duration of the leases was not excessive and if reversions were avoided, the method of calculating fines was almost always defective. In the first place the assumptions made about the value of a life interest wete seriously inaccurate. In the absence of actuarial statistics about expectation of life it was generally assumed

that 1 life was the equivalent of 7 years, 2 lives of 14 years, and 3 lives of 21 years. This may perhaps have been true in the high mottality period of the fifteenth century, but it was certainly an underestimate by the late sixteenth century. In the middle of the seventeenth century both Henry Philippes and Stephen Primatt thought that a more reasonable guess would be at least 10, 19, and 27 yeats for 1, 2, and 3 lives. In fact no accurate calculations were possible. ‘I do not suppose that a correct table of three lives can be completed by all the actuaries of Europe in ages’ gloomily rematked the actuary of the National Debt Office in 1837, though he had no doubt at all that the standard guesses greatly underestimated the length of human life and were therefore harmful to the lessor. The estimate of the first life was absurdly low, while that of the third life was probably an exaggeration. ' Talbot M, f. 570. History of Northumberland, it, p. 385.

2 Kent R.O., Sackville MSS. A 520, 522, 525. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berkshire MSS., Box B/z. CUL Ee 3/27. Beds. R.O., Dd/DY 2/15; DDJ 11.

318 ESTATE MANAGEMENT Occasionally, of course, it was possible for a landlord to give natute a helping hand. At the height of the Anglo-Spanish War in 1589, two gentlemen shipped their tenants off to the army, ostensibly in a fit of patriotic enthusiasm, but in fact in the certain knowledge that few would return and that they would therefore obtain a windfall in fines for new leases. Normally, however, such golden opportunities did not present themselves, and one of the measures taken by Archbishop Laud in his efforts to restore the financial health of the Anglican Church was to get King Charles to otder ecclesiastical bodies in future to make leases for 21 years rather than 3 lives.! It was not till the second decade of the seventeenth century that landlords were provided with data by which they could tell at a glance what fine they ought to charge. By 1617 Lord Paget owned a book of “Arithmetical questions touching annuities and leases’,? and in 1622 Thomas Clay published his Briefe and Neccessary Tables for the Valuation of Leases, Annuities etc. Before this they must have

relied heavily on guesswork. The fine was worked out in terms of so many yeats’ purchase of the difference between the annual rent and the annual value as revealed in a recent survey. Since the fine

was in the nature of an advance, allowance had to be made for intetest at the current tate, so that the higher the rate the smaller the fine. To take an example, if a property valued at £30 per annum is let at an annual rent of £10, the fine is a multiple of the residual value of {30—f10 = £20. For a new lease of 21 years, the fine at 10 per cent. interest works out at 8-2 years’ value, or £164, and at 8 per cent. at 10 years’ value, or £200. The reduction in the rate of interest from 10 per cent. to 8 per cent. in 1624 thus benefited the propertied classes in two ways; in fact it enabled them to borrow more cheaply and in theory it justified the imposition of larger fines for beneficial leases. Even when these tables had been published, few landlords applied them strictly. The 3rd Earl of Southampton was only charging an »

average of 54 years’ purchase of the residual value for 21-year leases of his Hampshire estates in the years before 1624, whereas ™ H. Philippes, The Purchasers Pattern, 1654, pp. 27-28. S. Primatt, The City and Country Purchaser and Builder [1667], p. 22. See also Isaac Newton, Tables for Renewing and Purchasing

. of Leases ..., Cambridge, 1686. Anon., A True Estimate of the Value of Leasehold Estates ..., 1731. Report ...on Church Leases, pp. 1-13, 314. HMCS, iv, p. 4. CSPD, 1634-7, p. 88. C. Hill, The Economic Problems of the Church, Oxford, 1956, p. 311.

2 BM Harl. MSS. 3287.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 319 at 10 per cent. interest he should have charged 8-2 years. Moreover,

there wete vety wide differences from one lease to another, indicating a lack of proper information from surveys in the past. Six fines were between 3 and 5 years’ purchase, 10 between 5 and 7, and 2 between 9 and 11. The interest rate fell to 8 per cent. in 1624

and the theoretical fine on a 21-year lease therefore tose to about 10 yeats’ purchase. But the Earl of Bolingbroke was only charging old tenants about 6 years, the Countess of Kent 9 years, and it was

said in 1626 that around London 7 years was the rule. It is not until the eve of the Civil War and later that there is evidence of landlords’ charging the full rate to old tenants, the Earl of Bridgwater in the late 1630’s, the Earl of Salisbury in the 1650’s (and probably earlier), and the Duke of Somerset in the 1660’s.! The interest content of a beneficial lease was very large. Let us assume that the rent charged on a lease was half its true value, which seems to have been an acceptable figure around the turn of the century, and that leases for 21 years were commonly being sold at about 7 years’ purchase of the difference between the rent and the true value. Over 21 years the landlord therefore received in actual cash:

4+(55 x $)=# of the annual value of his property. In the long run the family was therefore sacrificing one-third of the

annual value of the property in order to allow the current lord to © borrow from his tenants on mortgage at a high rate of interest. It would be a very long time before landlords became aware of the full implications of the system. Meanwhile they continued to tun their estates as their fathers had before them. Borrowing at interest distressed them, for it was both expensive and sinful, the path to financial and moral ruin, but no such feelings of guilt were attached to raising fines, which were casually imposed and casually spent as if they were current income and not loans on mortgage. Even when used to pay for special emergencies, fines were still a more costly method of raising money than borrowing at current rates in the City. The curtailment or abandonment of the beneficial lease thus depended firstly on the production of more sophisticated mathematical data which showed up the folly of the system, and 1 Hants R.O., WB 128. Beds. R.O., Dd/DY 2/15. Bodl Selden Supra MSS. 125%, ff. 16-17. Wynn, 1436. Agricultural History Review, x, 1962, p. 23 note 1. H/Box R/5. Savernake House, Ailesbury MSS. 227 B. See also Cal. Clarendon State Papers, i, no. 1521. Chetham Soc., N.S., xlvii, 1902, p. 58.

320 ESTATE MANAGEMENT secondly on the growth of credit facilities to provide an alternative soutce of ready cash in time of need. In the early seventeenth century both these desiderata were met, and it is therefore not surprising to find two processes in motion: a reduction in the duration of leases, and a rise in rents and a concurtent decline in the size of fines, leading in some cases to annual tenancies at rack-rents. The reduction in the duration of leases was in part due to the growth of trust deeds restricting the lord to a life interest in the estate. Under the terms of these deeds, he was usually allowed to make leases for a maximum of 21 years of 3 lives, for if

no such clause was present he would have been limited to leases for the uncertain duration of his own life. This was a crippling limitation on a lord’s freedom of action, particularly in the west, where three tenants’ lives was the normal term, and some of those who wete caught in this dilemma went to the expense of putting through private Acts of Parliament to get out of it.! Secondly, landlords began to realize that the longer the duration of lease the mote they lost through inflation, and that it was therefore in their interest to keep leases short as long as agricultural ptices continued to rise. The tendency towards increasing the rent content in leasehold profits is reflected in the clauses of some trust deeds, which not only put a maximum on the duration of the leases,

but also a minimum on the rent. Lord Spencer specified tents of not less than half the true value in 1614, Lord Mordaunt two-thirds in about 1621.2 This particular legal restriction was not itself an important cause of change, but rather a significant indicator of the new emphasis on rents rather than fines. The shift to shorter leases, higher rents, and lower fines or no fines at all, can be seen on very many aristocratic estates in the eatly seventeenth century, though there are wide variations in the chronology from one family to another. On the Kent estates of the Brookes lords Cobham, there was a tendency to keep down below 21 years in the early years of Elizabeth, and on one enclosed park in the midlands it was proposed in 1572 to reduce the term to 5 years. The Brudenells were letting their demesne closes at rack-

rents during the reign of Elizabeth, but on the open-field demesnes they did not begin rack-renting and shortening the duration T e.g. 3 Ch. I, Private Act 3 (by the Earl of Devonshire) and 16 Ch. I, Private Act 2 (by the Marquis of Winchester). 2 Althorp Cupboard K/z2 (Wormleighton 15). SP 23/181, p. 611. See also similar clauses written by the Earl of Leicester into a trust deed of 1618 (Penshurst 613 B),

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 321 of leases below 21 years till the eve of the Civil War. On an enclosed

demesne in Hertfordshire the earls of Salisbury began raising rents

as soon as they acquired the property in the first decade of the century, but the first sign of a shortening of leases at Ruislip in Middlesex came in the 1630’s. In the Midlands in the 1630’s Lord Spencer was in places going over to rack-rent and shortening the term of some leases of enclosed pastures to as little as 8 years. On the Earl of Cumberland’s estate in Craven and the East Riding the

shift from beneficial leases to rack-rents and the shortening of the duration of leases took place between 1626 and 1654. In Wiltshite increases of rent instead of fines begin to become more common on the Earl of Pembroke’s estates in the 1630’s and 1640’s. In Wales in the 1630’s both the Earl of Worcester and the 3rd Earl of Essex were forcing rack-rents on their Welsh tenants, despite

their protests. In Bedfordshire the Earl of Kent did not shorten the terms and shift to rack-rents till 1656, though in Hampshire the

Earl of Southampton was going over to rack-rent here and there by 1639.!

On the basis of this fragmentary evidence, it looks as if the shift to rack-rents on short leases was only really getting under way in the 1630’s, although noble landlords had been increasing the rental element in their receipts for some decades before this. On the other

hand it is noticeable that none of this evidence comes from the south-west, where the old system of leases for lives at ancient rents and large fines persisted for a long time to come. This would suggest that noblemen whose estates were mostly in the west country would be in a less advantageous position to increase their annual income than those with holdings in areas less hidebound by tradition. Even if those estates are excluded which for one reason ot another must be regarded as special cases of abnormal growth, on those properties of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury in the east for which records have survived rents on leases set in 1640-55

wete 45 pet cent. more than the rents on leases set in 1610-25, whereas in the west the difference was only 5 per cent. Although this discrepancy was compensated for in part by increased fines, it is improbable that they fully bridged the gap. Moreover, the difference between tents and real value in the western lands was widening t H/A 159/13; H/S 145, ff. 51-55; H/Box R/5. Finch, pp. 148, 49. Althorp ESP 8. Spence, thesis cit., pp. 203, 333-5, 352-3. Chatsworth/BA 146. Robinson, thesis cit., pp. 152-3, 221. L/Dev IV, ff. 214-15. E. Kerridge, ‘The Movement of Rent, 1540-1640’, EcHR, 2nd set., vi, 1953, p. 18. Beds. R.O., Dd/DL 1. Hants R.O., WB 128; WD 363, 390, $77.

821314 Y

322 ESTATE MANAGEMENT steadily under the inflationary pressures of the age, which meant

that the proportion of income received in fines was growing steadily larger.? (3) Feudal Incidents

Another way of increasing a landlord’s income from the tenantry

was to enforce the payment of every obsolete and obsolescent feudal due for which a legal case could be extracted from medieval records. This revival of fiscal feudalism in landlord—tenant relations On afistocratic estates is a product of that legal antiquarianism of the 1630’s which lay behind Laud’s attempts to restore the finances

of the Church by delving into pre-Reformation rights to urban tithes, Charles’s demands for distraint of knighthood, forest fines, and scutage, and Parliament’s insistence on rights and privileges extracted from medieval rolls. The hunting down of ancient dues

became a favourite occupation of some of the more scholarly minded aristocratic agents. On behalf of Lord Berkeley, John Smyth of Nibley took perverted pride in enforcing rights of wardship by actions of ‘Ravishment del gard’, levying an ‘aid pur faire fitz chevaler, according to the statutes of 3 Ed land 25 Ed IIT’, and in claiming a composition in lieu of villein works not performed

for overt a hundred years. What Smyth did for Lord Berkeley, Christopher Keighley did for the 2nd Earl of Salisbury. In 1627 his attention was first drawn to the Honour of Gloucester. This was a tag-bag of feudal rights attached to the medieval Honour, which had come into royal hands with Edward IV and which had been sold to various purchasers by the Crown in 1610-12. Thus the

Farl of Exeter had acquired the rights in Northamptonshire and the Earl of Salisbury those in Dorset, Wiltshire, and Somerset. A long lease of the latter was bought in for £200, and researches were cattied out in the Exchequer and the Tower to find out exactly what was involved. It appeared that on land held of the Honour as fragments of knights’ fees the Earl could exercise the powers of wardship and could levy a relief at every death. Armed with copies of medieval royal records, Keighley promptly began to reassert these long-forgotten rights over some of the gentry and yeomanty of the west, as a result of which the receipts from this source over a period of six years from 1631 to 1639 suddenly rose from an average of about {20 a year to an average of nearly 1 H/A 17/8; 40/13 133/13; 160/9; 161/4; 162/1, 3, 4; Box S/8.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 323 £90 a year. He even gouged {22 out of the Earl of Suffolk for his manor of Sutton Pointz. The profits were so trivial that they can hardly have been worth the labour involved in seeking them out and the irritation caused to the victims, but the process provides an interesting example of the way private landowners in the 1630’s

were turning to medieval precedents in order to increase their incomes.! (4) Improvements

The commonest ways of increasing landed income in the seven-

teenth century were undoubtedly to convert as much land as possible to leasehold; to employ the new techniques of surveying to have it accurately measured and plotted; to use the new mathematical tables to work out fines; to shorten the duration of leases; to go over increasingly to rack-rents; and to enforce the payment of obsolescent feudal dues. These were all ways of getting a larger share of the existing profits of agriculture from the tenantry. But

it was also possible to go in for various forms of improvement which would not only alter the division of profits between tenant and landlord but would increase the gross agricultural output from which these profits were derived. Apart from fen-drainage, which is more in the nature of a large-scale entrepreneurial undertaking and is dealt with in the next chapter, the most obvious and

most common form of direct improvement was inclosure, by which all surveyors were agreed that it was possible to increase the value of both arable and pasture land by 50 per cent. or more. Why this is so is not clear, but it is presumably a combination of better

drainage by the ditches, more wind-breaks by the hedges, better stock control, reduction of time spent in travel from strip to strip, elimination of wasteful grass balks (in so far as they existed), and greater sense of personal responsibility where land was cultivated in severalty.?

Few aristocratic landlords were guilty of the ruthless depopulating inclosures that so horrified contemporary moralists. Many put pressure on tenants to agree to a voluntary or semi-voluntary redistribution of holdings, so that they could consolidate and then enclose their demesne in the open fields and their share of the wastes 1 GPL/Smith MSS. 3/80. Smyth, ii, pp. 412, 333, 433; ili, p. 202. Bod! MS. Top. Northants. C 36, f. 140%. H/A 160/5, 6; 157/3; 1614/4; 162/13 135/4; Box N/10; Box S/8; Cranborne Genetal 1600-29. * See ‘The Commodytes of Inclosure’ (Althorp ESP 8),

324 ESTATE MANAGEMENT and common. It was not too difficult for the lord, the rector, and the larger farmers to agtee on a course of action which would be mutually profitable, though excessive tapacity over waste and common could do serious harm to the economy of the poorer cottagets. Once consolidated and inclosed, the demesne could be let off in blocks of 100 actes or so to substantial farmers from whom major increases of rent could be expected. Most great landlords of whom adequate records sutvive were carrying out such inclosures in the early seventeenth century, and detailed listing of their names

and activities would be both wearisome and unilluminating.' So far as can be seen, this was almost the only kind of agricultural

improvement for which noblemen were prepared to pay. Not that inclosures demanded all that much money anyway. When the huge 2,200-acre tanch at Brigstock was cut up into small closes by the and Earl of Salisbury in 1635-9 it only cost him £380. To take one detailed example, 130 actes wete sutrounded with 30,000 quicksets for hedges together with 3 gates and 6 posts for a total expenditure of £16. 135. When it was a matter of major reconstruction or of additions to a farmhouse, men like the 4th Earl of Pembroke and the 2nd Earl of Salisbury were usually prepared to make a compensatory reduction of the fine for a new lease.? Apart from this, all other improvements were left to the tenants, the theory being that their leases were of sufficiently long duration to encourage them to carry them out on their own behalf. V. THE MOVEMENT OF LANDED INCOME

The most impottant—and the most difficult—questions have been left to the last. Did noblemen succeed in increasing their landed incomes to keep pace with the price revolution? Were they more or less successful than the gentry? Was there a period of slackness followed by a petiod of efficiency? Were puritan and parliamentary sympathizers more efficient and more ruthless than their Anglican and Royalist fellow-peers? It is very doubtful whether it will ever be possible to give categorical answets to these -' For some examples of inclosure by more or less voluntary agreement, see Finch, p. 155 (1st Lord Brudenell); Castle Ashby 1084/18* (2nd Earl of Northampton); HMC Cowper MSS. i, pp. 448, 488, and Bod] Carte MSS. 78, f. 210 (sth Earl of Huntingdon); Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berkshire MSS., Moore’s Boxes 1/1 (1st Earl of Berkshire); C 2 Jas. I, C 2/62, C 26/36 (x1th Lord Audley); Star Ch. 8/153/2, 3 (1st Lord Gerard); Chatsworth/BA 99, ff. 222-7" (4th Earl of Cumberland). 2 Kerridge, op. cit., pp. 18, 26. H/A 157/3; 160/6, 9; 161/4; 162/1, 3; 135/4; Box S/8.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 325 questions. The problem of changes in income is bedevilled by that arch-enemy of the economic historian, the beneficial lease. How is he to deal with a situation in which income is taken partly in fines

and partly in rent, when the proportion of the one to the other vaties from decade to decade and from lord to lord, when fines come in at wildly irregular intervals and are sometimes not recorded

in the normal estate accounts? Rises in income may take place at vety different times from one estate to another. Spectacular leaps occur when very long leases at old rents at last run out, and these may distort the general picture. The 2nd Earl of Salisbury owned

a large block of pasture on the riverside flats at Bermondsey, which wete tied up by a reversionary lease granted by the Queen in 1587. Up to 1636, when the lease finally ran out, the Earl drew a tent of £68 a year, but in that year he took £2,672 in fines for new leases, and raised the rent to £1,071.! Even if this sort of thing is exceptional, the fact remains that only

a continuous tun of accounts over a very long period offers any hope of establishing true annual income, and this is unobtainable except for one ot two families. The proportion of wood-sales and fines to total income varied not only from year to year, but from decade to decade. For the 2nd Earl of Salisbury they were 14:5 per cent. in 1629-35; 25 per cent. in 1636-42; and 14 per cent. in 1650-6,.2 Moreover, since most peers were buying and selling, inheriting and dispersing property all the time, the land which produced the income was always changing in composition. Direct comparison is therefore very difficult. Even when the same manors ate involved, it is hard to be certain that a little piecemeal snappingup of unconsidered trifles has not consolidated and enlarged what is nominally still the same unit.

The easiest figures to obtain are rentals, which make possible direct comparisons, but which are meaningful only if there has not been a significant shift of the balance from fines to rents. Since the beneficial lease seems to have been standard throughout most of the country in the late sixteenth century, and the shift away from fines equally standard in the seventeenth century, comparisons of rental cannot tell the full story. Thus when Professor Simpson finds that rents on some of the Bacon estates in Suffolk rose nearly sixfold from 1579 to 1639, we may suspect that part of the increase 1 H/L/233/14; A 133/13 61/2, 45 157/33 48/11; 135/43 G 11/22. 2 H/JA 157/3; 161/5; 124/6, 9; 162/2; 48/1, 2; Box N/r1o.

326 ESTATE MANAGEMENT is to be explained by a reduction of fines, evidence for which is not contained in the accounts. The argument ex sz/entio is particularly

dangerous when it comes to the presence ot absence of fines for beneficial leases.!

A most ingenious method of working out the movement of rent

has been devised by Dr. Kerridge. Given a series of detailed sutveys specifying acreage and fines, rents and duration of leases ovet a long period, it is possible to calculate the price per acte at each letting, taking into account the curtent tate of interest when assessing the value of the fine. Unfortunately, there are very few large estates and hardly any smaller ones for which such data has survived in sufficient quantity over a sufficiently long period. Of the two noble estates studied by Dr. Kerridge, that of the Herbetts,

eatls of Pembroke, does not provide adequate data before the 1530s; as for that of the Seymours, earls of Hertford, it is difficult to feel much confidence in figures which purport to show a fall of

one-third in tents on new takings in the second decade of the seventeenth century. The fall on the Herbert estates in the 1620’s and 1630’s can be explained either by the alteration in the rate of interest from 10 per cent. to 8 per cent., which would affect the basis of valuation of the fines, or as a consequence of the depression

of 1620-1. It may therefore be a real decline, or it may be a byproduct of changing interest rates: we cannot tell. In Fig. 13 Dr. Kerridge’s tables of new lettings on the Herbert estate are compared with the Phelps Brown price index of consumables, both sets of figures being reworked with 1530-9 as a base. It then appeats that takings per acre were lagging behind prices from 1540 to 1599, and running ahead of prices from 1600 to 1629. There is thus a prima-facie case for thinking that during the last half of the sixteenth century the Herberts collected less than their former share of agricultural profits, but that they caught up fast after 1590.”

For evidence to strengthen the slender thread upon which this hypothesis tests we must turn to equally or even mote flimsy material: comparison of valuations and extents which may have been calculated on different bases; comparisons of rentals which 1 Simpson, op. cit., p. 207, On the other hand Professor Simpson is probably right in his rematks about the Cornwallis estates, pp. 154, 156. 2 Appendix XIV4A, taken from Kerridge, op. cit., table i, and Phelps Brown and Hopkins, op. cit. Dr. Kerridge’s table iv produces a different picture, but this is because he takes 15 10-19 as a base, and accepts a doubling of rents in the 1530’s. But since the 1510-19 figure depends on only eight lettings, I do not regard it as a secure foundation on which to build.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 327 may represent a widely varying proportion of the full annual teceipts; comparisons of gross income in single years, which may hot be representative of the average. Each has serious weaknesses,

but if they all point in the same direction they may in aggregate make possible certain tentative deductions. The most difficult to prove, because of the paucity of evidence, is the lag of rents and

350 |- Po| ---

132 ek:

400 ——~— = Phelps Brown price index ; a2 ~~ -— = Herbert landed income : x 8

300 !|

r!

{

250

200 :+a!enon l ! {| 150 ~~

100 won ale==

{

1500 1530 40 50 60 70 80 90 1600 10 20 30 1640

Fic. 13. Movement of landed income per acre on the Herbert estates, 1530-1639

incomes before 1590. Little change can be observed in rents charged

on the Lumley estates in the north before 1603, or on the Pette estates in Essex before 1572. On the Somerset estates in Wales, however, rents roughly doubled between 1549 and 1583, there was a 20 per cent. rise in the rents of the northern estates of the Percys from the 1560’s to the 1590’s, and rentals of the same estates of the

1577 and 1594. — | | .

Brookes lords Cobham increased by about 25 per cent. between The evidence for a rapid rise after 1590 is set out in Appendix XVIs. This indicates that on most estates rents at least doubled between about 1590 and 1640. Since agricultural prices only tose by about a third this must have been an exceedingly prosperous

328 ESTATE MANAGEMENT period for the English landlord. This hypothesis remains true even after making allowances for the fact that part of this rise in rents was certainly offset by a decline in fines, and that too great pressure might well lead to an alarming rise in arrears of rent carried over from year to year, a striking example of which is provided by the

accounts of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury. Between 1621 and 1625 bailiff’s arrears were running at a mere {467 a yeat, about 6 per cent.

of gross receipts. None had to be written off as irrecoverable, and all were collected within the next accounting year. The catastrophic

harvest of 1629 forced current arreats up to over £850, besides a past backlog of £532. Thereafter arrears dragged on and on, despite the fact that there was a steady £100 or so written off every year. From 1635 to 1638 they were running at an accumulated rate

at the yeat’s end of {1,195 or 12 pet cent. of gross receipts. This may be partly due to delay in paying the heavy fines levied during these years, but the still more dramatic rise from 1638 to 1641 is not open to such interpretation. Though over {250 was written off every

year, the accumulated arrears shot up from {1,272 to £3,301, so that in the last year before the outbreak of war accumulated arrears amounted to 30 pet cent. of gross receipts, and the arrears for that yeat alone to 20 per cent.! Thete is too little evidence about other aristocratic estates to be able to tell whether or not this 1s an exceptional case. All the same, it

is a salutary warning against assuming that a rise in the theoretical rental will automatically bring in the exact equivalent in annual cash receipts. It is surprising to find that there is very little evidence

for more than a momentary pause in the upward rise in rents during and after the agricultural and commercial crisis of 1620-1. It looks very much as if the shrieks and groans of landlords which echoed in and out of Parliament at that time were out of all pro-

| pottion to the pain that was being suffered. By and large, between 1590 and 1640 the greater English landlords were riding the crest of a wave which was powerful enough to carry along with it all but the most grotesquely incompetent or old-fashioned. The only

qualification of this generalization is that in the south-western ateas the strength of custom was sufficiently powerful to ensure the persistence of the three-life lease at old rent and large fines, which may well have prevented landlords with all or most of their property in that area from obtaining their full share of the feast. 1 H/A 160/5, 6; 157/3; Box N/to.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 329 Why the 1590’s should have marked the turning-point on so many estates is not hard to fathom. The most important factor must have been the demographic explosion beginning about twenty yeats before, the cause of which is still obscure.! There must

have been a great mass of young men reaching manhood in the 1590s and pressing hard upon the available agricultural land. Landowners must have found themselves besieged by prospective tenants outbidding each other in their desperate search for a holding. Secondly, this was just the time when very many of the aristocracy found themselves in serious financial difficulties, and were therefore

particularly anxious to increase their incomes. To this economic incentive on both sides may be added a number of less tangible factors. This decade saw the last of the age-old habit of regarding land not only as a source of money, but also as a means of obtaining

military aid and outward signs of loyalty and esteem. The rapid tise in agricultural prices during this decade must have opened landlords’ eyes to the necessity and justice of tampering with ancient customs in order to cope with the effects of inflation. The passage of time had at last dulled the fears aroused by the widespread peasants’ revolt of 1549, and the moral effect of the militant preaching of the ‘Commonwealthsmen’ of that period on the subject of rack-renting, inclosing, and fine-raising landlords: it is no coincidence that the first formal relaxation of anti-inclosure legislation occurred, admittedly temporarily, at just this moment. In the 1590’s many forces thus converged to break down the psychological blocks which for forty years had deterred many aristocratic

landlords from tackling the problem of raising their share of agricultural profits. It must be asked whether contemporaries were right to attribute patticular ruthlessness in the handling of estate administration to those who were themselves in severe financial straits through overconsumption in London or at the Court; and whether Max Weber

and his followers are correct in associating puritanism with the less agreeable manifestations of the capitalist ethic. Examination of the situation and opinions of those who defied the standard moral

code demanding generous treatment of tenants tends to support both these assumptions. The individual peer who started to squeeze his tenants hard was usually forced to act by a crushing burden of ' VCH Leics. iii, pp. 138-42. W. G. Hoskins, ‘The Rebuilding of rural England, 15701640’, Past and Present, iv (1953).

330 ESTATE MANAGEMENT debt. This debt might be the result of maintaining on inadequate resoutces the medieval traditions of generous hospitality in the country. Such was the experience of Sir Thomas Tresham and the 3td Lord Vaux. It was much mote likely, however, to be excesses

at the Court which drove men to extremes: if George Earl of Cumberland restricted himself to squeezing the richer lessees, Henry Earl of Lincoln and Edward Lord Morley both got a bad reputation for their treatment of their tenantry; all three were attempting to recoup losses caused by a life of extravagance in London. No such excuse can be made for the 9th Earl of Northumberland, whose natural misanthropy was exacerbated by long imprisonment in the Tower, where he whiled away the time by extorting the last drop of profit from those northern tenants whom he knew he would never be allowed to see again.! It 1s noticeable that early Elizabethan Puritans like the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon and the 2nd Earl of Bedford were conservative landlords who did little to improve their estates or to squeeze their tenants. But in conformity with a hardening of attitudes towards the poor which some have detected among Puritan thinkers and divines, we find that later on an abnormally high proportion of those with a record of severity were men of puritan sympathies. The leader of the late Elizabethan Puritans, the Earl of Leicester, had an evil reputation in North Wales, and in the early seventeenth century the 3rd Earl of Essex was oppressive to his Welsh tenantty; the 4th Earl of Lincoln’s lands were largely inclosed, some of them probably as a result of his own exertions as well as those of his grandfather; the rst Earl of Stamford was prosecuted for inclosing in Sometset; the 2nd Lord Saye and Sele was convicted of depopulation in Lincolnshire. Farther down the social scale Sir William Wentworth, Sir Laurence Tanfield, and Sir Ralph Verney were all grasping landlords with puritan sympathies.” Such casually collected impressions cannot provide very effective ammunition to use in the

battle over the relationship of religion and the capitalist ethic and mote specifically Puritanism and ‘progressive’ estate management, ? Finch, pp. 80-81, 87-89. G. Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden, 1953, p. 217. Stat Ch, 8/17/17. Spence, thesis cit., pp. 108-9, 151. C 2 Eliz., W 9/44, 15/5; P 12/22; M 15/64. Chetham Soc. cli, 1939, p. 26. History of Northumberland, ii, pp. 385-7, 427-8, 455, 482-33 V, pp. 211, 260; Vili, pp; 238, 264; xii, pp. 109, 174. 4 Knappen, op. cit., pp. 411-23. L/Dev IV, ff. 214-15. JRL Rylands Charters 2700, 2798. C 2 Jas. I, C 16/50. HMC Comper MSS. ii, p. 115. HMC 3rd Rep., App., pp. 31-32. Claydon House, Verney Letters, 2 June 1650.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 331 so called. To be convincing much mote extensive data would have to be collected on a much more systematic basis. In any case the thesis must not be pushed too far. A puritan like the rst Lord Montagu of Boughton was exceptionally hostile to the

ethics of the acquisitive society: ‘God hath made you a landlord of many tenantes’, he told his son; ‘counte that a greater blessing then if he had made you a master of ten thousande of sheepe. ... Travayle not too much to be rich... . He that is greedy of gayne troubleth his owne soule.’ It was in his insistence on frugality that he fully conformed to conventional puritan ideology. As Weber pointed out, two other elements in this ideology made a more potent contribution to nascent capitalism than any freeing of man’s lust for profit from the trammels of moral restraint. The first was the stress on the moral virtue of hard work and the immorality of idleness. Living as we do in a modern industrial society in which almost everyone works for his living, it is very difficult to understand the significance of this doctrine. In the sixteenth century the rich and well-born were idle almost by definition, a huge labour force was absorbed in slothful and parasitic personal service, and the poor were as feckless and unreliable as they are in any society where under-employment is the norm, education non-existent, and secutity unknown. When the 1st Lord Spencer planted a wood on his estate at Althorp, he celebrated the occasion by setting up a stone inscribed ‘Up and bee doing and God will prosper’. He was expressing a sentiment of whose novelty and importance he was perhaps not altogether aware.' The second doctrine was that of the virtue of thrift, of deliberate under-consumption for the sake of sobriety and the avoidance of debt. This ran deliberately counter to the prevailing aristocratic ethic of generosity and hospitality, and was a factor in capital accumulation which it is impossible to evaluate, but which cannot have been small. The adoption of this new scale of values helps to explain why the seventeenth century saw a gteat increase of capitalist activity without any very revolutionary change in sixteenth-century ideas about such things as the just price, usury, or landlord—tenant relations.

It has been suggested by Professor Tawney that the decline in the prosperity of the aristocracy relative to that of the squirearchy was in large measute due to differences in efficiency in estate management. The essential difference is between ‘Court’ and 1 Boughton NC 13/2. G. Baker, Northamptonshire, 1822-41, 1, pp. 110-11.

332 ESTATE MANAGEMENT ‘Country’. Men who live on the spot and devote themselves to the humdrum tasks of administration will obtain a higher economic tetutn from their estates than those who are content to leave things to their officials, and devote themselves instead to the affairs of the

Court or national politics, to the busy round of London society, to the pursuit of pretty girls or fallow deer. This is true regardless of the intelligence and knowledge—or lack of them—of the landlord, for ‘the eye of the most ignorant owner operates upon his agents like witchcraft’, as Lord Shelburne observed in the eighteenth century. When his master went off as Governor of Bergenop-Zoom in 1586, Lord Willoughby’s old servant John Stubbs was

filled with misgivings: “Good my lord, be not driven nor drawn from understanding your own state. Looke into your own accompts

as your leisure may serve. Be auditor auditorum in all your own business.’ The most conspicuously successful great landowners of the period—the 1st Lord Spencer, the 1st Lord Brudenell, the 9th Earl of Northumberland, and the 1st Earl of Devonshire—have left sufficient evidence in the form of letters, memoranda, marginalia, and suggestions on accounts, to prove that they all personally directed their own affairs. Efficient management meant the operation of demesne estates, the conversion of copyholds, inclosute by agreement, taking in the _ waste, raising rents on new lettings, shortening terms of leases, switching from beneficial leases to rack-rents, changing leaseholders

to tenants at will, all of which required not merely routine honesty

and competence, but the power and will for radical decisionmaking. When things got desperate, even such easy-going spenders

as the 3rd Earl of Cumberland and the 1st Earl of Bridgwater had to roll up their sleeves and negotiate in person with the tenants for bargains for new leases. Although one highly efficient landlord, the 2nd Earl of Salisbury, relied largely on the zeal of exceptionally

capable servants, it is generally true that in this period of rapid change in the agricultural scene the personal attention of the landlord was of crucial importance.!

Under these citcumstances, it is easy to see that the smaller landlord living on his own estate and the larger landlord with nothing to do but to manage his properties were far more likely 1 Fitzmaurice, op. cit. ii, p. 341. HMC Ancaster MSS., p. 25. HMCS, xii, pp. 227, 321. E. Hopkins, ‘The Re-Leasing of the Ellesmere Estates, 1637-1642’, Agricultural History Review, x, 1962, pp. 17-18.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT 333 to prosper than the landlord, great or small, who was absorbed in public affairs or courtly pleasures and intrigues. This being so, one would expect to find that the country landlord usually ran his estate mote efficiently than the courtier, and the evidence of the peerage, together with that accumulated by Miss Finch for Northamptonshire and Professor Simpson for East Anglia, would tend to confirm this view for the late sixteenth century.! Since a far higher proportion of the peerage than of the squirearchy were at court, the peetage were on balance at a disadvantage. This was an important but rarely a crucial factor in governing the prosperity and decay of families, which was more commonly determined by other causes. Different expenditure patterns were more influential than different management policies, even in the late Elizabethan period when the premium on innovation was highest. It was only for a relatively short period that the balance of advan-

tage favoured the medium-size, personally directed estate against the vast tambling accumulation of properties owned by an indolent ot preoccupied absentee. New sutveying and mapping techniques and the growth of mote systematic accounting methods gave great lords the same intimate sense of control of their estates as did the mote direct knowledge of his every field possessed by the smaller gentleman; the general shift away from demesne farming lessened the need for personal attention. When the process was complete, when ptices had levelled off and the landlord had become a rentier pure and simple, it could safely be said that “a gentleman’s account is a trifle to a merchant’s—one hour ot two in a week will do it’.? When that day came, the advantages of personal supervision on the spot which had been so significant in the late sixteenth century would substantially diminish, and the disadvantages of size and dispersal disappear altogether. As fewer nobles in proportion to total numbers obtained jobs at the Court and in national politics, as mote squites found their pleasures in the City rather than the country, absentee landlordism in any case became more evenly diffused throughout the upper range of society and less markedly

a characteristic of the aristocracy. The disadvantages in estate management under which the aristocracy laboured in the late sixteenth century were therefore only temporaty and were caused t Finch, passim. Simpson, op. cit., passim. See also, for example, P. Rutledge, ‘Sir Thomas Knyvett and his Norfolk Manors’, Norfolk Archaeology, xxxii, 1961. 2 A Memoir of Peregrine Bertie, 1838, p. 135.

334 ESTATE MANAGEMENT by features peculiar to the age. When times changed in the seven-

teenth centuty and when they set their minds to the problem of mote efficient management, the many who still owned thousands of actes of undet-exploited land were able to make a striking tecovety. The evidence of their success is writ large in the family archives of the early seventeenth century; some of the fruits of this success wete harvested in the latter half of the century in the revival of aristocratic influence in national and local politics.

Vil BUSINESS I. INTRODUCTION (1) Attitude to Business

IF we ate to get the business undertakings of the nobility in their true perspective we must look at them through the eyes of contemporaries. By singling out a single, and in terms of rewards a secondary, branch of the many-sided economic activities of the nobility, we give it an apparent significance which it certainly did not possess to those who took part in it. “Ou est le profit, la est Phonneutr’ was a fifteenth-century slogan, and aristocratic codes of behaviour have generally proved feeble defences against the temptations of really big money. But it is a mistake to be too cynical, and

there is no doubt that Elizabethan and Early Stuart peers would have been astonished and disgusted to find themselves described as men of business. Their upbringing had taught them to despise “base mechanick arts’, to look down upon shopkeepers and merchants, and to regard as degrading direct participation in all but the com-

manding heights of economic enterprise. Their energies were primarily directed towards the ends of spending rather than to the means of getting, and it was with the various ways of conspicuous

consumption that they preferred to busy themselves. When the money tan short, as it often did, the most obvious steps were—in this order—to marry an heiress, to seek some lucrative office or patent from the Crown, to exploit the untapped resources of their estates, or to invest in some speculative enterprise. Contemporaries

tegarded the last two alternatives as fundamentally similar in character and classed mining or urban development as branches of estate management—as indeed they are. It is because we wish to

bring out the role of the aristocracy as entrepreneurs and risktakers in a capitalist economy that we isolate these aspects of management from the more traditional ones of raising rents and fines and producing corn, cattle, and timber.

There was no legal obstacle to participation in most forms of large-scale business, although there were limits beyond which it

336 BUSINESS was thought improper to go. It seems doubtful whether the 8th Lord Audley was expressing a real difficulty when he told Thomas

Cromwell in 1532 that ‘because I am a baron I may not do as all other metchants do’, and asked for a ‘licence to practise the feat of merchandise as frankly and freely as other merchants hath’. There is really no other evidence whatever to suggest that it was thought improper to engage in foreign commerce or shipping. Nor was there anything shabby in marketing the produce of one’s estate, and no one thought the less of the rst Lord Spencer for going up to London evety year to sell his own wool and mutton. But buying and selling on the internal market was petty huckstering, and beneath the dignity of a gentleman. It was perfectly in order for Sit Percival Willoughby to own ships and transport his coal down the Trent to Lincolnshire, but disreputable to buy corn there to provide a return freight for resale in Nottingham. To persuade him to agree it was urged that ‘your worships need nott be seene in the premisses, but onely your servantes’. Similarly in industry there was criticism when in the early 1560’s James Lord Mountjoy set up house on the site of his alum-mine and works at Canford in Dorset

and spent his time doing the daily chores of a factory manager. As he admitted, ‘som saie that I vattye fromm my vocacion fart to becom a mynet’.! But if a peer restricted himself to a director’s tole rather than a managet’s, demesne farming, the opening-up of mineral resources, the starting of metallurgical industries, the development of urban property, participation in privateering, trading, and colonizing companies, were all entirely respectable activities. (2) Resources for Business

Apart from their intelligence and initiative, such as it was, the atistoctacy contributed to business enterprise at two levels: in terms of undeveloped capital assets which could be exploited or used as security to raise capital; and in terms of influence at Court fot the obtaining of licences and monopolies. Upon their broad actes thete grew huge tracts of virgin woodlands and beneath them lay untapped teserves of minerals. The woodlands were often of poor quality and sited too far from centres of population to be able to provide cheap fuel for domestic purposes. The only hope of turning them to profitable use was to start up some industry on the site which was a greedy consumer of charcoal. Until it was I SP 1/69, f. 191. Althorp, ESP 13. Information from Mr. R. S. Smith. SP 15/13/49(1).

BUSINESS 337 discovered how to use coal for smelting, iron-works perfectly fulfilled this requirement, and it 1s not surprising to find the nobility

taking the lead in iron-manufacture. At this period landowners acted on the assumption that they were free to work all the minerals on their own estates except precious metals and copper, and except

in those areas where mining rights were regulated by ancient customs. It was on the demesnes and in the parks and woods of the

nobility and greater gentry that mining could be carried out with least social disturbance, without interference in the agricultural life of the village and without the almost insuperable complications of land ownership in fields partitioned on the strip system. Great landed estates were essential to economic enterprise in other ways than the supply of untapped raw materials; they could also be used to provide security for the borrowing of capital. Except in a few isolated instances, it is impossible to discover how much of the money for capital investment was raised by the peers themselves. Undoubtedly some of them financed out of current

income industrial and mining ventures which required only limited capital. When more was needed, leases could be granted for low rents and large fines; woods could be cut down; rent-charges

could be sold. But this was often not enough, and the financial contribution of the peerage was less the hard cash they had at their

disposal than the harnessing for productive purposes of their enormous powets of borrowing. The money was mostly put up by the great London aldermen and merchant financiers on the security of aristocratic mottgages, statutes, and bonds. But even if a good

deal of the capital came ultimately from the City, this does not lessen the significance of the role of the aristocracy. It was they, not the merchants, who were the risk-takers in new business ventures, and it was only by the pledge of aristocratic landed security that mercantile capital could be drawn into them. The second important contribution of the nobility to entrepreneurial activity was their influence at the Court and in local society. The period before the Civil War was one of extensive economic controls. First imposed as a deliberate system of regulation of economic life for socially desirable ends, these degenerated

fairly rapidly into a ramshackle bunch of monopoly patents, either sold for ready cash or more often given away as rewards to importunate courtiers.’ As a result the industrialist with a new

821314 Zz

1 See Chapter VIII, sect. rv.

338 BUSINESS technique, the prospector for rare minerals, the fen drainer, the explorer, the colonizer, even the London speculative builder, all needed a friend at Court to obtain the necessary patent or licence. The natural intermediaries for these concessions were the peers, since their social position gave them ready access to the monarch and the Court, and their family ties linked them to many of the leading political figures. Moreover certain undertakings, particularly fen drainage, could only be launched with the active cooperation of the local authorities, and here the nobility were indispenable, thanks to their influence over all levels of county administration.

One result of this situation is that the peerage is nominally associated with almost all the major economic projects of the day. In fact, however, there is a wide variation in the degree of personal involvement. At one end of the scale is the 6th Lord Mountjoy’s patent for alum, in the search for which he squandered half his life

and much of the family fortune. At the other is the 1st Earl of Carlisle’s grant of the Caribbean Islands in 1627, his lordship’s interest in the settlement of the West Indies being largely confined to extracting a take-off from the real undertakers. Consequently it is necessaty to approach the problem of aristocratic participation in projects requiting a government patent with some care: mention in a patent may mean anything from full entrepreneurial initiative and investment to the receipt of a percentage in return for a little wite-pulling in high places. Il, EXPLOITATION OF ESTATES (1) Mining and Industry

(a) Mineral rights

Since inclosure, conversion from arable to pasture, and the raising of rents all caused social unrest and might even lead to rioting,

there was a strong incentive for landlords to turn instead to the extraction and refinement of mineral ores. The only snag was that the rights of landowners over these ores were fat from clear. A test case of 1568 between the Queen and the 7th Earl of Northumberland established beyond question the already recognized fact that the Crown had no rights over non-metallic minerals, but it merely confused the situation over metals. The ancient principle that the Crown owned all mines of precious metals was reafirmed, but with

BUSINESS 339 only three dissentients the judges also asserted that the Crown could claim possession of all ores that contained the slightest trace

of gold or silver. It was on the basis of this judgement that the Queen staked her claim to the country’s copper-mines, which were

therefore excluded from the field of aristocratic enterprise. As Northumberland’s counsel pointed out, the judgement theoretically meant that ‘the Crown would have all the mines of base metal in the realm’, for the greatest metallurgist of the day, Agricola, had

tecently observed that ‘in nature generally there is some amount of gold in silver and in copper, and some silver in gold, copper, lead, and iron’.! Fearful of the massed opposition of landowners, neither Elizabeth nor James in fact made any attempt to use this legal judgement to

extend the authority of the Mines Royal Company over any other metal than copper. This limited monopoly was rigidly enforced, however, and in 1602 the Company was preparing to start digging in the Earl of Detby’s park at Knowsley, an intrusion upon his property which his lordship can hardly have regarded with favour. Characteristically enough, it was left to Charles I in 1638 to commit the folly of trying to extend royal claims to lead, offering the owner

of a mine, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 10 per cent. of the production as a gestute of royal good-will. The Later Stuarts were more cautious, and any remaining ambiguity was cleared up by an Act of Parliament passed in 1688-9, the annus mirabilis of the rights of property.”

In 1540 the riches that lay buried beneath the English countryside had hardly begun to be exploited, and the next half-century saw a tematkable growth of mining activity. In this the nobility and greater gentry took the lead, sometimes on a vety large scale, despite the frequent warnings issued by the prudent or the disappointed. ‘Whosoever is a menerall man must of force be a hasserd

adventurer... as if he were a gamester playing at dice or such unlawful games’, observed Bevis Bulmer, who spoke with personal

feeling. Sir John Weld admonished his son not to be busy in searching for coals or in ironworks, nor to be led away by colliets of miners or ‘projectors whose fair speech is but to get themselves money’. James Lord Mountjoy was told that ‘a wise man would t E, Plowden, Commentaries, 1761, pp. 315-36. G. Agricola, De Re Metallica (1556), translated

by H. C. and L. H. Hoover, 1912, p. 439. 2 HMCS, xii, p. 548. CSPD, 1637-8, p. 47. 1 William & Mary, cap. 30.

340 BUSINESS , not hasarde certaine thinges for uncettayne, neither would seake his lyvinge under the grounde yf it might be gotten above grounde’.

In 1667 Stephen Primatt included in his pamphlet for investors the warning that ‘mines of what nature or kind soever in England ate for the most patt very great casualties, and the profit of them very uncertain’.!

(b) Coal The truth of these gloomy prognostications can easily be demonstrated from the history of the coal industry, in which many of the

greater gentry of the north and midlands, the Lowthers of Westmorland, the Willoughbys, the Strelleys and Beaumonts of Nottinghamshire, plunged heavily and often disastrously. Of Huntingdon Beaumont and Sir John Ashburnham it was said that they ‘wholly buried their estate in the said colemynes’. A case history that illustrates both the rewards and the dangers of large-scale operations is

that of the Itish Viscount Beaumont. In 1621 the mines on his Coldoverton estate in Leicestershire were said to be worth £1,000

a yeat and in 1642 they were still bringing in at least £300. Encouraged by this success, in 1611 Beaumont took a lease of a colliery near by at Measham at a rent of {500 a year. After thirteen years he

teckoned that he had lost £4,890 on the venture, or an average of £376 a year, and in consequence had to use the profits of his own mines to pay off the debt.” One teason for these frequent disasters was that as mines became deeper draining costs rose rapidly, particularly in view of the failure

of pumping technology to keep abreast of the growing depth of seams. “Instead of dreining the water, their pockets are dreined.’ A typical example is the attempt of the 9th Earl of Northumberland to operate Newburn colliery on Tyneside, which was defeated not so much by the stranglehold of the Newcastle monopolists as by the costs of drainage. The second factor that made large-scale in-

vestment in coal-mines so imprudent was the great difficulty in matketing from ‘land-sale’ areas. Transport costs were extremely expensive—thtee miles by land could add 60 per cent. to the pithead price—and alternative fuels were available. The wastes and 1 Stephen Atkinson, The Discoverie and Historie of the Gold Mynes of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1825,

p. 40. VCH Salop, i, p. 459. SP 15/13/49(1). S. Primatt, The City and Country Purchaser and Builder, 1667, p. 6.

2 Information from Mr. R. S. Smith. CSPD, 1634-y, p. 403. SP 23/213, pp. 387-83 14/157/5t.

BUSINESS 341 commons of the countryside were still covered with brushwood, while for the really poor there was always cow-dung, furze, or

bean-haulms. As a result some areas such as Nottinghamshire seem to have witnessed a teal crisis of over-production in the Early Stuart period, a crisis that brought hardship and even ruin on some of the leading gentry families in the county.! The peers were largely unaffected by these disasters since hardly any of them were large-scale coal operators. The only exception was

Thomas Lord Scrope, who was receiving {600 a year in profits from a mine at Preston in Wensleydale in 1596, which was well over a quarter of his total rental (though not, of course, of his gtoss income). Certainly in 1686, and probably also before the Civil

War, the 1st and 2nd Dukes of Newcastle derived a considerable income from coal-mines, some rented, some worked directly. But the biggest coalowner among the English titular aristocracy was

probably John Lord Lumley. He leased out some small pits at Lumley and worked the bigger ones himself. These coals were said to be the best in the county and were assured a ready sale. Water

transport down the River Wear gave access to the sea and the London market as well as to the Lord’s salt-pans at Hartlepool. And so in 1662 we find Lumley’s heir leasing five pits but keeping

six of more in the park in his own hands. His income included £600 a year from these directly operated pits, {300 a year in rents of the other mines, and {£140 a year for way-leaves from other mineownets.” Most peers wete content to sink one or two tiny shafts at shallow depths in order to supply the purely local needs of themselves and

the tenantry, an operation which involved relatively small capital investment and which gave an equally modest teturn. A typical example of this kind of ‘land-sale’ mine is that worked by George Karl of Shrewsbury in his park at Sheffield. In the early 1580's it was producing about 1,200 tons of coal a year and yielding a net profit to the Earl of about £65. Thomas Lord Paget was working three pits in his park at Beaudesert in the 1850’s. The Cavendishes, t Primatt, op. cit., p. 29. M. E, James, Estate Accounts of the earls of Northumberland (Surtees Soc., CLxIII), 1948, pp. xlv—Ixviii. R. S. Smith, ‘Huntingdon Beaumont’, Renaissance and Modern Studies, i, 1957.

2 SP 12/261/85; 23/55, p. 102. In 1686 Newcastle owned pits at Bolsover, Brampton, and Barlow in Derbyshire, and other pits in Staffordshire, besides having a sixth share in a colliery

at Jesmond, near Newcastle (NUL/P Cavendish Misc., 37). Sandbeck, Scarbrough MSS. EMA 1/20. Cf. J. U. Nef, Rise of the British Coal Industry, 1932, i, p. 30.

342 BUSINESS eatls of Devonshire, spent over {100 on a mine at Chatsworth in 1623-5 in an effott to get it going, and in the 1630’s were working mines at Heath and Hartoft in Derbyshire, which brought them in about {100 a year. The 4th Earl of Cumberland sank a pit and drove a sough for it at Holden in Westmorland in 1614 and he summoned a prospector to catty out boring operations (without success) at Carleton in Cumberland and at his Yorkshire seat at Londesborough.! More frequently, particularly when the mines were far from the main seat and when the novelty of getting them started had worn off, it was customary to let the mines, like any other agricultural ptoperty, on a leasehold tenure with rent and fine. To give but one example, the Earl of Cumberland leased his Holden mine as soon as he had got it going, and he let a new pit at Stainmore in Westmorland for £20 per annum in 1638-9. The purpose of leasing was to eliminate the need to invest capital in a doubtful enterprise, and a good example of this shifting of the burden of risk is a lease from Alathea Countess of Arundel to her steward John Bright in 1649 of a mine at Handsworth, Yorks. Bright was to pay a rent of £30 per annum and was to open up pits at his own expense, the Countess’s obligations being limited to supplying pit props from her neat-by woods. In the early seventeenth century one also finds a system by which the landlord took a percentage of the profits, while a little later the rent was sometimes based on the amount of coal brought up. For example, Elizabeth Countess of Kent leased the right of seatch for coal on the Shropshire estates of the Talbots in 1631 for 25 per cent. of the output, and Viscount Lumley took 45. to 55. a ‘score’ from his tenants for operating mines at Lumley in 1662-3.2

(¢) Lead

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the two principal centres of lead production were the Mendips and Derbyshire, with a third but minor source in Cumberland. Special laws were in force in these ateas which gave the miner considerable freedom, while reserving some of the profits to the landlords and/or the Crown. 1 L, Stone, ‘An Elizabethan Coalmine’, EcHR, and set., iii, 1950. E 101 /632/17. E 178/3103.

The Staffordshire mines of the Earl of Warwick were probably on a similar minor scale (E 163/15/30). Chatsworth/H 27, 30A. H/A 112/23. Chatsworth/BA 127, 129, 98 f. 140’. 2 Chatsworth/BA 127, 134-7, 269. James, op. cit., pp. xliv-xlv. Knowler, i, p. 481. J. Hunter, South Yorkshire, 1828-31, ii, p. 88. Sheff CL/Bright MSS., 52. Bodl MSS. Selden Supra 113, ff. 18, 22%. Sandbeck, Scarbrough MSS, EMA 1/20, Cf. Nef, op. cit. i, pp. 324-5.

|

BUSINESS 343 In the Mendips extraction of the ore was left to the miners but smelting was originally in the hands of the four “Lords Royal’, the owners of the four chief manors in the district. Though the picture is obscure, it would seem that the interest of the landowner in the

development of the Mendip lead was generally restricted to the exaction of his 10 per cent. profit, and that the industry was largely financed by small peasants and Bristol merchants.!

Things were rather different in Derbyshire. Although a good deal of the mining was in the hands of the miners themselves, the smelting works on which the industry depended were operated and financed by the local nobility and greater gentry. They bought the

ote from the miners, processed it in their own mills, introduced new technological inventions, transported the finished product to the port of Hull, and negotiated for its sale to London merchants. In 1564 the assay-master of the Mint, William Humfrey, and a German engineer from Saxony, Christopher Schiitz, obtained a patent for refining and smelting lead. George Earl of Shrewsbury provided them with the necessary capital and helped them set up their works on his estate at Beauchief Abbey, just south of Sheffield, where they introduced an improved blast furnace and a new type

of sieve for the ore, both of which marked a great technological advance. In the late 1570’s the Earl spent over £500 a year in buying ote for the works and Humftey delivered between 40 and 50 fodders

(a fodder was rather over a ton), which were sent to the Earl’s storehouse at Bawtry and on by river to Hull, whence they were sold to London merchants or exported to Hamburg. By 1585 about 100 fodders were being shipped. The Earl clearly had ambitions to build up a lead empire, for in 1579 he tried unsuccessfully to obtain

from the Queen a lease of the customs on lead throughout the country. In or before 1584 he did obtain from the Crown a twentyone-yeat lease of tithe lead in the High Peak, and in 1609 his son Earl Gilbert was the lessee of the large royal lead-mine at Wirkswotth.? In the 1570’s and 1580’s the Earl of Shrewsbury may well have

been the largest single lead smelter in the country, particularly after his marriage with Bess of Hardwick had put him in temporary possession of the estates of her former husbands, including Barlow 1 J. W. Gough, The Mines of Mendip, Oxford, 1930, pp. 76-96. 2 VCH Derbyshire, ii, pp. 330, 342-5. VCH Somerset, ii, pp. 372-3. BM Harl. MSS. 7186, ff. 14-15, 34-36. Talbot F, ff. 241, 259, 311; G, ff. $5, 247, 282; H, f. 43; P f. 925. HMCR, 1, p. 116, L/Lib 114A, iv, p. 7.

344 BUSINESS neat Chesterfield. Here the Earl started another works, probably in the 1570's, using ore from a mine belonging to the Countess at Fam in Middleton. In 1591 there were 293 fodders of lead in store, and thete was an annual expenditure on overheads of over £600. By the turn of the century, when the works had passed under the control of Sir William Cavendish, future rst Earl of Devonshite, the annual running expenses were between £1,300 and £3,000, and the annual production between 240 and 350 fodders. With evidence

of these two vety large works of the Earls of Shrewsbury and Devonshire, and of other smelting plants run by John Manners at

Rowsley and by the Gells of Hopton and the Babingtons of Dethick, it is clear that in the Derbyshire area the processing of lead ore was principally in the hands of the great landowners, who alone

had the capital to set up the works, the ready cash to pay for the high overhead costs, and the woods to supply the necessary fuel. In the third lead area in the dales of the West Riding, Francis Karl of Cumberland owned a mine at Thieveley and a waterpowered smelting plant at Grassington. After a good many ups and downs, the Earl was making a profit of some {200 a year from these works by the 1630’s. Henry Lord Scrope was also working a small mine in Wensleydale before 1592, but the only large-scale operator in the area was Lord Wharton. We do not know when he started up the mine and smelting plant in Swaledale, but by 1672 he and his partners were clearing a profit of £3,200 a year.” (d) Iron

Ironstone is to be found in many parts of England, particularly in the Weald, the west midlands, and in Yorkshire. English iron production increased rapidly during the Elizabethan period, owing partly to increased demand, and partly to the introduction of the watet-powered blast furnace and hammer. In this expansion the nobility and the leading gentry played the decisive part, the bulk of English production at any given time being in the hands of the ereat county families. 1 L/Lib 114A, v, pp. 68-70. Lambeth 7o1 V/23. Chatsworth/H 10A, 23, 24. VCH Derbyshire, li, pp. 331, 344. Derbyshire R.O., Gell of Hopton MSS. 209. HMCR, i, pp. 116, 118, 15.43

iv, pp. 466, 542. In 1641 the Rowsley works passed by inheritance to the earls of Rutland. In 1660 there wete two smelting-houses, producing in the six summer months 143 fodder, of which 63 belonged to the Earl, the ore coming from his mine at Haddon (B/A 1332). 2 Chatsworth/BA 127, 129, 132-9, 176, 184, 186, 176 f. 20, 226 f. 275. R. S. France, “The Thieveley Lead Mines, 1629-35’, Lancs. and Chesh. Hist. Soc., Record Series, cr, 1947. SP 12/207/45; 15/32/35. C 104/90.

BUSINESS 345 The chief incentive to the great landowner to set up an ironworks

was the prospect of turning his woods into a source of revenue. But lust for quick profits brought Nemesis in its train, since the consumption of fuel by these early blast furnaces was very high indeed. With minor local variations, of which the Forest of Dean measure was the most important, a cord of wood measured 8 X 4X 4 feet, and so comprised 128 cubic feet. Five independent calculations

made between 1624 and 1672 agree that it took between 2 and 3 cords of wood to make a load of charcoal; 2 to 3 loads of charcoal to make a ton of sow iron, and about 26 cwt. of sow iron and 3 loads of charcoal to make a ton of bar iron. Fuel consumption per ton of bar iron was therefore about 16 to 20 cords, or 2,100 to 2,500 cubic feet of wood.!

Thete is enough evidence to suggest that in about 1600 the average output of a furnace and forge was between 100 and 150 tons of bar iron a year, a figure which is supported by further evidence that a furnace and forge would together expect to consume from 2,000 to 3,500 cords a year.” Production from any single plant was restricted, firstly by the available water-supply for power,

which tended to run short in the summer months, secondly by the need to rebuild the furnace after each blowing, and thirdly by the limited range from which the fuel supply could be drawn. Transport costs made lengthy cartage prohibitively expensive, and in any case charcoal is a friable commodity and cannot stand up to prolonged

jolting. About eighty furnaces are definitely known to have been in existence in 1580 and the numbers remained much the same up

to the Civil War. Improved technique resulted in substantial economies in the interval so that despite increased output the total fuel consumption was at both periods probably much the same, between 200,000 and 300,000 cords a year. A late-seventeenth-century estimate reckoned there were sixteen cords to an acre of coppice,

which could be cropped only once in sixteen years or mote. 1 Dud Dudley, Metallum Martis, 1665, p. 48. H. C. B. Mynors, ‘Iron Manufacture under Charles I’, Woolhope Club Trans., xxxiv, 1952, p. 5. Bodl MSS. Selden Supra 113 f. 9. H. G. Nicholls, Iron Working in the Forest of Dean, 1866, p. 43. E. Straker, Wealden Iron, 1931, pp.

44-46. On the other hand, an estimate of 1598 reckoned 4 loads to a ton of sow iron and 4 loads to a ton of bar iron (NUL/Middleton MSS. 6/178/23/3). 2 The Petworth works contracted to use a minimum of 2,000 cords a year in 1578 (Lord Leconfield, Petworth Manor in the Seventeenth Century, Oxford, 1954, pp. 98-99), the Coyty works 3,000 cotds a year in 1589 (HMCD, i, p. 29), the Titchfield works 1,600 cords a year in 1621 (Hants R.O., WB 128), and the Goodrich works 1,800 cords in 1632 (Bodl MSS. Selden Supra 113, f. 48). An estimate of 1636 put the average annual consumption of a furnace at 2,400 cords and a forge at 1,200 cords, making 3,600 in all (SP 16/321/42).

346 BUSINESS Consequently the English iron industry consumed up to 20,000 actes of woodland a year and, under optimum conditions of careful

planning and cropping, required some 300,000 acres for its permanent support.’ This figure, which admittedly errs on the consetvative side, does not suggest an unduly serious problem. As the rocketing price of wood amply proves, a fuel crisis undoubtedly developed in the early seventeenth century, the explanation of which lies in the combination of very high transport costs and improvident cutting policies. It was not until the third decade of the seventeenth century that landowners began to crop their woods in a fat-sighted and rational manner. Before this they had usually been content to take high short-term profits from the ironworks at the cost of destroying the adjacent woods. Although over half the production of iron was in the hands of the upper gentry, the peets were both the pioneers of technological innovation and among the largest individual producers of whom we have record. In the Sussex Weald one of the first and probably the largest works, including an ordnance factory, was set up by the 3d Duke of Norfolk in the early 1540’s, and was greatly expanded by Lord Seymour of Sudeley in the late 15 40’s, when annual production was well over 200 tons. In 1549 the value of the stock was ovet £2,000 and more than fifty workmen were employed, as well as large numbers of wood-cutters. These works were designed to consume the Duke’s woods in Worth Forest and on the demesne of Sheffield. Another innovator was Henry Lord Bergavenny, whose guardians brought over French technicians to set up a blast furnace in his park at Eridge in about 1538 and who went on to build another three furnaces and two forges on his estates in the next 27 yeats. Two of these works were soon either sold or leased out, but the first was certainly kept in hand to use the woods on the demesne. In the 15 40’s the Sydneys set up works at Robertsbridge which were

soon producing about 130-150 tons of bar iron a year, and before 1553 the Duke of Northumberland erected a furnace at Southfrith in Kent. These were the pioneers in showing the potentialities of the Weald for iron production and they were swiftly followed by other membets of the nobility and squirearchy. By 1574 the 1st

Viscount Montagu owned two furnaces and two forges (and a third furnace before 1585), Thomas Lord Buckhurst three furnaces 1 H.R. Shubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, 1957, pp. 175, 430. The calculation

of fuel consumption, based on the figures of Dr. Shubert, are my own.

BUSINESS 347 and forges, Gregory Lord Dacre of the South a furnace and a forge, the 8th Earl of Northumberland a forge and a double furnace in Petworth Great Park, while the Sydneys, Pelhams, Bakers, Carylls, and Finches, and later the Tuftons earls of Thanet, were

all prominent iron-masters in the area.! |

The second main iron-working region was the north, particularly |

Yorkshire. Here, so far as we know, the lead was again taken by the peerage. Among the few Elizabethan works of which we have record are the two furnaces and a forge of the Talbots, earls of Shrewsbury, in the Sheffield area, which were set up by 1566 and wete producing between 6o and 160 tons of bar iron a year in

1591-3; the furnace and forge of the Manners, earls of Rutland, at | Rievaulx, which were producing 160 tons of bar iron in 1602; and

those of the Cavendishes in Derbyshire, which were producing between 100 and 180 tons a year between 1598 and 1601. In addition

to these there is evidence of an early Stuart works of the 1st Viscount Savile, perhaps another of the 1st Earl of Dover near Conisbrough, and a third of the 4th Earl of Cumberland near Skipton.? In the early seventeenth century the west midlands, the Forest of Dean, and South Wales overtook the Weald and developed into the most important centre of the industry in the country. In the Forest of Dean the Crown decided to exploit iron workings on a large scale in 1612, when it leased to the 3rd Earl of Pembroke the right

to erect works and cut 12,000 cords of wood a year. The Earl apparently built the first four furnaces and three forges before subletting his rights in 1615 to a syndicate headed by Sir Basil Brooke. Thus here again the initial capital had to be found by a peer before

other investors could be drawn in. In Wales itself the Sydneys started up works in Glamorgan in 1589, and the heir of the 4th Earl of Worcester was operating a forge and furnace in Monmouthshire

in 1624.3 In Shropshire Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was leasing out very large works at Cleobury Mortimer in the 1570's tH. Ellis, ‘Inventories of Goods .. .’, Sussex Arch. Coll. xiii, 1861. M.S. Giuseppi, “The Accounts of the ironworks at Sheffield and Worth in Sussex, 1546-49’, Arch. J. lxix, 1912. Straker, op. cit. pp. 451, 257, 407. M. A. Lower, ‘. . . Ironworks of the County of Sussex’, Sussex Arch, Coll, iii, 1850, pp. 241-7. Shubert, op. cit., pp. 168, 366-92 passim. HMCD, 1, pp. 305-12. CPR Philip e Mary, i, p. 286. Kent R.O., Tufton MSS. E 1. 2 L/Lib 114 A, v, p. 70. Talbot E, f. 205. Shubert, op. cit., sub Kimberworth, Wadsley, Rievaulx, Stretton, and p. 181 n. 4. B/A 431, 588. VCH Derbyshire, ii, p. 359. Chatsworth/ H 8, 10. CSPD, 1637, pp. 487, 89. Camden Misc. viii, 1883, p. 28. Chatsworth/BA 226, f. 268Y. 3 Shubert, op. cit., 185-6. HMCD, i, p. 29. Badminton 300. 1. 1. The overheads in that year

came to ovet £800. See also SP 23/118, pp. 942, 971; 25/125, pp. 98-129, and Shubert, op. Cit., p. 3809.

348 BUSINESS and 1580’s, and the znd Earl of Essex owned furnaces and forges at three different sites in the 1590’s. George Earl of Shrewsbury built a furnace at Shifnal in 1564, and another at Whitchurch near

Goodrich before 1575, which with their attendant forges were producing about 170 tons of bar iron a year in 1591-3.! In Staffordshire Lord Paget dominated the scene in the 1560’s and 1570’s with the improvidently reckless exploitation of his two furnaces and three forges in Cannock Chase. Forty years later Lords Gerard and Dudley were the leading iron-masters in the area, each owning several mines, furnaces, and forges.? By the 1630's, however, all those enterprises were dwarfed by the great Foley empite.

Before 1633 Richard Foley had acquired on lease at least nine furnaces and five forges, some of them from lords Dudley and Paget, and was accused of establishing a monopoly grip on the local industry. He was said to be buying up all local iron and fuel supplies, leasing rival works not to exploit but to suppress them, and rigging prices. He was not an entrepreneur—he never built an iton-works himself—but a skilful financier manipulating production and the market to maximum profit. He was a new phenomenon, whose appearance on the scene marks the end of the leadership of the aristocracy in the industry in the west midlands.3 The surviving accounts suggest that the nobility’s influence on the industry passed through two phases. In the first, which lasted well into the Elizabethan period, they took the lead in starting up

works, in introducing the new blast-furnace technique, and in finding the capital. At this period works were usually kept in hand, the day-to-day running being entrusted to a manager and the profits paid directly to the lord. But after the initial excitement of launching the new enterprise had evaporated, the great nobles tended to

get bored with the responsibility of operating the works directly with a manager, became reluctant to risk the fluctuating hazards of the market, and preferred to lease out their works to a contractor. A farther incentive to leasing was provided by the fact—or probability—that by the early seventeenth century the heroic age of the industry was at an end and that both production and profits were 1 L/Dud MI, ff. 69-79, 194"; XX, f. 27”. L/Dev TI, ff. 72-76, 107”, 127. HMCS, xi, p. 82. Star Ch. 8/84/18. E 123/28, f. 33%. Shubert, op. cit., pp. 380, 387, 390. L/Lib 114 A, p. 70. 2 LR 9/12/248/13. PCC 46 Meade. Shubertt, op. cit., pp. 227-8, 372, 374-7. 3 SP 16/321/42, 63. H. W. B. Court, The Rise of the Midland Industries, 1600-1838, Oxford, 1938, pp. 106-8. B. L. C. Johnson, ‘The Stour Valley Iron Industry in the late Seventeenth Century’, Wores. Arch. Soc. Trans. xxvii, 19§0.

BUSINESS 349 increasing only slowly, if at all. Under these circumstances there was no longer any obvious advantage in direct management. Consequently in the Weald, where the expansionist phase ceased thirty

yeats eatlier than elsewhere, we find that the Earls of Derby, Arundel, and Northumberland, Viscount Montagu, and Lords Dacre of the South, Buckhutst, and Bergavenny had all leased out their works by 1574.! There were four types of lease, of which the first merely fixed the rent for the works themselves, leaving the price to be paid for the wood to be negotiated year by year. The second fixed the rent of the works and also the amount and price of the wood to be sold, and the third fixed the rent and the price to be paid for the wood,

but omitted any reference to the amount to be used each year. The fourth and last method, which was in practice almost identical with the second, was to rent the works together with an allowance of fuel for a fixed over-all rent.” The capital cost of a complete ironworks was not very great. In the 1570’s and 1580’s Sir Francis Willoughby built for only about £170 a complete modern works with water-powered furnace, forge, chafery, and two fineties. The working capital tied up in stock varied

considerably, but for a single works producing about 100 tons a yeat it does not seem to have exceeded {600. Gross annual overheads of a single works in the late stxteenth century were always below {1,000 a yeat and much of this was paid for out of current sales. The average return to be expected from a furnace and forge in the early seventeenth century was about {100-200 a year in rent, and about £300 in payment for the wood consumed, making £400-500 in all. If to most of the nobility the profits of ironworks were of minor financial significance, there were a few in whose calculations they played a very important part indeed. These cases only occurred when and whete it was possible to escape from inelastic local matkets and to find new and expanding outlets. For example, large-scale production took place in the west midlands in order to ™ Lowet, op. cit., pp. 241-4. There are, of course, exceptions—Lord Dudley was still running

his own works in 1619, and the ex-Talbot works at Kimberworth were still being run by a manager under direct control in 1628 (Dudley, op. cit., pp. 6-7; Bodl MSS. Selden Supta 116), 2 Straker, op. cit., p. 435. HMCD, i, p. 29. Hants R.O., WB 128. Bod! MSS. Selden Supra 113, f. 48. CCC, p. 2476. 3 R. A. Pelham, ‘The Establishment of the Willoughby Ironworks’, University of Birmingham Hist. J. tv, 1953-4, pp. 22-23. NUL/Willoughby MSS. 5/165/70, 93. Leconfield, op. cit., pp. 98, ror. SP 23/118, pp. 971, 942. B/A 107, 114. Hants R.O., WB 128,

350 BUSINESS supply the nailers of Staffordshire and Birmingham, and in southwest Yorkshire to feed the cutlery industry at Sheffield. Elsewhere, for example in Ireland or at Rievaulx, increased production depended

on opening up a water-route for transport of iron to the great London market. Under the spur of such opportunities a number of peers were tempted into expanding the scale of their enterprises,

though in most of these cases this involved cutting down their woods faster than they could be replaced by natural growth. The result was temporaty or permanent local deforestation, a rise in fuel transport costs, and the necessity of buying wood from others at the enhanced market price, with serious consequences on both output and the profit margin. The classic example of this is the case of the 1st Lord Paget, who took to large-scale development of the iron industry on his Staffordshire estate after his loss of office in 1558. By the late 1560’s he and his son had erected two furnaces and three forges and ten years later they were producing up to 330

tons of bar iron a year. But the 2nd Lord was buying wood by 1581, further reckless exploitation by Sir Fulke Greville finally exhausted local fuel supplies, and the industry in the area then collapsed and moved to Birmingham.! A little later, in the late 1580’s, the Earl of Leicester was leasing out his two furnaces and two forges at Cleobury Mortimer, together presumably with the woods, for no less than {1,600 a yeat, which

represented a quarter of his gross stated rental, though of course a much smaller proportion of his total income from all sources. But by 1589 one forge and one furnace were only valued at £500 a year, and even this figure was challenged on the grounds that there

were now no woods left to maintain the works. In 1592 the 2nd Earl of Essex built a furnace at Ross-on-Wye which was valued in 1597 at £667 a year. Twelve years later it was alleged that the furnace had consumed 30,000 trees in a large wood and that in five years’ time there would be no timber left at all. Another prominent ironmaster was the 5th Earl of Rutland, who paid off the debts incurred by his extravagance in the late 1590’s and the fine imposed

for his part in the Essex Revolt in 1601 by stepping up the ptoduction of his Rievaulx iron-works and shipping large quantities to London. If we ignore the value of his own wood, he raised the t Shubert, op. cit., p. 179. LR 9/12/248/8, 12, 15. E 178/2098, 3103. R. A. Pelham, “The Migration of the Iron Industry towards Birmingham during the Sixteenth Century’, Birmingham Arch. Soc. Trans. \xvi, 1946-7, pp. 147-9.

BUSINESS 351 avetage net cash profit from the works after payment of overheads to between {1,000 and {1,500 a year. Although output was maintained, by 1602~3 he was having to buy a third of his fuel and by 1627-30 neatly one-half. Partly for the same reasons of diminishing

fuel supplies, production in the Weald was falling in the early seventeenth century after some seventy years of expansion.!

On the other hand, if a policy of prudent and systematic coppicing was adopted and if the area of woodland was extensive enough, even large-scale operations could be continued indefinitely.

After all, over half the furnaces of this period are known to have been in production for half a century. In the 1590’s Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury was operating three works at Attercliffe near Sheffield

in Yorkshire, at Goodrich in Herefordshire, and at Shifnal in Shropshire. In 1593 the total production was about 330 tons of bar iron, worth about £4,250. Excluding the cost of the fuel, which came from the Earl’s estate, overheads amounted to £1,550, leaving a cash profit of £2,700. In Yorkshire, at any rate, the woods held out, which is not surprising in view of the fact that the furnace and forges had at least 2,240 acres of woodland to draw upon. The

woods of the 1st Earl of Newcastle also survived until the Civil _ War, since after the Restoration he reckoned his gross profits from iron-works to be at least {1,000 a yeat.? Although the possession by the nobility of large tracts of woodlands put them in a vety favourable position when the expansion of the English iron industry began, they must be given the credit for taking full advantage of the opportunity. Peers and leading gentry were tesponsible for and took the profits from the bulk of the national output, and for many years the peers themselves were the technical pacemakers and largest individual producers in the industry. Sixteen of the Elizabethan peers—that is 22 per cent.— and seven of the Early Stuart creations built, operated, or leased iron-works during this period, and for a few of them over short periods the profits provided a very important part of their revenues. (e) Steel

The need to find a market for their output induced some of the

leading iron-manufacturing families to experiment with novel technological processes. In 1565 Sir Henry Sydney, in partnership 1 L/Dud III, ff. 69-79, 98. C 2 Eliz., W 8/53. Star Ch. 8/84/18. B/A 312, 103, 104, 374, 110, 527, 533. 315.

2 L/Lib 114 A, V, p. 70. Lambeth 698/5. CCC p. 2476. NUL/P Cavendish Misc. 17.

352 BUSINESS with his teceiver-general and a London merchant, took the initiative

in bringing over fifty-five Flemish technicians to set up forges for making steel in the Abbey at Robertsbridge in Sussex, and at Boxhurst in Kent, the ore being sent by sea from the Glamotoan estates. Though the enterprise was ruined within eight years by competition from Baltic impotts, it is significant as the second English experiment in steel manufacture. In an undated letter, probably of the early 1570’s, one of his agents advised George Karl of Shrewsbury to erect a steelworks to satisfy the very high demand for the expanding cutlery trade of Sheffield. Shrewsbury took the advice and built the third known English plant, which by the 1590’s was producing between 30 and 45 tons a year, showing a cash profit of between {200 and £400 a year.! In the early seventeenth century a number of inventors developed

the cementation process of steel-making in a teverberatory furnace and in 1626 a foutteen-yeat patent was granted to one Thomas Letsome, who claimed to have perfected the technique thanks to the use of the money and ironworks of Richard Lord Dacte of the South. It was the 5th Lord Dudley who pioneered the first experi-

ments with a reverberatory furnace using coal for smelting, and one of the earliest recorded English slitting mills, certainly the earliest in the midlands, was that attached to the 4th Lord Paget’s forge at Bromley in 1622.” In 1623 the 3rd Earl of Southampton spent {£1,000 in setting up alongside his twenty-year-old Titchfield

ironworks the first plate mill for tin-plate in England, going into pattnership with a London girdler in order to stock it. No doubt the idea of introducing this new technique into England came from the girdler, but the Earl was responsible for putting up the capital and launching the venture, for which he was to receive 5o per cent. of the profits.3 Thus nearly every technological innovation in the smelting and further processing of iron and steel was financed and operated in the first instance, not by City merchants or nomveau riche gentry, but by established aristocratic families.

(f) Other Minerals

Though iton was by far the most important industry in which the aristocracy played a leading part, they were not slow to extract 1 Shubert, op. cit., pp. 314-20. Lambeth 710 V/23; 707 M/31. Talbot H, f. 199; O, f. 114. L/Lib 114 A, v, p. 70. 2 Shubert, op. cit., pp. 323-5, 305-6. CSPD, 2625-6, p. 563. 3 Kidderminster Public Library, MSS, 6443. Hants R.O., WD 447.

BUSINESS 353 and process any mineral on their estate that seemed likely to find a market: glass, salt, alum, and building stone were all vigorously exploited. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries there was a substantial increase in the use of window-glass, which at last began to find its way into the houses of the relatively humble classes.

Though the bulk of the manufacture seems to have been in the hands of smaller men, two or three north-country peers were also in the business. The important step forward in the industry was the conversion from wood to coal for fuel, the lead in which was once more taken by a peer. The first use of coal in English glassworks was introduced some years before 1620 on Lord Dudley’s estate in Staffordshire by a man called Paul Tissac.! The 5th Lord Dudley was therefore responsible for the first experiments in the use of coal both for iron smelting and for glassmaking. He put up the capital, found the technicians, and sponsored the research. Significantly

enough it did him no good and he failed signally to arrest the

economic decline of his house. The glass industry was of slight importance compared with that of alum. For many years the Pope had established what was virtually

a European monopoly of this essential mordant for dyeing cloth for his works at Tolfa, the huge profits of which were the mainstay of papal finances. England as a protestant country and a great manufacturer of cloth had both an economic and a doctrinal incentive to break this stranglehold, and under Elizabeth determined efforts were made to discover a native soutce of supply. The lead in this quest was taken by the protestant and impoverished James Lord Mountjoy, who hoped in this way both to pay off his debts and to strike a blow against that “enemy of God’, the Pope. He began operations in about 1562-3 and in 1566 obtained a monopoly.

He spent £300 in bringing over Italian workmen—who proved useless—bought out the existing operator, set up three works, and established himself at the most important of them at Canford in Dorset in order to give the business his undivided attention. The cost of running these works was evidently considerable, and though

a good deal of copperas was made very little alum was produced. Mountjoy talked optimistically of drawing {£4,000 a year from 1 L/Lib 114A, v, pp. 68-70. Chatsworth/H 10, Knowler, i, p. 481. J. P. Cooper, “The Fortune of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford’, EcHR, 2nd ser., xi, 1958, p. 245. Notestein and Relf, iii, p. 196; v, p. 153; vii, p. 632. For details of Sir Robert Mansell’s coal-fired glassworks, see C 108/226.

821314 Aa

354 BUSINESS the works, but in fact the profits remained small and the overheads high, and he sank more and more heavily into debt. As his secretary observed, “the great and very large expences that he was at in try-

inge & bringinge to perfection the makinge of allome & coperas was a gtreate parte of his overthrowe’.

Perhaps encoutaged by thoughts of revenge for a personal injury, Henry Earl of Huntingdon acquired a hold on the works by secretly buying the mortgage from the creditors, and his title was confirmed, after a prolonged lawsuit, by an arbitration award in 1586. In the end, however, he was no more successful than Mountjoy. He claimed, with some probability, to have spent £20,000 in gaining control and in stocking and developing the works. Though by the late 1580’s they were producing enough copperas to justify a tent of £1,300 a year, it seems clear that Huntingdon lost heavily on his venture. The cost of the lawsuit, the stiff price charged by

the tenants to surrender their leases, the burdensome operating costs, the interest charged on the money he had to borrow to finance this expenditure, must all have raised the overheads. More-

over thete is evidence that in his efforts to recoup he was overproducing, and the selling price consequently fell. Finally the works

decayed in the early seventeenth century just when they might at last have begun to yield a profit.t The quest for alum and copperas in Dorset was an important contributory cause of the decay of two noble houses during the reign of Elizabeth. By 1606 the centre of activity had shifted to Yorkshire, where some much more promising deposits were discovered. A syndicate of English merchants interested themselves in the project and drew in Edmund Lord Sheffield, on whose property much of the deposits were found. Sheffield took a keen interest in their development and

two of the five works erected were his. This project became involved in a maze of interlocking combinations into which King James was eventually enticed, and as a financial venture it was largely a failure. Sheffield’s own interests were safeguarded, however, for he let his works to the Crown agents in 1633 for the very handsome rent of £1,640 per annum. An anonymous official report a few years later declared that the Crown had paid Lord Sheffield a total of between £25,000 and {£30,000 over the previous thitty years for the privilege of working some 4 acres of his land, which 1 SP 15/13/49(1). 8 Eliz., cap. 21. PRO Chancery, Town Depositions 1440; E 112/12/121. R. B, Turton, The Alum Farm, Whitby, 1938, pp. 36-56.

BUSINESS 355 could have been bought under a compulsory purchase order for £200. Sheffield, if no one else, had struck it rich.! (2) Fen Drainage

It is significant that most of the evidence for mining and industrial enterprise comes from the late sixteenth century. After about 1600

interest in these fields undoubtedly slackened, owing largely, no doubt, to the frequently disappointing results. In any case there had now emerged two new and much mote successful ways of improving revenue: fen drainage and urban development in London. In the fifteen years before the Civil Wars partially and temporarily successful attempts were made to drain over half a million acres in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and East Anglia. This gigantic operation, in which well over {400,000 were invested, was first begun in the

Hatfield Level. It was financed principally by Dutch merchants, strongly supported by the huge fluid resources of that successful merchant the 1st Viscount Bayning, whose executors lent Vermuyden some {25,000 secured on a mortgage of the land to be drained.?

The greatest undertaking of all, however, was the draining of the 307,000 acres of the Great Level. After a good deal of negotiation and competition, the contract for the opetation was awarded

to a syndicate headed and organized by the 4th Earl of Bedford. The family had a tradition of fen drainage, fot in 1590 his father Sir William Russell, future Lord Thornhaugh, had brought over three Dutch experts to survey and estimate costs for draining his property at Thorney. In the enterprise of the 1630’s Bedford was no mere titled figurehead but the active leader of the syndicate and the holder of three of the twenty shares. Since the total cost was said to have been £100,000, this means that the Earl’s investment was £15,000. Other shareholders included the Earl of Bolingbroke, Lord Gorges, and Lord Maltravers, prominent officials like Sir Robert Heath, and substantial landownets like Sir Miles Sandys and Sir Thomas Teringham. The Earl of Bedford was awarded 12,000 acres for his share and by 1640 the Thorney estate was peopled with French and Dutch immigrants whom he had settled there, and for whom he had built a chutch. In 1641 the receipts I Op. cit., pp. 70-84, 164. Bodl Banks MSS. 6/4. 2 M. Albright, “The Entrepreneurs of Fen Drainage in England under James I and Charles I’, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, viii, 1955-6, p. 62. J. Korthals-Altes, Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, 1925, Pp. 43-44, 88-93. Wards 9/359. In the end, the Bayning executors invested nearly £37,000 in lending on mortgage to various entrepreneurs of fen drainage.

356 BUSINESS from Thorney wete about {1,000 and in the two years 1660-2 they had risen to about £5,000 a year. Though part of this may be due

to abnormal fines, in these two yeats the former fens were producing one-third of the Earl’s gross landed income. Bedford was also the head of a syndicate which undertook to drain Deeping Level in 1631; £23,000 was spent on the project, but in 1638-9 the Crown resumed the concession, and a new syndicate of local landowners

headed by the 2nd Earl of Exeter undertook to finish the job within a year. Exeter had a direct personal interest since his father had bought part of the fen in 1601 and had tried to get it drained as long ago as 1604 and since he himself was already drawing £370

a yeat from it.? |

The other main centte of draining activity in the 1630’s was

south Lincolnshire. With minor assistance from Charles Dymock, the 1st Earl of Stamford ‘laboured an improvement’ of 4,000 acres of Wildmore Fen. In the great project for the 70,000 acres southeast of Lincoln there was a struggle for the contract between the Earl of Lincoln and the 1st Earl of Lindsey. Lindsey won and in partnership with a courtier, Sir William Killisrew, and a London gentleman he agteed to undertake it in return for a grant of 24,000 actes. Part of the money he raised as he went along by selling off sections of drained land in lots at £4 an acre. Though Lord Cottington bought 145 acres and the Earl of Lincoln 300, the purchasers wete mostly enterprising smaller gentry, some from as far away as Wotcestershite and Somerset. In this syndicate, which claimed to

have raised £45,000 to £50,000, there were eighteen shares of which the Earl of Lindsey and his son held five, the 5th Lord Willoughby two, the 4th Earl of Dotset two, Sir William Killigrew five, and three substantial local knights the remaining four. Later

on, in 1638, the same syndicate undertook to drain the adjacent 22,000 acres of the Eight Hundred Fen, on which in the first six months alone they spent £12,000. The particular prominence of the nobility in fen drainage schemes of the 1630’s is due to the convergence of all their assets. As very 1 G. Scott Thomson, Family Background, 1949, pp. 161-79. W. Dugdale, History of Imbanking

and Draining of Divers Fens ..., 1772, pp. 409-11, 207-8. For another list of adventurets see Hunts. R.O. ddM 19/3. CSPD, 1637-8, pp. 252-5713 1639-40, p. §47; 1638-9, p. 611. Woburn. Albright, op. cit., p. 62. CR 43 EL, pt. 20, 22; 2 Jas. I, pt. 25. Bradford, Cartwright Hall, Swinton MSS. 2 Lincs. R.O., 2 Anc. 1/6/1-10; 3 Anc. 8/1/11. SP 16/368/21; 375/47; 378/49; 395/503 413/126; 416; 476/111. Dugdale, op. cit., pp. 417-19. CSPD, 1637, p. 184; 1637-8, pp. 9, 151, 475, 522, 528, 540, $63; 1638-9, pp. 98, 201, 489; 1639-40, PP. 35, 85, 324.

BUSINESS 357 large landowners in the flooded area, they stood to gain most from

draining, particularly if directed by themselves (for example, it was alleged that Lindsey had taken care to make his own land fit for arable while that of the others in the drained area was still only fit for rough pasture); their great local influence was essential in otder to give a lead to the gentry and to bring force to bear on the riotous fen-dwellers, while their social position made them the most suitable agents for negotiating for a concession from the Crown. And lastly they could use their estates as security to raise money for investment in these distinctly risky undertakings. The Earl of Bedford’s heavy debts at his death in 1641 prove that he was

financing part of his operations on credit, and the 2nd Earl of Portland certainly mortgaged his two Whittlesey manors for £10,000 to the great court physician Sir Theodore Mayerne in order to taise money to drain his 4,000 acres of marsh in Whittlesey Fen

in the Great Level. Like so many other peers, Portland took the tisk, but got his capital from London. ! (3) Urban Development

These politically hazardous and expensive projects of fen drainage wete far less attractive than the glorious certainties of property

development in London. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries much of the area between the City and Westminster had fallen into the hands of the Crown, but with supreme lack of foresight it was all given away or sold in the next thirty years, mostly to the nobility

and greater gentry. By 1600 the rapid growth on the one hand of Westminster as an administrative centre, the seat of the Court and of the law courts, and on the other of the City of London as a centre of conspicuous consvmption made the whole of the intervening area tipe for development. The beginning of a fashionable London ‘season’ attracting the nobility and greater gentry, the inexorable growth of legal business and thus of the legal profession, the magnetism of the Court, the rise of professional men servicing this clientéle—doctors like Sir Theodore Mayerne, architects like Inigo Jones, painters like Van Dyck—all stimulated demand for highclass residential housing conveniently situated near the Inns of Court and the shops on the one hand, and the Palace and Westminster Hall on the other. * SP 23/191, pp. 25, 36-39. CSPD, 1639, p. 3543 1640, p. 358.

358 BUSINESS Since the strip between the Strand and the Thames was for the most part occupied by aristocratic palaces, development mainly took place in the area bounded to the north by Holborn and to the south by the Strand, and stretching between Saint Martin’s Lane and Chancery Lane. The greater part of this enclave was now owned

by the nobility, and it was to their energy and initiative that its rapid and sensible development was due. Though there were some notable exceptions, noblemen generally preferred to avoid investing their own capital in this development. The usual policy was to survey the property, divide it into lots, and

let it out on thirty-one-year building leases. One would suppose that the shortness of the leases is to be explained by the cheapness of building in wood, but although the first of a series of proclamations prohibiting building in timber and half-timber in London were issued in 1605 and the first serious attempts at enforcement were made in the 1630’s, it was not until the 1650’s that leases lengthened to forty-one yeats.1 The tenant contracted to build a house of a stipulated size or at a stipulated cost and after about 1615 he was often obliged to use specific materials and build to precise

architectural measurements to ensure conformity with royal Proclamations. At the end of the thirty-one years the fully developed property reverted to the landlord, who then re-let on short leases with fines and at high rents. By this means the landlord controlled and directed the development of his property, but the capital was supplied either by the individual tenant or by a speculative builder

who took the lease of a block and built to sublet. The cost to

the landlord was the postponement for a generation of the full economic return. Three different examples of this method of developing a site will suffice to show how it worked. In 1544 Sir Richard, the future ist Lord Rich, had bought from the Crown the site of Saint Bartholomew’s, Smithfield. In 1596-8 his grandson decided to exploit the tremendous pressure of population in the City to develop the site. He therefore made some thirty leases for thirty-one years at rents mostly between {1 and {5 each. In 1612 he conveyed the property

to his younger son, Henry, a rising courtier and future Earl of Holland, who two years later developed a fresh section of the site

by encroaching further on the fair-ground and making more thirty-one-year leases. When the area was surveyed in 1616 it was t Steele, i, nos. IOII, 1049, 1115, 1167, 1218, 1248, 1285, 1420, 1616.

BUSINESS 359 found that the lessees had built 208 tenements. The existing rent was only £334, but the rack-rent on expiry of the leases would be £2,099 a yeat. Later on, in the 1620’s or early 1630's, the Earl encouraged more building, which apparently rapidly degenerated into slums.?

The second example is the Earl of Salisbury’s development of Saint Martin’s Lane. In 1608-10 the rst Earl bought for less than £500 some 9 acres of land running up the west side of the Lane as far as the future Newport Street. The strip was at once divided up and let on thitty-one-year leases at a rent of 15. a foot frontage, with

obligation on the tenant to build. At this stage the tenants were left free to build as they liked, the only restrictions being against setting up any trade or occupation or using the buildings as inns or alehouses. When these building leases ran out in 1642, rents jumped

to £750 a year and heavy fines were imposed for new leases of houses on what was now the fashionable side of a very fashionable

street. Encoutaged by this development, the 2nd Earl in 1651-3 bought a ninety-nine-year lease of Waller’s Building in Newport Street, and contracted with a London architect and speculative builder, Captain Richard Ryder, to build a new block of high-class residential houses, guaranteed to be at least as good as those in Covent Garden. For this, however, he had to give Ryder a lease for forty-one yeats, thus postponing enjoyment of the full profits till neatly the end of the century. Thirdly, there is the story of the exploitation by the earls of Southampton of their town-house estate to the north of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and of the Bloomsbuty estate they had inherited from the Russells. The 3rd Earl had begun to develop the Holborn frontage of the former in 1594 by making the usual thirty-one-year building leases, and in the next twenty years tenements steadily encroached on the gardens and outbuildings. In about 1638 the 4th Earl embarked on a fresh development scheme, whereby South-

ampton House was pulled down altogether and houses erected on patt of the site. Southampton Buildings were put up on the east side of Chancery Lane and before 1642 buildings had also spread

along the Holborn frontage of the Bloomsbury estate as well. The Earl’s finances were precarious at this time, and it is certain 1 KE, A. Webb, The Records of Saint Bartholomew's, Smithfield, Oxford, 1921, i, p. 3113 ii p. 293. SC 11/39. HMC 4th Rep., App., p. 292. 2 H/A 17/8, 35/2, 160/9, 162/2-3, 165/1; S 143, f. 147; B 108; Box S/8.

360 BUSINESS that the capital was put up by speculators taking building leases. But the Earl initiated the programme, obtained toyal permission, and evidently planned the layout and imposed architectural standards on the builders. As a result, the pre-war rental of the Earl’s London property came, on his own admission, to neatly {£1,000 a year, with the prospect of improvement on expity of leases by another £300.! There were a few striking exceptions to this pattern of enttepreneurial initiative without capital expenditure, of which a project of the rst Earl of Salisbury was one of the earliest and the most adventurous. In 1606-7 he bought up the freehold of part of the frontage of Durham House, the former palace of the bishops of Durham on the south side of the Strand. Here, at a cost of nearly £11,000, he proceeded to build a ‘New Exchange’ which was designed as a shopping centre for fancy goods serving the uppetclass clientéle passing along the Strand from the City to the Court. The management of the shops was let to a merchant contractor for £1,000 a yeat, but shopkeepers were slow in taking up the leases, the metchant soon threw up his lease, and by the mid-1620’s the rents had fallen to under £450 a year. And so in 1628 the upper part of the New Exchange was converted into sixteen flats, a measure that by 1637 had succeeded in raising the rental to about {600. By now, however, the rapid development of the surrounding district was stimulating trade, and in 1639 the upper story was reconverted back into shops at a cost of over £1,000. The venture was hardly a financial success, even though the rental had risen to nearly £900 on the eve of the Civil War. An even larger undertaking was that of the earls of Bedfotd on the other side of the Strand. As early as 1612 the 3rd Earl had begun

developing his Long Acte property, so that by 1618 his London rental was already over {500 a year. But it was not until 1631 that the 4th Earl embarked on the major venture of the Covent Garden piazza. Under pressure from Charles I he agreed to plan the whole as an imposing architectural unit forming three sides of a square. The buildings and the church wete designed by Inigo Jones and Isaac de Caux, and formed one of the principal sights of London. Accounts survive for one block of residential houses and for the t Hants R.O., WD 266-9, 298-307; WB 128. J. Stow, Survey of London, 1755, ii, p. 67. G. Scott Thomson, The Russells of Bloomsbury, 1940, pp. 24-33. Knowler, ti, p. 57. E. Williams, Early Holborn, 1927, ii, no. 1230. CSPD, 1639-40, p. 501; 1640, p. 91. 2 L, Stone, ‘Inigo Jones and the New Exchange’, Arch. J. cxiv, 1959. SP 23/192, pp. 201-5.

BUSINESS 361 chutch. On this basis one may estimate with reasonable certainty

that the whole undertaking cost the Earl rather over £28,000.! As a tesult of this activity the 5th Earl’s London rental rose to over £1,300 a year by 1652, to which must be added substantial receipts from fines, which in two exceptional years 1660-2 amounted to no

less than {5,700.7 By the Restoration the Earl must have been drawing well over {2,000 a year from his Covent Garden and Long Acte property.

Perhaps the greatest London entrepreneur of all was the 1st Earl of Clare. His great-grandfather had been a successful London merchant from whom he inherited Clement’s Inn and part of Drury Lane. In 1623 he bought half Prince’s Street and a further section of Drury Lane from William Drury for £1,500. He at once initiated, planned, and financed the rapid development of the whole area with such success that by the mid-1630’s his London rental came to over £1,200 a year, much of which was still being ploughed back into new building. In 1639 he got permission to develop Reindeer Yard, and in 1641 Saint Clement’s Fields. By 1648 he owned overt 200

tenements and his rental was over £2,000, together with fines averaging another {800 a yeat.3

If these wete the giants among the entrepreneurs of London building, several other members of the aristocracy were not slow to follow their example. The 1st Earl of Totnes owned property in Holborn and in about 1623 bought another stretch of Drury Lane from William Drury; the 6th Lord Chandos began building Chandos Street and Brydges Street in about 1637.4 Thomas Earl of Cleveland developed Wentworth Street, until in 1640 his debts became so gteat as to force him to sell to the rst Earl of Manchester houses rented at £480 a year. He owned all Stepney and Hackney manots and, though full development of the area lay in the future, by the 1630’s many suburban streets were already in existence and Cleveland was also drawing several hundred pounds a year from

the East India Company as rent of ground for docks and warehouses at Blackwall. By now the property was sufficiently built overt for the Earl to be able to raise over £13,000 on mortgages of 1 T owe this calculation, and a sight of the transcripts of MSS. at Woburn Abbey upon which it is based, to the kindness of Sir John Summerson. It was later alleged that the piazza was built ‘by speciall direction of the then king and his councell with much ornament and

beauty and to a vast charge’. 2 Woburn. 3 CSPD, 1639, pp. 110, 347. NUL/P Cavendish Deeds, N 1, E 21, Misc. 3. 4 PCC 36 Ridley. N. G. Brett-James, The Growth of Stuart London, 1935, p. 171.

362 BUSINESS it, and it seems likely from this and other evidence that it was bringing in at least {1,000 a year by 1640. Other London entrepreneurs were the 2nd Earl of Leicester, who was busy developing Leicester Fields after 1631, the rst Lord Maynard, who built twenty houses in Tuttle Street before 1634, and the 1st Earl of Newport, who had begun the development of Newport Street before 1653.! The cases of at least three other large-scale urban developers ate

too sparsely documented to provide much more than the bare rental. In 1611 the 3td Earl of Dorset enjoyed a rental of £789 a yeat from his London property, most of it from houses in Dorset Court and tenements in Fleet Street, while at the end of the century his successor was drawing over. £1,800, or neatly a quarter of his total rental, from his London estate. His London property probably provided about a fifth of the total income of the 4th Earl of Dorset in 1640. In 1642 the 5th Earl of Worcester’s tenements in Tower Street and in the Strand were rack-rented at over {1,100 a year,

which was about a tenth of his total rental.2 In 1631 the Earl of Northampton was drawing a rental of over {800 a year from property in Bishopsgate, Clerkenwell, Kentish Town, and Canonbury, all acquired through his father’s marriage with Elizabeth, heiress of the great Sir John Spencer. Subsequently the rents considerably increased, for an undated document of the early 1640’s gives a rental of {1,122 and a prospect of improvement to £1,720 on the expiry of leases within ten years. On the eve of the Civil War the Earl seems to have been drawing about an eighth of his rental from his London estate. Other pieces of urban property about whose development we know nothing are the Earl of Exetet’s

tenements in the Strand, which produced a rent of £176 in 1619, the York House tenements of the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and the Drury Lane and Strand tenements of Lord Craven, which in about 1650 were respectively valued at £480 and £400 a year.* Starting with Southampton House in Holborn, a beginning had

even been made in the process by which before the end of the ’ Hunts. R.O., ddM 47/7. Brett-James, op. cit., pp. 110, 191, 203. E. B. Sainsbury, Calendar of Court Minutes of the East India Company, 1635-9, pp. 59-60, 79. H of L MSS., 2 July, 13 August 1660. E 163/19/21, 22. SP 16/408/61. W. Robinson, History and Antiquities of... Hackney, 1842, i. p. 440. Knowler, i, p. 263. H/A 162/3. . 2 Kent R.O., Sackville MSS. E 66/2, 69; A 1/5. BM Add MSS. 5501, f. 63%-64. In 1714 the rental of the Duke of Beaufort from Beaufort Buildings was £1,034, but this seems to

have been due almost entirely to post-Restoration developments and has therefore been

omitted from this study (Badminton 300. 2. 5). 3 Castle Ashby 1085/7, 1086. * Bradford, Cartwright Hall, Swinton MSS. BM Add MSS. 19678. SP 23/78, p. 161.

BUSINESS 363 century almost all the great palaces east of Charing Cross had been

pulled down or converted into tenements. James Howell was hardly exaggerating when he remarked in 1657 ‘if one should ask what God Almighty doth now in London, he might (as the pulse

of the times beats) give the same answer that was given by the pagan philosopher, who being demanded what Jupiter did in heaven, he said ... Jupiter breaks great vessels, and makes small ones of their peeces’.!

All the smaller development projects were almost certainly financed by large contractors or small builders on building leases,

and no doubt in many cases little or no initiative came from the landowner, who metely allowed others to develop his estates. It is clear, however, that the largest and most architecturally ambitious

projects, those of Salisbury, Bedford, Southampton, and Clare, were the result of entrepreneurial initiative and often personal investment by the noblemen themselves. The role of the aristocrat in the development of London in the early seventeenth century was at least as important as it was after the Restoration and in the eighteenth century. III, INVESTMENT

(1) Shipping |

So far we have discussed entrepreneurial exploitation of aristoctatic estates. Many peers were not content with the vigorous cultivation of their own garden and looked elsewhere for an outlet for their surplus energies. Aristocratic investment at sea was no new

development, for several of the late medieval nobility had been shipowners, tanging from Warwick the Kingmaker, with his fleet of some ten ships in the 1460’s, down to Lord Rochford’s single Anne Boleyn in the 1520’s.2 ‘These noblemen had no use for the safe bet, the steady return. Their ships were not employed on the regular trade routes of Europe, but were sent out over the uncharted oceans in pursuit of more spectacular, and sometimes chimerical, objectives. Before 1585 they were interested in deep-sea fishing, exploration, and the development of new trade routes. George Earl of Shrewsbury owned the Barf Ta/bot at least as early as 1574, and her only 1 J. Howel, Londonopolis, 1657, p. 344.

2 G. V. Scammell, “Shipowning in England circa 1450-1550’, TRHS, sth series xii, 1962, p. 119.

364 BUSINESS directly commercial voyages of which we have tecord ate two trips to Newfoundland, presumably in search of cod. In 1581 he offered

her for Fenton’s projected voyage to the East Indies, but instead she joined in a military expedition to the Azores to help Don Antonio. In 1582-3 she captured a prize off the Azores and a pirate in the Channel, after which the Earl made an offer of her for Carleill’s

colonizing expedition to America. In 1585 she sailed with Drake on his raid on the West Indies, and the last that is heard of her 1s in 1588 when she took part in the Armada campaign.’ At the same

petiod Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, owned the 4oo-ton Galleon Leicester, which was Fenton’s flagship in the abortive East Indies voyage of 1582, sailed on the West Indies expedition under

Drake in 1585, and fought against the Armada in 1588. On the earl’s death in the same year she was officially valued at {'1,500.?

With the outbreak of open war with Spain in 1585 aristocratic

interest concentrated upon the mote exciting, but sometimes equally unprofitable, pursuit of oceanic privateering. Most of these

| privateering ventures wete financed and directed by rich London merchants like Sir John Watts and some lesser west country merchants, but the nobility also took a prominent part in them. The merchants were content with minor depredations on Spanish shipping from Brazil and the West Indies, ensuring a modest but regular profit; the noblemen preferred large-scale operations which were semi-military in character and carried a high degree of risk. Their undertakings were, for once, over-capitalized.

Foremost among aristocratic privateers was the 3td Earl of Cumberland, who organized no fewer than eleven voyages between

1586 and 1598, in six of which he went to sea in person. His motives were mixed. According to his wife he lived the extravagant but unrewarding life of an Elizabethan courtier ‘till we had wasted our land and substance, [when] in hope of better fortune of the sea than we had of the land, he ventur’d many thousands, 1 D. B. Quinn, The Colonising Voyages of Sir Humphrey Gilbert (Hakluyt Soc.), 1940, i, p. 79, note 1. CSP Colonial, East Indies, 1513-1616, p. 67. Lodge, ii, p. 291. BM Cotton MSS. Otho KR, VI, ff. 95, 119. Talbot G, ff. 90, 92, 185, 255. J. S. Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy, 1899, ii, p. 13, n. 2. HMCS, iti, p. 340. K. R. Andrews, The Economic Aspects of Elizabethan Privateering (London D.Phil. thesis), 1951, p. 22. Later on in the 1590’s Earl Gilbert was investing money in a ship of Ralegh’s (Talbot O, f. 100). 2 Quinn, op. cit. i, p. 51. Corbett, op. cit. i, p. 335; ii, p. 13 n. 2. HMCS, iti, p. 340. BM Harl. Charters D 35/15. 3 The names of shipowners can be found in Nottingham’s accounts for his tenths of prize goods, 1587-98 (BM Harl. MSS. 598).

BUSINESS 365 which we saw come empty home’. Her emphasis is on the hope of

gain, which was undoubtedly a powerful influence. But the repeated exposure of his person to the dangers and miseries of life in an Elizabethan warship suggests that there were other incentives as well. As Thomas Fuller delicately put it, “his fleet may be said to

be bound for no other harbour but the port of honour, though touching at the port of profit in passage thereunto’. There can be little doubt that Cumberland was partly inspired by the same lust for adventure that made him the best jouster at court tournaments

and a somewhat indiscriminate putsuer of women. Behind his desire to strike a blow against Spain lay ambition to bring glory to his name, a desire more easily achieved than that of financial gain. In the end he alleged that he had spent {100,000 on his voyages, to

pay for which he was obliged to speed up the sale of his estate. He had, he said, ‘throwne his land into ye sea’.! To assist him in these ventures, Cumberland gradually built up a small private fleet. He began in 1586 with a 130-tonner, the Bark Cifford. By 1588 he had acquired the Sampson, a vessel of 260-300

tons, which accompanied him on every voyage for the next ten yeats. By 1591 he also possessed a 12-ton pinnace, the Daéscovery; an 80-ton captured French ship, the A//agarta; and two other small ships, the Robert and the Delight. For all these voyages, however,

he was obliged to borrow a royal ship to give weight and firepower to his fleets. This seriously hampered his operations since he dared not run the risk of losing her in action for fear of an explosion of queenly indignation at such careless handling of royal property. And so in 1595 he built himself the Malice Scourge, a huge

vessel variously described as of 600 of goo tons, and thus made himself the only private individual in the country to own a ship that was equal to a first-rate royal man-of-war. She did three trips for Cumberland until in 1598 he admitted defeat and gave up his seatch for profit and glory at sea. Two years later he sold her to the East India Company for £3,700 and as the Red Dragon she made another five voyages to the East.? Cumberland was by far the most prominent noble shipowner of the late 1580’s and 1590's, but he was not the only one. The activities of the others were on a less heroic scale, and a few actually t Williamson, pp. 287, 243. Fuller, pt. 3, p. 203. HMCS, x, p. 234. 2 Williamson, pp. 27, 38, 70-71, 83, 113, 128, 142, 169, 171, 178, 209-18. Andrews, op. cit., pp. 265, 281, 337. H. Stevens, The Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies, 1886, pp. 27, 29, 32, 45+.

366 BUSINESS made a profit on their ventures. As Lord Admiral, Charles Lord Howard of Effingham held an office which put him in a highly favourable position. By 1590 he had an interest in four privateers, and although he often used them in large-scale semi-official expeditions they probably added to his profit from the war, which already included a tenth of all prize goods. In 1595 he and Sir Robert Cecil jointly built and fitted out the Trxe/ove, and the next few years saw these two engaged in several privateering ventures. Some wete less

successful than others, but one organized in 1600 in combination with Henry Lord Cobham and Lord Thomas Howard sent a ship into the Mediterranean, where it captured a prize worth {10,000.!

Edward Earl of Hertford owned two ships which brought in substantial prizes between 1590 and 1592, Elizabeth Countess of Bath had an interest in another, Henry Lord Cobham had shares in several ships, which brought him in {250 in 1602, and Sir George

Carey, future Lord Hunsdon, sent out one to three ships most yeats when he was Captain of the Isle of Wight between 1585 and 1596. Few of these speculators had as much success as Cecil, Not-

tingham, and Hertford. Charles Lord Mountjoy drew a moral lesson from his failure: ‘I had a ship and victualled her out in the laudable traffic of piracy, and lost all my charge, and in the end my ship; which I took to be God’s will to discourage me in seeking to

thrive by other men’s goods.’ Peregtine Lord Willoughby had equally little luck with his ships, and in 1601 a friend of the family urged his son and heir to sell the lot. Shipping is useful to princes

and profitable to merchants, he observed, but ‘your shipps ate a charge intollerable’.2 There is thus plenty of evidence that among the landowning classes the most active participation in privateering came not from the ‘mere’ gentry, as has recently been suggested, but from the peers and courtiers. Those who tried, with varying success, to profit from war and privateering during the 1590’s were

not the “party of the excluded’ but the “party of office’. | 1 Andrews, op. cit., pp. 338, 342, 337, 358. BM Harl. MSS. 598. For Cecil’s privateering, see Essays in the Social and Economic History of Tudor and Early Stuart England, Cambridge, 1961,

mr, BM Haul. MSS. 598. Andrews, op. cit., pp. 280, 287, 288. HMCS, v, p. 5313 x, p. 1433 xii, p. 208. H/S 145, ff. go-99. M. Oppenheim, Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson (Navy Rec. Soc.), 1902, ii, p. 229. Cal. Carew MSS., 1601-3, p. 248. Lincs. R.O., 2 Anc. 14/17. 3 H.R. Trevor-Roper, The Gentry, 1740-1640, 1953, p. 31. The only ‘mete gentry’ who are

known to have taken any really serious interest in privateering in the 1590’s were Edward Glemham of Suffolk, William Trenchard of Wiltshire, Sir Thomas Shirley of Kent, and John Chudleigh of Devon, the last two of whom ruined themselves as a result (Andrews, op. cit.,

PP- 240, 323, 332, 355s 275) :

BUSINESS 367 After the signing of peace with Spain in 1604 only peers with an interest in overseas settlement and colonial trade thought it worth while to keep their ships. The biggest shipowner among early-seventeenth-century noblemen was the and Earl of Warwick. His father had sent two ships to the West Indies in 1616. In the next two years he dispatched two ships on a piratical cruise to the Indian Ocean, at an alleged cost of £19,466, and a third to Africa to carry one of the first cargoes of negroes to Virginia. War with Spain broke out in 1625, and with the help of some merchants he soon built up a privateering fleet on a scale comparable with that of the Earl of Cumberland a generation earlier. After peace was made Warwick turned his attention to the Providence Island Company, of which he was a leading member. He used the island as a pirate base to further his depredations on Spanish trade, partly using his own ships and partly financing those of others. In the 1640’s he expanded his activities still further. He financed the major raiding expedition of Captain Jackson in 1642-4 which temporarily captured Jamaica, in 1643 he backed a privateering voyage in return for 20 per cent. of all captures, and in 1646 he built the Constant Warwick, the first frigate to come from an English yard.! The shipping of other peers was used in a less ruthlessly Elizabethan fashion, and their operations were on a far smaller scale. If the 12th Lord Delawarr had to hire a ship to take himself and his colonists to Virginia, Lord Baltimore certainly owned two ships

in 1626. In 1619 Edward Lord Zouche owned a pinnace, the Stlver Falcon, which he used in trade with Virginia; in 1627 a pinnace of the 1st Earl of Lindsey was reported to have captured a prize worth £4,000, and in 1628 the Earl of Carlisle spent over £5,000 fitting out a ship to trade with the Lesser Antilles. A little later, in the 1630’s, Lord Paulet sold the Golden Falcon to the Providence Company, the 2nd Lord Brooke owned two ships used to further his colonizing interests, Thomas Earl of Berkshire sent a ship on the 1631 expedition to settle Guiana, Lord Craven owned a small

8o-tonner, and the 3rd Earl of Marlborough a large war vessel which in 1640 he was fitting out for a privateering cruise.” 1 W.F. Craven, ‘The Earl of Warwick, a Speculator in Piracy’, Hispanic-American Historical Review, x, 1930, A. P. Newton, The Colonising Activities of the English Puritans, New Haven, 1914, pp. 22, 35, 37-38. S. R. Gardiner, Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage, 1869, i, p. 185. CSP Colonial, East Indies, 1617-21, p. 329. 2 C2 Jas. 1, A 9/10. CSP Colonial, 1574-1660, pp. 83, 19, 165, 220. S. M. Kingsbury, Records of the Virginia Company, Washington, 1933, iii, p. 135. HMCB, iii, p. 319. HMC 4th Rep.,

368 BUSINESS (2) Joint-stock Companies

It was peers and courtiers who supplied a good deal of the initiative and shouldered most of the risk for those pioneering ventures which, deservedly or not, have given Elizabethan England its reputation for expansion and adventure. Merchants also participated in these investment fields, but where possible they preferred to otganize their own syndicates. As a projector pointed out in the 1560’s, ‘merchauntes do not willinglye joyne with nobles and other great personages, avoydinge wisely theyr inequallitye’.! One of the most spectacular developments of the early Elizabethan

period was the state-supported introduction into England of new industrial and mining techniques from abroad. In both the main pioneering companies the Court peerage played a prominent role,

and it was thanks to the encoutagement and initiative of Sit William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, and the Earls of Leicester and Pembroke that they were launched at all. Although the bulk of the

money was raised by English and German merchants, in 1568 Leicester, Pembroke, Cecil, and Mountjoy held four and a quarter out of twenty-four shares in the Mines Royal Company and Cecil, Leicester, Pembroke, and Norfolk held at least eight shares out of thirty-six in the Mineral and Battery Company.” Similarly at the end of the century Bevis Bulmet’s prospecting for minerals along

the Scottish border was financed and supported by Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury, Thomas Lord Buckhurst, and Sir Robert Cecil. | These ambitious undertakings naturally led on to more dubious ventures. Burghley, Leicester, Walsingham, and Sir Thomas Smith were the leading promoters and financiers of an alchemist, William Medley, who in 1574 set up a plant to transmute iron into copper. The worldly wise Lord Burghley had touching faith in Sir Edward Kelly’s pretensions to have discovered the secret of transmuting base

metal into gold, though he was too warty to advance any money before seeing the results.3 This encouragement of experiments App. p. 96. J. A. Williamson, English Colonies in Guiana and on the Amazon, Oxford, 1923,

p. 136. Craven, op. cit., p. 472. CSPD, 1637, p. 213. E. B. Sainsbury, op. cit., 1647-43, pp. 119-20. 1 E,. Hughes, Studies in Administration and Finance, Manchester, 1934, p. 36.

2° W. G. Collingwood, Elizabethan Keswick, Kendal, 1912, p. 3. W. R. Scott, Joint Stock Companies to 1720, Cambridge, 1910-12, ii, p. 416. M. B. Donald, Eljzabethan Copper, 1955,

. 2 Talbot I, f. 266. J. Strype, Sir Thomas Smith, Oxford, 1820, pp. 100-5. Turton, op. cit., pp. 42-44. Wynn, no. 470. The iron for the transmutation was supplied by the Earl of Shrewsbury (Talbot F, f. 87). R. M. Sargent, At the Court of Queen Elizabeth, Oxford, 1935, pp. 108-16.

BUSINESS 369 in transmutation seems fanciful to the twentieth century, but was by no means so absurd in the light of stxteenth-century theories of the composition of metals. It was the kind of speculation that appealed to this adventurous, scientifically-minded group of peers and courtiers, and their interest in such matters is evidence of an inquiring mind rather than of naive credulity. None of these ventures was profitable, not even the Mines Royal Company, and the more prosaic development of ironworks and

coal-mines was probably of greater importance to the national economy. On the other hand they created an atmosphere of industrial experiment and innovation, encouraged the prospecting for minerals, introduced foreign technicians, and provided England with a brass and copper industry. Precisely the same handful of court peers and privy councillors played an important part in Elizabethan maritime enterprise. Their

attention had probably been drawn to this field by the lucrative trading privileges with which the early Tudors had occasionally rewarded influential courtiers. In 1510 an aristocratic syndicate had

obtained a licence to send a ship to the Mediterranean for three yeats, and in 1540 the 3rd Duke of Norfolk was trading in this area and maintaining a factor in Chios.! The degree of aristocratic backing varied widely according to the type of undertaking. Purely

commercial ventures, even novel experiments like the Muscovy Company or John Hawkins’s slaving expeditions to the Caribbean, were financed and ditected by merchants, though not without some stiffening from the Court. Winchester, Arundel, Bedford, Pembroke, Lords Howard of Effingham and Paget, and the future Lord Burghley were foundation membets of the Muscovy Company and Leicester and Shrewsbury later adventurers in it, while Leicester,

Pembroke, Clinton, and probably Burghley subscribed to the second Hawkins voyage.

A tather different mixture of Court and City lay behind the Barbary Company, which was formed in 1585. This appears to have been an organization imposed on the merchants trading to Barbary, partly to allow the Earl of Leicester to enforce a monopoly of the export of metals to and the import of saltpetre from Morocco,

and partly to make the merchants pay for a resident ambassador, whose expenses would otherwise have fallen on the Queen. Leicester’s venture turned out badly, and he must have lost the whole

821314 Bb

1 J. A. Williamson, Maritime Enterprise, 148s-1558, Oxford, 1913, p. 232.

370 BUSINESS of his £3,000 investment. But there is evidence that he had been dabbling in the Moroccan trade in co-operation with a group of merchants at least since 1581 and the Barbary merchants were obliged to pay him £1,000 for his unwanted services in foisting a company on them, so that his net losses may not have been as large as they appear. From the merchants’ point of view, the episode

was a salutary warning of what to expect from co-operation with a none-too-sctupulous court favourite.? In the quest for the North-West Passage, the relative importance of merchants and peers varied widely. The financial backing for Frobishet’s voyages of the 1570's, which rapidly degenerated into an abortive goldrush, came almost equally from merchants and

from the Queen, peets, privy councillors, and courtiers. Eight eatls and three barons subscribed or promised to subscribe to the second voyage, while Oxford alone adventured £2,430 in the third. In striking contrast to this, the three expeditions of John Davis in 1585~—7, though patronized by Walsingham, were almost exclusively

financed by merchants, for by then aristocratic energies had been

diverted to privateering. In 1612, when renewed interest was aroused in the Passage, the lead was again taken by the merchants, although there was a long list of court investors, including twenty-

two peers.” :

In contrast to these mixed aristocratic and mercantile enterprises, some attempts to teach the East were almost wholly dependent on the Court. Drake’s circumnavigation was largely financed by the Queen, Leicester, and Hatton, though Burghley and the rest of the more responsible ministers would have nothing to do with it. For

the planned follow-up commanded by Fenton in 1581 about 70 per cent. of the £7,000 that was raised came from the Court group, including five earls and three barons.3 An examination of Elizabethan attempts at colonization shows the same pattern. The first voyage to Guiana in 1584 was financed and led by Robert Dudley, the illegitimate son and putative heir of

the Earl of Leicester, while Ralegh’s voyage the next year was tT. S. Willan, The Muscovy Merchants of ryss, Manchester, 1953, p. 10. Lodge, ii, p. 125. J. A. Williamson, Hawkins of Plymouth, 1949, p. 63. T. S. Willan, Studies in Elizabethan Foreign Trade, Manchester, 1959, pp. 164, 172, 183, 189, 240, 261.

2 R. Collinson, The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher (Hakluyt Soc., xxxvit), 1867, pp. 70-71, 107-9, 163-5, 167-8, 224, 351-3. CSP Colonial, East Indies, 1513-1616, pp. 17-18, 23, 64-65, 67, 73, 238-40. A. H. Markham, The Voyages and Works of John Davis (Hakluyt Soc., LIx), 1880, pp. XVi-xxvii. 3 Corbett, op. cit. i, pp. 206-15.

BUSINESS 371 heavily backed by the Cecils. It was only the less politically hazardous attempts to settle the North American continent which could attract a wider range of interests. Gilbert’s schemes in 1578 were backed by the 3rd Earl of Sussex and Sir Francis Walsingham, but the bulk of the finance came from Southampton merchants and west-

country gentry. The mote serious colonizing projects of Gilbert in the 1580’s wete boycotted by the London merchants, and had to be financed partly by the Court group led by the Earls of Leicester,

Warwick, and Sussex and Lords North and Burghley, partly by a syndicate of small merchants of Southampton and Exeter, and partly by catholic gentry hoping to found a religious asylum overseas. It is interesting to note that without the aid of the great London merchants even this wide support was inadequate to float the venture, which remained seriously under-capitalized.!

It is clear that Elizabethan maritime ventures sprang from the initiative and financial backing of two very restricted social groups:

the great merchants of London (and to a small extent the west country) and the peers and leading courtiers. The relative importance of the two groups varied widely in different ventures, but almost invariably a good deal of the initiative, and nominally of the money, came from the second. A systematic study of the evidence would suggest that the riskier the venture the more important was the role of the Court and peerage. Thus George Best explained that

Frobisher ‘perceyving that hardly was he hearkened unto of the merchants, whiche never tegarde vertue withoute sure, certayne, and ptesent gaynes, hee tepayred to the courte’, where he was taken up by the Earl of Warwick.? In the Early Stuart period the pattern was tather different. By now the wealth of the London merchants was dwarfing that of all but the richest peers and officials, their self-confidence and willing-

ness to take risks were increasing, and the joint-stock company provided machinery to harness this latent power. The tentative and largely unsuccessful experiments of Elizabethan peers and courtiers wete taken up again and put on a sound business footing by such huge concerns as the East India and the Virginia Companies. The

3td Earl of Cumberland was an early member of the East India Company Council, and sent a ship of his on a trading voyage to 1G. F. Warner, The Voyages of Robert Dudley (Hakluyt Soc., 2nd ser., 111), 1899, pp. xviii—

xix. Collins, i, p. 377. But see Edwards, i, p. 199. Quinn, op. cit. i, pp. 56, 81, 199, 200; ii, PP. 329-34. 2 Collinson, op. cit., p. 70. Cf. W. T. MacCafirey, Exeter, 1740-1640, Harvard, 1958, pp. 171-2.

372 BUSINESS Virginia in 1605; the 3rd Earl of Southampton and the 1st Lord Arundell of Wardour financed the preliminary expedition of Captain Weymouth in that year which opened the way for the founding of the Virginia Company. The main financial backing for both com-

panies, however, was primarily mercantile, and one of the largest colonial undertakings of all, the plantation of Londonderty, was entirely run by City merchants. Although in the Virginia Company the country gentry appear for the first time as a significant group in maritime investment, there can be no doubt that the aristocracy was still the most active section

among the landed classes. Though William Earl of Devonshite was ptobably unique in putting about {1,000 into the East India Company each year for nearly fifteen years, another thirteen peers and two peeresses invested some of their surplus wealth in the company between 1610 and 1640. Even more striking is the presence of thirty-two present or future earls, four countesses, three viscounts, and nineteen barons among the subscribers to the Virginia Company, whose internal politics understandably became linked with the rivalries of aristocratic factions. Well over a third of the total peerage invested in the company at any one time, and one, the 12th Lord De La Warr, took a keen personal interest in this colonial venture and in fact died on a voyage to Virginia.!

The Somers Island Company was made up of a somewhat similar mixtute of merchants and peers. Rights over the islands were fitst bought from the Virginia Company in 1612 by a merchant syndicate, which was reconstituted in 1615 under the active leadership of the 3rd Earl of Southampton, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, and

the rst Lord Cavendish, and supported financially by James Marquis of Hamilton, the 1st Earl of Warwick, and the 4th Lord Paget. In the distribution of land in 1618, these peers were allocated 54 out of the 400 shares. It is noticeable that although courtiers and non-courtiers were among the shareholdets, the active partners were those without official positions.”

The disastrous attempt of the late 1630’s to break into the East India Company’s monopoly of oriental trade was also backed I Scott, op. cit. ii, p. 338. G. Birdwood and W. Foster, The First Letter-Book of the East India Co., 1893, pp. 276, 295. Chatsworth/H 29, 27. CSP Colonial, East Indies, 1313-1616, pp. 125, 195, 196, 282, 409; 1617-21, p. 100. Sainsbury, op. cit., 163J-9, p. 25; 1640-3, pp. 28, 206, 322. C. W. Forster, The Voyage of Nicholas Downton (Hakluyt Soc., 2nd ser., Lxxxm), 1939, p. xii. Wards 9/359. HMC 6th Rep., App., p. 5. PCC 84 Meade, 101 Barrington, 110 Battington, 70 Seager. A. Brown, The Genesis of the United States, 1890, ii, pp. 811-1068 passim. 2 J. H. Lefroy, Memorials of the... Somers Islands, 1877, i, pp. 84-6,. 99-100, 141-3, 295-6.

BUSINESS 373 by a combination of merchants, peers, gentry, and officials. The promoter was the great merchant Sir William Courteen, in partnership with another merchant financier, Sir Paul Pindar, and the Solicitor-General and future Lord Littleton, the object being to open up the China trade. The money was raised by the partners from their own resources and from a group of nobility, gentry, and officials including the 1st Earl of Bridgwater and the son and heir of the 13th Earl of Shrewsbury. A later voyage of 1641-3 sponsored by Courteen’s son William was ruined by the forcible seizure of the

two ships by the Dutch East India Company, and in the ensuing litigation it was alleged that the project had swallowed up “all the money left in the family’ of the earls of Shrewsbury, besides leaving Bridgwater overwhelmed with debt.!

Those joint-stock enterprises of the early seventeenth century which had a more exclusively aristocratic composition fall into two groups, supported respectively by the Court and by the opposition. An example of the first is the Council of the New England Company,

which was formed of forty ‘persons of honour and gentlemen of blood’, headed by great court figures like Buckingham, Lennox, Hamilton, Arundel, and Holderness. Efforts to attract merchant investors failed, and as a result the venture was undet-capitalized and was wound up in 1635, having achieved very little other than the partition of the land allotted to it.? Another purely court venture was the attempt to explore and settle Guiana. The first company was founded a year after Ralegh’s disastrous expedition of 1618, and was sponsored by the antiSpanish faction at Court. This company, which included four earls and three barons, was suppressed at Gondomat’s insistence, and it was not till 1626, after the outbreak of open war with Spain, that a new company was formed, ‘the Governor and Company of Noblemen and Gentlemen of England for the Plantation of Guiana’. This time most of the Court promised its support, and the nominal

roll of investors included the Duke of Buckingham and fifteen other peers. As usual, promises were more forthcoming than cash, subscriptions fell far into arrears, and the enterprise withered for lack of capital. It was then taken up again by Thomas Earl of Berkshire, who in 1631 formed a syndicate to send out a ship to 1 BM Sloane MSS. 3515, ff. 12-34. Iam indebted to Professor Robert Ashton for drawing my attention to this document. 2 Scott, op. cit. ii, pp. 301-6. CSP Colonial, 1574-1660, pp. 24, 25, 36, 37, 204.

374 BUSINESS colonize the mouth of the Amazon. The attempt was a failure, but was tevived in 1633 by a fresh syndicate organized by Lord Goring, which in turn sent out one ship and then collapsed. More than one

coutt atistocrat lost a good deal of money in this persistent but ill-fated effort to establish an English colony in South America.? The joint-stock company launched in the early 1630’s to encourage the English fishing industry fared little better. Judging by the lists of arrears, the subscribers for the first yeat’s stock were very largely drawn from court citcles, though Londoners began to come in later on. Various companies headed by the Earls of Pembroke, Portland, and Arundel and Sir William Noy wete set up, but generous promises produced little concrete results. Portland’s Com-

pany of 1633 had promises of £11,750, mostly from peers and couttiers, of which only £2,280 had been paid up six years later. What with this shortage of capital and the capture of several fishing boats by Dunkirk pirates, it is not surprising that the enterprise was

a dismal failure.? |

Other schemes of the court group never even reached the opera| tive stage. In 1637 Sit Thomas Rowe put forward the idea of a West India Company, which was eagerly taken up by the Earls of Pembroke and Arundel. However, as Algernon Earl of Northumberland pointed out, the scheme was doomed to failure as no one but a handful of court peers would invest in it. In the same year the 4th Farl of Dotset proposed to settle Long Island and the other adjacent islands and the Marquis of Hamilton obtained a grant of the whole

of Newfoundland. In 1638 Thomas Earl of Arundel promoted a scheme for the colonization of Madagascar, for which he was proposing to invest his own money, and even to lead the expedition

in person. But the East India Company protested and the project petered out through government indecision and lack of financial support, leaving Van Dyck’s ‘Madagascar’ portrait of the Earl and Countess as its only memorial. In contrast with these court projects are the companies directed and supported by the puritan opposition. The Massachusetts Bay 1 J. A. Williamson, English Colonies in Guiana and on the Amazon, pp. 83, I10-11, 136-8, 141. BM Harl. MSS. 1583, f. 81. Bodl Tanner MSS. 71, ff. 160-2. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berkshire MSS. Box A/t140.

2 Scott, op. cit. ii, pp. 363-71. CSPD, 1631-3, pp. 510-11; 1637-8, p. 109; 1638-9, pp. 6, 15, 196, 271, 423; 1639-40, p. 239. SP 16/425 /43 (1). 3 CSPD, 1637, pp. 336, 358, 429, 456, 554; 1637-8, pp. 33, 37. Sainsbury, op. cit., 1635-9, PP. 323, 328, 330.

BUSINESS 375 Company was sponsored in 1629 by the 4th Earl of Lincoln to assist

the emigration of the Godly. The initiative and a fifth of the first capital of the Providence Island Company came from puritan peers, and the remainder from the gentry. It admittedly included a courtier,

the Earl of Holland, but he came from a puritan family and was drawn in to provide useful contacts in the right places. The real initiative, and as time went on mote and mote of the capital, came from the Earls of Warwick and Lincoln, Viscount Mandeville, and Lords Brooke, Grey of Groby, and Saye and Sele. Spurred on by the stimulus of religious enthusiasm, these peets were more zealous in

administration and more prompt with their subscriptions than the courtiers, although the results were hardly commensurate with the effort. Similarly it was his Catholic faith not hopes of profit that drove Lord Baltimore to attempt a settlement first in Newfoundland and then in Maryland.! IV. CONCLUSION (1) Scale

What conclusions can be drawn from this examination of noble

participation in business? On the personal plane the activity of some individuals was astonishing in its range. In the Elizabethan period the most active entrepreneur in the country was not some busy merchant or thrusting member of the new gentry, but a peer of ancient stock, George Talbot, 9th Earl of Shrewsbury. He was easily the largest demesne farmer of whom we have record, he owned a ship which he employed in seeking out new trades and in

exploration, and possibly two others for shipping his lead to London, he was one of the largest recorded ironmasters in the country, with three separate works under his control, he operated a steelworks, he sponsored technical innovations for refining his lead, he owned coal-mines and glassworks.? It was almost certainly

of him that Bacon was thinking when he wrote: ‘I knew a nobleman of England that had the greatest audits of any man in my time, a gteat grazier, a great sheep-master, a great timber-man, a great collier, a great corn-master, a great lead-man, and so of iron, and a number of the like points of husbandry; so as the earth seemed a sea to him in respect of the perpetual importation.’ 1 Newton, op. cit., passim. Scott, op. cit. ii, p. 317. 2 See supra, pp. 299, 341, 343-4, 348, 352, 363-4, 368 note 3, and Talbot G, f. 282. After his death his son began prospecting for precious metals near Sheffield (J. Hunter, History of Hallamshire, 1869, p. 120; Talbot K, f. 5).

376 BUSINESS In addition to all this Shrewsbury was an active investor in trading and exploring ventures, with a share in the Muscovy Company voyage in 1574, in Fenton’s attempt to reach the East Indies

in 1582, and Carleill’s colonizing project of 1583.1 The nearest tival to Shrewsbury in the range of his operations was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who drew £1,600 a year from his ironwotks, owned a large semi-warship, the Galleon Leicester, and was a prominent investor in the Mines Royal and Mineral and Battery Companies, in the Spanish Company and the Barbary Company, in Drake’s circumnavigation and Fenton’s attempted follow-up, and in voyages of Hawkins, Frobisher, and Gilbert. It is a remarkable record, and yet those of the Earl of Warwick and of Lord Burghley are not far behind it. In the Early Stuart period there is equally impressive evidence of a wide range of activity. The 4th Earl of Cumberland owned coal-mines and lead- and ironworks and was a member of the East India and Virginia Companies. Thomas Earl of Arundel was an

ironmaster and fen-drainer, a shareholder in the North-West Passage, Virginia, Amazon, New England, and Fishing Companies,

and the promoter of a scheme to colonize Madagascar. The 6th Earl of Rutland was a large-scale ironmaster, and a subscriber to the Guiana, Amazon, and Fishing Companies. The 1st and and Earls of Warwick began the development of Saint Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, owned a considerable private fleet, and were councillors or active shareholders of the East India, Virginia, Somers Island,

Providence, New England, North-West Passage, and Amazon Companies. The 4th Earl of Bedford developed Covent Garden and Long Acte, took the lead in draining the Great Level of the Fens, and belonged to the Virginia, Somers Island, and Amazon Companies. The 3rd Earl of Southampton started a new ironworks, financed a tin-plate mill, developed his London property in Holborn and Bloomsbury, sponsored the first voyage that led to the foundation of the Virginia Company, of which he was a leading member,

belonged to the East India and New England Companies, and backed Hudson’s exploration of the North-West Passage; his son was the prime mover in a scheme to colonize Mauritius. The 1st Earl of Devonshire was a large-scale ironmaster and leadmaster, operated a glassworks, and was a heavy investor in the East India,

Vitginia, Muscovy, Somers Island, and North-West Passage 1 F, Bacon, Essays: Of Riches. Lodge, ti, p. 291. CSP Colonial, East Indies, 1513-1616, p. 73-

BUSINESS 377 Companies. It would, I believe, be impossible to draw up a list of City merchants or country gentry with such a wide range of interests. (2) Profits

The effect on aristocratic finances of this extraordinary activity was vety varied. Many lost heavily, especially during the Elizabethan

period. The big gains were derived from the exploitation of the tesoutces of private estates, although those who were foolish enough to indulge in large-scale coal-mining experiments were liable to suffer losses. Ironworks were always profitable, sometimes and for short periods playing a really important part in the finances of certain peers, though the returns tended to diminish as local fuel resources became scarce. On the whole, however, industry was not the road to great riches. Only one man, the tinmaster Lord Robattes, achieved his wealth and thus his title mainly as a result of industry, and even he was pethaps as much dependent on the shrewd investment of his tin profits in money-lending.

The teally startling and permanent increases in revenue were achieved by the handful of peers who took advantage of the phenomenal growth of London and profited by the draining of the fens. By the 1640’s nine earls wete drawing over £1,000 a year from their London property, and by the 1660’s about half the Earl of Bedford’s landed income was coming from London and the fens.? Beneficiaries

on anything approaching this scale form a minority, though a significant one; if they gained at all, peers more commonly gained hundreds of pounds rather than thousands as a result of their efforts.

The profits to the aristocracy of joint-stock investments were rarely of any teal importance. Though many were ready enough with theit money, the amount involved tended to be small in comparison with the total resources of the individual and the potential profit was consequently limited. Moreover, the cautious tended to avoid such investment altogether, preferring to follow the advice offered by his brother to the rst Lord Montagu when the latter was contemplating buying East India Company stock: “Your money in sheep rather than ships I thinke is the better adventure.’ A man as calculating and successful as Sir Edward Coke openly boasted as evidence to his sagacity ‘that he had never cast his penny into the water.” * Woburn. 2 HMCEB, i, p. 250. Dudley, Lord North, Observations and Advices Oeconomical, 1669, p. 87.

378 BUSINESS (3) Numbers

The extent to which the peerage was involved in these business

| activities is a question which can only be answered in statistical terms. As usual, however, these raise difficulties. It would be possible to treat the 382 peets individually, were it not that so many of the activities of each family are recorded only once or twice in eighty years; if carried out purely on the basis of documented facts and not of probabilities, such calculations would produce results which would give an absurdly inadequate impression

ofThe the scale of activity. | only practicable alternative, which is to take the family as

the unit, inevitably tends to produce somewhat exaggerated figures, since an individual has only once to put money into a company or

sink a mine for his family to be included in the statistics. On the other hand both mines and industrial concerns tended to have a fairly long life, often for the whole period under discussion, though admittedly shares in joint-stock companies were often held for no

| more than a generation. } If we treat the Blounts as a single unit, there were 158 peerage families extant between 1 Januaty 1560 and 31 December 1639. Of these, 25 per cent. ate known to have profited by mining or indus-

trial operations on their estates, 9 per cent. to have taken part in fen-drainage, 15 per cent. to have owned and promoted building in London. On the investment side, 14 pet cent. were shipowners, and 63 per cent. put money into trading, colonial, or industrial concerns (Fig. 14).! Three out of every four families were engaged in one ot other of these activities. The figures are of varying significance. Obviously only those who happened to own or acquire property in the appropriate areas could take part in iron- or leadot coal-mining, in fen-drainage or in urban building round London. So many non-economic factors affected joint-stock investment, and

so much of it was casual, indeed trivial, in character that it would be ridiculous to regard this figure as a measure of genuine business enterprise.

Beneath the broad figures there lurks a remarkable disparity between the older Elizabethan peerage and the Early Stuart creations. One might have supposed that the latter, the flower of the thrusting gentry, would have been by far the more active of the two. * See Appendix XVII.

BUSINESS 379 About the same percentage was concerned in investment, but 37 per cent. of the old peers, and only 15 per cent. of the new, are known to have developed industry or mining on their own estates. This discrepancy is merely increased if we include those leading members of the squirearchy who at some stage were financially

equal to many new peers but who failed to become ennobled through some accident of petsonality. The Cleres of Ormesby, the Mining and industry

. WE Pre | 603 families

pum Fen drainage

[] 1603-39 families

mmemasummamemes Urban development ees Shipping and privateering Joint stock investment | -.—-aernssteeetsnnennuni sansa nanyesPemmaatetementitaetataatananattungesustsinnsastapentamanmnenanmmmunmsmmmennenuetenumumatiocmarue en

Total families anssrztansaseenateaneinasteasnepddnarmntguaesinnspenanontoneninatemensseenastaaawasanensanaraiestiatapmmamaanmmasanan atmamaatiameeaemamermunertaameeteantd in business

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 (90 Percentage

Fic. 14. Peers in Business, 1560-1639

Cromwells of Hinchinbrook, the Courtenays of Powderham, the Dymocks of Scrivelsby, the Pastons of Oxnead, the Sheldons of Beoley, the Shirleys of Staunton Harold, the Southwells of Wood Rising, the Thynnes of Longleat, had none of them any industrial of mineral interest that I am aware of. The only notable exceptions ate the Willoughbys of Wollaton and the Pelhams of Halland in Laughton, who were both large-scale industrialists. There ate several possible explanations of this remarkable disctepancy between the old and the new peers. Time and chance have perhaps dealt more favourably with the records of the former than with those of the latter, although the error caused by different * HMC Middleton MSS., passim. BM Add. MSS. 33144.

380 BUSINESS. degrees of ignorance is not likely to be very large. The new peerage

families tend to cover a longer period than the old, since some of the latter died out before 1603, and they should therefore show mote activity rather than less. Not was there any obvious difference in the geographical spread of old and new estates. Two explanations seem the most likely. Many Early Stuart peers were genuinely new

men who rose by politics, trade, or the law from lesser gentry origins, and therefore only acquired land which could be exploited at a fairly late stage in their careers. Secondly, it must be remem-

bered that there are two phases in the entrepreneurial activity of the aristocracy, interest in the Elizabethan period being mostly

centred on mining and industry, and in the Early Stuart period on fen-drainage, urban development, and colonial and commercial joint-stock companies. In the earlier period the greater financial resources, larger fuel supplies, and larger areas of demesne land of the Elizabethan nobility gave them greater opportunities and incentives than those available to the gentry. Consequently in all fields except the often very unprofitable one of large-scale coal-mining the lead was taken by the nobility rather than by the rich gentry who were to rise into the peerage tn the next half-century. Lastly attention must be drawn to a possible difference in atti-

tudes of mind. Many Elizabethan peers were restrained from increasing the income from their estates at the expense of their tenants by their paternalist ideas, and this may have been a factor in forcing them into the alternative fields of industry, mining, and commerce. It may be—though it has yet to be proved—that these ideals were less honoured by the rising Elizabethan gentry, who were therefore freer to devote themselves to the more certainly profitable tasks of raising rents, consolidating farms, converting atable to pasture and changing copyholds into leaseholds. By the early seventeenth centuty these practices were becoming more respectable in aristocratic citcles, rents were rising very rapidly, and the incentive to branch out into mining and industry was

therefore reduced. When all this has been said, however, the fact remains that the older nobility showed a surprising teadiness both to develop new resources on their own estates and to take a prominent part in industrial, commercial, and colonizing projects.

_ The economic and social decline of the peerage relative to the gentry is certainly not due to any difference in entrepreneurial initiative.

BUSINESS 381 (4) Significance

It is important not to mistake the significance of this aristocratic contribution to economic growth. The only industry in which the role of the peerage was quantitatively very impressive was iron-

manufacture. To Dr. Shubert’s list of some 132 blast-furnaces erected before 1642, there may be added another four to make a total of 136, 38 per cent. of which were built by, owned by, or operated under lease from members of the titular aristocracy.! The peerage were responsible for only a very small proportion of the total output of coal, and their share in the lead-smelting industry was significant rather than important. A contemporary estimate of

national output in 1636 of 12,600 fodders is certainly a gross exaggeration.2? Even if we assume production to have been only about 8,000 fodders, the three families of Talbot, Cavendish, and Clifford could not have contributed more than about 7-8 per cent., though this means that their share of the Derbyshire and Cumberland output alone may have been as high as 15-20 per cent. Though very important in privateering, their share of English shipping was

quantitatively negligible compared with that of the merchants, Although there is too wide a diversity in joint-stock investment to allow any summary generalization, there is no doubt that even in

the Elizabethan period the sum total of aristocratic capital subscribed must always have been inferior to that of the merchant community.

The role of the aristocracy in acting as a stimulus to economic growth is not to be found in these quantitative calculations. It only emerges from an examination of the quality of their activities, their nature, and their timing. It was they, rather than the merchants, who were the risk-takers, the frontiersmen, the pioneers in technological and geographical advance, the reason being that their motives were

not exclusively financial. The desire for gain was of course never absent, but it would be wrong to suppose that it was in all cases the only, or even the primary, incentive. When the strongly Protestant James Lord Mountjoy said that he tried to develop native supplies of alum in order to retrieve his fortunes and to harm the Pope, there is no reason to assume that the second explanation was pure hypocrisy. When Burghley and Leicester invested and lost 1 Shubert, op. cit., pp. 366-92. The other four works are those of the Earl of Dover, Viscount Savile, and Lords Herbert and Gerard,

2 CSPD, 1636-7, p. 305. 3 SP 15/13/49 (1). ~

382 BUSINESS considerable sums in the Mines Royal and Mineral and Battery Companies, there is no reason to doubt that they were in part inspited by a patriotic wish to encourage English industrial selfsufficiency, as well as by hopes of large profits. The support given by Leicester, Hatton, and Walsingham to Drake’s predatory exploits

was at least as much due to the desire to strike a blow against Spain as to hopes of rich booty. Again many of the joint-stock ventures of the Early Stuart period were either gestures of loyalty

by courtiers to enterprises fostered by the Crown, ot were controlled and backed for their own purposes by the leaders of the Country party. Warwick and Southampton dreamed of reviving the Elizabethan anti-Spanish policy; Lincoln and Saye and Sele were anxious to find a refuge abroad for puritans threatened by the Laudian Church; Baltimore was seeking a similar haven for Catholics. The desire to acquire a larger income with which to maintain an ever more lavish style of living was obviously behind the development by the nobility of the resources of their own estates such as

the opening up of mines and industries, urban building and fendrainage. Even here, however, the issue is not a simple one. Most peets personally promoted and directed the first stages of an enterprise, and then once it was established retired into the passive role of rentier. This practice was largely dictated by the difficulty of finding anyone to bear the initial risks; but may it not also be evidence that noblemen were attracted by the excitement of a new undertaking, only to get bored as soon as the novelty wore off? It must never be forgotten that peers were men of infinite leisure who were always looking for an interesting diversion as well as a soutce of income. The more stupid of their kind could obtain satisfaction in hunting, horse-racing, and gambling; the more sensual in drink and women; many of the mote intelligent and active found an outlet in public service. But if access to royal favour was denied for some reason of religion, personality, or politics, they were thrown back on their own resources. It is hardly surprising to find that the leading aristocratic industrialist of the Elizabethan period was George Earl of Shrewsbury, exiled on his estates in charge of Mary Queen of Scots; that the most vigorous and energetic leaders of colonial settlement during the early Stuart period were the heads of the Country party like Southampton, War-

wick, and Saye and Sele; or that the most prominent investors in fen-drainage and urban development were opposition lords like

BUSINESS 383 Bedford and Clare. Their zeal was perhaps inspired as much by the need to find an absorbing occupation in the long intervals between the sessions of Parliament as by the hope of financial gain.

Even the more straightforward joint-stock investments cannot automatically be treated as products of hard-headed capitalist calcu-

lation. They are better regarded as a natural extension of the taste for gambling which was just now absorbing more and more of the time and resources of the aristocracy. There is no psychological difference between placing {100 on a throw of the dice and investing it in a risky voyage of exploration, between buying a share in

the Virginia Company and backing a horse. The financing of entrepreneurial activity in the early modern period may be more closely related to the gambling instinct than historians of capitalism

ate normally willing to admit. This could explain the prominent tole of the aristocracy in support of the more forward-looking projects of the age, so many of which were almost inevitably doomed to financial failure. The economic importance of noblemen at this period arises from the fact that they continued to pursue gain by speculative rather than by capitalist means. Still traditionalist in their outlook, they wete continuing to gamble in a new environment of joint-stock otganization and industrial expansion. Consequently it was they, and not social groups mote deeply affected by the spirit of capitalism, who provided the economy with just that element of risk

money without which it could not have moved ahead. In his analysis of the main causes of the growth of English maritime activity in the reign of Elizabeth, George Best explained that there hath bin two speciall causes in former age, that have greatly hindered the English nation in their attempts. The one hath bin lacke of liberalitie

in the nobilitie, and the other want of skill in the cosmographie and the arte of navigation. ... But these twoo causes are nowe in this present age (God be thanked) very well reformed; for not only hir majestie now, but all the nobilitie also, having perfect knowledge in cosmographie, doe not only with good wordes countenance the forward minds of men, but also with their purses do liberally and bountifully contribute unto the same, whereby it cometh to passe, that navigation .. . is now in hir Majestie’s raign growen to his highest perfection.!

Best was undoubtedly trying to stimulate court interest in exploration by a little judicious flattery, but there is a core of truth in ? Collinson, op. cit., pp. 23-24.

384 BUSINESS what he says. In many cases the contribution of the nobleman was not so much in money as in credit, his function being to provide the security on the mortgage of his estates by which capital was raised from City merchants for investment in novel ventures. The nobleman took the risk and paid the interest, and the merchant put up the money, a pattern which is as true of the Earl of Cumberland and privateering as it is of the Earl of Bedford and his fen-drainage

and utban development. It was this combination of aristocratic enterprise and willingness to take a chance with surplus merchant capital seeking a safe investment which made so many important economic developments possible. By itself, neither could have achieved the same results.

Owing to the inevitable fragmentation of knowledge, it is difficult for the historian to compare situations he discovers in his own selected period with those of other ages. There is some reason to believe, however, that in the century between 1540 and 1640 the business enterprise of English noblemen had its greatest impact _ on economic growth. Later on, although their activity remained constant or even increased, their relative importance declined as that of merchants, industrialists, and gentry increased. This pheno-

menon of afistocratic leadership in the eatly modern period fits in well with what is already known about the class in northern Europe as a whole.! ¥ See Explorations in Entrepreneurial History: A Symposium on the Aristocrat in Business, Harvard, 1953.

Vill OFFICE AND THE COURT The prynce’s Court ye only matt of praeferment & honour. A goulfe of gaine. GABRIEL HARVEY (Marginalia, ed. G. C. Moore-Smith Stratford on Avon, 1913, p. 142) Seldom do courtiers prosper. SIR JOHN WYNN, 12 June 1618 (NLW, Wynn MSS. 2855)

THE most striking feature of the great nation states of the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries was the enormous expansion of the Court and the central administration.! This development was characterized by the acquisition by the Crown of greatly expanded

financial and military resources, the extension of royal control over outlying areas, the development of a self-supporting bureaucracy with a vested interest in the perpetuation and extension of toyal authority, a concentration of business and pleasure on the capital city, and the efflorescence of a brilliant and expensive court

life. Everywhere the nobility was sucked into this vortex, to become generals in the royal army, functionaries in the royal adminis-

tration, or attendants upon the monarch in the performance of the elaborate rituals of the Court. For a variety of reasons they were

drawn to the centre and became increasingly dependent on the Crown for their support. Once-formidable local potentates were transformed into fawning courtiers and tame state pensionaries. With important local differences, this model is true of France or Brandenburg, Spain or England, Milan or the Netherlands. But these local differences are of fundamental importance in explaining the very varied evolution of the European governmental systems in the seventeenth century, and England’s experience of this centripetal tendency was as unique as was the final political outcome. I. THE ATTRACTION OF LONDON

The magnetism of the English Court can only be fully appreciated

if it is first set in the context of the parallel and interconnected 1 For a suggestive analysis of this phenomenon and its consequences see H. R. TrevorRoper, ‘The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century,’ Past and Present, xvi, 1959. For criticisms of this interpretation by various scholars, see op. cit. xvill, 1960.

821314 cc

386 OFFICE AND THE COURT attractions of London itself, as a centre for both business and pleasure. For although the Court swelled in size and importance under its own impetus, its growth was further stimulated by the migration to London of ever-increasing numbers of nobility and gentry. Once lured into the metropolis, whether for a season or for semi-permanent residence, they mostly tended sooner or later to gtavitate to the Court. To understand the extraordinary fascination of London in the sixteenth century, one must realize that it was not merely the only city but also the only substantial town in England. Some 320,000 people were packed into the metropolis in the 1630’s,

at a time when no other urban centre could muster more than about 25,000 souls, and when the total population of England and Wales did not exceed five million. It was not metely a difference in degtee, it was a difference in kind: London was unique in a way which it is not today. In the twentieth century the social, cultural, business, professional, shopping, and technical needs of a sophisticated middle and upper class can be adequately, if not fully, satis-

fied in a dozen provincial centres, in Manchester or Oxford, in Cambridge or Bristol. In the seventeenth century there was only London. (1) Business

The ptime importance of London was as a place of business, and in patticular of legal business. The confused state of the land law,

the substitution of litigation for violence as a means of settling disputes, the proliferation of courts with overlapping jurisdictions, all made the sixteenth century the age of the greatest expansion of legal activity the country has ever known. No man of substance was without his quota of lawsuits with tenants, relatives, or neighbouts, suits which were liable to draw him up to London term after term, to haunt dusty offices in the Temple or Lincoln’s Inn, and

to wander under the echoing roof of Westminster Hall, listening to the endless disputations of the barristers in the four corners of the chamber. As a result an ever-increasing flood of litigious nobility and gentry poured into London as each law term began, a flood which ebbed with the end of term, but whose wash was strongly felt at Court, whither many resorted to fill in the tedium of the interminable delays in the rusty workings of the Common Law. Lord Berkeley was merely an exceptionally conscientious model of his kind, as for many a year he was to be seen ‘with a milk

OFFICE AND THE COURT 387 white head in his irksome old age of 70 years, in winter terms and frosty seasons, with a buckerom bagg stuffed with lawe cases, in

eatly mornings and late evenings walking with his eldest son between the fower Inns of Court and Westminster Hall, following his law suites in his own old person’.! Much other business besides that of the law could draw a nobleman to London. It was the only place where large loans could be raised at short notice; it was the centre of skilled conveyancing if marriage settlements were to be drawn up; it was the great market where cattle- and sheep-masters like the rst Lord Spencer would go to sell their meat and wool; it was the headquarters of the trading and colonizing companies, whose directors were now beginning to include a fair sprinkling of nobility and gentry; and it was the seat of Parliament, that huge social gathering whose sessions, though rate and brief, drew up to London from time to time a substantial majority of the peerage and some joo or so of the gentry. (2) Pleasure

Equally important was the growth of the London ‘season’, demanding the attendance of all with claims to elegance and fashion. The evidence suggests that this developed with astonishing speed between about 1590 and 1620. Sir John Oglander records that in the reign of Elizabeth the gentry of the Isle of Wight ‘when they went to London (thinkynge itt a East India voiage) they alwaies made theyr willes’. By the 1620’s, however, the ordinary at Newport, which once had been the meeting place of ‘12 knyghtes and as many gentlemen’, was now deserted, and club dinners were being held in the City for the gentry of each county. As Sir Anthony Denton told Thomas Isham in about 1601-5, ‘London is the garden of England, wheat wee may all live together’. Houses were spring-

ing up all over the West End to cope with the influx, and the thoughtful were seriously worried about the effect on the balance of trade of the consequent growth in demand for wines, silks, and other imported luxuries. In 1594 Sit Robert Sydney wanted to hire a London house for his wife, ‘for there is no reason to leave you where you are at Pens-

hurst without company in the winter’. In 1605 John Wynn of Gwydir in North Wales “resolved to spend the greatest part of the ™ Smyth, ii, p. 191.

