God’s FURY, England’s FIRE

by Braddick, Michael

  104. For the complexities see Anthony Milton, Catholic and Reformed: Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge, 1994), ch. 8, esp. pp. 187–209.

  105. Caroline Hibbard, Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, NC, 1983), esp. chs. 2–3, quotation at p. 71; Caroline Hibbard, ‘Henrietta Maria (1609–1669)’, ODNB, 26, pp. 392–406. For a rounded view of the cultural and political role of Henrietta Maria’s court see Caroline Hibbard, ‘Henrietta Maria in the 1630s: Perspectives on the Role of Consort Queens in Ancien Régime Courts’, in Atherton and Sanders (eds.), The 1630s, pp. 92–110.

  106. For a summary and further references see Braddick, State Formation, esp. pp. 294–8, 309–10.

  107. Ibid., pp. 298–301.

  108. Quoted in Cogswell, Home Divisions, pp. 189–90 (the sermon was published in 1635).

  109. See, for example, Claire S. Schen, ‘Constructing the Poor in Early Seventeenth-Century London’, Albion, 32:3 (2000), 450–63; Claire S. Schen, Charity and Lay Piety in Reformation London 1500–1620 (Aldershot, 2002), p. 235. For Scots in the European wars see Allan I. Macinnes, The British Revolution, 1629–1660 (Basingstoke, 2005), esp. pp. 50–54; for the English see David Trim, ‘Calvinist Internationalism and the English Officer Corps, 1562–1642’, History Compass, 4/6 (2006), 1024–48. Cromwell may have been one of them, although probably not: Barry Coward, Oliver Cromwell (Harlow, 1991), p. 8.

  110. The best account of the ritual construction of community is Daniel C. Beaver, Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester 1590–1690 (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), esp. intro., chs. 1–3. See also David Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1997); for churching see esp. ch. 9. For an account of pewing emphasizing community against a general stress on hierarchy, and with full references to the literature it is attacking, see Christopher W. Marsh, ‘“Common Prayer” in England 1560–1640: The View from the Pew’, PP, 171 (2001), 66–94.

  111. Sharpe, Personal Rule, pp. 751–7; for John Pym’s flirtation with migration see Anthony Fletcher, The Outbreak of the English Civil War (London, 1981), p. xxi; for Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke see Russell, Fall, p. 1; for Cromwell’s possible flirtation see Coward, Cromwell, p. 8. Eighty thousand left for the New World during the 1630s (Macinnes, British Revolution, p. 64), but only a fraction of this movement can be accounted for by religious exiles. Twenty thousand left England for New England: John Spurr, English Puritanism 1603–1689 (Basingstoke, 1998), p. 91. For an excellent overview see Alison Games, ‘Migration’, in David Armitage and Michael J. Braddick (eds.), The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800 (Basingstoke, 2002), pp. 31–50.

  112. For the general problem see Spurr, Puritanism, pp. 90–93. For Puritan acquiescence, or silence, during the 1630s and the role of networks in sustaining the godly in their faith see Eales, Puritans and Roundheads, pp. 10–13 and ch. 3; Fletcher, Sussex, ch. 3; Cressy, England on Edge, pp. 141–6; Barnes, Somerset, pp. 21–3. Of course, this solidarity and mutual support might also serve to divide the godly from their neighbours.

  113. For the complexities of Puritan attitudes in the 1630s see Peter Lake, ‘“A Charitable Christian Hatred”: The Godly and Their Enemies in the 1630s’, in Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales (eds.), The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700 (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 145–83; and for a case study see John Fielding, ‘Opposition to the Personal Rule of Charles I: The Diary of Robert Woodford, 1637–1641’, reprinted in Peter Gaunt (ed.), The English Civil War (Oxford, 2000), pp. 104–27.

  114. Sharpe, Personal Rule, pp. 758–65, quotation at p. 763.

  115. This case is eloquently stated by Cromartie, Constitutionalist Revolution, esp. pp. 254–6.

  3. Drawing Swords in the King’s Service

  1. Andy Wood, Riot, Rebellion and Popular Politics in Early Modern England (Basingstoke, 2002), p. 127. Wood reads this incident differently. For impressment in 1639 see M. C. Fissel, The Bishops” Wars: Charles I’s Campaigns against Scotland 1638–1640 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 224–41; for Cheshire and the war effort see map 1, and pp. 12–18.

  2. All examples from Conrad Russell, The Fall of the British Monarchies 1637–1642 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 85–7. For the circulation of Covenanter propaganda see Joseph Black, ‘“Pikes and Protestations”: Scottish Texts in England, 1639–40’, Publishing History, 42 (1997), 5–19; Joad Raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 181–7; Jacqueline Eales, Puritans and Roundheads: The Harleys of Brampton Bryan and the Outbreak of the English Civil War (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 91–5.

