Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire was a small county dominated by more than its fair share of major aristocratic families. The St Johns of Bletso, whose head held the earldom of Bolingbroke, had long ranked as the first among equals, although with the 1st earl out of favour at court, it was Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of Cleveland, who held the lord lieutenancy in 1640. The Russells of Woburn, represented by Francis Russell, 4th earl of Bedford, were far less influential in the county in this period than they had once been and would be again. As yet, the Bruces, earls of Elgin (later Ailesbury), had not emerged as major local players. Among the ranks of the gentry, few equalled the Lukes of Cople. This pattern of influence had been reflected in the results of the parliamentary elections. The practice had long been for the St Johns and the Lukes to divide the two county seats between them. HP Commons 1604-1629.

The first of the 1640 elections was only the second time since 1597 and the first since 1614 that Bedfordshire had failed to return a St John as one of its knights of the shire. Sir Beauchamp St John was, it is true, elected for the borough of Bedford, but that has the appearance of a consolation prize. As Sir Oliver Luke was elected, it was the intervention of Lord Wentworth which broke the traditional St John-Luke duopoly. Cleveland’s eldest son and a future royalist, Wentworth was very different from the godly Sir Oliver and it is reasonable to see the result as representing a split between, on the one hand, those who opposed the king’s policies and who therefore supported Luke and, on the other hand, those who took a more favourable view of royal intentions and who supported Wentworth.

Both Wentworth and Luke stood again that October in the elections for the Long Parliament. This time Wentworth faced a challenge from Sir Roger Burgoyne* who hoped to mobilise the same constituency of godly support as Luke. The return named Wentworth as the victor, but Burgoyne took the matter further, petitioning the Commons to have the result overturned. C219/43, pt. 1, f. 198. This was then overtaken by the king’s decision to summon Wentworth to the Lords in his father’s barony. The initial reaction of the Commons was to rule on the election dispute anyway, on the grounds that, if Burgoyne had a legitimate claim to the seat, Wentworth’s elevation was irrelevant. CJ ii. 40b. Having considered the matter further, however, the Commons decided on 5 December to issue a new writ. CJ ii. 45b; Procs. LP i. 471,476. If Burgoyne’s election might have seemed a foregone conclusion, this was challenged by Sir Lewis Dyve’s decision† to stand against him. The circumstances of the resulting poll were subsequently the subject of recrimination and counter-recrimination. The date of the election was fixed for 14 December, but it was alleged that Dyve got hold of the writ in London on 11 December and made sure that it was not delivered to the sheriff until the election day itself. Procs. LP ii. 728. By 18 December a number of the voters had complained to the Commons and further petitions continued to be submitted over the following month. CJ ii. 53b, 68b. The committee set up to investigate the allegations finally met on 12 March 1641 and took evidence from those involved. Crucially, Dyve did not contest the claims of his opponents, probably calculating that this would encourage the committee to drop the matter. In this, he was probably correct, for the result of the election itself was not in doubt. After Dyve had handed over the writ to the sheriff on 14 December, the poll had been able to proceed as planned. Moreover, Dyve was only too happy acknowledge that, on the day, Burgoyne had beaten him. Sir Lewis had a point when he later argued that the complaints against him were motivated by the wish to damage him rather than to settle the election, although this did not reassure someone like Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, who was appalled at the cynical manner in which Dyve had abused the electoral process. Procs. LP ii. 728-9. The Commons committee took evidence from several witnesses who confirmed that rumours that Dyve was a crypto-Catholic had been circulating in the weeks before the election. Dyve dismissed those as part of the same attempt to defame him. Procs. LP ii. 728, 730-1. In that respect, the smears of his opponents probably did work, for that may well be one reason why Burgoyne had outpolled him. Luke and Burgoyne continued as knights of the shire until the purge of December 1648, with both of them then refusing to serve in the Rump.

In May 1653 the godly inhabitants of the county responded to the request for nominations for the new assembly to replace the Rump by submitting the names of Nathaniel Taylor* and John Croke. Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 92-3. The council of state accepted Taylor, who thus received a summons to the Nominated Parliament, but they preferred to summon Edward Cater* rather than Croke. Although Croke was a Quaker, Cater’s religious credentials as ‘a saint’ were, in many ways, just as impressive, for he had probably been playing host to an Independent meeting at his house at Kempston since at least 1644. Luke Letter Bks. 49.

The names of Cater and Croke would crop up again in 1654. By then, Bedfordshire had gained an extra three seats (or two, if the loss of one of the Bedford seats is included), for the county was one of the clear beneficiaries of the redistribution implemented under the 1653 Instrument of Government. A crucial insight into the background to the Bedfordshire elections of that year is provided by the report sent by two local men, Thomas Burt and Hugh Covington of Harrold, to the authorities in London on 24 August 1654. The story Burt and Covington had to tell was that on the day before the election they had been travelling to Bedford and that, on the way, they had met the master of Caius, Cambridge, William Dell. On being asked by Dell for whom they had intended to vote, they had said Sir William Boteler*. Dell had responded by denouncing Boteler, claiming that Oliver Cromwell* had made it clear that he did not want him elected. For him the key issue was that of tithes, something which Boteler supported, and Dell instead recommended that Burt and Covington vote for opponents of tithes, like John Okey*, Taylor, Cater, Croke and ‘Mr Barber’. CSP Dom. 1654, p. 334. Given Dell’s well documented hostility to tithes, this sounds all too plausible. Whether any of these men actually stood is unclear, although given that there were five places available, it would have been unlikely that all the seats were uncontested. In the event, none of Dell’s favoured men were elected, whereas his bête-noire, Boteler, was. No official record of the Bedfordshire result of these elections survives, but a private list of the 1654 MPs in the papers of Henry Chester* confirms that Boteler was elected along with Samuel Bedford*, John Hervy*, John Neale* and Edmond Wingate*. Beds. RO, CH 30A, unfol. All of them were probably more moderate figures than those recommended by Dell.

Two years later Bedford, Boteler and Hervy found themselves re-elected as Bedfordshire MPs. This time they were joined by Richard Wagstaffe*, a former army officer who was one of the county’s more enthusiastic supporters of the protectoral regime, and Richard Edwards*, a veteran MP having sat as recruiter for Christchurch, who had also proved himself to be a loyal servant of the protectorate in Bedfordshire. Boteler however died before the new Parliament assembled. Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 44.

By the time of the next election in 1659, Edwards was dead. Wagstaffe was again elected and on this occasion he was joined by regicide John Okey*, who was one of the protectorate’s more extreme critics. The damaged state of the election return means that the exact date of the election is unknown. C219/46, unfol. It is thus possible to argue that Bedfordshire elected markedly more radical figures in 1656 and 1659 than it had done in 1654.