All regime changes, be they never so mild, inevitably lead to a purge of some kind. The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 was no exception. Compared with what might have happened in similar circumstances in continental Europe, the change was indeed remarkably mild, but there was a very good reason why it was so. Charles was not returning as a result of his own efforts, and certainly not through those of the rump of disaffected impotent Royalist supporters remaining in England, whose feeble attempts at rebellion had fizzled out ignominiously. He was returning by invitation; invited, moreover, by some of the very men who had been only too pleased to see the back of him after the Battle of Worcester in 1651, but who despaired of the chaos and anarchy that followed Oliver Cromwell’s death.
Officially, the invitation came from the Convention Parliament, the unelected body constituted following the final dissolution of what remained of the Long Parliament, with the aim of engineering the Restoration as smoothly as possible. Charles had to persuade this body that he would not upset the status quo by victimising those who had undoubtedly profited by the Interregnum but who were nevertheless inviting him home. Hence the Declaration of Breda. This promised that there would be no victimisation of all who, within 40 days of its publication, publicly proclaimed their loyalty and obedience to the Crown – “excepting only such persons as shall hereafter be excepted by Parliament.” It also promised religious toleration, a promise never kept.
So Charles came back. The Declaration needed to be given legal force by Act of Parliament, and the Convention duly obliged by passing the splendidly titled Act of Indemnity and Oblivion. Disgruntled returning impecunious Cavaliers said that this meant indemnity for rebels and oblivion for loyal Royalists.
The sting in the Declaration of Breda lay, of course, in the exception clause. Even the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion could hardly avoid excepting the surviving regicides, those who had signed Charles I’s death warrant, and few can have imagined it would. Their numbers had been diminished by death and by those who, seeing which way the wind blew, had escaped abroad while opportunity offered. In the end only 11 were actually executed.
Clairvoyance was not needed to appreciate that, whatever new House of Commons was elected to replace the Convention (dissolved at the end of 1660), it would be a very different body, likely to be dominated by the Cavalier interest, and so it proved. The 1661 Parliament proceeded to pass the series of Acts which became known collectively as the Clarendon Code. Not the least of these was the Corporation Act, aimed at weeding out both religious nonconformity and the surviving adherents of the old order, thought, not without some justification, to be particularly numerous in the corporate boroughs. The purpose of this article is examine the impact of the Act on Hertford Corporation.1
The structure of Hertford Corporation
It cannot be said that Hertford Corporation celebrated the Restoration of Charles II with any display of enthusiasm, its expenditure on that occasion amounting to just four shillings. By contrast, St Albans spent £3.11s.0d – more than 17 times as much.
The Corporation consisted of two parts – the 10 Chief Burgesses (later to be called aldermen) and the 16 Assistants – the “ten fools and sixteen asses” of a later celebrated sneer. The Chief Burgesses constituted the Common Council of the borough. They were a self-appointed oligarchy, serving for life unless incapacitated by infirmity, mischance or misdemeanour, or by voluntary resignation. They made all the decisions. The Assistants – themselves appointed as required by the Chief Burgesses – really had very little to do. They might be consulted on major issues, and voted each year with the Chief Burgesses in the election of the Mayor, from a short list of two nominated by those same Chief Burgesses. Otherwise, beyond their liability to serve as unpaid parish officers like any other borough freemen, their only function was to keep their political noses clean and wait for a vacancy to arise among the Chief Burgesses, on whose favour they depended. They were nevertheless on the lower rungs of the promotion ladder which led to power and influence in the town.
At the Borough Months Court on 16 May 1660 the Corporation, as required of them, duly accepted and claimed benefit of the Declaration of Breda. Four months later the Chief Burgesses, no doubt with a wary eye on the future, agreed to reinstate Joseph Browne whom they had removed in September 1645.2 Browne has been described as a Royalist (Davies 1988, Appendix C3), no doubt because of his refusal to sign up to the Solemn League and Covenant, as required by Parliament, but I find this dubious to say the least. Would a known Royalist have still been tolerated on the Corporation three years after the outbreak of the Civil War? And would such a man have been allowed in 1649 to store his goods (he was a grocer) underneath the Town Hall, the very building that contained the town’s armoury and probably also its powder supply?
