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Continuity & Change in English Provincial Politics: Robert Paston in Norfolk, 1675-1683*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
The practice of politics and the nature of government in England were transformed in the reign of Charles II, and recently, the scope and significance of this transformation has received renewed attention. For some years the historiographical spotlight focused on an earlier period, and debate centered upon the genesis of the civil wars and revolution. That is changing, but though a number of historians have once again turned their attention to the Restoration regime, a generally accepted account of the changes of the period has not yet emerged. The earlier historical consensus about some of the major issues of the period—the king's political goals, the importance of the Exclusion Crisis, and the impact of the radical tradition, to name a few—has been subjected to a good deal of critical scrutiny of late.
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- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1993
Footnotes
*
I would like to thank several friends and colleagues for their comments and advice on earlier drafts of this paper, particularly Tom Cogswell, Chris Kimball, Mark Kishlansky, Peter Lake, Sue Marchand, Ed Muir, and Meredith Veldman. I owe a particular debt to Jim Rosenheim, who rescued me from a number of errors. I am also very grateful to the anonymous readers for this journal, who made many helpful suggestions for revisions. Whatever flaws that remain are my own.
References
1 Many able historians have addressed the Restoration political scene: Andrew Browning, David Ogg, John Miller, J. R. Jones, and J. P. Kenyon all helped create the historiographical consensus that has dominated the field since the 1930s.
2 Recent works that have substantially added to our understanding of the later Stuart period include Hutton, Ronald, Charles II (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar; Kishlansky, Mark, Parliamentary Selection (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fletcher, Anthony, Reform in the Provinces (New Haven, 1987)Google Scholar, Harris, Tim, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar, Seaward, Paul, The Cavalier Parliament and the Reconstruction of the Old Regime (Cambridge, 1989)Google Scholar, Scott, Jonathan, Algernon Sidney and the English Revolution (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar, and Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar, and the essays in Harris, Tim, Seaward, Paul, and Goldie, Mark, eds., The Politics of Religion in Restoration England (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar.
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9 Derek Hint makes the same point in his review essay, “Local Affairs in Seventeenth Century England,” Historical Journal 32 (1989): 445Google Scholar. The king's preference for lenience in the pursuit of dissenters is a case in point, as was his attempt to compromise with Shaftesbury in 1679.
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22 Bodleian Library, Oxford, Tanner MS. 42 f.148.
23 N[orfolk] R[ecord] O[ffice], Bradfer-Lawrence Ic, vol. 1; John Gough to lord Yarmouth, 7 May 1675.
24 Ibid; J. Hurton to Yarmouth, 26 April 1675.
25 Bodleian Library, Tanner MS. 42 f.148.
26 NRO, Bradfer-Lawrence Ic, vol. 1, Holland to Mr. Bernard, 1 April, 1675.
27 Ibid., William De Grey to the Gentlemen and Freeholders of Thompson and Tottington, 1 May 1675.
28 This account of the election is based upon BL, Add. Mss. 27447, f. 344, and Bodl. Tanner MS. 42 f. 148; See also Rosenheim, , “Norfolk Gentry,” pp. 213-17Google Scholar, and History of Parliament, 1: entry for Norfolk.
29 BL, Add. Mss. 27447, f. 352.
30 See DNB, sv. “Robert Paston, first earl of Yarmouth,” and the profile of the Pastons in Ketton-Cremer, R. W., Norfolk Portraits (London, 1944), pp. 58–68Google Scholar.
31 His first cousin the earl of Lindsey was Danby's brother-in-law in addition to being one of his closest political allies. It was also very probably Danby who secured Yarmouth the lucrative receivership of the greenwax in 1677. DNB, “Robert Paston,” Rosenheim, , The Townshends, p. 37Google Scholar.
32 NRO, Bradfer-Lawrence Ic, vol. 1, John Hurt on to Yarmouth, 7 May 1675, and John Gough to Yarmouth, 7 May 1675.
33 BL, Add. Mss. 27447, f. 353.
34 NRO, Bradfer-Lawrence Ic, vol. 1, Owen Hughes to Lady Paston, 17 January 1676.
35 PRO SP29/379/46; NRO, Bradfer-Lawrence Ic, vol. 1, John Gough to Lady Yarmouth, 28 February, 1676.
36 BL, Add. Mss. 36988, f. 109.
37 Ibid., f. 107.
38 NRO, Bradfer-Lawrence Ic, vol. 1, Doyly to Lady Yarmouth, 31 March 1676.
39 Ibid., M. B. to Lady Yarmouth, 2 April 1676.
40 BL, Add. Mss. 36988, f. 113. Lady Yarmouth's correspondent was alluding to an earlier incident in which her husband was robbed at gunpoint on the highway near London.
