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Edward Alford and the Making of Country Radicalism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2023
Extract
Resentment of monopoly and purveyance, weariness with the burdens of a long war, and the fears and hopes attendant upon the accession of a new and foreign dynasty were all focussed by the meeting of James I's first parliament in 1604. If there was nothing entirely new in these elements, there was novelty and danger in the concurrence of so many grievances at a time when the sense of external crisis which had unified the country for the preceding quarter century was at last relaxed. The new political climate, parochial, isolationist, and hostile to government intrusion whether of church or state, was soon associated with the term “Country.” In one sense, this climate was merely a moderate intensification of perennial English localism, and as such devoid of ideological implication. But allied with the persistent failures of the early Stuart administration, particularly in dealing with parliament, it became a medium in which genuine political opposition began to develop.
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References
1 On the seventeenth-century usage of this term, see Perez Zagorin, The Court and the Country (Atheneum, New York, 1969), pp. 33-38; for a balanced modern appraisal of its significance, Derek Hirst, “Court, Country, and Politics before 1629,” in Kevin Sharpe, ed., Faction and Parliament (Oxford, 1978), pp. 105-37.
2 Wallace Notestein. The House of Commons 1604-1610 (New Haven, 1971); Thomas L. Moir, The Addled Parliament of 1614 (Oxford, 1958); Robert Zaller, The Parliament of 1621 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971); Robert E. Ruigh, The Parliament of 1624 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971); Conrad Russell, Parliaments and English Politics, 1621-1629 (Oxford, 1979). See also Menna Prestwich, Cranfield: Politics and Profits under the Early Stuarts (Oxford, 1966); Derek Hirst, The Representative of the People? (Cambridge, 1975); Stephen D. White, Sir Edward Coke and “The Grievances of the Commonwealth,” 1621-1628 (Chapel Hill, 1979); John K. Gruenfelder, Influence in Early Stuart Elections 1604-1640 (Columbus, Ohio, 1981); and Colin G. C. Tite, Impeachment and Judicature in Early Stuart England (London, 1974).
3 Mary Frear Keeler, The Long Parliament (Philadelphia, 1954); Douglas Brunton and D. H. Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London, 1954). Tabular analysis is also available in John R. MacCormack, Revolutionary Politics in the Long Parliament (Cambridge, Mass., 1973) and David Underdown, Pride's Purge (Oxford, 1971). The latest volume of the History of Parliament Trust series, The History of Parliament: The Commons 1558-1603, ed. P. W. Hasler (London, 1982) contains some overlap with the early Stuart period, as of course does Keeler. See also Richard L. Greaves and Robert Zaller, eds., Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals in the Seventeenth Century (Brighton, Sussex, 1982-83).
4 White, Sir Edward Coke; Catherine Drinker Bowen, The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke, 1552-1634 (Boston, 1957); Harold Hulme, The Life of Sir John Eliot, 1592 to 1632 (London 1957); J. N. Ball, “The Parliamentary Career of Sir John Eliot, 1624-1629” (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1953); Conrad Russell, “The Parliamentary Career of John Pym, 1621-9,” in Peter Clark et al, eds., The English Commonwealth 1547-1640 (New York, 1979), pp. 147-65; William W. MacDonald, The Making of an English Revolutionary: The Early Parliamentary Career of John Pym (London, 1982); Thomas G. Barnes, Somerset, 1625-1640 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961) |for Sir Robert Phelipsl. See also Theodore K. Rabb's forthcoming study of Sir Edwin Sandys.
5 Wallace Notestein et al (eds.), Commons Debates 1621, (New Haven, 1935), 5:240. Henceforth cited as CD 1621.
6 Josiah G. Alford (comp.), and W. P. W. Phillimore (ed.), Alford Family Notes (London, 1908), pp. 25-28; The History of Parliament: The Commons 1558-1603, 1:35.
7 Alford Family Notes, p. 28.
8 Elizabeth Read Foster (ed.),Proceedings inParliament 1610 (New Haven, 1966), 2:74. Henceforth cited as PP 1610.
9 The History of Parliament: The Commons 1558-1603, 1:34. Cf. Alford's reminiscence of his first parliament, CD 1621, 3:434-35.
10 For Alford's relations with the town, see Russell, Parliaments and English Politics, p. 196 and n.; Hirst, The Representative of the People?, 199-201; Gruenfelder, Influence in Early Stuart Elections, 11, 26, n. 31, 158, 180, n. 68; CD 1621, 2:111; 4:83; T. Tyrwhitt (ed.), Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons in 1620 and 1621 (Oxford, 1766), 1:73 (henceforth cited as PD).
11 Anthony Fletcher, A County Community in Peace and War: Sussex 1600-1660 (London, 1975), pp. 232-33.
12 CD 1621, 4:373; Russell, Parliaments and English Politics, p. 344.
13 CD 1621,2:120; Journals of the House of Commons, 1547-1714 (London, 1803), 1:712 (henceforth cited as CJ)\ eds. Robert C. Johnson et al, Commons Debates 1628 (New Haven, 1977), 4:245, 248, 258, 270 (henceforth cited as CD 1628).
