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The Great Deer Massacre: Animals, Honor, and Communication in Early Modern England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Dan Beaver
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Extract

I need not complain of the times; every traveler tells them; they are as clear to see as an Angel in the sun. (Henry Osborne, October 1642)

In early October 1642, a tract of forest and deer chase in the Severn valley, northwest of Gloucester, known as Corse Lawn, became the site of a grisly spectacle. Richard Dowdeswell, a steward of the property, described the scene in a letter to Lionel Cranfield, earl of Middlesex, the absentee owner resident in Great St. Bartholomew in London. Dowdeswell delivered terrifying news of how “a rising of neighbors about Corse Lawn” destroyed more than 600 of Middlesex's deer in a “rebellious, riotous, devilish way,” a hideous consequence of what Dowdeswell termed “this time of liberty.” Dowdeswell rode to the scene from his estate at Pull Court, a few miles from the chase, and “appeased the multitude, yet some scattering companies gave out in alehouses that they would not only destroy the remainder of deer but rifle your Lordship's house at Forthampton and pull it down to the ground and not let a tree or bush stand in all the chase.” The deer massacre became an assault on the chase, the forest, and the manor house of Forthampton, an estate close to the chase but not included in the meets and bounds of the forest. Middlesex's tenant at Forthampton Court, his brother-in-law Henry Osborne, prudently moved his household to Gloucester until Dowdeswell acquired a formal statement of protection from the earl of Essex to defend the forest, the deer left in the chase, and the house in Forthampton.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , April 1999 , pp. 187 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1999

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References

1 Kent Record Office, Maidstone, Sackville MSS, Manuscripts of Lionel Cranfield, [earl of Middlesex] (hereafter cited as the Cranfield MSS): Henry Osborne to Lionel Cranfield, earl of Middlesex, 24 October 1642. Osborne was Middlesex's brother-in-law and his tenant at Forthampton Court, on the border of Corse Lawn chase.

2 The Cranfield MSS, Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 18 October 1642.

3 Ibid.

4 Prestwich, Menna, Cranfield: Politics and Profits under the Early Stuarts (Oxford, 1966), pp. 568–70Google Scholar. Prestwich overestimated the impact of civil war on the chase in 1643 and 1644. A letter from Dowdeswell to Middlesex adduced as evidence of only six deer left in the chase in June 1644, states, rather, only six deer lost since the massacre. See the Cranfield MSS, Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 9 June 1644.

5 This example does not generally support Manning's view of conflict between gentlemen and commoners in 1642, as a faction of gentlemen led the assault, and Middlesex's property in Corse Lawn was a chase, rather than a park, and lacked the symbolism of formal enclosure important in Manning's argument. See Manning, Brian, The English People and the English Revolution (Harmondsworth, 1976), pp. 207–12, 258–59Google Scholar.

6 The Cranfield MSS, Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 18 October 1642.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 A fine survey of the early Stuart prescriptive literature on the hunt is Manning, Roger, Hunters and Poachers: A Social and Cultural History of Unlawful Hunting in England, 1485–1640 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 5–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My brief discussion focuses on the manuals prepared by George Gascoigne and Sir Thomas Cockayne as broadly characteristic examples of this literature.

10 [Gascoigne, George], The Noble Arte of Venerie or Hunting (London, 1575), pp. 1–4Google Scholar. This manual was reprinted in 1611, the only substantial alterations being the images of James superimposed on the images of Elizabeth in the illustrations of the royal hunt.

11 SirCockayne, Thomas, A Short Treatise of Hunting (London, 1591), sig. A3rGoogle Scholar; Gascoigne, , Noble Art of Venerie, pp. 39, 96, 235Google Scholar.

12 Gascoigne, Noble Arte of Venerie, sig. A2v. This manual placed the study of the hunt second only to the study of divinity as “commendable and necessary” for noblemen and gentlemen.

13 Cockayne, Short Treatise, sig. A2r–v.

14 Gascoigne, Noble Arte of Venerie, sig. A3r–v.

15 Ibid., sig. A4r.

16 Ibid.

17 Cockayne, Short Treatise, sig. A3r–v. Cockayne offered George Clifford, earl of Cumberland, and Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick, as models of the relationship between the hunt and military service. An important exploration of the hunt as “a symbolic substitute for war” is Manning, R., Hunters and Poachers, pp. 35–56Google Scholar.

