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OF CROMWELLIAN ENGLAND by Gilbert Farthing

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OF CROMWELLIAN ENGLAND by Gilbert Farthing THE COUNTRY-CITY "ALLIANCE" OF CROMWELLIAN ENGLAND 1658 - 1660 by Gilbert Farthing B.A., University of London, 1950. A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of HISTORY We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard. THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA April 1962 s In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. ABSTRACT ii This thesis originated in an attempt to explain the Restoration of Charles II. If the Puritan Revolution had been, as it was portrayed in school history lessons, a successful revolt of "the people" against a tyrant, why was the iyyant's libidinous son joyfully welcomed-.; less than twenty years after the revolt? From reading the two major works of the past century which had specifically dealt with this period — Guizot and Davies — it emerged that "the people" had very little to do with the Revolution, and still less with the Restoration. Guizot's emphasis on the part played by General Monk obviously arose from the author's tendency to narrate events rather than probe for causes. Davies, completing the long ser• ies of works begun by Gardiner and continued by Firth, was also largely concerned with narration. From his work, however, it became reasonably clear that the strings which controlled Monk's actions were pulled by a comparatively small group of men. Interestingly, almost all these men (as Monk himself realised) had at one time or another been bitterly opposed to the regime of Charles I. Most had participated in the Civil War on Parliament's side, and one at least had signed the warrant for Charles1s execution. Further reading confirmed the idea that the engineers of the Restoration were a small elite. They appeared to include three inter• woven but reasonably distinct groups: country landowners, City finan• ciers and merchants, and a group of professional men (mostly lawyers) who functioned as a kind of link. Subsequent research was directed to the task of identifying these groups, examining their procedures, and iii seeking to explain their actions and aims, with particular reference to the years 1658-1660. The materials used were necessarily confined to printed books, and (on account of cost) largely to those sources available in the Library at the University of British Columbia. With• in those limits the investigation has been as thorough as possible. The plan of the thesis is in part chronological, but the main emphasis is on more general factors. The Table of Contents (on page iv) gives a reasonably clear picture of the line followed. Since the investigation was concerned largely with the aims and procedures of the elite, there are few conclusions in the syllogistic or allegedly scientific sense. One general conclusion is that aims were primarily based on the supposition that the status of an elite depends on an ostentatious display of material wealth, and hence on great differences in material possessions. This, more than intrinsic unkindness or stupidity, made it necessary to ensure that the lower classes were kept ignorant and poor; and the procedures of the elite were therefore directed mainly to this end. Another general conclusion is that these procedures were eminently successful. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1. Introduction. page 1. Chapter 2. The Second Session of Cromwell's Second Parliament. page 23. Chapter 3. Land. page 39. Chapter 4. Money. page 54. Chapter 5. London. Page 70. Chapter 6. Richard's Parliament. page 90. Chapter 7. Professions and the Law. page 107. Chapter 8. Control of the Lower Classes. page 122. Chapter 9. General Monk. page 136. Chapter 10. •Strange Interlude. page 144. Chapter 11. Convention Parliament. page 163. Chapter 12. Conclusion. page 182. Appendix 1, Members of Parliament, 1658-1660. page 193. Appendix 2. Wages and Prices. page 237. Appendix 3. Personnel of the Country-City Alliance. page 239. Bibliography. page 249. CHAPTER I 1 INTRODUCTION For a great many Englishmen and Scotsmen the spring of 1660 was a time of wild celebration over the return to England of the Stuart monarch, Charles II. Most of the witnesses who at the time set down their impressions stressed the sense of relief experienced in al• most all sections of a population which had seen maypoles and theatres destroyed by zealots, and had even been forbidden to celebrate Christ- masI Astute observers such as Pepys noticed in passing that a good deal of the jubilation was adroitly assisted by an open-handed distri- Z bution of liquor. Archibald Johnston of Wariston, a Republican 3 doomed to execution, was one among the few who deplored the turn of events. "At the tyme of the bonfyres