14 CD 1621, 2:120.
15 Ibid., 5:353-54; cf. 3:106; 4:272, 5:109-10; 6:107.
16 Ibid.. 2:91, 95; 5:467.
17 Ibid., 4:415.
18 Ibid., 6:208.
19 Ibid., 2:466-67.
20 Nicholas Transcripts (SP 14/166), Yale Center for Parliamentary Studies, p. 76 (f. 49); cf. Spring Transcripts (Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS. English 980), p. 71; Holies Transcripts (BL, Harl. MS. 6383, fols. 80v-141), p. 33; Pym Transcripts (Northamptonshire RO, Finch-Hatton MS. 50), pp. 67-68. All references are to transcripts in the possession of the Yale Center for Parliamentary Studies. I am indebted to Maija Jansson Cole for permission to cite from them.
21 Ruigh, The Parliament of 1624, p. 218 and n. 111.
22 Nicholas Transcripts, p. 149 (f. 94v).
23 Nicholas Transcripts p. 144 (ff. 91-91v).
24 Ruigh, The Parliament of 1624, p. 227.
25 Ibid., 253-54.
26 Nicholas Transcripts, p. 219 (f. 138).
27 Samuel Rawson Gardiner (ed.), Debates in the House of Commons in 1625 (London, 1873), pp. 88-89, 135. Henceforth cited as CD 1625.
28 CD 1628, 2:244.
29 Ruigh, The Parliament of 1624, p. 207.
30 David Harris Willson, (ed.), The Parliamentary Diary of Robert Bowyer 1606-1607 (New York, 1971), pp. 196n., 232-33 (henceforth cited as Bowyer). Alford cast an interesting light on this problem. The lengthy meetings, he said, particularly affected the “ancient Gentlemen” of the House (i.e., the lawyers), who were “necessarily” present at such meetings and often found themselves “sicke and lame long after.” He called for the Committee for Privileges to take up the matter.
31 Notestein, The House of Commons 1604-1610, p. 236.
32 CD 1621, 2:80; 5:11, 460-61; 6:350. Alford read Richardson another lecture on November 20. The Speaker was not, he said, “to be at any Committee but the whole howse and not to goe to the Lords” except when attending the king. Cf. PD, 2:176.
33 CD 1621, 5:63 (and cf. 4:184; CJ 569); 3:72 (and cf. PD, 1:312-13).
34 CD 1628, 2:483, 488.
35 For a genera] discussion of this question—still unsurpassed—see D.H. Willson, The Privy Councillors in the House of Commons, 1604-1629 (Minneapolis, 1940).
36 Bowyer, p. 340; cf. CD 1621, 5:467; 6:351.
37 CD 1621, 5:467; 6:352.
38 Ibid., 3:112, cf. 6:116.
39 PD, 1:32.
40 CD 1621, 3:382.
41 Ibid., 3:392; cf. 4:407; PD, 2:153.
42 CD 1621, 2:441; cf. 3;434-35; 4:433.
43 Ibid., 3:437; 5:210; cf. PD, 2:197-98.
44 For Mallory, see Conrad Russell, “The Examination of Mr. Mallory after the Parliament of 1621,” Bulletin of the Institute for Historical Research (1977), pp. 125-32. For other M.P.s punished after the dissolution, see Zaller, The Parliament of 1621, pp. 188-89.
45 Bowyer, p. 366.
46 BL Add MSS. 34079. ff. 29-30; cf. Moir, The Addled Parliament, p. 85.
47 Hirst, The Representative of the People!1, p. 199.
48 CD 1621, 5:20, 534; 3:358-59.
49 CD 1625, pp. 16, 69-70, 88-89, 146.
50 CD 1621, 4:12; 2:18; CJ 508.
51 CD 1621, 4:16-17, 2:92, n. 2. This criticism was in pointed contrast with the praise Alford lavished on Coke's performance as a councillor three days later (CJ 514; PD, 1:66; CD 1621, 6:251).
52 CD 1621, 5:115-16, 355; 4:276-77.
53 Ibid., 6:155.
54 Ibid., 3:434.
55 Ibid. Alford made notes of the incident afterwards, no doubt anticipating his possible detention. He summarized his speech and noted that Calvert “tooke exceptions” to it. A more laconic description would be hard to imagine. CD 3:435, n. 16; BL Harl. MSS. 6806. ff. 150-51.
56 See C. H. Mcllwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy (New Haven, 1910); Clayton Roberts, The Growth of Responsible Government in Stuart England (Cambridge, 1966); Tite, Impeachment and Judicature; and Zaller, The Parliament of 1621, especially ch. II.
57 Bowyer, pp. 343-44; Kansas Transcripts (KSRL MS. E 237), Yale Center for Parliamentary Studies, p. 104 (f. 49v). I am indebted to Maija Jansson Cole for permission to quote from her transcript of this diary.