18 Gascoigne, Noble Art of Venerie, sig. A4r.

19 Cockayne, Short Treatise, sig. A3v.

20 Gascoigne, , Noble Art of Venerie, p. 205Google Scholar. Much of the prescriptive literature stressed the civic usefulness of the hunt in a balanced education. See Markham, Gervase, Country Contentments (London, 1615), p. 3Google Scholar.

21 Gascoigne, , Noble Art of Venerie, pp. 90–97, 132–35Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., p. 238. Cockayne, Short Treatise, fols. Civ, C2v, provides an incomplete sketch of the calendar. Both manuals stress moderate participation in the seasons of the hunt as an “honest recreation” and a refreshment from hard labor, not to interfere in “the service of God, her Majesty or your country.” Gascoigne, Noble Art of Venerie, sig. A3r; Cockayne, Short Treatise, sig. A4r.

23 Gascoigne, , Noble Art of Venerie, pp. 97–100Google Scholar.

24 Cockayne, Short Treatise, sig. D1r. A gentleman hunter had to master this specialized language or jargon. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a “palm” is “the flat expanded part of the horn in some deer, from which finger-like points project.” A “spiller” is “a branchlet on a deer's horn,” and an “advancer” is the second branch of a buck's horn. A “kenspeck mark” is any conspicuous or distinctive mark.

25 Gascoigne, , Noble Art of Venerie, pp. 124–35Google Scholar; Cockayne, Short Treatise, fols. C2r, C3r, D3v–4v. Manning refers to the ceremonial closure of the hunt as a restoration of order, but the hunt itself reproduced the hierarchic structure of the English polity, and it is not clear whether contemporaries viewed the hunt as a liminal or carnivalesque moment. See Manning, R., Hunters and Poachers, pp. 39–40Google Scholar.

26 The best introductions to the forms of honor in early modern England are Fletcher, Anthony, “Honour, Reputation and Local Officeholding in Elizabethan and Stuart England,” in Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, ed. Fletcher, Anthony and Stevenson, John (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 92–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heal, Felicity and Holmes, Clive, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–1700 (Stanford, Calif., 1994), pp. 276–318Google Scholar.

27 Cockayne, Short Treatise, fols. B1v, B3v, C1r.

28 The Cranfield MSS, Sir Richard Tracy to Middlesex, 15 June 1637.

29 Statutes of the Realm, 1 Jac. I, c. 27, 4:1055. An excellent discussion of the differences between game laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly on the status of deer under the law, is Munsche, P. B., Gentlemen and Poachers: The English Game Laws, 1671–1831 (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 1–27Google Scholar.

30 The new fines were 40s. for each deer, 20s. for each pheasant, Ws. for each partridge, and 10s. for each hare either sold or purchased. Statutes of the Realm, 1 Jac. I, c. 27, 4:1056; 3 Jac. I, c. 13, 4:1089; Manning, R., Hunters and Poachers, pp. 6, 25–26, 59–61Google Scholar.

31 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 8 July 1634, 22 July 1634.

32 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 15 December 1639; Prestwich, , Cranfield, p. 538Google Scholar.

33 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 9 July 1638.

34 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 19 August 1639.

35 Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, 1643–60 (1643–1646), 2:1145–49Google Scholar; Willis-Bund, J. W., ed., Victoria History of the Counties of England (VCH) (London, 1971)Google Scholar, Worcester, 4:78Google Scholar; Willis-Bund, J. W., ed., Worcestershire County Records: Calendar of Quarter Sessions Papers, 2 vols. (Worcester, 1900), 1:394–96, 610–11, 617, 653, 659Google Scholar, 2:xxiv–xxv, xxix, cxv, ccxxii. Spiller's Catholicism, career in the Exchequer, and connections to Henrietta Maria's court in the 1630s are discussed in Questier, M. C., “Sir Henry Spiller, Recusancy and the Efficiency of the Jacobean Exchequer,” Historical Research 66 (1993): 254–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 In 1639, Spiller even offered Middlesex the use of his house in Eldersfield. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 7 January 1637, 9 July 1638, 19 August 1639; Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 2 March 1640.

37 Spiller petitioned Middlesex for some venison in the summer of 1638, as the fallow doe promised for the previous holiday season had not been delivered. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 7 January 1637, 9 July 1638, 19 August 1639.

38 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 2 March 1640, 10 August 1640.