2 W.H. Long, The Oglander Memoirs, 1888, pp. 21, 23. Ch, ii, p. 408. Finch, p. 26, n. 4.

388 OFFICE AND THE COURT test of my lyf for the wynter and spring quarter abowt London’, and by the 1630’s the habit had spread up into Yorkshire. By the middle of the century Thomas Fuller could call London ‘the inn-general of the gentry and nobility of this nation’.!

Perhaps the most important reason for this surge into London was the contrast between the boredom and loneliness of country life and the excitements and gaiety of the metropolis. With increasing numbers of the nobility and gentry passing their most impressionable years at the Inns of Court, the knowledge of urban delights

became more widely spread. In London were to be found ‘rich wives, sptuce mistresses, pleasant houses, good dyet, rate wines, neat servants, fashionable furniture, pleasures and profits the best of all sort’. “You have all the money and women at London’, gtumbled a Lincolnshire attorney in 1672. Here was the great clearing house for every sort of commodity for elegant living. Up and down the main roads there rumbled the carts of the carriers, bringing metropolitan goods and fashions down into the country. Thus in a single consignment Sir Robert Sydney sent his wife a coach, a picture, my Lady’s pedigree, and a piece of parmesan cheese.?

With these goods went the newsletters, retailing the scandalous

gossip of the capital and exciting both pious horror and secret longings to savour these forbidden fruits. Week after week a hand-

ful of gifted and industrious ‘intelligencers’, the first journalists the country had ever seen, sent their letters out to absent noblemen, diplomats abroad, and inquisitive country gentry. Already by the 1590’s Peter Proby was writing regularly to the Earls of Shrewsbury,

Derby, Pembroke, and Hertford, and many others of the nobility during their absences from Court.3 By the early seventeenth century

this aristocratic news service had been greatly extended, so that information about Court and City was seeping back into the remoter

manot-houses of Devon and Yorkshire. When Ben Jonson wrote The Staple of News he was satitizing a very recent development. Spiced with lurid court scandal, and barbed with satirical comment on the antics of the royal favourites and the growing corruption 1 HMCD, ii, pp. 157, 176. F. J. Fisher, “The Development of London as a Centre of Conspicuous Consumption in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, TRHS, 4th ser., xxx, 1948, p. 43. Cholmley, p. 31. Fuller, p. 54. 2 E, Waterhouse, The Gentleman's Monitor, 1665, p. 295. J. W. F. Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln,

Cambridge, 1956, p. 198. HMCD, ii, p. 158. 3 Lambeth 705 Z 37.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 389 in the administration, these letters were incidentally a powerful source of mischief. The Duke of Newcastle advised the future Charles II to suppress ‘such fellowes as Captin Rosingame thatt made 500 li a yeare with writinge newse to severall persons’ with the unfortunate result that ‘everye man nowe is becoumde a statman’. Men like Captain Rossingham, Joseph Mead, George Garratd, and John Chamberlain served to mould public opinion by their writings, and also to stimulate an intense and none too healthy interest in the Court.! Again it was only in London that could be procured the ballads which provided the same type of ephemeral reading that is today supplied by the popular press. Stories of sensational murders like that of George Sanders, a London merchant, by his wife’s lover; collections of case-histories like Anthony Munday’s Sundry Strange and Inhuman Murders Lately Committed of 1591; illustrated accounts

of freaks like Mistress Tannakin Skinker, the hog-faced woman; memoirs and confessions of notable criminals, like the highwayman John Clavell’s Recantation of an ill led Life; reminiscences of repentant sinners, in which lurid descriptions of the most scandalous vices could be safely passed off under the cloak of outraged morality ; detailed revelations of the techniques and language of the criminal classes. These last two veins were first fully exploited in the 1590’s

by Robert Greene, who was a pioneer in catering for the less admirable aspects of human curiosity.” If the main market for these pamphlets was among shopkeepers, merchants, and lesser gentry,

it is unreasonable to suppose that the nobility were any more sophisticated in their taste for casual reading.

London was becoming not merely the hub of business and of information, but also a centre of organized pleasure and tourism. On show were the lions at the Tower, the baiting of Harry Hunks the bear at Paris Garden, the wonders of Holden’s Camel and Banks’s

horse Morocco. There were the two playhouses for noblemen and

gentlemen, Blackfriars and the Globe, leaving the Fortune and the Red Bull to the citizens and apprentices. And of course there wete the numerous prostitutes and the streets of brothels. The playwrights regarded these last as one of the chief attractions— and dangers—of the town, and thought that there were many to I Strong, p. 220. Ch. Ellis, 2nd ser., iii, Knowler. Bitch: James I. Birch: Charles I. Gandy. Bodl North MSS. C 4. BM Harl MSS. 389, 390. Talbot H and I. HMCB, i, p. 269; iii, p. 349. CSPD, 1635-40, passim.

2 L. B. Wright, Middle Class Culture in Elizabethan England, Chapel Hill, 1935, pp. 434-42.

390 OFFICE AND THE COURT ‘apprehend the raptures of being hurried in a coach to Brentford, Staines or Barnet’. They implausibly alleged that this was an impor-

tant cause of financial ruin, and Massinger talked extravagantly of “a most unsatiable drabber: he hath given a hundred pounds a leap’.

For the more seriously inclined, there wete the royal tombs at Westminster, as great an attraction in the seventeenth as in the twentieth century. The first guide-book to the tombs was published by Camden in 1600, foreign visitors always included them in their itinerary, and peers and gentry up from the country flocked in to see them. When Sit Bassingbourne Gawdy’s son had ‘seen the lyons and the tombes at Westminster’, he evidently thought he had done the town. And then there were the special occasions—coronations, funerals, royal marriages—dazzling spectacles that attracted huge crowds from the country. At the time of the royal entry into London in 1603 Anne Newdigate down at Arbury in Warwickshire received

a tempting summons: “Ether come up now and se this bravery or close yout eyes whillest you lyve. ... And let Jak’s colpitts pay for all.” By 1621 a poet could conclude: To see a strange out-landish fowle A quaint baboon, an ape, an owle, A dancing beare, a gyants bone, A foolish ingin move alone, A morris-dance, a puppit play, Mad Tom to sing a roundelay, A woman dancing on a rope, Bull-baiting also at the Hope, A rimers jests, a juglers cheats, A tumbler shewing cunning feats, Or players acting on the stage: There goes the bounty of our age.

“Let’s to London, there’s variety’ was a suggestion often heard in a Jacobean manor-house.! 1 W.B. Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, 1865, pp. 19, 46, 61, 207, 215-16. Edwards, ii, p. 233. J. Taylor, A Cast over the Water to William Fermor (Spencer Soc.), 1869, p. 159a. Notes and Queries, 167, 1934, p. 39. P. Massinger, City Madam, 1. i; Iv. ii. A. Armstrong, 4 Banquet of Jests and Merry Tales, 1889, p. 202. BM Harl MSS. 6395/47. Rye, op. cit., pp. 9, 60, 132, 139, 178, 232. V. Sackville West, The Diary of Lady Anne Clifford, 1923, pp. 19, 102. HMC Hastings MSS. i, p. 368. W. Camden, Reges in ecclesia Westmonasterii sepulti, 1600. HMC 7th Rep., App., p. 529. Lady Newdigate-Newdegate, Gossip from a Muniment Room, 1897, p. 55. H. Farley, St. Paules Church, 1621. G. Wilkins, The Miseries of Inforst Mariage, 1607, 1. i.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 391 One of the most powerful forces making for the growth of London as a fashionable resort was the spread of the private coach. It was not till the 1590’s that such vehicles became common even

among the aristocracy. Before this time many a wife must have quailed at the physical strain of the long journey on horseback. Now all but the really ill could jolt and bump their way to town without

mote than minor discomfort, and the temptation to come up was in consequence enormously increased. “Weemen love them selves best, and London next’, remarked the Earl of Warwick in 1632, and King James also blamed the female sex for the expansion of London which he so much deplored. In a speech in Star Chamber in 1616 he argued that ‘one of the greatest causes of all gentlemen’s

desire, that have no calling or errand to dwel in London, is apparently the pride of women . . . because the new fashion is to be had no where but in London’. Profoundly bored by life in the country, tenuously linked to the outside world in winter by rough tracks axle-deep in mud or choked with snow, the ladies bullied their husbands into coming to London at least for the Christmas festivities.

In fact, the men needed little encouragement. They too deserted

the family seat because of ‘abhorrence of solitude’. In country house after country house there could be heard the yawns and sighs

of boredom and loneliness. Sir Henry Unton grumbled that “my clownish life doth deprive me of all intelligence and comfort’; Sir Francis Knollys spoke of ‘a solitary country life’; Sir John Poulett, retained at Hinton Saint George by the duties of Sheriff, complained of being ‘tied to this dull dirty place’; Sir John Harington described

himself to his smart friends as ‘a private country knight that lives among clouted shoes in his frize jacket and galloshes’. George Manners prayed for “better tymes and fortunes then alwayes to live a poote base Justice, recreatinge myselfe in sendinge roges to the gallows’, and Sir Charles Percy complained to his London friends from Dumbleton in Gloucestershire that “if I stay here long you

will find me so dull that I shall be taken for Justice Silence or Justice Shallow’. At Claydon Edmund Verney was soon ‘weary of this deepe dirty country life’. As for the remoter Highland Zone, it was considered as remote as Siberia: Lord Burghley urged Bess

of Hardwick not to ‘lyve so solitary ... there in Chattesworthe amongst hills and rocks of stones’; Lord Clifford at Skipton in the

West Riding talked of having “banished my selfe from all my

392 OFFICE AND THE COURT frendes and recreations this winter, beeinge shut up amonge the mountaines’.!

Those who had tasted the pleasures of London thought little of rural amusements. Exiled to Wilton in 1601 the Earl of Pembroke found it unendurable. ‘I have not yet been a day in the country and I am as weary of it as if I had been prisoner there seven year.’ He could not even get up a game of primero for ‘here there is no game known but trump’. Indeed the boredom of the card games was only equalled by that of the conversation. Edward Montagu described to his mother in equivocal terms his life when he came to stay with her in the country. “I may keep [my father] company at chess, and if need be I may take his part in double hand Irish, and if there be

occasion of weightier matters as punishing of rogues and such like, if it please him to employe me [it] may ease him.’ Young John

Evelyn, staying at Drayton in Buckinghamshire, complained of solitude only relieved when ‘in the evening the squire summons us to Beast’. As for conversation, it was ‘of hawkes or houndes, fishinge ot fowlinge, sowinge or grassinge ..., cheapness of grayne’,

subjects of profound indifference to the sophisticated Londoner accustomed to gossip about court amours and political intrigue, discussion of the latest book or play, and up-to-the-minute news from the battle fronts of Europe.? (3) Hostelity to London

Occasionally a more pastoral note is struck, an idealization of country life as expressed in such poems as Jonson’s Io Penshurst and Sir Robert Wroth, This view combined the ancient theories of Horace and Martial with one aspect of the current doctrine of the English gentleman, whose duties both social and administrative called for his presence on his estate: as the dispenser of hospitality, justice, and charity, he was obliged to reside in his country seat, and his migration to London for long periods of the year led to an impoverishment of the district, materially, socially, and spiritually, as well as creating a vacuum of authority for the maintenance of public order. This was not merely the view of poets and preachers; 1 BM Add. MSS. 46189. Waterhouse, op. cit., p. 307. Dudley Lord North, Observations and advices Oceconomical, 1669, p. 111. HMCS, v, p. 93; vi, p. 287. CSPD, z6r1-18, p. 495. Harington, 1, p. 311. HMCR i, pp. 361, 317. Verney, iv, p. 166. CSPD, 198-1601, p. 502. Bodl MSS. Add. D. 111, f. 261. 2 HMCS, xi, pp. 340, 361. HMC Beaulien MSS., p. 29. W. G. Hiscock, John Evelyn and his Family Circle, 1955, p. 144. Cyvile and uncyvile Life, 1579, p. 34.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 393 it was also the opinion of the Early Stuart kings, both of whom tried to drive the gentry back into the country; and of the rural proletariat, one of whose grievances expressed after a riot in 1635 was the decay of hospitality caused by the flocking of country gentry to London. Whether they liked it or not, the gentry, if not the aristocracy, had a duty to live on their estates. But these were sentiments more honoured in the breach than the observance, and few of their advocates need be taken too seriously.

We need not believe the Earl of Northumberland in 1576 or the Earl of Southampton in 1623 when they express their contentment with country life, for they were both involuntary exiles from the Court. And it was merely a moment of despondency which led the power-drunk Thomas Wentworth, future Earl of Strafford, to write to a friend from Wentworth Woodhouse: ‘our objects and thoughts are limited in looking upon a tulip, hearing a bird sing, a rivulet murmuring, or some such pretty yet innocent pastime, which for my part I begin to feed myself in, having, I praise God, recovered mote in a day in open country air than a fortnight time in that smothering one of London.’! There speaks the voice of the temporarily jaded metropolitan. To support this vague romanticizing of countty life, there was widespread complaint about the terrible expense of life in the City. In the early seventeenth century there was a spate of plays and pamphlets which described in loving detail the ruin of the innocent countryman in the clutches of the predatory Londonets. It was a Wiltshire gentleman up from the country who in a letter to his wife summed up a century of rustic indignation about ‘that expensive toune and hell hound tradesmen that makes noe more concence to cheate an honest country gentman than [a] whore to cantering, which sticks plaguely in the gizard of mee’. Some even tead sociological implications into the high cost of metropolitan living and thought this the reason why the turn-over of landed estates near London was so much faster than in remoter counties.? The other great objection to the City was that it was a motally corrupting place, a conviction strengthened by the pamphlets and 1G. R. Hibbard, “The Country House Poem of the Seventeenth Century’, J. Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xix, 1956. CSPD, 163s-6, p. 22. Sharpe, p. 358. CSPD, 1623-25, p. 134. Knowler, i, p. 16. 2 Zeals House, Mere, Wilts., Bullen-Reymes MSS. 107. I am indebted to the late Mr. TroyteBullock for permission to examine these MSS. Waterhouse, op. cit., p. 205. J. Hepwith, The Calidonian Forrest, 1641, ll. 929-32.

394 OFFICE AND THE COURT plays describing the London underworld and the vices and knaveties of the town. Despite God’s awful warnings in the great plague and the great fire, Sir Richard Wynn in 1666 was still struck by ‘the pride, pomp, luxury, and treason of this damned place’. If the City had an evil reputation, that of the Court was still worse. Incalcu-

lable harm was done to the prestige of monarchy by the goldtush atmosphere of gambling, sex, and drink created by the lavish

generosity and the genial tolerance of King James. Sir John Harington’s artful description of the drunken orgy at Theobalds in 1606 on the occasion of the visit of the King of Denmark, when courtiers both male and female were staggering and spewing in

the royal presence, did little to increase public respect for King James and his friends. It was not mere puritan prejudice that led Lucy Hutchinson to look on the Court as ‘a nursery of lust and intemperance’, for men like Roger Manners, Sir John Harington, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who had lived there long, all bore witness to the truth of this belief. Speeches on the scaffold before execution wete favourite occasions for a display of repentance at a misspent life at Court. Ralegh

told the waiting crowd that he asked pardon for his sins: ‘I have been a soldier, a sailor, and a courtier; which are courses of wicked-

ness and vice.’ The minor criminals in the murder of Sir Thomas

Overbuty were even mote outspoken. Sir Gervase Elwes, the

| Governor of the Tower of London, recalled how his father had ‘charged him on his blessing that he should not follow the Court not live about London’; the poisoner, Mrs. Turner, harangued the

crowd with rhetorical fervour: ‘O the Court, the Court! God bless the King and send him better servants about him, for there is no religion in most of them but malice, pride, whoredom, swearing and rejoicing in the fall of others. It is so wicked a place as I wonder the earth did not open and swallow it up. Mr. Sherif, put none of

yout children thither.’? | (4) Residence in London

In practice, however, these ethical objections carried little weight. Until they were forcibly expelled in the 1630’s, an increasing number

of nobility and gentry spent an ever greater part of their lives in t Wynn, no. 2463. Lucy Hutchinson, Memoirs, Everyman ed., p. 62. HMCR, i, p. 123. Harington, i, p. 166. Autobiography of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, ed. Sidney Lee, n.d., p. 46. Ralegh, i, p. lxxxiv. A. Amos, The Great Oyer of Poisoning, 1846, pp. 217, 221.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 395 London, and when they were there most of them tended to hang about the Court. The clearest evidence of this shift towards London is provided by the number who owned or rented London houses. By 1560 some thirty, or about half the peerage, had a town house, and almost all the earls were lodged in remarkable splendour. This had been achieved during the previous thirty years by the forcible expulsion of the bishops from their great medieval mansions. Under orders from the Crown, bishop after bishop had surrendered the patrimony of his see, so that by 1560 the row of palaces between the Strand and the Thames linking Westminster with the City were occupied by noblemen. Between 1540 and 1640 bishops gave place to the Dukes of Somerset and Buckingham, and the Earls of Arundel, Bedford, Lincoln, Southampton, Nottingham, Essex, Shrewsbury, Salisbury, Pembroke, Worcester, and Dorset. Those who did not manage to gouge a palace out of the bishops acquited their town houses from the monks, the friars, and the clergy. The Duke of Norfolk settled into the Charterhouse and Holy

Trinity, Aldersgate. Three friaries were occupied by the Marquis of Winchester and Lords Lumley and Cobham, two priories by Lords Hunsdon and Rich, the rectory of St. Clement’s Dane by Lord Burghley.

Once this church booty had been distributed, centrally placed sites suitable for huge London mansions became very hard to find, and in consequence the proportion of peers who actually owned their own houses did not greatly alter between 1560 and 1640. Instead, there took place two important developments. The first was the subdividing and subletting of the Thames-side palaces, which wete now too large for the needs of even the grandest of ptivate magnates. These houses had all been acquired and occupied by leading political figures, whose officials, clients, and suitors had filled the spacious halls and rambling suites of chambers. Their descendants were rately politicians of the first rank, and now had no need for such lavish accommodation. They were therefore only too ready to cut off sections of their palaces and let them, sometimes furnished and sometimes unfurnished, to peers who needed a London pied-a-terre. A typical example of a peripatetic family is that of the Mannerts, earls of Rutland. On the very eve of the Dissolution

the 1st Earl had extracted from the Prioress of Holywell a ninetyyeat lease of a mansion house in Shoreditch, but for reasons unknown the lease was sold or surrendered some time before 1610.

396 OFFICE AND THE COURT And so in the early seventeenth century we find the Earls of Rutland

living for a few years at a time in the Charterhouse, Salisbury House, Bedford House, York House, and Warwick House, to say nothing of rented houses in St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields and Fleet Street. An example of a Thames-side palace which was regularly sublet after the death of the first occupant is Salisbury House. The problem of division presented no difficulty here since the 1st Earl had in effect built two houses side by side, Great and Little Salis-

bury Houses, and it was the latter which was let off. The first tenant was the Earl of Rutland, followed by the Earl of Banbury, Lord Cottington, the Earl of Devonshire, Lord Howard of Escrick, Lord Paget, the Countess of Carlisle, and the Earl of Devonshire again. Similarly in 1638 Essex House was being shared by Lord Digby and Viscount Mandeville.! More important than this subletting of the older palaces was the astonishing early-seventeenth-century growth of urban building

on leasehold in the west end to the north of the Strand. This

ptovided a mass of high-class dwelling houses fit for noblemen, court officials, and important members of the squirearchy. Covent Garden, Queen Street, Drury Lane, and St. Martin’s Lane were built with this clientéle exclusively in mind, and part cause and part effect was a gteat increase of peers occupying leasehold property. By the 1620’s and 1630’s there is evidence of fifty-nine peers living

in tented houses or lodgings as against forty-one with houses of their own. The rents of these houses, especially if they were fully fur-

nished, were comparable with London prices of the mid-twentieth

century. As eatly as the turn of the seventeenth century a substantial house fully furnished cost about £50 to {100 a year and might even run up to £150. Furnished lodgings hired by the week cost even more in proportion to the accommodation offered, the

Farl of Huntingdon paying {2 a week in 1610 and the Earl of Cumberland £3 in 1617. In the 1620’s the demand for opulent mansions increased still farther. The Earl of Rutland could still hire parts of Bedford House for £120 but the Duchess of Richmond was paying £300 for Exeter House, while in the 1630’s the French Ambassador was charged {400 a year for the use of Lord Pette’s mansion in Aldersgate. The same inflation affected less grandiose accommodation and the Countess of Carlisle paid £150 for a modest I B/A passim; H/A passim; CSPD, 1637-8, p. 162. 2 For details of this development see supra, pp. 357-63.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 397 house in the Strand and Sit Edmund Verney {160 for a couple of houses in Covent Garden.! Another notable feature of the early seventeenth century was the dispersal of the aristocracy in the suburbs and the desertion of the City. One reason for this was that by now the town had gone over to heating by coal and the atmosphere in the City may well have been even more polluted than it is today. Another was that develop-

ment of speculative building outside the walls which has already been mentioned. Eighteen peers lived in the new west-central area between Holborn and St. Martin’s Lane, mostly in rented houses. At Westminster itself, especially in Cannon Row, there were thirteen, most of them ownet-occupierts; three were down in Chelsea, seven

out at Kensington and Hammersmith, two across the river in Lambeth and Bermondsey. Moving farther north and east, there were two in Highgate, nine in Islington and Clerkenwell, two in Hackney and Stepney, and one down the river at Greenwich. A survey of November 1632 reported only ten peers actually in restdence within the City boundaries, compared with twenty outside them, while a more comprehensive inquiry of 1638 revealed a total of only seventeen peers living in the City. Less than a quarter of the

peerage now lived within the City, which a century before had provided as many as two-thirds of their known London houses.? By the 1630’s at least three-quarters of the peerage, and probably morte, had acquired for themselves by ownership or lease a fairly

permanent residence in or about London. The number of gentry who had similarly taken on London houses must have run into sevetal hundreds, to say nothing of those who went into furnished lodgings for the Christmas season. All the more shattering was the determined effort by the Crown in the early 1630’s to tevertse this trend and drive peers and gentry back into the country. No fewer than nine Proclamations against spending the legal-term holidays in London had already been issued by King James between 1614 and 1627. Their purpose was to cutb the inordinate growth of the metropolis, with the attendant problems of overcrowding, disease, ™ Collins, i, p. 353. HMC Beaulien MSS., p. 26. HMCS, x, p. 401; xii, p. 373. HMCR, iv, pp. 458, 511. HMCH, i. p. 369. Chatsworth/BA, 97, f. 198. B/A 315. CA, ii, p. 612. Bod] North MSS., C 4, f. 36. Knowler, i, p. 177. Verney, i, p. 105. IT. C. Dale, The Inhabitants of London in 1638, 1931, pp. 3, 19, 79, 97, 166, 190. Fifty years later all these figures were dwarfed by the

500 guineas a yeat that the Earl of Devon was paying for Montagu House in Great Russell Street (Autobiography of Sir John Bramston, Camden Soc., 1845, p. 220). 2 Bodl Bankes MSS. 14, 62. Dale, op. cit., passim. T. Barnes, Somerset, 1625-40, p. 28 n. 27.

398 OFFICE AND THE COURT and high food prices, to provide employment and hospitality in the country districts, to keep the J.P.s at their posts for the maintenance of order and the punishment of crime, and to prevent undue social mobility caused by the ruin of ancient families in profligate living in the metropolis: in a word, the conservative social aspirations of

the Tudors. On 20 June 1632 another proclamation was issued on the same lines and met with the usual response of bored indifference. But a census was taken in November, and to the general

consternation the Attorney-General in February launched a Star Chamber suit against fourteen peers, one bishop, and nearly 250

gentty for disobeying the Proclamation. The Government, it seemed, meant business. In 1634 a further prosecution was launched against the Earl of Clare and Lord Grey of Warke, and subsequently regular census returns were made to check breaches of the regula-

tion. Peers and gentry wishing to come up to London on business ot pleasure, to consult their lawyer or theit doctor, to see the sights ot visit friends, found themselves obliged to explain their reasons and obtain a licence from the Government.! II, THE ATTRACTION OF THE COURT

From the earliest feudal times the fortunes of the nobility have depended as much upon the favours and ferocities of monarchs as upon their own hereditary resources. The political history of

| medieval England is largely taken up with a prolonged struggle of the Crown with its barons, a struggle characterized by rebellions, executions, attainders, confiscations, and the lavish redistribution of the lands of the fallen among the royal followers. There was hardly a succession to the throne before that of King Charles in 1625 which did not bring with it a sudden turn of fortune’s wheel, the fall of some great magnate, the seizure of his lands, and the elevation of a new favourite or group of favourites upon the ruins of the old. In 1558 it must have been obvious to the nobility that the influence of the Crown was the decisive factor in both aggrandizement and ruin. Since 1485 there had been nearly eighty new peerage creations, revivals, or restorations, and twenty-seven attainders. Of the mote recent creations since 1529, a substantial number had been I Steele, i, nos. 1152, L177, 1199, 1342, 1344, 1354, 1388, 1497, 1523, 1647. J. Rushworth, Historical Collections, ii, p. 288. Inner Temple MSS. 538. 43, f. 178. Knowler, i, p. 337. Bodl Bankes MSS. 14, 62, 92. HMC Cowper MSS. ii, p. 76.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 399 genuinely new men from the gentry class who had fought their way

to the top in royal administration in peace and war. Those older families who had entered government service during the halcyon days when the monastic estates were being broadcast throughout the land had also reaped a rich harvest of ecclesiastical property. On the other hand, no one could fail to notice the fate of those whose wealth, influence, or possible claims to the throne the Tudors

found dangerous. The de La Poles, the Courtenays, the Nevills, the Staffords, the Percys, the Howards, had all been reduced in part ot in whole. The fall of the Boleyns, the Dudleys, and the Cromwells had been as sudden as their rise. There were evident dangets in too

successful a career, and the persistent turbulence of the age is well

brought out in the century-long rivalry of the Howards and the Dudleys.

In 1509 Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and future 2nd Duke of Norfolk, sat in judgement on Edmund Dudley, who was executed. Dudley’s son, John Viscount Lisle, was said to have been active behind the scene in bringing about the arrest of the 3rd Duke in 1546 and the execution of his son the Earl of Surrey. He certainly kept the former in the Tower so long as he held power, from 1549 to 1553. When he fell the Duke was released and as High Steward

presided over the trial which condemned him to death. Dudley’s sons, the Earls of Leicester and Warwick, were among those who condemned the 4th Duke to death in 1572. In 1603 the Howards came into their own again, and the last of the Dudleys fled into embittered exile in Italy. It is hardly surprising that in the early seventeenth century John Smyth of Nibley should have attributed the extraordinary stability of the fortunes of the Berkeleys over a period of 550 years to the fact that they managed ‘neither to have been often clouded with the frownes of their princes, nor to have sate too neare to their immoderate favors; but to have the warmth of the Court in a moderate distance, not in too neare nor scorching an aspect or teflexe’.!

Despite these warnings, the peers in the sixteenth century swarmed to Coutt in ever-increasing numbers, for court attendance

and service to the State was now an ideal, a social convention, a pleasute, and a necessity. From the Middle Ages they had inherited a tradition both legal and moral of military service in time of war, and this obligation survived the transformation of the monarchy 1 Smyth, ii, p. 442.

400 OFFICE AND THE COURT in the early sixteenth century. During the reign of Elizabeth, how-

ever, the tradition weakened, and in the long peace of the early seventeenth century it almost died.t Already by 1599 men were seeking the bubble reputation elsewhere than in the cannon’s mouth; Shakespeare was out of date. (1) Office-holding

| This decline in the nobility’s interest in military affairs was more

than compensated for by increased participation in royal administration. By the middle of the sixteenth century the concept of setvice had begun to change in character, as the secularization of the State and the expansion of the bureaucracy created more and morte openings in the higher ranges of government. Social conservatives—and there were few at this time who were not conservative—wete anxious that the nobility should occupy these posts so as to prevent government falling into the hands of men of low birth and inferior status. “Blest is the land where sons of nobles

teyne’, sang Thomas Lodge, and there were plenty to echo his sentiments. Moreover, social and political theorists argued that the

wealth and privileges of the nobility were justified—and could only be justified—by service to the State, a service which nowadays

was increasingly administrative rather than military.? Peers were deeply affected with the idea that they had a right and a duty to serve the Prince in one of the higher government offices.

The publication of an English translation of Castiglione’s I/ Cortegiano in 1561 served to crystallize this attitude by giving the

widest publicity to a new social ideal, that of the educated and refined Renaissance man. The Court was now regarded as the natural centre of the universe, whence, like ripples from a stone cast in a pond, civilization spread out in ever-diminishing intensity towards the remote manor houses of Wales or the Scottish borders. The Court was as essential to the good life as conceived by Casti-

glione as the City State to Aristotle. This ideal did not pass unchallenged in sixteenth-century England, for running parallel to it was a modified, anglicized version in which prime stress was laid

on setvice to the Prince in either the court or the country, and in which piety and virtue played a larger part. This combined theory I See supra, p. 266. 2 See R. Kelso, The Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the sixteenth century, Urbana, 1929, Pp. 39-69.

OFFICE AND THE COURT AOI ran all the way from Thomas Elyot’s The Boke named the Governour published in 1531 down to Richard Brathwait’s English Gentleman,

which appeared in 1630, almost exactly a century later.! Nevertheless the enormous success of Henry Peacham’s The Compleat Gentleman of 1622 with its eulogy of the Renaissance ideal sufficiently

proves the enduring popularity of the courtly model. If many of the gentry were fascinated by the Court, the aristocracy were won over to it almost to a man, and it was only personal experience of the Court of King James and growing piety of a puritan temper which damped enthusiasm in the early seventeenth century. Even now the call of duty and the pricking of ambition remained, though in many cases the sense of vocation had gone. By virtue of their rank the peerage had automatic right of access to the Privy Chamber and the Ante-Chamber, the two rooms where much of the life of the monarch was spent, while in 1631 Charles actually ordered that none should enter the Inner Closet under the degree of a baron; only the Bed-Chamber was reserved for privy councillors, bed-chamber men, and personal favourites. It was expected of a peer that he should show his devotion to his Prince by putting in at any rate an occasional appearance, if only at some of the important feasts and celebrations. Even an opponent of the Court like the 5th Earl of Huntingdon advised attendance for several weeks in each year, though it is significant of the changing attitude that his son should have amended the duration to a few days.” These theoretical notions of obligation were not the only incentives that drove the sixteenth-century nobility to come to Court and to seek royal service. There was that “perpetual and restless desire

of power after power that ceaseth onely in death’ which Hobbes, who spent his life in an aristocratic household, came to regard as one of the principal motives of human behaviour. Not all peers were satisfied with the exercise of authority overt servants, tenants, and local officials, and many sought a wider field in which to employ

their talents and to savour the sweets of power. Their predicament had been exacerbated by the decline in demand for their military setvices and by the more intellectual content of their education. Many had laboriously fitted themselves for public service, only to

find the doors of office closed upon them, and their efforts at self-improvement merely left them disenchanted with the oafish

821314 pd

1 See C. L. Powell, English Domestic Relations, 1489-1653, New York, 1917. 2 CSPD, 1629-31, p. 478. HMC Hastings MSS. iv, p. 333.

4o2 OFFICE AND THE COURT pleasures of the countryside. To all except the haughtiest of grandees, office meant an increase in prestige, which in a society as obsessed with questions of status as the Elizabethan was often of

overriding importance. Finally there was the urge to avoid the torments of boredom and melancholia. By the middle of the sixteenth century the bulk of any great estate was out on lease, which sevetely reduced the day-to-day burden of management. Moreover as land came to be regarded more as a soutce of income or influence than as a source of strength, the necessity for direct personal contact with the tenantry was materially reduced. Left on his estate, fhe great lord was liable to find the time hanging heavily on his hands, and not all were temperamentally suited to such conditions.

Dudley Lord North records that his disastrous plunge into the gaieties and intrigues of life at Court was an attempt to banish melancholy (brought on, he believed, by an excessive consumption of treacle in early youth).! As Dr. Johnson once observed, “all the importunities and complexities of business are softness and luxury compared with the incessant cravings of vacancy and the unsatisfactory expedients of idleness’. (2) Court Attendance

Attendance at Court was more than a duty and a pleasure: it was also a necessity. So wide a tange of gifts and favours flowed from

the Prince that it was essential for every nobleman to have some influence at Court if he was to prosper. ‘As fishees ate gotten with baytes, so at offices caught with sekyng’, remarked Burghley in 1568. It was not merely those who aspired to posts in the central govetnment who had to lobby in the Court, but also those content with a rural life, to whom it was essential to obtain the rangership of a forest, a stewardship, the lease of a manor, the insertion or omission of a name on a commission. As the Crown’s control of these powers of nomination slipped more and mote into the hands of courtiers, who in turn exercised this authority to help their friends or to line their pockets, or both, so the need to establish personal contacts at Court became more and mote necessary, not merely to the aristocracy but also to the greater gentry. Another of Burghley’s maxims was that a man without a friend at Court was ‘like a hop without a pole’. In the new nation-state, the importance 1 'T’. Hobbes, The Leviathan (Everyman ed.), p. 49. Dudley Lord North, A Forest of Varieties, 1645, pp. 118-19, 214.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 403 of the Court was enormously increased. ‘All such as aspire and thirst after officees and honors run thither amaine with emulation and disdaine of others; thither are the revenewes brought that appertain unto the state, & there are they disposed out againe.’ No longer did the aspiring gentleman attach himself to the household of the great feudal magnate of the district, and hope to carve out a career for himself as a member of his council or a steward of his lands. In 1527 Sir Francis Bigod, though a member of the household of the all-powerful Cardinal Wolsey, was nevertheless advised to seek his fortune in offices in the gift of great northern lords like

the Earls of Northumberland and Cumberland and Lord Latimer. Fifty years later ambitious young men would have ridiculed so absurd a suggestion. By the 1580’s the key to advancement lay at the Court, which with the decline of the over-mighty subject de-

veloped into the unique market place for the distribution of an enormous range of offices, favours, and titles.! III, DIRECT REWARDS

An astonishing proportion of contemporary correspondence is devoted to the fortunes of the chase after the elusive and manycoloured fruits which tumbled so arbitrarily and irregularly from the cornucopia of the Court. It 1s only by a close analysis of the bewildering variety of rewards, and of the shifting chronological pattern as different items rose and fell in importance, that we can hope to understand the fascination the Court exercised upon contemporaries. In the seventeenth century the greater offices of state and household were each worth several thousand pounds a year, although the official fees were only a few hundred. The difference was made up by using cash balances for private money-lending, by the sale of inferior offices, by New Year gifts from lesser officials, by private fees, and by mote disreputable sources such as bribes for the corrupt

exetcise of authority. For example, the office of Lord Treasurer catried with it a fee of £366, but was worth some £4,000 1n 1608-12, and £7,000 to £8,000 in the middle years of the seventeenth century.

The Mastetship of the Court of Wards carried a fee of £133 and 1 CSPD, 1747-8, p. 309. HMCB, i, p. 250. Giovanni Botero, A Treatise concerning the causes of the Magntficencie and Greatness of Cities, 1606, p. 65. A. G. Dickens, Lo/lards and Protes-

tants in the Diocese of York, ryog-s8, Oxford, 1959, p. 60. Fot an account of Court influence in the appointment of J.P.s see A. H. Smith, The Elizabethan Gentry of Norfolk (London Ph.D. thesis, 1959), pp. 38-47.

404 | OFFICE AND THE COURT was wotth about £3,000 in 1608-12. Nevertheless the overheads were heavy. There was the cost of purchase of the office in the first place, which often amounted to two of mote years’ income, and there was the general expense of life at Court and the maintenance of a suitable establishment. Even these great office-holders relied for support on a flow of extraneous gifts and favours from the Crown.

(1) Land (a) Exchanges

The most obvious of these gifts was of land, either in lease for lives or terms of years; or entailed on heits male or heirs general, with or without the reservation of a fee-farm rent; ot by way of exchange with the land of the suitor. This last is a very important category, especially during the reign of Henry VIII, and one whose sionificance has been underestimated. In the 1540’s the King was anxious to give every influential man of property a vested interest in the secularization of monastic estates. Some he drew in by outright gift, others by sale, others again by the surrender of some of their ancient patrimony in exchange for lands which a few years previously had belonged to the Church. Some noblemen had a sentimental reluctance to part with the homes and estates of their ancestors. Lord De La Warr had to be forced to give up his house at Halnaker, Lord Windsor hated exchanging his family mansion at Stanwell for the extensive lands of Bordesley Abbey in Wotrcester-

shire. On the other hand, these exchanges were always made on vety favourable terms for the individual, even if few did as well as Lord Clinton, whose £50 worth of land officially surrendered in exchange was ‘not in being or ever to be found’, Under Elizabeth the practice of exchanging lands continued, but

now as a mark of favour by the Crown rather than with any ulterior political motive. These exchanges were sought by peers either to simplify estate management, or to take advantage of the vety low valuations placed on crown property.3 Thus it was no doubt for the purposes of consolidation that in 1560 Henry Earl of 1 See infra, pp. 449-50. Pepys, 9 Sept., 1665. For other examples see G. E. Aylmer, The King’s Servants, 1961, pp. 203-15, 221-3.

. 2 For an idea of the very great frequency of exchanges under Henry VIII and Edward VI see BM Harl. MSS. 7389 and SP 10/19. 3 BM Harl. MSS. 1880. Le» P H VII, xiv, pp. 481, 544, 547. A. Collins, Historical Collections of the Noble Family of Windsor, 1754, p. 43. HMCS, ix, p. 195. M. C. Cross, ‘An Exchange of Lands with the Crown’, BIHR, xxxiv, 1961.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 405 Arundel exchanged ten small west country manors for two manots

and a parsonage in Sussex. A mote complicated example of the benefit a courtier could hope to obtain by an exchange is provided by a request of the Duke of Norfolk in 1562. He owed the Crown £6,500 and asked to be allowed to discharge £4,680 of this by a straight exchange of {300-a-year land with the Queen, the £4,680 being the value of the woods standing on the property he was Offering. By doing this the Duke would avoid all the difficulties —which when it came to the point might well prove insuperable—

of cutting, transporting, and marketing the wood, and would obtain an immediate telease of his debt.! The best trick of all, however, was to exchange, exploit to the full, and then exchange again. An unfriendly witness described the technique used by the

Earl of Leicester as follows: ‘he... may cope and change what lands he listeth with Her Majesty, despoil them of all their woods and other commodities and rack them afterwards to the uttermost penny, and then return the same so tenter-stretched and bare into her Majesties hands by a fresh exchange, rent for rent, for lands never exhaunced before.”2 (b) Leases

Mote common under Elizabeth wete grants of leases of crown lands, very many of which went to minor officers of the household and others to the great court favourites. One contemporary thought that ‘her Majestie hath graunted mote leases in revercion to her servantes and captaines and souche like in her tyme then hath bene gtaunted sithens the Conquest’. A striking example of this policy is the grant in 1587 of a reversionary lease of 21 yeats after 1615 to Sit William Gardiner of some rich pastures at Bermondsey at a rent of £68 a year. By 1612 the property was reckoned to be worth £932 a year over the rent, and the day the lease ran out in 1636 the rent rocketed from £68 to {1,071.3 A much cheaper method of gratifying the courtiers was to blackmail the bishops and deans and chaptets into giving beneficial leases on very favourable terms. This cost the Crown nothing— except of coutse the prestige and self-respect of the episcopacy, which in turn reflected on the monarchy—and so Elizabeth turned to it with avidity. Sir John Hartington observed that the Elizabethan 1 HMCS, i, p. 256. SP 12/24/10. SP 15/11/56. CPR, ry 60-63, p. 564. 2 Leycester’s Commonwealth, 1706 ed., pp. 73, 78-79. 3 CPR, ry 58-60, 1560-63, passim, SP 12/166, Ec HR, and ser., vi, 1953, p. 31. See mnfra, p. 498.

406 OFFICE AND THE COURT couttier was more accustomed to ‘pray on the church than in the church’, and Thomas Wilson concluded that the clergy’s ‘winges ate well clipt of late by courtiers and noblemen, and some quite cutt away, both fether, flesh, and bone’.! Such amputation tended to be painful and the anguished shrieks of the dissected clergymen echoed shrill but unattended throughout Elizabethan England. As

Bishop Cox of Ely pointed out, the procedure smacked all too clearly of the double-cross. Was this to be the bishops’ reward for their support during the 1530’s and 1540’s for the liquidation of monastic property which ‘had rescued abundance of the English from beggary and enriched others with wealth and others advanced

to honours’? But what could the good bishop expect, when as Archbishop Sandys himself admitted, ‘the ministers of the Word, the messengers of Christ . . . ate esteemed tamquam excrementa mundi ?3 It was no good. No longer was the episcopacy closely linked by blood and social position to the nobility; no longer did a Scrope ot a Percy hold the see of Carlisle, a Courtenay the see of Exeter, a Bourchier Canterbury itself. Men of lowly origin, they were now defenceless against the rapacity of their betters. And so when the summons for surrender came, the majority of the bishops, for all their squeals of dismay, nevertheless gave in without undue obstinacy. They sighed as lovers of episcopal property, they obeyed as sons of the Supreme Governor. Let us look at a few examples. When Thomas Godwin was fishing for the see of Bath and Wells in 1584, Sit Walter Ralegh played on the candidate’s unpopularity with the Queen owing to his marriage

to extract from him a ninety-nine-year lease of the rich manor of Wilscomb in return for support for his nomination. The Bishops of Carlisle and Oxford were similarly forced to make leases to the Earls of Lincoln and Essex. On his translation to Norwich in 1584 the Bishop of Peterborough gave a manor to Lord Burghley, made a ninety-nine-year lease to Sit Thomas Shirley, and an eighty-year lease to Sit Thomas Heneage, so that there was reason to complain that ‘the baseness of that bishop, conspiring with the sacrilegious

greediness of two potent courtiers was the ruin of both these bishoprics’.3 Perhaps the most shameless example of court pressure was that exercised by Ralegh upon the Bishop of Salisbury for the 1 Harington, ii, p. 42. Wilson, p. 23. See also HMC Var. MSS. iii, p. 117. 2 J. Strype, Axnals of the Reformation, ii, p. 362; iii, p. 551. 3 Harington, ii, pp. 151-3, 43-44, 200. HMCS, vii, pp. 187, 196, 292, 302, 313, 523. For other examples see op. cit. vii, p. 326, and CSPD, 1y9s-7, pp. 416, 419, 432. Fuller, pt. ii, p. 206.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 407 manor of Sherborne. This estate had already been alienated once ona ninety-nine-year lease to the Duke of Somerset, but it had been recoveted on the Protector’s fall in 1551. Forty years later Elizabeth extracted confirmation of a lease for Sir Walter Ralegh by a brutally

frank letter to the Dean and Chapter, and in 1599 the next bishop only obtained his congé d’éhre in return for the conversion of the lease into a grant in perpetuity.! The bishops did not show much fight. Drs. Wickham and Bilson of Winchester tried to argue, but Cecil cracked the whip and they soon came to heel. ‘I submit my state and life at the lowest step of your Majesty’s throne’, the latter wrote submissively. When told that his congé d’élire depended on the sealing of a couple of ninety-nineyeat leases to Sir Edward Denny, the Bishop of London at first protested at ‘the scandal whichsuch conditions of coming to our dignities

ecclesiastical bring with it’. A fortnight later we find a cringing letter expressing the bishop’s anxiety at the Queen’s displeasure, enclosing the required leases and going so far in sycophantic perjury as to acknowledge “Her Highness’ most princely care for the preservation of the church endowments’. Dr. Hutton of York held out for many weeks over a lease to a son of Lord Cobham in the face of threatening letters from Cecil, who indignantly denied that Her Majesty could be accused of simony or that identical demands on Hutton’s predecessor had driven the old man to the grave. In the end, however, the archbishop gave way, having saved his face by sealing the lease only after his election. The only ones who held out to the bitter end were men who were already secute in office like Cox of Ely, who resisted the malicious harrying

of Lord North, and Archbishop Sandys of York, who refused royal letters for a lease of Southwell to Sir Robert Stapledon. But

he was then caught in a carefully laid trap baited by Sir Robert with a well-known Doncaster whore, and it was only when driven desperate by Sir Robert’s ever-increasing demands for hush-money to cover up the scandal that he decided to face it out, and save the

patrimony of his see at the cost of exposing both Sir Robert’s blackmailing tactics and the weakness of his own flesh.? 1 Strype, op. cit. ii, p. 303. Bodl Tanner MSS. 135, f. 125. CUL MS. MM III 12, ff. 140-9. Edwards, i, pp. 462~5. Arch, xxxiv, 1852, p. 158. HMCS, iv, p. 507; ix, p. 333. CR 41 Eliz., - IMCS, li, p. 1203 V, pp. 31, 35, 37, 41-42, 46, 50, 55, 65, 92, 95, 128, 174. Strype, op. cit. ii, p. 361; iii, pp. 98-109. CSPD, 1595-7, p. 432. BM Harl. MSS. 37/27; 38/77, 109/38. SP 12/158/21, 64, 65, 70, 82, 83, 84; 159/22; 160/2.

408 OFFICE AND THE COURT These leases extorted from the Church by the Crown on behalf of courtiers were all the more valuable since, once granted, it was very difficult indeed for a renewal to be refused to the family descendants.

In 1660 the Marquis of Worcester in a petition to the House of Lords laid claim to ecclesiastical leases held by his ancestors before

the war on the grounds of his ‘preemption and his just title thereunto’. As a result leases tended to remain in the same aristocratic family at the same old rent from generation to generation, being

periodically renewed on payment of a fine, which was usually srossly inadequate. The estates of many peets consequently included

a fair amount of leasehold property, some of it held of the Crown but mostly derived from bishops, deans and chapters, and Oxford and Cambridge colleges, who were equally open to royal pressure. At his death in 1588 the Earl of Leicester held leases from the Deans

, and Chapters of Canterbury and Windsor, the Bishop of Winchester, and Magdalen College, Oxford, which together with those held directly from the Queen were valued at £13,000. In 1595 over 25 per cent. of the gross rental of Lord Cobham came from leases from Canterbury and Rochester; in 1612 over 20 per cent. of the Earl of Salisbury’s gross rental came from leasehold lands held of the King, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dean and Chapter of Rochester, and King’s College, Cambridge.! Many other examples could be quoted, but enough has been said to show how important a feature of aristocratic income these leases sometimes wete. But it was a source which was cut off sharp as soon

as there ascended to the throne a monarch aware of the political theory which made bishops one of the prime supports of monarchy.

An Act of King James’s first parliament forbade the granting of church leases for a longer period than twenty-one yeats or three lives, and the flow of imperious royal letters to the clergy ceased. Simony certainly did not come to an end under James J—Buckingham was notorious for his sales of bishoprics—but the King

himself had no part in these transactions; rather than rob his bishops he preferred to dirty his hands elsewhere, or to carve slices off the royal patrimony instead.? 1 HMC 7th Rep., App., p. 132. L/Dud passim; BM Harl. Ch. D 35/12. H/A 154/1; Box Q/2; G 11/22. For other examples see Bradford, Cartwright Hall, Swinton MSS.; BM Harl. MSS. 4774, p. 140; Add MSS. 19678; Northants. R.O. Finch-Hatton MSS. 2145; C 2 Eliz., W 15/60; Hutchins, ii, p. 306. 2 x Jas. I, cap. 3. Goodman, i, p. 357. Weldon, pp. 119-20. Wynn, no. 999. Grosart, 2nd set., li, pp. 105-7.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 409 (¢) Gifts

The other and more important type of land grant was in perpetuity, either as a free gift or burdened with a fee-farm rent to the

Crown. Both types were worth very much mote than appeared, owing to the very low figure at which they were still officially valued. To give but one example, crown sales in 1599 were being made at 4o years’ purchase, but in 1603-4 grantees were selling at 65 to 75 Of even 120 years’ purchase. Moreover it was not uncommon, particularly in the lax era of King James, for courtiers to

obtain under a block grant fat more land than was intended. In 1588 the Earl of Essex was given a grant of £300 per annum worth of parsonages, under covet of which it was later discovered that he

managed to acquire land worth £956 per annum at old rent, the silence of the responsible royal officials and auditors being bought

with a share of the surplus. Another case was a grant in 1606 of chantry lands worth {200 per annum to Sir Oliver Cromwell, under

covet of which it was later alleged that land worth £500 to {600 per annum old rent was passed away from the Crown.! It was the policy of the Tudors to keep intact the hard core of estates the Crown had owned under Henry VII, and to confine themselves to the redistribution of such lands of others as had come their way. The vast monastic estates left ample room for generosity

after 1537, and under Henry VIII and Edward VI a new administrative atistocracy sprang up out of the ruins of the monasteries. Elizabeth was reluctant to continue too far the process of dispersal, and preferred where possible to look to other sources, of which the principal was again the unfortunate bishops. We have already

seen how they had been robbed of their great London palaces. Henty VII had also taken a good deal of agricultural property for himself, but had rallied to protect the bishops from the threat of wholesale nationalization. Things looked very dangerous under Northumberland, and the idea of further mass seizures continued to be discussed in the latter half of the century. Some official, possibly Armagil Waad, suggested celebrating the accession of Elizabeth with the wholesale transfer of temporalities to the nobility; rumours of large-scale confiscation revived in 1584 and a few years later Leicester proposed taking {1,200 a year from four bishoprics to help pay for his campaign in the Low Countries.? ™ LR 2/73. Talbot M, f. 182. BM Lansd. MSS. 169/41. SP 14/111/80. 2H. Spelman, History and Fate of Sacriledge, 1698, p. 190. J. Strype, Memorials of Thomas

410 OFFICE AND THE COURT The Queen, however, preferred to use less direct, though not necessarily any less effective, methods of preying upon the episco-

pacy. She did not hesitate to keep bishoprics vacant for long periods in order to help a friend. The bishopric of Ely was unfilled for thirteen yeats, first to subsidize the Portuguese pretender Don

Antonio, and then to support the Earl of Oxford, who had run through his own patrimony in riotous living. Another device was to maintain the bishops in a state of perpetual circulation, thus enabling the Crown to enjoy almost unlimited first-fruits. One such

plan in 1575 suggested eighteen transfers and two perpetual vacancies, which would bring in £21,690 “without any just cause of much offence to the bishops’, and the idea was revived evety time thete was a courtier to be gratified or a military campaign to be paid for. Further suggestions for a general post were made in 1586 and 1595-6, and one was actually put into operation in 1594-5. Bishop Fletcher, who was moved twice in two years, found himself

at one point paying two first-fruits at the same time, and when he died soon afterwards it was explained that he ‘got into debt solely by her Majesty’s favours in his preferments’.!

These were all measutes to obtain temporary rather than permanent control of episcopal revenues, and it was an innocuoussounding Act of Parliament of the first year of the reign which enabled Elizabeth to lay hands on enough land to gratify her courtiers. The Act empowered the Crown to carry out a forcible exchange of property with the bishops at every vacancy, ostensibly

on equal terms. In practice the Queen got rid of a great mass of widely scattered impropriations and tenths, most of which had a fixed monetary value and could not be increased. In return she took over large and compact estates whose tents could be raised to keep pace with the price revolution and which had plenty of growth potential by improvement. Under the terms of the Act she immediately seized land worth over £3,000 a year from various sees, which in three sample counties meant that now no less than 14 per cent. of crown lands had once belonged to the bishops. At Canterbury Cranmer, 1812, i, pp. 196, 404. F. R. H. Du Boulay, ‘Archbishop Cranmer and the Canterbury Temporalities’, EHR, Ixvii, 1952. R. B. Wernham and J. C. Walker, England under Elizabeth, 1932, p. 2. J. Strype, Annals of the Reformation, iii, pp. 230, 469; App., p. go. 1 Harington, ii, p. 109. Wilson, p. 22. BM Lansd. MSS, 21/20. Strype, op. cit. iv, p. 345. SP 12/186/2t. CSPD, 1y9s-7, pp. 247, 248. Cf. R. Cotton, Cotton? Postuma, 1651, p. 201. Dr. Fletchet’s treatment was particularly severe, since he had earned the anger of the Queen

| by a late marriage to a beautiful widow. ‘We will divide the name of Fletcher’, observed the wits; ‘he, My Lord F.; and she, my Lady Letcher’ (Goodman, i, p. 134).

OFFICE AND THE COURT Att the efforts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth succeeded in reducing the

eross income of the Archbishop from £3,500 in 1535 to £2,600 in 1561. At Chichester eight out of thirteen manors wete seized, at Durham land was taken and then leased back to the bishop at a rent charge of {£1,020 a year, while at Winchester a similar rent of {400 was extorted, apparently for the benefit of Sir Francis Knollys.' Nor did the depredations cease after the first wave of ‘exchanges’.

When the see of Oxford was filled after a prolonged vacancy in 1589 it was reported that ‘the chieffe of the lands thereof are to bee gyven unto the Earle of Essex, some parte lykewyse is solde’. It was a predecessor who had discovered on his appointment that he had only one palace ‘and that the Queens majestie hath bestowed’. When Ely was at last filled in 1599, some twenty or mofe manors went to swell the landed revenues of the Crown. “Dr. Eaton hath eaten the bishopric of Ely; the clergy wish him choked with it’ reported Harington. By the end of the reign it was said that Exeter had been reduced from twenty-two manors to two. Well might the Bishop of Winchester protest, with a passion which wrought havoc with his spelling, ‘I never was a whorder of money’; well might the Bishop of Llandaff suggest that ‘his true title should be “Aff”’, fot the Land was gone’.? How did all this affect the courtiers? We have seen how Lord Burghley got a rich manor from Peterborough, and how Ralegh obtained the great Sherborne estate from Salisbury. Of Elizabeth’s two great favourites, Leicester was granted {500 a year land from the bishops in 1588, Essex was given an estate of the Bishop of London and land worth £300 a year from the Bishop of Oxford. Generally, however, these exchanged lands were kept in royal hands, and their real significance is that they enabled Elizabeth to distribute other land, especially in order to build up a new following

of courtiers and nobles in the first few years of the reign, without making serious inroads into her total rental income. The estates that were actually distributed by Elizabeth tended

mostly to be former property of others which had come to the 1 1 Eliz., cap. 19. CPR, 1ys8-60, pp. 440-2; If 60-63, pp. 34, 191, 224, 285, 306, 309, 323, F.C. Dietz, English Public Finance, 1558-1641, New York, 1932, p. 294. Du Boulay, op. cit., pp. 34-36. BM Harl. MSS. 7381/1. Strype, op. cit. iii, App. p. 58. SP 12/8/9. HMCS, xiv, PP. I, 294; iv, p. 70; ii, p. 101; vil, p. 292. 4 Lodge, ti, p. 383. SP 12/46/39. HMCS, x, p. 120; xiv, p. 115. CR 42 El., pt. 13. Collins, ll, p. 152. Harington, 1, p. 311; ii, pp. 168, 173. 3 SP 12/212/33. Lodge, ii, p. 383. W. Murdin, Burghley Papers, 1759, p. 788. L/Dewv IX, f. 8. BM Lansd. MSS. 156/9.

412 OFFICE AND THE COURT Crown by escheat or attainder. There was a steady trickle of felons’ lands, which could be shared out among the faithful. In 1603 Lord

Grey of Wilton was given the estate of a Welsh pirate called Griffith, ‘to hold him up a while longer’.t Other land which came to the Crown by escheat on the failure of heirs male was usually regtanted within a few years, Warwick Castle passing to Fulke Greville within ten years of the death of the Countess of Warwick.

Far mote important was the land of traitors. Throughout the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century it was customary for the Crown to rewatd its supporters with some of the estates of the defeated. There were, however, certain conventional limits within which this game had to be played. It was thought improper for the Crown to ruin a family irremediably by giving all its land away to others. So long as a substantial proportion was kept in crown hands there was always the prospect, indeed the probability, that a revival of royal favour would bring about the recovery of the estate. This concept of ‘the justice of inheritance’ provided an insurance cover against the hazards of unsuccessful rebellion.? Only on the rate occasions when the Crown was determined on the permanent ruin of an overmighty subject did it take steps to dispetse the bulk of the property among other magnates. Henry VIII scattered the estates of the great Duke of Buckingham among one duke, two marquesses, two earls, and three lords, but even in this

case something was left to be returned to the heir, and usually there was a good deal. We find Elizabeth on her accession restoring

much of his former property to the Marquis of Northampton, giving the Earls of Warwick and Leicester part of the estates of their

father, and dividing some of the estates of the Duke of Suffolk among the heirs.3 In the same way Lord Cromwell saved something

from the wreckage of the fortunes of Thomas Cromwell, the Earl of Hertford from the ruin of the Duke of Somerset. Of the eight convictions for treason and one for felony of the period 1558 to 1641, only three were not reversed. Two families, Westmorland and Grey of Wilton, died out in the male line anyway, and the third,

Brooke Lord Cobham, left only a distant cousin. In every case in which there was a clear heir male, restitution was sooner or later

' Chi, p. 188. ,

made.

2 SeeG. A. Holmes, The Estates of the Higher Nobility in Fourteenth Century England, Cambridge,

1957, p. 40. J. R. Lander, ‘Attainder and Forfeiture, 1453-1509’, Hist. J. iv, 1961, p. 146. 3 CPR, 178-60, pp. 86, 404; 1f 60-63, pp. 189, 248, 291, 489, 557.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 413 The most remarkable example is provided by the history of the estates of the dukes of Norfolk. The victim of the last great treason trial of the reign as Henry VIII degenerated into bloody and suspicious paranoia, the 3rd Duke survived the block thanks to the sudden death of the King, but did not recover his estates until 1553. In 1572 the 4th Duke was in turn attainted for treason and executed and his estates divided between the Queen, his eldest son the Ear]

of Arundel, and his son by a second marriage, the future Earl of Suffolk. In 1589 the Earl of Arundel was attainted and his estates further divided between the Queen and his son and heir. In 1603 the Howards were high in the favour of King James, who restored the bulk of the estates to the family, part going to the hereditary claimant, the Earl of Arundel, but most to his uncles the Earls of Suffolk and Northampton jointly. These last two divided their joint grant in 1609, and the Earl of Arundel later inherited Northampton’s share and bought that of Suffolk, so finally reassembling the bulk of the inheritance of the 4th Duke. It must be remembered that the ‘justice of inheritance’ only applied to the greatest magnates—mere knightly families could be totally dispossessed without qualms—and that in any case it was only thought desirable to preserve a certain part of the estate. The rest was at the disposal of the Crown to reward its followers, and their distribution was a moral and political obligation which it was dangerous to evade. Those who hutried north to crush the Rebellion of the Northern Earls in 1569, those who encircled Essex House on

the afternoon of 8 Februaty 1601, did not do so entirely from altruistic devotion to their beloved Queen: there were pickings to be had and they were determined to stake their claims. As Lord Burghley pointed out after the former uprising: ‘It is necessary that the landes of the rebells be dispersed by sale and gift to the good subjectes, that therby they may in respect of the landes become more ernest servauntes to the Queen’s Majesty ageynst the tebells.’! It was the same policy as that of Henry VIII in building up a vested interest in monastic property.

It was all very well for Burghley in London to issue these statements of principle, principles from which he himself might

reasonably hope to be a beneficiary. In the north the expedi_ tion to suppress the revolt had rapidly turned into an undisciplined

scramble for the goods and property of the defeated. The more 1 SP 12/66/45.

414 OFFICE AND THE COURT responsible commandets like the Earl of Sussex and Sir Thomas Gargrave protested about the ‘ravine and spoil’ such a system of grants encouraged, the latter suggesting that there were limits to the

depredations permissible on home ground: ‘I think the difference should be made between a rebellion in the Queen’s own dominion and a foreign realm.’ As Sussex remarked, ‘in such times as these her Majesty will have many cravets’. She did. In London Leicester helped himself. In the field Thomas Cecil asked for Francis Norton’s

estate, Lord Hunsdon for Leonard Dacte’s, Edward Carey got that of Sir John Neville. Care was taken to string up by martial law none

but the very poot, the rich being saved for trial so that their property could be seized. One minor conspirator was attainted merely to get for the Queen his title to his brother’s property, not with any intention of executing him.! Other conspiracies also brought their rewards. After the Essex revolt there was a hectic rush for the spoils paralleled only by the events of 1569. The Earl of Oxford angled for Sir Charles Danvets’s lands, Sir Robert Cecil grabbed John Littleton’s horses, Lord Burghley asked for those of the Earl of Southampton. The Scots who accompanied James south in 1603 were disappointed at the lack of opposition, for they were hoping for a rich haul of land of attainted rebels. However, before the year was out there came the

Main and Bye plots. Lord Cobham’s estates wete divided up between the Earls of Salisbury and Devonshire and Lord Compton, Lord Grey of Wilton’s lands went eventually to the Duke of Buckingham. Ralegh’s lands went to the Earl of Sometset and his wine

monopoly was ttansferred to the Earl of Nottingham. After the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 Sir Everard Digby cut up quite nicely, for he was a man of considerable wealth.? Theteafter this source dried up, for the growing political maturity of the age would no longer tolerate the executions and confiscations

of property of fallen favourites and politicians. Admittedly Sherborne was extracted from Somerset for Lord Digby, York House from Bacon, and Chelsea from Cranfield for Buckingham, but on the whole the pickings were small. After 1605 land grants had to come 1 Sharpe, passim. CSPD, Add. 1366-79, pp. 163, 165, 169, 201, 245. R. R. Reid, “The Rebellion of the Earls, 1569’, TRHS, 2nd set., xx, 1906, p. 200. 2 HMCR, I, p. 233. CSPD, ry9s-7, pp. 61, 427. Murdin, op. cit., pp. 796, 798. PR 29 EI. pt. 18; 31 El. pt. 13; 39 El. pt. 1. HMCS, x, p. 448; xi, pp. 89, 307, 311; xiv, pp. 173, 179, 196;

XV, PP II, 211, 259, 268; xviii, pp. 38, 65, 239. Arch, xxxiv, 1852, p. 153. Castle Ashby 1085/1.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 415 out of the ancient patrimony of the Crown, and it was to meet this danger that in 1609 Salisbury entailed a substantial proportion of Crown lands in order to save them from dispersal.' Although the urgent needs of the Crown, the importunity of suitors, and the weak-

ness of King James eventually sapped this rampart against the tide, it did have some effect. The cutting off of the inflow of both episcopal and traitors’ lands at the beginning of the seventeenth century soon led to a growing reluctance by Lords Treasurets to consent to the distribution of land—except, of course, to themselves—

and therefore played an important part in diverting the stream of suits into other channels. There remained the colonies, which in practice meant primarily Ireland. Elizabeth rewarded a number of peers who had seen service

in Ireland with substantial grants of land in that island, the Earl of Essex and Lords Audley, Cromwell, and Mountjoy being all looked after in this way. In addition the Earls of Huntingdon and Bath and the future Earl of Clare were granted lands there for reasons which are far less clear. Under James the whole of Ulster was declared an area of settlement and large grants of undeveloped

land were made to peers and courtiers in that province and elsewhere. At least six Early Stuart peers obtained Irish estates which by 1640 were of considerable value to them.? This drying up of the inflow of lands to the Crown which could be redistributed amongst the courtiers led to a growth under James of alternative forms of direct grant, such as of land concealed from the Crown, hard cash, old debts, and annuities. At the dissolution of the monasteries and chantries, a good deal of property which should have come to the Crown had been quietly swallowed by private individuals, and under Elizabeth and James it became a professional occupation to search out these pious frauds. Elizabeth subcontracted the investigation on a 50-50 basis to that gentle poet and luckless courtier Sir Edward Dyer, and Dyer, who of course could not personally dabble in so dirty a business, in turn subcontracted to a legal shark, William Tipper. Under Tipper’s direction the country swarmed with ‘eagle-eyed concealers’, prowling up and down, prying into land tenures, scrutinizing deeds and conveyances. Well might the Archbishop of York tearfully entreat 1 SP 14/46. 2 The Earls of Carlisle, Portland, and Strafford, Viscounts Conway and Cottington, and Lord Hume.

416 OFFICE AND THE COURT the Queen ‘to the quirks and quiddities of such men we beseech your Majesty that we may not be delivered over to be sifted’. Under

the Early Stuarts the pattern changed slightly. The main investigation remained in the able hands of Tipper, but various courtiers wete now directly allocated part of the revenues to be recovered. Thus between 1607-9 and 1617-23 the Earl of Montgomery was given concealed land worth {200 a year, Lord d’Aubigny {£1,000 a yeat, the Earl of Sussex £800 a year, the Earl of Carlisle {200 a

yeat, and the future Viscount Dorchester land to the value of £5,000 ot £6,000. The usual practice was not to recover the land but to allow the possessors to compound for a fine, the benefits of which then went to the courtier. (2) Money

(a) Cash

Failing land, there was money, the one thing that Elizabeth could not bring herself to give away, but which James in his early years distributed with splendid prodigality, particularly to his Scottish friends. So far as can be discovered, a gift of £7,000 out of the sale of some seized cochineal in 1598 was the only grant of this nature the old Queen ever allowed herself to make—though she was once

cajoled into lending £1,000 to Lord Stafford, to enforce repayment of which she soon extended his lands.? Other loans made by Elizabeth were purely for political or military purposes, and repayment was always ruthlessly exacted. The Duke of Norfolk borrowed £2,000 in 1560 to fit himself out as Lieutenant of the North, Lord Gtey £8,000 in the same year to pay his ransom to the French, the Earl of Essex £10,000 1n 1573 for an expedition to Ireland, and the

Earl of Leicester £16,600 in 1585 for his expedition to the Low Countries.3

Things were very different after 1603. In the first seven years of the teign some {88,000 was given away to Scotsmen, over £15,000 of it in the first few months. In the aunus mirabilis of 1611 no less than £43,600 was given away to peetrs—mostly Scottish—

and {20,000 the year after. There is no more striking proof of the ‘R. M. Sergent, Az the Court of Queen Elizabeth, Oxford, 1935, pp. 132-40. HMCS, xii, pp. 520, 112. H of L MSS. 1618. CSPD, rér1-18, p. 499; 1623-5, p. 333 Add. ry80-1625, pp. Oy DMCS. iii, p. 201. SP 12/136]47. Collins, ii, p. 89. 3 SP 12/24/10; 13/48; 19¢/7. BM Harl. Ch. D 35/12.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 4t7 powerlessness of Salisbury as Lord Treasurer in the last year of his life to enforce economy in the face of pressure from Somerset and his hangers-on. Thereafter cash continued to be distributed in pure charity, though rather less frequently. The Earl of Holderness could continue to extract large sums from time to time to pay his debts— £7,200 in 1609, £8,000 in 1611, {12,000 in 1619, to mention only

the most important items, and the Duke of Buckingham got £50,000 in 1625 and £40,000 in 1627, part of it sheer profit and part in payment of legitimate expenses. It was not until the accession of Charles I that the flow of cash gifts really began to diminish, though the new king celebrated his accession with a present of £10,000 to the Earl of Kellie. Cash grants were now in recompense fot expen-

diture incurred, for example on an embassy, or in return for the surrender of some other grant or office.! For the most part, therefore, they ate inextricably interlocked with the whole range of miscellaneous grants, and cannot be studied in isolation. (b) Old Debts Money, like land, came into short supply after the first few years of James’s reign, and as a result recourse was had to making grants

of old debts due to the Crown, often on a 50-50 basis, leaving it to the grantees to set in motion the machinery for their recovery. By 1608 overt £150,000 of old debts had been given away, again mostly

to Scottish favourites. The grants went on during and after 1611, and included over £30,000 to five peets. There was then a long lull, followed by a final splash in 1628, when £9,000 went to the Earl of Rutland and the Countess of Denbigh. Owing to the cost and difficulty of recovery, these grants often failed to bring in more

than a fraction of their nominal value. Many important royal debtors were themselves privileged aristocrats whom it would be

dangerous to harry, and the grantee had therefore to treat his prize with circumspection. A very few managed to obtain full satisfaction. For example Lord Hay, the debts allotted to whom wete specifically stated to be the best, extracted the whole of his £10,000 and his £1,500. Others did moderately well, like the Earl of Leicester, who in six years recovered {£4,451 of his £8,000. Many others did very badly, Lord d’Aubigny only receiving {206 1 BM Add. MSS. 12497, ff. 155-6. SP 14/44/36. F. C. Dietz, ‘Receipts and Issues of the Exchequer during the reigns of James I and Charles I’, Swith College Studies in History, xiii, no. 4, 1928, p. 168, notes 14, 30. CSPD, 1623-5, pp. 439, 453; 7627-8, p. 252.

821314 Ee

418 OFFICE AND THE COURT of his £4,000, the Duke of Richmond £363 of his £9,000, Lady Burgh £96 of her £4,000.! To see how the system worked, let us look at the 1628 grants of £4,000 to the Earl of Rutland and £5,000 to the Countess of Denbigh. After three years the Countess had obtained £1,000 from the Wine Licensees, but nothing from anyone else, and the Earl had only got £362. 12s. 10d. And so in 1631 they joined forces, surrendering their old grants and being given a joint new patent for the residue of £7,637, which was given first priority before even the King’s own needs on all post-1603 debts recovered except Star Chamber fines, fines of church courts, and payments of ‘stalled’

debts. Naturally enough, this privileged treatment cost money. A {20 douceur to the secretary of the Lord Treasurer, {10 to the Attorney-General for his favourable opinion on the legality of the grant, {10 to his servant, and other more reputable costs brought the total to £75. 165. There was also 1s. 6d. in the pound commission on future receipts allowed to the agent responsible for the business side of getting in the debts. Even this was not the end of the overheads, since another {176 had to be paid out in fees for copies of old accounts to provide the basic data. But by the summer of 1631 the office was fully functioning, and in the next six years

it recovered £2,043, which after deduction of expenses left the Farl and the Countess £1,363 to divide between them. Though the benefits to the grantees were limited, the system had a high nuisance

value to the subject—in 1616 George Luttrell found his land extended fora £59 debt incurred by his ancestor as long ago as 1548— and was frequently complained about in Parliament.?

| (¢) Annuities If land was scarce, and immediate capital sums were hard to come by, the Crown could resort to the payment of annuities, either for lives or for term of years. This again was a grant rarely made by Elizabeth, and then of modest size and largely confined to personal female friends, like the Countesses of Kildare and Kent

and Ladies Hunsdon and Burgh. The exceptions were a grant in 1563 of £200 a year to the future Earl of Dorset, {200 a year a 1 SP 14/22/71; 51/28; 127/6. BM Add. MSS. 12497, ff. 150-3; 36970, ff. 12-15. J. Nichols, The Progresses of James I, 1828, ii, p. 246. CSPD, 1603-10, pp. 387, 478; 1611-18, pp. 3573 1634-J, P. 407.

2 B/Ch 7533; B/A 789, 790. E 351/597, 36, 37 (I owe this reference to Professor G. Aylmer). Som. R.O., Dunster Castle MSS. Box 3/3. See also L/Dev. ix, f. 62”.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 419 generation later to the victor of the Armada, Lord Howard of Effingham, and £200 to Lord Henry Howard, whose estates the Queen was withholding. The only substantial grants were the £1,000

a year given to the Lords President of the Councils of the North and Wales to augment their grossly inadequate official salaries and to cover the cost of maintaining a suitable establishment, and

the {1,000 a year for the Earl of Oxford, which, as we have seen, came out of the temporalities of the Bishopric of Ely.! As a result of this austere policy Elizabeth managed to keep the cost of the administration, both in fees and pensions, down to under £30,000 a year, despite the mounting tide of inflation. Carried to such lengths, the policy was both unreasonable and dangerous since it provided the temptation—indeed the stark necessity—for corruption among public officials if they were to maintain their standard of living. A revision of stipends or a substantial rise in the number and amount of pensions to supplement them was clearly needed in order to maintain the efficiency of the administrative machine. It is therefore important to decide how far the dramatic tise in pensions, which had soared to about {140,000 a year by 1626—that is to say about a quarter of the total cash revenue of the Crown—was due to the legitimate demands of government service, and how far to the growth of a parasitic court aristocracy preying upon the revenues of the Crown.? Some pensions to the nobility were in compensation for loss of office, an expenditure made necessary by the practice of granting offices for life, and by James’s desire for frequent changes in his officers. Thus the accession of James made superfluous the garrison

of Berwick—and its captain—and so Lord Hunsdon had to be compensated with an annuity of {424. Again in 1616 the English at last returned to the Dutch the Cautionary Towns in the Netherlands, in exchange for a very handsome cash sum. The three governors were consequently deprived of office, and in recompense Sit Horace Vere, the Earl of Leicester, and Sir Edward Conway were given {2,300 a yeat between them.3 In 1609 the Earl of Sussex was - 1 CPR, 160-63, p. 575. HMCS, xiii, p. 67. L/Dud III, f. 190. BM Lansd. MSS. 156/33. SP 14/78/6. 2 HMC Cowper MSS. i, p. 291. For earlier calculations about pensions, see BM Lansd. MSS. 164/22; 164/6; 156/32; 165/29, 68; 169/52. Bodl North MSS. a 2, ff. 194, 228. These figures are deceptive since they may or may not include fees, and they may or may not confine themselves to charges on the Exchequer to the exclusion of other offices of receipt. 3 SP 14/31/96; SP 16/3/117. CSPD, 1677-18, p. 370.

420 OFFICE AND THE COURT given {400 a year as consolation prize for failing to obtain the Governotship of Portsmouth. The Earl of Worcester got £1,500 a yeat in 1616 for giving up the Mastership of Horse, the Earl of Nottingham £1,000 a year in 1618 in part compensation for giving up the office of Lord Admiral.? After 1610 it was decided to take back into royal hands a number of customs farms and manufacturing monopolies which had been leased out to courtiers. But the lessees had to be rewarded for their sacrifice, and so six peers were granted no less than {14,000 a year for terms of years or for life. A few other pensions were substitutes

for other emoluments, for example two of £300 a year for two lives given to Lord Lumley and to the Earl of Nottingham for the surrender of Nonsuch Park and Windsor Great Park respectively; £1,333 for life to the Earl of Banbury instead of the right to sell a ward a year, which in turn had been granted in compensation for surrender of the Mastership of the Court of Wards; {1,200 a year to the Earl of Southampton in compensation for damage to his land in the New Forest by the growing herds of deer; £1,000 4 year for three years to the Earl of Salisbury to settle an old debt due to his father.?

Thete remain those pensions—the majority—which were gifts in their own right as rewards for courtiers. Some were admittedly for services rendered, like the £500 a year to Lord Mounteagle for the information which led to the exposure of the Gunpowder Plot; ot for services to be rendered, like the princely £500 a year to Sit Henry Wotton to write a history of England. Most of them, howevet, had no specific service as their justification and were merely given away to support the living standards of the courtiers. To the favoured few the benefits were prodigious, particularly during the

open-handed era of the Duke of Buckingham. At one time or another the Duke of Richmond and his mother received pensions of £4,100 a year; the old Earl of Nottingham enjoyed others totalling £3,700 a year, of which {2,017 were continued to his widow and

children; the Earls of Salisbury, Montgomery, and Northampton

and Viscount Conway had £3,o00 a year each, and the Earl of Cambridge £2,500. These were the principal beneficiaries, to whom

annuities represented a substantial portion of their total income, but there wete many others on a more modest scale. In the Early 1 SP 14/78/6. Winwood, iii, p. 80. CSPD, r6rz-18, pp. 418, 448. Ch, ii, pp. 173, 210. 2 CSPD, 1603-10, p. 603; 1611-18, pp. 90, 299; 619-23, pp. 154, 159, 16, 25. SP 14/31/96. HMC Sackville MSS. i, p. 296. H/D 216/8, 244/13, 176/10.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 421 Stuart period one in every three peerage families was at one time or another a pensioner of the Crown. In 1630 pensions, excluding those to the royal family, were costing the Crown about {125,000 a year, of which £39,000, or almost one-third, was going to a mere twentytwo noble families, and the remaining two-thirds was spread over many hundred of courtiers and court and administrative officials.!

If pensions were to some extent a necessary expenditure for the maintenance of court and civil service, they were also to no small degree an extravagant system of outdoor relief to a minority of highly favoured noblemen. Any teformer casting his eye over the rickety structure of Early Stuart finances was inevitably struck by this huge annual drain on royal income, and as soon as things became really tight proposals for pruning the pensions list began to be heard. The first dreadful

mutterings of a purge were uttered in 1615, and a beginning of the . cleansing was made in 1617. But it was not until the appointment of Cranfield as Lord Treasurer in 1621 that the axe really began

to swing: as an interim measure, payment of all pensions was stopped, pending a careful review of every item. Simultaneously a brave attempt was made at similar measures in the Scottish Ex-

chequer, which was empty and in debt because of the mass of pensions with which James had carelessly saddled it.? But it was no good. In the first place James lacked the strength of mind to support the reformers, and immediately began exempting his friends from the ban. Harried by importunate peers, deafened by their cries of ruin and desolation, the feeble and soft-hearted old man soon gave way. In his anxiety for a quiet life he succumbed to the pleadings of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury for the payment of his

pension, only to receive an angry letter from the Lord Treasurer asking whether a family which had already extracted £69,000 from the Crown in a single grant should be given priority over poor tradesmen who were starving in debtors’ prisons for want of payment.3 But unlike the whinings of Lord Salisbury, the mournful cries of the poor tradesmen could not be heard in the Bed Chamber at Whitehall or in the hunting field at Royston. Secondly, the whole Court and administration united against this threat to their interests and in 1624 joined forces with the parliamentary opposition 1 CSPD, 1619-23, p. §39. SP 16/180/16, 17. 2 Bacon, v, p. 199; vi, p. 279. CSPD, 1677-18, p. 310. HMC Mar and Kellie MSS., 1, pp. go—-126

passim. 3 HMC 4th Rep., App. p. 300.

422 OFFICE AND THE COURT to destroy the presumptuous Lord Treasurer. Cranfield was impeached, heavily fined, and exiled to his country estate to meditate upon the hazards that beset the path of the reformer. Thirdly, the influential courtiers shifted their attention from the open to the concealed sector of crown patronage. Thwarted in the search for annuities, they pressed for the sale of titles, the market for which developed rapidly at just this period. Warned by this experience, the courtiers took energetic steps to strengthen their defences against further attacks on the pension _ list. One method was to reduce their stakes and to spread the range of vested interests involved by selling off sections of their annuities to others. For example, in 1621 Salisbury had already unloaded all but £800 a year of his £3,000 a year annuity. In view of the political

uncettainty, however, the sale price of government annuities was not high, Exchequer pensions for life fetching only four to five yeats’ purchase instead of seven. Tampering with pensions had thus destroyed any chance that the Crown itself might use them, like the French ventes, as a means of borrowing money on government security. The second protective action was to get the pension moved

out of the Exchequer and allocated as a prior charge on some specific item of revenue. This meant that the annuity would be paid before the money reached the Exchequer, and prompt payment would therefore not be dependent on the state of the cash balances in the hands of the Exchequer tellers. As early as 1611 it was said

that if Lord Sheffield’s annuity of {500 a year for twenty-eight yeats was shifted from the Exchequer to the alum farm, its resale value would rise by £300 ot £400. It was, of course, only the more highly placed annuitants like the Court aristocracy who could wangle this concession. By 1630 three-quarters of the £86,000 worth of non-aristocratic pensions was still a charge on the Exchequer, but the peers had succeeded in shifting all but a quarter of their £39,000 on to specific receivers. In consequence the effects of Lord Treasurer Portland’s tactics of infinite procrastination were felt by the humbler, and more deserving, pensioners, rather than by the Court grandees. (2) Arrears of Debt

If the Crown felt itself unable to hand out these cash sums, it could fall back on the less obviously painful expedient of allowing 1 H/D 126/13, 18; 106/2; Box R/4. CSPD ,zér7r-r8, pp. 13, 46, 52, 90. SP 16/180/16, 17.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 423 courtiers and officials to run up very large debts, some of which wete themselves incidental by-products of royal generosity. A very great deal of the land dispersed by the Crown after 1540 was burdened with perpetual fee-farm rents, which in the case of large grantees often ran into three figures. By the end of the century almost every peer in England owed such tents to the Crown, and it was not difficult to fall into arrears. The most remarkable case was

that of the Earl of Huntingdon, Elizabeth’s trusted Lord President

of the North, on whose death in 1595 it was discovered that he owed some {8,000 in fee-farm rents, some of them dating back forty years.?

Fines for wardship were imposed on all peers who inherited their estates as minors, and fines for livery were universal. In addition, the peerage wete great gamblers in the wardships of others, payment for which often remained outstanding for years. In 1587 the Earl of Arundel owed {£1,800 for the wardship of Lord Dacre, bought by his father twenty years before, and for the ward-

ship and livery of his stepbrother Lord Thomas Howard. In 1585 the Earl of Bedford still owed £200 for the wardship of the Earl of Cumberland, whom he had bought sixteen years before in order to matry him to his daughter.” Parliamentary subsidies were also allowed to fall far into arrears. When a real effort was made to tighten things up in about 1610, it was found that almost every peer in England was behind in his payments, many indeed scan-

dalously so. The earls of Derby and their wives owed £1,338 unpaid taxes stretching back to 1589, the Earl of Shrewsbury £1,853 from 1585 onward, the Earl of Huntingdon £422 from 1581.

The earls of Oxford had not yet paid a subsidy due over half a century before.3

The really spectacular debts, however, arose in various ways from the holding of office, one of them being the retention of revenue balances due to the Crown. Sir Christopher Hatton died owing the Queen £42,139 from his office as Receiver of First Fruits and Tenths; the rst Marquis of Winchester died owing £34,141 tun up when he was Lord Treasurer and Master of the Court of Wards; the 3rd Earl of Sussex died owing well over £11,000 pattly for sale of woods as Chief Justice and Keeper of 1 BM Add. MSS. 21301, 21302. BM Harl. MSS. 815. Bod! Carte MSS. 78, ff. 225, 246.

2 E. 164/16/4. Woburn. 3 BM Harl. MSS. 815. SP 14/192/14. BM Lansd. MSS. 169/49.

424 | OFFICE AND THE COURT Forests south of the Trent, partly for the profits of the vacancy of the Archbishopric of York as Lord President of the Council of the

North, and partly for rent of some wardship lands; the Earl of Leicester died owing £35,087 to a variety of crown offices, arising from his position as a military commander in the Low Countries; his brother the Earl of Warwick owed well over £7,000 as Master

of the Ordnance, and on the Butlerage of Wines; the 2nd Earl of Fssex owed over £11,000, mostly for his father’s Irish expedition of 1573 and for his Sweet Wine Farm. These staggering arrears meant that an official could live vastly beyond his means in his lifetime, leaving the Crown to extract the money as best it could from the heirs. This it usually did, not by peremptory demands for an immediate lump sum, but by placing an extent on the estate and exacting a fixed rent over a period of yeats.

Both the ‘stallment’ of the debt and the size and duration of the annual payments were obviously of vital concern to the heirs, and

placed them almost wholly at the mercy of the Crown. Thus Hatton’s debts were stalled at £1,500 a year, Huntingdon’s at £600, Winchester’s at £666, Sussex’s at £500, Hertford’s debt of £10,000 for his Star Chamber fine for his marriage in 1560 at [700. In 1608 thete were extents on the lands of peers for debts dating back to before 1588.! This easygoing attitude towards heavy crown debtors was of considerable financial importance at a time when the

interest rate on borrowed money was as high as to per cent. IV, INDIRECT REWARDS (1) Introduction

Each of the three types of direct grant, of land, cash, and annuities, involved a strain on royal finances, and was liable to vigorous

opposition from the current Lord Treasurer. After about 1580, therefore, courtiers wete obliged to look for less painful ways of maintaining the flow of rewards, not because they were equally acceptable but for lack of anything better. As one applicant rightly pointed out, ‘monopolies are scandalous, reversions of office un-

cettain, concealments litigious, forfeitures rarely recovered’. An examination of these obscure possibilities involves plunging into © Bodl Tanner MSS. 97, ff. 6, 138, 153; Carte MSS. 78, ff. 225, 246. SP 12/46/74; 110/30. H of L Suppl. MSS. 1576-93. BM Add. MSS. 40631 A, f. 181; Lansd. MSS. 166/41. Essex R.O. D/DP F 240.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 425 a labyrinth whose paths were once familiar enough to a Leicester or a Buckingham, but which today can only be reconstructed by

patient archaeological digging. Every alternative to the direct grant was basically a licence to individuals to use royal authority to

levy money on their own account from the consumer or the taxpayer. Though these grants took an extraordinary variety of forms, they fell into three main categories: the delegation to courtiers of the Crown’s rights of taxation; the delegation to courtiers of the Crown’s power over the regulation of economic activities, whether in manufactute, trade, distribution, or conditions of employment; and the delegation to courtiers of the Crown’s authority as the fount of honour and the patron of office. The first two categories ate in origin interlocked since the Crown’s authority to regulate exports and imports and to vary customs rates derived from its duty to look after the economic health of the nation. The idea that the Sovereign is responsible for regulating economic

activities goes back far into the Middle Ages, but it was only in the sixteenth century that it resulted in a ubiquitous system of state control authorized by Parliament and embracing almost every aspect of the nation’s affairs. Each Tudor parliament gave birth to a new litter of economic bills until the local J.P.s were weighed down by the burden of these ‘stacks of statutes’. There are several reasons why at first the landed classes welcomed this development. They disliked social change and wanted restrictions on the growth of such subversive novelties as the money-market and industrial and commercial capitalism. They were haunted by the need for economic self-sufficiency in case of war, and therefore accepted such

vatied measures as testtictions on the export of essential commo-

dities and the import of luxuries; state subsidies for, and state control of, armaments manufacture and shipping; regulation of the

main export trade in cloth; and monopoly protection for new industrial projects in order to provide a favourable trade balance. They were fearful of agrarian and urban unrest and so put up with legislation to limit inclosures, to stabilize cloth manufacture, and to regulate wages. As time wore on, however, the objectives of social justice and national advantage tended to become displaced in the eyes of the Crown by its urgent need for fiscal profit, and towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign this elaborate system of controls began to change

its nature. The difficulty of enforcing these regulations led the

426 OFFICE AND THE COURT Crown to fall back on professional informers working for profit, and on leasing powers of regulation to individuals in the hope of harnessing private greed to the service of the State. As a development out of this leasing system, Elizabeth began to give these contracts to courtiers on telatively easy terms. (2) Customs Farms

The earliest large-scale experiments in subcontracting royal administration occurred in the Customs service, where various branches of the ancient subsidy and most of the new impositions wete leased out to private individuals. On the face of it the system

was advantageous to the Crown, which obtained a fixed rent in excess of the average over the previous seven yeats and was relieved of all responsibility for collection. Provided that trade in the commodities concerned was expanding, and provided that improved administration could diminish smuggling, the subcontractor was assuted of his profit. More and better-paid customs officers could always cut down on smuggling, and trade boomed in luxury imports under Elizabeth and in almost all commodities under James until the slump of 1621. Such were the potential profits that there was ample room for the courtier to insert himself, and to take his cut as intermediary between the contractor and the crown. The pioneer in this field was the Earl of Leicester, who in the late 1560’s and early 1570’s took over leases of duties on the import of

silks and velvets, oils, currants, and sweet wines, thus acquiring a vittually complete stranglehold on Mediterranean trade. From the Sweet Wine Farm alone Leicester drew a clear rent of £2,500 by subcontracting to the man who actually handled the business, Mr. Customer Smith. There are no accounts for the Oil and Currants

Farm, but it was estimated before the grant that the Earl could expect to make {2,000 a year clear.! Essex, who was Leicestet’s successor in the Queen’s favouts, was also his successor in the Sweet Wine Farm, and it was the Queen’s refusal to renew the Farm at the end of October 1600 which helped to drive the Earl to rebellion three months later,? T Leycester’s Commonwealth, pp. 79-80. BM Harl. MSS. 167/25. L/Dud Box 50; vol. xx, ff, 42%, 48. H/A 133/17. SP 12/219/82.

2 Devereux, ii, p. 126. H/S 204, f. 101; 214, f. 31; 75, f. 71. L/Dev VI. HMCS, vii, p. 283; x, p. 348.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 427 Before 1602 only the two great lovers of the Queen had succeeded in gaining these customs farms; although a precedent had admittedly been set, the situation was still under control. In the next six years,

however, gtants of customs farms came thick and fast. In 1604 the main customs revenues were consolidated into a single Great Farm

and let to contractors—a speculation out of which the Earl of Salisbury got a cash gift of £6,000 for patronizing the winning syndicate of merchants. Impositions, which were mostly on luxury imports, were handed out directly to the great courtiers. Peace and the expansion of London as a centre of conspicuous consumption

caused a startling increase in these imports and consequently a dramatic rise in profits to the farmers. The first of these grants, of the imposition on silks and velvets to the future Earl of Salisbury, had in fact been made by the old Queen in the last year of her life and was merely renewed and extended by James. Inspired by this example, the King proceeded to give to the Earl of Suffolk the Venice Gold and Silver Farm and the Currants Farm, to the Earl of Dunbar the imposition on logwood, to the Earl of Montgomery the imposition and subsidy on tobacco, the double customs on aliens, and the new imposition on draperies, to the Earl of Devonshire the customs on French and Rhenish wines, to the Earl of Southampton Essex’s old grant of Sweet Wines, and to the Earl of Northampton the imposition on starch. As a tesult of these grants, in the first decade of the century seven peers were enjoying a clear net profit of about £27,500 a yeat from their role as intermediaries between the Crown and the merchant subcontractors for the Customs. For all seven this was their most important single source of income.! In 1613 Lionel Cranfield—who had had his pickings from most of these farms—demonstrated how much the Crown was losing by them, and in the next few years, as we have already seen, the leases were neatly all resumed in return for grants of cash of annuities. But with the rise to power of the Duke of Buckingham and the growing inability of the Crown to provide ready cash for its clients, there occurred a new wave of customs grants to leading couttiers. [he most important was naturally enough a grant to the Duke himself—of all the Irish Customs for ten years at a rent of ™ See Appendix XVII. SP 12/7/15; 40/23. HMC Sackville MSS. i, pp. 146, 154, 290. H of L MSS. 1618. CSPD, Add. 180-1625, pp. 427, 501, 617; 198-1601, p. 517; 1603-10, p. 269. HS 129, £. 8. Notestein and Relf, vii, pp. 404-7.

428 OFFICE AND THE COURT £6,000 a year and 50 per cent. of the surplus, an arrangement which

brought him in a comfortable £3,100 to £3,500 a year. He also enjoyed the farm of the 3d. impost on aliens, while other leading magnates were similarly rewarded. The Earl of Arundel farmed the imposition on currants for thirty-one years at a fixed rent; the Countess of Bedford and the Earl of Dotset battened on Newcastle

coal exports; the Duke of Richmond on coal exports and sugar imports. Lionel Cranfield, now Lord Treasurer and Earl of Middlesex, forgot his character as a reformer and took on the Sugar Farm at a net profit of £4,000 a year. The Earl of Berkshire enjoyed the

Customs of Carlisle, the Earl of Montgomery the overslipped customs on baize.!

No new purge came to ruin this happy distribution of favours, and in the 1630’s the same grants were renewed to old clients or were granted afresh to new. Though a few lesser fry about the Court also had their pickings, grants to peers include the majority, and those the most important, of the customs farms. Lord Goring emerged as the greatest customs entrepreneur of them all, a peer who was the exception to the rule in that he took a direct personal interest in his affairs instead of acting merely as a sleeping partner or parasite. Starting with the Sugar Farm, butter export, and wine and tobacco retailing licences, he eventually captured a share in the Great Farm of the Customs itself. Well might the Earl of Cork

utge the young George Goring to “coopetate with your good father in the studdie of the secrets of your customs affairs, out of

which much sweetnes is to be suckt’. In Ireland the Dowager Duchess of Buckingham was now drawing {4,550 a year from het lease of the Customs, the Earl of Strafford no less than £8,700 as partner in the sublease, and the Countess of Carlisle {2,000 a yeat from the impost on wines. The Earls of Dorset and Holland, who

wete sharing the imposition on Newcastle coal, were receiving between {1,000 and £1,400 a yeat apiece from this source.” By these grants the Crown managed both to raise large sums on credit and to satisfy the importunities of its greater clients without directly burdening the Exchequer; the clients managed to receive 1 H of L MSS. 1618. BM Add. MSS. 5832. CSPD, 1619-23, p. 61; 1623-f, p. 213; 1628-9, p. 29. Bodl MSS. Add. D 111, f. 53; Bankes MSS. 5/34, 35. SP 14/149/91 (1); 171/87. Leeds City Library, Temple Newsam MSS., English Customs VI/4-11. 2 Grosart, 2nd ser., v, p. 281. Knowler, ii, pp. 8, 141, 154. EcHR, 2nd ser., xi, 1958, pp. 243-5. Leeds City Library, Temple Newsam MSS., English Customs VI/4-11. LJ, viii, p. 45. Bod! Bankes MSS. 38/8.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 429 large annual sums promptly and without arousing too much public indignation; and the merchant financiers managed to get a lucrative stranglehold on the customs service. The system did no great harm

to the consumer of taxpayer, except in so far as it provided the Crown with an incentive to burden trade with more and more impositions. But by permitting so much of the profit to pass directly

into the hands of court favourites, the Crown weakened its case overt its power of levying impositions at will, since it raised serious

doubts about the purity of its motives in doing so. Was the King regulating trade in the national interest, or to oblige his friends? (3) Trade Privileges

This practice of leasing customs farms was relatively innocuous

compared with the complementary habit of granting import or expott privileges to favoured courtiers. Parliament by Statute, or the Crown by Proclamation, had placed restrictions on trade in certain commodities for purposes which were directly and explicitly

telated to the public interest; the Crown then granted to a courtier the right of exemption from these restrictions, a right which the couttier promptly resold to interested merchants. The practice of issuing these exemptions had grown up, on a limited scale, even under the early Tudors.! But the most important and most bizarre of these exemptions were those which Elizabeth issued in respect of England’s basic export trade in cloth. In order to stimulate the

native finishing industry Henry VII had placed a total ban on the export of undressed cloths, except for a very cheap product wotth less than {2 each. The statute was tepeatedly amended in the first half of the century to take account of galloping inflation, the last Act of 1535 raising the limit to £4 for white cloths and £3 for

colouteds. But prices continued to rise and early in the reign of Elizabeth the Merchant Adventurers’ Company made its usual tequest for further amending legislation. This time, however, the Queen adopted a new system of licensing under the Great Seal, which avoided Parliamentary interference and kept the merchants at the mercy of the Crown. In 1559 she raised the limit to £6, and authorized the export of 8,000 short cloths in excess of this price. Already, however, she had been struck by the possibility of gratifying her courtiers by these licences and had rewarded the son and 1 Le PH VIII, xix, pt. 2, no. 800/33. CPR, 7547-8, p. 2503 If 73, p. 60.

430 OFFICE AND THE COURT heir of Lord North with a permit to export 2,000 cloths paying English customs—a permit which he could profitably sell to aliens. By 1562 it was clear that this hand-to-mouth system of licensing was vety trying to the merchants, while at the same time the Queen had fallen under the spell of the Earl of Leicester, a man of small means with his way to make in the world. And so in 1562 she issued

Leicester with a licence to export 80,000 undressed cloths, and a year later she granted to the Merchant Adventurers’ Company a basic export ration of 30,000 cloths a year, of which 25,000 had to be below £6 in value. In case this was not enough, Leicester was

given a further licence to export an unlimited number of cloths for six years, paying the Crown an extra 4d. a cloth. By this arrange-

ment the Company obtained a firm annual allowance, but had to buy out the Earl if it wished to export any more. Thus the Crown, the Company, and the Earl were all more or less satisfied, the only interests ignored by these arrangements being those of the consumer, who had to pay for Leicestet’s rake-off, and of the London cloth-finishers, whose protected position was undermined by these wholesale licences. The latter protested vigorously and were compensated by an Act of Parliament in 1566, ordering that in any future licences it should be stipulated that one in every ten cloths should be dressed before export.? By these huge concessions to Leicester in a matter of such vital national concern Elizabeth had made a serious breach with previous

custom. Hitherto these grants had been reasonably restricted in scale and the recipients had been men of the second rank. Admittedly at first other Elizabethan grants of trade privileges were not excessive, though there was a marked increase in their number overt those of previous teigns.? In the 1570’s, however, the success

of the Leicester grants tempted the Queen to use cloth-export licences as a common method of rewarding an important courtier ot official. Three earls, three lords, and three knights between them

obtained grants totalling about 320,000 short cloths. Finally in 1601, as compensation for his privateering losses, the Earl of Cumberland not only obtained a licence to export an unlimited quantity of cloths for ten years in return for a rent of {1,000 a year

to the Crown, but was also given dispensation from the proviso about dressing evety tenth cloth; thus to save the fortunes of the 1 CPR, 1558-60, pp. 110, 419, 429; 1¥60-3, pp. 244, 621. SP 14/72/70. 8 Eliz., cap. 6. 2 CPR, 1yy8-60, pp. 93, ILI, 277, 321; 160-3, p. 1. Murdin, op. cit., p. 747.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 431 Earl—and to add to her own revenue—Elizabeth abandoned state protection of the native cloth-finishing industry as laid down by

Act of Parliament. Nor were the Merchant Adventurers best pleased, since the Earl in his necessity was so grasping that they could not come to terms with him, and it took the arbitration of the Privy Council to impose a settlement.’ Propping up the house of Clifford was a politically expensive undertaking. Some notion of what these grants were worth to the recipients can be gleaned from surviving records. In the early 1580’s the Earl of Sussex sold a licence for 20,000 cloths for at least £3,200, Sir Edward Stafford sold another for 25. 4d. a cloth, and in 1602 the Earl of Cumberland agreed with the Merchant Adventurers to sell them a third for 2s. 2d. a cloth. From this we may assume that the other grants with the one-in-ten dressing clause were worth between £1 for every ten cloths and {1 for every stx. If this is so, and if we

include the £6,667 for which the Earl of Leicester sold part of his licence in 1562, the Queen during her reign allowed courtiers to levy a toll of between £40,000 and £65,000 upon England’s major export. Moreover, the money was paid in the most awkward way. As an apologist of the Company later explained, ‘her majestie at the desire of well deserving noble men graunted them [licences] owte faster then the Company would have had them, whereby we wete importuned to laye out greate sommes of money beefore we had occasione to ewse them’.? In the early years of James there began a fresh stream of import/ export licences, mostly to importunate Scotsmen, some of which

took the occasional Elizabethan form of giving permission for aliens to pay customs as natives—a device, incidentally, which has played havoc with the statistical reliability of the customs accounts. To give but one example, the Earl of Dunbar obtained licences to export 4,000 quartets of wheat and 300 tons of iron ordnance, and secured the monopoly of the import of logwood. Trade in the first was normally forbidden in the interests of the poor, in the second

for national security, and in the third to protect the consumer because hitherto the dye was not fast. Though a new process had allegedly cured this defect, the Commons disliked the grant because 1 SP 12/175/19; 229/101; 14/72/70. BM Lansd. MSS. 60/7. Woburn. CSPD, réo7-3, pp. 80-81; Add. 180-1625, p. 385. HMCS, viii, p. 475. A. Friis, Alderman Cockayne’s Project and the Cloth Trade, 1927, pp. 72-73. 2 CSPD, 1601-3, p. §43. Essex R.O., D/DP, F 240. L/Dud XX, f. 60; HI, f. 28; Box II/1o. SP 14/72/70.

432 OFFICE AND THE COURT it gave the Earl power to exploit and restrict a new industrial development.! As for the cloth licence, it continued for a quarter of a century to be the mainstay of the earls of Cumberland. A fresh grant in 1605 extended it for a further twenty-one years at the same rent— a concession which eventually brought the Cliffords a net profit of ovet £52,000. When in the early 1620’s Lord Clifford realized that Buckingham had decided to grant the reversion of the licence to the Duke of Lennox, he gave way to despair. He talked about the

‘undermininge of an oulde house untainted in ther loyalty towatdes the soveraines’. He alleged that ‘I shall perish and my house to, when the lease shall be expirid of the cloth’. But expire it did in 1626, to be handed over to the dowager Duchess of Lennox,

who was drawing a comfortable £2,600 a year from it in the middle 1630’s. On her death in 1639 it passed to her nephew the Duke, who at once tried to increase his annual payment to £3,000 at a time

when the Merchant Adventurers’ Company was asserting that it could no longer afford £2,600. Deadlock ensued and the Duke, who was supported by the King, seized some of the Company’s cloth on shipboard ready to sail.2 As the Short Parliament assembled in London, one of the most important trading companies in the kingdom was locked in battle with a leading court favourite over this licensing system, a fact which was not without serious political repercussions. It must be admitted, however, that the cloth licence was something of an anachronism by this time, and that very few such dispensatoty grants had been made after the accession of Salisbury to the Treasurership in 1608, if only because

they cut across the interests of the all-powerful customs farmers. With the exception of Cumberland and Lennox, the hungry courtiers had to look elsewhere for nourishment. (4) Monopolies

Analogous to these commercial monopolies were the grants made in the 1620’s of undeveloped islands in the West Indies, which offered courtiers a chance of levying blackmail upon eager merchant capitalists and would-be settlers. The first in the field © HMC Sackville MSS. i, p. 119. BM Lansd. MSS. 172/54. BM Add. MSS. 36970, f. 16. HMCS, xv, p. 243. CSPD, 1603-10, pp. 7, 43, 102. Notestein and Relf, vii, p. 407. 2 Chatsworth/BA 104-113, and the figures given by R. T. Spence, The Cliffords Earls of Cumberland, London Ph.D. thesis 1959, pp. 274, 280, 334. Bodl MSS. Add. D 111, ff. 123, 261. SP 16/438/55; 429/87; 449/34. CSPD, 1639-40, p. 333. Bodl Bankes MSS. 5/57, 51/32.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 433 was the Earl of Marlborough, who soon surrendered his interest to the 1st Earl of Carlisle in return for £300 a year for two lives. In 1627 Carlisle got a new patent for the whole of the Caribbean islands, while a year later Pembroke secured an overlapping grant of the Lesser Antilles. Although Carlisle did finance—on credit— the sending of a ship in 1628, the real interest of both him and Pembroke was to extract money from the merchant financiers and the colonists. In the early 1630’s Carlisle was happily drawing about £9,000 a yeat in customs dues levied on Island tobacco, teceiving 5 per cent. of all produce grown, and exacting a rent from

the settlers of 20 lb. of cotton a head. In the 1650’s Carlisle subcontracted his right to the 5th Lord Willoughby of Parham,

who ‘did more to extend the British Empire in the West Indian regions than any other man of his time’—but at a cost of £50,000, thus beggaringe himself in the process. Carlisle’s parasitism paid; Willoughby’s enterprise did not.!

It was the royal powers of regulation of internal trade and industry and royal authority to grant monopoly rights which provided some of the lushest pastures for the court aristocracy. ‘The most straightforward and legitimate of these powers was that by

which new industrial processes were protected by monopoly patents for a period of years as a means of rewarding the inventor

and entrepreneur. In the deliberate efforts in the last half of the sixteenth century to encourage and diversify industrial enterprise these powers wete widely used by the Crown, and it was not until the end of the century that abuses began to creep in. Previously the only industrial patent over which a courtier or nobleman had been

shown a particular favour was that for the discovery and mining of alum and copperas, an important project which was turned over to Lord Mountjoy for the simple reason that he was prepared to take an active part in the operations and to sink a great deal of money into them. Under these circumstances there was nothing irregular about this grant, which in any case was confirmed by Parliament. Dabbling by courtiers in the field of industrial monopolies only

began in earnest in the late 1580’s and 1590’s. The Queen’s resoufces wetfe now strained to the uttermost by the war with Spain, and she readily acceded to requests for such monopolies as a method

821314 Ff

1 J. A. Williamson, The Caribbee Islands, Oxford, 1926, pp. 40-102. V. T. Harlow, A History of Barbados, 1625-85, Oxford, 1926, p. 168.

434 OFFICE AND THE COURT of rewarding deserving servants which cost her nothing. Courtiers wete not particularly interested in the risks of launching a new technical invention, and preferred to create a lucrative monopoly in some well-established industry, a practice which aroused the bitter resentment of the House of Commons in 1597. Around the ageing Queen there now swarmed the host of Courtier leather, courtier pinne and sope, And courtier venegeer and starch and carde, And such as shall not court it long, we hope.

At this time monopolies were still mostly modest affairs exploited by the lesser figures about the court. Sir Jerome Bowes preyed on glass, Sir Henry Noell on stone pots and bottles, Edward Darcy on steel, Sir John Packington on starch and ashes, William Wade

on sulphur and brimstone, Richard Drake on vinegar, Thomas Wilkes on salt. The most profitable industrial monopoly at this stage was probably that for the manufacture of starch, which was first given to two courtiers as a means of enabling them to pay off their debts to the Crown, and was then in part turned over to Lord Buckhurst and Sir Robert Cecil. In view of the rising demand for statch for stiffening ruffs this monopoly, if effectively enforced, must have brought rich rewards to the operators in the few years

before it was revoked owing to angry protests in the House of Commons.!

Mindful of the turbulent scenes in the Commons in 1597 and 1601, James found it prudent to restrict these monopolies to genuinely new industrial developments. The main difference was that the beneficiaries were now very often peers: industrial monopolies went up in the world in the new teign. Lord Sheffield from the first took a large share in the Yorkshire alum monopoly, if only because the richest seams were to be found on his land. Far mote sinister was the monopoly of the manufacture of dyestuffs granted to the Earl of Dunbar in 1605 to complete his stranglehold on the dyeing industry, partly achieved by his monopoly powers of

importing logwood.? Inspired by this example, other courtiers hastened to fasten themselves on to some industrial process. The Earl of Montgomery got a share in the manufacture of glass with 1 W. H. Price, English Patents of Monopoly, Harvard, 1913, Apps. B, G.

2 Jacobean monopolies are all listed in a document among the H of L MSS. for 1618. Unless it is otherwise stated, information about monopolies is drawn from this source.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 435 coal, Lord Sheffield patented a new copper process, the Duke of Buckingham sole rights to exploit a new lead and silver mine in County Durham, Viscount Savage the mining of copperas stone (a right which he sold for £8,000), Viscount Conway a share in the monopoly manufacture of soap, the Earl of Holland in that of gold and silver wire. In the 1630’s the future Earl of Strafford obtained a share in the alum monopoly, which was worth £2,000 a year to him, and the Earl of Berkshire promoted a new process for drying malt

from which he hoped great things.! Below this level lesser figures about the Court obtained minor pickings. William Berkeley was given a monopoly of the manufac-

ture of ‘snow-houses’ for the storage of ice and snow; James Maxwell the supply of clay for tobacco pipes; the court doctor, Sir Theodore Mayerne, strong water and vinegar; Endymion Porter white writing paper. But apart from alum and copperas, dyestuffs, and probably soap and starch, it is doubtful whether these industrial patents brought more than moderate gains to their hopeful patrons. In a few cases the courtier himself took a personal interest in the new process and invested both time and money in

its development. In others he acted as a sleeping partner for the provision of capital, but in the majority of cases he was no mote than a parasite preying on the talent and resources of others in return for the political influence needed to obtain a monopoly. (5) Economic Regulations

Mote significant as a political irritant and as a source of profit was the abuse by the Crown of its powers of economic tegulation and control. Here again the rot set in during the late 1580’s and 1590’s. Authorized by parliaments inspired by a concern for the national interest, the Tudors had acquired and exercised the widest powets of regulation over economic affairs. Industrial products wete seatched and stamped to maintain quality standards; prices were controlled to check profiteering, ale-houses were licensed to prevent excessive increase in their numbers, bullion export was carefully regulated to avoid sudden outflows of precious metal; weights and measures were inspected for the prevention of fraud;

the printing of books was subject to licensing to prevent the 1 CSPD, 1671-18, p. 2503 1623-J, pp. 154, 4223 162s-6, p. 563; 1637, p. 3123; 1637-8, pp. 128, 236, 3143 1639-40, p. 236. SP 23/206 p. 908. EcHR, 2nd ser., xi, 1958, p. 245. 2 Bodl Bankes MSS. 11/1, 17, 28, 33, 42.

436 OFFICE AND THE COURT publication of subversive matter. Without an army of paid inspectots many of these controls were obviously useless, and it was not surprising that the Crown should harness the profit motive to

the task of enforcement. From the first the paid informer had played a prominent tole, but now there developed the practice of giving a monopoly of enforcement to a courtier, who in turn hired his informers as a speculative business venture. Alternatively, if— as was often the case—the regulations were obsolete or unworkable, a couttier was given monopoly powets to grant exemptions or to compound with offenders, two powers which in practice tended to be identical in their exercise. Under such grants the Crown ceded to individuals its rights over forfeitures from offenders, a delegation of royal authority against which the judges formally protested in 1604.!

The only two such grants recorded for the early part of Elizabeth’s reign are those to Sit Edward Dyer to dispense with regulations concerning the tanning of leather laid down in an Act of Parliament passed a mere three years before; and to the Earl of Leicester, in the name of Edward Hotsey, for licensing of wine taverns and for the sale of exemptions to the price control of wine. From 1588 to 1599, however, some nine such licences were issued to courtiers, the most important and profitable being the grant to Sit Walter Ralegh of Leicester’s and Horsey’s licensing of wine taverns. Though Lord Buckhurst and the Earl of Oxford fought bitterly over the pre-emption of tin in 1597, the only such grant to a peet was that for viewing London soap, which was given to Lord Hunsdon.? Under the Early Stuarts the scale and number of such patents continued to multiply. The wine-tavern licence passed first to the Earl of Nottingham, who subcontracted for a fixed annuity of

£3,000 a year, and thence to the Earl of Middlesex and Lord Goring. Despite repeated protests against abuses by the House of Commons it was too valuable to important courtiers and too useful to the Crown—which by 1618 was getting a tent of £2,800—to be dispensed with. The reductio ad absurdum of the licensing system as practised by the Stuarts is perhaps revealed by the petition in 1635 by the Countess of Anglesea for a monopoly of granting exemption t Price, op. cit., App. M. 2 Lodge, iii, p. 161. Leycester’s Commonwealth, pp. 79-80. SP 12]252/49, 50. I. H. Jeayes, Catalogue of Muniments in Berkeley Castle, Bristol, 1892, p. 242. C 2 Eliz, W 13/5r.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 437 to inn-holders from the activities of common informers.’ Here we find both enforcement of a regulation and de facto exemption from it being sought by different courtiers as means of profit. The purpose of the regulation had been entirely lost sight of and the only practical consequence was a tax on inn-holders payable to Lord Goring, or, if the Countess had obtained her grant, the alternative of payment to the latter for exemption from the tax levied by the former. A classic case of the obnoxious regulatory grant was that of the alnage of old and new draperies, which in 1604 was given to James’s

Scottish crony and relative, the Duke of Lennox. This medieval system of controlling quality in cloth-manufacture had long been virtually useless, and its brisk exploitation by Lennox as a kind of private excise on cloth and its extension to the new draperies, which had been begun by Burghley in 1578, caused widespread indignation among the clothiers. There is little evidence that Lennox made much attempt to justify his patent by checking quality of cloth, and

he and his factors acted merely as a tax-collecting agency. The Commons of 1621 renewed their protests at the abuses of the system, such as the sale of the seals to the clothier by the bushel, thus making nonsense of any claim to control over quality, and the blackmailing of clothing retailers under threat of persecution by the Duke and his influential friends. By devices such as these the Lennoxes had raised their net profits to {2,400 a year by 1624, and

they continued to enjoy this lucrative monopoly right up to the Civil War—and again after the Restoration—despite continued protests from manufacturers.” Here is another example of the alienation by the Stuarts of an influential section of opinion for the sake of the profits accruing to a favourite aristocratic house.

With three exceptions most other such grants were probably of lesset importance, except as irritants to public opinion. For example, in compensation for the surrender of his office of High Marshal of

Ireland, Lord Morley was granted exclusive right of publication of a work called God and the Kinge which was ordered to be used in all schools ‘to season younge mindes against the pestilent doctrines

of the Jesuits’. Morley subcontracted with an agent in return for 3d. a copy, but it seems unlikely that the profits were high. By 1 HMC Sackville MSS. i, pp. 75-88. CSPD, 1611-78, p. 259; 1627-8, p. 517. Bodl Bankes MSS. 5/34, 9/8. 2 HMCS, xvi, p. 334; xvii, p. 441. CSPD, 1603-10, pp. 233, 335. Verney, ii, pp. 434-5. BM Add. MSS. 12497, f. 469. SP 14/171/87; 14/165 /26; 16/409/186. Hutchins, i, p. 233.

438 OFFICE AND THE COURT a host of similar minor grants to peers and to lesser court figures together with the great monopoly corporations set up to evade the letter of the 1624 Monopolies Act, the Crown succeeded in establishing a de facto excise system.! It cannot be said, however, to have paved the way for the regular establishment of the excise under the

Commonwealth, since only a fraction of the profits ever came to the State, most of the tevenue collected going into the pockets of favoured courtiers and their subcontractors. The system created an opulent and hated class of revenue farmers, it supported a host of professional informers, it sapped confidence in the integrity and honesty of the economic policies of the Crown. It also brought

in a modest income to the State, and played an important part in maintaining the greater and lesser courtiers without any direct drain on the Exchequer. (6) Revenue Farms

Customs farms, import and export licences, manufacturing monopolies, and economic regulations and controls are far from exhaust-

ing the list of possible royal gifts of fragments of its powers and its resources. Once the principle of farming the revenue was admitted, why should there be any limit to its indefinite extension? Its usefulness was particularly marked in cases of wide but largely disused or neglected royal powers which might profitably be revived. If a great courtier was willing to undertake the task—and to incur the odium—of reasserting the rights, both he as lessee, and the Crown as ultimate owner, would stand to gain. In this sphere, as in so many others, the pioneer was the Earl of Leicester, a figure whose cateer in so many ways seems to anticipate the practices of the Jacobean age. In 1572 he was given a lease of obsolete royal tights over the Forest of Snowdon, powers which he promptly and ruthlessly enforced to recover large ateas of former forest land and to mulct the tenants of substantial sums. At the cost of setting all north Wales by the ears, he succeeded in extracting a good deal of money for himself and in setting an example over the 1 W.H. Price, English Patents of Monopoly, Cambridge, Mass., 1906, pp. 131-2. The important

grants were the Earl of Nottingham’s monopoly regulating weights and measures of coal, iron, and salt, apparently worth over £4,000 a year, the Earl of Carlisle’s monopoly of Irish wine and tavern licences, which was worth £500 a year to him, and Lord Goring’s tobacco licence monopoly. H of L MSS. 1618. CSPD, r6r1-18, pp. 276, 484; 1623-J, p. 4933 1636-9, p. 262. HMC 4th Rep., App. p. 122. C 2 Jas. I, M 15/8. HMC Var. MSS. viii, p. 47. Knowler, i, Pp. 525; li, p. 89. M. Beresford, “The Beginning of Retail Tobacco Licences, 1632-41’, Yorkshire Bulletin, vii, 1955.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 439 recovery of lost forest rights which was not fully exploited by the Crown until the 1630’s. “The matter of Snowden Forest doth pass all the rest for cunning and cruelty’, remarked Leicester’s anonymous libeller.! Inspired by the success of this venture into royal concealments, in 1576 the Earl of Leicester took a ten-year lease of the Office of Alienations. This was a department in Chancery responsible for collecting fines on the transfer of all lands held zz capizte. Inefficient

administration had resulted in a poor yield over recent years, and Leicester and his advisers were convinced that here again there were larger profits to be made. In 1585 he alleged that as a result of his

activities the Queen had gained an increase of rent of £1,333, but that his own profit had not been mote than {£261 a year. On the other hand he had discovered about 2,000 concealments, besides almost doubling the number of licences issued each year, from 158 to 302. Under his administration the office clearly reached new heights of efficiency. According to his enemies it ‘serveth him not only to excessive gain, but also for an extream scourge to plague whom he listeth in the realm’.? Apart from the taking over of the Queen’s posts by Sir John, later 1st Lord Stanhope, these grants to Leicester had no sequel even in the 1590’s, and it was not until 1606 that the dispersal of miscellaneous sections of crown revenues began in earnest. In 1608 the Earl of Suffolk was given a half-share in the money recovered

from lessees of undervalued crown land, in 1617 Lord Wotton a grant of all concealed wardships since 1588, and in 1622 the Earl of Montgomery a half-share in the Commission for aliens. Some idea of the irritation these devices caused may be glimpsed from the difficulties Wadham College, Oxford, experienced in avoiding being heavily fined by Suffolk for concealment of £3. 6s. 8d. on a ctown grant made twenty-five years earlier, and which had since passed through several hands. These incentives to individuals to collect for the Crown some of its more difficult dues and arrears were soon accompanied by wholesale subcontracting of branches of the revenue. In 1607 Lord Danvers and the Earl of Dunbar took on

forfeitures of recognizances; Lord Hartington contracted for encroachments in 1610, the Earl of Norwich for heriots and reliefs 1 L/Dud XX, ff. 2’, 49; TT, f. 69. Leycester’s Commonwealth, pp. 90-92. Wynn, nos. 62, 63, 65, 70. HMCS, ii, p. 312. P. Williams, The Council in the Marches of Wales under Elizabeth I, Cardiff, 1958, pp. 237-8. 2 L/Dud Box IlI/47. SP 12/169/47, 48. Leycester’s Commonwealth, p. 80.

440 OFFICE AND THE COURT falling to the Crown in 1617, the Earl of Carlisle in 1634 for the feefarm of all salt marshes reclaimed from the sea.! Even the coinage

was put out to farm, the minting of farthing tokens being leased to Lord Harington in 1612 for three years in recompense for the £32,000 he said he had spent in attending the Princess Elizabeth. After Harington’s venture had failed, the patent passed to the Duke and Duchess of Lennox, the latter of whom was said to have made £1,000 a year from it, and in the 1630’s the project was

revived with a grant to the Earl of Arundel and his son Lord Maltravers.? (7) Recusants and Wards

From here it was but a short step to even more disreputable methods of preying upon the public. Elizabethan parliaments had enacted strict laws against Catholic tecusants and in 1605 James saw an easy way of gratifying his followers by granting the right to enforce these laws and to take the profits. This system lent itself either to extortion, or to total immunity from the laws for the recusant who was granted to a friend. The most active period of these grants was between 1605 and 1611, the commonest form being the

gift to a courtier of the fine and forfeiture of eight or ten named recusants. Though both Viscount Saye and Sele and the Earl of Rutland dabbled in these grants, they were mostly provender for lesser court officials, grooms, bedchambermen and the like, very many of whom were Scots. The only exception to this pattern was the gigantic grant to the Earl of Montgomery in 1607 of £10,000 to be levied on the goods and lands of recusants, provided that he brought another {10,000 into the Exchequer. Later, however, these grants were discontinued, and the practice grew up of farming

territorial blocks. The Farm of the Northern Recusants made a welcome addition to the salary of the President of the Council of the North, being given to Lord Sheffield in 1612 and to Viscount Wentworth in 1629. It has been calculated—perhaps rather optimistically—that it was worth about {£600 a year to the latter.4 1 H of L MSS, 1618. CSPD, 1603-r0, pp. 311, 421, 620; r6r1-18, p. 4433 1623-f, pp. 24, 314; 1634), p. 163. Notesteinand Relf, vii, p. 465. PR 3 Jas. I, pt. 7; 4 Jas. I, pt. 7. SP 14/171/87. Wadham College MSS. 47/5-12.

2 Star Ch., 8/91/10. C 2 Jas. I, M 16/73. CSPD, 1639, p. 509. HMC Cowper MSS. iii,

- CSPD, 1625-6, p. 196. 4 CSPD, 1603-10, p. 3773 1617-18, pp. 120, 128. BM Add MSS. 34765. HMCS, xvii, pp. 331, 481. Ch, i, p. 359. EcHR, and setr., xi, 1958, pp. 233, 245.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 44t Analogous to these grants of recusants was the ancient custom of giving the wardship of rich minors to influential peers and courtiers,

who could then resell them to the mother or relatives or marty them to their own children. The history of this practice, however, follows a different path from that of other grants, since vigorous protests in the Commons and the good sense of the 1st Earl of Salisbury led to a decline in the early seventeenth century. The system was flourishing in the early years of Elizabeth and flourishing at the end. In the first 15 years of the reign 25 peers were given

32 wards, at least 7 of whom married a child of their guardian. Between 1594 and 1598 some 93 wards went to courtiers and royal servants, 8 of whom were noblemen. Thereafter, however, ward-

ships were more frequently granted to relatives, and thus ceased to be so regular a means of rewarding a deserving courtier. Though the executors of the Earl of Northampton sold the wardship of Lord Berkeley to his mother for £1,500 in 1614, and though the Duchess of Richmond sold the wardship of the Earl of Kildare in 1624 for £6,600, transactions of this sort, though still fairly frequent, were certainly less common than they had been in the days of Elizabeth. Wardship provides the unique exception to the rule that the reign of James saw a substantial increase in the volume and range of favours at the disposal of courtiers and their clients. Even more morally repugnant was the grant of custody of the persons and estates of lunatics. Few monarchs had taken much care to ensure that the family and personal interests of the lunatic were preserved, but the Early Stuarts were particularly careless in using theit power to reward their followers. To quote only a particularly scandalous example, in 1636 Charles I not only gave the custody and goods of a lunatic to David Ramsay, a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, but also remitted the usual precautions against mismanagement. (8) Legal Fines and Offices

The last sector of royal revenues to be exploited by the courtiers

was that of toyal fines and forfeitures and sinecure offices in the Courts of Law. The grant of the property of convicted felons was another of those methods which did not save the Crown anything, 1 CPR, ry j8-60; 1560-3, passim. Wards 9/373, 380, 389, 405, 430. SP 12/268/42. CSPD, 1623-5, pp. 488-9. Grosart, ist set., ii, p. 336. J. Hurstfield, ‘The Profits of Fiscal Feudalism’, EcHR, 2nd ser., vili, 1955. See also infra, pp. 600-5. 2 CSPD, 1636-~7, pp. 60, 201, 203.

442 OFFICE AND THE COURT but which by-passed the normal channels of receipt and expenditure. After the Essex Rebellion, Francis Bacon was rewarded for his doubtful services by £1,200 from Sir William Catesby’s fine, and thereafter such grants increased in number. Worse still, there began

to be demanded, and given, the estates of men accused but not yet convicted, the onus of arranging prosecution and conviction being

left to the grantee. A development so obviously open to abuse was soon checked, at any rate in theory, but the grants of felons’ goods continued. Lord Knollys obtained the estate of a fence in 1609, the Earl of Holderness of a murderer in 1614, the Earl of Holland the goods of a suicide—the Master of Corpus, Cambridge,

—in 1632. Star Chamber fines, whether of fallen politicians or others, offered similar opportunities of teward. The Earl of Holderness was given £7,000 (out of the Earl of Suffolk’s fine) in 1618, the future Earl of Anglesea £2,100 in 1621, the Earl of Suffolk £4,000 in 1633, and the Earl of Huntingdon £3,000 in 1639.!

Sinecute legal offices, or shares in the profits of seals of the courts, were sometimes even better means of self-advancement than these ad hoc gifts. In 1613 Lord Morley tried to obtain. a grant of the Crown share of fines in actions in the Exchequer and King’s Bench on penal statutes—a peculiarly odious delegation of powers

which caused a great deal of irritation, and the Earl of Holland enjoyed the profit of the seal office in King’s Bench and Common Pleas. More important was the lease to Lord Knollys in 1608 and 1611 of Post Fines (fines pro ‘icentia concordand:) in the Common

Pleas at the very large rent of {2,272 for a period of no less than thirty-one years, a lease that was renewed in 1625 in partnership with the Earl of Berkshire for a further period of forty-eight years. It was bought by the Earl of Holland in 1636 for £21,000, and was said to be worth £2,000 a year.? In the central courts two sinecute offices became sufficiently lucrative to attract the attention of the great courtiers. The first of these was the Custos Brevium in the Common Pleas. By the end of the fifteenth century this was being granted by the Crown to minor

favourites for life and in reversion, and was apparently worth {60 ot {70 a yeat. In 1547 it was granted by Lord Protector Somerset t CSPD, 1603-10, p. §67; 1611-78, p. 381; 1625-6, p. 163 ; 1631-3, p. 448; 1633-4, p. 379. Bacon,

iii, p. 14. CA, ii, p. 313. Bod] Carte MSS. 78, f. 153. 2 APC, 1613-14, p. 231. M. G. Davies, The Enforcement of English Apprenticeship, 1563-1642,

Harvard, 1956, p. 35, n. 45. BM Cotton MSS. Vesp. C XIV, f. 169. CSPD, 1603-70, p. 438; 1611-18, pp. Go, 88; 1625-6, p. 537. LJ, vill, p. 45.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 443 to his able young servanr William Cecil, by which time it was bringing a clear net profit of {240 a year. It was now a prize of considerable value, though Cecil was exaggerating when he described it in 1561 as ‘the only stay of my living these fifteen years’.

In January 1563 he was unwise enough to sublease it to John Lennard in return for a fixed rent of £240 a year, an agreement he must have had subsequent cause to regret in view of the galloping inflation of the next forty years and the rapid rise in legal business and legal profits. In 1585 Lord Burghley’s son Thomas surrendered his reversion to Thomas and Sir Richard Spencer, two younger sons of the great Northamptonshire wool magnate Sir John Spencer.

Since Thomas had married a Cheke, it is clear that there was a continuing family interest in the office, which became still more pronounced with the grant of a third reversion in 1604 to Sit Henry

Compton, a younger son of Lord Compton and his wife Anne Spencer. Already sums as high as £1,000 were being offered as bribes to obtain a reversion of this rich sinecure. By 1628 Sir Richard Spencer was dead and the next reversion was granted to Sit Allen Apsley, the Lieutenant of the Tower, and his children. Sir Allen died in 1630 and Peter Apsley was deprived of his rights in 1633 for writing a scandalous letter. In 1634 the interested parties wete therefore old Sir Thomas Spencer, Sir Henry Compton, and Lady Apsley and her children. At this stage the big operator moved in and pushed out this small

fry. Philip Earl of Pembroke bought out the Apsley interest for £3,000 and got the reversion transferred to himself and two sons for their lives. In 1646 it was still held by Sir Henry Compton, who alleged that it had been worth {2,000 a year to him before the war, but by the time the Earl of Pembroke died in 1649 it had passed into

the hands of the Herberts. The private accounts of the Earl’s executors show that in the early 1650’s the net profits were about

£800 to £900, together with about £270 to £360 from a protonotary’s office, making a total of about {1,100 to £1,300 a year. It should be remembered that in 1635 Charles I had recaptured for the Crown the profits of selling offices of protonotaries, and before

this counter-attack the takings may well have teached £2,000. Here, then, was a sinecure office in the courts of law whose value increased dramatically in the 150 years before the Civil War until it attracted the attention of one of the greatest of the Court peers. Nor did its history end here. Not only did it survive the reforming

444 OFFICE AND THE COURT zeal of the Commonwealth, but it lived on after the Restoration, was granted in 1677 in perpetuity to the Earl and Countess of Lichfield and their heirs, and as late as 1820 was still enjoyed under this ancient grant.! Even stranger is the history of the other great legal sinecure, the Clerkship of Enrolments in the King’s Bench. This office was in the gift not of the Crown but of the Lord Chief Justice, and was traditionally sold by him. Since 1497 it had been bought by successive

generations of the Roper family until by the early seventeenth centuty it had come to be known as ‘Roper’s Office’. As the sixteenth century wore on, the Ropers discovered that they were sitting on a gold-mine. As the business of the King’s Bench expanded, so did their profits, and they waxed rich and gtew to be one of the leading gentry families of Kent, despite their notorious religious recusancy. But the trouble was that their office grew so

inordinately profitable that it attracted the gteed of the larger predators about the Court. According to his own story, the first man to move in on the Roper monopoly was Lord Balmerino, who is said to have got a teversionary grant as early as 1603. In 1606 he went 50-50 shares with a rising young lawyer, Robert Heath, who was to execute the office, the profits of which were by then estimated at £2,000 a year. But in 1612 the prize attracted the attention of the all-powerful favourite, the Earl of Somerset. Heath

promptly transferred his allegiance to the new patron. He surrendered his patent without Balmetino’s knowledge and was put in again by Somerset along with another lawyer, James Whitelock,

who was acting for the other patentee, Sir John Harington, son of Lord Harington. This time the agents were reduced to accepting for their pains a mere 8 per cent. of the proceeds apiece. There still remained the problem of getting rid of Sir John Roper, but when

the latter offered to give up his interest in return for a peerage, Somerset vittuously rejected the proposal. On Harington’s death his sister Lucy, Countess of Bedford, bought out Whitelock for £800 and made over the whole interest to Somerset. On Somertset’s fall in 1616 James arranged for the transfer of his

interest to the new favourite, Villiers. But Sir Edward Coke, as « M. Hastings, The Court of Common Pleas in Fifteenth Century England, Ithaca, 1947, p. 135. Peck, 1. i, p. 8, n. 1. SP 12/20/40. Hardwicke State Papers, i, p. 178. Essex R.O., D/DL, F 43. CSPD, 1603-10, p. 1733; 1628-9, p. 183; 1636-7, p. 268; 1639-40, pp. 256-7. HMCS, xvii, p. 174. Knowler, i, pp. 167, 227. Murdin, op. cit., p. 784. Bodl Bankes MSS. 55/60, 54/11. SP 23/205, pp. 1-3, 21-28. H/A 168/2. W. S. Holdsworth, History of English Law, 1945, 1, p. 258.

OFFICE AND THE COURT A45 Lord Chief Justice, jibbed at this encroachment on his rights, a refusal which was no small factor in causing his dismissal. The new

Chief Justice Montagu proved more compliant, though only in return for a pension of {500 a year out of the office. In the same year the 81-year-old Sir John Roper bought his peerage for £10,000, and two yeats later he was dead. Villiers at last inherited the office,

which by now was worth a sum variously estimated at between £3,800 and £4,500 a yeat. In 1620 he even freed himself of the necessity of paying 8 per cent. of the profits to each of his two agents, one being made Solicitor and the other Recorder of London.

With Montagu eased out of the Chief Justiceship at the same moment, this gteat sinecure discharged all its offerings into the coffers of George Villiers, Marquis of Buckingham. As his financial adviser told him in 1622, ‘ytt is a fayre bootye’.! Thus an administrative office in a court of law first hoisted a family from the lesser

gentry into the peerage, then became the subject of ferocious rivalry between great favoutites, involving bitter intrigues and affecting the rise and fall of a chief justice, a solicitor, and a recorder

of London. So valuable became the profits that the right of nomi-

nation by the Lord Chief Justice was encroached upon by the Crown and the office emerged from its dusty legal obscurity to become the coveted quarry of earls and dukes. (9) Honour and Patronage

Failing these many and varied grants at the disposal of the Crown,

all that remained to be begged were the powers of the Crown as the fount of honour and as patron of office. The role played by the sale of titles in keeping the court system afloat has already been discussed at length. Between 1603 and 1629 the courtiers were allowed to handle, for a profit, first the granting of knighthoods, then the sale of baronets, and finally the sale of peerages themselves.

The Duke of Buckingham had the benefit of at least nine peerages and probably a great many more, the Earl of Carlisle received the proceeds of three, Viscount Conway and the Duchess of Richmond

had two each, the Earls of Arundel, Pembroke, March, Oxford, and Mulgrave probably one each. Between 1603 and 1629 at least 1 Arch. Cantiana, ii, 1859, p. 156. Bodl Carte MSS. 78, f. 669. HMC sth Rep., App., p. 26. HMCS, xvi, p. 195. The Egerton Papers (Camden Soc.), 1840, p. 455. J. Whitelocke, Liber Fameli-

cus (Camden Soc.), 1858, pp. 27, 46, 57-59. Cy, ii, p. 338. SP 14/149/91 (1). CR 5 Ch. I 40/8. BM Harl. MSS. 1581/24. Bodl MSS. Eng. Misc. C 208, f. 1729. 2 See supra, Ch. TIL.

446 OFFICE AND THE COURT £,650,000 was raised by this method, over £100,000 of which passed

directly into the pockets of existing peers of the realm.

This list—and it is not a short one—exhausts the range of gifts at the direct disposal of the Crown. There were, however, possibilities of exercising pressute on others. Bishops were bullied into sharing theit wealth with the courtiers, aldermen were cajoled into marrying their rich daughters to royal favourites. And there were

other benefits which could be conferred. One, which involved power rather than wealth, was the creation of new borough seats in the House of Commons. Sir John Neale has proved beyond possibility of doubt that the creation of sixty-two new borough seats by Elizabeth between 1558 and 1586 was the result of pressure from courtiers seeking new forms of patronage. It was some com-

pensation to the nobility for their declining military and social authority to obtain control, if only temporarily, over a handful of borough seats. At the time neither monarch nor patron nor borough corporation could foresee the long-term political consequences of such generosity.! This quest for patronage worked two ways and the great courtier,

by reason of his influence in obtaining favours from the Crown, soon found himself besieged by eager clients anxious for his protec-

tion. Without any positive encouragement from the Crown, the mete knowledge of this influence was enough to bring clergy, dons,

and aldermen scurrying to take cover under the coat-tails of the royal favourites. Eleven corporations, nine bishops, two deans and chapters, and both universities paid tribute to the Earl of Leicester, either in fees for sinecute office of in annuities. Seven corporations, eight bishops, five deans and chapters, one university, and one college were clients of Lord Burghley. Eleven corporations, eight bishops,

five deans and chapters, one university, and two colleges were in a similar relation to the rst Earl of Salisbury.? If these perquisites and powers wete to be had without the asking, other concessions from private institutions were the result of deliberate royal interference. Thus an easy way of rewarding a courtier or minor official was by bullying an Oxford or Cambridge college into accepting a nominee as scholar, fellow, or head. For the nobility this was no more than compensation for the rights over 1 J. E. Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons, 1949, pp. 140-6. 2 L/Dud XX, ff. 49-50; TI, ff. 184-93. H/Family Papers, ii, p. 110; iv, p. 187.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 447 monastic patronage they had exercised before the Dissolution for their friends and relatives. Jobbing a chaplain into a fellowship or a younger son into a scholarship was a substitute for retiring an old servant with a monastic corrody or stuffing an unwanted daughter away in a nunnery. For the lesser figures about the Court it was a way of looking after the children, a method of exercising influence,

and, it must regretfully be admitted, not infrequently the means of making a little money in bribes and gifts from ambitious scholars. For the Crown it was an economical way of fobbing off a suitor by the exercise of powers which at the Reformation it had seized from the Papacy. In particular its powers of dispensation from college statutes became a valuable weapon with which to meddle in academic elections. Interference by the Crown in college and university appointments

and college leases was virtually unknown before the sixteenth century, and did not begin in earnest till the reign of Elizabeth. The pressure varied considerably, however, from one sector to another. Interference in the election of heads of colleges, in considerable measure inspired by political considerations as well as those of private patronage, was always severe and usually success-

ful; lobbying for fellowships intensified in the last twenty years of the sixteenth century, reached a peak in the first decade of the seventeenth, and then eased off in face of mounting academic obstruction; interference in scholarships did not begin until the reign of James and reached its climax under Charles as more and more sons of gentry sought admission to the universities; extortion of cheap college leases for courtiers was practised by Elizabeth

in the impecunious nineties, continued for a while by James, and was then more or less abandoned as a part of the system of royal patronage.! Of course this picture of Crown and courtiers preying upon the dons is not the whole story. In a sense the interference by the Court in academic affairs was a welcome sign of the revolutionary development of the universities as places of education for the gentry and the nobility. It was the price that had to be paid for increasing involve-

ment in the secular life of the nation. Moreover, court-influenced elections were not necessarily worse than those of dons left entirely to their own devices, and indeed on occasion may have been 1 This paragraph is based on evidence drawn from a wide range of sources. I hope to publish elsewhere a fully documented account of academic patronage.

448 OFFICE AND THE COURT distinctly better. Lastly, if the aristocracy and gentry battened on college endowments by extorting leases and by filling scholarships with their children, there were one or two who were munificent benefactors of the colleges. A few who took with one hand gave back with the other, and if it were possible to strike a purely financial balance, the universities would almost certainly emerge in credit. Courtiers seeking fresh woods and pastures new naturally looked

beyond the clergy and the dons. There wete minor pickings to be had in all the great charitable institutions. Bribes were given for royal favour over the mastership of Saint Catherine’s Hospital; chaplaincies at the Savoy were nominated at Court. Still more promising were the urban corporations, particularly London, which

had their own offices for internal economic conttols. In 1536 Henry VIII ordered the City to restore a royal servant to the position of Meter of linen and canvas. The office of Packer in the City had been bought from the Crown in the late fifteenth century, which did not prevent Elizabeth, James, and Charles from continuing to interfere in the appointment. As London turned over almost exclusively to coal, the duties and the profits of the London Coal Meters expanded enormously. Elizabeth ordered six more offices to be created, partly to fill a need and partly to increase her patronage. James recommended reversions to the existing offices, and Charles first recommended, then ordered, the creation of two more, to be filled at the discretion of his servant, Lady ‘Thomasine Carew. Here again, offices which could otherwise be sold for profit

by private bodies and individuals were being pulled in by the spreading tentacles of court patronage. By the early eighteenth century, when the Court octopus had been effectively contained, the Lord Mayor was selling these offices of Coal Meter for £3,000 and £4,000 each. A similar struggle between a corrupt local official and a corrupt court occurred in 1593 when the Queen tried to get the Secondatyship of the Compter in Wood Street for a gentleman pensioner, only to find that one of the sheriffs had given it to his brother.! Provincial towns came under the same sort of pressure, as local

magnates turned to the Court to help maintain their authority. Though supported by the Privy Council, the Earl of Derby failed 1 KE. Foss, Lives of the Judges, 1857, vi, p. 268. HMCS, ix, p. 397; xi, pp. 521, 5453 XVI, Pp. 1533 iv, pp. 386-521 passim. Ellis, 2nd ser., ii, p. 90. CSPD, 1547-80, p. 659; 1611-18, p. 2; 1623-J, P. §133 1633, pp. 76, 513; 1636-7, p. 313. D. Defoe, Tour Through England and Wales (Everyman ed.), i, p. 346. Cf. R. R. Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, 1894, ii, p. 619.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 449 to nominate a ‘Clerk of the Pendis’ at Chester; Lord Zouche as Warden of the Cinque Ports failed with a town clerk at Sandwich; James ordered Shrewsbury to elect a town clerk in reversion, presumably on behalf of some courtier; Charles rashly got himself engaged in a ferocious quarrel with Bristol in 1639 over the election of a chamberlain.! These examples could easily be multiplied, but they serve to show the way court patronage was eating into all private spheres of interest. By 1640 there was a very widespread feeling that the influence of the Court had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished. V. THE BURDEN OF OFFICE

Hitherto attention has exclusively been focused upon the rich vatiety of the harvest to be reaped from life at Court. Nothing has so far been said about the hard labour in the fields, about the fate of those whose crops were blighted, or about the inescapable overheads which reduced the profits even of the most successful. For while the scramble for grants is plain enough, it 1s not so readily apparent that life at Court or in ofhice involved very heavy expenses

which could only be met by such grants. It was a point which indignant orators in the House of Commons were apt to overlook when they denounced so fiercely the whole grant system. (1) Life at Court The Coutt swarmed with parasites on the look-out for some fat

carcass upon which to fasten and Strafford complained bitterly about ‘such trains as will always infallibly be there laid there for men of great fortunes by a company of flesh flies that ever buzze up

and down the palaces of princes’. Even if these hazards were avoided, other expenses were inescapable. It was vital to be well dressed in the latest style, at a time when male fashions were at their most unstable and when rich embroidery and lacing were raising the price of clothes to extravagant levels. It was necessary to entertain lavishly, and to have sufficient resources to indulge in

that habitual gambling for high stakes which filled so much of the courtier’s day. Lastly, there was the rent or upkeep of a house

in the west end of London, the purchase and maintenance of 1 HMC 6th Rep., App., pp. 470-1; 3rd Rep., App., p. 347. CSPD, 1619-23, p. 602; Add.

821314 Gg

1p80-1625, P. 4413 1639-40, p. IIT.

450 OFFICE AND THE COURT a sumptuous coach, the hiring of footmen to provide a suitably impressive retinue. The additional cost of all this in excess of a nobleman’s normal expenditure in the country is very difficult to calculate. Even for those without any official position, it can hardly have been less than £1,000 a yeat in the early seventeenth century. Those with lesser offices might easily spend an additional £2,000 a year one way or another, and the greatest political figures, an Essex, a Salisbury, or a Buckingham, would find themselves spending £5,000 to [10,000 ot even mote in excess of the norm for a country magnate. These extraordinary expenditures were incurred even though every official at Court was allowed a ‘diet’ of so many dishes, by which the greater

officers could not only feed themselves but also most of their family, retinue, and dependants. Supplied by compulsory purchase by use of the prerogative of purveyance, in the days of Elizabeth the Court had become the chief mass-catering establishment in England, with an annual turn-over of overt 8,000 sheep, 13,000 lambs, 40,000 chickens, half a million gallons of beer, and four million eggs.!

Even with this extravagant supply of free food and drink, a majority of courtiers wete spending heavily in order to keep up a style which the world expected of them. For every one who stayed

and flourished, thete were many who just made ends meet and many who fell by the wayside. The first years at Court were always

the cause of heavy debts and if this period of apprenticeship was not rewatded in the end, the situation was grim indeed. Allured by the glamour and excitement of the Court, many noblemen lived out their futile lives in a vain struggle for office and profit that left them cynical, servile, and impoverished. Few predicaments can have been as desperate as that of the ageing unsuccessful couttier, passing his days in anxious attendance in the ante-rooms of the gteat, fawning and flattering with practised hypocrisy in the hopes of some small pickings from the table of Dives, consumed with hatred and jealousy as younger and more attractive personalities fought their way to the front and elbowed him ruthlessly into the background. And yet such was the magnetic power of the Court that few could tear themselves away and retire to rustic solitude to salvage something from the wreckage before they had spent deeply of both life and fortune. 1 Knowler, i, p. 170. A. Woodworth, ‘Purveyance for the Royal Household in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth’, Trans. American Phil. Soc., N.s. XXXV, 1945, PP. 57-70.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 4st Even in the roaring 1540’s it was possible to be a loser from court service. When in 1537 the 2nd Earl of Cumberland married Lady Eleanor Brandon, ‘this royal alliance brought with it a train of expenses which compelled the earl to alienate the great manor of Temedbury co. Hereford . . .; but after the death of this lady, which happened in 1547, he withdrew into the country, grew rich

and became a purchaser’. Sixty years later the Earl of Worcester , withdrew from the Court “being the only mean to repair my estate,

which although it hath not been bettered by any Court favours, yet I must account it some slender satisfaction in that I made it no worse’, He was lucky. Thirty years later still the Earl of Newcastle retired to Welbeck, remarking ‘I know no diet better than a strict

diet in the country, which, in time, may recover me from the prodigal disease’.

The spectacular beneficiaries of the system were a minority, though a very important one. Even for them the life of a courtier was far from easy and the prospects of financial gain not always either certain or lasting. Of too many could it be said that ‘he was a meere vegetable of the court that sprung up at night and sunk againe at his noone’.! If men as favoured as Essex under Elizabeth

and Carlisle under James and Charles managed to spend money as fast as or faster than the monarch could hand it out to them, it 1s not surprising if lesser beneficiaries often ended up in debt. (2) Entertainment of Boyalty

Medieval monarchs had been peripatetic, moving restlessly from

palace to palace, from hunting-lodge to hunting-lodge. By the sixteenth century administrative necessity had long since bound the King to reside for most of the year in the vicinity of London. But their flair for publicity inspired the Tudors, and especially Elizabeth, to tour the country in summer in order to show themselves to their loving subjects—and to sample their hospitality. And so almost every year there set forth a huge caravan led by the Queen, accompanied by her ladies, by some members of the Privy Council, and by noblemen and couttiers, waited on by an army of royal servants and supported by a baggage train of between 400 and 6oo carts forcibly impressed from a reluctant peasantry.” It was ‘ Talbot G, f. 370. Whitaker, p. 337. HMCS, xiv, p. 770; cf. xv, p. 147. Knowler, i, p. tor. Naunton, p. 93. 2 HMC jth Rep., App., p. 407. CSPD, 1637-8, p. 203.

452 OFFICE AND THE COURT to accommodate and entertain this nomadic horde that the great courtiers of Elizabeth and James vied with each other in building the gigantic ‘prodigy’ houses—Burghley and Theobalds put up by Lord Burghley, Holdenby by Sir Christopher Hatton, Hatfield by the Earl of Salisbury, Audley End by the Earl of Suffolk—the cost of which alone was enough to drive the owners headlong into debt. Once built, these vast palaces then had to be lived in, and also used to entertain the sovereign. Those anxious to preserve of increase their favour at Court could not afford to show themselves niggatdly in the country on the occasion of a royal visit. Both Elizabeth and James expected to be richly feasted and elaborately amused, and to be sent on their way with expensive parting gifts. The officials of the royal household, the chamber and the stable, the

trumpeters and the guards, all expected their share of both food and tips, the scale for the latter amounting to as much as {100 as early as 1561.! Elizabeth visited Theobalds no fewer than thirteen times, and Lord Burghley’s biographer claimed that each visit cost £2,000 to £3,000. This is an exaggeration, but it can be shown that each one certainly cost between {300 and {1,000 according to the length of the stay. It was the custom of friends and neighbours to send in presents of food when some such visit threatened, but huge quantities of extra food had also to be bought and extra cooks and waiters to be hired. The cost of playing host rose as the royal appetite for splendour of entertainment grew ever more voracious. In 1575 a fourteen-day visit to Theobalds only cost Burghley £309 together with another £32 worth of food sent in by friends. In 1577 a five-day visit to Gorhambury cost Sir Nicholas Bacon £577 in food and wages, and a three-day visit to Theobalds £235 and a further {102 worth of food from friends. Early the next year Lord North was faced with

a bill for £642 for provisions, wages, and rewards for a three-day royal visit to Kirtling, and in 1591 a ten-day royal stay at Theobalds left Lord Burghley £900 the poorer. Moreover {100 was the least

that it was thought prudent to spend on a present to Her Majesty, and some hosts went much further. Sir John Thynne gave her a jewel costing {140 in 1574, Lord North another costing {120 in 1577, and as the Queen’s avarice increased with age in the 1590’s ambitious courtiers found it wise to increase the value of their gifts. Old Burghley could get away with a gown costing a mete {100 in 1 SP 12/19/29.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 453 1591, but lesser men could not risk such economies. Lord Keeper Puckering gave Her Majesty a nosegay of diamonds worth £400

in 1595, Sir Edward Coke a rich gown and a jewel in 1601, Sir Thomas Egerton a jewel worth {1,000 a year later. A progress cost the Queen herself about {100 a day in 1560, so that on balance she was more or less living free.' If we take into account the changing value of money, these late Elizabethan progresses were among the most expensive ever staged. Even when King James, the King of Denmark, and large numbers

of courtiers spent a riotously drunken five days at Theobalds in 1606, the whole cost to the Earl of Salisbury, including £284 on presents, only came to £1,180. This was one of the last of the really spectacular orgies, and thereafter there are signs that many hosts became more sparing. When the 2nd Earl of Salisbury was intriguing for an official position between 1615 and 1626 he entertained King James as many as five times at Cranborne, on each occasion for several days, but the total cost of food and extra wages only amounted to about £1,800. Of course a few were still prepared to entertain their sovereign in style: the Bishop of Winchester was

said to have spent £2,400 in 1620. The only claims to have spent morte spectacular sums are those made on behalf of her husband by the Duchess of Newcastle, who alleged an expenditure on one occasion at Bolsover of between £14,000 and £15,000. But the Duchess is demonstrably untrustworthy in her use of figures, and this extravagant assertion can be confidently discounted. Newcastle undoubtedly spent lavishly on his royal guest, but the true cost was probably more like a tenth of that claimed.?

It is hardly surprising that as these entertainments grew more expensive there developed a certain bashfulness among potential hosts without ambitions at Court. Elizabeth’s notorious inability to make up her mind meant that every summer the whole country was a prey to agitated speculation as stories spread of an impending visit from Her gtacious Majesty. Erratic and destructive as a hurricane, summer after summer Elizabeth wandered about the English countryside bringing ruin in her train, while apprehensive noblemen abandoned their homes and fled at the mere rumour of 1 Peck, 1. i, p. 33. H/Box G/16. Lambeth 647/9. SP 12/19/29, 238/157-8. Arch, xix, 1821, pp. 287-90. Wilts. Arch. Mag. xviii, 1879, p. 263. Collins, i, p. 376. Egerton Papers, pp. 340-57.

HMCS, xi, pp. 332, 373. BM Cotton MSS. Vesp. C XIV, f. 481. | 2 SP 12/19/29. H/Box G/16; Box U/99; B 111, 112, 657; A 6/11, 160/5. Ch, ti, p. 316.

Newcastle, pp. 103-4.

454 OFFICE AND THE COURT her approach. As early as the 1570’s the Earl of Bedford tried to divert Her Majesty from Chenies, and at the end of the reign we find Sir Henry Lee prophesying ruin on hearing that “Her Majesty threatens a progress and her coming to my houses’. Sit Thomas Arundell was unwilling to have the name of Wardour Castle so much as mentioned in a progress time in case the Queen took it into her head to visit it. Even the remedy of flight was not always effective, as the Earl of Lincoln found to his cost in 1601. When the Queen tried to visit his house and garden at Chelsea in his absence, his servants, presumably under instructions, refused to let

| her in. Furious at this treatment she determined to dine there, and the Earl of Nottingham and Sir Robert Cecil thought it prudent to afrange a succulent feast in Lincoln’s absence, leaving the unwilling host to foot the bill. Nor wete the Stuarts better received in some quarters. In 1608 King James threatened a descent upon Northamptonshire ‘as un-

welcome as taine in harvest’, and the prudent Lord Spencer promptly fled to Kent. When the blow next fell on Lord Spencer in 1626 with a proposed visit from Henrietta Maria, the old man took to his bed with an ague and the danger was again successfully warded off. It was left to his son, with a higher sense of his social obligations and a laxer srip on the purse-strings, to make handsome amends in 1634 at a cost of £800. A year later John North wrote hurriedly to his brother at Kirtling, urging him to leave at once for London as His Majesty was going to Newmarket and might try to impose himself as a guest.! (3) Military Service

As we have seen, service in time of war was tegarded as an obligation which the peerage thought itself morally obliged to fulfil. In the past it has also been one which had often paid handsomely. The captains and nobles who had flung themselves so eagerly into the Hundred Years War had as often as not returned gorged with booty and the ransom of French magnates. We do not yet know enough about the economic consequences of Henry VIII’s wars to gauge their effect on the nobility, though in the early yeats there ate some bitter complaints about the costs.? But there 1 S. Haynes, Burghley Papers, 1740, pp. 598-9. HMCS, x, pp. 180, 283; xi, pp. 175, 184. Bod] North MSS., C 4, f. 9. Althorp, ESP iii; Household Accounts, 1634-6. 20Le¢@PH VII, 1. i, no. 1482.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 455 can be no doubt that the disastrous war at the end of Mary’s teign, culminating in the loss of Calais, was a severe shock not merely to national prestige, but also to noble fortunes. Lord Grey of Wilton

was so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of the French. The

Queen lent him the £8,000 needed for his ransom, but it had to be paid back in the end. His friends responded to an appeal for help— the Earl of Cumberland subscribed {60—but the burden of debt for the ransom was a principal cause of the sale of much family property in the next thirty years. Lord Mountjoy put as one of the

reasons for his subsequent financial difficulties the expenses of fitting out a force for the relief of Calais, even though he got out of going in person on the grounds that he had only been married a few days. The Earl of Bath sold land and ran up debts to pay for the cost of his military service, the Duke of Norfolk declared himself to be in a similar condition. Ambrose, future Earl of Warwick, who was then living off his wife’s income, “konsitumed much of hiz ladies land and substans’ in serving at Saint Quentin in 1557-8,

so much so that he had to break up his household on his return.! Some of Elizabeth’s military expeditions were joint-stock ventures in which she and some of her subjects went shares. An early example

is the agreement with Walter Earl of Essex in 1573 by which he undertook to pay half the cost of a two-year expedition to Ireland in return for a grant of the whole of the present County Antrim. Like the more notorious Lisbon expedition of 1589, the project was a failure and both partners lost money on the venture. Mote commonly, however, a nobleman was either a volunteer or was in the paid service of the Crown. In the latter case, the high cost of wat was due partly to the purchase of equipment like arms, armour, clothes, tents, tent furniture, horses and carts for transport, both for the noble himself and for his retinue, which might well run to several

dozen, and partly to the lavish hospitality a military commander was expected to dispense. The Earl of Northumberland spent £746 merely on buying equipment for the Scottish expedition of 16,40, and the Earl of Salisbury a total of about £4,000—of which he got back {1,500 from the Crown—on the two expeditions of 1639-40, on which he was accompanied by sixteen mounted troopets. To get a glimpse of what it cost a leading nobleman to undertake a military expedition, we may glance at the expenses of the Earls 1 SP 12/11/56; 13/49; SP 15/13/49 (1). HMC 3rd Rep., App., p. 37. J. Gage, History of Flengrave, 1822, p. 164. Autobiography of T. Whythorne, ed. J. M. Osborn, Oxford, 1961, p. 85.

