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Opposition to the Personal Rule of Charles I: The Diary of Robert Woodford, 1637–1641

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

John Fielding
John Fielding
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

Robert Woodford was an obscure man, the steward of Northampton from 1636 until his death in 1654, whose diary, which covers the period 1637 until 1641, tells us much about how provincial men viewed the growing political crisis which was to culminate in civil war. There are very few sources available from which to assemble a biography of the diarist. He warrants no article in Dictionary of national biography, he is not recorded as having attended either university, nor to have registered at any of the inns of court. In a brief biography, his eldest son Samuel stated that his father was born in 1606, the son of a gentleman, Robert Woodford of Old in Northamptonshire, that ‘he had but Ordinary Education’, and that his ‘meane Fortune’ meant that ‘he could never provide for us in Lands or Money’. He married Hannah, daughter of Robert Hancs, citizen of London, in 1635 at the church of Allhallows-in-the-Wall. The minute book of the Northampton Town Assembly furnishes us with a few brief details of his career as a provincial legal practitioner. In 1636, he was elected steward of the town of Northampton by the good offices of his patron John Reading, the outgoing steward, who relinquished the office in his favour. The climax of his career would seem to have been his appointment as under-sheriff of the county in 1653 until his death in 1654: he remained a provincial lawyer.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 769 - 788
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

1 The diary of Robert Woodford is New College Oxford MS 9502. It comprises 586 pages, but is unpaginated. The pagination used throughout, therefore, is my own. I hope at some stage to be able to produce an edition of the diary. The brief biography of Woodford is to be found in DrWoodford's, SamuelParaphrase upon the Psalm of David (London, 1678 edn), pp. 22–6Google Scholar. The will of Robert Woodford senior bears out his grandson's pessimistie estimation of his fortune. His inventory amounted to £36 12s 6d. Moreover, he is not described as a gentleman, but alternately as a yeoman, and in the inventory itself, as a husbandman. Northhamptonshire Record Office, Arehdeaconry of Northampton Wills, First series, Book EV 575; Second Series, C168. For the diarist's career details see the minute book of the Northampton Town Assembly 1628–1744, Northampton Borough Records 3/2; and Northamptonshire Record Office, Tryon (Bulwick) MSS, 259: 2, 6.

2 Robert Woodford's diary, New College Oxford, MS 9502, p. 2. Henceforth abbreviated to Diary. Diary, pp. 554–72.

3 For the doctrine of assurance, especially in connexion with William Perkins, see Breward, I., ‘The life and theology of William Perkins. 1558–1602’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester, 1963), pp. 194–234Google Scholar. See also Kendall, R. T., Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 51–78Google Scholar. For a guide to puritan spiritual autobiography see Macfarlane, Alan, The family life of Ralph Josselin a seventeenth century clergyman (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 6–8Google Scholar.

4 For an early example of the genre in the 1580s, see Lake, Peter, Moderate puritans and the Elizabethan church (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 116–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Examples from the nineties can be found in Knappen, M. M. (ed.), Two Elizabethan puritan diaries (London, 1933)Google Scholar. See also Seaver, Paul S., Wallington's world, a puritan artisan in seventeenth century London (London, 1985)Google Scholar. For Samuel Clarke and the significance of saints' biographies see Collinson, Patrick, Godly people, essays on English protestantism and puritanism (London, 1983), pp. 499–526Google Scholar.

5 Diary, p. 80.

6 Ibid. pp. 298–9.

7 Ibid. p. 65.

8 Ibid. p. 23.

9 Ibid. p. 38.

10 For instance, on 8 December 1638 he noted that his debts amounted to £195 19s. 6d. His creditors were: Mr Watts, William Turland, Mr Chapman, Mr Spencer, Mr Bott, Mr Flood, Mr Greg, Mr Enyon, Mr Ragdale, Mr Sue, Mr Goodere, Mr Dillingham, Andrew Broughton (attorney), Mr Greene, Ned Coop, Mr Hopkins, Woodford's mother, Richard Rise. Diary, pp. 291–2.