  3. Russell, Fall, pp. 85–6: they had refused to remove their hats during the reading of the royal proclamation against the Scots. Two of them claimed that they had done so initially but then put them back on because the church was cold.

  4. Fissel, Bishops” Wars, pp. 18–22; Russell, Fall, pp. 84–5. For Brooke see Ann Hughes, ‘Greville, Robert, Second Baron Brooke of Beauchamps Court (1607-1643)’, ODNB, 23, pp. 792–5; Ann Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire, 1620–1660 (Cambridge, 1987), esp. pp. 120–26. For the Providence Island Company see Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Providence Island 1630–1641: The Other Puritan Colony (Cambridge, 1993).

  5. Russell, Fall, pp. 82–3, 87–8.

  6. Peter Donald, An Uncounselled King: Charles I and the Scottish Troubles, 1637–1641 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 81–2.

  7. Ibid., p. 71; Russell, Fall, pp. 79–80.

  8. Ronald G. Asch, ‘Wentworth, Thomas, First Earl of Strafford (1593–1641)’, ODNB, 58, pp. 142–57. See also J. F. Merritt (ed.), The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 1621–1641 (Cambridge, 1996); G. C. F. Forster, ‘Faction and County Government in Early Stuart Yorkshire’, Northern History, 11 (1976 for 1975), 70–86.

  9. Russell, Fall, p. 80.

  10. 1639: Fissel, Bishops” Wars, p. 24 – this was roughly the same size as the army of the Covenanters; 1640: Austin Woolrych, Britain in Revolution 1625–1660 (Oxford, 2002), p. 145; See also Fissel, Bishops” Wars, pp. 45–53.

  11. Northumberland to Wentworth, 23 July 1638: William Knowler, The Earl of Strafford’s Letters and Dispatches, 2 vols. (London, 1739), II, p. 186. Russell reports similar views from Northumberland in 1640: Fall, p. 131. See also David Cressy, England on Edge: Crisis and Revolution 1640–1642 (Oxford, 2006), p. 80.

  12. Fissel, Bishops” Wars, pp. 246–9.

  13. For impressment in general see Michael J. Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England, c. 1550-1700 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 196–9 and the references therein.

  14. Fissel, Bishops” Wars, p. 237. A sidesman was a minor official in the church, responsible for greeting the congregation and seating them.

  15. Ibid., pp. 232–6; Victor L. Stater, ‘The Lord Lieutenancy on the Eve of the Civil Wars: The Impressment of George Plowright’, HJ, 29 (1986), 279–96. For Sibthorpe, see above, p. 48. He was vocal too about divisions later in 1639: Russell, Fall, p. 85.

  16. Fissel, Bishops” Wars, pp. 226–32.

  17. For financial questions see ibid., pp. 124–37; for reluctant nobles and the officer corps see ibid., pp. 18–22, 78–80, 152–62. For the problems of arms supply see ibid., pp. 90–110; Richard Winship Stewart, The English Ordnance Office 1585–1625: A Case Study in Bureaucracy (Woodbridge, 1996).

  18. For the weakness of the arms market see Fissel, Bishops” Wars, pp. 98–106. Some of the difficulties in the case of the officer corps were political, however: ibid., pp. 86–7.

  19. Edward M. Furgol, ‘Scotland Turned Sweden: The Scottish Covenanters and the Military Revolution’, in John Morrill (ed.), The Scottish National Covenant in Its British Context 1638–1651 (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 134–54. Fissel argues that the Covenanters enjoyed considerable superiority in committee and command structure, officer corps and infantry, but that they might not have been able to sustain a campaign for very long: Bishops” Wars, pp. 38
, 73–7, 81–2, 244–6; for the weaknesses of the Covenanters” army, which he sees as bluffing the King, see David Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution, 1637–44: The Triumph of the Covenanters (Edinburgh, 2003), esp. pp. 127–31, 141–51.

  20. For doubts on the Covenanter side see Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, esp. pp. 145–6, 151, 154–5. For an evaluation of the relative strengths see Fissel, Bishops” Wars, pp. 31–2.

  21. Fissel, Bishops” Wars, pp. 24–9; for Leslie’s trick see pp. 28–9.

  22. Russell, Fall, pp. 71–90.

  23. Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, pp. 155–6; Russell, Fall, pp. 63–8.

  24. Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, pp. 156–61.

  25. Hamilton declined the offer, saying to the King that he would not be trusted in Scotland and would be required to give concessions that would make him unpopular with Charles: Stevenson, ibid., p. 160. Russell suggests that this was because Hamilton thought Charles was willing to see the abolition of episcopacy, and that in the light of Hamilton’s posture on this question the previous year, this would leave him no personal credibility with the Covenanters: Russell, Fall, p. 67.