456 OFFICE AND THE COURT of Leicester and Essex under Elizabeth. According to Gelli Meyrick, whose Welsh imagination was perhaps not embroidering too richly

upon the facts, Essex spent of his own money £4,000 on the Low Countries in 1585, £3,500 on the Armada campaign, £7,000 on the Lisbon expedition, and {14,000 on the siege of Rouen. It is not difficult to see how such figures could be reached. In Ireland in 1599 there were 400 in the Earl’s household, besides forty to fifty dining at his table. The bill for food and drink alone was running at {35-40 a day, to say nothing of the stable, wages and liveries, and general largesse, which came to another {40 or so more. ‘I ptay God we may return conquerors, for sute | am we shall return beggars’ a servant wrote to the Earl’s secretary. In Leicester’s case his losses in the wars can be more firmly documented. He raised {25,000 by sale and mortgage of some of

his land to fit himself out for the Low Countries expedition of 1585, and he borrowed £13,000 from the Queen to pay for an additional troop of horse. When it is argued that he behaved dishonestly in raising his own salary as Lieutenant-General from £6 a day to {10. 13y., this personal investment of nearly {£/40,000 should

not be forgotten. Corrupt he certainly was, but his expenses on military adventures in the last seven years of his life go far to explain, if not to justify, his conduct. Precisely the same confusion

between public and private expenditure took place in the 1620’s when the Duke of Buckingham was launching his expeditions. For example, he lent {10,000 to the Navy in 1624, and pawned jewels for £32,400 in 1626 to swell the war chest. One of the first priorities established by the Duke’s advisers in their attempt to clear up his finances was to stop mingling the King’s money with the Duke’s. If these great court parasites ‘lay sucking at the brests of the State’, they were also prepared on occasion to give their wet nurse something in return, particularly in time of war.! The picture is no more encouraging if we turn to peets who sought a military career under Elizabeth but lacked the influence and resources of the great favourites. When Lord Willoughby d’Eresby was promoted to Lieutenant-General of the English Forces in 1589, his main anxiety was the strain it might place upon his finances. Early in 1589 his secretary reckoned that he had 1 H/A 157/3. Penshurst, 113. Devereux, i, pp. 26-28, 58-68. L/Dev IV, f. 290. SP 12/91/14; 105/23; SP 16/26/59, 60. HMCS, ix, p. 271. L. Stone, An Elizabethan: Sir Horatio Palavicino, Oxford, 1956, pp. 191-2. E 123/16/131; 17/429. CSPD, 1623-5, pp. 206, 212-13. Bodl MSS. Eng. Misc. C 208, f. 171. F. Osborne, The Raigne of King James, 1658, p. 93.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 457 spent £7,689 before and during the siege of Bergen, involving the consumption of his whole annual revenue apart from his wife’s allowance. His woods were cut down, his stock sold off, his land mortgaged, his plate and his wife’s jewels pawned, his debts at least {4,o00o—and all this despite the fortunate capture and

ransoming of two rich prisoners and despite his official pay and perquisites. In a lesser key Lord Cromwell also spent much time and money in military service, which at any rate under Elizabeth did nothing to support his declining estate.! Junior military captains and gentleman volunteers with more slender resources had far less to lose, but there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that few did well out of the wars. That they were unscrupulous in cheating their men of their wages, that they manipulated dead pays and muster-rolls to their own advantage, is now proved beyond all question of doubt. But most of the profits to be made from Elizabethan wars were cornered by the hard-faced men in the City who took on lucrative army contracts, and by the Treasurers at War with huge liquid resources at their private disposal.

No ransoms could be expected from kerns and gallowglasses running wild in the bogs of Ireland—the English took to headhunting instead—no rich booty in the long defensive campaigns in Flanders or in scrambling about the wet and barren rocks of Brittany. The capture of Cadiz in 1596 was the only official military

exploit that provided a rich haul of loot and prisoners. As a result by the end of the century the post-bag of Sir Robert Cecil was overflowing with desperate appeals from nobles and gentlemen grown

old and angry in the wars. Thete was George Lord Audley, who in language befogged with self-pity begged for a grant of Irish lands ‘to advance the ruins and downfall of an old and decayed house. ... 1 have fought for it. I have lost my blade and limbs and have been oftentimes like also to lose my life.’ There was Captain Bostock who had spent eighteen years at war on land and sea since the siege of Antwerp in 1582, the last twelve of which had been at his own expense. He claimed to have spent his blood and £1,000 and now sought reward from the Queen. There was Sir Edward Denny,

who spent £660 at sea and £700 in Ireland and died £1,900 in debt, leaving his wife—so she alleged—unable even to buy herself 1 HMC Ancaster MSS., p. 25. G. Bertie, Five Generations of a Loyal House, 1845, passim. For Lord Cromwell, see tnfra, pp. 485-6. 2 See, for example, J. E. Neale, ‘Elizabeth and the Netherlands, 1586-7’, EHR, xlv, 1930; C. G. Cruickshank, E/izabeth’s Army, Oxtord, 1946, chs, vii, viii.

458 OFFICE AND THE COURT a moutning gown; there was John Bargar who claimed to have spent neatly {/2,000 as gentleman volunteer in four expeditions under the Earl of Essex; there was Ludovic Briskett reduced to penury after twenty-five years’ service; there was Sit Edward Wingfield, “a poor gentleman wasted and consumed in the wats’, Sit Thomas Wylsford who had spent £2,000 of his own money in excess of his army pay, Sir Thomas Norris who died £1,000 in debt and unable to be buried ‘in any honourable sort’, Sir Henry Bagenall who claimed to be £6,000 to £7,000 poorer after a life of military service, Captain John Baxter who professed to be in a similar condition.! These cris de ceur should not be taken entitely at their face value—Elizabethans had a taste for dramatizing their misfortunes—but there was undoubtedly a bitter sense of resentment among the old soldiers by the end of the century. The Essex tevolt proves the extent to which some were prepared to go to relieve

their feelings and obtain what they regarded as their deserts. War did not pay its English practitioners in the late sixteenth century. Under the Early Stuarts, things at this lower level were rather

different. Generous toyal rewards, the growing prosperity of Ireland, the assurance of service with the Dutch and later in the Thirty Years War, all helped the advancement of that now much diminished band who continued to pursue a military career. Lord Cromwell’s Irish estates saved something from the wreckage of his fortunes. Sir George Carew waxed rich and got a title, and a host of lesser military adventurers also prospered as settlers and admin-

istrators in Jacobean Ireland. Professionals like Sir Horace Vere and Sit Edward Cecil were taised to the peerage for their military services, Sit Edward Conway based his success with Buckingham on his reputation as a military expert. The military career was at last becoming a reasonably attractive one for the professional man, and the disgruntled old captains who flocked about Essex House in January 1601 were now largely a thing of the past. Nevertheless, there is no sign that there was any easing of the financial burden on the nobleman who went off to the wars as officer or volunteer. The demands on his private resources 1n equipment and hospitality remained as great as ever, and that shrinking group who continued to feel a moral obligation to undergo military service still had to pay dearly for the experience. * HMCS, vi, p. 3945 viii, p. 343; ix, pp. 276, 390; x, pp. 35, 58, 223, 292, 3353 xi, Pp. 30; XV, P. 110; xvi, pp. 52, 384.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 459 (4) Diplomatic Service

A nobleman was chosen individually to go abroad as ambassador, and when the summons came it was neither politic nor honourable

to refuse. In the first place successful accomplishment of a mission might mean advancement and further reward thereafter. As Sit Robert Sydney remarked on hearing of his nomination for an embassy to France, ‘though it be chargeable at the first, I hope it

wil bring reputation and profit both in the end’. In any case acceptance was regarded as a moral obligation imposed upon men

of birth and wealth by the circumstances of their existence, and evasion or refusal to serve was for long thought to be discreditable.

That service upon embassies involved a severe drain on the personal finances of the lord was a convention accepted by both King and peers: it was the other side of the coin of gifts, rewards, and favouts, and in 1621 Ben Jonson addressed the Marquis of Hamilton

in terms that make explicit the relationship between wealth and service.!

Renaissance diplomacy was conducted on two levels, of which

the first was the day-to-day routine, handled by the permanent ambassador in residence; the second was high-level negotiations for a marriage treaty ot a military alliance, and the ostentatious display of opulence and splendour on such formal occasions as the

christening of a royal child or the conferring of the Order of the Garter. The permanent ambassadors at this time were mostly of lesser tank, men like Sir Edward Stafford or Sir Henry Wotton, who despite their incessant complaints do not seem to have fared too badly. Sir William Cornwallis lobbied for the post as consul in Venice, not, he was careful to point out, with a view to ‘service unto Venus’ with the famous courtesans of the Rialto, but rather ‘in my absence to restore and recover my estate which is shrunk and shaken with so many years service to a prince utterly without teward’.? It was the great set-pieces which ran away with the money, and these were reserved for peers. It was not merely that only a man

of the highest rank was thought suitable for such occasions, but also that the financial strain was too great to be borne by any but a man of really great wealth. When the summons came, the nobleman had first to equip himself for the journey. He had to have 1 HMCD, ii, p. 145.C. H. H. Percy and E. Simpson, Complete Works of Ben Jonson, Oxford, 1941, vii, p. 586. 2 HMCS, xv, p. 176.

460 OFFICE AND THE COURT horses, coaches, sumptuous clothes for himself, and rich liveries for his attendants. He had to transport himself and his train across sea and land to the foreign capital. Once abroad, he had to maintain his

horde of servants and attendants, to entertain lavishly, and to dispense rich presents to influential officials and politicians about the Court. Towards these enormous costs the English Crown—as always—

made only a grudging contribution. Elizabeth usually, but not invariably, made a modest cash advance of a few hundred pounds for equipment, paid—in due course—an expense claim for travel and postage, and gave a salary for maintenance of between £4 and £6 a day. But this allowance was not adjusted to keep pace with the ptice revolution—the Earl of Lincoln in 1572 and the Earl of

| Leicester sixty years later were both given £6 a day for embassies to France—and it was in any case months or even years in arrears. Once the ambassador had presented his credentials, the basic cost

of food and housing was expected to be met by the host government, so that in theory the per diem allowance should have been sheer gain. In fact the incidental extras ate it all up and there was tately any money left over. On his departure for home the ambassador might expect a rich present from the prince to whom he

had been accredited, and occasionally this was on so gigantic a scale as to convert the embassy from a loss to a profit. For example,

at the end of the Earl of Nottingham’s embassy to Spain after the conclusion of the peace treaty in 1605, Philip III gave him £20,000 plus all his expenses.! Normally, however, leaving presents were of mote modest dimensions, and were hardly adequate recompense for the expenses incurred. During the reign of Elizabeth the European inflation steadily widened the gap between soaring expenses and an unaltered daily allowance. In the first half of the reign the Earl of Bedford reckoned

that two embassies to France and Scotland had left him at least £3,300 out of pocket. The Earl of Derby’s lavish embassy to France

in 1571 with a train of 200 persons must have been even more expensive, and his son on a similar mission in 1587 had to borrow £1,000 to get himself launched. In 1572 the Earl of Worcester also borrowed £1,000 to fit himself out for Paris, and in the end he is ™ For a table of ambassadorial allowances, see L/Lib 74. For payments of travel expenses, see CSPD, Add., 1347-65, p. 429; Camden Misc. x, pp. xix-xx; HMCS, xii, p. 435; Althorp, ESP, i. Winwood, ii, p. 89.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 461 said to have sold land worth £66 a year in order to cover the costs.

Moreover, on occasions Elizabeth also passed off some of her obligations to foreign envoys in England on to the shoulders of her courtiers. In 1581 she made Lord and Lady Berkeley spend £2,500 in waiting for thirteen weeks on the royal suitor, the Duc d’Anjou, and some years later she made the Earl of Essex spend £2,200 in entertaining the Vidame of Chartres and his train for a month at York House, a charge which the French had expected the Queen to bear. In the 1590’s things got so bad that for the first time there developed a reluctance on the part of the nobility to continue to serve the Queen upon such terms. As early as 1585 Lord Willoughby

had asked to resign since “it passeth . . . my purse to bear the port and give rewards like a Queen’s ambassador’. Between 1596 and

1602 Lord Zouche retired to Guernsey in a sulk to recoup his fortunes shattered by two embassies; and Lords Darcy and Eure and the Earls of Northumberland and Rutland all sought to be excused on the grounds of financial incapacity. Emboldened by these signs of revolt, lesser men also began to indicate that their patience was exhausted, much to the indignation of Elizabeth. Thomas Edmondes, Sir Anthony Mildmay, Robert Beale, and Sir

Richard Fiennes all tried with varying degrees of firmness and success to avoid the unwelcome honour. Those who succumbed to the royal browbeating paid dearly for their weakness of will, and the final indignity occurred in 1603 when the ambassador to Scotland, Sir William Bowes, was arrested for debt by a London erocer while he was going about the Queen’s business. !

The situation was obviously becoming intolerable, but things improved very little in the first years of King James. When tn 1604 the Earl of Hertford led an embassy to the Archduke in Brussels, he is said to have spent between {10,000 and £12,000 in excess of his allowance, a figure which his private papers suggest may well be not too far from the truth. He was accompanied by two barons, twenty knights, and seven gentlemen, who with their servants made up ninety persons. In his personal train he took two chaplains, one

stewatd, one secretaty, one gentleman of the horse, two gentleman ushers, one harbinger, one master of carriages, four gentlemen 1 Woburn. T. Wright, Queen Elizabeth and Her Times, 1838, i, pp. 449-50. CSPD Add., 1j66-79, p. 436. Smyth, ii, p. 314. L/Dev I, f. 80. BM Lansd. MSS. 53/66. CSPF, ry8s—6, p. 218. HMCS, v, p. 151; vi, pp. 193, 195, 260, 261, 264, 302, 388; vii, pp. 309, 316; ix, Pp. 3023 X, Pp. 307, 340; Xli, pp. 157, 249, 280; XIV, p. 11; XV, Pp. 3; XVI, Pp. 74.

462 OFFICE AND THE COURT of the chamber, six pages, one surgeon, one physician, one apothe-

cary, four grooms of the chamber, sixteen gentleman and thirty yeoman waiters, three wardrobers, eight musicians and eight trum-

peters, six footmen, ten lackeys, and thirty kitchen, buttery, and pantry staff, making a total of 137. He borrowed £4,300 before he set out and spent another £4,500 on the purchase of jewels. During the course of the embassy he gave away chains, jewels, and other presents to the value of nearly £10,000, besides entertaining lavishly. It is hardly surprising that he saddled himself with debts which were still over {22,000 in 1611, and that when he died in 1621 he was still deep in the toils of his creditors, despite extensive land sales.!

Personal sacrifice on this scale could obviously not continue for long, and when the great embassies began in connexion with the

Spanish Match and the Thirty Years War, James found himself obliged to pay or promise to pay for the fabulous cost of these expeditions. But some peers continued to impoverish themselves through the negligence or forgetfulness of their sovereign. Sir Walter Aston ran up a huge debt and had to sell all but five of his manors as the tesult of a Spanish embassy, and never obtained the £14,000 recompense promised by King Charles. On the other hand

someone in high favour like Lord Digby received some £26,000 for a peace mission in 1621~2, and was certainly never out of pocket

as a result of his embassies. The Earls of Carlisle and Holland led some of the most grossly extravagant embassies of the century, but they both managed to squeeze sufficient from the Crown to cover their expenses—even though in 1628 the Crown was owing Holland £23,800. By now the cost of these elaborate pageants was not far off that of a military campaign. Making peace was almost as expensive as waging war, and was far beyond the reach of private purses.”

Royal service was thus by no means an unmixed blessing. There wete a few who gained a vast fortune, some who acquited a modest competence, and many who were enabled to live in a style which would otherwise have been beyond their means. There were many mote, however, who gained nothing but debts and disappointment. If life at Court was nearly all kicks under Elizabeth, it was certainly 1 Winwood, ii, p. 52. HMC Cowper MSS. i, p. 62; see also ii, p. 79. L/Sey XI, ff. 133, 165-8, 280, Savernake 211.

2 A. Clifford, Tixal] Letters, 1815, i, pp. 80-82. CSPD, 1639-40, pp. 252-3; 1628-9, p. 49. A. Collins, Peerage of England, 1779, i, p. 1106.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 463 not exclusively ha’pence under James and Charles. In 1661 the Marquis of Argyle warned his son that ‘it is possible a man may get an estate at Court, but it is more probable he may lose one; ... so much is a Court worse than a lottery’.? VI. THE IMPACT OF THE SYSTEM (1) Court Attendance

Just how many of the peerage were in Court at any given time is not at all easy to discover. The inadequacy of the evidence, culled

as it is from casual correspondence, mention in the accounts of professional letter-writers, and the list of donors of New Year gifts to the monarch—the last of doubtful significance anyway—makes precise calculation impossible. Moreover, such figures as can be

compiled are of limited value. In 1554 the Venetian ambassador was struck by the fact that ‘the nobility, save such as are employed at Court, do not habitually reside in the cities, but in their own countty mansions’. As a result the Court was a place to which many came for certain periods of the year, or which they only attended during their youth and early manhood. For what it is worth, it looks as if up to two-thirds of the peerage spent at any tate part of their time at Court in the early and middle years of Elizabeth. Contemporaries believed that numbers were falling off in the late 1590’s, and they may well have been right. A list of about 1597 of men who had at one time or another served the Queen suggests that about 60 per cent. of the peerage had been courtiers, for it lists 23 peers who wete not privy councillors. By contrast it names 54 principal gentry who had served in Court out of a total of 272. But Lancashire is omitted, where one might expect at least another 6 to 8 principal gentry to have been noted, and the

whole body of leading gentry, as here defined, may therefore be reckoned at about 280. At this stage, therefore, only about 1 in 5 of the greater squirearchy had served in Court, compared with 3 in 5 of the peerage.”

The accession of the open-handed James saw a flood of peers and squires to Court, and at least three-quarters of the aristocracy wete permanent or occasional courtiers between 1603 and 1615. Though the surge into London never ceased, the irresponsible t Archibald Marquis of Argyle, Instructions to a Son, 1661, p. 57. 2 CSP Ven., 1934-54, p. 544. HMCD, ti, p. 475. SP 12/269/46.

464 OFFICE AND THE COURT despotism of Buckingham and the moral turpitude of the courtiers prevented any noticeable increase in the number actually in Court between 1616 and 1628. Even so, about 75 per cent. of the aristocracy exchanged New Year gifts with the King in 1627, compared with 60 per cent. who had felt such an obligation in 1579.1 It was

not till Charles’s personal government, from 1629 to 1640, that the situation was drastically changed. Political and religious opposition combined with enforcement of government regulations about

residence in London and the drying up of the flow of favours sharply to reduce the number of Court peers to between a third and a half of the whole body. Charles, Henrietta Maria, and Laud thus contrived to restrict the Court to a narrower circle than had been seen for over a century. The principal force which held the nobility in Court was the hope of office and reward, a force strengthened by the dissemination of a social theory which exalted service to the Crown as the justification of aristocratic privilege. The distribution of these favours was designed to create a community of interests in a national system of royal clientage, and in 1579 Elizabeth was advised by Burghley to ‘gratyfye your nobylyte, and the pryncypall persons of your realme,

to binde them faste to you. .., wherby you shall have all men of value in the realme to depend only upon youtselfe’.2 This was the ideal, practised with considerable success by the Tudors up

to about 1590, but an ideal that in the end proved incapable of

realization. |

(2) Office-holding

Personal character was the main factor in determining whether , of not a man born in the peerage achieved office. Even in 1558 the ©

Crown was strong enough, with its own supporters, to be able to distribute offices at will. No one was sufficiently powerful to be able to impose himself upon an unwilling Queen, and if the Crown was limited in its selection of a Warden of the Marches or a President of the Council of Wales, in the central offices of government it was free to act as it chose. Even when many great offices were put up

, for sale by James after 1616, the old criteria of ability, intrigue, connexions, and favour continued to be the dominant factors. Willingness to pay the price demanded played a less important role 1 BM Egerton MSS. 2816; Add. MSS. 38857. 2 Murdin, op. cit., p. 340.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 465 than the comments of letter-writers like John Chamberlain might at first sight suggest. In any discussion of office it must be remembered that there wete deep-seated structural reasons why only a small, and indeed a diminishing, number of total applicants could hope to be satisfied. Two outstanding peculiarities of England in the sixteenth century

were its failure to create a large standing army and its failure to develop a national bureaucracy covering both central and local government. The lack of a permanent army meant that in peacetime there were very few military posts indeed suitable for the nobility. The central organs of government certainly expanded greatly, especially during the 1530’s, but several of the new depattments disappeared again in the reorganization of the 1550's, and in any case the growth was more in clerks and minor officials than in posts suitable for a magnate. Local government remained firmly in the hands of the unpaid country gentry acting as J.P.s, and the only increase of aristocratic offices under the Tudors was by the cteation of the post of Lord Lieutenant of the Shire.

The first task is to discover just how many of the peerage managed to secure for themselves an office which satisfied their desire for employment, prestige, and emoluments. For this purpose it is reasonable to exclude minor local officers such as councillors of the Councils of the North and Wales, stewards of lands, rangers of forests, vice-admirals, and justices of the peace. Army or navy officers appointed for a single campaign and special ambassadors appointed for a single mission of limited duration obviously had no petmanent stake in the central political system. On balance the office of Lord Lieutenant must also be excluded, since, although it brought local prestige and influence and involved a certain amount of work, it was only a part-time job and was financially a burden tather than an asset. This leaves privy councillors, officers in the

central administration, in the royal household, or about the royal | person like gentlemen of the bedchamber or gentlemen of the ptivy chamber; the presidents of the Councils of the North and Wales; lords deputy and provincial governors in Ireland; wardens of Marches; professional army officers and permanent ambassadors. Apart from membership of the Privy Council, under half a dozen of whose aristocratic members held no other office, there were fewer 1 See, for example, the complaints of Francis Earl of Bedford in 1580 about the Lord Lieutenancy of Devon (Woburn).

821314 Hh

466 OFFICE AND THE COURT than thirty positions in the late sixteenth century to which peets of the realm could with dignity aspire, and to which they were sometimes appointed. Really great offices carrying serious responsibility were fewer than twenty, anumber which hardly altered under James. Indeed three offices of rather lesser importance, the wardenships of the Marches, actually disappeared, though in compensation there was an increase in minor offices of ceremonial rather than administrative significance. The change from a queen to a king meant the creation of a number of places as gentlemen of the bedchamber, while the separate establishments of the Queen and of the Prince opened up further possibilities. Moreover, peers were now willing

to accept jobs which had previously been thought suitable only for knights or esquires, and in consequence at one time or another in the early seventeenth century they were occupying about forty offices. Even so, the concurrent titular inflation meant that the ratio of office to title was falling fast: one to two under Elizabeth compared with one to three under Charles. After 1603 the peerage had

to face the invasion of Scottish place-seekers and the growing competition for posts from an educated and ambitious gentry. Although in England empleomania never became anything like the obsession it didin Spain or France, the same pressures were at work, and the gentry were increasingly attracted by the prospect of office.

So many families had risen that way in the 1530’s and 1540’s that the tradition of easy fortunes to be made in office lingered on long after much of the reality had fled. Moreover, the spectacular wealth that still came to the successful few blinded the many to the length of the odds against them. As in the present-day bar, the prestige of the profession and the huge fortunes to be won by a small minority stimulated a rush of aspitants out of all proportion to the rewards that could reasonably be expected. In a valuable pioneer study Professor MacCaffrey has estimated

that there were at least 1,000 gentleman placemen at any given moment in Elizabeth’s reign, compared with about 2,500 aspirants among the leading squires and gentry. ‘The second figure is perhaps

a little exaggerated, and the first very seriously overestimated indeed, since the definition of places includes jobs just acceptable

to minor gentry but certainly not to the leading squires of the county. In any case there are included among the placemen some Goo bailiffs, stewards, constables, and park or forest keepers, who were not members of the central government, which is what we are

OFFICE AND THE COURT 467 here concerned with. Mote significant is the fact that the total number of jobs open to a gentleman in the whole of the royal household only amounted to 175, a figure which includes some 60

gentleman pensioners. If a guess has to be made—and it can be little more—it would be that the ratio of aspirants to suitable jobs under Elizabeth was about 2 to 1 for the aristocracy, 5 to 1 for the 500 leading county families, and anything up to 30 to 1 for the parochial gentry. Of the 679 gentry of Yorkshire in 1642 only 22 held salaried offices under the Crown in London, Ireland, or at home, and only a further 1o held stewardship of crown lands.! Striking evidence of the explosive demand for office under the Crown in the decades after 1585 is provided by the manuscript lists of offices, office-holders, and fees that found their way into almost

every substantial country house in England. It was not till after the Restoration that Edward Chamberlayne first put this kind of information into print, and before 1669 the aspiring official had to find his way about the Whitehall jungle with the aid of these manu-

script lists. Though one or two belong to the middle of the sixteenth century and a handful to the 1570’s, they can mostly be dated to between 1585 and 1625. There are at least sixty examples of this

petiod and no doubt there were once hundreds mote.? These lists only give official fees and not estimates of true income, and they often include information about such miscellaneous items as trained bands, castles, and bishoprics. Thus it could be argued that in part they satisfied a growing demand for statistical information in a prestatistical age. All the same, the chronology of the outburst and the

information contained indicate that they also served a practical purpose, to acquaint candidates with the structure of the governmental machine into which they were hoping to insett themselves. IW. T. MacCaffrey, ‘Place and Patronage in Elizabethan Politics’, Elizabethan Government ana Society, 1961, pp. 99-108. J. T. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry on the Eve of the Civil War, London

Ph.D. thesis, 1960, p. 61. 2 E. Chamberlayne, Angliae Notitia, 1669. SP 12/121; 235/9. BM Add. MSS. 11405, f. 64; 14285; 18666; 29888; 31825; 33276; 34010; 34395, f. 71; 34793; 38008, f. 49; 35848, f. 4. BM Stowe MSS. 570/15; 571. BM Sloane MSS. 1520. BM Cotton MSS. Titus B III, f. 154. BM Harl. MSS. 829/10; 1848; 1857; 1877/62; 2078; 4137; 4257; 6265/1; 6381. BM Lansd. MSS. 254/9; 272; 273. HMC Beaulien MSS., p. 54. HMC jgrd Rep., App., pp. 63, 275; 4th Rep., App., p. 404; 6¢h Rep., App., p. 249; 7¢# Rep., App., p. 591; 77th Rep., App. vii, pp. 249, 270, 307. Bod] Ashmole MSS. 792, VI 2; 824, XXII 1; 821, I. Bod! North MSS. d. 58. Bodl MSS. Eng. Hist. C 290, f. 190. CUL Dd III/85/14; IX/53; LIIV/11; Ee V/24, 29, 30. Lambeth 286, 289. Boughton NC 7/2. Elton Hall, Proby MSS. 430. Chatsworth/H 18. Northants. R.O., Westmorland MSS. Box 4/XIII/73; Cartwright MSS. Kent R.O., Darrell MSS. Lincs. R.O., Worsley MSS. 30. Herts. R.O., Gorhambury MSS. XII A 58. WSL, Dartmouth MSS. 33, 34. Sheff CL/S 32. Peck, 1. ii. Arch, xv, 1806, p. 72.

468 OFFICE AND THE COURT This evidence of gentry competition for government office can be supported from other angles. One or two prudent Elizabethan fathers were beginning to provide for younger sons by selling land and using the money to purchase an office. Gentry families like the Fanshawes, the Tookes, or the Molyneux were acquiring an heredi-

tary grip on offices in the Exchequer, the Court of Wards, the Duchy of Lancaster, and elsewhere. For 150 years the Weldons setved the Crown in various capacities, as Sewer, Cofferer of the Household, Clerk of the Green Cloth, and Clerk of the Kitchen, though only under Henry VIII did they derive any very striking benefits from the association, and the last of the line did not hesitate to bite the hand that had so inadequately fed him.3 During the reign of Elizabeth this pressure from below was held in check by the social snobbery of the Queen, a prejudice which did much to ensure that at any rate the earls were usually given official employ-

ment. But James had few such inhibitions and many favourites and Scottish cronies to reward. In the struggle for office the older peerage—and particularly the barons—were now exposed to the full blast of competition from a masterful and self-confident gentry. There were said to have been 300-400 candidates for the top twenty or so offices in the new household of the little Prince Charles in 1638.7

Three hundred and eighty-two peers held a title between 1558 and 1641, of whom forty were ineligible for office by reason of age ot incapacity. Of the remaining 342, 38 per cent. held office during this period.; The percentage of eligible peers who held office rose

very slightly from the Elizabethan to the Early Stuart period, but this was merely the result of the greater willingness of the Stuarts

to elevate to the peetage men who had proved their worth in responsible positions : about 60 per cent. of the post-1603 creations

were office-holders. It was also due to the fact that under James the rate of turnover in office was very much faster than under Eliza-

beth. The reign saw the sudden rise of Montgomery, Salisbury, Northampton, Suffolk, Somerset, Buckingham, St. Albans, and 1 Weldon. B. Schofield, The Knyvett Letters, 1949, p. 25. H. E. Bell, The Court of Wards, Cambridge, 1953, pp. 24-25. R. Somerville, The Duchy of Lancaster, 1953, i, pp. 443-4, 487, 489, 496. Hasted, i, p. 261. For similar developments in purveying for the Household, see Woodworth, op. cit., pp. 58, 69, 75. 2 Naunton, p. 149. Knowler, ii, p. 167. 3 The statistical tables on which the following paragraphs are based are given in Appendix XIX a and B,

OFFICE AND THE COURT 469 Middlesex. It saw the equally swift eclipse of Cobham, Grey, Northumberland, Somerset, Suffolk, St. Albans, and Middlesex. In 1624

there were alive four lords treasurer, four lords chamberlain, four secretaries, three masters of the Court of Wards, two lords keeper or lords chancellor, and two lords admiral, past or present : “Fortunes Wheele’ was spinning at an unprecedented pace during these years.!

It is these two factors rather than any real increase in aristocratic office-holding that explains why in 38 years the Early Stuarts employed 84 peers whereas Elizabeth in 45 could only find places for 56.

The true measure of aristocratic office-holding is revealed by the percentage of heirs of peers, as distinct from new creations, who

succeeded in obtaining office, and it is here that the important change lies. Whereas 33 per cent. took office under Elizabeth, only

22 per cent. had such luck under the Early Stuarts. This was the inevitable result of the rapid numerical increase in the peerage, far outstripping the modest increase in the number of jobs. Unless the Crown was willing deliberately to adopt a more aristocratic policy in selecting its officers, the prospects for a born peer inevitably diminished, just at the time when he was increasingly turning to the Court rather than the Country to provide him with a career. When one looks at the pattern of office-holding it becomes obvious that the experience of individual families differed very widely indeed. Earls had much stronger claims to office than mere barons and were more frequently successful, though there were four successive eatls of Bath who held no office at all between 1558

and 1641. Some families seem to have been content with their lot and lived mostly in the country, like the Darcys of Aston, the Howards of Bindon, the Nevills lords Bergavenny, the Willoughbys of Parham, the Mordaunts, and the Whartons. Others, like the Parkers lords Morley, the Vaux, and the Petres, had retirement forced upon them by their Catholic beliefs. Yet others, like the Sandys or the Windsors, spent a century vainly seeking office, usually with disastrous financial consequences. One or two families, on the other hand, successfully maintained their grip on royal favour. The Berties and the Herberts held office from generation to generation without a break, and the Comptons and the Howards

of Effingham were not far behind. Some, like the Brookes, the Careys, the Cecils lords Burghley, and the Norths, held office continuously under Elizabeth, but failed to retain their influence under 1 Bod! MS. Eng. Poet. C 50. CA, ii, pp. 325, $92.

470 OFFICE AND THE COURT the new dynasty. The accession of the Stuarts saw their replacement by new families like the Hamiltons and the Saviles, the Stuarts and the Sydneys, who were all in office for two successive generations. (3) Gafts and Favours

Attendance at Court and the holding of office are only two of the three factors involved in this problem of the relations between the Crown and the aristocracy. The third is the flow of gifts and favours from the Crown, its amount and its ditection. Here again, we cannot

rest content with mere impressions and must attempt, however doubtfully, to provide some sort of quantitative measurement. In evaluating the figures set out in Appendix XIX, however, four things must be borne in mind. In the first place, the calculation takes no account of the direct profits of office, sales of subordinate offices, or gifts and bribes from clients and suitors—except those to the Earl of Portland, which were accepted with the express consent of the King and can therefore be classed as indirect royal favouts. Secondly, even if we can quantify the value of all grants, however indirect their nature, there are other benefits which must necessarily escape our scrutiny, for example those of the taxation system, which was deliberately rigged to benefit the courtier class.' Thirdly, the fioures deal with the profits actually received by the grantee, not those which the Crown supposed itself to be distributing, and the discrepancy may on occasion be substantial: old debts were worth much less than face value, lands much more. Fourthly, in all these calculations of value, the degree of accuracy varies with the type of grant. The estimates for land are only very approximate, but are probably not too wide of the mark. Those for all types of patent are

undoubtedly only minimum figures. Those for the sale of titles exclude all sales of Irish peerages, baronetcies, and knighthoods, and anyway only include those items which are definitely known. The true figure must be approximately double. Those for cash grants include a number of payments of arrears of annuities, of compensation for resignation from office, and of sums due for expenditure on embassies. To some extent therefore these ate inflated figures. When one looks at figures of grants to individuals, those to minor beneficiaries ate much more accurate than those to greater. It is impossible to do mote than obtain a rough order of 1 See supra, pp. 496-7.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 471 magnitude for the value of the gifts bestowed on the Duke of Buckingham. Benefits of £30,000 and below, however, can be assessed with reasonable accuracy. On balance it is likely that both the incompleteness of the evidence

and the method of calculation adopted tend to underestimate the

full value of the benefits to individuals. On the other hand, a number of the grants were in compensation for expenditure on state service, the cost of which the Crown would otherwise have been obliged to bear. Moreover it may be that they exaggerate the true cost to the Crown, since some of the grants were direct, in the form of cash, land, or annuities, while others were indirect, like monopolies and customs farms, the full profits of which could only theoretically have been obtained by the Crown itself. Bearing these elements of uncertainty in mind, we can now turn to the calculations themselves in Appendix XIX. To illustrate the variations in the rate of giving at different periods, the eighty-three years from 17 November 1558 to 31 December 1641 have been divided into four periods. The breaks have been chosen so as to bring out the changes in the scale of giving which resulted from the mounting pressure on Elizabethan finances from the threat and actuality of wat after 1577; from the accession of the open-handed

James in 1603; and from the death of Buckingham and the inauguration of the new political programme in 1628. By a happy coincidence these divisions provide two central periods of twentyfive and a half years each, which makes direct comparison from

Elizabethan parsimony to Jacobean generosity all the easier to draw.

All known grants recorded in warrant books, patent rolls, and other records have been listed, and private and public archives have been combed for evidence as to their value. All grants, whether

of annuities, land, or monopolies have then been converted into capital sums, and calculated in units with a value of {1,000 each in period III from 1603 to 1628. To allow for the depreciation in the

value of money, all grants have been adjusted approximately in accotdance with the Phelps Brown price index. That is to say, the unit has been altered to {600, {800, and £1,200in periods I, I, and IV respectively. This is a very crude method of correction, but a more elaborate calculation by a moving annual price index would itself introduce new elements of guesswork, and would only serve to create a misleading impression of statistical precision. Grants of

472 OFFICE AND THE COURT land in fee simple have been capitalized at 30 years’ purchase of old Crown tents before 1603 and at 4o years’ thereafter, and grants in fee-farm at 10 yeats’ purchase before and 20 years’ after. Annuities

and the profits of patents for life or 21 years have been conservatively valued at 7 years’ purchase, though when they in fact ended before 7 yeats this has been taken into account. Leases of crown lands, exchanges of lands, grants of wardship, and sales of baronetcies and knighthoods have been omitted since it has proved impossible to put a value on them; in any case they are unlikely to have been of teally great importance. Restorations of property to the heirs of attainted peets have been included only when there was a teal danger that the estate might pass into other hands owing to lapse of time since the attainder. Thus the restorations of land to the Earls of Warwick and Arundel and to Lord Paget have been included, but not those to the Earls of Southampton, Essex, and

| Strafford, and to Lord Audley. This is admittedly an arbitrary decision, but on balance it seems a reasonable one. |

It is important to emphasize once again that these figures can of their very nature be only the very roughest of approximations, for their compilation involves a wide range of both factual uncertainty

and subjective judgement. There are a large number of grants, particularly of lands and of monopolies, whose value can only be very roughly guessed at. The evidence is not complete, and some grants have undoubtedly gone unrecorded. Capital values have been calculated by the use of deliberately conservative multipliers.

Granted all these manifold defects and omissions, can the resultant figures be telied upon to tell anything at all? They can, if treated with caution, give some idea of the scale of giving and the fluctuations of that scale; and they make it possible to pick out the individuals who benefited most from the system. Even a rough and unsatisfactory calculation of quantity and quality is better than no guide at all save vague impressions. Moreover at all times peers

were the principal, though by no means the only, beneficiaries. Elizabeth’s failure to elevate men like Sir Richard Sackville, Sir Francis Knollys, and Sir Christopher Hatton means that one or two

substantial grantees ate not included in the figures. Similarly, at least one large Jacobean grantee, Lord Bruce, was a Scotsman who never obtained an English title. Nevertheless, these figures embrace all but one of the really large, and all but a handful of the moderately large, grantees at any period, and so provide a not entirely inadequate

OFFICE AND THE COURT 473 criterion for assessing the general burden to the Crown of this system of outdoor relief.!

Between 1558 and 1641 the Crown gave away to the peerage grants and favours totalling 3,541 units; that is, to the value of over three-and-a-half million pounds in Jacobean money. But this huge sum was not distributed evenly either in time or throughout the peerage as a whole. In the later years of Elizabeth the scale of giving was only a little over half what it had been in the earlier (and nearly half of what little was given poured into the bottomless pockets of a single individual, Robert Earl of Essex). It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the accession of King James was greeted with rapturous enthusiasm. Six months after the death of Elizabeth, the Earl of Shrewsbury remarked with satisfaction that ‘she valued every molehill that she gave... at amountain; which our Sovereign

now does not’. This was an understatement of the attitude of James, who scampered south in 1603 to savour what he assumed to be the inexhaustible wealth that had fallen to him. In his anxiety to please he was ready to share these riches out among his friends,

old and new, or indeed to hand them out to anyone who cared to ask him politely. As a result, the rate of giving increased by a factot of over 13 in the next twenty-five-and-a-half years, when grants with a capital value of about two-and-three-quarter million pounds were distributed amongst the aristocracy: land or fee-farm rents worth well over one million pounds; half a million in cash, fines, or remission of debt; half a million in annuities; a quarter of a million in customs farms; well over {150,000 in the sale of honours; at least £125,000 and probably a great deal more in monopolies of vatious types. James and Buckingham had succeeded in giving away to the aristocracy alone a sum equivalent to half the total cost to Elizabeth of the Anglo-Spanish War from 1585 to 1603.3 Such largesse would have been impossible without the making of peace, a fact that cannot have escaped the notice of the privy councillors who negotiated the treaty in 1604. It is more than a coincidence that all the more vociferous members of the anti-Spanish, wat party in the reign of James were either members of the country gentry group with little expectation of royal favour, or were fallen courtiers like Ralegh with nothing more to hope for. Now it was the taxpayers who were annoyed, while the courtiers were too gorged to speak. As early as 1604 the Archbishop of York 1 See Appendix XIXc. 1. 2 HMCS, xv, p. 257. 3 See Appendix XIXc. 2.

474 OFFICE AND THE COURT sent Salisbury a delicately phrased warning : “His Majesty’s subjects

heat and fear that his excellent and heroical nature is too much inclined to giving, which in short time will exhaust the treasure of the kingdom and bring many inconveniences.’ Though James himself admitted that ‘my heart is greater then my rent’, he did little to remedy the discrepancy. Various devices were tried to stop

the running of the cistern. A “book of bounty’ was published in 1610 and again in 1619 setting strict limits to the type of grant the King was willing to make; a large section of the royal estate was entailed by act of Parliament to prevent further alienation; and time after time the Privy Council got James to agree to refer to them all suits and petitions for grants. It was no good. No one, not Salisbury, not Cranfield, could get the King to economize, and Cranfield was ruined for his pains.?

But the spending spree did not last. James died in 1625 and the assassination of Buckingham in 1628 jolted Charles out of his com-

placency. The King now determined to rule without Parliament and to launch an administrative new deal. The lavish distribution of favours of the past quarter of a century was a luxury the Crown could no longer afford, and one which in any case offended against the spirit of the new order. In consequence the scale of giving fell away to less than a quarter of its previous tate, though it was still

three times larger than that of the latter years of Elizabeth. If office and rewards are lumped together, the same picture of fluctuating distribution emerges.? One or other, or both, came the way of 37 per cent. of heirs of peers in group A (dead by 1603), rose to 56 per cent. in group B (aged over 30 in 1603), and fell again to 36 per

cent. in group D (aged under 30 in 1603 and over 30 in 1641). Of coutse a large number of those included in these figures only obtained minor pickings and did not regard themselves as adequately rewatded or promoted. If one takes the individuals, whether peers or not, who either held sufficiently profitable office or were given favours sufficiently large to have an important effect on family fortunes—say, grants of more than ten units—the differences are even mote striking. Between 1558 and 1577 seven present or future peers obtained

grants of this order, to whom should be added Sir Christopher 1 HMCS, xv, p. 99; xvi, pp. 220, 394. CSPD, 1623-5, pp. 535, 540; 1603-10, p. 11; Add., 1s 80-162), pp. 424, 531. Notestein and Relf, vii, pp. 491-6. SP 14/37/72-76. Bodl 4° D 18 Art. James I, Workes, 1616, p. 542. Cabala, p. 296.

2 See Appendix XTXp. 3 See Appendix XITXz.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 475 Hatton, Sir Richard Sackville, and Sir Francis Knollys, who were

never ennobled, and the Marquis of Winchester, who took his profits from office. In all there were, therefore, at least 11 major beneficiaries in the first 19 years of the reign. Between 1578 and 1603, however, only 4 peers or future peers obtained substantial grants, to whom should be added the profiteers from office, Burgh-

ley, Nottingham, and Buckhurst, making a mere 7 in 254 years. Between 1603 and 1628 the number of substantial aristocratic grantees tose to no less than 43, to whom should be added the Scotsman Lord Bruce, and the profiteer from office Lord Ellesmere, making 45 in all. During the 13 years between 1629 and 1641 the

numbers fell off again to a mere 5. This means that the average number of major beneficiaries per decade began at 5-8, fell away to 2°7, rocketed to 17:6, and then dropped once more to 3-8. These

fisutes, approximate though they are and subject to all the uncertainties which have already been described, nevertheless serve

to give an idea of the hardships endured during the last years of Elizabeth, of the degree to which the nobility became dependent on royal favour during the Jacobean era, and of the shock of the sharp contraction in the scale of grants after the death of Buckingham in 1628. The last significant fact to emerge from these calculations is the

extreme inequality of the share-out. If only 117 out of the 342 eligible peers received some part of the 3,541 units, a mere 29 of these 117 obtained 75 per cent., and 9 hogged no less than 45 per cent. Two of the 9, Essex and Leicester, were lovers of the vitgin Queen; 3, Montgomery, Somerset, and Buckingham, were lovers of the homosexual King. In terms of social origins, 3 of the 9, Leicester, Montgomery, and Suffolk, were younger sons of peers; Buckingham was a son of English, and Holderness, Carlisle, and Somerset

sons of Scottish gentry; Essex was an English peer by birth, and Richmond a Scottish. Of the additional 20 major beneficiaries to make up the 29, 4 (Arundel, Northampton, Nottingham, and Berkshire) were Howards, the first 2 of whom were in part merely being restored to ancestral estates; 2 others, Warwick in 1558 and Paget in 1605, were also cases of restoration of forfeited inheritances. Three, the 13th Lord Grey of Wilton, the 3rd Lord Sheffield, and the 3rd Earl of Southampton, were English peers; 2, Holland and Salisbury, were younger sons of English, and 1, March, of Scottish peers. Anglesea, Bristol, Norwich (Goring),

476 OFFICE AND THE COURT Strafford, and Hunsdon were sons of gentry (the last being a cousin

of the Queen); the 1st and 2nd Earls of Cambridge were Scottish peers, and Dunbar a Scottish gentleman. Of these 29 individuals upon whom the sun shone so brightly, 21 received all or most of their grants between 1603 and 1628. Five of the 21 were members of the Howard family, and 2 of the Villiers, the first group getting about £400,000 or so, the second at least £500,000. Of the rest of the 21, 5 were Scotsmen, who obtained

about £850,000 during this time, or nearly a third of all that was going. There is thus some justification for the irritation of English peets at this invasion of highly favoured carpet-baggers from the north. Nor does this figure give an adequate picture of the full measure of favour to the Scots, for a disproportionately large number of the lesser beneficiaries were also Scotsmen. It was not merely a case of blowing up a handful of favourites into English dukes and earls, but of rescuing from penury a mob of ‘beggarly blewcaps’ who had ridden down hopefully with the King on their

lean horses in 1603. )

VII. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE SYSTEM (1) Dependence on the Crown

If the sixteenth-century nobility were powerfully attracted by the Court and were eager competitors for royal office, the Crown was no less anxious to encourage them in their ambitions. Like the other monarchs of Europe, the Tudors realized the importance of an alluring court as a stabilizing political factor. The King needed

a respectable turn-out of nobles to give lustre to his court and to impress foreigners and gentlemen up from the country with the splendour and opulence of his way of life. Even Henry VII had cultivated a luxurious court, and a woman as naturally parsimonious as Queen Elizabeth was careful to maintain a stately and expensive establishment. Mote important, the Court served to distract the nobles from the dangerous rutal pastimes of riot and rebellion, and to occupy them in time-consuming ceremonial and intrigue, both of which centred

round the Prince and tended to enhance his prestige and his authority. As the Earl of Northumberland was told in 1566, an absentee landlord could not command the same personal loyalty as a man living on the spot, and in any case potential traitors were more

OFFICE AND THE COURT 477 easily watched and their plots more swiftly intercepted if they were at Court than if they were lurking undisturbed in their rural strongholds. So long as the King was powerful enough to make a palace revolution unlikely, he felt safer with his magnates around him. It

was not merely the selfish desire of an ageing woman to be continually surrounded by lively and handsome young admirers that led Elizabeth to take drastic steps to prevent her nobles from slipping away from the Court. She had memories of the way revolt had begun in the past with a withdrawal of the aristocracy to their country seats to rally their clients, tenants, and dependants. In 1596 Elizabeth insisted that Essex should send back to the Court Derby, Southampton, Mountjoy, Compton, Windsor, and Sheffield, who had all rushed off to join in the expedition to relieve Calais. Here she was actuated less by personal affection than by a feeling that the

duty of the nobility was to serve about her person rather than to dance attendance upon a wart-lord on the field of battle. The place of peers was at Court; the place of gentry in the country or the army.

Such were the Queen’s ideas of the natural order of things.? The first effect of attracting the nobility to court by the lure of office and rewards was to turn them from haughty and independent magnates into a set of shameless mendicants. ‘Need obeys no law and forgets blushing’, wrote that paragon among Elizabethans, Sir Philip Sydney, one of whose proposals for his own financial benefit was to be allowed to prey upon his Catholic fellow-countrymen. If this was the attitude of a man of outstanding integrity, it is hardly

surprising that weaker vessels became totally absorbed in and corrupted by the quest for favours. Sir John Harington, finding Elizabeth unappreciative of his water-closet, sent King James in Scotland, as a New Year Gift for 1603, a lantern adorned with a crucifixion. Beneath were the words of the good thief on the cross,

‘Lotd, remember me when thou comest into thie kingdom’, an allusion which even James may have found a little hard to stomach.

It is very difficult today for us to recapture the hectic atmosphere of the Court with its scurrying intrigues, its hordes of promoters and projectors buttonholing the great with novel schemes for preying on the State and the subject; and at the centre the King, pursued by the wheedling cries of suitors from palace to palace, from chamber to chamber, from bedroom to hunting-field. Exasperated 1 G. R. Batho, “The Percies and Alnwick Castle, 1557-1632’, Arch. Aeliana, 4th ser., xxxv, 1957, p. 51. HMCD, ii, p. 475. Naunton, p. 59. CSPD, 1y9j-7, p. 203.

478 OFFICE AND THE COURT by this ceaseless bartage of importunity James once exclaimed in fury: “You will never let me alone. I would to God you had first my dublett and then my shirt, and when I were naked I thinke you would give me leave to be quiett.’! Few were as direct and to the point as Sir Christopher Hatton, who frankly explained ‘I axe because I want’, and the courts of Europe became notorious for dissimulation and sycophancy. Flattery of the reigning monarch has tarely reached more nauseating depths than in the last years of Queen Elizabeth, when courtiers vied with each other in praising the ‘incomparable beauty’ of an old

and wrinkled woman with blackened teeth and a red wig. When James uttered his rhodomontades about the divinity of kingship, he was doing no more than saying for himself what Elizabeth had preferred to encourage others to say about her. Not merely did the system turn all courtiers into sycophants, but it accentuated the psychological gulf between Court and Countty, giving the gentry a sense of clear moral superiority over the cringing courtiers. When bluff Lord Willoughby d’Eresby chose a life in the army in preference to one at Court, saying he was ‘none of the Repisia’, he was merely echoing a point of view that became ever more passionately felt in the next forty years.? The psychological and financial dependence of the nobility upon the Crown was further strengthened by the fact that many offices and rewards themselves gave rise to fresh entanglements. One of the most useful holds the medieval king had possessed over his baronage was the very heavy debts that so many of them owed him. These debts arose from feudal taxation, the purchase price of wardships, fines for offences and royal pardons, and arrears on the audit-

ing of official accounts. It has been calculated that in 1230 some 6o per cent. of the baronage owed the Crown sums which were between one and six times the annual value of their fiefs. So great was the potential power of the blackmail weapon this placed in the

hands of the Crown that it could only be used with discretion. As King John discovered at Runnymede, it was not wise to push the great too hard. It meant, however, that the strong king capable of enforcing his will could bring overwhelming pressure to bear. 1 HMCS, ii, p. 280. Hatton, p. 211. Hartington, i, p. 326. BM Harl. MSS. 1581, f. 78. 2 HMCS, ii, p. 280; x, p. 385; xi, p. 240. Birch, Elizabeth, ii, pp. 434-6. CSPD, 1601-3, p. 260. W. B. Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, 1865, p. 104. Naunton, p. 74.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 479 This was a weapon unscrupulously used by Henry VII, who took obligations and recognizances from his subjects and held them iz terrorem on condition of good behaviour. In this he eventually overreached' himself, and provoked a dangerous aristocratic reaction

at his death. No subsequent monarch attempted similar tactics, although huge sums were still being extracted from the nobility as late as 1521. Indeed for the first thirty years of his reign Henry VIII continued to use debts to the Crown to put pressure on his greater barons. Men like the 11th Earl of Derby and the 2nd Marquis

of Dorset saw some of their land taken over by extents to pay off the heavy accumulations of arrears. Viscount Lisle and Lord Audley

were almost ruined by these tactics, and the Earl of Northumberland was persuaded to make the King his heir to clear off a debt of £,10,400.!

Under Elizabeth the running up of enormous debts to the Crown became a regular feature of royal service. From the point of view

of the nobleman, these debts had the great advantage of being interest-free; from the point of view of the Crown, severity or leniency in exacting repayment offered a powerful instrument of control. During the Lord Treasurership of Lord Burghley, debts on official accounts were allowed to pile up unchecked, regardless of the consequences to the Exchequer balances. On the death of the

official, however, the day of settlement arrived. By this means powerful political personalities were kept sweet, the cost being met by their less influential heirs, who in turn were cowed by fears of demands for immediate repayment and by hopes of favourable treatment.

Other grants that could be cut off or renewed at will served a similar purpose of binding the nobility to the Crown. Attracted to the Court by hope of favours, peers were kept docile for fear of losing these elusive benefits, for opposition to the royal will might involve severe economic sanctions. A particularly useful tool for this purpose was the pension list, whose enormous extension under James has already been noted. Although usually given for life or a petiod of years, in fact a pension could always be left unpaid on a plea of royal poverty, as Southampton found to his cost in 1621

when his leadership of opposition to Buckingham cost him his 1 §. Painter, Studies in the History of the English Feudal Baronage, Baltimore, 1943, pp. 183-9.

66,954. cit., pp. 140-9. Le» P H VIII, 111. i, no. 1153; V, nos. 395, 4353 VIII, nos,

480 OFFICE AND THE COURT £3,000 a year. Dependence on royal bounty was also an effective

: cutb on those who found it hard to stomach some of the more disreputable devices of royal financial administration. When in 1634

the Earl of Arundel protested about the scandalous nature of the new soap monopoly, Portland made him face up to the ambiguity of his position. He was told that if he opposed ‘things that are for the King’s profit... your pension must be unpaid’. If from the point of view of the Crown the Court system was an invaluable weapon in its dealings with the aristocracy, to the latter it was a powerful factor in the advancement or decay of family fortunes. There were those who suspected that the Tudors deliberately set out to clip the wings of the ovet-mighty subject by absorbing his surplus revenues in expenditure on government setvice. In the sixteenth centuty, unlike the seventeenth, it was often thought to be a positive advantage to be out of office, and Sir Philip Sydney could describe the Papists as ‘of great riches (because the affairs of state have not laid on them)’. When Henry VII made sudden peace with France in 1493 before the campaign was properly

launched, Bacon alleged that the nobility were furious, “who had many of them sold or engaged their estates upon the hopes of the war. They stuck not to say that the King cared not to plume his nobility and people to feather himself.’ In 1568 it was reported

that now that Cecil had drawn the greater part of the northern | nobility to the Court ‘he keeps them of policy to make them spend their goods there’. This view was echoed in the early seventeenth century by Osborne and Weldon, who both thought that Elizabeth had deliberately mulcted the nobility by progresses and embassies so as to prevent them from maintaining ‘their former bewitching humour of hospitality’ and thereby ‘fomenting sedition’.2 How far these accusations of Machiavellian design are just, it is very hard

to say. But such comment certainly suggests that it was widely suspected that the Tudors had acted with premeditation, and there is no doubt that unrequited royal service damaged many noble fortunes in the sixteenth century. On the other hand it was equally clear, particularly under Henry VIII and James, that a very large number of families owed their rise to the top at any rate in part to royal office and favour. Though 1 Knowler, i, p. 363. 2 Cabala, p. 364. F. Bacon, History of the Reign of Henry VII, 1676, p. 64. HMCS, i, p. 383. W. Scott, Secret History of the Court of James I, Edinburgh, 1811, i, p. 71. F. Osborne, Historical Memoires of Queen Elizabeth, 1658, p. §7.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 481 the admixture of other factors in the history of almost every family

makes statistical precision impossible, there is one calculation which may perhaps prove illuminating for the early seventeenth century. The gross landed income of the 121 aristocratic families of 1641 was about £630,c00—let us say £700,000 to be on the safe

side.! Capitalized at 20 years’ purchase this amounts at most to about £14 million. In the previous 4o years these families had been given by the Crown over £4 million in money of 1640, or in other

words about 30 per cent. of their total capital assets at the end of the period. In addition to these grants there should be added the direct profits of office, corruption, and the sale of offices—an unknown and incalculable figure which it would be reasonable to capitalize at not less than another {2 million. This appeats to suggest that the aristocracy in 1641 was to a very large extent a creation of the Crown—and a recent creation at that.

But the evidence is in some ways misleading. A large amount of the grants and even more of the fruits of office were spent on the maintenance of a style of living appropriate to the recipient’s position and status, and on expenditure directly in the service of the State. Perhaps as little as two-thirds of the profits of royal favour and a quarter of the fruits of office were available for invest-

ment in family aggrandizement. It is reasonable to conclude that office and favour in the previous forty years had enabled between a quarter and third of aristocratic families to live opulently—some even wildly extravagantly—and were tesponsible for perhaps a quarter of the total capital assets of the group in 1641. (2) Political Dangers: Aristocratic Revolt

The successful operation of the Court system depended on the

maintenance of a delicate and extremely complicated political balance. Since offices suitable to the nobility were restricted in number, the greatest care had to be exercised in the distribution of these few so as to prevent a monopoly of tenure by any one faction. When this occurred, as under Wolsey, Protector Somerset, Sit Robert Cecil, and the Duke of Buckingham, explosive tensions built up among the excluded. The power of promotion and reward was the greatest hold the Crown exercised over the nobility and it was essential that this carrot should continue to dangle before the

821814 Ti

™ See App. IX.

482 OFFICE AND THE COURT donkey’s nose. Withdraw it altogether and the animal jibbed. As Richard Lloyd of Esclus remarked in 1641, “it is as neccessatie for Princes to have places of preferrment to prefer servants of merritt as money in thar Exchequer’.! The unfortunate consequences of a closing of the opportunity for employment, of allowing a monopoly of political patronage to fall into the hands of a single clique, were most clearly displayed at the turn of the century, for both the Essex Rebellion of 1601 and the Main Plot of 1603 are principally to be explained in terms of thwarted ambition. Elizabeth’s tactics on the domestic front had always been to play one group of noblemen off against another: Burghley and Sussex against Leicester and Warwick in her early

days; Cecil, Nottingham, and Buckhurst against Essex and his friends in the later. But in 1600 Essex’s overweening intransigence destroyed this carefully adjusted political balance, and as a result

an important group of courtiers was thrown out into the cold. Similarly, a realignment of the victors after the accession of James pushed out another courtier group of Ralegh, Cobham, and Grey of Wilton, whose hopes of political advancement now seemed petmanently blasted. But this is far from being a complete explanation of the revolts and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that financial stress was in all cases an important contributory factor in driving rebels to desperation.” Given Elizabeth’s parsimony and the appal-

ling pressures of wat finance, it might be argued that the con-. spirators had little to gain financially from a seizure of power. But

many of them were so hard pressed that the mete possibility of obtaining an official expense account was tempting enough. In any case, a successful coup d’état would have deprived the Queen of all real authority and have enabled the conspirators to help themselves,

if not from the empty royal coffers, at least from the confiscated

property of their enemies. ‘Seize the Queen and be our own carvers’ was said to have been the cry in the courtyard of Essex

House on the day of the revolt. | | In 1600 the Earl of Essex was a man of 34 who had long enjoyed royal favour, but had suddenly, and it seemed irrevocably, fallen from grace. In the years before the collapse, his personal finances had been slithering towards disaster. Despite the most lavish royal 1 P, Williams, The Council of the Marches of Wales under Elizabeth, Cardiff, 1958, p. 148.

2 For a statistical summary of the finances of the conspirators, see App. X XI. The figures have been compiled from Close Rolls, Recognizances for Debt, and family papers. 3 (W. Sanderson], Awlicus Coguinariae, 1650, p. 46.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 48 3 grants of lands and parks, woods, cash, and monopolies, his outgoings had continued to exceed his income. His general style of living, his assiduous cultivation of a huge clientele to support his political position, and heavy personal expenditure on his military

expeditions all combined to run him into debt. By now he was living on the credit of the great London merchants and bankers and particularly on the syndicate which farmed his Sweet Wine monopoly. The end of royal favour and the Queen’s tefusal to renew the monopoly brought a crisis in his affairs. The refusal meant that he would no longer be able to command lavish credit, consequently that henceforward he would be obliged to abandon his political position, dismiss his followers, reduce his household, retire into the country, and sell some of his estate to clear off the debt. He was not faced with financial ruin—there would still be

plenty left when the dust had settled—but the old way of life could no longer be maintained. When in the autumn of 1600 he learnt of the Queen’s refusal to renew the monopoly, he owed about £25,000 to individuals, besides a large but uncertain debt to the Crown. He still had about {10,006 worth of the Queen’s land grants to be sold, which left outstanding debts of at least £15,000, catrying a burden of interest of £1,500 a year, to be cleared off out of his basic landed estate of under £3,000 a year. No wonder he resorted to direct action three months later. His main psychological incentive was undoubtedly thwarted ambition, but the ceaseless nagging of his creditors, and a realization of the severely reduced

circumstances in which he would in future have to drag out his existence were exacerbating factors which drove him to the act of folly that was to cost him his life.! Of his seven aristocratic followers, frve—Rutland, Southampton,

Sussex, Bedford, and Mounteagle—were angry young men in a hurry, all in their twenties, all chafing at the infuriating grip on office retained by the Cecils. But they too were hard pressed financially, frustration and idleness having led them into courses of extravagant dissipation. Rutland was one of the richest young men in England, but for four years he had been far outrunning his basic income. In the last year his private expenditure had mounted to the fantastic figure of £12,400. Though it was loyalty to his leader that brought him on to the streets that Sunday morning, there can be no doubt that even he, despite his huge rental, could not have 1 L/Dev III, ff. 72-76, 140, 172, 178; IV, [X passim. H/S 181, f. 29. BM Lansd. MSS. 23/62.

484 OFFICE AND THE COURT continued at this rate for much longer. He had been living on windfalls which were now exhausted, and by the time of the revolt his debts had crept up to nearly £5,000.! Southampton’s position was very similar. With a landed income of well over £3,000 he was a man of great wealth, but his reckless way of life had already run him into serious difficulties. Essex had

made him General of the Horse in Ireland, but the Queen had contemptuously insisted on his dismissal and he was therefore in

an embittered and revengeful mood. In addition, his financial position was fast becoming intolerable. In the last four years he had raised at least {20,000 by sale of what must have amounted to about a third of his estate, and yet on the day of the revolt he was still nearly £8,000 in debt.? The position of Sussex (who was on the fringes of the revolt but avoided direct participation) was even mote serious, since his basic assets wete more slender. The heir to his uncle’s estates, he was

also the heir to his debts, including £12,000 due to the Crown, which had to be paid off in instalments of {500 a year. For a long time he had hung miserably about the Court, angling vainly for jobs and favours, and wasting his substance. He had certainly raised at least {20,000 by land sales in the last few years, but there was still over £5,000 owing to the Crown on the day of the revolt, besides an unknown sum to private individuals.3 Bedford’s position is less clear, but all that we know of it points

in the same direction. His resources were potentially very great, but he had inherited very large debts in 1585, and had spent the 1590’s in running up more of his own. He was described, along with Southampton, as ‘fantastycall’ in 1594, and was evidently a member of the same fast London set in the subsequent years. His telatives had prudently extracted huge bonds from him to prevent his alienating entailed family estates, and he had therefore been obliged to finance his excessive expenditure mainly by raising fines for long leases. The year after the revolt he sold two large manors, one of them for £5,000, and yet a few years later he was still heavily in debt and trying to sell more land.* 1 B/A 378, 90, 309, 310, 95, 97, 100, 312. H/A 77,f. 68. 2 Hants R.O., W.D. 58, 582, 169, 283, 442, 430, 441. HMCS, viii, p. 357. Castle Ashby 362. CR 40 Eliz., pt. 15; 43 Eliz., pt. 11. SP 12/278/132. H/G 55/21. 3 Essex R.O., D/DP F 240. Charterhouse F 4/28, D 3/233. E 123/23/60. BM Lansd. MSS. 84/72; Add. MSS. 40631, f. 181. Blomefield, viii, pp. 170, 193; x, p. 364. CR 38 Eliz., pts. 7, 10; 40 Eliz., pts. 10, 13; 43 Eliz., pts. 9, 22. WCH Hants, iii, pp. 131, 150, 2423 Vv, p. 174. 4 HMCR, i, p. 321. Woburn. SP 14/26/33, 34. CR 43 Eliz., pt. 25.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 485 Lord Mounteagle was hardly in better shape. His maternal grand-

father had dissipated the bulk of his inherited property in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire, leaving his daughter only an empty title and a small estate to support it. His father, Lord Morley,

was a difficult man who for years had been getting deeper and deeper into the toils of bonds, statutes, mortgages, and extents. He had long since sold up his Norfolk property and had begun to make serious inroads into those in Essex. The son had had to come to the rescue of his father, and was anxious to recoup his losses. The heir of two families which had been sinking steadily for nearly forty years, he no doubt saw in the forcible seizure of office and favour the best hope of swift recovery.! The remaining two were embittered men of middle age whose lives had been failures. For years they had hung around the Court or gone soldiering in Ireland in the vain hope of responsible and lucrative office; for years they had struggled with mounting debt, for years they had been selling up the family estates. Lord Sandys,

who was about 50, had inherited the title as long ago as 1560. Soon after he came of age he sold off or alienated most of his property in Northamptonshire, Berkshire, and Gloucestershire. His estate was saddled with large debts to the Crown incurred by his grandfather, with substantial annuities, and with a jointure for his mother, who was certainly still alive in 1598. He had lived much

at Court and had incurred heavy expenses in accompanying two embassies abroad and in lawsuits with his uncle. In 1598 he claimed

to have debts of £3,100 and a net income of only £737, and was again resorting to land sales. He never seems to have found an

influential patron, and the Essex rebellion was for him a last attempt to force his way into office.2 Lord Cromwell’s case was the most pitiful of all. His inheritance was small and he had long been plagued by extremely expensive lawsuits. Efforts to curry favour with the Cecils had met with no response, and in 1599 he joined up with Essex and set to work to carve out a fortune for himself as a colonel in Ireland. But when Essex returned to England Cromwell was recalled and cashiered. He had recently tried to clear

off his debt with the sale of land for some £10,000, but the eve of ' Bradford, Cartwright Hall, Swinton MSS. CR 38 Eliz., pt. 14; 40 Eliz., pts. 20, 22. C 2 Bliz., M 9/55. LC 4/193, 194 passim. VCH Lanes. viii, p. 183. VCH Herts. iv, pp. 95, 102-3. Blomefield, ii, pp. 441-2; vi, pp. 421, 445; viii, x, passim. 2 C 2 Eliz., W 2/17. CR 43 Eliz., pt. 21; 41 Eliz., pt. 10. WCH Berks. iii, pp. 101, 209. SP 12/212/36; 269/51-52. H/A 186, f. 139.

486 OFFICE AND THE COURT the revolt found him at the end of his resources, without job, income, ot prospects. For Lord Cromwell, revolt seemed the only way out of an impossible situation.! The seven afistocratic rebels thus all had one thing in common: they had long been spending at a rate that exceeded their income, and their financial positions were all deteriorating. Some were men of great wealth for whom a period of retrenchment and readjustment was all that was required; others were genuinely poor and were unable to carry on without the aid of some lucrative office under the Crown. It was lust for power and responsibility which

had lured these men to Court in the first place, thwarted ambition which had driven them to dissipation, dissipation which had caused the mounting burden of debts, and the necessity to reduce the burden which provided the added incentive to an attempt to seize office by force. It is thus unrealistic to separate power and profit as motives which drove noblemen to seek office under the Crown.

It is only when one moves lower down the social scale that the motives of the participants in the revolt become mote clearly and exclusively financial. There were men like Sir George Devereux, dependent on pensions from their kinsman; discharged captains like John Selby and William Green who had lost all means of livelihood, the latter scraping a living as a cutpurse, picklock, and thief;

| Sit William Constable, heavily in debt and in danger of arrest; Sir Thomas West, with ‘a very broken estate’; Sir Edward Littleton, humiliatingly arrested for debt as he swaggered through the streets in the middle of the rebellion; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, unable to pay his charges in prison; Sir John Heydon, “as poor as ever Irus was’; Richard Chomley, who joined in partly because of ‘his father’s

desperate estate who doth owe more than he can pay’. With a few exceptions, such as Sir Charles Danvers and Sir William Parker,

they wete a down-at-heel lot of bankrupt swordsmen and unemployed officers who had seen better days and had little to lose by a desperate fling.” The same picture emerges from an analysis of the Main and Bye

Plot conspitators—or intriguers—of 1603. In his struggle for mastery over Essex, Cecil had formed a temporary alliance with CR 38 Eliz., pt. 20; 1 Jas. I, pt. 8. C. W. James, Chief Justice Coke, 1929, p. 305. HMCS, vi, Pp. 294; Vili, p. 421; x, pp. 9, 126. SP 12/278/135.

2 HMCS, ix, p. 52; xi, pp. 34, 40, 93, 175, 183, I91, 212, 217, 252, 283, 325; xii, p. 84; XV, Pp. 72.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 487 Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Ralegh. With the fall of Essex and the establishment of firm links with the future sovereign in Scotland, the need for their assistance disappeared and Henry Howard, no doubt with Cecil’s encouragement, deployed his malicious talents to poison James’s mind against them. At the accession of the new sovereign Ralegh and Cobham found their political positions threatened, and the former was actually discharged from his office as Captain of the Guard. Though Cobham certainly owed about £10,000, his bare rental was £3,500; his financial position was serious but not critical. Ralegh, on the other hand, drew a net income of only £300 from land but £3,000 from his various offices and monopolies, all of which were at the mercy of the King. For him loss of favour meant not merely disappointed hopes but also financial disaster.t The third eminent conspirator of 1603 was Lord Grey of Wilton, the heir to a family of soldiers and administrators whose fortunes had been on the wane for three generations, largely through unrequited service to the Crown. In 1601 there were only four manors left and most of these were heavily mortgaged. As an active puritan and a fanatical enemy of the late Earl of Essex, Grey had nothing to hope for from King James. On political, religious, petsonal, and financial grounds he had therefore every reason to be a dissident. As for the lesser and mote active plotters, they too were disgruntled suitors to the new monarch. George Brooke had decayed his estate with extravagant living, and had lost the struggle for the Mastership of St. Cross Hospital. Sir Grifiin Markham’s fortunes were also deteriorating, and his suit for some parks had been rejected. These so-called plots of 1603 are composed of the same basic elements as wete observed in the Essex Revolt of 1601: courtiers threatened with loss of power and influence; courtiers and soldiers disappointed at the lack of reward; courtiers infuriated by the monopoly of favour enjoyed by the Cecil-Howard grouping; all, whether rich or poor, with a record of living beyond their incomes and of growing financial difficulties. Faced with the alternative of revolt to seize power or withdrawal into rustic solitude at a seriously

reduced standard of living, they chose the former. Such was the magnetism of office and the Court, such the attraction of high 1 H/A 154/1; 8 145, ff. 90-99. SP 14/12/79. Edwards, ii, pp. 291-3. 2 SP 12/23/48. H/S 141, f. 349. HMCS, xi, p. 548. 3 HMCS, xv, pp. 212, 311; xvi, pp. 144, 167, 256, 337.

488 OFFICE AND THE COURT living, that the thought of impotent exile on a strict budget was

unendurable. As we have seen, after 1629 the flow of favours was again reduced to a trickle and the numbers at Court were severely restricted. As at the end of Elizabeth’s reign, so again in 1640, the King discovered that such a policy dangerously swelled the number of discontented outsiders. After the Civil War was over, the Marquis of Newcastle

bluntly told Charles II that his father had had ‘no manner off regatde off the nobiletye att all, butt some fewe to monopolise the

Kinge & Queen totalye to them selves. This did infinitlye discontente the nobiletye & genterye & [was] one off the thinges thatt braughte these woefull times uppon us.”! (3) Financial Dangers: Parsimony or Extravagance

If the political stability of the system was delicately poised, so also was the financial. The sixteenth-century state had to support its bureaucracy and its court and pay for its wars with revenues which were never sufficient for its needs. Without the powerful injection of the wealth of the Church in the middle of the century it could not have survived as long as it did, for the political machine depended on a steady flow of gifts and rewards from the monatch.

By their very success in reducing the over-mighty subject the Tudots increased the need for such a flow, for as time went on they

wete less and less able to call upon a reserve of rich noblemen content to devote a substantial part of their private fortunes to the service of the State. After the magnates had been weakened by the expense of royal service, it became one of the most necessary functions of monarchy so to distribute its favours as to provide tich rewards for its greatest servants, and a reasonable competence

for the professional courtiers and for the lesser administrative officers. This burden was no slight one in any case, absorbing as it did in peace-time a very large amount of the finances of the State. But the pressures of inflation, which reduced official fees to

what in real terms were derisory levels, and the evasion by the propertied classes of their fiscal obligations, made it an increasingly intractable problem as the sixteenth century wore on. In the 1580’s and 1590’s the appalling cost of the Anglo-Spanish

War, coupled with a natural parsimony which increased with old 1 Strong, p. 213.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 489 age, induced Queen Elizabeth severely to reduce her gifts to all except her favourite, the Earl of Essex—and even he was hard put to it to make ends meet. Too many in Shakespeare’s audience must have felt a personal twinge when they heard the complaint: I have been begging sixteen years in court, Am yet a courtier beggarly, nor could Come pat betwixt too early and too late For any suit of pounds.!

No wonder the courtiers grumbled. ‘What little gayne there 1s gotten in this tyme’, lamented one in 1594; the Queen ‘had trestrayned her bountye for a whyle from such as served her nerest’, explained another a year later. In 1597 a third spoke of ‘this time

that no man is rewarded to his desert’, and in 1600 Elizabeth apologized to a fourth because the cost of war had forced her to ‘restrain her bountiful hand from rewarding her servants’. After her death, a fifth concluded that ‘amongest her manifold and rare virtues of nature and arte, this was the onlie detraction, that she had not power to geve wher it was merited’. Of course her position was extremely difficult, as the gap between military expenditure and parliamentary subsidies yawned wider every year. But her nearest

associates gained the impression that the close-fistedness of her later yeats was due as much to temperamental meanness as to harsh necessity. Thomas Wilson reflected philosophically that ‘her yeers hath nowe brought with it (the inseperable qualitie thereof) neereness’, and Goodman frankly admitted that ‘she... grew to be very covetous in her old days’.? This austerity programme had two important and unfortunate consequences, the impoverishment of the Court aristocracy, and the growth of corruption in the public services. In the official world substantial profits were now limited to a mere handful, to the Lords Treasurer—first Burghley and then Buckhurst—to whose

fingers there conttived to stick a share of the royal revenues that was governed by little other than their conscience; to the Lord

Keeper or Lord Chancellor—Puckering and Egerton—of the former of whom it was observed that ‘it is the operation of a L. Kepership to purchase everie yere 500 pounds’;? to the Masters 1 W. Shakespeare, Henry VII, u. iii. 2 HMCR, i, p. 321; HMC Ancaster MSS., p. 323; HMCS, xi, p. 18. Collins, ii, p. 50. The Journals of Sir Roger Wilbraham (Camden Misc. x), 1902, pp. 57-58. Wilson, p. 28. Goodman,

i, pp. 96-97. 3 Camden Misc. x, 1902, p. 22.

490 OFFICE AND THE COURT ! of the Court of Wards—first Burghley and then Sir Robert Cecil—

who could sell wardships for personal profit; and lastly to the Lord Admiral, Nottingham, who was taking his 10 per cent. cut on

all prize goods captured. With these few exceptions, the greater officers of state found themselves running into debt to maintain the standard of living expected of them, while the position of the unestablished courtiers was even more critical. When we seek the reason for the deteriorating financial position of the peerage at the end of the reign, the unrequited burden of court and office is one

of the two most important. Soldiers and administrators in Ireland ot the Low Countties, provincial governors like the presidents of the North and Wales, office-holdets in the Household or administration in London, ambassadors and envoys abroad, all complained bitterly of their lot, and the record of their debts and land-sales tends to support them. If they continued to serve the Crown, it was for the prestige, the status, the interest, and the style of living. It could no longer be for the money. Under these circumstances it is hardly surprising that officials resotted to corruption in an effort to maintain themselves. What started as an attempt to compensate for royal parsimony and static salaries in a time of inflation grew uncontrollably into a permanent and established part of the official scene. This process has been

admitably described by Sir John Neale, and needs no further elaboration here. His contention that the 1590’s saw a positive deterioration in official morality is supported by the lack of offers

of bribes in earlier petitions to the Cecils.’ It is possible, even likely, that Leicester had been very corrupt, but all the evidence suggests that it was not till the 1590’s that venality became widespread. And it is the spread which is important, for if it is admitted

that few governments and societies in the history of the world have been free from bribery and extortion, squeeze and protection,

wite-pulling and nepotism, it is also true that when carried to extreme lengths these habits have again and again provoked trevolts, some successful, some less so, by the exploited classes. The true problem is to definite the permissive limit, not to demonstrate the existence of the phenomenon. Of minor importance were those gifts of ‘lamprey pyes, salmon, venison red and fallow, and other small tokens’ with which Henry 1 J. E. Neale, ‘The Elizabethan Political Scene’, in Essays in Elizabethan History, 1958. A sample of BM Lansd. MSS. has been checked to prove this point.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 491 Lord Berkeley used to sweeten the course of his lawsuits and petitions, and offers of which bulk so large in the correspondence of Sit Robert Cecil. How they poured in! Smoked salmon, pheasants, hounds, a Barbary falcon, an Irish nag, a portable counting house with presses for papers, six cheeses, two firkins of oysters, a doe, a harp, ‘a simple lovet’s gift’, ‘a widow’s two mites’, “a poor scholar’s

mite’; there was no end to the stream of gifts.’ Some were too large to be received without demur. When Lord Cromwell gave two horses, one was sent back; when the Earl of Northumberland gave a coach and four, he was senta letter of thanks which contrived in tortured prose to accept the gift and yet express a firm desire to refuse it. There were decencies to be observed.? Equally acceptable were those well-established fees which every official exacted from the public for carrying out his duties. If these

fees had risen sharply in the last half-century, so had incomes and the cost of living. But what of ‘gratuities’ paid to courtiers or officials for particular services rendered, whether it be the grant of

an office or a patent of monopoly, a pardon for a murderer or a licence to export beer? As we have seen, all these things and many

more wete at the disposal of the monarch, and between her and the suitor there was massed a tight phalanx of courtiers. Access was impossible without a friend at Court, and that friendship was up for sale. Similarly, access to the courtier was open only via his secretary, and access to the secretary via the clerks, and access to the clerks via the doorkeeper, so that there sprang up a host of intermediaries all taking their cuts from the client for furthering his cause with the next superior up the ladder. Professor Aylmer has estimated that by the 1630’s these private fees and gratuities came to about £300,000, which is about half of the total ordinary cash income of the Crown.? To this deteriorating situation there was added the temptations and opportunities of war finance, and a distinct weakening of moral

integrity on the part of the rising generation of courtiers. Few operations in English history have been more grandiose in their scope—and more pernicious in their results—than that by which the clothing contractors for the army in Ireland in 1599-1606 contrived, by bribing every Irish official up to and including the Lord Deputy, 1 Smyth, ti, p. 287. HMCS, vi-xii, passim. 2 HMCS, xii, pp. 167, 5413 x, p. 347. 3 Aylmer, op. cit., p. 248.

492 OFFICE AND THE COURT to embezzle public money amounting, it was later alleged, to no less than {£180,000.' It was the impact of merchant capital on a venal coutt and official world which so gravely accelerated the drift up to and beyond the acceptable threshold of corruption. The lavish bribes of the custom farmers, the careers of men like Lionel Cranfield and Arthur Ingram, prove beyond doubt the degree to which things had deteriorated by the early years of King James. The greatest casualty of this development was public respect for the highest officers of state. Most of them tried to save their faces

by keeping in the background, often adopting the time-honoured device, mentioned by Tacitus, of using theit wives as agents. Lord Burghley and Sir John Carey both used their wives as intermediaries, the one to sell wards, the other army offices at Berwick. Lord Buckhurst used his daughter Anne Lady Glemham, the Earl of Salisbury his niece the Countess of Derby, and the Earl of Suffolk his wife the Countess. The level to which public morality had sunk when Elizabeth died is perhaps best illustrated by a letter of Sir Robert Cecil to his secretary Michael Hicks, written in February 1604. He is trying to obtain a favour for his protégé, Fulke Greville, but explains that it is necessary to obtain Lord Buckhurst’s support. He therefore instructs Hicks to offer Lady Glemham {100 to give

to her father, adding the warning not to hand over the cash in advance ‘or else she may cosin you’. Finally he adds a postscript: ‘For ye 100 I will find a ward to pay it.’3 Here is a letter written by a Secretary of State and Master of the Court of Wards about a

Lord Treasurer. It takes for granted that the latter’s support can be bought, and offers to find the money for the bribe by a corrupt use of official authority. Such was the condition to which Elizabeth’s parsimony and their own defects of character had reduced the great officials and coutt peers. By 1603 courtiers and officials had got used to these venal ways, and no improvement occutred now that the largesse of King James

had removed the financial justification for corruption. Unlike Elizabeth, James was unwilling to endure the drudgery of administrative supervision, and the last check on rampant peculation consequently collapsed. He preferred the pleasures of the hunting-field 1 H. Hall, Society in the Elizabethan Age, 1886, pp. 124-8. 2 Arch. J. viii, 1851, p. 180. Cal, Border Papers, ti, p. 787. BM Lansd. MSS. 88/52. H/A 160/1. 3 BM Lansd. MSS. 88/52.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 493 to the labours of the reformer, and his subjects were left to pray in vain: Then let him hear, good Lord, the sounds And cries of men, as well as hounds.!

Royal administration entered its most squalid phase during the tule of the Duke of Buckingham who elevated corruption to the status of a system, and it was not until his death that efforts at a clean-up were begun. But by then it was too late to restore public confidence, and in any case things had gone too far for too long for much to be achieved. If Elizabeth’s way of solving the financial problem of the Court by ruthlessly cutting costs had unforeseen and disastrous consequences, James’s alternative was no better. In the first place he indulged in a massive alienation of royal resoutces and royal authority. Between 1603 atid 1628 the peerage was given well over a million pounds’

worth of crown lands and rents, which was perhaps as much as a quarter of all royal estates in 1603. This erosion of the capital assets of the Crown itself made hope of financial self-sufficiency more and more unlikely of realization. It also undermined royal influence on

the counttyside, since in the seventeenth century land was still— and was still regarded as—the basis of prestige and authority as well

as a soutce of income. ‘So many ... goodly mannots have passed from his Majesty as the very heart of the kingdom mourneth to remember it’, lamented Ralegh. Sir John Coke warned Buckingham that “The Crown will neccessarily grow less both in honour and power, as others grow gteat’.2 But crown lands were not the widow’s cruse, and to maintain his reputation James allowed and encouraged the growth of a vast ramshackle structure of concealed income and expenditure administered directly by the courtiers, to

whom went all the profits. | The consequences of these indirect methods of financing the patronage system of favours and rewards were threefold. By temoving the bulk of the opetating expenses of the Court from the official income and expenditure accounts of the Crown, the King himself, his financial advisers—and subsequent historians—have 1 H/S 206, f. 100. 2 Crown lands brought in £89,000 a year in 1603 (F. C. Dietz, English Public Finance, ry 581641, p. 296). If we reckon at forty years’ purchase, peers were given lands rented at about £25,000 a year. Ralegh, i, 201. D. Coke, The Last Elizabethan, 1937, p. 88. R. H. Tawney, “The Rise of the Gentry’, EcHR, xi, 1941, pp. 36-37.

494 OFFICE AND THE COURT all been deceived about its true cost. The total official ordinary revenue of the Crown in the 1620’s amounted to about £500,000 a year; the unrecorded income that passed direct to couttiers and officials by fees from suitors, by grants, by exploitation of their proximity to the throne, by under-assessment for tents or taxes, can hardly have amounted to less than a further £500,000. The burden on the country was not merely far greater than appears at

way. |

first sight, it was also exacted in the most obnoxious and inequitable

Secondly, the peculiarities of the system made radical financial reform extremely difficult, if not impossible. Attempts to raise cash

income in one sector merely increased pressure for concealed benefits in another; a transfer of some of the profits of wardship from private to royal hands coincided with a growth of the sale of honours by courtiers; an increase in the customs revenue could

: only be achieved by compensating the grantees with annuities; a tefusal to raise salaries led to the growth of private fees; an attempt to check the rise of these fees merely stimulated corruption;

and so on. Viewed in this light, the achievements of financial reformers like Salisbury and Middlesex appear superficial. As they squeezed one part of the balloon, the rubber immediately expanded elsewhere to accommodate the air that was being compressed. The third consequence of the expansion of the Court system by

the Early Stuarts was the sapping of the moral authority of the monatchy. The creeping corruption throughout the administration, the exploitation for personal profit by courtiers of their position as intermediaties between king and subjects, lessened respect for the centtal organs of government, for the Court, for the nobility, and ultimately for monarchy itself. By the early seventeenth century everyone in government was absorbed in a venal pattern of life as universal as it was discreditable. The financial ethics of the most resolute of reformers, the most devoted of public men, of Salisbury, Cranfield, or Strafford, differed only in degree from those of the parasites they attacked. Not unnaturally such a situation aroused the most violent resentment among those who had to foot the bill,

among the country gentry who believed, implausibly, that they themselves would be immune from such temptations were they to come theit way. The sense of moral superiority to politicians, which

is so normal a feature of public opinion in all times and places, received powerful reinforcement in the early seventeenth century.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 495 It is hardly surprising that the distribution of these favours by the Early Stuarts infuriated the taxpayers and was an important factor in causing Parliament to refuse financial aid. Under Elizabeth government spokesmen could at least ask the Commons to grant taxes with a clear conscience. ‘Where’, asked Bacon in 1592,

‘be the wasteful buildings and the exorbitant and prodigal donatives, the sumptuous dissipations in pleasures and vain ostentations, which we find have exhausted the coffers of so many kings?’ Where

indeed, if we ignore the grants to Leicester and Essex? But no such defence could be put up for King James. Sir Thomas Lake and Sir Walter Ralegh alike were convinced that reckless royal generosity was one of the main causes of the growing breach with Parliament. Not everyone was as patient as Lord Montagu, who

told himself that ‘if our princes should use all their tribute to sensuality or take up all their taxes for pleasure... yet curse not the King, no, not in thy bedchamber’. The majority were prepared to speak their minds not merely in their bedchambers but on the

floor of the House of Commons, and in 1640 they took drastic steps to curb the royal powers of taxation. After the Civil War was

over and the King dead, Sir Anthony Weldon concluded that ‘it may justly be said that King James, like Adam, by bringing the crown into so gtfeat a necessity through a profuse prodigality, became the originall of his sons fall’.? From one point of view government may be regarded as a device

for the redistribution of wealth from the taxpayers to privileged favourites and officials. By the early seventeenth century men were becoming increasingly aware of the polarization of interest between those who ate the King’s bread and those who paid for it, a polarization accentuated by the progressive diminution in the share of the tax burden born by the aristocracy and the Court. They had always paid a dispropottionately small share of local taxation. After all, it

would be a bold overseer or churchwarden who would enforce a poor tate at the appropriate level on the aristocratic inhabitant of the great house in the park, and there is no evidence that it was ever tried. Similarly, the position of the peers in local society and their gtip on the office of Lord Lieutenant secured favourable treatment

in assessment of county taxes in time of war for the provision of arms and equipment.? ' Bacon, i, p. 130. Ralegh, i, pp. 73-74. HMCB, iii, p. 382. Scott, op. cit. i, p. 142. 2 e.g. SP 12/285 /20.

496 OFFICE AND THE COURT More important was the decline in their contribution to national taxes. Not only were they allowed to run up huge arrears in their

payments, but they were progressively under-rated for taxation purposes. The main parliamentary tax was the 4s. in the £ subsidy on landed income, for which the peerage were assessed separately from the rest of the community by special commissioners, usually the Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor, the purpose presumably being to ensute that they did not overawe the local commissioners. As a result the taxation of the peerage from 1523, when it was put on a proper footing by Wolsey, to the death of Henry VIII in 1547

was apparently based on a realistic assessment of wealth. But the difficulty of making continual revaluations to cope with the price revolution, the subjection of the Government to aristocratic

pressures under Edward VI, and the decision of Elizabeth and Burghley to cultivate the political support of the upper reaches of the landed classes subsequently combined to destroy all sense of reality in aristocratic assessments. The two Lord Treasurers set a particularly bad example, the 1st Marquis of Winchester cutting his family assessment from {1,200 to {950 and Lord Burghley persistently assessing himself at £133 long after his landed income alone had risen to not far short of {4,000 a year.! The result was that the tax assessment of the peerage declined while prices and incomes rose. The assessed income of approximately the same number of peers, though not all the same families, was about {26,000 a year in 1558 and about £17,500 a year in 1601. If we allow for the fall in the value of money, this represents less than 40 per cent. of the 1558 assessment. It is argued elsewhere that the real income of the peerage was falling during the reign of Elizabeth, but no claim is

made for a collapse of quite such catastrophic magnitude. The conclusion is inescapable that the Elizabethan peerage was ptogressively evading its share of taxation. Nor was the process halted after the death of the senile Burghley.

By 1624 the numbers of the peerage had almost doubled, but its assessed income had only risen to about £23,300. The assessment 1 H. Miller, “Subsidy Assessments of the Peerage in the Sixteenth Century’, BIHR, xxviii,

i B 179/69/79; 70/108, 113A. The Phelps Brown price index rises by 79 per cent. during: Elizabeth’s reign. The £17,500 of 1601 is therefore the equivalent in money of 1559 of £17,500 X ="° about £10,000. The 1601 assessment was therefore tere X 1oo= 38 per cent.

179 26,000

of that of 1558. For calculations of real income see App. IX.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 497 of the forty-four families in both the 1601 and the 1624 schedules fell from £13,800 to £12,500. If we allow to per cent. for the price

rise, this means a further fall of almost 20 per cent. in assessed values. There is no general downward trend, for this fall is mainly due to the mysterious disappearance of assessment on the great Talbot inheritance after its dispersal among the coheiresses, wives of the Earls of Kent, Pembroke, and Arundel. But the new peers were ridiculously under-assessed—the Duke of Buckingham at the absurd figure of £400, Lord Spencer at £300, Lord Roper and the

Earl of Middlesex at £200, the Earls of Manchester and Clare at £150. Moreover, the element of favouritism was growing more and more marked, court peers getting off increasingly lightly, whereas country peers like Bath, Vaux, Wharton, Petre, and Robartes were assessed at a far higher rate—though still only at a small fraction of their true income. To quote but one example, in 1624 the Earl of Bath was assessed at {400 and the Earl of Worcester at £200, though the income of the former was probably less than a tenth of that of the latter. Thus even within the peerage class the tax system was grossly inequitable, pressing more hardly on the Country than on the Court, and more hardly on the poor than on the rich. Whether the gentry were equally successful in evading their responsibilities we cannot at present tell, though there is reason to believe that in the century after 1523 there was a steady shift of the burden from the larger to the smaller taxpayers right down the social scale. It may be, therefore, that the peerage did not differ markedly

from the gentry in their progressive immunity from taxation. On the other hand the latter can hardly be blamed for their evasive tactics in view of the example being set by their social superiors.

The only other direct tax which seriously affected the peerage was wardship. Like the subsidy, the incidence of this tax on the landed classes declined sharply under Lord Burghley, and there is reason to believe that the aristocracy enjoyed at the very least a fair share of this relaxation, and possibly more. Under the Early Stuart Masters of the Court, however, things were considerably tightened up, and some families without any special pull at Court found them-

selves paying not far off a yeat’s income as wardship fine. Lord Dormer was sold for £4,000 in 1616, the Earl of Southampton for £,2,000 in 1625, Lord Craven for £8,000 in 1627, Lord Spencer for £5,000 in 1637, and Lord Petre and the coheiresses of Viscount Bayning for £10,000 each in 1640. It is noticeable that those more

821814 Kk

498 OFFICE AND THE COURT favourably placed to bring influence to bear got away more lightly, Francis Lord Willoughby with {£1,000 in 1617; George Duke of

Buckingham, with £2,667 in 1628; James Earl of Marlborough, with {200 in 1639.! Despite the tightening up the aristocracy, unlike the rest of the landed classes, were still largely gainers by the system. ‘They were allowed to buy many wards of others for subsequent resale, while their own wardships were almost always sold to close relatives or executots. They thus avoided the danger of having their estate spoiled by a rapacious guardian, and of having to buy back their mattiage at an exorbitant rate. Whether or not they were also being assessed more leniently than the gentry we cannot tell, but the punitive fines on noweaux riches like Craven or Spencer or Bayning suggests that in making its valuations the court was not unaffected by considerations of social origins.

The administration of crown lands follows the same pattern. Rents were not revised to keep pace with inflation since the size of the profits made by grantees depended on the discrepancy between crown tents and true values. This was true not only of lessees but also of recipients of land in fee-farm. These grants were made on

payment of a perpetual rent at the existing level and would have been worthless if the land had been rack-rented. As a result rents on crown lands were held down at artificially low levels as a matter of

policy. Ralegh thought that receipts from crown lands could be raised by {20,000 a year without much difficulty, if it could ever be agreed to sacrifice private advantage on the altar of national expediency, and Bacon told James that income could be trebled at rack-rents. Comparison with rents on private estates suggests that the Early Stuart margin of loss was somewhere between the two, perhaps about £40,000 or £50,000 a yeat.?

The Eleven Years Tyranny was characterized by a serious attempt by the Government to reassert ancient values of hierarchy and order in society and by a reaction of the aristocracy against the decline of their authority. On the other hand its desperate quest for revenue forced the Crown to attempt to squeeze more money out of the landed classes by such devices as ship-money, distraint of knighthood, and forest fines. ‘The first was a subsidy in a new guise, 1 Wards, 9/205, ff. 10, 36°; 207, ff. 61, 99; 208, ff. 34", 216, 239°, 243; 163, f. 95. 2 Ralegh, i, p. 200. E. Kerridge, “The Movement of Rent, 1540-1640’, EcHR, 2nd ser., vi, 1953, DP. 31.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 499 and assessed in much the same inequitable way, and the second only affected the gentry. The third, however, was a direct attack upon the aristocracy, who found themselves suddenly liable for very heavy fines for ‘encroachments’ on the royal forest, some of them going as far back as the fourteenth century and firmly secured by letters patent. This not only hit the aristocracy in their pockets,

it also outraged their sense of natural justice and threatened their long-term interests as landowners. In Northamptonshire alone, the Earl of Salisbury was fined a nominal £20,000, the Earl and Countess of Westmorland a nominal £19,000, the Earl of Peterborough, Lord Brudenell, and Sir Lewis Tresham {5,000 between

them, Lord Montagu £3,470, the Earl of Newport £3,000, the Earl of Warwick £1,600, and Lord Spencer and the Earl of Bedford £200 each. Many of these fines were later greatly mitigated, and the collapse of the Government in 1640 prevented payment of more than the first instalments, but even so six peers had paid in over £3,000 before the crash came. It is a significant commentary on the methods

of government finance in the 1630’s that according to one commentatot the fine of the Earl of Salisbury, who was Captain of the Gentlemen Pensionets, was intended to be used to pay off the atreats of salary of the pensioners under his command.! Despite these attempts by the monatchy in its death-throes to extort mote money out of the great landowners, it remains true that up to 1629 the aristocracy was substantially and increasingly successful in evading its fiscal responsibilities. And within the aristocracy, the rich fared notably better than the poor, the Court elements than

the country dwellers. In their financial relations with the Government the aristocracy would appear to have been almost entirely the beneficiaries, while making very little monetary contribution to the running of the State. In fact, however, this is a false picture, since the contribution of the aristocracy was indirect—in main-

taining the pomp of the Court, in giving hospitality on royal progresses, in conducting sumptuous foreign embassies, all at considerable personal cost. But this indirect contribution was not readily appreciated by the taxpayers, and it is easy to see why the

House of Commons came to look upon the Court, and in consequence most of the aristoctacy, as a putely parasitic order preying

on the country at large. 1 Pp, A, J. Pettit, “Charles I and the Revival of Forest Law in Northamptonshire’, Northamptonshire Past and Present, iii. 2, 1961. BM Add. MSS. 11045, f. 41.

500 OFFICE AND THE COURT (4) Conclusion: The Weakness of the Court

So inept was the Crown that it aroused feelings of exploitation and exclusion among the country gentry without the compensating

advantage of satisfying all its clients. Given the extraordinary expansion of royal grants under James, it might have been supposed

that political opposition from dissident sections of the aristocracy would have declined. As we have seen, about half of those eligible now either held office or obtained some reward from the Crown, a significantly higher proportion than in the past fifty years. It was at just this time, however, that a small group of men in the House of Lords began vigorously opposing royal policy at all levels, and giving influential backing to the rising tide of criticism in the House

of Commons. This must principally be attributed to the growth of real political issues, which inspired men to act without regard for their immediate selfish interests. In part also it was due to the passionate hatred engendered by the rise to absolute power of George Duke of Buckingham, whose upstart pretensions to univetsal control and whose irtesponsible distribution of titles and offices in his own interests generated fierce hostility among the older noble families. The main reason, however, is that the appearance of widespread

generosity is deceptive. It was not metely that office increasingly

went to new men, the fraction of sons of peers who obtained office falling from a third to less than a quarter, though this in itself goes far to explain the rising opposition among the Lords. Equally serious was the inequitable and irresponsible manner in which royal favours were distributed. Right from the start friction was generated by the toyal policy, for equality of misery creates less discontent than arbitrary distribution of wealth. It was easier for Sir Robert Sydney to put up with Elizabeth’s refusal to make him or

anyone else a peer, than it was for the older comital families to endure the elevation of George Villiers to a dukedom. Lord Sheffield found it easier to suffer Elizabeth’s universal meanness than James’s selective generosity, while many an Englishman found it hard to endure with equanimity the sudden rise to affluence of the Scottish courtiers.!

The last phase in royal treatment of the problem of the Coutt opened in 1629 with the death of the Duke of Buckingham and 1 HMCS, xvi, p. 397.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 501 Charles’s decision to dispense with Parliament. As it turned out, the sequence of events could not have been more unfortunate for the popularity of monarchy. Elizabeth by her parsimony first endangered the Court system and made corruption an essential ingredient of public service, while at the same time Lord Burghley allowed the propertied classes to fall into the habit of evading their tax responsibilities. James and Buckingham then dissipated royal resources in extravagant gifts and absurdly opulent court festivities. The policy enraged the Commons and provided a legitimate excuse

for the refusal to make more parliamentary grants. This refusal in

turn obliged the King to auction off his powers for economic regulation, appointment to office, and the creation of new honouts, actions which still further exacerbated the political situation. Now

there came a period of radical reform, including a sharp reduction of royal largesse, an attack on increases in official fees, heavy taxation of the nobility and upper gentry through wardship and forest fines, and a highly unpopular religious policy. Not only did these measures still further exasperate the country gentry, they also alarmed the administrators, whose fees and perquisites were threatened, and alienated many of the Court nobility. If in 1640 there was substantial opposition to royal policies in the House of Lords, the basic cause was undoubtedly dislike of Charles’s religious and political objectives. Men like Southampton, Clare, and Saye and Sele had been in political opposition since the 1620’s. There were some, like Holland and Pembroke, who were

devoid of feelings of gratitude towards the Crown upon which they had so long preyed, and others, like Salisbury and Northumberland, who were jealous of the greater rewards that had been showered upon rivals and upstarts. Many had been alienated by their failure to obtain office, a prospect made increasingly unlikely as too many

peers chased too few jobs. The exasperation of the disappointed place-hunter was thought by Newcastle to be an important factor in generating aristocratic opposition, and is well reflected in Viscount Chaworth’s despairing appeal in 1638: ‘Were it to be the King’s dog keeper I would doit and readily too.”! Whether successful or not in the quest for office, almost all had been disappointed by the retrenchment of the 1630’s, aggrieved by the unaccustomed burden of taxation, and embittered by the contraction of the Court to an exclusive coterie. Men accustomed to a glittering life at Court 1 HMC Cowper MSS. ii, pp. 202, 233. See supra, p. 469.

502 OFFICE AND THE COURT could ill adapt either to exile in the country or to the sharp teduction in living standards consequent upon the contraction of royal bounty. Charles had few friends in 1641, and one reason was his failure to create strong ties of mutual interest in the maintenance of the status quo between King, nobles, and officials. He

was not the last autocratic ruler to discover that reform does not pay. An important by-product of these events and policies was the almost complete alienation of Court from Country, an alienation sharply accentuated by Charles’s attempts to drive the gentry and superfluous nobility out of London. By the reign of Charles the concept of harmony within the Commonwealth had broken down, the two words ‘Court’ and ‘Country’ having come to mean political, psychological, and moral opposites. As Professor Zagorin has pointed out, ‘the term “Country” suggested that the men whom it designated should be regarded as persons of public spirit, unmoved by private interest, untainted by court influence and corruption, representing the highest good of their local communities and the nation in whose interests they, and they only, acted’.! This alienation was not confined to politics, for in the 1630’s England was experiencing all the tensions created by the development within a single society of two distinct cultures. The one was adopted by the

majority of the nobility and a tiny handful of court gentry; the other by the majority of the gentry and a minority of country peers. Dekker was ranged against Massinger; Milton against Davenant;

Robert Walker against Van Dyck; Artisan Mannerism against Inigo Jones; suspicion and hatred of Italy as vicious and popish against a passionate admiration for its aesthetic splendours; a belief

in the virtues of country living against the sophistication of the London man-about-town; a strong moral antipathy to sexual license, gambling, stage-plays, hard drinking, duelling, and running into debt, against a natural weakness for all these worldly pleasures

and vices; a dark suspicion of ritual and ornament in church worship against a ready acceptance of the beauty of holiness advocated by Laud; and lastly a deeply felt fear and hatred of Papists and Popery against an easy-going toleration for well-connected recusants and a sneaking admiration for Inigo Jones’s chapel in Saint

James’s, got up in full Counter-Reformation fig for the use of

Henrietta Maria and her Catholic friends.

1 P, Zagorin, “The Court and the Country’, EHR, lxxvii, 1962, p. 309.

OFFICE AND THE COURT 503 It might appear from this analysis that the English Court system collapsed in 1640 because it was too swollen, too expensive— a view which was certainly that of the contemporary Country party. Looked at in a European setting, however, it is clear that the real

weakness of the English Court and administration was that it attracted all the odium of the vast tentacular institutions of France

and Spain without the compensating advantages of size and strength. Unlike the systems of the Continent, the ancien régime in

England possessed no standing army to provide employment for the nobility; no paid local officials at all except for feodaries, escheators, and receivets of crown lands; and a central bureaucracy which at the lower levels was not very well paid and was limited in numbers. The reason for this is political, that the Tudors never managed—and indeed they scarcely tried—to break the hold of the country gentry over local government and over taxation. As a result they could neither expand the administration nor pay for it if they did. At the same time they were trapped by the rigidities of the Common Law, which stopped them from obtaining rights over mineral resources such as wete acquired by other nation states and which went far to protect office-holders from royal interference. Spain waxed rich on a monopoly of silver, the Pope on alum, Sweden on copper, France on salt; all exploited the sale of offices fot revenue purposes. But whether for lack of initiative or lack of ability, the English Crown was debarred from these important sources of revenue so successfully tapped by its continental neighbours. It was therefore always short of money and unable to build up a large and loyal vested interest of satisfied place-men. The clumsy and half-hearted efforts of the Early Stuarts to remedy the situation did little either to increase the revenues of the Crown or

to swell the numbers of its adherents. . Since the Court and the administration were relatively so restricted

in size, their total cost to the taxpayer, even in the halcyon days of the Duke of Buckingham, was certainly small compared with the

burden in France or Spain, even allowing for the huge mass of concealed taxation in fees, bribes, sales of titles, exploitation of monopolies, and so on. In about 1628 it was reckoned that Normandy alone provided Louis XIII with revenues equal to the total ordinary income of Charles I.1 The influential landed classes were certainly being made to pay a little more like their proper share of 1 SP 16/126/44.

504 OFFICE AND THE COURT taxation in the 1630’s, but even then the weight of taxation on the tich was still trivial compared with what it was to become at the height of the Civil War a few years later. The resentments aroused

wete out of all proportion to the hardships suffered, and were directed more against the arbitrary methods of levy and the supposed purposes to which the money was to be put than against the weight of taxation as such. Finally, the resources available to the Crown were not shared out

in an equitable manner. As we have seen, a mere twenty-nine individuals recetved three-quarters of all that was given away to the peerage at this time, and the same maldistribution of rewards ran tight through the Court and administration. There were thetefore large numbers within the system who were dissatisfied with their share of the profits, and were ready to desert their paymaster

| in 1642. When it came to the push those on the inside were not sufficiently numerous, or sufficiently powerful, or sufficiently con-

scious of their personal stake to resist assaults from without. By 1640 the Court had contrived to arouse the same resentments as those of the Continent, but had failed to create a vested interest large enough to protect it against the legion of its enemies. Such were the consequences of half a century of ineptitude, by three very different monatchs, in the handling of the patronage system.

Ix CREDIT The moneys employed at interest in this nation are not near the

tenth part disposed to trading people ... but are for the most part lent for the supplying of luxury and to support the expence of persons who, though great owners of lands, yet spend faster than their lands bring in. SIR DUDLEY NORTH, Dascourses upon Trade, 1691, pp. 6-7

I. THE CAUSES OF BORROWING

No account of the financial situation of the nobility would be complete without an examination of the uses to which they put the system of credit. Nor indeed would a history of the money market and of interest rates make much sense without an analysis

of the tole of the nobility as borrowers. Sir Dudley North was speaking with greater knowledge of the money market than of the problems of landowners, and his explanation of the latter’s dependence upon credit is not entirely fair. A landowner had to match fluctuating income to fluctuating expenditure, to meet unexpected demands on capital, and to cope with the geographical separation of the sources of income from the main centre of consumption. (1) Fluctuating Income and Expenditure

In the first place the family structure itself dictated substantial long-term changes, overt a matter of decades, in the income at the disposal of its head. So long as the dowager survived, about a third of the settled family estates was put aside for her maintenance, and the marriages of the heir and his sisters were a further charge on gross income. A nobleman was thus only master of the full revenue of his estate during the interval, if any, between the death of his mother and the marriage of his children.! He often found it hard to maintain the style of life expected of him on a mere two-thirds of the estate, and many debts wete run up in anticipation of the death of the mother. The problem of balancing income and expenditure was complicated, though not necessarily made more intractable, by certain t See ¢nwfra, p. 172.

506 CREDIT technical features of estate administration. The bulk of any landlord’s income was detived from rents and fines on his leasehold ptoperty. Under the inflationary pressure of the sixteenth century rents tended to move very sluggishly, and the landlord’s share in the increased profits of farming were instead siphoned off in the form of fines for new leases at the expity of the old. This meant not only that a landlord’s income tended to lag behind the rise in agricultural prices, but also that it was liable to dramatic fluctuations from one yeat to the next as leases fell in and were renewed in return for heavy fines. During the long yeats of waiting for this to happen the landlord was tempted, and indeed had some reason, to anticipate the future windfall by living on credit, confident that within a predictable period the loans could be paid off out of the fines. On the other hand the advantage of the system was that if futute profits were ignored it was often possible to raise considetable sums at short notice by selling reversions of leases. In effect the beneficial lease with large entry fine provided an easy but expensive way of raising a long-term mortgage on the estate.!

This need for long-term credit to tide over the lean years was complemented by a need for short-term credit to bridge the sixmonth gaps between Lady Day and Michaelmas, when rents were payable. These intervals were all the more tiresome because of the difficulties of collection from numerous scattered tenants, and of the temptation for bailiffs to retain cash reserves to lend out at interest at usurious rates. Not only did the money arrive in bursts at the end of every six months, but much of it was held over for up to a year. A good deal of noble borrowing must have begun

as a way of bridging the gap till the next rent day, and Mary Countess of Shrewsbuty’s cri de ceur to her agent in 1610, ‘gett what

you can into your handes; ... I know not which wayes to turne me’, is echoed through the correspondence of the day.? An easy way out of such a predicament was through the money-lender’s door.

These irregularities in the flow of income were accentuated and were made mote difficult to handle because of a genuine shortage of circulatory medium. Money, especially silver, was often in very short supply, partly because any disturbance in the bimetallic ratio in other countries could lead to a massive export of bullion; partly because there was little, if any, favourable balance of trade by which to acquire increased stocks of bullion; partly because a good deal i See supra, pp. 313-22. 2 Talbot O, f. 97.

CREDIT $07 of the existing supply was soaked up in hoarding and government

taxation; and partly because of the increasing demands on the media of exchange to cope with the needs of a growing population. As a result there were occasions such as in 1621 when the lack of coin in circulation was so acute as to paralyse commercial transactions. For lack of cash, rents could not be paid or goods bought. On

going down from Cambridge in that year Simonds D’Ewes was unable to sell his furniture, not because there were no potential buyers but because no one could produce the money. Much shortterm borrowing was therefore merely to obtain the hard cash which it was otherwise difficult to come by.! The occasional shortages of coin, the fluctuations of income, and the long delays in payment of rents would alone have made smooth budgeting difficult. What turned the difficult into the impossible was the equally but independently variable fluctuations in expenditure. There was the immediate and substantial increase of living costs imposed upon those who chose to gamble on the lottery of the

Court; daughters had to be married off; princes had to be served. Loyalty to family and country demanded no less, but the cost was heavy. By the early seventeenth century it was hard to find a girl a suitable husband without offering with her the equivalent in hard cash of a yeat’s income, and unless the money had been saved

through a trust, it had to be borrowed. When the 1st Earl of Leicester married his daughter Philippa to Sir John Hobart with

a pottion of £4,000, it cost him in the end an extra {1,120 in interest. Invitations by the Crown to serve on embassies or in wars involved enormous initial expenditure, much of it often unrequited even in the long run. A visit from the monarch was quite sufficient to wreck the budget for the year. Many thus found themselves in the toils of the money-lendets simply through philoprogenitiveness or zeal for public service.

There were others, though they were few, who got into difhculties by imprudent speculation in industry or commerce.? Finally many found themselves obliged to run into debt the moment they came into their inheritance in order to furnish their houses. Furni-

ture, beds, hangings, plate, coaches, and other household goods were part of a man’s personal estate. Those who died in difficulties 7 See Dr. Coleman’s remarks in Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England, Cambridge, 1961, pp. 206-8. S. D’Ewes, College Life in the Time of James I, 1851, p. 1207

2 F. Grose, Antiquarian Repertory, i, 1807, p. 290. See supra pp. 175-7, 377 449-63.

508 CREDIT normally allocated all or most of their personal goods to clearing

off accumulated debt, while others left them to the widow. In consequence the young heir often found himself obliged to buy the furniture back from the executors at the market price, or to purchase afresh in the London shops. Either course could prove expensive and make borrowing necessary, even if few noblemen found themselves as stripped and naked as the Earl of Northumberland in 1585. According to his own account, he was ‘soe well left

for moveables as I was not worthe a fyer-shovell or a paire of tongs; what was left me was wainscotts or things rivited with nales,

for wyfes commonly are great scratchers after there husbands’ death if things be loose’.?

Some borrowing can therefore be explained as a reasonable measute to adjust fluctuating income to fluctuating expenditure, being used either as a temporary overdraft or as an anticipation of

| certain windfalls in a few years’ time; some of it was for purposes of investment in trade, industry, or fen drainage. When all is said

and done, however, there can be little doubt that most noble indebtedness, and indeed all the more spectacular examples, were caused, as Dudley North alleged, by personal extravagance. Some, like Henry Lord Berkeley, cheerfully went on spending beyond their income for year after year, decade after decade, content to see income reduced by land sales and swallowed up in interest charges. Others, like the rst Earl of Suffolk, ran up fantastic debts by excessive building. Some measure of borrowing was dictated by general factors applicable to all, but it was personal deficiencies in character and intelligence which time and again turn out to have been the decisive causes of serious indebtedness. The only sure way of avoiding the necessity of occasional borrow-

ing was by building up a substantial cash reserve, a policy fathers were always anxious to press upon their sons, even if they themselves tended to honour the advice more in the breach than in the observance. On the rare occasions on which it was followed, the advice raised further problems of its own. (2) Storage and Transfer of Cash

To a European one of the most striking features of the English economy was the total lack of either government renzes or deposit I Arch, xxvii, 1838, p. 322. 2 Sheff CL/S 40/1.

CREDIT 509 banking facilities. This meant that there was no safe outlet for surplus cash, which had to be unproductively stockpiled in bullion

at home. In the Middle Ages wealthy noblemen had kept most of their capital reserves, which were often very considerable, in strong-rooms in their castles. One or two had contrived to salt away some of it in the hands of monastic abbots, who could be telied upon to look after the money until it was wanted. Thus as late as 1523 we find Lord Mounteagle leaving half his cash reserves

with the Abbot of Whalley. But this does not seem to have been general practice, and in any case the dissolution of the monasteries destroyed these convenient safe-deposits. Before the late seventeenth century, when “The merchant and gentleman keep their money for the most part with goldsmiths and scriveners’, there was little alternative to the strong-box under the bed.! When the Duchess of Somerset died in 1587, no less than £5,200 in gold was found in her closet; the Earl of Cork kept between £3,000 and {5,000 in a heavy iron chest at Lismore in 1628, the Earl of Bedford £1,000 in another in his London house in 1632. In the early seventeenth century Sir John Oglander kept {£2,400 in gold hidden in a hole behind his bed-head in the parlour chamber, and {220 in gold in a box in his study.? Such receptacles were relatively secure in a well-guarded house during the owner’s lifetime, although in 1577 some robbers were only just foiled in plans to steal what they hoped would be £5,000 in cash and plate from Lord Burghley’s house in the Strand. It was the death of the owner that so often gave rise to an unedifying scramble to lay hands on the cash. This was especially the case when an old man had found comfort in his declining years in the ministrations of a young housekeeper. The relatives often nursed suspicions that she had rewarded herself for her pains without waiting for the official inventory of the assets. In 1590 Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury sued one Elinor Breton on suspicion of having cleaned out the old earl at his death. The latter had kept a big chest by his bed, which was laboriously shifted about with him as he moved from house to house. When opened after his death it was empty, though it was thought by its size and weight to have previously contained £8,000 in silver. There was also a small coffer 1 BM Add. MSS, 24452, ff. 27-38. Dudley North, Discourses upon Trade, 1691, p. 20. 2 SP 12/202/19. Grosart, ist ser., ii, pp. 244, 275. HMCR, i, p. 492. C. Aspinall-Oglander, Nunwell Symphony, 1945, p. 66. See also the mention of Lord Dacre’s ‘truncke’ in 1624 (PCC 69 Scroope).

510 CREDIT capable of holding another {10,000 in gold, and it too was found empty. Earl Gilbert, not unnaturally, was suspicious. Another bitter family row broke out after the death of the 1st Lord Robartes in 1634, on which occasion an aggrieved relative alleged that his lord-

ship had left a huge fortune ‘in trunkes, boxes, and baggs and other places in his bedchamber or clositts within the same or the study without the said chamber’, but which had nearly all mysteriously vanished before the inventory was taken.! It would be wrong to exaggerate the dangers of holding substantial cash reserves, or the importance of these fears in deterring men from hoarding. But until the landed classes found a way of entering the money market on safe terms through the scriveners in the eatly seventeenth century, the temptation to sink cash reserves into land and to borrow to tide over temporary difficulties was obviously

vety strong. The arguments were ones of convenience, not of sttict economic advantage. Until the goldsmiths began accepting deposits and paying 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. interest on them, as they were doing by the Restoration, cash was troublesome to hold and hard to invest with security and ease of recall. It is therefore hardly surprising that before the Civil War very few noblemen left cash reserves which exceeded their debts. The one was usually measuted in hundreds, the other in thousands of pounds. A further problem which perplexed all landowners was how to transfer money safely and swiftly from one part of the country to

another. As time went on London became more and more the principal consumption centre. Not only were an increasing number

of peets and squites passing an increasing amount of time in or around London, but the growth of the taste for luxuries itself increased dependence on the London market for an ever-widening range of goods and services. By the early seventeenth century most noblemen were spending most of their money in London, and were therefore obliged to get their ready cash moved in from the country. Many held government pensions or monopolies payable in London, which eased the strain. Some, like Bedford and Southampton, drew large incomes from urban rents in the west end; a few, like Rutland

ot Shrewsbury, could sell their iron ot lead to London wholesale merchants; others, like Spencer or Dormer, unloaded their meat and wool on the ever mote numerous consumers of the metropolis. Even these, however, needed transfers of rents to meet all their 1 HMCS, ii, p. 165. Talbot I, f. 108. SP 16/285 /98.

CREDIT 51 urban expenses, and those without such aids depended entirely on what could be brought up from the country. Rents were paid in silver, which is not only bulky and heavy to shift in quantity, but also very tiresome to count: in 1571 it took

two and a half hours to count out the {500 paid, much of it in shillings, for a land purchase by Sir Nicholas Bacon. On the other hand it was not easy to exchange silver for gold in country areas, and in many cases there was no alternative to carting the coin for hundreds of miles through the mire and pot-holes and highwaymen of an Elizabethan road. One way was to take it yourself. In 1585 the Earl of Rutland asked for the rents to be collected in a hurry,

as he was going up to Parliament and ‘I would fayne have my money to catry wyth me’. Others sent it up by convoys of servants. When in 1602 Sir William Cavendish wanted to shift £13,500 to

London from Derbyshire, he had to send it in a baggage train protected by an armed guard, and the cost of transfer amounted to £43. A year later the Earl of Northumberland moved his northern rents from Topcliffe to London by pack-horses accompanied by sixteen of seventeen men. The unfortunate Earl of Lincoln tried to economize by using his coach to take £1,000 across London to pay his debts, only to have it break down under the weight. This direct transfer of bullion was unavoidable during the sixteenth century, and even up to the Civil War it was still frequently employed. In the 1630’s the rents of the Earl of Salisbury in Northamptonshire and Dorset were still being sent up either by carrier ot by his own men and horses. The Earl of Cork was also obliged

to settle many of his payments by the transfer of bullion, for example paying off a mortgage in 1641 by £3,300 packed into carts. Not was the Government in any better position. In 1633 Wentworth had to send up the Recusant money of Yorkshire in specie, using ten to twelve of his own men and horses. Though no doubt they made the most of their troubles, the genuine difficulties encountered by the sheriffs in 1637 in transferring ship-money to London make it clear that carriage of bullion was still often the only solution to the

problem of getting money from the country to London.' The advent of the regular carrier made the transport of bullion 1 Chicago University Library, Redgrave MSS. 2564. HMCR, i, p. 175. Chatsworth/H 23. G. R. Batho, The Household Accounts of Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland (London M.A.

thesis), 1953, p. 109. HMCS, x, p. 117. H/A 157/3, 62/2, 67/6. Grosart, 1st ser., v, p. 182. Knowler, i, p. 143. CSPD, 1636-7, pp. 151, 435, 478, 530, 555. Cf. HMC Cowper MSS, ii, P. 173.

$12 CREDIT a much cheaper and more teliable operation. By the 1630’s carriers

wete making scheduled trips along the main roads of England, bringing London goods down into the country, and they were only too willing to accept a return freight. And so in the 1630's we find the Earl of Suffolk transferring his Lulworth rents by the two Dorset carriers, Matthews and Morreys, at a cost of about 3d. per £1. Of course this method had its drawbacks, as the Earl of Salisbury discovered in 1653 when he had to spend £12. 10s. on a lawsuit with Matthews to recover {100 which had been stolen by robbers ex route from Cranborne to London.! So long as landowners

persisted in using this method of getting their money to London, so long would highwaymen prosper.

It was this threat of robbery which was the main incentive behind the search for alternative means of transfer. By the beginning of the seventeenth century the inland bill of exchange had made its appearance, and with the great internal economic expansion of the

first two decades of the seventeenth century it tapidly came into general use. This is a good deal earlier than is at present generally believed,? but the evidence of aristocratic and other records leaves no room for doubt upon the subject. Whether or not these bills wete already assignable is a matter which the records do not reveal, and which in any case is irrelevant to our particular problem. An early example of the use of the internal exchange mechanism comes

from the 1580’s, when George Earl of Shrewsbury at Sheffield sent his son Lord Talbot in London {100 by personal bill. Lord Talbot sent it back to get it sealed so that clothiers in London, whom he expected to cash it for him, would have no doubts about its authenticity. The fact that the earl had omitted to seal the bill strongly suggests that he was not familiar with this device. In 1595 the Earl of Huntingdon was transferring some of his midland rents by personal bills of Robert Herrick, the Mayor of Leicester, drawn

| on the latter’s brother William, an alderman of London. “Many come to me... to leave money with me to have it in London’, rematked the Mayor. Five years later the Exchequer officials were lamenting their inability to get money by exchange from London

to Plymouth and Exeter to pay the sailors, which proves that such machinery was not unknown between the Devon ports and London. 1 Dorset R.O., Weld MSS., Box H/General 42. H/A 162/2. 2 R. D. Richards, The Early History of Banking in England, 1929, pp. 46-47.

CREDIT 513 In the West Riding bills of exchange could be drawn on the clothiers of Wakefield and Halifax, who needed money locally to buy

their materials but received their profits in London by the sale of their cloth in Blackwell Hall. As early as 1606 Sir William Cavendish was using them to transfer his Derbyshire rents. Similarly, by 1621 Sit John Wynn of Gwydir was transferring his rents by local drovers who brought their cattle up from Wales on the hoof to sell in London. In 1637 Shropshire ship-money was transferred by bills of Shrewsbury drapers drawn on their factors in Blackwell Hall, Cheshire ship-money by bills of Manchester tradesmen, Devon ship-money by bills of the Exeter tin-merchants. By now men near any main centre of production for the London market found it fairly easy to transfer money by exchange, but there were still large areas of the country in which the movement was all one way. Thus by 1641 the Earl of Bedford was transferring all his Devon rents by bill, but it was not till the 1650’s that he could find someone to handle his Thorney rents. In the boom period of the Wentworth administration in the 1630’s it was even possible to transfer rents from Ireland by bill. In 1636 the Earl of Cork sent money to pay for his sons’ schooling at Eton to his London tailor by a bill of exchange drawn by a Youghal merchant on a London silkman, and in 1634 the Earl of Essex was transferring his Irish rents from Dublin by fourteen-day sight-bills on Manchester.! But whether the money was shifted in specie or by bill, the geographical separation of the sources of income from the centre of consumption led to further delay and was an added reason for borrowing on the London money market. Il. CREDIT INSTRUMENTS (1) Tradesmen’s Bills

By the middle of the sixteenth century a wide range of choice in the means of borrowing was already available to the nobility.? In the first place they could adopt the age-old practice of letting their

tradesmen’s bills run up until they had exhausted the patience of t Talbot H, f. 1. Nichols, ii, p. 635*. Leics. Arch. Soc. Trans. v, 1882, pp. 117, 120, 133. HMCS, xii, p. 202. Chatsworth/H 23, 29. Wynn, nos. 993, 2186. CSPD, 1636-7, pp. 569, 547, §22; 1640, pp. 352, 444. Woburn, 1641 Account Book. G. Scott Thomson, Life in a Noble Household, 1937, p. 365. Grosart, 1st ser., iv, p. 214. L/Dev IV, f. 98. 2 For a lucid and comprehensive study of the money market, see R. Ashton, The Crown and the Money Market, Oxford, 1960, ch. i.

821314 L |

514 CREDIT their suppliers and could get no mote goods and services. This has always been a common method of borrowing, but it is regulated by the basic financial resources of the debtor. Those whose need is greatest are least likely to find their tradesmen obliging. None the

less the gteat luxury suppliers of London, the silkmen, metcets, tailors, jewellers, and goldsmiths, were catering for a limited if expanding market and were too greedy to turn away a customer. They adjusted their prices to allow for interest charges, and hoped for the best. As a result some of the greatest noblemen in the kingdom were able to accumulate a really astonishing range of debts to

tradesmen. When he died in 1588 the Earl of Leicester owed sevetal thousands of pounds to over fifty tradesmen. He owed money for plate, silk, lace, embroidery, jewels, pearls, furs, cloth, upholstery, saddles, beer, trumpets and strings, oats and hay, pots,

joinery, timber, grocery, the mending of musical instruments, repair of tents, and so on. By 1575 the feckless Earl of Oxford had run up debts of many thousands to well over 100 tradesmen, and in the late Elizabethan period the Earls of Arundel and Bedford and Sit Christopher Hatton also managed to obtain credit from their

shopkeepets for more than {1,000 worth of goods and setvices. The most striking example of all, however, is Thomas Earl of Arundel, who at his death in 1646 had managed to run up shop

: debts amounting to {16,176.! . In theory the tradesmen were taking a considerable risk, since debts not secured by a sealed instrument (a specialty), often based on no more than verbal agreements, were not legal charges on the heir to the estate, and could be repudiated with impunity. Whether

ot not the executors paid these debts out of the personal estate depended on the clarity of the instructions left by the deceased, the

amount of money available, and their own sense of fair play. In any case, tradesmen came at the bottom of the list. In 1637 the Solicitor General observed that the normal order of priority for settlement of debts at death was funeral costs, debts to the Crown, and debts to individuals, first on judgement, then on statute, then on bond, and, finally, by verbal contracts. Basically, tradesmen relied upon a nobleman’s sense of honour. John Smyth of Nibley boasted proudly that in twenty generations of the family of Berkeley “I have not observed (heaven is my witnes) 1 BM Harl. Ch. D 35. Essex R.O., D/DRg 2/25. J. Strype, Asnals of the Reformation, 1724-8, iii, App., p. 134. Woburn. Northants. R.O., Finch-Hatton MSS. 601. SP 23/62, p. 805.

CREDIT 515 that any man or woman... had cause to say of any of them “Thy dust is my debtor’’ for a penny’. The Earl of Leicester in his will drawn up in 1587 expressed his sorrow at having caused loss to his suppliers by his failure to pay his bills. After his fall the Earl of Suffolk asked the Duke of Buckingham to help to free his estate from the obligation to the Crown, so that he could sell up in order to pay off his debts. He explained that his property was so tied up

that if he died his son would be under no obligation to pay a shilling, ‘for which my soule shoulde suffer’.! Indeed, fear of retribution in the after-life coupled with a genuine respect for the moral code of the noble class led many, particularly in the early seven-

teenth century, to leave no room for doubt by instructing their executors to settle all debts, whether ‘of law or of conscience’.? In 1591 Lord Hunsdon went so far as to order 10 per cent. interest to be paid on all debts, and the rst Earl of Dotset in 1607 and the 2nd Lord Petre in 1632 appointed arbitrators to settle any disputes between creditors and the executots.3 Nevertheless it would be a mistake to exaggerate the effectiveness of these moral principles, which tended to seem more compelling to the dying testator anxious about his soul than to those who

were left to clear up the mess. The earnest, if belated, good intentions of the deceased were not infrequently ignored by hardpressed executors, who naturally concentrated on debts enforceable at law. The others were dealt with by procrastination, prevarication,

and in the last resort by downright refusal. Thus, years after the death of the great silkman James Anton, his widow Jane was still vainly trying to recover book debts for goods supplied decades before to the Earls of Cumberland, Essex, Oxford, and Leicester.+

Tradesmen extended credit on this imprudent scale partly because they had little choice. The patronage of a magnate was a ptize worth having, and it required iron will and a willingness to cut losses to refuse further credit to a feckless nobleman. Once debts had been run up, it was difficult to know where to stop. The shrewd peer knew this and acted like Middleton’s Lord Owemuch, who was ‘free of the mercers, and there ’s none of ’em all t CSPD, 1637, p. 12. Smyth, ii, p. 219. Collins, i, p. 70. Bodl MS, Add. D rio, f. 127. Cf. the uneasy conscience of Lord Vaux in 1593 (35 Eliz., Private Act 5). 2 For example, Lord Rich in 1567, Viscount Montagu in 1592, the Countess of Warwick in 1603, Lotd Petre in 1612, Lord Dormer in 1616, Lord Rich in 1617, the Earl of St. Albans in 1635 (PCC 12 Babington, 22 Neville, 105 Capel, 128 Cope, 51 Soame, 129 Sadler; BM Add.

MSS. 40631 A, f. 197). 3 PCC 68 Bolein, 1 Dorset, 92 Goare. * C2 Jas. I, Ar/62; 10/7, 18; 12/52.

516 CREDIT

dare cross him’.! The other reason for the tolerance of tradesmen was the fact that one thing tended to lead to another. Sometimes the debtor could be persuaded to buy goods on credit which he did not want, in order to resell them again, at a lower price, for cash. Provided the debt was settled in the long run, this device enabled the tradesmen to reap a profit far exceeding the legal maximum

rate of interest. For example in 1568 Lord Wentworth took up from a Londoner ‘by way of lone or brocage’ some sugar alleged to be worth {6o0. 85. 2d., for which he gave a statute for {£1,200 to guarantee payment. But he could only sell the sugar for £/500, from which was deducted the creditor’s 10 per cent. interest, and he failed to repay the {600 on the day. The Londoner claimed his pound of flesh and seized some of Lord Wentworth’s lands. Over twenty years after the initial loan echoes of the quarrel over this dubious transaction were still rumbling through the courts, each party asserting his own integrity and good faith and denouncing the unconscionable double-dealing of his opponent. (2) Pawns The leading jewellers and silversmiths found themselves tempted

into the not unprofitable trade of pawnbroking, taking back again as ‘gages’ or ‘pawns’ items they had sold to the customer perhaps a few months or years before. All noblemen accumulated substantial quantities of valuables, which in case of need could be turned into ready cash. It is true to say that on the whole the pawning of valuables was a desperate measure, only indulged in by those in the last stages of financial decay. But when times were hard and creditors warty, it was a sute way of raising the wind. The Duke of Norfolk before 1572 had received £1,500 on pawn of jewels and plate, redeemable, if at all, on a specified day. When the 3rd Earl of Sussex died in 1583 leaving enormous debts, it was found that 8,500 oz. of his 34,500 oz. of plate were in pawn for £2,150. In 1589 Lord Willoughby d’Eresby had “pawned his plate, silver vessell, and all his own and my Lady’s jewels for £1200’, and the plate and jewels of the 2nd Earl of Essex spent the 1590’s in and out of the money-lenders’ hands. Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury’s ewells & platt are laid to pawne’ and Henry Lord Berkeley was busy raising money on his jewels, his plate, and even on a green 1 'T. Middleton, 4 Mad World, my Masters, i. 1. 2 C2 Eliz., W 14/31.

CREDIT 517 embroidered saddle. The most tragic case of all was that of William

Lord Vaux, who in 1593 came up to London to do his duty and attend the House of Lords. But, alas, he had pawned his parliament robes to a Londoner, who refused to lend them back for the occasion on payment of interest and stood out obstinately for his principal, which Lord Vaux was quite unable to procure. Well might his Lordship describe himself as the ‘infortunatest peere of Parliament for povertie that ever was’. Among the less affluent men about town such predicaments were common enough, and the trappings of many a gallant passed into the hands of Frippery, that ‘filthy-slimy-lousy-nittical broker, pricked out in pawns from the hatband to the shoestring’. (3) Btls and Bonds

Apart from these minor devices of running up tradesmen’s bills and pawning valuables, four principal legal instruments were used

by the nobility and gentry for raising money: bills and bonds; recognizances ; statutes; and mortgages. The precise legal differences

between a bill, a bond, a recognizance, and a statute, the language

and style in which they were written, whether or not they were registered in a court of record, whether or not they were sealed, ate irrelevant to this study.2 What matters is to establish certain genetal features about them and to explain the differences in the methods of enforcing repayment. All consisted of an acknowledge-

ment of a debt of a certain sum. This was qualified by a clause, which was either written at the bottom or on the back, or set out in a separate instrument called a defeasance. This took the form of an agreement to stay the execution of the penalties of the instrument

if certain conditions were fulfilled. The conditions could be the repayment of capital and interest, the former of which after about 1570 normally amounted to half the face value of the instrument. Thus a bond or statute of {1,000 was usually conditional on tepayment within six months of £525: that is, {500 capital and {25 for a half-yeat’s interest at 10 per cent.3 These instruments could equally well be used as devices for enforcing legal contracts of any 1 H/S 158, f. 46. Essex R.O., D/DP F 240. G. Bertie, Five Generations of a Loyal House, 1845, p. 527. L/Dev TiI/110. J. Hunter, History of Hallamshire, 1869, p. 121. GPL/Smith MSS. 3/3. Ellis, 3rd ser., iv, p. 109. I’. Middleton, Your Five Gallants, rv. viii. 2 See W. West, Sywboleography, 1615.

3 In the middle of the century obligations were often a good deal less than double the debt (LC 4/187, pp. 263, 319; 188, pp. 40, 119, 386, 397, 427, 446, 449, 461, 508, 510).

518 CREDIT kind. By means of the condition or defeasance they could act as guarantees for making an estate of land by fine, making a jointure, a lease, or an annuity, performing covenants or wills, or guaranteeing that an estate to be sold was free of encumbrances.! Bonds, tecognizances, and statutes were nominally valid only for vety short periods, usually six months. This meant that they were most inconvenient to both creditors and debtors as a means of long-term investment or loan, since they had to be paid off or renewed at such short intervals. On the other hand such was the suspicion of a debtor’s trustworthiness that few creditors would allow their money to go out on any other terms. This did not mean that in fact the capital was always called in every six months, and many loans were renewed year after yeat, as long as the interest continued to be paid. But each renewal required fresh negotiations, fresh writings, and therefore fresh costs and fresh trouble. The sealed bond or bill (the latter was for the exact amount due) was enforceable by prosecution in the Court of Common Pleas, followed by a writ for the arrest ezther of the person or the goods (excluding draught animals and agricultural tools) or half the real estate (excluding copyhold land). This legal process was a slow, expensive, and not always very effectual means of ensuring repayment. Agile debtors and executors could be hard to catch, and anyway to imprison the delinquent in the Fleet provided moral rather than material satisfaction. The astute could hide their personal goods and convey their real estate out of reach of the creditor. If the debtor died while his son was still a minor, the creditor lost all his powets over the property until the heir reached his majority. The recognizance, which differed from the sealed bond only by being registered in a court of record, suffered from the same defects. Judgement had to be sued for in a court of law, followed by a writ to arrest either the body and the goods, or the goods and the land, but not body and land together. The consequence of these defects was that the sealed bond or bill was only used for small amounts, ot for loans between friends in which a sense of honour was the main safeguatd. City magnates dealt as little as possible on bonds and only reluctantly on tecognizances since both offered imperfect guarantees of swift recovery of capital; moreover debtors equally disliked these instruments since, if they were enforced, they were punitive. 1 See West, op. cit., sects, 110-234.

CREDIT 519 There were two special drawbacks to making loans to peers on the security of these instruments. The first was that their social standing made it very difficult to bring them to justice in the local and even in the central courts. A creditor of Ferdinando Earl of Detby complained that he could not recover his money ‘without sute of lawe, which is soe verie chargable againste soe greate a peere that it wilbe tedious for my ould age to endure’. The second drawback was that by law a peer of the realm was immune from personal arrest in a civil suit, a privilege which deprived the baulked creditor of his most fearful—if often most futile—weapon. It was

estimated that some 8,000 persons were rotting in English jails in 1645 for failure to pay their debts, but not one of them was a peer of the realm.! The value of this privilege was partly undermined by a decision of Lord Keeper Bacon in Lord Cromwell’s case in 1572 that a peer could be arrested for contempt if he disobeyed the orders of the Court of Chancery. But Bacon’s decision was reversed by the House

at the time and the ancient legal position was restated in no uncertain terms by Sir Edward Coke in a famous lawsuit of 1606, the

case of the Countess of Rutland. Though he admitted that ‘some precedent by ignorance of clerks are to the contrary’, he nevertheless asserted that ‘any person or persons of any estate of nobilitie ot holding places of eminent dignities and of honorable service and attendance uppon the royal persons of the Kinges and Queenes of the realme by the lawdible and fundamentall lawes of the realm’ ate exempt from arrest on suit of a private individual. The matter of arrest for contempt of court remained in dispute and was only settled in 1629 by a favourable decision of Charles, the judges, and the Privy Council.? This privilege of freedom from arrest was vigorously defended by the Lords against repeated attempts at encroachment by exasperated creditors in the early seventeenth century. The Lords imprisoned the bailiffs and the plaintiff who in 1626 arrested Viscountess Purbeck in her coach, and the Privy Council itself ! BM Add. MSS. 12497, f. 465. W. R. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, — Cambridge, 1907, ii, p. 191. Attempts to embarrass a family by the seizure of the corpse of the debtor were not unknown in the seventeenth century (Verney, ti, p. 364; L. Stone, An Elizabethan: Sir Horatio Palavicino, Oxford, 1956, p. 308). 2 Star Ch. 8/8/3. J. Hawarde, Les Reportes des cases in Camera Stellata, 1894, pp. 237-41. Coke’s Reports, 1738, pt. 6, pp. 52b-54b. Bodl Tanner MSS. 91, f. 128. CSPD Add., 1566-79, p. 415. LJ, i, p. 727. HMCB, iii, p. 336. W. Tothill, Transactions of the High Court of Chancery, 1649, p. 14. APC, 1629-30, p. ror.

520 CREDIT imprisoned two officets of the Compter in the Poultry for arresting the coach of the Earl of Lindsey in 1634. As late as 1646 the Lords were still successfully imprisoning over-zealous creditors for arresting peers, but the end was near. In 1648 a creditor shouted at Lord Cromwell: ‘You are a base-conditioned fellow, and I will have my

money ot I will tear your cloth from your back.’ Within a few months the House of Lords was abolished and defaulting peers became as liable to incarceration in the Fleet as other mortals had always been. In 1651 no less a personage than the Earl of Arundel was forced into ignominious hiding. So relentless was the pursuit of bailiffs acting for his creditors that he had to confess

that ‘I dare not be seen or suffer it to be knowne where I am, for... 1 am waited for both in London and the Country to be taken’.!

It was all very well for the 2nd Earl of Essex—of all people—to assett that ‘I am in conscience persuaded that the bonds of noble-

men... are more safe than those of ordinary merchants, who go bankrupt every year’. More sensible was Sir Robert Cecil’s frank admission to Alderman Rowe that ‘it may be you will be loth to deal with a baron of the realm without some collateral securities of

meanet quality’. It might indeed! Since the bodies of peers were immune and suits against them difficult, creditors often insisted that a nobleman’s friends or his leading officers should join with him in a bond, recognizance, or statute. If they were friendly gentty, they covered themselves by taking counter-bonds of anything up to double the face value of the original, though in fact it was the nobleman’s sense of honour upon which they principally relied. Neither was foolproof, and Edward Lord Montagu was right to coin the apophthegm: “He that hateth suretyship is sure.’ Owing, perhaps, to a natural reluctance of friends to get too deeply involved, the commonest sureties used by peers were their own setvants, whose position they then covered by transferring to them by a trust deed property either in perpetuity for sale, or for a term of years. In the early years of Elizabeth the Duke of Norfolk used his servants William Dix and John Blenerhassett, conveying to them land for sale; his son the Earl of Arundel in the 1580's used William Dix and Roger Townshend, conveying to them all his personal estate; in the 1590’s both Essex and Southampton worked 1 HMCB, tii, p. 269. CSPD, 1634-5, p. 411. SP 23/62, p. 543. 2 HMCS, vii, p. 196; xii, p. 334.

CREDIT 521 through servants.' Examples could be indefinitely extended, and there can be no doubt that this was normal practice. Satisfactory though this may have been to the creditors, the servants not infrequently found themselves less happily situated. In 1571 the

servants of the Duke of Norfolk, in 1597 those of the Earl of Derby, in 1622 those of Bacon found themselves lable to arrest as suteties. Royal Protections had to be issued to save those of Lord Bergavenny in 1628 and of the Earl of Carlisle in 1631. Mr. Customer Smith did not hesitate to throw a servant surety of the Earl of Leicester into prison; in the 1630’s sureties for the Earl of Carlisle and Lord Rich were imprisoned, if only temporarily; and in 1647 a servant of Lord Cromwell was financially ruined for his

pains. A not altogether unpremeditated by-product of the indefinite prolongation of the life of the Long Parliament was that it conferred immunity from arrest for debt not only upon M.P.s but also upon lords’ servants, thus making the peers immune from the most effective form of pressure for repayment. In 1641 the City protested

that M.P.s, peers, and their servants owed it almost a million pounds, and described this indefinitely extended moratorium as a eteater grievance than monopolies or ship-money. A petition to abolish the immunity altogether for lords’ and M.P.s’ servants,

and to suspend it for M.P.s, was greeted by both Houses, and patticularly by the Lords, with cries of indignation at so subversive an attack upon the fundamental privileges of Parliament.? (4) Statutes The weakness of all these instruments had early become intoler-

able for merchants and in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries they had devised their own machinery of credit, the statute merchant and the statute staple, which were swiftly enforceable on

the body, lands, and goods of the debtor. In 1532 the latter was officially made available to the population at large in the form of a “Recognisance in the nature of Statute Staple’, and a central registration office was set up under a Clerk of Recognizances. This allowed the landed classes to draw on the resources of the London ™ Boughton, N. C. 13/2. SP 12/92/52; 162/1. H/S 158, f. 46. L/Dev IV, f. 277%. Hants R.O., W.D. 581, 582. 2 H/S 158, f. 46. SP 12/262/34; 195/104. Bodl Carte MSS. 77, f. 90. CSPD, 1627-8, p. 548; 1631-3, p. 81; 1638-9, p. 595. CCC, p. 1730. HMC 6th Rep., App., p. 172. 3. V. Pearl, London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution, Oxford, 1961, pp. 117, 128.

522 CREDIT moneyed men by offering the latter guarantees of swift enforcement. All creditors had to do to recover their money was to obtain a cer-

tificate from the Clerk of Recognizances that the statute had not been cancelled, and present it and the original recognizance to the Crown Clerk in Chancery. Without the necessity of any suit at law this would automatically result in the issuing within ten days of a writ ordering the impounding of the lands of the debtor. The sheriff would be instructed to place an ‘extent’ on the property, which meant that he was to value and seize part or all the estate of the debtor and pay the rents to the creditor until capital, interest, costs, and damages were all cleared off.! In addition the goods and the body of the debtor could also be arrested in case of need. Moreover, the extent was not respectful of rank for, as Luke Frugal told Lord

Lacy, ‘I grant your person to be privileged from all arrests; yet there lives a foolish creature call’d an undersheriff who, being well

paid, will serve an extent on lords’ or lowns’ land’. This cheap, simple, and expeditious procedure was very reassuting to the creditor, though sometimes painful to the debtor who found himself temporarily dispossessed of his rents. It was a London alderman who obliged Francis Curzon to write from ‘Keddleston my extended poore house’.? Given the swift enforcement of statutes by extents upon land, the frequent use of sureties, and the fixing of a maximum interest rate, after 1572 there was at last a credit machinery that was both flexible and fairly reliable, and one which was extensively used by the nobility for borrowing substantial sums of money. Bonds were hardly ever used to cover more than a few hundred pounds, but statutes were thought safe for several thousands. They could, as we have seen, be used for many other purposes, but statutes between

peers and London aldermen or leading citizens can reasonably be assumed to involve a loan of half their face value. Indeed many can be proved from other sources to mean just that. On the rare occasions when this is not the case, the statute acknowledged by a peet to a merchant was a guarantee for performing a covenant

in a mortgage or a sale of land, and is therefore still evidence of financial indebtedness. On the other hand there are sufficient ™ Records of extents are incompletely listed, entirely unindexed, and scattered about among Chancery archives (C 131; 152/22-66; 193/41; 228), though the registers of the statutes themselves have found their way into the Lord Chamberlain’s Office (LC 4). For the procedure, see H. Hall, Select Cases concerning the Law Merchant, iii (Selden Soc. xitx), 1932, p. lxxxvi.

2 Talbot G, f. 507. J. Massinger, City Madam, v. ii.

CREDIT 523 statutes among relatives and friends which are obligations to perform contracts to make it impossible to use these records indisctiminately as evidence of total indebtedness. Not only did statutes not always involve debt, but there was undoubtedly a good deal of laxity about cancellation of items in the register. Non-cancellation

of a statute in the register does not necessarily mean that it still remained in force.! Since they could be indefinitely renewed, very old statutes were occasionally made the basis of extents on the lands of a debtor. A statute of Lord Grey of 1547 was certified in Chancery in 1565; one of Lord Stourton of 1544 was certified in 1572 and again in 1586; one of Lord Sheffield of 1591 was certified in 1603.7 An unforeseen consequence of the enforcement of old statutes by extents was that

they became charges on a landed estate which were a perpetual threat to the unwary purchaser. As late as 1651 a statute of 1593 was found to be still an encumbrance on an estate. As a result the Court of Chancery was besieged by suitors seeking relief from unknown extents on newly purchased lands, and the most astute purchasers took the precaution of exacting statutes from the vendors in very large sums with a defeasance guaranteeing that the land was

unencumbered. Of course the same uncertainty might also affect creditors, for an extent might prove to be useless if the estate was already absorbed by other, earlier extents. This was a situation which could easily be exploited by the unscrupulous debtor. The trick was for the latter to buy back one of his own statutes and give it to a friend, who would promptly get an extent placed upon the estate, thus preserving it from the attentions of the genuine creditors.3

These standard credit instruments were thus still not entirely satisfactory to either creditor ort debtor. The complications of enforcement made the former reluctant to lend except for very short periods and upon a security that was nominally double the value of the loan. The debtor was haunted by the fear that failure 1 It should be pointed out that the most searching critic of my use of these records, Professor

Trevor-Roper, has not hesitated to treat some of them as evidence of indebtedness when London money-lenders are involved (H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Gentry, 1953, pp. 22-24). For an analysis of the nature of these documents, see Trevor Roper in EcHR, 2nd ser., iii, 1951, pp. 284-8, and myself, op. cit., 2nd ser., iv, 1952, pp. 315-19. See also Hall, op. cit. iii, pp. xxx—xxxi, lxxxv—Ixxxvi.

2 LC 4/187, pp. 295, 181; 192, p. 68. 3 27 Eliz., cap. 4. CCC, pp. 1890, 3112, 2069. C 2 Eliz., B 30/39; G 14/39; F 2/62, 3/29. Tothill, op. cit., pp. 158-Go, 179. SP 23/56, p. 77.

524 | CREDIT to repay on the appointed day would result in the enforcement of the

penalty and the loss of double the loan. In the hands of the unscrupulous usuter, bonds and statutes could be used to devastating effect. In a well-meaning effort to mitigate these evils, the late Elizabethan Privy Council developed the habit of using its prerogative power to enforce an equitable settlement between debtor and creditor, regardless of the letter of the law. It ordered compulsory arbitration, the granting of more time for repayment, and the scaling down of debts. Though the Council seems to have capitulated to the common lawyers after 1603 and abandoned this intervention on behalf of ill-used debtors, this must for many years

have been an additional factor of uncertainty in an already sufhciently confusing situation.? (5) Mortgages

The last instrument for raising money was the mortgage of land,

a device which in some ways resembled the extent and in others the sale of a rent-charge. In the Middle Ages the mortgager surrendered his property to the mortgagee, who drew from the profits of the land either sufficient to cover the interest, or enough to reduce the capital as well. Even in the second half of the sixteenth century this type of mortgage was not unknown, and as late as 1600 there are examples of land surrendered to the creditor for a fixed period of years and then returned, or of land mortgaged for a period with guarantee of interest from a rent-charge.? More commonly, however, the debtor now retained control of his propetty until the day of repayment and only lost possession if he defaulted. William West’s handbook of legal contracts of 1610 recognized four possible alternatives, all of which are to be found in the Close Rolls of the period. All are bargains and sales qualified

by defeasances or conditions. The first is for re-entry if the seller repays a certain sum on a specified day. If not, the buyer is to have full possession on payment of the difference between the mortgage and the full price discovered on a valuation. The next is similar, except that the amount of the difference is stipulated in advance. The third has no specific provision for full assurance of title on default, and the fourth provides for redemption on repayment of 1 J. P. Dawson, “The Privy Council and the Private Law’, Michigan Law Review, xlviii, 1950,

Pr, CR 4o Eliz., pts. 3, 22; 44 Eliz. 20. C 2 Eliz., F 5/46; A 5/63. HMC Sackville MSS. i, P. 341.

CREDIT 525 capital after a fixed period of years. The available evidence strongly

suggests that the third of these four was still the most common at the turn of the century.! Debtors wete afraid of mortgages and avoided them when they

could. The situation of Lord Mountjoy, who in the 1560’s had mortgaged all but £5 a year of his estates, was not exceptional: it was unique. But those who were already heavily in debt often found it impossible to raise money by any other means. Mortgages ate therefore not as frequently met with as bonds, recognizances, and statutes; they tend to be for fairly large sums; and were mostly used by men who had already tried other means of borrowing. The

reason why they were so disliked and feared was that in theory, and sometimes in practice, failure to repay the capital on a given day could lead to the absolute forfeiture of the estate. Estates could rarely be mortgaged for their full commercial value for fear of prior encumbrances such as earlier mortgages, extents, jointutes, ot uses for trusts.” As a result of this frequent undervaluation, the debtor was faced with the possibility of serious loss if he forfeited his estates through failure to repay the capital on time, a possibility made all the more likely by the fact that nearly all mottgages were nominally for only stx months or at most a year. In 1587 the Earl of Leicester claimed that he was about to forfeit, amongst other things, property worth £13,000 for failure to clear mortgages of £4,300; in 1601 Lords Grey of Wilton and Cobham ostentatiously witung their hands at the prospect of losing land they valued at £10,000 and £/5,000 for mortgages of £3,000 and £600 respectively.3

Thete can be no doubt that foreclosure was regarded as an evertpresent threat, a sword of Damocles suspended above the heads of many Elizabethan noblemen. On the other hand the thread that kept the sword from falling was a good deal stouter than many contemporaries were willing

to admit. An important strand was the equitable jurisdiction of Chancery, which was becoming increasingly active in this field and was intervening to protect the debtor whenever he could offer some reasonable excuse for his failure to pay on time. Secondly, in practice creditors were usually willing to pay additional sums to IR. W. Turner, The Equity of Redemption, Cambridge, 1931. West, op. cit., sects. 416-19. CR, passim.

2 C 24/1440, SP 12/189/1. For Cleveland’s success in mortgaging the same property several times over see House of Lords MSS. 2 July and 13 August 1660. 3 CSPD Add., rj 80-1625, p. 208. HMCS, xi, pp. 548, 582.

526 CREDIT obtain free surrender of title, and indeed this seems to have been normal practice, to judge from the activities in the 1590’s of the money-lender Thomas Myddleton.! Sometimes the deed stipulated the full sale price, as when Sir Henry Hartington mortgaged Elmesthorpe, first for £2,190 with proviso for sale for {5,190 and later for £4,400 with proviso for sale for £6,000. More frequently the creditor voluntarily paid the extra money in order to avoid possible

litigation over the title. Lord Chandos mortgaged a manor for £750 and then sold it outright for an extra £440; Lewis Tresham mortgaged some pasture for {900 and sold it for £500 mote.? Thirdly, there was very often a verbal agreement to allow the mortgage to be renewed. City men were not always anxious to saddle themselves with the responsibility of administering scattered landed properties, even if they could be snapped up on very advan-

tageous terms. They often preferred to keep their debtors on the

| hook and to continue to rake in their steady 10 per cent. interest. And so although there are plenty of examples of forfeited mortgages, there are also plenty more in which the day of redemption was renewed year after year. One mortgage of the Earl of Essex of 1589 was only surrendered to the creditors in 1603. The Earl of Cumberland mortgaged Brancepath manor in 1588 for six months, lost it by default, recovered it a year later on payment of capital and atreats of interest, remortgaged it two years later, left it in mortgage

for six years, and finally sold it outright for a substantially larger ficure than that for which it was mortgaged. The deeds and cortespondence of the money-lender Thomas Sutton, a man not renowned

for his charity to the unfortunate, proves that he usually allowed his noble debtors to renew their mortgages for several years before final sale. On some occasions, however, he was brutal. When he lent Lord William Howard money in June 1605, it was only on condition of absolute surrender of the land if the money was not repaid by next term.3 —

This practice of prolongation was supported and encouraged during the first decades of the seventeenth century by the tendency of the Court of Chancery to use its equitable jurisdiction no longer

for the protection of the individual with a special grievance but 1 Elizabethan Government and Society, ed. S. T. Bindoff ef a/., 1961, pp. 271-2. | 2 CR 38 Eliz., pt. 6; 41 Eliz., pts. 5, 9; 4 Jas. I, pt. 31; 5 Jas. 1, pt. 11. 3 CR 1 Jas. I, pt. 2. R. T. Spence, The Cliffords, Earls of Cumberland, 1379-1646 (London Ph.D. thesis), 1959, pp. 37, 40, 42, 65. Charterhouse F 1/14. Cf. also E. Milner, Records of the Lumleys, 1904, p. 67.

