The Impact of the English Civil War on the Economy of London, 1642-1650, by Ben Coates
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Impact of the English Civil War on the Economy of London, 1642-1650, by Ben Coates. Abstract. The purpose of this thesis is to ask to what extent and in what ways the economy of London was affected by the English Civil War. This w ill be placed in the context of the evolution o f London’s economy and society in the 16th and 17th centuries. Comparisons with the impact of the C ivil War on the economy of other parts of England will be made. The focus w ill be on the short term effects of the C ivil War. In the first part of thesis the impact on the economy of London of Parliamentary taxation, loans and contracts for Parliament’s war effort w ill be assessed, as well as the policies of economic blockade pursued by the belligerents. Subsequently the impact of disruption brought about by the English C ivil War on the major props of the London economy w ill be examined, namely London’s role in the internal and external trades of England, and manufacturing in London. It w ill be argued that the C ivil War caused a major economic crisis in London partly because the economy of the metropolis rested on its interrelationship with the test of England, and also because of its function as the capital as the centre for the social and economic networks of the kingdom. The Civil War disrupted those networks. However the impact of the war was limited because the disruption of the national economic networks was partial, and because different aspects were disrupted at different times. The Impact of the English Civil War on the Economy of London, 1642-1650 Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor o f Philosophy at the University of Leicester. Ben Coates, Centre for Urban History University of Leicester. June 1997. UMI Number: U095656 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U095656 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Contents Abbreviations and conventions___________________________________2 Prsface _______________________________________________________5. 1 London on the Eve of the English Civil War_____________________£ 2 The Civil War and the English Economy______________________28 3 Parliamentary Taxation and Levies ___________________________4 7 Appendix. Receipts from Parliamentary Taxation 91 4 Parliamentary Loans and Finance ____________________________93 5 Supplying Parliaments Armed Forces _______________________120 6 Economic Warfare --------------------------------------------------------------------- LS2 7 Domestic Trade and Consumption __________________________UL8 8 International Trade and Shipping _________________________123 9 Manufacturing Industry -------------------------------------------------------------- If if i 10 Economic Trends In London Purina the English Revolution U S Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21£ Bibliography _____________________________________________ 2 2 0 1 Abbreviations and conventions Place of publication is London unless otherwise stated. Dates are given in the old style except that the year is taken to begin on 1 January. Barts. St Bartholomew’s Hospital, East Smithficld, Archives. BL British Library. Add. MS Additional manuscript. E Thomason Tracts, pamphlets and newsbooks. 669 Thomason Tracts, broadsides. Harl. MS Harieian manuscript. CHOC Oriental and India Office Collections. Bodl. Bodleian Li bran . c c a m M . A. E. Green, (ed.), Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Advance of Money. 1642-1654. (3 vols., 1888). ccgp M. A. E. Green, (ed.), Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding. 1643-1660. (5 vols., 1889- 1892). CCME1C E. B. Sainsbury, (ed.), A Calendar of the Court Minutes etc. of the East India Company. 1635-71. (11 vols. Oxford, 1909- 1938). CH Cloth workers’ Company Hall Archives. 01 Journal of the House of Commons. CLRO Corporation of London Record Of fice. Jour. Journal of the Court of Common Council. Rep. Repertory of the Court of Aldermen. W. J. Hardy, (ed.), Middlesex Countv Records. Calendar of the Session Bcx)ks, (21 Abbreviations vols., typescript, 1911-23, consulted at the Greater London Library). CSP Coi Calendar of State Papers Colonial. CSPD Calendar of State Papers Domestic. £SEV Calendar of State Papers Venetian. om L. Stephens and S. Lee, (cds.) Dictionary of National Biography. (63 vols., 1885-19(X)). EcHR Economic History Review. HiB English Historical Review. Firth & Rail C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, (cds.), The Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum. 1642- 1660. (3 vols., 1911). GL Guildhall Library. GLRO Greater London Record Office. HJ Historical Journal. HMC Roval Commission on Historical Manuscripts. JBS Journal of British Studies. Larkin J. F Larkin, (ed.) Stuart Proclamations. Volume 11. Roval Proclamations of Charles 1. 