39 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 2 August 1637.

40 Lady Tracy uncharacteristically refused her half buck but returned her “humble thanks.” The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; Humphrey Tracy to Middlesex, 6 September 1637, 7 September 1637.

41 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series (CSPD), Charles I (1639–1640), 15:580–83Google Scholar; the Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 30 August 1637, 2 September 1639.

42 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 19 August 1639.

43 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 25 August 1637, 30 August 1637, 19 August 1639.

44 William Hill also described Tully as “a special friend” of Nicholas Herman, a trusted relative and “confidential servant” to Middlesex over many years. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 25 August 1637, 30 August 1637; Prestwich, , Cranfield, p. 238Google Scholar.

45 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 6 February 1637, 11 April 1637, 30 August 1637; CSPD, Charles I (1637), 11:242, 433–34Google Scholar. In April 1637, William Hill, the attorney appointed to manage Billingsley's law problems, prepared a “release” to the warden of the fleet and reported a principal debt of £250. On 18 December 1637, Hill wrote to Billingsley at Middlesex's house in London to report the hard situation of Billingsley's children in Gloucester, suffering from “extreme want of money to buy them necessities, and Mr. Nelmes is most importunate for money for their clothes.” The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 18 December 1637.

46 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 24 July 1638.

47 Golding accepted the gift but refused to leave the house in Forthampton without a reduction of his rent. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 2 September 1639.

48 When John Hullins of Gloucester ventured to dispatch a deer already “mortally wounded with an arrow,” William Hill described the deed as “a very saucy part.” The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 11 September 1637.

49 This element of inversion lends the massacre a formal resemblance to rites of charivari and rough music described in Burke, Peter, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978), pp. 198–201Google Scholar; Darnton, Robert, “Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint-Severin,” in his The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984), pp. 74–104Google Scholar; Martin Ingram, “Ridings, Rough Music and the ‘Reform of Popular Culture’ in Early Modern England,” Past and Present, no. 105 (1984): 79–113; Thompson, E. P., “Rough Music,” in his Customs in Common (New York, 1991), pp. 467–538Google Scholar; and Sahlins, Peter, Forest Rites: The War of the Demoiselles in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), pp. 29–60Google Scholar.

50 Although Middlesex's deer were killed in the first weeks of October, this seasonal transition from autumn to winter in the rural economy remains important in the general context of the massacre. The forms of animal husbandry and festive activities centered on 11 November, the feast of Saint Martin, are described in Brand, John, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, 3 vols. (London, 1877), 1:399–404Google Scholar; Hutton, Ronald, The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400–1700 (Oxford, 1994), p. 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (Oxford, 1996), p. 386CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 The Cranfield MSS, Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 2 March 1640; Elrington, Christopher, ed., VCH, Gloucester, 8:274–75Google Scholar. The forest and chase included land in the parishes of Ashleworth, Chaceley, Corse, Eldersfield, Hartpury, Hasfield, Maisemore, and Tirley.

52 CSPD, Charles I (1628–1629), 3:65, 100, 106Google Scholar; Elrington, , ed., VCH, Gloucester, 8:275Google Scholar. Prestwich mistakenly tied the chase to the manor of Forthampton and reported Middlesex's acquisition of the property in 1622. See Prestwich, , Cranfield, p. 411Google Scholar.

53 Public Record Office (PRO), London, Star Chamber MSS (STAC) 8/23/25; STAC 8/34/14; Manning, R., Hunters and Poachers, pp. 151–52Google Scholar.

54 CSPD, James I (1619–1623), 10:179Google Scholar; the Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 25 August 1637.

55 CSPD, Charles I (1628–1629), 3:62Google Scholar.

56 The Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Middlesex, 1 April 1639.

57 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 26 March 1633.

58 William Hill “sent for process” to the Council in the Marches of Wales to stop the “destruction” of the forest. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 23 September 1634, 16 March 1635; Elrington, , ed., VCH, Gloucester, 8:101, 278, 286Google Scholar.

59 The state of the local venison market is described in the Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 22 October 1637.

60 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 10 March 1634. John Beale was a kinsman to one of the poachers and familiar to the other five in the group, and Stocke, Beale, Morse, and the two Underhills apparently tried to persuade Barnard to spare the keeper's life.