CREDIT 527 to establish a general principle of granting creditors the equity of

redemption of a mortgage. By 1625 the court was assuring the defaulting debtor virtually automatic protection from sudden forfeiture provided that he offered repayment of principal, interest, and costs within a reasonable space of time. Indeed it was going even farther, and allowing the debtor to retain possession of the land beyond the date of expiry of the mortgage so long as he con-

tinued to pay the interest. Contrary to general belief, however, this did not mean an immediate revolution in the credit structure. Although in theory landowners had at last obtained a reliable instrument of long-term borrowing without endangering their estates, there is in fact no evidence for more than a modest increase

in the use of the mortgage for borrowing before the Civil War. Only about half the royalist compounders who borrowed any money used the mortgage, and then only for about half their total debts.1

There ate four possible explanations for this curious phenomenon. The first is that the change of attitude of Chancery was not as revolutionary as it seems. In fact the previous position was slightly less unfavourable to the debtor than contemporary lamentations and complaints by landowners, playwrights, and satirists

would have us believe. In the same way that it interfered over extents, the Elizabethan Privy Council had been taking action to mitigate the severity of the law in cases of obvious extortion over

mottgages. The use of prerogative power to enforce equitable settlements in the interests of social stability and natural justice had therefore already done something to remove the worst terrors

of the mortgages. The Court of Chancery merely stepped in to extend and systematize former crown policy. It is also possible that as Chancery extended its authority, credi-

tors became reluctant to accept mortgages on these restricted terms, particularly since the lack of a central land registry meant that ‘by the law of England as it is now practis’d, no man can know a title by writings, there being so many ways to incumber the land privately’. In consequence creditors wete reluctant to accept mottgages except at low values and guaranteed by the personal bonds of other sureties.” The other possibilities are either 1 Turner, op. cit., pp. 24-32, states the legal theory; Finch, pp. 168-9, draws the sociological conclusions. The evidence of royalist compounders comes from SP 23 passim. 2 Dawson, op. cit., p. 420. A. Yarranton, England's Improvement, 1677, p. 8.

528 CREDIT that the landownets were very slow to realize the potentialities of the mortgage with guaranteed equity of redemption, or that they

wete not in a position to take full advantage of it, or both. The first may well be true, but is difficult to document. There is, however, support for the second. By now most great landowners only possessed a life interest in the bulk of their estates, which had long ago been settled on trustees for uses. Although they could mortgage this property, the security they offered to the creditor was limited to their own lifetime, and the price was consequently depressed to six Of seven years’ purchase.

Ill. THE COST OF BORROWING

Given the very short-term nature of all credit instruments, with six months to a year as the commonest periods of loan, the problem of repayment bulked large in the minds of both debtors and creditors. The private papers of any large debtor, a Robert Earl of Essex ort a Robert Earl of Salisbury, are full of elaborate lists of debts falling due in the next few months, with annotations of prolongation or unsuccessful negotiations to that end, and notes of fresh loans incurred to pay off the old. The system was a gigantic merty-go-round, with the great moneyed men of London in effect

paying each other off every stx months or so. When in 1593 the Earl of Shrewsbury was trying to borrow £5,000 from Sit Horatio Palavicino to clear off a debt to Thomas Sutton, the former remarked that ‘Mr Sutton was his neighbour and yt had been his happe to be his paiemaster manie tymes’.! Reduction of the burden of debt was naturally a universal ambition, and many wete the devices employed. Some sought refuge in marriage, either seeking a tich widow fot themselves, or marrying their sons to wealthy brides and pocketing the dowry. Some cut down their woods.

Others sold long leases and reversions of leases in return for immediate cash fines; others kept afloat for years on the sale of lands. The most prudent method, and by the seventeenth century the most common, was to put aside part of the estate and convey

it to trustees for a term of years to pay off the debts out of the annual profits.

Despite this wide variety of possibilities, it was usually only death which provoked a final settlement. The personal estate of the I L. Stone, Palavicino, p. 196.

CREDIT 529 deceased, freehold property set aside for the purpose, and the goods

and chattels were then valued and sold in order to liquidate all or most of the outstanding debts. Despite all the precautions taken,

despite the very short term of normal loans, this was the only moment when creditors could feel reasonably sure of recovering

their capital. In the life of a noble family it was the moment of truth ,;when for a brief instant they faced up to the realities of their financial position, balanced their assets against their debts, and estimated how much of gross revenue would have to be allocated to debt liquidation.

“We see that the exorbitance or moderation of interest for

money lent depends upon two circumstances: the inconvenience

of parting with it for the present, and the hazard of losing it entirely.’! Blackstone’s succinct analysis of the factors affecting the

rate of interest is true enough in itself, but needs amplification. Money will never become very freely or cheaply available in a society which nourishes a strong moral prejudice against the taking

of any interest at all—as distinct from objection to the taking of extortionate interest. If usury on any terms, however reasonable, is thought to be a discreditable business, men will tend to shun it and the few who practise it will demand a high return to compensate them for being generally regarded as moral lepers. This feeling was still powerful in the sixteenth century, sufficient indeed to cause legislation on the subject and to deter most of the landed classes from employing their money in this way. As late as the 1630°s a cultivated Kentish gentleman, Sir Robert Filmer, was worrying about the problem and telling himself and his friends that though moderate interest was justifiable, he could not personally bring himself to accept any. Was it scruples of this sort or mere

consetvative inertia which led Sir Arthur Throckmorton to keep cash reserves in his house which, if invested, would have added between 5 and ro pet cent. to his gross income ?? Quite apart from this factor of the individual conscience, until the taking of interest becomes legally permissible, funds for lending will always be to some degtee restricted by fear of legal punishment

and loss of capital. Apart from a brief interval between 1545 and 1552 interest on fully secured loans was totally forbidden until 1571. 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries, 1768, ii, ch. 30, p. 457. 2 R. Filmer, Quaestio Quodlibetica, 1653. A. L. Rowse, Ralegh and the Throckmortons, 1962, pp. 284, 289, 294.

821314 M IM

$30 CREDIT During this period interest naturally continued to be demanded and

paid, the rate varying mostly between 12 and 15 per cent. It was the need to accommodate the realities of business life and the desire of the Crown to borrow on the English market that forced Parliament to modify its position in 1571. Public penalties were ptescribed for charging interest in excess of 10 per cent., and face was saved by denying legal sanction to the charging of any interest at all. In practice the courts upheld interest rates up to 10 per cent. and borrowers wete only too happy to get the money on these terms. For creditors, however, this meant a reduction in the rate they had been accustomed to charge, and the first consequence of the act was to make the money-lenders very coy and reticent until they found means to circumvent the statute.’ Some deducted the interest in advance from the capital to be lent, others expected gifts of plate at each renewal, others demanded additional cash premiums as well as the legal interest for a long loan.? By 1600, however, it looks as if such measures were exceptional, and that by then it was customary to charge the standard maximum of to per cent. and no more. This is suggested by the tecognizances for debt, and it was certainly the amount charged by Sir William Cavendish in 1601 and paid by the Earls of Salisbury between 1608 and 1624.3

It was clearly in the interest of the landed classes to keep the maximum tate as low as possible, firstly because as debtors they stood to gain, and secondly because it was thought at the time that deat money meant cheap land, and vice versa. It is therefore not surprising to find a draft bill for reduction of the maximum to 5 per cent. in the Parliament of 1607, and another for 8 per cent. in 1614 and 1621, which finally reached the statute book in 1624. The moment was well chosen, soon after a severe trade slump, and the rate in practice fell precisely as the legislators decreed—a remarkable example of successful government interference in the free play of

the market.4 Money became so plentiful in the dog days of the 1630’s that men were lending at 6} or 7 per cent., in preference to risking their capital in commerce for a return that was sometimes R. H. Tawney, introduction to Thomas Wilson, 4 Discourse upon Usury, 1925, pp. 155-69. Northants. Record Soc., xxi, 1963, pp. 29-30, 64-66, 82-83. HMC 3rd Rep., p. 37. HMCD, i, p. 244. LC 4/188, pp. 4, 47, 181, 498. Talbot P, f. 305. 2 HMCS, v, p. 363. HMCR, iv, pp. 416, 418. R. Surtees, History of Durham, 1816, i, p. 200. 3 Chatsworth/H 10A. H/A passim. 4 HMC 4th Rep., App., p. 118; 3rd Rep., App., p. 21. CJ, i, pp. 503, 611. Evidence for the fall of the rate in 1624 comes from the Earl of Salisbury’s papers.

CREDIT 531 no more than 4 per cent. Although rates shot up again in 1639 in teaction to war and rumours of war, Lord Dacre was borrowing at 6 per cent. by 1647, so that the effective rate of interest had been virtually halved between 1560 and the Civil War. After 1651 the legal maximum was down to 6 per cent. and even men as prodigal as the Earl of Berkshire could borrow three-quarters of the money they needed at a mete 5 per cent., which is between a half and a third of the current rate a hundred years before.! This was a revolution with profound and far-reaching economic consequences. The fiat of the law could not have dictated interest rates without the consent of the moneyed men, and one reason for the success of

this legislation was the security already afforded by statutes and mortgages. Coupled with the survival of the nobleman’s concept of honour that demanded the ultimate—probably posthumous— tepayment of his debts, these afforded the creditor reasonable assutance that his capital was fairly safe, if not easily and swiftly recovetable. Good returns on commercial investments may have been a factor, but the principal reason why the rate was so high was the diversion of capital into purchase of land. So long as the Crown and many old families continued to throw land on to the market in large quantities, so long as landownership carried with it immense and unique social and political prestige, so long would a vety great deal of available capital be diverted into this channel. In the early seventeenth century the enormous growth of government borrowing, mobilized by the customs farmers, and the increase of business activity with the expansion of English overseas trade provided even greater competition for the available capital resoutces. Fortunately, however, this growing pressure of demand was more than matched by an increase in the available supply. After about 1580 the fifty-odd great London merchants who dominated both city politics and the main trading companies were incteasing their wealth at a tremendous trate. This concentration of wealth in relatively few hands stimulated specialization in the money market and facilitated the problem of the needy nobleman in seatch of a loan. The number of doots upon which he had to knock before obtaining satisfaction was greatly reduced. In the eatly seventeenth century the scrivenets emerged to play an 1 Wynn, no. 1559. E. B. Sainsbury, Ca/. of Court Minutes of East India Co., 1635-39, p. 8. HMC 6th Rep., p. 53. SP 23/198, p. 269. W. T. MacCaffrey, Exeter, rsgo—1640, Harvard, 1958, p. 124. M. C. Wren, ‘The Chamber of London in 1633’, EcHR, and ser., i, 1948, p. 51. CSPD, 1638-9, p. 506. Woburn, 1641 account book. Sussex Arch. Coll. xlviii, 1905, p. 134. H/G 7/31.

§32 CREDIT important tole as money-brokers, putting creditors in touch with debtors and thus tapping a far wider range of men and women with a surplus of money to invest. The result was an excess of supply over demand, which inevitably forced down the interest rate, though never as low as the rates current in the great urban communities of the Continent. IV. CREDITORS

Before about 1580 the evidence is too scanty to allow any very

useful generalizations to be made about the class structure of creditors. Thereafter detailed lists of debts are fairly common, and the picture becomes clear.! What first strikes the eye is the very high degree of specialization among a restricted circle of great Lon-

don merchants, men who first made their money in overseas or retail trading and who then turned to the money-lending business. In 1621 it was obsetved that ‘generally all merchants, when they have gotten any great wealth, leave trading and fall to usury, the gain thereof being so easy, certain, and great’.2 Why bother with running a shop and worrying about how to keep pace with the unpredictable shifts of fashion, why tun all the risks of war and tempests and pirates and shifting prices on trading ventures across the oceans, when there was 10 per cent. per annum to be made on the security of a mortgage in the fat English Midlands? Given the initial capital to play this market, one could sleep easily at night and still grow rich. The most favourably placed for this business were the leading mercers, silkmen, jewellers, and goldsmiths, whose shops were always crowded with the world of fashion. In the late 1580’s and 1590’s the silkman James Anton sold his goods and lent his money

to the Earls of Northumberland, Cumberland, Essex, Oxford, Huntingdon, and Derby. It looks as if his widow was telling no more than the unvarnished truth when she claimed that her late husband had ‘had great dealinges with manie of the chiefe nobillitie and gentrie of this realme’, for sums amounting to {£20,000 to £30,000 a yeat.3 Sir William Herrick the goldsmith lent to the Earls of Nottingham, Suffolk, Southampton, and Mar and to Lords t See Appendix XX. 2 Sir Thomas Culpeper, A Tract against Usury, 1621 (quoted by B. E, Supple in Canadian Journal of Economic and Political Science, 1961).

3 Chancery Proc., Ser. I, Jas. I, A 1/62.

CREDIT 533 Burgh and Hume, and sold plate and jewels to the Earl of Hunting-

don and Lord Berkeley. The draper John Langley lent to Lords Sheffield and Willoughby d’Eresby; the clothworker John Lacy to the Earl of Derby, Lords Burgh and Dudley, and Sir Robert Sydney. The goldsmith and alderman Alexander Prescot lent to four earls and a baron, the mercer Sir William Stone to two earls and four barons. Some of the great household suppliers, like Abraham Campion the brewer (three earls and two barons) or Richard Burrell the grocer (one earl and three barons), also got drawn into this lucrative business. If these were the most active usurers among the London merchant community, there is little doubt that virtually the whole of this tight little oligarchy was drawn into money-lending between 1580 and 1620. Sixteen goldsmiths and at least forty aldermen are known to have made loans to peers during this period.! The other two groups who were prominent in this business during these forty years—though both were of secondary importance compared with the city magnates—were lawyers and govern-

ment officials. The fees of the latter were inadequate to support them, and officials concerned with handling revenue were in the habit of holding surplus balances on their accounts and using them for money-lending at interest. Tellers of the Exchequer, Treasurers at War, officials of the Court of Wards, all indulged in this practice.

The Earl of Cumberland borrowed from three Tellers in the Exchequer, the head of the Fine Office in the Exchequer, and two

Clerks of the Petty Bag in Chancery. Other men in the official world also played the same game. Lord Burghley’s secretary, Henry Maynard, first made a fortune from exploiting his position as inter-

mediary between the Lord Treasurer and the buzzing swarm of suitors and clients, and then put it out at interest to let it grow. Then there were the lawyers, whose surplus wealth sometimes sought an outlet in money-lending. Most of them avoided heavy commitments and preferred to put the bulk of their money directly into land as soon as it became available. But one or two plunged heavily. Sergeant John Hele, the creditor of the Earl of Essex, Lords Cobham and Compton, and many others of lesser note, was 1 Calculations about creditors and debtors are drawn from a wide variety of sources, principally detailed lists of debts (see Appendix XX), but supplemented to a lesser degree by statutes

recorded by the Clerk of Recognizances (LC 4) and mortgages registered in the Close Rolls

Spence, thesis cit., pp. 83-87. Cf. Knowler, ii, p. 123.

534 CREDIT a notorious example of the lawyer on the make with an eye to the main financial chance. Eventually, however, he overreached himself in an attempt to recover his loan when Cobham was arrested for treason in 1603. Lord Keeper Egerton had had good reason to denounce him to the Queen as ‘a gryping and excessive usuret’.!

None of the men and groups hitherto mentioned, not even Sergeant Hele or some of the great supply tradesmen of London, wete specialists in the money-lending field. Money-lending was merely a temporary investment of wealth which had been earned and was still partly employed in foreign trade and retailing in the home market. There wete some, however, for whom usury became the main activity and the main source of income. These were the men pilloried by the playwrights, those whom a Jacobean audience would immediately identify as “Sir Avarice Goldenfleece, second to none for usury and extortion’. One such was Thomas Sutton, the model for Ben Jonson’s Volpone, a man who had acquired some capital in fortunate speculation in Newcastle coal-mines, and then moved south to London to set up as a professional moneylender. At one time or another he had on his books the Earls of Salisbury, Sussex, Suffolk, Essex, Huntingdon, and Cumberland, and Lords Compton, Eure, Rich, Mordaunt, Willoughby d’Eresby, and Darcy of Chiche. He also fastened his claws on most of the more obviously decaying of the squirearchy, the Catesbys, Markhams, and Sheldons, the Willoughbys of Wollaton, Treshams of Rushton, Heydons of Baconsthorpe, Tyrwhits of Kettleby, Cromwells of Hinchingbrook, Grevilles of Milcote, and Haringtons of Dilston. When he died, he had nearly £45,000 out at interest.? There were only two other men who operated in early Jacobean London on a comparable scale. The first was Alderman Sir John Spencer, Master of the Clothworkers Company, who turned from trade to usury in his latter days and who over a period of ten years ot so netted seven earls and ten barons. But, alas, his daughter and heiress was snatched up against his will by Lord Compton, and the vast fortune went to feed the appetites of one of his more feckless victims. The other was Baptist Hicks, the silk merchant and

retailer. To the end he continued to vend his wares, but he got 1 H/S 75, £. 71. SP 14/12/79. LC 4/193, p. 50. Huntington Library Quarterly, i, 1937-8, p. 387, n. 42. HMCS, xi, pp. 370, 376, 512. CSPD, 1603-10, pp. 46, 181. Star Ch. 8/9/4. E. Foss, The Judges of England, 1857, vi, p. 141.

- no. Middleton, No Wit Like a Woman's, 1. i. Charterhouse, passim. Bodl Tanner MSS. 161,

CREDIT 535 increasingly drawn into money-lending, which from being a convenient sideline must eventually have become his major preoccupation. At one time or another he lent to eight earls and six barons,

to say nothing of a handful of Scottish lords, and it is scarcely surprising that this prolonged intimacy with the peerage should have ended with the acquisition of a title—by purchase or for similar services rendered to the Crown—and the transformation of the shopkeeper and usurer into Viscount Campden of Chipping Campden.

Precisely the same trajectory was followed a decade later by Alderman Sir Paul Bayning. In 1628 he bought a peerage with a fragment of the fortune first acquired in world-wide commercial activity and then increased by money-lending. When he died a year

later, he had more than £136,700 out on loan, to say nothing of a further £12,000 in old and largely irrecoverable debts. As such he was undoubtedly the largest private money-lender (as distinct from crown financier) of the age, a man who in his time had made loans to as many as ten earls, one viscount, and five barons.!

Tycoons such as these wielded immense power through their control of the purse-strings, and it is not surprising to find earls addressing letters to ‘my verrey lovinge frend Mr Thomas Sutton’, ot barons poring over their genealogies to find an excuse for saying ‘cousine Sutton’.? Despite the prejudices of the age, wealth on so heroic a scale could buy at any rate the outward marks of respect. Bayning was one of the last of his kind. As early as the 1610’s shrewd merchants like Cranfield were preferring to use their wealth

to speculate in government grants and contracts in general and in customs farms in particular. Others were tying up more capital in joint-stock trading and colonizing ventures, in spite of their disappointing returns. The reduction of the trate of interest to 8 per

cent. in 1624 must have increased the attraction of alternative investments, and by the 1630’s many of the greatest fortunes of the

age wete being diverted into other channels than money-lending to the landed classes. Having built up a capital of £128,000 by trade and usury, in 1635 Sir William Courteen put it into an expedition to the East Indies—and lost the lot. As early as the reign of Elizabeth, the Crown had begun that advance into the money market which was to reach such formidable proportions by 1640. Many of the great private money-lenders of the reign of James, 1 Essex R.O., D/DRg 2/97. 2 Charterhouse, F 3/116, sor.

536 CREDIT Craven and Vanlore, Hicks and Bayning, became increasingly involved in loans to the Crown, and their successors in the next reign made it their main business. To give but one example, in 1639

Sit Paul Pindar possessed an estate valued at over a quarter of a million pounds, two-thirds of which was tied up in customs farms and advances to the Crown.! Until the rise of the goldsmith bankers in the 1650’s there is reason to think that there is something of a break in the line of really great professional money-lenders working in the private matket. This gap—if gap there was—was filled by a striking technical improvement in the money market which mobilized a great mass of hitherto unemployed capital. Small savings of country gen-

try and city widows were at last made available for loans through the scriveners. The few big landed families with surplus capital had always been able to put out their money, but the Elizabethan with a few hundred pounds to spare must have found it hard to place his savings on reasonably secure terms. By the accession of

: James the scriveners, who had hitherto acted merely as agents for drawing up legal documents, were beginning to help their clients by putting needy gentlemen and peers in touch with country gentry and city widows with a little capital to invest. In 1611 two enterprising courtiers, Sir Arthur Gorges and Sir Walter Cope, tried to move in on this lucrative broking business by a patent to set up a central ‘Public Register of General Commerce’ which would serve to put in touch with each other both debtors and creditors and men seeking to transfer money to and fro across the country.” But the project failed, leaving the way clear for the specialized activities of the scrivenerts. Before 1606 Sit Thomas Berkeley had borrowed £131 from Mr.

Daniel and Mr. Elkin, ‘taken up by Mr Fylkens, scrivenet’, and Lord Windsor had raised a total of over £2,000 from a number of Londoners through a couple of scriveners. The Earl of Salisbury first began to borrow through the scriveners in 1610, and Sir John Daccombe was raising money by the same method before 1617. Even men as well placed for making their own contacts as Richard Cartwright of the Rolls Office found it convenient to use sctiveners to put out their money. The next step after this simple broking was 1 Ashton, op. cit., passim. BM Sloane MSS. 351 C, ff. 31-32. 2 Bodl 4° D 18 Art. 3 GPL/Smith MSS. 3/3, 14. PCC 29 Hayes. SP 14/95/55, 57. H/A 160/t.

CREDIT 537 for the scriveners to borrow from others in their own name in order to make specific loans. An Act of 1624 prohibited scriveners from

taking more than } per cent. for their pains as brokers, but it appears to have been largely ineffective. Though the Earl of Salisbury only paid 4 per cent. for the procuring of {1,000 in 1625-6, Sit Hugh Cholmley in the 1620’s and Lord Clifford in the 1630’s wete being charged 1 pet cent. brokerage.’ The final stage came

when the scriveners began to accept long-term deposits from a vatiety of investors and to put the money out in a series of shortterm loans in their own name. Just when this stage was reached we do not know, though it seems that all three types of activity were flourishing together before the Civil War. Thete is evidence that some thirty London scriveners, clustered

about Ludgate Hill and Cheapside, were procuring money for the peetage in the three decades before the Civil War. Because of the chance sutvival of his papers the best known is Humphrey Shalcrosse, who before and during the war had between £8,000 and £18,000 out on loan at any one time, only a fraction of it his | own money, and was the agent for ten earls, two sons of earls, one

courtier, six barons, one baroness, six baronets, and thirty-four knights. By the exercise of this profession he acquired a coat of arms and sufficient capital to marry off his two daughters with £2,500 and £3,000 respectively.? Besides making a lot of money, Shalcrosse and his colleagues also

performed a useful service to the community in tapping new soutces of capital for borrowing, and it was probably the example set by the scriveners which encouraged wealthy squires and knights to begin putting their money out on loan on their own account. In the late sixteenth century there had been one or two nobles who had been willing and able to use their capital in this way. In the 1570's the 2nd Marquis of Winchester had set aside a capital of {/10,000

to be lent out at 10 per cent., the proceeds going to reduce his father’s enormous debt to the Queen. In the 1590’s Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury, had used her surplus wealth in short-term loans to Derbyshire gentry.3 There had also always been t a1 Jas. I, cap. 17. H/A 160/6. Cholmley, p. 25. Chatsworth/BA 173, ff. 91-96. In 1635 two sctivenets got a pardon for breaking the usury laws (CSPD, 1637, p. 359). 2 M. Beloff, ‘Humphrey Shalctrosse and the Great Civil Wat’, EHR, liv, 1939. To this list of debtors there should be added the Earls of Salisbury and Bolingbroke (H/A 160/6; Hunts. R.O., ddM 48/4). 3 House of Lords MSS., Supplementary 1576-93. H/S 146, f. 30. Chatsworth/H 7, 8, ro.

538 CREDIT a cefttain amount of lending between neighbours, a form of mutual

self-help within the tight-knit community of the gentry of the county, but in the sixteenth century the nobility had had to rely primarily on the London merchants, with some support from royal officials and lawyers. By 1640 the picture had significantly changed. For one thing the

rapidly rising rents of the previous forty years had created a great volume of surplus capital in the hands of the more prudent knights and squires. For another, many had become accustomed to lending money thtough the agency of the scriveners, and wete now willing

to launch out on their own and save the brokerage fee. In consequence lists of creditors of the nobility change considerably in character, with county knights and squires and royal financial officers now taking far more prominent positions.’ After 1600 the

supremacy of the great city merchant in this aristocratic money market was undermined by diversion to speculation in government

contracts and farms, and by competition from the thriving world : of royal financial officials with government surpluses to play with, from the sctiveners acting as brokers mobilizing the resources of small men in town and country, and from wealthy knights and squites operating on their own. V. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DEBT (1) Attitudes to Borroming —

Contemporaries had no doubt about whether or not it was wise to borrow to meet sudden emergencies or long-term deficits : they were against it. With an insistence which seems almost pathological

in its tepetitious intensity they kept urging one another to shun the money-lender as they would the devil. Bacon, who was oppressed with debt all his life, described usury as “the canker and ruin of many men’s estates, which in process of time breeds public

poverty’, and Ralegh used almost the identical words to express his disapproval. “Take hede of the usurer, of commodityes, & of the merchantes bookes,’ admonished Sir William Wentworth in 1604: ‘hould him a bondslave that castes him self into nedeles debt and dare not show his face in every place.’ ‘Borrowing ... should be the last refuge’, advised the Earl of Northumberland. In the middle of the seventeenth century Lord North still took the view 1 Appendix XX,

CREDIT 539 that debt was always foolish and was ‘the ruine of much gentry’.!

It was not only sententious theorists, but also men with hard practical experience who regarded sixteenth-century conditions for

borrowing in a less roseate light than do some twentieth-century historians. It 1s impossible to find a single witness who thought borrowing was anything but a desperate and dangerous expedient. The simile most often on their lips was that of canker. ‘A canker hath eaten into the marrowe of my estate’, complained Lord Eure; ‘one of the greatest cankerworms was use-money’ was said to explain the ruin of Sir Richard Cholmley. Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury varied the monotony by likening debt to ‘a mothe in your garment’, and Thomas Habington introduced a lyrical note by compating it to “a snowball rowlinge down Malverne’s hyll’ and swelling as it rolled.3

This universal sense of horror was not mere lip-service to an outdated medieval tradition. It was deeply and passionately felt by a society in which indebtedness was both an almost unavoidable necessity and a terrible social scourge. In the late sixteenth century interest rates were very high, the equity of redemption had not yet

been elevated into a general rule, and mortgages were therefore liable to total forfeiture to unscrupulous speculators; money was short and creditors full of ingenious schemes for selling worthless goods at high prices; sureties were liable to seizure of persons and eoods if the principal failed to fulfil his obligation; and a life sentence to the Fleet prison was the probable fate of the improvident defaulter who did not sport a title. No wonder the victims talked bitterly of ‘usurie which biteth to the verie boone’ and recommended selling land in preference to allowing debts to drag on. It was a heroic but necessary surgical operation. The advice was sensible since the acceptable theoretical norm in Klizabethan calculations of the price of land was sixteen to twenty yeats’ purchase, meaning a return of 5 or 6 per cent. on capital, whereas the rate of interest was at least 10 per cent. Thus a man owing {100 paid {10 to {11 a year in interest, but by selling land bringing in {5 or £6 a year, he would raise {100 and so be able to ! FP. Bacon, Essays: Of Usury. Ralegh, ii, p. 351. Sheff/CL/S 40/1. Harrison, p. 53. Dudley Lord North, Observations and Advices Oeconomical, 1669, p. 109.

2H. R. Trevor-Roper, “The Elizabethan Aristocracy: an anatomy anatomised’, E-HR, and set., iil, 1951, pp. 284, 297. 3 SP 14/47/97. Cholmley, p. 25. Lodge, iii, p. 157. T. Habington, Survey of Worcestershire (ed. J. Amphlett), 1893-5, p. 329.

540 CREDIT clear off the debt. He would thus have teduced his gross landed income by £5 or £6, but increased his net disposable income by the same amount. And so we find Sir Henry Sydney ordering the sale of lands in 1583 to deliver him ‘out of that miserable thraldome

of usurye’. When he came into his shattered estate Sir Percival Willoughby was advised to sell land to clear off the debt which Sir

Francis had allowed to run up at interest from £300 to £20,000. Sale of land for this purpose was deliberately made, after careful calculation, by Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury in 1611 and by Christian Countess of Devonshire in 1628 to give but two examples of many. Those who refused to sell and allowed the debts to run on were liable to endanger the whole estate, for after a time interest charges came to absorb the greater part of their annual revenue. Sir Thomas Tresham, who left it too late, was told in 1604 ‘you have alredy by

experience fownd how that interest hath eaten you out of more lands then yow arr now to sell’. Those like Sir Alexander Denton who dallied too long found themselves selling only to pay interest.

Even in the middle of the seventeenth century, when conditions were mote favourable to borrowers, Lord North was still advising the prompt liquidation of debt ‘though it be by a fell of timber, or by selling of that which may seem precious’.! It was not until a further drop in the rate of interest, the establishment of absolute confidence in the equity of redemption, and the development of long-term debt mechanisms as a normal part of the system of credit that men began recommending the prolongation of debt in preference to speedy liquidation by sale of land.? The acceptable limit of debt is obviously not an absolute: it is directly related both to the rate of interest and to the income of the individual. The burden at 5 per cent. is half that at 10 per cent.; debts which would destroy a man of modest means are of negligible

consequence to a millionaire. A reasonable guide to the limit is that the annual burden of interest running on year after year should not exceed one-third of the net disposable income. This means that debt should not have been allowed to rise above two or three years’

gross income while the rate of interest was 10 per cent. or above, and not above three or four years’ after 1624, when it fell to 8 per 1 HMC Middleton MSS., p. 183. HMC 3rd Rep., App., p. 288. Information from Mr. R. S. Smith. T. Pomfret, Life of Christian, Countess of Devonshire, 1685, pp. 30-32. BM Add. MSS. 39820, f. 61%. Verney, ili, p. 403. Lord North, op. cit., p. 1og.

? See thep. ee given by Earl Fitzwilliam to the Duke of Devonshire in 1845 (J. Econ. Hist. x1, 1951, 17).

CREDIT 541 cent. or below. This is also the sort of figure which might be regarded as the upper limit from the point of view of repayment of capital. The total value of the average estate, including the personal assets, was at most about twenty-one years’ purchase of the rack-rent, and a debt burden of one-fifth of that sum would be the most that could be reasonably imposed by any one generation.

This calculation is complicated by the fact that book debts carried no interest, and could at a pinch be repudiated by the heirs, and that a good many peers, particularly those with a pull at Court, preferred not to pay the Crown its due rather than to run up fresh debts at interest with individuals. A nobleman could get very deeply

into debt with the Crown without any vety immediately serious consequences. At any rate before 1608 the Crown never charged interest on its debts, hardly ever enforced repayment before the death of the debtor, and even then either remitted part or all of the debt or recovered it by easy payments spread over a period of years.

Debts to the Crown therefore fall into quite a different category from those to private individuals, and could reach staggering proportions without involving the ruin of the family. Many debts were also within the family, in the form of unpaid legacies and portions due to daughters, most of which were also interest free, though the habit of charging interest on unpaid marriage portions seems to have

been becoming more common in the early and mid-seventeenth century. Of these four types of debt, to the Crown, to the family, to tradesmen for goods supplied, and to individuals on specialty, only the last was immediately dangerous because of the burden of interest it imposed and the threat of serious penalties for failure to make prompt repayment of the capital. (2) Scale of Borrowing

In the hundred years between 1550 and 1650 there are records of the debts of about 120 peers, only twelve of which date to before

1585. This imbalance is undoubtedly due in part to the general paucity of records before the latter years of Elizabeth. On the other hand debts by their very nature tend to find their way into the permanent records of the courts of law or the royal administration, and it is difficult to believe that the flood of evidence after 1585 is purely accidental. There were a number of individuals who, through blind misfortune, calculated policy, or wanton extravagance, succeeded

in running up huge debts before 1585. It was misfortune which

542 CREDIT allowed Lord Grey of Wilton to fall into the hands of the French at Guines in 1558, and obliged him to borrow {£10,000 to pay his ransom. It may have been calculation which lay behind Lord Treasurer Winchester’s failure to settle his accounts with the Crown,

thus leaving an accumulated debt to Elizabeth of rather over £34,000. But his debts to individuals of about £12,000 are less easy to explain away, except in terms of ovet-ambitious building and an inordinately extravagant style of life. Unrequited expenditure on court attendance and royal service were the causes of the £6,300 debt of the young 2nd Earl of Rutland in 1554, the £7,500

debt of the Duke of Norfolk in 1572, and part at least of the £16,500 debt of James Lord Mountjoy in 1568. It was sheer improvidence that piled up the £13,000 debt of Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, in 1579 and the £5,000 debt of Edward Lord Dudley in 1581.' But these are exceptions to the rule, and there is little evidence that serious indebtedness was widespread at this time.

After 1585 there was a steady deterioration in the general situa-

tion. The cutting off of favours from the Crown coincided with an epidemic of gambling and high living to force a crisis in the affairs of the nobility. The great courtiers adopted the Marquis of Winchester’s solution of running up vast debts to the Crown, The 3rd Earl of Sussex died owing £12,000 to Elizabeth and £4,600 to individuals, the Earl of Leicester £35,000 to Elizabeth and £33,500 to individuals, Sir Christopher Hatton £42,000 to Elizabeth and {22,700 to individuals, the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon £19,400 to Elizabeth and about £18,000 to individuals.2 Others less happily placed were unable to find temporary refuge from the winds of adversity in the royal bosom, and about two-thirds of the peerage seem to have been in growing financial difficulties in the last twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth.3 No wonder London aldermen were besieged by importunate borrowers, that they waxed rich on usury and forfeited mortgages, and that some were tempted to devote the whole of their money and acumen to the lucrative profession of money-lending. The next thirty years saw a falling off of the frequency of severe and crippling indebtedness, which becomes mote the idiosyncrasy 1 SP 12/13/48; 148/18; 92/52; 133/26. B/A 55. C 24/1440. L/Dud III, f. 32. 2 Essex R.O., D/DP F 240. B/A 512. SP 12/286/51. BM Harl. Ch. D 35. Northants. R.O., Finch-Hatton MSS. 601. Bod] Tanner MSS. 97, ff. 6, 153; Carte MSS. 78, f. 246.

3 See in part Appendix XXI. |

CREDIT 543 of the individual than the hallmark of a class. All the great courtiers

continued to pile up vast debts, but their assets were now equally vast and could usually take the strain. The earls of Salisbury survived a debt of £53,000 in 1611, the dukes of Buckingham one of £58,700 in 1628. But the earls of Suffolk never recovered from a debt of £40,000 in 1618, the earls of Dorset one of up to £60,000

in 1624. Edward Earl of Hertford was haunted by the {22,200 he ran up by 1611, William Earl of Devonshire and William Lord Eure by the £38,000 and {21,500 they owed respectively in 1628.1 There is also scattered evidence of more modest debt loads incurred by less outstanding figures, but the total is not large in comparison

with the swelling numbers of the peerage, which by 1628 had reached 126.

For the 1630’s the evidence is much more complete, thanks in

part to the Royalist Composition Papers, and it looks as if a minority of the peerage, something like a fifth, were in debt to individual creditors (not to Crown or family) to the tune of over two years’ income. Truly fantastic private debts had been run up by some of the courtiers—{99,000 by the Earl of Suffolk, {107,000

by the Earl of Strafford, and {121,000 by the Earl of Arundel. Although these gigantic overdrafts were the exception rather than

the rule, 57 of the 121 peers are known to have been in debt in 1642, and others may credibly be supposed to have been in the same position. The total indebtedness of the peerage in 1641 to individuals and to the family amounted to about {14 million, most of which must have been at interest. The gross income from all sources of all 121 peers was about £730,000.” If the gross annual income of their land alone is estimated at {630,000 and is capitalized at twenty years’ purchase, this gives a figure of £13 million, or about

nine times the size of the debt. The interest at 8 per cent. on {14 million amounted to £120,000, which is a sixth of gross income from all sources. This was approaching the limit which an estate could comfortably support. (3) Ihe Consequences of Borrowing

The period from 1580 to 1610 in which the nobility first became

heavily dependent on credit was the one in which the dangets of t H/Box U/39. HMC 4th Rep., p. 304. Bodl MS. Add. D 110, f. 59. Ch, ii, pp. 284, 951. L/Sey, IX, f. 280. Chatsworth/H 87, f. 202. CSPD, 7635, p. 284. 2 For the details of the debts in ¢. 1641 see Appendix XXII; for estimates of gross income see Appendix VIIlc.

544 CREDIT borrowing—high interest rates and the potential danger of forfeiting mortgaged estates—were very real. In consequence it was not metely good sense for debtors to sell land to pay off debts; it was forced upon them by the prohibitively heavy costs of borrowing for more than very short periods. The imperfections of the system of credit are therefore a significant factor in the financial decay of the nobility in the late Elizabethan period. By 1641 incomes had risen very sharply, mortgages were now protected by the equity

of redemption, and the rate of interest had fallen. And so although the total indebtedness of the peerage had risen absolutely,

, per capita, and as a proportion of gross income, its consequences were now far less serious.! Heavy debts were no longer frightening

men into hasty land sales to clear them off. This was a factor in the stabilization of noble finances in the early seventeenth century inferior only to the creation of life interests, the rapid rise of rents, the opening up of new soutces of income in urban rents, and the profligate generosity of King James. Moreover, landed income was buoyant in part as a direct result of the improved facilities for borrowing and the higher rate of indebtedness. One of the common-

est and most effective ways of increasing revenue from land was by raising rents and reducing entry fines for leases. But this involved

a sharp reduction in the capital sums that could be obtained from the land, and therefore depended on the availability of credit from the money-lender. If changes in the tate of interest powerfully affected the fortunes of the nobility, the demands of the nobility in turn had an important effect on the rate of interest, and therefore indirectly on the working

of the economy as a whole. As we have seen, the main factor in reducing the rate was undoubtedly a technical improvement of the credit mechanism which enabled gentry and citizens of modest means to add their savings to the pool of available credit, savings swollen by a general buoyancy of the economy up to 1620 which produced a profit surplus to merchants, retailers, large farmers, landlords, and lawyers. But even at 8 per cent. the English rate was still nearly double that of primarily mercantile communities like those of Holland or Genoa, and significantly higher than in north-west France.’ 1 This improvement of credit conditions continued into the eighteenth century (H. J. Habakkuk, ‘The English Land Market in the Eighteenth Century’, in Britain and the Netherlands,

eds. J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossman, 1960). 2 J. G. von Dillen, History of the Principal Public Banks, The Hague, 1934, p. 95. M. Cipolla,

CREDIT 545 In the eighteenth century Sir John Dalrymple believed that the difference between the English and Dutch rates in the sixteenth century was principally to be explained by differing social back-

grounds. Unlike Holland, England not only had a great deal of land constantly coming on to the market and being eagerly bought up by merchants seeking to improve their status, but also a wasteful landed nobility constantly seeking large loans and without a bank to help them out.! Dalrymple was right in his diagnosis. Between 1591 and 1600 seventeen peers drew on the money market, either by sale of land or by loans from private persons still outstanding in 1600, to the tune of at least £324,000 and probably a good deal

mote. By no means all the money sunk in land purchase would otherwise have been available for money-lending, but a fairly large part of it certainly would have found its way there sooner ot later. By contrast the gross investment throughout the whole of the second half of the sixteenth century in the five major stock enterprises of the age, the Mines Royal and Mineral and Battery Companies for industry, the Russia, North West Passage, and East India Companies for trade, did not exceed £170,000. In 1642 private debts owed to individuals by 57 peers totalled about {14 million, and the total indebtedness of all the 121 peers cannot have

been less than {14 million, which is about the same as what was easily the greatest commercial investment of the age, the second joint stock of the East India Company of 1617-20. By 1641 the capitalization of the Company had fallen sharply, and the total investment in all joint-stock companies at that date was probably

still less than the money out on loan to the peerage.* ] If one thinks of the hundreds of knights and squires and lesser

gentry who were also borrowing more modest sums on the London matket, one can appreciate the tremendous strain imposed by the

demands of the landed classes. The amount of available capital which was tied up in loans to and land purchases from the landed classes must have represented a very large part of the whole. The sheer size of their resources and the extreme pressure for conspicuous expenditure to which they were subject made the peerage the largest individual patrons of the market. It is also likely that in ‘Note sulla storia del saggio d’Interesse . . .”, Economica Internazionale, v, 1952. P. Goubertt, Beauvais et le Beauvaisis de 1600 a 1730, Paris, 1960, p. 538.

1 J. Dalrymple, Considerations upon the Policy of Entails in Great Britain, 1764, pp. 15-19. 2 W.R. Scott, Joint Stock Companies to 1720, Cambridge, 1911, iti, pp. 463-6. See Appendixes

821314 Nn

XXI and XXII.

546 CREDIT ageregate they wetfe a vety important as well as the most conspicuous element in the situation. If their consumption was a powerful stimulus to the economy, as it certainly was, the demands

they made on the money market were an important cause of the high rate of interest in England. And this in turn put a permanent brake upon the speed of English economic growth.

X

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE Now every one prepares a full table, has good attendance, keeps horses, weares rich clothes, gives great wages, retains many servants, builds magnificently, furnishes amply, adorns luxuriantly their bodies, children and houses, by which many costly diversions ... the paunch of an estate is pinched, and the succulency sussurated from its amassation. E. WATERHOUSE, [he Gentleman's Monitor, 1665, p. 263.

I, INTRODUCTION

AN Englishman of the mid-twentieth century has some difficulty

in comprehending how a single individual with a quarter of a million pounds a year or mote—which in modern money is the sott of income enjoyed by the greater noblemen of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—could contrive to spend it and not infrequently to run up huge debts into the bargain. The causes of conspicuous display have already been discussed;! it remains to explain where the money went and to chart the course of the consumptive fever.

As we have seen, the most important factors working for an abnormally high level of expenditure were the moral obligations imposed upon a nobleman by society to live in a style commensutate with his dignity; and confusion between the feudal ideal of generous hospitality and stately living in the country and the Renaissance ideal of sophisticated patronage and display in the town. An earl felt obliged to maintain one principal and one or two sub-

sidiary country seats, a house in London, and a household staff of between 60 and too to run them. He had to keep a generous table freely open to visitors, and a plentiful supply of horses for transport and communications. It is difficult to put a hard figure on these basic necessities of aristocratic existence, since different families spent their money in different ways, to say nothing of otganizing their accounts under different headings. Some examples

of gross annual expenditure, chosen because they seem to give 1 See supra, pp. 184-8.

548 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE a fairly complete picture of the costs of some of the greater estab-

lishments, are set out in Appendix XXIII. On the basis of these and other accounts one might say that in the early seventeenth century an earl could not maintain a suitable establishment at the top of the scale on much less than {£5,000 a year: £500 for clothes

and other personal needs; {1,000 allowance to wife and family, £1,500 to £2,000 for the kitchen, {500 for the stables, {500 for miscellaneous tradesmen’s bills, £500 for wages and liveries, {400 for repairs to houses, and {100 for gifts and alms. In addition there was patliamentaty taxation, which might amount to as much as £200 a yeat, pensions to old servants, which varied enormously in size, and the cost of estate management. There were rents of land on lease and fee-farm land, legal costs, and the expense of running parks and gardens and the demesne farm. Over and above all these recurrent charges, there were the extraordinary demands for capital expenditure on matfriage portions for daughters, new buildings, and royal service, to say nothing of the drain of interest charges on loans and the repayment of capital.! This bald statement of the main headings under which the money was spent fails to make its impact upon the imagination. To under-

stand how it was that so many families, including some of the richest in the kingdom, contrived at one time or another to run headlong into debt, it 1s necessary to illustrate and to describe in detail the extraordinary temptations to extravagance that beset the Elizabethan nobleman.

It should be emphasized that the pressute of expenditure on income cannot be ascribed to the rise in ptices, which must have affected the cost of living of the poor far more than that of the rich.

The pace-makers in the price tise were foodstuffs and fuel, with 1 These figures are detived from the examination of a large number of account books of the nobility, in particular those of the earls of Salisbury and Rutland (H/A 160/5-6, 157/3, Box N/10; B/A 313, 316, 382). They are supported by sixteenth-century figures for the earls of Arundel in 1573-4, Sir William Petre in 1576-7, Lord Cobham in 1596-7 (Scarbrough MSS. EMA 1/4; Essex R.O., D/DP AgG; H/A 154/1). For the seventeenth century there are accounts of Lord William Howard of Naworth between 1612 and 1640, the 9th Earl of Northumberland in 1616-19, the Earl of Suffolk in 1649-51 and 1687~—8, the Earl of Derby in 1677, and the Earl

of Ailesbury in 1678-9 (Surtees Soc. Lxvi1, 1878; EcHR, 2nd ser., ix, p. 445; CUL Ee 3/26, f. 6; Ee 3/25, f. 39%; Essex R.O., D/DBY A1; Lancs R.O., DDK 14/17; Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. xxxli, 1952, p. 141). Finally there are accounts and estimates for the expenditure of the greatest men in the kingdom at the height of their powers: of the Duke of Sometset in 1548-51; the Earl of Salisbury in 1608-12; and the Duke of Buckingham in 1623 and 1627 (BM Eg. MSS. 2815; H/A 160/1, Box G/13; SP 14/149/91 (1); Bodl Eng. Misc., C 208, f. 172”). There are also many other accounts of less completeness and less well arranged, which help to fill in the picture. The most illuminating of these accounts are tabulated in Appendix XXIII.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 549 wages and industrial goods lagging well behind. But most nobles obtained much of their fuel from their own woods, and a good deal of the food consumed by the household was drawn from the produce of the home farm, rents in kind, or tithes. To this extent, there-

fore, the basic cost of living of a nobleman, if such a thing can be conceived, must have been a good deal less affected by the price rise

than is suggested by the Phelps Brown index of consumption, which was drawn up for a working-class budget.! What rose instead was the cost of superfluities like building, life at Court, and mattying off a daughter. II, BUILDING

As late as the middle of the sixteenth century most noblemen were still housed very much as they had been in the Middle Ages. In the north and west they mostly huddled behind the massive walls of their castles, enduring with what fortitude they could muster the cold, the dark, the damp, and the draughts. In the lowland zone they were more comfortably lodged in rambling ranges of domestic buildings grouped loosely round courtyards, as at Wingfield or Compton Wynyates. The dissolution of the monasteries had had two important results. Most noblemen picked up at least one monastic site, and as a result found themselves supplied with very large quarries of ready-worked building stone; secondly many of the political grandees acquired town houses along the Strand.2 A few of the bolder spirits—Sir William Sharington at Lacock, the Earl of Southampton at Titchfield, Lord Sandys at Mottisfont, Lord Rich at Leez—had promptly converted the monas-

tic chutch to secular use, carving parlours and chambers and bedrooms out of naves, transepts, and chancels without respect for the niceties of ecclesiastical propriety. Many mote, like Lord Darcy at St. Osyth and Viscount Montagu at Battle, were content to use the domestic buildings. Most, however, held back, owing mainly to a natural reluctance to indulge in heavy capital expenditure on property which, if things went badly, might have to be restored to the monks, and partly also to superstitious feat of committing sacrilege by wining, dining,

and sleeping on once holy ground. But reuse of the stone elsewhere was another matter, and country house after country house 1 FE, H. Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins, ‘Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables

.. ., Economica, Nov. 1956. 2 See supra, p. 395.

550 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE was built from monastic rubble. The King set an example by demolishing Merton Priory for Nonsuch, and Chertsey Priory for Hampton Court. Sir Anthony Browne raided Newark Priory for Byfleet, Sir William More the Friary at Guildford for Loseley, Sit

Francis Willoughby Lenton Priory for Wollaton, Sir Nicholas Bacon St. Albans Abbey for Gorhambury. As late as the early seventeenth century, Robert Earl of Salisbury was pulling down part of St. Augustine Abbey, Canterbury, to provide building stone for Hatfield.! By the 1570’s and 1580’s there had developed overwhelming incentives for new building. Having survived the reign of Mary, holders of monastic property at last felt teasonably secure in their possessions, whatever their private doubts about the long-term prospects of the Anglican settlement. They were therefore now willing to risk their capital on building upon ex-Church land. They had paid off the purchase price of the land and were now ftee to devote their surplus money to building. Though the new Renaissance style introduced by Protector Somerset and Northumberland and their circle did not catch on, there was clear recognition of an aesthetic obligation to sttive for architectural symmetry, while the mannered extravagances of Dutch-inspired architectural embellishments made medieval and early Tudor houses look shabby and

down-at-heel. Building materials were plentifully available, what with stone from monastic sites, the rapidly growing output of the brickmaker, and timber from the still extensive woodlands. Men urgently needed more comfortable buildings to live in, with more

fireplaces, mote private chambers, better plumbing, and better lighting. An architect of genius, Robert Smythson, showed how to take full advantage of new industrial techniques to erect light and airy constructions with huge areas of glass like Hardwick.

In varying degrees these incentives were felt by the landed classes at all levels from the yeoman to the earl. Between 1580 and 1620 England was largely rebuilt in the new materials and in con-

formity with the new standards of comfort and privacy. All over the lowland zone the yeomen were building the Jacobethan farmhouses so many of which still survive to this day.? At a higher level of society the gentry were building as they were never to build 1 Surrey Arch, Coll.1, 1949, p. 101. Arch, xxxvi, 1854. HMC Middleton MSS., p. 459. Lambeth 647, £. 59. Arch. J. cxii, 1956, p. 108.

2 W. G. Hoskins, “The Great Rebuilding’, Past and Present, iv, 1953. M. W. Barley, The English Farmhouse and Cottage, 1961.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 551 again. A survey of four widely spread counties—Derbyshire, Essex,

Shropshire, and Somerset—suggests that the amount of countryhouse building in the fifty years between 1570 and 1620 fat exceeded

that of any subsequent half-century. At a higher level still, the aristocracy were building great houses in the country and great houses in the City. Some Elizabethans were not content with a single country palace, but demanded two: Hatton had Holdenby and Kirby, Burghley had Burghley House and Theobalds. Most peers were satisfied with one palace and several lesser country seats :

Grimsthorpe and Spilsby for the 11th Lord Willoughby d’Eresby; Cassiobury, Walkern, and Hadham Parva for the 1st Lord Capel; Chatsworth and Hardwick for the 3rd Earl of Devonshire; Welbeck and Bolsover for the 1st Earl of Newcastle; Hatfield, Cranborne,

and Quixwood for the 2nd Earl of Salisbury; Londesborough, Skipton Castle, Bolton, Appleby, Cromham Castle, and Grafton Lodge for the 4th Earl of Cumberland; Castle Ashby, Compton Wynyates, and Grendon for the 1st Earl of Northampton. The most striking phenomenon of the period is the gigantic country seat, the so-called ‘prodigy house’. The work of the Court aristocracy of the late Elizabethan and Jacobean age, many of these fantastic edifices still lie heavily about the English countryside like the fossilized bones of the giant reptiles of the Carboniferous Age. Their sole justification was to demonstrate status, their sole function to entertain the sovereign on one of the summer progresses. Referring to his own Theobalds and to Sir Christopher Hatton’s Holdenby, Lord Burghley spoke of ‘her for whom we both meant to exceed our purses’, while Hatton described Holdenby as a ‘shrine’ which ‘that holy saint may sit in... to whom it is dedicated’.! These letters wete probably written for effect in the hope that they would be shown to the Queen, but the need to entertain Her Majesty was certainly a key factor, and one that could be openly acknowledged.

The other, unacknowledged, reason for extravagant building was in order to satisfy a lust for power, a thirst for admiration, an ambition to outstrip all rivals, and a wish to create a home suitable for the residence of a nobleman—a particularly urgent incentive to one whose patent was still fresh from the mint. The post-1603 inflation of honours was thus an important cause of this outburst of excessive building which rose to a crescendo between 1580 and 1620 and then began to subside. It was pure ambition to make a 1 Hatton, pp. 126, 155.

552 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE show that induced the Countess of Shrewsbury to erect that stately pleasure-dome the New Hall at Hardwick just beside the recently

completed Old Hall, an ambition frankly revealed in the huge initials “E.S.’ boldly displayed all round the parapet. It was a desire

to live up to his new title that drove Lord Burghley to erect Burghley House and Theobalds, besides building a large town house. It was a sublimation of thwarted political ambition that drove Sir John Thynne, deprived of office in 1553, to spend the rest of his long life in building, altering, extending, and rebuilding Longleat. It was desire to cut a great figure in the country and overawe his neighbours that inspired Sir Francis Willoughby to erect Wollaton House—known, alas, as ‘Willoughby’s Folly’ almost

before it was finished. It is symptomatic of this desire for display that so many of these new houses, like Hardwick, Wollaton, Hatfield, or Somerhill, were erected on the tops of hills where they

would be visible for miles around. |

Such extravagance begot envy, and before long an epidemic of ovet-building broke out as politicians and courtiers struggled to match each other’s architectural feats. In the reign of King James

the Earl of Salisbury was building at Hatfield, Cranborne, and Salisbury House; the Earl of Suffolk at Audley End and Charlton Park; the Earl of Northampton at Chiswick and Northampton House; Lord Zouche at Bramshill; the Earl of Northumberland at Syon; the Earl of Dunbar at Berwick; the Earl of Dorset at Knole; the Earl of Westmorland at Apethorpe; Lord Digby at Sherborne; and the Earl of St. Albans at Somerhill. This competition among the great courtiers was echoed by the struggle of the lesser nobility and ambitious squires, and Sir Henry Slingsby noted how in Yorkshire “we see an emulation in the structure of out houses’, Lord Eure at Malton, Viscount Savile at Howley, and Sir Arthur Ingram at Temple Newsam all competing fiercely for pre-eminence in the county. ‘No kingdom in the world spent so much in building as we did in [King James’s] time’, reflected Godfrey Goodman.! The orgy began to peter out even before the death of James in 1625, and the fifteen years before the Civil War

saw telatively few really ambitious building projects. One was started at Wilton by the Earl of Pembroke, but abandoned half-way when the money ran out; another was almost completed by Strafford at Jigginstown in Ireland just before his fall. But by and large 1 D. Parsons, Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, 1836, p. 52. Goodman, i, p. 199.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 553 the era of the prodigy house was over. Inigo Jones had chosen his moment badly. One reason may have been that there were now enough palaces to go round—even the great Duke of Buckingham bought Newhall from the Earl of Sussex and added to it, instead of building from scratch. Another was the decline in the habit of the royal progress, and the growing unpopularity of the Crown. Not only were men less willing to put themselves out for Charles than they had been

for Elizabeth; there was now less danger of a royal visitation. Thirdly, men were at last discarding the medieval notion that a nobleman must live for ever in a crowd, surrounded by hosts of servants, tetainers, and guests. They therefore no longer needed such enormous houses with ranges of state apartments and guest and servant accommodation. Moreover it is possible that more direct acquaintance with Italy was leading them to revise their ideas

about the importance of size. The very modest scale of the Villa Rotunda, the Palazzo Medici, the Gozzoli Chapel, must have come as something of a shock to Englishmen accustomed to the gigantic splendourts of Audley End. Finally there was a growing awareness of the appalling cost and the hideous inconvenience. “It hath been observed as a great unhappinesse to our nobility and gentry that genetally they are over-housed’, lamented the 4th Lord North. Such houses were ruinous to build, expensive to maintain at a proper level, and miserable to live in with a skeleton staff. Only a few families, however, contrived to get rid of these white elephants. Parts of Basing House had been pulled down by subsequent generations before the Civil War, and the moment Sir Robert Cecil inherited ‘Theobalds in 1598 he began to talk of destroying it.! In the end, like Holdenby and Audley End, it was sold to the Crown, and Jigginstown was destroyed in the Irish Rebellion. The demand for capital for the initial building was often the signal for the decay of a family. This ‘expenseful though bewitching delight’, as the 5th Earl of Huntingdon feelingly described it, was

a frequent cause of exorbitant debts, and prudent parents were in the habit of quoting Sir Edward Coke’s sage advice: ‘Put not yout finger in the mortar.’ These buildings were mostly the work either of private individuals who sold some of their estate to pay for them ™ W. Camden, Britannia, ed. J. Gough, 1798, pp. 120-1. Talbot H, f. 937. Dudley Lord North, Observations and Advices Oeconomical, 1669, p. 88.

2 HMCH, iii, p. 335. Smyth, ili, p. 28. C. W. James, Chief Justice Coke, 1929, p. 323.

554 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE | ot else of successful politicians with easy access to the resources of the Crown and a none too scrupulous way with suitors. Wolsey’s monument was Hampton Court; the Duke of Sometset spent over £15,000 in three and a half years on Somerset House and Syon House in 1548-51; the Earl of Salisbury £40,000 at Hatfield alone

| between 1608 and 1612; imagination boggles at what Audley End must have cost the Earl of Suffolk. He 1s reported to have told the King that in all, including gardens and furniture, it cost him £200,000, but this is hard to believe. A contemporary guess of £80,000 is probably nearer the mark. Of course it was still possible to build a really very large building relatively cheaply even in the eatly seventeenth century—thus Wadham College, Oxford, with its quadrangle, chapel, hall, and library cost under £12,000 between | 1610 and 1613. What ran away with the money was the sumptuous nature of the fittings and the elaborate sculptural detail. The Ban-

quetine House at Whitehall cost King James substantially more than a whole college had cost Dorothy Wadham a few years earlier.

Even the most corrupt of Lord Treasurers found the burden of building intolerable. Under Elizabeth, Lord Treasurer Winchester had left £46,000 worth of debts due largely to his ambitious buildings at Basing and at Chelsea, the latter of which alone cost £14,000.

Under James, Lord Treasurer Salisbury ran up £53,000 worth of

| debts, Lord Treasurer Suffolk £40,000. Even if they had access to special soutces of income, lesser men tended to find the expense unendurable. Despite his profits from coal and iron, Sir Francis Willoughby never recovered from the strain of spending £8,000 in eight years on Wollaton; his many buildings at Rushton and elsewhere were one, though admittedly a minor, cause of the undoing of Sir Thomas Tresham.? What stands out from these figures is the startling rise in building

costs in the early seventeenth century, a rise that appears to have far outstripped the price revolution. Three thousand pounds was

enough to build Hengrave Hall in the 1530’s; £3,000 plus free timber and stone, to build Gorhambury and £1,700 to build Loseley

House in the 1560's; £8,000 plus free stone, timber, and fuel for brickmaking to build most of Longleat in the 15 70’s. Half a century 1 BM Eg. MSS. 2815. H/A 9/5, 160/1, 112/6; Box G/13. Lord Braybrooke, The History of Audley End, 1836, pp. 34, 82. Camden Misc. x, 1902, p. 115. Wadham College Gazette, cxlvi, 1959, p. 118. Survey of London, xiii, 1930, p. 121.

2 SP 12/110/30; 148/18. H/Box U/39. Bodl MSS. Add. D 10g, f. 59. Information from Mr. R. 8. Smith. Finch, p. 82.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 555 later it certainly took {40,000 to build Hatfield and was alleged to have taken {22,000 to build Jigginstown for the Earl of Strafford,

£20,000 to build his house at Berwick for the Earl of Dunbar, £30,000 to build Campden House for Viscount Campden, £30,000 to build Howley for Viscount Savile, and £32,000 to build Hothfield for the Earl of Thanet. When the 9th Earl of Northumberland was contemplating a complete new building on a very large scale

at Petworth, he was given an estimate of £25,600, exclusive of labour costs in levelling operations and the value of timber and stone taken from the estate.t Nor was this the end of the expense, since these enormous houses had then to be kept up. Ambitious building, remarked Lord North, causes ‘the owner to hoist up mote sail then the bottom can bear, which draweth on his ruin’.? Long after they had lost all belief in the way of life as an ideal, noblemen continued to hire crowds of under-employed domestic servants and to maintain an open table for visitors, simply in order to justify the existence of echoing halls and sumptuous state apartments, and to keep at bay the melancholia and loneliness of a halfempty mansion. III, FOOD

The determination of many Tudor and one or two Early Stuart noblemen to maintain the open-handed semi-public way of life of the medieval prince was an important cause of their financial difhculties. In 1554 the Venetian ambassador had observed that the English nobility lived mainly in the country ‘where they keep up very grand establishments, both with regard to the great abundance of eatables consumed by them as also by reason of their numerous attendants, in which they exceed all other nations’. There are three contemporary accounts that provide a vivid picture of this medieval

way of life as it survived into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuties. There is the book of household instructions drawn up for Henry Earl of Northumberland in 1512; there is a similar book, dated 1605, which must have been written for one of the old-style

grandees of the north or west, probably Shrewsbury, Derby, 1 J. Gage, History of Hengrave, 1822, p. 54. Arch, xxxvi, 1855, p. 310. Lambeth 647/5. L/Bath MSS. Misc. Bks. 179 B, p. 18. L. Stone, ‘The Building of Hatfield House’, Arch. J. cxii, 1956, p. 128, Sheff. CL/Sa1. J. O. Adams Memorial Studies, Washington, 1948, p. 794. SP 23/56, p. 183. Camden Misc. viii, 1883, p. 15. CCC, p. 839. Sussex Arch. Coll, xcvi, 1958, p. 113. 2 North, op. cit., p. go.

556 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE Rutland, Worcester, or Pembroke; and lastly there is a briefer eye-

witness account of the dining arrangements at the Earl of Worcestet’s seat at Raglan on the eve of the Civil War.! The number of domestic servants was shrinking at this period and this establish-

ment of 150 of so was exceptional by 1640 for its size, its social composition, and its old-world formality.2 The account can be relied upon, however, to give a faithful picture of the manner of life of the greater Elizabethan noblemen half a century before. At 11 a.m, the castle gates were shut and the tables laid, two in the dining-room, three in the hall, one in the private apartment for the chaplains (who fed alone, presumably because of the ambieuity of their status) and two more in the housekeeper’s toom for the ladies-in-waiting of the Countess. The Earl and family and their noble guests sat in formal state at the first table in the diningroom, while at the second table there were placed knights and honourable gentlemen, either attendants in the Earl’s retinue or guests. The Earl’s steward, Sir Ralph Blackstone, presided over the high table in the hall, where there also sat the other principal officers of the household, the comptroller, the secretary, the master of horse, the master of the fish ponds, and the young Lord Herbert’s tutor, together with gentleman guests below the degree of knight. At the second table, served with the left-overs of the Earl’s table and other hot meats, sat the sewer and a couple of dozen gentleman waiters and pages. At the third table sat the inferior officers of the household, the clerk of the kitchen, the two grooms of the chamber, the auditor, the clerk of accounts, the putveyor, the usher of the hall, the keeper of the closet, the gentleman of the chapel, the keeper of the records, the master of the wardrobe, the master of the armoury, the groom of the stable, the master of the hounds, and the master falconer. The inferior servants,

the porters, the park-keepers, the butcher, grooms, footmen, &c., apparently also fed in the hall, presumably at another sitting. These immense undet-employed establishments were regularly swelled by the tide of guests that kept flooding in. On Sunday, 7 October 1612, the 2nd Earl of Salisbury had to feed an ordinary staff of 84 plus 7 guests with 33 attendants; the next Sunday there were 13 guests with 120 followers, and so it went on. In London, 1 CSPVen, 1§34-$4, p. 544. F. Grose, The Antiquarian Repertory, 1809, iv, pp. 9-344. Arch, xiii, 1800, pp. 315-89. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berks MSS. Box A/156. See P. V. B. Jones, The Household of a Tudor Nobleman, Urbana, 1918.

2 See supra, pp. 211-13.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 557 the social round was even more hectic. In 1580 we find Sir Francis Willoughby entertaining 48 to dinner and 42 to supper the same day at Lincoln’s Inn. These were the men—whose numbets were shrinking, according to contemporatries—who, like Sir Thomas Grantham, ‘kept up all his life the old hospitality of England, having a great retinue and a noble table, and a resort for all the nobility and gentry in those parts’. Christmas was particularly a time of lavish hospi-

tality, with guests often running into hundreds. None could now hope to emulate the great Edward Duke of Buckingham, who had entertained over 500 guests at Thornbury over Christmas in 1507. But in 1628 Sit Arthur Capel at Hadham Hall served 331 meals on Christmas Day, 350 on Boxing Day, and 396 the day after. In the teign of Elizabeth Sir William Holles kept open house from All Hallowtide to Candlemas, during which time any gentleman could stay for three days without being asked to explain himself. If the number of servants and guests was often enormous, the size of the meals themselves was gargantuan. Contemporary obsetvers were all convinced that the English were in the habit of over-eating, and that their consumption of meat was far in excess of that of Europe. In 1541 Nicander Nucius described the English as ‘flesh eaters and insatiable of animal food’, and the same comment can be traced through the writings of foreign visitors right down to Misson de Valbourg in 1698.2 Atistocratic households consumed tremendous quantities of meat,

especially beef and mutton, usually in about equal quantities. All the figures we have, which are set out in Appendix XXIV, tally perfectly with an estimate of the Earl of Bath in the middle of the seventeenth century that a household of 80 persons consumed 1 ox and 5 sheep a week. Nor was this all, for the household also ate pork, about 25 to 30 animals a year in a large establishment, veal and lamb, 30 to 40 animals a year, and huge quantities of rabbits and poultry. Lord Burghley in 1576, Lord Lumley in 1608, and Lord Spencer in 1626 all consumed about 1,600 rabbits a year, while the Earl of Rutland in 1611 reckoned on 2,400. As fot poultry, Lord Burghley consumed no fewer than 2,500 in 1573. Thus in one week in September 1 H/A 160]/2. HMC Middleton MSS., p. 555. Hutchinson, p. 38. Holles, p. 41. Arch, xxv, 1834, p. 321. Essex Arch. Soc. Trans., N.S., XV, 1918-20, p. 141. 2 Italian Relation of England, 1300 (Camden Soc.), 1847, pp. 21, 44. Travels of Nicander Nucius (Camden Soc.), 1841, p. 16. W. B. Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, 1865, pp. 70, 79, 110. F. M. Misson de Valbourg, Mémoires et Observations faites par un Voyageur en Angleterre, La Haye, 1698, Pp. 392.

558 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 1602 the household of Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury ate 23 sheep and lambs, 2 bullocks, 1 veal, 59 chicken, capons, and pullets, 5 pigs, 24 pigeons, and 54 rabbits. At Christmas appetites grew still more voracious as guests poured in to share the spoils. In the Christmas

week of 1588 George Earl of Shrewsbuty consumed 3 quarters of wheat, 441 gallons of beer, 12 sheep, 10 capons, 26 hens, 7 pigs, 6 geese, 7 cygnets, 1 turkey, and 118 rabbits. Even if we assume that there were between 100 and 150 persons in the house that week, this still represents a formidable consumption of proteins. Owing to uncertainty about the weight of sixteenth-century animals, the

number of guests, and the amount of waste distributed daily to the poor at the gates of the great house, it is impossible to work out any firm figures for the consumption of meat per capita in the atistocratic household. It probably did not differ very much from the 84 Ib. per head per week that the rst Duke of Chandos was allowing to his servants at Cannons in the early eighteenth century.! However one reckons and whatever allowances and deductions are made, consumption was greatly in excess of the average among the upper classes of twentieth-century England. Except for Fridays the only intermission in this sustained carnivorous otgy was during Lent, during the seven weeks of which the

household was put on a diet of dried fish—ling, cod, and haberdine—usually bought at the great Stourbridge fair. No doubt most noble families fasted like the rest of the community, but some managed to avoid such privations by obtaining a dispensation from the Archbishop on grounds of ill health, and others no doubt quietly ignored their religious obligations altogether. Apatt from meat the main items of food were bread, beer, and ‘fresh acates’, meaning milk, butter, cheese, eggs, game, fresh fish, and fruit. Surviving records suggest that these large households estimated beer consumption at between 5 and 8 pints per person per day—no wonder foreigners were struck by the English capacity for beer-drinking. In addition, between 750 and 1,250 gallons of wine a year were consumed, mostly claret and lesser | quantities of white wine and sack. Minor items were spices, soap, sugar, and other groceries, and the salt fish for Lent. The proportionate cost of all this food is difficult to assess, since few accounts bother to value supplies from the home farm and from tents in 1 Lambeth 694/B17. BM Harl MSS. 4782, f. 69.C. H. C. and H. I. Baker, The Life and Circumstances of James Brydges, First Duke of Chandos, Oxford, 1949, p. 177.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 559 kind. Those set out in Appendix XXIVs, however, suggest that meat usually comprised 40-50 per cent. of the costs, corn products for beer and bread 20-30 per cent., dairy produce, game, and fruit I5—25 per cent., and wine about 5 per cent. The normal household diet thus consisted basically of huge quantities of meat and bread

washed down in oceans of beer and wine. Vegetables were rare in the sixteenth century, and only in the years before the Civil War did imported Mediterranean fruits and the produce of English vegetable gardens begin to lighten this unwholesome fare.! The tradition of providing these generous allowances of foodstuffs for large numbers of persons was inherited from the Middle Ages. A new feature, however, was the Trimalchian rarity of the dishes for special occasions, exotic foods and exotic cooking becoming increasingly important features of fashionable entertainment in London. ‘I think we have stowed more sorts of flesh in out bellies than ever Noah’s ark received’, observed Marston, as well he might when an aristocratic dietary of the period lists sixtythree varieties of bird and seventy-two of fish. At the marriage feast for Lord Burghley’s daughter Elizabeth in 1581, the guests were offered thirteen different kinds of wild-fowl. When fish was eaten there is the same picture of infinite variety. The judges of Stat Chamber were weekly treated to a formal dinner at the public expense, at which they notoriously gormandized. 7 June 1594 fell ona Friday, and was therefore a fish day. But it can hardly be called a fast day, for the ten judges ate ling, green-fish, salmon, pike, gutnard, dory, carp, tench, knobbetd, grey-fish, plaice, perch, sole, conget, barbel, flounder, turbot, whiting, lobster, crab, and prawns —to say nothing of eggs, capons, chickens, rabbits, artichokes, peas, strawberties, apples, gooseberries, oranges, lemons, quinces, and barbaries. Second only to the variety of the ingredients came the exquisite fantasy of the cooking. Massinger spoke of Their thirty-pound butter’d eggs, their pies of carp’s tongues, Their pheasants drench’d with ambergris, the carcases Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy to Make sauce for a single peacock.

Reality was scatcely less bizarre. Lord Berkeley emulated the rst Karl of Rutland in loading his table with ‘a whole bore inclosed ™ A, P. Philips, “The Diet of the Savile Household in the Seventeenth Century’, Thoroson Soc. Trans. lxiii, 1959, p. 69.

560 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE in a pale workmanly guilt by a cooke hired from Bristoll’. The Earl of Cumberland up at Londesborough enlivened the Christmas table of 1612 by getting a painter over from Market Weighton to

gild and paint the bake-meats and rosemary. In 1618 Sir George Goring celebrated Prince Charles’s birthday by a still more baroque device. There were brought to the table ‘foure huge brawny piggs, pipeinge hott, bitted and harnised with ropes of sarsiges, all tyde to a monstrous bag-pudding’.! Quite apart from these ingenious con-

ceits, there was a general demand for more refined cooking, and chefs with French training were as highly prized 350 years ago as they are today. The Earl of Northumberland arranged for his chef to be given lessons by that of the French Ambassador, and Lady Dormer took even greater care to keep up the standards of her table. She sent her cook’s son to France, where he spent five years in training. He then returned to England and was apprenticed to the Cook of the Grocers Company (who was responsible for the Star Chamber dinners) before returning to Lady Dormer to work under his father. After her death he left to seek his fortune in London, where he was taken on successively by the Earl of Castlehaven and Lord Lumley (a great gourmet) before returning again into the country, first with Viscount Montagu and then with the Countess of Kent.? The stupendous cost of the great banquet in the early seventeenth century was thus partly due to the rarety of the dishes, partly to the exquisite refinement of the cooking, and partly to sheer exuberance of scale. Even the cautious Burghley found these follies contagious. The £363 he spent on a feast to the French Commissioners in 1581 might perhaps be explained on grounds of public policy. But what are we to make of the £629 spent on three days’ junketing at the marriage of his daughter a year later? At this vast party there were consumed, among other things, about 1,000 gallons of wine, 6 veals, 26 deer, 15 pigs, 14 sheep, 16 lambs,

| 4 kids, 6 hares, 36 swans, 2 storks, 41 turkeys, over 370 poultry, 49 cutlews, 135 mallards, 354 teals, 1,049 plovers, 124 knotts, 280 stints, 109 pheasants, 277 partridges, 615 cocks, 485 snipe, 840 larks, 21 gulls, 71 rabbits, 23 pigeons, and 2 sturgeons. By these standards, the Earl of Salisbury was behaving with conspicuous moderation 1 J. Marston, Eastward Ho, 11.1. Arch, xiii, pp. 368-71. BM Lansd. MSS. 33/69, 71. HMC grd Rep., App., p. 264. P. Massinger, The City Madam, 11. i. Smyth, ii, p. 287. HMCR, iv, p. 324. Chatsworth/BA 94. J. Nichols, Progresses of James I, 1828, iii, p. 495. 2 HMC 6th Rep., App., p. 228. Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook, 1665.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 561 when he spent a mere {97 in 1605 and {200 in 1611 on banquets for King James. A feast given by Prince Henry in 1610 cost £673, and the cost of many other entertainments in the next decade ran to {£400 of more.

It was not till 1617 under the leadership of Lord Hay, later Earl of Carlisle, that culinary extravagance reached its apogee. Hay had picked up ideas in Paris while on an embassy the year before, and he introduced them into London society on his return. The most spectacular of his exploits was a feast to the French Ambas-

sadot at Essex House in 1621, organized ‘with that sumptuous superfiuitie that the like hath not ben seene nor heard in these patts’. According to John Chamberlain 100 cooks were employed

for 8 days concocting 1,600 dishes. There were 12 pheasants in one dish, 24 parttidges in another, 144 larks in a third, a couple of swans in a fourth, a couple of pigs in a fifth. There were half a dozen enormous salmon from Russia, 6 feet long. The sweetmeats

cost £500, the 6 lb. of ambergris used in the cooking cost another £300. The total bill for the day’s work was said to run to £3,300.

It was Carlisle who invented that most conspicuous and most wasteful of all devices for conspicuous waste: the ante-supper. The guests sat down before a huge and succulent banquet, which was

promptly whipped away by the waiters before the guests could touch it, to be replaced by another yet mote lavish. Perhaps the most absurd of these monstrous patties was that given by Archbishop Laud, of all people. Having spent rather over £5,500 on building the great quadrangle at St. John’s College, Oxford, which bears his name, he then spent nearly half as much again—f2,666— on a feast to celebrate its opening.!

The medical profession was, as usual, very keen on dieting. Thomas Elyot fulminated against the excessive consumption of meat, and Henry Earl of Huntingdon believed that over-eating and over-drinking were killing mote people than the wars. One cannot point to any direct casualties of the table—except perhaps the 1st Lord Coleraine who in 1667 was ‘choak’d endeavouring to swallow the rump of a turky’.? But over-eating must have been

the main cause of the rumbling, belching, and stomach pains of 1 BM Lansd. MSS. 33/70, 71. Ellis, 3rd ser., iv, pp. 41-42. H/S 199, ff. 106-22. H/A 160/1. CSPD, 1603-10, p. 587; 1636-7, p. 477. CA, i, pp. 56, §7, 73, 94, 127, 240, 302, 333, 527. VCH Oxon. iii, p. 262. F. Osborne, Historical Memoires ..., 1658, pp. 124-5. 2 'T. Elyot, The Castle of Health, 1610, pp. 23, 65, 67. Countess of Radnor, Catalogue of the Earl of Radnor’s Collection of Pictures, privately printed, 1910, p. 9.

821314 O00

562 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE chronic dyspepsia of which almost every member of the propertied classes seems to have been a victim. It is also difficult to avoid the

suspicion that the fact that so very many suffered the agonies of stone in the bladder or kidneys was not in some way connected

with their gluttonous habits. Medical records are inevitably extremely incomplete, but even so one in twelve of the English aristocracy of the time are known to have been sufferers from the stone, which suggests a true figure of one in six, or perhaps even higher still. The causes of the stone ate not precisely known, but a vitamin A deficiency and a high lime intake were probably impor-

tant factors, and another may have been venereal disease. Moreover the main preventative was lacking, owing to the very low | milk and butter content in the diet of the nobility at this period. Medical objections to a heavy diet wete complemented by the disapproval of the moralists, who regarded an over-loaded table as a scandalous waste of money. The futility of thus stimulating the digestive cycle was proverbial: ‘a great houskeeper is sure of nothinge for his good cheare save a great Turd at his gate’ was the elegant aphorism of the yokels of Gloucestershire. But few of the nobility and greater gentry heeded the warning, and more than one of them could be said to have ‘sent all his revenues downe the privy house’.! IV. CLOTHES

Second only to hospitality as a status symbol and as a vehicle for conspicuous consumption were clothes. One cause of unnecessary expense was the bewildering speed with which fashions changed, another the inordinate profusion of embroidery and gold and silver

lace. ‘It is a world to see the costlinesse and the curiositie, the excesse and the vanitie, the pompe and the braverie, the change and the varietie, and finallie the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees; in somuch that nothing is more constant in England than inconstancie of attire’, declared a dazzled rustic observer. Nor was this an unsophisticated view, for foreign observers like van

Meteren were also struck by the fashion-consciousness of the English. Tailors crouched anxiously behind the pillars in old St. Paul’s watching for a new cut of doublet or a novel pair of hose displayed upon the gallants exhibiting themselves in the aisles. ‘The Spanish slop and the Skippet’s gallieaskin, the Switzet’s blistered 1 Smyth, iii, p. 27. Holles, p. 42. See also Fuller, pt. 2, p. 200.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 563 codpiece and the Danish hanging sleeve, the Italian close strosser

and the French standing collar, the treble-quadruple Daedalian ruffs and the stiff-necked rebatoes, all succeeded one another in bewildering variety, as foreign fashions flooded into London at breakneck and purse-emptying speed.!

The pace was set by the monarchs themselves, even Elizabeth regarding her wardrobe as an exception to her normal rules of parsimony—and being caricatured for her pains as a strutting bird of fantastic plumage.” Her attitude to fashion was both imperious and unpredictable, and great were the lamentations in 1594 when she summarily ordered the Court back into short cloaks just when everyone had fitted themselves out in the New Look. As for King James, over a period of five yeats from 1608 to 1613 he bought a new cloak every month, a new waistcoat every three weeks, a new suit every ten days, a new pair of stockings, boots, and garters every four or five days, and a new pait of gloves every day. Silks alone wete costing the King and Queen over {10,000 a year, and the wardrobe expense altogether was running at over £25,000 as eatly as 1610. Queen Anne was just as bad as her husband, running up bills in thirteen months of {1,900 to her mercer, £4,900 to her silkman, and {£2,000 to her embroiderer. King Charles

continued to set the same example of dazzling splendour as his parents. Indeed he actually excelled them, by buying no fewer than 513 items of footwear—boots, shoes, galoshes, and slippers—in

the coutse of a single year, 1626-7. In the same year he acquired ‘one pincke coloured silke chamlett suite and cloake raced in rich workes cutt with and upon skiecoloure florence taffeta laced with CxLit yatds of pincke coloure in graine embroidered lace, the suite lyned with changeable taffeta and the cloake with rich skie coloure plush turned up’, the whole outfit costing £80. 2s. 34.3 Inspired by this example from on high, the courtiers strove to emulate their sovereign, and so spread the new fashions in everwidening circles, first in the City and then in the country houses of rural England, where wives began brooding grumpily upon the ™ W. Harrison, The Description of England, 1877, ed. F. J. Furnivall, ii, pp. 168-9. Rye, op. cit., pp. 71, 73. Gawdy, p. 92.

2 F. Kelly, ‘Queen Elizabeth and Her Dresses’, The Connoisseur, cxiii, 1944. The 2nd Earl Stanhope alleged that Lord Hume, who was appointed Keeper of the Great Wardrobe by James on his accession, made a cool £60,000 by selling them off (J. O. Adams Memorial Studies,

e ey p. 91. BM Cotton MSS. Titus BIV/95. CSPD, 1679-23, p. 357. BM Lansd. MSS. 165/31. Castle Ashby 977.

564 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE dowdiness of their wardrobes and started bullying their husbands

to take them up to town to see the fashions. Middleton’s Lady Cressingham was even mote ambitious, with a scheme for agents in Paris, Venice, and Valladolid ‘for intelligence of all new fashions’. The ladies remorselessly pinched and pulled and stuffed themselves

into the extraordinary shapes that elegance demanded. A single dress for Lady Boyle in 1604 demanded canvas and stuffing to puff

out the gown, whalebone to compress the bodice, buckram and whalebone to support the wings, and pasteboard and wire to hold up the collar. At the festivities for the Prince Palatine in 1613 Margaret Lady Wotton turned up in a gown allegedly costing {50 a yatd for the embroidery, and the two Browne girls in dresses for which their father Viscount Montagu was said to have paid £1,500. Well might an angry orator in the House of Commons in 1614 complain that ‘women carry manors and thousands of oak trees about their necks’.?

Nor were the men at all behind their wives in this competition in ostentation. It was the Court that led the fashion, and a philandering queen followed by a homosexual king no doubt gave an added

incentive to the movement: both Elizabeth and James had an eye for the well-dressed young man. As a tesult men may even have led the race to deck themselves out in silks and satins, embroidery, and gold and silver lace. Seven doublets and two cloaks belonging to the Earl of Leicester wete valued by his executors in 1588 at

£543. The bill for the outfit of Lord Sydney for the Christmas Masque in 1603 came to £220, and a few years later a single suit for a court occasion—admittedly smothered in pearls—cost him £250. The enormous cost was partly due to the quantities used, partly to the richness of the materials, and partly to the elaboration of the

trimmings. The 25 yards of crimson velvet and the ermine which

, went into Roger Earl of Rutland’s parliament robes in 1610 cost him £53. 155. At about the same time Robert Earl of Salisbury was buying crimson cloth of tissue at £4. 105. a yard, figured satin at 225. a yard, and velvet at 26s. a yard. Twenty years later a relatively modest peer like William Lord Spencer was spending £14. 155. 3d.

on a scarlet cloak, £1. 145. on a pair of carnation silk stockings, and {22. 16s. 2d. ona black taffeta suit and cloak. It was embroidery, 1 Grosart, 2nd ser., 1, p. 108. I. Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, 1. 1. Ch, i, pp. 424-5.

CJ, i, p. 464. ,

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 565 howevet, which really ran away with the money, for the stuff itself

was expensive and the labour involved prodigious. When Lord Spencer bought a black satin suit in 1634 he had it embroidered with silk twists. The suit and cloak cost £33. 85., the twists themselves £15, and the labour to make them up and sew them on £28. 165., being 288 days’ work at 25. a day. The cost of embroider-

ing sumpter cloths with his lordship’s arms and the peacocks of

the Manners cost Roger Earl of Rutland £64 in 1599, while embroidering a masking suit in 1612 came to £84. The embroidery bills for the Queen’s beds for her two confinements in 1630 and 1631 amounted to £675 and {772 respectively, compared with which the £79. 10s. paid by the 1st Earl of Salisbury for the embroidery of his suit for the installation of Prince Henry in 1609 was of trivial account. The best idea of the distribution of costs is obtained from the bill of £976 for the 2nd Earl of Salisbury for his installation as Knight of the Garter in 1625. The cloth, silk, and satins amounted to £247, gold and silver lace and buttons to £120, and embroidery to £350. The coloured feathers from exotic birds that were used to adorn a nobleman’s hat cost £1 apiece in 1600, and the 5th Earl of Rutland and 2nd Earl of Salisbury thought nothing of spending £20 or so on such ephemeral display. Buttons were also a heavy item when worn in profusion, like the 138 gold buttons sported on a suit by Sir Edmund Bacon.! This taste for extravagant clothes among the courtiers and men of fashion was a serious drain upon the tesources of all but the wealthiest of magnates. In the late 1590’s Roger Earl of Rutland was spending {1,000 of more a year on his clothes, and the Duke of Buckingham reckoned to be spending {1,500 a year in 1623 and £3,000 a yeat in 1627. Lesser mortals could not stand the pace. ‘Ovetflowing with the corrupt humours of this ages phantasticknesse ot else being burnt up with the inflammation of upstart fashions . . . some pied fools to put on satin and velvet but foure daies in the yeare did oftentimes undoe themselves, wives, and

children ever after’, asserted the satirist. When the House of Commons was discussing a bill for the restraint of apparel, a knight urged that it might extend to peers as well as commoners ‘for that

his ancestors by that, as a principal means, have, with the rest of 1 BM Harl. Ch. D 35/12. Grose, op. cit. i, pp. 279-80. HMCR, iv, pp. 421, 465, 492-3, 509. CSPD, 1637-8, p. 329. H/A 7/16; A 160/5; B 207. BM Add. MSS. 25083, ff. 20, 35, 62, 66%. B/A 100. Wills of Bury St. Edmunds (Camden Soc. xix), 1850, p. 216. See also Holles, p. 127.

566 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE the nobility, fallen’. The premiss was as sound as the proposed remedy was absurd.! V. TRANSPORT

Once dressed up in their finery, these peacocks and popinjays had to be transported in fitting style. In the mid-sixteenth century they

could take horse or possibly ride in a light two-wheeled chariot, the former a far from economical means of transport if treated with imagination: it was Lord Hay on an embassy to Paris who had his horse shod with silver shoes. As he rode to Court, wherever he wished to make an impression he would make his horse cavott, . with the result that the shoes flew off to be fought over by the mob; meanwhile an attendant farrier immediately fitted another set, so that his lordship might ride on. Even without such extravagances, saddles, capatisons, and other equipment could easily cost a small fortune. The reign of Mary had seen the first imported example of the heavy coach with its four big wheels and braced suspension, but it was not till about 1590 that most earls could boast of one of these

formidable new status symbols, and it took another quarter of a century to become a common possession of the middling gentry.

Sit John Oglander, who only came to live at Nunwell in 1607, tecotds that he owned the second coach in the Isle of Wight. Tricked out with its owner’s arms and crest, lavishly adorned with

gilding without and silks and satins within, the cost of a town coach was comparable to that of the modern Rolls Royce, though its effective life was very much shorter, and the likelihood of break-

down infinitely greater. Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign the bare chassis and body could be bought from the leading London coachmaker, John Banks, for between £25 and £30. But this was only

the beginning of the expense. The harness could cost another {20 ot so, and the velvet or damask for the upholstery and cushions— 36 yards or more—might cost a further {50 or {60. In addition there were the coach hotses to be bought, which cost about £20 each, and whereas four horses sufficed in 1600, by 1620 no man of fashion could make do with fewer than six. The cost of the basic

vehicle relative to the furnishings is shown by the great coach 1 B/A 309, 310, 97, 100, 312. SP 14/149/9 (1). Bodl, Eng. Misc. C 208, f. 172”. T. Dekker, Guls Hornbook (Temple Classics), pp. 18, 200. CJ, i, p. 464.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 567 bought by the Earl of Rutland in 1623. The coach-builder’s bill came to £60, that of the silkman to £71, and that of the gilder to £42. In the year before the Civil War, a luxurious town coach for a nobleman, exclusive of horses, cost up to {200, whereas the trade-in value of the old coach was often no mote than {5 or so. In addition to this showy contraption, a nobleman needed a less elaborately fitted and lighter travelling coach, costing about £45, to take him down to the country and back; and after 1634 he would probably also spend another £25 on a sedan chair for private visits in town. Travel was not cheap in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.! VI. GAMBLING

The other great item of personal expenditure after food, clothes, and transport was that opium of the idle, gambling. This was a vice

hated by the puritans, and feared for its consequences by every prudent parent. On the other hand in aristocratic circles generally there has never been any of that absolute horror of gambling which was so characteristic of the seventeenth-century urban bour-

geoisie. With the permeation of society by bourgeois values this by-product of the capitalist ethic was to dominate English morality down to the middle years of the twentieth century. To the nobility, however, play within moderation was a suitable pastime for a gentleman, one of whose functions was to live in idleness with elegance and grace. It was as important to know how to play cards ot handle the dice as it was to be able to ride a horse or dance a ealliard. The two standards of behaviour are enshrined in English history in the popular notions of the typical Cavalier and the typical Roundhead, but the dichotomy was leading to trouble long before it came to civil war. In 1600 the son and brother of Lord Eure and

their cronies descended upon little Sir Posthumus Hoby, played cards and dice most of the night and half the morning, swapped dirty stories, drank the house dry, and made rude noises during family prayers. So outraged was Sir Posthumus that he launched a suit against them in Star Chamber. 1 A, Wilson, The History of Great Britain, 1653, p. 94. J. W. Burgon, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, i, p. 483. G. A. Thrupp, The History of Coaches, 1877, pp. 38, 48. W. H. Long, The Oglander Memoirs, 1888, p. 176. Chatsworth/H 23; BA 77, 110, 111, 112, 115. Bod, Rawlinson MSS. D 406. H/A 160/1; Box G/13; A 161/5, 162/2, 44/10. HMC Finch MSS. i, p. 25. HMCR, iv, pp. 393, 413, 525. HMCH, i, p. 373. Woburn, 1641 Account Book, f. 73. Grosart, 1st ser., v, pp. 66, 147, 149, 173. Knowler, i, p. 336. Essex Arch. Soc. Trans., N.S., xii, 1911-13, p. 222. Lancs. and Chesh, Hist. Soc. Trans. cx, 1958, pp. 102-3.

568 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE A great Elizabethan gambler was Henry Lord Berkeley, of whom his biographer recorded that ‘the hours may seeme too many which this lord spent in his best ages at bowles, tenis, cock-

pit, shufgrote, cards, and dice. His longe and slender lady-like hand knew a dye as well and how to handle it as any of his ranke and time.’! John Smyth clearly could not decide whether to admire or to censure such dubious accomplishments.

One of the curious things about this habit-forming pastime 1s that no one ever seems to win. ‘A poxe take ye bones’, scribbled the

and Lord Stanhope, ‘if they will not favour a man some times.’ They rarely did. There seems to have been no form of human activity which the nobility did not contrive to turn into the subject of financial speculation. Bets were offered and taken on dice, ‘those true outlanders’, on card games such as gleek, post and pair, maw,

tantos, or primero, on horse-racing, foot-racing, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, hunting, tennis, ninepins, chess, shooting, or bowling. Was it to improve his public image as a man of the world that the austere and preoccupied Lord Burghley had himself painted engaged in a card game for high stakes ? Politics were harnessed to the same cause, men offering odds of two to one against Monsieut’s coming to England in 1579 and three to one against the Queen’s marriage; bets were offered on travel or the birth of children. George Conquest paid Sir Ralph Conquest {/10, on a promise to be repaid £30

if and when Thomas Fynett returned from Babylon. In 1636 the Earl of Cork bet 20 to 1 in pounds that Strafford would return to Ireland as Lord Deputy in 1636, and 5 to 1 in pounds that King Charles would go to Scotland in 1641. In 1635 he lost a black

gelding to Sir James Erskine by betting that the Countess of Kildare’s child would be a daughter.’

As Sir John Hartington pointed out at the time, gambling is a product of the triple vices of idleness, which creates boredom and thus a demand for palliatives; of pride, which makes men play for higher stakes than they can afford in order to give an impression of magnanimity and carefree opulence; and of avarice, which feeds on hopes of making a killing. What is very striking about the period from 1580 to 1640 is not so much the extraordinary range of subjects of betting, as the phenomenal rise in the stakes. On both counts t HMCS, x, p. 303; xi, p. 11. E. Fox, ‘The Diary of an Elizabethan Gentlewoman’, TRHS, 3rd ser., ii, 1908, p. 168. Smyth, ii, p. 363. 2 Arch, vili, 1787, p. 133*. J. OQ. Adams Memorial Studies, p. 791. Lodge, ii, p. 218. PRO

Lists ¢> Indices, x\vii, p. 155. Grosart, Ist set., iv, pp. 80, 194; v, p. 181.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 569 it is arguable that gambling was turning from a pastime into an obsession, from an innocent amusement into a social scourge. The distinction is an important one which was fully recognized by contemporary lay society, and even by a few clerical casuists like Jeremy Taylor. ‘Know play to make thee sociable, but sett not thy harte upon it,’ Mary Lady Despencer advised her grandson Mildmay, the future 2nd Earl of Westmorland; ‘to play for gayne more then recreation illegittimates all good meetings.’ Lady Despencer knew what she was talking about, for by the time of writing, in about 1620, the situation in the beau monde had long

been out of hand. In 1568 the Earl of Shrewsbury lost {100 at ptimero in the Privy Chamber over a period of many days. In the 1580’s the greatest loss of the Earl of Northumberland even in his most dissipated phase of 1585-7 amounted to {£729 in eighteen months, offset by £286 in winnings. By the late 1590’s the stakes had risen. In London the 5th Earl of Rutland was losing between

£1,000 and £1,500 a year, in Paris his friend Southampton was undermining his estate by losing 18,000 crowns on a game of tennis, and staking up to 4,000 crowns during a single evening at cards. In a few days Marshal Biron relieved him of 3,000 crowns, which at 6s. a crown amounted to £900. Lord Scrope was cleaned tight out in gambling at Christmas 1597 and tried to touch Sir Robert Cecil for £300 to tide him over until his Ladyday rents came in. Even a puritan like the Earl of Huntingdon was losing up to £39 in a single day at cards or dice in the first decade of the seventeenth century, and at Court the stakes became ever more gigantic. Indeed it was at Court that the increased scale of gambling was

patticularly significant. At all times a court is something of a glorified gambling saloon, if only because courtiers need some distraction with which to while away the prolonged periods of waiting

for something to happen. When the monarch himself takes part in the game, it is apt to prove expensive to the other players, particularly when he or she is of an economical and domineering turn of mind. Henry VIII was a fairly habitual gambler, but he very

rately lost as much as {100 in a single session, and was usually content to play bowls or tennis, cards or dice for a few pounds or even shillings. Queen Elizabeth hated losing, and, according to Ben Jonson, habitually played with loaded dice. An ambitious courtier like Lord North found it prudent to allow her to take up

570 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE to £40 a month off him at cards as an insurance against loss of

favour. But it was not till the accession of King James that gambling orgies at Court, particularly over Christmas, became a byword for prodigality. In 1603 Sir Robert Cecil was reported to have

lost over £800 in a single night; in 1605 he lost £1,000 at dice to the King (for whom the favourite, the Earl of Montgomery, was throwing that evening). On the eve of Twelfth Night 1608 King

James organized a great gambling orgy to which no one was admitted who did not have £300 in cash about his person. This time Montgomery was again throwing for the King and won him £750, and on a similar day in 1612 he won his master (600. A few years later such gains and losses were common form. The

Duke of Buckingham won £3,000 on a foot-race in 1618, and a feast costing {400 from Prince Charles at tennis in 1620. The year before one Foster was teported to have won over £5,000 from Lord Scrope and others during a bout of unprecedentedly deep playing during the royal progress. Baptist Viscount Campden gambled

away his wife’s portion of £2,500 at tennis, Theophilus Lord Howard of Walden lost over £1,500 in a day playing bowls at Hackney in 1623. In the 1630’s Viscount Dunluce lost almost £2,000

at ninepins at Tunbridge Wells to that notorious gambler Sir John Suckling—alleged by John Aubrey to be the inventor of cribbage— and a little later Viscount Dunbar lost £3,000 in a single gambling session. Stakes on horses rose at the same dizzy pace: the 2nd Earl of Rutland had cautiously put £1 or {2 ona horse in 1549; the.5th Earl rarely staked less than {100 on a race in the 1590’s. The 2nd Karl of Salisbury took {200 with him for the Newmarket races in 1616 and in 1639 backed his horse Cricket in a race for £1,000.! Gambling on this early-seventeenth-century scale was more than any man could reasonably afford: divines and casuists denounced it as a moral evil, playwrights and plain observers of the human scene were convinced, apparently with reason, that it was a major cause of the frequent decay of families. Many devices were tried to t Harington, i, pp. 197-212. T. Wood, ‘Seventeenth century English Casuists on Betting and Gambling’, Church Ouarterly Review, cxlix, 1949. Northants. R.O., Westmorland MSS. Misc. Bks. 35, f. 2. J. Hunter, Hallamshire, 1869, p. 109. G. R. Batho, The Household Accounts of

Henry 4th Earl of Northumberland (London M.A. thesis), 1953, p. 275. B/A 309, 310, 97, 100, 312, 103. HMCS, viii, p. 358; vii, p. 528. C. H. Herford and P. Simpson, Ben Jonson, Oxford,

1925, i, p. 142. BM Stowe MSS. 774. HMCH, i, pp. 362-9. Le P H VUII, v, pp. 748-58. Ch, i, pp. §2, 180, 253, 3283 ii, pp. 292, 302, 500. Winwood, ii, p. 43. M. F. Keeler, The Long Parliament, p. 286, n. 56. Aubrey, p. 63. CSPD, 1635, p. 385; 163/-6, p. 462. HMCR, iv, pp. 361-2, 409, 410, 502. H/Box G/6. H/B 77-86. Verney, i, p. 185.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 571 check the disease, though with conspicuous lack of success. In a test case of 1601 in which a creditor sued Lord Compton for a gambling debt it was urged that though by custom such debts had been enforced in Chancery, in strict law they should not be, for they were morally evil. However, Egerton overrode these objections and upheld the sanctity of contracts regardless of their causes. Reform by the law had failed. Convinced that status-seeking was

a ptime cause of the rise in gambling stakes, Sir John Harington suggested playing publicly for large sums of gold and silver, with a ptivate agreement among the players that the accounts were to be settled at the rate of 15. in the £1—a scheme which he alleges Sir Christopher Hatton once employed to dazzle a visiting ambassador. One anxious father in 1616 made his bequests to his son conditional upon the boy’s not losing more than {1 in gambling in any one day, the arbiter of any dispute being the Lord Chief Justice,

Sit Edward Coke. Another Lancashire gentleman entered into a recognizance of {100 with telatives not to play cards and dice except in their presence, not to play other games for stakes higher than 15. a game, not to put more than 20s, on a shooting match or 25. a fight on cock-fighting. The Earl of Cork tried vainly to restrain

his wastrel sons-in-law, the Earl of Kildare and George Goring, by extracting solemn promises of abstinence and by hectoring letters. But few were capable of shaking off this habit-forming vice and such remedies were usually futile, for the love of gambling for high

stakes was deeply ingrained in this idle and exhibitionist society. It was a habit, moreover, formed by very early conditioning. At Christmas 1641 the 12-yeat-old Henry Lord Beauchamp was given £2 to spend on gambling, and even the baby Lady Mary got f1.! One of the few recorded instances of a reformed character is that of the 4th Earl of Southampton, who in 1635 sold all his race horses, forswote all deep play—and emerged twenty-five years later as the spoil-sport Lord Treasurer of the Restoration. It is not clear

whether or not gambling for very high stakes was as common after the Restoration as it had been before the Civil War. What is certain is that the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries saw a tise in the size of stakes which far outstripped the price revolution, tT. Wood, op. cit. Bodl, Tanner MSS. 168, f. 156%. Harington, i, p. 211. W. Tothill, Transactions of the High Court of Chancery, 1649, p. 19. Waterhouse, op. cit., pp. 268-70. Suffolk

Inst. of Arch. Proc. i, 1853, p. 300. VCH Lanes. iii, p. 331. Grosart, Ist set., ili, p. 1513 V, p. 281. Antiquaries Journal, xxv, 1945, p. 19. Knowler, i, p. 225.

572 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE and whose most extravagant manifestations wete largely confined to court circles. VII, FUNERALS AND TOMBS

Ostentatious in his lifetime in clothes and hospitality, transport and housing, in some respects an Elizabethan peer had his finest hour only after he was dead. So grandiose in scale and portentous in style were the funeral arrangements of the nobility that the most

contemptible of human beings on earth could hardly fail to be usheted out of it to universal admiration. Of many could it be said that nothing became them so much as their going; it was the last tribute of a deferential society to the dignity of a title. The first thing to be done on the death of a peer was to summon a surgeon and an apothecary. These technicians were required to embalm the dead, for it took time to mount the arrangements for the funeral and meanwhile the corpse had to be preserved above ground without giving too much offence to the standers-by. The trouble taken varied according to the rank of the subject and the estimated time between the death and the funeral. A minor gentleman like Thomas Fermor was disembowelled by a barber for 5s.

in 1580; a substantial gentleman like Sir Heneage Proby was properly embalmed for £20 by a doctor-surgeon in 1663. Exceptional care was taken over an earl, the elaboration of whose funeral and the distinction of whose person demanded special treatment. The body of Thomas Earl of Sussex was disembowelled and embalmed by the great Dr. Clowes, assisted by three other surgeons.

In their work they used Greek pitch, turpentine, mastic and vatious types of gum, ‘Artificiall Banbuc’, aloes, myrrh, and aquavite. After the bowels had been removed and the body embalmed, it was sealed in wax and placed in a leaden coffin moulded to the

shape of the body, seventeenth-century examples of which are visible today in the crypt of the chapel at Farleigh Hungerford, Wiltshire. There is reason to suppose that this familiar operation was reasonably effective in preserving the corpse, and were it not for present-day views about tampering with the dead it would be possible to exhume and photograph many of the great figures of the past. When the tomb of Queen Catherine Parr was opened up in 1786 all but her head was found to be in perfect condition, and in 1803 Whitaker reported that the face of George Earl of Cumberland,

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 573 who died in 1605, was very well preserved, though somewhat coppery in colour.! The arrangements for the funeral were made by one of the heralds, who immediately posted down as soon as notification of the death

of a peer reached the College of Arms. So complicated was the ceremony that it rarely took less than a month to organize. Seven or eight weeks was not uncommon, and in cases of difficulty, as when thete were problems of transport over long distances or disputes over who was to foot the bill, there might be a delay of as long as eighteen weeks, as occurred after the death of the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon in 1595 and the 3rd Earl of Cumberland in 1605. On the appointed day a huge procession, all dressed in black at the family’s expense, wound its way solemnly from the chapel in the great house, where the body had lain all this time, to the church where it was to be buried. The number of mourners in Tudor processions was commensurate with the dignity of the deceased. In 1524 nine hundred mourners followed the body of the Duke of Notfolk from Framlingham to Thetford. When Edward Earl of Rutland went to his grave in 1587 he was accompanied by about 560 persons, including 50 poot men, 150 of his lordship’s yeomen and grooms, 80 gentleman household servants, 8 chaplains, 200 serving men, and 4o to 50 gentlemen of the county. His brother and heir John, who died the next year and was buried in very mean style for an earl because of the cost, had to be content with about 200 mourners. In the same year even Lady Burghley, a mere baron’s wife, managed to muster 315.3 The sort of funeral an earl might expect if he was to be buried in full Elizabethan style was that accorded to Edward Earl of Derby in 1572.4 The procession that marched the two miles from Lathom House to Ormskirk Church was headed by two yeomen conductors. First came 100 poor men fitted out in blacks for the occasion (the

numbet of poor varied from funeral to funeral, sometimes being t Arch, J. viii, 1851, p. 181. Elton Hall, Proby MSS. 96, p. 44. Essex R.O., D/DP F 240. Arch, ix, 1789, pp. 1-15. Whitaker, p. 430. 2 Hornby Castle Survey (Chetham Soc. cit), 1939, p. 112. J. P. Gilson, Life of Lady Anne Clifford, Roxburghe Club, 1916, pp. 2, 3. R. Thoroton, Nottinghamshire, 1790, i, p. 292. 3 HMCR, i, p. 243. Nichols, 1. ii, App., pp. 127-8. HMCS, xiii, p. 409. * A. Collins, The Peerage of England, 1779, iii, pp. 55-62. For an illustration of a humbler procession, see the Unton portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. For other descriptions of aristocratic funerals, see Peck, 11. i, pp. 17-22; College of Arms MSS, Gilbert Dethick, Funerals of Nobility; Bodl Ashmole MSS. 836; BM Harl. MSS. 1368; Add. MSS. 12514; Smyth, ii, pp. 388-91; SP 12/67/64; 90/16; 91/2. Hunter, op. cit., p. 102. F. Blomefield, The History of Thetford, Fersfield, 1739, App. viii.

574 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE calculated according to the age of the deceased, sometimes according to the desire for pomp and citcumstance).! Behind them marched the choir of 40 in their surplices, followed by an esquire on horseback bearing the late earl’s standard. Next came 80 gentlemen of the earl, his 2 secretaries, 2 chaplains, and 50 knights and esquires, the preacher, the Dean of Chester, the three chief officers, and an

esquite on horseback carrying the great banner. At this point appeared the splendid spectacle of four heralds riding horses with

black trappings ornamented with escutcheons reaching to the ground. First came Lancaster wearing the Earl’s coat of arms in damask and carrying his parcel gilt steel helmet with its pointed and gilded crest, followed by Norroy with the Earl’s shield of arms

within a garter and topped by a coronet, Clarenceux with the Farl’s sword carried pommel upwards, and finally Garter bearing another coat of arms. The heralds directly preceded the black draped

chariot with the coffin, drawn by four horses and surrounded by ten hooded esquires on horseback, some carrying bannerols with the arms of distinguished families whose blood was mingled with that of the Stanleys. Behind the chariot walked the chief mourner, the new earl, with his two ushets, his two sons, and eight other distinguished mourners headed by Lord Stourton. The tail of this eteat procession was composed of 500 yeomen and all the servants of the gentlemen taking part in the ceremony.

On arrival at the church, the coffin was removed from the chariot by eight gentlemen and solemnly borne inside. The church itself was in heavy mourning, the pulpit, the communion table, and the arches of the aisles being swathed in black drapes. In the centre stood the hearse upon which the coffin was laid. This was a gigantic affair 30 feet high, 12 feet long, and 9 feet wide, covered with black taffeta and velvet, and adorned with numerous heraldic escutcheons. The funeral service opened with Norroy King of Arms pronouncing the name and titles of the deceased, followed by a sermon from the Dean of Chester and the epistle and gospel read by the vicar. The new eatl then offered the heralds a piece of gold for the deceased, and was himself solemnly offered by the chief mourners the late

earl’s arms, sword, target, standard, and banner. After the other mourners down to the yeomen had made their offerings to the deceased, the majority of the congregation again formed up and marched off home, leaving the burial itself to be conducted by two , 1 Bodl Ashmole MSS. 836 I. HMCR, i, p. 241.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 575 of the heralds, the twenty-odd attendant esquires, gentlemen, and yeomen, and the chief officers of the late earl. These latter broke their staves of office over their heads and threw them down into

the open grave before the earth was shovelled in. Though the service took place in church, the master of ceremonies was not the parson but the heralds, and the affair was characterized more by the rituals of antiquarian feudalism than by those of Christianity. It was, remarked the Separatist Henry Barrow, ‘as if Duke Hector, or Ajax, or Sir Launcelot were buried’.! These ceremonies were rounded off by great feasts, for which

enormous quantities of food and drink wete provided. At the funeral banquet of the Duke of Norfolk in 1524 there were 1,900 guests. No fewer than twenty-eight extra cooks were hired for the funeral of Roger Earl of Rutland in 1612, including those of the

Earl of Exeter, Lords Willoughby and Harington, Sir Francis Leake, Sir William Pelham, and Sir Thomas Compton. These feasts often took on the aspect of an Irish wake. For the servants of the dead the funeral heralded the break-up of the old household, and unless the new master chose to keep them on they would soon

have to set out into the world to seek fresh employment. They thus had every incentive to get very drunk, and the occasion sometimes degenerated into a saturnalia. At the funeral of Bess of Hardwick in 1607 some of her servants, a prey to conflicting emotions

of relief at the death of the tyrant and anxiety about the future, indulged themselves very freely and there were orgiastic scenes below stairs at the Old Hall that day. The funeral was also an occasion for the distribution of largesse on a gigantic scale. Between

3,000 and 4,000 poor people are said to have been fed from the left-overs from the funeral feast of Edward Earl of Rutland in 1587, and over 13,000 appear to have teceived a 2d. dole at the funeral of the 4th Earl of Northumberland in 1489.2 Late that evening or early next morning the guests and the crowds dispersed, having seen a great Tudor nobleman into his grave in a style that was suitable for his estate and degree.

The cost of these ostentatious rituals was commensurate with their size, amounting at their height to not far short of a year’s income. The most extravagant funeral on record was that of the 1 L. H. Carlson, The Writings of Henry Barrow, 1587-1590, 1962, p. 459. 2 B/A 122, Star Ch. 8/13/8. Nichols, t. ii, p. 128. Peck, 11. i, p. 11. Over one thousand were fed on the left-overs from the funeral feast of Lady Berkeley in 1596 (Smyth, ii, p. 391).

576 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 4th Earl of Northumberland at Beverley in 1489, which cost his heirs ovet £1,000. Not far behind came those of two great political figutes, the 2nd Duke of Norfolk in 1524 and the Earl of Leicester in 1588, followed a long way off by those of the Countess of Shrews-

bury in 1608 and the 3rd and 6th Earls of Rutland in 1587 and 1632. There is not sufficient evidence to determine the average cost

of an arfistocratic funeral in the early sixteenth century but, after allowing for the inflation of prices, the leading courtiers of the mid-

Elizabethan period were spending substantially more than the 1st Earl of Rutland in 1543.! About three-quarters of the cost went on the purchase of black cloth to drape the house, the church, the chariot, and the hearse, and to dress the hundreds of mourners. Although a few items might be hired from an enterprising herald, between 500 and 1,200 yards

of black cloth of various qualities had to be purchased for the avetage great funeral, and over 2,200 yards for that of the Earl of Northumberland in 1489. The second major cost was the funeral feast and the third the heralds’ charges. The feast could cost £300 ot more and the heralds might put in a bill of up to £150 for the funeral of an earl, what with their fees, their blacks, their travel allowance (15. 4d. a mile for Garter, 8d. for Lancaster), their perquisites like a share of the heatse, the cost of the work of the herald’s

painters in emblazoning escutcheons and banners, and the hire of the horses for the chariot, the irons and staves for the banners, and the velvet for the hearse.” These fantastic displays were the continuation of a medieval tradition, not the product of the desires of a class of upstart peers to integrate themselves into the old order. Admittedly new men like the attorney in the Court of Wards Robert Nowell, the great merchant Sir Thomas Gresham, the great money-lender ‘Thomas Sutton, all ordered themselves funerals which were showy and expensive far beyond their degree. Admittedly some of the great courtiers who were buried with full honours were first generation in the peerage: men like the 1st Earl of Pembroke, the 1st Marquis of Winchester, Sir Nicholas Bacon, the 1st Lord Hunsdon, and the 1st Lord Burghley. But it was the old families like the Stanleys,

eatls of Derby, the Talbots, earls of Shrewsbury, the Manners, earls of Rutland, and the Berkeleys, lords Berkeley who set the I See Appendix XXVa. 2 See Appendix XX Vs.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 577 pace, and it was just when the flood of new creations began under James that the scale of funerals began to fall off.

After 1580 there was a noticeable reduction in the number of opulent funerals. Though some ancient families like the Talbots and the Manners continued to indulge in the old-style shows, though a few genuinely new men like Bayning and Hicks, Boteler and Lovelace, Savage and Mr. John Popham still tried to make theit mark by the pomp of their interment, increasing numbers now deliberately tried to economize.” The shift in attitude towards the sumptuous funeral can be traced through the instructions given in aristocratic wills, those explicitly ordering a ceremony on the cheap

rising from 17 per cent. in 1580-99 to 35 per cent. in 1620-39.3 The new attitude is most fully explained by Robert 2nd Earl of Dorset, who in his will drawn up in 1608 ordered that he should be buried ‘without any blackes or greate solemnitie of funerall but in a Christian manner as other persons ate of meaner sort, because the usuall solemnities of funeralls such as heraldes sett doune for noble men are only good for the heraldes and drapers and very prejudicial to the children, servauntes, and friendes of the deceassed

and to the poote which inhabit there about, towards all which the deceassed might otherwise be much mote liberall’. It was to meet this new insistence on economy that in about 1615

noblemen and courtiers began to be buried at night by torchlight, which did away with much of the need for elaborate preparations. The epitaph to the stately funeral was written by John Weaver in 1631: Funerals in any expensive way here with us are now accounted but a fruitlesse vanitie, insomuch that almost all the ceremoniall rites of obse-

quies heretofore used are altogether laid aside; for wee see daily that noblemen, and gentlemen of eminent ranke, office, and qualitie are either

silently buried in the night time, with a torch, a two-penie linke, and a lanterne; or parsimoniously interred in the day-time by the helpe of some

ignorant countrey-painter, without the attendance of any one of the officers of armes.4 Tt A.B. Grosart, ed., The Towneley Hall MSS., 1877, pp. xxxviti, 40-48. Biographia Britannica, p. 2388. P. Bearcroft, Thomas Sutton and the Charterhouse, 1737, p. 113. For peers, see Appendix XXV and Smyth, ii, p. 388. Carew Letters (Camden Soc.), 1860, p. 41.

2 Bodl, North MSS. C 4, f. 5. PCC 127 Lee, ror Ridley, 143 Goare, 7o Seager. CSPD, 1637-8, p. 169.

3 See Appendix XXVc. * PCC 23 Dorset. Ch, i, p. 578; ii, p. 227. D’ Ewes, i, p. 132. J. Weever, Antient Funerall

821314 Pp

Monuments, 1631, p. 17.

578 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE The principal cause of the decline must have been a dawning realization that the cost incurred was out of all proportion to the prestige earned. There took place a profound change in the accepted forms of symbolic justification, a change that was in part stimulated by puritan criticism that such displays of worldly pomp were more

pagan than Christian. Another influence at work with some may have been that of the Stoics and early reformers, the ist Lord Ellesmere allegedly citing the precedents for a private funeral of Seneca, Archbishop Warham, and Guillaume Budé. More important,

however, was the decline in the influence of the College of Arms.

Resuscitated by Henry VII in the 1530’s as a buttress for the stability of society, this body became increasingly influential during

the sixteenth century in handling all matters of precedence and degree. It was the heralds who directed and stage-managed the Elizabethan funerals, the heralds who were the principal beneficiaries, apart from the drapers. Behind the pontificating of the heralds lay the weight of those staunch upholders of prerogative and place, Elizabeth and Lord Burghley. So seriously did the Queen

take this responsibility that in a number of cases she was actually induced to foot the bill rather than see her relatives and friends buried in a mean and unseemly manner. She paid for the obsequies

of the Marchioness of Northampton in 1565, of Lady Knollys in 1569, of the Countess of Lennox in 1577, and of Henry Lord Hunsdon in 1596, though she jibbed at paying for those of Henry Earl of Huntingdon in the same year.! Lord Burghley also took a keen interest in such matters, using his powers as Commissioner for the Earl Marshal to make reluctant relatives fulfil what he regarded as their social obligations. He forced a sumptuous funeral on the executor of Joan Lady Mordaunt in 1592, and five years later insisted that the body of William Lord Cobham be taken back to the resting-place of his forefathers at Cobham instead of being buried quietly and cheaply in London.? But the disappearance from the scene of these two supports of the

heralds, the notorious quarrels within the College of Arms, and a growing revulsion against the venality and tyranny of these rapa-

cious antiquaries led to a rapid decline in their authority in the early seventeenth century, one feature of which was a refusal to submit to their dictation over the matter of funerals. 1 Ch, ii, p. 65. SP 12/36/30. HMCS, i, p. 415. BM Lansd. MSS. 25/85; 82/56. HMCH, ii,

p- 45. 2 CSPD, rygr—4, p. 213. HMCS, vii, p. 117.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 579 A further factor that helped to undermine the tradition of the stately funeral was the revolt of a minority against embalming. A handful, especially of women, began to express their new-found sense of individuality by refusing to submit their bodies to gruesome mangling by the embalmer’s knife, a refusal which automatically made necessary a swifter and therefore more economical interment. In 1572 Mary Countess of Northumberland left explicit instructions in her will ‘not in any wise to let me be opened after

I am dead. I have not loved to be very bold afore women, much more would I be loath to come into the hands of any living man, be he physician or surgeon.’ Ten years later Lucy Lady Latimer left the same instructions, followed in the early seventeenth century by Katherine Lady Cavendish, Helena Marchioness of Northampton, and a little later by men like Edward Viscount Wimbledon. The extreme romantic view of the problem was taken by Frances Duchess of Richmond, who ordered in her will ‘that I may be

speedily buried and not opened, for soe my sweete Lord out of his tender love comaunded me that I should not be opened. I may be presentlie putt up in brann and in lead before I am fully

could,’

Prompt burial did not necessarily preclude a full funeral procession later. When the Duchess’s husband had died in 1624, he had been buried quietly the next day, but two months later a most sumptuous funeral had been stage-managed in Westminster Abbey, centring around a life-like efigy of the Duke dressed in his parliament robes. These effigies, which were only made for the funerals of some of the greatest magnates of the realm, were normally laid on the coffin containing the body. The arrangements made by the

Duchess, which so ingeniously combined the new-style private interment and the old-style public funeral, were unique.! The demand curve of the great figured tomb follows rather a different pattern from that of the lavish funeral, rising to a peak between the middle years of Elizabeth and the death of James. The size of some of these monuments—for example, those of Henry Lord

Hunsdon in Westminster Abbey and Edward Earl of Hertford at Salisbury—is breathtaking in its arrogance. The free-standing 1 PCC 26 Mote, 16 Rowe, 42 Sadler, 183 Lee. NUL/P Cavendish Misc. 32. Arch. Cantiana, xi, 1877, p. 246. W. Hamper, Sir William Dugdale, 1827, p. 376. James Cleland, A Monument of Mortalitie, 1624.

580 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE fout-postets wete some of the largest and heaviest monuments to private individuals that England had seen since the days of the round batrow; only a few medieval chantries, like that of the Earl of Warwick at St. Mary’s, Warwick, and a few eighteenth-century monuments such as those of the Montagus at Weekley, Northamp-

tonshire, come neat to rivalling them. They were made all the mote conspicuous, moreover, by the vivid colouring and gilding with which they were liberally adorned, a feature which judicious restoration in recent yeats is now beginning to bring out once mote.

Ostentatious in scale and decoration, these tombs were also ostentatious in siting. Sometimes, as at Chenies for the Russells or Great Brington for the Spencers, they occupy an aisle or private chapel. More frequently, however, they crowd out the chancel, as do the Mannets’s tombs at Bottesford, effectively converting what had for centuries been a place of public worship into the private mausoleum of a single family. Some, like the Earl of Cork in Dublin Cathedral and Sir John Newton at East Harptree, Somerset, had the effrontery to substitute a family monument for the communion table at the east end of the chutch.! Such magnificence was not cheap, and Middleton might well complain of those who ‘left their carcasses as much in monument as would erect a college’ and so ‘lie rotting under a million spent in gold and marble’. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries an alabaster altar-tomb with effigies could be had for as little as £20, and even a vety elaborate monument would hardly exceed £40.

By the 1580’s the normal amount spent on a tomb, in terms of 1480-1500 money, was between {50 and f{100, and some were ptepared to pay far more. Lord Hunsdon left £1,000 (=£250) for his tomb at Westminster in 1594, and Nicholas Stone was com-

| missioned in 1616 to make one for Lord Harington for £1,020. These high prices persisted as long as the fashion lasted for large monuments with towering superstructure above full-length effigies

recumbent or teclining. But the shift of taste in the late 1620’s and 1630’s to simpler and smaller architectural surrounds and to busts instead of effigies meant a substantial fall in the price, as the

notebooks of Nicholas Stone make clear. Though many of the atistocracy still demanded very elaborate monuments, the price for

the most expensive of them did not approach that of a Hunsdon

: ot Hartington. That of Sir George Villiers at Westminster Abbey 1 Grosatt, Ist ser., iii, pp. 35, 171. Herald and Genealogist, iv, 1867, p. 441.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 581 cost £560 (=f100) in 1631, that of Lord Spencer at Great Brington {600 (=f100) in 1638, while Stone was prepared to do busts within simple surrounds for as little as {/50.! The craze for large figured monuments gripped the English nobility and gentry in the late sixteenth century, reaching its peak between 1610 and 1640—by which time the number of tombs with fisure sculpture erected per decade in fourteen counties had increased sixfold over that of the 1540’s—and then fell away again in

the second half of the seventeenth century to less than a third of its former level.” The unit cost of tombs followed the same upward curve till about 1625, but then fell away again. Expenditure on both funerals and tombs was thus declining well before the Civil War. VIII. CONCLUSION

All these various forms of excessive expenditure sprang from an attitude of mind which put generosity and display before thrift and

economy, and which was encouraged by the growing popularity of attendance, often unrequited attendance, upon a deliberately and conspicuously extravagant court. Sir John Reresby’s analysis of the causes of the undoing of his grandfather, Sir Thomas, in the last yeats of Elizabeth and the first years of James could serve as an epitaph for so many noblemen and gentlemen of the day. As listed by Sit John the factors were ‘following the Court without any other tecompence then empty knighthood’; ‘an expensive wife’; ‘his accompanying my Lord Souch sent anno 1593 into Scotland’; ‘his humor to live high at the first which he did not abate as his fortune decreased’; his violent and brutal assault upon a fellow J.P. and knight, which lost him much favour at Court; ‘his buildings’; tT. Middleton, The Mayor of Queenborough, t. iii. L, Stone, Sca/piure in Britain: The Middle Ages, 1956, p. 180. N. H. Nicholas, Testamenta Vetusta, 1826, pp. 391, 444, 536, 655, 663. HMCR, iv, p. 340. PCC 68 Bolein. W. L. Spiers, ‘The Notebook and Account Book of Nicholas Stone’, Walpole Soc. vii, 1919, passim.

2 ‘These statistics are drawn from the evidence in N. Pevsnet’s county guides to Bucks., Cambs., Derby, Essex, Herts., Glos., Leics., Middx., Notts., Rutland, Salop, Somerset, Suffolk, and Yorks. W.R. In these fourteen counties 127 tombs per decade were built for men who died between 1610 and 1639, as against only 22 between 1540 and 1569 and 34 between 1660 and 1689. Though naturally enough the pace was set by the Court, it should be pointed out that the assertion by Professor Trevor-Roper (The Gentry, 1540-1640, p. 17) that tombs of ‘mere’ gentry are rare is based on a complete misreading of a remark by Mrs. K. A. Esdaile (English Church Monuments, 1946, p. 138). Tombs of country gentry in fact comprise the very great bulk of the surviving examples, though only a few of the most aesthetically progressive and distinguished items.

582 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE the cost of entertainment when Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1613; ‘his ereat charge of children’; and his excessive number of ‘followers in blew coats and badges’.! This generalized ostentation in manner of life and death reached its peak in the late Elizabethan and Jacobean period, and can be attributed mainly to the fierce competition for social status which in a transitional period of uncertain values tended to find expres-

sion in both medieval and renaissance forms, in hospitality and setvants in the country, and clothes and gambling at the Court. Superimposed upon this general tendency, however, was a personal

recklessness of behaviour whose cause was mote psychological than social. This private malaise was particularly common in the 1580’s and 1590's as there grew up a whole new generation of highspirited young aristocrats in open rebellion against the conservative

establishment in general and Lord Burghley in particular. Very many, like Oxford, Rutland, Southampton, Bedford, and Essex, had been wards of the old man and were reacting violently against his counsels of worldly prudence. Such a development is hardly surprising. To listen to Polonius for a few moments in a theatre is one thing; to have to put up with him pontificating at every meal-time

for years on end is another. No wonder these young men adopted a way of life of absurdly prodigal extravagance; it was the only

revenge they could take on a guardian to whom waste and imprudence were deeply horrifying. The knowledge that so many of his charges had both disliked him and gone to the bad must have puzzled and saddened this well-meaning old gentleman. In the four years before 1601 Rutland was spending at a rate of about {12,000 a year, merely on personal dissipation, Southampton must have been getting through at least £8,000 a year at the same time, while Essex’s expenditure defies calculation. Between 1575 and 1586 the Earl of Oxford, who had begun with a landed income

of well over {2,000 a year, sold up the whole of his property within eleven years for ovet £70,000 and had nothing to show for it in the end. He must therefore have been living for these eleven years at a rate of at least {7,000 a year. Other prime examples of the

aristocratic wastrel are the 9th Earl of Northumberland, who in eighteen months in 1585-6 ran up {15,000 worth of debts despite an income of £3,000 a year; and Richard 3rd Earl of Dorset, who in ten yeats from 1614 to 1623 ran through a £17,000 marriage 1 BM Add. MSS. 29442, ff. 46%—-47.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 583 portion and a further £80,000 from sale of land, in addition to his initial net income of about £6,000 a year.!

It would be dangerous to tely too heavily on these notorious cases in order to make generalizations about a class as a whole. On the other hand, although the aristocratic rake is always with us, he appeats to have been peculiarly common at this period. This must have been due partly to the difficulty of finding suitable employment after the collapse of the tradition of service in war, partly to

the ease with which it was possible to draw on family capital to finance personal pleasure, and partly to the existence of a widespread social convention which idealized the opulent and openhanded manner of life. Between 1570 and 1630 the social structure creaked and groaned under the stresses of accommodating mote and more new families, and of adjusting itself to the decay or disappearance of more and more old landmarks. In an effort to prop it up the ideal of generosity became twisted into a frenzied competition in ostentation which it was beyond the capacity of many a family to support. Thus the outburst of extravagant building, extravagant funerals, and extravagant tombs must surely be connected with the unprecedented mobility of landed society. Longestablished families wished to defend their status and the newly risen wished to consolidate their claims. Both therefore built ostentatious palaces to live in, ostentatious tombs to be buried in, and gave themselves ostentatious funerals to mark the translation from the one to the other. All three served as symbolic justifications of rank and status. That all three should have declined in the yeats before the Civil War is to be ascribed not to increasing financial stringency but rather to some relaxation of social pressures

and a reassessment of the optimum social returns on invested capital: what was saved on building, funerals, and tombs was now spent on marriage portions to catch the socially desirable husband.

It was not until the early seventeenth century that the English nobility at last began to free themselves from the medieval preoccupation with publicity and open-handedness by which a man’s 1 Rutland: B/A 378, 90, 309, 310, 95, 97, 100, 312. Southampton: Hants R.O., WD 1, 79, 169, 283, 364, 382, 416, 430, 441, 442; CR 4o EL, pts. 14, 15; 43 El., pt. 11; Castle Ashby F D 362; SP 12/278/132, 133; H/G 55/21. Oxford: CR 18-26 EL., passim; H/S 146, ff. 8-10; NUL/P Holles Misc. 55. Northumberland: G. R. Batho, “The Finances of an Elizabethan Nobleman’, EcHR, ix, 1957, p. 436. Dorset: C. J. Phillips, The History of the Sackville Family, 1930, i, p. 266; Kent R.O., Sackville MSS., E 66/2, 3.

584 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE status was judged by the number of his attendants and the scale of

his hospitality. The shrinkage in the numbers of servants, the decline of the great funeral, the withdrawal at meal-times from the semi-public great chamber to the private dining-room, the withdrawal on journeys from the equesttian cavalcade to the privacy of the coach or sedan-chair are all symptoms of the same thing:

| a teadjustment of values by which emphasis was laid less on publicity and display and numerical quantity and more on privacy and luxury and aesthetic quality. It is another facet of that movement towards the assertion of the individual which also found expression

in the demand for realistic portraiture in pictures and funerary sculpture, the rise of the autobiography as a literary genre, the refusal to be cut about by the embalmer after death, and the demand

for a greater share in the choice of a marriage partner. In terms of expenditure this shift in values meant that less money was spent on huge houses, servants, horses, and food, and more on books,

pictures, sculpture, furniture, and gardens. In terms of way of life it meant a fetteat into greater privacy: the dumb-waiter in the private dining-room is as characteristic of the eighteenth centuty as is the posse of gentlemen waiters in the great chamber in the sixteenth.! In terms of mental attitudes, 1t meant a demand for a simple family burial and a monument which expressed the personality of the dead and his emotional relationship to his wife

and his children. The movement is thus one more sign of that humanizing of family relationships and that growth of respect for

the individual which is so striking a feature of the seventeenthcentury scene, in life, in literature, and 1n art. As the tide of extravagance ebbed in the 1630’s it left behind it on the beach a litter of debris: Reresbys and Cleres, Treshams and Willoughbys among the knights, Cromwells, Zouches, Berkeleys,

Norths, and Windsors among the barons, Cliffords, Devereux, Comptons, Wentworths, and Stanleys among the earls. Some contemporaries found it hard not to shed a tear at the sight of so much devastation, others thought that these wastrels had only got what they deserved. Among the many by-products of the puritan tem-

perament one of the less atttactive is a sanctimonious hatred of high living, and the extravagance of the peers was one mote factor

in the decline in their prestige in the early seventeenth century. 1 M. Jourdain, ‘Dumb-waiters and What Nots’, Country Life, xcvii, 1945, p. 286.

CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE 585 “The magnates are mostly hated for their vain ostentation, better

suited to their ancient power than their present condition’, tfematked the Venetian ambassador sourly in 1622.!

Disastrous to not a few noble fortunes, and harmful to the prestige of the peerage as a whole, this heavy expenditure by the atistoctacy and greater gentry was of critical importance in galvanizing into activity the sluggish Tudor economy. In an age chatracterized by an under-employed labour force, the use of so much male manpower in the largely unproductive activity of personal

setvice was ptobably beneficial rather than harmful.? But the important factor was not the persistence of medieval extravagance ovet manpower or food, but the Renaissance demand for luxuries. If one looks at those sectors of the economy which were showing signs of undeniable growth, they are almost all the product of an upper-class demand for new and better standards of comfort and taste. The building of country houses between 1570 and 1620 must have been the largest capital undertaking of the period. Luxuries like wines and silks headed the field in the growth of

imports, generating an adverse trade balance which may have horrified statesmen but which stimulated efforts to increase exports.

Imports of silks, satins, and raw silk multiplied sevenfold in the eighty years after 1560, rising from 4 per cent. to 15 per cent. of the total value of all imports into London, though some may have been re-exported. Imports of gold, silver, and copper lace were negligible in 1560, but by 1594-5 about 24 tons a yeat were coming in. Twenty-

odd years later the home market was estimated, admittedly by an optimistic projector, to be capable of absorbing an English output of 400 lb. a week, or about 10 tons a year, besides considerable imports. When one finds a tailor overcharging Lord Berkeley to the extent of 5 lb. in weight of silver lace on a suit, such figures

begin to be credible. The phenomenal growth of London was largely due to its unique role as a centre for luxury goods and professional services—doctors and lawyers, actors and bear-wards,

drapets and silkmen, scriveners and money-lenders, goldsmiths and jewellers all prospered exceedingly. It was alleged that the number of mercers in London rose from 30 to 300 in the second half of the sixteenth century. By 1618 there were 148 foreign tailors 1 CSP Ven, 1621-3, p. 444.

2 D. C. Coleman, ‘Labour in the English Economy in the Seventeenth Century’, EcHR, 2nd ser., viii, 1956.

586 CONSPICUOUS EXPENDITURE in London, and nine years later many Scottish tailors were to be found in Westminster. ! Apart from the expansion of agricultural output and coal-mining,

both of which were stimulated by rapid demographic growth, such dynamism as this pre-industrial economy showed was largely

directed towards satisfying the demands of an upper-class ¢dize obsessed with a desire for conspicuous expenditure. Had this specialized demand not existed, had the nobility skimped and saved,

it is just possible that growth would have taken place in other, perhaps mote generally beneficial, ways; but given the current social structure and distribution of wealth, it is far more likely that

the only result would have been stagnation. English economic erowth at this period, its character, its achievements, and its limitations, owe much to the scale and nature of consumer demand from the landed classes, the lesser membets of whom tended to follow, mostly at a respectful distance, the lead given them by the aristocracy. 1 L. Stone, ‘Elizabethan Overseas Trade’, EcHR, 2nd ser., ii, 1949, p. 49. Mrs. A. M. Millard, The Import Trade of London, 1600-1640 (London, Ph.D. thesis), 1956, appendix, table

3. CSPVen, 1612-19, p. 391. HMCS, viii, p. 545. M. A. Abrams, ‘The English Gold- and Silver-Thread Monopolies, 1611-21’, J. Econ. and Business History, iii, 1930-1, pp. 396-8. Smyth, ii, p. 338. Foreigners Resident in England (Camden Soc.), 1862, p. vi. BM Harl. MSS. 1878/56. SP 16/56/71.

PART THREE

MINDS AND MANNERS

BLANK PAGE

XI

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY I. THE FAMILY

AmoNG the wealthier members of the propertied classes the family was not the small conjugal unit of today, but a large estab-

lishment consisting of the husband, the wife, the household officers, the gentlemen and gentlewomen in waiting, the ceaseless throng of guests, and dozens or even hundreds of inferior servants.

It was a community in which all members, and particularly the head and his wife, lived in a perpetual crowd; there was much boredom but little solitude in a country house. The composition of this family unit itself did not alter very greatly between 1560 and 1640. In most cases the eldest son and his wife and their children

spent at any rate the early years of their married life under the parental roof, before setting up on their own. The peerage nearly always owned a dower house for the widowed grandmother, so that it is only lower down the social scale that the family unit commonly spanned as many as four generations. At no time, how-

ever, was much encoutagement given to younger sons to remain at home, and daughters were almost invariably married off at an early age. Nor is there much evidence that even in the early sixteenth century the noble household had taken the form of an extended family built up of a host of brothers and sisters, uncles and cousins. Certainly one or two relatives sometimes formed part of the household, as companions of the lord or lady or as administrative officials, but this seems to have been as much the result of personal choice from a wide field of acquaintances as of a sense of family obligation. More commonly relations were employed as stewatds and land agents living independently on the scattered family estates. Certainly no relative, not even a brother or sister, could claim membership of the household as of right. The family was far from being the stable and enduring thing that

it is commonly taken to be. Owing to the premature death of husband or wife, over a third of all first marriages lasted less than fifteen years, and in most cases the survivor hastened to remarry

590 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY and create a fresh family (Fig. 15). The main cause of this rapid turn-over was the very high death-rate of women during or after childbirth. The chance of the wife’s dying in the first fifteen years of marriage was over double that of the husband, being almost 1 in 4 (Fig. 16). It must further be remembered that, in addition to telease by death, a number of aristocratic couples were formally ot informally separated, so that for one reason or another the early break-up of the family was a very frequent occurrence indeed— probably just as frequent as it is today.

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5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 Duration in years Fic. 15. Duration of First Marriages, 1588-1641

Secondly, children spent very little of their lives under the parental roof. As infants they were usually put out to wet nurses rather than kept at home, and at a relatively early age they were sent off, in the early sixteenth century to take service in another noble household, and a hundred years later to go to school. Only the girls, and perhaps the eldest son in the care of a private tutor,

wete likely to remain at home until the age of 14. Thirdly, the high infant-mortality rate meant that the long-term prospects of a family’s enduring in the male line were very poor. Not more than Go per cent. of a random sample of families could hope to survive for a hundred years, a situation which had fat-reaching consequences

in a society which put a premium on male primogeniture.? 1 See pp. 169-70.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 591 Since mattriages were not based on prior attraction and since children saw so little of their parents, the institution of the family was held together by law, custom, and convenience rather than by ties of sentiment or affection. The Tudor family was an institution for the passing on of life, name, and property, and it was not until the early seventeenth century that it began to be regarded as an instrument of religious and moral improvement. Outside this conjugal unit there were the looser bonds of kinship and cousinhood, still widely recognized by a society so obsessed with its own genealogy. The family vendettas that flourished in

the Elizabethan countryside, and the construction of political alliances around the family connexions of the Howards and the Villiers in the Jacobean Court, would suggest some feeling of loyalty

towards the extended family. On the other hand such alliances easily fell apart again and the fissures which were opened up within so many families by the Civil War suggest that it would be unwise

to lay too much stress on the role of the clan in seventeenth-

century society. :

This sixteenth-century aristocratic family was patrilinear, primo-

genitural, and patriarchal: patrilinear in that it was the male line whose ancestry was traced so diligently by the genealogists and heralds, and in almost all cases via the male line that titles were inherited; primogenitural in that most of the property went to the eldest son, the younger brothers being dispatched into the world with little more than a modest annuity or life interest in a small estate to keep them afloat; and patriarchal in that the husband and father lorded it over his wife and children with the quasi-absolute authority of a despot. None of these features was new, but they became more marked in the later Middle Ages and reached their extreme development in the sixteenth century.! The moral and legal code upon which paternal authority was based was zealously supported by church and state, for in a society without any organized police force family discipline was the main guarantee of both public order and private morality. It is easy to forget that so many of the functions which are taken care of by the modern state, with its manifold welfare and disciplinary services, were once the responsibility of the father within the family. England

was particularly insistent upon the subordination of children to parents, emphasized by outward forms of respect. As Donne 1 P, Aries, L’ Enfant et la vie familiale sous l’ancien régime, Paris, 1960, pp. 395-7.

592 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY pointed out, ‘children kneele to aske blessing of parents in England,

but where else?’ Though he was 63 when he inherited the title in 1666, Sit Dudley North, eldest son of Lord North, ‘would never put on his hat or sit down before his father, unless enjoined to it’. ‘Gentlemen of thirty and forty years old’, recalled Aubrey, ‘were to stand like mutes and fools bareheaded before their parents; and the

daughters (grown woemen) were to stand at the cupboard-side during the whole time of their proud mother’s visit, unless (as the fashion was) leave was desired, forsooth, that a cushion should be given them to kneel upon, brought them by the serving man after they had done sufficient penance in standing.’! As will be seen, many factors contributed to a slow readjustment of relationships within the family. But one partial change in childrearing habits must have had consequences which not only Freudians would regard as of considerable importance. In the sixteenth centuty it was the normal practice in aristocratic and upper gentry

circles to put the new-born baby out to a wet nurse, who would suckle it for up to three years. The reason for the practice is not clear, though some contemporaries ascribed it to the desire of women to preserve the shape of their breasts and thus their sexual attraction for their husbands. As a result it was not uncommon for the child to develop an attachment towards his nurse far deeper than that for his natural mother, whom he saw but rarely. Shakespeare’s picture of Juliet’s intimate ties with her nurse and her stiff

and formal relations with her mother—who could not even remember her exact age—was taken direct from life.

In the early seventeenth century there was a reaction against this

practice, ostensibly on nutritional rather than psychological grounds. Sit Hugh Cholmley ascribed his weak and stunted frame as a child to the fact that he had been put out to a nurse who was pregnant, and whose milk was consequently poor. All the same in 1624 his son Richard was put out to a 4o-yeat-old nurse, whose child was 2 years old; eight years later another son was also put out, and was not even seen by his mother for six months. One of the earliest advocates of breast-feeding was the 9th Earl of Northumberland, who in 1596 was of the opinion that ‘mothet’s teats are best answerable the health of the child’. In 1628 the Countess of 1 The Sermons of John Donne, eds. E. M. Simpson and G. R. Potter, ix, Los Angeles, 1958, p. 59. Cf. CSPVen, 1621-3, p. 451. J. E. B. Mayor, Cambridge in the Seventeenth Century, Cam-

bridge, 1855, p. 223. North, i, p. 42. Aubrey, p. 11. © ,

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY §93 Lincoln published a book urging mothers to feed their own children, a work which coming from so noble a source must have had considerable effect. It was possibly from her that John Evelyn got the idea that it was because of the poor milk of foster mothers that ‘few great men’s children are seen to thrive like those of vulgar petsons’.! Despite this propaganda, breast-feeding among the landed classes was still sufficiently unusual in the seventeenth century to be something to boast about as a mark of singular maternal devotion. On his tomb at Edwardstone, Suffolk, Benjamin Brand, who died in 1636, proudly records that his wife bore him twelve children ‘all

nutsed with her unborrowed milk’. In 1658 Essex, second wife of the 2nd Earl of Manchester, had it recorded on her tomb at Kimbolton that she left eight children, seven of whom ‘shee nursed

with her own breasts... . Her children shall rise up and call her blessed.’ In so far as this practice became mote common in the seventeenth century, it would tend to strengthen the emotional ties between mother and children and to give her a share in the rearing of her children, from which she had hitherto been almost entirely excluded.

Long before there took place any change in the demographic pattern of high birth-rate and high mortality, children, like wives, were beginning to play a mote important role within the family. Before the sixteenth century those who died in infancy were easily

forgotten, not even being recorded by the heraldic genealogists. But by the beginning of the seventeenth century the memory of these infants was being carefully preserved on the tombs of their parents. Wrapped up like mummies in their swaddling clothes, their tiny effigies lie close beside those of brothers and sisters. The living children cease to be invariably mere conventional kneeling dummies, and occasionally give signs of a novel sentiment, that of filial affection, expressed most notably by Epiphanius Evesham in his monument to Lord Teynham at Lynsted, Kent. Contemporaries felt that relations between parents and children were altering for the better in the seventeenth century, and Aubrey was reflecting on the recent past when he wrote that ‘then . . . sonnes must not be company for their father .. . [the] child perfectly loathed the sight of his parents as the slave his torture’.? 1 Choluley, pp. 22, 25, 32. Harrison, p. 58. The Countesse of Lincolnes Nurserie, Oxford, 1628.

Christ Church, Oxford, Evelyn MSS. 143, p. 50. 2 KE, Mercer, English Art, 1553-1625, Oxford, 1962, pp. 242-3. Aubrey, pp. 9, 11.

821314 Q gq

594 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY Il. THE ARRANGEMENT OF MARRIAGE

Under these conditions of family life it was perfectly natural, indeed inevitable, that marriage should be arranged by parents, and that scant attention should be paid to the personal wishes of bride or groom. The marriages of this class might determine the social and political landscape of a county, or even the nation, and therefore

became matters of high policy. Moreover parental control was particularly effective over children who were unable to work for their living and were therefore entirely dependent upon their fathers for the financial means to marty and set up house. In any case, since it was only in bed that husband and wife would find themselves alone and thrown on their own resources, successful marriage depended less on mutual affinity than on adaptability to the ways of the establishment as a whole. Under these circumstances

the choice of marriage partners by parents is likely to be as sound as, or sounder than, that by the children themselves. Obedience to parental orders was therefore held not only to be a moral duty, but also in a child’s best interests. To these social factors in favour of parental control of marriage

there was added the suspicion and dislike for passionate love between the sexes which had been shared both by the Ancient World and the medieval church. Bacon wrote that love ‘doth much mischief, sometimes like a Siren, sometimes like a Fury’. Recognizing it as a fairly common disease, like influenza, he advised that: ‘They do best who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep

quarter and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life.’ Dorothy Osborne’s brother expressed the general view when he told her that ‘all passions have more of trouble than satisfaction in them, and therefore they are happiest that have least

of them’.? | (1) Daughters The most severe parental pressure was inevitably exercised on

daughters, who were most dependent and sheltered, who were regarded as members of an inferior sex, and who had little alternative to obedience since celibacy was even less attractive than an unwanted husband. Parents felt themselves morally obliged to 1 F, Bacon, Essays: Of Love. The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, ed. I. Gollancz, 1903, p. 66.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 595 marty off their daughters, and daughters were both unwilling and unable to resist. Fathers in their wills were prone to make their bequests conditional upon strict obedience, the 2nd Earl of South-

ampton ordering both portion and maintenance to be cut off entirely if his daughter disobeyed the executors.! Such clauses were

common in the sixteenth and continued to appear in the early seventeenth century, though with diminishing frequency and with diminishing effect. In the more sophisticated circles of the aristocracy and upper gentry of the south, ruthless handling of daughters had become very rare by this time, though it was still occasionally to be met with. When in 1614 the King of Sumatra wrote to ask for an English wife, there was not lacking ‘a gentleman of honourable parentage’ who like the Bourgeors Gentilhomme was disposed to offer

up his daughter.? Sometimes parents went so far in their wills as to nominate a particular husband for a daughter, and in the early sixteenth century these authoritarian dispositions of children are to be found in all classes and in all areas. For example in 1533 a Northamptonshire gentleman, Robert Burdon, made an agreement with a local yeoman,

Roger Knollys. Burdon’s eldest son was to marry Knollys’ eldest daughter at or before the age of 19. If she died he was to marry any other daughter chosen by Knollys; if he died his place was to be taken by the second son, and, if he also died, by the third. These contracts by which children were bartered like cattle were still to be found among the lesser squires of the conservative north right

up to the end of the sixteenth century. Thus in 1599 William Shaftoe curtly noted in his will: “To my daughter Margerie, Lx shepe, and I bestowe hir in mariage upon Edward son of Reynolde Shaftoe of Thockeryngton.’?

The truth about the scramble to obtain the wealth of the great financier Thomas Sutton is hardly stranger than Jonson’s fictitious embroidery upon the story in Wo/pone. When his wife Elizabeth died in 1602 leaving the old man childless, one John Carey 1 PCC 45 Rowe. Other examples of portions made subject to marriage with consent of parents or guardians are provided by the wills of Lord Roos in 1513, Lord Rich in 1567, Lord Chandos in 1573, Lord Darcy in 1580, Lord Berkeley in 1612, Lord Willoughby of Parham in 1617, Lord Paget in 1627, and Viscount Campden in 1629 (N. H. Nicholas, Testamenta Vetusta, 1826, p. §28; PCC 12 Babington, 20 Peter, 1 Darcy, 11 Lawe, 106 Meade, 110 Batrington, tor Ridley). 2 CSP Colonial, West Indies, 1513-1616, p. 335. See also PCC 90 Parker. 3 Boughton U.W. 27/63. History of Northumberland, iv, p. 415; also x, p. 285. See also R. Surtees, The County Palatine of Durham, 1816-40, ii, p. 7, note t. PCC 12 Welles.

596 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY immediately saw his chance. “To sheawe the gtreatnes of my love’, he

wrote to Sutton, ‘I can no waye better manifest it other then by wishinge to you my onely daughter that is left unmaryed, to put the cares out of youet hed of youer owld Bess; withe summe younger sportes she wold feyne to make you merrie; and yet this much I will saye faythefulley to you of her: albeit she be younge she is respective, discret, wise, and dutyfull, and canne fitte herselfe as well to be an old mane’s wife as aney yonge mayd in Ingland.’

Signior Lupo had his counterpart in life. Given parents with these rigid views of filial obedience, the best

hope of freedom of choice for a girl was either that her father should die young, leaving her a portion without strings, or that her parents should quarrel over the choice of the bridegroom. There are several cases, however, when even this latter support was of no avail. In 1617 Sir Edward Coke, the dismissed Lord Chief Justice, decided to try to retrieve his political fortunes by marrying his daughter Frances to John Villiers, the mentally unstable elder brother of the royal favourite. But Sir Edward’s wife,

with whom he was on very bad terms, had other ideas, spirited the girl away into the country, and tried to forestall the plot by offering her to the Earl of Oxford. On learning of the hiding-place _ the ex-Chief Justice assembled a gang of ruffians, broke into the house, and removed his daughter by brute force. An attempt by her mother to ambush her on her way back to London was foiled, and in the end the poor girl was bullied by her father into the marriage. The story that she ‘was tyed to a bed-poste and severely whipped’ to obtain her consent is perhaps improbable, but she cettainly loathed her husband and sought refuge with a lover at the earliest opportunity. A later case of a daughter defying her father with her mother’s help is that of two of the coheiresses of Henry Duke of Newcastle. Theit obstinacy threw their father into such a tage that he tore up his will, though at least one of the girls managed to get her own way in the end.” It was a very long time before a woman’s right of veto came to be generally accepted. The usual late Elizabethan doctrine was still

that of Sit Christopher Hatton’s secretary, Samuel Cox, who thought that ‘children are bound by a natural band of piety to 1 Charterhouse, 3/42. Cf. Ben Jonson, Volpone, 11. iii. 2S. R. Gardiner, Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage, 1869, i, pp. 93-104. Memoirs of Sir

John Reresby, ed. J. J. Cartwright, 1875, p. 366. :

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 597 honour and obey their parents to whom... both by the law of God and by the light of nature it appertaineth most properly to have care to determine of their children’s marriages’, supporting this view with the example of Adam, who ‘himself did not chuse Eve to be his wife, it was God his father that brought her unto him’, Sit Francis Willoughby was in advance of opinion when he wrote in 1584 of his unwillingness to press his daughters into marriage, and it was not till half a century later that most parents, like the ist Lord Montagu, at last admitted the need not merely for acquiescence but also for ‘affection’.! Even John Evelyn, who was by no means a liberal in his views, thought that parents should choose the partners for their daughters but “by no meanes constraining

them to take such to their husbands as they cannot love and willingly obey’. By now it was generally realized not merely that

‘so many forced matches make fained love, and cause real unhappiness’, but that this could have very harmful effects on family prosperity and stability. Conditions varied from family to family

according to the temperament of the father, and daughters continued to be under heavy parental pressure for several centuties, but on the whole contemporary comment suggests that this significant advance in the history of the emancipation of women took place between 1560 and 1640,

Concrete proof of this shift of opinion is provided by changes in the nature of testamentary bequests. When a father stipulated that a daughter’s marriage portion was dependent on the consent of the mother or guardian, he now often tended to limit this power to the years of the minority.3 Moreover by the third decade of the seventeenth century many parents in their wills were leaving their daughters’ portions free from any strings at all, and payable at a cettain age, regardless of whether the girl was married or not. With few exceptions the age varied from 17 to 21, with 18 as the most common—though this did not mean that girls were legally free thereafter, since the Canons of 1603 made marriage of children under 21 dependent on consent of parents or guardians.* But fierce 1 Hatton, App., pp. xxxiv-xxxv. HMC Middleton MSS., p. 157. HMCB, iii, p. 366. 2 Christ Church, Oxford, Evelyn MSS. 143, p. 48. Fuller, p. 234. 3 Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxiii, 1886-7, p. 321. The two earliest I know of ate to be found in the wills of Lord Darcy of Chiche in 1580 and the Earl of Pembroke in 1595 (PCC 1 Darcy, 39 Woodhall). 4 See, for example, the wills of Viscount Montagu in 1592, the Earl of Devonshire in 1605, the Earl of Dorset in 1608, Lord Teynham in 1622, Viscount Bayning in 1629, Lord Lovelace

598 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY dispositions were by now exceptional, and the furthest that most parents wete now willing to go was to offer an additional reward for obedience in addition to a free basic portion.} By the 1620’s aristocratic marriage settlements were beginning to stipulate in advance the portions payable to future daughters of the union if there were no sons. This was a device much disliked at first by old-fashioned parents, and when in 1628 a treaty was under discussion for the marriage of Anne Cecil to Lord Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland refused point-blank to consider such a suggestion. He told the Earl of Salisbury that it was ‘a new device rarely used’ and drew attention to the dangers of thus free-

| ing children from parental control. ‘I will never be an instrument to breed that disobediance’, he concluded.” But despite Northumberland’s attitude the practice spread rapidly and had become almost universal among the aristocracy by the 1640’s. Finally, with the introduction of the ‘strict settlement’ in the late seventeenth century, the portions of all future children were usually laid down at the time of their parents’ marriage. A daughter was at last in a position to defy her parents without depriving herself of her martriage portion. It should be emphasized, however, that this new freedom did not mean that girls were now likely to ignore the old social and economic bases for selection. It was a late-seventeenthcentury writer who observed that ‘women in this age, like hens,

desire only to lay where they see nest-eggs’. Nor was the tradi-. tional moral obligation to defer to parental wishes very much less effective. Most girls would for centuries continue to obey their parents, since this was what they had been taught to regard as their Christian duty. Moreover parents could still exercise all kinds of indirect influence. When his daughter married against his will, the pious 4th Lord Wharton forced the parson to withhold the sacra-

ments from her, on the grounds that her disobedience involved a fall from grace. All that had been established was the moral claim and the economic power to exercise a veto in the last resort. Mary Astell did not realize what an advance she was registering when she complained in 1700 that: ‘A woman indeed can’t properly be said in 1633, arid Lord Spencer in 1636 (PCC 22 Nevill, 51 Stafforde, 23 Dorset, 54 Savile, 91 Ridley,

jo Seager). For the 1603 Canons see E. Gibson, Codex Juris Ecclesiastict Anglicani, 1761, i,

R.O., 2 HIS K.G. 126, f.1285. 168. ,

° r ‘SP 23/66, p. 185. PCC 27 Goare, 106 Meade. BM Add. MSS. 32683, ff. 55-70. Dorset

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 599 to choose, all that is allow’d her is to refuse or accept what is offer’d.”!