  26. Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, pp. 162–76.

  27. For the letter see ibid., pp. 180–81.

  28. Russell, Fall, pp. 92–3; for the financial position see Fissel, Bishops” Wars, ch. 3.

  29. HEH, EL 7830, Castle to Bridgewater, 9 April 1640; HEH EL 7831, Castle to Bridgewater, 11 April 1640. A window that would accommodate five or six people would cost no less than £5, another that would accommodate only three or four would cost £3 10s. Only a fiscal historian or a curmudgeon would point out that this was a large sum by comparison, for example, with a ship money assessment. For other examples of anticipation see David Underdown, Somerset in the Civil War and Interregnum (Newton Abbot, 1973), p. 24; Eales, Puritans and Roundheads, pp. 94–5; Cressy, England on Edge, p. 111 (where the promise of an election was a reason to postpone emigration); Hughes, Warwickshire, pp. 116–17; A. R. Warmington, Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration in Gloucestershire 1640–1672 (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 24–6, 27–8.

  30. Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, pp. 130–31. For the elections see Derek Hirst, The Representative of the People: Voters and Voting in England under the Early Stuarts (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 147–53 and appendix 4; Richard Cust, ‘“Patriots” and “Popular Spirits”: Narratives of Conflict in Early Stuart Politics’, in Nicholas Tyacke (ed.), The English Revolution c. 1590–1720 (forthcoming, Manchester). Conrad Russell suggested that these elections represented a significant departure as organized godly lobbying overcame the more general reluctance to see elections contested: Russell, Fall, pp. 94–8. See also Anthony Fletcher, A County Community in Peace and War: Sussex 1600–1660 (London, 1975), pp. 243–8.

  31. Esther S. Cope and Willson H. Coates (eds.), Proceedings of the Short Parliament of 1640, Camden 4th ser., 19 (London, 1977), pp. 115–18, 122–3. For the text of the letter and its translation see LJ, iv, p. 48.

  32. Russell finds this reading unconvincing (Russell, Fall, p. 103) and Woolrych’s verdict is that it was ‘absurd, and probably struck his hearers so’: Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, p. 133.

  33. Cope and Coates (eds.), Proceedings, p. 134; Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, pp. 183–4.

  34. Cope and Coates (eds.), Proceedings, pp. 135–8. The image of a biblical plague was often deployed by those critical of revenue officers: Michael J. Braddick, The Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1714 (Manchester, 1996), pp. 170, 206–9, 220–22.

  35. Cope and Coates (eds.), Proceedings, pp. 138–43.

  36. The precise extent of the co-operation is not clear: Russell, Fall, pp. 122–3. For Charles’s suspicions See also Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, p. 188. For a general account of the balance of opinion in the Short Parliament see Russell, Fall, pp. 90–123.

  37. Russell, Fall, pp. 97–9.

  38. Cope and Coates (eds.), Proceedings, pp. 148–57, quotations at pp. 149, 155; Russell, Fall, pp. 106–7. For Pym: Conrad Russell, ‘Pym, John (1584–1643)’, ODNB, 45, pp. 623–40.

  39. The comparison is Russell’s, Fall, p. 108.

  40. Ibid., p. 110.

  41. Keith Lindley, Popular Politics and Religion in Civil War London (Aldershot, 1997), pp. 4–6; HEH, EL 7833, Castle to Bridgewater, 12 May 1640. Castle saw this as the direct result of the ‘two pasquils that were affixed to the pillars of the old Exchange the last week, [which] have brought forth this sour fruit’. The crowd is generally estimated to have comprised between 500 and 800 people, although the Venetian ambassador put the number at 2,000: Lindley, Popular Politics, p. 4n; Peter Razzell and Edward Razzell (eds.), The English Civil War: A Contemporary Account, vol. 2: 1640–1642 (London, 1996), p. 14. Laud thought it 500: Keith Lindley (ed.), The English Civil War and Revolution: A Source Book (London, 1998), p. 43. See also Cressy, England on Edge, pp. 118–22.

  42. HEH, EL 7836, Castle to Bridgewater, 27 May 1640. The letter reports his anxious black humour about when to return.

  43. Lindley, Popular Politics, pp. 4–6.

  44. Ibid., pp. 26–35.

  45. Ibid., pp. 5–6; HEH EL 7835, Castle to Bridgewater, 18 May 1640; EL 7837, Castle to Bridgewater, 9 June 1640. See also EL 7834, Castle to Bridgewater, 15 May 1640: the rioters aimed at ‘the Fox [Laud], and the little bird [Matthew Wren, Bishop of Norwich]’ as well as some at St James and ‘the swarms of the French’. For Marie de Medici see Caroline Hibbard, Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, NC, 1983), esp. pp. 87–8, 151–2, 198–9.