11 Ibid. p. 17.

12 Ibid. pp. 36–7.

13 Ibid. p. 275.

14 Ibid. pp. 148–9.

15 Seaver, , Wallington, pp. 21–2Google Scholar.

16 Diary, p. 111.

17 Ibid. p. 377.

18 Ibid. pp. 79, 208.

19 Ibid. p. 3.

20 Ibid. p. 271.

21 Ibid. p. 161.

22 Ibid. p. 335.

23 Ibid. pp. 255–6.

24 Ibid. p. 356.

25 Ibid. p. 172.

26 Ibid. p. 153. For the impulse of individual believers to form a godly community see Lake, Peter, ‘William Bradshaw, antichrist and the community of the godly’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36, 4, 570–89Google Scholar.

27 Diary, p. 406.

28 Ibid. p. 416. Hannah Woodford was also churched in Sept. 1640: ibid. p. 499.

29 Ibid. p. 87.

30 For Cawdrey see ibid. pp. 297, 444. For Cranford: ibid. p. 344. For Castle: ibid. p. 359.

31 Ibid. p. 502.

32 Ibid. p. 301.

33 Ibid. pp. 69, 219, 291–2, 546.

34 Ibid. p. 552. For an example of a far more elevated (though similar) godly network of gentry, clerics, schoolmasters, etc. headed by Lord Brooke, see Hughes, Ann ‘Thomas Dugard and his circle in the 1630s – a Parliamentary–Puritan connection?’ Historical Journal, 29, 4 (1986), 771–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Diary, p. 42.

36 Ibid. pp. 6–8.

37 Brooks, C. W., Petlyfoggers and vipers of the commonwealth, the ‘lower branch’ of the legal profession in early modern England (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 45–6Google Scholar.

38 Cox, J. C. and Markham, C. A. (eds.), Records of the borough of Northampton (2 vols., Northampton, 1898), II, 115–17Google Scholar.

39 Diary, p. 21. For details of the duties of the clerk of the peace, see: Barnes, T. G., ‘The clerk of the peace in Caroline Somerset’. University of Leicester department of English local history occasional papers, 14, 1961Google Scholar.

40 Holmes, Clive, Seventeenth century Lincolnshire (History of Lincolnshire, VII, History Lincolnshire Committee, Lincoln, 1980), p. 51Google Scholar.

41 Diary, p. 246. See also Martin's will: he bequeathed to ‘my loving friend Robert Woodford the writer of this last will twenty shillings to buy him a ring with this poosye (from a true frend)’. Archdeaconry of Northampton Wills, Northamptonshire Record Office, third series, A178.

42 Diary, p. 155 (March 1637/8).

43 Ibid. pp. 21, 99,, 223, 95.

44 Ibid. pp. 263.

45 Brooks, , Pettyfoggers, pp. 158, 163Google Scholar. Diary, pp. 432–3; 257.

46 Ibid. p. 122.

47 Ibid, pp. 5, 202, 206.

48 Cotton, A. N. B., ‘John Dillingham journalist of the middle group’, English Historical Review, CCCLXIX (10, 1978), 817–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also D[ictionary] of N[ational] B[iography] under ‘John Wolstenholme’.

49 Diary, p. 360.

50 Ibid. pp. 123–4, 371, 386, 513, 263.

51 Ibid. pp. 164–5, 254, 52–3.

52 Lake, Peter, ‘The collection of ship money in Cheshire during the 1630s’, Northern History, XVII (1981), 71Google Scholar. Fincham, Kenneth, ‘The judges' decision on ship money in February 1637: the reaction of Kent’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, LVII (1984), 230–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Diary, pp. 115, 128–9.

54 Ibid. p. 342.

55 Ibid. p. 307: Cotton, , ‘John Dillingham’, p. 818Google Scholar.

56 For example: ibid. pp. 322, 336, 341. Cust, R. P., ‘News and politics in early seventeenth-century England’, Past and Present, 112 (08 1986), 60–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Lake, Peter, ‘Constitutional consensus and puritan opposition in the 1620s: Thomas Scott and the Spanish match’, Historical Journal, 25, 4 (1982), 805–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Diary, p. 385.