(2) Sons

For eldest sons, freedom of choice was little less restricted than it was for daughters. The desire to prevent marriage from passing out of the family control because of wardship, and the financial importance of the settlement, prompted the father to marry his son and heir during his own lifetime to a woman he had chosen for him. In 1616 William Guise, ‘being growne a man, was, by the joynct advise and direction of Sir W. Gise and my Lady Stalenge, directed to marry with’ Cecily Dennis. The son was usually at the mercy of the father since he-depended on him for an allowance during the latter’s lifetime and for the provision of a jointure for his widow, without either of which marriage was virtually impossible. On the other hand if the father needed the cash portion, it was in his interests to urge his son to marry, and there was consequently some slight freedom of manceuvre. As with daughters, there was

a softening of opinion in the early seventeenth century, and in about 1613 Henry Earl of Huntingdon was advising against forced marriages. ‘I myself was married when a child and could not have chosen so well myself nor been so happy in any woman I know, but because one proves well it must not beget a conclusion.’

By the middle of the century most parents had admitted the right of veto to their eldest sons, though many still hankered after their former absolute powers. When in 1653 Sir Owen Wynn remarked

that his son was ‘a free man, to be disposed of as God Almighty and his parents think fittest for him’, he was doing no more than express the current, muddled, doctrine.? For younger sons the evidence is much scantier, but it is likely

that they always enjoyed rather mote freedom than their elder brothers since little financial importance attached to their choice. Almost always poorly endowed, they either did not marry at all, or married late and relatively humbly. The doctrine of filial obedience, and the dependence on father or elder brother to provide 1 W. Pope, The Life of Seth, Lord Bishop of Salisbury, Oxford, 1961, p. 176. E. R. Wharton, The Whartons of Wharton Hall, 1898, p. 40. Astell, op. cit., p. 22. The earliest settlement I know

of which guarantees the portions of daughters, regardless of whether or not they marry with consent and whether there are any sons of the marriage, is dated 1622 (JRL, Arderne MSS. 5G. Davies, Raymond and Guise Memoirs, Camden Soc., 3rd ser., xXVU, 1917, p. 112. HMCH, iv, p. 332. Wynn, no. 2011.

600 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY maintenance and jointure, meant that matters did not go entirely unsupetvised. But when provision for younger sons was made in wills, it was rarely tied to marriage by consent of guardians of relatives.?

(3) Wardship

To support this ancient belief in strict parental control and the weighty economic reasons in its favour, there was added a further, institutional, factor. By feudal law the King enjoyed rights over the lands and the disposal in marriage of any of his tenants in chief who inherited his estates while still a minor. This was a common enough occurrence in days of high mortality, more than one in every three peers being under 21 when he inherited his title, and therefore a ward of the Crown.” The Tudors revived this authority as a fiscal device, the Court of Wards being set up to sell to individuals the Crown’s rights over the minor’s person and one-third of his lands. The child could be bought from the Coutt, either to be married to one of the purchaser’s own children or to be auctioned to the mother or to another. The first alternative had been a common way of securing marriages in the Middle Ages. In 1481 William

Lord Hastings noted in his will that he had already married his daughter Anne to his ward George Earl of Shrewsbury, though both were still children. He ordered that if George died before carnal knowledge, Anne was to marry George’s brother and heir Thomas, who was also his ward. If George or Thomas refused to ratify the contract when they reached the age of consent, Anne was

to have a portion of £1,000 to allow her to purchase another | husband, the money presumably coming from the resale of the two brothets.

Sometimes the ward, particularly if she was a girl, was even mote the prey of circumstances. The heiress Elizabeth Trussell was

bought from Henry VII by George Earl of Kent for £266 and left by will in marriage to his younger son Henry. But she was seized by force by the eldest son, presumably out of spite towards

his stepbrother, and returned to Henry VII, who then resold her for £1,333 to John Earl of Oxford, who married her.3 Again in 15 24 I Two exceptions to this generalization are the wills of Henry Earl of Derby in 1592 and Robert Lord Petre in 1638 (PCC 66 Dixey; SP 23/66, p. 185). 2 See Appendix XX VII. J. Hurstfield, “The Greenwich tenures of the Reign of Edward VI’, Law Quarterly Review, |xv, 1949, pp. 74-76. 3 Nicholas, op. cit., p. 372. For other examples, see ibid. pp. 396, 483, 587. Smyth, ii, p. 203. | Blomefield, ix, p. 449.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY Gor Cardinal Wolsey, in exercise of his rights as Bishop of Durham, sold the wardship of George Bowes to Sit William Bulmer for £800. Bulmer then resold him to Lord Eure, who married him to his daughter Muriel.t The will of the 1st Lord Rich, drawn up in 1567, provides a striking example of the cynical detachment with which such slave-trading was still regarded in the mid-sixteenth century. Among other offspring Lord Rich left an illegitimate son Richard, for whom he now made provision. He instructed his executors to ‘provide or buy one woman warde ot summe other woman having mannors, londes, and tenements in possession of the cler yerely value of two hundreth pounde by yere over all chardges at the leaste for a mariage to be had and solempnised to the said Richard’. If Richard should refuse to marty the girl the executors were ‘to sell the saide warde . . . to the uttermost advauntage’. The possibility that the ward might refuse Richard was not even thought worth considering.” There are many examples of the purchase of wards by peers to marry to their children. Most wete made to provide for daughters or younger sons,? but some—for example the Duke of Norfolk’s purchase of the Dacre heiresses—were prime causes of family agorandizement. The death of a father leaving a young unmarried heir often inspired a flurry of intrigue for possession of the wardship.

In 1609 Richard, son and heir to the Earl of Dorset, was hastily matried off two days before his father’s death so as to forestall the Duke of Lennox who was fishing for the wardship, and when the Farl of Pembroke was thought to be at death’s door in 1595 it was reported that ‘the tribe of Hunsdon doe laye waite for the wardship of the brave yong lord’. Men invested in these commodities like any other, in the hope of financial gain or political advantage, and they were tarely disappointed.*

The evidence for this sordid traffic is fragmentary, and few of

the items can be traced right through. Its most objectionable feature was the degree to which the Master of the Court—for half a century a Cecil, father and son—granted wardships, often for a fat

gtatuity, to courtiers, noblemen, and officials, regardless of the interest of the child and its relatives, or even of the Crown. The

1 Shatp, pp. 369-70. 2 PCC 12 Babington.

3 Wards 9/373, 380 passim. * Ch, i, p. 287. Collins, i, p. 372. Le» P H VIII, 1. i. 2914. See also CSPD, 1603-10, p. 609; HMC 4th Rep., App., p. 310. 5 FE. P. Shirley, “Extracts from the Fermor Accounts’, Arch. J. viii. 1851, p. 180. J. Hurstfield,

602 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY peerage did not suffer the same treatment since their own wardships

were not normally sold to the highest bidder, but were granted to relatives or aristocratic guardians. Their status saved them from being publicly auctioned with danger of ultimate social disparagement, though they were still frequently married against their will. Furthermore throughout the Elizabethan period their fines were set at ridiculously low figures, thanks to the snobbish favouritism and social conservatism of Lord Burghley. As a result the peerage was the one group with a strong and continuous vested interest in the perpetuation of the Court of Wards. Minor courtiers had

a similar interest but it was not hereditary. |

The practice of distributing wards to the favoured few led to episodes such as when in the reign of Elizabeth John Lucas ‘being a great gamster, wonne of the Earle of Oxford the wardshippe of [Mary, daughter and heiress of Christopher] Roydon, with whome he matched his yongest sonne’.! A particularly striking case is that of Walter Aston, son and heir of Sir Edward Aston. In 1597 he was sold at the official price of £300 to Sir Edward Coke, the AttorneyGeneral. But in addition to this official payment, Coke had to give Lord Burghley no less than £1,000, so that he had invested heavily in the purchase of the child. When in 1600 the boy secretly married one Anne Barnes, Coke was naturally enraged; Anne was put in the

Fleet for nearly a year, and the marriage was dissolved by the Court of High Commission. But the boy had spirit and determination and soon afterwards he again married against Coke’s will, for which he had to pay his odious guardian {4,000.7 Not all children had Walter Aston’s courage, and a more normal story is that of George Luttrell of Dunster Castle. Born in 1560, he lost his father in 1571 and his wardship and marriage wete purchased by Hugh Stewkley. Stewkley offered him at the age of 15 a choice of his two daughters, and a solemn contract was drawn up before witnesses that George should marry one of them. The marriage took place five years later, but in the end it proved a failure. ‘Lotd Burghley as Master of the Court of Wards’, TRHS, 4th ser., xxxi, 1949, p. 105. For ‘corruption under the Earl of Salisbury, see Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England, Cambridge, 1961, pp. 88-116. 1 Visitations of Essex (Harl. Soc. Publ. xrrz), 1878, i, p. 236.

2 J. E. Neale, “The Elizabethan Political Scene’, Proc. B.A. xxxiv, 1948, p. 101. HMC rrth Rep., App. VII, p. 159. A. Clifford, Tixal//l Letters, 1815, i, p. 77 (where the figure is put at only £1,000). B. H. Newdigate, Michael Drayton and his circle, Oxford, 1941, pp. 146-8. For another example of successful defiance of his guardian by a ward, see William Lord Bagot, Memorials

of the Bagots of Blithfield, 1824, p. 57. ,

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 603 George took a mistress, by whom he had two children and whom he married as soon as his wife died over forty years later. The case of the 3rd Earl of Cumberland, married by his guardian the Earl

of Bedford to his daughter Margaret, is very similar. ‘God... matched us in lawful manner in one, though our minds met not,

but in contrarys and thoughts of discontentment’, wrote the Countess in her old age, as she looked back on nearly thirty years of marital discord and infidelity.! The most dramatic warning of

the potential consequences of wardship was the story of Walter Calverley, the heir to a substantial Yorkshire estate. Forced by his guardian to part with the woman he loved and to marty another against his will, he retired to the country and took to dice and the bottle. Some years later, in a drunken frenzy bred of despair, he murdered two of his children and stabbed his wife, a deed commemorated in two plays, one of which was falsely ascribed to Shake-

speare by an enterprising publisher.2 Domestic tragedies such as these were the inevitable result of the traffic in wardships. The notorious abuses of the system were coming under increasing

criticism at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. Though the distinction should not be pressed too hard, in the sixteenth century the main objection was that the

traffic in wards undermined the natural authority of parents and relatives by giving the power of marriage to strangers, and endangered the long-term family fortunes by placing a third of the property at the mercy of rapacious guardians. If natural rights were offended, at this stage they were more the natural rights of parents to authority than of children to freedom of choice. The abuses of watdship became a frequent subject of complaint in the House of Commons, and playwrights and poets soon joined in the assault. Joseph Hall satirized efforts to keep the father alive until the son was of age: I see some rotten bed-rid syre, Which, to outstrip the nonage of his heire, Is cram’d with golden broaths and drugs of price, And ech day dying liv’s and living dies, Till, once survived his ward-ship’s latest eve, His eies are clos’d with choyse to die or live.3 1 M. Lyte, A History of Dunster, 1909, 1, pp. 172-8. Williamson, p. 286. 2 Dictionary of National Biography.

3 Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarum, v.11, \l. 7-12.

604 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY Massinget described the blackmail tactics of the unscrupulous ouardian: I fell His woods, grant leases, which he must make good When he comes of age, or be compell’d to marry With a cast whore and three bastards.

By now, however, emphasis was shifting from criticism of abuses of the system to direct attacks on the system itself. In 1607 George Wilkins devoted a whole play to illustrating the immorality and cruelty of wardship—a work performed, curiously enough, by the King’s Players—while Marston went straight to the issue of human liberty: Bondslaves sonnes had wont be bought & sold; But now Heroés heires (if they have not told A discreet number, for theyr dad did die) Are made much of: how much from merchandie?

Tail’d and retail’d, till like the pedler’s packe | The fourth-hand ward-ware comes, alack, alack.

By the middle of the century even an arch-conservative like the Marquis of Newcastle was advising Charles II to reform the Court, so that “wardes maye notte bee baughte & solde like horses in Smithfielde’.!

When one discusses this extraordinary institution, it must be remembered that peers and courtiers had a vested interest in its perpetuation since it allowed them to prey upon and patronize the gentry. Nor was it out of keeping with the ideas of the sixteenth centuty. There was often little reason to suppose that the mother would prove a mote tesponsible guardian of her children than

a sttanget appointed by the Court: for example, the number of unions of step-children suggests that mothers who remarried wete dangerously ready to surrender their children to the family of their new husbands.? Family friends were equally ready to take strong measures, as Penelope Devereux found.? The Court of Wards was tolerated as long as the society upon which it preyed had itself

little respect for individual freedom of choice, and as long as there

was a strong vested interest in its continuance. Only when that 1G, Wilkins, The Miseries of Inforst Marriage, 1607 and 1611. P. Massinger, The Guardian, 1. i. J. Marston, The Scourge of Villainy, bk. i, satyre ti. Strong, p. 195.

2 See the genealogies of the Bourchiers, Cavendishes, Egertons, Sackvilles, Stourtons,

Sydneys, and Touchets. 3 Devereux, i, p. 155.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 605 freedom began to win a grudging acceptance, and when the Crown

reduced the vested interest by monopolizing more of the profits for itself, did its overthrow become inevitable. Blackstone was right

when he called the abolition of feudal tenures in 1660 “a greater acquisition to the civil property of this kingdom than even Magna Carta itself’.! (4) Royal Interference

Wardship was not the only method by which the Crown could control the choice of marriage partners. Among the propertied classes there was always the danger of royal interference through

the unfettered exercise of the prerogative, either to reward a courtier with a rich prize or to favour or obstruct a match on grounds of personal whim. The early Tudors seem to have exercised

this authority sparingly, and there are only a handful of recorded cases under Henry VIII. In 1523 Sir Thomas More wrote to Cardinal Wolsey, telling him that the King ‘very greatly desireth for the very special favour he beareth towards Sir William Tyler’ that Tyler should have in marriage the widow of the late Alderman Thomas Mirfyn. The arrangements the King left to Wolsey, “con-

sidering your grace’s well-apptoved wisdom and dexterity in achieving and bringing to good hope his virtuous and honourable appetite’. It is not known whether Wolsey succeeded in this task any better than he managed to satisfy Henry’s ‘virtuous and honoutable appetite’ over Anne Boleyn.

Elizabeth interfered frequently, but hardly ever positively, her main ambition being to prevent the marriage of her courtiers and atistocratic young Maids of Honour. Her objections were based partly on straightforward feminine jealousy and partly on a desire to preserve the Court as the focus of interest of every English man and

woman of note. She was afraid, with reason, that marriage would cteate other interests and responsibilities, and reduce the attendance

of both husband and wife upon her Court and upon herself. The wife would withdraw to child-bearing and country life, and the man might be tempted to desert the Court for home. John Harington reports that “she did oft aske the ladies around hir chamber, if they lovede to thinke of marriage. And the wise ones did conceal 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries, Oxford, 1770, ii, p. 77. 2 BM Cotton MSS., Titus B I, f. 270. R. Halstead, Succinct Genealogies, 1685, p. 568. J. H. Hurstfield, The Queen’s Wards, 1958, p. 147.

606 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY well their liking hereto, as knowing the Queene’s judgment in this matter.’ When one of them was foolish enough to express a wish, and her father and she had agreed to do what the Queen wanted, Elizabeth declared spitefully : ‘So thou shalte! but not to be a foole

and matrye. I have his consente given unto me, and I vow thou shalte never get it into thy possession; so, go to thy busynesse.”! These stories ate amply confirmed by documented examples. The Queen was furious at the marriage of the Earl of Leicester to the Countess of Essex, of the Earl of Hertford to Frances Howard, of John Wingfield to the Countess of Kent, of Sir Philip Sydney to Frances Walsingham, of Sir Thomas Perrot to Dorothy Devereux, of the Earl of Essex to Lady Sydney, of Robert Carey to Elizabeth Trevannion. When Lady Bridget Manners wanted to get mattied, she was advised to pretend to have measles and go away from the Court for a month; only then should she ask for leave, after Elizabeth had begun to forget her. Instead, she merely ran away, and het husband was promptly imprisoned by an indignant Queen.” Indeed, it was difficult to know what to do. The Court was the

one place in England where young people could escape parental vigilance and had the opportunity to engage their affections as they pleased. But if they asked the Queen’s permission to marry they were beaten, like Mary Shelton, or rebuffed, like Mary Arundell. If they married secretly but were found out, their husbands were imprisoned, like Robert Tyrwhit and Sir Walter Ralegh. If they delayed matters till they were with child and then married hurriedly,

both partners were liable to imprisonment, as Elizabeth Vernon and the 3rd Earl of Southampton discovered. If they allowed

| themselves to be seduced without prospect of marriage they were equally in trouble, like Mary Fitton and William Earl of Pembroke. There was really no way out, except for those who renounced all

thought of marriage in deference to the Queen’s wishes, like Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Robert Cecil after his wife’s death; or others who were said to have taken the risk of marriage in 1601-2 and kept it secret until the Queen’s death. Things were not easy for lovers at the Court of Elizabeth. -

t Harington, i, pp. 359-60. , ,

2 HMCR, i, pp. 107, 149, 321-2. Lord Cardigan, The Wardens of Savernake Forest, 1949, p. 165. Hatton, p. 327. Devereux, i, pp. 187, 211. Memoirs of Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth, ed. G. H. Powell, 1905, pp. 29-31. 3 HMCS, viii, pp. 353, 3573 Xv, p- 56. Devereux, i, pp. 474, 491. Lady Newdigate-Newdegate,

Gossip from a Muniment Room, 1897, ch. ii. HMCD, ii, p. 415. oo ,

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 607 With the accession of James, the pattern of royal interference changed dramatically, for royal efforts were now entirely directed towards the encouragement of marriage. Though himself a homosexual, the King was not jealous of the wives of his favourites, and did his best to help them. To smooth the course of true love he provided money and lands for the marriage settlements of Mont-

gomery and Somerset and bullied the bishops into giving the | Countess of Essex her divorce. A passionate believer in the union of the two kingdoms, he looked with especial favour upon AngloScottish marriages.! Later on in the reign, James was persuaded by Buckingham to use his influence to procure rich wives for his less affluent courtiers. We have seen Henry VIII doing this once, but

there is no further evidence of it until the very end of the reign of Elizabeth. With the deterioration of royal finances and the pressure of war, the Crown in the 1590’s was no longer able to distribute the usual rewards of cash and lands. Courtiers had to do with gifts

which cost the Crown nothing, such as letters to further matrimonial schemes. These missives were not royal commands but were couched in language which made it difficult to refuse them. One drafted by Cecil ran: ‘We do not wish to use authority, but will take your compliance as a mark of respect.’2

It was not until crown largesse was again severely restricted during the Cranfield economy drive that evidence of the issue of these letters once more begins. The pressure came from frustrated courtiers and officials like Edmund Lord Sheffield. The moment his first wife died in 1618, Sheffield wrote to Buckingham asking

him and James to help him ‘in beeinge a suitor unto the greate riche widowe of Sir William Craven’. Whether or not pressure was

applied we do not know, but the widow, who was perhaps the richest woman in England at the time, successfully resisted the assault. A year later James went to great lengths to try to bully the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Sebastian Harvey, to marry his daughter to a brother of the then Marquis of Buckingham. Harvey successfully resisted both threats and blandishments, though he was fined £2,000 on a trumped-up charge in Star Chamber a year later to make him pay for his obstinacy.3 These efforts of James in his declining years prepared the way for 1 CSPD, 1623-5, p. 532. Talbot L, f. 155. Goodman, i, p. 391. See infra, pp. 625-6. 2 J. Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, 1823, ii, p. 628. CSPD, rys9s-7, pp. 282, 558. 3 Bodl MS, Add. D 110/191. Cy&, ti, pp. 241, 253, 306.

608 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY the behaviour of Charles, under whom the most frequent and most atbitrary interference occurred. Occasionally, as with Lord Russell and Anne Carr, or Elizabeth Ashburnham and Frederic Cornwallis, Charles supported love-matches in defiance of parental views. An extreme case of interference in the father’s authority occurred soon after the accession, in 1626. Charles had already planned to marry the son and heir of Thomas Earl of Arundel to a daughter of the Earl of Argyle, when the young man suddenly and secretly married a daughter of the Duke of Lennox instead. Charles promptly threw

the boy’s father into prison on suspicion of complicity. During the 1630’s letters of recommendation came thick and fast: to the

| Earl of Cork to marry his son to Lady Anne Fielding, niece of the late Duke of Buckingham; to the Earl of Bedford to urge his cousin Edward Earl of Bath to marry Dorothy Seymour; to Sir Henry Willoughby to marry his daughter to Sir John Suckling; to

the Duke of Lennox to marry the daughter of the late Duke of Buckingham; to George Kensham to marry his daughter and heiress to the eldest son of the Secretary of State, Sir Francis Windebank.?

It is a revealing commentary on the growth of opposition to the royal will that on all but one occasion these attempts to influence mattiage were without success. Finally there are a number of cases on tecord in which leading politicians and officials used their positions to force marriage on clients. In 1532 Sit Thomas More, the Sheriff of Dorset, unlocked the gates of Dorchester prison and released the prisoners ‘in a frolic’. To obtain his pardon William Lord Paulet, future Marquis of Winchester, forced him to marry his daughter and coheiress to Paulet’s second son, who thereby inherited an extensive estate in the county. Later in the century an exchequer official persecuted a Catholic widow with suits for recusancy until she agreed to marry him.? The most notorious examples of this form of blackmail were

those perpetrated by the Duke of Buckingham, who arrived at Court bringing in his train an almost inexhaustible supply of indigent female relatives. Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, tried to buttress his political position by marriage with Anne Brett. The 1 Knowler, ii, p. 2. Private Correspondence of Jane Cornwallis, ed, Lord Braybrooke, 1842, p. 234. M. F. S. Hervey, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, Cambridge, 1921, pp. 240-9.

2 Grosatt, Ist ser., ili, p. 155; 2nd ser., iii, pp. 183-4. Knowler, i, pp. 165, 336. CSPD, 1633-4, pp. 64, 71-723 1637-8, p. 1233 1636-9, pp. 126, 139. HMC Cowper MSS. ii, pp. 14-15.

Arch, Cantiana, xii, 1878, pp. 73-74. | 3 Hutchins, pt. 2, p. 115. BM Harl. MSS. 991, f. 75.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY Gog Barl of Manchester was forced to marry his eldest son to Susan Hill. The Marquis of Hamilton married a niece of the Duke and was made Master of the Horse; Francis Lord Leigh, Edward Lord Howard of Escrick, and James Earl of Marlborough owed their promotions to marriage with Audrey, Mary, and Jane Boteler. Well might the satirist inquire: Hast thou no neece to wed, is there no inne Nor bawdy house t’afford thee any kinne To cuckold lords withall ?

On the other hand it must be admitted that many peers needed little pressing to take the hand of a relative of the Duke, and a later pamphleteer had some justification for accusing them of ‘scrambling for his dirty nieces’.! (5) Love Matches

Despite the ubiquitous authority of parents and guardians and despite occasional pressure from the Crown or politicians, marriage as a result of personal choice was not entirely unknown among the nobility. Two circumstances made this possible. If when his father died the heir was over 21 and still unmarried, he could choose his own wife. Secondly at Court, as nowhere else, he could associate with young women of high birth sufficiently frequently and freely for mutual attachment to develop. When in 1577 Peregrine Bertie, future Lord Willoughby, met at Court and married Lady Mary Vere, it was in defiance of both his mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, and of her brother, Edward Earl of Oxford.? It is noticeable that marriages for love tended to run in families, the father’s example no doubt emboldening the son. Edward Earl of Hertford married Lady Catherine Grey for love in 1560, and Frances Howard for love in 1581—which did not deter him from getting his son and heir thrown into the Fleet for following his example.? His grandson completed the family tradition by marrying Arabella Stuart in defiance of royal orders, and consequently found himself in the Tower. Both the 3rd and the 4th Earls of Southampton married ' Fuller, pt. ii, p. 130. HMC Mar and Kellie MSS., Suppl., p. 149. CSPD, 1619-23, p. 49. HMC Skrine MSS., pp. 82, 171. Diary of Walter Yonge, Camden Soc., 1848, p. 95. Ch, ii, pp. 381, 476. D’ Ewes, i, p. 160. F. W. Faitholt, Poems and songs relating to George, Duke of Buckingham, Percy Soc., XXIX, 1851, p. 10. C. H. Firth, The House of Lords during the Civil War, 1910, p. 220.

2 Ward, pp. 151-4. 3 Cardigan, op. cit., p. 165. HMC Bath MSS. iv (page proofs), p. 154. BM Harl. MSS,

821314 Rf

6993/55.

610 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY from personal choice when freed from parental control, the result of which was to accelerate the economic decay of the family. When the parents were still alive, defiance of their wishes was liable to have serious consequences, for few fathers were as indulgent as Sir Richard Cholmley. He had arranged for his daughter to marry Lord Lumley, a day was fixed, and £1,000 of the portion was paid before Katherine confessed that she would rather die than marry him. Her father agreed not to force her, lost his money, and allowed her to marry an impoverished younger brother of her own choosing. But when Lady Cave of Stanford arranged to marry her daughter Nell to Sir William Cavendish, she took it ill when the girl confessed the evening before the wedding that she was secretly pre-contracted to Sir George Beeston: “Whereupon my Lady drew her by her hair out of the house.’ Sir Richard Hopton actually disinherited his eldest son for an unauthorized marriage, and when in 1637 Lord Andover married Doll Savage ‘against consent of parents on both sides’ there was a tremendous outcry and they were

driven out of house and home to fend for themselves.!

| (6) Conclusion On the basis of surviving evidence it would seem that freedom

of choice for women was largely restricted to those with the opportunities of casual association with males afforded by life at Court or in London. By the early seventeenth century there was a clear distinction between the social mores of London and the home counties on the one hand, and the remoter country districts on the other. In 1618 Sir John Wynn of Gwydir told his eldest son that ‘sootherne weomen, & those that bee bredd aboute London (in that abhominable libertie there used) are able to overthrow anie man’s estate what soe he bee, both in minde (which is most) & in his

| fortunes. Therefore I resolved with my selfe yow shoulde marrie a counttey gentlewoman northwardes, for they bee moste vertuous & chaste and do not dreame of the libertie used abowte London.”2 For men the least free were the heirs male of the greatest families. Lower down the social scale, the economic stake involved was less important, and it was therefore easier for children to break loose

from parental control. The sort of marriages arranged for themselves by John Hutchinson or William Temple were very unlikely

ii, p. 73. 2 NLW Wynn MSS. 2855. 1 Cholmley, pp. 8-9. ). Duncombe eé al., The History of Herefordshire, v, pt. 2, p. 37. Knowler,

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY G11 to be possible for men of more exalted rank. In the remoter areas, sheer physical isolation tended to keep the sons of the gentry under their father’s thumb, so that in 1653 Sir Owen Wynn could assure a prospective father-in-law that his son ‘hath not settled his affections

anie wheere, neither was their anie reason for it, he beeinge little from home at anie time’.! The sons of magnates were probably less cut off from society, but they were often married very early before they reached an age to decide for themselves, and the pressure put

upon them was far more intense. Marriage was too sefious an affair to be left to those most intimately concerned. Nevertheless the doctrine of the absolute right of parents over the disposal of their children was slowly weakening in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. King James himself declared that ‘parents

may forbid their children an unfitt marriage, but they may not force their consciences to a fitt’, and in 1638 Lord North was wtiting of the need to persuade ‘parents to leave their children full freedome with their consent in so important a case’.? When one looks for the causes of this change of attitude, it seems

likely that a preponderant part was played by the puritan ethic. Various tendencies were at work to stimulate the growth of individualism, not metely in man’s relation to God but also in economics and in politics. But superimposed upon them there was the strong working of moral and religious enthusiasm for a Christian society based on secure family relationships. The puritan divines

put forward an idealized view of the relationship of love and martiage, based on traditional Christian morality but adapted to new conditions and expressed in Biblical terms that would fire the imagination of their readers. The most advanced parents like Sir

Walter Mildmay or Edward Lord Montagu were men of deep puritan conviction, and an examination of puritan pamphlet and sermon literature shows criticism of the marriage for money and of the double standard—the two basic presuppositions underlying the arranged marriage.

It should be emphasized, however, that most puritans had no exprfess intention of undermining parental authority, and indeed were positively anxious to reinforce it. In 1589 the Rev. John 1 Hutchinson, pp. 47-51. The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne .... NLW Wynn MSS. 2008. 2 BM Harl. MSS. 7582, f. 53”. Dudley Lord North, A Forest of Varieties, ii, 1645, p. 141. In Sweden, on the other hand, it was made a punishable offence in 1622 for the children of the nobility to marry without the consent of parents or guardians (M. Roberts, Gustavus Adolfus, 11, 1958, p. 157).

612 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY Stockwood published a book entitely devoted to the thesis that children should not marry without parental consent, the Bible and the great Protestant divines like Calvin and Beza being ransacked for suitable supporting evidence.’ But his desire for a happy and Christian marriage made him come down firmly against parents who fotce marriage where there is no love for the sake of material gain, a practice which he regarded as being particularly prevalent among the nobility. Criticism of the manipulation of marriage for material ends had certainly always existed, but its volume seems to

have been increasing in the early seventeenth century. Although most critics wanted to preserve parental control of marriage, their argument in fact destroyed the main incentive for such control. Secondly there developed a vigorous popular conttoversy over the position of women in society. In the course of this debate the old tradition of the double standard of sexual morality for men and women came under heavy criticism, one of the features of puritanism being a refusal to accept the normal tolerant attitude towards adultery by the male.” This tightening of sexual mores made forced marriage to an unloved partner insupportable to men, and must have been a powerful influence in encouraging sons to assert themselves The double standard is essential to the arranged marriage, and any attack on the one must lead to an undermining of the other. One of principal effects of puritan thinking on marriage was thus entitely unintended, just as were its effects on capitalism and science.

| Ill. THE FUNCTION OF MARRIAGE The money and the maidenhead is the subject of our meditation. D. DEFOE, Ihe Uses and Abuses of the Marriage Bed, 1727, p. 33

(1) Theory

Contemporary attitudes about the purposes of marriage are best revealed in the ‘Letter of advice to a son’ which fathers were in the

habit of composing for the edification of their children. These documents make it clear that what men sought in marriage was 1 W. and M. Haller, “The Puritan Art of Love’, Huntington Library Quarterly, v, 1941-2. J. Stockwood, A Bartholomew Fairing, 1589, p. 79. _ 2 W. Gouge, Of Domesticall Duties, 1622, p. 219. D. Rogers, Matrimoniall Honour, 1642, pp. 72-89, 327-53. L. B. Wright, Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England, Chapel Hill, 1935,

pp. 208-9, 217-23, 484, 505-7. K. Thomas, “The Double Standard’, J. His#. Ideas, xx, 1959. Similar views were strongly expressed by the puritan thinkers of New England in the seven-

teenth century (E. 8. Morgan, The Puritan Family, Boston, 1956, ch. i).

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 613 firstly companionship, an objective to which lip-service was duly paid by Tudor writers but which only took on a real importance as marriage began to develop into a union for spiritual support and

consolation under puritan inspiration in the early seventeenth century. Secondly, marriage was the “prescribed satisfaction for irrational heats’ as Milton put it; that is to say, it provided an alternative to fornication, which is sinful, brings scandal, and—in days before contraception—is likely to lead to embarrassing and expensive consequences; thirdly, marriage met the urgent need to produce an heir male to carry on the family line and property; and fourthly, it offered the hope of financial and territorial advantage. The first three objectives could, it was thought, be achieved by any random association of male and female, and the main motive for selective marriage was the preservation and increase of the patri-

mony. Essentially, marriage was not a personal union for the satisfaction of psychological and physiological needs; it was an institutional device to ensure the perpetuation of the family and its property. The greatest attention was therefore paid to the financial benefits of marriage. The most extreme position was stated in the middle

of the seventeenth century by Francis Osborne, who in a printed ‘Advice’ which ran to seven editions in two years was prepared to defend the position that “as the fertilitie of the ensuing yeare is guessed at the height of the river Nilus, so by the greatnesse of a wive’s portion may much of the future conjugall happinesse be calculated.’! Relatively few seventeenth-century parents or children

wete willing to go as far as this. The ex-goldsmith James Bankes advised his children ‘to seek to match yourselves with daughters and heirs as near as you can, for so by the help of God is the soonest way to inctease your houses, as many wise men have done hereto-

fore’. Sir Henry Fiennes, after an unfortunate experiment in the contrary philosophy, advised his son to ‘marry as ritchly as he can’,

for “ritches will be comforts when other things ar amis, and save one from many mischiefs’.? The most famous letter of advice in the early seventeenth century, and one which had great influence on current thought, was that of

Lord Burghley to his son Robert. Though not published until 1 F, Osborne, Advice to a Son, 5th ed., 1656, p. 66. More briefly, William Lloyd in 1604 _ advised Sir John Wynn that “the best match is where there is the best portion’ (Wynn, no. 290). 2 J. H. M. Bankes, ‘James Bankes’, Lancs. ¢» Chesh. Hist. Soc. Trans, xciv, 1943, p. 74 (spelling modernized). Gentleman’s Magazine, xlii, 1772, p. 164.

614 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 1615 it circulated widely in manuscript before that, and several fathers did not hesitate to impress their sons by the most blatant plagiarisms.' Burghley’s counsel was just as cynical but a good deal more subtle and judicious than that of Osborne. Enquire diligently of her disposition & how her parents have been inclined in their youth. Let her not be poor, how generous soever, for a man can buy nothing in the market with gentility. Nor chusea base & uncomely creature altogether for wealth, for it will cause contempt in others and loathing in thee. Neither make choice of dwarfe or foole, for by the one thou shalt beget a race of pigmies, the other will be thy continual disgrace & it will yrke thee to hear her talk. For thou shalt find it, to thy great grief, that there is nothing more fulsome than a she-fool.

Writing in about 1613 Henry Earl of Huntingdon took much the same line, and a few years earlier the Earl of Northumberland had been warning his son, ‘love grows soon cold when want calls at your doors. ... Time will tell you of many imperfections in her that plenty must make plasters for.” Nevertheless he did not encourage a mercenary marriage, but laid a good deal of stress on personal qualities, concluding that ‘as you must love, love a mistress for her flesh and a wife for her virtues’.? In the late sixteenth century religious factors began to influence the choice of partners. After about 1570 the great Catholic families began increasingly that practice of religious apartheid that was to cut them off from the main stream of the English landed classes.

Though there were still numerous cases of recusant wives of Anglican peers and gentry in the late sixteenth century, they tended to become increasingly rare. Families like those of lords Paget, Stourton, Vaux, Petre, and Teynham began intermarrying more and more exclusively among themselves. The children of the 2nd Viscount Montagu married into the Paulets, Arundells, Petres, and Somersets; those of the 4th Earl of Worcester into the Petres, Arundells, and Windsors. Of course this policy was not solely the result of deliberate choice but also of necessity, as Protestants also began to be aware of the disadvantages and dangers of mixed religious marriages. Their concern for ‘marrying in the Lord’ led Puritans to make similar demands for spiritual harmony in marriage, 1 Peck, 1. i, pp. 63-66. Lancs. (” Chesh. Ant. Soc. Trans. \xii, 1950-1, p. 7o. C. AspinallOglander, Nunwell Symphony, 1945, pp. 47-49. Stanley Papers, pt. iti, iii (Chetham Soc. Lxx), 1867, p. 43. CSPD, 1628-9, p. 597. 2 HMCH, iv, p. 332. Harrison, pp. 111-12.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 615 and in consequence the great Puritan houses of the early seventeenth century also began to draw apart in some measure from the main Anglican body. This was a development which had political consequences in forging a further link to bind together the opponents of the rule of Laud and Charles I. The 4th Earl of Lincoln married a daughter of Lord Saye and Sele; the sons of Lord Digby

and of the 2nd Lord Brooke matried daughters of the Earl of Bedford; the 2nd Earl of Westmorland and the 2nd Earl of Clare

married the two coheiresses of Lord Vere of Tilbury; the 2nd Earl of Manchester married a daughter of the Earl of Warwick.

This religious factor added a new criterion to the old ones of wealth and social status, and so enhanced the importance attached to the personal qualities of both bride and groom. Moreover puritan middle-class ethics stressed the need for love and the importance of a wife as a helpmate, and these ideas percolated through to the more pious of the greater gentry and the peers. The first unvarnished statement of the new approach came from that unbending Puritan, Sir Walter Mildmay, who in 1570 flatly advised his son to “chuse thy wife for virtue only’.1 Even among less devout parents personal defects now began to outweigh the most generous

of financial settlements. In 1615 there appeared a pamphlet denouncing in no uncertain terms the current emphasis on money and urging the superior claims of moral worth. Writing in 1613 the Earl of Huntingdon expressed strong disapproval of painting and popery. Sir John Strode told his son to “be advised by thy wisest friends and take a wife of the same religion and faith which thou

professeth. Let thy wife be thy younger in years, thine equal in birth, no common dancer or gadder or gamester. Not too fair, of convenient comeliness, her portion at least answerable to her charge, apt to govern her household and obey her husband.’ In 1604 William Wentworth instructed his son, the future Earl of Strafford, in much the same terms, but the most categorical was the 1st Lord Montagu, who in 1621 succinctly advised his son: “In your marriage looke after goodnes rather then goodes.’

This shift of emphasis led to a good deal of confused thinking by parents who hoped to get the best of both worlds. In his instructions to his son written in the 1630’s Sir Christopher Wandesford started out bravely enough with a clear insistence on the superiority ‘ Rogers, op. cit., ch. ii. Northants. R.O., Westmorland MSS. Misc. Books 35, f. 19. D. Parsons, Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, 1836, p. 228.

616 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY of inward virtue overt either physical beauty or wealth. Indeed he began by arguing that a wife’s fortune was something ‘which of all the rest is least to be studied by a noble and ingenuous mind’. But then he spoilt his case by admitting that the greater the fortune (other things, of course, being equal) the more cause for comfort; and he ended with an open encouragement to his son to continue the Wandesford tradition of bettering themselves by advantageous marfiages.! It 1s noticeable that the most liberal of these counsels come from

the gentry class and it is doubtful how far these ideas affected the

thinking of the aristocracy. Apart from Lord Montagu the only peets to express themselves in these terms were Archibald Marquis

of Argyle and Dudley Lord North, both writing in the 1660’s. The former urged that ‘in the contracting of marriage vertue is more to be considered then money’, but then added that ‘money is the sinew of love as well as wat’. The latter was less ambiguous

and advised directly against marriage to too rich a wife, if only because it made her insubordinate, and laid stress on identity of religious views, similarities of tastes, reasonable age and looks, and a fund of common sense, ‘that she may be no lesse useful in the day than agreeable at night’.2 The worldly and sophisticated letter-writer

George Gartard was shocked at the marriage in 1639 of Lord Cranborne with the daughter of James Maxwell, and Edward Waterhouse was exptessing an increasingly common opinion when he wrote in 1665 that ‘one of the greatest mistakes and mischiefs of our age is dis-esteem of wives, and that upon conceit that any

thing, if woman, serves fot a wife, if she have but money’.? Sir John Oglander provides an excellent example of the middle position that sensible parents were adopting by the 1630’s. He energetically denied that he had urged his son to marry the ugly Miss Lisle, but on the other hand he equally vigorously opposed his son’s interest in a penniless beauty. “It must not be conceived that all good por-

tions are inseparably tied to none but ill faces....I would not for wealth bind your affection to an ill face, so my advice was that 1 A. Niccholes, ‘A Discourse of Marriage and Wiving’, 1615 (Har/. Mise., 1744, ii, pp. 14167). Dorothy Leigh, The Mother’s Blessing, 1616, pp. 49-53. Aspinall-Oglander, op. cit., p. 52. Sheff CL/S 40/1. Boughton NC 13/2. Sir Christopher Wandesford, Book of Instructions to his

Son, Cambridge, 1777, pp. 51-52. Cf. very similar views expressed by Baroness Despencer a little earlier (Northants. R.O., Westmorland MSS., Misc. Books 35, f. 2). 2 Archibald Marquis of Argyle, Instructions to a Son, 1661, pp. 41, 43. Dudley Lord North, Observations and Advices Oceconomical, 1669, pp. 4-7.

3 CSPD, 1638-9, p. 622. E, Waterhouse, The Gentleman’s Monitor, 1665, p. 383.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY G17 raving beauty might not so blind your better judgment as to cause you by too late repentance to reap the fruits of your own folly.”

Although there had always been criticism, there is nevertheless some teason to believe, therefore, that marriages exclusively or even

primarily for money were coming under increasing popular disapproval during the early seventeenth century. (2) Practice

Such were the theories; but what of the facts? It is perfectly possible that the swelling chorus of theoretical disapproval was no mote than a symptom of the increasing occurrence of the practices complained of. We have seen that wills, correspondence, and con-

temporaty comment strongly suggest that the negative right of veto was mote freely conceded during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. But the degree to which parents or children put money before other considerations in making their initial selection or final choice is another matter altogether. So far as the atistocracy is concerned it is possible to give an answer to this question in statistical terms. Among the families elevated before 1603, some 20 per cent. of the marriages between 1540 and 1599 of holders

ot heirs apparent of titles were with heiresses. Thereafter there is a sudden jump to 34 per cent. for the next sixty years.? It is thus evident that around the turn of the century the growing financial embatrassment of the peerage drove them into a far more singleminded pursuit of wealthy marriages than had previously been their custom. The new peets created between 1603 and 1641 wete

men who had always had a sharp eye to the main matrimonial chance, and indeed this was often an important cause of their advancement. During the late Elizabethan period 32 per cent. had bettered themselves by marriages to heiresses, and they stepped up the process in the next thirty years to a figure equal to that of the older peerage. Though the sample is too small to build much upon, it appears that this pursuit of heiresses by the new peers was most intense in the years before they were elevated, rising to as high as 43 per cent. in the years 1600-29.

Some families—old and new—devoted themselves wholeheartedly to this objective. The Howards dukes of Norfolk and eatls of Arundel married four heiresses between 1555 and 1606; the Howards earls of Suffolk and the Norths married three in a row, ' Aspinall-Oglander, op. cit., pp. 76-77. 2 See Appendix XXIX,

618 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY and the Russells four. Taking the peerage as a whole, one martiage in every three was with an heiress in the early seventeenth century. When it is considered that these figures exclude marriages with women with huge portions but who were not heiresses, it is

evident that wealth was the most important single consideration in very many early-seventeenth-century marriages, and that its supremacy was increasing. Whereas social and political factors had predominated in many earlier marriages, the greater fluidity of landed society led to a growing emphasis upon exclusively financial considerations. When contemporaries grumbled about this develop-

ment they were not thinking back to an age when parents were more concerned with moral virtue, but to one when the preservation

of class distinctions took precedence over the quest for optimum financial benefits. Even so, there is reason to believe that this hypo-

thetical golden age was something of a myth. Aristocratic martiages may have been more mercenary in the seventeenth century than in the fifteenth, but the difference is one of degree rather than of kind. Marriages with heiresses not only brought new wealth into the peerage, but also preserved within the peerage class much of the estates of families which had failed in the male line. There were,

however, certain risks attendant upon these ambitious marriage schemes. Death might intervene to shatter the best-laid plans for financial advantage. For example in 1626 the Earl of Montgomery attanged to marty his son and heir Charles, aged 7, to Mary, the 4-yeat-old daughter of the Duke of Buckingham. It was the seal of a political rapprochement between the Villiers and the Herberts which had first been suggested two years before in 1624, and in return Montgomery was to be made Lord Chamberlain and his brother Pembroke, Lord Steward. In 1635 the marriage hurriedly took place to forestall the growing affection between Mary and Charles’s younger brother, and the huge portion of £25,000 was - duly handed over to Montgomery, who by now had succeeded his brother as Earl of Pembroke. It must have been in anticipation of this colossal windfall that Pembroke in 1633 began an ambitious reconstruction of Wilton House which if completed would have made it one of the largest and architecturally most remarkable houses in England. But within a year of his marriage the boy had died of fever on the Grand Tour, and Pembroke was suddenly faced with the disagreeable alternative of repaying the £25,000 or

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 619 allowing the 18-year-old widow a jointure of {4,000 a year for life. He chose the former, and in consequence Wilton was never built

as it was intended, the garden front towards the river that is so much admired today being merely a truncated fragment of the grandiose original design.! Fishing for heiresses was evidently not without its financial dangers, to say nothing of the psychological hazards of lifelong association with a woman whose chief attraction was her wealth.? (3) Remarriages

If these material considerations dominated first marriages, which were usually arranged by parents or guardians, the same was not

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necessarily true of remarriages, which were normally the result of

the free choice of the individuals concerned. It should not be supposed that they were a rarity, for mortality among married women was very high, some 45 per cent. dying before 50, a quarter

of these deaths being a direct result of child-bearing (Fig. 16).3 1 Wynn, no. 1428. BM Harl. MSS. 1580, f. 445. C110/125/10. HMC Shrine MSS., p. 82. Arch, Cantiana, xii, 1878, pp. 72-74. Knowler, i, pp. 359, 524. 2 For the cautionary tale of the Cavendishes, see supra, p. 194. 3S. Peller, ‘Studies in Mortality since the Renaissance’, Bu//. Hist. Med. xxi, 1941, p. 443. See Appendix XX VI. For remattiages, see Appendix XTIIc.

620 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY Sometimes the desire for more children in order to perpetuate the name and title was the chief reason for a second marriage. This was certainly true of the rst Duke of Newcastle, of whom his second wife records that ‘he having but two sons purposed to marry me, a young woman that might prove fruitful to him and increase his posterity by a masculine offspring’.1 In very many cases, however, other factors predominated. In a large establishment with servants

to be supervised and children to be educated a mistress of the household had a useful function to perform, particularly if the husband was preoccupied with court affairs. Moreover in perhaps the majority of cases this was the first time in which the man was entirely free to make his own choice. If not love-matches, these second marriages were at least the result of personal decisions, the

widower seeking a pleasant companion for his middle years as much as a mother for his children or a fortune to swell his coffers. The 1st Lord Guildford ultimately repented of his decision not to remarry, partly on the grounds that ‘he fancied that, in the night,

human heat was friendly’.? |

There was also a health factor inducing second marriages. Though contemporary medical science was only dimly aware of the stresses

set up by sexual frustration, doctors frequently recommended to their patients a regular though moderate ejection of semen, for the same reasons that they prescribed seasonal purges and oc-

casional blood-letting; all three were methods of discharge for ‘corrupt humours’. Sir Thomas Elyot in The Castle of Health ptofessed himself too prudish to discuss the question, but Thomas Cogan’s almost equally popular Ihe Haven of Health had no such inhibitions. “The commodities which come by moderate evacuation

thereof are greate. For it procureth appetite to meate and helpeth concoction; it maketh the bodie more light and nimble; it openeth

the poates and cundittes and purgeth flegme, it quickeneth the minde, stirreth up the witte, reviveth the senses, driveth away sadnesse, madnesse, anger, melancholy, fury.’3 Since the most convenient method of such ‘evacuations’ was within the martiage bond, this must certainly have been an additional inducement to avoid being wifeless for long.

1 Newcastle, p. 45. 2 North, ii, p. 251.

3 'T. Elyot, The Castle of Health, 1610 ed., p. 95. T. Cogan, The Haven of Health, 1589 ed., p. 241. This advice was certainly followed by doctors when advising their patients. (L. Stone,

An aap.Sir 1703, 83.Horatio Palavicino, p. 29; T. T. Mayerne, Opera Medica, ed. J. Browne,

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 621 Quite apart from these more personal considerations, there were sound financial incentives for a second marriage. Sir Charles Guise explained with endearing frankness how ‘I... was indebted above

2000... soe that... I found myself in a manner inforced to looke after another match’.! For the bride was expected to produce a substantial cash portion, which would now go straight into the pocket of the groom instead of that of his father. All he was asked to do in return was to settle a jointure for the life of his widow. In other words a second marriage had similar financial consequences to a mortgage on very favourble terms. The groom raised raised an immediate cash sum which was entirely at his disposal, in exchange for a burden which would only affect the estate after his death. It was his son who would have to pay the price, and as a tesult these remarriages were often very damaging to the financial interests of the next generation. This desite for someone trained in domestic management, mature in sexual experience, and of roughly the same age was one reason why as many as 40 per cent. of the second marriages of peers were with women who were already widows. Nor was there any short-

age of supply, for the mortality pattern of peers reveals a high death-rate throughout early middle age. If some thought that widows were ‘a sott of cattle so odd that the best of the kind with all the perfections of nature and advantages of fortune are seldom

an equal exchange for any man’s peace and liberty’, there were others who considered that ‘It is a singular advantage to preoccupate a widdowes affeccions’. This latter view was based on the fact that a widow usually brought with her a life jointure from her

first husband which could do much to support the second. John Evelyn contrived to link the assets and debits of widows in a single

chain of causation: “In the conjugall estate a virgin is ever to be preferred; he who marryes a widow, besides the taske to unteach her the manners and customes of her former husband... has also the trouble to learne her how shee may please him: and therefore if such a man be recompensed with an extraordinary portion it is but very reason.’ It is easy to see why in their turn widows wete so eager to matry again. This was a man’s world, and a single woman found herself

1 Davies, op. cit., p. 127. 2 See Appendix XXVI.

3 W. G. Hiscock, John Evelyn and his Family Circle, 1955, p. 78. B. Schofield, The Knyvett

| Letters, 1949, p. 45. Christ Church, Oxford, Evelyn MSS. 143, p. 5.

622 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY at a severe disadvantage in coping with the normal problems of life. ‘Continuall trubles, wantinge a discret and healpful frinde . . . made mee thinke of marrige’, explained the dowager Countess of Sussex in 1646. Hard pressed by lawsuits, that tough old lady the dowager Elizabeth Lady Russell threatened to ‘take me to a mischief and marry to avoid the inconvenience of being killed by villains’, a phrase that she glossed as an intention to ‘marry and be provided of some one that shall defend me and take care for me living and to bury me, and not thus to live, no man caring for my soul and life’.! Moreover these women, now for the first time free to dispose of themselves at their pleasure, were often pathetically anxious to secure that domestic felicity which had hitherto been denied them. Like the widow Pulteney, they openly voiced the opinion that ‘all the riches in the world without content is nothing —for this liberty I will take to myself, that is, to make choice of one as I afecte’.2 Sometimes this contempt for financial considerations turned out well. On her monument in North Cadbury, Somerset, there is a wistful record of the two marriages of Margaret Lady Hastings : When choice of freinds brought her to marriage-bed, With just renowne she passed those her daies. And though her youth were tyed to age farr spent, Yet without spot she lived and was content. Her second match she made of her own choice, Pleasing herselfe who others pleas’d before.

| All too often, alas, these sentimental widows fell an easy prey to ruthless and cynical adventurers, and they were regarded at the time as the natural salvation of the bankrupt. ‘I wish your good speade with the widow’ was encouragement commonly given throughout this period to men hoping to better themselves in the world.3 Very occasionally the victim turned the tables on her preda-

tor. When the extravagant John Kingston heard of the death of Henry Nedham, he swore “Body of our Lord! I will go marry this olde widow and pay my debts. Then when I have buried hir, will I marry a young wench and get children.’ But he had no luck, for ‘shee held him tug above 38 yeares and lived near 12 years after him’. Many such widows married in hope of love only to find

I Verney, i, p. 274. HMCS, ix, p. 339. 2 Verney, i, p. 278. 3 'T’. Middleton, The Widow, 1. ii. Zeals House, Mere, Reymes MSS. 1.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 623 themselves shamelessly exploited. They often suffered bitter disillu-

sionment, though few had to endure the humiliations inflicted by

Oliver Lord St. John on his second wife, the rich widow of Sir Edward Griffin. Turning to her in a public gathering he remarked: ‘“. . . your ladyship hath truly paid for your place. Therefore if any can now make a penny more of you, I would he had you”, wherewith the tears stood in his lady’s eyes.”! The chief reason for their helplessness was that in common law women were almost entirely at the mercy of their husbands. As the Earl of Northumberland boasted: “The laws hath given such power to husbands as wives can neither alien, set, let, give lands without the man’s consent if they have any ... during the husband’s life.” The only protection of widows or heiresses, and one to which they increasingly resorted in the early seventeenth century, was

to tie up their property before marriage in a trust, or to insert a covenant in the marriage contract precluding the husband from interference. Such provisos were naturally much disliked by husbands, being described by Northumberland as “a tie that necessitous

husbands are forced to consent unto, and a true means to breed discontentement afterwards’.* (4) Geographical Range

Part cause and part effect of the pursuit of wealthy marriages was the development of a nation-wide marriage market centred on London. In the sixteenth century non-courtier families confined their alliances almost exclusively to the local nobility and gentry, often within the county. Even near London the same was often true, and investigation of the family connexions of M.P.s of the Long Parliament has revealed interlocking ramifications within the county squirearchy of bewildering complexity. For the county was the main social unit in the sixteenth century, thanks to the frequent meetings of quarter sessions and assizes when the leading gentry assembled to transact business and exchange hospitality. It was this system of local alliances that cemented English society at the local level, and by the early seventeenth century it led to a situation in which cousinhood was a norm, and Lord Wotton could 1 Holles, p. 215. HMC Various MSS. iii, pp. 87-88. 2 Harrison, p. 93. Cé, ii, p. tor. For two examples of these provisos, see the marriages in 1646 of the Earl of Warwick to the dowager Countess of Sussex, and in 1648 of Henry, 3rd son of the Earl of Berkshire, to Elizabeth, widow of John Craven (Verney, i, p. 274; Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berkshire MSS., Moore’s Boxes 1/3).

624 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY refer doubtfully to Sir William Twysden as ‘his cuntryman, he

knewe not whether he was his kinsman or not’.! |

In the north of England even the peers were limited in their geographical range during the first two-thirds of the sixteenth century. All the six children of Henry 1st Earl of Cumberland martied into the north of England, the only exception being the first marriage of his son and heir. The six marriages of the children of the 1st Lord Darcy of Aston were all into Yorkshire and Derbyshite, those of the five children of the 1st Lord Eure were all into Yorkshire and Durham, those of four of the seven children of the 1st Earl of Lincoln were into Lincolnshire. In the early sixteenth

century the lords Lumley married their children exclusively in Durham, Northumberland, and Yorkshire; with only one exception

each the families of Wharton and Ogle married in the north till the end of the century. The three sisters of the 9th Lord Scrope all matried in Yorkshire, and even a magnate as great as the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury married all his children into the aristocracy of the north of England. The southern nobility usually allowed themselves a tather greater geographical range. The proximity to London, the

better roads, the less ferocious winters, all made communication easier and reduced parochialism, but even so the evidence of large noble families shows a strong tendency to regional emphasis at least up to the third quarter of the sixteenth century. Six of the marriages of the children of the 1st Marquis of Winchester were. within the five counties of Somerset, Dorset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire. The nine marriages of the children of the rst Lord Rich were even mote closely concentrated in Essex, Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire; the first marriages of the six

| daughters of the rst Lord Wentworth were confined to Suffolk, — Buckinghamshire, and Bedfordshire. It was the growth of London as a central matrimonial clearinghouse in the late sixteenth century which finally broke down this

regionalism. Under Elizabeth some thirteen earls or future earls and five barons found their brides at Court among the Maids of Honour of the Queen,? while for the squitearchy the contacts provided by the increasingly popular London season offered similar

opportunities. At the same time the concentration of knowledge 1 D. Brunton and D. H. Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament, Manchester, 1954. B/L XV, f. 268.

2 V. Wilson, Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honour, 1922, passim. ,

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 625 about settlements in the chambers of a few highly skilled London

conveyancers must also have increased the importance of the capital as a marriage market. It was in London that the Yorkshire

Wentworths, the Hampshire Oglanders, the Northamptonshire Ishams, and the Norfolk Pastons sought news of suitable brides for their children in the early seventeenth century. Though Fuller could still quote the Cheshire proverb “better wed over the mixon

then over the moor’, in fact the greater gentry were by then beginning to look farther afield. Even Sir John Wynn of Gwydir sought brides in London for his two eldest sons, only to find that English parents were reluctant to let their daughters emigrate to the remote fastnesses of a supposedly barbarous and irreligious Wales; there were still a few limits to the free play of a national marriage market.’ Nevertheless, the old geographical barriers were breaking down and by the early seventeenth century it is very difficult to find among the aristocracy examples of regular local martiages to compare with those of half a century earlier. The case of the seven daughters of Conyers Earl of Holderness, who married exclusively in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Lincolnshire, is an exception to the rule. More typical are the marriages of the daughters of the Oxfordshire magnate, the 2nd Lord Saye and Sele, which ranged freely from Yorkshire to Dorset. For the peerage the marriage market had become nation-wide before the middle of the seventeenth century.

Indeed by now English noblemen had even begun to turn a hesitant eye beyond the kingdom. In the last half of the sixteenth century they had confined themselves virtually exclusively to England, the only exceptions being four marriages with the families of the Irish earls of Kildare and Ormonde, and one with a Swedish lady attached to Elizabeth’s Court. James was extremely anxious to promote Anglo-Scottish unity, and after 1603 one way to royal favour was by marriage into the Scottish peerage, a path a handful of ambitious noblemen did not hesitate to tread. ‘The first of these alliances could not have been more unfortunate. In 1603 Elizabeth, daughter and coheitress of Giles Lord Chandos, was married off to one of James’s Scottish household, Sir John Kennedy. Kennedy was an unscrupulous rufhan who turned out to be a bigamist with

another wife in Scotland, ran through Elizabeth’s fortune, and 1 Sheff CL/S 40/1. Aspinall-Oglander, op. cit., p. 77. Finch, p. 28, note 3. HMCB, i, p. 309. Fuller, p. 174. NLW Wynn MSS. 332, 335, 2852, 2854.

821314 SS

626 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY ended by assaulting her house with a gang of Scottish friends and driving her half-naked into the night. The next to make the attempt was the 67-year-old Earl of Nottingham, who in 1604 married the young daughter of the Earl of Moray. Even if his much-advertised prowess on the wedding night laid him up for days afterwards, at least he had gained the affection of King James.' In 1608-9 Lord

Cavendish forced his son and heir to marry a daughter of Lord Bruce, Esmé Lord d’Aubigny captured the daughter and heiress of Lord Clifton, and the son and heir of the Earl of Suffolk was contracted to the daughter of George Earl of Dunbar. But thereafter this stream of Anglo-Scottish unions dried up, and between 1610 and 1660 there were only ten, mostly of expendable daughters

and younger sons. The most notable of these alliances was the mercenary contract in 1639 of Charles Viscount Cranborne to the daughter of James Maxwell.

Rather more frequent were the marriages of children of the English peerage with the soldiers, administrators, and settlers who formed the new Anglo-Itish nobility. Borne up by the rising tide of Irish prosperity before 1640 and by the almost limitless possibilities of exploiting their official positions for profit and plunder, this new colonial ¢ize was soon in a position to buy its way into the families

of the English aristocracy, and over thirty such marriages took place between 1600 and 1660. There was, however, still a good deal

of prejudice against marriage into so remote and barbarous an area, and in 1632 the Countess of St. Albans turned down a handsome offer to her daughter by the Earl of Antrim on the grounds that the Earl’s seat was ‘so far remote for my daughter from all her frends and acquaintance, the uttermost north part of Irlande, and a contry soe different in condition and breeding’.? In 1626 the Earls of Oxford and of Derby married respectively a Dutch and a French noblewoman, and in 1634 Thomas Earl of Southampton brought home a well-born Huguenot beauty. In general, however, insular prejudice and religious differences continued to cut off the English aristocracy both from the Continent and from Scotland. James’s efforts to create an Anglo-Scottish nobility had little effect, and neither Anne of Denmark nor Henrietta Maria succeeded in planting their fellow countrymen or countrywomen in English society. 1 E. Dent, Annals of Winchcombe and Sudeley, 1877, pp. 240-1. SP 14/48/7. The Connexion: being choice collections of some principal matters in King James his reign, 1681, p. 48 (Bodl Wood 251).

Lodge, iii, pp. 187, 188. 2 BM Add. MSS. 46189.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 627 (5) Soczal Range

If the geographical spread of aristocratic marriage was steadily widening to the limits of the kingdom, the social range followed no such regular curve. Of course younger sons throughout married mostly among the gentry, and their situation may be disregarded. Daughters had a choice between peers and gentry, and the degree to which they succeeded in capturing a nobleman obviously depended

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on the type of partner the latter was seeking. Between 1485 and 1569 over half the marriages of titular peers and their heirs male were within the peerage class, but between 1570 and 1599 the proportion fell to a third (Fig. 17).! Intermarriage within the peerage had declined sharply, no doubt for the reasons offered by the Earl of Huntingdon to his son in about 1613: “Being allied to most of the

nobility, match with one of the gentry where thou mayest have a great portion, for there is a satiety in all things, and without means honour will look as naked as trees that are cropped.’ This was also the view of Lord Burghley, and was repeated with approval by the

Earl of Derby.2 Many of the gentry were well aware of this mercenaty attitude among the peerage and a few of them tried to guard 1 See Appendix XXX and Helen Miller, The Early Tudor Peerage (London M.A. thesis), 1950, P. §2.

2 HMCH, iv, p. 332. Peck, 1.1, p. 64. Stanley Papers, pt. iii, iii (Chetham Soc. Lxx), p. 43.

628 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY against it. Some were willing enough, but thought, like Margaret Knollys, that “noblemen ask more than I am able to give or willing

to give’. Others were frightened of the extravagance and pride which they regarded as the predominant characteristics of the nobility, Francis Osborne warning his readers that ‘leane honour, like Pharo’s kine, devour the gentry with whom they match, by multiplying the quantity of their expenses’.' By the time Osborne was writing, these counsels were perhaps beginning to take effect on the gentry, and the peerage was also voluntarily withdrawing again within itself. Between 1600 and 1629 the picture is blurred by the rapid elevation of large numbers of the upper gentty into the peerage, with the result that the aristocracy doubled in size. In this thirty-year period about one-third of the

older peerage continued to marry into their own restricted and | shrinking class, 29 per cent. married pure gentry, and 21 per cent. married into families which wete already, or were about to be, elevated to the peerage. In the succeeding period from 1630 to1659,

when the new peerage may be said to have been absotbed, the nobility as a whole had reverted to its pre-15 70 position of marrying

rather mote than 50 per cent. within itself. However, since there wete now twice as many families, this did not represent quite that strict exclusiveness that had characterized the mid-sixteenth centuty.

Apart from successful lawyets, who usually came from gentty stock and were rapidly reabsorbed into it at a higher level, the only other extremely wealthy group in England was the London metchants, that limited circle which used its monopoly privileges to secure an altogether disproportionate share of the countty’s trade, and which filled the offices of Lord Mayor, Sheriff, and Alderman of the City. The marriage of a nobleman into a mercantile family was to the sixteenth century a distinct wésaliance, and the degree to which it was practised throws a significant light on changing financial conditions and social attitudes. Some of them were second

marriages after the successful production of a male heir by a first well-born wife had ensured that the hereditary line was saved from any taint of contaminated blood. But by no means all fall into this

category, and this does not seem to have been a very important consideration. The widows of London merchants were particularly tich prizes because by the Custom of London they were entitled to one-third of their husband’s personal estate if there were children, 1 HMCS, x, p. 391. Osborne, op. cit., p. 67. See also Sheff CL/S 40/1. Boughton NC 13/2.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 629 to a half if there were none.’ Since the great bulk of a merchant’s fortune was usually in personal property such as cash, shates in voyages, ships, and bonds for money out on loan, these widows were some of the most financially desirable catches in the kingdom. This vein was already being tapped by the peerage in the fifteenth

century,” and it continued to be exploited in the early sixteenth with marriages to the widows or daughters of London aldermen of Lords Zouche, Mountjoy, and Marney and the Earl of Kent. Apart from the 2nd Lord Mordaunt and the 2nd Earl of Bath in the 1540's, the older peerage abandoned this practice after 1520, although in the later years of Henry VIII there were very close links between the City and high government officials, some of whom had just risen or were about to rise into the peerage. The 1st Marquis of Winchester, the rst Lord North, the 1st and 2nd Lords

Rich, all married into the City, as did Sir Richard Sackville, Sir William Petre, Sir Thomas Pope, Sir William Sharington, and Sir John Thynne. Once established, however, the Elizabethan aristocracy consciously set out to emphasize its new status, and as a result for thirty years after 1561 there was only one case of intermarriage with the merchant class.3 The erection of this barrier is as interesting as its weakening in the 1590's. It was built partly on an urge by the newly elevated to cut themselves off from their more humble background, partly on a sharpening of social distinctions, and partly on the temporary temoval of the financial necessity for such alliances thanks to the rich booty of monastic estates. For reasons which are discussed elsewhere, very many peers in the late Elizabethan period found themselves in grave economic difhiculties, one result of which was that a few bolder or more desperate spirits

began to leap across the barrier that for thirty years had divided peers from merchants. There is no doubt whatever that the initiative

came not from aldermen anxious to improve their status but from noblemen determined to grab the rich prizes offered by City widows and daughters, and particularly by City heiresses. The first sign of

the new trend came in about 1591 when Lord Stafford wrote to 1 C. 8. Kenny, The History of the Law of Married Women’s Property, 1879, pp. 67-68. 28. L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, Chicago, 1948, p. 266. The succeeding

evidence is taken from the Complete Peerage, and from A. B. Beaven, Aldermen of the City of London, 1908, passim.

3 This is the third marriage of John, son and heir of the 1st Marquis of Winchester, to the daughter of Sir John Brugge, a London alderman. But since she was the widow of Sir Richard Sackville, she had been absorbed into the Court gentry for over twenty years, and little could

have remained of her City upbringing. ,

630 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY Burghley asking him to use his influence to put pressure on ‘a riche citizen for his only dowghter and heire to be maryed unto my sonne’.! Stafford little knew his man when he appealed to the snobbish Burghley, and he must have received a blistering reply, if one may

judge from the reception accorded to the marriage the next year to Henry Pranel, the son of an alderman, of Frances, daughter of Lord Howard of Bindon. The marriage was freely encouraged by the Howards, and was based so far as Pranel was concerned on genuine affection, but that did not prevent the Lord Treasurer from expressing his grave displeasure on grounds of social incompatibility. Pranel observed, reasonably enough, that he had no idea that ‘your Lordshipp being howrelie busied with serious public affaires, woulde have bine acquainted and trobled with such domesticall and private matters’. It is interesting to note that this marriage

seems permanently to have warped Frances Howard’s character, and for the rest of her life she displayed a ferocious talent for avarice and social climbing, no doubt as compensation for this early humi-

_liation. Her next husband was the Earl of Hertford, who used to tease her with the question: ‘“Frank, Frank, how long is it since thou wert maried to Pranell?”’, which would damp the wings of her spirit.’ The same desperate financial necessity which compelled

Viscount Bindon to sell his daughter to a vintner drove Lord Compton in 1599 to lay violent and successful siege to the daughter

and heiress of Sir John Spencer, one of London’s greatest merchants and financiers. After this coup thete was a lull in aristocratic marriages with the City for almost twenty years, due partly to the easing of the financial pressure thanks to King James’s reckless generosity, and partly to a switch to gentry heiresses. Meanwhile it was the gentry—

either the impoverished or the ambitious—who swallowed their pride and were courting the merchants. Several of the new nobility—the Earl of Manchester, Viscounts St. Albans and Conway, Lords Noel, Coventry, Lovelace, and Leigh—had married into the merchant class before their elevation, and in doing so they were merely following the tide. The playwrights were quick to satirize the process. Marston described how ‘your knight courts your city 1 Ellis, 3rd ser., iv, p. 90. Collins, i, p. 363. 2 Ellis, op, cit., pp. 91-94. A. Wilson, History of Great Britain, 1653, p. 259. 3 L, Stone, “The Peer and the Alderman’s daughter’, History Today, x, 1961.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 631 widow with jingling of his gilt spurs, advancing his bush-coloured beard, and taking tobacco’. ‘No sooner is the wealthy merchant dead, his wife left great in fair possessions .. . then thither flock a rout of crazéd fortunes, whose crack’d states gape to be solder’d up by the rich mass of the deceased’s labours.’ Shackerley Marmion concluded that ‘your citizens’ widows are the only rubbish of the kingdom to full up the breaches of decayed houses’.! By 1618 the example set by some of the gentry, the decay of old standards of

morality and propriety in the age of the Duke of Buckingham, and the soaring fortunes and ambitions of the aldermen all conspited to bring about a spate of matrimonial projects and alliances between peers and merchants. Massinger staged Anne Frugal being

sought by ‘the son and heir of the Lord Lacy, who needs my mastet’s money’, a situation precisely matched in real life by Lord Shefheld and Christopher Villiers.” Massinger was also the inventor of Sir Giles Overreach, who, to make his daughter ‘great in swelling titles, without touch of conscience will cut his neighbour’s throat’. Such a one was Alderman Sit William Cockayne. His son bought an Irish viscountcy and his five daughters between them married three earls, a viscount, and a baronet. After his death, his widow went one further and married the 1st Earl of Dover. The four daughters of Alderman Sir William Craven married two English barons and two Irish viscounts. Other marriages into the City were those of the Earl of Lindsey and Lord Audley, and there were three instances of aristocratic daughters marrying into the London merchant class. Well might James Shirley remark in 1628 that there was not a virgin Left by her friends heir to a noble fortune But she’s in danger of a marriage To some puff’d title.3

That there was something very squalid about these barter agreements of money for title was generally recognized, and not merely by the playwrights.*+ But at a time when mercenary marriages were 1 J. Marston, The Malcontent, 1. iit; What You Will, 1. i. Shackerley Marmion, A Fine Companion, 11. 11. See also T. Gainsford, The Rich Cabinet, 1616, p. 27. 2 J. Massinger, The City Madam, 1. i. See supra, p. 607. 3 J. Massinger, 4 New Way to Pay Old Debts, 1. i. James Shirley, The Witty Fair One, 1. i.

4 See, for example, John Chamberlain’s remarks about the marriage of one of the Cockayne girls (CA, ii, p. 301).

632 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY the rule, and when merchants like Hicks and Bayning and merchants’ sons like Craven were buying their way into the English peerage, the process was inevitable. In the thirteen years from 1618

to 1630 there were nine alliances or attempted alliances between titular peers or their heirs male and the daughters or widows of

merchants, compared with six in the seventy years from 1548 to 1617 and three in the thirty years from 1631 to 1660. The third

decade of the century witnessed a degree of mingling between | the peerage and the City without parallel both before and after. The sale of titles died away after 1630 and for the next forty years the new peerage, like their predecessors after 1553, cut themselves free from these bourgeois entanglements.! IV. THE ECONOMICS OF MARRIAGE (1) Legal Provisions

Since financial considerations played so crucial a part in the arranged marriage, the legal transactions which preceded and accompanied the ceremony must be examined with some care. The terms of the agreement were set out in two documents, the contract between the fathers of bride and groom, and the settlement of his estate by the father of the groom to trustees for uses. The two were

often combined in a single deed, and the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries witnessed an extraordinary growth in their size and complexity. In part this was due to a Parkinson’s Law which

urged lawyers and their clerks to an indefinite expansion of the volume of documentation, and therefore of fees. Indeed much of the increase is undoubtedly in sheet repetitive verbiage ostensibly designed to leave no loophole for subsequent litigation. A good deal, however, is due to a teal growth in subtlety and refinement by which obligations, particularly of the father of the groom, were mote and mote strictly defined in order to meet a variety of contingencies. As a result it is a far cry from the simple one- or twopage document of the early sixteenth century to the settlements of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the largest of which covets about 300 square feet of parchment.? t A rate exception is the marriage in 1646 of the son and heit of Lotd Berkeley with the coheiress of the Treasurer of the East India Company. 2 The Settlement, dated 18 May 1759, for the marriage of Thomas Viscount Weymouth with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish-Bentinck, which is preserved at Longleat. A good series illustrating this growing complexity is that of the Cope family in Hants R.O., 43. M. 48.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 633 The father of the bride had to provide a substantial cash sum, known as a pottion, usually payable in several instalments over one or two years. By the seventeenth century any delay often led to interest being charged on the residue at the standard legal maximum,

while prior payment brought about a corresponding deduction! In addition the father of the bride had to provide the bride’s trousseau and jewels, and usually the marriage feast as well. This last was

a gargantuan orgy which on occasions spread over several days of eating and drinking. When Lord Burghley married off his daughter to the son and heir of Thomas Lord Wentworth in 1581, the wedding guests were entertained for three days at a cost of £629. When Lady Frances Cecil married Lord Clifford in 1610 the feast cost Salis-

bury £207, to say nothing of another £43 in rewards to bringers of wedding presents.” Occasionally in the early sixteenth century the costs were shared between the two fathers, for example in equal halves when in 1531 the son of George Earl of Huntingdon married the daughter of Henry Pole, Lord Montagu.?

In return for these straightforward payments the father of the etoom had to undertake a far wider set of obligations. The most important was the provision of an annual allowance for support of the bride ifand when she became a widow, and the ratio between this jointure, as it was called, and the cash portion was the main issue around

which negotiations turned. Calculated as a net income, the jointure

usually took the form of physical ownership of land, including living quarters, either a mansion on the jointure estate in the case of peers and great landowners, ot some rooms in the family manor house in the case of lesser squires. Occasionally it was found more convenient to retain the estates under unified management and to

pay the widow a fixed annuity instead. Throughout the whole of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries there was a secular rise in rents, and there was little fear that the estates allotted for jointure in the settlement would fail to produce the estimated income. Indeed a more probable danger was that despite this norninal rise inflation would have reduced the value of the jointure 1 The latter was a very tare occurrence indeed, the only example of which I know being the portion of Lady Elizabeth Cecil on het marriage in 1639 with the Earl of Devonshire. Because of his promptitude Salisbury only paid £9,736 instead of the full {10,000 (H/A 157/3). ’ 2 BM Lansd. MSS. 36/71. H/A 160/1. See also BM Harl. MSS. 98, f. 1-2; J. Hunter, South Yorkshire, 1828-31, ti, p. 285. 3 Nichols, iii, pt. 2, p. 576. Cf. Hunter, op. cit. ii, p. 67. 4 JRL, Leycester of Toft MSS. 153; Bromley Davenport MSS.

634 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY in real terms by the time it fell due. Sometimes the father of the groom guaranteed in writing the value of the estates, but often this safeguatd was omitted. Only when rents began levelling offand even falling in the second half of the seventeenth century did guarantees of future value become really necessary.! Second in importance to the jointure, and particularly significant if the bride’s father had his daughter’s present comfort at heart, was the allowance made to the groom in his father’s lifetime. This also

might take the form either of an annuity or of a direct transfer of property and a house, often the same as the jointure. In either case the father of the groom usually undertook to give the pair lodging in his own house for the first few years. To use the terminology of the sociologists, temporary patrilocal residence was the norm. This gave the pair time to learn the art of housekeeping and to accumulate some furniture, and at the same time saved money by avoiding the setting up of an independent household. Since in any case they stood to inherit the family house, and probably some of its contents, on the death of the father, there was never much point in setting up a very elaborate independent establishment. If it could be prolonged until this moment, living under the parental roof would thus result in considerable saving on capital expenditure. ‘When in 1664 John Viscount Brackley married Lady Elizabeth Cranfield, the Earl of Bridgewater gave them an allowance of £1,500 a year, from which he deducted {700 for the provision of lodging, diet, and horsemeat in his house for a family unit made up of the bride and groom, eleven servants, and fourteen horses. This was the commonest arrangement, but occasionally this burden was undertaken for a few years by the father of the bride, often no doubt at the insistence of his wife. As Sir Rowland St. John explained in

1639, ‘my wife will very hardly be persuaded to part with hir daughter the first year till she be throughly setled & acquainted with hit husband, which shee knows wilbe for both their good’. | Similarly when in 1612 Sir Edmund Verney married Margaret Denton, her father promised, in addition to the £2,300 portion, ‘fore yeres boord for the said Sir Edmund and Margaret’. Finally, to cite an extreme case, when Lord FitzWilliam’s daughter married

Sit John Lee in 1633, the portion was not fully paid, and instead the whole Lee family of ten or twelve persons did ‘constantly sojourne and table’ at Milton for eleven years, eating his Lordship * H/G 25/5.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 635 out of house and home.! Whichever way it was arranged, the fact remains that most young couples started, and many continued, their married life as part of the household of their parents. A third obligation written into an increasing number of settlements after about 1620 was that of settling on trustees a fixed annual sum, later known as pin-money, to be at the free disposal of the bride. This was a new development, and is symptomatic of the increasing economic independence of women. To give but one example, when in 1661 the Earl of Salisbury was negotiating to marry his grandson

to a daughter of the Earl of Rutland, the latter wrote: ‘My lord of Salisbury shall have with my daughter go00 li... & for joynture [I] expect 1600 li per an., & that land to be for the present maintenance of the young people, that, if it be found inconvenient there being familie with parents, they may live by themselves; out of this 1600 li, 300 li I desire for my daughter’s personal allowance, made over to trustees for her.’? Fourthly, the father of the groom was expected to make clear the proportion of his estate which he proposed to settle on his eldest

son after his death. This settlement of the estate was the crucial factot which governed the stability of the family inheritance, and the technical changes which occurred were of far-reaching consequence. As has been seen, the sixteenth century was a period of exceptional freedom for the head of the family in the disposition of his inherited property. The growing popularity of the life interest first limited this freedom, and then, in the late seventeenth century, the invention and widespread adoption of the ‘strict settlement’ brought it virtually to a close. Thereafter the father of the bride could rest assured that his daughter’s jointure was safe, and that the eldest son of the marriage would inherit the estate intact.

A further problem with which the settlement began to deal was the contingency of the birth of daughters but no sons. If the mother then died, there would be every probability that the widower would temarty in order to provide an heir male, which would leave the daughters of the first marriage at the mercy of their stepmother. In ‘ North, op. cit., p. 97. Herts. R.O., Ashridge MSS. A.H. 1180. Northants. R.O., Brudenell MSS., K IX, 22; XI, 12; St. John MSS. 87. Claydon House, Verney MSS., Letters. Finch, p. 131. See also Kent R.O., Sackville MSS, E 221/2. L/Sey XI, ff. 169’-184. Essex R.O., D/DP F/13. JRL, Bromley Davenport MSS., Trinity College, Oxford, MSS. (contract of 1615); and Whitaker, pp. 369-70.

2 H/Box V/69. 3 See pp. 178-9.

636 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY the sixteenth century this danger was usually ignored, though Lord Burghley met it for his daughters with a provision for the descent of part of their husbands’ property to the ‘heirs of their two bodies lawfully begotten’, the rest being entailed on the heir male.? But the growing reluctance of landowners to break up their inheritance,

and their increasing inability to do so thanks to previous settlements, forced fathers in the early seventeenth century to make this provision for heirs general of a first marriage take the form of a cash sum. The occasional clauses in sixteenth-century settlements had not

yet achieved much sophistication: the amount promised to each daughter was usually less than the mothet’s portion, but there was no limit to the total commitment.” In the early seventeenth century, when these clauses became more common, the portion for an only daughter often equalled that of the mother, but there were now firm limits placed on the total obligation if there were several girls. In 1605 when Katherine, daughter of Lord Sydney, married Sir Lewis Mansell with a portion of £2,500, and in 1608 when Bridget, daughter of Lord Grey of Wilton, married Rowland Egerton with £3,000, a fixed sum of {£4,000 was allocated for any number of daughters. This system persisted for a long time and occurs occasionally up to the middle of the century and even beyond.3 After about 1610 it became rather mote common to allow the ceiling to fluctuate within limits according to the number of daughters to be catered for. For example when in 1645 Katherine, daughter of

the Earl of Salisbury, married the son and heir of the Earl of Leicester with £6,000, £3,000 was allowed for one daughter, £4,000 if there were two, and {£6,000 if there were three or more.

By the 1660’s this sort of arrangement was becoming standard practice, and by 1671, when Elizabeth Lewis married the Earl of Huntingdon with £10,000, yet a further complication had been introduced. If the Earl had no sons by Elizabeth, one daughter was

to have {10,000, two {12,000, three £15,000, and four or more t HMCS, i, pp. 415-16. SP 12/149/35 (1), 46. 2 For example, marriages of daughters of Lords Cobham and Berkeley in 1565 and 1586 respectively. (BM Harl. MSS. 98, ff. 1-2; Smyth, ii, p. 403.) A very late example of this unsophisticated type of clause occurs in the proposed contract for the marriage of Sir Henry Vane, junior, in 1640 (SP 16/452/92). . 3 Badminton, La/1/1. Penshurst 613 C. Lancs, ¢> Chesh. Rec. Soc. Ixxxvi, 1935, p. 6. Boughton NC 7/3, p. 31 (dated 1629). Essex R.O., D/DP F 43 (dated 1638). H/D 36/9 (dated 1649). Cf. also Orlando Bridgeman, Conveyances, 1689, pp. 360, 391 (dated about 1652). Savernake 859 (dated 1678). Kent R.O., Sackville MSS. T 321/8, 9 (dated 1685 and 1689).

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 637 £16,000. But if the Earl had no sons by Elizabeth and no children by any subsequent wife, then one or two daughters were to have £30,000 and three or mote £40,000. These increasingly complex provisions made sure that, in spite of the growing rigidity of the

sttict settlement of land, any children of the marriage would be given at least the equivalent of the original portion. A side consequence was that the independence of women without brothers was greatly enlarged. Owing to the technical incapacity of the Common Law coutts,

these obligations were regulated and enforced in the Court of Chancery, which between 1580 and 1640 expanded its equitable jurisdiction so as to enable it to enforce the provisions of marriage settlements. Hand in hand with the growing ingenuity of convey-

ancers went the growing authority of Chancery, and it was the combination of these two factors which eventually created the watertight system of the late seventeenth century, which gave reasonable protection to the interests of husbands, wives, and children alike.2 These arrangements, and the changes that occurred

in them, were to have far-reaching effects on long-term family fortunes. (2) The Portion and the Jointure

The first problem is to establish the relationship of the size of the portion to the annual income of the father of the bride. To judge this question one must take into account not merely the size of the individual portion but also the number of daughters to be provided for. Unfortunately the sixteenth-century instances in which the size of all the portions and of the father’s income is known ate very limited, and little of value can be deduced before the evidence becomes more abundant in the early seventeenth century. Moreover the marked difference between the average wealth of dukes, marquises, and eatls and that of viscounts and barons resulted in a comparable difference in the size of portions. Between 1558 and 1574 portions offered by and to the former were 40 per cent. larger than those offered by the latter, though this 1 C. J. B. Stourton, The Noble House of Stourton, 1899, i, p. 484. H/D 22/4. Savernake 298. B/S 236. Northants. R.O., Finch-Hatton MSS. 1152. Bodl Carte MSS. 78, f. 276. For other late-seventeenth-century examples see Badminton 504 M 14/24; Lancs. R.O., DDM 17/150, 158, 173; DDK 13/8. B/S 296. Savernake 865 A. 2 See, for example, Kenny, op. cit.

638 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY discrepancy substantially diminished in the next half century. In view of these difficulties it seems that the only way to tackle the problem is to list all known portions of daughters of peers who wete not heiresses in their own right, and to see whether there were striking changes in the average size. In the first decades of the sixteenth century, the Duke of Norfolk gave his daughters £300 each, Lord de la Warr £333, Lord Berkeley one £500 and one £400, Lord Clifford £400, Lord Vaux £500, and Lord Mounteagle £740.! Though there were, of course, occasional larger portions, they were the exceptions rather than the rule.? Between 1530 and 1570 inflation steadily raised the average figure to mote like {1,000.3

Even so, in the 1540’s and 1550’s lesser peers like Lords Sctope, Latimer, Ogle, and Darcy of Chiche were still only offering between

£200 and £470, while a rising man like Sir Edward Montagu was giving as little as £80.+ As late as the 1560’s the Earl of Cumberland

could still marry his daughter to a Lowther for a mere £200, and even the greatest peers were still not asking or giving much over £1,000.5 By the early 1570’s, although men like Lord Windsor were

still leaving daughters £1,000, Lord Chandos and the Earl of Cumberland were giving {2,000 and Lord Burghley offered the record sum of £3,000 to marry his daughter to the Earl of Oxford.®

In the 1580’s and 1590’s these exceptional figures became much mote common and there is a marked jump to £2,000.” It seems clear that prices were being forced up by competition from the

squitearchy, the most prosperous of whom were now offering £2,000 or more with their own daughters.® So hot was the pace that even the impoverished Lord Vaux had to be cajoled into giving t Nicholas, op. cit., pp. 603, 606, 600. BM Add. MSS. 24452, ff. 17-19. Smyth, ii, pp. 231, 235. Sharpe, p. 369. 2 Nicholas, op. cit., pp. 372, 589. HMCH, 1, p. 306. 3 Smyth, ii, p. 225. Miller, thesis cit., p. 59. B/S 24. C 3/50/36. HMCH, i, p. 313. Nicholas, Op. cit., p. 720. 4 Op. cit., p. 704. J. Hodgson, History of Northumberland, Newcastle, pt. ii. i, 1827, p. 385. PCC 10 Loftes. E 150/1141/3; C 142/66/38. Wards 7/5/46 (I owe these last three references to Miss Helen Miller), A. G. Dickens, Lo/lards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, Oxford, 1959, pp. 61-62. Boughton NC 13/2. 5 G. C, Williamson, Lady Anne Clifford, Kendal, 1922, p. 18. PCC 8 Loftes; 1 Sheffield; 22, 27 Chayre. B/S 52. Hants R.O., W.D. 198. Lancs. R.O., DDK 6/5. SP 12/44/68. BM Harl. MSS. 3881, f. 51’. 6 PCC 28 Pykering; 20 Peter. Charterhouse D 3/4. H/S 159, f. 113. 7 SP 12/149/35 (1), 46; 269/51. L/Dev V, ff. 14, 56%. Bradford, Cartwright Hall, Swinton MSS. 73. Halstead, op. cit., p. 612. Smyth, ii, pp. 402-3. J. Strype, Annals of the Reformation, 1728, iii, App., p. 134. SP 12/269/51. R. T. Spence, The Ciiffords, Earls of Cumberland, 1579-1646 (London Ph.D. thesis), 1959, p. 5, note 1. PCC 39, 58 Woodhall; 45 Rowe. 8 Hunter, op. cit. ii, pp. 276-7. Finch, p. 80. A. Collins, Baronies by Writ, 1734, p. 353.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 639 £1,700 if his daughter was to compete with those of families like the Fanshawes, Gages, Ishams, Hobys, Hydes, and Cromwells.! Under James I the average climbed steeply to £3,800. Of the twenty

offers below £3,500 only one, by the Earl of Rutland, attracted a peer,” but of the twenty-five offers of £4,000 or more all but four

secured peers.3 Even this rise of the level was only just keeping the aristocracy ahead of the richer gentry, lawyers, and merchants, who by now were frequently giving {2,500 and £3,000 with their daughters.* The years 1625-49 see yet another upward jump. Of the forty-one offers below £5,000 only five secured marriages with peers, but even including these the average size of portions was now about £5,400, with a large number of peers offering over {/10,000.5 1 HMC Various MSS. iii, pp. 101, 103. Memoirs of Lady Anne Fanshawe, 1907, p. 283. H. Jenkins, Edward Benlowes, 1952, p. 9. Finch, pp. 26, 127. Yorks. Arch. Soc., Rec. Soc. xcv, 1938,

p. 98. BM Add. Ch. 33159. 2 G. Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden, Newport, 1953, p. 405. H of L MSS. 21 Jas. I, Private Act 14. Penshurst 613 C. F. Grose, Antiquarian Repertory, i, 1807, p. 286. Lancs. ¢» Chesh. Rec. Soc, Ixxxvi, p. 6. B/S 97; B/A 110. BM Add. MSS. 38170, f. 210; Harl. MSS. 4928, ff. 303-5. Bodl Wharton MSS. 8, p. 80. PCC 69 Scroope; 90 Parker; 106, 110 Meade; 29 Hayes; NLW Wynn MSS. 318. C2 Jas. I, T 12/73. 3 Bodl Carte MSS. 78, f. 419. BM Add. MSS. 38170, ff. 127, 210. J. Pomfret, Life of Christian, Countess of Devonshire, 1685, p. 20. Nichols, iti, p. 591. Grose, op. cit. i, p. 286. A. Collins, Peerage of England, 1779, i, p. 164. Smyth, ii, pp. 405-6. Birch, James I, i, p. 110. HMCS, xvii, p. 646. H of L MSS. 3 Jas. I, Private Acts 2, 32; 21 Jas. I, Private Act 14. L/Sey IX, f. 280. Althorp Cupboard K Shelf 2 (Wormleighton). Castle Ashby 1242. Penshurst 613 B. SP 23/ 208, ff. 713-15. CR 3 Jas. I, pt. 18. C 2 Jas. I, H 1/36; D 1/11. H/Box G/13; D 1314/6; A 8/24. Chatsworth/BA 236. Essex R.O., D/DP E 91. PCC 9 Savile. 4 Stourton, op. cit. i, p. 484. Cholmley, pp. 22-23. Sir James Whitelocke, Liber Famelicus, Camden Soc. Lxx, 1858, p. 94. Finch, p. 151. Claydon House, Verney MSS. M. F. Keeler, The Long Parliament, Philadelphia, 1954, pp. 213, 292. CCC, p. 2655. Wynn, no. 326. CSPD, 1619-23, p. 175. Ch, ii, pp. 15, 44. Badminton 504 M 14/24. English Reports, xxi, p. 490. Lancs. R.O., DDM 17/106. 5 PCC 110 Barrington; 27, 91, 101 Ridley; 7o Lee; 1 Coventry; 70 Seager. CCC, pp. 63, 890, 1224, 1375, 1774. HMC Montagu of Beaulieu MSS., p. 114. HMC 6th Rep., App., p. 682; 7th Rep., App., p. 149. Grosart, Ist set., v, pp. 76, 167-8. Finch, p. 60. Knowler, i, p. 113; ii, pp. 58, 379. CSPD, 1628-9, pp. 564-5; 1629-31, p. 463 1631-3, p. 20; 1663-4, p. 4. Cumb. e> Westmorland Arch, Soc. Trans.,N.S., xviii, 1918, p. 202. Lancs. ¢> Chesh. Rec. Soc. citi, 1953, p. 64.

Stourton, op. cit. i, p. 496. Ellis, 2nd set., iii, pp. 267-8. Newcastle, p. 74. Bridgeman, op. cit., p. 81. SP 16/159/8-9; 186/106; 216/101. C 107/154. BM Add. MSS. 29974, f. 2313; 32683, ff. 55-70. B/S 173, 174, 405. H/A 157/3; H/D 22/4, 36/9; H/Box V/92; H/S 126, ff. 168-9.

Rockingham Castle, Culme-Seymour MSS. A 1/27. Althorp ESP 10. Badminton La 1/3. Savernake 286, 392. L/Sey Box III/4, Box V/57. Penshurst 613 C. Woburn 1641 Account Book. Hants R.O., 43 M 48/730. Northants. R.O., Brudenell MSS. K. IX. 22; XI. 2, 12; Westmorland MSS. Misc. Books 15, f. 77; Box 4. XIII. 1; 2. XV. 2B5. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berkshire MSS., Moore’s Boxes 1/3. Kent R.O., Sackville MSS. E 298/1; E 299. Dorset R.O., K.G. 1279. Essex R.O., D/DRG 2/97. Huntington Library, Egerton MSS. 6315. GPL/SF 2/10/2. NUL/P Cavendish Misc. 96. Two portions have been excluded from these calculations. The first is the {25,000 given with Mary, daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, since she was in a sense an heiress, part of her portion being lands belonging to her mother. The other is the £24,000 given with Charlotte de la Tremouille on her marriage with the Earl of Derby, since she was the daughter of a French, not an English nobleman.

640 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY In the next seventy-five years the average figure continued to move up steadily to about £9,700.! What conclusions can be drawn from this survey of the evidence? The size of a portion offered with a daughter varied according to

a number of factors. If he were fond of the girl, a father might raise the figure in order to provide her with a grander marriage or to avoid a rupture of negotiations for a bridegroom on whom she had set her heart; conversely indifference to the girl and her future could lead to a reduction of the portion. It is clear from the variations in the amounts left by fathers in their wills to individual daughters that this natural element of favouritism not infrequently played its part. Again, the intervention of considerations that were neither financial nor sentimental could affect the size of the portion. Many martiages were made with an eye to political or social advancement, and both these considerations had a cash value. The

9th Earl of Northumberland told his son that one of the reasons that led to his own disastrous marriage with Robert Earl of Essex’s sistet in 1595 had been “that her friends should be of that eminency that they might probably appear to be steps for you to better your fortune’ (in fact, of course, it was his own advancement that he had in mind). Similarly it was to help him in his lawsuits with his niece

that Francis Earl of Cumberland married his son and heir to the daughter of the Earl of Salisbury in 1610.2

It would be supererogatory to spend much time demonsétrating that differences of social status had to be paid for. This is obvious from any examination of the size of portions offered by merchants marrying their daughters to peers, and the jointures they commanded in return. In 1683 when Sir George Downing was negotiating to marry his son to a daughter of the 3rd Earl of Salisbury, it was put to him that in view of the social disparity ‘there ought to be straine beyond the usual proporcon of joyn1 R, Davies, The Greatest House at Chelsey, 1914, p. 202. Margaret Lady Verney, Memoirs of the Verney Family in the Eighteenth Century, 1930, i, p. 290. North, ii, p. 228. Pepys, 25 June 1665.

Arch, Cantiana, xii, 1878, p. 103, note §. Marquis of Northampton, History of the Comptons, 1930, p. 132. Bodl North MSS. b 12, f. 347; b 20, f. 133. BM Add. MSS. 21951, f. 373 40631 C, f. 18; Egerton MSS. 3526. Dorset R.O., Weld MSS., Box G Special S 10. Herts. R.O., Ashridge MSS, A.H. 1184. Northants. R.O., Finch-Hatton MSS. 1152. Notts. R.O., DDSR 1 D/1; 1 D/2/1. Lancs. R.O., DDM 11/38; 17/132, 150, 173. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berkshire MSS., Moore’s Boxes 1/4. Essex R.O., D/DP F 256/11. B/S 173, 184, 185, 194, 236, 296, 397, 398. H/L 104/13; A 129/1, 2; 51/1; D 22/9; Box V/55. L/Sey Box IV/65; Box V/187. Castle Ashby 1220. Savernake 392, 859, 865A. Badminton 504 M 14/24. Rockingham Castle, Culme-Seymour MSS, A 1/27. N.R.A. Mrs. Hardwicke MSS. 72. 2 Harrison, p. 94. G. P. Gilson, Diary of Lady Anne Clifford (Roxburghe Club), 1916, p. 15.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 641 tures’.' Another consideration was that fathers with many daughters wete perforce obliged to offer less than those with one or two. At all times the smallest portions were offered with girls with numerous sisters, and the largest with only daughters. And lastly, the physical and mental defects of a girl had to be compensated for by a relatively

2g

increased portion if she was to be married off at all, whereas a vittuous beauty could manage with rather less. In 1614 Sir Roger 2000 —— Portions (1475-1524=100) 2000

1500 1500 1000 {000 ~-= Prices (1451-75 =100)

2

500 500 1475 (500 50 1600 50 1700 25 Fic, 18. Mattiage Portions and Prices, 1475-1724

Mostyn said that no amount of money would tempt him to marry his son to a Molyneux girl who was slightly lame. He was only interested, he declared, in a physically perfect specimen. When in

1632 John Lisle married Elizabeth Hobart, Sir John Oglander commented in his diary: Neither well proportioned, fair, nor wise, All these defects four thousand pounds supplies.?

Nevertheless, sufficient evidence is available for these deviations from the norm to be taken into account, and some judgement made about the average size of portions. Between the second quarter of

the sixteenth and the third quarter of the seventeenth century, portions given with daughters of the aristocracy increased approxti-

mately ten times. As Fig. 18 shows, the rise kept in step with the general increase of agricultural prices up to about 1600 but thereafter it soared ahead: between 1600 and 1650 prices increased by a third and portions almost trebled.? Aristoctatic incomes were

821314 Tt

1 H/G 25/3.

2 NLW Wynn MSS. 642. Bamford, pp. 72, 87. 3 See Appendix XXXL.

642 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY ptobably lagging behind the price rise in the late sixteenth century and advancing ahead of it in the early seventeenth, though not to this degree. We must conclude that in the seventeenth century

patents were devoting a very much higher proportion of their incomes to marrying off their daughters than were their grandparents in the sixteenth. By the early seventeenth century few fathers, and then only those with numerous children, were offering less than the equivalent of one year’s income as portions for their

daughters. As Mary Master remarked in 1663: “Now, no gentlewoman of what beauty, quality, or qualities soever is thought of, without 3, 5, ot 7 thousand pounds. Everybody for a great fortune. Some ate plagued, yet it is not warning to the covetous rogues.”! If the portions increased in size in relation to income, was there a similar change in jointures? Evidence on this point is far less easy to come by. There are fewer references to jointures in cortespondence, and in settlements it is quite common for the property set aside for the jointure to be listed but no value to be put upon it. Until much more evidence has been collected, therefore, conclusions must remain tentative. By late medieval Common Law widows were granted a dower of one-third of their late husband’s real property, a figure which was

about the maximum a family could bear. With the growth of uses in the fifteenth century and their conversion into legal estates by the Statute of Uses in the early sixteenth, the Common Law dower sradually gave way to the jointure, specifically provided for in the mattiage settlement. If the settlement was drawn up before marriage, the jointure effectively barred the widow from claiming dower instead, if in future she should consider herself badly treated.

If the settlement was drawn up after marriage, however, she was free when the time came to choose between the jointure and her

| right to a third of the real property as dower.” The most important consequence of the emergence of the jointure as the standard provision for widows was that the amount devoted to this purpose

was freed from any rigid rules: the jointure could be whatever t Trans. Devon. Assoc. \xxxvii, 1955, p. 98. , 2 W.S. Holdsworth, History of English Law, iii, 1935, pp. 193-6. Inner Temple MSS. 538. 37, f. 44%, For example, in 1576 the widow of the 1st Earl of Essex refused her jointure and began

a suit at Common Law for her dower, but was thwarted by the intervention of the Court of Wards, which persuaded her to accept the jointure and an extra {60 a year (L/Dev V, f. 24). It seems that before the Statute it was possible under certain conditions for an unscrupulous widow to claim both jointure avd dower. According to John Smyth, this was done by the widow of the roth Lord Berkeley (Smyth, ii, p. 281).

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 643 proportion of his landed income the bridegroom’s father chose to assign. Only very rarely did cautious parents insert a saving clause,

such as that proposed by Lord Burghley when negotiating to marry his daughter to Philip Sydney. He suggested that Anne should retain the choice of jointure or dower, in case the Sydney fortunes grew and the latter should turn out to be more profitable. An identical clause was inserted by Burghley’s son, Salisbury, into the marriage contract between his daughter and the son and heir of the Earl of Cumberland.! Ignoring these exceptions, the freeing of the jointure from the one-third rule gave flexibility to parents in adjusting both elements of the equation, and therefore increased their bargaining power with one another. Statistics of jointure can be drawn up on the same pattern as those for portions, but at present they are based on too small a sample for

much reliance to be placed upon them, and they cannot be used as a basis for calculation of average values. However, certain trends

seem fairly clear. Firstly jointures, at any rate among the aristocracy, tended to be less than a third of the rental. Although some were undoubtedly in excess of one-third, these were usually granted in cases where there were serious discrepancies of wealth or status to be overcome, such as when the son and heir of a squire was martying the daughter of a wealthy and influential earl.2 Under reasonably equal circumstances the trend after about 1590 was the other way. In the mid-seventeenth century, when the material becomes more abundant, there are twenty cases in which the jointure in possession and reversion was less than one-third of the rental—in several cases it is as low as one-sixth—and only nine in which it is one-third or mote. It is self-evident that the striking rise in portions and the stagna-

tion or decline of jointures in relation to income must involve a major shift in the portion/jointure ratio. In demonstrating this shift there are included those cases in which part of the jointure was

a teversionary interest after the deaths of the bridegroom’s father and mother, even though it is impossible to tell what calculations

based on age and expectation of life were worked out for any given reversion and what deductions should be made to allow for it. On the other hand no account has been taken of marriages in t EMCS, i, p. 416. Chatsworth/BA 256. 2 Finch, p. 35. SP 23/56, p. 316. G. R. Batho, ‘A difficult Father-in-law’, History Today, Nov.

1956, p. 744; “The Finances of an Elizabethan nobleman’, EcHR, 2nd ser., ix, 1957, p. 435. C 2 Eliz., A 3/16. SP 12/269/51-52. Badminton La 1/1.

644 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY which some non-economic factor is known or suspected to have been of overriding importance, for example in cases of serious social discrepancy between bride and groom or when some important political connexion was at stake. Even when these considerations wete not involved, personal factors could easily distort the balance of the agreement. When John, son of Sir Thomas Pelham of Laughton, fell in love with Lucy, daughter of the and Earl of Leicester, Sir Thomas refused to settle a jointure larger than {600 a year but the earl insisted—very unreasonably in view of the £4,000 portion he was offering—on {1,000. To save the marriage John Pelham privately promised to make the jointure up to £1,000 as soon as his father died and he inherited the estate—a promise which he fulfilled.t In view of these difficulties, if a reasonably large and representative sample is to be obtained it is necessary to include marriages among the wealthy squirearchy as well as the peerage, on the assumption—-which seems to be borne out by the facts—that the ratio would be much the same in classes as closely interlocked as these two. It should not be supposed, however, that the same tatio prevailed among the lesser gentry, where, if we can judge from such scanty evidence as is available, it tended to be higher than among the wealthier classes.” Fig. 19 suggests that the average portion/jointure ratio among peers and squires increased by about 75 per cent. between the early sixteenth and late seventeenth century.3 It is likely, moreover, that owing to the inclusion of unusual cases these statistics slightly I Penshurst 613 C. BM Add. MSS. 32683, ff. 55-70. 2 See, for example, Lancs. R.O., Blundell of Ince MSS. 64/1, 14, 23, 34, 42, 55, 63; Blundell of Crosby MSS. 55/28, 43, 63, 78. 3 See Appendix XXXII. In addition to the references givenin pp.63 8-40 the evidence for these figutes is based on: G. F, Nott, The Works of Henry earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1815, i, App., p. lxviii. Halstead, op. cit., pp. 538-9. Finch, pp. 27, 35-36, 59, 80, 127, 131, 132, 137. CSPD, 1638-9, p. 32. Stourton, op. cit. i, p. 332. Pepys, 25 June, 6 July 1665; 29 Aug. 1666. Birch, James I, i, p. 110. Grosart, ist set., i, p. 261; ii, pp. 2, 24-26, 39, 118, 132, 327; ill, pp. 195, 213; V, pp. 182, 193; 2nd ser., v, pp. 135-7. HMC, 6th Rep., App., p. 94. CCC, nos. 2234, 2622, 3036, Aspinall-Oglander, op. cit., pp. 86, 135. CR 39 Eliz., pt. 3. C 107/155, 108/18, 226. SP 23/56, p. 301; 181, pp. 662-3. BM Add. MSS. 22187, ff. 30-31. Wynn, nos. 2012, 2016,

Bridgeman, op. cit., pp. 197-9, 233. Hasted, iii, p. 95, note c. Arch. Cantiana, v, 1862-3, p. 246. Hiscock, op. cit., pp. 123, 170. R. C. Bald, Donne and the Drurys, Cambridge, 1959, p. 26.

Claydon House, Verney MSS. (1612, 1651, 1657). Elton Hall, Proby MSS. 374. Althorp ESP 10, Boughton NC 13/2; UW 27/56. Savernake 298. H/A 162/1. N.R.A., Clayton Hall MSS. qr. Rockingham Castle, Culme-Seymour MSS. A 1/33, 39. JRL, Crutchley MSS. 534, 339. NLW Wynn MSS. 841. Lancs. R.O., DDHe 106/3; DDM 17/158. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berkshire MSS., Moore’s Boxes, 1/4. Kent R.O., Tufton MSS. T. 282; Sackville MSS. T’. 321/8; Knocker MSS. E. 653. Northants. R.O., Finch-Hatton MSS. 3101; St. John MSS. 87-91. Notts. R.O., DDSR 225/10. Salop R.O., Eyton MSS. 665/2; Bygott MSS.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 645 underestimate the degree of shift in the ratio.' In fact the current norm probably moved from about 5/1 in the mid-sixteenth century to 6°33 of 6°67/1 in the first half of the seventeenth. In the third quarter of the century families hesitated between two norms, the

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Fic, 19. The Portion Jointure Ratio, 1485-1734

old one of between 6/1 and 7/1, and the new one of 10/1, but by the last quarter of the century it becomes rare to find a ratio that is not somewhere between 8/1 and 10/1. By the early eighteenth century 10/1 is the standard figure. (3) The Causes of Change

Why did the portion/jointure ratio change in this remarkable way? It must be admitted that part of the shift in the late sixteenth century is illusory and merely teflects the contemporary method of calculating jointures. These were assessed in terms of bare rental

and ignored casualties such as fines for beneficial leases and the profits of sales of wood. But since during the inflation a larger proportion of income tended to be taken in the form of fines rather than tents, land in the sixteenth century was worth increasingly more than its nominal rental. And so whereas the portion remained a finite cash sum, the jointure came to mean a teal income in excess,

and possibly a good deal in excess, of that stated in the contract. The change in the ratio between 1560 and 1620 was therefore to 1 Finch, p. 137. SP 12/149/35 (1), 46. L/Sey IX, f. 280. C 2 Jas. I, H 1/36. CCC, p. 2622. Northants. R.O., Finch-Hatton MSS, 1152. Verney, op. cit. i, pp. 130-1, 140.

646 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY some extent an attempt to compensate for this factor, though after 1620 this no longer applies. Another consideration which may have

played some part was the anticipation that prices, and therefore tents, would continue to rise; consequently when the jointure became due, the land set aside for it would produce a higher income than it had done at the time of the contract. Unfortunately there is little evidence to show how widespread was awareness of a secular

inflationary process that was likely to continue into the future.! For these reasons the shift in the portion/jointure ratio up to about 1620 is probably somewhat exaggerated by a change in the relationship between the nominal and the real value of the jointure. There was also a real change. By 1640 not only were very much

larger portions being offered, but a given portion could buy far less future jointure than it could in 1560. The principal cause of these striking changes is the simple factor of supply and demand: the number of marriageable girls exceeded that of eligible boys. Patents had always felt themselves responsible for disposing of their daughters in one way or another, but the seventeenth century saw a gtowing contempt for old maids as the Catholic ideal of virginity gave place to the puritan exaltation of matrimony as a holy and honourable state. John Evelyn told his wife that there was

‘nothing ... so ignomineous as an overyeared maid, nor so much despised’, and Sir John Lambe brutally advised his daughter to consider the adage ‘better louse in pot than no flesh’. Spinsterhood on a modest pension was not respectable, partly because useful or even decorative employment did not exist. Suppression of nunneries by Henry VIII had exacerbated the situation, for they had been used by the aristocracy as “convenient stowage for their withered daughters’, to use Milton’s rasping phrase. After 1560 it was only in tecusant families that there existed the grim alternative

of exile in a nunnery in France or the Spanish Netherlands. ‘The Marquis of Argyle summed up the new situation in 1661: ‘in great and noble families . . . interest forbids perpetual virginity; nor ever since the suppressing of nunneries and such monastick privacies

and tenunciations to the world have we had in this Kingdome many, if any, of the daughters of Jephtha.’? 1 It is noted by H. Philippes, The Purchasers Pattern, 1654, p. 6. 2 Rogers, op. cit., ch. i. Christ Church, Evelyn MSS. 143, p. 48. C. Hill, Puritanism and Revolution, 1958, p. 35. Argyle, op. cit., pp. 39-40. One or more daughters of the 2nd Viscount Montagu, the 13th Lord Morley, the znd Lord Teynham, the 1st Earl Rivers, the 11th Lord Stourton, and the 3rd Lord Vaux became nuns.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 647 Under conditions of universal martiage for girls, an important factor in upsetting the balance may have been an increased number of children born per marriage, or an increased proportion who sutvived to a marttiageable age, or both. There was certainly a steady increase in population in the late sixteenth and very early seventeenth centuries, which may well have been caused by one or other of these factors. Either would produce a larger number of daughters to be married off and a larger number of younger sons, but only a very small increase in the number of heits male with whom the daughters could be mated. If this in fact occurred it would in itself go far to explain the increase in the size of portions. Furthermore daughters of the nobility were faced with growing competition from daughters of the squirearchy in the late sixteenth century, and to a lesser extent from the daughters and widows of City aldermen in the early seventeenth century. Sir William Temple

was ptobably wrong to suppose that ‘the greediness of portions with the women they marry’ was ‘a custom of no ancient date in England’. But he was tight in thinking that the size of portions had increased disproportionately in the previous century, and partly right when he observed that “within less than fifty years the first

noble families wete married into the City for downright money, and thereby introduced by degrees this public grievance which has since ruined so many estates by the necessity of giving great portions

to daughters’.t His dating of the phenomenon is correct, but he almost certainly exaggerated its significance, at any rate among the

atistocracy, since the number of such marriages was limited and in any case fell off markedly after 1630. Nevertheless the portions offered with these women were enormous, and the role of metcantile competition in taising afistocratic maftiage portions was a featute observed by contemporaries in other countries than England, for example in Venice.” The supply of eligible husbands of good social standing failed to keep pace with this rising demand. Daughters of peers had always been ready to marry the heirs male of the greater gentry, so there was no compensatory social break-through to ease the sttain, except in so far as there had been an increase in the numbers of these rich gentry. On the other hand the emphasis on patrilinear descent meant that it was still not considered decent to marry your 1 Sir William Temple, Works, 1770, iii, p. 61. 2 L. P. Smith, Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, Oxford, 1907, i, p. 439.

648 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY daughter to a mere merchant’s son, even though your son and heir might at a pinch marty his sister. The case of Frances Howard and Henty Pranel is exceptional in this respect, and some of Burghley’s indignation was no doubt due to this inversion of the social roles.!

Younger sons, even of the peetage, were hardly in the running, since the limited size of their inheritances normally made it im-

possible for them to provide jointures which could begin to match the portions offered with their sisters. This concentration on heirs male is a reason for thinking that the death of many heirs to landed estates in the Civil War, and the subsequent decline—

if decline there was—in the proportion of younger sons who martied, could have had very little effect on the situation in the seventeenth century. The death of an heir male merely meant his replacement as an eligible husband by his younger brother, and since younger sons were in any case tarely able to compete in this expensive marriage market, any trend towards bachelordom could not have affected the situation. On the other hand the premature deaths of fathers and heirs male in the Civil War must have burdened families with an abnormal number of jointures and therefore raised

the premium to be paid for a reasonable jointure in the future. The reduction in the standard rate of interest from 10 per cent. to 6 pet cent. between 1624 and 1651 may have helped to stimulate the tise in the ratio. Such influence as this may have had was certainly

not exercised by a rise in land values, since it has been shown by Professor Habakkuk that they remained virtually unchanged throughout the seventeenth century.” But the jointute is the equivalent of a life annuity in reversion after one life, and since changes

in interest rates seem to have govetned perpetual annuities it is probable that life annuities in reversion tended to follow suit.3 More-

overt in many cases, though certainly not always or even usually, landowners borrowed money in order to provide the portion, and the cheapening of the price of money would therefore increase the size of the portion they could afford to offer. Thete are one or two examples to suggest that this type of consideration helped to govern the portion/jointure ratio, as when in 1648 the Earl of Peterborough, being unable to make his wife a jointure out of his estate, assigned See supra, p. 630. This attitude still persists (see V. Packard, The Status Seekers, 1959, p. 163).

- 24H, J. Habakkuk, “The Long-term Rate of Interest and the Price of Land in the Seven-

| teenth Century’, EcHR, 2nd set., v, 1952.

3 CCC, pp. 1710, 1733, 2151 (twice), 2157, 2251, 2254, 2518, 2594, 2598, 2599 (three times), 2631, 2651, 3157; see also Habakkuk, op. cit., p. 38.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 649 part of it to trustees to raise {8,000 to buy a jointure of £1,000 a yeat. Another factor which may have had some effect in the latter half of the seventeenth century was a change in the conventional estimate of life expectancy. In the 1580’s and 1590’s Sir Thomas Tresham, in negotiating for a jointure to be settled on his daughter Katherine,

said he valued her life at six years’ purchase, apparently meaning that he looked for a ratio of six to one. When a century later the 2nd Duke of Newcastle was complaining of being saddled with a jointute for the 14-year-old widow of his son, he declared that the lady’s ‘life sure will be valewed at more then 7 yeares putchase’,

and proceeded to reckon it at 7$ or 8.' Soon afterwards there began attacks on the actuarial basis for assessing the duration of an avetage life at seven years. It was criticized by Isaac Newton, who

suggested anything between eight and twelve years, and by an anonymous writer in 1721 who argued that it was worth ten years

and that judging by the Bills of Mortality a good life should be reckoned at fourteen years.2 We do not know how far these theoretical arguments, which anyway appear very late in the century, seriously affected the thinking of practical men. But it may be that these views had some cuttency at an earlier date, and if so they would have helped to push up the portion/jointure ratio. V. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MARRIAGE (1) Courtship

The time has now come to examine the effects of these various developments upon the two individuals who were the subject of so much careful scheming and plotting. On the wedding day the pair wete often still more or less strangers to one another, for it was quite usual for them to have been permitted no more than a few houts in each othet’s company before the ceremony. Some ptospective bridegrooms thought even this formality superfluous. Sir Nicholas Poyntz could hardly bring himself to be civil to a widow he was pursuing. ‘Lett me not wyn her love like a foole, nor spend

long tyme like a boy. As God shall help, I am moch trobled to think I must speake to any woman won loving word.’ When the son 1 Finch, p. 80. SP 23/181, pp. 622-3. NUL/P Cavendish Misc. 47. 2 Isaac Newton, Tables for Renewing and Purchasing of Leases, Cambridge, 1686. Anon., A True Estimate of the Value of Leasehold Estates and Reversions for Lives and Years, 1721.

650 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY and heir of the 4th Earl of Pembroke was negotiating to marty a daughter of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury, it was observed that ‘his wooing hitherto hath been like himself, a great prince, by proxy’. Others tried to pass things off with the aid of the bottle, and sometimes came to grtief.!

_ Once fathers came to give their children the right of veto, these brief and formal encountets took on considerable importance, since

it was upon them that the agonizing decision of acceptance of refusal had to be based. The way these things were being managed in affectionate families just before the Civil War is well illustrated by John Coke’s report to his father, Sir John, on his success in negotiating for the hand of a daughter of Sir Henry Willoughby. After that Sir Henry had so freely the first night taken notice of the intention of my coming, I desired him next day to give me leave to have some speech with his daughter. He himself went in presently and sent her out to me into the great chamber, where I had half an hour’s discourse with her. And because I conceived it to be expected, after supper I rose from the table when she did and took her by the hand into a round window, and told her of the occasion of my coming. Next morning I had the opportunity to find her in the great chamber by some favour and to speak to her again concerning the same matter. Her answers are civil and such as befit her modesty. She is a gentlewoman of a good person in my eye, and of a pretty sweet disposition; not tall, about my sister Mary’s height and

proportion or rather not altogether so tall; something pale and of few words, those civil and discreet.

The other side of the picture is exposed by Sir Henry Willoughby’s

letter to Sir John a few weeks Iater. I was a glad man to see your noble son at my house. I never met any young gentleman endowed with better intellectual parts. I have examined my daughter to try how she stood affected towards your son and find her love so cold as I cannot give him hope of better success, yet if your son think good to come down again he shall have me ready to further him in his suit.?

Again, George Evelyn gave his father a cool, but not entirely , cold-blooded, account of his courtship in 1639. I had some conference with my love and I find her a good natured gentlewoman, there is such a harmony of our affections. This day I waited 1 HMC Finch MSS. i, p. 21. CSPD, 1638-9, p. 453. Autobiography of Sir John Bramston, Camden Soc., 1845, pp. 18-19. 2 HMC Cowper MSS. iii, p. 1353 i, p. 462.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 651 on her and the rest of the ladies to a play, but tomortow I hope I shall have the happiness to enjoy her privately . . . that thereby our familiarity may atrive to a better perfection.

One can detect a note of humanity and respect for the individual that begins to find expression in the 1630’s, and by the 1650’s the mood is unmistakable. Dorothy Osborne was an exceptional woman in an exceptional position—as she said herself, her father had left

her mattiage ‘more in my power than almost anybody leaves a daughter’—but her letters show a romantic approach to marriage which was evidently not entirely unique. She soaked herself in the novels of Mademoiselle de Scuderi, themselves an important factor

in bringing about this change, and her view of the mattimonial projects of her friends differed little from that of, say, Jane Austen.

She refused to accept the doctrine that ‘marriage has a charm to raise love out of nothing, much less out of dislike’.! And yet it was on the basis of a lack of positive antipathy revealed

by a little polite conversation that many, perhaps most, noble marttriages were concluded. These interviews only took place after the parents had agreed on the contract and settlement, and as soon as the deeds were signed public rejoicing began. When the news of

Lord Clifford’s engagement to the daughter of Robert Earl of Salisbury reached Skipton on 2 July 1610, the church bells were rung, wine was distributed for toasting the event in the Castle, and the townsmen spent some {7 in celebrations. The marriage ceremony itself was a public affair, followed by a huge feast for the

wedding guests. At the court of King James gifts of enormous : value were bestowed. At the marriage of Sir Philip Herbert and Lady Susan Vere in 1604 the presents were estimated to be worth £2,500; at the ill-starred union of the 3rd Earl of Essex and Lady Frances Howard in 1606 they were reckoned at £4,000; Lady Frances’s second marriage to the Earl of Somerset after her divorce saw yet greater gifts, as City companies and courtiers vied with one _ another in paying tribute to the omnipotent favourite. The long day of feasting and jollity ended not infrequently in the public bedding of the couple, with all the ancient ceremonies of casting off the bride’s left stocking and of sewing into the sheets. And there, naked within the drawn curtains of the great four-poster, t Hiscock, op. cit., pp. 10-11. Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne, pp. 14, 53, 63. 2 Chatsworth/BA 230, f. 271%. Winwood, ii, p. 43. Goodman, ii, p. 125. Birch, James I, i, Pp. 42-43. Ch, i, pp. 496-7.

652 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY the room still echoing with the parting drunken obscenities of the wedding guests, the two strangers were left to make each othet’s

| acquaintance. Not was this always the end of the publicity, for if either bride or groom was a toyal favourite King James would cross-question them closely the next morning to extract the last

salacious details of the events of the night. The Earl of Nottingham was allowed to get up and dress to inform the King that he had ‘drawne blood of his cosen’. But when Sir Philip Herbert married in 1604, James came into the bedroom early the next morning in his nightgown and conducted his inquiries lying in or upon the bed. When his daughter Elizabeth married the Prince Palatine,

‘the next morning the King went to visit these young turtles... and did strictly examine him whether he were his true sonne in law, and was sufficiently assured’. In 1617, when Frances Coke was at last forcibly wedded to Sir John Villers, they had to stay in bed the

next day until the King came to conduct his habitual post-cottum interrogation.!

| (2) Age of Marriage and Consummation It was not at all unusual for the spousals or verbal engagement,

the contract, the matriage, and the consummation to be widely spaced in time. We have seen how sometimes parents entered into marriage contracts for their children when they were still very young

indeed. To give but two examples, the daughter of Lord Hume was contracted to the son of the rst Earl of Suffolk at the age of 6, the daughter of the rst Duke of Buckingham to the son of the Earl of Montgomery at the age of 4, the marriages taking place six and nine years later respectively.2 The reason for the delay was that in law the age of consent was 12 for girls and 14 for boys. If a formal engagement was entered into earlier, it could be broken by either party at the age of consent. Sometimes the marriage itself occurred

before one or both parties reached the age of consent, although even this could be broken at the age of consent. These prematute arrangements were usually made to seal a political alliance or to secure an heiress, though all great landowners felt the temptation in order to prevent their children’s marriages’ being disposed of

by the Crown under its power of wardship. After all, the tisk of 1 Winwood, ii, p. 43. Pepys, 31 July 1665. Lodge, iii, p. 187. Winwood, ii, p. 43. CA, i, p. 424. SP 14/93/114. 2 Richard, Lord Braybrooke, Audley End, 1836, pp. 42-43. Wynn, no. 1428.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 653 repudiation was slight. In view of the extremely early age at which the decision had to be made and the enormous power of parental pressure it is hardly surprising that few boys or girls of 14 and 12 had the strength of mind to reject the union. All the same, it did happen. The 11-year-old grandson of William Lord Eure was married to the 3-year-old daughter of Lord Darcy

in 1541, but the marriage was formally annulled in 1554. The Molyneux family was perhaps uniquely unfortunate. In the reign of Henry VIII the 7-year-old Thomas Molyneux married a 6-year-old wife, but the Bishop of Chester later decreed an annulment. At the turn of the century Richard Molyneux was contracted under age to an heiress but refused to ratify the marriage when he reached 14, and also secured his annulment. In 1639 the 2nd Viscount Molyneux

married the 9-year-old daughter of the Earl of Derby, but at 16 she still refused consummation and the marriage was annulled.! Since martiage was binding at the very early age of 14 and 12, the abduction of heiresses was a common occurrence, as both Tudor legislation and the records of the Star Chamber show. But the boldest spirit of a reckless age hesitated to lay violent hands on the child of a peer, and the chief sufferers were merchants and smaller gentty.

Very few of the nobility and gentry were in fact married the moment it became legally possible (Fig. 20). Only 6 per cent. of the

peerage married at 15 ot under in the late sixteenth century, and only 5 per cent. in the early seventeenth. Moreover there was a significant trend towards the postponement of marriage to a more reasonable age. In the earlier period 21 per cent. of the peers were married by 17, but in the later only 12 per cent., whereas by 25 the figure was virtually the same, at 78 and 76 per cent.2 The shift was thus confined to a movement out of the middle teens into the early twenties. While not enough dates of birth of girls are known to make reliable statistical calculations, there 1s every reason to suppose that the average age of brides also rose. By the early seven-

teenth century very young artistocratic marriages were becoming tare and it was thought worthy of note that Lord William Howard of Naworth and his wife ‘could nott make above 25 yeeres both 1 FE. J. Furnivall, Child Marriages, Divorces and Ratifications in the Diocese of Chester, 1361-66,

Early English Text Soc. cviii, 1897, pp. xxiii-xxvii. HMC 3rd Rep., App., p. 247. Shuttleworth Accounts, ii (Chetham Soc. x11), 1856, pp. 272-3. Lanes. ¢ Chesh. Hist. Soc. xliii-xliv, 1893, pp. 245-98. For the legal position see H. Swinburne, A Treatise of Spousals, 1686, pp. 20-52.

* See Appendix XXXII.

é/

654 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

togeather, when first they were marry’d’.! This change was due

partly to the slow and hesitant introduction of ideas about individual freedom of choice, whose effect has been observed in other spheres,

& = a7 . 7 oy Sig i} ? 40 ,

and partly to views about the right age for consummation, which will be discussed in a moment.?

100 —— Marriages 1540-99

~~ - Marriages 1600-59 — -—

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20a 7

aa

5 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 3 | Age

Fic, 20. Age at First Marriage, 1540-1659

It is noticeable that families tended to run to form in the age of marriage of their heirs male. The Hastings, Herberts, and Ratcliffes nearly all married very young, the Percys rather late, and the Petres regularly at 21. Those who postponed marriage till after 30 were usually younger sons who unexpectedly inherited a title after the

death of an elder brother, or ambitious men who reached the peerage very late in life. Only a tiny handful did not marry at all, and their cases are sufficiently exceptional to suggest that they were inspired by strong private idiosyncrasies. So far as we know none of them—except possibly Lord Brooke—was homosexual, and one

can only speculate about why men like the Earls of Danby and Northampton chose to let their lines and titles die out. 1 G. Ornsby, Household Books of Lord Wiliam Howard of Naworth (Surtees Soc. txvu1r), 1878, p. 489.

2 Whether or not the same trend was occurring among the European nobility is at present obscure. The only available figures are for both heirs male and younger sons, and so are not strictly comparable. One set indicates that in Europe as a whole the martiage age was rising up to 1679, but another for France alone suggests that it was declining again after 1650 (Peller, Op. cit., p. 52. Claude Lévy and Louis Henry, “Ducs et Pairs sous PAncien Régime. Caractéristiques démographiques d’une caste’, Population, Oct-Dec. 1960, p. 813.)

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 655 Before 1670 the English peerage found it almost impossible to obtain permission to put away one wife and marty another. During the Middle Ages the Papacy had been notoriously ingenious, at a price, in discovering pre-existing factors of pre-contract, consanguinity, affinity, non-consummation, absence of consent, &c., with which to justify annulments. But for some reason or other, possibly the cost, the nobility of England had taken little or no advantage of these opportunities. Alone of the Reformed Churches, the Anglican

failed to adopt a more liberal view of divorce for adultery or desertion and continued to cling to the medieval doctrines. Plans for reform were defeated and such ambiguities as apparently existed about the possibilities of divorce a vinculo were cleared up without possibility of doubt by the end of the reign of Elizabeth. In theory,

therefore, all that the Church courts could do was to pronounce divorce a mensa et thoro without permission to remarry. In the reign

of Edward VI the Marquis of Northampton certainly obtained a divorce on the grounds of his wife’s adultery, and followed it up by an Act of Parliament which legalized his second marriage. But this is an isolated case, and although humble men could in fact remarry with little fear of discovery, given the absence of a central marriage registry, this solution was impossible for men so much in the public eye as peers. It was not until 1670 that divorce a vinculo by Act of

Parliament was introduced as a way of escape for the rich and influential.? This meant that the only hope of full divorce was by way

of a nullity suit, based on the old grounds of non-consummation ot lack of consent, &c., but without the assistance of a venal and easy-going papal curia. This was why, if the Countess of Essex was to obtain her freedom to marry the Earl of Sometset, it was necessary to demonstrate in open court with a wealth of circumstantial, if implausible, detail that she was still a virgin.?

On one ot two occasions other exceptional circumstances wete held to be sufficient for annulment of a marriage. In 1560 the Earl of Hertford married Catherine Grey, but the union was politically explosive and was promptly pronounced void, despite its evident legality. Force or fraud could occasionally justify an annulment, as in the Bath case of 1581. In that year Sir Thomas Kitson was entettaining at Hengrave his grandson the young William Earl of Bath CPR, Ed. VI, 1547-8, p. 137. 5 and 6 Ed. VI, cap. 30. LJ, i, p. 499. PCC 33 Wrastley. A. R. Winnett, Divorce and Remarriage in Anglicanism, 1958. L. Dibdin and C, C. Healey,

English Church Law and Divorce, 1912. | 2 Ch, i, p. 475.

656 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY and Mary Cornwallis, who was anxious to hook the Earl—so the official story ran—in order to cover her liaison with Francis Southwell. According to Bath he was made insensible with drink, married

at two in the morning by a felonious priest, and at once put to bed with Mary. Although the facts of the case were very uncertain, a catefully packed commission of clergy declared the evidence of a legally binding ceremony insufficient, and on these rather dubious grounds freed the Earl from the alleged marriage. Generally speak-

ing, however, marriage with consummation was binding, and mattiage without was not.! The main argument in favour of early consummation was this issue of legality, though there were also some who recommended it

in order to remove temptation from a young man. For the latter reason the Duke of Norfolk, having married his son Philip in 1569 to a Dacre heiress at the age of 12, urged him to cohabit with his wife soon rather than late. In fact Philip distegarded this advice and only began cohabiting in 1580 after five years’ dissipation at Coutt. Against early consummation, however, there were three arguments

whose weight was increasingly recognized as time went on. The first was that very young boys and girls produce stunted children. The 9th Earl of Northumberland thought that ‘young marriages beget starvelings’. In his popular manual of medical instruction Thomas Cogan put forward the view that the average height of Englishmen was declining owing to the physical immaturity of the parents, while Henry Earl of Huntingdon thought it a principal cause that few lived to old age.” Secondly men believed, following Plato, Galen, and Avicenna, that the sperm was a vital fluid that governed all growth, and that immoderate discharge in adolescence would therefore impair a man’s physical and intellectual development.3 Thirdly, there was some feeling that parturition by a gitl below the age of 16 or so was immediately dangerous and permanently damaging. Anne Clopton’s grandmother was very reluctant to allow her marriage with Simonds D’Ewes to be consummated at 134 for fear ‘what danger might ensue to her very life from her extreme youth’. t BM Harl. MSS. 249, ff. 107-8. HMCS, xi, p. 223. N. H. Nicolas, The Poetical Rhapsody, 1826, li, pp. 395-407. O. D. Watkins, Holy Matrimony, 1895, pp. 130-5. 2 BM Harl. MSS. 787, f. 112. The Lives of Philip Earl of Arundel and his Wife, ed. Duke of

Norfolk, p. 14. Hartison, pp. 55-56. Cogan, op. cit., p. 249. HMCH, iv, p. 333. See also Niccoles, op. cit. ii, p. 148. 3 Cogan, op. cit., p. 242. According to Dr. Kinsey, similar views may be found in the Boy Scout Manual today (A. C. Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Philadelphia, 1948, p. 9).

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 657 This consensus of medical advice, finding its way into the consciousness of the aristocracy and gentry through popular manuals about health, certainly had great influence and by the end of the sixteenth century opinion was almost unanimously opposed to early consummation of marriage. John Smyth of Nibley could not stifle his disgust when he discovered that in 1289 the 8-year-old son and heir of the Berkeleys had been married to an 8-yeat-old girl who had given birth before she was 14. ‘I approve not his match’, he wrote, ‘with any desire that the nuptiall bed should soe soone be known.’

Not even the assurance of the Fathers that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ at the age of 15 could reassure him.! By the end of the sixteenth century parents thus found themselves in a very awkward situation. To avoid interference from the Court of Wards, to snap up heiresses, to be able to dispose of children at their pleasure, they wanted to marry them off early. To be legally watertight the ceremony had to be consummated, and yet they were assured that early consummation was bad for both patties and likely to produce sickly children. Caught on the horns of this dilemma, they tried three methods of getting themselves off. The first was to put the medical advice first and to delay marriage, the result being, as we have seen, a tendency for the age of marriage for

men to move from the late teens to the early twenties. Secondly, the marriage was allowed to take place early but consummation was postponed, sometimes for several years, the girl continuing to live

with her parents and the boy proceeding with his education. In 1612 it was noted that: “The Lord Walden that hath ben now a goode

while wedded to the Lord of Dunbat’s daughter was not bedded with her till the last weeke, and that by special commaundment’ (presumably of the King). The Earl of Cork married his daughter Sarah to Sir Thomas Moore in 1621 at the age of 12, but she did not leave home to go and live with him till she was 144. In 1641 Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Newcastle, married the son and heir of John Earl of Bridgewater, ‘though too young to be bedded’. When in 1626 Lord Montagu was approached by Lady Carr for the marriage of her son to his daughter, he explained that: “This only sticks most with me, the young years of my daughter; but the Lady promiseth me there shall be a forbearance of coming together these two years, yet she would fain they might be married.” 1 D’ Ewes, i, p. 319. Smyth, i, pp. 224-5. 2 Ch, i, p. 385. Grosatt, 1st ser., i, p. 256; i, pp. 108, 112. Newcastle, p. 74. HMCB, iii, p. 307.

821314 uu

658 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY Most of these very early marriages took place to secure heitesses, and sometimes special precautions had to be taken in order to make

matters doubly sure. When the son and heir of Henry Earl of Huntingdon married the 10-year-old heiress of Sir John Davies in 1623, the girl continued to live with her father. But, as the son of

the marriage records, Sir John’s sudden death three years later ‘occasioned my father and mother living together sooner then intended’. Very occasionally the pair lived in the same house together but delayed consummation. Simonds D’Ewes married a 134-year-old heiress in a hurry in order to forestall rivals, and lived with her without cohabitation for a little while, so as to safeguard

his position without endangering her health. In November 1601 Bess of Hardwick married off the first of the three Talbot heiresses to the 18-year-old Earl of Kent. Eleven months later a family friend was able to tell her that just recently ‘I did in the kindest manner I could persuade the young couple to lodge in one bed together, which was conceived and modestly respited and upon good consideration not being hastned more then was fitt, my lady Elizabeth did yeeld her willing consent to admitt my cousin Grey to lodge in one bed with her. The end and purpose thereof we all assute ourselves is acted.’! Failing the postponement of the marriage itself, or marriage and the postponement of consummation, the third and last alternative was marriage accompanied by a unique or even token consummation followed by prolonged separation. When in 1608 William Lord Cavendish forced his 18-year-old son and heir to marry the 12-yeat-old Christian Bruce, his uncle expressed mock sympathy. ‘Alas poor Wylkyn! he desired and deserved a woman already erown and may evil stay 12 weeks, much less 12 months. They were bedded together to his great punishment some two houts.’ Two years later Francis Willoughby, just down from Oxford, was married to Cassandra, the 11-year-old daughter of Sir Thomas Ridgway. Sit Thomas reported that they were bedded at 4 a.m. after the wedding feast, ‘my wife and I relying on his faithfull promises to use nothing but fair play till his return out of France etc.’—a journey which lasted nearly four years. Indeed it was a common practice in the early seventeenth century for the marriage 1 Bodl Carte MSS. 78, f. 410. D’Ewes, i, pp. 319-20. Talbot M, f. 73. 2 F, Bickley, The Cavendish Family, 1911, p. 61. A. C. Wood, Continuation of the History of the Willoughby Family, Windsor, 1958, p. 78.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 659 to take place a day or two before the young man set out for a year or

more of travel on the Continent to finish his education. By this means lengthy cohabitation was effectively postponed and the young

man was prevented from getting trapped into an unsuitable marriage abroad. “Travel when thou art married?’ asked Marston. “Ay, *tis your young lord’s fashion to do so, though he were so lazy being a bachelor that he would never travel so far as the university; yet when he marries her, takes off.” To give but a few known examples, between 1607 and 1640 Grand Tours after marriage were made by the sons of the Earls of Salisbury, Essex, Cumberland, and

Carnarvon, Viscount Bayning, and Lords Willoughby of Parham and Chandos. Sometimes there was disagreement about whether or not consummation should precede departure. In 1639 the Earl of Cork arranged for his son Francis to marry Elizabeth Killigrew, a

Maid of Honour at Court. King Charles urged consummation before the Tour, on the grounds that it made the marriage more binding. The Earl objected that the boy was only 16, and questioned whether ‘an unripe marriage may not hinder his corperall grouth, or his proficiency in learning, or rayse higher thoughts in him then to

be ordered & governed by a tutor’. In the end he deferred to the royal wishes; they were married on 24 October 1639 and bedded that evening under the personal supervision of the King. On the 28th Francis left for Geneva. But Cork’s fears were not unwatranted,

for two yeats later Elizabeth’s patience was exhausted, and she began urging her husband to trun away from his tutor and come home to her, threatening otherwise to go over to Paris to meet him and claim her conjugal trights.t Such difficulties were exceptional, however, and in general these devices for meeting medical objections to premature sexual relations worked fairly well.

Once they had reached maturity, there were no longer any external restraints placed on sexual relations between man and wife.

There was, however, a good deal of advice given on the subject. Following Aristotle, Thomas Cogan advised moderation always, and total avoidance during the heat of summer, counsel which was certainly followed by Pepys. The recommendation of moderation was fortified by the current view, first advanced by Galen, that gout, which was both very common and much feared among the nobility, was caused in part by excess of venery. John Evelyn, whose 1 Grosatt, Ist sef., V, p. 112; 2nd ser., iv, p. 2373 v, pp. 90, 92. Cf. J. Marston, The Malcontent, V. i.

660 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY prurient pen was constantly returning to the subject, thought that ‘too much frequency of embraces dulls the sight, decays the memory,

induces gout, palsies, enervates and renders effeminate the whole body, and shortens life’.

| (3) Stability of Marriage Marriage took place very early, the partners were often virtually strangers to each other and were chosen by their parents, the first years of their. married life were usually spent in the house of the patents, consummation tended to occur in a blaze of publicity or else some years after the matriage ceremony itself, and was followed

mote often than not either by total sterility or by an infinitely repetitive cycle of child-bearing. Despite the physical and psycho-

logical strains imposed by these arrangements, the majority of marriages sutvived without open and serious breakdown, and in many cases there developed genuine affection and trust. Some turned

out well after the most unpromising beginnings. For example, on 8 September 1584 the wealthy John Gamage died leaving a very young daughter and heiress. There followed a fortnight of frantic intrigue at Court and in the country which ended with the girl’s

abrupt marriage by her guardian to Robert Sydney, future 1st Earl of Leicester. Barbara Gamage had almost certainly never set eyes on her husband before the wedding day, and yet in the end the marriage was a striking personal success. That dreadful old baggage Frances

Duchess of Richmond, having worked het way to the top by successive martiages starting with the son of a vintner and ending with a duke, seems genuinely to have fallen for her last and greatest

capture. When the duke died in 1624 she cut off her hair, and fifteen years later she left instructions in her will for her body to be

wtapped in the sheets used on their wedding night. The number of aristocratic wills in which husbands refer to their wives in friendly

terms, leave them bequests, and saddle them with responsibilities

makes it clear beyond doubt that very many unions at any rate provided satisfactory working partnerships. In view of the tremendous religious, social, legal, and economic

pressures directed at holding the family unit together, it is none the less remarkable how many marriages publicly and completely 1 Cogan, op. cit., pp. 219-20, 252. Pepys, 9 July 1664. Hiscock, op. cit., pp. 122-3. Cf. Stone, Palavicino, p. 34. Christ Church, Oxford, Evelyn MSS. 143, pp. 34-35. 2 J. M. Traherne, Stradling Correspondence, 1840, passim. HMCD,, ii, iii, passim. Ch, ii, p. 545. Arch, Cantiana, xi, 1877, p. 246.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 661 broke up. Since full divorce was almost impossible to obtain, the only escape was a formal separation a mensa et thoro which condemned

the wife to lonely isolation on a modest allowance, and left the husband free to do anything but marry again. The fact that release from the martiage bond could only be achieved by death was the reason for the spread of ugly rumours that two Elizabethan peers— Leicester and Howard of Bindon—had murdered their wives, and that one wife—Douglas Lady Sheffield—had been an accomplice in

the murder of her husband.' Our knowledge of less sensational marital discord among the peerage is necessarily very far from com-

plete and has to be gleaned mostly from the reports of gossipwriters and from correspondence preserved among the public records. The explanation of the richness of this last source is that the King frequently—even normally—acted as arbiter in matrimonial disputes among the aristocracy. By doing so he was fulfilling the function of the chieftain of the tribe, a practice which must have had

a temote pre-Christian ancestry but which survived as a bizarre anomaly in the law-ridden world of the seventeenth century. If we disregard entirely the evidence of illegitimate children, in the ninety years between 1570 and 1659 we find forty-nine known cases of nototious marital quarrels, separations a mensa et thoro, ot annulments among the peerage, which is about 10 per cent. of all matriages. The worst period seems to have been between 1595 and

1620, when something like one-third of the older peers were estranged from or actually separated from their wives.” Why this generation should have been so exceptionally restless is hard to explain. It may be that it was the first reaction by women to the novel doctrine of greater equality between the sexes which was being put about by some puritan pamphleteers. Moreover the legal

position of women was improving, and with it their ability to obtain satisfactory terms for a separation—a new situation which may have gone to the heads of some discontented wives. It was between 1580 and 1640 that successive Lord Chancellors gave T J. A. Froude, History of England, 1910, vi, pp. 424-32. Arch, xxxiv, 1852, p. 168. Wood, op. cit., pp. 70-71. 2 Gilson, op. cit., p. 7. HMCS, vii, pp. 339, 344, 3923 x, pp. 56, 146; xi, p. 2233 xii, p. 61; XIV, Pp. 19, 127; Xvli, pp. 82, 582; xvill, pp. 184, 273. HMCD, ii, p. 421. CSPD, ry 81-90, DP. 743 1798-1601, pp. 511, 5443; 1603-10, pp. 454, 475, 484. HMC Portland MSS. ii, p. 19; ix, pp. 83-84. Bodl Tanner MSS. 284, f. 37. SP 14/38/65. Ch, i, p. 444. J. Bruce, Diary of John Manningham, Camden Soc. xcix, 1868, pp. 50, 60-61. Devereux, i, p. 155. J. Gage, History of Hengrave, 1822, p. 215. Smyth, ii, pp. 392-3. HMCR, i, p. 385. BM Lansd. MSS. 74/72. Huntington Library, Cat. of Ellesmere MSS. 213. H/Pet. 2361. PCC 14 Byrde.

662 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY judgements which substantially altered the law concerning married women’s property by creating the doctrine of the Wife’s Separate

Fstate. By the early seventeenth century the economic penalties of a separation for a woman had been substantially diminished. It is possible that thereafter friction was reduced by the growing reluctance of patents to press children too hard to marry against their inclinations; it may be that the further spread of the puritan conscience damped down these public displays of temper; but it is unlikely to be an illusory product of imperfect evidence, though this may be the explanation of the more modest level recorded in the early Elizabethan period. The great majority of these separations occur in well-established families which had held a title for at least three generations, presumably because only the socially secure felt

themselves at liberty to indulge in this unorthodox behaviour. There was also something of a tendency for marital quarrels to run

in families. The 2nd and 5th Earls of Sussex, the 13th and 15th Earls of Derby, the 2nd and 3rd Earls of Dorset, the 2nd and 3rd Viscounts Bindon, the 17th and 18th Lords Berkeley all ran into serious difficulties with their wives.? It is noticeable that trouble very often arose in cases of marriages deliberately designed to capture an heiress or to cement a political alliance, when the compulsion used may be supposed to have been particularly severe. One of the heiresses of the 3rd Lord Chandos and both the heiresses of Sir Michael Stanhope came to grief, and the marriages of the Cavendish family were as disastrous personally as they were successful financially. (4) Sexual Morality

To what extent were matrimonial discords at this period accompanied by scandal? In England as in all other European societies, marriage gave the husband monopoly rights over the sexual services of the wife, but conferred on the wife no reciprocal monopoly over the husband. In the early sixteenth century open maintenance of a misttess—usually of lower-class origin—was perfectly compatible with a respected social position and a stable marriage. Peers clearly saw nothing shameful in these liaisons, and up to about 1560 they ate often to be found leaving bequests to bastard children in their

wills.3 | I Kenny, OP. Cit., pp. 99-100. 2 CSPD, Add., 1566-79, p. 33; 1633-4, p. 336. Phillips, op. cit. i, pp. 253, 265. SP 12/143/4, 13, 31. GPL/Smith MSS. 2/58. 3 Thomas, op. cit. Nicholas, op. cit., pp. 412, 563, 653, 723, 730. E 150/225/1, 1141/3;

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 663 In practice, if not in theory, the early-sixteenth-century nobility was a polygamous society, and some contrived to live with a succession of women despite the official prohibition on divorce. Take, for example, the career of Ralph Rishton of Ponthalgh, Lancs. In 1530 at the age of 9 he was married to the 10-year-old Helen Towneley. He was sent to be trained in arms at the house of Sir Ralph Assheton of Middleton, but began to cohabit with Helen about three years later, on occasional visits to her father’s house. In the 15 40’s he went off to the Scottish wars, during which time Helen went mad. On his return he seduced Elizabeth Parker, bribed an ecclesiastical official

to annul the marriage with Helen, and married Elizabeth. He lived with his second wife for eight years until the legal decision was reversed and the annulment of the first marriage declared invalid. He then deserted Elizabeth and took up with the half-sister of his military commander, Anne Stanley. When she was three months pregnant her mother forced her into a marriage with John Rishton of Dunkenhalgh, but Anne refused cohabitation and got an annulment. At this point Helen at last died, Elizabeth’s attempts to assert her

conjugal rights were defeated, and Ralph finally married Anne Stanley. It is an illuminating but not a very edifying story of life among the upper squireatchy of mid-Tudor Lancashire.? Presumably in deference to puritan criticism of the double standard, this casual approach to extra-marital relationships disappeared

between 1560 and 1660, and in consequence we have mostly to look elsewhere than in wills for information about the illegitimate children of Elizabethan and Early Stuart noblemen. Between 1560 and 1610 one marquis, eight earls, one viscount, and six barons ate known to have fathered children by women other than their wives,”

Between 1610 and 1660 evidence for the maintenance of regular, semi-official mistresses becomes rare, apart from notorious cases

like the 1st Earl of Sunderland, the 5th Earl of Sussex, and the sth Lord Dudley. Thete is no vety obvious explanation of this fact, though the following hypothetical model at any rate provides C 142/75/16 (I owe these last three references to Miss Helen Miller). Hodgson, op. cit., pt. ii. i, p. 393. Richard Lord Zouche also had an illegitimate daughter who married Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton. 1 Chetham Soc. xcviii, 1876, p. 34.

2 Standard genealogies and Lancs. R.O., DDK 7/1. Essex R.O., D/DP F 15. PCC 20 Peter; 12 Babington; 13 Rowe. Williamson, p. 289, note 1. Surtees, op. cit. li, p. 216. J. A. Bradney, History of Monmouthshire, 1.1, 1911, p. 26. Devereux, i, p. 475. Newdigate-Newdegate, op. cit., pp. 38-39. C 2 Eliz. G 13/35.

664 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY a possible solution. In the Middle Ages and the early sixteenth century, the arranged marriage was often accompanied and made tolerable by the mistress and the illegitimate children. This was a situation accepted by the wife and openly admitted by the husband, and as a result marriages held together as working business arrangements. But impressed by Calvinist criticisms of the double standard, in. the late sixteenth century public opinion began to object to the open maintenance of a mistress, which would explain the increasing number of breakdowns of marriages, and the reluctance to mention

bastards in wills. The arranged marriage was unable to stand the strain of the shutting down of this safety-valve and the scale of separations became so alarming that parents began relaxing the pressure and giving their children some limited right of veto over the choice of mattiage partners. As a result the number of open breakdowns of marriage and the number of illegitimate children declined after the first decade of the seventeenth centuty (though there may well have been an increase in both after the Restoration). At the same time as there was a tightening up of the sexual mores of the nobility and gentry as a whole in the early seventeenth century, a small minority was moving swiftly in exactly the opposite ditection. One of the most striking features of Early Stuart society was the growing cleavage in outlook and behaviour between Court and

Country. An aspect of this development which attracted much contemporaty attention and criticism was the sexual licence at the Jacobean Court, which may well have rivalled or excelled the more

notorious conditions at the Court of Charles I]. Although court behaviour under Henry VIII appears to have been fairly lax, in the middle and late sixteenth century peers had taken lower-class mistresses but had jealously guarded the honour of their wives. It was only after about 1590 that there developed general promiscuity among both sexes at Court. Accustomed to the exercise of power,

with little training in self-control, and with all the time in the world on their hands, noblemen have probably always been substan-

tially more free in their sexual behaviour than gentry, yeomen, or merchants. When the general atmosphere of the day is tolerant, however, no harm is done to the prestige of the class and it is only in times like the early seventeenth or the mid-nineteenth centuries that trouble is likely to arise. It was an unfortunate coincidence

that the behaviour of a minority—but a spectacular and much publicized minority—of the aristocracy was declining after 1590 as

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 665 fast as general disapprobation of loose conduct was rising. Before 1590 peers were more prone to crimes of violence than to scandalous living, if we exclude lower-class mistresses as a source of scandal,

although there was a flicker of excitement in 1557 when Lord Latimer was arrested for trying to rape his landlady—‘to grete a vellany for a noble man, my thought’. Despite all Elizabeth’s efforts,

however, moral standards at Court deteriorated during her later yeats. The 2nd Earl of Essex was notoriously ‘grateful to ladies’, and certainly seduced Elizabeth Southwell and perhaps the Countess of Derby, and the 3rd Earl of Southampton, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, and Sir Walter Ralegh got Maids of Honour with child.' The real break-through into promiscuity at Court only occurred

under James. The popular reaction was that of Simonds D’Ewes, who spoke of ‘the holy state of matrimony perfidiously broken and amongst many made but a May-game...and even great personages prostituting their bodies to the intent to satisfy and consume their substance in lascivious appetites of all sorts’. As early as 1603 Lady

Anne Clifford said that ‘all the ladies about the Court had gotten such ill names that it was grown a scandalous place’. The Countess of Nottingham found it necessary to rebut the accusation of the King of Denmark that she was a whore, and the 1st Earl of Salisbury

was accused of ‘unparalleld lust and hunting after strange flesh’,

notably that of Lady Walsingham and Catherine Countess of Suffolk. The 5th Earl of Sussex was notoriously pox-tidden, the 3rd Earl of Dorset was said to be ‘much given to women’, and the 3rd

Earl of Pembroke ‘immoderately given up’ to them, while James Earl of Cambridge died ‘more subjecte to his pleasours and the companye of wemen then to priests’.2 The Earls of Holland and Newport, Lord Goring, and both the royal favourites were notor-

ious pursuers of women. ‘I know those’, wrote Lord Thomas Howard in 1611, ‘who would not quietly reste, were Carr to leer upon their wives as some do perceive, yea, and like it well too they

should be so noticed.’ Buckingham was actively encouraged by King James in his amatory exploits and Mrs. Dorothy Gawdy is 1 HMCR, i, p. 68. HMCS, vii, p. 392. Stopes, pp. 122-31. Newdigate-Newdegate, op. cit., pp. 38-39. Cf. HMCS, iv, p. 153; vii, p. 392. A. L. Rowse, Ralegh and the Throckmortons, 1962, P 2 DY Ewes, ii, pp. 325-6; i, p. 50. V. Sackville-West, Diary of Lady Anne Clifford, 1923, p. 17.

BM Harl. MSS. 787, f. 62%; 6987, f. 99. Bodl MS. Eng. Poet C 50, f. 32; Rawlinson Poet. 26, f. 2; 160, f. 177”. Osborne, op. cit., p. 132. Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, Oxford, 1732, i, p. 19. HMC Mar and Kellie MSS, Suppl., p. 225.

666 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY said to have saved herself from his advances only by climbing out of a window.! More unusual, perhaps, was the dubious reputation enjoyed by so many wives of noblemen about the Court. The playwrights were only voicing a widely held belief when they pointed to the different sexual mores of Court and Country. “That is right court-fashion: men, women, and all woo; catch that catch may.’ ‘A close friend ot private mistress is court rhetorick; a wife, mere rustick solecism.’ “Do your husbands lie with ye?’ asked Marston. “That were country fashion, i’ faith.’ The Country was convinced, with mingled fascti-

nation and distaste, that at night the Court was the regular scene of ‘most strange surquedries’.? The greatest damage to the reputation of the Court and the aristocracy was done by their association in the public mind with homosexuality, an abnormality which aroused deep horror in the ever-widening circles of puritanism. In Elizabeth’s reign the Earls of Southampton and Oxford and lesser men like Sir Humphrey Gilbert had been rumoured to be homosexual, but there was little open publicity about it. But with the accession to the throne of a king who made no attempt to disguise his tastes, the Court became

a haunt of homosexuals. From his behaviour in public the worst was assumed—probably rightly—of James’s physical relations with

his favourites, and the Court itself acquired an evil reputation. In 1607 a playwright addressed a courtier as one who “art still a companion for gallants, mai’st keep a catamite’, and Middleton spoke of men who had ‘given half their living for a male companion’. Scandalous stories circulated about Francis Bacon, Sir Anthony Ashley,

Philtp Lord Stanhope, Lord Roos, and the 4th Earl of Bath.? This tendency in royal and aristocratic circles soon affected female fashions, somewhat to the irritation of King James, who attacked the wearing of ‘brode brim’d hats, pointed doublets, theyre haire t H. Huth, Inedited Poetical Misc., 1870, “The Progress’. Harington, i, p. 396. E. Peyton, Divine Catastrophe of the House of Stuart, 1652, pp. 34-35.

