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Sir William Brereton and England's Wars of Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

John Morrill
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Extract

Historians have begun to rediscover the Puritan Revolution. A number of recent studies concentrating on the Long Parliament, on particular counties, or on clusters of religious ideas have found religious divisions at the heart of the collapse of early Stuart government. This article tries to consolidate this trend by looking at the behavior of one prominent individual. If it was indeed religious conviction that drove active minorities to take up arms, then it is essential to find men who have left enough evidence of a sufficiently intimate kind to permit us to pry into the feelings and longings that determined their particular responses to the developing crisis in church and state. While it is hoped that such a case study can help to clarify general issues, it is obviously not possible to claim that one case study demonstrates any particular theory of allegiance. This article presents an instance of a general theory and no more.

The subject of the first part of this article is Sir William Brereton (1604–61) of Handforth in Cheshire, who will be examined as a Puritan magistrate in the 1630s, as a Parliamentarian activist in the early 1640s, as a county boss in the war years, and as an increasingly disillusioned “honest radical” from 1646 and especially from 1653. He is probably better documented in the public records than all but twenty or so M.P.s in the Long Parliament, and his fifteen hundred extant letters plus a collection of private papers and travel journals from the 1630s make him probably the best documented of all county bosses, at least down to 1646.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , July 1985 , pp. 311 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1985

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References

1 For example, Fletcher, A., The Outbreak of the English Civil War (London, 1982)Google Scholar; Hunt, W., The Puritan Moment (Cambridge, Mass., 1983)Google Scholar; Fulbrook, M., Piety and Politics (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hibbard, C., Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1982)Google Scholar; and Morrill, J. S., “The Religious Context of the English Civil War,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 34 (1984): 155–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Five letter books are known to have survived; the chronological sequence is: Cheshire Record Office (RO), DDX/428 (never previously used by scholars); British Library (BL), Additional (Add.) MS 11331, Add. MS 11332, and Add. MS 11333; and Birmingham Reference Library (RL), MS 595611. Cheshire RO, DDX/428; and BL, Add. MS 11331, have now been calendared; see Dore, R. N., ed., The Letter Books of Sir William Brereton, Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, vol. 123 (Gloucester, 1984)Google Scholar. There is also a miscellany of Brereton's papers relating to “public affairs” in the Chester City Archives Office (CAO), CR63/702. His travel journals were published; see Hawkins, E., ed., Brereton's Travels, Chetham Society, vol. 1 (Manchester, 1844)Google Scholar.

3 His family background is well covered in Ormerod, G., History of Cheshire, rev. by Helsby, G., 3 vols. (Chester, 1882)Google Scholar. For the Breretons' involvement with the Boleyn faction in the 1530s and its effects on local politics, see Ives, E. W., ed., The Letters and Accounts of William Brereton of Malpas, Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, vol. 116 (Chester, 1976)Google Scholar.

4 His father and mother both died in 1609, and he was brought up in the household of his mother's family, the (Puritan) Hollands of Denton. He married the daughter of Sir George Booth, custos rotulorum in Cheshire, which probably explains his precocious appointment to the bench and perhaps his early appointment as a deputy lieutenant. For his early years, see Dore, R. N., “The Early Life of Sir William Brereton,” Transactions of the Lancashire and Chester Antiquarian Society 63 (1953): 1–8Google Scholar.

5 Morrill, J. S., “Parliamentary Representation,” in Victoria History of the County of Chester (hereafter VCH Cheshire), vol. 2, ed. Harris, B. (Oxford, 1979), pp. 101–3, 106–8Google Scholar.

6 For his role in local government before 1640, see Dore, passim; Morrill, J. S., Cheshire, 1630–1660 (Oxford, 1974), chaps. 1, 2Google Scholar; and Higgins, G., “County Government and Society in Cheshire, c. 1590–1640” (M.A. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1973), chaps. 2, 3Google Scholar. For his intense interest in the local government in the Netherlands and Scotland, esp. the relief of the (deserving) poor, see Hawkins, ed., pp. 14, 21, 46, 50, 106–10.

