1 Earl, Edward of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England begun in the Year 1641, ed. Macray, W.D., 6 vols. (Oxford, 1888), 2:226 Google Scholar.

2 Hobbes, Thomas, Behemoth in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury ed. SirMolesworth, W., 11 vols. (London, 1840-4), 6:168 Google Scholar.

3 E470(7) Persecutio Undecima (London, 1648), pp. 7-8. The text is strongly anti-Puritan and considered “lecturing house-creeping Ministers” equally responsible for the breakdown.

4 Hill, Christopher, The Century of Revolution (Edinburgh, 1961), pp. 119 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On Hill's view, see Wilson, C., “Economics and Politics in the Seventeenth Century,” in Economic History and the Historian: Collected Essays (London, 1969), pp. 1–21.Google Scholar Manning, Brian, The English People and the English Revolution 1640-1649 (London, 1976).Google Scholar Hill has characterized the work as “a Copernican revolution” in studies of the English Revolution (Spectator [3 July 1976], p. 21). It is somewhat startling to realize, however, that for all the impact Manning's Oxford D.Phil. thesis on neutralism has had, there is, in this new work no discussion of either the possibility or the reality of neutralism among the middling sort. On the contrary, neutralism is seen as a stage on the way to full fledged royalism and the Civil War is set out unambiguously as a class struggle.

5 E89 (21) Povey, T., The Moderator Expecting Sudden Peace or Certaine Ruine (London, 1643), p. 11.Google Scholar E474 (8) Powell, W., Newes for Newters (London, 1648), p. 9.Google Scholar This was a sermon delivered on 27 November 1644 at Gloucester. Powell notes in the dedication t Massey “I had hard measure in my businesse; and … this sermon was some occasion of my harder usage.” Ibid., sig. Al. That his comments on neutrality created such a stir in a town celebrated for its adherence to the parliamentary cause throughout a difficult siege perhaps suggests that the actual pattern of loyalties in Gloucester differed somewhat from the impression created by the circumstances of the siege.

6 Typical of the post-Restoration attempts to portray Newcastle as a solidly Royalist town was Astell, R., Vota Non Bella (Gateshead, 1660).Google Scholar “On my first Love my Eye was ever bent,/ Though churlish Keepers did my hand prevent; / Forcing my Purse (not Heart) strings to dilate / And tribute pay to their Utopian state” (p. 9). On Newcastle's politics, see Howell, Roger, Newcastle upon Tyne and the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1967).Google Scholar

7 Act Book of the Chamber 1634-1647 f. 137b (31 July, 1642) in HMC City of Exeter, p. 324; Andriette, E. A., Devon and Exeter in the Civil War (Newton Abbot, 1971), pp. 82-4.Google Scholar While the Exeter authorities were opposed to the association of neutrality with their neighbors, they were greatly concerned because of “the considerable number of malignant inhabitants with the unavoidable concourse of many people diversely affected likely to be in this city.” Richard Saunders and others to John Pym, 9 March 1642/3. HMC Portland 1:102.

8 See Andriette, , Devon and Exeter, pp. 83-4Google Scholar and n. 102, pp. 102-3 quoting Certaine Informations on Prideaux's “pithy speech.” See also Mercurius Auticus no. 12, 19-25 March 1643, pp. 145-6; no. 13, 26 March - 1 April 1643, pp. 156-7; E. Prideaux and A. Nicoll to W. Lenthall, 15 March 1642/3, HMC Portland 1:103.