3 Huth, op. cit. Huntington Library MSS. HM 1098/2, f. 126. CSPD, 1628-9, p. 81; 1631-3, p. 182. Sir Edward Walker, Historical Discourses, 1705, p. 343. Claydon House, Verney MSS., file for 1636. Aubrey, p. 206. HMC Skrine MSS., p. 137. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Scornful Lady, 1.i, J. Massinger, The Guardian, 1.1. J. Marston, The Malcontent, 1. i; Antonio and Mellida,

- ‘SP 12/151/45-46, 57. D. B. Quinn, The Voyages of Sir Humphry Gilbert, Hakluyt Soc. i, p. 102, note 3. Wilkins, op. cit. T. Middleton, A Trick to Catch the Old One, u1. i. T. Hearne, Historia Ricardi II, Oxford, 1729, p. 388. Weldon, p. 126. Aubrey, p. 190. Peyton, op. cit., pp. 29-31. Bodl Tanner MSS. 306, f. 257. C. R. Mayes, “The Sale of Peerages in Early Stuart England’, J. Mod. Hist. xxix, 1957, p. 24. CA, ii. p. 80. Knowlet. ii, p. 57.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 667 cut short or shorne, and some of them stillettoes or poinards’. The playwrights noticed what was happening and gave it further circulation by their satirical comments. “‘We’re all male to the middle’, remarked Middleton, ‘mankind from the beaver to th’ bum. ’Tis

an Amazonian time; you shall have women shortly tread their husbands.’!

Public attention was finally riveted on the sexual behaviour of the aristocracy by a series of sensational scandals which found their way into the law courts. The first was the annulment in 1613 of

the marriage of the Earl and Countess of Essex in order to leave her free to marry her lover, the Earl of Somerset, on the grounds that she was wrgo intacta—a hypothesis to the falsity of which a number of men about town could testify. Iwo years later there exploded the news that the Earl and Countess of Somerset were on trial on a charge of murdering Sir Thomas Overbuty, a former friend of the Earl and a dangerous witness to the true facts of the divorce. At the trial the whole sordid story came out, embellished with obscene letters of the Countess and highly incriminating ones by the late Earl of Northampton.? Hardly had the public recovered from the shock of these revelations than a new scandal broke out in which Lady Roos first accused her husband of 1mpotence, and then charged the Countess of Exeter with ‘adulterie, incest, murther, poison, and such like peccadillos’. In the end Lady Roos’s accusations wete exposed as lies, and she herself convicted of incest with her brother.3 Although the Court of King Charles was a far more respectable place than that of his father, the situation could not be restored overnight, and the puritan gentry, brooding in their country manorhouses upon the evils of the day, continued to be regaled with news of aristocratic scandal, almost all of it associated with the Court group. To give but one example, in 1633 Eleanor Villiers gave birth to a child by Henry Jermyn, who refused to marry her on the grounds that she had already been the mistress of himself, Lord Newport, and Lord Fielding.4 1 Ch, ii, pp. 286-7. T. Middleton, 4 Mad World My Masters, ut. iii. Cf. Wright, op. cit., 2 Weldon, p. 73. Aulicus Coquinariae, 1650, pp. 113-30. Somers’ Tracts, 1809, ii, pp. 304-63. A. Amos, The great Oyer of Poisoning, 1846, chs. ii, iii. 3S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-42, 1883, iii, pp. 191-3. Ch, ii, pp. 145, 217.

4 HMC Cowper MSS. ii, p. 41. Knowler, i, p. 175. See also Bodl North MSS. C 4, f. 15. Grosatt, 1st set., v, pp. 113, 119. HMCR, i, p. 519. CSPD, 1633-4, p. 50; 1639-40, P. 297.

668 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY As a tesult of this flood of scandalous gossip, sexual licence became ineradicably associated with the aristocracy and with the Court. The consequent erosion of respect for the peerage in conventional minds is well reflected in the diary of Sir Simonds D’Ewes.

In 1616 he noted the current anagram upon the name of Frances Howarde (Car finds a whore), but added primly that it was “somewhat too broad an expression for so nobly extracted a lady’. Ten years later people were not so squeamish. Once rooted in the public mind, this association of sexual depravity with the Court took a long time to wear off. At the trial of Stephen Colledge in 1681 the accused was charged that “speaking of the King, he said he came of a

race of buggerers, for his grandfather, King James, buggered the old Duke of Buckingham’.

By virtue of their rank the nobility were obliged to live in a blaze of publicity, in the light of which the impression was given, not without justification, that their sexual habits were laxer than those of other classes. In fact, of course, these scandals only involved a small minority, but they were heavily written up in the correspondence of the professional letter-writers and so gave the appearance of a general collapse of sexual standards. Nor did it help the reputa-

tion of either King or peerage that, even when the scandals led to prosecution, the principals usually escaped with little more than loss of office and royal favour. It looked as if the aristocracy had

reason to think themselves immune from both the dictates of conventional morality and the penalties of the law. Charles did

something in 1630 to restore confidence in royal justice by declining to interfere in the death-sentence imposed by his peers on the Earl of Castlehaven for a seties of outrageous sexual offences, but by now

the damage had been done.! Throughout the whole of this period atchidiaconal courts and town magistrates had been treating the sexual peccadilloes of the lower orders with extreme severity, and the discrepancy between the generally enforced moral code and the licence of the Court became an established part of public belief. Impinging upon the puritan conscience, this was a powerful factor in undermining the moral authority of both the peerage and the Coutt. 1 D’Ewes,i, p. 87. The Arraignment tryal and condemnation of S. Colledge, 1681, p. 30 (I owe this

reference to Mr. Keith Thomas). W. Cobbett, Sate Trials, iti, 1809, cols. 401-18.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 669 VI. CONCLUSION

It is clear that between the early sixteenth and the late seventeenth century family patterns and marriage customs underwent profound

changes. The most striking feature is the emergence of a sense of family responsibility for personal harmony and moral virtue. In the Middle Ages the marriage state had been second best to a life of chastity, and it was the ethical exaltation of marriage by protestant divines that began the transformation. The household shrank in size as the number of superfluous servants was pruned away and as the keeping of open house to all comers gave way to the issue of invitations to personal friends. In conformity with this emphasis on privacy and intimacy, the family withdrew from the hall to the great chamber and the private dining-room; by the end of the seventeenth century corridors were being built to avoid the necessity of tramp-

ing through rooms to get from place to place, the promiscuous habit of putting up truckle beds here, there, and everywhere was giving way to the establishment of private bedrooms. The concept of an inward-turned, isolated, conjugal family, already familiar to the bourgeoisie, was well on the way to acceptance among the aristocracy. The most remarkable change inside the family was the shift away

from paternal authority, a shift made possible by the extension of the power of the central government. As the state and the law courts

came to provide greater protection to wives and children, so the need for subordination to husband and father declined. The fact that these movements are inversely linked was not appreciated by contempotaties, who were content to extend their anti-despotic notions to all levels of social organization. Owing partly to the erowth of putitan opposition to the double standard and of puritan emphasis on contented Christian partnership in marriage, partly to the development of ideas about economic and political liberty, it was slowly recognized that limits should be set not merely to the powers of King or Church, but also to those of parents and husbands. Supporters of kingship had constantly compared the authority of the monarch over his subjects with that of a father over his children. Any weakening in the position of the one thus led to a questioning of that of the other. As Mary Astell pointed out, “if absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a state, how comes it to be so in a family? or if in a family, why not in a state?”! 1 Mary Astell, Reflections on Marriage, 1706, preface.

670 MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY And so in the first half of the seventeenth century Stuart monarchical claims were rejected, wardship abolished, the arranged martiage itself modified and humanized, and the power of a husband over his

wife’s property considerably reduced. Clarendon commented bitterly upon the consequences of the new ideas thrown up by the upheavals of the Interregnum: ‘children asked not the blessing of

their patents .. . parents had no manner of authority over their

children.”! This is, of course, a gross exaggeration, but it contains a germ of truth. The appearance on the tombs of their parents of effigies of the children, both dead and alive, proves the enhanced importance of the child within the family and is significant evidence of a change of sentiment. This greater awareness of petsonal relations between husband and wife and parents and children

marks an important stage in the growth of the child-orientated family and in the growth of the freedom of the individual in Western Europe, an aspect of what Professor Riesman would call the shift from a tradition-directed to an inner-directed society. All this led to modifications in traditional attitudes towards marriage. In the last thousand years ideas about the proper method of arranging marriage have passed through four successive phases. In the first, marriage was arranged by parents with relatively little

reference to the wishes of the children; in the second, parents continued to arrange the marriage but granted the children the right of veto; in the third, the children made the choice but the patents retained the power of veto; in the fourth, which was only reached in this century, the children arrange their own martiages

with little open reference to—but under a good deal of subtle influence from—their parents. In the late sixteenth and early seven-

teenth centuries, England passed from the first to the second of these phases, while by the end of the latter century some writers had moved from the second to the third position. Daniel Defoe, the spokesman of the puritan bourgeoisie, was categorical in his opinion despite the hesitancy with which he expressed so novel a doctrine: “The limits of a parent’s authority in this case of matrimony, either with son or daughter, I think, stands thus: the negative, I think, is theirs, especially with a daughter; but, I think, the positive is the children’s.’ Though fairly successful efforts were

made to maintain the moral authority of parents and guardians, ™ Quoted by K. Thomas, ‘Women and the Civil War Sects’, Past and Present, xili, 1958, p. 57. 2 D. Defoe, A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed, 1727, p. 170.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 671 theit power was now tempered by the need for at least the passive consent of the children, and sometimes by a desire to seek prior

evidence of positive affection. The development of the London season, the widening of the marriage market, the use of the coach, all increased the range of social contacts of the children and so encouraged them to assert themselves, while legal changes in the nature of family settlements greatly increased their financial independence. The aristocracy were not the pacemakers in this social revolution,

which was primarily the work of the urban Jdourgeoisie and the puritan divines. What is so striking, however, is the readiness with which they absorbed the new ideas and used them to adapt the structure of the family and the institution of marriage as they had inherited them from the Middle Ages in order not only to fit their obsession with patrilineal and primogenitive inheritance, but also to suit the social, ethical, and religious conditions of the modern world.

| XII EDUCATION AND CULTURE Alasse, you will be ungentle gentlemen, if you bee no schollers: you will doe your prince but simple service, you will stand your countrie but in slender stead, you wil bring your selves but to small pteferment, if you bee no schollers. G. PETTIE, The civile Conversation of S. Guazzo, 1586, sig. AY

I. THE THIRST FOR LEARNING BETWEEN 1540 and 1600 there occurted one of the teally decisive

movements in English history by which the propertied classes exploited and expanded the higher educational resources of the country.! By doing so they fitted themselves to rule in the new conditions of the modern state, and they turned the intelligentsia from a branch of the clergy into a branch of the propertied laity. At last it was possible to be an intellectual without having to endure the intolerable hardships of celibacy. The drive to give a more intellectual training to the children of the nobility and gentry in the early sixteenth century sprang from

two sources. The ideals of Italian humanism wete seeping in, a century late, through educational reformers like Colet, Vives, and Erasmus; and there was developing a growing anxiety about the prospects of the nobility maintaining their grip on the key positions in the political system. “The fault is in your selves, ye noble men’s sonnes’, said Roger Ascham in 1570, ‘that commonlie the meaner mens children cum to be the wisest councellours and great-

est doers in the weightie affaires of this Realme. And why? For God will have it so, of his providence, bicause ye will have it no otherwise, by your negligence.’ ‘Ceasse nobles, therefore, to hate 1 This problem has been much studied in recent years, almost entirely in America. See especially: Ruth Kelso, “The Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the Sixteenth Century’, Univ. of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, xiv, 1929. C. F. Arrowood, ‘Sir John Fortescue on the Education of Rulers’, Speculum, x, 1935. P. N. Siegel, ‘English Humanism and the New Tudor Aristocracy’, J. Hist. Ideas, xiii, 1952. F. Caspari, Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor England, Chicago, 1954. M. H. Curtis, Oxford and Cambridge in Transition, 1558-1642, Oxford, 1959. A. B. Ferguson, The Indian Summer of English Chivalry, Durham, N.C., 1960. J. H. Hexter, ‘The Education of the Aristocracy in the Renaissance’, in Reappraisals in History, 1961.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 673 learnynge’, urged Laurence Humphrey.' The early sixteenth century saw the 25-year rule of two men of low birth, Wolsey and Cromwell,

and the massive upward thrust into positions of honour, wealth, and power of intelligent gentlemen like Russell, Wriothesley, and Rich, Petre, Paget, and Paulet. Rule by clerics of humble birth like Wolsey was familiar enough to the Middle Ages; what was new was

the replacement of the clergy in high political and administrative office by talented laymen from the lesser gentry or even below.

As this revolution gathered momentum there developed open competition for the seats of power between the hereditary nobility and lower social groups among the laity. This threat to the established order alarmed conservatives everywhere, and stimulated a demand that the old aristocracy should again fill their rightful place

in the councils of the nation. What had happened was that the technical requirements for public service had altered. The demand for military expertise had slackened, and the demand for intellectual and organizational talents had increased. As the state bureaucracy grew and as the modern diplomacy took shape, the highest public

offices went to those who had been trained to think clearly, could analyse a situation, draft a minute, know the technicalities of the law, and speak a foreign language. There was a demand for men who could give a sense of petspective to current problems thanks

to a familiarity with classical and modern history and with the institutions and economies of the other states of Europe. These two forces, humanism and the desire to preserve a fixed social hierarchy, interacted one upon the other, the former being a powerful support for the latter. What distinguishes the English

humanists of the second quarter of the sixteenth century from their foreign colleagues is the relative poverty of their scholarship. No great corpus of learning, no monumental encyclopaedias came

from the English presses. Instead there poured forth a flood of translations for the benefit of gentlemen anxious to absorb the lessons of the classics without going to the trouble of mastering the language. The leading educational figures of the middle of the century were not remote and ineffectual dons but academic politicians and government officials like Sir Thomas Smith and Sir John Cheke, absorbed in the power struggles of court and university.” ™ Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster, ed. E. Arber, 1923, p. 51. Laurence Humphrey, The Nobles, 1563.

821314 XX

2 R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and its Benefuiaries, Cambridge, 1954, pp. 302-28.

674 EDUCATION AND CULTURE They were the Jowetts of their day, who tegarded the ptoduction of an educated ¢/7ze to rule the country as a more important objective

than the pursuit of scholarly research. And who is to say they were wrong P

These educational reformers were unable to solve the problems posed by the waywardness of the laws of heredity operating in a partly closed society. But at least they could see to it that the number

of idle and ignorant aristocrats was reduced to a minimum, and that chances of promotion for the talented ‘new man’ were consequently restricted. And so there was launched a sustained and in the end remarkably successful attack upon the ignorance of the _ nobility. Again and again it was hammered home that the justifica-

tion of the privileges enjoyed by the nobility was service to the commonwealth; that the definition of nobility was not exclusively good birth, but ancestry coupled with virtue; and that virtue consisted not only in devotion to God and the Established Church (whichever it might happen to be at the time), not only in moral rectitude, but also in the mastery of certain technical proficiencies. Among the latter were now counted book-learning, languages, and history as well as the ancient attributes of good manners and proficiency in the military arts, for only by acquiring this new training could the nobility fit themselves to serve the Prince in peace as well as wat.

In their zeal for the new learning, the reformers expressed a passionate contempt for the late medieval and early Tudor nobleman: ... noble men borne To lerne they have scorne, But hunt and blowe an horne, ©

| Lepe over lakes and dykes Set nothyng by polytykes,

sang John Skelton. Richard Pace reported a conversation with a gentleman who exploded: ‘I swear by God’s body, I’d rather that my son should hang than study letters. For it becomes the sons of gentlemen to blow the horn nicely, to hunt skilfully and elegantly, carty and train a hawk. But the study of letters should be left to the sons of tustics.’ Thomas Starkey thought that the ‘first and most principal of all ill customs used in out country commonly. . . is that which toucheth the education of the nobility, whom we see custom-

ably brought up in hunting and hawking, dicing and carding,

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 675 eating and drinking, and, in conclusion, in all vain pleasure, pastime,

and vanity’. ‘With us,’ he concluded, ‘gentlemen study more to bring up good hounds than wise heirs.’ Thomas Elyot admitted that gentlemen normally despised learning, thinking it a positive disqualification for responsible office, and Edmund Dudley frankly said that he thought that the English nobility were “the worst brought up for the most parte of any realme of christendom’. Not surprisingly, in view of their vigour and persistence, these thinkers impressed their ideas upon posterity. At the end of the sixteenth century the 2nd Earl of Essex (or more probably Bacon) believed that in the old days: ‘The nobility of England brought up their sons as they entered their whelps, and thought them wise enough if they could chase the deer.’! What truth is there in this sustained onslaught? There can be no doubt that some late medieval gentry families, like the Pastons, took a bookish education seriously, but then they were an exceptionally literate family—hence the survival of their correspondence. Many, perhaps most, of the great aristocrats of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries could sign their names, for example as privy councillors, though how far this is a fair test of literacy 1s far from

cettain. When Sir Ralph Eure was accused of writing a treasonable letter in 1536, he rebutted the accusation on the grounds that he was unable to read or write more than his own name. The extreme scarcity of surviving correspondence suggests that in general the nobility and gentry did not write, and presumably felt no deprivation because of it. The upper classes conducted most of their affairs by word of mouth, and the records were kept by clerical sctibes. It is significant that in 1547 it was thought worth while to

insett in a bill a clause extending benefit of clergy to peers who were unable to read, and as late as the reign of Elizabeth there was one privy councillor, the rst Earl of Pembroke, who was said to be unable to read or write, and who certainly had the greatest difficulty in scratching his signature on official documents.” There wete, of course, striking exceptions to these generalizations, but t Poetical Works of John Skelton, ed. A. Dyce, 1843, i, p. 334. F. J. Furnival, ‘Manners and

Meals in olden Times’, Early English Text Soc., ust set., xxxii, 1868, p. xiii. Caspari, op. cit., pp. 196, 126. T. Elyot, The Boke named the Governour, ed. H.H.S. Croft, 1880, i, p. 99. E. Dudley, The Tree of the Commonwealth, ed. D. M. Brodie, Cambridge, 1948, p. 45. Devereux,

” eo P H VII, xu. ii, no. 291. 1 Ed. VI, cap. 12. CSPS, rsyso-2, p. 19. J. E. Doyle, Official Baronage of England, 1886, tii, p. 22.

676 EDUCATION AND CULTURE two swallows like John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, and Humphrey

Duke of Gloucester do not make a summer. | On the other hand it is probable that the complaints of the reformers were slightly exaggerated. The signatures of Henry VII and Humphrey Duke of Buckingham at the foot of their accounts may mean something or nothing as proof of close financial supervision, but both men were evidently literate. The evidence is far too scrappy to allow for confident generalization, but it looks as if some eatly Tudor noblemen had sufficient command of reading

and writing to be competent men of affairs, and that a few had experienced a bookish, classical education. The latter group were, however, only a small minority of the peerage, and when Henry VIII remarked to Lord Mountjoy that he wished he had more learning, he was told that this was not expected of him, but merely that he should patronize learned men. As for the gentry, the evidence

suggests that again only a small minority wete equipping themselves with an academic education. They were not attending the universities, and it is likely that Fortescue was exaggerating when he spoke of them crowding into the late-fifteenth-century Inns of Court. Certainly in a remote area like Northumberland as late as the 1560’s, 92 out of 146 leading gentry were still unable to sign their names, and the M.P. for Berwick was in the same predicament.! By the middle of the sixteenth century peers and gentry were at last convinced, both by the propaganda of the humanists and by the

evident success in life of those with education, that it was time to bestit themselves and get some professional training. There resulted an astonishing explosion of higher education in England, and one that temporarily embraced even women among the aristocracy. The mid-sixteenth century was the first great age of the blue stocking:

there were the celebrated More, Cheke, and Cooke ladies, there was Lady Jane Grey, and there was Queen Elizabeth herself. The Howards were for generations outstanding for their insistence on giving their children a sound education, which at this period even extended to their daughters. Katherine, daughter of the luckless Earl of Surrey and wife of Henry Lord Berkeley, kept up with her Latin grammar, was skilful in French, perfect in Italian, a student of natural philosophy and astronomy, familiar with globes and 1 Le PH VIII, 1, i, no. 51. J. Raine, North Durham, 1852, pp. xxxii-xxxiii. J, Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliae, ed. A. Amos, 1825, ch. 49. A more favourable view of the educa-

tional qualifications of the late medieval nobility was recently put forward by Mr. K. B.

McFarlane in his Ford Lectures at Oxford. ,

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 677 quadrants, and was an admirable player on the lute into the bargain.

Whether or not she made a good wife is another matter.! In this first, heroic, phase of the educational revolution, peers and gentty possessed an enthusiasm for pure scholarship that far outran the practical needs of an administrative é¢4ze. They rushed

headlong into a course of study that stands comparison in its academic austerity with that of any educational system of twentiethcentury Europe. Men like Elyot were well aware that their purpose

was to train a governing class, but they tended to exaggerate the academic side of the programme. Elyot himself advised a study of Greek and Latin literature from the ages of 7 to 13, followed by a university course in logic, rhetoric, cosmography, and history, though he admitted the need for physical recreation to strengthen the body. Parents were won over by these ideas, and men like the 4th Duke of Norfolk, the 8th Earl of Northumberland, and the 2nd Earl of Essex under Elizabeth, and Sir William Wentworth and the 9th Earl of Northumberland in the early seventeenth century, all urged upon their children the importance of a sound academic education in the classics, logic and rhetoric, science, modern languages, and the common law. In his enthusiasm Sir Henry Slingsby began to teach his son Latin (by Montaigne’s method) at the age of 4. In 1632 Sir John Strode told his son that ‘learning to a gentleman is like a diamond set in a gold ring: one doth beautify the other’, and Richard Evelyn successfully instilled into the mind of his

son John the notion that it is “better to be unborn than untaught’. Here is learning exalted not merely as a means to virtue and public service, but as an end in itself.

To appreciate what a tevolution had occurred in educational ideals it is only necessary to compare the training of a medieval nobleman with that of an Elizabethan. A mid-fifteenth-century poem sets out the model programme: And as Lord’s sons bene set at four year age To scole at learn the doctrine of lettrure, And after at six to have them in language, And sit at meat semely in all nurture, 1 Smyth, ii, pp. 382-5. 2 D. Parsons, Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, 1836, pp. 53-54. Caspari, op. cit., pp. 89-91. G. E.

Nott, The Works of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey, i, Appendix, p. Ixxxiii. G. R. Batho, ‘The Library of the “Wizard” Earl’, The Library, Dec. 1960, p. 246. Devereux, i, pp. 328-9. Sheff CL/S 40/1. Harrison, pp. 67-71. C. Aspinall-Oglander, Nunwell Symphony, 1945, pp. 51-52. W.G. Hiscock, John Evelyn and his Family Circle, 1955, p. 7.

678 EDUCATION AND CULTURE At ten and twelve to revel is their cure, To dance and sing and speak of gentleness, At fourteen year they shall to field I sure, At hunt the deer and catch an hardiness. For deer to hunt and slay, and see them bleed, An hardiment giveth to his courage, And also in his wit he taketh heed Imagining to take them at avantage; At sixteen year to werray and to wage, To just and ride, and castles to assail, To skirmish als, and make siker scurage, And set his watch for peril nocturnaile ...

, Thus should he learn in his priority His weapons all in armes to dispend.

The Court school of Edward IV similarly taught riding, tilting, wearing armour, courtesy and good mannets, piping, dancing and singing, moral and religious instruction. The only academic element in the curriculum was languages. Compare this with the subjects of study proposed by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in about 1570

, in his scheme for a state-run academy for the education of noble watds. The ‘academy’ would have coveted the university subjects of Latin and Greek grammar and Hebrew, together with logic and

thetotic aimed purely at public speaking, current political and military institutions of Europe, the four main modern European ~ languages, natural philosophy, divinity—to teach obedience to the Prince—civil law for diplomacy, common law for personal use and for service as ].P., arithmetic and geometry for ballistics, cosmogtaphy and astronomy for map-reading, and navigation, surgery,

and medicine. To this was added gentlemanly accomplishments such as horsemanship, shooting, fencing, playing the lute, dancing, vaulting, and heraldry. The whole course is geared to the practical purpose of turning gentlemen into useful administrators for the modern state, the basic training for which is intellectual.? The programmes advocated by the pedants were rather more austete. In 1563 Laurence Humphrey recommended that nobles should study classical authors, particularly Cicero, and Erasmus’s Colloguies; rhetoric and logic to improve conversation and capacity 1 Ellis, 2nd ser., iii, p. 220. 4 Collection of Ordinances . . ., 1790, p. 45. Arch, xxi, 1827, pp. 508-20.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 679 for argument; ethics, taken from Isocrates, Deuteronomy, Ecclesiasticus, the Proverbs of Solomon, Cicero, and Erasmus; politics from Aristotle and a study of contemporary laws and governments ;

atithmetic and geometry, geography and astrology (the last in moderation only); and finally divinity from Calvin’s Institutes. Nor was this metre theory. When Sir John Harington was up at Cambridge in 1578, Lord Burghley advised him on his reading: Cicero for Latin language, Livy and Caesar for Roman history ‘exceedinge fitt for a gentleman to understande’; Aristotle and Plato for logic and philosophy. The objective of all this was charac-

teristically summed up as being to turn out ‘a fytte servaunte for the Queene and your countrey for which you weare born, and to which, next God, you ate most bounde’.! Lord Burghley was indeed the key figure in the transformation of the education of the aristocracy, and he may thus claim to have done mote in the long run to preserve the class than any other man. As Chancellor of Cambridge and as the most influential old member

of St. John’s, he was tireless in encouraging sound scholarship. As Master of the Court of Wards, he made himself guardian and educational director of many young fatherless noblemen, while his reputation and influence led other parents to entrust their children to his care. Upon one and all he poured out his passion for learning as the pathway to virtue, godliness, and capacity for high office, and

if his efforts were not crowned with the success he felt them to deserve, at least he had created a fashion for a bookish education. His feelings on the subject wete expressed to Roger Earl of Rutland at Cambridge in 1589. Alarmed at the dowager Countess’s habit of taking the young man off on gay hunting parties at Belvoir,

he urged that ‘your lerning do not deminish .. . for lerning will increass if it be cherished, and cannot be lost but by negligence, and besyde that, lerning will serve you in all ages, and in all places and

fortunes. But I must add to you that this lerning wherof I wryte must be governed allweiss with the knolledg and feare of God, for otherwise it will prove but for a vanyty and leade you to folly.’ What Burghley meant by learning may be gauged by the pro-

gtamme he had laid down for the studies of Edward Earl of Oxford in 1562. Thirty years before, a progressive-minded parent, Thomas Cromwell, had been satisfied that his son and heir aged

about 13 should divide his time between ‘the Frenche tongue, ‘ Humphrey, op. cit., ch. iii. Harington, 1, pp. 131-4.

680 EDUCATION AND CULTURE writinge, plainge att weapons, castinge of accomptes, pastimes of instruments’, &c. To be precise, the day began with Mass, followed

by a reading from Erasmus’s Co/loguies, then an hour or two at writing and as much again in reading Fabian’s Chronicle, the rest of the day being spent in playing on the lute or the virginals. On his frequent rides his tutor told him stories from Greek and Roman history. For recreation he hawked, hunted, and practised with the long bow. The 12-year-old Earl of Oxford had a much more formidable programme to endure:

A.M. 7-7.30 Dancing P.M. 1-2 Cosmogtaphy

7.30-8 Breakfast 2-3, Latin

8-9 _ French 3-4 French 9-10 Latin 4-4.30 Writing

— —- 0-10.30 Writing and Drawing 4.30 Prayers and Supper 10.30 Prayers and Dinner On holidays the boy was to read the epistle of the day in Latin or English before dinner, and after it the gospel in English or Latin. The test of the holiday Burghley allowed to be spent in riding, shooting, dancing, and other commendable exercises, except for the times of prayer.? All records of Tudor education indicate that the hours of work were vety atduous, and that, in spite of lofty ideals, much of the teaching was a dreary linguistic grind consisting of the mechanical feeding in of facts about the grammar and vocabulary of a dead language. It is hardly surprising that masters were only able to maintain discipline and enforce application to the task on hand by a liberal use of physical punishment, applied equally to noblemen and others. “The tod may no more be spared in schooles then the

swotde may in the Princes hand’, remarked the schoolmaster Richard Mulcaster. In the Privy Purse accounts of the Marquis of Hertford in 1641-2 there is mention of two purchases whose telationship would have seemed all too natural to contemporaries:

“Paid for a history booke and a cane for my Lord Beauchamp, fourteene shillings.” And it was as headmaster of Westminster,

the most fashionable school in the country, that Dr. Busby acquired his formidable reputation as an enthusiastic flogger. The Elizabethan grammar school was a place where the middle- and upper-class boy acquired a technical proficiency, namely low-grade ' HMCR, i, p. 274. Ellis, 3rd ser., i, pp. 342-4. Ward, p. 20,

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 681 Latin, at the hands of a man succinctly described by Ben Jonson as ‘a pure pedantique schoolmaster sweeping his living from the posteriors of little children’.! The Tudor educational system was characterized by a total lack of stratification by age, and by increasingly determined attempts to ensute stratification by class. Today the greatest attention is paid

to age, and each child tends to move forward automatically with his own peer-group. No such system prevailed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when boys of widely varying ages were assembled together to pursue the same courses of study. There was no universally accepted age for admission to school or to university, and parents often found it convenient to send two or more brothers

forward together. Sir John Wynne sent two sons to Westminster together in 1607, the 2nd Earl of Salisbury sent two there together in 1641. Brothers similarly tended to come up together to the university : at Oxford there matriculated in 1572 three sons of the Earl of Derby, aged 10, 11, and 12; in 1575 two sons of Lord Stourton, aged 14 and 16; in 1579 two sons of the Earl of Shrewsbury, aged 16 and 18; in 1582 three sons of Lord Buckhurst, aged II, 12, and 14; in 1593 three sons of the Earl of Pembroke, aged 9, 13, and 14. Fourteen may have been the ideal age of matriculation for the sons of noblemen and knights—though not for the poor scholars—but only a minority put theory into practice and the range of variation on either side was very wide indeed. How far education was socially stratified is a very difficult matter to determine. That such was the desire of many influential people

can hardly be in doubt. It lay behind the repeated suggestions for a government-supported academy for the training of young noblemen, and behind the repeated proposals to exclude men not of gentle birth from certain schools, from some university scholar-

ships, and from the Inns of Court. One reason for these proposals was a fear that, if given equal educational opportunities, the sons of the humble would squeeze the sons of gentry out of the limited jobs available, and that in turn sons of mete gentry would squeeze the aristocracy out of the limited number of high political and administrative offices. Richard Mulcaster was particularly disturbed by the potential political consequences of large numbers of 1 R. Mulcaster, Positions, 1581, p. 277. Ant. J. xxv, 1945, p. 33. C. H. Herford and P, Simpson, Ben Jonson, Oxford, 1925, i, p. 138. 2 Wynn, no. 429. H/A 161/5. J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, 1891-2. A. Clark, Register of the University of Oxford, ii (Oxford History Society, x1), 1887.

682 EDUCATION AND CULTURE unemployable grammar school boys being thrown on to a glutted labour market. “The rowmes which are to be supplyed by learning

being within number, if they that are to supply them grow beyound number, how can yt be but too great a burden for any state

to beare? ... such shifters must needes shake the verie strongest piller in that state where they live, and loyter without living.’ For this reason he favoured the restriction of education by the putse, and defended the hogging of university scholarships by the rich and well-born. In practice the move from education in the home or

in an atistoctatic household to school and university involved a cettain amount of social mingling. Shrewsbury educated both Sir - Philip Sydney and the sons of the worthy citizens of the town; Repton, the sons of the Earl of Chesterfield and the local blacksmith. Similarly the university was composed of boys drawn from all social classes from the copyholder and petty bourgeoisie to the atistocracy.

By the early seventeenth century, however, two developments can be detected. Firstly, peers and gentry began to congregate in a limited number of fashionable schools, which became mote exclusively upper-class in composition. Secondly, the upper classes came in larger numbers to the universities and there cut themselves off from their inferiors by various devices. They lodged and fed separately as gentlemen commoners, were attended by their own

servants, and were marked out by distinctive dress when they walked abtoad. They could not have had much social contact with the scholars and sizars from professional, mercantile, or clerical backgrounds struggling to obtain a degree and a country parsonage.

In any case there was a marked concentration of noblemen and upper gentry in the more fashionable colleges. The desire for social segregation at an early age was stimulated by a sensitive awareness that good manners depended on keeping good company

It was noted at the time that the younger brother could be distinguished from the elder by his education: “through rusticall company in childehoode, [they] doo get them selves as it were an habit of loughty lokes, clownish speech, and other ungentlemanly jestures.”! The fact that in schools and universities there were boys from both gentle and non-gentle backgrounds is no more evidence of genuine social interplay and social cohesion than the attendance 1 See supra, p. 33. Mulcaster, op. cit., pp. 134-57. The Fleming Report, H.M.S.O., 1944, p. 10. Curtis, op. cit., pp. 60-61. B. L. Joseph, Elizabethan Acting, Oxford, 1951, p. 99.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 683 today of negroes and whites at integrated American schools, or of sons of peers and sons of paupers at the more exclusive Oxford and Cambridge colleges. II, THE PRIVATE TUTOR AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

There was a good deal of argument in the sixteenth century about the ideal place of education for a nobleman. In the Middle Ages he had been brought up first at home and then in service attached to a great aristocratic or royal household. Though some noble households continued to provide educational training grounds for young gentlemen and noblemen during the reign of Elizabeth—that of Edward Earl of Derby was one, of Lord Burghley another—the practice had all but died out by the seventeenth century. The apogee of the private tutor, however, was just beginning, and there can be little doubt that the great majority of peers were educated at home up to the age of 14 or thereabouts, and often beyond. The purely academic duties of a tutor in a seriousminded household were not to be taken lightly. In 1606 the tutor to the 1st Earl of Salisbury’s son wrote to complain of his difficulties

during a jaunt into Lancashire with his pupil. ‘Although we speak Latin both travelling and hunting, yet the sound of it is so harsh amongst a cry of dogs as it comes not with a wonted facility.’ It is

dificult to know whether to feel sorrier for master or student in this predicament. These tutors usually doubled the role of chaplain and were treated—as tutors and governesses always are—with widely varying degrees of respect and friendship. Joseph Hall described the fate of the more unfortunate of the species: A gentle squire woulde gladly intertayne Into his house some trencher-chapplaine : Some willing man that might instruct his sons, And that would stand to good conditions. First that he lie upon the truckle-bed, Whiles his yong maister lieth ore his hed. Secondly, that he doe, on no default, Ever presume to sit aboue the salt. Third, that he never change his trencher twise. Fourth, that he use all cumely courtesies : Sit bare at meales, and one haulfe rise and waite. Last, that he never his young master beate,

684 EDUCATION AND CULTURE But he must aske his mother to define

How many jerkes she would his breech should line. All those observ’d, he could contended bee To give five markes, and winter livery.

On the other hand the position of men like John Thornton in the Russell household at Woburn and Thomas Hobbes in the Cavendish household at Chatsworth was that of trusted friend, confidant, and adviser. Many of these men were dons, like Gregory Martin, future translator of the Rheims Bible, who was taken from

St. John’s, Oxford, to be tutor to the children of Thomas Duke of Norfolk, or Mr. Petty of Jesus, Cambridge, summoned to be tutor to the Earl of Arundel’s children in 1614. They were often men of talent and distinction, and had a good chance of subsequent promotion thanks to the patronage of their influential employers. Thus we find George Earl of Shrewsbury lobbying for the appointment as Dean of Lincoln of Dr. Robinson, who ‘hath heretofore taken paines in teaching my children’. Apart from the tutor for

general, mainly classical, studies, experts were hired for more specialized subjects like French. In 1627 the 2nd Earl of Salisbury took on a Frenchman at £3 a month to teach his children to write

and speak the language; in 1630 the Earl of Cork did the same, and Sir Edward Osborne’s son was killed by the fall of a chimney while studying with his French tutor.” Even in the late sixteenth century very many sons of noblemen and leading squires continued to be privately educated without contact with either school or university. A striking feature of the age, however, is the increase in the number of gentry and even nobles who began to patronize places of communal education. This was perhaps the most active period of school expansion in out history. In 10 sample counties, there were not more than 34 schools open to the laity in 1480; by 1660 another 305 had been endowed and a further 105 founded but not endowed. By 1660

thete was a gtammar school for every 4,400 of population and even in a remote area like Yorkshire nearly every boy lived within 1 Peck, 1. xi, p. 27. PCC 13 Rowe. HMCS, xviii, p. 271. Collected Poems of Joseph Hall, ed. A. Davenport, Liverpool, 1949, p. 29. G. Scott Thomson, Life in a Noble Household, 1937, pp. 72-73. Chatsworth, Hobbes MSS. G. Ornsby, Household Books of Lord William Howard of INaworth (Surtees Soc. Lxvitt), 1878, p. ix. Cholmley, p. 23. Talbot G, f. 245. 2 H/A 160/1. Grosart, Ist ser., ili, p. 41. Parsons, op. cit., p. 1. Memoirs of Robert Carey, Earl

of Monmouth, ed. G. H. Powell, 1905, p. 1. ,

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 685 12 miles of a school. In addition to these endowed schools, there is

evidence that very large numbers of the parish clergy were both turning an honest penny and contributing to the welfare of society by taking in a handful of boys and teaching them Latin up to University level. In the reign of Charles I more than half the references to Norfolk schools in the three Cambridge College Registers which record such matters are to these private, unendowed, establishments ; boys were coming up to these three colleges after schooling in more

than forty different villages and hamlets in the one county of Norfolk.3 The main beneficiaries were of course the yeomen, artisans, and small shopkeepers who could at last get their children equipped

with some of the intellectual tools for social and economic advancement. Conservatives like Mulcaster and Bacon had thus eood grounds for their alarm at the potential effect upon social stability of such a proliferation of educational facilities for those below the level of the gentry. These schools were not exclusively patronized by the non-gentry

classes, however, for from 1560 onwards one finds increasing numbers of sons of squires, knights, and even peets attending first little local schools and then a select number of institutions which became increasingly the preserve of an upper-class clientele. For some time parents, though convinced of the virtues of boardingschool education, were bewildered by the variety of choice. In 1597

Sit John Wynn sent his son John to school under Mr. Paget at Bedford, where he learnt the precepts of religion, Latin grammar, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, and instrumental and vocal music. Ten years later he first planned to send two sons to Westminster, but then settled on Eton as being more free from infection; seven years later still two more went to the Free School at St. Albans. At the same period the six sons of Sir Percival Willoughby all went to ‘Publick Schools’, first to Trowbridge, then to Rugby and Eton. The son and heir of Robert Earl of Salisbury went to Sherborne,

the sons of the ist Earl of Chesterfield to Repton, and the 2nd Viscount Bayning to a local school at Brightwell, Berks. Before proceeding to Balliol John Evelyn got his education first in the three R’s by ‘one Frier’ at the church porch of Wotton, then in Latin and writing by a Frenchman at Lewes, then at Mr. Potts’s 1'W. K. Jordan, Philanthropy in England, 1959, pp. 290-1; The Charities of Rural England, 1480-1660, 1961, p. 348. J. E. B. Mayor, Admissions to St John’s College, 1630-1715, Cambridge, 1893. J. Venn, Biographical History of Gonville and Caius’, I. 1347-1713, Cambridge, 1897. J. Peile, Biographical Register of Christ’s College, 1448-1665, Cambridge, 1910.

686 EDUCATION AND CULTURE School in the same town, and finally at the Free School at near-by Southover.! Gradually, however, this wide-ranging, free-wheeling educational process began to give place to a concentration of the aristo-

cracy and leading gentry upon a limited number of fashionable schools in or around London. One of the most successful was that run by Dr. Thomas Farnaby, who is said to have taught upward of 300 noblemen and gentlemen during the reign of Charles I, first in Goldsmith’s Alley in the City and after 1636 at Sevenoaks.

It is symptomatic of the persistent desire for sound learning that the prime cause of Dr. Farnaby’s success was his reputation as a classical scholar and the excellence of the academic teaching at his school. The other two most popular aristoctatic schools on the eve of the Civil War were Westminster, where the ferocious but efficient

régime of Dr. Busby was just beginning, and Eton. The records of both schools ate woefully incomplete, so that no statistical picture of attendance is possible. But we have a glimpse of Eton in the early 1630’s showing two sons of the Earl of Peterborough, a son of the Earl of Dover, two sons of the Earl of Cork, four sons of the Earl of Southampton, and two sons of the Earl of Northampton sitting down to dinner at the second table with knights’ sons. The picture is a familiar one; Eton has arrived.? The most powerful factor making for social exclusiveness in these schools was already the high cost of board, lodging, and tuition. Apart from the poor scholars, the other boarders were perforce restricted to the sons of the well-to-do, and as the gentry progressively invaded the scholarship places, the number of the poor at these schools shrank still further. When the 2nd Earl of Salisbury sent his two sons William and Algernon Cecil to Westminster in 1639, they lodged and fed in the house of the headmaster, Dr. Busby. The Earl paid Busby £2 admittance fee, £83 a year for

instruction for the two of them and for diet and lodging for them and their two servants, and a further {6 or so a year to the usher. In 1644 the Earl sent another son, Edward, to a school at Finchley tun by a Mr. Reve Baily, for which he paid £30 a year for diet and 1 Wynn, nos. 180, 429, 440, 696. A. C. Wood, ed., The Continuation of the History of the Willoughby Family, Windsor, 1958, p. 40. PCC 127 Lee. D. Mathew, The Social Structure in Caroline England, Oxford, 1948, p. 54. See also Memoirs of Sir George Courthop, Camden Misc., xi,

0 Hasted, i, pp. 350-1. Autobiography of Sir John Bramston (Camden Soc.), 1845, pp. 101-2. The Memoirs of Ann Lady Fanshawe, 1907, pp. 26, 336. Grosart, 2nd set., iii, pp. 218, 225.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 687 teaching. When the Earl of Cork sent Francis and Robert Boyle to Eton, it cost him no less than {914. 35. 9d. for three years’ diet, tutoring, and clothes for themselves and their servants. School fees continued to rise in the next twenty years; in 1657 it cost the Earl of Westmorland {100 a year to keep his two sons and their servants at a school at Twickenham run by a Mr. Fuller, and in 1660-2 the Russell children at Westminster were costing their father £283 the first year and £243 the second. Though there were the usual complaints that the boys were learning nothing but to drink, swear, and smoke, the idea of the expensive and exclusive boarding school had taken firm hold among the nobility and gentry of England.! Ill, THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE INNS OF COURT

In the early sixteenth century very few gentlemen attended the universities, and in 1549 William Thomas described them as the homes of ‘meane men’s children set to schole in hope to live upon hyred learnyng’. After about 1550, however, it became increasingly

fashionable for sons of gentry, and even some sons of noblemen,

to pass on to the universities, which partly for this reason and partly to supply an educated clergy were just embarking upon one

of the three great expansionist phases of their history. Many of these gentlemen did not matriculate and very few took degrees, so that precise statistics are difficult to come by. Comparison of the matriculation registers with some College registers of entrants suggests that the degree of omission in the former may have been running at about 25 per cent. before the Civil War. Even so the matriculation registers show a staggering rate of growth in the eatly Elizabethan period, Cambridge rising from about 190 a year in the 1550’s to overt 300 in the 1570's, and Oxford following

the same curve as soon as tegistration starts in the 1570’s. After reaching a peak in 1575-85, numbers fell away somewhat until the accession of James, when they again shoot up. In the middle 1630’s ovet 500 men wete being matriculated each year at Oxford, which is far more than at any other period before the 1870’s. The number

of commoners at Queen’s, Oxford, rose from 14 1n 1535 to 7o in 1581 and 194 in 1612. Physical evidence of this astonishing growth is writ large in Oxford and Cambridge today in the college buildings 1 H/A 161/5; 41/1. Grosart, tstset., iv, p. 125; Vv, p. 64; 2nd ser., ili, pp. 238, 245. Northants. R.O., Westmorland MSS., Misc. Bks., 15, f. 81%. Woburn. Wynn, no. 696.

5

688 EDUCATION AND CULTURE

which were hastily erected to house this inflow. The effect of this movement on the political life of the nation is reflected in the change

in the number of university men in the House of Commons, which rose from 35 per cent. in 1593 to 57 per cent. in 1640.!

The two groups most deeply affected by this new trend were the gentry, large and small, and the professional classes, but it is clear that the peerage also felt the pull. From the admittedly incomplete matriculation registers, it looks as if the high point of | popularity with the nobility for both universities was in the 1570’s (Fig. 21).2 The great increase in the numbers of the peerage in the

Y“ —— University —-Inn of Court

3 30 seers Grand Tour 30 z

» 20 = 20 8 Ss | , fe, a. £ \ ” *s, 4 . > 7 ° Ne 2 are a é lOk -* - ~sS 2 110 o . |

hd N, Ne

1560 80 1600 20 1640 Fic, 21. Education, 1560-1639

early seventeenth century is not reflected in any proportionate rise in the number of future peers attending the universities, although under Charles I the attraction of Oxford was much higher than that of Cambridge. These young aristocrats at the universities took no degrees and lived semi-autonomous lives, often under their own private tutors, always attended by their own servants. Sometimes they were housed in the Master’s lodgings, which was one reason for the opposition

to allowing heads of colleges to marry. It was argued that ‘young students have theire myndes withdrawne from theire studies and

ate moved to unchast thoughtes by the lodginge of woemen in colleges. And this for the most parte are the sonnes of noble men 1 W. Thomas, The Historie of Italie, 1549, p. 3. J. A. Venn, Oxford and Cambridge Matriculations, 1344-1906, Cambridge, 1908. VCH Oxon., iii, p. 134. J. E. Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons, 1949, pp. 302-3. M. F. Keelet, The Long Parliament, Philadelphia, 1954, p. 27.

2 See Appendix XXXIV.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 689 and greate men most subjecte unto, who doe commonly lye in the Mastet’s lodginges.” When the Earl of Arundel sent his two sons, Lord Maltravers and William Howard, to St. John’s, Cambridge,

in 1624, they arrived like royalty. They demanded one room in college for themselves and an outer chamber with a pallet bed for their grooms, and three more rooms for their companions Lord Sandys, Mr. Borough, and Sir Henry Bourchier and their men. The

test of the company, two gentlemen, a groom of the stable, and a footman, they were content to lodge in the town. They stayed during the vacation, from 25 June to 6 August, working under a tutor, and then shook the dust of the University off their feet. Many,

like the sons of Sir George Manners of Haddon or Algernon, son and heir of the Earl of Northumberland, brought their tutors with them; others wete attached to college fellows, and it was upon the character and talents of the tutor as much as the reputation of the college as a whole that the stxteenth-century noble parent set most store.' Just what young noblemen studied at the universities is still not

clear. Though they certainly read some sections of the official : course, patticularly classical literature, logic, rhetoric, and ethics, they virtually never proceeded to a degree. Some parents were now demanding an education primarily utilitarian in character,

concentrated on the study of more recent authors and mainly conducted in English. When William Paston was up at Corpus, Cambridge, in 1625 his mother urged him to stay there ‘untill thy mind be furnished with those liberall sciences which that nurserye affordithe to the studious and best minds’. By this she presumably meant logic, rhetoric, philosophy, modern history, classical history and literature (ifnecessary in translation), English literature, modern

languages, geography and cosmography, and the principles of divinity to fortify the mind against the persuasions of the Catholics. The early-seventeenth-century universities thus housed two distinct

eroups of undergraduates pursuing two overlapping programmes of study: the younger sons of gentry and the professional and metcantile classes taking the official course with a view to acquiring the professional qualification of a degree to fit them for an academic

or clerical career; and the eldest sons of squires and noblemen studying certain parts of this official course as well as reading 1 HMC ixth Rep., App. vii, p. 257. The Eagle, xvi, 1891, pp. 149-513 xxvii, 1906, p. 3353

821314 Yy

XXXV1, I9I5, p. 121.

690 EDUCATION AND CULTURE widely in a general way to fit them for public service and to give them the polish needed for conversation in polite society in the

age of the virtuoso.! |

University education never became the siue gua non of the cultivated nobleman. Not everyone could find a progressive college

tutor willing to experiment with subjects outside the fossilized scholastic curriculum. Many were stuck with a dull conservative pedant, became bored with their studies, and took to dissipation instead. Aristocratic parents soon tealized that a good private tutor could look after the purely academic side of the educational process as well as a college fellow. All that the university had to offer was a communal discipline and social intercourse, both of which

could be had just as well in other places, at the Inns of Court or the great French academies. “Theare are but feawe nobellmen’s sonnes in Oxford,’ remarked Lady Brilliana Harley in 1638, ‘for now for the most part they send theaire sonnes into France when they ate very yonge, theare to be bred.’? At this period there were in practice not two but three universities in the kingdom. The third was the Inns of Court, whither increasing numbers of young noblemen and gentry resorted in order to study

the law and at the same time pick up some of the airs and graces of the near-by Court. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries more nobles and landed gentlemen acquired a smattering of a legal education than at any time before or possibly since.3 Indeed although the popularity of both the universities and the Inns of Court rose together, the Inns were at all times more frequented by the gentry than both the older universities put together. Peers seem to have been considerably more reluctant than the leading gentry to allow their heirs to study at the Inns of Coutt. The eldest sons of the greater gentry families in the country turn up generation after generation at the various Inns, but it is mostly _ younger sons of peers who appear there rather than their elder brothers. Between 1550 and 1639 some 90 men who became peets were admitted to an Inn (excluding purely honorary admis-

| sions), but less than 50 were the heits of peers at the time.+ Gray’s IW. T. Costello, The Scholastic Curriculum at Early Seventeenth Century Cambridge, Harvard, 1958. Curtis, op. cit., ch. v. Norfolk Record Society, xiv, 1941, p. 83. 2 Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley (Camden Soc.), 1845, p. 8. 3 P, Lucas, ‘Blackstone and the Reform of the Legal Profession’, EHR, lxxvii, 1962. 4 See Appendix XXXYV.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 691 Inn was not only the largest of the four Common Law Inns, but also by far the most popular with the aristocracy, probably mainly through assiduous propaganda and direct pressure by its enthusiastic old member, Lord Burghley. The names of 23 out of the 74 pre-1603 peerage families are to be found in its Admissions Register,

whereas only 4 appear in the Inner Temple Register and 3 in that of the Middle Temple. It is noticeable that the high peak of aristocratic attendance at the Inns is the 1570’s and 1580's, and that thereafter numbers fall off considerably. In this respect the educational trend of the aristocracy differs markedly from that of the squirearchy.

The purpose of giving a nobleman some knowledge of the law was explained by Edward Waterhouse in 1665: ‘To study and be

versed in [the laws] concerns noblemen and gentlemen above othets, as they have great estates, and great trusts in government; in which ignorance of the lawes will not well set them off.’ There was good sense in this advice, which merely echoes that of fathers

like the 4th Duke of Norfolk and Sir William Wentworth. The instructions John Manners of Haddon gave to his son George when

he went up to the Inner Temple in 1586 were to apply himself diligently to his books, to cultivate good company, and to keep himself fit by honest exercises, like dancing, tennis, running, and jumping—all of which the young man obeyed to the letter, if he

is to be believed.! By the mid-sixteenth century the formal methods of instruction at an Inn by means of boles, moots, and readings had broken down,

and we do not know how far it had been replaced by unofficial attangements with private coaches. There is certainly a good deal of satirical comment about the disorderly behaviour and exiguous knowledge of these gentlemanly students. On the other hand patents took great pains to see that their sons were closely supervised both at the university and on the Grand Tour, and it is improbable that they would have allowed them to take up residence

at an Inn, so handily situated for all the temptations of London, without making some provision for a course of reading under supervision. George Manners’s letter shows that the higher gentry and nobility were sometimes, perhaps usually, accompanied by their

private tutor, quite apart from the more expert training they often seem to have obtained from indigent young barristers. In 1540 1 E, Waterhouse, The Gentleman’s Monitor, 1665, p. 353. Nott, op. cit.i, Appendix, p. lxxxiii. Sheff CL/S 40/1. HMCR, i, pp. 195-6.

692 EDUCATION AND CULTURE William Stradling at the Middle Temple was working under an ‘overseer’ and in 1567 John Pette at the same Inn hired a Mr. Molesworth ‘for reading law unto me’. The high proportion of legal books in any contemporary library, the evident familiarity with land tenure and legal procedures displayed by so many noblemen and gentry in their day-to-day affairs, the strongly legalistic terms of reference within which the great political debates of the

day were conducted, all suggest that early-seventeenth-century landed society was deeply permeated with the factual equipment and mental attitudes of the Common Law. It is reasonable to suppose that this was acquired primarily during the period of residence at an Inn of Court.! IV. FOREIGN TRAVEL

The university or Inn of Court was by no means always the end

to the education of a nobleman. Afterwards, or instead, he was packed off abroad for two or three years. It was not till about 1530 that there developed the idea that foreign travel was an important part of training for future life. At this stage Italy was still the great intellectual power-house of Europe, and the view that learning was a desirable attribute of a gentleman inspired visits to the centre of

Greek studies. This was a short-lived phase, however, and only marginally affected aristocratic education. Far mote important was the rise of the new nation state and the new diplomacy. Since a nobleman’s function in life was to enter the administrative or political service of the Prince, he needed foreign languages and a broad knowledge of the institutions and political systems of Europe. Most of the finer accomplishments of a gentleman also could only

be acquired abroad. Riding the great horse had to be studied in Paris ot Florence, fencing, dancing, and music were best taught in France and Italy. Those few who still adhered to the medieval tradition of preparing themselves for military command had perforce to go abroad to get experience during the long periods of peace in England under Elizabeth and the Early Stuarts. The art of fortification, the techniques of siege warfare, the new tactics and strategy could only be learned in the camps of Europe. In the early 1 Le> PH VII, xv, p. 511; A. C. Edwards, English History from Essex Sources, Chelmsford, 1952, p. 29 (Lowe these references to Mr. W. R. Prest). For a more sceptical view see K. Charl-

Studies, ix, 1960-1. | ton, “Liberal Education and the Inns of Court in the Sixteenth Century’, Brit. J. Educational

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 693 seventeenth century men began to travel for a new reason, since it alone could teach them the aesthetic, art-historical, and antiquarian

knowledge and understanding which went to make a virtuoso. Five overlapping cultural ideals, those of the man of war, the man of learning, the statesman, the polished cavalier, and the virtuoso all demanded educational training abroad, and thus contrived to stimulate a remarkable growth of foreign travel among the English nobility and gentry. The admixture of these various objectives is well brought out both in the courses of study actually followed and in the numerous letters of advice that anxious parents gave their sons before they set out upon their perilous travels. In 1541 Lord Cobham instructed his son William to pray each morning, go to mass, study civil law,

rhetoric, and Greek, obey his tutor in all things, keep his body chaste, write home regularly, practise on the lute and other musical instruments, observe foreign forms and customs—and not talk too fast. At the foot of this formidable list, the boy has solemnly written :

‘I wyl performe aull thes thyngs bi the grace of God by me your sonne / Wylliam Broke.’ Alas, for the hopes of patents and the good intentions of children! When the future Lord Burghley sent his son and heir Thomas abroad in 1561 he set his sights lower, perhaps already aware of the boy’s intellectual limitations. He did not want him to be ‘scholarly learned, but civilly trained, and to have

either the French or Italian tongue’—and only a conversational facility at that.

Ten years later, when his young ward Edward Earl of Rutland was about to set off for France, Burghley set out the ideal programme for the intelligent young nobleman. Above all he was to continue in the worship and fear of God; he was to become fluent in modern languages; he was to keep a diary in which he was to set down a wide range of information: the fortifications, garrisons, and governors of towns; the administrative and judicial systems; the state of the Court with the characters and ages of the leading courtiers; the state of royal finances; details of the monetary system, the university, and the estates, finances, and administrative arrangements of the nobility. Nor was he to forget to make a note of such Roman antiquities or natural phenomena as he might come across. This letter of Lord Burghley sets a model which was to last for half a century. It is repeated in Sir Philip Sydney’s advice to his brother

Robert, in Sir Robert Dallington’s handbook for the aspiring

694 EDUCATION AND CULTURE traveller in France of 1598, in the Earl of Northumberland’s instructions to hisson Algernon, and in Bacon’s famous Essay on Travel. In

them all the objective of turning out the future ruler is clearly uppermost.!

What is notable about this programme is the absence of any mention either of the acquisition of courtly accomplishments or an

appteciation of contemporary att and architecture. The latter did not become a subject of serious study before the middle years of King James, when men like the Earl of Arundel at last began to look seriously at classical architecture and to make a collection of Renaissance paintings. The former, however, had always been an essential part of foreign travel, and one that became increasingly important in the early seventeenth century. In 1606 Thomas Palmer recommended residence abroad for the opportunities it offered to practise what he called (orribile dictu) ‘the qualities of ornation’, namely weapon-handling, music, poetry, dancing, vaulting, running, and ‘dexterity’, as well as to learn languages, the art of government,

and scientific subjects. Other subjects of study, it is interesting to note, wete now drawing (a quality of ornation) and architecture (ascience). Palmer clearly belonged to a new generation of travellers,

and his advice was followed by parents and tutors. When in about 1610 Sit Henry Slingsby dispatched his son William to the Continent, his tutor was ordered to guard his pupil’s religious ortho-

doxy, keep him to his Latin—Cato, Hsop, and Terence—teach him modern history, and always to converse with him in French ot Latin, except in emergencies. In addition the young man was to practise writing, the use of weapons, dancing, and riding, all classified by Sir Henry as “extraordinarie learninge’.? It was just these physical accomplishments which were catered for by the great Parisian academies, of which the most famous was that of M. de Pluvenel. The main emphasis of these establishments

was on riding the great horse, that extraordinary study of equestrian technique which captivated so many early-seventeenth-century minds, The art of the wanége had been one of the marks of a gentleman even in Sir Philip Sydney’s time, and the horsiness of the landed 1 Arch. Cantiana, xii, 1878, pp. 143-4. CSPF, 161-2, pp. 104-5. SP 12/77/6. HMCR, i, p. 91. CSPD, Add. 1566-79, p. 180. P. Sydney, Works, Cambridge, 1922-6, iii, pp. 130-3. Devereux, i, p. 323. F. Grose, Antiquarian Repertory, iv, pp. 374-80. R. Dallington, View of France, 1598, introduction passim. 2 T. Palmer, Essay of the Meanes how to make our Travailes into Forraine Countries the more Profitable and Honourable, 1606, pp. 35-38. Parsons, op. cit., pp. 259-64.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 695 classes was a thing of long standing. ‘If I had not beene a peece of a logician before I came to [the Imperial riding master at Vienna]

I think he would have perswaded me to have wished my selfe a horse’, remarked Sir Philip, always the intellectual among gentlemen.

The value attached to this esoteric art increased in the seventeenth century, and one of the Duke of Newcastle’s main claims to distinction was a remarkable knowledge of horses which led to his publication in 1658 of that magnificently illustrated document of human absurdity, La Méthode et Invention Nouvelle de Dresser les Chevaux.

Clarendon accurately reflected the values of his age when he described the Duke as ‘a very fine gentleman, active and full of coutage, and most accomplished in those qualities of horsemanship, dancing, and fencing which accompany a good breeding, in which his delight was’. The Parisian academies were precisely designed to turn out “fine gentlemen’. At M. de Pluvenel’s in 1610 Lord Clifford learned to tide, to fence, to dance, and to play the lute, together with a little mathematics and philosophy. He had to go elsewhere to get his French, Latin, and history. In the same year we have the scheme

of studies in Paris of another young man, the son of Sir John Puckering:

AM. 7-9: Riding |

g-11: French (reading and translating from Latin) 11-12: Weapon-handling P.M. 12-2: Dinner, then conversation or military recreation 2-3: Dancing 3-5: Latin (reading and translating into French) s—- : Supper.

Somewhat different was the training of the sons of the Earl of Mar

at Saumur, eight years later, the tutor’s report to the father now consisting of an account of progress in dancing, fencing, playing the lute, and tennis. ‘Thair is verie litill tym idillie spent’, he concluded reassuringly. In 1633 Bullen Reymes occupied himself in Paris with mathematics, Latin, Greek, and French; limning and lute-playing; vaulting, fencing, dancing, and shooting. In 1641 that “soe noble and hopefull a cavalier’, Lord Mordaunt, was busy in Paris with ‘his horsemanshippe, mathematicks, and dancing’.

Finally, let us look at the education of Sir John Reresby in 1654.

At Blois he learnt French, the guitar, and dancing; at Saumur,

696 EDUCATION AND CULTURE fencing and the lute; at Venice, mostly music, but also Italian and mathematics (particularly as applied to fortification), fencing, and dancing.?

_ If the subject-matter of education abroad passed first through a mote intellectual and then a more social and aesthetic phase, the geographical range of travel also varied with time. In the early yeats of the sixteenth century the few who travelled made for Italy.

In the middle years of the century the more protestant-minded travellers visited their co-religionaries in Germany. Under Elizabeth, however, France became the main centre of attraction, particularly the Loire valley where the best French was supposed to be spoken. Orléans, Blois, and especially Saumur must have been full of young

Englishmen in the lulls between the French civil wars. By the turn of the century the restoration of peace in France, the peace with

Spain, and a more tolerant attitude by the Papacy reopened the whole of Europe to the English traveller, and encouraged a flood of young gentlemen and noblemen to develop and then set a pattern that was to last for centuries : a winter or more on the Loire learning languages, fencing, &c.; a summer tour of southern France; a few

months in northern Italy, including Florence and Venice; a spell in Paris attending one of the academies.” One or two of these young noblemen have left sufficiently detailed accounts to enable us to follow their movements. First, a pleasure trip. In June 1605 the 23-year-old Dudley Lord North was in Antwerp, where he led a gay life, gambling, going to plays, playing tennis, and seeing the sights. The only book purchases there were Camden’s Britannia—of all things—and a new binding for a book of fortifications; from Antwerp he left for Brussels, where he lodged with the ambassador. From there he set off on tour: first via Louvain to Liége, where he visited the episcopal palace, the Abbey, and the Jesuits’ College, and played some tennis.

Then off again at a leisurely pace through Trier, Luxembourg, Thionville, Metz, and Rheims to Paris, where he arrived at the end

of July. Here he spent some months, visiting Notre-Dame, St. Denis, and St. Germain, gambling in a mild way, and playing a lot 1 Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, Oxford, 1732, p. 403. J. W. Stoye, English Travellers Abroad, 1604-1677, 1952, p. 50. HMC Mar and Kellie MSS. (Supplement), p. 83. HMC Denbigh MSS. v. p. 74. H. A. Kaufman, Conscientious Cavalier, 1962, pp. 67-71. Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, ed. A. Browning, Glasgow, 1936, pp. 4-8. 2 C. Howard, English Travellers of the Renaissance, 1914. Stoye, op. cit., passim. L, Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England, 1902, ch. iii.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 697 of tennis. Tennis, it should be said, was the great national sport of the French at this time, and according to Dallington some of the smallest towns had a court or two, Orléans had sixty, and in Paris they were counted in hundreds. When not otherwise engaged in these lighter pursuits, he bought—and perhaps even read—Plato’s Republic and a history of the Low Countries. But by and large this jaunt, which lasted from June to November, seems to have been mostly a holiday.?

Mote serious and far mote typical was the journey of Lord Cranborne and his brother Robert Cecil, which began in May 1636.

They landed at Dieppe, and after seeing the sights of Normandy and Paris, settled down for two-and-a-half months at Senlis followed by a month at Fontainebleau. They spent the winter at Saumur and the spring at Angers, and then in the summer they contracted with

a M. Mary for £500 for a five months’ conducted trip, ‘the great Tower of Fraunce’. Here at last is the Grand Tour defined by name and organized professionally by guides offering an inclusive fee for the job. Rather more details are available of other tours of the Cecil brothers. Robert and Philip, a tutor, and four servants set out in October 1638 and went straight to Paris. Here they took lodgings in a pension and started to work. Apart from what they did with their tutor, probably languages, history, and geography, they hired special

teachers for mathematics, dancing, fencing, music, and vaulting. The dancing master charged £8. 65. 8d. a month, the mathematics and fencing masters £3. 6s. 8¢., and the music and vaulting masters £1. 135. 4d. They spent fifteen months in France during which they lost £67. 3s. 8d.in gambling on tennis, cards, and dice. Despite this evidence of dissipation, in May 1641 Philtp was back again by himself for the summer in Saumur and Orléans, working under masters of Italian, defence, mathematics, dancing, drawing, and writing. This concentration on the Loire valley and Paris was by now the norm, and Viscount Dorchestet’s scheme for the young Duke of Lennox in 1632 was for a summer on the Loire, winter in Spain, spring in Italy, and the next winter in Paris.” To the anxious Protestant parent such a plan involved excessive exposure to the seductive wiles and persuasive arguments of

the Papists, and the Earl of Cork preferred to settle his sons in 1 Bodl North MSS. b 12, ff. 85-90. 2 Dallington, op. cit., sig. Vi. H/A 157/3, 161/5; Box L/10. CSPD, 1637-3, pp. 38-39.

698 EDUCATION AND CULTURE a Protestant area in charge of an impeccably orthodox tutor before letting them loose in Catholic territory. The tour of Lords Broghill and Kynalmeakey in 1637-9 therefore consisted of a summer in Geneva, a yeat’s tour of Italy and France, and winter in Paris. To

judge by what their brothers endured a year later, the stay at Geneva was anything but a holiday. They certainly learnt to dance and play tennis, but they were allowed to speak nothing but French and they studied hard: rhetoric before dinner, two chapters of the

Old Testament after; Roman history (in French) and sections of Calvin’s Catechism before supper, two chapters of the New Testament

after; family prayers morning and evening and church attendance twice a week. Inoculation against the Roman disease could go no

further. Later they still kept up their theological indoctrination but switched from rhetoric to logic and went on to history, geography, Italian, and mathematics (‘specially the knowledge of the sphera and of the architecture’). They also learnt to dance, fence, and play tennis. It was only after eighteen months or more of this severe discipline that they set out on an extensive tour, first through Italy down to Rome and Naples, then six to eight weeks in France,

followed by six months in Paris learning to dance and ride the great horse at one of the academies and seeing something of a great European court. The end result, the tutor boasted, would be ‘a perfect Cavalier’.?

The value derived from this educational process depended partly on the temperament and abilities of the young man, but even more on the strength of character of the tutor. The latter’s task was not an easy one, for his young charge was sutrounded by every temptation

to dissipation. If the boy went badly off the rails the tutor might be faced with the alternative of becoming a complacent boozing companion like Ben Jonson, whose charge once trundled him about the streets dead drunk in a cart for the amusement of the bystanders, or a carping and ineffectual nagger like Thomas Windebank with the young Thomas Cecil in 1561. As Mr. Matrcombe, the tutot to the Cork children, explained plaintively to the father, ‘the title of governour is but a vaine name, specialy when those that a man has under his charge have kept so long companie with hunters and players; . . .a gouvernor has not the power of a father’. Like the private tutor at home, these governors were often men of 1 Grosatt, Ist sef., v, pp. 11, 63, 80, 112, 117; 2nd ser., iv, pp. 5, IOI, 113, 161, 170, 172, 232, 234-5.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 699 distinction, officials like Thomas Windebank, diplomats like John Finet, who was beat-watd to Viscount Cranborne in 1608, philo-

sophers like Thomas Hobbes, who took off with the future 2nd Earl of Devonshire in 1614 and again with the 3rd Earl in 1634, clergymen like Dr. Topham, Dean of Lincoln, who was put in charge of the Duke of Lennox in 1629.! All too often their charges went to the bad despite their efforts, and concurrently with the spread of the fashion for travel among the nobility there grew up an increasingly vociferous opposition to it. The first element in this hostility was a by-product of that strident jingoism which echoes again and again in later Elizabethan literature. Lord Burghley wanted noblemen first to know their own country, its architecture and antiquities, before rushing off to see the sights abroad, and is said to have refused them passports if they displayed

ignorance of English history. At the conclusion of his letter of advice on foreign travel to Edward Earl of Rutland he remarked hopefully: ‘I trust none of all these thynges above sayd shall more content you then ye state of your natyve contty if the same wer only revealed and knone to you.’ In the early seventeenth century Bishop Hall took up this theme, pointing out that Camden and Speed had now provided some excellent guidebooks and maps to make easy the path of the tourist in England. There was indeed some substance in these complaints and it was probably true in 1630—as it is again today—that many young gentlemen were more familiar with the Pont-du-Gard, St. Denis, and the Chateau at Blois, than they were with Hadrian’s Wall, Rievaulx Abbey, or Audley End.?

The second and more common charge was that travel merely taught new vices and deplorable foreign fashion. The playwrights wete quick to exploit this vein of satire. Shakespeare spoke of our travell’d gallants That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors.

Marston asked Didst thou to Venice go ought else to have But buy a lute and use a courtesan?... And now from thence what hither dost thou bring,

But surphulings, new paints, and poisoning, 1 Herford and Simpson, op. cit. i, p. 140. CSPD, 1747-80, pp. 176-217 passim. Grosart, 2nd ser., ili, pp. 280-1. CSPD, 1629-31, p. 67. 2 H. Peacham, The Complete Gentleman, p. 51. Memoirs of Bulstrode Whitelocke, 1860, p. 17. SP 12/77/6. J. Hall, Quo Vadis, 1617.

700 EDUCATION AND CULTURE Aretine’s pictures, some strange luxury, And new found use of Venice venery ?

Beaumont and Fletcher thought little good could come of a ‘year spent in tennis and broken speech’, and Nash defined the benefits of travel as an ability ‘to knowe a cup of neate Gascoigne wine from wine of Orleance; ... . to esteeme of the pox as a pimple, to weate a

velvet patch on their face, and walk melancholy with their armes folded’. Italy was particularly disliked, as a menace to both body and soul. It was no longer admired as a centre of classical scholarship and was

only just beginning to be valued for its wealth of art and architecture. It was reputed to offer facilities for every variety of hetero-

sexual perversion as well as to be the main European stronghold of homosexuality. Francis Osborne warned that: “Who travells Italy, handsome, young and beardlesse, may need as much caution and citcumspection to protect him from the lust of men as the affections of women.’ It was the home of Macchiavelli and so of subversive and cynical political attitudes. And lastly it was a standing threat to the religious constancy of Protestants, who were liable to be dazzled by the aesthetic splendours of the CounterReformation Church, overwhelmed by the grandeur of popes, catdinals, and prince-bishops, and quite incapable of refuting the subtle arguments of the Jesuits and other Catholic evangelists. The golden rule for travel was never to be lured into discussion about religion, and the English government tried, somewhat ineffectually, to make things doubly sure by excluding Rome from the places which

a tourist was permitted to visit. Nor was Italy physically entirely safe for Protestants, for although noblemen were left alone by the Inquisition, their tutors were not. In 1607 Mr. Mole, governor of Lord Roos, was arrested in Rome and left to rot in prison for thirty years. A few years later the 4th Lord Wentworth’s tutor was arrested at Bologna, and only saved himself from the fate of Mr. Mole by becoming a Jesuit.? As aresult, some parents and advisers turned their faces resolutely against all travel in general, and travel to Italy in particular. In 1570 Roger Ascham violently denounced ‘an English man Italianated’ “TW. Shakespeare, Henry VIII, 1. iii. J. Marston, Safires, ii, UL. 140-6. F , Beaumont and J. Fletcher, The Scornful Lady, 1, i..T. Nash, The Unfortunate Traveller, in Works, ed. McKerrow,

1958, ii, p. 300. F. Osborne, Advice to a Son, 1656, p. 84. L. P, Smith, Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, Oxford, 1907, i, pp. 456-7. ,

EDUCATION AND CULTURE j01 as one who brings home ‘the religion, the learning, the policie, the experience of Italie. That is to say, for religion, Papistrie or worse; for learnyng, lesse commonly than they carried out with them; for pollicie, a factious hart, a discoursing head, a mynde to medle in all mens matters; for experience, plentie of new mischieves

nevet knowne in England before; for maners, variety of vanities and chaunge of filthy lyving.’ Some years later Lord Burghley pleaded with his son and other prospective parents : ‘suffer not thy sonnes to pass the Alpes.’ By 1632 Sir John Strode was telling his son to avoid foreign travel altogether, since every country had its defects, and in 1665 Edward Waterhouse summed up a century of mounting irritation with foreigners and their ways: ‘the less youth knows of the levity, liberty, shifts, prophaneness, atheism, subtilty, and lubricity of other nations, the more ate they probable to be solid, circumspect, plain, devout, pious, modest.’! This educational pattern was restricted by its high cost to the leading county families and the aristocracy. In the 1570’s Lord North spent about {160 a year and Robert, second son of Sir Henry Sydney, was given {100 a year; twenty years later Sir Robert Dallington reckoned that a gentleman by himself would just manage

on £80, but that if he took a servant and learnt to ride the great horse it would cost him {150. When the system really got going in the next decades, costs rose rapidly. In the 1630’s the Earl of Cork gave his eldest son {750 a year and two younger ones £500; at the same period the Earl of Salisbury allowed his two elder sons £1,500

a yeat between them and two younger ones {1,200.2 One cause for the high cost was the fact that a nobleman could not travel light. A mere gentleman could move around with one or two -setvants, but if a peer was to maintain status he had to have at least ten attendants at his heels. The greatest spendthrift tourist of all was Edward Earl of Oxford, who in fourteen months in 1575-6 was sent no less than £4,561. In 1597 Roger Earl of Rutland was sent £1,436 in a year, and in 1629 the Duke of Lennox claimed that he could not live on £2,000 and asked for [2,500.3 To judge from the scanty evidence available, it looks as if there was a trickle of peers and heirs of peers abroad during the 1570's 1 Ascham, op. cit., p. 78. Peck, 1. i, p. 65. Waterhouse, op. cit., p. 350. 2 Collins, i, p. 272. Dallington, op. cit., introduction, sig. C. Grosart, Ist ser., ili, p. 144; 1V, p. 195. H/A 157/3. 3 HMCS, vi, p. 264. Stopes, p. 116. CSPD, 1629-31, pp. 67, 3453 1631-3, p. 191. HMCR, iv, p. 411.

7o2 EDUCATION AND CULTURE and 1580’s, which began to swell after about 1594 as peace returned to France.'! The quarter of a century between 1594 and 1620 seems

to have been the most active period of education by travel by the peerage, and the one when the Grand Tour took shape. Though

it was to pick up again in the 1630's, the pace slackened in the 1620°s, presumably because of the rumblings of the Thirty Years War, mounting fears of the dangers of conversion to Catholicism tesulting from some unfortunate examples like Lord Roos, and the publicity given to the satirists’ criticisms of the debauchery and vanity of the returned traveller. Between 1570 and 1639 about 150

peers went to Oxford or Cambridge and about 75 to the Inns of Court. During the same period, about 65 ate known to have spent two ot three years on an educational tour abroad, and the true number is probably nearer 80 or more (Fig. 21, p. 688). V. THE CULTURAL EFFECTS OF EDUCATION

The new educational pattern of the aristocracy made a revolutionary impact upon English culture. In the Middle Ages authorship had been virtually confined to the ranks of the clergy, who had formed an intellectual and managerial é4te working for and under the direction of their masters, the King and the nobles. In the late sixteenth century the situation was very different. The secular

tulers of the State were now highly educated men capable of evaluating problems and situations in intellectual rather than intuitive terms. The character of their training and theit need to undetrstand the issues at stake in the great theological debate encouraged

men of property and power to turn to their books for enlightenment. In all our history there have never been such well-educated and scholarly kings and queens as Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth, and James I, while only Henry HI and George IV can rival Charles I for knowledge and appreciation of the arts. Peers, statesmen, and courtiers were not only personally interested

in things of the mind; by force of circumstance they wete left to shoulder the burden of scholarly and artistic patronage. In the Middle Ages the greatest patrons of arts and letters had been the King and the higher clergy. It was they who planned and built the

great cathedrals, commissioned the sculpture to adorn them, and maintained in their households scholars to write books and artists t See Appendix XXXVI,

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 703 to execute manuscript illuminations. The feudal aristocracy had played a part in this system by hitching scholars and poets to their entourage, in much the same way as they collected dwarfs and fools. But as late as the days of Wolsey their patronage had been of less importance than that of the bishops, and it was only after 1530 that

the roles were reversed. Archbishop Parker was an important collector of manuscripts, Archbishop Laud the builder of the quadrangle at St. John’s College, Oxford, which bears his name, but by and large bishops were now a negligible force in English cultural

life. Nor was the Crown any longer the great patron of arts and letters. Henry VII had led the country with his chapel and tomb at Westminster, Henry VII with his spectacular palace of Nonsuch. But until the building of the Banqueting Hall ninety years later, the Crown fell out of the running as a patron of the arts. Henry VIII had been generous in his encouragement of intellectuals, whom he hoped to use to advance his political ambitions, but for all her own mental accomplishments Elizabeth did little or nothing in the way of literary or scholarly patronage. (1) Literature and Scholarship

By the eighteenth century poets, playwrights, scholars, and theologians could stand on their own feet and live off the public at large. The more successful playwrights and acting companies could appeal directly to the public by about 1600, but other authors and attists remained dependent on wealthy patrons until the end of the seventeenth centuty. The invention of the printing-press and the spread of literacy had produced a spate of authors out of all proportion to the increase in patrons. ‘The multitude of writers of out age hath begotten a scarcitie of patrons’, lamented Thomas Evans in 1615. Men now sought a patron not in order to find shelter and food under his roof but to secure protection from clerical and governmental censorship, and the necessary leverage to thrust them into

comfortable jobs in the Church, the universities, and the royal administration. With the ramifying extensions of the clientage system into every sphere of private and public power and office, the role of

the patron had become less that of a dispenser of cash or food, and

mote that of a puller of strings. So far from being a period of decadence in the medieval tradition of literary patronage, this was in fact its Indian summer. Rarely, if ever, had a noble patron been so

704 EDUCATION AND CULTURE essential to an author, and as a result ‘much of the literature of the

time bears distinctly the impression of the personalities and the expression of the tastes of the patrons’. The ties of patronage were now much looser, more multiple, more transitory than they had been in the Middle Ages. Authots no longer spent their lives in the retinue of a single nobleman; they now hunted widely for protection and advancement in an increasingly competitive situation. This fluidity meant that they were often insecure and unhappy, and tended to alternate between abusive complaint and grovelling

sycophancy. |

The literary and scholarly output of the day was governed by a series of factors, of which the invention of the printing-press and the growth of a large reading public of gentlemen, urban bourgeoisie, and artisans was only one. The others, which are all concerned with

the system of patronage, were the importation from Italy of a new

conception of the attributes of a gentleman, and the consequent pursuit of scholarly interests and artistic appreciation; the tise of the nation state, and the consequent demand for patriotic propaganda;

the growth of the Court and the consequent demand for sophisticated entertainment; the struggle of rival creeds for the capture of men’s minds, and the consequent demand for ideological propaganda; and the devolution of responsibility for patronage from the Queen to her leading courtiers, which allowed for the free expression

of a wide diversity of opinion following the personal predilections

ofManythe individual patrons.? | noblemen were now men of letters, scholars, and connois-

seuts in their own right and therefore only too willing to act the part of Maecenas. From the Earl of Surrey under Henry VIII to the Earl of Oxford under Elizabeth, noblemen had a greater share in the production of English imaginative literature than at any time before or since. The influence of the Sydney family was particularly important. Sir Philip Sydney himself was a major figure in the development of Early Elizabethan literature. His sister, Mary

Countess of Pembroke, wrote pastorals, his daughter, Elizabeth Countess of Rutland, and his nephew, William Earl of Pembroke, were also poets, his niece Lady Mary Wroth was the author of Urania. The Herberts and Sydneys kept open house to the intelligentsia at Wilton and Penshurst, and were directly responsible for - ¥ P, Thomson, ‘The Literature of Pattonage, 1580-1630’, Essays in Criticism, ti, 19§2, Pp. 270. E. Rosenberg, Leicester: Patron of Letters, New York, 1955, ch. i.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 405 the growth of arcadian romances and pastoral poetry.! In a lesser key busy statesmen like Lord Buckhurst wrote tragedies, idle menabout-town like the Earl of Oxford wrote comedies, both of which were highly thought of at the time. Performance as well as patronage were attributes of the Renaissance courtier. Although literature of the imagination bulks large in the eyes of posterity, in fact it represented only a tiny fraction of the output of the presses. Most published work was theological, historical, political, legal, or scientific in content. Many noblemen were passionately

interested in theology. The 8th Lord Stourton was the author of two treatises on religion, the 4th Earl of Bedford of ten folio volumes of theological reflections. The 8th Lord Mountjoy was an enthusiastic student of divinity, especially of the Fathers and the

Schoolmen. Fynes Moryson thought him ‘the best divine I ever heard argue, especially for disputing against the Papists’, a talent he

put to good use in dissuading his mistress, Penelope Lady Rich, from succumbing to the blandishments of the Jesuits. The 9th Earl of Northumberland prepared a vast treatise on the art of war; his fellow prisoner in the Tower, the 14th Lord Grey of Wilton, was ‘knowing both in Latin and Greeke and in the modderne languages’ and was interested in scientific geography.’ In the days before bibliophily developed as a collecting mania in its own right, the possession of a substantial library may reasonably be taken as proof of intellectual interests. Some of the great libraries

of the age were assembled by professionals like the scientist Dr. Dee (2,600 books and manuscripts), the theologians Archbishops Whiteift and Bancroft (6,000 books and manuscripts between them),

the lawyer Sir Edward Coke (1,200 books and manuscripts, or the don Dr. John Rainolds, President of Corpus, Oxford, (1,800 books and manuscripts). Many more, however, were built up by peers and leading gentry. When Lord Burghley died in 1598 his library must have been among the largest in the country. But the ereatest of all was the collection of John Lord Lumley, who at his death in 1609 owned 3,600 books and manuscripts, some of them admittedly inherited from Archbishop Cranmer and his father-in-law 1 Thomson, op. cit., pp. 275-8. D. Taylor, “The 3rd earl of Pembroke as a Patron of Poetry’, Tulane Studies in English, v, 1955.

2 C. J. B. Stourton, History of the Noble House of Stourton, 1899, pp. 411-13. Scott Thomson,

op. cit., p. 36. P. Caraman, John Gerard, 1951, pp. 34-35. Batho, op. cit., pp. 248-50. Bodl Carte MSS. 77, f. 52. 3S. Jayne, Library Catalogues of the English Renaissance, Berkeley, 1956, pp. 125, 139, 142. W. O. Hassall, A Catalogue of the Library of Sir Edward Coke (Yale Law Libr. Publ., 12), 1950.

821314 ZZ

706 EDUCATION AND CULUTRE Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl ofArundel. Besides these two outstanding libraries, there is firm evidence that between 1580 and 1640 at least

a dozen noblemen were the ownets of several hundreds of books, and the true figure must be very much larger.1 Even more modest collectors took great pride in their libraries, as is proved by the fact that many of them mentioned their books specifically in their wills. Oliver Viscount Grandison bequeathed as an heirloom “all my books as I have callindered them alphabetically after every letter subscribed with my hand’.? Some Elizabethan Puritans like the Duchess of Suffolk and the and Earl of Bedford valued their books chiefly for their theological content. So subversive was the Duchess’s collection that it was kept

locked up in a chest under the seal of the Bishop of Lincoln. Bedford’s collection, which he left to Lord Burghley, was more innocuous, though it included the works of John Wyclif and other early reformers. Catholics like Anthony Viscount Montagu probably also regarded their libraries primarily as a soutce of inspiration for their faith. Lawyers like James Earl of Marlborough, Thomas

Lord Coventty, and Henry Earl of Manchester made what must have been primarily professional collections of law books, and disposed of them accordingly.

The few major libraries of which we have record, however, covet a huge variety of subjects, and give proof of that polymathic breadth of intellectual interests so characteristic of this unspecialized age. In 1566 Sit Thomas Smith owned some 60 books on theology; 50 on civil law, 100 on history, 70 on philosophy, 5o on mathematics,

20 on medicine, and 60 on grammar and poetry. This was a fair sample of a large library, except that the theological section was unduly skimpy. That of Smith only amounted to one-seventh of the whole, whereas in the libraries of Robert Earl of Salisbury, William Lord Paget, and Sir Edward Coke it came to about a quarter, and in that of John Lord Lumley to a third. Theology,

1 See Appendix XXXVI. ,

2 Books were mentioned in the wills of Lucy Lady Latimer in 1582, Francis Earl of Bedford in 1584, Peregrine Lord Willoughby d’Eresby in 1590, Anthony Viscount Montagu in 1592, Christopher Lord Teynham in 1622, James Earl of Marlborough and George Earl of Totnes in 1625, William Earl of Devonshire in 1628, Oliver Viscount Grandison in 1630, Thomas Lord Coventry in 1638, Thomas Earl of Winchilsea in 1639, Henry Earl of Manchester in 1641, and Thomas Lord Windsor in 1641 (PCC 16 Rowe, 45 Windsor, 58 Woodhall, 22 Neville, 54 Savile, 27 and 36 Ridley, 68 Barrington, 1 St. John, 1 and 136 Coventry, 47

Rivers, 12 Campbell).

3 Notts. R.O., DDSR 215/62. M. St. Clare Byrne and G. Scott Thomson, ‘ “My Lord’s / Books” ’, Review of English Studies, vii, 1931. PCC 22 Neville, 1 St. John, 27 Ridley, 1 Coventry.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 707 history, and law together formed nearly two-thirds of all the big libraries of which we have record. One of the most interesting collections is that of Lord Paget, which in a catalogue of 1617 was classified under headings of theology, law, history, philosophy, medicine and chemistry, mathematics (including architecture), grammar and vocabulary, rhetoric, logic, poetry, war and fortification, letter-writers, and miscellaneous. The last embraced books on such diverse matters as chess and duelling, the use of the silkworm and the Satyricon of Petronius. Even that monster of legal erudition Sir Edward Coke built up a library which spanned very nearly as wide a range of subjects; the fact that he looked on them all primarily as ‘handmaides to the knowledge of the lawes’ does nothing to detract from his unexpected breadth of vision. Of the many small noble collections of books, that in the library of the Earl of Thanet in 1664 may perhaps stand as an example. There were about roo books in all, including a number of chronicles and histories, a dictionary and a lexicon, fifteen books of Latin and French, five law books, a book of statutes of the realm, Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, and the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher—a useful working library for a fairly cultivated man of affairs.} The direction and scope of aristocratic patronage of living authors was in part inspired by this genuine love of letters and scholarship.

It also had less disinterested motives. Some noblemen may have come close to Dr. Johnson’s definition of a patron as ‘commonly a wtetch who suppotts with insolence and is paid with flattery’. Hardly a book appeared from the press without a dedication to some courtly or aristocratic figure—the Fuerte Oueen was not only dedicated to the Queen herself, but underwritten by the inclusion of sonnets to no fewer than sixteen influential persons and “all the gratious and beautifull ladies in the Court’. Spenser was taking no chances. Noblemen rarely refused these public offerings, for by them authors

‘not only shield and succour their cause, but also advaunce their patrons’ name with high renoune thorowout al posteritie’. Shakespeare reminded his readers that giving a lift to a great poet could be a more durable investment than sinking capital in a great tomb: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rime. 1 J. Strype, Life of Sir Thomas Smith, 1820, p. 274. S. Jayne and F. R. Johnson, eds., The Lumley Library, The Catalogue of 1609, 1956. H/Box D/3. BM Harl. MSS. 3267. Hassall, op. cit. Kent R.O., Tufton MSS. E 1.

708 EDUCATION AND CULTURE Not all relationships were as happy and intimate as those of Ben Jonson with the Sydneys, and some, like that of Timon of Athens with his tame poet and painter, were based on nothing more than

a desire for adulation on the one side and a desire for money on the other. ‘He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ the flatterer.’ On the other hand it must be remembered that Elizabethans took flattery in their stride as a natural by-product of the social system and the emphasis placed on the art of rhetoric in university education. As Miss Rosenberg has remarked: “The Elizabethan patron expected—and teceived—praise; this does not belie either his protégé’s respect or his own generous interest in literature.’”! The occasional outbursts of exasperated gentus or frustrated mediocrity should not be taken too seriously as evidence that patron—author relations were always exclusively mercenaty and self-seeking. Apart from this titillation of the ego, a desire to promote public

causes in which they were concerned was another and equally important motive behind aristocratic support of authors. Much of Leicestet’s wide-ranging patronage was inspired by a desire to encourage moderate puritanism at home and military aggression abroad. If he also allowed dedications to be made to him by translators from the classics, educational reformers like Richard Mulcaster, scholars like Alberico Gentile, scientists like Thomas Digges,

and poets like Spenser, this all forwarded his ambition to build

, a network of supporters throughout the world of intellect.2 The clientage system dominated scholarship and letters as well as elections to the House of Commons; both were aspects of the new

structure of politics and the new role played in it by the Court atistocracy.

, Another element in the patronage system was the demand by the Court for entertainment. Either for reasons of economy or from

an ingrained love of indirection and ostensible delegation of responsibility, Elizabeth herself was reluctant openly to support actots and masques. The burden therefore fell on her leading courtiers. So far as the playets were concerned, an influential patron was essential to keep them from being flogged as vagrants, and to prevent puritanical town authorities from closing down their theatres. Financial support was again less important than political i W. Shakespeare, Sonnets, lv; Timon of Athens, 1, 1. Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 14.

2 Ibid., passim. The full significance of this system of literary patronage will only become | apparent after prolonged study of F. B. Williams, Index of Dedications and Commendatory Verses in British Books before 1641, 1962.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 709 influence. As a tesult the history of the Elizabethan stage is the history of the Companies belonging to the Earls of Oxford, Warwick, Leicester, Worcester, Derby, Shrewsbury, Nottingham, and others.!

Of course willingness to take on a theatrical company was not motivated exclusively by disinterested love of the stage. The players wete travelling advertisements for the greater glory of their patrons and it became a question of status to have a company to one’s name.

On the other hand it would be a mistake to suppose that these noblemen took no interest in their protégés’ activities. There 1s plenty of evidence to prove that many put a good deal of time, energy, and money behind these theatrical ventures. Leicester was prepared to risk the fulmination of his puritan allies for the sake of his Company. Southampton and Oxford were keenly interested in the theatre, and William Earl of Derby’s wife encouraged him in this relatively harmless and inexpensive pursuit in order to keep him out of worse mischief.” If the Elizabethan stage owed much to aristocratic patronage, the Jacobean masque owed it everything. It was the enthusiasm of the ~ Jacobean Court ladies, now headed by Queen Anne, which led to the flowering in England of this strange Italian mixture of singing, dancing, music, acting, and painting, laced with allegory.3 That the ladies managed to find two men of gentus in Inigo Jones and Ben

Jonson to satisfy their requirements was an accidental bonus of the gods. The literary, theatrical, and scholarly flowering of the Elizabethan age owed more than mete permission to function to the enlightened

patronage of the aristocracy. The delegation of this duty by the Prince to his courtiers and the financial and moral attrition of the clergy left the nobles alone in the field. They beat off attacks from clerical censorship against doctrinal eccentricity; they defied puritan

protests against the paganism of poetry and the immorality of the theatre; they jobbed their protégés into royal or clerical or academic offices. Because of the diversity of their interests, almost every branch of scholarship received encouragement from someone; 1 E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, Oxford, 1923. J. T. Murray, English Dramatic Companies, 1558-1642, 1910. G. E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, Oxford, 1941.

2 Rosenberg, op. cit., pp. 254, 303-6. Ward, pp. 264-82. Stopes, p. 162. 3 J. R. A. Nicoll, Stuart Masques and the Renaissance Stage, 1937. E. Welsford, The Court Masque, Cambridge, 1927. C. F. Bell and P. Simpson, ‘The Masque designs of Inigo Jones’, Walpole Soc, xii, 1924,

710 EDUCATION AND CULTURE because of the diversity of their views, English literature and the English stage were allowed to develop in comparative freedom, the only—but important—inhibition being against radical criticism of the existing social order: Crown, Court, and peerage could not be touched. (2) Architecture and Painting

In the early seventeenth century education ceased to be so exclusively scholarly and began to be mote aesthetic in content. It is no accident that the learned King James was succeeded by the attistic King Charles. Appreciation and knowledge of the arts was now one of the hall-marks of a gentleman, and even the practice of the arts ceased to be despised. A gentleman, Epiphanius Evesham,

was the best sculptor in Early Stuart England; a knight, Sir Nathaniel Bacon, was one of the best painters; another, Sir Roger Pratt, was shortly to emerge as one of the most progressive of midseventeenth-century architects. Patrons played an unusually large part in architectural design at

this period. This was firstly because the jobbing architect-builder could no longer blind his employer with the now valueless science of medieval building craftsmanship. Secondly, most of the ideas for

new buildings now came from books in foreign languages in the libraries of the employers, who alone had sufficient linguistic and mathematical education to understand them. As a result the role of the architect sank, that of the patron increased. This dependence for designs upon books is not difficult to document. Early in the reien of Elizabeth, Burghley, then busy at work on Burghley House, asked the English ambassador in Paris to procure him the two books

on architecture by Philibert de ’Orme, and there is plenty of evidence to show how he derived his ideas from books and imposed

them upon his buildings. So great was his reputation as an architectural expert that his advice was widely sought after by friends like Sir Christopher Hatton and George Earl of Shrewsbury. The

4th Lord Paget owned eight books on architecture including Vitruvius, Alberti, Scamozzi, and Shute; the 9th Earl of Northumberland proved his interest by annotating his copies of Vitruvius,

Alberti, Palladio, du Cerceau, and Vredeman de Vries, and when his friend John Holles, future Earl of Clate, was about to build, he lent him a small library of books from which to compose his design.

When Lord Zouche was contemplating building in 1590, his first

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 711 step was to try to obtain a plan of the Emperor Maximilian II’s Lustschloss at Schénbrunn.! The relationship of patron and architect was clearly very different

from that which had prevailed in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy, and was to prevail in England by the late seventeenth century.

When we admire and puzzle over the cold symmetry of Longleat ot the gilded domes of Burghley House, it is to their owners that we must turn for enlightenment. The plan and the style of these Elizabethan palaces reflect the ambitions, the needs, the personal tastes, and the learning of men like Sir John Thynne and William Lord Burghley more than that of the shadowy, often nameless, architects of surveyors. The architecture of this period can best be understood if its most impressive achievements ate viewed as means of satisfying the

social and psychological needs of the same restricted group of noblemen and courtiers which exercised such influence over literature and the theatre.* The distinction between ‘Court’ and ‘Country’ is here fundamental. With no royal palaces being built, and church building at a complete standstill, architectural interest focused on the great mansions of the courtiers, which developed on lines very

different from those of the mote modest houses of the country gentry (who were themselves building on a scale they had never attempted before or wete to attempt again). To entertain the Queen, to improve their status, and to satisfy their competitive urges, the

great courtiers embarked upon the “prodigy houses’ of the age. These immense constructions differed from normal country houses in planning, in organization, and in style. On two separate occasions, in the reigns of Edward VI and Charles I, court magnates attempted to wrench England out of her insularity and force her to conform to the architectural ideals of the Renaissance. On the first, a tiny Protestant coterie who seized and held power between 1547 and 1553, notably the Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland, Sir William Sharington, and Sir John Thynne, adopted what was for England a very advanced style of classical architecture and sculpture, examples of which are to be seen at Lacock and Longleat. But their taste was too far in advance 1 Cabala, pp. 152-3. Hatton, p. 124. Talbot P, f. 837. BM Harl. MSS. 3267. Batho, op. cit., pp. 255, 259-60. HMC Portland MSS. ix, p. 152. Smith, op. cit. i, pp. 246, 247, 250, 258, 261,

an Mercer, English Art, 1553-1625, Oxford, 1962, passim. M. Whinney and O, Millar, English Art, 1625-1714, Oxford, 1957, ch. i.

712 EDUCATION AND CULTURE of that of their contemporaries, they held power for only a brief six years, and in consequence their innovations fell on stony ground.

Sixty years later, in the 1620’s and 1630’s, the Court aristocracy

again tried to introduce classical architecture into England by taking up and encouraging a man of genius, Inigo Jones. The Banqueting House, the Queen’s House at Greenwich, and the Queen’s Chapel, Marlborough Gate, were actually built, and if only

he had had the money Charles would have gone ahead with the design by Jones for a vast new palace at Westminster to rival the Louvre. Impressed by Italian town-planning at Livorno, Turin, and elsewhere, and no doubt also by the Place des Vosges in Paris,

the Earl of Arundel persuaded the King to set up a commission effectively directed by Jones to supervise the style and materials used in new building in London. The purpose of the commission was to give London some imposing piazzas worthy of a capital city, and the result was Covent Garden. In the country Jones began

putting a vast Italianate facade on the old house at Wilton of the ereat courtier, Philip Earl of Pembroke, only to abandon it halfway when the money tan out. Meanwhile the country gentry continued to put up their conventional, comfortable Jacobethan houses as if these revolutionary buildings did not exist. They associated Inigo Jones with the popery,

tyranny, and vice which they believed to be the predominant characteristics of the Caroline Court. They would have none of them, and England had to wait for Lord Burlington before it received Palladio. In the 1630's, as in the 1550’s, the architectural innovations of an advanced court citcle were rejected by the country at large. As Mr. Mercer has pointed out, the only dif-

ference between the two groups of patrons is that the one was branded as too radical in politics and religion, the other as too

teactionaty. |

Though intrinsically a mote personal activity than architecture, easel painting at this period was scatcely less dependent on social and political conditions, and was functional rather than aesthetic in purpose. Noblemen and gentlemen wanted above all formal family portraits, which take their place along with genealogical trees and sumptuous tombs as symptoms of the frenzied status-seeking and

ancestor-wotship of the age. What patrons demanded was evidence of the sitter’s position and wealth by the opulence of dress, ornament, and background, rather than psychological penetration

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 713 into his character. The result was a huge output of facile, glossy,

linear portraits which could be hung up about the house, the sixteenth-centuty equivalent of the ‘studio’ photographs of today. For the average country gentleman or even nobleman, a handful of pictures of himself and his close relatives was enough. He had no further ambitions.

The great court magnates, however, had other interests. The new diplomacy with its interminable series of high-level negotiations created a demand among politicians for pictures of foreign princes and statesmen, so that a face could be attached to a document ot a political upheaval. The huge collection of drawings assembled

by Catherine de Medici served just such a purpose, and many English privy councillors owned similar if more modest collections. Leicester collected portraits of the leading Dutch political figures

with whom he had to deal during his stay in the Netherlands; Sir Christopher Hatton owned five knights of the Golden Fleece and

‘the frenche kinge’ (Louis XIII?).! Secondly, the growing cult of monarchy which was so important a feature of the new nation state induced noblemen to equip their houses with portraits of the reigning sovereign and his immediate ancestors. The innumerable pictures of Elizabeth and James which are to be found in almost evety gteat house in the country are the by-products of emergent theories of divine right. Thirdly, the classical bias and humanistic emphasis on the hero in contemporary education gave rise to a fashion for portraits of

worthies, and particularly of Roman emperors. The 9th Earl of Northumberland bought twenty-four pictures of the emperors of Rome for {1 apiece in 1586, Leicester owned portraits of Alexander the Great and Caesar, one of the earls of Pembroke acquited pictutes of the twelve Caesars.” Fourthly, there was a select

market for refined pornography thinly disguised as scenes from classical mythology or occasionally the Bible. Courtiers collected pictures which were almost certainly foreign imports, but which from

the lack of attribution must have been cherished more for their

subject-matter than their artistic merit. In his London house Leicester

could show his mistress pictures of Cupid and Venus or Diana bathing with her nymphs; Somerset could take his lubricious wife 1 Notes and Queries, 3td set., ii, 1862, pp. 201-2, 224-6. Northants. R.O., Finch-Hatton MSS.

ae Mercer, op. Cit., pp. 145-52. G. R. Batho, The Household Papers of Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland (Camden Soc. xcitt), 1962, p. 75. Notes and Queries, loc, cit. H/A 63/21.

714 EDUCATION AND CULTURE for a stroll down his bowling alley lined with pictures of Bacchus, Venus and Cupid, Venus and Ceres, Venus and Adonis, and Susanna

and the Elders.

The amassing of a substantial collection of pictures was delayed for a long time by the problem of where to hang them. The early

sixteenth century saw a major attack on cold and draughts by covering all available wall-surfaces with painted cloths, buckram, and tapestries. So long as the nobility stuck to tapestries as the most expensive and most sumptuous of wall decorations, little room was

left for the display of pictures. It was, therefore, quite late in Elizabeth’s reign before large collections began to be made, even by the aristocracy. If the inventories are to be trusted, the 3rd Duke of Norfolk kept no pictures at Kenninghall in 1546, and even in 1571 the 4th Duke had nothing there except portraits of his grandfather

and eleven kings and queens. There ate no pictures listed in an inventory made in 1582 of the contents of Sheffield Castle, seat of George Earl of Shrewsbury, and the 3rd Lord Paget certainly had none at either of his country houses in 1584. As late as 1600 John, futute 1st Lord Petre, had no pictures at all at Ingatestone except in the Long Gallery. There he could show his guests his father Sir William, Henry V and Henry VUI, Cleopatra and Diana, a male and a female Turk, and nine painted shields with posies. Not a very

impressive collection, and yet richer than that of the 11th Lord Willoughby d’Eresby at the same date, which consisted of pictures of the owner, his wife, and St. John the Baptist.? The first really large collection of which we have record is that

of Robert Earl of Leicester, who died in 1588 owning some 180 pictures distributed between Leicester House in London, Wanstead,

' and Kenilworth. John Lord Lumley possessed about 230 (nearly all porttaits) at the same time, and 15 years later Henry Lord Cobham had 77 at Cobham Hall and Blackfriars. In 1614 Henry

Earl of Northampton died owning about 100 pictures in his London house alone; in 1629 there were 33 pictures at Apethorpe

belonging to Francis Earl of Westmorland; in 1632 the old oth Earl of Northumberland had crammed as many as 78 into his library at Petworth—presumably miniatures and small portraits— though there was not a single picture elsewhere in the house.3 t Notes and Queries, loc. cit. A. J. Kempe, The Loseley MSS., 1836, pp. 407-8. 2 LR 2/115. SP 12/81/28 (1). Talbot G, f. 150. E 101/521/20. Ingatestone Hall in 1600, 1954, Essex Record Office Publications, no, 22. Lincs. R.O., 1 Anc. 10 A 9.

3 Notes and Queries, loc. cit. Walpole Soc. vi, 1917-18, pp. 21-28. BM Lansd. MSS. 168,

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 715 These collections of pictures by noblemen of the Early Stuart period are infinitely larger than any in the possession of mete gentry. But they are still very moderate in size compared with some of the great aristocratic collections of the late seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries, and there can be little doubt that the vast majority of the pictures in them were low-grade, hack portraits of relatives and notables, dead or alive. If Lord Lumley possessed the odd Diirer, Mor, and Holbein, this was incidental to the subjects. The pleasure to be derived from them was social and utilitarian rather than visual. It was not until the arrival of Van Dyck that the courtiers found

an attist who could at last satisfy both their functional desire for glamorous portraiture and their rising standard of aesthetic appreciation. (3) The Virtuoso

The early seventeenth century saw the emergence of the new cultural ideal of the virtuoso, a concept which deserves some attention.! A virtuoso is one whose main concern in life is with scientific

experiment and the collecting of natural or artificial curiosities, with antiquarian research, with aesthetic appreciation, and with the purchase of antique sculpture and old masters. He is a gentleman of leisure whose ambition is to deepen his appreciation of the arts and build up a famous collection. He is primarily concerned with himself, and no longer seeks to be of service to Prince or Commonweal, One cause of this striking change in aspirations was the shortage of posts in royal service. Since only a diminishing minority could

hope to find useful employment, there was a compelling need to find an emotionally satisfying alternative. Another was the spread of topographical and genealogical researches by men like Speed, Camden, and Dugdale, which stimulated interest in antiquarian pursuits. Aristocratic dabbling in semi-scientific experiment has a long history behind it, and in the mid-sixteenth century we are told that the 2nd Earl of Cumberland “was much addicted to the study and practise of alchemy and chimistry & a great distiller of waters & making of other chimical extractions for medicines, & very studious in all manner of learning, so as he had an excellent library both of ff. 172-3. Arch, xlii, 1869, pp. 347-78. Northants, R.O., Westmorland MSS. 6, V, 1-2. Batho, Op. cit., p. 119. 1 W. E. Houghton, ‘The English Virtuoso in the Seventeenth Century’, J. Hist. Ideas, iti, 1942.

716 EDUCATION AND CULTURE written hand books and printed books’. In the late sixteenth century John Lord Lumley concerned himself with medicine and cosmography, founded lecturerships, encouraged practitioners, and collected a formidable library on these subjects. In the early seventeenth centuty the 9th Earl of Northumberland earned his sobriquet “the wizard earl’ from his researches into anatomy and cosmography, alchemy and distillation, but nothing of moment emerged from the first three, and the fourth was designed mote to provide choicer and more potent alcoholic spirits for his lordship’s table than to advance the cause of pure science. The only noblemen to make a positive contribution were those like the 5th Lord Dudley who encouraged and financed new technological processes in industry.? Along with this uncoordinated and unmethodical experimenta-

tion went the collecting of curiosities, natural and artificial phenomena, and mechanical toys. This was a hobby which catered for man’s innate love of magic and mystery and stimulated his admiration for the handiwork of God; it also enhanced the prestige of the collector and contriver. But its scientific content was super-

ficial. The attitude of mind behind it goes back to the reign of Elizabeth, as descriptions of the long-vanished splendours of Lord Burghley’s Theobalds prove. Consider, for example, the hall: in the centre was a high multicoloured rock made up of many different stones from which gushed a fountain, falling into a basin supported by savages; in the roof were the signs of the Zodiac illuminated at night in imitation of the stars, while a mechanical device made

the sun perform its orbit through the sky; along the walls were six artificial trees covered with natural bark, birds’ nests, leaves, and fruit.2 What could be mote ‘curious’ than this, despite its show of cosmographical science ? The first major natural-history collection to be made in England

was that assembled by John Tradescant the elder in the 1620’s under the direction of his patron the Duke of Buckingham. Supported by this powerful influence, Tradescant persuaded the great trading companies to supply him with elephant and hippopotamus skulls, strange birds, fishes, and reptiles, and all sorts of snakes, dried fruits, and shining stones. But although carefully catalogued under clear subject headings, not all the contents were of purely 1 BM Harl. MSS. 6177, f. 47. Jayne and Johnson, op. cit. J. W. Shirley, ‘The Scientific experiments of Sir Walter Ralegh, The Wizard Earl, and the Three Magi in the Tower, 1603-

17, Ambix, iv, 1949. 2 W.B. Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, 1865, p. 44.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 717 scientific interest. There was “The claw of the bird Rock (who, as authors report, is able to trusse an elephant)’, half a hazel nut with seventy pieces of household stuff in it, boots to fit a giant and a midget, “an Italian lock, custos pudicitiae’, and “blood that rained on the Isle of Wight, attested by Sir John Oglander’ (was ¢hzs the blood

with which Sir John penned his much quoted remark about the decline of the mere gentry?).! Similarly the dons of St. John’s College, Oxford, cherished the skeleton of a woman who had had seventeen husbands, and a gall-stone extracted from Bishop King of London; and John Lord Lumley decorated the screen of his hall with ‘six rare heads of beasts’, including an elephant, and ‘the clawe of a gryphyn, verie wonderful’.? The same love of tareties lay behind the bizarre gardens of the day with their artificial rocks, streams, and pools, their mechanical

pumps for dousing the visitor with water, their speaking statues, their shell-studded grottoes, and other bizarre contrivances. The formal garden flourished in the sixteenth century and reached its apogee with the fantastic layout contrived in the 1630’s by Isaac de Caux for Philip Earl of Pembroke at Wilton, with its hydraulic device for mechanical singing birds, based, presumably, on that at

Tivoli.

This quest for rareties, mechanical, natural, or antiquatian, was the very antithesis of the Baconian ideal and effectively diverted upper-class interest away from science proper until the middle of the seventeenth century. So far from conforming to a rational progtamme of controlled research, it encouraged the mentality of the fair-eround peep-show. The amateurish pursuits of the Early Stuart nobility played little part in the history of English technical and scientific progress. If the pte-1640 virtuosi failed as scientists, they were remarkably successful in their main ambition to shine as collectors and connois-

seuts. It was the new-found love of antiquities which in the early seventeenth century led Thomas Lord Windsor to make a collec-

tion of old coins, and Thomas Earl of Winchilsea to assemble seven books full of prints, 2,500 silver and copper coins, and 237 1 H.R. Trevor-Roper, The Gentry, Ec. Hist. Soc. Suppl. i, p. 26. 2 CSP Col., 1574-1660, p. 75. J. Tradescant, Musaeum Tradescantianum, 1656. R. T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford, Oxford, 1925, ili, pp. 282-5, 336. M. F. S. Hervey, ‘A Lumley inventory of 1609’, Walpole Soc. vi, 1917-18, p. 16. 3 Rye, op. cit., pp. 19, 62, 207. Camden Misc. xvi, 1936, p. 66. H. M. Colvin, “The South Front of Wilton House’, Arch. J. cxi, 1954.

718 EDUCATION AND CULTURE gold coins and medals; both of them took cate to mention their collections specifically in their wills.1 Some of the mid-sixteenthcentury patrons of Renaissance art had begun to collect antique or mock-antique works of art, and in the 1560’s we find Sir William Cecil buying statues of emperors at Venice, and importing marble door-frames, basins, and tables from France, to be set up eventually at Theobalds. Thereafter the tradition dies away, only to be revived

by the virtuosi in the early seventeenth century. , The first sign of a renewed interest in such matters is the action of Essex’s secretary, Gelli Meyrick, in including some sculpture in the

loot of Cadiz in 1597 (sculpture which on Essex’s fall four years later the Earl of Lincoln tried to get hold of to adorn his tomb). The first true collector of classical sculpture in England was the Earl of - Somerset, who at the time of his fall in 1614 was negotiating fora major purchase from a dealer in Venice. It included statues or busts

of Hercules, Diana, Venus, Cupid, Socrates, Brutus, Philip of Macedon, Caligula, Marcus Autelius, Domitian, and Trajan. John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol, and George Duke of Buckingham also bought antique marbles—the latter took one home with him from Valladolid in Spain—but the most determined collector of them all was Thomas Earl of Arundel. He conducted excavations in Rome, thus becoming the first Englishman to dig in the city since Henry of Blois in the twelfth century, and set up his finds and his other purchases in the garden at Arundel House. The surviving monument to this important episode in the history of English taste are the Arundel marbles in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.” Between 1610 and 1640 the same handful of enthusiastic noblemen first introduced into England large quantities of Italian and, to a lesser extent, Flemish and German art. What they went for was not so much the work of living artists—the sole important exception being Rubens—but the old masters of the sixteenth century. The first major collector was again the Earl of Somerset, who in 1614 was negotiating to buy a group of Venetian pictures, including work by Veronese, Giacomo Bassano, and Tintoretto, and a Venus by Titian,

‘molto raro’. By this time Thomas Earl of Arundel, the ‘father of virty in England’, was beginning to build up his amazing collection, and he took over the purchase after Somerset’s fall. One of 1 PCC 12 Campbell, 136 Coventry. BM Harl MSS. 378, ff. 127-8.

2 SP 12/42/19. Rye, op. cit., p. 135. HMCS, xi, pp. 38, 41, 171. SP 14/80/88B. CSPD, 1623-J, pp. 344, 450. BM Add. MSS. 12528, f. 8. M. F. S. Hervey, Thomas Howard, Earl of

Arundel, Cambridge, 1921, p. 255.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 719 Arundel’s chief enthusiasms was for Holbein, for whose works he found an active competitor in Lucy Countess of Bedford. ‘I am’, she wrote in 1618, “a very diligent gatherer of all I can gett of Holben’s ot any other excellent master’s hand; I do not care at what rate I

have them for price.”! Nor, for that matter, did Arundel, whose collection amounted to no fewer than 799 pictures on the eve of the Civil War. He had managed to acquire over 4o works by his great love Holbein, as well as the famous book of portrait drawings, 13 Breughels, and 16 Diirers, but otherwise his taste ran mostly to the

usual Venice school, with as many as 37 pictures by Titian, and a dozen or mote by Tintoretto, Veronese, and Bassano. He also possessed 26 attributed to Parmigiano, 17 to Giorgione, 13 to Raphael, and 12 to Correggio.?

In 1621 the Duke of Buckingham entered the field on a massive | scale, using his enormous wealth and political influence to build up a private collection second only to that of Arundel. It was from these two that Charles first got his passion for art which led him to spend

£18,000 in 1628-30 in buying up the Duke of Mantua’s entire collection, and to go on to build up a gallery of astonishing size and splendour. The rival demands of Buckingham, Arundel, and Charles

were catered for by the Duveens of the age, those gentlemanly artist-diplomats, Rubens and Sir Balthazar Gerbier. Both entered briskly into the art-dealing trade, and the latter scoured all Europe for loot with which to satisfy his patrons. As it happened, it was the

Venetian school of a generation or more earlier which captured the imagination of the English virtuosi, whether it was Palladio in atchitectute or Titian in painting. England had close political and commercial ties with Venice, the Republic was a favourite port of call for noblemen doing the Grand Tour since there was no fear of the Inquisition within its boundaries, there was a resident ambassador—for many years the enthusiastic Sir Henry Wotton—to facilitate negotiations, and there were plenty of pictures coming up for sale.

In 1621 Gerbier was touring Italy to buy pictures for Buckingham, visiting first Rome, and then Venice where the bulk of his purchases were made. What he shipped back was mostly work of the Bassanos, Tintoretto, and Titian. By the late 1620’s the Duke 1 SP 14/80/88A. Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis, ed, Lord Braybrooke, 1842,

_ ; Hervey, op. cit., App. v. BM Harl. MSS. 6272, f. 176 (Inventory of Tart Hall in 1641).

720 EDUCATION AND CULTURE had built himself a gallery at York House with a marble floor and mirroted walls. There and elsewhere he displayed his 28 Rubens

(including the great equestrian portrait of himself for which he paid £500), between 10 and 20 specimens of the work of Giacomo Bassano, Tintoretto, Titian, and Veronese, 2 Andrea del Sartos, and 2 Raphaels. He owned Titian’s great “Ecce Homo’, for which he paid £275 and which is now in Vienna, and Tintoretto’s “Woman

taken in Adultery’, for which he paid {£50 and which is now in Dresden. He was not a teal connoisseur like Arundel and Charles, but he seems to have regarded pictures as something rather more than momentarily fashionable status symbols. In all, his collection amounted to some 330 items, most of which were sent abroad and sold to the Emperor and others for 70,000 guilders in 1650 in order to keep the 2nd Duke afloat during the long years of exile before

the Restoration.! |

Charles, Arundel, and Buckingham were the three giants among the collectors, but others of the court group of the 1630’s were also enthusiastic connoisseurs of Italian art. Philip Earl of Pembroke, who inherited the collection of his brother Earl William, had long ago given the King Raphael’s ‘St. George’ (now in Washington). When he died in 1650 his executors sold some of his pictures for nearly £2,000, mostly for export to Spain and the Empire, which suggests that he must have owned a very choice collection. Another

important patron of Venetian paintings was the 3rd Marquis of Hamilton, who in 1638 bought a rich group of works by the usual artists, including Titian, Correggio, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Raphael.”

It is common knowledge that English patrons of the eighteenth

century brought back with them large numbets of later Italian paintings. What is not so well known is the amazing quantity and

quality of Italian art from what some would regard as the best period which had reached England before the Civil War. Thanks to Charles I, Arundel, Buckingham, Pembroke, and Hamilton, by 1 R. Davies, ‘An Inventory of the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures’, Burlington Magazine, x, 1907. I. G. Philip, ‘Balthazar Gerbier and the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures’, loc. cit. xcix, 1957. H. A. Kaufman, Conscientious Cavalier, 1962, pp. 27-29. W. N. Sainsbury, Original Papers of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, 1859, passim. G. Goodman, The Court of King James I, 1839, ii,

pp. 326-45. Cabala, p. 399. Parnassus Biceps, ed. G. Thom-Drury, 1927, pp. 32-34. L.-R. Betcherman, ‘Balthazar Gerbier in Seventeenth Century Italy’, History Today, May 1961. Rousham, Cottrell-Dormer MSS. 2 Sainsbury, op. cit., pp. 279, 301. H/A 168/2. E. Waterhouse, ‘Paintings from Venice for Seventeenth Century England’, Italian Studies, vii, 1952.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 721 1640 London could boast of four or five picture galleries which between them displayed a collection of Italian old masters, parttcularly of the Venetian school, which was unrivalled in Europe, and which had an important influence on the style of William Dobson.

‘Cest nous quy avons les perles des Italiens’, boasted Gerbier as eatly as 1624.! Most of these collections were dispersed again among the galleries of Europe during the Interregnum, and it was not till the 1690’s that the second wave of Italian art began to reach these shores with the purchases of the Earls of Exeter, Manchester, and Carlisle and the Duke of Shrewsbury. It would be idle to pretend that these lovers of art were anything but a tiny minority, or that all who experienced the educational process of the early seventeenth century either enjoyed it or derived much benefit from it. But this is true of every educational system which has ever been devised, and if stupid and boorish wastrels still existed in really high society in the early seventeenth century at

least every effort had now been made to reduce their numbers to a minimum. What the cult of the virtuoso accomplished was to offer talented but politically thwarted or indifferent noblemen an alterna-

tive outlet for their surplus time, energy, and wealth. If denied an important official position, they could devote themselves to antiquarian research, architectural and pseudo-scientific experiment, and the collection of books, paintings, and objets dart. They were

' encouraged to patronize poets, writers, intellectuals, scientists, sculptors, artists, and architects, and so preserved their influence on English culture well into the nineteenth century. It familiarized them with Europe and taught them to understand at least one and often two modern languages as well as theit own, and so helped to bring English arts and letters into intimate contact with those of the Continent. This educational revolution passed through two phases, both of fairly short duration. The former laid most stress on the academic, bookish element in education, and on training for future political leadership; the latter tended rather to emphasize the accomplishments of the ‘perfect cavalier’, coupled with aesthetic and anttquarian appreciation. After a brief phase of scientific enthusiasm in the mid-seventeenth century, the concept of the virtuoso gave way to

that of the dilettante, which was the undoing of the Royal Society and has been the curse of the English governing classes ever since.

821314 3A

1 Goodman, op. cit. ii, p. 344.

722 EDUCATION AND CULTURE The period from 1560 to 1640 is thus one of exceptionally intensive

intellectual and artistic training, squeezed between centuries of ignorance on the one hand and centuries of dilettantism on the

other. |

VI. THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EFFECTS OF EDUCATION

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this educational revolution. _ Within the landed classes it had a double, and opposite effect. In the short run, it increased the opportunities of the gentry to compete for office on more equal terms with the nobility. Since so many

of the former had fitted themselves for a responsible position in the commonwealth, they began encroaching upon offices which had hitherto been a preserve of either the aristocracy or the higher

clergy. The spread among the gentry of education at school, university, and Inn of Court was therefore an important factor in the shift of power away from the peerage in the years before the Civil War. In the long run, the enthusiastic, though belated, adoption of the

new educational pattern by the aristocracy was a major cause of their survival as a ruling é/#e. In the 1560’s well-qualified observers

of the peerage had been full of gloom and foreboding. Laurence Humphrey complained that there was nothing ‘at this day more lamentable then the ignorance of magistrates and nobles, heade cause of all evels, both in the state and religion’, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert pressed his scheme for an academy on the grounds that the gentlemen of England ‘now the moste parte of them are good for nothinge’. Just a hundred years later a foreign observer wrote that ‘la noblesse d’Angleterre est presque toute scavante et fort éclairée’,

a judgement echoed by a not normally over-sanguine English commentator, Edward Waterhouse.! Both the pessimism of the 1560’s and the optimism of the 1660’s may have been somewhat overdone, but there can be no doubt at all that things had changed. Few revolutions of a revolutionary age were of greater importance. The educational system as it developed in the seventeenth century tended to divide landed society in two. Since the full-blown educational process—private tutor, boarding school, university, Inn of 1 Humphrey, op. cit., sig. r ii, Arch, xxi, 1827, p. 520. S. Sorbiére, Relation d’un voyage en Angleterre, Cologne, 1666, p. 66. Waterhouse, op. cit., p. 349.

EDUCATION AND CULTURE 723 Court, and the Grand Tour—was so very expensive, it was largely confined to sons of the aristocracy and the greater county families. Macaulay undoubtedly exaggerated the sluttish ignorance of the

minor rutal gentry after the Restoration, but the distinction between the insular fox-hunting squire and the travelled and cultivated nobleman was one that cut deep into seventeenth- and eighteenth-century society. Partly it was based on the differing cultural patterns of town and country, but at its roots lay a difference in training. Many of the benefits of the improved educational opportunities were enjoyed by all layers of the upper and middle classes, as the multiplicity of grammar schools amply proves. But this was mainly a dreary academic grind in the classical languages. Training in French and Italian, political economy, modern history, gentlemanly accomplishments, aesthetic appreciation, all the essential qualifications for social and political advancement at the top, were mostly limited to the rich who could afford to pay for them. The educational system gave the social é¢/te—peers and leading gentry—a head-and-shoulders start over their inferiors, including the lesser gentry, in the struggle for political power and lucrative office.

It also gravely accentuated the psychological split between Court

and Country, which was so marked a feature of the 1630’s. The tastes of the virtuoso for the architecture of Inigo Jones and the art of the Venetian school was exclusively cultivated by a tiny court coterie. To the average country gentleman Italy was a land of popery and vice, and Italian art with its emphasis on religious imagery, putti, and the nudes of classical mythology, bore visual witness to both these perils to the immortal soul: if the sophisticated courtier was entranced, the puritan gentleman was repelled. In the

eyes of the bulk of his influential subjects the picture galleries of King Charles and his intimates were evidence of their incorrigible leanings to frivolity and extravagance, popery and pornography. Lastly the educational revolution, coupled with the inflation of honours, turned out men able and anxious to hold high office in numbers far in excess of the capacity of the society to employ them. This was an important reason for the dissatisfaction of many peers with the government of Charles I in 1640, and their unwillingness to fight for the cause of monarchy in 1642. It also created even more sevete frustrations among the aspiring gentry, a far smaller propor-

tion of whom could hope for a post in government, and among

724 EDUCATION AND CULTURE the middle-class intellectuals who were being turned out in larger numbers than either the Church or lay society could absorb. “The core of rebellion’, wrote Thomas Hobbes, ‘are the universities.’ “For

it is a hard matter for men, who do all think highly of their own wits, when they have also acquired the learning of the university, to be persuaded that they want any ability requisite for the government

of a commonwealth.’ It was for this reason that the Marquis of Newcastle advised Charles II to reduce the numbers in grammar schools and Inns of Court and cut the intake of the universities by 50 per cent.'! From the point of view of monarchy he was quite right. 1 Curtis, op. cit., p. 25. M. H. Curtis, ‘The Alienated Intellectuals of Early Stuart England’, Past and Present, xxiii, 1962. Strong, pp. 185, 188.

XIII

RELIGION I, RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES

THE religious opinions of any individual in the past are rarely easy to discover. Most men were very reticent, or very ambiguous,

ot genuinely very uncertain, or more or less indifferent, in their public attitude towards the competing churches and doctrines of sixteenth-century England. Since death by torture could be the penalty for plain-speaking, a certain prudence was mere common sense, although in fact an English peer ran little or no risk of being burned to death for his theological opinions. Such penalties were not thought suitable for men of such exalted social status—which was pethaps the main reason why persecution was so ineffective—but a nobleman certainly faced loss of office and influence, erosion of social prestige, and possibly a heavy fine if he too openly defied the authorized religion of the State.

Even when the opinions can be identified, there remains the problem of setting up a satisfactory sociological model which will comprehend the full range of sixteenth-century religious views and actions. For the Catholics the most useful categories are ‘recusant’,

for those who utterly refused to compromise with the national church; “non-communicant’, for those who attended Anglican services but did not take communion; and ‘schismatic’, for those who took communion while remaining at heart in sympathy with Catholicism. A member of either of the last two groups may be described as a “Church Catholic’, one who ‘parts his religion betwixt his conscience and his purse, and comes to Church not to serve God

but the King’. For Anglicans by far the most important category was the indifferent, which undoubtedly embraced the vast majority; but thete was alsoa slowly growing body of convinced activists, who after 1625 began to split into Laudian and anti-Laudian groups. For

the Puritans the problem is even more difficult since the term embraces a wide spectrum of dissenting opinion and since for long periods most of them were full members of the Anglican Church, although ceaselessly agitating to change its organization and liturgy. Only the separatists, the independent sectaries, were at all clearly

726 RELIGION defined before the Civil War, though many of the more extreme Presbyterians had found an identity in the 1570’s and 1580’s. The view that an established church was an essential support for a hierarchical society and a monarchical government was almost universally held in the sixteenth century, and accounts for the easy acceptance of the slogan caus regio, eius religio. It was thought that

a state could not long survive unless its members subscribed to a single church and a single doctrine. Peers were under particular pressure to conform to the Established Church, whatever it might happen to be. By virtue of their rank they were at the apex in the social and political hierarchy and thus had a vested interest in the maintenance of order, discipline, and conformity. So long as their personal interests were looked after, and Henry VII took great care to deal generously with them when it came to dissolving the monasteries, they had a strong personal incentive for not causing too much trouble. A man like Edward Earl of Derby was brought up a Catholic, swallowed the monastic estates when the opportunity offered, raised

no open protest against the Edwardian innovations in religion, was a loyal supporter of Mary and the Catholic reaction, and an equally loyal servant of Elizabeth and fairly diligent as a magistrate in enforcing Anglican worship after 1559. His real views about the problem of salvation are obscure, to say the least: his policy was one © of support for established authority and the maintenance of social and political order. Indeed religion to some was little more than a Marxist opium of the people devised to protect property and sanctify the social order. It was the Marquis of Newcastle who reminded the exiled Charles II of the political benefits of religion: ‘were there no Heaven and no Hell you shall see the disadvantage for your government.’ As for the Anglican Church, he described it to His Majesty as ‘an ecclesiasticall governmente instetuted by the apostles, receved &

aproved by the primitive Christians, establishte by the Princes & Parlaments off out owne kingdoume, pretendinge to no power over the kinge att all, nor no power under the kinge neyther, but from him & by him; teachinge active obedience to all lawefull commandes

of lawefull aughtoretye, & passive obedience even to those commandes that are nott lawefull, so the aughtoretye commandinge them be not unlawefull.”? t Ellis, 1st ser., ili, p. 289. Strong, p. 183. See also a poem attributed to Ralegh in HMC Bath MSS., pp. 52-53.

RELIGION 727 Only a minority, though a vitally important one, seem to have chosen their religion as the unique vehicle for the salvation of their souls. One test of the strength of a man’s religious views is the attention he paid in his will to the future of his spirit. The majority dismissed the subject in a sentence and passed on to the more urgent business of disposing of their body and their real and personal estate. It is very significant that of the 30 peers who between 1558 and 1641 showed signs in their wills of strong religious feelings, no fewer than 7 were tecusants or schismatics, and 12 wete Puritans

ot Puritan sympathizers. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of this minority. That the Catholics were inspired predominantly by ideological considerations is proved by their readiness to take the financial and other consequences of recusancy. The Protestant aristocrats of the 1540's, the Russells, the Dudleys, and the Seymours, were tunning grave risks during the last, paranotac, years of Henry VIII, and were unquestionably inspired by genuine piety and an enthusiasm for the Reformed doctrine. The 1st Earl of Bedford, with his theological library of over 160 books, his manuscript works

of John Wyclif, and his many volumes of the writings of Calvin, Beza, and Jewel, was obviously a religious enthusiast, and was in close intellectual touch with continental reformers. The 3rd Earl of Huntingdon’s interest in the reform of church doctrine and liturgy had been acquired during his education with the young Edward VI under Sir John Cheke, and was the ruling passion of his life. Under Elizabeth extreme Protestant sentiments were strengthened by a ctude nationalism stimulated first by Mary’s disastrous foreign policy and later by the threat of Spanish invasion. For Leicester

in particular, religious beliefs found political expression in the demand for a war of aggression at sea and military intervention in

Europe, though even with him there seems no reason to doubt his sincerity.!

At work at this level of society there was no obvious economic incentive to tempt men for or against a religious faith other than that established by law. The desire to hang on to ex-monastic estates

can easily be exaggerated as a factor favouring Protestantism. Almost all peers and leading squires owned church property, but 1M. St. C. Byrne and G. Scott Thomson, ‘ “My Lord’s Books” ’, Rev. English Studies, vii, 1931. M.C. Cross, ‘Noble Patronage in the Elizabethan Church’, Hist. J. iii, 1960. E. Rosenberg, Leicester: Patron of Letters, New Yotk, 1955, chs. vi and vii. P. Collinson, The Puritan Classical Movement in the Reign of Elizabeth (London Ph.D. thesis), 1957, ch. x; and Letters of Thomas Wood, Puritan (BIHR Suppl. 5), 1960, pp. xvi-xl,

728 RELIGION |

some of the greatest predators under Henry VIII like the 1st Lord Rich or Sir William Petre remained staunch Catholics, and the acceptance by the Pope of the fact accompli undet Mary had quieted the

worst fears of dispossession. Anti-clericalism, an ancient hostility to the interference of the episcopacy in secular affairs, was more

important than the lust for property in strengthening loyalty to Protestantism, although the two certainly coincided neatly in Leicester and Essex’s schemes for the redistribution of episcopal estates among courtiers and noblemen, including themselves.! The main incentive to Anglicanism was loyalty to the established order and ambition to earn office and favour at Court. On the other flank of Anglicanism the Puritans found that their beliefs not only hindered their political advancement, but also ran directly counter to their financial interests. Their desite for an educated and zealous clergy was difficult to reconcile with the system of lay impropriations. These formed useful additions to the income of peers and

squires, but reduced many clerical stipends to pitiful levels and were a direct incentive to pluralism and non-residence, the two evils which Puritans never tired of denouncing. Moreover as lay rectors

they were legally responsible for the upkeep of the chancels of many parish churches, a responsibility which even some of the more puritanically inclined of the nobility seem to have grossly neglected. In Elizabethan Lincolnshire the Earl of Lincoln allowed the chancels of Billingborough, Sempringham, Swaton, and Threckingham

to fall into disrepair; Lord Willoughby d’Eresby did the same at East Kirkby, Aby, and Well; even Lord Burghley failed in his responsibilities at Hagnaby and Moulton, and let the chancel at Great Hale fall down altogether.” Puritan landlords thus found their material and their spiritual interests pulling in different ways, a fact which severely limited the possibilities of effective reform. So far as the peerage is concerned, the relationship between economic interests and religious beliefs is far more complex and far less close than is usually assumed nowadays. But more important for our purposes than hypothetical specu-

lations about the causes of religious opinions, which are usually impossible to disentangle anyway, are the effects of these opinions both on the peers themselves and on the society in which they lived. 1 See supra, pp. 409-11. 2 C, W. Foster, The State of the Church, Lincs. Rec. Soc. xxiii, 1926.

RELIGION 729 Given the preponderant authority of the aristocracy in the countryside in the early years of Elizabeth, the success of the Anglican settlement depended very largely on their active co-operation or passive acquiescence. By their influence in local affairs they could see to it that the local justices exposed or protected dissident clergy,

suppressed or encoutaged radical preaching and pamphleteering, punished or ignored defiance of the laws concerning church-going and religious conformity among the laity. The situation in the first decade of the reign was ominous in the extreme. In the north there was a solid phalanx of openly Catholic peers, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, Lords Wharton, Lumley, Dacre of the

North, and Mounteagle. Lords Eure and Scrope were probably schismatics, and the true religious convictions of the Earls of Derby

and Shrewsbuty were not above suspicion. On the other hand the convinced Protestants, mostly with Puritan leanings, were concentrated in the south and midlands; the Duchess of Suffolk, the Earls of Leicester, Warwick, Bedford, Kent, and Huntingdon; Lords Hunsdon, Burghley, Buckhurst, Cromwell, Grey of Wilton, and North. There was thus a fairly clear geographical split which if things

had taken an ugly turn could have provided secure bases for two sides in a civil war. In this respect in 1568 the England of Elizabeth was not unlike the France of Catherine de Medici.

Though others had a vital tole to play—Puritan ministers and Catholic missioners, city artisans and pious country gentlewomen—

if the peets and leading squires had distributed their support in a different way between 1558 and 1588, the religious configuration of seventeenth-century England would undoubtedly have looked very different. It was the casual indifference of the majority which allowed

Anglicanism to get itself accepted as an established institution; it was the triumph of political loyalty over religious opinions which kept the majority of the Catholic sympathizers from giving encoutagement to assassination plots or schemes of rebellion. But it was resistance to government orders by a handful of magnates on either side which allowed Catholicism and Puritanism to dig in and take root within this tepidly conformist society. II. CATHOLIC PATRONAGE

The dependence of the Catholic revival upon the nobility for shelter, encouragement, protection, and financial backing is writ large in the records of the Elizabethan missioners and Early Stuart

730 RELIGION bishops. In every county it was the peers and leading squires who

took the initiative in breaking with the Anglican Church. For example, when tecusancy began in Norfolk in the 1570’s, it was headed by the thtee great families of Cornwallis, Bedingfield, and Silyarde. The utter dependence of the Jesuit mission of the 1580's upon these upper gentry and aristocratic hosts is admirably demon-

strated by Father John Gerard’s frank and vivid account of his activities. He first settled at Grimston in Norfolk, the house of Edward Yelverton. “I stayed openly six or eight months in the house

of that gentleman... . During that time he introduced me to the house and circle of nearly every gentleman in Norfolk, and before the end of the eight months I had received many people into the Church, including one of my host’s brothers, his two sisters, and later his brother-in-law.’ From Grimston Father Gerard moved to Lawshall in Suffolk, the house of Henry Drury, where he was kept safe for two yeats from persecution, provided with funds, and given opportunities for proselytizing the neighbouring gentry at hunting parties and other social occasions. Later benefactors were William Wiseman of Braddocks, Elizabeth Lady Vaux, and Anne Countess

of Arundel. It was the Countess who for a long time sheltered Father Robert Southwell and his secret printing-press after he left Lord Vaux’s house in Clerkenwell, who tried to obtain the release of Father Weston by bribery after his arrest, who paid for English gitls to be placed in nunneties abroad, who founded the Tertianship for the English fathers at Ghent. She clearly played an extremely important role in the success of the Jesuit mission to England.! A generation later the first two Catholic bishops who worked in post-Reformation England were similarly dependent on a restricted group of rich patrons. In 1623 the first Bishop of Chalcedon stayed , in the houses of Sir William Roper, Lady Dormer, and Viscount

Montagu; in 1625 the second Bishop lived in Lady Mordaunt’s house at Tutvey, and visited Lady Dormer at Wing, Viscount Montagu at Cowdray, Lord Arundell at Wardour, and the Earl of Shrewsbury at Grafton. One of his subordinates lived in the London houses of Viscount Montagu and Lord Stourton in Clerkenwell and Drury Lane. When the Jesuits set up a novitiate in London in 1625, it was in a house hired for the purpose from the Earl of Shrewsbury. 1 T,. B. Trappes-Lomax, ‘Catholicism in Norfolk’, Norfolk Archaeology, xxxii, 1958-61. P, Caraman, John Gerard, 1951. H. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, i,

1877, p. 329. J. Morris, Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, 1872, i, pp. 49, 191, 201; ii, 1875,

pp. 197, 210, 2 Camden Misc. ii, 1853, pp. 59-60, 21-22,

RELIGION 731 Archbishop Mathew has observed that it was ‘a defect of the Tridentine organization that the missioners in southern England should have concenttated so much attention on the noble patron and have taken such satisfaction in the conversion of the generosz’.

This is a questionable judgement, for it was only in these great houses that the priests were safe from denunciation and arrest. When the dowager Lady Vaux was planning to rent Kirby Hall for use as

a Catholic centre, Father Gerard remarked with approval that ‘it was large and well-built, and stood remote from other dwellings, sutrounded by fine orchards and gardens—people could come and go without anyone noticing them.’ Priests could live quietly in some

remote corner of the house without attracting the attention of the servants, and could set up a chapel in an empty room for the hearing of mass, while the sheer size of the house guaranteed some warning of the arrival of a search-party and offered plenty of scope for secret hiding-places. They could not easily be observed in their comings and goings, and by taking part in the active social life of the gentry and nobility they could proselytize unobserved. Furthermore they

knew quite well that, if they could convert a sufficient number of the nobility and leading gentry, all the rest would be given unto them. Their concentration on the nobility was not mere snobbery : it was plain common sense. Indeed, in so far as Catholicism remained

a threat to the Anglican settlement, it was not because of a widespread latent sympathy with Catholic ritual and superstition among the people at large, but because a significant proportion of noblemen and leading squires had been reconciled to Rome by the Elizabethan missioners. The fact that its strength lay in large households headed by men of an assured social status explains why English Catholicism could

not be suppressed; it also explains why it so rapidly relapsed into passivity. After a brief activist phase in the late Elizabethan period most of the upper-class laity broke with the Jesuit missioners and retreated into self-imposed isolation. The tacit understanding they reached with the Crown, if not with their Puritan neighbours, was that so long as they remained inactive they would be left in relative peace to cultivate their gardens and worship as they chose. For all intents and purposes seventeenth-century Catholicism was a quietist sect of aristocratic and upper-gentry families. They maintained priests for their personal use, but would not let them minis-

ter to the poor outside the park gates for fear of trouble. Their

732 RELIGION , leaders were peetrs—in 1605 Viscount Montagu was described as the

‘oreat captain and firm pillar of the papists’. They intermartied, Brownes and Petres and Arundells and Sometsets, partly from choice, partly since they had little option. Anglican opinion was hardening, and legislation of 1606 severely penalized husbands who

took Catholic wives. Their children wete educated at home by private Catholic tutors, usually schismatics to evade the Act of 1581, which imposed a fine of {10 a month for keeping a Catholic schoolmaster, and another of 1603 which raised it to £2 a day. In the reign of Charles I they even attended Catholic private schools, provided as

usual by the great lay patrons: there was one at Spink Hall, near Eckington in Derbyshire, another at Stanley Grange in the same county, the home of Anne sister of Lord Vaux, and a third at Wolverhampton. Many sons of tecusants subsequently moved on to Catholic universities abroad, also in defiance of severe legal penalties. They were dissident in religion but politically extremely loyal, indeed they cultivated a reverence for the Stuart monarchy that many Anglicans found excessive. Though they only exercised real influence at Court and in the Council at rare intervals in the eatly seventeenth century, they were at all times a presence to be felt around the monarch. With the arrival of Henrietta Maria at the English Court their activity was given an assured focus, and there wete a number of spectacular conversions of court ladies: ‘Our great women fall away every day’, lamented the Rev. George Garrard. Even when power was exclusively in the hands of their most bitter enemies, their reserves of wealth and local influence were

sufficient to protect the most important of them from serious persecution. Men like the successive Earls of Worcester at Raglan Castle enjoyed de facto immunity from the laws about religious conformity.

Recusants wete not all from old-established families, nor were they in humble or declining economic circumstances. On the contrary about half the Catholic peers of 1641 were new creations, the cream of the risen gentry, and most of the rest were above the average in wealth and showed no signs of recent decay. The only Catholic peets who had been going downhill for some time and wete now in tfelatively humble circumstances were the Stourtons, the Touchets, and the Vaux. Catholic recusancy was thus a product of three factors : the conservatism of some early-Elizabethan gentry

families who sent their children abroad to be trained as mission priests; the courage and devotion of these missioners in the late

RELIGION 733 Elizabethan period; and the physical protection and financial sup-

port of some noblemen and leading squires which gave English Catholicism its peculiarly upper-class character and ensured its sutvival in the face of a rising tide of anti-papist sentiment in the country at large.! The geographical pattern of seventeenth-century Catholicism, which was a rural not an urban movement, was consequently deter-

mined in large measure by the attitude of a handful of leading families in each county. What in the early years of Elizabeth had been a widely diffused scatter of passive conservatives had by the end of the reign become a series of isolated little pockets of dedi-

cated recusants, each one centred around and dependent upon a great house. Thus in Yorkshire in 1590 3 per cent. of the parishes contained 48 per cent of the recorded Catholic recusants. A typical example of this phenomenon is the household of John Gascoigne of Barwick. He, his wife, his mother, the master of his coal-mines, his miller, his shepherd and wife, four female servants, the wives of two other servants, and a number of his tenants were all recusants. Of his children, three sons and a daughter went abroad and entered the Roman Catholic Church. Another example of the pattern is the

family of Thimelby of Irnham Hall, Lincs. John Thimelby was reconciled to Rome by a missioner in the late 1570’s. In fifteen yeats he paid overt {1,000 in recusancy fines, but this neither weakened his resolve nor diminished his power and wealth. He regularly harboured priests, one grandson became a Jesuit, one oranddaughter a nun. A hundred years later, in 1676, 56 out of 152

Catholic recusants in Kesteven resided in the parish of Irnham under the protection of the Thimelbys.? III, PURITAN PATRONAGE

In its early stages Elizabethan Puritanism was a confederation of ministers and laity, semi-sectarian but still within the fold of the Church. It pressed in Parliament and the Privy Council for reform of liturgy and ceremony, and for a cleaning up of administrative 1 J. Bossy, “The Character of Elizabethan Catholicism’, Past and Present, xxi, 1962. D. Mathew, The Jacobean Age, 1938, ch. xv. M. J. Havran, The Catholics in Caroline England, Stamford, 1962.

Knowles, ii, p. 165. 2 A. G. Dickens, ‘The First Stages of Romanist Recusancy in Yorkshire’, Yorks. Arch. J., XXXV, 1940-43, p. 178. “Recusancy in Yorkshire in 1604’, ibid. xxxvii, 1948-51, pp. 40-41. T. B. Trappes-Lomax, ‘The Owners of Irmham Hall’, Lines. Architectural and Arch, Soe. Papers, ix, 1962.

734 RELIGION abuses and corruption, it was active locally in preaching and practising the new ethic of godliness. It differed from Catholicism in that the initiative came from the laity, which demanded, and finally obtained, a clerical wing which served to spread the word throughout the populace at large. It was therefore even more powerfully influenced by a few great magnates, but much less exclusive in its social composition. Dr. Collinson has gone so far as to claim that

‘the strength of the patronage which the puritans were able to command determined the rise and fall of their fortunes’,! and it is to the activities of a handful of peers, notably the Earls of Bedford, Huntingdon, Leicester, and Warwick and the irrepressible Duchess of Suffolk, that early Elizabethan Puritanism owes its remarkable SUCCESS.

For the first thirty years of Elizabeth’s reign there was always an influential group of Puritan peers and knights in the Privy Council, where they successfully fought off the most dangerous attacks on Puritan preachers. They obstructed Archbishop Parker’s attempt to punish the Presbyterian author of the Admonition to the Parliament,

they supported the movement for theological discussion groups among the lower clergy, the so-called prophesyings, which became so popular and widespread in 1574, they supported plans for moderate reform in 1575; and when the crisis came in 1584-5 they did all

in their power to mitigate the ferocity of Archbishop Whitgift’s anti-Puritan drive. Lord Burghley—who was no fanatic—was driven

to compare Whitgift to his face with a Catholic inquisitor. So long as the Privy Council contained this powerful group of Puritan peers, the more moderate preachers had little to fear from the bishops. When Archbishop Sandys tried to suspend William Whittingham from the deanery of Durham, he was successfully obstructed by the Earl of Huntingdon. Even when Puritans were attested, strings were usually pulled to have them released within a few weeks, as happened to Field. When danger threatened, they were given shelter as chaplains in private country houses—with the Duchess of Suffolk in Lincolnshire in the 1560’s, with the Earl of Huntingdon at York ot Lord Rich at Rochford, Essex, in the 1580’s, with Anne Lady Bacon at Gorhambury in the 1590’s, with Lady Russell of Thornhaugh and Lord De La Warr in the 1600’s. The well-known pressute for moderate Puritan reform in Elizabethan Collinson, thesis cit., p. 758. V. J. K. Brooke, A Life of Archbishop Parker, Oxford, 1962, pp.I 301-6.

RELIGION 735 parliaments was conducted in the House of Commons, but it would

be naive to assume that the great Puritan lords were not pulling sttings in the background. The Commons were bold because they knew that an influential section of the Privy Council and the Lords was on their side, so long as they moderated the tone and content of their demands. It was to these peers and squires that the Puritan clergy looked for maintenance and preferment. Since the laity controlled so many advowsons and rectories, it was not dificult fora Puritan minister to find himself a living. If his views were too radical to meet acceptance with a bishop, he could be appointed a lecturer in a town or a chaplain in a private house. The Dudley brothers and some local gentry established a consortium to finance itinerant preachers in Warwick-

shire; Huntingdon gave the mastership of Wigston’s Hospital, Leicester, to Thomas Sampson, the deprived Dean of Christ Church, Oxford; Lord Rich kept Robert Wright as his chaplain at Rochford, where he catechized all and sundry in the great hall and held services in the chapel, although he had never been consecrated by a bishop

and never used the Book of Common Prayer.! Puritan peers were also invaluable in getting printed material past the censor. It was difficult to suppress a book or pamphlet which had been dedicated,

with the patron’s approval, to a privy councillor or powerful magnate, and thanks to some half-dozen men like the Earls of Leicester, Bedford, Huntingdon, and Warwick, and Lord Rich, the English press was for many years wide open to Puritan propaganda. An examination of the lists of books dedicated to these and other Puritan peers shows clearly how vital a role they played. Perhaps the most important of all the achievements of the Puritan nobility was their success in harnessing large sections of the educa-

tional system to the cause. Between 1565 and 1575 Cambridge produced no fewer than 228 Puritan ministers and schoolmastets, to say nothing of the hundreds of young gentlemen who went out into the world with a firm belief in the need for a Puritan reformation

of the Anglican Church. Control of the universities was achieved partly by the active exercise of his power as Chancellor at Oxford by the Earl of Leicester and the passive tolerance of the moderate Puritans by Lord Burghley at Cambridge; partly by the deliberate ™ Collinson, thesis cit., passim. Cross, op. cit., pp. 4, 10. Past and Present, xxiii, 1962, p. 34. CSPD, 1547-80, p. 304. J. Strype, Annals of the Reformation, 1728, Ul. i, pp. 124-5. 2 FP. B. Williams, Index of Dedications and Commendatory Verses in English Books before 1647, 1962.

3 Collinson, thesis cit., pp. 124-6.

736 RELIGION creation of fellowships for Puritans, like the four founded by the

Farl of Huntingdon at Emmanuel; partly by the provision of scholarships for devoutly Puritan children; and partly to successful lobbying at Court for the appointment of puritanically minded

heads of houses. At one time ot another there was at Oxford a Puritan Dean of Christ Church, President of Corpus, Master of Balliol, and President of Magdalen, and at Cambridge a Puritan Master of St. John’s, Provost of King’s, and Master of Pembroke

| Hall.

The importance of patronage in the movement can be demonstrated by looking first at the career of the organizer of the abortive Elizabethan Presbyterian movement, and then at the activities of a few of the more prominent Puritan peers. By 1565 John Field had been taken under the wing of the Earl of Warwick, who was probably responsible for getting him ordained at the uncanonical age of 21. When he was silenced and imprisoned in 1572, Leicester and Warwick were behind his removal from Newgate to the comfortable and lax confinement of an alderman’s house, and his release within a few months. Despite Bishop Aylmet’s anxiety to deport him to the north, he managed to stay on in London under his patrons’ protection. He dedicated books to the Earls of Leicester, Warwick, Huntingdon, and Bedford, and in 1579 Leicester persuaded the University of Oxford to give him a licence to preach again. What wortied Bishop, Aylmer most was that Field ‘had entered into great houses and taught ... God knows what’. When he was imprisoned and sentenced again in 1581, Leicester once more

got him released and restored his licence to preach.! The two Dudley brothers were the key figures of Elizabethan Puritanism. They patronized Field and kept him out of really serious

trouble for twenty years. When Cartwright returned to England after his long exile in 1585, he went to live quietly in the country under the Earl of Warwick’s protection, and it was only after the latter’s death in 1589 that the bishops were able to put him behind bars. As for Leicester, he has been described by Dr. Collinson as ‘the keystone of the whole edifice of Elizabethan Puritanism’. As the leader of the moderate Puritan group in the Privy Council, he could block moves to persecute his protégés, and could get them out of prison; he could see that their books passed the censor, and as 1 P, Collinson, ‘John Field and Elizabethan Puritanism’, E/izabethan Government and Society ed. S. T. Bindoff e¢ a/,, 1961. Rosenberg, op. cit., pp. 245, 254.

RELIGION 737 Chancellor of the University he could find them jobs at Oxford. In 1564 he is said to have stopped the Privy Council from authorizing Parker’s Advertisements. He was the patron not only of Field and Cartwright, but also of scholars and educators like Laurence Humphrey, the Puritan President of Magdalen College at Oxford, and William Fulke, the Puritan Master of Pembroke Hall at Cambridge. His death was the signal for the great assault upon the Presbyterjans and moderate Puritans which Hatton, Whitegift, and Bancroft

had been itching to launch for years, and Thomas Digges was not distorting the shift of official opinion when he wrote that ‘when the Earle of Leicester lived, it went for currant that all the Papists were traitors in action, of affection. He was no sooner dead

but... Puritans were trounced and traduced as troublers of the state.”!

Another key figure in the growth of moderate Elizabethan Puritanism was Henry, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, brother-in-law of the Dudleys. His own household was a Protestant seminary in miniature,

with prayers, fastings, and catechizings. He filled such advowsons as he controlled with men of the left, his chaplains were nearly all non-conformists of one type ot another. He put in Puritan ministers at Leicester and Loughborough and set up Anthony Gilby as

lecturer at Ashby de la Zouch, which consequently became the headquarters of radical reform within the county and beyond. On his initiative, the Leicester Corporation ordered that one member of every household in the town should attend sermons on Wednesdays and Fridays, so as to encourage ‘those that love the gospel’. Having

thus ensured the local clergy a captive audience, he installed a theological library in the parish church to raise their intellectual tone, while to improve that of the parishioners he founded a strongly Protestant grammar school at Ashby and reorganized that at Leicester. He endowed both with scholarships at the universities and created four fellowships at Emmanuel. Huntingdon also used to the full his powers as President of the Council of the North and a leading member of the High Commission in the North to plant sound Protestants, very often moderate

Puritans, as preachers in the market towns of the north; he protected a nest of Puritans up in Durham from the onslaughts of the archbishop. It is almost certainly through Huntingdon’s influence 1 Rosenberg, op. cit., ch. vi and pp. 127, 200 n, 24, 286 n. 1. Collinson, thesis cit., ch. x, and Letters of Thomas Wood, Puritan, pp. xvi-xl.

821814 3B

739 | RELIGION that John Udall was appointed minister at Newcastle in 1590, only

to be condemned to death two years laters later for his share in the Marprelate Controversy. As a result of his personal labouts, Protestantism, even moderate Puritanism, was greatly encouraged in the north, and Leicestershire took on a radical religious tone which it was to retain for at least a century.! One may suspect, though it has yet to be proved, that it was at any rate partly thanks to similar influence exercised by the earls of Bedford that alone among the west countty shires Devon became a centre of militant Protestantism. Two generations later the same pattern repeated itself, with ministers silenced and hounded by Laud being protected and maintained by the great Puritan lords. George Hughes, ejected from his lecturership in London, found refuge at Warwick Castle as chaplain to Lord Brooke, the ‘great patron and Maecenas to the pious and religious

ministry’, Both Edmund Calamy and Calybute Downing owed much to the patronage of the 2nd Earl of Warwick. An extremely important factor in the religious life of Elizabethan

England was the influence of women. Then as always religious enthusiasm was confined to a smallish number of men, and a much larger phalanx of women, who, as Hooker observed, ‘are propense

and inclinable to holiness’. Given the idle and frustrated lives

these women lived in the man’s world of a great country house, it is hardly surprising that they should have turned in desperation to

the comforts of religion. It was to the women in the big houses that John Gerard appealed in the 1580's, and it was through them that he approached their husbands. It was women like Mary Marchioness of Hamilton, Frances Viscountess Purbeck, Elizabeth Lady Maltravers, Katherine Lady d’Aubigny, Anne Countess of Newport, and Elizabeth Lady Falkland who were particularly susceptible to the new wave of Catholic propaganda in the 1630’s. Similarly, it was to the wives of his gentry supporters that the Puritan Wilcox mostly wrote at the time of his troubles in the 15 70’s. It was Elizabeth Countess of Lincoln who patronized Meredith Hanmer and William

Shute, and Frances Countess of Sussex who refounded Sidney Sussex as a seminary for the reformed religion. Highly influential Elizabethan Puritans were Catherine Duchess of Suffolk, Anne Countess of Warwick, Catherine Countess of Huntingdon, Elizabeth I Cross, op. cit. 2 V. Pearl, London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution, Oxford, 1961, pp. 165-8.