Since the Corporation’s Charter provided for only 10 Chief Burgesses, Browne’s readmittance meant that the most recently appointed one would have to stand down, at least temporarily. This was John Pritchard, appointed in 1658, who was promised reinstatement when the next vacancy might occur. He did not have long to wait. In October the same year John Roberts resigned. He was the oldest of the Chief Burgesses and clearly not in the best of health – he was dead by 1661. A draper by trade, he had been made Assistant in 1611 and a Chief Burgess the following year. Even if he had been made Assistant the same year as he was made free, he must have been at least 21 in 1611, and his rapid promotion suggests older. Roberts may have been born well before the Armada sailed (HCR Vol. 20 folio 417).3
The Chief Burgesses who had to face the Corporation Act are listed here. Only Browne and Hoppy had been made Chief Burgesses before the outbreak of the Civil War, Browne in 1639 and Hoppy as far back as 1630. Marson had been appointed in 1658, only shortly before Pritchard. Gardiner, Puller and Turner were prominent Independents in religion. Puller indeed was the son of Abraham Puller, the former town lecturer. He had also represented Hertford as MP in Interregnum Parliaments.
The serving Assistants are also listed here. I have not so far been able to trace the date of Rogers’ appointment, which may have been before 1642; he had been made free as far back as 1630. All the others had been appointed since 1642. Abraham Rutt’s actual trade apprenticeship was as “edgetool maker”. A “whittawer” or “white tawer” was a man who processed mainly sheepskins, using only alum and oil. Most whittawers seem also to have traded as glovers.
John Goodman, John King and Abraham Rutt were Quakers, although they would have become so after their appointments. Bowd and Field were definitely Independents, as were probably most, if not all, of the others; Herrick’s past history certainly suggests he was.
The Corporation Act required all members and officials of corporations to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and to declare that they believed it unlawful on any pretence to take up arms against the King. In addition, they had to abjure the Solemn League and Covenant, and declare it to be an illegal oath.
Not until 3 September 1662 did the appointed Commissioners arrive to administer the oaths. One wonders what took them so long; the Act was due to expire at the end of the year. Were they perhaps hoping that the Corporation would, like that of St Albans, meet them halfway and save them a lot of trouble? All were country gentlemen of the appropriate political persuasion: Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex; both Thomas Fanshawes of Ware; Sir Philip Boteler of Watton Woodhall; Sir Thomas Leventhorpe; Sir John Gore; and Sir John Watts junior.
John Goodman, John King and Abraham Rutt could clearly not hope to survive in post; then, as now, Quakers would not swear oaths. With their past histories of strong Parliamentary support Turner, Puller and Gardiner were plainly vulnerable. Turner, Puller, Henry Marson and Joseph Bunker refused the oaths and were expelled from the Corporation. Gardiner did take the oaths but, with his previous record, the Commissioners were unimpressed and used their reserve powers to expel him too. His subsequent history need not concern us here; it has been fully covered in a previous number of the journal (HWLHS Journal 2007).
No fewer than 10 of the Assistants refused to take the oaths. As well as the three Quakers, they were Bradley, Bowd, Carter, Hills, Rogers, Strong and Tuffnell. The Commissioners had in addition to fill an eleventh vacancy, for John Holland had recently died.4
The new men on the Corporation
Who then were the new men intruded by the Commissioners? Other than declared loyalty, one can only surmise at the criteria chosen. Of the new Chief Burgesses, only two had previously been freemen – George Seely, free as a grocer in 1652, and James Willymott, attorney, in 1659. The other three, Robert Deane, William Edmonds and William Minors, were formally made free that day (presumably theoretically by “redemption”, although no fees are likely to have been involved), promptly promoted to be Assistants like the others, and then all five immediately made Chief Burgesses. Since George Pettit was on the verge of retiring as Mayor, Minors did even better. He became Mayor.
Robert Deane was a Doctor of Medicine living in St Andrew’s parish. Little is known of him beyond a bizarre court case six years later (HCBS Vol. VI, 177 & 179). He remained a Chief Burgess until the end of the decade. William Edmonds or Edmunds (the name is variously spelt) was the County Gaoler, appointed by Quarter Sessions in 1657 (HCBS Vol. V, 493). He should not be thought of as some sort of warder, jangling a bunch of keys; that function was performed by one or more turnkeys based in the gaol itself. Edmonds was a wealthy resident of All Saints’ parish, in 1663 living in a house with 11 hearths at Lady Day, rising to 15 by Michaelmas. He acquired a certain notoriety in connection with the attempted transportation of the nine Quakers on the Ann in 1664 (Rowe 1970, 11-12). Twice Mayor (1665 and 1673), he was dead by 1680.
