Durham E-Theses The Social Production of Gentility and Capital in Early Modern England: The Newtons of Lincolnshire. NEWTON, RUSSELL,SCOTT,HENRY How to cite: NEWTON, RUSSELL,SCOTT,HENRY (2017) The Social Production of Gentility and Capital in Early Modern England: The Newtons of Lincolnshire., Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12108/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 The Social Production of Gentility and Capital in Early Modern England: The Newtons of Lincolnshire. Russell Newton A thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Durham England September 2016 ABSTRACT The Social Production of Gentility and Capital in Early Modern England: The Newtons of Lincolnshire. Russell Newton This thesis has two principal aims; first, to examine and illuminate the social production of gentility and capital which was experienced by the Newton family between the early part of the seventeenth century and c.1743. Secondly, to ask larger questions about the social production of identity and capital in this period. The approach to these aims has been to blend the conceptual paradigms offered by complexity, post-structuralism and social constructionism in a new way, applying that new interpretive scheme principally to the letter-books of the family between c.1660 and c.1743. Previous gentry and social mobility studies have been governed by philosophical and linguistic tenets which have been radically challenged in the last few decades by post-structuralism, social constructionism and complexity. This thesis begins with the proposition that English society was a complex social network in a wider complex adaptive system. At the micro-level all social individuals had certain inseparable imperatives which follow from the pre-conditions for socialised human beings to form a complex adaptive system, and were expressed as five imperatives. These imperatives, expressed in everyday iterated exchanges in a social network, articulated inert resources into capital in the form of real estate, currency and credit - physically, discursively and reflexively. Gentry identity was likewise a recursive social production, which articulated a neutral social individual into a gentleman, esquire, or baronet. The same repeated social processes produced a tenant, almsmen and women, rector, burgess and spouse. The gaps, dynamic chains of substitutions, and variation (which characterised the complex material space and the social network) made these productions broadly stable, but also contingent, contested and uncertain. Capital and identities were flows rather than things; they were economies, characterised as a flux of valencies in a state of unstable equilibrium. The economic and status mobility demonstrated by the Newton family in the period was made possible because capital and identity were these economies. 1 CONTENTS Abstract 1 List of maps, plates and figures 4 Abbreviations 5 Statement of copyright 6 Acknowledgements 7 Dedication 8 Note on conventions 9 Introduction 28 Chapter 1 Making a gentleman 72 Chapter 2 Lending land 115 Chapter 3 Gathering land 150 Chapter 4 Moving and holding money 191 Chapter 5 Lending money 232 Chapter 6 Making parish names 268 Chapter 7 Making a burgess 301 Conclusion 355 2 Appendices Appendix 1 Genealogical tables 379 Appendix 2 Lincolnshire gentry families temp. Charles II 385 Appendix 3 The fractal dimension of Lincolnshire settlements 391 in 1563, 1603, 1676, 1706, and 1723 Bibliography 393 Glossary of terms 428 3 List of maps, plates and figures Maps Map 1 Places mentioned in the text (1662) 10 Map 2 The Lincolnshire topography 11 Map 3 The Culverthorpe estate near Heydour 12 Map 4 Grantham area, showing parishes mentioned in the text 13 Map 5 Grantham town, seventeenth-century 14 Map 6 Kingswood forest and 'liberties', 1750 15 Map 7 Kingswood forest, 1610 16 Map 8 King's Square (later Soho Square), Westminster 17 Plates Plate 1 Jack Newton, c.1674 18 Plate 2 Sir Jack Newton, c.1700 19 Plate 3 Mistress Abigail Newton, wife of Jack Newton 20 Plate 4 Cary Coke, daughter of Jack Newton 21 Plate 5 Edward Coke, husband of Cary Coke 22 Plate 6 Sir Michael Newton, son of Sir Jack Newton 23 Plate 7 Margaret, Countess of Coningsby, wife of Sir Michael 24 Plate 8 The London and Lincolnshire houses 25 Plate 9 Coats of arms, c.1450-1743 26 Plate 10 Almshouses at Barkston, Lincolnshire 27 Figures Figure 1 Lincolnshire gentry income c.1660 32 Figure 2 Number of letters by most popular subject matter 37 Figure 3 The twenty largest