9 On the differences of opinion between Peard and Palmer, see Cotton, R.W., Barnstaple and the Northern Part of Devonshire during the Great Civil War 1642-1646 (London, 1889), pp. 211-16.Google Scholar Andriette correctly identifies Peard as the leader of the parliamentary cause in Barnstaple. Andriette, Devon and Exeter, p. 72. The mayor of Barnstaple was in a difficult position, since the parliamentary defeat before Torrington appears to have produced something in the nature of a panic in the town. Peard argued to the Corporation against accepting the terms of Prince Maurice but common sense prevailed. Maurice's terms and the town's response to them are in British Library Add. MSS. 18980, f. 110. Parliamentary supporters tended to see the surrender as an act of treachery on the part of the mayor alone. Cf. A Perfect Diurnall of Some Passages in Parliament 4-11 September 1643, which commented on the fact that Barnstaple and Bideford were “treacherously betrayed to the King's forces … through the perfidiousness of the Maoir of Barnstable” or The Parliament Scout 7-15 September 1643, which noted “we are assured it was delivered through the cowardise of the Mayor or worse and that which makes the story most sad is there were in that Towne more True Blades for Religion and Liberties than in any Towne in England.” The town records appear to indicate, on the other hand, that many of these “true Blades,” in common with the Mayor, preferred an accommodation to a showdown.

10 Hill, Century of Revolution, p. 122.

11 Manning, English People and the English Revolution, pp. 210-15.

12 Joseph Lister, on whose autobiography Manning relies heavily, admittedly offers a picture of a solid parliamentary front. “Bradford was deeply engaged; the generality of the town and parish and the towns about, stood up for the Parliament… the inhabitants were firm to the cause, and to one another, to the very taking of the town.” Wright, T., ed., The Autobiography of Joseph Lister of Bradford in Yorkshire (London, 1842), p. 14.Google Scholar But cf. the comments in The Rider of the White Horse and His Army (London, 1643), reprinted ibid., p. 63. “Our /i.e. Bradford's/ malignant spirits before charmed, now appeared breathing forth nothing but threatenings against those who had bin most active for the Parliament: and their apparition was so terrible, as it affrighted many of the best affected persons out of the towne; and thereupon out goes our Royalists to bring in the Kings Catholick army.” On Fairfax's efforts to raise support in the area, see also Markham, C.R., A Life of the Great Lord Fairfax (London, 1870)Google Scholar, passim.

13 Wolverhampton, Handsworth, Willenshall and Bilston were all vehemently royalist. The University of Lancaster doctoral thesis of John Sutton should clarify this point considerably. See the notice of bis work in Morrill, J.S., “Provincial Squires and ‘Middling Sorts’ in the Great Rebellion,” Historical Journal, 20 (1977): 232 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The argument is explicit in Manning, English People and the English Revolution. A good deal of contemporary comment would seem to support this formulation. It was specifically noted of Bristol that social extremes favored the King while the middling sort supported Parliament. “The King's cause and party were favored by the two extreames in the city; the one the wealthy and powerful men, the other of the basest and lowest sort, but disgusted by the middle ranke, the true and best citizens.” J. Corbet, An Historicall Relation of the Military Government of Gloucester [1645], in Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis (Gloucester, 1825), p. 14. At Chichester, it was alleged “the meaner sort” were the favorers of the King. E. Higgins, et al. to W. Lenthall, 21 November 1642. HMC Portland 1:72-4. The situation in Chichester was rather more complex. See A. Fletcher, A County Community in Peace and War: Sussex 1600-1660 (London, 1975), esp. pp. 79, 234-9, 259, 264, and 279.

15 Various lists of those implicated in the plot survive, some of them giving information on the social and economic status of the participants. I have used the lists contained in E94 (30) The Copy of a Letter Sent from Bristoll (London, 1643) and E97 (6) A Full Declaration of all Particulers Concerning the March of the Forces under Collonel Fiennes to Bristol (London, 1643). While it is clear the conspirators included some representatives of the extremes, there is a solid component of “middling” tradesmen such as John Walden, hornmaker, Thomas Barrer, cutler, John Williams, hatter, John Broadway, vintner, John Taylor, ropemaker, and John Dimmock, carpenter.

16 For Newcastle, see Howell, Newcastle, chaps. 4-5 and the references cited there.

17 A study of the Gardner papers (NCX/DM/1/1-33) in the Tyne and Wear County Archives Office makes this apparent. See my edition of these papers, Monopoly on the Tyne 1650-58: Papers Relating to Ralph Gardner, Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne Record Series, no. 2 (Gateshead, 1978).