1625-1646. (Oxford, 1983). U Journal of the House of Lords. Mfcd The Mariner's Mirror. O ffi J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary. (2nd edition, Oxford, 1989). P&P Past and Present. ftnvell& Timings J. R. Powell and E. K. Timings, Documents Relating to the Civil War. 1642-1648. (Naval Record Society, 1963). PRO Public Record Office. Adm Admiralty. AO Audit Office. C Chancery. E Exchequer. HCA High Court of Admiralty. 3 Abbreviations SP State Papers. Rushworth Collections J. Rushworth, Historical Collections of Private Passages of State. (8 vols., second edition, 1721-2). TRHS Transactions of the Roval Historical Society. m i Victoria Countv History . WAC Westminster City Archive Centre. Whitelocke, Memorials B. Whitelocke, Memorials of English Affairs. (4 vols., Oxford, 1853). 4 Preface This thesis is a revised version of that which I originally submitted in October 1995. It w as then referred by the examiners for alterations. Because of the constraints of the word limit, draft chapters w hich dealt w ith the sen ice sector, and the social consequences of the economic impact of the civil wars, had to be omitted. I hope to be able to present my findings in the omitted chapters clsew here at a later date. Any doctoral student’s first debt of gratitude must be to his supervisor; in my case Professor Peter Clark. 1 thank him for his encouragement, patience and criticism. Professor Clark is responsible for the creation and continued success of the Urban History Centre at Leicester University, w ithout which I would probably never have embarked on this thesis. Its continuance is a major achievement in the climate of financial stringency which has afflicted Higher Education since the 1980s. I must also thank my examiners, Dr Vanessa Harding and Dr Paul Griffiths, for their unfailing encouragement and assistance in the re-drafting of this thesis, w hich has undoubtedly immeasurably improved it from the text with which they had previously to cope. A great number of people who have worked at the Centre for Urban History have provided me with help and support while I have been working on this project, especially Dr YohKawanaand Phil Know les w ith w hom I have enjoyed innumerable discussions about my work. My thanks are also due to Dr Ian Roy, Professor John M iller, Dr Richard Hoyle and Professor Henry Roseveare for all their ideas and assistance. I would also like to thank Dr Stephen Porter for generously sharing his own work on the economy of Civil War London w ith me. I must also record my considerable debt to the staff at the various record officers and libraries listed in the Bibliography , especially the Public Record Office and the Guildhall. I would particularly like to thank David Wickham, archivist of the Clothw orkers’ Company , for all his help and hospitality. Finally I must thank Mrs Rosalind Collier, w ho also happens to be my mother, for her untiring efforts to teach me to write and think for as long as I can remember. All the faults, omissions, mistakes and misconceptions arc, of course, entirely my own work. Financially this thesis was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, w ho granted me a research studentship from 1991 to 1994, and by the unfailing generosity of my grandparents, Mrs Pam Cohen and the late M r Leo Cohen, both financially and otherwise. 5 1. London on the Eve of the English Civil War An analysis of the impact of the English Civil War would be impossible without a close examination of the pre-war condition of the economy of London. Did the war affect an economy which was already in crisis, or one which was fundamentally strong and prosperous? There is no single answer to this question, partly because London's economy was so diverse, with some parts growing more strongly and some clearly declining. It was originally intended to include the entire metropolis in this study, but this has proved impractical in terms of the permitted word limit, it was therefore decided to focus on London’s closely interrelated trading and manufacturing sectors. This means that very little attention will be paid to the ‘west end’ , dominated by the Royal Court, the law and the landowning elite, that is to say, the sen ice sector. Although this sector was interconnected with the other parts of the economy it was also relatively discrete, in a number of respects the impact of the war on the service sector was distinct and therefore deserving of fuller consideration than is possible here.1 (i) Demography and Social Structures The development of the economy of London needs to be placed in its demographic context. Throughout the early modem period it dwarfed all other English cities and was grow ing very fast.