61 Gloucestershire Record Office (GRO), Will 1645/34; PRO, STAC 8/34/14; the Cranfield MSS, Sir Richard Tracy to Middlesex, 15 June 1637; Walter Long to Andrew Long, 4 June 1638; Elrington, , ed., VCH, Gloucester, 8:275Google Scholar.

62 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 6 June 1637; Sir Richard Tracy to Middlesex, 15 June 1637.

63 The Cranfield MSS, Sir Richard Tracy to Middlesex, 15 June 1637.

64 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 7 January 1637.

65 Ibid.

66 Tracy had health problems in the 1630s. In 1635, William Hill reported Tracy “dangerously sick of a fever and likely to die, but now we hope the danger is past, for he begins to recover.” This concern for Tracy's health was mingled in Hill's letters with concern for the health of Middlesex's chase. See the Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 22 March 1635, 2 August 1637, 25 August 1637.

67 Tracy wanted to pardon the poachers named in Star Chamber on condition of their paying the charges of the suit. Hill believed this show of mercy would “preserve the game for time to come.” The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 25 August 1637, 30 August 1637.

68 Hill boasted his heroic action after Tracy's death ensured only two deer were killed in the chase, both authorized by Middlesex. “I have appointed the keepers to make a note of every particular deer killed this year and how disposed of,” Hill added, “and for my part I protest I have not had one piece for myself nor friend.” The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 30 August 1637.

69 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; James Cranfield to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; Henry Brett to Middlesex, 30 August 1637.

70 The Cranfield MSS, James Cranfield to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; Henry Brett to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; William Hill to Middlesex, 6 September 1637, 11 September 1637.

71 This report from Brett is not supported by the accounts of substantial numbers of deer in the chase from many parties in the late 1630s. The Cranfield MSS, Henry Brett to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; William Hill to Middlesex, 24 July 1638.

72 The Cranfield MSS, James Cranfield to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; Humphrey Tracy to Middlesex, 7 September 1637.

73 Hill hinted darkly at “some mystery” in Jelfe's desire to leave his place, although Jelfe protested a desire “to follow his own private business” and offered to recommend an “honest” replacement. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 11 September 1637; Walter Long to Andrew Long, 4 June 1638; Ordnance Survey, Cheltenham, SO 82/92; Elrington, , ed., VCH, Gloucester, 8:275Google Scholar.

74 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 13 September 1637, 22 October 1637; Prestwich, , Cranfield, pp. 541–42Google Scholar.

75 The Cranfield MSS, Sir Richard Tracy to Middlesex, 15 June 1637.

76 Dowdeswell attributed this increase in the activities of poachers to the local scarcity of venison. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 22 October 1637.

77 Dutton also served as an undertaker for Sir Robert Tracy in the contested county election of March 1640. CSPD, Charles I (1639–1640), 15:580–83Google Scholar; the Cranfield MSS, James Cranfield to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; Andrew Saunders to Henry Brett, 22 October 1637; William Hill to Middlesex, 27 April 1638, 2 September 1639.

78 The Cranfield MSS, Walter Long to Andrew Long, 4 June 1638; PRO, STAC 8/34/14.

79 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 11 September 1637; Walter Long to Andrew Long, 4 June 1638; Ordnance Survey, Cheltenham, SO 82/92.

80 The Cranfield MSS, Walter Long to Andrew Long, 4 June 1638.

81 The Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Middlesex, 1 April 1639; William Underhill to Anne, countess of Middlesex, 21 October 1639.

82 The Cranfield MSS, Walter Long to Andrew Long, 4 June 1638; Sir Richard Tracy to Middlesex, 15 June 1637.

83 The keepers' complaints of their lack of wages are expressed in the Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Middlesex, 1 April 1639, 21 October 1639, 14 April 1640, 25 May 1640.

84 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 10 March 1634, 10 March 1638, 9 July 1638, 19 August 1639.

85 This Beale had been present at the scene of the murder for the purpose of poaching but claimed he had attempted to persuade Barnard, the shooter, to spare the keeper's life. Despite the precedent of Lord Dacre's case in the sixteenth century, an argument for death caused in the course of an unlawful act as murder by all the participants in the act, the jury refused to convict Beale for anything other than manslaughter, a clergiable offense. The Cranfleld MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 10 March 1634, 9 July 1638.

86 This quotation is taken from William Hill's letter in acknowledgement of Middlesex's statements to this effect. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 2 August 1638.