18 Tyne and Wear County Archives Office, Gardner Papers, NCX/DM/1/32, p. 10.

19 This is not to assert that the attempt to remain neutral was either easy or fool-proof. The man who refuses to choose sides is obviously under considerable pressure and his motives are often misunderstood. From the parliamentary perspective, neutrality was viewed as covert royalism. See E462 (24) Neutrality is Malignancy (London, 1648), p. 8. “For be assured, if you are not for them, you are against them; Neutrality and Moderation is the Cavaliers last refuge and a cloak for Malignancy.” The Shrewsbury merchant Jonathan Langley provides a case where neutrality was misunderstood in the opposite direction. Forced to flee to Birmingham because his neutrality in Shrewsbury was viewed as hostility to the King, he wrote to Sir Francis Ottley in February 1643 that his only desire was to return home and remain there unmolested; “I never had an intention nor yet have of taking up arms of neither side.” Farrow, W. J., The Great Civil War in Shropshire 1642-49 (Shrewsbury, 1926), pp. 28-9Google Scholar.

20 Cf. Howell, Newcastle, pp. 164 ff.

21 Bristol City Archives, Common Council Book 1627-42, f. 119 v.

22 On 11 July, the two petitions were “thought better to be staid and not to be sent as now they are in regards they have bin so long retarded.” Ibid., f. 122. In November, when the idea of the two petitions was revived the Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, and Common Council went out of their way to declare themselves “to be in love and amity one w_th another and doe desire a friendly assotiacon together in all mutuall accomodacon.” BCA Common Council Book 1642-9, p. 5. They likewise ordered the ministers of the town to meet with a committee for an “amiable accomodacon one w^th another throughout the whole Citty to the end the Ministers themselves and other of the inhabitants may be drawen” to better authority. Ibid., p. 6. Later in the month they ordered the suppressing of the wearing of colors and ribbons in hats in an attempt to curb division into parties. Ibid., p. 13.

23 Ibid., p. 21.

24 Cf. J. Latimer,. The Annals of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century (Bath, 1970 reprint edition), pp. 164-5. Latimer was suspicious of the authenticity of the story and his concerns about it cannot be wholly set aside, but it is more plausible than he allows.

25 Yeomans was alleged to have said that his commission from the King was “for the maytenance of the true Protestant Religion established in the Church of England, the King's Prerogative and safety of His Person, Priviledges of Parliament, and the liberty and propriety of the Subject and the defence of the City against all forces without the joynt consent of the Mayor, Aldermen and Common Councell amongst whom there was some difference at that time concerning the admission of any Forces.” E104 (4) The Severall Examinations and Confessions of the Treacherous Conspirators against the Citie of Bristoll (London, 1643), p. 12. Another source summed up his program as standing for “the King, the Protestant Religion, and the Liberties of this City.” E100 (31) J. Tombes, Jehovan Jirah or Gods Providence in Delivering the Godly (London, 1643), sig. A4v.

26 Two State Martyrs in Seyer, S., Memoirs Historical and Topographical of Bristol and its Neighbourhood, 2 vols. (Bristol, 1821-23), 2:373 Google Scholar.

27 Whitelocke, B., Memorials of the English Affairs from the Beginnings of the Reign of Charles I (London, 1683), p. 58 Google Scholar.

28 This seems particularly evident in the case of Barnstaple which decided on fortifying the town before Parliament had committed itself to the war and before a single Royalist soldier entered Devon. The earliest reference to fortifying the town is found in the Remembrance Book, 8 August 1642. See also Gribble, J. B., Memorials of Barnstaple (Barnstaple, 1830), pp. 443 Google Scholar ff. It was done, as Cotton remarked, “with a precipitacy which was noticed with wonder at the time.” Cotton, Barnstaple, p. 49. It is noteworthy, however, that some inhabitants resisted any encroachment on what they considered their private rights. See a warrant of the Earl of Stamford, “I am informed that some owners and Possessors of the Lands and grounds in and through w_ch the said Trench and works are to be made, preferring their own private interests and Commoditie before the publique and common good and Safetie, have hindred and opposed the doeing thereof.” Bodelian Library, Oxford, Tanner MS 62, f. 48.

29 Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, The Life of William Cavendish Duke of Newcastle, ed. C.H. Firth (London, 1886), p. 19.