their was great ryot, excesse, extravagancy, superfluity, vanity, naughtinesse, profanetye, drinking of healths; the Lord be merciful to us." On Charles's birthday, 29 May, there was a great procession through the City of London. The wealthy merchant and speculator, Richard Brown, rode in front. Hundreds of gentlemen in rich clothes and members of the city companies wearing gold chains followed him to Whitehall, "where Monk was invested with the garter and sworn of the privy-council, and sir Anthony Ashley Cooper was also made a privy- S councillor." Brown and Cooper and Monk had all fought on the Parliamentary side during the Civil Wars, though apparently none had ceased to give general support to the idea of monarchy. More remarkable still, the machinery for Charles's restoration had been set in motion by the last 6 actions of the Long Parliament, a body of men described by Monk as Y "the same that brought the King to the block." Writing of this period from the comparative vantage point of the 1720's, John Oldmixon probably underestimated the underlying effects of Royalist irreconcilability; but he was justified in ascribing to the "Loyal Party" a minor share in the actual work of restoration, "after Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Mr. Annesly, Admiral Montague, General Monk, and other Presbyterians had done the Business. The Loyal Party had not a Town, a Castle, nor Fort, nor Ship to deliver him, nor Troop of Horse nor Company of Foot." It was true also that the colonels of the Parliamentary army, a3 listed by Oldmixon, included many from "the most noble and opulent Families in England"; and that those who survived the Interregnum almost all supported the return of the Stuart monarch. Subsequent historians showed little interest in this apparent volte-face of the victorious Parliamentarians. Where they recognised it at all, they commonly ascribed it to anarchy following the death of Oliver Cromwell, and/or reaction against the severe moral code of the Puritans. Of course, both anarchy and reaction played some part in bringing about the restoration of Charles II. The implication that economic or political affairs were so far beyond the control of the Parliamentarians as to constitute genuine anarchy is, however, mis• leading. So is the implication that between 1640 and 1660 there was any serious change of view among the Parliamentarians. The desire of the wealthy for an obigarchy cloaked by constitutional 3 monarchy remained constant. The political experimentation of the Interregnum, which in spite of difficulties was almost always in practice directly or indirectly controlled by the wealthy, encouraged the emergence of many ideas which ultimately contributed to the system of responsible Parlaimentary government.' This period witnessed the development, in the absence of the king, of a cadre of paid agents owing their allegiance primarily to ministers or to Parliament itself - the beginnings of a permanent Civil Service. It showed too the need for an instrument of coercion permanently at the disposal of the oligarchy, and pointed to a solution in the.form of a regular army officered by professionals drawn from the less affluent branches of wealthy families. The anarchy of 1658 - 1660 was carefully controlled so as to encourage reaction among the lower classes, many of whom continued to harbour dangerous ideas about individual rights and privileges. The Restoration was tangible evidence of the political failure of groups seeking to improve the status of the poorer classes. It meant a firm assumption of political control by the rich, which went far towards completing the oligarchic aims of the original Parliamentary party. Recent studies of such groups as Levellers, Diggers and Saints show that democratic and libertarian theories had a powerful in• fluence during the years 1647 to 1654, with particular strength in the armed forces. The establishment of oligarchic government in England, rather than military dictatorship or theocracy or even democ• racy, did not in those years seem a foregone conclusion. However, 4 this period of political activity by the lower classes was contempo• raneous with a period of vigorous economic activity by the landowners, financiers and professional men who had engineered the Civil War. The democrats were vocal, but the oligarchs were picking up the pro• fits; and it seems clear in retrospect that verbal opposition was at any rate preferable to economic competition. When the period of easy gains ended the wealthy had little difficulty in asserting their political superiority. Another commonly-expressed opinion is that which ascribes the re- establishment of the Stuart monarchy to the weakness of Richard Cromwell, combined with an alleged monarchical tradition among the 13 people.
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