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Closing ranks: oligarchy and government at Rye, 1570–1640

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2011

Stephen Hipkin
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Abstract

During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the development of oligarchic government was accomplished in many English corporate towns by the introduction of a common council, the exclusion of the commonalty of freemen from participation in decision-making processes, and often their removal from the municipal and/or parliamentary franchise. Resistance to such changes among rank-and-file freemen frequently gave rise to civic strife, factionalism and oligarchic dependence on outside support. But analysis of developments at the town of Rye in Sussex suggests that an alternative (or subsidiary) route to oligarchy, less prone to fostering factionalism and dependency on crown agents, may have existed in towns where it was possible strictly to control freeman admissions and promote rule by exclusive commonalty.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , December 1995 , pp. 319 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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Footnotes

*

I should like to acknowledge the constructive suggestions and advice from two anonymous referees.

References

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8 Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 291-2; RYE 1/4, ff. 211v-14; RYE 1/7, f. 507r; HMC Rye, 45, 47-8. In precisely similar terms the seamen of Rye appealed upwards to the corporation c. 1570 for action to be taken to build a jetty providing safe harbourage ‘for the commonweal, and ease not only for ourselves, but generally for others’, RYE 99/5.

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11 RYE 47/6, 12; Mayhew, Tudor Rye, 104.

12 Hipkin, S.A., ‘The impact of marshland drainage on Rye harbour 1550-1650’, in Eddison, J. (ed.), Romney Marsh: The Debatable Ground (Oxford, 1995), 138–47Google Scholar; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 98-229; Mayhew, Tudor Rye, 233-69.

13 RYE 1/3, f. 189; RYE 1/4, ff. lOOv, 165, 195, 198v, 204v; RYE 1/5, f. 13v; RYE 99/5-6; RYE 47/9,15,26; RYE 60/9; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye', 39-40, 116.

14 Mayhew, Tudor Rye, 127-37 provides a descriptive account of the disorders. Dell, Records of Rye, 68; RYE 60/9, f. 135r.

15 RYE 47/24, 25; HMC Rye, 71; RYE 1/4, ff. 121-2, 332; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 4, 27, 277.

16 Ibid., 277; RYE 47/22; HMC Rye, 73-4; RYE 1/4, ff. 321 v-2; Dell, Records of Rye, 2.

17 RYE 1/3, f. 12; RYE 1/4, ff. 64v, 124, 384; Dell, Records of Rye, 26. Mayhew‘s Tudor Rye, 107-8, does not recognize the existence of the strategy, described here, of promoting oligarchy by restricting entry into the commonalty.

18 The Rye custumal probably dates from the mid-fourteenth century, but only mid-sixteenth-century copies survive. Holloway, History of Rye, 137-58, esp. 145; RYE 57/1.

19 Hipkin, S.A., ‘Buying time: fiscal policy at Rye 1600-1640', Sussex Archaeological Collections, 133 (1995)Google Scholar, forthcoming; Clark and Slack, English Towns in Transition, 115-16, 129; Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, 220-1; Ollerenshaw, ‘Civic elite of Sandwich’, 54-78; Reed, M., ‘Economic structure and change in seventeenth-century Ipswich’, in Clark, P. (ed.), Country Towns in Pre-Industrial England (Leicester, 1981), 120–1Google Scholar; Dyer, A.D., The City of Worcester in the Sixteenth Century (Leicester, 1973), 173Google Scholar; Palliser, D.M., Tudor York (Oxford, 1979), 147Google Scholar.

20 RYE 1/4, f. 384; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 279-80.

21 RYE 1/1-14; RYE 60/6-10; RYE 61/10-59; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 281, 286-8.

22 Ibid., 277-8; RYE 1/5, ff. 184-5.

23 This paragraph is based on analysis contained in Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 164-92, 281-6, 350-3.

24 Clark, Religion, Politics and Society in Kent, 340-1.

25 RYE 1/9, f. 540r; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 289-90.

26 Ibid., 290-7; RYE 1/7, f. 475r; RYE 1/8, ff. llv, 168r; RYE 1/9, f. 540r; RYE 1/10, ff. 70, 114v, 122r; RYE 1/11, f. 266v; RYE 1/12, f. 226; RYE 1/14, f. 20v.