30 E107 (4) The Parliaments Resolution for the Speedy Sending of an Army to the North (London, 1642), p. 2. See also E155 (18) Sir John Hotham's Resolution Presented to the King at Beverley (London, 1642) sig. A4v. which attributes the incident to a failure to pay the colliers sufficiently for work done in constructing the fort.

31 Hutchinson, L., Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson (London, 1848), p. 157.Google Scholar

32 The nobility and gentry of Nottinghamshire were predominantly royalist; Wood estimated that as many as 4/5 of “the men of weight and influence were to be found on Charles's side.” Wood, A. C., A History of Nottinghamshire (Nottingham, 1947), p. 177.Google Scholar But the degree of royalist sympathy in Nottingham itself may have been considerably less; the almost negligible response to the setting up of the King's standard at Nottingham is suggestive. Gray asserts that the town was “mainly, if not predominantly” on the side of Parliament. Gray, D., Nottingham Through 500 Years: A Short History of Town Government (Nottingham, 1949), p. 44.Google Scholar The kind of confrontation recorded by Mrs. Hutchinson is more easily explicable in terms of conflict between the Parliamentary Committee imposed on the town and the traditional ruling body of the town. Town records contain ample reference to this sort of friction. Stevenson, W. H., et al., Records of the Borough of Nottingham (London 1882-), 5:221-22, 228-32Google Scholar.

33 Bayley, A.R., The Great Civil War in Dorset 1642-1660 (Taunton, 1910), p. 103 Google Scholar.

34 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1644, p. 38; their willingness to do so may have been considerably augmented by the parliamentary attempt to establish Sunderland as a rival to Newcastle. See Howell, Newcastle, pp. 158-9.

35 669 f.6 (52) Truths from York, Hull and other Places (London, 1642). It notes that some of the townsmen wanted Hotham to surrender to the King because of the “want of trade and victuals” that would accompany a siege.

36 This was apparent both in September 1643 and September 1644. In like manner the intervening revolt of the town back to Parliament was occasioned by the approach of Essex's relieving army and the withdrawal of some of the horse that had been garrisoned at Barnstaple. It is striking that while Parliament held the town in 1644, no effort was made to repair the defences and one can conclude, as Cotton did, that “the Corporation had no inclination again to invite attack or a possible siege by a demonstration of their defences and that they were sagaciously awaiting events occurring not very far off.” Cotton, Barnstaple, p. 303.

37 Godwin, G. N., The Civil War in Hampshire 1642-45 and the Story of Basing House (Southampton, 1904), p. 76.Google Scholar

38 Corbet, Historical Relation, pp. 23-4, 30, 33-5. Corbet noted of the town that it “desired an everlasting neutrality.” Ibid., p. 24.

39 Coate, M., Cornwall in the Great Civil War and Interregnum 1642-1660 (Truro, 1963) p. 33 Google Scholar.

40 See for example, Underdown, David, Pride's Purge: Politics in the Puritan Revolution (Oxford 1971)Google Scholar, chap. 10, “The Revolution and the Communities.” In reviewing my book on Newcastle, Professor Underdown chided me for being “perhaps too cautious” in refusing to see pressure there for “a swing to the left similar to that occurring in other towns after the war.” American Historical Review, 73 (1967): 475-6.

41 Parsloe, C.G., ed., The Minute Book of Bedford Corporation 1647-1664 (Streatley, 1949)Google Scholar; C.G. Parsloe, “The Corporation of Bedford 1647-1664,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th Series, 29 (1947): 151-165; Underdown, Pride's Purge, pp. 322-23.

42 Ashford, L.J., History of the Borough of High Wycombe (London, 1960), pp. 122-44Google Scholar; Greaves, R.W., ed., First Ledger Book of High Wycombe (Aylesbury, 1956), pp. 132-58Google Scholar; Underdown, Pride's Purge, pp. 323-24 and the authorities dted p. 324 n. 62.

43 Underdown, David, “A Case Concerning Bishops’ Lands: Cornelius Burges and the Corporation of Wells,” English Historical Review, 78 (1963): 18–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Cf. Howell, Newcastle, chap. 5.