58 CD 1621, 2:545; CD 1628, 1:516. Alford was equally concerned with other housekeeping and procedural matters in the House. Early in 1621 he suggested that the House review the bills outstanding from 1614, and he moved that the books of precedents be brought from the Tower for easier access (CD 1621, 2:55; CJ 517). At the end of the 1624 session he moved that the clerk retain all outstanding petitions, and in 1625 he reminded the House to review those which still required action (Nicholas Transcripts, p. 386; Harl. MS. 1601 Transcripts, Yale Center for Parliamentary Studies, p. 31). Another favorite subject was the unwieldiness of committees. In Elizabethan times, Alford said, committees had never numbered more than eight or ten members, but they had now grown to often twice or three times that size, resulting in gross inefficiency, packing by courtiers and councillors, and scheduling clogs that encroached on the sitting time of the House itself (Kansas Transcripts, p. 25: CD 1621, 2:66; 5:452; 6:347; Nicholas Transcripts, p.5). Committees themselves were too numerous; Alford complained in 1624 that bills were committed almost automatically without sufficient debate or instruction (Nicholas Tr., p. 85). A further result was duplication of effort; in the same parliament, he observed that seven bills to regulate Chancery were already pending while the House debated an eighth (Nicholas Tr., p. 125; cf. Erie Tr. (BL Add. MSS. 18597), p. 112; CJ 686, 737). At a minimum, he moved in 1621, no committee should be permitted to sit while the Speaker was in the chair, “whether it be in forenoone or afternoone” (CD 1621, 5:128; cf. 3:119).
Alford's observations point up the difficulties which the Stuart House of Commons had in managing its business (cf. the discussion of this subject in Zaller, The Parliament of 1621, pp. 125-26 and n. 53, and Russell, Parliament* and English Politics, pp. 114-15); but they were also evidence of the much greater and more complex volume of business with which it was attempting to deal.
59 On this subject see. D. H. Willson, “Summoning and Dissolving Parliament 1603-1625,” American Historical Review, 45, 2:279-300.
60 Cf. Coke's important speech of March 8, 1621, CD 1621, 2:197-98.
61 Ibid., 3:340; 2:403. For other accounts of the adjournment, cf. 4:388, 5:184.
62 Ibid., 3:126.
63 Ibid., 3:164; cf. 2:345,; 6:135.
64 Ibid., 5:197. For the Floyd episode, see Zaller, The Parliament of 1621, pp. 104-15; and cf. White, Sir Edward Coke. pp. 155-59, and Tite, Impeachment and Judicature, especially pp. 129-31.
65 CD 1621, 5:20; 195, 185.
66 Ibid., 4:193; 2:264-65; 5:321; 6:84; PD, 1:224; CJ 573.
67 CD 1625, pp. 69-70; CD 1628, 3:347, 348. In 1621 Alford recalled a precedent in which the Commons, being requested by the king to confer with the bishops, refused to do so in Convocation but only “as members of the upper Howse.” (CD 1621,4:257; cf. CJ 592.)
68 A Booke of Proclamations (London, 1610).
69 PP 1610, l:xlviii, n. 8.
70 Ibid., 2:22, n. 49.
71 CD 1621, 2:120.
72 Ibid., 4:433.
73 Ibid., 3:324; ef. PD, 2:109.
74 CD 1621, 5:87.
75 C. H. Me Ilwain, Constitutionalism, Ancient and Modern (Ithaca, 1940), p. 138.
76 Zaller, The Parliament of 1621, p. 69.
77 Cf. 1625, pp. 69-70.
78 Fletcher, A County Community, pp. 171-73, 189 and references cited; CD 1628, 2:244, 268; 3:45, 47, 83, 88, 309, 311, 316, 373, 375; 4:203, 205, 206, 211, 213. 215, 216, 244, 250, 264, 267, 449.
79 Ibid., 2:37,169,171,174,177, 178; Alford to the Bailiffs of Colchester, March 8, 1628, Essex RO, Morant MSS., vol. 43, p. 8; and see n. 10, above.
80 CO 1628, 3:268-69.
81 Ibid., 3:272.
82 Ct. Joseph Mede's gloss on this point, ibid., n. 31.
83 CD 1621, 4:308; cf. CJ 209-10 and Zaller, The Parliament of 1621. p. 218, n. 80.
84 Frances Helen Relf, The Petition o/7?j#/if (Minneapolis, 1917), p. 21. Cf. White's observations on this point, Sir Edward Coke, p. 225.
85 CD 1628, 3:632; 4:65-66, 320.
86 Wallace Notestein and Frances Helen Relf (eds.), Commons Debates for 1629 (Minneapolis, 1921), p. 187.
87 Alford Family Notes, pp. 35-36. Sir Edward and John Alford are noticed in Keeler, The Long Parliament, pp. 82-83, where however the former is incorrectly named as sitting for Steyning, his father's constituency, in 1628. (See Gruenfelder, Influence in Early Stuart Elections, p. 180, n. 68.) Alford's other sons were Henry, Launcelot, Robert and William, the last Vicar of Purton, Wilts.; a daughter. Elizabeth, was named an executrix of his will in 1632.
88 Notestein, The House of Commons 1604-1610, p. 241.