7 Dore, pp. 5–8; Chester CAO, CR63/702, pp. 1–115 and passim.

8 As, e.g., by Cliffe, J. T. in The Puritan Gentry (London, 1984), p. 195Google Scholar.

9 See Johnson, A. M., “Some Aspects of the Political, Constitutional, Social and Economic History of the City of Chester, c. 1550–1662” (D.Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1970), pp. 120–38Google Scholar; Lake, P., “The Collection of Ship Money in Cheshire,” Northern History (1981): 44–71Google Scholar; Public Record Office (PRO), State Papers (SP) 16/317, no. 100, SP 16/347, no. 20, SP 16/354, no. 7, and Privy Council Register (PC) 2/47, fols. 422–23; BL, Harleian (Harl.) MS 2093, passim, and Add. MS 36915, passim.

10 See the sources cited in n. 59 below.

11 Dore, pp. 15–18; Hawkins, ed., passim, but esp. pp. 6–7, 13, 45–46, 59–60, 63–64, 67–68, 79–83, 100–10, 121, 135–44.

12 Hawkins, ed., pp. 59–60.

13 Ibid., pp. 79–82, 99, 115, 134–43.

14 Ibid., pp. 6, 10, 11, 24, 57, 63, 67, 106–10.

15 Ibid., pp. 106–10.

16 For “Laudianism” in Cheshire, see Richardson, R. C., Puritanism in North-West England (Manchester, 1972), passimGoogle Scholar; Trevor-Roper, H. R., Archbishop Laud, 2d ed. (London, 1965), pp. 173–74, 323Google Scholar; Quintrell, B. W., The Troubling of Bishop Bridgeman, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Society, vol. 132 (Liverpool, 1982), pp. 67–102Google Scholar.

17 Morrill, , Cheshire (n. 6 above), pp. 29–34Google Scholar; VCH Cheshire (n. 5 above), pp. 107–9.

18 For Aston, see Lake, passim; and a forthcoming article by Judith Maltby.

19 The parliamentary diary of Sir Thomas Aston, which increases our knowledge of the number of speeches tenfold (and which appears to be remarkably comprehensive), has recently come to light and is being prepared for publication by Judith Maltby; it will be published by the Camden Society. The diary records no speech by Brereton.

20 BL, Harl. MS 2125, fol. 133.

21 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic (CSPD), 1640–41, pp. 146–47; Cheshire RO, Quarter Sessions Order Book, 1640–50, fol. 13.

22 Journals of the House of Commons (JC), 2:60Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., passim.

24 Morrill, Cheshire, chap. 2; Fletcher (n. 1 above), pp. 104–8.

25 BL, Add. MS 36914, fols. 210, 225.

26 Ibid., fol. 215.

27 Morrill, , Cheshire, pp. 35–37Google Scholar; Urwick, W., Historical Sketches of Nonconformity in Cheshire (Manchester, 1864), pp. 288–90 and passimGoogle Scholar; Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 65, fol. 214.

28 The general context of this paragraph derives from JC, vol. 2, passim; the parliamentary diaries of d'Ewes and Moore, both published sections (namely, Notestein, W., ed., The Journal of Sir Simonds d'Ewes from the Beginning of the Long Parliament to the Opening of the Trial of the Earl of Strafford [New Haven, Conn., 1923]Google Scholar; Coates, W. H., ed., The Journal of Sir Simonds d'Ewes from the First Recess of the Long Parliament to the Withdrawal of the King from London [New Haven, Conn., 1942]Google Scholar; and Coates, W. H., Young, A. S., and Snow, V. F., eds., The Private Journals of the Long Parliament, 3 January to 5 March 1642 [New Haven, Conn., 1982])Google Scholar and unpublished sections; Shaw, W. A., A History of the English Church during the Civil Wars, 2 vols. (London, 1900), vol. 1Google Scholar; and Abbott, W., “The Issue of Episcopacy in the Long Parliament” (D.Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1981)Google Scholar.

29 This paragraph is culled from a mass of material in JC; the journal of Sir Simonds d'Ewes (BL, Harl. MS 162, and Harl. MS 164); uncalendared material in Chester CAO (Cowper MSS) and Cheshire RO, DCC/14 (Cowper MSS); and BL, Add. MS 11332 (a few letters at the back of the volume).

30 Morrill, , Cheshire, pp. 56–69Google Scholar; which has been supplemented and improved on by Fletcher, pp. 338–417; and Hutton, R., The Royalist War Effort (London, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chaps. 1, 2. His role is well elucidated by the sequence of letters in Historical Manuscript Commission, Portland I, pp. 44–46, 51, 94–96, 140–41.