  46. Lindley, Popular Politics, pp. 7–8. For Charles’s reaction, and the torture of Archer, See also Russell, Fall, p. 129. This may reflect the extent to which Charles was unnerved by the disturbances: Castle reported that precedents were being sought for recalling a parliament without new elections (‘I hear they have not as yet found any’), HEH, EL 7834, Castle to Bridgewater, 15 May 1640.

  47. For the text of the canons see the extract in J. P. Kenyon (ed.), The Stuart Constitution: Documents and Commentary (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 166–8; Julian Davies, The Caroline Captivity of the English Church (Oxford, 1992), ch. 7. For Convocation and the Royal Supremacy for Charles’s role and intentions see Russell, Fall, pp. 15–16, 136–9.

  48. Russell’s verdict is that it would have been plausible to argue that the campaign should go without a parliament, or that Charles should hold a parliament in order to secure support and supply; what was not plausible policy was to hold a parliament after eleven years without being willing to consult, discuss, secure consent and redress grievances: Russell, Fall, pp. 92–4.

  49. Ibid., pp. 126–8; for an overview see Fissel, Bishops” Wars, pp. 39–44.

  50. See Fissel, Bishops” Wars, esp. pp. 119–20, 162–6, 172–3; for the expedition of the King to Hamburg See also HEH, EL 7841, Castle to Bridgewater, 1 July 1640; for hopes of Spanish help See also Russell, Fall, p. 129.

  51. Quoted in ibid., p. 123.

  52. HEH, EL 7836, Castle to Bridgewater, 27 May 1640. These rumours were bad for credit, among other things: Fissel, Bishops” Wars, p. 123.

  53. Russell, Fall, pp. 106 and 107n.

  54. HEH, EL 7817, Castle to Bridgewater, 17 January 1640; EL 7819, Castle to Bridgewater, 28 January 1640; EL 7822, Castle to Bridgewater, 12 February 1640; EL 7845, Castle to Bridgewater, 1 August 1640; EL 7846, Castle to Bridgewater, 4 August 1640; EL 7848, Bridgewater to Castle, 10 August 1640.

  55. Lindley, Popular Politics, pp. 8–10.

  56. Ibid., p. 7.

  57. Ibid., pp. 44–5; for provincial echoes of the riots See also Cressy, England on Edge, pp. 122–4.

  58. Russell, Fall, pp. 93–4, 132–6; John Morrill, Revolt in the Provinces: The People of England and the Tragedies of War 1630–1648, 2nd edn (Harlow, 1999), pp. 44–5; Hughes, Warwickshire, pp. 114–18. As Hughes points out, it was only in relation to some controversial policies that government collapsed.

  59. Fissel, Bishops” Wars
, pp. 119–23. For the suggestion that the scheme was a bluff intended to lever money from the Corporation of London see HEH, EL 7844, Castle to Bridgewater, 25 July 1640. The proposal certainly did coincide with an approach to the City for money: Fissel, Bishops” Wars, p. 122.

  60. Fissell, Bishops” Wars, chs. 5–6; Cressy, England on Edge, pp. 73–90.

  61. HEH, EL 7835, Castle to Bridgewater, 18 May 1640.

  62. Fissel, Bishops” Wars, pp. 272–3; Russell, Fall, p. 131; HEH, EL 7837, Castle to Bridgewater, 9 June 1640.

  63. HEH, EL 7842, Castle to Bridgewater, 6 July 1640; EL 7838, Castle to Bridgewater, 23 June 1640.

  64. Russell, Fall, pp. 130–31.

  65. Fissel, Bishops” Wars, esp. pp. 270–72.

  66. Ibid., pp. 285–6.

  67. Ibid., p. 271.

  68. Ibid., pp. 278–83. HEH, EL 7838, Castle to Bridgewater, 23 June 1640. The soldiers, like Castle, referred to him as Moon. See also Cressy, England on Edge, pp. 87, 88–9, 91–2; Mark Stoyle, Loyalty and Locality: Popular Allegiance in Devon during the English Civil War (Exeter, 1994), pp. 168–9, 178.

  69. HEH EL 7765, Mr Roger Wilford minister his certificate, 16 August 1640. Nehemiah Wallington collected examples of these actions, which he clearly regarded as religious acts, albeit ones about which he felt ambivalent: BL Sloane MS 1457, fos. 60r–66v; BL Add MS 21935, fos. 88r–91r; R. Webb (ed.), Historical Notices of Events Occurring Chiefly in the Reign of Charles I by Nehemiah Wallington, 2 vols. (London, 1869), pp. 122–6.