45 HMC Records of the City of Exeter, passim. The Act Books of the Chamber (pp. 324ff.) afford no evidence of the drift to the Left. There were displacements in 1646 of some aldermen, Councillors, the Recorder and the Receiver General. This does not, however, appear to have been connected with any agitation for broadening the base of civic government. See also M. Coate, “Exeter in the Civil War and Interregnum,” Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries, 18 (1935), pt. 8, pp. 338-52.

46 Nearly all towns experienced some purging, though it frequently was the result of outside interference rather than of local initiative. There was also disruption through the unwillingness of men to undertake the expensive burden of local office, as occurred in York, Southampton, and Barnstaple among others. But such examples should not disguise the existence of a middle party in virtually every town, nor cause one to underestimate the political importance of that group which adjusted to changing conditions and survived all purging. Purging.

47 Stocks, H. and Stevenson, W.H., Records of the Borough of Leicester 1603-1688 (Cambridge, 1923), p. 401 Google Scholar.

48 This statement is based on an analysis of the Common Council Books for the period. That there was potential for such conflict was made evident in 1640 when the Council was presented with a petition from the free burgesses asking that all free burgesses might take part in the election of parliamentary representatives, a request that was denied. BCA Common Council Book 1627-42, f. 108. It is possible that the appointment of a committee in 1657 to draw up rules for “more regular and grave debating” may be connected with some sort of popular pressure, but the rules as drawn, which emphasize the role of the mayor, suggest little inroad was made. BCA Common Council Book 1649-59, pp. 142, 145. On the eve of the Restoration, the activities of Bristol apprentices disrupted normal political life. Those activities, which aimed at the restoration of the monarchy, appear to have been coordinated and inspired very largely by Richard Ellsworth, a merchant, with the tacit approval of some of the most influential local citizens. See Latimer, , Annals of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 290 Google Scholar ff. BCA Common Council Book 1659-75, p. 12.

49 There were, of course, changes at each change of government, the most sweeping coming, as might be expected, after the reduction of the town to Parliament in 1645 and following the Restoration. In both cases, the pressure for change was largely external. See the ordinance of the Lords and Commons “for the better forming of the government of Bristol” entered in BCA Common Council Book 1642-48, pp. 125-26. In 1660, various members of the corporation who had resigned or been ejected applied for and obtained a mandamus from the Court of King's Bench to recover their places. BCA Common Council Book 1659-75, pp. 23, 27. Not all changes were gracefully accepted; the attempt of the King to remove the chamberlain James Powell in favor of Alexander Gray on the grounds that Powell was a Cromwellian was rebuffed by the Corporation which refused to admit Gray on the grounds he was a foreigner. Ibid., p. 29. It is striking that, in 1661, when there was considerable turmoil over the composition of the Council following the interference of the crown, the Council itself calmly proceeded to re-elect in October sixteen of the members of the Commonwealth Council. Latimer, Annals of Bristol in the I7th Century, p. 310.

50 Cf. Cal. S.P. Dom. 1654, pp. 331-333. A petition of 95 citizens alleged that “the Cavalier party carried things … as if Charles Stuart were again enthroned in the sovereignty of this nation.” Ibid. While circumstances surrounding the election remain, in some details, obscure, it is clear that the conservative Presbyterian candidates Robert Aldworth and Miles Jackson were returned and vigorously defended by the Corporation. The efforts of their opponents, John Haggett and Capt. George Bishop, to unseat them appear to have been unsuccessful. See Latimer, Annals of Bristol in the seventeenth century, pp. 250-51. H.E. Nott and E. Ralph, eds., The Deposition Books of Bristol, Vol. II, 1650-1654, Bristol Record Society, vol. I3 (Bristol, 1948), pp. 179-183 tends to confirm this impression.

51 VCH Yorkshire, City of York, p. 183

52 Cotton, Barnstaple, p. 542. Four of the mayors 1646-1662 had held the office from prior to 1646 and six of them had been members of the Common Council as early as 1642. Comparison of known members of the Common Council in 1642, 1650, and 1658 reveal considerable continuity of personnel, nearly 40% of the known members of 1642 continued as members in 1650. Cf. lists in Gribble, Memorials, pp. 202-203, 444, 463, 464.

