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The Lord Lieutenancy on the Eve of the Civil Wars: The Impressment of George Plowright

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Victor L. Stater
Victor L. Stater
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

How and why did the civil wars begin? Were they the result of fortuitous circumstances – rebellion in Scotland and Ireland and financial crisis? Were they the product of an inexorable, inevitable slide which began at some indeterminate date in the 1620s (or indeed before)? Or does the answer lie somewhere between these two extremes?

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 279 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 Barnes, T. G., Somerset, 1625–1640 (Oxford, 1961), p. 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 In 1640, for example, the trained bands of Hertfordshire insisted that it was an unconstitutional violation of their rights to be forced to serve beyond the county's borders. P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice, London], S.P. 16/456/71; 466/42; 450/104.

3 P.R.O., S.P. 16/401/63; 402/15; 404/22.

4 N[orthamptonshire] R[ecord] O[ffice], FH 2843, the king to the earl of Exeter.

5 P.R.O., S.P. 16/404/143–5; P.C. 2/50/161–3; 182/3. The largest expedition raised before this time (under the Stuarts) had been for Count Mansfeldt: a force of some 12,000 men. Those to Rhé and Cadiz each involved about 10,000 troops. Stearn, Stephen, ‘Conscription and English society in the 1620's’, Journal of British Studies, XI (1973), 1–23Google Scholar. Thomas Fairfax, writing to his father from York, put the army's size at 18,000 foot and 4,000 horse (6 May 1639), B[ritish] L[ibrary], Add. MS 18979, fo. 49.

6 P.R.O., S.P. 16/417/109.

7 Ibid. 147/14, 147/46. For a discussion of the problems the lieutenancy faced in the 1620s see Boynton, L., ‘Billeting: the experience of the Isle of Wight’, English Historical Review LXXIV (1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For charges against the deputy lieutenants of Cornwall in the parliament of 1628 see Commons Debates, 1628 III, passim.

8 N.R.O., F(M) C 273.

9 Ibid. 271.

10 Ibid. 274; P.R.O., S.P. 16/421/43.

11 Ibid. 417/47.

12 The vicar of Burton certainly thought so sending George Plowright north ‘will be the last service that he is like to do’. Ibid. 417/47.

13 Quoted by Kent, Joan, ‘The English village constable, 1580–1640: the nature and dilemma of the office’, Journal of British Studies, XX (1981), 40Google Scholar.

14 Ibid. p. 42.

15 Ibid. p. 58. Plowright's social rank is consistent with Kent's assertion that constables were not usually drawn from the lower strata of the village, as is sometimes assumed.

16 N.R.O., Marriage Register. Plowright was married at Great Addington, Northants, on 27 March 1620. For the tithe accounts, see N.R.O. M 288 Parish Register, Burton Latimer; P.R.O., S.P. 16/409/2.

17 Bridges, J., History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, II, 225Google Scholar.

18 N.R.O., 55 P/219(a).

19 P.R.O., S.P. 16/409/21.

20 Ibid. 417/47.

21 Ibid. 421/44.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 H[istorical] M[anuscripts] C[ommission], 12th Report, App. IV, P. 505.

25 P.R.O., S.P. 16/421/44.

26 See D[ictionary] of N[ational] B[iography] under ‘Robert Sibthorpe’.

27 Northants and Ruts Clergy, XII, 169.

28 D.N.B., under ‘Sir John Lambe’.

29 Sibthorpe, R., Apostolike Obedieance (London, 1627), p. 3Google Scholar.

30 D.N.B., ‘Robert Sibthorpe’.

31 Huntington Library, San Marino, California; Stowe MSS (unfoliated), Sibthorpe to Lambe, 12 April, 1639.

32 Ibid. Letters from Sibthorpe to Lambe, April–June 1639.

33 Northants and Ruts Clergy, XII, 168.

34 N.R.O., 55 P/231–2; copies of legal documents and Sibthorpe's judgement.

35 Details of this case may be found in P.R.O., S.P. 16/317/46; 318/6.

36 Ibid. 409/2.

37 Ibid. 421/44.

38 See D.N.B., under ‘Richard Kilvert’.

39 P.R.O., S.P. 16/417/47.

40 P.R.O., P.C. 2/50; S.P. 16/423/123.

41 See, for example, D.L.s Devon to Privy Council, ibid. S.P. 16/421/23; D.L.s Cambs to Privy Council, S.P. 16/421/55; D.L.s Hants to Privy Council, S.P. 16/423/61.

42 Ibid. 418/86.

43 N.R.O., SJ 86, 91.

44 H.M.C., Buccleuch and Queensberry, III, 415–16.

45 P.R.O., P.C. 2/50/324, 358.

46 Ibid. S.P. 16/409/21.

47 Ibid. 420/67.

48 Ibid. 409/2.

49 Ibid. 421/44.

50 Ibid.

51 Exeter's only regular attendance at the Board in 1639 came during the first three weeks of May, when the case was heard. His health continued to decline throughout 1639; he died in the spring of 1640. Ibid. P.C. 2/50.

52 Ibid. S.P. 16/421/43; P.C. 2/50/358.

53 Huntington Library, Stowe MSS, Sibthorpe to Lambe, 23 May 1639.

54 P.R.O., S.P. 16/421/43, 109; 422/35.

55 Ibid. 422/107; 423/73; P.C. 2/50/400.

56 Ibid. S.P. 16/421/43.

57 Ibid. 421/44.

58 Ibid. 417/41.

59 Ibid. 409/1.

60 Ibid. 417/72.

61 Ibid. P.C. 2/50.

62 Quoted by Coate, Mary, Cornwall in the Civil Wars (Oxford, 1933), p. 23Google Scholar.

63 P.R.O., S.P. 16/410/102.

64 Boynton, L., The Elizabethan Militia (London, 1967), p. 271Google Scholar.

65 P.R.O., S.P. 16/468/138.

66 Ibid. 456/42.

67 Ibid. 457/5.

68 H.M.C. 12th Report, App. IV, p. 521.

69 P.R O., S.P. 16/413/54.

70 See Tyacke, N., ‘Puritanism, Arminianism, and counter-revolution’, Russell, Conrad (ed ), The origins of the English Civil War (London, 1980)Google Scholar.