James Willymott was an attorney with a 12-hearth house in Hertford, but his main property seems to have been in Kelshall. We should not be surprised to find him on the winning side. His tenure as a Chief Burgess was short, however. Appointed a County JP in 1663, he promptly resigned from the Corporation.
If William Minors was the most interesting of the new Chief Burgesses, George Seely must surely be rated the most puzzling. In September 1649 the Months Court ordered that he should pay 20 shillings (£1) to be made free “for that he was never born nor enrolled in this borough.” Seely promptly refused to pay and the order was repealed. Three months later the Burgesses tried again. Sent for, Seely admitted that he had never been bound by indentures, was again offered his freedom for 20 shillings, refused once more and was thereupon ordered to shut up shop until he did pay.
Now Seely traded as a grocer. Just why was the Corporation so willing to make yet another grocer free to trade in a town already well provided – some might say over-provided – with grocers? What was so special about him? Did he have influential friends?
Be that as it may, three years later he was still in Hertford and somehow making a living. In July 1652 he “desired to be made free” and this time agreed to pay the 20 shillings and took the oaths. In September 1654 the Chief Burgesses even offered to make him an Assistant. There was a snag, however; he was offered it “in the room of Thomas Herrick, he being removed with his family to Scotland.” Herrick was a militia captain; presumably he was now serving with the army of occupation. Seely no doubt believed that, if he accepted, he would have to give up the post when Herrick returned. He refused the appointment and the exasperated Chief Burgesses fined him £5, which he refused to pay. No further action seems to have been taken against him, but three years later, with others, he was ordered to be distrained for refusing to pay the Assize rate.
A Chief Burgess in 1662, Seely became Mayor in 1664 and remained on the Corporation until 1680. Taxed for five hearths in 1663, his prolonged intransigence does not seem to have done him much harm.
William Minors (1593-1667) was an elder brother of the Ralph Minors who was the highly successful headmaster of Hertford Grammar School from 1627 until his death in 1657. The Minors family were natives of Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, a town which may fairly be said to have even less connection with the sea than Hertford. Nevertheless, William became Captain of an East Indiaman, making no less than 10 voyages to the East Indies. On his sixth voyage in 1641, he had with him Abraham Harrison, the youngest son of Sir John Harrison of Balls Park. On his seventh in 1643, Christmas Island was discovered (Davies 1988, 25). Precisely when he came to live in Hertford is not clear, but it was before his brother’s death and he was certainly here in the mid-1650s, subscribing to the cost of “turnpikes” on the River Lea. We can only guess at his political sympathies, but clearly being at sea throughout most of the Civil War period would have cleared him of any active involvement. His was probably the least controversial of all the new appointments.
He remained a Chief Burgess until his death in 1667. His memorial in the old All Saints’ bore the inscription “Here lieth the body of Captain William Minors, who after ten voyages to the East Indies departed this life the 18th day of July 1667 in the 74th year of his Age, and chose this place for his Harbor until the Resurrection.” He gave 12 pence in bread every Sunday to the poor who came to All Saints’ “for divers years”, and his widow Margaret gave two pewter flagons of the value of £1.10s to the Communion Table in All Saints’, and £10 to “put forth poor Children of the same Parish apprentices.”
A Captain Richard Minors (possibly a son?) was made free in 1682 “because his relations were benefactors.” The William Minors Cl[ericus] made free by redemption 13 March 1685 was Ralph Minors’ son. He was the Vicar of Digswell.
The 11 men made Assistants in 1662 are listed here. George Herrick was possibly Thomas Herrick’s son. I have been unable to find occupations for Bach or Wilding, but Bach’s six hearths in 1663 suggest at least modest prosperity. He became a Chief Burgess in 1671 and Mayor in 1672; his son John was landlord of the Glove and Dolphin Inn later in the century. Samuel Randall’s collars were for horses, not men! Thomas Pratt kept the Chequer, which was Corporation property, and Cadwallader Smith was the town miller. Gurry, Jones, Nicholls, Randall, Smith, Wilding and Wilshire had been made free prior to 1662.
As with the Chief Burgesses, there has to be a maverick, in this case Benjamin Jones who, like Seely, obviously had friends. He had been made free by redemption before 1648, but back in 1655 he and Thomas Jones (a brother?) had been presented at County Quarter Sessions charged with using the trades of dyers and clothworkers without having been apprenticed (HCBS Vol. V, 469). Like Seely, cocking a snook at Authority seems to have done Benjamin little harm.