41 BL, Add. Mss. 27447, f. 357.
42 NRO, Bradfer-Lawrence Ic, vol. 1, Yarmouth to Lady Yarmouth, 14 April 1676.
43 For more details on the increased effectiveness and enthusiasm with which the militia was taken during the Restoration, see Anthony Fletcher, Reform in the Provinces, ch. 9, and my forthcoming monograph Noble Government: The Stuart Lord Lieutenancy and the Transformation of English Politics, ch. 3.
44 Cherry, David, “Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, Non-Juror His Politics, Fortune, and Family,” Norfolk Archaeology 34 (1968): 314Google Scholar.
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47 BL, Add. Mss. 41656, f. 54.
48 Ibid.
49 Raynham Hall, Townshend Mss., box 3. Townshend to Lord Keeper Bridgeman, 10 January 1668. I thank the Marquis Townshend for his permission to consult these documents.
50 BL, Add. Mss. 41654, f. 66, quoted in Rosenheim, , The Townshends, p. 49.Google Scholar
51 BL, Add. Mss. 27447, f. 360; Egerton Ms. 3329, f. 111.
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55 Bowers' first appearance in the state papers comes in 1665; see SP29/139/2.
56 SP29/382/42.
57 Ibid.; SP29/382/42I. Yarmouth probably accommodated the dissenting faction in an effort to smooth the path of his own schemes to develop Little Yarmouth, a near neighbor-and potential rival-to the port of Great Yarmouth.
58 SP29/382/87.
59 SP29/384/103.
60 BL, Add. Mss. 36988, f. 119v.
61 SP29/385/153, 161, 170; 386/95; 392/3.
62 BL, Add. Mss. 27447, f. 362.
63 Likely connected with his personal plans for developing Little Yarmouth.
64 SP29/402/80.
65 SP29/401/35; 402/79; for a detailed discussion of Yarmouth's activities in the county town, see Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, ch. 7.
66 For a provocative recent interpretation, see Jonathan Scott, Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis.
67 They served only about two months before they were once again sacked. See PRO, Crown Office Docquet Book C231/8, entries for 7 May and 30 July 1679. I owe this reference to the kindness of Albion's anonymous reader.
68 Charles was said to have made this comment in September 1681. HMC Ormond, n.s. VI, p. 144.
69 see History of Parliament, 1: 319-34Google Scholar.
70 For a copy of Yarmouth's circular letter (sent to the Norfolk gentry), see BL, Add. Mss. 36988, f. 134.
71 Ibid., f. 135.
72 History of Parliament, 1: entry for “Norfolk”; BL, Add. Mss. 36988, f. 138.
73 Raynham Hall, Townshend Mss. box 4, T. Townshend to lord Townshend, 5 April 1679.
74 History of Parliament, 1: entry for “Norfolk.”
75 Ibid. Yarmouth even managed to get a hold of the writ of election in the August 1679 contest in order to aid his cause (BL, Add. Mss. 27447, f. 421).
76 History of Parliament, 1: entry for “Norwich.”
77 Ibid.
78 For Yarmouth's call for a purge early in his term, see Egerton MS. 3329, f. 111.
79 Glassey, , Appointment of JPs, pp. 45–52Google Scholar; Cozens-Hardy, B., ed., Norfolk Lieutenancy Journal, 16761701 (Norfolk Record Society, 1961), pp. 30–31Google Scholar.
80 For references to Norfolk's addresses during this period, see Egerton MS. 2985, f. 240, and Cozens-Hardy, , Lieutenancy Journal, p. 33Google Scholar.
81 For example, see Cozens-Hardy, , Lieutenancy Journal, p. 43Google Scholar.
82 For accounts of some of the new charters, see Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich; C. I. Palmer, History of Yarmouth; W. Richards, History of Lynn; T. Martin, History of Thetford. For the government's campaign against municipal opposition, see Miller, J., “The Crown and the Borough Charters in the Reign of Charles II,” English Historical Review 100 (1985): 53–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pickavance, R. O., “The English Boroughs and the King's Government: a Study of the Tory Reaction, 1681-1685” (Ph.D. thesis, Oxford University, 1976)Google Scholar. For a view of the process at the regional level, see Norrey, “Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire.”
83 Coleby, Hampshire, esp. pts. 2 and 3.
84 For the importance of this generation of Restoration politicians, see Seaward, Paul, The Cavalier Parliament and the Reconstruction of the Old Regime (Cambridge, 1989)Google Scholar.
85 See Challinor, “Restoration and Exclusion,” and Bodleian Library, Clarendon State Papers, vol. 73, f. 63v.
86 For the question of Stuart Absolutism, see Miller, John, “The Potential for ‘Absolutism’ in Later Stuart England,” History (1984): 187–207Google ScholarPubMed.
87 NRO, Bradfer-Lawrence Ic, vol. 1, Owen Hughes to lady Past on, 17 January 1676. It must, however, be said that Hughes, convicted of libelling Townshend, was hardly an unbiased judge. See Rosenheim, , The Townshends, pp. 47–49Google Scholar. Thanks to Prof. Rosenheim for reminding me of this point.
88 The most important statement of this view has been made by Kishlansky in Parliamentary Selection.