27 Fletcher, Sussex, 238; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 173-4; HMC Rye, 120-2; RYE 47/70; RYE 1/7, ff. 325r, 386v, 412r, 417v-18r, 419-29r; Gregory, A.S., ‘Witchcraft, politics and “good neighbourhood” in early seventeenth-entury Rye’, Past and Present, 133 (1991), 39-50, esp. 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Slander accusations and social control in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century England, with particular reference to Rye (Sussex), 1590-1615’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Sussex, 1985), 135-6. Gregory concedes that ‘it is difficult to establish factional allegiance even among the magistracy at this period’, that ‘principles’ determining choice of allegiance amongst followers and ‘main’ protagonists ‘need not have been identical’, and that the allegiance of individuals ‘may have changed at different times’. One can only wonder what substance there could be to ‘factions’ whose leaders cannot be identified but may, whoever they are, have been motivated by different, unspecified, principles from their followers, and where leaders and followers alike were ever liable to ‘change sides’ for, again, unspecified reasons.

28 RYE 47/111, 113, 115; RYE 1/11, ff. 215, 218-19, 227v, 228, 236r, 242r, 245r, 261r, 265-8. For a more detailed account of the Sharp/Benbrick affair, and of the handful of other cases of inter-oligarchic disputes, all of them related to allegations of corruption or business malpractice, see Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 294-301.

29 BM, Add. MS 5705, f. 140; RYE 99/13; RYE 47/1-133; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 231-9.

30 Ibid., 301-12; Underdown, D., Fire From Heaven; Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1992), 92Google Scholar.

31 Hipkin, ‘Marshland reclamation’, 139-44; idem, ‘Economy of Rye’, 240-3; RYE 1/7, ff. 384-5, 387v, 509v.

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33 HMC Rye, 126-7, 135; RYE 1/7, ff. 506v, 508r; RYE 1/8, ff. 52v, 68r.

34 Hipkin, ‘Buying time’, passim; RYE 1/7, ff. 324v-5r, 328, 373r, 386v, 412r, 437v-8r, 440v, 446-8r, 464r, 468r, 487, 501r; RYE 130/45; RYE 135/26.

35 RYE 47/86, 96; HMC Rye, 157-9, 162-4; RYE 1/9, ff. 424r, 431; RYE 1/10, ff. 209r-10r; RYE 1/11, ff. 15r, 22r; Calendar of State Papers Domestic (hereafter CSPD) 1619-1623, 123, 176, 200, 212; CSPD 1623-1625, 152; Gruenfelder, J.K., ‘Rye and the parliament of 1621’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 107 (1969), 29–30Google Scholar.

36 RYE 1/8, ff. 250r, 264v; RYE 1/9, f. 574r; RYE 1/10, ff. 211r, 217r; HMC Rye, 144-6, 162, 166-71; Russell, C., Parliaments and English Politics 1621-1629 (Oxford, 1979), 37–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; CSPD 1619-1623, 222; CSPD 1623-1625, 184-5; RYE 47/97, 115; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 104-5, 120-1.

37 HMC Rye, 173, 176, 189-90; Fletcher, Sussex, 176, 237-8; RYE 1/11, ff. 67r, lOOv, 196v; RYE 47/113; Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 105-7.

38 Ibid., 254, 256, 286-8, 298; Hirst, The Representative of the People?, 226.

39 Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 252-5; RYE 47/131, 132; HMC Rye, 208-10; RYE 1/12, f. 349r; Gruenfelder, J.K., ‘The election to the Short Parliament, 1640’, in Reinmuth, H.S. (ed.), Early Stuart Studies (Minnesota, 1970), 199–200Google Scholar; Keeler, M.F., The Long Parliament, 1640-1641, A Biographical Study of its Members (Philadelphia, 1954), 391Google Scholar; Fletcher, Sussex, 246-7.

40 Everitt, A., The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion 1640-1660 (Leicester, 1973), 76–83Google Scholar; Keeler, The Long Parliament, 77, 209; Brunton, D. and Pennington, D.H., Members of the Long Parliament (London, 1954), 55, 57Google Scholar.

41 RYE 47/133; RYE 1/13, f. 6r.

42 RYE 47/133.

43 Fletcher, Sussex, 239, 250. Fletcher incorrectly summarizes Hay's petition, citing him as saying that when ‘the freemen “did there divide themselves and draw sides” thirteen were for Hay and White, three were for Jacob’, whereas Hay's petition in fact states ‘13 of the freemen were for your petitioner and ten for Mr White and but three for Sir John Jacob’.

44 RYE 47/133.

45 Hipkin, ‘Economy of Rye’, 263-4.

46 Clark and Slack, English Towns in Transition, 116; MacCaffrey, W.T., Exeter, 1540-1640 (Cambridge, Mass., 1975), 52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palliser, Tudor York, 177, 269-70; Reed, ‘Economic Structure and Change’, 99, 120-1; Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, 221; Ollerenshaw, ‘Civic elite of Sandwich’, 54, 70-1; Dyer, Worcester, 181; Mayhew, Tudor Rye, 107-8.

47 Ollerenshaw, ‘Civic elite of Sandwich’, 54-62, 68-73.