87 The Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Middlesex, 1 April 1639; Margaret Brett to Middlesex in William Hill to Middlesex, 2 April 1639.

88 The Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Middlesex, 1 April 1639.

89 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 2 April 1639, 7 May 1639, 7 June 1639; Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 10 August 1640.

90 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 7 May 1639.

91 As usual, the pursuit of poachers offended vested interests in the neighborhood of the chase, and, in April 1638, Sir Humphrey Tracy expressed anger over the prosecution of his tenant Middleton for deer stealing. In May 1639, Hill lamented, “It is not God's will to grant me deliverance” in the tricky business of arresting poachers. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 10 March 1638, 26 April 1638, 24 May 1638, 24 July 1638, 29 July 1638, 7 May 1639, 16 July 1639; William Underhill to Middlesex, 1 April 1639; 21 October 1639.

92 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 10 March 1638, 2 April 1639. These assaults influenced Middlesex's decision to renew the warrant from the earl of Holland in 1639.

93 In May 1640, William Underhill loaned 40 shillings to the keepers, described as “poor men in great want of [their wages] now against the times.” The Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Middlesex, 1 April 1639, 14 April 1640, 25 May 1640; Margaret Brett to Middlesex in William Hill to Middlesex, 2 April 1639; William Underhill to Anne, countess of Middlesex, 21 October 1639.

94 The Cranfield MSS, James Cranfield to Middlesex, 30 August 1637; William Hill to Middlesex, 6 September 1637, 16 July 1639, 2 September 1639.

95 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 15 November 1639.

96 CSPD, Charles I (1639–1640), 15:580–83Google Scholar.

97 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 16 July 1639.

98 The Cranfield MSS, Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 2 March 1640, 10 August 1640.

99 The Cranfield MSS, Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 10 August 1640.

100 There is a parallel here between Sir Henry Spiller's participation in the reform of Corse Lawn chase and his earlier involvement in efforts to increase efficiency in the collection of recusancy fines in the Exchequer. See Questier, , “Sir Henry Spiller,” pp. 261–62Google Scholar.

101 The Cranfield MSS, Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 10 August 1640.

102 Dowdeswell reported approximately one hundred of the 408 deer counted were males, and a substantial number of animals had died of the rot in the winter, although fewer than expected. The Cranfield MSS, Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 30 March 1641.

103 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 16 July 1639.

104 The accused woodcutters pooled their resources to hire Richard Dowdeswell, an attorney soon to be appointed as Middlesex's overseer in Corse Lawn, to defend their case. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 8 February 1640.

105 Prestwich, , Cranfield, p. 345Google Scholar; Sharp, Buchanan, In Contempt of All Authority: Rural Artisans and Riot in the West of England, 1586–1660 (Berkeley, 1980), pp. 85–86Google Scholar.

106 Hammersley, George, “The Revival of the Forest Laws under Charles I,” History 45 (1960): 88–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sharp, , In Contempt of All Authority, pp. 208–9Google Scholar; Sharpe, Kevin, The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, Conn., 1992), pp. 116–20, 242–45Google Scholar. Hammersley and Sharpe both argue for the rather haphazard nature of royal forest policy in the 1630s.

107 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 22 July 1634; Hammersley, , “Revival of the Forest Laws,” pp. 86–102Google Scholar; Sharp, , In Contempt of All Authority, pp. 209–11Google Scholar; Sharpe, , Personal Rule of Charles I, pp. 116–20Google Scholar. A detailed account of the politics behind the forest eyre, entitled “The Iter of Deane, 1634,” can be found in GRO, D 2700, Berkeley MSS, Kl, 504.M14.31, no. 19.

108 GRO, D 2700, Berkeley MSS, Kl, 504.M14.31, no. 19; Hammersley, , “Revival of the Forest Laws,” p. 94Google Scholar.

109 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 8 July 1634, 22 July 1634.

110 Ibid.

111 Sharp, , In Contempt of All Authority, pp. 82–125Google Scholar.

112 GRO, D 2700, Berkeley MSS, K1, 504.M14.31, no. 19.

113 Ibid.

114 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 8 July 1634, 22 July 1634.