correspondents, by name 39 Figure 4 Geographical analysis of letter distribution 42 Figure 5 Letters and documents, number by decade, 1532-1743 58 Figure 6 Number of correspondents by relationship 59 Figure 7 Steward letters, number by decade, 1660-1720 117 Figure 8 Tenure of principal stewards, 1660-1730 126 Figure 9 Annual transaction volumes, Hoare's bank, 1695-1714 205 4 Abbreviations Add. Mss Additional manuscript at the British Library BL British Library BOE Bank of England CAM Committee for the Advancement of Money CCEd Clergy of the Church of England database CCR Calendar of Close Rolls CSPD Calendar of State Papers, Domestic series CTP Calendar of Treasury Papers DNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography EcHR Economic History Review GBQS Grantham borough quarter sessions at LRO GHB Grantham hall book (minutes of the Grantham corporation at LRO) GRO Gloucester record office Harl. Harleian Society Publications HB Hoare's Bank HC The Herald's College, or College of Arms HCCD High Court of Chivalry database HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission JBS Journal of British Studies JHC Journal of the House of Commons JHL Journal of the House of Lords IPM Inquisition post-mortem LCC Archdeaconry of Lincoln Consistory Court LRO Lincoln record office LMA London and Metropolitan Archives PCC Prerogative Court of Canterbury RO Record office TNA The National Archives VCH Victoria County History 5 Statement of copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author's prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 6 Acknowledgements This thesis is the outcome of more than six years of work which was only made possible by the assistance and encouragement of several people. The Monson archive which makes up about half of the total Newton archive was made available for digitisation with the kind permission of the trustees of the tenth Lord Monson and the Lincolnshire record office. Without that permission this study simply could not have been undertaken. It is a pleasure to note the kind help of archivists and curators, and in particular Dr. Christine Hiskey at Holkham Hall, Pamela Hunter at Hoare's Bank, Lynsey Darby at the College of Arms, Christopher Corben at the Dorset County Museum, and the staff at the Gloucester and Lincolnshire record offices. Thanks are likewise due to Professor Richard Cust, Birmingham University for access to the offline database of chivalry cases. I am indebted and grateful to Thomas, Earl of Leicester, for access to the manuscripts at Holkham Hall in Norfolk, and for permission to reproduce the portraits of Abigail Newton, as well as Cary and Edward Coke. Great thanks are also due to Mrs. Susan Clarke of Culverthorpe Hall in Lincolnshire, for permission to reproduce the portraits of Sir Jack Newton and Sir Michael Newton. I am also very pleased to notice Dr. John Manterfield, who was kind enough to make some of his excerpts, from the Grantham corporation minute book relating to the making of freemen, available to me for chapter seven. He also kindly made the printer's draft of the Lincoln Record Society volume 106, of which he is the editor, available to me in advance of its launch on 30 September this year. More personal thanks must be made to my undergraduate mentors Professor Eric Clarke, Heather Professor of Music at Oxford University and Professor Malcolm Troup, both formerly of the Music Department, The City University, London; and to Professor Chris Norris of the English Department of the University of Cardiff, who encouraged my interest in Jacques Derrida. This thesis would not have been possible without the continuing and painstaking support of Professor Andy Wood, who has smoothed the way for me during my grief at the loss of my first wife Sally in 2011, and driven me away from critical theory and towards historical writing; and, I hope, a more clear Anglo-Saxon empirical style. 7 To Tiggy, Helen, Charlotte and Elizabeth 8 Note on conventions 1. Note on transcription conventions ( ) - author insertions to explain or make sense of the quotation; [ ] - word is hard to discern with certainty; all italic emphases are the author's unless otherwise stated; ff is rendered F; & is rendered 'and'; the Y thorn is normalised; spellings are otherwise not normalised to modern English. 2. Note on dates Dates are per the contemporary calendar, but the year is stated to begin on 1 January. 3. Note on names John Newton is called Sir John Newton after his succession to the baronetcy in 1662.