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Tactical Organisation in a Contested Election: Sir Edward Dering and the Spring Election at Kent, 1640
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2009
Extract
The document printed below, from a notebook compiled by the prominent Kentish gentleman Sir Edward Dering of Pluckley in Surrenden, was occasioned by the prospect of an electoral contest, and probable poll, in the Kent county election for what became known as the Short Parliament in the Spring of 1640. The contest in question was between Dering and his (second) cousin Sir Roger Twysden. The circumstances surrounding the Kent election are well known, and have been explored thoroughly by scholars such as Mark Kishlansky, Derek Hirst, and Alan Everitt. Indeed, the election has been cited as evidence by historians with very different views on the nature of early seventeenth century elections.
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References
1 Kishlansky, M. A., Parliamentary Selection. Social and Political Choice in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hirst, D., The Representative of the People? Voters and Voting in England under the Early Stuarts (Cambridge, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Everitt, A., The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion, 1640–1660 (Leicester, 1966)Google Scholar; Jessup, F. W., ‘The Kentish election of March 1640’, Archaeologia Cantiana lxxxvi (1971), pp. 1–10Google Scholar; Hirst, D., ‘The defection of Sir Edward Dering 1640–1’, HJ xv (1972), pp. 193–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Jessup, F. W., Sir Roger Twysden 1597–1672 (London, 1965). pp. 137–42.Google Scholar
2 See also Plumb, J. H., ‘The growth of the electorate in England from 1600–1715’, P&P xlv (1969), pp. 90–116.Google Scholar
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4 Kishlansky, , Parliamentary Selection; pp. 130–5.Google Scholar
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6 Everitt, , Community of Kent, pp. 70–1Google Scholar; Larking, L. B., ed., Proceedings Principally in the County of Kent (Camden Society, old ser. 1862), pp. 3–6Google Scholar; BL, Stowe MS 743, fols 136, 140; BL, Stowe MS 184, fol. 10.
7 CSPD 1639–40, pp. 526–7.Google Scholar
8 Bodl. MS Top. Kent.e.6, pp. 81–2.
9 Larking, , ed., Proceedings, pp. 1–3.Google Scholar
10 George Sondes clearly expected a contest: BL, Stowe MS 743, fol. 136. The pressure to avoid a contest came most noticeably from the Lord Chancellor: ibid.
11 Larking ed., Proceedings, pp. 1–3.Google Scholar
12 Ibid. pp. 3–5, 6.
13 Ibid. pp. 6–7. The manoeuvring to get Sondes and Walsingham to withdraw was intended to be kept secret: BL, Stowe MS 743, fol. 138.
14 Bodl. MS Top. Kent.e.6, pp. 81–2.
15 Ibid.
16 For the assizes, see: Cockburn, J. S., Calendar of Assize Records. Kent Indictments, Charles I (London, 1995), pp. 378–85.Google Scholar
17 Larking, , Proceedings, p. 7.Google Scholar
18 BL, Stowe MS 184, fols 10–11v
19 Bodl. MS Top.Kent.e.6, pp. 81–2.
20 Larking, , Proceedings, pp. 7–8Google Scholar; BL, Stowe MS 743, fol. 140.
21 Bodl. MS Top.Kent.e.6, pp. 81–2; BL, Stowe MS 743, fols 138, 140; Larking, , Proceedings, p. 8.Google Scholar
22 Hirst, , Representative, pp. 122–3.Google Scholar
23 Kishlansky, , Parliamentary Selection, p. 132Google Scholar. See also Jessup, , ‘Kentish election’, p. 1.Google Scholar
24 Hirst, , Representative, p. 117Google Scholar. Dering may have over-estimated the size of the potential electorate, which was probably nearer 6,000: Henning, B. D., ed., The House of Commons 1660–1690 (3 vols., London, 1983), i. 274Google Scholar; Magdalene College, Cambridge, Ferrar Papers, Sir Edwin Sandys to John Ferrar, 12 Jan. 1624. I am grateful to Andrew Thrush for this last reference.
25 Hirst, , Representative, pp. 33, 36–7, 258Google Scholar. See: Baskerville, S., Adman, P. and Beedham, K. F., ‘Manuscript poll books and English county elections in the first age of party: a reconsideration of their provenance and purpose’, Archives xix (1991), pp. 384–403.Google Scholar
26 Hirst, , Representative, pp. 15–16Google Scholar; BL, Add. MS 34828, fol. 15: list of names of those to whom letters were sent before the election in 1601. I am grateful to Andrew Thrush for this last reference.