31 See Morrill, Cheshire, chaps. 3, 4; Dore, R. N., The Civil Wars in Cheshire (Chester, 1966), passimGoogle Scholar; Dore, ed. (n. 2 above), introduction.

32 For example, Jerome (or Hieronymus) Zanckey. Many of Zanckey's letters to Brereton are in BL, Add. MS 11332, and Add. MS 11333. See Auden, J. E., Sir Jerome Zanckey of Balderstone, Transactions of the Shropshire Antiquarian Society, vol. 50 (London, 1950)Google Scholar. For the preaching officers, see Dore, ed., pp. 79ff.

33 Cambridge University Library, Syn.7.64.23663 (“Cheshire's Success,” March 1643, no. 4).

34 For example, Dore, ed., p. 88; Stearns, R. P., The Strenuous Puritan (Urbana, Ill., 1954), pp. 293–94Google Scholar.

35 Morrill, , Cheshire, pp. 139–79Google Scholar.

36 Birmingham RL, MS 595611, p. 166; Morrill, , Cheshire, pp. 164, 167n., 264–70Google Scholar.

37 Birmingham RL, MS 595611, pp. 250–51.

38 Ibid., pp. 262–63.

39 JC, 5:337 and passim.

40 Worden, A. B., The Rump Parliament (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 65, 376nGoogle Scholar.

41 JC, 6:553; for his modest attendance record, see CSPD, 1651, p. xxxv.

42 JC, vols. 5–7, passim; CSPD, 1646–53, passim.

43 Morrill, , Cheshire, pp. 287–92Google Scholar.

44 An Exact and Impartiall Accompt of the Indictment, Arraignment, Trial and Judgment … of 29 Regicides (London, 1661), pp. 167, 248Google Scholar.

45 Earwaker, J. P., East Cheshire, 2 vols. (London, 1887), 1:259Google Scholar.

46 Most of the material in this paragraph comes from a lecture on the Civil War in the West Midlands given by R. N. Dore in Birmingham on November 25, 1984. The reference to Brereton's prodigious stomach is from The Mysteries of the Good Old Cause, 2d ed. (London, 1663), p. 3Google Scholar; and the debate on Eccleshall Castle is discussed in Kishlansky, M., The Rise of the New Model Army (Cambridge, 1979), p. 137Google Scholar. See also Thomas, P. W., Sir John Berkenhead (Oxford, 1969), pp. 104–5Google Scholar.

47 Dore, , “The Early Life of Sir William Brereton” (n. 4 above), p. 17Google Scholar.

48 The following paragraphs are a digest of Morrill, “The Religious Context of the English Civil War” (n. 1 above), and “The Attack on the Church of England in the Long Parliament” (in press).

49 Despite Charles I's fantasies about retaining Parliament only if it would grant him supply (for which, see Russell, C., “Why Did Charles I Call the Long Parliament?” History 69 [1984]: 375–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar), he was not a free agent.

50 As will be shown by the publication of the parliamentary diary of Sir Thomas Aston (see n. 19 above).

51 For a rather different recent emphasis, see Lambert, S., “The Opening of the Long Parliament,” Historical Journal 27 (1984): 265–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 Morrill, “The Religious Context of the English Civil War,” passim.

53 Ibid., p. 70; and Mendle, M., “Politics and Political Thought, 1640–1642,” in Origins of the English Civil War, ed. Russell, C. (London, 1973), pp. 226–32Google Scholar (which is developed at greater length in his “Mixed Government, the Estates and the Bishops” [Ph.D. thesis, Washington University, 1977], pp. 396–432)Google Scholar.

54 For the later months of 1642, see Fletcher (n. 1 above), chaps. 7–12; and the early parts of Hexter, J. H., The Reign of King Pym (New Haven, Conn., 1940)Google Scholar. For Selden, see Tuck, R., “The Ancient Law of Freedom: John Selden and the Civil War,” in Reactions to the English Civil War, ed. Morrill, J. S. (London, 1982), pp. 137–62Google Scholar; for Whitlocke, see Spalding, R., The Improbable Puritan (London, 1979)Google Scholar; for Rudyerd, I am indebted to David Smith for letting me see work in progress.

