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Charles I and Local Government: The Draining of the East and West Fens*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Mark E. Kennedy
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Extract

“The dissolution of this government,” suggested James Harrington, “caused the war, not the war the dissolution of this government.” This dictum has recently received favorable attention not only from a historian who sought the causes of the English Revolution in the great social and economic changes of the sixteenth century, but also from one who described the Civil War as the product of the financial weakness of the Stuart monarchy. The agreement, in at least this one respect, of two such disparate interpreters is heartening. If Professors Stone and Russell are correct in their assessment of Harrington, then the task of the historian of the Civil War is that much simpler. In order to understand the outbreak of armed conflict in 1642 the historian must first understand the collapse of government in 1640.

Many explanations for this collapse have already been advanced. What is interesting from a historiographical perspect is the limited number of variables considered. Whether regarding them as merely precipitants or as major casual factors, historians have concentrated almost exclusively on the great programs of Charles's government: the Book of Orders, the perfect militia, Laudianism, extraparliamentary taxation. This fixation remains largely unaffected even by the recent outpouring of local studies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 19 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1983

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was read at the Middle Atlantic Conference on British Studies, 27 March 1982. I would like to thank Dr. Kevin Sharpe (the commentator) and other participants in the session for their comments. I would also like to thank Ms. Margaret Kassner, Professor Robert Ruigh, and Professor Clive Holmes for their comments on several drafts.

References

1 Quoted in Stone, Lawrence, The Causes of the English Revolution (New York, 1972), p. 48.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 48, and Russell, Conrad, “The Causes of the English Civil War,” paper read at the American Historical Association convention (1980)Google Scholar. See also Conrad Russell, “Parliament and the King's Finances” in idem., ed., The Origins of the English Civil War (New York, 1973), pp. 91-116.

3 Two exceptions are Clark, Peter, English Provincial Society from the Reformation to the Revolution (Hassocks, Sussex, 1977), pp. 348–350Google Scholar, and Holmes, Clive, Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1980), pp. 121–130.Google Scholar

4 See Hill, Lamar M., “Continuity and Discontinuity: Professor Neale and the Two Worlds of Elizabethan Government,” Albion 9 (1977): 343–358CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Morrill's, J.S. comments upon ship money in The Revolt of the Provinces (London, 1976), p. 28.Google Scholar

5 The phrase is Everitt's. See Everitt, Alan, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion 1640-1660 (Leicester, 1966), p. 13.Google Scholar

6 See Kennedy, Mark E., “Fen Drainage, the Central Government, and Local Interest: Carleton and the Gentlemen of South Holland,” Historical Journal (forthcoming).Google Scholar

7 Ibid.

8 This conclusion is based upon a much larger study of the draining of the fens during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

9 Public Record Office C82/2043/106; PRO SP38/15 27 May 1629; Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1628-1629, p. 558; Thompson, Pishey, History and Antiquities of the Port of Boston (Boston, England, 1856), p. 625.Google Scholar

10 Aylmer, G.E., The King's Servants (New York, 1961), pp. 289–290.Google Scholar

11 Albright, Margaret, “The Entrepeneurs of Fen Draining in England under James I and Charles I: An Illustration of the Uses of Influence,” Explorations in Entrepeneurial History 8 (1955–1956): 59.Google Scholar

12 PRO S01/1, fos. 227-227v.

13 PRO SP14/117/78; Summers, Dorothy, The Great Level (Newton Abbot, 1976). pp. 60–62.Google Scholar

14 PRO SP14/128/105. The spelling, capitalization, and punctuation of all quotations has been modernized.

15 CSPD, 1629-1631, pp. 44, 69.

16 British Library, Lansdowne MS 162, fo. 149; PRO SP14/113/78; Acts of the Privy Council, 1619-1621, pp. 250-252.

17 CSPD, 1629-1631, pp. 111-112.

18 BL, Egerton MS 2553, fos. 83v-84.

19 PRO S01/2, fos. 5v-6.

20 PRO S01/1, fos. 264-264v.

21 PRO SP16/158/56.

22 PRO S01/2, fos. 5v-6.

23 PRO SP16/187/76; PRO C231/5, p. 29.

24 PRO SP16/187/76.

25 Thompson, , History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 625Google Scholar; Aylmer, , King's Servants, pp. 108, 139.Google Scholar

26 For the commission, see PRO C181/4, fo. 46.

27 Thompson, , History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 631Google Scholar. For the laws of sewers, see Dugdale, William, History of Imbanking and Draining (London, 1772), pp. 421–423Google Scholar, and PRO C225/2/44, PRO C225/1/26.

28 PRO SP16/257/25.

29 PRO DL5/32, fos. 274v-276; PRO DL5/33, fos. 30v-31, 33v-39; PRO DL44/1134; CSPD, 1640-1641, pp. 308-310; PRO SP16/487/371, II, IV. The patentees were to receive for their improvement 1000 acres in the East Fen and one-half of the West Fen (the whole of which contained 17,000 acres); the patentees did not benefit from the improvement of Wildmore Fen. The commoners in the East and West Fens stated that the patentees' share of the West Fen amounted to 6700 acres, or a little over half of what was left after Thomas's share was subtracted. The patentees claimed they enclosed only 4798 acres in the West Fen and none in the East. The improvement of the two fens is discussed in greater detail in Lindley, Keith, Fenland Riots and the English Revolution (London, 1982), pp. 48–50.Google Scholar