27 For the parish of Chilham, Dering included among his probable supporters three men who supported him ‘post Sondes’, which I take to mean after Sondes withdrew from the election.
28 Larking, , ed., Proceedings, p. 8.Google Scholar
29 Everitt, , Community of Kent, p. 73Google Scholar; BL, Add. MS 34173, fol. 18.
30 Eventi, , Community of Kent, pp. 73–4Google Scholar; BL, Stowe MS 743, fol. 140.
31 For comments on the geography of Bering's support, see Jessup, , ‘Kentish election’, p. 6.Google Scholar
32 One exception to this pattern is Hartlip, near Rainham.
33 Parishes such as Hadlow, West Peckham, Brenchley, Horsmonden, Marden, Hunton, Linton, Boughton Monchelsea, East and West Farleigh, Mereworth, Teston, East Banning, East Mailing, Leybourne, Offham, Addington, Ryarsh, Snodland, and Birling.
34 Everitt, , Community of Kent, p. 71Google Scholar; Larking, , ed., Proceedings, pp. 6–7Google Scholar; BL, Stowe MS 743, fol. 136.
35 Everitt, , Community of Kent, pp. 71–2Google Scholar; Larking, , ed., Proceedings, pp. 2, 7.Google Scholar
36 Bodl. MS Top.Kent.e.6, p. 84.
37 BL, Stowe MS 743, fol. 140. Later in the year it was reported that George Sondes would help Dering ‘at least in his friends and tenants’, and that one Mr Thomas, lieutenant to Sondes, ‘hath promised to engage his company’: ibid. fol. 155.
38 Barfreston (Anthony Dering), Boughton Malherbe (Edward Dering), Charing (Brent Dering, Nicholas Dering), Eastwell (James Dering), Lodesdowne (Anthony Dering), Newington (Sittingborne), (Henry Dering, clerk), Pluckley (Henry Dering), Ringwold (Francis Dering clerk).
39 Hirst, , Representative, p. 116.Google Scholar
40 Ibid. p. 123.
41 Hirst concluded that men local to Dering were the most loyal: ibid., p. 123.
42 Ibid., p. 116.
43 See the parishes of Charing, Eastchurch, Folkestone, Meresham, Newington (Hythe), and Westwell.
44 Jessup, , ‘Kentish election’, pp. 6–7Google Scholar. Jessup concluded that the document ‘must be used with utmost caution as evidence of political affairs in the Spring of 1640’ (p. 9).
45 Hirst, , Representative, p. 123.Google Scholar
46 Bodl. MS Rawlinson D.141, p. 4.
47 Bodl. MS Top.Kent.e.6, pp. 83–7; MS Rawl. D.141, p. 4; Larking, , ed., Proceedings, p. 5.Google Scholar
48 Bodl. MS Top.Kent.e.6, pp. 81–7; ‘A briefe passages concerning knights of the shire 1639 et 1640’, reprinted in Jessup, , ‘Kentish election’, pp. 2–4.Google Scholar
49 Bodl. MS Top.Kent.e.6, p. 83.
50 On 2 September 1640, one of his supporters, George Strode, wrote to Dering saying that ‘I conceive you do yourself a great deal of right in resuming your pretension, which in my apprehension was most unequally carried in the last election’: Larking, , ed., Proceedings, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar
51 Larking, , ed., Proceedings, pp. 9–11Google Scholar; BL, Stowe MS 184, fols 15–16; Kishlansky, , Parliamentary Selection, p. 132Google Scholar. For Twysden's attitude see: Stowe MS 184, fol. 17: Sir Roger Twysden to Sir Edward Dering, 24 Oct. 1640. In the event, the election on 26 October saw another poll, in which Browne was ‘put by’, and Culpeper and Dering were returned, although only ‘at length [and] with much ado’: Bodl. MS Rawl. D.141, p. 6.
52 I take Dering to mean that these voters indicated that they would support Dering only if Sondes withdrew, while John Goodland and subsequent freeholders, supported Dering ahead of Sondes.
53 I presume that this signifies that these freeholders died before the election, or before Dering ascertained their voting intention.
54 I presume that this signifies that these freeholders died before the election, or before Dering ascertained their voting intention.
55 Possibly a note by Dering to himself to make further enquiries after Mr Boys.
56 I presume that this signifies that this freeholders died before the election, or before Dering ascertained his voting intention.
57 I presume that this signifies that these freeholders died before the election, or before Dering ascertained their voting intention.