RELIGION 739 Lady Russell, Grace Lady Mildmay, Margaret Lady Hoby, and Anne Lady Bacon.! IV. EDUCATION AND RELIGION

Given the influence exerted by these magnates and the piety of their wives, it is hardly surprising that the Government should have taken energetic steps to tear the children of prominent Catholic families from their mothers’ charge. The ancient power of wardship, first revived by the early Tudors for purposes of finance, now took on a new function as an instrument in making the country safe for

Anglicanism. Lord Burghley was far more successful in his selfappointed task of giving aristocratic heirs a taste for Protestantism

than he was in inducing them to buckle down to their books. In family after Catholic family the process can be seen at work. The rst

Lord Wharton died an open Roman Catholic in 1568; his son had been a supporter of Queen Mary, and King Philip of Spain had stood godfather to his grandson in 1555. But on the death of the 2nd Lotd Wharton in 1572 the heir was entrusted to the care of Lord Burghley and the Earl of Sussex. He was thus effectively shifted into the Protestant camp, and one of his sons became ‘a professed enemy of popety and prophaneness’. At much the same time the heir to another great northern estate, George 3rd Earl of Cumberland, was snatched by Lord Burghley from the care of his

popish uncle, Viscount Montagu, and entrusted to the Puritan Earl of Bedford, to whose daughter he was married a few years later. Meanwhile, he was brought up in the Earl’s very strict household and later at Trinity, Cambridge, under Whitgift’s personal eye. One more northern lord was thus shifted to the Protestant camp.?

The story of the Wriothesleys, earls of Southampton, is very similar. The 2nd Earl was brought up by his mother during Mary’s

reign as a devout Catholic and in 1565 was married into another openly Catholic family, the Brownes, viscounts Montagu. When he died in 1581 his son and heir, who was only 8 years old, was removed from his mother’s charge and put into Burghley’s house to be brought up with his other aristocratic wards. When he arrived,

the child was already so well indoctrinated that at first he refused 1 Caraman, op. cit. Knowler, ii, pp. 73, 165. Havran, op. cit., pp. 145-6. Collinson, thesis cit., pp. 59-Go, 814-26. 2 Bod] Wkarton MSS. i, p. 45. Williamson, pp. 3-6. W. P. Baildon, Les Reportes des Cases in Camera Stellata, 1593-1609, 1894, p. 228.

740 RELIGION to attend Anglican service. But he was carefully te-educated, and although his religious orthodoxy temained uncertain before about 1605, he was at worst indifferent and in the end became an open supporter of Anglicanism.! These stories demonstrate both the key role of Lord Burghley in weaning the great families from Catholicism, and the overriding importance of education. ‘As wee are bted, so wee live, and so wee dye for the most part’, observed the Marquis of Newcastle. At this petiod a very considerable amount of any curriculum was devoted to theology, and his teachers did much to determine the colour of a man’s teligious views. The ease with which a nobleman could obtain a private education at home from chaplains and tutors of his father’s choosing made it exceedingly difficult for the Government to break the religious affiliations of a family once they had been established. Hence the persistent Catholicism of families like the Brownes and the Petres, the persistent Puritanism of families like the Russells and the Riches. Despite legislation against recusant schoolmasters, in fact only the early death of a father allowed the __ Government to interfere in the educational process by the exercise of the powers of wardship. On the other hand the spread of the habit of a public education at school and at the university encouraged acquiescence and acceptance of the established religion, though it would have been far more effective if only the dons had been more orthodox in their opinions. The success of Leicester and Burghley in theit capacities as chancellors in purging the two universities of Catholic dons was prob-

ably one of the most crucial victories in a prolonged struggle for the allegiance of the political nation. The encouragement given by Leicester at Oxford to Puritans like Laurence Humphrey, President of Magdalen, and the caution and restraint exercised by Burghley at Cambridge in his dealings with the Puritans there, allowed both universities to become partly infected with Puritan doctrines, and thus to become important centres of Puritan propaganda among the young. Since they were catering for a larger and larger proportion of both the future clergy and the future gentry and nobility of the country, religious radicalism in the universities, to which men were exposed at their most impressionable age, was to have farteaching consequences. It was this infiltration of the universities which turned Puritanism from the sectional eccentricity of a few * Rousham House, Cottrell-Dormer MSS. Stopes, pp. 270, 295, 360.

RELIGION 741 great households in the countryside and groups of artisans and small traders in the towns into a nation-wide movement affecting all classes of society. The Marquis of Newcastle was right to advise the future Charles II to take care to establish a tight monopoly of university offices by docile and conformist Anglicans.!

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the formation and preservation of a substantial minority of religious dissidents on either flank of the Established Church depended in very large measure on the patronage of a few dozen dedicated magnates and leading squires. Had it not been for this powerful protection, it is more than likely that official persecution would have succeeded, as

elsewhere in Europe, in creating a monolithic state church. Had this happened, the effects on English history would have been incalculable. Freedom of thought and expression, the creation of a plural society held together by a willingness to live and let live, depended on the failure of the Established Church to crush or absorb dissenting opinion in the hundred years between 1540 and 1640. V. RELIGION AND THE PEERAGE

No division of the peerage into clear-cut religious categories is possible during the first twenty years of Elizabeth’s reign. No one, except possibly the Queen herself, can seriously have regarded the botched-up political compromise of 15 59 asa final solution which was

designed to last for centuries, and although the great majority outwardly subscribed to the Anglican settlement, many were striving to change it in one direction or another. By about 1580, however, the divisions were becoming clearer. The Puritans had been goaded by inept persecution and obstinate refusal to remedy crying abuses into launching more far-reaching attacks upon the Anglican liturgy and organization; many Church Catholics had been encouraged by the Papal Bull of 1570 and vigorous missionary activity into taking up a more uncompromising teligious stand. In 1580 there were 66 English peers: 20 of these were Catholic recusants, about 10 were of strongly Puritan sympathies, about a dozen were supporters of the Anglican settlement, and the remaining 24 were relatively indifferent to religious issues and anxious only to back the winner.” 1 Strong, pp. 186, 188. 2 ‘The best source for this period is a list drawn up in 1582 by a supporter of Mary Queen of Scots, which seems fairly accurate to judge from other evidence (SP 12/157/90). I have altered and supplemented this list where I felt it necessary in the light of other evidence.

742 RELIGION What is noticeable is the high proportion of Catholics and the small number of convinced Anglicans (some of whom undoubtedly had sneaking Puritan leanings). Even Lord Burghley was sympathetic towards the Puritan objectives of a purge of administrative abuses

and a simplified liturgy, although he loyally set his face against change in deference to the wishes of the Queen. Sixty-two yeats later, on the eve of the Civil War, the peerage was almost as far as ever from unanimity in religious opinions. Little attention had been paid to religious affiliation in the creation of the new Jacobean peerage, and as a result a number of convinced

recusants and zealous Puritans had contrived to slip by. In 1641 something like a fifth of the 121 peers were Roman Catholics, and at

least another fifth were in varying degrees Puritan in sympathy. Allowing for the indifferent, substantially less than a half were setiously committed to the Established Church.} These religious divisions among the aristocracy had far-reaching political consequences. In the first place, they split the peers into three distinct clans, Catholic, Anglican, and Puritan, whose membets chose both theit wives and their friends from within the clan. Some

of the most characteristic features of the Puritan ethic, austerity in sex and drink, frugality in clothes and expenditure, and respect for hard work, were responsible for exacerbating relations between __ Court and Country and thus dividing the peerage against itself on politically significant lines. This explains the increasingly obsessive,

indeed at times pathological, character of the Country’s attitude towards the immorality, idleness, and extravagance of the Coutt. Partly because of their different religious affiliations, the peers of 1641 lacked a sense of solidarity and were unable to present a united front in the face of social and political challenge from below.

Secondly, it was Puritanism which led so many peets to side with Parliament when war actually broke out. The hostility of the majority of the peers to Charles I in 1640 can be ascribed in large measure to the failure of the King to multiply jobs to keep pace with 1 The figures cannot be given greater precision, but they serve to illustrate the relative magnitudes of the various religious groupings. For the Catholics, see D. Mathew, op. cit., p. 240; B, Magee, The English Recusants, 1938, pp. 127-8, though some of Magee’s statistics have been severely criticized by W. M. Wigfield in Theology, xli, 1940. I have checked these particular figures and see no reason to quarrel with them. They can be tested against the recusant peers whose arms were seized in 1625-6 (CSPD, 1625-6, pp. 153-88); the petitions for and against the Bishop of Chalcedon of 1627 and 1631 (D. Mathew, The Age of Charles I, Oxford, 1951, p. 143 n. 2); and the peers whose estates were seized as recusants by the Parliamentary Commissioners during the Civil War (SP 23 passim).

RELIGION 743 the increase of titles, and to the restriction of the patronage system to a shrinking court coterie. But other factors must be adduced to explain the apathy of the many and the hostility of the few when wat broke out two years later. It is possible, as did Clarendon at

the time, to find reasons of personal pique towards Charles and Henrietta Maria, fear of suffering the fate of Strafford, and hopes of personal financial advantage which led each individual to forsake the traditional loyalty of nobles to the Crown. But the fact remains that the kev figures in the parliamentary opposition in 1642—Essex, Northumberland, Bedford, Warwick, Manchester, Salisbury, Saye and Sele, Fairfax, Wharton, Brooke, and the Greys of Groby—had

all given evidence of Puritan sympathies long before the crisis. Even the frondeurs \\ke Pembroke, Leicester, and Holland, life-long courtiers who ratted on their old master, may have been influenced

in some measure by this factor. Several of the neutrals and tepid nominal adherents of the King, like Huntingdon, Spencer, or Montagu of Boughton, were torn between political loyalty to the Crown on the one hand and on the other a desire for religious refotm and a suspicion and hatred of the swarms of Catholics who were rallying so enthusiastically round the King. In many cases the result was a paralysis of will. Finally, religion was a powerful solvent of respect for the peerage. Because so many peets wete Catholics, suspicion was thrown upon the class as a whole. Publicly on the floor of the House of Commons, and privately in their diaries, country gentlemen kept anxiously tot-

ting up the number of Catholic peers, and particularly those who held office. Each time the list got longer, they were pushed one step nearer the conclusion that it would be both foolish and ungodly

to put one’s trust in noblemen. Fear and hatred of the religious beliefs of a minority came to outweigh respect for the order as a whole, and when the Grand Remonstrance of 1641 complained of obstruction by ‘a party of bishops and popish lords in the House of Peers’, it was sounding the first trumpet for an assault which was

to end in the abolition of the House itself. More fundamental, though more difficult to demonstrate, was the effect of Calvinist theology on men’s attitude to the traditional hierarchy of rank, and to its apex the peerage. ‘The doctrine of the elect erected a second, independent, hierarchy of spiritual grace 1 CJ, i, pp. 866-7. Diary of Walter Yonge, Esq. (Camden Soc. xt), 1847, pp. 20, 117. S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, Oxford, 1906, p. 227.

744 RELIGION | alongside that of temporal authority and dignity. If it was agreed that the two coincided, all well and good. But what if they did not?

Calvinism gave others than John Knox the courage to attack the mighty in their seats, and the puritanically minded aristocrat found himself obliged to listen with what patience he could muster to outspoken rebukes from his social inferiors. The trouble was that the Puritan scale of values was difficult to harmonize with the traditional way of life of a great nobleman. During the reign of Edward VI the family chaplain, James Haddon, was perpetually nagging at

the devoutly Protestant Duchess of Suffolk for her incorrigible love of petty gambling and fine clothes. In 1581 the Earl of Leicester

had no sooner got John Field released from jail than he received from him a letter criticizing with brutal frankness his patronage of the stage. ‘I humblie besech your honour’, wrote Field with mock humility, ‘to take heede howe you gyve your hande either in evill causes, ot in the behalfe of evill men, as of late you did for players to the greate greif of all the Godly.’ The interesting thing is that neither Suffolk nor Leicester treated these impertinent attacks on their private pleasures with the irritable contempt one might think they deserved. Neither was persuaded to give up his aristocratic foibles, but the first kept Haddon on as chaplain despite the ceaseless grumblings, and the latter remained on friendly terms with Field. Indeed Leicester showed himself to be painfully sensitive to Puritan moral criticism, even from men of mote lowly social status. —

A few years before, a small midlands farmer had written to him, accusing him of slackness in the cause of Puritanism and of leading an immoral private life. Instead of ignoring the letter, Leicester had replied to it in a long self-exculpatory essay running to 2,000 words. !

Evidence of the same feeling of insecurity is provided by the occasion half a century later when the znd Lord Spencer was otganizing an annual race-meeting near Northampton. In 1632 he and some local gentlemen clubbed together to raise £200, which

they gave to the Corporation. In return the latter promised to provide a silver gilt cup for the winner of a horse-tace to be run annually at Harlestone on the Thursday of Easter week. As soon as he heard about it, the Rev. Richard Samwell wrote to Lord Spencer urging him to abandon the project, concluding with the frank words: ‘I cannot forbeare to tell your Lordship that 1 heere 1 H. W. Chapman, Lady Jane Grey, 1962, pp. 49, 55-56, 67. Rosenberg, op. cit., pp. 254-5. Collinson ,op. cit., pp. 10-16.

RELIGION 745 some that ... say this is one of the worst things that ever they knewe you give way to.’ Even more striking than this bold rebuke was the way Lord Spencer took it. Samwell must have been gratified and flattered to receive a long and courteous reply. Spencer pointed out that he was treating the clergyman on terms of absolute equality, but reminded him gently that ‘the greatness of noblemen, notwithstanding the pride of any man’s hart, must be remembred. Honnor to whom honor belongeth, & it is to be valewed above a piece of paper.” After producing a variety of arguments, Spencer played his trump: “my counsellors in matters of divinitie are clergymen, and they will say that these sports are not naturall in sin.’! Both parties thus recognized that questions of divine law and the will of God transcended the normal respect due to a titular superior. One may

well ask at what other period of history, except perhaps in high Victorian times, could there have taken place such an exchange of letters between a peer and a parson about the personal recreational habits of the former. The classic statement of the Puritan attitude to aristocracy in the 1630’s comes from New England, in the form of replies made to Lords Saye and Sele and Brooke when they were contemplating emigration to Massachusetts. The noblemen were anxious to be assuted that their family claims to dignity and power would be respected in the new environment. The official reply was polite but firm: Hereditary honors both nature and scripture doth acknowledge (Eccles.

xix. 17), but hereditary authority and power standeth only by the civil laws of some commonwealths.... Where God blesseth any branch of any noble or generous family with a spirit and gifts fit for government, it would be a taking God’s name in vain to put such a talent under a bushel, and a sin against the honor of magistracy to neglect such in our public elections. But if God should not delight to furnish some of their posterity with gifts fit for magistracy, we should expose them rather to reproach and prejudice, and the common-

wealth with them, than exalt them to honor, if we should call them forth, when God doth not, to public authority.?

These exchanges are revealing evidence of the effect of the Puritan conscience in sapping respect for rank and title at all levels of the social hierarchy. 1 Althorp, ESP, iii. J. Bridges, Northamptonshire, 1791, i, p. 511. 93 6 Onsen The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetis-Bay, Cambridge, Mass.,

XIV

| CONCLUSION

THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE

I. DEFERENCE | “THE essence of social class is the way a man is treated by his fellows

(and, reciprocally, the way he treats them), not the qualities or the possessions which cause that treatment.’! If we examine the position of the peerage in the light of this classic definition we can see the maintenance of a fairly stout barrier between peers and gentry in the reign of Elizabeth, and the striking, if temporary, erosion of

that barrier under the Early Stuarts. |

During the reign of Elizabeth the gentry certainly regarded the peerage with some apprehension. Sir William Holles flatly refused to matry his daughter to an earl. ‘Sake of God’, he said, ‘I do not like to stand with my cap in my hand to my son in law. I will see hir martied to an honest gentleman with whome I may have friendship and conversation.’ Sir William Wentworth was equally nervous

of having anything to do with the peetage, telling his son that it was ‘dangerous to be familiar with them, or to depend upon them ot to deale with or trust them too muche’. Up to the late sixteenth centuty they still lived in semi-regal state, surrounded by swarms of attendants who formed a minor court around them. They never moved without their train, and as they passed through a village bells were rung in their honour and the local gentry turned out to greet them. When they dined they were served by the sons of gentle-

men, who saw nothing humiliating in such a menial task. When their letters were read out in public assemblies, men took off their

hats as a mark of respect. | Many commentators struck a note of obsequious deference that

appeats both ridiculous and nauseating to the twentieth century, but was no mote than a natural reflection of the social order and the social ethos of the day. ‘Nobilitie is a precious gift, whiche so 1 JT’. H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class, Cambridge, 1950, p. 92.

2 Holles, p. 41. Sheff CL/S 40/1. See pp. 207-15. Wilts. R.O., Suffolk and Berks. MSS.,

Box A/156. Smyth, i, p. 308.

CONCLUSION: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE 747 glittereth in the eyes of al men that there is no one corporall thyng in this worlde, whereof we make a greater accompt’, wrote Thomas Twyne in a fit of enthusiasm. ‘Men naturally favour Nobility’, observed the more prosaic Camden. All three monarchs took the same

line. Elizabeth did her best to find jobs for her nobility, and to protect them from insult. When Philip Sydney had the temerity to answer back after being insulted by the Earl of Oxford in a tennis court, the Queen gave the young man a solemn lecture on deportment. She urged him to recognize ‘the difference in degree between eatls and gentlemen, the respect inferiors ow’d to their superiors

and the necessity in Princes to maintain their own creations, as degrees descending between the people’s licentiousness and the anoynted sovreignty of Crowns: how the gentleman’s neglect of the Nobility taught the peasant to insult upon both’. James was of the opinion that “‘vertue followeth oftest noble bloud’, even if he did

little to exploit his biological discovery. Il, THE DECLINE OF RESPECT

By the early seventeenth century this attitude of respectful sub-

setvience was breaking down, despite increasing efforts of the Government to keep it alive. Sir Edward Walker thought that the rapid increase in the number of the nobility after 1615 “introduced a parity in conversation; which considering English dispositions ptoved of ill consequences, familiarity . . . begetting contempt’. As early as 1578 it was remarked that lords were far more respected in remote areas like Lancashire, Cheshire, and Shropshire, where they were tare birds, than in the Home Counties, where they werea familiar

sight. For years the nobility had been the butt of the playwrights. Middleton thought ‘a French ruff, a thin beard, and a strong perfume’ summed up their appearance; Marston was even ctueller about their characteristics : “I am of noble kind’, declared Malevole, ‘for I find myself possessed with all their qualities ;—love dogs, dice,

and drabs, scorn wit in stuff-clothes; have beat my shoemaker, knocked my semsttess, cuckold my pothecary, and undone my tailor.’ It was not long before this criticism was reflected in real life. Asked if he realized that the Earl of Huntingdon was a gentleman, 1 T. Twyne, Breviary of Britain, 1573, sig. A ii. T. Camden, Annals, 1635, p. 278. See also T. Habington, A Survey of Worcestershire (Worcs. Hist. Soc.), 1893-9, i, p. 32. HMCS, v, p. 7; xii, p. 119. Works of Fulke Greville, ed. A. B. Grosart, 1870, iv, p. 69. James I, Basilikon Doron (Roxburghe Club), 1887, pp. 56-57.

748 CONCLUSION: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE Sit Henry Shirley retorted curtly, ‘I know not that; but if my hawk had flown into any lord’s parlour, I would have followed my hawk’.

Thomas Bennett treated the Earl of Marlborough with similar atrogance in a hunting dispute a few years later, and it was small comfort if both gentlemen were ultimately punished for their presumption. Their day was clearly not far off.1 During the 1620's and 1630's significant little incidents kept occurring. A gentleman jostled and swore at the Earl of Carlisle in a narrow passage; two draymen deliberately rammed and overturned the Earl of Exeter’s

coach; a beggar assaulted the Earl of Westmorland with a truncheon. Meanwhile, tenants ceased to treat noblemen with their wonted deference, the gentry ceased to turn out to welcome them, the yeomanry ceased to vote as they were bid. By the time the Civil

War broke out the stock of the aristocracy was lower than it had ever been before, or was to be again for centuries. Writing in 1632, Sir Henry Spelman concluded: ‘Now I labour in observing the particulars, seeing the whole body of the Baronage is since that [1538] fallen so much from their ancient lustre, magnitude, and estimation. I that about 50 years agoe did behold with what great tespect, observance, and distance principal men of counties apply’d themselves to some of the meanest barons and so with what familiarity inferior gentlemen often do accost many of these of our times, cannot but wonder either at the declination of the one or the arrogance of the other.” The manifold causes of this slump in prestige have already been spelt out at length. They include the decline in the wealth of the peers relative to that of the gentry; the shrinkage of their territorial possessions, in both absolute and relative terms; the decay of their military power in men, arms, castles, and will to resist; the granting of titles of honour for cash not merit, in too great numbers,

and to too unworthy persons; the change in their attitude towards the tenantry from suppliers of manpower to suppliers of rent; the undermining of their electoral influence due to the rise of deeply , 1 E. Walker, Historical Discourses, 1705, p. 303. J. Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, ii, 1823, p. 181. T. Middleton, A Mad World, My Masters, 1. i. J. Marston, The Malcontent, 111. 1. Nichols, iii, p. 777 n. 2. LJ, iii, p. 849. CSPD, 1637, p. 472. M. Campbell, The English Yeoman, New Haven, 1942, p. 43. 2 G. Aylmer, The Institutions and Personell of English Central Administration, 1625-41 (Oxford D.Phil. thesis), 1955, i, p. 173. CSPD, 1637, pp. 281, 299. Notes on the Debates in the House of Lords, 1621-28 (Camden Soc. x11), 1929, p. 68. R. T. Spence, The Cliffords earls of Cumberland,

Ze ota weoneen Ph.D. thesis), 1959, p. 354. H. Spelman, The History and Fate of Sacrilege,

CONCLUSION: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE 749 felt political and religious issues; the increasing preference for extravagant living in the city instead of hospitable living in the countryside; the spread throughout the propertied classes of a bookish education, acquired at school and university, and the demand by the State for an administrative é/te of proved competence, irrespective of the claims of rank; the pervasive influence of the rise of individualism, the Calvinist belief in a spiritual hierarchy

of the Elect, and the Puritan exaltation of the private conscience, which affected attitudes towards hierarchy and obedience in secular

society; and finally the growing psychological breach between Court and Country in attitudes, real or supposed, towards constitutional theory, methods and scale of taxation, forms of worship, aesthetic tastes, financial probity, and sexual morality. Many of the same forces were at work to bring about a general weakening of the hierarchical framework of upper-class society in the early seventeenth century. Respect for the episcopacy had been reduced by a century of robbery, neglect, and Calvinism; respect for the clergy had been undermined by attacks on their morals and educational shortcomings, and by wider reading of the New Testament; respect for the King had been reduced by his association with a sexually depraved court, a pro-Spanish foreign policy, and a popish queen; respect for the baronetage had been sapped by the admission of men who were not even regarded as gentlemen, respect for the

knighthood by the indiscriminate mass creations of James and Buckingham. The early seventeenth century thus saw a hardening of status divisions according to the law, accompanied by a decline of respect for superiors in church, state, society, and family. It is

hardly surprising that the sharp decline in the prestige of peers eventually gave birth to a new constitutional theory. The M.P.s had convinced themselves that the House of Commons was by its vety nature an infinitely more important body than the House of Lords. John Pym described the latter as merely ‘a Third Estate, by inheritance and birth-right’, compared with “the whole body of the

Commons of the Kingdom’. Others took up the same theme, ‘this House being the representative body of the whole Kingdom,

and their Lordships being but particular persons and coming to Parliament in a particular capacity’. Although these ideas were undoubtedly stimulated bu the policy clashes on vital issues between

Lords and Commons, they struck an immediately responsive chotd among the public, and it was this popular reaction which

750 CONCLUSION: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE forced the Lords into reluctant retreat in 1641-2. this was the atmosphere which prepared the way for, and does much to explain, the popularity of the Leveller ideas in the late 1640’s. William Overton argued historically that William the Conqueror and his successors ‘made dukes, earles, barrons, and lords of their fellow robbets, rogues, and thieves’. His conclusion, ‘away with the pretended power of the Lords’, was acceptable in circles far removed

from that of his fellow Levellers.! |

III. THE ARISTOCRATIC REACTION

In face of the mounting criticism of their privileges, the growing contempt for their persons, and the erosion of the territorial foundations of their authority, the nobility were foolish enough to attempt

to mount a counter-attack, the most visible feature of which was an overweening arrogance symptomatic of their basic insecurity.? John Chamberlain confessed that ‘I am of Rabelais’ minde that they looke big comme un millord d’Angleterre’, and was uneasy in the presence of a nobleman. Aubrey found them “damnably proud and arrogant, and the French would say that “My lord d’Angleterre comme un mastif-dog”’’. Inmediately after the Restoration the same com-

ments ate made. “The Lords are difficult and inaccessible’, said Evelyn; ‘La haute noblesse...d’ordinaire est insupportablement fiére & orgueilleuse en Angleterre. Il semble qu’un mylord s’estime d’une autre espéce qu’un autre gentilhomme, si impérieusement il traitte

avec luy’, noted a French visitor. Peers showed a hypersensitive reaction to slights, real or imagined. When the Mayor of Chester failed to turn out to greet him as he passed through the town in 1635, Thomas Earl of Arundel completely lost his temper. When his worship finally appeared, the Earl snatched away the mayoral staff, shouting ‘I will teach you to knowe your selfe and attend Peers

of the Realme’. This hysterical outburst was symptomatic of an uneasy feeling that things were not what they had been.3? Another symptom of the same phenomenon was the frenetic interest in heraldry, the diligent commissioning of family histories. 1 LJ, iv, p. 407. CJ, ii, p. 330. C. Hill, Puritanism and Revolution, 1958, pp. 73-75.

2 The first exponent of a theory of aristocratic revival was Professor Vernon F. Snow, ‘Essex and the Aristocratic Opposition to the Early Stuarts’, J. Mod. Hist. xxxii, 1960. What he failed to note, however, was that the revival was as much the work of the King and the royalists as of the lawyers and the parliamentary opposition. 3. Ch, i, p. 45. Aubrey, p. 60. C. H. Firth, The House of Lords during the Civil War, 1910, p. 293. S. Sorbiére, Relation d’un Voyage ..., 1666, pp. 132-3. BM Harl. MSS. 2057, f. 32.

CONCLUSION: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE 751 Everyone in the early seventeenth century was busy calling in the past to redress the balance of the present. The common lawyers were

gtubbing about in medieval parchments to support their pretensions against the prerogative courts and Chancery; the opposition members of the House of Commons were scouring the Parliament Rolls for ammunition against the Crown; on the other side the Laudian clergy were harking nostalgically back to the powers and wealth of the pre-Reformation Church; the Crown was brushing up its medieval rights over the Forest, distraint of knighthood, and scutage. Similarly the peers were only too happy to be tfeminded of the days when they were the hereditary advisers of the Crown and the judges of ministerial delinquency under the moribund procedure of impeachment; they employed Selden and Hakewill to search out the privileges of the House of Lords, which they

then defended with diligent punctilio. In doing so they felt—or were induced by Coke and the antiquarians to feel—that they were the lineal descendants of the barons on the field of Runnymede or

the baronial allies of Simon de Montfort. Their greatest moment seemed to come in 1641 when Charles in despair summoned to York a Great Council of noblemen to advise him what to do. For Charles himself was an active supporter of this attempted aristocratic revival, and royalist and courtier peers were as anxious to encourage

it as were the members of the opposition. The whole framework of petsonal government in the 1630’s depended on a feassertion of privilege in Church and State. Hence the ferocity with which critics of bishops and challengers of peers were alike punished; hence the abrupt cessation of the sale of titles in 1629, so as to restore respec-

tability to the social order; hence the increase in the proportion of lay peers in the Privy Council from two-thirds to over threequarters ; hence the proposals for a massive increase of the privileges

of the titled which were under consideration in 1639-40.! As usually happens, this attempted aristocratic revival merely

accelerated the downfall of the old order. The opposition peers

failed to realize that both in impeachment cases and in the struggle of 1640-1 they were merely being used by the lawyers and gentry as a battering-ram and a shield. The royalist peers failed

to realize that on the Privy Council and in the country they were merely being used by the King as a useful cover for his autocratic 1 For challengers of peers, see supra, p. 34. G. Aylmer, The King’s Servants, 1961, p. 20. For the 1639 proposals see supra, pp. 117-19.

752 CONCLUSION: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE pretensions. Their growing arrogance made them new enemies without overawing the old. In England, unlike France or Brandenburg, a firm alliance of mutual self-interest between a highly privileged nobility and an authoritarian Crown was not given time to mature.

If it came to the crunch, the English nobles would be ground to pieces between the millstones of King and Commons. IV. THE END

_ Divided and uncertain in their allegiance, some peers joined the parliamentarian forces, many more the royalists, and mote still were neutrals or turncoats. After the débacle Sir Edward Walker wrote:

‘I am confident that if the nobility had been unanimous to have defended the just rights of the King, the honour and interest of their own body, and the good of the people, it had never been in the power of the Commons to have begun their rebellion.”' Walker,

as usual, is going too far, but it is certainly arguable that if the _ leaders of the Commons had not been able to enlist the support of a number of prominent peers, and to rely on the neutrality of an even larger group, they might have hesitated to take up arms against the King. For the first crucial months the parliamentaty peers were —

| essential to the cause, not for their talents or their power, but for the ait of social respectability they conferred on what would otherwise have appeared as naked rebellion against the combined authority of monarchy, court, aristocracy, and episcopacy. Thereafter their

usefulness declined sharply, and they were treated accordingly. Even the peers who joined the winning side gained nothing from the war but destruction of property and contempt of person, while the sufferings of the royalists are notorious. Soldiers of every persuasion showed themselves so eager to loot the opulent houses of the great that the Earl of Berkshire was driven to the conclusion that both the royalist and the parliamentarian troops had tesolved to make their fortunes out of noble estates. During the siege of Oxford peers were two a penny in the overcrowded town, and hungry sentries on watch cried down to the besiegers: ‘Roundhead, fling me up half a mutton and I will fling thee down a Lord.’ Nor were things any better in London, where a miserable trump huddled, neglected and despised, in an empty House of Lords. In 1645 Lord Willoughby remarked bitterly, 1 Walker, op. cit., p. 304.

CONCLUSION: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE 753 ‘I thought it a crime to be a nobleman’; by the winter of 1648 there were only a handful of peers left to ‘sit and tell tales by the fireside in their House in hope of more Lords to drive away the time’. A few months later the House of Lords was abolished, and with it the privileges which had hitherto helped to distinguish peers from gentry.’ This act was not a mere by-product of the dynamics of war; it was the culmination of a crisis of confidence which had been maturing for well over half a century. 1 HMC 4th Rep., App., p. 309. Bamford, p. 117. Firth, op. cit., p. 206. See also The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne, 1903, p. 107.

821314 3C

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APPENDIX I Mobility of Land, 1560-1699 Close Rolls* Feet of Fines? average p.da. average p.d.

Decade Nos. Index Nos. Index

1560-9 79 100 336 100 1570-9 1o1 128 397 118 1580-9 94 119 418 124 1590-9 121 153 448 133

1600-9 1353 I7I 581 173 1610-19 186 235 761 226 1620-9 148 187 647 192 1630-9 146 185 624 186 1660-9 1670-9 113 104 143 131 588 507 175 151 1640-9 1650-9

1680-9 65 82 469 140 1690-9 35 45 429 127 | 1 Taking the letter ‘S’ in the index of first parties, and excluding all bonds. The figures therefore include major land sales, mortgages, and trust deeds. The years are regnal years. 2 Covering the three counties of Essex, Leicestershire, and Yorkshire. The figures include trust deeds. 3 Actually 142 in 10$ years, the regnal year changing half-way through Elizabeth’s 45th year.

APPENDIX Il Grants of Arms, 15 60-1639!

, 1570-9 740

Date Total grants of Arms

1560-9 ¢. 580

1580-9 700 1590-9 1600~9 300 440 1610-19 440 1620~9 340 1630-9 240

t See Dr. E. Elmhirst, “The Fashion for Heraldry’, The Coat of Arms, iv, 1956, p. 47. These figures ate an underestimate and the peak in the 1570’s and 1580’s may be artificially inflated by the unusual activity of the heralds during these years (see A. R. Wagnet’s comments, loc. cit., p. 119).

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APPENDIX III Creations of Knights, Baronets, Irish and English Peers Ty y8-1641'

Baronets | Irish | English Dates Years | Knights | Engl. Trish Scot. Peers | Peers?

1564-8 5 61 i os i I 2 1569-73 5 55 a i + 6 1574-8 5 109 we e _ 2 . 1579-83 5 69 a 1 I 1584-8 1589-9355147 IIo aa ..a .a we es 717.11.15 58—31.12.1563 C.5 37 os . . a 7

1594-8 5 142 ..4}..148oe. i .._ .2a 1.1.15 99-24.3.1603 1558-1603 totals - 878 . a . 3 18 25.3.1603-3.12,1603 3 934 .. .-i 213 14 1604-5 2 317 os a 1606-10 5 201 30493 . . .. avsI 43 1611-15 5 1616-20 5393 5636051304 21 . 146 14 1621-5 5 17 1626-30 5 226 88 II 65 : 26 1631-5 5 124 I I 20 32 1636-40 5 100 2 26 1641 I 119 69 - - - 7

1603-41 totals a 3,281 364 46 132 80 103

™ It should be pointed out that there is some overlapping in these figures. A single individual might be knighted, made a baronet, and then move on to swell the Irish peerage. The figures for knights are taken from W. A. Shaw, The Knights of England, 1906, ii; for baronets from G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Baronetage, Exeter, 1900-9; for Irish peers from C. R. Mayes, “The Early Stuarts and the Irish Peerage’, EHR, Ixxviii, 1958; for English peers from P.R.O. Deputy Keeper’s Reports, xlvii (corrected).

2 Creations, resumptions, restorations, and recognitions.

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APPENDIX IV 1yy8—1603 Peerage Creations’ Eliz. 2y Mar. 1603 to : ISS 8—-1603 | 3r Dec.Temp. 1641 Ty y8-1641

New creations . . . . 10) v 10 Former titles revived or restored , 5 (0) 5 (9) 10

INCREASES

Former titles resumed ot recognized . 1 (¢) 2(h) 3

female descent . . , . 2(4) 2(t) 4

Titles inherited by marriage or through

Total . . . . . 18 9 27

DECREASES

Failures of the male line . . . 14(@) 119) 25

Attaindetrs. , .titles . . 6). 3. . (k) Metgers of two . 1) 9I

Total . . . : . 20 15 35

¥ Excluding females holding titles in their own right, and eldest sons summoned to the House of Lords in their father’s lifetime. Promotions are ignored.

(2) Bindon, Hunsdon, St. John, Leicester, Buckhurst, Burghley, Compton, Cheyne, Nortis, Howard of Walden. (4) Hertford, Northampton, Dacre of the South, Warwick, De La Wart (Strange has been regarded as an eldest son, and so ignored). (c) Kent. (7) Arundel, Willoughby d’Eresby. (e) Williams, Dacre of the North, Northampton, Hastings of Loughborough, Latimer, Arundel, Mounteagle, Bergavenny, Cheyne, Leicester, Warwick, Dacre of the South, Ogle, Burgh (Atundel descended by marriage). (f) Westmorland, Norfolk, Paget, Arundel, Essex, Southampton (Westmorland might be included in the failure rather than the attainder column since his line failed after attainder).

(g) Southampton, Paget, Arundel, Essex, Audley. (4) Bergavenny, Grey of Ruthin. (‘) Dacre of the South, Mounteagle (Mounteagle might be regarded as no more than the summons of an eldest son in his father’s lifetime, and so ignored). _ (j) Mountjoy, Lumley, Bindon, Norris, Zouche, Sandys, Scrope, Darcy of Aston, Stafford, Darcy of Chiche, Windsor. (4) Cobham, Grey of Wilton, Audley (the Gtey of Wilton line also failed later). (4) Morley and Mounteagle (see note (Z)).

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APPENDIX V 1603-41 Peerage Creations INCREASES

New creations . , , - 924)

Total 94 Attainders . . , . . re) Total 22

Titles resumed, recognized, or restored 2.)

DECREASES

Failures of the male line. , . 19!) Mergers of two titles by male descent 2 (4)

* Excluding females holding titles in their own right, and eldest sons summoned to the House of Lords during their father’s lifetime. Promotions are ignored. (2) Salisbury, Leicester, Banbury, Wotton, Harington, Ellesmere, Petre, Danby, Gerard, Russell, Stamford, Spencer, Saye and Sele, Northampton, Hume, Norwich, Devonshire, Totnes, Arundell, Chesterfield, Montgomery, Clifton, Carlisle, Knyvett, Somerset, Richmond, Carnarvon, Teynham, Clare, Buckingham, Stanhope, Noel, St. Albans (Bacon), Bristol, Cambridge, March, Purbeck, Newcastle, Manchester, Denbigh, Holderness, Brooke, Montagu, Middlesex, Andover, Monmouth, Holland, Anglesea, Grey of Warke, Conway, St. Albans (Bourke), Deincourt, Westmorland, Marlborough, Robartes, Vere, Wimbledon, Tregoz, Dorchester, Thanet, Savage, Craven, Fauconberg, Lovelace, Newport, Poulett, Kingston, Brudenell, Bayning, Hervey, Maynard, Coventry, Howard of Esctrick, Portland, Goring, Mohun, Campden, Savile, Strafford, Boteler, Dunsmore, Herbert of Powys, Herbert of Cherbury, Cottington, Winchilsea, Finch, Stafford, Littleton, Seymour, Bruce, Capel, Conyers. (2) Roos, Strafford (Roos might be regarded as no more than the summons of an eldest son in his father’s lifetime, and so not counted). (¢) Hume, Northampton, Harington, Clifton, Knyvett, Roos (see note (4)), Richmond, Holderness, St. Albans (Bacon), Campden, Totnes, Tregoz, Wotton, Dorchester, Banbury, Vere, Norwich, Bayning, Wimbledon (the Campden title passed to Lord Noel, the Roos title to the Earl of Rutland, the Clifton title to the Earl of March; the Banbury title was challenged in 1641 by a child whose father was almost certainly not the earl). (d7) Russell and Bedford; Montgomery and Pembroke. (e) Strafford.

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APPENDIX VI Numbers and Composition of the Peerage, 1487-1641

Date Duke | Marquis Earl | Viscount Baron Total

1487 Apr. Dec. 22. 31 ., ..{32I I16103.34{%) 57 1509 31 (0) 43 1529 Dec. 31. . .. .2I2I 14) I 352 (0) 54 1558 Nov. 17. 15(¢) 38 57 1559 Dec. 31. . .{ 2 2 16(¢) 3 4o(4) 62

1589 Dec. 3r—iw 31. , foes I 18I 18 2 39(4/e) 6o 1599 Dec. . ~|o.. 2 37(e) 58 1603 Mar. 24. . ~| a. I 16 2 36(¢) 55 1609 Dec. 3r . ~f oe. I 25 2 si) 80

1615 Dec, 31 .. .. .Iwe I 27 24951126 81 1628 Dec. 31 I 65 10 1639 Dec. Dec. 32 31.. .. ,2I2I 609) 619) 68 51 44)121 15 1641

™ Excluding the royal children, females holding titles in their own right, and eldest sons of peers summoned to the House of Lords during their father’s lifetime. Whenever extinguished

through attainder, titles are not included. When two titles merge in a single person, they are

treated as one. The figures for 1487, 1509, and 1529 are taken, with adjustments, from P, J. Higson, The Nobility of England, 1433-1558 (Liverpool M.A, thesis), 1959.

(a) Excluding Lords Welles and Willoughby.

(6) Excluding Lords Roos and Berkeley. (¢) Excluding the Earl of Kent, who did not reassume his title till 1572.

(d) Excluding Lord Strange of Knockyn, who is treated as an eldest son. (e) Excluding Lord Bergavenny, whose title was not recognized till 1604. (f) Excluding Lord Hay, who possessed an English title but was without a seat in the House of Lords until 1615. (g) Excluding the Earl of Banbury, whose title was not recognized. (h) Excluding Lord Grey of Ruthin, whose title was not recognized till 1641, and Lord Stafford, whose title had recently been surrendered.

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APPENDIX VII Age of Title, ry 58-1641 Nov, ry 58 | March 1603 Dec. 1628 Dec. 1642

Generations Nos. % Nos. % Nos. % Nos. %

23 2 15 4 56 44 35 29 2I3 13 13 23 8 15 12 30 4 7 13 23 12 10 II259

46 6 7 13 16 5 sf 19 ar 22 ae 18 | 21 3 I 3 2 7+ 16 28 20 36 20 16 19 16 57 55 126 121

t Excluding promotions. Generations are counted from the first holder of any title, and temporary attainders are ignored. Thus Henry Lord Cromwell is counted as the third generation, though he is only the 2nd Lord Cromwell; Peregrine Bertie is recognized as 11th Lord Willoughby d’Eresby; Reginald Grey as 4th Earl of Kent; Edward Seymour as 9th Earl of Hertford; William West as 10th Lord De La Warr; Richard Lennard as 13th Lord Dacre of the South. Calculation by generation can on occasion be misleading. Thus in 1641 there were living the 3rd Viscount Montagu, a title created in 1554, and the 4th Lord Gerard, a title created in 1603.

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APPENDIX VIII

££

Estimates of Gross Bental, 1559, 1602, 1641

A. Ifs9

Group Gross rental Number Total rental

I 6,000 (4) 1)6,000 II 5,000-5,999 5,500

Ill 4,000-4,999 3 (©) 14,000 IV 3,000-3,999 g(a) | 10,500 Vv 2,000~2,999 15 (@) 37,500 VI 1,000~1,999 15(J) 22,500

VII 500-999 199) 14,000

Vill 0-499 60") 2,000 63 £112,000

(Mean: £1,780)

(2) Howard (Norfolk). (b) Talbot.

(¢) Herbert, Percy, Stanley. (d) Berkeley, Fitzalan, Vere. (ec) Browne, Clifford, Dacre of the North, Hastings (Huntingdon), Manners, Mordaunt, Nevill (Bergavenny), Paget, Paulet, Rich, Russell, Sandys, Seymour, Wriothesley, Windsor. (f) Blount, Bourchier, Brydges, Darcy of Chiche, Devereux, Fiennes (Dacre), Fiennes (Clinton), Lumley, Nevill (Latimer), Neville (Westmorland), Ratcliffe, Scrope, Sheffield, Somerset, Stourton. (zg) Brooke, Burgh, Carey, Darcy of Aston, Eure, Howard (Bindon), North, Ogle, Parker, Parr, St. John, Stafford, Stanley (Mounteagle), Touchet, Vaux, Wentworth, Wharton, Willoughby, Zouche. (4) Cromwell, Dudley, Grey (Kent), Grey (Wilton), Hastings, Howard (Effingham).

££ B. 1602

Group Gross rental Number Total rental

III 10,800-+ 9,000-10,799Ofe)we oe

TI =| = 7,200-8,999 1 (9) 7,500

IV $,400-7,199 3(0) 17,500 Vv 3,600-5,399 10°) 43,000 VI 1,800-3,599 15 (4) 38,000

VII 900-1799 24°) 31,000 Vill 0-899 5F) 3,000

58 £140,000

(Mean: £2,410)

(a) Talbot (including his industrial profits). (b) Cecil, Percy, Sackville, Talbot. (¢) Brooke, Browne, Clifford, Herbert, Manners, Mordaunt, Nevill (Bergavenny), Rich, Russell, Seymour. (d) Berkeley, Bertie, Blount, Brydges, Compton, Devereux, Hastings, Howard of Walden, Nortis, Paulet, Scrope, Sheffield, Somerset, Stanley, Wriothesley. (e) Bourchier, Darcy of Aston, Darcy of Chiche, Dudley, Eure, Fiennes, Grey (Kent), Grey of Wilton, Howard (Nottingham), Howard of Bindon, Lumley, North, Parker, Ratcliffe, St. John, Sandys, Stourton, Vaux, Wentworth, West, Wharton, Willoughby, Windsor, Zouche. (f) Carey, Cromwell, Stafford, Touchet, Vere.

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APPENDIX VIII (cont.)

C. 1641

££££ Old peers New peers All peers

Total | Total Total

Group Gross rental Number \ rental | Number\ rental | Number rental

III110,800-12,999 3,000— 3(4) 145,500 } = 2(") 29,000 5 74,500 (2) 11,500 3 () 32,500 4 44,000

III 8,700-10,799 .. a 19) 10,500 I 10,500 IV 6,600-8,699 7(¢) 5 3,000 6(*) 47,000 13 100,000

V 4,400-6,599 g(a) 44,000 | 114) 60,000 19 104,000 VI 2,200-4,399 15 () 50,000 | 21/7) 67,000 36 117,000

VII I,100~2,199 4S) 7,000} 17”) 31,000 21 38,000 VIII O-1,099 10(9) 7,000 | 1200) 10,000 22 17,000 Total 48 £218,000 | 73 £,287,000 | 121 £505,000 Mean: £4,540 Mean: £3,930 Mean: £4,170

(a2) Howard (Arundel), Percy, Seymour. (b) Manners. (¢) Cecil (Exeter), Compton, Herbert, Lennard, Russell, Somerset, Talbot. (d) Clifford, Howard (Suffolk), Nevill (Bergavenny), Paulet, Rich (Warwick), Stanley, Vere, Wharton. (¢) Berkeley, Bertie, Browne, Brydges, Devereux, Fiennes (Lincoln), Mordaunt, North, Paget, Parker, Sackville, St. John, Sheffield, Willoughby, Wriothesley. (f) Eure, Hastings, Wentworth (Cleveland), West. (g) Bourchier, Carey, Cromwell, Dudley, Grey (Kent), Howard (Nottingham), Ratcliffe, Stourton, Touchet, Vaux. (4) Cavendish (Devonshire), Villiers (Buckingham). (@) Arundell, Cavendish (Newcastle), Craven. (j) Cecil (Salisbury). (A) Egerton, Holles, Montagu (Manchester), Noel, Petre, Pierrepoint. (4) Capel, Cranfield, Dormer, Fane, Finch (Winchilsea), Spencer, Stanhope (Chesterfield), Stuart, Sydney, Tufton, Wentworth (Strafford). (mw) Belasyse, Blount, Brudenell, Carr, Coventry, Danvers, Digby, Fielding, Gerard, Greville, Grey (Stamford), Grey of Warke, Hay, Howard (Berkshire), Leake, Leigh, Lovelace, Montagu (of Boughton), Poulett, Roper, Savage.

(x) Bruce, Conway, Cottington, Fiennes (Saye and Sele), Goring, Hamilton, Herbert of Cherbury, Herbert of Powys, Howatd of Escrick, Maynard, Robartes, Savile, Seymour of Trow-

bridge, Stanhope of Harrington, Villiers (Anglesea), Villiers (Purbeck), Weston. (0) Boteler, Bourke, Carey (Monmouth), Darcy, Finch, Hervey, Howard (Stafford), Ley, Littleton, Longueville, Mohun, Rich (Holland).

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et _ Sws SSone 92°28 Py mo Zi :beens > ‘8esmms :+ PyOQus Sse SBE] 888 E 333 & Zz, sx 2s 068 EES > w Yas MS A ows . n° }

Ss en 00 Ht S & WwW

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(763)

APPENDIX X Frequency Distribution of Manors, 1535, 1597-1608 A. Valor Ecclestasticus, 1535

Gross value Total value Gross value Total value

£ p.a. Number £ £ p.a. | Number £

0-59 | 113 6-11°9 185 339 1,66584-89°9 90-95'989 696 837

12-179 179 2,685 96-101°9 7 7| 693 18—23°9 137 | 2,877 102-107°9 735 24-29°9 99 2,033 108-113°9 5 555 30-35'9 90 2,970 L14-119°9 4 861 468 36-41°9 49 1,911 120-125°9 7 42-47°9 38 2,550 1,710 132~137°9 126-131°9 2I 129 48-53°9 50 266 54-59°9 42 2,394 138-1439 3 423 60-65°9 27 1,691 144-149°9 I 147 66-71°9 28 1,932 150-1559 fe) fe) 72~77°9 14 1,050 156-161'9 I 153

78-83°9 II 891 162-167°9 I 165 Totals 1,118 £33,426

1,118 -_

Mean= f£, 33,426 ={29°9 p.a

Value at 20 years’ purchase= {29-9 X 20=f598=£1,794 in 1600 prices. Standard deviation= £ 26:6. Coefficient of variation= 89 per cent.

B. Close Kolls, 38 Elz.-6 Jas. I (1597-1608)

Sale price Total value Sale price Total value

£ Number £ £ Number L

50-349 16 3,900 5450-5749 2 11,000

350-649 59 30,300 §5750-6,049 I 6,000 650-949 44 35,600 6,050-6,349 OQ ... 95O-1,249 47 50,800 6,350-6,649 1,250-1,549 29 40,900 6,650-6,949 0 -1,550-1,849 1,850—2,14933ZI55,600 62,2006,950-7,249 7,250-7,549II7,000 2,150-2,449 16 37,100 73550-73849 7,300 O= 2,450-2,749 9 23,400 7,850-8,149 oO 2,750-3,049 7 20,500 8,150-8,449 O‘*v 3,9050-3,349 IO 31,500 8,450-8,749 ° “ 3,3 50-3,649 Ssi 38,500 I 9,000 3,650-3,949 3,800 8,750-9,049 9,050-9,349 0. 3,950-4,249 12 48,500 95350-95649 O. 4,250-4,549 4 17,600 9,650-9,949 ° 4,5 50-4,8496 O oe 9,95O-10,249 4,850-5,149 30,000 10,250-10,549fe) O aa §,150-5,449 3 15,800 10,5 §0-10,849 I 10,700 Totals 345 £597,000 Mean= £7 = { 1,730. Standard deviation= £1,426, Coefficient of variation= 82-4 per cent.

(764)

(Se S~ [8 N =.8lanaalo N oy Ss} os &

,.o&. oS MPN

Ss S8]8el gy

ss Rar | a SSSSP baatd

Sy

OD >

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Ss ss ges ss

> 3s SS“ slooo of o

tf NNeye +t th] S&P TyCO oe

“r bey ~ R | \spoQY oS ‘> a) S . 2 A S&pony ers ~ ~ SS . ne ~ x Z Ia & QA SS S SO} $ sw S a, my~~SsoS:

hey 3 OA me RT] ee m OS

a i S ge S 1] q

jar BN3fe)

Q 2, S £ ~ ay x ee ££ KY)

1489 | Henry, 4th Earl of North-

umberland . . 1,038 100 | 1,040 Peck, 11, i, pp. 10-11

1523 | Edward, 1st Lord Mount-

eagle . . . 259 130 170 BM, Add. MSS. 24451, f. 59

1524 | Thomas, znd Duke of

Norfolk ., . : 1,340 130 | 1,030 F. Blomefield, The History of Thetford, Fersfield, 1739,

App. Viii

1526 | William Lord Willoughby 200 130 130 N. H. Nicholas, Te-

stamenta Vetusta, 1836, p. 621

land : . . 461 150 300 B/A 26A

1543 | Thomas, 1st Earl of Rut-

1572 | William, 1st Marquis of

Winchester . . 1,122 300 370 SP 12/148/18

1576 | John, 2nd Marquis of

Winchester . . 1,060+ {| 300 350+ | SP 12/148/18 1578 | Sir Nicholas Bacon . 669 gIo 300 300 Bodl Ashmole 1576 | Walter, 1st Earl of Essex 1,140! 300 380 L/Dev V, f. 23 1580 |} Henry, 12th Earl of Arundel . . . c. 1583 | Thomas, 3rd Earl of

MSS. 836

1,000 300 330 SP 12/133/26

Sussex . . . 1,629 350 470 Essex R.O., D/DP F 240

1585 | Francis, 2nd Earl of Bed-

ford . . . 1,718 + 350 490+ | Woburn

1586 | Sir Henry Sydney : 1,571 350 450 7 Lansd. MSS. 50/88

1587 | Edward, 3rd Earl of Rut-

land . ‘ . 2,297 400 570 B/Blue File 1588Box for

1588 | John, 4th Earlof Rutland | 356 HMCR, i, p. 243

1588 | Robert Earl of Leicester C. 3,000-+ 400 750+ | BM, Harl. Ch., D 35 1589 | Frances Countess of Sus-

sex . . . . 1,368 400 340 Blomefield, i, p. 518

1592 | Anthony, 1st Viscount

Montagu . . . c. 666 400 170 PCC 22 Neville

1596 | Henry, 1st Lord Hunsdon | 836 1,097 400 270 BM, Lansd. MSS. 1596 | Henry, 3rd Earl of Hunt-

82/56

ingdon . . - | 532 1,393 450 310 BM, Harl. MSS. 4774, p. 148

™ Including £310 transport costs from Dublin to Carmarthen.

(785 )

APPENDIX XXVa (cont.) e

S©% Sa RS Bs a2 w bond & S Ry 7

o i aa: £ £ £

"S =” Seon < © | = l Ss 8 m9 B QP]

© ‘> . as oT S $ : B | SS [Se] Be | Q 2, S ~ ay x fe$ 1598 | William, rst Lord Burgh-

ley . . . . C. 1,000 450 220 A. Collins, Life of Lora Burghley,

1604 { George, 4th Earl of Hunt-

1732

ingdon . . . 700 1,060 450 230 BM, Harl. MSS. 3881, f. 60

1608 } Elizabeth Countess of

Shrewsbury . . 3,257 500 650 Chatsworth/H 29 bury , » 11,544 1,977 500 400 H/B 72, 77; . 60 S 206,

1612 | Robert, 1st Earl of Salis-

1615 | Henry, 5th Earl of Kent] 757 HMCApp., 2nd Rep., p. 8 1627 | Francis, 1st Viscount St. Albans. . . C. 300 500 60 PCC 78 Skynner 1627 | Robert, rst Lord Spencer 894 500 180 Althorp 1879 1628 | William, 2nd Earl of

Devonshire . . 1,500 500 300 Chatsworth/H 87, f. 202

1629 | Robert, 5th Earl of Sus-

sex . . . . Cc. 300 500 60 PCC 86 Ridley land . . . 3,544 600 590 B/A 317, 318 1636 | James, 1st Earl of Carlisle 1,504 600 250 C 2 Ch. I, C 106/60 1643 | Edward, 6th Earl of Sussex. . . . C. 400 550 70 Verney, i, p. 268 1650 | Philip, 4th Earl of Pem1632 | Francis, 6th Earl of Rut-

broke ; , , 2,667 600 450 H/A 168/2 Kent , . . 1,592 600 265 Beds. R.O., D/DL Jeayes Cat., App.,

1651 | Elizabeth Countess of

Pp. 105

821314 ZE

(786 )

APPENDIX XXV (cont.) B. Distribution of costs of the funeral of Henry 1st Lord Hunsdon in 1596

£ os. d.

Black cloths and liveries for mourners. . , . , , , 821 6 4 Black cloths for carpets and pulpits , . . . . , . 710 oO Hangings of black bays to drape Somerset House, the cathedral, &c. 8 16 3

King at Arms . . .. ., ,. ,. ;. ;. .; .. .. .I00 00 00 , Duties of the Church 20 Diet and provisions , . , , . . . . . , 112 7 10 Hearse, banners, standards, escutcheons, and achievements, paid to Garter

The dole for the poor . I450 80 Miscellaneous . . . .. .; .. .. .. ..,.. ,. 13

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . £1,097 6 1

Length of black cloth used: 1,232 yards.

(BM Lansd. MSS. 82/56)

C. Style of Funerals ordered in aristocratic wills:

Instructions Ty 60-79 Is 80-99 1600-19 1620-39 | Total nos. | % | nos. | % | nos. | % | nos. | %

Suitabletorank . . 4 100 7 6o 9 30 Il 432 } 31

Seemly, but withoutpomp | .. }] o 3 23 13 43 6 22 | 22 Cheap . . . ~ | .. O 2 17 8 27 9 35 19

Total 4 2 30 26 72

1 The evidence is taken from wills in PCC passim. 2 This rise in the percentage is explained by the insistence on pomp by a few of the nouveaux riches.

(787)

Note on Appendixes XXVI-XXXII: Marriage Statistics These figures have been compiled from family histories, standard works on the peerage, and manuscript genealogies by contemporary heralds in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. In the marriage statistics the peerage has been divided into two groups, pre-1603 creations and 1603-41 creations, called respectively Old Peers and New Peers. In some cases a further division has been made between marriages which took place before and after the elevation of the husbands to the peerage. All marriages of holders of titles and their heirs male are included, even if the heirs died before inheriting the title. The statistics of portions and jointures exclude all heiresses and heirs general, and also Mary Villiers and Charlotte de La Tremouille, who were altogether exceptional. The dates are either those of the settlement of the

portion by the father, or of the marriage itself. When the dates of both are known, the earlier of the two has been used. For references, see pp. 638-44.

APPENDIX XXVI Duration of First Marriages, 15 58-1641 Total

I-5 8 16 24 8 6-10 7 29 36 12 TI-I5 16 24 40 14 16-20 14 18 32 II 21-25 16 19 35 12 26~30 18 13 12 35 30 12 10 31-35 22 36~40 14 5 19 6 41~45 12 6 18 6 46-50 8 7 15 5 Years of Cut short by death Cut short by death cut short

marriage of the husband of the wife nos. %

: 51-55 4 0 4 15 56-60 3 I 4 I°5 61-65 2 O 2 I Total 144 150 294

1 These figures include all first marriages by the 382 peers extant from 1558 to 1641 for which fairly reliable data exists.

(788 )

APPENDIX XXVII Age of Accession to Title, and Death, 15 58-1641

Age of , Age of Death accession \————_—_____ to title | 0-9} 10-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49} so-s9 | 60-69 | 70-79 | 80-89 | Total

o-9 3- 2.e I4 710285122II56I228 10-19 53 20-29 ws 3 II 19 13 8 5 3 62 30-39ws . . oe . 7 o.TIoe9 43)8 II 5I 58 40-49 8 I 22 50-59 os os oe i a 4 8 4 I 17 60-69 oe oe a) ee oe oe es a) we ee 70-79 ws..-os- oe - we a IaII2I 80-89 ws os oe os oe

Total 3 2 8 35 44 51 52 33 15 243 1 These figures include all peers extant between 1558 and 1641, excluding all new creations

and those whose date of birth is unknown. In many cases the dates of birth and death are known only to the year and not to the month, so that there is a margin of error of +1.

APPENDIX XXVIII Total Number of Marriages, 15 40-1659 Isgo-69 | If70-99 | 1600-29 | 1630-59 | Iy40-1659

Old Peers

Before creation . 785_59. ..348 7 After creation . . , 106. 98 Total. . . . 113 98 85 59 355

Before creation. .. .| vs 2 53 120 After creation . 4461734 117

New Peers

Total. . . . 2 53 105 77 237

(789 )

APPENDIX XXIX Marriages with Hetresses, 15 40-1659

Old Peers | Before creation . . IO 3 After creation . . . 20219 29fo) 20 |84

IS 40-69 IS70-99 | 1600-29 1630-59 IfS40-1659

Total . . . . 22 20 29 20 gt % of all marriages. , 19% 20% 34% 34% 26% Before creation. .. ,. O 2 17 | 26204 ZI 49 After creation O 12

New Peers

Total , . . 2 17 38 24 SI % of all marriages , . 32% 36% 31% 34% APPENDIX XXX Social Status of Wives, 15 40-1659 N.B. (1) Social status is normally taken as that of the father, but where there is any ambiguity, for example in the case of a gentleman’s daughter who is the widow of a merchant or a peer, the woman is classified as ‘Merchant’ or ‘Peer’, rather than ‘Gentry’, as this is obviously the most relevant criterion. Women who were daughters of the younger sons of peers are counted as ‘Gentry’, since this was the status of their fathers. (2) Before 1599 marriages of women who were the daughters of future Early Stuart peers are classified as ‘Gentry’; after 1600 they are classified as ‘New Peers’. This is an arbitrary decision, as a result of which the figures

for New Peers in the 1600-29 period mean very little.

Marriages of all Peers (after creation only) IS 40-69 IS7o-99 1600-29 1630-59 IS 40-1659 Social status of wives Nos. | % | Nos. | % | Nos. | % | Nos. | % | Nos. | %

Old Peer . .. 57 | 54] 32 433) 45 [35 | 36 | 27] 170 | 37

New Peer. . . O O O O 27 | 21 39 | 30 66 | 14 Gentry . , , 40 | 38} 57 | 58 38 | 29 33 | 25 | 168 | 36 Merchant. 17 34 Official , ., .. 62 62 I6I 65 44 35st4 |34 16

Lawyer . . . O O I I 4 3 3 2 8 2 peer . . . . I O I I 6 5 12 9 20 4 Irish, Scottish, or foreign

Total . . . | 106 98 | 129 132 465 1 Two of these took place in 1630.

(79°)

APPENDIX XxXXIl Marriage Portions offered by Peers, 1475-1724 Portions r47j- | ry2jf- | ryfo- | ry7j- | r600-—| r62js—| 16so- 167 5-

£4 Ij24 | 49 74 99 24 49 74 | 724

0-499 5 9426a 5we - -we .. 500-999 I . i +. I,000-1,999 I 13 7 7 3 - 3 -

2,000-2,999 - a.. a6 I8 29 8 1a0) I I. 3,000-3,999 6 .. 4,000-4,999 __..-.os 2 14 253 .os5 § ,000-5,999 . 2 13 6,000-7,999 .._._- -. -7o16263 2I 8,000—9,999 10,000—14,999 15,000-19,999 .. i-. .. .2i12 I _5 29

20,000—24,999 . . . - a I 3

No. of items . . 10 23° 21 20 A5 85 22 23 Average size to nearest

£100 , . . | £5007 | £700 | £1,300] £2,000 | £3,800] £5,400 | £7,800 | £9,700

PortionIndex . , 100 140 260 400 760| 1,080] 1,560] 1,940 Phelps Brown price

index (to nearest 10) . TIO 17O 290 400 500 600 630 620

1 This figure excludes two very unusual portions of £2,666 received and then given by the Stanleys, earls of Derby. If these are included the average is £800.

(791)

APPENDIX XXXII The Portion| Jointure Ratio, 1485-1734!

0-0'9 . i . I°O-1°9 _ -_ i 2°0-2'9 I i . 3*0-3°9 6 + . . 4'0-4°9 3 3 . . I a 5°0-§°9 3 6 3 2 3 I 6-0-6'9 5 2 10 7 7 2 7:0-7°9 = 5 5 3 4 I 8:0-8°9 2 2 2 3 2 5 90-99 - - i 1 I 2

Ratio 1485-1574 |1575-1614| 1615-34 | 1635-49 | 16s0-74 | 1675-1734

10°O~10'9 Il'O-11'9 1.. 4.. I-5I fe) -_ 8i

Total of items 20 22 21 22 28 19

Average ratio 5°0 6-8 65 7°8 79 8-7 1 These figures include marriages of knights and esquires. For the categories excluded see pp. 643-4. One or two of the items are from contracts drawn up but not in fact executed. They have been included since they give an idea of the ratios parents thought reasonable.

(792)

APPENDIX XXXIII Age at First Marriage, 15 40-1659

15 8 6 9 5 17 29 21 21 12 20 54 40 59 32

Married by about Marriages 1540-99 __ Marriages 1600-59

the age of number % number %

22 106 78 57 96 52 25 78 138 76 30 128 94 166 91 40 133 98 | 171 94

5o 133 983}2177 97 never 5 3 Total 136 100 182 100

1 These figures comprise all peers and their heirs male who lived to the age of 30 about whom information is available, excluding one lunatic (Lord Boteler) and one prisoner (Lord Grey of Wilton). The figures are only approximate, since in very many cases the dates of birth and/or marriage are known only to the year and not to the month.

APPENDIX XXXIV | Matriculations at the Universities, 15 50-1639" CAMBRIDGE OXFORD

Old | New Old New Total | Total

1550-9 - 3Jk?Foor ? ?| Pt? ? ?ne? 1560-9 4} 3 4 [8

Date Peers | Peers | Total | Peers | Peers | Total | Old | New | Total

1570-9 fe 17 27 1580-9It36 4177654oe 5 8| 10 4 12

1590-9379612 135653Io 9 13 9 22 | 1600-9 8 14 22 1610-19 4 5 9 5 7 12 9 12 21 1620-9 5 5 10 6 7 13 II Iz | 1630-9 r | 4 j 4 10 14 5 14 23 19 Total

1570-1639 34 39 73 37 36 73 71 75 146 1 These figures are taken from J. and J. A, Venn, University of Cambridge, Matriculations and Degrees, 1544-1659, Cambridge, 1913; A. Clark, Register of the University of Oxford, ii (Oxford Hist. Soc. x1), 1887; and the manuscript register for 161 5—47 in the Oxford University Archives. They are divided between pre-1603 and 1603-41 creations, and include all heirs male, whether

ot not they lived to inherit a title.

(793 )

APPENDIX XXXV Admissions to the Inns of Court, 15 50-1639 Date Old Peers | New Peers} Total

1550-9 28 II 39 1560-9 1570-9 10 2 12

1580-9 16 1590-910 6 66 12

1600-9 628914 1610-19 1620-9 5 4 It9

1630-9 I I 2 Total 50 38 88

1 These figures are taken from Records of Lincolns Inn, i, 1896; H. A. C. Sturgess, Register of Admissions to the... Middle Temple, i, 1949; J. Foster, Register of Admissions to Grays Inn, 1889; Members of the Inner Temple, 1547-1660, 1877. They ate divided between pre-1603 and 1603-41 creations, and include all heirs male, whether or not they lived to inherit a title. A large number of peers in the prime of life were made honorary members of an Inn of Court as a mark of respect. These have been eliminated by comparing the date of a peer’s admission with his age.

APPENDIX XXXVI The Grand Tour, 15 60-1639: Date Old Peers | New Peers\ Total

1560-9 33 ..3 36 1570-9 1580-9 36 22 58 1590-9 1600-9 138 55 18 1610-19 13 1620-9 4 I 5 1630-9 5 5 10 Total 45 23 68

1 These figures ate very incomplete, and too much reliance should not be placed on them. They are divided between pre-1603 and 1603-41 creations and include all heirs male, whether or not they lived to inherit a title.

(794)

APPENDIX XXxXVII Libraries, 15 ;6-1642

Date Owner Books and MSS. Reference 1556 | 1st Lord Stafford 302 S. Jayne, Library Catalogues of the English Renaissance, Berkeley, 1956, p. 109.

1580 | Duchess of Suffolk a chest full Notts. R.O., DDSR 215/62. 1584 | 2nd Earl of Bedford 215+ Review of English Studies, vit, 1931, p. 396.

1598 } ist Lord Burghley very many Jayne, op. cit., p. 132.

1600 | 2nd Lord Hunsdon 215+ Jayne, p. 133. 1600 | 2nd Earl of Essex I9gI-+ Jayne, p. 133. 1603 | 11th Lord Cobham 722 E 178/3521. 1609 | John Lord Lumley 3,000 Jayne, p. 140. 1612 | 1st Earl of Salisbury 1,094 H/Box D/3. 1617 | 4th Lord Paget 1,555 BM, Harl. MSS. 3267. 1622 | 1st Lord Knyvett 1,870 Jayne, p. 151.

1624 | 3rd Earl of Southampton 2,200 F, B. Wormald and C. E. Wright, The English Library before 1700, 1958,

p. 217.

1628 | Lucy Countess of Bedford 180-+ Jayne, p. 154. 1632 | 9th Earl of Northumberland | ¢. 1,500-2,000 | The Library, Dec. 1960.

1637 | 2nd Viscount Conway 500 CSPD, 1637, p. 582; 1638-9, p. 589; 1640, pp. 5, 566.

1642 | 1st Lord Hatton 3 catt loads SP 23/200, p. Iol.

INDEX Aut titles—except when followed by (S.) or (1.) for Scottish or Irish peerage— are titles in the English peerage. Holders of titles are listed chronologically in

the title entry, the number in brackets referring to the order of succession. Where several persons have the same name and Christian name, they have been classified in ascending order of rank (e.g. knights before baronets, earls before

dukes) and alphabetically according to title within each order (e.g. Earl of Arundel, Earl of Berkshire). Dates of birth (where known) and death, and of succession or elevation to the peerage, are given only for peers who held titles between 1558 and 1641. Unless otherwise qualified, suc. refers to direct succession from father to son. Fathers’ names have been given where known or relevant. Cross-references to the maiden names of married women figure at the end of their father’s entry (under daughter of, . . .) if he figures in the index. All references to women who married mote than once will be found under their final name, cross-references to which figure under their former husband’s name, if he is mentioned. Titles in single inverted commas (e.g. “Lord Maltravers’) are courtesy titles or the more usual contemporary usage. References to those appendixes where peers’ names only figure for statistical purposes (e.g. App. IV and V) have been omitted from the index. Subject entries are italicized.

Abbreviations:

cr.==created m.—=married & h.=and heir d.—=daughter re-cr.= re-created succ. = succeeded

erands.=erandson s.==son w.= wife

Abergavenny, Lord, see Bergavenny. Alum: farm, 422; mining of, 353-5; monopoly of,

Aberystwyth Castle, Cardigan, 254. 434-5; papal monopaly of, 503.

Abingdon, Berks., 263. Amazon Company, 376.

Aby, Lincs., 728. Amazon fiver, 374.

Acland, Hugh, 230. Amyce, Israel, 312. Acufia, Diego Sarmiento de, Count of Gon- Andover, Viscount, see Howard, Thomas, domar, 373. later 1st Earl of Berkshire, hence courtesy Africa, 367. title of his s. & h. (see Howard, Charles).

Agricola, George Bauer, called, 339. ‘Andover’, Viscountess, see Howard, Dorothy. Ailesbury, Earl of, see Bruce, Thomas, 2nd Angers, France, 697.

Lord (S.) (1). Anglesea, Countess of, see Villiers, Elizabeth. Alberti, Leon Battista, 710. (1), Charles (2).

Albemarle, Duke of, see Monk, George. Anglesea, Earl of, see Villiers, Christopher

Alexander, Sir William, 96. Anglican Church, 27, 40, §§, 61, 725-6, 728-9,

Alienations, Office of, 439. 741.

Aliens, Commission for, 439; impost on, 428. Anne Boleyn, Queen, 605.

Alington, Cordell, see Stanhope. Anne of Denmark, Queen, 80, 563, 626, 709.

Alnmouth, Northumb., 309. Annesley family, of Kidbrooke, Kent, 193 Alnwick, Northumb., 296, 303. (see also William 1st Lord Hervey).

Althorp, Northants., 331. Anton, James, 515, 532.

796 INDEX

Anton, Jane, w. of above, 515, 532. Baas Hundred, Herts., 259. Antonio, Don, Portuguese Pretender, 364, Babington family, of Dethick, 344.

410. Babington, Anne, w. of Matthew Babington, Antrim, Co., 455. 173. Antrim, Earl of, see Macdonnell. Babylon, 568. Antwerp, Spanish Netherlands, 457, 696. Bacon family, 325.

Apethorpe, Northants., 221, 552, 714. Bacon, Anne, d. of Sir Anthony Cooke, w. Appleby Castle, Westmd., 217, 282, 285, of Sir Nicholas, 676, 734, 739.

551. Bacon, Sir Edmund, Bart., s. & h. of Sir

Apsley, Sir Allen and Lady, 443; daughter of, Nicholas, Bart., 565.

see Hutchinson, Lucy. Bacon, Francis (1561-1626), s. of Sir Nicholas,

Apsley, Peter, 249, 443. cr. Lord Verulam 17678, Viscount St. Arbury, Warws., 390. Albans 1627, 16, 50, §9, 76, 83, 104-5, I10, Archer, Sir Symon, 26. 123, 189, 191, 247-9, 262, 290, 414, 442, ‘Archie’, King James’s Fool, 77, 80. 468-9, 480, 495, 498, 521, 538, 594, 630,

Argyle, Earl and Marquis of (S.), see Camp- 666, 675, 694, 717, 785.

bell, Archibald (7, 8). Bacon, Sit Nathaniel, grands. of Sir Nicholas,

Aristotle, 267, 400, 659, 679. 710,

Armada, Spanish, 99, 206, 266, 364, 419, Bacon, Sir Nicholas, of Redgrave, Lord

456. Keeper, m. 2. Anne Cooke, 452, 511, 519,

Arundel, Countess of, see Howard, Alathea; 550, 576, 784.

Anne. Bacon, Sir Nicholas, Bart., 104, 110, 298.

Arundel, Earl of, see Fitzalan, Henry (12); Bagenal, Sir Henry, 458. Howard, Philip (13), Thomas (14), Henry Bagg, Sir James, 105, 114.

Frederick (15). Baily, Reve, 686.

Arundell family, of Wardour, 196, 614, 732. Baize, overslipped customs on, 428.

Arundell, Lord, see Arundell, Thomas (1; 2). Baker family, 347.

Arundell, Mary, 606. Baker, Sir Richard, 74.

Arundell, Sic Thomas (1560-1639), cr. Lord Balmerino, Lord (S.), see Elphinstone, James. Arundell 7607, 101, 192, 301, 372, 454, 730, Baltic, sports from, 352.

780. Baltimore, Lord (1.), see Calvert.

Arundell, Thomas (1586-1643), 2nd Lord, Banbury, Countess of, see Vaux, Elizabeth.

succ. 1639, 761. Banbury, Earl of, see Knollys, William,

Ascham, Roger, 266, 672, 700. Viscount Wallingford (1).

Ashburnham, Elizabeth, see Cornwallis. Bancroft, Richard, Archbishop, 705, 737.

Ashburnham, Sir John, 340. Bankes, James, 296, 304, 613. Ashby de la Zouch, Leics., 49, 274, 737. Banks, John, 566.

Ashley, Sir Anthony, 666. Banks, Timothy, 26.

Assheton, Sir Ralph, 663. Barbary Company, 369-70, 376.

Astell, Mary, 598, 669. Bargar, John, 458.

Aston, Sir Edward, 602. Barlborough Hall, Derby., 208. Aston, Sir Walter, Lotd Aston of Forfar Barlow, Derby., 341 n., 343.

(S.), s. of above 462, 602. Barlow family, of Barlow, 195. Aston, Sir William, 83. Barlow, Robert, m. Elizabeth Hardwick (see

Attercliffe, Yorks. W.R., 351. Talbot), 193.

Attorney-General, 235, 398, 418. Barnardiston, Sir Nathaniel, 12.

Aubigny, Lord, see Stuart, Esmé. Batnes, Anne, 602.

Aubtey, John, 32, 213, 231, 570, §92-3, 750. Barrington, Sit Thomas, 12.

Audley End, Suffolk, 452, 552-4. Barrow, Henry, 575.

Audley family, 192. Barry, David Fitz-David, 1st Earl of BarryAudley, Lady, see Touchet, Anne. more (1.), 113.

Audley, Lord, see Touchet, John (8), George Barrymore, Earl of (1.), see above.

(9, 11), Mervyn (12), James (13). Basing, Hants, 553-4.

Augmentations Office, 275. Bassano family, 719.

Avicenna, 656. Bassano, Giacomo, 718-20.

Aylesbury, Sir Thomas, 290. Basset family, of Blore, 195. Aylmer, John, Bishop, 736. Basset, Elizabeth, see Cavendish.

Azores, 364. Bath, Countess of, see Bourchier, Elizabeth.

INDEX 797 Bath, Earl of, see Bourchier, John (2), Berkeley, Lord, see Berkeley, Maurice (13),

William (3), Edward (4), Henry (5). Thomas (15), Henry (17), George (18, Bath, Order of, Knighis of, 79, 82-84. 19). Bath and Wells, See of, 406. Berkeley, Marquis of, see Berkeley, William.

Battle, Sussex, 549. Berkeley, Elizabeth, Lady, d. of George Bawtry, Yorks. W.R., 343. Catey, 2nd Lord Hunsdon, w. of Sir Baxter, John, Captain, 458. Thomas, s. & h. of Henry Lord Berkeley, Bayning, Sir Paul (1588-1629), cr. Viscount I7I, 441.

1628, 85, 106, 114N., 116 n., 120, 190, 355, Berkeley, Elizabeth, Lady Berkeley, d. of J.

§35—-6, 577, 597 n., 632. Massingberd, w. of George 19th Lord,

Bayning, Paul (1615-38), 2nd Viscount, succ. 632 n.

1629, 171, 498, 659,685 ; daughters of, 497, see Berkeley, George (1601-58), 18th Lord, s.

Herbert, Penelope; Vere, Anne. of Sir Thomas, succ. his grandfather 7673,

Baynton, Sir Edward, 12. 297, 303, 441, 632 n., 662, 761, 779.

Beale, Robert, 461. Berkeley, George, 19th Lord, m. Elizabeth Beauchamp family, 263. Massingberd, 632 n.

‘Beauchamp’, Lord, courtesy title of s. & h. Berkeley, Henry (1534-1613), 17th Lord, of Earl of Hertford (see Seymour, Edward, succ. 7374, m. 1. the following, 2. Jane

Henry, Robert). Lady Townsend, née Stanhope, 47, 146, 158,

Beauchamp, Richard, Earl of Warwick, 580. 177, 178 n., 208-9, 211, 215, 241, 276, 285,

Beauchief Abbey, Derby., 343. 287, 306, 315, 322, 461, 491, 508, 516, 533, Beaudesert, Warws., 220, 341. 559, 568, 585, 595 n., 636, 662, 676, 760,

Beaufort family, 263. 777-38.

Beaufort, Duke of, see Somerset, Henry. Berkeley, Katherine, Lady Berkeley, d. of

Beaulieu, Hants, 309. Henry Howard, ‘Earl of Surrey’, 1st w. of

Beaumont family, 340. above, 461, 575 n., 676.

Beaumont, Viscount (I.), 340. Berkeley, Maurice, 13th Lord, 386-7.

Beaumont, Francis, and Fletcher, John, 7oo, Berkeley, Sir Thomas, s. & h. of Henry Lord

707. Berkeley, m. Elizabeth Carey, 146 n., 536,

Beaumont, Huntingdon, 340. 777.

Beaumont, Mary, see Compton. Berkeley, Thomas, 15th Lord, 638. Bedchamber, Gentlemen of the, 441, 466. Berkeley, William, 435.

Bedford, Beds., 685. Berkeley, William, Marquis of Berkeley, 53.

Bedford, Countess of, see Russell, Anne, Berkshire, 38, 67 n., 313, 485.

Bridget, Catherine, Lucy. Berkshire, Countess of, see Howard, Elizabeth.

Bedford, Duke of, see Neville, George. Berkshire, Earl of, see Norris, Francis, 2nd Bedford, Earl of, see Russell, John (1), Francis Lord Norris; Howard, Thomas, Viscount (2), Edward (3), Francis 2nd Lord Russell Andover.

of Thornhaugh (4), William (5). Bermondsey, Surrey, 292, 312, 325, 397,

Bedfordshire, 38, 313, 321, 624. 405.

Bedingfield family, 730. Berners, Lord, see Bourchier, John. Beeston, Sir George, 610. Bertie family, 195, 469, 728, 772.

Beeston, Hugh, 72. Bertie, Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk, only Belasyse, Sir Henry, Bart., 90. d.of William roth Lord Willoughby d’EresBelasyse, Thomas (1577-1653), cr. Viscount by, m. 1. Charles Brandon, Duke of Suf-

Fauconberg 1627, 761, 780. folk, 2. Richard Bertie, 99, 220, 609, 706,

Belvoir Castle, Leics., 74, 280-1, 302, 679. 729, 734, 738, 794; daughter of, see Grey,

Bennett, Thomas, 34, 748. Susan.

Bergavenny, Lord, see Nevill, George (3), Bertie, Elizabeth, Countess of Lindsey, d. of

Henry (6), Edward (8), Henry (9), John Edward Lord Montagu, w. of Robert

(10). Earl of Lindsey, 175.

Bergen-op-Zoom, United Provinces, 457; Bertie, Mary, Lady Willoughby, d. of John

Governor of, 332. Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, w. of Peregrine

Berkeley Castle, Glos., 26, 215, 274, 276. Lord Willoughby, 457, 516, 609. Berkeley family, 164, 231, 274, 399, 514, 576, Bertie, Montagu (1608-60), 2nd Earl of

657. Lindsey, succ. 1642, 133, 175, 631.

Berkeley, Lady, see Berkeley, Elizabeth, Bertie, Peregrine, of Everett, Lincs., s. of

Katherine. Robert Earl of Lindsey, 356.

798 INDEX Bertie, Sir Peregrine, s, of Peregrine Lord Boleyn, George, Viscount Rochford, 363,

Willoughby, 247. Boleyn, Sit Thomas, Earl of Wiltshire, 173,

Bertie, Peregrine (1555-1601), 11th Lord 203.

Willoughby d’Eresby, succ. his mother Bolingbroke, Earl of, see St. John, Oliver, Catherine Bertie zy80, m. Mary Vere, 99, 4th Lord. 295, 332, 366, 456-7, 461, 478, 516, 533-4, Bolsover, Derby., 341 n.; Castle, 218, 453,

551, 609, 706 n., 714. 551.

Bertie, Robert (1582-1642), 12th Lord Bolton Abbey, Yorks. W.R., 551. Willoughby d’Eresby, succ. z607, cr. Earl Bolton, Duke of, see Paulet, Charles, 6th of Lindsey 1626, m. Elizabeth Montagu, Marquis of Winchester (1). 212~13, 356-7, 366-7, 520, 760-1, 779. Bolton, Edmund, 40.

Berwick, Northumb., 220, 251, 291, 552, Bonetti, Rocco, 244. | 555, 676; Captain of, 419, 492; Recorder of, Booth, Sir George, 208. 226. Bordesley Abbey, Wotcs., 404.

Best, George, 371, 383. Borough, Mr., 689. Bestwood Park, 281. Bostock, Captain, 457.

Beverley, Yorks. E.R., 576. Boston, Lincs., 224. Beza, Theodore, 612, 727. Boswell, James, 143. Bigod, Sir Francis, 403. Boteler, Elizabeth, Lady Boteler, d. of Sir

_ _ Billingborough, Lincs., 728. George Villiers, w. of the following, 106. Bilson, Thomas, Bishop, 407. Boteler, John (1566-1637), cr. Lotd Boteler Bindon, Viscount, see Howard, Thomas (1), 1628, m. above, 57, 106, 577; daughters of,

Henry (2), Thomas (3). 609, see Blount, Anne; Howard, Marty;

Bindon, Viscountess, see Howard, Grace. Leigh, Audrey; Ley, Jane.

Birmingham, Warws., 350. Boteler, William ( -1647), 2nd Lord, succ.

Biron, Charles de Gontaut, Duc de, 569. 1637, 76%.

Bishop, Sit Thomas, 92. | Bothal, Northumb., 25, 218. Blackstone, Sir Ralph, 556. Bottesford, Leics., 25, 580. Blenerhassett, John, 520. Boulogne, France, 204. Bletsoe, Beds., 302. Bourchier family, 192, 256, 406, 469, 604 n.

Bletsoe, Lord St. John of, see St. John. Bourchier, Edward (1590-1637), 4th Earl of

Blickling Hall, Norfolk, 25. Bath, succ. 1623, 497, 608, 666,

Blois, France, 695-6. Bourtchier, Elizabeth, Countess of Bath, d.

Blount family, 378. of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford,

Blount, Anne, Countess of Newport, d. of 2nd w. of William Earl of Bath, 366. John Lord Boteler, w. of Mountjoy Earl Bourchier, Sir Henry, 689.

of Newport, 738. Bourchier, Henry (¢. 1587-1654), 5th Earl of

Blount, Charles, 5th Lord Mountjoy, 219. Bath, grands. of John 2nd Earl, succ. his Blount, Charles (1562-1606), 8th Lord cousin 1637, 61, 175, 213, 315, 317, 557, Mountjoy, s. of the following, succ. his 761, 779, App. XXIVa, 783. brother 7394, cr. Eatl of Devonshire 7603, Bourchier, John, 2nd Lord Berners, 266.

m. illegally Penelope Lady Rich, née SBourchier, John (1496-1561), 2nd Earl of Devereux (see Rich), 142, 366, 414-15, 427, Bath, succ. 1539, 455, 629, 760.

A477» 597 fs 705, 760, 778. Bourchier, William (1557-1623), 3rd Earl of Blount, James (1533-1581), 6th Lord Mount- Bath, succ. his grandfather ryé7, m. 2. joy, succ. 1744, 204, 336, 338-9, 353-4, Elizabeth Russell, 415, 655-6, 760. 368, 381, 433, 455, 525, 542, 760. Bourke, Anne, Countess of St. Albans, d. of Blount, Mountjoy (1597-1666), bastard s. William Compton, Earl of Northampton, of Charles 8th Lord Mountjoy and Lady w. of the following, 626. Penelope Rich, cr. Earl of Newport 7627, Bourke, Ulick (1604-57), Earl of Clanricm. Anne Boteler, 106, 113, 362, 499, 665, katde (1.), cr. Viscount Tonbridge 1624,

667, 761, 773, 780. Earl of St. Albans 1628, m. above, 515 n.,

676. Bowes family, 215.

Blount, William, 4th Lord Mountjoy, 629, $52, 761, 780.

Blundell, Sit Francis, 96. : Bowes, George, m. Muriel Eure, 601.

Blunham, Beds., 302. Bowes, Sir Jerome, 434. Bodin, Jean, 244. Bowes, Muriel, d. of William 1st Lotd Eure,

Boleyn family, 399. w. of George, 601.

INDEX 799

Bowes, Sit William, 461. Bristol, Earl of, see Digby, John. Bowyer, Sit William, 102. Brittany, France, 203, 457. Boxhurst, in Sandhurst, Kent, 352. Brokerage, 536-8.

Boyle, Catherine, Countess of Cork (1.), d. Bromley, Staffs., 352. of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, 2nd w. of Richard Bromley, Sir Thomas, 233-4.

Earl of Cork, 564. Brooke family, 26, 395, 412, 469; estazes, 313,

Boyle, Elizabeth, d. of Sir Robert Killigrew, 320, 327, 772.

w. of Francis, 659. Brooke, Lord, see Willoughby, Robert;

Boyle, Francis, s. of Richard Earl of Cork Greville, Fulke (1), Robert (2).

(1.), m. above, 659, 687. Brooke, Sir Basil, 347.

Boyle, Lewis, Viscount Kynalmeaky (I.), s. Brooke, Charles, 290.

of Richard Earl of Cork, 698. Brooke, Frances, Countess of Kildare (1.), d.

Boyle, Richard, Lord Boyle (1.), Earl of Cork of Charles Howard, ist Earl of Notting-

(I.), m. 2. Catherine Fenton, 81, 110, 112- ham, m. 1. Henry Fitzgerald, Earl of 13, 116, 140, 428, 509, 511, 513, 568, 571, Kildare (1.), 2. Henry Lord Cobham, 418. 580, 608, 657, 659, 684, 686-7, 697-8, 701; Brooke, George, 487. daughters of, see Fitzgerald, Joan; Goring, Brooke, George, 9th Lord Cobham, 693;

George; Moore, Sarah. daughter of, see Parr, Elizabeth.

Boyle, Richard, 3rd Earl of Burlington, 712. Brooke, Henry (1564-1619), 11th Lord Boyle, Robett, s. of Richard Earl of Cork, Cobham, succ. 1797, m. Frances Fitz-

687. gerald, née Howard, 221, 284, 290, 296,

Boyle, Roger, Lord Broghill (1.), 1st Earl of 366, 414, 469, 482, 487, 525, 533-4, 714,

Orrery (I.), s. of Richard Earl of Cork, 760, 777-8, 794.

698. Brooke, William (1527-97), 1oth Lord

‘Brackley’, Lady, see Egerton, Elizabeth. Cobham, succ. ryy8, 301, 407-8, 548 n., Brackley, Viscount, see Egerton, Thomas, 578, 636, 693, 760, App. XXIII, XXIVa. 1st Lord Ellesmere (1), John 1st Earl of |Brotherwick, Northumb., 309. Bridgwater (2), hence courtesy title of s. Broughin, Herts., 259.

& h. of Earl of Bridgwater (see Egerton, Browne family, 138, 158, 732, 739-40. John), Browne, Sir Anthony, 550. Bramshill, Hants, 552. Browne, Anthony (1528-92), s. of above, cr.

Bramston, Sit John, 26, 122. Viscount Montagu ryy4, 192, 346, 349, Brampton, Derby., 341 n. 51§m., §49, 597N., 706, 739, 760, 784; Brancepeth Castle, Co, Durham, 217; manor, daughter of, see Wriothesley, Mary.

526. Browne, Anthony Maria (1574-1629), 2nd

Brand, Benjamin, 593. Viscount Montagu, succ. his grandfather Brandenburg, 385, 752. If92, 288, 560, 564, 614, 646 n., 730, 732, Brandon, Eleanor, see Clifford. 760. Brandon, Gregory, 68. Browne, Francis (1610-82), 3rd Viscount Brathwait, Richard, 40, 401. Montagu, succ. 1629, 761; daughter of, see

Brazil, 364. Dormer, Elizabeth. Brecknock Castle, Brecon, 254. Broxbourn, Herts., 293.

Brereton, Sir William, 229. Bruce family, 26. Breton, Elinor, 509. Bruce, Diana, Lady Bruce, d. of William Brett, Anne, see Cranfield. Cecil, Earl of Exeter, m. 1. Henry Vere,

Breughel, 7109. Earl of Oxford, 2. Thomas 1st Lord, 171.

Bridgman, Sir Orlando, 182. Bruce, Edward, 1st Lord Bruce of Kinloss Bridgwater, Countess of, see Egerton, (S.), 472, 475.

Elizabeth, Frances. Bruce, Edward, 2nd Lord Bruce of Kinloss

Bridgwater, Earl of, see Egerton, John, 2nd (S.), 247, 625; daughter of, see Cavendish,

Lord Ellesmere (1), John (2, 3). Christian.

Bright, John, 342. Bruce, Robert, 2nd Lord Bruce, ist Earl of

Brightwell, Berks., 685. Ailesbury, 548.

Brigstock Great Park, Northants., 303, 312, Bruce, Thomas (1599-1663), 3rd Lord Bruce

324. of Kinloss (S.), succ. his brother 2677, ct.

Brington, Great, Northants., 25, 301, 580-1. Lord Bruce 1647, m. 1. Anne Chichester,

Briskett, Ludovic, 458. d. of Sir Robert and Lady, née Harington, Bristol, Som., 51, 343, 449, 560. 2. Diana Cecil, 171, 472, 475, 761.

800 INDEX Brudenell family, 300, 309, 320, 772. Butter Export, licensing of, 428.

Brudenell, Robert, 191. Bye Plot, 414, 486.

Brudenell, Sir Thomas (1578-1663), s. of Byfleet, Surrey, 550. above, ct. Lord Brudenell 1628, 106, 116, Byron, Sit John, 44. 278, 302, 3240., 332, 499, 761. Brugge, Sir John, Alderman, 629 n.; daughter Cadiz, Spain, Expedition, 72-74, 266, 457, 718.

of, see Paulet, Winifred. Caesar, Julius, 679.

Brussels, Spanish Netherlands, 461, 696. Caesar, Sir Julius, 91 n.,

Brydges family, 151, 172, 229. Calais, France, 204, 247, 455, 477Brydges, Edmund (1522-73), 2nd Lord Calamy, Edmund, 738. Chandos, succ. rf J7; 293, 595, 638, 760. Callowdon, Watws., 47. Brydges, George (1620-55), 6th Lord Chan- Calverley, Walter, 603.

dos, succ. 1621, 133, 361, 761, 779. Calvert, Sir George, Lord Baltimore (I.), 110, Brydges, Giles (1548-94), 3rd Lord Chandos, 367, 375, 382.

succ. If73, 63, 171, 229-30, 625, 662; Calvin, John, 612, 679, 698, 727; see also

daughters of, see Kennedy, Elizabeth; Russell, Puritanism.

Catherine. Cambridge, Cambs., 262, 507; Colleges, 29,

Brydges, Grey (1581-1621), 5th Lotd Chan- 32-33, 260, 408, 446, 685; Corpus Christi, dos, succ. 1602, m. Anne Stanley (see 689; — Master of, 442; Emmanuel, 49, 736-

Touchet), 247, 303, 659, 760. 7; Jesus, 684; King’s 408, 736; Pembroke , Brydges, James, 8th Lord Chandos, 258. Hall, 736-7; St. John’s, 32, 679, 689, 736; Brydges, James, 1st Duke of Chandos, 558. Sidney Sussex, 738; Trinity, 739; University, Brydges, Sit John, 1st Lord Chandos, 229. 29, 32-33, 679, 687-9, 792, 735, 740. Brydges, William ( —1602), 4th Lord Chan- Cambridgeshire, 624. dos, succ. his brother 7794, 526; daughter Cambridge, Countess of, see Hamilton, Mary.

of, see Cecil, Frances. Cambridge, Earl of, see Hamilton, James

Buckhurst, Lord, see Sackville, Thomas. (1, 2).

Buckingham, Countess of, see Compton, Camden, William, 390, 696, 699, 715, 747-

Marty. Campbell, Archibald, 7th Earl of Argyle (S.), Catherine. Campbell, Archibald, 8th Earl, 1st Marquis

Buckingham, Duchess of, see Villiers, 608.

Buckingham, Duke of, see Stafford, Humph- of Argyle (S.), 189, 463, 616, 646. rey (1), Edward (3); Villiers, George (1, 2). Campden, Viscount, see Hicks, Baptist (1); Buckingham, Marquis of, see Villiers, George, Noel, Edwatd (2), Baptist (3).

1st Duke. Campden, Viscountess, see Hicks, Elizabeth,

Buckinghamshire, 313, 624. Campion, Abraham, 533.

Budé, Guillaume, 578. Canford, Dorset, 336, 353. Bulmer, Sir Bevis, 79, 339, 368. Cannock Chase, Stafts., 348. Bulmer, Sir William, 601. Cannons, Middx., 558. Burbage family, 289. Canterbury, Kent, Archbishop of, 408, 4115 Burchinshaw, Sir Ralph, 80. Dean and Chapter of, 408; King’s School, Burdon, Robert, 595. 33; St. Augustine’s Abbey, 550; See of; Burgh, Frances, Lady Burgh, d. of John 406, 410-11.

Vaughan, w. of the following, 108, 418. Capel, Sir Arthur (1604-9), ct. Lord Capel

Burgh, Thomas (¢. 1558-97), 5th Lord Burgh, 1641, 119, 133, 5515 557s 791, 777, 780-

succ. 184, m. above, 108, 226, 533. Carew Castle, Pembs., 217. Burgh, William ( -1584), 4th Lord Burgh, Catew, Sir George (1555-1629), cr. Lord

succ. 1ffo, 760. Carew 1607, Earl of Totnes 1626, 361,

Burghley House, Northants., 218, 286, 452, 458, 706 n.

§§1-2, 7IO-I1. 7 Carew, Richard, 26.

Burghley, Lady, see Cecil, Mildred. Carew, Lady Thomasine, 448. Burghley, Lord, see Cecil, William (1), Catey family, 469; Lotds Hunsdon, 395, 601.

Thomas, Earl of Exeter (2). Carey, Abigail, Countess of Dover, d. of Ald.

Burlington, Earl of, see Boyle, Richard. W. Cockayne, m. 2. John Earl of Dover,

Burtell, Richard, 533. 631. Burton, Sussex, 22. Carey, Anne, Lady Hunsdon, d. of Sit

Burton, Robert, 187, 707. Thomas Morgan, w. of Henry 1st Lord

Busby, Richard, 680, 686. Hunsdon, 418.

INDEX 801 Carey, Catherine, see Knollys. Cartwright, Thomas, 736-7.

Carey, Edward, 414. Caryll family, 3.47.

Carey, Elizabeth, Viscountess Falkland, d. Cassiobury, Herts., 551. of Sir Laurence Tanfield, w. of Henry 1st Castiglione, Baldesar, 4oo.

Viscount Falkland (1.), 738. Castle Ashby, Northants., 302, 551.

Carey, Elizabeth, Countess of Monmouth, d. Castlehaven, Earl of (1.), see Touchet, George

of Sir Henry Trevannion, w. of Robert (1), Mervyn (2), James (3), Lords Aud-

Earl of Monmouth, 606. ley.

Carey, Sir George (1556-1603), 2nd Lord Castlemaine, Earl of (1.), see Palmer, Roger. Hunsdon, succ. 196, 42, 171, 366, 760, Catesby family, 534. 794; daughter of, see Berkeley, Elizabeth. Catesby, Sir William, 442.

Carey, Henry (1526-96), grands. of Sir Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, 713, Thomas Boleyn, cr. Lord Hunsdon ryya, 729. m. Anne Morgan, 98n., 100, 152, 159, Catherine Parr, Queen, 572. 251, 395, 414, 436, 476, 515, 576, 578-80, Catholicism, 35, 127, 221, 251-2, 371, 375,

729, 760, 784, 786. 382, 440, 444, 469, 477, 480, 502, 511, 608,

Carey, Henry (1596-1661), 2nd Earl of 614, 646, 725-33, 738-43.

Monmouth, succ. 1639, 761. de Caux, Isaac, 361, 717.

Carey, Henry (1580-1666), 4th Lord Huns- Cave, Lady, of Stamford, 610. don, succ. 1617, cr. Earl of Dover 1628, Cavendish family, 193~5, 225, 230, 313, 381, m. 2. Mary Cockayne, née Mortis, 347, 604 n., 619 n., 662; Earls of Devon, 282-4,

381 n., 631, 686, 761. 342, 347, 396, 684, 772. Carey, John, 595-6. Cavendish, Anne, Lady Cavendish, d. of

492. 194.

Carey, Sir John (¢. 1560-1617), 3rd Lord Henry Kighley, 1st w. of William Lord Hunsdon, succ. his brother 1603, 76, 419, Cavendish, later rst Earl of Devonshire, Carey, John, 2nd Earl of Dover, m. Abigail, Cavendish, Sir Charles, of Welbeck, s. of

née Cockayne, 631. William, m.1. Margaret Kitson, 2. Kathe-

Carey, Mary, Countess of Dover, d. of rine Ogle, 194, 218.

Richard Morris, m. 1. Ald. W. Cockayne, Cavendish, Christian, Countess of Devon-

2. Henry Earl of Dover, 631. shire, d. of Edward 2nd Lord Bruce of

Carey, Robert (1560-1639), s. of Henry ist Kinloss (S.), w. of William 2nd Earl of Lord Hunsdon, cr. Earl of Monmouth Devonshire, 136, 540, 626, 658. 1622, m. Elizabeth Trevannion, 44, 606. Cavendish, Elizabeth, née Hardwick, widow

Caribbean Islands, 338, 369, 433. of Robert Barlow, 3rd w. of William

Carisbrooke, I.W., 119. Cavendish, see Talbot. Carleill, Christopher, 364, 376. Cavendish, Elizabeth, d. of Joscelin Percy, Carleton, Cumbs., 342. Earl of Northumberland, m. 1. Henry Carleton, Dudley (1574-1632), cr. Viscount Cavendish, 194, 649. Dorchester 1628, 105, 107, 416, 697. Cavendish, Elizabeth, Countess of DevonCarlisle, Cumbs., Bishop of, 406; customs of, shire, d. of Edward Boughton, m. 1. Sir

428; See of, 406. R. Wortley, 2. William 1st Earl of Devon-

Carlisle, Countess of, see Hay, Lucy. shire, 136, 194.

Carlisle, Earl of, see Hay, James (1, 2). Cavendish, Elizabeth, Countess of DevonCarnarvon, Earl of, see Dormer, Robert, 2nd shire, d. of William Cecil, Earl of Salisbury,

Lord Dormer. w. of William 3rd Earl of Devonshire, Carr, Lady, 657. 177, 633 n. Carr, Frances, Countess of Somerset, d. of | Cavendish, Elizabeth, Countess of Newcastle, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, m. 1 and d. of William Bassett, m. 1. Henry Howard,

divorced Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of 2. William, Earl of Newcastle, 194. Essex, 2. the following, 607, 651, 655, Cavendish, Grace, d. of George Talbot, 9th

667-8, 713. Earl of Shrewsbury, w. of Henry, 194.

Carr, Robert (1587-1645), cr. Earl of Somer- Cavendish, Henry, s. & h. of William, m. set 1673, m, above, 102-3, I7I, 414, 417, above, 194. 444, 468-9, 475, 606, 651, 655, 665, 667, Cavendish, Henry, s. of Henry 2nd Duke of 713-14, 718, 761; daughter of, see Russell, Newcastle, m. Elizabeth Percy, 194, 649.

Anne, Cavendish, Henry, 2nd Duke of Newcastle,

821314 3 F

Cartwright, Richard, 536. 194, 341, §96, 649.

802 INDEX Cavendish, Katherine, Baroness Ogle, d. of Cecil, Sir Edward (1572-1638), s. of Thomas Cuthbert Lord Ogle, 2nd w. of Sit Charles, Barl of Exeter, cr. Viscount Wimbledon

194, 298, 579- 1625, 125, 71%, 232, 265-6, 458, 5793

Cavendish, Margaret, d. of Sir Thomas daughters of, see Fiennes, James, 3rd Lord

Kitson, 1st w. of Sir Charles, 194. Saye and Sele; Willoughby, Francis, 5th

Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, Lord Willoughby. d. of Thomas Lucas, 2nd w. of William Cecil, Frances, Countess of Exeter, d. of

1st Duke, 453, 620. William Brydges, Lord Chandos, m. 1. Sir

Cavendish, William, m. Elizabeth Barlow, Thomas Smith, 2. Thomas, Earl of Exeter, née Hardwick (see Talbot), 193; daughter of, 667.

see Talbot, Mary. Cecil, James, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, m. the

Cavendish, Sir William (1552-1626), s. & h. following, 175, 635, 640; daughter of, see of above, cr. Lord Cavendish zé0s, Earlof © Downing, Katherine. Devonshire 1678, m. 1. Anne Kighley, Cecil, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, d. of 2. Elizabeth Wortley, née Boughton, 101-2, John Manners, 8th Earl of Rutland, w. of 106, 194-5, 221, 299, 332, 344, 372, 376, above, 635, G40.

SII, 513, 530, 626, 658, 773, 777: Cecil, Mildred, Lady Burghley, d. of Sir

Cavendish, William (1590-1628), 2nd Earl of Anthony Cooke, w. of William Lord Devonshire, succ. 1626, m. Christian Bruce, Burghley, 573, 676. 194, 299, 307, 320N., 543, 625, 658, 699, Cecil, Philip, s. of William Earl of Salisbury,

706 n., 785. 697.

Cavendish, William (1617-84), 3rd Earl of Cecil, Robert, s. of William Earl of Salisbury,

Devonshire, succ. 2628, m. Elizabeth 697.

Cecil, 136, 177, 551, 633 n., 699, 761, 780. Cecil, Sir Robert (1563-1612), s. of William

Cavendish, William, 4th Earl, rst Duke of Lord Burghley, cr. Earl of Salisbury 1603,

Devonshire, 397 n. 100, 180, 276, 290, 322, 396, 407, 454, 468,

Cavendish, William, 6th Duke of Devonshire, 475, 481, 494, 550, 569, 606-7, 613, 643,

264, 540 n. 651, 665, 683, 685, 706, 7943 business interests,

Cavendish, Sic William (1593-1676), s. of Sir 303, 312, 359-60, 363, 366, 368, 427, 432, Charles, cr. Viscount Mansfield 17620, 773; expenses, 135-6, 284, 450, 452-3, 520, Karl 1628, Marquis 1643, and later Duke of §28, 530, 534, 536-7, 548 ., 552-4, 560-1,

Newcastle, m. 1. Elizabeth Bassett, 2, Mar- 564-5, 570, 633, 7oI, 777, App. XXIII, , garet Lucas, 110, 112, 120, 122, 124, I7I, 785 ; patronage, 85, 101-2, 209-12, 261, 408, 194, 256-7, 266, 270, 292, 340, 351, 389, 450, 446, 457, 491-2, 640; policy and opinions,

453, 488, 501, 551, 604, 610, 620, 657, 695, 24, 48, 73, 84, 255, 293, 415, 417, 441, 724, 726, 740-1, 761; daughter of, see Eger- 474, 482, 486-7; rewards, 135-6, 159, 408, ton, Elizabeth, Countess of Bridgwater. 414, 420, 427, 490; daughter of, see Clifford, Cavendish-Bentinck, Elizabeth, see Thynne. Frances. Cecil family, 60, 139, 275, 312, 371, 483, 485, Cecil, Thomas (1542-1623), 2nd Lord 487, 490, 601; Lords Burghley, 469; Earls Burghley, succ. ry98, cr. Earl of Exeter of Exeter, 171; Earls of Salisbury, 285, 301, r60s, m. 1. Dorothy Nevill, 2. Frances,

313, 321, 395, 543, 548 n., 772. Lady Smith, née Brydges, 87, 102, 286, 322,

Cecil, Algernon, 686. 356, 362, 414, 443, 575, 693, 698, 760;

Cecil, Anne, Lady Roos, d. of Sir Arthur daughter of, see Coke, Elizabeth. Lake, w. of William Lord Roos, 667. Cecil, William, s. of William Earl of SalisCecil, Charles, ‘Lord Cranborne’, s. & h. of bury, 686. William Earl of Salisbury, m. Diana Cecil, Sir William (1521-98), cr. Lord Burgh-

Maxwell, 177, 616, 626, 697. Jey 1y77z, m. 2. Mildred Cooke, 32, 57, 60,

Cecil, David (1604-43), 3rd Earl of Exeter, 98, 180, 191, 196, 204, 233, 243, 256, 420,

succ. his uncle, 1640, 761. 437, §09, 582, 636, 643, 679, 683, 705-6,

Cecil, Diana, ‘Lady Cranborne’, d. of James 7I0-I1, 716, 718, 728, 739-40, 794;

Maxwell, w. of Charles ‘Lord Cranborne’, business interests, 158, 312, 368-71, 376,

177, 616, 626. | 381-2; expenses, 452, 551-2, 557, 559-60,

Cecil, Dorothy, Countess of Exeter, d. of 576, 633, 638, 785, App. XXIV4; patronage, John Nevill, 4th Lord Latimer, rst w. of 210-12, 261, 446, 489, 492, 533, 7353 policy

Thomas Earl of Exeter, 171. and opinions, 23-25, 29, 99-100, 207, 237,

Cecil, Edward, s. of William Earl of Salis- 252, 278, 368, 381-2, 391, 402, 413, 464,

bury, 687. 479-80, 482, 496-7, 501, 568, 578, 602,

INDEX 803 613-14, 627, 630, 648, 679-80, 693, 699, Chertsey Priory, Surrey, 550. JO, 729, 734, 742; rewards, 159, 395, 406, Cheshire, 66, 205, 215, 229, 285, 513, 625, 747. 411, 443, 475, 489-90; daughters of, see Vere, Chester, Chesh., Bishop of, 653; Clerk of the

Anne; Wentworth, Elizabeth. Pendis at, 449; Dean of, §74; Mayor of, 750.

Cecil, William ( -1618), s. of William Earl Chester-Le-Strect, Co. Durham, 24. of Exeter and of Elizabeth Manners, re-cr. Chester, Charles, 210. Lord Roos 1616, m. Anne Lake, 666-7, Chesterfield, Earl of, see Stanhope, Philip

JOO, 702, 773. (1, 2).

Cecil, William (1566-1640), 2nd Earl of Cheyne family, 196. Exeter, succ. 1623, 34, 171, 356, 748; Chichester, Sussex, 411. daughters of, see Bruce, Diana; Grey, Anne; Chios, Island of, 369. Howard, Elizabeth, Countess of Berkshire. Chippenham, Wilts., 261.

Cecil, William (1591-1668), znd Earl of Chipping Campden, Glos., Campden House, Salisbury, succ. 7612, 146, 177, 242, 259, 555. 262, 275, 277-9, 282-3, 285, 289-91, 293, Chiswick, Middx., 552. 306-7, 309, 312, 314, 319, 321-2, 324-5, Cholmley, Sir Hugh, 176, 537, 592. 328, 332, 359, 420-2, 453, 455, 499, 501, Cholmley, Katherine, d. of Sir Richard, 610. 51I-12, 530, §37N., §51, 556, 565, 570, Cholmley, Richard, 592. 598, 633 n., 635-6, 650, 659, 681, 684-6, Cholmley, Sir Richard, 211, 539, 610. 699, 743, 761, 780, App. XXIII, XXIVa, Chomley, Richard, 486. 783; daughters of, see Cavendish, Elizabeth, Christchurch, Hants, 261.

Countess of Devonshire; Percy, Anne; Christian IV, King of Denmark, 394, 453,

Sydney, Katherine. 665.

du Cerceau, Jacques André, 710. Chudleigh, John, 366 n.,

Chalcedon, Bishop of, 730. Cicero, 30, 678-9.

Chamberlain, John, 73, 80, 83, 89, 103, 106-7, Cinque Ports, Warden of, 261, 449.

116, 389, 465, 561, 631 n., 750. Civil War, 216, 218, 222, 266, 269-70, 591, 648. Chamberlayne, Edward, 40, 56, 467. Clanrickarde (I.), Earl of, see Bourke, Ulick. Chancery, Court of, 83, 94, 183, 216, 240-1, Clare, Countess of, see Holles, Elizabeth. 308-9, 439, 519, 522-3, 525-7, 571, 637, Clare, Earl of, see Holles, John, Lord Hough-

751; officials of, §33. ton (1), John (2).

Chandos, Duke of, see Brydges, James. Clarendon, Earl of, see Hyde, Edward.

Chandos, Lady, see Touchet, Anne. Clavell, John, 389. Chandos, Lord, see Brydges, John (1), Clay, Thomas, 318.

Edmund (2), Giles (3), William (4), Grey Claydon House, Bucks., 391.

(5), George (6), James (8). Cleobury Mortimer, Salop, 347, 350.

Charles I, King, 10, 12, 28, 34, 80-81, 94-97, Clere family, of Ormsby and Blickling, 25, 108-9, 114, 117-20, 124-6, 318, 322, 339, 186, 197, 379, 584. 361, 398, 401, 417, 441, 449, 462, 464, Clerk, James, 290. 474, 488, 495, 501-2, 519, 553, 563, 568, Clerke, Frances, 173. Go8, 615, 659, 667-8, 7o2z, 710-12, 719- Cleveland, Earl of, see Wentworth, Thomas, 20, 742-3, 751-23 Prince, 93, 102, 290, 560, 4th Lord Wentworth.

570. Clientage, 207-11, 213, 250-2, 254-5, 257-63,

Charles II, King, 389, 468, 488, 604, 724, 287-8, 520-1, 591, 703.

726, 741. Clifford family, 26, 214, 252, 285, 321, 381,

Charlton, Wilts., 552. A432, 584; estates, 248, 313.

Charlton, Elizabeth, see Manners. ‘Clifford’, Lord, courtesy title of s. & h. of Chatsworth, Derby., 221, 282, 342, 391, 551, Earl of Cumberland.

684. Clifford, Eleanor, Countess of Cumbcrland,

Chaworth, Sir George, 1st Viscount Cha- d. of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,

wotth (1.), 113-14, 117, 5Ol. ist w. of Henry 2nd Earl of Cumberland, Cheke family, 443. 450. Cheke, Essex, see Montagu. Clifford, Frances, Countess of Cumberland,

Cheke, Sir Hatton, 247. d. of Robert Cecil Earl of Salisbury, w.

Cheke, Sir John, 673, 727; daughters of, 676 of Henry 5th Earl of Cumberland, 633,

(see also Spencer, Sir Thomas). 640, 643, 651, App. XXII n.

Chelsea, Middx., 224, 397, 414, 454, 554. Clifford, Francis (1559-1641), 4th Earl of

Chenies, Bucks., 454, 580. Cumberland, succ. his brother 760y, 145,

804 INDEX Clifford, Francis (1559-1641) (¢ont.) College of Arms, 28-29, 49-50, 65-69, 76 n., 222, 248, 282, 289, 302, 324N., 342, 344, 77-78, 276, 573-8, 591, 754347, 376, 396, 551, 560, 640, 643, 777. Collingwood family, 229, 238. Clifford, George (1558-1605), 3rd Earl of Collingwood, Cuthbert, 228. Cumberland, succ. z770, m. Margaret Collins, William, 275, 290. Russell, 164, 171, 220, 252, 295, 315, 330, Colly Weston, Northants., 302. 332, 364-5, 367, 371, 384, 423, 430-2, 515, Colne, Wilts., 26r. 526, 532-4, 572-3, 603, 739, 760, 778; Common Law, 93, 247, 249, 386, 503, 623,

daughter of, see Herbert, Anne. 642, 692; courts, 637; — judges of, 191;

Clifford, Henry, Lord Clifford, 638. common lawyers, §24, 751.

Clifford, Henry, s. of above, 1st Earl of Common Pleas, 240-1, 442, 518; Custos Brevium

Cumberland, 403, 624. in the, 442; Post Fines, 442.

Clifford, Henry (1517-70), 2nd Earl of | Cowemons, House of, see Parliament. Cumberland, succ. 1542, m. Eleanor Bran- ‘Commonwealthmen’, 30. don, 206, 251, 451, 455, 624, 638, 715, 760. Compton family, 175, 469, 584, 772. Clifford, Henry (1592-1643), 5th Earl of Compton, Lady, see Sackville, Anne. Cumberland, succ. 1641, m. Frances Cecil, Compton, Lord, see Compton, Henry (1), 391-2, 432, §37, 633, 640, 643, 651, 659, William, 1st Earl of Northampton (2).

695, 761, 779, App. XXUIT n. Compton, Elizabeth, Countess of Northamp-

Clifford, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, ton, d. of Ald. Sir John Spencer, w. of d. of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, William Earl of Northampton, 362, 534,

w. of George Earl of Cumberland, 307, 630.

364-5, 423, 603, 739. Compton, Henry, s. of Henry Lord Comp-

Clifton, Gervase (1569-1618), cr. Lord ton, 443.

Clifton ré08, 102, 171, 226, 238, 626; Compton, Henry (1538-89), cr. Lord Compdaughter of, see Stuart, Katherine. , ton 7772, m. 2. Anne Stanley, née Spencer Clinton, Lord, see Fiennes, Edward, Earl of (see Sackville), 98, 299, 443; daughter of, see

Lincoln. Mordaunt, Margaret.

Clopton, Anne, see D’ Ewes. Compton, Isabella, Countess of NorthampCloth Trade, 291, 298, 425, 429-32, 512-13 ton, d. of Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset,

(see also baize, draperies). w. of James Earl of Northampton, 171. Clowes, Dr. William, 572. Compton, James 3rd Earl of Northampton, Coal: exports, 428; impositions on, 428; coal- m. above, 133, 302-3. mining, 340-2, §34; weights and measures of, _ Compton, Mary, d. of Anthony Beaumont,

438 n. cr. Countess of Buckingham 1678, m. 1.

Cobham, Kent, 578, 714, App. XXIIT n. Sit George Villiers, 2. Sic William Rayner,

Cobham, Lady, see Brooke, Frances. 3. Sir Thomas Compton, 94, 113. Cobham, Lord, see Brooke, George (9), Compton, Spencer (1601-43), 2nd Earl of

William (10), Henry (11). Northampton, succ. 1630, 175, 290, 324n., Cogan, Thomas, 620, 656, 659. 362, 686, 761, 777, 779. Cockayne, Sir William, Alderman, m. Mary Compton, Sit Thomas, 575. Mortis (see Carey), 631; daughters of, see Compton, William (1568-1630), 2nd Lord

Carey, Abigail; Fanshawe, Sir Thomas; Compton, succ. zy 89, cr. Earl of NorthFermor, Sit Hatton; Howard, Mary, Coun- ampton 1678, m. Elizabeth Spencer, 116, tess of Nottingham; Ramsay, Margaret. 178 n., 362, 414, 420, 477, 533-4, 551; 571, Coke, Sir Edward, m. Elizabeth Hatton, née 630, 760, 778; daughter of, see Bourke, Anne. Cecil, 22, 159, 191, 276, 377, 444-5, 453, Compton Wynyates, Warws., 303, 549, 551.

519, 553, 571, 596, 602, 705-7, 751; Coningsby family, 231. daughter of, see Villiers, Frances. Conisbrough, Yorks. W.R., 347. Coke, Elizabeth, d. of Thomas Cecil, Earl of | Constable, Henry, 1st Viscount Dunbar (S.),

Exeter, m. 1. Sit William Hatton, 2. Sir 570.

Edwatd Coke, 113, 596. Constable, Sir William, 486.

Coke, Sir John, 80, 493, 650. Conway, Sir Edward ( -1631), cr. Viscount

Coke, John, 650. Conway 162), 27, 105, IlI-12, 415 n., Coldoverton, Leics., 340. 419-20, 435, 445, 458, 630.

Coleraine, Lord, see Hare, Hugh. Conway, Edward (1594-1655), 2nd Viscount

Colet, John, 672. Conway, succ. 1631, 153, 761, 780, 794. Colledge, Stephen, 668. Conquest, George, 568.

INDEX 805

Conquest, Sir Ralph, 568. Cranborne, Dorset, 275, 283, 289, 293, 453, Conyers family, of Hornby, Lancs., 193. 512, 551-2, App. XXIII n.

Conyers, Lord, see Darcy, Conyers, 1st Lord ‘“Cranborne’, Lady, see Cecil, Diana.

Darcy of Knaith. ‘Cranborne’, Lord, courtesy title of s. & h.

Cooke, Anne, see Bacon. of Earl of Salisbury (see Cecil, Charles). Cooke, Elizabeth, see Russell. Crane, Sir Francis, 93. Cooke, Mildred, see Cecil. Cranfield family, 300.

Cooke, Robert, 68. Cranfield, Anne, Countess of Middlesex, d. Cope, Sir Anthony, Bart., 89. of James Brett, w. of Lionel Earl of

Cope, Sir Walter, 536. Middlesex, 105, 608.

Copt Hall, Essex, 110-11. Cranfield, Elizabeth, see Egerton. Copper mining, 337, 339; monopoly, 435;-——in Cranfield, Lionel (1575-1645), cr. Earl of

Sweden, 503. Middlesex 1622, m. Anne Brett, 50, 77, 105,

Copperas mining, 353-4; monopoly, 433-5. 108-9, 114, 123, 190, 298, 312, 414, 421-2,

Corbet, Sir Vincent, 208. 427-8, 436, 469, 474, 492, 494, 497, 535. Cordell, Sir William, Aerress of, 193 (see 607-8, 761.

Stanhope, Cordell). Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop, 30, 705.

Cork, Earl] of (1.), see Boyle, Richard. Craven, Yorks. W.R., 145, 282, 285, 313, 321. Cornwall, 260, 312; Chancellor of the Duchy of, | Craven, Elizabeth, d. of William Whitmore,

261. Ald., w. of Sir William Craven, 607.

Cornwallis family, of Brome, Suffolk, 326n., Craven, John, s. of Sir William, m. Elizabeth

730. Spencer (see Howard), 623 n.

Cornwallis, Elizabeth, née Ashburnham, w. Craven, Sir William, Alderman, m. Elizabeth

of Frederick, 608. Whitmore, 536, 607, 631; daughters of, see Cornwallis, Mary, 656. Craven, William (1608-97), s. of above, cr. Cornwallis, Sir William, 232, 459. Lord Craven 1627, 48, 106, 120, 146, I90, Cortreggio, 719-20. 266, 313, 362, 367, 497-8, 632, 761. Cornwallis, Frederick, m. above, 608. Coventry, Mary; Herbert, Elizabeth.

Corruption, growth of, too~G, 142, 403, 419, Credit, 291-2, 357, 377.

457, 481, 489-93, 501, 578, 602 n. Cricklade, Wilts., 291. Cottington, Francis (1579-1652), cr. Lord Croft, Sir James, 231. Cottington 1637, 153, 191, 290~1, 356, 396, | Cromham Castle, 551.

41§ n., 761. Cromwell family, 186, 399, 584; of Hinchin-

Cotton, Sir Robert, 78, 84, 87-88, 104. brook, 197, 379, 534, 639.

Council, Great, 751. Cromwell, Edward (1560-1607), 3rd Lord, Council of War, 105. succ. 1f92, 173 N., 231, 238, 266, 260, 415, Court, 12-13, 16, 34, 59, 62-63, 126, 162, 164, 457-8, 485-6, 491, 760, 778.

174, 186, 195, 201, 210-11, 232-4, 239, Cromwell, Henry (1538-92), 2nd Lord, 254-7, 259-63, 268, 297, 330, 336-8, 357, grands. of Thomas 1st Lord, re-cr. 2nd 368-75, 463-4, 476-7, 502, 569-70, 581-2, Lord ry sz, 412, 519, 729, 760. 591, 605, 609, 664-8, 704, 708-10; see also Cromwell, Sir Oliver, 409.

Office. Cromwell, Oliver, Lord Protector, 9, 57.

Court and Country, 61-62, 123, 127, 231-4, Cromwell, Thomas, 1st Lord, Earl of Essex, 469, 473, 478, 497, 502-3, 664-8, 711-12, 27, 47, 192, 336, 412, 673, 679-80.

723, 742. Cromwell, Thomas (1594-1659), 4th Lord,

Courteen, William, s. of Sir William, 373. succ. 1607, 520-1, 761, 779.

Courteen, Sir William, 373, 535. Cross, Sir Robert, 176.

Courtenay family, 197, 263, 379, 399, 406. Crown, debts to, 541; lands, 498; (see monarchs,

Coventry, Mary, d. of Ald. Sir William Tudors, Patronage, Taxation, Wards). Craven, w. of Thomas 2nd Lord, 631. Cruttinden, Mr., 291~2. Coventry, Thomas (1578~1640), cr. Lord Culford, Suffolk, 298. Coventry 1628, 105, 191, 630, 706. Cumberland, 38, 282, 342, 381.

Coventry, Thomas (1606-61), znd Lord, Cumberland, Countess of, see Clifford, succ. 1640, m. Mary Craven, 631, 761. Eleanor, Frances, Margaret.

Cowdray, Sussex, 730. Cumberland, Earl of, see Clifford, Henry Cox, Richard, Bishop, 406-7. (1, 2), George (3), Francis (4), Henry (5). Cox, Samuel, 596. Currants, customs and impositions on, 426-8,

Coyty, Glam., 345 n., 773.

806 INDEX

Curzon, Francis, 522. Darcy, John (1579-1635), 3td Lotd Darcy of

Curzon, Sir John, 12. Aston, succ. his grandfather 1602, 760; Customs, 420, 426-9, 494, 535-6, 773, 775; estates of, 193. Farmers, 61, 432, 492, 531; Great Farm of Darcy, John (1532-81), 2nd Lord Darcy of

the, 427-8. Chiche, succ. rys8& 595., 597n., 638, 760.

Daccombe, Sir John, 284, 290, 293, 536. Darcy, Thomas (1506-58), cr. Lord Darcy

Dacre family, 171, 236, 253, 276. of Chiche ry yz, 65, 192, 549.

Dacre of Gisland, Lord, see Dacre, William Darcy, Thomas (1565-1640), 3rd Lord Darcy

(4), Thomas (5), George (6). of Chiche, succ. ry &z, cr. Earl Rivers 1626,

Dacre of the North, Lord, see Dacre of 103, 249, §34, 646 n., 760.

Gisland. Daubeney, Giles, 1st Lord Daubeney, 203.

Dacre of the South, Lord, seeFiennes, Thomas Davies, Sir John, 658 ; daughter of, see Hastings,

(9), Gregory (10); Lennard (Fiennes), Lucy. _

Henry (12), Richard (13), Francis (14). Davis, John, 370. Dacre, Francis, s. of William, Lord Dacre, Dean, Forest of, Glos., 345, 347.

253. De Donis, Statute of 1285, 178. ,

Dacre, George (1561-9), 6th Lord Dacre of Dee, Dr. John, 705.

Gisland, succ. ry 66, 423. Deeping Level, Lincs., 356.

Dacre, Leonard, 414. Defoe, Daniel, 670.

Dacre, Thomas (1527-66), 5th Lord Dacre Deincourt, Lord, see Leake, Francis. of Gisland, succ. 7763, 299, 729; daughters Delaval family, 27. of, 601; see Howard, Anne, Countess of Delaval, Sir John, 43.

Arundel; Howard, Elizabeth; Howard, Delaval, Peter, 246.

Marty. , Delaval, Sir Ralph, 43.

Dacre, William (1500-63), 4th Lord Dacre of De La Warr, Lord, see West, Thomas (9, 12),

Gisland, succ. 1525, 54, 251, 760. Charles (14).

Dactes, Sit Thomas, 12. Denbigh, Countess of, see Fielding, Susan. Dallington, Sir Robert, 30, 693, 697, 701. Denbigh, Earl of, see Fielding, William (1),

Dalrymple, Sir John, 545. Basil (2). Danby family, 196. Denbighshire, 254-5. Danby, Earl of, see Danvers, Henry. Denmark, King of, see Christian IV. Daniel, Mr., 536. Denis, Gertrude, see Parker. Danvers family, 100, 229. Dennis, John, 209.

Danvers, Sit Charles, 224, 236, 414, 486. Denny, Edward, 191. Danvers, Sir Henry (1573-1643), cr. Lord Denny, Sir Edward, 457. Danvers 1603, Earl of Danby 762s, 224, Denny, Sir Edward (1569-1637), s. of

236, 247, 439, 654, 761, 777, 780. Edward, cr. Lord Denny 1604, Earl of

Danzig, 48. ] Norwich 1626, 192, 407, 439; estates of, Datcy family, 26, 193, 253; of Aston, 193, 469. 1713; daughter of, see Hay, James, 1st Earl of

Darcy of Aston, Lord, see Darcy, George (1), Carlisle.

John (2, 3). Denton, Sir Alexander, 540, 634; daughter of,

Datcy of Chiche, Lord, see Darcy, ‘Thomas see Verney, Margaret. (1), John (2), Thomas Earl Rivers (3). Denton, Sir Anthony, 387. Darcy of Knaith, Lord, see Darcy, Conyers Derby, Countess of, see Stanley, Charlotte,

(1), Conyers Earl of Holderness (2). Elizabeth.

Datcy, Conyers (1570-1654), grands. of Lord Derby, Earl of, see Stanley, Thomas (10, 11), Conyers of Hornby, restored to peerage as Edward (12), Henry (13), Ferdinando (14), Lord Darcy of Knaith, cr. Lord Conyers William (15), James (16), William (18).

1641, 761. Derbyshite, 253, 341 n., 342-4, 347, 381, 511,

Darcy, Conyers, 2nd Lord, 1st Earl of 513, 537, 551, 624, 772; Sheriff of, 582. Holderness, m. Grace Rokeby, 193, 625. Despencer, Baroness, see Fane, Mary.

. Darcy, Edward, 434. Dethick, Sir William, 87.

Datcy, Sir Francis, 216. Devereux family, 172-3, 192, 395, 584; Darcy, George ( —1558), re-cr. Lord Darcy estates, 313.

of Aston ry 48, 228, 624, 653. Devereux, Frances, Countess of Essex, d. of

Darcy, John (1558-1602), 2nd Lord Darcy of Sir Francis Walsingham, m. 1. Sit Philip

Aston, succ. ry 78, 228, 461, 760. Sydney, 2. Robert, znd Earl of Essex, 606.

INDEX 807

Devereux, Sir George, 486. Dormer, Elizabeth, Lady Dormer, d. of Devereux, Margaret, Viscountess Hereford, Francis Browne, Viscount Montagu, w. d. of John Gameys, znd w. of Walter ist of the following, 730.

Viscount Hereford, 172 n. Dormer, Robert (1551-1616), cr. Lord

Devereux, Robert (1566-1601), znd Earl of Dormer 1675, m. above, 107, 515 0., 777. Essex, succ. 1376, m. Frances Sydney, née Dormer, Robert (1610-43), 2nd Lord, succ. Walsingham, 42, 72-74, 100, 142, 172n., 1616, cr. Earl of Carnarvon 1628, 298, 497, 207, 210-12, 216, 255, 261, 266, 290, 314, 510, 659, 761. 348, 350, 406, 409, 411, 424, 426-7, 450-1, Dorset, 285, 312, 322, 354, 511-12, 624-5; 456, 458, 461, 473, 475, 477, 482-6, 489, Sheriff of, 224, 608. 495, 515-16, 520, 526, 528, 532-4, 582,606, Dorset, Countess of, see Herbert, Anne; 640, 665, 675, 677, 718, 728, 777-8, 794 Sackville, Anne.

(see also Essex Revolt). Dorset, Earl of, see Sackville, Thomas, Lord

Devereux, Robert (1591-1646), 3rd Earl of Buckhurst (1), Robert (2), Richard (3), Essex, restored in blood 1604, m. Frances Edward (4). Howard (see Carr), 247, 321, 330, 513, 651, Dorset, Marquis of, see Grey, Thomas (2),

659, 667, 743, 760-1. Henry Duke of Suffolk (3).

Devereux, Walter (1539-76), 2nd Viscount Douglas, Lady Margaret, Countess of LenHereford, grands. of Walter and Margaret nox, 578. (q.v.) succ. his grandfather ryy8, cr. Earl Dover, Countess of, see Carey, Abigail, Mary. of Essex ry72, m. Lettice Knollys (see Dover, Earl of, see Carey, Henry, 4th Lord

Dudley), 25, 415-16, 424, 455, 642n., Hunsdon (1), John (2). 760, 784; daughters of, see Percy, Dorothy; Downing, Calybutc, 738.

Rich, Penelope. Downing, George, s. of Sir George, m. Devizes, Wilts., 261. Katherine Cecil, 640. Devonshire, 218 n., 285, 315, 465 n., §12-13, Downing, Sir George, 640.

738. Downing, Katherine, d. of James Cecil, Earl

Devonshire, Countess of, see Cavendish, of Salisbury, w. of George, 640.

Christian, Elizabeth. Drake, Sir Francis, 266, 364, 370, 376, 382.

Devonshire, Earl of, see Blount, Charles; Drake, Richard, 434.

Cavendish, William (1, 2, 3). Draperies, alnage of, 436-7; imposition on, 427, D’Ewes, Anne, née Clopton, w. of the follow- 773.

ing, 656. Drayton, Bucks., 392.

D’Ewes, Sir Simonds, m. above, 23, 507,656, Drury, Henry, 730.

658, 665, 668. Drury, William, 361.

Diall, Sir Robert, 226. Dryden, Sit John, 12.

Dieppe, France, 697. Dublin, 513, 580.

Digby, Sit Everard, 414. Dudley family, 60, 399, 727. Digby, John (1586-1653) cr. Lord Digby Dudley, Ambrose (1528-90), s. of John Duke 1618, Earl of Bristol 7624, 107, 123, 396, of Notthumbetland, re-cr. Earl of Warwick

414, 462, 475, 552, 615, 718, 761. ry6r, m. 3. Anne Russell, 159, 371, 376,

Digges, Thomas, 708, 737. 399, 412, 424, 455, 475, 482, 709, 729, Dinas Castle, Montgomery, 254. 734-6. Dinham heiress, 192. Dudley, Amye, Countess of Leicester, d. of Diplomatic Service, 107-8, 459-62, 485, 507. Sit John Robsart, 1st w. of Robert Earl

Divorce, 655, 661. of Leicester, 661.

Dix, William, 290, 520. Dudley, Anne, Countess of Warwick, d. of Dobson, William, 721. Francis Russell, znd Earl of Bedford, 3rd Dodertidge, Sir John, 49. w. of Ambrose Earl of Warwick, 290, 412,

Dodsworth, Peter, 289. 455, 515 n., 738.

Dodsworth, William, 193; daughter of, see Dudley, Edmund, 399, 675.

Lovelace, Margaret. Dudley, Edward ( -1586), 4th Lord, succ.

Dogmersfield, Hants, 308. ISJ3, 542, 760.

Doncaster, Yorks. W.R., 407. Dudley, Edward (1567-1643), 5th Lord,

Donne, John, 16, 591. succ. 1586, 215, 348, 349 1., 352-3, $33, Dorchester, Dorset, 262, 608. 663, 716, 760-1. Dorchester, Viscount, see Carleton, Dudley. Dudley, John, Viscount Lisle, Earl of WarDormer, Dorothy, Lady, 560. wick, Duke of Northumberland, 207,

808 INDEX

Dudley, John (con?.) William (1), Charles 1st Earl of Notting212-13, 219, 346, 399, 409, 412, §50, 711; ham (2), hence courtesy title of his s. & h. daughter of, see Hastings, Catherine. Egerton family, 285, 604 n., 772. Dudley, Lettice, Countess of Leicester, d. Egerton, Edward, 244. of Sir Francis Knollys, m. 1. Walter Egerton, Bridget, d. of Thomas 15th Lord Devereux, Earl of Essex, 2. the following, Grey of Wilton, w. of Rowland Egerton,

172 n., 606, 642 n. 636.

Dudley, Robert (1533-88) s. of John Duke Egerton, Elizabeth, ‘Lady Brackley’, d. of of Northumberland, cr. Earl of Leicester James Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, 1st w. 1y64,m. 1. Amye Robsatt, 2. above, 98 n., of John ‘Viscount Brackley’, 634. 159, 217, 220-1, 226, 232, 254, 266, 275-6, Egerton, Elizabeth, Countess of Bridgwater, 330, 399, 475, 490, 521, 606, 661, 713-14, d. of William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, 744; business interests, 347, 350, 364, 368-71, w. of John 2nd Earl of Bridgwater, 657. 376, 426, 430-1, 436; expenses, 424, 456, Egerton, Frances, Countess of Bridgwater, 514, §25, 542, 564, 576, 777, 7843 opinions, d. of Ferdinando Stanley, Earl of Detby, 210, 232, 381-2, 424, 456, 482, 727-9, 7343 w. of John 1st Earl of Bridgwater, 171. patronage, 210-12, 261, 446, 708-9, 735, Egerton, James, 247. 740; rewards, 405, 408-9, 411-12, 414, 416, Egerton, John (1579-1649), znd Viscount

425-6, 430-1, 436, 438-9, 495. Brackley, succ. 1617, cr. Earl of Bridgwater Dudley, Robert, bastard s. of above, 370. 1617, m. Frances Stanley, 116, 313, 319,

Duffield, Grace, see Howard. 332, 373, 657, 761, 777, 780.

Dugdale, Sir William, 26, 69, 274, 715. Egerton, John, 2nd Earl of Bridgwater, m.

Dumbleton, Glos., 391. Elizabeth Cavendish, 634, 657.

Dunbar, Earl of, see Hume, George. Egerton, John, “Viscount Brackley’, 3rd Earl Dunbar, Viscount of, see Constable, Henry. of Bridgwater, m. Elizabeth Cranfield, 634.

Dunkirk, 374. Egerton, Rowland, m. Bridget Grey, 636.

Dunluce, Viscount, see Macdonnell, Randal. Egerton, Sit Thomas (1540-1617), cr. Lord

Dunsmote, Lord Leigh of, see Leigh. Ellesmere 1603, Viscount Brackley 7676,

Diirer, Albrecht, 715, 719. 47, 63, 100, 191, 453, 475, 489, 534, 571, Durham, Co. Durham, 24, 737; bishop of, 256, 578.

360, 601; dean of, 73.4; see of, 411. Eight Hundred Fen, Lincs., 356.

Durham, Co., 251, 435, 624. Elizabeth, Queen, 29, 71-74, 81-82, 97-100, Dutch East India Company, 373. 108, 126, 205-8, 220-1, 232-7, 251-3, 256, Dutch Government, 419, 458, 713; — immigrants, 370, 383, 406-7, 409-11, 413-16, 418-19,

3553 — merchants, 355. 426-7, 429-31, 451-6, 460-1, 464, 468,

Dutton family, of Cheshire, 229. 473, 475-7, 480, 482-4, 489, 492, 496, Dutton, John, of Sherborne, Glos., 43,47. =»: 500-1, 551, 553, 563-4, 568-70, 578, 605-6,

Dutton, Sir Thomas, 247. 665, 676, 702, 707-8, 713, 729, 741, 747. Dyer, Sir Edward, 415, 436. Elizabeth, Princess, d. of James I, w. of Dyestuffs, monopoly of, 434. Frederick, Elector Palatine, 79-80, 652. Dymock family, 197, 229, 379. Elkin, Mr., 536.

Dymock, Charles, 356. Ellesmere, Salop, 313.

Dymock, Sir Edward, 215, 224, 231. Ellesmere, Lord, see Egerton, Thomas, Viscount Brackley.

Eam in Middleton, Detby., 344. Ellis, Thomas, 80.

Earl Marshal, 68; Commissioner for the, 578; Elmesthorpe, Leics., 526. Earl Marshal’s Court, 69, 70 1.., 93, 232, 246, Elphinstone, James, rst Lord Balmerino (S.),

248-9 (see also College of Arms). 444,

East India Company, 361, 365, 371-2, 374, Elwes, Sit Getvase, 394.

376-7, 545, 632 Nn. Ely, Cambs., Bishop of, 239, 406-7; Bishopric

Eaton, Bishop, 411. of, 410-11, 419.

Edmondes, Thomas, 461. Elyot, Thomas, 401, 561, 620, 675, 677.

Edmonton, Middx., 293, 312. Empire, 720; Imperial Ambassador, 207. Edward IV, King, 256, 322, 678. England: East Anglia, 155, 162, 256, 321, 333, Edward VI, King, 28, 404 n., 702, 727. 355; Highland zone, 228, 250-1, 298;

Edwards, John, of Chirk, 258. Home Counties, 38, 155, 772; Midlands,

Edwardstone, Suffolk, 593. 256, 302, 313, 340, 347, §12, 729, 7723

Effingham, Lord Howatd of, see Howard, North, 12, 155, 313, 327, 340, 347, 624,

INDEX 809 729 (see also Rebellion of the Northern Earls, Exeter, Earl of, see Cecil, Thomas, 2nd Lord and North, Council of); Scottish Borders, Burghley (1), William (2), David (3). 216, 218, 309; West Country, 12, 256, 313, Expenditure, 449-50, 456, 359-62, 481-3,

317, 321. 488, 490, 499, 580-5, App. XXIII,

Erasmus, Desidetius, 670, 678-80. XXIVa, 783-6. Eridge, Sussex, 346.

Erle, Sir Walter, 12. Fabian, Robert, 680.

695. 117.

Erskine, Sir James, of Tullibody, 109, 568. Fairfax family, 25. Erskine, John, 2nd Earl of Mar (S.), 532, Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 1st Lord Fairfax (S.), Erskine, Thomas, 1st Earl of Kellie, 109, 417. + Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 3rd Lord Fairfax (S.),

Kscrick, Lord Howard of, see Howard, 743.

Edward. Falkland, Lady, see Carey, Elizabeth.

Escrick, Lady Howard of, see Howard, Mary. Fane family, 193, 221.

Escrick, Lord Knyvett of, see Knyvett, Fane, Sir Francis (¢. 1573-1629), s. of Thomas

Thomas. Fane, cr. Earl of Westmorland 7624, m.

Essex, 31, 37, 94, 110, 256, 285, 313, 327, 485, Mary Mildmay, 111, 221, 552, 714.

551, 624, 754, 772. | Fane, Mary, d. of Henry Nevill, 6th Lord

Essex, Countess of, see Carr, Frances; Deve- Bergavenny, w. of Thomas Fane, cr.

reux, Frances; Dudley, Lettice. Baroness Le Despencer 1604, 569, 616 n.

Essex, Earl of, see Cromwell, Thomas, Lord Fane, Mary, Countess of Westmorland, d. of

Cromwell; Devereux, Walter, Viscount Sir Anthony Mildmay, w. of Francis Earl

Hereford (1), Robert (2, 3). of Westmorland, 499.

Essex Revolt, 172, 255, 257, 350, 413-14, 426, Fane, Mary, Countess of Westmorland, d. of

442, 458, 482-7, 778 n. Horace Lord Vere, m. 1. Sit Roger Town-

Essex, Sir William, 85. send, 2. the following, 615.

Eton College, Bucks., 209, 513, 685-7. Fane, Mildmay (1602-66), znd Earl of West-

Eure family, 172, 253. morland, succ. 1629, m. 2. above, I7I, 175, Eure, Lord, see Eure, William (1, 2), Ralph 213, 293, 499, 569, 615, 687, 748, 761, 780,

(3), William (4). App. XXTVa.

Kure, Sir Ralph, s. & h. of William 1st Lord Fane, Thomas, m. 2. Mary Nevill, 193.

Eure, 675. Fanshawe family, 468, 639.

Rure, Ralph (1558-1617), 3rd Lord Eure, Fanshawe, Sir Thomas, 1st Viscount FansuCcC. If94, 226, 239, 249, 257, 461, 534, shawe (I.), m. d. of Ald. W. Cockayne,

539, 552, 567, 760. 631.

Eure, William, cr. Lord Eure 7544, 192, 232, Farleigh Hungerford, Wilts., 572. Gor, 624, 653; daughter of, see Bowes, Muriel. Farnaby, Thomas, 686.

Eure, 567. (1).

Eure, Sir William, s. of William 2nd Lord Fauconberg, Viscount, see Belasyse, Thomas Eure, William (1529-93), 2nd Lord Eure, s. Felton, Anthony, 246. of Sir Ralph, succ. his grandfather ry48, Felton, John, 117.

251, 256, 653, 729, 760. Fen drainage, 162, 355-7, 377—-8, 380.

Eure, William (1579-1646), 4th Lord Eure, Fenton, Catherine, see Boyle.

Succ, 1617, 238, 543, 567, 761, 779. Fenton, Edward, 364, 370, 376.

Evans, Thomas, 703. Fenwick, Robert, 26.

Evelyn, George, s. & h. of Richard, 95, 650. Ferdinand IIJ, Emperor, 720. Evelyn, John, s. of Richard, 392, 593, 597, Fermor, Sir Hatton, Bart., m. d. of Ald. W.

621, 646, 659, 677, 685, 750. Cockayne, 631.

Evelyn, Richard, 677. Fermor, Joan, see Mordaunt.

Evesham, Sit Epiphanius, 593, 710. Fermor, Thomas, 572.

Exchequer, 16, 85, 92, 106, 117, 275, 290, 322, Ferne, John, 23, 41. 419 1., 422, 428, 438, 440, 442, 479; Chief Ferrers, Sir John, 25. Baron of, 210; Fine Office, Head of, 533; off- Ferrers of Chartley, Lord, 192. cers of, 468, 512; Tellers at, 291, 422, 533. Feudal Incidents, 302, 322-3.

Exeter, Devon., 51, 231, 314, 371, 512-13; Field, John, 734, 736-7, 744.

See of, 406, 411. Fielding family, 26.

Frances. Denbigh, 667.

Exeter, Countess of, see Cecil, Dorothy, Fielding, Basil ‘Lord Fielding’, 2nd Earl of

810 INDEX Fielding, Susan, Countess of Denbigh, d. of | Finch, Mary, Countess of Winchilsea, d. of

Sir George Villiers, w. of the following, William Seymour, roth Earl of Hertford,

106, 417-18. 2nd w. of Heneage Earl of Winchilsea,

Fielding, William (1582-1643), cr. Earl of 571.

Denbigh 1620, m. above, 24, 106, 761; Finch, Sir Moyle, s. of Sir Thomas Finch, m. daughters of, see Hamilton, Mary; Noel, Elizabeth Heneage, 86-87, 104, 110.

Anne. Finch, Sir Thomas, m. Catherine Moyle, 193.

Fiennes family, 229; Earls of Lincoln, 395, Finch, Sir Thomas (¢. 1575-1639), 1st Earl

728, of Winchilsea, s. of Sir Moyle and of Eliza-

Fiennes, Bridget, Countess of Lincoln, d. of beth Countess of Winchilsea, succ. his

William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, 1st mother 1634, 111, 706 n., 717. w. of Theophilus Earl of Lincoln, 615. Finchley, Middx., 687. Fiennes, Edward (1512-85), Lord Clinton, Finet, John, 699. succ. 117, cr. Earl of Lincoln 7772, m. 3. First Fruits and Tenths, Receiver of, 423; the following, 53, 256, 369, 404, 460, 624, Treasurer of the Court of, 304.

760. Fishing Company, 376.

Fiennes, Elizabeth, Countess of Lincoln, d. Fitton, Mary, 606.

of Gerald Fitzgerald, 9th Earl of Kildare, Fitzalan family, 99 n., 263, 301; estates of, 151,

3td w. of above, 738. I7I.

Fiennes, Elizabeth, Countess of Lincoln, d. Fitzalan, Henry (1512-80), 12th Earl of of Henry Knyvett, w. of Thomas 3rd Arundel, succ. 7744, 151, 214, 256, 349,

Earl of Lincoln, 592-3. 369, 404-5, 542, 548n., 706, 760, App.

Fiennes, Gregory (1539-94), 10th Lord XXII, 784.

Dacte of the South, restored in blood rys8, = Fitzgerald family, 625.

347, 349, 760. Fitzgerald, Elizabeth, see Fiennes.

Fiennes, Sit Henry, 613. Fitzgerald, Frances, Countess of Kildare (1.), Fiennes, Henry ( -1616), 2nd Earl of Lin- Howard, see Brooke. coln, succ. ry 8s, 63, 215, 224-5, 239, 269, Fitzgerald, George, 16th Earl of Kildare (I.),

304, 330, 406, 454, 511, 718, 760. m. the following, 441, 571. Fiennes, James, 3td Lord Saye and Sele, m. Fitzgerald, Joan, d. of Richard Boyle, Earl Frances Cecil, d. of Edward Viscount. of Cork, w. of above, 568.

Wimbledon, 171. Fitzhugh estates, 192.

Fiennes, Knyvett, 238. Fitzlewis family, of W. Horndon, Essex, Fiennes, Sir Richard (¢. 1557-1613), cr. heiress of, 193 (see Mordaunt, Ellen). Viscount Saye and Sele 16037, 101, 440, Fitzwarin heiress, 192.

4G1. Fitzwilliam family, 300.

Fiennes, Theophilus (1600-67), 4th Earl of Fitzwilliam, Charles, 3rd Earl Fitzwilliam, Lincoln, succ. 7679, m. 1. Bridget Fiennes, 264, 540 n.

330, 356, 375, 382, G15, 761. Fitzwilliam, William, 1st Lord Fitzwilliam

Fiennes, Thomas, 9th Lord Dacre of the (1.), 634.

South, 236. Flanders, 457.

Fiennes, William (1582-1662), znd Lord Fletcher, Richard, Bishop, 410. Saye and Sele, succ. 1673, 330, 375, 382, Florence, Italy, 692, 696. sot, 615, 625, 743, 745, 761; daughter of, Flogging, 32, 34-35, 680-1.

see Fiennes, Bridget. Flushing, Low Countries, 292. Filmer, Sir Robert, 529. Foley, Richard, 348. Finch family, 193, 347. Fontainebleau, France, 697. Finch, Elizabeth, d. of Sir Thomas Heneage, Foreign workers and technicians, 343, 346, 352-3,

w. of Sir Moyle Finch, cr. Viscountess 355. Maidstone and Countess of Winchilsea, Forests South of the Trent, Keeper of, 424.

IIO-1I, 116 n. Forez district, France, 169.

Finch, Heneage (¢. 1620-79), 2nd Earl of Forrest, Robert, 289.

Winchilsea, succ. 1639, m. Mary Seymour, Forster, Sir John, 251.

761, 780. Fortescue, John, 226, 231, 236.

Finch, Sir Heneage, 86-87. Fortescue, Sir John, 676.

Finch, John (1584-1660), grands. of Henry,s. Forth, Earl of (S.), see Ruthven, Patrick. of Sir Thomas, cr. Lord Finch 1640, 191, Foster, Mr., 570.

261, 761. Fossdyke, Lincs., 92.

INDEX SII

Fotherley, Thomas, 289. Geratd, Charles (1635-67), 4th Lord, succ. Framlingham, Suffolk, 25, 219, 573. 1640, 761.

France, 78, 117-18, 124, 243-5, 249, 385, 416, Gerard, Dutton (1613-40), 3rd Lord, succ. 480, 503, 560, 646, 658, 692-8; embassies 1622, 177. to, 459-61; French academies, 690, 696; Gerard, Gilbert, 191. — ambassador, 226, 396, 561; —— immi- Gerard, John, 238. grants, 355; — nobility, 654n., 752; —fech- Gerard, John, S.J., 730-1, 738. nicians, 346; — wars of Henry VIII, 71, 192, Gerard, Thomas ( ~1618), s. of Gilbert, cr.

203; — wars of Charles I, 94. Lord Gerard 7603, 176n., 324n., 348,

Francis, Sir Edward, 291. 381 n.

Frederick V, Elector Palatine, later King of | Gerbicr, Sir Balthazar, 719, 721. Bohemia, m. Princess Elizabeth, 564, 651. Gerrard, Sir Thomas, 108.

625. 722.

Frobisher, Sir Martin, 200, 370-1, 376. Ghent, Spanish Netherlands, 730. Fuller, Thomas, 30, 38, 97, 105, 196, 365, 388, Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 371, 376, 666, 678,

Fuller, Mr., 687. Gilby, Anthony, 737. Fulke, William, 737. Gilling Castle, Yorks. N.R., 25. Furse, Robert, 304. Giorgione, 719. Fylkens, Mr., 536. Gladwyns, Essex, 111.

Fynett, Thomas, 568. Glamorgan, 254, 302, 347, 352. Glass industry, 353; — monopoly, 434. Gage family, 639. Glemham, Anne, d. of Thomas Sackville, Galen, 656, 659. Earl of Dorset, wife of Sir Henry Glemham Gamage, John, 660; daughter of, see Sydney, of Glemham, 492.

Barbara. Glemham, Edward, 366 n.,

Gameys, Margaret, see Devereux. Gloucester, Glos., 42; Honour of, 322.

Gardiner, Sir William, 405. Gloucester, Duke of, see Humphrey.

Garendon, Leics., 280-1. Gloucestershire, 229, 230, 303, 485, 562,

Gargrave, Sir Thomas, 414. 624.

Garrard, Rev. George, 389, 616, 732. Godwin, Thomas, Bishop, 406. Garter, Order of the, 459, 565. Gold and Silver Wire, 585; monopoly of, 43.4 (see Gascoigne family, 193 (see Wentworth, Sir also Venice).

Thomas). Gondomar, Count of, see Acufia.

Gascoigne, John, of Barwick, Yorks. W.R., Goodman, Godfrey, 489, 552.

733, Goodrich, Hereford., 345 n., 348, 351.

Gaterley Moor, Yorks. N.R., 215. Gookin, Sir Vincent, 81. Gawdy, Sit Bassingbourne, 390. Gorges, Sir Arthur, 536.

Gawdy, Mrs. Dorothy, 665-6. Gorges, Edward, Lotd Gorges of Dundalk

Gawdy, Henry, 75, 83. (L.), 355.

Gawdy, Philip, 75, 390. Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 486. Geddings, Herts., 259. Gorhambury, Herts., 452, 550, 554, 734. Gell family of Hopton, 344. Goring family, 22.

Geneva, 659, 698. Goring, George, “Lord Goring’, s. & h. of Gentile, Albetico, 708. George Earl of Norwich, m. Lettice

Gentlemen Pensioners, Captain of the, 499; Boyle, d. of Richard Earl of Cork, 428,

Paymaster of the, 291. 571.

Gentry, 43-46, 51-52, $5, 161, 339-40, 387-8, Goring, Sir George (1585-1663), cr. Lord 393, 397-8, 401, 463, 473, 497, 517, 5345 Goring 1628, Earl of Norwich 1644, 105, 545, 566, 581, 585, O11, 614, 616, 623-5, 141, 374, 428, 436-7, 438 n., 475, 560, 665,

627 fig., 627-8, 630-1, 638-9, 644, 647, 761, 780. 653, 673, 675-6, 681-92, 715, 730-3, 738, Gostwick, Sir John, 304. 746, 767, 769, 789; alienation of, by the Grafton, Wotrcs., 730. Stuarts, 78, 81, 84, 118, 127, 457-8, 499-502; Grafton Lodge, Cumbd., 550. “vise of, LI~12, 31, 38, 192-3, 195, 235, 253, | Grand Tour, 16, 58, 245, 618, 659, 691-702, 256-7, 329~33, 356, 371-3, 375, 380, 444-5, App. XXIII n., 793. 447, 466-8, 475-6, 503, 536-8, 550-1, 717, Grandison, Viscount, see St. John, Oliver,

722, 732, 789 (see also Clientage). Lord Tregoz. George, Duke of Clarence, 212. Grantham, Lincs., 261.