30 Dugdale, , History, pp. 421–422.Google ScholarPubMed

31 PRO SP 16/262/30.

32 Dugdale, , History, p. 423Google ScholarPubMed and PRO C225/1/21.

33 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Ancaster preserved at Grimsthorpe (London, 1907), p. 408.Google Scholar

34 Holmes, , Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire, p. 129Google Scholar; PRO SP16/257/25.

35 PRO DL1/360 Attorney General v. Robert Barkham. According to a later statement of the patentees, once, an agreement had been reached with the commoners a new commission of sewers was issued to such as the country desired (PRO SP16/487/78). The names of three of the eleven commissioners who signed the certificate testifying to the insufficiency of the works are known (see PRO SP16/279/100). All three were among those added to the commission in August 1633 (PRO C181/4, fos. 149-149v).

36 PRO PC2/44, pp. 192-196 CSPD, 1634-1635, pp. 399-400; Historical Manuscripts Commission, 12th Report, Appendix II, Manuscripts of the Earl of Cowper, K.G., preserved at Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire, II (London, 1888), p. 68Google Scholar; PRO S01/2, fos. 200v-201.

37 PRO PC2/44, p. 193; PRO SP16/279/100.

38 PRO S01/2, fos. 251-251v.

39 PRO SP16/451/124; CSPD, 1640-1641, pp. 64-65, 451-452; CSPD, 1636-1637, pp. 259-260 (misdated); PRO PC2/53, pp. 53-54.

40 See CSPD, 1640-1641, pp. 451-452; PRO SP16/476/111 II; PRO SP16/487/37 I, 78.

41 CSPD, 1635, p. 78; PRO S01/2, fos. 228v-229; PRO C225/1/38.

42 PRO PC2/44, p. 606. See also PRO S01/2, fos. 200v-201.

43 CSPD, 1636-1637, pp. 98, 99 (misdated); PRO PC2/46, p. 340; CSPD, 1625-1649, Addenda, p. 536; PRO PC2/46, pp. 424-425; CSPD, 1625-1649, Addenda, pp. 538-539; PRO PC2/46, p. 457; CSPD, 1636-1637, p. 473 (misdated); PRO PC2/47, p. 422; CSPD, 1637, p. 124.

44 Holmes, , Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire, p. 129Google Scholar; CSPD, 1635-1636, pp. 440-441, 541; PRO PC2/46, p. 289; PRO PC2/47, pp. 210-211; PRO PC2/48, pp. 439-440; CSPD, 1637-1638, pp. 405-406; PRO PC2/50, p. 700; PRO PC2/51, p. 309.

45 PRO DL1/360 Attorney General v. Robert Barkham; PRO DL1/362 Attorney General v. Robert Barkham; PRO PC2/48, pp. 294, 349, 391, 540; CSPD, 1637-1638, pp. 189, 190; PRO PC2/50, p. 39; PRO DL5/33, fos. 276v, 281v-282; Thompson, , History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 631.Google Scholar

46 Holmes, , Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire, p. 138.Google Scholar

47 Ibid., pp. 138, 140; Keeler, Mary Frear, The Long Parliament, 1640-1641 (Philadelphia, 1954), p. 54.Google Scholar

48 Cope, Esther and Coates, Willson H., eds., Proceedings of the Short Parliament of 1640 (Camden Society, fourth series, 19 [1977]), p. 228Google Scholar; Notestein, Wallace, 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, 1923), p. 19.Google Scholar

49 For the petitions see CSPD, 1640-1641, pp. 308-310; House of Lords Main Papers, 19 November 1640, Petition of the Earl of Lincoln to the House of Lords; HLMP, 14 December 1640, Petition of Thomas Kirke to the House of Lords; HLMP, 16 December 1640, Petition of the inhabitants and freeholders of Surfleet to the House of Lords; HLMP, 1640, Petition of Edward Ironside to the House of Commons; HLMP, 12 January 1641, Petition of Peregrine Cony et al to the House of Lords; CSPD, 1640-1641, pp. 592-593; HLMP, 5 August 1641, Petition of Nicholas Rowe and Thomas Hall to the House of the Lords; CSPD, 1641-1643, pp. 397-398.

50 See CSPD, 1637-1638, pp. 55-56 and PRO SP16/279/99.

51 A Relation of the Proceedings & causes of complaint, Between The Undertakers with the Earle of Lindsey, in the Levell of Fenns in Lincolnshire betwixt Bourne and Kime Eae, And The Owners and Commoners there [London, 1649], p. 2.Google Scholar

52 That the same evill Counsell and Projectors who destroyed the Propriety of the People in the time of the late King, may not, by the subtility beyond the Peoples imagination get an Interest in the Parliament, and so make the Reformation worse then the Burthen the People then groaned under, and that they may not, as they endeavour, render the Parliament guilty of what they have condemned in others [?London, ?1650], p. 2.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., p. 5.

54 The anti-projector [London, ?1646], p. 3.Google Scholar

55 SirMaynard, John, The Picklock of the Old Fenne Project (London, 1650), p. 10.Google Scholar

56 Holmes, , Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire, p. 139.Google Scholar

57 Underdown, David, “Community and Class: Theories of Local Politics in the English Revolution,” in Malament, Barbara, ed., After the Reformation: Essays in Honor of J.H. Hexter (Philadelphia, 1980), pp. 159–161.Google Scholar