55 Wormald, B. H. G., Clarendon (Cambridge, 1950), pt. 1Google Scholar.

56 Hart, J. S., “The House of Lords and the Reformation of Justice, 1640–1643” (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1985), chap. 3Google Scholar.

57 Morrill, “The Attack on the Church of England in the Long Parliament,” passim.

58 This follows the argument of Finlayson, M., Historians, Puritanism and the English Revolution (Toronto, 1983), pp. 79–119Google Scholar, for the 1620s but not entirely for 1640–42.

59 This account leans heavily on the work of Collinson, P., as in The Religion of Protestants, 1558–1625 (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar, and Godly People (London, 1984)Google Scholar. It is also much influenced by the articles of P. Lake, esp. “Sir Richard Grosvenor and the Rhetoric of Magistracy,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 54 (1981): 40–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Thomas Scott and the Spanish Match,” Historical Journal 25 (1982): 805–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; by Christianson, P., Reformers and Babylon (Toronto, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and by Hunt (n. 1 above).

60 In general, I am persuaded by Hibbard (n. 1 above); esp. in the light of Stevenson, D., Alasdair MacColla and the Highland Problem in the Seventeenth Century (Edinburgh, 1981)Google Scholar, and Scottish Covenanters and Irish Confederates (Belfast, 1981)Google Scholar. I am, in fact, inclined to go further and to see a symbiotic link between a heightened fear of popery and the necessity of godly reformation. In explicating the political thought of 1642, this article owes most to Lamont, W. M., Richard Baxter and the Millennium (Brighton, 1979)Google Scholar; and to conversations with Howard Moss, who is completing a thesis on the thought of Henry Parker.

61 This draws heavily on Wilson, J. F., Pulpit in Parliament (Princeton, N.J., 1969)Google Scholar; and on a reading of the Fast sermons (for which, see Jeffs, R., ed., Fast Sermons to Parliament, Nov 1640–Apr 1653, 34 vols. [London, 1970–1971])Google Scholar.

62 BL, Thomason Tract E 131 (29) (Calamy, Edward, England's Looking Glass [1641], pp. 3, 58Google Scholar), although Thomason Tract E 133 (9) (Marshall, Stephen, Meroz Cursed [1641])Google Scholar is usually the first mentioned. See also BL, Thomason Tract E 147 (13) (Goodwin, Thomas, Zerubbebel's Encouragement to Finish the Temple [1642])Google Scholar.

63 Both are quoted in Yule, G., The Puritans in Power (Sutton Courtney, 1982), p. 108Google Scholar.

64 The next two paragraphs are based on Morrill, “The Attack on the Church of England in the Long Parliament.”

65 For Harley, see Levy, J., “Perception and Belief: The Harleys of Brampton Bryan and the Origins and Outbreak of the Civil War” (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1983)Google Scholar; Hunt, pp. 279–310; and Holmes, C., Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1980), chaps. 8–10Google Scholar. For Alexander Rigby, I have relied on parliamentary diaries, on JC, and on conversations with J. J. Bagley.

66 Morrill, “The Religious Context of the English Civil War” (n. 1 above), passim.

67 This is an amalgam of Morrill, J. S., The Revolt of the Provinces (London, 1976)Google Scholar; and of R. Ashton, “From Cavalier to Roundhead Tyranny,” and Pennington, D., “The War and the People,” in Morrill, , ed. (n. 54 above), pp. 185–208, 115–36Google Scholar. It also draws on Underdown, D. E., Revel, Rebellion, and Riot (Oxford, in press)Google Scholar.

68 See esp. the article by Skinner, Q., “Conquest and Consent,” in The Interregnum, ed. Aylmer, G. E. (1972), pp. 79–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but also much else. For an important attempt to demonstrate the providentialist arguments at the center of the Engagement controversy, see the forthcoming article by Glenn Burgess.

69 Morrill, J. S., “The Church in England,” in Morrill, , ed., pp. 103–14Google Scholar.

70 See, e.g., the events and declarations surrounding the trials and executions that followed the sieges of Colchester and Pembroke in 1648—unlike anything in the first civil war.

71 Crawford, P., “Charles Stuart, That Man of Blood,” Journal of British Studies 16, no. 2 (1977): 41–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 This derives vicariously from the vast literature on Cromwell. For a fuller statement of the main theme, see Morrill, J. S., “King Oliver?” Cromwelliana (1981–1982), pp. 20–26Google Scholar.