59 Ibid. p. 267.

60 Ibid. pp. 17, 337. Palace Green Library, Durham University, Visitation Articles for the primary visitation of Bishop Francis Dee (1634), S.R. 4. C. II. (xvii. G. 22), article 3. And see especially the following for the execution of the altar policy in Northamptonshire: Peterborough Diocesan Records, church survey for 1637, Northamptonshire Record Office, X2159.

61 Diary, pp. 369–70.

62 Ibid. pp. 263, 123, 49.

63 Ibid. pp. 10–11.

64 Ibid. p. 209.

65 Ibid. p. 140.

66 Ibid. pp. 215, 296.

67 Ibid. p. 19.

68 Ibid. p. 518.

69 Ibid. pp. 164–5.

70 Ibid. p. 113.

71 Ibid. p. 32.

72 Ibid. p. 336. Larkin, J. F. and Hughes, P. L. (eds.), Stuart royal proclamations (2 vols., Oxford, 1973–1983), II, 662–3Google Scholar.

73 Diary, PP. 336–8.

74 Huntingdon Library, California, Stowe MSS, unfoliated, Sibthorpe to Lambe, 3 June 1639.

75 Diary, p. 360.

76 Cotten, ‘John Dillingham’, pp. 817–34: P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice], S.P.16/397/26.

77 Diary, pp. 27–8.

78 Ibid. P. 476.

79 Ibid. P. 254.

80 Ibid. p. 355.

81 Ibid. pp. 75–6.

82 Lake, , ‘Constitutional consensus’, pp. 815–17Google Scholar.

83 Diary, pp. 154, 347.

84 Ibid. p. 148.

85 Ibid. pp. 348–9.

86 Ibid. pp. 136–7.

87 Ibid. p. 137.

88 Ibid. p. 139.

89 Ibid. p. 17.

90 Ibid. p. 367. S.P.16/313/111, 317/46, 417/47: this was part of a wider dispute between Sibthorpe and Bacon, an excellent account of which is given in Stater, Victor L., ‘The lord lieutenancy on the eve of the Civil Wars: the impressment of George Plowright’, Historical Journal, 29, 2 (1986), 279–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the problems involved in trying to broach broad matters of principle in administrative disputes see: Cope, E. S., ‘Politics without parliament: the dispute about muster master's;s fees in Shropshire in the 1630s’, Huntington Library Quarterly, XLV (1982), 271–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 H[ouse] of L[ords] R[ecord] O[ffice], Main Papers, 6 February 1641. Diary, p. 127.

92 Diary, pp. 22, 453.

93 Ibid. p. 501. I have not been able to find this.

94 Diary, PP. 456–8. Bodleian Library, Bankes MSS, 65/62. In this letter, which is written from Kingsthorpe (Dr Clarke's benefice), ‘our doctor’ is said to be canvassing for Elmes.

95 Bankes MSS, 44/13: Bedfordshire Record Office, St John (Bletso) MSS, 1369. Thirteen, including those mentioned, were called before the council. The matter was referred to Attorney General Bankes, and on his advice the king and council discharged them: Bankes MSS 42/55, 13/23: P.R.O., P.C.2/52/427, 2/52/429. 2/52/471, S.P.16/452/16, 452/56, 452/110, 473/24. I am very grateful to Nigel Jackson for references to the Bankes MSS.

96 Diary PP. 456–7.

97 Ibid. P. 467.

98 Ibid. PP. 518, 522, 534, 537. I cannot find any reference to this petition.

99 Diary, PP. 542–3.

100 Brooks, Pettyfoggers, passim.

101 For a discussion of the limits imposed upon political discussion, see Cust, , ‘News and politics’, pp. 88–9Google Scholar.

102 Brindle, P. R., Politics and society in Northamptonshire 1649–1714 (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leicester, 1983), p. 138Google Scholar.