There was further movement in 1663. As we have seen, James Willymott stood down as Chief Burgess. So did George Hoppy, by then far and away the longest serving member. He had been made Assistant in 1629 and a Chief Burgess the following year, and had been Mayor three times. Already described as “of Bayford” in 1641, he was an early example of an “outborough” burgess, the number of which was not supposed to exceed three, and indeed of the townsman’s ambition to own a country property. His will in 1680 describes him as “yeoman” of Bayford; he no doubt regarded himself as a country gentleman. George Pettit, retiring Mayor in 1662, died in 1663. The replacements were Samuel Goodman junior, Edward Lawrence junior (himself the son of a former Mayor) and – Benjamin Jones!
Conclusion
In 1668 the Corporation, in common with other boroughs, received an official letter warning against readmitting former ejected members without satisfactory oath taking, which suggests that some had indeed tried to make a comeback. It may have been this letter that convinced William Gardiner that he would have to appeal to the Court of King’s Bench if he were ever to reverse his expulsion.
One notices a preference on the Commissioners’ part for redemption men – those who had paid for their freedoms – over those who had served apprenticeships; perhaps they believed the latter more likely to have been influenced by radical masters. But on the whole one has to say that the “purge” had been comparatively mild. Those ejected had lost their official posts but not their livelihoods; some indeed remained very comfortably off. Some, it is true, were to suffer persecution for their religious beliefs, particularly the Quakers, but that was due to other legislation. For most, “lying low” made for a relatively quiet life.
Which is not to say that there was no adverse effect. Even before 1662 the Corporation had only in a very limited sense been master in its own house. Ironically, it had perhaps been most free during the Civil War period. Never again was it to be so. After Isaac Puller the Borough of Hertford was never again to be represented in Parliament by one of its own citizen freemen. And the Corporation had to dance henceforth to the tune of the Hertfordshire landed gentry, and its tragedy was that it never succeeded in producing a major local figure capable of challenging, or willing to challenge, that situation.
Sources of Reference
Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies:
Hertford Corporation Records (HCR), Vols 20 & 41.
Hertford County Sessions Books (HCSB), Vols V & VI
Hearth Tax Returns 1663
Ashley, M. 1974 The English Civil War London
Davies, A.G. 1988 Loyalty, Liberty, Property: the Landed Gentry of Hertfordshire, 1588-1688 Hertford
Greening, A. 2005 “The Draper’s Tale”, published in Hertford & Ware Local History Society Journal, Hertford
Thomson, A. 2007 “The Impact of the First Civil War on Hertfordshire, 1642-47”, published in Hertfordshire Record Publications Vol. 23
Rowe, V.A. 1970 The First Hertford Quakers Hertford
Notes:
1 Past historians have displayed a remarkable reluctance even to mention this surely seminal event. Perhaps Chauncy was reluctant to comment on something so recent, but later historians can hardly use that excuse. Gordon Davies and the late Vi Rowe are honourable exceptions!
2 That Browne should have been disburgessed in September 1645, a full two years after the ratification of the Solemn League and Covenant, and surely long after any Parliamentary “ordinance” had been received by the Borough enjoining its acceptance is odd, and perhaps indicates a reluctance to proceed if it could possibly be avoided. Browne’s son Jonathan, “citizen and ironmonger of London” but also a freeman of Hertford by burgess right, who predeceased his father, probably did have Royalist sympathies. In his will, dated 25 September 1663, a copy of which exists in the Borough records (HCR Vol. 41, folio 49), he lists among his possessions what looks like a “model” but is surely a medal of Charles I. Yet at the end of the will he lists among those he wants to receive mourning rings William Gardiner, Adlord Bowd, Joseph Bunker and John King, who were certainly not Royalists!
3 It is curious that the Borough Months Court Minutes make no mention of either the resignation or the death of their oldest and longest-serving Chief Burgess. It is equally curious that, when offered reappointment, John Pritchard at first refused and was fined £10. He seems to have rapidly had second thoughts, for as early as October 1661 he was in place (HCR Vol. 20 folio 417).
4 John Holland had been busily occupied on the turnpikes and fortifications of Hertford during the Civil War, and on the “turnpikes” on the river afterwards.
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