812 INDEX Grantham, Sir Thomas, 557. Grey, Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, d. of

Grassington, Yorks. W.R., 344. Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, w. of Great Level of Fens, 355, 357, 376. Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, 744. Green, of Greens Norton, estates, 192. Grey, George, 1st Earl of Kent, 600.

Green, William, 486. Grey, Henry ( -1614), cr. Lord Grey of Green Cloth, Clerk of the, 468. Groby 1603, 178 n. Greene, Robert, 389. Grey, Henry (¢. 1598-1673), 2nd Lord Grey Greenwich, Kent, 397, 712. of Groby, succ. his grandfather 7674, cr.

Greenwood, Rev. Charles, 288. Earl of Stamford 7628, m. Anne Cecil, 330,

Grendon, Northants., 551. 356, 375, 743, 761.

Grenville family, 25. Grey, Henry, 3rd Earl of Kent, succ. his stepGresham, Sir Thomas, 218, 576. brother, 600. Greville family, of Milcote, 534. Grey, Henry (1541-1615), 5th Earl of Kent,

Greville, Elizabeth, d. of Edward Willough- succ, his brother 1573, 760, 785. by, s. & h. of Lord Willoughby de Broke, Grey, Henry (1583-1639), 7th Earl of Kent, w. of Fulke Greville (grandfather of 1st succ. 1623, m. Elizabeth Talbot, 303, 658.

Lord Brooke), 193. Grey, Henry, 9th Earl of Kent, 321.

Greville, Sir Fulke (1554-1628), grands. of Grey, Henry, 3rd Marquis of Dorset, m. above, cr. Lord Brooke ré2z, 13, 191, 208, Frances Brandon, succ. his brother-in-law

350, 412, 492, 654, 738. as Duke of Suffolk, 412, 744; daughters of,

Greville, Robert (1607-43), 2nd Lord Brooke, see Grey, Lady Jane; Seymour, Lady succ, his cousin 7628, 367, 375, 615, 743; Catherine.

745, 761. Grey, Lady Jane, d. of above, 676, 702.

Grey families, of Chillingham and Horton, Grey, Jane, Lady Grey of Wilton, d. of Sir 193 (see Grey, Sir Edward and Sir Ralph). Richard Morison, m. 1. Edward, Lord Grey family, Earls of Kent, 53, 152, 155, 159. Russell, 2. Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton,

Grey of Warke, family, 193. 172 n.

Grey of Wilton, family, 412. Grey, Sir Ralph, of Chillingham, son of Sir Grey of Groby, Lord, see Grey, Henry (1), Edward, m. Isobel Grey of Horton, 193.

Henry, 1st Earl of Stamford (2). Grey, Reginald (¢. 1539-73), 4th Earl of Kent, Grey of Ruthyn, Lord, see Longueville, succ. his grandfather, took his seat 1772,

Michael. m. Susan Bertie (see Wingfield), 99 n., 729,

Grey of Warke, Lord, see Grey, William (1). 760. Grey of Wilton, Lady, see Grey, Dorothy, Grey, Richard, 2nd Earl of Kent, 600, 629.

Jane. Grey, Susan, Countess of Kent, see Wingfield.

Grey of Wilton, Lord, see Grey, William (13), Grey, Thomas (1576-1614), 15th Lord Grey

Arthur (14), Thomas (15). of Wilton, succ. 1793, 211, 231, 269, 412,

Grey, Anne, Countess of Stamford, d. of 414, 469, 482, 487, 525, 636, 760; daughter William Cecil, Earl of Exeter, wife of of, see Egerton, Bridget.

Henry Earl of Stamford, 171. Grey, Thomas, 2nd Marquis of Dorset, 479.

Grey, Anthony (1557-1643), 8th Earl of Grey, William (¢. 1593-1674), grands. of Kent, great-grands. of George 1st Earl of Sit Ralph, cr. Lord Grey of Warke 1624,

Kent, succ. his cousin 7639, 761. III, 116, 398, 761.

Grey, Arthur (1536-93), 14th Lord Grey of Grey, William (¢. 1515-62), 13th Lord Grey Wilton, succ. 762, m. 1. Dorothy Zouche, of Wilton, succ. ¢. ry2z, 416, 455, 475, 2. Jane Russell, née Morison, 211, 226, 231, §23, 542, 760.

236, 295, 663 n., 705, 729. Griffin, Sir Edward, m. Elizabeth Chambers Grey, Lady Catherine, see Seymour. (see St. John), 623. Grey, Charles (1545-1623), 6th Earl of Kent, Griffith, Mr., 412.

succ. his brother 167s, 302. Grimsby, Lincs., 4o.

Grey, Dorothy, Lady Grey of Wilton, natural Grimsthorpe, Lincs., 551. daughter of Richard Lord Zouche, 1st w. Grimston, Norfolk, 730. of Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, 663 n. Guard, Captain of the, 487.

Grey, Sir Edward, of Chillingham, 193. Guernsey, 461. Grey, Elizabeth, Countess of Kent, d. of Guiana, 367, 370, 373-4; Company, 373, 376. Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, w. of | Guicciardini, Francesco, 30. Henry 7th Earl of Kent, 110, 171, 318, Guildford, Surrey, 550.

342, 497, 560, 658, 785. Guildford, Lord, see North, Francis.

INDEX 813

Guise, Sir Charles, 621. Harrington, James, 13.

Guise, William, m. Cecily Dennis, 599. Harrington, Sir John, of Hornby, Lincs.,

Gunpowder Plot, 221, 414, 420. heiress of, 193 (see Stanley, Anne, Lady Mounteagle),

Habington, Thomas, 539. Harringworth Park, Northants., 303. Hackney, Middx., 361, 397, 570. Harris, Sir Thomas, Bart., 93.

Haddington, Viscount (S.), see Ramsay, John, Harrison, William, 40, 212, 222.

rst Earl of Holderness. Harrold Park, Beds., 303. Haddon, Derby., 344 n. Hartlepool, Co. Durham, 341.

Haddon, James, 744. Hartoft, Derby, 342.

Hadham, Hertts., 312. Harvey, Sir Sebastian, Lord Mayor of Hadham Parva, Hetts., 551, 557. London, 607. Hagnaby, Lincs., 728. Hastings family, 26, 145, 193, 274, 423, 654; Hakewill, William, 91, 751. Earls of Huntingdon, 261. Hale, Great, Lincs., 728. Hastings, Lord, see Hastings, William.

Hales, Sir John, 12. Hastings of Loughborough, Lord, see

Halifax, Yorks. W.R., 513. Hastings, Edward.

Hall, Joseph, 30, 603, 683, 699. Hastings, Catherine, Countess of Hunt-

Halnaker House, Sussex, 404. ingdon, d. of Henry (de la) Pole, Lord

Hamburg, 219, 343. Montacute, w. of Francis, Earl of Hunt-

Hamilton family, 470. ingdon, 633.

Hamilton, James (1589-1625), 2nd Marquis Hastings, Catherine, Countess of Hunting-

of Hamilton (S.), cr. Earl of Cambridge don, d. of John Dudley, Duke of North-

1619, 372-3, 420, 459, 476, 665. umberland, w. of Henry 3rd Earl of

Hamilton, James (1606-49), 3rd Marquis and Huntingdon, 738. tst Duke of Hamilton (S.), 2nd Earl of Hastings, Edward (¢. 1520-72), s. of George Cambridge, succ. 1625, m. the following, ist Earl of Huntingdon, cr. Lord Hastings

374, 476, Gog, 720, 761, 780. of Loughborough ry y8, 152, 760.

Hamilton, Mary, Countess of Cambridge, Hastings, Elizabeth, Countess of Huntingdon, Martchioness of Hamilton (S.), d. of William d. of Ferdinando Stanley, Earl of Detby, Fielding, rst Earl of Denbigh, w. of above. w. of Henry 5th Earl of Huntingdon, 171.

609, 738. Hastings, Elizabeth, Countess of Huntingdon, Hampden, John, 12. Earl of Huntingdon, 636, Hammersmith, Middx., 397. d. of Sir John Lewis, 1st w. of Theophilus Hampshire, 238, 308, 318, 321, 624-5. Hastings, Ferdinando, 6th Earl of Hunting-

Hampton Court, Middx., 550, 554; Conference, don, m. Lucy Davies, 658.

12. Hastings, Francis (1514-Go), 2nd Earl of

Handsworth, Yorks. W.R., 342. Huntingdon, succ. 7744, m. Catherine (de

Hanmer, Meredith, 738. la) Pole, 216, 256, 633.

Hansley, William, 6o. Hastings, George, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, Hardwick Hall, Derby., 550-2, 575. 633.

Hardwick, Elizabeth, née, see Talbot. Hastings, George (¢. 1540-1604), 4th Earl of Hare, Hugh, rst Lord Coleraine, 561. Huntingdon, succ, his brother ry9ys, 760,

Harington, John, 225. 778, 785.

Harington, Sir John, of Kelston, 102, 391, Hastings, Henry (1536-95), 3td Earl of 394, 405-6, 411, 477, 568, 571, 605, 679. Huntingdon, succ. ryé0, m. Catherine Harington, John (1540-1612), cr. Lord Dudley, 49, 171, 186, 213, 253, 257, 260, Harington 1603, 171, 439-40, 444, 5753 305s 330 354, 415, 423, $12, $32-3, 542, daughter of, see Russell, Lucy. 5735 578s 727s 729s 734-T> 777> 785: Harington, Sir John (1592-1614), 2nd Lord, Hastings, Henry (1586-1643), 5th Earl of

SUCC, 1613, 444, 580. Huntingdon, succ. his grandfather 1604,

Harlestone, Northants., 744. m. Elizabeth Stanley, 242, 265, 292, 303, Harley, Lady Brilliana, 690. 324 1., 396, 401, 423-4, 442, 534, 553, 561,

Harley, Robert, 258. 569, 599, 614-15, 627, 656, 658, 743, 747,

Harptree, East, Som., 580. 761.

Harrington family, of Dilston, Northumbd., Hastings, Lucy, Countess of Huntingdon, d.

534. of Sir John Davies, w. of Ferdinando Earl

Harrington, Sir Henry, 526, of Huntingdon, 658.

814 , INDEX Hastings, Margaret, Lady, 622. Herbert family (Earls of Pembroke), 60, 138, Hastings, Theophilus, 7th Earl of Hunting- 155, 254, 257, 261, 395, 469, 618, 654, 704, don, m. Elizabeth Lewis, 26, 636, 658. 713; estates of, 313, 326-7, 771.

Hastings, William, 1st Lord Hastings, 256, Herbert families of Cherbury and Saint

600; daughter of, see Talbot, Anne. Julian’s, 193.

Hatfield, Herts., 48, 312; House, 283, 452, “Herbert’, Lord, courtesy title of s. & h. of §50-2, 554-5, App. XXIII n.; tithes, 301. Earl of Worcester, see Sometset.

Hatfield Chase, Lincs., 355. Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, see Herbert, Hatton, Sir Christopher, Lord Chancellor, 25, Edward. 100, 196, 234, 277, 370, 382, 423-4, 452, Herbert, Anne, Countess of Pembroke, d. of 472, 475, 478, 514, 542, 551, 571, 596, 606, George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, m.

710, 737- 1. Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, 2.

Hatton, Sir Christopher, 713. Philip 4th Earl of Pembroke, 26, 171, 217,

Hatton, Christopher, s. of above, ist Lord 640, 665.

Hatton, 794. Herbert, Sir Arnold, 92.

Hatton, Elizabeth, Lady, widow of Sir Herbert, Sir Charles, s. & h. of Philip 4th

William Hatton, see Coke. Earl of Pembroke, m. Mary Villiers (see

Hawes, Stephen, 266. Stuart), 618, 652.

Hawkins, John, 369, 376. Herbert, Edward (1583-1648), cr. Lord Hay, James (1580-1636), cr. Lord Hay 1606, Herbert of Cherbuty 7629, m. Mary Earl of Carlisle 1622, m. 1. Honora Denny Herbert, of Saint Julian’s, 30, 193, 339, d. of Edward Earl of Norwich, 2. Lucy 381 n., 394, 761.

Petcy, 51, 63, 107, 110, 113, I71, 247, 338, Herbert, Elizabeth, Lady Powys, d. of Ald. 367, 415 1, 416-17, 433, 438 1., 440, 445, Sit William Craven, w. of William Lord

451, 462, 475, 521, 561, 566, 748, 785. Powys, 631. Hay, James (1612-60), 2nd Earl of Carlisle, Herbert, Henry (1538-1601), 2nd Earl of

succ. 1636, 141, 433, 761, 780. Pembroke, succ. ry70, m. 1. and divorced

Hay, Lucy, Countess of Carlisle, d. of Henry Catherine Grey (see Seymour), 3. Mary Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, 2nd Sydney, 206, 208, 212, 257, 260, 301, 388, w. of James 1st Earl of Carlisle, 396, 428. 597 n., Gor, 681.

Heath, Detby., 342. Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, d.

Heath, Sir Robert, 355, 444. of Sir Henry Sydney, 3rd w. of above, Heiresses, §7, 61, 157, 167, 170-1, 192-4, 600— 704, 1, 617-19, 623, 629-31, 652-3, 656-8, 662, Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, d. of

769, 789. Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, 3rd w.

Heirs Male of Peers, 169 fig., 469, 472, 474, of William 3rd Earl of Pembroke, 110, 500, 508, 589-91, 599, 602-4, 648, 690, 701, 171, 497.

769. Herbert, Penelope, d. of Paul 2nd Viscount

Hele, John, 533-4. Bayning, w. of John, s. of Philip 4th Earl

Hellow, Lincs., 220. of Pembroke, 497.

Helmingham, Suffolk, 43. Herbert, Philip (1584-1650), cr. Earl of Helmsley, Yorks. N.R., 280-1; Park, 300. Montgomery r60y, succ. his brother as Heneage family, 193, 300. 4th Earl of Pembroke 1630, m. 1. Susan Heneage, Sir Thomas, 406; daughter of, see Vere, 2. Anne Sackville née Clifford, 80, Finch, Elizabeth. 176, 222, 247, 278, 290, 321, 324, 374, 416, Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, 554, 655. 420, 427-8, 434, 439-40, 443, 468, 475,

Henrietta Maria, Queen, 454, 464, 502, 565, 501, 552, 570, 607, 618, 650-2, 712, 717,

626, 732, 743. 720, 743, 761, 773, 777s 779» 785-

Henry, Prince of Wales, 93, 561, 565. Herbert, Philip, 5th Earl of Pembroke, 650.

Henry VI, King, 202. Herbert, Susan, Countess of Montgomery, d.

Henry VII, King, 97, 192, 201-3, 206, 250, of Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, 1st w. 268, 428, 476, 479-80, 600, 676, 703. of Philip Earl of Montgomery, later 4th Henry VIII, King, 81 n., 97, 138, 192, 203-5, Earl of Pembroke, 651. — 217, 236, 250-1, 254, 256, 404, 409, 411-13, Herbert, Sir William, 256.

454, 479-80, 569, 578, 605, 676, 703, Herbert, William (1573-1656), grands. of

726-7. | William 1st Earl of Pembroke, cr. Lord

Arms). 761.

Heraldry, Interest in, 23-26 (see alsa College of Powys 1629, m. Elizabeth Craven, 631,

INDEX 815

Herbert, William (1506-70), cr. Earl of Holderness, Countess of, see Ramsay, MarPembroke zy 57, 192, 254, 256, 303, 368-9, garet.

576, 675, 760. Holderness, Earl of, see Ramsay, John; Darcy,

Herbert, William (1580-1630), 3rd Harl of Conyers, 2nd Lord Conyers. Pembroke, succ. r601, m. Mary Talbot, Holland family, 263.

L10, 347, 372, 392, 433, 445, 556, 606, 618, | Holland, Earl of, see Rich, Henry.

665, 704, 720, 760. Holles family, 26, 215, 226.

Hereford, 231. Holles, Elizabeth, Countess of Clare, d. of

Earl of Essex. 615.

Hereford, Viscount, see Devereux, Walter, Horace, Lord Vere, w. of John 2nd Earl,

garet. jam, 40.

Hereford, Viscountess, see Devereux, Mat- Holles, Sir Frescheville, grands. of Sir Will-

Herefordshire, 253. Hollies, Gervase, s. of above, 26, 106, 120. Herrick, Robert, 512. Holles, Sir John (1564-1637), grands. of Sir

Herrick, Sir William, Alderman, 76, 512, William, cr. Lord Houghton 1676, Earl of

532-3. Clare 1624, 105, 107, 112, 115, I17, 126,

Hertford, 262; Hundred, 259. 215-16, 226, 230, 244, 361, 363, 383, 398, Hertford, Countess of, see Seymour, Catherine, 415, 497, 710.

Frances; and Stuart, Frances. Holles, John (1595-1666), 2nd Earl of Clare, Hertford, Earl, Marquis of, see Seymour, succ. 1637, m. Elizabeth Vere, 146, 171, Edward (9), William 1st Marquis (10). 501, 615, 761, 780. Hertfordshire, 48, 259, 313, 321, 624. Holles, Sir William, of Houghton, 557, 746. Hervey, William ( —1642), cr. Lord Hervey Holwell, Dorset, 293. 1628, m. 2. Cordelia Annesley, 193, 761. Honours, sale of, 58-60, 75, 77, 81, 83-84, 92,

Heselrige, Sir Arthur, 62. 94, IOI, 106-12, 11§-I7, 445, 494, 631-2,

Heselrige, Sir Thomas, 43. 775.

Hext, Sir Edward, 22, 47. Hooker, Richard, 22, 738. Heydon family, of Baconsthorpe, 229, 534. Hooper, Thomas, of Boveridge, 306.

Heydon, Sir John, 486. Hopton, Sir Ralph, 266.

Hicks, Baptist (1551-1629), cr. Viscount Hopton, Sir Richard, 610. Campden 17628, m. the following, 120, Horace, 392. I7I, 190, 534-6, 555, 570, 577, 595 n., 632; Hornby Castle, Yorks. N.R., 217.

daughter of, see Noel, Edward. Horse, Mastership of the, 420, 609. Hicks, Elizabeth, d. of Robert May, w. of Horsey, Edward, 436.

above, 570. Horsey, Sit Jerome, M.P., 89.

Hicks, Michael, 492. Hospitality, 42-49, 187, 452-3, 455, 460, 462, Fiterarchy, Concept of, 34-36, 120-2, 245, 267, 5475 555-Ts 575. 581-4. 477, 498, 578, 629 (see also Earl Marshal). WHothfield, Kent, 555.

High Burston, Northumb., 309. Houghton, Long, Northumb., 309. High Commission, Court of, 602. Houghton, Lord, see Holles, John, ist Earl

Highgate, Middx., 397. of Clare.

Hill, Susan, see Montagu. Household, Cofferer of the, 468; Lord Steward of Hinton St. George, Som., 391. the, 618; Sewer of the, 468. Hobart, Elizabeth, see Lisle. Howard family, 25, 60, 99 N., 102-3, 171, 253, Hobart, Sir John, m. the following, 507. 260, 264, 268, 399, 413, 475-6, 487, 591, Hobart, Philippa, d. of Robert Sydney, rst 617, 630, 676; Howards of Effingham, 395,

Earl of Leicester, w. of above, 507. 469; Viscounts Bindon, 171, 192, 469;

Hobbes, Thomas, 199, 401, 684, 699, 724. Karls of Arundel, 140, 617; Earls of Berk-

Hoby family, 639. shire, 313; Earls of Suffolk, 171, 175, 285,

Hoby, Margaret, Lady, 739. 301, 543, 772; Dukes of Norfolk, 413, 617. Hoby, Sir Posthumus, 567. Howard of Bindon, Lady, properly Viscoun-

Hoddesdon, Herts., 259. tess Bindon, see Howard, Grace.

Hoghton, Thomas, 215, 228. Howard of Bindon, Lord, properly Viscount

Holbein, Hans, the younger, 715, 719. Bindon, see Howard, Thomas (1), Henry

Holcroft, Isobel, see Manners. (2), Thomas (3). Holden, Westmd., 342. Howard of Effingham, Lord, see Howard,

Holdenby House, Northants., 25, 218, 452, William (1), Charles 1st Earl of Notting-

551, 553. ham (2), hence courtesy title of his s, & h.

816 INDEX Howard of Escrick, Lady, see Howard, Mary. of George Hume, Earl of Dunbar, w. of Howatd of Escrick, Lord, see Howard, Theophilus Earl of Suffolk, 626, 652, 657.

Edward. Howard, Frances, see Carr, Frances; Seymour,

Howard, of Naworth, see Howard, Lord Frances; Stuart, Frances.

William. | Howard, Gtace, Viscountess Bindon, d. of

Howard of Walden, Lord, see Howard, Bernard Duffield, w. of Thomas Viscount Thomas, 1st Earl of Suffolk, hence courtesy Bindon, 661. title of his s. & h. (see Howard, Theophilus). Howard, Henry, s. of Thomas Earl of Howard, Alathea, Countess of Arundel, d. Suffolk, m. Elizabeth Bassett, 247. of Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, w. Howard, Henry, s. of Thomas Earl of Berkof Thomas Earl of Arundel, 110, 140, 171, shire, m. Elizabeth Craven, née Spencer,

342, 374, 497. 623 n.

Howard, Lady Anne, d. of John 2nd Lord Howard, Henry, ‘Earl of Surrey’, s. & h. of St. John, w. of Lord William Howard of Thomas 3rd Duke of Norfolk, 399, 676, Effingham, s. & h. of Charles rst Earl of 704; daughter of, see Berkeley, Katherine.

Nottingham, 171. Howard, Henry (1542-90), 2nd Viscount

Howard, Anne, Countess of Arundel, d. of Bindon, succ. ry 82, 225, 662.

Thomas Lotd Dacre of Gisland, w. of Howard, Henry (1540-1614), s. of Henry Philip Earl of Arundel, 601, 656, 730. ‘Earl of Surrey’, cr. Earl of Northampton Howard, Catherine, Countess of Suffolk, d. 1604, 84-89, 171, 292, 413, 419, 427, 441,

of Sir H. Knyvett, niece and heitess of 468, 475, 487, 552, 654, 667, 714, 7733 Thomas Lord Knyvett of Escrick; m. estates of, I71. 1. Richard Rich, 2. Thomas 1st Earl of Howard, Henry-Frederick, ‘Lord Maltravets’,

Suffolk, 492, 665. 15th Earl of Arundel, succ. 1646, m. Lady

Howard, Charles, ‘Lord Andover’, s. & h. Elizabeth Stuart, 355, 440, 520, 608, 689. of Thomas Earl of Berkshire, m. Dorothy Howard, James (1620-89), 3rd Earl of Suffolk,

Savage, 610, succ. 1640, 262, 290, 548n., 761, App.

Howard, Charles (1536-1624), 2nd Lord XXII.

Howard of Effingham, succ. 1773, cr. Howard, Margaret, Countess of Nottingham, Earl of Nottingham zy97, m. 1. Katherine d. of James Stewart, Earl of Moray (S.), Carey, 2. Margaret Stewart, 72, 76, 92, 99, 2nd wife of Charles rst Earl of Notting142, 158-9, 266, 290, 364n., 366, 414, ham, 420, 626, 652, 665. 419-20, 436, 438n., 454, 460, 475, 482, Howard, Mary, Lady Howard, d. of Thomas 490, 532, 626, 652, 709, 760; daughter of, Lotd Dacre of Gisland, 1st w. of Lord

see Brooke, Frances. Thomas Howard, later Earl of Suffolk,

Howard, Charles (1579-1642), 2nd Earl of Gor. Nottingham, succ. 1624, m. 2. Mary Howard, Mary, Lady Howard, d. of John

Cockayne, 631, 761. Lord Boteler, w. of Edward Lord Howard

Howard, Dorothy, ‘Lady Andover’, d. of of Escrick, 609.

Thomas Viscount Savage, w. of Charles Howard, Mary, Viscountess Stafford, sister

‘Lord Andovet’, 610. of Henry Stafford, 5th Lord Stafford, w.

Howard, Edward ( —1675), s. of Thomas of William Howard, Viscount Stafford, Earl of Suffolk and Catherine née Knyvett, 117. cr. Lord Howard of Escrick 1628, m. Howard, Mary, Countess of Nottingham, d.

Mary Boteler, 106, 396, 609, 761. of Ald. W. Cockayne, 2nd w. of Charles

Howard, Elizabeth, d. of W. Spencer, m. and Earl of Nottingham, 631. 1. John Craven, 2. Henry Howard, 623n. Howard, Philip (1557-95), 13th Earl of Howard, Elizabeth, d. of Thomas Lord Arundel, s. & h. of Thomas 4th Duke of

Dacre of Ghisland, w. of Lord William Norfolk, succ. his grandfather Henry Howard, of Naworth, 601, 653. Fitzalan zy80, m. Anne Dacte, 307, 413, Howard, Elizabeth, ‘Lady Maltravers’, d. of 423, 514, 520, 656. Esmé Stuart, Duke of Lennox, w. of Howard, Theophilus (1584-1640), 2nd Earl Henry-Frederick “Lord Maltravers’, 608, of Suffolk, succ. 1626, m. Elizabeth Hume,

738. 17, 175, 278-9, 323, 442, 512, $15, $79,

Howard, Elizabeth, Countess of Berkshire, 626, 652, 657, 777, 779; daughter of, see d. of William Cecil, Earl of Exeter, w. of Percy, Elizabeth.

Thomas Earl of Berkshire, 171. Howard, Thomas (1520-82), s. of Thomas

Howard, Elizabeth, Countess of Suffolk, d. 3td Duke of Norfolk, cr. Viscount Bindon

INDEX 817 TSJ9, 98n., 158, 630, 760; daughter of, see Hume, George ( -1611), cr. Lord Hume of

Stuart, Frances. Berwick 1604, Earl of Dunbar (S.) 160),

Howard, Thomas ( -1611), 3rd Viscount I7I, 298, 415 N., 427, 431-2, 434, 439, 476, Bindon, succ. 1790, m. Grace Duffield, 533, 552, 555, 563 n., 626, 652, 657, 773;

299, 661-2, 760. daughter of, see Howard, Elizabeth, Countess

Howard, Thomas (1585-1646), 14th Earl of of Suffolk. Arundel, restored in title and blood 1604, Humfrey, William, 343. m. Alathea Talbot, 25-26, 76, 123, 171, 310, | Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 676.

373, 376, 413, 428, 440, 445, 475, 480, 514, Humphrey, Laurence, 673, 678, 722, 737, 543, 608, 684, 689, 694, 712, 718-20, 750, 740.

761, 779. Hungerford heiress, 193.

Howard, Thomas (1590-1669), s. of Thomas Hungerford, Sir Edward, 12. Karl of Suffolk, cr. Viscount Andover 1674, | Hunsdon, Lady, see Carey, Anne. Earl of Berkshire 7622, m. Elizabeth Cecil, | Hunsdon, Lord, see Carey, Henry (1), George 113, 317, 324N., 367, 373, 428, 435, 442, (2), John (3), Henry 1st Earl of Dover (4).

475, 531, 623 n., 665, 752, 761, 780. Huntingdon, Countess of, see Hastings, Howard, Thomas (1561-1626), s. of Thomas Catherine, née Dudley; Catherine, née (de la) 4th Duke of Norfolk, cr. Lord Howard of Pole; Elizabeth, née Lewis; Elizabeth, née

Walden z597, Earl of Suffolk 1603, m. 1. Stanley. Marty Dacre, 2. Catherine Rich, née Knyvett, Huntingdon, Earl of, see Hastings, George

44, 98 N., 99, 103, 171, 366, 413, 423, 427, (1), Francis (2), Henry (3), George (4), 439, 442, 452, 468-9, 492, 508, 514, 532, Henry (5), Ferdinando (6), Theophilus (7). 534, 543, 552, 554, 626, 652, 760, 773; Huntingdonshire, 238, 313. daughters of, see Carr, Frances; Vaux, Eliza- Hussey, Bridget, see Russell.

beth. Hutchinson, Lucy, d. of Sir Allen Apsley, w.

Howard, Thomas, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, 219, of John, 394.

399, $73, 575-0, 638, 784. Hutchinson, John, Colonel, m, above, 610.

Howard, Thomas, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, Hutchinson, Thomas, 225.

219, 346, 369, 399, 413, 714. Hutton, Matthew, Archbishop of York,

Howatd, Thomas (1538-72), 4th Duke of 407. Norfolk, s. of Henry ‘Earl of Surrey’, Hyde family, 639.

succ, his grandfather ryy4, m. 1. Mary d. Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 125, 670,

and heiress of Henry Fitzalan, Earl of 695, 743.

Arundel, 60, 69 n., 220, 252-3, 256, 261, 268, 290, 298, 368, 395, 399, 405, 413, 416, Indian Ocean, 367. 423, 455, 516, 520-1, 542, Gor, 656, 677, Indtes, East, 364, 376; West, 338, 364, 367, 432,

684, 691, 714, 760. 535 (see also Caribbean Islands), Howard, Sir William, 77. Ingatestone, Essex, 714.

Howard, Lord William, of Naworth, s. of Individualism, 35-36, 579, 584, 669-71. Thomas 4th Duke of Norfolk, m. Eliza~ Ingram, Sir Arthur, 77, 107, 111, 494, 552. beth Dacre, 218, 276, 298, 526, 548n., Inns of Court, 32, 33, 232, 240, 357, 386, 388,

653. 676, 681, 690-2, 702, 724, 793; Gray’s Inn,

Howard, William (¢. 1510-73), s. of Thomas 690-1; Inner Temple, 691; Lincoln’s Inn, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, cr. Lord Howard of 557, Middle Temple, 692. Effingham zfy4, 369; daughters of, see Interest rates, 142-3, 479, 507, §10, 516-18, Seymour, Frances; Shefhield, Douglas. §22, 524, 526, 529-32, 535, 539-41, 543-4,

Howard, William (1614-80), s. of Thomas 648. Earl of Arundel, cr. Viscount Stafford Ireland, 95-96, 113, 155, 162, 218n., 350, 1640, m. Mary Stafford, 117, 689, 780. 415-16, 428, 456-8, 465, 485, 492, 513,

Howell, James, 363. 568; High Marshal of, 437; General of the Howley, Yorks., 552, 555. Horse in, 484; 1573 Expedition to, 424, 4553 Huddleston family, 229. 1399 Expedition to, 216; Lord Chancellorship Huddleston, Sit Robert, m. Bridget d. of of, 1133; Lord Deputy of, 72, 80, 491-2, 568; Christopher Roper, 4th Lord Teynham, 179. Lord General in, 72; Lords Justice of, 81;

Hudson, Henry, 376. tavern licensing in, 438.3 see also Ulster.

Hughes, George, 738. Trish Customs, 426; Knights, 71-74, 823; peerage,

Hull, Yorks. W.R., 343. 104-5, 115, 625-6, 627 fig., 788; Privy

821314 3G

Humanism, 35-36, 673. Council, 113.

818 INDEX ,

Iron, 510; industry, 281, 344-52, 381; weights Kildare, Countess of, (1.), see Fitzgerald, Joan;

and measures of, 438 0. Brooke, Frances.

Isham family, 146, 625, 639. Kildare, Earl of (1.), see Fitzgerald, George

Isham, Thomas, 387. (16).

723. Killigrew, John, 227.

Italy, 244, 399, 502, 553, 692, 696, 698, 7oo-1, Killigrew, Elizabeth, see Boyle. Killigrew, Sir William, 356.

Jackson, Captain William, 367. Kimberworth, Yorks. W.R., 349 n.

Jamaica, 367. Kimbolton, Hunts., 593.

James VI and I, King, 24, 33, 68-69, 74-94 King, Allan, 289. passim, 100-4, 107-9, 112, 122, 126, 246, King, Gregory, 45, 52, 163, 767. 264, 309, 354, 391, 394, 397, 401, 408, 413, King, John, Bishop, 717. A15—16, 421, 427, 434, 440, 444, 449, 452-4, King’s Bench, 240-1, 442; Clerkship of Enrol-

462, 464, 473-8, 480, 487, 492-5, 500-1, ments in the, 444-5; Chief Clerk of, 103, 113. 554, 563-4, 570, 607, G11, 625-6, 652, 657, Kingsbury Manor, Som., 238.

665-8, 702, 710, 713, 747. Kingston, Earl of, see Pierrepoint, Robert,

Jermyn, Henry, 667. Viscount Newark (1), Henry (2). Jermyn, Sir Thomas, 63. Kingston, John, 622.

Jesmond, Northumb., 341 n. Kirby Hall, Northants., 551, 731.

Jesuit Mission in England, 730-1. Kirkby, East, Lincs., 728.

Jewel, John, 727. Kirkham, Roger, 293.

Jigginstown, Co. Kildare, 552-3, 555. Kirkoswald Castle, Cumbs., 217.

Johnson, Nathaniel, 26. Kirtling, Cambs., 452, 454. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 402, 707. Kitchen, Clerk of the, 468.

Joint Stock Companies, 375-6, 378, 380. Kitson family, 195; heiress of, 194 (see Caven-

Jolly, Edward, 290. dish, Margaret, Lady).

Jones, Inigo, 16, 357, 360, 502, 553, 709, 712, Kitson, Sir Thomas, of Hengrave, 655.

723, Knaith, Darcy of, Lord, see Darcy, Conyers.

Jonson, Ben, 388, 392, 459, 534, 569, 595, Knightley, Richard, 12.

681, 698, 708-9. Knole, Kent, 222, 552.

Justices of the Peace, 41, 52, 205, 207, 210, 225, Knollys, Catherine, d. of William Carey, w.

230, 398, 403 n., 465, 581, 729. of Sir Francis, 578.

Knollys, Sir Francis, m. above, 391, 411,

Kedleston, Derby., 522. 472, 475; daughter of, see Dudley, Lettice.

Keighley, Christopher, 282, 291, 293, 312, Knollys, Margaret, widow of Henry

322-3, Knollys, s. of Sic Francis, 628.

Kellie, Earl of, see Erskine, Thomas (1). Knollys, Sir Robert, 70, gt.

Kelly, Sir Edward, 368. Knollys, Roger, 595.

Kendal Castle, Westmd., 217. Knollys, William (1547-1632), s. of Sir

Kenilworth Castle, Warws., 217, 220-1, 714. Francis, cr. Lord Knollys 1603, Viscount Kenn family, of Kenn Court, Somerset, 193 Wallingford 1676, Earl of Banbury 1626,

(see John 1st Lord Poulett). m. 2. Elizabeth Howard (see Vaux), 113,

Kennedy, Elizabeth, d. of Giles Brydges, 396, 420, 442.

Lord Chandos, w. of Sit John, 625-6, 662. Knowsley, Lancs., 47, 213, 215, 339.

Kennedy, Sir John, married bigamously Knox, John, 744.

above, 625-6. Knyvett, Catherine, see Paston.

Kenninghall, Norf., 219, 220, 714. Knyvett, Catherine, see Howard.

Kensham, George, 608. Knyvett, Elizabeth, see Fiennes.

Kensington, Middx., 397. Knyvett, Thomas, of Ashwellthorpe, 83. Kent, 52, 67, 110, 292, 313, 320, 444, 772. Knyvett, Thomas ( —1622), cr. Lord KnyKent, Countess of, see Grey, Elizabeth; vett of Escrick 1607, 233-4, 237, 794.

Wingfield, Susan. Kyme, South, Lincs., 224.

Kent, Earl of, see Grey, George (1), Richard Kynalmeaky, Viscount (I.), see Boyle, Lewis. (2), Henry (3), Reginald (4), Henry (5), Charles (6), Henry (7), Anthony (8), Henry Lacock Abbey, Wilts., 549, 711.

(9). Lacy, John, 533.

Kighley, Henry, of Kighley, Yorks., 194; Lake, Anne, see Cecil.

daughter of, see Cavendish, Anne. Lake, Sir Thomas, 62, 495. :

INDEX 819

Lambe, Sir John, 646. Leigh, Francis ( -1653), cr. Lord Leigh of Lambourne, Berks., 85. Dunsmote 1628, m. above, 609, 630, 761, Lancashire, 215, 253, 264, 285, 313, 485, 571, 780.

663, 683, 747. Lennard (Fiennes), Francis (1619-62), 14th

Lancaster, Lancs., 231. Lord Dacre of the South, succ. 7630, 531,

Lancaster, Duchy of, 130, 290, 314; Chancellor 761. of the, 108, 261-2; officers of the, 209, 468. Lennard, John, 443. Land, 633-5, 771; market, 36-39, 158, 164-6, Lennard (Fiennes), Richard (1596-1630), 13th

329, 485, 493, 510, 530-1, 533, 539-40, Lord Dacre of the South, great-grands. of 544-5, 582-3; prestige of, 39, 41, 51, 493, Thomas Fiennes, 9th Lord Dacre, succ.

531. I616, 352, 509 nN.

Landlord-Tenant relationship, 12, 44, 164, 201- Lennox, Countess of (S.), see Douglas,

6, 213, 214-17, 240, 251-2, 257-Go, 264, Margaret.

329-31, 380, Lennox, Duchess of (S.), see Stuart, Frances,

Langley, John, 533. Margaret.

Langton, Sir Thomas, 215. Lennox, Duke of (S.), see Stuart, Ludovic (2),

La Noue, Francois de, 246. Esmé (3), James (4).

Lansdowne, Marquis of, see Petty, Sir William. Lenton Priory, Notts., 550.

Lathom House, Lancs., 573. Lesbury, Northumb., 309 Latimer, Lady, see Nevill, Lucy. Letsome, Thomas, 352. Latimer, Lord, see Nevill, Richard (2), John Levellers, 750.

(3, 4). Lewes, Sussex, 685.

La Tremouille, Charlotte de, see Stanley. Lewis, Elizabeth, see Hastings. Latymer family, heiress of, 193 (see Mordaunt, Ley, Henry (1595-1638), 2nd Earl of Marl-

Elizabeth). borough, succ. 1629, 34, 748.

Laud, William, Archbishop, 10, 12, 41, 318, Ley, James (@¢. 1552-1629), cr. Earl of Marl-

222, 382, 464, 502, 561, 615, 703, 738. borough 1626, m. Jane Boteler, 106, 433, Law, Courts of, 441-5 (see sub Chancery, Common 609, 706.

Pleas, ete.). Ley, James (1617-65), 3rd Earl of Marl-

Lawshall, Suffolk, 730. borough, succ. 7638, 367, 498, 761, 780.

Lawyers, 39, 41, 61, 159, 533-4, 627 fig., 628, Ley, Jane, Countess of Marlborough, d. of

632, 639, 789. John Lord Boteler, 3rd w. of 1st Earl, 106, mining, 342-4. Liége, Spanish Netherlands, 696.

Lead, 510; and silver mines, monopoly of, 4353 Gog.

Lea Hall, Lancs., 215. Lichfield, Earls of, see Lee family.

Leake, Sir Francis (1581-1655), cr. Lord Lincoln, 92, 224, 261-2, 356; Bishop of, 706; Deincourt 1624, Earl of Scarsdale ré&4y, Dean of, 684, 699.

112, 116, §75, 761, 780. Lincoln, Countess of, see Fiennes, Elizabeth

Leases, 179-80, 283-4. née Fitzgerald, Elizabeth, née Knyvett.

Leasing policy, 31, 299-322, 506, 544. Lincoln, Earl of, see Fiennes, Edward, Lord

Leather, tanning of, 436. Clinton (1), Henry (2), Thomas (3), Theo-

Lee family, Earls of Lichfield, 444. philus (4). Lee, Sit Henry, 454. Lincolnshire, 38, 133, 162, 229, 256, 280, 330,

Lee, Sit John, 634. 336, 355-6, 388, 485, 624-5, 728, 734, 772; Lee, Rowland, Bishop, 229. Kesteven, 733. Leez Priory, Essex, 549. Lindsey, Countess of, see Bertie, Elizabeth.

735° (2).

Leicester, Leics., 48, 737; Corporation of, 216, Lindsey, Earl of, see Bertie, Robert, 12th 261, 737; Mayor of, 512; Wigston’s Hospital, Lord Willoughby d’Eresby (1), Montagu Leicester, Countess of, see Dudley, Amye, Lisbon, Portugal, Expedition, 455-6.

Lettice; Sydney, Barbara, Katherine. Lisle, Viscount, see Plantagenet, Arthur; Leicester, Earl of, see Dudley, Robert; Sydney, Dudley, John, Duke of Northumberland; Robert, Lord Sydney and Viscount Lisle Sydney, Robert, 1st Earl of Leicester.

(1), Robert (2). Lisle, Elizabeth, née Hobart, w. of John, 641.

Leicestershire, 37, 280, 738, 754, 772. Lisle, John, m. above, 614.

Leigh, Audrey, Lady Leigh, d. of John Lord Lismore, Co. Waterford, 509. Boteler, m. 1. Sit F. Anderson, 2. the Litigation, 240-2, 274-5, 357, 386-7, 485, 516.

following, 609. Littleton, Sir Edward, 486.

820 INDEX Littleton, Edward (1589-1645), cr. 1st Lord Reindeer Yard, 361; St. Botolph’s, Bishops-

Littleton 1647, 191, 373, 761. gate, 234; St. Clement’s Dane, 395 ; — Fields,

Littleton, John, 414. 361; St. Dunstan’s, 47; St. James’s, 502;

Littleton, Sir John, 215 St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, 396; —Lane, 358,

Litton, William, 259. 396-7; St. Paul’s 104, 562; Salisbury Livorno, Italy, 712. House, 275, 283, 312, 396, 552; App.

Livy, 679. XXWIn.; Shoreditch, 395; Smithfield,

Llandaff, Glam., Bishop of, 411. 246, 358, 376; Somerset House, 554, App.

Lloyd, David, 216. XXIII n., 786; Southampton House, 359,

Lloyd, Richard, of Esclus, 482. 362; Stepney, 361, 397; Strand, 231-2,

Lloyd, William, 613 n. 358, 360, 362, 395, 397, 509, 549; Temple

Locking, East, Berks., 225. Bar, 226; Tower, 221, 248, 252, 275, 296, Lodge, Thomas, 400. 322, 399, 609, 705; — Governor of the, 394; Logwood, imposition on, 427, 431, 773; licence to — Hill, 254, 282; — Street, 362; Tuttle

import, 434. Street, 362; Warwick House, 396; West551, 560. 579-80, 703; — Hall, 225, 240, 248, 357,

Londesborough, Yorks. E.R., 282, 285, 342, minstet, 357, 395, 397, 586; — Abbey, 390, London, Westminster and Suburbs, 47, 186- 386; — Palace, 357, 712; —- School, 209, 7, 196, 208, 211, 214, 219, 229, 231-2, 239, 680-1, 685, 687; Wentworth Street, 361;

280-3, 285-7, 298-9, 336, 350, 357-63, Whitehall, Banqueting House, 554, 703, 377, 378, 386-98, 451, 464, 502, 510-13, 712; York House, 362, 396, 414, 461, 720.

585, 623-5, 61. Londonderry, Plantation of, 372.

Aldermen, 337, 522, 533, 535, 542, 556- Londonderry, Earl of (1.), see Ridgeway, |

7, 561, 628-31, 647; Aldersgate, 395-6; Thomas.

Arundel House, 117, 718; Bedford House, Long family, 229, 231. 396; Billingsgate, 48; Bishop of, 407, 411; Long, Elizabeth, see Russell. Bishopsgate, 362; Blackfriars, 233, 244, Long, Henry, 224, 237. 714; Blackwall, 361; Blackwell Hall, 513; Long Island, America, 374. Bloomsbury, 359, 376; Bridewell, 34; Longleat, Wilts., 208, 218, 552, 554, 711.

Britain’s Butse, 360, App. XXIIIn.; Longueville, Michael, cr. Lord Grey of Brydges Street, 361; Cannon Row, 397; Ruthyn 2639, admitted to Lords 1647, 761. Canonbury, 362; Chancery Lane, 358-9; Lord Admiral, 420, 469, 490, App. XXTIT n. Chandos Street, 361; Charterhouse, 102, Lord Chamberlain, 469, 618. 276, 395-6; Cheapside, 537; City, 395, 397, Lord Chancellor, 54, 55, 191, 469, 489, 496, 661. 521 ;— companies, 35,534,651;—government, Lord Chief Justice, 423, 444-5, 571. 34 (see Lord Mayor); — officers, 445, 448, Lord Keeper, 191, 469, 489.

520, 628-32; Clement’s Inn, 361; Clerken- Lord Lieutenant of the Shire, 54-55, 205, 239, well, 362, 397, 730; Covent Garden, 359- 259-60, 465, 495; Deputy, 41-52. 61, 376, 396-7, 712; Dorset Court, 361; Lord Treasurer, 16, 54-55, 106, 221, 403, 415,

Druty Lane, 361-2, 396, 730; Dutham 417, 421-4, 428, 469, 489, 492, 496, 533, House, 360; Essex House, 396, 482, 561; 554, 5713 secretary of, 418, 533. Exeter House, 396; Fleet Prison, 235, 518, _L’Orme, Philibert de, 710. 520, 539, 602; — Street, 225-6, 231-2, 246, __ Loseley, Surrey, 550, 554. 361, 396; Goldsmith’s Alley, 686; Holborn, Lostwithiel, Corn., 225.

358-9, 361-2, 376, 397; Holywell, 395; Loughborough, Leics., 303, 737. Islington, 397; Kentish Town, 362; Louvain, Spanish Netherlands, 696. Lambeth, 397; — marsh, 233; Leicester Lovelace, John (1616-70), 2nd Lord LoveFields; 362; — House, 714; Lincoln’s Inn lace, succ. 1634, 761, 777, 780. Fields, 359; Long Acte, 360-1, 376; Lord Lovelace, Margaret, Lady Lovelace, d. of Mayor, 448, 607; Ludgate Hill, 537; Marl- William Dodsworth, 2nd w. of Richard borough Gate, 712; Marshalsea Prison, 68, Lord Lovelace, 193. 93; Merchants, 10, 51, 61, 296, 337, 343, Lovelace, Richard (1568-1634), cr. Lord 351, 364, 369, 371, 377, 384, 457, 513-16, Lovelace 1627, m. above, 193, 577, 597 1. §22, 523 n., 528, §31-4, 538, 628; Montagu 630. House, 397 n.; New Exchange, 360, App. Lovell inheritance, 192 (see also Mannets, XXII n.; Newgate Prison, 736; Newpott Thomas, 1st Earl of Rutland). Street, 359, 362; Northampton House, 552; Lovell, Sir Thomas, 203, 212. Prince’s Street, 361; Queen Street, 396; Louis XIII, King of France, 503.

INDEX 821 Low Countries, see United Provinces. Manners, Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland, d.

Low Ham, Som., 22, 47. of Francis Charlton, w. of John 4th Earl Lowther family, of Westmorland, 276, 340, of Rutland, 679.

638. Manners, Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland, d.

Lucas, John, 602. of Sir Philip Sydney, w. of Roger Earl of Lucas, John, s. of above, m. Margaret Rutland, 281, 519, 704. Roydon, 602. Manners, Francis (1578-1632), 6th Earl of Lucas, John, ist Lord Lucas, 119. Rutland, succ. his brother 7612, 247, 278,

Lucas, Margaret, d. of Christopher Roydon, 281, 376, 396, 417-18, 510, 567, 576, 777,

w. of John Lucas, 602. App. XXIII, 785; daughter of, see Villiers, Lucas, Margaret, see Cavendish. Catherine. Lucas, William, 290. Manners, Sir George, of Haddon, s. of John,

Lucy, Sir Thomas, 30. 391, 689, 691.

Lulworth, Dorset, 512. Manners, George, 12th Lord Roos, 595 n. Lumley Castle, 282, 342. Manners, George (1580-1641), 7th Earl of Lumley family, 285, 624, 772. Rutland, succ. his brother 1632, 146, 279, Lumley, Jane, d. of Henry Fitzalan, Earl of 5 10.

Arundel, w. of the following, 151. Manners, Henry (1526-63), 2nd Earl of

Lumley, John (1533-1609), 6th Lord Lumley, Rutland, succ. 743, m. 2. Bridget Morison, succ. 1f47, m. above, 24, 151, 171, 252-3, née Hussey (see Russell), 204, 212, 250, 288, 282, 303, 327, 341, 395, 420, 557, 560, 610, 542, 570, 760. 705-6, 714, 716-17, 729, 760, App. XXIVa, Manners, Isobel, Countess of Rutland, d. of

783, 794. Sit Thomas Holcroft of Vale Royal Abbey, Viscount Lumley (1.), 342. 172.

Lumley, Richard, nephew of above, Ist Chesh., w. of Edward Earl of Rutland, Lunsford, Sit Thomas, and his brothers Sir Manners, John, of Haddon, s. of Thomas

Herbert and Henry, 227. Rar] of Rutland, 691.

Luttrell, George, of Dunster Castle, 418, Manners, John (1552-88), 4th Earl of Rut-

602. land, succ. his brother 1787, m. Elizabeth

Lydiard Tregoze, Wilts., 25. Charlton, 573, 639, 784; daughter of, see

Lynsted, Kent, 593. Tyrwhit, Robert.

Manners, John (1604-79), 8th Earl of Rutland,

Macdonnell, Sir Randal, Viscount Dunluce s. of Sir George, succ. his cousin 7641, 344, (1.) and Earl of Antrim (I.), 570, 626. 635, 761; daughter of, see Cecil, Margaret.

Madagascar Island, 374, 376. Mannets, Roger, 43, 394.

Maidstone, Viscountess of, see Finch, Eliza- Manners, Roger (1576-1612), 5th Earl of

beth. Rutland, succ. 1588, m. Elizabeth Sydney,

Main Plot, 255, 414, 482, 486-7. 172N., 212, 216, 222, 280-1, 283, 300-2,

Malory, Sit Thomas, 266. 315, 350-1, 440, 461, 483-4, 510, 556-7, Malt, monopoly of, 434. 564-5, 569-70, 575, 582, 679, 701, 760, Malton, Yorks. E.R., 238, 552. 777-8, App. XX1Va. ‘Maltravers’, Lady, see Howard, Elizabeth. Mannets, Thomas, 1st Earl of Rutland and *Maltravers’, Lord, courtesy title of s. & h. 13th Lord Roos, m. Elizabeth Lovell, 192, of Earl of Arundel, see Howard, Henry- 212, 395, 559, 576, 783.

Frederick. Mansell family, 229.

Manchester, Lancs., 513. Mansell, Katherine, d. of Robert Sydney, 1st Manchester, Countess of, see Montagu, Anne, Earl of Leicester, w. of Sir Lewis, 636.

Essex. Mansell, Sir Lewis, m. above, 636.

Manchester, Earl of, see Montagu, Henry, Mansell, Sir Robert, 353 n. Viscount Mandeville (1), Edward (2). Mansfield, Viscount, see Cavendish, William, Mandeville, Viscount, see Montagu, Henry, Earl of Newcastle.

ist Earl of Manchester. Mantua, Duke of, 719.

Manners family, 138, 1§1, 172, 180, 192, 275, | Manwood, Sir Roger, 210. 301, 347, 577, 580, 772; Earls of Rutland, Mapperton Hall, Dorset, 43.

261-2, 277, 282, 286, 395, 548 n., 576. Mar, Earl of (S.), see Erskine, John (2). Manners, Edward (1549-87), 3rd Earl of March, Countess of, see Stuart, Katherine. Rutland, succ. 1563, m. Isobel Holcroft, March, Earl of (S.), see Stuart, Esmé (1),

8, 511, 573, 575-6, 693, 699, 784. James (2).

822 INDEX Marches, Wardens of the, 464-5; Warden of the Merton Priory, Surrey, 550.

Middle, 251. Metz, 696.

Marcombe, Mr., 698. Meytick, Gelli, 210, 255, 456, 718.

Market Rasen, Lincs., Go. Micheldever, Hants, 301. : Market Weighton, Yorks. E.R., 560. Middlesex, 38.

Markham family, 25, 215, 226, 229, 534. Middlesex, Countess of, see Cranfield, Anne. Markham, Gervase, 214, 226, 243, 249. Middlesex, Earl of, see Cranfield, Lionel.

Markham, Robert, 25. 747. ;

Markham, Sir Griffin, 487. Middleton, Thomas, 29, 515, 564, 580, 666-7, Marlborough, Countess of, see Ley, Jane. Milan, 385. Marlborough, Earl of, see Ley, Jamcs (1), Milcote, Warws., 298.

Henry (2), James (3). Mildmay family, 193, 221 (see also Fane,

Marlow, Great, Bucks., 262. Francis).

Marmion, Shackerley, 631. Mildmay, Sir Anthony, m. the following, Marney, Henry, Lord Marney, 629. 461; daughter of, see Fane, Mary, Countess of

Marprelate Controversy, 738. Westmorland.

Marriage Terms, 175-8, 595-8, 632-7; portions Mildmay, Grace, d. of Sir Henry Sharington, and jointures, 135, 172-3, 507, §41, 583, 633- w. of above, 739. 49, 790-1; Strict settlement, 61, 599, 635. Mildmay, Sir Walter, 611, 615.

Marshall, George, 83. Military Service, 203-6, 215-16, 218-19, 270,

74]. Milner, Robert, 210.

Marston, John, 559, 604, 630, 659, 666, 699, 454-8, 507, 583.

Martial, 392. Milton, Northants., 634.

Martin, Gregory, 684. Milton, John, 502, 613, 646. Mary, Monsieur, 697. Mimms, South, Middx., 293. Mary, Queen, 81 n., 207, 218, 251, 739. Mineral and Battery Company, 368, 376, 382, 543.

Maryland, 375. 543.

Mary Queen of Scots, 251, 382, 741 n. Mines Royal Company, 339, 368-9, 376, 382, Massachusetts, 745; Bay Company, 374-5. Mining and Industry, 107, 220, 375, 377-80, Massingberd, Elizabeth, see Berkeley. 433-5 (see also coal, copper, iron, &c.). Massinger, Philip, 390, 559, 604, 631. Mint, Assay-master of, 343; Auditor-General

Master, Mary, 642. of, 290. Matthews & Morteys, cartiers, 512. Mirfyn, Thomas, Alderman, 605.

Mauritius, 376. Misson de Valbourg, Frangois Maximilien, Maximilian 0, Emperot, 711. 557: Maxwell, James, 435, 616, 626; daughter of, Mohun, John ( ~-1641), cr. Lord Mohun

see Cecil, Diana. 1628, §7, 105.

May, Elizabeth, see Hicks, , Mohun, Warwick (1620-45), 2nd Lord Mayerne, Sir Theodore, 357, 435. Mohun, succ. 1641, 761, 780.

Maynard, Henry, 533. Mole, Mr., 700.

Maynard, William (1589-1640), cr. Lord Molesworth, Mr., 692.

Maynard 7628, 362. Molyneux family, 468, 641, 653. nard, succ. 1640, 761. Molyneux, Sir Richard, 1st Viscount MolyMayne, Joseph, 21o. neux (I.), 653. Mead, Joseph, 389. Molyneux, Sir Richard, 2nd Viscount MolyMeasham, Derby., 340. neux (1.), 653. Meautys, Thomas, 85, 290. Molyneux, Thomas, 653. Medley, William, 368. Monk, George, Duke of Albemarle, 213. Maynard, William (1623— ), 2nd Lord May- Molyneux, Sir Richard, 211.

Melcombe Regis, Dorset, 261. Monmouth, 254, 347. Melton, Sir John, 290. Monmouth, Countess of, see Carey, Elizabeth.

Mendip Hills, 342-3. Monmouth, Earl of, see Carey, Robert (1),

Merchant Adventurers’ Company, 429-32. Henry (2).

Merchants, 10, 27, 33, 39, 46-47, 50-51, 58,61, Monopolies, 337, 420, 433-8, 487, 521, 7753 —

93, 109, 159, 195, 296, 337, 340, 343, 351, Act of 1624, 438. 364, 367-4, 377, 381, 384, 433, 449, 457, | Monson, Sir Thomas, 108-9. j12-16, 522, 523 n., 528, 531-5, 538, 627 Montagu family, 580.

fig., 628-32, 639, 647, 653, 789. Montagu, Lord, see (de la) Pole, Henry.

INDEX 823 Montagu of Boughton, Lord, see Montagu, Mordaunt, Henry, 2nd Earl of Peterborough,

Edward. m. Penelope O’Brien, 648-9, 695.

Montagu, Viscount, see Browne, Anthony Mordaunt, Joan, Lady Mordaunt, d. of Sir

(1), Anthony Maria (2), Francis (3). Robert Fermor, m. 1. Robert Wilford,

Montagu, Anne, Countess of Manchester, d. 2. John, 2nd Lord, 578. of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, znd Mordaunt John ( —1562), s. of John and

w. of Edward Earl of Manchester, 615. Elizabeth (q.v.) Moidaunt, cr. Lord

Montagu, Sir Charles, 377. Mordaunt ry32, m. Elizabeth Vere, 24,

Montagu, Sir Edward, Lord Chief Justice, 760.

I9I, 392, 638. Mordaunt, John (1508-71), 2nd Lord, succ.

Montagu, Sir Edward, of Boughton, s. of ryé2, m. 13. Ellen FitzLewis, 2. Joan

above, 392. Wilford, née Fermor, 629.

Montagu, Edward (1562-1644), s. & h. of | Mordaunt, John (1599-1643), 5th Lord, succ.

above, cr. Lord Montagu of Boughton 1609, cr. Earl of Peterborough 1628, 320, 1621, 48, 304, 331, 377 495, 499, 520, 597; 499, 686, 761. 611, 615-16, 657, 761; daughter of, see Mordaunt, Lewis (1538-1601), 3rd Lord, succ.

Bertie, Elizabeth. Ij71, 158.

Montagu, Edward (1602-71), 2nd Earl of Mordaunt, Margaret, Lady Mordaunt, d. of Manchester, succ. 7642, m. 1. Susan Hill, Henry Lord Compton, wife of Henry 4th 2. Anne Rich, 3. Essex Bevill, née Cheke, Lord, 730.

106, 593, 609, 615, 743. Mordaunt, Penelope, Countess of Peter-

Montagu, Edward, 1st Earl of Sandwich, 7o. borough, née O’Brien, d. of the Earl of Montagu, Essex, Countess of Manchester, d. Thomond, w. of Henry Earl of Petete of Sir Thomas Cheke, m. 1. Sir R. Bevill, borough, 648. 2. Edward znd Earl of Manchester, 593. More, Sir Thomas, 605; daughters of, 676.

Montagu, Sir Henry (1563-1642), Lord Chief More, Sir Thomas, of Melpath, Dorset,

Justice, s. of Sir Edward Montagu of 608.

Boughton, cr. Viscount Mandeville 7620, More, Sir William, of Loseley, Surrey, 550. Earl of Manchester 1626, 87, 106, 361, 375, Morgan, Anne, see Carey. 396, 445, 497, 609, 630, 706, 743, 761. Morgan, Edmund, 244. Montagu, Susan, #ée Hill, 1st w. of Edward, Morgan, Robert, 43.

Earl of Manchester, 106. Morgan, Sir Thomas, 208.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de, 677. Motison(e), Sir Charles, 259.

Montfort, Simon de, 24, 751. Morison, Jane, see Grey.

Montgomery Castle, Montgomery, 254. Morley, Lady, see Parker, Elizabeth, GerMontgomery, Countess of, see Herbert, Susan. trude. Montgomery, Earl of, see Herbert, Philip Morley, Lord, see Parker, Henry (11), Edward

(later 4th Earl of Pembroke). (12) William ‘Lord Mounteagle’ (13),

Moore, Dr., 112 n. Henry (14).

Moore, Sarah, d. of Richard Boyle, Earl of | Morocco, 369-70.

Cork, w. of Sir Thomas Moore, 657. Morpeth, Northumb., 228. Moore, Sit Thomas, m. above, 657. Mortlake, Surrey, 93.

Mor, Antonio, 715. Moryson, Fynes, 212, 705.

Moray, Earl of (S.), see Stewart, James. Mostyn, Sir Roger, 109, 641.

Mordaunt family, 138, 193, 469. Mottisfont, Hants, 549. Mordaunt, Lady, see Mordaunt, Joan, Moulton, Lincs., 728.

Margaret. Mounteagle, Lady, see Sackville, Anne;

Mordaunt, Lord, see Mordaunt, John (1, 2), Stanley, Anne. Lewis (3), Henry (4), John ist Earl of Mounteagle, Lord, see Stanley, Edward (1), Peterborough (5), hence courtesy title of Thomas (2), William (3); Parker, William.

his s. & h. Mountjoy, Lord, see Blount, William (4),

Mordaunt, Elizabeth, d. of Sir Nicholas Charles (5), James (6), Charles Earl of Latymer, w. of John Mordaunt, 193. Devonshire (8). Mordaunt, Ellen, née FitzLewis, cousin and Mowbray family, 263. heiress of Sir Richard FitzLewis, ist w. of | Moyle family, 193 (see Finch, Sir Thomas).

John 2nd Lord, 193. Mulcaster, Richard, 50, 53, 680-1, 685, 708.

Mordaunt, Henry (¢. 1568-1609), 4th Lord, Mulgrave, Earl of, see Sheffield, Edmund, succ. 1607,m. Margaret Compton, 534, 760. 3rd Lord.

824 INDEX

Munck, Levinus, ror. Newcastle, Duchess of, see Cavendish,

Munday, Anthony, 389. Margaret.

Muschampe family, of Northumberland, 229. Newcastle, Duke of, see Pelham-Holles,

Muschampe, George, 238. Thomas,

Muscovy Company, 369, 376. Newcastle, Earl, Marquis, later Duke of, see

Myddleton, Thomas, 526. Cavendish, William.

Newdigate, Anne, 390.

Nantwich, Cheshire, 215. New England, 612 n., 745; — Company, 373,

Napier, John, 311. 376. Nash, Thomas, 700. New Forest, Hants, 420.

Naunton, Francis, 97, 257. Newfoundland, 364, 374-5.

Navarro, Juan Huarte, 174. Newhall-in-Boreham, Essex, 553. Naworth Castle, Cumb., 218. Newmarket, Cambs., 454, 570.

Nedham, Henry, 622. Newport, L.W., 262, 387.

Nevill family, 193 (see also Fane, Thomas), Newport, Countess of, see Blount, Anne.

399; Lords Bergavenny, 469; Lords Newport, Earl of, see Blount, Mountjoy. Latimer, 171; Earls of Warwick, 263. Newport, Lord, see Newpott. Nevill, Edward (1551-1622), 8th Lord Newport, Richard, 1st Lord Newport, 119. Bergavenny, succ. 7y8&9, in abeyance till Newton, Sir Isaac, 649.

1604, 760. Newton, Sir John, 580.

Nevill, George, 3rd Lord Bergavenny, 203. Newtown, I.W., 262.

Nevill, Henry (1527-87), 6th Lord Berga- Noel, Anne, Viscountess Camden, d. of venny, succ. ry3s, 232, 346, 349, 760; William Fielding, Earl of Denbigh, 1st w. daughter of, see Fane, Mary, Baroness of the following, 608.

Despencer. Noel, Baptist, 3rd Viscount Campden, m.

Nevill, Henry (1580-1641), 9th Lord Berga- above, 171, 780.

venny, succ. 1622, §21, 779. | Noel, Edward (¢. 1584-1643), cr. Lord Noel

Nevill, John (1616-62), 1oth Lord Berga- of Ridlington 7677, succ. his father-in-law

, venny, succ. 7641, 761. as 2nd Viscount Campden 1628, m. Julia Nevill, John, 3rd Lord Latimer, 638. Hicks, 171, 630, 761. Nevill, John (1520-77), 4th Lord Latimer, Noell, Sir Henry, 434.

succ. 1543, m. the following, 243, 665, 760; | Nonsuch Palace, Surrey, 253, 282, 303, 420, daughters of, see Percy, Henry, 18th Earl of 550, 703.

Notthumberland; Cecil, Dorothy. Norden, John, 241, 303, 307, 311-12. Nevill, Lucy, Lady Latimer, d. of Henry Norfolk, 52, 170 n., 229, 252, 256, 292, 485,

Sometset, 2nd Earl of Worcester, w. of 625, 730.

above, 579, 706 n. Norfolk, Duke of, see Howatd, Thomas (2,

Nevill, Richard, znd Lord Latimer, 403. 3, 4).

Nevill, Richard, Earl of Warwick and Salis- Norreys, Sit Edmund, 42.

bury, 363. Notris, Sit Edward, 211.

Neville family, 252, 256, 263, 412. Notris, Francis (1579-1621), 2nd Lord succ. Neville, Charles (1543-71), 6th Earl of r6or1, cr. Earl of Berkshire 7627, 109, Westmorland, succ. 7563, 251, 263, 729. 247, 760; daughter of, see Gray, Elizabeth. Neville, George, Duke of Bedford, 53. Norris, Henry (¢. 1525-1601), cr. Lord Nottis

Neville, Henry, 13. If72, 159.

Neville, Henry (1525-63), 5th Earl of West- Norris, Sir Thomas, 458. motland, succ. 1549, 215, 251, 256, 760. North, Council of the, 90-91, 234, 250, 253, 291;

Neville, Jane, 102-3. Councillors of the, 465; Lord President of the, Neville, Sir John, 414. 186, 257, 419, 423-4, 440, 465, 490, 737. Newatk Priory, Notts., 550. North, Lieutenant of the, 416. Newark, Viscount, see Pierrepoint, Robert, North family, 186, 469, 584, 617. 1st Earl of Kingston, hence courtesy title North, Sir Dudley, s. of Dudley 4th Lord,

of his s, & h. 505, 508.

Newburn, Northumb., 340. North, Dudley (1582-1666), 3rd Lord, succ. Newcastle, Northumb., 340, 341n., 428, his grandfather 1600, 186, 245, 454, 592,

534, 738. 611, 696-7, 760-1.

Newcastle, Countess of, see Cavendish, Eliza- North, Sir Dudley, 4th Lord, 173, 208-9,

, beth. 293, 297, 304, 538-40, 553, 555, 592, 616.

INDEX 825 North, Edward (¢. 1496-1564), cr. Lord Ogle Castle, Northumb., 218. North ry y4, 192, 219, 430, 629, 760. Ogle family, 26, 253, 624; estates of, 171, 195. North, Francis, 1st Lord Guildford, 620. Ogle, Cuthbert (1540-97), 7th Lord, succ. North, John, younger brother of Dudley his brother ry62, 25, 218; daughter of, see

3rd Lord, 454. Cavendish, Katherine.

North, Roger (1531-1600), 2nd Lord, succ. Ogle, Robert (1529-62), 6th Lord, succ. ry 4s, 164, 212, 233, 371, 407, 429-30, 452, 569- 638, 760.

JO, 7OI, 729. Oil and Currant Farm, 426-8.

North Cadbury, Som., 622. Oldisworth, Arnold, 290.

North-West Passage, 370, 376; Company, 376, Oldisworth, Michael, 290.

545. Oldminster, Glos., 241.

Northampton, Northants., 744. Onslow, Sit Richard, 12.

Northampton, Countess of, see Compton, Ordnance, licence to export, 431; Master of the,

Elizabeth, Isabella. 424; Office, 108.

Northampton, Earl of, see Howard, Henry; Orléans, France, 696-7. Compton, William, znd Lord Compton (1), Ormonde, Earl of, 625.

Spencer (2), James (3). Ormskirk, Lancs., 573.

Northampton, Marchioness of, see Parr, Eliza- Osborne, Dorothy, see Temple.

beth, Helena. Osborne, Sir Edward, 684.

Northampton, Marquis of, see Parr, William. Osborne, Francis, 44, 75, 82, 480, 613-14, Northamptonshire, 25, 75, 260, 309, 313, 322, 628, 700. 333, 454, 485, 499, 511, 595, 625, 772. Ostend, Spanish Netherlands, 247. Northumberland, 228-9, 251, 309, 316, 624, Overbury, Sir Thomas, 394, 667.

676, 772; High Sheriff of, 238. Overton, William, 750.

Northumberland, Countess of, see Percy, Ovid, 30. Anne, Dorothy, Elizabeth, Mary. Oxford, Oxon., 752; Bishop of, 406; Colleges, Northumberland, Duke of, see Dudley, John. 260, 408, 446; Balliol, 33, 685, 736; BraseNorthumberland, Earl of, see Percy, Henty (4, nose, 35; Christ Church, 33, 735-6; Corpus 5, 6), Thomas (7), Henry (8, 9), Algernon Christi, 705, 736; Lincoln, 33; Magdalen,

(10), Joscelin (11). 408, 736-7, 740; Oriel, 33; Queen’s, 687; Norton, Francis, 415. 32; University College, 33; Wadham, 33,

Northumberland, Earldom of, 104. St. John’s, 33, 561, 684, 703, 717; Trinity, Norwich, Norf., 220; See of, 260, 406. 46, 279, 439, 554; See of, 411; University, Norwich, Earl of, see Denny, Sir Edward; 32-34, 658, 681, 687-90, 7o2, 735-7, 740,

Goring, George, Lord Goring. Laudian Statutes, 32, 34.

Noseley, Leics., 43. Oxford, Countess of, see Vere, Anne, née Nottingham, Notts., 260, 336. Bayning, Anne, née Cecil, Elizabeth; Bruce, Nottingham, Countess of, see Howard, Mar- Diana.

garet, Mary. Oxford, Earl of, see Vere, John (15,16), Edward

Nottingham, Earl of, see Howard, Charles, (17), Henry (18), Robert (19), Aubrey (20).

2nd Lord Howard of Effingham (3), Oxfordshire, 625. Charles (2).

Nottinghamshire, 222, 229, 236, 253, 260, Pace, Richard, 674.

264, 280, 340-1, 625. Packington, Sir John, 434. Nova Scotia, 96. Paget family, Go, 138, 173, 396, 614. Nowell, Robert, 576. Paget, Mr., 685. . Noy, Sit William, 374. Paget, Henry (1537-68), 2nd Lord, succ.

Nucius, Nicander, 557. 1563, 350.

Nunwell, L.W., 566. Paget, Thomas (1544-90), 3td Lord, succ. his brother ry68, 220, 341, 348, 714.

O’Brien, Penelope, see Mordaunt. Paget, William (1506-63), cr. Lord Paget Offices and Officers, 39, 61, 78, 141-2, 159, 186, IS49, 1§2, 192, 350, 369, 673, 760.

I9I~—2, 195, 210, 261, 371, 373, 419, 423-4, Paget, William (1572-1628), 4th Lord, 464-70, 475, 481, 486-7, 491-2, 500-1, 533, restored in blood 72604, 178 n., 318, 352, 536, 538, 626, 627 fig., 629, 743, 776, 789. 372, 475, 595 1., 706-7, 710, 794.

Oglander family, 625. Paget, William (1609-78), 5th Lord, succ. Oglander, Sir John, 44, 94, 387, 509, 566, 616, 1628, 262, 761.

641, 717. Palavicino, Sir Horatio, 209, 528.

826 INDEX Palladio, Andrea, 710, 712, 719. Parmigiano, 719. Palmer, Roger, Earl of Castlemaine, 307. Parr family, 192.

Palmer, Thomas, 694. Parr, Elizabeth, Marchioness of North-

Palmes, William, 248. ampton, d. of George Brooke, Lord

Papacy, 353, 381, 503, 635, 728; Papal Bull of Cobham, 2nd w. of William Marquis of

If70, 741. Northampton, 578.

Paper, use of, in records, 277-8; writing, monopoly Parr, Helena, Marchioness of Northampton,

of, 434. d. of Wolfgang Suavenberg, 3rd w. of the

Paris, France, 107-8, 245, 561, 566, 569, 692, following, 579. 694-8; Place des Vosges, 712; St.Germain, Parr, William, (1513-71), cr. Marquis of

246, Northampton 2739, m. 2. Elizabeth Brooke,

Parker family, 469. 3, above, 98 n., 212-13, 250, 412, 655, 760.

Parker, Edward (1550-1618), 12th Lord Paston family, 57, 379, 625, 675. Motley, succ. 7577, m. 1. Elizabeth Stanley, Paston, Catherine, Lady, d. of Sir Thomas 2. Gertrude Arundel née Denis, 231, 330, Knyvett, w. of Sit Edmund Paston, 689.

442, 485, 760. Paston, William, s. of above, 689.

Parker, Eleanor, 43. Patronage, 449; clerical, 260, 446; educational,

Parker, Elizabeth, 663. 446-8; literary and artistic, 704, JOT-11;

Parker, Elizabeth, Lady Morley, d. of Will- political, 41, 52, 163, 210-11, 220, 239, iam Stanley, 3rd Lord Mounteagle, 1st w. 257-63, 291, 446, 591, 640 (see also Clien-

of Edward 12th Lord Morley, 485. tage); religious, see Catholicism, Puritanism; Parker, Gertrude, Lady Morley, d. of Sir royal, 268, 464, 493-4, 500, 607, 743, Robert Denis, m. 1. J. Arundel, 2. Edward 775.

12th Lotd Morley, 172 n. Paulet family, 60, 138, 221, 614.

Parker, Henry (1532-77), 11th Lord Morley, ‘Paulet’, Lord, courtesy title of s. & h. of

succ. IS s6, 760. Marquis of Winchester.

Parker, Henry ( —1655), 14th Lord Morley, Paulet, Charles, 6th Marquis of Winchester

succ, 1622, 238, 279, 761, 779. and 1st Duke of Bolton, 367.

Parker, Matthew, Archbishop, 703, 734, Paulet, John (1517-76), 2nd Marquis of

737+ Winchester, succ. 1772, m. 3. Winifred

Parker, Sir William, 486. Sackville, née Brugge, 295, 537, 629 n., 784.

Parker, William (1575-1622), Lord Mount- Paulet, John (1598-1675), 5th Marquis of eagle, succ. his mother 1604, 13th Lord Winchester, succ. 1629, 320 n., 761, 779. Motley, succ. 7678, 171, 172 ., 420, 437, Paulet, Thomas, s. of William 1st Marquis

483, 485, 646 n. of Winchester, m. Mary d. of Sir Thomas

Parliament, 95, 110, 290, 322, 328, 383, 418, Mote of Melpath, 608. 425, 429, 433, 440, 474, 495, 5OI, 511, 521, Paulet, William, (¢. 1484-1572), cr. Marquis 7333 Of LIS9, 28; of 1571, 530; Of L597, 4343 of Winchester rysr, 192, 221, 369, 423-4, of 1601, 434; of 1603, 29; of 1607, 530; of 475, 496, 542, 554, 576, 608, 624, 629, 673, 1610, 78; of 1614 (Addled), 80, 89-91, 104, 760, 784. 530, 564; of 162r, 105, 437, 530; of 1624, Paulet, William (1560-1629), 4th Marquis of 421, 5303 of 1626, 120; of 1629, 1053; of Winchester, succ. 798, 221, 760, 778. 1640 (Short), 117, 432; Long, 521;—- Mem- Paulet, Winifred, Marchioness of Winchester,

bers of, 291, 623; Acts of, 408, 410, 431, 474, d. of Sir John Brugge, Lord Mayor of

655; — fog, 206; — 1f29, 314; — 139, London, m. 1. Sir Richard Sackville, 2. 29; — IS J7, 219; — If 66, 430; — 176, 28; John 2nd Marquis of Winchester, 629 n. — IS8I, 732; — 1624, 438; — 1688-9, 339; Peacham, Henry, 4or. — 1911, 15; anti-depopulation Acts, 306; Peasants’ Revolt, 1549, 30, 305. private Acts, 179-80, 320; Commons, House Peers, Crown policy towards, 13, 200-3, 206, of, 9-11, 16, 31, 41, 84, 113-14, 119, 124, 268, 424, 464, 476-80; Old and New, 60,

163, 201, 255, 260-2, 431, 434, 436, 441, 123, 152-3, 378-80, 576-7, 617, 627 fig., 446, 449, 495, 499, 500-1, 519, 565, 603, 628, 630, 632, 661, 761, 766, 773, 781, 708, 735, 743, 749; — Members of, 31, §2, 788-9, 792-3. 291, 688, 749; Lords, House of, 8-9, 11, Pelham family, 236, 347, 379.

15, 53-55, 57, 60, 104-5, I17, 119, 122-4, Pelham, John, s. of Sir Thomas, m. the 163, 201, 408, 500-I, 517, 519-21, 735, following, 644.

749-53. Pelham, Lucy, d. of Robert Sydney, 2nd Earl

Parliamentary party, 12, 95, 743. of Leicester ,w. of above, 644.

INDEX 827

Pelham, Sir Thomas, of Laughton, 12, Percy, Joscelin, 11th Earl of Northumber-

644. land, 194; daughter of, see Cavendish,

Pelham, Sir William, 575. Elizabeth.

Pelham-Holles, Sir Thomas, Duke of New- Percy, Mary, Countess of Northumberland,

castle, 201. d. of George Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrews-

Pembroke, Countess of, see Herbert, Anne, bury, w. of Henry 6th Earl of NorthMary, née Sydney, Mary, née Talbot, Sey- umberland, 579.

mour, Catherine. Percy, Thomas, 296.

Pembroke, Earl of, see Herbert, William (1), | Percy, Thomas (1528-72), 7th Earl of North-

Henry (2), William (3), Philip, Earl of umberland, succ. 7yy7, 212, 251, 256,

Montgomery (4), Philip (5). 338-9, 476, 729, 760.

Penanmen, Caernarvonshire, 228. Perrot, Sir John, 197, 217, 231, 290.

Pendennis Castle, Corn., 227. Petrot, Sir Thomas, m. Dorothy Devereux

Penshurst, Kent, 387, 704. (see Percy), 606. Pepys, Samuel, 70, 295, 659. Peterborough, Bishop of, 406, 411. Percival, Samuel, 289. Peterborough, Countess of, see Mordaunt, Percy family, 60, 155, 159, I71, 250-2, 256, Penelope.

264, 268, 275, 285-6, 399, 406, 654; estates, Peterborough, Earl of, see Mordaunt, John

327, 772. 5th Lord (1), Henry (2).

‘Percy’, Lord, courtesy title of s. & h. of Earl Petre family, 100, 285, 469, 614, 654, 732,

of Northumberland. 740; estates, 327, 772.

Percy, Algernon (1602-68), toth Earl of Petre, John (1549-1613), s. of Sir William, Northumberland, succ. 1632, m. 1. the cr. Lord Petre 1603, 151, 192, 515 n., 692, following, 2. Elizabeth Howard, 83, 167, 714. 245, 249, 289, 374, 455, 501, 598, 689, 694, Petre, Robert (1599-1638), 3rd Lord, succ.

743, 761. 1637, 175, 300, Goon.

Percy, Anne, Countess of Northumberland, Petre, Sir William, 299, 548 n., 629, 673, 714, d. of William Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, 1st 728; daughter of, see Wadham, Dorothy.

w. of above, 598, App. XXIII n. Petre, William (1575-1637), 2nd Lord, succ.

Percy, Sir Charles, 391. 1613, 48, 396, 497, 515.

Percy, Dorothy, Countess of Northumber- Petre, William (¢. 1627-84), 4th Lord, succ.

land, d. of Walter Devereux, Earl of 1638, 317, 497, 761, 780. Fssex, m. 1. Sit Thomas Perrot, 2. Henry Petronius, 707. 9th Earl of Northumberland, 167, 606, Pett, Phineas, 92.

640. Petty, Mr., 684. .

Percy, Elizabeth, Countess of Northumber- Petty, Sir William, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, land, d. of Theophilus Howard, Earl of 1st Marquis of Lansdowne, 143, 273, 332. Suffolk, 2nd w. of Algernon Earl of Petworth, Sussex, 345 n., 555, 714; — Great

Northumberland, 194. Park, 303, 347. 575-6, 784. Philip II], King of Spain, 460, 739.

Percy, Henry, 4th Earl of Northumberland, Phelippes, William, 231.

Percy, Henry, 5th Earl of Northumberland, Philippes, Henry, 317.

208, 212, 555, App. XXIVa. Pierrepoint family, 190.

Percy, Henry, 6th Earl of Northumberland, Pierrepoint, Henry, 2nd Earl of Kingston,

m. Mary Talbot, 251, 403, 479. 238,

Percy, Henry (1532-85), 8th Earl of North- Pierrepoint, Sir Robert (1584-1643), cr. umberland, succ. his brother 1572, m. Viscount Newark 1627, Earl of Kingston Katherine, d. of John Nevill, qth Lord 1628, 63, 112, 116, 146, 276, 761, 780.

Latimer, 347, 349, 393, 677. Pilgrimage of Grace, 60, 203, 205. Percy, Henry (1564-1632), 9th Earl of Pilton, Devon, 230. Northumberland, succ. ry8s, m. Dorothy Pindar, Sir Paul, 373, 536. Perrot, née Devereux, 159, 167, 173, 252, Plantagenet family, 263. 278-9, 289-92, 295-6, 300, 302-3, 309, Plantagenet, Arthur, Viscount Lisle, 479. 314-16, 330, 332, 340, 461, 469, 491, 508, Plato, 30, 163, 656, 679, 697. SII, 532, 538, 548 n., 552, 555, 560, 569, Playters, Sir Thomas Bart., 94. 582, 592, 598, 614, 623, 640, 656, 677, 689, Pluvenel, M. de, 694—5. 694, 705, 710, 713-14, 716, 760, 777-8, Plymouth, Devon, 512.

794; daughter of, see Hay, Lucy. (de la) Pole family, 263, 399.

828 INDEX (de la) Pole, Henry, rst Lord Montagu, 633; Purbeck, Island of, 113. daughter of, see Hastings, Catherine. Purbeck, Viscount, see Villiers, John.

Poole, Sir Germaine, 225, 238. Purbeck, Viscountess, see Villiers, Frances.

Poole, Sir Henry, 43. Puritanism, 265, 330-1, 375, 381-2, 401, 487,

Pope, Sit Thomas, 1st Earl of Downe (1.), 706, 708-9, 733-45; Calvinism, 267, 664,

112, 629. 743-4; Influence of Puritan thinking, 34, 36,

Pope, Sir William, 83. 43, 188, 578, 584, 611-15, 662-3, 668-71; Popham family, 23. Puritan Opposition, 373-5, 382, 615.

Popham, John, 577. Pye, Sir Robert, 284, 290. Population Growth, 298, 647. Pym, John, 255, 749.

Port, Margaret, see Stanhope.

Porter, Endymion, 435. Quakers, 35.

Portland, Earl of, see Weston, Richard (1), Quixwood, Hetts., 283, 551. Jerome (2).

Portsmouth, Hants, Governorship of, 420. Raby Castle, Co. Durham, 125, 217.

Potter, Dr. Francis, 32. Radcliffe, Sir George, 288. Potter, Hugh, 289, Radclyffe, Sir Francis, Bart., 92. Potts, Mr., 685. Raglan Castle, Mon., 209, 213, 218, 254, 556,

Poulett family, 193. 732. Poulett, Sir John (1585-1649), cr. Lotd Rainolds, Dr. John, 705.

Poulett 7627, m. Elizabeth Kenn, 193, 391, Ralegh, Sir Walter, 62-63, 217, 222-3, 246,

761. 249, 269, 296, 304, 3640., 370, 373, 394,

Poulett, John, 2nd Lord, m. Catherine, d. of 400-7, 411, 414, 436, 473, 482, 487, 493,

Lord Vere, 171. 495, 498, 538, 606, 665,

Povey, William, Auditor, 232. Ramsay, David, 441.

Powell, William, 241. Ramsay, John ( -1626), cr. Viscount Had-

Powerscourt (I.), Viscount, see Wingfield, dington (S.) 2606, Earl of Holderness

Richard. 1621, m. 2. the following, 109, 373, 417,

Powton family, 289. 442, 47§, 631, 777.

Powys, Lord, see Herbert, William (1). Ramsay, Margaret, d. of Ald. W. Cockayne,

Powys, Lady, see Herbert, Elizabeth. 2nd w. of above, 631. Poynings, Thomas, Lord, heiress of, 193. Raphael, 719-20.

Poyntz, Sir Nicholas, 649. Ratcliffe family, 654.

Pranel, Henry, m. Frances Howard (see Ratcliffe, Edward (1559-1643), 6th Earl of

Stuart), 630, 648. Sussex, great-grands. of Robert 1st Earl, Pratt, Sic Roger, 710. succ. his cousin 1629, m. 3. Eleanor Lee,

Presbyterian Movement, 73.4, 736. née Wortley (see Rich), 761, 784. Prescot, Alexander, Alderman, 533. Ratcliffe, Frances, Countess of Sussex, d. of

Preston, Yorks. N.R., 3.41. William Sydney, w. of Thomas Earl of

Prests, Auditor of the Queen’s, 290. Sussex, 42, 738, 784. Prestwood House, Staffs., 215. Ratcliffe, Henry, 2nd Earl of Sussex, 665.

Price Inflation, 137-9, 141-3, 188-9, 273, 294- Ratcliffe, Robert (1573-1629), 5th Earl of 5, 298, 310, 326-9, 460, 488, 490, 496-8, Sussex, nephew of Thomas 3rd Earl, succ. 506, 548-9, 571, 576, 633-4, 641-2, 645-63 IJ93, 171, 243, 248, 416, 419-20, 483-4, Phelps Brown price index, 137-8, 471, 496 n., 534, 553, 662-3, 665, 760, 778, 785.

549, 762, 771, 775- Ratcliffe, Thomas (¢. 1525-83), 3rd Earl of

Primatt, Stephen, 317, 340. Sussex, succ. Ijf7, 232-3, 253, 257, 295, Privy Council, 28, 31-32, 34, 55, 60, 70, 79, 84, 371, 414, 423-4, 431, 482, 516, 542, 572,

86-88, 91, I19, 234-8, 248-50, 253, 257, 739, 760, 777, 784. 431, 474, 519, 524, 527, 733-7, 751; Clerk Ré, Tle de, 266. of the, 290; Councillors, 109, 370, 448, 451, Reading, Berks., 262.

465, 473, 675, 713. Rebellion of the Northern Earls, 99, 206, 219-20,

Proby, Sir Heneage, 572. 236, 251-3, 267, 413.

Proby, Peter, 388. Redrith, see Rotherhithe.

Proclamations, 28-29, 207, 210, 358, 397-8. Repton, Derby., 682, 685. Providence Island Company, 367, 375-6. Requests, Court of, 77 0., 240; Master of the,

Prynne, William, 29. 290.

Puckering, Sir John, 453, 489; s. of, 695. Reresby family, 584.

INDEX 829

Reresby, Sir John, 26, 581, 695-6. Rishton, Ralph, of Ponthalgh, Lancs., m, Reresby, Sit Thomas, 246, 581. 1. Helen Towneley, 2. Anne Stanley, 663.]

Retford, East, Notts., 261. Rivers, Earl, see Darcy, Thomas, 3rd Lord

Rewards, see Patronage. Datcy of Chiche (1), Savage, John, 2nd Reymes, Bullen, 695. Robattes, John (1606-85), 2nd Lord, succ. Rich family, 60, 138, 395, 740. 1634, 761.

Reyce, Robert, 74. Viscount Savage (2).

Rich, Lord, see Rich, Richard (1), Robert (2), Robartes, Sir Richard (¢. 1585-1634), cr. Robert 1st Earl of Warwick (3), hence Lotd Robattes 762s, 114, 116, 133 n., 377,

courtesy title of hiss. & h. 497, 510.

Rich, Eleanor, Countess of Warwick, d. of | Robertsbridge, Sussex, 346, 352.

Sir Richard Wortley, m. 1. Sir H. Lee, Robinson, Dr., 684. 2. Edward Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, 3. Robinson, Richard, 305. Robert 2nd Earl of Warwick, 622, 623 n. Robsarte, Amye, see Dudley. Rich, Henry (1590-1648), s. of Robert 1st Rochester, Kent, Dean and Chapier of, 408. Earl of Warwick, cr. Earl of Holland 1623, Rochford, Essex, 734-5. 81, 94, 141, 262, 358, 375, 428, 435, 442, Rochford, Viscount, see Boleyn, George.

462, 475, 501, 665, 743, 761. Rodes, Sir Francis, 208.

Rich, Penelope, d. of Walter Devereux, Earl Rogers, Edward, 225. of Essex, m. 1. Robert 3rd Lord Rich, Rokeby family, 215; of Skiers, 193 (see Darcy, 2. (bigamously) Charles Blount, 8th Lord Conyers, 2nd Lord Conyers). Mountjoy, Earl of Devonshire, 604, 705. Rolls, Master of the, 191; — Office, 536. Rich, Richard, bastard son of the following, Rome, 700, 718-19.

601. Romford, Essex, 80.

Rich, Sir Richard (¢. 1496-1567), 1st Lord Roos of Hamlake, inheritance, 192 (see also Rich, 192, 220, 358, 515 0., 549, 595 n., Gor, Mannets, Thomas, 1st Earl of Rutland).

624, 629, 673, 728, 760. Roos, Lady, see Cecil, Anne.

Rich, Robert (¢. 1537-81), 2nd Lord Rich, Roos, Lord, see Manners, George (12),

succ. 1f67, 226, 231, 276, 629. Thomas, 1st Earl of Rutland (13); Cecil,

Rich, Robett (1559-1619), 3rd Lord Rich, William. succ, ry 8r, cr. Earl of Warwick 1678, m. Roper family, 444-5, 614. Penelope Devereux, 94, 106, 358, 367, Roper, Christopher, (1561-1622), 2nd Lord

372, 376, 382, 515 N., 534, 734-5, 760. Teynham, succ. 1618, 179, 593, 5972. Rich, Robert (1587-1658), 2nd Earl of War- 646 n., 706 n. wick, succ. 1619, m. 3. Eleanor Ratcliffe, Roper, Christopher (1621-73), 4th Lord née Wortley, 260, 367, 375-6, 391, 499, 623n., Teynham, succ. 1628, 761; daughter of, see

738, 743; daughter of, 615, see Montagu, Huddleston, Sir Robett.

Anne. Roper, Sit John (1534-1618), “Lord Roper’,

Rich, Robert (1611~59), “Lotd Rich’, 3rd cr. Lord Teynham 1616, 102-3, 107, 113, Earl of Warwick, succ. r6y8, 521, 779 n. 444, 497; datsghter of, see Vaux, Elizabeth.

Richard I, King, 104. Roper, Sir William, 730.

Richelieu, Cardinal, 34. Ros of Kendal, estates, 192. Richmond, Duchess of, see Stuart, Frances, Rossingham, Captain Edward, 389.

Marty. Ross-on-Wye, Heref., 350.

Richmond, Earl, later Duke of, see Stuart, Rotherham, Yorks. W.R., 246.

Ludovic, James (1), Charles (3). Rotherhithe (Redtith), Surrey, 312. Ridgeway, Thomas, 1st Earl of Londondetry _Rothley, Leics., 173.

(1.), 109. Rouen, France, siege of, 72, 74, 266, 456.

Ridgway, Sit Thomas, 658; daughter of, see Rowe, Henry, Alderman, 520.

Willoughby, Cassandra. Rowe, Sir Thomas, 374.

Ridolfi Plot, 99. Rowsley, Derby., 344.

Rievaulx, Yorks. N.R., 280-1, 347, 350. Royden Hall, Essex, 293. Rishton, Anne, née Stanley, 2nd w. of Ralph, Roydon, Christopher, 602; daughter of, see

663. Lucas, Margaret.

Rishton, Helen, née Towneley, 1st w. of Roxby, Yorks. N.R., 211-12.

Ralph, 663. Royal Society, 721.

Rishton, John, of Dunkenhalgh, Lancs., Rubens, Sir Peter Paul, 718-20.

663. Rugby, Warws., 685.

830 INDEX

Ruislip, Middx., 312, 321. Rutland, Countess of, see Manners, Elizabeth, Ruperra Castle, Mon., 208. née Charlton, Elizabeth, née Sydney, Isobel;

Rushton, Northants., 554. Russell, Bridget.

Russell family, 138, 172, 359; Earls of Bed- Rutland, Earl of, see Manners, Thomas, ford, 261, 301, 360, 395, 580, 618, 684, 727, 13th Lord Roos (1), Henry (2), Edward 738, 7403 estates, 313; household, of Stren- (3), John (4), Roger (5), Francis (6),

sham, Worcs., 231. George (7), John (8).

Russell, of Thornhaugh, Lord William (1), Ryder, Captain Richard, 359. : Francis, 4th Earl of Bedford (2), hence Rye, Kent, 291. courtesy title of his s. & h.

Russell, Anne, Countess of Bedford, d. of Sackville family, 139, 543, 604 n.

Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, w. of Sackville, Anne, Countess of Dorset, d. of

William Earl of Bedford, 608. Sir J. Spencer of Althorp, m. 1. William Russell, Bridget, Countess of Bedford, d. of Stanley, Lord Mounteagle, 2. Henry Lord Lord Hussey, m. 1. Sir Charles Morison, Compton, 3. Robert Earl of Dorset, 443. 2. Henry Manners, 2nd Earl of Rutland, Sackville, Edward (1590-1652), 4th Earl of 3. Francis 2nd Earl of Bedford, 172 n., 606. Dorset, succ. his brother 7624, 222, 247, Russell, Catherine, Countess of Bedford, d. 260, 356, 362, 374, 428, 761, 779. of Giles Brydges, Lotd Chandos, w. of Sackville, Sir Richard, 472, 475, 629.

Francis 4th Earl of Bedford, 171. Sackville, Richard (1589-1624), 3rd Earl of Russell, Edward (1572-1627), 3rd Earl of Dorset, succ. 7609, m. 2. Anne Clifford Bedford, succ. his grandfather ry&y, m. (see Herbert), 146, 171-2, 213, 248, 362, Lucy Hartington, 171, 172 n., 300, 315, 360, 428, 582-3, 601, 662, 665; daughters of, see

483-4, 582, 760, 778. Tufton, Margaret; Compton, Isabella.

Russell, Elizabeth, d. of Sir Anthony Cooke, Sackville, Robert (1561-1609), 2nd Earl of

m. 1. Sir T. Hoby, 2. John s. of Francis Dotset, succ. 1608, m. 2. Anne Compton,

2nd Earl of Bedford, 622, 676. née Spencet, 577, 662.

Russell, Elizabeth, Lady Russell, d. of H. Sackville, Thomas (¢. 1530-1608), s. of Sir

Long, w. of William Lord Russell of Richard Sackville, cr. Lord Buckhurst

Thornhaugh, 734, 739. 15367, Earl of Dorset 1604, 48, 63, 98 n.,

Russell, Francis (1527-85), 2nd Earl of Bed- 142, 159, 208, 237, 346, 349, 368, 395, 418,

ford, succ. zyyy, m. 2. Bridget Manners, 434, 436, 475, 482, 489, 492, 515, 552, née Hussey, 252, 256, 330, 369, 423, 454, 597 n., 681, 705, 729, 760; daughter of, see 460, 465, 514, 603, 606, 706, 729, 734-6, Glemham, Anne. 739, 760, 777, 784, 794; daughters of, see St. Albans, Herts., 262, 685; Abbey, 550. Boutchier, Elizabeth; Clifford, Margaret; St. Albans, Countess of, see Bourke, Anne,

Dudley, Anne. St. Albans, Earl of, see Bourke, Ulick.

Russell, Francis (1593-1641), 2nd Lord St. Albans, Viscount, see Bacon, Francis, Lord Russell of Thornhaugh, succ. 1613, succ. Verulam. his cousin as 4th Earl of Bedford 1627, St. Ives, Hunts., 302. 146, 355-7, 360, 363, 376, 383-4, 499, 5og— St. John family, of Lydiard Tregoze, 25 (see

10, 608, 615, 705, 777, 779- Villiers, Barbara).

Russell, John, 1st Earl of Bedford, 192, 673, St. John of Bletsoe, Lord, see St. John, Oliver

727. (1), John (2), Oliver (3), Oliver rst Earl of

Russell, Lucy, Countess of Bedford, d. of Bolingbroke (4). John, 1st Lord Hartington, w. of Edward St. John of Bletsoe, Lady, see St. John, Earl of Bedford, 101, 428, 444, 719, 794. Elizabeth. Russell, Sir William (1558-1613), s. of St. John, Elizabeth, Lady St. John, d. of

Francis 2nd Earl of Bedford, cr. Lord Geoffrey Chambers, m. 1. Sir Edward Russell of Thornhaugh réo3, m. Elizabeth Griffin, 2. Oliver 1st Lord, 623.

Long, 355. St. John, John ( -1596), 2nd Lord St.

Russell, William (1616-1700), 5th Earl of John, succ. ry82, 171-2; daughter of, see Bedford, succ. r6gr, m. Anne Carr, 171, Howard, Anne.

361, 377, 513, 608, 687, 743, 761. St. John, Oliver ( -1582), cr. Lord St.

Russia Company, $45. John of Bletsoe ryy9, m. 2. Elizabeth Ruthven, Patrick, rst Earl of Forth (S.), 119, Griffin, née Chambers, 98, 623, 760.

245. St. John, Oliver (1542-1618), 3rd Lord St.

Rutland, 313. John, succ. his brother 1796, 237, 302, 760.

INDEX 831 779: Dorothy.

St. John, Oliver (¢. 1584-1646), 4th Lotd Savage, Sir Thomas (1580-1635), cr. Vis~ St. John, succ. 1678, cr. Earl of Boling- count Savage 1626, m. Elizabeth Darcy, broke 1624, 317, 319, 355, 537 0., 761, 777, 103, 435, 577; daughter of, see Howard, St. John, Oliver (1560-1630), cr. Viscount Savile family, 470. Grandison (1.) 1623, Lord Tregoz 1626, Savile, Sir Henry, Bart., 90-91.

106, 706. Savile, Sir John (1556-1630), ct. Lord Savile

St. John, Sir Rowland, 634. 1628, 57, 125. St. Leger family, 196. Savile, Thomas (1590-1659), cr. Viscount st. Loe family, 195. Savile (1.) 7628, 2nd Lord, succ. 1630, cr. St. Loe, William, m. Elizabeth, widow of R Earl of Sussex 1644, 238, 347, 381 n., 552,

Barlow and W. Cavendish (see Talbot), 555, 761, 780.

193. Saviola, Jeronimo and Vicentio, 244.

St. Mawes, Corn., 291. Scamozzi, Vincenzo, 710. St. Neots, Cambs., 302. Scarisbrick, Edward, 288.

St. Quentin, France, 455. Scarsdale, Earl of, see Leake, Francis, Lord

St. Osyth, Essex, 549. Deincoutrt.

Salisbury, Wilts., 231, 236, 261; — Cathedral, Schénbrunn, Austria, 711.

579; Bishop of, 406-7, 411. Schiitz, Christopher, 343.

Salisbury, Countess of, see Cecil, Margaret. Scory, Silvanus, 91.

Salisbury, Earl of, see Cecil, Robert (1), Scotland, 69, 79-80, 83, 95-96, 107, 203,

William (2), James (3). 218M., 251, 309, 487, 568, 581, 586; Richard. Scottish Exchequer, 421; — Peerage, 105, 475-6,

Salisbury, Warwick and, Earl of, see Neville, embassy to, 460; Expedition to (1640), 455.

Sallust, 30. 627 fig., 789.

Salt, monopoly of, 434; — in France, 503; Scotsmen at Court, 75, 416-17, 433, 440, 466,

weights and measures of, 438 n. 468, 476, 500; Anglo-Scottish marriages, 607, Salusbury family, of Rug, Merioneth, 255. 625-6.

Sampson, Thomas, 735. Scott, Col. Sir James, 108. Samwell, Rev. Richard, 744-5. Sctope family, 253, 406.

sanders, George, 389. Scrope, Lord, see Scrope, Henry (7), John (8),

Sandwich, Kent, 30, 449. Henry (9), Thomas (10), Emmanuel 1st

Sandwich, Earl of, see Montagu, Edward. Rarl of Sunderland (11).

Sandys family, 186, 469. Scrope, Emmanuel (1584-1630), 11th Lord, Sandys, Sir Edwin, M.P., 89. succ. 1609, cr. Earl of Sunderland 1627,

Sandys, Edwin, Archbishop, 406-7, 734. 570, 663.

Sandys, Elizabeth, d. of William Lord Wind- Scrope, Henry (1534-92), 9th Lord, succ. sot, widow of Henry, s. & h. of Thomas IF 49, 206, 251, 344, 624, 638, 729, 760.

2nd Lord, 172 n., 485. Scrope, Henry, 7th Lord, 176. Sandys, Sir Miles, 355. Scrope, John, 8th Lord, 176.

Sandys, Thomas ( -1560), 2nd Lord, succ. Scrope, Thomas (1567-1609), 1oth Lord

1540, 485, 760. Scrope, succ. 1792, 341, 569, 760.

Sandys, William, rst Lord, 192, 549. Scudamore, Mary, d. of Sir J. Shelton, w. of Sandys, William (¢. 1550-1623), s, of Henry James Scudamore, 606. and Hlizabeth (q.v.) Sandys, 3rd Lord, Scuderi, Mademoiselle de, 651. succ. his grandfather ry60, 172n., 220, Secretary of State, 469, 492.

485, 760, 778. Sedon, John, 210. 1623, 689. Selby, Sir George, 43.

Sandys, William ( -1629), 4th Lord, succ. Segar, Sir William, 68.

Sapperton, Glos., 43. Selby, John, 486.

Del Sarto, Andrea, 720. Selby, Sit John, 228. Sarum, Old, Wilts., 261, 291. Selden, John, 16, 40, 123, 216, 751. Saumur, France, 695-7. Sempringham, Lincs., 728. Saye and Sele, Viscount, see Fiennes, Richard Seneca, 30, 578.

(1), William (2), James (3). Senlis, France, 697.

Savage, John (1603-54), 2nd Viscount, succ. Serjeant-at-law, 533.

1635, 2nd Earl Rivers, succ. his grand- Sevenoaks, Kent, 687.

father 1640, 761, 780. Seymout family, 60, 138, 326, 727.

832 INDEX Seymour of Sudeley, Lord, see Seymour, Sheffield family, 173.

Thomas. Sheffield, Douglas, Lady Sheffield, d. of

Seymour of Trowbridge, Lord, see Seymout, William, Lord Howard of Effingham, w.

Francis. of John Lord Sheffield, 661.

Seymour, Anne, Duchess of Sometset, d. of | Sheffield, Edmund, 1st Lord, 192. Sit Edward Stanhope, 2nd w. of Edward Sheffield, Edmund (1565-1646), 3rd Lord,

Duke of Somerset, 509. succ. 1f68, cr. Earl of Mulgrave 17626,

Seymour, Lady Catherine, Countess of m. Ursula Tyrwhit, 107, 215, 354-5, 422, Hertford, d. of Henry Grey, Duke of 434, 440, 445, 475, 477, 590, 523, 533, 607, Suffolk, m. 1 (and divorced) Henry Herbert, 631, 760-1.

Rarl of Pembroke, 2. Edward Earl of Sheffield, John ( -1568), 2nd Lord, succ.

Hertford, 609, 655. 1549, m. Douglas Howard, 661, 760.

Seymour, Dorothy, 608. Sheffield, Ursula, Lady Sheffield, d. of Sir Seymour, Edward, ‘Lord Beauchamp’, s. of R. Tyrwhit, 1st w. of Edmund 3rd Lord,

the following, 609. 631.

Seymour, Edward (1537-1621), 9th Eatl of Shelburne, Lord, see Petty, William. Hertford, s. of the following, te-cr. rys9, Sheldon family, of Beoley, 379, 534. m. 1. Lady Catherine Grey, 2. Frances Sheldon, Elizabeth, see Villiers. Howard, 3. Frances Pranel, née Howard Shelford, Notts., 47, 215. (see Stuart), 186, 219, 366, 388, 412, 424, Shelton, Mary, see Scudamore. 401-2, 543, 579, 606, 609, 630, 655, 760, Shepherd, Owen, 292.

777: Sherborne, Dorset, 407, 411, 414, 552, 685.

Seymour, Edward, Earl of Hertford, Duke Sherfield, Henry, 306-7. of Somerset, Protector, m. 2. Anne Stan- Sherfield, Richard, 306. hope, 123, 208, 212, 219, 395, 407, 412, Sherlock, Sir Thomas, 81.

442, 481, 548n., 550, 554, 711, App. Shifnal, Salop, 348, 351.

XXII, XXIVa. Ships, ‘Allagarta’, 365; ‘Anne Boleyn’, 363; Seymour, Frances, Countess of Hertford, d. “Bark Clifford’, 365; ‘Bark Talbot’, 363-4; of William Lord Howard of Effingham, “Constant Warwick’, 367; ‘Delight’, 365; 2nd w. of Edward Earl of Hertford, 609. ‘Discovety’, 365; ‘Galleon Leicester’, 364, Seymour, Francis (1590-1664), cr. Lord 376; ‘Golden Falcon’, 367; ‘Malice Scourge’ Seymour of Trowbridge 1647, 761, 780. (later ‘Red Dragon’), 365; ‘Robert’, 365;

Seymour, Henry, ‘Lord Beauchamp’, s. of ‘Sampson’, 365; ‘Silver Falcon’, 367;

William Earl of Hertford, 571. “Truelove’, 366.

Seymour, Robert, “Lord Beauchamp’, s. & Shireburne, Sir Richard, of Stonyhurst, 288.

h. of William Earl of Hertford, 680. Shirley family, of Wiston, 27; of Staunton Seymour, Thomas, Lord Seymout of Sudeley, Harold, 379.

192, 204, 251, 340. Shirley, Sir George, 48.

Seymour, William (1588-1660), 1oth Earl of Shirley, Sir Henry, 265, 748. Hertford, s. of Edward ‘Lord Beauchamp’, Shirley, James, 631. succ, his grandfather z627, cr. Marquis Shirley, Sir Thomas, 23, 78, 84, 85 n., 366 n.,

1641, later Duke of Somerset, m. 1. Ara- 406, bella Stuart, 133, 279, 609, 680, 761, 779; Shrewsbury, Salop, 93, 449, 513; School,

daughter of, see Finch, Marty. 682.

Seymour, William, 3rd Duke of Somerset, 319. Shrewsbury, Countess of, see Talbot, Anne,

Sezincote, Warws., 298. Elizabeth, Mary. Shaftoe, Edward, 595. Shrewsbury, Earl of, see Talbot, George (7), Shaftoe, Reynold, 595. Francis (8), George (9), Gilbert (10), Shaftoe, William, 595. George (12), John (13). Shakespeare, William, 16, 22, 30, 122, 229, Shropshire, 67, 253, 285, 313, 342, 347-8,

400, 489, 592, 699, 707. 513, 551, 747, 772.

Shalcrosse, Humphrey, 537. Shute, John, 710.

Sharington, Grace, see Mildmay. Shute, William, 738. Sharington, Sir William, 250, 549, 629, 711; Sidney, see Sydney.

estates of, 193. Silks and Velvets, customs and imposition on,

Sheffield, Sussex, 346. 426, §85, 773.

Sheffield, Yorks. W.R., 341, 343, 347, 350-2, Silyarde family, 730.

375 ., 512, 772 n.; Castle, 714. Skelton, John, 208, 674.

INDEX 833

Skinker, Mistress Tannakin, 3809. Spanish Company, 376.

Skipton Castle, Yorks. W.R., 220, 282, 285, Spanish Netherlands, 385, 646.

347, 391, 551, 651. Speed, John, 699, 715.

Slingsby, Sir Henry, 22, 552, 677, 694. Spelman, Sir Henry, 16, 74 n., 748.

Slingsby, William, 694. Spencer family, 25, 100, 190, 580, 772; Lords Smith, Thomas, Mr. ‘Customer’, 426, 521. Spencer, 301; of Althorp, 298-300. Smith, Sir Thomas, 30, 44, 49, 71, 368, 673, | Spencer, Elizabeth, see Howard.

706. Spencer, Henry (1620-43), 3rd Lord Spencer,

smyth, John, of Nibley, Glos., 3, 26, 164, succ. 1636, cr. Earl of Sunderland 164;, 21$, 240, 274-5, 285, 297, 322, 399, 514, 497-9, 743, 761.

568, 642 n., 657. Spencer, Sir John, Alderman, 159, 312, 362,

Smythson, Robett, 550. 534, 630; daughter of, see Compton, Eliza-

Snowdon, Forest of, 438-9. beth.

Snowhouses, monopoly of, 43.4. Spencer, Sir John, of Althorp, 443; daughter

Soap, monopoly of, 434, 480. of, see Sackville, Anne.

Solicitor-General, 373, 514; to Prince Charles, Spencer, Sir Richard, s. of above, 443.

290. Spencer, Robert (1570-1627), grands. of Sir

Somerhill, South Frith, Kent, 552. J. Spencer of Althorp, cr. Lord Spencer

Somerset, 52, 190, 238, 322, 330, 356, 551, 1603, 123, 279, 299, 320, 331-2, 336, 387,

624; sheriff of, 238. 454, 497, 510, 557, App. XXIVa, 785.

Somerset family, 155, 254, 301, 327, 395, 614, Spencer, Sir Thomas, s. of Sir J. Spencer of

732, 772. Althorp, m. Mary Cheke, 443.

Somerset, Countess of, see Carr, Frances. Spencer, William (1592-1636), 2nd Lord, somerset, Duchess of, see Seymour, Anne. succ. 1627, 178N., 321, 454, 564-5, 581, Somerset, Duke of, see Seymour, Edward (1), 598 n., 744-5, App. XX1Va.

William (2, 3). Spenser, Edmund, 16, 707-8.

Somerset, Earl of, see Carr, Robert. Spilsby, Lincs., 551.

Somerset, Edward (1550-1628), 4th Earl of Spink Hall, Derby., 732. Worcester, succ. 1989, 101, 254, 302, 347, Squibb, Arthur, 290.

420, 451, 497, 556, 614, 709, 760. Squibb, Laurence, 290-1. Somerset, Edward, znd Marquis of Worcester, Stafford, Staffs., 68.

408, 777. Stafford family, 230, 263, 399.

Somerset, Henry, 2nd Earl of Worcester, Stafford, Lord, see Stafford, Henry (1, 2),

254; daughter of, see Nevill, Lucy. Edward (3)

Sometset, Henry (1577-1653), 5th Earl of Stafford, Viscount, see Howard, William. Worcester, succ. 1628; cr. Marquis 1642, Stafford, Viscountess, see Howard, Mary. 133 1., 209, 213, 254, 321, 362, 556,761,779. Stafford, Sir Edward, 431, 459.

Somerset, Henry, 2nd Duke of Beaufort, Stafford, Edward (1536-1603), 3rd Lord,

362 n. succ. his brother ry 66, 230, 416, 629, 760.

Somerset, William (c. 1527-89), 3rd Earl of Stafford, Edward, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, Worcester, succ. 1549, 218, 254, 460, 709. 201, 203, 217, 253-4, 412, $57.

Somers Island Company, 372. Stafford, Henry (1501-63), cr. Lord Stafford

Southampton, Hants, 371. IS47, 794.

Southampton, Countess of, see Wriothesley, Stafford, Henry (1534-66), 2nd Lord, succ.

Elizabeth, Mary. 1563, 760.

Southampton, Earl of, see Wriothesley, Stafford, Humphrey, 1st Duke of BuckingThomas (1), Henry (2, 3), Thomas (4). ham, 676.

Southfrith, Kent, 346. Stafford, Mary, see Howard. Southover, Sussex, 686. Stafford, Roger, 117. Southwell, Notts., 407. Staffordshire, 67, 253, 313, 316, 341 n., 342 n., Southwell family, 197, 379. 348, 350, 353. Southwell, Elizabeth, 665. Stainmore, Westmd., 342. Southwell, Francis, 656. Stalenge, Lady, 599. Southwell, Robert, S.J., 730. Stamford, Countess of, see Grey, Anne. Southworth, John, 289-90, 293. Stamford, Earl of, see Grey, Henry, 2nd Lord Spain, 107, 247, 385, 503, 697; embassy to, Grey of Groby. _ 460; war with, 318, 364-5, 367, 373, 382, Stanhope family, of Shelford, 193, 224, 229,

821314 3H

433, 488; Spanish Match, 462. 236.

834 INDEX

Stanhope, Anne, Lady, 47. Stanley, Thomas (1507-60), 2nd Lord Stanhope, Anne, see Seymour. Mounteagle, succ. 1523, 760.

Stanhope, Charles (1595-1675), 2nd Lotd Stanley, Thomas, 2nd Lord Stanley, toth

Stanhope of Harington, succ. 1621, 568, 761. Earl of Derby, 256. |

Stanhope, Cordell, d. of Richard Alington Stanley, Thomas, 11th Earl of Derby, 479. and grandd. of Sir William Cordell, w. of Stanley, William ( -1581), 3rd Lord Mount-

Sir John, 193. eagle, succ. 1y60, m. 2. Anne Spencer (see

Stanhope, Sir John, of Shelford, s. of Sir Sackville), 485, 729; daughter of, see Parker,

Thomas, m. above, 225. Elizabeth.

Stanhope, Sir John ( -1621), s. of Sir Stanley, William (1561-1642), 15th Earl of Michael Stanhope of Shelford, cr. Lord Derby, succ, his brother 7394, m. ElizaStanhope of Harington 1607, 439. beth Vere, 179, 215, 315, 339, 477, 521, Stanhope, Margaret, d. of Sir John Port of 555, 653, 662, 709, 760—1, 779.

Etwall, w. of Sir Thomas, 193. Stanley, William, 19th Earl of Derby, 548 n. Stanhope, Sir Michael of Sudbury, s. of Sir Stanstead, Sussex, 282.

Michael Stanhope of Shelford, 662. Stanwell, Middx., 404. Stanhope, Philip (1584-1656), s. of Sir John Stapledon, Sir Robert, 407. Stanhope, cr. Lord Stanhope of Shelford Star Chamber, 34, 42, 68, 228, 234-8, 240~1, 1616, Earl of Chesterfield 1628, 108, 666, 246, 248-9, 309, 391, 398, 418, 424, 442,

682, 685, 761, 780. 559-60, 567, 607, 653.

Stanhope, Philip, s. of Henry Stanhope and Starch and Ashes, impositions on, 427, 7733 Catherine, née Wotton, 2nd Earl of Chester- monopoly of, 434.

field, 171. Starkey, Thomas, 674-5.

Stanhope, Sir Thomas, of Shelford, s. of Sir Statistics, use of, 3-4, 137-8, 144-52, 470-2, Michael Stanhope of Shelford, m. Margaret 481.

Port, 215, 224. Statutes, De Donis of 1285, 178; of 1468, 2033

Stanley Grange, Derby., 732. of 1534, 235; of Uses, 27, 178, 182, 276, 642; Stanley family, 60, 151, 173, 187, 192, 253, of Wills, 178, 276. 264, 349, 423, 576, 584, 790n.; Lords Staunton Harold, Leics., 48.

Mounteagle, 171, 193. Steel, industry, 351-2; monopoly of, 434.

Stanley, Anne, Lady Mounteagle, d. of Sir Steward, High, 399.

John Harrington, 2nd w. of Edward Steward, Walter, 111.

_ Lord Mounteagle, 193. Stewart, James, Earl of Moray (S.), 626; Stanley, Anne, Lady Mounteagle, née Spencer, daughter of, see Howard, Margaret, Countess

see Sackville. of Nottingham.

Stanley, Anne, see Rishton. Stewart, Sir William, 76. Stanley, Charlotte, Countess of Derby, d. of | Stewkley, Hugh, 602. Claude de La Tremouille, Duc de Thouars, Stillingfleet, Edward, Bishop, 289.

w. of James Earl of Detby, 639 n. Stillingfleet, Samuel, 289, 293. Stanley, Edward, 1st Lord Mounteagle, s. of Stockdale family, 289. Thomas 1toth Earl of Derby, m. 2. Anne Stockwood, Rev. John, 612.

Harrington, 177, 509, 638, 784. Stone, Nicholas, 580-1.

Stanley, Edward (1509-72), 12th Earl of Stone, Sir William, 533. Detby, succ. ry 2Z, 47, 209, 212, 251, 256, Stonehouse, Sir George, 263. 460, 573-5, 683, 726, 729, 760, App. Stone pots and bottles, monopoly of, 434.

XXIVA, 783. Stourbridge, Worcs., fair, 302, 558.

Stanley, Elizabeth, Countess of Derby, d. of Stourton family, 604 n., 614, 732. Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, w. of William Stourton, Charles, 8th Lord, 236, 705.

15th Earl of Derby, 492, 665, 709. Stourton, Edward (1559-1633), roth Lord, Stanley, Ferdinando (1559-94), 14th Earl of succ. his brother 1788, 730, 760. Derby, succ. 7793, 171, 211, 231, 305, 388, Stourton, John (1553-88), 9th Lord, succ. 519; daughters of, see Egerton, Frances; ISJ7, 574, 681, 760.

Hastings, Elizabeth; Touchet, Anne. Stourton, William, 7th Lord, 523. Stanley, Henry (1531-93), 13th Earlof Derby, Stourton, William (1594-1672), 11th Lord, succ. If72, 205, 213, 229, 288, 448, 460, SUCC. 1633, §7, 133, 646 n., 761.

532-3, 574, 600 n, 662, 681, 777. Stradling, William, 692. Stanley, James, 16th Earl of Derby, m. Char- Strafford, Earl of, see Wentworth, Thomas, lotte de La Tremouille, 296, 626, 639 n. Viscount Wentworth (1), William (2).

INDEX 835 ‘Strange’, Lord, courtesy title of s. & h. of Sagar, imposition on, 428.

Rarl of Derby, see Stanley. Sulphur and Brimstone, monopoly of, 434.

Strelley family, 340. Sunderland, Earl of, see Scrope, Emmanuel, Strode, Sir John, 163, 304, 615, 677, 701. 11th Lord Scrope; Spencer, Henry, 3rd

Stuart family, 470. Lord Spencer. Stuart Kings, 437. Surrey, 29.

Stuart, Lady Arabella, d. of Charles Earl of ‘Surrey’, Earl of, see Howard, Henry. Lennox, secretly m. William Seymour, Sussex, 48, 219, 252, 256, 772. later 1oth Earl of Hertford, 101-3, 609. Sussex, Countess of, see Ratcliffe, Frances; Stuart, Charles, 3rd Duke of Richmond, 213. Rich, Eleanor. Stuart, Esmé (1579-1624), Lord d’Aubigny Sussex, Earl of, see Ratcliffe, Henry (2),

(S.), cr. Earl of March 1679, 3rd Duke of Thomas (3), Robert (5), Edward (6); Lennox (S.), succ. his brother Ludovic Savile, Thomas, 2nd Lord Savile. 1624, m. 2. Katherine Clifton, 102, 111, Sutton, Thomas, 102, 526, 528, 534-5, 576, 171, 416-17, 445, 475, 608, 626; daughter of, 595-6. see Howard, Elizabeth, ‘Lady Maltravers’. Sutton, Elizabeth, w. of above, 595-6. Stuart, Frances, Duchess of Lennox (S.) and Sutton Pointz, Dorset, 323. Richmond, d. of Thomas Howard, 1st Swaledale, Yorks. N.R., 344. Viscount Bindon, m. 1. Henry Pranel, 2. Swaton, Lincs., 728. Edward Seymour, 9th Earl of Hertford, Sweden, 503; Nobility in, 7, 611 n. 3. Ludovic Stuart, Duke of Richmond, Sydney family, 155, 224, 257, 346-7, 470, III, 114, 396, 420, 432, 440-1, 445, 579, 604 n., 704, 708.

606, 630, 648, 660. Sydney, Barbara, Countess of Leicester, d. Stuart, Sir Francis, 111. of John Gamage, w. of Robert ist Earl of

Stuart, Sir James, 247. Leicester, 387-8, 660.

Stuart, James (1612-55), 4th Duke of Lennox Sydney, Frances, see Ratcliffe.

(S.), 2nd Earl of March, succ. 1624, re-cr. Sydney, Sic Henry, 351, 540, 7o1, 784; Duke of Richmond 1647, m. Mary Herbert, daughter of, see Herbert, Mary. née Villiers, 292, 420, 432, 608, 697, 699, Sydney, Katherine, Countess of Leicester, d.

Jol, 761, 780. of William Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, w. of

Stuart, Katherine, Countess of March, Philip Earl of Leicester, 636.

Duchess of Lennox, d. of Gervase Lord Sydney, Sir Philip, s. & h. of Sir Henry, m. Clifton, 2nd w. of Esmé Earl of March, Frances Walsingham (see Devereux), 16,

102, 626, 738. 224, 477, 480, 606, 643, 682, 693-5, 704,

Stuart, Ludovic (1574-1624), 2nd Duke of 747; daughter of, see Manners, Elizabeth. Lennox (S.), cr. Earl of Richmond 1673, Sydney, Philip, 3rd Earl of Leicester, m.

Duke 1623, m. Frances Seymour, née Katherine Cecil, 636. Howard, 102, 111, 264, 373, 418, 428, 432, Sydney, Sir Robert (1563-1626), s. of Sir

437, 440, 475, 579, 601, 660. Henry, cr. Lord Sydney 1603, Viscount

Stuart, Mary, Duchess of Richmond, d. of Lisle zéoys, Earl of Leicester 1678, m.

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, Barbara Gamage, 100, 259, 291-2, 320n., m. 1. Charles Herbert, 2. James Duke of 387-8, 417, 419, 459, 500, 507, 533, 564,

Richmond, 176, 618, 639 n., 652. 636, 660, 693, 701; daughters of, see Hobatt,

Stubbes, Philip, 28. Philippa; Mansell, Katherine; Wroth,

Stubbs, John, 332. Mary. Suckling, Sir John, 570, 608. Sydney, Robert (1595-1677), 2nd Earl of

Sudeley Castle, Glos., 230; Park, 303. Leicester, succ. 17626, 362, 460, 636, 644,

Suffolk, 74, 312, 325, 624. 743, 7613; daughter of, see Pelham, Lucy. Suffolk, Countess of, see Howard, Catherine, Symonds, Richard, 133.

Elizabeth. Syon House, Middx., 219, 552, 554, App.

Suffolk, Duchess of, see Grey, Frances; XXIII n.

Bertie, Catherine. Suffolk, Duke of, see Brandon, Charles; Grey, Tacitus, 30, 492.

Henry. Talbot family, 25-26, 60, 193, 230, 236, 253,

Suffolk, Earl of, see Howard, Thomas, Lord 264, 292, 347, 349N., 373, 381, 395, 576-73 Howard of Walden (1), Theophilus, (2) estates, 313, 342, 497, 7723 retainers, 225.

James (3). ‘Talbot’, Lord, courtesy title of s. & h. of

Sumatra, King of, 595. Earl of Shrewsbury.

836 INDEX Talbot, Anne, Countess of Shrewsbury, d. of | Temple, Peter, 241. William Lord Hastings, first w. of George Temple, Sir William, m. Dorothy Osbotne,

7th Earl of Shrewsbury, 600. 610, 647.

Talbot, Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, Temple Newsam, Yorks. W.R., 226, 552. “Bess of Hardwick’, d. of John Hardwick, Teringham, Sir Thomas, 355. m.1. Robert Barlow, 2. William Cavendish, Teynham, Lord, see Roper, John (1), Chris3. William St. Loe, 4. George 9th Earl of topher (2, 4). Shrewsbury, 193-5, 224, 299, 343, 391, Thanet, Countess of, see Tufton, Margaret.

537, 552, 575-6, 658, 785. Thanet, Earl of, see Tufton, Nicholas, 1st

Talbot, Francis (¢. 1500-60), 8th Earl of Lord Tufton (1), John (2).

Shrewsbury, succ. 1738, 251, 256, 290, 760. Theobalds, Middx., 25, 452-3, 551-3, 716, 718.

Talbot, George, s. & h. of John 13th Earl of Thetford, Norf., 573.

Shrewsbury, 373. Thieveley, Yorks. W.R., 344.

Talbot, George, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, m. Thimbleby, Sir John, 204. Anne Hastings, 254, 600, 624; daughter of, Thimelby, John, of Irmham Hall, Lincs., 733.

seé Percy, Mary. Thirty Years War, 458, 462, 702.

Talbot, George (¢. 1522-90), 9th Earl of Thomas, William, 687. Shrewsbuty, succ. zy60, m. 1. Gertrude Thornbury, Glos., 217, 230, 254, 557. Mannets, 2. Elizabeth St. Loe, née Hard- Thorney, Cambs., 355-6, 513. wick, 151, 193-4, 211, 216, 219, 251, 256, Thornton, John, 684. 299, 341, 343-4, 348, 352, 363-4, 369, Threckingham, Lincs., 728. 375-6, 382, 509, §12, 558, 569, 681, 684, Throckmotton, Sir Arthur, 529.

Grace. Thucydides, 30.

709-10, 714, 729; daughter of, see Cavendish, ‘Throckmorton, Thomas, 241.

Talbot, George (1566-1630), 12th Earl of | Thynne family, 57, 379. Shrewsbury, s. of John Talbot of Grafton, Thynne, Elizabeth, née Cavendish-Bentinck,

succ. his cousin 7678, 730. w. of Thomas, Viscount Weymouth, 632 n.

Talbot, Gilbert (1552-1616), toth Earl of |Thynne, Francis, 26. Shrewsbury, succ. zygo, m. Mary Caven- Thynne, Sir John, 208, 452, 552. 629, 711. dish, 25, 110, I7I, 194, 208-9, 211, 215, Thynne, Sir Thomas, 63, 112. 236, 239, 257, 301, 316, 343, 351, 364n., Thynne, Thomas, Viscount Weymouth, m. 368, 375 n., 388, 423, 473, 09-10, 512, 516, Elizabeth Cavendish-Bentinck, 632 n. §28, 539-40, §55, 557-8, 760, 777, App. Tin, merchants, 513 pre-emption of, 436. XX1Va; daughters of, see Grey, Elizabeth; Tintoretto, Domenico, 718-20.

Herbert, Mary; Howard, Alathea. Tipper, William, 415-16. Talbot, John (1601-53), 13th Earl of Shrews- Tiptoft, John, Earl of Worcester, 676.

bury, succ. his uncle 1630, 373, 761. Tissac, Paul, 353. Talbot, Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury, d. of | Titchfield, Hants, 345 n., 352, 549.

William Cavendish, w. of Gilbert Earl of Titian, 718-20.

Shrewsbury, 194, 506, Tivoli, Papal States, 717. Talbot, Thomas, 600. Tobacco, customs on, 427, 433, 7733 pipes, LTaltarum’s Case, 178. monopoly of, 108, 434; retailing, licence for, Tamworth Castle, Warws., 25. 428, 438 n. Tanfield, Sir Laurence, 330; daughter of, see ‘Tolfa, Papal States, 353.

Carey, Elizabeth. Tollemache, Lionel, 43.

Taxes, 209; assessment of, 54, 132, 259, 470, ‘Tonbridge, Viscount, see Bourke, Ulick, 1st

488, 494-8, 501, 602; forest fines, 498-9; Earl of St. Albans.

| Ship-money, 44, 498, 511, 513, 521. Tooke family, 468.

Taylor, Christopher, 290. Topcliffe, Yorks. N.R., 511.

Taylor, Henry, 289. Topham, Dr., 699.

Taylor, Jeremy, 569. Totnes, Earl of, see Carew, George. Taylor, John, 290. Touchet family, 173, 192, 604 n., 732. Taylor, Stephen, 290. Touchet, Anne, Lady Audley, d. of FerdiTaylor, William, 289. nando Stanley, Earl of Derby, m. 1. Grey Temedbuty, Heref., 451. Brydges, Lord Chandos, 2. Mervyn Lord

Temple family, 300. Audley, 171.

Temple, Dorothy, d. of Sir Peter Osborne, Touchet, George ( —1560), 9th Lord Audley,

ow. of Sir William Temple, 594, 651. succ. 1ff7, 760.

INDEX 837 Touchet, George ( -1617), 11th Lord Aud- — Ulster, 89; Plantation of, 85, 96, 415. ley, succ. 1563, cr. Earl of Castlehaven (I.) United Provinces, Cautionary tonns in, 419;

1616, 324N., 415, 457, 560, 760. embassy to, 107; English forces in, 108, 266, Touchet, James ( -1684), 13th Lord Audley, 291-2, 409, 416, 456, 490; — commander of,

3rd Earl of Castlehaven (I.), succ. 1633, 424 (see also Durch).

761. Universities, 29, 31-33, 35, 49, 687-90, 792

Touchet, John, 8th Lord Audley, 336, 479. (see also Cambridge, Oxford). Touchet, Mervyn ( —1631), t2th Lord Aud- Unton, Sir Henry, 391. ley, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven (1.), succ. Uses, Statute of, see Statutes. 1617, m. 2. Anne Brydges, Lady Chandos,

née Stanley, 631, 668. Valladolid, Spain, 718.

Towneley, Helen, see Rishton. Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, 357, 374, 502, 715. Townshend, Sir Roger, Bart., m. Jane Stan- Vane, Sir Harry, of Raby Castle, 125.

hope (see Berkeley), 85 n. Vane, Sir Henry, s. of above, 125, 636 n.

Townshend, Roger, 520. Vanlore, Peter, 536. Tradescant, John, 716. Van Meteren, Emmanuel, 562. Treasurer at War, 457, §33. Vaughan family, 255.

Tregoz, Lord, see St. John, Oliver, Viscount Vaughan, Frances, see Burgh.

Grandison (1.). Vaux family, 469, 614, 732.

Trenchard, William, 366 n. Vaux, Anne, 732.

Trent, River, 215, 336. Vaux, Edward, s. of William Lord Vaux, 177. Tresham family of Rushton, Northants., 44, Vaux, Edward (1587-1661), 4th Lord Vaux,

534, 584. s. of Sir George and Elizabeth (q.v.) Vaux,

Tresham, Sit Lewis, 499, 526. succ. his grandfather ry9ys, m. Elizabeth

Tresham, Sir Thomas, 75, 216, 228, 330, 540, Knollys, née Howard, 57, 303, 497, 760-1. 554, 649; daughter of, see Webbe, Katherine. Vaux, Elizabeth, d. of John Roper, Lord

Trevalyn Hall, Denbigh., 208. Teynham, w. of Sir George, s. of William Trevannion, Elizabeth, see Carey. Lord Vaux, 730.

Trevor, John, 208. Vaux, Elizabeth, Lady Vaux, d. of Thomas Trevor, Sit John, 290. Howard, Earl of Suffolk, m. 1. William Trowbridge, Wilts., 685. Knollys, Earl of Banbury, 2. Edward Lord Trussell, Elizabeth, see Vere. Vaux, 113. Tryon, Sir Samuel, Bart., 93. Vaux, Henry, s. & h. of William Lord Vaux, Tudors, 28, 435, 451, 476, 503. 177. Tufton family, 347. Vaux, Nicholas, 1st Lord, 192, 638. Tufton, John (1608-64), 2nd Earl of Thanet, Vaux, William (1534-95), 3rd Lord, succ.

succ. 1631, 555, 707, 761. TS J6, 177, 330, 515 N., 517, 638-9, 646 n.,

Tufton, Margaret, Countess of Thanet, d. 730, 732, 760.

of Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, w. of | Vavasour, Anne, 233.

above, 171. Venice, 29, 459, 647, 696, 718-19; — Gold and Tufton, Nicholas (1578-1631), cr. Lord Silver Thread Farm, 427, 173; paintings of the Tufton 7626, Earl of Thanet 7628, 106. school of, 718-21, 7233; Venetian ambassador,

Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 570. 120, 207, 463, 555, 585.

Turin, 712. Vere family, 256, 423; of Great Addington,

Turner, Anne, 394. Northants., 193 (see a/so Mordaunt, John,

Turvey, Beds., 730. 1st Lord).

Twickenham, Middx., 687. Vere, Lord, see Vere, Horace.

Twyne, Thomas, 747. Vere, Anne, Countess of Oxford, d. of Tyler, Sir William, 605. Edward 17th Earl of Oxford, 172, 638,

Twysden, Sir William, 87-88, 624. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, 1st w. of

Tynemouth, Northumb., 302, 309. 643.

Tyrwhit, Robert, m. Bridget, d. of John Vere, Anne, Countess of Oxford, d. of Paul

Manners, Earl of Rutland, 606. 2nd Viscount Bayning, w. of the following, Tytwhit family, of Kettleby, Lincs., 534. 497:

Tyrwhit, Ursula, see Sheffield. Vere, Aubrey (1627-1702), zoth Earl of Oxford, succ. 7632, m. above, 171, 761.

Udall, John, 738. Vere, Edward (1550-1604), 17th Earl of Uffington, Lincs., 43. Oxford, succ. 7762, m. Anne Cecil, 172,

838 INDEX 208, 211, 227, 233-4, 239, 243, 264, 269, Villiers, Frances, Viscountess Purbeck, d. of

295, 312, 315, 370, 410, 414, 419, 436, Sit Edward Coke, ist w. of John Viscount 514-15, 532, 582, Go2, 609, 638, 666, 679—- Purbeck, 519, 596, 652, 738. 80, 7OI, 704-5, 709, 747, 760, 777; daughters Villiers, Sir George, m. Mary Beaumont (see

of, see Herbert, Susan; Stanley, Elizabeth. Compton), 580; daughters of, see Boteler, Vere, Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, d. of Rlizabeth; Fielding, Susan. Sit John Trussell, w. of John 15th Earl of Villiers, George (1592-1628), s. of above, cr.

Oxford, 600. Marquis of Buckingham 1678, Duke 1623,

Verte, Henry (1593-1625), 18th Earl of m. Catherine Manners, 81, 120, 126, 196, Oxford, succ. 1604, m. Diana Cecil (see 255, 264, 266, 373, 395, 420, 425, 464, 468,

Bruce), 110, 266, 423, 445, 596. 471, 474-5, 481, 515, 607-9, 618, 631, 652, Verte, Sir Horace (1565-1635), cr. Lord Vere 665, 668, 716, 718-20; expenses, 284, 288, of Tilbury 1625, 125, 171, 265—6, 419, 458; 290, 417, 450, 456, 548n., 553, 565, 639, daughters of, 615, see Fane, Mary, Countess 719-20, App. XXIII; patronage, 57, 80, of Westmorland; Holles, Elizabeth; Poulett, 91-96, 103-16, 125, 210, 212, 291, 408,

John, 2nd Lord. 458, 473, 479, 493, 500-1; rewards, 80, Trussell, 600. 8, 435, 444-5, 497; daughter of, see Stuatt,

Vere, John, 15th Earl of Oxford, m. Elizabeth 91-96, 103-16, 123, 408, 414, 417, 427-

Vere, John (1516-62), 16th Earl of Oxford, Marty. succ. 1J39, 212, 219, 232, 760; danghier of, Villiers, George (1628-87), znd Duke of

_ see Bertie, Mary. Buckingham, succ. 7628, 362, 498, 720, Vere, Robert (1575-1632), 19th Earl of 761, 780. ,

Oxford, great-grands. of John 15th Earl, Villiers, Sir John (1591-1658), s. of Sir

succ. his cousin 1625, 57, 626. George, ct. Viscount Purbeck ré79, m. 1. Vermuyden, Sit Cornelius, 355. Frances Coke, 113, 596, 652, 761.

Verney family, 27. Vinegar, monopoly of, 434-5. Verney, Edmund, 40, 391. Virgil, 30.

397, 634. App. XXTII n.

Verney, Sit Edmund, m. Margaret Denton, Virginia, 367, 372; Company, 371-2, 376, 383,

Verney, John, 111-12. Vitruvius, 710. .

Verney, Margaret, Lady, d. of Sir Alexander Vives, Johannes Ludovicus, 670.

Denton, wife of Sir Edmund, 634. Vries, J. Vredeman de, 710.

Verney, Sir Ralph, 330. Vyne, The, Sherborne St. John, Hants, 220. Vernon family, 196.

Vetnon, Elizabeth, see Wriothesley. Waad, Armagil, 409.

Veronese, Paolo, 718-20. Wade, William, 434.

Verulam, Lord, see Bacon, Francis. Wadham, Dorothy, d. of Sir William Petre,

Vervins, Peace of, 245. w. of Nicholas, 554.

Vienna, 695. Wadham, Nicholas, m. above, 46.

Villiers family, 60, 104-6, 111-13, 120, 476, Wakefield, Yorks. W.R., 109, 513.

591, 618; Dukes of Buckingham, 543. Walden, Essex, 301. Villiers, Barbara, d. of Sir John St. John of Walden, Lord Howard of, see Lord Thomas

Lydiard Tregoze, w. of Sir Edward, 112. Howatd, later 1st Eatl of Suffolk, hence Villiers, Catherine, Duchess of Buckingham, courtesy title of his s. & h. (see Howard, d. of Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland, Theophilus). w. of George 1st Duke of Buckingham, 94, Wales, 155, 212, 240, 253-8, 321, 327, 330,

428. 347, 513, 625, 7723; Council af, 228-30,

Villiers, Charles (1627-61), 2nd Earl of 234-5; — Councillors of, 465; — President of,

Anglesea, succ. 1630, 761. 239, 257, 296, 419, 464-5, 490; North, 220,

Villiers, Christopher ( —1630), s. of Sir 228, 285, 330, 387; South, 347. George, cr. Earl of Anglesea 7623, m. Walker, Sir Edward, 96, 119, 120, 124, 747,

Blizabeth Sheldon, 226, 442, 475, 631. 752.

Villiers, Sir Edward, s. of Sir George, m. Walkern, Herts., 551.

Barbara St. John, 112. Wallingford, Viscount, see Knollys, William,

Villiers, Eleanor, 667. 1st Earl of Banbury.

Villiers, Elizabeth, Countess of Anglesea, d. Wallingford, Viscountess, see Vaux, Elizabeth.

of Thomas Sheldon, w. of Christopher Wallop, Sir Henry, 12.

Rarl of Anglesea, 436-7. Walpole, Horace, 193.

INDEX 839 Walsingham, Audrey, w. of Sir Thomas Wentworth, Thomas (1525-84), 2nd Lord,

Walsingham, 665. succ. Tf fZ, 516, 633, 760.

Walsingham, Sir Francis, 368, 370-1, 382; Wentworth, Thomas (1591-1667), 4th Lord,

daughter of, see Devereux, Frances. succ. 793, cr. Earl of Cleveland 7626,

Wandesford, Sir Christopher, 297, 615. 361, 525 n., 700, 760-1, 779.

Wanley, Nathaniel, 26. Wentworth, Thomas (1593-1641), s. of Sir Ward, Sir Patience, 173. Earl of Strafford 1640, 10, 61, 125, 288,

Wanstead, Essex, 113, 276, 714. William, cr. Viscount Wentworth 1628, Wardour Castle, Wilts., 454, 730. 296, 393, 415 n., 428, 435, 440, 449, 476, Wardrobe, Keeper of the, 563 n. 494, 511, 513, 543, $52, 555, 568, 615, 743, Wards, Court of, 106n., 132, 296, 6o00~4, 780.

642 n. 657; Master of the, 403-4, 420, 423, Wentworth, Walter, ror. 469, 490, 492, 497, 601, 679; Officials of the, Wentworth, Sir William, of Wentworth

468, 533, 576. Woodhouse, s. of Sir Thomas, 26, 228, 246,

Wardships, 193, 252, 423-4, 472, 494, 497-8, 296, 304, 330, 538, 615, 677, 691, 746.

582, 600-5, 652, 670, 739. Wentworth, William, s. & h. of Thomas

Warham, William, Archbishop, 578. 2nd Lord, m. Elizabeth Cecil, 633.

Warrington, Lanes., 215. Wentworth, William (1626-95), 2nd Earl of Warwick, Warws., 580; Castle, 412, 738. Strafford, succ. 1641, 761. Warwick, Countess of, see Dudley, Anne; Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorks. W.R., 228,

Rich, Eleanor. 393.

Warwick, Earl of, see Beauchamp, Richard; West, Charles (1626-87), 14th Lord De La Dudley, John, Duke of Northumberland, Warr, succ. 1628, 761. Ambrose; Rich, Robert, 3rd Lord Rich West, Lewis, 228.

(1), Robert (2, 3). West, Sit Thomas, 486.

Richard. 404, 638.

Warwick and Salisbury, Earl of, see Neville, | West, Thomas, 9th Lord De La Warr, 219,

Warwickshire, 624, 735. West, Thomas (1577-1618), 12th Lord De Waterhouse, Edward, 186, 189, 616, 691, La Wart, succ. 1602, 367, 372, 734, 760.

7OI, 722. West, William, 524.

Watts, Sir John, 364. West, Sir William, 228.

Weald, Sussex, 220, 344-51. West India Company, 374.

Wear, River, 341. Westminster, see London.

Weaver, John, 577. Westmorland, 282, 285, 340, 342. Webbe, Katherine, d. of Sir Thomas Tresham, Westmorland, Countess of, see Fane, Mary,

w. of Sit John Webbe, 649. née Mildmay, Mary, née Verte. Weekley, Northants., 580. Westmorland, Earl of, see Neville, Henry (5), Weighton, Market, Yorks. E.R., 560. Charles (6); Fane, Francis (1), Mildmay (2).

Welbeck, Notts., 450, 551. Weston Manor, Oxon., 215.

Weld, Sir John, 339. Weston, Jerome (1605-63), 2nd Earl of Weldon family, 468. Portland, succ. 7635, 357, 761, 780. Weldon, Sir Anthony, 480, 495. Weston, Sir Richard, 30. Well, Lincs., 728. Weston, Richard (1577-1635), cr. Earl of Wellesbourne family, 24. Portland 1628, 105, 191, 374, 415 N., 422, Wenman, Sir Richard, rst Viscount Wenman 470, 480.

(1.), 106. Weston, Father, S.J., 730.

Wensleydale, Yorks. N.R., 344. Weymouth, Lord, see Thynne, Thomas. Wentworth family, 193, 584, 625. Weymouth, Captain George, 372. Wentworth, Lord, see Wentworth, Thomas Whalley, Lancs., 509. (1, 2), Thomas 1st Earl of Cleveland (4). Wharton Hall, Westmd., 200. Wentworth, Viscount, see Wentworth, Wharton family, 253, 469, 624.

Thomas, 1st Earl of Strafford. Wharton, Philip (1555-1625), 3rd Lord, succ. Wentworth, Elizabeth, d. of William Cecil, IJ§72, 247, 497, 739, 760; daughter of, see

Lord Burghley, w. of William, 559-60, Wotton, Margaret.

633. Wharton, Philip (1613-96), 4th Lord, succ.

Wentworth, Sir Thomas, of Wentworth his grandfather 7625, 344, 598, 743, 761. Woodhouse, m.? Gascoigne, 193. Wharton, Thomas (¢. 1495-1568), cr. Lord Wentworth, Thomas, 1st Lord, 192, 624. Wharton rf44, 192, 200, 251, 729, 739, 760.

840 INDEX Wharton, Thomas (1520-72), 2nd Lord, succ. cr. Lord Willoughby of Parham 1547,

Ijy68, 206, 739. 760.

Wheat, export licence for, 431. Willoughby, William, roth Lord Willoughby

Whitaker, Rev. T. D., 214, 572. d’Eresby, 784; daughter of, see Bettie,

Whitchurch, Heref., 348. Catherine.

Whitchurch, Salop, 313, 772 n. Willoughby, William (1584-1617), 3rd Lord

White, Rowland, 102. Willoughby of Parham, succ. his grand.Whitelock, James, 444. father 7672, 595 n., 659. Whitelocke, Bulstrode, 41, 68. . Wills, Statute of, see Statutes. Whitgift, John, Archbishop, 12, 231, 705, Wilscomb, Som., 406.

7345 737> 739: Wilson, Thomas, 45, 52, 75, 165, 406, 489, 767.

Whitmore, Elizabeth, see Craven. Wilton Castle, Yorks. N.R., 211.

Whittingham, William, 734. Wilton, Wilts., 261; — House, 176, 222, 254, .

Whittlesey, Cambs., 357. 392, §§2, 618-19, 704, 712, 717.

Wickham, Bishop, 407. Wiltshire, 31, 38, 52, 145, 229, 238, 256, 309,

Wicliffe family, 215. 321-2, 393.

Wight, Isle of, 94, 387, 566, 717; Captainof the, Wiltshire, Earl of, see Boleyn, Thomas.

261-2, 366. Wimbish family, 196.

Wilcox, Thomas, 738. Wimbledon, Viscount, see Cecil, Edward.

Wildmore Fen, Lincs., 356. Winchester, Hants, Bishop of, 407-8, 411, 4533 Wilford, Joan, née Fermor, see Mordaunt. St. Cross Hospital, Mastership of, 487.

Wilkes, Thomas, 434. Winchester, Marchioness of, see Paulet,

Wilkins, George, 604. Winifred.

Williams, John, Archbishop of York, Lord Winchester, Marquis of, se? Paulet, William

Keeper, 237. (1), John (2), William (3, 4), John (5). Isy4, 192. Winchilsea, Earl of, see Finch, Thomas (1), Williams, Sir Roger, 265. Heneage (2). Williams, John ( -—1559), cr. Lord Williams Winchilsea, Countess of, see Finch, Mary.

Willingdon, Sussex, 43. Windebank, Sir Francis, 608. Willoughby family, Lords Brooke, 193 (see Windebank, Thomas, 698-9. Greville, Elizabeth). Windham, Edward, 226, 231.

Willoughby family, of Wollaton, 27, 186,197, Windsor, Berks., Dean and Chapter of, 408;

340, 379, 534, 584. Great Park, 420.

Willoughby of Parham, family, 469. Windsor family, 139, 186, 221, 469, 584, 614. Willoughby d’Eresby, Lady, see Bertie, Mary. Windsor, Andrew, 1st Lord, 192. Willoughby @Etesby, Lord, see Bertie, Pere- Windsor, Edward (1533-75), 3rd Lord, succ.

erine (11), Robert Earl of Lindsey (12). ryy8, 638, 760.

Willoughby, Ambrose, 225. Windsor, Henry (1562-1605), 5th Lord, Willoughby, Cassandra, d. of Sir Thomas succ. 1S 8s, 477, 536, 760, 777-8.

Ridgway, w. of Francis, 658. Windsor, Thomas (1591-1641), 6th Lord,

Willoughby, Charles (1536-1612), 2nd Lord succ. 160f, 57, 221, 706 n., 717. Willoughby of Parham, succ. 1574, 760. Windsor, William, 2nd Lord, 404; daughter of,

Willoughby, Elizabeth, see Greville. see Sandys, Elizabeth. Willoughby, Sir Francis, of Wollaton, 108, Wine, Sweet Wine Farm, 424, 426-7, 483, 773;

349, §40, 559, $52, 554, 557, 597- imports, §85; impost on, in Ireland, 428; prices,

658. in Ireland, 438 n.

Willoughby, Francis, m. Cassandra Ridgway, control of, 436; retailing, 428; — licensing of,

Willoughby, Francis (1614-66), 5th Lord Wines, Butlerage of, 424; French and Rhenish, Willoughby of Parham, succ. his brother Customs On, 427, 773. 1618, m. Elizabeth Cecil, d. of Viscount Wing, Bucks., 298, 730. Wimbledon, 171, 356, 433,498, 752,716,777. Wingfield, Derby., 549.

Willoughby, Sir Henry, 608, 650. Wingfield, Sir Edward, 458.

540, 685. 606.

Willoughby, Sir Percival, of Wollaton, 336, Wingfield, John, m. Susan Grey, wée Bettie, Willoughby, Robert, rst Lord Willoughby Wingfield, Sir Richard, 1st Viscount Powers-

de Broke, 203. coutt (I.), 109.

Willoughby, William (¢. 1515-74), nephew Wingfield, Susan, Dowager Countess of Kent,

of William, 8th Lord Willoughby d’Eresby, d. of Catherine, Dowager Duchess of

INDEX 841 Suffolk, and Richard Bertie, m. 1. Reginald 269, 301, 308-9, 315, 318, 352, 359, 372,

Grey, Earl of Kent, 2. John Wingfield, 376, 382, 393, 414, 420, 427, 475, 477>

418, 606. 479, 483-4, 520, 532, 569, 582, 606, Gog,

Winston, Sir Henry, 42. 665-6, 709, 739, 760, 773, 778, 794.

Winwood, Sir Ralph, 108. Wriothesley, Mary, Countess of Southamp-

Wirksworth, Derby., 343. ton, d. of Anthony Browne, Viscount

Wiseman, William, of Braddocks, Essex, Montagu, 2nd w. of Henry 2nd Earl of

730. Southampton, 172 n., 739.

Woburn Abbey, Beds., 684. Wriothesley, Thomas, 1st Earl of SouthWollaton House, Notts., 550, 552, 554. ampton, 192, 204, 206, 219, 549, 673. Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal, 123, 212, 265, Wriothesley, Thomas (1608-67), 4th Earl of 403, 481, 496, 554, Gor, 605, 673, 703. Southampton, succ. 7624, 308, 321, 359-60,

Wolverhampton, Staffs., 732. 363, 376, 497, §OI, 510, 571, 609, 626,

Wolversey House, Hants, 221. 686, 761, 779.

esSeS). 704.

Women, 167-8, 173-4, $79, 590-9, 612, 619- Wroth, Mary, d. of Robert Sydney, 1st Earl 23, 635, 661-2, 676, 738-9 (see also Heer- of Leicester, w. of Sir Robert Wroth, M.P.,

Woodhouse, Sir William, 75. Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 206; Rebellion, 203, 218.

Woodrington family, 232. Wyclif, John, 706, 727. Woolsthorpe, Leics., 302. Wycliffe family, 289.

Worcester, 231. Wylsford, Sir Thomas, 458. Worcester, Earl of, see Tiptoft, John; Somer- Wynn family, 27.

set, William (3), Edward (4), Henry ist Wynn, John, 685.

Marquis (5). Wynn, Sir John, 23, 387, 513, 610, 613 n.,

Worcester, Marquis of, see Somerset, Henry, 625, 681, 685.

5th Earl (1), Edward (2). Wynn, Meredith, 228.

Worcestershire, 356. Wynn, Sir Owen, 599, 611. Wormleighton, Warws., 298. Wynn, Sir Richard, 394. Worth Forest, Sussex, 346.

Wortley, Eleanor, see Rich. Yardley Hastings, Northants., 302.

Wotton, Surrey, 685. Yarmouth, I.W., 262.

Wotton, Sir Edward (1548-1625), cr. Lord Yelverton, Charles, 232. Wotton 1603, m. 2. Margaret Wharton, 88, Yelverton, Edward, 730.

100, 439, 623-4. Yelverton, Sir Henry, 112.

Wotton, Sir Henry, 29, 210, 420, 459, 719. York, 250, 734, 7513; Archbishop of, 407, 415-

Wotton, Margaret, Lady Wotton, d. of 16, 473-4; See of, 424. Philip 3rd Lord Wharton, 2nd w. of Yorkshire, 37-38, 67, 70, 232, 238, 253, 280-1,

Edward Lord Wotton, 564. 292, 302, 342, 344, 347, 354, 388, 435, 467,

Wotton, Thomas (1588-1630), 2nd Lord, 485, $11, 552, 624-5, 684, 733, 754, 7723

succ. 7625, 171. East Riding of, 285, 321; West Riding of, ing, 109. Younger Sons, 265-6, 589, 591, 599-Go1, 648,

Wray, Edward, of Glentworth, m. the follow- 264, 344, 5133; Richmondshire, 251.

Wray, Elizabeth, d. of Francis 2nd Lord 654; of gentry, 40, §1, 213, 246, 468, 475; of

Notris, w. of above, 109. peers, 27, 135, 169, 175, 180, 192, 443, 447,

Wren, Matthew, Bishop, 239. 475, 626-7, 690, 7or.

Wright, Robert, 735. Youghall, Co. Cork, 513. Wriothesley family, 60, 138, 359, 395, 739.

Wriothesley Elizabeth, Countess of South- Zouche family, 186, 584.

ampton, d. of Sir John Vernon, w. of | Zouche, Edward (1556-1625), 11th Lord, Henry 3rd Earl of Southampton, 606. succ. 169, 296, 367, 449, 461, 552, 581, Wriothesley, Henry (1545-81), 2nd Earl of 710, 760, 778. Southampton, succ. 1ys0,m. MaryBrowne, Zouche, George (1526-69), toth Lord, succ.

208, 214, 595, 739, 760. 1572, 760.

Wriothesley, Henry (1573-1624), 3rd Earl Zouche, John, 8th Lord, 629. of Southampton, succ. ry8z, m. Eliza- Zouche, Richard, 9th Lord, 663 n.; natural beth Vernon, 158, 172n., 225-6, 231, 267, daughter of, see Gtey, Dorothy.

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