115 Cooke, a justice of the peace in the forest division, had expressed support for the forest eyre in its early days and had joined his “reputation” and “heart” for “the generality of my country” to endorse a petition from the mayor and commonalty of Bristol to preserve the forest from the violence of the magnates. Cooke served as foreman of the jury for damages at the eyre and thus earned “the embittered spirits of the farmers [of the forest] and their friends.” After the jury delivered its verdict and the eyre assessed its fines, Cooke also joined Sir Baynham Throckmorton and Sir Richard Catchmay, justices of the peace in the forest, in a petition “for preservation of the forest.” See the account of the eyre in GRO, D 2700, Berkeley MSS, Kl, 504.M14.31, no. 19.

116 Hill sent Middlesex rounded figures rather than exact fines in the Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 22 July 1634. The fines are reported in GRO, D 2700, Berkeley MSS, K1, 504.M14.31, no. 19. See also Hammersley, “Revival of the Forest Laws,” pp. 95–98.

117 The prosecution of spectacular encroachments on the forest effectively preserved resources for other commoners, even if small farmers received fines for their own offenses. Hill's view of the forest eyre is supported by the account in GRO, D 2700, Berkeley MSS, Kl, 504.M14.31, no. 19, a description of the eyre as a disappointment only for a few magnates “of the popish side.” See Hammersley, , “Revival of the Forest Laws,” pp. 87–88Google Scholar, for the distribution of fines.

118 Hill doubted whether the prosecution of woodcutters was a legitimate use of Star Chamber but acknowledged the court's power to terrify the defendants. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 9 September 1634, 23 September 1634, 29 July 1638, 2 August 1638, 16 July 1639, 8 February 1640; Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 10 August 1640.

119 As an officer of the Exchequer in the 1610s and 1620s, Spiller had advocated a moderate course against recusants in order to discourage conversions and to ensure a steady flow of fines into the Exchequer. As a justice of the peace in Middlesex and Worcestershire in the 1630s, Spiller continued to oppose abuses in the enforcement of laws against recusants. According to Spiller and others, such abuses encouraged conformity and reduced the revenue collected from fines. See CSPD, Charles I (1635–1636), 9:326–29Google Scholar; Questier, , “Sir Henry Spiller,” pp. 254–55, 261–62Google Scholar.

120 See Willis-Bund, , ed., Calendar of Quarter Sessions, 2:cxvGoogle Scholar, for Spiller's local reputation. On 21 November 1640, Parliament ordered Spiller's arrest and confinement “for releasing and conniving at popish priests.” See Rushworth, John, ed., Historical Collections, 8 vols. (London, 1721), 4:54, 59, 74Google Scholar.

121 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 8 February 1640.

122 The Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Middlesex, 27 January 1640.

123 Thomas Carpenter held Middlesex's farm in Eldersfield for the small yearly rent of £12. The Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Middlesex, 27 January 1640.

124 The Cranfield MSS, Richard Dowdeswell to Middlesex, 10 August 1640.

125 The Cranfield MSS, Margaret Osborne to Middlesex, 25 April 1642.

126 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 17 June 1633.

127 Elrington, , ed., VCH, Gloucester, 8:201Google Scholar; the Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 26 March 1633, 17 June 1633; Edward Cotton to Middlesex, 10 January 1634.

128 These financial demands on Middlesex's estates in the 1630s are evident in the Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 8 December 1635, 6 February 1637, 15 February 1637, 4 March 1637, 13 September 1637, 22 October 1637, 7 June 1639; Richard Bravell to William Hill, 9 March 1637; John Golding to Middlesex, 27 February 1637; Henry Osborne to Middlesex, 25 April 1640; William Underhill to Middlesex, 28 December 1635, 25 May 1640; Humphrey Tracy, sheriff of Gloucestershire, to Middlesex, 8 July 1640; Prestwich, , Cranfield, pp. 541–42, 544–45Google Scholar.

129 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 26 March 1633, 25 February 1634; Middlesex to his “loving friends and tenants, the inhabitants of Forthampton,” 20 February 1634; John Fitzherbert to Middlesex, May 1634.

130 Terrett was described as “a very honest religious man” in 1633, and his evident concern over Middlesex's approach to the problems of the lordship may indicate a broader anxiety among the copyholders. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 26 March 1633; William Terrett to Middlesex, 26 May 1638.

131 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 3 March 1637, 4 March 1637, 16 March 1637; William Underhill to Middlesex, 28 December 1635, 24 July 1637.

