Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T00:24:41.936Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - The legacy of the 1680s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Paul D. Halliday
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Get access

Summary

Dunwich had been falling into the North Sea for centuries. By the 1690s, the once bustling borough was a quiet backwater. But Dunwich had a long, proud history of incorporation, and controlling the corporation meant controlling the choice of two members of the House of Commons. For a handful of residents and Suffolk gentlemen, Dunwich politics proved worthy of the most strenuous efforts.

Like the ocean eating away at the sandy bluffs on Dunwich's shore, events of the 1680s crashed again and again on the corporation, leaving nothing but wreckage behind by late 1688. Though the corporation decided to fight the quo warranto brought against them in 1684, they soon thought better of it and surrendered their charter to Charles II and gained a new one not long after he died. According to the power given him by that charter, James II purged most of the new body in 1688. Then, because Dunwich's was one of the few surrenders enrolled in Chancery, it did not benefit from James's proclamation of October 17, 1688, which restored most of England's corporations to their earlier condition. Instead, in one of his last acts as King, James made a special order for Dunwich, dismissing those he had appointed there earlier in the year, and commanding the pre-surrender corporation to reconstitute itself. This they did, and by year's end, it looked as if Dunwich had recovered its fragile status quo ante.

Type
Chapter
Information
Dismembering the Body Politic
Partisan Politics in England's Towns, 1650–1730
, pp. 265 - 303
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • The legacy of the 1680s
  • Paul D. Halliday, University of Virginia
  • Book: Dismembering the Body Politic
  • Online publication: 10 November 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511549380.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • The legacy of the 1680s
  • Paul D. Halliday, University of Virginia
  • Book: Dismembering the Body Politic
  • Online publication: 10 November 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511549380.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The legacy of the 1680s
  • Paul D. Halliday, University of Virginia
  • Book: Dismembering the Body Politic
  • Online publication: 10 November 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511549380.009
Available formats
×