53 Colchester presents, as Underdown has indicated, a good example of the extent to which the radicals simply replaced one sort of oligarchy with another. When the new faction obtained a new charter in 1656 they argued for it on the grounds that the old one gave “too great a power … to the people to slight the Magistacy of the place.” Underdown, Pride's Purge, pp. 324-5; Clark, P. and Slack, P., English Towns in Transition 1500-1700 (London, 1976), p. 137 Google Scholar; Round, J.H., “Colchester under the Commonwealth,” English Historical Review, 15 (1900): 641–664 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gardiner, S. R., History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate 1649-1656 (New York, 1964), 4:55–78 Google Scholar.

54 A.M. Johnson, “Politics in Chester during the Civil Wars and the Interregnum 1640-62,” in Clark, P. and Slack, P., Crisis and Order in English Towns 1500-1700 (Toronto, 1972), pp. 204-36Google Scholar; Morrill, J.S., Cheshire 1630-1660: County Government and Society during the “English Revolution” (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar; Dore, R. N., The Civil War in Cheshire (Chester, 1966)Google Scholar.

55 J.K.G. Taylor, “The Civil Government of Gloucester 1640-6,” Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 67 (1946-8): 58-118. Taylor notes (p. 110) that “to claim that the administration solved all the new problems would be untrue, but it can be asserted that a vigorous attempt was made to keep the machinery of government intact, and that this attempt was almost completely successful in all fields.”

56 F. A. Inderwick, “Rye under the Commonwealth,” Sussex Archaeological Collections, 39 1894): 1-15; Fletcher, A County Community in Peace and War; C. Thomas-Stanford, Sussex in the Great Civil War and the Interregnum 1642-1660 (London, 1910); HMC Corporation of Rye, esp. pp. 216-37. Although Underdown, Pride's Purge, p. 321, refers to Rye as violently divided, the essential division was between the garrison and the town authorities who sought to retain traditional forms and practices. It was particularly a source of contention that disbanded soldiers and strangers sought to set themselves up in various trades in Rye and it was over this issue that the mayor and Jurats complained that the soldiers were “imbolded to despise and contemne all Government and ministers thereof.” HMC Corporation of Rye, p. 217.

57 Ketton-Cremer, R. W., Norfolk in the Civil War (London, 1969)Google Scholar. Clear evidence of the towns loyalty of citizens to traditional forms is shown by the equally indignant reaction to the deprivation of the royalist mayor William Costlin in 1642 and the moderate mayor John Utting in 1647. See also Kingston, A., East Anglia and the Great Civil War (London, 1897), pp. 253-55.Google Scholar

58 Stevenson, et al., Records of the Borough of Nottingham, vol. 5; Wood, History of Nottinghamshire, pp. 165-202; Wood, A.C., Nottinghamshire in the Civil War (Oxford, 1937)Google Scholar. Sherwood, R.F., Civil Strife in the Midlands 1642-1651 (London, 1974)Google Scholar contains little information on urban politics.

59 M. Weinstock, ed., Weymouth and Melcombe Regis Minute Book 1625 to 1660 (Dorchester, 1964). There was considerable change in the composition of the corporation in 1649 but this was a belated catching up with the parliamentary ordinance of 4 October 1647 against mayors or bailiffs having been in arms against Parliament. The wonder is not that the disruption occurred, but that it came so late. Ibid., pp. 73-76. For the rest, the recorded affairs of the town have a distinctly traditional and ordinary flavor.

60 M. Todd, “The Civic Government of Durham,” Durham University Journal, 27 (1930-2): 186-93, 276-80, 341-52, 431-41; ibid., 28 (1932-4): 37-51, points out that the governing charter and the pattern of government remained unchanged throughout this period.

61 Farrow, Great Civil War in Shropshire, pp. 34-5. The text of the speech is printed in Shropshire Archaeological Society Transactions, 1st Series, 2(1879): 398-99. Ibid., p. 35 n. 1.