132 The Cranfield MSS, John Barnard to Middlesex, 6 November 1637; William Underhill to Middlesex, 12 November 1637, 27 January 1640, and the attached schedule of tithes for the “Forthampton side” and the “Swinley and Downend side” of the manor.

133 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 3 March 1637, 16 March 1637; William Underhill to Middlesex, 28 December 1635, 24 July 1637.

134 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 27 February 1635, 16 March 1635; William Underhill to Middlesex, 5 October 1635, 26 January 1637, 22 February 1637; Thomas Vaughan to Middlesex, 3 January 1637; John Golding to Middlesex, 8 February 1637.

135 The Cranfield MSS, Thomas Vaughan to Middlesex, 3 January 1637; William Underhill to Middlesex, 26 January 1637.

136 In February 1637, Price was imprisoned for debt in Tewkesbury and removed from office. The Cranfield MSS, Thomas Vaughan to Middlesex, 3 January 1637; William Underhill to Middlesex, 26 January 1637, 22 February 1637.

137 This process of alienation is reflected in the series of affronts and silences recorded in the Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 9 January 1637, 6 February 1637, 14 January 1637, 30 August 1637, 1 September 1637, 11 September 1637; William Underhill to Middlesex, 28 December 1635, 26 January 1637, 2 February 1637, William Underhill to Anne, the countess of Middlesex, 17 August 1637, 21 October 1639.

138 The Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Anne, countess of Middlesex, 17 August 1637.

139 The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 1 September 1637.

140 Hill's experience is an evocative illustration of Middlesex's use of debt as a political instrument. The Cranfield MSS, William Hill to Middlesex, 9 January 1637, 14 January 1637, 6 February 1637, 30 August 1637, 1 September 1637, 11 September 1637.

141 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII (January-August 1540), 15:19Google Scholar.

142 There are detailed architectural descriptions of the house in Verey, David, Gloucestershire: The Vale and the Forest of Dean (1976; reprint, Harmondsworth, 1980), pp. 52, 188Google Scholar; and in Elrington, , ed., VCH, Gloucester, 8:199, 201, 202Google Scholar.

143 The Cranfield MSS, John Golding to Middlesex, 8 February 1637.

144 Humphrey Fox had become the curate of Forthampton in 1616, after suspension from the cure of Tewkesbury in 1602, and served the cure intermittently until Bishop Goodman suspended him for the last time in 1630. Fox held property in the neighborhood and lived in Tewkesbury after his suspension. He sent his sons, Help-on-High and Hope-well Fox, to the University of Edinburgh to be educated, and the privy council ordered a search of Fox's study in 1639. See GRO, Gloucester Diocesan Records (GDR) 115, vol. 2, Visitations, 1612–19: episcopal visitations, 1616, 1619, pp. 333, 479; GDR 146, episcopal visitation, 1622; GDR 157, episcopal visitation, 1625; GDR 166, episcopal visitation, 1628. Also see the Gloucester City Library, Survey of Abbey Lands in Tewkesbury, 1632, p. 7; CSPD, Charles I (1639), 14:159, 198–99, 266–67Google Scholar; (1639–40), 15:582.

145 Rushworth, , ed., Historical Collections, 4:558Google Scholar.

146 The Cranfield MSS, Margaret Osborne to Middlesex, 25 April 1642.

147 These words are drawn from the impeachment of John Finch, lord keeper, in January 1641, before the House of Commons, and from a statute created in 1641 to halt the expansion of the royal forests. Finch, a pillar of the protestant interest in the anticatholic forest eyre at Gloucester in 1634, was accused, among other high misdemeanors, of the expansion of royal forest in Essex in 1635 “by unlawful means” and contrary to the customary practice of 300 years. In 1641, Charles agreed to circumscribe royal forests within boundaries accepted in the twentieth year of his father's reign. See Rushworth, , ed., Historical Collections, 4:136–39Google Scholar; Statutes of the Realm, 16 Car. I, c. 16, 5:119–20Google Scholar; GRO, D 2700, Berkeley Mss, K1, 504.M14.31, no. 19.

148 The Cranfield MSS, William Underhill to Middlesex, 8 May 1643, 26 September 1643.

149 The concentration of “disorder,” defined narrowly in terms of riot, in the early and late 1640s is explored in Morrill, J. S. and Walter, J. D., “Order and Disorder in the English Revolution,” in Fletcher, and Stevenson, , eds., Order and Disorder, pp. 137–65Google Scholar.